The Intellectual Development of St Augustine in the Confessions [Lecture]

hello everybody today I will be giving a talk on the intellectual development of st. Agustin as described in the confessions I'd given this lecture of the title that looks in tenebris Lucas so in the confessions of 397 Agustin sets out to recount the story of his life leading to his conversion experience the confessions weren't entirely an autobiographical account as understood in the modern sense but a teleological account in which Agustin describes how God brought him to where he was at the time of the Texas inceptions prior to the miracle of his conversion in 387 Augustine's early life had been ultimately characterized by a deep sense of uncertainty arising from the ocean of competing ideologies which dominated the philosophical and religious landscape of Roman latent Italy as a youth Augustine was plagued with a wayward spirit and the mind which wavered back and forth dialectically among a series of competing truths born on November 13th of 3:54 in tag a state to a pagan father and a Christian mother Augustine recounts how he had been schooled in pagan literature throughout his childhood around the age of fifteen or sixteen after having read a manuscript of Cicero's now lost dialogue the hortensia's Augustine's interest in philosophy was sparked having been raised under the Christian fundamentals by his mother Monica Agustin was unsatisfied by Cicero's lack of acknowledgement concerning the importance of Christ following his encounter with pagan philosophy Agustin turned to the study of the Bible being alienated by a literal interpretation of its content and by its lackluster style he turns to reading the mankeum texts during this seminal period of his life Augustine was strongly influenced by friends of his who were manichaean devotees following a less than enlightening encounter with the Manichean rhetorician Faustus and his contact with Ambrose and the Libra platonic or Room in Milan Augustine was convinced that the dualistic world view of the Manicheans was inadequate and that personal responsibility was now the most basic attribute of human existence so today I want to give a detailed examination of the relationship which Agustin would develop with the religio philosophical landscape of his time I want to argue that each successive set of beliefs explored by Augustine in the confessions had a crucial and formative impact on his theological worldview in his early years as a student in Carthage Augustine developed a passion which for the remainder of his life would bring him both intellectual torment and spiritual deliverance Augustine's first encounter with his mistress lady philosophy was prompted by an encounter with the affer mentioned hortensia's of Cicero the crucial details about this text can be stated pretty briefly the hortensia's is a product of a very unhappy period in Cicero's life in which he was as John Taylor writes dejected by the ruin of all his hopes for a decent political order and at the same time overwhelmed with bitter grief over the deepest tragedy in his private life the plot of the dialogue focuses on four speakers each taking part in a discussion concerning their respective branches of study lucullus gives his praises for history while catalyst celebrates poetry portentous defense rhetoric and Cicero philosophy at the age of 19 Augustine was assigned the hortensia's while studying rhetoric at Carthage as it was part of the curriculum it was part of my ambition to be a good speaker Augustine wrote for the unhallowed and a named purpose of gratifying human vanity the prescribed course of study brought to me a work by an author named Cicero who's writing nearly everyone admires if not the spirit of it the title of the book is hortensia's and it recommends the reader to study philosophy it altered my outlook on life it changed my prayers to you O Lord and provided me with new hopes and aspirations all my empty dreams suddenly lost their charm and my heart began to throb with a bewildering passion for the wisdom of eternal truth I began to climb out of the depths to which I had sunk in order to return to you for I did not use the book as a whetstone to sharpen my tongue it was not the style of it but the contents which won me over in this moving passage from the confessions a gust that explains how upon reading the works of Kuya stuns kicad Ernest a seed had implanted the love of wisdom which would ultimately blossom into what he would come to describe as a love for wisdoms original source the Simone poem the highest good Augustine was not drawn to any particular set of philosophical principles in Cicero's work but rather to the general fascination with wisdom itself regardless of where he might find it floating among the vast ideological oceans of the late Roman world twice more in the confessions once in book six and later in book eight the Gustin hurts back to the deep impact made on him by hortensia's stirring up within him as he called it Sabby NPI the immediate outcome of having read Cicero's philosophical writings were ironically not a desire to study more of the great philosophers but instead Agustin developed a taste for sacred scriptures he explains to his readers that his biggest disappointment in reading the hortensia's was that the name of Christ was nowhere to be found within it must be granted of course the Augustine had not seriously believed that he might literally find the name of Christ in the writings of a pre-christian pagan but he later reveals that since childhood and thanks to his mother's teachings he had instinctively made connections between wisdom and the name of Christ itself when finally turning to scripture he found little worth in them in terms of style while his overly literal interpretation of the Old Testament narratives repelled him from any serious study at a later date this turn to scripture would have been the catalyst for an instantaneous change in conviction but the sin of lust and the sin of pride were too deeply embedded in Augustine's heart and the inquisitive student had too many questions left unanswered the young Agustin was incapable of grasping the notion that he could be personally responsible for the evils of his own hand and that they could not be allotted to some innate material force which compelled the flesh to sin popular superstition convinced Augustine of such error leading him to put his trust in mystic charlatans and astrologers who as Agustin writes tells us that the cause of sin is determined in the heavens and that we cannot escape it and that this or that is the work of Venus or Saturn or Mars they want us to believe that man is guiltless flesh-and-blood though he is and doomed to die despite his pride instead they have it that the blame is to be laid on the Creator the very source of justice all the while the newly heretical Manichaean movement began to appear more attractive the dualist sect born out of Near Eastern Gnosticism and later brought to Rome spoke of both Christ and of the Holy Spirit and Lord Agustin in with false promises that they could guide him towards some form of truth and ideological stability I quote this was then for Agustin a period of mental and moral confusion explains Taylor but the yearning for wisdom first stirred by Cicero's hortensia's never died at least he had resolved to put aside any inordinate desire he had for riches and although he finished his course in rhetoric and then supported himself by teaching rhetoric his interests were now no longer exclusively literary and rhetorical as they had once being overwhelmed by the vast corpus of philosophical and religious literature available to him in the late 4th century Augustine now a young man wrestled with Aristotle and Plato's works reading the categories the Timaeus and the Phaedo respectively she didn't abandon the study of Cicero's less significant dialogues and he acquainted himself with the writings of many great Latin writers such as Apuleius Seneca and Varro August and found himself immersed among a mountain of other books amongst which he shamefully confesses were and I quote books of the horoscope casters all the books that I could get off the so called liberal arts and most importantly in this period of life the manichaean writings while teaching rhetoric in Carthage at the age of 26 or 27 he attempted to write his own manic he inspired philosophical treatise a Deadpool curl at a flow which no longer survives to a modern audience my thoughts ranged only amongst the material forms Augustine tells us i define them in two classes those which please the eye because they are beautiful in and of themselves and those which do so because they are properly proportionate in relation to something else I also gave some thought to the nature of the soul but my misconception of spiritual things prevented me from seeing the truth I turned my pulsating mind away from the spiritual toward the material I considered line and color and shape and since my soul had no such visible qualities I argued that I could not see it that was taken from confessions 4.15 at this point in a guest his life he had rationalized his youthful pride into a personal worldview in which he gave the title of monad to universal harmony while it's giving the name of dyad to the forces which led him to violence and the sins of passion Augustine then understood that the sins of self-indulgence were enacted when the soul was incapable of governing the impulses toward bodily pleasure during the decade in which these speculations occurred Augustine was held among the rank of howdy tour in the Manichaean sect he perhaps was familiar with the movement in the gaas day through a number of acquaintances but he hadn't become a devotee until the finishing year of his studies in Carthage man aqui ISM was organized around a rigid dichotomy between the spiritual elite the perfecti and the rank-and-file aldi TOA is the perfect he taught and secured salvation for the audi torres by remitting their sins through a variety of sensational rituals in exchange the auditories would shelter and feed them the manikins then were a group with a distinct inner core which Augustine would eventually come to perceive as meticulously ill-kempt and vagrant fenced in by a handful drastic taboos by contrast the Audi Torres were indistinguishable from any others in their day-to-day lives from book 3 and onwards Agustin explains how he fell into in kitty in the recently prescribed cult and how those people he used to clamors an island about God in no structured way free Quentin and multiplicative with the help of their huge and numerous tomes liberty smoothies and Indian taboos Agustin explains that such enormous books were not used for the study of truth but rather as platters fat Akula on which the Sun and the moon were thrust upon him in fed upon torso Laguna furthermore he elaborates on the role which these tomes played in Manichaean proselytization the platters they put down before me upon a bound water unhook me he contained splendid hallucinations the mannequins profess themselves a religion of Pure Reason one scholar writes it had a ready answer to offer for everything even for the most vexing problems its assertions were complete my mute and consistent and thus captured even those of Abel intellects such as