Augustine of Hippo

Life and work

Augustine was born in Thagaste in Roman North Africa to a pagan father and a devoutly Christian mother, Monica, whose prayers for his conversion are a recurring theme in his later writing. As a young man he pursued rhetoric, took a mistress with whom he had a son, and for a time embraced Manichaeism, a dualistic religious philosophy.

Moving to Milan to teach rhetoric, Augustine came under the influence of Bishop Ambrose and, after a prolonged inner struggle described famously in the Confessions, converted to Christianity in 386, reportedly prompted by a child's voice telling him to "take up and read" scripture. He was baptized by Ambrose the following Easter.

Returning to Africa, Augustine was ordained a priest and then Bishop of Hippo Regius in 395/396, a position he held until his death. He became the dominant intellectual defender of Nicene orthodoxy in the West, writing extensively against Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism — the last controversy shaping his mature doctrine of grace and original sin.

His Confessions, an extended prayer recounting his own conversion, is considered the first true autobiography in Western literature. His City of God, written in the aftermath of the Visigothic sack of Rome in 410, argued that the earthly and heavenly cities are distinct and that Rome's fall did not doom the church.

Augustine died in 430 as the Vandals besieged Hippo, part of the broader collapse of Roman authority in North Africa. His theology of grace, will, and predestination would later be claimed by both Catholic and Reformation theologians, including Luther and Calvin, as foundational to their own thought.

Historical evidence

In their own words

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."Confessions, Book I

Distinguishes the "city of God" from the "earthly city," built respectively on love of God and love of self.City of God, Book XIV

Further reading

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Saint Augustine
• CCEL: Confessions (full text)