Augustine : the Thinker

Division lun Augustine: The Thinker George W. Osmun CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS Copyright, 1906, by Jennings & Graham TO Jig ^jtttor nnb jliitJte PREFACE No ATTEMPT is made in this volume to glorify Augustine. The single aim is to present him as he was—to preserve him from his adulators. To omit the halo, is to be more just to him, and to be true to ourselves. Augustine lived in an age which, though de- cadent, was tense with interest. Old institutions and religions were passing away. New races and a new religion were pressing forward for recogni- tion and regnancy. Not least striking of the figures that move to and fro upon this kaleidoscopic pano- rama is that of the busy Bishop of Hippo. His own personal struggles and his contentions in be- half of the Faith are bound up with the great movements of his age. In several important senses he was a child of that age. But he nevertheless dominates it. And it is to his genius, largely, that Christianity owes its triumphant entry into the era which followed. 6 Preface. In fairness, therefore, both to Augustine and his age, I have tried to show how he and the forces of his time interacted upon one another. In the performance of my task I have been under obHgation to a great mass of literature bearing upon Augustine. Of this I would acknowledge especially Joseph McCabe's brilliant ''Saint Augus- tine and His Age" (though I have found myself in constant dissent from his implications), and to Neander's discriminating and scholarly "History of the Christian Church." For unusual privileges and great courtesy I would also express my gratitude to the Rev. Sanuiel Ayres, B. D., librarian of the Drew Seminary. Westuampton, L. L, April 17, 1906. CONTENTS Chapter Pagb I. Getting a Start, - - - - ii II. Carthage and the Dawn of an Ideal, 21 III. Mani", 30 IV, The Imperial City, - - - 44 V. In the City of Ambrose, - - - 55 -VI. Through Plato to Christ, - - 67 VII. Cassiciacum, 81 VIII. Back to Africa, _ . - - 93 IX. Hippo Regius, 107 X. The Bishop at Work, - - - 121 XI. DoNATUs, - - - - - -140 XII. The Two Cities, - - - - 161 XIII. Labors—^Literary and Theological, - 183 XIV. The Pelagians, - - - - 201 XV. Augustine and the Final Struggle, - 224 XVI. The Stream of Augustinianism, - 242 FIRST PERIOD From November 13, 354 A. D. to Easter, 387 A. D. CHAPTER I. GETTING A START. Ii^ you follow the southern coast-line of the Mediterranean east from the Pillars of Hercules, you come at length to a great promontory jutting into the sea toward the Island of Sicily. In the day of our story, this promontory was dominated by the presence of historic Carthage. But of deeper interest to us is a very much smaller town, Tha- gaste, that lay some twoscore miles to the south. For here at Thagaste, exactly five hundred years after the fall of the first Carthage, was born Aure- lius Augustinus, familiar in history as St. Augus- tine, Bishop of Hippo. Thagaste stood on the first of a series of broadly- sloping terraces, which, climbing up from the broken neck of Carthaginian territory, and reaching westward to the far-away white summits of the Atlas, formed the provinces of Numidia and Mauri- tania. Favored by a moderate climate, made fer- tile by abundant streams, sheltered by the over- towering mountain ranges, sweetened by the breath of the sea, it is not surprising that these swelling plateaus abounded in wealth, and were covered with hundreds of thriving towns and villages. II 12 Augustine: The Thinker. By the middle of the fourth century the Roman- ization of North Africa had been long since com- plete. Xumidia was annexed to Rome under Julius Cc-esar, while Claudius, about a century later, added Mauritania. Everywhere the organization and thrift of the empire were manifest. To lordly Roman families had been assigned the vast estates, whose waving fields of corn, tilled by native slaves, constituted the granar}- of the Mistress City, and brought an unprecedented prosperity and luxury. So there grew up numberless colonies, joined firmly by the world-famed imperial roads. Some of these towns reproduced the magnificence of Rome itself in walls and gates, mausoleums, amphitheaters, baths, basilicas, and temples, and arches of triumph. All this display was made possible by the iniquitous fiscal policy of Rome. But the taxes became so ex- cessive as to impose an intolerable burden upon the shoulders of the middle classes, and this ''Soul of the Empire" was gradually crushed till the day of the invading Vandal, who laid low the Roman rule c'lnd the Roman glory. However, until that day, which was delayed until Augustine had finished his labors, the mixed population of the towns gave tlicmsclvcs up to the glittering life which Augustine himself compared "to glass in its fragile splendor."