Agustin it combined the ancient mythology with a purely materialistic dualism it had an immensely simple form of worship and a strict morality unsatisfied by their rudimentary doctrines Augustine held to the hope that there could be some hidden meaning lying behind the veil of absurd sciences and myths meanwhile Augustine continued to wrestle with his own moral predicaments especially the challenge of living a chaste life Augustine's unchanging status as an Audi tour was particularly linked with his having a concubine a son and a secular career in his confessions Agustin writes that around his early adulthood he prayed outwardly for countenance while his heart wished in secret that such a gift might be granted at some later time the philosophies propounded by many were thoroughly concerned with the materialistic Augustine would have been taught a worldview in which to absolutes good and evil were inextricably bound up with the primeval and antagonistic principles of material light and darkness approximately a century prior to Agustin's time many had preached on the subjugation of the soul by the alluring powers of matter however manis approach to this worldview was quite radical in that he exhorted his followers to a pour it and therein lay the great flaw to which Augustine could not ultimately subscribe the cornerstone of his teaching lay in the doctrine of literally destroying oneself by abnegation of the material body and thus freeing captured light particles which would advance the kingdom of light against its cosmic rival many equated matter itself with sin and evil and consequently he preached that there was a moral responsibility for every man to destroy the life of the body the construction of an evil spirit this conception of the cosmos would have had a profound impact on formation of Agustin's views especially concerning the elusive problem of evil he works on in his confessions the perfecti were entirely devoted to the work of freeing light particles while the Audi Torres were only devoted to this task in part their duties were summed up in three seals or Sigma Kuna the seal of the mouth the seal of the hand and the seal of the breasts respectively meaning abstinence from evil words abstinence from tainted foods abstinence from contact with things harmful to the light and most difficult Lee in the case of Agustin abstinence from the indulgence of carnal desires the Manicheans also adhered to a number of fasts and solemn festivals all of which were intimately connected with astronomical phenomena Augustine tells us that for almost the whole of the nine years as a mana key he awaited quote with the keenest expectation the coming of the famed Manichean bishop Faustus since most of his friends within the sect were unable to answer the bulk of his theological or existential questions they assured Agustin that once Faustus had arrived he would have no difficulty in giving him all the answers he sought when the pet effectives arrived Agustin tells us that he found the man to have been quote a agreeable personality with a pleasant manner of speech who pattered off the usual Manichaean arguments with a great deal more than usual charm and quote nevertheless Agustin was thoroughly disappointed to find that foul saz's answers were no different in content than those of the others despite being stylistically expressed in a more embellished fashion being a teacher of rhetoric in Carthage at the time Augustine was quick to criticize Faustus quote I soon discovered except for a rudimentary knowledge of literature that he had no claims to scholarship he had read some Cicero's speeches one or two books of Seneca some poetry and such books as had been written in good Latin by members of his sect end quote for Agustin the lack of philosophical reasoning amongst its most lauded teachers only solidified his feeling of estrangement from the manichaean faith thoroughly disillusioned Augustine nevertheless remained in contact with his Manichaean friends in Rome to where he would set sails in the summer of 383 since their support was key in securing him a chair of rhetoric in Milan not until after coming under the info of Ambrose would agustin make his decisive schism with manichaean ism apparent while residing in Milan sometime between 3 82 and 83 following his definite schism with the dualist sect a disillusioned Agustin was afflicted with a deep sentiment of skepticism as propounded by the academics of his day fortunately for the history of the church this was a short-lived phase in these dark times Augustine groped and wrestled with a series of conflicting truths he had come into contact with throughout his life guided by the advice of his good friends simply Kiana's it is this formative period in which Augustine came into contact with a life changing person the st. Ambrose and even more importantly the Ebury Latin Accord the books of the plate enlists two broad obstacles had lain between Augustine and Christianity before his encounter with Ambrose of Milan firstly his decade as a manikyam a beetle that had left him incapable of imagining a world beyond the material I could imagine no kind of substance except such as is normally seen by the eye writes Agustin in book seven of his confessions secondly he could not embrace the crudely stylized and profoundly mythological stories of the Old Testament Ambrose would play a vital role in dispelling the latter difficulty by arguing in his sermons that the Old Testament need not always be taken literally when first attending Mass in Milan Augustine explains quote I did not trouble to take what Ambrose said to heart but only to listen to the manner in which he said it