The Story of One of History’s Most Important Theologians

Incalculable Influence When ranking the most important theologians in the history of the church, the same few names always come up: Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. Maybe Athanasius and Anselm, and perhaps Jonathan Edwards and Karl Barth from more recent centuries. But however long the list and no matter who is making it, one name is always on it: Augustine of Hippo. He “not merely created an epoch in the history of the Church,” the great 20th Century Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield observed, but also “determined the course of its history in the West up to the present day.”1 No theologian was quoted more during the Middle Ages than Augustine. He was a key influence of Anselm, Aquinas, Gottschalk, Thomas Bradwardine, Gregory of Rimini, John Wycliffe, and Jan Hus. Luther read deeply in Augustine and began his career as an Augustinian monk. Calvin’s Institutes cites or alludes to Augustine over eight hundred times. Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein read Augustine as well. He was a pastor, poet, mystic, philosopher, controversialist, and theologian rolled into one. His influence on Christian history and on Western civilization as a whole is almost incalculable. A...