What Are 3 Key Incidents That Led to St. Augustines Conversion

Factors That Contributed To Augustine'south Conversion In His Confessions Term Paper

Extract from Term Paper :

Conversion of St. Augustine comes most information technology would seem, as the result of 3 major forces. Augustine's mother was a Christian and never quit praying for him or witnessing to him; Augustine himself, spent, it would seem, every day of his life, in a search for something he could identify as Truth; and finally as he continued to "concur out against God," there were a series of witnesses to him where people shared either their own conversion or the conversion of others including some famous teachers.

A major cistron in Augustine'southward whole life is the influences his mother had on him. She was Christian, and through his whole time of seeking for truth she made no surreptitious of her wishes and prayers for him.

In Volume III of Saint Augustine: Confessions, Augustine relates his life at the time he went to Carthage to continue his studies. He opens this Book with this statement, "I went to Carthage, where I plant myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust." He goes on to relate all the things that he got into there. He roughshod in love -- and in our rude vernacular -- just "shacked upwards" with the lady. He patently wasn't really concerned with fidelity because he also says he, " ... muddied the waters of friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its clear waters with hell's black river of lust." Augustine also relates that he was, "much attracted by the theater," because the sorrow portrayed on the stage seemed wonderful to him. He declares himself guilty of being in pursuit of, "an unholy curiosity," through which he, " ... deserted you lot (God) and sank to the bottom-nigh depths of skepticism and the mockery of devil-worship." Although Augsutine continues to heap criticism on himself for his behavior at this fourth dimension in his life -- he was all of xvi when he first arrived in Carthage -- he also acknowledges that he was much meliorate behaved than a grouping of students who called themselves "The Wreckers." Today we'd call them a gang probably. I think we'd besides say his upbringing was holding true that he was upset by their behavior and refused to take role in it.

Augustine goes on to tell united states of finding the piece of work of Cicero, specifically, a work titled Hortensia, which Augustine tells u.s.a. recommends that, "the reader study philosophy." He tells likewise that this work led him directly to his life-long search for eternal truth and a search for wisdom. This search led him to a surface study of Scriptures but he says they didn't seem equally grand as Cicero. Augustine goes on to tell the reader about his finding the Manicheans, group who claimed Christianity but had some very odd ideas as part of their "religion." It is worthy to note that at this point in the history of Christianity, there were literally hundreds of sects or cults, all with different interpretations of Scripture. (Rather similar our own day and time.) It took some while after Augustine for the organization we know as the Catholic Church to commencement predominate and and so go the sole acceptable expression of Christianity.

This explanation of his life, betwixt the ages of 16 and twenty, leads to his telling well-nigh his mother, Monica, known equally Saint Monica in some churches. Augustine from the perspective of ten or twelve years afterwards, says of his female parent and her influence:

But you sent down your aid from above and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness considering my mother, your faithful servant wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual decease than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her faith and in the spirit which she had from you she looked on me as dead. Yous heard her and did not despise the tears that streamed downwards and watered the globe in every identify she bowed her caput in prayer. You heard her for how else tin can I explain the dream with which you consoled her, then that she agreed to alive with me and eat at the same table in our dwelling? Lately she had refused to do this, because she loathed and shunned the blasphemy of my false...

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Augustine's personal search for truth colored every aspect of his life and apparently never really concluded even after his conversion. He spends many, many paragraphs castigating himself for how foolish he was to ever believe anything the Manicheans said. He also seems to spend a lot of fourth dimension and energy ripping himself up equally though he felt that anyone as smart as he was should non have taken and so much fourth dimension finding the truth. He makes a quiet point of sharing how he read books of philosophy and science and mathematics, and was able to figure out what they were near without the aid of instructors. He checked his understanding confronting the understanding of other well-educated people and establish his cocky-deduced understanding to exist in line with theirs so he was able to be confident in his own intellect. While we must accommodate a different cultural standard for judging maturity, it does seem as Augustine was very harsh on himself and demanded a bully deal from a very young person. As role of his search for truth, Augustine found a read the piece of work of the Platonists, who while they didn't really discuss God in a Christian context, did, using the works of Plato, re-enforce the idea of some ultimate truth worth looking for. He writes,

