Augustine, when a young adult, was deceived by the reading of the Old Testament, full of "fabulae", stories depecting superstious behaviors, and he did not want to follow the
…catholic Church authority saying that Old Testament was divinely inspired. He also wanted an answer about the origin of evil. Manicheans proposed a religious path of liberty, explaining the evil as a principle opposed to the good, the world being the place of the struggle between the two principles. There was no moral responsibility for the sins... But after nine years as an "auditor" of this sect, he could not more accept the manichean dogmas with a non-real Christ and evil as a material reality. It was an intellectual deception in his search of wisdom and truth. St Ambrose, the bishop of Milan (Italy) taught him the catholic interpretation of the Old Testament as the preparation of the New Covenant in Christ, really man and really God. Augustine then discovered God in the life of the catholic Church and asked for baptism. It was in 387. (MORE)