Seeds of Faith : A Brief Biographical history of the Christian Church Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ---John 12:24 Week #3 Augustine The Treasure of Christ above all other Pleasure Introduction There is no more significant figure in the early church than Augustine. He wrote an extraordinary amount, and he was blessed with an exceptional eloquence that makes him refreshing to read. His autobiography, Confessions, was the story of his life, written to God (which he welcomes us to overhear). It is such a remarkable and telling book that even unchurched people read it as one of the pillars of classic literature. If you have never read it, I hope one of the effects of this morning s biography will be to inspire you to get it and read it for yourself. He was an extremely prolific writer If you read one book, read the Confessions. (396 AD) If you read a second, read City of God. (426 AD) These two books are considered his most lasting literary contributions. Augustine is an interesting figure for the way all of Christendom appeals to him. Catholics claim him for his writings on the church, while Protestants claim him for his clear teaching on soteriology the way of salvation. In reading him, you get the feeling of someone who truly knows God and communes with him, so I would never shy away from reading someone like this in spite of even significant theological differences in places. Most of our heroes will have blind spots (as, if we are honest, do we). For just a few examples, C.S. Lewis believed in limbo, B.B. Warfield believed in theistic evolution, G.K. Chesterton blasts Calvinism every chance he gets). Psalm19:12 says, 'Who can discern his errors, acquit my hidden faults.' Those things which seem totally obvious to others are often hidden from our understanding. We all have failings, so we must be aware of that as we read others lives the differences help to make us think, and call us back to our only true authority, the scriptures themselves. A Summary of Augustine's Life Augustine was born in the city of Thagaste, North Africa, 354 AD to an upper middle class family. His father, Patricius, was landowner with a government job, who worked hard to give Augustine opportunities to succeed in his vocational paths. Patricius was a pagan in Augustine s early years, but his mother, Monica was a Christian, and he speaks devotedly of her in his autobiography. His father converted to Christianity when Augustine was 16, and died the year after, in 371 AD. He was always academically gifted, and distinguished himself in rhetoric. His parents saved to send him to school in Carthage when he was sixteen. He made progress in the areas of making good speeches, but was little more than a gifted sophist until he read the Hortensius by Cicero. Becoming concerned about truth, he then began to study philosophy to try to find what the truth was. For an entire decade, he became deceived by a heresy known as Manichaeism, which taught good and evil were two separate, dueling forces, and that the flesh was evil. As such, they denied the virgin birth and the crucifixion. Though increasingly his studies led him to the truth of Christianity, the final, and most difficult obstacle to belief was an immoral long-term relationship he had he even had a son, Adeodatus, by this woman,
though because of her social class, he could not marry her. In book 8 of the Confessions, he tells the story of the gospel s triumph over this strongest of idols. When he converts, he forsakes all women and dedicates himself as a lifetime celibate. He is baptized in 387 AD, along with his son Adeodatus and his dear friend Alypius. His mother Monica lived to see him transformed by the gospel. She died in 387 AD at the age of 54. Augustine was 33. A second blow came two years later, when his son Adeodatus died. He never married, but rather devoted himself to the service of the church first in a monastery in Thagaste in 388 AD, and then in 391 he took holy ordination under the Valarius in Hippo. When Valarius passed away in 397 AD, Augustine became the Bishop of Hippo for the next 33 years the rest of his life. During those years, along with his preaching and teaching ministry, I want to mention four major contributions: He wrote the City of God, which was an important answer to the criticism that Rome had fallen in 410 AD because they had forsaken their pagan gods and had believed Christianity. He wrote De Trinitate, which was the definitive book on the trinity in 417. He also labored in his ministry to rescue people from the theological errors of the Manichees (by whom he had himself been deceived for 10 years), and thwarted the false gospel of the monk Pelagius. He died in 430 AD in Hippo, just as the Vandals were besieging the city. Personally, however, Augustine's personal testimony in the Confessions lingers as a powerful witness today. So this morning I want to consider the obstacles to Augustine's conversion, and then the means God used to triumph over the bondage that kept him from repentance and faith. Key Obstacles So first, what caused Augustine s conversion to take such a long and winding path through childhood and finally flower in his 32 nd year? I want to consider four obstacles: A love of Approval In his teen years, Augustine struggled mightily with what we today refer to as peer pressure. In the Confessions, Augustine tells a story of his youth about taking his neighbors pears, just to take them, not even to enjoy eating them. We took away an enormous quantity of pears, not to eat them ourselves, but simply to throw them to the pigs. Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure consisted in the doing of something forbidden. (47) Augustine's experience sounds similar to Paul's in Romans 7:7-8: What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Augustine identifies the desire for communion with others as a reason for doing evil:
