1In this section we examine Augustine’s life after the period covered in the Confessions. Focusing primarily on his career as a Christian writer, we can divide Augustine’s life into three periods. In the early period, up to the writings of the Confessions, he works on philosophical issues and on refuting the Manichaeans; in the middle he focuses on the nature of the Church and its Sacraments, refuting the Donatists; and in the late period of his life he is preoccupied with the doctrine of grace, in refutation of the Pelagians.

Objectives:

1. Identify three periods of Augustine’s career as a Christian writer.

2. Describe how Augustine became a Priest.

3. Explain the issues that divided Donatists from the Catholics.

4. Explain Augustine’s role as a theorist of religious coercion.

5. Summarize Pelagian doctrine.

6. State three Augustinian arguments for the necessity of grace.

I. Introduction: The Periods of Augustine’s Career.

II. Early Period: From Convert to Bishop (386-95).

A. Conversion and free time.

1. The Cassiciacum writings after his conversion, Augustine retires to a villa with friends to study philosophy and write Christian philological dialogues.

2. In these dialogues, he proposes a curriculum of studies in the liberal arts leading to philosophy and wisdom.

B. From Milan to Hippo.

1. Returning from Cassiciacum to Milan, he is catechized (instructed in baptism and taught the creed) by Ambrose.

2. Returning from Italy to Africa after the death of his mother, he starts what is in effect a monastery in his hometown— thereby introducing monastic life to Africa.

3. He now is back in the Bible Belt— the sophisticated and philosophical Christian: up on the latest theological developments; answering curious questions from his fundamentalist friends, as we as refuting the Manichaeans.

4. He makes a big hit with the African Church— so big that he is forced into ordination as a priest when he visits the town of Hippo.

5. Now his free time is gone, as well as his monastic life: he has become a parish priest whose job is not to write philosophical dialogues but to teach the Scriptures to ordinary, mostly illiterate folk.

C. Thus, Augustine’s early period takes’ him from liberal disciplines to Christian doctrine.

1. Early philosophical dialogues.

2. Refuting the Manichaeans

3. Teaching the Scriptures.

4. Confessions and On Christian Doctrine.

III. Against the Donatists: The Unity of the Church. ¹

A. The history of the Donatist controversy.

1. The Donatist were a group of African Christians who broke from the Catholic Church because they thought it was impure, tainted by cooperation with Roman authorities back in the days of persecution. Some Catholic bishops were accused of being traditores, who handed over the sacred books to the persecutors.

2. Baptism as key issue: the Donatists did not regard Catholic baptism as valid, because it was administered by bishops and priests whose ordination goes back to the traditores. Catholic clergy were thus tainted and impure according to the Donatists.

3. The suppression of the Donatists: after the Conference of Carthage (411 A.D.), at which Catholic and Donatists bishops held an official debate in front of an imperial official (with Augustine leading the Catholic side), the empire suppresses the Donatists, fining them and confiscating their property.

4. Theorists of religious coercion: Augustine provided theological rationale for the suppression of the Donatists.

B. Three issues in the Donatist controversy (later is lesson 9 this is expanded.)

1. The purity of the Church: is the Church a gathering of the pure, as the Donatists insist?

2. The unity of the Church: how does the Church stay one Church? (By love and not purity, as Augustine insists)

3. Re baptism: should Catholics regard Donatist baptism as valid, or should they (like the Donatists) practice rebaptism? This is the trickiest issue Augustine faced in the controversy.

IV. Against the Pelagians: the Necessity of Grace.

A. Pelagianism: a theology optimistic about human ability to be sinless.

1. Pelagius, a British monk, is regarded as the founder of the heresy that was named after him (though some scholars [including me] think he got a bum wrap). We must remember, he was mostly defined by those who hated him.

2. Pelagianism: we have the ability to obey.

3. Pelagianism: God helps us by giving us the law.

4. Pelagianism: if we work at it, we can be perfect.

B. Three Augustinian arguments for the necessity of grace (or why we can’t afford to sin without divine help).

1. Catholics pray “forgive us our trespasses” — why, if they didn’t need it?

2. Catholics baptize----why, if they didn’t need it?

3. Without grace our obedience is servile (to be continued).

Must reading

Brown, Augustine of Hippo, chapters 11,13-15, 19-21, and 29-31.

Other readings:

Augustine, On Baptism, against the Donatists, book 1 and 2:13,18-19.25( in the Nicene and Post-Nicene series, vol. 4, pp. 411-24 and 440-46).

Augustine, On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sin, and on Baptism of Infants 1:1.1-26.39 (in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, vol.5, pp. 15—30)—the key treatise on Original Sin.

Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, chapters 6 and 8 (history of Donatist and Pelagian controversies).

Markus, Saeculum, chapter 6 (Augustine as a theorist of coercion).

And now, some questions!

1. Does this sound like the same person we read about in the Confessions?

2. In the second half of his life, Augustine spent a great deal of his time and energy arguing against heretics and trying to show that Catholic teaching was true. Was that a good thing?