St. Augustines Role in the Development of Christianity - Essay Example

?St. Augustine’s Role in the Development of Christianity By closely analyzing the history of the global religions, it appears quite evident that the founders and pioneers of the religions had to undergo severe trials and had to offer painful sacrifices for the growth and development of their religious belief. Their unflinching attachments and unabated passion can be witnessed by going through the noble lives of the prophets, saints and holy personalities belonging to the divergent faiths and beliefs of the world; the name of St. Augustine is also among such courageous and dauntless personalities, who devoted their life for the uplift of Christianity in his surroundings without displaying any irresoluteness in the face of hardships. St. Augustine of Hippo enjoys very respectable status in the list of the Christian saints, who had rendered exceptional services for the growth and development of the contemporary world’s largest religion i.e. Christianity. He not only dedicated his entire life for the development of Christianity, but also introduced, interpreted and elaborated the fundamental concepts of the belief in order to convey the Christ’s true message to the masses during the era when adopting and supporting Christian teachings served as taboo and forbidden act in the eyes of law and society at large. The Christians were persecuted, tortured and even killed at the hands of pagans and Jews in Africa and Rome respectively. “Christians posed a problem for Roman rulers because Christians refused to worship Roman gods. This refusal was seen as opposition to Roman rule. Some Roman rulers also used Christians as scapegoats for political and economic troubles.” (mmoloneyiths.com) Augustine was born in Numidia, North Africa in 354 A.D. It was the time when Christian faith was in its budding in the entire region. The paganism prevailed all over Africa, and the people, converted to this new faith, were looked upon with extreme suspicion and abhorrence. Being the son of a pagan father, Patricia, and devout Christian mother, Monica, the young Augustine had least interest in Christianity in his early youth. Being an energetic and carefree youth, he spent most of his time in dissipation and revelry making. Hence, he was neither interested in paganism, nor did he display any inclination towards her mother’s conversion. However, he had developed great taste for philosophy and maintained aptitude for reading. “After a rather unremarkable childhood, Augustine drifted through several philosophical systems before converting to Christianity at the age of thirty-one. At the age of nineteen, Augustine read Cicero's Hortensius, an experience that led him into the fascination with philosophical questions and methods that would remain with him throughout his life.” (ccel.org) Since St. Monica, his mother, had dedicated her life for the cause of her religion, she vehemently lamented over Augustine’s sticking to the pagan faith. Somehow, the circumstances observed astounding change, and Augustine started abhorring dissipation; eventually his social life was confined to reading and brooding. The remarkable mysterious call, inviting him to adopt the path of virtue and glory was too powerful to resist. Consequently, he embraced Manichaean faith viewing it as the right path to be followed. Somehow, his discussions with his friend Simplicianus and his mother’s insisting forced him to study the new religious doctrine. St. Ambrose of Milan played decisive role in his conversion, and he adopted Christianity not just to imitate others; rather, he entered the faith on the concrete foundations of his deep study, meditative examination and thorough analysis of the Christian teachings. Augustine has recorded the account of his conversion in his wonderful “The Confessions.” After conversion, Augustine dedicated himself for the cause of Christianity. He declared his conversion to Christianity as the outcome of countless bounties of his Lord upon him. He studied, taught and spread the basic philosophy of religion, and conveyed the message of the worship of God through his writings and works. He incurred demarcation between Christianity and the rest of the religions through his work “the City of God”, where he declared Christian faith as the holy city, while the paganism as a desecrated region of abode. He successfully threw light on the most debatable Christian notions including the concept of original sin, theology of grace, free will and others, which serve as the guiding light for the intellectual development of the future Christian generations. Additionally, his doctrine about the original sin turned out to be supportive for the spread of Christianity in Northern Africa. It was Augustine who communicated to the masses that all humans had committed several sins by disobeying the Lord in one way or the other. Since the original sin is attributed to the first parents of humans, they could not escape it even by making hard and sincere efforts. However, Holy Christ had sacrificed his life at the Cross just to seek pardon of the Lord for humans. Hence, salvation is possible not because of the good and virtuous deeds performed by the people; on the contrary, salvation is directly dependent of the blessings and mercies of the Lord upon the true followers of Jesus Christ. Thus, St. Augustine laid stress upon the absolute observing of the unconditional love for the Holy Christ in order to achieve salvation in this world as well as in the life Hereinafter. Another imperative theoretical doctrine articulated by St. Augustine is his celebrated Theory of Grace, which is quite similar to the salvation theory of Christian mythology. The doctrine seeks direct inspiration from the fundamental Christian beliefs, according to which since every human being, including the newly born child, enters the world along with the burden of sins on his back, it is just the mercies granted by Jesus that his sins would be forgiven on the Day of Judgment. “During the fourth and fifth centuries, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo emerged as staunch defenders of the Catholic faith, providing strong, and often vehement, support for ecclesiastical policies.” (Stanley, 2001) Augustine did never deny the imperative significance of performing good deeds and observing of righteousness as well. However, he did not see eye to eye with the Jewish doctrine that performing of virtuous deeds would lead humans to the lost paradise. On the contrary, Augustine declared unflinching and unabated love and reverence for the Lord and Christ as the only way to win respect and triumph in the life Hereinafter. Hence, he supports the same doctrine followed and observed by the Lutheran school of thought during sixteenth century A.D. “The corridor to personal salvation”, according to Matthews, “lies through a future of personal self-abnegation in the love of God and of neighbor. Paradoxically (that word again), to save one’s soul means abandoning all morbid preoccupation with self by immersion in self-effacing love. He who would save his soul must lose it.” (10: 39) Augustinian doctrine lays stress upon the existence of original sin and its strong connection with salvation by the grace and mercies of the Lord. The original sin, according to St. Augustine, has been transmitted to all human beings through their first parents Adam and Eve, who were seduced by the serpent. Satan, in the form of a serpent had tempted Adam and Eve to taste the fruit of forbidden tree while their dwelling in the Eden Garden. The original sin caused the fall of man from the heaven to the earthly world, which is an inferior place in comparison with the heaven, the first abode of the humans. Since the original sin has been transmitted to the generations of Adam and Eve, no human being is free from the natural tendency of committing sins, which is actually the outcome of the original sin committed by the first humans. “Man’s nature”, according to Augustine, “indeed was created at first faultless and without any sin; but that nature of man in which every one is born from Adam, now wants the physician, because it is not sound. All good qualities, no doubt, which it still possesses in its make, life, senses, intellect, it has of the most High God, its Creator and Maker.” (City of God; III) Augustine served as priest, bishop and teacher at the churches of Milan and Hippo. He laid stress upon leading simple, modest and virtuous life along with having strong belief in God and Christ. He asked his followers and students to adopt the chaste ways of life according to the true spirit of the religion. St. Augustine communicated to the people the Biblical teachings, and urged them to seek the Scriptures provided they were not clear on any issue. REFERENCES: Augustine, St. (2004) The City of God. Kissinger Publishing New York Chadwick, Henry. (2003) The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great. Oxford Printing Press New York Stanley, Joseph F. (2001) Cognate Fathers of the Church: Grace, Original Sin, and the Possibility of Sinlessness in the Anti-Pelagian Works of Jerome and Augustine (Quoted in http://www.binghamton.edu/history/resources/bjoh/Stanley_CognateFathers.htm) Christian Classical Ethereal Library St. Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church (Quoted in http://www.ccel.org/a/augustine/) The Rise of Christianity Retrieved in http://mmoloneyiths.com/text/6-3-christianity.pdf Read More