Past reading these books of the Platonists, I had been prompted to expect for truth as something incorporeal, and I caught sight of your invisible nature, as it is known through your creatures. Though I was thwarted of my wish to know more, I was conscious of what my mind was besides clouded to see. (pg. 154)

At almost this aforementioned time, young Augustine learned through diverse preachers that the Cosmic Church building did non hold some beliefs that he had found personally distasteful.

After all the misery his "long" exploration of ideas acquired him, he finally comes to the agreement that each and every "imitation path" he took was actually where he needed to go to finally find and accept God.

The 3rd powerful influence that led Augustine toward his conversion were the witnesses and stories of others who had finally accepted Christ -- which at this time also meant accepting Catholic instruction. By this time, Augustine had moved to Milan to teach rhetoric and philosophy. Although he deliberately left his mother backside, she "braved the dangers of the sea voyage," and followed him the year after. Probably through her influence, Augustine began attending church building where one Ambrose, called Saint Ambrose, was the priest. Augustine was much taken with the homo's joy and beauty of listen and pedagogy. This seemed to cuase and even greater crunch of spirit for Augustine and because Ambrose was e'er so decorated, Augustine didn't feel it would be rigiht for him to impose the enormous burden of confusion, doubt and guilt he was dealing with on Ambrose. The solution Augustine found for this dilemma, was to go to another priest/bishop by the proper name of Simplicianus, who was recognized every bit spiritual male parent to Ambrose. Plainly, Simplicianus willingly listened to all the troubled Augustine had to say and and then shared with him the story of ane Victorinus, a Roman, who was a man of great learning and plainly quite sometime at the time of his conversion. Augustine says:

He (Victorinus) had studied a great many books of philosophy and published criticisms of them. He had been master to many distinguished members of the Senate, and to mark his outstanding ability as a teacher, he had even been awarded a statue in the Roman forum -- a peachy honor in the eyes of the world. (pg. 159)

Augustine goes on to tell that Victorinus was a worshipper of the many gods of Rome and took part enthusiastically in the rites of the gods. The onetime priest finishes his tale past relating that Victorinus willingly gave upwardly his school in obedience to a police force passed by the emperor Julian which forbade Christians to teach literature or rhetoric.

At some appointment, non besides much later, Augustine and his dearest friend Alypius, are visited past a homo named Ponticianus who is described as a "countryman of ours from Africa," and besides as someone who held a high position in the household of the Emperor. In the course of making some request of Augustine and his friend, Ponticianus notices a book on a nearby tabular array and when he looks to run across what it is, notice that it is a re-create of Paul's epistles. This inspires Ponticianus to chronicle the story of his own conversion that of three of his friends. Ponticainus tells them of Antony, an Egyptian monk whose ministry was noted for wonders and "mod day" miracles within the Cosmic…

Sources Used in Documents:

Works Cited

Davis, Cyprian. "Black Cosmic Theology: A Historical Perspective." Theological Studies 61.4 (2000): 656. Questia. x May 2005 <http://www.questia.com/>.

Dinter, Paul E. "Catholics' Romance with Celibacy: Is the Stop About?." United states of america Today (Club for the Advancement of Education) Nov. 1994: 72+. Questia. x May 2005 <http://www.questia.com/>.

Mcpherson, C.W. "Augustine Our Gimmicky." Cross Currents Spring 2000: 170. Questia. 10 May 2005 <http://www.questia.com/>.

Neuhaus, Richard John. "How I Became the Catholic I Was." First Things: A Monthly Journal of Faith and Public Life Apr. 2002: xiv+. Questia. 10 May 2005 <http://www.questia.com/>.
Noonan, John T. "Development in Moral Doctrine." Theological Studies 54.4 (1993): 662+. Questia. ten May 2005 <http://www.questia.com/>.

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