WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to picture 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:06.040 a scene, and honestly, it feels less like history 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:08.419 and more like the opening shot of a disaster 00:00:08.419 --> 00:00:13.500 movie. It is the spring of 430 AD. We are in 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:16.059 North Africa, specifically in the city of Hipporegis, 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:19.539 which is, what, modern -day Annaba in Algeria. 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:21.859 That's the one. And the situation is absolutely 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:24.480 dire. Dire is almost too soft a word for it. 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:26.699 It's an apocalypse. It really is. The city is 00:00:26.699 --> 00:00:29.239 under siege. Right. The vandals are at the gates, 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:31.399 and we aren't talking about graffiti artists 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:33.979 here. No, not at all. We are talking about a 00:00:33.979 --> 00:00:36.719 Germanic tribe that has migrated all the way 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:39.520 from Central Europe, down through Spain, across 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.259 the Strait of Gibraltar, and is now just tearing 00:00:42.259 --> 00:00:44.640 through North Africa. They're burning, looting, 00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:46.560 and destroying everything in their path. The 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:48.920 Roman Empire, I mean, the structure that held 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:51.039 the world together for centuries is collapsing 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.460 in real time. It's the end of an era. It really 00:00:53.460 --> 00:00:56.420 is. And inside the city walls, amidst all the 00:00:56.420 --> 00:00:58.619 panic and the starvation, we zoom in on the cathedral 00:00:58.619 --> 00:01:02.119 library. And there is a 75 -year -old man lying 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:04.900 on his deathbed. And he knows the end is coming. 00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:07.939 Not just for him personally, but, you know, potentially 00:01:07.939 --> 00:01:10.840 for his entire civilization. Exactly. And his 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:14.670 reaction to this impending doom is... Well, it's 00:01:14.670 --> 00:01:17.530 profound. He hasn't asked for a sword. He hasn't 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:20.390 asked to be evacuated. No. He has requested that 00:01:20.390 --> 00:01:22.930 the penitential Psalms of David be copied out 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:25.290 on large sheets of paper and hung on the walls 00:01:25.290 --> 00:01:27.349 of his room. So he can just stare at them. He 00:01:27.349 --> 00:01:30.010 wants to stare at them and weep while he dies. 00:01:30.310 --> 00:01:32.409 He's essentially excommunicated himself in his 00:01:32.409 --> 00:01:34.769 final days, hasn't he? He's shut himself off 00:01:34.769 --> 00:01:37.849 from his friends and advisors to stand in solidarity 00:01:37.849 --> 00:01:41.549 with sinners. Which is such a heavy, symbolic 00:01:41.549 --> 00:01:43.890 way to go out. And the man, of course, is Augustine. 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:47.170 Augustine of Hippo. The subject of today's deep 00:01:47.170 --> 00:01:49.609 dive. And I think for a lot of people, when they 00:01:49.609 --> 00:01:52.030 hear the name St. Augustine, they kind of zone 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:54.750 out. I think that's fair. They think of a stained 00:01:54.750 --> 00:01:57.269 glass window or maybe a dusty theology book they 00:01:57.269 --> 00:01:59.810 were forced to read in a Western civ class. But 00:01:59.810 --> 00:02:02.670 the guy dying in that room while the barbarians 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:05.709 are literally banging on the gates, he is arguably 00:02:05.709 --> 00:02:08.189 the architect of the Western mind. Without a 00:02:08.189 --> 00:02:10.550 doubt. If you have ever wondered why we think 00:02:10.550 --> 00:02:12.949 about time the way we do as a psychological experience, 00:02:13.310 --> 00:02:16.430 or why we have this concept of a deep introspective 00:02:16.430 --> 00:02:20.110 inner self, or how we understand the ethics of 00:02:20.110 --> 00:02:23.909 war or memory or even human desire, if you pull 00:02:23.909 --> 00:02:26.750 on those threads, they almost all lead back to 00:02:26.750 --> 00:02:29.349 this one man in North Africa. So our mission 00:02:29.349 --> 00:02:32.150 today is to figure out how a wild youth from 00:02:32.150 --> 00:02:34.750 the provinces who spent his teenage years stealing 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:37.830 pears and hanging out with a rowdy crowd became 00:02:37.830 --> 00:02:40.080 the Doctor of Grace. It's quite a transformation. 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:42.659 We're going to look at his massive dossier, his 00:02:42.659 --> 00:02:45.620 biography, his letters, his theological treatises, 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:47.939 and we're going to try to understand the man 00:02:47.939 --> 00:02:51.879 behind the halo. Because, spoiler alert, He was 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:53.680 a man who struggled violently with ambition, 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.259 with lust, and with the total collapse of the 00:02:56.259 --> 00:02:58.300 world around him. And what's fascinating here 00:02:58.300 --> 00:03:00.919 is that his life bridges two worlds. He lives 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:02.900 right at the hinge point. He is a man of the 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:04.979 ancient classical world, but he's the one who 00:03:04.979 --> 00:03:07.120 lays the foundation for the Middle Ages. He's 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.340 Roman to his core. To his core. Yeah. But he 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:11.699 has to watch Rome die. So let's start at the 00:03:11.699 --> 00:03:13.680 beginning. Before he was the bishop of Hippo, 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:17.680 he was just Aurelius Augustus, born in 354 A 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:20.659 .D. in Thagaste. Which is also in modern -day 00:03:20.659 --> 00:03:23.900 Algeria, Thagaras, I believe. Right. And one 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:25.699 thing that really stood out to me in the research 00:03:25.699 --> 00:03:28.360 is his identity. We often see these paintings 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.060 of him looking like a medieval European monk, 00:03:31.219 --> 00:03:33.759 but that's not accurate, is it? No, it's really 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:36.060 not. Scholars generally agree that Augustine 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:38.280 and his family were Berbers, the indigenous people 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.750 of North Africa. Okay. But... And this is a key 00:03:41.750 --> 00:03:44.270 nuance. They were heavily Romanized. What does 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:46.370 that look like in practice for a family in the 00:03:46.370 --> 00:03:48.229 fourth century? It means they lived in a cultural 00:03:48.229 --> 00:03:51.469 hybrid. They were African by blood, but Roman 00:03:51.469 --> 00:03:54.629 by culture. They spoke Latin at home. It was 00:03:54.629 --> 00:03:57.490 a matter of pride and dignity for them. A status 00:03:57.490 --> 00:04:00.349 symbol. Absolutely. Augustine's family belonged 00:04:00.349 --> 00:04:02.689 to the class of Venestior's honorable men. They 00:04:02.689 --> 00:04:04.810 weren't super ripped senators, but they had local 00:04:04.810 --> 00:04:07.789 status. They were Roman citizens. So culturally, 00:04:08.030 --> 00:04:10.689 he's fully immersed in the Latin world. It's 00:04:10.689 --> 00:04:12.909 almost like a colonial dynamic, isn't it? The 00:04:12.909 --> 00:04:15.370 local elite adopting the manners and the language 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:18.439 of the empire. Very much so. In fact, Augustine 00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:20.480 mentions later that he loved Latin literature, 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:23.639 Virgil Cicero, but he absolutely hated Greek. 