Augustine (354—430 C.E.)
St. Augustine is a fourth century philosopher whose groundbreaking philosophy infused Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism.
He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian and for his
agnostic contributions to Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge. In a proof for existence similar to one later made famous by René Descartes,
Augustine says, “[Even] If I am mistaken, I am.” He is the first
Western philosopher to promote what has come to be called "the argument
by analogy" against solipsism:
there are bodies external to mine that behave as I behave and that
appear to be nourished as mine is nourished; so, by analogy, I am
justified in believing that these bodies have a similar mental life to
mine. Augustine believes reason to be a uniquely human cognitive
capacity that comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity.
Additionally, Augustine adopts a subjective view of time and
says that time is nothing in reality but exists only in the human
mind’s apprehension of reality. He believes that time is not infinite
because God“created” it.
Augustine tries to reconcile his beliefs about freewill, especially the belief that humans are morally responsible for
their actions, with his belief that one’s life is predestined. Though
initially optimistic about the ability of humans to behave morally, at
the end he is pessimistic, and thinks that original sin makes human
moral behavior nearly impossible: if it were not for the rare appearance
of an accidental and undeserved Grace of God, humans could not
be moral. Augustine’s theological discussion of freewill is relevant to
a non-religious discussion regardless of the religious-specific
language he uses; one can switch Augustine’s “omnipotent being” and
“original sin” explanation of predestination for the present day
“biology” explanation of predestination; the latter tendency is apparent
in modern slogans such as “biology is destiny.”
1. Early Years
Augustine is the first ecclesiastical author the whole course of whose
development can be clearly traced, as well as the first in whose case we
are able to determine the exact period covered by his career, to the
very day. He informs us himself that he was born at Thagaste (Tagaste;
now Suk Arras), in proconsular Numidia, Nov. 13, 354; he died at Hippo
Regius (just south of the modern Bona) Aug. 28, 430. [Both Suk Arras and
Bona are in the present Algeria, the first 60 m. W. by s. and the
second 65 m. w. of Tunis, the ancient Carthage.] His father Patricius,
as a member of the council, belonged to the influential classes of the
place; he was, however, in straitened circumstances, and seems to have
had nothing remarkable either in mental equipment or in character, but
to have been a lively, sensual, hot-tempered person, entirely taken up
with his worldly concerns, and unfriendly to Christianity until the
close of his life; he became a catechumen shortly before Augustine
reached his sixteenth year (369-370). To his mother Monnica (so the
manuscripts write her name, not Monica; b. 331, d. 387) Augustine later
believed that he owed what lie became. But though she was evidently an
honorable, loving, self-sacrificing, and able woman, she was not always
the ideal of a Christian mother that tradition has made her appear. Her
religion in earlier life has traces of formality and worldliness about
it; her ambition for her son seems at first to have had little moral
earnestness and she regretted his Manicheanism more than she did his
early sensuality. It seems to have been through Ambrose and Augustine
that she attained the mature personal piety with which she left the
world. Of Augustine as a boy his parents were intensely proud. He
received his first education at Thagaste, learning, to read and write,
as well as the rudiments of Greek and Latin literature, from teachers
who followed the old traditional pagan methods. He seems to have had no
systematic instruction in the Christian faith at this period, and though
enrolled among the catechumens, apparently was near baptism only when
an illness and his own boyish desire made it temporarily probable.
