The story of San Agustin de Hipona
Aurelio Agustín de Hipona was born in Tagaste on November 13, 354 – August 28, 430, Latin Theologian, one of the greatest figures in Christian history. Many painters have illustrated the life of San Agustín his father named Patricio, he was a pagan, violent, drinker and infamous official, at the service of the empire. His mother Monica, on the contrary, was sweet and selfless, lived his life under the Christian religion. She educated her son in her religion, although, she did not baptize him. Agustín had a personality taken away, of superb attitude, although exceptionally intelligent. Therefore, he took care of his studies, although he took to apply to them;After grammar classes on his land, he studied liberal arts and then rhetoric. In his youth he certainly did not follow the moral precepts instilled by his mother and up to 32 years, led a licentious life, clinging to the Manichean heresy.(Biography, 2016)
At eighteen, Agustín met his first partner, with whom he had a son they named Adeodato. He was not really an exemplary father, he lived among the excesses, he had a bare hobby for theater and other public shows, he was also blamed for some robberies;This life made him deny of his mother’s religion. He assured that Christianity was a faith imposed and was not founded on reason. He began to be interested in philosophy, and in these postulates he found accommodation for some time, he leaned over moderate prejudice. Now, in Carthage it joins a group that preached Maniqueo dogma, from that moment he could solve his numerous concerns against various moral problems, which would accompany him all his life, his adhesion to Manichaeism, the fashion religion, the religion of fashion was decisiveat that time. Basically, he argued that there are two principles of all things, dualism, one principle of good and another of evil. The first has created spiritual things and the second materials.(Biography, 2016)
"Pray as if everything depended on God. Works as if everything depended on you.”San Agustín de Hipona
In his search for the truth he studied the epistles of St. Paul, through them he discovered the statement that only the grace of Christ can save man, a doctrine that constituted another of the pillars of his thought in the future. Over time, fiery, fasting and various abstinences were given to burning hymns. Totally converted, in 387 when he was 33 years old he became baptized by Saint Ambrosio and was definitively consecrated at the service of God. He began to share more time with his mother, share the Word of God, unfortunately the time was short because death interrupted them.
For the year 388 he returned to Africa. Some years later he was ordained a priest in Hippo by Bishop Valerio, who entrusted him with the mission of preaching among the faithful the Word of God, a task that St. Augustine complied with enthusiasm. To do this, Bishop Valerio donated a garden where he instituted a monastery, there he preached, even stating a sermon before the bishops of Africa, gathered in Hipona, in the year 393. His recognition aroused admiration and hate among people, for example, he received strong criticism from the heretical currents and schisms that threatened Catholic orthodoxy, such as Manichaeans, Pelagians and Pagans.(Biography, 2016)
The situation in the Roman Empire for the year 410 was complex, the pagans reorganized their attacks against Christianity. In response, Saint Augustine wrote his great work The City of God. This is a compendium of postulates divided into 22 books, expresses a new form of civil society, which aims to promote the values of humanity by virtue of living according to Christian doctrine. In conclusion, for Hippo, a fully Christian Rome could travel from an earthly empire to a spiritual one.
"The measure of love is to love without measure.”San Agustín de Hipona
His philosophical works such as soliloquies, confessions and the city of God are the sample of his extraordinary testimonies of faith and his theological wisdom. His dissertations usually had as a central theme the relationship of the soul, lost by sin and saved by divine grace. In short, man contains an immortal rational soul that is served, as an instrument, of a material and mortal body. Hence its essentially spiritualist character, in the face of the cosmological tendency of philosophy (Biography, 2016)
Agustín de Hipona lived 40 years of his consecrated life at the service of God, he died at 72 years of age, in the year 430. The thought of St. Augustine of Hipona extended a bridge between the classical world and the medieval world, also laid the foundations of philosophy and Christian doctrine.
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