00:04:24.089 --> 00:04:26.490 That part made me laugh. He said he never mastered 00:04:26.490 --> 00:04:28.470 Greek because his teacher beat the students. 00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:32.050 Exactly. He called the teacher brutal. It's such 00:04:32.050 --> 00:04:35.290 a human detail. Here is one of the greatest intellects 00:04:35.290 --> 00:04:37.670 in history, a man who wrote millions of words, 00:04:37.750 --> 00:04:39.990 and he admits he rebelled against learning Greek 00:04:39.990 --> 00:04:42.110 because he associated the language with physical 00:04:42.110 --> 00:04:44.550 pain. He basically said, you can't force me to 00:04:44.550 --> 00:04:47.029 learn. He says curiosity is a better teacher 00:04:47.029 --> 00:04:50.089 than compulsion. It's a great line. So we have 00:04:50.089 --> 00:04:53.029 this Roman African upbringing. And we have to 00:04:53.029 --> 00:04:54.930 talk about his parents because talk about a mixed 00:04:54.930 --> 00:04:58.110 marriage. This household sounds intense. It was 00:04:58.110 --> 00:05:01.470 a very complex dynamic. His mother, Monica or 00:05:01.470 --> 00:05:03.629 Monica, which is actually a Berber name, was 00:05:03.629 --> 00:05:06.189 a devout Christian. And when I say devout, I 00:05:06.189 --> 00:05:08.670 mean intense. Right. She was a dominant figure 00:05:08.670 --> 00:05:10.970 in his life, hovering over him, praying for him, 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:13.029 constantly worrying about his soul. And the dad. 00:05:13.769 --> 00:05:16.449 Patricius. His father, Patricius, was a pagan, 00:05:16.589 --> 00:05:18.970 a man of the old world. He didn't convert to 00:05:18.970 --> 00:05:21.279 Christianity until he was on his deathbed. So 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:23.899 he wasn't concerned with Augustine's soul. Not 00:05:23.899 --> 00:05:26.300 really. He was much more concerned with Augustine's 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:29.199 worldly success, his rhetoric career, his social 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:31.740 standing. So Augustine grows up in this house 00:05:31.740 --> 00:05:34.500 where the old gods and the new faith are sort 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:37.420 of living side by side. But Monica is definitely 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:41.899 the driving spiritual force. So he's smart. He's 00:05:41.899 --> 00:05:43.839 obviously gifted. He's sent off to school in 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:47.509 Medoras at age 11. But then, at age 16, he has 00:05:47.509 --> 00:05:49.889 to come home. Right, the money runs out. His 00:05:49.889 --> 00:05:51.850 father's ambitions were bigger than his wallet. 00:05:52.110 --> 00:05:54.870 He has to spend a year in Thagast while his father 00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.310 scrounges up enough cash to send him to Carthage. 00:05:57.750 --> 00:06:00.810 This is his gap year. And like many 16 -year 00:06:00.810 --> 00:06:02.569 -olds with too much time and no supervision, 00:06:02.810 --> 00:06:04.990 he gets into trouble. He does. This brings us 00:06:04.990 --> 00:06:07.310 to the famous pear incident. The pear incident, 00:06:07.449 --> 00:06:08.990 yeah. I have to be honest, when I first read 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.069 about this in his autobiography, The Confessions, 00:06:11.170 --> 00:06:15.189 I thought, really? You stole some fruit. It seems 00:06:15.189 --> 00:06:17.389 so minor. He acts like he committed some heinous 00:06:17.389 --> 00:06:19.509 crime. He treats it with incredible gravity. 00:06:19.790 --> 00:06:22.649 But he spends chapters analyzing this one moment. 00:06:22.750 --> 00:06:24.930 Why? Why is this so important to him? It does 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:27.649 seem trivial on the surface. But if we connect 00:06:27.649 --> 00:06:29.949 this to the bigger picture of his philosophy, 00:06:30.269 --> 00:06:33.110 it's actually the key to understanding his entire 00:06:33.110 --> 00:06:35.790 view of the human condition. It's a breakthrough 00:06:35.790 --> 00:06:37.870 moment for him looking back. So set the scene 00:06:37.870 --> 00:06:40.860 for us. He's 16. He's hanging out with a group 00:06:40.860 --> 00:06:43.240 of friends, what he calls a gang of wreckers, 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.620 what we might call a bad crowd. Right. And there 00:06:46.620 --> 00:06:49.560 is a pear tree in a neighbor's garden. It's not 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.040 even a particularly good pear tree. In the middle 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:54.839 of the night, they decide to jump the fence, 00:06:55.019 --> 00:06:58.319 shake the tree, and steal huge loads of pears. 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:01.079 Okay, standard teenage vandalism. But here is 00:07:01.079 --> 00:07:03.399 the twist. This is the part that haunts him for 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:05.620 the rest of his life. Augustine wasn't hungry. 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:08.519 He says explicitly that he had better pears at 00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:10.660 home in his own cellar. And they didn't even 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:12.800 eat them? No, they took a few bites and threw 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:14.779 the rest to the pigs. So it wasn't theft for 00:07:14.779 --> 00:07:17.000 survival. It wasn't even theft for profit or 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:19.779 pleasure. No. And that is what floors him when 00:07:19.779 --> 00:07:22.500 he thinks about it later. He asks himself again 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:25.519 and again, why did I do it? And he realizes he 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:28.040 did it just to do it. For the thrill? For the 00:07:28.040 --> 00:07:31.060 thrill of doing something wrong. He writes that 00:07:31.060 --> 00:07:33.160 he had a perverse desire to break the rules. 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:36.759 He loved the sin itself, not the object he gained 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:39.459 from it. He loved the destruction. It's the rebel 00:07:39.459 --> 00:07:41.560 without a cause thing. What are you rebelling 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:44.779 against? What have you got? Precisely. But for 00:07:44.779 --> 00:07:47.519 Augustine, this reveals a terrifying truth about 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:50.579 human nature. He realizes that sin isn't always 00:07:50.579 --> 00:07:53.100 about needing something or wanting a good thing 00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:56.319 in the wrong way. Sometimes it can be a rejection 00:07:56.319 --> 00:08:00.149 of the higher good, God's law. For a lesser good. 00:08:00.370 --> 00:08:03.589 And the lesser good here was what? Impressing 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:06.329 his friends. That was a huge part of it. The 00:08:06.329 --> 00:08:08.889 companionship of sinners, he calls it. He realizes 00:08:08.889 --> 00:08:10.689 he never would have done it alone. He says his 00:08:10.689 --> 00:08:12.949 shame would not have let him. But with his friends, 00:08:13.110 --> 00:08:15.029 they could all laugh about it together. It was 00:08:15.029 --> 00:08:17.230 the shared transgression that was the real high. 00:08:17.410 --> 00:08:19.689 That peer pressure element is so relatable. He 00:08:19.689 --> 00:08:21.990 basically admits he wanted to impress his friends. 00:08:22.170 --> 00:08:24.790 Oh, completely. He talks about living a hedonistic 00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:27.360 lifestyle during this gap year. He associated 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:29.319 with these young men who bragged about their 00:08:29.319 --> 00:08:33.080 sexual exploits. The wreckers. Yes. And Augustine, 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:35.940 being insecure and wanting to fit in, admits 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:38.200 that he would sometimes lie about having sexual 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:41.080 experiences just so he wouldn't seem innocent 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:44.519 or lame. He faked a reputation for being a player. 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:47.659 That's incredible. He did. He was terrified of 00:08:47.659 --> 00:08:50.809 being seen as pure. It really highlights how 00:08:50.809 --> 00:08:54.230 deep that desire for social excellence was. He 00:08:54.230 --> 00:08:56.470 preferred to be thought of as a sinner than to 00:08:56.470 --> 00:08:59.570 be mocked for being virtuous. So he's 17 now. 00:08:59.710 --> 00:09:02.090 His father finally gets the money together with 00:09:02.090 --> 00:09:04.309 the help of a wealthy patron named Romadianus. 