As mentioned in my bulletin article this week, I quoted Fr. Andrew’s remark that we will see the hand of God throughout all history and how He leads us to its ultimate destiny. Take a look at the following timeline and see if you notice relevant events happening in short periods of time:

Emperor Theodosius and St. Augustine: Contemporaries in late 4th Century Roman Empire

354 AD - St. Augustine was born in Tagaste, Roman Africa

370 AD - St. Augustine moves to Carthage for studies

371 AD - St. Augustine’s father dies. He was a rough pagan Roman citizen who finally converted to Catholicism from the influence, piety, and unceasing prayers of his wife, St. Monica.

Significant turn of events

380 AD - Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica

Four years later….383-384 AD - St. Augustine moved to Rome as a teacher

384 AD - St. Augustine arrives in Milan, Italy

386 AD - St. Augustine reads the Letters of St. Paul, written 38 AD - 64 AD.

Events that happened in 387 AD

387 AD - St. Ambrose baptizes the 33 y/o St. Augustine in Milan

387 AD - St. Monica, St. Augustine’s saintly mother, who prayed for his conversion his entire life, passes on from her mortal journey

Significant changes in Christianity

388 AD - St. Augustine returns to Hippo in Africa

391 AD - By popular demand, St. Augustine is consecrated as a priest in Hippo

392 AD - Emperor Theodosius reinforces Christianity with a ban on all other religions, with a target on Paganism

All of this happened in 395 AD

395 AD - Emperor Theodosius passed on from this mortal life

395 AD - St. Augustine consecrated Bishop of Hippo at age 40

395 AD - Emperor Honorius, son of Theodosius, became the Western Emperor

St. Augustine warms up his pen

397-400 AD St. Augustine wrote Confessions

Then…

401 AD - Emperor Honorius moved the capital from Rome to Ravenna

410 AD - The Sack of Rome

413 AD - St. Augustine begins writing De civitate Dei contra paganos (Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans)

My bulletin article also mentioned that we all participate in God's destiny. As you can see in this timeline, within a few years after Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity as the Roman Empire's official religion, St. Augustine arrived in Italy. A few years after that, after living a life of pagan idolatry, intellectual questioning, dabbling in belief systems, and a thirst for truth, he finally converted to Christianity, specifically Nicene Christiantiy, in 387 AD. 

That same year, after praying for her son most of his life, his beloved mother, St. Monica, returned to God. While she wanted to spend her remaining years in Africa to finish her life, her ambition was still fulfilled in her son - to see him become a Christian. But God's timing was perfect, as He wanted her in Italy, the future home of the Vatican and the lighthouse of the Roman Catholic Church.

If Emperor Theodosius decided to keep an Empire of freedom of personal-truth-religion, would we even have a St. Augustine in our Church Fathers? His decision to declare Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, dramatically changed human history, influencing the future of Christianity and the lives of individuals like St. Augustine.

Just a few decades after zealous Christians launched their proto-crusade against the pagan temples, Rome was sacked. This 'proto-crusade' was aggressive, as small armies of early Christians dismantled and defaced pagan temples, and suppressed pagan worship. 

Remember that Rome, especially, was still very much drenched in pagan culture. While Emperor Theodosius did his best to stamp out a thousand years of pagan worship, the presumed belief that the “gods” protected Rome still prevailed. 

Let's be clear: once Emperors Constantine and Theodosius changed the religion of the Empire, a dramatic reversal of oppression occurred. After centuries of brutal persecution, execution, and aggression against Christians, and only Christians, as Jews were not included in the pogrom in the centuries after the Ressurection of our Lord, tolerance of Paganism was not a Christian virtue. Emperor Theodosius, in particular, played a significant role in the spread of Christianity, as he declared it the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD.

City of God Against the Pagans was written to challenge the superstition of the pagans, who were vocal about blaming the destruction of Rome on Christianity. St. Augustine's work was more than a justification for the destruction of pagan temples, elimination of temple sacrifices, and replacement of high-power pagans in the Roman government. It was a courageous manifesto that exposed the failures of paganism, the terrorism committed at the hands of the pagans, the failures of the pagan gods, and the truths of the Catholic Church.

Imagine a New York Times editorial that spanned 22 books, 13 years, and 1119 (in modern paperback version) pages. This was much more than a few persuasive paragraphs written for a society that believes it is conditioned to think in competitive busyness and the dooming fate of shortness of time (and, as a result, intellectual depth.) It was a historical manifesto, picking out the failures of the Roman Empire extending all the way back to Sulla and Marius (I mentioned this civil war in the last blog post,) and extending even further back to the Greeks. 

In the next blog post, we will dig into the first several sections of City of God Against the Pagans.