Speaking of gossip, Augustine’s mother never, ever gossiped. Ever. And before Patricius died, she got him to convert to Christianity. Win for the God Squad.

Recalling her devout, humble, and wise nature over the course of her life, Augustine praises his mother for maintaining peace with his father and among her friends. He also suggests that God was using her for a higher purpose–in part, to see Augustine safely into the arms of the church.

family property, raising the son, Adeodatus, left him by his long-term lover (her name is unknown) taken from the lower classes, and continuing his literary pastimes. The death of that son while still an adolescent left Augustine with no obligation to hand on the family property, and so he disposed…

Augustine is overwhelmed by grief at her loss, even though he knows that her death is a good event. He does not weep, even at her funeral, but later, he weeps for Monica, for which God will forgive him. Augustine asks God, through Christ, to forgive Monica’s sins and asks the readers to remember his parents in prayer.

Adeodatus is Augustine’s son by his long-term mistress. He’s very smart (for a sixteen year-old, ha) and is baptized at the same time as Augustine. But he dies young. Augustine says that he loves his son even though his existence is the result of his sin.

Upon meeting Faustus, Augustine finds him pleasant and well-spoken, but no more knowledgeable than Augustine himself. Consequently, Augustine becomes disillusioned with Manichaeism, although he does not abandon it, because he still has found nothing better to replace it.

After converting to Christianity, Augustine turned against his profession as a rhetoric professor in order to devote more time to preaching. In 391 Augustine was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba), in Algeria.

Augustine of Hippo
Navigius
Saint Monica/Sons

In his book Confessions, Augustine wrote of a peculiar practice of his mother in which she “brought to certain oratories, erected in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread, water and wine.” When she moved to Milan, the bishop Ambrose forbade her to use the offering of wine, since “it might be an …

Latin name meaning “given by God”. This was the name of a son of Saint Augustine and two popes (who are also known by the related name Deusdedit).

Adeodatus
Augustine of Hippo/Sons

Faustus of Mileve was a Manichaean bishop of the fourth century. He is now remembered for his encounter with Augustine of Hippo, in Carthage around 383. He was from Milevis, Numidia (modern Algeria). From a poor, pagan background, he had become a highly reputed teacher, preacher and debater.

He said Adeodatus was awe-inspiring, and lived a life of such purity that no one need fear for him or for his eternal salvation. In the year 387 Adeodatus was present with Augustine and Monica at the port town of Ostia to await a ship back to North Africa.

It began in 372 at Carthage and ended in about 385 i n Milan. In the year 372 this concubine bore Augustine a son whom they named Adeodatus, The conception of Adeodatus was described by Augustine as being unplanned, hence the child was “given by God” in a number of senses of the phrase.

This silence about Adeodatus and his concubine mother was possibly because they were startling reminders of the relatively-unbridled lust of Augustine in his early years – something that also was passed over by centuries of Christian writers.

Secondly, Adeodatus appeared in the book by Augustine named De magistro (” On the Teacher “) as an exceptionally intelligent youth aged seventeen years, and as a close friend of his father. In the year 390 Adeodatus died before reaching his eighteenth birthday. He died at the very same age Augustine had been when Adeodatus was born.