Conversion of Augustine

CONVERSION

OF

AUGUSTINE

lor

BQ
5740
N4.E5
1908

CONVERSION OF
AUGUSTINE^

Reprinted from

Newman's "Historical Sketches"

•with Introduction

83798

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
MDCCCCVIII

AUGUSTINE AND HIS MOTHER.

INTRODUCTION

This little book should be interesting not
only because of the man and the event it deals
with but also because of the writer and the
writing.

The likeness between St. Augustine and
Cardinal Newman is very striking. What-
ever difference exists is but the accident of
distance. Transposing both from the ends of
•fifteen centuries of years we can conceive of
either as doing exactly what the other did.

It was this kinship of mind which enabled
Newman to interpret the life of Augustine so
faithfully and to write of his conversion as no
one else had written before him or ever will
write. Indeed there is no need for further
writing. Whoever reads this sketch knows St.
Augustine — sees the soul of him laid bare by
the most sympathetic hand that ever put kind
and gentle thoughts into perfect language.
Was Neivman thinking of his own dark hour
while he wrote? There can be little doubt
of it. And so we have the story of two
strangely beautiful lives compiled and complete
in one short chapter.

For who can write of sorrow but who has
wept? or who can tell of strife but who has
striven? or who can sing of victory but who
has fought and won? Newman's language

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here is high art. He does not waste words
on little things or even on big things: he takes
the great things in the saint's career and with
a few bold strokes the picture is complete,
perfect. He met Augustine soul to soul and
he tells us what he saw.

The object in reprinting this sketch is to
give the people of St. Augustine's parish a
knowledge of their patron. This knowledge
cannot ever be conveyed so well as in the
words of Newman. And in a spiritual way it
must be helpful. What better means can be
used for leading sinners to repentance or for
guiding those who are groping darkly towards
the light than to put before them the life of
one who did himself sin and sorrow for it —
biasing a trail for us to the kingdom of heaven
through obstacles which appear insurmount-
able but are not?

There is yet another object and it is this:
The parish lies at the very gates of a great
university. In all modern secular schools of
higher learning there is unquestionably an
atmosphere of unfaith in formal Christianity
and a general assumption that religious belief
and practice are incompatible with high intel-
lectual culture. I do not say this in a fault-
finding or damnatory spirit: I merely state
what is generally conceived to be a fact, and
the friends of the universities will not object
to it; why should they? Now, whether we
admit it or not, the greater number of us take

AUGUSTINE

whatever beliefs we may have on the authority
of others, of men whom we know to be our
superiors intellectually, whose characters we
admire and whose opinions we respect. Of
course there are those who like to strike the
intellectual pose, who wish to have it thought
that they work out all the problems of life for
themselves by themselves, but they are not to
be taken seriously. The many follow the
beaten way to conviction — "our fathers have
told us" — and as at present "our fathers"
happen to be, for the most part, men who do
not believe in Divine Revelation, it is very
natural that those who sit at their feet should
think with them. A knowledge of the lives
and characters of the two men brought to-
gether in this little book will help to meet this
difficulty. We need make no apology, nor may
we take any shame to ourselves for that we
belong to a Church which reckoned among
her most loyally obedient children such minds
as Saint Augustine and Cardinal Newman.

J. McD.

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AUGUSTINE

"Thou hast chastised me and I was instructed, as
a steer unaccustomed to the yoke. Convert me, and
I shall be converted, for Thou art the Lord my God.
For after Thou didst convert me, I did penance, and
after Thou didst show unto me, I struck my thigh.
I am confounded and ashamed, because I have borne
the reproach of my youth." — Jer. xxxi, 18, 19.

Augustine was the son of a pious mother,
who had the pain of witnessing, for many
years, his wanderings in doubt and unbelief,
who prayed incessantly for his conversion, and
at length was blessed with the sight of it.
From early youth he had given himself up to
a course of life quite inconsistent with the
profession of a catechumen, into which he had
been admitted in infancy. How far he had
fallen into any great excesses is doubtful. He
uses language of himself which may have the
worst of meanings, but may, on the other
hand, be but the expression of deep repentance
and spiritual sensitiveness. In his twentieth
year he embraced the Manichaean heresy, in
which he continued nine years. Towards the
end of that time, leaving Africa, his native
country, first for Rome, then for Milan, he
fell in with St. Ambrose; and his conversion
and baptism followed in the course of his
thirty-fourth year. This memorable event, his
conversion, has been celebrated in the Western

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Church from early times, being the only event
of the kind thus distinguished, excepting the
conversion of St. Paul.

His life had been for many years one of
great anxiety and discomfort, the life of one
dissatisfied with himself, and despairing of
finding the truth. Men of ordinary minds are
not so circumstanced as to feel the misery of
irreligion. That misery consists in the per-
verted and discordant action of the various
faculties and functions of the soul, which have
lost their legitimate governing power, and are
unable to regain it, except at the hands of
their Maker. Now the run of irreligious men
do not suffer in any great degree from this
disorder, and are not miserable ; they have
neither great talents nor strong passions ; they
have not within them the materials of rebellion
in such measure as to threaten their peace.
They follow their own wishes, they yield to
the bent of the moment, they act on inclina-
tion, not on principle, but their motive powers
are neither strong nor various enough to be
troublesome. Their minds are in no sense
under rule ; but anarchy is not in their case a
state of confusion, but of deadness ; not unlike
the internal condition as it is reported of
eastern cities and provinces at present, in
which, though the government is weak or null,
the body politic goes on without any great
embarrassment or collision of its members one
with another, bv the force of inveterate habit.

