القديس اوغسطين .. كتاب المائة الأوائل

Saint Augustine

ST. AUGUSTINE

354-430 AD

Augustine lived during the years of decline and fall of the Roman Empire and was the greatest theologian of that era. His writings influenced religious doctrines and attitudes during the Middle Ages to this day.

Augustine was born in 354 in the city of Tagasti (now called Souk Ahras in Algeria). His father was a pagan, but his mother was a fervent Christian, so he was not baptized as a child.

His intelligence was apparent when he was a teenager, and at the age of sixteen he was sent to Carthage to study, and there he took a concubine for him and had an illegitimate child. At nineteen, he decided to study philosophy, and soon he turned to the (German) religion, which is the Persian (Mani) religion. At first, he did not like the Christian religion, but rather he clung to German because he believed that Christianity was mentally uninteresting. When he was twenty-nine, he moved to Rome and then to Milan in northern Italy, where he became a professor of rhetoric and rhetoric.

The bishop of Milan at that time was Saint Ambrose. Augustine listened to some of his sermons, which introduced him to a new, polished look, not with Christianity. At the thirty-second Augustine converted to Christianity, the suspicious man became one of the most enthusiastic and loyal supporters of Christianity. In the year 387 he was baptized by St. Ambrose, after which he returned to his homeland, Algeria.

In the year 391 he became an assistant to Bishop Hippo, and after five years the bishop died, and Augustine, at the age of forty-two, became bishop of the city of Hippo, and he remained in this position throughout his life. and with | That city. Small, but the intelligence of Augustine and his mind seemed clear to everyone and he became one of the prominent leaders of the church, and although his structure was weak, he was able, with the help of a writer, to compose a number of religious writings, and about 500 of his sermons have survived to this day, in addition to about 200 of his letters. He wrote it because the two greatest books are (The City of God) and (Confessions) and the last one, which was one of the most enjoyable personal biographies he wrote when he was in his forties.


Many of Augustine's letters and sermons were criticism and refutation of the (German) religion and all the dissident Christian sects, and his intense argument with the Pelagians (an infidel Christian sect in those days) constituted part of Augustine's religious doctrine.

Pelagius was an English monk who came to Rome in the year 400, and there he presented interesting theological doctrines. He declared that every human being is without sin, and we are free to choose good or evil through good living and good deeds, and the individual can obtain salvation by himself.

But through Augustine's writings and his influence, Pelagius was declared an infidel and excommunicated after he was expelled from Rome. According to Augustine's views, all human beings are stained with Adam's sin, and humanity cannot obtain salvation by its own good deeds, but by virtue and grace. God only. There were ideas similar to Augustine's ideas before, but Augustine fixed these ideas in Christian beliefs.

In fact, St. Augustine's views on sex had a great impact on medieval attitudes towards sex. Augustine decided, after converting to Christianity, to turn away from sex. He once wrote, saying: "Nothing should be avoided like sex and sexual relations." Difficult for Saint Augustine, but his personal struggle to abstain from sexual relations and his personal views on this subject were accurately described in his book (Confessions).

The Roman Empire was descending into the abyss of fall during the life of St. Augustine. His writings were the means of entering and transferring much of Greek philosophy to Europe in the Middle Ages, especially Neoplatonism. And we hear through his sayings the famous Greek phrases of Descartes: (I think, therefore I exist). Augustine was the last Christian theologian before the advent of the Dark Middle Ages. His writings remained influential throughout the Middle Ages.

Many famous clergymen were influenced by his writings, such as St. Thomas Aconias, Luther and Calvin.

Augustine died in Hippo in 430 AD. AD in the seventy-sixth and the barbarian Vandal tribes were besieging the city of Hippo at his death and they burned the city, but Augustine's cathedral and his library survived the burning.