Augustine of Hippo
North African bishop and theologian whose Confessions established the spiritual autobiography as a Christian form.
Augustine of Hippo was a North African bishop and theologian whose writings have shaped Christian thought for sixteen hundred years and continue to do so. Born in Tagaste in modern Algeria, he was a teacher of rhetoric in Carthage and Milan before his conversion to Christianity in 386 AD under the influence of his mother Monica and the Milanese bishop Ambrose. His Confessions, written around 397-400 AD, established the genre of Christian spiritual autobiography and contains one of the most quoted sentences in Christian literature: "Thou madest us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it reposeth in thee." Augustine wrote prolifically on grace, free will, sin, the nature of God, and the spiritual life, and his prayers, drawn primarily from the Confessions, are read today across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions as some of the foundational prayers of Western Christianity.