I love this biography because it shows how contact with the Islamic world was beneficial and generative to the West (and put the West back in contact with aspects of its intellectual inheritance that it had lost, like the thought of Aristotle).
That a revered saint could give credit to a pagan thinker was surprising when I first read it, as I assumed ancient Catholic theologians would be more conservative and “pure” in their philosophy, especially on the heels of their persecution by various Roman emperors.