Augustine's Contribution To Chastity

"Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” This quote describes each and every one of us when trying to grow closer to God, but we cannot break a bad habit. We want “to eat our cake and have it,” we want to grow closer to God but also stay with our bad habits. We all struggle one-way or another, even Saints; we are all human beings. Born in the year 354 to Saint Monica of Hippo and Patricius who was a Pagan, converting to Christianity on his deathbed was Saint Augustine. His Latin name was Aurelius Augustinus and was born in a small town of Tagaste now Souk-Ahras which was not far from the African coast. Augustine’s fathers was a decurio- a minor official of the Roman Empire, this job did not pay well but his parents managed to send him to school. His parents wanted him to have a really good education, so they sometimes resorted to borrowing money from others. At the age of 11, Augustine went to school in Tagaste, where he first understood the nature of sin. He and some students stole fruits from a neighborhood garden, not stealing the fruit because he was hungry but because it was not allowed. From here he understood that sin is n the nature …show more content…
Augustine is important to the introduction of Greek thought and it entrance into Christianity. Also his works on human will, a topic on ethics became a focus for philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. His writing helped create the idea of just war. Saint Thomas Aquinas used Augustine’s theology when he was writing his synthesis on Greek and Christian thought. Augustine also influenced John Calvin, a Reformation leader. Calvin used Augustine’s teaching about how man had nothing to do with his own salvation, man has a sinful nature and that the only way to be saved is by God’s Grace. He is sometimes called “the Father of Roman Catholicism” because of his writings on infant baptism, the perpetual virginity of Mary and the presence of Christ in the