His father, delighted with his son's progress in his studies, sent him
first to the neighboring Madaura, and then to Carthage, some two days'
journey away. A year's enforced idleness, while the means for this more
expensive schooling were being accumulated, proved a time of moral
deterioration; but we must be on our guard against forming our
conception of Augustine's vicious living from the Confessiones alone. To
speak, as Mommsen does, of " frantic dissipation " is to attach too
much weight to his own penitent expressions of self-reproach. Looking
back as a bishop, he naturally regarded his whole life up to the "
conversion " which led to his baptism as a period of wandering from the
right way; but not long after this conversion, he judged differently,
and found, from one point of view, the turning point of his career in
his taking up philosophy -in his nineteenth year. This view of his early
life, which may be traced also in the Confessiones, is probably nearer
the truth than the popular conception of a youth sunk in all kinds of
immorality. When he began the study of rhetoric at Carthage, it is true
that (in company with comrades whose ideas of pleasure were probably
much more gross than his) he drank of the cup of sensual pleasure. But
his ambition prevented him from allowing his dissipations to interfere
with his studies. His son Adeodatus was born in the summer of 372, and
it was probably the mother of this child whose charms enthralled him
soon after his arrival at Carthage about the end of 370. But he remained
faithful to her until about 385, and the grief which he felt at parting
from her shows what the relation had been. In the view of the
civilization of that period, such a monogamous union was distinguished
from a formal marriage only by certain legal restrictions, in addition
to the informality of its beginning and the possibility of a voluntary
dissolution. Even the Church was slow to condemn such unions absolutely,
and Monnica seems to have received the child and his mother publicly at
Thagaste. In any case Augustine was known to Carthage not as a
roysterer but as a quiet honorable student. He was, however, internally
dissatisfied with his life. The Hortensius of Cicero, now lost with the
exception of a few fragments, made a deep impression on him. To know the
truth was henceforth his deepest wish. About the time when the contrast
between his ideals and his actual life became intolerable, he learned
to conceive of Christianity as the one religion which could lead him to
the attainment of his ideal. But his pride of intellect held him back
from embracing it earnestly; the Scriptures could not bear comparison
with Cicero; he sought for wisdom, not for humble submission to
authority.
2. Manichean and Neoplatonist Period
In this frame of mind he was ready to be affected by the so-called
"Manichean propaganda" which was then actively carried on in Africa,
without apparently being much hindered by the imperial edict against
assemblies of the sect. Two things especially attracted him to the
Manicheans: they felt at liberty to criticize the Scriptures,
particularly the Old Testament, with perfect freedom; and they held
chastity and self-denial in honor. The former fitted in with the
impression which the Bible had made on Augustine himself; the latter
corresponded closely to his mood at the time. The prayer which he tells
us he had in his heart then, " Lord, give me chastity and temperance,
but not now," may be taken as the formula which represents the attitude
of many of the Manichean auditores. Among these Augustine was classed
during his nineteenth year; but he went no further, though he held
firmly to Manicheanism for nine years, during which he endeavored to
convert all his friends, scorned the sacraments of the Church, and held
frequent disputations with catholic believers.
Having finished his studies, he returned to Thagaste and began to teach
grammar, living in the house of Romanianus, a prominent citizen who had
been of much service to him since his father's death, and whom he
converted to Manicheanism. Monnica deeply grieved at her son's heresy,
forbade him her house, until reassured by a vision that promised his
restoration. She comforted herself also by the word of a certain bishop
(probably of Thagaste) that "the child of so many tears could not be
lost." He seems to have spent little more than a year in Thagaste, when
the desire for a wider field, together with the death of a dear friend,
moved him to return to Carthage as a teacher of rhetoric.
The next period was a time of diligent study, and produced (about the end of 380) the treatise, long since lost, De pulchro et apto.
Meanwhile the hold of Manicheanism on him was loosening. Its feeble
cosmology and metaphysics had long since failed to satisfy him, and the
astrological superstitions springing from the credulity of its disciples
offended his reason. The members of the sect, unwilling to lose him,
had great hopes from a meeting with their leader Faustus of Mileve; but
when he came to Carthage in the autumn of 382, he too proved
disappointing, and Augustine ceased to be at heart a Manichean. He was
not yet, however, prepared to put anything in the place of the doctrine
he had held, and remained in outward communion with his former
associates while he pursued his search for truth. Soon after his
Manichean convictions had broken down, he left Carthage for Rome,
partly, it would seem, to escape the preponderating influence of his
mother on a mind which craved perfect freedom of investigation. Here he
was brought more than ever, by obligations of friendship and gratitude,
into close association with Manicheans, of whom there were many in Rome,
not merely auditores but perfecti or
fully initiated members. This did not last long, however, for the
prefect Symmachus sent him to Milan, certainly before the beginning of
385, in answer to a request for a professor of rhetoric.
