ry religion and philosophical system of their day. While still nominally a Manichee, Augustine admired the Academics' strict methods of logical and critical analysis, and applied their teachings to his later writings.
While law and custom permitted the students in Carthage to run wild and commit various acts of vandalism - a lack of studious intent which annoyed Augustine to no end - Augustine was shocked to find an even more grievous practice of cheating teachers out of their fees in Rome. This upset Augustine greatly and he planned to take a professorship in Milan, which was then the seat of the Imperial Court. Though still a member of the Manichaean faith, he was questioning its validity more than ever before.
In Milan, Augustine had cause to listen to the great Catholic Bishop Ambrose, head of the Milan Church at the time. Ambrose gave sermons which Augustine found impressive from a literary and oratorical point of view. Furthermore, they introduced Augustine to the possibilities of an allegorical interpretation of the Bible. This, Augustine later learned, opens up many possibilities for the reconciling of Scripture with moral and doctrinal points. Augustine began to address some of his own issues with the Catholic faith - namely his vision of the material God and his Manichaean belief in the physicality of evil. Ambrose did not aggressively try to convert Augustine, but merely impressed him with his erudition and faith.
Monica joined Augustine in Milan and lived a simple and admirable life as a Christian widow. Patrick had died, and we learn that he converted to Christianity towards the end of his life. Through the influence of Bishop Ambrose and Monica, Augustine, though still uncertain about his faith, decided to become a catechumen.
The stranger aspects of the Manichaean faith - the assertion that evil is a physical being, and the ideas concerning astrology - began to chafe on Augustine's critical mind. He could not reconcile the faith with the principles of logic and critical inquiry - nor, however, could he do the same with most of the precepts of Christianity. For Augustine, an educated young man and someone, we might imagine, who had a rather high opinion of his own mental powers, a philosophically intact religion was important. It is interesting to note the progression in Augustine's conversion: he transitioned from an emotional searching during adolescence to an intellectual quest during young adulthood, and finally to a spiritual revelation that manifested as conversion.
The personal charisma of Ambrose played no small part in the eventual conversion of Augustine. Ambrose was, by all accounts, a particularly well-spoken, educated, and respected Bishop. In fact, his personal characteristics were a large part of the reason he was chosen as Bishop of Milan, which was at this time the location of the emperor's court. Though Augustine never explicitly says so in the text, it appears that Ambrose provided a welcome counterpoint to Monica as a model for Christianity.
In many ways Ambrose was the opposite of Monica, though they shared an unshakeable Catholic faith. Ambrose was highly educated; Monica, like most women of her time and class, was not. Ambrose was given a great deal of power in this male-dominated culture; Monica, as a woman, was viewed as a second-class citizen. Ambrose was very calm and gave unemotional, erudite sermons; Monica's emotional faith and attachment to her son gave Augustine cause to censure her. Ambrose was of the Roman world; Monica was a North African. Ambrose provided a model to Augustine of what an educated Christian man in the Latin culture of the late Roman Empire could be - and Augustine liked what he saw. He may have asserted that faith in God without scientific or philosophical proof is enough for some (a notion that he first raises in Book IV), but Augustine was never going to have the simple faith of the uneducated. Catholicism had to appeal to him intellectually, and Ambrose stood as proof that such a thing was possible.
At this time, an anti-intellectual movement was spreadi