Good evening!
We will. I hope everybody's got the handouts.
I, you're supposed to have 2 pieces of paper, both of them double sided.
There's a timeline on one, a map on the back of it, and then a couple of pages about Augustan.
Okay, that's one more start. Like I mentioned in my email, which I know a few of you saw because some of you came with your own printouts.
I'm gonna try to leave more time tonight, and the reason is that over the years when people find out that I study the early church, Agustin is one of the only people that people are familiar with, and that they ask about.
And so I'm expecting that there will at least be some questions available so I want to leave some more time for that then then I normally might.
If there aren't questions I can go and back, fill with more information, because there is plenty to the point that it has been said, and I think not inaccurately, that all of Western history could be written in footnotes to Augusta, and I think you could include even what
came before you could. Footnote both, all of his source material which would cover most of what came before Augustine, and you could footnote the developments that that proceeded after him, saying, You know this is where this ended up this is where this ended up because his output and his influence was
massive before we get into it. I just like to open us in prayer once again.
Father, we look for your leading and your teachings. Tonight, as we look at this, this brother in Christ, who's influence was massive, but, as is true with any of us, there's good, and there's bad.
Father, we pray that we would learn from both that we would see how he influenced the Church, how he influenced the direction both of theology and of the practice of of Church.
In the years that followed, and that we could both look to his example, and also learn from negative examples in that, father we pray that you bless our evening tonight.
Give us a blessed time together. As we look into this this believer from the past, in Christ's name we pray Amen.
Okay. So if you look on your map, we'll start there.
And on on the lower. I didn't figure out a good way to get things circled and still showing up in, and the scan and everything.
So I'll just have to tell you you look in the lower of the 2 maps over on the far right.
Actually easier place to start. There's a right about the middle of that map along the north coast.
There's a shaded region, does it show up?
I have the original. So I don't. Okay. So there's a shaded region on that surrounding a city called Hippo Regius.
If you go down from that, you have to kinda look around a little bit, but there's a place called the In parentheses are the contemporary names of these places, and that's Sukaras.
I guess so. Fagaste is. It's not actually where Augustine was born.
I think I put that incorrectly. He was born somewhere else.
I believe in Maduro's, which is very nearby.
There, but he grew up in the city or in the village of the gas.
It's pretty small. And this is just for reference.
If you're looking at this map over where Carthage is on the Far East that is present day, Tunisia, the border between present-day Tunisia and Algeria, is pretty near to where theghast and Hipaaidi are they are on the Algerian side of that
border, so that'll give you a little bit of present day context.
For where we're talking about. But Augustine grew up in the small town of Theghast, which, as you can see, is south of Hipporidgeius, but really thought of itself more as being in the the sort of orbit of Carthage he grew up in a family that was not a Christian family his
father was a pagan, but his mother was a Christian of some sort, as we, as we talk a little bit more about his life, we'll find out that you know her.
Her Christianity has characteristics that we might not recognize, and that actually, I think, kind of steered him away from it.
But he grew up there in that small town, and as he and that was where he began his education that was in the year 354 that he was born, and he begins his education there, but he wants to his family's fairly well off so it's not like they're you know.
scraping by in the in the Guast, but he he moves on to Carthage at some point for education.
This is pretty common theme over the last few weeks, people moving on to a bigger and better town for educational purposes.
So Augustine goes on to Carthage and begins to study.
There and between his encounters with with, you know, scholarship, and you know better.
You know Greek writings Greek? Well, not Greek translations of Greek philosophical writings, but his Greek was actually pretty poor.
One thing that's good to note about Augustine.
He's not the first Latin theologian by any means, but he is probably the most major Latin theologian, and, like, I say, his Greek, he eventually learned enough Greek that he was able to to sort of work with it, but his Greek was never good.
He was always sort of ashamed that his Greek wasn't great, and and as he knew very little, if any, Hebrew at all, he was working primarily in Latin, and so in Latin translation.
