RAJIV GANDHI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LAW, PUNJAB

POLITICAL SCIENCE PROJECT

TOPIC: Christian Political Thinkers: ST. AUGUSTINE

SUBMITTED BY: ANISH SINGH

ROLL NO.: 21091
SUBMITTED TO: MS. ADITI DUBEY,
 BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This certificate is to declare that this research paper on “Christian Political Thinkers: St.
Augustine” is an original work of Anish Singh, who is a bonafide student of the Rajiv
Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab.

Signature
Anish Singh
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The acknowledgement of this project is owed to the constant support and guidance of people
who I’d like to convey my sincerest gratitude. Aditi ma’am who enabled me to complete this
project with her constant encouragement. Her constant help and guidance were instrumental
in the realization of this project and all the doubts encountered during the making of this
project.
I am thankful to Dr. G.S. Bajpai, Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi National university of Law
for providing me with the opportunity of doing this project. The library staff, which aided me
in my research for this project through the use of the online databases and journal collections
available in the library.
Lastly, I would like to thank my parents and friends for the constant encouragement and
moral support which helped me in the making of this project.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. TITLE PAGE 1

B. BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE 2

C. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 3

D. TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

1. INTRODUCTION 5

2. CHILDHOOD CONVERSION AND EDUCATION 6

3. CHRISTIAN AND PRIESTHOOD 7

4. VIEWS AND THOUGHTS

4.1. THEOLOGY 8-9

4.2. PHILOSOPHY 10
4.3. SOCIOLOGY 11

5. DEATH AND VENERATION 12

6. CONCLUSION 13
E. BIBLIOGRAPHY 14
 1. INTRODUCTION

Augustine of Hippo was born in Carthage, an African city, the son of immensely honourable
parents. His father's name was Patricius, and his mother's name was Monica. Augustine’s
mother was Christian and his father was baptised shortly before his death in 370. His writings
had an impact on the formation of the Western Church and philosophy, and, indirectly, on the
entire Western Christian tradition. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa and is
regarded as one of the Latin Church's most prominent Church Fathers for his Patristic Period
works. He was so well-versed in the liberal arts that he was regarded as a supreme
philosopher and a great rhetorician. He studied and comprehended Aristotle's works alone, as
well as all the literature on the liberal arts that he could read. Initially, Augustine was not
baptised and thus converted to Manichaeism in 373 and began working as a rhetor in
Thagaste in 375, subsequently relocating to Carthage, Rome, and Milan, where he admitted
to leading a dissolute lifestyle, as he detailed in his book Confessions. Theodosius I
established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Augustine's
meeting with the Manichean bishop Faustus of Mileve in 383, however, was a
disappointment for him. In 384, Augustine was invited to Milan to serve as a rhetorical
instructor. Through Bishop Ambrose of Milan, he became acquainted with the Platonic
interpretation of the Bible while in Rome. Augustine heard Bishop Ambrose preach and was
highly influenced by him. Augustine went on to remarry a wealthy, Christian girl, under his
mother’s influence and his son from the first marriage, Adeodatus remained with him.
Augustine was baptised in 387, following his conversion experience under a fig tree in the
desert.
In the late years, during 440 A.D., Augustine, more than others, due to his advanced years,
lived a most bitter and bereaved existence as he witnessed atrocities created by the Goths
who had sacked Rome and created chaos and ruckus irrespective of sex, age or rank. His tears
were his sustenance, flowing day and night as he witnessed some being slaughtered, others
fleeing, churches being depopulated of priests, cities being devastated and their population
scattering.
His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
 2. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

