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Augustine of Hippo born 13 November 354 – died 28 August 430.


He was an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings including The City of God and Confessions influenced the development of Western Christianity and  philosophy.  
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| [[File:augustineh.jpg|center|thumb|Augustine of Hippo, Hero or heretic?]]
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| [[Augustine of Hippo]] is said to believe that love can only grow, "In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?" '''In the absence of justice, either love or tyranny shall grow.''' If you do not pursue the diligent practice of sowing the good seed<Ref name="good">'''Sowing good seed'''
: [[Matthew 13]]:24 ¶  Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The [[kingdom of heaven]] is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26  But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27  So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28  He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29  But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30  Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn... [[Matthew 13]]:38  The field is the [[world]]([[2889]]); the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked [one];  39  The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world([[165age]]); and the reapers are the angels.
: Acts 20:30  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them... 31  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
: Galatians 2:4  And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into [[bondage]]:
: 2 Timothy 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure [[Sound Doctrine]]; but after their own [[lusts]] shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4  And they shall turn away [their] ears from the [[truth]], and shall be turned unto [[fables]]. 5  But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
: Hebrews 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you], and thereby many be defiled;
: 2 Peter 2:1 ¶  But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in [[damnable heresies]], even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
: 2 Corinthians 11:13  For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14  And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15  Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their [[works]].
: 1 Peter 5:8 ¶  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
: [[Revelation 2]]:20  Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit [[fornication]], and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
: [[Revelation 12]]:9  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and [[Satan]], which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
: Revelation 13:14  And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by [the means of] those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
: Jeremiah 6:25  Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy [and] fear [is] on every side.
: Luke 19:43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,... 30 [[Reprobate]] silver shall [men] call them, because the LORD hath rejected them."</Ref> of [[faith]], [[hope]], and [[charity]] in society, then the ''enemy'' will sow the seeds of [[fear]], [[force]], and [[fealty]].
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| '''Audio Broadcasts'''
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| Recording #1 This episode of the ''portals of faith'' starts talking about purposes of [[feasts]] and the distraction of a ''doctrinal checklists'', good and evil, light and dark and other [[Mysteries of the Universe]] and first mentions [[predestination]]. Were the Augustines opening the door or closing it with [[false religion]] and [[idolatry]].
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| [http://www.hisholychurch.net/audio/190720augustine03.mp3 Download Recording #1 ] or press play <html><audio controls src="http://www.hisholychurch.net/audio/190720augustine03.mp3"></audio></html>
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|Recording #2 An examination of Augustine of Hippo, his life, his words and his allegiance. Mention links to the [[Moneychangers]], [[Pure Religion]], [[Tens]], [[Corban]], [[kingdom of God]], [[Welfare]]  and [[covetous practices]].
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| [http://www.hisholychurch.net/audio/190720august04.mp3 Download Recording #2 ] or press play <html><audio controls src="http://www.hisholychurch.net/audio/190720august04.mp3"></audio></html>
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|}


He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity in the Patristic Era. But was he of the [[Church]] established by [[Christ]] or the one established by [[Constantine]]?
== Augustine of Hippo ==
 
[[Augustine of Hippo]] born 13 November 354 in the town of Thagaste in the Roman Empire, on the northern coast of we call Algeria today. His father a ''decurio''<Ref>A decurio, plural decuriones, in ancient Rome, the head of a group of 10. The title had two applications, one civil, the other military. In the first usage decurio was applied to a member of the local council or senate of a colonia. A decurion (Latin: decurio, plural decuriones) was a Roman cavalry officer in command of a squadron (turma) of cavalrymen in the Roman army. During the Roman Republic a "Polybian" legion (c. 300–88 BC) of citizen-levies had a cavalry complement of 300 horse, divided into 10 turmae (squadrons) </Ref> working as an official of the Roman Empire named Patricius. in 384, Augustine moved to Milan, where he was influenced by Bishop [[Ambrose]] who would eventually baptize him in 387. A few years later he returned to Thagaste, where he supposedly lived in what some have called a ''quasi-monastic community'' on his families estate. By 395 he became a Bishop of Hippo which was about 60 miles from Thagaste.
 
Augustine functioned as a [[bishop]] of the Church in which he was baptized. [[Donatists]] and what became Catholics developed a number of conflicts which are often poorly understood, often because people do not understand the [[Eucharist]] in the [[early Church]], the practice of [[Pure Religion]] and the difference between the [[daily ministration]] of the [[Corban of Christ]] and the [[Corban]] of the [[Pharisees]].
 
