Augustine: Connecting Link Between Gnosticism and Modern Calvinistic Theology

Posted on April 19, 2007 

Filed Under Church History, Matt Clifton

by Matt Clifton

There can be no doubt about the fact that among all the early Christian writers, Augustine has had the greatest impact on modern theology.aa Not only did his writings and theological development shape later doctrines and methods of the Roman Catholic Church, but his work also deeply influenced the Protestant Reformation. John Calvin’s TULIP was significantly indebted to Augustine for such doctrines as Total Depravity, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints, each having its roots firmly in Augustine’s theories of original sin and man’s lack of freewill.

But were Augustine’s theories derived directly from scripture, or was he influenced by extra-biblical teachings? The purpose of this article is to examine Augustine’s life and learning, and thereby to recognize the influences that were present during the time he was developing his theological doctrines. Also, evidence as to how his doctrinal teachings have influenced the modern theological outlook will be examined.

Augustine was born November 13, 354 in Thagaste, a small city near Carthage in North Africa which would come to be the modern Souk Ahras, Algeria. This town was “large enough to have its own bishop, but too small for a college or university.”aa Augustine was born to middle-class parents. His mother, Monica, was a devout Christian who tried to exercise influence on Augustine throughout her life. In his Confessions, Augustine credited Monica with bringing him to repentance and faith through her constant prayers on his behalf.aa His father, Patricius, was a pagan, but one who did not sway his son one way or another religiously. Patricius did, however, insist on a classical education for his son, and since he himself was a public official, probably inspired Augustine to a public career, as well.aa

Encouraged on to a good education, Augustine’s family sent him to the nearby university in Madaura with help from a well-to-do family friend.aa After this time in Madaura, Augustine found himself in Carthage, where he studied philosophy and religion. He had already wandered away from practicing the faith of his mother as an adolescent, and now he was about to be exposed to a religious group that would forever shape his theological outlook.

AUGUSTINE AND THE MANICHAEANS

Augustine fell in with the Manichaeans during his education in Carthage. The Manichaeans were followers of a Persian self-styled prophet named Manes, who proclaimed himself to be the paraklete promised in John 14:16. In keeping with the Gnostic religions before him, Manes taught absolute dualism. He taught that all physical matter was totally evil, and spiritual things were good, with the universe being locked in an eternal battle between the opposing forces. The Manichaeans also taught that man did not have freewill, and that human beings were absolutely predestined to either salvation or destruction. Additionally, the Manichaeans rejected the Old Testament as being the Word of God, but professed to follow Christ and to revere his “interpreter,” Paul.aa But the Manichaeans also denied both the necessity of baptism and also the future resurrection of the body.aa

Why did Augustine become associated with such a group? To take it from his own writings, he said it was because the Manicheans offered an interpretation and understanding of scriptures that appealed more to his intellectual pride:

I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were…but…my inflated pride shunned their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit pierce their inner meaning. Yet, truly, were they such as would develop in little ones; but I scorned to be a little one, and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as a great one. Therefore I fell among men proudly raving, very carnal, and voluble, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil.aa

It was during this time that Augustine developed a rational criticism of the Old Testament.aa As a teen-ager, Augustine had already considered the Latin Bible unworthy of being regarded as respectable literature,aa but under the Manicheans he decided that its anthropomorphisms, violence, and seemingly immoral teachings were incompatible with the search for truth.aa

Augustine remained under the influence of this group from 373 until about 382. What was the effect of this stint with a cult group upon Augustine throughout his later life?

Their effect on his thought and emotions was enormous. Down to 397, that is, until he was forty-three, Manicheism was his overriding preoccupation. In the ten years following his reconversion to Catholicism, anti-Manichean tracts poured from his pen; the longest of all his controversial works, the thirty-three books of the Reply to Faustus the Manichean (written c. 400), was devoted to the same end. Yet the legacy in his theology is not easy to define. First, however, he retained a lasting sense of personal worthlessness. No meritorious action could come without grace. In this the Christian elect would differ little from the Manichee “elect.” Their “image” as the Coptic Manichee would have said, had been chosen out — predestined to grace and salvation. The rest of humanity, the “unredeemed mass” (Augustine retained the Manichean term), was destined for possession by the Devil and eternal fire.aa

A BRUSH WITH AMBROSE

Finally turning away from the Manicheans, and yet not breaking with them publicly,aa Augustine eventually went back to his hometown to teach at the age of about twenty-one. But loftier ambitions beckoned, and only one year later Augustine returned to Carthage with renewed vigor. He set about freelance teaching in the city, where wealthy students were willing to pay for his teaching talents. Over this period of time, Augustine developed into a formidable scholar and orator.aa

