Life and sources

Augustine was born in 354 in Thagasta (in what is now Algeria), the son of a Christian mother and a pagan father in North Africa. He studied rhetoric in Carthage, acquiring a profound knowledge of classical Latin literature, especially Cicero and Virgil. He became a gifted teacher of literature in Carthage, Rome and Milan. From 373 onwards, Augustine, “living outside of himself,” alienated from God who was “more inward than his most inward part,” as he recalled later in his Confessions (Confess. III.6 [11]), was drawn into the circles of Manichaeism. The term Manichaeism is derived from Mani (ad 216–76), a Persian, who founded this Gnostic religion. It was an extremely dualistic world-view with a very negative evaluation of matter, body and sexuality. The followers of the Manichean religion were divided into two classes: the elect, who had to remain celibate, and the auditors (or hearers) who were allowed sexual intercourse as long as it did not lead to offspring (for procreation contributed to the imprisonment of souls into the physical world). Augustine became an auditor in the Manichean religion, much to the heartbreak of his mother. After nine years, Augustine grew disillusioned with Manichaeism. In 383 he travelled to Rome, and it was here, at the age of thirty, that he gradually abandoned Manichean views, lapsing into a period of skepticism (Confess. V.10 [19]).

While in Milan, Augustine was to encounter a person who left an indelible mark on him: St. Ambrose, the local bishop. It was Ambrose who was to draw Augustine closer to the Catholic faith. What was of particular significance, Augustine informs us, was the ways in which Ambrose interpreted the Scriptures. Once Ambrose demonstrated that difficult passages from the Old Testament can be legitimately interpreted figuratively, one of the main objections Augustine had harbored for so long against the Catholic faith vanished. He then decided to become a catechumen in the Catholic Church. It was at this time that Augustine, still searching for truth, discovered Neoplatonic philosophy. This, too, was to have a major formative impact on Augustine’s intellectual outlook.