Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), often called Saint Augustine, was a Christian theologian and philosopher born in Thagaste, in the Roman province of Numidia Cirtensis. He later served as the Bishop of Hippo Regius. He is widely considered one of the most influential philosophers in Western history and a key Church Father of the Latin Church during the Patristic Period.

As a young man, Augustine was attracted to Manichaeism and later to Neoplatonism, a Hellenistic philosophy. After converting to Christianity and being baptized in 386 by Saint Ambrose, he created his own approach to theology and philosophy, leaving a mark on many fields. He earned the title Doctor of Grace because of his strong emphasis on the necessity of unearned, prevenient grace for salvation and his teachings on original sin.

Augustine also shaped ecclesiology, arguing—against the Donatists—that the validity of sacraments does not depend on the moral worth of the priest who performs them. In *The City of God*, he described the Church as a spiritual city distinct from the material Earthly City, writing this during the decline of the Western Roman Empire. He is also known for his contributions to just war theory. His other major works include *On the Trinity*, *On Christian Doctrine*, and *Confessions*, which is recognized as the first autobiography in the Western tradition.

Augustine is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican Communion. He is considered one of the greatest theologians and philosophers in Catholic history and is one of the four Great Latin Church Fathers, alongside Ambrose, Jerome, and Pope Gregory I. His ideas deeply influenced medieval thought, and he was the most frequently cited author in Thomas Aquinas’s *Summa Theologiae*. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, view him as a theological father of the Reformation because of his teachings on salvation and grace, though the Catholic Church disputes this interpretation. In Eastern Orthodoxy, he is highly honored, but some of his teachings—such as the *filioque*—are more contested.

**Biography**

**Name** Augustine of Hippo is also known as Saint Augustine or Saint Austin, and goes by various titles across Christian denominations, including Blessed Augustine and the Doctor of Grace.

**Childhood and education** Augustine was born in 354 in the town of Thagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria) in the Roman province of Numidia. His mother, Monica (or Monnica), was a devout Christian; his father, Patricius, was a pagan who converted to Christianity only on his deathbed. He had a brother named Navigius and a sister whose name is lost but is traditionally remembered as Perpetua.

Scholars generally agree that Augustine and his family were Berbers, an indigenous North African people, but they were heavily Romanized and spoke only Latin at home out of pride. In his writings, Augustine identifies as a Roman African, referring to Apuleius as “the most notorious of us Africans,” Ponticianus as “a country man of ours, insofar as being African,” and Faustus of Mileve as “an African Gentleman.”

His family name, Aurelius, suggests his father’s ancestors were freedmen of the *gens Aurelia* who gained full Roman citizenship under the Edict of Caracalla in 212. By the time Augustine was born, his family had been legally Roman for at least a century. His mother, Monica, is assumed to have been of Berber origin based on her name, but because his family belonged to the *honestiores*—an upper class of citizens—Augustine’s first language was likely Latin.

At age 11, Augustine was sent to school in Madaurus (now M’Daourouch), a small Numidian city south of Thagaste. There he learned Latin literature and encountered pagan beliefs and practices. His first real insight into sin came when he and some friends stole pears from a neighbor’s garden, an event he recounts in *Confessions*. He notes that the pears were “tempting neither for its colour nor its flavour”—he was neither hungry nor poor, and had plenty of better fruit. In the following chapters, he agonizes over this sin, realizing that people do not desire evil for its own sake. Instead, “through an inordinate preference for these goods of a lower kind, the better and higher are neglected.” He concludes that the good of companionship with his accomplices allowed him to delight in the theft.

At age 17, thanks to the generosity of a fellow citizen named Romanianus, Augustine went to Carthage to study rhetoric, even though his family could not easily afford it. Despite his mother’s warnings, he lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits. To gain acceptance, inexperienced boys like Augustine would seek out or invent stories about sexual experiences.

While a student in Carthage, he read Cicero’s dialogue *Hortensius* (now lost), which he said left a lasting impression, sparking in him a love of wisdom and a thirst for truth. This began his interest in philosophy. Though raised Christian, Augustine became a Manichaean, much to his mother’s distress.

Around age 17, Augustine began a relationship with a young woman in Carthage.