St. Augustine of Hippo
Birth/Death: 354-430

Biography

Early Life

He was born in Tagaste, a Roman city in North Africa. Today, Tagaste is the modern-day city Souk Ahras in Algeria.

His given name was Aurelius Augustinus.

Young adulthood: Though his parents, Patricius and Monica, were part of the middle class, they struggled to send him to the university. However, with the help of an affluent family, he was able to gain a university education. While engaged in university studies in the city of Carthage, he began living with a woman, a relationship which lasted about 15 years. From this relationship, he had a son named Adeodatus. (This son later died in adolescence.) With much resistance, Augustine eventually left the mother of his child in order to enter a marriage of social convenience, a marriage his mother wanted him for him. As a Christian, Augustine's mother believed that her son's relationship with the woman in Carthage was sinful.

The Roman Empire: St. Augustine lived from 354-430 (fourth century).. He lived and wrote during the latter part of the Roman Empire when the empire was experiencing great turbulence. Foreigners were invading the empire, which resulted in the masses being taxed heavily to support the army. Additionally, the Christian Church was beginning to split. Under the emperor Constantine and his successor Theodosius, Christianity was declared the official religion of the empire in 391. However, in 395, the empire, including the Church, was divided into eastern and western halves. Roman leaders hoped that with this separation each half of the empire would have resources enough to fight stronger battles against foreigners invading their specific territories. This division revealed distinct cultural and linguistic differences between each half of the empire. The Eastern empire was Greek speaking. The Western empire spoke Latin. These linguistic and cultural differences applied to the Church in the East and in the West as well. St. Augustine served as part of the church leadership in the West.

Teaching Career and Religious Experiences before Conversion: Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine joined a religious cult that had come to Rome from Persia. This cult, known as the Manichaeism, presented themselves as rivals to Christianity. Augustine eventually became dissastisfied with the theology of this cult and returned to Tagaste. He began a teaching career, conducting courses in grammar. Later, he returned to Carthage and began teaching rhetoric, the art of persuasive speaking.

 

Life after Conversion

After becoming dissatisfied with his teaching career and after being diasppointed with his attempted connection with the Manichaeism, Augustine underwent a personal crisis. After conversations with his mother and with a bishop named Ambrose, he left his teaching post in 386 and entered a period of deep prayer and meditation. With the aid of bishop Ambrose, Augustine underwent conversion, becoming a Christian in 387. He was ordained a bishop in Hippo Regius in 395. (Hippo Regius is th ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, Algeria.)

He began writing the Confessions in 397.

The Confessions

The Confessions can be described as a spiritual autobiography written as a prayer. In fact, the Confessions is considered the first authentic ancient autobiography. In the Confessions, Augustine writes of his early life and his late conversion to Christianity. As a written prayer, the Confessions presents Augustine at times talking directly to God. Although the Confessions is a deeply religious text, one aspect of the text that makes it important for readers regardless of their personal stance religiously or philosphically is the fact that readers see how Augustine develops an understanding of who he is and how he feels as a human being.

One of the more important themes is Augustine's text is the conniection between faith and learning

 

Other Writings by Augustine

Of the various writing by St. Augustine, The City of God is an especially important one. In this work, Augustine gives a biblically based explanation to Romans, some of whom had begun to think that the empire's fall might be rooted in the decision to make Christianity the official religion.