Why Did Augustine Convert? Essay

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Saint Augustine's conversion, as recounted in his Confessions

This paper will explore the factors leading to Saint Augustine's conversion. This conversion was believed to be the result of an ultimate battle of sexual desire with spirit.

Augustine Biography Info

Augustine of Hippo was born on November 13, in AD 354, in Thagaste (modern day Souk Ahras, Algeria), and died on August 28, in AD 430, in modern-day Annaba, Algeria (then known as Hippo Regius). It was in the latter city where he was named Bishop 35 years prior to his death. It is a challenge to encapsulate renowned personalities, and with St. Augustine, this task is even more difficult (Augustine of Hippo).

A theologian and philosopher, Augustine dithered between an earlier, positive Hellenistic outlook, and a pessimistic Christian outlook later on in his life. Shifting from one extreme to another, Augustine accommodated several diverse disciplines and philosophies into his comprehensive yearning to understand a world which seemed so beset with loss, trouble and discord, in theory as well as practice. Therefore, one of Augustine's most admired traits, and inventive elements of his written documents, is that he could connect diverging characteristics of the four Hellenistic schools of philosophy (Platonists, Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics) with various Christian ideological doctrines.

Between Skeptic influences in Rome's New Academy to the influence of Ambrose, The Bishop of Milan, Augustine was drifting swiftly away from Manichaeism, to the onset of his grand conversion (Augustine of Hippo). Above all, reading and examining the biography of Anthony of Egypt was the final impetus he needed to wholly embrace Christianity, give up his imminent arranged marriage (which aroused in him feelings of pain and conflict, owing to a lost lover), and relinquish a life of privilege and a budding rhetoric career. A small child's voice inspired his conversion. Confessions, a work by Augustine relates his tale of conversion.

Summary of Confessions

The very first autobiography recorded in the literature of the West is The Confessions, by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine intended for this book to be more than just a life story. It was written in the first three years of Augustine's tenure as a Bishop. The title 'Confessions' indicates that the work will allow readers to unearth intimate information on him, and will also be driven by a feeling of remorse and God's praise (Saint Augustine: The Confessions).

Book I elucidates Augustine's early years, up to fifteen years of age. He confesses that he preferred self-indulgence to studying in his teenage years. Book II reveals his initial hunt of sexual gratification. At around 16 years of age, Augustine quit schooling, began pursuing women, and even took to thievery. Book III describes Augustine's life at age 19, when he began living in Carthage. Though his hobby of pursuing women was still dominant, he also embarked on his journey into Manichaeism. Book IV portrays nine years of his life, wherein he finished studying and became an author (one publication of his is on Aristotle).

All through the years depicted in books V through VII, Augustine struggles with his sexual desire, as opposed to his pure spirit, resulting from his studies and his travels. Book VIII explains his entering the fold of Christianity. In Book IX, Augustine is shown to consider quitting teaching. Also, tragedy engulfs his life, with the passing of two close friends of his, followed by his mother, Monica's death. Book X elucidates Augustine's meditation on the way to reach God and attain happiness in life (Saint Augustine: The Confessions).

Subsequently, Book XI shows his earnest study of the Bible, allowing him to discuss time's nature. Eventually, this leads Augustine to the desire to teach regarding God's goodness and God's aims for this world.

Reasons for Conversion

Firstly, drawing from the facts revealed in the previous section, it is completely wrong to jump to the conclusion that Augustine's renowned struggle towards religion was a battle with sin. Those who read The Confessions can recall how he was intellectually ready to enter the church. Augustine had a few years before discarding his blasphemous leanings towards Manichaeism during his youth, blaming it upon suspicious hierarchic disorders and scientific difficulties, as impulsive youngsters today claim.

However, there were two broad barriers separating him from Christianity: 1) he couldn't envision anything spiritual; 2) he couldn't accept the Old Testament's crude tales (McCabe, 1902). Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, obliterated the second obstacle by proving to Augustine via sermons that one need not take the Old Testament literally.