this being the only poultry interest that remained to me know that I had lost hope nevertheless his meaning which I tried to ignore found its way into my mind together with his words I began to believe that the Catholic faith which I had thought impossible to defend against the objections of the mana keys might fairly be maintained this retrospective depiction of Ambrose of course stands in deliberate contrast to that of falseness in book 5 Augustine's description of his gradual attraction to the sermons of Ambrose can also be compared to his acquaintance with Cicero's portentous in book 3 in all three examples there is a contrast given between the inner meaning and the outer verbal discourse in a case of Cicero Agustin the bishop criticizes the fact that virtually everyone admired the great Roman orator for his lingua rather than for what was in his pectus his heart Faustus is positioned between two accounts a man whom Augustine admired for his rhetorical charm but reviled for the vapid contents of his words in the case of Ambrose the polarities were suddenly reversed this is something argued by the scholar Breton stock he says it is the youthful Augustine rather than the elder Bishop who has the genuine insight which comes through a recognition of the content rather than the style of Ambrose's words having heard one passage after another figuratively explained Agustin relinquished all past misconceptions concerning the Catholic faith which he had unconsciously adopted from his manichaean friends still having being unable to convict the faith of many to falsehood through any logical or empirical means Agustin was reluctant to repeat the mistakes of his past I did not feel that I ought to follow the Catholic path simply because it too had its learn at men ready to vouch for it and never had a loss for sound arguments in answer to objection with this in mind Augustine officially renounced all ties to the Manicheans and by 386 began to identify himself as a catechumen of the church it would not take long for Ambrose to shake him free from his deep-seated dependence on materialism there are clear reasons as to why Ambrose's preaching may have seemed so attractive to a disenchanted Manichaean audit or under the influence of origin of Alexandria the Milanese Bishop thoroughly opposed the importance of the flesh visiter the spirit though still maintaining the Neoplatonic belief in the fundamental goodness of God's creation the elements of platanus cleverly woven into Ambrose's sermons further moved agustin by colouring the Christian gospel with attractive shades of mystical philosophy most importantly Ambrose set an example for a Gustin by combining biblical reading and exegesis with contemplation and philosophy offering up an alternative religious life to that of the overtly polemical Manichaean evangelists while Ambrose appears to have been capable of removing the literary stumbling block to Agustin's spiritual development and reawaken the catechumens interest in finding rational solutions to theological issues in the end he was incompetent in personally eliminating all of the philosophical complications to Agustin's intellectual struggles all of this would change with the help of an almost providential introduction to a body of newly translated Neoplatonic texts by the African rhetorician Marius Victor - I quote a man bloated with the most outrageous pride regardless of their source the books of the plight inist says Augustine taught me to seek for a truth which was incorporeal for these books he maintains God raised him up from Manichean is he really zoom thus making him receptive to his mother's old faith which he had so long resisted the extent and chronology of Agustin's particular depths and Neoplatonic writers particularly those to Platina sand porphyry has been an object of fierce scholarly disputation for over a century there's been very little consensus regarding the origins and development of Agustin's neoplatonism since there's no absolute way to determine which of the specific vibra platonic Odin were read and when since Augustine so thoroughly absorbed digested and integrated their ideas that they became indistinguishable from his own no specific mentions are made of Latinas or porphyry Augustine's emphasis is solely placed on interpretive activities the discovery of the polite nests lies at the very center of the confessions and since the Bishop of hippos affinity with Platonism would dwindle in later years when scriptural language and imagery begins supplanting that plateless sword it is arguable whether augustine can be aptly described as a neoplatonist to the end of his days since its inception in the third century at Alexandria Neoplatonism was never a secular philosophy in the modern sense nor was it a religion of intellectuals it was indeed a philosophy at its core but one whose esoteric metaphysics proposed a doctrine of salvation which was inevitably bound to attract the substantial number of religiously unsatisfied intellectuals of late antiquity it was for this reason therefore that Christians could not fully relate to neoplatonism to them it was entirely another religion what had been bought wholesale by a Gustin were not the fundamentals of platonic theology but rather more peripheral things such as their language their metaphors their comparisons and their questions brian stock writes the one became the word it was within this interpretive scheme that he found a language for discussing otherwise intractable moral issues such as the problem of evil Agustin's most orthodox interpretations of Scripture never entirely ceased to exhibit a recognizably platonic language so noticeable