St. Augustine, Florida was first discovered on August 28, 1565 by the Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles. It was their first sight of land, and that day just so happened to be the feast day of Saint Augustine of Hippo. Thus the colony of San Agustin was born.
Augustine of Hippo may have been canonized, but he was far more than just a miracle worker. He was the son of a pagan, a former hedonist, a father, a rhetorician, a teacher, and a philosopher.
Augustine was born in 354 AD in Thagaste, which is now Souk Ahras, Algeria. His father was a pagan, and his mother a devout Christian. He was raised Christian, yet when he left home to be a student at Carthage, he soon converted to Manichaeism, a Gnostic religion that originated in Iran around 200 AD. He followed this sect for many years, until he later abandoned it following a run-in with a Manichaean Bishop, Faustus of Mileve. For some time Augustine subscribed to the skeptical school expounded by the New Academy movement.
During this time, Augustine kept a concubine, a woman with whom he was very in love, which he admitted some time later as a priest in his Confessions. He had a son by her named Adeodatus.
After leaving Carthage, he moved to Rome with the hopes of finding a better teaching environment, but was met with slothful students. Shortly thereafter he earned a position as a professor of rhetoric at the provincial court in Milan, the most visible teaching position in the world at the time.
It wasn't until after he spent some time in Milan that he converted to Christianity. It occurred following inspiration, which came after reading an account of the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert. Shortly thereafter Augustine went to hear Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan and a renowned rhetorician. Ambrose gave Augustine a new perspective with this speech. Soon thereafter Ambrose baptized Augustine and his son.
During his priesthood, Augustine produced great number of written works, producing over one hundred separate compositions by the time of his death. His Confessions and On Christian Doctrine are internationally renowned pieces of literature. He died of an illness at the age of 75 as the Vandals sacked Hippo. When they returned to burn the city after his death, the two buildings to survive the fire were his cathedral and library.
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