More
than this, he freely received and deliberately reconsecrated the
religious philosophy of the Greco-Roman world to a new apologetic
use in maintaining the intelligibility of the Christian
proclamation. Yet, even in his role as summator of tradition, he
was no mere eclectic. The center of his "system" is in the Holy
Scriptures, as they ordered and moved his heart and mind. It was
in Scripture that, first and last, Augustine found the focus of
his religious authority.
At the same time, it was this essentially conservative genius
who recast the patristic tradition into the new pattern by which
European Christianity would be largely shaped and who, with
relatively little interest in historical detail, wrought out the
first comprehensive "philosophy of history." Augustine regarded
himself as much less an innovator than a summator. He was less a
reformer of the Church than the defender of the Church's faith.
His own self-chosen project was to save Christianity from the
disruption of heresy and the calumnies of the pagans, and, above
everything else, to renew and exalt the faithful hearing of the
gospel of man's utter need and God's abundant grace.
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