Republic of the Philippines

Ilocos Sur Polytechnic State College

Tagudin, Ilocos Sur
REPORTER: MARIA CECILIA D. ANDAYA
TOPIC: PATRISTIC PERIOD
SUBJECT: WORLD CLASSICAL LITERATURE
INSTRUCTOR: DR. GEMMA B. SOMERA
I.INTRODUCTION
The Patristic Period is a vital point in the history of Christianity since it
contextualizes the early Christian information from the time of the death of the
last Apostle (John) (which runs roughly about 100 A.D. to the Middle Ages (451
A.D. and the council of Chalcedon). It describes the cohesion between Judaism
and Christianity and various theological points being sorted out.
This period of literature encapsulates roughly the years 70 AD to 455 AD,
which belongs to the larger period classified by the years 1200 BC to 455 AD,
known as The Classical Period.
The patristic period is the fourth and final part of the classical period, which
blends into the early Medieval Period, specifically the Anglo-Saxon, or Old
English, Period, which consists of the years 428-1066. During this period, the
writings of the early Christian church begin to materialize, since the death of
John who was the last apostle. Divisions within the church on doctrines and the
like were sorted out, as well as final versions of creeds and the writing of
prominent theologian essays and epistles.
The Patristic period is filled with theological importance on the development of
Christian doctrine. Many of the debates of this time are housed in both
theological and philosophical issues. Without a helpful understanding of both of
these disciplines, the student of historical theology will find the patristic period
difficult to comprehend cohesively.

II. DISCUSSION
Patristic literature, body of literature that comprises those works, excluding
the New Testament, written by Christians before the 8th century.
Patristic literature is generally identified today with the entire Christian
literature of the early Christian centuries, irrespective of its orthodoxy or the
reverse. Taken literally, however, patristic literature should denote the literature
emanating from the Fathers of the Christian church, the Fathers being those
respected bishops and other teachers of exemplarylife who witnessed to and
expounded the orthodox faith in the early centuries. This would be in line with
the ancient practice of designating as “the Fathers” prominent church teachers
of past generations who had taken part in ecumenical councils or whose writings
were appealed to as authoritative.
A. THE PRE-NICENE PERIOD
During the first three centuries of its existence, the Christian church had first to
emerge from the Jewish environment that had cradled it and then come to terms
with the predominantly Hellenistic (Greek) culture surrounding it.
1. The Apostolic Fathers
According to conventional reckoning, the earliest examples of
patristic literature are the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers; the
name derives from their supposed contacts with the Apostles or the
apostolic community. These writings include the church order called
the Didachē, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (dealing with church
practices and morals), the Letter of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of
Hermas, all of which hovered at times on the fringe of the New Testament
canon in that they were used as sacred scripture by some local churches;
the First Letter of Clement, the seven letters that Ignatius of
Antioch (died c. 110) wrote when being escorted to Rome for his
martyrdom, the related Letter to the Philippians by Polycarp of Smyrna
(died c. 156 or 168), and the narrative report of Polycarp’s martyrdom;
some fragmentary accounts of the origins of
the Gospels by Papias (flourished late 1st or early 2nd century), bishop of
Hierapolis in Phrygia, Asia Minor; and an ancient homily (sermon) known
as the Second Letter of Clement. They all belong to the late 1st or early 2nd
century and were all to a greater or lesser extent influenced (sometimes by
way of reaction) by the profoundly Jewish atmosphere that pervaded
Christian thinking and practice at this primitive stage. For this reason
alone, modern scholars tend to regard them as a somewhat arbitrarily
selected group. A more scientific assessment would place them in
the context of a much wider contemporary Jewish-Christian literature
that has largely disappeared but whose character can be judged from
pseudepigraphal (or noncanonical) works such as the Ascension of Isaiah,
the Odes of Solomon, and certain extracanonical texts modeled on the New
Testament.
2. The Gnostic Writers
Hardly had the church thrown off its early Jewish-Christian idiosyncrasies
when it found itself confronted by the amorphous but pervasive philosophical-
religious movement known as gnosticism. This movement made a strong bid to
absorb Christianity in the 2nd century, and a number of Christian gnostic sects
flourished and contributed richly to Christian literature.
Among the leading 2nd-century Christian gnostics
were Saturninus and Basilides, reputedly pupils of Menander,
a disciple of Simon Magus (late 1st century), the alleged founder of the
movement; they worked at both Antioch and Alexandria. Most famous and
influential was the Egyptian Valentinus, who acquired a great reputation at
Rome (c. 150) and founded an influential school of thought. Basilides and
Valentinus are reported to have written extensively, and their systems can be
reconstructed from hostile accounts by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and
other orthodox critics.
3. The Apologists
These Apologists engaged in battle on two fronts. First, there was the
hostility and criticism of pagan society. Because of its very aloofness, the church
was popularly suspected of sheltering all sorts of immoralities and thus of
threatening the established order. At a higher level, Christianity, as it became
better known, was being increasingly exposed to intellectual attack.
Strictly speaking, the term Apologists denotes the 2nd-century writers who
defended Christianity against external critics, pagan and Jewish. The earliest of
this group was Quadratus, who about 124 addressed an apology for the faith to
the emperor Hadrian; apart from a single fragment, it is now lost. Other early
Apologists who are mere names known to scholars are Aristo of Pella, the first to
prepare an apology to counter Jewish objections, and Apollinaris, bishop of
Hierapolis, said to be the author of numerous apologetic works and also of
a critique of Montanism. An early apology that has survived intact is that
of Aristides, addressed about 140 to the emperor Antoninus Pius; after being
completely lost, the text was rediscovered in the 19th century. The most famous
Apologist, however, was Justin Martyr, who was converted to Christianity after
trying various philosophical schools, paid lengthy visits to Rome, and
was martyred there (c. 165).

