Is Anyone Interested in Augustine

Augustine was an African Catholic Bishop who lived most of his life in North Africa in the 400's. To put him in context, this was just after Dictator Constantine held a confab that decided which of many written works would go into the Bible. Augustine's life span also included the sacking of Rome and ending of the Roman Empire. 

I just finished a new book, Augustine the African, by Catherine Conybeare. The purpose of the book was to highlight the role Africa in the life and works of Augustine. This was new and interesting to me.

Augustine has come up several times over the long life of this blog. Mostly it has be in comments by Catholic readers. They refer to Augustine with reverence and consider what he wrote as having great importance. This passion led me to buy the book when it was reviewed in The New Yorker.

Even though Constantine lived in the 400's, the amount of original written material is apparently quite large. He wrote and preached constantly. He was so important there were people who wrote down and saved his sermons. 

I bought the book hoping to understand why this fellow remains so important. Of course, the main reason he is popular is that contemporary Catholics find something they agree with in his writing and use it to justify whatever it is they believe.

After reading the book about his life I still do not understand why Agustine remains such an important figure. The majority of his sermons and writing was focused on hair splitting of theological points just as most Christian writing does today. Augustine was a convert to Christianity so a lot of his writing was about ridiculing those ideas he believed formerly and putting down the leaders in that religion. It seems like petty, not profound stuff. Much of in writing and sermons were about how many angles can dance on the head of a pin.