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ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



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SAINT AUGUSTINE 



AND HIS AGE 



BY 



JOSEPH MUGABE 



AUTHOR OF 



4 PETER ABELARD, ETC. 




LONDON 

DUCKWORTH and CO, 

3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 
I 9O2 







Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Maie 



Majesty 



TO 



SIR LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B. 



IN GRATEFUL REGARD 



PREFACE 

THIS work is an attempt to interpret the life of 
one of the most famous saints of the Christian 
Church by the light of psychology rather than 
by that of theology. There are many biographies 
of Saint Augustine though our own literature is 
singularly poor in this respect but all are con 
structed on the perverse type which is followed 
by Augustine himself in his seductive Confessions. 
When one brings to the story a saving tincture 
of Pelagianism, the distribution of light and shade 
seems to fall under more familiar laws. I have 
tried to exhibit the development of Augustine as 
an orderly mental and moral growth, and to 
present it in harmonious relation to the many 
other interesting figures and groups on the broad 
canvas of his age. 

June 1902. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA i 

IT. THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE ... 22 

III. MENTAL GROWTH 44 

IV. THE ETERNAL CITY . 69 
V. THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW .... 87 

VI. LIGHT FROM THE EAST 114 

VII. CONVERSION . . 141 

VIII. RETURN TO AFRICA 166 

IX. THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 193 

X. THE DAILY TASK 213 

XT. AUGUSTINE AND THE DONATTST SCHISM . 243 

XII. THE DYING OF PAGANISM 278 

XIII. ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME . 298 



ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAP. 



PACK 



XIV. THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE . ... 321 

XV. AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 35l 

XVI. EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS . . .385 

XVII. A SADDENED TERMINATION 4 , 2 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 43I 

INDEX 435 



CHAPTER I 

LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 

AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS, known to all time as St. 
Augustine of Hippo, was born at Thagaste (now 
Souk-Arras, in Algeria) about the middle of the 
fourth century. 

A glance at the map of Africa discovers a strip 
of territory of singular situation on its north-west 
border. Isolated from the rest of the continent 
by a range of lofty mountains that extends from 
Tunis to the Atlantic, its broad and fertile plains 
open to the breath of the great sea which was the 
heart of the world for so many ages, it seems to 
have been prepared by nature as the theatre of 
some thrilling national life. It seems as though 
it should have a natural immunity from the curse 
of Cham. Yet in the story of the nations that 
richly endowed territory has ever played the part 
of a dependency. Very early in history the 
Phoenicians wrested it from its native population, 



2 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

and built up the kingdom of Carthage on its fruit 
ful soil. Rome made utter wreck of their work, 
and in its turn created a dependent African king 
dom. In the fifth century a Teutonic race swept 
over it from the west ; in the seventh the Arabs 
poured over it from the east. And the modern 
traveller finds himself wandering in a vast world 
of tombs, from which the last degenerate sons of 
the Prophet are emerging at the bidding of a new 
conqueror. 

In the fourth century this strip of the African 
coast was one of the most important c dioceses of 
the Western Empire. Far away towards the crests 
of the Atlas a Roman legion protected it from the 
Libyan tribes of the mountains and the desert. 
The natural frontier formed by the steep southern 
face of the mountains was guarded by a long chain 
of forts and signal-towers. The soldiers were 
generously endowed with gifts of land, and had 
intermarried with the more peaceful of the Libyans. 
Only when the signal-fire glared from the towers, 
telling that some fierce band of Getulians had 
crept through the passes in search of slaves and 
booty, the bronzed veterans formed up at the 
camps, to guard the sacred * peace of Rome/ 
Usually they looked down from their forts and 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 3 

hill-towns on the merry, thoughtless life of the 
soul of the empire/ as Salvianus calls Roman 
Africa. The land fell in a series of broad plateaus, 
with steep ridges, down to the shore of the Medi 
terranean. Large and beautiful towns, frequently 
models of Rome in African marble, met the eye 
at intervals, connected by the famous, imperish 
able Roman roads. The country was divided into 
immense estates, which were chiefly in thfc hands 
of the emperor or of senatorial families. Day 
after day the slaves and the native Libyans, reduced 
to the condition of labourers, or tenant-farmers, 
or small proprietors, toiled under the fierce African 
sun in the endless corn-fields, to feed the proud 
idlers of distant Rome 

4 Oui saturant urbem circo scenseque vacantem, 
as Juvenal reminded his fellow-citizens one day. 
Here and there the villa of some provincial 
senator could be seen, unimpressive without, but 
equipped with extreme luxury within ; and hun 
dreds of villages were scattered over what is now 
the wilderness of Algeria and Tunis. 1 

Thagaste was a small and unimportant muni- 
cipium of Numidia (the eastern half of modern 

1 See G. Boissier s Roman Africa, and Davis s Ruined Cities of 
Numidia, 



4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Algeria). It lay about fifty miles to the south of 
Hippo (near the actual Bona), on the first of the 
great plateaus which ascended by steps from the 
sea. The distinction of the municipium and the 
colonia had become one of name only in the fourth 
century ; they were equally protected, and equally 
plundered, by Rome. Each town had its self- 
contained municipal machinery ; and, provided the 
taxes were paid regularly into the imperial treasury, 
and the corn-ships sailed in due season for Ostia, 
it was left to regulate its own local life. The 
ordinary municipal officers, the curiales or decuri- 
ones, had usually inherited the office from their 
fathers, and they chose the higher magistrates 
from their number. The barbarous fiscal system * 
of Rome, which had laid a collective responsibility 
for the imperial taxes on these curials, was already 
ruining the class the middle-class of the empire, 
the nerves of the commonwealth, as Majorian 
termed them and sapping the economic founda 
tion of the empire. In the legislation of the 
fourth century we find them fleeing in despair 
from their hereditary honour ; we find the 
imperial officers pursuing them into the army, 
into the service of the palace, into the lands of the 

1 Hodgkin s Italy and her Invaders. 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 5 

barbarians, into the slave-huts of the peasantry, 
even into the monasteries of the desert, and drag 
ging them back to their curia ; we find men 
forced to assume the uncoveted honour as soon 
as they have acquired property enough to share 
the financial burden. The weight of imperial 
taxation, added to the municipal charge, was 
crushing them to the earth. 

For, in the economy of a Roman town, the 
financial burden fell upon this hereditary class of 
curials and the higher officials. Thus it was that, 
before the burden of taxation became excessive 
and the class reduced, the towns of Africa were 
enriched with many a beautiful structure. The 
modern traveller in Algeria still finds a noble arch 
of marble welcoming him amidst the mounds of 
ruin that were once a Roman town. Other towns 
had a forum with columns of marble and sculp 
tured portico, a vast amphitheatre, a circus, an 
ornate temple. All had public baths with wide 
colonnades, spacious gaming-rooms, luxury upon 
luxury. The duumvir had to prove his generosity 
on his election, to spend fabulous sums on the 
decoration of the town and the amusement of its 
inhabitants. In the villages, no doubt, life was 
hard enough. The villager yoked his wife and 



6 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

his ass to his plough in the early morn as Pliny 
found him in the first century and Tissot in the 
nineteenth and laboured the livelong day in as 
happy an ignorance of economics as that of the 
modern Indian ryot. For the townsman life was 
pleasant. Augustine summed it up contemptuously 
at a later date as * spectare, contendere, manducare, 
bibere, concumbere, dormire. So it seemed to 
them also. A few years ago explorers cleared the 
floor of the forum in the ruins of Thamugade. 
On one of the slabs, which seems to have been 
used as a gaming-table, there was the inscription 



VENARI LAVARI 

LUDERE RIDERE 

OCC EST VIVERE 



Their life was a remote imitation of that of great 
Rome. There was, in truth, more work done in 
Africa. It was only at Rome and Constantinople, 
and possibly Antioch and Alexandria, that strong 
men held out a shameless hand for public rations. 
But with their baths and circuses and pantomimes, 
their ignorance of politics, their genial gods and 
goddesses, the Afro-Romans led a merry life, while 
the legions kept their eternal watch on the hills. 
The shadow of the cross had fallen on the land, 
it is true, but for the vast majority it as yet 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 7 

provided only another amusement and distraction. 
It has been calculated l that the Christians formed 
about two and a half per cent, of the population 
of Roman Africa at the beginning of the fourth 
century. Salvianus puts them in a minority even 
in the fifth century. But it is clear from Augus 
tine s sermons that a large proportion of them 
were nominal Christians only. Africa still looked 
rather to the smile of Astarte than to the frown 
of Jehovah. Even in Augustine s greatest days 
he found his basilica almost empty, as he sadly 
complains, when his services coincided with the 
Saturnalia or the Floralia. 2 

In addition, the African Church at that time 
offered the pagan observers the novel and interest 
ing spectacle of a religious schism. Africa had 
hitherto been of an accommodating temper in 
matters of theology. It had given a generous 
reception to the deities imported by the Punic 
invaders, and had readily transformed Baal- 
Hammon into Saturn, and Astarte into a kind of 
amalgamation of Juno, Venus, Diana, Minerva, 
and Ceres, out of compliment to the Romans. It 

1 See Schultze s Geschichte des Untergangs des Heidenthums. 

2 It is veiy misleading to estimate the Christian population from 
the number of bishops, as is done sometimes. A bishop might be 
no more than a village pastor, as will appear afterwards. 



ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

was, therefore, not a little perplexed when the 
enterprising sect of the Christians suddenly fell 
into two bitterly hostile sections. It looked on 
with amusement at the setting up of rival basilicas 
and bishops, listened with interest to the loud 
public discussions of the morals of each other s 
clergy, and lent a friendly hand in the sanguinary 
encounters with which arguments were very fre 
quently enforced. And the root of all this un 
usual excitement was as far as the pagan could 
gather from the ballads which they flung at each 
other across the forum not even a question of 
deities, but merely a dispute whether the lustral 
water blessed by the bishops of one faction was 
more efficacious than that of their rivals. 1 

Such was the world into which Augustine was 
admitted on the ijth of November, 354. A few 
years before his birth Thagaste had seen the 
defeat of the local schismatics and the triumph 
of the orthodox party. A few strokes of the 
imperial whip had opened minds which had been 
inaccessible to argument or grace for some thirty- 
five years. Yet the Christian community was 
poor and inconsiderable. Augustine s mother, 

1 The Donatist schism, of which I give here the pagan impression, 
will be explained at a later stage. 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 9 

Monica, was a Christian ; and, although she 
seems to have shown no particular zeal in his 
early years, it is possible that her later devotion 
had some indirect influence on the course of his 
development. Augustine is obviously troubled in 
his Confessions about her earlier neglect, yet he has 
depicted her as a woman of exceptionally religious 
character. Her husband, Patricius, was an Afro- 
Roman of the usual type. Very irascible and very 
generous, unrestrained by religious convictions 
or by the Christian view of conjugal duty, he 
is said to have yielded to his wife s importunity 
and accepted the restrictions of Christianity, like 
so many others, when his earthly life seemed 
to be drawing to a close. He was a curial of his 
native town, but of small fortune. Possibly some 
ancestor of his had been honoured with the higher 
magistracy, an elevation which had ruined many a 
curial patrimony. Even small towns exacted a 
heavy fee for such a promotion, and the duum 
vir who did not in addition erect a permanent 
memorial of his gratitude in the town might ex 
pect some discomfort. The charge was heredi 
tary ; Augustine escaped it by becoming a teacher, 
and thus secured the liberty to dispose of his pro 
perty, which was rigorously denied to the unhappy 



io ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

curial. A brother and a sister, barely mentioned 
by Augustine, complete the circle of his family. 

We will not follow Augustine in his stern 
inquiry into his behaviour as an infant. Indeed, 
even he, with all his sorry^ eagerness to arraign his 
earlier self, can only conclude that he shared the 
vices of infants in general. His earliest recollec 
tions refer, naturally, to his school-days. The 
Roman boy usually began to learn his letters at 
the age of five or six. Frequently the mother 
taught him first to identify the ivory letters, and 
draw the stile across the waxed tablet, and count 
the beads on the abacus. But if his father were 
not of the wealthy class that hired private tutors, 
he was soon conducted by his pedagogue (not the 
teacher, but the slave who accompanied him to 
school) to the elementary school. The calculo or 
liter ator, as the ^ first master was called, earned 
a slender salary by his instructions in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic. An open porch, with 
perhaps sheets of canvas stretched from column 
to column at the sides, generally served as his 
establishment. There the little boys and girls sat 
together on the benches, and sang their c twice 
two are four that odious refrain/ said Augus 
tine, later pretty much as they have done until 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA n 

recent years. Corporal punishment was by no 
means discouraged, and little Augustinus seems to 
have made a close acquaintance with the strap and 
rod and ferule. He felt little attraction for the 
early lessons, and a game at ball at undue seasons 
brought him many a thrashing. In naive imita 
tion of his elders who call the child s games 
trifles and their own trifles c business/ he said 
afterwards he used to persevere with his game, 
and then beg the deity to save him from the 
natural penalty. 

If we are to believe the Confessions, the shadow 
of coming sins was already upon the boy. He is 
at much pains to discover the play of his criminal 
instincts in his boyhood. Most of us will find a 
not unfamiliar corruption in his early misdeeds. 
He not only neglected his lessons for play, but he 
cheated his companions sometimes. He used to 
steal comestibles from the house, either for his 
own consumption or to bribe other boys in the 
interest of his games. The British boy of the 
twentieth century is said to have somewhat 
similar vices. Still, one can follow Augustine 
with amiable sympathy when the recollection 
leads him to enlarge on the alleged innocence 
of childhood. It was a symbol of humility that 



12 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Thou didst mark in the stature of the child when 
Thou didst say : " Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." l 

When Augustine passed from the literator to 
the school of the literatus or gramma ficus y he 
began to feel the attraction of learning, and to 
earn praise as a youth of promise. The gram 
marian was a teacher of a different type altogether 
from the elementary master. His school, with 
the curtains hanging impressively over the en 
trance, was an important institution in the forum. 
The municipality was bound to provide him with 
a permanent salary, in addition to the fees and 
gifts he received from the pupils. Though his 
instruction was covered by the general title of 
grammar, it is hardly necessary to say that this 
meant much more than the study which bears 
that name to-day. Beginning with the study of 
the great Latin writers, much as it is conducted 
in our own schools to-day, the grammarian went 
on to add all the liberal arts which were likely to 
aid in the elucidation of the text. Even in Africa 
Latin was the everyday language of the pupils ; 
Punic was confined to the poorer classes, to such 
an extent that the Church had frequently some 

1 Confessions, i. 20. 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 13 

difficulty in finding pastors who spoke the native 
tongue. The task of the grammarian was, there 
fore, something more than a mere interpreta 
tion of the text of Virgil and Horace. Every 
allusion to history, mythology, or science had to 
be followed to its source. Music, geometry, 
astronomy, and philosophy (to some extent) had 
to be imparted to the pupil. In all this Augus 
tine found a congenial occupation, and he made 
rapid progress in the study of the classics. Few 
will sympathise with his complaint in after-years 
of the tears he shed over Dido s sorrows. Apart 
from the culture in humane feeling which they 
gave him, and which proved a saving grace in the 
temptations of his later ecclesiastical career, it 
would be difficult to say how largely his influence 
was due to his training in grammar and rhetoric. 

With the study of Greek, however, Augustine 
made little progress. I know not why I dis 
liked Greek, he says. The reason is obvious 
enough. As a boy, at all events, he disliked 
effort and drudgery. He had mastered the 
elements of Latin with some affliction, and it was 
natural that he should find an even greater dis 
inclination for the elements of Greek. But the 
study of Greek was already falling into decay in 



i 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the Western Empire. A few youths still made 
their way to Athens to be fought for by the 
crowd of touts at the Piraeus, and enticed from 
master to master by dainty dinners and pretty 
maids and a few Greek sophists still lingered in 
the west. But Greek was ceasing to be the 
centre of the work of the grammarian and the 
rhetorician. None the less, Augustine laboriously 
acquired an elementary knowledge of it, and in 
later years he greatly improved his Greek. He 
handles the Greek text of Scripture with con 
fidence in his writings ; though he says in the 
dialogue with Petilianus (in 398) that he knows 
little or no Greek, and admits in his De Trinitate 
(\\\. i.) that he is quite unable to read the works 
of the Greek fathers on the Trinity. 1 

The third and last stage of the ordinary Roman 
education I mean, setting aside the few who 
were sent from the provinces to the imperial 
schools at Rome was the study of rhetoric. 
Charged with a more or less extensive knowledge 
of literature, history, and mathematics, the young 
pupil was passed on to the rhetorician for a severe 

1 The claim that he ever learned Hebrew is quite indefensible. 
He points out once or twice the similarity of Punic and Hebrew, 
but he does not exhibit a knowledge of more than an occasional 
word. 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 15 

training in the art of declamation. Mr. Dill has 
admirably shown l that Roman culture in the 
fourth and fifth centuries had a purely formal and 
superficial aim. There was little love of know 
ledge for its own sake, still less of earnest philo 
sophic inquiry. Not only was the Roman mind 
wholly different from the Greek in its outlook on 
life and its receptiveness, but the Romans had the 
disadvantage of approaching the higher problems 
only after a prolonged Greek effort seemed to 
have proved their insolubility. It was a sceptic 
who brought philosophy to Rome. By the fourth 
century even such philosophic work as the earlier 
Latins had accomplished was retiring within an 
ever-narrowing circle. The aim of the average 
cultured Roman was to afford a kind of dainty 
intellectual entertainment ; either by elaborately 
wrought epistles, in which content was almost a 
matter of no consideration, or by rhetorical dis 
course. Hence the teacher of rhetoric held the 
first place in the educational world. When 
Gratian, in 376, fixed the salary which the 
municipalities were to pay their teachers, he 
awarded twenty-four annona to the rhetor and 
only twelve to the grammarian. A skilful 

1 See his Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 



16 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

rhetorician not only made a considerable income, 
and was received with deference in the highest 
social spheres, but he had the popularity which 
now falls to the lot of a distinguished actor. 
When it was announced that a rhetorician of 
repute was to deliver a panegyric or some other 
discourse in the theatre, intense excitement was 
caused, and eager crowds filled the benches ; after 
a speech which repels the modern mind by its 
turgid flattery and strained employment of an 
outworn mythology, he would be escorted to his 
home in triumph. 

Thus the training in rhetoric demanded especial 
care ; and as Augustine was destined for the bar, 
there was additional reason for discretion. He 
was sent for the purpose to Madaura, about 
twenty miles to the south of Thagaste, one of 
the most important centres of Roman influence 
and culture in the province of Numidia, and 
the birthplace of Apuleius in the second 
century. 

The removal from the influence of his mother 
must have been of some importance in the de 
velopment of Augustine s mind. Thagaste was 
a comparatively Christian town, and would offer 
little resistance to the religious training which 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 17 

Monica was sure to give and Patricius made no 
effort to impair. At quite an early age Augustine 
had been marked with the preliminary rites of the 
Church by his mother during a sudden and serious 
illness. As he had recovered, his baptism was 
deferred until, to put it bluntly, he had sown the 
inevitable wild oats. That was a custom of the 
early Christians, which was grounded on a rather 
mechanical view of the operation of baptismal 
grace. But he continued to attend church with 
the catechumens, even after going to Carthage. 
Had he remained in a small town, where the old 
religion had little power and ceremonial glamour, 
the story of his later development might have been 
less romantic. 

Madaura was an essentially pagan town. I 
shall deal more fully in a later chapter with the 
relation of the two religions, but it is necessary 
to point out here that Augustine passed in his 
fourteenth year, or thereabouts, into a wholly 
pagan atmosphere. .He did not remain there 
long, and it is probable that he lived with j-ela- 
tives, whom he mentions in a later writing ; 
though whether these were relatives of the pagan 
Patricius or of his Christian wife cannot be 
determined. But it is a feature of moment in our 



18 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

psychological story that the eyes of Augustine s 
mind are first opened amidst the full and alluring 
charms of paganism. The life about him gave a 
reality to the religious allusions of Virgil and 
Ovid. Remote towns like Madaura were not 
affected by the changes of imperial religious pro 
fessions until well into the fifth century ; and 
indeed Valentinian, who was then on the throne, 
interfered very little in the rivalry. Augustine 
recalls in later years, in two ungracious letters 
to cultured and broad-minded Madaurian pagans, 
the great statue of Mars that dominated the 
forum, the sight of the decurions of the town 
boisterously celebrating the orgies of Bacchus, 
and other experiences of his youth. The 
schools of the grammarian and rhetorician were 
the homes of the deposed Olympians long after 
the temples had been closed or destroyed. When 
the teaching imparted in them was enforced by a 
pagan life of unrestrained vitality, the effect on an 
impressionable youth must have been profound. 
Even the uncultured Christian found himself in 
a difficult world in the Afro-Roman provinces. 
They used to lay their doubts and temptations 
before Augustine in his later years. Was it lawful 
to make contracts with the natives, which only 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 19 

held when they were sealed with a score of 
ponderous oaths? Was it lawful to bathe with 
the pagans on their feast-days ? What should 
they drink, when each well had a tutelary deity, 
and was tainted periodically with sacrifices to the 
generous giver of water ? What should they eat, 
when every butcher s store, every vineyard, had 
been blessed by sending a tithe to the temples ? 
For Augustine himself in those early days the 
influence must have been irresistible. In some 
barnlike basilica he would meet his fellow- 
Christians, and listen to the unlettered discourse, 
and follow the unstimulating service ; for the 
catechumen was excluded from taking part in so 
much of ritual as the Church had already adopted. 
Then he would go forth, and pass the doors of the 
temples, and drink in the sweet odour of incense 
and flowers, and the sound of music and singing ; 
and mark the radiant faces and happy freedom of 
the outpouring worshippers ; or share the intoxi 
cation of the religious processions. 

When Augustine was recalled to Thagaste in 
his sixteenth year we can discern a change. 
There is an interior source of this, which will 
be examined presently ; the long and loud itera 
tion, on every note of the captivating eloquence 



20 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

of ritual, of the reality and supremacy of love in 
the life of man, had awakened an echo in the 
breast of the ardent youth. The withdrawal from 
Madaura might have been of service in meeting 
this new force. Unfortunately, he was withdrawn 
only to spend a year in absolute idleness. His 
father was making an effort to procure funds for 
the purpose of sending him to Carthage. In the 
meantime he had no tutor or judicious guide. 
* The brambles of lust grew about me, and there 
was no hand to pluck them forth/ His mother ? 
Here it is that one discerns a change, indepen 
dently of the sexual development. His father 
noticed his maturity in the baths, and laughingly 
announced their patriarchal prospects to Monica. 
She at once, and not very tactfully, approached 
Augustine. He waved her advice aside con 
temptuously as womanly talk. 

I reserve for a few pages such consideration of 
this new birth as may be necessary. In the mean 
time it is well to note that the only source of our 
knowledge of Augustine s earlier life, with one 
slight exception, is his autobiography. Now, the 
Confessions may be fine literature, but they contain 
an utterly false psychology and ethic. About the 
year 400, when they were written, Augustine 



LIFE IN ROMAN AFRICA 21 

had arrived at a most lofty conception of duty 
and life ; he commits the usual and inevitable 
fallacy of taking this later standard back to 
illumine the ground of his early career. In the 
glare of his new ideal actions which probably 
implied no moral resistance at the time they 
were performed cast an appalling shadow. The 
astronomer has invented an instrument which 
dissipates the excessive splendour of the sun, 
and permits him to examine its disc in broad 
daylight. We must use something like a moral 
spectroscope, a humane discretion, in approaching 
Augustine s unregenerate life in his Confessions. 



22 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER II 

THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 

DURING the year which followed his withdrawal 
from Madaura Augustine lost his father. From 
the point of view of his mental and moral develop 
ment this was an event of no great importance. 
The days had long since passed away when the 
Roman father exercised a despotic authority over 
his children, having the power of life and death 
over them, and the right to sell them into slavery. 
In the fourth century the life of the family differed 
little from the aspect it presents to-day ; indeed, 
we find St. Jerome, in one of his letters, praising 
the action of a young Roman girl who sold her 
jewellery, in a fit of piety, without consulting her 
parents. Very frequently the relation of father 
to son was one of strong personal affection and 
constant assistance as in the case of the senator 
Symmachus, and of Augustine towards his own 
son. But Patricius seems to have trusted largely 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 23 

in this matter to the general benevolence of the 
fates. He was, however, exceptionally eager for 
his son s advancement in the schools, and earned 
quite a distinction in Thagaste for his efforts 
and sacrifices. Happily for Augustine and the 
Church, perhaps a second father, a very gene 
rous patron, was immediately found. This was 
one of the leading decurions of Thagaste, a very 
wealthy man of the name of Romanianus. He 
at once began his career of generosity by finding 
the money for Augustine s journey to Carthage. 

Roman Carthage must have fallen little short 
of the great city which was ruthlessly destroyed 
by Scipio in 146 B.C. For seventeen days the 
Romans had gloated over the flames that devoured 
the last stone of their historic rival. In 122, 
and again in 29 B.C., colonies were sent out from 
Rome for the purpose of rebuilding the city. It is 
now generally agreed that the new city was built 
on the bed of ashes that represented all the glory 
of the Phoenicians. The two harbours were again 
lit up with the colour and echoed with the life 
of merchant galleys and Roman triremes. The 
neighbouring hill, the Byrsa, was crowned once 
more with a great temple of ^Esculapius. The 
forum rang again with the jokes of idlers and the 



24 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

swift rush of chariots ; the c street of bankers 
was a sight of the world, in its glory of marble 
and gold ; the esplanade drew crowds of 
wondering rustics to its famous mosaics, repre 
senting the giants and pygmies, the one - eyed, 
dog - headed, immense - footed, and otherwise 
abnormal races that lived beyond the hills. The 
temple of Saturn (formerly Baal - Hammon, or 
Moloch) was rebuilt ; though it contained no 
longer the cruel image that had once received 
the babes of the citizens into its furnaces. The 
temple of Astarte or Tanit was rebuilt on a 
magnificent scale, and was girt about with a 
vast zone of minor temples within its two-mile 
enclosure. 

For the Carthaginians were an intensely re 
ligious people. Their ardent and sensual temper 
had found, or shaped, a religion in which their 
strongest impulses were consecrated, and they 
clung to its spectacular ceremonies with a not 
unnatural zeal. It has often been pointed out 
how faithfully the heaven of the uneducated 
believer reflects his temperament and habits : how 
the converted Indian aspires to a happy hunting- 
ground, the Neapolitan fisherman to a land where 
he may have unlimited absolution and maccaroni, 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 25 

and the respectable Teuton to a huge Gothic 
cathedral in which he may praise the Lord for 
all eternity/ That feature is notoriously promi 
nent in the intermediate forms of religious de 
velopment. And Carthage had imported its gods 
and goddesses from the hot unhealthy East. 

Probably one of the first sights to arrest the 
thoughts of the young Augustine in the great city 
was one connected with religion. One could not 
go far in the streets of Carthage without meeting 
a number of strange creatures men who had 
divested themselves of the last trace of manliness. 
They wore the bright flowing tunics of women, 
their yellow skin was elaborately powdered and the 
lips a brilliant red, their voices were highly-pitched 
and squeaky, their hair wet with perfumed oil, 
their fingers glittering with diamonds, and they 
studiously imitated the gait and demeanour of 
women in every movement. They were the 
sexless priests from the great temple of Tanit, 
parading their repulsive condition and still more 
repulsive practices * in every street and square of 
Carthage/ Rome had suppressed the earlier 
features of the licentious cult of Astarte, when 
each temple was one vast sacred lupanar ; but 
it did not interfere with the more pernicious 



26 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

practices of these eunuch-priests, in the worship of 
Cybele (or the mother of the gods ), and Tanit 
(or the celestial virgin ), which had long since 
so deeply stained Greece and Rome with un 
natural vice. 1 When the city was rebuilt by 
Augustus, the temple of Tanit was restored in 
splendid proportions. A contemporary writer 
(known as * Prosper ), who saw it first converted 
into a Christian temple and then destroyed, a few 
decades later, describes it as one of the wonders 
of the world. But the Romans knew not Tanit, 
and spoke confusedly of Juno, Venus, Diana, 
Minerva, and Ceres ; so, by a happy compromise, 
it came to be known as the temple of the celestial 
virgin, or, briefly, the temple of the * ccelestis. 
Its worship, like the cult of Saturn and ^Esculapius, 
was in full vigour until about 391. The proconsul 

1 I am aware that Mr. Davis, in his Carthage, questions whether 
the Carthaginians ever admitted in their worship of Tanit the grosser 
features of which the curious reader will find a description in 
M. Pierre Louys s Aphrodite which were associated with the cult of 
Astarte (the Syrian equivalent of the Persian Tanit, the Greek 
Aphrodite, and the Latin Venus) in the East. But his data are very 
slender, and he himself gives a quotation from Augustine which out 
weighs them. I would also recommend the serious student of ethics 
and sociology to consider the very curious instance of religious taboo 
which is probably at the root of this appalling development of sacred 
prostitution, and the physical and physiological causes which were at 
work in the rise of unnatural vice in the East. These are \vell 
indicated in Rosenbaum s Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume. 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 27 

Tiberius had suppressed the fiendish elements of 
the cult of Saturn by hanging its obstinate priests 
on the trees surrounding their temple. Christianity 
found a much pleasanter way of extinguishing the 
cult of c the celestial virgin. 

The second great passion of the Carthaginians 
was for games and spectacles. In this they were 
not second to the Romans themselves. Salvianus, 
indeed, would have us believe that they were not 
even awakened to the serious issues of life when 
the Vandals were thundering at their walls. * The 
voices of the dying mingled with the cheers of the 
spectators/ says that sombre rhetorician ; you 
could hardly distinguish the groans of those who 
fell in war from the applause that rang from the 
circus. For the games of the circus chiefly 
chariot-races, wrestling, tight-rope dancing, etc. 
Augustine seems to have felt little attraction. We 
shall find him bitterly and contemptuously inveigh 
ing against them long before his conversion. Nor 
does he seem ever to have looked with favour on 
the bestial pleasures of the amphitheatre, where 
the gladiators fought. Yet these contests had an 
irresistible fascination for the Carthaginians. Years 
afterwards, when Augustine came back to Africa 
one of the most powerful preachers in the western 



28 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Church, Bishop Aurelius would invite him to 
come and preach at Carthage on the day of the 
munera, or the gladiatorial display. He sadly 
confesses 1 that a congregation of Christians could 
not be mustered on such days. 

On the other hand, he was found frequently 
enough on the benches of the theatre. The 
theatre was a peculiarly mixed institution in the 
Roman world. It was there that rhetoricians 
delivered their ornate discourses, and aspirants to 
the art contended for the crown. Yet it seems 
clear that Augustine went there for other than 
intellectual feasts. The drama was greatly ne 
glected in the closing years of the empire, and 
the stage was used for an exhibition of coarse and 
stupid buffoonery . Conjurers and acrobats were 
provided, but the chief attractions were the ribaldry 
of the mime and the frequently obscene perform 
ance of the pantomime. In the fourth century 
actors and actresses were treated as a class beyond 
the pale of moral feeling, and they had their 
revenge on the morals of their superiors. Chris 
tian bishops, wiser in this than the men of state, 
wrung some unwilling recognition of their human 
dignity from the emperors, but it was often re- 

1 See Sermon 1 9, for instance. 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 29 

called. Thus in 413 we find Honorius directing 
the tribune of amusements at Carthage to recall 
to the service of the theatre the actresses who had 
been released by imperial kindness (probably 
at the request of the African bishops). Their 
function was hereditary ; conversion to Christianity 
was the only channel of escape from the degraded 
service (one of the many short-sighted privileges 
secured by the bishops which accelerated the grow 
ing corruption of the Church) ; and a single lapse 
from their converted condition bound them again 
to the theatre for life. In Procopius s Secret Life; 
there is a candid picture of their moral condition. 
In the theatre they had practically an unrestricted 
licence. The mimes exchanged ribald jests with 
each other and the audience, and freely caricatured 
the grosser features of the State-religion (e.g. the 
cult of Priapus, which was still maintained), and 
offered other spectacles, the worst of which still 
linger under the shadow of the law in modern 
Paris. The pantomimes had to represent some 
thing like our plays without words. They there 
were male and female characters had to picture 
by gesture and movement alone adventures from 
the poets, the popular mythology, etc., including, 
of course, the adventures of Jupiter. 



30 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

I have said enough for the purpose of enabling 
the reader to realise the moral atmosphere into 
jwhich Augustine was now introduced. It was 
jwholly morbid and vicious. Salvianus, the priest 
of Marseilles, who wrote with a view to proving 
that the barbarian invasions were a Providential 
punishment for the vice of the empire, declared 
that Carthage was c the cesspool of Africa, and 
Africa was the cesspool of the world. In another 
place he says that < you might as well say an African 
was not an African as say that he was chaste. The 
Romans had brought all their pleasures and their 
vices with them into the new colony ; no exiled 

Roman citizen was allowed to settle in Africa it 

was too Roman. And the East had transmitted, 
with its slaves and spices, some of its most morbid 
practices. However, the analysis of cesspools is 
not an attractive study, and these general indica 
tions suffice for our purpose. But it is necessary 
to point out that the growth of Christianity in the 
city of S. Cyprian had had little influence on its 
life. The vehemence of Salvianus a Christian 
priest is directed equally against the Christians 
and the pagans. The act a of the Councils of 
Carthage tell a sorry story. Gibbon has given 
some curious facts with regard to the morality of 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 31 

its clergy even in the days of persecution ; and 
there is many a parallel to them in the writings of 
St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine in 
the fourth century. In the sermons which Augus 
tine preached at Carthage we have a clear reflec 
tion of the morals of the Carthaginian Christians. 
He is evidently addressing a congregation with 
only the most rudimentary feeling of moral law on 
sexual matters. One source of evil was the vague 
belief that sins committed before baptism had an 
entirely minor gravity, and the Church made little 
effort to resist this fatal postponement of baptism. 
A second difficulty was that the Christians fully 
shared the typically Roman notion of sexual 
morality. Under Roman law the criminal inter 
course of two married persons was punishable 
with death, as was also the violation of a free 
woman. But extra-matrimonial intercourse was 
disregarded, as well as all intercourse with slaves. 
It came, therefore, to be regarded as moral prin 
ciple when that idea was introduced to Hhe 
Christian populace that only complete adultery 
was forbidden. Augustine argues passionately 
and painfully with his hearers on the point. But 
it is quite clear that, apart from the adultery which 
was explicitly given in the commandment, his 



32 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

argument must have been entirely unconvincing 
to such an audience. Moreover, Augustine and his 
fellow-saints developed excessively ascetic views 
about sexual matters ; and the people, in reaction 
on the obvious exaggeration, would be sure to 
draw the line very low. Briefly, although Chris 
tianity had, with imperial assistance, virtually con 
quered Africa when the Vandals arrived in 429, it 
had not conquered, but had been conquered by, 
its vices. It was reserved for the chaste Vandals 
that * army of Puritans, as Mr. Hodgkin (fol 
lowing Salvianus) calls them to remedy in a day 
the corruption that Christianity had failed to over 
come. Genseric found Carthage, Christian and 
pagan, says Salvianus, in a condition of revolting 
public disorder. The Vandal chief let us not 
use the word Vandal too lightly strode in 
sword in hand, married or banished the women, 
and purified the long-sullied streets of Carthage. 1 

But we are anticipating. In 370 Carthage 
was full of people, and yet more full of infamy/ 
Augustine was not there many months before he 

1 The Vandals were Christians Arians or Unitarians recently 

converted. But no one questions that the zeal for chastity with 
which Salvianus credits them and the Goths was a survival from 
their paganism." Carthage had been Christian for thirty years at 
this time. 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 33 

formed a connection to express it in the safe 
terms of an ecclesiastic, Mr. Marcus Dods 
which was not matrimonial in the strict sense/ 
It may be briefly noticed that biographers differ 
in their appreciation of the steps by which Augus 
tine descended to this condition. As in the 
somewhat analogous case of Pierre Abelard, the 
autobiographer has used language so vehement 
and sombre in speaking of his misdeeds, that he 
is often awarded a larger amount of wickedness 
than he is probably entitled to. He was in his 
eighteenth year when he took to himself a mistress. 
His words seem to imply that this was the culmi 
nation of a couple of years of corrupt living. It 
is hardly worth while making a severe research 
into the matter, but justice to the young Augus 
tine impels us to submit one or two considerations. 
In the first place, Augustine is sternly bent on 
magnifying his misdeeds in his Confessions. The 
solemnity with which he enlarges on the theft of 
a few pears in his sixteenth year should make us 
accept his phrases with some discretion. Then 
we have an interesting witness to the light in 
which he was regarded by his school-fellows at 
Carthage. In later years, Vincentius, a Rogatian 
(heretical) bishop, admits, in writing to him 



34 SI. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

(ep. 93), that he was considered a quiet and 
respectable youth. Augustine himself says that 
he refused to associate with the more disorderly 
students. He describes a group of them, who 
seem to correspond very closely to the Mohawks 
of older London. They felt flattered by the title 
of the * eversores (upsetters), and endeavoured 
to deserve it by the maltreatment of peaceable 
citizens. A more general defect was the habit of 
breaking in noisily upon the lectures, and creat 
ing disturbances in the schools. Augustine shrank 
even from this lesser and more general misde 
meanour. Indeed, he writes that he was driven 
to lying for the purpose of making himself the 
peer of his school-fellows in vice. The admission 
reveals a certain weakness of character, but it seems 
to point to an exceptional aversion from vice in a 
youth of his age and circumstances. Finally, 
the fact that he was faithful to his mistress for 
fourteen years implies a (for those days) rare 
moderation of character. Salvianus would have 
us believe that such a fidelity, even amongst 
the married Christians, was almost unknown in 
Africa ; and his statement finds grave confirma 
tion in Augustine s own sermons. 

If, then, we bear in mind that Augustine was 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 35 

an Afro-Roman youth of the fourth century, we 
shall not find it necessary to borrow the depressing 
phrases of the ordinary hagiographer. He was, 
comparatively, a quiet and respectable youth/ 
Hatzfeld finds that he was troubled by the 
importunate reproaches of his conscience. There 
is no trace in the Confessions that his conscience 
had anything to say at the time. Hatzfeld 
commits the familiar anachronism of the hagio 
grapher. For my part, I think it more profitable 
to study events in the century and the environ 
ment in which they occurred, and I am forced to 
conclude that Augustine s conduct in his youth 
was unusually regular. We have an interesting 
poem by Paulinus of Pella, a grandson of the poet 
Ausonius, which affords a valuable insight into 
the mind of even the Christian community of the 
fourth and fifth centuries on these matters. 
Paulinus, a wealthy Roman of Aquitaine, had 
become a notably religious man after the barbarian 
invasions ; and in the retirement of his villa, in 
his eighty-third year (about 459 B.C.), had written 
a pious and penitent autobiography, with the title 
of the Eucharisticos. The writer innocently 
remarks that he was careful to guard the treasure 
of chastity (carum pudorem) in his later youth ; 



36 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

which means, he goes on to explain, that he avoided 
rape and adultery, and c was content with the use 
of the slaves of his house/ As M. Boissier says, 
the female slave regarded ministration of this kind 
as a normal part of her service. It does not seem 
likely that Augustine s mistress was a slave ; 
though he tells us nothing of her beyond the facts 
of her introduction to his home and dismissal 
from it, after a faithful attachment of fourteen 
years, that he might marry one who seems to 
have been richer. Finally, to put a term to this 
very necessary examination, it must be noted that 
Augustine blames his parents at this period for 
not marrying him (a matter which concerned 
parents rather than the marriageable parties in 
ancient Rome) at once, and saving him from dis 
order. They were, he complains, too eager for 
his advancement in the schools. Probably, too, 
Monica found some consolation in the current 
Christian phrase : He is not baptized yet. 

In the meantime, Augustine was making good 
progress in his studies. He does not hesitate 
to tell us that he was distinguished for an excel 
lent memory and an unusual penetration for his 
age. And as, with his advance in rhetoric, he 
entered upon a more systematic study of the 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 37 

subsidiary sciences, the field of learning began to 
open before him with an alluring prospect. It 
was a period when the distinction of the seven 
liberal arts was taking shape. Donatus, the great 
authority on grammar for so many centuries, was 
even then teaching at Rome, numbering amongst 
the youths who crowded his benches an ardent 
young Dalmatian of the name of Jerome. Under 
his influence the work of the schools was assuming 
the form it was to keep until well into the Middle 
Ages. Latin translations of Aristotle formed the 
base of the study of logic. Music was studied 
with some ardour ; even Ammianus allows the 
fourth century a zeal for music. Grammar and 
rhetoric were the two great studies, as I said, over 
lapping all the rest at that time. Arithmetic, 
geometry, and astronomy were also already taking 
distinct form. 

It was in the pursuit of the last three sciences 
that Augustine was led into his first intellectual 
cul-de-sac. Far down into the Middle Ages the 
study of mathematics was regarded alternately 
with suspicion and derision. Abelard speaks of 
it as c a nefarious study/ The casual reader of 
the Theodosian code, that profoundly interesting 
mirror of the life of falling Rome, is still further 



38 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

perplexed by finding the sentence of death 
fiercely decreed and brutally directed passed on 
c mathematicians/ The modern mathematician 
being an exceptionally innocent personage, as a 
rule, one wonders what strange and misleading garb 
was worn by his ancestors. It is even contended 
by some recent German scholars that Hypatia was 
so foully murdered by the people of Alexandria 
because of her repute as a mathematician ; that is 
to say for no one now questions that the murder 
was perpetrated in the interest of the Church 
that the features of especial brutality which are 
recorded seem to have been inspired by the law 
against mathematicians. 

The truth is that mathematics had formed an 
incongruous and somewhat dangerous alliance 
with astrology, divination, and fortune-telling. 
Even in the eyes of the law mathematici are taken 
to be the same people as the ubiquitous astro 
logers, or genethliaci. In his Doctrina Christiana, 
Augustine attacks "divination, which he calls a 
kind of fornication of the soul/ with remarkable 
energy, and he renews the attack incessantly in his 
sermons and writings. That is how most of us 
deal with the errors which we find out. Augus 
tine plunged deeply into astrology and divination 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 39 

soon after his arrival at Carthage, and retained his 
belief in it until near the time of his conversion. 
There were, indeed, few who escaped the con 
tagion of the popular belief. Divination was, of 
course, a religious truth at that time. Centuries 
of experience had not impaired the popular trust 
in the predictions of oracles, auspices, haruspices, 
and the whole army of fortune-tellers connected 
with the pagan religion. The Christian was no 
less willing to admit the faculty than the pagan ; 
he had angels to work his own oracles, and devils 
for those of the heathen. As a result, the practice 
of divination had permeated the whole public and 
private life of the empire. Every village had 
its astrologer and sorcerer. The stars were con 
sulted whenever a tree was planted or a cow was 
to be mated. The astrologer had to say whether 
the newcomer would be good for milk, or draught, 
and so forth. Many even had the course of the 
planets carefully considered in the matter of their 
own offspring, choosing moments of a favourable 
conjunction. 7 1 Whenever anything was lost, the 
diviner was consulted. In his work Contra 



1 As Augustine afterwards said, in the City of God> the advent of 
twins, with different temperament and fortunes, was the great crux 
of the genethliacus. 



40 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Academicos^ Augustine tells how he and some of 
his pupils went to consult a diviner of the name of 
Albicerius about a spoon they had lost. Albicerius 
found the spoon for them so says Augustine, 
who remains a model of trustfulness throughout 
life and added many other marvels. He disclosed 
to them that the slave who carried the purse had 
helped himself from it on the journey; and he told 
them any passage of Virgil they cared to think 
about. 1 On another occasion Augustine was 
going to compete for a prize in the theatre by the 
delivery of a rhetorical discourse, and he was 
approached by a kind of private haruspex, who pro 
mised to discover his chances for a consideration. 
It says much for Augustine s character that he 
repulsed the man vigorously, in spite of his super 
stition ; * though the crown were of imperishable 
gold, I would not suffer a fly to be killed to gain 
it for me/ 

It must not be supposed that Rome was 
actuated in its repeated fulminations against 

1 Augustine afterwards attributes the man s skill to the devil s 
assistance. Cardinal Rauscher, the chief biographer of St. j Augus 
tine, adds a number of similar marvels that were performed under his 
own eyes in modern Germany ; in the meantime the devil has retired, 
and the events are explained scientifically. But I must warn 
admirers of Lytton s views on such matters that Albicerius is 
described as a man of notoriously vicious life. 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 41 

divination by the paternal feeling for the 
credulous which inspires our modern laws against 
palmistry. The emperors had discovered that, 
in that age of short leases of imperatorial power, 
ambitious officers were tempted to consult diviners 
as to the next successor to the purple ; and it was 
not unjustly suspected that the honour of the 
diviner s profession might be unduly preserved, 
when a prediction had been given and paid for, 
by a little artificial assistance judiciously applied 
to the natural course of events. Constans and 
Constantius, Valens and Valentinian, passed drastic 
laws for the extinction of secret divination. A 
few years before Augustine came to Carthage 
there had been a fierce persecution of diviners 
throughout the empire on account of a consulta 
tion as to the imperial succession. The manner 
of going to work is curiously described by Ammi- 
anus Marcellinus. A tripod table, made with 
branches of laurel, was set up in a strongly per 
fumed chamber. On the table was a basin of 
various metals, having the letters of the alphabet 
engraved round the rim. Over this a ring was 
suspended, and was set in motion by a man who 
stood beside it clothed in white linen and with 
verveine in his hand. The ring then spelt a 



42 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

message in much the same fashion as is done 
on the modern < ouijah board. 

All the Christian orators of the time denounce 
the popular recourse to divination unceasingly. 
They plainly intimate that the Christians are as 
bad as the pagans. Indeed, it was only the more 
stern priests of the Church who offered a con 
sistent opposition to it. St. Jerome tells a 
story which doubtless illustrates a good deal of 
Christian as well as pagan life. St. Hilarion, 
he says, was approached by a wealthy Christian 
who was about to compete in an important 
chariot-race, but whose horses had been paralysed 
by the magical rites of his adversary. Hilarion 
resisted the man for some time, but at length 
gave him his drinking - cup full of water to 
sprinkle about the stable. The charm was 
broken, the race won, and the Church gained 
a large number of * converts. Again, when 
Rome was threatened by the Goths in 408, a 
body of Tuscan diviners presented themselves 
to the prefect, and offered to call down lightning 
on the barbarians, as they had done before. The 
prefect consulted Pope Innocent, who was willing 
that the Tuscan priests should have a trial, but 
not in public. The Tuscans, of course, declared 



THE THIRD CITY OF THE EMPIRE 43 

that their sacrifices would be unavailing if not per 
formed with becoming solemnity, and Rome fell. 
But in the meantime Pope Innocent secured 
another severe law against the mathematicians. 
His situation had hardly been one of dignity 
or comfort. 

Augustine retained his belief in the powers of f 
the astrologer for a number of years. He was 
severely taken to task for it by the proconsul, 
Vindicianus, who crowned him after a prize ora 
tion in the theatre, and who seems to have taken 
a warm interest in his progress. A favourite 
pupil of his, Nebridius, also continually ridiculed 
his belief. But it was not until he had made con 
siderable progress in astronomy, and was faced 
with a large number of failures to predict, that 
he parted with a belief which had afforded him 
amusement, if not enthusiasm, for so many years. 
He then, as is the wont of such characters as 
his, takes a most sombre view of his old opinion, 
and denounces it and its supporters in embittered 
terms. 



44 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER III 

MENTAL GROWTH 

IN this whirlpool of life at Carthage in the fourth . 
century Augustine spent his eighteenth and nine- 
teenth years. It is true that he was already lifted 
above mediocrity, not only by an exceptional 
ability and some refinement of character, but 
also by an aspiration. He had ambition and < 
an ideal. He was already conscious of a spark 
of the ethereal fire that burns in the soul of the 
elect, and was resolved to plough his way across 
the common furrows of life. But his ambition 
was purely selfish and his ideal earthly. Advance 
ment in the schools, distinction at the bar, wealth, 
the repute of eloquence, and possibly, in the end, 
senatorial dignity. Perhaps it was, after all, a 
commonplace ideal for a Roman youth. At all 
events, his vision was bounded by the farthest 
horizon of the life that surrounded him. But 
one day, in his nineteenth year, a strange light 



MENTAL GROWTH 45 

fell on his mind, and gradually there came into 
his vision the lines and peaks of the eternal hills 
beyond, the irresistible splendour of the intellectual 
ideal, far outshining the glitter of his ambition. 
And the poor pilgrim of truth set out on the 
eternal quest. 

The accident that thus kindled into full flame 
the idealist force in Augustine was the reading of 
a lost work of Cicero. In the ordinary course of 
his studies though Augustine s could hardly be 
called an ordinary course : he mastered the 
Categories of Aristotle without assistance in his 
twentieth year he came to take up Cicero s 
Hortensius. It changed at once the whole colour 
of his thoughts and aspirations. * Forthwith all 
vain ambition fell from me, and I longed, with 
an incredible ardour of soul, for the immortal 
treasures of wisdom ; I had begun to arise, that 
I might return to Thee. In his later piety 
Augustine probably assigned too definitely 
religious an impulse to the reading of the 
Hortensius. When he says that the only thing 
that troubled me in my new-born ardour was the 
absence of Thy name from the book, we may 
respectfully decline to follow him ; it is by no 
means the only instance in the Confessions of a 



46 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

fore-shortening of his psychic perspective. Yet 
it is clear that the work at once gave a new direc 
tion to Augustine s thoughts and purified his 
ambition. At that time my sole delight in that 
exhortation was that it spurred me on to love 
and seek and attain and embrace, not this or 
that sect, but wisdom itself, wherever it might 
lie ; and he adds in the Soliloquies that it cured 
him of the thirst for wealth. The Hortensius was 
written by Cicero as an exhortation to the study 
of philosophy. It is a pity a work of such force 
has perished ; but it must be pointed out once 
more that the moral of the Hortensius could not 
have lit this flame in the mind of the youth if he 
had been as corrupt in those unregenerate days 
as he himself and most of his ecclesiastical 
biographers pretend. The humanism of the 
twentieth century will surely refuse to allow 
any longer this distortion of an orderly psychic 
growth in the interest of a dogma. 

I have already pointed out that the study of 
philosophy was all but dead in the Western empire 
in the fourth century. The schools of Alex 
andria cultivated the study until much later 
(Mr. Kingsley s novel departing very widely 
from historical truth in this and other important 



MENTAL GROWTH 47 

respects), and Augustine s correspondence will 
introduce us to a number of isolated students 
and followers of the thoughts of Plato ; but 
philosophy had few votaries and fewer shrines. 
The grammarian and the rhetorician only im 
parted such fragments of it as they found con 
venient. Hence Augustine obtained little more 
assistance from them than an indication of the 
few works available in Carthage. There were 
large towns in Africa (such as Hippo) that had 
not even a copy of Cicero. The young seeker 
of wisdom had to push his Sisyphean stone 
alone. 

In this absence of an orderly philosophical 
training or a large philosophical literature, and 
seeing that he still attended church sometimes 
(Conf. iii. 3), it is natural to find him turning 
first to Scripture for enlightenment. c But it 
seemed to me, he says, unworthy to be com 
pared with the majesty of Cicero. There came 
a day when Augustine found deep and accurate 
science in Genesis, a * mystic beauty in the lives 
of the patriarchs, a surpassing eloquence in the 
Gospels, and a supreme reasonableness in Paul s 
demand that we shall close our eyes and obey 
him. In his twentieth year it impressed him as 



48 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

it impresses most of us in our twenties if we 
chance to read it and some of us throughout 
life. The stern voice of Paul of Tarsus, de 
nouncing philosophy as folly and the simple 
demand for evidence in a world of lies as arro 
gance, repelled him. The strange story that 
ran so unevenly through the unlettered gospels 
required some proof ; and Paul merely flung back 
his questions with disdain. Was he to submit 
implicitly to these apparently ignorant men ? It 
was Cicero who had lit up for him the vision of 
the far-off hills where truth dwelt ; he expected 
to feel the solid ground beneath him, and see the 
path ahead at every step. Moreover, truth was 
to bring harmony into his thoughts ; this story 
of Christ only widened the gulf between his idea 
of God and his experience of life. He closed 
the Scripture, not in pride but in perplexity and 
sorrow, and looked out on the ways of life. 

Harnack has said that the three religions which 
disputed the soul of humanity in this fateful fourth 
century were Christianity, Neo - Platonism, and 
Manicheeism. Others regard Mithraism as the 
serious rival of Christianity ; the popular im 
pression would have it to be the ancient Roman 
religion. Certainly, what was already being called 



MENTAL GROWTH 49 

Paganism was dying. For many centuries it 
had sheltered Rome, but corruption was eating 
into its heart, and the yellow leaves were falling 
on every side. Either Platonism or Mithraism 
formed the core of whatever religion the cultured 
pagan still retained, as will be seen presently. In 
Western Africa these two religions were incon 
spicuous ; its bald polytheism, unidealised by 
Neo- Platonic symbolism and unanimated by 
Mithraic emotion and ethic, never appealed to 
Augustine. He takes credit to himself that 
he never, at any moment of his life, questioned 
the existence of God. His idea of a philosophy 
or of truth was of something that would illumine 
the seeming chaos of life with this thought. 
Paganism was to him in his rationalist mood 
merely an outworn, tinselled garment, clothing 
a dead idol. He turned perforce from Christianity 
to Manicheeism, a religion which had a consider 
able and a cultured following in Africa. 

Manicheeism has been persistently misrepre 
sented by Augustine s biographers ; even M. 
Poujoulat gives a fantastic version of its origin 
and an ungenerous exposition of its doctrines. 
M. Beausobre, its classic exponent, contends that 
Augustine himself misrepresents it. Assuredly 



50 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine has not the habit of presenting the 
errors he once held in the light in which they 
must first have appealed to him, but it is likely 
that he correctly describes, on the whole, the 
Manicheeism he embraced in the fourth century ; 
this may have differed as much from the teach 
ing of Mani as fourth century Christianity de 
parted from the teaching of Christ. Indeed, there 
is much obscurity about the origin of the religion. 
It is now generally agreed 1 that the Christian 
tradition on the subject is unworthy of credence, 
and the Mohammedan alone reliable. According 
to this, Mani, the founder, was a Persian noble 
of some culture, born at Ecbatana, probably about 
215 A.D. Starting from the groundwork of an 
ancient Babylonian nature-religion, and adding, as 
he proceeded, elements from Parsism, Christianity 
(probably through the Gnostics), and possibly 
Buddhism, he finally presented to the world what 
purported to be a complete philosophy of life. 

Whatever may have been the sources of the 
Manichean doctrine, Augustine was initiated to 
a plausible and impressive system when he sought 
instruction. To one who, like Augustine, held 

,; * See Manicheeism in the Encyclopedia Britannica, a most instruc 
tive essay by Professor Harnack, 



MENTAL GROWTH 51 

the being of God as a first principle with which 
the world must be forced into some kind of 
harmony, the power of evil would be the most 
arresting aspect of life. The Manicheans had a 
ready answer. The human heart was right, they 
said ; evil did not come from God. There were 
two eternal principles the good and the evil, 
light and darkness. This chequered world, with 
its alternate triumph of light and shade, its ever- 
changing song and dirge, was the battle-ground of 
their conflict, the outcome of a confusion of their 
kingdoms. So much the very face of the world 
proclaimed. And imagination soared back down 
the ages to a time when the two kingdoms of 
light and of darkness were separated. Imagine 
a conflict of the good and the evil powers ; a 
partial victory of Satan and . invasion of the 
kingdom of light ; the birth of a world of these 
commingled elements ; the creation of man, a 
creature of light, and his defeat and corruption 
by the demons. Imagination has constructed the 
very world that lies about us, the very nature 
that is in us : to them it appeals for proof of the 
revelation/ Henceforward life is a stern process 
of redemption, an eternal struggle of the elements 
of light to break free from the kingdom of dark- 



52 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ness, and return to their source. There have 
been poorer theories framed in Germany in the 
nineteenth century, theories that have less echo 
in man s consciousness and less guarantee in the 
broad features of the world. 

The moral system which was founded on these 
speculations will be readily conceived. It em 
bodied the superficial lesson which nearly all great 
religions thought they gathered from the very 
heart of life asceticism. From all their different 
starting-points, with all their varied notions of 
deity, the great religions have, nevertheless, 
singularly agreed in exaggerating the lesson of 
moral equilibrium which nature urged. Manichee- 
ism was peculiarly disposed to emphasise this. Its 
morality was identical with its physics. Physical 
light was moral good, and physical darkness evil ; 
and the process of severance was at once physical 
and moral. Hence the reaction, the inevitable 
revolt of nature, was swift and sad. Manicheeism 
drew a distinction like that of the Church between 
its elect and its catechumens, or auditors ; and the 
latter, like the unbaptized Christians, lived very 
much as they liked. Augustine, at a later date, 
makes great effort to asperse the character of the 
elect, of whom he retails many hearsay scandals. 



MENTAL GROWTH 53 

It would be a moral miracle if there were not 
hypocrites amongst them, but Augustine s tirades 
have something of the tone of the escaped monk. 
Yet an impartial study of all that we know of 
Manicheeism at the time though we know it 
only from its enemies seems to discover it to 
be rather an intellectual clique with little moral 
earnestness. It survived until late in the Middle 
Ages, yet one finds it hard to conceive it as a 
serious rival of Christianity. Its reformed 
section, its Puritans, were gathered into a sect 
called the mattarii in Augustine s day. One of 
those wealthy zealots, who are at once the treasure 
and the terror of all sects, tried to initiate a higher 
life at Rome. He attracted a large number of 
the elect to his house, and they drew up an ascetic 
scheme of life. Augustine is never tired, in his 
later years, of describing the result. One by one 
the elect retired to their comfortable homes, and 
the sect of sleepers on mats that finally clung 
to Constantius, until his secession to Christianity, 
was very slender. 

It must, however, be pointed out that this 
simple basis of theory and ethic was overlaid with 
a towering structure of dogma, ritual, and organi 
sation. The Oriental imagination filled in the 



54 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

details of the primitive fable ; the growing 
hierarchy, as is usual, c discovered fresh Scrip 
tures. Thus was gradually built up the singular 
structure which thrusts its bizarre features upon 
us from every page of Augustine s writings. In 
streaming upwards from the earth to its natural 
reservoirs, the sun and moon, the light was inter 
cepted by the roots of plants and trees ; it was 
absorbed into their structure, and revealed its 
divine presence in the glory of flower and per 
fume. Hence the Manichean horror of plucking 
flowers, vegetables, or fruit. This was met, how 
ever, by a belief a belief which chanced to be, as 
sometimes happens, extremely advantageous to 
the clergy that when the elect eat these fruits or 
vegetables, they set free the divine light to con 
tinue its upward journey. Hence, although they 
were vegetarians and celibates there being no 
light to deliver in dead flesh, and procreation 
being a multiplication of evil the elect had a not 
unpleasant existence. Augustine would have it 
that their life was a continuous banquet of the 
choicest fruits, cakes, truffles, artichokes, and 
sweet wines, contributed in vast quantities by the 
auditors (uninitiate). Such a system would inevit 
ably lead to grave abuses. Moreover, as the 



MENTAL GROWTH 55 

conduct of the auditors was little controlled, and 
the peculiar tenets of the elect as to sexual 
matters seem to point to grave disorders, it is 
probable that Manicheeism did no more than 
Christianity towards the purification of the empire. 
Augustine seems to have felt some enthusiasm 
for his new religion, or rather philosophy, during 
the next few years. We may generously decline 
to take quite literally his later lament in the De 
dono perseverantite that he had devastated the 
Catholic faith, but he won over a number of 
his friends to Manicheeism ; whatever evil he 
achieved in that way was fully atoned by his later 
treatment of his old religion. For a few years he 
was genuinely captivated by the fine simplicity and 
plausibility of its main gospel. The Manichees 
rejected the Old Testament, and they encouraged 
youths like Augustine to make merry over the 
lives of the patriarchs ; this also he atoned for 
later on by his mystic treatment of their 
Oriental ways, though they long eluded even his 
respectful efforts to explain. Presently we shall 
find him looking more critically into the system. 
For the moment it succeeded where Christianity 
had failed. He wanted a religion which should 
explain the world to him, and the Manicheans 



56 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

gave, on the whole, a plausible interpretation of 
it, as it appeared to him. 

He was in his twentieth year when he embraced 
the religion of Mani, and it seems to have been 
shortly after this that he finished his studies at 
Carthage and returned to Thagaste. Monica was 
profoundly troubled about his lapse. She seems 
to have accepted his companion without a murmur, 
but the descent into heresy was an unpardonable 
depth. She refused to sit at the same table with 
him, and it seems likely (Contra Academicos y ii. 3) 
that he lived with his patron Romanianus. But 
Monica was soon happily released from the 
painful duty her conscience had imposed. She 
was assured in a dream, that happy and familiar 
medium of celestial communications, that Augus 
tine would one day return to Christianity. That 
seems to have quite removed the sting of the 
actual sin. She found further consolation in the 
well-known assurance of a bishop, whom she 
vainly begged to argue with her son ( he said I 
had already given much trouble to the unlearned 
by my questions, says Augustine), that the child 
of those tears could not perish/ From that date 
Monica entered upon the long and passionate 
devotion to her son s conversion which has earned 



MENTAL GROWTH 57 

for the simple, ignorant woman an immortal place 
amongst the mothers of men. 

