A RECIPE FOR ST. AUGUSTINE PIE

Devotional by Roger Griffin, Ph. D.
October 27, 1996

I want to relieve your mind from the beginning. Grass is not an ingredient in this recipe. I want to call to our remembrance the person for whom the grass is named and a very important teaching that perhaps we need to be reminded of from time to time.

You know the person I'm talking about. He wrote the famous book The Confessions of St. Augustine . He was the pagan turned Christian who, in the process of his conversion, once prayed, "Lord, make me chaste, but not yet!" He lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine was born in a Roman province in North Africa. Not long after his conversion, he became Bishop of the city of Hippo near the ancient city of Carthage.

Augustine is famous for many things. He has a standing only behind Paul as an interpreter of the Christian faith. Church historian Glen Hinson has called Augustine "the most influential figure in Western history." Many of Augustine's ideas are controversial, such as his strong belief in the authority of the instititutional church and his emphasis on predestination.

As a historian, I want to focus on how Augustine responded to a great crisis of confidence in the world of his time and how that response can be useful to us today. In the earliest years of Augustine's pilgrimage of faith, the Roman Empire seemed to him and other Christians as the culmination of God's work on earth. In the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine had ended the Roman state's persecution of Christianity. A few decades later, another ruler, Theodosius, had made Christianity the official religion of the empire and banned all others. The Church had truly become catholic, i.e., universal, throughout the lands where Rome held sway. The ancient city of Rome, the headquarters of the Church, seemed to be, indeed, The Eternal City.

But in 410, the unthinkable happened. A Germanic tribe, the Visigoths, besieged Rome and then sacked it. This was a great psychic blow to most people who proudly called themselves Romans, whether they were Christians or pagans. The famous scholar, Jerome, who produced that famous Latin translation of the Bible, was in Palestine at the time. He wrote, "If Rome can perish, then what can we call safe." Faithful Christians everywhere were asking, "How could God let this happen?" "What was to happen to the Church?" Some even doubted the validity of Christianity or indeed, any belief in God.

This is where Augustine shines forth in his preaching and in his most famous work, The City of God . He reminded Christians that they had a dual citizenship. They were citizens of the Christian Roman Empire, yes, but, more important, they were citizens of the Heavenly City. Even as difficult as it was to consider, civilized, Christian Rome might pass away. to be replaced by a dark age in which the faithful would find themselves ruled over by barbarian pagans or, at best by barbarian heretics. But, that did not mean that God was indifferent, absent, or even dead. The enemies of God might well destroy the City of Rome and its now Christianized civilization and empire, but they could never destroy the City ruled by God, the realm of the spirit.

In part, Augustine was not just talking about life after death. I think it very unfortunate that we Christians have been put on the defensive about life eternal. Sceptics have accused Christianity of being a religion of pie in the sky bye and bye so much that we tend to cry, "Oh, no, that's not so at all," and de-emphasize what the New Testament calls "The Blessed Hope." Augustine strongly believed in that hope. The Christians of the late Roman Empire needed that hope and the peoples of the world today do as well.

But, Augustine's idea of citizenship In the City of God included living in this world as well as in the next. As everything that Roman citizens throughout the Empire held dear was crashing down around them, Augustine said, God is with you and for you. And he said something else, too. You should still be for God in this world and for the people that God is for as well. You should still care about truth and justice, you should still love others, still share your faith with them.

Augustine once wrote something that illustrates this. I spoke of hope a moment ago. Augustine once explained that term by a figure of speech which reveals that he was thinking of its Christian application in this world as well as the next. He said, "Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain as they are."

We could all use another slice of that pie.