Augustinus (AD 354- 430), son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste in
North Africa, and his Christian wife Monica, while studying in
Africa to become a rhetorician, plunged into a turmoil of
philosophical and psychological doubts in search of truth, joining
for a time the Manichaean society. He became a teacher of grammar
at Tagaste, and lived much under the influence of his mother and
his friend Alypius. About 383 he went to Rome and soon after to
Milan as a teacher of rhetoric, being now attracted by the
philosophy of the Sceptics and of the Neo-Platonists. His studies
of Paul's letters with Alypius and the preaching of Bishop
Ambrose led in 386 to his rejection of all sensual habits and to
his famous conversion from mixed beliefs to Christianity. He
returned to Tagaste and there founded a religious community. In 395
or 396 he became Bishop of Hippo, and was henceforth engrossed with
duties, writing and controversy. He died at Hippo during the
successful siege by the Vandals. From Augustine's large output
the Loeb Classical Library offers that great autobiography the
"Confessions" (in two volumes); "On the City of
God" (seven volumes), which unfolds God's action in the
progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority
of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity; and a selection of
"Letters" which are important for the study of
ecclesiastical history and Augustine's relations with other
theologians.