Augustine died 28 August 430 while his city was under siege by Vandals, Moors, and even persecuted [[Donatists]].<Ref>Donatism was a heresy leading to schism in the Church of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. [[Donatists]] argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid</Ref>
 
=== His written works ===
 
 
His works are the ''Confessions'', ''City of God'', and ''The [[Trinity]]''. He was an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher who influenced the development of [[modern Christian]]ity and  philosophy.
 
He may not have meant what many conclude as his intent and [[private interpretation|interpreted]] contrary to his original intent in meaning.
He wrote thousands of letters but was not without critics.
 
Julian of Eclanum was the most vigorous opponent of Augustine. He even wrote eight books in defense of Pelagianism which was directly against Augustine.
 
== Social Justice ==
 
Some claim that the concept of ''[[social justice]]'' can be traced through the theology of [[Augustine of Hippo]] and the philosophy of Thomas Paine but which ''concept'' of ''social justice'' are they referring to?
 
While Augustine  never used the term ''social justice'' his "vita socialis" can be "understood as residing in neighbourly love, grounded in his understanding of the common origin of humanity." <Ref>Chiba, Shin (1995). "Hannah Arendt on Love and the Political: Love, Friendship, and Citizenship". The Review of Politics. 57 (3): 505–535 [507]. doi:10.1017/S0034670500019720. JSTOR 1408599</Ref>
 
He believed that society ran on [[love]] and "What does love look like?
 
It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."
 
The idea of using the power of government to [[force]] the outcome of [[equity]] by taking from one group to provide for another would be in opposition to [[John the Baptist]], [[Christ]], the [[warnings]] of the [[apostles]] and [[Prophets]] to say nothing of the whole Bible and justice itself.
 
Christopher Dawson wrote that Augustine was “He was to a far greater degree than any emperor or barbarian warlord, a maker of history and a builder of the bridge which was to lead from the old world to the new.”<Ref> Christopher Dawson St. Augustine and His Age</Ref>
 
But was he a builder of "A bridge too far"<Ref>"A bridge too far", an idiom inspired by Operation Market Garden, meaning an act of overreaching. </Ref> Did his lack of understanding of the whole [[gospel of the kingdom]] cause him to reach beyond the role of the Church and even some times take his followers in the wrong direction?
 
He was certainly influenced by the teaching of his mother who has been seen as a devout Christian. He neglected her hopes and disappointed her prayers with an indulgent life of immorality claiming "I polluted the brook of friendship with the sewage of lust". He once prayed, “Make me chaste, but not yet.”<Ref>Confessions VIII.vii.</Ref> His own obsession with sexuality and its temptations caused him to connect the original sin with sexual act as the instrument of the transgression.
 
Pelagianism<Ref>Pelagianism, also called Pelagian heresy, is the Christian theological position that the original sin did not taint human nature and mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special divine aid or assistance.</Ref> proposed the original ''sin did not taint human nature'' and  was formally condemned at the Council of Ephesus. Augustine’s opinions were not condemned at that time because they were not widely known.
 
Augustine argued against Pelagius’ views, but his writings were opposed in many [[Monasticism|monastic circles]]. Objections included his doctrines of the total depravity of fallen man which seems to be total black and white of what people would call Manichaeism<Ref name="Manichaeism"></Ref>
 
He also seemed to take away individual freewill with the effects of "irresistible grace" which brings in ideas of an absolute [[predestination]] which undoes Christ references to the importance of [[works]] and merit. Certainly we are saved by grace but it is our works, what we do, that lets us know if our faith is real or false.
 
What we see with Augustine and his writings is creeping doctrines that draw people from faith in [[The Way]].
 
 
== Hate Speech ==
 
* "Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon, But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others."
 
This quote from one of Augustine's homilies even-though it is from Jesus Christ's command in [[Matthew 7]]:1-6 <Ref>Matthew 7:1 ¶  Judge not, that ye be not judged. was band from Facebook as hate speech. 2  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye? 5  Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. 6  Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.</Ref> and we see the same in Luke 6:41-42<Ref>Luke 6:41  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42  Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.</Ref> to say nothing of John 8.<Ref>[[John 8]]:7  So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8  And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9  And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] [[conscience]], went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.</Ref>
 
Much of what he said may have been good but the truth may be missed when we interpret his words unless we hold it up in the light of the [[Sound Doctrine]] of Jesus, who was the [[Christ]].
 
