The Early Church & Middle Ages –1479

Augustine of Hippo 354–430 Full life

1 book in the library →

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was born in Roman North Africa to a pagan father and a praying Christian mother, Monica, whose tears followed him through years of ambition, pleasure, and the Manichaean religion. In a Milan garden in 386 he heard a child chanting "take up and read," opened Paul's letters, and was undone. Baptised by Ambrose, he returned to Africa and served some thirty-five years as bishop of Hippo, writing the Confessions and The City of God and contending for grace against the Donatists and Pelagians. He died in 430 as the Vandals besieged his city.

Thomas à Kempis 1380–1471 Full life

1 book in the library →

Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471) was a German-born Dutch monk who spent roughly seventy years in a single monastery outside Zwolle, copying manuscripts, keeping his community's chronicle, and teaching its novices. Formed at Deventer among the Brethren of the Common Life, he wrote for those young men four small booklets of counsel that became The Imitation of Christ — after the Bible, the most widely read Christian book ever written. Long circulated anonymously and long disputed, it is now credited to him. His was a hidden, unhurried life, and that hiddenness is the soil the book grew in.