1 Adv. Academicos, 1. ii. c. 2, § 5: "Etiam mihi ipsi de me incredibile incendium concitarunt." And in several passages of the Civitas Dei (viii. 3-12 xxii. 27) he speaks very favourably of Plato, and also of Aristotle, and thus broke the way for the high authority of the Aristotelian philosophy with the scholastics of the middle age.
2 He died, according to the Chronicle of his friend and pupil Prosper Aquitanus, the 28th of August, 430 (in the third month of the siege of Hippo by the Vandals); according to his biographer Possidius he lived seventy-six years. The day of his birth Augustin states himself, De vita beata, § 6 (tom. i. 300): "Idibus Novemoris mihi natalis dies erat."
3 He received baptism shortly before his death.
1 Conf. i. 1: "Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te." In all his aberrations, which we would hardly know, if it were not from his own free confession, he never sunk to anything mean, but remained, like Paul in his Jewish fanaticism, a noble intellect and an honorable character, with burning love for the true and the good.
2 For particulars respecting the course of Augustin's life, see my work above cited, and other monographs. Comp. also the fine remarks of Dr. Baur in his posthumous Lectures on Doctrine-History (1866), vol. i. Part ii. p. 26 sqq. He compares the development of Augustin with the course of Christianity from the beginning to his time, and draws a parallel between Augustin and Origen.
3 Conf. ix. c. 8: "Quae me parturivit et carne, ut in hanc temporalem, et carde, ut in aeternam lucem nascerer." L. v. 9: "Non enim satis eloquor, quid erga me habebat anima, et quanto majore sollicitudine nie partur iebat spiritu, quam carne pepererat." In De dono persev. c. 20, he ascribes his conversion under God "to the faithful and dairy tears" of his mother.
4 Conf. l. ix. c. 11: "Tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad Domini altare memineritis mei, ubs fuertis." This must be explained from the already prevailing custom of offering prayers for the dead, which, however, had rather the form of thanksgiving for the mercy of God shown to them, than the later form of intercession for them.
5 He is still known among the inhabitants of the place as "the great Christian" (Rumi Kebir). Gibbon (ch. xxxiii. ad ann. 430) thus describes the place which became so famous through Augustin: "The maritime colony of Hippo, about two hundred miles westward of Carthage, had formerly acquired the distinguishing epithet of Regius, from the residence of the Numidian kings; and some remains of trade and populousness still adhere to the modern city, which is known in Europe by the corrupted name of Bona." Sallust mentions Hippo once in his history of the Jugurthine War. A part of the wealth with which Sallust built and beautified his splendid mansion and gardens in Rome, was extorted from this and other towns of North Africa while governor of Numidia. Since the French conquest of Algiers Hippo Regius was rebuilt under the name of Bona and is now one of the finest towns in North Africa, numbering over 10,000 inhabitants, French, Moors, and Jews.
6 He mentions a sister, "soror mea, sancta proposita" [monasterii], without naming her, Epist. 211, n. 4 (ed. Bened.), alias Ep. 109. He also had a brother by the name of Navigius.
7 Possidius says, in his Vita Aug.: "Caeterum episcopatu suscepto multo instantius ac ferventius, majore auctoritate, non in una tantum regione, sed ubicunque rogatus venisset, verbum satutis alacriter, ac suaviter pullulante atque crescente Domini ecclesia, praedicavit."
8 Possidius, c. 28, gives a vivid picture of the ravages of the Vandals, which have become proverbial. Comp. also Gibbon, ch. xxxiii.
9 I freely combine several passages.
10 Comp. Opera, tom. vi. p. 117 (Append.); Daniel: Thesaurus hymnol. i. 116 sqq., and iv. 203 sq., and Mone: Lat. Hymner, i. 422 sqq., Mone ascribes the poem to an unknown writer of the sixth century, but Trench (Sacred Latin Poetry, 2d ed., 315) and others attribute it to Cardinal Peter Damiani, the friend of Pope Hildebrand (d. 1072). Augustin wrote his poetry in prose.
11 Possidius says, Vita, c. 31: "Testamentum nullum fecit, guia unde faceret, pauper Dei non habuit. Ecclesiae bibliothecam omnesgue codices diligenter posteris custodiendos semper jubebat."
12 The inhabitants escaped to the sea. There appears no bishop of Hippo after Augustin. In the seventh century the old city was utterly destroyed by the Arabians, but two miles from it Bona was built of its ruins. Comp. Tillemont, xiii. 945, and Gibbon, ch. xxxiii. Gibbon says, that Bona, "in the sixteenth century, contained about three hundred families of industrious, but turbulent manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for a pure air, a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits." Since the French conquest of Algiers, Bona was rebuilt in 1832, and is gradually assuming a French aspect. It is now one of the finest towns in Algeria, the key to the province of Constantine, has a public garden, several schools, considerable commerce, and a population of over ten thousand of French, Moors, and Jews, the great majority of whom are foreigners. The relics of St. Augustin have been recently transferred from Pavia to Bona. See the letters of abbé Sibour to Poujoulat sur la translation de ia relique de saint Augustin de Pavie à Hippone, in Poujoulat's Histoire de saint Augustin, tom. i. p. 413 sqq.
13 Even in Africa Augustin's spirit reappeared from time to time notwithstanding the barbarian confusion, as a light in darkness, first in Vigilius, bishop of Thapsus, who, at the close of the fifth century, ably defended the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the person of Christ, and to whom the authorship of the so-called Athanasian Creed has sometimes been ascribed; in Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, one of the chief opponents of Semi-Pelagianism, and the later Arianism, who with sixty catholic bishops of Africa was banished for several years by the Arian Vandals to the island of Sardinia, and who was called the Augustin of the sixth century (died 533); and in Facundus of Hermiane (died 570), and Fulgentius Ferrandus, and Liberatus, two deacons of Carthage, who took a prominent part in the Three Chapter controversy.
14 Or, as he wrote to a friend about the year 410, Epist. 120, C. 1, § 2 (tom. ii. p. 347, ed. Bened. Venet.; in older ed., Ep. 122): "Ut quod credis intelligas...non ut fidem resinas, sed ea quae fidei firmitate jam tenes, etiam rationis luce conspicias." He continues, ibid. c. 3: "Absit namque, ut hoc in nobis Deus oderit, in quo nos reliquis animalibus exccellentiores creavit. Absit, inquam, ut ideo credamus, ne rationem accipiamus vel quaeramus; cum etiam credere non possemns, nisi rationales animas haberemus." In one of his earliest works, Contra Academ. l. iii. c. 20, § 43, he says of himself: "Ita sum affectus, ut quid sit verum non credendo solum, sed etiam intelligendo apprehendere impatienter desiderem."
15 Ea'n mh' pisteu/shte, on/de' mh' sunte. But the proper translation of the Hebrew is: "If ye will not believe [in me, yeb@;
for yeb@;
], surely ye shall not be established (or, not remain)."
16 Comp. De praed. sanct. cap. 2, § 5 (tom. x. p. 792): "Ipsum credere nihil aliud est quam cum assensione cogiitare. Nom enim omnis qui cogitat, credit, cum ideo cogitant, plerique ne credant: sed cpgitat omnis qui credit, et credendo cogitat et cogitando credit. Fides si non cogitetur, nulia est." Ep. 120, cap. 1, § 3 (tom. ii. 347), and Ep. 137, c. 4, § 15 (tom. ii. 408): "Intellectui fides aditum aperit, infidelitas claudit." Augustin's view of faith and knowledge is discussed at large by Gangauf, Metaphysische Psychologie des heil. Augustinus, i. pp. 31-76, and by Nourrisson, La phliosophie de saint Augustin, tom. ii. 282-290.
17 Prosper Aquitanus collected in the year 450 or 451 from the works of Augustin 392 sentences (see the Appendix to the tenth vol. of the Bened. ed. p. 223 sqq., and in Migne's ed. of Prosper Aquitanus, col. 427-496), with reference to theological purport and the Pelagian controversies. We recall some of the best which he has omitted:
"Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo pates."
"Distingue tempora, et concordabit Scriptura."
"Cor nostrum inquietum est, donec requiescat in Te."
"Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis."
"Non vincit nisi veritas, victoria veritatis est caritas."
"Ubi amor, ibi trinitas."
"Fides praecedit intellectum."
"Deo servire vera libertas est."
"Nulia infelicitas frangit, quem felicitas nulla corrumpit."
The famous maxim of ecclesiastical harmony: "In necessarlis unitas, in dublis (or, non ccessarlis) libertas, in omnibus (in utrisque) caritas,"-which is often ascribed to Augustin, dates in this form not from him, but from a much later period. Dr. Lucke (in a special treatise on the antiquity of the author, the original form, etc., of this sentence, Göttingen, 1850) traces the authorship to Rupert Meldenius, an irenical German theologian of the seventeenth century. Baxter, also, who lived during the intense conflict of English Puritanism and Episcopacy, and grew weary of the "fury of theologians," adopted a similar sentiment. The sentence is held by many who differ widely in the definition of what is "necessary" and what is "doubtful." The meaning of "charity in all things" is above doubt, and a moral duty of every Christian, though practically violated by too many in all denominations.
18 Vorlesungen über die christl. Dogmengeschichte, vol. 1. P. 11. p. 30 sq.
19 It is sometimes asserted that he had no knowledge at all of the Greek. So Gibbon, for example, says (ch. xxxiii.): "The superficial learning of Augustin was confined to the Latin language." But this is a mistake. In his youth he had a great aversion to the glorious language of Hellas because he had a bad teacher and was forced to it (Confi. i. 14). He read the writings of Plato in a Latin translation (vii. 9). But after his baptism, during his second residence in Rome, he resumed the study of Greek with greater zest, for the sake of his biblical studies. In Hippo he had, while presbyter, good opportunity to advance in it, since his bishop, Aurelius, a native Greek, understood his mother tongue much better than the Latin. In his books he occasionally makes reference to the Greek. In his work Contra Jul. i. c. 6 § 21 (tom. x. 510), he corrects the Pelagian Julian in a translation from Chrysostom, quoting the original. "Ego ipsa verba Graeca quae a Joanne dicta sunt ponam dia' tou=to kai' ta' paidia baptizomen, kai/toi a/marth/mata ou'k e_xonta, quod est Latine: Ideo et infantes baptizamus, quamvis peccata non habentes." Julian had freely rendered this: "cum non sint coinquinati peccato," and had drawn the inference: "Sanctus Joannes Constantinopolitanus [John Chrysostom] negat esse in parvulis originale peccatum." Augustin helps himself out of the pinch by arbitrarily supplying propria to a/marth/mata, so that the idea of sin inherited from another is not excluded. The Greek fathers, however, did not consider hereditary corruption to be proper sin or guilt at all, but only defect, weakness, or disease. In the City of God, lib. xix. c. 23, he quotes a passage from Porphyry's e'k logiwn filosofia, and in book xviii. 23, he explains the Greek monogram ixun/j. He gives the derivation of several Greek words, and correctly distinguishes between such synonyms as genna/w and tiktw, eu/xh/ and proseuxh/, pnoh/ and pneu=ma. It is probable that he read Plotin, and the Panarion of Epiphanius or the summary of it, in Greek (while the Church History of Eusebius he knew only in the translation of Rufinus). But in his exegetical and other works he very rarely consults the Septuagint or Greek Testament, and was content with the very imperfect Itala, or the improved version of Jerome (the Vulgate). The Benedictine editors overestimate his knowledge of Greek. He himself frankly confesses that he knew very little of it. De Trinit. 1. iii Procaem. ("Graaecae linguae non sit nobis tantus habitus, ut talium rerum libris legendis et intelligendis ullo modo reperiamur idonei"), and Contra literas Petiliani (written in 400),1. ii. c. 38 ("Et ego quidem Graecae linguae perparum assecutus sum, et prope nihil"). On the philosophical learning of Augustin may be compared Nourrissonl. c. ii. p. 92 sqq.
20 Ellies Dupin (Bibliothégue ecclésiastique, tom. iii. 1 partie, p. 818) and Nourrisson (l. c. tom. ii. p. 449) apply to Augustin the term magnus opinator, which Cicero used of himself. There is, however, this important difference that Augustin, along with his many opinions on speculative questions in philosophy and theology, had very positive convictions in all essential doctrines, while Cicero was a mere eclectic in philosophy.
21 He was not "intoxicated with the exuberance of his own verbosity," as a modern English statesman (Lord Beaconsfield) charged his equally distinguished rival (Mr. Gladstone) in Parliament.
22 In his Retractations, he himself reviews ninety-three of his works (embracing two hundred and thirty-two books, see ii. 67), in chronological order: in the first book those which he wrote while a layman and presbyter, in the second those which he wrote when a bishop. See also the extended chronological index in Schönemann's Biblioth. historico-literaria Patrum Latinorum, vol. ii (Lips, 1794), p. 340 sqq. (reprinted in the supplemental volume, xii., of Migne's ed. of the Opera, p. 24 sqq.); and other systematic and alphabetical lists in the eleventh volume of the Bened. ed (p. 494 sqq., ed. Venet.), and in Migne, tom. xi.
23 For this reason the Benedictine editors have placed the Retractations and the Confessions at the head of his works.
24 He himself says of them, Retract. 1. ii. c. 6: "Maltis fratribus eos [Confessionum libros tredecim] multum placuisse et, placere scio." Comp. De donon perseverantiae, c. 20: "Quid autem meorum opusculorum freguentius et deleciabilius innotescere potuit qam libri Confessionum mearum?" Comp. Ep.. 231 Dario comiti.
25 Schönnemann (in the supplemental volume of Migne's ed. of Augustin, p. 134 sqq.) cites a multitude of separate editions of the Confessions in Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, and German, from A.D. 1475 to 1776. Since that time several new editions have been added. One of the best Latin editions is that of Karl von Raumer (Stuttgart, 1856), who used to read the Confessions with his students at Erlangen once a week for many years. In his preface he draws a comparison between them and Rousseau's Confessions and Hamann's Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf. English and German translations are noticed above in the Lit. Dr. Shedd (in his ed., Pref. p. xxvii) calls the Confessions the best commentary yet written upon the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans. "That quickening of the human spirit, which puts it again into vital and sensitive relations to the holy and eternal; that illumination of the mind, whereby it is enabled to perceive with clearness the real nature of truth and righteousness; that empowering of the will, to the conflict of victory-the entire process of restoring the Divine image in the soul of man-is delineated in this book, with a vividness and reality never exceeded by the uninspired mind."... "It is the life of God in the soul of a strong man, rushing and rippling with the freedom of the life of nature. He who watches can almost see the growth; he who listens can hear the perpetual motion; and he who is in sympathy will be swept along."
26 We mean his sexual sins. He kept a concubine for sixteen years, the mother of his only child, Adeodatus, and after her separation he formed for a short time a similar connection in Milan; but in both cases he was faithful. Conf. IV. 2 (unam habebam...servans tori fidem): VI. 15. Erasmus thought very leniently of this sin as contrasted with the conduct of the priests and abbots of his time. Augustin himself deeply repented of it, and devoted his life to celibacy.
27 Nourrisson(1. c. tom. i. p. 19) calls the Confessions "cet ouvrage unique, souvent imité, toujours parodié, où il s'accuse, se condamne et s'humilie, priére ardente, récit entrainant, metaphysique incomparable, histoire de tout un monde qui se refléte dans l'histoire d' une ame." Comp. also an article on the Confessions in "The Contemporary Review" for June, 1867, pp 133-160.
28 Prov. x. 19. This verse (ex multiloquio non effugies peccatum) the Semi-Pelagian Gennadius (De viris illustr. sub Aug.) applies against Augustin in excuse for his erroneous doctrines of freedom and predestination.
30 I Cor. xi. 31. Comp. his Prologus to the two books of Retractationes.
31 J. Morell Mackenzie (in W Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. i. p. 422) happily calls the Retractations of Augustin "one of the noblest sacrifices ever laid upon the altar of truth by a majestic intellect acting in obedience to the purest conscientiousness."
32 In tom. i. of the ed. Bened., immediately after the Retractationes and Confessiones, and at the close of the volume. On these philosophical writings, see Brucker: Historia critica philosophiae, Lips. 1766, tom. iii. pp. 485-507: H Ritter: Geschichte der Philosphie, vol. vi. p. 153 sqq.; Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, I. 333-346 (Am. ed.): Erdmann, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, I. 231-240: Bindemann, l. c. I. 282 sqq. Huber, l. c. I. 242 sqq.; Gangauf, l. c. p. 25 sqq., and Nouerisson, l. c. ch. i. and ii. Nourrisson makes the just remark (i. p. 53): "Si la philosophie est la recherché de la verité, jamais sans douse il ne s'est rencontre une ame plus philosophe que celle de saint Augustin. Car jamais ame n'a supporté avec plus d' impatience les anxiétés du doute et n'a fait plus d' efforts pour dissiper les fantomes de l'erreur."
33 Or on the question: "Utrum omnia bona et mala divinae providentie ordo contineat?" Comp. Retract. i. 3.
34 Augustin, in his Confessions (l. ix. c. 6), expresses himself in this touching way about this son of his illicit love: "We took with us [on returning from the country to Milan to receive the sacrament of baptism] also the boy Adeodatus, the son of my carnal sin, Thou hadst formed him well. He was but just fifteen years old, and he was superior in mind to many grave and learned men. I acknowledge Thy gifts, O Lord, my God, who createst all, and who canst reform our deformities: for I had no part in that boy but sin. And when we brought him up in Thy nurture, Thou, only Thou, didst prompt us to it; I acknowledge Thy gifts. There is my book entitled, De magistro: he speaks with me there. Thou knowest that all things there put into his mouth were in his mind when he was sixteen years of age. That maturity of mind was a terror to me; and who but Thou is the artificer of such wonders? Soon Thou didst take his life from the earth; and I think more quietly of him now, fearing no more for his boyhood, nor his youth, nor his whole life. We took him to ourselves as one of the same age in Thy grace, to be trained in Thy nurture; and we were baptised together; and all trouble about the past fled from us." He refers to him also in De vita beata, § 6: "There was also with us, in age the youngest of all, but whose talents, if affection deceives me not, promise something great, my son Adeodatus." In the same book (§ 18), he mentions an answer of his: "He is truly chaste who waits on God, and keeps himself to Him only."
35 The books on grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, and the ten Categories of Aristotle, in the Appendix to the first volume of the Bened. ed., are spurious. For the genuine works of Augustin on these subjects were written in a different form (the dialogue) and for a higher purpose, and were lost in his own day. Comp. Retract. i. c. 6. In spite of this, Prantl. (Geschichte der Logik in Abendlande, pp. 665-674, cited by Huber, l. c. p. 240) has advocated the genuineness of the Principia dialecticae, and Huber inclines to agree. Gangauf, l. c. p. 5, and Nourrisson, i. p. 37, consider them spurious.
36 =H ma/uhsij on0k a_llo ti h0 a0na/msij. On this Plato, in the Phaedo, as is well known, rests his doctrine of pre-existence. Augustin was at first in favor of the idea, Solit. ii. co, n. 35; afterwards he rejected it, Retract. i. 4, § 4: but after all he assumes in his anthropology a sort on unconscious, yet responsible, pre-existence of the whole human race in Adam as its organic head, and hence taught a universal fall in Adam's fall.
37 History of Philosophy, vol. i. 333 sq., translated by Pro. Geo. S. Morris.
38 In the Bened. ed. tom. vii. Comp. Retract. ii. 43, and Ch. Hist. III. § 12. The City of God and the Confessions are the only writings of Augustin which Gibbon thought worth while to read (chap. xxxiii.). Huber (l. c. p. 315) says: "Augustin's philosophy of history, as he presents it in his Civitas Dei, has remained to this hour the standard philosophy of history for the church orthodoxy, the bounds of which this orthodoxy, unable to perceive in the motions of the modern spirit the fresh morning air of a higher day of history, is scarcely able to transcend." Nourrisson devotes a special chapter to the consideration of the two cities of Augustin, the City of the World and the City of God (tom. ii. 43-88). Compare also the Introduction to Saisset's Traduction de la Cité de Dieu, Par. 1855, and Reinken's (old Cath. Bishop), Geschichtsphilosophie des heil. Aug. 1866. Engl. translation of the City of God by Dr. Marcus Dods, Edinburgh, 1872, 2 vols., and in the second vol. of this Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.
39 Separately edited by Krabinger, Tubingen, 1861.
40 This work is also incorporated in the Corpus haereseoloicum of Fr. Oehler, tom. i. pp. 192-225.
41 Contra Epist. Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti, 1. i. 2.
42 The earliest anti-Manichaean writings (De libero arbitrio; De moribus eccl. cath. et de Moribus Manich.) are in tom. i. ed. Bened.; the latter in tom viii.
2 Jas. iv. 6, and 1 Pet. v. 5.
3 Augustin begins with praise, and the whole book vibrates with praise. He says elsewhere (in Ps. cxlix.), that "as a new song fits not well an old man's lips, he should sing a new song who is a new creature and is living a new life;" and so from the time of his new birth, the "new song" of praise went up from him, and that "not of the lip only," but (ibid. cxlviii.) conscientia lingua vita.
4 And the rest which the Christian has here is but an earnest of the more perfect rest hereafter, when, as Augustin says (De Gen. ad. Lit.. xii. 26), " all virtue will be to love what one sees, and the highest felicity to have what one loves." [Watts, followed by Pusey, and Shedd, missed the paronomasia of the Latin: "cor nostrum inquietum est donec requiescat in Te," by translating: "our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee." It is the finest sentence in the whole book, and furnishes one of the best arguments for Christianity as the only religion which leads to that rest in God.-P. S.]
8 That is, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was instrumental in his conversion (vi. sec. 1; viii. sec. 28, etc.). "Before conversion," as Leighton observes on I Pet. ii. 1, 2, "wit or eloquence may draw a man to the word, and possibly prove a happy bait to catch him (as St. Augustin reports of his hearing St. Ambrose), but, once born again, then it is the milk itself that he desires for itself."
13 In this section, and constantly throughout the Confessions, he adverts to the materialistic views concerning God held by the Manichaeans. See also sec. 10; iii. sec. 12; iv. sec. 31, etc. etc.
16 Supererogatur tibi, ut debeas.
17 "As it is impossible for mortal, imperfect, and perishable man to comprehend the immortal, perfect and eternal, we cannot expect that he should be able to express in praise the fulness of God's attributes. The Talmud relates of a rabbi, who did not consider the terms, `the great, mighty, and fearful God, 0' which occur in the daily prayer, as being sufficient, but added some more attributes-`What! 0' exclaimed another rabbi who was present, `imaginest thou to be able to exhaust the praise of God? Thy praise is blasphemy. Thou hadst better be quiet. 0' Hence the Psalmist's exclamation, after finding that the praises of God were inexhaustible: hlhx h@ypwIr io
, `Silence is praise to Thee. 0' "-Breslau.
19 Moriar ne moriar, ut eam videam. See Ex. xxxiii. 20.
20 Ps. xix. 12, 13. "Be it that sin may never see the light, that it may be like a child born and buried in the womb; yet as that child is a man, a true man, there closeted in that hidden frame of nature, so sin is truly sin, though it never gets out beyond the womb which did conceive and enliven it."-Sedgwick.
24 Ps xxvi. 12, Vulg. "The danger of ignorance is not less than its guilt. For of all evils a secret evil is most to be deprecated, of all enemies a concealed enemy is the worst. Better the precipice than the pitfall; better the tortures of curable disease than the painlessness of mortification; and so, whatever your soul's guilt and danger, better to be aware of it. However alarming, however distressing self-knowledge may be, better that than the tremendous evils of self-ignorance."-Caird.
29 "Mercy," says Binning, "hath but its name from misery, and is no other thing than to lay another's misery to heart."
34 Ex. xvi. 15. This is one of the alternative translations put against " it is manna" in the margin of the authorized version. It is the literal significance of the Hebrew, and is so translated in most of the old English versions. Augustin indicates thereby the attitude of faith. Many things we are called on to believe (to use the illustration of Locke) which are above reason, but none that are contrary to reason. We are but as children in relation to God, and may therefore only expect to know "parts of His ways." Even in the difficulties of Scripture he sees the goodness of God. "God," he says, "has in Scripture clothed His mysteries with clouds, that man's love of truth might be inflamed by the difficulty of finding them out. For if they were only such as were readily understood, truth would not be eagerly sought, nor would it give pleasure when found."-De Ver. Relig. c. 17.
38 See some interesting remarks on this subject in Whately's Logic, Int. sec. 5.
39 Ps. ix. 9, and xlvi. 1, and xlviii. 3.
41 "A rite in the Western churches, on admission as a catechumen, previous to baptism, denoting the purity and uncorruptedness and discretion required of Christians. See S. Aug. De Catechiz. rudib. c. 26; Concil. Carth. 3, can. 5; and Liturgies in Assem. Cod. Liturg. t. i."-E. B. P. See also vi. 1, note, below.
43 Baptism was in those days frequently (and for similar reasons to the above) postponed till the hour of death approached. The doctors of the Church endeavoured to discourage this, and persons baptized on a sick-bed ("clinically") were, if they recovered, looked on with suspicion. The Emperor Constantine was not baptized till the close of his life, and he is censured by Dr. Newman (Arians iii. sec. 1) for presuming to speak of questions which divided the Arians and the Orthodox as "unimportant," while he himself was both unbaptized and uninstructed. On the postponing of baptism with a view to unrestrained enjoyment of the world, and on the severity of the early Church towards sins committed after baptism,see Kaye's Tertullian, pp. 234-241.
45 See note, v. sec. 2, below.
46 Ps. lxxviii. 39, and Jas. iv. 14.
49 "The `vail 0' was an emblem of honour, used in places of worship, and subsequently in courts of law, emperors' palaces, and even private house. See Du Fresne and Hoffman sub v. That between the vestibule, or proscholium, and the school itself, besides being a mark of dignity, may, as St. Augustin perhaps implies, have been intended to denote the hidden mysteries taught therein, and that the mass of mankind were not fit hearers of truth."-E.B. P.
51 Exaggerated statements have been made as to Augustin's deficiency in the knowledge of Greek. In this place it is clear that he simply alludes to a repugnance to learn a foreign language that has often been seen in boys since his day. It would seem equally clear from Bk. vii. sec. 13 (see also De Trin. iii. sec. 1), that when he could get a translation of a Greek book, he preferred it to one in the original language. Perhaps in this, again, he is not altogether singular. It is difficult to decide the exact extent of his knowledge, but those familiar with his writings can scarcely fail to be satisfied that he had a sufficient acquaintance with the language to correct his Italic version by the Greek Testament and the LXX., and that he was quite alive to the importance of such knowledge in an interpreter of Scripture. See also Con. Faust, xi. 2-4; and De Doctr. Christ. ii. 11-15.
52 So in Tract. II. on John, he has: "The sea has to be crossed, and dost thou despise the wood?" explaining it to mean the cross of Christ. And again: "Thou art not at all able to walk in the sea, be carried by a ship-be carried by the wood-believe on the Crucified," etc.
54 Terence, Eunuch. Act 3, scene 6 (Colman).
55 Until very recently, the Eunuchus was recited at "the play" of at least one of our public schools. See De Civ. Dei, ii. secs. 7, 8, where Augustin again alludes to this matter.
56 Aeneìd, i. 36-75 (Kennedy).
63 Literally, "takes care not by a slip of the tongue to say inter hominibus, but takes no care lest hominem auferat ex hominibus."
65 Matt. xix. 14. See i. sec. 11, note 3, above.
66 "To be is no other than to be one. In as far, therefore, as anything attains unity, in so far it `is. 0' For unity worketh congruity and harmony, whereby things composite are in so far as they are; for things uncompounded are in themselves, because they are one; but things compounded imitate unity by the harmony of their parts, and, so far as they attain to unity, they are. Wherefore order and rule secure being, disorder tends to not being."-Aug. De Morib. Manich. c. 6.
9 Ps. xciii. 20, Vulg. "Lit. `Formest trouble in or as a precept. 0' Thou makest to us a precept out of trouble, so that trouble itself shall be a precept to us, i. e. hast willed so to discipline and instruct those Thy sons, that they should not be without fear, lest they should love something else, and forget Thee, their true good."-S. Aug. ad loc.-E. B. P.
10 "Formerly an episcopal city: now a small village. At this time the inhabitants were heathen. St. Augustin calls them `his fathers, 0' in a letter persuading them to embrace the gospel.-Ep. 232."-E. B. P.
12 Nondum fideli, not having rehearsed the articles of the Christian faith at baptism. See i. sec. 17, note, above; and below, sec. 1, note.
18 Sallust, De Bello Catil. c. 9.
24 "For even souls, in their very sins, strive after nothing else but some kind of likeness of God, in a proud and preposterous, and, so to say, slavish liberty. So neither could our first parents have been persuaded to sin unless it had been said, `Ye shall be as gods. 0' "-Aug. De Trin. xi. 5.
1 The early Fathers strongly reprobated stage-plays, and those who went to them were excluded from baptism. This is not to be wondered at, when we learn that "even the laws of Rome prohibited actors from being enrolled as citizens" (De Civ. Dei, ii. 14), and that they were accounted infamous (Tertullian, De Spectac. sec. xxii.). See also Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. vii
3 An allusion, probably, as Watts suggests, to the sea of Sodom, which, according to Tacitus (Hist. book v.), throws up bitumen "at stated seasons of the year." Tacitus likewise alludes to its pestiferous odour, and to its being deadly to birds and fish. See also Gen. xiv. 3, 10.
4 Song of the Three Holy Children, verse 3.
6 Eversores. "These for their boldness were like our `Roarers, 0' and for their jeering like the worser sort of those that would be called `The Wits. 0' "-W. W. "This appears to have been a name which a pestilent and savage set of persons gave themselves, licentious alike in speech and action. Augustin names them again, De Vera Relig. c. 40; Ep. 185 ad Bonifac. c. 4; and below, v. c. 12; whence they seemed to have consisted mainly of Carthaginian students, whose savage life is mentioned again, ib. c. 8."-E. B. P.
7 Up to the time of Cicero the Romans employed the term sapientia for filosofi/a (Monboddo's Ancient Metaphys. i. 5). It is interesting to watch the effect of the philosophy in which they had been trained on the writings of some of the Fathers. Even Justin Martyr, the first after the "Apostolic," has traces of this influence. See the account of his search for "wisdom," and conversion, in his Dialogue with Trypho, ii. and iii.
11 In connection with the opinion Augustin formed of the Scriptures before and after his conversion, it is interesting to recall Fénélon's glowing description of the literary merit of the Bible. The whole passage might well be quoted did space permit:-"L'Ecriture surpasse en naïveté, en vivacité, en grandeur, tous les écrivains de Rome et de la Grèce. Jamais Homère même n'a approché de la sublimité de Moïse dans ses cantiques....Jamais nulle ode Grecque ou Latine n'a pu atteindre à la hauteur des Psaumes....Jamais Homerè ni aucun autre poëte n'a égalé Isaïe peignant la majesté de Dieu....Tantôt ce prophète à toute la douceur et toute la tendresse d'une églogue, dans les riantes peintures qu'il fait de la paix, tantôt il s' élevè jusqu' à laisser tout au-dessous de lui. Mais qu'y a-t-il, dans l'antiquité profane, de comparable au tendre Jérémie, déplorant les maux de son peuple; ou à Nahum, voyant de loin, en esprit, tomber la superbe Ninive sous les efforts d'une armée innombrable? On croit voir cette armée, ou croft entendre le bruit des armes et des chariots; tout est dépeint d'une manière vive qui saisit l'imagination; il laisse Homère loin derrière lui....Enfin, il y a autant de différence entre les poëtes profanes et les prophètes, qu'il y en a entre le véritable enthousiasme et le faux."-Sur l' Eloq. de la Chaire, Dial. iii.
12 That is probably the "spiritual" meaning on which Ambrose (vi. 6, below) laid so much emphasis. How different is the attitude of mind indicated in xi. 3 from the spiritual pride which beset him at this period of his life! When converted he became as a little child, and ever looked to God as a Father, from whom he must receive both light and strength. He speaks, on Ps. cxlvi., of the Scriptures, which were plain to "the little ones," being obscured to the mocking spirit of the Manichaeans. See also below, iii. 14, note.
13 So, in Book xxii. sec. 13 of his reply to Faustus, he charges them with "professing to believe the New Testament in order to entrap the unwary;" and again, in sec. 15, he says: " They claim the impious liberty of holding and teaching, that whatever they deem favourable to their heresy was said by Christ and the apostles; while they have the profane boldness to say, that whatever in the same writings is unfavourable to them is a spurious interpolation." They professed to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, but affirmed (ibid. xx. 6) "that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air." It was this employment of the phraseology of Scripture to convey doctrines utterly unscriptural that rendered their teaching such a snare to the unwary. See also below, v. 12, note.
15 There was something peculiarly enthralling to an ardent mind like Augustin's in the Manichaean system. That system was kindred in many ways to modern Rationalism. Reason was exalted at the expense of faith. Nothing was received on mere authority, and the disciple's inner consciousness was the touchstone of truth. The result of this is well pointed out by Augustin (Con. Faust, xxxii. sec. 19): "Your design, clearly, is to deprive Scripture of all authority, and to make every man's mind the judge what passage of Scripture he is to approve of, and what to disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture in matters of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval, every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct." Compare also Con. Faust, xi. sec. 2, and xxxii. sec. 16.
18 Luke xv. 16; and see below, vi. sec. 3, note.
19 See below, xii. sec. 6, note.
20 "Of this passage St. Augustin is probably speaking when he says, `Praises bestowed on bread in simplicity of heart, let him (Petilian) defame, if he will, by the ludicrous title of poisoning and corrupting frenzy. 0' Augustin meant in mockery, that by verses he could get his bread; his calumniator seems to have twisted the word to signify a love-potion.-Con. Lit. Petiliani, iii. 16."-E. B. P.
24 The strange mixture of the pensive philosophy of Persia with Gnosticism and Christianity, propounded by Manichaeeus, attempted to solve this question, which was "the great object of heretical inquiry" (Mansel's Gnostics, lec. i.). It was Augustin's desire for knowledge concerning it that united him to this sect, and which also led him to forsake it, when he found therein nothing but empty fables (De Lib. Arb. i. sec. 4). Manichaeus taught that evil and good were primeval, and had independent existences. Augustin, on the other hand, maintains that it was not possible for evil so to exist (De Civ. Dei, xi. sec. 22) but, as he here states, evil is "a privation of good." The evil will has a causa deficiens, but not a causa efficiens (ibid. xii. 6), as is exemplified in the fall of the angels.
27 Gen. i. 27 see vi. sec. 4, note.
30 The law of the development of revelation implied in the above passage is one to which Augustin frequently resorts in confutation of objections such as those to which he refers in the previous and following sections. It may likewise be effectively used when similar objections are raised by modern sceptics. In the Rabbinical books there is a tradition of the wanderings of the children of Israel, that not only did their clothes not wax old (Deut. xxix. 5) during those forty years, but that they grew with their growth. The written word is as it were the swaddling-clothes of the holy child Jesus; and as the revelation concerning Him-the Word Incarnate-grew, did the written word grow. God spoke in sundry parts !polue/mrwj@ and in divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. i. 1); but when the "fulness of the time was come" (Gal. iv. 4), He completed the revelation in His Son. Our Lord indicates this principle when He speaks of divorce in Matt. xix. 8. "Moses," he says, "because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so." (See Con. Faust. xix. 26, 29.) When objections, then, as to obsolete ritual usages, or the sins committed by Old Testament worthies are urged, the answer is plain: the ritual has become obsolete, because only intended for the infancy of revelation, and the sins, while recorded in, are not approved by Scripture, and those who committed them will be judged according to the measure of revelation they received. See also De Ver. Relig. xvii.; in Ps. lxxiii. 1, liv. 22; Con. Faust. xxii. 25; Trench, Hulsean Lecs. iv., v. (1845); and Candlish's Reason and Revelation, pp. 58-75.