For some reason which Augustine does not 
mention, probably for want of funds, he ceased 
to look to the legal profession, and opened a 
school at Thagaste. In the Confessions he says 
that he taught rhetoric there, but his disciple and 
biographer, Possidius, says he taught grammar at 
Thagaste and rhetoric at Carthage. This is 
much the more probable ; Augustine s chrono 
logy is a little confused in the Confessions. Here 
he gathered about him a number of admiring 
pupils, some of whom clung to him throughout 
life. c I preferred good students, he says. The 
Hortensius had moderated his desire for wealth, 
and he would find it possible to combine his 
philosophic studies with the instruction of a few 
quiet youths. It was about the time when (in 
376) Gratian ordered the municipal councils to 
pay a regular fee to their teachers ; and with this, 
the usual gifts from pupils, the patronage of 
Romanianus, and a moderate private income, 
Augustine would be in a comfortable position. 
His life-long friend and * little slave Alypius, 
son of one of the leading decurions of Thagaste, 
and two sons of the wealthy Romanianus, were 



58 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

amongst his pupils, and it was not long before 
most of his friends were Manicheans. 

In the course of a year or two we find him 
returning to Carthage, and opening a school of 
rhetoric there. In his Contra Academicos (ii. 3) 
he admits that ambition had some share in the 
change, but in the Confessions he assigns a cause 
which leads him to write some fine passages. 
About a year after his return to Thagaste he lost 
his most intimate friend. The youth had studied 
with him, and had been converted by him to 
Manicheeism. He contracted a dangerous fever, 
and died in Augustine s absence: The beautiful 
passage in which Augustine expresses his grief 
thirty years afterwards reveals a singularly deep 
affection. My heart was darkened with sorrow ; 
whatever I looked upon was death. My country 
was a torment to me, my father s house a strange 
affliction ; whatever I had shared with him seemed 
to become, without him, an unendurable torture. 
My eyes sought him on every side, and he came 
not. I hated all things, because they held him 
not ; nor could they say to me, as they were wont 
to do during his absence, while he yet lived, 
u Behold, he comes." I found myself one cease 
less question, ever asking my soul why it was sad, 



MENTAL GROWTH 59 

and why it afflicted me ; and it knew not what to 
answer me. . . . Weeping alone brought me some 
sweetness, and took the place of my friend in my 
heart. ... I bore about a soul that was rent and 
bleeding, impatient of my bearing it longer, yet I 
found not where I might lay it down. Not in 
pleasant groves, nor in game and song, nor in per 
fumed chambers, nor in rich banquets, nor in the 
pleasure of the bed, nor in books or poetry, 
could it find rest. The very light of day was 
odious to me ; and all that was not like him, 
except groans and tears, was a thing of hate and 
affliction. In tears alone did I find some rest/ 

The love that speaks thus after a silence of 
thirty years and such years as Augustine had 
seen was assuredly stronger than death. Un 
happily, these beautiful pages of the Confessions are 
marred by the painful exaggeration of Augustine s 
later attitude. No one can read without deep 
respect and sympathy Augustine s eloquent claim 
that even this human love must be sanctified 
in God and supported by the clear vision of 
immortal life. But it is another matter when 
he goes on to denounce c the impurity of such 
affections, because they remain on the level of 
humanity. There are some who think the violent 



60 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

phrase implies that this friendship was not even 
humanly holy. I am confident Augustine never 
meant that. It is only a part of the contempt which 
he pours on all things human love, joy, plea 
sure, science, art from the altitude of his new 
position. 

One interesting result of this loss of his friend 
was that it led to Augustine s first literary 
experiment. The intensity of his affection, so 
cruelly revealed, led him to speculate on the 
nature of the beautiful. What is it, he kept 
asking his friends, that draws us and binds us to 
the things we love? After a time he embodied 
his reflections in a treatise of two or three ( Thou 
knowest, my God, I forget, he says, in his familiar 
way) books On the Fit and the Beautiful. They 
were dedicated to Hierius, a Syrian rhetorician, 
who was being much talked of at the time ; 
Augustine has afterwards to devote many pages 
to the folly of this dedication. It would be 
interesting to read what he had to say about 
beauty in his pre-Platonic days, but the books 
had already disappeared at the time he wrote his 
Confessions. The earliest genuine works of his^ 
which we have .were written after his conversion; 
though an immense number of supposititious 



MENTAL GROWTH 61 

works were ascribed to him until modern 
times. 

It seems to have been about 379 or 380 that 
he returned to Carthage, and opened a school of 
rhetoric. With all its gaiety, Carthage was a 
busy centre of education, and had a feeling for 
rhetorical display. Augustine would not lack 
pupils ; and, as I have already mentioned, he once 
gained the crown in the theatre for a prize oration, 
and won the affection and patronage of the pro 
consul Vindicianus. Some of his pupils followed 
him from Thagaste, and they were joined by a 
clever youth, from the neighbourhood of Carthage, 
of the name of Nebridius, and a certain Eulogius, 
who afterwards became himself a rhetorician of 
some merit. His friend Alypius, who was train 
ing for the law (though he eventually found a 
place with Augustine in the ranks of the episco 
pate), did not attend his lectures regularly, his 
father having quarrelled with Augustine. The 
youth was soon deep in the dissipations of 
Carthage, it appears, but Augustine one day made 
a scornful attack on the attractions of the circus 
at a lecture at which Alypius happened to be 
present, and the spell of the cir censes was broken. 
From that time Alypius became his most devoted 



62 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

admirer though Augustine had again to rescue 
him later from the more brutal charms of the 
amphitheatre. 

During the nine years which elapsed between 
his first contact with Manicheeism and his depar 
ture from Africa, Augustine was resolutely advanc 
ing towards the heights of his early vision. The 
enthusiasm of his first acceptance of Manicheeism 
did not last many years. It was not that his ideas 
were taking a shape which was incompatible with 
the materialist conceptions of the system. It was 
not until five years later, when the translation of 
certain Neo-Platonic works opened out to him 
the entirely new world of Pythagorean and 
Piatonist thought, that he began to feel the im 
propriety of his physical conception of God and 
the soul. Nor had he yet so definite an idea 
of the infinite as to perceive the absurdity of 
admitting two deities, as the Manicheans virtually 
professed. His real mental growth consisted in 
an accumulation of disjointed facts and thoughts, 
the formation of a treasury of knowledge, which 
could be drawn upon in the later years when 
reading was no longer possible, and science and 
profane history were accounted frivolity. But he 
had no leading thoughts wherewith to order the 



MENTAL GROWTH 63 

storing of his harvest, and to his last days his 
erudition, such as it was, remained an uncritical 
and an undigested mass. 1 

Augustine is really unfortunate in the causes he 
assigns for his early revolt against the Manichean 
system. He seems to indicate two chief lines 
of criticism, when we set aside the destructive 
analysis he makes of it after he has assimilated 
jPlatonic ideas. He alleged scientific difficulties 
against the Manichean scriptures, and moral diffi 
culties against its elect. After all, we do not 
change wholly with the ages. But, quite apart 
from the question of principle, Augustine was not 
fortunate in many of his points. His liking for 
divination had induced him to make a close study 
of astrology and astronomy. From this science 
he seems to have forged weapons which his 
Manichean friends could not parry. Their sacred 
books naturally contained much assertion about 
the nature and the motions of the heavenly bodies. 
Augustine says he found a good deal of this to be 
erroneous, and he began to pose as a scientific 
heretic. Probably he was right on some points. 
But it had been better for science if he had pene 
trated a little deeper into astronomy in his early 

1 So also says Nourisson, in his Philosophic de Saint- Augustin. 



64 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

years. He and other fathers of the Church only 
succeeded in prolonging throughout the whole of 
the Middle Ages the life of errors which Mani- 
cheeism and Neo-Platonism were beginning to 
uproot. For instance, he denied against the 
Manicheans the sphericity of the earth and the 
existence of the antipodes, as he denied against 
the Epicureans the plurality of worlds and other 
truths. Nor can we recognise a more solid 
grievance against his religion in his complaint that 
it did not teach the cause of the equinox and the 
solstice. 

There was probably more force, though no 
better logic, in his quarrel with their morality. 
The man who nowadays secedes from a Christian 
Church on such grounds is very justly regarded 
as wanting in strength of character. One fails 
to see why Augustine should be so loudly 
applauded for leaving the Manicheans because he 
found some corruption amongst its elect. Indeed, 
in so gentle an age as this, when it is considered 
dishonourable to unmask the hypocrisy one has 
left behind for quite other reasons, it is remark 
able how much admiration is felt for Augustine s 
vicious little treatise On the Morals of the 
Manichees. The truth is, that even he has little 



MENTAL GROWTH 65 

accredited scandal to tell of them, however well 
disposed we may be to accept it. After his nine 
years intercourse with them, the only convincing 
story he tells is that he once saw some elect 
behaving rather improperly in the open street. 
The rest is all hearsay, and comes from feminine 
sources. The Manichean clergy were evidently 
either much better or much cleverer than the 
Christian. With regard to the more depraved 
matters, in fact, Augustine has nothing but 
strained inferences from their doctrines to offer 
to his fellow-Christians. 

Whenever Augustine related his difficulties to 
his fellows, he was met with the assurance that a 
certain bishop of theirs, Faustus of Mileve, would 
answer them when he came to Carthage. In 383 
the famous bishop came, and Augustine consulted 
him. The result was a final disillusion. A man 
of fine carriage and captivating manners, a fluent 
and eloquent speaker, Faustus had hitherto not 
felt a pressing need for mere erudition. The 
type of apologist is familiar to most of us. But 
Augustine was the obstinate young man, who had 
definite questions and insisted on having definite 
answers. What availed the utmost neatness of 
the cupbearer to my thirst for a more precious 



66 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

draught ? Faustus knew no science save grammar, 
and shrank from the young astrologer who was 
insusceptible to his charms. The episode ended 
in the almost total collapse of Augustine s belief, 
but without bitterness. He had a heart, and 
frankly avowed his ignorance, says Augustine. In 
fact, he began to read with Augustine, and con 
tinued friendly relations with him for some time. 
But in the later years, when his beliefs have 
hardened and controversy has somewhat soured 
the milk of his kindness, Augustine presents his 
opponent in a less flattering light. He is described 
(Contra Faust urn) as a man of poor parentage, 
who has made his way by cunning rather than 
conviction, and who conceals most luxurious 
habits behind a profession of unworldliness. If 
the share in the dialogues which is accredited to 
Faustus correctly represents his words, he was a 
polished, witty, and acute speaker, but superficial. 
But where Plato is abused, Faustus must expect 
little consideration. 

Thus, in his twenty-ninth year, Augustine has 
had his first disillusion. His faith in the Mani- 
chean key to the universe was destroyed. He 
says he still had a feeling that perhaps his difficul 
ties could be removed, but it is apparently a mere 



MENTAL GROWTH 67 

shadow of hope, transient and intangible. Yet 
Christianity was as repulsive to him as ever. He 
vaguely recalls the many philosophies to which 
Cicero had alluded if he had not outlined them 
in the Hortensius. And with still youthful 
energy he resumes his Sisyphean task. 

But this disillusion seems to have completed a 
growing burden of discontent with Africa. With 
the broadening of his mental horizon the distant 
splendour of Rome began to find a reflection in 
his thoughts. His friends told him that successful 
rhetoricians made large fortunes in the eternal 
city, and that the pupils were better behaved. 
At Carthage the youths would rush into the 
lecture-room in the middle of the lecture, and 
bear away their companions with an intolerable 
turmoil. He resolved to sail for Rome. Years 
afterwards his heretical opponents said he had 
been driven from Africa by the decrees which 
Messianus, the proconsul, passed against the 
Manichees. It is true that Augustine still 
counted himself a Manichean * not seeing any 
thing better, I resolved to remain where I was 
until something more eligible appeared ; but the 
decrees of Messianus were not passed until three 
years after his departure. 



68 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

A detail of his departure, which one would 
rather suppress, must be noticed. After vainly 
urging him not to leave Africa, his mother 
insisted on accompanying him to Rome. We 
can well understand that the proposal did not 
please Augustine, and placed him in a difficult 
situation. But the manner of his escape from it 
was unpardonable. He persuaded her to spend 
the night before their departure in a chapel near 
the quay. During the night he sailed for Ostia. 
Augustine s frank confession in some measure 
redeems the meanness and cowardice of his act. 



THE ETERNAL CITY 69 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ETERNAL CITY 

WHEN Augustine came to Rome in 384 he saw 
almost the last gleam of its ancient splendour. 
The genius of the eternal city had departed, and, 
heavy with the ruthless spoils of the world, it was 
already tottering to its fall. Far away on the 
northern and north-eastern frontier the stream of 
Huns and Goths and Vandals was swelling its 
irresistible flood against the weakening barriers. 
The vultures gathered thick upon the mountain- 
fringe of the empire. But the Romans were to 
die with a smile on their lips/ as Salvianus after 
wards said of them. Augustine found the gold 
and marble city of three centuries of Caesars in 
undiminished splendour, and the life of its in 
fatuated people making its seven hills ring with 
their demented laughter. He is almost wholly 
silent about the scenes he witnessed. Happily, 
there came to Rome, somewhere about the same 



70 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

time, a war-worn veteran from the front, 
Ammianus Marcellinus. From his scornful pages 
we can picture to ourselves the life of Rome in 
the last quarter of the fourth century. 1 

We can almost fancy ourselves lying with a 
group of Roman citizens in ragged togas, play 
ing dice, under the cool colonnade of one of the 
emperors fora, or the Roman forum, and watch 
ing the stream of life as it passes. Rich patricians, 
with loosely swollen cheeks and thick hanging lips, 
fly past us in gold-plated chariots, drawn by swift 
teams of Spanish horses, a dozen tunics and 
mantles of all but transparent silk fluttering about 
them. Young dandies, already old in vice and 
luxury, ride or walk along, their fine mantles 
shaken out now and again with a wave of the 
left arm to display the figures embroidered on 
them, and the silk dragons that hiss in the wind, 
and the dainty little shoes embroidered with ivy 
leaves ; a secretary-slave walks with them, sug 
gesting to their flaccid memory whom they know 
and must salute. Roman matrons pass by in 
litters, or in carriages drawn by four white mules. 

1 In the following sketch I have completed, or corrected, the 
testimony of Ammianus by that of St. Jerome, Symmachus, Claudi- 
anus, Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, Macrobius, and others. 



THE ETERNAL CITY 71 

For woman is no longer confined to the gyne- 
caeum. Stoic philosophy and Christian religion 
have won freedom for her. And now she leans 
proudly back in her litter, her hair rising into a 
tower, bristling with points and bars of gold, her 
eyes dilated with antimony, her eye-lashes and 
eye -brows dyed, her lips a brilliant and refreshing 
vermilion she has been chewing wood to pro 
voke the saliva, her face and neck coated with 
white, the price of a forest hanging from her 
ears, her tunic a stiff mass of cloth of gold ; or 
perhaps she is a Christian, and a crowd of urchins 
follow, gazing at the wonderful embroideries on 
her silk mantle, representing the poverty of 
Christ, and the sorrows of Job, and so forth. 
Here a widow, or a divorced (perhaps for the 
tenth time) matron, is borne sedately along, the 
whole army of her slaves, even to the kitchen- 
slaves, marching before the litter, and a second 
army, of eunuchs, bringing up the rear. There 
a pedagogue leads along her children, their shoes 
made to creak nicely, their hair dyed red, their 
faces painted like her own. At one moment the 
sun glitters on the jewelled fingers and buckled 
and perfumed locks of a Christian priest, and the 
next it flashes on the painted face and the gay 



72 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

tunic of a sexless priest of Cybele or the shaven 
head and face of a votary of Isis. So the tide 
ebbs and flows through the Roman forum, and 
the forum of Trajan the most exquisite struc 
ture under heaven/ says Ammianus and along 
the via sacra and up the clivus of the Capitol, 
where the golden roof of the great temple of Jove 
still flings back the rays of the sun, or past the 
deserted Palatine to the Circus Maximus, or to 
the thermae Antoninianae (baths of Caracalla), 
until at last the sun sinks behind the Vatican, and 
Rome turns to other amusements. 

Follow one of the swift chariots with the plates 
of gold and the flashing gems, until it halts before 
one of the great senatorial palaces. Gold-dust is, 
perhaps, strewn on its polished marble steps, for 
the safety of the nerveless limbs. The chances 
are that fawning eunuchs must help the senator 
up the steps and between the tall columns of 
Parian marble, with gilded capitals, into the 
vestibule with its silver chairs and couches, its 
walls incrusted with mosaics and many-coloured 
African marbles, its ceiling of cedar and silver, its 
rare trees growing between the rafters, and rare 
birds nesting in their branches. He is bathed and 
clothed afresh, and rearranged by his barber and 



THE ETERNAL CITY 73 

tailor. Then he goes to meet his guests, and 
preside at his vulgar banquet. His nomenclator, 
or secretary-slave, has arranged the names, reap 
ing a generous harvest from the invited, for gold 
pieces are often given after the banquet. Then, 
after the basket of appetisers has gone round, 
the slaves bring in the fishes and birds that have 
been brought from the ends of the empire ; 
thirty secretaries, so says Ammianus, standing 
by with their tabellae and their scales to note the 
weight of the peacock, or parrot, or pheasant, or 
whatever it may be, that the obsequious guests 
are praising. And when they lean back on the 
couch, clutching their rose-crowned silver cups, 
hydraulic organs, and < lyres as large as chariots/ 
and flutes, make merry music ; the perfumed oil 
in the lamps mingles its intoxication with that of 
the old Falernian wine ; and pretty eastern slaves 
dance voluptuous dances, and mimes play their 
lascivious parts, until men and women alike sink 
into the roses on the floor, and are borne home 
by their laughing slaves. 

Such was the Roman patrician in the fourth 
century, according to Ammianus, Of the broader 
political condition of the empire he knew little ; 
of its economic condition, nothing. He knew 



74 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

only that the stewards still wrung some five or 
ten million sesterces annually out of his estates in 
Gaul and Spain and Africa, and so he could buy 
the prettiest slaves and finest wines and swiftest 
racers in Rome, and entertain his fawning clients 
and successful charioteers, and occasionally give 
the Roman mob an additional spectacle in the 
amphitheatre. His library was * like a tomb. 
It was the heyday of barbers, and cooks, and 
sorcerers, and charioteers. A few years earlier, 
when the city had been threatened with famine, 
they had deported from it all its scholars and 
teachers, but had kept their three thousand sing 
ing girls, with their masters and choruses. 
Macrobius tells a story of one of these patricians, 
whose slaves had adjusted the folds of his toga 
with the usual care before he went out. He was 
passing through a narrow place with an acquaint 
ance, and the latter brushed against him, and dis 
arranged his precious folds. He intrusted the 
matter to his lawyers at once lawyers whom you 
could swear Dickens had copied line for line from 
the pages of Ammianus. These were the lords 
of Rome in 380, when the Goths were moving 
restlessly along the frontier of the empire ; men 
whose supreme effort was to order a slave three 



THE ETERNAL CITY 75 

hundred stripes if he were a minute late with his 
service, who could not take a bath without hav 
ing the planets consulted, who thought they had 
equalled the marches of Alexander if they drove 
to see their estates or sailed in painted boats from 
Lake Avernus to Pozzuoli or Cajeta, and who 
grumbled that they had not been born amongst 
the Cimmerians if a fly alighted on their silken 
fringes or a ray of the sun found its way through 
the awning. 

Nor did Ammianus find much more of the old 
Roman spirit in the lower classes. Amongst the 
million or so of people who then dwelt in the 
1790 palaces and 46,600 tenement-blocks of the 
city, there were apart from the wealthy and their 
vast following of slaves, parasites, and dependants, 
and the hereditary corporations of bakers, butchers, 
etc. some 200,000 or 300,000 free citizens who 
subsisted on the public distribution of food. From 
morning until night they lounged about the fora 
and the wine-shops, playing dice, and discussing 
the latest or the next games in the circus. When 
the hour for the distribution of bread came later 
emperors had increased the folly by adding pork 
and wine and oil they gathered shamelessly 
on the bread-steps/ where the bronze tablets 



7 6 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

exhibited the roll of honour, and received their 
rations. Then, perhaps, they earned a little 
money from some senator or charioteer by pro 
mising their support at the next race, and re 
turned to the dice-board, and the wine-cup, and 
the thickly-clustered fornices down the Subura. 
At the princely Antoninian baths, where there 
were marble seats for 1600 bathers, they could 
steam and bathe themselves, exercise in the 
palaestra, and lounge in the peristyle, for a 
farthing. Perhaps it was a day of religious 
feasting, and they flocked to the temples- 
Christian as well as pagan and gorged them 
selves with food, and reeled with intoxication, in 
honour of any god or goddess that chanced to 
have wealthy admirers. Or it may have been 
one of the 175 days of public games, or the day 
of a special feast given by some rich senator ; 
Symmachus spent ^90,000 on the games he 
provided to celebrate the praetorship of his son 
bringing dogs from Scotland (a rare treat), horses 
from Spain, lions from Africa, gladiators from 
Saxony, tigers, elephants, comedians, and so forth, 
from all parts of the world. Those were the days 
when life ran swiftly in Rome. Rising from 
almost sleepless beds in some upper story in 



THE ETERNAL CITY 77 

the Subura, they would rush to the Circus 
Maximus at early dawn, and discuss the prospects 
of the greens and the blues (the great circus 
factions of the fourth century) with a frenzy that 
bordered on madness. And when at length the 
presiding magistrate dropped the napkin, and 
the chariots shot along the course, the 380,000 
spectators could not have been distracted from 
the momentous issue for one of the rival factions 
if the Goths had appeared at the gate of the 
circus. The following day they would pour into 
the great amphitheatre (Colosseum), and its silken 
awnings would swell hour after hour with the roar 
of 90,000 voices, as the blood of man and beast 
thickened the sands of the arena ; the magistrates, 
the pontiffs, and the Vestal Virgins smiling 
approval from the podium. These were the men 
before whom prefects of the city trembled, when 
the corn-ships from Africa were delayed, or the 
wine ran short, or the insolence of some favourite 
charioteer or gladiator forced the prefects to arrest 
him. These were the men who could no longer 
lift a Roman shield, and who mutilated themselves 
to avoid military service when they were not 
exempted from it. And the vultures saw, and 
gathered thicker on the hills. 



78 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

That is the picture of Roman life which we 
find in the caustic pages of Ammianus and the 
vivid letters of St. Jerome. St. Ambrose confirms 
much of it in his sermons ; he even speaks of 
matrons reeling out of palaces, at the close of the 
banquets, into the brilliantly lighted streets. St. 
Augustine s picture of life in Africa is in full 
agreement. St. Chrysostom s picture of life at 
Christian Constantinople is somewhat more re 
pulsive. And so the world talks freely of the 
unutterable vice of Rome, and finds no mystery 
in its fall. The world is wrong. That the cor 
ruption of Rome, for several centuries dissolving 
the physical and moral vigour of the race, aided 
the process of destruction, is beyond question ; 
but one might as well say that Christian Spain 
has fallen for its sins as make that affirmation of 
the Roman empire. Modern historians find only 
too sufficient reasons for the fall of Rome without 
weighing transcendental theories about the con 
sequence of its vices the incessant war, foreign 
and domestic, of the third and fourth centuries ; 
the division of the empire ; the extinction of the 
agricultural population from which the army had 
been recruited ; the expensive employment of 
mercenaries ; the instruction of the barbarian in 



THE ETERNAL CITY 79 

the art of war ; the stupid fiscal policy, eternally 
grasping and ruining, never fostering; the pauper 
isation and degradation of the people of the capi 
tals ; the quarrels and intrigues of rival religions ; 
the decay of patriotism, partly through the de 
bauching generosity of timid emperors and ambi 
tious officers, partly through the effect of Christian 
teaching on some of the best spirits of the time ; 
the utter demoralisation, in the trail of imperial 
expansion, of the old Roman religion. It was not 
so much a change in her morals as in her whole 
political and economic system that Rome needed, 
if she were to resist the encroaching tide of bar 
barians. In the year 384 such a change was 
beyond the power of a miracle. 

The truth is that those who talk thus of the 
unutterable vice of Rome usually shrink from a 
careful study of vice in any age. 1 In reality 
Rome had made considerable moral advance in 
the fourth century. To form a picture of Roman 
life solely from the pages of Ammianus and St. 
Jerome, as so many do, is as reasonable and just 
as it would be to judge modern France on the 

1 For an instance of the confusion of mind in which historians of a 
certain type view the vices of Rome and connect them with its fall 
the reader may study Mr. Sheppard s Fall of Rome, p. 80, and such 
works as those of Villemain, Ozanam, Dollinger, etc. 



8o ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

sole testimony of Zola s novels and Nordau s 
criticisms. Ammianus felt the scorn of a 
hardened warrior for the luxury of Rome ; 
indeed, it is suspected that his indignation is 
fed by some personal grievance. St. Jerome is 
as safe a guide to other people s morals as we 
found St. Augustine to be on his own earlier 
years. Yet Mr. Dill contends that even the 
picture they give us is no worse than one 
could truthfully give of English society in the 
reigns of George n. and George in. 1 Boissier 
thinks the time recalls the age of Trajan and 
Antonine. 

In the first place, it must be observed that a 
great change had taken place in the condition of 
woman, the child, and the slave. I have already 
indicated that the paterfamilias had ceased to 
exercise a despotic authority in the home. 
Woman, it is true, had largely abused her new 
liberty though there were fine pagan women, 
of the type of the wife of Prastextatus, as well as 
refined Christian women, at Rome in 384; but, 
regarded in principle, the change argued an im 
portant ethical modification in the Roman mind. 
The Due de Broglie has generously recognised 

1 Roman Society in the last Century of the Wtsiern Empire, \>. 123. 



THE ETERNAL CITY 81 

this outcome of Stoic influence. M. Thamin 1 
has even entitled one of his chapters * The 
Christianity of Paganism, in view of the gradual 
permeation of pagan thought with elevated Stoic 
principles. The facility for divorce had been 
greatly restricted (in 331), though the law was 
still too lax ; but when Jerome speaks of the 
marriage of a man who had buried twenty wives to 
a woman who had had twenty-two husbands, we 
are justified in questioning the correctness of his 
information or of the c marriages. There was 
a remarkable change taking place in the attitude 
of the cultured pagan towards the slave. The 
Saturnalia of Macrobius consists of a series of 
conversations attributed to a group of the leading 
pagan senators of the last quarter of the fourth 
century. In one of these discussions the question 
of the slave is introduced, and almost all the 
speakers are credited with most humane senti 
ments in his regard ; nor is there any question 
here of Christian influence. The days were long 
since passed when a master could cast a slave into 
his piscina to feed his precious fishes, or crucify 
him for disobedience. 

In fact, this same Macrobius, writing towards 

1 St. Ambroise et la morale Chretienne. 



82 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the close of the fourth century, gives us quite a 
new picture of Roman life. M. A. Thierry, in his 
Life of St. Jerome, contends that the second half 
of the fourth century was undoubtedly the epoch 
of greatest luxury at Rome and in Italy. The 
picture which Macrobius gives us in the third book 
of the Saturnalia completely disproves this. Here 
we have a group of Roman senators of the highest 
rank discussing the luxury of the ancients as 
something quite unknown to their own age. 
O. Muller, in his exhaustive study De genio, luxu, 
et moribus *e-vi Theodosiam^ remarks that the only 
reason is because they have less money than the 
patricians of the first century. I do not think 
that is a candid interpretation of Macrobius. He 
speaks, not with regret, but with polite censure, 
of the days when senators watered their trees with 
wine, paid vast sums of money for rare fish, dined 
off peacocks eggs and larks tongues, and resorted 
to devices of gluttony which are too repulsive to 
dwell upon ; nunc pretia hasc insana nescimus. 
He even speaks of the practice of introducing 
dancing girls into the banquet-room as extinct ; 
though we know that in this he cannot have been 
speaking for the whole of Rome. We are bound 
to oppose Macrobius to Ammianus. 



THE ETERNAL CITY 83 

But, further, we have a more direct knowledge 
of this better side of the dying Rome than the 
imaginary discourses of the Saturnalia. The leading 
characters of that work are historical personages. 
The host, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, with his 
friends Symmachus and Flavianus, formed the 
centre of a group of patricians who do much to 
redeem the vulgarity depicted in the more fre 
quently quoted Ammianus. The letters of Sym 
machus, prefect of the city in 384, introduce us to 
a world into which the soldier-critic had evidently 
not penetrated, a world of serious, refined, cultured, 
and temperate Roman senators, who command 
respect. Symmachus was the most distinguished 
letter-writer in that age of epistolary art. His 
brief but elaborately-wrought epistles were read 
to admiring crowds of Romans. There were even 
those who engaged thieves to intercept the slaves 
who conveyed them. We have a large collection, 
in ten books, of these letters ; and, though they 
are surprisingly disappointing in respect of the 
historical information they afford us, they do, 
nevertheless, reveal the existence of a body of 
patricians of admirable type. In some instances, 
as in the case of Praetextatus, sometime proconsul 
of Achaia and prefect of Rome, we know that the 



84 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

wife was no less worthy, and no less sincerely 
devoted to the old Roman religion, than the 
husband. These men were probably less rich than 
the Romans we have described above. The income 
of men like Symmachus who had three houses 
in Rome and fifteen villas in various parts of 
Italy is estimated to have been about ^60,000 
per year ; the income of the richer Romans of 
the time is said to have reached about 180,000 
per year. But such as their wealth was, they 
made a sober and unselfish use of it, and were 
proud to exhibit the finer ideal of ancient Rome, 
purged of many of its defects, in the closing years 
of the empire. Unhappily, even these reveal no 
sense of the dangers that menace the empire. If 
we may trust the poet Claudianus, such apprehen 
sion as was felt was directed, in strange perversity, 
towards distant Persia. To their real dangers 
they seem quite insensible. We can only say, 
firstly, that the removal of power from Rome 
almost removed responsibility from the senators ; 
and, secondly, that they were involved in a 
struggle for the maintenance of a religion which 
they thought essential to the life of the empire. 

Thus, when we set Macrobius against Am- 
mianus, and Symmachus against Jerome I would 



THE ETERNAL CITY 85 

add, if it did not go beyond our period, Ausonius 
against Salvianus we obtain a truer and fuller 
impression of the life of Rome. If the paint and 
tinsel and vulgarity and passion were all in that 
life, there would be some ground for the edifying 
phrases of the ecclesiastical historian. But pagan 
Rome Christian Rome I reserve for the next 
chapter was far from being wholly corrupt. 
There is hardly a trait in the darker picture which 
has not its counterpart in modern life. With one 
exception ; we have, happily, nothing to correspond 
to the quarter of a million of stout frames that 
were rotting in idleness in imperial Rome, con 
suming in a life of heartless and senseless pleasure 
the blood and sinews of the empire, which they 
thought they could prey on for ever. Nature 
reminded them that social life has its laws, moral, 
political, and economic. 1 

1 As to what we call immorality in the narrower sense, I will be 
so bold as to make a brief comparison with modern times. The 
phrases one meets about the * nameless vices of Rome have misled 
many into thinking there were practices then in vogue which are 
happily unknown to the modern world. Taking the unnatural 
forms of vice as they are enumerated in Rosenbaum s Geschichte der 
Lustseuche, any person of moderate information in these matters will 
recognise that all of them are appallingly prevalent in modern 
Europe; indeed, some of the most repulsive of them are more 
prevalent to-day than we have any definite reason for thinking they 
were at Rome in the fourth century. As to forms of vice which 



86 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

are not physiologically unnatural, it would be idle to question the 
general absence of moral restraint in the fourth century. But it is 
open to question if Rome had as high a proportion of lupanaria, and 
offered as flagrant an advertisement of vice, as modern London j and 
it is certain that adultery (in the complete sense) was infinitely less 
prevalent (witness the prosecutions of 368), and the exhibition of 
obscenity permitted by public authority was no worse, than in 
modern Paris. 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 87 



CHAPTER V 

THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 

IN the year that Augustine came to Rome there 
was unusual excitement in the eternal city. 
Christianity had opened in earnest its legislative 
war upon the old religion. The long peace that 
had endured since the death of Julian had been 
broken by a severe blow at the prestige of 
paganism. Gratian had been induced to confis 
cate the revenues of the temples, and to annul the 
civic and political privileges of the pontiffs and 
the vestal virgins. This was in 382 ; Gratian 
was betrayed and slain in the following year. 
But when the pagan chiefs "approached the boy- 
emperor, his successor, it was only to receive a 
resolute confirmation of the decree. Augustine 
came to Rome in the midst of the profound 
agitation which was caused by this change in the 
imperial policy. 

In a bucolic poem which seems to have been 



88 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

written about this time by a Christian, known as 
Endelechius, it is stated that the Christian God 
alone is worshipped in the towns. That is 
obviously intended to impress the ignorant rustics, 
but it is an utterly untrue statement. Augustine 
left a city which was predominantly pagan for 
one which was still violently, if not profoundly, 
attached to the old religion. Four hundred 
temples, many of them magnificent museums of 
sculpture, paintings, jewellery, etc., still opened 
their doors to the worshippers. The great temple 
of Jupiter, with its golden gates and golden roof, 
still crowned the Capitol. The gilded statue of 
Victory, the colossal statue of Apollo, and hundreds 
of others, surrounded the Forum. Through all 
the squares, at all the cross-roads, over the foun 
tains, baths, arches, and public buildings, the 
marble images of gods and goddesses were still 
enthroned. Over every door was the tutelary 
image, before which even the Christians timidly lit 
their lamps at night, pretending, says the scornful 
Jerome, that they were merely lighting the 
entrance. The obelisk in the Circus still marked 
the dedication of their chief temple their only 
temple, growls Ammianus to the sun. The 
games were still chiefly connected with the festivals 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 89 

of the gods. The Saturnalia still offered their 
prolonged dissipation. On the Lupercalia (in 
February) the priests of Pan still ran about the 
streets in their goat-skin cloths, and unblushing 
matrons met the blows of their whips. In March 
the priests of Cybele descended from the Palatine 
for the great festival of * the mother of the gods. 
Augustine describes how he saw them in the wild 
licence of their Easter Sunday, which closed their 
Holy Week of lamentation ; when they took the 
black stone, covered with a silver female head, 
which represented the goddess, for the solemn bath 
in the Almo, and returned through Rome in an 
orgie of rejoicing, the drums and horns and howls 
throwing the priests into a perfect madness ; 
though Rome had forbidden the excesses they 
practised in the East, where they mutilated them 
selves in the procession, and carried the bloody 
emblem before them. In June the meretnces still 
celebrated the licentious Floralia in the streets. 
The priests of Mars still danced and sang their 
old Latin songs on the public roads. The smoke 
of the sacrifices had not ceased, for there was still 
a certain source of revenue the vectigalia tem- 
plorum, a fund instituted to pay for the sacred 
banquets and games besides private devotion. 



90 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

People still slept on the skins of the sacrificed 
animals in the temple of ^Esculapius for the pur 
pose of learning the future ; matrons still sat on 
the emblem of Priapus to ensure fertility ; men, 
women, and children still hung their ex-votos in 
the temples, and consulted the astrologers and 
sorcerers as to every step they took. They still 
had a god or a goddess for every leaf or every 
muscle. Augustine describes eleven deities who 
presided over the growth of corn. They had not 
only the guardian image over each door, but they 
had a god of the door, Forculus, with subsidiary 
deities for the threshold and the hinges, Limen- 
tinus and Cardea. Human life was guarded by 
a stupendous army of deities. To pass over the 
functions of Mena, Virginiensis, Subigus, Prema, 
Pertunda, Venus, and Priapus, there were Lucina 
to preside at the birth, Opis to receive the child, 
Vaticanus to open its mouth, Levana to lift it up, 
Cunina to watch the cradle, and Rumina, Potina, 
Educa, Parentia, and a hundred others. Religion 
was not a matter to fill up the idle hours of a 
Sunday with the Romans ; such as it was, it was 
co-extensive with life. 

Further, there were religions in Rome which 
were as earnest and strenuous as Christianity. 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 91 

Renan has puzzled many people by saying that 
if the progress of Christianity had been arrested 
by some moral miracle in the fourth century, 
Mithraism might have become the religion of the 
west ; most people being under the fond impres 
sion that they know nothing about Mithraism. 
It is impossible to discuss here what probability 
there was of Mithraism absorbing Christianity 
instead of Christianity absorbing Mithraism ; 1 but 
in the fourth century the Persian cult attracted 
some of the most religious and most cultured 
minds in Rome. The Christian prefect Gracchus 
had destroyed one of their temples on the Vatican 
in 376, but we have inscriptions recording sacri 
fices in their temples (for the purpose of baptism, 
the devotee standing below in the stream of 
blood) by some of the leading patricians until 
near the close of the century. The elaborate 
ritual which was carried out in the underground 
temple, the religious gloom alternating with the 
brilliance of lamps and candles, the perfume of 
flowers and incense, the symbolic theology, the 
dramatic representation of the birth (on the 
25th of December), and the rock-burial and 

1 See Mr. J. M. Robertson s able and conscientious study, Chris 
tianity and Mythology. 



92 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

resurrection (in spring) of the Saviour, the all- 
pervading idea of regeneration, and the ascetic 
standard of life, appealed no less strongly than 
Christianity to some of the better Romans. 
Modern writers attribute to Mithraism and the 
worship of Isis, which had also found favour at 
Rome, the inspiration of a deep and uplifting 
religious fervour in the last decades of the fourth 
century. The fathers were greatly troubled at 
times both by the moral power and the similarity 
of dogma of these new cults ; but in an age when 
Plato was believed to have taken lessons from 
Jeremiah, and the devil accommodatingly acted as 
an angel of light sometimes, the difficulty was not 
insuperable. However, Mithraism spread far and 
wide through the empire. If indeed Constantine 
had chanced to stake his fortune on Mithra in 
stead of Jesus in his decisive battle, it is difficult 
to say what might have happened. 

Finally, we must not forget the sect to which 
Augustine himself still nominally belonged. He 
has not presented it to us in attractive colours, it 
is true ; but there is a passage in Jerome (ep. 22, 
written in 384) which, considering the fewness of 
the Manicheans at Rome owing to persecution, 
should greatly moderate our impression. After a 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 93 

most bitter and sombre dissertation on the morals 
of the Christian women at Rome, he confesses 
that when people meet a woman of severe deport 
ment and pallid features (Jerome s ideal of a 
woman) in the streets, they at once class her as 
a Manichee. 

In this rivalry of religions Christianity had 
already taken up a formidable position since it 
had been adopted at court. In 374 there entered 
into the hierarchy, at the very point where it 
came into closest contact with the court, an able 
statesman and devoted and commanding ecclesi 
astic. By 384 the influence of St. Ambrose, so 
strangely underrated by historians as a rule, 1 had 
made a deep impression, and paganism began its 
rapid decline. When the superstitious Constantine 
cast about for a deity who was not already secured 
by his adversary in the struggle for empire in 
323, it occurred to him to try the power of the 
Christian God, for whom his father had enter 
tained some respect. He won, and Christianity 
became the religion of the court. Constantine, 
Constans, and Constantius, whatever their per 
sonal feeling, and apart from a few decrees which 

1 But compare the emphatic position of De Broglie in his 
ISEglise et V Empire Romain, vol. v. 



94 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

were not enforced, maintained a political neutrality 
in the religious controversy. Julian strove to 
eliminate Christianity by all the means which he 
thought compatible with an ideal of political 
equality. Jovian and Valentinian maintained the 
policy of Julian s predecessors. An ancient writer 
has said that the pagans regained the lost ground 
under Valentinian ; we may follow Ammianus, 
who says that c he remained neutral amidst the 
religious differences. But with the death of 
Valentinian quite a new era began, an era in 
which the supreme power is in the hands of boys 
and youths, and the Western Church at length 
receives the man who can turn the situation to 
account. The year before Gratian, a religious 
youth of sixteen, mounted the throne, St. 
Ambrose passed from the bar and the service of 
the state to the see of Milan, where the Chris 
tian court generally resided. Gratian appointed 
Theodosius, a fervent Christian, to the empire 
of the East, and there the task of destroying 
the old religion proceeded with vigour. The 
West was ruled by Gratian (a boy of sixteen) 
and Valentinian n. (an infant of four or 
five). 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 95 

Both Gratian and Valentinian were at once 
taken under the spiritual guidance of Ambrose. 
The panegyrics he delivered over them are in 
spired by a warm personal affection, and he 
addresses them in his letters with a familiarity 
which is leagues removed from the respect of a 
Symmachus. In fact, he himself says in a letter 
to Gratian (ep. n.), Thou hast gratified me by 
restoring peace to the Church and shutting the 
mouths of its enemies/ When, therefore, we 
find the change of policy, we may at once recog 
nise the hand of Ambrose, as well as the sug 
gestion of Bishop Damasus. In the first year of 
his reign a decree was issued in Gratian s name 
which breathed the tolerant spirit of his pre 
decessors. Then, at a date which it is difficult 
to determine, came his refusal to bear the robe 
and the title of Pontifex Maximus, which no 
other Christian emperor had refused. 1 But in 
382 the process of destruction began in earnest. 

1 Gibbon, vol. ill. p. 408, puts this immediately after Gratiarfs 
accession, as Zosimus seems to intimate, and is corrected by his sage 
commentators, Milman and Smith. But Herr Schultze, Mr. Dill, 
and other recent writers, show that there is no solid reason for de 
parting from the natural interpretation of Zosimus. If we must 
have our Gibbon served up with an abundance of ecclesiastical sauce, 



96 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Gratian issued a decree in which he confiscated 
to the treasury the estates of the temples, and 
revoked all the privileges of the pontiffs and 
vestal virgins. The Catholic historian, who is so 
full of the iniquity of the Reformers in confiscat 
ing the estates of his Church, will appreciate the 
gravity of this blow ; and the loss of civic and 
political prestige was no less serious. But it 
was immediately followed by a blow which 
was even more painful to the pagans of Rome. 
In the senate-house, on the south side of the 
Forum, was an altar bearing a beautiful marble 
statue of Victory, before which the senators swore 
allegiance to the emperor, and burned incense 
at the commencement of their deliberations. 
Although it was only a shadow of power that 
remained to the senate in the fourth century, the 
goddess who had presided over the counsels of 
the state for four centuries was instinctively con 
nected with the very fate of the empire in the 
minds of the Conservative party. But the senate 
had been greatly enlarged, and even some of the 
historic families had passed over to the new 
religion in the train of Constantine. Whether 

it is at least time there was an improvement in its quality, and such 
corrections 1 as this, vilificatory comments from Villemain, etc., 
were dropped. 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 97 

it was true or no l that, as Ambrose claimed, the 
majority of the senators were Christians in 382, 
there was certainly a large party of nominal Chris 
tians in the curia. Bishop Damasus, a clever and 
ambitious prelate, suggested to Ambrose that the 
altar weighed on the consciences of the Christian 
senators, and Gratian ordered its removal. It 
was in vain that the pagans sent their great 
orator Symmachus to Milan to plead their cause ; 
Symmachus was ordered back to Rome without 
being admitted to the palace. In the following 
year, 383, Gratian was foully murdered clearly 
the hand of Jupiter and the young Valentinian 
ruled the western empire. 

In 384, the year of Augustine s residence at 
Rome, a second attempt was made to obtain the 
restoration of the statue. The political situation 
seemed to favour the pagan cause, as the usurper 
Maximus held an uncertain sword over the head 
of the young Valentinian. However, the senate 
dare not risk a second humiliation. Symmachus 
wrote an eloquent oration, and forwarded it to 
Milan. According to Ambrose s version of the 

1 I will only point out an apparently unnoticed passage in the 
Confessions (viii. 2), where Augustine says that nearly the whole 
nobility of Rome was pagan in the time of Valentinian II. 



98 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

matter, which is usually followed by the trustful 
hagiographers, the proceedings were very edify 
ing. The prefect s paper was read before the 
consistory at Milan. The councillors, mostly 
Arian Christians, though there were two bar 
barian generals, were unanimously in favour of 
restoring the statue. Then the young emperor 
(aetat. 14) boldly declared that he would do 
nothing of the kind, and dismissed the petition 
unanswered. The truth is that we must insert 
between the meeting of the consistory and the 
emperor s decision the remarkable letter of St. 
Ambrose, which is the seventeenth in Migne s 
collection. De Broglie thinks the senate chose 
an occasion when Ambrose was absent on a mis 
sion to Maximus in Gaul. In any case, the 
petition was introduced without his knowledge, 
but no one was better informed on the affairs 
of the curia than Ambrose he heard of it and 
of the attitude of the consistory, and at once 
wrote a strong letter to Valentinian, threatening 
him with excommunication if he restored the 
altar. * Don t let anybody impose on thy youth, 
he says to the boy, with delightful consistency ; 
in military matters he may consult military men, 
but in religious matters the decision must rest 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 99 

with religious men. He politically reminds him 
of the views of Theodosius, on whom his throne 
then really depended. Finally, he says : If it is 
decided otherwise, we bishops will certainly not 
suffer it in silence. You may go to church, 
but you will find no priest there, or else one 
who will repel you. He demands a copy of 
the petition. Valentinian dismissed the petition, 
and Ambrose published a severe criticism of the 
oration of Symmachus. To say the truth, that 
was not difficult, since the tolerance and detach 
ment from details of these cultured monotheistic 
pagans placed them at a great polemical disadvan 
tage in comparison with the fervent exclusivism 
of Ambrose and his colleagues. Indeed, there 
was a profound truth on the side of the Church, 
which Ambrose ably developed in his reply, and 
which is, unhappily, too little appreciated by his 
modern admirers. It was the truth obvious 
enough to us (when there is question of its appli 
cation to past ages) that humanity makes pro 
gress. Be it God, or nature, or the world-soul 
that grows through the ages, that inspires those 
views of man s life and destiny which we call 
religions, this much is certain they improve 
from age to age. Not the conservatism for 



ioo ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

which Symmachus pleaded so eloquently, but 
progress from religion to religion, is the great 
lesson of history. Christianity had the germs of 
great evils in it a glance down the Middle Ages 
suffices to justify the phrase but it was morally 
and intellectually far superior to the religion 
which it sought to replace. Symmachus and his 
colleagues were resisting the sternest and the 
happiest law of this perplexing world. 

Or TTOTC TU.V Aios apfjiovfav 
OvarMV Trapt^iacri /3ovXai. 

j This year 384 decisively marks the downfall 
of paganism. Feeble attempts were made to 

; renew the petition, but they met with no success. 

Towards the close of the year, Praetextatus, the 
most respected figure in the conservative body, 
died. The Romans left the theatre in tears 
when the death was announced in the middle of 
a performance ; St. Jerome hastened to assure his 
patrician friends that Praetextatus had gone to 
Tartarus. Symmachus retired from public life 
in despair. Flavianus led a courageous revolt 
under Eugenius in 392 ; there was another 
revival under Attalus in 409. These were 
momentary eddies in an irresistible stream. 
There were devoted pagans in office even after 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 101 

the fall, but the process of dissolution set in 
rapidly at Rome in 384. The decree of 382 was 
only the prelude to a long series of enactments, 
mostly traceable to episcopal influence, which con 
summated the work. Pagan beliefs were not of 
the kind that thrive by persecution. 

Augustine maintains a significant silence in the 
Confessions about the great events he witnessed at 
Rome in 384. He tells us two things only : 
firstly, he was less drawn to Christianity than 
ever ; and secondly, he felt an inclination to turn 
his back on all the churches and temples. We 
can easily fill in the eloquent blank in his experi 
ences, if we examine the situation of the Church 
at Rome during his residence there ; and the 
brief study will help us to understand to an 
extent why, apart from the struggle over the new 
law, the cultured pagans of the time politely 
ignore the existence of Christianity in Rome. 

If Augustine was at Rome in the month of 
November 384, he probably went with all 
Rome to see the funeral of Blesilla, daughter 
of a noble Christian house. Her remains were 
being conveyed with exceptional pomp to the 
tomb of her ancestors, when her mother Paula 
gave way to a wild burst of grief, and was carried 



102 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

away insensible. Instantly, a roar of anger went 
up from the crowd. She is weeping for her 
daughter who has killed herself by fasting. Why 
aren t those wretched monks driven from the 
city ? Why aren t they stoned, or flung into the 
Tiber ? And if Augustine had asked the mean 
ing of it all, he would have heard that a certain 
fanatical monk, of the name of Eusebius Hierony- 
mus, a savage Pannonian or Dalmatian, had a 
school, in the palace of Marcella up on the 
Aventine, where he taught these suicidal doctrines 
to a group of women. On further inquiry for 
the name monk would be new to him he would 
learn this curious story. When Athanasius came 
to Rome in 341 he brought with him two monks, 
who attracted as much attention as Symmachus s 
Scotch dogs. They moved freely amongst the 
wealthy Christians, telling the marvellous story 
of the Egyptian desert. There were several 
Christian palaces. The great house of the Probi 
had loyally imitated the emperor s example im 
mediately after his victory, and others had 
followed. The monastic idea appealed to the 
ladies of these families ; we do not, unfortunately, 
find any indication of masculine fervour in them 
until late in the century. In the course of time 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 103 

a noble lady, Melania, caused intense excitement 
by selling her property and departing for the 
East. Then another, Marcella, founded a kind 
of spiritual home in her palace on the Aventine, 
and a group of Christian ladies Asella, Furia, 
Fabiola, Marcellina, Felicitas, Paula, Eustochium, 
Blesilla, Lea, etc. gathered there for devotions 
and the cultivation of a lofty ideal of life. The 
palace of the Anicii, the heiress of which had 
married Sextus P. Probus, was another great 
Christian centre. From these two palaces streams 
of gold flowed out over the whole Christian 
world. Much of it stopped in Rome. Pope 
Damasus flew about in a splendid chariot, and 
gave banquets equal to the emperor s, says 
Ammianus. Under the arcades of St. Peter s 
on the Vatican liberal rations were served out 
to poor Christians. The Church expanded. 

About 380 there came into the hands of the 
community on the Aventine a letter from a young 
monk of the Syrian desert, who had studied in 
Rome and lived there more pleasantly than 
piously some years before. The letter delighted 
them so much that they learned it by heart. The 
writer, St. Jerome, was urging a friend to join 
him in the desert. It made contemptuous refer- 



104 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ence to < that fool Plato/ and it had one passage 
of dramatic force. c Though thy little nephew 
cling to thy neck, the young saint cried ; 
* though thy mother loose her hair and rend her 
garments and show thee the breasts thou hast 
sucked ; though thy father cast himself down on 
the threshold ; tread over him, and go forth with 
tearless eyes to the standard of the cross. In 
these things cruelty alone is true piety. These 
things were committed to memory by young 
daughters of patrician houses. In 382 Jerome 
returned to Rome, and at once became the centre 
of the group on the Aventine. He directed them 
in the study of Hebrew and the Scriptures, and 
wrote them numbers of violent and not very 
refined letters, which represent the Roman com 
munity in a most uncomplimentary light. But 
the Church grew. Jerome may be regarded as 
the father of the finer art of proselytising, which 
is still so fruitfully cultivated at Rome ; such is 
the advantage of hourly intercourse with the 
gentler sex. Giving instructions to Laeta (ep. 107) 
on the education of her child, at a later date, 
he directs her to use her daughter in the task 
of converting her father, Albinus, an eminent 
patrician and pontiff : When she sees her grand- 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 105 

father, let her climb his knees, and clasp her 
hands about his neck, and force him to listen to 
her prayers. 

Albinus was converted, but after a long struggle. 
Jerome favoured mixed marriages (which Ambrose 
opposed), and the claims of Christianity were soon 
being pressed in every palace with that gentle and 
tactful zeal which the Church has ever recognised 
in woman. But we can well understand the 
hesitation of cultured Romans to admit them. 
Neo-Platonic philosophy and Stoic morality had 
prepared the way to a great extent, as we shall 
see in the conversion of Augustine and others, but 
there were intellectual and moral difficulties in 
the Scriptures themselves, and especially in this 
ascetic development of Christian principles. We 
can guess the feelings of a Roman father when he 
heard his daughter repeating Jerome s words to 
Heliodorus (given above), or his advice to Laeta, 
or his opinion that * adult virgins should never 
take a bath (ep. 107), or his contempt of Plato, 
or his praise of the young girl who sold her 
jewellery without her parents consent (ep. 24), or 
his sneering concession that marriage was all very 
well for those who were afraid to sleep alone at 
night (ep. 50), or his declaration to the widow 



106 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Furia that to marry a second time for the sake of 
maintenance was to prostitute her chastity like a 
harlot/ or his coarse and fanatical insistence on 
the treasure of virginity which, Jerome can 
didly tells his friends, I do not praise to the sky 
because I possess it, but rather because I admire 
what I do not possess. At a time when depopu 
lation was one of the greatest evils of the empire, 
thoughtful Romans were little disposed to listen 
to the morbid praise of virginity which was taken 
up by every great prelate in the Church ; they 
did not feel reassured by Ambrose s theory that 
God would increase the fertility of their matrons 
in recompense, or Chrysostom s notion that the 
race would be propagated miraculously. 1 More 
over, even senators, like Paulinus, were beginning 
to desert the service of their country under the 
influence of this religion of detachment, as Jerome 
(ep. 145) urged even the soldiers to do. 

On the other hand, Jerome s letters made it clear 
that, whilst these efforts were being made to instil 
heroic enterprise into women, the clergy were 
sinking deeper into corruption. Chrysostom said 
of Christian Antioch that amongst so many 

1 The Manicheans used to retort to the Christians : * The mule is 
a virgin. 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 107 

thousand men there were not a hundred who would 
be saved, and he had a doubt about even these. 
That seems to have been Jerome s idea of Rome. 
Outside of his select school on the Aventine, he 
sees nothing but corruption. Grossly, and in 
gross phrases, he repeatedly assures his lady pupils 
that the priests and Christian women of Rome 
are deeply corrupt. Pope Damasus, almost his 
only friend, he loyally defends ; but there is no 
reason to doubt either the sanguinary struggle and 
intrigue which preceded his election or the luxurious 
life that followed it, as stated by Ammianus. 
Ozanam points out that not a single great man 
filled the see of Rome in the first four centuries ; 
Villemain unkindly remarks that the Church of 
Rome did not even produce a heretic. 1 And if 
Damasus was himself a matronarum auriscalpius, 
as rival priests said, it is hardly surprising that the 
frailty was very conspicuous in his clergy. The 
imperial authorities had to pass a law (in 370), 
which was read in the churches, making invalid 
any legacy to the Christian clergy. <I don t 

1 In which affirmation Villemain himself is not above suspicion. 
For Helvidius and Jovinianus, Jerome s great enemies, strongly 
attacked the virginity ideal, the growing cult of the Virgin, the use 
of pagan ritual and practices, and so forth. Jovinian succeeded in 
persuading several nuns at Rome that the married state was quite as 
holy as virginity, and more comfortable. 



io8 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

complain of the law, says Jerome (ep. 52), but 
I grieve to admit we have deserved it. 1 He 
describes the priest or the deacon rising early, 
dressing with care, and setting out, his fingers 
glittering with rings, his hair curled, perfumed, 
and buckled back, to spend the whole day in 
visiting wealthy Christians. Elderly people with 
out children are his chief spiritual concern. In 
other houses of the rich he is eloquent with 
admiration of some fine cushion, or other object 
of luxury, until it is given to him. There are 
graver matters. Elderly widows attach these 
handsome young priests to themselves, at first as 
spiritual advisers ; priests have young women 
serving and living in their homes, who are wives 
in all but the name (ep. 125). Jerome warns the 
young Eustochium (ep. 22) that most of the 
virgins about her are hypocrites, and most of 
the priests seducers ; many of them only seek 
ordination, he tells her, that they may have freer 
access to women. Jerome had, of course, to pay 
for his candour. He was accused (unjustly) of 
being more than a spiritual director to Paula; 

1 To illustrate the precariousness of human testimony, compare 
the words of Ambrose on this point : Although no fault can be 
assigned, we are oppressed by law 1 (Resp. ad SymmachunT). 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 109 

Damasus was long under a similar imputation. In 
a word, we cannot affect to be surprised that the 
cultured pagans of Rome ignore the existence of 
Christianity. They very rarely show hostile feel 
ing, in spite of their defeat, but it is not a serious 
religious phenomenon to them, as such. It has 
been said that, in the condition of the Roman 
empire, an extreme of asceticism was the proper 
and effective ideal to set up. The study of this 
group of cultured pagans on the one hand, and of 
the hypocrisy of the clergy on the other, shows the 
utter futility of this statement. 

Amongst the lower orders Christianity met less 
resistance, or at least a resistance which was more 
easily turned. Showy processions, sacred banquets, 
and sacred games were the only indispensable 
features of the old religion. The Church 
generously smoothed the path to the new temples 
as much as possible. It not only counselled the 
liberation of slaves and the giving of alms, but it 
acted with policy and discretion in other ways. 
It admitted sacred banquets in the churches until 
late in the fourth, and in some places late in the 
fifth, century. Merchants set up their stalls 
about the church, a kind of fair was instituted, 
and there was heavy drinking, dancing, and panto- 



no ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

mimic performances all day long ; as long as the 
supply of cakes and wine was generous, the 
worshippers would not mind whether the feast was 
before an altar of Bacchus or over the bones of 
St. Peter. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, as well 
as a number of councils, fought strenuously against 
these fearful abuses. The games were a source of 
trouble for many years. For the higher classes 
it was in the schools that Jupiter took refuge 
when the temples were closed ; for the lower, it 
was the circus and the amphitheatre. But the 
gladiatorial contests were eventually suppressed 1 
though it was by no means so simple a matter as 
the current story of Monk Telemachus represents 
and it was shown that the chariot races, etc., 
suffered little by the omission of the religious 
element. As to the processions and manner of 
worship in general, the Church was very accom 
modating. The Saturnalia became Christmas and 
its succeeding festivals. The purification of Isis 
became the purification of Mary ; the Floralia, 
Pentecost ; and so on. Hymns to Cybele were 
hastily adapted to the mother of Christ ; statues 
of Isis and Horus became Mary and Jesus. 
Stately processions once more made their way to 

1 And suppressed by the Church, be it noted. 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW in 

the temples, now converted into Christian churches. 
Lanciani says l that many pagan altars were in 
use in Roman churches until a century ago ; that 
the standards of weight were transferred to the 
Christian Churches, and became the stones that 
killed St. Stephen and other martyrs ; that 
Christian churches of the fifth century even copied 
the pagan custom of having baths attached for the 
convenience of the worshippers. People hung up 
their crutches and ex-votos to the saints as they 
had done to Juno and ^Esculapius. They had 
the incense, and the music, and the flowers, and 
candles, and vestments, and holy water, just as in 
the good old times. c Nothing distinguishes you 
from the pagans/ said Faustus to St. Augustine, 
except that you hold separate assemblies ; that 
was much more true in Italy, after the close of 
the temples in 391. 

I have thought it of interest to describe at some 
length the ferment of religious activity into which 
Augustine came at Rome in 384. That he was 
untouched by the temptations of Rome he is 
forced, somewhat reluctantly, to allow ; he can 
only say that my sin was the more incurable 
as I thought I was committing no sin. He was 

1 Pagan and Christian Rome, chap. i. 



ill ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

faithful to the mother of his son, Adeodatus, then 
a boy of eleven or twelve years. But the intel 
lectual effect of Augustine s short stay at Rome was 
very great. He began to weary of his Sisyphean 
task, and look with favour on the academic 
teaching. c I had an idea that the philosophers 
who go by the name of the Academics were wiser 
than the rest, in that they said we should doubt 
about everything, and the pursuit of truth was 
hopeless/ We must take his statement with 
some reserve ; he never really learned much about 
the Academics (who were thorough Agnostics), 
and never doubted the existence of God. In his 
DC Utilitatc Credendi he says that when the 
great waves of his thoughts inclined him to the 
academic philosophy/ he was arrested by the 
power of the human mind ; that remains through 
out life the chief basis of his spiritualism. He 
then felt that a divine authority must have 
indicated some path across the despairing plains 
of life to the golden peaks of his Ciceronian dream. 
But immediately, he says, the forest of the con 
flicting sects arose before him, and repelled him 
once more. He despaired of finding the truth 
in the Church ; paganism he never deigns to 
mention. He preferred to remain a nominal 



THE OLD GODS AND THE NEW 113 

Manichean, but he says emphatically the connec 
tion was no more than nominal. Every path to 
the alluring hills seems closed. He forgets, or is 
ignorant of, the Neo-Platonic religion and philo 
sophy ; and he plunges sadly into the common 
place work of life. 



ii4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER VI 

LIGHT FROM THE EAST 

AUGUSTINE had a private school of rhetoric during 
the few months of his stay at Rome. He lived 
with a Manichean friend at first, and contracted a 
dangerous fever at his house. He then seems 
to have taken a house of his own, and announced 
classes of rhetoric for private students. In the 
golden age a private professor of rhetoric some 
times made a large fortune at Rome. Remmius 
Palasmon made 400,000 sesterces a year ; whilst 
less gifted teachers starved in their attics. In the 
fourth century the teaching of rhetoric was chiefly 
confined to the public schools on the Capitol, 
where thirty masters formed a kind of university, 
to which youths were sent from all parts of the 
empire. Vespasian had begun the practice of the 
State payment of teachers allowing rhetoricians 
100,000 sesterces per year ; Alexander Severus had 
founded a number of scholarships ; and Constantine 






LIGHT FROM THE EAST 115 

had granted teachers a number of civic privileges. 
The Capitol became a busy centre of higher educa 
tion, and Valentinian had been obliged to place some 
restraint on the provincial and Roman youths in 
370. They were to avoid evil company and dis 
orderly banquets, and not to appear too often at 
the circus and theatre. At twenty they were to be 
sent back to their provinces. 

