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When one thinks of the Church in the West, St. Augustine of Hippo immediately comes to mind as one of the great pillars upon which much of Latin theology was built. Therefore, in a discussion about the Arian controversy in the Western Church one would expect that Augustine's thought would emerge as important to the dispute. However, very little scholarship, past and present, has given much attention to the African bishop's works against the Arians. Granted, Augustine was not directly involved in any of the major Arian disputes of the fourth century as were St. Hilary of Poitiers or St. Ambrose of Milan. Nor can it be denied that during most of his life Augustine's knowledge of Arianism was mostly academic, having been gleaned from orthodox refutations of heresy. Nevertheless, Augustine's Christian life actually lay several great struggles with Arianism. First of all, the year before Augustine's baptism, during Easter week of 386A.D., the Arian empress Justina Augusta, mother of Valentinian II, had ordered troops to siege Ambrose and his congregation in one of his basilicas to try to get him to surrender the church to the Arians. Augustine's mother, Monica, was among the besieged congregation. Moreover, in 406A.D., Augustine was encountered with Pascentius, called himself an arian. Though rudimentary dispute of its content, it was Augustine's directly involved confrontation. At the end of Augustine's life, he undertook a debate with the Arian bishop Maximinus. As Possidius, Augustine's comtemporary biographer, informed us that the Contra Maximinum Arianorum episcopum probably was commenced by Augustine in 427A.D. and occupied the whole space of his remaining days. Augustine also alluded to the Arians in several of his other works. As a result, Arianism was not unimportant to Augustine's life experience. And we can say about what Augustine was confronted with Arianism was homoians, which was popular in the West until his later days.