AUGUSTINE

It is very different when the moral and intel-
lectual principles are vigorous, active, and
developed. Then, if the governing power be
feeble, all the subordinates are in the position
of rebels in arms; and what the state of a
mind is under such circumstances, the analogy
of a civil community will suggest to us. Then
we have before us the melancholy spectacle of
high aspirations without an aim, a hunger of
the soul unsatisfied, and a never-ending rest-
lessness and inward warfare of its various
faculties. Gifted minds, if not submitted to
the rightful authority of religion, become the
most unhappy and the most mischievous. They
need both an object to feed upon, and the
power of self-mastery; and the love of their
Maker, and nothing but it, supplies both the
one and the other. We have seen in our day,
in the case of a popular poet, an impressive
instance of a great genius throwing off the
fear of God, seeking for happiness in the
creature, roaming unsatisfied from one object
to another, breaking his soul upon itself, and
bitterly confessing and imparting his wretched-
ness to all around him. I have no wish at all
to compare him to St. Augustine; indeed, if
we may say it without presumption, the very
different termination of their trial seems to
indicate some great difference in their re-
spective modes of encountering it. The one
dies of premature decay, to all appearance, a
hardened infidel; and if he is still to have a

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name, will live in the mouths of men by
writings at once blasphemous and immoral:
the other is a Saint and Doctor of the Church.
Each makes confessions, the one to the saints,
the other to the powers of evil. And does not
the difference of the two discover itself in
some measure, even to our eyes, in the very
history of their wanderings and pinings? At
least, there is no appearance in St. Augustine's
case of that dreadful haughtiness, sullenness,
love of singularity, vanity, irritability, and
misanthrophy, which were too certainly the
characteristics of our own countryman. Au-
gustine was, as his early history shows, a man
of affectionate and tender feelings, and open
and amiable temper; and, above all, he sought
for some excellence external to his own mind,
instead of concentrating all his contemplations
on himself.

But let us consider what his misery was ; — it
was that of a mind imprisoned, solitary, and
wild with spiritual thirst; and forced to betake
itself to the strongest excitements, by way of
relieving itself of the rush and violence of feel-
ings, of which the knowledge of the Divine
Perfections was the true and sole sustenance.
He ran into excess, not from love of it, but

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AUGUSTINE

from this fierce fever of mind. "I sought
what I might love," he says in his Confessions,
""in love with loving, and safety I hated, and
a way without snares. For within me was
a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my
God ; yet throughout that famine I was not
hungered, but was without any longing for in-
corruptible sustenance, not because filled there-
with, but the more empty, the more I loathed
it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full
of sores; it miserably cast itself forth, desiring
to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense."
-iii. 1.

"O foolish man that I then was," he says else-
where, "enduring impatiently the lot of man! So I
fretted, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest
nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleed-
ing soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where
to repose it I found not; not in calm groves, nor in
games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curi-
ous banquetings, nor in indulgence of the bed and the
couch, nor, finally, in books or poetry found it repose.
All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light. In
groaning and tears alone found I a little refreshment.
But when my soul was withdrawn from them, a huge
load of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord,
it ought to have been raised, for Thee to lighten; I
knew it, but neither could nor would; the more,
since when I thought of Thee, Thou wast not to me
any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not
Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my
God. If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that
it might rest, it glided through the void, and came
rushing down against me; and I had remained to my-
self a hapless spot, where I could neither be, nor
be from thence. For whither should my heart flee

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from my heart? whither should I flee from myself?
whither not follow myself? And yet I fled out of
my country, for so should mine eyes look less for
him, where they were not wont to see him." — iv. 12.

He is speaking in this last sentence of a
friend he had lost, whose death-bed was very
remarkable, and whose dear familiar name he
apparently has not courage to mention. "He
had grown up from a child with me," he says,
"and we had been both schoolfellows and play-
fellows." Augustine had misled him into the
heresy which he had adopted himself, and
when he grew to have more and more sym-
pathy in Augustine's pursuits, the latter united
himself to him in a closer intimacy. Scarcely
had he thus given him his heart, when God
took him.

"Thou tookest him," he says, "out of this life, when
he had scarce completed one whole year of my friend-
ship, sweet to me above all sweetness in that life
of mine. A long while, sore sick of a fever, he lay
senseless in the dews of death, and being given over,
he was baptized unwitting; I, meanwhile little regard-
ing, or presuming that his soul would retain rather
what it had received of me than what was wrought
on his unconscious body."

The Manichees, it should be observed, re-
jected baptism. He proceeds:

"But it proved far otherwise; for he was refreshed
and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak
with him (and I could as soon as he was able, for
I never left him, and we hung but too much upon
each other), I essayed to jest with him, as though

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AUGUSTINE

he would jest with me at that baptism, which
received, when utterly absent in mind and feeling,
but had now understood that he had received. But
he shrunk from me, as from an enemy; and with a
wonderful and sudden freedom bade me, if I would
continue his friend, forbear such language to him.
I, all astonished and amazed, suppressed all my emo-
tions till he should grow well, and his health were
strong enough for me to deal with him as I would.
But he was taken away from my madness, that with
Thee he might be preserved for my comfort: a few
days after, in my absence, he was attacked again by
fever, and so departed." — iv. 8.