B. LATE 2ND TO EARLY 4TH CENTURY

A brilliant and distinctive phase of Christian literature was opening
at Alexandria, the chief cultural centre of the empire and the meeting ground of
the best in Hellenistic Judaism, gnosticism, and Neoplatonism. Marked by the
desire to present Christianity in intellectually satisfying terms, this literature has
usually been connected with the catechetical school, which, according to
tradition, flourished at Alexandria from the end of the 2nd through the 4th
century.
The real founder of this theology, with its Platonist leaning, its readiness to
exploit the metaphysical implications of revelation, and its allegorical
understanding of scripture, was Clement (c. 150–c. 215), the
Christian humanist whose welcoming attitude to Hellenism and critique of
gnosticism were noted above. His major work, the Strōmateis(“Miscellanies”),
untidy and deliberately unsystematic, brings together the inheritance of Jewish
Christianity and Middle Platonism in what aspires to be a summary of Christian
gnosis (knowledge). All his reasoning is dominated by the idea of the Logos who
created the universe and who manifests the ineffable Father alike in the Old
Testament Law, the philosophy of the Greeks, and finally the Incarnation of
Christ. Clement was also a mystic for whom the higher life of the soul is a
continuous moral and spiritual ascent.
But it is Origen (c. 185–c. 254) whose achievement stamps the Alexandrian
school. First and foremost, he was an exegete (critical interpreter), as determined
to establish the text of scripture scientifically (compare his Hexapla) as to wrest
its spiritual import from it. In homilies, scholia (annotated works), and
continuous commentaries he covered the whole Bible, deploying a subtle,
strongly allegorical exeges is designed to bring out several levels of significance.

