Yesterday, the 28th day of August, marked the Feast Day among Roman Christians and their progeny for St. Augustine of Hippo. His philosophical and theological text, Confessions, served several purposes in Christian apologetics and evangelism from the start.
One advantage was the honesty of the author, who recounted his disobedient behavior prior to active conversion to Christ after completing post-secondary studies. St. Augustine later served as a bishop over the diocese of Hippo, in what today is Algeria. But long before his ordination to the presbyterate and elevation to episcopal office, Augustine was a carouser, occasionally drunk in public, and a cad. He tells all in the Confessions.
Augustine is identified as a great Church Father by the West--associated with Rome, but he has received the title Blessed Augustine by vast numbers of Eastern Christians. The lower respect among Eastern Christians requires attention to such themes as Augustine's heterodox treatment of sin, human cooperation in salvation, and the so-called atonement theory of Christ's sacrifice--to name a few.
Martin Luther, 16th-century German reformer was professed in the Congregation of St. Augustine, whose monks followed the cenobitic rule of Augustine. Luther was well acquainted with Pauline and Petrine scriptural sources about faith and grace that fell on fallow ground during excesses of the post-Charlemagne papacies. To this day, the only cenobitic monastery of Lutherans in the USA is dedicated to St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine's House and the Congregation of the Servants of Christ is located in Oxford, Michigan--about 60 mile northwest of Detroit.
Icon writer: Nancy Oliphant
