ABSTRACT
Augustine was born in Thagaste (modern Souk Ahras in Algeria) in Roman North Africa in AD 354. He died as bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) in 430. His education followed the standard Roman practice of the later Empire (Marrou [12.59]), in schools at Thagaste, Madauros, and Carthage, and it involved some study of philosophical texts, if only for their literary and rhetorical qualities. At the age of 18 he read Cicero’s Hortensius as part of the syllabus at Carthage, and it affected him profoundly, introducing him to philosophy, and in particular to ethical eudemonism (conf. 3.7). He cites the Hortensius regularly in his writings.1
But, although already a Christian catechumen (his mother Monnica was a pious believer), and inclined to think of Christ when ‘wisdom’ (sapientia) was spoken of, he found himself more attracted to the Manichees than to what he perceived as the crudities of style in the Latin translations of the Christian scriptures available to him. What attracted him to Manichaeism was its appeal to reason rather than authority (a polarity that was to dominate his mature thought: see section 3): to the modern reader confronted with the bizarre cosmic mythology of the Manichees, this seems an odd claim. But the Manichees proffered a universal system, encompassing cosmology, psychology, and a synthesis of several religions, including Christianity; and they prescribed a way of life consistent with their revealed ‘knowledge’. Augustine was to be deeply influenced by their account of evil, based on the belief in an evil principle in the universe and in humans, a ‘substance’ at war with the good principle in the individual and the universe (duab. an.). It was many years before he shed this belief. Furthermore, Manichaean criticism of the Old Testament enabled him to reject what he took to be its primitive concept of God and its moral ambiguities.
