Clearly, after God, it is to Monica his mother that Augustine owes everything. And he heaps upon every memory he has of her, of the great goodness of her life and example, all possible praise. It has long been a commonplace among commentators of the Confessions that the first nine books are about Augustine’s ardent search for truth, [...]
There can be little doubt that of the nine books set down to describe Augustine’s life, Book VIII is everyone’s favorite. It is the centerpiece of the story, the necessary hinge on which all the action turns. Not the least of the many astonishing things to be said about Augustine is the fact that it should [...]
It was never mere proof of God’s existence that set Augustine on fire; it was, rather, the grace to remain steadfast in following the Lord, indeed, in falling in love with the Lord. A deist, it may fairly be said, is someone who hasn’t yet found the time to become an atheist. But he will, [...]
In hearing St. Ambrose, St. Augustine began to distinguish between mere eloquence and the real truth. The Manichees had always been eager to enlist a bright young fellow like Augustine to help spread the word. And for a period of nine years, first in Carthage, then later in Rome, he remained one of their star [...]
Not only does the example of Saint Monica illustrate the power of prayer but it reaches into the very meaning of motherhood as well. You did not choose me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16) Despite all the steps people will insist on taking to create union with God, clearing away whole lumberyards of spiritual debris [...]
What was it about the temptation to Manichaeism, the allure it offered a young man like Augustine, that proved so powerful, so seductive that it nearly did him in? The trouble with Manichaeism, some wag once wrote, is that it won’t let you eat a Big Mac. At least not without having to bear a [...]
What will God, whose chief instrument is often irony, choose as His weapon to pull Augustine back from the brink? A book by Cicero. To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest burning… (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land) Eliot’s allusion, among countless others strewn about [...]
Augustine, of course, was not the first to chart the cycle of lust, as anyone for whom the body/soul connection remains a work in progress well knows. I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable things I did in those days,” writes Augustine at the very beginning of Book II, “the sins of the [...]
Like Mr. Chesterton, it would never have occurred to St. Augustine to assign blame for the world’s problems to anyone other than himself. Around the turn of the last century, a prominent London newspaper called The World put the following question to its readers, offering a prize for the best possible answer: “What’s wrong with the world?” Not [...]
When it comes to our role in salvation, St. Augustine sits squarely between the heretical extremes of Luther and Pelagius. A large mug arrived in the mail the other day, around which I counted twenty or so apothegms written by St. Augustine. It was a gift, anonymously sent by someone who obviously thought I wasn’t getting [...]
From the first moment of his conversion, rivetingly recounted in the pages of his Confessions, Augustine rooted himself in Christ, determined to cleave to his person and the redemption wrought by the sacrifice of his life. Not as mere idea, distant and remote, toward which he would now and again direct his attention. Such rarefied realms, [...]
The first half of Augustine’s life was spent amid the remnants of a Greek and Roman world; the latter half was spent in the company of provincial Africans, to whom he would unravel the mysteries of a shared faith. In the immediate aftermath of his conversion, following a life not infrequently strewn with sin, Augustine [...]
Why did St. Augustine write "The City of God"? Why should it continue to compel our attention today? It was the one project St. Augustine prized above all others and would spend fourteen years of his life putting it all together: The City of God. He finished the last of the twenty-two books in the year 426, [...]
The sheer impact of St. Augustine upon the life of the Church, of the emerging medieval world he had a hand in shaping, has never been equaled. Perhaps the first and most obvious thing to be said about St. Augustine, the span of whose life was close to eighty years—from A.D. 354 to 430—is that he [...]