Although they were born in Africa, Augustine’s family were thoroughly Romanized and
spoke exclusively Latin at home as a point of pride and dignity, as opposed to other
languages. It appears that Augustine was aware of his African ancestry, based on the
information he left behind in his writings. His descriptions of Apuleius, for example, include
the phrase "the most infamous among our people of African descent," Ponticianus as "a
country man of ours, insofar as he is of African descent," and Faustus of Mileve as "an
African Gentleman."
Augustine's given name, Aurelius, reveals that his father's ancestors were freedmen of the
gens Aurelia who gained full Roman citizenship in 212 as a result of the Edict of Caracalla. a
time when the gens Aurelia was granted full Roman citizenship. When Augustine was born,
his family had been a part of the Roman Empire from a legal sense for at least a century. The
name Monica suggests that his mother was of Berber descent, which is supported by the fact
that his family were honestiores, a noble class of people known as honorable men. However,
given his family's position as honestiores, it is likely that Augustine's first tongue was Latin.
Augustine was sent to study at Madaurus (now M'Daourouch), a tiny Numidian city located
about 19 miles (31 kilometers) south of Thagaste when he was 11 years old. He grew
acquainted with Latin literature as well as pagan ideas and rituals while studying there. A
group of friends and he had a chance encounter with sin when they stole fruit from a local
garden that they didn't desire. This was his first encounter with sin. This is the story that he
relates in his autobiography, The Confessions. The fruit was not stolen because he was
hungry, but rather because "it was not permitted," according to his recollection. According to
him, his fundamental nature was faulty. 'It was disgusting, and I enjoyed it. "I adored my own
mistake—not the reason for which I erred, but the mistake itself." This encounter led him to
believe that the human person is inherently prone to sin and therefore in desperate need of the
grace of Christ.
Augustine was sent to Carthage to complete his rhetorical education at the age of seventeen,
thanks to the charity of his fellow citizen Romanianus, despite the fact that it was beyond the
financial capabilities of his family at the time. As a young man, Augustine indulged in a
hedonistic lifestyle for a time, socializing with young guys who brag about their sexual
experiences in spite of his mother's wise advice. In order to obtain their acceptance,
inexperienced boys such as Augustine were compelled to seek out or fabricate stories about
sexual experiences of their own.
His reading of Cicero's dialogue Hortensius (now lost) occurred while he was a student in
Carthage, and he recalled it as having had a lasting impression on him, igniting in him a love
of wisdom and a profound thirst for truth. It was this experience that sparked his interest in
philosophy. In spite of having been raised to embrace Christianity, Augustine chose to follow
the Manichaeans, much to the dismay of his mother.
 3. CHRISTIAN CONVERSION AND PRIESTHOOD

Augustine came to Christianity in late August 386, at the age of 31, after hearing and being
inspired and touched by the narrative of Ponticianus and his friends' first reading of Saint
Anthony of the Desert. According to Augustine's subsequent account, his conversion was
precipitated by a youthful voice asking him to "take up and read" (tolle, lege), which he saw
as a supernatural mandate to open the Bible and read the first item he saw. Augustine read
from Paul's Epistle to the Romans – the part on "Transformation of Believers" which consists
of chapters 12 to 15 – in which Paul recounts how the Gospel transforms believers and the
resultant behaviour of believers.
Ambrose baptized Augustine and his son Adeodatus in Milan on the eve of Easter Vigil,
April 24–25, 387, together with their other children. Augustine finished his apology on the
holiness of the Catholic Church a year later, in 388, and published it. In the same year,
Adeodatus and Augustine returned to their homeland of Africa. Augustine's mother Monica
passed away in Ostia, Italy, just as the family was preparing to leave for Africa. As soon as
they arrived, they settled into a life of aristocratic ease on the estate of Augustine's family.
Adeodatus succumbed to his wounds not long after. Augustine then sold his possessions and
donated the proceeds to the destitute in order to help them. The only thing he managed to
keep was the family home, which he converted into a monastic foundation for himself and a
handful of friends after his death.
In 391 Augustine was ordained as a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba, Algeria), where he
lived at the time. A famous speaker (more than 350 authenticated sermons are believed to
have been preserved), he was also well-known for his opposition to the Manichaean religion,
which he had previously practised and supported.
In 395, he was appointed co-adjutor Bishop of Hippo, and he was elevated to the position of
full Bishop not long after, earning him the title "Augustine of Hippo." He also donated his
property to the church of Thagaste. He remained in that post until his death, which occurred
in the year 430. In the years 397–398 he penned his autobiographical Confessions. His book
The City of God was composed to soothe his fellow Christians immediately after the
Visigoths attacked Rome in 410, and it was published in 410.
When Augustine first arrived at Hippo, he worked relentlessly to persuade the residents of the
city to convert to Christianity. He continued to live a monastic life at the episcopal home,
despite the fact that he had left his monastery. A regula for his monastery was left by him,
which resulted in his being hailed as the "patron saint of regular clergy."
Many details of Augustine's later life have been preserved by his friend, Bishop Possidius of
Calama (modern-day Guelma, Algeria), in his work Saint Augustine's Life. A brilliant thinker
and a captivating orator, Augustine was respected by Possidius as a man who used every
opportunity available to defend Christianity against those who were opposed to it. As well as
detailing Augustine's personal characteristics, Possidius painted an image of a man who
consumed modestly, worked relentlessly, disliked gossip, avoided the desires of the flesh, and
as was prudent in his financial care over the diocese of Rome.
 4. VIEWS AND THOUGHTS

