Augustine's Influence of Pagan Culture on Early Christianity
Augustine confronted pagan culture not as a neutral observer but as a polemicist defending Christianity against sustained intellectual assault. After the sack of Rome in 410, pagans blamed the catastrophe on Christianity's prohibition of traditional worship, prompting Augustine to write The City of God to refute the charge that abandoning the old gods had brought divine punishment [3]. His response systematically dismantled pagan religious claims while appropriating elements of classical philosophy for Christian use.
Pagan Attacks and Augustine's Defense
Paganism employed two strategies against the new faith: first persecution, then intellectual discrediting. When violence failed, opponents attacked Christian doctrine, impeached Gospel history, and questioned the veracity of the evangelists [1]. Augustine countered by exposing the moral bankruptcy of pagan religion, arguing that the gods "quite neglected the lives and morals of the cities and nations who worshipped them" and imposed no moral restraints on their devotees [4]. He contrasted this with Christianity's call to holiness, exhorting Romans to "distinguish from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils" the true religion worthy of their ancestors [5].
Philosophical Appropriation
Augustine's doctrine of sin reveals his dual engagement with pagan thought. Charles Hodge identifies two elements in Augustine's theology: a metaphysical or philosophical component derived from classical speculation, and a moral or religious component rooted in Scripture and spiritual experience [8]. The philosophical element—Platonic and Aristotelian categories—"passed away, leaving little more trace on the history of doctrine than other speculations," while the biblical element "remains, and has given form to Christian doctrine" ever since [8].
Critique of Pagan Interpretation
Augustine rejected pagan attempts to allegorize their myths through physical interpretations. He noted that Varro and others invented elaborate symbolic readings to give "the appearance of profounder doctrine" to what Augustine considered "the baseness of most miserable error" [6]. More credibly, Augustine argued, these gods were deified men whose cults spread through demonic influence and poetic embellishment [7]. He also refuted a pagan prophecy that Christianity would last only 365 years, noting the prediction's failure [2].
Sources
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 6: Augustine — Homilies on the Gospels — TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. (part 2): assaults of the heathen. Paganism, having tried persecution as its first weapon, and seen it fall, attempted next to discredit the new faith by slandering its doctrine, impeaching its history, and attacking with special persistency the veracity of the Gospel writers. In this it was aided by some of Augustin's heretical antagonists, who endeavoured at times to establish a conspicuous inconsistency between the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian, and at times to prove the several sections of the New Te”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 54.--OF THE VERY FOOLISH LIE OF THE PAGANS, IN FEIGNING THAT THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION WAS NOT TO LAST BEYOND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE YEARS. (part 1): I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not already passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived vanity has believed. But as a few years ago three hundred and sixty-five years were completed since the time when the worship of the name of Christ was established by His presence in the flesh, and by the apostles, what other proof need we see”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — BOOK I.: ARGUMENT. AUGUSTIN CENSURES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED TIlE CALAMITIES OF THE WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE, WHICH THEN, AS ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES THE SHAMELESSNESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE SOLDIERS.”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 6.--THAT THE GODS OF THE PAGANS NEVER INCULCATED HOLINESS OF LIFE.: This is the reason why those divinities quite neglected the lives and morals of the cities and nations who worshipped them, and threw no dreadful prohibition in their way to hinder them from becoming utterly corrupt, and to preserve them from those terrible and detestable evils which visit not harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the body which is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that rules the whole man If there was any such ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 29.--AN EXHORTATION TO THE ROMANS (part 1): TO RENOUNCE PAGANISM. This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable Roman race,--the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of Regulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise may be not in yourself, but in the tr”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 5 .--CONCERNING THE MORE SECRET DOCTRINE OF THE PAGANS, AND CONCERNING THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATIONS. (part 1): But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which they attempt to color, as with the appearance of profounder doctrine, the baseness of most miserable error. Varro, in the first place, commends these interpretations so strongly as to say, that the ancients invented the images, badges, and adornments of the gods, in order that when those who went to the mysteries should see them with their bodily eyes, they migh”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 18.--A MORE CREDIBLE CAUSE OF THE: RISE OF PAGAN ERROR. A far more credible account of these gods is given, when it is said that they were men, and that to each one of them sacred rites and solemnities were instituted, according to his particular genius, manners, actions, circumstances; which rites and solemnities, by gradually creeping through the souls of men, which are like demons, and eager for things which yield them sport, were spread far and wide; the poets adorning them with lies, and false spirits seducing men to receive”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 42: § 5. Augustinian Doctrine . The Philosophical Element of Augustine's Doctrine. There are two elements in Augustine's doctrine of sin: the one metaphysical or philosophical, the other moral or religious. The one a speculation of the understanding, the other derived from his religious experience and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The one has passed away, leaving little more trace on the history of doctrine than other speculations, whether Aristotelian or Platonic. The other remains, and has given form to Christian doctrine from that day t”