When Aurelius
Augustinus was made the bishop of his city--Hippo on the North
African coast, then under the rule of the Roman Empire--many people
in his community were not too happy. They didn't like his
spotted past, and they questioned the purity of his faith.
After all, the 42-year-old man was trained as a philosopher and
converted to Christianity only half-way through his life.
None of this would
Augustine dispute. Yes he had frowned upon and looked down
upon those people who proudly declared themselves followers of Jesus
the Savior. He, as many ambitious young men of the Empire had
done for centuries, had avidly studied classical thought, ideas espoused
by philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.
Quite naturally, he cared little for what appeared to be a
mysterious cult of the mostly poor and uneducated, a creed centered
on a man who was believed to have risen above death, a creed which
only several decades ago had been viewed illegitimate and criminal
under the law of the imperial government.
Augustine, seeking to
realize his youthful dream of riches and glory, went to teach first
in the capital of the Empire, Rome, and then in the city of Milan,
taking in a young woman as a concubine on the side, who bore him a
son. There was the hope that he would be appointed a
provincial governor some day. Already, however, he was going
through changes. He was becoming ever more doubtful of his own
learning and thinking more and more about the world beyond. In
this, his mother, Monica, a devout Christian, proved to be a
critical influence; the early death of his son seemed to be
another; this not to mention the fact that the once all-mighty
Empire was now declining rapidly--falling apart, really--seriously
shaking people's confidence in the tradition of the Empire.
Augustine's conversion
to Christianity turned out to be highly valuable to the
Church. The Christian community at this time consisted of
mostly humble ordinary people whose faith in the Lord was steadfast
but whose theoretical ability was minimal. When Augustine
joined the fold, he, with his sound education in classical
philosophy, soon brought his sharp mind to work for the
Church. He wrote prolifically, including The Confessions,
in which he depicted his spiritual journey, how he struggled with
reason and faith, making the eventual transition from the former to
the latter.
But Augustine,
later St. Augustine, did not abandon reason altogether. He
simply make it to work for the Church, and here lies his greatest
contribution to Christianity. He was one of the earliest
Christian intellectuals, later only than St. Paul, who emphasized
that the Christian religion should be understood in spirit, not in
literal, mundane, or material terms. Spirit saves while
letters kill. Man will be saved, but not here and now; he'll
be saved only in the City of God.
Having marveled at all
this, a skeptic, however, could very well argue: Isn't it just as
easy to turn to faith when one is in his forties as it is for him to
take up a concubine when he is in his twenties?
That's probably why
salvation won't happen here and now.
Even St. Augustine
didn't die a peaceful death--he passed away as his city was besieged
by the Vandals, the invading Germanic barbarians who ravaged half of
the Empire. The Empire soon collapsed. The Middle Ages
had begun.