32 Here, as at the end of sec. 17, he alludes to the typical and allegorical character of Old Testament histories. Though he does not with Origen go so far as to disparage the letter of Scripture (see De Civ. Dei, xiii. 21), but upholds it, he constantly employs the allegorical principle. He (alluding to the patriarchs) goes so far, indeed, as to say (Con Faust, xxii. 24), that "not only the speech but the life of these men was prophetic; and the whole kingdom of the Hebrews was like a great prophet;" and again: "We may discover a prophecy of the coming of Christ and of the Church both in what they said and what they did". This method of interpretation he first learned from Ambrose. See note on "the letter killeth," etc. (below, vi. sec. 6), for the danger attending it. On the general subject, reference may also be made to his in Ps. cxxxvi. 3; Serm. 2; De Tentat. Abr. sec. 7; and De Civ. Dei, xvii. 3.
33 Deut. vi. 5, and Matt. xxii. 37-39.
34 Ps. cxliv. 9 "St. Augustin (Quaest in Exod. ii. qu. 71) mentions the two modes of dividing the ten commandments into three and seven, or four and six, and gives what appear to have been his own private reasons for preferring the first. Both commonly existed in his day, but the Anglican mode appears to have been the most usual. It occurs in Origen, Greg. Naz., Jerome, Ambrose, Chrys. St. Augustin alludes to his division again, Serm. 8, 9, de x. Chordis, and sec. 33 on this psalm: `To the first commandment there belong three strings because God is trine. To the other, i.e., the love of our neighbour, seven strings. These let us join to those three, which belong to the love of God, if we would on the psaltery of ten strings sing a new song. 0'"-E.B.P.
39 The Manichaeans, hke the deistical writers of the last century, attacked the spoiling of the Egyptians, the slaughter of the Canaanites, and such episodes. Referring to the former, Augustin says (Con Faust. xxii. 71), "Then, as for Faustus' objection to the spoiling of the Egyptians, he knows not what he says. In this Moses not only did not sin, but it would have been sin not to do it. It was by the command of God, who, from His knowledge both of the actions and of the hearts of men, can decide upon what every one should be made to suffer, and through whose agency. The people at that time were still carnal, and engrossed with earthly affection; while the Egyptians were in open rebellion against God, for they used the gold, God's creature, in the service of idols, to the dishonour of the Creator, and they had grievously oppressed strangers by making them work without pay. Thus the Egyptians deserved the punishment, and the Israelites were suitably employed in inflicting it." For an exhaustive vindication of the conduct of the children of Israel as the agents of God in punishing the Canaanites, see Graves on the Pentateuch, Part iii. lecture I. See also De Civ. Dei, i. 26; and Quaest. in Jos. 8, 16, etc.
40 See note on sec. 14, above.
42 According to this extraordinary system, it was the privilege of the "elect" to set free in eating such parts of the divine substance as were imprisoned in the vegetable creation (Con. Faust. xxxi. 5) They did not marry or work in the fields, and led an ascetic life, the "hearers" or catechumens being privileged to provide them with food. The "elect" passed immediately on dying into the realm of light, while, as a reward for their service, the souls of the "hearers" after death transmigrated into plants (from which they might be most readily freed), or into the "elect," so as, in their turn, to pass away into the realm of light. See Con. Faust. v. 10, xx. 23; and in Ps. cxl.
43 Augustin frequently alludes to their conduct to the poor, in refusing to give them bread or the fruits of the earth, lest in eating they should defile the portion of God contained therein. But to avoid the odium of their conduct, they would inconsequently give money whereby food might be bought. See in Ps. cxl. sec. 12; and De Mor. Manich. 36, 37, and 53.
45 He alludes here to that devout manner of the Eastern ancients, who used to lie flat on their faces in prayer.-W. W.
46 Symbolical of the rule of faith. See viii. sec. 30, below.
48 We can easily understand that Augustin's dialectic skill would render him a formidable opponent, while, with the zeal of a neophyte, he urged those difficulties of Scripture (De Agon. Christ. iv ) which the Manichaeans knew so well how to employ. In an interesting passage (De Duab. Anim. con. Manich. ix.) he tells us that his victories over "inexperienced persons" stimulated him to fresh conquests, and thus kept him bound longer than he would otherwise have been in the chains of this heresy.
1 Augustin tells us that he went not beyond the rank of a "hearer," because he found the Manichaean teachers readier in refuting others than in establishing their own views, and seems only to have looked for some esoteric doctrine to have been disclosed to him under their materialistic teaching as to God-viz. that He was an unmeasured Light that extended all ways but one, infinitely (Serm. iv. sec 5.)-rather than to have really accepted it.-De Util. Cred. Praef. See also iii. sec. 18, notes 1 and 2, above.
6 Isa. xlii. 3, and Matt. xii. 20.
8 "He alone is truly pure who waiteth on God, and keepeth himself to Him alone " (Aug. De Vita Beata, sec. 18). "Whoso seeketh God is pure, because the soul hath in God her legitimate husband. Whosoever seeketh of God anything besides God, doth not love God purely. If a wife loved her husband because he is rich, she is not pure, for she loveth not her husband but the gold of her husband" (Aug. Serm. 137). "Whoso seeks from God any other reward but God, and for it would serve God, esteems what he wishes to receive more than Him from whom he would receive it. What, then? hath God no reward? None, save Himself. The reward of God is God Himself. This it loveth; if it love aught beside, it is no pure love. You depart from the immortal flame, you will be chilled, corrupted. Do not depart; it will be thy corruption, will be fornication in thee" (Aug. in Ps. lxxii. sec. 32). "The pure fear of the Lord (Ps xix. 9) is that wherewith the Church, the more ardently she loveth her husband, the more diligently she avoids offending Him, and therefore love, when perfected, casteth not out this fear, but it remaineth for ever and ever" (Aug.in loc.). "Under the name of pure fear is signified that will whereby we must needs be averse from sin, and avoid sin, not through the constant anxiety of infirmity, but through the tranquillity of affection" (De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec. 65).-E. B. P.
10 "Indisputably we must take care, lest the mind, believing that which it does not see, feign to itself something which is not, and hope for and love that which is false. For in that case it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment" (De Trin. viii. sec. 6). And again (Confessions, i. 1): "For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not may call on Thee as other than Thou art."
12 Augustin classes the votaries of both wizards and astrologers (De Doctr. Christ. ii. 23; and De Civ. Dei, x. 9; compare also Justin Martyr, Apol. ii. c. 5) as alike "deluded and imposed on by the false angels, to whom the lowest part of the world has been put in subjection by the law of God's providence;" and he says, "All arts of this sort are either nullities, or are part of a guilty superstition springing out of a baleful fellowship between men and devils, and are to be utterly repudiated and avoided by the Christian, as the covenants of a false and treacherous friendship." It is remarkable that though these arts were strongly denounced in the Pentateuch, the Jews-acquiring them from the surrounding Gentile nations-have embedded them deeply in their oral law, said also to be given by Moses (e.g. in Moed Katon 28, and Shabbath 156, prosperity comes from the influence of the stars; in Shabbath 61 it is a question whether the influence of the stars or a charm has been effective; and in Sanhedrin 17 magic is one of the qualifications for the Sanhedrim). It might have been expected that the Christians, if only from that reaction against Judaism which shows itself in Origen's disparagement of the letter of the Old Testament Scriptures (see De Princip. iv. 15, 16), would have shrunk from such strange arts. But the influx of pagans, who had practiced them, into the Christian Church appears gradually to have leavened it in no slight degree. This is not only true of the Valentinians (see Kaye's Clement of Alex. vi.) and other heretics, but the influence of these contacts is seen even in the writings of the "orthodox." Those who can read between the lines will find no slight trace of this (after separating what they would conceive to be true from what is manifestly false) in the story told by Zonaras, in his Annals, of the controversy between the Rabbis and Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, before Constantine. The Jews were worsted in argument, and evidently thought an appeal to miracles might, from the Emperor's education, bring him over to their side. An ox is brought forth. The Jewish wonder-worker whispers a mystic name into its ear, and it falls dead; but Sylvester, according to the story, is quite equal to the occasion, and restores the animal to life again by uttering the name of the Redeemer. It may have been that the cessation of miracles may have gradually led unstable professors of Christianity to invent miracles; and, as Bishop Kaye observes (Tertullian, p. 95), "the success of the first attempts naturally encouraged others to practice similar impositions on the credulity of mankind." As to the time of the cessation of miracles, comparison may be profitably made of the views of Kaye, in the early part of c. ii. of his Tertullian, and of Blunt, in his Right Use of the Early Fathers, series ii. lecture 6.
15 Rom. ii. 6, and Matt. xvi. 27.
17 This physician was Vindicianus, the "acute old man" mentioned in vii. sec. 8, below, and again in Ep. 138, as "the most eminent physician of his day." Augustin's disease, however, could not be reached by his remedies. We are irresistibly reminded of the words of our great poet:-
"Canst thou minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart!"-Macbeth, act. v. scene 3.
18 1 I Pet. v. 5, and Jas. iv. 6.
22 Ps xxxvi. 6, and Rom. xi. 33.
23 See i. sec, 17, note 3, above.
26 The mind may rest in theories and abstractions, but the heart craves a being that it can love; and Archbishop Whately has shown in one of his essays that the idol worship of every age had doubtless its origin in the craving of mind and heart for an embodiment of the object of worship. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," says Philip (John xiv. 8), and he expresses the longing of the soul; and when the Lord replies, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," He reveals to us God's satisfaction of human wants in the incarnation of His Son. Augustin's heart was now thrown in upon itself, and his view of God gave him no consolation. It satisfied his mind, perhaps, in a measure, to think of God as a "corporeal brightness" (see iii. 12; iv. 3, 12, 31; v. 19, etc.) when free from trouble, but it could not satisfy him now. He had yet to learn of Him who is the very image of God-who by His divine power raised the dead to life again, while, with perfect human sympathy, He could "weep with those that wept,"-the "Son of Man" (not of a man, He being miraculously born, but of the race of men [anqrw=pou]), i. e. the Son of Mankind. See also viii. sec. 27, note, below.
27 For so it has ever been found to be:-
"Est quaedam flere voluptas;
Expletur lacrymis egeriturque dolor."
-Ovid, Trist. iv. 3, 38.
30 Ovid, Trist. iv. eleg. iv. 72.
31 Augustin's reference to this passage in his Retractions is quoted at the beginning of the book. He might have gone further than to describe his words here as declamatio levis, since the conclusion is not logical.
32 "The great and merciful Architect of His Church, whom not only the philosophers have styled, but the Scripture itself calls texni/thj (an artist or artificer), employs not on us the hammer and chisel with an intent to wound or mangle us, but only to square and fashion our hard and stubborn hearts into such lively stones as may both grace and strengthen His heavenly structure."-Boyle.
33 See iii. 9; iv. 3, 12, 31; v. 19.
34 As Seneca has it: "Quad ratio non quit, saepe sanabit mora" (Agam. 130).
35 See iv. cc. 1, 10 12, and vi. c. 16.
36 "Friendship," says Lord Bacon, in his essay thereon,-the sentiment being perhaps suggested by Cicero's "Secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia et adversas partiens communicansque leviores" (De Amicit. 6),-"redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves." Augustin appears to have been eminently open to influences of this kind. In his De Duab. Anim. con. Manich. (c. ix.) he tells us that friendship was one of the bonds that kept him in the ranks of the Manichaeans; and here we find that, aided by time and weeping, it restored him in his great grief. See also v. sec. 19, and vi. sec 26, below.
40 Ps. cxix. 142, and John xvii. 17.
43 See iv. cc. 1, 12, and vi. c. 16, below.
44 It is interesting in connection with the above passages to note what Augustin says elsewhere as to the origin of the law of death in the sin of our first parents. In his De Gen. ad Lit. (vi. 25) he speaks thus of their condition in the garden, and the provision made for the maintenance of their life: "Aliud est non posse mori, sicut quasdam naturas immortales creavit Deus; aliud est autem posse non mori, secundum quem modum primus creatus est homo immortalis." Adam, he goes on to say, was able to avert death, by partaking of the tree of life. He enlarges on this doctrine in Book xiii. De Civ. Dei. He says (sec. 20): "Our first parents decayed not with years, nor drew nearer to death-a condition secured to them in God's marvellous grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise." Again (sec. 19) he says: "Why do the philosophers find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches, namely, that our first parents were so created, that, if they had not sinned, they would not have been dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies?" That this was the doctrine of the early Church has been fully shown by Bishop Bull in his State of Man before the Fall, vol. ii. Theophilus of Antioch was of opinion (Ad Autolyc. c. 24) that Adam might have gone on from strength to strength, until at last he "would have been taken up into heaven." See also on this subject Dean Buckland's Sermon on Death; and Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol. vi. secs. 1 and 2.
48 A similar illustration occurs in sec. 15, above.
49 Augustin is never weary of pointing out that there is a lex occulta (in Ps. lvii. sec. 1), a law written on the heart, which cries to those who have forsaken the written law, "Return to your hearts, ye transgressors." In like manner he interprets (De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. sec. 11) "Enter into thy closet," of the heart of man. The door is the gate of the senses through which carnal thoughts enter into the mind. We are to shut the door, because the devil (in Ps. cxli. 3) si clausum invenerit transit. In sec. 16, above, the figure is changed, and we are to fear lest these objects of sense render us "deaf in the ear of our heart" with the tumult of our folly. Men will not, he says, go back into their hearts, because the heart is full of sin, and they fear the reproaches of conscience, just (in Ps. xxxiii. 5) "as those are unwilling to enter their houses who have troublesome wives." These outer things, which too often draw us away from Him, God intends should lift us up to Him who is better than they, though they could all be ours at once, since He made them all; and "woe," he says (De Lib. Arb. ii. 16), "to them who love the indications of Thee rather than Thee, and remember not what these indicated."
51 See iv. cc. 1, 10, above, and vi. c. 16, below.
57 "The Son of God," says Augustin in another place, "became a son of man, that the sons of men might be made sons of God." He put off the form of God-that by which He manifested His divine glory in heaven-and put on the "form of a servant" (Phil. ii. 6, 7), that as the outshining [a0pau/gasma] of the Father's glory (Heb. i. 3) He might draw us to Himself. He descended and emptied Himself of His dignity that we might ascend, giving an example for all time (in Ps. xxxiii. sec. 4); for, "lest man should disdain to imitate a humble man, God humbled Himself, so that the pride of the human race might not disdain to walk in the footsteps of God." See also v. sec. 5, note, below.
59 "There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us."-De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec. 13.
65 Augustin tells us (De Civ. Dei, xix. 1) that Varro, in his lost book De Philosophia, gives two hundred and eighty-eight different opinions as regards the chief good, and shows us how readily they may be reduced in number. Now, as then, philosophers ask the same questions. We have our hedonists, whose "good" is their own pleasure and happiness; our materialists, who would seek the common good of all; and our intuitionists, who aim at following the dictates of conscience. When the pretensions of these various schools are examined without prejudice, the conclusion is forced upon us that we must have recourse to Revelation for a reconcilement of the difficulties of the various systems: and that the philosophers, to employ Davidson's happy illustration (Prophecies, Introd.), forgetting that their faded taper has been insensibly kindled by gospel light, are attempting now, as in Augustin's time (ibid. sec. 4), "to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life based upon a virtue as deceitful as it is proud." Christianity gives the golden key to the attainment of happiness, when it declares that "godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come " (I Tim. iv. 8). It was a saying of Bacon (Essay on Adversity), that while "prosperity is the blessing of the old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New." He would have been nearer the truth had he said that while temporal rewards were the special promise of the Old Testament, spiritual rewards are the special promise of the New. For though Christ's immediate followers had to suffer "adversity" in the planting of our faith, adversity cannot properly be said to be the result of following Christ. It has yet to be shown that, on the whole, the greatest amount of real happiness does not result, even in this life, from a Christian life, for virtue is, even here, its own reward. The fulness of the reward, however, will only be received in the life to come. Augustin's remark, therefore, still holds good that "life eternal is the supreme good, and death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly" (ibid. sec. 4); and again, that even in the midst of the troubles of life, "as we are saved, so we are made happy, by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so it is with our happiness,...we ought patiently to endure till we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good." See Abbé Anselme, Sur le Souverain Bien, vol. v. serm. 1; and the last chapter of Professor Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, for the conclusions at which a mind at once lucid and dispassionate has arrived on this question.
66 "Or `an unintelligent soul: 0' very good Mss. reading `sensu, 0' the majority, it appears, `sexu. 0' If we read `sexu, 0' the absolute unity of the first principle or Monad, may be insisted upon, and in the inferior principle, divided into `violence 0' and `lust, 0' `violence, 0' as implying strength, may be looked on as the male, `lust 0' was, in mythology, represented as female if we take `sensu, 0' it will express the living but unintelligent soul of the world in the Manichaean, as a pantheistic system."-E. B. P.
67 Ps. xviii. 28. Augustin constantly urges our recognition of the truth that God is the "Father of lights." From Him as our central sun, all light, whether of wisdom or knowledge proceedeth, and if changing the figure, our candle which He hath lighted be blown out, He again must light it. Compare Enar. in Ps. xciii. 147; and Sermons, 67 and 341.
71 Jas. iv, 6, and I Pet. v. 5.
73 It may assist those unacquainted with Augustin's writings to understand the last three sections, if we set before them a brief view of the Manichaean speculations as to the good and evil principles, and the nature of the human soul:-(1) The Manichaeans believed that there were two principles or substances, one good and the other evil, and that both were eternal and opposed one to the other. The good principle they called God, and the evil, matter or Hyle (Con. Faust. xxi. 1, 2). Faustus, in his argument with Augustin, admits that they sometimes called the evil nature "God," but simply as a conventional usage. Augustin says thereon (ibid. sec. 4): "Faustus glibly defends himself by saying, `We speak not of two gods, but of God and Hyle: 0' but when you ask for the meaning of Hyle, you find that it is in fact another god. If the Manichaeans gave the name of Hyle, as the ancients did, to the unformed matter which is susceptible of bodily forms, we should not accuse them of making two gods. But it is pure folly and madness to give to matter the power of forming bodies, or to deny that what has this power is God." Augustin alludes in the above passage to the Platonic theory of matter, which, as the late Dean Mansel has shown us (Gnostic Heresies, Basilides, etc.), resulted after his time in Pantheism, and which was entirely opposed to the dualism of Manichaeus. It is to this "power of forming bodies" claimed for matter, then, that Augustin alludes in our text (sec. 24) as "not only a substance but real life also." (2) The human soul the Manichaeans declared to be of the same nature as God, though not created by Him-it having originated in the intermingling of part of His being with the evil principle, in the conflict between the kingdoms of light and darkness (in Ps. cxl. sec. 10). Augustin says to Faustus: " You generally call your soul not a temple, but a part or member of God " (Con. Faust. xx. 15): and thus, "identifying themselves with the nature and substance of God" (ibid. xii. 13), they did not refer their sin to themselves, but to the race of darkness, and so did not "prevail over their sin." That is, they denied original sin, and asserted that it necessarily resulted from the soul's contact with the body. To this Augustin steadily replied, that as the soul was not of the nature of God, but created by Him and endowed with free will, man was responsible for his transgressions. Again, referring to the Confessions, we find Augustin speaking consistently with his then belief, when he says that he had not then learned that the soul was not a "chief and unchangeable good" (sec. 24), or that "it was not that nature of truth" (sec. 25): and that when he transgressed "he accused flesh" rather than himself: and, as a result of his Manichaean errors (sec. 26), "contended that God's immutable substance erred of constraint, rather than admit that his mutable substance had gone astray of free will, and erred as a punishment."
76 As the mathematicians did their figures, in dust or sand.
77 "The categories enumerated by Aristotle are o0usi/a, po/son, poi=on, pro/sti, pou=, po/te, keisqai, e_xein, poiei=n, pa/sxein; which are usually rendered, as adequately as perhaps they can be in our language, substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, suffering. The catalogue which certainly is but a very crude one) has been by some writers enlarged, as it is evident may easily be done by subdividing some of the heads; and by others curtailed, as it is no less evident that all may ultimately be referred to the two heads of substance and attribute, or, in the language of some logicians, `accident 0'" (Whately's Logic, iv. 2, sec. 1, note). "These are called in Latin the praedicaments, because they can be said or predicated in the same sense of all other terms, as well as of all the objects denoted by them, whereas no other term can be correctly said of them, because no other is employed to express the full extent of their meaning" (Gillies, Analysis of Aristotle, c. 2).
83 See iii. 12; iv. 3, 12; v. 19.
86 See xi. sec. 5, note, below.
3 St. Paul speaks of a "minding of the flesh" and a "minding of the spirit" (Rom. viii. 6, margin), and we are prone to be attracted and held by the carnal surroundings of life; that is, "quae per carnem sentiri querunt id est per oculos, per aures, ceterosque corporis sensus" (De Vera Relig.. xxiv.). But God would have us, as we meditate on the things that enter by the gates of the senses, to arise towards Him, through these His creatures. Our Father in heaven might have ordered His creation simply in a utilitarian way, letting, for example, hunger be satisfied without any of the pleasures of taste, and so of the other senses. But He has not so done. To every sense He has given its appropriate pleasure as well as its proper use. And though this presents to us a source of temptation, still ought we for it to praise His goodness to the full, and that corde are opere.-Bradward, ii. c. 23. See also i. sec. 1, note 3, and iv. sec. 18, above.
4 Augustin frequently recurs to the idea, that in God's overruling Providence, the foulness and sin of man does not disturb the order and fairness of the universe. He illustrates the idea by reference to music, painting, and oratory. "For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 23). So again, he says, God would never have created angels or men whose future wickedness he foreknew, unless He could turn them to the use of the good, "thus embellishing the course of the ages as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses" (ibid. xi. 18); and further on, in the same section, "as the oppositions of contraries lend beauty to language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things." These reflections affected Augustin's views as to the last things. They seemed to him to render the idea entertained by Origen (De Princ. i. 6) and other Fathers as to a general restoration !a/pokata/stasij@ unnecessary. See Hagenbach's Hist. of Doct. etc. i. 383 (Clark).
5 "In Scripture they are called God's enemies who oppose His rule not by nature but by vice, having no power to hurt Him, but only themselves. For they are His enemies not through their power to hurt, but by their will to oppose Him. For God is unchangeable, and wholly proof against injury" (De Civ. Dei, xii. 3).
9 He also refers to the injury man does himself by sin in ii. sec. 13, above; and elsewhere he suggests the law which underlies it: "The vice which makes those who are called God's enemies resist Him, is an evil not to God but to themselves. And to them it is an evil solely because it corrupts the good of their nature." And when we suffer for our sins we should thank God that we are not unpunished (De Civ. Dei, xii. 3). But if, when God punishes us, we still continue in our sin, we shall be more confirmed in habits of sin, and then, as Augustin in another place (in Ps. vii. 15) warns us, "our facility in sinning will be the punishment of God for our former yieldings to sin." See also Butler's Analogy, Pt. i. ch. 5, "On a state of probation as intended for moral discipline and improvement."
13 Ps. xxxiv. 18, and cxlv. 18.
14 See Book iv. sec. 19, note, above.
15 He makes use of the same illustrations on Psalms viii. and xi., where the birds of the air represent the proud, the fishes of the sea those who have too great a curiosity, while the beasts of the field are those given to carnal pleasures. It will be seen that there is a correspondence between them and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, in I John ii. 16. See also above, Book iii. sec. 16; and below, Book x. sec. 41, etc.
22 In Sermon 123, sec. 3, we have: "Christ as God is the country to which we go-Christ as man is the way by which we go." See note on Book iv. sec. 19, above.
30 What a contrast does his attitude here present to his supreme regard for secular learning before his conversion! We have constantly in his writings expressions of the same kind. On Psalm ciii. he dilates lovingly on the fount of happiness the word of God is, as compared with the writings of Cicero, Tully, and Plato; and again on Psalm xxxviii. he shows that the word is the source of all true joy. So likewise in De Trin. iv. 1: "That mind is more praise-worthy which knows even its own weakness, than that which, without regard to this, searches out and even comes to know the ways of the stars, or which holds fast such knowledge already acquired, while ignorant of the way by which itself to enter into its own proper health and strength....Such a one has preferred to know his own weakness, rather than to know the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth, and the pinnacles of heaven." See iii. sec. 9, note, above.
35 Job xxviii. 28 in LXX. reads: Idou' h9 qeose/beia/ e0sti sofi/a.
36 This claim of Manichaeus was supported by referring to the Lord's promise (John xvi. 12, 13) to send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to guide the apostles into that truth which they were as yet "not able to bear." The Manichaeans used the words "Paraclete" and "Comforter," as indeed the names of the other two persons of the blessed Trinity, in a sense entirely different from that of the gospel. These terms were little more than the bodily frame, the soul of which was his own heretical belief. Whenever opposition appeared between that belief and the teaching of Scripture, their ready answer was that the Scriptures had been corrupted (De Mor. Ecc. Cath. xxviii. and xxix.); and in such a case, as we find Faustus contending (Con. Faust. xxxii. 6), the Paraclete taught them what part to receive and what to reject, according to the promise of Jesus that He should "guide them into all truth," and much more to the same effect. Augustin's whole argument in reply is well worthy of attention. Amongst other things, he points out that the Manichaean pretension to having received the promised Paraclete was precisely the same as that of the Montanists in the previous century. It should be observed that Beausobre (Histoire, i. 254, 264, etc.) vigorously rebuts the charge brought against Manichaeus of claiming to be the Holy Ghost. An interesting examination of the claims of Montanus will be found in Kaye's Tertullian, pp. 13 to 33.
38 See vi. sec. 12, note, below.
40 "This was the old fashion of the East, where the scholars had liberty to ask questions of their masters, and to move doubts as the professors were reading, or so soon as the lecture was done. Thus did our Saviour with the doctors (Luke ii. 46). So it is still in some European Universities."-W. W.
41 We have referred in the note on iii. sec. 10, above, to the way in which the Manichaeans parodied Scripture names. In these "fables" this is remarkably evidenced. "To these filthy rags of yours," says Augustin (Con. Faust. xx. 6), "you would unite the mystery of the Trinity; for you say that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air." The Manichaean doctrine as to the mixture of the divine nature with the substance of evil, and the way in which that nature was released by the "elect," has already been pointed out (see note iii. sec. 18, above). The part of sun and moon, also, in accomplishing this release, is alluded to in his De Mor. Manich. "This part of God," he says (c. xxxvi.), "is daily being set free in all parts of the world, and restored to its own domain. But in its passage upwards as vapour from earth to heaven, it enters plants, because their roots are fixed in the earth, and so gives fertility and strength to all herbs and shrubs." These parts of God, arrested in their rise by the vegetable world, were released, as above stated, by the "elect". All that escaped from them in the act of eating, as well as what was set free by evaporation, passed into the sun and moon, as into a kind of purgatorial state-they being purer light than the only recently emancipated good nature. In his letter to Januarius (Ep. lv. 6), he tells us that the moon's waxing and waning were said by the Manichaeans to be caused by its receiving souls from matter as it were into a ship, and transferring them "into the sun as into another ship." The sun was called Christ, and was worshipped; and accordingly we find Augustin, after alluding to these monstrous doctrines, saying (Con. Faust. v. 11): "If your affections were set upon spiritual and intellectual good instead of material forms, you would not pay homage to the material sun as a divine substance and as the light of wisdom." Many other interesting quotations might be added, but we must content ourselves with the following. In his Reply to Faustus (xx. 6), he says: "You call the sun a ship, so that you are not only astray worlds off, as the saying is, but adrift. Next, while every one sees that the sun is round, which is the form corresponding from its perfection to his position among the heavenly bodies, you maintain that he is triangular [perhaps in allusion to the early symbol of the Trinity]; that is, that his light shines on the earth through a triangular window in heaven. Hence it is that you bend and bow your heads to the sun, while you worship not this visible sun, but some imaginary ship, which you suppose to be shining through a triangular opening".
44 See iii. sec. 6, note, above.
46 See vi. sec. 2, note, below.
48 Eph. ii. 15, and Col. i. 20, etc.
49 The Manichaean belief in regard to the unreal nature of Christ's body may be gathered from Augustin's Reply to Faustus: "You ask," argues Faustus (xxvi. i.), "if Jesus was not born, how did He die?...In return I ask you, how did Elias not die, though he was a man? Could a mortal encroach upon the limits of immortality, and could not Christ add to His immortality whatever experience of death was required?... Accordingly, if it is a good argument that Jesus was a man because He died, it is an equally good argument that Elias was not a man because he did not die.... As, from the outset of His taking the likeness of man, He underwent in appearance all the experiences of humanity, it was quite consistent that He should complete the system by appearing to die." So that with him the whole life of Jesus was a "phantasm." His birth, circumcision, crucifixion, baptism, and temptation were (ibid. xxxii. 7) the mere result of the interpolation of crafty men, or sprung from the ignorance of the apostles, when as yet they had not reached perfection in knowledge. It is noticeable that Augustin, referring to Eph. ii. 15, substitutes His cross for His flesh, he, as a Manichaean, not believing in the real humanity of the Son of God. See iii. sec. 9, note, above.
51 See also iv. sec. 8, above, where he derides his friend's baptism.
54 Watts gives the following note here:-"Oblations were those offerings of bread, meal, or wine, for making of the Eucharist, or of alms besides for the poor, which the primitive Christians every time they communicated brought to the church, where it was received by the deacons, who presented them to the priest or bishop. Here note: (1) They communicated daily; (2) they had service morning and evening, and two sermons a day many times," etc. An interesting trace of an old use in this matter of oblations is found in the Queen's Coronation Service. After other oblations had been offered, the Queen knelt before the Archbishop and presented to him "oblations" of bread and wine for the Holy Communion. See also Palmer's Origines Liturgicae, iv. 8, who demonstrates by reference to patristic writers that the custom was universal in the primitive Church:-"But though all the churches of the East and West agreed in this respect, they differed in appointing the time and place at which the oblations of the people were received." It would appear from the following account of early Christian worship, that in the time of Justin Martyr the oblations were collected after the reception of the Lord's Supper. In his First Apology we read (c. lxvii.): "On the day called Sunday !tou= h9li/ou legohe/nh h9me/ra,@ all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits them. When the reader has ceased, the president !o9 proestw'j@ verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray !eu0xa'j pe/mpomen@, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability [Kaye renders (p. 89) eu0xa'j o9moiwj kai' eu0xaristiaj o_sh su/namij au0tw=, a/nape/mpei, "with his utmost power"], and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks had been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected !to' sullego/meno!\ is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the stranger sojourning among us, and, in a word, takes care of all who are in need." The whole passage is given, as portions of it will be found to have a bearing on other parts of the Confessions. Bishop Kaye's Justin Martyr, c. iv., may be referred to for his view of the controverted points in the passage. See also Bingham's Antiquities, ii. 2-9; and notes to vi. sec. 2, and ix. secs. 6 and 27, below.
59 See iv. sec. 1, note, above.
60 iv. sec. 26, note 2, above.
62 Ps. cxli. 3, 4, Old Vers. See also Augustin's Commentary on the Psalms, where, using his Septuagint version, he applies this passage to the Manichaeans.
63 "Amongst these philosophers," i.e. those who have founded their systems on denial, "some are satisfied with denying certainty, admitting at the same time probability, and these are the New Academics; the others, who are the Pyrrhonists, have denied even this probability, and have maintained that all things are equally certain and uncertain" (Port. Roy. Log. iv. 1). There are, according to the usual divisions, three Academies, the old, the middle, and the new; and some subdivide the middle and the new each into two schools, making five schools of thought in all. These begin with Plato, the founder (387 B. C.), and continue to the fifth school, founded by Antiochus (83 B. C.), who, by combining his teachings with that of Aristotle and Zeno, prepared the way for Neo-Platonism and its development of the dogmatic side of Plato's teaching. In the second Academic school, founded by Arcesilas,-of whom Aristo, the Stoic, parodying the line in the Iliad (vi. 181), IIro/sqe le/wn, o_piqen de' dra/kwn, me/ssh de' ximaira, said sarcastically he was "Plato in front, Pyrrho behind, and Diodorus in the middle,"-the "sceptical" tendency in Platonism began to develope itself, which, under Carneades, was expanded into the doctrine of the third Academic school. Arcesilas had been a pupil of Polemo when he was head of the old Academy. Zeno also, dissatisfied with the cynical philosophy of Crates, had learnt Platonic doctrine from Polemo, and was, as Cicero tells us (De Fin. iv. 16), greatly influenced by his teaching. Zeno, however, soon founded his own school of Stoical philosophy, which was violently opposed by Arcesilas (Cicero, Acad. Post. i. 12). Arcesilas, according to Cicero (ibid.), taught his pupils that we cannot know anything, not even that we are unable to know. It is exceedingly probable, however, that he taught esoterically the doctrines of Plato to those of his pupils he thought able to receive them, keeping them back from the multitude because of the prevalence of the new doctrine. This appears to have been Augustin's view when he had arrived at a fuller knowledge of their doctrines than that he possessed at the time referred to in his Confessions. In his treatises against the Academicians (iii. 17) he maintains the wisdom of Arcesilas in this matter. He says: "As the multitude are prone to rush into false opinions, and, from being accustomed to bodies, readily, but to their hurt, believe everything to be corporeal, this most acute and learned man determined rather to unteach those who had suffered from bad teaching, than to teach those whom he did not think teachable." Again, in the first of his Letters, alluding to these treatises, he says: "It seems to me to be suitable enough to the times in which they flourished, that whatever issued pure from the fountain-head of Platonic philosophy should be rather conducted into dark and thorny thickets for the refreshment of a very few men, than left to flow in open meadow-land, where it would be impossible to keep it clear and pure from the inroads of the vulgar herd. I use the word `herd 0' advisedly, for what is more brutish than the opinion that the soul is material?" and more to the same purpose. In his De Civ. Dei, xix 18, he contrasts the uncertainty ascribed to the doctrines of these teachers with the certainty of the Christian faith. See Burton's Bampton Lectures, note 33, and Archer Butler's Ancient Philosophy, ii. 313, 348, etc. See also vii. sec. 13, note, below.
65 See iv. secs. 3, 12, and 31, above.
68 The dualistic belief of the Manichaean ever led him to contend that Christ only appeared in a resemblance of flesh, and did not touch its substance so as to be defiled. Hence Faustus characteristically speaks of the Incarnation (Con. Faust. xxxii. 7) as "the shameful birth of Jesus from a woman," and when pressed (ibid. xi 1) with such passages as, Christ was "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. i. 3), he would fall back upon what in these days we are familiar with as that "higher criticism," which rejects such parts of Scripture as it is inconvenient to receive. Paul, he said, then only "spoke as a child" (I Cor. xiii. 11), but when he became a man in doctrine, he put away childish things, and then declared, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." See above, sec. 16, note 3.