to his peers was a gustin's Neoplatonic recharged language that according to Nebra dias his letters resound with christ plato and latinas through his readings of the lis deeply platonic gone Augustine was pushed towards a lasting conversion of sorts from a career in rhetoric to one in philosophy such a sincere conversion was bound to impact the public and private spheres of his life if it were feasible for a young student in Carthage to have subscribed straight away to the Manichaean faith after reading Cicero's praises to philosophy in the hortensia's the impact of having read neoplatonist literature in Milan could be no less unpredictable one consequence was certain Augustine could now cast off the wavy chains of skepticism and the beliefs of the new Academy and the first among his works written during his monastic retreat in cassock cocoon was a polemic against such skepticism in abandoning a neutral position Agustin would have found himself in troubled waters explains Peter Brown for the intellectual landscape of Milan was as much post Plutonian as our own age is post-freudian for well over a century pagans and Christians had fought each other as the sole inheritors of Plato's teachings in the works of the plight mists Christians were privy to a thorough explanation of the structure of the spiritual cosmos pagan flight nests however scoffed at the Christian mysteries of Incarnation crucifixion and the bodily resurrection of Christ as a superstitious intrusion to the genuine wisdom of their master while the more moderate plaintiffs appealed to Christian sensibilities by having inscribed on their walls in the beginning was the word they would not suffer the full words of st. John and declaring that the Word was made flesh the pagans would go so far as to provoke st. Ambrose to write a pamphlet arguing against a rumor which held that Christ had derived all the good of his teachings from reading Plato latinas himself had even been definite on this issue quote I am striving to give back the divine in myself to the divine in the all allegedly proclaimed platanus in his last words nor does this divine self await liberation it awaits only discovery there was no drama of redemption the general platonic understanding had been that a man might attain some vision of God through contemplation they divinely unaided and rational transcendence of the intellect what resonated most with Agustin was that samuel was what Samuel Angus describes somewhat inaccurately as the Orphic mystic view this worldview which Platina adhered to shines through the words of Agustin quote we must fly to that dear dear fatherland there is the father there is all to be like God man is a creature fallen from a high estate a wanderer or exile from the true home of the soul he is immersed in a world of senses oblivious of or painfully struggling toward the spiritual world salvation will come by the revelation of the one the supreme good which the soul will gladly embrace following his conversion Augustine was convinced of the unconditional dependence of man upon God and in this he understood how weak he had been in trying to act rightly by his own strength here he sided with Paul and departed from the plate mists since they held that by living a just life and knowing the truth the philosopher could ascend through his own strength bestowed by a divine nature to transcendental union with God nonetheless the impact of Neoplatonic philosophy was significant for Gustin since he found a very thorough plane of agreement between the Platonic teachings and the allegorical interpretations of Scripture as promulgated by saint ambrose especially concerning the gospel according to john after a decade-long stint under the influence of manic e ism the area of agreement between Orthodox Christianity and Platonism most important to Agustin lay in the understanding that God is altogether an immaterial spirit not a luminous body as Manichaean materialism would suppose of the many parallels which Augustine adhered to was the correlation between the Neoplatonic divine mind with the logos of Saint John nevertheless by the time of his conversion Agustin was well aware of the obvious distinctions which divided Plutonian Neoplatonism and Catholic tradition Augustine's accounts for the difference he perceived in book seven of the confessions where he's keen to explore the great measure of harmony between the plate nests and the established Catholic scriptures neoplatonism and christianity were fundamentally at 1 in preaching an ascetic life placing focus on inwardness and communing with the creator as the highest good they preached the same metaphysical idealism the same spiritual psychology and held identical visions of the good life that of a sober mystic nevertheless there were also deep-seated difference which would have prevented the two from combining as belief systems in reading through the more popular Neoplatonic texts of his time translated into Latin by Victor Ines Augustine was shaken with some sense of disappointment and confusion when confronted with what Beatrice calls the idolatrous orgy many of the classically trained pagan neoplatonist s-- whose work Agustin would have been reading were vocally anti-christian augustine admonishing lea reacts to this frame of mind accusing them that quote thou didst learned these things not from Plato but from thy Chaldean masters in the face of this obstacle Agustin turned to the spiritual father of Ambrose the bishops implicados for clarification and support as simply Kiana's would explain the libra platonic our room were thoroughly saturated with truths concerning God quote in the politeness Cynthiana