St. Augustine connects with the Gothic Church!

St. Augustine was a philosopher who had a great impact on the visions of God and our souls. He wanted to find a spiritual life but he always struggled. St. Augustine found his answers in the Chrstian faith, so he converted to Christianity. He was influenced by Plotinus, which created a new Late Middle Ages Neoplatonism. The idea was that our body is the agent and the prison of the soul. So our body is bad!! This also led to believing that this physical world wasn't so bad, so we can acutally start getting used to it and perceive this physical world as beautiful. Also, Neoplatonism shows that anything that reflects God isn't so bad, this meant that light was good--more windows. The Gothic Church was different than the Romanesque Church because of its pointy arches, light, and the many windows. The Gothic Churches brought in more light because the windows were big and there were alot of them. The light represented God and that is what they wanted. Like how St. Augustine believed, the physical/outside world wasn't so bad. In addition to this, the Gothic church represented that by starting to be beautiful on the outside. There were more windows, which made it more beautiful. These churches didn't look like fortresses anymore. They were begininning to be beautiful!