70 On this matter reference may be made to Con. Faust. xviii. 1, 3; xix. 5, 6; xxxiii. 1, 3.
71 They might well not like to give the answer in public, for, as Augustin remarks (De Mor. Eccles. Cath. sec. 14), every one could see "that this is all that is left for men to say when it is proved that they are wrong. The astonishment that he experienced now, that they did "not bring forward any uncorrupted copies," had fast hold of him, and after his conversion he confronted them on this very ground. "You ought to bring forward," he says (ibid. sec. 61), "another manuscript with the same contents, but incorrupt and more correct, with only the passage wanting which you charge with being spurious....You say you will not, lest you be suspected of corrupting it. This is your usual reply, and a true one." See also De Mor. Manich. sec. 55; and Con. Faust. xi. 2, xiii. 5, xviii. 7, xxii. 15, xxxii. 16.
76 I Cor. xiii. 12, and 2 Cor. iii. 6. See vi. sec. 6, note, below.
77 He frequently alludes to this scoffing spirit, so characteristic of these heretics. As an example, he says (in Ps. cxlvi. 13): "There has sprung up a certain accursed sect of the Manichaeans which derides the Scriptures it takes and reads. It wishes to censure what it does not understand, and by disturbing and censuring what it understands not, has deceived many." See also sec. 16, and iv. sec. 8, above.
78 See above, sec. 19, and note.
79 See vi. sec. 2, note, below.
80 In his Benefit of Believing, Augustin adverts to the above experiences with a view to the conviction of his friend Honoratus, who was then a Manichaean.
2 See iv. sec. 18, note, above.
4 Fidelem Catholicum-those who are baptized being usually designated Fideles. The following extract from Kaye's Turtullian (pp. 230, 231) is worthy of note:-"As the converts from heathenism, to use Tertullian's expression, were not born, but became Christians [fiunt, nascuntur, Christiani], they went through a course of instruction in the principles and doctrines of the gospel, and were subjected to a strict probation before they were admitted to the rite of baptism. In this stage of their progress they were called catechumens, of whom, according to Suicer, there were two classes,-one called `Audientes, 0' who had only entered upon their course, and begun to hear the word of God; the other, sunaitou=ntej, or `Competentes, 0' who had made such advances in Christian knowledge and practice as to be qualified to appear at the font. Tertullian, however, appears either not to have known or to have neglected this distinction, since he applies the names of `Audientes 0' and `Auditores 0' indifferently to all who had not partaken of the rite of baptism. When the catechumens had given full proof of the ripeness of their knowledge, and of the stedfastness of their faith, they were baptized, admitted to the table of the Lord, and styled Fideles. The importance which Tertullian attached to this previous probation of the candidates for baptism, appears from the fact that he founds upon the neglect of it one of his charges against the heretics. `Among them, 0' he says, `no distinction is made between the catechumen and the faithful or confirmed Christian; the catechumen is pronounced fit for baptism before he is instructed; all come in indiscriminately; all hear, all pray together. 0' " There were certain peculiar forms used in the admission of catechumens; as, for example, anointing with oil, imposition of hands, and the consecration and giving of salt; and when, from the progress of Christianity, 'I'ertullian's above description as to converts from heathenism had ceased to be correct, these forms were continued in many churches as part of the baptismal service, whether of infants or adults. See Palmer's Origines Liturgicae, v. 1, and also i. sec. 17, above, where Augustin says: "I was signed with the sign of the cross, and was seasoned with His salt, even from the womb of my mother."
6 "Sermons," says Goodwin in his Evangelical Communicant, "are, for the most part, as showers of rain that water for the instant; such as may tickle the ear and warm the affections, and put the soul into a posture of obedience. Hence it is that men are oft-times sermon-sick, as some are sea-sick; very ill, much troubled for the present, but by and by all is well again as they were."
7 That is, as is explained further on in the section, the Martyrs. Tertullian gives us many indications of the veneration in which the martyrs were held towards the close of the second century. The anniversary of the martyr's death was called his natalitium, or natal day, as his martyrdom ushered him into eternal life, and oblationes pro defunctis were then offered. (De Exhor. Cast. c. 11; De Coro. c. 3). Many extravagant things were said about the glory of martyrdom, with the view, doubtless, of preventing apostasy in time of persecution. It was described (De Bap. c. 16; and De Pat. c. 13.) as a second baptism, and said to secure for a man immediate entrance into heaven, and complete enjoyment of its happiness. These views developed in Augustin's time into all the wildness of Donatism. Augustin gives us an insight into the customs prevailing in his day, and their significance, which greatly illustrates the present section. In his De Civ. Dei, viii. 27, we read: "But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain priests, rites, and sacrifices for these same martyrs; for they are not our gods, but their God is our God. Certainly we honour their reliquaries, as the memorials of holy men of God, who strove for the truth even to the death of their bodies, that the true religion might be made known, and false and fictitious religions exposed....But who ever heard a priest of the faithful, standing at an altar built for the honour and worship of God over the holy body of some martyr, say in the prayers, I offer to thee a sacrifice, O Peter, or O Paul, or O Cyprian? For it is to God that sacrifices are offered at their tombs,-the God who made them both men and martyrs, and associated them with holy angels in celestial honour; and the reason why we pay such honours to their memory is, that by so doing we may both give thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by recalling them afresh to remembrance, may stir ourselves up to imitate them by seeking to obtain like crowns and palms, calling to our help that same God on whom they called. Therefore, whatever honours the religious may pay in the places of the martyrs, they are but honours rendered to their memory [ornamenta memoriarum], not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as to gods. And even such as bring thither food-which, indeed, is not done by the better Christians, and in most places of the world is not done at all-do so in order that it may be sanctified to them through the merits of the martyrs, in the name of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting the food and offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten, or to be in part bestowed upon the needy. But he who knows the one sacrifice of Christians, which is the sacrifice offered in those places, also knows that these are not sacrifices offered to the martyrs." He speaks to the same effect in Book xxii. sec. 10; and in his Reply to Faustus (xx. 21), who had charged the Christians with imitating the Pagans, "and appeasing the `shades 0' of the departed with wine and food." See v. sec. 17, note.
8 Following the example of Ambrose, Augustin used all his influence and eloquence to correct such shocking abuses in the churches. In his letter to Alypius, Bishop of Thagaste (when as yet only a presbyter assisting the venerable Valerius), he gives an account of his efforts to overcome them in the church of Hippo. The following passage is instructive (Ep. xxix. 9):-"I explained to them the circumstances out of which this custom seems to have necessarily risen in the Church, namely, that when, in the peace which came after such numerous and violent persecutions, crowds of heathen who wished to assume the Christian religion were kept back, because, having been accustomed to celebrate the feasts connected with their worship of idols in revelling and drunkenness, they could not easily refrain from pleasures so hurtful and so habitual, it had seemed good to our ancestors, making for the time a concession to this infirmity, to permit them to celebrate, instead of the festivals which they renounced, other feasts in honour of the holy martyrs, which were observed, not as before with a profane design, but with similar self-indulgence."
9 See v. sec. 17, note 5, above.
10 On another occasion, when Monica's mind was exercised as to non-essentials, Ambrose gave her advice which has perhaps given origin to the proverb, "When at Rome, do as Rome does." It will be found in the letter to Casulanus (Ep. xxxvi. 32), and is as follows:-"When my mother was with me in that city, I, as being only a catechumen, felt no concern about these questions; but it was to her a question causing anxiety, whether she ought, after the custom of our own town, to fast on the Saturday, or, after the custom of the church of Milan, not to fast. To deliver her from perplexity, I put the question to the man of God whom I have first named. He answered, `What else can I recommend to others than what I do myself? 0' When I thought that by this he intended simply to prescribe to us that we should take food on Saturdays,-for I knew this to be his own practice,-he, following me, added these words: `When I am here I do not fast on Saturday, but when I am at Rome I do; Whatever church you may come to, conform to its custom, if you would avoid either receiving or giving offence. 0' " We find the same incident referred to in Ep. liv. 3.
12 In his Reply to Faustus (vi. 7), he, conformably with this idea, explains the division into clean and unclean beasts under the Levitical law symbolically. "No doubt," he says, "the animal is pronounced unclean by the law because it does not chew the cud, which is not a fault, but its nature. But the men of whom this animal is a symbol are unclean, not by nature, but from their own fault; because, though they gladly hear the words of wisdom, they never reflect on them afterwards. For to recall, in quiet repose, some useful instruction from the stomach of memory to the mouth of reflection, is a kind of spiritual rumination. The animals above mentioned are a symbol of those people who do not do this. And the prohibition of the flesh of these animals is a warning against this fault. Another passage of Scripture (Prov. xxi. 20) speaks of the precious treasure of wisdom, and describes ruminating as clean, and not ruminating as unclean: `A precious treasure resteth in the mouth of a wise man, but a foolish man swallows it up. 0' Symbols of this kind, either in words or in things, give useful and pleasant exercise to intelligent minds in the way of inquiry and comparison."
14 Col. iii. 10, and Gen. i. 26, 27. And because we are created in the image of God, Augustin argues (Serm. lxxxviii. 6), we have the ability to see and know Him, just as, having eyes to see, we can look upon the sun. And hereafter, too (Ep. xcii. 3), "We shall see Him according to the measure in which we shall be like Him; because now the measure in which we do not see Him is according to the measure of our unlikeness to Him.
15 See iii. sec. 12, note, above.
16 2 Cor. iii. 6. The spiritual or allegorical meaning here referred to is one that Augustin constantly sought, as did many of the early Fathers, both Greek and Latin. He only employs this method of interpretation, however, in a qualified way-never going to the lengths of Origen or Clement of Alexandria. He does not depreciate the letter of Scripture, though, as we have shown above (iii. sec. 14, note), he went as far as he well could in interpreting the history spiritually. He does not seem, however, quite consistent in his statements as to the relative prominence to be given to the literal and spiritual meanings, as may be seen by a comparison of the latter portions of secs. 1 and 3 of book xvii. of the City of God. His general idea may be gathered from the following passage in the 21st sec. of book xiii.:-"Some allegorize all that concerns paradise itself, where the first men, the parents of the human race, are, according to the truth of Holy Scripture, recorded to have been; and they understand all its trees and fruit-bearing plants as virtues and habits of life, as if they had no existence in the external world, but were only so spoken of or related for the sake of spiritual meanings. As if there could not be a real terrestrial paradise! As if there never existed these two women, Sarah and Hagar, nor the two sons who were born to Abraham, the one of the bond-woman, the other of the free, because the apostle says that in them the two covenants were prefigured! or as if water never flowed from the rock when Moses struck it, because therein Christ can be seen in a figure, as the same apostle says: `Now that rock was Christ 0' (I Cor. x. 4)....These and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put upon paradise without giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts." The allusion in the above passage to Sarah and Hagar invites the remark, that in Galatians iv. 24, the words in our version rendered, "which things are an allegory," should be, "which things are such as may be allegorized." [Atina/ e'stin a/llhgorou/mena. See Jelf, 398, sec. 2.] It is important to note this, as the passage has been quoted in support of the more extreme method of allegorizing, though it could clearly go no further than to sanction allegorizing by way of spiritual meditation upon Scripture, and not in the interpretation of it-which first, as Waterland thinks (Works, vol. v. p. 311), was the end contemplated by most of the Fathers. Thoughtful students of Scripture will feel that we have no right to make historical facts typical or allegorical, unless (as in the case of the manna, the brazen serpent, Jacob's ladder, etc.) we have divine authority for so doing; and few such will dissent from the opinion of Bishop Marsh (Lecture vi.) that the type must not only resemble the antitype, but must have been designed to resemble it, and further, that we must have the authority of Scripture for the existence of such design. The text, "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life," as a perusal of the context will show, has nothing whatever to do with either "literal" or "spiritual" meanings. Augustin himself interprets it in one place (De Spir. et Lit. cc. 4, 5) as meaning the killing letter of the law, as compared with the quickening power of the gospel. "An opinion," to conclude with the thoughtful words of Alfred Morris on this chapter ( Words for the Heart and Life, p. 203), "once common must therefore be rejected. Some still talk of `letter 0' and `spirit 0' in a way which has no sanction here. The `letter 0' with them is the literal meaning of the text, the `spirit 0' is its symbolic meaning. And, as the `spirit 0' possesses an evident superiority to the `letter, 0' they fly away into the region of secret senses and hidden doctrines, find types where there is nothing typical, and allegories where there is nothing allegorical; make Genesis more evangelical than the Epistle to the Romans, and Leviticus than the Epistle to the Hebrews; mistaking lawful criticism for legal Christianity, they look upon the exercise of a sober judgment as a proof of a depraved taste, and forget that diseased as well as very powerful eyes may see more than others. It is not the obvious meaning and the secret meaning that are intended by `letter 0' and `spirit, 0' nor any two meanings of Christianity, nor two meanings of any thing or things, but the two systems of Moses and of Christ." Reference may be made on this whole subject of allegorical interpretation in the writings of the Fathers to Blunt's Right Use of the Early Fathers, series i. lecture 9.
17 Augustin frequently dilates on this idea. In sermon 88 (cc. 5, 6, etc.), he makes the whole of the ministries of religion subservient to the clearing of the inner eye of the soul and in his De Trin. i. 3, he says: "And it is necessary to purge our minds, in order to be able to see ineffably that which is ineffable [i. e. the Godhead], whereto not having yet attained, we are to be nourished by faith, and led by such ways as are more suited to our capacity, that we may be rendered apt and able to comprehend it."
18 He similarly exalts the claims of the Christian Church over Manichaeanism in his Reply to Faustus (xxxii. 19): "If you submit to receive a load of endless fictions at the bidding of an obscure and irrational authority, so that you believe all those things because they are written in the books which your misguided judgment pronounces trustworthy, though there is no evidence of their truth, why not rather submit to the evidence of the gospel, which is so well-founded, so confirmed, so generally acknowledged and admired, and which has an unbroken series of testimonies from the apostles down to our own day, that so you may have an intelligent belief, and may come to know that all your objections are the fruit of folly and perversity?" And again, in his Reply to Manichaeus' Fundamental Epistle (sec. 18), alluding to the credulity required in those who accept Manichaean teaching on the mere authority of the teacher: "Whoever thoughtlessly yields this becomes a Manichaean, not by knowing undoubted truth, but by believing doubtful statements. Such were we when in our inexperienced youth we were deceived."
19 He has a like train of thought in another place (De Fide Rer. quae non Vid. sec. 4): "If, then (harmony being destroyed), human society itself would not stand if we believe not that we see not, how much more should we have faith in divine things, though we see them not; which if we have it not, we do not violate the friendship of a few men, but the profoundest religion-so as to have as its consequence the profoundest misery." Again, referring to belief in Scripture, he argues (Con. Faust. xxxiii. 6) that, if we doubt its evidence, we may equally doubt that of any book, and asks, "How do we know the authorship of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero Varro, and other similar writers, but by the unbroken chain of evidence?" And once more he contends (De Mor. Cath. Eccles. xxix 60) that, "The utter overthrow of all literature will follow and there will be an end to all books handed down from the past, if what is supported by such a strong popular belief, and established by the uniform testimony of so many men and so many times, is brought into such suspicion that it is not allowed to have the credit and the authority of common history."
20 See i. sec. 10, note, above.
22 In the Benedictine edition it is suggested that this was probably Valentinian the younger, whose court was, according to Possidius (c. i. ), at Milan when Augustin was professor of rhetoric there, who writes (Con. Litt. Petil. iii. 25) that he in that city recited a panegyric to Bauto, the consul, on the first of January, according to the requirements of his profession of rhetoric.
24 Here, as elsewhere, we have the feeling which finds its expression in i. sec. 1, above: "Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."
25 Compare v. sec. 17, note, above, and sec. 15, note, below.
27 The games in the Provinces of the empire were on the same model as those held in the Circus Maximus at Rome, though not so imposing. This circus was one of those vast works executed by Tarquinius Priscus. Hardly a vestige of it at the present time remains, though the Cloaca Maxima, another of his stupendous works, has not, after more than 2500 years, a stone displaced, and still performs its appointed service of draining the city of Rome into the Tiber. In the circus were exhibited chariot and foot races, fights on horseback, representations of battles (on which occasion camps were pitched in the circus), and the Grecian athletic sports introduced after the conquest of that country. See also sec. 13, note, below.
28 Augustin, in book v. sec. 9, above, refers to the reputed sanctity of Manichaeus, and it may well be questioned whether the sect deserved that unmitigated reprobation he pours out upon them in his De Moribus, and in parts of his controversy with Faustus. Certain it is that Faustus laid claim, on behalf of his sect, to a very different moral character to that Augustin would impute to them. He says (Con. Faust. v. 1): "Do I believe the gospel? You ask me if I believe it, though my obedience to its commands shows that I do. I should rather ask you if you believe it, since you give no proof of your belief. I have left my father, mother, wife, and children, and all else that the Gospel requires (Matt. xix. 29); and do you ask if I believe the gospel? Perhaps you do not know what is called the gospel. The gospel is nothing else than the preaching and the precept of Christ. I have parted with all gold and silver, and have left off carrying money in my purse; content with daily food; without anxiety for to-morrow; and without solicitude about how I shall be fed, or wherewithal I shall be clothed: and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see in me the blessings of the gospel (Matt. v. 3-11); and do you ask if I believe the gospel? You see me poor, meek, a peacemaker, pure in heart, mourning, hungering, thirsting, bearing persecutions and enmity for righteousness' sake; and do you doubt my belief in the gospel?" It is difficult to understand that Manichaeanism can have spread as largely as it did at that time, if the asceticism of many amongst them had not been real. It may be noted that in his controversy with Fortunatus, Augustin strangely declines to discuss the charges of immorality that had been brought against the Manichaeans; and in the last chapter of his De Moribus, it appears to be indicated that one, if not more, of those whose evil deeds are there spoken of had a desire to follow the rule of life laid down by Manichaeus.
29 The scene of this episode was, doubtless, the great Flavian Amphitheatre, known by us at this day as the Colosseum. It stands in the valley between the Caelian and Esquiline hills, on the site of a lake formerly attached to the palace of Nero. Gibbon, in his graphic way, says of the building (Decline and Fall, i. 355): "Posterity admires, and will long admire, the awful remains of the amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved the epithet of colossal. It was a building of an elliptic figure, five hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising, with four successive orders of architecture, to the height of one hundred and forty feet. The outside of the edifice was encrusted with marble, and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave which formed the inside were filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble, likewise covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease above fourscore thousand spectators. Sixty-four vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion. Nothing was omitted which in any respect could be subservient to the convenience or pleasure of the spectators. They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continually refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms; at one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels and replenished with the monsters of the deep. In the decoration of these scenes the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality; and we read, on various occasions, that the whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber." In this magnificent building were enacted venatios or hunting scenes, sea-fights, and gladiatorial shows, in all of which the greatest lavishness was exhibited. The men engaged were for the most part either criminals or captives taken in war. On the occasion of the triumph of Trajan for his victory over the Dacians, it is said that ten thousand gladiators were engaged in combat, and that in the naumachia or sea-fight shown by Domitian, ships and men in force equal to two real fleets were engaged, at an enormous expenditure of human life. "If," says James Martineau (Endeavours after the Christian Life, pp. 261, 262), "you would witness a scene characteristic of the popular life of old, you must go to the amphitheatre of Rome, mingle with its eighty thousand spectators, and watch the eager faces of senators and people; observe how the masters of the world spend the wealth of conquest, and indulge the pride of power. See every wild creature that God has made to dwell, from the jungles of India to the mountains of Wales, from the forests of Germany to the deserts of Nubia, brought hither to be hunted down in artificial groves by thousands in an hour, behold the captives of war, noble, perhaps, and wise in their own land, turned loose, amid yells of insult, more terrible for their foreign tongue, to contend with brutal gladiators, trained to make death the favourite amusement, and present the most solemn of individual realities as a wholesale public sport; mark the light look with which the multitude, by uplifted finger, demands that the wounded combatant be slain before their eyes; notice the troop of Christian martyrs awaiting hand in hand the leap from the tiger's den. And when the day's spectacle is over, and the blood of two thousand victims stains the ring, follow the giddy crowd as it streams from the vomitories into the street, trace its lazy course into the Forum, and hear it there scrambling for the bread of private indolence doled out by the purse of public corruption; and see how it suns itself to sleep in the open ways, or crawls into foul dens till morning brings the hope of games and merry blood again;-and you have an idea of the Imperial people, and their passionate living for the moment, which the gospel found in occupation of the world." The desire for these shows increased as the empire advanced. Constantine failed to put a stop to them at Rome, though they were not admitted into the Christian capital he established at Constantinople. We have already shown (iii. sec. 2, note, above) how strongly attendance at stage-plays and scenes like these was condemned by the Christian teachers. The passion, however, for these exhibitions was so great, that they were only brought to an end after the monk Telemachus-horrified that Christians should witness such scenes-had been battered to death by the people in their rage at his flinging himself between the swordsmen to stop the combat. This tragic episode occurred in the year 403, at a show held in commemoration of a temporary success over the troops of Alaric.
30 "Alypius became Bishop of Thagaste (Aug. De Gestis c. Emerit. secs. 1 and 5). On the necessity which bishops were under of hearing secular causes, and its use, see Bingham, ii. c. 7."-E. B. P.
31 "The Lord High Treasurer of the Western Empire was called Comes Sacrarum largitionum. He had six other treasurers in so many provinces under him, whereof he of Italy was one under whom this Alypius had some office of judicature, something like (though far inferior) to our Baron of the Exchequer. See Sir Henry Spelman's Glossary, in the word Comes; and Cassiodor, Var. v. c. 40."-W. W.
32 Pretiis praetorianis. Du Cange says that "Pretium regium is the right of a king or lord to purchase commodities at a certain and definite price." This may perhaps help us to understand the phrase as above employed.
35 Augustin makes a similar allusion to Nebridius' ardour in examining difficult questions, especially those which refer ad doctrinam pietatis, in his 98th Epistle.
38 "I was entangled in the life of this world, clinging to dull hopes of a beauteous wife, the pomp of riches, the emptiness of honours, and the other hurtful and destructive pleasures" (Aug. De Util. Credendi, sec. 3). "After I had shaken off the Manichaeans and escaped, especially when I had crossed the sea, the Academics long detained me tossing in the waves, winds from all quarters beating against my helm. And so I came to this shore, and there found a pole-star to whom to entrust myself. For I often observed in the discourses of our priest [Ambrose], and sometimes in yours [Theodorus], that you had no corporeal notions when you thought of God, or even of the soul, which of all things is next to God. But I was withheld, I own, from casting myself speedily into the bosom of true wisdom by the alluring hopes of marriage and honours; meaning, when I had obtained these, to press (as few singularly happy, had before me) with oar and sail into that haven, and there rest" (Aug. De Vita Beata, sec. 4).-E. B. P.
40 "Paulinus says that though he lived among the people and sat over them, ruling the sheep of the Lord's fold, as a watchful shepherd, with anxious sleeplessness, yet by renunciation of the world, and denial of flesh and blood, he had made himself a wilderness, severed from the many, called among the few" (Ap. Aug. Ep. 24, sec. 2). St. Jerome calls him "his holy and venerable brother, Father (Papa) Alypius" (Ep. 39, ibid.). Earlier, Augustin speaks of him as "abiding in union with him, to be an example to the brethren who wished to avoid the cares of this world" (Ep. 22); and to Paulinus (Ep. 27), [Romanianus] "is a relation of the venerable and truly blessed Bishop Alypius, whom you embrace with your whole heart deservedly; for whosoever thinks favourably of that man, thinks of the great mercy of God. Soon, by the help of God, I shall transfuse Alypius wholly into your soul [Paulinus had asked Alypius to write him his life, and Augustin had, at Alypius' request, undertaken to relieve him, and to do it]; for I feared chiefly lest he should shrink from laying open all which the Lord has bestowed upon him, lest, if read by any ordinary person (for it would not be read by you only), he should seem not so much to set forth the gifts of God committed to men, as to exalt himself."-E. B. P.
43 Romanianus was a relation of Alypius (Aug. Ep. 27, ad Paulin.), of talent which astonished Augustin himself (C. Acad. i. 1, ii. 1), "surrounded by affluence from early youth, and snatched by what are thought adverse circumstances from the absorbing whirlpools of life" (ibid.). Augustin frequently mentions his great wealth, as also this vexatious suit, whereby he was harassed(C. Acad. i. 1, ii. 1), and which so clouded his mind that his talents were almost unknown (C. Acad. ii. 2); as also his very great kindness to himself, when, "as a poor lad, setting out to foreign study, he had received him in his house, supported and (yet more) encouraged him; when deprived of his father, comforted, animated, aided him: when returning to Carthage, in pursuit of a higher employment, supplied him with all necessaries." "Lastly," says Augustin, "whatever ease I now enjoy, that I have escaped the bonds of useless desires, that, laying aside the weight of dead cares, I breathe, recover, return to myself, that with all earnestness I am seeking the truth [Augustin wrote this the year before his baptism], that I am attaining it, that I trust wholly to arrive at it, you encouraged, impelled, effected" (C. Acad. ii. 2). Augustin had "cast him headlong with himself" (as so many other of his friends) into the Manichaean heresy (ibid. i. sec. 3), and it is to be hoped that he extricated him with himself; but we only learn positively that he continued to be fond of the works of Augustin (Ep. 27), whereas in that which he dedicated to him (C. Acad.), Augustin writes very doubtingly to him, and afterwards recommends him to Paulinus, "to be cured wholly or in part by his conversation" (Ep. 27).-E. B. P.
47 In his De Natura Con. Manich. he has the same idea. He is speaking of the evil that has no pain, and remarks: "Likewise in the body, better is a wound with pain than putrefaction without pain, which is specially styled corruption;" and the same idea is embodied in the extract from Caird's Sermons, on p. 5, note 7.
48 The ethics of Epicurus were a modified Hedonism (Diog. Laërt. De Vitis, etc., x. 123). With him the earth was a congeries of atoms (ibid. 38, 40), which atoms existed from eternity, and formed themselves, uninfluenced by the gods. The soul he held to be material. It was diffused through the body, and was in its nature somewhat like air. At death it was resolved into its original atoms, when the being ceased to exist (ibid. 63, 64). Hence death was a matter of indifference to man [o9 qa/natoj ou/de'n pro'j, hma=j, ibid. 124, etc.]. In that great upheaval after the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the various ancient philosophies were revived. This of Epicurus was disentombed and, as it were, vitalized by Gassendi, in the beginning of the seventeenth century; and it has a special importance from its bearing on the physical theories and investigations of modern times. Archer Butler, adverting to the inadequacy of the chief philosophical schools to satisfy the wants of the age in the early days of the planting of Christianity (Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, ii. 333), says of the Epicurean: "Its popularity was unquestioned; its adaptation to a luxurious age could not be doubted. But it was not formed to satisfy the wants of the time, however it might minister to its pleasures. It was, indeed, as it still continues to be, the tacit philosophy of the careless, and might thus number a larger army of disciples than any contemporary system. But its supremacy existed only when it estimated numbers, it ceased when tried by weight. The eminent men of Rome were often its avowed favourers; but they were for the most part men eminent in arms and statesmanship, rather than the influential directors of the world of speculation. Nor could the admirable poetic art of Lucretius, or the still more attractive ease of Horace, confer such strength or dignity upon the system as to enable it to compete with the new and mysterious elements now upon all sides gathering into conflict."
49 See viii. sec. 17, note, below.
50 See above, iv. cc. 1, 10, and 12.
1 See iii. sec. 12, iv. secs. 3 and 12, and v. sec. 19, above.
2 "For with what understanding can man apprehend God, who does not yet apprehend that very understanding itself of his own by which he desires to apprehend Him? And if he does already apprehend this, let him carefully consider that there is nothing in his own nature better than it: and let him see whether he can there see any outlines of forms, or brightness of colours, or greatness of space, or distance of parts, or extension of size, or any movements through intervals of place, or any such thing at all. Certainly we find nothing of all this in that, than which we find nothing better in our own nature, that is, in our own intellect, by which we apprehend wisdom according to our capacity. What, therefore, we do not find in that, which is our own best, we ought not to seek in Him, who is far better than that best of ours; that so we may understand God, if we are able, and as much as we are able, as good without quality, great without quantity, a Creator though He lack nothing, ruling but from no position, sustaining all things without `having 0' them, in His wholeness everywhere yet without place, eternal without time, making things that are changeable without change of Himself, and without passion. Whoso thus thinks of God, although he cannot yet find out in all ways what He is, yet piously takes heed, as much as he is able, to think nothing of Him that He is not."-De Trin. v. 2.
3 Similar arguments are made use of in his controversy with Fortunatus (Dis. ii. 5), where he says, that as Fortunatus could find no answer, so neither could he when a Manichaean, and that this led him to the true faith. Again, in his De Moribus (sec. 25), where he examines the answers which had been given, he commences: "For this gives rise to the question, which used to throw us into great perplexity, even when we were your zealous disciples, nor could we find any answer,-what the race of darkness would have done to God, supposing He had refused to fight with it at the cost of such calamity to part of Himself. For if God would not have suffered any loss by remaining quiet, we thought it hard that we had been sent to endure so much. Again, if He would have suffered, His nature cannot have been incorruptible, as it behooves the nature of God to be." We have already, in the note to book iv. sec. 26, referred to some of the matters touched on in this section; but they call for further elucidation. The following passage, quoted by Augustin from Manichaeus himself (Con. Ep. Manich. 19), discloses to us (1) their ideas as to the nature and position of the two kingdoms: "In one direction, on the border of this bright and holy region, there was a land of darkness, deep and vast in extent, where abode fiery bodies, destructive races. Here was boundless darkness flowing from the same source in immeasurable abundance, with the productions properly belonging to it. Beyond this were muddy, turbid waters with their inhabitants: and inside of them winds terrible and violent, with their prince and their progenitors. Then, again, a fiery region of destruction, with its chiefs and peoples. And similarly inside of this, a race full of smoke and gloom, where abode the dreadful prince and chief of all, having around him innumerable princes, himself the mind and source of them all. Such are the five natures of the region of corruption." Augustin also designates them (ibid sec. 20) "the five dens of the race of darkness." The nation of darkness desires to possess the kingdom of light, and prepares to make war upon it; and in the controversy with Faustus we have (2) the beginning and issue of the war (Con. Faust. ii. 3; see also De Haeres, 46). Augustin says: "You dress up for our benefit some wonderful First Man, who came down from the race of light, to war with the race of darkness, armed with his waters against the waters of the enemy, and with his fire against their fire, and with his winds against their winds." And again (ibid. sec. 5): "You say that he mingled with the principles of darkness in his conflict with the race of darkness, that by capturing these principles the world might be made out of the mixture. So that, by your profane fancies, Christ is not only mingled with heaven and all the stars, but conjoined and compounded with the earth and all its productions-a Saviour no more, but needing to be saved by you, by your eating and disgorging Him. This foolish custom of making your disciples bring you food, that your teeth and stomach may be the means of relieving Christ, who is bound up in it, is a consequence of your profane fancies. You declare that Christ is liberated in this way,-not, however, entirely; for you hold that some tiny particles of no value still remain in the excrement, to be mixed up and compounded again and again in various material forms, and to be released and purified at any rate by the fire in which the world will be burned up, if not before. Nay, even then, you say, Christ is not entirely liberated, but some extreme particles of His good and divine nature, which have been so defiled that they cannot be cleansed, are condemned to stay for ever in the mass of darkness." The result of this commingling of the light with the darkness was, that a certain portion and member of God was turned "from happiness into misery," and placed in bondage in the world, and was in need of help "whereby it might be delivered and purged." (See also Con. Fortunat.. i. 1.) Reference may be made (3), for information as to the method by which the divine substance was released in the eating of the elect, to the notes on book iii. sec. 18, above; and for the influence of the sun and moon in accomplishing that release, to the note on book v. sec, 12, above.
4 See iv. sec. 26, note, above.
5 See iii. sec. 12, note, and iv. sec. 26, note, above.
7 See xi. sec. 7, note, below.
9 See iv. sec. 5, note, above.
10 He uses the same illustration when speaking of the mathematici, or astrologers, in his De Doct. Christ. ii. 33.
12 Man can only control the forces of nature by yielding obedience to nature's laws; and our true joy and safety is only to be found being "subjected" to God. So Augustin says in another place, (De Trin. x. 7), the soul is enjoined to know itself, "in order that it may consider itself, and live according to its own nature; that is, seek to be regulated according to its own nature, viz. under Him to whom it ought to be subject, and above those things to which it is to be preferred; under Him by whom it ought to be ruled, above those things which it ought to rule."
16 Jas. iv. 6, and l Pet. v. 5.
17 "This,"says Watts, "was likely to be the book of Amelius the Platonist, who hath indeed this beginning of St. John's Gospel, calling the apostle a barbarian." This Amelius was a disciple of Plotinus, who was the first to develope and formulate the Neo-Platonic doctrines, and of whom it is said that he would not have his likeness taken, nor be reminded of his birthday, because it would recall the existence of the body he so much despised. A popular account of the theories of Plotinus, and their connection with the doctrines of Plato and of Christianity respectively, will be found in Archer Butler's Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 348-358. For a more systematic view of his writings, see Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, sec. 68. Augustin alludes again in his De Vita Beata (sec. 4) to the influence the Platonic writings had on him at this time; and it is interesting to note how in God's providence they were drawing him to seek a fuller knowledge of Him, just as in his nineteenth year (book iii. sec. 7, above) the Hortensius of Cicero stimulated him to the pursuit of wisdom. Thus in his experience was exemplified the truth embodied in the saying of Clemens Alexandrinus,-"Philosophy led the Greeks to Christ, as the law did the Jews." Archbishop Trench, in his Hulsean Lectures (lecs. 1 and 3, 1846, "Christ the Desire of all Nations"), enters with interesting detail into this question, specially as it relates to the heathen world. "None," he says in lecture 3, "can thoughtfully read the early history of the Church without marking how hard the Jewish Christians found it to make their own the true idea of a Son of God, as indeed is witnessed by the whole Epistle to the Hebrews-how comparatively easy the Gentile converts; how the Hebrew Christians were continually in danger of sinking down into Ebionite heresies, making Christ but a man as other men, refusing to go on unto perfection, or to realize the truth of His higher nature; while, on the other hand, the genial promptness is as remarkable with which the Gentile Church welcomed and embraced the offered truth, `God manifest in the flesh. 0' We feel that there must have been effectual preparations in the latter, which wrought its greater readiness for receiving and heartily embracing this truth when it arrived." The passage from Amelius the Platonist, referred to at the beginning of this note, is examined in Burton's Bampton Lectures, note 90. It has been adverted to by Eusebius, Theodoret, and perhaps by Augustin in the De Civ. Dei, x. 29, quoted in note 2, sec. 25, below. See Kayes' Clement, pp. 116-124.
18 See i. sec. 23, note, above, and also his Life, in the last vol. of the Benedictine edition of his works, for a very fair estimate of his knowledge of Greek.
