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Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

0

Near balanceFormula-derived score

Bishop of Hippo (354–430). Documented harms: Letter 93's compel-them, 411 Carthage, anti-Pelagian condemnation, inherited guilt, just war, servitude accommodated. Offsets: Confessions as method, two cities, De doctrina, De Trinitate, alms sermons.

Latin Christian interiority and two citiesimperial coercion of Donatists as a pastoral turngrace as a later contested heading

Impact

Not rated yet: the verified records linked to this person, without a numeric impact.

Editorial assessment (context, not the score)

The record is not a stained-glass saint and not a cartoon inquisitor. The heaviest documented costs are Letter 93, a stacked 411 hearing, anti-Pelagian condemnation, inherited guilt, just war, and accommodated servitude. The offsets are Confessions as method, two cities, De doctrina, De Trinitate, alms, and a public errata book. New Advent and SEP date the evidence, not the acts. Confidence is high on the major letters and treatises, medium on unique Donatist penalty coefficients, low on unique siege numbers.

Indicators affected

Indicators this person’s verified facts reach. No score contribution is assigned; the observed state is the indicator’s own reading.

Accountability & contradictions

Claims against the record, the type of responsibility, and what is disputed.

Claimed

What happened

Responsibility

What could change this assessment

  • 3 linked facts have no assessed welfare direction yet.
  • Lifetime coverage has not been assessed: the record reflects stored facts only (0373–0430).

Causal path

Person → Fact → Driver → Indicator. Select a path to inspect its factors; the full network opens on demand.

  1. PersonAugustine of Hippo
  2. FactAugustine dies in 430 during the Vandal siege of Hippo, a displacement file he did not command
  3. DriverForced-Displacement Scale
  1. PersonAugustine of Hippo
  2. FactPossidius reports that Augustine left a public library of his works at Hippo as the siege closed
  3. DriverDigital Learning Access
  1. PersonAugustine of Hippo
  2. FactRetractationes reviews Augustine's own books in public, marking errors and unfinished work
  3. DriverDigital Learning Access

Timeline

The most relevant dated facts, newest first.

  1. 28 August 430 · Forced-Displacement Scale

    Augustine dies in 430 during the Vandal siege of Hippo, a displacement file he did not command

  2. 1 January 430 · Digital Learning Access

    Possidius reports that Augustine left a public library of his works at Hippo as the siege closed

  3. 1 January 426 · Digital Learning Access

    Retractationes reviews Augustine's own books in public, marking errors and unfinished work

  4. 1 January 425 · Protection of Minority Rights

    Tractatus adversus Judaeos and related sermons store Jews as a theological foil rather than as civic neighbours

  5. 1 January 422 · Digital Learning Access

    The Enchiridion to Laurentius handbooks faith, hope, and love as a public lay theology

  6. 1 January 419 · Digital Learning Access

    De Trinitate inquires into God as Trinity through a long Latin treatise, one book not fifteen Facts

Evidence & methodology

How the record is sourced and how the score is derived.

32 of 32 linked facts verified, drawing on 10 distinct sources (0373–0430).

Sources include New Advent / Catholic Encyclopedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Encyclopaedia Britannica, New Advent / translated Fathers, Cambridge University Press.

Sources (showing 8 of 10)

  1. 1.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Augustine, original sin / graceStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. 2.Britannica — Pelagianism / AugustineEncyclopaedia Britannica
  3. 3.Catholic Encyclopedia — Donatists / Augustine neighbourhoodNew Advent / Catholic Encyclopedia
  4. 4.New Advent — Augustine, Confessions, Manichaean booksNew Advent / translated Fathers
  5. 5.New Advent — Augustine, City of GodNew Advent / translated Fathers
  6. 6.Cambridge Companion to AugustineCambridge University Press
  7. 7.New Advent — Augustine, On the TrinityNew Advent / translated Fathers
  8. 8.New Advent — Augustine, anti-Pelagian treatises neighbourhoodNew Advent / translated Fathers

The score is formula-derived (Factrail formula v1, version 1.0.0), not an editorial verdict. Read the methodology.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed · Sources: 10

Expert analysis

An excerpt; the full analysis opens on request.