He was the [[bishop]] of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church ''Fathers in Western Christianity'' in the Patristic Era. But was he of the [[Church]] established by [[Christ]] or the one established by [[Constantine]]?


* “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”  Augustine of Hippo  
* “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”  Augustine of Hippo  
* “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Augustine of Hippo  
* “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Augustine of Hippo  
* “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” Augustine of Hippo  
* “God has promised forgiveness to your [[repent]]ance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” Augustine of Hippo  
* “Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”  Augustine of Hippo  
* “Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”  Augustine of Hippo  


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According to his contemporary, [[Jerome]], Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith"
According to his contemporary, [[Jerome]], Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith"


Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination.  His ''"Paul of Tarsus"'', has caused many Westerners to see Paul through his eyes. Augustine was legally Roman but his mother was Berber.  He abandoned Christianity in his youth, studying rhetoric, philosophy, and Manichaeism.  He eventually abandoned his relationship, moving to Rome to start a school and finally to Milan to serve the court as a professor of rhetoric.
Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination.  His ''"Paul of Tarsus"'', has caused many Westerners to see Paul through his eyes. Augustine was legally Roman but his mother was Berber.  He abandoned Christianity in his youth, studying rhetoric, philosophy, and Manichaeism<Ref name="Manichaeism">[[Manichaeism]] was a major religion founded by the Iranian prophet Mani in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness.</Ref>.  He eventually abandoned his relationship, moving to Rome to start a school and finally to Milan to serve the court as a professor of rhetoric.


He sought to join an order of the Manichaean religion which was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism.
He sought to join an order of the Manichaean<Ref name="Manichaeism"></Ref> religion which was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism.


His sexual exploits and mistress of 15 years who he fathered a child outside the bonds of marriage, were set aside so he could marry a child bride who was an heiress. Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan where he came to see [[Ambrose]] of Milan. Although Augustine accepted this mother's marriage arrangements he was deeply pained by the loss of his concubine. He wrote, "My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding."  
His sexual exploits and mistress of 15 years who he fathered a child outside the bonds of marriage, were set aside so he could marry a child bride who was an heiress. Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan where he came to see [[Ambrose]] of Milan. Although Augustine accepted this mother's marriage arrangements he was deeply pained by the loss of his concubine. He wrote, "My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding."  
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Augustine confessed that he was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, so he procured another concubine since he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age for she was only 10 years old at the time.  It was during those 2 years that he decided to become a celibate priest instead like [[Ambrose]].
Augustine confessed that he was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, so he procured another concubine since he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age for she was only 10 years old at the time.  It was during those 2 years that he decided to become a celibate priest instead like [[Ambrose]].


In 387, [[Ambrose]] baptized Augustine. He was ordained as a priest. Within four years, he was ordained to the episcopate off the church established by [[Constantine]] and served as Bishop of Hippo until his death in 430.  
In 387, [[Ambrose]] baptized Augustine. He was ordained as a priest. Within four years, he was ordained to the episcopate of the church established by [[Constantine]] and served as Bishop of Hippo until his death in 430.  


