St Augustine, The Doctor of Grace

Extract

Many of our Saints have but a limited appeal, even among the ranks of the faithful; few of them indeed. may be said to have a great following outside the Catholic Church. One thinks of St Vincent de Paul, St John of the Cross, more than any other perhaps St Francis of Assisi. But there is one whose position is quite unique, whose chief works belong to the great classics of human literature, whose influence on Christian thought has never been surpassed, not even by the Angelic Doctor. Augustine is truly the bridge between antiquity and the medieval period; not only was he the most prolific writer of the early Fathers, but also his epoch was one of transition, and violent transition, from the dying age of universal Roman sway to a new age, that of the barbarian peoples. As he lay dying on 28th August, 431, there came to his ears the cries of the Vandal armies laying siege to his episcopal town of Hippo.