Augustine’s writings covered diverse fields like Theology,

4.1. THEOLOGY

 CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY

Augustine was one of the pioneer Christian authors in ancient Latin who possessed a firm
grasp of theological anthropology, and he was one of the first to articulate this view. He
regarded the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: the soul and the body, which
were complementary to one another. In section 5 of his late book On Care to Be Had for the
Dead (420 AD), he advised people to respect the body on the account that it was a natural
part of the human person's character.
At first glance, the two parts appeared to be in perfect harmony. Following the annihilation of
humanity, they are currently engaged in a bloody battle with one another. It is clear that these
are two very distinct things. The body is a three-dimensional thing made up of the four
elements, but the soul is a non-physical entity with no spatial dimensions. The soul is a type
of substance that participates in reasoning and is capable of ruling the body.
Augustine, unlike Plato and Descartes, was not interested with going into excessive detail in
his attempts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body connection, as did their
predecessors. His admission that they are metaphysically separate was sufficient for him: to
be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and the soul is superior to the body in
terms of metaphysical distinction. According to his systematic categorization of objects into
those that only exist, those that only exist but do not live, those that only exist but do not have
intellect or reason, and those that exist, live, and have intelligence or reason, the latter
assertion is supported.
Augustine, like other Church Fathers such as Athenagoras and Clement of Alexandria,
"vigorously condemned the practise of induced abortion," and while he opposed abortion at
any point in pregnancy, he made a distinction between abortions conducted early in
pregnancy and those performed later in pregnancy. According to him, the Aristotelian
distinction "between the foetus before and after its alleged 'vivification'" was the basis for his
position. As a result, he did not consider the abortion of a "unformed" foetus to be murder
because he believed that it could not be determined with confidence whether the foetus had
already gotten a soul at that point.
During his time as a priest, Augustine believed that "the timing of the infusion of the soul
was a mystery known only to God." However, he viewed procreation to be one of the goods
of marriage, and abortion, along with medications that produce sterility, appeared as a means
of preventing this good from being realized. 'Lustful cruelty' or 'cruel lust' was one of several
terms used to describe a spectrum of behaviour that included infanticide. 'Evil work,
'according to Augustine, refers to the employment of methods to prevent the birth of a child,
which could refer to either abortion or contraception or both."
  ORIGINAL SIN

