Saint Augustine, city (1990 pop. 11,692), seat of St. Johns co., NE Fla.; inc. 1824. Located on a peninsula between the Matanzas and San Sebastian rivers, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by Anastasia Island; the Intracoastal Waterway passes through the city. St. Augustine is a port of entry, a shrimping and commercial fishing center, and a popular year-round resort. The economic mainstay is tourism, supplemented with revenues from small industries. The oldest city in the United States, it was founded in 1565 by the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on the site of an ancient Native American village and near the place where Ponce de Léon, the discoverer of Florida, had landed in 1513. The town was burned and sacked by the English buccaneers Sir Francis Drake (1586) and Capt. John Davis (1665). St. Augustine repelled attacks by South Carolinians in 1702-3 and in 1740 by James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, but it passed to the English in 1763 at the end of the French and Indian Wars. In the American Revolution, Tories flocked to the city from the North but left when it reverted to Spain in 1783. In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and St. Augustine grew rapidly until the Seminole War in the 1830s. Union troops occupied the city in Mar., 1862, and held it throughout the Civil War. Among the old landmarks is Castillo de San Marcos, now a national monument (see National Parks and Monuments, table). The oldest masonry fort in the country (built 1672-96), it was Spain's northernmost outpost on the Atlantic in the Americas. Fort Matanzas, also a national monument, was built by Spain in 1742. Other places of interest in the city are the old schoolhouse, the house reputed to be the oldest in the United States (said to date from the late 16th cent.), and the cathedral (built 1793-97; partly restored). Flagler College is in the city.

Gallitzin, Demetrius Augustine, 1770-1840, American frontier missionary; son of Dmitri Alekseyevich Gallitzin. The young prince followed his mother in joining the Roman Catholic Church and determined to devote himself to church work in the United States. He was trained in the seminary at Baltimore, was ordained in 1795, and began itinerant missionary work among the frontiersmen and Native Americans of SW Pennsylvania, where he was known as Father Smith. At much expense to himself he founded (1799) the Catholic colony of Loretto near Gallitzin, Pa., which is named for him. There he lived out his life, refusing to return to claim his patrimony in Russia and declining ecclesiastical preferment.

De Voto, Bernard Augustine, 1897-1955, American writer and editor, b. Ogden, Utah, grad. Harvard, 1920. He taught at Northwestern Univ. (1922-27) and then at Harvard (1929-36). After 1935 he conducted "The Easy Chair" in Harper's Magazine and from 1936 to 1938 was editor of the Saturday Review of Literature. His most important writing was in the field of American history and literature. His trilogy, The Year of Decision: 1846 (1943), Across the Wide Missouri (1947), and The Course of Empire (1952), is a scholarly and vigorous study of the American West. He was the official editor of the Mark Twain manuscripts at Harvard and published Mark Twain's America (1932), Mark Twain in Eruption (1940), and Mark Twain at Work (1942). His other works include literary studies, The Literary Fallacy (1944) and The World of Fiction (1950); The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1953), which he edited; and several novels.

Birrell, Augustine, 1850-1933, English essayist and public official. As chief secretary for Ireland (1907-16) his failure to end the plotting that resulted in the Easter Rebellion of 1916 led to his retirement from politics. His works include the pleasant and urbane critical essays Obiter Dicta (3 vol.; 1884, 1887, 1924) and biographies of Charlotte Brontë (1887), William Hazlitt (1902), and Andrew Marvell (1905).

Augustine, Saint, Lat. Aurelius Augustinus, 354-430, one of the four Latin Fathers, bishop of Hippo (near present-day Annaba, Algeria), b. Tagaste (c.40 mi/60 km S of Hippo).

Life

Augustine's mother, St. Monica, was a great influence in his life. She brought him up as a Christian, but he gave up his religion when he went to school at Carthage. There he became adept in rhetoric. In his Confessions he repents of his wild youth in Carthage, during which time he fathered an illegitimate son. At some time in his youth he became a convert to Manichaeism. After 376 he went to Rome, where he taught rhetoric with success; in 384, at the urging of the Manichaeans, he went to Milan to teach.

