Saint Augustin Of Hipona Author Of The City Of God

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Saint Augustin of Hipona Author of the City of God

Aurelius Augustinus was born in 354 in the municipality of Thagaste (currently Souk Ahras, Algeria) in the Roman province of Numidia. His mother, Monica was a Christian while his father Patricio was a pagan who became Christianity just before he died. Studies indicate that Agustín and his family were Berberes, an indigenous ethnic group of North Africa, but that they were very romantized, so they only spoke Latin at home. In his biography, confessions, Agustín leaves certain information about his African heritage. His family was honest, upper class of citizens known as honorable men. 

He was sent to school in Madourus (now M’daouch), where he became familiar with Latin literature, as well as pagan beliefs and practices. At the age of 17, I continued his education in rhetoric, it was here where his interest in philosophy was born. Although he grew up as a Christian, Agustín abandoned the Church to follow the Manichaean religion. At this age, Agustín began a relationship with a young woman in Carthage, where he remained as his lover for more than fifteen years, and gave birth to his son Adeodatus (considered extremely intelligent). In 385, at the age of 31, Agustín ended his relationship with his lover to prepare to marry a ten -year heiress. (He had to wait two years because the legal age to marry for women was twelve). However, when he could marry her, he decided to become a celibate priest. 

He worked as a grammar teacher, he was in charge of a rhetoric school where he took off the 9 years, and then settled in Rome where he believes that the best return students were in 383. His Manichaean friends presented him to the prefect of the city of Rome, Symmachus, who, while traveling through Carthage, had been requested by the Imperial Court of Milan to provide a rhetoric teacher. Agustín won the job and went north to take his position in Milan at the end of 384. With thirty years of age, he had won the most visible academic position in the Latin world at a time when those positions gave immediate access to political careers. Due to his education, Agustín had a great rhetorical skill and was very well informed of philosophies behind many beliefs. 

In Milan, his mother’s religiosity, Agustín’s own studies in Neoplatonism and his simplician friend promoted him towards Christianity. Initially, Agustín was not strongly influenced by Christianity and his ideologies, but after coming into contact with Ambrosio de Milan (one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century), Agustín re -evaluated himself and changed forever. Agustín arrived in Milan and was immediately taken under the wing of Ambrosio. Within his confessions, Agustín declares: ‘That man of God received me as a father would do, and thanked my coming as a good bishop.”Ambrosio baptized Agustin, along with his son Adeodatus, in Milan . In 388, Adeodatus and Agustín returned to Africa. In this anus many important people like Agustín’s mother died while preparing to embark for Africa. Upon arrival, they began an aristocratic leisure life in the property of Agustín’s family where shortly after, Adeodatus also died. Agustín then sold his property and gave the money to the poor. 

The only thing he kept was the family’s house, which became a monastic base for him and a group of friends. In 391, Agustín was ordered priest in Hippo Regius (currently Annaba), in Algeria by the old Bishop Valerio. It became a famous preacher (it is believed that more than 350 preserved sermons are authentic) and stood out for preaching among the faithful the Word of God. San Agustín fulfilled this mission with fervor and gained great recognition;At the same time, the sustained combat against heresies and schisms that threaten Catholic orthodoxy, is reflected in the controversies they maintain with Pelagians, donatists and pagans and the Manichaean religion, to which he had previously adhered.

In 395, he was appointed Bishop of Hipona, and shortly after he became a full bishop, hence the name of ‘Agustín de Hipona’;And he gave his assets to the church of Thagaste. Remained in that position until his death in 430. He is considered one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the patristic period. He dedicated numerous sermons to the instruction of his people, wrote his famous letters to friends, adversaries, foreigners, faithful and pagans, and exercised at the same time that pastor, administrator, speaker and judge. Other important characters of this period were Jerome, Basilio el Grande and Gregorio de Nissa. Among his most important works are the city of God, about Christian doctrine and confessions. He wrote his autobiographical confessions in 397–398. When Rome fell into the hands of the Godos de Alaric. From Christian history during the last years of his life he attended the barbarian invasions of North Africa (initiated in 429), which did not escape their episcopal city. In the third month of the siege, on August 28, he fell ill and died. It is said that he encouraged his citizens to resist attacks, mainly on the basis of vandals, they adhered to the heretical trotic Christianity.

Agustín worked tirelessly to try to convince the people of Hipona to become Christianity. Although he had left his monastery, he continued to lead a monastic life in the episcopal residence. He left a regulation for his monastery that led him to his designation as the ‘regular clergy pattern’. Much of Agustín’s later life was registered by his friend Posidio, Bishop of Calama (current Guelma, Algeria), in his Sancti Augustini Vita. Posidio described in detail the personal features of Agustín, making a portrait of a man who ate in moderation, worked tirelessly, despised the gossip, rejected the temptations of the flesh and exercised prudence in the financial administration of his headquarters.

I think that Agustín was a man of powerful intellect and a moving speaker who took every opportunity to defend Christianity against his detractors. San Agustín had a deep and complex personality, since I managed to be a philosopher, theologian, mystical, poet, speaker, polemicist, writer and pastor. The central theme of the thought of St. Augustine of Hipona is the relationship of the soul, lost by sin and salvation by divine grace, with God, the relationship in the outside world does not fulfill the role of mediator between both parties. Hence its spiritualist character, in contrast to the cosmological tendency of Greek philosophy. But St. Augustine is first and foremost a pastor who sees himself and defines himself as a ‘servant of Christ and servant of the servants of Christ’. And his life exemplified these words in all its consequences: full availability for the needs of the faithful;the desire to achieve salvation only along with those whom he grazed (‘I don’t want to be saved without you’);the request to God of always being willing to die for his flock;love for those who are in error, even when they did not love him or mistreated him. 

In short, he was a shepherd in the most complete sense of the word. Believing that Christ’s grace was indispensable for human freedom, helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made fundamental contributions to the development of fair war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Agustín imagined the Church as a spiritual city of God, different from the material city material. His thoughts deeply influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicea and the Council of Constantinople was closely identified with the law of the Trinity of Agustín.      

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