Saint Augustine of Hippo

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430): Desire, heartbreak, and conversion in late Roman Africa.

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   SceneA young Augustine sits writing beside an oil lamp on a terrace overlooking the North African city of Thagaste.

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   Born in Thagaste in Roman North Africa, Augustine became a gifted rhetorician. In his youth he loved eloquence, ambition, and the pleasures of the world.

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   SceneAugustine embraces his unnamed longtime partner in a richly furnished Roman interior; their young son reads nearby.

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   He lived for many years with an unnamed partner and had a son, Adeodatus. When she was sent away during plans for a socially advantageous marriage, Augustine wrote that his heart was ‘racked, wounded, and bleeding.’

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   SceneBeneath a fig tree, a distressed Augustine looks upward beside an open book marked ‘Tolle lege — Take up and read.’

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   Augustine later admitted he had prayed, ‘Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet.’

   In 386, after hearing a child’s voice say ‘Take up and read,’ he turned decisively toward Christianity.

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   SceneThe older, bearded Augustine writes in episcopal robes beside copies of Confessions and City of God.

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   Baptized by Ambrose in 387 and later bishop of Hippo, Augustine became one of Christianity’s most influential thinkers. His most famous insight: ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’