Augustine of Hippo
The first two and a half chapters of Romans argue that all human beings of every race and rank, of every creed and culture, of every religion and non-religion, of every morality and immorality, are without exception sinful, guilty, and inexcusable before God. Or as Paul concludes in 3:23, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Because of this there is no ray of hope or prospect of rescue. We cannot help ourselves, writes John Stott, for our fallen human nature is incurably self-centered, self-important, self-confident, self-righteous, and self-absorbed. But now, says Paul, the righteousness of God has been manifested—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. They have been justified by his grace as a gift. There is hope and a strong ray of saving light from the outside.
One man who fully understood these words was Augustine of Hippo. Born in 354 in Tagaste, North Africa (Algeria today). He father, Patricius, was a pagan, while his mother, Monica, was a Christian. Her chief aim in life was for her son to become a Christian. Augustine studied grammar at Madaura and, at age 17, after his parents scrimped and saved he went to the University of Carthage to study rhetoric. He was drawn to the literature and philosophy of pagan Rome. Like many intellectuals of his day he settled down with a mistress, who bore him a son. During these years a question over which he obsessed was the source of evil in the world. He joined the Manichaean religion, an offshoot of Gnosticism, in 373 at the age of 19. This faith held him for nine years. Manicheism is a dualistic faith. The Manichees drew a distinction between two different divinities, one which was regarded as evil, and the other good. Good is from God, but evil has invaded the world. Both good and evil were at the beginning of creation. Both are equal, always doing battle, neither able to triumph. They are separate but together. One day the good part will be liberated. Evil is not god’s fault or mankind’s but is from the Kingdom of Darkness. Evil in the world was thus seen as the direct result of the influence of the evil god on the material world. Evil was active where good was passive. It made it hard, for Augustine, to worship such a passive god. The purpose of Manichean salvation was to redeem humanity from the evil material world and transfer it to a spiritual realm uncontaminated by matter.
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