C. THE POST-NICENE PERIOD

The 4th and early 5th centuries witnessed an extraordinary flowering of
Christian literature, the result partly of the freedom and privileged status now
enjoyed by the church, partly of the diversification of its own inner life (compare
the rise of monasticism), but chiefly of the controversies in which it hammered
out its fundamental doctrines.
Arianism, which denied Christ’s essential divinity, aroused an all-pervasive
reaction in the 4th century; the task of the first two ecumenical councils,
at Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), was to affirm the orthodox doctrine of
the Trinity. In the 5th century the Christological question moved to the fore, and
the Council of Chalcedon(451), completing that of Ephesus (431), defined Christ
as one person in two natures. The Christological controversies of the 5th century
were extremely complex, involving not only theological issues but also issues of
national concerns—especially in the Syriac-influenced East, where the national
churches were called non-Chalcedonian because they rejected the doctrinal
formulas of the Council of Chalcedon.
1. The Nicene Fathers
 Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–c. 340) was their spokesman, and for decades
the Eastern emperors supported his mediating line.
Eusebius is chiefly known as a historian; his Ecclesiastical History, with its
scholarly use of documents and guiding idea that the victory of Christianity is
the proof of its divine origin, introduced something novel and epoch-making. But
he also wrote voluminous apologetic treatises, biblical and exegetical works, and
polemical tracts against Marcellus of Ancyra.
Athanasius (c. 293–373) bestrides the 4th century as the inflexible champion
of the Nicene dogma. His most thorough and effective exposition of the Son’s
eternal origin in the Father and essential unity with him is contained in his Four
Orations Against the Arians, but in addition he produced a whole series of
treatises, historical or dogmaticor both, as well as letters, covering different
aspects of the controversy.
2. The Cappadocian Fathers
The Cappadocians succeeded, negatively, in overthrowing Arianism in the radical
form in which two acute thinkers, Aëtius (died c. 366)
and Eunomius (died c. 394), had revived it in their day and, positively, in
formulating a conception of God as three persons in one essence that eventually
proved generally acceptable.
Eunomius, the most mature his essay On the Holy Spirit. Gregory of Nyssa
continued the attack on Eunomius in four massive treatises and published
several more positive dogmatic essays, the most successful of which is the Great
Catechetical Oration, a systematic theology in miniature.
Basil is famous as a letter writer and preacher and for his views on the
appropriate attitude of Christians toward Hellenistic culture, but his
achievement was not less significant as a monastic legislator.
But he is chiefly remarkable as a pioneer of Christianmysticism, and in
his Life of Moses, Homilies on Canticles, and other books he describes how the
soul, in virtue of having been created in the divine image, is able to ascend, by
successive stages of purification, to a vision of God.
3. Monastic literature
From the end of the 3rd century onward, monasticism was one of the most
significant manifestations of the Christian spirit.
Both Anthony (c. 250–355), the founder of eremitical, or solitary,
monasticism in the Egyptian desert, and Ammonas (flourished c. 350), his
successor as leader of his colony of anchorites (hermits), wrote numerous letters;
a handful from the pen of each is extant, almost entirely in Greek or Latin
translation of the Coptic originals.
 The founder of monastic community life, also in Egypt,
was Pachomius (c. 290–346), and the extremely influential rule that he drew up
has been preserved, mainly in a Latin translation made by Jerome. He was the
first monk to write extensively and was in the habit of arranging his material in
groups of a hundred aphorisms, or “centuries,” a literary form that he invented
and that was to have a great vogue in Byzantine times.
Sulpicius Severus (c. 363–c. 420) took this work as his model when early in
the 5th century he wrote his Life of St. Martin of Tours, the first Western
biography of a monastic hero and the pattern of a long line of medieval lives of
saints. But it was Palladius (c. 363–before 431), a pupil of Evagrius Ponticus,
who proved to be the principal historian of primitive monasticism. His Lausiac
History (so called after Lausus, the court chamberlain to whom he dedicated it),
composed about 419/420, describes the movement in Egypt, Palestine, Syria,
and Asia Minor.
4. The school of Antioch
Antioch, like Alexandria, was a renowned intellectual centre, and a distinctive
school of Christian theology flourished there and in the surrounding region
throughout the 4th and the first half of the 5th century. In contrast to the
Alexandrian school, it was characterized by a literalist exegesis and a concern
for the completeness of Christ’s manhood. Little is known of its traditional
founder, the martyr-priest Lucian (died 312), except that he was a learned
biblical scholar who revised the texts of the Septuagint and the New Testament.
Eustathius of Antioch, the champion of Nicene orthodoxy, is probably more
representative of the school, with his antipathy to what he regarded as Origen’s
excessive allegorism and his recognition, as against the Arians, of the presence
of a human soul in the incarnate Christ.
Diodore of Tarsus (c. 330–c. 390), that the school of Antioch began to reach
the height of its fame. Diodore courageously defended Christ’s divinity against
Julian the Apostate, the Roman emperor who attempted to revive paganism, and
in his lifetime was regarded as a pillar of orthodoxy.
The last noteworthy Antiochene, Theodoret of Cyrrhus (c. 393–c. 458), in
Syria, was also an elegant stylist. His writings were encyclopaedic in range, but
the most memorable perhaps are his Remedy for Greek Maladies, the last of
ancient apologies against paganism, and his Ecclesiastical History, continuing
Eusebius’s work down to 428.
 5. The schools of Edessa and Nisibis
Parallel with its richer and better-known Greek and Latin counterparts, an
independent Syriac Christian literature flourished inside, and later outside (in
Persia), the frontiers of the Roman Empire from the early 4th century onward.
Aphraates, an ascetic cleric under whose name 23 treatises written between
336 and 345 have survived, is considered the first Syriac Father. Deeply
Christian in tone, these tracts present a primitive theology, with no trace of
Hellenistic influence but a firm grasp and skillful use of scripture. Edessa and
Nisibis (now Urfa and Nusaybin in southeast Turkey) were the creative centres
of this literature. Edessa had been a focus of Christian culture well before 200;
the old Syriac version of the New Testament and Tatian’s Diatessaron, as well as
a mass of Syriac apocryphal writings, probably originated there.