The change of residence completed Augustine's separation from
Manicheanism. He listened to the preaching of Ambrose and by it was made
acquainted with the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and
the weakness of the Manichean Biblical criticism, but he was not yet
ready to accept catholic Christianity. His mind was still under the
influence of the skeptical philosophy of the later Academy. This was the
least satisfactory stage in his mental development, though his external
circumstances were increasingly favorable. He had his mother again with
him now, and shared a house and garden with her and his devoted friends
Alypius and Nebridius, who had followed him to Milan; his assured
social position is shown also by the fact that, in deference to his
mother's entreaties, he was formally betrothed to a woman of suitable
station. As a catechumen of the Church, he listened regularly to the
sermons of Ambrose. The bishop, though as yet he knew nothing of
Augustine's internal struggles, had welcomed him in the friendliest
manner both for his own and for Monnica's sake. Yet Augustine was
attracted only by Ambrose's eloquence, not by his faith; now he agreed,
and now he questioned. Morally his life was perhaps at its lowest point.
On his betrothal, he had put away the mother of his son; but neither
the grief which he felt at this parting nor regard for his future wife,
who was as yet too young for marriage, prevented him from taking a new
concubine for the two intervening years. Sensuality, however, began to
pall upon him, little as he cared to struggle against it. His idealism
was by no means dead; he told Romanian, who came to Milan at this time
on business, that he wished he could live altogether in accordance with
the dictates of philosophy; and a plan was even made for the foundation
of a community retired from the world, which should live entirely for
the pursuit of truth. With this project his intention of marriage and
his ambition interfered, and Augustine was further off than ever from
peace of mind.
In his thirty-first year he was strongly attracted to Neoplatonism by
the logic of his development. The idealistic character of this
philosophy awoke unbounded enthusiasm, and he was attracted to it also
by its exposition of pure intellectual being and of the origin of evil.
These doctrines brought him closer to the Church, though he did not yet
grasp the full significance of its central doctrine of the personality
of Jesus Christ. In his earlier writings he names this acquaintance with
the Neoplatonic teaching and its relation to Christianity as the
turning-point of his life. The truth, as it may be established by a
careful comparison of his earlier and later writings, is that his
idealism had been distinctly strengthened by Neoplatonism, which had at
the same time revealed his own will, and not a natura altera in
him, as the subject of his baser desires. This made the conflict
between ideal and actual in his life more unbearable than ever. Yet his
sensual desires were still so strong that it seemed impossible for him
to break away from them.
3. Conversion and Ordination
Help came in a curious way. A countryman of his, Pontitianus, visited
him and told him things which he had never heard about the monastic life
and the wonderful conquests over self which had been won under its
inspiration. Augustine's pride was touched; that the unlearned should
take the kingdom of heaven by violence, while he with all his learning
was still held captive by the flesh, seemed unworthy of him. When
Pontitianus had gone, with a few vehement words to Alypius, he went
hastily with him into the garden to fight out this new problem. Then
followed the scene so often described. Overcome by his conflicting
emotions he left Alypius and threw himself down under a fig-tree in
tears. From a neighboring house came a child's voice repeating again and
again the simple words Tolle, lege, " Take up and read." It seemed to
him a heavenly indication; he picked up the copy of St. Paul's epistles
which he had left where he and Alypius had been sitting, and opened at
Romans xiii. When he came to the words, " Let us walk honestly as in the
day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,"
it seemed to him that a decisive message had been sent to his own soul,
and his resolve was taken. Alypius found a word for himself a few lines
further, " Him that is weak in the faith receive ye;" and together they
went into the house to bring the good news to Monnica. This was at the
end of the summer of 386.