Augustine lived a life of aristocratic leisure at his family's property until his mother and eventually, his son died. He then gave much of his wealth to the poor and started a monastery for his followers after being ordained in 391 as a priest in Hippo Regius, in Algeria. But understanding the differences between [[Ambrose]] the Church of [[Constantine]] and the [[early Church]] is important in deciphering the validity of the teachings and writings of Augustine of Hippo and even [[Augustine of Canterbury]].
Augustine lived a life of aristocratic leisure at his family's property until his mother and eventually, his son died. He then gave much of his wealth to the poor and started a monastery for his followers after being ordained in 391 as a priest in Hippo Regius, in Algeria. But understanding the differences between [[Ambrose]] the Church of [[Constantine]] and the [[early Church]] is important in deciphering the validity of the teachings and writings of Augustine of Hippo and even [[Augustine of Canterbury]].
"This terrible doctrine of [[predestination]] was taken up again in various forms at various ages by Cathars, Albigenses, Calvinists and Jansenists, and was also to play a curious part in the theological struggles of Kepler and Galileo.
Again, there are countless redeeming aspects, ambiguities and contradictions in Augustine’s writings, such as his passionate pleading against the death penalty and judicial torture; his repeated affirmation that Omnis natura, inquantum natura est, bonum est;<Ref name="omnins">"All nature, insofar as nature is, it is good." "All nature, in as much as it is nature, is good."</Ref> it may even be said that ”[[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] was not an Augustinian”. " The Sleepwalkers, A history of man’s changing vision of the Universe, by Arthur Koestler
Augustine was one of the most influential church writers of the earlier Middle Ages but his survival as that writer was because he was a major promoter of the Papacy. He promoted not only the divine right of kings in his own way but he also endowed the Papacy with authority and channeled it power to make rules over all monastic life in contradiction to the rule of Christ. In the [[gospel of the kingdom]] the idea of exercising authority one over the other was forbidden by Christ when he told them "But ye shall not be so."<Ref>Matthew 20:25  But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
: Mark 10:42  But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
: Luke 22:25  And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.</Ref>
== Quotes from Augustine of Hippo ==
* "Sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye. The blindness is an evil or defect which is a witness to the fact that the eye was created to see the light and, hence, the very lack of sight is the proof that the eye was meant...to be the one particularly capable of seeing the light. Were it not for this capacity, there would be no reason to think of blindness as a misfortune." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "How stupid man is to be unable to restrain feelings in suffering the human lot! That was my state at that time. So I boiled with anger, sighed, wept, and was at my wits’ end. I found no calmness, no capacity for deliberation. I carried my lacerated and bloody soul when it was unwilling to be carried by me. I found no place where I could put it down. There was no rest in pleasant groves, nor in games or songs, nor in sweet-scented places, nor in exquisite feasts, nor in the pleasures of the bedroom and bed, nor, finally, in books and poetry." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
* "So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "This is pride when the soul abandons Him to Whom it ought to cleave as its end and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "The earthly [city] has made for herself, according to her heart's desire, false gods out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices. The heavenly one, on the other hand, living like a wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to Him." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "To confess, then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine)
* "Love the sinner and hate the sin." — Augustine of Hippo
* "...Though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
* "The deformity of Christ forms you. If he had not willed to be deformed, you would not have recovered the form which you had lost. Therefore he was deformed when he hung on the cross. But his deformity is our comeliness. In this life, therefore, let us hold fast to the deformed Christ." — Augustine of Hippo
* "However alarming, however distressing self-knowledge may be, better that than the tremendous evils of self-ignorance."--Caird." — Augustine of Hippo
* "THE WORLD IS A BOOK AND THOSE WHO DO NOT TRAVEL READ ONLY A PAGE" — Augustine of Hippo
* "Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
* "Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses find pleasing. For things we are attached to go where they will, then they cease, leaving the lover torn with corrupted longings." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version)
* "For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity." — Augustine of Hippo
* "Omnis natura, inquantum natura est, bonum est." <Ref name="omnins"></Ref>— Augustine of Hippo
* "O Lord our God, under the shadow of Your wings let us hope in Your custody. Carry us when we are little. Bear us when our hair is white and we cry out in infirmity. When You grasp us, the grip is firm. When we try to sustain ourselves, the grasp is feeble. The only good we can know rests in You. When we turn from the good, You push us aside until we return. Oh, Lord, turn us, lest we be overturned. Be the good in us that is not corrupted. You are our incorruptible good. In You we do not fear that there will be no home to return to if we wander off. While we are away, You preserve our mansion with a patience that stretches into eternity."  — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version)
* "Those who ask ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?’ are still steeped in error which they should have discarded." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
* "But every one of these qualities are gifts of my God: I did not give them to myself. They are good qualities, and their totality is my self. Therefore he who made me is good, and he is my good, and I exult to him, for all the good things that I was even as a boy." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
* "I think I have now, by God's help, discharged my obligation in writing this large work.  Let those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God.  Amen." — Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine of Hippo: The City of God)
* "The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine)
* "When we transform our old life and give our spirit a new image, we find it hard and tiring to turn back from the darkness of earthly passions to the serene calm of the divine light. We thus ask God to help us that a complete conversion may be brought about in us." — Augustine of Hippo
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Latest revision as of 03:55, 21 November 2024

