Deprecated for https://www.slideshare.net/jdigger/saint-augustine-29936693 A quick look at the life of Saint Augustine of Hippo and some of his thoughts.

1. SAINT AUGUSTINE
The Theologian of Grace

2. QUESTIONS

3. QUESTIONS
Who was Augustine and what made
him “tick”?

4. QUESTIONS
Who was Augustine and what made
him “tick”?
What doctrines did he help clarify for
the Church?

5. QUESTIONS
Who was Augustine and what made
him “tick”?
What doctrines did he help clarify for
the Church?
What are Sacraments and how do
they work?

6. HIS INFLUENCE
Saint Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) is by far the most quoted person on the
doctrines of the Church outside of the writers of the Bible
Some of the things that he is most remembered for in formulating for the
Church are:
a more complete understanding of the Trinity the way God governs His people
the “ontology” of God and the soul the efficacy of the Sacraments
how we know God predestination
the role of secular government and the
the nature of love and (especially) loving God
Christian’s place in it
the nature of divine Grace defining “the inner self ”
“Just War” etc.

7. He was born on a small farm
in Thagaste (in modern-day
Algeria)

8. BIBLE BELT
Christianity had long since become
established in that region of Roman
Africa
His mother was a staunch Catholic
His father was a pagan (who was Saved sixteen years
before his son)

9. In modern-American terms, he
was born in Hicksville in the
middle of the Bible Belt

10. STEALING PEARS
At one point, he and his friends, in addition to a lot of
other “normal” teenage pranks, went onto his neighbor’s
property and stole pears from the neighbor’s tree
The adult Augustine, when remembering this in The
Confessions, seems more torn up about this than many of
his other sins (like heresy and fornication)

11. THE THRILL OF SIN
Why, do you suppose, would he see stealing some pears to throw to the
pigs as being so bad?
The fall into heresy was because he was searching for the truth,
but going about it in the wrong way
The fornication and the like were attempts to satisfy basic needs/
desires, though in the wrong way
Stealing the pears was sin for sin’s own sake. He was not hungry,
he had a pear tree of his own, etc.
The thrill was in knowing that he was sinning for no other reason
than to be sinning

12. BIG EMPIRE DREAMS
Growing up, he was by far the smartest person
around, and he knew it
Ambitious and arrogant, he went into the
study of rhetoric
Rhetoric was a prerequisite for virtually any position of power in the
Roman Empire

13. His studies take him to the
major metropolitan city of
Carthage

14. For historical context, the Council of
Constantinople met while he was in Carthage
and finally finished the Nicene Creed

15. While in Carthage, he joins the
Manichaeans, a heretical group that has
“answers” for many of the questions
about God that nobody Augustine ever
met until then could answer for him

16. LEARNING TO LOVE TRUTH
While in Carthage he lead a rather hedonistic
life, but he reads a great deal by Cicero, the
famous Roman rhetoritician, which brought
him to study philosophy
As he wrote later in the Confessions, Augustine says
that the study of philosophy is what created that
burning passion to know Truth

17. Growing up he had indulged in many
“youthful indiscretions,” but now he started
to settle down
He lived with his girlfriend and was faithful to her,
and she soon bore him a son

18. GETTING ENGAGED
When his mother, Monica, joins him much later, she
makes arrangements for Augustine to become
engaged to a wealthy Christian girl
The girl was underage for marriage, but Augustine
had to send away his “concubine” – whom he had
loved and been faithful to for over 12 years – which
broke his heart (read Confessions 6.15)
While waiting for his fiancé to be “of age” (thirteen), he couldn’t stand being
alone any more and took another lover for a while. He never reestablished his
relationship with his fiancé.

