Aurelius Augustinus, known to later tradition simply as Augustine, is regarded as a saint in many Christian communions and as a Doctor of the Church in Roman Catholicism. As a leading writer of the early church, he is also referred to as a “church father,” together with many of the other major writers from the early centuries of Christianity. He is one of the foremost figures in the development of Western philosophy and of the theology of both major Western Christian traditions, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. He wrote dozens of influential books, two of which have become classics not only of Christian theology, but of Western literature more broadly: his Confessions (a spiritual autobiography), and City of God.

Augustine was born in Thagaste, north Africa (modern-day Algeria) in 354 CE, into a mixed religious family with a pagan father and a Christian mother (Monica, also regarded as a saint). He studied in Carthage and pursued Manichaeism, a syncretistic religious movement in late antiquity, during his young adulthood, before converting to Christianity while in Milan, Italy in the 380s. After his conversion, he returned to north Africa and undertook the ministries of writing and organizing a monastic group. He also served as a priest in

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