00:09:04.389 --> 00:09:06.889 Right. And he goes to the big city, Carthage. 00:09:07.009 --> 00:09:09.269 Carthage was the metropolis of Roman Africa. 00:09:09.409 --> 00:09:11.769 It was the New York City or London of its day 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:14.210 for that region. A place of high learning, but 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:17.080 also a place of chaos and pleasure. Augustine 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:20.019 calls it a cauldron of illicit loves. A cauldron. 00:09:20.019 --> 00:09:21.799 That's a great phrase. Isn't it? And this is 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:24.179 where he meets a very significant person. We 00:09:24.179 --> 00:09:26.200 don't know her name, do we? We don't. She is 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:28.580 lost to history, which is a tragedy in itself. 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:31.740 But she wasn't just a fling. This is a massive 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:34.600 misconception about Augustine's wild years. People 00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:36.259 think he was just sleeping around every night. 00:09:36.570 --> 00:09:40.070 Exactly. But actually, he enters into a relationship 00:09:40.070 --> 00:09:42.690 with this woman that lasts for over 15 years. 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:44.990 That's a common law marriage by modern standards? 00:09:45.129 --> 00:09:47.870 Essentially. In Roman law, it was concubinage. 00:09:48.009 --> 00:09:50.809 Because she was likely of a lower social class, 00:09:50.809 --> 00:09:53.230 or perhaps a freedwoman, he couldn't legally 00:09:53.230 --> 00:09:55.789 marry her without damaging his career prospects. 00:09:56.009 --> 00:09:58.029 Right, he's a rising star. And a Roman elite 00:09:58.029 --> 00:10:00.950 marrying a lower class woman was social suicide. 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:04.840 But emotionally, he was faithful to her. It was 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:07.899 a monogamous relationship. And they had a son 00:10:07.899 --> 00:10:10.720 together. A deodatus. A deodatus. Gift from God. 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:13.559 That's what the name means. And by all accounts, 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:16.500 Augustine loved this boy furiously. He describes 00:10:16.500 --> 00:10:18.879 him as extremely intelligent, almost frighteningly 00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:21.960 so. So while Augustine later laments his lust, 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:24.480 we have to recognize this was a committed monogamous 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:27.519 family unit for a decade and a half. While he's 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:30.019 in Carthage, living this domestic life, but also 00:10:30.019 --> 00:10:32.379 studying rhetoric to become a lawyer, he has 00:10:32.379 --> 00:10:35.120 his first intellectual awakening. And surprisingly, 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:37.759 it's not the Bible. No, the Bible was actually 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:39.340 a barrier for him at this point. You have to 00:10:39.340 --> 00:10:41.679 remember, Augustine is a rhetoric snob. Literary 00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:45.139 snob. Completely. He loves the high, polished, 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.740 complex Latin of Cicero and Virgil. The Latin 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:50.679 translations of the Bible available in North 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:53.299 Africa at the time were, well, they were rough. 00:10:53.340 --> 00:10:56.039 They were clunky. They were street Latin. Like 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:58.000 trying to read Shakespeare and then picking up 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:00.379 a... Poorly translated instruction manual. That 00:11:00.379 --> 00:11:03.379 is a perfect analogy. And the content Old Testament 00:11:03.379 --> 00:11:06.360 patriarchs behaving badly, strange genealogies. 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:09.919 It seemed crude to him, immoral even. He couldn't 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:12.399 get past the style to see the substance. What 00:11:12.399 --> 00:11:15.240 did he read that changed things? He reads a dialogue 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:18.080 by Cicero called the Hortensius. It's lost now. 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:19.720 We only know about it because Augustine talks 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:22.440 about it so much. But reading it sparks this 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:25.559 intense thirst for truth. It ignites a love for 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:27.940 wisdom in him. He decides he doesn't want to 00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:29.940 just be a clever lawyer. He wants to be a philosopher. 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:32.899 So if the Bible is out, where does a young, ambitious 00:11:32.899 --> 00:11:35.379 philosopher in training turn? He turns to the 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:37.379 Manichaeans. This is a group I feel like we really 00:11:37.379 --> 00:11:39.019 need to explain because they sound less like 00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:41.279 a church and more like a sci -fi cult. It does 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:44.460 sound a bit like that from our perspective. Manichaeism 00:11:44.460 --> 00:11:46.940 was a major world religion at the time. It was 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:49.139 a dualistic religion founded by a prophet named 00:11:49.139 --> 00:11:52.620 Mani in Persia. And the core belief was what? 00:11:52.990 --> 00:11:56.029 They believed the universe was a cosmic battleground 00:11:56.029 --> 00:11:59.230 between two equal and eternal forces. Light, 00:11:59.389 --> 00:12:02.450 which was the good, spiritual world, and dark, 00:12:02.590 --> 00:12:05.950 which was evil, chaotic matter. And why did that 00:12:05.950 --> 00:12:08.450 appeal to Augustine so much? Two main reasons, 00:12:08.570 --> 00:12:11.190 I think. First, it solved the problem of evil. 00:12:11.330 --> 00:12:13.990 The classic question, if God is all good and 00:12:13.990 --> 00:12:17.269 all powerful, why is there evil? Why do bad things 00:12:17.269 --> 00:12:19.929 happen? Exactly. The Manichaeans said, well... 00:12:20.120 --> 00:12:22.240 God isn't in charge of everything. There's this 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.240 dark force matter that opposes him. Evil happens 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:27.879 when the darkness traps particles of light. That 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:30.019 got God off the hook. It's a clean answer. No 00:12:30.019 --> 00:12:32.080 messy paradoxes. It is. And the second reason 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:33.879 was that they claimed to be scientific. They 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.139 ridiculed Christians for believing in blind faith. 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:38.519 The Manichaeans said, we don't demand faith. 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:41.759 We offer knowledge. We have reason. So what did 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:44.309 that knowledge consist of? They had these elaborate 00:12:44.309 --> 00:12:47.350 astronomical and astrological explanations for 00:12:47.350 --> 00:12:50.070 the world eclipses, the phases of the moon, the 00:12:50.070 --> 00:12:53.110 stars. It was all tied into their mythology about 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:55.409 the battle between light and dark. And a Dustin, 00:12:55.669 --> 00:12:57.350 who wanted to be the smart guy who understood 00:12:57.350 --> 00:12:59.909 the mechanics of the universe, loved that. He 00:12:59.909 --> 00:13:02.590 spent 10 years with them. 10 years as an auditor, 00:13:02.809 --> 00:13:05.429 a low -level follower, he was deep in it. He 00:13:05.429 --> 00:13:08.190 even converted some of his friends. But eventually... 