[citation needed] As described in the Confessions, Augustine first learned of Faustus shortly after joining the Manichaean faith.
The bishop was widely regarded as the most learned member of the sect in the region, and many of the more difficult questions which the newly converted Augustine put to his teachers were deferred to his arrival in Carthage: "for all the other members of the sect that I happened to meet, when they were unable to answer the questions I raised, always referred me to his coming.
Augustine writes disparagingly that "I discovered at once that he knew nothing of the liberal arts except grammar, and that only in an ordinary way.
[2] In 386, Faustus was exiled with the rest of the Manichaeans, but this decree was revoked in January 387 by Theodosius I and Arcadius.
[3] Faustus died before 400, since Augustine of Hippo's treatise, Contra Faustum, speaks of him in the past tense.