MASTER’S COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY

VISAKHAPATNAM
Topic: Life, work and contributions of Augustine of Hippo and Polycarp
Subject: History of Christianity from 1st - 18th centuries. Date: 17-08-2022.
Subject faculty: Rev. P. S. Chitti Babu sir. Presenter: K. Joshua Evangelist.

The Early Church Fathers were influential theologians, bishops or scholars whose writings
explained key Scriptural principles in the early Church. They were not all ordained, not all of
them became saints, and they were not infallible. But they had powerful communication
skills, personal holiness and doctrinal orthodoxy, so we honour them unofficially as "fathers"
for their proximity to the Apostles, their explanations of how to understand and apply
Scripture, and their ability to teach the Faith. The main philosophies, theologies, theories
were also came from them. So, as a theological student, it is very crucial to know them. Let
us know two major early Church fathers and their important teachings. Firstly, let us know
about Augustine of Hippo.

THE LIFE, WORK AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CHURCH FATHER,

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Introduction:
Augustine commonly called as the Augustine of Hippo or Saint Augustine is a towering
figure in church history. He is called as the “Architect of the Middle Ages.” Augustine has
continued to be a major influence in theology for both Catholics, and also for the Protestants.
He is a renewed personality which is heard in all over the theological circles. Let us know
some more details about Augustine in this paper.

1. AUGUSTINE’S LIFE STORY:

1.1. Child life (354–70):

St. Augustine, original Latin name Aurelius Augustinus, was born there, in November
13, 354, in Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria], He worked as bishop of Hippo
from 396 to 430. His mother was a Christian and later a saint, pious but superstitious and
ambitious for her son. His father, Patricius, was a member of the local ruling class, a pagan
but baptized just before his death at 371. Augustine was not baptized as a youth.

1.2. Education, (370–75):

Augustine received an elementary Christian education. During his student days
Augustine was converted to philosophy in Hortensius general, but not to any particular
philosophy. Cicero’s now lost was his first intellectual turning point. Enamored with classical
Latin, Augustine was repelled by the grammar and style of the old Latin versions of the
Bible. Early in this period he acquired a concubine, to whom he was faithful and by whom a
son was born, Adeodatus (“gift from God”). After studying at Madaura and Carthage,
Augustine taught at Tagaste and then in Carthage.

1.3. Manichaean period, (375–82):

Like many Christians, Augustine was attracted by the radical dualism and rational
piety of Manichaeism, which presented itself as Christianity for intellectuals. A particularly
alluring philosophy, it gave an easy solution to the problem of good and evil. He became an
auditor in the religion, in contrast to the perfect observants, the elect. Augustine, however,

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began to have doubts about Manichaeism and looked forward to the coming of Faustus, who
was expected to answer his questions, but failed to do so. Magic and astrology then caught
Augustine’s attention. The beauty of the heavens, considered a manifestation of the divine,
led him away from Manichaean dualism. He moved from North Africa with his mother to
Rome. Although disappointed with Manichaeism, he had not totally broken withit. A young
man on the make, he found the students in Rome better behaved than those in North Africa,
but worse about paying their fees.

1.4. Neoplatonic period, (382–86):

This transition period in Augustine’s life is the least clearly marked on each end.
Apparently he went through a brief period of skepticism, not to be surprised at, for when a
complete system (like Manichaeism) begins to crumble, often one loses all faith. He was
rescued from his doubts by Neoplatonism: the dualism of Manichaeism was dissolved in the
spiritualism of Neoplatonism. He learned from Plotinus that all beings are good and that there
are incorporeal realities. In 384 Augustine was appointed professor of rhetoric at Milan, in
part through the influence of Manichaean friends in Rome. As much out of professional
curiosity as anything, he went to hear the city’s most famous public speaker, bishop
Ambrose, preach. From him, Augustine heard a much more intellectually respectable
interpretation of the Scriptures than he had learned growing up in North Africa. The presbyter
Simplicianus took on Augustine as his personal project. Augustine read the commentary on
Paul written by Marius Victorinus, who had been converted in 355 from Neoplatonism to
Christianity. Augustine underwent an intellectual conversion, but not yet a moral conversion.
It took him some time to get his relationship with his concubine straightened out. When his
mother finally convinced him to put her away so that a respectable marriage could be
arranged, he had another companion within two weeks (his bride-to-be was still under-age).