So when he gets off to Carthage, and he's, you know, really being educated, there are a couple of things that turn him against any sort of.
I don't think it's even fair to call him a nominal Christian.
As a child, but he did, grew up with some Christian influence from his mother.
Monica, but as he gets on education there's some things that kinda turn him against that Christianity that his mother represented.
Partly. It's that he's reading some of the giants of Latin literature.
Cicero, Hortensius, who we don't even have Hortensus anymore.
But Augustine tells us he was really great, and he's comparing that to the translation of the Bible, that he was, you know, had at hand, which were all the old, very clunky Latin translations.
Jerome's translation, which the we think of as the Vulgate that was not out yet, or if it was, it was not available.
I can't remember exactly what how that lines up, but it that's not available yet.
What Augustine is exposed to is the old Latin, and it is.
It is a very clunky transaction at best, so he thought. You know this.
This is not good stuff that they're basing all of their beliefs on.
And also it just seemed like it was a as far as he could tell, a religion for stupid people, mainly a lot of the characteristics of it are things that we wouldn't even recognize.
A big one is that it seems like Augustine's impression was that Christianity understood God to be a material entity, and that did not square with anything that he was learning.
You know, not a physically about how the universe works, concepts of God would not be material, would not be, you know God would not be some guy up in the sky.
The way we talk about. You know how some people understand God, that's not what Augustine had come to understand that any kind of a God that was truly God would have to be, but that's the God that his mother's religion apparently had presented to him we don't know
how accurate his impression of that religion was. We don't know really.
You know all we have is Augustine's word to go by on what Monica believed, and on what the people surrounding her believed.
But as far as we can tell, it's not totally inaccurate.
It at least gives that impression. So he's turned his back on on his mother's faith.
Hey! Had already turned his back on his father's faith, which seems to be business and money and social standing so he he wasn't particularly interested in pursuing that life either, and he fell in with a group of people called the Manaques, and I've actually got Manichean Isam Listed on
your your, on this page, so you can refer to that a little bit.
But he fell in with a group of people called Manichaeans, and it seemed like it was kind of Christianity for intelligent people.
At least that was how it was presented to him. At first.
That was the impression that he had of it. As he got a little more into it, he started finding some serious problems with it, too, but to break it down.
Basically, this is, we talked a few weeks ago about Gnosticism and the radical dualism that's involved in Gnosticism.
Isn't technically Gnostic. If you talk to like scholars of Manicheism or scholars, of Gnosticism, but for our purposes you can think of them as being very similar.
They're both radical dualist systems but for our purposes you can think of them as being very similar. They're both radical dualist systems, both of them spiritual and material.
And opposition to one another. Manika ism adds almost a science fiction kind of layer to it.
I don't know how Science Fiction they would have found it, but Manika Ism understands the real, the real.
You right, the real you, as being a spark of divine light.
That's trapped inside your material body and your material body is dragging it to do the things that well, sometimes it's just, you know your back hurts.
And so right now, my my divine spark feels like it's trapped inside a body where the back hurts, and so sometimes it's just that.
But Manika isn't pushed that experience into the ethical area as well.
So what? That I think the best example. We've all, I assume, seen the cartoons where you know I don't know.
Donald, Doc, or somebody like that is faced with a moral choice.
He's got to make a decision about what he's going to do, and the little angel Doc pops up on one side, and the little devil duck pops up on one side.
It's kinda like that. There are 2 moral forces that are pulling on you, and the material.
The body, the any, really anything material is drawing you. That's the double side.
By the way, for anybody that wasn't for is drawing you to do the evil thing, and the real.
You. Apparently, Angel Donald Duct is the real Donald Duck, the real. You wants to do the good thing, and anytime you are feeling.
Sort of this dilemma anytime. You're conflicted between 2 things, and you're not sure which one to do.
That is, the material drawing you toward evil and material and the spiritual real.
