People like to cite Augustine as a “real” saint, as a “you too could be this” saint. I am of the personal opinion that people who say this have likely never read any Augustine. If they had, they’d never number one of the greatest Latin stylists of all time as an “accessible saint.” By the same logic, it is also technically possible to develop calculus spontaneously. Possible, but not likely nor expected.

Whereas normal people thoughts dwell in the realm of “What’s For Dinner?” and “Why Does Toast Fall Butter-Side Down?”, St. Augustine’s thoughts live in a lofty, crystalline plane of perfectly structured logic. Reading Augustine in Latin is like catching sunlight through a sheet of ice; all illumination and no warmth. (Reading Augustine in translation has been compared to listening to Mozart on a kazoo.)

Augustine’s wretched life of sin and debauchery can be summarized as follows: as an infant, he selfishly fought his siblings for their mother’s attention. As a single man, he was in a long-term relationship with a woman, and sired a child by her. He enjoyed rhetoric and the theater, and longed for a high-ranking civil service position. A book of saints for children declared that Augustine read “bad books,” by which they meant the works of Cicero. (Apparently, children, Cicero is a bad, bad man. Every time a starving African child dies, that is who to blame. Also, your mother issues are Cicero’s fault. Loud music, degenerate teenagers in baggy pants, huffing glue- Cicero.)

If Augustine is the “sinner-saint,” the rest of us are damned, one mortal sin being enough to damn us forever.

This is the paradox of his being, that the same brilliant intellect which drove Augustine to sin with Cicero drove him hence to God. If he were not a great saint, he would have been a great sinner. His weakness was his strength, but how many lesser mortals have both such weakness and such strength? How many lesser mortals are at once both more than human and less than human? How many are cast from that same alloy of supernatural virtue and subhuman emotion- saints made of metal, stone, and ice- fantastic and terrible?