From distress of mind Augustine left his
native place, Thagaste, and came to Carthage,
where he became a teacher in rhetoric. Here
he fell in with Faustus, an eminent Manichean
bishop and disputant, in whom, however, he
was disappointed; and the disappointment
abated his attachment to his sect, and disposed
him to look for truth elsewhere. Disgusted
with the licence which prevailed among the
students at Carthage, he determined to proceed
to Rome, and disregarding and eluding the en-
treaties of his mother, Monica, who dreaded his
removal from his own country, he went thither.
At Rome he resumed his profession; but in-
conveniences as great, though of another kind,
encountered him in that city ; and upon the peo-

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pie of Milan sending for a rhetoric reader, he
made application for the appointment, and ob-
tained it. To Milan then he came, the city
of St. Ambrose, in the year of our Lord 385.

Ambrose, though weak in voice, had the rep-
utation of eloquence; and Augustine, who-
seems to have gone with introductions to
him, and was won by his kindness of manner,,
attended his sermons with curiosity and inter-
est. "I listened," he says, "not in the frame of
mind which became me, but in order to see
whether his eloquence answered what was re-
ported of it: I hung on his words attentively,.
but of the matter I was but an unconcerned
and contemptuous hearer." — v. 23. His im-
pression of his style of preaching is worth
noticing : "I was delighted with the sweetness
of his discourse, more full of knowledge, yet in
manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that
of Faustus." Augustine was insensibly moved :
he determined on leaving the Manichees, and
returning to the state of a catechumen in the
Catholic Church, into which he had been ad-
mitted by his parents. He began to eye and
muse upon the great bishop of Milan more and
more, and tried in vain to penetrate his secret
heart, and to ascertain the thoughts and feel-
ings which swayed him. He felt he did not
understand him. If the respect and intimacy
of the great could make a man happy, these
advantages he perceived Ambrose to possess;
yet he was not satisfied that he was a happy

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AUGUSTINE

man. His celibacy seemed a drawback: what
constituted his hidden life? or was he cold
at heart? or was he of a famished and rest-
less spirit? He felt his own malady, and
longed to ask him some questions about it.
But Ambrose could not easily be spoken with.
Though accessible to all, yet that very cir-
cumstance made it difficult for an individual,
especially one who was not of his flock, to get
a private interview with him. When he was
not taken up with the Christian people who
surrounded him, he was either at his meals or
engaged in private reading. Augustine used
to enter, as all persons might, without being
announced; but after staying awhile, afraid
of interrupting him, he departed again. How-
ever, he heard his expositions of Scripture
every Sunday, and gradually made progress.

He was now in his thirtieth year, and since
he was a youth of eighteen had been searching
after truth ; yet he was still "in the same mire,
greedy of things present," but finding nothing
stable.

"Tomorrow," he said to himself, "I shall find it; it
will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it: lo,
Faustus the Manichee will come and clear everything!
O you great men, ye academics, is it true, then, that
no certainty can be attained for the ordering of life?
Nay, let us search diligently, and despair not. Lo,
things in the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us
now, which sometime seemed absurd, and may be
otherwise taken and in a good sense. I will take my
stand where, as a child, my parents placed me, until

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the clear truth be found out. But where shall it be
sought, or when? Ambrose has no leisure; we have
no leisure to read; where shall we find even the
books? where, or when, procure them? Let set times
be appointed, and certain hours be ordered for the
health of our soul. Great hope has dawned; the
Catholic faith teaches not what we thought; and do
we doubt to knock, that the rest may be opened?
The forenoons, indeed, our scholars take up; what
do we during the rest of our time? why not this?
But if so, when pay we court to our great friend,
whose favours we need; when compose what we may
sell to scholars? when refresh ourselves, unbending
our minds from this intenseness of care?

"Perish every thing: dismiss we these empty vani-
ties; and betake ourselves to the one search for truth!
Life is a poor thing, death is uncertain; if it sur-
prises us in what state shall we depart hence; and
when shall we learn what here we have neglected?
and shall we not rather suffer the punishment of this
negligence? What if death itself cut off and end all
care and feeling? Then must this be ascertained.
But God forbid this! It is no vain and empty thing,
that the excellent dignity of the Christian faith has
overspread the whole world. Never would such and
so great things be wrought for us by God, if with
the body the soul also came to an end. Wherefore
delay then to abandon worldly hopes, and give our-
selves wholly to seek after God and the blessed life?
But wait; even those things are pleasant; they have
some and no small sweetness. We must not lightly
abandon them, for it were a shame to return again
to them. See, how great a matter it is now to ob-
tain some station, and then what should we wish for
more? We have store of powerful friends; if noth-
ing else offers, and we be in much haste, at least a
presidency may be given us; and a wife with some
fortune, that she increase not our charges; and this
shall be the bound of desire. Many great men, and
most worthy of imitation, have given themselves to

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AUGUSTINE

the study of wisdom in the state of marriage." — vi.
18, 19-

4.

