Who is Augustine (of Hippo), St. Augustine from Confessions and what is their importance?

Augustine is the writer of the autobiographical confessions. He is born in the town of Tagaste, in North Africa. His mother's name is Monica, and his father is Patricius. Augustine is a good student in his youth, and because of his intellectual promise, he is sent to school in literature and rhetoric. He begins to teach in Carthage after his schooling is completed. Augustine looks back at the sins of his youth. He is involved with his first sexual conquests at the age of sixteen, and loving and being in love takes up much of his time. Likewise, he is involved in stealing for pleasure and other youthful pranks.

As Augustine matures, he has only one woman. He wants to become a philosopher, a seeker of truth, after reading a work of Cicero. For a long time he is a member of the Manicheans, a sect that believes that evil has an independent existence from God. After Augustine moves to Milan, he comes into contact with Ambrose and other Christian leaders. He converts to Christianity at the age of thirty-three, renounces his plans to marry and worldly ambitions, and becomes a monk. Augustine's long commentary on the Book of Genesis gives the reader a notion of Augustine's integration of religious belief and the study of natural science and philosophy.