You pulling toward the good, and it's tension between those 2.
Augustine had some questions about this. He's accepting it of first.
Manika ism, I think, becomes popular, and when I say popular Manika Ism had to be recognized at this time as a world religion.
If that was, that was its geographic scope.
That was it, you know, percentage. So it was a big deal in the ancient world, and it remained that way.
It. If that gets somewhat stamped out within the Roman Empire.
But it remains quite influential outside the Roman Empire for quite a while, but I think that part of the reason that it's popular is that the real you wants to do good, and you can feel good about that.
And your temptations, and all of the the things that you want to do that are evil.
You don't have to feel bad about that. That's just the material that needs to be left behind.
Anyway, the real you as good! And Augustine will eventually come to entirely reject this.
But even early on he has. While he's in Carthage.
Have I said that? Yeah. He went to Carthage to to study.
He! He then comes back briefly to to theghast, and is teaching in Thegast around 3, 73 to 3, 75.
That's where he encountters the manicques.
And then in 3 76, he goes back to Carthage for a better job.
Teaching in Carthage.
He thinks it's for a better job. By the time he writes confessions somewhat later, he has some other ideas about why he actually moves to Carthage.
But we'll get to that. But he goes to Carthage in order to teach.
He's still with the Manic. He's but he's got some questions about this.
He's really excited because there's a guy named Fausta Faustus who something like that, either that or Doctor False is stuck in my my brain, and pulling me off track.
But I'm pretty sure that's right.
But he's supposed to be coming. I don't know if it's a lecture series, or what, but Augustine, thanks.
Finally, one of the top dogs. I'll be able to ask him some questions.
And his dialogue with him was entirely disappointing.
So he's fairly disillusioned with the manicques, but he's still associated with them.
They have really good connections, and can probably get them even better jobs.
So he kind of sticks with them for the moment. I will, since we've just been talking about their thought, I will go ahead and unpack where he eventually will go.
He has not, in our historical survey, he has not left them yet, but I wanna tie this in now so that it's all fresh in your mind.
At 1 point he comes to conclude to some degree that this whole desire to separate your good real you and this, you know, it's not really you, is just a cop-out, and he believes that that is not how the human body or how the human person is constituted.
There's just one you!
And if that's true, do you know who it is that actually wants the evil?
Yeah, that's the real you. And this is part of his.
This is part of his process. Later on, after he gets a couple more steps on his journey.
He realizes. Now that's the real you that's actually the real you that has to.
And you have to accept that that really is you. Alright.
So getting that far. Will come back to Maniche Ism in a couple of more geographic steps, like, I say, the manikis had really good sort of political and other kinds of connections, and so, through their influence, he was able to get a position in Rome.
So now you move up to the top map and you can see that from Carthage.
Sailing to Rome. Is not that long of a of a trip?
It's just a heart right across the Mediterranean.
But you're getting into, you know, the real world people in North Africa would have viewed wrong, and Italy, as you know, a definite step up, and as he gets to Rome and his teaching there, his impressions of the students there is that indeed they are better and more serious students than in
Carthage. His frustration and Carthage was that his students didn't take their classes seriously enough.
Does that sound familiar? Danny? Yeah, I would think so.
I think most teachers and Ruth did a lot of your students take the classes not seriously enough she's refusing to say, but I think that it's a universal experience.
But when he got to Rome he was pleased that they did seem to take their studies more seriously.
However, they seem to take paying for their classes a little bit less seriously, and he didn't have you know, the university structure to collect the fees, and then they would pay him or anything like that, where his paycheck to collect the fees and then they would pay him or anything like that where his
paycheck was gonna show up, and he could let you know the collections office, take care of trying to collect tuition, know his issue was directly dependent on them.
Actually paying him their tuition so this was a bit of a problem for him.
But he did like teaching enroll better than Carthage.
