Augustine (and therefore Calvinism) was influenced by BOTH pagan and Gnostic heretical ideas.

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There were NO CALVINISTS in the Early Church. No orthodox Christian theologian, apologist, and/or leader taught the doctrines today associated with Calvinism. I've cited many of them in this blog and can post quote after quote, passage after passage from Church leaders in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries who TO THE MAN taught against the way Calvinists understand the Scriptures today. 

So, WHO was to blame for these teachings? Where did "Calvinism" come from? It ALL came from/through the North African theologian Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th Century. Previously, it was believed that Augustine's doctrinal change/shift came in AD397. More recent scholarship would argue that it wasn't until AD412 that he embraced the doctrines that ultimately became Calvinism.

What is irrefutable is that it was Augustine who "introduced" the novel doctrines that today we call "Calvinism". 

The irony of ironies is that one can find the doctrines of Calvinism in the days of the Early Church. But, they are NOT being taught by the Church; rather, they are being taught by the heretics! This has been demonstrated exhaustively and irrefutably in an Oxford University Ph.D. dissertation by Ken Wilson, 

Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "Non-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology - Dissertation Link: Ph.D. Dissertation


To quote the author at length as to the summary of his findings about the non-Apostolic, non-Christian influences on the theology of St. Augustine: 






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