Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we are

returning to our friend, Augustine, and we are returning to the year 420.

In 420, Augustine is around 66 years old.

It has been 35 years since his conversion, and this year, 420 is 10 years before his death.

Among the many books of Augustine,

one of his is called with the fancy title,

En Chiridian.

An Enkiridian is a short handbook or a manual.

Sometimes this book of Augustus is simply called

Augustine's Catechism, or sometimes it's called

his Catechism on faith, hope, and charity, or faith hope and love.

I'd like to simply call it Augustine's Handbook on Life.

Well, what is this book?

This is a book that Augustine and the very first line addresses

to my dearest son, Lawrence.

Now, Lawrence is not Augustine's actual son.

He's referring to him as a sort of spiritual son,

or a son in the faith, as it were.

We don't know much about Lawrence. He was a

Roman official, a Tribune living there in Africa. He was a man of some

importance and some stature in that day. And he had written to Augustine. some doctrine be summarized? Well, in his own way, Augustine looks at this question.

And in fact, he takes this question, how can Christian doctrine be summarized?

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