Augustine of Hippo, Hero or heretic?
Augustine of Hippo is said to believe that love can only grow, "In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?" In the absence of justice, either love or tyranny shall grow. If you do not pursue the diligent practice of sowing the good seed[1] of faith, hope, and charity in society, then the enemy will sow the seeds of fear, force, and fealty.
Audio Broadcasts
Recording #1 This episode of the portals of faith starts talking about purposes of feasts and the distraction of a doctrinal checklists, good and evil, light and dark and other Mysteries of the Universe and first mentions predestination. Were the Augustines opening the door or closing it with false religion and idolatry.
Download Recording #1 or press play
Recording #2 An examination of Augustine of Hippo, his life, his words and his allegiance. Mention links to the Moneychangers, Pure Religion, Tens, Corban, kingdom of God, Welfare and covetous practices.
Download Recording #2 or press play

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo born 13 November 354 in the town of Thagaste in the Roman Empire, on the northern coast of we call Algeria today. His father a decurio[2] working as an official of the Roman Empire named Patricius. in 384, Augustine moved to Milan, where he was influenced by Bishop Ambrose who would eventually baptize him in 387. A few years later he returned to Thagaste, where he supposedly lived in what some have called a quasi-monastic community on his families estate. By 395 he became a Bishop of Hippo which was about 60 miles from Thagaste.

Augustine functioned as a bishop of the Church in which he was baptized. Donatists and what became Catholics developed a number of conflicts which are often poorly understood, often because people do not understand the Eucharist in the early Church, the practice of Pure Religion and the difference between the daily ministration of the Corban of Christ and the Corban of the Pharisees.

Augustine died 28 August 430 while his city was under siege by Vandals, Moors, and even persecuted Donatists.[3]

His written works

His works are the Confessions, City of God, and The Trinity. He was an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher who influenced the development of modern Christianity and philosophy.

He may not have meant what many conclude as his intent and interpreted contrary to his original intent in meaning. He wrote thousands of letters but was not without critics.

Julian of Eclanum was the most vigorous opponent of Augustine. He even wrote eight books in defense of Pelagianism which was directly against Augustine.

Social Justice

Some claim that the concept of social justice can be traced through the theology of Augustine of Hippo and the philosophy of Thomas Paine but which concept of social justice are they referring to?

While Augustine never used the term social justice his "vita socialis" can be "understood as residing in neighbourly love, grounded in his understanding of the common origin of humanity." [4]

He believed that society ran on love and "What does love look like?

It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

The idea of using the power of government to force the outcome of equity by taking from one group to provide for another would be in opposition to John the Baptist, Christ, the warnings of the apostles and Prophets to say nothing of the whole Bible and justice itself.

Christopher Dawson wrote that Augustine was “He was to a far greater degree than any emperor or barbarian warlord, a maker of history and a builder of the bridge which was to lead from the old world to the new.”[5]

But was he a builder of "A bridge too far"[6] Did his lack of understanding of the whole gospel of the kingdom cause him to reach beyond the role of the Church and even some times take his followers in the wrong direction?

He was certainly influenced by the teaching of his mother who has been seen as a devout Christian. He neglected her hopes and disappointed her prayers with an indulgent life of immorality claiming "I polluted the brook of friendship with the sewage of lust". He once prayed, “Make me chaste, but not yet.”[7] His own obsession with sexuality and its temptations caused him to connect the original sin with sexual act as the instrument of the transgression.

Pelagianism[8] proposed the original sin did not taint human nature and was formally condemned at the Council of Ephesus. Augustine’s opinions were not condemned at that time because they were not widely known.

Augustine argued against Pelagius’ views, but his writings were opposed in many monastic circles. Objections included his doctrines of the total depravity of fallen man which seems to be total black and white of what people would call Manichaeism[9]

He also seemed to take away individual freewill with the effects of "irresistible grace" which brings in ideas of an absolute predestination which undoes Christ references to the importance of works and merit. Certainly we are saved by grace but it is our works, what we do, that lets us know if our faith is real or false.

What we see with Augustine and his writings is creeping doctrines that draw people from faith in The Way.


Hate Speech

  • "Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon, But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others."

This quote from one of Augustine's homilies even-though it is from Jesus Christ's command in Matthew 7:1-6 [10] and we see the same in Luke 6:41-42[11] to say nothing of John 8.[12]

Much of what he said may have been good but the truth may be missed when we interpret his words unless we hold it up in the light of the Sound Doctrine of Jesus, who was the Christ.