It seems. However, it wasn't long before an even better opportunity arose in Milan, which is north of it's actually almost as far north as you can go in the center of that map.
So Milan is in Northern Italy today, and while we might think, wait a minute.
Why would you move from wrong, though? I mean it's the Wrongan Empire for crying out loud by this point Milan is a definite step up.
Rome hasn't been an Imperial residence.
For quite a long time the Emperor's don't even go there if they don't have to.
Milan is an imperial residence. That's where he can be associated with the Imperial Court.
That is much the better place to be for purposes of career, advancement.
And so, hey, thanks! He moved to Milan to improve his career, and it does improve his career.
So he gets there around 3, 84, and his profession, I guess I haven't really told you much about that yet, but he's a teacher of rhetoric, rhetoric, and philosophy are definitely not the same thing, even though they are related you end up reading a lot of philosophy, if
you're pursuing rhetoric, but he wouldn't have.
You wouldn't consider him to be so. He would be an Ed.
He would be educated about philosophy, but he would not really be a philosopher.
He would be influenced by the philosophers that he read.
But professionally he's studying rhetoric, which is kind of a combination of public persuasive.
Speaking and writing also, and also there's a lot of legal career involved in it, although he wasn't pursuing the legal side of it.
So much presumably some of his students were, so he's up there.
Performing public speaking, kinds of opportunities, teaching, and as somebody who's in that kind of field being in Milan, he thought, you know, it'd be a good idea to go here.
One of the best public speakers in the lawn that I've heard about. This guy.
Ambrose, who happens to be the that I've heard about this guy Ambrose, who happens to be the Christian bishop here in Milan, is supposed to be the Christian bishop here in Milan, is supposed to be lights out speaker.
So he says, you know they don't even check admission at the door.
I'm gonna go to his church and hear what he has to say.
So he goes to the church in Milan, and is presented.
He wasn't expecting to hear anything interesting about Christianity.
Alright! He goes to church, not expecting to learn anything about Christianity.
He knows about Christianity. His mother, Monica, is a Christian.
She is praying constantly that he would come to Christ.
But you know she's not real smart. None of her friends back home are real smart, so he's not interested in that.
He just wants to hear this guy speed, hey? He gets there, and he's presented with a take on Christianity.
That's anything but stupid. This guy's clearly smart.
He's clearly thought about these things. He's not stupid and he's a Christian.
This is really weird, Augustine things, but fascinating.
He actually one thing that proved to him, and you'll enjoy this.
How smart Ambrose was he gets an appointment to go meet with him, and when he gets to where Ambrose is, Ambrose is saying there, reading something, and Augustine notices this guy's reading without moving his lips, nobody can read without moving.
There. This guy must be super smart. Now, part. I mean, people weren't as stupid as that sounds right.
Part of why they had to move their lips is because the words were also.
There were no spaces between the words, and so you couldn't just see the word and recognize you had to kind of sound your way through.
But Ambrose was so smart. Yeah, he could just see the word.
So not surprisingly Augustine starts listening to what I Ambrose has to say.
There's another priest in the in the church there named Simplicianus, that kind of takes Augustine under his wing, and and does the you know what you should read this guy?
This Marius Victorinus Guy. He's really smart he was a philosopher before he became a Christian.
Not gonna mention that part, but he was a top notch philosopher.
You'll enjoy this guy so he kinda gives some good stuff to read good stuff to think about, pushes them on all that and over the course of a couple of weeks.
Augustine is really, I would say initially, Augustine is intellectually convinced.
Augustine believes this. Hey? This must be true.
What he's not yet is ready to commit himself to.
It one thing that people have have an impression of with Augustine is that he was some kind of sexually addicted, promiseduous, wild man.
Right. This is. This is the reputation that he has in pop culture.
He gives himself that impression, he gives himself that reputation, rather because that's kind of how he talks about himself.
However, if we look at him in the cold, harsh light of what I actually took place, his wild addiction was, Let's see, do I have the beginning of this yet?