Augustine, intent on breaking wholly with his old life, gave up his
position, and wrote to Ambrose to ask for baptism. The months which
intervened between that summer and the Easter of the following year, at
which, according to the early custom, he intended to receive the
sacrament, were spent in delightful calm at a country-house, put at his
disposal by one of his friends, at Cassisiacum (Casciago, 47 m. n. by w.
of Alilan). Here Monnica, Alypius, Adeodatus, and some of his pupils
kept him company, and he still lectured on Vergil to them and held
philosophic discussions. The whole party returned to Milan before Easter
(387), and Augustine, with Alypius and Adeodatus, was baptized. Plans
were then made for returning to Africa; but these were upset by the
death of Monnica, which took place at Ostia as they were preparing to
cross the sea, and has been described by her devoted son in one of the
most tender and beautiful passages of the Confessiones. Augustine
remained at least another year in Italy, apparently in Rome, living the
same quiet life which he had led at Cassisiacum, studying and writing,
in company with his countryman Evodius, later bishop of Uzalis. Here,
where he had been most closely associated with the Manicheans, his
literary warfare with them naturally began; and he was also writing on
free will, though this book was only finished at Hippo in 391. In the
autumn of 388, passing through Carthage, he returned to Thagaste, a far
different man from the Augustine who had left it five years before.
Alypius was still with him, and also Adeodatus, who died young, we do
not know when or where. Here Augustine and his friends again took up a
quiet, though not yet in any sense a monastic, life in common, and
pursued their favorite studies. About the beginning of 391, having found
a friend in Hippo to help in the foundation of what he calls a
monastery, he sold his inheritance, and was ordained presbyter in
response to a general demand, though not without misgivings on his own
part.
The years which he spent in the presbyterate (391-395) are the last of
his formative period. The very earliest works which fall within the time
of his episcopate show us the fully developed theologian of whose
special teaching we think when we speak of Augustinianism. There is
little externally noteworthy in these four years. He took up active work
not later than the Easter of 391, when we find him preaching to the
candidates for baptism. The plans for a monastic community which had
brought him to Hippo were now realized. In a garden given for the
purpose by the bishop, Valerius, he founded his monastery, which seems
to have been the first in Africa, and is of especial significance
because it maintained a clerical school and thus made a connecting link
between monastics and the secular clergy. Other details of this period
are that he appealed to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, to suppress the
custom of holding banquets and entertainments in the churches, and by
395 had succeeded, through his courageous eloquence, in abolishing it in
Hippo; that in 392 a public disputation took place between him and a
Manichean presbyter of Hippo, Fortunatus; that his treatise De fide et
symbols was prepared to be read before the council held at Hippo October
8, 393; and that after that he was in Carthage for a while, perhaps in
connection with the synod held there in 394.
4. Later Years
The intellectual interests of these four years are more easily
determined, principally concerned as they are with the Manichean
controversy, and producing the treatises De utilitate credendi (391), De duabus animabus contra Manichaos (first half of 392), and Contra Adimantum (394
or 395). His activity against the Donatists also begins in this period,
but he is still more occupied with the Manicheans, both from the
recollections of his own past and from his increasing knowledge of
Scripture, which appears, together with a stronger hold on the Church's
teaching, in the works just named, and even more in others of this
period, such as his expositions of the Sermon on the Mount and of the
Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. Full as the writings of this
epoch are, however, of Biblical phrases and terms,-grace and the law,
predestination, vocation, justification, regeneration-a reader who is
thoroughly acquainted with Neoplatonism will detect Augustine's avid
love of it in a Christian dress in not a few places. He has entered so
far into St. Paul's teaching that humanity as a whole appears to him a massa peccati or peccatorum,
which, if left to itself, that is, without the grace of God, must
inevitably perish. However much we are here reminded of the later
Augustine, it is clear that he still held the belief that the free will
of man could decide his own destiny. He knew some who saw in Romans ix
an unconditional predestination which took away the freedom of the will;
but he was still convinced that this was not the Church's teaching. His
opinion on this point did not change till after he was a bishop.
The more widely known Augustine became, the more Valerius, the bishop of
Hippo, was afraid of losing him on the first vacancy of some
neighboring see, and desired to fix him permanently in Hippo by making
him coadjutor-bishop,-a desire in which the people ardently concurred.