He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity in the Patristic Era. But was he of the Church established by Christ or the one established by Constantine?

  • “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”  Augustine of Hippo
  • “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Augustine of Hippo
  • “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” Augustine of Hippo
  • “Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”  Augustine of Hippo

The following seem more inline with Constantine's Church:

  • "Punishment is justice for the unjust." Saint Augustine
  • "If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend. Saint Augustine
  • "The greatest evil is physical pain". Saint Augustine

According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith"

Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. His "Paul of Tarsus", has caused many Westerners to see Paul through his eyes. Augustine was legally Roman but his mother was Berber. He abandoned Christianity in his youth, studying rhetoric, philosophy, and Manichaeism[9]. He eventually abandoned his relationship, moving to Rome to start a school and finally to Milan to serve the court as a professor of rhetoric.

He sought to join an order of the Manichaean[9] religion which was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism.

His sexual exploits and mistress of 15 years who he fathered a child outside the bonds of marriage, were set aside so he could marry a child bride who was an heiress. Augustine's mother had followed him to Milan where he came to see Ambrose of Milan. Although Augustine accepted this mother's marriage arrangements he was deeply pained by the loss of his concubine. He wrote, "My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding."

Augustine confessed that he was not a lover of wedlock so much as a slave of lust, so he procured another concubine since he had to wait two years until his fiancée came of age for she was only 10 years old at the time. It was during those 2 years that he decided to become a celibate priest instead like Ambrose.

In 387, Ambrose baptized Augustine. He was ordained as a priest. Within four years, he was ordained to the episcopate of the church established by Constantine and served as Bishop of Hippo until his death in 430.

Augustine lived a life of aristocratic leisure at his family's property until his mother and eventually, his son died. He then gave much of his wealth to the poor and started a monastery for his followers after being ordained in 391 as a priest in Hippo Regius, in Algeria. But understanding the differences between Ambrose the Church of Constantine and the early Church is important in deciphering the validity of the teachings and writings of Augustine of Hippo and even Augustine of Canterbury.

"This terrible doctrine of predestination was taken up again in various forms at various ages by Cathars, Albigenses, Calvinists and Jansenists, and was also to play a curious part in the theological struggles of Kepler and Galileo. Again, there are countless redeeming aspects, ambiguities and contradictions in Augustine’s writings, such as his passionate pleading against the death penalty and judicial torture; his repeated affirmation that Omnis natura, inquantum natura est, bonum est;[13] it may even be said that ”Augustine was not an Augustinian”. " The Sleepwalkers, A history of man’s changing vision of the Universe, by Arthur Koestler

Augustine was one of the most influential church writers of the earlier Middle Ages but his survival as that writer was because he was a major promoter of the Papacy. He promoted not only the divine right of kings in his own way but he also endowed the Papacy with authority and channeled it power to make rules over all monastic life in contradiction to the rule of Christ. In the gospel of the kingdom the idea of exercising authority one over the other was forbidden by Christ when he told them "But ye shall not be so."[14]