I don't have the beginning of his relationship on here.
But he, while still in Africa, takes a concubine.
A lot of us talking about her referred to her as his common-law wife.
And certainly they are together before 3 72, which is when his son, a Deodace, is born, and he has a committed monogamous relationship with her.
Like a wife in every way, except that they weren't legally married all the way up until he sent her away.
Just before he brings her to Italy. With him she travels with him to these different places, and eventually, when he decides that he does have to commit himself to Christianity, one of the things that he feels he has to give up is this relationship with his concubine because it's it is
partly because it is a concubine relationship.
They are not technically married, partly because that is what he feels.
His weakness to be his weakness is that he doesn't think that he can.
He doesn't want to live without her and without the benefits of marriage.
But but through this entire time we're talking about, you know, a single relationship with one person.
They have a son together, they raise him together. Monica sounds wonderful because she's been praying for Augustine to come to Christ all this time, but she's not all sweetness and light either.
She's the main reason that he never married this girl.
She was not of a social standing that was acceptable for Augustine's social standing, and for his career aspirations.
And so Monica would not permit them to be married and that's why they never were married.
That's why he ended up sending her away. And Monica was going to try to arrange a marriage for him.
That was socially acceptable. He ended up putting a stop to that as well.
But so that's yeah. That's the that's the promiscuous, the promiscuous guy that that we've heard so much about.
I don't know if he's out there in your pop culture as much as he is on mine, but you know it's good to get a more realistic perspective on him.
I think, and I think it goes a long way to you know, when we come to it, to recognizing some of his impact on sexual ethics in Western Christianity.
For the next 1,000 to 1,500, ongoing even into the present.
Today years.
So he's in Milan. He is intellectually convinced of Christianity, and he finally comes to a point because he's resisting this.
This is where you've you've heard his quotation.
You know. Oh, now I it slips my mind.
But basically, he wants to. He wants to confess he won't be made pure, but not yet.
Alright that, and I can't remember the the words right now.
But that idea he finally comes to a point where he realizes.
No, I've got to. I've got to commit myself to Christianity.
I believe that it's true. I have to commit myself to Christ.
I have to be willing to do whatever it is that he thinks he has to be willing to do in order to do that, and so he does.
He's he has his conversion, experience where he's sitting in the garden, and he hears some kids on the other side of a wall playing, and they say something.
You know the phrase that they say basically means take up and read.
And he takes that as as a sign that he should pick up the text from Paul that he's looking at, and he picks it up, and I don't have written down and can't remember exactly what the verse was.
But it seems to be speaking to him, and what he needs to leave behind the desires of the flesh.
And so he says, Yup, I have to do this. That takes place in 3 86.
He's baptized. The following Easter because they only did baptisms on Easter, and and then over the next couple of years he's trying to decide what to do with himself.
He's left behind his career as a professor of rhetoric because he doesn't think that's where he belongs anymore.
He's gathered a community of of, you know, intellectual Christians around himself, and they sit around thinking deep thoughts and trying to study out theological ideas together.
But ultimately he decides that he needs to go back to Africa.
So he and he's already sent his. His common-law wife back to Africa.
And she dies. Not long after getting back to Africa, but he and Monica and Adele Dotus, and you know some of his other friends come back down toward Rome to go to the port to get ready to sail Myica, who's thrilled because
Augustine has now come to Christ. That's why I say on my, on my thing, that she dies happy, because that was all she wanted at that point anymore.
So she dies happy, but dies while they're in the the port of Osteo, which is on your map.
It's right outside of room and then Augustine returns to Africa, tries to continue sort of an intellectual life, an intellectual theological Christian life. Back there.
But manages to get roped into the ministry in Hippo.
Richius, by the bishop there, who convinces them to come help in the church, and be ordained, and a few years later.
So that's in his ordination is in 3 91.
