Augustinus (354-430), son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste & his Xian wife Monica, while studying in Africa to become a rhetorician, plunged into psycho-philosophical doubts in search of truth, joining for a time the Manichaeans. He became a grammar teacher at Tagaste & lived much under the influence of Monica & his friend Alypius. About 383 he went to Rome & soon after to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric, being now attracted by the Sceptics & Neo-Platonists. His studies of Paul's letters with Alypius & the preaching of Bishop Ambrose led in 386 to his rejection of sensuality & to his famous conversion from mixed beliefs to Xianity. He returned to Tagaste & there founded a religious community. In 395/6 he became Hippo's bishop & was henceforth engrossed with duties, writing & controversy. He died there during the successful Vandal siege. From Augustine's large output the Loeb Classical Library offers the autobiographical Confessions (2 vols); On the City of God (7 vols), which unfolds God's action in world history, & propounds the superiority of Xian beliefs over pagan in adversity; & a selection of Letters which are important for the study of ecclesiastical history & his relations with other theologians.
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Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, in English Augustine of Hippo, also known as St. Augustine, St. Austin, was bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from the Africa Province of the Roman Empire and is generally considered as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity. According to his contemporary Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshiped the Trinity. In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is also considered a saint. He carries the additional title of Blessed. Among the Orthodox, he is called "Blessed Augustine" or "St. Augustine the Blessed". Santo Agostinho