Probably Augustine chose to teach in private 
from his preference for a few quiet youths. He 
does not seem to have remained in Rome even 
for a year. The Roman youths were more 
orderly than the Carthaginians, as he had been 
told, but they had a more serious failing. They 
used to plot together to desert their master and go 
to another school when the pay-day approached. 
Hence, when Augustine heard that the city of 
Milan had asked for a public professor of rhetoric, 
he applied for the post through his Manichean 
friends though, he continues, with all the un 
graciousness of a convert, it was in order to get 
away from them, intoxicated with vanity as they 
were, that I wanted to go/ The prefect Sym- 
machus, who had been asked to find the teacher, 
made a trial of Augustine s ability, and accepted 
him. As Milan was now the second city in Italy, 



n6 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

we must assume that he had distinguished talent 
for his work, though he seems never to have 
had many private students. However, probably 
during the autumn vacation of 384, he was con 
veyed to Milan by the state service, and found 
himself at length in the city of St. Ambrose. 

The external life of Augustine during the next 
two years was as uneventful as his internal life 
was important and interesting. We know 
nothing of his teaching experience, save that he 
included amongst his pupils a number of friends 
from Africa. Romanianus, his friend and patron, 
sent his two sons, Licentius and Trigetius, to be 
educated by him. Nebridius, a Carthaginian 
youth, also followed him to Milan, as did also 
his little slave Alypius. Alypius had studied 
law at Rome, and then accepted a post in the 
government service there, so as to cling to 
Augustine. He now came to Milan with the 
intention of practising at the bar. Romanianus 
himself was presently compelled to seek the 
court in the interest of his private affairs, and he 
joined the little African colony. Augustine also 
attached a number of cultured Milanese to him 
self. The position of a professor of rhetoric in 
a large town was, as I have explained, an honour- 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 117 

able one, and usually secured admission into the 
most coveted circles. The post was doubly im 
portant at Milan, as Augustine had occasionally to 
deliver the panegyric in presence of the emperor. 
On the feast of the coronation and a few other 
occasions the emperor held a reception of court 
and civil officials, whilst a rhetor read an elaborate 
discourse in praise of his eternity/ When one 
recollects the average duration of an emperor s 
life in the fourth century, <eternitas vestra seems 
to have a grim sort of humour, yet it was one of 
the milder phrases used in these absurd speeches. 
Augustine felt the impropriety of the panegyrics 
keenly enough, but he mentions one or two 
occasions when he had to exercise his art before 
the boy emperor and his mother. We have 
neither of these panegyrics ; but he hints (De 
Ordine) that he had the disadvantage of a slight 
African accent, and his Latin was certainly greatly 
inferior to that of such rhetoricians as Sym- 
machus. 

But it is Augustine s inner growth that now 
claims our whole attention. We left him at 
Rome rather weary of the task of scaling the 
empyrean. Perplexed in thought and sore at 
heart, he was drawing back from the paths that 



n8 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

seemed to offer an illusory guidance to the eternal 
hills. He was turning again to the glad cities 
that men had built on the broad plain of life. 
Honour, repute, a wealthy marriage, were ideas 
that began once more to grow large on the 
screen of his consciousness. Yet amidst the 
enervation and confusion which resulted from 
his doubt and despondency, there were two truths 
that never ceased to cast an absorbing image on 
his mind ; a conviction that the human mind was 
a thing apart in the universe, and that a divine 
mind embraced the whole in an all-seeing vision. 
How reconcile this incarnate perversity of a world 
with the being of God without the aid of the 
Manichean spirit of evil ? Manicheeism he had 
tried, and found too much disfigured with errors. 
It could not be the divine guide he sought ; there 
were human philosophers who * had said things 
which were more probable. The Christian 
Scriptures he had read, and, fancying they were 
to be taken at the letter, had flung contemptu 
ously aside. The teaching of the Platonic school 
was all but unknown to him when he decided 
that all human guidance was unavailing, and there 
must be a divine message obscured somewhere in 
the forest of sects. Clearly, what he needed 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 119 

was, in the first place, a suggestion that the Old 
Testament must not be taken at the letter ; and, 
in the second place, a philosophic introduction to 
the New Testament ideas of a spiritual God, the 
Trinity, and the Incarnation. In his work De 
Utilitate Credendi he indicates that he was in a 
frame of mind in which any masterful teacher 
could bear him along. His first such teacher 
was St. Ambrose, who led him half-way to the 
Christian Church. 

It was probably well for him that he never 
came into intimate contact with the bishop of 
Milan. Augustine went to hear him frequently 
at the chief basilica. He sought rhetoric, not 
doctrine ; and, although Ambrose was not an 
eloquent or an ornate speaker, there was an un 
accustomed sincerity and a winning earnestness in 
his discourses. In spite of his prejudice Augus 
tine followed his thoughts, and this quickly led 
to an important modification of his position. He 
learned that the Christian Scriptures were not to 
be interpreted literally. The stories of Genesis, 
at \^hich he had laughed, appeared far less human 
in the light of Ambrose s figurative interpretation. 
All the Manichean objections to the Old Testament 
fell to the ground. The Christian gospel obtained 



120 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

a fresh interest in his esteem. He thought of con 
sulting Ambrose about the remaining difficulties 
the power of evil, the spiritual, the Incarnation, 
and the rest. I say it was well that he found this 
impossible. Ambrose was a most unsuitable 
councillor for such a situation, as his letters 
clearly show. In his thirty-fifth letter (Migne 
edition), for instance, he tells some one who has 
consulted him about similar questions concerning 
the soul to leave these c trifles of the philosophers 
alone and read the book of Esdras ! In his 
twenty-eighth letter, answering one who is 
astonished at the elevation of the ideas of 
Pythagoras the heathen, he says there is no 
cause for astonishment, c since it is generally 
believed Pythagoras was of Jewish extraction. 1 
In a work he wrote against the Platonists he 
contended that Plato learned his best ideas from 
Jeremiah. It is hardly likely that Ambrose would 
have found Augustine quite prepared for those 
ideas in 385. 

He had no opportunity for private conversa 
tion with the bishop about his difficulties. A 
bishop had the duties of a magistrate to discharge 
at that time, as well as his more properly 
episcopal functions. The bishop of Milan had 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 121 

other and more arduous duties. He was a 
politician and a statesman. In the preceding 
year he had successfully discharged a political 
mission to the usurper Maximus. In 385 he 
began his famous struggle with Justina, the 
emperor s mother. Justina was an Arian, and 
so were most of the councillors. There were few 
other Arians in Milan, but Justina demanded one 
of the basilicas of the city for the purpose of 
Arian worship, and there was a long and bitter 
struggle. The details of the conflict do not con 
cern us, but it had probably already commenced 
when Augustine was anxious to consult Ambrose. 
He used to go frequently to the bishop s house, 
where no servant guarded the ever open door, 
and stand in silence for some time watching 
Ambrose reading or praying. He had not 
courage to ask an hour of his crowded life. 
Otherwise, he was on friendly terms with 
Ambrose. His mother, Monica, had joined him 
at Milan, and had won the bishop s admiration. 
Augustine tells a story of her going to.the church, 
in the African fashion, with a basket of wine and 
cakes for the love-feasts of the martyrs. Ambrose 
had suppressed the custom on account of the 
drunkenness and disorderly scenes it gave rise to. 



122 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Monica was, therefore, stopped at the door, and 
turned away, but she submitted at once when the 
matter was explained. Monica was one of the 
more sober Christians who regarded the ceremony 
in a purely religious light. One cup of wine, well 
watered, had to serve for the whole of the martyrs. 
She merely walked round, placing it on each tomb, 
and taking a reverential sip. Then she returned; 
leaving the wine and cakes, it seems, for the 
general festivity. Ambrose often congratulated 
Augustine on his mother. 

Thus the service of St. Ambrose in the con 
version of Augustine was restricted to a removal 
of his difficulties about the Old Testament. 
But the service was a very important one. As a 
result of it, Augustine now took up the Scrip 
tures in a new spirit, and began at length to find 
a profound wisdom in the stories of Genesis. 
His attitude towards Christianity was greatly 
changed. As he so happily expresses it, he now 
felt that Christianity was not defeated, yet not a 
victor ; not defeated by Manichean criticism, yet 
not victorious over his besetting difficulties about 
evil and spirituality. Augustine was never exact 
ing in the matter of evidence. He had inherited 
a rare and enviable gift from his mother. As a 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 123 

pious Catholic she could not consult the astro 
logers, but she had a direct . communication with 
the higher powers in her dreams. She used to 
say that she could distinguish by a kind of taste 
which she could not describe between Thy revela 
tion and the images of her dreaming imagination/ 
So with Augustine. It was by a kind of subtle 
sense, that dispensed with the labour of seeking 
evidences and historical guarantees, that he tested 
alleged revelations. He was half persuaded that 
the Scripture answered this test. So I resolved, 
he says, to remain a catechumen in the Catholic 
Church, commended to me by my parents, until 
some steady light should shine forth to direct my 
course/ 

During the period of waiting for the dawn of 
this new light, Augustine s character was slowly 
developing in the direction in which his studies 
were leading. He had for some time discussed 
the question of marriage with his friends. No 
one who reads the Confessions can fail to notice 
how purely formal and calculating are the thoughts 
of Augustine at this period. Had he written at 
the time instead of fourteen years afterwards, 
no doubt he would have expressed some sense 
of, if not the moral, at least the emotional aspect 



i2 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

of the proposal. His unfeeling phrases jar 
on the mind of those who would admire him. 
He has no sense whatever of obligation to the 
woman who has shared his life for fourteen years. 
Evidently, she belonged to a much lower condition 
of life than his own, and it would have been a 
miracle of self-sacrifice in the Roman world to 
have married her. But it is impossible to resist a 
feeling of resentment at Augustine s utter failure 
to see the injustice of such conventions. He who 
saw the whole world as one dark cemetery when 
his friend died, and who shows a sense of the 
honour of fidelity in his love, cannot have been 
without affection for her. Indeed, he admits, 
when he has tamely suffered her to be torn from 
his side, that there is a raw and bloody wound 
in his heart where she had lain. But he describes 
the steps which led to the separation in a quite 
heartless spirit. He wanted a wealthy wife, whose 
means would help to support the house. A discus 
sion of the question with Alypius had an amusing 
result. Alypius was opposed to matrimony. He 
had tasted pleasure occasionally in the earlier years, 
and thought it was not worth the burdens and 
disadvantages which marriage would involve. 
Augustine assured him that his occasional pleasure 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 125 

was not to be compared with the joy of a constant 
attachment. The end of the discussion was that 
Alypius resolved to marry himself, so strong a 
curiosity was excited in him by the warmth with 
which Augustine described the sacrifice. 

Monica, naturally, encouraged Augustine s pro 
posal. She saw how close he had approached to 
the Church, and thought his irregular attachment 
was the only hindrance to baptism. She had 
recourse at my request/ candidly says Augustine 
to her prophetic dream-faculty ; c but Thou 
wouldst not reveal anything to her in her dreams 
about my future marriage. Monica was obliged 
to cast about like less gifted mothers, and she at 
length discovered a desirable party a girl of ten 
years (Augustine was now thirty-two) who seems 
to have had a respectable dowry. Augustine was 
willing to wait two years ; in fact, it was by no 
means an uncommon occurrence to espouse a girl 
of ten when the dowry was attractive. Then came 
the discharge of the mother of Adeodatus. The 
Roman world regarded such an action as natural and 
commendable ; in the * Eucharisticos of Paulinus 
of Pella an entirely similar experience is described 
with equal callousness. The Christian world has 
been so overwhelmed with the heinousness of the 



126 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

attachment itself that this poor circumstance of 
human grief has passed almost unobserved. Yet it 
is hard to forgive Augustine the unfeeling brevity 
with which save for one phrase he dismisses the 
poor unknown from the story of his life. What 
pages would not Rousseau have written on such 
an episode ! But Rousseau addressed his Con 
fessions to humanity ; Augustine to God. Just as 
we refuse to see so many of the tears that Jean 
Jacques is supposed to shed, so we may grant some 
to Augustine which he has forgotten in the splen 
dour of the Divine Presence. Adeodatus remained 
with his father ; his mother returned to Africa. It 
is evident that Monica was the chief agent in this, 
yet it is just as evident that Augustine had con 
templated it for some time. 1 To complete this 
sorry page of Augustine s life, we have to add that 
his companion had not been gone long before he 
4 procured another to minister to his uncontrollable 
passion during the two years of waiting. 

1 The hagiographer generally says that the poor woman was con 
verted and entered a nunnery, or at all events took a vow of chastity, 
in Africa. Augustine says: She returned to Africa, vowing to 
Thee she would know no man again. 1 It seems to me the usual in 
terpretation is strained. Vovens tibi, may very well mean that she 
vowed and swore [every African, including Augustine, swore 
habitually] she would have nothing more to do with men ; either 
in anger, or in her great love for Augustine. We know absolutely 
nothing of her beyond what I have stated. 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 127 

It was about this time that Augustine discussed 
with his friends the idea of forming a philosophic 
community. There was nothing particularly 
ascetic about the proposal, but quite a small colony 
of Afro-Romans had met at Milan, as I have 
explained. Alypius was seeking legal practice 
there. Nebridius was teaching in the school of a 
friend. Romanianus was furthering his interests 
at court. Altogether it was thought that ten would 
be willing to club their resources and maintain a 
common household. Romanianus was a very 
wealthy man, and even Alypius and Nebridius 
seem to have been in better circumstances than 
Augustine. But the rhetorician was the centre, 
the most commanding personality of the group. 
He had led them all (except the shrewd Nebridius) 
into Manicheeism, and he was to lead them all 
into Christianity. They proposed to have a 
common purse, and appoint two of their number 
each year to take charge of the business of the 
household ; leaving the majority free to pursue 
their studies, and discourse uninterruptedly of 
learning and philosophy. The proposal was 
wrecked on a familiar rock. As soon as the 
question of women was raised, the plan fell to 
pieces. Clearly, Augustine and his friends were 



128 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

poorly acquainted with the complexion and the 
success of Epicurus s famous community at 
Athens. 

It seems likely, however, that the Epicurean 
community had inspired the idea. Shortly after 
telling the failure of their project, Augustine 
declares that he was greatly inclined towards 
Epicureanism. Unfortunately, he has the very 
common misapprehension of Epicurean teaching. 
It is not a flattering picture that Augustine offers 
us of himself, standing impatiently on the brink 
of the flood of bodily pleasure, and only withheld 
from a plunge into its lowest depths by the dread 
of death and what may lie beyond it. Whether 
or no this is an overdrawn picture of his own 
position, it certainly does injustice to Epicurus. 
Throughout his works Augustine insists that 
Epicurus found man s true aim in bodily plea 
sure/ and opposes this to the virtue which was 
the summum bonum of the Stoics. In a carefully 
prepared sermon, which he delivered at Carthage 
(sermo 150), he even speaks of c the uncleanness of 
the Epicureans/ and will have it that they filled 
their lives with sensual pleasure because they did 
not believe in a future state. That is an error 
which will probably live as long as Stoicism or the 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 129 

Church. Epicurus said that he saw no sound 
reason for admitting a future state, that the soul 
was but a finer texture of matter, and that this 
absence of anxiety about a life beyond would con 
tribute to the tranquillity of the present life. Not 
bodily pleasure, but a full and rounded happiness, 
was his ideal. He led an unusually moderate and 
contented life, a model life, says Zeller, neither in 
isolation nor in indulgence of sense, but in a sober 
and affectionate comradeship. We cannot live 
pleasantly [happily], he used to say, without living 
wisely and nobly and righteously. Seeing no con 
vincing proof of the immortality of the soul, he 
advised men not to eat and drink and make 
merry but to ponder well all the gifts that 
nature bestows or suggests, and follow those that 
promise a happy and tranquil career. That was 
the sum and substance of the * uncleanness of the 
Epicureans. 

There is this truth in Augustine s ill-informed 
statement, that he still wavered between the facile 
pleasures of the plains of life and the frail charm 
of the arduous hills beyond. Time after time his 
idealist ardour faded, and the thoughts of wedded 
joy, and the honour of men, and the soft luxury 
of wealth, invaded his soul. We have just seen 

i 



130 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

how weak a purpose he opposed to the passion of 
love ; later we shall hear him complain of a lean 
ing towards good living (Confessions,*. 31). Yet 
we have seen good reason to think he was far from 
being what we should call a sensual man. We 
must understand the sharp antithesis of ideals in his 
day. Now we are all Epicureans, only some of us 
trust to extend our Epicureanism into a coming 
life as well as this. In the early ages of the Christian 
era a serious man held that Epicureanism, even 
justly and soberly conceived, was incompatible with 
a full acceptance of the teaching of Christ. And 
Augustine s Ciceronian vision was rapidly melting 
into a Pauline prospect. The hills beyond were 
the eternal hills of the Scriptures, he was fast 
becoming convinced. That is why his purpose 
wavered in proportion as he felt that he approached 
the path he had sought so long. A profound moral 
struggle was preparing. He grasped at every 
excuse for deferring the last investigation. When 
shall we seek the truth ? Ambrose has not time : 
he has not time to read. Where shall we get the 
books ? . . . In the forenoon the pupils occupy 
us : what do we do afterwards ? Why not this ? 
But when shall we salute the friends whose patron 
age we need ? When shall we prepare our lessons ? 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 131 

When shall we recreate ourselves, relaxing the 
mind from care ? The eternal story. But again 
the clouds darken the cities on the plain, and the 
hilltops shine forth. One day he sees a drunken 
beggar in the street, who has purchased the happi 
ness of an emperor for a few small coins. It casts 
a shade on his ambition. This man is happier 
than he, yet has bought his joy so cheaply. He 
turns to his books, and the problem of evil 
absorbs his fruitless hours, and the idea of a spiritual 
God, which he has heard in the sermons of Am 
brose and the conversation of a Platonist friend, 
Manlius Theodorus, the future consul, mocks the 
low flight of his imagination. ( These things I 
turned again and again in my wretched breast, 
weighed down with crushing anxiety from my fear 
of death and my hopeless quest of truth. How 
far from the tranquillity of Epicurus ! 

In this condition we find him at the beginning 
of 386, when the last step in his progress towards 
the Church was taken. A friend with his usual 
gracelessness he says, c a certain man who was 
inflated with a stupendous conceit sent him 
* certain books of the Platonists, recently translated 
into Latin from the Greek. The translator was 
Victorinus, a distinguished Roman rhetorician, who 



i 3 z ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

afterwards became a Christian. Augustine no 
where indicates the names of the works which 
* lit up an incredible flame within him, but recent 
research 1 has identified them with some confidence. 
It was almost certainly the works of Alexandrian 
Neo-Platonists, not of Platonists, that he read at 
this time. Augustine s history of philosophy is 
very defective. Nourisson, writing under the eye 
of a bench of bishops, cannot refrain from calling 
Augustine s erudition undigested, * superficial, 
mediocre and very imperfect ; c ce nest point un 
savantj he says at length. Even Ellies Dupin 
says * he had more ability than erudition. At all 
events, Augustine is always confounding Platonists, 
Neo-Platonists, and Academics three widely dif 
ferent schools and fancies Aristotle was a faithful 
follower of Plato. For many years he accepted 
Ambrose s theory that Jeremiah had given Plato 
his golden thoughts. Confined as he was to 
Latin literature, we cannot expect to find in him 
a close acquaintance with Greek thinkers. It is 
generally thought he read a translation of the 
Tim^eus ; M. Saisset thinks he was acquainted 
with the Ph<edo, Phxdrus, Republic, and Gorgias\ 

1 See the chief points in Nourisson s Philosophic de Saint Augustin 
and Grandgeorge s Saint Augustin. 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 133 

and M. Nourisson would add the Banquet. Cer 
tainly he builds throughout life on some of Plato s 
most distinctive notions. The theory of ideas, 
and the antithesis of the world of sense and the 
world of mind, are basic thoughts in his system. 
From Aristotle he has borrowed those ideas of 
time and eternity which are so familiar to readers 
of the Confessions and the City of God, as well as 
his definition of the soul and his idea of matter 
and form. 

But it is very difficult to prove that he read 
any works of either Plato or Aristotle, except 
perhaps the Tim<eus y which was much read in his 
day, and Aristotle s Categories and Dialectics. 
The Alexandrian philosophers affected to select the 
sounder and more striking thoughts from Pytha 
goras, Plato, Aristotle, and the rest, and Augustine 
would find all he has learned in them. There are 
fe^w philosophic ideas in his works which cannot 
be found in Porphyry or Plotinus. Nourisson 
* cannot find a single original idea in his philo 
sophy at the close of his careful analysis ; * and 
the tabulated comparison of Grandgeorge seems 
to trace every important thought to the Alex 
andrians. In the City of God, indeed, Augustine 

1 Op. at. ii. 276. 



134 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

calls Plotinus, Jamblichus, and Porphyry the 
Platonists. It seems quite clear that it was some 
Neo-Platonic works which fell into his hands in 
386 ; and it is probable that the chief of these 
was a translation of the Enneads of Plotinus. 
There, at all events, we find the ideas which 
immediately bridged over the last mental gulf that 
separated Augustine from Christianity. 

Augustine s most stubborn difficulty throughout 
had been the power of evil. The chief fascination 
of the Manichean system had been that it afforded 
a plausible explanation of this central fact of life, 
this hideous corruption, spreading like a cancerous 
growth over the fair frame of the world, that has 
absorbed every sincere thinker from Buddha and 
Zoroaster to Goethe and Schopenhauer. The one 
sacred and abiding principle in Augustine s mind 
was the existence of God, and hitherto he had 
utterly failed to reconcile it with the plain features 
of life. Plotinus supplied him with a magical 
formula that dissipated his anxiety like a disease 
of the overburdened mind. For the rest of his 
days Augustine found the presence of evil to be 
one of the most natural and harmonious qualities 
of creation. The suggestion of Plotinus had the 
ideal simplicity which often marks great thoughts 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 135 

or great phrases. Evil is not an entity at all. It 
is a failure of things to reach perfection. Why do 
you seek an efficient cause of a non-entity ? Or 
on what ground do you demand that God should 
create a perfect world if that were possible or 
none at all? Nay, would the world be perfect 
without the wholesome stimulus of pain? And 
so the great magician charmed away the sorrow 
and ugliness of life with his phrases, and inspired 
the optimism which from that day resented as 
blasphemy all talk of reconciliation with our 
Maker for his misdeeds. But Augustine had 
already gathered from the Scriptures and from 
Ambrose s sermons that his idea of God was 
wholly wrong. The Manichean system was 
frankly materialistic. There were finer and coarser 
textures of matter, but the whole of existence was 
like what our senses perceive. Dimly and with 
much perplexity Augustine had realised that the 
Christians placed their God in a higher world. 
He was incorporeal, like a mathematical quantity, 
yet real and substantial. His imagination had 
fallen back helplessly to earth whenever it had 
tried to picture this spirit-God. Plotinus once 
more, with a single flash of thought, illumined 
a path for him which he had never seen before. 



136 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Is truth corporeal ? Is it not real ? He was led 
into the entrancing idea-world of Plato, and the 
Pythagorean science of numbers. At a bound he 
was away from the solid earth of Epicurus and 
Mani, and found himself in the land of the eternal 
and incorruptible spirit. /Truth and beauty and 
goodness, the most thrilling realities of life, lived 
in an imperishable world ; they had an unchanging 
reality in themselves, sublimely independent of 
the faint and broken reflection of them that 
ennobles this transitory universe. Then, all is 
not corporeal. And if truth is incorporeal, must 
not its infinite source be incorporeal, eternal, 
immutable, and all-pervading, like itself? And 
could the mind perceive it if it also were not 
spiritual^ 

So, one by one, the bonds of Manichean teach 
ing fell from him, and he found himself thinking 
the thoughts of the Gospels. Whether it be that 
Plato wrote a human preface to the Gospels, as 
De Maistre said, or that the evangelists wrote a 
human appendix to Plato, as others think, it is 
hardly our duty to inquire here. But we may 
be permitted to express less astonishment than 
Augustine felt when he read, point by point, in 
the Alexandrian philosophy, what he already knew 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 137 

to exist in Alexandrian theology. Plato s doc 
trine of the Logos (borrowed from Moses, accord 
ing to St. Justin) had, as it was presented by 
Plotinus, a singular resemblance to that of St. John. 
Plato s Trinity, as described by Plotinus, was 
sufficiently rational to recommend itself, and 
sufficiently Alexandrian to recommend the Nicene 
Creed. Under the seductive guidance of a philo 
sopher, who appealed to his reason, he found 
himself accepting doctrines for which a blind 
submission had been demanded. The Platonic 
and Neo-Platonic ideas were, it must be remem 
bered, brought before him by Christians, in a 
Christian atmosphere. He saw them only as 
stepping-stones across the river that divided his 
mind from the Church. He now found himself, 
intellectually, on the very threshold of Christian 
theology. He had gathered the ideas which he 
afterwards develops with so much ingenuity in 
his philosophic works. 1 He remains a Platonist 
throughout life. His early works are full of 
generous admiration for those who saved him 
from what he regarded as the bondage of material- 

1 In order to complete the present matter let me add that C. Frick 
(in his Die Quellen Augustins} assigns as the Latin sources of his 
learning, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, Aulus Gellius, and Apuleius, and for 
history chiefly Josephus and Pompeius Trogus. 



138 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ism. But mark the price of progress in sanctity. 
When he comes to write his Confessions (about 
400), he speaks only of their * presumption and 
of the stupendous conceit of the friend who 
gave him the books. Fifteen years later, when he 
is writing the eighth book of the City of God, he 
says Plato is not only not a god or demi-god, but 
is not to be compared with an angel or prophet, 
an apostle or martyr, or, in fine, with any 
Christian whatever. Eleven years afterwards he 
writes in his Retractations : The praise which I 
bestowed on Plato and the Platonists or Aca 
demics [the usual confusion], and which it was 
not proper to bestow on those impious men, 
rightly displeases me ; especially as we have to 
defend Christian teaching against their great 
errors/ 

The last step in his intellectual conversion was 
quickly taken. From Plato, or Plotinus, he 
turned to Paul, whom he now read without 
difficulty. He himself somewhat curiously de 
scribes the additional truths he found in St. Paul 
after the reading of Plato. He says that after 
reading the Platonists he only conceived Christ 
as * a man of excellent wisdom/ God as a Being of 
infinite and inaccessible splendour ; and, return- 



LIGHT FROM THE EAST 139 

ing to my customary ways in this beating back 
of my infirmity, I bore with me only a loving 
memory, only a desire of the sweet-smelling fruits 
I could not yet eat. Paul taught him the 
humanity of Jesus : that God had built Himself 
a lowly house of our clay, by which He should 
subdue and draw us to Himself, healing the 
swollen pride and fostering the love of His sub 
jects, lest they should go too far in their con 
fidence, but should rather turn to lowliness, seeing 
the lowliness of God at their feet, in the taking of 
our garment of flesh, and should sink exhausted 
into Him ; and He should rise and uplift us/ 
And again : * It is one thing to behold the father 
land of peace from some wooded hill, and discover 
not the path to it ... and another to hold the 
way that leads thither, fortified by the care of the 
Heavenly King. Another interesting thought 
occurs in his De Vera Re/igione, which illustrates 
his passage from Plato to Paul. He describes 
what he conceives to be the teaching of Plato- 
it is really that of Plotinus with the Christian 
features emphasised. He then shows how unable 
Plato was to communicate this sublime conception 
of God to the masses, how powerless the wisest of 
mortals would be to convert the world to it. He 



140 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

thinks Plato himself would admit that only a 
being of divine strength and wisdom could achieve 
that conversion ; in other words, Plato himself 
would have accepted the Incarnation of Christ 
without demur. His long quest of truth was 
over. From a somewhat Christianised Platonism 
he had passed without difficulty to a Platonic 
Christianity. Mr. Marcus Dods has said that 
Augustine s acceptance of Christianity was no 
more radical than his scepticism. Mr. Dods 
might appeal to one of Augustine s heretical 
opponents, Petilianus, who said he had the 
damnable talent of a Carneades. However, 
though it is true Augustine never was a sceptic, 
it is monstrous to say that he was not wholly 
convinced of the truth of his new religion. 



CONVERSION 141 



CHAPTER VII 

CONVERSION 

WHEN Augustine spoke of his Platonist educa 
tion as a vision of the promised land from the 
summit of a wooded hill, he was speaking as a 
Christian. In reality, Neo-Platonism was much 
more than a philosophy. It was a religion, and 
a religion of ascetic character on its ethical side. 
Augustine somehow ignores this side of the Alex 
andrian system, and finds in it nothing to corre 
spond to the severe practical discipline of the 
Epistles. From that point of view he had 
some reason to say that the Platonist merely 
described heaven, while St. Paul indicated the 
path to it. In our own day the process of con 
version would be complete with the mental pro 
gress we have already followed. The convert 
would go on his secular way, heeding nothing of 
paths to heaven beyond a certain sobriety of life. 



H2 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

But when Augustine turned to St. Paul, he dis 
covered that a new gulf lay between him and the 
Christian ideal. He learned that even marriage 
was a concession to the weakly ; that they that are 
Christ s have crucified the flesh with the affec 
tions and lusts. Certainly, this crucifixion was not 
a matter of obligation. He looked about him in 
the Church, and saw that one went this way and 
another that. But Paul s doctrine was clear. 
The way of the strong and the generous, the only 
secure way to heaven, was the way of detachment 
from the things of earth. Then began a fiercer 
struggle than he had yet known, the struggle of 
the ideal and the commonplace in its tensest 
form. It was not merely a question of discharg 
ing his mistress, as is sometimes represented. 
Rightly or wrongly, he understood by an accept 
ance of Christian teaching a renunciation of all 
love, all wealth, all ambition of this world. These 
were roses in the path of life, said Christ and 
St. Paul, only to captivate the weak and deepen 
the strength of the strong. c I no longer yearned 
to be more certain about Thee, but to be more 
steadfast in Thee. 

They who picture the last struggle in the con 
version of St. Augustine, the best known page in 



CONVERSION 143 

his life, as a struggle with sin, miss its real signi 
ficance. He hardly mentions the irregular attach 
ment which held him ; he does not say a word of 
the dismissal of his second mistress, and we can 
only place it by conjecture. It is matrimony he 
speaks of continually. It is the sacrifice of all 
love of woman for the rest of life that offers so 
piercing a prospect to him. Christ or Epicurus ; 
the roses of this world or those of the next. A 
mind like his wanted no concession, in case he 
was afraid to sleep by himself, or as an alterna 
tive to damnation. It seemed to him only a few 
years since Christ had trod the roads of Roman 
Palestine, and made self-denial the test of disciple- 
ship. The thought of wealth and fame he was 
ready to abandon ; but I was still firmly held by 
woman. In his perplexity he consulted an aged 
priest of Milan, Simplicianus, the spiritual father 
of St. Ambrose. By a fortunate chance the priest 
had a word for him which was better than much 
counsel. Augustine told him of the Platonist 
works he had been reading, and this brought the 
conversation to Victorinus, the translator. Vic- 
torinus was a distinguished rhetorician, to whom 
a statue had been erected in the Roman forum. 
Under the direction of Simplicianus he had joined 



144 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the Christian Church, to which his Neo-Platonism 
had long disposed him. The event had caused 
great excitement in Rome. His school had been 
attended by a number of senators of high rank, 
and, besides the statue, the title of clarissimus had 
been voted him. But Rome regarded his conver 
sion with little favour, and he had to retire from 
the schools. The parallel was close enough to 
make a deep impression on Augustine. The 
internal struggle deepened. * I was pressed 
down with the burden of the world, as happens 
at times in sleep ; and the thoughts which I 
directed to Thee were like unto the efforts of 
those who would awake, yet sink back into the 
deep sleep they have broken/ 

But one day he and Alypius had a visit from 
a fellow-countryman in the imperial service. In 
front of Augustine, as they sat to converse, was 
a book lying on a gaming table. Pontitianus 
opened it, and did not disguise his astonishment 
on finding that it was a copy of the Scriptures. 
Augustine told him he was earnestly bent on the 
study of that book. Thus the conversation took 
a religious turn, and Pontitianus, being a devout 
Christian of long standing, told them the story of 
Antony and the monks of the African desert. 



CONVERSION 145 

The story entered like fire into the soul of 
Augustine. Pontitianus continued to talk of 
vocations and monasteries. At Treves, a few 
years previously, two of his fellow-officers had 
been suddenly converted to the monastic life by 
reading the story of Antony. The two ladies to 
whom they were espoused followed their example. 
Augustine realised with a profound astonishment 
that what he had trembled before as an Herculean 
task was being accomplished by unlettered men 
and frail women day after day within a few miles 
of him. When Pontitianus left them, Augustine 
took his soul in his hands, and faced the dilemma 
of his life. All my arguments were undone ; 
there remained but a speechless terror, for my 
soul dreaded as death itself to be taken from its 
customary stream which was bearing it to death. 
Presently he cried to Alypius, who looked at him 
in silent astonishment : * What are we doing ? 
What is this ? What hast thou heard ? The 
unlearned rise up and take hold of the kingdom 
of heaven ; whilst we, with all our learning, with 
out heart, are slaves to flesh and blood/ He 
rushed into the garden, Alypius following, too 
agitated to think or argue. The supreme moment 
had come. It would be an injustice to the reader 



146 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

to describe the issue in any other words than 
those of Augustine : 

< Thus was I sick at heart and in torment, 
accusing myself more bitterly than ever, tossing 
and turning in the frail bond that still held me, 
until it should break asunder ; frail it was, yet it 
held me still. And Thy strict mercy was working 
within me, Lord, lashing me with fear and shame 
that I might desist no more, nor fail to break the 
slender bond that yet remained ; lest it should 
grow strong again, and hold me more firmly than 
ever. For I said in my heart : " Let it be now, 
let it be now." And I almost went to work as 
I said it. Almost had I done it, yet did it not ; 
nor yet did I fall back into my earlier state, but 
stood nigh to it and breathed. I tried again, and 
with a little more I was there, with a little more I 
reached and held it ; yet I was not there, nor 
reached, nor held it, hesitating to die to death 
and live to life. The force of evil custom was 
stronger in me than the new resolution ;* and the 
nearer the moment approached in which I was to 
become better, the greater the dread it struck into 

i With some reluctance I must point out that here, in the midst 
of this moving passage, occurs one of Augustine s wretched word 
plays. 



CONVERSION 147 

me. It drove me not from my purpose, nor 
turned me aside ; but it held me in suspense. 
Trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, my 
former joys, held me back, and plucked my 
fleshly garment, and murmured : " Dost thou 
cast us off? and from this moment wilt thou 
leave us for ever ? and from this moment will 
this or that be forbidden thee for all eternity ? " 
And what things were those they held out to me, 
my God, which I have called " this or that " ? 
May Thy mercy keep them from the soul of Thy 
servant. What defilement, what dishonour ! 
And now I did but half hear their voices ; they 
no longer stood boldly in my path and said me 
nay, but muttered behind me, as it were, and 
furtively plucked my garments, as I walked away, 
that I might turn and look upon them. Yet they 
made me slow to shake them off, and leap forward 
whither I was called, when rooted habit said to 
me : " Dost thou think thou canst live without 
them ? " 

* But now it said this faintly. For from the 
side toward which I had set my face, and to which 
I was hastening, there stood revealed the chaste 
dignity of continence, serene, joyful without 
dissoluteness, gravely beckoning me to come and 



148 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

hesitate not, and stretching forth to receive and 
embrace me pious hands that were full of good 
examples. So many boys and girls, so many 
youths, so many of every age, so many modest 
widows and aged virgins ; and in all these contin 
ence was not barren, but the fruitful mother of 
joyous children of Thee, O Lord. And she 
laughed at me with a laugh of welcome, as 
though she would say, " Canst thou not do 
what these have done ? Or did they, indeed, 
do it of themselves and not in the Lord ? 
The Lord their God gave them to me. Why 
dost thou neither stand still nor advance ? 
Cast thyself upon Him ; fear not lest He with 
draw His hand and thou fall ; cast thyself fear 
lessly, He will receive and heal thee." And I 
blushed exceedingly : for I still heard the murmur 
of those trifles, and lingered on the way. And 
again she seemed to say : " Listen no more on 
earth to those unclean members of thine, that 
they may die ; they tell thee of delights, but not 
according to the law of the Lord." This was 
the struggle that raged within me against myself. 
Alypius, standing by my side, waited in silence 
the issue of my unwonted emotion. 

But when profound reflection had drawn my 
whole misery from its secret depths, and heaped 



CONVERSION 149 

it up in the sight of my heart, there came a great 
storm with mighty shower of tears. And, that 1 
might pour it all forth with fitting words, I rose 
to depart from Alypius. It seemed to me that 
solitude was more fitting for my tears. And I 
went further apart, so that even his presence 
would no longer be a burden to me. Thus was I 
minded, and he knew it ; for I know not what I 
had said, revealing the sound of my voice already 
heavy with grief, and had then arisen. He, 
therefore, remained in great astonishment where 
we were sitting. I flung myself beneath a certain 
fig-tree, and gave the rein to my tears ; and the 
floods burst forth from my eyes, an acceptable 
sacrifice to Thee. And many things I said to 
Thee in this sense, though not in these words : 
" And Thou, Lord, how long wilt Thou delay ? 
Wilt Thou be angry for ever, Lord ? Be not 
mindful of my earlier iniquity." For I felt I was 
hampered by it. I poured out words of misery : 
" How long ? How long ? To-morrow, and 
to-morrow ? Why not now ? Why not end my 
baseness this very hour ? " 

* And, speaking thus, I wept with a most bitter 
contrition in my heart. And suddenly I heard 
from a neighbouring house the voice, as it were, 
of a boy or girl singing many times : " Take up 



150 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

and read, take up and read." I was roused im 
mediately, and began to think intently whether 
children were wont to sing this in any game of 
theirs ; but I could not recollect ever to have 
heard it. And, checking the flood of my tears, 
I arose, thinking no other than that it was a 
Divine command to me to open the sacred volume 
and read the first chapter I lighted on. For I 
had heard it said of Antony that he took to him 
self the words of a lesson from the Gospel which 
he chanced to hear, as though the words were 
read to him : " Go, and sell all thou hast, and give 
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven, and come and follow Me"; and that he 
was forthwith converted to Thee by this oracle. 
Thus admonished, I returned to the spot where 
Alypius sat ; for I had placed the volume of 
the Apostle there when I had left. I grasped 
and opened it, and read in silence the chapter 
which first met my eyes : " Not in rioting 
and drunkenness, not in chambering and wanton 
ness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision 
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." I 
neither wished nor needed to read more. For 
with the close of this sentence the darkness of my 



CONVERSION 151 

doubt melted away, as though a strong light had 
shone upon my heart. Then, inserting my finger 
or some other mark, I closed the book, and with 
a tranquil mind handed it to Alypius. Then he 
betrayed what was passing within him, which I 
knew not ; he asked to see what I had read. I 
showed it to him ; and he read on beyond the 
place I showed him, and I knew not what followed. 
But what followed was : " Him that is weak in 
the faith, receive ye." This he took to himself, 
and showed to me. With this admonition he was 
resolved ; and without trouble or hesitation he 
joined with me in the good purpose, so befitting 
his ways, which were already far in advance of 
mine. We return to my mother in the house. 
We tell her, and she rejoices. We relate how 
it came about ; she exults in triumph, and 
blesses Thee who art powerful to do more than 
we seek or know, for she saw Thou hadst 
granted her in my regard so much more than she 
had asked in her sad and tearful prayers. For 
Thou hast converted me to Thee so that I no 
longer seek wife nor any hope of this world, hold 
ing fast to the rule of faith in which Thou hadst 
revealed me to her so many years before. And 
Thou hast changed her grief into a joy far deeper 



152 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

than she had desired, far dearer and chaster than 
that she had sought from the children of my 
flesh/ 

This was in the summer of 386, shortly after 
the final triumph of St. Ambrose over the empress 
and the Arian party. Justina had an inflexible 
and incorruptible prelate, as well as a statesman, 
to deal with in the bishop of Milan, and she had 
suffered unmitigated defeat. Augustine was only 
a spectator of the great struggle that had so long 
absorbed the attention of Milan. The Due de 
Broglie makes him spend the night with the 
people and Ambrose in the church ; but Augus 
tine expressly says that Monica alone shared that 
famous vigil. Gibbon is hardly fair to Ambrose 
in the matter. The empress had no shadow of a 
title to either of the churches which she claimed 
for her Arian priests ; it would have been a gross 
betrayal of his trust for Ambrose to surrender 
either. The renewal of the struggle in the Holy 
Week of 386 is not so clear. We know that on 
other occasions Ambrose refused to obey an order 
to appear at court in a way that boded ill for the 
civil power. Whatever may be the right of the 
matter, it is well known how his congregation 
gathered about the bishop, when the court 



CONVERSION 153 

threatened to banish him, and watched him day 
and night in his house and the church. It was 
then that Ambrose introduced into the church of 
Milan the custom of singing hymns which pre 
vailed in the East. Ambrose himself composed 
many. In June, moreover, Ambrose made a most 
fortunate find of martyrs relics, which put a 
final term to c the woman s madness/ Not only 
were there many cases of recovery from that 
opportune disease, diabolical possession, but even 
a blind man was restored to sight. 1 

It must have been a few weeks after the dis 
covery of the relics of Gervasius and Protasius 
that Augustine s conversion took place. It caused 
little excitement in the city, because he kept it a 
profound secret from all but a few personal friends 
for the few weeks that still remained before the 
summer holidays. Then, though he talks much 

1 Gibbon would recommend this miracle to our divines if it did 
not prove also the worship of relics. The divines of our day would 
hardly complain of that circumstance, but they seem to entertain 
some doubt as to the value of Augustine s testimony in such 
matters, of which we shall see a few illustrations later. Even here, 
whereas Augustine says the bodies were incorrupt, Ambrose only 
speaks of l bones and some blood. The life of Ambrose in the 
Migne edition says Augustine was present at the discovery or the 
miracles. Augustine expressly says, in the Confessions, that he was 
not. Moreover, we shall see presently that he most probably did 
not admit these miracles until years afterwards. 



154 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

of his joy at ceasing to sell lies and folly, he 
sent in a prudent notice that the state of his health 
(his lungs were giving way) as well as his conver 
sion compelled him to resign. Augustine himself 
hints that the manner of his secession will not look 
very heroic to the faithful at large. There is a 
curious mixture of desire to avoid ostentation and 
popularity and sensitiveness to hostile criticism in 
the many reasons he gives for keeping his conver 
sion a secret. 

However, at the close of the scholastic year, 
Augustine retired to the villa of his friend 
Verecundus, some miles out of Milan. A local 
tradition claims Cassago as the * Cassiciacum 
where Augustine spent the following six months. 
M. Poujoulat, however, seems to have made out 
an unanswerable case for Casciago, a quiet little 
town at the foot of the mountains. To the north 
west it had the superb horizon of Monte Rosa 
and the Pennine Alps, whilst the hills encircled 
it also on the north and east, giving broken 
glimpses of Maggiore and a few smaller lakes 
to the north-east. To the south-east lay the 
broad panorama of the plain, dotted with towns 
and villages, and relieved by an occasional hill. 
Here Augustine spent the autumn and winter. 



CONVERSION 155 

His mother and son accompanied him, and they 
were joined presently by his brother Navigius. 
Alypius followed like a shadow, save that he far 
outran Augustine in ascetic feeling, going so far 
as to tread barefoot the frozen soil of Italy. 
Two of Augustine s cousins, Rusticus and Lasti- 
dianus, a compatriot from Thagaste named 
Evodius, who had already been converted and 
abandoned the imperial service, and the two 
pupils, Licentius and Trigetius, completed the 
group. 

In the Confessions Augustine says very little 
about their life at Cassiciacum, but we have many 
pictures of it in the short treatises he composed 
there. It must have been one of the happiest 
periods of his life. Apart from the lessons he 
continued to give Licentius and Trigetius and the 
administration of his friend s estate, his whole 
time was given to study and intellectual and 
religious conversation. The morning was usually 
devoted to teaching, and the rest of the day, after 
the midday meal and sleep, to discussion. Monica 
presided over the household matters ; but she, and 
even the young Adeodatus, often took part in the 
discussions. On feast-days, such as Augustine s 
birthday, the whole day was given up to this 



156 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

intellectual dissipation. If the weather were 
fine, they went to a neighbouring meadow, and 
held their Academy under the shade of a tree. 
In rough weather they went to the baths for the 
purpose. The Roman bath, of course, contained 
many rooms for games and conversation besidesithe 
tepidaria, caldaria, z.r\& frigidaria, which were used 
for the bath proper. Augustine and his friends 
frequently held discussions there which demanded 
a quiet retreat. In these discussions Augustine 
was the chief speaker, but he shows some eager 
ness to draw out every member of the group. 
Nebridius remained at Milan, teaching for Vere- 
cundus. Licentius, the clever but dreamy son of 
Romanianus, seems to have been bored by the 
conversations at first. He was, in fact, the last 
of the group to embrace Christianity. 1 The 
young Adeodatus put in a boyish word occasion 
ally, and Augustine finds a profound wisdom in 
the contributions of Monica. The instances he 
gives are not impressive. Thus, they were one 
day discussing the followers of Carneades, and 
Monica asked who these Academics were. When 

1 Lanciani (Pagan and Christian Rome] says his body was dis 
covered in St. Lorenzo at Rome in 1862, and there was evidence 
that he had both attained his ambition of senatorial rank and had 
died a Christian. Verecundus also died a Christian. 



CONVERSION 157 

the explanation was given, she laughed and said : 
Those men have the falling sickness. 

The subjects of their discussions were of the 
philosophico-religious character which we can well 
conceive to reflect Augustine s temper at that 
time. In Scripture he was studying the Psalms. 
Ambrose had recommended Isaiah, but Augustine 
found the Psalms more suited to his disposition. 
It was, however, a passion for reasoning that 
chiefly characterised the stay at Cassiciacum. In 
a letter which he wrote at the time to Nebridius 
Augustine speaks of reasoning as my darling. 
The phrase seems to have escaped him when he 
was writing his Retractations in 426 ; there were 
so many things to amend in the writings of those 
early years. Fortunately, the chief discussions 
they held were committed to writing, so that we 
have a large acquaintance with Augustine s early 
ideas. Those who are astonished at the number 
of his works should bear in mind the notarius, or 
shorthand writer, of the later Roman world. He 
was as ubiquitous with his style and tablets as the 
modern reporter. Within a couple of months of 
the arrival at Cassiciacum we find that Augustine 
has at his elbow the shorthand writer who is to 
shadow him throughout life. He sits amongst 



158 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

them in the meadow or at the baths, and commits 
to his waxed tablets every word that is spoken ; 
his style is even busy whilst they chat in returning 
to the house, and he records how Monica im 
patiently drags them in to the expectant dinner. 
The notes are then copied into long-hand/ 
revised by Augustine, and we have one of his 
thousand works. 1 

The first work which was composed in this 
way consisted of the three books of dialogues, 
Contra Academicos. The master had given his 
pupils the Hortensius to read, and had then intro 
duced his notary, and started a discussion on the 
pursuit of truth. It is a sad proof of the slight- 
ness of Augustine s knowledge of the history of 
philosophy that he suggests (an opinion which 
he frequently repeated in after life) that the 
Academics were not really sceptics at all, but 
held the ideas of Plato, which they concealed by 
a kind of philosophic * discipline of the secret. 
However, he proposes for discussion the theory 
commonly attributed to them that man can 
never reach the truth, though he may find 
happiness in the pursuit of it. His two young 

1 Possidius, his disciple, numbers 1030 of his works, including 
letters and sermons. 



CONVERSION 159 

pupils debated the question for three days. 
When Augustine saw that the defender of 
Arcesilaus was prevailing, he restored the balance 
himself with a crushing sophism on the nature of 
verisimilitude. In the third book he makes his 
own attack on the post-Socratic Agnostics, and 
finds a ground of certainty in his Platonic con 
ception of the soul and of rational truth. As 
there were few followers of either the Middle or 
the New Academy at that time, and Augustine 
himself had never been seriously inclined to a 
radical scepticism, the work has not the force of 
most of his polemical productions. The only im 
portant retractation he found it necessary to make 
in his old age was, as has been said, a regret that 
he had given undue praise to * those impious men, 
Plato and the Platonists or Academics. 

The composition of this work was interrupted 
by the production of the dialogues De Eeata Vita. 
On November ijth, in the midst of the onslaught 
on the Academics, occurred Augustine s thirty- 
third birthday. A birthday was as important an 
institution in the Roman world as it is in our own, 
greetings and presents and family banquets mark 
ing the occasion. After a modest feast of the 
body Augustine led his philosophic party to the 



160 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

baths, promising them < a feast of the soul/ The 
feast consisted of a three days discussion on The 
Happy Life/ which was afterwards embodied in 
the work of that title. More interesting is the 
work which followed the books Against the 
Academics. It was a habit of Augustine s in the 
long winter nights to lie awake thinking for the 
first half of the night. One night as he lay 
philosophising in this way, his attention was 
caught by the irregular sound of the stream that 
made its way to the baths some distance from the 
house. He began to speculate on the cause of the 
irregularity, and soon found himself pondering on 
regularity and irregularity at large. As he re 
flected, a noise made by Licentius (the two pupils 
slept in the same room as their master) in driv 
ing away a mouse, told that he also was awake, 
and he was invited to discuss the phenomenon. 
Trigetius joined in the discussion, which seems to 
have been maintained throughout the night in the 
dark. The following morning they went to the 
baths to continue it, and the subject received an 
enlargement from their chancing to witness a 
cock-fight in the street. From Augustine s vivid 
description of the encounter, it is sadly evident 
that the philosophic group formed an admiring 



CONVERSION 161 

ring round the combatants. A few years pre 
viously Augustine would have seen in it as in all 
nature red in tooth and claw a very tangible 
proof of the Manichean theory of an evil spirit. 
Now he almost finds in it a proof of the exist 
ence of an all-wise and all-loving Creator. The 
two incidents suggest the long debate On Order, 
which forms his third extant work. It is chiefly 
grounded on the Neo-Platonic optimism and idea 
of Providence, and contains an appreciation of the 
Pythagorean idea of numbers which Augustine 
was careful to modify later on. 

A little later Augustine himself wrote the 
Soliloquies , a Platonic dialogue between A. and 
R. presumably Augustine and c Reason. 
It is a profoundly earnest and, in places, eloquent 
paper on truth and immortality. Truth is now, 
for Augustine, merely a knowledge of God and 
the soul. Later, as his mind narrows, we shall 
find him make truth synonymous with a know 
ledge of what the Scriptures tell concerning God 
and the soul. In 387 he was still a ration 
alist. It is mainly Platonic thoughts about the 
pursuit of truth and Platonic proofs of the im 
mortality of the soul that inspire him. But the 
work is a subtle, feeling, and graceful develop- 



162 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ment of the ideas he has received ; and there are 
eloquent passages in his exhortation to abandon 
the world of sense for this pursuit of truth. 

These are the earliest expressions of Augus 
tine s views which we have. With the exception 
of his De Vera Religione, none of his smaller 
works contain finer writing than the sections of 
these books which he has himself written at 
leisure. Yet Augustine s Latin is never of a very 
high order. In the fourth century the language 
had fallen much below the level it had reached in 
the golden age of Latin literature. We have in 
his day, it is true, what may without exaggeration 
be described as a literary revival. Symmachus 
and Jerome, Macrobius and Ammianus, Pruden- 
tius and Paulinus, Claudianus, Rutilius, and 
Ausonius form a notable group. But, as has 
been said, the fourth century was formalist and 
imitative in its conception of literary art ; and so 
affectation, verbal jugglery, and other unseemly 
features had crept into the language. Moreover, 
in the long interval of comparative sterility, the 
* plebeian language had invaded the domain of 
culture. Both these defects are conspicuous in 
Augustine s writings. Villemain contrasts his 
Latin very unfavourably with the fine Roman 



CONVERSION 163 

diction of Jerome. In philosophic thinking he 
is leagues ahead of his contemporaries, in so far 
as we know their achievements, but this very pro 
ficiency in philosophy involves less attention to 
literary art. And in philosophy it is quite time 
we recognised how dependent he is on his pre 
decessors. In so far as these early works are 
concerned, he is simply a Neo-Platonist, without 
theurgic excesses, and having in addition a Scrip 
tural conception of the Incarnation and regenera 
tion. The idea-world of Plato, the world of 
abstract and necessary truths, is the pivot of his 
speculations. It is no disparagement of Augus 
tine to recognise this. 

In the spring of 387 the group returned to 
Milan. Those who desired to be baptized at 
Easter had to send in their names at the beginning 
of Lent, when. they began to count as competentes. 
In the course of Lent they were assiduously 
instructed in the Christian faith, and were exa 
mined from time to time on their knowledge and 
disposition. A passage in a later work of Augus 
tine s seems to indicate that he was not exempted 
from these instructions and scrutinies ; indeed, we 
know that St. Ambrose was particularly con 
scientious in the discharge of this duty. Still 



1 64 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine found time to continue his literary work. 
He wrote a work On the Immortality of the Soul, in 
which he developed, in a severe style of argument, 
the familiar Platonic proofs. Nourisson 1 finds 
it regrettable that Augustine spent his time in 
reproducing some of Plato s feeblest arguments. 
Augustine himself never thought much of the 
work. He sai d afterwards that it was so obscure 
he scarcely understood it himself ; it got abroad 
in an unfinished state, without his consent. Yet 
it is, as I said, closely and carefully reasoned, and 
there are thoughts in it which are still advanced 
by spiritualist philosophers ; such as, the eternity 
of abstract principles, the inverse ratio of sense 
and mind development, and so forth. With all 
that, it is an unconvincing work, bearing so 
obviously the strain of the will to believe and 
to make out a case. 

At the same period he commenced his six 
lengthy books on music, which we shall meet later 
on, and a number of treatises on the minor disci 
plines grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, and 
arithmetic. Only the work on grammar was 
completed, and was lost in travelling. The others 
remained in an imperfect state, and even these 

1 La Philosophic de Saint- Augustin. 



CONVERSION 165 

rudiments had disappeared before Augustine s 
death. The works on these subjects which circu 
lated under Augustine s name during the Middle 
Ages are spurious. 

On the vigil of Easter, the 24th of April, 
Augustine was baptized. The legend of the com 
position of the *Te Deum by him and Ambrose 
during the ceremony is, of course, entirely 
discredited. 1 There is no reason for thinking 
that Ambrose attached great importance to the 
accession. Augustine was young and unknown 
outside a narrow circle of friends and pupils. 
His son Adeodatus and Alypius were baptized 
with him. The long struggle was over ; the 
hills of his vision were reached. He turned his 
back on the schools and the court, and set out 
for Africa. 

1 Though Cardinal Rauscher does not hesitate to present it as 
historical. 



1 66 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER VIII 

RETURN TO AFRICA 

OSTIA, where we next meet Augustine and his 
friends, was not at that time the abandoned and 
fever-stricken ruin that we know to-day. It was 
a busy Roman watering-place, its marble quays 
and handsome villas brightened by constant 
visitors from the great city. Jaded lawyers and 
other officials used to drive down in the heat of 
the summer, and idle patricians counted it, like Baia, 
one of the places that Jupiter had marked out for 
relieving the ennui of patrician existence. It was 
also the port of arrival from and departure for 
Africa. Many a time when the corn ships from 
Africa were late, its quays were crowded with 
anxious Romans, scanning the southern horizon 
from morning until night. Augustine and his 
friends were resting there after the fatigue of the 
journey, and preparing to cross to Africa, when 
Monica contracted a fatal fever. 



RETURN TO AFRICA 167 

A fine page in the Confessions and a painting 
by Ary SchefFer have immortalised the last con 
versation of Augustine and Monica. No doubt 
Augustine has somewhat etherealised and given a 
philosophic complexion to the discourse they held, 
leaning from the window over the garden of their 
hospice. Monica was an uneducated woman. 
Few women stand out from the crowd, as Jerome s 
pupils on the Aventine do, in that age of woman s 
emancipation. Moreover, there is reason to 
think Monica was of poor extraction ; Augustine 
describes her as being sent into the cellar to draw 
the wine every day in her younger days and 
taking reprehensible sips on the return journey. 
But she was a woman of deep religious feeling 
and exceptional moderation of life. The Church 
has put many more disputable models of maternity 
on the roll of the canonised. She died at Ostia. 
Many years before she had prepared her tomb 
by the side of that of her husband at Thagaste. 
Now, in her joy at the generous conversion of 
her son, she expressed a complete indifference 
about it : * Place this body anywhere/ she said, 
and do not trouble about it ; I only beg that 
you will remember me at the altar of the Lord, 
wherever you may be. They buried her at 



1 68 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Ostia, and Augustine has written her simple but 
ennobling epitaph in the immortal pages of the 
Confessions. 

With the moving description of the death and 
burial of his mother, Augustine completes the 
historical part of his Confessions. The four 
remaining books are devoted to a quite irrelevant 
and discursive treatment of all kinds of philo 
sophic and religious questions. In the tenth book 
there is an elaborate argument for the spirituality 
of the soul founded on the power of memory. 
The long analysis of memory is one of Augus 
tine s most notable pieces of psychological work. 
Although the root-thought, in this and in the 
dissertation on time in the following book, is 
borrowed from the Greeks, few who read the 
elaborate and ingenious development will feel 
inclined, with M. Nourisson, to deny Augustine 
any originality in philosophy. The twelfth and 
thirteenth books are occupied with the first 
chapter of Genesis. 

In reading the Confessions it must be remem 
bered that they were not written until about the 
year 400, or thirteen years after Augustine s con 
version, and eight years after his ordination. They 
were written, that is to say, by the bishop of 



RETURN TO AFRICA 169 

Hippo, the leading theologian in the Western 
Church. The two reasons which he assigns for 
writing them are hardly consistent ; in one place 
he says that he wrote them in answer to a request 
from friends for a narrative of his earlier years, 
and in another that they were intended to mode 
rate the enthusiasm of his admirers. Rousseau 
and Abelard, the other two illustrious literary 
penitents, are equally wanting in candour when 
they have to assign a reason for the heroic candour 
of their confessions. Abelard pretends to write 
for the consolation of a suffering friend, but very 
obviously has an interested aim. Rousseau sets 
out with a grandiose idea of describing a man in 
all the truth of nature ; after many pages the 
remark escapes him that so ugly a caricature of 
Jean Jacques is circulating in Paris and Geneva 
that he will probably gain by telling the whole 
truth, and so, as a German critic has said, he 
persuaded people he was virtuous by describing 
himself as vicious/ It must be stated that Augus 
tine also had many enemies in 400, and serious 
calumnies were circulated about him in Africa, so 
that the Primate of Numidia had at first refused 
to ordain him. 

Yet few will seriously question the unselfish- 



i ;o ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ness of the Confessions. Certainly, we must not 
exaggerate the penitential value of the work. The 
one sin which it proclaims was already well known, 
both to friends and enemies. The truth seems 
to be that the book is a kind of theological 
treatise and work of edification. The bishop of 
Hippo takes the rhetorician as an awful example 
of nature without God. To point his dogmatic 
antithesis of nature and grace, philosophy and 
Christianity, nothing could be more forceful than 
his own career, painted as darkly as conscience 
would permit. There was this subtle consolation 
for the writer that, if unregenerate nature is so 
impotent, its responsibility cannot be great in the 
absence of grace. Hence the theologian could 
dissect his dead self with calmness, and cheer 
fully send the work to his friends. But the fallacy 
of it all for us, reducing its value as a human 
document, is that Augustine examines his earlier 
life from a false point of view. We know how 
remote his earlier conduct was from the lofty 
ideal of his later years ; but the real moral drama 
lies in its relation to his pre-Christian conscience. 
Thus the very altitude of the later ideal spoils the 
psychological interest of the Confessions. The 
penitent is face to face with God throughout, 



RETURN TO AFRICA 171 

striving to maintain throughout the Divine point 
of view. Fortunately, he drops from the heavens 
occasionally, and mingles shrewd reflections, subtle 
speculations, and warm human discourse, with his 
narrative. They it is that have secured for the 
Confessions not merely immortality, but immortal 
interest. 