19 The Neo-Platonic ideas as to the "Word" or Ao/goj, which Augustin (1) contrasts during the remainder of this book with the doctrine of the gospel, had its germ in the writings of Plato. The Greek term expresses both reason and the expression of reason in speech; and the Fathers frequently illustrate, by reference to this connection between ideas and uttered words, the fact that the "Word" that was with God had an incarnate existence in the world as the "Word" made flesh. By the Logos of the Alexandrian school something very different was meant from the Christian doctrine as to the incarnation, of which the above can only be taken as a dim illustration. It has been questioned, indeed, whether the philosophers, from Plotinus to the Gnostics of the time of St. John, believed the Logos and the supreme God to have in any sense separate "personalities." Dr. Burton, in his Bampton Lectures, concludes that they did not (lect. vii. p. 215, and note 93; compare Dorner, Person of Christ, i. 27, Clark); and quotes Origen when he points out to Celsus, that "while the heathen use the reason of God as another term for God Himself, the Christians use the term Logos for the Son of God." Another point of difference which appears in Augustin's review of Platonism above, is found in the Platonist's discarding the idea of the Logos becoming man. This the very genius of their philosophy forbade them to hold, since they looked on matter as impure. (2) It has been charged against Christianity by Gibbon and other sceptical writers, that it has borrowed largely from the doctrines of Plato; and it has been said that this doctrine of the Logos was taken from them by Justin Martyr. This charge, says Burton (ibid. p. 194), "has laid open in its supporters more inconsistencies and more misstatements than any other which ever has been advanced." We have alluded in the note to book iii. sec. 8, above, to Justin Martyr's search after truth. He endeavoured to find it successively in the Stoical, the Peripatetic, the Pythagorean, and the Platonic schools; and he appears to have thought as highly of Plato's philosophy as did Augustin. He does not, however, fail to criticise his doctrine when inconsistent with Christianity (see Burton, ibid. notes 18 and 86). Justin Martyr has apparently been chosen for attack as being the earliest of the post-apostolic Fathers. Burton, however, shows that Ignatius, who knew St. John, and was bishop of Antioch thirty years before his death, used precisely the same expression as applied to Christ (ibid. p. 204). This would appear to be a conclusive answer to this objection. (3) It may be well to note here Burton's general conclusions as to the employment of this term Logos in St. John, since it occurs frequently in this part of the Confessions. Every one must have observed St. John's use of the term is peculiar as compared with the other apostles, but it is not always borne in mind that a generation probably elapsed between the date of his gospel and that of the other apostolic writings. In this interval the Gnostic heresy had made great advances; and it would appear that John, finding this term Logos prevalent when he wrote, infused into it a nobler meaning, and pointed out to those being led away by this heresy that there was indeed One who might be called "the Word"-One who was not, indeed, God's mind, or as the word that comes from the mouth and passes away, but One who, while He had been "made flesh" like unto us, was yet co-eternal with God. "You will perceive," says Archer Butler (Ancient Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 10), "how natural, or rather how necessary, is such a process, when you remember that this is exactly what every teacher must do who speaks of God to a heathen; he adopts the term, but he refines and exalts its meaning. Nor, indeed, is the procedure different in any use whatever of language in sacred senses and for sacred purposes. It has been justly remarked, by (I think) Isaac Casaubon, that the principle of all these adaptations is expressed in the sentence of St. Paul, 0On a0gnoou=ntej eu0sebei=te, tou=ton e0gw' katagge/llw u9mi=n." On the charge against Christianity of having borrowed from heathenism, reference may be made to Trench's Hulsean Lectures, lect. i. (1846); and for the sources of Gnosticism, and St. John's treatment of heresies as to the "Word," lects. ii. and v. in Mansel's Gnostic Heresies will be consulted with profit.
40 In the Benedictine edition we have reference to Augustin's in Ps. xlvi. 6, where he says: "We find the lentile is an Egyptian food, for it abounds in Egypt, whence the Alexandrian lentile is esteemed so as to be brought to our country, as if it grew not here. Esau, by desiring Egyptian food, lost his birthright; and so the Jewish people, of whom it is said they turned back in heart to Egypt, in a manner craved for lentiles, and lost their birthright." See Ex. xvi. 3; Num. xi. 5.
42 Ps. cvi. 20; Ex. xxxii. 1-6.
44 Similarly, as to all truth being God's, Justin Martyr says: "Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians" (Apol. ii. 13). In this he parallels what Augustin claims in another place (De Doctr. Christ. ii. 28): "Let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master." Origen has a similar allusion to that of Augustin above (Ep. ad Gregor. vol. i. 30), but echoes the experience of our erring nature, when he says that the gold of Egypt more frequently becomes transformed into an idol, than into an ornament for the tabernacle of God. Augustin gives us at length his views on this matter in his De Doctr. Christ. ii. 60, 61: "If those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it. For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use,-not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they themselves were not making a good use of (Ex iii. 21,22, xii. 35, 36); in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen ought to abhor and avoid, but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God's providence which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship of devils. These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the gospel. Their garments, also,-that is, human institutions such as are adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this life,-we must take and turn to a Christian use. And what else have many good and faithful men among our brethren done? Do we not see with what quantity of gold and silver, and garments, Cyprian, that most persuasive teacher and most blessed martyr, was loaded when he came out of Egypt? How much Lactantius brought with him! And Victorinus, and Optatus, and Hilary, not to speak of living men! How much Greeks out of number have borrowed! And, prior to all these, that most faithful servant of God, Moses, had done the same thing; for of him it is written that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii. 22)....For what was done at the time of the exodus was no doubt a type prefiguring what happens now."
48 Not the "corporeal brightness" which as a Manichee he had believed in, and to which reference has been made in iii. secs. 10, 12, iv. sec. 3, and sec. 2, above. The Christian belief he indicates in his De Trin. viii. 2: "God is Light (I John i. 5), not in such way that these eyes see, but in such way as the heart sees when it is said, `He is Truth. 0' " See also note 1, sec. 23, above.
49 If we knew not God, he says, we could not love Him (De Trin. viii. 12); but in language very similar to that above, he tells us "we are men, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity is true, and whose truth is eternal; whose love is eternal and true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity, without confusion, without separation", (De Civ. Dei, xi. 28); God, then, as even the Platonists hold, being the principle of all knowledge. "Let Him," he concludes, in his De Civ. Dei (viii. 4), "be sought in whom all things are secured to us, let Him be discovered in whom all truth becomes certain to us, let Him be loved in whom all becomes right to us."
51 Ex. iii. 14. Augustin, when in his De Civ. Dei (viii. 11, 12) he makes reference to this text, leans to the belief, from certain parallels between Plato's doctrines and those of the word of God, that he may have derived information concerning the Old Testament Scriptures from an interpreter when in Egypt. He says: "The most striking thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: `I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you; 0' as though, compared with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,-a truth which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, `I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Who is sent me unto you. 0' But we need not determine from what source he learned these things,-whether it was from the books of the ancients who preceded him or, as is more likely, from the words of the apostle (Rom. i. 20), `Because that which is known of God has been manifested among them, for God hath manifested it to them. For His invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by those thing which have been made, also His eternal power and Godhead. 0' "-De Civ. Dei, viii. 11, 12.
53 Therefore, he argues, is God called the I AM (De Nat. Boni, 19): for omnis mutatio facit non esse quod erat. Similarly, we find him speaking in his De Mor. Manich. (c. i.): "For that exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same, which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any part be corrupted or changed, which is not subject to time, which admits of no variation in its present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its true sense." See also note 3, p. 158.
57 Gen i. 31, and Ecclus. xxxix. 21. Evil, with Augustin, is a "privation of good." See iii. sec. 12, note, above.
58 See v. sec. 2, note 1, above, where Augustin illustrates the existence of good and evil by the lights and shades in a painting, etc
61 See xi. secs. 15, 16, 26, etc., below.
62 See v. sec. 2, note 1, above.
63 Ecclus x. 9. Commenting on this passage of the Apocrypha (De Mus. vi. 40), he says, that while the soul's happiness and life is in God, "what is to go into outer things, but to cast out its inward parts, that is, to place itself far from God-not by distance of place, but by the affection of the mind?"
67 Here, and more explicitly in sec. 25, we have before us what has been called the "trichotomy" of man. This doctrine Augustin does not deny in theory, but appears to consider (De Anima, iv. 32) it prudent to overlook in practice. The biblical view of psychology may well be considered here not only on its own account, but as enabling us clearly to apprehend this passage and that which follows it. It is difficult to understand how any one can doubt that St. Paul, when speaking in I Thess. v. 23, of our "spirit, soul, and body being preserved unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," implies a belief in a kind of trinity in man. And it is very necessary to the understanding of other Scriptures that we should realize what special attributes pertain to the soul and the spirit respectively. It may be said, generally, that the soul (yuxh/) is that passionate and affectionate nature which is common to us and the inferior creatures, while the spirit (pneu=ma) is the higher intellectual nature which is peculiar to man. Hence our Lord in His agony in the garden says (Matt. xxvi. 38), "My Soul is exceeding sorrowful"-the soul being liable to emotions of pleasure and pain. In the same passage (ver 41) he says to the apostles who had slept during His great agony, "The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," so that the spirit is the seat of the will. And that the spirit is also the seat of consciousness we gather from St. Paul's words (I Cor ii. 11), "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." And it is on the spirit of man that the Spirit of God operates; whence we read (Rom viii. 16), "The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." It is important to note that the word "flesh" (sarc) has its special significance, as distinct from body. The word comes to us from the Hebrew through the Hellenistic Greek of the LXX., and in biblical language (see Bishop Pearson's Praefatio Paraenetica to his edition of the LXX.) stands for our human nature with it worldly surroundings and liability to temptation; so that when it is said, "The Word was made flesh," we have what is equivalent to, "The Word put on human nature." It is, therefore, the flesh and the spirit that are ever represented in conflict one with the other when men are in the throes of temptation. So it must be while life lasts; for it is characteristic of our position in the world that we possess soulishbodies (to employ the barbarous but expressive word of Dr. Candlish in his Life in a Risen Saviour, p. 182), and only on the morning of the resurrection will the body be spiritual and suited to the new sphere of its existence: "It is sown a natural [yuxiko'n, "soulish"] body, it is raised a spiritual [pnematiko/n] body" (I Cor. xv. 44); "for," as Augustin says in his Enchiridion (c. xci.), "just as now the body is called animate (or, using the Greek term, as above, instead of the Latin, "soulish"), though it is a body and not a soul, so then the body shall be called spiritual, though it shall be a body, not a spirit....No part of our nature shall be in discord with another; but as we shall be free from enemies without, so we shall not have ourselves for enemies within." For further information on this most interesting subject, see De litzsch, Biblical Psychology, ii. 4 ("The True and False Trichotomy"); Olshausen, Opuscula Theologica, iv. ("De Trichotomia") and cc. 2, 17, and 18 of R. W. Evans' Ministry of the Body, where the subject is discussed with thoughtfulness and spiritual insight. This matter is also treated of in the introductory chapters of Schlegel's Philosophy of Life.
73 Christ descended that we may ascend. See iv. sec. 19, notes 1 and 3, above.
74 Gen. iii. 21. Augustin frequently makes these "coats of skin" smbolize the mortality to which our first parents became subject by being deprived of the tree of life (see iv. sec. 15, note 3, above); and in his Enarr. in Ps. (ciii. 1, 8), he says they are thus symbolical inasmuch as the skin is only taken from animals when dead.
75 We have already seen, in note 1, sec. 13, above, how this text (1) runs counter to Platonic beliefs as to the Logos. The following passage from Augustin's De Civ. Dei, x. 29, is worth putting on record in this connection:-"Are ye ashamed to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is forsooth, a degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think and to say, `In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not 0' (John i. 1-5). The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards Bishop of Milan, used to tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening passage of the holy Gospel entitled, `According to John, 0' should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master, because `the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us 0' (John 1. 14). So that with these miserable creatures it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could heal them. And doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more disastrous fall." This text, too, as Irenaeus has remarked, (2) entirely opposes the false teaching of the Docetae, who, as their name imports, believed, with the Manichaeans, that Christ only appeared to have a body; as was the case, they said, with the angels entertained by Abraham (see Burton's Bampton Lectures, lect. 6). It is curious to note here that Augustin maintained that the Angel of the Covenant was not an anticipation, as it were, of the incarnation of the Word, but only a created angel (De Civ. Dei, xvi. 29, and De Trin. iii. 11), thus unconsciously playing into the hands of the Arians. See Bull's Def. Fid. Nic. i. 1, sec. 2, etc., and iv. 3 sec. 14.
76 The founder of this heresy was Apollinaris the younger, Bishop of Laodicea, whose erroneous doctrine was condemned at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. Note 4, sec. 23, above, on the "trichotomy," affords help in understanding it. Apollinaris seems to have desired to exalt the Saviour, not to detract from His honour, like Arius. Before his time men had written much on the divine and much on the human side of our Lord's nature. He endeavoured to show (see Dorner's Person of Christ, A. ii. 252, etc., Clark) in what the two natures united differed from human nature. He concluded that our Lord had no need of the human pneu=ma, and that its place was supplied by the divine nature, so that God "the Word," the body and the yuxh/, constituted the being of the Saviour. Dr. Pusey quotes the following passages hereon:-"The faithful who believes and confesses in the Mediator a real human, i. e. our nature, although God the Word, taking it in a singular manner, sublimated it into the only Son of God, so that He who took it, and what He took, was one person in the Trinity. For, after man was assumed, there became not a quaternity but remained the Trinity, that assumption making in an ineffable way the truth of one person in God and man. Since we do not say that Christ is only God, as do the Manichaean heretics, nor only man, as the Photinian heretics, nor in such wise man as not to have anything which certainly belongs to human nature, whether the soul, or in the soul itself the rational mind, or the flesh not taken of the woman, but made of the Word, converted and changed into flesh, which three false and vain statements made three several divisions of the Apollinarian heretics; but we say that Christ is true God, born of God the Father, without any beginning of time, and also true man, born of a human mother in the fulness of time: and that His humanity, whereby He is inferior to the Father, does not derogate from His divinity, whereby He is equal to the Father" (De Dono Persev. sec. ult.). "There was formerly a heresy-its remnants perhaps still exist-of some called Apollinarians. Some of them said that that man whom the Word took, when `the Word was made flesh, 0' had not the human, i. e. rational (lsgiko/n) mind, but was only a soul without human intelligence, but that the very Word of God was in that man instead of a mind. They were cast out,-the Catholic faith rejected them, and they made a heresy. It was established in the Catholic faith that that man whom the wisdom of God took had nothing less than other men, with regard to the integrity of man's nature, but as to the excellency of His person, had more than other men. For other men may be said to be partakers of the Word of God, having the Word of God, but none of them can be called the Word of God, which He was called when it is said, `The Word was made flesh 0' " (in Ps.xxix., Enarr. ii. sec. 2). "But when they reflected that, if their doctrine were true, they must confess that the only-begotten Son of God, the Wisdom and Word of the Father, by whom all things were made, is believed to have taken a sort of brute with the figure of a human body, they were dissastisfied with themselves; yet not so as to amend, and confess that the whole man was assumed by the wisdom of God, without any diminution of nature, but still more boldly denied to Him the soul itself, and everything of any worth in man, and said that He only took human flesh" (De 83, Div. Quaest. qu. 80) Reference on the questions touched on in this note may be made to Neander's Church History, ii. 401, etc. (Clark); and Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, i. 270 (Clark).
78 Archbishop Trench's words on this sentence in the Confessions (Hulsean Lectures, lect. v. 1845) have a special interest in the present attitude of the Roman Church:-"Doubtless there is a true idea of scriptural developments which has always been recognised, to which the great Fathers of the Church have set their seal; this, namely, that the Church, informed and quickened by the Spirit of God, more and more discovers what in Holy Scripture is given her; but not this, that she unfolds by an independent power anything further therefrom. She has always possessed what she now possesses of doctrine and truth, only not always with the same distinctness of consciousness. She has not added to her wealth, but she has become more and more aware of that wealth; her dowry has remained always the same, but that dowry was so rich and so rare, that only little by little she has counted over and taken stock and inventory of her jewels. She has consolidated her doctrine, compelled to this by the challenges and provocation of enemies, or induced to it by the growing sense of her own needs." Perhaps no one, to turn from the Church to individual men, has been more indebted than was Augustin to controversies with heretics for the evolvement of truth.
84 We have already quoted a passage from Augustin's Sermons (v. sec. 5, note 7, above), where Christ as God is described as the country we seek, while as man He is the way to go to it. The Fathers frequently point out in their controversies with the philosophers that it little profited that they should know of a goal to be attained unless they could learn the way to reach it. And, in accordance with the sentiment, Augustin says: "For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way lieth between him who goes and the place whither he goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go?" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 2.) And again, in his De Trin. iv. 15: "But of what use is it for the proud man, who, on that account, is ashamed to embark upon the ship of wood, to behold from afar his country beyond the sea? Or how can it hurt the humble man not to behold it from so great a distance, when he is actually coming to it by that wood upon which the other disdains to be borne?"
85 Literally, "The venerable pen of Thy Spirit (Logos); words which would seem to imply a belief on Augustin's part in a verbal inspiration of Scripture. That he gave Scripture the highest honour as God's inspired word is clear not only from this, but other passages in his works. It is equally clear, however, that he gave full recognition to the human element in the word. See De Cons. Evang. ii. 12, where both these aspects are plainly discoverable. Compare also ibid. c. 24.
90 Song of the Three Children, 4 sq.
92 Prov. viii. 22, as quoted from the old Italic version. It must not be understood to teach that the Lord is a creature. (1) Augustin, as indeed is implied in the Confessions above, understands the passage of the incarnation of Christ, and in his De Doct. Christ. i. 38, he distinctly so applies it: "For Christ...desiring to be Himself the Way to those who are just setting out, determined to take a fleshly body. Whence also that expression, `The Lord created me in the beginning of his Way, 0'-that is, that those who wish to come might begin their journey in Him" Again, in a remarkable passage in his De Trin. i. 24, he makes a similar application of the words: "According to the form of a servant, it is said, `The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways. 0' Because, according to the form of God, he said, `I am the Truth; 0' and, according to the form of a servant, `I am the Way. 0' " (2) Again, creasti is from the LXX. e_ktise, which is that version's rendering in this verse of the Hebrew yen; Nk/ u#&ir#&/k/
. The Vulgate, more correctly translating from the Hebrew, gives possedit, thus corresponding to our English version, "The Lord possessed me," etc. The LXX. would appear to have made an erroneous rendering here, for ktizw is generally in that version the equivalent for -dk/dk/
, "to create," while hnkk/
is usually rendered by kta/omai, "to possess," "to acquire." It is true that Gesenius supooses that in a few passages, and Prov. viii. 22 among them, hgk/bk/
should be rendered "to create;" but these very passages our authorized version renders "to get," or "to possess;" and, as Dr. Tregelles observes, referring to M'Call on the Divine Sonship, "in all passages cited for that sense, `to possess 0' appears to be the true meaning."
105 1 Cor. xv. 9. In giving an account, remarks Pusey, of this period to his friend and patron Romanianus, St. Augustin seems to have blended together this and the history of his completed conversion, which was also wrought in connection with words in the same apostle, but the account of which he uniformly suppresses, for fear, probably, of injuring the individual to whom he was writing (see on book ix. sec. 4, note, below). "Since that vehement flame which was about to seize me as yet was not, I thought that by which I was slowly kindled was the very greatest. When lo! certain books, when they had distilled a very few drops of most precious unguent on that tiny flame, it is past belief, Romanianus, past belief, and perhaps past what even you believe of me (and what could I say more?), nay, to myself also is it past belief, what a conflagration of myself they lighted. What ambition, what human show, what empty love of fame, or, lastly, what incitement or band of this mortal life could hold me then? I turned speedily and wholly back into myself. I cast but a glance, I confess, as one passing on, upon that religion which was implanted into us as boys, and interwoven with our very inmost selves; but she drew me unknowing to herself. So then, stumbling, hurrying, hesitating, I seized the Apostle Paul; `for never, 0' said I, `could they have wrought such things, or lived as it is plain they did live, if their writings and arguments were opposed to this so high good. 0' I read the whole most intently and carefully. But then, never so little light having been shed thereon, such a countenance of wisdom gleamed upon me, that if I could exhibit it-I say not to you, who ever hungeredst after her, though unknown-but to your very adversary (see book vi. sec. 24, note, above), casting aside and abandoning whatever now stimulates him so keenly to whatsoever pleasures, he would, amazed, panting, enkindled, fly to her Beauty" (Con. Acad. ii. 5).
7 "Simplicianus `became a successor of the most blessed Ambrose, Bishop of the Church of Milan 0' (Aug. Retract. ii. 1). To him St. Augustin wrote two books, De Diversis Quaestionibus (Op. t. vi. p. 82 sq.), and calls him `father 0' (ibid.), speaks of his `fatherly affections from his most benevolent heart, not recent or sudden, but tried and known 0' (Ep. 37), requests his `remarks and corrections of any books of his which might chance to fall into his holy hands 0' (ibid.) St. Ambrose mentions his `having traversed the whole world, for the sake of the faith, and of acquiring divine knowledge, and having given the whole period of this life to holy reading, night and day: that he had an acute mind, whereby he took in intellectual studies, and was in the habit of proving how far the books of philosophy were gone astray from the truth, 0' Ep. 65, sec 5, p. 1052, ed. Ben. See also Tillemont, H. E. t. 10, Art. `S. Simplicien. 0' "-E. B. P.
12 See iv. sec, 18, and note, above.
13 "And the Holy Ghost." These words, though in the text of the Benedictine edition are not, as the editors point out, found in the majority of the best Mss.
19 In his Quaest. ex. Matt. 13, likewise, Augustin compares Christ to the pearl of great price, who is in every way able to satisfy the cravings of man.
21 Simplicianus succeeded Ambrose, 397 A.D. He has already been referred to, in the extract from De Civ. Dei, in note 1, p. 113, above as "the old saint Simplicianus, afterwards Bishop of Milan." In Ep. p. 37, Augustin addresses him as "his father, most worthy of being cherished with respect and sincere affection." When Simplicianus is spoken of above as "the father of Ambrose in receiving Thy grace," reference is doubtless made to his having been instrumental in his conversion-he having "begotten" him "through the gospel" (I Cor. iv. 15). Ambrose, when writing to him (Ep.65), concludes, "Vale, et nos parentis affectu dilige, ut facis."
24 In like manner Augustin, in his De Civ. Dei (viii. 5), says: "No philosophers come nearer to us than the Platonists;" and elsewhere, in the same book, he speaks, in exalted terms, of their superiority to other philosophers. When he speaks of the Platonists, he means the Neo-Platonists, from whom he conceived that he could best derive a knowledge of Plato, who had, by pusuing the Socratic method in concealing his opinions, rendered it difficult "to discover clearly what he himself thought on various matters, any more than it is to discover what were the real opinions of Socrates" (ibid. sec 4). Whether Plato himself had or not knowledge of the revelation contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, as Augustin supposed (De Civ. Dei, viii. 11, 12), it is clear that the later Platonists were considerably affected by Judaic ideas, even as the philosophizing Jews were indebted to Platonism. This view has been embodied in the proverb frequently found in the Fathers, Latin as well as Greek, H IIla/twn filonizei h/ filwn platwnizei. Archer Butler, in the fourth of his Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, treats of the vitality of Plato's teaching and the causes of its influence, and shows how in certain points there is a harmony between his ideas and the precepts of the gospel. On the difficulty of unravelling the subtleties of the Platonic philosophy, see Burton's Bampton Lectures (lect. 3).
27 "Victorinus, by birth an African, taught rhetoric at Rome under Constantius, and in extreme old age, giving himself up to the faith of Christ, wrote some books against Arius, dialectically [and so] very obscure, which are not understood but by the learned, and a commentary on the Apostle" [Paul] (Jerome, De Viris Ill. c. 101). It is of the same, probably, that Gennadius speaks (De Viris Ill. c. 60), "that he commented in a Christian and pious strain, but inasmuch as he was a man taken up with secular literature, and not trained in the Divine Scriptures by any teacher, he produced what was comparatively of little weight." Comp. Jerome, Praef. in Comm. in Gal., and see Tillemont, 1. c. p. 179, sq. Some of his works are extant.-E. B. P.
28 Aeneid, viii. 736-8. The Kennedys.
32 . "The Fathers gave the name of sacrament, or mystery, to everything which conveyed one signification or property to unassisted reason, and another to faith. Hence Cyprian speaks of the `sacraments 0' of the Lord's Prayer, meaning the hidden meaning conveyed therein, which could only be appreciated by a Christian. The Fathers sometimes speak of confirmation as a sacrament, because the chrism signified the grace of the Holy Ghost; and the imposition of hands was not merely a bare sign, but the form by which it was conveyed. See Bingham, book xii. c. 1, sec. 4. Yet at the same time they continually speak of two great sacraments of the Christian Church" (Palmer's Origines Liturgicae, vol. ii. c. 6, sec. 1, p. 201).
33 That is, he became a catechumen. In addition to the information on this subject, already given in the note to book vi. sec. 2, above, the following references to it may prove instructive. (1) Justin Martyr, describing the manner of receiving converts into the Church in his day, says (Apol. i. 61): "As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray, and to entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings." And again (ibid. 65): "We, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers, in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place....Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread, and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost....And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present, to partake of, the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion." And once more (ibid. 66): "This food is called among us Eu0xaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined." (2) In Watts' translation, we have the following note on this episode in our text: "Here be divers particulars of the primitive fashion, in this story of Victorinus. First, being converted, he was to take some well-known Christian (who was to be his godfather) to go with him to the bishop, who, upon notice of it, admitted him a catechumenus, and gave him those six points of catechistical doctrine mentioned Heb. vi, 1, 2. When the time of baptism drew near, the young Christian came to give in his heathen name, which was presently registered, submitting himself to examination. On the eve, was he, in a set form, first, to renounce the devil, and to pronounce, I confess to Thee, O Christ, repeating the Creed with it, in the form here recorded. The time for giving in their names must be within the two first weeks in Lent; and the solemn day to renounce upon was Maundy Thursday. So bids the Council of Laodicea (Can. 45 and 46)." The renunciation adverted to by Watts in the above passage may be traced to an early period in the writings of the Fathers. It is mentioned by Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome, and "in the fourth century," says Palmer (Origines Liturgicae, c. 5, sec. 2, where the authorities will be found), "the renunciation was made with great solemnity. Cyril of Jerusalem, speaking to those who had been recently baptized, said, `First, you have entered into the vestibule of the baptistry, and, standing towards the west, you have heard, and been commanded, and stretch forth your hands, and renounce Satan as if he were present. 0' This rite of turning to the west at the renunciation of Satan is also spoken of by Jerome, Gregory, Nazianzen, and Ambrose; and it was sometimes performed with exsufflations and other external.signs of enmity to Satan, and rejection of him and his works. To the present day these customs remain in the patriarchate of Constantinople, where the candidates for baptism turn to the west to renounce Satan, stretching forth their hands and using an exsufflation as a sign of enmity against him. And the Monophysites of Antioch and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Armenia, also retain the custom of renouncing Satan with faces turned to the west."
36 Literally, "give back," reddere.
37 Anciently, as Palmer has noted in the introduction to his Origines Liturgicae, the liturgies of the various churches were learnt by heart. They probably began to be committed to writing about Augustin's day. The reference, however, in this place, is to the Apostles' Creed, which, Dr. Pusey in a note remarks, was delivered orally to the catechumens to commit it to memory, and by them delivered back, i. e. publicly repeated before they were baptized. "The symbol [creed] bearing hallowed testimony, which ye have together received, and are this day severally to give back [reddidistis], are the words in which the faith of our mother the Church is solidly constructed on a stable foundation, which is Christ the Lord. `For other foundation can no man lay, 0' etc. Ye have received them, and given back [reddidistis] what ye ought to retain in heart and mind, what ye should repeat in your beds, think on in the streets, and forget not in your meals, and while sleeping in body, in heart watch therein. For this is the faith, and the rule of salvation, that `We believe in God, the Father Almighty, 0' " etc. (Aug. Serm. 215, in Redditione Symboli). "On the Sabbath day [Saturday], when we shall keep a vigil through the mercy of God, ye will give back [reddituri] not the [Lord's] Prayer, but the Creed" (Serm. 58, sec. ult.). "What ye have briefly heard, ye ought not only to believe, but to commit to memory in so many words, and utter with your mouth" (Serm. 214, in Tradit. Symb. 3, sec. 2). "Nor, in order to retain the very words of the Creed, ought ye any wise to write it, but to learn it thoroughly by hearing, nor, when ye have learnt it, ought ye to write it, but always to keep and refresh it in your memories.-`This is my covenant, which I will make with them after those days, 0' saith the Lord; `I will place my law in their minds, and in their hearts will I write it. 0' To convey this, the Creed is learnt by hearing, and not written on tables or any other substance, but on the heart" (Serm. 212, sec. 2). See the Roman Liturgy (Assem, Cod. Liturg. t. i. p. 11 sq., 16), and the Gothic and Gallican (pp. 30 sq., 38 sq., 40 sq., etc.). "The renunciation of Satan," to quote once more from Palmer's Origines (c. 5, sec. 3), "was always followed by a profession of faith in Christ, as it is now in the English ritual....The promise of obedience and faith in Christ was made by the catechumens and sponsors, with their faces turned towards the east, as we learn from Cyril of Jerusalem and many other writers. Tertullian speaks of the profession of faith made at baptism, in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in the Church. Cyprian mentions the interrogation, `Dost thou believe in eternal life, and remission of sins through the Holy Church? 0' Eusebius and many other Fathers also speak of the profession of faith made at this time; and it is especially noted in the Apostolical Constitutions, which were written in the East at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. The profession of faith in the Eastern churches has generally been made by the sponsor, or the person to be baptized, not in the form of answers to questions, but by repeating the Creed after the priest. In the Western churches, the immemorial custom has been, for the priest to interrogate the candidate for baptism, or his sponsor, on the principal articles of the Christian faith."
42 See xii. sec. 12, and xiii. sec. 11, below.
49 " `As Scipio, after the conquest of Africa, took the name of Africanus, so Saul also, being sent to preach to the Gentiles, brought back his trophy out of the first spoils won by the Church, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and set up his banner, in that for Saul he was called Paul 0' (Jerome, Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. init). Origen mentions the same opinion (which is indeed suggested by the relation in the Acts), but thinks that the apostle had originally two names (Praef. in Comm. in Ep. ad Rom.), which, as a Roman, may very well have been, and yet that he made use of his Roman name Paul first in connection with the conversion of the proconsul; Chrysostom says that it was doubtless changed at the command of God, which is to be supposed, but still may have been at this time."-E. B. P.
50 "Satan makes choice of persons of place and power. These are either in the Commonwealth or church. If he can, he will secure the throne and the pulpit, as the two forts that command the whole line....A prince or a ruler may stand for a thousand; therefore saith Paul to Elymas when he would have turned the deputy from the faith, `O full of all subtilty, thou child of the devil! 0'(Acts. xiii. 10). As if he had said, `You have learned this of your father the devil,-to haunt the courts of princes, wind into the favour of great ones. There is a double policy Satan hath in gaining such to his side.-(a) None have such advantage to draw others to their way. Corrupt the captain, and it is hard it he bring not off his troop with him. When the princes-men of renown in their tribes-stood up with Korah, presently a multitude are drawn into the conspiracy (Num. xvi. 2, 19). Let Jeroboam set up idolatry, and Israel is soon in a snare. It is said [that] the people willingly walked after his commandment (Hos. v. 11). (b) Should the sin stay at court, and the infection go no further, yet the sin of such a one, though a good man, may cost a whole kingdom dear. Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel (1 Chron. xxi. 1). He owed Israel a spite, and he pays them home in their king's sin, which dropped in a fearful plague upon their heads,"-Gurhall, The Christian in Complete Armour, vol. i. part 2.
54 During the reign of Constantius, laws of a persecuting character were enacted against Paganism, which led multitudes nominally to adopt the Christian faith. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he took steps immediately to reinstate Paganism in all its ancient splendour. His court was filled with Platonic philosophers and diviners, and he sacrificed daily to the gods. But, instead of imitating the example of his predecessor, and enacting laws against the Christians, he endeavoured by subtlety to destroy their faith. In addition to the measures mentioned by Augustin above, he endeavoured to foment divisions in the Church by recalling the banished Donatists, and stimulating them to disseminate their doctrines, and he himself wrote treatises against it. In order, if possible, to counteract the influence of Christianity, he instructed his priests to imitate the Christians in their relief of the poor and care for the sick. But while in every way enacting measures of disability against the Christians, he showed great favour to the Jews, and with the view of confuting the predictions of Christ, went so far as to encourage them to rebuild the Temple.
56 There would appear to be a law at work in the moral and spiritual worlds similar to that of gravitation in the natural, which "acts inversely as the square of the distance." As we are more affected, for example, by events that have taken place near us either in time or place, than by those which are more remote, so in spiritual things, the monitions of conscience would seem to become feeble with far greater rapidity than the continuance of our resistance would lead us to expect, while the power of sin, in like proportion, becomes strong. When tempted, men see not the end from the beginning. The allurement, however, which at first is but as a gossamer thread, is soon felt to have the strength of a cable. "Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse" (2 Tim. iii. 13), and when it is too late they learn that the embrace of the siren is but the prelude to destruction. "Thus,"as Gurnall has it (The Christian in Complete Armour, vol. i. part 2), "Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, that let them not see the bottom whither they are going....Many who at this day lie in open profaneness, never thought they should have rolled so far from their modest beginnings. O Christians, give not place to Satan, no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a beggar and a modest one without doors, will command the house if let in. Yield at first, and thou givest away thy strength to resist him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel out, if it be not mended by timely repentance." See Müller, Lehre von der Sünde, book v., where the beginnings and alarming progress of evil in the soul are graphically described. See ix. sec. 18, note, below.
58 See iv. sec. 26, note, and v. sec. 18, above.
60 See v. sec. 2, note 6, above.
61 Illud placebat et vincebat; hoc libebat et vinciebat. Watts renders freely, "But notwithstanding that former course pleased and overcame my reason, yet did this latter tickle and enthrall my senses."
63 As Bishop Wilberforce, eloquently describing this condition of mind, says, in his sermon on The Almost Christian, "New, strange wishes were rising in his heart. The Mighty One was brooding over its currents, was stirring up its tides, was fain to overrule their troubled flow-to arise in open splendour on his eyes; to glorify his life with His own blessed presence. And he himself was evidently conscious of the struggle; he was almost won; he was drawn towards that mysterious birth, and he well-nigh yielded. He even knew what was passing within his soul; he could appreciate something of its importance, of the living value of that moment. If that conflict was indeed visible to higher powers around him; if they who longed to keep him in the kingdom of darkness, and they who were ready to rejoice at his repentance-if they could see the inner waters of that troubled heart, as they surged and eddied underneath these mighty influences, how must they have waited for the doubtful choice! how would they strain their observation to see if that Almost should turn into an Altogether, or die away again, and leave his heart harder than it had been before!"
64 Rom. vii. 22-24. This difficilis et periculosus locus (Serm. cliv. 1) he interprets differently at different periods of his life. In this place, as elsewhere in his writings, he makes the passage refer (according to the general interpretation in the Church up to that time) to man convinced of sin under the influence of the law, but not under grace. In his Retractations, however (i. 23, sec. 1), he points out that he had found reason to interpret the passage not of man convinced of sin, but of man renewed and regenerated in Christ Jesus. This is the view constantly taken in his anti-Pelagian writings, which were published subsequently to the date of his Confessions; and indeed this change in interpretation probably arose from the pressure of the Pelagian controversy (see Con. Duas Ep. Pel. i. 10, secs. 18 and 22), and the fear lest the old view should too much favour the heretics, and their exaltation of the powers of the natural man to the disparagement of the influence of the grace of God.