19. After over a decade in
Carthage, he moved to Milan
as professor of rhetoric at the
imperial court there.

20. BOOKS OF THE PLATONISTS
Augustine read “books of the Platonists” and finally got the answers to some
of the questions that had been plaguing him
This was good because it gave him many of the intellectual tools that he
was able to use in defending the Christian Faith and made him the single
most influential of the Church Fathers
The negative consequence was that Plotinus had a very allegorical way of
reading the Bible, which Augustine also adopted, paving the way for over a
thousand years of absolutely nonsensical interpretations of the Word

21. MEETING AMBROSE
He went to listen to Bishop Ambrose speak because Ambrose is
one of the best orators living, and Augustine wanted to learn his
techniques
While listening to Ambrose, Augustine heard an expression of
Christian faith that wasn’t just for simpletons, but of a
Christianity that answered the questions he had been asking all
his life

22. AMBROSE OPENS THE BIBLE
From the influence of Ambrose he saw that
what he recognized as Truth was also what the
Christian Church taught
This caused him to take another look at the
Bible

23. CHASTITY, BUT NOT YET...
As he read the Bible and became increasingly convinced of
its truths, he recognized an old and bitter conflict in his will:
“as a youth … I had prayed to you for chastity
and said, ‘Give me chastity and continence, but
not yet.’ For I was afraid that you would
answer my prayer at once and cure me of the
disease of lust, which I wanted satisfied, not
quelled.” (Confessions 8.7)

24. CONVERSION, BUT NOT YET...
It was very much the same with his conversion: even though he
willed that he could turn himself over to God and become a
Christian, he also willed that he wouldn’t – and without the grace
of God, his sinful nature would always have won
Augustine later makes it clear, particularly in his writings against
the Palagians, that even that part of his will that wanted to
become Christian was entirely the gracious gift of God, not
something inherent in himself

25. As he wrote later, the inner struggle
was forcing him to the brink of
madness, with his will tearing his
mind and soul apart.

26. While in a garden he heard a
child’s voice repeatedly saying,
“Take up and read.”

27. He rushed and grabbed a Bible from his friend and
read the first passage he came across:
Let us pass our time honorably, as by the light of day, not
in reveling and drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness,
not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with
the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature
or nature’s appetites. (Romans 13:13-14)

28. That did it – that was when God had “flipped
the switch” and Augustine finally became a
Christian
He was baptized, along with his brilliant son
and close friends, by Ambrose the following
Easter

29. LOCAL BOY DONE GOOD
After his mother dies, he returned to Thagaste to found a monastic
community
Monasticism was a new movement, and Augustine’s monastery became
one of the principle developers of the movement in the Western Church
He is received very much as a “local boy done good,” and becomes
tremendously popular with the Christian community

30. He’s even more popular among the
Christians in the area because he is
incredibly effective in refuting the
Manicheans
He had been on the inside of the religion for a long time, so he had
first-hand knowledge
He now had some very powerful intellectual tools he had learned
from the Platonists

31. THE BISHOP OF HIPPO
A few years later, while visiting Hippo, a priest begins talking in
his sermon about how desperately the Church needs people like
Augustine, and Augustine is grabbed by the parishioners and
ordained – very much against his will – as a priest
Augustine wanted to live his life as a scholar; not having to
spend his time worrying about all the “trivialities” involved in
running a parish and trying to teach “simple” people the deep
things of God
After only four years he has distinguished himself so much as a
man of God that he is made the Bishop of Hippo

32. THE FALL OF ROME
Fifteen years after his appointment as Bishop, Rome falls for the first time
in her history
This sparked an enormous political and cultural crisis, and the pagans
blamed the Empire’s conversion to Christianity as the reason why, saying
that it was the gods’ punishment on Rome for leaving her roots
This prompted Augustine to write “The City of God”, his most famous
book alongside “The Confessions”, where he spelled-out the differences
between the City of God and the City of Man
In 430 A.D., as the Vandals are at the gates of Hippo, Augustine died

33. DONTATIST SCHISM

34. THE DONATISTS
During the Roman persecution there were those that caved
to the pressure and made “compromises” with the
government
Included in the list of “not entirely faithful” were many of
the leaders in the Church
Because of their zeal for maintaining an “untainted”
communion of believers, a group of Christians banded
together, called Donatists

35. They, along with the Catholics, believed in Apostolic Succession
– specifically, where new church leaders are ordained by God
through current leaders, who in turn were ordained via their
predecessors, etc. through to the Apostles (and ultimately Jesus)

36. The problem was that the Catholic Church had
been infected with unfaithful leaders, who, the
Donatists argued, had rejected their Apostolic
calling when they gave in, and therefore were not
true leaders of the Church – and therefore also
could not ordain successors.

