'Give me chastity, but not yet' (Confessions VIII,7)

Pray with Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a North African rhetoric professor who, after a restless youth of worldly ambition and a long spiritual search through Manichaeism and Neoplatonism, converted to Christianity in a Milan garden and became Bishop of Hippo — one of the most influential theologians of the Western Church. He is remembered above all for his Confessions, the first true autobiography of the West, written from beginning to end as a prayer, and for The City of God; the Church honors him as a Doctor of the Church.

Patron of TheologiansPrintersBrewers

Feast day · August 28

I Signature moments

What made Augustine remarkable

The moments worth telling — the astonishing turns of a life.

c. 370

The stolen pears

He was sixteen, and the pears were not even good. He and his friends shook a neighbour's tree at midnight, took more than they could eat and threw the rest to the pigs. Decades later he devotes pages of the Confessions to that one night, because it will not let him go: he did not steal from hunger or want. He stole because it was forbidden, and because the others were watching.

He is not confessing a crime, he is confessing a taste for it. Anyone who has done something only because it was not allowed knows the tree he is talking about.

c. 373

Reading the Hortensius

At nineteen, studying rhetoric at Carthage — a discipline he later called selling words — he is assigned Cicero's Hortensius, an exhortation to philosophy. The book does not convert him to anything; it does something worse. It gives him a hunger no career can feed. From that night on he wants truth itself, and spends the next thirteen years looking for it in every direction except the one he was raised in.

One book turned an ambitious student into a restless one. That restlessness cost him thirteen years and was the best thing that happened to him.

386

"Take up and read"

Milan, a garden, and a man of thirty-two who has been arguing with himself for years — willing to change and unwilling in the same breath. He throws himself under a fig tree and weeps. Then a child's voice from over the wall, in a sing-song: tolle, lege — take up and read. He opens Paul at random and reads one sentence about putting on Christ. He does not need a second.

The most famous conversion in the West happened to a man who already knew everything he needed to know. The distance he had to cross was not from ignorance to knowledge but from knowing to willing.

+All 6 moments

Easter 387

Baptism by Ambrose

Easter night 387, in Milan. Ambrose — the bishop whose preaching had first disarmed him — baptises Augustine together with his fifteen-year-old son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius. Three men who had come by three different roads go into the water at once. Within two years Adeodatus is dead, and his father writes that the boy's mind had frightened him.

He did not arrive alone, and he was not spared afterwards. Baptism is a beginning, not a settlement.

387

The vision at Ostia

At the port of Ostia, waiting for a ship home to Africa, Augustine and his mother stand at a window talking about eternal life. The conversation climbs — past bodies, past the stars, past their own minds — until for one beat they touch what they are speaking of, and fall back into words. Monica says she has nothing left to wait for. Five days later she is ill; within a fortnight she is dead.

Thirty years she had prayed for him, and she got her answer just in time to say goodbye. The high point of the Confessions is a conversation between a son and his mother.

413–426

Writing The City of God

In 410 Rome is sacked, and the empire looks for someone to blame: the old gods were abandoned, and this is the bill. Augustine answers with thirteen years of writing. Two loves have built two cities, he says — love of self to the contempt of God, and love of God to the contempt of self — and they are mixed together in every institution on earth until the end. No empire is the Kingdom, and none has to be.

He wrote it while the world he knew was ending, and he was right to. Vandals were besieging his own city when he died.

II In their own words

Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.
Augustine of Hippo · Confessions (Pusey translation) · I,1

“Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad.”
— Confessions (Pusey translation) · X,27

“Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee.”
— Confessions (Pusey translation) · X,27

III

Who was Augustine?

Augustine is born in 354 in Thagaste, in present-day Algeria — a North African, son of the tirelessly praying Monnica and a pagan father. A brilliant mind: rhetoric studies in Carthage, his own school early on, ambition with no brakes.

We know his wild years because he wrote them down himself, more honestly than any biographer: at seventeen a mistress, at eighteen the father of a son, nine years in the sect of the Manichaeans. His prayer from that time he later quotes with bitter wit against himself: "Grant me chastity and continence — but not yet" (Confessiones VIII,7).

What Augustine wrote

The writings that survive — and what tradition only ascribes.