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However, he couldn't do away with the first barrier, and it can be said to be in Augustine's favor that Ambrose couldn't attempt it, and was incompetent in this philosophical aspect.

However, Augustine was lucky enough to be introduced to a few recently-translated Neo-Platonic books, which helped him traverse the first barrier. It is likely that Augustine had come across Plotinus' "Enneads." For all events, Nourisson and Grandgeorge trace almost all his "Platonic" philosophies to Porphyry and Plotinus. It was then that he was inducted into a Platonic world of absolute and spiritual yet electrifying realities- beauty, truth, virtue, etc. On traversing the final barrier to Christianity, Augustine submitted wholly, with absolute faith, to St. Paul. From here began his intense moral struggle, culminating with the famous scene in the garden (McCabe, 1902).

Another aspect to bother Augustine was uncertainty. Taught to conduct skeptical and philosophical analysis, it was to be expected that he would face problems with the notion of something not material existing in space. Though every religion today views God this way, in Augustine's time, the concept was new, therefore particularly challenging. Augustine was led into an intellectual dilemma while trying to defend this notion by way of purely skeptical and philosophical rigor.

He continued picturing God as numerous immaterial things (breath, sunlight, etc.), but now admits that he ought not to have attempted at picturing God. Ironically, he remarks that had he contemplated concepts like thoughts and thinking (which are real, yet immaterial), he could have resolved this issue earlier. Augustine claims to have his first actual vision of the Lord after perusing some Neo-platonist literature.

He states in his Confessions that he entered and using his soul's eye, saw above it "the immutable light" higher than his mind. He claims that it wasn't light as we see it every day, nor was it a bigger version of it, which would have emitted a much more luminous light, filling all with its intensity. Augustine, during this time, encountered the astrologer, Firminus, with whom he discusses astrology.

The disparities of two children (one rich and the other a slave) with identical horoscopes, born at the very same moment in the very same town, in particular, led Augustine to the conclusion that astrology was a hoax. Neoplatonist literature opened Augustine to Christianity. In consideration of strict Christians' feelings, Augustine carefully notes that Neoplatonist writings are incorrect in that they didn't proclaim Christ as God in human form (the Word made flesh).

Nevertheless, his admiration of Neoplatonic ideas makes him write that reading Neoplatonic books was similar to reading the Book of Genesis. Manichaeism is seen to be a questionable theory, compared with Neoplatonism's simplicity and rigor. Augustine was especially attracted to the Neoplatonist idea that God forms the source of everything.

Though Neoplatonists were essentially pagan, their philosophies were the best Augustine had ever come across. This observation led him to revert to the concept of 'evil' in Neoplatonists' view: evil doesn't exist as a standalone thing. It merely constitutes the lowest step on a ladder which has God at its very top. Everything created by God has some good attribute; however, the lower a thing is on this ladder of being, the more is its inclination towards evil.

At this stage, Augustine considered human evil as denial of God's true existence, rather than as some substance (which was the Manichaean view). Humans were accorded free will for turning away from, or towards, God; evil merely denotes the perverseness of those who turn away from their Creator. Thus, an effect was observed.

However, the concept of revelation was what did it, in case of Augustine. Among the most significant and potent paragraphs in The Confessions is one which narrates man's journey towards wholeness. Book VIII relates the scene occurring Augustine's garden in July of 386, in Milan.

He was ill, and felt as though his life had no direction. He didn't want to continue teaching and was looking to give up his worldly dreams of a splendid career. All through his book, Augustine is shown to be battling two opposite forces, spirituality and sexual cravings; here, in his garden, he wages that battle one last time. He writes from a gap of 14 years, clearly casting his struggle in terms of Neoplatonic philosophy, where, for being truly free, an individual should choose the soul's interior world, abandoning his senses' distractions. In his garden, Augustine finally reached a decision, which forever ended.....

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