43 phrases from Saint Augustine about love and faith

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was a theologian and philosopher whose writings profoundly influenced Western philosophy and Christianity. In fact, He is often cited as one of the fathers of the Church, who achieved his canonization through popular acclaim. We compile 43 phrases from Saint Augustine about love and faith, and we accompany them with details of his life.

Works like Confessions, About Christian doctrine and The city of God They are among the most important. San Agustin He was a very prolific author, so much so that he wrote more than 100 books.. Our phrases about faith and love are just a glimpse of his ideas, which serve to promote the legacy of the theologian of Berber origin.

The best phrases of Saint Augustine

The followers of Saint Augustine are known as Augustinians and, today, we find different orders in almost every corner of the world.

Saint Augustine’s phrases about love and faith are not intended to summarize his ideas on the matter, but simply to teach some reflections of the theologian. We leave you with a list of 43 sentences extracted from his work.

1. “Love is temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then collapses. And when it calms down you have to make a decision. You have to find out if your roots have become so intertwined that it is inconceivable that you should ever separate. Because this is what love is.”

Augustine was born in 354 in Tagaste, a modest Roman community (present-day Algeria). His parents belonged to a respectable class. His mother was a devout Christian and his father was a pagan who converted to Christianity shortly before he died.

2. “Falling in love with God is the greatest romance; looking for him, the greatest adventure; finding it, the greatest human achievement.”

Everything indicates that Agustín had at least two brothers, but he was the only one who received an education. He studied initially in Tagaste, then in the university town of Madauros. His studies were completed in Carthage.

The legacy of Saint Augustine is felt in philosophy, theology and sociology, mainly.

3. “And men go abroad to admire the heights of the mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the wide tides of the rivers, the compass of the ocean and the circuits of the stars, but they overlook the mystery of themselves. without thinking”.

Augustine’s family was Berber, although by the time he was born they already belonged to the Roman class. honestiores. It is very likely that young Augustine’s first language was Latin.

4. “Love is not suffocation, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is simply being in love with what any of us can convince ourselves we are.”

At the age of 17, during his stay in Carthage, Agustín began a relationship with a woman. He maintained this relationship for more than 15 years as a lover. From this relationship Adeodato would be born.

5. “The measure of love is to love without measure.”

Upon completing his studies, he teaches grammar in Tagaste for a year. He then moved to Carthage to be a professor of rhetoric.

6. “Love itself is what remains when being in love has worn out, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”

At the age of 30, he obtained one of the most important academic positions of the time: professor of rhetoric at the imperial court of Milan.

7. “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but has not promised tomorrow to your postponement.”

By then, Milan was the de facto capital of the Western Roman Empire, and was the habitual residence of the emperor of the time. The academic position allowed easy access to political careers and recognition from his contemporaries.

8. “God provides the wind, man must raise the sail.”

Despite the above, Agustín remained in Milan for only two years. He returned to his hometown, Tagaste, to take care of his family’s assets and raise his son.

9. “What is love like? He has the hands to help others. He has the feet to hurry the poor and needy. He has eyes to see misery and need. He has ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. “This is what love looks like.”

Adeodato dies when he was still a teenager, leading Agustín to abandon the care of his family property. At the age of 36 he began to serve as a minor clergyman in Hippo, a coastal town in the north of Tagaste.

10. “Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”

The change was not entirely surprising. Even before accepting his position in Milan, he was a fan of the Christian religion, and his passion intensified when he returned home.

11. “Faith is believing what you do not yet see; The reward for this faith is seeing what you believe.”

Augustine obtained the title of bishop in 395 or 396 in Hippo. He spent the rest of his life in that position, and the truth is that he was never entirely comfortable there.

12. “Some people, to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read them. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”

The reason for this is that Hippo was more of a commercial society than a cultural or intellectual center. Of course, Augustine continually traveled to Carthage and other metropolises due to his ecclesiastical work.

13. “Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a tear.”

His academic gifts immediately set him apart from the other bishops. His ability to reason, his talent for writing and the articulation of his speeches did not go unnoticed..