Apparently Augustine did well enough to be able to relocate to Rome, where some Manichean friends arranged an audition for him before Symmachus, the prefect of the city.aa This prefect had been asked to provide a professor of rhetoric for the imperial court at Milan. Augustine evidently made a good impression, and was appointed to the position in 384. It was here in Milan that Augustine made contact with two more life-altering influences: Neo-Platonism and Ambrose.aa

In his studies of Neo-Platonism, Augustine was struck with the insight of evil being not a substance in itself, but the absence of good. This is a concept similar to the one taught by Gregory of Nyssa.aa This concept would weigh heavily in his later development of his views on the origin of evil.

His exposure to Ambrose, however, caused a possibly more important reaction in Augustine. Throughout his younger life, Augustine believed that Christianity was somewhat foolish and intellectually “low brow.” However, when he heard Ambrose preach, he soon realized that Christianity could be intellectually respectable:

He [Ambrose] was also noted for his impressive homiletical skills, and Augustine began lurking in the back of the Christian cathedral in Milan to hear him preach. Eventually the message preached by Ambrose began to sink in and convince Augustinethat he had been wrong about Christianity. He had too easily dismissed it as a religion for weak and silly people with no sophistication. Ambrose proved that one could be intellectual, articulate and courageous and be a Christian.aa

And so it was that Augustine began the road back to Christianity. In his Confessions, Augustine recounts a “religious experience” which marks the point when he could no longer run from the Christian faith.aa Augustine and a friend were reading and discussing a scroll of Paul’s epistle to the Romans when Augustine was overcome by emotion and pent-up feelings of unworthiness. While pleading with God in regard to how long God would be angry with him, Augustine believed he heard the voice of a small boy or girl chanting, “Take up and read, take up and read.” From there he went back to the scroll and read Romans 13:13-14: “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” From this point, Augustine’s path was set, and he was baptized in 386 by Bishop Ambrose into the “catholic and orthodox church” in Milan.aa

After taking a break from public life, the inevitable came for the visibly talented and intelligent Augustine. During a visit to the coastal city of Hippo, he was practically forced to receive ordination, despite tears and protests.aa He was elevated even higher when the elderly bishop of Hippo needed a co-bishop in 395. Then, when the current bishop died, Augustine became the bishop of Hippo at the age of forty-two, where he would remain until his death in 430.aa

DOCTRINAL BATTLES

We have looked at some of the pre-conversion influences in Augustine’s life that affected his theological doctrine, which included his experiences as a member of the cult of Manes, and his studies in Neo-Platonism. The next phase of influences came with the doctrinal battles he fought against those considered by the developing catholic church to be heretics. His refutation of the Manicheans, his struggles against the Donatists, and his battle with Pelagius and his followers will cause Augustine to not only take conflicting positions as needed for each opponent, but will also see Augustine returning to some of his Manichean thought patterns as he seeks to vanquish all opponents of his doctrine.

As was stated earlier, Augustine vigorously refuted Manichean beliefs after his “re-conversion” to Christianity. He participated in many debates against the cult’s followers, and produced several written refutations, both books and letters. Augustine’s first anti-Manichean writing was a commentary on Genesis, On Genesis Against the Manicheans. This work was penned around 388 or 399.aa However, Augustine’s main work against the Manicheans was Concerning the Nature of Good, which was composed around 405. In this book,

He drew on the Neo-Platonic ideas of the ontological unity of being and goodness and of evil as the privation of both in order to explain the Christian concept of God as Creator and how that is consistent with the existence of evil. In other words, he showed how one does not have to posit the existence of two equal forces or principles in the universe (dualism) – one good and one evil – in order to explain evil.aa

This lead to the inevitable question, then, of how can a good creation by a good God do anything evil? Augustine posited the idea that anything created by God is not God, therefore less than God. Because of this, a “less than God” creation is open to corruption.aa Also, Augustine made the argument that human beings are endowed with the gift of freedom, which can be used for good or evil purposes.aa This was an assertion that Augustine found useful against the Manicheans, but he later would change his mind:

It is interesting to note Augustine’s change of position on freedom of the will in two bitter controversies. Against the Manicheans he argued that man in the present is able both to will and to do either good or evil, but in the controversy with the Pelagians he argues that man can will evil only and that he cannot do good except by the aid of God’s grace.aa

So while condemning his former religion for its fatalistic determinism during his refutations of the Manicheans, he will later take up a similar view in his battle with the Pelagians, arguing for “predestination” of souls and irresistible grace.