The chief glory of Edessene Christianity was Ephraem Syrus (c. 306–373), the
classic writer of the Syrian church who established his school of theology there
when Nisibis, its original home and his own birthplace, was ceded to Persia
under the peace treaty of 363, after the death of Julian the Apostate.
His hymns, many in his favourite seven-syllable metre, deal with such themes
as the Nativity, the Epiphany, and the Crucifixion or else are directed against
skeptics and heretics. His Carmina Nisibena (“Songs of Nisibis”) make a valuable
sourcebook for historians, especially for information about the frontier wars.
6. The Chalcedonian Fathers
Among Alexandrian theologians the “Word-flesh” approach was preferred,
according to which the Word had assumed human flesh at the Incarnation;
Christ’s possession of a human soul or mind was either denied or ignored.
Antiochene theologians, on the other hand, consistently upheld the “Word-man”
approach, according to which the Word had united himself to a complete man;
this position ran the risk, unless carefully handled, of so separating the divinity
and the humanity as to imperil Christ’s personal unity.
Apollinarius the Younger (c. 310–c. 390) had brilliantly exposed the logical
implications of the Alexandrian view; although condemned as a heretic, he had
forced churchmen of all schools to recognize, though with varying degrees of
practical realism, a human mind in the Redeemer. His writings were
systematically destroyed, but the remaining fragments confirm his intellectual
acuteness as well as his literary skill.
The crisis of the 5th century was precipitated by the proclamation
by Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople—pushing Antiochene tendencies to
extremes—of a Christology that seemed to many to imply two Sons. Nestorius
held that Mary was not only Theotokos (“God-bearing”) but
also anthropotokos (“man-bearing”), though he preferred the
term Christotokos (“Christ-bearing”). In essence, he was attempting to protect
the concept of the humanity of Christ. The controversy raged with extraordinary
violence from 428 to 451, when the Council of Chalcedon hammered out a
formula that at the time seemed acceptable to most and that attempted to
do justice to the valuable insights of both traditions.
7. Non-Chalcedonian Fathers
The Chalcedonian settlement was not achieved without some of the leading
participants in the debate that preceded it being branded as heretics because
their positions fell outside the limits accepted as permissible. It also left to
subsequent generations a legacy of misunderstanding and division.
The outstanding personalities in the former category were Nestorius
and Eutyches. It was Nestorius whose imprudent brandishing of extremist
Antiochene theses—particularly his reluctance to grant the title of Theotokos to
Mary, mother of Jesus—had touched off the controversy. Only fragments of his
works remain, for after his condemnation their destruction was ordered by the
Byzantine government, but these have been supplemented by the discovery, in
a Syriac translation, of his Book of Heraclides of Damascus.
8. The post-Nicene Latin Fathers
Latin Christian literature in this period was slower than Greek in getting
started, and it always remained sparser.
Three remarkable figures, all different, dominate the second half of the
century. The first, Hilary of Poitiers, was a considerable theologian, next to
Augustine the finest produced by the West in the patristic epoch. For years
he deployed his exceptional gifts in persuading the anti-Arian groups to abandon
their traditional catchwords and rally round the Nicene formula, which they had
tended to view with suspicion. Often unfairly described as a popularizer of
Eastern ideas, he was an original thinker whose scriptural commentaries and
perceptive Trinitarian studies brought fresh insights. The second, Ambrose of
Milan, was an outstanding ecclesiastical statesman, equally vigilant for
orthodoxy against Arianism as for the rights of the church against the state.
Both in his dogmatic treatises and in his largely allegorical, pastorally oriented
exegetical works he relied heavily on Greek models. One of the pioneers of
Catholic moral theology, he also wrote hymns that are still sung in the liturgy.
The third, Jerome, was primarily a biblical scholar. His enormous
commentaries are erudite but unequal in quality; the earlier ones were greatly
influenced by Origen’s allegorism, but the ones written later, when he had turned
against Origen, were more literalist and historical in their exegesis. Jerome’s
crowning gift to the Western church and Western culture was
the Vulgate translation of the Bible. The two foremost Christian Latin poets of
ancient times, Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola, also belong to this half-century.
Both used the old classical forms with considerable skill, filling them with a fresh
Christian spirit. All these figures are overshadowed by the towering genius
of Augustine of Hippo (354–430). The range of his writings was enormous:
they comprise profound discussions of Christian doctrine (notably his De
Trinitate, or On the Trinity); sustained and carefully argued polemics against
heresies (Manichaeism, a dualistic religion; Donatism; and Pelagianism, a view
that emphasized the role of free will in spiritual perfection); exegesis, homilies,
and ordinary sermons; and a vast collection of letters. His two best-known works,
the Confessions and City of God, broke entirely fresh ground, the one being both
an autobiography and an interior colloquy between the soul and God, the other
perhaps the most searching study ever made of the theology of history and of the
fundamental contrast between Christianity and the world.
9. Later Greek Fathers
The closing phase of patristic literature lasted longer in the Greek East than
in the Latin West, where the decline of culture was hastened by barbarian
inroads. But even in the East a slackening of effort and originality was becoming
perceptible in the latter half of the 5th century.
In the strictly theological field, Leontius of Byzantium (died c. 545) showed
ability and originality in reinterpreting the Chalcedonian Christology along the
lines of St. Cyril with the aid of the increasingly favoured Aristotelian philosophy.
One was the figure who called himself Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500), the
unidentified author of theological and mystical treatises that were destined to
have an enormous influence. Based on a synthesis of Christian dogma and
Neoplatonism, his work exalts the negative theology (God is understood by what
he is not) and traces the soul’s ascent from a dialectical knowledge of God to
mystical union with him. The other is Romanos Melodos (flourished 6th
century), greatest hymnist of the Eastern church, who invented the kontakion,
an acrostic verse sermon in many stanzas with a recurring refrain. The sweep,
pathos, and grandeur of his compositions give him a high place of honour among
religious poets.