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:11.320 the cracks start to show he do and this is where 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:14.200 his powerful intellect saves him he starts actually 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:17.360 studying the science he reads genuine greek astronomers 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:20.299 men like hipparchus and eratosthenes who had 00:13:20.299 --> 00:13:22.600 calculated the movements of the stars with mathematics 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:26.000 and he realizes their math works it works perfectly 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.220 and he sees that the mannequin books are full 00:13:28.220 --> 00:13:30.320 of nonsense that contradicts the real science 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:32.679 they were just making it up they were faking 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:36.259 it they were augustine calls it swindling He 00:13:36.259 --> 00:13:39.039 starts asking hard questions to his local Manichean 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:42.120 leaders. Why doesn't your cosmology match the 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:45.059 math? Why are your predictions for eclipses wrong? 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:47.460 And what do they say? They tell him, wait for 00:13:47.460 --> 00:13:49.840 Faustus. Faustus of Milove is our great bishop. 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.360 He's coming to town. He will explain everything. 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:55.220 The great Oz is coming. The great Oz. And Augustine 00:13:55.220 --> 00:13:59.080 waits with bated breath for years. He builds 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.019 this man up in his mind as this fountain of all 00:14:02.019 --> 00:14:04.929 knowledge. And when Faust finally shows up. He's 00:14:04.929 --> 00:14:07.710 a total disappointment. He's charming. He's a 00:14:07.710 --> 00:14:10.490 great speaker. He's very polite. But Augustine 00:14:10.490 --> 00:14:13.750 realizes almost immediately that the man is ignorant. 00:14:13.929 --> 00:14:17.049 He has no real answers. He just repeats the same 00:14:17.049 --> 00:14:20.210 old myths. He's all style, no substance. Precisely. 00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:23.049 And that bursts the bubble. Augustine realizes 00:14:23.049 --> 00:14:27.250 a crucial lesson. Eloquence does not equal truth. 00:14:27.710 --> 00:14:29.529 You can say something beautifully and still be 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:32.049 completely wrong. That is a lesson that is painfully 00:14:32.049 --> 00:14:34.169 relevant today. Just because someone sounds good 00:14:34.169 --> 00:14:36.169 on a podcast or a TED talk doesn't mean they 00:14:36.169 --> 00:14:39.139 know physics. Exactly. So Augustine is disillusioned. 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.340 He's 29 years old. He's a teacher now, a professor 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:44.200 of rhetoric. But he's frustrated. In Carthage, 00:14:44.259 --> 00:14:46.299 the students are unruly. They're basically rioting 00:14:46.299 --> 00:14:48.440 in the classrooms, disrupting lectures. Sounds 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:50.759 like a nightmare. A total nightmare. So he packs 00:14:50.759 --> 00:14:53.120 up and moves to Rome. Hoping for better students. 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:56.059 And he finds them. The Roman students are polite. 00:14:56.259 --> 00:14:59.519 They sit quietly. They take notes. But they have 00:14:59.519 --> 00:15:01.320 a different trick. They attend the whole term. 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.159 And then on the day the fees are due, they all 00:15:04.159 --> 00:15:07.799 transfer to a different teacher. They just vanish. 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:10.179 The ancient version of the Dynadash? That is 00:15:10.179 --> 00:15:13.000 brutal. It is. Augustine is broke. He gets sick 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:15.860 with a fever and he is completely cynical. But 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:19.840 then he gets his big break. Milan. The imperial 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:22.679 court in Milan, which was the de facto capital 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:25.100 of the Western Roman Empire at the time, needs 00:15:25.100 --> 00:15:27.100 a professor of rhetoric. This is the big leagues. 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:30.299 This is the top job. Augustine applies. He gives 00:15:30.299 --> 00:15:32.740 a test speech and he wins the position. He heads 00:15:32.740 --> 00:15:34.960 north. This is the pinnacle, right? This is like 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:36.879 becoming the White House press secretary or the 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:38.860 chief speechwriter for the president. It is the 00:15:38.860 --> 00:15:41.820 path to political power. He is 30 years old and 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:44.120 he is the official voice of the empire. He is 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:46.639 in the inner circle. And this is where everything 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:50.240 changes. Because in Milan, he meets Ambrose. 00:15:50.340 --> 00:15:53.519 Bishop Ambrose. Now, Augustine goes to hear Ambrose 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.639 speak, but not because he's interested in Jesus. 00:15:56.139 --> 00:15:58.460 No, not at all. He goes as a professional critic. 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:01.659 He's a rhetoric professor. And Ambrose has a 00:16:01.659 --> 00:16:05.200 reputation as a great orator. Augustine wants 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.500 to see if the man is any good. He's analyzing 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:10.259 his style, his diction, his delivery. He's not 00:16:10.259 --> 00:16:12.320 even listening to the words at first. But the 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:15.740 content starts to seep in. It does, because Ambrose 00:16:15.740 --> 00:16:18.710 was an intellectual heavyweight. He was fluent 00:16:18.710 --> 00:16:20.870 in Greek. He'd read the Neoplatonist philosophers 00:16:20.870 --> 00:16:24.870 like Plotinus. And he interpreted the Old Testament 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:27.309 allegorically. What does that mean exactly? It 00:16:27.309 --> 00:16:29.350 means all those stories Augustine thought were 00:16:29.350 --> 00:16:31.990 crude and literal. You know, God walking in the 00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:35.289 garden, patriarchs with multiple wives. Ambrose 00:16:35.289 --> 00:16:38.190 explained them as metaphors for the soul's journey 00:16:38.190 --> 00:16:41.870 or for deeper biological truths. So he made Christianity 00:16:41.870 --> 00:16:44.490 intellectually respectable for Augustine. He 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:47.240 did. Suddenly, Christianity didn't look so stupid 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:49.399 to Augustine. It looked profound. It looked intellectually 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:51.820 robust. Ambrose becomes this father figure he 00:16:51.820 --> 00:16:54.100 never really had. But just as his mind is opening 00:16:54.100 --> 00:16:57.120 up, his personal life completely crashes. This 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:00.299 is the tragic part of the story. His mother... 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:03.559 Monica, has followed him to Milan. She is relentless. 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:06.859 And she is determined to see her son successful 00:17:06.859 --> 00:17:09.759 and saved. And in her mind, that means a respectable 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:12.619 marriage. Right. So she arranges a marriage for 00:17:12.619 --> 00:17:15.700 him to a 10 -year -old heiress from a noble Christian 00:17:15.700 --> 00:17:18.819 family. 10 years old. It was legal at the time, 00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:20.500 though she would have to wait two years to be 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:23.480 of marriageable age, which was 12. It's shocking 00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.680 to us. But to make this match, Augustine has 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:28.880 to clear the decks. He has to get rid of his 00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:30.980 partner, the mother of his son, the woman he's 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:33.220 been with for 15 years. And he does it. He does. 