37. Any leader that had been “compromised” three
hundred years prior had likely ordained a
number of successors, and they had ordained
successors, and so on
But the Apostolic link had been broken with the
first leader, so none of the successors had a
legitimate ordination

38. By Augustine’s time, that effectively called most
of the Catholic Church illegitimate.......

39. DONATIST ISSUES
There were three major issues that the Donatist schism
presented the Church with:
Purity: Is the Church a gathering of the Pure, or
something else?
Unity: How does the Church stay one Church?
Baptism: The Donatists said that Baptism by an
illegitimate Catholic was not a real Baptism, and would
therefore rebaptize people that came to them.

40. UNBAPTIZED CHRISTIANS?
It was Baptism that was the real kicker, because the “working”
definition of a Christian held by the Church (East and West) is
that you are a Christian if you’ve been baptized into the
Christian Church
There are exceptions and clarifications, but that is the basic
stance of all the “orthodox” churches, including Protestant
So if you’re a Christian by your Baptism, and Donatists are the
only ones that can properly administer that Sacrament, then only
those baptized by Donatists are Christians...

41. DONATIST DILEMA
Everybody agreed in the vitality of a true Baptism, which created a big
problem for the Catholics:
If they regard the Donatist baptism as valid, then they are essentially
validating the legitimacy of the Donatists, which puts a real crimp in
trying to say that they should rejoin the Catholic Church
But if it is invalid, and they rebaptize people coming to the Catholic
Church from the Donatists, then they are by their actions agreeing
with the Donatist position on Baptism
Hopefully, the resolution to the problem is obvious to you, but that’s
because we’ve all learned about Baptism as Augustine defined it...

42. FIGHTING THE DONATISTS
Augustine led the fight against the Donatists by providing the
philosophical tools needed to clarify the issues, as well as the
rationale used for the means used to suppress the Donatists
We’ll talk about the way he dealt with the Sacramental issues
later, so here we’ll talk about the reasoning he gives for
suppression – and how to do it – since they would be used as the
basis for doing so from that time forward

43. ARGUING THE CASE
At the Conference of Carthage in 411 A.D., the Donatists and
the Catholics debated before an Imperial official
Remember, this was after Christianity had become the official
religion of the Empire, and the Empire desperately wanted a
united Christendom
Augustine led the Catholic side and trounced the Donatists quite
neatly
Donatism was then declared illegal, and Augustine spelled-out
how to get rid of the Donatists

44. Augustine is known as the Theologian of
Grace for a reason, so he knew that you can’t
force someone to become a Christian (a.k.a., a
Catholic), but you could “encourage” and
“discourage.”

45. With his usual clarity and zeal he laid-out the theological reasons to fine the Donatists
and confiscate their property so that they would be “discouraged” from staying with the
Donatists and “encouraged” to join the Catholic Church
He was never so extreme as to propose torture or the like, which would be used for
exactly the same reasons later – notably, during the various Inquisitions
On the other side of that spectrum, we can’t not “encourage” or “discourage”
because we are clearly called to do so – we do so every time we evangelize or build
each other up, and when we exercise church discipline
The “tough love” reasons we use for excommunication and the like are the same
reasons the Church fined the Donatists
Better to have people see the error of their ways during their time of grace, than to
die in their sin and, at best, receive a smaller inheritance and, at worst, go to Hell

46. How hard to you “encourage” someone to follow
Christ or “discourage” him from going to Hell –
and possibly drag others along?
Enough to use the power of the state, along
with its “power of the sword”? Where is the
line?

47. STILL MAJOR QUESTIONS
How important is “purity” to the Church? If a lack of purity can be
accepted, how much impurity, and what kinds?
What is the basis for unity in the church? Is there ever a reason for
Christians to not be united? If there is, then what is the effect such
disunity has on the Christians involved, other Christians, and unbelievers?
Can you name modern Christian groups that have separated themselves
from the rest of Christendom and the reasons why? Are they right in
doing so, and why or why not?
What is the nature of Baptism, and what gives it power? This gets into
what any Sacrament is and what it does...