1. SAINT AUGUSTINE

St. Augustine, the greatest Doctor of the Church, has left us a library of Christian
wisdom. His conversion to the faith in 387, at the age of thirty-three, was really
the discovery of certain basic truths, which he spent the rest of his literary life
defending:

 The world is essentially good because it is the work of God. It was the Holy
Trinity who created the world out of nothing.
 There is order in the world, ruled by Divine Providence. Even evil has a
place in the world. Physical evil, which is basically suffering, is the result
of moral evil, or sin, which is the misuse of angelic and human liberty.
 Jesus Christ is true God, who became man to redeem a sinful human race.
The humility of the Incarnation expiated man's pride, and the Crucifixion
reconciled man with the offended God.
 As first created, Adam possessed not only a human nature but what are
called supernatural and preternatural gifts. Original sin deprived Adam
and his posterity of both gifts. Christ's passion and death merited the
restoration of the supernatural life and provided the graces necessary to
cope with the loss of the preternatural gifts. We are enabled, with divine
help, to control our sinful desires and accept suffering and death. All the
while, our free will, though weakened, remains intact, so that we can
cooperate with the grace of God. If we cooperate, we shall reach heaven; if
we refuse to cooperate, we shall be eternally deprived of the vision of God.
The writings of Augustine alone could constitute a Catholic Lifetime Reading
Plan. Three books, however, should be read by anyone who wants to know
Catholic thought, and not only that of the fifth century. They are essential for
understanding authentic Christianity in any age.
The Confessions is not mainly a book of repentance but above all a book of
praise. In Augustine's own words, "My Confessions praise the just and good God
for all the blessings and all the misfortunes that have befallen me; they raise up
to Him the mind and heart of man."
The City of God is the greatest story of world history ever written. It spans the
providential action of God with regard to the whole of mankind, not only in the
past but also in the future and into the next world.
Of True Religion is a short masterpiece in defense of Catholic Christianity.
After showing the truth of the faith in contrast with paganism, it explains the
two ways that Divine Providence provides for the salvation of the human family
— namely, by authority and reason. It shows how God brings man to Himself
through an examination of his vicious tendencies. The goal of these reflections
is to lead his readers to Christian holiness, achieved in perfect liberty through
contemplation of the truth and knowledge of Sacred Scriptures.
2. TERTULLIAN