In spite of this reluctance to give up a secu-
lar life, yet in proportion as the light of Chris-
tian truth opened on Augustine's mind, so
was he drawn on to that higher Christian state
on which our Lord and His Apostle have be-
stowed special praise. So it was, and not un-
naturally in those times, that high and earnest
minds, when they had found the truth, were
not content to embrace it by halves; they
would take all or none, they would go all
lengths, they would covet the better gifts, or
else they would remain as they were. It
seemed to them absurd to take so much
trouble to find the truth, and to submit to such
a revolution in their opinions and motives as
its reception involved; and yet, after all, to
content themselves with a second-best profes-
sion, unless there was some plain duty obliging
them to live the secular life they had hitherto
led. The cares of this world, and the deceit-
fulness of riches, the pomp of life, the pride
of station, and the indulgence of sense, would
be tolerated by the Christian, then only, when
it would be a sin to renounce them. The pur-

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suit of gain may be an act of submission to
the will of parents ; a married life is the per-
formance of a solemn and voluntary vow; but
it may often happen, and did happen in Aug-
ustine's day especially, that there are no re-
ligious reasons against a man's giving up the
world, as our Lord and His Apostles renounced
it. When his parents were heathen or were
Christians of his own high temper, when he
had no fixed engagement or position in life,
when the State itself was either infidel or but
partially emerging out of its old pollutions, and
when grace was given to desire and strive
after, if not fully to reach, the sanctity of the
Lamb's virginal company, duty would often lie,
not in shunning, but in embracing an ascetic
life. Besides, the Church in the fourth cen-
tury had had no experience yet of temporal
prosperity; she knew religion only amid the
storms of persecution, or the uncertain lull be-
tween them, in the desert or the catacomb, in in-
sult, contempt and calumny. She had not yet
seen how opulence, and luxury, and splendour,
and pomp, and polite refinement, and fashion,
were compatible with the Christian name ; and
her more serious children imagined, with a
simplicity or narrowness of mind which will in
this day provoke a smile that they ought to
imitate Cyprian and Dionysius in their mode
of living and their habits, as well as in their
feelings, professions, and spiritual knowledge.
They thought that religion consisted in deeds,

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AUGUSTINE

not words. Riches, power, rank, and literary
eminence, were then thought misfortunes,
when viewed apart from the service they
might render to the cause of truth; the at-
mosphere of the world was thought unhealthy :
— Augustine then, in proportion as he ap-
proached the Church, ascended towards heaven.
Time went on; he was in his thirty-second
year; he still was gaining light; he renounced
his belief in fatalism; he addressed himself to
St. Paul's Epistles. He began to give up the
desire of distinction in his profession : this was
a great step; however, still his spirit mounted
higher than his heart as yet could follow.

"I was displeased," he says, "that I led a secular
life; yea, now that my desires no longer inflamed me,
as of old, with hopes of honour and profit, a very
grievous burden it was to undergo so heavy a bondage.
For in comparison of Thy sweetness, and 'the beauty
of Thy honour, which I loved,' these things delighted
me no longer. But I still was enthralled with the
love of woman: nor did the Apostle forbid me to
marry, although he advised me to something better,
chiefly wishing that all men were as he himself. But
I, being weak, chose the more indulgent place; and,
because of this alone, was tossed up and down in all
beside, faint and wasted with withering cares, because
in other matters I was constrained, against my will,
to conform myself to a married life, to which I was
given up and enthralled. I had now found the goodly
pearl, which, selling all that I had, I ought to have
bought; and I hesitated." — viii. 2.

Finding Ambrose, though kind and accessi-
ble, yet reserved, he went to an aged man

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named Simplician, who, as some say, baptized
St. Ambrose, and eventually succeeded him in
his see. He opened his mind to him, and hap-
pening in the course of his communications to
mention Victorinus's translation of some Pla-
tonic works, Simplician asked him if he knew
that person's history. It seems he was a pro-
fessor of rhetoric at Rome, was well versed in
literature and philosophy, had been tutor to
many of the senators, and had received the
high honour of a statue in the Forum. Up to
his old age he had professed, and defended
with his eloquence, the old pagan worship. He
was led to read the Holy Scriptures, and was
brought, in consequence, to a belief in their di-
vinity. For awhile he did not feel the neces-
sity of changing his profession; he looked
upon Christianity as a philosophy, he embraced
it as such, but did not propose to join what
he considered the Christian sect, or, as Chris-
tians would call it, the Catholic Church. He
let Simplician into his secret; but whenever
the latter pressed him to take the step, he was
accustomed to ask, "whether walls made a
Christian." However, such a state could not
continue with a man of earnest mind: the
leaven worked; at length he unexpectedly
called upon Simplician to lead him to church.
He was admitted a catechumen, and in due
time baptized, "Rome wondering, the Church
rejoicing." It was customary at Rome for
the candidates for baptism to profess their

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AUGUSTINE

faith from a raised place in the church, in a
set form of words. An offer was made to
Victorinus, which was not unusual in the case
of bashful and timid persons, to make his pro-
fession in private. But he preferred to make it
in the ordinary way. "I was public enough,"
he made answer, "in my profession of rhetoric,
and ought not to be frightened when profess-
ing salvation." He continued the school which
he had before he became a Christian, till the
edict of Julian forced him to close it. This
story went to Augustine's heart, but it did not
melt it. There was still the struggle of two
wills, the high aspiration and the habitual in-
ertness.