66 It may be well here to say a few words in regard to Monachism and Antony's relation to it:-(1) There is much in the later Platonism, with its austerities and bodily mortifications (see vii. sec. 13, note 2, above), which is in common with the asceticism of the early Church. The Therapeutae of Philo, indeed, of whom there were numbers in the neighbourhood of Alexandria in the first century, may be considered as the natural forerunners of the Egyptian monks. (2) Monachism, according to Sozomen (i. 12), had its origin in a desire to escape persecution by retirement into the wilderness. It is probable, however, that, as in the case of Paul the hermit of Thebais, the desire for freedom from the cares of life, so that by contemplation and mortification of the body, the lo/goj or inner reason (which was held to be an emanation of God) might be purified, had as much to do with the hermit life as a fear of persecution. Mosheim, indeed (Ecc. Hist. i. part 2, c. 3), supposes Paul to have been influenced entirely by these Platonic notions. (3) Antony was born in the district of Thebes, A.D. 251, and visited Paul in the Egyptian desert a little before his death. To Antony is the world indebted for establishing communities of monks, as distinguished from the solitary asceticism of Paul; he therefore is rightly viewed as the founder of Monachism. He appears to have known little more than how to speak his native Coptic, yet during his long life (said to have been 100 years) he by his fervent enthusiasm made for himself a name little inferior to that of the "king of men," Athanasius, whom in the time of the Arian troubles he stedfastly supported, and by whom his life has been handed down to us. Augustin, in his De Doctr. Christ. (Prol. sec. 4), speaks of him as " a just and holy man, who, not being able to read himself, is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory through hearing them read by others, and by dint of wise meditation to have arrived at a thorough understanding of them." (4) According to Sozomen (iii. 14), monasteries had not been established in Europe A.D. 340. They were, Baronius tells us, introduced into Rome about that date by Athanasius, during a visit to that city. Athanasius mentions "ascetics" as dwelling at Rome A.D. 355. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Martin, Bishop of Tours, and Jerome were enthusiastic suppporters of the system. (5) Monachism in Europe presented more of its practical and less of its contemplative side, than in its cradle in the East. An example of how the monks of the East did work for the good of others is seen in the instance of the monks of Pachomius; still in this respect, as in matters of doctrine, the West has generally shown itself more practical than the East. Probably climate and the style of living consequent thereon have much to do with this. Sulpicius Severus (dial. i. 2, De Vita Martini) may be taken to give a quaint illustration of this, when he makes one of his characters say, as he hears of the mode of living of the Eastern monks, that their diet was only suited to angels. However mistaken we may think the monkish systems to be, it cannot be concealed that in the days of anarchy and semi-barbarism they were oftentimes centres of civilisation. Certainly in its originating idea of meditative seclusion, there is much that is worthy of commendation; for, as Farindon has it (Works, iv. 130), "This has been the practice not only of holy men, but of heathen men. Thus did Tully, and Antony, and Crassus make way to that honour and renown which they afterwards purchased in eloquence (Cicero, De Officiis, ii. 13, viii. 7); thus did they pass a solitudine in scholas, a scholis in forum,-`from their secret retirement into the schools, and from the schools into the pleading-place. 0' "
67 Augustin, when comparing Christian with Manichaean asceticism, says in his De Mor. Eccl. Cath. (sec. 70), "I saw at Milan a lodging-house of saints, in number not a few, presided over by one presbyter, a man of great excellence and learning." In the previous note we have given the generally received opinion, that the first monastery in Europe was established at Rome. It may be mentioned here that Muratori maintains that the institution was transplanted from the East first to Milan; others contend that the first European society was at Aquileia.
68 See vi. sec. 12, note 1, above.
69 Matt. v. 3. Roman commentators are ever ready to use this text of Scripture as an argument in favour of monastic poverty, and some may feel disposed from its context to imagine such an interpretation to be implied in this place. This, however, can hardly be so. Augustin constantly points out in his sermons, etc. in what the poverty that is pleasing to God consists. "Pauper Dei," he says (in Ps. cxxxi. 15), "in animo est, non in sacculo;" and his interpretation of this passage in his Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (i. 3) is entirely opposed to the Roman view. We there read: "The poor in spirit are rightly understood here as meaning the humble and God-fearing, i.e. those who have not a spirit which puffeth up. Nor ought blessedness to begin at any other point whatever, if indeed it is to reach the highest wisdom. `The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom 0' (Ps. cxi. 10); whereas, on the other hand also, `pride 0' is entitled `the beginning of all sin 0' (Ecclus. x. 13). Let the proud, therefore, seek after and love the kingdoms of the earth, but `blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 0' "
70 "Agentes in rebus. There was a society of them still about the court. Their militia or employments were to gather in the emperor's tributes; to fetch in offenders; to do Palatini obsequia, officers of court provide corn, etc., ride on errands like messengers of the chamber, lie abroad as spies and intelligencers. They were often preferred to places of magistracy in the provinces; such were called Principesor Magistriani. St. Hierome upon Abdias, c. 1, calls them messengers. They succeeded the Frumentarii, between which two and the Curiosi and the Speculatores there was not much difference."-W. W.
74 It is interesting to compare with this passage the views contained in Augustin's three books, Con. Academicos,-the earliest of his extant works, and written about this time. Licentius there maintains that the "bare search" for truth renders a man happy, while Trygetius contends that the "finding alone" can produce happiness. Augustin does not agree with the doctrine of the former, and points out that while the Academics held the probable to be attainable, it could not be so without the true, by which the probable is measured and known. And, in his De Vita Beata, he contends that he who seeks truth and finds it not, has not attained happiness, and that though the grace of God be indeed guiding him, he must not expect complete happiness (Retractations, i. 2) till after death. Perhaps no sounder philosophy can be found than that evidenced in the life of Victor Hugo's good Bishop Myriel, who rested in the practice of love, and was content to look for perfect happiness, and a full unfolding of God's mysteries, to the future life:-"Aimez-vous les uns les autres, il declarait cela complet, ne souhaitait rien de plus et c'était là toute sa doctrine. Un jour, cet homme qui se croyait `philosophe, 0' ce senateur, déjà nommé, dit à l'évêque: `Mais voyez donc le spectacle du monde; guerre de tous contre tous; le plus fort a le plus d'ésprit. Votre aimez-vous les uns les autres est une bêtise. 0'-`Eh bien, 0' répondit Monseigneur Bienvenu, sans disputer, `si c'est une bêtise, l'âme doit s'y enfermer comme la perle dans l'huitre. 0' Il s'y enfermait donc, il y vivait, il s'en satisfaisait absolument, laissant de côté les questions prodigieuses qui attirent et qui épouvantent, les perspectives insoudables de l'abstraction, les précipices de la métaphysique, toutes ces profondeurs convergentes, pour l'apôtre, à Dieu, pour l'athée, au néant: la destinée, le bien et le mal, la guerre de l'être contre l'être, la conscience de l'homme, le somnambulisme pensif de l'animal, la transformation par la mort, la récapitulation d'existences qui contient le tombeau, la greffe incompréhensible des amours successifs sur le moi persistant, l'essence, la substance, le Nil et l'Ens, l'âme, la nature, la liberté, la nécessité; problèmes à pic, épaisseurs sinistres, où se penchent les gigantesques archanges de l'ésprit humain; formidables abimes que Lucrèce, Manon, Saint Paul, et Dante contemplent avec cet aeil fulgurant qui semble, en regardant fixement l'infini, y faire eclore les étoiles. Monseigneur Bienvenu était simplement un homme qui constatait du dehors les questions mystérieuses sans les scruter, sans les agiter, et sans en troubler son propre ésprit; et qui avait dans l'âme le grave respect de l'ombre."-Les Miserables, c. xiv.
75 Isa. xxvi. 20, and Matt. vi. 6.
79 And that therefore they were not responsible for their evil deeds, it not being they that sinned, but the nature of evil in them. See iv. sec. 26, and note, above, where the Manichaean doctrines in this matter are fully treated.
81 See iv. sec. 26, note, above.
84 See v. sec. 2, note 6, above, and x. sec. 5, note, below.
89 As in nature, the men of science tell us, no two atoms touch, but that, while an inner magnetism draws them together, a secret repulsion keeps them apart, so it is with human souls. Into our deepest feelings our dearest friends cannot enter. In the throes of conversion, for example, God's ministering servants may assist, but He alone can bring the soul to the birth. So it was here in the case of Augustin. He felt that now even the presence of his dear friend would be a burden,-God alone could come near, so as to heal the sore wound of his spirit-and Alypius was a friend who knew how to keep silence, and to await the issue of his friend's profound emotion. How comfortable a thing to find in those who would give consolation the spirit that animated the friends of Job, when "they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great" (Job ii. 13) Well has Rousseau said: "Les consolations indiscrètes ne font qu' aigrir les violentes afflictions. L' indifference et la froideur trouvent aisément des paroles, mais la tristesse et le silence sont alors le vrai langage de l'amitié." A beautiful exemplification of this is found in Victor Hugo's portrait of Bishop Myriel, in Les Misérables (c. iv.), from which we have quoted a few pages back:-"Il savait s'asseoir et se taire de longues heures auprès de l'homme que avait perdu la femme qu'ii aimait, de la mére qui avait perdu son enfant. Comme il savait le moment de se taire, il savait aussi le moment de parler. O admirable consolateur! il ne cherchait pas à effacer la douleur par l'oubli, mais à l'agrandir et à la dignifier par l'ésperance."
94 See his Life by St. Athanasius, secs. 2, 3.
4 Volebas, though a few Mss. have nolebas; and Watts accordingly renders "nilledst."
7 Archbishop Trench, in his exposition of the parable of the Hid Treasure, which the man who found sold all that he had to buy, remarks on this passage of the Confessions: "Augustin excellently illustrates from his own experience this part of the parable. Describing the crisis of his own conversion, and how easy he found it, through this joy, to give up all those pleasures of sin that he had long dreaded to be obliged to renounce, which had long held him fast bound in the chains of evil custom, and which if he renounced, it had seemed to him as though life itself would not be worth the living, he exclaims, `How sweet did it suddenly become to me, 0' " etc.
8 His love of earthly things was expelled by the indwelling love of God, "for," as he says in his De Musica, vi. 52, "the love of the things of time could only be expelled by some sweetness of things eternal." Compare also Dr. Chalmers' sermon on The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (the ninth of his "Commercial Discourses"), where this idea is expanded.
9 "In harvest and vintage time had the lawyers their vacation. So Minutius Felix. Scholars, their Non Terminus, as here; yea, divinity lectures and catechizings then ceased. So Cyprian, Ep. 2. The law terms gave way also to the great festivals of the Church. Theodosius forbade any process to go out from fifteen days before Easter till the Sunday after. For the four Terms, see Caroli Calvi, Capitula, Act viii. p. 90."-W. W.
11 Ps. cxx. 3, 4, according to the Old Ver. This passage has many difficulties we need not enter into. The Vulgate, however, we may say, renders verse 3: "Quid detur tibi aut quid apponatur tibi ad linguam dolosam,"-that is, shall be given as a defence against the tongues of evil speakers. In this way Augustin understands it, and in his commentary on this place makes the fourth verse give the answer to the third. Thus, "sharp arrows" he interprets to be the word of God, and "destroying coals" those who, being converted to Him, have become examples to the ungodly.
13 In his De Vita Beata, sec. 4, and Con. Acad. i. 3, he also alludes to this weakness of his chest. He was therefore led to give up his professorship, partly from this cause, and partly from a desire to devote himself more entirely to God's service. See also p. 115, note.
15 See vi. sec. 1, note, above.
19 Literally, In monte incaseato, "the mountain of curds," from the Old Ver. of Ps. lxviii. 16. The Vulgate renders coagulatus. But the Authorized Version is nearer the true meaning, when it renders Myenmnbn
, hunched, as "high." The LXX. renders it teturwme/noj, condensed, as if from hgu#&ir#&/n
, cheese. This divergence arises from the unused root bag
, to be curved, having derivatives meaning (1) "hunch-backed," when applied to the body, and (2) "cheese" or "curds," when applied to milk. Augustin, in his exposition of this place, makes the "mountain" to be Christ, and parallels it with Isa. ii. 2; and the "milk" he interprets of the grace that comes from Him for Christ's little ones: Ipse est mons incaseatus, propter parvulos gratia tanquam lacte nutriendos.
22 Though Augustin, in his Quaest. Evang. ii. qu. 38, makes Abraham's bosom to represent the rest into which the Gentiles entered after the Jews had put it from them, yet he, for the most part, in common with the early Church (see Serm. xiv. 3; Con. Faust. xxxiii. 5; and Eps. clxiv. 7, and clxxxvii. Compare also Tertullian, De Anima, lviii), takes it to mean the resting-place of the souls of the righteous after death. Abraham's bosom, indeed, is the same as the "Paradise" of Luke xxiii. 43. The souls of the faithful after they are delivered from the flesh are in "joy and felicity" (De Civ. Dei, i. 13, and xiii. 19); but they will not have "their perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul" until the morning of the resurrection, when they shall be endowed with "spiritual bodies". See note p. 111; and for the difference between the adhj of Luke xvi. 23, that is, the place of departed spirits,-into which it is said in the Apostles' Creed Christ descended,-and ge/enna, or Hell, see Campbell on The Gospels, i. 253. In the A. V. both Greek words are rendered "Hell."
25 As Christ went into the wilderness after His baptism (Matt. iv. 1), and Paul into Arabia after his conversion (Gal. i. 17), so did Augustin here find in his retirement a preparation for his future work. He tells us of this time of his life (De Ordin. i. 6) that his habit was to spend the beginning or end, and often almost half the night, in watching and searching for truth, and says further (ibid. 29), that "he almost daily asked God with tears that his wounds might be healed, and often proved to himself that he was unworthy to be healed as soon as he wished."
26 These books are (Con. Acad. i. 4) his three disputations Against the Academics, his De Vita Beata, begun (ibid. 6) "Idibus Novembris die ejus natali;" and (Retract. i. 3) his two books De Ordine.
27 That is, his two books of Soliloquies. In his Retractations, i. 4, sec 1, he tells us that in these books he held an argument,-me interrogans, mihique respondens, tanquam duo essemus, ratio et ego.
28 Several of these letters to Nebridius will be found in the two vols. of Letters in this series.
31 Reference may with advantage be made to Archbishop Trench's Hulsean Lectures (1845), who in his third lect., on "The Manifoldness of Scripture," adverts to this very passage, and shows in an interesting way how the Psalms have ever been to the saints of God, as Luther said, "a Bible in little," affording satisfaction to their needs in every kind of trial, emergency, and experience.
52 Internum aeternum, but some Mss. read internum lumen aeternum.
55 That is, lest they should distract him from the true riches. For, as he says in his exposition of the fourth Psalm, "Cum dedita temporalibus voluptatibus anima semper exardescit cupiditate, nec satiari potest." He knew that the prosperity of the soul (3 John 2) might be injuriously affected by the prosperity of the body; and disregarding the lower life (bioj) and its "worldly goods," he pressed on to increase the treasure he had within,-the true life (zwh/) which he had received from God. See also Enarr. in Ps. xxxviii. 6.
58 Ps. iv. 8; in his comment whereon, Augustin applies this passage as above.
61 Compare the beautiful Talmudical legend quoted by Jeremy Taylor (Works, viii. 397, Eden's ed.), that of the two archangels, Gabriel and Michael, Gabriel has two wings that he may "fly swiftly" (Dan. ix. 21) to bring the message of peace, while Michael has but one, that he may labour in his flight when he comes forth on his ministries of justice.
62 In his Soliloquies (see note, sec. 7, above), he refers in i. 21 to this period. He there tells us that his pain was so great that it prevented his learning anything afresh, and only permitted him to revolve in his mind what he had already learnt. Compare De Quincey's description of the agonies he had to endure from tooth ache in his Confessions of an Opium Eater.
63 That is, on the waxen tablet used by the ancients. The iron stilus, or pencil, used for writing, was pointed at one end and flattened at the other-the flattened circular end being used to erase the writing by smoothing down the wax. Hence vertere stilumsignifies to put out or correct. See sec. 19, below.
65 In his De Civ. Dei, xviii. 29, he likewise alludes to the evangelical character of the writings of Isaiah.
66 "They were baptized at Easter, and gave up their names before the second Sunday in Lent, the rest of which they were to spend in fasting, humility, prayer, and being examined in the scrutinies (Tertull. Lib. de Bapt. c. 20). Therefore went they to Milan, that the bishop might see their preparation. Adjoining to the cathedrals were there certain lower houses for them to lodge and be exercised in, till the day of baptism" (Euseb x. 4).-W. W. See also Bingham, x. 2, sec. 6; and above, note 4, p 89; note 4, p. 118, and note 8, p. 118.
67 In his De Vita Beata, sec. 6, he makes a similar illusion to the genius of Adeodatus.
68 This book, in which he and his son are the interlocutors, will be found in vol. i. of the Benedictine edition, and is by the editors assumed to be written about A.D. 389. Augustin briefly gives its argument in his Retractations, i. 12. He says: "There it is disputed, sought, and discovered that there is no master who teaches man knowledge save God, as it is written in the gospel (Matt. xxiii. 10), `One is your Master, even Christ. 0' "
69 He was baptized by Ambrose, and tradition says, as he came out of the water, they sang alternate verses of the Te Deum (ascribed by some to Ambrose), which, in the old offices of the English Church is called "The Song of Ambrose and Augustin." In his Con. Julian. Pelag. i. 10, he speaks of Ambrose as being one whose devoted labours and perils were known throughout the whole Roman world, and says: "In Christo enim Jesu per evangelium ipse me genuit, et eo Christi ministro lavacrum regenerationis accepti." See also the last sec. of his De Nupt. et Concup., and Ep. cxlvii. 23. In notes 3, p. 50, and 4, p. 89, will be found references to the usages of the early Church as to baptism.
70 The Bishop of Milan who preceded Ambrose was an Arian, and though Valentinian the First approved the choice of Ambrose as bishop, Justina, on his death, greatly troubled the Church. Ambrose subsequently had great influence over both Valentinian the Second and his brother Gratian. The persecution referred to above, says Pusey, was "to induce him to give up to the Arians a church,-the Portian Basilica without the walls; afterwards she asked for the new Basilica within the walls, which was larger." See Ambrose, Epp. 20-22; Serm. c. Auxentium de Basilicis Tradendis, pp. 852-880, ed. Bened.; cf. Tillemont, Hist. Eccl. St. Ambroise, pp. 76-82. Valentinian was then at Milan. See next sec., the beginning of note.
72 Augustin alludes to this, amongst other supposed miracles, in his De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8; and again in Serm. cclxxxvi. sec. 4, where he tells us that the man, after being cured, made a vow that he would for the remainder of his life serve in that Basilica where the bodies of the martyrs lay. St. Ambrose also examines the miracle at great length in one of his sermons. We have already referred in note 5, p. 69 to the origin of these false miracles in the early Church. Lecture vi. series 2, of Blunt's Lectures on the Right Use of the Early Fathers, is devoted to an examination of the various passages in the Ante-Nicene Fathers where the continuance of miracles in the Church is either expressed or implied. The reader should also refer to the note on p. 485 of vol. ii. of the City of God, in this series.
76 See viii. sec. 15, note, above.
77 We find from his Retractations (i. 7, sec. 1), that at this time he wrote his De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae and his De Moribus Manichaeorum. He also wrote (ibid. 8, sec. I) his De Animae Quantitate, and (ibid. 9, sec. I) his three books De Libero Arbitrio.
78 In his De Vita Beata and in his De Dono Persev. he attribute all that he was to his mother's tears and prayers.
79 Ecclus. xix. 1. Augustin frequently alludes to the subtle power of little things. As when he says,-illustrating (Serm. cclxxviii.) by the plagues of Egypt,-tiny insects, if they be numerous enough, will be as harmful as the bite of great beasts; and (Serm. lvi.) a hill of sand, though composed of tiny grains, will crush a man as surely as the same weight of lead. Little drops (Serm lviii.) make the river, and little leaks sink the ship; wherefore, he urges, little things must not be despised. "Men have usually," says Sedgwick in his Anatomy of Secret Sins, "been first wading in lesser sins who are now swimming in great transgressions." It is in the little things of evil that temptation has its greatest strength. The snowflake is little and not to be accounted of, but from its multitudinous accumulation results the dread power of the avalanche. Satan often seems to act as it is said Pompey did, when he could not gain entrance to a city. He persuaded the citizens to admit a few of his weak and wounded soldiers, who, when they had become strong, opened the gates to his whole army. But if little things have such subtlety in temptation, they have likewise higher ministries. The Jews, in their Talmudical writings, have many parables illustrating how God by little things tries and proves men to see if they are fitted for greater things. They say, for example, that He tried David when keeping sheep in the wilderness, to see whether he would be worthy to rule over Israel, the sheep of his inheritance. See Ch. Schoettgen, Hor. Heb. et Talmud, i. 300.
80 " `Animam oportet assiduis saliri tentationibus, 0' says St. Ambrose. Some errors and offences do rub salt upon a good man's integrity, that it may not putrefy with presumption."-Bishop Hacket's Sermons, p 210.
81 Not only is this true in private, but in public concerns. Even in the crucifixion of our Lord, the wicked rulers did (Acts. iv. 26) what God's hand and God's counsel had before determined to be done. Perhaps by reason of His infinite knowledge it is that God, who knows our thoughts long before (Ps. cxxxix. 2, 4), weaves man's self-willed purposes into the pattern which His inscrutable providence has before ordained. Or, to use Augustin's own words (De Civ. Dei, xxii. 2), "It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God's will; but so great is His wisdom and power, that all things which seem adverse to His purpose do still tend towards those just and good ends and issues which He Himself has foreknown."
82 That is, not only from the time of actual marriage, but from the time of betrothal, when the contract was written upon tablets (see note 10, p. 133), and signed by the contracting parties. The future wife was then called sponsa sperata or pacta. Augustin alludes to this above (vii. sec. 7), when he says, "It is also the custom that the affianced bride (pactae sponsae) should not immediately be given up, that the husband may not less esteem her whom, as betrothed, he longed not for" (non suspiraverit sponsus). It should be remembered, in reading this section, that women amongst the Romans were not confined after the Eastern fashion of the Greeks to separate apartments, but had charge of the domestic arrangements and the training of the children.
87 I Cor. ii. 9.; Isa. lxiv. 4.
94 I Cor. xv. 51, however, is, "we shall all be changed."
95 Dean Stanley (Canterbury Sermons, serm. 10) draws the following, amongst other lessons, from God's dealings with Augustin. "It is an example," he says, "like the conversion of St. Paul, of the fact that from time to time God calls His servants not by gradual, but by sudden changes. These conversions are, it is true, the exceptions and not the rule of Providence, but such examples as Augustin show us that we must acknowledge the truth of the exceptions when they do occur. It is also an instance how, even in such sudden conversions, previous good influences have their weight. The prayers of his mother, the silent influence of his friend, the high character of Ambrose, the preparation for Christian truth in the writings of heathen philosophers, were all laid up, as it were, waiting for the spark, and, when it came, the fire flashed at once through every corner of his soul."
96 For this would be to sorrow as those that have no hope. Chrysostom accordingly frequently rebukes the Roman custom of hiring persons to wail for the dead (see e. g. Hom. xxxii. in Matt.); and Augustin in Serm. 2 of his De Consol. Mor. makes the same objection, and also reproves those Christians who imitated the Romans in wearing black as the sign of mourning. But still (as in his own case on the death of his mother) he admits that there is a grief at the departure of friends that is both natural and seemly. In a beautiful passage in his De Civ. Dei (xix. 8), he says: "That he who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse....Let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every human relationship;" and he continues: "Though the cure is effected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on this account suppose that there is nothing at all to heal." See p. 140, note 2, below.
98 Ps. ci. 1 "I suppose they continued to the end of Psalm cii. This was the primitive fashion; Nazianzen says that his speechless sister Gorgonia's lips muttered the fourth Psalm: `I will lie down in peace and sleep. 0' As St. Austen lay a dying, the company prayed (Possid.). That they had prayers between the departure and burial, see Tertull. De Anima, c. 51. They used to sing both at the departure and burial. Nazianzen, Orat. 10, says, the dead Caesarius was carried from hymns to hymns. The priests were called to sing (Chrysost. Hom. 70, ad Antioch). They sang the 116th Psalm usually (see Chrysost. Hom. 4, in c. 2, ad Hebraeos)."-W. W. See also note 13, p. 141, below.
99 In addition to the remarks quoted in note 1, see Augustin's recognition of the naturalness and necessity of exercising human affections, such as sorrow, in his De Civ. Dei, xiv. 9.
100 "Here my Popish translator says, that the sacrifice of the mass was offered for the dead. That the ancients had communion with their burials, I confess. But for what? (1) To testify their dying in the communion of the Church. (2) To give thanks for their departure. (3) To Pray God to give them place in His Paradise, (4) and a part in the first resurrection; but not as a propitiatory sacrifice to deliver them out of purgatory, which the mass is now only meant for."-W. W. See also note 13, p. 141.
102 Rendered as follows in a translation of the first ten books of the Confessions, described on the title-page as "Printed by J. C., for John Crook, and are to be sold at the sign of the `Ship, 0' in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1660":-
"O God, the world's great Architect,
Who dost heaven's rowling orbs direct;
Cloathing the day with beauteous light,
And with sweet slumbers silent night;
When wearied limbs new vigour gain
From rest, new labours to sustain,
When hearts oppressed do meet relief,
And anxious minds forget their grief."
See x. sec. 52, below, where this hymn is referred to.
104 I Cor. xv. 22. The universalists of every age have interpreted the word "all" here so as to make salvation by Christ Jesus extend to every child of Adam. If their interpretation were true, Monica's spirit need not have been troubled at the thought of the danger of unregenerate souls. But Augustin in his De Civ. Dei, xiii. 23, gives the import of the word: "Not that all who die in Adam shall be members of Christ-for the great majority shall be punished in eternal death,-but he uses the word `all 0' in both clauses because, as no one dies in an animal body except in Adam, so no one is quickened a spiritual body save in Christ." See x. sec. 68, note 1, below.
105 For to have done so would have been to go perilously near to the heresy of the Pelagians, who laid claim to the possibility of attaining perfection in this life by the power of free-will, and without the assistance of divine grace; and went even so far, he tells us (Ep. clxxvi. 2), as to say that those who had so attained need not utter the petition for forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer,-ut ei non sit jam necessarium dicere "Dimitte nobis debita nostra." Those in our own day who enunciate perfectionist theories,- though, it is true, not denying the grace of God as did these,-may well ponder Augustin's forcible words in his De Pecc. Mer. et Rem. iii. 13: "Optandum est ut fiat, conandum est ut fiat, supplicandum est ut fiat; non tamen quasi factum fuerit, confitendum." We are indeed commanded to be perfect (Matt. v. 48); and the philosophy underlying the command is embalmed in the words of the proverb, "Aim high, and you will strike high." But he who lives nearest to God will have the humility of heart which will make him ready to confess that in His sight he is a "miserable sinner." Some interesting remarks on this subject will be found in Augustin's De Civ. Dei, xiv. 9, on the text, "If we say we have no sin," etc. (I John i. 8.) On sins after baptism, see note on next section.
108 There is a passage parallel to this in his Ep. to Sextus (cxciv. 19). "Merits" therefore would appear to be used simply in the sense of good actions. Compare sec. 17, above, xiii. sec. 1, below, and Ep. cv. That righteousness is not by merit, appears from Ep. cxciv.; Ep. clxxvii., to Innocent; and Serm.ccxciii.
112 Matt. vi. 12. Augustin here as elsewhere applies this petition in the Lord's Prayer to the forgiveness of sins after baptism. He does so constantly. For example, in his Ep. cclxv. he says: "We do not ask for those to be forgiven which we doubt not were forgiven in baptism; but those which, though small, are frequent, and spring from the frailty of human nature." Again, in his Con Ep. Parmen. ii. 10, after using almost the same words, he points out that it is a prayer against daily sins; and in his De Civ. Dei, xxi. 27, where he examines the passage in relation to various erroneous beliefs, he says it "was a daily prayer He [Christ] was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples already justified He was speaking. What, then, does He mean by `your sins 0' (Matt. vi. 14), but those sins from which not even you who are justified and sanctified can be free?" See note on the previous section; and also for the feeling in the early Church as to sins after baptism, the note on i. sec. 17, above.
120 See his De Trin. xiii. 18, the passage beginning, "What then is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered?"
125 The origin of prayers for the dead dates back probably to the close of the second century. In note 1, p. 90, we have quoted from Tertullian's De Corona Militis, where he says "Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annua die facimus." In his De Monogamia, he speaks of a widow praying for her departed husband, that "he might have rest, and be a partaker in the first resurrection." From this time a catena of quotations from the Fathers might be given, if space permitted, showing how, beginning with early expressions of hope for the dead, there, in process of time, arose prayers even for the unregenerate, until at last there was developed purgatory on the one side, and creature-worship on the other. That Augustin did not entertain the idea of creature-worship will be seen from his Ep. to Maximus, xvii. 5. In his De Dulcit. Quaest. 2 (where he discusses the whole question), he concludes that prayer must not be made for all, because all have not led the same life in the flesh. Still, in his Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 17, he argues from the case of the rich man in the parable, that the departed do certainly "have a care for us." Aërius, towards the close of the fourth century, objected to prayers for the dead, chiefly on the ground (see Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, iii. 258) of their uselessness. In the Church of England, as will be seen by reference to Keeling's Liturgicae Britannicae, pp. 210, 335, 339, and 341, prayers for the dead were eliminated from the second Prayer Book; and to the prudence of this step Palmer bears testimony in his Origines Liturgicae, iv. 10, justifying it on the ground that the retaining of these prayers implied a belief in her holding the doctrine of purgatory. Reference may be made to Epiphanius, Adv. Haer. 75; Bishop Bull, Sermon 3; and Bingham, xv. 3, secs. 15, 16, and xxiii. 3, sec. 13.
16 In note 9, p. 79, we have seen how God makes man's sin its own punishment. Reference may also be made to Augustin's Con. Advers. Leg. et Proph. i. 14, where he argues that "the punishment of a man's disobedience is found in himself, when he in his turn cannot get obedience even from himself." And again, in his De Lib. Arb. v. 18, he says, God punishes by taking from him that which he does not use well, "et qui recte facere cum possit noluit amittat posse cum velit." See also Serm. clxxi. 4, and Ep. cliii.
28 See Nebridius' argument against the Manichaeans, as to God's not being violable, in vii. sec. 3, above, and the note thereon.
29 See his Enarr. in Ps. lv. 8 and xciii. 19, where he beautifully describes how the winds and waves of temptation will be stilled if Christ be present in the ship. See also Serm. lxiii.; and Eps. cxxx. 22, and clxxvii. 4.
34 Anaximenes of Miletus was born about 520 B.C. According to his philosophy the air was animate, and from it, as from a first principle, all things in heaven, earth, and sea sprung, first by condensation (pukn/wsij), and after that by a process of rarefaction (a0raiwsij). See Ep. cxviii. 23; and Aristotle, Phys. iii. 4. Compare this theory and that of Epicurus (p. 100, above) with those of modern physicists; and see thereon The Unseen Universe, arts. 85, etc., and 117, etc.
35 In Ps. cxliv. 13, the earth he describes as "dumb," but as speaking to us while we meditate upon its beauty-Ipsa inquisitio interrogatio est.
37 See note 2 to previous section.
45 I Cor. xv. 22; see p. 140, note 3, and note p. 73, above.
48 Since "life eternal is the supreme good," as he remarks in his De Civ. Dei, xix. 4. Compare also ibid. viii. sec. 8, where he argues that the highest good is God, and that he who loves Him is in the enjoyment of that good. See also note on the chief good, p. 75, above.
56 "Veritas parit odium." Compare Terence, Andria, i. 1, 41: "Obsequiam amicos, veritas odium parit."
58 See iv. c. 12, and vii. c. 10, above.
59 In connection with Augustin's views as to memory, Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, ii. 10, and Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind, c. 6, may be profitably consulted.
62 Job vii. 1. The Old Ver. rendering -u#&ir#&/
by tentatio, after the LXX. peirath/rion. The Vulg. has militia, which-"warfare" in margin of A. V.
63 "It will not be safe," says Anthony Farindon (vol. iv. Christ's Temptation, serm. 107, "for us to challenge and provoke a temptation, but to arm and prepare ourselves against it; to stand upon our guard, and neither to offer battle nor yet refuse it. Sapiens feret ista, non eliget: `It is the part of a wise man not to seek for evil, but to endure it. 0' And to this end it concerneth every man to exercise th'n pneumatikh'n su/nesin_, `his spiritual wisdom, 0' that he may discover Spiritus ductiones et diaboli seductiones, `the Spirit's leadings and the devil's seducements. 0' " See also Augustin's Serm. lxxvi. 4, and p. 79, note 9, above.
64 We have ever to endure temptation, either in the sense of a testing, as when it is said, "God did tempt Abraham" (Gen. xxii. 1); or with the additional idea of yielding to the temptation, and so committing sin, as in the use of the word in the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 13); for, as Dyke says in his Michael and the Dragon (Works, i. 203, 204): "No sooner have we bathed and washed our souls in the waters of Repentance, but we must presently expect the fiery darts of Satan's temptations to be driving at us. What we get and gain from Satan by Repentance, he seeks to regain and recover by his Temptations. We must not think to pass quietly out of Egypt without Pharaoh's pursuit, nor to travel the wilderness of this world without the opposition of the Amalekites." Compare Augustin, In Ev. Joann. Tract. xliii. 6, and Serm. lvii. 9. See also p. 79, note 3, above.
65 In his 38th Sermon, he distinguishes between continentia and sustinentia; the first guarding us from the allurements of worldliness and sin, while the second enables us to endure the troubles of life.
67 In his De Trin. ix. 13 ("In what desire and love differ"), he says, that when the creature is loved for itself, and the love of it is not referred to its Creator, it is desire (cupiditas) and not true love. See also p. 129, note 8, above.
68 I John ii. 16. Dilating on Ps. viii. he makes these three roots of sin to correspond to the threefold nature of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness. See also p 80, note 5, above.
69 In Augustin's view, then, dreams appear to result from our thoughts and feelings when awake. In this he has the support of Aristotle (Ethics, i. 13), as also that of Solomon, who says (Eccles. v. 3), "A dream cometh through the multitude of business." An apt illustration of this is found in the life of the great Danish sculptor, Thorwaldsen. It is said that he could not satisfy himself with his models for The Christ, in the Frauenkirche at Copenhagen,-as Da Vinci before him was never able to paint the face of the Christ in His noble fresco of the Last Supper,-and that it was only in consequence of a dream (that dream doubtless the result of his stedfast search for an ideal) that this great work was accomplished. But see Ep. clix.
77 In Augustin's time, and indeed till the Council of Orleans, A.D. 538, fasting appears to have been left pretty much to the individual conscience. We find Tertullian in his De Jejunio lamenting the slight observance it received during his day. We learn, however, from the passage in Justin Martyr, quoted in note 4, on p. 118, above, that in his time it was enjoined as a preparation for Baptism.