Quotes from Augustine of Hippo

  • "Sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye. The blindness is an evil or defect which is a witness to the fact that the eye was created to see the light and, hence, the very lack of sight is the proof that the eye was meant...to be the one particularly capable of seeing the light. Were it not for this capacity, there would be no reason to think of blindness as a misfortune." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "How stupid man is to be unable to restrain feelings in suffering the human lot! That was my state at that time. So I boiled with anger, sighed, wept, and was at my wits’ end. I found no calmness, no capacity for deliberation. I carried my lacerated and bloody soul when it was unwilling to be carried by me. I found no place where I could put it down. There was no rest in pleasant groves, nor in games or songs, nor in sweet-scented places, nor in exquisite feasts, nor in the pleasures of the bedroom and bed, nor, finally, in books and poetry." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
  • "So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "This is pride when the soul abandons Him to Whom it ought to cleave as its end and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "The earthly [city] has made for herself, according to her heart's desire, false gods out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices. The heavenly one, on the other hand, living like a wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to Him." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "To confess, then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine)
  • "Love the sinner and hate the sin." — Augustine of Hippo
  • "...Though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked." — Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
  • "The deformity of Christ forms you. If he had not willed to be deformed, you would not have recovered the form which you had lost. Therefore he was deformed when he hung on the cross. But his deformity is our comeliness. In this life, therefore, let us hold fast to the deformed Christ." — Augustine of Hippo
  • "However alarming, however distressing self-knowledge may be, better that than the tremendous evils of self-ignorance."--Caird." — Augustine of Hippo
  • "THE WORLD IS A BOOK AND THOSE WHO DO NOT TRAVEL READ ONLY A PAGE" — Augustine of Hippo
  • "Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
  • "Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses find pleasing. For things we are attached to go where they will, then they cease, leaving the lover torn with corrupted longings." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version)
  • "For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity." — Augustine of Hippo
  • "Omnis natura, inquantum natura est, bonum est." [13]— Augustine of Hippo
  • "O Lord our God, under the shadow of Your wings let us hope in Your custody. Carry us when we are little. Bear us when our hair is white and we cry out in infirmity. When You grasp us, the grip is firm. When we try to sustain ourselves, the grasp is feeble. The only good we can know rests in You. When we turn from the good, You push us aside until we return. Oh, Lord, turn us, lest we be overturned. Be the good in us that is not corrupted. You are our incorruptible good. In You we do not fear that there will be no home to return to if we wander off. While we are away, You preserve our mansion with a patience that stretches into eternity." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version)
  • "Those who ask ‘What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?’ are still steeped in error which they should have discarded." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
  • "But every one of these qualities are gifts of my God: I did not give them to myself. They are good qualities, and their totality is my self. Therefore he who made me is good, and he is my good, and I exult to him, for all the good things that I was even as a boy." — Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
  • "I think I have now, by God's help, discharged my obligation in writing this large work. Let those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God. Amen." — Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine of Hippo: The City of God)
  • "The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence." — Augustine of Hippo (The Confessions of St. Augustine)
  • "When we transform our old life and give our spirit a new image, we find it hard and tiring to turn back from the darkness of earthly passions to the serene calm of the divine light. We thus ask God to help us that a complete conversion may be brought about in us." — Augustine of Hippo


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Footnotes

  1. Sowing good seed
    Matthew 13:24 ¶ Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn... Matthew 13:38 The field is the world(2889); the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked [one]; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world(165age); and the reapers are the angels.
    Acts 20:30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them... 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
    Galatians 2:4 And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:
    2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure Sound Doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
    Hebrews 12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you], and thereby many be defiled;
    2 Peter 2:1 ¶ But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
    2 Corinthians 11:13 For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15 Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
    1 Peter 5:8 ¶ Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
    Revelation 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
    Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
    Revelation 13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by [the means of] those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
    Jeremiah 6:25 Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy [and] fear [is] on every side.
    Luke 19:43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,... 30 Reprobate silver shall [men] call them, because the LORD hath rejected them."
  2. A decurio, plural decuriones, in ancient Rome, the head of a group of 10. The title had two applications, one civil, the other military. In the first usage decurio was applied to a member of the local council or senate of a colonia. A decurion (Latin: decurio, plural decuriones) was a Roman cavalry officer in command of a squadron (turma) of cavalrymen in the Roman army. During the Roman Republic a "Polybian" legion (c. 300–88 BC) of citizen-levies had a cavalry complement of 300 horse, divided into 10 turmae (squadrons)
  3. Donatism was a heresy leading to schism in the Church of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid
  4. Chiba, Shin (1995). "Hannah Arendt on Love and the Political: Love, Friendship, and Citizenship". The Review of Politics. 57 (3): 505–535 [507]. doi:10.1017/S0034670500019720. JSTOR 1408599
  5. Christopher Dawson St. Augustine and His Age
  6. "A bridge too far", an idiom inspired by Operation Market Garden, meaning an act of overreaching.
  7. Confessions VIII.vii.
  8. Pelagianism, also called Pelagian heresy, is the Christian theological position that the original sin did not taint human nature and mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special divine aid or assistance.
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 Manichaeism was a major religion founded by the Iranian prophet Mani in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness.
  10. Matthew 7:1 ¶ Judge not, that ye be not judged. was band from Facebook as hate speech. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. 6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
  11. Luke 6:41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.
  12. John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
  13. 13.0 13.1 "All nature, insofar as nature is, it is good." "All nature, in as much as it is nature, is good."
  14. Matthew 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
    Mark 10:42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
    Luke 22:25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.


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