ADEODATO I – Seal of A. I.
ni XXII, to King Roberto and to various cardinals concerning matters relating to his monastery.
ADEODATO. - Natural son of St. Augustine, born around 372 from his illicit relationship, while still unbaptized and only seventeen, with a young woman, from whom he would not separate until Milan. She returned to Tagaste and secluded herself in a religious community to do penance. Augustine called A. "the son of his sin" (Confess., IX, 6); yet in his joy at that birth, he gave him the name A., meaning "gift of God." Little is known of his life; he followed his father to Rome, Milan, and Cassiciacum, and with him received baptism from St. Ambrose. The gifts and perspicacity of his intellect filled Augustine with pride, but also with terror (ibid.), who made him participate in the discussions recorded in the dialogues he left us from that time, assigning him an important role; for example, in the De vita beata, where the secret of happiness is sought, and even more so in the De Magistro, where the nature of language and its relation to external speech and, above all, to interior truth, the Word, is discussed. A. died young, apparently at seventeen, leaving in Augustine's heart a memory that never faded.
ADEODATO (sculptor): V. GRUAMONTE.