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                                                                       Text Box: The Beginning When Augustine began teaching as Professor of rhetoric in Milan, he started to study with the last great school of Greek philosophy, the Neo-Platonists. This school of thought was developed by Plotinus in the early third century. In this period of his life Augustine began to break the bonds of his Manichean materialistic values, and to realise his own sense of destiny that came only from shunning his own carnal appetites.             In the year 384 AD Saint Augustine first listened to the sermons of the man that would be his friend & mentor for years to come, the Bishop Ambrose. As the Bishop of Milan, who was sainted after his death in 397, Ambrose persuaded Augustine into becoming a catechumen of the Roman Catholic Church. A catechumen was, and is, a convert to the Christian faith, training in the doctrine in preparation for baptism. Ambrose allowed Augustine to appreciate the Bible in spiritual terms, and to relate it to his Neo-Platonic concepts. The Realisation Augustine and his friend Alypius entertained a visitor, Ponticianus, who spoke to them about St. Anthony and the desert monks of Egypt who had left all they had in the world to devote themselves to lives of self-discipline and prayer. "Augustine began to feel his heart burn in his breast with the power that the call to a life of renunciation was exerting on him. He repaired to the garden of the house, where he wrestled with the demands of his flesh and wept with great, tormented sobs over his inability to accept the challenge of continence." In the next garden Augustine heard the voice of a young child. It sang to him "Tolle lege, tolle lege", which was Latin for "take & read, take & read". Augustine opened the Holy Bible at the book of Paul. He read the letter Romans 13 : "Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts." Augustine found the contentment in God that he had searched for all his life, and that Monica had prayed for every night.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan Thawley Saint Augustines College Sydney 2003