The Work of Augustine
Augustine is one of the most well known early church fathers. He was born in 354 in a North African town called Tagaste. Augustine was very well taught in the art of rhetoric and was presented with a teaching position in Milan in 384. In 386 he had a profound spiritual experience and, once converted to Christianity, he moved back to Northern Africa to become the Bishop of Hippo in 396 until his death in 430. Over the course of his life he wrote two books, the Confessions and The City of God. The Confessions was written as an overview of the first 30 years of Augustine's life and his spiritual journey as he searched for the truth in religion. His other work, The City of God, was written in response to the fall of Rome and a contriversal thought that the Christians had caused the fall of Rome. He also helped to develope the churches opinion on sexual relations. Many Christians practiced celibacy, or complete restraint from sex. Augustine supported this idea, but believed that marriage was welcomed.
Jerome and the Bible
Jerome (345-420) was most likely the smartest of the Church Fathers and like Augustine experienced a spiritual conversion. At one point in his life he had a dream in which Jesus spoke to him, and after benig greatly affected by the dream, Jerome decided to dedicate himself wholy to the Christian books. However his most important accomplishment was his translating the Bible into the Latin Vulgate version, or the common translation. At that point in time most people only knew Latin and so Jerome saw a great need for a more understandable Bible for the comman man so he translated it into Latin and it became known as the Latin Vulgate. Eventually the Latin Vulgate Bible became the standard issue Bible used in the Catholic Church.