In 3 95. So just 4 years later, he becomes Co-bishop of of Hippo, and remains in that role for the rest of his life until he dies in 4 30.
So I'll just run over a few of the things here, not gonna try to cover all of it.
Donatism is a major issue in North Africa.
It's actually I would leave. Manika is outside the total population.
Count of Christians in North Africa, but Donatism, and I guess we can say Catholicism are competing churches in North Africa.
Donald trump started back during the Diocletian persecution, and they took a very strict line on whether or not people who had kind of buckled under persecution could ever be accepted by into the Church.
They essentially said no, the church was for the church, for the saints.
So, on the one hand they got it right that all Christians are saints, but they read it backwards, and said, Only saints!
Only the perfect, are really Christians. And we're gonna have a church of the perfect.
And so they would not re admit people, and that that.
Split for lack of a better term, had persisted at this point for almost a 100 years. Right?
They start around 303. Augustine is coming into the ministry around 3, 95. So 90 years they've been going at it and this is the major point on which they disagree.
Is Christianity for the perfect, or is it for everybody, and Augustine and the Catholic position on this was that it was for.
And I'm using Catholic and sort of the universal sense.
Was that it was for all they wanted to bring everyone in and recognize that Christians send Christians make mistakes, and they can be forgiven, and they can be readmitted to communion.
And Donatism, at least at the beginning of Augustine's ministry, was the majority Church in North Africa.
Now you go out to the rest of the world. You go to Italy and Europe.
You go to Turkey, to Palestine, to Egypt, all of those places, and it is a minority, a small minority church, but in North Africa in particular it really had a stronghold, and it was actually the majority Church.
So part of what Augustine is doing is trying to bring these 2 back together.
It's also where we get one of the things that I would criticize him for.
He starts out trying to do this gently and pastorally, and you know, bringing them in.
I'm in a conciliatory way. That's the word I used on the sheet in a conciliatory way, but there was.
There was no negotiating with them essentially, and eventually what he decided to do was that he would call upon State power because the the like, I say, the Catholic Church, the Universal Church, with Augustine would have been in communion with was definitely the majority in all the rest of the Empire and
it had the support of the Empire, and the Emperor, and so he did call on imperial power to force them to compel them to return to the Catholic Church.
Not by. He never called for violence. I'm sure there was violence, but he never called for violence.
He didn't call for. You know those kinds of repercussions, but he wanted to bring the 4 of government to bear on forcing them back into the church.
I think it was a bad move. I don't know that he would have thought it was a bad move in part, because it basically worked.
The parents may not have liked going back and sitting in that Catholic church that was so wishy-washy from their Donat perspectives, but within a generation or so the kids were, you know, they.
That was just what they knew. And so Donatism, by the end of Augustine's life, is not nearly as large of a player in North Africa.
It persists for a while, but it's basically stamped out collegianism and human free will is something that Augustine is well known for is you know, you can read over the description of it at you know at your leisure.
But I would say that it is a works salvation to the extreme as a an easy shorthand way of describing it.
God's grace, at most cooperates with with our efforts.
So once again you've got questions of perfectionism, Donatism insisted on perfectionism and Polegianism said, perfectionism is possible now.
They had much more room for forgiveness than Donatism did, but but they insisted that there's no reason why people can't be morally perfect and live in perfect accord with God's law and God's will, and that is in fact obviously you can be forgiven as you know time, and time.
again you slip and fail, but ultimately it is your perfectionism or proximity to it that determines your salvation.
And Augustine argues against this with with a strong argument for grace, and this comes in also when he's rejecting Manikaism. I'm not finishing up quite as early as I hope this comes in with his rejection of manicaism because he's as I say he's
already said, No, it it is the you. It is really you that wants those evil things.
It's not some material that isn't really you.
That's forcing you to to want that. No, that's really you.
And you have to accept that. That's really you. And the reason that the real you wants that stuff is because you're following, hey?