This was a friendship of the most unfriendly sort, bewitching my mind in an inexplicable way. For the sake of a laugh, of a little sport, I was anxious to do harm and damage another, and that without thought of profit for myself or retaliation for injuries received. And all because we were ashamed to hold back when others say, Let s do it! (52) A positive thing, acceptance and fellowship with others, can be twisted into something evil--i venture to say almost everyone can recall a time when the burning desire for acceptance caused them to act foolishly or wickedly. Augustine struggled with this one more than one occasion--he described this pressure in boasting about immoral behavior: I was so blind to the truth among my companions, I was ashamed to be less dissolute than they were. For I heard them bragging of their depravity, and the greater sin the more they gloried in it, so that I took pleasure in the same vices, not only for the enjoyment of what I did, but also for the applause I won. Nothing deserves to be despised more than vice ; yet I gave in more and more to vice in order not to be despised. (46) If you are in your youth, mark this well. This sort of temptation goes all throughout life, but seems especially strong in our youth. The writer of the Proverbs specifically warns young people repeatedly to avoid falling in with those who plot evil: 10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 11 If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; 12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; 13 we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; 14 throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse"- 15 my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, 16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. 17 For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, 18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. (Proverbs 1:10-18) More concisely, Paul says, Do not be misled: bad company corrupts good character. (1 Cor 15:33) Take note of this, and consider who you allow into your closest circle. We are always becoming something no one is standing still. Are your friends enabling you to become more wise, more loving, more honoring to God? Or are they tugging you toward all manner of behaviors, which you are tempted to excuse because you flatter yourself that you are not yet as bad as they are? (This position is particularly dangerous, because at that moment we have ironically fallen prey simultaneously to two seemingly contradictory sins vice & spiritual pride about a lack of vice.) Rather than choosing companions who drag us away from God, Let us in humility seek out those who can help us see God better (Matthew 5:8). A Prideful Love of Eloquence: Trained in rhetoric, and an exceptional speaker, for many years Augustine avoided the scriptures because he thought they were too simple, lacking in the profound prose he found in Cicero and other writers.
A Theological Obstacle -- Understanding the origin of evil: This was one of the main reasons for his descent into Manichaeism a searching for a viable explanation of evil. He thought he found it in the dualism of the Manichees, whereby evil was a second force in the world, and which tainted all flesh. For ten years he wandered in this error, with God drawing him out of it when he met the leader of the Manichees, Faustus, and found his explanations for his questions unsatisfying. He then began to explore Neo-platonism, which argued that evil was not a thing, such as the Manichees contended, but nothing, a privation or lack of good. There are some problems with this view, but it was a vast improvement over his previous view. Platonism, like Manichaeism, holds spirit in higher esteem than body but Augustine s conversion showed him that the body was holy for Christ had taken on a human body, yet was without sin. The love of Sexual Immorality: Interestingly, when Augustine describes this temptation, it becomes clear that this sin became stronger in him at first because he indulged it out of a desire for approval of his peers (46). So the first sin became the means of letting in the greater sin, which seems to have theological warrant from Romans 1, which talks about successive giving over to sin. Key Means of Grace in His Conversion: So we have examined the obstacles which joined together to draw Augustine away from the gospel. What were the means which God used to bring Augustine to Himself? 