” “The young Augustine and Manichaeism: this is the other part of Augustine’s life that was addressed during today’s general audience in Aula Paolo VI, in front of about 4,500 devotees. "The charm of a simplified conception of the world, dramatically divided between good and evil", attracted the young Augustine, "convinced he had found a synthesis between rationality, the search for truth and the love of Christ". Not to mention that joining Manichaeism "seemed to open to him easy career prospects" and "also enabled him to continue the relationship he had established in those years with a woman", from whom he had a son, Adeodatus, "whom he loved dearly and who died prematurely". However, with time, Augustine "began to abandon the faith of the Manichaeans, who disappointed him intellectually" and from Carthage he moved to Rome, then to Milan, where, fascinated by the sermons of the bishops Ambrogio, "he realised that the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and the neo-Platonic philosophy enabled him to solve the intellectual problems which, when he was younger, as he had begun to approach the Biblical texts, had seemed unsurmountable to him". His conversion to Christianity, on 15th August 386, was therefore "the height of a long, troubled inner journey". Aged 32, Augustine was baptised by Ambrogio on 24th April 387, during the Easter vigil. (continued)” “