Would say, Brand new baby! No more fallen than Adam went out.
Everybody falls totally on their own. You're not, you know.
You're not born with a sin nature, you just sin, and that's when you that's when you are fallen.
At that point. But a brand new baby is perfectly just as free of sin as apple, and perfectly just as unfallen as Adam and Augustine argues that we are broken, and that is why we don't want what we should.
He!
He interprets all that anything God does is good, and anything that exists is created by God.
So you're not even when you're corn between wanting to pursue God and wanting to pursue.
You know something of the world. He says that you're not even choosing between a good thing that God created, or that God is, or you know how, whatever the specifics of the choice are, and some evil thing you're dealing with different levels of good different degrees of good and the way in which we
are broken, the way in which we are fallen is that we sometimes can't even tell which one's good, and even when or more good, the better, and even when we can tell, we're fallen, we're broken.
In such a way that makes us want the lesser good and the lesser good, especially once, that have almost no good at all.
Those are the things that we think of as evil. But he's saying it's because of our fallenness that our desires are the way they are, Pelagius would say.
He's he develops this. And arguing with the manicques, but he uses it, and arguing with Pelagian as which would say that we are following, we're perfectly capable of pursuing the highest good every time, and Augustine says the only way that we can
design, the highest good is by grace. He says that even our faith is a gift of God's grace, and this pushes him toward what he's famous for, which is a position of predestination.
As he deals with this more and more towards the end of his life he go, gets all the way to a position of what's called double predestination, which is where the elect the those who will be in heaven are chosen by God, and chosen for election and the double part is that
those who will be condemned are chosen, and are actively conducted by God.
I think the Playgian controversy pushes him to that point.
I don't know if he would have gotten there on his own just quickly to say a couple of other things and then I'll turn it over for a few minutes.
Of questions we've talked about pro nicene Trinitarianism last week and talking about the Cappadocia or yeah, last week, talking about the capita oceans and Augustine for Western Christianity, for Latin speaking Christianity is probably the most important advocate of those positions.
He's articulating the idea of in sufferable operations that anything God does.
All 3 members of the Godhead equally are participating in.
They each do. They don't do anything without the others, and he's making a lot of other arguments.
For a nice same Trinitarianism, and like I say, he is really important for the Latin speaking world, because most people that those 2 sides of the Church hardly we're able to communicate at all.
The Greeks had no interest in learning Latin, and most of the Latin Church didn't have any real facility in Greek.
There were some who did, but most of them were like Augustine.
They read Latin, and they relied on. You know the handful of people that could transate to keep them apprised of what was going on in Greek, speaking Christianity.
So Augustine becomes the source both for his contemporaries, and especially for you know, the next 1,000 years.
For this Trinitarian argumentation. I said a little bit about sexuality earlier where it goes, and I think this has to do with the customs, own personal struggles and with with Augustine's struggles with Manicheism, and his fights with Manicaism, but
Augustine ends up personally championing a sort of acetical view on life and an ethical view on sexuality that remains dominant, and I would say, becomes even more dominant in you know Western Christianity.
Essentially what we would think of as medieval Catholicism I think it's more influential there than it even wasn't Augustine.
He also writes an important book about marriage, where he holds it up, as you know, as a sacrament, so to speak, on a par with celibacy.
But I think that equality there gets lost, and the aesthetical view comes very much to dominate. And the last thing that I will mention is his influence on politics.
For the end of Augustine's life. The Vandals end up, invading North Africa.
The Vandals are a German. We'd call it German today.
They're from that general part of Europe. There are German group that are Aryan Christians.
If they're Christian at all. I think most they were rabble rabbisers, but they came first from Germany.
They invaded Gaul, which is France. And then they moved on into Spain, and were there sort of at the gates of North Africa and through a combination of political situations.
They were allowed into North Africa, and then ran rampant over North Africa, destroying everything that they could get to pillaging.