1.5. Conversion and Early life of Christianity, (386–91):

Augustine’s “conversion experience” occurred in 386. While agonizing in the garden
of his house over his moral failures, he heard a child in a nearby house repeat in a sing-song
voice the refrain, Tolle, lege (“Pick up and read”). There was a book of the letters of Paul on
a bench, and Augustine picked it up and read, “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not
in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and
jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to
gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:13–14). It was as if the Lord had spoken
directly to Augustine. He retired to a country estate to contemplate Christianity seriously.
Augustine then enrolled for baptism, which he received from Ambrose on Easter Sunday,
387. He had found his way back to the faith of his childhood and turned his back on his
oratorical career. Augustine and his mother started back to North Africa, but Monica died at
Ostia while they awaited passage. The Confessions describes in detail a kind of mystical
conversion. The language is still colored with Neoplatonic elements, so the relationship of
Neoplatonism and Christianity at this time in Augustine’s life is controverted. Nevertheless,
Augustine had found peace and assurance that his final destination was God’s heavenly
Israel. Augustine returned to Tagaste and gathered some friends around him in a monastic
community.

1.6. Augustine in Hippo, (391–430):

He was ordained presbyter in 391 for the catholic church at Hippo (a city largely
Donatist), where he did the preaching because the bishop was Greek and could not handle
Latin and Punic fluently. He became a co-bishop in 395 and within a year the sole bishop of
the community. Augustine continued a monastic community life with his clergy, which was

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later to be imitated by others. The Augustinian Rule is based on his ideas and kind of life. He
led an extraordinarily busy episcopal career. Many hours each day were spent judging and
counseling those with disputes and problems. He also had an enormous literary output.

2. MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS:

Two of Augustine’s works stand out above the others for their lasting influence, but they
have had very different fates. The City of God was widely read in Augustine’s time and
throughout the Middle Ages and still demands attention today, but it is impossible to read
without a determined effort to place it in its historical context. Confessions was not much
read in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, but from the 12th century onward it has been
continuously read as a vivid portrayal of an individual’s struggle for self-definition in the
presence of a powerful God.

2.1. Confessions of St. Augustine:

Although autobiographical narrative makes up much of the first 9 of the 13 books of
Augustine’s Confessiones (c. 400; Confessions), autobiography is incidental to the main
purpose of the work. For Augustine, “confessions” is a catchall term for acts of religiously
authorized speech: praise of God, blame of self, confession of faith. The book is a richly
textured meditation by a middle-aged man (Augustine was in his early 40s when he wrote it)
on the course and meaning of his own life. The dichotomy between past odyssey and present
position of authority as bishop is emphasized in numerous ways in the book, not least in that
what begins as a narrative of childhood ends with an extended and very churchy discussion of
the book of Genesis—the progression is from the beginnings of a man’s life to the beginnings
of human society.

Between those two points the narrative of sin and redemption holds most readers’
attention. Those who seek to find in it the memoirs of a great sinner are invariably
disappointed, indeed often puzzled at the minutiae of failure that preoccupy the author. Of
greater significance is the account of redemption. Augustine is especially influenced by the
powerful intellectual preaching of the suave and diplomatic bishop St. Ambrose, who
reconciles for him the attractions of the intellectual and social culture of antiquity, in which
Augustine was brought up and of which he was a master, and the spiritual teachings of
Christianity. The link between the two was Ambrose’s exposition, and Augustine’s reception,
of a selection of the doctrines of Plato, as mediated in late antiquity by the school of
Neoplatonism. Augustine heard Ambrose and read, in Latin translation, some of the
exceedingly difficult works of Plotinus and Porphyry. He acquired from them an intellectual
vision of the fall and rise of the soul of man, a vision he found confirmed in the reading of the
Bible proposed by Ambrose.

The rest of Confessions is mainly a meditation on how the continued study of

Scripture and pursuit of divine wisdom are still inadequate for attaining perfection and how,
as bishop, Augustine makes peace with his imperfections. It is drenched in language from the
Bible and is a work of great force and artistry.

