Augustine's Legacy

Many consider Saint Augustine one of the greatest fathers of Christendom. Augustine lived in an era of moral dissipation and religious corruption. Seemingly, the people of his time had little knowledge of the Scriptures, and this led to all kinds of error and heresy. For nearly half of his life, this decadent and godless culture moved and shaped Augustine. As time passed, his lifestyle tore at his conscience until his conversion to Christianity. This newfound direction introduced light and purpose into his life which ultimately overflowed into the world around him. His legacy through his service and literary works impact today’s world, as well. Thus, Saint Augustine’s conversion and contributions to Christianity continue to impact the believers’
Born on November 13, 254 A.D., Augustine lived in Souk Ahras, Algeria with his parents until his late teens. Patricius, his father, operated a farm and determined to raise his son into a man of intellect and expression (46 Piper). Augustine’s personal integrity and moral virtue mattered little to his father (47). During the year 270, Patricius passed away, but he had succeeded in fostering a desire for rhetorical excellence within Augustine. One year after his father’s death, at the age of seventeen, Augustine traveled to Carthage to further his studies. He described his days in Carthage, saying, “In that unstable period of my life, I studied the books of eloquence, for it was in eloquence that I was eager to be eminent, though from a reprehensible and vainglorious motive, and a delight in human vanity” (Augustine, Confessions 41). Carthage marked the beginning of his downslide into moral
His writings still prove preserving salts in the kingdom of God. Many believe his testimony of salvation through grace in his book Confessions and in his debate with Pelagius influenced the Reformation which occurred in the 1500’s (Sproul). Even though he lived 17 centuries ago, many churches rely on his biblical insight as a theological foundation (“Architect of the Middle Ages”). Lastly, the men he devotedly mentored in Hippo spread his biblical insight throughout the Nation. Thus, the influence of their descendants and the descendants of the souls they reached impact the modern world (Piper 55). Augustine was an utterly lost soul radically altered by God; this is the core of his impact and