Born in Numidia, Africa, in 354 a.d., died in 430; educated at Carthage; taught rhetoric at Carthage; removed to Rome in 383; going thence to Milan in 384, where he became a friend of St. Ambrose; converted from Manicheanism to Christianity by his mother Monica, and baptized by St. Ambrose in 387; made Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in 395; became a champion of orthodoxy and the most celebrated of the fathers of the Latin branch of the Church; his "Confessions" published in 397.

The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I