An Addict Finds Messiah! The Story of Augustine
Augustine of Hippo (in modern Algeria) is considered by many to be “the most significant Christian thinker after Paul.” He was a master orator, and over 5,000,000 of his words survived him, thanks to those who wrote down his many sermons. But a poor translation of the Bible nearly kept him from discovering the true riches of heaven!
Augustine’s conversion is not merely related to his rejection of paganism and other cults for Christianity but his deep struggle with lust and sensuality. “You set me free from a craving for sexual gratification which fettered me like a tight-drawn chain,”[1] exclaims a born-again Augustine.
Mark Chironna writes, “Augustine, from his teens, was quite immersed in sexual pleasure. He learned it from his father,” a pagan philanderer, “who was proud of his son’s exploits.”[2] However, Augustine’s mother, Monica, was a fervent Christian, praying for her son’s conversion.
Augustine headed to Carthage to pursue his education, “where he was thrust into ‘a hissing cauldron of lust.”[3] Unable to discern the line between love and lust, Augustine “polluted the stream of friendship with my filthy desires and clouded its purity with hellish lusts.”[4] In Carthage, he took on a mistress and fathered a son. Mike Aquilina suggests they didn’t marry because they were from different social standings, as the law mandated that people marry within their social class.
Augustine developed a deep hunger for wisdom through the writings of the philosopher Cicero. Richard Foster explains, “Cicero was not a Christian—he did not have the full revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ—but his writing did serve as a vital pre-evangelism for [Augustine].”[5] This led him to the sacred texts, but the only Bible available…was a badly flawed Latin translation.”[6] He felt the Bible “unworthy” when compared to Cicero.[7]
Turned off, Augustine embraces “the raging intellectual fad of the day,”[8] Manicheism, at nineteen, and continues into his late twenties. Nagged by questions, he’s excited to gain an audience with a great Manichee leader, Faustus, but finds him quite ignorant and unable to answer his questions.
Renouncing Manicheism, Augustine moves to Rome to teach rhetoric. In Rome, he receives a new patron (someone who will sponsor you financially in exchange for loyalty) named Symmachus. Symmachus has a deep passion for returning Rome to its former pagan glory and feels that Augustine’s skill as an orator could help. Symmachus arranges for Augustine to receive a prestigious appointment in Milan as the master of rhetoric. Aquilina describes Augustine as “the mouthpiece of the government.”[9] As an orator, this was Augustine’s dream job!
But in Milan, he meets the highly respected Bishop Ambrose. What was lacking in Faustus, he finds in Ambrose.[10] “If there was one person in the entire Roman Empire who could spar (intellectually) with Augustine, it was Ambrose.”[11] He spoke with authority, unlike the Faustus. Ambrose “forthrightly declared that Jesus Christ had the power to break the bonds of moral failure. No one had offered that kind of power before.”[12] But Augustine was not quite ready for that. He had previously prayed, “Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet.”[13]
In the summer of 386 CE, in a garden in Milan, a great battle ensues for Augustine’s soul. His flesh waged war against the Spirit (Gal 5:17). Augustine is still tormented by his sexual appetite, but he also wanted to know God. He confessed, “Now is the moment, let it be now,”[14] and hope would arise, only to find salvation out of his grasp. He continued in prayer. His lusts cried out to him, asking, “Do you mean to get rid of us? Shall we never be your companions again”?[15] At the same time, Continence (sexual self-restraint) called out to him, explaining that only God could give such strength—not human effort.[16] The war for his soul continued. “A huge storm blew up within me and brought on a heavy rain of tears.”[17]
In his agony, he hears the voice of a young girl say, “Pick it up and read.”[18] He returns to where his copy of the Scriptures lay and determines to read the first verse he sees: “[N]ot in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:13-14). And just like that, he was free. “No sooner had I reached the end of the verse than the light of certainty flooded my heart and all dark shades of doubt fled away.”[19]
Reflection
I can relate to Augustine’s battle. When my best friend became a believer in high school, I was horrified that he would give up the pleasures of life, which had become my great pursuit.
