Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Session 1: The Apostolic Age, the Ancient Church, the Apologists, and the Great Tradition 27

The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born from Mary the virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, was buried and descended to the underworld. On the third day he rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life. Amen.

D. Augustine of Hippo, the sack of Rome, and the emergence of the City of God

1. “Augustine is the greatest Christian theologian since the apostle Paul. He is the Father of the Western Church. His thought dominated the Middle Ages – the good and the bad alike. In the sixteenth century the Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation were both rediscoveries of Augustine. One writer has described the Reformation as Augustine’s doctrine of grace rebelling against Augustine’s doctrine of the church” (Lane, p. 40).

2. Born in 354 in modern Algeria of a pagan father and a Catholic Christian mother, Monica; was disillusioned as a Catholic catechumanate – the OT to his mind was crude and unspiritual!

3. In 384 appointed professor of rhetoric at Milan; was converted in inner turmoil about celibacy one day rushed into the garden and heard a child voice crying “Take up and read,’ he opened to Romans 13.13-14: “I did not want nor need to read any further. Instantly, as I finished the sentence [Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature] the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished.” This occurred in 386.