Christian History Home > Issue 28 > 386 Augustine Converts to Christianity
386 Augustine Converts to Christianity
A brilliant, profligate professor of rhetoric became the church's leading theologian for centuries to come.
posted 10/01/1990 12:00AM
“Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.” That was the prayer of a man who was flirting with Christianity, but who was also flirting with a lot of other things. Yet he became one of the greatest, most influential authors the church has ever known.
Who was this complex man? He was Augustinus Aurelius, better known as Augustine. Born in 354 in Tagaste (in what is now Algeria), Augustine had a devout Christian mother named Monica. His pagan father, Patricius, was a Roman official.
Augustine was brilliant, so his parents arranged for the best schooling. He studied rhetoric—persuasive speech—in Carthage. Reading Latin authors such as Cicero convinced him that truth is life’s supreme goal. He couldn’t find truth in Christianity because he saw it as a religion for the simple-minded. In his teens, Augustine took a mistress—a concubine—who bore him a son. In his later Confessions he wrote, “I came to Carthage, where a cauldron of unholy loves was sizzling and crackling around me.”
Restlessness
Augustine’s ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
|
If you ARE a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please login:
| |
If you are NOT a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please click here to see our membership options. As a member, you will be able to have access to all of the content on ChristianHistory.net.
|
|
Browse More ChristianHistory.net
Home | Browse by Topic | Browse by Period | The Past in the Present | Books & Resources
| |
|
