The painting draws inspiration from an episode in the life of St. Augustine of Ippona, North African of Tegaste in Tunisia, born in a pagan family and converted to Christianity at 32 years old, after crossing the Mediterranean sea and arriving in Italy where he heard the preaching of St. Ambrose.
This man, clear example of multiculturalism multiethnic, became the absolute protagonist of Christian philosophy and theological knowledge in the first centuries of the birth of Christianity without ever denying its African origins, By spending all his life trying to explain by reason the essence of God that only with faith can find meaning.
(In the artwork the “reason” is represented by the stick on which the Saint leans that divides the scene into two dimensions: divine and earthly)
The legend says that St. Augustine, while he was walking on the seashore meditating on how to explain to his disciples the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, he saw a child with a shell taking the water of the sea and pouring it into a small hole dug in the sand.
The Saint, intrigued, stopped and asked the child what he was doing and the child replied: “I want to pour the sea into this hole of mine.”
Augustine smiled and explained that this was impossible but the child, being serious, replied: “It is impossible for you to fathom with the smallness of your mind the immensity of the Trinitarian mystery of God” and said this disappeared from his sight.
This teaching, so simple but so effective, provided by this Angel sent by God, induced St. Augustine to review with greater awareness the limits of the human mind in understanding the divine.
The Order of the Knights of Malta, which at the beginning of its institution adopted the rule of St. Benedict of Norcia, soon found that this rule, too ascetic and monastic, could not be reconciled with their religious and military activity, therefore it considered more appropriate to adopt the rule of St. Augustine of Ippona which was more focused on the help and protection of the suffering neighbour. This rule, divided into eight chapters, reproduces the number of the points of the Cross of St. John, symbol of the Knights.
The followers of St. Augustine thus became deeply connected with the History and Culture of Malta and their theological schools were the main places of teaching for generations of Knights.
The Order’s charitable vocation, according to the teachings of the Saint, is manifested again in our day with the phenomenon of migration through the Mediterranean, in a rescue activity at sea and the reception of the many desperate refugees who put their lives at risk in search of a better future.