Augustine claimed that Adam and Eve's sin was either a foolish act followed by pride and
disobedience to God, or pride came first. The first couple disobeyed God by eating from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden them to eat from. The tree
served as a representation of the order of creation. Adam and Eve ate of it out of self-
centeredness, neglecting to accept and respect the world as God created it, complete with its
hierarchy of beings and values.
They would not have fallen into conceit and folly had Satan not put "the root of evil" into
their senses. Their nature was harmed by concupiscence or libido, which had an effect on
human intelligence and willpower, as well as on human loves and cravings, especially sexual
desire.
Augustine had spent approximately nine years as a "Hearer" for the Manichaeans, who
claimed that physical knowledge was the first sin. His search to understand the cause of evil
in the world, on the other hand, began much earlier, at the age of nineteen. By malum (evil),
he meant primarily concupiscence (strong lust), which he viewed as a vice that dominated
people and caused moral disorder in men and women.
All human beings inherit Adam's sin. Augustine taught in his pre-Pelagian writings that
Original Sin is transmitted to his descendants via concupiscence, which he defined as the
passion of the soul and body, transforming humanity into a Massa damnata (mass of
perdition, condemned crowd) and significantly impairing, but not destroying, the human race.
free will. Although earlier Christian authors held that original sin included bodily death,
moral infirmity, and a sin proclivity, Augustine introduced the concept of inherited guilt
(reatus) from Adam, according to which a newborn is born permanently doomed.
 4.2. PHILOSOPHY

 ASTROLOGY

Augustine's contemporaries frequently regarded astrology as an exact and legitimate science.

Its practitioners were referred to as mathemathici, or real men of study. Astrology had a
significant role in Manichaean thought, and Augustine himself was fascinated by their books
as a child, particularly those that promised to foretell the future. Later in life, as a bishop, he
frequently warned against astrologers who combine science and horoscopes. (Augustine's
term "mathematici," which literally translates as "astrologers," is occasionally mistranslated
as "mathematicians.") They were not true students of Hipparchus or Eratosthenes, Augustine
claimed, but "ordinary swindlers."
 FREE WILL

Augustine's earlier philosophy includes the concept that God created humans and angels as
rational beings with free will, which is included in Augustine's earlier philosophy. Free will
was not created for sin, which means that it is not equally predisposed to both good and bad
actions in the same situation. An impure will is no longer believed to be as "free" as it once
was, because it is bound by worldly belongings that may be lost or impossible to leave with,
resulting in dissatisfaction for the person who has it. Grace, on the other hand, restores free
will once it has been harmed by sin. A will that was once free can be corrupted by sin only if
it was once free. As a result of his theological evolution after 412 CE, Augustine came to
believe that mankind has no free will to believe in Christ, but do have a free will to sin: "I
fought for the human "will's" freedom of choice, but God's favour triumphed" (Augustine,
Confessions, 412 CE).
Augustine's theology, according to the Catholic Church, is consistent with the concept of free
choice. He was quoted as saying that everyone can be rescued if they so desire. Despite the
fact that God knows who will and who will not be saved, with no possibility of the latter
being saved during their lifetimes which symbolizes God's flawless understanding of how
mankind will freely choose their own destinies in their lives. The conventional Christian
defense of divine foreknowledge of human free will decisions to explain predestination was
replaced by a more Stoic and Gnostic/Manichaean view of deterministic predestination,
according to which the will was not free, barring the case of sin, after 412 CE.
 4.3. SOCIOLOGY

