An immersive YA biography and introduction to the bold and deeply influential life of Saint Augustine, a philosopher from the waning years of the Roman Empire whose work has guided Western thought for nearly two thousand years.
In a time when Christianity was just finding its footing on the world stage, Augustine of Hippo left his permanent imprint on the religion and consequently on all of Western civilization. In Augustine: The Longings of a Restless Heart, Devra Lehmann constructs an accessible narrative of the seminal thinker and theologian who wrote Confessions and City of God.
“Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart.”—Augustine of Hippo
Augustine, who served as the bishop of Hippo from 396 C.E. until his death in 430 C.E., spoke of a radical and inescapable dependence on the unfathomable will of God. Augustine comes to life in this biography—his childhood in the north African town of Thagaste, his adult years as a Manichean and teacher in Africa and Italy, his conversion to Catholicism under the guidance of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, and his rise to prominence with his enduring synthesis of Christianity and Neoplatonism. Augustine’s views on creation, original sin, divine grace, and the Trinity remain pillars of Christian theology, and his reflections on language, time, memory, and war have had a profound impact on the field of philosophy. His work illuminates the human condition for believers and nonbelievers alike: “I turned towards myself, and said to myself: ‘Who are you?’”
DEVRA LEHMANN is the author of Socrates: A Life Worth Living and Spinoza: The Outcast Thinker, which won the 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. In her 35 years in the classroom, she has taught preschoolers to sound out monosyllables, high schoolers to read Shakespeare, and adults to parse Talmudic passages. She is now at work on a young adult biography of Augustine of Hippo.