88 In his De Dono Persev. sec. 53, he tells us that these words were quoted to Pelagius, when at Rome, by a certain bishop, and that they excited him to contradict them so warmly as nearly to result in a rupture between Pelagius and the bishop.
97 He here refers to the doctrine of the Manichaeans in the matter of eating flesh. In his De Mor. Manich. secs. 36, 37, he discusses the prohibition of flesh to the "Elect." From Ep. ccxxxvi. we find that the "Hearers" had not to practice abstinence from marriage and from eating flesh. For other information on this subject, see notes, pp. 66 and 83.
105 So all God's gifts are to be used, but not abused; and those who deny the right use of any, do so by virtually accepting the principle of asceticism. As Augustin, in his De Mor. Ecc. Cath. sec. 39, says of all transient things, we "should use them as far as is required for the purposes and duties of life, with the moderation of an employer instead of the ardour of a lover."
110 Ps. cxxxix. 16; he similarly applies this passage when commenting on it in Ps. cxxxviii. 21, and also in Serm. cxxxv.
111 "For some," says Thomas Taylor (Works, vol. I. "Christ's Temptation," p. 11), "through vain prefidence of God's protection, run in times of contagion into infected houses, which upon just calling a man may: but for one to run out of his calling in the way of an ordinary visitation, he shall find that God's angels have commission to protect him no longer than he is in his way (Ps. xci. 11), and that being out of it, this arrow of the Lord shall sooner hit him than another that is not half so confident." We should not, as Fuller quaintly says, "hollo in the ears of a sleeping temptation:" and when we are tempted, let us remember that if (Hibbert, Syntagma Theologicum, p. 342) "a giant knock while the door is shut, he may with ease be still kept out; but if once open, that he gets in but a limb of himself, then there is no course left to keep out the remaining bulk." See also Augustin on Peter's case, De Corrept. et Grat. c. 9.
112 Job vii. 1, Old Vers. See p. 153, note 1.
121 From the beginning of the hymn of St. Ambrose, part of which is quoted, ix. sec. 32, above.
122 Assumunt eam, in hymno tuo, non absumuntur ab ea.
125 Sanctificatori meo, but some Mss. have sacreficatori.
126 See xi. sec. 7, and note, below.
127 See note 6, sec. 40, above.
132 Augustin's great end was to attain the knowledge of God. Hence, in his Soliloquia, i. 7, we read: "Deum et animam scire cupio. Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino." And he only esteemed the knowledge of physical laws so far as they would lead to Him. (See v. sec. 7, above, and the note there.) In his De Ordine, ii. 14, 15, etc., writing at the time of his conversion, he had contended that the knowledge of the liberal sciences would lead to a knowledge of the divine wisdom; but in his Retractations (i. 3, sec. 2) he regrets this, pointing out that while many holy men have not this knowledge, many who have it are not holy. Compare also Enchir. c. 16; Serm. lxviii. 1, 2; and De Civ. Dei, ix. 22.
134 In allusion to those venatios, or hunting scenes, in which the less savage animals were slain. These were held in the circus, which was sometimes planted for the occasion, so as to resemble a forest. See Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, under "Venatio," and vi. sec. 13, note, above. 159
141 Ps. x. 3, in Vulg. and LXX.
142 Isa. xlviii. 10, and Prov. xxvii. 21.
144 Ps. xix. 12. See note 5, page 47, above.
145 In his De Vera Relig. sec. 92, he points out that adversity also, when it comes to a good man, will disclose to him how far his heart is set on worldly things: "Hoc enim sine amore nostro aderat, quod sine dolore discedit."
146 I John ii. 16. See beginning of sec. 41, above.
147 Lev. xix. 18. See book xii. secs. 35, 41, below.
148 It may be well, in connection with the striking piece of soul-anatomy in this and the last two sections, to advert to other passages in which Augustin speaks of the temptation arising from the praise of men. In Serm. cccxxxix. 1, he says that he does not altogether dislike praise when it comes from the good, though feeling it to be a snare, and does not reject it: "Ne ingrati sint quibus praedico." That is, as he says above, he accepted it for his "neighbour's good," since, had his neighbour not been ready to give praise, it would have indicated a wrong condition of heart in him. We are, therefore, as he argues in his De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 1, 2, 6, to see that the design of our acts be not that men should see and praise us (compare also Enarr. in Ps. lxv. 2). If they praise us it is well, since it shows that their heart is right; but if we "act rightly only because of the praise of men" (Matt. vi. 2, 5), we seek our own glory and not that of God. See also Serms. xciii. 9, clix. 10, etc.; and De Civ. Dei, v. 13, 14.
151 Ps. cxli. 5, according to the Vulg. and LXX. The Authorized Version (with which the Targum is in accord) gives the more probable sense, when it makes the oil to be that of the righteous and not that of the sinner: "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head."
153 See his De Civ. Dei, v. 20, where he compares the truly pious man, who attributes all his good to God's mercy, "giving thanks for what in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of that which is yet unhealed," with the philosophers who make their chief end pleasure or human glory.
155 See ix. sec. 10, note, above, and xi. sec. 39, below.
157 See p. 153, note 7, above.
159 It would be easy so to do, since even amongst believers, as we find from Evodius' letter to Augustin (Ep. clvi.), there was a prevalent belief that the blessed dead visited the earth, and that visions had an important bearing on human affairs. See also Augustin's answer to Evodius, in Ep. clix.; Chrysostom, De Sacer. vi. 4; and on Visions, See sec. 41, note, above.
163 In his De Civ. Dei, x. 24, in speaking of the Incarnation of Christ as a mystery unintelligible to Porphyry's pride, he has a similar passage, in which he speaks of the "true and benignant Mediator," and the "malignant and deceitful mediators." See vii. sec. 24, above.
165 See notes 3, p. 71, and 9 and 11, p. 74, above.
167 Not that our Lord is to be supposed, as some have held, to have been under the law of death in Adam, because "in Adam all die" (1 Cor. xv. 22; see the whole of c. 23, in De Civ. Dei, xiii, and compare ix. sec. 34, note 3, above); for he says in Serm. ccxxxii. 5: "As there was nothing in us from which life could spring, so there was nothing in Him from which death could come." He laid down His life (John x. 18), and as being partaker of the divine nature, could see no corruption (Acts ii. 27). This is the explanation Augustin gives in his comment on Ps. lxxxv. 5 (quoted in the next section) of Christ's being "free among the dead." So also in his De Trin. xiii. 18, he says he was thus free because "solus enim a debito mortis liber est mortuus." The true analogy between the first and second Adam is surely then to be found in our Lord's being free from the law of death by reason of His divine nature, and Adam before his transgression being able to avert death by partaking of the Tree of Life. Christ was, it is true, a child of Adam, but a child of Adam miraculously born. See note 3, p. 73, above.
168 See De Trin. iv. 2; and Trench, Hulsean Lectures (1845), latter part of lect. iv.
169 Medius, alluding to mediator immediately before. See his De Civ. Dei, ix. 15, and xi. 2, for an enlargement of this distinction between Christ as man and Christ as the Word. Compare also De Trin. i. 20 and xiii. 13; and Mansel, Bampton Lectures, lect. v. note 20.
170 Some Mss. omit Cum spiritu sancto.
171 Christ did not, as in the words of a well-known hymn, "change the wrath to love." For, as Augustin remarks in a very beautiful passage in Ev. Joh. Tract. cx. 6, God loved us before the foundation of the world, and the reconcilement wrought by Christ must not be "so understood as if the Son reconciled us unto Him in this respect, that He now began to love those whom He formerly hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that thereafter they become friends, and mutual love takes the place of their mutual hatred; but we were reconciled unto Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity because of our sin. Whether I say the truth on this let the apostle testify, when he says: `God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us 0' " (Rom. v. 8, 9). He similarly applies the text last quoted in his De Trin. xiii. 15. See also ibid. sec. 21, where he speaks of the wrath of God, and ibid. iv. 2. Compare Archbishop Thomson, Bampton Lectures, lect. vii., and note 95.
172 Rom. viii. 34, which is not "for us wicked ones," but "for us all," as the Authorized Version has it; and we must not narrow the words. Augustin, in Ev. Joh. Tract. cx. 2, it will be remembered, when commenting on John xvii. 21, "that they all may be one...that the world may believe Thou hast sent me," limits "the world" to the believing world, and continues (ibid.sec. 4), "Ipsi sunt enim mundus, non permanens inimicus, qualis est mundis damnationi praedestinatus." On Christ being a ransom for all, see Archbishop Thomson, Bampton Lectures, lect. vii. part 5, and note 101.
174 Ps. lxxxviii. 5; See sec. 68, note, above.
178 See note 11, p. 140, above.
184 Col. ii. 3. Compare Dean Mansel, Bampton Lectures, lect. v. and note 22.
185 Ps. cxix. 122, Old Ver. He may perhaps here allude to the spiritual pride of the Donatists, who, holding rigid views as to purity of discipline, disparaged both his life and doctrine, pointing to his Manichaeanism and the sinfulness of 1ife before baptism. In his Answer to Petilian, iii. 11, 20, etc., and Serm. 3, sec. 19, on Ps. xxxvi., he alludes at length to the charges brought against him, referring then finally to his own confessions in book iii. above.
186 Ps. xxii. 26. Augustin probably alludes here to the Lord's Supper, in accordance with the general Patristic interpretation.
1 Ps. xcvi. 4. See note 3, page 45, above.
5 He very touchingly alludes in Serm. ccclv. 2 to the way in which he was forced against his will (as was frequently the custom in those days), first, to become a presbyter (A.D. 391), and, four years later, coadjutor to Valerius, Bishop of Hippo (Ep. xxxi. 4, and Ep. ccxiii. 4), whom on his death he succeeded. His own wish was to establish a monastery, and to this end he sold his patrimony, "which consisted of only a few small fields" (Ep. cxxvi. 7). He absolutely dreaded to become a bishop, and as he knew his name was highly esteemed in the Church, he avoided cities in which the see was vacant. His former backsliding had made him humble; and he tells us in the sermon above referred to, "Cavebam hoc, et agebam quantam poteram, ut in loco humili salvarer ne in alto periclitarer". Augustin also alludes to his ordination in Ep. xxi., addressed to Bishop Valerius.
6 "He alludes to the hour-glasses of his time, which went by water, as ours do now by sand."-W. W.
7 Augustin, in common with other bishops, had his time much invaded by those who sought his arbitration or judicial decision in secular matters, and in his De Op. Monach. sec. 37, he says, what many who have much mental toil will readily appreciate, that he would rather have spent the time not occupied in prayer and the study of the Scriptures in working with his hands, as did the monks, than have to bear these tumultuosissimas perplexitates. In the year 426 we find him (Ep. ccxiii) designating Eraclius, in public assembly, as his successor in the see, and to relieve him (though, meanwhile, remaining a presbyter) of these anxious duties. See vi. sec. 15, and note 1, above; and also ibid. sec. 3.
11 Augustin is always careful to distinguish between the certain truths of faith and doctrine which all may know, and the mysteries of Scripture which all have not the ability equally to apprehend. "Among the things," he says (De Doctr. Christ. ii. 14), "that are plainly laid down in Scripture, are to be found all matters that concern faith, and the manner of life." As to the Scriptures that are obscure, he is slow to come to conclusions, lest he should "be deceived in them or deceive out of them." In his De Gen. ad Lit. i. 37, he gives a useful warning against forcing our own meaning on Scripture in doubtful questions, and, ibid. viii. 5, we have the memorable words: "Melius est dubitare de rebus occultis, quam litigare de incertis." For examples of how careful he is in such matters not to go beyond what is written, see his answer to the question raised by Evodius,-a question which reminds us of certain modern speculations (see The Unseen Universe, arts. 61, 201, etc.),-whether the soul on departing from the body has not still a body of some kind, and at least some of the senses proper to a body; and also (Ep. clxiv.) his endeavours to unravel Evodius' difficulties as to Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. iii. 18-21). Similarly, he says, as to the Antichrist of 2 Thess. ii. 1-7 (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19): "I frankly confess I know not what he means. I will, nevertheless, mention such conjectures as I have heard or read." See notes, pp. 64 and 92, above.
14 Ps. xxix. 9. In his comment on this place as given in the Old Version, "vox Domini perficientis cervos," he makes the forest with its thick darkness to symbolize the mysteries of Scripture, where the harts ruminating thereon represent the pious Christian meditating on those mysteries (See vi. sec. 3, note, above). In this same passage he speaks of those who are thus being perfected as overcoming the poisoned tongues. This is an allusion to the fabled power the stags had of enticing serpents from their holes by their breath, and then destroying them, Augustin is very fond of this kind of fable from natural history. In his Enarr. in Ps. cxxix. and cxli., we have similar allusions to the supposed habits of stags; and, ibid. ci., we have the well-known fable of the pelican in its charity reviving its young, and feeding them with its own blood. This use of fables was very common with the mediaeval writers, and those familiar with the writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will recall many illustrations of it amongst the preachers of those days.
24 Many Mss., however, read ipsos, and not ipsum.
27 Augustin was not singular amongst the early Fathers in not knowing Hebrew, for of the Greeks only Origen, and of the Latins Jerome, knew anything of it. We find him confessing his ignorance both here and elsewhere (Enarr. in Ps. cxxxvi. 7, and De Doctr. Christ. ii. 22); and though he recommends a knowledge of Hebrew as well as Greek, to correct "the endless diversity of the Latin translators" (De Doctr. Christ. ii. 16); he speaks as strongly as does Grinfield, in his Apology for the Septuagint, in favour of the claims of that version to "biblical and canonical authority" (Eps. xxviii., lxxi., and lxxv.; De Civ. Dei, xviii. 42, 43; De Doctr. Christ. ii. 22). He discountenanced Jerome's new translation, probably from fear of giving offence, and, as we gather from Ep. lxxi. 5, not with out cause. From the tumult he there describes as ensuing upon Jerome's version being read, the outcry would appear to have been as great as when, on the change of the old style of reckoning to the new, the ignorant mob clamoured to have back their eleven days!
28 It was the doctrine of Aristotle that excellence of character is the proper object of love, and in proportion as we recognise such excellence in others are we attracted to become like them (see Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, book iv. c. 5, sec. 4). If this be true of the creature, how much more should it be so of the Creator, who is the perfection of all that we can conceive of goodness and truth. Compare De Trin. viii. 3-6, De Vera Relig. 57, and an extract from Athanese Coquerel in Archbishop Thomson's Bampton Lectures, note 73.
29 See x. sec 40, note 6, and sec. 53, above.
30 That is, the artificer makes, God creates. The creation of matter is distinctively a doctrine of revelation. The ancient philosophers believed in the eternity of matter. As Lucretius puts it (i. 51): "Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam." See Burton, Bampton Lectures, lect. iii. and notes 18-21, and Mansel, Bampton Lectures, lect. iii. note 12. See also p. 76, note 8, above, for the Manichaean doctrine as to the u>\lh; and The Unseen Universe, arts. 85, 86, 151, and 160, for the modern doctrine of "continuity." See also Kalisch, Commentary on Gen. i. 1.
35 John viii. 25, Old Ver. Though some would read, Qui et loquitur, making it correspond to the Vulgate, instead of Quia et loquitur, as above, the latter is doubtless the correct reading, since we find the text similarly quoted in Ev. Joh. Tract. xxxviii. 11, where he enlarges on "The Beginning," comparing principium with a_rxh. It will assist to the understanding of this section to refer to the early part of the note on p. 107, above, where the Platonic view of the Logos, as e0ndia/fetoj and proforiko/j, or in the "bosom of the Father" and "made flesh," is given; which terminology, as Dr. Newman tells us (Arians, pt. i. c. 2, sec. 4), was accepted by the Church. Augustin, consistently with this idea, says (on John viii. 25, as above): "For if the Beginning, as it is in itself, had remained so with the Father as not to receive the form of a servant and speak as man with men, how could they have believed in Him, since their weak hearts could not have heard the word intelligently without some voice that would appeal to their senses? Therefore, said He, believe me to be the Beginning; for that you may believe, I not only am, but also speak to you." Newman, as quoted above, may be referred to for the significance of a_rxh as applied to the Son, and ibid. sec. 3, also, on the "Word." For the difference between a mere "voice" and the "Word," compare Aug. Serm. ccxciii. sec. 3, and Origen, In Joann. ii. 36.
41 See note 12, p. 174, below.
50 Compare Gillies (Analysis of Aristotle, c. 2, p. 138): "As our conception of space originates in that of body, and our conception of motion in that of space, so our conception of time originates in that of motion; and particularly in those regular and equable motions carried on in the heavens, the parts of which, from their perfect similarity to each other, are correct measures of the continuous and successive quantity called Time, with which they are conceived to co-exist. Time, therefore, may be defined the perceived number of successive movements; for, as number ascertains the greater or lesser quantity of things numbered, so time ascertains the greater or lesser quantity of motion performed." And with this accords Monboddo's definition of time (Ancient Metaphysics, vol. i. book 4, chap. i.), as "the measure of the duration of things that exist in succession by the motion of the heavenly bodies." See xii. sec. 40, and note, below.
55 With the argument in this and the previous sections, compare Dr. Reid's remarks in his Intellectual Powers, iii. 5: "We may measure duration by the succession of thoughts in the mind, as we measure length by inches or feet, but the notion or idea of duration must be antecedent to the mensuration of it, as the notion of length is antecedent to its being measured....Reason, from the contemplation of finite extended things, leads us necessarily to the belief of an immensity that contains them. In like manner, memory gives us the conception and belief of finite intervals of duration. From the contemplation of these, reason leads us necessarily to the belief of an eternity, which comprehends all things that have a beginning and an end." The student will with advantage examine a monograph on this subject by C. Fortlage, entitled, Aurelii Augustini doctrina de tempore ex libro xi. Confessionum depromta, Aristotelicae, Kantianae, aliarumque theoriarium recensione aucta, et congruis hodiernae philosophiae ideis amplificata (Heidelbergae, 1836). He says that amongst all the philosophers none have so nearly approached truth as Augustin.
57 Distentio. It will be observed that there is a play on the word throughout the section.
60 Non distentus sed extentus. So in Serm. cclv. 6, we have: "Unum nos extendat, ne multa distendant, et abrumpant ab uno."
62 Phil. iii. 14. Many wish to attain the prize who never earnestly pursue it. And it may be said here in view of the subject of this book, that there is no stranger delusion than that which possesses the idle and the worldly as to the influence of time in ameliorating their condition. They have "good intentions," and hope that time in the future may do for them what it has not in the past. But in truth, time merely affords an opportunity for energy and life to work. To quote that lucid and nervous thinker, Bishop Copleston (Remains, p. 123): "One of the commonest errors is to regard time as agent. But in reality time does nothing and is nothing. We use it as a compendious expression for all those causes which operate slowly and imperceptibly; but, unless some positive cause is in action, no change takes place in the lapse of one thousand years; e. g., a drop of water encased in a cavity of silex."
66 He argues similarly in his De Civ. Dei, xi. 6: "That the world and time had but one beginning."
68 Dean Mansel's argument, in his Bampton Lectures, as to our knowledge of the Infinite, is well worthy of consideration. He refers to Augustin's views on the subject of this book in note 13 to his third lecture, and in the text itself says: "The limited character of all existence which can be conceived as having a continuous duration, or as made up of successive moments, is so far manifest that it has been assumed almost as an axiom, by philosophical theologians, that in the existence of God there is no distinction between past, present, and future. `In the changes of things, 0' say Augustin, `there is a past and a future; in God there is a present, in which neither past nor future can be. 0' `Eternity, 0' says Beethius, `is the perfect possession of interminable life, and of all that life at once; 0' and Aquinas, accepting the definition, adds, `Eternity has no succession, but exists all together. 0' But whether this assertion be literally true or not (and this we have no means of ascertaining), it is clear that such a mode of existence is altogether inconceivable by us, and that the words in which it is described represent not thought, but the refusal to think at all." See notes to xiii. 12, below.
69 "With God, indeed, all things are arranged and fixed; and when He seemeth to act upon sudden motive, He doth nothing but what He foreknew that He should do from eternity" (Aug.in Ps. cvi. 35). With this passage may well be compared Dean Mansel's remarks (Bampton Lectures, lect. vi., and notes 23-25) on the doctrine, that the world is but a machine and is not under the continual government and direction of God. See also note 4, on p. 80 and note 2 on p. 136, above.
3 That is, not the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, as when we say, "the birds of heaven" (Jer. iv. 25), "the dew of heaven" (Gen. xxvii. 28); nor that "firmament of heaven" (Gen. i. 17) in which the stars have their courses; nor both these together; but that "third heaven" to which Paul was "caught up" (2 Cor. xii. 1) in his rapture, and where God most manifests His glory, and the angels do Him homage.
4 Ps. cxv. 16, after the LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac.
5 Gen. i. 2, as rendered by the Old Ver. from the LXX.: a0o/ratoj kai' a0kataskeu/astoj . Kalisch in his Commentary translates tokok/ ogr)#$'/ohnd
: "dreariness and emptiness."
6 The reader should keep in mind in reading what follows 0the Manichaean doctrine as to the kingdom of light and darkness. See notes, pp. 68 and 103, above.
7 Compare De Civ. Dei, xi. 9, 10.
8 See iii. sec. 11, and p. 103, note, above.
12 In the beginning of sec. 10, book xi. of his De Civ. Dei, he similarly argues that the world was, not like the Son, "begotten of the simple good," but "created." See also note 8, p. 76, above.
13 "Because at the first creation, it had no form nor thing in it."-W. W.
19 As Gregory the Great has it, Revelation is a river broad and deep, "In quo et agnus ambulet, et elephas natet." And these deep things of God are to be learned only by patient searching. We must, says St. Chrysostom (De Prec. serm. ii.), dive down into the sea as those who would fetch up pearls from its depths. The very mysteriousness of Scripture is, doubtless, intended by God to stimulate us to search the Scriptures, and to strengthen our spiritual insight (Enar. in Ps. cxlvi. 6). See also, p. 48, note 5; p. 164, note 2, above; and the notes on pp. 370, 371, below.
21 For Augustin's view of evil as a "privation of good," See p. 64, note 1, above, and with it compare vii. sec. 22, above; Con. Secundin. c. 12; and De Lib. Arb. ii. 53. Parker, in his Theism, Atheism, etc. p. 119, contends that God Himself must in some way be the author of evil, and a similar view is maintained by Schleiermacher, Christliche Glaube, sec. 80.
22 See ii. sec. 13, and v. sec. 2, notes 4, 9, above.
23 See iv. sec. 3, and note 1, above.
25 See xi. sec. 38, above, and sec. 18, below.
34 See p. 112, note 2, and p. 178, note 2, above. See also Trench, Hulsean Lectures (1845), lect. 6, "The Inexhaustibility of Scripture."
36 Ps. cxlix. 6. He refers to the Manichaeans (See p. 71, note l). In his comment on this place, he interprets the "two-edged sword" to mean the Old and New Testament, called two-edged, he says, because it speaks of things temporal and eternal.
38 In his De Vera Relig. c. 13, he says: "We must confess that the angels are in their nature mutable as God is Immutable. Yet by that will with which they love God more than themselves, they remain firm and staple in Him, and enjoy His majesty, being most willingly subject to Him alone."
39 In his Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 2, he speaks of all who are holy, whether angels or men, as being God's dwelling-place.
42 "Pet. Lombard. lib. sent. 2, dist. 2, affirms that by Wisdom, Ecclus. i. 4, the angels be understood, the whole spiritual intellectual nature; namely, this highest heaven, in which the angels were created, and it by them instantly filled."-W. W.
43 On God as the Father of Lights, See p. 76, note 2. In addition to the references there given, compare in Ev. Joh. Tract. ii. sec. 7; xiv. secs. 1, 2; and xxxv. sec. 3. See also p. 373, note, below.
48 Against the Manichaeans. See iv. sec. 26, and part 2 of note on p. 76, above.
57 Baxter has a noteworthy passage on our heavenly citizenship in his Saints' Rest: "As Moses, before he died, went up into Mount Nebo, to take a survey of the land of Canaan, so the Christian ascends the Mount of Contemplation, and by faith surveys his rest....As Daniel in his captivity daily opened his window towards Jerusalem, though far out of sight, when he went to God in his devotions, so may the believing soul, in this captivity of the flesh, look towards `Jerusalem which is above 0' (Gal. iv. 26). And as Paul was to the Colossians (ii. 5) so may the believer be with the glorified spirits, `though absent in the flesh, 0' yet with them `in the spirit, 0' joying and beholding their heavenly `order. 0' And as the lark sweetly sings while she soars on high, but is suddenly silenced when she falls to the earth, so is the frame of the soul most delightful and divine while it keeps in the views of God by contemplation. Alas, we make there too short a stay, fall down again, and lay by our music!" (Fawcett's Ed. p. 327).
58 See ii. sec. 1; ix. sec. 10; x. sec. 40, note; ibid. sec. 65; and xi. sec. 39, above.
59 See ix. sec. 24, above; and xiii. sec. 13, below.
60 See p. 118, note 12, above.
67 Matt. xxii. 40. For he says in his Con. Faust. xvii. 6, remarking on John i. 17, a text which he often quotes in this connection: "The law itself by being fulfilled becomes grace and truth. Grace is the fulfilment of love." And so in ibid. xix. 27 we read: "From the words, `I came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it, 0' we are not to understand that Christ by His precepts filled up what was wanting in the law; but what the literal command failed in doing from the pride and disobedience of men is accomplished by grace....So, the apostle says, `faith worketh by love. 0' " So, again, we read in Serm. cxxv.: "Quia venit dare caritatem, et caritas perficit legem; merito dixit non veni legem solvere sed implere." And hence in his letter to Jerome (Ep. clxvii. 19), he speaks of the "royal law" as being "the law of liberty, which is the law of love." See p. 348, note 4, above.
68 Ps. civ. 24. See p. 297 note 1, above.
70 Augustin, in his letter to Jerome (Ep. clxvi. 4) on "The origin of the human soul," says: "The soul, whether it be termed material or immaterial, has a certain nature of its own, created from a substance superior to the elements of this world." And in his De Gen. ad Lit. vii. 10, he speaks of the soul being formed from a certain "spiritual matter," even as flesh was formed from the earth. It should be observed that at one time Augustin held to the theory that the souls of infants were created by God out of nothing at each fresh birth, and only rejected this view for that of its being generated by the parents with the body under the pressure of the Pelagian controversy. The first doctrine was generally held by the Schoolmen; and William of Conches maintained this belief on the authority of Augustin,-apparently being unaware of any modification in his opinion: "Cum Augustino," he says (Victor Cousin, Ouvrages ined. d'Abelard, p. 673), "credo et sentio quotidie novas animas nom ex traduce non ex aliqua substantia, sed ex nihilo, solo jussu creatoris creari." Those who held the first-named belief were called Creatiani; those who held the second, Truduciani. It may be noted as to the word "Traduciani", that Tertullian, in his De Anima, chaps. 24-27, etc., frequently uses the word tradux in this connection. Augustin, in his Retractations, ii. 45, refers to his letter to Jerome, and urges that if so obscure a matter is to be discussed at all, that solution only should be received: "Quae contraria non sit apertissimis rebus quas de originati peccato fides catholica novit in parvulis, nisi regenerentur in Christo, sine dubitatione damnandis." 0n Tertullian's views, see Bishop Kays, p. 178, etc.
71 See xi. sec. 7, and note, above; and xii. sec. 33, and note, below. See also the subtle reasoning of Dean Mansel (Bampton Lectures, lect. ii.), on the inconsequence of receiving the idea of the creation out of nothing on other than Christian principles. And compare Coleridge, The Friend, iii. 213.
72 Isa. vi. 2, and xxxvii. 16.
78 It is curious to note here Fichte's strange idea (Anweisung sum seligen Leben, Werke, v. 479), that St. John, at the commencement of his Gospel, in his teaching as to the "Word," intended to confute the Mosaic statement, which Fichte-since it ran counter to that idea of "the absolute" which he made the point of departure in his philosophy-antagonizes as a heathen and Jewish error. On "In the Beginning," See p. 166, note 2, above.
79 See p. 48, note, and p. 164, note 2, above.
82 As to all truth being God's, See vii. sec. 16, and note 3, above; and compare x. sec. 65, above.
86 "Ex familiaritate carnis," literally, "from familiarity with the flesh."
88 In allusion, perhaps, to Prov. xxvii. 8: "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place."
91 See a similar argument in his Con. adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 9; and sec. 29, and note, above.
92 See xi. sec. 29, above, and Gillies' note thereon; and compare with it Augustin's De. Gen. ad Lit. v. 5: "In vain we inquire after time before the creation as though we could find time before time, for if there were no motion of the spiritual or corporeal creatures whereby through the present the future might succeed the past, there would be no time at all. But the creature could not have motion unless it were. Time, therefore, begins rather from the creation, than creation from time, but both are from God."
95 See p. 183, note, above; and on the supremacy of this law of love, may be compared Jeremy Taylor's curious story (Works, iv. 477, Eden's ed.): "St. Lewis, the king, having sent Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, on an embassy, the bishop met a woman on the way, grave, sad, fantastic, and melancholy, with fire in one hand, and water in the other. He asked what those symbols meant. She answered, `My purpose is with fire to burn Paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for the love of God. 0' "
96 See end of note 17, p. 197, below.
98 Augustin, as we have seen (See notes, pp. 65 and 92), was frequently addicted to allegorical interpretation, but he, none the less, laid stress on the necessity of avoiding obscure and allegorical passages when it was necessary to convince the opponent of Christianity (De Unit. Eccl. ch. 5). It should also be noted that, however varied the meaning deduced from a doubtful Scripture, he ever maintained that such meaning must be sacrae fidei congruam. Compare De Gen. ad Lit. end of book i.; and ibid. viii. 4 and 7. See also notes, pp. 164 and 178, above.
2 Similar views as to God's not having need of us, though He created us, and as to our service being for our and not His advantage, will be found in his De Gen. ad Lit. viii. 11; and Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 4.
4 In his De Gen. ad Lit. i. 5, he maintains that the spiritual creature may have a formless life, since it has its form-its wisdom and happiness-by being turned to the Word of God, the Immutable Light of Wisdom.
6 Similarly, in his De Civ. Dei, xii. 1, he argues that true blessedness is to be attained "by adhering to the Immutable Good, the Supreme God." This, indeed, imparts the only true life (See note, p. 133, above); for, as Origen says (in S. Joh. ii. 7), "the good man is he who truly exists," and "to be evil and to be wicked are the same as not to be." See notes, pp. 75 and 151, above.
8 Ps. xxxvi. 6, as in the Vulgate, which renders the Hebrew more correctly than the Authorized Version. This passage has been variously interpreted. Augustin makes "the mountains of God" to mean the saints, prophets, and apostles, while "the great deep" he interprets of the wicked and sinful. Compare In Ev. Joh. Tract. i. 2; and in Ps. xxxv. 7, sec. 10.
10 Compare the end of chap. 24 of book xi of the De Civ. Dei, where he says that the life and light and joy of the holy city which is above is in God.
14 See also xi. sec. 10, and note, above.
18 "Neque enim loca sunt quibus mergimur et emergimus."
19 Watts remarks here: "This sentence was generally in the Church service and communion. Nor is there scarce any one old liturgy but hath it, Sursum corda, Habemus ad Dominum." Palmer, speaking of the Lord's Supper, says, in his Origines Liturgicae., iv. 14, that "Cyprian, in the third century, attested the use of the form, `Lift up your hearts, 0' and its response, in the liturgy of Africa (Cyprian, De Orat. Dom. p. 152, Opera, ed. Fell). Augustin, at the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of these words as being used in all churches" (Aug. De Vera Relig. iii. ). We find from the same writer, ibid. v. 5, that in several churches this sentence was used in the office of baptism.
20 "Sine substantia," the Old Ver. rendering of Ps. cxxiv. 5. The Vulgate gives "aquam intolerabilem." The Authorized Version, however, correctly renders the Hebrew by "proud waters," that is, swollen. Augustin, in in Ps. cxxiii. 5, sec. 9, explains the "aqua sine substantia," as the water of sins; "for," he says, "sins have not substance; they have weakness, not substance; want, not substance."
21 We may note here that Augustin maintains the existence of the relationship between these two events. He says in his Enchiridion, c. xxix., that "the restored part of humanity will fill up the gap which the rebellion and fall of the devils had left in the company of the angels. For this is the promise to the saints, that at the resurrection they shall be equal to the angels of God (Luke xx. 36). And thus the Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all, the City of God, shall not be spoiled of any of the number of her citizens, shall perhaps reign over even a more abundant population." He speaks to the same effect at the close of ch. 1 of his De Civ. Dei, xxii. This doctrine was enlarged upon by some of the writers of the seventeenth century.
22 See his De Civ. Dei, xxii. 1, where he beautifully compares sin to blindness, in that it makes us miserable in depriving us of the sight of God. Also his De Cat. Rud. sec. 24, where he shows that the restlessness and changefulness of the world cannot give rest. Comp. p. 46, note 7, above.
26 Ps. xxxi. 20. "In abscondito vultus tui," Old Ver. Augustin in his comment on this passage (Enarr. 4, sec. 8) gives us his interpretation. He points out that the refuge of a particular place (e.g. the bosom of Abraham) is not enough. We must have God with us here as our refuge, and then we will be hidden in His countenance hereafter; or in other words, if we receive Him into our heart now, He will hereafter receive us into His countenance-Ille post hoc seculum excipiet te vultu suo. For heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people, and we must be fitted to live with Him there by going to Him now, and this, to quote from his De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 27, "not with a slow movement of the body, but with the swift impulse of love."
31 Compare De Civ. Dei, xi. 28: "For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards by their levity."
35 Et qui non potest, which words, however, some Mss. omit, reading, Qui potest intelligat; a te petat.
36 John i. 9; See p. 76, note 2, and p. 181, note 2, above.
37 As Augustin constantly urges of God, "Cujus nulla scientia est in anima, nisi scire quomodo eum nesciat" (De Ord. ii. 18), so we may say of the Trinity. The objectors to the doctrine sometimes speak as if it were irrational (Mansel's Bampton Lectures, lect. vi., notes 9, 10). But while the doctrine is above reason, it is not contrary thereto; and, as Dr. Newman observes in his Grammar of Assent, v. 2 (a book which the student should remember has been written since his union with the Roman Church), though the doctrine be mysterious, and, when taken as a whole, transcends all our experience, there is that on which the spiritual life of the Christian can repose in its "propositions taken one by one, and that not in the case of intellectual and thoughtful minds only, but of all religious minds whatever, in the case of a child or a peasant as well as of a philosopher." With the above compare the words of Leibnitz in his "Discours de la Conformité de la Foi avec la Raison," sec. 56: "Il en est de même des autres mystères, où les esprits modérés trouveront toujours une explication suffisante pour croire, et jamais autant qu'il en faut pour comprendre. Il nous suffit d'un certain ce que c'est (tie0sti); mais le comment (pw=j) nous passe, et ne nous est point nécessaire" (Euvres de Locke et Leibnitz). See also p. 175, note 1, above, on the "incomprehensibility" of eternity.
