AUGUSTINE'S GNOSTICISM AND OTHER WRONG ACCUSATIONS (1)

Excited about the renewed interest in Church history in some Nigerian churches, I eagerly tuned in to a publicly broadcasted Bible study on Augustinian Theology by a dearly beloved Reverend.¹ It was the third of the series at the time of writing this. Before settling in, I listened to the previous teaching for necessary context. A good survey of the historical events surrounding the ecumenical councils was done, though with a few minor inaccuracies.

As I followed the teaching of the day, much to my chagrin, railing accusations were leveled against the beloved doctor of grace. St. Augustine’s theology was credited with gnostic influence, inventing original sin, teaching unilateral determinism, denying free will, and many more. I listened dreadfully till the end and could not help my dismay. It appeared the beloved Reverend had fallen (perhaps innocently) into the trap of getting his information from pop historical sources. As he did not cite any reference, one can only speculate.

This pitfall is a particularly worrisome and problematic trend I have noticed among adopters of the importance of church history in our clime. This article provides brief responses to some of the common accusations leveled against the Bishop of Hippo and provides interested people with better references for their study. But much more it serves to illustrates the care that should be taken when parsing information about church history. It also serves to help people see that even when you disagree with a theological stream, intellectual honesty demands that we present an accurate picture of their position.

On Crypto-Manichaeism

Augustine’s past continued to taunt him while he was alive—and till today, his resting spirit. The Manichaen sect was a gnostic sect Augustine belonged to prior to his conversion. In a bid to discredit Augustine’s theology, mostly motivated by a zeal to disprove Catholic dogmas or Calvinism, some theologians have posited that Augustine derived his theology from his Manichean past. But here are the facts you should know:

• The first person to level this charge against St. Augustine was his ordaining Bishop, Megalius, Primate of the Catholic Church of Numidia. A synodal commission of Bishops investigated the matter and found it false. Megalius retracted the allegations in writing and asked pardon for ever making them. Augustine was subsequently ordained Bishop at Megalius’ approval.²

• At Carthage, Petilian, the Donastist spokesman, laying hold of Megalius’ letter brought against Augustine the crypto-manichaen charge during the Donatist controversy.

• These events are arguably what prompted St. Augustine to write his Confessions where he quite transparently details his life, previous influences, and his current stance.³

• The Pelagians resuscitated this charge against Augustine during the Pelagian controversy. One can already see a pattern of attempting to discredit Augustine’s argument without proper assessment of its contents by appealing to his past affiliations. This is called the genetic fallacy.

  

  Against two letters of the Pelagians (Book 1)

  Many today have followed this path, perhaps largely influenced by Provisionism, the novel theological position being promoted by Dr. Leighton Flowers and Dr. Ken Wilson

• More able modern scholars have noted that if at all one could trace Manichaen influence to Augustine’s theology, it is overwhelmingly antithetical. That is, his past Manichaen influence caused Augustine to strongly develop his doctrinal positions in the opposite direction. Where thetical, (which is disputable) it is trivial enough to be able to safely say it had no real impact on his theology.⁴⁵

• It is noteworthy that Augustine’s doctrine of original sin was starkly different from the Manichaens. He asserts against them that Original Sin is not the nature itself, but an accidens vitium in natura, that is an accidental defect and damage in nature. He condemned and rejected the statement: Peccatum originis est substantia vel natura, that is, original sin is man’s nature or substance.

• Importantly, despite Augustine’s exposition on the extensity and intensity of the effects of sin, he nowhere denies free choice in men, save to assert (as the scriptures do) its captivity to sin.

The Neoplatonist Augustine

That Augustine was influenced by Neoplatonism is no news, neither was it unique to him. Classical education was the norm for young men from aristocratic families. So it wasn’t that Augustine was in some secret cult ingesting esoteric ideas. He, like many other church fathers, took their learnings from the philosophical streams prevalent in their part of the Roman empire.

• Augustine like other fathers used their learnings as aids for good reasoning but never as authority above scripture.

  

  Confessions Book VII, Chapter 20

  He like Paul agrees that Gentiles could know something of the nature of God through observation of what was seen (Romans 1:20), which the likes of Plato and Aristotle were astute in. Paul quotes Aratus (Acts 17:28) to help show the Stoics and Epicureans the terminus for their search for the unknown God; Euripides (1 Corinthians 15:33); and Epimenides (Titus 1:12). The fathers in similar fashion used the Greek philosophers without uncritical assimilation of all they taught.

• Augustine never sacrificed the gospel to Plato.

  

  Confessions Book VII, Chapter 21

• In City of God (413-426/427) Book V, Augustine refutes the fatalism of the pagan philosophers and defends freewill even in the face of God’s prescience.

Hopefully, we have been able to clear the genetic fallacies out of the way. In our next edition, I will show how Augustine was not an innovator of original sin or infant baptism; how he consistently defended free will (even against the Pelagians); how he rejected determinism while enthroning the supremacy of the grace of God, amongst other things.

We would then see that Augustine was simply part of the train of doctrinal development in the early church that sought the golden mean amidst the extremes of surrounding philosophies while staying faithful to holy scriptures. As the great protestant historian, Philip Schaff put it:

The cause of the Christian faith demanded the assertion both of man’s need of redemption, against Epicurean levity and Stoical self-sufficiency, and man’s capacity for redemption, against the Gnostic and Manichaean idea of the intrinsic evil of nature, and against every form of fatalism.⁶

1. I have Kept the name anonymous out of respect for the beloved Reverend

2. Cresc. 4.64.79

3. BeDuhn, J.D. (2009). Augustine Accused: Megalius, Manichaeism, and the Inception of the Confessions. Journal of Early Christian Studies 17(1), 85-124. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.0.0250.

4. van Oort, H. (2006). Augustine and manichaeism: new discoveries, new perspectives. Verbum et Ecclesia, 27(2), 709-728. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v27i2.172

5. For a fuller treatment of Augustine’s relationship to Manichaeism see: Brand, M. (2018). ‘In Search of Truth’: Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism. Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty, edited by Jacob Albert van den Berg, Annemaré Kotzé, Tobias Nicklas, and Madeleine Scopello. Numen, 65(5-6), 596-601. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341516

6. Schaff, P. (2014). History of the Christian church (Vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christianity). Hendrickson Publishers XII. 142.