The Apostle From Africa: Life and Thought of Augustine of Hippo

Born 700 years after Plato and dying 400 years after Jesus' crucifixion, Augustine was outstanding amongst Christian thinkers. All around the Mediterranean, leading men hung on his words. His *Confessions* - his own detailed and psychologically profound account of his pre-Christian life and conversion - remains a seminal work in Western literature. His monumental *City of God* is not only an epic work of Christian apologetics, but an encyclopaedic synthesis of the beliefs of the ancient Graeco-Roman world that is the cultural foundation of our own. It is no exaggeration to say that Augustine has influenced the Church more than any other extra-biblical writer.  
  
One of the most remarkable things about Augustine's influence is the fact that it flows into radically divergent religious movements. He is cherished as one of the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, and yet it was Augustine who gave us the Reformation - not only because Luther was an Augustinian monk, or that Calvin quoted Augustine more than any other theologian, but because the Reformation witnessed the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace. David Bentley Taylor offers an engaging and thorough introduction to the man.  
  
"Augustine entered both the Church and the world as a revolutionary force, and not merely created an epoch in the history of the Church, but . . . the whole development of Western life, in all its phases, was powerfully affected by his teaching." - B B WarfieldRead less