2.2. The City of God:

Fifteen years after Augustine wrote Confessions, at a time when he was bringing to a
close his long struggle with the Donatists but before he had worked himself up to action
against the Pelagians, the Roman world was shaken by news of a military action in Italy. A
ragtag army under the leadership of Alaric, a general of Germanic ancestry and thus credited

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with leading a “barbarian” band, had been seeking privileges from the empire for many years,
making from time to time extortionate raids against populous and prosperous areas. Finally,
in 410, his forces attacked and seized the city of Rome itself, holding it for several days
before decamping to the south of Italy. The military significance of the event was nil. Such
was the disorder of Roman government that other war bands would hold provinces hostage
more and more frequently, and this particular band would wander for another decade before
settling mainly in Spain and the south of France. But the symbolic effect of seeing the city of
Rome taken by outsiders for the first time since the Gauls had done so in 390 bce shook the
secular confidence of many thoughtful people across the Mediterranean. Coming as it did less
than 20 years after the decisive edict against “paganism” by the emperor Theodosius I in 391
ce, it was followed by speculation that perhaps the Roman Empire had mistaken its way with
the gods. Perhaps the new Christian God was not as powerful as he seemed. Perhaps the old
gods had done a better job of protecting their followers.

It is hard to tell how seriously or widely such arguments were made; paganism by this time
was in disarray, and Christianity’s hold on the reins of government was unshakable. But
Augustine saw in the murmured doubts a splendid polemical occasion he had long sought,
and so he leapt to the defense of God’s ways. That his readers and the doubters whose
murmurs he had heard were themselves pagans is unlikely. At the very least, it is clear that
his intended audience comprised many people who were at least outwardly affiliated with the
Christian church. During the next 15 years, working meticulously through a lofty architecture
of argument, he outlined a new way to understand human society, setting up the City of God
over and against the City of Man. Rome was dethroned—and the sack of the city shown to be
of no spiritual importance—in favour of the heavenly Jerusalem, the true home and source of
citizenship for all Christians. The City of Man was doomed to disarray, and wise men would,
as it were, keep their passports in order as citizens of the City above, living in this world as
pilgrims longing to return home.

3. OTHER WORKS:

3.1. Christian Doctrine of St. Augustine:

De doctrina christiana was begun in the first years of Augustine’s episcopacy but
finished 30 years later. This imitation of Cicero’s Orator for Christian purposes sets out a
theory of the interpretation of Scripture and offers practical guidance to the would-be
preacher. It was widely influential in the Middle Ages as an educational treatise claiming the
primacy of religious teaching based on the Bible. Its emphasis on allegorical interpretation of
Scripture, carried out within very loose parameters, was especially significant, and it remains
of interest to philosophers for its subtle and influential discussion of Augustine’s theory of
“signs” and how language represents reality.

3.2. he Trinity:
The most widespread and longest-lasting theological controversies of the 4th century
focused on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity—that is, the threeness of God represented in
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Augustine’s Africa had been left out of much of the fray,
and most of what was written on the subject was in Greek, a language Augustine barely knew
and had little access to. But he was keenly aware of the prestige and importance of the topic,
and so in 15 books he wrote his own exposition of it, De trinitate (399/400–416/421; The
Trinity). Augustine is carefully orthodox, after the spirit of his and succeeding times, but adds
his own emphasis in the way he teaches the resemblance between God and man: the threeness

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of God he finds reflected in a galaxy of similar triples in the human soul, and he sees there
both food for meditation and deep reason for optimism about the ultimate human condition.

3.3. Literal Commentary on Genesis:

The Creation narrative of the book of Genesis was for Augustine Scripture par
excellence. He wrote at least five sustained treatises on those chapters (if we include the last
three books of Confessions and Books XI–XIV of The City of God). His De genesi ad
litteram (401–414/415; Literal Commentary on Genesis) was the result of many years of
work from the late 390s to the early 410s. Its notion of “literal” commentary will surprise
many moderns, for there is little historical exposition of the narrative and much on the
implicit relationship between Adam and Eve and fallen humankind. It should be noted that a
subtext of all of Augustine’s writing on Genesis was his determination to validate the
goodness of God and of creation itself against Manichaean dualism.

3.4. Sermons:
Almost one-third of Augustine’s surviving works consists of sermons—more than 1.5
million words, most of them taken down by shorthand scribes as he spoke extemporaneously.
They cover a wide range. Many are simple expositions of Scripture read aloud at a particular
service according to church rules, but Augustine followed certain programs as well. There are
sermons on all 150 Psalms, deliberately gathered by him in a separate collection,
Enarrationes in Psalmos. These are perhaps his best work as a homilist, for he finds in the
uplifting spiritual poetry of the Hebrews messages that he can apply consistently to his view
of austere, hopeful, realistic Christianity; his ordinary congregation in Hippo would have
drawn sustenance from them. At a higher intellectual level are his Tractatus in evangelium
Iohannis CXXIV, amounting to a full commentary on the most philosophical of the Gospel
texts. Other sermons range over much of Scripture, but it is worth noting that Augustine had
little to say about the prophets of the Old Testament, and what he did have to say about St.
Paul appeared in his written works rather than in his public sermons.

