St. Augustine of Hippo
Patron of theologians, printers, and those seeking conversion
- Feast day
- August 28
- Origin
- Roman North Africa
- Era
- 4th–5th century
- Order
- Augustinian tradition
About the saint
Augustine was born in Thagaste in Roman North Africa in 354 to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Monica. Brilliant and restless, he taught rhetoric in Carthage, Rome and Milan, followed Manichaeism for years, and lived with a partner with whom he had a son.
In a garden in Milan in 386 he heard a child chanting "take up and read," opened Paul's letter to the Romans, and was converted. He was baptised by Ambrose the following Easter, and became bishop of Hippo in 395.
For thirty-five years he preached, argued and wrote — against the Manichees, the Donatists and the Pelagians — shaping Western theology more than any writer after Paul. He died in 430 as the Vandals besieged his city.
Works
Documented miracles
Tolle lege
The child's voice in the Milan garden that led him to the passage of Romans which ended his long resistance.
Milan, 386
Healings at Hippo
In The City of God he records cures at the shrine of St. Stephen in his own diocese, several of which he says he witnessed personally.
Hippo, c. 425