Augustine was strongly opposed to the project, though possibly neither
he nor Valerius knew that it might be held to be a violation of the
eighth canon of Niema, which forbade in its last clause " two bishops in
one city "; and the primate of Numidia, Megalius of Calama, seems to
have raised difficulties which sprang at least partly from a personal
lack of confidence. But Valerius carried his plan through, and not long
before Christmas, 395, Augustine was consecrated by Megalius. It is not
known when Valerius died; but it makes little difference, since for the
rest of his life he left the administration more and more in the hands
of his assistant. Space forbids any attempt to trace events of his later
life; and in what remains to be said, biographical interest must be
largely our guide. We know a considerable number of events in
Augustine's episcopal life which can be surely placed-the so-called
third and eighth synods of Carthage in 397 and 403, at which, as at
those still to be mentioned, he was certainly present; the disputation
with the Manichean Felix at Hippo in 404; the eleventh synod of Carthage
in 407; the conference with the Donatists in Carthage, 411; the synod
of Mileve, 416; the African general council at Carthage, 418; the
journey to Caesarea in Mauretania and the disputation with the Donatist
bishop there, 418; another general council in Carthage, 419; and finally
the consecration of Eraclius as his assistant in 426.
5. Anti-Manicheanism and Pelagian Writings
His special and direct opposition to Manicheanism did not last a great while after his consecration. About 397 he wrote a tractate Contra epistolam [Manichcet] quam vocant fundamenti; in the De agone christiano, written about the same time, and in the Confessiones,
a little later, numerous anti-Manichean expressions occur. After this,
however, he only attacked the Manicheans on some special occasion, as
when, about 400, on the request of his "brethren," he wrote a detailed
rejoinder to Faustus, a Manichean bishop, or made the treatise De natura boni out
of his discussions with Felix; a little later, also, the letter of the
Manichean Secundinus gave him occasion to write Contra Secundinum,
which, in spite of its comparative brevity, he regarded as the best of
his writings on this subject. In the succeeding period, he was much more
occupied with anti-Donatist polemics, which in their turn were forced
to take second place by the emergence of the Pelagian controversy.
It has been thought that Augustine's anti-Pelagian teaching grew out of
his conception of the Church and its sacraments as a means of salvation;
and attention was called to the fact that before the Pelagian
controversy this aspect of the Church had, through the struggle with the
Donatists, assumed special importance in his mind. But this conception
should be denied. It is quite true that in 395 Augustine's views on sin
and grace, freedom and predestination, were not what they afterward came
to be. But the new trend was given to them before the time of his
anti-Donatist activity, and so before he could have heard anything of
Pelagius. What we call Augustinianism was not a reaction against
Pelagianism; it would be much truer to say that the latter was a
reaction against Augustine's views. He himself names the beginning of
his episcopate as the turning-point. Accordingly, in the first thing
which he wrote after his consecration, the De diversis gucestionibus ad Simplicianum (396
or 397), we come already upon the new conception. In no other of his
writings do we see as plainly the gradual attainment of conviction on
any point; as he himself says in the Retractationes,
he was laboring for the free choice of the will of man, but the grace
of God won the day. So completely was it won, that we might set forth
the specifically Augustinian teaching on grace, as against the Pelagians
and the Massilians, by a series of quotations taken wholly from this
treatise. It is true that much of his later teaching is still
undeveloped here; the question of predestination (though the word is
used) does not really come up; he is not clear as to the term "
election"; and nothing is said of the " gift of perseverance." But what
we get on these points later is nothing but the logical consequence of
that which is expressed here, and so we have the actual genesis of
Augustine's predestinarian teaching under our eyes. It is determined by
no reference to the question of infant baptism -- still less by any
considerations connected with the conception of the Church. The impulse
comes directly from Scripture, with the help, it is true, of those
exegetical thoughts which he mentioned earlier as those of others and
not his own. To be sure, Paul alone can not explain this doctrine of
grace; this is evident from the fact that the very definition of grace
is non-Pauline. Grace is for Augustine, both now and later, not the misericordia peccata condonans of the Reformers, as justification is not the alteration of the relation to God accomplished by means of the accipere remissionem. Grace is rather the misericordia which displays itself in the divine inspiratio and justification is justum or pium fieri as a result of this. We may even say that this grace is an interne illuminatio such as a study of Augustine's Neoplatonism enables us easily to understand, which restores the connection with the divine bonum esse.
