And then in a mood of despair, he heard in the garden where he was sitting, part of a song being sung by children, “Tolle lege, tolle lege” it went. “Take up and read, take up and read”. So he took up the Bible he had been reading and looked again at the passage (the end of Romans 13). Here before his eyes was the answer he was looking for, “... put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

Augustine returned to North Africa where he had been born and came to the little town of Hippo (not far from modern Tunis). Here he was made a priest and  later became its bishop. Augustine became one of the most important theologians of the western church. He wrote about the church in the context of a debate about whether people who had apostatized during the persecution could be allowed back into the church. He wrote his famous City of God in response to the collapse of the Roman Empire and provided the church with a theory for church state relations that lasted until the modern era. He wrote about the Trinity  and struggled with questions of original sin, predestination and justification by faith.

His work became a crucial foundation for the theology of the reformers, especially Luther, a thousand years later. You can read more about Augustine here.

Dale