"I was weighed down with the encumbrance of this
world, pleasantly, as one is used to be with sleep;
and my meditations upon Thee were like the efforts
of men who would awake, yet are steeped again under
the depth of their slumber. And as no one would
wish always to be asleep, and, in the sane judgment
of all, waking is better, yet a man commonly delays
to shake off sleep, when a heavy torpor is on his
limbs, and tnough it is time to rise, he enjoys it
the more heartily while he ceases to approve it: so,
in spite of my conviction that Thy love was to be
obeyed rather than my own lusts, yet I both yielded
to the approval, and was taken prisoner by the enjoy-
ment. When Thou saidst to me, 'Rise, thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ will
enlighten thee,' and showed st the plain reasonable-
ness of Thy word, convinced by its truth, I could but
give the slow and sleepy answer, 'Presently;' 'yes,
presently;' 'wait awhile;' though that presently was
never present, and that awhile became long. It was

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in vain that I delighted in Thy law in the inner man,
while another law in my members fought against the
law of my mind, and led me captive to the law of
sin, which was in my members." — viii. 12.

5.

One day, when he and his friend Alypius
were together at their home, a countryman,
named Pontitian, who held an office in the im-
perial court, called on him on some matter
of business. As they sat talking, he observed
a book upon the table, and on opening it found
it was St. Paul's Epistles. A strict Christian
himself, he was agreeably surprised to find an
Apostle, where he expected to meet with some
work bearing upon Augustine's profession. The
discourse fell upon St. Antony, the celebrated
Egyptian solitary, and while it added to Pon-
titian's surprise to find that they did not even
know his name, they, on the other hand, were
still more struck with wonder at the relation of
his Life, and the recent date of it. Thence the
conversation passed to the subject of monas-
teries, the purity and sweetness of their dis-
cipline, and the treasures of grace which
through them had been manifested in the des-
ert. It turned out that Augustine and his
friend did not even know of the monastery,
of which Ambrose had been the patron, outside

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the walls of Milan. Pontitian went on to give
an account of the conversion of two among
his fellow-officers under the following circum-
stances. When he was at Treves, one after-
noon, while the emperor was in the circus, he
happened to stroll out, with three companions,
into the gardens close upon the city wall. After
a time they split into two parties, and while
he and another went their own way, the other
two came upon a cottage, which they were in-
duced to enter. It was the abode of certain
recluses, "poor in spirit," as Augustine says,
"of whom is the kingdom of heaven ;" and here
they found the life of St. Antony, which
Athanasius had written about twent}' years
before (A.D. 364—366). One of them began to
peruse it; and, moved by the narrative, they
both of them resolved on adopting the mon-
astic life.

The effect produced by this relation on Aug-
ustine was not less than was caused by the
history of Antony itself upon the imperial of-
ficers, and almost as immediately productive of
a religious issue. He felt that they did but
represent to him, in their obedience, what
was wanting in his own, and suggest a remedy
for his disordered and troubled state of mind.
He says :

"The more ardently I loved these men, whose
healthful state of soul was shown in surrendering
themselves to Thee for healing, so much the more
execrable and hateful did I seem to myself in com-

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CONVERSION OF

parison of them. For now many years had passed
with me, as many perhaps as twelve, since my nine-
teenth, when, upon reading Cicero's 'Hortensius,' I
was first incited to seek for wisdom; and still I was
putting off renunciation of earthly happiness, and
simple search after a treasure which, even in the
search, not to speak of the discovery, was better than
the actual possession of heathen wealth and power,
and than the pleasures of sense poured around me at
my will. But I, wretched, wretched youth, in that
springtime of my life, had asked indeed of Thee the
gift of chastity, but had said, 'Give me chastity and
continence, but not at once.' I feared, alas, lest
Thou shouldst hear me too soon, and cure a thirst
at once, which I would fain have satisfied, not
extinguished . . . But now . . . disturbed
in countenance as well as mind, I turn upon Alypius,
'What ails us?' say I, 'what is this? what is this
story? See; the unlearned rise and take heaven by
violence, while we, with all our learning, all our
want of heart, see where we wallow in flesh and
blood! Shall I feel shame to follow their lead, and
not rather to let alone what alone is left to me?'
Something of this kind I said to him, and while he
eyed me in silent wonder, I rushed from him in the
ferment of my feelings." — viii. 17, 19.

He betook himself to the garden of the
house where he lodged, Alypius following him,
and sat for awhile in bitter meditation on the
impotence and slavery of the human will. The
thought of giving up his old habits of life once
for all pressed upon him with overpowering
force, and, on the other hand, the beauty of re-
ligious obedience pierced and troubled him. He
says:

24

AUGUSTINE

"The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities,
my old mistresses, kept hold of me; they plucked my
garment of flesh, and whispered softly, 'Are you in-
deed giving us up? What! from this moment are
we to be strangers to you for ever? This and that,
shall it be allowed you from this moment never again?'
Yet, what a view began to open on the other side,
whither I had set my face and was in a flutter to go;
the chaste majesty of Continency, serene, cheerful,
yet without excess, winning me in a holy way to
come without doubting, and ready to embrace me
with religious hands full stored with honourable pat-
terns! So many boys and young maidens, a multi-
tude of youth and every age, grave widows and aged
virgins, and Continence herself in all, not barren,
but a fruitful mother of children, of joys by Thee,
O Lord, her Husband. She seemed to mock me into
emulation, saying, 'Canst not thou what these have
done, youths and maidens? Can they in their own
strength or in the strength of their Lord God? The
Lord their God gave me unto them. Why rely on
thyself and fall? Cast thyself upon His arm. Be
not afraid. He will not let you slip. Cast thyself
in confidence, He will receive thee and heal thee.'
Meanwhile Alypius kept close to my side, silently
•waiting for the end of my unwonted agitation."

