19 Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo The third major development in the rise of the man of sin was the appearance of Augustine of Hippo. The Council of Nice did its work in 325 A.D. Seventy years had passed by the time the Academy closed in 395 A.D. The Donatists suffered sporadic persecution during that time, depending mainly on whether there was an Arian or an Athanasian emperor. Augustine was ordained in 391, four years before the Academy closed. He was appointed bishop at Hippo in 396, and published his Confessions in 398. So his rise exactly coincides with the demise of the Academy.
Augustine was especially suited for the work he did. He was a born genius. His writings fill several large volumes, and they continue to be republished after 1600 years. There are very few writers who are still being studied after that long a time.
He was as much a philosopher as he was a preacher. Among many other things, he laid the foundation for modern psychology, and his works are still being studied from the point of view of the psychologist. Unlike most psychologists, he started his inquiry with the doctrine of original sin, and human depravity. Not many modern psychologists will acknowledge either one, and that cripples their entire system. With those two principles as a starting point, he was able to produce a profound and wide ranging system of psychology. Much of his Confessions is given over to the subject. He did that 1500 years before Sigmund Freud, but even til this day, few, if any, psychologists can equal his insight into the human psyche.
He had a vast knowledge of the scriptures. Regardless of the subject under consideration, he always had an array of proof texts he could call into service. Whether the text proved his point or not, he could convince his followers they were on solid Bible ground. But as well known as his life and legacy are, he remains a mystery. When I was searching for the Lord’s church, I spent considerable time studying his books. I was still a teenager fifty years ago, when I first struggled, line by line, through his Confessions. At last count, I had nine of his huge volumes in my library. His early experience and struggles of mind are such reading as can sometimes move one to conclude that this is a heaven born soul. But he had a darker, much darker, side. He had political skills that would have made Machiavelli proud. He could manipulate and persuade the emperors of Rome and Constantinople. He got those proud and arrogant men to issue the decrees he used to arrest, torture, and banish those preachers, who would not submit to his authority. When all else failed, he had them killed. The Academy worked out the merger between pagan philosophy, Judaism, and their idea of the Christian religion. They educated young ministers and sent them out to propagate their new doctrines. But while Clement, Origen, and the other teachers at the Academy worked out the system, it was left to Augustine to use the political and military power of the Empire in support of the new system, and force it on the people.
Orchard writes, “In 412 Cyril was ordained bishop of Alexandria. One of his first acts was to shut up all the churches of the Novationists, and strip them of everything of value. Augustine, supported by a kindred spirit in Cyril, exercised all his influence, and consequently the edicts procured against the Donatists, were now of a more sanguinary [bloody] character.”
“The Catholics found by experience, that the means hitherto used had been ineffectual against the Donatists; they now prevailed on Honorius and Theodosius, emperors of the east and west to issue an edict, decreeing, that the person re-baptizing, and the person re-baptized, should be punished by death. In consequence of this cruel measure martyrdoms ensued.”
It was left to Augustine to establish the battle lines along which he and his Catholic party would wage war against God and against the saints. Infant baptism-as a substi-tute for believers’ baptism-would be that battle line. The Lord made baptism the required manner to publicly profess faith in him. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). First teach them, then baptize them. If one has not been taught, he is not to be baptized.
“And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him” (Luke 7:29). The text could not make it any clearer that the boundary line between justifying God, andrejecting the counsel of Godis water baptism. The Lord made believers’ baptism the turning point, the boundary line, between gospel obedience and disobedience. That was the one act of submission God required, and the only response he would accept, as the initial public profession of faith. That being the God-appointed turning point between gospel obedience and disobedience, that was where Augustine gathered his forces and drew the battle line. He provided infant baptism as a substitute for believers’ baptism, and he would not allow the baptism of adult believers. God required converts to be baptized in water as their initial public profession of faith, andAugustine and his Catholic party were determined to see them dead, before they would allow it. At the point where God required submission, Augustine drew the battle line, and it is at that same battle line- between believers’ baptism and infant baptism-that Augustinians/Calvinists til this day still wage war against God and against the saints.