An important early Christian theologian, polemicist, and moralist who, as the

initiator of ecclesiastical Latin, was instrumental in shaping the vocabulary and
thought of Western Christianity. Tertullian devoted himself almost entirely to
literary pursuits. Developing an original Latin style, the fiery and tempestuous
Tertullian became a lively and pungent propagandist though not the most
profound writer in Christian antiquity. His works abound with arresting and
memorable phrases, ingenious aphorisms, bold and ironic puns, wit, sarcasm,
countless words of his own coinage, and a constant stream of invective against
his opponents.
In antiquity most Christians never forgave him for his apostasy (rejection of
his earlier faith) to Montanism. Later Christian writers mention him only
infrequently, and then mostly unfavourably. Somewhat grudgingly, however,
they acknowledged his literary gifts and acute intelligence. Modern scholars,
however, do not share this earlier view. In the 19th and 20th centuries Tertullian
has been widely read and studied and is considered one of the formative figures
in the development of Christian life and thought in the West.
Tertullian is usually considered the outstanding exponent of the outlook that
Christianity must stand uncompromisingly against its surrounding culture.
Recent scholarship has tended to qualify this interpretation, however. Because
he was a moralist rather than a philosopher by temperament—which probably
precipitated his famous question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”—
Tertullian’s practical and legal bent of mind expressed what would later be taken
as the unique genius of Latin Christianity. Like most educated Christians of his
day, he recognized and appreciated the values of the Greco-Roman culture,
discriminating between those he could accept and those he had to reject.

3. SAINT CYPRIAN

Very little is known about this ‘saint’ who is sometimes petitioned for love,
luck, money, etc., but one thing is for certain, those are not the characteristics
of his mythic nature, as most do not know of his dark and sinister past.
It is said that Cyprian of Antioch was born in Carthage as a pagan child
dedicated to the service of Apollo, Greek God of light, youth, healing, and
prophecy. He entered the mysteries of Mithras at the age of seven, carried the
torch of Demeter, wore the white garments of Kore, and served the serpent
of Pallas. He was then sent off to Mount Olympus to be initiated into communion
of demons who are born from the echoes of the heavenly voices, feeding only on
fruits and acorns after sunset for twenty-nine days.
Today, his image is that of a bishop wearing a white alb, a purple cope, a
miter, a golden crozier, while holding a bible. But what most people do not know
is that this particular image is a variation of the image of Saint Cyprian of
Carthage as there have been no images found of a Cyprian of Antioch.

4. SAINT AMBROSE

Saint Ambrose, also known as Aurelius Ambrosius, is one of the four original
doctors of the Church. He was the Bishop of Milan and became one of the most
important theological figure of the 4th century.
Ambrose was born around 340 AD to a Roman Christian family. He grew up
with his siblings, Satyrus and Marcellina, in Trier, Belgic Gaul (present-day
Germany). It is believed by many that when Ambrose was just an infant, a swarm
of bees landed on his face and left behind a drop of honey. To his father, this
was a sign that Ambrose would become someone great with a wonderful sense
for speaking.
Ambrose’s relations with the emperors formed only part of his commanding
position among the lay governing class of Italy. He rapidly absorbed the most up-
to-date Greek learning, Christian and pagan alike—notably the works of
Philo, Origen, and St. Basil of Caesarea and of the pagan Neoplatonist Plotinus.
This learning he used in sermons expounding the Bible and, especially, in
defending the “spiritual” meaning of the Old Testament by erudite philosophical
allegory—notably in the Hexaëmeron (“On the Six Days of Creation”) and in
sermons on the patriarchs (of which De Isaac et anima [“On Isaac and the Soul”]
and De bono mortis [“On the Goodness of Death”] betray a deep acquaintance
with Neoplatonic mystical language). Sermons, the dating of which
unfortunately remains uncertain, were Ambrose’s main literary output. They
were acclaimed as masterpieces of Latin eloquence, and they remain a quarry
for students of the transmission of Greek philosophy and theology in the West.
By such sermons Ambrose gained his most notable convert, Augustine,
afterward bishop of Hippo in North Africa and destined, like Ambrose, to be
revered as a doctor (teacher) of the church. Augustine went to Milan as a
skeptical professor of rhetoricin 384. When he left, in 388, he had been baptized
by Ambrose and was indebted to Ambrose’s Catholic Neoplatonism, which
provided a philosophical base that eventually transformed Christian theology.
5. SAINT JEROME

The Catholic Church honors St. Jerome as the heavenly patron of biblical
studies. Ordained a priest about the age of thirty, his reputation as a scholar led
to his appointment as secretary to Pope Damasus I. It was this Pope, who in 384,
told Jerome to compose an official text of the Latin version of the Bible. As a
result, Jerome spent most of the rest of his life — thirty-five years in Palestine,
working tirelessly on the work given him by the Pope. The translation into Latin
was finished about 405.
After about two centuries, Jerome's version took the first place in the West.
In the thirteenth century, it became known as the Vulgate, because it was
the vulgata editio (edition in general circulation). By the sixteenth century, the
Vulgate had appeared in several hundred print editions, with numerous
variants.
His work On Illustrious (Famous) Men gives a library of information on one
hundred and thirty-five writers from St. Peter to himself and includes some non-
Christians like Philo and Seneca.
From a literary point of view, Jerome's correspondence is the most perfect
of his writings. There are some one hundred and twenty-five letters, covering a
vast range of subjects. Some deal with asceticism, others with controversy, and
still others with personal matters. But all are so revealing of his own character
and so outspokenly clear that over the centuries they have been considered
masterpieces of the epistolary art.
St. Jerome typifies the paradox of a Doctor of the Church who was thoroughly
sound on basic principles of faith and morals but who erred in some matters of
Catholic doctrine. He seems never to have completely purged himself of
Origenism, about the eventual salvation of all Christians. And he allowed himself
to question the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament.
 CONFESSIONS (Summary)