He then proceeds to give an account of the
termination of his struggle :

"At length burst forth a mighty storm, bringing a
mighty flood of tears; and to indulge it to the full,
even unto cries, in solitude, I rose up from Alypius,
who perceived from my choked voice how
it was with me. He remained where we had been
sitting, in deep astonishment. I threw myself down
under a fig-tree, I know not how, and allowing my
tears full vent, offered up to Thee the acceptable sac-
rifice of my streaming eyes. And I cried out to this
•effect: — 'And Thou, O Lord, how long, how long,
Lord, wilt Thou be angry? For ever? Remember

25

CONVERSION OF

not our old sins!' for I felt that they were my
tyrants. I cried out, piteously, 'How long? how long?
tomorrow and tomorrow? why not now? why not in
this very hour put an end to this my vileness?' While
I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition of
my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a
house near me, of 'a boy or girl chanting forth again
and again, 'TAKE UP AND READ, TAKE UP AND READ!'
Changing countenance at these words, I began in-
tently to think whether boys used them in any game,
but could not recollect that I had ever heard them. I
left weeping and rose up, considering it a divine inti-
mation to open the Scriptures and read what first
presented itself. I had heard that Antony had come
in during the reading of the Gospel, and had taken to
himself the admonition, 'Go, sell all that thou hast,'
etc., and had turned to Thee at once, in consequence
of that oracle. I had left St. Paul's volume where
Alypius was sitting, when I rose thence. I returned
thither, seized it, opened, and read in silence the fol-
lowing passage, which first met my eyes, 'Not in riot-
ing and drunkenness, not in chambering and impuri-
ties, not in contention and envy, .but put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the
flesh in its concupiscences.' I had neither desire nor
need to read farther. As I finished the sentence, as
though the light of peace had been poured into my
heart, all the shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast
Thou converted me to Thee, so as no longer to seek
either for wife or other hope of this world, standing
fast in that rule of faith in which Thou so many
years before hadst revealed me to my mother." —
viii. 26-30.

The last words of this extract relate to a
dream which his mother had had some years
before, concerning his conversion. On his first
turning Manichee, abhorring his opinions, she
would not for awhile even eat with him, when

26

AUGUSTINE

she had this dream, in which she had an in-
timation that where she stood, there Augustine
should one day be with her. At another time
she derived great comfort from the casual
words of a bishop, who, when importuned by
her to converse with her son, said at length
with some impatience, "Go thy ways, and God
bless thee, for it is not possible that the son
of these tears should perish !" It would be out
of place, and is perhaps unnecessary, to enter
here into the affecting and well-known history
of her tender anxieties and persevering prayers
for Augustine. Suffice it to say, she saw the
accomplishment of them; she lived till Aug-
ustine became a Catholic; and she died in her
way back to Africa with him. Her last words
were, "Lay this body anywhere; let not the
care of it in any way distress you; this only I
ask, that wherever you be, you remember me
at the Altar of the Lord."

"May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance
of her words, "rest in peace with her husband, before
and after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed,
with patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that
•she might win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O
Lord my God, inspire Thy servants, my brethren, —
Thy sons, my masters, — whom, in heart, voice, and
writing I serve, that so many as read these confes-
sions, may at Thy altar remember Monica, Thy hand-
maid, with Patricius, her sometime husband, from
whom Thou broughtest me into this life; how, I know
not. May they with pious affection remember those
who were my parents in this transitory light, — my
brethren under Thee, our Father, in our Catholic

27

CONVERSION OF

Mother, — my fellow-citizens in the eternal Jerusalem,
after which Thy pilgrim people sigh from their going
forth unto their return: that so, her last request of
me may in the prayers of many receive a fulfillment,
through my confessions, more abundant than through
my prayers." — ix. 37.

But to return to St. Augustine himself. His
conversion took place in the summer of 386
(as seems most probable), and about three
weeks after it, taking advantage of the vintage
holidays, he gave up his school, assigning as a
reason a pulmonary attack which had given
him already much uneasiness. He retired to a
friend's villa in the country for the rest of
the year, with a view of preparing himself
for baptism at the Easter following. His re-
ligious notions were still very imperfect and
vague. He had no settled notion concerning
the nature of the soul, and was ignorant of
the mission of the Holy Ghost. And still
more, as might be expected, he needed cor-
rection and reformation in his conduct. Dur-
ing this time he broke himself of a habit of
profane swearing, and, in various ways, dis-
ciplined himself for the sacred rite f or t which
he was a candidate. It need scarcely be said
that he was constant in devotional and peniten-
tial exercises.