After the burial of his mother, Augustine 
appears to have returned to Rome instead of 
continuing his journey to Africa. Tillemont, the 
great authority for dates and movements in his 
life, conjectiires that he was deterred by news of 
the unsettled state of Africa owing to the cam 
paign of Maximus. He therefore decided to 
remain at Rome until the struggle was over. 
We can well imagine with what new eyes he 
looked upon the life of the eternal city. He 
had never indeed entered into its gaiety, or ad 
mired its brutal pleasures and its dearly bought 
luxury. The change was chiefly in his religious 
outlook. He was no longer indifferent, or even 
cynical, with regard to its conflicting gods and 
rival altars. There was now a sun in his mental 
firmament, and he saw only what it illumined in 
life. The paganism of Rome he once more 
entirely ignores. It was not until a serious cry 



172 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

rang out of the pagan world after the fall of 
Rome that he turned to consider the old religion. 
The City of God is almost his first notice of the 
chief rival of Christianity. Probably the Church 
itself was less anxious about the old religion than 
it had been on his arrival in Italy. Praetextatus 
was dead ; Symmachus had abandoned the contest. 
Jerome had ceased to compromise the Church 
with his imprudent letters. The law of 382 was 
quietly doing its work. In the West, under the 
strong Theodosius, temples were being levelled to 
the ground by the Christian people, led by fanatical 
priests and monks. At Rome the sacrificial fires 
were going out one by one for want of funds. In 
a few more years the bishops would find it oppor 
tune to advise Valentinian to close the temples 
and prohibit the old cult. Earnest religion was 
retreating to the Vatican, without the walls, where 
the temples of Christ and Mithra mingled their 
incense-fumes in significant proximity. 

For Augustine the one great abomination in 
Rome was the small and obscure group of 
Manicheans. He at once opened a bitter and 
lifelong campaign on his old religion. 1 By word 

1 Personally I am disposed to see in this a quite natural, if not 
laudable, expression of zeal for truth and for the removal of what 



RETURN TO AFRICA 173 

and style he pursued these barking dogs/ 
and whipped them for their most unblushing 
pertinacity on every occasion. Two works 
especially were written against them by him at 
this time. The first, called On the Quantity of the 
Soul, is mainly directed to proving the spirituality 
of the soul. Its chief argument is, once more, an 
appeal to the characters of mathematical and other 
abstract truths. But it deals also with the 
questions of the origin and destiny of the soul. 
It is indirectly against the Manicheans, though it 
really consists of a series of dialogues he held 
with his friend Evodius on the questions raised. 
He also began about this time to write his work 
on Free Will. This also was suggested by 
Evodius, who raised the question of moral evil. 
Our sober Pelagius had not yet appeared in the 
Roman world with his heretical admiration of 
human nature, so that Augustine was quite free 
to throw the whole burden of moral evil on the 
human will. It was very simple : * man had 
marred what God had made/ in the phrase which 

Augustine now felt to be a superstition. But I have so frequently 
heard from reputable theologians and journalists that it is a grave 
offence against propriety and honour for a man to turn and rend the 
institution or sect he has just quitted that I leave the matter to these 
people. 



i 7 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

soothes so many minds to-day. The first book 
of the De Libero Arbitrio is an admirable Pelagian 
treatise. 

But he makes a direct and unsparing attack on 
his late colleagues in the companion works On the 
Morals of the Church and On the Morals of the 
Manichees. It is clear (cf. 1. n. cxii) that these 
were not completed and published until he had 
returned to Africa. However, they were mainly 
composed during his stay at Rome, and so they 
reflect his mind and temper at that period. It is 
in these that he discovers the most shameless 
pertinacity of his Manichean friends. The 
works are of little value beyond affording an 
indication that Augustine s mind is already 
hardening into intolerance. They are feeble in 
argument and poor in literary texture. The first 
is a plain, ineloquent description of the Christian 
ideal and the monastic fervour and model com 
munities (such as that at Marcella s palace) which 
it has inspired. The argument is a challenge to 
the Manicheans to exhibit a similar inspiration. 
Had Augustine published this in Rome, his late 
friends would have smiled and pitied him. 
Jerome, who knew Rome, had already written (in 
384) the letter to Eustochium in which, after a 



RETURN TO AFRICA 175 

violent attack on the women and priests of the 
Christian community, he said that when they met a 
woman of unusual gravity and ascetic appearance 
in the street they at once concluded she was a 
i/ Manichee. The second work is still more un 
fortunate. His attack on the dogmas of the 
Manichees is unanswerable. The idea of evil 
which he has learned from Plotinus cuts fatally to 
the root of their system, and it is an easy task to 
criticise them in details. He does not seem to 
realise, however, that much of his irony cuts two 
ways. Are we to find out God by the eye and 
the nose ? he scornfully asks, in criticism of the 
Manichean contention that the glory of the 
flower reveals the presence of divinity. But the 
poison is in the tail of the treatise, which consists 
of a petty attack on the Manichean moral ideal 
and a batch of malodorous scandals. This also 
was a questionable policy to adopt in face of 
Jerome s well-known letters. But the more 
serious circumstance is that Augustine s stories 
will not bear examination. Only five years after 
wards he was publicly challenged by a reputable 
Manichean bishop, Fortunatus, to discuss the 
morals of the Manichees/ He tried for some 
time to evade the question, but at length was 



176 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

forced to admit that he had never seen anything 
wrong in the assemblies he was present at, and 
was not in a position to know what took place 
amongst the elect/ Probably Augustine little 
knew, when he began throwing stones, how fragile 
a house he had entered. 

Towards the autumn of 3 8 8 peace was restored 
to the empire, and Augustine sailed for Africa. 
He and his friends intended to continue at 
Thagaste the community life they had enjoyed at 
Cassiciacum, but a point of some interest occurs 
in connection with a short stay they made in 
Carthage. They were detained by a friend named 
Innocentius. A year or two after this Augustine 
wrote his fine treatise On the True Religion, for 
the purpose of converting to Christianity his 
friend Romanianus, who tarried in an eclectic 
theism. The argument of the work is, naturally, 
wholly philosophical. There is a wise apprecia 
tion of the work of reason in establishing the pre 
liminary truths of faith, seeing that, Augustine 
says, miracles are no longer wrought in its 
interest. In the Retractations Augustine wishes us 
to believe that he meant to say that the same 
miracles are noti wrought in his day. No one 
who reads the De Vera Religione with an impartial 



RETURN TO AFRICA 177 

study of its argument will admit this. And the 
most perplexing circumstance is that some of the 
miracles which he quotes from personal knowledge 
in the City of God were related to him during this 
stay at Carthage two years before he wrote the De 
Vera Religione. We are forced to an interesting 
conclusion, which the hagiographer has overlooked ; 
Augustine smiled at his host s miracles in 388, and | 
only learned to appreciate them years afterwards. 

There is a further circumstance of some interest 
to those who are familiar with * lives of St. 
Augustine. They only relate two miracles, 
whereas Augustine gives three in the City of God. 
The omitted miracle happened to a physician, a 
feature which alone should secure for it honourable 
mention. The poor man was tormented by the 
demons because he was determined to be baptized; 
and one night, though he suffered from gout, a 
number of them came into his room in the form 
of little nigger boys and danced a prolonged 
dance on his feet. Like the miracle of the young 
woman of Hippo, who was cured by being rubbed 
with oil into which a priest had dropped a few 
tears, this interesting event, given on Augustine s 
authority, is generally neglected. Indeed, one of 
the two miracles usually given is far less impres- 

M 



178 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

sive than it seems when one reads the whole story. 
Augustine asked the woman, who had been cured 
of cancer, why she had not proclaimed the miracle 
frpm the, house-tops. She said she had done so ; 
but when he asked her intimate friends, they knew 
nothing of it. She finally excused herself on the 
ground that her physician had laughed at her 
story. The truth is that Augustine became a 
model of trustfulness in the acceptance of evidence. 
He admits the pagan miracles, narrated by Livy 
and Varro, etc., without a murmur ; they prove 
the existence of a devil just as surely as Christian 
miracles tell the power of God. 

But we are dealing with Augustine in 388, when 
reasoning has not yet totally ceased to be his 
* darling. From Carthage we must follow him 
to Thagaste, where the new community was to be 
established. The house which his father had left 
him in the outskirts of Thagaste became a monas 
tery. The transformation of the Epicurean idea 
was now complete. He had the daily fellowship 
of his friends, it is true, but there was no longer 
any difference of opinion about woman. No 
woman, not even Augustine s sister, was allowed 
to live under their roof. They still talked 
reverently of Plato and Pythagoras, as of men 



RETURN TO AFRICA 179 

through whom God had shown the faint dawn of 
the Christian revelation. But in the affairs of 
this world they had no part. The only news 
from Rome that interested them was that another 
senator, Paulinus (afterwards of Nola), had em 
braced Christianity and deserted the empire ; that 
the prefect of Rome, Gracchus, the prefect of 
Gaul, C. Postumus Dardanus, and the senator 
Pammachius, had abandoned the old religion. 
To the material dangers that were gathering 
thick about the empire they were supremely in 
different. It was the life beyond the grave that 
mattered ; this world was but a stage, set with 
death-traps on every side, on which the Christian 
must play his part warily. The love of woman 
or child, the breath of wine, even the perfume of 
the rose and the gladness of song (Confessions, x.), 
were snares cunningly set whether by kind or 
hostile hand they could not say. Alypius and 
Evodius were with him from the first. Nebridius 
returned to his home near Carthage, where he 
died shortly afterwards. Romanianus declined to 
follow him into Christianity. Licentius roamed 
out into the wide world, in search of pleasure and 
poetry and honour. But Augustine sold all his 
property, except this house, and thus endowed his 



i8o ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

monastery, so that very shortly he gathered a 
number of converts about him. 

This was the foundation of the Augustinian 
order, the cradle of the monasticism of the west. 
Not that Augustine had any idea of founding 
what we now call an order or a peculiar institu 
tion. It was not until 1246 that the scattered 
communities of * Augustinians were gathered into 
a fully organised body under a general. But in 
the meantime the rule of St. Augustine had 
inspired the great order from which so many others 
descended. The Donatists in later years accused 
Augustine of being the founder of monasticism in 
Africa ; I say accused/ because it was not many 
years before Africa was overrun by a vagabond 
tribe of hypocrites and faineants, whom Augustine 
himself was frequently forced to attack. Augus 
tine was not, however, the parent of the idea, as 
we have seen. It had been introduced into the 
west by the Egyptian monks who accompanied 
Athanasius, and had been zealously propagated by 
Jerome, who sent fiery letters and eloquent lives 
of the hermits from his own retreat. It was in 
Italy that Augustine learned the idea ; though, it 
will be remembered, he had always shown a leaning 
to the cenobitic model. 



RETURN TO AFRICA 181 

Unfortunately, Augustine had more zeal than 
discretion in propagating the monastic life in 
Africa. In the democratic feeling which had come 
upon him he demanded that the doors of the 
monastery should be opened wide to the whole 
world. No one should ask even for a token of 
religious purpose in the aspirant. Labourers 
from the fields, slaves, and others of the lowest 
classes, were to be admitted without a question, 
4 even if they give no proof of a change of life. 1 
Pious masters and mistresses were exhorted to 
free their slaves whenever they desired to enter a 
monastery. The result was that the monasteries 
which soon sprang up like mushrooms on every 
side were flooded with slaves, cunning, hypocritical, 
and sensual idlers. We shall see in the course of 
our study that, side by side with the finer characters 
who were given to the Church by Augustine s 
monasteries, there were a number of black sheep 
living under his very eyes for years. In the 
Egyptian deserts, no doubt, there were plenty of 
the idyllic communities which charm us in the 
pages of Mr. Kingsley s Hypatia and M. Anatole 
France s Thais. It was very different in North 
Africa, where the hot breath of the cities was not 

1 De Opere Monachorum, c. 25. 



1 82 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

warded off by long miles of desert land. There 
was this important difference, too, that Augus 
tine s ascetical ideal was moderate. It was the 
ideal of a philosopher. Provided the chief 
luxuries of life were sacrificed, and the will was 
strengthened by a sober diet and an occasional 
fast, he did not see the need of inflicting so much 
positive self-torture. Whilst Jerome was gashing 
his naked breast with stones in his Syrian hermit 
age, Augustine was quietly taking his plain dinner 
and cup of wine at his neatly appointed table. 
Whilst Jerome exaggerated the sterner counsels 
of Christ, Augustine attenuated them. In one of 
his sermons (No. 101), he explains, in a pleasant 
way, what Christ meant by forbidding His disciples 
to carry purses, wear shoes, and so forth. c Lord/ 
he says, Thou didst suffer a theft in Thy com 
pany : what hadst Thou that the thief might take 
from ? So the * purse must mean wisdom 
closed up, not a bag of money. In the same way 
shoes, or * dead skins/ mean dead, or unregene- 
rate, works. It is intelligible, therefore, that the 
African monasteries should offer a comparatively 
agreeable retreat for the driven and despised slave, 
who had as much chance as any other of becoming 
superior, and the overworked agricultural labourer. 



RETURN TO AFRICA 183 

In about ten years Augustine had to write a work 
in criticism of the army of monks he had created. 
We may resume the question when we come to 
that period. 

But one further point calls for notice at the 
present stage. Augustine very quickly learned 
an uncompromising zeal for withdrawing people 
from the world. We have seen how Jerome 
urged men to push aside a heartbroken mother, 
and tread over a prostrate father, in order to fly 
to the desert. We like to conceive Augustine as 
pre-eminently sober and humane in his religion ; 
but it must be admitted that in this, as in at least 
one other point, his humane feeling was overruled. 
There are passages in his writings which rival 
Jerome s heroic advice. Thus in a letter (ep. 243), 
to a man named Laetus, he says, in urging him to 
disregard his mother s prayers that he would not 
abandon her : * What does it matter whether it 
be in the person of wife or mother, since we have 
to beware of Eve in every woman ? Already the 
city of the world, with all the affections and 
ambitions that brighten its momentary life, was 
becoming contemptible, as the vision of the city 
of God grew in his mind. 

It was impossible to relate the founding of 



184 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine s monastery at Thagaste without a hint, 
at least, of what that tiny seed contained. But 
during the three years which followed Augus 
tine s return to Africa there was no indication of 
the alarming growth which was soon to appear 
alarming even to the sower of the seed. During 
those three years Augustine and a few companions 
prayed and read and talked, with no definite 
thought of the future. They awaited death, their 
supreme goal in this life. In the meantime they 
shut out the distracting life of the world from 
their home as completely as possible. In the course 
of time, as appears from a letter to Nebridius, the 
citizens of Thagaste constituted Augustine a kind 
of informal magistrate and councillor, but he was 
always impatient of their secular affairs. His 
chief concern was controversy. He wrote, or 
commenced, a number of works at this time, 
besides maintaining a busy correspondence. It 
was at Thagaste that he wrote the Treatise on the 
True Religion^ which I have quoted previously. 
This little treatise is not only the most carefully 
written of Augustine s works, but it also illustrates 
in a peculiarly interesting way the transitional 
theology he held at the time. It was written for 
the purpose of converting his wealthy friend, 



RETURN TO AFRICA 185 

Romanianus, who had, we gather, remained in an 
eclectic frame of mind, favouring Christianity, 
Platonism, and Manicheeism. I have already told 
of the denial of miracles which he afterwards 
explained away. 1 Another section which gave him 
some uneasiness in after years was that in which 
he meets the Manichean difficulty about moral, 
evil. The Manichees explained it with their usual 
facility ; there was a bad soul as well as a good 
soul in man. Against this Augustine urges that 
,/ moral evil is wholly traceable to man s free will. 
In later years the Pelagians searched these early 
works of Augustine s to good purpose. The 
finest part of the work, however, is that in which 
he contrasts Platonism and Christianity, very 
much in the spirit in which Mr. Kingsley has 
contrasted them in our days. He is still full of 
admiration for the Platonist religion (into which, 
I must admit, he reads a certain quantity of 
Christianity), but he insists on the powerlessness 
of Plato and Socrates to touch the masses. With 
them religion was necessarily an aristocratic con 
cern. Christianity has spread the finest elements 
of Platonism in every grade of society. Also, 

1 In the same treatise he rejects all cultus of saints or martyrs : 
Non sit nobis religio cultus hominum mortuorum. 



186 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE. 

Socrates and Plato, he says, connived at the 
popular polytheism through fear ; Christianity 
faced it, with the strength of a Divine founda 
tion and Divine example. The work is a fine 
expression of a rational and humane theology, 
making one almost wish Augustine had never 
known the fatal dignity of the episcopate, with 
its flood of work and its insinuating interests. 
Romanianus responded to the appeal, and became 
a Christian. 

It was also about this time that he commenced 
his long and anxious labours on the interpretation 
of Genesis. It was the Manichean criticism which 
prompted his concern to rationalise the puzzling 
narrative, and the first attempt to deal with it was 
a small work On Genesis: against the Manichees. 
It reproduced in a simple style the arguments 
he had urged in his more scholarly De moribus 
Manichteorum. But its allegorical treatment of the 
Genesiac legends did not please him long. A few 
years later, convinced that Genesis was in accord 
with the physics and astronomy of the day, he ven 
tured upon his De Genesi ad Literam. His ingenuity 
broke down, however, and the work remained 
unfinished until about the year 400, when he wrote 
his large commentary on Genesis to the letter/ 



RETURN TO AFRICA 187 

These works form a monument to Augustine s 
courage and ingenuity. But one reads them with 
a feeling of pity now that Mr. Sayce and other 
reputable scholars have told us whence these 
stories were copied. 

He then completed his work On Music/ a 
very curious work, showing a bewildering know 
ledge of the teaching of the time under that head. 
The first five books deal in a dry and technical 
way with the definition of music, rhythm, metre, 
and verse. In the sixth book he suddenly rises 
to a Pythagorean height of theology. In later 
years, when a bishop had asked for a copy of this 
work, he replied that he would send one if he 
could find one, but he rather hoped he could not. 
His letters to his friend Nebridius, written at this 
period, also contain some points of interest, and 
bring out the more human side of Augustine. 
He has not yet forgotten how to make jokes, and 
he has shrewd suggestions still in matters of secular 
knowledge. Thus, when Nebridius asks why the 
sun is larger than the stars, Augustine propheti 
cally raises the question of their relative distance 
from the earth. A letter to a grammarian of his 
old school-town, Madaura, elicits an answer of less 
pleasant interest. Maximus had written to plead, 



1 88 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

in a polite and amiable way, the cause of the old 
religion, but Augustine returns a very harsh reply, 
making a bitter and contemptuous attack on the 
poor Olympians. 

Towards the end of his stay at Thagaste, he 
lost his son, Adeodatus. Augustine says he had 
long been alarmed * horrified/ he says by the 
boy s precocious intelligence, and no doubt the 
daily contact with Augustine s philosophic friends 
and constant presence during their discussions had 
greatly advanced his development. We have 
an interesting proof in the little work Of the 
Master, a dialogue between the father and son, 
leading up to the words of Christ, { One is your 
Master. Augustine assures us that the words 
assigned to Adeodatus are faithfully recorded, 
and they show a good deal of cleverness and 
thoughtfulness. 

Augustine spent three years in his retreat at 
Thagaste. It would hardly be profitable to specu 
late on the probable development of his thoughts 
if he had remained throughout life in this tranquil 
and leisurely condition. It was impossible that 
he should remain long in his monastery. The 
African Church was in pressing need of competent 
ministers. Few of its bishops had any distinction 



RETURN TO AFRICA 189 

for learning or any other impressive quality ; and, 
owing to the monopoly of the chief functions 
(such as preaching) by the bishops, there were no 
priests of ability, apart from the few who awaited 
the vacant sees. The bishop rather corresponded 
to the modern vicar or cure ; the few priests who 
were attached to each (save in such a town as 
Carthage) representing his curates. Hence there 
was an inordinate number of bishoprics in the 
struggling African Church, and a constant obser 
vation was maintained for desirable candidates. 
At Carthage, moreover, Augustine had met an 
energetic young deacon, named Aurelius, who had 
since become bishop of that place. It was not 
long before many covetous eyes were bent on the 
monastery of Thagaste. Augustine had to move 
about with the prudence of a debtor whenever he 
left his monastery. He remembered the story of 
Ambrose s election, and the extraordinary means 
by which he had fruitlessly tried to evade the 
office thrust on him. The congregations of the 
fourth century were not easily disconcerted when 
they had chosen a priest or bishop. Bishop 
Synesius of Ptolemais familiar to readers of 
Hypatia vainly pointed out that he was a heretic, 
and married to boot, when the people demanded 



190 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

his consecration. Augustine had to decline many 
insidious invitations to visit towns or villages 
where a bishop was required. 

It was in 391 that Augustine was at length 
captured, and pressed into the service of the 
Church. A government official of Hippo (now 
Bona), on the coast, had expressed a willingness 
to retire from the world if Augustine paid him a 
visit. It is difficult to say whether this was a 
pious stratagem of the Hipponenses or not ; but, 
as the church of Hippo had a bishop living, and 
there seemed so excellent a prospect of securing a 
convert, Augustine indiscreetly set out for Hippo. 
The story told by Possidius, Augustine s pupil 
and biographer (for the later period of his life), 
introduces us at once into the simple church-life 
of the early centuries. One day, whilst Augustine 
was listening to the sermon of Bishop Valerius, 
that prelate seized the opportunity to remind his 
congregation that he was getting old, and needed 
a priest to share his work. 1 There was immedi 
ately a loud demand for Augustine. He begged 

1 Hatzfeld (Saint Augustine}, with the usual licence of the hagio- 
grapher, graphically describes how the people dragged him to the 
bishop when they learned he was in town. The story of Possidius 
is interesting enough, without this kind of adornment. It is not 
unlike Villemain s statement that Symmachus sent for Augustine at 



RETURN TO AFRICA 191 

and protested and wept, but to no purpose. The 
people were not accustomed to resistance in such 
matters, and they certainly never yielded to it. 
Augustine had to consent. 

The reader who is unfamiliar with the ways of 
the early Church may have some difficulty in 
picturing such a scene, so quiet and submissive 
is the modern congregation to its pastors. It is 
true that the people are still consulted as to the 
quality of those who are to be ordained, but few 
are so rude as to take the prelate at his word and 
answer the questions he puts from the altar ; the 
wiser and more reverent liturgy of the Church of 
Rome directs the putting of the questions to the 
people in Latin. In the fourth century the pro 
ceedings were less stately. The great preacher j 
was encouraged by rounds of applause at the end ! 
of his well-turned periods. The less gifted 
preacher was liable to be reminded of the progress 
of the water-clock. Augustine tells a story 
(ep. 71) of a bishop who, having pretensions to 
learning, quoted Jerome s translation of Jonas 
iv. 6 in his sermon. The people missed the 

Rome when he had to choose a teacher for the Milanese , or the 
Due cle Broglie s discovery that Augustine helped to guard Ambrose 
in the church at Milan. Another prominent hagiographer depicts 
Augustine s amazement when the people demanded his ordination. 



i 9 2 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

familiar gourd (for which Jerome had substi 
tuted ivy ), and protested at once. After some 
altercation the bishop appealed to the Jews, who 
maliciously sided with the people, and the poor 
bishop had to retract. 1 We shall see many in 
stances of this lively interest of the early Chris 
tians in the affairs of their Church. There was 
no real presence to restrain their expressions, 
nor law against brawling. When Augustine 
relates that his mother went to church every day, 
he is careful to add that she did not go for the 
purpose of gossiping. Jerome says that the 
church was only second to the doctor s shop as a 
resort for gossips at Rome. 

Augustine claimed some time for recollection 
and preparation for his new office. He was as 
sincerely distressed as Ambrose had been by the 
choice, but did not imitate his desperate efforts 
to escape. After a few months preparation he 
seems to have assumed the priestly order and 
commenced his new duties about Easter 391. 

1 Of another man who complained to Jerome of the change he 
had made the saintly cynic said : * The fellow was afraid he would 
have nothing to take a drink from on the sly, if ivy grew instead of 
his gourds. 1 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 193 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 

HIPPO Royal Hippo, as it was called, to dis 
tinguish it from Hippo Zarytus (Bizerta) was an 
interesting little town in the days when Augustine 
went to reside there. Its title recalled the slender 
glories of the ancient kings of Numidia, who 
found it an agreeable winter residence. Under 
the Romans it had grown into a flourishing sea 
port, the most important on the north-western 
coast after Carthage. Connected with all parts of 
Numidia and the other provinces by a chain of 
Roman roads, it had become the chief outlet for 
African produce and an important gate into 
Africa for the Romans. When the Vandals 
swept over the land, Hippo and Carthage alone 
withstood them for any length of time, Hippo 
keeping them at bay for fourteen months. It 
has shared the utter desolation that has fallen 
upon north-western Africa in the train of the 



i 9 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Arab conquest. To-day it is a formless mound 
of ruins, over which nature has spread a kindly 
veil of vegetation. But one of Hippo s glories 
still lives in the midst of this desolation. On 
Fridays the neighbouring Arabs gather at a 
certain spot amongst the ruins, to sacrifice birds, 
and fire their rifles, and offer other uncouth tokens 
of an unusual veneration. And when you ask them 
the story which lies at the root of their strange 
tradition, they can only tell you vaguely that once 
a great Roumi (Christian) dwelt in that spot. 

Hippo was a colonia in the Afro-Roman empire. 
It was situated about a mile from what is now 
called Bona, on one of the lower plains of 
Numidia, between the rivers which the Arabs call 
the Seybouse and the Abou-gemma. The rivers 
formed its northern and southern fortifications, 
whilst stout walls drawn from river to river pro 
tected it on the east and west. The Romans seem 
to have deepened the channel of the Seybouse 
from the town to the sea a distance of about 
a mile and the shipping moored at the quays 
on the south of the town. To the east was the 
broad blue expanse of the Mediterranean, whilst 
in the rear of the town the horizon was closed by 
a series of luxuriantly clothed hills. The space 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 195 

enclosed by the walls and rivers was about one 
hundred and fifty acres, but a large part of it was 
probably taken up with gardens. It was, how 
ever, pleasantly dominated by a softly-rounded 
hill almost in the middle of the town, which was 
crowned by the citadel. At the north-east corner 
was a fine Roman bridge over the river, which 
still survives, and the castle or fortress of the 
military, 

But though the town had probably a population 
of between thirty thousand and forty thousand in 
habitants, it was a poor, ignorant, and scanty con 
gregation that had thus secured the great gifts and 
greater promise of Augustine. The pagans were 
evidently in the majority there in the closing years 
of the fourth century, if not at the close of Augus 
tine s career. We cannot find that the Catholics 
the name was already in use had more than 
one basilica in the town. The Donatist Schis 
matics had another, if not more than one. The 
remainder of the townsfolk were either pagans or 
Manicheans ; and as the Manicheans were a 
somewhat select and cultured body, the vast 
majority of the people must have still followed 
the religion of their fathers. There cannot have 
been more than a few hundred worshippers in 



196 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the basilica pacis, where the Catholic bishop, 
Valerius, was the sole ministering priest ; and 
these must have belonged mainly, as we may 
infer from Augustine s sermons, to the unedu 
cated class. Fishermen, labourers from the 
quays and from the outlying estates, and slaves, 
must have made up the bulk of the congregation. 
Indeed, when Augustine had protested, with tears, 
against his ordination, many thought, says Possi- 
dius, that he felt the littleness and poverty of the 
position they offered him. We may be sure there 
was no such thought in Augustine s mind. One 
human feeling we do seem to detect in his reluct 
ance ; he admits somewhere that the prospect of 
the violence of the Donatists counted for some 
thing in his distress. That was a pardonable 
feeling, as will be apparent later on. But his 
resistance would undoubtedly have been greater 
if the See of Carthage had been offered to him. 
And when he did eventually submit to ordination, 
it was with the one thought that he was entering 
upon a sacred duty. 

Bishop Valerius was a Greek, and an old man. 
His knowledge of Latin had always been defective, 
and it was with some relief that he handed over 
his chief functions to Augustine. Brother bishops 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 197 

were scandalised, and Valerius had to invoke the 
custom of the Eastern Church in support of his 
action. In the west a priest was never permitted 
to preach in the presence of his bishop, and the 
latter always reserved for himself the preparation 
of the competents and their baptism. I have said 
that the priest was only a kind of curate to his 
bishop. It must be understood that he was, as 
a rule, only intrusted with the duties of what 
we would consider a very minor curacy. The 
number of Christians was so small that the bishop 
usually found it possible to do all the preaching 
and baptizing in his parcecia. 1 Hence, although 
the parish sometimes had an ample territory 
that of Hippo extending for some forty miles it 
rarely numbered very many souls, and it is entirely 
misleading to give the number of African bishops 
as an indication of the Christian population. 2 
There were probably about five hundred Catholic 
bishops in the diocese of Africa at the end of the 

1 The word diocese was then applied to a large division of the 
empire, such as north-west Africa. 

2 For instance, one is impressed at first by the statement that there 
were 748 bishops (Donatist and Catholic) at the great conference at 
Carthage in 41 1. But, on the other hand, we cannot find that there 
were more than some twenty or thirty missions in Augustine s own 
parcecia (and this after the conversion of the Donatists) at the 
close of his career. 



198 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

fourth century. Though they murmured at the 
concessions of Valerius at first, they began to 
imitate him when they saw the success of the 
change ; and the Eastern custom was finally 
adopted throughout the West. 

Augustine s first care after his removal to 
Hippo was to found a new monastery. Valerius 
gave him a garden which was attached to the 
church, and here he built his monastery. Alypius 
and Evodius seem to have joined him, and a 
number of others was admitted into the com 
munity. There are indications that Augustine 
made the mistake of admitting youths at an 
immature age ; curiously enough, the only one 
of his monks whom he mentions expressly as 
having been brought up in the monastery from 
his early years a troublesome young man of the 
name of Antony, whom we shall meet later 
turned out a black sheep. We shall have to 
record a number of minor scandals that troubled 
the peace of the community, but there is no 
doubt that the monastery at Hippo rendered in 
valuable service to the African Church. No less 
than ten of its most zealous bishops were taken 
from Augustine s community. Other bishops 
were moved to build seminaries of this kind, and 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 199 

thus a more spiritual body of men were secured 
for the ministry. We shall presently find Augus 
tine founding a seminary, properly so called ; but 
until that date the supply of priests and bishops 
was precarious. 

But when Possidius says that from the day 
of Augustine s ordination the African Church 
began to lift up its head/ he is regarding his 
master and friend in the character of a contro 
versialist. Augustine flung himself at once into 
the work of proselytising. Hitherto the Catholics 
had lived on sufferance at Hippo, and for many 
years to come the civic officials slighted the 
struggling community. Augustine quickly altered 
the position of the Catholics. His earlier sermons 
show some sign of preparation and rhetorical 
finish, though he soon ceased to pay any attention 
to their literary quality. But he soon began to 
exhibit the two gifts which rendered such remark 
able service to the Church of Africa his power 
as a debater and as a controversial writer. In the 
year of his ordination he wrote a new work against 
the Manicheans. The De Utilltate Credendi 
is a carefully-written constructive treatise, and 
it is marked by a moderation of feeling and 
expression which Augustine s ardent temperament 



200 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

rarely permits. It is interesting, chiefly, for its 
indication that his views as to faith and reason 
are rapidly developing in the direction of his 
famous fides pr<ecedit intellectum. The fallacy of 
it is the familiar error of exaggerating the 
function of the moral dispositions connected with 
the act of belief and attenuating the moral duty, 
or the common-sense duty, of weighing the im 
mediate authority for the propositions which 
claim the allegiance of the mind. Augustine s 
development on the question of faith and reason 
was uneven. He had a number of maxims 
instead of one consistent principle. When he is 
making a rational criticism of the Manichean 
dogmas, as in his Contra Epistolam M.anich<ei, he 
triumphantly demands the proof of their cosmic 
assertions. When, on the other hand, he is 
urging the acceptance of Christian teaching, he 
says : Let us have no disputing ; the will of God 
requires faith, not questions. * This habit of 
mind is already forming in the treatise On the 
Usefulness of Faith, which is an attempt to disarm 
the rationalist inquirer, addressed to a Manichean 
friend. It was quickly followed by the De 

1 Sermon 318, where he is introducing the relics of St. Stephen, 
and some cautious person wants to be sure they are the remains of 
that martyr. 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 201 

Duabus Animabus, a direct attack on the 
Manichean doctrine of the two souls. In this 
Augustine is unanswerable, and he is still 
temperate in his expressions. 

In the following year Augustine commenced his 
long and interesting career as a public debater. 
The Manichean religion, so philosophic in form, 
had made considerable progress amongst educated 
people, who looked with some disdain on both 
camps of Christians the Donatists and the 
Catholics. 1 At Hippo they had a bishop named 
Fortunatus who had hitherto, it seems, been 
master of the field. That did not imply a very 
great mental superiority in a town which, Augus 
tine says somewhere, could not boast the posses 
sion of a single copy of Cicero. However, it 
soon became apparent that Augustine was a match 
for the Manichee, and the Christians hastened to 
arrange a duel. Both Donatists and Catholics 
pressed Augustine to meet him, and he consented. 
They then approached Fortunatus, who hesitated 

1 It may be useful to anticipate the fuller treatment of the schism 
to the extent of giving a definition. The Donatists were the 
followers of Donatus, who had separated from his fellow-Christians 
because they took, as he thought, a laxer view of certain defaulters 
during the last persecution. Half the Christians of Africa were 
Donatists ; but their opponents called themselves the Catholics/ as 
claiming to be in communion with the rest of the Christian world. 



202 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

for some time Possidius says he had known 
Augustine at Carthage, and did not love the 
temper of his weapons but consented at length, 
and the preliminaries were settled. 

The contest was held in September, 392, in the 
baths of Sosius. A crowd of students and wor 
shippers of all three parties gathered in the hall. 
The public notaries were summoned, and the 
dialectical battle raged all day. It was renewed 
on the following day, and Augustine gained an 
undeniable victory.^) Intellectually, Fortunatus 
was immensely inferior to Augustine. We still 
have the shorthand report of the debate, and 
can follow the feeble and shifty efforts of the 
Manichee to parry Augustine s criticism. In the 
end he completely broke down, and said that he 
would have to consult the more learned defenders 
of his belief on the points Augustine had raised. 
It is of some interest to notice that the chief of 
these points is the one which young Nebridius 
had fruitlessly urged on Augustine in his own 
Manichean days. Fortunatus set out immedi 
ately on his search for a more valid defence. He 
never returned to Hippo. It was a severe blow 

1 But he had virtually to retract his earlier attack on the morals 
of the Manichees/ admitting that he knew no evil of them. How 
ever, see a later development in chap. xvi. 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 203 

for the Manicheans, who began to dimmish in 
Hippo from that day. 

The rejoicing of the Donatists was, however, 
very shortly arrested. Augustine soon adopted 
the orthodox view of the schism, and turned his 
weapons upon it. His first anti-Donatist docu 
ment was a model of brotherly litigation with his 
separated brethren/ It is a letter to a Donatist 
bishop, Maximinus, written in an admirably 
temperate and reasonable spirit. But it was not 
long before he began to taste a little of the bitter 
ness of the controversy. He wrote a kind of 
ballad, putting the Catholic points against the 
schismatics in popular and strong phraseology. 
It runs over the history of the struggle, and 
repeats the essence of the Catholic charge every 
few lines by a refrain which rhymes rebaptizare 
with altare contra altare. Probably the streets 
of Hippo had rung with such ballads often 
enough before. It is a wretched piece of doggerel 
with no literary pretension whatever. But if the 
irritation of your adversary is a point in con 
troversy, it must have been effective. It was 
followed by a work On the Letter of Donatus, 
which we no longer have. 

But Augustine was not the man to be deterred 



204 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

by popularity from sternly denouncing the short 
comings of his own congregation. He is as 
earnest and uncompromising in his basilica as 
when he faces a heretic or schismatic. Perhaps 
the best illustration of his earnestness and power 
as a preacher is found in his suppression of the 
Irttitia t or feasts in honour of the martyrs, 
which have been mentioned previously. The per 
mission to hold these feasts over the tombs of the 
martyrs was one of the most unfortunate con 
cessions that the bishops had made in their eager 
ness to secure nominal converts. There were, 
assuredly, many Christians who took a purely 
religious view of the celebration, as we have seen 
in the case of Monica, But the abuse of the 
custom was undeniably grave and widespread. 
The churches were thronged all day with men 
and women who emptied their bottles and those 
of sober folk like Monica recklessly. 1 That the 
clergy were far from uniformly opposed to the 
custom is clear from a canon of the Council of 
Hippo (a General Council of the African Church, 

1 An effort is made by some ecclesiastical writers to transfer the 
orgies from the churches proper to adjacent buildings where the 
martyrs bodies were kept. Not only were these memorise martyrum 
real chapels, but both Ambrose and Augustine make it perfectly 
clear that the ordinary basilica was given up to the people. 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 205 

held in 393), which forbade the bishops and priests 
to take part in the festivals. Moreover, the 
custom was extending to other festive occasions, 
such as the funerals of the wealthy. St. Paulinus 
of Nola writes approvingly of the giving of such 
an epulum sacrum at Rome. 1 

The custom had been suppressed at Milan and 
other places, but the Africans clung to it with 
great obstinacy. However, in 395, Augustine 
determined to make a strong effort to break the 
tradition. About the beginning of Lent occurred 
the feast of St. Leontius, the patron of Hippo, 
whose anniversary was always celebrated with 
great Bacchic fervour both at the Catholic 
and the Donatist basilica. A few days before 
the feast Augustine opened his campaign with an 
eloquent sermon on the viciousness of the custom. 
There were few people present, but these spread 
a report of the sermon, and a large number came 

1 Old St. Peter s witnessed sights hardly less curious than its suc 
cessor witnesses to-day. Sacred banquets were often held in it, and 
Jerome gives many another profane spectacle. He tells in one letter 
of a wealthy dame who ran down the long line of Christian mendi 
cants with her gifts, and who, when an enterprising old lady had 
doubled back to get a second coin, promptly felled her with a blow. 
The murderous conflict which accompanied the papal election in 366, 
when one hundred and thirty corpses were left on the floor of one 
basilica, occurred elsewhere. 



206 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

to hear him on the following day, when he again 
vigorously denounced the practice. His hearers 
wept, and Augustine himself was moved to tears, 
as he wrote afterwards to Alypius. However, he 
was told that there was still a strong group of 
obstinate feasters, who were resolved to hold the 
celebration as usual. On the morning of the 
feast he came to the basilica with a carefully pre 
pared denunciation of the custom, and a resolve 
to 4 shake his garments of them and abandon 
them if they continued their opposition. Fortu 
nately, the leaders of the obstinate party came to 
discuss the matter with him, and were persuaded 
to desist. There was great rejoicing, of a purely 
religious order, in the basilica all that day. The 
prepared oration was set aside, and Augustine 
gave them an impromptu address, in which he 
naively explains how these festivals were a con 
cession to the early converts from paganism ; 
and he has also to explain away the evil example 
of the Church of Rome. And when the sound of 
rejoicing comes from the Donatist basilica down 
the street, he points out to his sorely tempted 
people how far superior is their spiritual celebra 
tion. They remained all day singing hymns and 
psalms in the church, and the agap* were never 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 207 

again celebrated at Hippo. But Augustine had 
to contend frequently afterwards against the 
practice in other parts of Africa. In sermon 311 
he speaks of the people dancing and singing all 
night in the chapel of St. Cyprian at Carthage. 
In another of his sermons he speaks of having 
incurred, probably at Carthage, great personal 
risk for his denunciation of the popular festivals. 

About this time, also, Augustine wrote the 
work On Free Will, which proved such a treasure 
to his Pelagian opponents in later years. The 
first book had been written at Rome, and con 
sisted of a series of conversations with Evodius. 
In the early years of his Christian development 
Augustine was constantly recurring to the ques 
tion of evil. There was not a shade of mystery 
in it after he had read the Neo-Platonists, and he 
was ever eager to communicate his pleasant view 
of life. The work on free will is another effort 
to deal with it on the same lines as his previous 
works. Moral evil comes from man ; what we 
call physical evil is not evil at all. The sufferings 
of human beings are a just punishment for sin. 
The sufferings of children cannot be rightly 
judged, since we do not know what God has 
prepared for them hereafter ; in his Retractations 



208 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine had to express regret that he had 
spoken with some hesitation of the damnation of 
unbaptized infants. The sufferings of animals 
are a necessary part of the beautiful machinery of 
the universe ; M. Nourisson is driven to qualify 
his remarks on this point as des mots vides de sens, 
ou meme des sophismes pernicieux. And when 
: Evodius asks why God gave free will, since it is 
^ the source of half the evil of the universe, Augus 
tine is no less optimistic. The universe would 
have been sadly imperfect without the presence of 
free will. In a word,i there is no mystery what 
ever about the world. It reflects the wisdom and 
the love of God on every feature. It is just such 
a world as we should expect to find on the Chris 
tian theory of the divine nature. 

In thus basing his argument so largely on free 
will, Augustine was undoubtedly running counter 
to the position he was to take up in later years. 
It was fortunate for him that he had completed 
his task of explaining moral evil to the Manicheans 
before he began to reduce the human will to an 
automaton in his opposition to the Pelagians. In 
these earlier years grace * is rarely noticed in his 
writings, and then is only conceived vaguely as an 
additional force, a kind of moral luxury. The 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 209 

human will is the central fact of the moral order. 
Augustine s earlier works against the Manicheans 
would have been impossible if he had then held 
the theory of grace which he adopted later. The 
Pelagians appealed particularly to this work on 
Free Will to prove his inconsistency, and they 
were certainly justified. It is a mistake to sup 
pose that the later idea of grace was developed 
only under the pressure of the Pelagians. We 
can trace its growth before the appearance of 
Pelagius. But we cannot grant Augustine that the 
later thought is quite in harmony with the earlier. 
The theology and ethic of the De Libero Arbitrio, 
apart from its optimist excesses, would be accepted 
by most of the liberal theologians of our day by 
men who shrink in pity from the theories which 
Augustine held twenty years afterwards. 

Thus, between writing and preaching, Augus 
tine was rapidly winning a high reputation 
throughout Africa. In 393 the General Council 
of the African bishops had been held at Hippo, 
and Augustine had been charged with the duty of 
preaching a special sermon before the assembled 
bishops. It became necessary once more for him 
to take precautions whenever he left his town. 
There was, in fact, a twofold reason for discre- 



210 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

tion. On the one hand the Donatists were 
greatly embittered against him, and to fall into 
the hands of the roving fanatics who conducted 
the physical side of the controversy for that sect 
would probably mean death. It is said that 
before long the bishops of the sect declared that 
the man who killed Augustine would gain a 
plenary indulgence of his sins. That is quite in 
keeping with what we know of the religious 
quarrels of the day. At all events, it would not 
be pleasant even if he escaped with a copious 
draught of vinegar and salt-water, or some similar 
experience of the controversy. On the other 
hand, many towns were eager to secure him for 
their bishop. He had again to move abroad with 
the forethought of a debtor at large. His fine 
theory of free will would count for little if he fell 
into the hands of any congregation that needed a 
bishop. On one occasion, indeed, some enter 
prising paracia seems to have sent a few of its 
members to Hippo for the purpose of kidnapping 
him, for we find that Valerius was obliged to 
conceal him for a time. 

However, the bishop was forced at length to 
attach him to his church by a firm, if somewhat 
irregular, bond. At that time a canon of the 



THE BISHOP OF HIPPO 211 

Council of Nicasa forbade a bishop to have a 
coadjutor, but the African bishops do not 
seem to have been learned in the canon law. 
Valerius, therefore, had Augustine ordained 
bishop. Towards the close of 395 the primate, 
or seneXy as he was then called, of Numidia, 
Megalius, bishop of Calama, came to Hippo with 
a number of other bishops, and Valerius asked 
him to perform the ordination. A curious 
incident arose which gave Augustine some trouble 
in later years. Megalius refused at first to ordain 
him on account of some calumny that was in cir 
culation about him. It seems (Contra Cresconium, 
iii. 92, iv. 79) that the Donatists accused him of 
having given a philtre to a woman of Hippo. 
The story was, of course, a ridiculous invention 
of the Donatists, and Megalius was soon per 
suaded of that. But the letters in which he had 
stated his grievance afterwards fell into the hands 
of Augustine s enemies, and were used with much 
zeal by the Donatists and Manicheans for some 
years. Megalius publicly begged Augustine s 
forgiveness for his hesitation, and the ordination 
took place a little before Christmas. Possidius 
says that Augustine had a suspicion at the time 
that the ordination was irregular, but he was 



212 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

overborne. When he became assured of it after 
wards, he had a resolution passed at the Council 
of Carthage, directing that the canons of the 
Church should be read to every priest before his 
ordination. 

Augustine was now free to enlarge the sphere of 
his work. The jealous Hipponenses had hitherto 
rarely allowed him to visit other towns, but now 
that he was secured to their Church they gave 
him greater liberty. Possidius says that he began 
to preach frequently in neighbouring towns, and 
to challenge Donatist and Manichean champions 
to debate. As, moreover, Valerius died soon after 
his ordination, he became the sole bishop, and 
regained control of his movements. But the 
change brought him a multitude of new functions, 
many of which had been of little consequence 
under the old bishop. He had to remove from 
his monastery to the episcopal house. One of a 
bishop s duties was hospitality, he said, and this 
would be inconsistent with the quiet life of a 
monastery. He accordingly left the monastery in 
the garden to his associates, and removed to the 
house Valerius had left him. Let us try, in a 
fresh chapter, to form a picture of the life of a 
busy bishop of the fourth century. 



THE DAILY TASK 213 



CHAPTER X 

THE DAILY TASK 

WHEN we are told that the whole of the cathedral 
clergy consented to live in the bishop s house 
with Augustine, we must guard ourselves against 
large impressions. Probably one or two of his 
fellow-monks joined Augustine in his new home, 
though Alypius had already left him to become 
bishop of Thagaste. In addition to these, it is 
hardly likely that he had more than one or two 
deacons. There is no reason for thinking that he 
had any priests ministering under him in Hippo 
at that time. Twenty years afterwards his little 
seminary included only about a dozen priests 
and deacons, as we know from the sermon (355), 
in which he discusses them before his congregation 
when a scandal has arisen. In 395, and for some 
years after, Augustine must have had nearly the 
whole burden of the ministry on his shoulders. 
When we realise the magnitude of that burden, 



2i 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

we shall be in a better position to judge the literary 
and controversial work of the bishop. 

Possidius gives us an interesting picture of life 
in the episcopal house, which he himself shared for 
many years. All things were held in common 
or were supposed to be ; for in after years Augus 
tine found that most of his subordinates had 
quietly retained possession of houses, or slaves, or 
other property. Still, in the practical administra 
tion of the house, the right of private property 
was not recognised. All food and clothing was 
handed in to the common store, and distributed 
according to need. In one letter Augustine 
acknowledges receiving a shirt from a lady of 
Carthage ; in another, a warm cloak. He was 
careful to choose only the more common for his 
own use ; lest, he says, people should complain 
that his priestly office brought him luxuries which 
neither his family nor his profession would have 
procured for him. The common table offered 
little beyond bread and vegetables ; meat was 
reserved for visitors and for the sick. Yet he had 
an Aristotelic idea of moderation in his virtue. 
Wine was allowed to the extent of two or three 
cups each, a fine of one cup being imposed for 
relapse into the African frailty of swearing. Silver 



THE DAILY TASK 215 

was admitted in the matter of spoons ; all other 
utensils and vessels were of marble, wood, or 
earthenware. Augustine would have us think 
that he suffered from a besetting tendency to 
excess at table. Bayle, of course, has pleasantly 
enlarged on the phrase in the Confessions (x. 31), 
in which he makes the admission ; but Bayle is 
entirely wrong in applying it to drink (which 
Augustine expressly excludes), and it is question 
able whether the confession should be taken 
seriously at all. Augustine was not the vigorous 
and robust individual the passage would suggest. 
He was slight of build and short of stature, and 
always ailing. He has frequently to absent him 
self from Hippo much to the concern of the 
numerous grumblers in his congregation on 
account of his health. We have heard him com 
plain of serious lung disorder at Milan. Later 
he tells that he cannot endure the cold ; and in 
another letter he complains of hemorrhoids. He 
must have been a man of intensely nervous and 
sympathetic temperament. Frequently he seems 
only to gather strength when he has begun his 
sermon or other task. With such a constitu 
tion, worn down still more by frequent fasts 
and incessant toil, Augustine is hardly likely 



216 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

to have had serious trouble in controlling his 
appetite. 

The Eastern custom of reading the Scripture 
or some religious work during meals was intro 
duced by Augustine. But he hit upon a happy 
device for the control of unkind impulses on the 
days when conversation was allowed. He had a 
couplet painted or carved on the table, which 
reminded the diners continually that * whoever 
loves to carp at the lives of the absent must 
know that this table is no place for him. One s 
character was safe in Augustine s presence ; 
unless, indeed, one had the misfortune to be a 
Manichee or a Donatist. The couplet was not a 
mere ornament, as such things are apt to become. 
Possidius tells how some brother bishops were 
dining with him on one occasion, and the conver 
sation gradually wandered on to the forbidden 
ground. Augustine rose at once. * Either let us 
remove those words from the table, he said, or 
let me retire. He was equally rigid in his 
relations with the more dangerous sex. He 
visited no women except widows and orphans who 
were in trouble. No woman, not even his sister 
or his nieces, ever lived under his roof; and it 
was with difficulty, and only in the presence 



THE DAILY TASK 217 

of witnesses, that he ever saw a woman at all. 
One would like to have had his comments on 
Jerome s very different conduct, and Jerome s 
on his. 

Augustine s ideal of community life brought 
him many a troubled hour. The truth is, it must 
be confessed, he was a most unpractical man, and 
a poor judge of persons. 1 The good became 
better in his company I have said that he gave 
ten earnest bishops to the African Church ; but 
many found their way into his house and service 
who were not good, and he had a poor eye for 
hypocrisy. Before many years we find him much 
concerned about one of his monks and one of his 
priests, who accuse each other of revolting conduct. 
Augustine sent them to the shrine of St. Felix of 

1 Mr. Kingsley has introduced him in Hypatia as endowed with a 
sober and practical judgment which made large amends, in that 
author s esteem, for his doctrinal excesses. Like every other 
{ historical 1 character in that brilliant work of fiction, Kingsley s 
Augustine is quite untrue to life. Still one cannot help having a 
feeling of indulgence for the novelist. His purpose demanded that 
he should offer the reader an alternative to the Neo-Platonist moralists 
he was decrying, and even his subtle imagination failed to find the 
material for one in the Church of Alexandria. No doubt, we should 
not look for history in romances ; but in this case a German critic, 
Stephanus Wolf, has recommended the characters for historical 
faithfulness. It is not likely that Augustine ever saw Synesius or 
the Pentapolis. The line of division of east and west a very real 
one lay between them. 



2i8 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Nola, in Italy, to ask a miraculous decision in the 
case. About the same time he has to depose another 
priest in his paracia for flagrant conduct. Other 
scandals will be found at a later stage. For many 
years his theory of a community of goods seemed 
to work admirably ; and as Possidius says he kept 
no keys, and only demanded an account of the 
domestic economy once a year, we can well under 
stand it. He was awakened to suspicion by the 
public scandal of one of his priests leaving a sum 
of money at his death. Then he held an inquiry, 
and found that most of his clerics paid little 
practical attention to their vow, or, at least, 
solemn promise, of poverty. He thereupon 
rescinded his rule of ordaining no cleric who would 
not agree to live in common at the episcopal 
residence ; but the culprits seem to have pro 
mised amendment, and he renewed his unwise 
regulation. 

He seems also to have had not a little trouble 
in striking the mean between the lofty feeling of 
detachment from the things of earth and the 
pressure of its practical claims. There are indica 
tions that his congregation and his community 
frequently grumbled at his lack of zeal in securing 
gifts and legacies for the Church. On the other 



THE DAILY TASK 219 

hand, the poor bishop actually incurred the re 
proach of avarice on more than one occasion. 
Thus in 405, when he consulted a venerable 
colleague as to the propriety of his decision in a 
certain case, he found that the bishop * was greatly 
horrified (ep. 83) at the character of his proposal. 
A certain Honoratus, who had been a monk in 
the monastery at Thagaste, and afterwards a priest 
at Thiave, had died intestate at the latter place. 
The people of Thiave claimed his property for 
their church, but Augustine and Alypius (now 
bishop of Thagaste) decided to keep half of it 
for the Thagaste monastery. Augustine hastily 
awarded the whole property to Thiave when the 
ill-sounding murmurs reached him. In another 
case, early in his episcopate, he seems to have 
quarrelled with his congregation about some pro 
perty left to the Church by a deceased navicularius. 
This was an official of the Roman world who had 
to ship the corn to Rome, and was responsible for 
its safety unless he could prove (for which purpose 
three or four of the crew were always put to the 
torture) that the accident to his ship was unavoid 
able. If the Church accepted the property, it 
would accept the hereditary office and responsi 
bility, which Augustine very rightly declined to 



220 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

do. On another occasion a rich citizen of Hippo, 
living at Carthage, sent him the deeds of some 
property, which was to pass to the Church at his 
death. After a few years he sent his son with a 
humble request that the tablets should be given 
to him, as the father now wished to leave the pro 
perty to his children. The letter which Augus 
tine wrote the man, after returning the deeds, has, 
unhappily, not been preserved. But Possidius 
tells us that he put a due degree of warmth into 
his increpation, and refused the offered con 
solation of a gift of money. It must be under 
stood, however, that Augustine had generally a 
humane feeling in these matters, and advised 
parents to provide for their children before they 
thought of the Church. 

From all this the reader will have gathered 
that the Christian community, as well as the pagan, 
looked to the wealthy for the support of its 
pastors. It is by no means an agreeable impres 
sion that one receives of Augustine s congregation 
on reading his letters and sermons. It is not 
only small, but it is exceedingly poor in spiritual 
quality. The sermons are constantly recurring to 
the coarsest vices, and are full of complaints of 
empty benches, especially when the pagan festivals 



THE DAILY TASK 221 

coincide with the Christian. The letters complain 
time after time of grumbling and mutiny l in the 
congregation. They rarely seem to appreciate 
that they have in their obscure service the greatest 
genius in the Church. To an extent, we must 
trace this to Augustine s weakness as a preacher. 
He had a few great successes the extinction of 
the love-feasts, of faction-fights, etc. but we can 
well understand that his ordinary sermons were 
not likely to overcome the attraction of the pagan 
carnivals. They are generally plain, solid, moral 
discourses, greatly preoccupied with impurity, 
drunkenness, and divination ; or else commen 
taries on Scripture which are more ingenious than 
attractive. They seem to have lasted any time 
between ten minutes and a couple of hours. 
Manicheans and pagans would come to hear him 
occasionally, but it is clear that he is generally 
addressing a small group of ignorant people. 
Petrarch has described as a magnificent and 
notable work one of his largest productions (the 
Commentary on the Psalms], which consists of a 
couple of hundred sermons, delivered, for the 
most part, to the people of Hippo. There must 

1 Cf. Epistle 124, where he speaks of" his people as being greatly 
excited and * most dangerously scandalised at my absence." 



222 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

have been few who appreciated his magnificence.* 
One of his biographers affirms that the women did 
not like his sermons. That would be a unique 
experience in the history of pulpit eloquence, but 
the passage which is quoted seems to refer to 
one sermon only. It is probable, however, that 
Augustine imposed a strain sometimes on the 
fidelity of the gentler sex. He had a strong tinge 
of the Oriental habit of depreciating woman, as we 
shall see in noticing some of his later works. We 
can form some idea of the mental level of his 
audience when we find him telling a friend that 
he has to address them in bad Latin, saying 
* ossum meum for os meum, and so on ; they 
in turn sing their hymns and psalms in the same 
dialect ( floriet for < efflorebit, etc.). Still, only 
a few of them speak Punic. When he quotes a 
Punic proverb at times, he has to translate it into 
Latin. That is what we should expect in a busy 
Mediterranean seaport in Roman Africa. 1 He 
seems to have prepared his sermons carefully in 
his earlier years. Later on they were taken down 

1 Yet such is the equipment for their work of some of the writers 
on Augustine, that we have one of them (Mr. C. H. Collette) speak 
ing thus, with the grave and authoritative tone of a Mommsen : I 
have not been able to satisfactorily account for the fact that the 
numerous sermons attributed to Augustine are in Latin." 



THE DAILY TASK 223 

by the notarii, as he sat talking from his chair 
in the apse of the basilica. Possidius says many 
people used to bring notaries with them to 
church. He preached very frequently throughout 
life, sometimes for quite a number of days in 
succession. 

In the other functions of the Church, except 
baptism and the preparation of the competents, 
Augustine would have the assistance of his clergy. 
Mass was already a daily liturgical function in the 
African churches, and there was a service of 
psalms and hymns which he calls the vespertina. 
One of the Catholic hagiographers has the audacity 
to represent Augustine as a busy father confessor 
after the modern type. He must, at all events, 
have received a certain number of the confidences 
which then went by the name of confessions. 
From time to time, also, his Church offered 
visitors the curious spectacle of a public penitent, 
when one of his congregation had been notoriously 
guilty of some graver crime, such as murder, 
sacrilege, or adultery ; though we cannot think, 
after reading his sermons, that the law was applied 
strictly on the last point. 

Apart, however, from the greater simplicity of 
the services and the noisiness and carelessness of 



224 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the worshippers, the Church of the early centuries 
had many unfamiliar scenes to offer. Notably, 
there were the privilege of sanctuary/ and the 
right of freeing slaves. The lex asyli was greatly 
abused in the early Christian Church, as we learn 
from a decree of 396, which forbids monks and 
clerics to favour the escape of criminals and 
defend them with armed force in their churches 
against the officials. The securing of the privi 
lege was one of the many narrow-minded 
measures of the bishops of the fourth century, 
which helped to corrupt the Church they thought 
to serve. At Hippo there was probably no 
violent or strained use of the privilege, yet Augus 
tine s conduct was marked by his usual unpractical 
optimism and want of discrimination. On one 
occasion, when a parishioner named Fascius had 
fled to the church, and the angry officials chafed 
at the door, he paid the man s debt himself on 
condition that the money was to be raised by 
public collection if the man failed to pay it by a 
certain day. On the appointed day the man was, 
of course, missing, and the collection had to be 
made to cover the loss to the church funds. 
There can be no doubt that even a moderate use 
of the privilege fostered idleness and swindling. 



THE DAILY TASK 225 

Another privilege that helped to increase the 
congregations of the Christian churches, and was 
equally questionable in its social and moral effect, 
was the manumission of slaves. Constantine had 
granted the privilege after his conversion ; but it 
was not extended to Africa until the year 401, 
when a Council of Carthage begged the extension 
from the emperor. After that date the manu 
mission of a slave must have been frequently 
witnessed at Hippo. Augustine had no senti 
mental objection to slavery. The light in which 
he regards that institution in his De Opere Mona- 
chorum is little superior to the opinions expressed 
by Prsetextatus and his fellow-pagans in the 
Saturnalia. He fully recognises the right of the 
conqueror to enslave the conquered. However, 
he always urged his people to free slaves who 
expressed a desire to enter a monastery even the 
rapidly-growing abuses of the monastic life did 
not discourage him from this and he probably 
always assisted with pleasure at a manumission. 
The slave was brought to the church by his 
master, and the tablets of sale were broken there, 
with some ceremony and edifying talk. 

But perhaps the function that occupied most of 
his time was the one he discharged in the episcopal 



226 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

court. St. Paul had exhorted the faithful not to 
drag each other before secular judges, but to let 
their elders adjudicate between them. The advice 
had been largely followed, and the Christian 
emperors were persuaded to give a formal recog 
nition to the judicial powers of the bishops. The 
work now increased so much that Arcadius had to 
regulate it in 398 and 400. He left the episcopal 
court a purely voluntary tribunal, but gave its 
decisions a legal effect for such as chose to have 
recourse to it. The civil courts of the pro 
vinces were far from being in an ideal condition, 
so that non-Christians as well as Christians 
flocked to the house of every distinguished bishop. 
The practice had the effect of causing a good deal 
of friction between civil and ecclesiastical powers 
(witness the amiable relation of St. Cyril and the 
prefect Orestes at Alexandria), but it is obvious 
that it tended to purify the judicial system of the 
empire and to secure justice for the poor. At 
Hippo there was, naturally, a vast quantity of 
this work to be done. Augustine generally spent 
the morning in his court, fasting, says Possidius, 
4 sometimes until the dinner hour [our eleven 
o clock], and sometimes for the whole day. 

He soon won a reputation throughout Africa as 



THE DAILY TASK 227 

an arbitrator and mediator, and petitions came to 
him from all quarters. Debtors, especially, seem 
to have claimed his services, and his vague and 
unpractical way of looking at commercial matters 
always inclined him to sympathy. Many of his 
letters are written to plead the cause of some hard- 
pressed individual in a remote part of Africa. 
Even pagans who had brought the wrath of the 
Christian emperor upon their towns by some 
attack on the local basilica or clergy in a festive 
moment appealed with confidence to Augustine. 
He always improves the occasion by a few shots 
at their gods and goddesses, but their appeal to 
his humanity seems always to have been successful. 
At another time we find him gently expostulating 
with two of his colleagues who are fighting for 
the primacy of the Numidian province ; l at 
another, he is blaming a colleague for excom 
municating a family for the fault of an individual 
member. In another letter (247) there is, for 
our consolation, a flash of temper, when his effort 
at mediation seems to miscarry. He has been 
chiding a certain landowner for making his 

1 It did not occur to him to settle matters by the device which 
has so happily solved a modern difficulty of the kind ; by which one 
prelate takes the title of Primate of Ireland, and the other Primate 
of all Ireland/ 



228 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

tenant-farmers pay their rent a second time (the 
agent having absconded with the first), and the 
man has refused to call on him during a visit to 
Hippo. 