The offices he actually held

Augustine is a Catholic bishop in imperial Africa who also wrote Latin books still taught. Stanford at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/ (opens in a new tab), Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine (opens in a new tab), and IEP at https://iep.utm.edu/augustin/ (opens in a new tab) are independent public files. The Catholic Encyclopedia life at https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02084a.htm (opens in a new tab) and the Cambridge Companion at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-augustine/ (opens in a new tab) mark the 430 siege and the corpus.

The first fact about his power is a see. The second is a coercion letter. The third is a set of books — Confessions, City of God, De Trinitate — that still move classrooms. The fourth is a 17th-century canvas that must not be upgraded to a face.

What went wrong

Letter 93 defends compel-them. The 411 conference lets the state judge a church. Anti-Pelagian tracts ask condemnation. Inherited guilt binds infants. City of God licences just war and accommodates servitude. Manichaean years become a prosecution exhibit. An unnamed partner is sent away. Jews become a foil. Predestination splits. The bishopric is an imperial-Catholic office. Confessions exposes intimates. He dies in a siege he did not command.

What improved

Confessions as interior method. Two cities against civic idolatry. De doctrina. De Trinitate as one treatise. Alms and sick-care speech. Cassiciacum. Letters against execution. A rule of common goods. Retractationes. Baptism at Milan. A catechetical handbook. A left library. Early free-choice argument against dualism. A lay Enchiridion. A ban on holy lying.

Related people: Ambrose; Monica; Pelagius; Jerome; Paul as scriptural heading; Luther as later user; Cicero of the Hortensius spark; Plato as Latin-African reading; Possidius; Marcellinus.

The live Person UUID is the production identity. Champaigne is not a sitting. NPNF is not 408 autograph. Later Loeb, UNESCO, and encyclopedia pages are evidence, not additional acts. Related 2024–2025 news about COP, NATO, or a chancellorship is not a relation. Shared work remains named. What would change the reading is a contradictory original with a different date or signatory. Shared work remains named. Shared work remains named. Shared work remains named.

Conversion, ordination, and the move from rhetoric to church government

Augustine was born in 354 at Thagaste in Roman North Africa and built an early career as a teacher of rhetoric before the religious turn that shaped his later public authority. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (opens in a new tab) places his conversion in Milan in 386, followed by baptism by Ambrose in 387. After returning to Africa, he was ordained a priest at Hippo in 391 and became bishop in the mid-390s, holding that office until his death in 430. Those dates mark a change in the kind of power he exercised. The author of the Confessions was not merely a private convert; as bishop he preached, adjudicated disputes, organised clerical networks and intervened in conflicts that involved imperial law. The Catholic Encyclopedia (opens in a new tab) similarly traces the move from his Manichaean and philosophical search to baptism, monastic community and episcopal leadership, which made his theology part of institutional governance in late Roman Africa.

The Donatist and Pelagian controversies tied theology to coercion and social order

Augustine’s later influence came through controversies with direct political consequences. In 411, the Conference of Carthage brought Catholic and Donatist bishops before an imperial commissioner; Augustine was a leading Catholic polemicist in a dispute over the legitimacy of clergy who had compromised during persecution. He eventually defended limited state coercion against Donatists, a position that became one of the most contested parts of his legacy. After 410, the sack of Rome also prompted the long project that became The City of God, where he rejected claims that Christianity had caused Rome’s collapse; the text is available in the New Advent edition (opens in a new tab). From 412 onward, the Pelagian controversy pushed him to formulate stronger claims about original sin, grace and the limits of unaided human will. His Confessions, preserved in the New Advent text (opens in a new tab), and these later doctrinal battles together explain why Augustine shaped Western theology far beyond his own diocese: he joined autobiography, philosophy, episcopal authority and imperial-era church discipline in one body of work.

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