He had long been convinced that " not only the greatest but also the
smallest good things can not be, except from him from whom are all good
things, that is, from God;" and it might well seem to him to follow from
this that faith, which is certainly a good thing, could proceed from
the operation of God alone. This explains the idea that grace works like
a law of nature, drawing the human will to God with a divine
omnipotence. Of course this Neoplatonic coloring must not be
exaggerated; it is more consistent with itself in his earlier writings
than in the later, and he would never have arrived at his predestinarian
teaching without the New Testament. With this knowledge, we are in a
position to estimate the force of a difficulty which now confronted
Augustine for the first time, but never afterward left him, and which
has been present in the Roman Catholic teaching even down to the
Councils of Trent and the Vatican. If faith depends upon an action of
our own, solicited but not caused by vocation, it can only save a man
when, per fidem gratiam accipiens,
he becomes one who not merely believes in God but loves him also. But
if faith has been already inspired by grace, and if, while the Scripture
speaks of justification by faith, it is held (in accordance with the
definition of grace) that justification follows upon the infitsio caritatis,
-then either the conception of the faith which is God-inspired must
pass its fluctuating boundaries and, approach nearer to that of caritas,
or the conception of faith which is unconnected with caritas will
render the fact of its inspiration unintelligible and justification by
faith impossible. Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings set forth this
doctrine of grace more clearly in some points, such as the terms "
election," " predestination," " the gift of perseverance," and also more
logically; but space forbids us to show this here, as the part taken in
this controversy by Augustine is so fully detailed elsewhere.
6. Activity Against Donatism
In order to arrive at a decision as to what influence the Donatist
controversy had upon Augustine's intellectual development, it is
necessary to see how long and how intensely he was concerned with it. We
have seen that even before he was a bishop he was defending the
catholic Church against the Donatists; and after his consecration he
took part directly or indirectly in all the important discussions of the
matter, some of which have been already mentioned, and defended the
cause of the Church in letters and sermons as well as in his more formal
polemical writings. The first of these which belongs to the period of
his episcopate, Contra partem Donati, has been lost; about 400 he wrote the two cognate treatises Contra epistulam Parmeniani (the Donatist bishop of Carthage) and De baptismo contra Donatistas.
He was considered by the schismatics as their chief antagonist, and was
obliged to defend himself against a libelous attack on their part in a
rejoinder now lost. From the years 401 and 402 we have the reply to the
Donatist bishop of Cirta, Contra epistulam Petiliani, and also the Epistula ad catholicos de unitate ecclesioe.
The conflict was now reaching its most acute stage. After the
Carthaginian synod of 403 had made preparations for a decisive debate
with the Donatists, and the latter had declined to fall in with the
plan, the bitterness on both sides increased. Another synod at Carthage
the following year decided that the emperor should be asked for penal
laws against the Donatists. Honorius granted the request; but the
employment of force in matters of belief brought up a new point of
discord between the two sides. When these laws were abrogated (409), the
plan of a joint conference was tried once more in June, 411, under
imperial authority, nearly 300 bishops being present from each side,
with Augustine and Aurelius of Carthage as the chief representatives of
the Catholic cause. In the following year, the Donatists proving
insubordinate, Honorius issued a new and severer edict against them,
which proved the beginning of the end for the schism. For these years
from 405 to 412 we have twenty-one extant letters of Augustine's bearing
on the controversy, and there were eight formal treatises, but four of
these are lost. Those which we still have are: Contra Cresconium grammaticum (about 406); De unico baptismio (about 410 or 411), in answer to a work of the same name by Petilian; the brief report of the conference (end of 411); and the Liber contra Donatistas post collationem (probably 412).