His letters reveal a most varied activity of a 
charitable kind. At one time he writes from 
Carthage to remind his clergy and congregation 
of the custom of clothing the poor of Hippo. He 
had an annual collection of cast-off garments and 
distribution amongst the poorer members of the 
community ; but in the excitement of the year 
410 the clergy had omitted the work. There was 
also a hospital built near his church ; and there 
were nunneries which relieved the monotony of 
life (as is the custom in those institutions) by 
quarrel and intrigue, requiring Augustine s inter 
vention. Even the arrangement of marriages 
claimed his attention sometimes, much as he 
resented the circumstance. It was not uncommon 
in those days for a dying parent to make the 
Church the guardian of his children. We 
have a series of letters in which Augustine 
negotiates with a pagan who has asked a ward 
of the Church for marriage with his son. At 
another time we find him concerned about the 
ransom of some of his congregation who have 



THE DAILY TASK 229 

been captured, apparently by the African tribes 
men. He is unable to collect sufficient money to 
pay their ransom, and so, following the example 
of St. Ambrose, he melts down the sacred vessels 
of his church, and sells the metal. 

Yet amidst all these varied and distracting 
episcopal duties, Augustine found time for con 
troversial work and letter-writing, which form of 
themselves an extraordinary monument to his 
industry. His occupations at Hippo seem to be 
of no account whatever. His eye is constantly 
sweeping over the African provinces in search of 
a grievance to remedy, or a prominent heretic to 
defy. Synods and councils innumerable drag him 
from one end of Africa to the other. Aurelius of 
Carthage, the nominal chief of the African Church, 
detains him at Carthage until the murmurs of his 
congregation become intolerable. Yet month 
after month, and year after year, fresh works 
issue in his name, some of them astounding in 
their volume. From every part of Africa, from 
Spain, Italy, and Gaul, questions are sent to him 
and obscure heresies denounced. One day a man 
picks up a small volume in the streets of Carthage, 
treating of a heresy he is unacquainted with. At 
once he forwards it to the great Augustine of 



230 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Hippo, and presently he has a work dealing with 
the matter. The heretics have to circulate their 
books with caution after a time, lest they fall 
under the eye of the terrible bishop. But we 
may deal a little later with his works. 

In the meantime, Possidius tells us, he sends 
out challenges right and left to public debate, 
though few are eager to meet the Punic 
wrangler/ as his rivals soon describe him. We 
have seen how effectually he crushed the 
Manichean bishop of Hippo. The Donatist 
bishop, Proculeianus, was also urgently invited 
to hold a public debate with him, but he 
managed to evade it. A few years later he had 
a debate with another Manichean, Felix, in his 
own church. The acta are not interesting read 
ing. Felix is an incompetent and shifty debater, 
and Augustine has already made some progress in 
pious intolerance. At the close of the first day s 
debate Augustine prudently handed the man over 
to a Christian, who was to see that he did not 
retire prematurely from the conflict. After a 
second day of the unequal struggle Felix wearily 
renounced his heresy. Augustine does not im 
prove in temper with the advance of his experience 
in debating. One of his Donatist adversaries, 



THE DAILY TASK 231 

Cresconius, complains of his unbearable arro 
gance ; and a courtly and cultured Arian bishop, 
who invited him to cross swords in later years, 
was forced to tell him that he c talked like a man 
who had the support of the imperial laws. As a 
rule, this seeming arrogance was due to a purely 
religious intolerance of heresy and zeal for con 
versions ; the irritation of defeat is usually on the 
side of his adversary. Sometimes his opponent 
succeeds in having the debate without reporters 
though the presence of the notarii is always 
Augustine s first condition and then (as did the 
Arian Count Pascentius 1 after a debate at Car 
thage) spreads abroad a very safe assertion that he 
has defeated the great dialectician. 

Finally, we have to consider the wonderful 
collection of letters which Augustine has left us. 
It is a commonplace that a man is most easily 
recognised in his letters, and this could be said of 
no writer with greater truth than of Augustine. 
He reveals himself with singular completeness in 
his correspondence. The earliest of his letters 
date from his stay at Cassiciacum after his con- 

1 In this case he was afterwards not entirely unthankful for 
the exclusion of the notarii. He says afterwards in a letter to 
Pascentius : What reply I made to that I do not care to remember, 
and I trust you do not. 1 



232 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

version. From that time we can follow the 
development of his character and his opinions 
almost by an exclusive study of his letters. His 
industry in answering correspondents is bewilder 
ing when we remember his endless occupations. 
That a Symmachus can find time to construct 
brief, polished epistles after the fashion of the 
hour is intelligible enough, but the promptness 
and generosity with which Augustine meets every 
petty demand on his time are almost unparalleled. 
Take, for instance, his n8th letter. A young 
man l was setting out from Africa for Athens, 
and, desiring to make a favourable impression in 
that city of learning, he coolly sends Augustine 
a long list of questions, which he begs him to 
answer. Augustine takes the request quite 
seriously, though he prefers to give the youth 
much unasked spiritual advice with a little secular 
knowledge. He returns his list with a few 
answers on the margin, and writes him a long 

1 M. Poujoulat, the chief biographer of Augustine in France, 
protests there is no reason for thinking the questioner was a young 
man, but Augustine calls him a boni ingenii juvenem in this very 
letter. I notice the point because it is Poujoulat who denounces 
Gibbon for his profound ignorance and for daring to write about 
Augustine after having read only the Confessions and the City of God. 
It is, however, true that at least the letters should be read by one 
who would know Augustine. 



THE DAILY TASK 233 

letter. Imagine Dr. Ingram replying at length 
to an Eton boy (not of the fold) who wishes to 
look smart at Cambridge, and sends him a list 
of questions about the astronomical opinions of 
Sir Robert Ball and the philosophy of Professor 
Ward. 

The huge collection of Augustine s letters con 
tains scores of equally interesting documents. A 
widower has sent to ask him for a panegyric of his 
late wife ; he gets one, together with a lengthy 
dissertation on his own vices. An enterprising 
young woman writes to tell him that the scandals 
in the Church greatly disturb her, and she is 
consoled at great length. A married woman 
writes to tell him that her husband has broken 
out/ She had taken a vow of chastity, and had 
succeeded in persuading him to do likewise ; but 
when she went on to add a vow of poverty, and 
give all their valuables to a couple of vagabond 
monks who passed along, the husband s less 
heroic virtue broke down. Augustine writes her 
a patient ethical analysis of the situation, the 
only defect of which is that he insists she shall 
keep her vow of continence. Another Christian 
sends a formidable list of difficulties. Is it lawful 
to kill an aggressor in self-defence ? to eat food 



234 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

that has been sacrificed to idols in order to avoid 
death by starvation ? Augustine does not like to 
admit either ; but he is more reasonable in answer 
ing the questions whether Publicola may deal with 
a pagan butcher, or drink from a well with a 
guardian deity, and so forth. In another letter 
he deals with the very practical question of female 
finery, paint, false hair, etc. He dislikes it almost 
as much as Jerome does, but he is lenient in the case 
of maidens who are on the market ; for married 
women he will not hear of paint or powder. A 
Carthaginian lady, who has sent him a shirt which 
was made for a brother who has died, is thanked 
at great length. A community of monks is rent 
into factions by a quarrel about his teaching, and 
he has to pacify them. A community of nuns 
have quarrelled about their chaplain, and he has 
to intervene. His letters frequently run to twenty 
or thirty chapters. 

His correspondents are of all classes of the 
community. The meanest tradesman or most 
obscure of maidens is noticed as promptly as the 
highest officials of the province. We shall see 
that quite a number of the latter were in frequent 
and friendly correspondence with Augustine. 
Colleagues in the African Church and bishops 



THE DAILY TASK 235 

beyond the seas are in constant communication 
with him. He has a long and voluminous corre 
spondence with Paulinus of Nola. Paulinus was a 
senator of a rich and noble family who had been 
ordained Christian priest in 393, and had retired 
to Nola with his wife since 394. He and Therasia 
send long and intensely spiritual letters (the bearer 
always bringing a few loaves of the famous 
Campanian bread) to Augustine, and nowhere 
does he yield more freely to his mystic and 
spiritual tendency than in his replies to these. 

But I will close with a brief account of his inter 
esting correspondence with St. Jerome. Jerome 
had quarrelled with his fellow-monks in the desert 
of Chalcis when he came to Rome in 382 ; he had 
a violent quarrel with the whole of the Roman 
clergy, and was forced to leave the city when 
Pope Damasus died in 385. He departed for 
the East once more, taking a number of his 
spiritual daughters with him, and settled down to 
a grim and gloomy monastic life at Bethlehem. 
Augustine s lack of discernment soon brought 
upon him a bewildering experience of Jerome s 
peculiar type of saintliness. 

In 394 or 395 Augustine wrote a letter to 
the famous monk, expressing admiration of his 



236 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

works, and inviting Jerome s attention to his own 
writings. The letter was a very proper and 
courteous one, on the whole, but in the course of 
it he ventured to criticise Jerome s interpretation 
of Gal. ii. 11-14. It i s the passage where Paul 
modestly describes how he withstood Peter to 
the face. The very human-looking episode was 
troubling some of the new converts, and so 
Jerome had explained that it was all a pious 
make-believe for tactical purposes. Augustine 
saw the danger of admitting that principle in the 
interpretation of Scripture, and pointed it out to 
Jerome. This first letter did not reach Jerome, 
the bearer not going to Palestine. In 397 
Augustine wrote again ; but once more his bearer, 
a priest named Paulus, made a considerable circuit 
before reaching the Holy Land. The result was 
that the Roman clergy got hold of the letter, and 
made merry over Jerome s defeat in his favourite 
field of study, long before it arrived at Bethlehem. 
Jerome was, therefore, sorely angered against 
Augustine. The letter itself was rather less 
discreet than the preceding, being characteristi 
cally confident in argument, and pleasantly invit 
ing Jerome to sing his palinodia. But the chief 
offence was the imaginary one of having published 



THE DAILY TASK 237 

his criticism broadcast without sending it to 
Jerome himself. 

Augustine, marvelling at Jerome s failure to 
reply, sent a third, a sweet little letter, to Jerome, 
and the eruption began. The reply came in 402. 
It was moderately bilious : c Far be it from me/ 
said Jerome, to dare touch the works of thy 
holiness. I am quite content to care for my own 
writings without criticising those of others. For 
the rest, thy prudence is well aware that opinions 
are free, and that it is a childish boastfulness, only 
befitting youths, to seek renown by attacking 
illustrious men. ... Be content, therefore, to 
love one who loves thee, and do not thou, a youth, 
provoke an old man in the field of Scriptural 
study. In the following year a deacon was going 
out to the East, and Augustine forwarded another 
letter to Jerome. It is not clear whether he had 
received Jerome s letter by this time the Bene 
dictines think he had not, at all events ; he 
again wrote courteously, but once more admitted 
infelicitous passages which show how little he 
understood his brother saint. He had heard that 
Jerome was determined to retranslate the Old 
Testament from the Hebrew, and, having a rather 
superstitious regard for the current Septuagint 



238 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

version, he begged him to be content with amend 
ing that. It is in this letter, also, that he tells 
Jerome the story of the preacher and the gourd. 

Jerome replied at once. He very plainly 
intimates at the outset that he is by no means 
convinced of the sincerity of Augustine s ex 
planation. The people about him are urging, he 
says, that there has been some duplicity. If it 
is true that Augustine has not written against him, 
4 how is it that the Italians have got what thou 
hast not written? or why dost thou ask me to 
reply to what thou now sayest thou hast never 
written ? As I told thee before, he says again, 
either send the letter to me signed with thy own 
hand, or cease to worry an old man in the retire 
ment of his cell. But if thou art determined to 
exercise or to parade thy learning, seek out a 
youthful opponent, one who is eloquent and noble. 
He greatly resents Augustine s invitation to sing 
his palinodia. Probably errors would be found 
in his own writings if they were scrutinised; but, 
he continues contemptuously, I do not say this 
because I have already found anything to censure 
in thy works, for I have never looked at them. 
Finally, he dismisses his friend with the 
salutation : Farewell, dearest friend, my son 



THE DAILY TASK 239 

according to age, my parent in dignity ; and 
let me beg of thee that in future when thou 
writest to me, thou wilt take care that the letter 
reach me first. 

If ever a saint has an indisputable right to 
indignation and I should be the last to question 
it Augustine certainly had that privilege after 
receiving Jerome s letter. Jerome had been 
inordinately slow to understand the miscarriage 
of letters (in an age when this was a daily 
occurrence), and had been almost brutal in ques 
tioning Augustine s good faith. But Augustine s 
reply is singularly noble and magnanimous. 
T^anttene animis calestibus ir<e ? he must have 
asked himself in astonishment when he read the 
letter ; but he does not allow even his astonish 
ment to find expression. I beg of thee, he says, 
that, if it be possible, we seek a subject to 
discuss whereby our hearts may be nourished 
without the bitterness of discord. And if I 
cannot say what may seem to me to need emenda 
tion in thy writings, and thou in mine, without 
the suspicion of ill-feeling or the injury of friend 
ship, let us refrain from such things and spare 
life and health. I know that I am far from that 
perfection, of which it is written : " If any one 



240 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

offend not in word, he is a perfect man." Yet 
I think I may find it easy to ask forgiveness 
of thee if I have done thee hurt ; and this 
thou shouldst make known to me, so that when 
I have heard thee thou mayst have gained thy 
brother. 

A soft answer does not turn away wrath on the 
moment. Jerome wrote one more bitter letter. 
1 pass over the salutation with which thou 
soothest my feelings, he began ; < I say nothing 
of the compliments with which thou seekest to 
console me in my correction, and come at once 
to the point. He then discusses the question 
which Augustine has raised with regard to his 
interpretation of Paul. < Thou hast found a new 
argument, says Jerome ; being a bishop of such 
repute throughout the world, 1 thou oughtest to 
promulgate thy opinion and win the assent of thy 
fellow-bishops. I, in my poor monastery, with 
my fellow-monks, that is to say, my fellow- 
sinners, dare not lay down the law in these 
matters. . . . Surely thou must have discovered 
something better, since thou hast rejected the 
authority of the older writers. He makes 

1 This phrase, isolated from its context, is frequently quoted by 
the hagiographer in proof of Augustine s great reputation. 



THE DAILY TASK 241 

unkind reference to Augustine s acquaintance with 
the Greek fathers and to his weakness for writing 
lengthy epistles. * The lengthy discourse is apt 
to be lacking in intelligence/ he growls ; and 
with all respect, it seems to me thou dost not 
understand the question thou hast put. Finally, 
he concludes : Let me beg of thee, at the close 
of my letter, not to press an old man and retired 
veteran into the fight once more. Do thou, who 
art a youth and at the summit of pontifical 
dignity, be content to teach the people ; enrich 
Rome with a new harvest from Africa. All I 
ask is to live in peace in some corner of my 
monastery with a pupil and a reader/ A few 
months later he wrote again, and seemed to be 
quite pacified. * Enough of these quarrels, he 
said ; let us be friends again, and for the future 
exchange only letters of affection, not of contro 
versy. . . . Let us, if thou wilt, play without 
hurting each other in the field of Scriptural 
study. Augustine immediately replied with a 
letter which is admirable, save for a rather foolish 
protest against the term play. He goes into 
the Scriptural question at length, and concludes 
with a fine chapter on the ethics of Christian con 
troversy. In many things/ he candidly avows, 

Q 



242 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine is Jerome s inferior; and he pleads 
for freedom in charity. The few letters that 
passed between them afterwards were always 
friendly. Augustine constantly presses for 
Jerome s opinion, and Jerome is always finding 
difficulties to excuse himself. But he is compli 
mentary in all, and in one letter (418) writes as 
an enthusiastic admirer of Augustine. Later in 
life Augustine declared that Jerome abandoned 
his first position on the meaning of Paul s words. 
He himself retained a salutary consciousness of 
Jerome s rhetorical capacity. In his Retractations 
he tells how, when he failed to elicit Jerome s 
opinion on the origin of the soul, he reserved his 
own work on that subject until after Jerome s 
death. 1 

1 Jerome adopted the view of the origin of the soul which is now 
universally held by Catholic philosophers that each individual soul 
is created by God when the body is ready to receive it. Augustine 
felt that this injured the theory of the transmission of original sin, 
and he therefore favoured the theory of propagation of souls, like 
bodies, from parents to children. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 243 



CHAPTER XI 

AUGUSTINE AND THE DONATIST SCHISM 

WE have already had frequent occasion to speak 
of the Donatists. The African Church was split 
into halves throughout most of the fourth century 
by that most famous schism of the early Church. 
At the beginning of Augustine s career the great 
majority of the Christians of Africa belonged to 
the schismatical, or Donatist, faction. Even at 
the close of the century it is questionable if the 
Donatists were not still in the majority. But as 
soon as Augustine became a power in the Church, 
the success of the Donatists began to wane. He 
devoted himself with intense ardour to the extinc 
tion of the schism, and the first twenty years of 
his episcopate are largely absorbed in the contro 
versy. In order to understand this aspect of his 
work, we must glance at the history of the schism. 
M. de Pressense and other philosophic historians 
assure us that it was a natural expression of the 



244 ST AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

growing democratic protest against the advance 
of hierarchic pretensions. The fatal objection to 
the theory is that the Donatists had a hierarchy 
no less ambitious and authoritative than that of 
the Catholics ; and there was at that time no 
question whatever in Africa of anything like 
allegiance to Rome. The real origin of the 
Donatist schism is far more prosaic, and offers 
little ground for large political theories. 1 

After the close of the last persecution of the 
Christian Church, its adherents began to emerge 
into the light of day and repair the breaches in 
their organisation. The stress of the persecution 
had lain heavily on north-west Africa, and it was 
a small and obscure body that formed its Church 
in the early years of the fourth century. So 
much is familiar history. The unfamiliar circum 
stance, which the chronicles of the fourth century 
abundantly establish, is that this obscure and 
struggling body was undermined by corruption. 
One naturally assumes that the Christian clergy 
who survived the last of the great trials of the 
Church must have been exceptionally chastened. 
No assumption could be further from the truth. 

1 The classical authority on the Donatist schism is Optatus, bishop 
of Mileve, who wrote his famous history about the year 374. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 245 

It is in an ecclesiastical soil of exceptional gross- 
ness that the Donatist schism took root. 

The actual outbreak of the schism dates from 
the year 311. In that year the bishops of the 
Proconsular (or Carthaginian) province met at 
Carthage for the ordination of a bishop to that 
important see. Mensurius, the preceding bishop, 
had been summoned to court to answer for a con 
tumacious subordinate. Having a presentiment 
that he would not return alive, he buried the gold 
and silver vessels of his church and intrusted the 
secret to two of his senior clergy, Botrus and 
Celestius. He had, apparently, a shrewd, if 
unflattering, appreciation of his clergy, and so he 
gave a list of the buried treasures into the charge 
of a pious old dame in his congregation. Men 
surius did not return, and clergy and laity met 
for the purpose of electing a successor. Botrus 
and Celestius had been so much impressed with 
the wealth of their church that they exerted them 
selves to secure the election of one or the other 
to the see. However, a certain Cascilian, who 
had been a popular archdeacon under the late 
bishop, secured the majority of votes, and was 
ordained bishop of Carthage by the assembled 
bishops. When, moreover, the old dame came 



246 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

forward with the secret list of the treasures, and 
Botrus and Celestius were compelled to hand 
over the full wealth of the Church to their more 
favoured colleague, they were reduced to an 
extreme stage of disaffection. 

* Ambition and avarice were thus two of the 
three great roots of the schism, says Optatus ; 
the third was c the anger of a humbled woman. 
Caecilian had had the misfortune to quarrel with 
an influential lady of the congregation during his 
archidiaconate. Lucilla, a wealthy matron of 
Carthage, had a habit of kissing the lips of an 
alleged martyr, whose body was preserved in the 
church, before presenting herself to receive the 
sacrament. There was, it appears, a great lack of 
discrimination in the matter of reverencing people 
as martyrs in that violent age, and Caecilian had 
endeavoured to check the general laxity. He had 
forbidden the Christians to flock to the jails with 
stores of food and drink for the sustenance of all 
kinds of criminals under the pretence that they 
were martyrs of the Christian Church. He now 
scolded Lucilla publicly for preferring a dead 
man s lips (Optatus has grave doubts about the 
martyrdom) to the sacred chalice, and the angry 
woman deeply resented his action. When 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 247 

Csecilian was elected bishop, Lucilla joined forces 
with the disappointed elders, and they determined 
to elect a rival bishop. That was the origin of 
the schism. All the subsequent pretexts and 
allegations are an after-thought ; and all talk of 
a democratic reaction is quite out of place. 

But to explain how the conspirators succeeded 
in causing a schism, we must glance back once 
more into earlier years. In the year 305 a small 
group of ten or a dozen bishops met at Cirta for 
the ordination of a bishop of that town. The 
persecution had just ended, and the senex, or 
primate of the Numidian province, Secundus, 
bishop of Tigisis, proposed to begin by an inquiry 
into the conduct during the persecution of the 
assembled bishops. One by one he accused his 
colleagues of having saved their lives during the 
persecution by delivering to the pagan authorities 
the Scriptures and other sacred possessions. 1 One 
by one his colleagues admitted the crime, until he 
came to a half-savage prelate of the name of 
Purpurius. * You are accused of murdering your 
nephews/ said Secundus to him. Yes, I did kill 

1 Those who had done this were called traditores, a term which 
will frequently recur. Mensurius of Carthage had saved his life by 
giving up dummy books and having a little diplomatic understand 
ing with the local authorities. 



248 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

them, answered the prelate, and I 11 kill any 
body who attempts to upset me. He added that 
if Secundus tried to bully him as he had done the 
others, he would inform the meeting of the 
way in which the primate had saved his own 
life in the persecution. Secundus took to reflec 
tion at that, and finally decided to leave the 
whole matter to God. They then proceeded to 
ordain the new bishop of Cirta. The clergy and 
the better part of the laity were opposed to the 
candidate (Silvanus), who was presented for the 
see, saying that he was a notorious traditor ; but 
the lower orders, who favoured Silvanus, had shut 
them up somewhere during the election, and thus 
secured a happy unanimity for their candidate. 
The Numidian bishops were induced, by the gift 
of a respectable sum, to overlook the irregularity 
of the election, and they ordained Silvanus ; the 
new bishop s first act being to confer the priest 
hood on the man who had furnished the bribe for 
Secundus and his colleagues. 1 

1 All this was subsequently proved before the civic authorities by 
a deacon of Cirta who was deposed by Silvanus. The interesting 
acta are to be read in Migne s volume of Optatus s history. To 
complete the picture of the group, who play an important part in 
our schism, let me add that Purpurius and another bishop were also 
convicted of stealing silver cups and a quantity of vinegar from the 
pagan temple. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 249 

It was to these men that the thoughts of the 
conspirators turned. They were invited to Car 
thage, and were received at the house of Lucilla. 
Various reasons were then discovered for ques 
tioning the validity of Caecilian s ordination. 
Secundus maintained that a primate (the bishop 
of Carthage being primate of the Proconsular 
province) should be ordained by a primate. But 
the chief allegation was that the bishop who had 
laid hands on Caecilian, Felix of Aptunga, was a 
traditor. This was a serious point to raise, since 
it was then easy to spread the idea that an ordina 
tion might be invalid if performed by an unworth 
minister. Caecilian entered into communicat : ti 
with the Numidian bishops, offering to cume 
before them for a discussion of the situation, and 
asking that at least they would ordain him them 
selves, if they held his ordination to be invalid, 
since he had been unanimously elected by the 
people and clergy. Purpurius alone saw an 
advantage in this offer ; * let him be invited here/ 
he said in barbarous Latin, * as if we were going 
to ordain him, and we 11 smash his head in for 
his trouble. The other bishops had a rudi 
mentary moral feeling, it appears, and they pre 
ferred to ignore Caecilian ; moreover, the people, 



250 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

hearing of the threat, refused to let Caecilian go 
to their council. Pocketing a heavy bribe from 
Lucilla, the seventy bishops proceeded to set up 
a second bishop at Carthage, selecting a certain 
Majorinus, a reader of the Church, and one who 
shared the affection of Lucilla with the dead 
* martyr.* They then gave Majorinus the usual 
letters of communication with all the churches of 
the Roman world, and the Donatist schism was 
launched. 1 

Such is the undisputed story of the origin of 
the Donatist schism. In view of the misleading 
theory of M. de Pressense and other Christian 
Presbyterians, I have thought it necessary to 
describe the sordid episode at some length. Nor 
can it be said that we may trace a democratic 
reaction in the remarkable growth of the schism. 
In the course of time, as will be seen, the Donatist 
ranks were swelled by thousands of fugitive slaves 
and labourers ; and we find many democratic 
pleasantries, such as forcing the wealthy Catholic 
to pull the chariot in which his slave was seated, 
or to take the place of the miller s ass. But this 
is a purely accidental circumstance. There was 

1 It took the name of Majorin s successor, Donatus, a much abler 
and more energetic individual. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 251 

precisely the same hierarchic claim on the Donatist 
side as on the Catholic. There was no question 
whatever of Rome s pretensions, or of reaction 
against them. It is true that after a few years 
Constantine had the quarrel adjudicated upon at 
Rome, but the Roman bishop then acted only as 
an important and impartial neighbour who was 
called in to arbitrate ; and that not by the 
Africans, but by the emperor. It will be seen 
that throughout the whole century of the struggle 
neither Catholics nor Donatists recognised the 
mild pretension of the bishop of Rome to a kind 
of vague supremacy. The truth is, that even the 
notion of a federation of Churches was only dimly 
conceived at the beginning of the schism. It was 
elaborated by the Catholics, or Caecilianists, in the 
course of the struggle when they found the 
* churches beyond the seas to favour the case of 
Caecilian ; just as, on the other hand, the Donatists 
only elaborated as the schism advanced their 
central position of the invalidity of sacraments 
(whether baptism or ordination), conferred by 
sinners. The dogma of a central authority to which 
submission was required would have been a point 
of the first importance in the arguments of the 
Caecilianists. They do not even whisper it. It 



252 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

was <a concern of the Africans/ as both sides 
agreed at the great Council of 411, and < the 
churches beyond the seas were to stand aside 
and communicate with the winner, after they had 
fought it out. 

I will touch very briefly the development of 
the schism down to the time of Augustine. 
Rome had a traditional horror of the reiteration 
of sacraments, just as Carthage had a traditional 
laxity in that regard. 1 Rome, therefore, could 
not hesitate to communicate with Caecilian, and 
that meant the support of the newly converted 
emperor for the Cascilianists. The Donatists, 
seeing that the imperial gifts were going exclu 
sively to their rivals, appealed to the emperor for 
a decision. The case was, of course, decided 
against them at Rome, Aries, and Carthage, after 
a series of inquiries ; and finally, by Constantine 
himself in 316. At first Constantine persecuted 
the schismatics, though he is said to have told the 
Africans eventually to settle the matter themselves. 
His successor took little more notice of them, 

1 St. Cyprian having, a few years before, defended the practice 
resolutely in defiance of the bishop of Rome. I avoid the use of the 
word * pope, because every important bishop was called a pope at 
that time $ Jerome gives that title to Augustine, and Augustine to 
Ambrose. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 253 

and under Julian their churches we restored to 
them and their bishops recalled. Valentinian and 
Gratian passed a number of violent decrees, con 
fiscating their churches, etc. ; but none of these 
were enforced very rigorously until 398, the date 
when we find Augustine facing the schism. In 
395 Theodosius, the able and zealous ruler of the 
East, passed a severe law against all heretics who 
exercised priestly functions. He died in the 
same year, and Gildo, an African prince, usurped 
authority over the whole of that diocese. Gildo 
was very friendly with an active Donatist bishop, 
Optatus of Thamugade, and during his brief 
authority the Donatists spread over the provinces 
with the wildest licence. They had by this time 
associated with their cause a vast and remarkable 
army who went by the name of the Circumcellions. 1 
It seems hardly just to compare this army with 
the Covenanters, or any other historical body, as 
is done sometimes. In addition to the genuine 
religious fanatics who flourished their Israelites 
(heavy clubs) over the heads of the Cascilianists, 
there were undoubtedly thousands whose only 
attraction lay in pillage and violence. Fugitive 

1 Because, says Augustine, they used to wander from hut to hut 
(circum cellas} of the peasantry, begging or exacting food and shelter. 



254 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

slaves and vagabond monks flocked to the 
standard. Augustine tells many a story of 
Catholic delinquents evading the discipline of the 
Church by joining the Donatists, and of women 
who thus escaped from marital control ; in one 
letter (No. 35) he tells of a deacon, suspended for 
improper behaviour at a certain nunnery, immedi 
ately passing over to the Circumcellions with two 
of the nuns. At a word from one of their bishops 
these wild hordes would spread into a district, 
and fill it with revolting outrages. They would 
pour vinegar and salt-water down the throats of 
the Catholic clergy, put lime in their eyes, and 
sometimes cudgel them to death. They would 
seize their churches, wash and scrape the walls and 
floors, burn the wooden altars, sell the sacred 
vessels in the open market to be bought generally 
by sordid* mulieres, says Optatus and cast the 
consecrated elements to the dogs. They would 
force the laity to receive Donatist baptism, and 
see that they were faithful to their new profession. 
They would harness wealthy Caecilianists to their 
own chariots, turn respectable patresfamilias into 
millers asses, put rush tunics on priests and daub 
them with mud, burn and plunder houses, destroy 
debtors tablets, and commit a thousand outrages. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 255 

During the short usurpation of Gildo this pande 
monium was at its height. At the beginning of 
398, however, Gildo was defeated by the imperial 
forces, and the Church would have been more 
than human if it had not retaliated. Before the 
end of the year Honorius reaffirmed the decree of 
Theodosius, and awarded the penalty of death to 
all who violated the churches or assaulted the 
clergy of the Orthodox party. But we have now 
arrived at the date of Augustine s struggle with 
the schism, and must review its further progress 
in the light of his actions. 

Augustine was well acquainted with * the fury of 
their drunken Circumcellions from the beginning 
of his episcopate. When he came to Hippo he 
found that the Donatist baker would not bake for 
the Caecilianists. He found his people often 
violently forced into the Donatist communion, 
and his clergy assaulted. He himself only escaped 
an ambush they set for him on one occasion 
by providentially losing his way. Yet it need 
hardly be said that his attitude was at first one 
of gentleness and forbearance. We have to follow 
his development step by step until he became what 
Barbeyrac has called * the patriarch of Christian 
persecutors. 



256 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine s first Donatist document is a letter 
to a bishop of the sect named Maximinus, written 
in the year 392. It is a courteous, if not friendly 
letter, greeting Maximinus as ( most beloved and 
honourable brother. In the following year he 
wrote his popular ballad against the sect and his 
work Contra Epistolam Donati. In the same year 
a provincial synod, which met at Hippo, dealt 
gently and temperately with the question, and 
decided to allow Donatist priests to retain their 
functions after conversion if they had not re- 
baptized, 1 and if they brought their congregations 
with them. In 397 a Council of Carthage discussed 
the question of admitting to the service of the 
altar converts who had received Donatist baptism 
in their infancy. Legates were sent to ask the 
opinion of the bishops of Rome and Milan (the 
two being put on a quite equal footing) ; and 
when these prelates opposed the idea, the Africans 
quietly disregarded their opinions (though they 
sent further legates to convince them), and adopted 
the practice. The fact that some of their churches 
had * not even an unlettered deacon to serve 

1 The Donatist practice of repeating the baptism and orders given 
by the Caecilianists was now one of the chief rocks of offence. They 
held that the Catholic * orders were not valid, coming originally 
from a contaminated source the traditor, Felix of Aptunga. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 257 

them moderated their dogmatic feeling. In the 
same year Augustine had another public debate. 
He had endeavoured to arrange one with the 
Donatist bishop of Hippo, but without success ; 
though he had urged the civil magistrate to put 
pressure on his rival, and had spoken with some 
warmth of the excesses of the Donatists. How 
ever, in 397 he was passing through a small town 
on his way to Cirta, and he heard that the 
Donatist bishop was at home. He at once went 
to the house and engaged the bishop, a quiet and 
tolerant old man of little ability, in a debate. 
Augustine stipulated for the presence of notaries 
as usual, but they seem to have been Donatists, 
and they refused to work. His own clerics then 
commenced to take down the debate, but a great 
crowd of idlers pressed in, and made so much 
noise with their comments and applause, that the 
debate has unfortunately lost the reward of im 
mortality. Augustine afterwards wrote his version 
of the proceedings to his rival s congregation, and 
complained that Fortunius had falsified copies of 
some of the works they referred to. 

In 398 Gildo was defeated, as I said, and the 
golden age of Donatism came to an end. By 
this time the Cascilianists were reduced to a pitiful 

R 



258 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

condition in the country. But this was the year 
of the turn of the tide. Honorius at once re 
newed the law of Theodosius, which imposed a 
heavy fine on every heretic exercising sacerdotal 
functions, and curbed the violence of the Circum- 
cellions. Augustine still looked with disfavour 
on the interference of the civil authorities in the 
controversy. It was about this time that he wrote 
his two books Contra Partem Donati (which we no 
longer have), in which he declared that he * liked 
not to see the schismatics violently forced into 
communion by the exercise of secular authority/ 
We have a private letter in which he shows that 
he is even averse to parental pressure being put 
on children of mature years ; he desires no con 
verts who do not come to him with perfect 
spontaneity. But his attitude rapidly changes in 
the following years. We can trace the growth of 
his opinion in his letters until we find in 401 open 
indications of a change. One of the ablest of the 
Donatists was an ex-advocate, Petilian, now 
bishop of Cirta. He was the Augustine of the 
Donatist party, the successor of their great 
Donatus of Carthage. Augustine secured a copy 
of his writing against the Cascilianists, and began 
his work Against Petilian s Letter. In the 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 259 

second book of this work he not only defends 
the use of force by the example of Christ in the 
temple, but he sets an example of intemperance 
and arrogance of speech which the Donatists 
quickly follow. Petilian s temper was not im 
proved by remarks about his diabolical pride 
and * most inept loquacity/ and he repaid in the 
same coinage. In the third book Augustine has 
entirely lost the idea of moderation. He is sadly 
domineering and abusive : Let him go now, 
he says at one stage, and denounce me as a 
dialectician with his puffing lungs and turgid 
throat, and there is much talk about his 
stupid cursing and blasphemous mouth/ In 
the end he modestly contrasts their respective 
writings as the inflated and the solid, the bloated 
and the sound, the storm and the calm, divine 
utterance and human presumption/ In the mean 
time he had an adventure with another able 
Donatist bishop, Crispinus of Calama. His 
disciple Possidius, now Catholic bishop of that 
town, was attacked by the Donatists in a neigh 
bouring village. They set fire to the house he 
took refuge in, thrashed the men of his party, 
and stole all their horses. Possidius, obviously 
acting on Augustine s advice, appealed to the law 



260 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

not the civil law, which would punish his 
assailants, but the new law of Honorius against 
heretics, which he claimed to apply to Crispinus. 
The Donatist was convicted, and it was only the 
intercession of Augustine and Possidius that 
saved him from a heavy fine. But the important 
point is that Augustine has appealed to the law 
against heretics. There are other indications that 
his feelings are hardening. In all that he writes 
from the beginning of the fifth century he betrays 
a pitifully narrow and sectarian judgment of his 
fellows. Thus in his De Bono ConjugaR (written 
in 401) he finds that the dinners of the just are 
more meritorious than the fasts of the infidels, 
the marriage of the faithful more meritorious than 
the virginity of the heretic*; in fact, the heretic s 
fast is * a service of demons, the Donatist 
virginity no better than fornication/ 

Of the many works he wrote against the 
Donatists at this period little need be said. 
They have no literary value, and little human inter 
est of an agreeable kind. They repeat incessantly 
the familiar arguments on the familiar points 
whether Felix of Aptunga was a traditor, whether 
the sacraments given by an unworthy minister 
are invalid and so forth. Between 400 and 410 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 261 

he wrote his De Baptismo (seven books), Contra 
Epistolam Parmeniani (three books), De Unlco 
Baptismo (an answer to a work of Petilian s 
which is * inflated only with sounding words, but 
which he answers for the sake of slower minds ), 
and the four books Contra Cresconium. The last- 
named work (written in 409) is a temperate reply 
to a Donatist grammarian, who had taken up 
Augustine s reply to Petilian, and asked (evidently 
in reference to Augustine s abusive language) 
whether he thought of c finishing by his intoler 
able arrogance a controversy that had proceeded 
so many years. In his letters Augustine expresses 
his feeling about persecution with perfect candour. 
In 406 he writes to a venerable Donatist bishop 
(ep. 88) in defence of the recent severe law against 
the schismatics. They appealed first to the court, 
he says ; it is a case of the guilty taking Daniel s 
place in the lions den. He still, however, lays 
great stress on the outrages of the Donatists 
(admitting to some extent that the Circumcellions 
generally get a quid pro quo from the Catholic 
laity) in extenuation of the law. A little later 
(ep. 89) he writes a candid and direct defence of 
the laws. Their coercion is c a most merciful 
discipline, the medicine of the Church ; c mad- 



262 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

men must be bound and lethargies must be 
stirred up for the sake of their health even the 
devil would be less bold, he thinks, if some 
coercion were imposed. He is clearly passing 
from his apologetic attitude to the view that 
religious coercion is an admirable institution. 
And two years afterwards, in a letter to the 
Rogatian bishop, Vincentius, he shows himself 
4 the complete persecutor. Vincent seems to 
have written to chide him notice the perversity 
of human judgment ! on his degeneration since 
their school-days at Carthage, when Augustine 
was a < quiet and respectable youth/ Augustine 
replies (ep. 93) with a long and unwavering 
defence of coercion. The important point is 
not whether a man is compelled/ he says, but to 
what he is compelled. The fruits of the imperial 
laws are their justification. He knows even Cir- 
cumcellions who are now grateful that the pressure 
of the laws had led them to study the Caecilian 
position more carefully. In a word, persecution 
has at length appeared to him in the light of a 
providential and highly philanthropic institution ; 
it is a use of force which he can only compare to 
the coercion with which we prevent a fever- 
patient from flinging himself out of the window. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 263 

He adds the tu quoque argument and the usual 
appeal to the outrages of the Donatists ; but the 
dominant idea of the letter is an appreciation of 
religious coercion in and of itself. 

The laws to which Augustine refers in these 
letters are those which Honorius was induced to 
pass in 405. Two years previously the Caecilianist 
bishops, in council at Carthage, had sent a tem 
perate and earnest challenge to the Donatists to 
meet them in a public conference. The Donatists 
scornfully rejected the invitation, and Augustine 
thereupon wrote a letter to the laymen of the 
sect, in which he pointed out the moral of the 
refusal of their clergy. This greatly incensed the 
Donatists, so that the only immediate result was 
a renewal of the activity of the Circumcellions. 
But with Augustine s gradual conversion to the 
policy of coercion a change of tactics was inevit 
able. He had hitherto been the chief obstacle to 
a change of policy, constantly appealing to his 
colleagues to rely exclusively on moral force in 
matters of religion. His moral force had not 
achieved the success he had anticipated. His 
works found able critics, and his challenges to 
debate were rarely accepted, and still more rarely 
effective. In the year 404, when the African 



264 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

bishops met at Carthage on the 26th of June, 
he gave his fatal sanction to the policy of 
recourse to the secular arm/ Two bishops 
were sent to ask Honorius to enforce the law of 
Theodosius and make it explicitly applicable to 
the Donatists j 1 they asked also that he would 
renew the law which made invalid all legacies to 
heretics except in the event of conversion. 
Honorius replied in February of the following 
year with a severe law. He declared the 
Donatists to be heretics, confiscated the meeting 
houses and goods of all who repeated baptism, 
excluded them from testamentary benefits, and 
imposed heavy fines on aggressive controver 
sialists. It was now open to the Catholic bishop 
to drag his rival as we have seen Possidius drag 
the bishop of Calama before the civic tribunal, 
and have him not only heavily fined, but also 
branded with the odious appellation of heretic. 
Carthage was almost immediately purged of the 
schismatics. When the bishops met again in the 
month of August, they sent two of their number 
to thank the emperor for his welcome legislation, 

1 The law was directed against heretics, and the Donatists 
claimed that, on any view of the controversy, they could not be 
accused of more than schism. In dogma and ritual they agreed 
entirely with their rivals. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 265 

and issued a letter to all the African judges, 
acquainting them with the tenor of the new law. 

The next three years were marked by a dreary 
and repellent struggle with the angry schismatics. 
Homeless and proscribed, the Donatists had no 
weapon but their dreaded club, and they used it 
with vigour. The fifth century was not of a 
temper to meet violence with meekness, and Africa 
was soon devastated by a kind of civil war. 1 On 
the 23rd of August, 408, the virtual ruler of the 
Western Empire, Stilicho, came to an ignominious 
end. Schismatics and pagans at once asserted that 
the coercive laws passed during his regency died 
with him, and began to seize their churches and 
temples once more. Stilicho s successor, Olympus, 
was a Christian, and Augustine wrote, at the first 
rumour of his promotion, to secure his interest 
on behalf of the Church. In the meantime (in 
October) the African bishops met again at 
Carthage, and sent two of their number to the 
emperor at Ravenna, asking him to reaffirm the 



1 So great was the confusion, that a Donatist named Marculus, 
who was put to death by the Catholics, and whom Augustine 
credited with self-destruction who should, therefore, on either 
hypothesis be now in Tartarus, is actually honoured year after year, 
under the title of Macarius, in the Roman Martyrology. So it is 
stated in a note in the Migne edition of Augustine (vol. ix. col. 526). 



266 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

validity of the laws passed in the time of Stilicho. 
Augustine was not present, but he wrote a second 
letter (No. 97) to Olympus, and urged him to 
secure the enforcement of the law without waiting 
for the deputation from Carthage. When Augus 
tine s letter arrived we do not know. He speaks of 
writing in the middle of winter, but we need not 
take that too literally ; on the other hand, he 
obviously believes his letter will arrive before the 
Carthaginian bishops. Probably both reached 
Ravenna about the end of November, or beginning 
of December ; and with them came a crowd of 
maimed and half-blinded clerics, who had fled to 
court with lively proof of the outrages of the 
Donatists. In December the emperor sent the 
desired decree to Donatus, the proconsul of 
Africa, and the work of making converts by 
fiscal machinery recommenced. Augustine wrote 
to Donatus (ep. 100), urging him to apply 
the decree at once, but to spare the lives of 
the Donatists and avoid all appearance of vin- 
dictiveness. 

Then there occurred a development of the 
situation which somewhat perplexes the ordinary 
ecclesiastical writer. In the summer of 409 the 
African bishops were once more thrown into grave 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 267 

anxiety by the appearance of a new decree from 
Ravenna, in which Honorius suddenly attains a 
commanding height of humanity and toleration. 
He directs that in future no one shall embrace 
the worship of the Christian religion except by his 
own free will, and rescinds his oppressive decrees 
against the Donatists. The writer of the article 
on Donatism in the Dictionary of Christian Bio 
graphy notes that political considerations influenced 
the decision, but claims that it was dictated partly 
by the kindliness of heart of the emperor. 1 Once 
more the spirit of the Donatists revived in Africa, 
and the hateful struggle was renewed about the 
altars of the Prince of Peace. In June 410 the 
bishops met at Carthage, and sent four delegates 
to Ravenna to renew their complaints. The 
answer came swift and sharp. The c kindliness 
of Honorius has had a brief reign. In September 
he sends the following decree to Heraclian, now 
supreme in Africa : The decree which the 
followers of heretical superstition had obtained to 

1 The emperor who so Zosimus says when told in 410 that it 
was all up with Rome, anxiously inquired whether they meant his 
favourite hen of that name, and was greatly relieved when he heard 
that it was only the city of Rome that had fallen. For a choice speci 
men of the literary art of tempering justice with mercy, which is so 
admirably cultivated by the ecclesiastical writer, I would recommend 
the above article (and a few others) in the said Dictionary. 



268 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

protect their rites is entirely rescinded, and we 
direct that they suffer the penalty of proscription 
and death if they again venture to meet in public 
in their criminal audacity. A few weeks after 
wards a new decree was issued, ordering a public 
conference to be held at Carthage within six 
months, in which the Catholic and Donatist 
bishops should defend their respective positions 
before a civil judge. 

I will deal more fully in the next chapter with 
the political events which are vaguely reflected in 
this rapid change of policy. For the moment, 
before describing the great conference at Carthage, 
I will only say that we have no need whatever to 
make a microscopic research into the character of 
Honorius. Since the death of Stilicho in 408, the 
court at Ravenna had lived in hourly dread of 
Alaric and his Goths. In 409 Alaric set up a 
rival emperor at Rome, and the possession of 
Africa became of supreme importance to him and 
his puppet. The practised army of the Circum- 
cellions would have been a formidable auxiliary to 
an invading force, and it was well known they 
would not hesitate to join the Arian Goths. 
Hence the momentary kindliness. The small 
force sent by Attalus into Africa was cut up by 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 269 

Heraclian in 410. Honorius was informed that 
the loyal count had detained all the corn-ships, 
and was prepared to resist invasion. Hence the 
decree of September. But it was important that 
this religious schism, which had now revealed its 
grave menace to political unity, should cease as 
promptly and with as little violence as possible. 
Honorius, therefore, adopted the idea of a con 
ference, which both Donatists and Catholics had 
urged more than once. On the 1 4th of October 
(six weeks after the fall of Rome) a decree was 
issued in the name of ( the pious, prosperous, 
victorious, and triumphant emperors, appointing 
the tribune Marcellinus to convoke and preside at 
such a conference at Carthage. 

And towards the end of May 411, Carthage 
began to stir with an unusual excitement. The 
Donatists had sent the summons of Marcellinus 
into every village of Africa, and the aged and 
infirm were implored to spend their last strength 
in an effort to reach the conference ; some of 
them died on the way. A long procession of two 
hundred and seventy-nine bishops, with thousands 
of their supporters, marched proudly into Carthage 
towards the end of May. All the chroniclers are 
Catholics, and we are assured that the Caecilianists 



270 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

gathered two hundred and eighty-six bishops 
without straining their resources. The question 
of numbers was admitted to be of importance on 
both sides, and it would be interesting to know 
the date of the ordination of many of these 
bishops. It was at least made clear at the con 
ference that the Catholics had in places two or 
three bishops within the limits of one Donatist 
paroecia. A further interesting circumstance 
seems to be suggested by the records. On the 
day the conference opened the Donatists were 
jubilant at finding they were in the majority, only 
two hundred and sixty-six Catholic bishops having 
signed the response, but they were greatly dis 
tressed to see twenty new bishops appear on the 
Catholic side when the roll was called. It looks 
very much as if the twenty were kept in hiding 
so as to give the Donatists a false security. 
Augustine also tells that he and a few others were 
discussing the situation a few days before the 
conference, and they doubted if more than one or 
two of their colleagues would express a willing 
ness to resign if the verdict were given to the 
Donatists. To his surprise, all expressed such a 
willingness when a meeting was held to discuss 
the point. Thus the Catholics were able to make 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 271 

the magnanimous offer of resigning their sees if 
the Donatists proved their point, and sharing their 
ministry with their rivals if they themselves 
secured the verdict. Probably the only impres 
sion this generous offer made on the Donatists 
was the opposite to what Augustine intended. 
Those who lived with Augustine would feel no 
less than we do to-day that he would have thought 
it a sacrilege seriously to entertain the idea of 
losing his case and resigning his charge. It is 
difficult to see where the Donatists found a source 
of hope. Marcellinus was a zealous Catholic, and 
was much influenced by Augustine ; and of the 
imperial inclination there could be no doubt. It 
is true that Marcellinus offered to retire if the 
Donatists desired another judge ; but the tone of 
their reply, declining his offer, shows that they 
had no hope of securing an impartial judge. The 
debate was a farce, and the verdict a foregone 
conclusion. 

On the first of June the conference opened at 
ther Gargilian baths in the centre of the city. The 
Catholics had proposed that only seven speakers 
and seven consultors for each party, with four 
bishops to control the notarii, should take part 
in the conference. This was rejected by the 



272 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Donatists, who attended in full force, and insisted 
on the attendance of all their rivals when the list 
of two hundred and eighty-six names was produced. 
Marcellinus took the chair, and was supported by 
the chief civic officials. When he saw the great 
throng of Donatist bishops, some of them weak 
with age and infirmity, he bade them seat them 
selves. The fanatical group refused to sit under 
the same roof as the < traditores, and Marcellinus 
and his officials politely relinquished their own 
seats. The president then read the conditions of 
the conference, and gave an assurance that the 
losers would suffer no violence for their 
zeal. 

It would be of little interest to follow the 
course of the conference in detail. The official 
notaries were supplemented by four representing 
each party, and controlled by four bishops, so that 
we have a verbatim report of the proceedings, 
each speech being signed by the speaker. The 
first day was wasted in a quarrel about names and 
numbers, each side being now eager to prove how 
rrumy bishops it had left at home. The second day 
was equally unprofitable. On the third day the 
tactics of the Donatists were cleverly met by Augus 
tine and Marcellinus, and a long debate ensued. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 273 

Petilian, the ex-lawyer, was the leader of the schis 
matics, and the c conference was little more than 
a warm encounter between him and Augustine. 
He first claimed that the period assigned in the 
emperor s decree had elapsed before the date 
of the conference, but Marcellinus rejected his 
difficulty. Then he claimed that, the Catholics 
having demanded the conference, the Donatists, as 
defendants, had a legal right to discuss the char 
acter of the plaintiffs. This was met by the 
production of a petition for a conference which 
the Donatists had presented in 406. However, 
Petilian was eager to discredit his great rival by 
reviving the old calumny of the philtre. After a 
nervous duel with Augustine Marcellinus inter 
fering in such a way that the distinguished prelate 
said, rather profanely : You take good care to 
defend them, by God ! he hissed out the ques 
tion that burned on his lips : Who ordained 
you ? Another bishop added, amidst great 
uproar (little Alypius meanwhile demanding that 
the noise be put on the records), the Pauline 
depreciation of mere learning : c Though ye have 
ten thousand pedagogues, yet not many fathers. 
Augustine shirked the question at first ; but as it 
was repeated from all sides, he at length boldly 



274 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

stated that it was Megalius, and challenged them 
to discuss it. However, Marcellinus ruled the 
personal discussion out of order, and at last 
dragged the bishops to the question at issue. 
The Catholics tried to introduce the fact of their 
communion with the * churches beyond the sea 
(again laying no particular stress on the judgment 
of the bishop of Rome), but the Donatists at once 
protested, and the point was abandoned without 
difficulty. c It was not a question of the whole 
world, but an African question/ said the Donatists ; 
f the churches beyond the seas must wait and 
communicate with the victors. Then the formal 
issue was discussed in the light of Scripture and 
history. The conference had begun in the early 
morning, and it was growing dusk when Marcel 
linus closed the discussion and cleared the room 

* 

for the writing of the verdict. The Donatists 
had quickly abandoned the complimentary way in 
which they addressed him on the first day, and 
they were probably under no illusion when they 
were recalled to hear his sentence. The Catholics 
had proved their case to his satisfaction ; the 
Donatists were to hand over their churches to the 
Catholics, and they were forbidden to hold further 
meetings. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 275 

In the following year Honorius renewed his 
law against the Donatists, and in 414 (the death 
of Marcellinus reviving their hopes) he passed a 
fierce and brutal law, doubling the fines imposed 
on them, excluding them from testamentary 
advantages and from courts of law, branding 
them with c perpetual infamy/ and banishing 
their obstinate clergy. The schism now entered 
upon its last and most bloody stage. The outlaws 
became fiercely indifferent to life. They flung 
themselves down precipices it was a daily 
game of theirs, pleasantly says Augustine 
(ep. 185). They assailed armed groups of pagans 
and Catholics, and fought them to the death. 
They met travellers on the country roads, and 
threatened to kill them if they did not inflict 
martyrdom on their strange accosters. One of 
Augustine s priests was murdered by them. 
When these suicides were pointed out to Augus 
tine, he coldly replied (ep. 204) that they did 
not move him ; it was better, he said, that these 
few whom God had predestined to hell should 
perish than that all should be damned for want of 
coercion. Yet even he shuddered sometimes at 
sight of the spectre he had raised. We often find 
him pleading with the officials to refrain from 



276 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

violent retaliation, and especially from capital 
punishment. 1 

The Donatists struggled for many years under 
the heel of the law. In 418 we find Augustine 
attempting to draw Emeritus, the former Dona- 
tist bishop of Caesarea, into a debate in what had 
once been his own church. The embittered old 
man would not deign to speak. In the same year 
we hear of a meeting of some thirty Donatist 
bishops, under the resolute Petilian, to discover 
new ways of evading the laws. Two years after 
wards Augustine writes to remonstrate with a 
Donatist bishop who has shut himself in his 
church with his flock, and threatened to set fire 
to it, when the officials come to apply the law. 

1 To this extent Gibbon is wrong when he says that the persecu 
tion of the Donatists had Augustine s warmest approbation. It 
had his approval only up to a certain point, and it was years before 
he overcame his feeling of humanity so far as to give this qualified 
approval. Yet, if Augustine had persisted in his opposition, it is 
not likely the persecuting laws would have been given to Africa, and 
so one cannot say with Poujoulat that Gibbon is grossly unjust to 
Augustine. Gibbon is also wrong (though not so profoundly 
ignorant as Poujoulat would have him) when he says that, as a 
result of the great conference of 4.11, three hundred Donatist bishops 
and thousands of their inferior clergy were stripped of their offices 
and banished. We do not know how many (though we know that 
very many) of their bishops accepted the offer of the Catholics ; and 
the proportion of clergy to bishops was not so great as Gibbon 
supposes besides that their sees * were often very small matters. 



THE DONATIST SCHISM 277 

The Vandals found the sect still struggling when 
they invaded Africa, and laid the proud structure 
of its rivals in ruins. There was a brief and 
limited revival at the end of the sixth century, 
but the remarkable sect only perished finally in 
the universal devastation of the Mohammedan 
invasion. 1 

1 I dare not pursue the subject, or I would point out the gross 
fallacy that lies in the historic comparison of the position of the 
Church of England with that of the Donatists. But a discerning 
and impartial reader will probably perceive from the foregoing sketch 
that if there be a parallel at all, it lies between the Roman Church in 
England and the Donatist in Africa. It is the Romanists who 
reject the validity of their rival s sacraments and * raise altar against 
altar. 1 The question of union with the churches beyond the seas 1 
was a minor point with the Africans ; nor is the Church of England 
by any means so isolated as was that of the Donatists. Finally, 
Christianity was then a loose federation of churches, with only a 
broad agreement in dogma and ritual, and without a shadow of a 
* supreme head/ 



278 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DYING OF PAGANISM 

I HAVE already observed that Augustine paid far 
less attention to the old national religion than to 
the heresies which sprang up within the Church. 
Only one work, the City of God, out of his in 
numerable productions was directed against it ; and 
this was occasioned rather by the turn of political 
events than by theological controversy. The few 
letters in which he further deals with paganism 
were elicited by correspondents, and the allusions 
in his sermons belong rather to moral than to 
dogmatic theology. Wherever he does confront 
it intellectually he pours a bitter and unsparing 
scorn upon it, but he usually ignores it altogether. 
It is true that some of the most cultured of his 
correspondents profess allegiance to it. With 
these he is usually content to advance the claims 
of Christianity ; and indeed they generally make 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 279 

it sufficiently clear that they are monotheists, with 
an historic and politic attachment to a Neo- 
Platonic conception of the Olympian system. 
Nevertheless, Augustine s career coincides with 
the downfall of the old religion, and it is interest 
ing to study his attitude towards it in the 
successive phases of its disappearance. 

We left the old Roman religion, a few chapters 
back, severely stricken by the laws of Gratian - 
and the influence of St. Ambrose. When Augus 
tine left Rome ^the national cult seemed to be 
breaking up rapidly. Praetextatus was dead, and 
Symmachus had withdrawn from the struggle. 
In the east Theodosius was putting decree after 
decree in the hands of the bishops and the monks, 
the ready executors of the imperial will. In 381, 
383, 385, 391, and 392 laws were passed against 
the priests and the adherents of the old religion, 
and armies of fanatical monks wandered over the 
provinces, leaving mounds of smoking ruins 
where the piety of their fathers had gathered 
the wealth and the art of the world. The great 
temple of Serapis at Alexandria fell before an 
ignorant mob, led by Bishop Theophilus, in 389. 
In Syria the finest temples were laid in ruins. 
Arcadius continued the work of Theodosius ; in 



280 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

395, 396, 397, and 399, he issued decrees for the 
destruction of the temples and the abolition of the 
pagan religion, only departing from the fervour 
of his predecessor by a shrewd direction that the 
material of the destroyed temples be used for the 
construction of roads and bridges. Throughout 
the eastern empire Christianity made rapid pro 
gress with the aid of such legislation. If in 
Rome, as Symmachus said, to desert the altars 
was a new kind of ambition/ it will readily be 
understood that the temptation was stronger in 
the vicinity of the Christian court at Alexandria. 1 
The pagan tradition was utterly broken. Every 
earthquake, pestilence, or other striking calamity, 
brought thousands into the new religion. 

In the west the suppression of paganism was by 
no means so smooth a process. Valentinian n. 
had, as has been stated, continued the policy of 
Gratian, confiscating the revenues of the clergy 
and temples and withdrawing the last shred of 
imperial patronage from the old religion. The 
Christian leaders had pleasantly assured the pagans 
that they had no ground for complaint, since the 

1 At the same time, there were pagans in high office even in the 
east, and a considerable licence was permitted the pagan writers of 
the eastern empire. 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 281 

new laws merely brought about a condition of 
equality between the two religions. But this 
equality was soon discovered by Ambrose to be 
itself inconsistent with the dignity of Christianity. 
In 391 Valentinian was induced to pass another 
law, in which he commanded the pagan temples 
to be closed and all sacrifices to be discontinued. 
In the following year the young emperor was put 
to death by one of his generals, and a rhetorician, 
Eugenius, was clothed with the purple. This 
gave fresh hope and courage to the remnants of 
the pagan aristocracy. Nicomachus Flavianus, 
the third of the great pagans of the time, a pontiff 
and consul designate, at once threw himself with 
fervour into the new agitation, and espoused the 
cause of Eugenius. After two fruitless legations, 
Flavianus himself and Argobastes (the Gothic 
general who had set Eugenius on the throne) 
approached the new emperor, and obtained per 
mission to restore the famous statue of Victory to 
the senate. The pagans saw an opportunity of 
escaping from the persecuting laws of Valentinian 
under the more accommodating Eugenius, and they 
threw in their lot with the usurper. There was 
a great revival of the old religion at Rome. The 
temples were re-opened. The victims were laid 



282 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

on the altars again, and the incense rose from 
every part of Rome. The stream that had begun 
to flow towards the Vatican was diverted once 
more. The new lease of life given to the old 
religion was of most uncertain duration ; for, 
although Theodosius had at first exchanged 
presents with the puppet of Argobastes, it soon 
became known that he was preparing an expedi 
tion into Italy. Yet there was widespread apo 
stasy from the Christian Church, and nearly the 
whole of the nobility welcomed the restoration 
of the genial Olympians. The Christian leaders 
were sorely perplexed ; it was impossible to fore 
cast the issue of the struggle with Theodosius. 
Ambrose wavered pitifully. He fled from Milan 
to avoid a meeting with Eugenius, yet wrote a 
most respectful and friendly letter to him, in 
which the usurpation is described as * when thy 
clemency assumed the charge of the empire. l 

1 Compare the politic character of his panegyric on Valentinian, 
where he will not discuss the celerity of his death ! In an earlier 
chapter I have had to point out Gibbon s unjust severity against 
Ambrose ; here it is necessary to say that he errs still more in the 
opposite direction. He says (iii. 402) : The inflexible courage of 
Ambrose alone had resisted the claims of successful usurpation. 
The above qualification of the usurpation would hardly require an 
inflexible courage. But as Gibbon adds that Ambrose declined his 
correspondence," it would seem that he has strangely overlooked the 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 283 

The triumph of the pagan Romans and the 
perplexity of the Christian prelates were not of 
long duration. Theodosius quickly followed his 
presents to Italy with a large army, and defeated 
the usurper ; the high-spirited Flavianus flinging 
himself on the emperor s troops when he saw that 
his cause was lost. The victor was singularly 
moderate towards those who had supported 
Eugenius, but he once more removed the pagan 
symbol from the senate and closed the temples. 
The decay of the old religion set in more rapidly 
than ever. Beugnot, it is true, questions this, 
but the inscriptions he gives after 394 are not 
convincing, as far as any large exercise of the old 
cult is concerned. Schultze and other recent 
writers admit the statement of Zosimus and 
Prudentius that Theodosius himself visited Rome, 
and harangued the senators on the change of 
religion. Within ten years we find Jerome 
writing (ep. 107) that * the Capitol is squalid and 
deserted ; the temples of Rome are covered with 
dust and cobwebs ; and the pagan gods keep 
their lonely vigils on the roofs with the bats and 

letter to Eugenius (No. 57, Migne edition). Beugnot, who is by no 
means prejudiced in favour of paganism in his well-known study 
of its fall, almost weeps over the perfidy of the bishop of Milan, 



284 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the owls. There was one later revival of the old 
religion at Rome before the final catastrophe, as 
we shall see, but it begins to sink in earnest from 
394. The chief struggle takes place henceforth 
in the provinces, and we may transfer our atten 
tion to Africa once more. 

