St Augustine Essay, Research Paper

Confessions is St. Augustine. He chooses to follow the ways of the society and indulges himself in the sins that he committed, therefore, making him responsible for his own actions.

The church does not seal itself off from the world around it, but remains permanently, vulnerably, open to it. Those outside can still come in at any time–and those inside can fail, and fall, at any time.

He lived as we do, in the present, full of uncertainty.

He depicts himself as a rather ordinary sort of child, good at his lessons but not fond of school, eager to win the approval of his elders but prone to trivial acts of rebellion,

He was torn between the conventional pleasures of adolescence and the conventional rigors of philosophy. For this tension, Manicheism offered soothing relief. Augustine was not to blame that he felt this way, the Manichees told him, for he was only the pawn of greater forces that could, because Augustine was lucky and clever, be propitiated. Security could be had without sacrifice, and guilt removed without atonement. The world the Manichees imagined was torn between two contrary powers: the perfectly good creator and the perfectly evil destroyer.[[4] The world seen by human eyes was the battleground for their cosmic conflict. The Manichees and their followers were the few who were on the side of the good spirit and who would be rewarded for their allegiance with eternal bliss. In the meantime all sorts of misfortune might befall the individual, but none of the wicked things he found himself doing were his fault.

Christianity was not, he claimed, something external and visible; it was not to be found in obedience to certain clearly-defined laws. Christianity was a matter of spirit rather than law, something inside people rather than outside. Most important, the church had room within itself for sinners as well as saints, for the imperfections of those in whom God’s grace was still working as well as for the holiness of the blessed.

In Milan, Saint Augustine came under the influence of Saint Ambrose

the bishop; he began to go to his sermons, not so much with an

expectation of profiting by them as to gratify his curiosity and to

enjoy the eloquence. He found that the discourses more learned than

the heresies he adopted and began to read the New Testament

especially Saint Paul’s writings

From that time, Saint Augustine went back to Tagaste, his native

city, and lived for three years with his friends and shared a life

of prayer, study and poverty.