Catholics are familiar with St. Augustine, but which one? (And do you pronounce them correctly?)
There are actually two major saints named Augustine in the early history of the Church. St. Augustine of Hippo was the fourth-century North African bishop whose writings profoundly shaped Catholic theology. St. Augustine of Canterbury was a sixth-century monk sent by Pope St. Gregory the Great to evangelize England and became the first archbishop of Canterbury.
Both men provide powerful witnesses to the Catholic faith, but in very different ways. Augustine of Hippo shows us the intellectual and theological depth of Catholic Christianity. Augustine of Canterbury shows us its apostolic and missionary character.
Augustine of Hippo and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Augustine (uh-GUS-tin) of Hippo was born in 354 and spent much of his early life searching for truth outside the Catholic Church. His journey included paganism, Manichaeism, philosophy, and years of moral wandering. Eventually, through the influence of his mother Monica and the preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine came to embrace the Catholic faith. He was baptized in 387 and later became bishop of Hippo.
His importance to Catholicism is difficult to overstate. Augustine wrote extensively about grace, original sin, the Trinity, the Church, the sacraments, Scripture, Christian morality, and the nature of human happiness. His theological influence reached across the Middle Ages and continues into Catholic theology today.
But Augustine is particularly valuable for apologetics because his life demonstrates something fundamental: conversion to Catholicism need not mean abandoning the pursuit of truth or reason. Augustine was converted because his intellectual search eventually led him to a fuller understanding of the truth.
That is worth remembering in an age when Catholicism is sometimes portrayed as opposed to intellectual inquiry. Augustine was one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers precisely because he took the questions seriously.
His story also demonstrates that intellectual objections are not always the deepest obstacles to faith. Augustine knew many arguments, but he also had habits and desires that made surrender difficult. His famous prayer—“Give me chastity and continence, but not yet”—captures the uncomfortable truth that human beings can recognize the truth while still resisting its demands.
Catholic apologetics therefore cannot be reduced to winning arguments. The goal is to remove obstacles to faith and lead people toward Christ.
Augustine of Canterbury and the Apostolic Church
More than a century and a half after Augustine of Hippo’s death, another Augustine was living as a monk in Rome. Around 596, Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine (AW-guh-steen) and a group of monks to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Augustine eventually became the first archbishop of Canterbury, establishing the ecclesiastical center from which Christianity would spread throughout Anglo-Saxon England.
For Catholic apologetics, the significance of Augustine’s mission goes beyond the fact that he evangelized England. His mission gives us a glimpse of what the Catholic Church actually looked like in the sixth century—and that is important when we hear modern claims that early Christianity was simply a collection of independent communities interpreting the Faith for themselves.
Augustine did not arrive in England carrying a Bible and announcing his own interpretation of Christianity. He came as a missionary sent by the bishop of Rome. Gregory selected him, commissioned the mission, gave him instructions, and continued corresponding with him as the mission developed. When Augustine’s work required episcopal authority, he was consecrated a bishop, and he eventually received the pallium from Rome. The church Augustine established was not an independent Christian experiment. It was part of the wider Catholic communion.
Augustine did not simply reproduce Roman customs without question. He encountered Christians in Britain who followed different customs and asked Gregory for guidance. Gregory’s response demonstrates an important Catholic principle: unity of faith does not require absolute uniformity of every legitimate custom. Different liturgical and disciplinary practices could exist within the unity of the Church, provided they did not contradict the faith.
Catholic unity has never meant that every Catholic in every century must worship, pray, or organize parish life in precisely the same way. The Church has always contained legitimate diversity. What makes that diversity Catholic is communion in the same faith, sacraments, and apostolic authority.
Gregory’s instructions regarding pagan customs provide another fascinating glimpse into the Church’s approach to evangelization. He instructed Augustine not simply to destroy pagan temples, but, where appropriate, to purify and convert them to Christian use after removing their idols. The missionaries were to distinguish between what was intrinsically incompatible with Christianity and what could be redirected toward Christian worship.
That is a useful corrective to the caricature that Catholic evangelization consisted merely of destroying existing cultures and imposing Roman civilization. Augustine’s mission was neither cultural surrender nor indiscriminate cultural destruction. It was the patient work of bringing a people into the worship of the true God while discerning what could be retained, what could be purified, and what must be rejected.
When he arrived in England, Augustine was not creating Christianity from scratch. He was bringing the Catholic faith (and structure) into a new missionary territory and establishing there the same sacramental and hierarchical Church to which he already belonged.
Two Augustines, One Church
The two saints therefore offer complementary answers to two common misconceptions about Catholicism. Against the idea that faith requires abandoning reason, Augustine of Hippo stands as one of history’s greatest Christian intellectuals. His life demonstrates that Catholic faith can engage philosophy, reason, Scripture, and the deepest questions of human existence.
Against the idea that Christianity is simply a private relationship with Jesus disconnected from a visible Church, Augustine of Canterbury stands as a missionary bishop whose ministry was inseparable from the Church’s apostolic structure. One Augustine helps us understand the Faith. The other helps us understand how the Faith is transmitted.
Both ultimately point beyond themselves to the same Catholic reality: Christianity is not merely a philosophy to be understood or a private spirituality to be practiced. It is the faith handed down through the apostles, proclaimed to the nations, preserved by the Church, and ultimately ordered toward union with Christ.
That is why Catholics should know both Augustines. And perhaps it is fitting that both saints challenge modern Catholics in opposite directions. Augustine of Hippo tells us that our minds should not be afraid to pursue the truth wherever it leads. Augustine of Canterbury tells us that once we have received that truth, we have a responsibility to share it. The first Augustine teaches us to seek the truth. The second reminds us to take that truth to the world.