3.5. Early writings:

Moderns enamoured of Augustine from the narrative in Confessions have given much
emphasis to his short, attractive early works, several of which mirror the style and manner of
Ciceronian dialogues with a new, Platonized Christian content: Contra academicos, De
ordine, De beata vita. These works both do and do not resemble Augustine’s later
ecclesiastical writings and are greatly debated for their historical and biographical
significance, but the debates should not obscure the fact that they are charming and intelligent
pieces. If they were all we had of Augustine, he would remain a well-respected, albeit minor,
figure in late Latin literature.

3.6. Controversial writings:

More than 100 titled works survive from Augustine’s pen, the majority of them devoted
to the pursuit of issues in one or another of the ecclesiastical controversies that preoccupied
his episcopal years. His works against the Manichaeans, Confessions probably remains the
most attractive and interesting. The sect itself is too little known today for detailed refutation
of its more idiosyncratic gnostic doctrines to have much weight.

4. DEATH AND SAINTHOOD:

Augustine has been cited to have excommunicated himself upon the approach of his death
in an act of public penance and solidarity with sinners. Spending his final days in prayer and

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repentance, he requested the penitential Psalms of David be hung on his walls so he could
read them and upon which led him to 'weep freely and constantly' according to Posiddius'
biography. He directed the library of the church in Hippo and all the books therein should be
carefully preserved. He died on 28 August 430. Shortly after his death, the Vandals lifted the
siege of Hippo, but they returned soon after and burned the city. They destroyed all but
Augustine's cathedral and library, which they left untouched.

Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim, and later recognized as a Doctor of the
Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII. He is considered the patron saint of brewers, printers,
theologians, and a number of cities and dioceses. Augustine is remembered in the Church of
England's calendar of saints with a lesser festival on 28 August.

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 THE LIFE, WORK AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CHURCH FATHER,
POLYCARP:

Introduction:
Polycarp of Smyrna, or Saint Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and Holy Martyr (c. 69 - c.
156), is one of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church, namely one of the early witnesses and
teachers of the Apostolic traditions of the Christian Church. As a witness, he led a life of
heartfelt purity ending his earthly sojourn as a faithful martyr to his Lord. The narrative of his
martyrdom, the Martyrium Sancti Polycarpi, is the first Christian narrative of a martyrdom
outside of the New Testament. As a teacher, he was less a formal theologian and more of a
diligent transmitter of the Apostolic traditions which he had received. Let us know the life
story of Polycarp in detail.

1. POLYCARP’S LIFE STORY:

Little is known about the details of St. Polycarp’s life. His Epistle to the Philippians gives
one a taste of his personality, faith and teaching, but provides little for his biography.

The great saying of Polycarp goes like this: He who grants me to endure the fire will
enable me also to remain on the pyre unmoved, without the security you desire from nails.
Since his childhood, Polycarp has been a faithful Christian; he was in his old age in his
eighties when the Romans got around to him and wanted to kill him. His martyrdom is the
first recorded martyrdom in the post new testament church history.

Polycarp’s life was lived in the most favourite era of the church; the church was making a
significant transition to the second generations of believers. He was decoupled by the John
and was also appointed as the Bishop of Smyrna which is in Turkey these days. He tried to
settle some disputes in his early age regarding celebrating Easter on a particular date. He was
confronted with the most horrific heretics of the church, the Gnostic Marcion. He was also
regarded as the first born of Satan when he ran into him. Polycarp also abolished agnosticism
by converting many to the religion of Christianity.

He wrote a letter to the church of Philippians which is his only surviving piece of original
writing from the history; the letter shows that Polycarp did not have much of the formal
education and learned to write mostly in the church. He was an incredibly humble personality
and also a straight individual.

Polycarp was the student of Apostle and much more who had direct communication with the
Jesus Christ. He also learned from the Apostles in Asia and taught his things faithfully until
he departed his life as a martyr. The church of Rome was also under the threat of adopting the
unscriptural practice. A new means of celebrating the death of Jesus Christ was founded by
the church known as Good Friday Easter Sunday. Polycarp had to argue with many bishops
including the Bishop of Rome. He was still true to the teachings of Jesus Christ and what
Apostle John had taught him. Anicetus blamed him for following the footsteps of his
predecessors. He knew that the devil was about to test some people and he was one of them;
so he had to remain calm and face the storm with solid beliefs of Christianity.

