Augustine (354-430): The hinge between ancient and medieval. Platonic Christianity. The inner life as the primary theater of God's action. Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee. Conversion. Confession. Memory. Will. Grace. The City of God vs. the City of Man — the two kingdoms. Original sin as the theological foundation of Western Christianity. The Fall not just mythic but ontological — human nature wounded at its root. Neoplatonism baptized into Christianity through Augustine. Plotinus became the philosophical air the medieval church breathed. Without Augustine: no medieval theology. Without Augustine: no Western understanding of the interior life. Without Augustine: no Reformation — Luther was an Augustinian monk.
In his youth he was drawn to the Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386 by Saint Ambrose, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives.[24] Augustine made extensive and varied contributions to theology. He is known as Doctor Gratiae ("Doctor of Grace") for the vast influence of his views on the necessity of unmerited, prevenient grace, for salvation and the nature of original sin.[25] His ideas on free will and just war theory have also been highly influential.
Additionally, he made important contributions in ecclesiology, noting the validity of sacraments regardless of the merit of the celebrant against the views of the Donatists.[26] In his book The City of God, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City, distinct from the material Earthly City, against the backdrop of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.[27] His other notable works include On the Trinity, On Christian Doctrine, and the Confessions, the latter of which was the first Western autobiography and remains a widely read work in the Western literary canon.[28]
In late August of 386,[b] at the age of 31, having heard of Ponticianus's and his friends' first reading of the life of Anthony of the Desert, Augustine converted to Christianity. As Augustine later told it, his conversion was prompted by hearing a child's voice say "take up and read" (Latin: tolle, lege). Resorting to the sortes biblicae, he opened a book of St. Paul's writings (Confessiones 8.12.29) at random and read Romans 13:13–14: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof."[74]
He later wrote an account of his conversion in his Confessions (Latin: Confessiones), which has since become a classic of Christian theology and a key text in the history of autobiography. This work is an outpouring of thanksgiving and penitence. Although it is written as an account of his life, the Confessions also talks about the nature of time, causality, free will, and other important philosophical topics. The following is taken from that work:
Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odours and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.[