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:36.900 He sends her back to Africa. And his description 00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:39.279 of this in the confessions is just heartbreaking. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.559 He writes that his heart, which clung to her, 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:45.180 was racked, wounded, and bleeding. It wasn't 00:17:45.180 --> 00:17:47.180 a cold decision. It tore him apart. It destroyed 00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:50.160 him. But he did it for ambition and for his mother. 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:53.500 And she, his partner, went back to Africa, vowing 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:55.700 never to be with another man. And the irony is 00:17:55.700 --> 00:17:57.519 he can't even wait the two years for the child 00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:01.170 bride. No. He's so used to sexual intimacy that 00:18:01.170 --> 00:18:03.849 he takes another concubine to fill the gap. It's 00:18:03.849 --> 00:18:06.690 a moment of total moral chaos for him. He must 00:18:06.690 --> 00:18:08.490 have been disgusted with himself. Completely. 00:18:08.589 --> 00:18:11.430 He realizes he is a slave to his own desires. 00:18:11.650 --> 00:18:14.769 He's ambitious, he's heartbroken, and he's disgusted 00:18:14.769 --> 00:18:17.009 with himself. This is when he prays that famous, 00:18:17.269 --> 00:18:20.269 agonizingly honest prayer. Grant me chastity 00:18:20.269 --> 00:18:22.549 and continence, but not with you. It's such a 00:18:22.549 --> 00:18:24.769 human prayer. I want to be good. I really do. 00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:28.180 Let me have a little more fun first, or maybe 00:18:28.180 --> 00:18:30.880 more charitably. I don't think I have the strength 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:32.980 to do it yet. It's the ultimate procrastination 00:18:32.980 --> 00:18:35.619 of the soul, but the crisis reaches a breaking 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:39.759 point. It's August, 386 A .D. Yes. Augustine 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:42.079 is in a garden in Milan. He's with his friend, 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:45.359 Olympias, and he is... He's just torn in two. 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:48.220 He's crying, asking, how long, oh Lord, why not 00:18:48.220 --> 00:18:50.359 now? Why not make an end to my ugly sins right 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:52.440 now? He describes it as a battle between two 00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:55.839 wills inside himself, one old and carnal, one 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:58.779 new and spiritual, and the old one is winning. 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:01.619 And then the voice? He hears a child's voice 00:19:01.619 --> 00:19:04.019 coming from a nearby house. He says it was like 00:19:04.019 --> 00:19:07.000 a chanting, a sing -song voice. Tell -a -late, 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:09.319 tell -a -late, tell -a -late. Take up and read, 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:12.140 take up and read. Right. He stops. He thinks, 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.940 is this a game? But he's never heard a game where 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:17.339 kids say that. He takes it as a divine command, 00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:20.660 a direct message. Sort of like opening a book 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.359 at random for guidance. Exactly. It was a practice 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:26.500 called sortes biblique. He rushes back to the 00:19:26.500 --> 00:19:28.599 bench where he left a book of St. Paul's letters. 00:19:28.759 --> 00:19:31.299 He snatches it up, opens it at random, and his 00:19:31.299 --> 00:19:35.740 eyes fall on Romans 13 .13 .14. Which says, What? 00:19:35.859 --> 00:19:38.859 Not in rioting and brunkenness, not in chambering 00:19:38.859 --> 00:19:41.539 and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but 00:19:41.539 --> 00:19:43.839 put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision 00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:46.359 for the flesh to gratify its desires. It hits 00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:48.319 him like a lightning bolt. It does. It addresses 00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:51.180 his specific struggle, lust, ambition, the flesh 00:19:51.180 --> 00:19:54.160 so directly. He says a light of confidence flooded 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:56.539 his heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished. 00:19:56.640 --> 00:19:59.000 It was instant. Just like that. The struggle 00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:01.380 was over. The struggle was over. He walks away 00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:04.240 from it all. The career, the heiress, the ambition. 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:06.960 He resigns his professorship. He does, citing 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:10.079 a lung ailment. He is baptized by Ambrose the 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:12.579 following Easter, along with his son Adiodatus. 00:20:12.940 --> 00:20:15.900 They decide to go back to Africa to live a quiet 00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:19.359 monastic life of study and prayer. But the tragedy 00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:21.609 isn't over. No. The universe is not done with 00:20:21.609 --> 00:20:23.910 him. While they are waiting for the ship at the 00:20:23.910 --> 00:20:26.910 port of Ostia, his mother Monica falls ill and 00:20:26.910 --> 00:20:29.630 dies. After everything she did to get him to 00:20:29.630 --> 00:20:31.609 this point, she doesn't get to see him live out 00:20:31.609 --> 00:20:33.650 his new life. It's incredibly poignant. They 00:20:33.650 --> 00:20:36.670 share a beautiful final conversation about heaven, 00:20:36.710 --> 00:20:39.230 and then she's gone. And then shortly after they 00:20:39.230 --> 00:20:42.029 return to Africa, his brilliant son Adiodatus 00:20:42.029 --> 00:20:44.529 dies as well. He's left alone. He's lost his 00:20:44.529 --> 00:20:46.769 partner, his mother, and his son in the space 00:20:46.769 --> 00:20:50.099 of about two years. It is... A lot of loss. I 00:20:50.099 --> 00:20:52.740 can't even imagine. And it shapes him. He sells 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:54.740 his inheritance, gives the money to the poor, 00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:58.000 and turns his family home into a monastery. He 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:00.420 just wants to pray and read, but the local church 00:21:00.420 --> 00:21:03.319 in Hippo needs a priest. And they have other 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:05.980 plans for him. They do. The bishop is old, and 00:21:05.980 --> 00:21:09.099 he needs help. One day, Augustine is just in 00:21:09.099 --> 00:21:12.099 the church, and the congregation basically grabs 00:21:12.099 --> 00:21:14.799 him, presents him to the bishop, and they ordain 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:17.839 him against his will. He was weeping. Against 00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:20.059 his will seems to be a theme in church history. 00:21:20.220 --> 00:21:22.980 It happens a lot. A few years later, he becomes 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:26.460 the bishop of Hippo. And this is where Augustine, 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:29.039 the theologian, the one who shapes the next millennium, 00:21:29.059 --> 00:21:31.420 really emerges. He spends the rest of his life 00:21:31.420 --> 00:21:33.660 fighting battles, intellectual battles. Let's 00:21:33.660 --> 00:21:35.400 talk about the big one. The battle over grace, 00:21:35.539 --> 00:21:37.779 because this is where he earns the title Doctor 00:21:37.779 --> 00:21:40.619 of Grace. And his opponent is a guy named Pelagius. 