28

AUGUSTINE

In due time the sacrament of baptism was
administered to him by St. Ambrose, who had
been the principal instrument of his conver-
sion; and he resolved on ridding himself of
his worldly possessions, except what might
be necessary for his bare subsistence, and re-
tiring to Africa, with the purpose of follow-
ing the rule of life which it had cost him so
severe a struggle to adopt. Thagaste, his na-
tive place, was his first abode, and he sta-
tioned himself in the suburbs, so as to be at
once in retirement and in the way of useful-
ness, if any opening should offer in the city.
His conversion had been followed by some
of his friends, who, together with certain of
his fellow-citizens, whom he succeeded in per-
suading, joined him, and who naturally looked
up to him as the head of their religious com-
munity. Their property was cast into a com-
mon stock, whence distribution was made ac-
cording to the need of each. Fasting and
prayer, almsgiving and Scripture-reading,
were their stated occupations; and Augustine
took upon himself the task of instructing them
and variously aiding them. The consequence
naturally was, that while he busied himself
in assisting others in devotional habits, his
own leisure was taken from him. His fame
spread, and serious engagements were pressed
upon him of a nature little congenial with
the life to which he had hoped to dedicate
himself. Indeed, his talents were of too active

29

CONVERSION OF

and influential a character to allow of his se-
cluding himself from the world, however he
might wish it.

Thus he passed the first three years of his
return to Africa, at the end of which time,
A.D. 389, he was admitted into holy orders. The
circumstances under which this change of state
took place are curious, and, as in the instance
of other Fathers, characteristic of the early
times. His reputation having become consid-
erable, he was afraid to approach any place
where a bishop was wanted, lest he should be
forcibly consecrated to the see. He seems to
have set his heart on remaining for a time a
layman, from a feeling of the responsibility
of the ministerial commission. He considered
he had not yet mastered the nature and the
duties of it. But it so happened, that at the
time in question, an imperial agent or com-
missioner, living at Hippo, a Christian and
a serious man, signified his desire to have
some conversation with him, as to a design
he had of quitting secular pursuits and de-
voting himself to a religious life. This brought
Augustine to Hippo, whither he went with the
less anxiety, because that city had at that
time a bishop in the person of Valerius. How-
ever, it so happened that a presbyter was want-
ed there, though a bishop was not; and Aug-
ustine, little suspicious of what was to happen,
joined the congregation in which the election
was to take place. When Valerius addressed

30

AUGUSTINE

the people and demanded whom they desired
for their pastor, they at once named the
stranger, whose reputation had already spread
among them. Augustine burst into tears, and
some of the people, mistaking the cause of his
agitation, observed to him that though the
presbyterate was lower than his desert, yet,
notwithstanding, it stood next to the episco-
pate. His ordination followed, as to which
Valerius himself, being a Greek, and unable
to speak Latin fluently, was chiefly influenced
by a wish to secure an able preacher in his
own place. It may be remarked, as a singu-
lar custom in the African Church hitherto,
that presbyters either never preached, or never
in the presence of a bishop. Valerius was the
first to break through the rule in favour of
Augustine.

On his coming to Hippo, Valerius gave him
a garden belonging to the Church to build a
monastery upon; and shortly afterwards we
find him thanking Aurelius, bishop of Carthage,
for bestowing an estate either on the brother-
liood of Hippo or of Thagaste. Soon after
we hear of monasteries at Carthage, and other
places, besides two additional ones at Hippo.
Others branched off from his own community,
which he took care to make also a school or
seminary of the Church. It became an object
with the African Churches to obtain clergy
from him. Possidius, his pupil and friend,
mentions as many as ten bishops out of his

31

CONVERSION OF

own acquaintance, who had been supplied from
the school of Augustine.

7.

Little more need be said to conclude this
sketch of eventful history. Many years had
not passed before Valerius, feeling the infirmi-
ties of age, appointed Augustine as his co-
adjutor in the see of Hippo, and in this way
secured his succeeding him on his death; an
object which he had much at heart, but which
he feared might be frustrated by Augustine's
being called to the government of some other
church. This elevation necessarily produced
some change in the accidents of his life, but
his personal habits remained the same. He
left his monastery, as being too secluded for
an office which especially obliges its holder to
the duties of hospitality ; and he formed a
religious and clerical community in the episco-
pal house. This community consisted chiefly
of presbyters, deacons, and sub-deacons, who
gave up all personal property, and were sup-
ported upon a common fund. He himself
strictly conformed to the rule he imposed on
others. Far from appropriating to any private
purpose any portion of his ecclesiastical in-
come, he placed the whole charge of it in

32

AUGUSTINE

the hands of his clergy, who took by turns
the yearly management of it, he being auditor
of their accounts. He never indulged himself
in house or land, considering the property of
the see as little his own as those private pos-
sessions, which he had formerly given up. He
employed it, in one way or other, directly or
indirectly, as if it were the property of the
poor, the ignorant, and the sinful. He had
"counted the cost," and he acted like a man
whose slowness to begin a course was a pledge
of zeal when he had once begun it.