1) A believing mother who devotedly prayed for her son. Monica prayed for her son continually. Her godly example led to the conversion of her husband, Patricius, one year before he died and went to be with God. Augustine resisted the gospel for many years after, but she continued in prayer. Augustine says of her: my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of their sons. (68) Interestingly, Monica had a dream in which she saw a shining young man, assuring her that her son would be holy one day as well. For nearly nine years were yet to come during which I wallowed deep in the mire and darkness of delusion.yet all the time this chaste, devout and prudent woman, a widow as such is close to your heart, never ceased to pray at all hours and offer you the tears shed for me. (69) Some of you may know the pain of children who are not walking with God. Take heart, for God hears your prayers, and though the time may be long, God loves to answer such pleas for his grace and mercy. Even in his youth, His mother, Monica, advised him to avoid fornication and especially adultery. She could see this was a major potential snare to him, but strangely--because she wanted to see him succeed, did not encourage him to marry yet, even though it might have cut the bud off the flower of lust. So, like all of us, his mother had blind spots, too (46). 2) Cicero s Hortensius: Awash with pride and corrupt fellowship in his time at school in Carthage, God used a pagan philosopher to awaken something crucial in Augustine s heart. He read Cicero s Hortensius, and it was a key element in helping him have a firmer ground beneath his feet than fame or
the approval of his peers. He says of the reading: The thing that pleased me in Cicero s book was his advice not merely to admire one or another of the schools of philosophy, but to love wisdom itself, whatever it might be, and to search for it, pursue it, and embrace it firmly. These were the words which excited me and set me burning with fire (Confessions, 59) This was the first key to free him from a life of total hedonism a concern about truth. 3) Key Friendships: Bishop Ambrose of Milan, Simplicanus & his friend Alypius all had a part to play. Ambrose played a key role in removing some of Augustine s key theological objections, particularly the problem of evil. Additionally, Ambrose taught Augustine to trust scripture. For a long time, Augustine had felt the language of the bible was too simple, and he suspected it riddled with errors until he began to sit under Ambrose s teaching and hear it regularly explained. He said of this change: It seemed all the more right that the authority of scripture should be respected and accepted with the purest faith, because while all can read it with ease, it also has a deeper meaning in which great secrets are locked away. Its plain language and simple style make it accessible to everyone, and yet it absorbs the attention of the learned. (117) Simplicanus was the spiritual father of Ambrose, and he told Augustine an important testimony of a man he led to Jesus, Victorinus. A long time influential pagan, he became interested in Christianity, but would never go to church. Simplicanus urged Victorinus to continue reading the scriptures, which eventually convicted him so much that he finally, and joyfully declared his faith in Christ publicly. This, along with Ambrose s preaching, increased Augustine s determination to search the scriptures continually. Alypius was his devoted friend, who wrestled with him over truth and the pursuit of wisdom. (Although interestingly, this pursuit of wisdom also caused problems, as it was a hindrance to escaping lust by marriage-- It was Alypius who prevented me from marrying, because he insisted that if I did so, we could not possibly live together in uninterrupted leisure, devoted to the pursuit of wisdom as we had long desired to do. (128) Alypius became a Christian at the same time Augustine did, and they were baptized together and together dedicated their lives to God. In this you see God used a gifted teacher, an older man, and a peer and friend in Augustine's journey. Look around you and ask, who can I be a means of helping, either as a wise counselor, as a formal discipler, or simply as a friend and encourager--with the understanding that it is always God who gives us the strength and substance that we have to offer--'if any man speaks, let him speak the very words of God; if any man serves, let him serve in the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.' God gives the strength and the help, so we can be an Ambrose, a Simplicanus, an Alypius to someone else. 4) The Example of Antony: In the summer leading up to his conversion, He and Alypius met a Christian named Ponticianus, who told them about monasteries and the desert monks. In particular, he told them the story of Antony of Egypt, whose biography had been written by Athanasius. The amazing example of Antony, and in particular. Antony s example of lifelong chastity struck Augustine at the very time that he was wrestling with what seemed to be the impossibility of ever breaking free of sexual immorality.