When Theodosius died, his sons were mere chil 
dren. Arcadius, who ruled the east, was in his 
eighteenth year, and Honorius in his eleventh. 
The western empire, therefore, was virtually ruled 
by the great Gothic general Stilicho, into whose 
charge Honorius had been given. Stilicho was 
not disposed to distract the empire with further 
religious struggles, and for several years the con 
dition of the pagans was not very onerous. In 
398, however, he began a series of persecuting 
measures, and there is reason to think that Augus 
tine had some share in bringing about the unhappy 
change of policy. During the few years between 
his ordination and 398 we find Augustine very 
little concerned about paganism. In his sermons 
he frequently scolds his congregation for taking 
part in the pagan festivals, but on the whole he 
seems to regard the old religion as quietly dying. 
But in 398 he was alarmed to notice a great 
animation amongst the pagans. Some zealot had 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 285 

composed a Greek verse, purporting to be the 
utterance of one of the sacred oracles, which pre 
dicted the downfall of Christianity in 398. The 
pseudo-oracle represented Christ as an innocent 
enthusiast, but said that Peter had procured by 
magical arts a triumph of 365 years for the 
Galilean religion. Counting the period from the 
year 33 of the current era, the date of the break 
ing of the spell would fall in 398. In that year, 
therefore, the pagans became unusually active and 
spirited, and the bishops of the African Church 
began their unhappy appeal to the secular arm. 
In the case of the pagans, at least, there was no 
room for an accusation of violence. However, in 
398 we seem to find Augustine speaking, without 
a shade of hesitation, of recourse to repressive 
legislation. 1 Some time in that year we find him 
preaching (sermon 24) to a Carthaginian congre 
gation on the pagan religion. The pagans had 

1 The reader may remember that I have already represented 
Augustine as writing, about 398 (in his Contra Partem Donati), that 
he disliked the idea of secular coercion in the matter of the Dona- 
tists. Yet the sermon I am going to quote was quite certainly 
delivered before 399. It implies a large and public exercise of the 
pagan cult at Carthage and the absence of any repressive laws. This 
condition was not found after 399. The explanation seems to be 
that Augustine wavered for some years before his definitive declara 
tion in favour of persecution. 



286 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

obtained permission from an indulgent official to 
gild the beard of their great Hercules, but their 
rejoicing was brought to a sad termination 
when it was found that a Christian had con 
trived to shave the impotent hero during the 
night. The Christians gather at their basilica in 
great joy, and Augustine laughs and jokes with 
them over the adventure. He tells them that at 
Rome the old worship has been abolished, and 
immediately the church rings with cries of c Let 
us do here what has been done at Rome. 
Augustine approves and encourages their zeal, 
but appeals for orderly procedure. Trust us, 
your pastors, he says : you will soon see whether 
we do our duty or not. The first law of 
Honorius (or Stilicho) against the old religion 
falls in the year 398, and so we are compelled to 
conclude that Augustine and the Carthaginian 
bishops started the persecution of the old religion 
in Africa. 

The law of 398 is not extant, but the fact of its 
having been given is inferred from the terms of 
the law of 399, which probably repeats its enact 
ments. The hope of the pagans was heavily and 
promptly cast down. As they peered anxiously 
over the sea for the first heralds of the revival 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 287 

at Rome, there came instead two high imperial 
officers with orders to close the temples and abolish 
the sacrifices for ever. The summit of Olympus 
flashed out no thunder whilst Gaudentius and 
Jovius went from street to street of Carthage 
and sealed the doors of the temples. The great 
temple of the Caslestis had been closed for some 
years, and huge thistles or cactus had sprung up 
in its splendid avenue. The pagans were consoled 
to believe that dragons lurked in this small forest, 
and guarded the deserted building^; but one 
morning they awoke to a painful disillusion, for 
great golden letters announced on its front that 
Aurelius dedicated this temple to Christian 
worship/ and the Christian mob poured up the 
sacred enclosure with wild rejoicing. A chronicler 
of the time (pseudo-Prosper) speaks of temples 
being closed and sacrifices abolished throughout 
Africa in 399. Augustine pictures the Caecili- 
anists and the Donatists working in Christian 
unison at the work of destruction ; dragging the 
marble statues into the streets and breaking them 
to fragments, smashing the flutes and other 
musical instruments of the pagan service, and 
even laying the temples themselves in ruins. So 
zealous was the execution of the law that a second 



288 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

rescript was forwarded to the African proconsul, 
directing that the temples should be stripped, but 
not destroyed, and that the sacred games and 
banquets were not to be prohibited. The African 
bishops were dissatisfied with the restriction, and 
in 400 we find them petitioning the Court for the 
suppression of the sacred games and banquets 
(under the pretext that Christians were morally 
compelled to attend them at times and hear their 
faith reviled) and the destruction of the remain 
ing temples. A letter of Augustine s (No. 50), 
which Baronius assigns, with some probability, to 
this date, indicates both the confusion which these 
laws produced and Augustine s attitude towards 
them. At Suffecte the Christians had been in 
spired by the law to destroy a statue of Hercules, 
which was held in great veneration by their pagan 
neighbours. The very natural result was a san 
guinary riot. How many of the poor pagans fell 
in the conflict the chroniclers do not deign to 
inform us ; but the Roman Martyrology still 
reverently announces, year by year, that sixty 
Christians were c martyred on the occasion. The 
municipal officers were made responsible for the 
event, and they seem to have written to Augus 
tine to plead the extenuating circumstance of the 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 289 

loss of their Hercules. Augustine replies with 
much cheap irony and contempt. He does not 
fail to point the trite, but dangerous, moral of the 
helplessness of their deity, and promises they shall 
have another when they have restored the sixty 
Christian souls. Other letters of his to pagan 
correspondents are of still more uncertain date, 
and therefore cannot be used to illustrate the 
development of his feelings. There is one (No. 
232) to the leading officials of Madaura, the scene 
of his early studies. They seem to have recol 
lected his obligation to their town, and written to 
ask a certain favour of him. In a spirit of 
friendly accommodation and liberality they greeted 
him as their father and closed with the admir 
able salutation : We wish, in God and His 
Christ, that thou mayst live happily for many 
years with thy clergy. Augustine did as they 
asked him, but he read them a severe lesson on 
what he insisted on regarding as the mockery of 
their salutation. But there are one or two letters 
of uncertain date in which he argues temperately 
and courteously with cultured Neo-Platonists, who 
defend the old regime. 

This condition of affairs lasted until 408, the 
bishops everywhere impelling the reluctant officials 



2 9 o ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

to put into execution the imperial edicts. In that 
year, as we have seen, the brave and capable 
Stilicho, the last hope of the falling empire, was 
executed in prison at Ravenna. At the first 
rumour of his death new life was infused into the 
sullen remnants of the pagans and the Donatists. 
Stilicho was the author of the laws that had been 
issued in the name of the fatuous young emperor, 
and it was hoped that his disgrace implied a 
change of policy. It is true that his successor, 
Olympus, was a Christian, but that circumstance 
afforded no certain indication of his attitude, and 
the pagans raised their heads once more. But 
Augustine and the African bishops were by this 
time accomplished politicians. I have already 
related how they approached Olympus, and 
secured a continuance of the coercive policy. 
Stilicho was put to death in September ; in 
December a fresh series of decrees reaffirmed 
and enlarged the existing laws. The annona tem- 
plorum the fund which maintained the sacred 
games and banquets the last source of pagan 
revenue, was appropriated to the support of the 
army. Statues and altars were to be destroyed, 
and temples converted to municipal use. The 
bishops were empowered to see that the law was 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 291 

executed, and heavy fines were imposed on negli 
gent magistrates. A second decree of the same 
month aimed at the more distinguished pagans, 
by excluding from the service of the emperor all 
enemies of the Catholic faith. l That the earlier 
laws were far from uniformly enforced is clear 
from an incident we learn from Augustine s 
letters. On the ist of June of the year 408 the 
pagans of Calama celebrated their feast of Flora 
with the usual licentious dances of the meretrices 
in the streets. They maliciously directed their 
procession before the door of the Catholic basilica, 
and a few zealous Christian stones precipitated a 
riot, in which a Christian was killed and Possidius 
(bishop of the place) had to fly for his life. He 
flew, of course, to Hippo, and Augustine directed 
him to Ravenna. In the meantime, an elderly 
official of the town, Nectarius, humbly begged 
Augustine s intercession for his heated fellow- 

1 Gibbon says this decree was rigorously applied, whilst M. 
Beugnot, a high authority in this province, says it was at once re 
pealed on the resignation of Gennerid. This pagan officer of high 
rank was assured by Honorius that the imperial eye was blind to the 
heterodoxy of those who were particularly useful to the State, but he 
nobly refused an exemption. Beugnot seems to mistranslate Zosimus 
when he says il ne perdit pas son grade. The words of the historian 
are KCU OVK aXXcos di>TeAa/3ero TTJS dp^s, fcos 6 /SacrtAe vs 
TOJ> vofjLovS etc., which would admit an interval of several years. 



292 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

citizens. Augustine (epp. 91 and 104) merely 
promised that the imperial medicine should be 
administered with moderation ; but as Possidius 
reached the court in troubled days, it is probable 
that the delinquents escaped altogether. How 
ever, the law of 408 was put in the hands of the 
bishops, and the licentious Floralia and Saturnalia 
quickly gave way to the more orthodox festivals 
of Pentecost and Christmas. 

I have explained in the preceding chapter how 
the triumph of the hierarchy was rudely inter 
rupted in the middle of the following year by the 
receipt of a reactionary decree which directed, to 
their grief and indignation, that in future no one 
was to be compelled against his will to accept the 
Christian religion/ Whilst rival theologians were 
puzzling their brains over the designs of Jupiter 
or Jehovah, the formidable Alaric and his army 
of Goths were making sad havoc of the imperial 
intentions. The reign of Olympus was speedily 
cut short by disgrace and death. The pagan Jovius 
succeeded to his office, and the Gothic army became 
masters of Rome. A Greek pagan, Attalus, 
who had recently received a diplomatic Arian 
baptism, was clothed with the purple by Alaric, 
and accepted by the senate ; and the prefecture 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 293 

of the city was given to the pagan Lampadius. 
Once more the smoke of a thousand altars hovered 
over the eternal city, and the stately processions 
ascended the Capitol and the Palatine. Nearly 
the whole of Rome applauded the revival. M. 
Beugnot sheds bitter tears over the * infamy and 
* perjury of the senators. Honorius meekly 
offered to share his empire with Attalus, but the 
Greek haughtily informed him that his generosity 
was superfluous, and clemently permitted him to 
retire to some obscure island with his precious 
poultry. The odds ran strongly in favour of 
Jupiter. 

But the Africans had barely time to acquaint 
themselves fully with the latest decree of Pro 
vidence when there came the dignified retractation 
of the privilege of following one s conscience in 
matters of religion, which I have given previously. 
Just as the wretched Honorius was about to yield, 
he received six cohorts from the east, and was 
enabled to fortify Ravenna against the terrible 
Goth. Moreover, Jupiter had forfeited his last 
chance by deceiving the augurs of Attalus. The 
possession of Africa was of vital importance to 
the parasitic capital ; but, on the faith of the 
augurs report, Attalus had sent only a small 



294 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

contingent to secure it. His soldiers were cut up 
by the loyal Count Heraclian. The corn ships 
were stopped, and famine and plague spread dis 
affection in Rome. Attalus was ignominiously 
stripped of his purple by the Goth, and the city 
itself was taken and pillaged by his soldiers in 
August 410. But Honorius had been restored 
to confidence by the loyalty of Heraclian, and he 
fiercely reaffirmed the decrees against Donatists 
and pagans. 

The chief idea running through M. Beugnot s 
well-known study of the fall of paganism is that 
it was the barbarian invasion which really crushed 
the old religion. He does not seem to have 
imposed his theory to any large extent. The 
weight of the later inscriptions he gives, or of his 
interpretation of those inscriptions, is far from 
overwhelming ; and we see only too plainly in the 
course of his own narrative the effect of thirty- 
five years of repressive legislation and intense 
proselytic activity on a nerveless or soulless 
opposition. It is difficult to see that the Gothic 
invasion of Italy hastened the death of the old 
religion. In Gaul, Spain, and Africa, the pagans 
merely suffered in common with the Trinitarian 
Christians from the Arian Goths and Vandals ; 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 295 

the rest of the barbarians, being pagans, were 
hardly likely to select fellow-pagans for excep 
tional punishment. Beugnot thinks that the 
disorganisation of the empire which followed the 
invasion tended to make an end of the tottering 
fabric. But modern historians think this dis 
organisation has been exaggerated ; and, in any 
case, it would paralyse the effective anti-pagan 
machinery of Church and State much more 
severely than it would itself injure the old religion. 
The fact is that we find a momentary revival of 
the hopes of the pagans after the fall of Rome, 
and then an emphatic resumption of the coercive 
legislation. The administration which was set up 
at Rome after Alaric s withdrawal and death was 
largely pagan, and suffered a last flicker of the old 
religion. This was repressed as soon as the court 
resumed control, and its extinction practically 
terminates the public exercise of the pagan wor 
ship at Rome. Individual pagans of distinction 
are met with long afterwards, it is true. When 
Theodosius n. wrote : * If there be any pagans left 
(though we do not think so), he knew perfectly 
well that there were pagan officers in his own 
palace. But the old religion was virtually extin 
guished in the large towns by 415, and the 



296 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

term pagan (villager) already long in use- 
became a fairly correct appellation for its open 
worshippers. 

In the provinces paganism prolonged its struggles 
far into the fifth century, and in some places sur 
vived until the seventh. In the African provinces 
we find the struggle proceeding until, in 428, the 
Vandals put an end to all sectarian strife by an 
impartial devastation. In 415 Honorius found 
it necessary to renew his threats and penalties, for 
the pagan sentiment was not a little obstinate in 
Africa in spite of the advances and concessions of 
the new religion. Pseudo-Prosper records, in his 
entertaining De Pr^dictionibus^ that on one occa 
sion some of the condemned idols were found 
concealed in a cave in one of the Mauritanian 
towns, and the whole city, including the clergy, 
were convicted of perjury. In fact, it would 
appear from an obscure passage of the decree of 
415 that secret societies had been formed amongst 
the pagans, and the heads of these are threatened 
with capital punishment. It is also indicated that 
the pagan pontiffs had returned to the towns, and 
the emperor ordered them to retire to their 
native places. But the remaining temples were 
now closed, and all surviving statues destroyed. 



THE DYING OF PAGANISM 297 

The old religion ceased to exist as an organisation 
in Africa. How the anti-Christian sentiment 
was fostered by the disasters of Rome and 
encountered by Augustine, I will relate in the 
next chapter. 



298 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER XIII 

ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 

A RECENT French writer ingeniously concludes 
that Augustine s soul was rent by the news of 
the fall of Rome, but he avoided the subject in 
the excessive pain it gave him. F. Ozanam, 
admitting, in a moment of rare candour, that 
Augustine was all but indifferent when the news 
arrived, thinks that either his genius was less 
bound by an antique patriotism or love had raised 
it to calmer heights. The hagiographers are 
equally conflicting. The truth is that Augustine 
had scarcely a spark of human sympathy with the 
disasters of Rome. The sermon (De urbis excidio] 
which he preached on the receipt of the news 
expresses only an eagerness to draw spiritual 
profit from the event. In a later sermon (105), 
when he returns to his theme, he observes that 
his hearers are saying openly : c Oh ! why does he 
not cease to talk of Rome ; and he is obliged to 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 299 

disavow any intention of hurting their patriotic 
feelings. But such an attitude does not please 
the patriotic divines of our day, and it is concealed 
with an abundance of unwarranted phrases. Let 
us be more just to Augustine. The distinction 
of the two cities was already clear in his mind, and 
it forbade him to feel or express a sorrow for the 
misfortunes of the city of men. However, he 
soon found that a loud and angry murmur against 
Christianity surged through the empire in the 
train of the awful news. 

If the transcendental aspect of the fall of Rome 
offered considerable difficulty to the rival theo 
logians of the time, the merely secular problem, 
whether Christianity was responsible for the 
catastrophe, may be approached more hopefully. 
Boissier says that that, with certain reserves, the 
majority of modern historians agree with Gibbon 
that Christianity and Christian princes must bear 
the blame of the disaster, though Boissier himself 
resents the charge. Most readers will feel that 
that is not a just formulation of Gibbon s feeling, 
and modern historians draw up so lengthy and for 
midable a list of dissolving elements that they leave 
little room for the destructive action of Christianity. 
He would be a bold historian who would contend 



3 oo ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

that Alaric would never have entered Rome if 
Diocletian had succeeded in extinguishing the 
Christian sect. Rome died of exhaustion, and the 
malady had set in long before the time of Diocletian. 
Christianity was not responsible for the wars that 
continued to drain the treasury and deplete the 
army throughout the fourth century ; nor for the 
increasing decay of the curial or middle class, which 
mainly bore the financial burden, and was gradually 
ruined by the stupid fiscal system ; nor for the 
depopulation of the environs of Rome and of the 
agricultural districts, that had fed the legions ; 
nor for the concentration of the people in the 
towns and the increasing degradation and enerva 
tion of town life ; nor for the introduction and 
training and evil management of the barbarians ; 
nor for that displacement of the Huns in the far 
East which precipitated the barbarian avalanche. 
It may be urged that the emphatic otherworldli- 
ness of Christianity damped the ardour of 
patriotism and made light of the service of the 
empire. The patriotic feeling that had built up 
the empire had already been corrupted, or turned 
into a frothy jingoism, to use a modern term, 
by selfish dissipation. In any case, Christianity 
was not taken so seriously as that by any large 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 301 

proportion of the Romans. The number who 
shirked military and civic duties on religious 
grounds was very small in comparison with the 
number, of cowards. In fact, the Council of 
Aries had discountenanced the notion in 314, and 
we find Augustine repudiating it when he is 
pressed by anxious officials. Nor can we com 
plain of the millions which a Proba or a Melania 
spent on the Church, when even richer Romans 
spent their wealth in selfish luxury. 

As to the Christian emperors, the charge is 
clearly fallacious. It is difficult to see how it 
would have altered the fortunes of the empire if 
Honorius had been a pagan, or how much more 
Theodosius would have done for it, had he sup 
ported the old religion. It was one of the grim 
humours of fate a fine crux for the providential 
historian, if he would face it frankly that the 
senate had been relieved of its responsibility, the 
succession of a number of boy-emperors had left 
the direction of affairs and the employment of 
material at the mercy of a series of intrigues, and 
the action of two centuries of corroding forces 
had culminated, just in that half century when the 
greatest pressure was exerted on the walls of the 
western empire. Where vigour and wisdom and 



302 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

capability were wanting, religion could make little 
difference. If the fact that Gratian, Valentinian, 
and Honorius were Christians seems to have any 
significance, we have only to recall the sincerely 
Christian Theodosius, with whom, says Gibbon, 
the genius of Rome expired/ The one great 
political evil of the triumph of Christianity was 
the profound distraction of the empire by religious 
quarrels when every eye should have been bent on 
the movements of the tribesmen and the weak 
ness of the empire. But it is more than doubtful 
if the absence of this distraction would have pro 
longed the life of the empire in its integrity for 
ten years. 

No ; the murmur against Christianity, which at 
length impelled Augustine to turn his polemical 
faculty on the pagans, rested on less tangible con 
siderations. We do, it is true, find a certain 
amount of the more rational criticism in cultured 
circles, though we have, as I said, singularly little 
knowledge of the feeling towards Christianity 
of the cultured pagans. One of the few open 
declarations in the Latin literature of the period 
is a bitterly contemptuous passage in the poet, 
Rutilius Numantinus, on the cowardly and 
unintelligible withdrawal from the world of the 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 303 

Christian monks. A more interesting glimpse is 
afforded by one or two of Augustine s letters of 
(most probably) the year 412. Amongst those 
who had taken refuge in Africa was Volusianus, 
a distinguished member of one of the noble 
families into which Christianity had penetrated, 
and afterwards prefect and proconsul. His 
mother had pressed Augustine to open a corre 
spondence with him, and he did so, urging him 
to read the Christian Scriptures and submit his 
difficulties. Volusian replied with great courtesy 
and sincere respect. He said that he and a 
number of friends had been holding at Carthage 
one of the formal, rhetorical conversations which 
were then in vogue somewhat in the style of 
the Saturnalia of Macrobius. A member of the 
group had introduced Christianity, and they had 
puzzled over the details of the birth and humanity 
of Christ. But the letter was covered by one 
from Count Marcellinus (who had presided at the 
great conference), in which he begged Augustine 
to send a careful reply, and said that, in addition 
to these rationalistic difficulties about the Incar 
nation, Volusianus and his pagan friends had been 
concerned about those features of Christ s teach 
ing which Count Tolstoy now holds in solitary 



304 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

grandeur. They respectfully submitted that to 
turn the other cheek to the smiter was a some 
what questionable ideal to propagate in the empire. 
Augustine sent a long, careful, and ingenious 
reply, but it failed of its immediate object. 
Hagiographers generally declare that Volusianus 
became a Christian at Constantinople on his 
deathbed long afterwards, but even this consola 
tion rests on a very dubious identification. All 
Augustine s concessions to human nature as, that 
Christianity did not condemn war, etc. could 
not cover the weakness of his position ; indeed, he 
had to fall back in the end on the usual theory that 
faith opens the door to intelligence and infidelity 
closes it. Volusianus seems to have preferred 
the rationalistic maxim with which Augustine 
himself always confronts alien revelations. Mar- 
cellinus also mentioned in his letter that the owner 
of most of the Hippo territory was present at the 
conversation, and spoke sarcastically of Augus 
tine s failure to answer his own questions. 

But the historic literary sequel to the fall of 
Rome was the writing of Augustine s famous City 
of God. For several years after the triumph of 
the Goths the murmur against Christianity rolled 
sullenly through the provinces. When the 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 305 

temples were closed and the sacrifices forbidden, 
the Christians enjoyed the facile triumph of ask 
ing : c Where is the thunder of your Jove ? In 
410 the answer sprang to the troubled lips of the 
pagans. The empire had been smitten for its 
infidelity. It was one of those popular cries that 
seem unanswerable to the multitude. They re 
membered the eloquent warning of Symmachus. 
Time after time Augustine returned to the point 
in his sermons, gradually elaborating the idea of 
his great work. Then brother prelates urged him 
to meet the attack. He himself had stimulated a 
young Spanish priest, who came to visit him, into 
writing a history of the world, which should show 
by the bare record of events judiciously arranged 
or curtailed the futility of the notion that 
disaster only entered the Roman world with 
Christianity. But Orosius had not the large ideas 
of the philosophic Augustine, and his history 
must have had little effect. By the year 413 
Augustine had matured his central idea of the two 
cities, and he began the first of the twenty-two 
books of his most familiar work. 

Of the work in its entirety one may safely say 
with Gibbon that it had the merit of a magni 
ficent design, vigorously and not unskilfully 



306 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

executed. The design to which Gibbon refers 
is the idea of the two cities, with which most 
readers are acquainted. Plato had conceived the 
world about us as a compound of two worlds, the 
light of the ideal world mingling with and breaking 
through the ever-changing panorama of the world 
of sense. In like manner Augustine conceives 
the drama of life to be a blending of two elements. 
The life of the individual and of the nation, as it 
appears to the natural mind, is part of a larger 
whole, revealed to us in all its grandeur by the 
Christian Scriptures. And Augustine s thesis is 
that only in this larger whole can we see the true 
proportion of historic events ; only when we 
appreciate that the members of the city of men 
are also members of the city of God can we follow 
their fortunes correctly. But they who look for 
a philosophic unity in the work will be greatly 
disappointed. The first ten books are devoted 
to a rambling criticism of the pagans five to 
historical and general criticism, and five to a 
criticism of their philosophers ; the remaining 
twelve books bear the title of the City of God 
more appropriately, though they also were 
evidently not written on a preconceived plan. It 
could not be otherwise in Augustine s circum- 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 307 

stances. His days were crowded with work. It 
was only at rare intervals that he could find a few 
hours to devote to the book. He probably began 
it in 413, and wrote the first three books. In 
the year 416, when Orosius was with him, he had 
reached the eleventh book. He speaks of writing 
the fourteenth in 420, and he seems to have com 
pleted the work in 426 or 427. One knows how 
much unity to expect in such circumstances, and in 
view of the constant interruptions of Augustine s 
life. It is a wonderful presentment of Augustine s 
earlier erudition, loosely unified and curiously 
interpreted by his later theological opinions. 

The first five books were intended directly to 
refute the current pagan murmurs, as I said, but 
they are hardly likely to have been very successful. 
The argument is strained and inconsistent, and 
the criticism small. He opens with an unhappy 
stress on the circumstance of Alaric sparing those 
who took refuge in the churches at Rome, which 
he declares to be unique. The Benedictines them 
selves refute his point in a footnote. Then, con 
tinuing his consolation of the wavering Christians, 
he gives the usual unanswerable reply to the 
question why God permitted the Christians to 
suffer ; if they were bad Christians, they suffered 



3 o8 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

for their sins ; if they were good, the suffering was 

a purification and trial. But there was still less 

consolation in such phrases as : No one was 

killed, who would not have had to die some day, 

and * What does it matter how a man s life ends 

so long as he is not compelled to die again? He 

attacks the suicides of Lucretia and Cato in a 

petty spirit, and, when he recollects that saints 

have done something similar, takes refuge in 

particular inspiration. In the next book he 

urges that the Roman gods never commended 

probity of life ; and, when an esoteric doctrine of 

that kind is produced, he replies that the devil 

would not be the devil if he did not imitate the 

angel of light at times. When he proves the 

helplessness of the gods, in the third book, by 

narrating the disasters of Rome in pre-Christian 

ages, he has an easy task ; but even this point 

collapses when he asks, in the following book, why 

God rewarded the Romans with so vast an empire 

(he remarks incidentally that extent of domain is 

no advantage) ; and when he answers that it is the 

natural (i.e. secular) reward for their natural 

virtues, he forgets that he has previously handed 

over the early Romans to the inspiration and 

assistance of demons. In his anxiety to make all 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 309 

virtue theistic, he enters into a sorry criticism of 
the finest models of old Rome. Finally, he con 
cludes the fifth book with a fine ideal portrait of 
a c Christian emperor ; in sweet unconsciousness 
that its only use is to show what the emperors of 
the fourth century should have been and were not. 
This tissue of contradictions must have quite 
neutralised the force of his vast, yet imperfect, 
historical erudition, and his subtle and ingenious 
reasoning. 

In the philosophic books (6-10) he vigorously 
attacks those who support the old religion on a 
ground-work of the monotheistic ideas of Varro 
or Plato. Whenever he deals with the details 
of the Roman mythology he is irresistible and 
there is no one to resist him. He is less forcible 
in his criticism of Varro and of the Platonists, 
though he is still respectful to Plato. In the end 
he wisely entrenches himself on the inability of 
Varro or Plato to spread truth and virtue amongst 
the masses, and so introduces, in a very earnest 
and beautiful passage, the necessity of the Incar 
nation. The one defect here is his unconscious 
ness that the chief question is the historical one 
did God become man ? Probably few noticed 
that defect in his day. 



3 io ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

The second half of the work is constructive 
and theological. Six books(n-i6) are devoted 
to one of his innumerable efforts to get at the 
light which he was convinced was hidden in 
Genesis. 1 The subtle speculations on creation 
are renewed from his Confessions, and the text of 
Genesis leads him to discourse on evil and sin, 
whilst he labours with painful ingenuity over the 
details of the now superannuated legends ; in 
proof of the existence of giants in early times he 
quotes the finding of a huge tooth (possibly of a 
mammoth), and he thinks the angels may have 
taken the animals to the outlying islands after the 
flood. With even greater boldness he proves 
that Abraham did not tell a lie about Sara, and 
that the patriarchs were indifferent to sexual 
pleasure, and only propagated the race so largely 
out of a sense of social duty. In the concluding 
books he leads up gradually to an eloquent pre 
sentment of the Christian doctrine of the c last 
things illustrating, by the way, the action of 
eternal fire from the life of the salamander, and 
sternly rebuking miser icordes nostri for questioning 

1 It is in the eleventh book that he anticipates Descartes famous 
Cogtto, ergo sum" It has been proved that Descartes did not follow 
Augustine, but it has not yet been inquired whether Augustine 
borrowed the idea from Plotinus. 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 311 

\ 
the eternity of hell. It seems to be a pretty 

general feeling amongst historical writers that 
the work cannot have had a great influence on its 
age, though it became the chief monument of 
Augustine s learning and power in after years. 
Again let me recall the circumstances under which 
it was produced ; probably no other work of such 
a magnitude and ambition was ever written under 
such distracting circumstances. Augustine had 
little leisure for sustained reflection, and even less 
opportunity to complete his faulty erudition. To 
have produced a great work in such circumstances 
was a remarkable achievement. 

To return to the period immediately after the 
fall of Rome. Africa was the natural refuge of 
the wealthy Romans who fled before the stream 
of barbarians, and some curious scenes were wit 
nessed there in 411 and 412. One of these 
scenes occurred in Augustine s church at Hippo, 
and caused him considerable pain. Amongst the 
rich Christian families that fled from Rome was 
the very remarkable family of Melania, who came 
to Africa in 411, with her daughter-in-law Albina, 
and grand-daughter Melania the younger, with 
her husband Pinianus. Melania the elder, one of 
the most notable Christian ladies at Rome, and 



312 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

widow of a consul, had developed a quite fanatical 
fervour for inducing people to make vows of con 
tinence or embrace the monastic life. Albina 
seems to have been of a less nervous temper, and 
Melania concentrated her domestic zeal on her 
grand-daughter. The young Melania was a 
susceptible pupil, but she had married Pinianus 
at an early age in deference to her father s wish. 
The elder lady then made strenuous efforts to 
part the young couple, and they had consented 
to take a vow of continence after their second 
child was born. The young wife added many 
other ascetical practices, using a pious deception 
with regard to her more judicious spouse. 
Jerome s advice about the bath was taken to 
heart, and she used to bribe the slaves who 
accompanied her to the room to conceal the fact 
that she had not bathed ; she is also said to have 
worn a hair shirt under her silken robes. When 
the fear of invasion began in 408, they sold their 
vast estates in Spain, Italy, and Gaul, liberating 
eight thousand slaves, it is said, and fled to Sicily, 
and afterwards to Carthage, with the proceeds 
and the income of their African domains. Simeon 
Metaphrastes, a hagiographer with a fine gift of 
rounding numbers and selecting striking facts, 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 313 

says that their palace at Rome was so costly that 
no one could buy it until the barbarians had 
reduced its value. However, scattering gold on 
* the poor and religious clergy as they travelled, 
they passed through Sicily and Carthage, and 
settled at Thagaste. There they continued their 
benefactions, founding a monastery of eighty 
monks and a convent of one hundred and thirty 
nuns, and spending vast sums in * making con 
verts/ They were naturally eager to see Augus 
tine, but he explained in a letter to Melania that 
the severity of the winter prevented him from 
coming, besides that, he candidly added, his 
congregation were already f most dangerously 
scandalised at his frequent absence. Hence 
Pinianus and his wife came to see him at Hippo, 
and there occurred one of the curious scenes 
which enliven the church life of those informal 
days. 

The people of Hippo were well acquainted 
with the wealth and generosity of Pinianus, and 
one day when he and Melania were at service in 
the basilica, they began to demand him for their 
priest. Pinianus seems to have had some pre 
vious experience of this kind, for he had 
in advance secured a promise on oath from 



3H ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine that he should not be ordained against 
his will a by no means uncommon contingency in 
those days. Augustine, therefore, curtly told the 
people of his promise, and threatened to leave 
them if they persisted. Some of their leaders 
then approached him in the apse, and pressed 
their request. He could only repeat his refusal, 
and a horrible turmoil followed. The people 
loudly accused Alypius, who was with Augustine 
in the apse, of wanting all the wealth for his own 
church of Thagaste ; whilst Pinianus and Melania 
spoke bitterly of the sordid covetousness of 
Augustine s people. The bishop began to be 
apprehensive for the life of Alypius and, as he 
afterwards said, lest they should pull his church 
down. After a long and painful period of 
altercation and vituperation between priests and 
people, Pinianus was compelled to promise on 
oath that he would not leave Hippo or be ordained 
in any other church, and the people dispersed. It 
was a sad time for the poor bishop, as he indicates 
in a subsequent letter to Alypius. Albina openly 
associated Augustine with his congregation in the 
charge of avarice ; the common people accused 
thee of this/ he says to Alypius, c whilst we were 
accused by the lights of the Church. He * is 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 315 

not angry with Albina, nor does he think she 
should be rebuked, but if anybody has given her 
a different version of the affair from the above he 
or, rather, she, for he is clearly thinking of 
Melania either lies or is mistaken. Alypius 
and Albina held that the oath extorted so violently 
from Pinianus did not bind, but Augustine claimed 
compliance with it. Eventually the difficulty was 
removed in an unexpected fashion. They were 
robbed of their remaining estates by the un 
scrupulous Heraclian, and the affection of the 
worthy Hipponenses rapidly cooled and restored 
his liberty to Pinianus. The elder Melania had 
already departed for the monasteries of the east, 
after making another fruitless attempt to separate 
the chaste spouses. When their wealth was gone, 
they also proceeded to Palestine, and rejoiced the 
aged zealot by breaking up their home and enter 
ing different monasteries. 

The Heraclian I have just mentioned will be 
remembered as the loyal count of the African 
forces, who retained the country for Honorius 
against the forces of Attalus. In the confusion of 
410 and 411 his loyalty suffered a remarkable 
transformation, and ended at length in open 
rebellion. Heraclian was the leader of the 



316 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Christian party after the disgrace of Olympus. 
Yet when the fugitive nobles fled to Carthage 
after the fall of Rome, they found this loyal and 
Christian prince awaiting them at the port like 
Orcus at the gate of hell, to use Jerome s forceful 
phraseology. Alaric had been less cruel. Noble 
mothers fled with their daughters from the fierce 
Goths, only to find a more certain disaster at the 
hands of the Roman. Gibbon has observed or 
conjectured that the lack of youth or beauty or 
chastity saved the honour of most of the ladies 
of Rome. Salvianus gives a very different idea 
of the Goths ; but, in any case, large numbers of 
the Roman ladies had fled to Africa, and there 
wealth was their only preserver. Those who had 
not brought considerable treasure, with which to 
pay their footing on African soil, saw their 
daughters torn from their embraces and sold to 
the Syrian merchants who supplied the busy 
markets of the east. 

Amongst those who suffered severely at the 
hands of Heraclian was a second trio of noble 
Christian ladies, Proba Faltonia and her daughter- 
in-law Juliana, and grand-daughter Demetrias. 
I have said in a previous chapter that the palace 
of Proba, heiress of the Anicii and wife of the 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 317 

prefect Sextus Petronius Probus, was one of the 
chief Christian centres at Rome. Mr. Dill 
describes Probus as a rather lukewarm Christian ; 
at all events, he and his three sons (all consuls) 
were not deterred by any lofty religious scruples 
from devoting their services to the falling empire. 
When Rome had fallen, the three ladies sailed for 
Carthage with such treasure as they could convey 
from the wreck of their vast fortunes. But they 
had only preserved the young and beautiful 
Demetrias from the rude embraces of Alaric s 
soldiers to find a crowd of Syrian merchants 
bidding for her on the quays of Carthage. Juliana 
is said to have parted with half her remaining 
fortune to the despicable Heraclian before she 
and her daughter were set at liberty. They then 
settled at Carthage, and we have a long letter 
which Augustine wrote them on prayer. Two 
years afterwards great excitement was caused 
throughout the empire, we are told, by the 
announcement that the young Demetrias, a famous 
beauty, and the last heiress of three celebrated 
families the Probi, the Anicii, and the Olybrii 
was about to make a vow of virginity. She was 
betrothed to a Roman noble, but the general 
apprehension that the end of the world was at 



318 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

hand seems to have reduced the harshness of the 
growing cult of virginity, and she, like so many 
others, yielded to the higher counsel apparently 
through the inspiration of Augustine. In 414 
Augustine received from Juliana the usual apopho- 
retum, or wedding-gift, announcing that her 
daughter had taken the veil. Whilst worldly- 
minded Romans deplored this extinction of another 
of Rome s best families for a perverse and morbid 
ideal, Augustine and Jerome and the other 
Christian leaders showered the most enthusiastic 
panegyrics on the mother and daughter. Amongst 
others, Pelagius, who had already begun to disturb 
the western theologians with his sturdy defence 
of human nature, wrote an admiring epistle to 
the virgin, and did not neglect to point out the 
power and nobility of the human will which were 
exhibited in her heroic vows. The letter, or 
treatise, had considerable vogue at the time, and 
eventually fell under the eyes of Augustine, who 
at once wrote to assure the bewildered maiden 
that (despite his praise of her conduct) her 
virtuous action must be attributed entirely to the 
grace of God. But the episode is part of the 
celebrated conflict of Augustine and Pelagius, 
which we must reserve for a later chapter. Juliana 



ECHOES OF THE FALL OF ROME 319 

seems to have returned to Rome with her daughter 
and the aged Proba, and the remnants of her once 
immeasurable fortune. 

We must also regard as one of the immediate 
echoes of the fall of Rome the rebellion of the 
rapacious Heraclian. The count had been sent to 
Africa after the death of Stilicho, and had held it 
against the troops of Attalus. But the disasters 
of the empire and, probably, the sight of the 
hopeless incapacity of Honorius inspired him 
with an ambition for the purple. With his mad 
expedition to Italy and defeat by Count Marinus 
we have no concern, but there was a sequel which 
greatly agitated Augustine. When Marinus came 
to Africa to extinguish the last sparks of the 
rebellion, there was the usual zeal for the execution 
of prominent sympathisers. Amongst those who 
were denounced to Marinus was Augustine s 
friend, the tribune Marcellinus, who had presided 
at the conference with the Donatists. Orosius 
mentions in his history a suspicion that the 
Donatists had denounced Marcellinus and bribed 
Marinus to have him executed ; Jerome is also 
of that opinion. It is impossible to say whether 
there is any truth in the suggestion, or whether 
Marcellinus was really implicated, but the 



320 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

circumstances of his execution are not free from 
suspicion. Augustine was at Carthage pleading 
the cause of his friend, and he obtained from 
Marinus a promise that no action would be taken 
until the bishops had communicated with the 
emperor on the matter. The promise was broken, 
and Marcellinus and his brother were executed in 
prison soon afterwards. Augustine s behaviour 
on the occasion is not so clear as one would wish ; 
perhaps the kindest interpretation is that he left 
Carthage in pious indignation at the duplicity of 
the officials. The churches were, he says in a 
letter to Caecilianus, filled with fugitive rebels 
who were protected for the time by the law of 
sanctuary, but sought Augustine s intercession 
for the settlement of their causes. Yet he left 
Carthage hurriedly and secretly, as soon as he 
heard of the execution of Marcellinus. He can 
only explain to Cascilianus that, as he dare not 
face Marinus and rebuke him as he deserved, he 
thought he had better leave the scene altogether. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 321 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 

THE preceding five chapters have presented so 
active and crowded a life that there seems little 
room left for literary labours. The long hours 
spent in preaching or catechising in his basilica, 
the yet longer hours devoted to his judicial func 
tions, the frequent journeys to and long detention 
in Carthage, the constant overlooking of his parish 
(or diocese), the sermons and public debates 
abroad, and the painstaking and humble concern 
with every grievance that is put before him, make 
up a heavy burden for a frail and constantly ailing 
man. Yet we have up to the present hardly 
touched upon one of the most exacting and most 
remarkable of Augustine s performances. In the 
midst of all those distractions he found time for 
literary labours of exceptional magnitude. Eleven 
volumes of the Migne edition of the fathers are 
occupied with his extant works. Moreover, the 



322 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

variety of the subjects he deals with is amazing. In 
his commentaries he covers nearly the whole ground 
of the Scriptures ; there is hardly a point of dogma 
or ethic which he leaves untouched in his theological 
works ; he talks science with the Manicheans, 
philosophy with the Platonists, and history with 
the pagans. So extensive an activity has its 
disadvantages, of course. His scriptural work is 
feeble when compared with Jerome s learned and 
leisurely interpretations ; just as the swift fluency 
of his style shrinks from comparison with Jerome s 
laborious production the hermit of Bethlehem 
polishing and rewriting his letters most con 
scientiously at the very moment he is pouring 
contempt on literature. Nevertheless, his hurried 
writings are so instinct with high personal thinking, 
that Leibnitz has pronounced him to be endowed 
with a most vast talent, Baur has said that no 
other theologian is so able or fertile, and Sir W. 
Hamilton, on the philosophic side, has considered 
him one of the profoundest thinkers of antiquity. 
I have already dealt with Augustine s earlier 
works, as well as with his anti-Donatist and most 
of his anti-Manichean writings. In the next 
chapter I shall speak of his anti-Pelagian works. 
Besides these we have a large number of scrip- 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 323 

tural and theological works, which were written 
for the most part between 400 and 420. Many 
of these I shall not trouble to describe. Probably 
few, if any, living people have read even the 
greater part of Augustine s works. The interest 
of many of them is obsolete, and there is, natur 
ally, a very large amount of repetition. The 
earlier works were too characteristic to be omitted. 
Where the later ones are also characteristic, or 
offer especial interest, I will point it out ; but it 
would obviously require a not inconsiderable 
volume to contain the summary of all Augustine s 
works, and a rare patience in the reader to make 
it serviceable. 

Commentaries on Scripture are clearly not 
works of which one may usefully give a summary, 
and two volumes of Augustine s writings fall in 
that class. The most notable of his biblical 
writings is his Commentary on the Psalms 
(Enarratio in Psalmos). This prodigious work, 
filling nearly two thousand columns of the Migne 
edition, was still read with admiring interest in 
the Middle Ages, and may even now serve to 
relieve the leaden hours in the life of some 
Carthusian monk. Petrarch calls it a magnifi 
cent work, when he writes to thank Boccaccio 



324 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

one wonders how much of it Boccaccio had read 
for a copy of it ; and whoever cares to dip into it 
will find, with Petrarch, that it is not less remark 
able for richness of sense than volume of letters. 
It is really a lengthy series of sermons, delivered 
in his basilica, or written for delivery, covering 
the whole book of Psalms. Unfortunately, this 
was the worst section of the Vulgate version of 
the Bible, reading at times as unadulterated non 
sense, in which Augustine seeks wisdom, and suc 
ceeds to a painful extent. Jerome had translated 
the Psalms from the Hebrew, but the old version 
could not be dislodged from the memories and 
affections of the monks and people. Augustine 
seems to have begun his work about the year 414, 
and no doubt continued it for many years. Of 
other Old Testament works we have his two 
commentaries on the Heptateuch (written about 
419), his Annotations to Job (c. 400), and his 
writings on Genesis. I have already described 
his earlier concern with the legends of Genesis, 
which had been quickened by Manichean contro 
versy. For a long time he hesitated between the 
literal and spiritual interpretation of the book, 
but at length decided to defend a literal interpre 
tation against the Manichees (who could not 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 325 

admit that God created matter, etc.). His first 
attempt, in 393, broke down : my noviceship 
failed under so formidable a burden/ He re 
sumed the task about the year 400, and com 
pleted it in 415. The work is not only pathetic 
in its vigorous defence of speculations which 
modern divines calmly assign to Babylonian 
ignorance, but it is marred by many of Augus 
tine s later ideas. The cosmological errors, the 
denial of the antipodes, etc., we gladly overlook ; 
but, though we recognise that it is most truly 
only the defect of his high spiritual quality, we 
read with pity his contemptuous attack on human 
knowledge. Many/ he says, c dispute about 
things which our authors have omitted, seeing 
that they do not conduce to the blessed life ; and 
take up with lower things very precious time 
that should be given to their salvation. For 
what is it to me whether the firmament enclose 
the earth on all sides like a sphere, or cover it 
from above like a disc ? Worse still is his 
commentary on the creation of woman, which 
reads as though he had entered into both letter 
and spirit of the old Hebrew writer, whose word 
for female recalls the earliest barbarism. He 
asks why God created woman, and his fertile 



326 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

imagination can find no reason whatever except 
procreation. 

We have also a number of commentaries on 
the New Testament. 1 The earliest of these is a 
short commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, 
and it was followed in 394 (or thereabouts) by 
glosses on the Epistles to the Romans and the 
Galatians. At the beginning of the fifth century 
he wrote his two books of Questions on the Gospels 
and the four books On the Harmony of the Gospels. 
The first book of the latter work is an attack on 
the pagans, and their comparison of Christ with 
Apollonius and Apuleius. In the other three 
books he proves that the Evangelists never really 
differ in their records. The question of the 
authenticity or trustworthiness of these records, 
which the modern world thinks of some import 
ance, does not occur to him. 2 About the year 

1 The task of identifying Augustine s works is greatly facilitated 
by the circumstance that both he (in his Retractations] and his pupil 
Possidius have left lists of his writings. I use the Migne edition, 
giving also (as a rule) the dates assigned by the Benedictines to each 
work. In the case of Augustine, the date of a work, from which a 
quotation is taken, is of extreme importance. 

2 He raises it in his work Contra Faustum, but only to dismiss it 
as ridiculous. He relies on the tradition of the Church j though 
when Faustus urges the same argument on behalf of the Manichean 
Scriptures, he shrewdly rejects it, and demands more tangible proof 
of their inspiration. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 327 

416 he published his ten treatises (or sermons) on 
the Epistle of St. John, and his large work (con 
sisting of one hundred and twenty-four sermons) 
on John s Gospel. The reader who turns over 
the pages of that copy of the latter work which 
lies on the shelves of the Museum reading-room 
will find ample, if not creditable, proof of the 
interest which the ecclesiastical world still takes in 
one of the sermons the 26th, commenting on 
the famous Eucharistic passage in the sixth 
chapter of John. Augustine speaks freely of 
the partaking of the body and blood of Christ, 
but neither here nor elsewhere does he anticipate 
the theory of transubstantiation. 1 Finally, there 
are his Mirror of Holy Scripture^ a compendium 

1 No one questions that the Christians of his time had the sacra 
ment of the Eucharist. But a close inquiry into the sense in which 
they conceived themselves to partake of the body and blood of Christ 
cannot find a satisfactory conclusion. Faustus says (in Contra 
Faustuni) to Augustine : You have the same veneration [religio] 
for the chalice and the bread as the pagans. 1 Augustine shirks the 
point, merely answering that the agapte were not borrowed (this, by 
the way, being scarcely even a * half-truth see his own sermon on the 
subject, p. 206). Faustus most probably meant the Mithraists by the 
pagans/ and we know how Jerome and other Christian writers were 
troubled about this parallel. The Mithraic Mass was strikingly 
similar to that of the Christians, and it ended with a Xaots a(eo-iy 
which is clearly the Greek for the Christian deacon s Ite, missa est. 
Probably the Christian feeling was as vague as that of the Mithraist 
with regard to the sacrament. 



328 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

of the moral and spiritual teaching of the whole 
Bible, published about the close of his life, and 
his four books On Christian Doctrine^ three of 
which were written in 397, and the fourth in 426. 
The latter work is not only a compendium of 
sacred teaching, but also an instruction on the 
value of different sciences and methods in the 
interpretation of Scripture. 

I have already said as much as the general 
reader will care to know about the dozen works 
Augustine wrote against the Donatists. They 
are chiefly occupied with a wearisome repetition 
of the dispute over Caecilian s ordination and the 
integrity of his ordainer, with Scriptural and 
theological disquisitions on the repetition of 
baptism and the sanctity and unity of the Church. 
The anti-Pelagian writings will be enumerated in 
the next chapter. To the anti-Manichean works 
we have already seen must be added a book, 
Against Adimantus the Manichee (mainly a Scrip 
tural study, written in 394), his large work 
Against Faustus (c. 400), his Debate with Felix 
the Manichee (404), his work On the Nature of 
the Good (published shortly after the preceding), 
and his book, Against Secundinus the Manichee 
(c. 405). Most of these works offer inconsider- 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 329 

able variations from his main attack on the 
Manichean position, but the Contra Faustum con 
tains much interesting reading. Its thirty-three 
books are cast in the form of a dialogue with the 
distinguished Manichean bishop, and the words 
attributed to Faustus and they are not Augus 
tine s make many a shrewd point. In his 
controversy with the Manicheans Augustine con 
tinually annihilated the position he himself took 
up in other matters. He invites Volusian and 
his pagan friends to join the Church on the 
principle that faith goes before understanding ; 
when the Manicheans would seduce him with 
similar phrases, he says : c I am not minded to 
believe what I do not understand ; I came to 
learn what is certain. l He demands faith in the 
Gospels without pretending to prove their authen 
ticity ; but when the Manicheans claim the in 
spiration of the Paraclete for their sacred books, 
he presses for proof. So it is with his onslaughts 
on other heresies, for there were few in his day 
that he did not encounter. He sends a list of 
them in the little work On Heresies which he wrote 
in his last years for the deacon Quodvultdeus. 
He has a small work Against the Jews, and another 

1 So he says in his Contra Epistolam Manichezi, 



330 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

(of the year 415) Against the Priscillianists and 
Origenists. On another occasion, apparently in 
420, a book is picked up by a Christian in the 
streets of Carthage. As no one knew either the 
person or the sect of the writer, it would seem to 
be safely negligible, but Augustine has to reply to 
it in a couple of books, Against the Adversary of 
the Law and the Prophets. In later years, too, he 
fell foul of the Arians or Unitarians. An Arian 
sermon seems to have fallen into his hands in 418, 
and he wrote a reply to it. His subsequent con 
troversy with the Arian bishop, Maximinus, will 
be described in the next chapter. 

Another group of Augustine s works has a dis 
tinctive interest ; they are those in which he deals 
as a casuist with questions of love and matrimony. 
It is well known that Augustine had views on 
these questions which even the modern world 
regards as perverse, but few imagine to what 
lengths his logical faculty compelled him to go. 
Brucker, premising a half-defiant and half-apolo 
getic remark to the effect that a spade should be 
called a spade/ observes that c the whole moral 
philosophy of the fathers was rather weak, and 
that Augustine does not take his place * in the 
first rank of philosophers. 1 Certainly, his views 

1 Historia Critica Philosophic. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 331 

on sexual relations, which were more or less 
shared by Jerome and Ambrose, were exceedingly 
unhappy. The root-idea of his whole philosophy 
is that there is something unhallowed in the very 
nature of sexual feeling, and especially sexual 
intercourse. The direct and obvious conclusion 
from this theory was a high estimate of physical 
integrity, and Augustine wrote a glowing eulogy 
of it in a small work On Continence, soon after his 
conversion (about 395). Five or six years later 
he was concerned to hear of the success of the 
monk Jovinian in attacking the cult of virginity, 
and he developed and defended the ascetic view in 
two works On Holy Virginity and On Conjugal 
Love. The latter work is, perhaps, the least 
attractive, though by no means the least interest 
ing, of Augustine s writings. As the opinions 
expressed in it are usually concealed by his 
biographers, and are, nevertheless, particularly 
instructive, it may be well to enlarge a little on 
them. Matrimony being a divine institution, 
Augustine has to seek in it the element which 
consecrates, or legitimises, the sexual indulgence 
it implies. This he finds in procreation ; though 
in one place he timidly adds its utility in removing 
the stress of temptation. From so narrow and 



332 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

forbidding a view of wedded love we may expect 
strange corollaries. In the first place, the pleasure 
which accompanies the act is unholy, and must 
not be desired or enjoyed. Then, since the main 
tenance of the race is easily assured, men and 
women of virtuous feelings should be exhorted 
to abstain altogether, and all men and women 
should abstain on holy festivals ; though he goes 
out of his way to assert that the virginity of the 
heretic is of less value than the marriage of the 
Christian. Moreover, his theory of marriage 
enables him to meet very successfully the favourite 
objection of the Manichees the polygamy and 
extensive families of the patriarchs. Since pro 
creation was the chief matter, and the human 
race called for rapid increase in those early ages, 
the conduct of the patriarchs was clearly moral 
and commendable ; they acted from a sense of 
duty, not a feeling of lust, he says indeed, one 
expects every moment that he is going to describe 
it as a painful necessity to them. 1 On the other 

1 In his earlier work, Contra Faustum, he confessed he did not yet 
fully understand the mystic life of the patriarchs. His progress had 
been rapid. Possibly M. Poujoulat and the other French writers on 
Augustine have omitted these interesting opinions lest their country 
men should claim that they are applicable in the circumstances of 
modern France, and wish to imitate the patriarchal virtue. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 333 

hand, continence is more commendable in his own 
day ; for Augustine, though he never explicitly 
grants it, and probably has no steady conviction 
to that effect, clearly shares the general appre 
hension that the end of the world approaches. 
But the most curious conclusion of all is one that 
the modern divine would reject with horror. If 
procreation is the essential aim, and a man s wife 
is proved to be barren, it follows, indeed, that he 
may still have relations with her to * relieve temp 
tation this Augustine grudgingly concedes 
but how can you forbid him to have a concubine 
in addition, for the purpose of rearing children ? 
Augustine cannot forbid him, he confesses, if the 
wife consents ; it was lawful to the patriarchs : 
whether it is lawful now or no, I should not like 
to say. Such is the peculiar and awful penalty 
of logically applying the ascetic Christian view 
of marriage. Nor does Augustine improve his 
position much when he considers the converse 
hypothesis of the man proving sterile. He will 
not allow the wife a paramour, because c it is in 
the nature of things for there to be only one lord 
and master/ He has no idea of woman s equal 
worth and dignity. Fortunately, in the end, 
when he is confronted with a pagan application of 



334 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

his principles Cato lending his wife to a friend 
he throws logic to the winds, and says : In our 
marriages the sanctity of the sacrament is of 
greater moment than the fruitfulness of the 
womb. But of the human holiness and beauty 
of marriage, of the sacrament of sexual love, this 
leader of men and light of many ages has no 
conception. 

Three other works complete his theory of the 
foundation of family life. About the year 414 
he wrote a book On the Blessedness of Widowhood. 
He was as strongly opposed as Jerome to the idea 
of remarrying. He exhorted widows to take a 
vow of continence, and declared that a breach of 
this vow by remarrying was worse than adultery. 
The practical conclusion that would be drawn 
from this principle in that age of widows is 
obvious enough. Here, also, he completes his 
patriarchal theory, contending that c the holy 
women who lived under the Law married out 
of obedience, not lust. His unfortunate ideas 
are further developed in the work On Adulterous 
Marriages, which he published about 419. The 
marriages he has in mind are chiefly the unions of 
divorced people, which he naturally denounces. But 
he incidentally enunciates a theory which is largely 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 335 

reversed in our day. He says that men are more 
culpable for their infidelity than women. Why ? 
4 Because they are men, he bluntly replies, with 
his usual depreciation of woman. Still, Augustine 
would not allow that a woman could lie to escape 
violence ; and, it is but just to add, he rejected 
the idea that it was lawful to lie for the purpose 
of gaining converts. These ideas occur in his 
work On Lying, of the year 395, and they are not 
inconsistent with the teaching of his later (c. 420) 
work Against Lying. Finally, I have to notice 
the work On Marriage and Concupiscence which 
he wrote in 419. It is a development of one 
aspect of his unfortunate theory. Sexual feeling 
is an unmitigated evil, born of original sin, and 
quite accidental to marriage. Had our first 
parents not sinned, the propagation of the race 
would proceed to-day with the tranquillity and 
mechanical smoothness of respiration. The con 
dition of Adam and Eve was even more philo 
sophic than that which Mr. Spencer seems to 
anticipate for the year 10,000 or so. 

There is one other work of Augustine s of 
which the reader may reasonably demand a brief 
description. I have already referred to the book 
On the Work of the Monks, which he published 



336 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

about the year 400. The book gives us a very 
interesting glimpse of the development of the 
monastic idea in Western Africa. The immediate 
occasion for the work was a controversy which 
then agitated the troops of monks, as to whether 
they were to work or no. We have already seen 
that the doors of the monasteries were thrown 
wide open, and crowds of members of the lower 
social orders flocked to them. Slaves embraced 
the black tunic in thousands ; agricultural labourers, 
ruined curials, and general labourers from the 
towns, swelled the vagabond armies. These 
monasteries had absorbed the streams of gold that 
flowed from the palaces of Proba and Melania, and 
they were generously supported by the ordinary 
Christians. The result was that an enormous num 
ber of hypocrites entered, and the name of monk, 
Augustine says, was uttered with contempt in the 
country. No sooner had they donned the black 
robe and secured a sustenance than they spread 
over the provinces. Some of them, says Augus 
tine, sell limbs of the martyrs if they really 
are martyrs ; others broaden their fringes and 
phylacteries ; others lyingly assert they have heard 
that their parents or relatives live in this or that 
country, and say they are going to visit them ; 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 337 

and all of them beg and demand the fee of their 
lucrative poverty, or the reward of their pretended 
holiness. Augustine severely condemned their 
idleness, and swept away their sophistry about 
Christ s exhortation neither to weave nor to spin. 
But once more he betrays his unpractical and 
unreasonable zeal. They are not to attack the 
disorder at its root by exercising some discretion 
in admitting neophytes. All who ask are to be 
admitted, even if they give no proof of emenda 
tion of life ; even though it be not clear whether 
they have come for the purpose of serving God, or 
have only fled in idleness from a poor and laborious 
life, to be fed and clothed, and perhaps honoured 
by those who had once despised and beaten them. 
Alas for Augustine s * vastissimum ingenium ! 

The remainder of his works, with a reservation 
of the anti-Pelagian writings, I propose to men 
tion briefly. The chief religious, theological, and 
philosophical ideas they contain are presented in 
other parts of this work, in so far as they are 
characteristic, nor will any one seek even a com 
pendium of the larger works in a biography of 
moderate proportions. There is, for instance, the 
large work On the Trinity^ in fifteen books, which 
he began about the year 400 and published in 41 6. 

Y 



338 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

It lies entirely beyond my field. The smaller work, 
the Manual on Faith, Hope, and Charity , which he 
published about 421, may be recommended as a 
short presentment of his fully developed views 
on moral and dogmatic theology. Some interest 
attaches, also, to the little book On the Care of the 
Dead, written about the same time, and therefore 
illustrative of his later views about the future state. 
Augustine commends the practice of praying for 
the dead, though he thinks the prayers will only be 
of service to them he does not, unfortunately, 
develop this hint at a purgatory, and we know he 
maintains the eternity of hell in proportion to the 
righteousness of their conduct on earth. Interest 
ing, too, is the little work On the Catechetical 
Instruction of the Ignorant, written at the request of 
a Carthaginian deacon about 400. It is a practical 
and painstaking manual of directions, pleasantly 
illustrating the side of early church-life which is 
indicated in the title. The admonition to wake 
up your drowsy subject occasionally with some 
thing seasoned with a little salt/ points clearly to 
Augustine s earlier years. There remain a host 
of works of a didactic or dogmatic character, 
which I will simply enumerate, with the dates 
assigned by the Benedictines, so that quotations 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 339 

may be appreciated : On Eighty-Three Different 
Questions (of philosophy and Scripture), begun in 
388 ; On Faith and the Creed , a sermon delivered 
in 393 ; On the Christian Combat (c. 396) ; On 
Various Questions of Simplicianus (chiefly from the 
Epistle to the Romans and the Book of Kings), 
dated 397 ; On Faith in the Unseen (sometime 
after 399) ; On the Divination of the Demons 
(406-11); On Faith and Works (413); On 
Patience (418); and On the Eight Questions of 
Dulcitius (422 or 425). Besides these there are 
included in his works special sermons * On the 
Creed, to the Catechumens, * On Christian 
Discipline, On the New Canticle, * On the 
Fourth Day, On the Flood, On the Barbarian 
Epoch/ * On the Use of Fasting, and * On the 
Destruction of the City/ mostly of unknown date. 
Nor can I omit to point out that a large number 
of his two hundred letters are really didactic or 
dogmatic treatises of considerable length. 

The series of Augustine s works fitly ends 
with a unique achievement. I have referred at 
various times to his Retractations. This remark 
able examination and criticism of his works was 
written in 426 or 427, his seventy-second or 
seventy-third year. Mindful of the peril and 



340 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the price of much talking, the aged bishop 
resolved to review the whole of his writings 
before his death. He did not live to revise his 
letters and sermons, but we have a complete re 
vision of his larger works, with important indica 
tions as to their date and object. * Retractation 
has not necessarily the meaning in Latin which 
we give to the term in English, 1 as the hagio- 
graphers eagerly point out. Augustine s object 
was to revise, though he professed a willingness 
to retract whatever was inaccurate or improper. 
We have, indeed, a number of withdrawals, and 
may measure Augustine s fortitude by that circum 
stance ; though we find, for our consolation, that 
he is far more eager to explain away than to with 
draw in that class of utterances where there is a 
real inconsistency between his earlier and later 
views his early views on free will and later views 
on predestination. As to his willingness to 
retract his praise of Plato, or of human friend 
ship, or of any of those gifts of nature that 
had gladdened and enriched his earlier years, we 
can but sorrowfully commend his high intention. 
The bloody pages of mediaeval history rise before 
us when we dwell on his later ideas. 

