Augustine's Study Of Rhetoric

Augustine returned home to Thagaste to teach grammar, the underlying foundation for the study of rhetoric. Monica, appalled at his alliance with the heretical Manichees, at first refused to allow him to enter her house. She prayed unceasingly for his conversion to the Catholic Church. Augustine returned to Carthage following the death of a dear friend in Thagaste, which had made the associations of that city unbearable to him. In Carthage, he opened a school of rhetoric. The rowdiness and pranks of the students made teaching extremely difficult and wore on his nerves. He persisted, however, in this career for eight years. Augustine left for Rome to teach rhetoric after several good friends, including Alypius, a former student of his, wrote …show more content…
But good fortune came his way when Symmachus, prefect of the city, chose Augustine for a post in Milan as professor of rhetoric. Augustine moved to Milan and took up study of the Neoplatonists, especially Plotinus, who had taught that one is awakened to a sense of divine destiny through purification from carnal appetites. The basic Christian principles his mother had taught him remained intact. He became increasingly disillusioned with Manichaean materialism and with the New Academy skepticism about certitude that was fashionable at the time. Augustine eventually decided to become a catechumen in the Catholic Church of Milan after being impressed by the sermons of Bishop Ambrose, who showed him how to appreciate the Bible in spiritual terms, and whose discourses were mystical, with Neoplatonic concepts of the soul. Augustine recognized clearly now that his carnal activity weakened his efforts at introspective contemplation. Augustine was ordained coadjutor (assistant) bishop of Hippo. In less than two years he would be made bishop. During his episcopate, he drove out of Hippo the Donatists and other heretical Christian