Introduction

St. Augustine, a preeminent Doctor of the Church, became a widely influential polemical theologian in his time, due to the intertwining of the Church and politics. [1] However, it is in his writings that he emerged as the academic theologian who shaped other great Doctors of the Church and fellow mystics such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It is this – his more academic works and their subsequent influence – that I wish to investigate. In his reversion to Christianity and the active-contemplative nature of his spirituality, who was more influential? His mother, St. Monica, the archetype of the contemplative? Or his mentor, St. Ambrose, the archetype of the active? Or did Augustine’s spirituality develop independently through his reading of the Platonists?

St Monica

I will begin, therefore, chronologically with Monica. As perhaps the most significant contributor to Augustine’s discovery of the Catholic faith – both to outside observers and to Augustine himself – she remained central to his life from his youth onward. A pious woman, her sole mission was to save her son’s soul through prayer and the fruits of a contemplative life. This is evidenced by the fact that, upon Augustine’s conversion, God seemingly concluded her mission in this life, calling her to eternal rest mere days after witnessing his baptism. [2]

Augustine would have undoubtedly incorporated the piety of such a devoted figure into his own understanding of faith, given that her influence occurred during a formative period of his spiritual development. As a devoted adherent of the contemplative tradition, Monica recognized that intellectual engagement with Augustine was futile during his adolescence, which her local bishop described as an ‘unteachable’ phase. [3] Instead of direct instruction, she enrolled him as a catechumen and reproached him for his moral failings, particularly his sexual impropriety, yet otherwise refrained from actively nurturing his faith. [4]

This approach proved remarkably effective, as Augustine later attested in his account of the garden vision at Ostia. Rather than finding ecstatic union in the works of pagan and Christian philosophers – subjects he had pursued throughout his youth – he discovered it in the interior life cultivated through conversation with his mother. [5] Monica’s detachment from worldly concerns, a hallmark of mysticism, enabled her union with God, as vividly illustrated by her acceptance of burial away from Thagaste and her late husband. [6] Her faith was such that she declared, ‘Nothing is far from God […] I do not need to fear that He will not know where to raise me up at the end of the world.’ [7]

St Ambrose

If Monica embodied the contemplative in Augustine’s life – shying away from direct involvement in his intellectual development and nurturing his faith indirectly through prayer and sacrifice – then Ambrose represented the opposite: the ‘active’ figure who cultivated the intellectual framework necessary for Augustine’s discovery of the Trinity. Reason, after all, is the prerequisite of faith, and thus this intellectual formation was no less vital than doctrinal instruction. [8] Ambrose achieved this through his sermons and writings, which incorporated Neoplatonic elements, such as in De Isaac and De Abraham. These works likely introduced Augustine to the concepts needed to overcome the lingering influence of Manichaeism. [9] Ambrose was, in effect, the ‘living purveyor of Platonism’ of his time, making his guidance essential for Augustine’s engagement with Platonic philosophy. [10]

Their encounter – and subsequent friendship in Milan – profoundly shaped Augustine’s spiritual trajectory, influencing everything from his later insistence that monasticism was the closest one could come to God in mortal life to his actual baptism. [11] During this period, Augustine realized that his theological approach would need to differ from Ambrose’s, though still shaped by him. This divergence arose because Ambrose lacked ‘the knowledge or experience necessary to engage with those he opposed,’ whereas Augustine had to confront them directly during his turbulent episcopate. [12] Thus, while Augustine sought to preserve the intellectual and contemplative dimensions of his spirituality, he had to adapt it politically to counter the Manichaean and Arian heresies. This is most evident in the three books of the Confessions that directly rebut Manichaean critiques of Genesis, thereby introducing an element of the active. [13] It can thus be argued that Augustine inherited the ‘active-contemplative’ nature of his spirituality from Ambrose.

However, it should be noted that the Platonic concepts propagated by Ambrose in his sermons – particularly the idea of ascent – differed significantly from those of Plato and Plotinus. This is especially clear in Augustine’s struggle with sexual desire. Unlike the Platonists, who advocated an internal alignment with the beautiful, Augustine reconciled Platonism with Christianity through an external agency: God. [14] Therefore, it can be argued that the content of Ambrose’s sermons played a lesser role than their delivery and the friendship itself. Platonic philosophy had a limited direct influence on Augustine’s spirituality due to the misinterpretation of Platonic concepts in this ‘Ambrosian Platonism.’ [15] This also supports Carol Harrison’s argument that Augustine’s contemplative nature is reflected in the poetic language of the Confessions. [16] Undoubtedly, Augustine would have heard Ambrose employing similar imagery to convey theological themes, such as the ascent to God. Thus, the influence of the Platonists on Augustine’s style was indirect, primarily mediated through the ‘Ambrosian’ factor rather than unadulterated Platonism.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would argue that the development of Augustinian spirituality – the so-called ‘active-contemplative’ – relies more on the influence of Monica than on Ambrose or the Platonists. While all three contributed to his spiritual formation, Monica provided the foundation, particularly for his mystical inclinations as depicted in the Confessions. Without her, neither Ambrose nor Plotinus would have played a role in helping Augustine overcome Manichaeism, convert to Catholicism, or bear the fruit required for mysticism.