33

CONVERSION OF

DEATH OF AUGUSTINE

From Newman's Sketch,
"Augustine and the Vandals"

The luminous judgment, the calm faith, and
the single-minded devotion which this letter
to Honoratus exhibits, were fully maintained
in the conduct of the far-famed writer, in the
events which followed. It was written on the
first entrance of the Vandals into Africa,
about two years before they laid siege to
Hippo; and during this interval of dreadful
suspense and excitement, as well as of actual
suffering, amid the desolation of the Church
around him, with the prospect of his own per-
sonal trials, we find this unwearied teacher
carrying on his works of love by pen, and
word of mouth, — eagerly, as knowing his time
was short, but tranquilly, as if it were a sea-
son of prosperity. He commenced a fresh
work against the opinions of Julian, a friend
of his, who, beginning to run well, had un-
happily taken up a bold profession of Pelagin-
ism; he wrote a treatise on Predestination,
at the suggestion of his friends, to meet the
objections urged against former works of his
on the same subject; sustained a controversy
with the Arians; and began a history of

34

COI^JLHOl-

AUGUSTINE

heresies. What makes Augustine's diligence
in the duties of his episcopate, at this season
the more remarkable, is, that he was actually
engaged at the same time in political affairs,
as a confidential friend and counsellor of
Boniface, the governor of Africa (who had
first invited and then opposed the entrance of
the Vandals), and accordingly was in circum-
stances especially likely to unsettle and agitate
the mind of an aged man.

At length events hastened on to a close.
Fugitive multitudes betook themselves to
Hippo. Boniface threw himself into it. The
Vandals appeared before it, and laid siege to
it. Meanwhile, Augustine fell ill. He had
about him many of the African bishops, and
among other friends, Possidius, whose account
of his last hours is preserved to us. "We used
continually to converse together," says Pos-
sidius, "about the misfortunes in which we
were involved, and contemplated God's tre-
mendous judgments which were before our
eyes, saying, 'Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy
judgment is right.' One day, at meal time, as
we talked together, he said, 'Know ye that in
this our present calamity, I pray God to vouch-
safe to rescue this besieged city, or (if other-
wise) to give His servants strength to bear
His will, or, at least, to take me to Himself
out of this world.' We followed his advice,
and both ourselves, and our friends, and the

35

CONVERSION OF

whole city offered up the same prayer with
him. On the third month of the siege he was
seized with a fever, and took to his bed, and
was reduced to the extreme of sickness."

Thus, the latter part of his prayer was put
in train for accomplishment, as the former
part was subsequently granted by the retreat
of the enemy from Hippo. But to continue
the narrative of Possidius : — "He had been
used to say, in his familiar conversation, that
after receiving baptism, even approved Chris-
tians and priests ought not to depart from the
body without a fitting and sufficient course of
penance. Accordingly, in the last illness, of which
he died, he set himself to write out the special
penitential psalms of David, and to place them
four by four against the wall, so that, as he
lay in bed, in the days of his sickness, he
could see them. And so he used to read and
weep abundantly. And lest his attention should
be distracted by any one, about ten days be-
fore his death, he begged us who were with
him to hinder persons entering his room ex-
cept at the times when his medical attend-
ants came to see him, or his meals were
brought to him. This was strictly attended
to, and all his time given to prayer. Till
this last illness, he had been able to preach
the word of God in the church without inter-
mission with energy and boldness, with healthy
mind and judgment. He slept with his fathers
in a good old age, sound in limb, unimpaired

36

AUGUSTINE

in sight, and hearing, and, as it is written,
while we stood by, beheld, and prayed with
him. We took part in the sacrifice to God at
his funeral, and so buried him."

Though the Vandals failed in their first at-
tack upon Hippo, during Augustine's last ill-
ness, they renewed it shortly after his death,
under more favourable circumstances. Boni-
face was defeated in the field, and retired to*
Italy; and the inhabitants of Hippo left their
city. The Vandals entered and burned it,
excepting the library of Augustine, which
was providentially preserved.

The desolation which, at that era, swept
over the face of Africa, was completed by
the subsequent invasion of the Saracens. Its
five hundred churches are no more. The
voyager gazes on the sullen rocks which line
its coast, and discovers no token of Christianity
to cheer the gloom. Hippo has ceased to be
an episcopal city ; but its great Teacher, though
dead, yet speaks; his voice is gone out into all
lands, and his words unto the ends of the
world. He needs no dwelling place, whose
home is the Catholic Church; he fears no bar-
barian or heretical desolation, whose creed is
destined to last unto the end.

37

CONVERSION OF

MONICA'S LAST PRAYER

"Ah! could thy grave, at home, at Carthage

be!"

Care not for that, and lay me where I fall!
Everywhere heard will be the judgment call;
But at God's altar, oh! remember me.

Thus Monica, and died in Italy.
Yet fervent had her longing been, through all
Her course, for home at last, and burial
With her own husband, by the Libyan sea.

Had been! but at the end, to her pure soul
All tie with all beside seemed vain and cheap,
And union before God the only care.

Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth

whole.

Yet we her memory, as she prayed, will keep,
Keep by this: Life with God, and union there 1
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

38

AUGUSTINE

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE
LIFE OF AUGUSTINE

A. D. 354. Augustine is born.

371. His father, Patricius, dies a Chris-
tian.

373. Augustine joins the Manichees.

376. Teaches rhetoric at Carthage.

383. Goes to Rome.

384. Goes to Milan.

386. Augustine is converted.

387. Is baptized by St. Ambrose.

387. His mother, St. Monica, dies.

388. Settles at Thagaste.

389. Is ordained priest at Hippo.

395. Is consecrated coadjutor to Va-
lerius.

398. Writes his Confessions.

430. Augustine dies.
39

BCL 837S6

5740

N4.E5

1908

Newman, John H.

5740 c.3

N4.TC5

1908

Nevrman, John Henry

Conversion of Augustine

i