[1] The Kennebec was first explored to this point in 1607.
AUGUSTA, a seaport of the province of Syracuse, Sicily, 19 m. N. of it
by rail. Pop. (1901) 16,402. It occupies a part of the former peninsula
of Xiphonia, now a small island, connected with the mainland by a
bridge. It was founded by the emperor Frederick II. in 1232, and almost
entirely destroyed by an earthquake in 1693, after which it was rebuilt.
The castle is now a large prison. The fortified port, though
unfrequented except as a naval harbour of refuge, is a very fine one.
There are considerable saltworks at Augusta. To the south, on the left
bank of the Molinello. 1-1/2 m. from its mouth, Sicel tombs and
Christian catacombs, and farther up the river a cave village of the
early middle ages, have been explored (_Notizie degli Scavi_, 1902, 411,
631; _Romische Quartalschrift_, 1902, 205). Whether there was ever a
town bearing the name Xiphonia is doubted by E.A. Freeman (_Hist. of
Sic._ i. 583); cf., however, E. Pais, _Atakta_ (Pisa, 1891), 55, who
attributes its foundation, under the name of Tauromenion (which it soon
lost), to the Zancleans of Hybla (afterwards Megara Hyblaea).
(T. As.)
AUGUSTA BAGIENNORUM, the chief town of the Ligurian tribe of the
Bagienni, probably identical with the modern Bene Vagienna, on the upper
course of the Tanaro, about 35 m. due south of Turin. The town retained
its position as a tribal centre in the reorganization of Augustus, whose
name it bears, and was erected on a systematic plan. Considerable
remains of public buildings, constructed in concrete faced with small
stones with bands of brick at intervals, an amphitheatre with a major
axis of 390 ft. and a minor axis of 305 ft., a theatre with a stage 133
ft. in length, and near it the foundations of what was probably a
basilica, an open space (no doubt the forum), an aqueduct, baths, &c.,
have been discovered by recent excavations, and also one of the city
gates, flanked by two towers 22 ft. sq.
See G. Assandria and G. Vacchetta in _Notizie degli Scavi_ (1894),
155; (1896), 215; (1897), 441; (1898), 299; (1900), 389; (1901), 413.
(T. As.)
AUGUSTAN HISTORY, the name given to a collection of the biographies of
the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Carinus (A.D. 117-284). The work
professes to have been written during the reigns of Diocletian and
Constantine, and is to be regarded as the composition of six
authors,--Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Aelius Lampridius,
Vulcacius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus--known as
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, writers of Augustan history. It is
generally agreed, however, that there is a large number of
interpolations in the work, which are referred to the reign of
Theodosius; and that the documents inserted in the lives are almost all
forgeries. The more advanced school of critics holds that the names of
the supposed authors are purely fictitious, as those of some of the
authorities which they profess to quote certainly are. The lives, which
(with few exceptions) are arranged in chronological order, are
distributed as follows:--To Spartianus: the biographies of Hadrian,
Aelius Verus, Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Pescennius Niger,
Caracallus, Geta (?); to Vulcacius Gallicanus: Avidius Cassius; to
Capitolinus: Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Verus, Pertinax,
Clodius Albinus, the two Maximins, the three Gordians, Maximus and
Balbinus, Opilius Macrinus (?); to Lampridius: Commodus, Diadumenus,
Elagabalus, Alexander Severus; to Pollio: the two Valerians, the
Gallieni, the so-called Thirty Tyrants or Usurpers, Claudius (his lives
of Philip, Decius, and Gallus being lost); to Vopiscus: Aurelian,
Tacitus, Florian, Probus, the four tyrants (Firmus, Saturninus,
Proculus, Bonosus), Carus, Numerian, Carinus.
The importance of the Augustan history as a repertory of information is
very considerable, but its literary pretensions are of the humblest
order. The writers' standard was confessedly low. "My purpose," says
Vopiscus, "has been to provide materials for persons more eloquent than
I." Considering the perverted taste of the age, it is perhaps fortunate
that the task fell into the hands of no showy declaimer who measured his
success by his skill in making surface do duty for substance, but of
homely, matter-of-fact scribes, whose sole concern was to record what
they knew. Their narrative is unmethodical and inartificial; their style
is tame and plebeian; their conception of biography is that of a
collection of anecdotes; they have no notion of arrangement, no measure
of proportion, and no criterion of discrimination between the important
and the trivial; they are equally destitute of critical and of
historical insight, unable to sift the authorities on which they rely,
and unsuspicious of the stupendous social revolution comprised within
the period which they undertake to describe. Their value, consequently,
depends very much on that of the sources to which they happen to have
recourse for any given period of history, and on the fidelity of their
adherence to these when valuable. Marius Maximus and Aelius Junius
Cordus, to whose qualifications they themselves bear no favourable
testimony, were their chief authorities for the earlier lives of the
series. Marius Maximus, who lived about 165-230, wrote biographies of
the emperors, in continuation of those of Suetonius, from Nerva to
Elagabalus; Junius Cordus dealt with the less-known emperors, perhaps
down to Maximus and Balbinus. The earlier lives, however, contain a
substratum of authentic historical fact, which recent critics have
supposed to be derived from a lost work by a contemporary writer,
described by one of these scholars as "the last great Roman historian."
For the later lives the Scriptores were obliged to resort more largely
to public records, and thus preserved matter of the highest importance,
rescuing from oblivion many imperial rescripts and senatorial decrees,
reports of official proceedings and speeches on public occasions, and a
number of interesting and characteristic letters from various emperors.
