Day 4 - Saturday - Station at St Augustine

Augustine Teaching in Rome by Benozzo Gozzoli 

In 384, Augustine moved to Milan, where the great Ambrose (later also a saint) was Bishop, widely known and respected as a powerful rhetorician.  Augustine had always considered Christianity intellectually lacking, but Ambrose's application of Neo-Platonic ideas to the interpretation of Christian scripture, delivered in Ambrose's impressive rhetoric, captured Augustine's interest. Augustine had become increasingly dissatisfied with Manichaeism, and under the influence of Ambrose he eventually broke with the Manichees. Augustine began to read Neo-Platonic works for himself, and his reading revolutionized his understanding of Christianity. 

Conversion of Augustine of Hippo - St Augustine Reading the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans by Benozzo Gozzoli

(Click the link in the Optional Activities section below if you are interested in the entire series of the life of St Augustine by Benozzo Gozzoli.)

These words from Paul were particuarly significant because Augustine's great besetting sin was lust.  Yes, he had sent his concubine back to Africa, but the fiancee his mother had arranged for him to marry was underage, so the wedding had to be put off for 2-3 years.  He found that most inconvenient, and soon took another concubine.  It was during that time that he records for us, in his Confessions, this most insincere prayer, "God grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

Above:  The Conversion of St. Augustine by Fra Angelico

With a group of like-minded friends, Augustine spent the winter of 386 in retreat, withdrawn from the world, reading and discussing Christianity.  Finally, at the Vigil of Easter in 387, he and his son Adeodatus, were baptized by Bishop Ambrose.  

Below:  Ruins of the ancient baptistry under the Duomo in Milan where Ambrose baptized Augustine and Adeodatus.

Later when Augustine was a bishop, he wrote his Confessions as a teaching tool to guide his flock, which has since become a classic of Christian theology, and was perhaps the first autobiography ever written. This is our source for the account of his conversion.  The following is a quote from that work, referring to his finally being able to lay aside the lusts of the flesh as he came to understand the Ordo Amoris [Augustine taught that virtue is properly ordered love. When a man understands Ordo Amoris, he places God first, loves his family as he should, and rightly orders all things according to their true value]:

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved thee.  Lo, you were within,but I outside, seeking there for you,
and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,those things which would have no being,
were they not in you. You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Augustine and Monica, along with Adeodatus, a number of friends, and perhaps Augustine's brother Navigius, decided to return to the family property in Africa and set up a monastic community there.  In the coastal city of Ostia, the port of Rome, where they planned to embark for Africa, Augustine records a deeply spiritual experience that he shared with his mother.  Shortly thereafter, Monica fell ill and died, and was buried in Ostia. Augustine's grief was intense.  The story of Augustine's life in the Confessions ends at this point, with Augustine about 35 years old, the father of one son, preparing to return to Africa. However, his life's work was only beginning.

In 389, Augustine returned to Thagaste, where he lived on his family estate in a small, quasi-monastic community. But Augustine was a famous rhetorician, and his talents were well known. In 391, he visited the city of Hippo Regius, about 60 miles from Thagaste, thinking to start a monastery there.  However, his presence caused quite a stir, and in the end he was drafted by the local Christian community into the priesthood, and shortly afterward, as the co-adjutor bishop. In 395, he was elevated to the position of Bishop of Hippo, at the death of the former bishop, and he spent the next 35 years preaching, celebrating Mass, serving as an ecclesiastical judge, and ministering to his congregation. He wrote many books in an effort to shepherd his flock, and he became famous throughout the Christian world for his writings, as well as his role in the resolution of the Pelagian heresy and the Donatist schism.

The Ruins of Hippo Regius in Algeria, North Africa

In 410, catastrophe struck the Roman Empire.  Rome, the capitol of the great empire that had dominated the Mediterranean world for so many centuries, was sacked by Visigoths, a tribe of barbarians from northern Europe.  Many saw this event as the end of civilization as it had been known, and the pagans blamed the Christian rejection of the traditional gods of Rome for the disaster.

In response to these accusations, Augustine began writing his great masterpiece, The City of God.  In The City of God, Augustine set the heavenly and eternal Jerusalem, the true home of all Christians, against the transitory worldly power represented by Rome.  Articulating an entirely Christian worldview, he gave evidence that the Roman rejection of the traditional values and natural virtues of Rome were the true cause of the vulnerability of the Empire.  In fact, he noted, it was the Christians who upheld the traditional values that had made Rome the great power of the ancient world. 

Below:  Illuminated manuscript of the City of God

Sant' Agostino (St Augustine)

One of the most magnificent churches in Rome- Facade

Above: Interior Nave 

Below:  High Altar 

Above: Column with painting by Raphael: The Prophet Isaiah 

Above: Detail of the Prophet Isaiah

When the patron who had paid for the painting, complained to Michelangelo that he had been overcharged by Raphael, the great artist replied with an ironic touch of envy, "That knee alone is worth the price!"

Above: Madonna with Child and Anna - Detail of the column above

Above: St Monica' tomb and chapel

In this photo, the actual sunlight streams through a window and plays across the altarpiece, reproducing almost exactly, the ray of sunlight that the artist included in the painting.

Below: Dome of the Basilica of St Augustine - Rome

Below:  A great work of Caravaggio is housed here:  Madonna of the Pilgrims

A powerful symbol of womanhood and motherhood, Mary, richly adorned in velvet, presents her unclad son to rather scruffy and grubby, but adoring pilgrims.  

In His unclad state, enthroned in his mother's arms, Carravagio seems to be telling us that Truth (Christ) is present without obstacles to these pilgrims in a powerful way that is worth whatever they may have suffered in their quest to find Him and behold Him as He is.