The following excerpts reveal his belief concerning the function of music and the danger that it represented to the devout Christian. In the Confessions he discusses several aspects of the weakness of the flesh, one of which is music. During that time education was, for the most part, a function of the church rather than of the secular state.Īugustine's educational beliefs are revealed in De Magistro (The Teacher), but it is his thoughts on music and his reaction to it that are of central interest here. He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, and although his attention to education was a relatively minor part of his total effort, his thoughts are important because they influenced European education throughout the middle ages. It was he who developed the intellectual framework that allowed Christianity to become the predominant European religion. He died in 430 during the sacking of Hippo by the Vandals.Īugustine was a prolific writer and had great intellectual influence on Christianity. In 396 he founded a monastery in Hippo (Algeria), and in 396 became bishop of Hippo. He was ordained to the priesthood in 392. He had strong feelings of guilt and was ready to reform when he came under the influence of St.
After completing his elementary education, he was sent to Carthage to study rhetoric and later became a teacher of rhetoric at Carthage, Rome, and Milan.ĭuring his youth he was not only a pagan, but lived a dissolute life as well. Monica, his mother, convinced her husband to convert shortly before his death, and her influence on her son was a strong factor in his own conversion. His mother was a Christian, his father a pagan.
Augustine (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1943), pp.
Confessions, Book 10: XXVII, XXXIII XXXIVįrom F.
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