I.

Introduction

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), greatest of the Latin Fathers and one of the most eminent Western Doctors of the Church.

Augustine was born on November 13, 354, in Tagaste, Numidia (now Souk-Ahras, Algeria). His father, Patricius (died about 371), was a pagan (later converted to Christianity), but his mother, Monica, was a devout Christian who laboured untiringly for her son's conversion and who was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Augustine was educated as a rhetorician in the North African cities of Tagaste, Madaura, and Carthage. Between the ages of 15 and 30, he lived with a Carthaginian woman whose name is unknown; in 372 she bore him a son, whom he named Adeodatus, which is Latin for “the gift of God”.