Last words of the faithful
Augustine of Hippo
Died 28 August 430 · Hippo, under siege
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, died on 28 August 430 while the Vandals besieged his city. His friend and biographer Possidius, who was present, records that in his final illness Augustine had the penitential psalms copied out and hung on the wall facing his bed, and read them continually, weeping as he read.
The last words
The story behind them
He wrote the Confessions and the City of God. Fifteen hundred years of Western thought, Catholic and Protestant alike, argue with him and cannot get past him. And the man who wrote more about the grace of God than almost anyone spent his last ten days looking at four psalms about his own sin.
Possidius, who had known him for forty years and was in the city, wrote it down. Augustine asked for the penitential psalms to be copied out in large letters and fixed to the wall where he could see them from his bed. He read them, and he wept, freely and constantly, and he asked to be left alone except when a doctor came or food was brought, so as not to be interrupted.
Not a summary of his own theology. Four psalms about needing mercy.
Outside the walls the Vandals were besieging Hippo, and the world he had spent his life inside was ending. There is no dying sentence recorded, and this page will not invent one for a man who would have had something quotable to say. What Possidius thought worth preserving was not a line but a habit: the greatest theologian in the Latin church, at the end, doing exactly what any believer does, which is read the psalms and cry.
What they died for, you can meet
None of these people died for an idea. They died holding onto a Person, convinced that death was not the end because he had already walked out of a tomb. The Living Bread is a quiet place to meet that same Jesus, read the Gospels for yourself, and ask your honest questions.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What were Augustine's last words?
- No dying sentence is recorded. His friend and biographer Possidius, who was present, records instead that Augustine had the penitential psalms hung on the wall facing his bed and read them continually, weeping, through his final illness.
- What are the penitential psalms?
- A traditional group of psalms of repentance, commonly numbered 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143. Psalm 51 is the best known of them.
- What was happening when Augustine died?
- The Vandals were besieging Hippo, the city where he had been bishop for decades. He died on 28 August 430, during the siege.