7. Development of His Views
The earliest of the extant works against the Donatists present the same
views of the Church and its sacraments which Augustine developed later.
The principles which he represented in this conflict are merely those
which, in a simpler form, had either appeared in the anti-Donatist
polemics before his time or had been part of his own earlier belief.
What he did was to formulate them with more dogmatic precision,. and to
permeate the ordinary controversial theses with his own deep thoughts
on unitas, caritas, and inspiratio gratice in
the Church, thoughts which again trace their origin back to his
Neoplatonic foundations. In the course of the conflict he changed his
opinion about the methods to be employed; he had at first been opposed
to the employment of force, but later came to the " Compel them to come
in " point of view. It may well be doubted, however, if the practical
struggle with the schismatics had as much to do with Augustine's
development as has been supposed. Far more weight must be attached to
the fact that Augustine had become a presbyter and a bishop of the
catholic Church, and as such worked continually deeper into the
ecclesiastical habit of thought. This was not hard for the son of
Monnica and the reverent admirer of Ambrose. His position as a bishop
may fairly be said to be the only determining factor in his later views
besides his Neoplatonist foundation, his earnest study of the Scripture,
and the predestinarian conception of grace which he got from this.
Everything else is merely secondary. Thus we find Augustine practically
complete by the beginning of his episcopate-about the time when he wrote
the Confessiones. It would be too much to say that his development
stood still after that; the Biblical and ecclesiastical coloring of his
thoughts becomes more and more visible and even vivid; but such
development as this is no more significant than the effect of the years
seen upon a strong face; in fact, it is even less observable here-for
while the characteristic features of his spiritual mind stand out more
sharply as time goes on with Augustine, his mental force shows scarcely a
sign of age at seventy. His health was uncertain after 386, and his
body aged before the time; on Sept. 26, 426, he solemnly designated
Eraclius (or Heraclius) as his successor, though without consecrating
him bishop, and transferred to him such a portion of his duties as was
possible. But his intellectual vigor remained unabated to the end. We
see him, as Prosper depicts him in his chronicle, " answering the books
of Julian in the very end of his days, while the on-rushing Vandals were
at the gates, and gloriously persevering in the defense of Christian
grace." In the third month of the siege of Hippo by the barbarian
invaders, he fell ill of a fever and, after lingering more than ten
days, died Aug. 28, 430. He was able to read on his sick-bed; he had the
Penitential Psalms placed upon the wall of his room where he could see
them. Meditating upon them, he fulfilled what he had often said before,
that even Christians revered for the sanctity of their lives, even
presbyters, ought not to leave the world without fitting thoughts of
penitence.
8. Miscellaneous Works
Of works not yet mentioned, those written after 395 and named in the
Retractationes, may be classified under three heads-exegetical works;
minor dogmatic, polemical, and practical treatises; and a separate class
containing four more extensive works of special importance. The
earliest of the minor treatises is De catechizandis rudibus (about
400), interesting for its connection with the history of catechetical
instruction and for many other reasons. A brief enumeration of the
others will suffice; they are: De opera monachorum (about 400); De bono conjugali and De sancta virginitate (about 401), both directed against Jovinian's depreciation of virginity; De deviation damonum (between 406 and 411); De fide et operibus (413), a completion of the argument in the De spiritu et litera, useful for a study of the difference between the Augustinian and the Lutheran doctrines of grace; De cura pro mortuis,
interesting as showing his attitude toward superstition within the
Church; and a few others of less interest. We come now to the four works
which have deserved placing in a special category. One is the De doctrina christiana (begun about 397, finished 426), important as giving his theory of scriptural interpretation and homiletics; another is the Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate (about
421), noteworthy as an attempt at a systematic collocation of his
thoughts. There remain the two doctrinal masterpieces, the De trinitate(probably begun about 400 and finished about 416) and the De civitate Dei (begun
about 413, finished about 426). The last-named, beginning with an
apologetic purpose, takes on later the form of a history of the City of
God from its beginnings.
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