38 While giving illustrations of the Trinity like the above, he would not have a man think "that he has discovered that which is above these, Unchangeable." (See also De Trin. xv. 5, end.) He is very fond of such illustrations. In his De Civ. Dei, xi. 26, 27, for example, we have a parallel to this in our text, in the union of existence, knowledge, and love in man; in his De Trin. ix. 4, 17, 18, we have mind, knowledge, and love; ibid. x. 19, memory, understanding, and will; and ibid. xi. 16, memory, thought, and will. In his De Lib. Arb. ii. 7, again, we have the doctrine illustrated by the union of being, life, and knowledge in man. He also finds illustrations of the doctrine in other created things, as in their measure, weight, and number (De Trin. xi. 18), and their existence, figure, and order (De Vera Relig. xiii.). The nature of these illustrations would at first sight seem to involve him in the Sabellian heresy, which denied the fulness of the Godhead to each of the three Persons of the Trinity; but this is only in appearance. He does not use these illustrations as presenting anything analogous to the union of the three Persons in the Godhead, but as dimly illustrative of it. He declares his belief in the Athanasian doctrine, which, as Dr. Newman observes (Grammar of Assent ,v. 2), "may be said to be summed up in this very formula on which St. Augustin lays so much stress,-`Tres et Unus, 0' not merely `Unum. 0' " Nothing can be clearer than his words in his De Civ. Dei, xi. 24: "When we inquire regarding each singly, it is said that each is God and Almighty; and when we speak of all together, it is said that there are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but one God Almighty." Compare with this his De Trin. vii., end of ch. 11, where the language is equally emphatic. See also Mansel, as above, lect. vi. and notes 11 and 12.
40 He similarly interprets "heaven and earth" in his De Gen. ad Lit. ii. 4. With this compare Chrysostom's illustration in his De Paenit. hom. 8. The Church is like the ark of Noah, yet different from it. Into that ark as the animals entered, so they came forth. The fox remained a fox, the hawk a hawk, and the serpent a serpent. But with the spiritual ark it is not so, for in it evil dispositions are changed. This illustration of Chrysostom is used with an effective but rough eloquence by the Italian preacher Segneri, in his Quaresimale, serm. iv. sec.
47 "His putting repentance and light together is, for that baptism was anciently called illumination, as Heb. vi. 4, Ps. xlii. 2."-W. W. See also p. 118, note 4, part 1, above, for the meaning of "illumination."
49 That is, Christ. See p. 130, note 8, part 2, above; and compare the De Div. Quaest., lxxxiii. 6.
53 The "deep" Augustin interprets (as do the majority of Patristic commentators), in Ps. xli. 8, sec. 13, to be the heart of man; and the "deep" that calls unto it, is the preacher who has his own "deep" of infirmity, even as Peter had.
71 2 Cor. xi. 3, and 1 John iii. 3.
87 Though of the light, we are not yet in the light; and though, in this grey dawn of the coming day, we have a foretaste of the vision that shall be, we cannot hope, as he says in Ps. v. 4, to "see Him as He is" until the darkness of sin be overpast.
88 Eph. v. 8, and 1 Thess. v. 5.
94 See sec. 33, below, and references there given.
95 Isa. xxxiv. 4, and Rev. vi. 14.
96 Ps. civ. 2; in the Vulg. being, "extendens caelum sicut pellem." The LXX. agrees with the Vulg. in translating hckayeIiiyeb@ei
, "as a curtain," by "as a skin."
97 Gen. iii. 21. Skins he makes the emblems of mortality, as being taken from dead animals. See p. 112, note 8, above.
98 That is, the firmament of Scripture was after man's sin stretched over him as a parchment scroll,-stretched over him for his enlightenment by the ministry of mortal men. This idea is enlarged on in Ps. viii. 4, sec. 7, etc., xviii. sec. 2, xxxii. 6, 7, and cxlvi. 8, sec. 15.
99 We have the same idea in Ps. ciii. sec. 8: "Cum enim viverent nondum erat extenta pellis, nondum erat extentum caelum, ut tegeret orbem terrarum."
101 Ps. xix. 7. See p. 62, note 6, above.
103 He alludes to the Manichaeans. See notes, pp. 67, 81, and 87.
104 See part 2 of note 8 on p. 76, above.
107 "Legunt, eligunt, et diligunt."
112 Isa. xl. 6-8. The law of storms, and that which regulates the motions of the stars or the ebbing and flowing of the tides, may change at the "end of the world." But the moral law can know no change, for while the first is arbitrary, the second is absolute. On the difference between moral and natural law, see Candlish, Reason and Revelation, "Conscience and the Bible."
118 See Dean Mansel on this place (Bampton Lectures, lect. v. note 18), who argues that revelation is clear and devoid of mystery when viewed as intended "for our practical guidance," and not as a matter of speculation. He says: "The utmost deficiency that can be charged against human faculties amounts only to this, that we cannot say that we know God as God knows Himself,-that the truth of which our finite minds are susceptible may, for aught we know, be but the passing shadow of some higher reality, which exists only in the Infinite Intelligence." He shows also that this deficiency pertains to the human faculties as such, and that, whether they set themselves to consider the things of nature or revelation. See also p. 193, note 8, above, and notes, pp. 197, 198, below.
121 Gen. i. 9. In his comment on Psalm lxiv. 6 (sec. 9), he interprets "the sea," allegorically, of the wicked world. Hence were the disciples called "fishers of men." If the fishers have taken us in the nets of faith, we are to rejoice, because the net will be dragged to the shore. On the providence of God, regulating the wickedness of men, See p. 79, note 4, above.
122 Ps. cxliii. 6, and lxiii. 1.
124 Ps. civ. 9, and Job xxxviii. 11, 12.
125 Gen. i. 11. As he interprets (See sec. 20, note, above) the sea as the world, so he tells us in Ps. lxvi. 6, sec. 8, that when the earth, full of thorns, thirsted for the waters of heaven, God in His mercy sent His apostles to preach the gospel, whereon the earth brought forth that fruit which fills the world; that is, the earth bringing forth fruit represents the Church.
140 Compare his De Trin. xii. 22-55, where, referring to I Cor. xii. 8, he explains that "knowledge" has to do with action, or that by which we use rightly things temporal: while wisdom has to do with the contemplation of things eternal. See also in Ps. cxxxv. sec. 8.
143 1 Cor xiii. 2. The Authorized Version and the Vulgate render more correctly, "mysteries." From Palmer (See p. 118, note 3, above), we learn that "the Fathers gave the name of sacrament or mystery to everything which conveyed one signification or property to unassisted reason, and another to faith;" while, at the same time, they counted Baptism and the Lord's Supper as the two great sacraments. The sacraments, then, used in this sense are "varied in their periods," and Augustin, in Ps. lxxiii. 2, speaks of distinguishing between the sacraments of the Old Testament and the sacraments of the New. "Sacramenta novi Testamenti" he says, "dant salutem, sacramenta veteris Testamenti promiserunt salvatorem." So also in Ps. xlvi. he says: "Our Lord God varying, indeed, the sacraments of the words, but commending unto us one faith, hath diffused through the sacred Scriptures manifoldly and variously the faith in which we live, and by which we live. For one and the same thing is said in many ways, that it may be varied in the manner of speaking in order to prevent aversion, but may be preserved as one with a view to concord."
146 1 Cor. iii. 2, and Heb. v. 12. The allusion in our text is to what is called the Disciplina Arcani of the early Church. Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, enters at large into the matter of esoteric teaching, and traces its use amongst the Hebrews, Greeks, and Egyptians. Clement, like Chrysostom and other Fathers, supports this principle of interpretation on the authority of St. Paul in Heb. v. and vi., referred to by Augustin above. He says (as quoted by Bishop Kaye, Clement of Alexandria, ch. iv. p. 183): "Babes must be fed with milk, the perfect man with solid food; milk is catechetical instruction, the first nourishment of the soul; solid food, contemplation penetrating into all mysteries (h9 e0poptikh' qewria), the blood and flesh of the Word, the comprehension of the Divine power and essence." Augustin, therefore, when he speaks of being "contented with the light of the moon and stars," alludes to the partial knowledge imparted to the catechumen during his probationary period before baptism. It was only as competentes, and ready for baptism, that the catechumens were taught the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. We have already adverted to this matter in note 4 on p. 89, and need not now do more than refer the reader to Dr. Newman's Arians. In ch. i. sec. 3 of that work, there are some most interesting pages on this subject, in its connection with the Catechetical School of Alexandria. See also p. 118, note 8, above; Palmer, Origines Liturgicae, iv. sec. 7: and note 1, below.
147 Those ready for strong meat were called "illuminated" (See p. 118, note 4, above), as their eyes were "enabled to look upon the Sun." We have frequent traces in Augustin's writings of the Neo-Platonic doctrine that the soul has a capacity to see God, even as the eye the sun. In Serm. lxxxviii. 6 he says: "Daretne tibi unde videres solem quem fecit, et non tibi daret unde videres eum qui te fecit, cum te ad imaginem suam fecerit?" And, referring to 1 John iii. 2, he tells us in Ep. xcii. 3, that not with the bodily eye shall we see God, but with the inner, which is to be renewed day by day: "We shall, therefore, see Him according to the measure in which we shall be like Him; because now the measure in which we do not see Him is according to the measure of our unlikeness to Him." Compare also Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, c. 4: "Plato, indeed, says, that the mind's eye is of such a nature, and has been given for this end, that we may see that very Being who is the cause of all when the mind is pure itself." Some interesting remarks on this subject, and on the three degrees of divine knowledge as held by the Neo-Platonists, will be found in John Smith's Select Discourses, pp. 2 and 165 (Cambridge 1860). On growth in grace, See note 4, p. 140, above.
148 "He alludes to the sacrament of Baptism."-W. W.
169 That is, as having their light from Him who is their central Sun (See p. 76, note 2, above). For it is true of all Christians in relation to their Lord, as he says of John the Baptist (Serm. ccclxxxii. 7): "Johannes lumen illuminatum: Christus lumen illuminans." See also note 1, above.
173 Ps. xix. 3, 4. The word "sound" in this verse (as given in the LXX. and Vulg.), is in the Hebrew sw@kaqrke
, which is rightly rendered in the Authorized Version a "line" or "rule." It may be noted, in connection with Augustin's interpretation, that the word "firmament" in the first verse of this psalm is the Ckayqkae
of Gen. i. 7: translated in both places by the LXX. steriwma The "heavens" and the "firmament" are constantly interpreted by the Fathers as referring to the apostles and their firmness in teaching the word: and this is supported by reference to St. Paul's quotation of the text in Rom. x. 18: "But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."
175 See end of note 17, p. 197, above.
176 "He alludes to Baptism in water, accompanied with the word of the gospel; of the institution whereof man's misery was the occasion."-W. W.
178 "He means that Baptism, which is the sacrament of initiation, was not so profitable without the Lord's Supper, which ancients called the sacrament of perfection or consummation."-W. W. Compare also sec. 24, note, and p. 140, note 3, above.
179 See sec. 20, note, and sec. 21, note, above.
185 "Fundasti super aquas," which is the Old Ver. of Ps. cxxxvi. 6. Augustin sometimes uses a version with "firmavit terram," which corresponds to the LXX., but the Authorized Version renders the Hebrew more accurately by "stretched out." In his comment on this place he applies this text to baptism as being the entrance into the Church, and in this he is followed by many mediaeval writers.
186 Ps. xxiii. 5. Many of the Fathers interpret this text of the Lord's Supper, as Augustin does above. The fish taken out of the deep, which is fed upon, means Christ, in accordance with the well-known acrostic of IlQUS "If," he says in his De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23, "you join the initial letters of these five Greek words, Ihsou=j Xristoj qeou= Uio/j Swt'hr, which mean, `Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour, 0' they will make the word ixquj,,-that is, `fish, 0' in which word Christ is mystically understood, because He was able to live, that is, to exist without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters." So likewise we find Tertullian saying in his De Bapt. chap. i.: "Nos pisciculi, secundum IXQUN nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur; nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus." See Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, pp. 43, 44; and sec. 34, below.
191 1Tim. vi. 20. See p. 153, note 7, above.
192 Jer. ii. 13. See p. 133, note 2, and p. 129, note 8, above.
201 In his De Gen. con. Manich. i. 20, he interprets the dominion given to man over the beasts of his keeping in subjection the passions of the soul, so as to attain true happiness.
202 As Origen has it: "The good man is he who truly exists." See p. 190, note 6, above; and compare the use made of the idea in Archbishop Thomson's Bampton Lectures, lect. i.
217 In his De Civ. Dei, xi. 3, he defines very distinctly (as he does in other of his writings) the knowledge received "by sight"-that is, by experience, as distinguished from that which is received "by faith"-that is, by revelation (2 Cor. v. 7). He, in common with all the Fathers who had knowledge of the Pagan philosophy, would feel how utterly that philosophy had failed to "find out" (Job xi. 7) with certitude anything as to God and His character,-the Creation of the world,-the Atonement wrought by Christ,-the doctrine of the Resurrection, as distinguished from the Immortality of the Soul,-our Immortal Destiny after death, or "the Restitution of all things." As to the knowledge of God, see Justin Martyr's experience in the schools of philosophy, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. ii.; and on the doctrine of Creation, See p. 165, note 4. On the "Restitution of all things," etc., reference may be made to Mansel's Gnostics, who points out (Introd. p. 3) that "in the Greek philosophical systems the idea of evil holds a very subordinate and insignificant place, and that the idea of redemption seems not to be recognised at all." He shows further (ibid. p. 4), that "there is no idea of the delivery of the creature from the bondage of corruption. The great year of the Stoics, the commencement of the new cycle which takes its place after the destruction of the old world, is but a repetition of the old evil." See also p. 164, note 2, above.
224 See p. 189, note 2, above.
225 See p. 199, note 3, above.
226 See sec. 21, and note, above.
227 Rom. iii. 4, and Ps. cxvi. 11.
234 "Rationalem. An old epithet to most of the holy things. So, reasonable service, Rom. xii. 1, logiko'n ga/la; 1 Pet. ii. 2, sincere milk. Clem. Alex. calls Baptism so, Pedag. i. 6. And in Constitut. Apost. vi. 23, the Eucharist is styled, a reasonable Sacrifice. The word was used to distinguish Christian mysteries from Jewish. Rationale est spirituale."-W. W.
242 Compare p. 160, note 2, above.
244 Compare his De Bono Conjug. ch. xxi., where he points out that while any may suffer need and abound, to know how to suffer belongs only to great souls, and to know how to abound to those whom abundance does not corrupt.
248 1 Kings xvii. See p. 133, note 2, above.
249 We have already referred (p. 69, note 5, above) to the cessation of miracles. Augustin has a beautiful passage in Serm. ccxliv. 8, on the evidence which we have in the spread of Christianity-it doing for us what miracles did for the early Church. Compare also De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8. And he frequently alludes, as, for example, in Ps. cxxx., to "charity" being more desirable than the power of working miracles.
251 In his De Gen. con. Manich. i. 21, he enlarges to the same effect on Gen. i. 31.
252 He alludes in the above statements to the heretical notions of the Manichaeans. Their speculations on these matters are enlarged on in note 8 on p. 76.
255 See the end of note 1, p. 74.
257 In his Retractations, ii. 6, he says: "Non satis considerate dictum est; res enem in abdito est valde."
258 Compare De Gen. con. Manich. ii. 15.
259 " `Concipiendam, 0' or the reading may be `concupiscendam, 0' according to St. Augustin's interpretation of Gen. iii. 16, in the De Gen. con. Manich. ii. 15. `As an instance hereof was woman made, who is in the order of things made subject to the man; that what appears more evidently in two human beings, the man and the woman, may be contemplated in the one, man; viz. that the inward man, as it were manly reason, should have in subjection the appetiteof the soul, whereby we act through the bodily members. 0' "-E. B. P.
260 See p. 165, note 4, above.
263 See p. 165, note 2, above.
264 "The peace of heaven," says Augustin in his De Civ. Dei, xix. 17, "alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. When we shall have reached that peace, this mortal life shall give place to one that is eternal, and our body shall be no more this animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but a spiritual body feeling no want, and in all its members subjected to the will." See p. 111, note 8 (end), above.
265 Compare his De Gen. ad Lit. iv. 9: "For as God is properly said to do what we do when He works in us, so is God properly said to rest when by His gift we rest."
1 Philosophie de St. Augustin, Preface.
2 Essai sur les Conf. de St. Aug. p.5.
1 Hermogenianus was one of the earliest and most intimate friends of Augustin, and his associate in literary and philosophical studies.
2 [Academy was a grove dedicated to the Attic hero Academos, on the banks of the Kephissos near Athens, where Plato taught. Hence it became the name of the Platonic school of philosophy. It had three branches,-the Older, the Middle, and the Younger Academy. The study of Platonism was a preparatory step to the conversion of Augustin in 386.-P. S.]
3 We follow the reading "tegendi veri."
4 [Carneades of Cyrene (B.C. 214-129), the founder of the third Academic school, who came to Rome B.C. 155, went further in the direction of scepticism than Arcesilas, and taught that certain knowledge was impossible. See Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, i. 133, 136 (transl. of Morris).-P. S.]
5 Augustin's work, De Academicis, b. iii. c. 20.
6 Zenobius was the friend to whom Augustin dedicated his books De Ordine. In book i. ch. 1 and 2, we have a delightful description of the character of Zenobius.
8 The character of Nebridius, and the intimacy of friendship between him and Augustin, may be seen in the Confessions, b. ix. c. 3.
9 Had Augustin been acquainted with the decimal notation, he would not have made this remark to Alypius; for in the decimal scale, when the point is inserted, tractional parts go on diminishing according to the number of cyphers between them and the point (e.g .001), precisely as the integers increase according to the number of cyphers between them and the decimal point (e.g. 100.),-there being no limit to the descending series on the right hand of the decimal point, any more than to the ascending series on the left hand of the same point.
11 Augustin's acquaintance with the first principles of optics, and with the properties of reflection possessed by convex, plane, and concave mirrors, was very limited.
14 Present infinitive passive of cupere, to desire.
15 Infinitive passive of verbs signifying respectively to "throw" and to "catch."
17 Quamvis non omnis phantasia cum memoria sit, omnis tamen memoria, sine phantasia esse non possit.
18 Dramatis personae in Terence.
19 Referring to Manichaean notions.
21 Pro ipsius divini juris fide.
24 Text, "deificari" for "aedificari" (?).
25 A liquid praeter invicem faciunt.
27 An sit, quid sit, quale sit.
28 We leave untranslated the words "quae diffirmando sunt otio necessaria," the text here being evidently corrupt.
29 The phrase used by Nebridius had been "longior quam longissima," which Augustin here quotes, and afterwards playfully alludes to in sec. 3.
30 The text contains the word "sex" here, which is omitted in the translation. The reading is uncertain.
34 "Mene salis placidi vultum fluctusque quietos Ignorare jubes?"-Aen. v. 848, 849.
36 "Inque Deûm templis jurabit Roma per umbras," Lucan, Pharsalia, vii. 459.
37 Virg. Eclog. ii. 65: "Trahit sua quemque voluptas."
38 Virg. Aeneid, vii. 302: "Et nos et tua dexter adi pede sacra secundo."
39 "Trahit sua quemque voluptas."
40 "Primus ab aethereo venit Saturnis OlympoArma Jovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis." Aen. viii. 319, 320.
41 We give the original of this important sentence: "Scias a Christianis catholicis (quorum in vestro oppido etiam ecclesia constituta est) nullum coli mortuorum, nihi denique ut numen adorari quod sit factum et conditum a Deo, sed unum ipsum Deum qui fecit et condidit omnia."
42 The sense here obviously requires "vestri" instead of " nostri." which is in the text.
44 [A most noble sentence, which contains, as in a nutshell, a whole system of pastoral theology.-P.S.]
45 They thought Augustin was disappointed at being made only presbyter and not colleague of Valerius as bishop. See Possidius, Aug. Vita, c. 4.
46 We adopt the conjectural reading "conciliorum." Compare sec. 4, p. 240.
49 Manifestly the correct punctuation here is: Haec si primaAfrica tentaret auferre, a caeteris terris imitatione digna esse deberet.
51 Magis monendo quam minando.
52 One may see in Letter XXIX. how admirably Augustin illustrated in his own practice the directions here given.
53 "De contentione et dolo" is Augustin's translation of the words in Rom. xiii.; 13.
58 Ps. xlix. 12, version of the LXX.
64 Ex iv 24, 25. Augustin believes that the angel sought to slay, not Moses, but the child, for which he gives reasons in his Quaestiones in Exodum. See Rosenmüller, Scholia.
69 Licentius, son of Romanianus, had been a pupil of Augustin when he was in retirement at Cassiacum. In this letter and in the next we see proofs of Augustin's pious solicitude for his welfare.
70 Extract from a long poem, by Licentius, forming § 3 of the text.
73 Compare end of sec. 3 in Letter xxv. p. 246.
75 Romanianus. See De Religione, ch. vii. n. 12.
79 The reference is to Ps. cxli. 5, the words of which translated from the LXX. version, are given in full in the succeeding letter.
80 This may approximate to a translation of the three titles in the original, "Germanitas, Beatitudo, Humanitas tua."
81 [The letters to Jerome, and Jerome's replies, are among the most interesting and important in this correspondence, especially those parts which relate to Jerome's revision of the Latin version of the Bible, and his interpretation of Gal. ii. 11-14. See Letters 40, 71, 72, 73, 75, 81, 82, 172, 195, 202. Augustin was inferior to Jerome in learning, especially as a linguist, but superior in Christian temper and humility. Jerome's false interpretation of the dispute between Paul and Peter at Antioch, which involved both apostles in hypocrisy, offended Augustin's keener sense of veracity. He here protests against it in this letter (ch. iii. ), and again in Letter 40, and thereby provokes Jerome's irritable temper. His last letters to Augustin, however, show sincere esteem and affection.-P. S.]
88 Ps. cxli. 5, translated from the Septuagint.
89 Leontius was Bishop of Hippo in the latter part of the second century. He built a church which was called after him, and in which some of the sermons of Augustin were delivered.
107 A magistrate who was also charged with the affairs pertaining to the protection of religion. The title belonged primarily to those who in the province of Asia had charge of the games.-Codex Theodosianus, xv. 9.
111 Paulinus was then at Nola, having gone thither from Barcelona in A.D. 393 or 394. He became Bishop ot Nola in 409.
113 This refers to the voluntary poverty which Paulinus and Therasia, though of high rank and great wealth, embraced, selling all that they had in order to give to the poor.
118 These books of Ambrose are lost.
123 Isa. iii. 12, according to the LXX. version.
127 During Lent and the Easter holidays.
129 Constantina, a chief city of Numidia.
130 Turris, a town in Numidia.
131 Aceessus indisciplinatus sanctimonialium.
132 2 Tim. iv. 2 and Tit. i. 9-11.
134 We give the ipsissima verba of this canon: "In his enim rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura divina mos populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt."
135 In the text the name is Urbicus, from Urbs Roma.
148 Priscillian, Bishop of Avila in Spain, adopted Gnostic and Manichaean errors and practices. He was condemned by the Synod of Saragossa in 381 A.D., and beheaded, along with his principal followers, by order of Maximus in 385 A.D.
151 "Prima Sabbati a Matthaeo, a caetetis autem tribus una Sabbati dicitur." Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 2; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1.
153 Commonly called quarta feria.
161 Simplicianus succeeded Ambrose in the see of Milan in 397 A.D. This letter is the preface to the two books addressed to Simplicianus, and contained in vol. vi. of the Benedictine edition of Augstin.
164 Megalius, Bishop of Calama and Primate of Numidia, by whom two years before Augustin had been ordained Bishop of Hippo. The reflections upon anger which follow the allusion here to the death of Megalius were probably suggested by the remembrance of an incident in the life of that bishop. While Augustin was a presbyter, Megalius had written in anger a letter to him for which he afterwards apologized, formally retracting calumny which it contained.
169 [Velut officiosa mendacia.]
180 The reference here is to the story of the poet Stesichorus, who, having lost his sight as a judgment for writing an attack on Helen,was miraculously healed when he wrote a poem in retractation.
182 See Letter XXVIII. sec. 5.
188 On this work of Tychonius, see Augustin, De Doctrina Christiana, b. iii., in which these seven keys for the opening of Scripture are stated and examined.
194 Tubursi, a town recently identified' half-way between Calama and Madaura.
195 They asked judges from Gaul, as a country in which none had been guilty of surrendering the sacred books under pressure of persecution. The bishops appointed were Maternus of Agrippina, Rheticius of Augustodunum, and Marinus of Arles. They were sent to Rome with fifteen Italian bishops; Melchiades, Bishop of Rome, presided in their meeting in A.D. 313, and acquitted Caecilianus.
196 "In qua semper apostolicae cathedrae viguit principatus." The use in the translalion of the indefinite article, "an apostolic chair," is vindicated by the language of Augustin in sec 26 of this letter regarding Carthage, and by the words in Letter CCXXXII. sec. 3: "Christianae societatis quae per sedes apostolorum et successiones episcoporum certa per orbem propagatione diffunditur."
199 Ungulae, mentioned in Codex Justinianus. ix. 18. 7.
200 Ordained by the Donatists bishop of Carthage in room of Caecilianus.
202 Augustin translates e'ba/stasaj (E. V. "hast 1aboured") by "sustinuisti eos"-"hast tolerated them;" and upon this his argument turns.
207 Augustin holds that Judas was present at the institution of the Lord's Supper. See Letter XLIV. sec. 10, p. 288.
211 The original has a play on the words Lucillam and Lucem.
212 A deacon in the Donatist communion at Carthage. This matter is more fully gone into by Augustin in his second sermon on Ps. xxxvi.
216 Macarius was sent in a.d. 348 by the Emperor Constans to Africa, to exhort all to cherish the unity of the Catholic Church, and at the same time to collect for the relief of the poor. The vehement opposition with which the Donatists met him led to conflicts and bloodshed, the Donatists claiming the honour of martyrdom for all of their party who fell in fighting with the imperial soldiers.
218 Qui novit cui etiam prosit occidi.
226 The Caelicolae are mentioned in some laws of Honorius as heretics whose heresy, if they refused to abandon it, involved them in civil penalties.
231 The Benedictine Fathers translate this, in their note, sitz-bath.
239 Ps. xxiv. 1; 1 Cor. x. 25, 26; and 1 Tim. iv. 4.
240 For Augstin's mature view on this subject, see his work. De Libero Arbitrio, i. 5. 13: "That it is wrong to shed the blood of our fellow-men in defence of those things which ought to be despised by us."
243 The monastery of these brethren was in the island of Capraria-the same, I suppose, with Caprera-now so widely famous as Garibaldi's home.
260 Cilicium, the garment of goats' hair worn by the brethren. These were the staple article of manufacture in Caprera, "the goat island."
261 This letter is found only in the Vatican Ms. On this ground, and because of its tone and style, its composition has been ascribed to another hand than Augustin's. The reader may judge for himself. The sixty Christians of Suffectum (a town in the territory of Tunis), whose death is here mentioned, are commemorated in the martyrology of the Roman Catholic Church. Their day in the Calendar is Aug. 30.
266 Felicianus and Praetextatus were two of the twelve bishops by whom Maximianus was ordained. They were condemned by the Donatist Council of Bagae; but finding it impossible to eject them from their sees, the Donatists yielded after a time, and restored them to their office. See Letter LIII. p. 299.
269 We conjecture this to be the meaning of the elliptical expression EUTUXWS with which the letter ends.
270 "Ordo." The phrase is afterwards given (sec. 2) more fully, "ordo episcoporum sibi succcdentium."
274 Totius Ecclesiae figuram gerenti.
277 Compare the allusion to the same custom in Letter XLIII. sec. 21, p. 155.
284 Compare Letter XXXVI. sec. 32, p. 270.
289 In his Retractations, b. ii. ch. xx., Augustin remarks on this statement: "I do not recollect any passage by which it could be substantiated, except from the book of Wisdom (ch. xvi. 21), which the Jews do not admit to be of canonical authority." He says, in the same place, that this peculiarity of the manna must have been enjoyed only by the pious in Israel, not by the murmurers who said, "Our soul loatheth this light bread" (Num. xxi. 5).
294 "Ante" is the reading of seven Mss. The Benedictine edition gives "post" in the text. We think the former gives better sense.
298 Had Augustin not been obliged to take his Hebrew at second hand, he might have seen that the word xep%
does not bear out his interpretation. Ex. xii. 13, 27
305 Col. ii. 12 and Rom. vi. 4.
328 Ps. x. 3, as rendered by Aug.
330 Ps. xi. 3: in the LXX. version, tou=j katatoceu=sai e0n skotomhnh tou'j eu'qei=j th= kardia|.
333 Ps. lxxii. 7, Septuagint version.
348 Augustin interprets the "love of God" here as meaning our love to Him, and equivalent to delighting in Him.
357 Figurate observandum praecipitur.
360 Ex. xx. 1-17; Deut. v. 6-21.
361 Ex illo habere caepit festivitatem suam.
363 Eccles. xi. 2; which Aug. translates, "Da illis septem, et illis octo."
370 Ps. cxix. 120; Septuagint version, kaqh/lwson e0k tou= fo/bon sou ta'j sa'rkaj mou.
377 1 Cor. xv. 54, 26, 51-the last of these verses being rendered by Augustin here, not as in the English version, but as given above.
382 In translating, we have ventured to take this title of Chap. xv. out of the place which the Benedictines have given to it, in the middle of a sentence of the preceding paragraph. There it almost hopelessly bewildered the reader. Here it prepares him for a new topic.
387 Compare "octavus qui et primus," and the remarks on the meaning of the number 8 in § 23.
388 We give the original of this very obscure paragraph:-"Numero autem quadragenario vitam istam propter ea figurari arbitror, quia denarius in quo est perfectio beatitudinis nostrae, sicut in octonario, quia redit ad primum, ita in hoc mihi videtur exprimi: quia creature, quae septenario figuratur adhaeret Creatori in quo declaratur unitas Trinitatis per umversum mundum temporaliter annuntianda; qui mundus et a quatuor ventis delimatur et quatuor elementis erigitur, et quatuor anni ternporum vicibus variatur. Decem autem quater in quadraginta consummantur, quadragenarius autem partibus suis computatus, addit ipsmn denarium et fiunt quinquaginta tanquam merces laboris et conttnentiae."
405 The eighteenth in the English Bible.
406 2 Sam. xxii. 2-51. The title of that book is in the LXX. the 2d book of Kings.
410 He refers to the significance of the standing upright as an emblem of resurrection.
411 Preaching. The word in the original is "disputatur,"-something much more lively an entertaining.
412 I have taken the liberty here of putting the beginning of the chapter and paragraph a sentence further on than in the Benedictine edition, so as to finish in sec. 34 the remarks on psalm-singing.
422 The primacy in Numidia belonged not to the bishop of the most important town, but to the oldest bishop.
423 The council held at Carthage in September 401.
426 Severus, bishop of Milevi in Numidia, had at one time been an inmate of the monastery of Augustin, and was held by him in the highest esteem.
427 Tillemont suggests that this may be "the sexton," and not a proper name.
434 See Council of Hippo, A.D. 393, Can. 38, and the third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, Can. 47.
436 Council of Carthage, 13th Sept. 401.
437 Council of Carthage, 13th Sept. 401.
438 This title in the African Church seems equivalent to Primate when applied to a bishop. See Letter LIX.
439 Held at Carthage, 13th Sept. 401.
440 Held at Carthage, A.D. 318 or 319, Can. 11.
441 About eighty persons, on a property which he had acquired, were compelled by Crispinus to undergo submersion, notwithstanding their groaning and protesting against this tyrannical act of their new landlord.
444 See Letter XL. sec. 7, p. 274.
446 "Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo: Sed praecddenti spectatur mantica tergo."-Sat. iv. 29. See also Phaedrus, iv. 10.
447 Virgil, Aeneid, v. 369 seq.
449 It would seem that there was some reason to fear lest Castorius should elsewhere devote his talents to some other calling, and that a deputation from Vagina had been sent to seek him and bring him to that place. Alypius and Augustin for some reason did not accompany the deputation, but sent this letter with them.
451 I have taken the liberty of making chap. ii begin at the end instead of the beginning of this sentence, where its interruption of the paragraph bewilders the reader.
454 See Jeromes Letter, LXVIII., sec. 2, p. 325.
459 Job vii. 1, according to the LXX., and more correctly than in E.V.
469 Ps. iv. 7, according to the LXX.
472 Ps. lxviii 11, in LXX. version.
477 "Videntem meum Didymum "-Didymus of Alexandria, who, at the time when Jerome wrote his book on ecclesiastical writers (A.D. 392), was above ninety-three years of age. He became blind when he was five years old, but by perseverance attained extraordinary learning, and was much esteemed.
478 The younger Apollinarius, who in 380 was excommunicated for error regarding the Incarnation. His works were valuable, but have been almost all lost, being not transcribed because of his lapsing into heresy.
482 In the tenth book of his Stroniata, where he expounds the Epistle to the Galatians.
483 This year (404) was the year of John Chrysostom's banishment from Constantinople, after being pontiff there for ten years.
486 Acts xiv. 27, and xv. 1-12.
492 Acts xxiii. 23, xxviii. 14, 30.
497 Matt. xi. 13 and Luke xvi. 16.
505 Letter XL. sec. 5, p. 273.
508 Phil, iii. 8. Letter XL. sec.6, p.274.
512 Letter XXVIII. ch. ii. p. 251.
513 De optimo genere interpretandi.
514 Letter LXXI., sec. 5, p. 327.
515 The critic here referred to was Canthelius, whom Jerome abuses in his commentary on the passage, insinuating that the reason why the gourds found in this scion of a noble house a champion so devoted, was that they had often rendered him a service which ivy could not have done, screening his secret potations from public notice.
516 Alluding to the extent to which Rome was indebted to Africa for corn.
521 The original here is antithetical: "jam vos videtis, et adhuc invidetis."
528 Proceedings before Munatius Felix, Letter LIII. sec. 4, p. 299.
529 Optatus, Donatist bishop of Thamugada, was cast into prison A.D. 397, and died there. He was a partisan of Gildo in his rebellion against Honorius, and shared the misfortunes, as he had participated in the crimes, of his chief.
534 He refers to their visiting the tomb of Felix of Nola, in the hope that by some miracle there the innocent and the guilty would be distinguished. See Letter LXXVIII. sec. 3, p. 346.
541 Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, Can. 7, 8.
545 Aug translates, "be sober and righteous."
547 "Nor count it is a great thing that they despise you."-Aug.
550 Deut. xxix. 29. This verse is the nearest I can find to the words here quoted by the apostle. The reference in the Bened. edition to 1 Cor. v. 12 must be a mistake.
552 Ps. lxix. 26, as translated by Aug.
572 In his Retractations i. 16, Augustin mentions his having defeated Fortunatus in discussion before he was made bishop of Hippo.
574 Ludamus. Letter LXXXI. On this unfortunate word of Jerome's Augustin lingers with most provoking inguenuity.
575 See Letter LXXII., sec. 2.
589 See Jerome's Letter, LXXV. sec. 16, p. 340.
591 See Letter LXXV. sec 13, p. 338.
592 See Letter LXXV. sec. 14, pp. 338, 339.
603 Jerome, Letter LXXV. sec. 14, p. 339.
604 Ex. xx. 17 and Deut. v. 21.
605 Evangelica maxime illustrations praedicari.
611 Letter LXXX. sec. 14, p. 339.
616 Cum ipsa fides in latino sermone ab eo dicatur appellata quia fit quod dicitur.
617 Jerome's Letter, LXXV. sec. 6, p.335.
619 In his Commentary on Galations.
620 In his letter, LXX., to Quintas; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. v. p. 377.
622 Letter XL. sec. 4, p. 273, quoted also by Jerome, LXXV. sec. 12, p. 338.
624 We follow here the reading of fourteen Mss., "agit" instead of "ait."
630 Terence, Andria, Acti. Sc. 1.
634 An important sentence, as indicating the estimation in which Augustin held the "consensus patrum" as an authority in the interpretation of Scripture.
