According to the acts of the martyrdom of St. Afra, who with her handmaids suffered at the stake for Christ, there existed in Augsburg early in the fourth century a Christian community under Bishop Narcissus.

[3] Nothing authentic is known about the history of the Augsburg Church during the centuries immediately succeeding, but it survived the collapse of Roman power in Germany and the turbulence of the great migrations.

Ignatius Albert von Riegg (1824–1836) was successful in his endeavors to raise the standard of popular education through the medium of numerous ordinances and frequent visitations.

He assigned the administration and direction of studies in the Lyceum to the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Stephen in Augsburg, founded by King Ludwig I of Bavaria (1834).

The same spirit characterized the labours of the succeeding bishops: Michael Deinlein (1856–1858), who after a short episcopate was raised to the Archbishopric of Bamberg; Pankratius von Dinkel (1858–1894), under whom both seminaries and the deaf and dumb asylum were established in Dillingen, and many monastic institutions were founded; Petrus von Hotzl (1895-1902) whose episcopate was marked by the attention paid to social and intellectual pursuits, and the number of missions given among the people as well as by the solemn celebration of the beatification of the pious Franciscan sister, Maria Crescentia Höss.