The Augustinian Recollect Enrique Eguiarte clarifies one of the issues that has caused the most confusion about the saintly bishop of Hippo in reference to his religious affiliation before receiving baptism at the age of 32.
By Enrique Eguiarte, Augustinian Recollect.
It is not unusual to find in books, or to hear in conferences or sermons, that the life of St. Augustine can be divided into two parts. First, his pagan stage, and second, his stage as a Christian.
This is completely false and does not correspond to what St. Augustine himself tells us about himself in the book of Confessions. It could be said that the life of St. Augustine can be divided into two parts; one before his baptism, and another after it.
The key is found in the first book of Confessions (1,17), where St. Augustine narrates how from the first moment of his life he was taken to the Church by his mother St. Monica to receive the rite of Christian initiation.
This rite, at that time and in North Africa, consisted of three elements: the imposition of the hand, the signing of the cross on the forehead, and the rite of salt. In the Confessions, St. Augustine only presents two of these rites, omitting the third: he briefly describes the signing of the cross and the rite of salt.
The signing of the cross was to make the sign of the cross on the forehead of the person. Although it is not known exactly what the rite of salt consisted of, specialists speak of two possibilities: putting a few grains of salt on the lips, or receiving a salty food, such as bread with a little more salt, which the catechumen or initiate ate, as a first food that he received from the Church while awaiting the true food that is the Eucharist (cf. cat. rud. 50).
From this moment on, the person was considered a catechumen of the Catholic Church. That is, he was no longer a pagan; he was already part of the Church, even if he was not baptized. In his texts, St. Augustine speaks of catechumens as those who have already been conceived by Mother Church and who are in her womb, but who have not yet been born, since the moment of birth is the moment of baptism (cf. s. 216,7).
The Augustinian texts also refer to catechumens with the name of ‘Christians’ (christianus: Io. eu. tr. 44,2). In St. Augustine’s texts, the word ‘Christian’ (christianus) is most often ambiguous. Although it is mostly applied to catechumens, sometimes it refers only to the baptized (Io. eu. tr. 11,4).
Nevertheless, the Augustinian vocabulary reserves a special and exclusive word for the baptized, the word fidelis (faithful). In fact, when St. Augustine in his texts speaks of a person who is “faithful,” he is referring to baptism, to the fact that this is a baptized person.
In the time of St. Augustine, many people received the rite of Christian initiation, but not baptism, and sometimes the reception of the sacrament was postponed practically until the moment of death.
This was because the sacrament of reconciliation, as we understand it today, was not yet entirely clear. There were three serious sins (adultery, apostasy, and homicide) that required public penance with a rite of reconciliation performed by the bishop. For this reason, many people postponed baptism as a final purification to leave this life completely cleansed of all sins.
St. Augustine was, therefore, a Christian, a catechumen of the Catholic Church for thirty-two and a half years, until the time he received baptism in Milan, at Easter in the year 387 from the hands of Bishop St. Ambrose (ep. 36,14,32).
A final and curious fact. The African rite of Christian initiation, with the rite of salt, was in force as obligatory until the Second Vatican Council. Those who were baptized before the Council (around 1965) received the rite of salt, which in the Roman liturgy had been translated into a few grains of salt on the lips.
