In Catholic countries, Saint Augustine is blamed for male pattern baldness. They say, in his youth, when he was drunk, fell over a pile of donkey dung, and then shouted angrily, “May your noggin shine!” They say that the origin of the phrase, “Your body is your soul’s plaything,” is from his apocryphal writings. Because his father, who was a pagan, converted to Christianity on his deathbed, Augustine is the patron saint of pagans and deathbed conversions. Augustine is also the patron saint of confessors, hedonists, and naughty friends. Unions for the building trades in Uzbekestan teach Saint Augustine in their training because Saint Augustine claimed that God created everything in the universe simultaneously, not over six days. They learn to mention Saint Augustine when they review a building contract. They recite a verse they attribute to him that translates into “God can do anything; but men and construction take time.” Protestant abortion clinics in Poland display portraits of Saint Augustine because his condemnation of abortion has helped keep it in mind as an alternative. There are so many bone fragments that are regarded as Saint Augustine’s relics that if you got them all in one place you could assemble five whole skeletons from them.
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