CHAPTER I. Augustine's birth, conversion and baptism
Augustine was born in the African province, in the city of Tagaste of honorable Christian parents of curial rank and was nurtured and trained under their care and attention. At their expense he was educated chiefly in secular literature, that is, was trained in all the disciplines which are called liberal. For he first taught grammar in his own town and then rhetoric at Carthage, the capitol of Africa. Subsequently [he taught] across the sea in the city of Rome and at Milan where the Emperor Valentinian the Younger had then established his court. |43 At that time the bishopric in this city was administered by Ambrose, a priest most acceptable to God and eminent among the best of men. As he stood among the people in the church he used to listen in eager suspense to the frequent sermons of this preacher of the Word of God. Now at one time, while still a youth at Carthage, he had been carried away by the error of the Manichaeans and therefore was more eager than others to hear whether anything would be said for or against this heresy. And by the mercy of God the Deliverer who touched the heart of His bishop, it came to pass that the questions of the Law bearing on that error were solved, and so little by little Augustine was led on by the divine compassion until the heresy was driven from his soul. Straightway, established in the Catholic faith, an ardent desire was awakened in him to perfect himself in religion, and so with the coming of the holy days of Easter he received the water of baptism. And thus it happened that by divine grace he received through the great and illustrious prelate Ambrose the salutary doctrine of the Catholic Church and the divine Sacraments.