1 We have confused retrahere (to withdraw) and retraclare (to re 
vise or re-touch), and speak of retractation when we mean retraction. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 341 

From this authoritative list of Augustine s 
writings, as well as from the distinctive char 
acter of his work, the task of separating the 
mass of mediaeval forgeries and inaccurate descrip 
tions has been comparatively easy. No doubt, 
the list tended to encourage forgery at times. 
When one of the works mentioned was unknown 
to mediaeval readers, some leisured monk would 
gladly undertake to supply the deficiency. In 
fact the eagerness to imitate the great doctor 
was so precipitate, that even works which Augus 
tine says he had never written (on rhetoric, 
dialectics, etc.) were ascribed to him. How 
ever the mass of Augustinian literature has been 
very carefully expurgated by the Benedictines. 
In the result many writings have been rejected as 
indubitably spurious on which Roman Catholic 
writers still rely. This is notably the case with 
regard to the cult of the virgin. In Liguori s 
famous Glories of Mary, a fitting atmosphere for 
false quotations, we have a number of passages 
from spurious works, in which Augustine is 
credited with pronounced devotion to Mary. Still 
worse is the case of the Roman Breviary, in 
which a sermon attributed to Augustine is still 
read as his on the feast of the nativity of the 



342 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

virgin. Augustine never used language in any 
degree approaching that which is ascribed to him ; 
the sermon is an undisputed forgery. He had 
no personal feeling towards the mother of Christ, 
and no idea whatever of a public worship (the 
term used in the Roman Catechism) of her. He 
speaks with great respect of her, but has no idea 
of a practical relation of prayer, intercession, or 
veneration. With regard to the worship of the 
saints in general, the champions of Protestantism 
do not always appreciate the variations of Augus 
tine s views. It is quite true that, as I have 
shown, he repudiated the worship [cultus] of. 
dead men in his earlier works, but he yielded 
largely to the growing popular feeling in later 
years. In the sixteenth chapter we shall find a 
striking exemplification of this. 

Probably most people of our own day who 
would make an impartial and adequate study of 
Augustine s writings would gather an impression 
of a great mind, more subtle than powerful, seek 
ing judgment and expression in circumstances of 
exceptional hindrance. The occupations of his 
office permitted only a hasty and spasmodic direc 
tion of his thoughts to higher speculation after the 
year of his ordination. The intellectual condition 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 343 

of his time and his country did not afford the 
atmosphere of culture and philosophy which pro 
motes a healthy development. The moral reaction 
of his mind after conversion, and the incessant 
brooding on the least humane dogmas of early Chris 
tianity, perverted his moral judgment and feeling. 
The bitter sectarian controversies he had to direct, 
and the responsibility for the destruction of error 
which his office seemed to lay upon him, narrowed 
his thoughts and hardened feelings which should 
impose a salutary check on a ruthless logic. A 
French writer who has made a careful and, it 
seems, impartial study of his system passes this 
severe criticism on it : Taken literally and in 
certain pronouncements, though these are usually 
episodic and have been abused, his teaching 
destroys liberty of conscience, justifies slavery, 
shakes the foundations of private property, 
reduces history to special pleading, enthrones 
theocracy, and at the same time, in various 
respects, discourages toil and the love of glory, 
hampers the march of civilisation, and paralyses 
the energy of all science, especially of the physical 
and natural sciences. l Each point in that indict 
ment can be rigorously substantiated ; indeed, we 

- 1 M. Nourisson, in his Philosophic de Saint Augustin. 



344 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

have already seen the grounds for most of it. 
But, in justice to Augustine, these defects must 
be noticed in conjunction with the grave defects 
of his intellectual environment. Nor can we fail 
to see that they are frequently the defects of his 
qualities. If we are to regard as sublime his con 
ception of the two cities, we cannot complain of 
his logical application of that conception to life. 
If it be a species of moral heroism to keep one s 
eyes fixed long on the sun, the ensuing inability 
to see the things of earth in their true colours 
and proportions must be pardoned. To present 
the matter in another way, there never was and 
never will be there cannot be a life that offers 
commanding heights of supernatural exaltation 
without corresponding dips below the level of 
common human feeling. 

As to Augustine s erudition, Mr. Marcus Dods 
seems to express a general feeling when he de 
scribes it as varied, if not exact or profound. 
Erasmus would not grant him a solid knowledge 
of the sacred sciences. Mozley calls him c a one 
sided interpreter. Mosheim is equally critical. 
Baur observes that his scholarship was not equal 
to his intellect. One could hardly expect a 
different judgment after studying his career. 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 345 

For the first ten years of his mature life he was 
impelled by an extraordinary craving for know 
ledge. He devoured I have explained why I 
cannot say he assimilated the sciences of his day 
with great avidity. Even in this period, how 
ever, the world of Greek literature was closed for 
him, save for a few glimpses through the window 
of translation. Then came the reaction on his 
humane ardour, and a growing contempt for 
secular knowledge. In the years when his early 
and untutored cramming should have been cor 
rected and completed, his Livy and Varro, Cicero 
and Plato, Horace and Ovid, his astronomy, 
history, and philosophy, were pushed aside with 
pious disdain. If that has increased his saintli- 
ness, he cannot complain that it has diminished 
the reputation of his scholarship. We may still 
admit, with Villemain, that he is fhomme le plus 
etonnant de I eglise Lat ine" 

Further, one cannot make even a cursory study 
of Augustine s writings without noticing the pro 
found changes of his thoughts even after his 
conversion. To construct a scheme of Augus 
tine s system as the Germans say would be 
to write a compendium of dogmatic theology. 
Most of the parts would be familiar enough, nor 



34-6 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

would it be any information to hear that Augus 
tine accepted them such are the problems of the 
nature of God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and 
Scripture. The Christian teaching on these points 
he readily accepted with the Gospels. The chief 
changes we find were with regard to philosophy 
and his view of human life and human nature. 
In his earlier Christian years Augustine was bent 
on retaining his Platonist philosophy as the basis 
of his theology as supplying what the modern 
theologian calls the indispensable prteambula fidei. 
The central idea of it was the mind s intuition of 
eternal realities (truth and justice) and eternal 
truths (moral and intellectual principles). From 
this he proceeded with confidence to the existence 
and attributes of God and the spirituality of the 
soul. Signs and wonders were no longer wrought 
on earth or written on the heavens to compel men 
to listen to God ; they must be induced by this 
philosophic reasoning. Hence reason was a 
divine gift and Plato a divine thinker. To 
point out the powerlessness of Plato and Varro 
to convince the multitude, and the hopeless 
obscurity of the popular mind in face of these 
high truths, was to conclude that God, in His 
justice, had given the world a more authoritative 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 347 

teacher than Plato, and a more luminous and un 
fading gospel than that which was faintly traced 
in reason and conscience. Thus were the Incar 
nation and the Christian Bible introduced ; and 
this Bible revealed features of the divine nature 
(such as the Trinity) which were above the gaze 
of reason, and positive enactments (baptism, 
church-membership, the necessity of grace, etc.) 
which were beyond the sphere of conscience. 

In the Church of Rome to-day we have a 
perfect illustration of the change which came over 
Augustine s philosophy. In her academies, in 
the atmosphere of the study, her teaching is 
rationalistic. She leads the inquiring thinker up 
the very steps that Augustine ascends in his early 
works, and insists that c reason precedes faith. 
But in the streets and the market-places she 
reverses the order, and demands faith as a con 
dition of understanding. So far is this true 
that the world at large is ignorant of her academic 
doctrine, and only knows Rome as the champion 
of authority and the rebuker of reason. When 
Augustine passed from his academy, his Epicurean 
fellowship, and monastic community, to the streets 
of life, his Platonism gradually faded, and his 
maxim was reversed. He found neither reason 



348 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

nor conscience in his people, but he found a 
willingness to accept any gospel that had weighty 
pretensions and an air of magic about its history. 
He found the few reasoners the most troublesome 
and rebellious of his flock. So by and by he 
formulated the famous faith goeth before under 
standing/ which has lived with his memory ; and 
reason became a giftless gift of the enemy, and 
Plato an impious man. The Agora prevailed 
over the Academy. 

The second and the greater change was in his 
view of man s nature and life. His first concep 
tion of the Christian teaching was as an additional 
light to his reason and conscience, confirming and 
enlarging their view of life, and bringing with it 
the promise of an undefined assistance to the will. 
It seemed at first to confirm the optimism he had 
recently learned from Plotinus. But this did not 
last long. The Manichean view of the world was 
still deeply rooted in his mind, and the moral 
reaction of his conversion only served to deepen his 
sense of the world s inherent evil. Moreover, the 
teaching of Genesis and of St. Paul soon suggested 
what seemed to be a way of reconciling the 
optimism of the Neo-Platonists and the pessimism 
of the Manicheans, and making a final peace with 



THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE 349 

the world. The pivot of his optimism must be 
transferred to heaven, and then the earth and all 
the children of men could be freely handed over 
to the damnation of priginal^sW The ascetic 
teaching of Christ fully harmonised with this 
theory. Since it was only a finite devil, multi 
plied vaguely into legions, that played havoc 
with the world, the supremacy of God was un 
impaired ; and since man himself had caused this, 
by breaking a deliberate bargain, the sanctity and 
justice of God were untouched. On the other 
hand, the generosity and love of God had opened 
a higher world to man instead of the one he had 
forfeited, and we were to make our way thither 
with all the caution and anxiety which were 
demanded by its lofty character and the devil- 
beset nature of our path. 

Reasoning in this way, Augustine receded 
gradually from the optimism of Plotinus, partly 
following, partly constructing, the familiar lines of 
Catholic theology. From this root sprang inevit 
ably the most repellent of his opinions the placid 
damnation of the unconscious babe as well as the 
appalling violence done to the conscience of the 
sincere Donatist, the contempt of sexual love 
(with its sinister results), as well as the extinction 






350 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

of patriotic feeling. The pressure and the horrors 
of the schism led to an exaggeration of one appli 
cation of his theory, and Pelagius s attempt to 
restore some dignity to human nature occasioned 
another exaggeration. The one we have already 
studied, and the other we may now examine at 
some length. 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 351 



CHAPTER XV 

AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 

IF it was a singular advantage to the Christian 
Church to have such a man as Augustine at hand 
to meet the Donatist schism and the Pelagian 
heresy, it was, nevertheless, a peculiar mischance 
for Augustine himself that he had to confront 
those hostile movements in his later years. One 
is tempted sometimes to wonder how different 
the structure of Christian theology might have 
been, if Augustine had faced those systems in his 
earlier sacerdotal years, when his strong human 
sympathy still found something lovable in the city 
of men, and the gentle charm of the better Neo- 
Platonist ideas still lingered about his thoughts. 
Twenty years of episcopal experience had com 
pleted the transfer of his affection and his sym 
pathy to the higher world. He had learned to 
trample on the consciences of his fellows for the 
sake of what now seemed to him a higher interest. 



352 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Donatism had developed in him a crude idea of 
church-membership and outward conformity which 
has led to the writing of many pages of church- 
history that we would gladly suppress. And no 
sooner had Augustine returned to his spiritual 
charge after the defeat of the Donatists than a new 
danger arose. He heard that some monks were 
spreading the notion that human nature had 
sufficient nobility to appreciate and sufficient 
strength to achieve the highest standard of holi 
ness; and forthwith he began to develop a doctrine 
of the utter degradation of our nature. 

It seems unquestionable that some part of what 
we now call the British Isles gave birth to the 
author of one of the most amiable heresies that 
ever vexed the soul of Christendom. Jerome, 
always more lively than accurate, describes Pelagius 
in one place as < a big, fat dog from Albion, and 
in another as * bloated with the pottage of the 
Scots (or Irish). Prosper calls him the British 
serpent ; and Augustine, Orosius, and Mercator 
frequently speak of him as British. 1 Orosius 
adds that he was born of poor parents, and Jerome 
affords many brief descriptions of his person ; but 

1 But the statement that he belonged to the Bangor monastery, 
and his real name was Morgan, rests solely on a late and unconvincing 
legend. 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 353 

the whole of the clerical attacks on him except 
that of Augustine are vitiated by a most obvious 
bitterness of temper and personal hostility. One 
physical feature does seem to emerge with some 
clearness from the mass of reckless qualifications ; 
he seems to have been a man of unusually large 
build. Jerome puts it that he could make more 
use of his weight than his tongue. Jerome had 
naturally not heard of the ascetic St. Thomas 
Aquinas, who had to have a large slice cut out of 
the table of his monastery to accommodate the 
anterior part of his person. But the implication 
that Pelagius was as deficient in moral weight as 
he was redundant in physical, is one of Jerome s 
reckless turns of phrase. Augustine, who studied 
his works carefully, grants him, in several places, 
a considerable ability. He was much esteemed 
by the ex-senator Paulinus of Nola, and Jerome 
and Augustine had great difficulty in averting 
from him the admiration of many other cultured 
and noble Romans. The integrity and elevation 
of his character were acclaimed on all sides in 
his earlier years. Augustine spoke highly of 
his virtue until his obstinacy in heresy made that 
no longer possible ; and even then Augustine 
did not sanction the charge of sensualism urged 



354 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

by the heated Orosius and Jerome. The hagio- 
graphers naturally conclude that he was virtuous 
until he fell into heresy, and then he contracted 
the vices his enemies attribute to him. The 
course of our narrative will probably suggest that 
the only change was in his antagonists, especially 
as the heresy is found in his earliest works. 

There is an eagerness shown by ecclesiastical 
writers to trace the germs of Pelagianism to the 
eastern Church. No doubt there is some plausi 
bility in the notion of tracing the theory of the 
strength of human nature to the energetic Origen, 
but the eastern temperament in general would be 
even less disposed than the Roman to originate so 
sturdy a heresy. The long reluctance of the East 
to condemn it is easily understood for other 
reasons, as we shall see. Even if the eastern monk 
Rufinus had influence over Pelagius, as Marius 
Mercator says, it does not at all follow that he 
inspired the heretical idea. We know with cer 
tainty only that Pelagius won great repute for 
holiness and asceticism at Rome in the first decade 
of the fifth century. The monastic idea had 
travelled swiftly from Rome to Gaul and Britain, 
and had created a number of fervent monasteries, 
besides inspiring a number of unattached or 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 355 

itinerant monks. But we can well imagine the 
effect of an acquaintance with the low moral 
quality of the Roman Church on the stalwart 
ascetic. Probably enough his earnest exhortations 
were met with an Italian shrug of the shoulders 
and an appeal to the weakness of human nature. 
Certainly the moral vigour of the individual was 
not promoted by the rapidly growing system of 
external aids to sanctity the worship of the saints 
and of relics, and the multiplication of sacraments 
and sacramentals. Pelagius was not a priest. He 
had not the sacerdotal bias in favour of ritual 
and objective sanctification. We need no specu 
lation about Oriental ideas to help us in under 
standing the growth of his main idea. He would 
at once insist on that natural strength of which he 
had so clear a consciousness, especially if we may 
assume, as we seem entitled to do, that he was a 
man of sober temperament and equable life. And 
if the scriptural doctrine of original sin were 
pleaded by more passionate temperaments and 
moral cowards, as pointing to a primeval corrup 
tion of our nature, he would resent it as a pretext 
or subterfuge, and endeavour to explain away the 
words of Genesis and St. Paul. 

We know enough of the Roman Church to 



356 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

learn without surprise that Pelagius incurred no 
reproach as long as he remained in the eternal 
city. His elevated character and zeal attached 
many of the best of the Italians to him, such as 
Paulinus, and a large number of the Roman 
clergy. In fact, there is an amusing and instruc 
tive illustration of the quality of his teaching. He 
wrote three works during his stay at Rome, one 
on the Trinity, another comprising a collection of 
moral maxims from Scripture, and a third which 
consisted of a commentary on St. Paul s Epistles. 
In the latter work his characteristic ideas were 
bound to find expression, and in point of fact 
Augustine detects many heretical passages in it a 
few years afterwards. But not only did this work 
receive nothing but approbation from the Chris 
tians of Rome, it was actually attributed at a later 
date to Pope Gelasius, and then, for several 
centuries, to Jerome himself, the most bitter 
opponent and critic of its real author. That is a 
unique and precious fact in the history of heresy. 
Further, he wrote a long letter on nature and 
grace to Paulinus in 405, in which Augustine s 
practised faculty discovered ten years afterwards 
a complete betrayal of his heresy. 

Pelagius was brought into conflict with Augus- 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 357 

tine s ideas a few years before their first personal 
encounter. An African bishop who was disputing 
with him at Rome quoted the well-known passage 
from the Confessions : Give us that Thou com- 
mandest, and then command what Thou wilt. 
Pelagius warmly resisted the sentiment, says 
Augustine. If we have not already the strength 
to observe the Commandments, the command 
itself is dishonoured, and moral indolence is 
perilously encouraged. But it was not until the \ 
year 410 that he met the great African bishop. J 
He left Rome in 409, when Alaric was threaten 
ing the city, and sailed for Syracuse with his pupil 
and companion, Coelestius. Coelestius was an 
advocate of some capacity, who had been converted 
to an ascetic life by Pelagius. Prosper affirms 
that he was sexless, from a congenital defect, so 
that he was providentially equipped with a fine 
qualification for the defence of Pelagianism. 
However, the two monks proceeded with the 
famous Rufinus to Syracuse, and shortly after 
wards sailed for Hippo. Augustine was occupied 
with the Donatists at Carthage at the time, and 
they went to see him there. They saw little of 
each other, however, owing to Augustine s pre 
occupation, and Pelagius soon departed for the 



358 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

East, leaving Coelestius to sow the good seed in 
Africa. 

It was, apparently, in 410 that they met at 
Carthage, but we do not find Augustine speaking 
of the new heresy until about 412, when the 
conflict opens. In that year Coelestius sought 
ordination at Carthage, and the bishop, Aurelius, 
directed that the new ideas which were attributed 
to him should be examined by a synod of his 
province. A deacon named Paulinus drew up the 
indictment, and succeeded in fastening the charge 
of heresy on the candidate for the priesthood. 
The points of the charge were : that Adam was 
created mortal, and would have died whether he 
sinned or no, and that his sin entailed no punish 
ment on his offspring ; that infants are born in the 
condition of Adam before his fall, and that even 
if they are not baptized they have eternal life ; 
that the race does not die in the sin of Adam, nor 
rise again in the resurrection of Christ ; and that 
the Law, no less than the Gospel, introduces men 
into the kingdom of heaven, and there were men 
living without sin even before the coming of 
Christ. Thus the simple Pelagian idea had 
already been confronted with texts from Scripture 
and points of ritual, and was rapidly growing into 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 359 

a theological system. Augustine was not present 
at this synod (he belonged to the Numidian, not 
the Proconsular province), but it is easy to see his 
inspiration in the arguments of Paulinus,and shortly 
afterwards he occupies himself openly with the 
disputed questions. 

Coelestius was excommunicated, and departed 
for the east ; but, as at Rome and in Sicily, he 
had left a number of disciples behind. Augus 
tine begins to discuss errors about nature and 
grace in his letters and sermons. Theologians 
usually observe that Augustine was eminently 
fitted by his own spiritual experience for combat 
ing the new doctrine. The Pelagians, on the 
other hand, maintained that their doctrine was 
not new ; that it was the Manichean taint, or 
a lingering feeling of ubiquitous devilry, that in 
spired Augustine s novel versions of original sin 
and the primeval corruption of human nature. It 
will be remembered that Augustine had readily 
surrendered his Manichean theory of the dual 
character of human nature for a Christian dualism 
which seemed to meet the facts of consciousness 
equally well. Instead of a divine soul and a 
diabolical soul, he came to believe in an element 
of corruption warring against a divinely implanted 



360 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ideal. The compact with Adam and the original 
sin shifted the responsibility of this corruption 
from God, so that he felt himself free to exag 
gerate it as much as he pleased without a shadow 
of reflection on God s sanctity. And what could 
be more apparent, both in the memory of his own 
struggle and in the world about him, than this 
appalling corruption and resistance to every 
elevating influence ? Paul had been so convinc 
ing because he started throughout from this fact 
of consciousness. And when St. Paul went on 
to say that only c the grace of God could lift 
us above this awful corruption of our nature, 
he seemed to be pointing an almost equally 
obvious moral. In this way aboriginal corruption 
and the necessity for grace (vaguely conceived 
as divine assistance) were facts both of conscious 
ness and Scripture for Augustine. He felt no 
disposition whatever to explain away St. Paul s 
vigorous presentment of that dual fact, nor could 
he sympathise with, or see any honest reason for 
such an extenuation. Moreover, he was quite 
insensible to the force of the ethical considerations 
that moved Pelagius that it was unjust to punish 
the race for the sin of Adam ; that it was bar 
barous to damn an infant that had never known 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 361 

sin ; that to deny the power of the will was to 
deny its responsibility ; and that to create a 
defective nature and then introduce a comple 
mentary super-nature was unworthy of infinite 
wisdom. These objections never touched the 
heart of Augustine, and his subtle mind coldly 
disposed of them without difficulty. The modern 
cynic is apt to observe that they were really dis 
puting whether the power for good which both 
admitted to exist in man (or there would be no 
question of responsibility and personal sin) was to 
be called natural or supernatural, will or grace. 
However that may be, each had his fact of 
consciousness Pelagius his sense of power and 
liberty, and Augustine his sense of corruption 
and his ethical or scriptural superstructure ; and 
in the stress of controversy neither could calmly 
survey the whole ground. Pelagius entirely 
believed that Augustine s outlook was vitiated 
by his long attachment to Manicheeism ; and 
Augustine was sincerely unable to see any reason 
except a criminal pride for his adversary s exalta 
tion of human nature. 

This, at least, it is gratifying to discover : 
Augustine long maintained an attitude of gentle 
and affectionate forbearance towards the persons of 



362 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Pelagius and Coelestius, and he never, even in the 
most heated stages of the conflict, descended to 
the vulgarity and bitterness of Jerome and 
Orosius. In his earlier letters (140, 143, 157, 
etc.), sermons (170, 174, 175, etc.), and works, 
he refrained from mentioning Pelagius and his 
friend. It was not until Pelagius resorted to 
undeniable equivocation that he began to attack 
his person. 

It was in 412 that Augustine wrote his first 
work against the new ideas. Marcellinus, the 
religious-minded official who had presided at the 
Donatist conference, consulted him on the 
Pelagian theories which he found prevalent in 
Carthage, and he was answered in a work On 
the Deserts and Remission of Sin. The practice 
of baptizing infants had become one of the most 
severe tests of the new ideas, and Augustine at 
once laid down his well-known belief with regard 
to them. The unbaptized infant will be punished, 
he says, but very lightly ; it cannot be with 
Christ, so it must be with the devil (book i.). 
When Marcellinus urges the ethical objection to 
this, he says (book in.) that he * cannot refute 
their arguments (he affected to do so later), and 
can only point to the Scriptures. Marcellinus 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 363 

was perplexed by his statement that, although man 
could with the divine assistance, avoid all sin, no 
human being, except Mary, had succeeded in 
doing so. This elicited another anti-Pelagian 
work, On the Letter and the Spirit, in which he 
gives a finely conceived and skilful explanation of 
the maxim that the letter kills and the spirit 
quickens. The light of conscience and of Scrip 
ture may only serve to illumine a man s diverg 
ence from the moral ideal. In the following year 
Pelagius wrote a friendly letter to Augustine, and 
received an equally friendly and respectful answer. 
In 414, however, the conflict became more pro 
nounced. A certain Hilary wrote to Augustine 
from Sicily, complaining of the alarming notions 
which flourished there since the visit of Pelagius 
and Coelestius, and Augustine replied at great 
length. Then he was approached on the subject 
by two young men of culture whom Pelagius 
had converted to the monastic life. Timasius 
and James seem to have heard of Augustine s 
denunciation of the new ideas, and they send him 
one of Pelagius s writings. The work confirmed 
Augustine s opinion of the danger of the heresy, 
and he replied to it in a book On Nature and 
Grace. In this work he boldly meets the ethical 



364 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

difficulties of Pelagius, affirming that the con 
demnation of the race to eternal punishment for 
Adam s sin was perfectly just, and the sentence 
could with absolute justice have been rigorously 
carried out on every individual. Shortly after 
wards two Sicilian bishops send him a list of 
Pelagian arguments which is circulating in their 
province, and he repeats his criticisms in a work 
On the Perfection of Human Justice. 

But the chief interest of the struggle passes for 
a few years from west to east, and we cannot 
follow Augustine s later activity very well unless 
we glance for a moment at the course of events in 
Palestine. Coelestius had received ordination at 
Ephesus, and Pelagius was continuing his mission 
at Jerusalem, untroubled save for the impotent 
vituperation of the monk of Bethlehem, when a 
hot-tempered young Spanish priest came upon 
the scene, straight from the feet of Augus 
tine. I have described how Orosius came to 
Hippo in 415, chiefly to consult Augustine on 
the heresies of the Priscillianists and Origenists. 
Augustine sent him on to Jerome, and it is not 
unnatural to assume that he recommended an 
interest in the proceedings of Pelagius at Jeru 
salem. At all events we learn from Orosius (our 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 365 

only authority, unfortunately) that when the 
bishop of Jerusalem held the customary synod 
of his clergy in July 415, he invited both Orosius 
and Pelagius to attend. Orosius was summoned 
to speak first, and he told of the condemnation of 
Ccelestius and the work which Augustine was 
writing against Pelagius. The monk was then 
introduced, and informed of the accusation. 
What is Augustine to me ? he coolly asked. 
And when the young zealot hastened to reply, 
the bishop quietly interjected, I am Augustine 
here, and bade them discuss the matter peaceably. 
In the end Pelagius was acquitted, and the ques 
tion was referred, at the demand of Orosius, to 
the decision of the Latin Church. 1 Orosius 
retired to Jerome s cell for consolation the 
charge of heresy having been shifted to his own 
shoulders during the synod and the Latin world 
was soon acquainted with the situation. 

The next move of the orthodox Latins was equally 
unsuccessful, and hardly more creditable. Towards 

1 It appears that the bishop, John of Jerusalem, snubbed the young 
Spaniard for his zeal on the following day, and Orosius wrote an 
extremely immoderate narrative of the proceedings. He contends 
that the interpreter (the Palestinians not knowing Latin) garbled his 
statements, and then explains that he knows this from some of the 
priests present who, like Pelagius, spoke both Latin and Greek. 



366 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the end of the year 41 5, a couple of Gallic bishops, 
Heros and Lazarus, who had been deposed or 
driven from their sees, appeared at the court of 
Eulogius, bishop of Cassarea, and laid an accusa 
tion against Pelagius. Of the character of the 
accusers it is impossible to judge ; Zosimus, 
bishop of Rome, speaks very unfavourably of 
them, though Prosper affirms their innocence. 
However, these men had drawn up an indictment, 
consisting of a number of quotations from the 
writings of Pelagius (many of which were not 
merely abbreviated, as they said, but entirely 
distorted), the condemnation of Ccelestius, and 
Augustine s letter to Hilary. Pelagius complained 
that they were instigated by the pious and peaceful 
community at Bethlehem. Eulogius referred the 
matter to his provincial synod, which met at 
Diospolis soon afterwards, and Pelagius was once 
more acquitted. The accusers failed to appear, 
one of them, Augustine says, being seriously ill. 
Pelagius was confronted with their libellus, and, 
partly by explaining misrepresentations, partly by 
disavowing the condemned propositions of his 
disciple, partly, it must be admitted, by ambiguous 
answers and equivocation, obtained a certificate of 
orthodoxy from the fourteen bishops. Shortly 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 367 

afterwards Jerome s monastery was taken by storm 
at Bethlehem. Some of the buildings were burned 
down, and one or two servants killed, but Jerome 
and his friends, with the Roman ladies who had 
settled there, found safety in a fortified tower ; 
though this outrage was never seriously laid to 
the charge of Pelagius. 

Probably one of the first intimations Augustine 
received of the result of the synod was a letter 
from Pelagius, covering a sort of apologia, in 
which he apprised the world of his absolution 
by the eastern bishops. Augustine proceeded 
cautiously, and waited impatiently for the return 
of Orosius. We have a fragment of a sermon in 
which he speaks with respect and reserve of the 
synod ; * perhaps Pelagius was corrected, he says. 
Even when Orosius arrived with a letter from the 
ex-bishops and a glowing account of the proceed 
ings in the East, he still maintained a certain reserve 
about the absolution of Pelagius, and spoke with 
respect of the synod. But there was clearly a 
pressing need of action in the western Church. 
The new ideas were spreading at Carthage and 
Syracuse. They already claimed the patronage 
of important clerics at Rome, such as the priest 
(afterwards pope) Sixtus. Augustine flew to 



368 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Carthage, and before the end of the year the full 
power of the African Church was bent on the 
destruction of the heresy. 1 

Some time before the end of 416 a provisional 
synod met at Carthage. Augustine read the 
letters from the East to the sixty-nine bishops, 
and it was decided to anathematise Pelagius and 
Coelestius, and request the bishop of Rome to join 
with them in the anathema. The same decisions 
were reached at the Numidian synod (at Mileve) 
of sixty-one bishops. Both the letters sent to 
Pope Innocent in the name of these synods were 
written by Augustine, and in a third letter he and 
Aurelius (of Carthage), Alypius, Evodius, and 
Possidius, made a more personal appeal to the 
bishop of Rome. The points of the charge 
against Pelagius are not new, but there are one or 
two incidental features of interest. In the first 
place, Augustine expresses in the third letter an 
apprehension of certain practical consequences 
from the Pelagian ideas. One is tempted to think 
that the clergy must have perceived, with some 

1 The acta of the synod of" Diospolis reached Augustine about the 
end of 4.16 or the beginning of 417, when he wrote his work On the 
Proceedings of Pelagius. Forgetting his pious trust that Pelagius had 
been corrected/ he now wrote that he thanked God his suspicions 
were confirmed that Pelagius had deceived the bishops. 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 369 

anxiety, that the Pelagian idea gravely threatened 
their ritual and administrative structure. If 
nature be morally self-sufficient, 1 the complex 
system of the Church, in so far as it is framed 
for administering grace rather than for worship, 
becomes largely superfluous. Augustine indicates 
this fear in his third letter (ep. 177), though, it 
must be admitted, it plays a very small part in 
the controversy. On the other hand, the appeal 
to Rome is an event of great interest, and has 
been invested with no slight importance. Roman 
theologians do not fail to notice it in proving the 
supremacy of the pope. From what I have said 
in connection with the Donatist controversy, it is 
clear that the Africans had no notion whatever of 
papal supremacy, and certain episodes which will 
be described in the next chapter will show that 
Augustine s attitude towards the Roman preten 
sions never changed. But there were special 
circumstances for the appeal to Rome in 416, as 
Augustine clearly indicates in his letters ; and the 
flattering terms in which the pope is addressed are 

1 But it must be noted that Professor Mozley and other students 
think it is not established that the Pelagians wholly rejected grace as 
an internal operation of the Spirit. The truth is, there were all 
shades and degrees of opinion amongst them, and we have only the 
works of their adversaries. 

2 A 



370 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

entirely outweighed by the subsequent action of 
the Council of Carthage, as we shall see. In the 
third letter Augustine introduces their appeal in 
these words : * For we have heard that there are 
many at Rome, where he lived so long, who favour 
him for one or other cause. There were, indeed, 
as we shall see presently ; and the Africans felt 
that the heresy must be crushed out at once in the 
whole Latin Church. They, therefore, ask that 
4 the authority of the Apostolic See be added to 
their own modest statutes/ and that Innocent, 
whom the Lord, by a special favour of His 
grace, has placed in the Apostolic See, and given 
such a character in our days that we should be 
guilty of negligence if we failed to suggest to thy 
holiness what seems good for the Church/ should 
c a PPty n ^ s P as toral diligence to the great dangers 
of the infirm members of Christ. 

Innocent was naturally elated at the honour 
which this fortunate heresy seemed to have secured 
for his see. His three replies breathe the dignity 
of the sovereign pontiff in every line. He takes 
remarkable pains to point out that they are only 
following the time-honoured custom of appealing 
to Rome, whilst his delight at the novelty floods 
the whole letter. He confirms their decisions with 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 371 

great pomp and severity, pronounces Pelagius s 
book to be dangerous and blasphemous, and 
excommunicates the two heresiarchs. This was 
in January 417 ; Augustine s politic letters had 
obtained a quick and complete victory. The joint 
spiritual authority of Rome and Africa fell with 
a heavy weight on the Pelagians, and Augustine 
trusted to extinguish the last elements of obstinacy 
by his rhetorical labours. On the 23rd of Sep 
tember he preached at Carthage the celebrated 
sermon (No. 131), in which he did not say: 
Rome has spoken. l But he spoke with triumph 
and gladness of the condemnation of the heresy, 
and trusted soon to hear the last of it. 

But alas for the slender threads by which the 
fortunes of dogmas hang ! At that very moment 
a Roman vessel was speeding across the sea with 
a letter in which a new bishop of Rome reversed 
the decision of his predecessor, and gravely 



1 It is worth while pointing out that the much-quoted Roma 
locuta est, is not even a just representation of Augustine s words. 
It should at least be Roma etiam locuta est, indicating that the force 
lay in the joint enactment of Africa -and Rome. The full text is: 
* Already the decisions of two councils have been sent to the Apostolic 
See, and the reply has come to us. The cause is finished. The 
phrase, duo concilia missa sunt, is curious, and has no parallel in 
Augustine. However, even admitting it as it stands, it is something 
very different from Roma locuta est. 



372 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

rebuked the zeal of Augustine. Innocent had 
died on the I2th of March, and been succeeded 
by the Greek Zosimus. Whether or no Coelestius 
heard that the new pope had not a keen eye for 
dogma it is impossible to say, but he soon quitted 
the East, where he had been less fortunate than 
Pelagius, came to Rome, and appealed to the 
pope. Zosimus assembled his clergy in the 
basilica of St. Clement for the discussion, but 
once more the ex-bishops failed to appear in 
support of their indictment, and Coelestius 
averted condemnation. The bishop reserved his 
judgment, with an evident leaning towards 
acquittal, and wrote at once to chide the African 
bishops for their uncharitable haste in listening 
to the accusers. The letter contains some 
pompous remarks about the dignity of the 
Apostolic See, and concludes with a delightful 
and innocent comment on Augustine s zeal in the 
matter : I admonished Coelestius and all the 
clergy who were present that these ensnaring 
questions and foolish strifes, which destroy rather 
than build up, proceed from an idle curiosity/ 

Before the African bishops could recover from 
this shock, Pelagius had also appealed with success 
to the tolerant bishop of Rome, and been pro- 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 373 

nounced c a good Catholic and of unquestionable 
faith. Before he heard of the death of Innocent 
he forwarded a defence and profession of faith to 
Rome. Luckily his documents found another 
judge. They were read before a Roman synod, 
and, as Zosimus reproachfully assured the African 
bishops, the hearers could hardly restrain their 
tears when they reflected that so holy and admir 
able a man had been condemned. Pelagius and 
Ccelestius were acquitted with honour, Heros and 
Lazarus were excommunicated and denounced, and 
the African bishops were once more rebuked. 

Augustine was almost solely responsible for the 
African condemnations, and to him, therefore, we 
justly look for an explanation of the subsequent 
proceedings. Unfortunately, he tells us little of 
his action, and nothing of his feelings. In later 
years he spoke with quiet forbearance of the 
letters of Zosimus, but his reverence for the 
bishop of Rome s c pastoral diligence was 
threatened with premature extinction. Prosper 
tells us that the African bishops held two great 
councils within the next six months, and that 
Augustine was * the soul of the proceedings. 
The first council or synod is not a little obscure. 
Probably Aurelius and Augustine hastily sum- 



374 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

moned the nearest bishops to Carthage and drew 
up the reply to Zosimus. Their letter has * not 
been preserved, and thus the Roman historian 
has probably been spared a painful task. But 
Prosper relates that two hundred and fourteen 
bishops were present at the synod, and has pre 
served this instructive paragraph of their letter : 
c We hereby ordain [constituimus] that the sentence 
which Innocent passed on Pelagius and Coelestius 
from the chair of the apostle Peter remains in 
force until they make a clear profession of the 
Augustinian view of faith and justification. We 
do not know the date of this synod. However, 
Zosimus made no reply until the 2ist of March 
418, when he intimated to the African bishops a 
considerable change in his sentiments. They were 
quite wrong, he said, in supposing that he had 
given complete credence to the professions of 
Coelestius. His decision was still in reserve ; in 
fact, new matter had recently been placed before 
him, and he broadly hints that he is likely to 
condemn the heretics. This letter reached Car 
thage on the 29th of April, and found two 
hundred and five (Photius says two hundred and 
twenty-six) bishops assembled there from all 
parts of Africa for another council. They met 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 375 

in the basilica of Faustus, under the presidency 
of the two primates (of Carthage and Numidia), 
on the ist of May. The letter of Zosimus seems 
to have relieved the strain of the situation, and 
they were content to formulate nine canons 
against the heresy, and forward these to the 
bishop of Rome that he might give them the 
additional weight of his acquiescence. 

But it would be wrong to suppose that the 
defiance of the African bishops had of itself 
effected the conversion of the Roman see. 
Zosimus had announced his change of policy at 
the end of March. At the end of April 
Honorius issued a decree in which the weight 
of the imperial authority was cast on the side of 
the Augustinians. It seems unquestionable that 
Augustine and his colleagues had once more 
appealed to the secular power, in the failure of 
their rhetorical armament. The document is 
entitled a rescript, and one ancient manuscript 
even says explicitly that it was a reply to the 
Carthaginian synod. Augustine apparently con 
firms this when he says to Julian the Pelagian, 
4 if the reply had been given in your favour ; and 
in the following year, 419, Honorius sends a 
letter to Aurelius and Augustine (a remarkable 



376 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

honour for a simple bishop) in which he states 
that the decree against the heretics was given at 
their direction. We are forced to conclude that 
the African bishops appealed to the emperor when 
they received Zosimus s letters (virtually acquit 
ting Pelagius). Count Valerius seems to have 
been their instrument, and he was supported by 
the ex-vice-prefect of Rome, Constantius, who 
had turned monk at Rome, and led the anti- 
Pelagian party there. On the 3oth of April 
Honorius pronounced sentence of banishment 
and confiscation on the heresiarchs and their 
followers. Rome was profoundly distracted by 
the controversy. Zosimus and Sixtus (afterwards 
pope) favoured the Pelagians, and the heresy 
was rampant in the city/ as the imperial rescript 
said. But the earnestness of Augustine and the 
successful enlistment of the imperial interest were 
political considerations of some gravity. Zosimus 
was most certainly aware of the intrigue that was 
proceeding at court, and the knowledge cannot 
have been without influence on his letter of the 
2ist of March. When the rescript appeared and 
the letter of the second Carthaginian synod 
arrived, he summoned Coelestius to appear once 
more before him and his clergy. The heretic 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 377 

did not like the nature of the new documents in 
the case, and fled to the East. He and Pelagius 
were then condemned and excommunicated, and 
Zosimus issued a circular letter (fractatoria) in 
which he demanded the submission of the Italian 
bishops under pain of deprivation of their sees. 
The execution of the sentence was intrusted to 
the imperial forces, and thus the humanists of 
the fifth century were at length definitively cast 
out of the Church in the western empire. 

In the meantime Augustine maintained a vigi 
lant opposition to the heretical ideas wherever 
they appeared. He wrote a long letter to 
Paulinus of Nola, the early friend of Pelagius, 
urging him to confirm the faith of some of his 
wavering clerics. From this letter it appears that 
there were ultra-Pelagians who granted the child 
a power of choice even before it left the womb. 
He wrote to Sixtus, artfully congratulating him on 
his conversion. But a more interesting outcrop 
of the heresy claimed his attention about the end 
of 417. We have seen how the young Roman 
heiress, Demetrias, took the veil of virginity in 
414, and Pelagius imitated the group of distin 
guished clerics (Augustine, Jerome, Innocent, etc.) 
who sent her letters, or treatises, of encourage- 



378 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

ment. Pelagius was invited to do so by her 
mother Juliana, 1 and he was not unwilling to 
enlarge on so striking a proof of the power and 
dignity of human nature. He sent her an admir 
able treatise of spiritual direction, encouraging 
her with an introductory laudation of nature/ 
He reminds her that God is the author of our 
nature and our will, extols the virtue of pre- 
Christian philosophers and prophets, and describes 
how much more is required of those who live 
under the grace of Christ. It is evident, how 
ever, that he means by grace nothing more than 
the external advantages the gospel, the divine 
example, etc. of the Incarnation. The letter 
was greatly appreciated and much copied, until a 
copy fell at length under Augustine s keen eye. 
It had not the name of the writer, but Augustine 
probably suspected its authorship, and wrote to 
ask the name of Juliana, and warn her with 



1 This he expressly says in his letter, yet all the hagiographers 
rebuke him for his gratuitous and insidious interference. Cardinal 
Rauscher talks of his * poisoned cup/ and represents the mother 
Juliana as more distressed at this spiritual peril of her daughter than 
ever mother was over an attempt on the bodily life of her child. 1 
The truth is that Augustine finds Juliana rather hard to convince 
that the book is heretical ; and poor Jerome had again to suffer under 
the allegation of authorship for several centuries, whilst the book 
circulated admiringly in the Church under his own name. 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 379 

extreme anxiety against the errors of the work. 
Juliana seems to have been none too well dis 
posed for his zealous interference, and he takes 
great pains to teach her the evils of Pelagianism. 
But the most virulent passage he has found in the 
work is, he explains, the observation that thy 
beauty of body and thy wealth may be accounted 
as the gift of others, but spiritual wealth no one 
can give thee but thyself/ 

About the same time other friends of his, 
whose acquaintance we have made, were nearly 
seduced by the * dog from Albion. Albina and 
Pinianus and Melania, who had by that time 
settled in Palestine, met Pelagius and attempted 
to restore him to orthodoxy. As usual, the per 
suasive monk turned their criticism into admira 
tion, and they then wrote to ask Augustine s 
view of the matter. He replied by the composi 
tion of a fresh work on the old lines, having the 
title Of the Grace of Christ and Original Sin, in 
which he again expounded his theory and proved 
the discrepancy of the Pelagian teaching. 

But a new champion of the Pelagian cause, in a 
slightly modified form, appeared in the West. 
The exaggerated ideas of original sin and pre 
destination put forward by Augustine provoked a 



380 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

wide and sincere revolt, which was not entirely 
quelled for more than a century. When the 
tractatoria of Zosimus announced his change of 
views, or of policy, to the Italian bishops in the 
summer of 418, no less than eighteen of them 
refused to submit, in spite of the very material 
argument of the imperial spears on which it 
chiefly relied. They were accordingly driven 
from their sees. The leader of them, Julian, 
bishop of Eclanum in Apulia, was the son of a 
friend of Augustine s, Memorius, and it was with 
some regret that Augustine found it necessary to 
exert his whole power against him. Julian con 
temptuously described the orthodox theory of 
original sin as a mere popular murmur, and 
declared it had been thrust on the Church by a 
rascally conspiracy/ He regarded Augustine s 
system as a revival of Manicheeism, and he and 
his friends familiarly spoke of the orthodox as 
the Manicheans. He held that Augustine s 
view of the creation and fall was inconsistent 
with the divine power and wisdom, that he cast 
dishonour on marriage, and that his theory of 
grace left no room for free will and personal 
responsibility. He wrote two letters in defence 
of his action : one to the bishop of Rome, in 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 381 

which he severely censured Zosimus for suddenly 
abandoning the Roman position under the 
pressure of the Africans, instead of calling a 
general Council, and denounced the appeal to 
force ; and a second to the bishop of Thessa- 
lonica, in which he pointed out the moral and 
religious consequences of the Augustinian teach 
ing. These letters were forwarded to Augustine 
by Boniface, who had succeeded Zosimus in the 
Roman see, and he answered them in his work 
Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians. A little 
later, when Count Valerius told him that the 
Pelagians made much of his apparent depreciation 
of marriage, he wrote a book On Marriage and 
Concupiscence > in which he developed the views I 
have already described. His controversy with 
Julian and the Italians was long and monotonous. 
In 421 he wrote a work in four books Against 
Julian, and we have also several books of a large, 
unfinished work against the same writer, on which 
he was engaged in his last years. The heresy 
long resisted both ecclesiastical and imperial 
pressure in Italy and Gaul. We find traces of it 
until about the end of the fifth century. Pelagius 
and Coelestius had retired to the East, where they 
enjoyed a greater freedom until after the death of 



382 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

their great adversary. But in 431 the Eastern 
Church embraced the Augustinian ideas at 
Ephesus, and the champions of human nature 
sank into obscurity. Pelagius is said to have 
died in a small town of Palestine at an advanced 
age, and Coelestius disappears from the chronicles. 
Julian is said to have opened a school in an 
obscure Sicilian town, and died there in 454. 

In the meantime the ethical protest against the 
Augustinian ideas assumed the milder form which 
is known as semi-Pelagianism. Human nature 
was not disposed to surrender its dignity without 
a struggle. There is an ecclesiastical tradition 
that all heresy is born of pride and flourishes 
only in an atmosphere of disorderly feeling. One 
might have expected even the boldness of a 
theologian to shrink from applying this maxim 
to the Pelagian heresy, but we have seen that 
neither historical fact nor intrinsic probability has 
deterred him from making the attempt. How 
ever, semi-Pelagianism, like the more pronounced 
heresy, took root in a soil of exceptional purity. 
A monk named Cassian, who had learned sanctity 
in the schools of Bethlehem and Egypt, and had 
then founded two monasteries at Marseilles, began 
to expound a compromise between the certainly 



AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS 383 

anti-scriptural opinions of Pelagius and what M. 
Nourisson ventures to call the inhuman and 
revolting doctrine of Augustine. He acknow 
ledged that we have all died by the death of 
Adam and live by the resurrection of Christ, but 
he protested against the idea of a total corruption 
of human nature and a predestination to eternal 
life or death without regard to individual merit ; 
he also held that grace was not usually granted 
until it had been merited by a motion of good 
will, that it might be lost, and that perseverance 
in grace depended on the will. Another com 
promise was attempted by the monks of Adru- 
metum, with whom I will deal later. Augustine 
was not the kind of man to allow purely rational 
considerations to interfere with the course of his 
theological reasoning. He sternly denounced the 
compromise in his works On the Predestination of 
the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance. The 
question of perseverance had not been much dis 
cussed in the earlier stages of the struggle, and 
the compromise of Cassian only served to drive 
Augustine to the bitterest consequences of his 
principles. His ideas on this point are too well 
known for me to enlarge on them. The will is a 
mere automaton, worked solely by grace. The 



384 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

first movement must come from grace no less 
surely than the last ; we cannot merit that indis 
pensable factor in the moral life, nor can we 
retain it to the end by our human efforts. 
Absolutely without regard to the merit of the 
individual (in the way of co-operation or rejec 
tion) God has decreed his distribution of grace, 
on which eternal life or eternal damnation morally 
depends, as Cassian saw. The Christians of Gaul 
long resisted these harsh opinions, but by the 
middle of the sixth century even their modified 
vindication of human nature had entirely ceased. 1 

1 Gibbon has said that the real difference between him [Augus 
tine] and Calvin was invisible even to a theological microscope. 1 He 
should have said except to a theological microscope." I was once 
the happy possessor of such an instrument, and I perceived the differ 
ence. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that Augustine s logical con- 
secutiveness was unhampered by any merely humanist feeling. It 
was in this he differed from Calvin, who calmly handed over millions 
of mortals to a positive and deliberately decreed damnation, whilst 
Augustine was reluctantly forced to leave their damnation as an un 
welcome consequence of his views the reprobatio negati c va of certain 
Roman theologians ; and whilst Calvin ruthlessly fulminated the 
automatism of the will, Augustine made inconsistent efforts to 
reconcile with his principles the granting of some native dignity to it. 






EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 385 



CHAPTER XVI 

EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 

FOR the later years of Augustine s career we have 
only to narrate the incidents of unusual interest 
which distracted him from the work we have 
already described. His correspondence and his 
judicial work increased with the advance of age 
and the progress of his reputation through the 
Roman world. On him chiefly devolved the 
task of watching the restless movements of the 
proscribed heretics, schismatics, and pagans ; and 
he had projected vast commentaries on Scripture, 
which he slowly accomplished between 415 and 
425. So untiring, indeed, was his literary activity, 
that we shall find him calmly toiling at a huge 
anti-Pelagian work whilst the fierce Vandals are 
pressing against the walls of Hippo, and the 
great church he had built up in Africa lies in 
ruins about him. It is this continuous labour 
that chiefly invites our astonishment and admira- 

2 B 



3 86 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

tion in Augustine s later years. However, we 
have already seen the character of the work he 
was normally engaged upon, and it only remains 
to give a few illustrations of the exceptional 
occupations which reveal his person to us in so 
many different lights after the great conference 
of 418. 

Immediately after the conference at which 
Augustine and his colleagues so courteously cor 
rected the errors of the bishop of Rome, a second 
controversy arose, of less importance in itself, 
but so irritating as to destroy the last particle of 
an inclination to submit to the Roman pretensions. 
The majority of the bishops had returned to their 
sees, and Aurelius, Augustine, and fourteen other 
bishops, were dispatching the detailed business of 
the synod, when a fresh deputation from Rome 
appeared. Some time previously one of Augus 
tine s bishop-pupils, Urbanus of Sicca, had deposed 
and excommunicated one of his clergy at that 
town for improper and scandalous conduct. This 
Apiarius had appealed to Rome ; and the bishop 
of Rome, ever ready to make precedents of inter 
ference in foreign provinces, had persuaded himself 
that the priest had been injured. He had, there 
fore, sent Faustinus, bishop of Potentina, with a 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 387 

couple of Roman priests, to demand the reinstate 
ment of Apiarius. Faustinas was a pompous and 
fussy Italian with large ideas of Roman supremacy, 
as will appear, and the Africans were little recon 
ciled to the substance of his demand by the 
manner in which he urged it. Aurelius at once 
summoned the neighbouring bishops to meet the 
legate. When Faust inus was politely asked to 
state the basis of the pope s claim to interfere, he 
appealed to two canons of the Nicene Council 
which provided for recourse to Rome. The 
African fathers at once referred to their copies of 
the Nicene canons (brought from the Council by 
their own bishop of Carthage), and were astonished 
to find no trace of the two canons Faustinus had 
mentioned, and Zosimus had quoted at length. 1 
However, they promised to admit the new canons 
until the matter could be properly investigated, 
and to reopen the question of Apiarius. But 
they also enacted that in future no priest or deacon 
who appealed to a church beyond the sea against 



1 I may state at once that the canons in question were added at 
the subsequent council of Sardica. Hefele would have them to be 
of equal importance, but the course of our narrative will show that 
the Africans thought otherwise. Indeed, it is very clear from the 
records that they entertained very unflattering suspicions about the 
Romans and their canons from the beginning. 



3 88 ST AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

his bishop would be admitted to communion in 
Africa. The rule was that a priest should appeal 
from his bishop to the primate of his province, and 
from him to a provincial or general council. 

It appears that Augustine was then sent with 
other bishops to make an inquiry into the scandal. 
His Catholic biographers generally observe with 
some complacency that in 418 he was delegated 
by Zosimus to hold an inquiry at Caesarea into 
some unknown business. Cardinal Von Rauscher, 
who gives the Apiarius incident nearly in full 
(though in phrases which are not c offensive to 
pious ears ), very justly observes that it must 
have been the commission of Aurelius to settle the 
Apiarius question which took him to Caesarea (in 
Mauretania) in 418. He himself says (ep. 190) 
that it was a necessity imposed by Zosimus/ and 
Possidius says c the letters of Zosimus had com 
pelled him to go thither. These observations 
are quite consonant with the idea that he went at 
the request of Aurelius, arising out of the letters 
of Zosimus ; and there is no clear trace of other 
matters in dispute between Zosimus and the 
Africans. Augustine only mentions incidentally 
the synod he held at Cassarea, but he tells of two 
other adventures which illustrate his wonderful 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 389 

alertness and energy. The former Donatist bishop 
of Caesarea, a very capable man of the name of 
Emeritus, still rebelled against the Church (and 
the law), and was probably hiding in the neigh 
bourhood. When he heard of Augustine s arrival, 
he came into the town. The expectation of one 
of those public disputes which had so much charm 
for the Africans at once animated the whole town. 
Augustine was informed of the appearance of 
Emeritus, and instantly buckled on his spurs. 
He met Emeritus in the street, and after a few 
friendly passages invited him to the church (the 
poor man s own basilica). Emeritus consented, 
but when Augustine ascended the steps of the 
apse and began to interrogate him, he sullenly 
refused to debate, and the crowded congrega 
tion had to be content with a discourse from 
Augustine. 

The other incident Augustine tells recalls his 
success in crushing the martyr-feasts at Hippo. 
At Caesarea there was a peculiar tradition, going 
back far into the past history of the place, of 
holding an annual faction-fight. Even families 
were divided in the encounters, and for several 
days the citizens stoned and fought each other 
with fatal results. The clergy had been unable 



390 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

to induce the people to abandon this cherished 
custom of the town, and, as the festival occurred 
during Augustine s visit, he was invited to preach 
against it. He won a signal oratorical triumph. 
Before his sermon had proceeded far, the murmurs 
were changed into applause, but he continued 
with increased fervour until he saw the whole 
congregation in tears. The caterva, as the tradi 
tional fight was called, was never again held at 
Caesarea. 

Augustine himself has led us to this digression, 
and we may now return with him to the question 
of Apiarius. The charges seem to have been 
proved, but the priest asked forgiveness, and 
Urbanus was induced to restore his priestly office, 
and allow him to exercise it in a small town or 
village of his paroecia. At what date this was 
done we cannot say, but we find Faustinus and the 
two priests still at Carthage when Zosimus died on 
the 26th of December. His successor, Boniface, 
confirmed the commission to the Italian bishop, 
and at length, on the 25th of May 419, a general 
synod of the African bishops (to the number of 
two hundred and seventeen) was held at Carthage. 
The ill-chosen legate somewhat exasperated the 
bishops by his pompous claims of compliance with 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 391 

the Roman demand and resentment of their 
scepticism about the canons, but in the end it was 
decided to procure authentic copies of the Nicene 
canons from the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, 
and Constantinople, and to regard the two Sardican 
canons as valid in the meantime. In their letter 
to Boniface they apprise him of the conclusions 
arrived at in charity, indeed, but not without 
laborious altercation. If these canons had been 
found in their copies, they say, they would have 
been spared certain intolerable things they do 
not care to mention ; but they trust they 
will not have to endure that pompousness any 
longer. 1 

When Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, and 
Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, sent authentic copies 
of the Nicene canons, and there was still no trace 
of the two quoted by Zosimus, the feeling of the 
African bishops must have been strongly aroused 
against Rome. Augustine is provokingly silent 
on the whole question and the issues it involved. 

1 See this and the subsequent letter to Coelestine in Labbe s 
Collectio Conciliorum, ad ann. 419 and 424. Father Hefele does not 
quite justly translate the letters in his History of the Councils (English 
translation). For instance, he makes them say Urbanus had com 
plied with the pope s request before the council. The bishops say 
that Urbanus had corrected what needed correction/ but they do 
not gratify Boniface with the expression inserted by Hefele. 



392 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

However, Apiarius once more fell into disgrace a 
few years later, and the controversy was reopened. 
Disgraceful conduct was proved against the priest 
by his new congregation, and he was again excom 
municated. He fled to Rome, the bishop now 
Ccelestine i. received him to communion (so 
indecent was the haste to assert the prerogatives of 
the Roman see), and the Africans were insulted 
by the same Faustinus being sent to demand his 
reinstatement. The African bishops hastened to 
Carthage, where they held a general synod in 424. 
The proceedings are not recorded, or the records 
have not been preserved, but the bishops admit in 
their letter to Coelestine that there were stormy 
sittings for three days. Faustinus demanded com 
pliance with Coelestine s orders more arrogantly 
than ever, and the African bishops } fortified by their 
new copies of the canons, warmly resented the 
Italian intervention. At length Apiarius reduced 
Faustinus to silence by confessing his guilt of all 
the crimes alleged, and the Roman party retired 
from the struggle. But the Africans followed up 
the retreat of the legate with a letter l which must 
have made Ccelestine weep for the loss of Africa. 
They complain that Faustinus insulted the whole 

1 See in Labbe (not Hefele), toe. at. 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 393 

assembly, pretending to assert certain privileges 
of the Roman Church/ and in conclusion they 
4 earnestly beg that in future you will not too 
readily lend your ears to those who come to you 
from here, nor receive into communion those 
whom we have excommunicated ; for thy Vener- 
ableness will easily find that this has already been 
enjoined by the Council of Nicaea. . . . The 
fathers did not detract from the dignity of the 
African Church by any of their enactments. They 
most prudently and justly provided that all affairs 
should be disposed of in the places where they 
arise ; nor did they think that any province would 
be refused that grace of the Holy Spirit whereby 
the priests of Christ may prudently discern and 
hold fast to equity ; especially as any priest is 
free to appeal to a provincial, or even a general 
council, if he be dissatisfied with a judgment. 
Unless, indeed, there is any one who can think 
our God will give His inspiration of justice to one 
single person \_unicuilibet], and deny it to so many 
priests assembled in council/ They go on to 
remind him that the judgment of a transmarine 
see is hardly likely to be sound, seeing the dis 
tance and the difficulty of obtaining witnesses ; and 
they do not find it laid down in any synod of the 



394 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

fathers that the Roman bishop has a right to 
send legates into their provinces. Cyril and 
Atticus have confirmed their suspicion that the 
two canons were not genuine, and they beg he will 
send no more legates lest we should seem to 
introduce the empty pride of the world into the 
humble Church of Christ. As to Faustinus, they 
could not tolerate him in Africa much longer. So 
much for the recognition of Roman prestige in 
Africa in the fifth century. 

Augustine is, as I said, singularly silent about 
the whole episode. We cannot even trace his 
influence in the great council of 424. How 
ever, in the meantime an incident occurred which 
brought him into communication with the bishop 
of Rome. On the outskirts of his paroecia, some 
forty miles from Hippo, was the small town of 
Fussala, where he had established a mission. A 
retired official had built a chapel there over a 
handful of soil which had been brought from 
Palestine, and was held in great veneration. The 
district was almost entirely Donatistic, and the 
earlier priests whom Augustine had stationed 
there had been blinded, maimed, and variously 
ill-used by the fierce Circumcellions. As the 
schism yielded, Augustine had converted Fussala 
into a separate bishopric, and in 418 he was 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 395 

summoned thither to find an occupant for the 
see. He had chosen a worthy priest of his own 
community, and had invited the primate of the 
province to lay hands on him, when the candidate 
withdrew at the last moment. Not liking to 
give the primate a fruitless journey (so he said 
afterwards), Augustine cast about for a suitable 
candidate amongst the clerics who accompanied 
him. He selected a young man named Antony, a 
lector from his own episcopal seminary, who had 
been under his charge from his earliest boyhood/ 
Bishop Antony developed propensities which had 
escaped the eye of Augustine. In 422 his people 
rebelled against his authority, and demanded his 
removal. He was acquitted by the synod which 
Augustine convoked of the grosser charges 
brought against him, but the accusation of covet- 
ousness and corruption was sustained. Augus 
tine proposed to leave him in office with diminished 
authority, but the people refused to retain him 
in any capacity, and he was forced to retire. 

However, Antony persuaded the Numidian 
primate that he had been wronged, and the 
primate so Augustine says in his letter to 
Ccelestine advised him to appeal to Rome. 
Pope Boniface, naturally more lenient to those 
who supported the Roman policy by appealing, 



396 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

decided that Antony was innocent and must be 
reinstated if his depositions were correct/ He 
sent legates to Fussala to enforce his decision, 
but died shortly afterwards and was succeeded by 
Ccelestine. The Fussalenses at once appealed to 
Ccelestine, casting the blame of the incident on 
Augustine, on account of his hasty choice in 
418. But they do not seem to have gained 
much, and rumours came to Hippo that the 
Roman commissioners were about to enforce the 
pope s decision by the use of the imperial forces. 
Augustine then wrote himself to Ccelestine, and 
seems to have succeeded in inducing him to 
abandon the matter. The letter (ep. 209) cannot 
be quoted as evincing any disposition on Augus 
tine s part to accept the Roman claims. It is by 
no means defiant in tone, yet it contains a threat 
to resign his own charge if Ccelestine insists on 
the reinstatement of Antony, and it seems to dis 
cover no other feature of authority in the Roman 
interference beyond the threatened use of the 
imperial forces. Either the letter gained its 
object, or the African triumph of the following 
year (424) forbade any attempt to enforce the 
support of Antony from Rome. 

