On this day in A.D. 354, Augustine was born in North Africa. Augustine was an important figure in the history of Christianity. He wrote about topics like predestination and original sin. Some of his doctrines separate Western and Eastern Christianity, with St. Augustine defining certain doctrines of Western Christianity. He lived and died in Africa during the time of the attack of the Vandals, A.D. 430.

Read more about Augustine:

• Profile of St. Augustine
• Alaric and Vandals
• Decay, Christianity, and Vandals and the Fall of Rome
• Paintings of Augustine - Artists' Visions of the Saint

Augustine image © Clipart.com.

Two reasons to bring this word to your attention:

1. It sounds impressive in the context of an English sentence;
2. I run across it regularly in my reading, so you may, too.

That said, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms calls it an archaic scholarly term that has been replaced by the word 'nonce', which doesn't sound nearly so portentous.

Hapax legomenon (ἅπαξ λεγόμενον) is something that occurs once in the corpus of writing in a given language. It may be a word or phrase. Because of the very fragmentary transmission of ancient texts, hapaxes are more common that one might wish.

References:

• "hapax legomenon" The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Free Online Dictionary - Tells you how to pronounce it.

Martin of Tours died on this day in A.D. 397. He was made a Christian saint and became the patron of Gaul/France. His fame spread partly as a result of the writing of his disciple Sulpicius Severus who wrote a Life of Martin. Severus called Martin a model of sanctity. Before Martin became a monk and a bishop, he had been a Roman soldier. A famous legend about Martin explains that while he was a soldier in Gaul he met a shivering beggar and ripped his cloak in two to give half to the poor man. The 8th Bishop of Tours, Perpetuus, launched a cult of Martin as a protector against the evils of war and the Arian heresy.

Read more about St. Martin of Tours

St. Martin image © Clipart.com

CC Flickr User aantmoose

Need a clue?

1. The first clue is that I wasn't going to give you one.
2. The second clue is that he thought Octavian (Augustus) was on his side.
3. The third clue is that he and Mark Antony didn't see eye to eye.

Give up? Click the image or the photo credit for the answer.

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday