Augustine was a remarkable figure, a towering intellect with unmatched rhetorical skills. He exhibited an unprecedented capacity for self-reflection with a contemplative and even mystical streak. His impact continued throughout the Western church through the Protestant Reformation. He was a major influence on Reformers such as Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, and John Calvin. And his theological legacy continues today across denominations.
On August 28, 430, St. Augustine of Hippo died. Perhaps the most important father of the early Church, Augustine’s writings shaped Western theology and defined how Western European society understood itself for over a thousand years.
Augustine was born in Thagaste in modern Algeria in 354. His mother Monica was a Christian, but his father Patricius was a pagan who only became a Christian late in life. Although raised a Christian, Augustine found the Bible unsophisticated. To his mother’s dismay, he embraced Manichaeism, believing that this popular, dualistic religion resolved the problem of evil by positing two deities, one good, one evil. However, he eventually became disillusioned with Manichaeism and intrigued by skepticism, also popular during that time.
A highly trained rhetorician, Augustine was hired as a professor of rhetoric in the imperial city of Milan. Monica followed her son to Milan and continued to preach the Gospel to him, but it was when Augustine met Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, that he truly considered Christianity. Like Augustine, Ambrose was an expert orator. Using Neo-Platonic ideas, he showed Augustine a way of reading Scripture that opened new depths that he had not previously seen. This led the way to Augustine’s conversion in 386. He was baptized by Ambrose in 387.
Soon after, Augustine returned to Africa, sold his family property, and started a monastery. In 391, he was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius, a city also in modern Algeria. Determined to use his rhetorical skills to help the church, he quickly became famous as a preacher. Augustine preached between six and ten thousand sermons, most lasting an hour or more. Only about 500 have survived. In 395, he was named bishop of Hippo Regius, an office he held until his death in 430.