The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Augustine Sets Immortal-Soulist Pattern for Thousand Years

Fiery AUGUSTINE (Aurelius Augustinus) (A.D. 354-430), most illustrious of the Latin Fathers, doctor of the church and bishop of Hippo, was born in Numidia, North Africa. His mother was a Christian, but his father a pagan. After a thorough education at Madaura and Carthage, including philosophy, Augustine became a teacher of rhetoric in Rome, and then Milan. From adherence to Neoplatonism he was converted to Christianity under Ambrose of Milan. He then broke with the world of his profession, spending three years in intensive study. Four years after he was made a presbyter he was chosen bishop of Hippo, continuing as such for thirty-five years, and was the founder of the Augustinian order. His influence on theology was immense, particularly up to the thirteenth century. (On Augustine’s timing see Chart F, p. 759.) CFF1 1073.1

Augustine’s life was cast in a transition hour—the sacking of Rome by the Goths, occurring in the midst of his episcopate. Rome’s fall, after eleven centuries of triumphant progress, led many to believe the end of the world to be at hand. Roman civilization was being swept away under the flood of barbarian advance. And churchly thought was crystallizing and hardening. Augustine died in the midst of the Vandal invasion and the siege of Hippo. CFF1 1073.2

1. PROJECTS NEW PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

As noted, Augustine created a new philosophy of history through his monumental theodicy, De Civitate Dei (“The City of God”), portraying the triumph and restoration of the “City of God” over the city of the world, which latter he held was doomed to destruction. Thirteen years were consumed in the writing. As stated, this set forth a new concept of history—two antagonistic governments, the realm of God and that of the devil. Through this portrayal he attempted to explain, through a revolutionary principle of interpretation, the history of God and the church in the world. CFF1 1073.3

Picture 2: Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus:
Such Schoolmen of the Middle Ages as Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus Help Finish the Eternal-Torment and Purgatory Fabrcations.
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Augustine was a combination of pronounced opposites. His clear position on sin and grace came nearest of all the Fathers to the position of Evangelical Protestantism, later profoundly influencing Luther. At first an advocate of religious liberty and of purely spiritual means of opposing error, Augustine later turned to the fatal principle of forcible coercion and civil persecution, misusing the directive, “Compel them to come in,” to suppress the Donatists. CFF1 1074.1

2. EVERYTHING THAT CONFLICTS INTERPRETED SPIRITUALLY

Repelled by the literal interpretation of Scripture, Augustine caught up the Philonic and rabbinical rule that everything that appears inconsistent with church “orthodoxy” must be interpreted spiritually or mystically. And his acceptance of the Tichonian rules of interpretation led to a system that totally blurred the original sense. Under Augustine the allegorical meaning degenerated into an alternative device for supporting ecclesiasticism, and the Bible was emptied of significance. It must, he held, always be interpreted with reference to church “orthodoxy.” Thus it was that Augustinianism came largely to mold the eschatological opinions of Christendom for a thousand years. CFF1 1074.2

3. REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

His theory of the spiritual, allegorical “first resurrection” lies at the foundation of the Augustinian structure—the resurrection of dead souls from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. As to the millennium, he held the thousand years to be a figurative numeral, expressive of the whole period till the end—a round number for an indeterminate time. But the crux of Augustine’s argument is that he begins the millennium from Christ’s first advent, and spans the period between the first and second advents. They were already living, he held, in the midst of it. And the “stone” (Christ) that smites the image of the nations was becoming a churchly “mountain,” forcibly filling the whole earth and bringing all peoples into submission to Christ. ¹ It was a militant concept. It changed the whole course of theological thought. CFF1 1075.1

So in the fifth century the influence of Augustine was powerful enough to secure the dominance for centuries—particularly in the West—of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, and the consequent eternal life of the sinner in endless misery. Augustine once asked, “What simple and illiterate man or obscure woman that does not believe the immortality of the soul and a future life?” ² By now it was well-nigh universal. But common consent is unsound if in conflict with the Word. CFF1 1075.2

The pattern was fixed. The dogma of Immortal-Soulism was firmly fastened upon Christianity. “Orthodoxy” prevailed—and prevailed with a vengeance. For hundreds of years only sporadic voices of dissent were heard. But a change would come, as we shall see later, in volume two. CFF1 1075.3

Picture 3: Justinian:
Under Jstinian in A.D. 529 the Pagan Teachings of World-Soul, Emanation, Restorationism, Dualism, and Mysticism Were Forbidden.
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