Confessions (Confessiones), c. 397–400 spiritual autobiography and prayer; authentic.
The City of God (De civitate Dei), 413–426 theology of history and the "two cities"; authentic.
On Christian Teaching (De doctrina christiana), begun 397, finished c. 426 biblical interpretation and preaching; authentic.
On the Trinity (De Trinitate), c. 400–428 the doctrine of God; authentic.
Reconsiderations (Retractationes), 426–427 a self-critical review of his own books; authentic.
Expositions on the Psalms (Enarrationes in Psalmos), sermons and dictations over decades; authentic.
Letters and Sermons hundreds survive, including Letter 130 to Proba on prayer; authentic.
The Rule of St Augustineattributed (Praeceptum) a short monastic rule; widely accepted as substantially his, though its exact form is debated (attributed).

Prayers

The prayers themselves, and how each one came to be.

In their own words

Give me chastity and continency, only not yet.

Confessions, Book VIII, ch. 7 (§17)

In their own words

Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.

Confessions, Book I, ch. 1 (§1)

In their own words

"Too late loved I Thee"

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee... Thou calledst, and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst my blindness.

Confessions, Book X, ch. 27 (§38)

The Church's prayer

Collect for the Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo (28 August)

Give ear, O almighty God, to our humble petitions; and grant that we, to whom Thou grantest the hope of Thy mercy, may, through the intercession of blessed Augustine, Thy Confessor and Bishop, feel the effects of Thy accustomed clemency. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

How Augustine prayed

Augustine's whole Confessions is written as a prayer — the entire book is addressed to God in the second person, so that his life story and his prayer are the same act. That form tells us something true about how he prayed: for Augustine, prayer was above all the honest turning of the heart back toward God, the restless heart seeking its rest.

The documented pattern of his life shows prayer woven into everything. His conversion in the Milan garden (386) came in a fit of weeping and pleading; his baptism at Easter 387 was its liturgical seal. The shared contemplative vision with his mother Monica at Ostia — the two of them "panting" after eternal Wisdom until they touched it for an instant before falling back into ordinary speech — is one of the most quoted descriptions of contemplative prayer in Christian literature (Confessions IX). As a bishop he prayed the Psalms daily, preached on them at length in his Expositions on the Psalms, and led his community's common prayer.

His death, as reported by his friend and biographer Possidius, shows the same rootedness: in his final illness Augustine had the penitential psalms copied out and hung on the wall by his bed, and he prayed them, weeping, until he died. He did not treat prayer as a technique to master but as the lifelong reorientation of desire — which is why he could write that our very longing, when it is continual, is itself continual prayer.

Praying with the saints

Augustine, Mary, and the rosary

Augustine lived in the 4th and 5th centuries, long before the rosary took its present form (13th-15th century), so he never prayed it. The honest bridge is his reverence for Mary, which runs deep in his theology.

In defending the sinlessness of Christ, Augustine famously made one exception for his mother:

That single sentence was one of the texts later theologians leaned on when the Church came to define Mary's Immaculate Conception. When a soul prays the rosary today, resting on the belief that Mary was uniquely full of grace, it stands on ground Augustine helped clear.

“With the exception of the holy Virgin Mary, in regard to whom, out of honour for the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all when we treat of sin.”
Augustine, On Nature and Grace (De natura et gratia) 36,42

To pray with Augustine, then, is to pray with the Doctor of Grace who taught the West to speak carefully and lovingly of the Mother of God.

Pray with others

Thomas Aquinas →

The dumb ox, who at the end called his work straw

Jesus Christ →

God made man, who withdrew to the mountains at night to pray

Thérèse of Lisieux →

Youngest Doctor of the Church, teacher of the little way

VI Patron of

Patron of what — and why

Some of it a life decided. Some of it a pope declared.

Theologians

Augustine is one of the most influential thinkers in Western Christianity. His Confessions, City of God, On the Trinity and anti-Pelagian works shaped Catholic teaching on grace, original sin and the Church, earning him the title Doctor of Grace and making him the natural patron of those who study God.

Devotional patronage tradition, grounded in his standing as a Doctor of the Church (declared 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII, alongside Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory the Great as the four great Latin Doctors). The Doctor declaration is a formal papal act; the patronage of theologians itself is traditional, not a separate papal decree.

Printers

His writings were among the most copied and, later, most printed texts of Christendom; the sheer volume of Augustine's books is said to have kept early presses busy, so printers took the prolific author as their patron.

