Aparte de los autores del Nuevo Testamento, ningun escritor ni pensador cristiano ha dejado en la vida y pensamiento de la iglesia a traves de los siglos una hella que pueda compararse a la de San Agustin fue a traves de los ojos de Agustin que la cristiandad medieval de habla latina leyo las Escrituras y compriendio la fe. Cuando, mil anos mas tarde, aquella cristiandad occidental se dividio como resultado de la Reforma protestante, ambos bandos del gran debate reclamaban la autoridad de Agustin, cada cual en apoyo de sus posturas. Hasta el dia de hoy, la inmensa mayoria de los cristianos, al ver por ejemplo las epistolas de Pablo, lo hace sin siquiera saberlo a traves de los ojos de Agustin. The subject of mestizaje the in-between-ness of living between two cultures, and belonging at once to both and to neither of the two is a crucial theme in U.S. Hispanic reflection today, theological as well as not. This book is, as its title says, a basic introduction to the thought of Saint Augustine. But it takes into account the dual roots of Augustine himself, his African mother on the one hand, and his Roman father and Greco-Roman education on the other. These two were at tension throughout his life and help us understand much of the drama leading to his conversion as well as his theology."