 SLAVERY

Augustine persuaded a large number of clerics under his jurisdiction in Hippo to free their
slaves "as a matter of piety." He openly wrote a letter to the head of the State, requesting him
to enact a new legislation prohibiting slave dealers and expressed grave worry over the
selling of children. For 25 years, Christian emperors of his time legalized the sale of children,
not because they condoned the practise, but to prevent infanticide in cases when a parent is
unable to care for their child. Augustine noticed that tenant farmers were driven to lease out
or sell their children in particular to survive.
In his work, The City of God, he portrays slavery's development as a result of sin and in
opposition to God's divine plan. He stated that God "did not intend for this intellectual
creature, created in his image, to have rule over anything save the irrational world - not man
over man, but man over beasts." Thus, he argued, upright persons were made shepherds of
cattle in primordial times, not kings over men. "Slavery is the outcome of sin," he asserted.
Augustine stated in The City of God that he believed slavery existed as a penalty for the
presence of sin, even if an enslaved individual committed no offence deserving of
punishment. "However, slavery is a penal institution, established by the law that enjoins the
preservation of the natural order and prohibits its disruption," he said. Augustine argued that
slavery harmed the slave owner more than it harmed the slave: "the lower position benefits
the servant as much as the exalted position harms the master." Augustine proposes a
cognitive reimagining of one's situation as a solution to sin, where slaves "may themselves
make their slavery in some sense free, by serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love," until
the end of the world permanently abolishes slavery: "until all unrighteousness perishes, and
all principality and human power is reduced to naught, and God is all in all."
 5. DEATH AND VENERATION

Shortly before Augustine's death, the Vandals invaded Roman Africa, a Germanic tribe that
had converted to Arianism. The Vandals attacked Hippo in the spring of 430, just as
Augustine was approaching the end of his life. According to Possidius, one of Augustine's
few miracles, the healing of an ailing man, occurred during the siege. Augustine spent his
final days, according to Possidius, in prayer and penance, demanding that the penitential
Psalms of David be posted on his walls for him to read. He instructed that the church's library
at Hippo and all its contents be scrupulously maintained. He was assassinated on 28 August
430. The Vandals abandoned the siege of Hippo shortly after his death, but returned shortly
afterwards and set fire to the city. They burned everything but Augustine's cathedral and
library, which remained intact.
Augustine was canonised by popular vote and was later named a Doctor of the Church by
Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. His feast day is August 28, the date of his death.
 6. CONCLUSION

To summarise, Augustine's influence on the early church at a period of transition cannot be

overstated. Karla Pollman's book traces Augustine's legacy in an unusual way, aiming to
interpret it as a success or a failure. By considering both Augustine's early Augustinian
writings and his later works, Pollman demonstrates Augustine's influence on Western
civilisation and has been lauded by modern intellectuals. As a result of his influence during a
moment of transition, Pollman argues that Augustine's effect cannot be reduced to a single
direction of success or failure.
Thus, Augustine of Hippo cannot be overlooked as a crucial figure throughout the Middle
Ages and into the modern day. His theological views on grace, the nature of good and evil,
social and political philosophy, and a variety of other schools of thought continue to exert a
considerable effect on these themes till today. These strands of thinking, however, are not
without critique or opposition. Thus, Augustine's most lasting legacy may be his capacity to
bring others to deeper thought as a result of their curiosity. For Augustine, too, states, “Free
curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion.”
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Quentin P. Taylor, ST. AUGUSTINE AND POLITICAL THOUGHT: A Revisionist View, Peeters
publishers, 1998, Vol. 48, No. 3/4 (1998), pp. 287-303.
 George P. Lawless, Enduring Values of the Rule of Saint Augustine, Pontificia Studiorum
Universitas a Sancto Thomas Aquinate in Urbe, 1982, Vol. 59, No. 1 (1982), pp. 59-78.
 Frederick William Loetscher, St. Augustine's Conception of the State, Cambridge
University Press, Mar., 1935, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 1935), pp. 16-42.
 The Golden Legend, Priceton University Press. Available at-
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7stkm.129 ( last accessed on 18th April, 2022).
 John M. Rist, AUGUSTINE ON FREE WILL AND PREDESTINATION, Oxford University Press,
The Journal of Theological Studies, OCTOBER 1969, NEW SERIES, Vol. 20, No. 2
(OCTOBER 1969), pp. 420-447.
 John O'Meara, Saint Augustine's Understanding of the Creation and Fall, Faculty of Arts,
Celtic Studies & Philosophy NUIM, The Maynooth Review / Revieú Mhá Nuad , May,
1984, Vol. 10 (May, 1984), pp. 52-62.