Augustine's Confessions is not an autobiography in the literal sense, but

is rather an autobiographical framework for a religious, moral, theological, and
philosophical text. Augustine explores the nature of God and sin within the
context of a Christian man's life. The work can thus be viewed as both a
discursive document and a subjective personal story. It is one of the most
influential books in the Catholic religion, apart from the Bible.
Augustine wrote of his life and education up until the point of his
conversion. After his conversion, he focused (as, he implies, a good Christian
should) on understanding the major points of Catholic Christian doctrine. The
early chapters recount his birth up to adulthood, but not in a typical,
chronological fashion. Large sections of Augustine's life are left out, and critical
figures are ignored or unnamed. Augustine did this because he wanted to focus
only on the events in his life that led specifically to his conversion. He wished to
show the reader his personal struggle to become a Christian, and how that
struggle is a metaphor for all Christians' struggles.

When Augustine was a child, he was instructed in the Christian faith by

his mother Monica. At that time, baptism was often delayed, sometimes even
until the deathbed, because of the sacrament's ability to wash away sins. Any
sins committed after baptism would not have been washed away, and could
therefore prevent a soul from ascending to heaven. This led people to commit all
their sins (such as Augustine's plea in Book VIII - "Give me chastity and
continence, but not yet") before baptism, and then have them "washed away"
before death. Because of this practice (and also, it appears, because Monica
wanted Augustine to choose the faith himself), Augustine was not baptized as an
infant or as a child. He lived in a mostly Christian household (his father, Patrick,
did not come to the faith until near to his own death), but was able to study other
religions.
Augustine was educated in the manner of the sons of landholders: his
studies were mostly in grammar, rhetoric, literature, and oratory, with some
arithmetic, philosophy, and natural science. For a time, he moved from his home
in Thagaste to the nearby town of Mandauros, but when he was 16 he was
obliged to come home because his parents were short on funds. At the end of
this year, however, the family was able to send him to a much better school in
Carthage.
 When recounting his youth and adolescence, Augustine examines certain
events in his life and tries to analyze human nature. He is concerned with why
human beings, even children, have the will to commit evil acts, and through this
analysis of his own life he attempts two things; 1) to examine the nature of sinful
man, and from that provide a lesson to himself and his congregation and 2)
through analysis of human nature, evil, and sin, to reveal the true nature of God.

