Augustin of Hippo or Saint Augustin was born in 354 A.D. in a small town in North Africa.He was born to a pagan father ,who got baptised in his death bed ,but his mother Monica was a zealous christian.
Augustin ,from his childhood,was familiar with the attack on Christian church from within and without.However, he was more interested in living a wayward life of over-indulgence.
He remembers instances where he used to join with friends to steal pears from his neighbour’s vineyard ,not to eat themselves ,but simply to throw them to the pigs.Later, writing about the pear stealing of his youth he reflected, “”A real pleasure consisted in doing something that is forbidden. The evil in me was foul, but I loved it.”
At 17 years of age Augustine was sent off to a school in Carthage where he immersed himself in the writings of different philosophers and forgot about his mother’s religion.
After his studies were completed he returned to his home town.,where he taught ‘rhetoric and Manichaeism,which was a corrupt form of Christianity.
Augustin tried to hide his views from his mother Monica but when she found out she threw him out of the house.
He went on to teach rhetoric in Rome and also became the professor of rhetoric for the city of Milan .In the meantime, his mother continued to pray and plead for her son’s soul.
Augustin had a concubine whom he apparently loved and had a son with ,but did not marry her.
For years he had been struggling to overcome his fleshly passions and nothing seemed to help.
One afternoon he was restlessly walking in the garden ,suddenly he heard a child’s sing-song voice repeating ,”take up and read “,”take up and read.”
On the table lay a collection of Paul’s epistles he had been reading ,he picked it up and read the first thing.
It said : “Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness,Not in quarrels and rivalries.Rather, arm yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, spend no more thought on nature and nature’s appetite”. (Romans 13: 13–14).
He later wrote, “no further would I read; nor needed I :for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.”
He gave his life to Christ and served Him in various capacity.
Augustin’s defence of his faith ,chronicled in his various writings became a pillar for the church for almost 1000years and is considered to be a pearl in Christian literature.
Augustin famously said,”There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
He wrote, “mankind is divided into two sorts: such as live according to man, and such as live according to God. These we call the two city‘s ........the heavenly city outshines Rome(world).There, instead of victory, is truth”.(City of God.).
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