Augustine of Hippo

Africa

He taught in Carthage, Rome and Milan, but returned to Africa.

💡 Did you know? Augustine came from what is now Algeria: then a Roman province in North Africa.

bishop

For some 35 years: Hippo Regius lies in today's Annaba, Algeria.

💡 Did you know? For over 30 years he was bishop of the small port of Hippo Regius and became the West's most influential Church Father.

Confessions

Autobiography and prayer in one: written around 397.

💡 Did you know? The „Confessions“ are considered the first true autobiography: in them Augustine unsparingly recounts his youthful failings.

Take up and read

He opened the letters of Paul: the scene of 386 is among the most famous conversion stories.

💡 Did you know? „Tolle, lege“ („take and read“): he opened the Bible and read the random passage as a divine sign.

Grant me chastity, but not yet

He reports it with self-irony in the 'Confessions': the saint began as a bon vivant.

💡 Did you know? With his long-time mistress he had a son: Adeodatus, 'given by God'.

The City of God

Written in answer to the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410.

💡 Did you know? He contrasts the earthly „city“ with the „city of God“: written just after Rome had been sacked by the Goths.

If no one asks, I know

His analysis of time in Book 11 of the 'Confessions' occupies philosophy to this day.

💡 Did you know? „If no one asks me, I know what time is; if I want to explain it to someone who asks, I do not“: one of the most famous reflections on time.

Monica

She is venerated as a saint; the city of Santa Monica in California bears her name.

💡 Did you know? His mother Monica was herself later canonised: the Californian city of Santa Monica is named after her.

Manichaeans

The dualist doctrine of light and darkness: he later fought it in polemical writings.

💡 Did you know? For almost a decade Augustine adhered to Manichaeism, a religion of stark good-versus-evil dualism.

grace and original sin

No salvation without God's grace: Luther, himself an Augustinian monk, built on this a thousand years later.

💡 Did you know? His teachings on grace and original sin still shape Western theology: Catholic and Protestant alike.

Ambrose

His allegorical reading of the Bible cleared away Augustine's intellectual objections.

💡 Did you know? The Milanese bishop Ambrose reputedly read silently, with his eyes alone: which Augustine noted with astonishment.

during the Vandal siege

Antiquity was ending: Augustine became the bridge figure into the Middle Ages.

💡 Did you know? Augustine died in 430 while the Vandals besieged his episcopal city of Hippo: at the end of the Roman order.

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo was a North African bishop and the West's most influential Church Father: his „Confessions“ and „City of God“ still shape Christianity.

💡 Did you know? His „Confessions“ are regarded as the first great autobiography in world literature.