Biography of Augustine the African Essay example - 5161 Words

Biography of Augustine the African Augustine was born in Tagaste (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria) in 354 and died almost seventy-six years later in Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) on the Mediterranean coast sixty miles away. In the years between he lived out a career that seems to moderns to bridge the gap between ancient pagan Rome and the Christian middle ages. But to Augustine, as to his contemporaries, that gap separated real people and places they knew, not whole imaginary ages of past and future. He lived as we do, in the present, full of uncertainty. Augustines African homeland had been part of Romes empire since the destruction of Carthage five hundred years before his birth. Carthage had been rebuilt by Rome as the metropolis of†¦show more content†¦Augustine set out to make himself more Roman than the Romans and to penetrate to the center of the culture from which he found himself alienated by his provincial birth. But that was only the beginning of his story. Augustine was born on 13 November, A.D. 354, in Tagaste, a town large enough to have its own bishop but too small for a college or university.[[1]] His parents, Patricius and Monica, belonged to the financially imperilled middle class. They were well enough off to have educational ambitions for their son, but too poor to finance those ambitions themselves. The fourth century was an age of mixed marriages at this level of society, in which devout Christian women like Monica were often to be found praying for the conversion of their irreligious husbands. Her prayers were not unavailing; Patricius accepted baptism on his deathbed. Though Patricius offered no direct impulse towards Christianity for his son, he must not have been much more than a passive obstacle. Of Augustines childhood we know only what he chooses to tell us in the highly selective memoirs that form part of the Confessions. He depicts himself as a rather ordinary sort of child, good at his lessons but not fond of school, eager to win the approval of his elders but prone to trivial acts of rebellion, quick to form close friendships but not always able to foresee their consequences. He studied Latin with some enthusiasm but never loved Greek. While he was leading what he wants us to think wasShow MoreRelatedEssay on A Review of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo1539 Words   |  7 PagesA Review of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo is a dense, scholarly work outlining the entire life of the Catholic bishop.   The University of California Press in Berkeley, California published the work in 1967.   My version was the 1973 second paperback printing, found in the University library.   Its smallish, scholarly, serifed, typewritten font allows for a instant respect for the subject matter:   the words are at first imposing, but then revealing asRead MoreEssay on Saint Augustine970 Words   |  4 Pages Saint Augustine was born on 354 CE in Tagaste, Africa. His given name was Aurelius Augustinus. His father was Patricius, a pagan who was baptized Christian before he died, and his mother was Monica, a baptized Christian with an influential role in the life of her son. 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