Another hard-fought doctrinal battle Augustine spearheaded was his campaign against the Donatist schism. According to Schaff, Donatism was the most important schism of the church during the period from about 300 to 590.aa The Donatists were upset about what they saw as impropriety and impurity in the church. They believed that:

The integrity of the church lay in the integrity of its members, sealed by baptism and working in concord with the bishops. They witnessed to the faith by penance and suffering, and aspired finally to a martyr’s death. There was no salvation outside this body of the elect.aa

The Donatists saw anyone outside their group as schismatics in need of rebaptism into the true church. They believed that sacraments proffered by these impure priests and bishops were invalid.

In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Augustine began an all-out effort to bring the Donatists back in the “catholic” church. He did this with his writings and persuasion, setting the whole African church in motion against them.aa He wrote his first work against the Donatists in 397, which has been lost over time.aa He also wrote On Baptism Against the Donatists (c. 400), several letters to Petillian (c. 400), and A Treatise Concerning the Correction of the Donatists, (c. 417). While the Donatists held that the catholic bishops and priests were immoral and therefore without authority, Augustine argued that the Donatists were the impure ones for destroying the unity of the church and committing the sin of schism.aa

However, it was not his written or oral persuasion that marked his battle with the Donatists in history, as much as his newfound insistence on physical coercion to end the schism.aa For justification of this, he used an improper interpretation of Luke 14:23, “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Additionally, one writer has affirmed that Augustine’s writings and theological developments during the battle against the Donatists helped to shape his thoughts that would come with the effort against Pelagius to come.aa

DISPUTE WITH PELAGIUS

The greatest controversy associated with Augustine – and the one that had the greatest affect on theology throughout history – was the dispute with Pelagius and his followers. This doctrinal battle would see Augustine pressed into defining his views of grace, absolute predestination, original sin and the belief that man can do nothing at all on his own part to seek God. These views would be radicalized in order to counter Pelagius’ view that man could attain a sinless state, and thereby reach salvation without the grace of God.

Pelagius was a British monk who, upon visiting Rome in 405, noticed many Christians living immoral lives.aa After hearing of some of Augustine’s teachings, especially those pertaining to the bishop’s ideas that man cannot obey unless it is given to him by God, Pelagius was convinced this was the problem.aa He set out to write his treatise On Nature dealing with this issue, which began the controversy over grace, original sin and free will that would embroil the religious world deeply for four hundred years, and in some ways the debate is still alive today.aa

It should be understood that synergism, the belief that man cooperates in his own salvation by coming to God in a prescribed way, had been the general, if unspoken, belief of the early church up until Augustine’s time. Due to Pelagius’ perceived extreme position of believing man can be saved without forgiveness, Augustine resorted to the opposite extreme of monergism, the belief that man plays no part at all in his salvation.

In order to counter the views of Pelagius, Augustine further developed his theory of original sin. He affirmed that infants were born bearing the sin of Adam, garnering this view mostly from a misapprehension of Romans chapter five.aa Additionally, he solidified his views on predestination, although he did not hold that a man could not go astray and be lost.

RESULTS OF AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGICAL BATTLES

What have been the results of Augustine’s theological battles? One result was that Augustine often seemed to go where he had to go in order to defeat an opponent. For instance, when battling the Manicheans, he advocated human free will. He stomped the Manicheans firmly on all points, all the while not recognizing how Manichean influences were present in some form in his own brand of Christianity at different times.aa There is at least one instance where Augustine seemed to distort the views of one theologian in order to battle Julian, a follower of Pelagius.aa In order to stamp out Pelagianism, Augustine later discarded his belief in human freewill, and took up instead the belief that man is powerless to participate in his own salvation.