48. SIGNS & SACRAMENTS

49. LEARNING FROM SIGNS
Signs, to Augustine, teach things and convey information, though they carry no
power in themselves to teach
If you see smoke, it acts as an indicator (sign) of fire, but you have to know
that “where there’s smoke there’s fire” before seeing the smoke can let you
know there’s fire
Words are the means by which we transfer knowledge, but you have to have
knowledge of what those words mean already or those words are useless (as
anybody that’s had to fight with different languages or technical jargon
knows)
The sight of smoke or the hearing of words don’t contain information, but
they act as the conduit through which information is conveyed

50. OUTWARD SIGN OF INWARD GIFT
The grace that grants faith, and therefore salvation, is an inward gift
Sacraments are an outward sign that shows what God has done
Symbols, since they themselves are not information, need to be
“interpreted.” The same symbols can mean dramatically different things
to different people
The principle “interpreter” of spiritual things for the Christian is the Holy
Spirit, who translates the symbols (words) of Scripture for our heart, and
the symbols (rituals) of the Sacraments for our soul

51. BAPTISM

52. While every major Christian denomination
agrees completely with Baptism being an
outward sign that marks you as a Child of God,
they have very different understandings of it.

53. DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF SIGNS
How do Catholics and Lutherans
understand Baptism?
Calvinists (e.g. Presbyterians)?
Baptists?

54. CATHOLIC & LUTHERAN
The sign is an indication of the grace that God is
working in the person, bringing them to faith at that
moment (though the person can then reject that grace)
This view is known, formally, as “baptismal
regeneration”

55. CALVINIST
Calvinists view it more as a New Testament form of circumcision, whereby God
is marking the person as His own and part of the Christian community
The difference between it and baptismal regeneration is subtle, but best
understood in light of the Calvinist doctrine of Preservation of the Saints
(which says that once God has made you His own, He will ensure that you never
fall completely away from Him)
So God is probably infusing His grace into the person, but He may not be (just
as not every Jewish boy that was circumcised was automatically saved)
At the very least He is granting the person His special protection and blessings
(just as every Jew was under the covenantal blessings that God gave to Abraham)

56. BAPTIST
Baptism is a sign akin to a diploma,
saying that you have confessed Jesus as
your Savior and acting as an outward
“sealing” of that declaration
It is very much like the role that Confirmation
serves in other denominations.

57. REBAPTIZE?
In light of the different understandings of the symbolism involved in
Baptism, how does that explain why Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists
and the like don’t rebaptize, but Baptists do?
For Baptists, since it acts as a sign that you gave a proper
confession, if you weren’t baptized for having given the proper
confession you need to receive a “proper” baptism for your
proper confession
But for those following in the Augustinian tradition, Baptism is
an indelible mark on the soul placed there by God

58. Baptism caries with it power that is
dependent upon what God has done for the
person, not what the person has said or done.
In other words: The power comes from God,
not us.

59. LORD’S SUPPER

60. “THIS IS MY BLOOD...”
In light of this definition of signs and what
we know about the major sacramental
division in the Church, how does this explain
the differences in understandings of the
Lord’s Supper?

61. CATHOLIC & LUTHERAN
Christ is physically there and conveys
the forgiveness of sins through the
administration of the body and blood
It’s not a magical incantation or anything, but a
medium through which God graciously promises
to increase faith

62. CALVINIST
Christ’s body and blood are there
symbolically (not physically) and the
blessings of the sacrament are
conveyed through that medium
Note that saying that Christ’s body and blood are “merely” there
symbolically is like saying that Baptism is “merely” symbolic or
that the inferno of a star is “merely” a flame. There’s nothing
“merely” about it.

63. BAPTIST
The Lord’s Supper acts as a symbol
along the lines of a memorial
Focus is less on “This is my body” and more on “Do this in remembrance of
me”
Similar to how we celebrate Christmas and Easter and other church
“remembrances,” the Lord’s Supper serves the same purpose
It’s an extremely important symbol of what Christ has done for us and is
therefore should be practiced with the honor that is due such a memorial

64. SIGNS OF LOVE
For Augustine, the goal of all of our
interpretations should be to grow in our love
for God (which then extends to our neighbor)
All of the symbols that God gives us show His
love for us (directly or indirectly), and when we
interpret them we must do so in that light so
that we love Him more