Augustine of Hippo

Life

Augustine was born in 354 in Thagaste, in Numidia, a North African province of the Roman Empire. His father, Patricius, was not a Christian; his mother, Monica, was. As a young man he studied rhetoric and taught it in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. For a time he was drawn to Manichaeism, a religion that posited two opposing principles of good and evil. During this period he lived with a woman, with whom he had a son, Adeodatus.

In Milan, under the influence of Bishop Ambrose, he turned to Christianity. According to the Confessions, his reading of Romans 13:13–14 in a garden in Milan in 386 was the decisive moment in his conversion. That same year he resigned his teaching post, and at Easter 387 he was baptized by Ambrose. In 388 he returned to Africa and lived in a monastic community with companions. He was ordained a priest at Hippo Regius in 391 and became bishop there in 395 or 396, leading the church for more than thirty years. He died in 430 while the Vandals were besieging Hippo.

Ministry and Achievements

• Writings: His major works include the Confessions, written as a confession to God of his life and conversion; The City of God, written after the sack of Rome in 410, which interprets history by contrasting the "City of God" with the "earthly city"; and On the Trinity, which treats the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Donatist controversy: The Donatists were a North African schismatic movement that held that sacraments administered by clergy who had renounced the faith during persecution were invalid. Augustine countered that the efficacy of the sacraments depends not on the holiness of the minister but on Christ.
• Pelagian controversy: Pelagius argued that human beings could attain moral perfection by their own will (→ Pelagianism). Against this, Augustine affirmed original sin (the state of sin inherited by all humanity since Adam's fall) and taught that God's grace must come first in salvation. For this reason he is called the "Doctor of Grace."

Influence on Protestantism and the Korean Church

Martin Luther was a friar of the Augustinian order. Luther and John Calvin built the theology of the Reformation on Augustine's teaching on grace and sin.

In Korea, where Protestantism is predominantly Presbyterian, the doctrines of predestination and grace held by Korean Protestant churches are accordingly often described as originating with him. The Confessions is available in several Korean translations and is reportedly read widely as a spiritual classic across denominational lines.

Assessment

The Catholic Church commemorates him as a saint and Doctor of the Church on August 28, and the Eastern Orthodox Church also venerates him as a saint. In Protestantism he is honored as the most important Church Father before the Reformation.

Denominations differ, however, in how far they accept his teaching. Presbyterians and others in the Reformed tradition regard themselves as having inherited his doctrine of predestination by way of Calvin. Methodists, Holiness churches, and others in the Wesleyan and Arminian traditions also accept the priority of grace, but through the concept of prevenient grace they place greater emphasis on the human responsibility to respond to grace. Critics in the Eastern church have long argued that his understanding of original sin exerted excessive influence on Western theology. He has also been criticized for accepting the use of state coercion against the Donatists.