So precious to me were the inclinations of the flesh that I could not imagine giving them up for “religion.” Even as Augustine initially found the words of life to be lifeless, I, too, looked at those who were religious—both my fellow Jews and Christians—as those who were missing out. I envied them not.
My understanding of the gospel was that you exchange a gratifying life for a boring one, and in return you are granted Heaven (if there was such a thing). And if we’re honest, that is not such a bad deal—a few boring years on earth in exchange for all eternity.
But I struggled. John Cassian considered “the demon of unchastity and the desire of the flesh”[20] the second great vice that monks would struggle against. The battle for the monk is not to give in to temptation, but for the unbeliever, like Augustine, it is being willing even to consider giving it up.
Augustine came to see that the riches of Heaven far outweighed the pleasure of sin:
How loudly I cried out to you, my God, as I read the psalms [sic] of David, songs full of faith, outbursts of devotion with no room in them for the breath of pride! Uncouth I was in real love for you. … How loudly I began to cry out to you in those psalms, how I was inflamed by them with love for you and fired to recite them to the whole world.[21]
Augustine’s story can challenge the unbeliever who is holding on to carnal pleasures to see that true gratification is in holiness and purity in the presence of the Holy Spirit. The water he drinks does not satisfy, but God offers living water.
We live in a culture that encourages the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, but for the Church Fathers, this would bring the opposite of gratification.
John Climacus, a fourth-century monk and theologian, said, “If you are master over your mistress (the stomach), [in] every place you dwell,” you will have victory. “But if she subjugates you, then … you will be in peril everywhere.”[22] He felt that the first step in overcoming sexual lust was to subdue the lust of the stomach. “He who delights in his stomach and desires to vanquish the spirit of sexual immorality, is like one who attempts to extinguish a flame with oil.”[23]
Augustine was being wooed by the Spirit, possibly in answer to his mother’s prayers. Wesley called this prevenient grace or “All the drawings of the Father.”[24]
As an outreach people, we are to pray for those around us to experience this drawing to Yeshua. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them” (John 6:44).
Augustine was destined for greatness in the kingdom of God but was a slave to his appetites. Yet his mother, Monica, never gave up and prayed for him, and God never gave up on him and continued to draw Augustine into the kingdom. Let us never give up in praying for others.
[1] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, (New York, NY: New York City Press), 194.
[2] Mark Chironna, interview by author, March 24, 2024. (Bishop Chironna is a spiritual director, having written many books that touch on Spiritual Formation, such as On the Edge of Hope: No Matter How Dark the Night, the Redeemed Soul Still Sings.)
[3] Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001), 187, Kindle.
[4] Augustine, Confessions, 75.
[5] Foster, Streams of Living Water, 188.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Augustine, Confessions, 80.
[8] Foster, Streams of Living Water, 188.
[9] Mike Aquilina, “Saint Augustine: A Voice For All Generations,” YouTube, December 2, 2020, 24:45.
[10] Ibid., 27:50.
[11] Ibid., 29:44.
[12] Foster, Streams of Living Water, 190.
[13] Augustine, Confessions, 75.
[13] Foster, Streams of Living Water, 198.
[14] Augustine, Confessions, 204.
[15] Ibid., 204.
[16] Ibid., 205.
[17] Ibid., 206.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid., 207.
[20] John Cassian, “On the Eight Vices,” Orthodox Church Fathers, accessed March 27, 2024, https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/philokalia/st-john-cassian-on-the-eight-vices.html.
[21] Augustine, Confessions, 214-215.
[22] John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Omaha, NE: Patristic Publishing, 2020), Step 4, On Obedience, Kindle.
[23] Ibid., Step 14, On the Boisterous yet Evil Lord, the Belly.
[24] John Wesley, Sermons of John Wesley, ed. Michael Martin (Saranac Lake, NY: Cedar Eden Books. 618, Kindle.
