Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, in English Augustine of Hippo, also known as St. Augustine, St. Austin, was bishop of Hippo Regius. 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.
St. Augustine was born in A.D. 354 in Thagaste, Numidia (modern day Souk Ahras, Algeria) into an upper-class family. His father—Patricius—was a pagan, though he converted to Christianity on his deathbed. His mother—St. Monica—was a Christian and raised Augustine in the faith, though he was not baptized until he was an adult. He was of mixed-race ancestry, with ancestors including Phoenicians, Berbers, and Latins. He considered himself Punic. Latin seems to have been his first language.
As a boy he became conscious of sin in a special way when he participated in a pointless act of theft. This made a profound impression on him and he later wrote about and regretted it. In his spiritual autobiography, the Confessions, he described the incident: In a garden nearby to our vineyard there was a pear tree, loaded with fruit that was desirable neither in appearance nor in taste. Late one night—to which hour, according to our pestilential custom, we had kept up our street games—a group of very bad youngsters set out to shake down and rob this tree. We took great loads of fruit from it, not for our own eating, but rather to throw it to the pigs; even if we did eat a little of it, we did this to do what pleased us for the reason that it was forbidden.
He was canonized by popular acclaim, as the custom of papal canonization had not yet arisen.
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