His years at Milan were the critical period of his life. Already distrustful of Manichaeism, he came to renounce it after a deep study of Neoplatonism and skepticism. Augustine, troubled in spirit, was greatly drawn by the eloquent fervor of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. After two years of great doubt and mental disquietude, Augustine suddenly decided to embrace Christianity. He was baptized on Easter in 387. Soon afterward he returned to Tagaste, where he lived a monastic life with a group of friends. In 391, while he was visiting in Hippo, he was chosen against his will to be a Christian priest there. For the rest of his life he remained in Hippo, where he became auxiliary bishop in 395 and bishop soon after. He died in the course of the siege of Hippo by the Vandals. Feast: Aug. 28.

His Works and Teachings

St. Augustine's influence on Christianity is thought by many to be second only to that of St. Paul, and theologians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, look upon him as one of the founders of Western theology. His Confessions is considered a classic of Christian autobiography. This work (c.400), the prime source for St. Augustine's life, is a beautifully written apology for the Christian convert. Next to it his best-known work is the City of God (after 412)—a mammoth defense of Christianity against its pagan critics, and famous especially for the uniquely Christian view of history elaborated in its pages.

Augustine regarded all history as God's providential preparation of two mystical cities, one of God and one of the devil, to one or the other of which all humankind will finally belong. His greatest purely dogmatic work is On the Trinity, but much of his theological teaching comes from his polemic writings. His works against the Manichaeans, especially Against Faustus (his Manichaean teacher), are important for the light they throw on this religion. Against Donatism St. Augustine directed two works, On Baptism and On the Correction of the Donatists, in which he formulated the idea, since then become part of Roman Catholicism, that the church's authority is the guarantee of the Christian faith, its own guarantee being the apostolic succession.

The most important and vitriolic controversy in which St. Augustine was involved was his battle against Pelagianism. The Pelagians denied original sin and the fall of humanity. The implication of this aroused Augustine, who held that humanity was corrupt and helpless. From his writings the great controversies on grace proceed, and as professed followers of Augustine, John Calvin and the Jansenists developed predestinarian theologies. Though revering Augustine, many theologians have refused to accept his more extreme statements on grace. Another of St. Augustine's important treatises, On the Work of Monks, has been much used by monastics. He was also a supremely important biblical exegete. His letters are numerous and revealing. His most important works are available in translation.

Augustine of Canterbury, Saint, d. c.605, Italian missionary, called the Apostle of the English, first archbishop of Canterbury (from 601). A Roman monk, he was sent to England, as the head of some 40 monks, by Pope St. Gregory I. Arriving in 597, they were well received by King Æthelbert, who was converted by Augustine, thus making him the first Christian king in Anglo-Saxon England. Æthelbert gave the monks land at Canterbury, and a church was built on the site of the present cathedral. A monastery was also founded. Augustine's mission, introducing the more flexible and organized Roman usages, was resented by Celtic monks of the British isles, whose austerities were disparate and more severe and who kept a different date of Easter. Their differences were eventually settled in 663 at the Synod of Whitby, when England abandoned Celtic practices. Feast: May 28 (May 26 in England and Wales).

Augustine Island, unihabited volcanic island, S Alaska, in Kamishak Bay at mouth of Cook Inlet. The active Augustine (or St. Augustine) volcano, which forms the entire island, rises to 4,134 ft (1,260 m); ash from its last major eruption (1986) reached Anchorage, some 180 mi (290 km) to the northeast. The 1883 eruption is believed to have caused a 30-ft (9-m) tsunami locally.

Augustine, volcano, Alaska: see Augustine Island.

Arne, Thomas Augustine, 1710-78, English composer. Arne composed the song Rule, Britannia, based on an ode by James Thomson. He composed new music for an adaptation of Milton's masque Comus (1738) and for some of the songs in Shakespeare's plays. He also wrote operas, oratorios, including Judith (1761), instrumental music, and incidental music for plays.

City (pop., 2000: 11,592), northeastern Florida, U.S. It is the oldest continuously settled U.S. city. In 1513 Juan Ponce de León landed there in search of the Fountain of Youth and claimed the territory for Spain. It became part of the U.S. in 1821. The Castillo de San Marcos, now a national monument, is a symbol of the era of Spanish control. During the American Revolution the city was a refuge for loyalists, and during the Indian Wars it was the place of imprisonment for Osceola and other Seminoles. It is a winter and summer resort and a port on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The economy is based on tourism and fishing.

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(born Feb. 2, 1882, Dublin, Ire.—died Jan. 13, 1941, Zürich, Switz.) Irish novelist. Educated at a Jesuit school (though he soon rejected Catholicism) and at University College, Dublin, he decided early to become a writer. In 1902 he moved to Paris, which would become his principal home after years spent in Trieste and Zürich. His life was difficult, marked by financial troubles, chronic eye diseases that occasionally left him totally blind, censorship problems, and his daughter Lucia's mental illness. The remarkable story collection The Dubliners (1914) and the autobiographical novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), his early prose volumes, were powerful examples of his gift for storytelling and his great intelligence. With financial help from friends and supporters, including Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), and Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961), he spent seven years writing Ulysses (1922), the controversial masterpiece (initially banned in the U.S. and Britain) now widely regarded by many as the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. It embodies a highly experimental use of language and exploration of such new literary methods as interior monologue and stream-of-consciousness narrative. He spent 17 years on his final work, the extraordinary Finnegans Wake (1939), famous for its complex and demanding linguistic virtuosity.

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(born Jan. 11, 1897, Ogden, Utah, U.S.—died Nov. 13, 1955, New York, N.Y.) U.S. journalist, historian, and critic. De Voto taught at Northwestern and Harvard universities, briefly edited The Saturday Review (1936–38), and wrote a column for Harper's (1935–55). Known for his works on American literature and the history of the western frontier as well as for his vigorous, outspoken style, he was one of the most widely read critics and historians of his day. Among his nonfiction works are Mark Twain's America (1932), Across the Wide Missouri (1948, Pulitzer Prize), and The Course of Empire (1952).

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(born Nov. 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia—died Aug. 28, 430, Hippo Regius; feast day August 28) Christian theologian and one of the Latin Fathers of the Church. Born in Roman North Africa, he adopted Manichaeism, taught rhetoric in Carthage, and fathered a son. After moving to Milan he converted to Christianity under the influence of St. Ambrose, who baptized him in 387. He returned to Africa to pursue a contemplative life, and in 396 he became bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Alg.), a post he held until his death while the city was under siege by a Vandal army. His best-known works include the Confessions, an autobiographical meditation on God's grace, and The City of God, on the nature of human society and the place of Christianity in history. His theological works On Christian Doctrine and On the Trinity are also widely read. His sermons and letters show the influence of Neoplatonism and carry on debates with the proponents of Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. His views on predestination influenced later theologians, notably John Calvin. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in the early Middle Ages.

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(born , Rome?—died May 26, 604/605, Canterbury, Kent, Eng.; feast day May 26 in England and Wales, May 28 elsewhere) First archbishop of Canterbury. A Benedictine prior in Rome, he was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead 40 monks as missionaries to England. They arrived in 597 and were welcomed by King Ethelbert of Kent, at the behest of his queen, and he gave them a church in Canterbury. Augustine converted the king and thousands of his subjects and was made bishop of the English. On the pope's instructions he purified pagan temples and consecrated 12 other bishops. He founded Christ Church, Canterbury, as his cathedral and made Canterbury the primary see in England. He tried unsuccessfully to unify his churches with the Celtic churches of northern Wales.

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(born March 12, 1710, London, Eng.—died March 5, 1778, London) British composer. Son of a London upholsterer, he secretly taught himself instrumental skills and composition with the help of an opera musician. Smitten by the opera, he had an early success with his own first opera, Rosamond (1733), and thereafter concentrated almost exclusively on the theatre. As composer to Drury Lane Theatre and London's great pleasure gardens, he became Britain's leading theatrical composer and, after George Frideric Handel, possibly the finest British composer of the century. Of his approximately 90 theatrical works, the best known are Comus (1738), The Judgment of Paris (1740), and Artaxerxes (1762). His song “Rule, Britannia” became an unofficial national anthem. His sister Susannah (1714–66) was the famous singer and actress known as Mrs. Cibber.

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