For the six decades, the great Bishop Polycarp served the churches of Smyrna until, in
the mid-second century, he developed a great rivalry with the Kings and lost his life for the
sake of his religion and glory of Jesus Christ. During his lifetime as being a bishop of the

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church, great changes occurred in the church. He was the church historian and prominent
Christianity leader in the second century. The mission of Polycarp was to prevent the rise of
orthodoxy and the promotion of Christianity. He faced many hurdles in his lifetime. A
student of Polycarp and a theologian named Florinus wrote the memories of his great teacher
Polycarp. His miracles and his teachings were seen by the people with their eyes in his
lifetime. All through his life, Polycarp remained a loyal faithful, servant of God because his
teacher John Apostle taught him to remain faithful all his life.

His words are true, and they represent a great deal of change into the lives of Christians, he
told them to stand tall and follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ

By his major writing, The Letter to the Philippians, and by his widespread moral authority,
Polycarp combated various heretical sects, including certain gnostic groups that claimed
religious salvation exclusively through their arcane spiritual knowledge. Polycarp’s Letter to
the Philippians contains a classic formulation in which he refutes the gnostics’ argument that
God’s Incarnation in, and the death and Resurrection of, Christ were all imaginary
phenomena of purely moral or mythological significance.

Significance of Polycarp:
Polycarp was also the friend of Papias who was the hearer of John, the memory of the
Polycarp is also linked to the apostolic past. He sat down in the place and spread the word of
God; he was a blessed person of God. Irenaeus also remember that the great Bishop was
converted to Christianity by apostles. He also communicated and talked to man people who
had been in contact with the Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the history of Christian Church, no one has ever held such a privileged position and
a special place than Polycarp. Personally taught by Apostle John, the great Saint Polycarp
took the true Christian beliefs beyond the age of Apostle during his lifetime. He was a savior
and a figure, a brave legendary leader, and a mentor. His family settled in the cities of Asia
and left Judea in the 1st century. All the followers of Christianity were the great admirer of
his mentor Apostle John who made a home in Ephesus. The young Polycarp was a great
disciple and a visionary who took forward the legacy of his teacher Apostle.

More important, however, is the way in which Polycarp referred to St. Paul the
Apostle in his Letter to the Philippians. Not only does he repeatedly quote from Paul’s
writings, but he also stresses the personal importance of Paul as a primary authority of the
Christian church. It must be remembered that at that time Paul had been adopted as a primary
authority by the gnostic heretics. Polycarp, in response, reclaimed Paul as a treasured figure
of the orthodox church. It is apparently thus partly due to Polycarp that Paul, the disputed
apostle, became a theologically respectable part of the Christian church’s tradition.
Furthermore, Polycarp’s orthodox use of the Pauline texts marked a crucial advance in the
Christian theology of biblical interpretation. According to certain scholars, Polycarp may
even have composed or directly influenced some of the letters traditionally ascribed to St.
Paul, the so-called Pastoral Letters (I and II Timothy, Titus). These letters possess a 2nd-
century vocabulary and style that are characteristic of Polycarp.

Martyrdom of Polycarp:
From the actual age of persecutions, the Martyrdom of Polycarp is one of the works of
Apostolic Fathers. His martyrdom promotes the ideology of martyrdom which was published

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in the 4th century and again in the 10th and 13th centuries. The manuscripts are compiled
from fourth-century history and provide an account of Polycarp’s martyrdom.

The fire was prepared. As the fire engulfed him, the believers noted that it smelled not so
much like flesh burning as a loaf baking. He was finished off with the stab of a dagger. His
followers gathered his remains like precious jewels and buried them on February 22, a day
they set aside to be remembered. The year was probably 155. In the strange way known to the
eyes of faith, it was as much a day of triumph as it was a day of tragedy.

CONCLUSION:

In this paper, we tried to discuss about the life and faith of the two major figures in the church
history, Augustine and Polycarp. The lifes of them are very challenging. Their conversion,
their theology, their martyrdom, their faith in Christ are much more inspiring to the present
theologians as well as Christian believers too. In this paper we tried to discuss about the life
story and the faith histories of Augustine and Polycarp.

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