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.

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.

Religion for Augustine, however, was never merely a matter of the intellect. The seventh
book of Confessions recounts a perfectly satisfactory intellectual conversion, but the
extraordinary eighth book takes him one necessary step further. Augustine could not bring
himself to seek the ritual purity of baptism without cleansing himself of the desires of the
flesh to an extreme degree. For him, baptism required renunciation of sexuality in all its
express manifestations. The narrative of Confessions shows Augustine forming the will to
renounce sexuality through a reading of the letters of St. Paul. The decisive scene occurs in a
garden in Milan, where a child’s voice seems to bid Augustine to “take up and read,”
whereupon he finds in Paul’s writings the inspiration to adopt a life of chastity.

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.

Holy week. Easter. Valladolid. Procession of Nazarenos carry a cross during the Semana
Santa (Holy week before Easter) in Valladolid, Spain. Good Friday

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The City of God

Fifteen years after Augustine wrote Confessions, at a time when he was bringing to a close
(and invoking government power to do so) 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 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.

De civitate Dei contra paganos (c. 413–426; The City of God) is divided into 22 books. The
first 10 refute the claims to divine power of various pagan communities. The last 12 retell the
biblical story of humankind from Genesis to the Last Judgment, offering what Augustine
presents as the true history of the City of God against which, and only against which, the
history of the City of Man, including the history of Rome, can be properly understood. The
work is too long and at times, particularly in the last books, too discursive to make entirely
satisfactory reading today, but it remains impressive as a whole and fascinating in its parts.
The stinging attack on paganism in the first books is memorable and effective; the encounter
with Platonism in Books VIII–X is of great philosophical significance; and the last books
(especially Book XIX, with a vision of true peace) offer a view of human destiny that would
be widely persuasive for at least a thousand years. In a way, Augustine’s The City of God is
(even consciously) the Christian rejoinder to Plato’s Republic and Cicero’s imitation of Plato,
his own Republic. The City of God would be read in various ways throughout the Middle
Ages, at some points virtually as a founding document for a political order of kings and popes
that Augustine could hardly have imagined. At its heart is a powerful contrarian vision of
human life, one which accepts the place of disaster, death, and disappointment while holding
out hope of a better life to come, a hope that in turn eases and gives direction to life in this
world.

Reconsiderations

Retractationes (426–427; Reconsiderations), written in the last years of his life, offers a
retrospective rereading of Augustine’s career. In form, the book is a catalog of his writings
with comments on the circumstances of their composition and with the retractions or
rectifications he would make in hindsight. (One effect of the book was to make it much easier
for medieval readers to find and identify authentic works of Augustine, and this was surely a
factor in the remarkable survival of so much of what he wrote.) Another effect of the book is
to imprint even more deeply on readers Augustine’s own views of his life. There is very little
in the work that is false or inaccurate, but the shaping and presentation make it something of
a work of propaganda. The Augustine who emerges has been faithful, consistent, and
unwavering in his doctrine and life. Many who knew him would have seen instead either
progress or outright tergiversation, depending on their point of view.

None of Augustine’s other works has the currency or readership of his two masterpieces. Of
greatest interest are the following:

Christian Doctrine of St. Augustine

De doctrina christiana (Books I–III, 396/397, Book IV, 426; Christian Doctrine) 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.

The 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 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.

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.
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 (392–418; Enarrations on the Psalms). 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 (413–418?; Tractates on the Gospel of
John), 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.

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 (386;
Against the Academics), De ordine (386; On Providence), De beata vita (386; On the Blessed
Life), and Soliloquia (386/387; Soliloquies). 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.

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.

Of 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.

Augustine’s anti-Donatist polemic, on the other hand, has had a modern resonance for its role
in creating the relationship between church and state (in Augustine’s case, church and state
using each other deliberately to achieve their ends) and in arguing the case for a universal
church against local particularism. To the young and still Anglican John Henry Newman,
what Augustine had written about the provincial self-satisfaction of the Donatists seemed an
equally effective argument against the Church of England. For the theology, Augustine in De
baptismo contra Donatistas (401; On Baptism) expounds his anti-Donatist views most
effectively, but the stenographic Gesta Collationis Carthaginensis (411; “Acts of the Council
of Carthage”) offers a vivid view of the politics and bad feelings of the schism.

The issues raised by Augustine’s attacks on Pelagianism have had a long history in
Christianity, notoriously resurfacing in the Reformation’s debates over free will and
predestination. De spiritu et littera (412; On the Spirit and the Letter) comes from an early
moment in the controversy, is relatively irenic, and beautifully sets forth his point of view. De
gratia Christi et de peccato originali (418; On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin) is a
more methodical exposition. The hardest positions Augustine takes in favour of
predestination in his last years appear in De praedestinatione sanctorum (429; The
Predestination of the Blessed) and De dono perseverantiae (429; The Gift of Perseverance).