00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:44.019 Pelagius, a fascinating character. In many ways, 00:21:44.059 --> 00:21:46.319 Pelagius is the opposite of Augustine. He was 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:48.779 a British monk, an ascetic, very disciplined, 00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:52.279 very moral. And his view was what? His view was 00:21:52.279 --> 00:21:54.759 essentially optimistic about human nature. He 00:21:54.759 --> 00:21:56.880 believed humans have total free will. We were 00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:58.859 born innocent, just like Adam before the fall. 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:01.319 Seeing is just a bad habit that we pick up from 00:22:01.319 --> 00:22:04.160 society. So if you try hard enough. If you try 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:06.779 hard enough, you can stop sinning and be perfect. 00:22:07.019 --> 00:22:09.299 You don't need God's special help to be good. 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:11.579 You just need willpower. God gave you the rules. 00:22:11.700 --> 00:22:13.920 Now it's up to you. That sounds very modern. 00:22:14.059 --> 00:22:16.619 Like a self -help guru. You can do it. Unleash 00:22:16.619 --> 00:22:18.980 your best self. It is very appealing. It's the 00:22:18.980 --> 00:22:21.819 religion of the strong, the disciplined. But 00:22:21.819 --> 00:22:24.500 Augustine looks at his own life, the pear theft, 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:28.039 the addiction to lust, the give me chastity but 00:22:28.039 --> 00:22:31.059 not yet. And he says, no, that is not how it 00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:33.970 works. That is a fantasy. Augustine argues that 00:22:33.970 --> 00:22:36.670 we are fundamentally broken. Yes. He develops 00:22:36.670 --> 00:22:39.190 the doctrine of original sin. He argues that 00:22:39.190 --> 00:22:41.369 human nature was fundamentally wounded by the 00:22:41.369 --> 00:22:44.329 fall of Adam. It's not just that we do bad things. 00:22:44.390 --> 00:22:46.509 It's that our very nature is flawed. We have 00:22:46.509 --> 00:22:49.609 an inherited defect. He talks about concupiscence. 00:22:49.630 --> 00:22:51.390 That's a great Scrabble word. What does it mean? 00:22:51.589 --> 00:22:54.440 It essentially means uncontrollable desire. It's 00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:56.180 often linked to sexual desire because that's 00:22:56.180 --> 00:22:58.039 where we most obviously lose rational control. 00:22:58.299 --> 00:23:00.920 But for him, it's brawner. It's the fundamental 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:03.180 self -centered drive that pulls us away from 00:23:03.180 --> 00:23:05.740 God and towards ourselves. And because of this, 00:23:05.799 --> 00:23:08.420 our will isn't really free. That's his point. 00:23:08.539 --> 00:23:11.900 Our will is damaged. It's in bondage to sin. 00:23:12.099 --> 00:23:14.660 We are not free to choose the good on our own 00:23:14.660 --> 00:23:16.680 because we are naturally curved in on ourselves. 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:19.259 We will always choose the self -serving thing. 00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.200 So if we are enslaved, How do we get out? That's 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:24.299 the key. We can't get ourselves out. We need 00:23:24.299 --> 00:23:27.480 grace. Augustine argues that we are a massa damnata. 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:30.980 A massive perdition. A condemned lump. That's 00:23:30.980 --> 00:23:33.859 Jura. It's bleak. But his point is that the only 00:23:33.859 --> 00:23:36.420 reason anyone is saved is because God, out of 00:23:36.420 --> 00:23:38.299 sheer mercy and for his own mysterious reasons, 00:23:38.500 --> 00:23:41.160 reaches down and saves them. It's a gift. It's 00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:43.480 grace. And this leads to the scary doctrine. 00:23:44.259 --> 00:23:46.359 Predestination. It does. It's the logical conclusion. 00:23:46.660 --> 00:23:49.000 If we can't choose God, then God must choose 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:52.829 us. Augustine argues that God, before time, selects 00:23:52.829 --> 00:23:55.069 the elect to be saved. And it's not because they 00:23:55.069 --> 00:23:57.670 are better people. It's a mysterious unilateral 00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.289 decision by God. That is a tough pill to swallow. 00:24:00.410 --> 00:24:03.390 It seems so unfair. It is. But for Augustine, 00:24:03.430 --> 00:24:05.650 it was actually a relief. It meant his salvation 00:24:05.650 --> 00:24:08.130 didn't depend on his own shaky willpower. It 00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:10.430 depended entirely on the sovereign power of God. 00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:12.950 It was a source of humility and security for 00:24:12.950 --> 00:24:15.690 him. So we have the internal battle for the soul. 00:24:16.170 --> 00:24:19.390 But then the external world starts falling apart. 00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:24.519 410 AD. The Visigoths sack Rome. This was a 9 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:26.900 -11 moment for the ancient world, but magnified 00:24:26.900 --> 00:24:30.420 a thousand times. Yeah? For 800 years, Rome had 00:24:30.420 --> 00:24:33.200 been the eternal city. It was invincible. And 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:35.720 now barbarians were looting the capital. It sent 00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:39.000 shockwaves across the entire empire. And the 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:40.740 pagans started pointing fingers, right? Immediately. 00:24:40.740 --> 00:24:43.240 They said, look, we abandoned the old gods who 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:45.740 made Rome great. We started worshiping this Christian 00:24:45.740 --> 00:24:48.480 god. And now look what happened. Jupiter is angry. 00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:50.599 And Christians were freaking out, too. They were 00:24:50.599 --> 00:24:52.819 terrified. They thought, if Rome falls, does 00:24:52.819 --> 00:24:54.539 the church fall? Is this the end of the world? 00:24:54.759 --> 00:24:56.660 The fate of the church and the empire seemed 00:24:56.660 --> 00:25:02.920 completely intertwined. The Civitate Dei. It 00:25:02.920 --> 00:25:05.700 is a massive work. It took him 13 years to write. 00:25:05.839 --> 00:25:07.980 And his argument is brilliant. He says, stop 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:11.339 panicking. He posits that there have always been 00:25:11.339 --> 00:25:14.160 two cities, invisible, intermingled throughout 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:17.579 history, the earthly city and the city of God. 00:25:17.779 --> 00:25:20.279 What's the difference? The earthly city is based 00:25:20.279 --> 00:25:22.519 on the love of self, to the point of contempt 00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:26.079 for God. It's driven by pride, lust for domination. 00:25:26.940 --> 00:25:30.319 Empires like Rome, Babylon, Egypt, they all belong 00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:32.720 to the city. And because they are built on human 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:35.160 pride, they are jesting to crumble. They all 00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:37.680 die eventually. And the city of God. The city 00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:40.420 of God is ruled by the love of God, to the point 00:25:40.420 --> 00:25:43.220 of contempt for self. It is humble and it is 00:25:43.220 --> 00:25:46.039 eternal. Augustine says that Christians are citizens 00:25:46.039 --> 00:25:48.269 of the city of God who are just passing. through 00:25:48.269 --> 00:25:51.549 the earthly city. We are resident aliens. So 00:25:51.549 --> 00:25:53.710 if Rome falls... It doesn't ultimately matter. 00:25:53.809 --> 00:25:55.829 It's just another building in the earthly city 00:25:55.829 --> 00:25:57.910 burning down. The city of God endures forever. 00:25:58.329 --> 00:26:00.390 That is such a powerful shift in perspective. 00:26:00.589 --> 00:26:02.829 It basically detaches the fate of Christianity 00:26:02.829 --> 00:26:05.970 from the fate of any political power. Precisely. 00:26:05.970 --> 00:26:08.029 It allowed the church to survive the Dark Ages. 00:26:08.210 --> 00:26:10.529 When the empire collapsed, the church stood because 00:26:10.529 --> 00:26:12.970 Augustine had given them the intellectual framework 00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:15.049 to say, we are something different. Our citizenship 00:26:15.049 --> 00:26:17.529 is in heaven. But speaking of the earthly city... 00:26:17.869 --> 00:26:20.150 Augustine also had to deal with the messy reality 00:26:20.150 --> 00:26:23.650 of politics and war. He's the father of just 00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:26.690 war theory, isn't he? He is. Personally, Augustine 00:26:26.690 --> 00:26:30.269 was a pacifist. He hated violence. But he recognized 00:26:30.269 --> 00:26:33.150 that in a fallen world, sometimes force is necessary 00:26:33.150 --> 00:26:35.930 to prevent a greater evil or to restore peace. 