No ancient Latin author is as important for the history of western thought or as well documented as Aurelius Augustinus. Born to a pagan father, Patricius, and a devout Christian mother, Monnica, in Thagaste in Roman North Africa on November 13, 354 CE, his vital statistics may be summarized thus. He was raised Christian, but initially encouraged to follow a secular career as a grammarian and rhetorician with its concomitant classical education. He studied grammar in Thagaste and Maudaurus till ca. 370. He subsequently studied rhetoric in Carthage in his late teens and began to teach in 372/3: first grammar at Thagaste, then rhetoric in Carthage. During this period he flirted with astrology and became a Manichaean “hearer”. This radically ascetic heresy claimed to be Christian,…
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Citation: Shanzer, Danuta. "Saint Augustine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=183, accessed 22 November 2024.]
