AUGUSTINUS
AUGUSTINUS
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Church (“compelle intrare,” .£7pis£. 93 ad Vicent.').On Augustine’s struggles with the Donatists, seeVita Rossid. 119.
It is as a divine that Augustine has left themost lasting proofs of his genius; in the theolo-gical field all his moral and intellectual qualitiesfound free scope, and his authority there stillremains unchallenged. He has accomplished forChristian psychology what Athanasius did forChristian metaphysics; and as it is on psycho-logical questions that he has shed most light,we are naturally tempted to consider him chieflyfrom that point of view. But we must not for-get the share he took in all the theologicaldisputes of the day. His first writings, datingfrom the epoch which followed immediately uponhis conversion, form a transition between thephilosopher and the divine. To that period be-long his three books Against the Academicians ,his work On the Happy Life , and his Soliloquies.The first distinctly theological treatise he com-posed was a Refutation of Manichaeism , in whichhe sought to point out the rock upon which hehad once made shipwreck, and to expose the realsubstance of a doctrine of which the appearancewas attractive. And while engaged in refutinga heresy which begins by eliminating man’s moralprinciple, Augustine asserted that principle withan energy which he afterwards thought to beimprudent; for the views on liberty and re-sponsibility which he then maintained do notharmonize with the system he finally adopted.
Setting aside the question of Divine grace,which exhibits all the originality of his thought,Augustine adopts, on all points, the Catholic doc-trines of his age. He accepts fully the conclu-sions of the Nicene Council, and defends them,when necessary, with the usual vigour of hisreasoning. As an exegetical writer he suffered,in common with all the fathers, the disastrousinfluence of the allegorical method. There is,indeed, no surer method of inflicting barrennesson the study of the Scriptures. When the realmeaning is not apprehended, the imaginationallows itself full play, and the most absurd ideaspass current. Augustine also gives way too oftento the passion for discovering types everywhere.There are types, no doubt, of a broad character,which arrest the mind at once; the slightestglance is enough to discover them. Those whichcannot be ascertained without some difficulty are,generally speaking, of human invention. Withthis qualification, we must admit that Augustineturned an erroneous method to very good accouut,and that he drew abundantly treasures of edifi-cation from the well of Scripture. “ The HolyScriptures,” says he, “ are accessible to all,although a few only understand them thoroughly.Like unto a familiar friend, the Bible commu-nicates simply to the heart of the ignorant itsdeep meaning.” (“ Ea quae aperte continet quasiamicus familiaris sine fuco ad cor loquitur in-doctorum,” Epist. 137.)
Augustine was one of the first to state thedoctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripturein its most rigorous meaning. He wrote a well-known treatise, in which he tried to reconcileeven the slightest discrepancies in the narrativeof the Evangelists. And yet he was very far frombeing fanatically attached to the letter of thesacred volume. We may even think that he exag-gerates, to some extent, the spirituality of the
Gospel in the following words : “ Grounded uponfaith, hope, and charity, man needs the HolyScriptures only for the purpose of instructingothers. Many live in the depth of the wilderness'supported by these three virtues, without anycopies of the sacred volume.” ( u Itaque multiper haec tria etiam in solitudine sine codicibusvivunt,” J)e Doctrin. Christian, i. 39.)
As a preacher, Augustine was essentially bi-blical ; his sermons form a consecutive expositionof the books of the Old and New Testaments.They have the defects of his exegetical writings;but whenever he allows the utterances of hisheart to flow forth, he produces the greatestresults. His sermons are remarkable for theirsimplicity; thought and feeling manifest them-selves continuously together without any rhe-torical effort. The pastor and the theologian areunited; and it is seldom that we are reminded ofthe accomplished scholar of Carthage and Home.We are told that one day Augustine had preparedan eloquent discourse, designed to produce astrong impression upon cultivated minds. Sud-denly, in the midst of his preaching, he brokethe thread of his argument, abandoned the periodwhich he had begun, and discussed at once a moresimple and more popular subject. On his returnhome, he told a friend that he had yielded to anirresistible impulse of the Holy Spirit, which hadurged him to set aside his original plan. Hardlyhad he said this when a man, knocking at thedoor, entered, bathed with tears, and confessedhimself to be won over to the cause of Christ.He had been struck by that very portion of thediscourse which had been suggested to Augustineby the sudden inspiration.
The whole philosophical series of St. Augus-tine’s writings is extremely remarkable ; he oftenassociates, with much skill, Plato and St. Paul.His general views on the relations between reasonand taith are full of depth ; he shows that faithis not only necessary in religion, but that it isthe condition of everything beautiful and great.Thus friendship begins by an act of faith (. DeUtilitate Cred. 12, 13). Keason can arrive attruth only by being subordinate to faith. “ Itwas necessary,” says he, “ that God, througha kind of popular clemency, should lower theauthority of the divine intellect so as to make Itthe inmate of a human body. (“ Populari qua-dam dementia divini intellectus auctoritatem adipsum corpus humanum declinevit,” Contra Acad.iii. 19, 20). St. Augustine admits that faithstrengthens reason, and exalts it instead of lower-ing it; and we know that he had the honour offorestalling Descartes in the expression of thefamous formula : u [ego] cogito, ergo sum.”
We must now approach the great strugglewhich nearly split up the Western Church intotwo parties, just as Arianism had been on thepoint of producing a schism in the Eastern one.Pelagius was the first to raise the stormy con-troversy on the relation between divine grace andhuman freedom. Such a question was quite in ac-cordance with the genius of the Western Church.Unmoved by the metaphysical subtleties whichoccupied the church at Alexandria, and muchmore inclined to questions of a practical than ofa speculative character, it might have been safelyforetold of the doctors of the West that, if everthey approached the ground of deep theology, itwould be on the side where practice is intimately