00:26:36.539 --> 00:26:39.599 So he laid out some ground rules. Yes. He argued 00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:41.940 a war must be defensive. It can't be for glory 00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:44.900 or conquest. It must be authorized by a legitimate 00:26:44.900 --> 00:26:48.299 authority, not just some rogue general. And its 00:26:48.299 --> 00:26:50.779 goal must always be a just and lasting peace. 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:53.380 You fight reluctantly to restore order. That 00:26:53.380 --> 00:26:55.759 sounds reasonable. But then we get to the Donatist 00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:58.849 controversy and things get... This is the part 00:26:58.849 --> 00:27:00.769 of Augustine's legacy that makes modern people, 00:27:00.950 --> 00:27:03.529 myself included, very uncomfortable. So who are 00:27:03.529 --> 00:27:06.589 the Donatists? The Donatists were a rival Christian 00:27:06.589 --> 00:27:09.329 sect in North Africa. They were rigorists. They 00:27:09.329 --> 00:27:11.450 believed that if a priest or bishop had been 00:27:11.450 --> 00:27:14.049 a traitor during the Roman persecutions, you 00:27:14.049 --> 00:27:16.210 know, handed over Bibles to be burned, his sacraments 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.529 were invalid. So if a bad priest baptized you, 00:27:18.630 --> 00:27:20.730 it didn't count. You weren't really baptized. 00:27:21.130 --> 00:27:24.180 Right. It made the grace of the sacrament dependent 00:27:24.180 --> 00:27:27.259 on the moral purity of the minister. Augustine 00:27:27.259 --> 00:27:29.799 argued against this. He said the validity comes 00:27:29.799 --> 00:27:32.099 from Christ, not the priest's purity. Christ 00:27:32.099 --> 00:27:34.240 is the one acting. But the Donatists weren't 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:36.920 just arguing. They were violent. Extremely. They 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:40.079 had bands of enforcers called circumcellians 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:43.000 who would roam the countryside, beating Catholic 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.539 priests with clubs, throwing acid in their eyes, 00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:48.200 committing terrorism. It was essentially a religious 00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:50.900 civil war. And for years, Augustine tried dialogue. 00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:53.559 He tried to win them over. He did. He debated 00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:55.720 them. He wrote letters. He pleaded with them. 00:27:56.220 --> 00:27:59.019 But it didn't work. The violence continued. And 00:27:59.019 --> 00:28:02.220 eventually he changed his mind. He looked at 00:28:02.220 --> 00:28:04.400 a parable in Luke 14 where the master of the 00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:11.799 feast sends his servant out and says, And Augustine 00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:14.779 used this to justify state coercion. He used 00:28:14.779 --> 00:28:17.940 the government to crush the Domitists. He advocated 00:28:17.940 --> 00:28:22.000 for fines, flogging, and banishment. He didn't 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:24.180 want them executed. He actually argued against 00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:26.700 the death penalty for them. But he believed that 00:28:26.700 --> 00:28:30.180 fear could break the habit of heresy. He thought 00:28:30.180 --> 00:28:32.240 that if you force them back into the church, 00:28:32.420 --> 00:28:34.480 they would eventually be exposed to the truth 00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:37.220 and be grateful. A loving correction, he called 00:28:37.220 --> 00:28:41.000 it. Yes. But it set a dangerous precedent. Later 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:43.559 in history, during the Inquisition, persecutors 00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:46.759 would quote Augustine to justify burning heretics 00:28:46.759 --> 00:28:50.059 at the stake. It's a heavy, dark shadow on his 00:28:50.059 --> 00:28:52.319 legacy. Let's pivot to something a little more 00:28:52.319 --> 00:28:55.319 abstract, his mind. Augustine thought about things 00:28:55.319 --> 00:28:57.859 that nobody else was really touching, like time. 00:28:58.059 --> 00:29:01.059 Oh, book 11 of the Confessions. It is a philosophical 00:29:01.059 --> 00:29:03.900 tour de force. It's breathtaking. Augustine asks 00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:06.319 a simple question. What was God doing before 00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:08.859 he created the world? The classic answer is preparing 00:29:08.859 --> 00:29:11.519 hell for people who ask deep questions. Augustine 00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:13.440 actually mentions that joke. He says he won't 00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:15.740 give that glib answer. His real answer is mind 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:18.640 bending. He says there was no before. God created 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.059 time itself along with the universe. Time is 00:29:22.059 --> 00:29:25.160 a feature of the created world. God is outside 00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:28.259 of time in an eternal present. So asking what 00:29:28.259 --> 00:29:31.539 God was doing before time is like asking what's 00:29:31.539 --> 00:29:33.720 north of the North Pole. The category doesn't 00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:36.900 apply. That is basically modern physics. Space 00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:39.240 -time. It's astonishingly modern. And then he 00:29:39.240 --> 00:29:41.599 analyzes our experience of time. He says the 00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:43.500 past doesn't exist anymore. It's just memory. 00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:46.119 The future doesn't exist yet. It's just expectation. 00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:48.799 The only thing that is real is the present. Right, 00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:51.960 which is a razor -thin moment of attention. He 00:29:51.960 --> 00:29:54.500 concludes that time is a distension of the mind. 00:29:54.619 --> 00:29:56.680 It's a psychological experience. It's something 00:29:56.680 --> 00:29:59.819 that happens inside us. That is trippy. And he 00:29:59.819 --> 00:30:02.079 applies this rigorous thinking to science and 00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:04.200 scripture, too. He does. He wrote a whole book 00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:06.599 on the literal interpretation of Genesis. And 00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.059 it's fascinating. He warned Christians against 00:30:09.059 --> 00:30:11.059 talking nonsense about science. What was his 00:30:11.059 --> 00:30:13.359 warning? He basically said, if you talk about 00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:15.779 astronomy or biology and claim it's from the 00:30:15.779 --> 00:30:18.900 Bible, but you're clearly wrong and any educated 00:30:18.900 --> 00:30:20.980 pagan knows you're wrong, they will laugh at 00:30:20.980 --> 00:30:23.099 you. And then they won't believe you when you 00:30:23.099 --> 00:30:25.259 talk about the resurrection of the dead. Don't 00:30:25.259 --> 00:30:27.920 make the faith look foolish. Exactly. And he 00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.339 himself did not. believe the world was created 00:30:30.339 --> 00:30:34.960 in six literal 24 -hour days he didn't no he 00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:37.279 thought god created everything instantaneously 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.920 in a set of seminal reasons like seeds he thought 00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:43.779 the six -day narrative in genesis was a literary 00:30:43.779 --> 00:30:47.059 framework a way to categorize creation to help 00:30:47.059 --> 00:30:50.000 our limited human minds understand it okay we 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:52.599 