St. Augustine of Hippo

Biography

St. Augustine (354–430 AD) is among the most influential thinkers in Western civilization. Born in Thagaste, North Africa, to a pagan father (Patricius) and a devout Christian mother (St. Monica), he received a brilliant education in rhetoric. As a young man, he lived a life of intellectual wandering and moral dissipation — taking a mistress, fathering a son (Adeodatus), and embracing the Manichaean heresy for nine years. His mother Monica never ceased praying for his conversion, often with tears. After moving to Milan, Augustine encountered the preaching of St. Ambrose and was profoundly moved. His intellectual objections fell away, but he struggled to abandon his former way of life. The turning point came in a garden in Milan in 386, when he heard a child's voice saying 'Tolle lege' (Take up and read). He opened St. Paul's epistle and read: 'Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.' He was baptized by St. Ambrose at Easter 387. He returned to Africa, was ordained a priest, and became Bishop of Hippo. His literary output was prodigious: the Confessions (the first great autobiography in Western literature), the City of God (a monumental defense of Christianity against pagan criticism), On the Trinity, and hundreds of sermons, letters, and treatises that shaped Catholic theology on grace, original sin, free will, and the sacraments. He died in 430 as the Vandals besieged his city.

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