Augustine of Hippo

In 386 a lecturer of rhetoric in Carthage, St Augustine (354-430), was converted to Christianity. Though he’d learnt the Christian faith from his Mother, Monnica, doubts had began to creep in as a result of his Rhetoric studies and at the age of 19 a treatise by Cicero made him realize he should make truth his life search. For the next 10 years he was attached to the heretical Manicheanism beliefs and during this time his concerned mother sent a certain bishop to debate with him. The prelate found him to be too clever a disputant and the bishop counselled Monnica to "content yourself with praying for him." She went to her charge weeping and he sent her away saying, "Go, continue as you have done till now; it is impossible that the son of so many tears should perish."
Later he found himself in Milan, where Bishop Ambrose's sermons began to speak to his heart but he was still too entwined in the world to convert. After reading an account of the lives of Anthony and other Egyptian hermits, Augustine was thrown into deep inner turmoil but he was still unable to break free. However whilst walking through his garden, he heard a child saying in a sing-song voice "Take it and read it." Under a fig tree, Augustine read Romans 13 v13-14 and in tears he finally found the Savior that his mother had told him about. "As if the light of peace was poured in my heart and all the shades of doubt faded away", he later wrote in his spiritual autobiography Confessions.
The following year Bishop Ambrose baptized St Augustine in the Milan Easter vigil service on the night of Holy Saturday. In his book Confessions, Augustine described later the ceremony “I wept at the beauty of the hymns and canticles and was powerfully moved at the sweet sound of your churches singing…My feeling of devotion overflowed and the tears ran from my eyes and I was happy in them.” The hymn Te Deum, based on the text “Te Deum Laudamus”, (“We praise thee O God”) originated during this baptism.
In 391 Augustine visited the Mediterranean port of Hippo, 60 miles away, to set up a monastery there and one Sunday he attended Mass where the local Bishop Valerius was preaching. The aged bishop, who was looking for an assistant, preached the need for another ordained man in the town. The church members decided they want Augustine for this post and Valerius agreed however Augustine felt inadequate and declined. The congregation would have none of it and he was jostled to the front of the church where he was ordained on the spot. The new priest began devoting himself to the mastery of Scripture and within six years he was ordained Bishop of Hippo.
Augustine is generally held to be the greatest doctor of Christianity. He precached innumerable sermons, of which more than four hundred have come down to us. His orthodoxy prevented Catholicism being unduly influenced by alternative teaching. The great theologian developed many Catholic doctrines helping make infant baptism, belief in purgatory and the teaching that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church normal practice. In addition he encouraged ascetic monasticism and the use of relics.
Of his 96 known works a couple are known by all educated people. They are:
(a) His spiritual autobiography Confessions, a prose poem addressed to God spread over 13 books. It tells the honest, objective story of his childhood and education, his worldly views at this stage and his conversion to Christianity. He recounts the sins of his youth and how even his prayers of repentance are tainted with insincerity, “Give me chastity but not yet”, he wrote.
(b) His epic tome, City of God, split over 22 books, which took Augustine 13 years to complete. City of God is an answer to the question “Why did God allow Rome to fall to the Barbarians so soon after enveloping Christianity?” In it he argues that there are two cities, one earthly, Rome, which is bound to pass away in time and one the City of God, heavenly, founded on goodness and justice which will survive the onslaught of the enemy and will last eternally.
Tragically many in the church misunderstood Augustine's masterpiece, as their interpretation of his book was that the church should have its own empire ruled by bishops.