Devotional patronage tradition (Catholic Online; Hallow saint profile). Grounded in his exceptional literary output rather than a papal decree.

Brewers

In his Confessions Augustine describes a youth of indulgence and worldly appetite followed by a dramatic conversion. Those who work with drink, and those who struggle to master an appetite, look to the man who candidly told his own story of excess turned to grace.

Devotional patronage tradition tied to the account of his early life in the Confessions (Catholic Online; Convivio Book of Days). Not a formal papal declaration.

Frequently asked

What is Saint Augustine of Hippo the patron saint of?+

Augustine is the patron saint of theologians, printers and brewers. He is honoured as patron of theologians because he is one of the greatest teachers of the Western Church (a Doctor of the Church since 1298); of printers because of his enormous body of writing; and of brewers because his Confessions tell of a youth of indulgence turned to grace.

When is the feast day of Saint Augustine?+

His feast day is 28 August, the date of his death in 430. It falls the day after the feast of his mother, Saint Monica (27 August), whose prayers the Church credits with his conversion.

Who was Augustine of Hippo?+

Augustine (354-430) was a North African bishop, philosopher and theologian, born in Thagaste and made bishop of Hippo Regius in 396 (both in present-day Algeria). Baptised by Saint Ambrose in Milan in 387 after a long conversion, he became the most influential theologian of the Latin Church and wrote the Confessions and The City of God.

Why is Augustine called a Doctor of the Church?+

A Doctor of the Church is a saint whose writings hold special authority for the whole Church. Pope Boniface VIII named Augustine one in 1298, grouping him with Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory the Great as the four great Latin Doctors. He is especially called the Doctor of Grace for his teaching on grace and salvation.

What does 'Give me chastity, but not yet' mean?+

It is Augustine's own honest confession of a divided heart before his conversion. In the Confessions (Book VIII) he recalls praying for purity while secretly not wanting God to grant it too soon. The line has become a byword for the human struggle to want what is good yet delay embracing it.

Was Augustine part of a religious order?+

No formal religious order existed in his lifetime, but as bishop he gathered his clergy into a shared, disciplined common life and wrote a Rule for it. Centuries later that Rule of Saint Augustine became the foundation of the Order of Saint Augustine (the Augustinians) and many other communities, so he is regarded as their spiritual father.

Why pray with Saint Augustine?+

Because few saints are as honest about failure and grace. Augustine wrote openly of his wandering years and his slow surrender to God, so those who feel far from holiness find in him a companion who understands the road back. He is a fitting patron for anyone seeking conversion, clearer faith, or the discipline to change.

Did Augustine have a devotion to Mary or pray the rosary?+

Augustine lived a thousand years before the rosary took its present form, so he never prayed it. He did, however, hold Mary in deep reverence: in On Nature and Grace he set her apart from every question of sin 'out of honour for the Lord', a teaching later theologians drew on when the Church defined the Immaculate Conception.

Sources & further reading+

Augustine, *Confessions*, trans. E. B. Pusey (1838) — his own account of his life, conversion and prayer; the primary text · reliability: high (autobiography; PD translation).
Possidius, *Life of Augustine* (c. 437) — eyewitness biography by a friend; his ordination, episcopate and death · reliability: high.
Wikipedia, "Augustine of Hippo" (Q8018) — dates, places, career outline; confirms the person and guards against confusion with Augustine of Canterbury · reliability: high.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, "St. Augustine" — biography, works, chronology · reliability: high.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Augustine of Hippo" — intellectual development (Manichaeism, Neoplatonism), dating of works · reliability: high.
Augustine, Letter 130 (to Proba) and *Expositions on the Psalms*, NPNF series ed. Schaff — his explicit teaching on prayer · reliability: high (PD translations).
WIST / Loeb references for Latin text (Conf. 8.7.17; 10.27.38) — verification of original Latin and section numbering · reliability: high.

Pray with Augustine of Hippo

What made Augustine remarkable

The stolen pears

Reading the *Hortensius*

"Take up and read"

Baptism by Ambrose

The vision at Ostia

Writing *The City of God*

Who was Augustine?

What Augustine wrote

Prayers

"Too late loved I Thee"

Collect for the Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo (28 August)

How Augustine prayed

Augustine, Mary, and the rosary

Pray with others

Patron of what — and why

Theologians

Printers

Brewers

Reading the Hortensius

Writing The City of God