Comparing Augustine de Hippo and Mohammed to the Idea of a...

Greek and Roman cultural values pervaded the Western religious society and made it possible for a series of Christian and Muslim religious individuals to be associated with historic figures present in Ancient Greece and Rome. While the modern society has a different understanding of the concept of the traditional hero, society during the early centuries perceived heroes as being individuals who possessed a series of attributes related to religious ideas and to a general attitude that promoted moral behavior. Individuals like Augustine de Hippo and Mohammed have come to be seen as having several attributes that linked them to the idea of the classic Greek hero. It is surely surprising that religion has adopted a pagan Greek term with the purpose of trying to describe some of its most notable figures. It is not necessarily that Augustine de Hippo and Mohammed were considered to possess superhuman abilities, as people came to associate them with heroes because they were dedicated to assisting the masses and because they were predisposed to doing good. In addition to being perceived as one of the most important attributes in a saint, heroism actually started to be praised by Christians as one of the principal qualities in any true Christian. Augustine de Hippo basically believed that in order to be seen by God as a person who was capable to serve divinity, the respective individual needed to be familiar with the attitudes that he or she needed to put across and with the fact