Was St. Augustine of Hippo a Calvinist?

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Hi everyone. I have heard someone once say before that St. Augustine of Hippo was a Calvinist. Can you all please discuss this and help me refute it? :confused:
 
John Jefferson Davis says No. He is a Calvinist scholar who teaches at Gorden-Conwell in MA. I just typed this in…

The Perseverance of the Saints: A History of the Doctrine

Excerpts:

It is clear for Augustine, based on his understanding of the Pauline texts in Romans, that God’s elect will certainly persevere to the end and attain eternal salvation. Unlike Calvin and those in the later Reformed tradition, however, Augustine does not believe that the Christian can in this life know with infallible certitude that he is in fact among the elect and that he will finally persevere. According to Augustine “it is uncertain whether anyone has received this gift so long as he is still alive.” The believer’s life in this world is a state of trial, and he who seems to stand must take heed lest he fall. It is possible to experience the renewal of baptismal regeneration, and the justifying grace of God, and yet not persevere to the end…

Although occasioned by new historical circumstances – the teachings of Luther and Calvin – the statements of Trent in themselves are not essentially new but are restatements of the earlier positions of Augustine and Aquinas.

Phil P
 
Um, OK. Don’t know mucn 'bout history… but I’m pretty sure that St. Augustine lived about 1000 years before John Calvin. So the appropriate question, in my mind, would be, “was Calvin an Augustian?”
 
Holly3278 said:
Hi everyone. I have heard someone once say before that St. Augustine of Hippo was a Calvinist. Can you all please discuss this and help me refute it? :confused:
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St. Augustine believed the Mass to be a sacrifice. Do Calvinists believe that? Nope.

“In the sacrament he is immolated for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being immolated. For if sacraments had not a likeness to those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; and they generally take the names of those same things by reason of this likeness” (Letters 98:9 [A.D. 412]). "“For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, ‘There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink’ [Eccl. 2:24], what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come. . . . Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it” (The City of God 17:20 [A.D. 419]). "

St. Augustine believed in praying for the daparted dead (those just but not yet purified) Do Calvinists believe that? Nope…

"That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire" (*Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity *18:69 [A.D. 421]).

“We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc. 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings, the authority of the Catholic Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at his altar the commendation of the dead has its place” (The Care to be Had for the Dead 1:3 [A.D. 421])."

Augstine believed in the communion of Saints and Saintly intercession…Do Calvinists believe that? Nope.

“A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers” (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]). “At the Lord’s table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps” (*Homilies on John *84 [A.D. 416]). “For even now miracles are wrought in the name of Christ, whether by his sacraments or by the prayers or relics of his saints . . . The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there. . . [and when people] had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius, which had long lain concealed and unknown but where now made known to the bishop Ambrose in a dream and discovered by him” (City of God 22:8 [A.D. 419])."
willcoxson.net/faith/augprot.htm
​
 
Wow! Dude! That was SO much better an answer than mine! Way to go!! Boo Yah! Keep it up, Brother!
 
Some of Saint Augustine’s thoughts were incompatible with Christianity. This includes his teaching on predestination and his belief that God chooses to leave most of the human race in damnation (the massa damnata et damnabilis.) Much of this was adopted by John Calvin. The Council of Orange which looked at his teachings on grace etc., simply decided to completely overlook these errors and where they needed to they made corrections to some of his other teachings.

This is not to condemn Saint Augustine. No Church Father is infallible after all.

See this article on EWTN by Fr William Most
ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/AUGUSTIN.htm
 
If you take a trip to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (my daughter graduated from Calvin), go to the Prince Center (it’s the hotel/convention center).

In the Prince Center, you will see a mural of the history of Calvinism. (Yes, Calvin College is named after John Calvin).

At the very beginning of that mural, you will see a picture of Augustine of Hippo, whose work was the inspiration and source for much of John Calvin’s theological exegesis and his classic Institutes. (John Calvin, BTW, was the first Protestant to write a systematic Protestant theology.)
 
How could he have been Calvinist? John Calvin was born over 1000 year after his death.
 
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