said God and His Word are constantly implied recalls Agustin in book eight following these discussions Agustin was convinced of a fundamental link between Christian Trinitarian theology and the Neoplatonic doctrines of the height must assets at a much later period in his life it is remarkable to find a defense which Augustine makes for platanus in book 10 of de Cuba Conte de while addressing the question of demon ala tree as promoted by the Neoplatonic philosophers Agustin wrote that attributing praise do anything other than God is an intellectual error opposed not only to Christianity but to the fundamental principles of latinas himself who held that God is the intelligible light of the human soul the same light described in the prologue of st. John and that intellectual creatures have no superior save God in book six of his confessions Agustin explores for antitheses which follow the paradigm of EB legi or nany be leggy in each case what is found or is not found in the Libra platonic Adam is framed by sets of quotations from Scripture this schema flushes out a number of elements in the books of the plainest switch were attuned to Christian truths while also indicating what could not be found said qui aware of um caro factum ends at habit are within novice non-evil eggie since it violated their very hierarchy of being in every way the pagan neoplatonist had very little parallel for the doctrine of incarnation the descent of pure spirit into the material world of the eternal into the temporal and of the one into the many was hardly characteristic of theories propounded by Plato the human soul itself partaking in divinity was rather believed to ascend to unity with the divine through contemplation while the divine was incapable of descent Martin Camargo writes it is the neoplatonist self-sufficiency their belief in the efficacy of their own efforts to bridge the gap separating human creature from divine creator that is at the heart of Augustine's critique Augustine would appropriate this Neoplatonic theory of ascent by uniting its goals to those of Christian reading and meditation through means of divine grace Augustine could reconcile this theological schism by taking the transcendental abilities exclusive to an intellectual elite and making it accessible to all the pagans in Augustine's mine were in no way at fault for having adopted the notion of a spiritual intermediary but rather in refusing to acknowledge its manifestation in Christ in contrast to platanus Augustine holds that the ascent of the soul is impossible without the aid of an ad you tour which he describes using the metaphors of light so familiar to plate inist s' while retaining the strength of this imagery Augustine writes of such light as emanations of the Holy Trinity in the form of truth eternity and love this vision of course proves unsustainable to a sinful flesh there can be no continuity between the eternal goodness of God and the transient nature of man the Christian then with his sins reconciled through the sacrifice of Christ could achieve what the unassisted plainness could not only the logos the eternal truth which surpasses even the highest part of creation could raise up all who subjected themselves to it none of this is contained in the plate mists books wrote Agustin their pages don't have an ounce of the true love of God for the remainder of his long and prolific life Agustin held strong to the belief that no other branch of Greek philosophy could offer up such possibilities for the approach to the Christian God in book eight of de Cuba today after a brief account concerning the pre platonic philosophers Augustine continued to affirm the thoughts he divulged in earlier works quote Plato was the best of the ancient philosophers and most nearly approached the Christian concept of God contrasted with the materialism of the later at the Koreans or Stoics the platonic approach to the human soul and to God is infinitely preferable we might say that this very high esteem for the position of Plato which includes the Neoplatonism of latinas is expressed in terms of his own metaphysics but all these thinkers give way then as we have said to the plate enlists Thomas Wassenaar writes what greater respect could be shown than to have received such honorable mention from a now rigidly Orthodox Catholic Pichet decades after his conversion surely this proves Augustine's enduring familiarity and loved would not only believe pathani coram which he first studied in Milan but with the philosophical world at large a love first implanted by a pagan orders exhortation to philosophy then cultivated through an intellectual and spiritual life of dialectical progress and teleological self analysis Augustine experienced no mystical revelation no beatific vision and no instantly gratifying transcendental experience without first laying out a life struggle for wisdom and truth a truth which emanates from the one but which shines down to earth in the most curious places thank you

Channel: The Modern Hermeticist

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Keywords: Neoplatonism, Neo-Platonism, Manichaeism, Manichaean, Dualism, Gnosticism, Church History, Platonism, Plato, Saint's Lives, Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine, Catholic, history of christianity, catholic history, theodicy, Logos, ancient Rome, Roman Empire, lecture, the Confessions, confessions of saint augustine, hagiography, augustine confessions, augustine platonism, platonists, history lecture, christian philosopher, ancient rome, history, philosophy

Id: ihrZl-nC9hQ

Length: 42min 12sec (2532 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 23 2014