^ The Christian Church had, indeed, followed close in the wake of the Roman seizure of North Africa. It was here that the first Eatin 1 Cay of God, IV, 3. Getting a Start. 13 version of the Scriptures originated. A century and a half before our date, the first great Latin apologist, Tertullian, had hurled his defense of Christianity against the pagans. From him we learn that even so early the triumph of the Church had been far- reaching. "We leave you your temples only. We can count your armies. Our number in a single province will be greater." It must be confessed, however, that the Chris- tian ardor of the earlier days had grown measurably cooler in the presence of the pomp and worldliness of the times. There had been numerous lapses under the keen persecutions of Decius and Diocletian. But it is to be feared that the presence of material prosperity and prevailing corruption was much more effective in reducing the number of Chris- tians. Even among those who were numbered as Christians, Christianity was in many cases hardly an affair of passion. The master-passion of those days was rather the games and public spectacles. If these chanced on the same day with the religious feasts or worship in the Churches, the latter gen- erally proved the sufferers by being less popular. So much was this so that a convention at Carthage, in 401, appealed to the emperor to cause the trans- fer of the public shovv^s from days distinctly Chris- tian to other days of the week. Augustine himself complains,^ on a certain day given to pagan festi- vals, of the slight attendance upon his preaching, of 2 Tractate VII, 2, on the Gospel of St, John. Thinker. 14 Augustine: The men, and especially of women, "whom, if not fear, pub- modesty at all events ought to deter from the lic scene." Unfortunately the North African Church was weighted also with a persistent schism. It will fall to our lot later to consider the part Augustine took in what is known as the Donatist controversy. For now it is enough to record the fact that for many years already Donatism had been waging a relent- less war on the Catholic Church. The emperor, Constantine, had found it impossible to stay the ravages of the schism by imperial edict, and now the entire Church of Africa was rent asunder by the obstinate disputes of the rival parties. In most of the towns was presented the unedifying spectacle of basilicas and bishops opposed to one another, heated public debates, services interrupted by fierce on- slaughts, and even bloodshed and family strife—all in the name of religion. The town of Thagaste doubtless reflected most of these ecclesiastical and political conditions at the time of Augustine's birth, November 13, 354. His mother was a Christian. Without attempting to glorify Monica, as many have done, we may ac- cept Augustine's own estimate of her "devout con- versation toward God" and "her holy tenderness and attentivencss" to her son.^ It can hardly be doubted that Augustine owed a vast debt to his godly mother for her prayers and unconquerable * Confc&MODk, IX, 33. Gi:tting a Start. 15 love, as he received from her also that reUgious yearning, which did not forsake him even in his Vv^orst years. So much can not be spoken for the father. Patricius was an unlovely, poor freeman, with crude tastes and of a shallow, harsh disposition. A man requiring constant propitiation to prevent passionate outbursts of anger, with no principles to deter him from shameless disregard of his marriage vows, he w^ould in our day be catalogued as a heart- less brute. But even him Monica gained over to a Christian confession before his death. To them, in addition to Aurelius, were born a son, Navigius, and a daughter, both of whom were Christians. At his birth, Augustine tells us, he was sprinkled with salt and signed with the cross, signifying his admission as a candidate for baptism. As to the various attitudes of his infancy, the presumed sins of little indignations and pale jealousies and bitter looks, of which we read in the Confessions, it is hardly proper to speak, since Augustine himself makes considerate avowal of his having received these details from another or "guessed them from other infants." "After that I was put to school to get learning. And if slow to learn I was flogged."^ The millen- nial period for boys, of abandoning corporeal in- flictions, had not yet arrived, and Augustine seems to have had no exemption from a due share of "stripes." "One and one are two" was a "hateful 4 Confessions, I, 14.

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