So they are coming across, and you can look at the timeline. It's pretty fast.
They do not move slowly, but they're coming across near the end of his life.
Coming across that part of the Roman Empire around the same time the Goths are coming down, and in 4 10 the Goths sacked wrong, and even though Rome was not the actual imperial residence, it was still symbolicically important and a lot of people, between the the vandals running
Rightant and the Goths sacking wrong, and pretty much having their way with it.
People were very concerned about this. Christians were very concerned about the the downfall of their civilization.
So that's what sparks Augustine to write the book City of God he's wanting to.
First of all, and well, first of all to say, you know.
No, this didn't all happen, because people turned to Christianity and turned away from the ancient Roman gods, which is what there were some people speculating.
So first of all, he wanted to say that, but more within Christianity.
He wanted to reassure people. First of all, the fact that you know Western political, governmental civilization seems to be at the end of its thread doesn't necessarily mean anything for us.
He wanted to distinguish between the earthly city which was represented by Rome, but really encompasses all of you know our human secular civilization, and set that in contrast to the city of God, which is where our real citizenship lies.
So he wants to differentiate between those 2, and assured them that the the fall of the earthly city doesn't mean that the heavenly city, the city of God, is following.
And and he makes, yeah, the book is thick. So I mix a lot of arguments in there.
I'll just wrap up by saying the arguments that he makes end up influencing medieval Christianity, and I would say, you know the Pureitans who end up coming to America to think you know what what we need to do is establish a government.
That's run by the city of God that's run by, you know.
Essentially a theocracy which is going beyond what Augustine is arguing, but certainly the seeds for that are present.
Augustine is saying that citizenship in the heavenly city supersedes citizenship in the earthly city.
But it was certainly not, you know. Just a couple of steps to say that if we can get, if we can get that heavenly cities power either for the Middle Ages represented within the Pope at Rome, then you know we can have the city of God on earth, and I think even like
I say, I think the Puritans were thinking very much along the same lines, and trying to establish a theocratic kind of city here in America.
When they came to America. So I ran longer than I wanted to.
It is almost 80' clock, but I will. I will still go for a few questions.
If people have a few questions.
Alright. So, Mike. What is the status of Augustine?
In the Roman Catholic Church, so Fred's question was, What is the status of Augustine in the Catholic Church today?
I would say that he is not the number one theologian, but but he would, you know, considering the season of the year, he would be in the final 4.
I think, depending on who you talk to. Augustine might have more influence, or Thomas, Aquinas might have more influence, or even, you know, some twentieth century theologians might try to, but they're all really either Augustinians or Thomas but Augustine
is a pretty, pretty major theologian, even when people are disagreeing with him, they have to deal with him, and even when they don't deal with them honestly, they have to at least sort of make gestures in his direction, because he's he's the most important theologian for
the West, at least up until the time of Thomas, which is.
12 hundreds, unless I'm forgetting.
Still Major.
If you mean the actual words.
's asking if he leaned toward the worship of Mary, and I will have to look into that, because I have never.
I've never heard anything about that one way or the other with Augustine it's not a question that I've seen, pursued.
I would, you know I would expect a reference for Mary which would have been fairly standard in that time. Period.
But I I don't know anything that he said about it one way or the other.
I'll try to report back.
Anybody else.
Okay? Well, in that case I will close in prayer and turn it over.
Father, we do thank you for this time tonight, for this time together, to to look at 76 years of a man's life and the theological controversies that he engaged in, and the impact that he was able to have although we pray that we would from that we would learn the things, that are useful
and important and good that we would recognize and reject those things that we're problematic.
We thank you or his faithful attempt to follow you in a way that did glorify you.
Okay. Even while we recognize his his failings on points here and there, because we know that for all that, he messed up on, we know that his love for you was was real and was deep.
And his desire to to build up and to serve the Christians that were around him was genuine.
Father, we pray that we would reflect that also in Christ's name we pray Amen.