14. “God is always trying to give us good things, but our hands are too busy to receive them.”

In his native Africa, different branches of Christianity coexisted. Since taking office as bishop he did everything possible to ensure that his vision of Christianity prevailed over all others.. Another capital detail of Saint Augustine’s phrases about love and faith.

15. “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, do not seek to understand so that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.”

It is estimated that Augustine He delivered between 6,000 and 10,000 sermons, although only about 500 authentic ones survive.. They are preserved because by then they were recorded by stenographers.

16. “Late I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late I loved you. And look, you were inside and I was in the outside world and I looked for you there, and in my unpleasant state I immersed myself in those beautiful created things that you made. You were with me and I was not with you.”

His sermons were very different from those given at the time. For example, he would walk up to the believers, in the middle of them, and use a variety of resources to explain the Word to the popular class.

17. “He who is full of love is full of God himself.”

Augustine served as bishop until 430, shortly before he died. Finally, he died on August 28, 430, after falling ill.

18. “Once and for all, then, you are given a brief precept: love, and do what you will. If you are silent, for love, be silent; whether you cry, for love cry; If you correct, out of love correct; If you forgive, out of love forgive. Let the root of love be within, from this root nothing can spring but what is good.”

He was canonized as a saint and doctor of the Church in 1298, by Pope Boniface VIII, amidst popular acclaim.

19. “A Christian must be a Hallelujah from head to toe.”

He is considered the patron saint of brewers, printers, and theologians. In addition to being one of dozens of cities around the world and hundreds of dioceses.

20. “Pray as if everything depended on God. And work as if everything depended on you.”

One of the most important relics of Saint Augustine is located in the Basilica of Saint Augustine, Algeria. Part of the bone of his right arm is preserved there.

21. “Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure is, there your heart; Where your heart is, there your happiness.”

The works of Saint Augustine are very extensive, although the best known are Soliloquiorum libri duo (386), Of free will (388-395), De sermone Domini in monte (394), Of Christian doctrine (396-426), Confessions (397-400), Trinitate (399-419), De consensu evangelistarum (400), De civitate Dei (412-426), De natura et gratia (413-417) and Enchiridion ad Laurentium, his de fide, spe et caritate (421).

22. “Love is the beauty of the soul.”

When Augustine died, Hippo and other regions of Africa fell into the hands of the Vandals. They dominated the entire area for an average of 100 years, which overshadowed the legacy of the future saint. Despite this, his physical work was preserved quite well.

23. “Our hearts have been made for you, O God, and they will never rest until they rest in you.”

Saint Augustine was probably the most prolific Christian author of antiquity.

24. “As love grows within you, so does beauty.”

In Confessions He relates that he converted to Christianity after hearing the voice of a child whispering take and read. The passage he read at the time was the following:

“Not in gluttony and drunkenness, not in lust and debauchery, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lusts.”

25. “Whoever denies the existence of God has some reason to wish that God did not exist.”

Few miracles are attributed to Saint Augustine. One of them was described by Posidius, a bishop friend, and was the healing of a sick man shortly before Augustine himself died.

26. “Love endures in adversity, is moderate in prosperity; brave under hard suffering, joyful in good deeds; completely trustworthy in temptation, completely generous in hospitality; as happy as you can be among the true brothers and sisters, as patient as you can be among the false ones.”

Augustine is an important figure for both Catholics and Protestants. Keep in mind that Martin Luther himself served for a time in the Order of Augustinian Hermits. Another of the curiosities that crown Saint Augustine’s phrases about love.

27. “He who loves something together with you, who does not love for you, loves you too little.”

Saint Augustine is cited as the Christian philosopher who exerted the deepest and most lasting influence on the Church. Until the 19th century, his doctrine remained unopposed among Christian scholars..

28. “We speak, but it is God who teaches.”

Currently, almost all of his work has been translated and is available to anyone who wants to access it. The Agustina Research Center provides the work available on the Internet and their respective translations.

29. “God loves each of us as if he were one of us.”

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