636 It is interesting to know that Jerome afterwards admitted the soundness of the view so ably and reasonably defended by Augustin in this letter concerning the rebuke of Peter at Antioch. In Letter CLXXX., addressed to Oceanus, we have these words: "This question the venerable Father Jerome and I have discussed fully in letters which we exchanged; and in the last work which he teas published against Pelagius, under the name of Critobulus. he has maintained the same opinion concerning that event, and the sayings of the apostles, as I myself had adopted, following the blessed Cyprian." See Jerome, book i., against the Pelagians, and Cyprian, Letter LXX., to Quintus.
638 This letter has not been preserved.
644 The text here gives latinâ. All that we know of the languages then spoken in Hippo would lead us to suppose that punicâ must have been written here by Augustin.
648 Regionem Hipponensium Regiorum.
660 Rogatus, bishop of Cartenna in Mauritania, who left the Donatists and suffered much persecution at the hands of Firmus, a brother of Gildo; hence the Donatists were named by the Rogatists Firmiani See Augustin, Contra Literas Petiliani, book ii ch. 83.
661 Bishop of Casae Nigrae in Nunntdia, and at that time the Donatist primate, as the oldest of their bishops.
665 The actual heading of the Report stands thus: "A. GGG. NNN. Anulinus VC. proconsul Africae." For the tnterpretation we are indebted to the marginal note on the Codex Gervasianus.
668 The value of the evidence of these wirnesses is apparent when we remember that they were all in a position to speak from personal knowledge of the persecution in A.D. 303 (under Diocletian and Maximian), and had in their public capacity some share in enforcing the demand made in that persecution for the surrender of the sacred books. These could tell whether Felix the Bishop of Aptunga was guilty or not of the unfaithfulness to his religion with which the faction of Majorinus reproached him.
671 Ecclus. xxvii. 29, and Prov. xxvi. 27.
672 Donatist bishop of Hippo. See Letter XXXIII. p. 260.
674 For a more detailed reference to this case, see Letter CV. sec. 4. Crispinus was charged with an attempt to kill Possidius the bishop of Calama. See also Aug. Cont. Crescon. b. iii. c. 46, n. 50, and c. 47, n. 51.
675 Isa. lxvi. 5, as given by Augustin.
683 He refers to a riot in which the Pagans, after celebrating a heathen festival, attacked the Christians on June 1, 408 A.D.
685 Here culminates in the original a play upon words, towards which Augustin has been working with the ingenuity of a rhetorician from the beginning of the second paragraph; but the zest of his wit is necessarily lost in translation, because in our language the words "flower" and "flourish" are not so immediately suggestive of each other as the corresponding noun and verb in Latin (flos and florere).
687 The law of Honorius, passed on Nov. 24, 407, forbidding the celebration of public heathen solemnities and festivals (quidquam, solemnitatis agitare).
708 Gen. xii., Ge xxvi., xlii., and xliii..
718 Acts xvi. 22, 23, xviii. 17.
734 "Quod volumus sanctum est."-Tychonius.
753 Typhus morticinae pelliculae.
764 Meridie; at noon, E. V. Cant. i. 7.
771 Quoslibet is obviously the true reading.
774 In this and the other passages quoted, Augustin translates from the LXX.
780 Nisi cognoveris temetipsam.
792 Tit. ii. 4; periou/sioj being translated by Augustin "abundans," where our version has "peculiar."
796 Vincentius had quoted from Hilary's work, De Synodis adversum Arianos, a sentence to the effect that, with the exception of a very small remnant, the ten provinces of Asia in which he was settled were truly ignorant of God.
814 Agrippinus, successor of Cyprian in the see of Carthage.
817 See Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. v. p. 379.
818 Held at Carthage, A.D. 256.
819 Prov. xxx. 12, e_kgonon kako0n dikaion e0auto'n kri/nei, thn d= e0codon au0tou= ou/k a0pe/niyen
823 Letter LI. 21. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. v. p. 332.
825 This Council at Carthage is not elsewhere mentioned.
840 Disputationibus legalibus.
847 Possidus, bishop of Calama, was going to Rome to complain of the outrage of the Pagens of Calama, described in Letter XCI. sec. 8, p. 378.
857 Ps. lv. 5-8, as given in the LXX.
864 Luke xxiv. 15-43; John xx. 14-29; Mark xvi. 12, 14.
866 Gen. xviii. 2-9 and Gen. xix. 1-3.
868 This Olympius was appointed in 408 (A.D.) to the office of highest authority in the court of Honorius (magister officiorum), in room of Stilicho, who was put to death at Ravenna on account of suspected complicity with the authors of the sedition which threatened the life of the emperor at Pavia.
872 Cyprian, de Lapsis. See Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. v. p. 439.
876 As this is an importance, we give the original words: Sicut ergo secundum quemdam modum sacramentum corporis Christi corpus Christi est, sacramentum sauguinis Christi sangis Christi est, ita sacramentum fidei fides est.
879 Tillemont (vol. xiii. note 44) conjectures that the word "non" before "nobis insinuare curavit" should not be in the text,-a conjecture which commends itself to our judgment, though it is unsupported by Mss.
The calamities referred to are the events connected with the seige of Rome by Alaric in the end of 408.
882 We have no further information regarding this affair. The prospect of an amicable settlement seems remote.
886 We regard Memori, not Memorio, as the true reading.
895 Julian, son of Memor, afterwards a leading supporter of the Pelagian heresy.
897 Ps. lxviii. 6, Septuagint.
898 Qui nuliâ seminis conditione natus est.
904 Augustin, having been informed by Hilary (Ep. 219) that this passage was quoted by Semipelagians in defence of their error, made the following remark on it in his work De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, c. ix.: "Do you not observe that my design in this sentence was, without excluding the secret counsel of God and any other causes, to say, in reference to Christ's foreknowledge, what seemed sufficient to reduce to silence the unbelief of the Pagans by whom the objection had been raised? For what is more certain than this, that Christ foreknew who would believe in Him, and in what time and place they would live? But I did not deem it necessary, in that connection, to investigate and discuss the question as to this faith in Christ preached to them, whether they would have it of themselves or would receive it from God-in other words, whether God merely foreknew, or also predestinated them. The sentence, therefore, `that it pleased Christ to appoint the time in which He would appear, and the persons among whom His doctrine was to be proclaimed, according to His knowledge of the times and places in which men would believe in Him, 0' might have been put thus: that it pleased Christ to appoint the time in which He would appear, and the persons among whom His doctrine was to be proclaimed, according to His knowledge of the times and places in which those would be found who had been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world."
906 On these words Augustin remarks in his Retractations, Book II. ch. xxxi.: "This I said, not meaning that any one could be, worthy through his own merit, but in the same sense as the apostle said, `Not of works, but of Him that calleth; it was said unto her, "The elder shall serve the younger" 0' (Rom. ix. 11, 12),-a calling which he affirms to pertain to the purpose of God. For which reason he says, `Not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace 0' (2 Tim. i. 9): and again, `We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose 0' (Rom. viii. 28). Of which calling he says, `That our God would count you worthy of this calling 0' (2 Thess. i. 11)."
908 Ps. xvi. 2: o_ti tw=n a0gaqw=n mou ou0 xreian e_xeij, LXX.
909 E.g., in the reply to Faustus, Book xxii.
911 Ps. xcvi. 5: daimo/nia, LXX.
916 "Longam syllabam esse duorum temporum brevem unius etiam pueri sciunt."-Quintil. ix. 4, 47.
917 Prov. viii. 25: pro' de' pa/ntwn bounw=n genna= me, LXX.
922 Augustin's words are: quis convertit aquam in vestimento? from the LXX.: tij sunestreyen udwr e0n imatiw.
930 Ps. xxii. The title in the LXX. is, "u9pir yh= a0ntilhye/wj th=j e9wqinh=j," which Augustin translates, "pro susceptione matutina."
948 Song of the Three Holy Children, vers. 3-14
956 Song of the Three Children, vers 15-22.
958 This officer, "magister memoriae," was a private secretary of the emperor, and had, among other privileges of his office, the right of granting liberty to private individuals to travel by the imperial conveyances along the great highways connecting Rome with the remotest boundaries of the provinces. See Suetonitis, Vita Augnsti, chap. xlix., and Pliny, Letters, Books x.-xiv., and Codex Jnstiniani, Book xii. Title 51.
959 We conjecture from the context that this expresses the force of the obscure words, "saltem timeantur annonae."
960 "Scire tuum nibil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."-Persius, Sat. i. 27.
961 Cornicules. The lapse of centuries may have introduced into the north of Africa birds unknown in Augustin's time. The translator has seen these birds in Egypt.
965 We give the original of this exquisite sentence, both far its intrinsic value, and because it is a good example of that antithetic style of writing which makes the exact and felicitous rendering of Augustin's words into any other language peculiarly difficult: Nisi humilitas omnia qaecumque bene facimus et praecesserit, et comitetur, et consecula fuerit, et proposita quam intueamur, et appsosita cui adhaereamus, et imposita qua reprimamur, jam nobis de aliquo bono facto gaudentibus totum extorquet de manu superbia.
966 The words of Cicero are: "Post, Anaximenes aera Deum statuit, eumque gigni, esseque immensum, et infinitum, et semper in motu: quasi aut aer sine ulla forma Deus esse possit, cum praesertim Deum non modo aliqua sed pulcherrima specie esse deceat: aut non omne quod ortum sit mortalitas consequatur."-De Natura Deorum, Book 1.
967 Ipsam veritatem atque sapientiam.
968 The words of Cicero are these: "Nec vidit neque motum sensui junctum et continentem in infinito ullum esse posse, neque sensum omnino auo non tota natura pulsa sentiret." Augustin, quoting probably from memory (see § 9), gives infinto as the dative of possession instead of in infinito.
969 Cicero, de Natura Deorum, lib. 1.
970 Litteriones ut militariter loquar.
971 Cicero, de Natura Deorum, lib. I.
974 Paula, Eustochium, and other recluses of Bethlehem.
975 Two opinions have been advanced as to the signification of this enigmatical allusion to the events recorded in Jeremiah, chap. xliii. Some think that Jerome refers to Rome, then occupied by the Goths. Others find here a reference to the state of the Church at Jerusalem at the time; perhaps under the name of Nebuchadnezzar some heretical bishop is designed.
976 The name Melania, though now almost as little known to the world at large as the fossil univalve molluscs to which palaeontologists have assigned the designation, was in the time of Augustin highly esteemed throughout Christendom. The elder Melania, a lady of rank and affluence, left Rome when it was threatened by Alaric, and spent thirty-seven years in the East, returning to the city in 445 A.D. her daughter-in-law, Albina, and her grand-daughter, the younger Melania (whose husband was the Pinianus mentioned here and in the two following letters), left Rome with her in 408 A.D., and after spending two years in Sicily, passed over into Africa, and fixed their residence at Thagaste, the native town of St. Augustin. A visit which they paid to him at Hippo was the occasion of the extraordinary proceedings. referred to in Letters CXXV. and CXXVI.
978 The "absis" was a chapel or recess in the choir, where the bishop was accustomed to stand surrounded by his clergy.
979 Zech. v. 4. Augustin calls it "Zachariae falx," translating, as the LXX. have done: dre/panon.
983 Anicia Faltonia Proba, the widow of Sextus Petronius Probus, belonged to a Roman family of great wealth and noble lineage. Three of her sons held the consulship, two of them together in 395 A.D., and the third in 406 A.D. When Rome was taken by Alaric m 410, Proba and her family were in the city, and narrowly escaped from violence during the six days in which the Goths pillaged the city, About this time one of the sons of Proba died, and very soon after this sad event she resolved to quit Rome, as the return of Alaric was daily apprehended. Having realized her ample fortune, she sailed to Africa, accompanied by her daughter-in-law Juliana (the widow of Anicus Hermogenianus Olybrius), and the daughter of Juliana Demetrias, the well known religieuse, whose taking of the veil in 413 produced so profound an impression throughout the ecclesiastical world. A considerable retinue of widows and younger women, seeking protection under her escort, accompanied the distinguished refugee to Carthage. After paying a large sum to secure the protection of Heraclianus Count of Africa, she was permitted to establish herself with her community of pious women in Carthage. Her piety led her to seek the friendship and counsel of Augustin. How readily it was given is seen here, and in Letters CXXXI., CL., and CLXXXVIII.
988 Isa. lvii. 18, 19, in LXX. version.
996 Ps. cxvi. 9. In the LXX., eu0aresth/sw; in Aug., "placebo."
999 Ps. xc. 14, 15, version of LXX.
1019 Luke xi. 9-13, and Matt. vii. 7-11.
1027 Luke xxii. 43. English version, "more earnestly."
1055 Juliana, the mother of Demetrias.
1063 Marcellinus was commissioned by the Emperor Honorius to convene a conference of Catholic and Donatist bishops, with a view to the final peaceful settlement of their differences. He accordingly summoned both parties to a conference, held in the summer of 411, in which he pronounced the Catholic party to have completely gained their cause in argument. He proceeded to carry out with considerable rigour the laws passed for the repression of the Donatist schism, and thus becoming obnoxious to that faction, fell at length a victim to their revenge when a turn of fortune favoured their plots against his life. The honour of a place among the martyrs of the early Church has been assigned to him. His character may be learned from Letters CXXXVI., CXXXVIII., CXXXIX., and CXLIII., and particularly from the beautiful tribute to his worth given in Letter CLI., in which the circumstances of his death are recorded.
1064 Compare "ungulis sulcantibus latera." Codex Justin,, ix. 18.7.
1065 Magistris artium liberalium; doubtless the name of Master of Arts was originally connected with the office and work of teaching, instead of being a mere honorary title.
1070 This letter, No. CXXXIV., is addressed to Apringius, and in somewhat similar terms, but at greater length, urges the same request.
1071 We read here "veritas," instead of "virtus."
1072 "Partitio," defined thus by Quintilian vii. 1: "Sit igitur divisio rerum plurium in singulas-partitio, singularum in partes discretas ordo et recta quaedam locatio."
1073 Virgil, Bucol. Ecl. 8, line 13.
1074 Caesurarum modulata variatio.
1077 See Gibbon, chap. xv. vol II p. 326.
1078 Letter CXXXV. sec. 2, p. 472.
1080 We follow the reading of nine Mss., mirata, instead of that of the text, ingrata.
1081 Cicero, Quaest. Tuscul. i.
1082 See Pliny. Nat. Hist. Book vii. 2: "In India sub una ficu turmae conduntur equitum." See also Book xii. c. 5.
1084 This sentence having been misunderstood by Bishop Evodius, who quotes and comments upon it in Letter CLXI.. Augustin, in replying in Letter CLXII., writes a few sentences, which, as the letters then exchanged with Evodius have been omitted in this selection, we here insert:-"Our sense of wonder is excited when either the reason of a thing is hidden from us, or the thing itself is extraordinary, that is, either unique or rare. It was in reference to the former cause of wonder, namely, the reason of a thing being undiscovered, that, when answering those who declare it to be incredible that Christ was born of a virgin, and that she remained a virgin notwithstanding, I said in the letter which you refer to as read by you, `If the reason of this event is sought out, it will be no longer a miracle, 0' for I said this not because the event was without a reason, but because the reason of it is hidden from those to whom it has pleased God that it should be a miracle.... For all the works of God, both ordinary and extraordinary, proceed from causes and reasons which are right and faultless. When the causes and reasons of any of His operations are hidden from us, we are filled with wonder at the event; but when the causes and reasons of events are seen by us, we say that they take place in ordinary course and in harmony with our experience, and that they are not to be wondered at since they occur, because they are only what reason required to be done.... As to the latter cause of wonder, namely, that an event is unusual, we have an example of this when we read concerning the Lord that He marvelled at the faith of the centurion: for the reason of no event whatever could be concealed from Him, but His wonder has been recorded here for the commendation of one whose equal had not appeared among the Jews, and accordingly the Lord's wondering is sufficiently explained by His words: `I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel 0' (Luke vii. 9). As to examples of events similar to the miraculous birth of Christ, you are wholly mistaken in supposing that you have found such in the production of a worm within an apple, and other examples which you mention. For instances of a certain degree of resemblance, more or less remote, have been with considerable ingenuity alleged: but Christ alone was born of a virgin; whence you may understand why I said that this was an event without parallel, adding in the letter already referred to the words: `If an example of a precisely similar event is demanded, it will no longer be unique 0' " (Letter CLXII. sec. 6, 7).
1085 Homo quippe Deo accessit, non Deus a se recessit.
1089 Pherecydes, a native not ot Assyria, but of Syros, one of the Cyclades, was a disciple of Pittacus of Mitylene, and teacher of Pythagoras. He flourished B.C. 544.
1090 "Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum."-Eclogue iv.
1092 Letter CXXXV. sec. 2, p. 472.
1093 1 Kings xvii. 22; 2 Kings iv. 35.
1099 Letter CXXXVI. sec. 2, p. 473.
1100 Augustin's four stages of human life are: Pueritia, adolescentia, juventus, senectus.
1101 Ps. xvi. 2. o_ti tw=n a0gaqw=n hou ou0 xreian e/xeij, LXX; quoniam bonorum meorum non eges, Aug.
1102 Observe Augustin's definition of the word sacramentum as used by him: "cum ad res divinas pertinent sacramenta appelantur."
1104 Ps. xvi. 3. ou0 mh0 sunaga/gw ta0j sunagwa0j au0twn ie aimatwn, LXX.
1107 Letter CXXXVI. sec. 2, p. 473.
1110 "Accepta injuria ignoscere quam persequi malebant."-Sallust, Catilina, c.9.
1111 "Oblivisci soles nihil nisi injurias."-Cicero, pro Ligario, c. 12.
1119 Juvenal, vi, 277-295 (Dryden's translation).
1121 Gesta-records of judicial procedure.
1122 This is supposed to be the name of a Donatist church in Carthage.
1123 Apringius. See note, p. 471.
1124 Letters CXXXIII. and CXXXIV.
1125 Anaunia, a valley not far from Trent, destined to be so famous for the Council held there. In the month of May, 397 A.D., Martyrius, Sisinnius, and Alexander were killed there by the heathen.
1126 Angariant. See Matt. v. 41.
1127 The Conference presided over by this Marcellinus at Carthage, in the preceding year.
1129 Letters CXXXVII. and CXXXVIII.
1132 Quos vulgo moriones vocant.
1133 Nescit vox missa reverti.
1135 The text here obscure, we have followed the Mss., which omit the words, "interim quod constat peccatum primi hominis."
1160 1 Cor. i. 30,31; Jer. ix. 24.
1165 The heresy of Pelagius is obviously alluded to here as having begun thus early (A.D. 413) to command attention.
1169 Pelagius made use of this letter at the Council of Diospolis, in A.D. 415, which compelled Augustin to vindicate himself in reference to it in his narrative of the proceedings of Pelagius. See Anti-Pelagian Writings, vol. i. p. 413.
1170 Fortunatianus, Bishop of Sicqua, was one of the seven bishop selected to represent the Catholics in the Conference of Carthage with the Donatists in 411. He was probably a neighbour of the bishop who had regarded himself as aggrieved by the arguments with which Augustin confuted some extravagant speculations of his.
1176 Ambrosius, Lib. i. in Luc. c. i.
1179 Ambrosius, Lib. ii. in Luc. c. iii. v. 22.
1184 Hieron, lib. i. in Isai, i.
1186 Hieron. lib. iii. in Isa, i.
1187 See the 49th of the discourses published under the name of Gregory of Nazianzum. M. Dupin has shown that the discourse in question must have been the work of some Latin author.
1188 Ambrose on Luke, c. i. 11.
1201 See note to Letter CXXX. p. 459.
1203 Caecilianus was raised in 409 to the office of praefectus praetorio under Honorius, and is probably the person to whom Augustin addressed Letter LXXXVI. p. 365, iii. 405 a.d..
1204 From the beginning to the end of this letter, Augustin studiously avoids naming the persons concerned in the perfidious act of judicial murder, in connection with which the suspicion of many had been fastened upon Caecilianus. The person by whose orders the sentence of death was carried into effect was Count Marinus, the general by whom the attempt of Heraclianus (413 A.D.) to seize the imperial power was defeated, and who afterwards received a commission to pass into Africa and punish those who had been implicated in the revolt of Heraclianus. A commission of this kind opened a wide door for the gratification of private revenge by enemies who did not scruple to bring false accusations against the innocent; and among the victims of such injustice were two brothers who had, by their zeal for the Catholic Church, made themselves obnoxious to the Donatists. The elder of these was Apringius, a magistrate to whom Augustin wrote a letter (the 134th) recommending clemency in punishing the Donatists. The younger was Marcellinus, concerning whom sec also note to Letter CXXXIII. p. 470.
1205 In the original of this sentence there is a characteristic antithesis of phrases: "Non sane mors eorum donae vitae occasus fuit sed melioris occasio."
1206 See note to letter CXXXIII. p. 470.
1208 Me nullum esse expertum concubitum praeter uxorem.
1209 Evodius, Bishop of Uzala, was one of Augustin's early friends. He was a native of the same town (Tagaste), and joined Augustin and Alypius in seeking religious retirement after their baptism, in 387 A.D. He was also with them at Ostia when Monica died. (Confessions, Book ix. ch. 8 and 12).
1210 Nam scholastico proconsulis excipiebat.
1212 Dissolvi et esse cum Christo. Phil. i. 23.
1217 Redemptionals sacramenta obtulimus.
1225 Exhibitus quodammodo pergit.
1231 Acts ii. 24, 27, in which the words rendered by Augustin "inferni dolores" are; ta0j w/dinaj tou= qanatou.
1233 We give the original of this important sentence:-"De illo quidem primo homine patre generis humani, quod eum inde solverit Ecclesia fere tota consentit: quod eam non inaniter credidisse credendum est, undecumque hoc traditum sit, etiamsi canonicarum Scripturarum hinc expressa non proferatur auctoritas."
1246 Ps. cxviii. 22; Isa. viii. 14, xxviii. 16; Dan. ii. 34, 45; Matt. xxi. 44; Luke xx. 17; Acts iv. 11; Rom. ix. 33, etc.
1257 See paragraphs 19 and 20.
1258 In assigning this place to Jerome's letter to Marcellinus and Anapsychia. the Benedictine editors have departed from the chronological sequence in order to place it in immediate juxtaposition to Letter CLXVI., written by Augustin to Jerome some years later on the subject mentioned in sec. 1.
1259 See note on Marcellinus in Letter CXXXIII. p. 470.
1262 Et simili cum brutus animantibus conditione subsistat.
1263 "Lateque vagantes Barcae1."-Virg. Aeneid, iv. 43
1265 Cicero pro Milone: "Leges inter arma silent."
1266 Ezek. ch. xxxviii. xxxix.
1268 The following passage from the Retractations of Augustin (Book ii. ch. xlv.) is quoted by the Benedictine Fathers as a preface to this letter and the one immediately succeeding:-"I wrote also two books to Presbyter Jerome, the recluse of Bethlehem [acdentem in Bethlehem]; the one on the origin of the human soul, the other on the sentence of the Apostle James, `Whosoever shall keep the whole law and offend in one point, he is guilty of all 0' (Jas. ii. 10), asking his opinion on both subjects. In the former letter I did not give any answer of my own to the question which I proposed; in the latter I did not keep back what seemed to me the best way to solve the question, but asked whether the same solution commended itself to his judgment. He wrote in return, expressing approbation of my submitting the questions to him, but saying that he had not leisure to send me a reply. So long as he lived, therefore, I refused to give these books to the world, lest he should perhaps at any time reply to them, in which case I would have rather published them along with his answer. After his decease, however, I published them,-the former, in order to admonish any who read it, either to forbear altogether from inquiring into the manner in which a soul is given to infants at the time of birth, or, at all events, in a matter so involved in obscurity, to accept only such a solution of the question as does not contradict the clearest truths which the Catholic faith confesses in regard to original sin in infants, as undoubtedly doomed to perdition unless they be regenerated in Christ; the latter m order that what seemed to us the true answer to the question therein discussed might be known. The work begins with the words, `Deum nostrum qui nos vocavit. 0' "
1273 We read pertinere, not pertinens.
1274 Job xiv. 4, 5, according to LXX.
1275 Jerome against Jovinian, Book ii.
1276 Jerome On Jonah, ch. iii.
1277 De Libero Arbitro, iii. 21.
1280 See Letter CLXV., p. 522.
1287 Isa. xl. 26; translated by Augustin, "Qui profert numerose saeculam."
1289 Hieron. Adv. Ruffin. lib. iii.
1290 De libero Arbitrio, lib. iii. ch. 23. n. 67.
1294 Cyprian's Letters (LIX., Ad Fidum).
1303 Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, lib. ii.
1304 Jerome, Contra Jovinianum, lib. ii.
1308 Sallust, De Bello Catilinario.
1310 Virum a quo denominata dictur virtus.
1314 Job xxviii. 28, Sept. ver.
1339 De Civitate Dei, lib. I. ch. xxxvi.
1351 Homo autem Verbo accessit, non Verbum in hominem convertibiliter accesit.
1362 The work on Nature and Grace, addressed to Timasius and Jacobus-translated in the fourth volume of this series, Antipelagian Writings, i. 233.
1363 The allusion is probably to the acquittal of Pelagius in 415 by the Council of Diospolis (or Lydda, a place between Joppa and Jerusalem) Augustin viewed this Council's decisions more favourably than Jerome, who denounces it without measure as a pitiful assembly, which allowed itself to be imposed upon by the evasions and feigned recantation of Pelagius; to this he makes reference in the concluding sentence of this paragraph.
1364 We adopt here the reading found in Letter CCII. bis, sec. 3, where this sentence is quoted by Augustin in writing to Optatus, and we have "ne (instead of et) juxta Appium canina facundia exerceretur." On the phrase "canina facundia," see Lactantius, book vi. ch. 18.
1365 Rom. xiv. 5. Translated by Jerome: "Unusquisque in suo sensu abundet."
1366 Jerome probably alludes here to Augustin's request in Letter LXXI., sec. 3, 4; Letters, pp. 326, 327.
1367 An example is furnished in the case of Castorius, Letter LXIX.; Letters, p. 326.
1373 Primianus, Donatist bishop in Carthage, was in 393 deposed by a factious clique of bishops, who appointed Maximianus in his place. The other Donatist bishops, however, assembled in the following year at Bigai in Numidia, and, reversing the decision of their co-bishops deposed them in turn, and passed a sentence to which, as stated in the text, they did not inexorably adhere. The matter is referred to in Letter XLIII. p. 276.
1374 Ecclus. xxxiv. 25, translated, accurately enough, in our English version: "He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" The Donatist, in quoting the passage to support their practice of re-baptizing Catholics, omitted the clause, "et iterum tangit mortuum," and translated the sentence thus: "He that is baptized by one who is dead, what availeth his baptism?" It would be difficult to quote from the annals of controversy a more flagrant example of ignorant ingenuity in the wresting of words to serve a purpose.
1384 We have left the word ambo in "ambo ista exhorrescas" untranslated. Critics are agreed that a few words of the original are probably wanting here, only one alternative of the dilemma being stated by St. Augustin in the text.
1385 In Letters XXVIII., XL., LXXV., and LXXXII., translated Letters, pp. 251, 272, 333, 349.
1386 Adversus Pelagium, book i.
1387 Letters of Cyprian, LXXI.
1389 In a letter of Jerome (the eighth) to Demetrias, we have a very graphic narrative of the manner in which Demetrias formed and carried into effect the vow for which she is here commended.
1394 In the end of this letter, Augustin distinctly ascribes to Pelagius the authorship of the letter to Demetrias, as also in his work on The Grace of Christ, ch. xxii.
1395 Epistle to Demetrias, ch. xi.
1422 Count Boniface, to whom St. Augustin also addressed Letters CLXXXV. and CCXX., was governor of the province of Africa under Placidia, who for twenty-five years ruled the empire in the name of her son Valentinian. By his perfidious rival Aetius, Boniface was persuaded to disobey the order of Placidia, when, under the instigation of Aetius himself, she recalled him from the government of Africa. The necessity of powerful allies in order to maintain his position led him to invite the Vandals to pass from Spain into Africa. They came, under Genseric, and the fertile provinces of Northern Africa fell an easy prey to their invading armies. When the treachery of Aetius was discovered, Placidia received Boniface again into favour, and he devoted all his military talents to the task of expelling the barbarians whom his own invitation had made masters of North Africa. But it was now too late to wrest this Roman province from the Vandals; defeated in a great battle, Boniface was compelled in 430 to retire into Hippo Regius, where he succeeded in resisting the besieging army for fourteen months. It was during this siege, and after it had continued three months, that Augustin died. Reinforced by troops from Constantinople, Boniface fought one more desperate but unsuccessful battle, after which he left Hippo in the hands of Genseric, and returned by order of Placidia to Italy. For fuller particulars of his history, see Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxxiii.
1436 The allusion is evidently to the ancient formulary in public worship, first mentioned by Cyprian in his treatise on the Lord's Prayer. To the presbyter's exhortation, "Sursum corda!" the people responded "Habemus ad Dominum." For an account of this formulary and a most beautiful exposition of it, quoted from Cyril of Jerusalem, see Riddle's Christian Antiquities, book IV. ch. i. sec. 2.
1440 Sixtus, afterwards Sixtus III., Bishop of Rome, the immediate successor of Caelestine, to whom the next letter is addressed. His name is the forty-third in the list of Popes, and he was in office from 432 to 440 A.D. The 194th letter of Augustin was addressed to the same Sixtus, and is a very elaborate dissertation on Pelagianism. It is omitted from this selection as being rather a theological treatise than a letter.
1441 Sixtus had been not without reason reckoned as a sympathiser with Pelagius, until their views were finally condemned in this year 418 by Zosimus.
1443 Caelestine, who was at the date of this letter a deacon in Rome, was raised in 423 to succeed Boniface as Bishop of Rome: he stands forty-second in the list of Popes. Letter CCIX. is addressed to him.
1446 In two Mss. this letter has, as a postscript, the letter already translated as CXXIII.: see page 451. The reason for that letter being supposed to belong to the year 410 is the interpretation which some put upon one of its obscure sentences as alluding to the fall of Rome in that year. If, however, the sentence in question referred to the ecclesiastical difficulties disturbing Jerusalem and all the East in connection with the Pelagian controversy, there is nothing to forbid the conjecture which its place in the Mss. aforesaid suggests, namely, that it was sent at the same time as this letter, with which in them it stands connected.
1447 [ The last letter of Jerome, who died at Bethlehem, 419.]
1462 Col. i. 6 The words "kai' au0cano/meno/," here translated by Augustin, are found in some Mss. but omitted in the Testus Receptus.
1464 Matt. xxii. 9; Luke xiv. 23.
1465 The successor of Boniface as Bishop of Rome. See note to Letter CXCII. For a summary of the arguments which may be used on both sides in regard to the genuineness of this letter, which is found in only one Ms., see Dupin's remarks upon it in his Ecclesiastical History, 5th century.
1467 Translations from one see to another, now permitted, had been forbidden by the Councils of Nice, Sardis, and Antioch.
1470 The prioress of the nunnery at Hippo, appointed to that office after the death of the sister of Augustin.
1477 This letter is of historical value, as embodying the rules of nunneries belonging to the Augustinian orders. In the end of the first volume of the Benedictine edition of his writings, this rule of monastic life is given, adapted by some later writer to convents of monks.
1481 Prov. xxvii. 20, LXX. bdelugma kuriw sthoizwn o/fqalmo/n.
1488 A memorial chapel for the reception of relics of Saint Stephen had been built at Hippo.-See City of God, book XXII.
1491 Referring to their last words, giving to Eraclius the title of bishop.
1516 A formal written retractation of his errors, called elsewhere "emendations libellum."
1517 See note to Letter CLXXXIX, p. 552.
1522 See note on Letter CLXXXIX. p. 552.
1531 Bishop of Thiaba in Mauritania.
1532 This letter is not extant.
1548 This Darius was an officer of distinction in the service of the Empress Placidia, and was the instrument of effecting a reconciliation between her and Count Boniface. He was also successful in obtaining a truce with the Vandals, on which Augustin congratulates him in this letter
1551 Verimodus, the son of Darius.
1552 Referring to Darius' reply (Letter CCXXX.) to the foregoing Letter (CCXXIX.). In it, Darius, after reciprocating in the warmest manner every expression of admiration and esteem, expresses his hope that the peace concluded with the Vandals may be permanent, entreats Augustin to pray for him (alluding to the letter said to have been written by Abgaris, king ot Edessa, to our Saviour), and asks him to send a copy of his Confessions along with his reply to this communication.
1553 Persius, Sat. i. line 47. "Cornea."
1554 Horace, Book 1. Ep. i. lines 36-37. Francis' translation.
1560 The reference is to some medicines sent by Darius, and mentioned by him in the end of his letters.
1561 Reference is here made to the laws of Honorius against idolatry, passed in A.D. 399. See below in sec. 3.
1563 Referring to his birth at Tagaste (not far distant from Madaura), and to Madaura as the scene of the studies of his boyhood.
1565 Possidius, a disciple of Augustin, spoken of in Letter CI. sec. 1, p. 412 was the Bishop of Calama who made the narrow escape recorded in Letter XCI. sec. 8, p. 379. He was for forty years an intimate friend of Augustin, was with him at his death, and wrote his biography.
1570 Probably the Bishop of Nurco, named Auxilius, who was present at the conference in Carthage in 411.
1576 This noble vindication of Christian liberty merits quotation in the original:-"Illud plane non temere dixerim, quod si quisquam fidelium fuerit anathematus injuste, ei potius oberit qui faciet quam ei qui hanc patietur injuriam. Spiritus enim sanctus habitans in sanctis, per quem quisque ligatur aut solvitur, immeritam nulli paenam ingerit: per eum quippe diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostria quae non agit perperam."
1577 The maiden referred to was an orphan whom a magistrate (vir spectabilis) had requested Augustin to bring up as a ward of the Church. Four letters written by him concerning her have been preserved, viz. the 252d, in which he intimates to Felix that he can decide nothing in regard to her without consulting the friend by whom she had been placed under his guardianship; the 253d, expressing to Benenatus his surprise that he should propose for her a marriage which would not strengthen the Church: the 254th, addressed also to Benenatus, which we have translated as a specimen of the series; and the 255th, in which, writing to Rusticus, a Pagan who had sought her hand for his son, Augustin bluntly denies his request, referring him for the grounds of the refusal to his correspondence with Benenatus.
Two Catholic bishops named Benenatus attended the conference with the Donatists at Carthage in 412; the one who belonged to Hospsti, in Numidia, is supposed to be Augustin's correspondent.
1578 The hesitation which Augustin here indicates in regard to accepting this gift may be understood from the following sentences of one of his sermons:-"Let no one give me a present of clothing, whether