Death and sainthood

Shortly before Augustine's death, the Vandals, a Germanic tribe that had converted to
Arianism, invaded Roman Africa. The Vandals besieged Hippo in the spring of 430, when
Augustine entered his final illness. According to Possidius, one of the few miracles attributed
to Augustine, the healing of an ill man, took place during the siege.[102] Augustine has been
cited to have excommunicated himself upon the approach of his death in an act of public
penance and solidarity with sinners.[103] Spending his final days in prayer and 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.[104]
He directed the library of the church in Hippo and all the books therein should be carefully
preserved. He died on 28 August 430.[105] 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.[106] His feast day is 28 August, the day on which he died.
He is considered the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and a number of cities and
dioceses. He is invoked against sore eyes.[33]

Augustine is remembered in the Church of England's calendar of saints with a lesser festival
on 28 August.[107]

Relics

Augustine's arm bones, Saint Augustin Basilica, Annaba, Algeria

According to Bede's True Martyrology, Augustine's body was later translated or moved to
Cagliari, Sardinia, by the Catholic bishops expelled from North Africa by Huneric. Around
720, his remains were transported again by Peter, bishop of Pavia and uncle of the Lombard
king Liutprand, to the church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia, in order to save them from
frequent coastal raids by Saracens. In January 1327, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull
Veneranda Santorum Patrum, in which he appointed the Augustinians guardians of the tomb
of Augustine (called Arca), which was remade in 1362 and elaborately carved with bas-
reliefs of scenes from Augustine's life.

In October 1695, some workmen in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia
discovered a marble box containing human bones (including part of a skull). A dispute arose
between the Augustinian hermits (Order of Saint Augustine) and the regular canons (Canons
Regular of Saint Augustine) as to whether these were the bones of Augustine. The hermits
did not believe so; the canons affirmed they were. Eventually Pope Benedict XIII (1724–
1730) directed the Bishop of Pavia, Monsignor Pertusati, to make a determination. The
bishop declared that, in his opinion, the bones were those of Saint Augustine.[108]

The Augustinians were expelled from Pavia in 1700, taking refuge in Milan with the relics of
Augustine, and the disassembled Arca, which were removed to the cathedral there. San Pietro
fell into disrepair, but was finally rebuilt in the 1870s, under the urging of Agostino Gaetano
Riboldi, and reconsecrated in 1896 when the relics of Augustine and the shrine were once
again reinstalled.[109][110]

In 1842, a portion of Augustine's right arm (cubitus) was secured from Pavia and returned to
Annaba.[111] It now rests in the Saint Augustin Basilica within a glass tube inserted into the
arm of a life-size marble statue of the saint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Augustine_of_Hippo#Conversion_to_Christianity_and_priesthood

Who was Polycarp?

Polycarp was a personal disciple of the Apostle John. As an old man, he was the bishop of the
Church at Smyrna in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). Persecution against the Christians
broke out there and believers were being fed to the wild beasts in the arena. The crowd began
to call for the Christians' leader Polycarp. So the authorities sent out a search party to bring
him in. They tortured two slave boys to reveal where Polycarp was being hidden.

It was a Friday afternoon. Polycarp was resting upstairs in a country home. They came in like
a posse, fully armed as if they were arresting a dangerous criminal. Polycarp's friends wanted
to sneak him out, but he refused, saying, "God's will be done." (The Christians there taught
that a believer was not to make oneself available for martyrdom and should not seek it out,
but neither should he/she avoid it when there was no choice.)

In one of the most touching instances of Christian grace imaginable, Polycarp welcomed his
captors as if they were friends, talked with them and ordered that food and drink be served to
them. Then Polycarp made one request: one hour to pray before they took him away. The
officers overhearing his prayers (that went on for two hours) began to have second thoughts.
What were they doing arresting an old man like this?

Martyrdom of Polycarp

Despite the cries of the crowd, the Roman authorities saw the senselessness of making this
aged man a martyr. So when Polycarp was brought into the arena, the proconsul pled with
him: "Curse Christ and I will release you."

REPLY: "Eighty-six years I have served Him. He had never done me wrong. How then can I
blaspheme my King who has saved me?"

The proconsul reached for an acceptable way out: "Then do this, old man. Just swear by the
genius of the emperor and that will be sufficient." (The "genius" was sort of the "spirit" of the
emperor. To do this would be a recognition of the pagan gods and religion.)

REPLY: "If you imagine for a moment that I would do that, then I think you pretend that you
don't know who I am. Hear it plainly. I am a Christian."

More entreaties. Polycarp stood firm.

The proconsul threatened him with the wild beasts.

REPLY: "Bring them forth. I would change my mind if it meant going from the worse to the
better, but not to change from the right to the wrong."

The proconsul's patience was gone: "I will have you burned alive."

REPLY: "You threaten fire that burns for an hour and is over. But the judgment on the
ungodly is forever."

The Death of Polycarp

The fire was prepared. Polycarp lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed: "Father, I bless you that
you have deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I might take a portion of the martyrs in
the cup of Christ. . . Among these may I today be welcome before thy face as a rich and
acceptable sacrifice."

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.

These paragraphs are condensed from the longer account that was compiled by the Christians
at Smyrna and sent as a letter to believers throughout the region.