need to talk about his views on society because 00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:55.180 some of them are well they're complicated Let's 00:30:55.180 --> 00:30:57.440 start with sex. Augustine has a reputation for 00:30:57.440 --> 00:30:59.640 being the guy who made Christianity terrified 00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:02.240 of sex. And there is some truth to that, but 00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:04.440 it's nuanced. What's the nuance? He believed 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:06.960 that sex itself was good in principle. God invented 00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:09.160 it for procreation. It was part of the original 00:31:09.160 --> 00:31:12.039 design. But he argued that after the fall, sex 00:31:12.039 --> 00:31:14.579 is always accompanied by libido, shameful lust, 00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:17.500 concupiscence. The thing he struggled with his 00:31:17.500 --> 00:31:20.160 whole life. Exactly. Even in marriage, he thought 00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:22.180 that because you lose rational control during 00:31:22.180 --> 00:31:25.200 the act, there is something slightly off about 00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:28.079 it now. It's a sign of our fallenness. He went 00:31:28.079 --> 00:31:30.140 so far as to believe that original sin is actually 00:31:30.140 --> 00:31:32.619 transmitted from generation to generation through 00:31:32.619 --> 00:31:35.640 sexual intercourse. Yikes. So that definitely 00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:37.880 colored Western theology for a long, long time. 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:40.480 It did. But then we also have to look at his 00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:43.259 view on women. On one hand, he held the typical 00:31:43.259 --> 00:31:46.420 view of the time that women were physically subject 00:31:46.420 --> 00:31:48.720 to men just as the body is subject to the mind. 00:31:49.180 --> 00:31:52.140 But spiritually, he was a radical egalitarian 00:31:52.140 --> 00:31:54.799 for his time. He believed women had the same 00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:57.059 rational mind and the same capacity for God as 00:31:57.059 --> 00:31:59.640 men. He had deep intellectual friendships with 00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:02.039 many women, starting with his mother. He saw 00:32:02.039 --> 00:32:04.940 them as equals in the soul. And slavery. This 00:32:04.940 --> 00:32:07.039 is another tough one. He didn't call for the 00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:10.240 abolition of slavery. He saw it like war as a 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:13.579 tragic result of sin. God didn't intend for man 00:32:13.579 --> 00:32:16.099 to rule over man, but he didn't try to overturn 00:32:16.099 --> 00:32:19.559 the system. So what did he advise? He urged masters 00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:23.579 to treat their slaves with love as family. And 00:32:23.579 --> 00:32:26.079 he famously wrote a letter to the emperor urging 00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:28.720 him to ban the slave trade of children because 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:31.500 desperate parents were selling them. He saw the 00:32:31.500 --> 00:32:33.619 suffering, even if he accepted the institution 00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:36.680 as a fact of a fallen world. And finally, his 00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:38.920 view on the Jewish people. This was really influential. 00:32:39.180 --> 00:32:42.450 It was. This is the witness theory. In a time 00:32:42.450 --> 00:32:44.890 when many Christians thought Jews should be forcibly 00:32:44.890 --> 00:32:47.829 converted or worse, Augustine argued that they 00:32:47.829 --> 00:32:50.930 must be protected. Why? He said the Jewish people 00:32:50.930 --> 00:32:53.410 are witnesses to the truth of the prophecies 00:32:53.410 --> 00:32:56.650 about Jesus. Their existence and their preservation 00:32:56.650 --> 00:32:59.509 of the Old Testament scriptures proves the antiquity 00:32:59.509 --> 00:33:02.150 of the Bible, so they should be allowed to survive 00:33:02.150 --> 00:33:04.970 and practice their faith. Survive but not thrive 00:33:04.970 --> 00:33:07.950 is a phrase sometimes associated with this. That 00:33:07.950 --> 00:33:10.309 phrase itself isn't in his writings, though it's 00:33:10.309 --> 00:33:12.490 often used to summarize the later effect of his 00:33:12.490 --> 00:33:14.809 policy. He didn't want them holding positions 00:33:14.809 --> 00:33:17.710 of authority over Christians, but he argued passionately 00:33:17.710 --> 00:33:20.130 against violence toward them. It provided a theological 00:33:20.130 --> 00:33:22.289 safety net for Jews in Europe for centuries, 00:33:22.509 --> 00:33:24.970 although a very precarious one. So we come back 00:33:24.970 --> 00:33:30.259 to the end. The Siege of Hippo. 430 AD The vandals 00:33:30.259 --> 00:33:32.579 are burning the countryside. Augustine is dying 00:33:32.579 --> 00:33:35.420 inside the city walls. And he spends his final 00:33:35.420 --> 00:33:38.559 days revising his own works. He writes a book 00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:41.259 called Retractation. Reconsideration. Exactly. 00:33:41.299 --> 00:33:43.740 He goes through his entire life's work, book 00:33:43.740 --> 00:33:46.039 by book, and points out where he thinks he was 00:33:46.039 --> 00:33:48.039 wrong or where he would say things differently 00:33:48.039 --> 00:33:51.319 now. He reviews his own books and admits his 00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:54.500 mistakes. How many intellectuals do that? It's 00:33:54.500 --> 00:33:56.619 an incredible act of intellectual humility. It's 00:33:56.619 --> 00:33:59.019 a final confession, really. He dies on August 00:33:59.019 --> 00:34:03.079 28th, 430. And shortly after, the vandals breach 00:34:03.079 --> 00:34:05.680 the walls. They burn the city to the ground. 00:34:05.799 --> 00:34:08.360 Total destruction. Almost total. But, and this 00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:10.659 is almost miraculous, they leave the cathedral 00:34:10.659 --> 00:34:13.639 and Augustine's library untouched. The man dies, 00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:16.940 but the mind survives. And that mind shapes the 00:34:16.940 --> 00:34:20.300 next thousand years. Martin Luther was an Augustinian 00:34:20.300 --> 00:34:22.780 monk. The entire Reformation was basically a 00:34:22.780 --> 00:34:25.320 giant fight over Augustine's ideas on grace and 00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:27.800 free will. And Descartes. Descartes' famous, 00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:31.039 I think, therefore I am. Augustine said something 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:34.659 almost identical. Si faller, some. If I am deceived, 00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:38.619 I am. Centuries earlier, as an argument against 00:34:38.619 --> 00:34:41.880 skeptics. The line of influence is just immense. 00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:44.699 He really is the architect. He is. So what does 00:34:44.699 --> 00:34:47.420 this all mean for us? Here is a provocative thought 00:34:47.420 --> 00:34:50.179 to leave you with. Go for it. Before Augustine. 00:34:51.309 --> 00:34:53.250 Autobiographies were about what you did. I fought 00:34:53.250 --> 00:34:55.610 this war. I built this city. They were resumes. 00:34:56.369 --> 00:34:59.010 Augustine, in The Confessions, wrote about what 00:34:59.010 --> 00:35:01.690 he felt, what he thought, his inner turmoil. 00:35:01.929 --> 00:35:04.329 He invented the inner self, that introspective 00:35:04.329 --> 00:35:06.489 voice in your head that narrates your life that 00:35:06.489 --> 00:35:09.840 asks, who am I really? Why did I do that? That's 00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:11.260 true. When you look in the mirror and analyze 00:35:11.260 --> 00:35:13.719 your own motives or struggle with your own contradictions, 00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:16.679 you are asking an Augustinian question. We are 00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:19.039 all, in a way, living in the house that Augustine 00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:21.460 built. In many, many ways, we are. That's it 00:35:21.460 --> 00:35:23.480 for this deep dive. Thanks for listening. Thank 00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:23.639 you.