Saint Augustine

Today's devotional is written by Kate Souther, our Faith Formation Summer Inern Lead. Kate will share future reflections throughout the summer about important figures in church history, today her reflection focuses on Saint Ambrose.
 
St. Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 AD) was one of the Four Great Latin Church Fathers, a deeply influential theologian who transformed face of ancient and modern Christianity. He was born in Roman North Africa, and was highly educated in North Africa and in Carthage. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle of sin for many years, converted to Manicheanism (an ancient pagan religious tradition), and even had a son out of wedlock. His famous sarcastic prayer states; “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet”. He was extremely bright – he mastered Latin, rhetoric, and classical philosophy, and opened several schools around the Roman Empire that taught the best students in the land. However, Augustine felt unfulfilled, unsatisfied with the answers he found in academia. He sought eternal truth, and he converted to Christianity.
 
Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose, the subject of a previous devotional, and after losing his mother and son, turned his family estate into a monastic order. He eventually became the Bishop of Hippo (in modern-day Algeria). He was a prolific writer and speaker, giving over 10,000 sermons in his lifetime, which contributed greatly to Christian rhetoric and thinking. He is credited with the theological idea of ‘original sin’, much of Christian philosophy, the early basis of Cartesian dualism, viewing the story of Creation as a heuristic device more than a literal retelling, a theological understanding of the separation of Church and state powers, the church ‘invisible’ and ‘visible’, and much, much more.
 
It is impossible to understate St. Augustine’s influence on all Christian theology – even Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk (for a little while), hailed Augustine as one of the greatest and most profound thinkers in human history. Much of Augustinian theology informs Protestant Christianity, due to Luther’s involvement and Calvin’s reading of Augustine.
 
I pray that today we may all inhabit Augustine’s desire for truth, for deeper understanding, and for a faith that touches every aspect of our lives. I pray that God may grant us the same wisdom that God granted Augustine, and that we understand our shared Christian history as part of our shared future. Amen.