The end result seems to be that Augustine professed some positions in his later years that some may say resemble Gnostic or Manichean beliefs. Absolute predestination, for instance, was a product of Manichean beliefs, and the idea that man is born totally depraved is similar to the Gnostic belief that all matter is evil. Granted, Augustine believed the human soul was responsible for corruption, not the flesh, but the influence is still apparent. Frend comments that “Augustine’s nine years as a Manichee were reasserting themselves” in his late battles against Julian,aa who himself said, “Just as an Ethiopian could not change his skin or a leopard change his spots, nor could he, Augustine, change his Manichaeism.”aa

Augustine died in 430 in Hippo as the Vandals sacked the city. The point of his death marked the end of an era in Christianity. However, his vast written work and theories have shaped the modern theological landscape. Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation were shaped by Augustinian doctrinal developments. Only the Greek Orthodox Church seems to have been unchanged by his doctrines. The doctrines of infant baptism, supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church, purgatory, and prayers for the dead can all be traced to Augustine. On the Protestant Reformation side, the doctrines of original sin, absolute predestination, absence of freewill and irresistible grace can be traced to the bishop of Hippo as well. There is not a protestant denomination today that has not been affected by Augustine’s views. As Bercot commented:

There was a religious group, labeled as heretics by the early Christians, who strongly disputed the church’s stance on salvation and works. Instead, they taught that man is totally depraved. That we are saved solely by grace. That works play no role in our salvation. And that we cannot lose our salvation once we obtain it. . . . I know what you’re thinking: This group of “heretics” were the real Christians and the “orthodox” Christians were really heretics. But such a conclusion is impossible. I say it’s impossible because the group I’m referring to are the Gnostics.aa

He goes on to show how Gnostic dualism led to these doctrines, and explains how the same dualism led to the conclusion that Christ could not have come in the flesh, because all flesh is evil. Granted, modern teachers of Calvinism do no hold to the idea that Christ did not come in the flesh, but they do hold to tenets of belief that were considered heretical in early Christianity.

So when it comes to the work of Augustine, on one hand we are indebted to his zeal in staving off heresy. But on the other, the manner in which he resorted to theological extremes not only split the “Great Church” of his time, but it has also filtered down to our own era, where the majority of those claiming Christ view the Bible through Augustine-colored glasses.

It is the prerogative of modern Christians, and Christians of any age for that matter, to examine the Word of God closely in these matters, and not rely on the teachings of a man who developed doctrines under pressure, and thereby went to great extremes to win the day.

a
  1. David W. Bercot, Will The Real Heretics Please Stand Up, Tyler, TX: Scroll, 1999, 137.aaa
  2. James J. O’Donnell, Augustine the African, [essay online] 1985, accessed 01 March 2005; available from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/twayne/aug1.html; Internet.aaa
  3. Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christianity, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999, 257.aaa
  4. W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984, 659.aaa
  5. O’Donnell, Augustine the African.aaa
  6. Frend, Rise of Christianity, 661.aaa
  7. Ibid., 662.aaa
  8. Augustine, Confessions, 3.5-6.9-10.aaa
  9. Karlfried Froehlich, “Take Up and Read: Basics of Augustine’s Biblical Interpretation,” Interpretation 58 2004: 5-16.aaa
  10. Augustine, Confessions, 3.5.8-9aaa
  11. Froehlich, “Take Up and Read,” 5.aaa
  12. Frend, Rise of Christianity, 662-663.aaa
  13. Ibid.aaa
  14. Olson, The Story of Christianity, 257.aaa
  15. Olson, Story of Christianity, 258.aaa
  16. Augustine, Confessions, 8.12.aaa
  17. Olson, Story of Christianity, 259.aaa
  18. O’Donnell, Augustine of African.aaa
  19. Olson, The Story of Christianity, 261.aaa
  20. Froehlich, “Take Up and Read,” 6.aaa
  21. Olson, The Story of Christianity, 262.aaa
  22. Guy H. Ranson, “Augustine’s Account of the Nature and Origin of Moral Evil,” The Review and Expositor 50 1953 : 309-322.aaa
  23. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Vol. III, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1910, 360.aaa
  24. Frend, Rise of Christianity, 354.aaa
  25. Schaff, History of The Christian Church Vol. III, 363.aaa
  26. Frend, Rise of Christianity, 668.aaa
  27. Olson, The Story of Christianity, 265.aaa
  28. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 364.aaa
  29. Peter Iver Kaufman, “Augustine, Evil and Donatism: Sin and Sanctity Before the Pelagian Controversy,” Theological Studies 51, 1990 : 115-126.aaa
  30. Olson, The Story of Christianity, 267.aaa
  31. Ibid., 268.aaa
  32. Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Chrysostom and Augustine on the Sin of Adam and Its Consequences,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 39 no 4, 1995 : 361-378.aaa
  33. L.J.R. Ort, “Mani, Manichaeism, ‘Religionswissenschaft’,” Numen 15, 1968 : 191-207.aaa
  34. Papageorgiou, “Chrysostom and Augustine,” 377.aaa
  35. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 679.aaa
  36. Bercot, Will the Real Heretics, 66.aaa
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