Another incident of the year 423, which we 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 397 

learn from Augustine s letters, was a rebellion in 
the nunnery which adjoined his house. Augus 
tine s sister had been superioress of this convent 
until her death (some years previously), and her 
successor had directed the community in peace until 
the year 423. Then she seems to have changed 
the chaplain (pf*positus) of the house, and her 
spiritual daughters rebelled. Augustine com 
plains (ep. 211) that the noise of their quarrels 
was audible in his own house. They sent for him 
to come and settle the dispute, but he refused to 
do so. Had he done so, this familiar and trifling 
episode of an intrigue and quarrel in a nunnery 
would not occupy us in the twentieth century. 
As it was he wrote a letter, which we still have, 
chiding them for the scandal. But the chief 
interest of the event is that it occasioned the 
writing of the famous Rule of St. Augustine. 
After a few reproving words Augustine goes on 
to frame a rule of life for the nuns, and this has 
been taken (with a few masculine modifications) 
as the foundation of more than one monastic rule. 
It expresses the moderate asceticism which we 
have already noticed in Augustine. For instance, 
whereas Jerome urges the adult virgin to shun 
the bath altogether, Augustine not only permits, 



398 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

but recommends, the use of the bath c about once 
a month ; and the nuns must not go to the baths 
in less than a company of three. If there was one 
purely human virtue that Augustine recognised it 
was cleanliness. His ideal was rather one of 
sobriety and plainness of life for a moral purpose 
than of the infliction of actual suffering. 

Augustine exhibited a notable credulity from 
almost the beginning of his ecclesiastical career, as 
we have seen, and there are events of the year 424 
or 425 which seem to prove that it grew with his 
advancing age. Some years before that date the 
body of St. Stephen is said to have been discovered 
at Jerusalem. With the dramatic discovery itself 
owing to a nocturnal communication from no 
less interesting a spirit than that of Gamaliel we 
have no concern. But somewhere about the year 
424 a portion of the discovered body was brought 
to Hippo, and was enshrined with great honour 
in a small chapel opening into the chief basilica. 1 
The opposition to the cult of dead men was not 
the only error of his youth which Augustine had 
outlived. He had likewise surrendered the idea 



1 I have already given Augustine s rebuke to those who questioned 
the authenticity of the relics : * Let no one dispute : the will of God 
requires faith, not questions. 1 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 399 

that miracles were no longer performed, as well 
as his early weakness for the production of 
evidence. He eagerly received the relics into his 
church, and still more eagerly welcomed the 
miracles which now began to occur daily. In 
two years he drew up the libelli of no less than 
seventy miracles that were wrought at Hippo. 
Most of these were, of course, cases of diabolical 
possession, a disease on which we no longer have 
the opportunity to experiment. But there were 
three cases of raising the dead to life, which might 
disconcert the sceptic if Augustine had not written 
about that time a chapter on these miracles in his 
City of God (bk. xxii). He there describes a case 
of miraculous resurrection. A woman was weep 
ing in distraction over her dying child, when the 
thought of the relics occurred to her. The child 
died (so she and Augustine believe), and she at 
once ran off to church with the body, and had 
it restored to life. 

But another miracle occurred about the time 
we are dealing with which has many features of 
interest. With the multiplication of miraculous 
shrines there appeared a number of cosmopolitan 
patients who often conveyed their infirmities 
from country to country for a number of 



400 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

years. Two of these came to Hippo, and 
occasioned some very lively scenes in the basilica. 
The story told by the youth (his companion was 
his sister) was that they had lived at Caesarea in 
Cappadocia (a thousand miles or so away), where 
their father had died, leaving a widow and ten 
children. The eldest son insulted his mother one 
day, and she at once repaired * in one of those 
fits of temper which are so familiar to that sex, 
says Augustine to the baptismal font in the 
basilica to curse him with due form and legality. 
She met a demon on the way, who persuaded her 
to include the other nine in her malediction, 
because they had not taken her part. The curse 
was answered Augustine believes this without a 
shudder and the ten children were seized with 
a horrible tremor of the limbs. They then dis 
persed over the Christian world to seek a remedy 
at some miraculous shrine. After fruitlessly 
visiting the shrines of Italy the brother and sister 
had been warned in a vision (during sleep) to go 
to Hippo. 

For fifteen days before Easter Paulus and 
Palladia visited the church assiduously, and 
excited considerable interest and sympathy. On 
Easter morning, when the church was thronged 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 401 

with worshippers, the youth, who was praying at 
the shrine, fell insensible to the ground, and 
presently awoke completely cured. The people 
ran to the apse and loudly informed Augustine 
of the occurrence. Augustine had the youth 
brought before him, and then preached a brief 
sermon on the subject amidst ringing applause 
from the people. Paulus dined with the bishop 
that day, and told him the story of the male 
diction. On the following day Augustine 
preached again on the miracle, and made the two 
strangers stand beside his chair whilst he narrated 
their story, and pointed out the contrast of the 
still infirm sister and the recovered youth. But 
Palladia persevered with her prayers, and in the 
middle of his sermon on the following day he 
was telling the story of the baby Augustine was 
apprised by loud shouts from the vicinity of the 
shrine that she also had been cured of her * tremor. 
It is with a string of stories like this that Augustine 
concludes his great work The City of God, which 
he completed about that time. Quantum mutatus 
ab ilk ! 

Not long after these events Augustine s con 
gregation was agitated by a less agreeable sensa 
tion. It was known throughout Africa that the 

2 c 



402 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Hippo seminary followed a kind of monastic rule, 
and in point of fact it had furnished a dozen of 
its ablest and most earnest bishops to the African 
Church. Great was the excitement, therefore, 
and deep the sorrow of Augustine when it tran 
spired that one of his priests had died in posses 
sion of a large sum of money. Augustine was 
not ignorant of the existence of this money, but 
Januarius, the deceased priest, had always pre 
tended that it belonged to his daughter, a minor 
living in a nunnery at Hippo. Januarius had 
increased his guilt by passing over both his 
children and bequeathing the money to Augus 
tine s church. Augustine never accepted such 
legacies. However, his chief concern was to 
restore the credit of his seminary, and he at once 
instituted an inquiry, and discovered that nearly 
every priest and deacon under his charge possessed 
slaves or houses or some other property. He 
summoned the people to the basilica, and told 
them that he had been forced to abandon 
his rule of ordaining no cleric who would not 
consent to live under the system of personal 
poverty and common ownership. He had warned 
his clergy that those who were unwilling to dis 
pose of all their possessions before the Epiphany 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 403 

could continue in the clerical office, but would 
have to reside outside the seminary. 

On the morning of the Epiphany a very large 
congregation gathered in the basilica to hear the 
result, which we learn from his sermon (No. 356). 
All his clerics had decided to part with their 
possessions, and he was therefore encouraged to 
renew the rule of poverty the root of the whole 
scandal. He would lay hands on no man who 
would not submit to it : He may appeal to a 
thousand councils against me ; he may take ship 
to wherever he likes [poor Rome !] ; he can go 
wherever he will ; but, with the Lord s help, he 
shall not be a cleric where I am bishop/ He 
then makes an interesting and chatty review of all 
his clergy. This one is going to manumit his 
slaves to-day; that one never had a penny; the 
other has sold his property, or holds it in conjunc 
tion with a brother, and cannot withdraw for the 
moment. One cannot say that Augustine in 
creased in practical judgment with his advance in 
years. 

In October of the same year (426) he was 
summoned to Mileve to settle a dispute about 
the succession to the bishop of that see, who had 
died. The system of election by the people was 



4 o 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

so imperfectly organised, and lent itself so readily 
to corrupt practices, that quarrels were frequent 
and sanguinary conflicts not unknown. On his 
return, therefore, Augustine reflected whether he 
might not devise a means of averting such a 
danger from his own church. He was now in 
his seventy-second year, and could not expect to 
serve the Church militant much longer. Besides, 
the duties of his office pressed heavily on him, 
and left him little time for writing. He had 
some years before obtained a promise from his 
people that they would not approach him with 
their troubles and disputes on five days out of the 
week, but the promise had not been fulfilled. On 
the other hand, he was prevented by the canons 
from appointing a coadjutor ; he remembered 
how the rule had been violated in his own ordina 
tion. However, he decided to ask the people to 
accept one of his priests as bishop-designate, and 
then he would be able to surrender most of his 
occupations, that were not strictly episcopal, to 
his future successor. 

Again, therefore, the people were summoned to 
the basilica for special business. The presence of 
two brother bishops added solemnity to the 
occasion, and all the clergy attended in the 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 405 

sanctuary, whilst the official notaries prepared to 
make a record of the proceedings. Augustine 
reminded the people of his age and occupations, 
and proposed his young deacon, Heraclius, for 
the post of what we should now call * vicar- 
general, with the right of succession to the see. 
1 What do you say ? he asks of the people before 
him ; let me hear your assent, and let the 
notaries record it/ At once there rang through 
the basilica a medley of consenting shouts, as the 
notaries duly register in the report of the sermon 
(No. 355). Thanks be to God, thirty-eight 
times/ c Praise be to Christ, twenty-three times/ 
* So be it, twenty-five times/ are some of the 
marks of approval. Augustine proceeds to 
describe the merits of Heraclius, and the cry of 
4 he is worthy and deserving fills the church 
4 eighteen times/ And even the aged bishop s 
simple reminder of his approaching end is greeted 
with a * Long life to Augustine, thirteen times/ 
The young deacon was accordingly ordained 
priest, and recognised as Augustine s successor. 
We must accept Augustine s estimate of his virtue, 
but the two sermons of his which we have do not 
reveal any unusual mental gifts. The youth had 
little opportunity to shine in his promised dignity. 



406 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine lived for four years afterwards, and 
within a year of his death Hippo was a mound of 
smoking ruins and its paroecia a desert waste. 

By that time there were five churches and a 
few minor chapels in the town, and about a score 
of missions in the paroecia. The ordination of 
Heraclius must, therefore, have afforded some 
relief to the bishop, and he fell upon the 
Pelagians, as we have seen, with a quite youthful 
energy. With the obstinacy and literary work of 
Julian in Italy, and the semi-Pelagian reaction on 
Augustine s own views, he had abundant exercise 
of his controversial powers. One curious incident 
that occurred about this time will serve to illus 
trate the situation. Two monks of the monastery 
of Adrumetum (near Carthage) were travelling in 
Italy, where they secured a copy of Augustine s 
letter to Sixtus. They brought the treasure to 
their monastery on their return, and it circulated 
amongst the brethren. The result was a grave 
disturbance of the peace of the community. 
Abbot Valentine wrote to tell Augustine that his 
monastery resounded all day with the arguments 
of two rival schools of interpreters of the letter, 
and Augustine had to send a long explanation of 
his teaching (ep. 216) and two works. Eventu- 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 407 

ally, two of the monks came to consult him at 
Hippo, and the controversy was ended. About 
the same time there came to Hippo a monk 
named Leporius, who had blended the humanism 
of Pelagius with a kind of anticipation of the 
humanism of Nestorius ; he held that Mary was 
the mother of Christ, but not of God. He had 
been excommunicated for his errors in Gaul, and 
had come to Carthage with a few companions. 
There Augustine convinced him of his errors a 
rare triumph and had the satisfaction of seeing 
him publicly recant his heresy in the church at 
Carthage. 

The abjuration of Leporius did not present an 
unfamiliar spectacle to the people of Carthage. 
In his ijist sermon Augustine invites them to 
bring obstinate heretics to the clergy whenever 
they encounter them, and a public confession of 
the great crime was not infrequently enjoined. 
But there were occasions when this public exhibi 
tion assumed a character which is revolting to the 
modern mind. Such an incident is recorded by 
Possidius (c. 1 6) and Augustine himself in his 
work On Heresies (c. 46). The date of the affair 
is not given, but it certainly occurred in Augus 
tine s later years. It will be remembered that 



408 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Augustine had opened his Christian polemic with 
an attack on the morals of the Manichees, but 
had been forced by the Manichean bishop 
Fortunatus to confess that he had observed no 
irregularity during his association with them. 
He still hinted in his works, however, that the 
gross stories which were told of their elect by the 
Catholics were quite consonant with what he 
knew of their tenets. The third stage of the 
controversy began after the imperial decrees 
against heretics, when captured Manicheans were 
publicly interrogated in the churches and courts 
on the secret practices of their elect, or clergy. 

It is a case of this kind that Augustine and 
Possidius relate. Two Manicheans had been 
detected at Carthage, and Augustine was requested 
to interrogate them before the people. The first 
was a girl of twelve years, and Augustine solemnly 
put the child through a searching examination on 
the sordid stories that were current about the 
Manichean sacrament or exsecr amentum, as the 
Catholics called it. The girl confessed what 
Augustine and his colleagues desired, and the 
second culprit was introduced and confronted 
with the confession. This was a woman of 
maturer years, who claimed to be a nun, or sacred 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 409 

virgin, of the sect, and indignantly denied the 
charges. However, they had a rough and ready 
way of finishing disputes about chastity in those 
days. The woman s claim was disallowed by the 
obstetrix, and she thereupon confessed that the 
incredibly sordid legend was correct. 1 This 
picture of the aged bishop taking a child of twelve, 
in presence of a large congregation, through 
details that go far below the deepest depths of 
our trials in camera, is omitted with great delicacy 
by the hagiographers. But I think it tells us 
something of Augustine pure as his intention 
was no less than of his times. 

One other experience of Augustine s with 
regard to the Manicheans seems to belong to this 
period. He was one day horrified to discover 
that one of his sub-deacons, an elderly man, was a 
Manichee, and was secretly propagating his faith. 
This Victorinus had been ordained at Caesarea, 
and had been admitted into Augustine s clergy ; 

1 Augustine says, De Haresibus, c. xlvi. ; inspecta \ab obstetrice], 
1 et quid csset inventa, totum illud turpissimum scelus, ubi ad ex- 
cipiendum et commiscendum concumbentium semen farina substernitur^ 
[ad conficiendam Manic haorum eucharistiani], indicawit. According 
to Augustine, the later Manicheans held that the elements of light 
were largely imprisoned in semine animali, and they certainly held 
that light was released from anything when it was eaten by the 
elect. That was a good foundation for a legend, at least. 



4 io ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

though it is impossible to say how long it was 
before he was detected. The old man begged 
Augustine to instruct him in the orthodox faith 
and allow him to retain his order at Hippo, but 
he was expelled from the town at once. Augustine 
relates this (ep. 236) to Deuterius, bishop of 
Csesarea, whither he expects the sub-deacon will 
go. He urges Deuterius not to admit the man 
to penance until he has betrayed the names of all 
the Manichees in the province! That detail 
suffices of itself to relegate the occurrence to 
Augustine s later years. 

To have crushed two formidable heresies and a 
schism was already an unprecedented service on 
the part of Augustine, but he sprang with alacrity 
at every other living error that was brought to 
his notice, and in his last years he came into 
conflict with the Arian (or Unitarian) heresy. 
The Goths and Vandals had, as is well known, 
been converted to that form of Christianity, and 
in 428 a detachment of the Gothic troops was 
sent to Africa, for a purpose which we have to 
consider presently. An Arian bishop, Maximinus, 
accompanied the troops, and he was sent, for 
some reason or other, to Hippo by the com 
mander, Sigisvult. Here the Arian encountered 



EPISODES OF HIS CLOSING YEARS 411 

Augustine s zealous lieutenant, Heraclius, and 
was induced to hold a debate with Augustine in 
the basilica. Maximinus consented, and a large 
congregation, including many nobles, hastened 
to the church. The dialogue has been preserved, 
but is of little interest, as the Arian tenets are 
familiar. Augustine is arrogant and overbearing 
in the fulness of his faith, telling his opponent 
c not to talk so much if he is not willing to learn ; 
and Maximinus, though a model of politeness 
and cultured ease, has at length to protest that 
Augustine talks like a man who has the imperial 
support at his back, not according to the fear of 
God. The Arian is really the most brilliant 
debater Augustine has encountered, and has by 
no means the worse of the duel. But he had to 
return to Carthage, and leave the debate unfinished. 
Augustine heard that the Arians were boasting at 
Carthage of a victory, so he returned to the 
contest with great vigour in two books Against 
Maximinus. I have already related a somewhat 
similar experience with Count Pascentius, another 
Arian. 



412 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



CHAPTER XVII 

A SADDENED TERMINATION 

THERE are few instances in ecclesiastical history 
of so vast and impressive a work being accom 
plished by one man as that which Augustine 
achieved in the Church of Africa, but there are 
fewer still where the work has tumbled into ruins 
before its creator s eyes. That was the sad 
fortune of Augustine in his closing year. At the 
very moment when he was completing his rout of 
the enemies of the Church refuting the heresy 
of the Goths ; when Manicheeism and Donatism 
were almost extinct and Pelagianism was in its 
agony ; when the African Church was attaining 
a supreme and worthy distinction among the 
provinces of Christendom; the army of the 
Vandals was pouring across the Straits of Hercules, 
and the flames of burning temples leaped into the 
heavens. Whilst Augustine laboured steadily at 
his final and comprehensive destruction of the 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 413 

Italian Pelagians laboured to correct the errors 
or atone for the indifference of Rome the hand 
of the destroyer was laid on the Church of Africa, 
and was to take it to pieces, stone by stone, before 
his aching eyes. The last picture of earth that 
he gazed upon was that of the Western Church, 
for whose purity and power he had sacrificed so 
much, disappearing in a flood of Arian and 
heathen violence. 

Whatever may have been Augustine s feeling 
as to the more philosophic aspect of this stirring 
devastation, he had the painful consciousness that 
an error of his own figured conspicuously in the 
chain of human causes. The Count of Africa at 
that time was an able Roman general of the name 
of Boniface, whom Procopius calls the last of 
the Romans. Boniface was a religious-minded 
man, and had a profound respect for Augustine. 
About the year 420 Boniface had lost his wife, 
and had thought of retiring to a monastery. 
Augustine, in his singular and ill-blended mixture 
of prudence and zeal, had very justly urged him 
to remain at his most useful post in the imperial 
service, but had advised him to make a private 
vow of chastity. Boniface had done so ; and 
when, in 428, he summoned the Vandals into 



4H ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Africa, Augustine could only recall with bitter 
sorrow that but for his own counsel Boniface 
would be praying in some obscure monastery 
instead of blundering in a net of political intrigue. 
There are few of us to-day who will share 
Augustine s grief that he did not withdraw the 
ablest soldier of the empire from its service, 
however strongly we may think it would have 
averted or postponed the disaster. Moreover, 
true to his spiritual ideal, Augustine was not so 
much concerned about the material disaster as 
about Boniface s moral lapse. In 422 Boniface 
had been sent to Spain on an imperial commission, 
and there the blue eyes and fair locks of a Vandal 
princess had seduced him from his vow. There 
was this consoling circumstance, says Augustine, 
that he compelled Pelagia to become a Catholic 
and Trinitarian before he married her. However, 
his daughter received Arian baptism, and Arian 
prelates had influence in his court. It was even 
said that he was not content with the affection 
of his own wife. Still he fought the battles of 
the empire with great skill and vigour, received 
exceptional honours at Rome in 425, and was 
loyal to the empress-mother in her most anxious 
moments. 






A SADDENED TERMINATION 415 

Boniface had a rival, Aetius, who is associated 
with him by Gibbon in deserving the phrase of 
Procopius. Aetius was a jealous and unscrupulous 
courtier, and he is said by Procopius to have 
conceived a diabolical plot when he saw the high 
favour of Boniface. 1 He reminded Placidia, the 
mother of Valentinian in., of Boniface s connection 
with the Vandal king, and suggested that she 
should recall him from Africa, where he might 
raise a formidable rebellion. At the same time 
he informed Boniface that the recall meant 
disgrace and death to him, if he obeyed it. 
Boniface refused, and the refusal was represented 
to Placidia as confirming the suspicion of Aetius. 
Very soon Boniface was in open rebellion, and 
defeated three armies that were dispatched against 
him. But he knew the resources of the empire 
too well to suppose that he could permanently 
maintain the diocese of Africa with his one legion 
and a few less disciplined auxiliaries. He sent a 
trusted officer to treat with the Vandal kings in 
Spain, and formed a fatal alliance with them. 
Gonderic and Genseric stipulated that there should 

1 De Bel/o Vandalico. Mr. Hodgkin (Italy and Her Invaders} 
thinks the story not above suspicion, but some such key to Boniface s 
conduct seems necessary, and the details are plausible enough on the 
whole. 



416 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

be an equal division of the provinces into three 
parts as the reward of their services. They had 
already secured their position in Spain, but the 
renowned fertility of Africa easily tempted them 
to favour the alliance. Boniface accepted their 
terms, and in the spring of 429 the whole Vandal 
nation, with whom the Alani were now amalga 
mated, moved towards the southern parts. The 
Spaniards gladly afforded the use of their ships 
for the crossing of the straits, and the lawless 
army began its march upon Hippo and Carthage. 
Augustine did not write to his friend Boniface 
until about the end of the year 428. Never had 
there been a case in which his mediation was 
more urgently demanded, yet he seems to have 
watched the development of the situation with a 
feeling of helplessness. He explains (ep. 220) 
that he was deterred from writing to Boniface 
earlier by the fear lest his letter should fall into 
the hands of his enemies. The reason is not very 
satisfactory, but certainly the situation was one of 
extreme delicacy and difficulty. When he does 
at length find a trusty messenger he can only 
write a letter which must have conveyed neither 
light nor consolation to the unfortunate count. 
He frankly confesses that he has no * secular 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 417 

counsel to offer ; he does not attempt to 
attenuate the gravity of the injury that has been 
done to his friend. And the spiritual counsel he 
offered was hardly likely to influence Boniface. 
Unfortunately, Augustine s chief concern was 
about the violation of his vow of continence, 
and so the main point of his letter is to induce 
Boniface either to abandon his wife and retire to 
a monastery or to secure her consent to the 
renewal of his vow. 

Boniface had more practical friends at court, 
and these found an opportunity of bringing 
Placidia to a more reasonable attitude during the 
absence of Aetius from Ravenna. Count Darius 
was sent on a pacific message to Boniface. They 
met at Carthage, and the production of the letters 
of the intriguer at once removed the cause of the 
estrangement. 1 Explanations were speedily given 
and accepted, and the count returned to the 
allegiance of the empress. But when Boniface 
turned to reason with his Vandal allies/ he 
found that he had delivered Africa into their 
fatal clutches. 

Gonderic had died, or had been murdered, 

1 Hatzfeld quite gratuitously grants Augustine the credit of the 
reconciliation. 



2 D 



4 i8 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

shortly before the Vandals marched down to the 
coasts of Spain, and the fierce, skilful, and 
resolute Genseric was left in supreme command. 
Mr. Hodgkin says that if Attila was the 
Napoleon of the fifth century, Genseric was 
certainly its Bismarck. A brave soldier and astute 
general, as well as a cunning and unscrupulous 
politician, Genseric probably saw his ultimate 
goal from the start. In the month of May he 
mustered his army of fifty thousand warriors l on 
the north-west corner of Africa, and directed 
their greed and cruelty towards the distant cities 
of Numidia and the Proconsular province. The 
tall, fair, blue-eyed, and powerful Teutons had 
emerged from their German forests some few 
years before, when the cry swept through the 
bleak kingdoms of the north that the steel barrier 
of the empire was yielding at length. Less brave 
than the Goths, but more greedy of spoil and more 
fierce in victory, they had cut their way across 
Gaul and the Pyrenees, and formed a comfortable 
kingdom in Spain. Now, Genseric was leading 
them into the very granary of the empire, and 
they gathered their skins about them, and grasped 

1 Victor says eighty thousand all told. Mr. Hodgkin does not 
think there were more than twenty thousand soldiers. 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 419 

the odds and ends of arms and armour they had 
picked up in their march through civilised lands, 
and, with their wives and children, spread them 
selves over the rougher plains of Mauretania. 
Adventurous Goths and Spaniards had joined the 
host before it left Spain, and now the Moors and 
Getulians, as soon as they realised that this 
strange and fierce army of eighty thousand souls 
was rushing to the spoliation and destruction of 
the marble cities of the hated Romans, flocked to 
the bible-standards of the Arian savages. The 
chain of fortresses that had guarded the mountain- 
gates of the provinces against the tribes of the 
desert had been almost abandoned during the 
intestine war, and tributary streams flowed down 
from every pass as the army swept along between 
the mountains and the sea. Soon they reached 
the broad roads that the Romans had con 
structed along the coast and the outlying towns. 
They poured themselves over the fields and 
orchards, leaving only a waste of blackened 
stubble and uprooted trees behind them. They 
swept down on the cities with a bitter scorn for 
their civilisation and a hatred of their Trinitarian 
religion and an insatiable thirst for gold. Bishops 
and priests hid the sacred vessels, and one savage 



420 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

would hold their mouths open with a stick while 
his fellows poured in vinegar, or salt-water, or 
filth, until they consented to reveal their treasures; 
then, perhaps, they would be loaded like mules 
with the booty their churches had provided, and 
goaded along, blinded with lime and bleeding 
with wounds. Here and there a stronger town 
resisted the invaders, and they gathered the 
corpses that lay thick on their path, and flung 
them to rot in thousands under the walls, until 
famine and pestilence forced the gates. Then 
came a more frightful carnage, and the flames of 
churches and palaces lighted the sated vultures to 
their feast. 1 

Towards the end of the year Genseric had 
reached the rich towns of Numidia, when the 
messengers of Boniface came to tell him that the 
war was over, and he might return to Spain. 
Before him lay two of the richest provinces of 
the empire, and behind him lay several hundred 
miles of blackened territory, where the famished 
beasts wandered in a dying frenzy, and the 
fugitive inhabitants trembled in the mountain 

1 Such, at all events, is the story of the Christian writers Victor, 
Idatius, and Possidius. I have previously quoted Salvianus as to 
their chastity. 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 421 

caves, and the smoking ruins marked the sites 
of prosperous villages and opulent towns. He 
laughed at the idea. He had never intended 
either to return to Spain that was understood 
or to occupy the comparatively barren Maure- 
tania. Boniface offered him a heavy ransom in 
the name of the empire, but a far greater treasure 
glittered before the eyes of his troops, and he 
himself had little inclination to be prince of 
Mauretania. He now knew the resistance he 
was likely to meet. His wild hordes probably 
contained no more than thirty or forty thousand 
effective and well-armed warriors. A timely and 
determined opposition could have flung a line 
of defence from the Atlas to the sea that his 
bands could not have passed. But the African 
subjects of the Roman empire had no more idea 
of patriotic resistance than the inhabitants of 
Italy. The corrupt and degenerate spirit of its 
closing years had made them incapable of lifting 
a spear. They looked helplessly to their pro 
fessional soldiers and hired troops who had been 
butchering each other in the interest of a wire 
pulling politician whilst Genseric was sweeping 
over Africa. They became the slaves of the fierce 
Teutons, or fed the pestilence or the vultures 



422 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

with their corpses, or fled to the mountains, or 
rang out their ghastly folly in their amphitheatres 
and circuses (so says Salvianus) whilst the cries of 
their dying soldiers and the guttural shouts of the 
ruthless savages mingled with their laughter. But 
they could not forge a spear or handle a scythe. 
And so Genseric knew he had only the organised 
troops of Boniface to meet, and, after a short 
truce, he resumed his bloody march. Boniface 
flung his troops in vain against the Vandal army. 
He lost the battle, and retreated to Hippo with 
the remnants of his forces. 

It was about the end of May 430 when 
Genseric appeared at the walls of Hippo. 
Augustine had now entered upon his seventy- 
sixth year, and we can imagine the feelings with 
which he would look out from the besieged city. 
From the hill in its centre one could look over 
the greater part of his paroecia and a good deal of 
the Numidian province. He could see that the 
work of his laborious life had been destroyed in 
six months. In the general devastation the Arian 
soldiers had plundered and fired the Catholic 
churches with a peculiar zeal. From point to 
point on the horizon, where he had been wont to 
mark the growth of the Church, only columns of 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 423 

smoke now arose from the ruined towns of 
Numidia. Only Cirta, Hippo, and Carthage had 
successfully opposed the invaders ; and these were 
closely besieged, and had little human hope of 
ultimate deliverance. Hippo occupied a fortunate 
position from a military point of view, as I have 
already described. Two broad rivers protected 
it on the north and south, and stout walls drawn 
from river to river defended its eastern and 
western boundaries. But in the distracted con 
dition of the empire there seemed so little 
prospect of relief from beyond the seas that 
defeat could only be a question of time. To all 
human appearances the end of the African Church 
was in view ; it was most certainly the end of 
Augustine s work that was written in lurid letters, 
for his dying eyes to read, over the face of the 
country. There were those who found a certain 
consolation in the belief that the end of the world 
was heralded in this devastation. The question 
of the end of the world had always been ap 
proached with hesitation and reserve by Augus 
tine. He saw that the prophecies of the New 
Testament had not been fulfilled. The nations 
had not been converted to Christ (Arianism being 
as rank an error as polytheism), and certainly the 



4 2 4 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Jews still held aloof. He could not, therefore, 
seek relief in the thought that his life-work was 
only tumbling to pieces in the general dissolution 
that God had decreed for the city of men. 

Gibbon has been severely taken to task by 
Catholic writers for hinting that Augustine may 
have been troubled in his last days by the thought 
that the persecution of the Donatists had assisted 
the invasion by preparing a rebellious body at 
home. There is really no weighty evidence of an 
alliance of the Donatists with the invaders, nor 
does it seem likely that such an alliance would or 
could be formed in an appreciable degree. The 
Vandals wanted no Trinitarian allies ; and there 
must have been few sincere Donatists left in 430. 
In an earlier letter (ep. 185) to Count Boniface 
Augustine speaks (in 417) of an Arian, or semi- 
Arian element amongst the Donatists, and says 
that some of them were disposed to fraternise 
with the Goths. It is very possible that some of 
these semi-Arian Donatists survived until 430, 
and were admitted to comradeship with the wild 
Vandals. In any case, the number must have 
been small, and cannot have had the slightest 
influence on the issue. The question becomes 
more serious when we add the discontent of the 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 425 

pagans and Manicheans. As we saw, when 
Augustine put on the black tunic in 392, the 
Catholics were in a pitiful minority. The vast 
majority of the population were pagans, Mani 
cheans, or Donatists. It was chiefly by an 
unhappy appeal to secular force that Augustine 
had effected the change, and a good deal of ill- 
feeling must have lingered amongst the people. 
Yet even here impartial reflection will scarcely 
find a serious source of disaffection to the empire. 
The Vandal smote down the pagan, the Mani- 
chean, and the Donatist as readily as he felled the 
orthodox Trinitarian. He had a narrow and 
ferocious zeal for the most cultured form of 
Christianity. At the most one can only think 
that the persecutions inspired by the Catholic 
bishops to Catholic emperors had been one 
additional element in the corroding forces that 
had eaten away the old Roman spirit, and left the 
inhabitants of the empire like flocks of sheep 
before the invaders. 

It is not probable that Augustine was troubled 
with reflection on that question at all. The 
movements of the barbarians were guided by 
Providence, in his belief; and where the designs 
of Providence were inscrutable, he would trouble 



426 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

little about human considerations. Indeed, 
Augustine continued his work with a singular 
calmness with what might be called indifference 
to the critical situation, except that the feeling 
was grounded on a deep religious faith. We are 
able to follow him in his last days because his 
pupil and biographer, Possidius, was in the 
beleaguered town with him. As the invasion 
advanced, the more sincere clergy were seized 
with a grave perplexity. The majority of their 
people could not take to horse like themselves, 
and they were torn between the stories of the 
Vandal treatment of priests and the spiritual 
interest of their flocks. Augustine s last letter is 
a reply (ep. 228) to a petition for advice on the 
subject from the bishop of Thiave. They must 
remain with the last of their people, was his 
inevitable answer. However, a number of 
bishops, including Possidius, had fled to Hippo, 
and remained there with Augustine when the 
Vandals closed round the walls. Hippo was a 
mile from the sea (so that the sea-front did not 
remain open, as Gibbon supposes), and was 
completely surrounded by Genseric s forces. It 
is hardly likely that in the city of Augustine the 
circus and amphitheatre continued their games 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 427 

during the siege, as Salvianus declares of Carthage. 
But the church was open, and Augustine preached 
constantly to his people until illness prevented 
him. And, perhaps, if ever one is justified in 
quoting that well-worn adage of the ruling 
passion, it is here. Whilst the Vandals thundered 
at the walls Augustine was absorbed in his great 
refutation of the latest reply of the Pelagian 
bishop of Eclanum, Julian. 1 

In the third month of the siege Augustine was 
seized with a fever. Possidius relates that, as he 
lay ill, a sick man was brought to him, and he 
was begged to lay hands on him and cure him. 
Augustine refused at first, pleasantly observing 
that if he had the power of healing the sick he 
would exert it to his own advantage. However, 
the man urged that he had been warned in a 
dream to approach Augustine, and he had too 
serious a view of such communications to resist 
further. He laid hands on the man, and the 
disorder was miraculously cured. It is one of the 

1 Here Mr. Hodgkin makes a curious slip in his very estimable 
Italy and Her Invaders (vol. ii.). He says that during the siege 
Augustine was * busily employed adding a " Confutation of the 
emperor Julian " to his vast library of books. It was the 
Unfinished work against Julian n (of Eclanum) that occupied him. 
He never troubled much about the emperor Julian s brilliant 
failure to galvanise into life the corpse of the old Roman religion. 



428 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

most remarkable features of Augustine s life that 
this is the only miracle he is recorded to have 
worked. Once more, I fear the Hipponenses 
were not a very grateful or appreciative people. 
Possidius does, it is true, vaguely refer to some 
cases of the expulsion of devils, but that could 
scarcely be accounted a miracle in the early 
centuries of the Christian era. 

Ten days before his death Augustine bade 
farewell to his people, and withdrew into a 
chamber, where the penitential psalms, written 
large, hung from the walls by his bed-side. He 
begged his friends not to disturb him except 
when the physician came to see him or his food 
was brought. Here he died on the 28th of 
August 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, 
4 sound in every member of his body, and retaining 
his sight and hearing to the end. The strong 
will had sustained the slight frame through sixty 
years of untiring exertion, and left it with an 
integrity which few preserve. He left no will, 
says Possidius, for he had nothing to bequeathe, 
but he directed that his books and writings should 
be retained by his church. 

The faith of his people in the value of his 
intercession was rewarded. After fourteen 



A SADDENED TERMINATION 429 

months the Vandals were compelled by famine to 
raise the siege, and most of the inhabitants escaped 
to Italy. But Boniface was again defeated, and 
the Vandals returned and set fire to Hippo, 
though it is recorded that they spared the church 
and library of Augustine. Genseric concluded a 
peace in 435, consenting to leave Carthage to the 
empire, but he soon cast his treaty to the winds 
and subdued the whole of north-west Africa. 
During the century of Vandal rule and Arian 
persecution that followed the African Church was 
almost extinguished. In 534 the expulsion of the 
Vandals and the patronage of the eastern empire 
revived its fortune for a few years, but the 
country was weakly held, and only for a few 
miles from the coast ; and the Moors and 
tribesmen prevented the steady restoration of its 
institutions. In 647 the African sun first flashed 
from the crescent of the advancing Arabs, and by 
the end of the seventh century the last relics of 
Roman civilisation and Christian worship were 
scornfully swept into their long-sealed tombs from 
Carthage to the Pillars of Hercules. And the 
only monument that remains in his native land of 
Augustine s great work is a strangely persistent 
memory of a great Christian, in whose honour 



430 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

the Arabs hold a quaint celebration over the ruins 
of Hippo. 

Yet in the world of thought and letters 
Augustine has left an enduring memorial of his 
great powers. With the advance of our know 
ledge of the vast theatre in which human life is 
enacted, and with the increasing penetration of 
humane feeling and ethical control into religious 
thought, even Catholic theology is departing more 
and more from Augustine s conception of the 
Gospel message. It may be that his distinctive 
opinions will eventually be abandoned by all but 
the historian or the pathologist of ideas. But, 
whatever judgment they pass on the convictions 
that inspired his actions and the results that 
followed them, men will not refuse their 
admiration to one who devoted his great ability 
so strenuously to the unselfish prosecution of a 
high ideal in a world of deep corruption. And 
the writer who can captivate a Calvin and a 
Boccaccio, a Newman and a Byron, has an 
immortality assured, whatever creeds or anti- 
creeds prevail. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



43 * 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

THE life of St. Augustine is chiefly gathered 
from his works (for which I have generally used 
the Migne edition), especially the c Confessions, 
the Letters, and the Retractations. After 
these comes the Vita Beati Augustini of his 
disciple, Possidius ; and a certain amount of 
biographical and supplementary information is 
supplied by the chronicles of Idatius and Prosper, 
the * De Schismate Donatistarum of Optatus, the 
c Historia Persecutions Africanae of Victor of 
Vita, and the De Gubernatione Dei of Salvianus. 
The story of his age is learned from : the letters 
of Jerome, Ambrose, and Q. A. Symmachus ; the 
c Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus ; the 
Vitas Philosophorum of Eunapius ; the poems 
of Claudian, Prudentius, and Ausonius ; the 
Saturnalia of Macrobius ; and the histories of 
the later Procopius. All these, except the last- 
named, are contemporary, or nearly contemporary 
writers. 



432 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Amongst modern biographies of Augustine 
the chief are : Cardinal J. O. Von Rauscher s 
* Augustinus (facile princeps a recent and com 
prehensive work) ; M. J. J. F. Poujoulat s 
Histoire de S. Augustin (1852); C. Bindemann s 
Der Heilige Augustinus ( 1 844) ; and the Saint 
Augustine of an anonymous Irish priest (2nd ed. 
1888, a spirited but uncritical work, spoiled by 
the usual effort to make Augustine a modern 
Romanist). The St. Augustine of A. Hatzfeld 
(1898) is a vague and not wholly reliable sketch, 
and the c St. Augustine of Mr. C. H. Collette 
(1883) is a much less informed and equally 
interested excursus from the anti-Romanist side. 
Few others amongst the innumerable sketches 
are worth reading. The life in vol. xiii. of 
Tillemont s Memoires, which is chiefly followed 
by the Latin life of the Benedictines, is a model 
of laborious and reverent research. 

Useful assistance in reconstructing the age, the 
world, and the thoughts of Augustine may be 
obtained from the following works : St. 
Augustin, by L. Grandgeorge (a study of his 
Platonist ideas) ; Die Quellen Augustin s, by 
C. Frick ; Die Geistesentwickelung des H. 
Augustinus of F. Woerter ; * Saint Augustin of 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 433 

H. A. Naville ; Augustinische Studien of H. 
F. Reuter ; < La Philosophie de St. Augustin of 
J. F. Nourisson ; < Historia Critica Philosophic 
of J. Brucker ; * Mani of C. Kessler ; Du 
Polytheisme Romain of B. Constant; < Histoire 
Critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme of J. 
de Beausobre ; * Romische Mythologie of L. 
Preller; Commentatio Historica de JEvo 
Theodosiano of P. Muller ; < Roman Society in 
the last Centuries of the Western Empire of 
S. Dill (1899) ; Italy and Her Invaders of T. 
Hodgkin (1880); <Le Christianisme aux trois 
Premiers Stecles of E. de Pressense ; Histoire 
de Civilisation of F. Ozanam ; < Tableau de 
1 Eloquence Chretienne of A. Villemain ; The 
Fall of Rome of J. G. Sheppard ; L Eglise et 
1 Empire Remain of De Broglie ; 4 Histoire de 
la Destruction du Paganisme of A. Beugnot ; 
4 Geschichte des Untergangs des Heidenthums of 
V. Schultze ; La Fin du Paganisme/ Promenades 
Archeologiques, and < Roman Africa of G. 
Boissier ; c L Afrique au Cinquieme Siecle of A. 
Biechy; * Der Fall des Heidenthums of H. G. 
Tzschirner; Heidenthum und Judenthum of 
J. J. Dollinger; Untersuchungen iiber die 
Africanische Kirche of A. Schwartze ; Africa 



2 E 



434 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 

Christiana of S. A. Morcelli ; Roma Antica 
of Nardini ; * Pagan and Christian Rome of R. 
A. Lanciani ; Ancient Rome of R. Burn ; 
4 Carthage, Ruined Cities of Numidia, and The 
Carthaginian Church of N. Davis. I need not 
add Gibbon, and the magnificent Handbuch 
der Romischer Alterthiimer of Marquardt and 
Mommsen. 



INDEX 



ABKLARD, 33, 37, 169. 
Academics, the, 112, 132, 156, 158. 
Actors, moral condition of, 28-9. 
Adeodatus, 112, 126, 155, 156, 165, 

188. 
Adrumetum, the monks of, 383, 

406-7. 

Ad Simplicianuni) the, 339. 
Aesculapius, cult of, 23, 26, 90. 
Aetius, 415, 416. 
Africa, Roman, 2-8, 23-32. 
African Church, the, 189, 191, I97 

243 seq. 
Agapae, the, 76, 109-10, 121, 

204-7. 

Alaric, 268, 292. 
Albicerius, 40. 
Albina, 311-15, 379. 
Albinus, 104. 
Alypius, 57, 61, 116, 145, 151, 165, 

179, 198, 213, 219, 273. 
Ambrose, St., 78, 93, 94, 97, 1 19-22, 

152-3, 217, 281, 282. 
influence of, on Augustine, 

119-22. 
Ammianus Marcellinus, 37, 41, 70, 

74, 94- 

Amphitheatre, the, 27, 77. 
Animal suffering, Augustine on, 208. 
Annona templorum, the, 89, 290. 
Annotationes in Job^ the, 324. 
Antony of Fussala, 198, 394-6. 
Aphrodite, 26. 

Apiarius, the affair of, 386-94. 
Apuleius, 16. 
Arabs, the, 2, 194, 429. 
Arbitrator, Augustine as an, 226, 

227. 



Argobastes, 281. 

Arians, Augustine and the, 410, 411, 

414- 
Aristotle, Augustine s indebtedness 

to, 133- 

study of, 45. 

Asceticism, 52, 109. 

Augustine s idea of, 182,214, 

398. 

Astarte, 7, 24, 26. 
Astrology, 38-43, 63. 
Astronomy in Augustine, 64, 187. 
Athens, 14. 
Attalus, 268, 293, 294. 
Augustinians, the, 180. 
Aurelius, bishop, 28, 189, 368, 375 ? 

386, 388. 



BAAL-HAMMON, 7, 24, 26. 

Ballad against the Donatists, 203. 

Baptism of Augustine, 17, 36, 165. 

Bath, the, 5, 76, 156. 

Baur on Augustine, 322, 344. 

Bayle on Augustine, 215. 

Beugnot, 283, 291, 294. 

Birth of Augustine, 8. 

Boissier (quoted), 3, 35, 80, 299. 

Boniface, Pope, 381, 390, 391, 395, 

3? 6 - 
Boniface, the general, 413-17, 420-2, 

424, 429. 
Botrus, 245. 

Breviary, the Roman, 341. 
Brucker on Augustine, 330. 

C-iECILIAN, 245, 246, 249. 

Caslestis, temple of the, 24, 26, 287. 



436 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



Calama, riot at, 291. 

Calculo, the, 10. 

Calvin and Augustine, 384. 

Canons of Sardica, the, 387, 391. 

Captives, Augustine sells sacred 

vessels to liberate, 229. 
Carthage, 22-32, 61. 

councils of, 256, 368, 373, 
387, 390- 

great conference at, 269-74. 

Cassian, 382, 383. 
Cassiciacum, 154. 
Caterva, the, at Csesarea, 389. 
Catholics, origin of the name, 201. 
Celestius, 245. 

Christianity and the cultured pagans, 
I0 5, 303-4. 

in the fourth century, 7, 19, 

48, 93-"3- 

Chrysostom, St., 31, 78, 106. 
Church, constitution of the, in the 

fourth century, 251. 
Church-life in the fourth century, 
189, 191-2, 197, 204, 205, 223, 
.286, 3 J 4 33 6 - 

Circumcellions, the, 253, 265, 275. 
Circus, the, 27, 61, 75,77, 88. 
Cirta, synod of, 247. 
City of God, the, 39, 304-1 1. 
Claudianus, 84. 
Ccelestine, Pope, 396. 
Ccelestius, 357-9, 364, 372, 382. 
Collette, Mr., 222. 
Colonia, 4. 

Communism in Augustine s semin 
ary, 214, 218, 402. 
Competentes, the, 163. 
Confession in the fifth century, 223. 
Confessions, the (quoted), 9, n, 20, 

33, 35,45) 57, 59, 97, 13, *79> 
215. 

the, analysis of, 168-71. 

Constantine, conversion of, 93. 
Contra Acadcmkos, the, 40, 56, 58, 

158. 
Contra Adimantum Manichaeum, the, 

328. 
Centra adversarium Legis et Prophe- 

tarum, 330. 
Contra Cresconium, the, 261. 



Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum, 

the, 381. 

Contra epistolam Donati, the, 203, 256. 
Contra epistolam Parmeniani,the, 261. 
Contra Faustum, the, 326, 328, 329. 
Contra Judaeos, the, 329. 
Contra Julianum, 38 1. 

(imperfectum), the, 427. 
Contra litter as Petiliani, the, 258. 
Contra Maximinum, the, 411. 
Contra mendaciutn, the, 335. 
Contra partem Donati, the, 258. 
Contra Prlsdllianistas et Origenistas, 

the, 330. 
Contra Secundinum Manichefum, the, 

328. 

Conversion of Augustine (quoted 
from Confessions}, 145-52. 

significance of the, 142. 

Cresconius, 261. 
Crispinus of Calama, 259. 
Curiales, 4, 9. 
Cybele, cult of, 26, 89, no. 
Cyprian, St., 252. 

DAMASUS, 95, 97, 107, 109. 

Davis, Mr. (quoted), 26. 

Death of Augustine, 428. 

De Broglie (quoted), 80, 93, 98, 
152, 190. 

Debates of Augustine, the, 201, 212, 
230, 257, 389- 

Decuriones. 4. 

Demetrius, 316-18, 377. 

Descartes, anticipated by Augustine, 

310. 

De agone Christiano, the, 339. 
De apto et pulchro, the, 60. 
De Baptismo, the, 261. 
De beata -vita, the, 159. 
Debono conjugal :, the, 260, 331. 
De bono <viduitath, the, 334. 
De catechizandis rudibus, the, 338. 
De conjugiis adult erinis, the, 334. 
De consensu Evangelistarum, the, 326. 
De continentia, the, 331. 
De cura promortuis gerenda, the, 338. 
De diversis querstionibus octoginta- 

tribus, the, 339. 
De diiJinatione deemonum, the, 339. 



INDEX 



437 



De doctrina Christiana^ the, 318. 

De dono perseverant i<?, the, 55, 383. 

De duabus animabus, the, 201. 

De fide et operibus, the, 339. 

Defde et symbolo, the, 339. 

De Jide rerum, the, 339. 

De Genesi ad literam, the, 186. 

De Genesi: contra Manichteos, the, 

186. 
De Gratia Christi et Peccato Originali, 

the, 379. 

De hteresibus, the, 329, 409. 
De immor f alitate animee, the, 164. 
De libero arbitrio^ the, 173, 207-9. 
De litter a et spiritu, the, 363. 
De Magistro, the, 188. 
De mendacio, the, 335. 
De merith et remissions peccatorum, 

the, 362. 

De moribus Ecclesite, the, 174. 
De moribus Manichteorum, the, 64, 

174- 

De musica, the, 187. 
De natura bom, the, 328. 
De natura et gratia , the, 363. 
De nuptiis et concupiscentia, the, 335, 

381. 

De octo Dulcitii quxstionibus, 339. 
De opere monachorum, the, 335. 
De or dine, the, 161. 
De patientui) the, 339. 
De perfectione humane juititiee, the, 

364- 

De pr<xdestinatione sanctorum, 1116,383. 
De quantitate animae, the, 173. 
De sancta -virginitatf, the, 331. 
De Trinitate, the, 336. 
De unico baptismo, the, 261. 
De utilitate credendi, the, 112, 119, 

199. 

De vera religione, the, 138, 176, 184. 
Dill, Mr. (quoted), 15, 80, 95, 317. 
Diospolis, synod of, 366, 368. 
Divination, 38-43, 63. 
Divorce, Augustine s view of, 334. 

in Roman law, 81. 

Donatism and the Anglican Church, 

277. 

Donatists, the, 8, 201, 203, 243-77. 
and the Vandals, 268, 424. 



Donatiats, persecution of the, 253, 
255, 258, 263-8, 275. 

violence of the, 210, Z5o, 

254, 259,265,275. 

Donatus, 37, 250. 

Dods, Mr. Marcus (quoted), 33, 
140, 345- 

EDUCATION in the Roman world, 

IO -.I9> 37, 46. 
Emeritus of Caesarea, 389. 
Enarratio in psa/mos, the, 221, 323. 
Enchiridion, the, 338. 
End of the world, Augustine s view, 

333423- 
Endelechius, 88. 
Enneads, the, 134. 
Epicureanism, 128, 129. 
Episcopal courts, 226. 
Erudition of Augustine, 132, 137, 

322, 344. 

Eucharist, Augustine on the, 327. 
Eugenius, 281, 282. 
Eu logins, 6 1. 
Evil, Augustine on the nature of, 

118, 135, 161, 173, 185, 207, 

310, 348, 360. 
Evodius, 155, 173, 179, 198, 207, 

368. 
Evolution of Augustine s ideas, 

345-50. 

FAITH and reason, Augustine on, 

176, 200, 329, 347, 398. 
Fall of Rome, 78, 298-302. 

Augustine on the, 298, 304. 

causes of the 300. 

Christianity and the, 299-302. 

Fascius, incident of, 224. 

Faustinus of Potentina, 386, 387, 

390-2. 

Faustus of Mileve, 65, 327, 329. 
Felix, debate with, 230. 
Felix of Aptunga, 249. 
Fiscal system of Rome, 4. 
Flavianus, 83, 100, 281. 
Floralia, the, 7, 89, no, 292. 
Fortunatus, 175, 201. 
Fortunius, debate with, 257. 



ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



Free will, Augustine on, 173, 185, 

207, 208, 384. 
Friendship, in the Confessions^ 59. 

GENESIS, Augustine on, 186, 310, 

3 2 5- 

Genseric, 32, 415, 418, 420, 422, 

429. 
Gibbon (quoted), 30, 95, 152, 153, 

276, 282, 291, 299, 302, 305, 

316, 384,424,426. 
Gildo, 253. 

Gothic invasion, the, 268, 292, 294. 
Grace, Augustine s doctrine of, 208, 

359-6i, 3 8 3- 
Grammar, Augustine s work on, 1 64. 

study of, 12-13, 37- 

Grammaticus, the, 12. 
Gratian, 15, 57, 87, 95-7, 280. 
Greek language, study of the, 13, 14. 

HAMILTON, Sir W., on Augustine, 
322. 

Harnack (quoted), 48, 50. 

Hatzfeld (quoted), 35, 190, 417. 

Health of Augustine, 215. 

Hebrew, study of, 14. 

Hefele (quoted), 387, 391. 

Heraclian, 267, 269, 294, 315, 319. 

Heraclius, Augustine s successor- 
elect, 404-6, 41 1. 

Heros, 366, 372. 

Hilarion, St., 42. 

Hippo, 190, 193-5. 

- siege of, 422, 426, 427, 429. 

Hodgkin, Mr. (quoted), 4, 32, 415, 
418,427. 

Honorius, 29, 375, 376. 

decrees of, 266-9, 2 75j J 86, 

290, 294, 296. 

Hortensius, the, 45, 46, 158. 

Hypatia, 38. 

IDEAS of Augustine, comprehensively 

considered, 342-50. 
Infant baptism, Augustine on, 207, 

349, 3 6 2. 

Innocent, Pope, 42, 368, 370, 372. 
Isis, cult of, 92, no. 



JEROME, St., 21, 31, 37, 42, 70, 102, 
103, 104, 105, 172, 174, 183, 
191, 235-42, 283, 353, 356, 364, 
365- 

corresponds with Augustine, 

235-42. 

Jerusalem, synod of, 364-5. 

Julian of Eclanum, 380-2, 427. 

Julian, the emperor, 94, 427. 

Juliana, 316-18, 378. 

Justina, 121, 152, 153. 

KINGSLEY, Mr. 46, 181, 183, 217. 

LX.TITIJS.. the, 204-7. 

Lastidianus, 155. 

Lazarus, 366, 372. 

Legacies, Augustine s trouble over, 

219, 220. 

Leibnitz on Augustine, 322. 
Leporius, the monk, 407. 
Letters of Augustine, 231-42. 
Libyans, the, 2. 

Licentius, 116, 155, 156, 160, 179. 
Literator, the, 10. 
Literatus, the, 12. 
Lucilla, 246, 249. 
Lupercalia, the, 89. 
Luxury of the Romans, 70-7 3, 78, 82. 
Lying, Augustine on, 335. 

MACROBIUS, 70, 74, 81, 82. 

Madaura, 16, 289. 

Majorinus, 250. 

Mani, 50. 

Manichean sacrament, the, 409. 

Manicheans, morality of the, 64, 

92, 175,202,408. 

publicly examined, 408, 409. 

Manicheeism, 48, 49-56, 62-6, 92, 

134, 135, 172-6, 185, 201. 
Manlius Theodorus, 131. 
Manumission of slaves, 225. 
Marcellinus, 269, 271-5, 303, 319- 

20, 362. 
Marculus, the heretic-saint, 265 

(note). 

Marinus, 319. 

Marriage, Augustine s view of, 331-5. 
Martyrology, the Roman, 265. 
Martyrs, cult of, 185, 246, 398. 



INDEX 



439 



Mary, Augustine s attitude towards, 

341-2. 

Mass, the, 223, 327. 
Mathematics, study of, 37. 
Mattarii, the, 53. 
Maximinus, letter to, 203. 

the Arian, 410. 

Megalius of Calama, 211, 274. 

Melania, 311-15, 379. 

Memoriae martyrum, the, 204. 

Mensurius of Carthage, 245. 

Milan, 1 16. 

Mileve, synod of, 368. 

Military service and Christianity, 

301. 

Miracle, Augustine s sole, 427. 
Miracles at Hippo, 399-401. 

Augustine on, 176-8, 399-401. 

Mistress of Augustine, the, 33, 124, 

126. 

Mithraism, 48, 49, 91-2, 172, 326. 
Monastery of Augustine, the, 178, 

198. 
Monasticism in the west, 180-3, 

336-7. 
Monica, St., 8, 17, 20, 36, 56, 68, 

121, 125, 126, 155, 156, 158, 167. 

death of, 167. 

Morality of Christians at Carthage, 

31, 34, 42 ; at Rome, 42, 106-11. 

of pagans, 31, 32. 79-85. 

of the African bishops, 245-50. 

of the Manichees,44, 92, 175, 

202, 408. 

Mosheim on Augustine, 344. 
Mozley on Augustine, 344. 
Municipal life in the fourth century, 

4, 5, 9, I2 - 
Municipium, 3. 
Mythology, Roman, 90. 

NEBRIDIUS, 43, 61, 116, 156, 179, 

184, 187. 
Nectar iua, 291. 
Neo-Platonism, 48, 49, 105, 133, 

141. 
Neo-Platonists, influence of the, on 

Augustine, 132, 134-8, 163. 
Nourisson (quoted), 63, 132, 164, j 

168, 208, 343, 383. i 



OLYMPUS, 265, 266, 290, 292. 
Optatus of Mileve, 244, 246. 

of Thamugade, 253. 

Ordination of Augustine, 192, 211. 
Origin of the soul, views of Jerome 

and Augustine, 242. 
Original sin, Augustine on, 335, 

349, 3 6 , 3 6 4- 

Orosius, 305, 354, 364, 365, 367. 
Ostia, Augustine at, 166. 



PAGANISM, 7, 18, 19, 24-7, 49, 87- 
lor, 278-97, 327. 

I fall of, 93-101, 172, 278-97. 

I Papal claims not recognised in 
Africa, 251, 256, 274, 369, 371, 
374, 386-8, 390-4, 395-6. 
Pascentius, debate with, 231. 
Patricius, 8, 17, 20, 22. 
Paula, 101, 109. 
Paulinus of Pella, 35. 
of Nola, St., 106, 179, 205, 

235,353, 356, 377- 
Pelagianism, 208, 354, 358-61, 369, 

378, 380-2. 
Pelagius, 318, 352, 354-8, 364-8, 

373,377, 379, 3^. 

works of, 356. 

Persecution, Augustine s view of, 

255,258,260-3,27.6,285,289. 
Petilian, 140, 258, 273, 276. 
Petrarch on Augustine, 221, 323. 
Philanthropic work of Augustine, 

224,227, 228. 
Philosophy, study of, in the fourth 

century, 15, 46. 
Piniantis, 311-15, 379. 
Plato, Augustine s debt to, 132, 133, 

T 37, 163, 179, 185, 346. 

Augustine on, 138, 139, 179, 

l8 5, 39> 346. . 

-study of, 47, 132. 

Plotinus, Augustine s indebtedness 

to, 133-6, 137. 
Polygamy, Augustine s view of, 

332-4- 

Pontitianus, 144. 
Pope, use of the word in the fourth 

century, 252. 



440 ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE 



Possidius, 57, 190, 196, 211, 212, 
214, 259, 291, 368, 426, 417, 
428. 

Poujoulat (quoted), 49, 154, 232, 
276, 33 2 - 

Poverty of Augustine s clergy, 218, 
402-3. 

Practical ability lacking in Augus 
tine, 217. 

Praetextatus, 80, 83, 100. 

Prayer for the dead, 167, 338. 

Preacher, Augustine as a, 221. 

Pressense, M. de, 243, 250. 

Priapus, cult of, 29, 90. 

Proba Faltonia, 316-18. 

Prosper, 26. 

Psa/mus contra partem Donati, the, 
203. 

Ptiblicola, the letter to, 234. 

Punic language, the, 12, 14, 222. 

religion, the, 7, 24, 26. 

Purgatory, in Augustine, 338. 

Purpurius, 247, 249. 

Pythagorean ideas in Augustine, 
161, 187. 

Qu&stionei Evangeliorum, the 326. 

RATIONS, public, 6, 75. 

Rauscher, Cardinal Von (quoted), 

40, 165, 378, 388. 
Relics, cult of, 153, 336, 398. 
Retractations, the, 339-40. 

(quoted), 138, 157, 176,207, 

242. 

Rhetoric, study of, 14-16, 37, 114. 
Roman clergy, morality of the, 

106-9. 
see, references to, 251, 256, 

274, 368-70, 371, 373, 374, 

386-8, 390-4, 395-6. 
Romanianus, 22, 56, 57, 116, 127, 

176, 179, 185, 186. 
Rome, 69 sey. 
Rosenbaum, 26, 85. 
Rousseau, Confessions of, 126, 169. 
Rurlnus, 354, 357. 

Rule of St. Augustine, the, 180, 397. j 
Rusticus, 155. 
Rutilius Numantinus, 302. 



SAINTS, Augustine s view of cult of 

the, 342. 
Salvianus, 3, 7, 27, 30, 32, 34, 69, 

316. 

Sanctuary, the law of, 224. 
! Saturn, cult of, 24, 27. 
| Saturnalia, the, of Macrobius, 81,82. 
! Saturnalia, the, 7, 89, no, 292. 
Scandals in Augustine s seminary, 

198, 214, 218,401, 409. 
Scepticism of Augustine, 112, 140. 
Schools, the Roman, 10-15, 18, 37, 

46, 60, 67, 114. 
Schultze (quoted), 7, 95, 283. 
Scripture, study of, 47,48, 122, 132, 

157, 322, 326. 

Secundus of Tigisis, 247, 249. 
Seminary of Augustine, the, 199,213. 
Semi-Pelagianism, 382-4. 
Sermons of Augustine, 28, 31, 199, 

206-7, 20 9 220 187. 
Shorthand in the Roman world, 157. 
Simplicianus, 143. 
Sixtus, Pope, 367, 376, 377. 
Slavery, Augustine s view of, 225. 
Soliloquies, the, 46, 1 6 1 . 
Souk-Arras, i. 

Speculum Serif turee Sacra, the, 327. 
Spurious Augustinian literature, 165, 

34i. 

Stephen, St., relics of, 398. 
Stilicho, 265, 268, 284, 290. 
Stoicism, 128. 

influence of, 71, 81, 105. 

Style of Augustine, 162. 
Symmachus, 22, 70, 76, 83, 97, 100, 

115. 

Synesius, 189, 217. 
Suffecte, riot at, 288. 

TABLE, discipline at, 214-16. 
Tanit, 24, 26. 

priests of, 25. 

Teaching of Augustine, 343. 
Telemachus, monk, no. 
Thagaste, i, 3, 8, 16, 19, 56, 176. 
Theatre, the, 28. 
Theodosian code, the, 37. 
Theodosius, 94, 279, 283, 284, 
302. 



INDEX 



441 



Trigetius, 116, 155, 156, 160. 
URBANUS of Sicca, 386, 390, 391. 

VALENS, 41. 

Valentinian i., 18, 41, 94. 

ii., 94, 97, 280. 

Valerius, bishop, 190, 196, 212. 
Vandals, the, 32, 416, 418 sey. 
Verecundus, 154, 156. 
Victorinus, 131, 143. 
Victory, statue of, 96-9, 281. 
Vincentius, the Rogatian, 33, 262, 
Vindicianus, 43, 61. 



| Virginity, Augustine on, 331, 332, 

334- 
j Volusianus, 303. 

! WOMAN, Augustine s attitude to 
wards, 178, 183, 222, 325, 333, 
335- 

Works of Augustine, number of, 
I 158, 164, 229, 321 seq. 

ZOSIMUS, Pope, 372, 373, 374 , 375, 
376, 380, 381, 387, 388, 390. 

: the historian, 95, 267, 283, 

291. 



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