In Carthage, Augustine fell into schoolboy pranks with the other pupils,
though he did not participate in the serious vandalism that the Wreckers, a
student gang, committed. The city of Carthage, known even in the decadent late
Roman Empire as a particularly licentious city, had a tradition of not prosecuting
the youthful pranks of its students. Augustine fell into a "cauldron of illicit loves"
in Carthage, and it was there that he met the woman who would become his
long-term companion and the mother of his son. This woman, who is never
named in Confessions, was a Carthaginian girl of low social status, and by the
standards of Augustine's day there was never any possibility that they would
marry. It was customary for young men of Augustine's social class to have a
mistress before marriage. Augustine's mother tolerated the situation, for she
considered it less sinful than promiscuity or adultery. Augustine was to remain
faithful to this woman for many years, until shortly before his conversion to
Christianity.
Upon completing his studies, Augustine returned to Thagaste and taught
liberal arts. During this time he became a Hearer, or entry-level convert, to the
Manichee religion. This sect of Christianity had several differences from Catholic
Christianity, and since Augustine later came to view it as
heresy, Confessions contains a great deal of argument refuting this faith . For
some time, Augustine believed the Manichee worldview, which divided God from
the material world (which encompassed evil), and claimed that God and the
material world were constantly in struggle with each other. This duality became
one of the main issues Augustine addresses in Confessions. Catholicism and the
Neo-Platonism that many Christian thinkers espoused at the time asserted the
omniscience and omnipotence of God and the "chain of being" that governed the
world. God was the highest form of being, followed by angels, with humanity
near the bottom. When humans sinned, it was because they were attached to
the lower things of being, and therefore could commit evil acts. In Augustine's
worldview, evil didn't have being in its own right; it existed only as a turning
away from God.
 This worldview led to a kind of asceticism that Augustine struggled with
his whole life. He admitted having attachments to human beings and material
things that sometimes were nearer to his heart than God. This human weakness,
Augustine thought, led to sin. Near the end of Confessions, Augustine explains
that it is not sinful to love God's beautiful creations, but that human beings
should not become too attached to the things of this world. This led Augustine
to become cautious about joy in any human sensory activity. This idea was taken
up by later readers, and led to some of the more extreme ascetic views in
European medieval religious thought. This was not Augustine's intention, for the
basis of his asceticism was never prudishness or a negation of the material world,
but Augustine's arguments are deep and sometimes difficult to interpret fully.
Indeed, they have frequently been misinterpreted by Christian and non-
Christian readers throughout history. Augustine's respect for the material world
and simultaneous belief that it is low on the chain of being is credited by him to
the philosopher Epicurus - another philosopher whose beliefs have often been
misunderstood. In fact, the very adjective derived from his name, "epicurean,"
stands for something in direct opposition to the manner in which Epicurus led
his life.
Augustine moved to Carthage as a young adult to teach, but found the
students far too difficult and rowdy, and was told by friends and colleagues of
opportunities in Rome. He left his mother in Africa, and upon arriving in Rome,
became very ill. Augustine credited his mother's prayers and God's mercy with
his recovery. He became interested in the skeptic philosophy of the Academics
(a Platonic school of thought active in Rome at the time), which excellent contrast
with some of the more amorphous ideas of the Manichee religion. He grew to
respect the philosophical rigor of the skeptics, and applied their principles of
argument throughout Confessions.
Roman students, unfortunately, proved fond of cheating teachers out of
money, so Augustine took a professorship in Milan (then the seat of the
Emperor). In Milan, Augustine was taken under the wing of some Christians,
and especially the beloved Catholic Bishop Ambrose. Augustine was still not
converted, but went to hear the bishop speak. Augustine's mother soon joined
him in Milan. It became clear that Augustine could not hope to rise further in
the world without an advantageous marriage. From Milan he sent his concubine
back to Africa, and promptly took another. Simultaneously, he became engaged
to a suitable but underage girl. During this time Augustine was very unhappy
with himself, and began to believe that the only path to happiness was to become
a Catholic. However, Augustine could not convert solely as an act of will - he
sincerely wished for his conversion to be authentic. He needed a sign from God.
He had been reading Neoplatonic books, and most recently the Apostle Paul. The
Apostle's words put him in an agitated state regarding his religious beliefs.
One day in his garden Augustine overheard a child's song, "Pick Up and Read."
This led him to pick up Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and it was in this text that
he read a passage that would convince him to convert. It was a cathartic moment
for him, for his conversion had been long coming. He, of course, shared his joy
with his mother, Monica, who felt that at long last Augustine had come into the
fold. There was no longer any talk of his marriage, and Augustine lived a
Christian - and celibate - life.

Augustine resigned his teaching post and retreated to the country to

reflect. Later that year he was baptized along with his friends and son by Bishop
Ambrose. Augustine and his mother decided that they could do the best in Africa,
and embarked on a journey. In Ostia, Augustine and Monica shared a vision of
God and heaven. Shortly after this religious ecstasy, Monica died. Augustine
buried her in Ostia, and returned to Africa. In Confessions, Augustine did not
continue the story of his life after this point (including his subsequent ordination
and Episcopal elevation), but rather spent the remaining four books in
philosophical reflection.
Books X-XIII address knotty questions of metaphysics, Biblical
interpretation, and theology. Augustine was greatly concerned with the issue of
figurative rather than literal interpretation of scripture (a subject of concern to
Christians today), especially the story of Genesis. Through word-by-word
analysis of this story, Augustine is able to reconcile the story of Genesis with the
omnipotent, benevolent, changeless, and eternal God of his Catholicism. He also
explores the human faculty of memory and the nature of time, ultimately linking
the two in the argument that time doesn't truly exist except as a function of
human memory. While analyzing human temptation and sin, Augustine
reinforces the idea that acceptance of Jesus Christ, who in Catholic faith is both
God and Man, is the only way to redemption for the human race.

Augustine's main theological concerns are the nature of God, matter, and
evil; the abstract ideas of memory and time; and the reconciliation of the Genesis
creation story to the accepted Catholic doctrine. Throughout this book,
Augustine praises God and reminds the reader that all things come from him.