Augustine was born in the Numidian town of Thagaste (eastern Algeria) in AD 354. At the time the Roman province of Africa and surrounding lands were secure. Augustine describes his relationship with his mother, Monica (a devout Christian), as a close bond but he describes a different and cold attitude towards his father. At the age of seventeen Augustine, with the help of a rich neighbour, proceeded to the university of Carthage where he studied rhetoric, which was the art of how to speak and write correct and eloquent Latin. Augustine excelled at these studies and became a teacher where he taught sons of nobility allowing him to make many contacts in high places.
             Being connected to the church, Augustine decided that he could not devote his life to the "philosophers quest for truth", and so he turned to the bible for guidance finding but it contradictory and repulsive. He then became very impressed with Monasticism because many members of the sect had renounced sex. He later rejected monasticism as he found that many myths were inaccurate and just as open to criticism as the bible. Augustine became a member of Neoplatonism and called himself a Christian Platonist. In the fourth century he resigned his chair of rhetoric, renounced sex and cancelled his plans of marriage: he was a prime candidate for bishopric.
             Augustine describes a long enslavement to sex and ambition in mankind as the result of original sin. He goes on and traces the corruption back to the first human pair, Adam and Eve who caused the original sin by betraying god and eating the apple. This is known as the fall of men. The story of Adam and Eve could be described as a, "multi-layered myth that has a variety of meanings"
             Augustine says that because of 'the fall', man has a love of him self and not a love for god. Men also have irrational drives especially sex and aggression and these prevent pursuit of good. Christian teachings
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