5) The Scriptures: Though Ambrose helped to remove Augustine's objection to the scriptures, it was the substance of the scriptures that had the greatest effect on him. All along the way, the scriptures accompanied the prayers of his mother, the friendships he had and the lives of the saints, but scripture itself had the central place of finally shattering the chain of his addiction to lust. (Consider reading the entire section from Confessions pages 176-178 to give the full context), culminating with the scripture of Romans 13:13-14: Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in lust or wantonness, not in quarrels or rivalries, rather arm yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature s appetites. He says of that word: I had no wish to read more, and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled. The final link of the chain of sin was severed in Augustine's life as the spirit moved in his heart while he read the scriptures. This was a decisive moment for him, and he left his immoral relationship behind for good. As we consider all these means of grace and how they came together in Augustine's life, it has a very practical edge for us. Sin is deadly--it robs us of joy and fruitfulness in the faith, and apart from Christ leaves us in the path of the wrath of God. We should take instruction and pray that God would use whatever means he would to draw us to Himself, and to sever the thick chain of bondage of our love of sin--whether that sin is gossip, lust, pride, anger, vanity, greed or fear. What Augustine Found Beyond all these influences, what was it that Augustine found that enabled him to definitively break with the sins of pride, lust and seeking the approval of people? It was God. In the opening page of his biography he says, Our hearts find no peace until they rest in you. (21) In his prayers, you can see that he experienced in God a sweetness of fellowship: Come O LORD and stir our hearts. Call us back to yourself. Kindle your fire in us and carry us away. Let us scent your fragrance and taste your sweetness.you, my God, who are our only certain joy. (163-64) What Augustine experienced was a love greater than he had ever known and a certain joy. God wooed him from the breakable pleasures and the half-joys of the world and enabled Augustine to find his lasting satisfaction in God. My prayer is that he might become one of the means in helping us search for that joy, like a report to a thirsty man that there is water to be found beyond the hills. Once Augustine found this joy, he sought to help others find it, too. It is a sweet thing that the son born in his sin and youth was redeemed as well, and his friend Alypius. The three of them were baptized together the following year. In all of the ministry he later pursued, I believe this was the driving force wanting to see others know God as he did. Even when he entered controversy, he labored to defeat error so that no one would be hindered in finding the precious knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. May
God enable us to so experience his love and worth that we would cling to Him as well--and become the means of drawing others into the same joy. Works Cited 1. Piper, John. The Legacy of Sovereign Joy Crossway Books, Wheaton IL, 2000. 2. Augustine, Confessions. Penguin Classics, London. 1961.
Appendix: Augustine's Debate with Pelagius on the nature of man and salvation Pelagius was a monk who believed strongly in the need to reform moral behavior. He felt that the doctrine of original sin (the idea that all are born evil and do evil by nature) gave men an excuse to sin. He wanted to emphasize that man had the power to conquer sin, and should use that power. As a result, he began teaching that man had grown sinful by following the example of our first parents, Adam and Eve. By this, he clearly denied the concept of original sin. Instead, he insisted that man was perfectible and could live a holy life, if only he would follow a good example. Pelagius understanding of the life of Jesus was this by living a perfectly holy life, Jesus countered the bad example of our parents. We therefore, by following Jesus example, could live a perfect life and be delivered from sin. (By this you can also see that he did not hold any understanding of a lasting debt or penalty for sin God simply absolved past sin in those who reformed their lives.) Augustine believed our sinful tendencies were inborn, the doctrine we call original sin. Our sinful behavior is not due, as Pelagius contended, to the bad examples of our parents. Augustine talks about sins committed even as a baby: If babies are innocent, it is not for a lack of will to do harm, but for a lack of strength.such faults are not small or unimportant, but we are tender hearted and bear with them because we know the child will grow out of them. It is clear they are not mere peccadilloes, because the same faults are intolerable in older persons (Confessions Pages 27-28). This statement made me ponder, if babies had the power to execute their will, what awful things they might be capable of! His point is, even from the earliest moments, without any example guiding them, children do evil. Therefore, we should not imagine, as Pelagius suggested, that the simple presence of the good example of Jesus is enough to save us, for we are born with sinful hearts, out of which come sinful actions. Pelagius did not realize that sin is not just what people do--it is what we are by nature. As a result his solutions were superficial. While moralistic preaching like Pelagius' always has a certain appeal because of its obvious addressing of felt problems in people's lives, it fails to go deep enough in locating the real fountain of corruption. The best such preaching can do is attempt to skim the filth off the surface, but it is not even good at doing that. We must go deeper--and further back, to the guilt that came on all men through Adam. For that reason, the apostle Paul in the book of Romans says: For the judgment following one trespass [Adam's] brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. If Christ's righteousness was merely an example and not an atoning power, Paul could not speak of the righteousness as a gift--it would be your work in learning to follow the good example of Jesus. Augustine, whose life testified of the deep power that sin is, would not let Pelagius rob the church of the gift of the gospel of the free gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ. Coincidentally, the only lasting way to achieve the sanctification that Pelagius was seeking, is also through the saving grace of the gift of Jesus Christ. The grace that saves is the grace that sanctifies.