Augustine, antidote to the Enlightenment

Peter Mullen discovers why Benedict XVI reveres the Bishop of Hippo
29 August 2008

I have just been reading some marvellous reflections on St Augustine by Benedict XVI. The minds of Pope and saint are so intertwined that I am surprised, given Benedict's intense and lifelong admiration of Augustine, he did not choose that name for his adopted title when he was elected to the See of Rome. So close is the Pope's thought to Augustine's that I often had to look and look again to be sure as to which man's words I was reading.

Pope Benedict has called St Augustine "the greatest Father of the Latin Church". In his reflections he explains just why: "He left a very deep mark on the cultural life of the West. It could be said that all the roads of Latin Christian literature led to Hippo, the place in North Africa where he was Bishop from AD 395 until his death in 430.

"The Pope reminded us of Augustine's prolific output; he is the Church Father who left the greatest number of works, each one a philosophical, theological and literary masterpiece. Pope Benedict is himself a gifted psychologist, though not in the secular sense but as a man with profound insight into people's interiority, their inner spiritual workings, their souls. This he derives to a large extent from Augustine.
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