The Conversion of St Augustine

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The Conversion of St Augustine
A mind whose indelible influence transcends two whole millennia cannot just be a simple one, and neither can it be of traces of religion. St Augustine is one such mind, and his book of ‘Confessions’ has remained a great resource to date. Living in the fourth century and writing the first autobiography ever, St Augustine is highly regarded both as a brilliant intellect, and a Christian convert who greatly impacted the Catholic Church.
Although he did not completely disagree with the Christian doctrine, it took St Augustine was 32 years old when he first accepted the Christian faith and got baptized by Bishop Ambrose (Gafford and Aaron 22). Why was it so hard for him to change his life then? Being raised by a pagan father who only got baptized on his deathbed and a Christian mother most certainly did have an impact on the young lad, and so his he had to chart his path in the quest for truth. The path he charted was not uneventful and when he came into contact with religions and subjects which incorporated Christian beliefs while encouraging intellectualism might have delayed his conversion. Until he found creative logic and reason in the teaching of Plato the philosopher, he viewed Christianity as a religion for the simple-minded. Even though his life of sexual indulgence brought him immense pain and misery, he still continued with it and even in his prayers, he would petition God to “grant him chastity and continence, but not yet” because he feared God would answer his prayer and cure him of the lust that he only “desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished” (Augustine n.

p). Obviously, there was a huge battle inside of this man between what he wanted, he saw as the right thing and his bodily cravings. For a significant amount of time, he was already convinced of converting, but too weak to make the decision.
The story of his St Augustine’s conversion is recorded in the twelfth chapter of book eight when in a moment of weeping to God for his laden soul, he heard a child “pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it” (Augustine n.p). It is at that moment that he decided to open the scriptures and read one of the Pauline epistles that said “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (King James Version, Rom. 13:14) and was compelled to change. I do not wish to critique this reason, but I have a more plausible theory for his sudden change. That this moment of conversion was only a culmination of a lifelong journey that had started way before. As Gafford and Aaron record, conversion “was not accomplished in a single moment. It occurred over time through the slow development of Augustine’s thought” (12). Several things swayed the saint towards this change, his love for Neo-Platonism, the short-lived conversion to Manicheanism, the admiration he had for Christian rhetoric embodied in Bishop Ambrose, and of course the early influences of his mother St Monica as well as her continued prayers. Inasmuch as he kept only one concubine, and remained faithful to her for fifteen years, he might not have been the worst sinner of his time, but in his confessions, he mentions that the pain from sexual encounters surpassed the pleasure he got therein. His heart was troubled and his eyes full of tears, and these could be the reasons why a single verse broke him.

Works Cited
Augustine, E.B. “St. Augustine Confessions – Book Eight.” Ourladyswarriors.org. N.p., 2011. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
Bible, Holy. The Holy Bible: King James Version. Christian Cassette Library, 1974.
Gafford, I. I., and Joe Aaron. “The Life and Conversion of Augustine of Hippo.” Tenor of Our Times 4.1 (2015): 12.