Their incidental allusions sometimes cast vivid though undesigned light
on the circumstances of the age, and they have made large contributions
to our knowledge of imperial jurisprudence in particular. Even their
trivialities have their use; their endless anecdotes respecting the
personal habits of the subjects of their biographies, if valueless to
the historian, are most acceptable to the archaeologist, and not
unimportant to the economist and moralist. Their errors and deficiencies
may in part be ascribed to the contemporary neglect of history as a
branch of instruction. Education was in the hands of rhetoricians and
grammarians; historians were read for their style, not for their matter,
and since the days of Tacitus, none had arisen worth a schoolmaster's
notice. We thus find Vopiscus acknowledging that when he began to write
the life of Aurelian, he was entirely misinformed respecting the
latter's competitor Firmus, and implying that he would not have ventured
on Aurelian himself if he had not had access to the MS. of the emperor's
own diary in the Ulpian library. The writers' historical estimates are
superficial and conventional, but report the verdict of public opinion
with substantial accuracy. The only imputation on the integrity of any
of them lies against Trebellius Pollio, who, addressing his work to a
descendant of Claudius, the successor and probably the assassin of
Gallienus, has dwelt upon the latter versatile sovereign's carelessness
and extravagance without acknowledgment of the elastic though fitful
energy he so frequently displayed in defence of the empire. The caution
of Vopiscus's references to Diocletian cannot be made a reproach to him.
No biographical particulars are recorded respecting any of these
writers. From their acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature they
must have been men of letters by profession, and very probably
secretaries or librarians to persons of distinction. There seems no
reason to accept Gibbon's contemptuous estimate of their social
position. They appear particularly versed in law. Spartianus's reference
to himself as "Diocletian's own" seems to indicate that he was a
domestic in the imperial household. They address their patrons with
deference, acknowledging their own deficiencies, and seem painfully
conscious of the profession of literature having fallen upon evil days.
Editio princeps (Milan, 1475); Casaubon (1603) showed great critical
ability in his notes, but for want of a good MS. left the restoration
of the text to Salmasius (1620), whose notes are a most remarkable
monument of erudition, combined with acuteness in verbal criticism and
general vigour of intellect. Of recent years considerable attention
has been devoted by German scholars to the _History_, especially by
Peter, whose edition of the text in the Teubner series (2nd ed., 1884)
contains (praef. xxxv.-xxxvii.) a bibliography of works on the subject
preceding the publication of his own special treatise. The edition by
Jordan-Eyssenhardt (1863) should also be mentioned. Amongst the most
recent treatises on the subject are: A. Gemoll, _Die Scriptores
Historiae Augustae_ (1886); H. Peter, _Die Scriptores Historiae
Augustae_ (1892); G. Tropea, _Studi sugli Scriptores Historiae
Augustae_ (1899-1903); J.M. Heer, _Der historische Wert der Vita
Commodi in der Sammlung der Scriptores Historiae Augustae_ (1901); C.
Lecrivain, _Etudes sur l'histoire Auguste_ (1904); E. Kornemann,
_Kaiser Hadrian und der letzte grosse Historiker von Rom_ (1905),
according to whom "the last great historian of Rome" is Lollius
Urbicus; O. Schulz, _Das Kaiserhaus der Antonine und der letzte
Historiker Roms_ (1907). On their style, see C. Paucker, _De
Latinitate Scriptorum Historiae Augustae_ (1870); special lexicon by
C. Lessing (1901-1906). An English translation is included in _The
Lives of the Roman Emperors_, by John Bernard (1698). See further
ROME: _History_ (anc. _ad fin._), section "Authorities"; M. Schanz,
_Geschichte der romischen Litteratur_, iii. p. 69 (for Marius Maximus
and Junius Cordus), iv. p. 47; Teuffel-Schwabe, _Hist. of Roman
Literature_ (Eng. tr.), S 392; H. Peter, bibliography from 1893 to
1905 in Bursian's _Jahresbericht_, cxxix. (1907).
AUGUSTA PRAETORIA SALASSORUM (mod. _Aosta_, q.v.), an ancient town of
Italy in the district of the Salassi, founded by Augustus about 24 B.C.
on the site of the camp of Varro Murena, who subdued this tribe in 25
B.C., and settled with 3000 praetorians. Pliny calls it the last town of
Italy on the north-west, and its position at the confluence of two
rivers, at the end of the Great and Little St Bernard, gave it
considerable military importance, which is vouched for by considerable
remains of Roman buildings. The ancient town walls, enclosing a
rectangle 793 by 624 yds., are still preserved almost in their entire
extent. The walls are 21 ft. high. They are built of concrete faced with
small blocks of stone, and at the bottom are nearly 9 ft. thick, and at
the top 6 ft. There are towers at the angles of the _enceinte_, and
others at intervals, and two at each of the four gates, making a total
of twenty towers altogether. They are roughly 32 ft. square, and project
14 ft. from the wall. The Torre del Pailleron on the south and the Torre
del Leproso in the west are especially well preserved. The east and
south gates exist (the latter, a double gate with three arches flanked
by two towers, is the Porta Praetoria, and is especially fine), while
the rectangular arrangement of the streets perpetuates the Roman plan,
dividing the town into 16 blocks (_insulae_). The main road, 32 ft.
wide, divides the city into two equal halves, running from east to west,
an arrangement which makes it clear that the guarding of the road was
the main _raison d'etre_ of the city. Some arcades of the amphitheatre
(the diameters of which are 282 ft. and 239 ft.), and the south wall of
the theatre are also preserved, the latter to a height of over 70 ft.,
and a market-place some 300 ft. square, surrounded by storehouses on
three sides with a temple in the centre, and two on the open (south)
side, and the _thermae_, have been discovered. Outside the town is a
handsome triumphal arch in honour of Augustus. About 5 m. to the west is
a single-arched Roman bridge, the Pondel, which has a closed passage
lighted by windows for foot passengers in winter, and above it an open
footpath, both being about 3-1/2 ft. in width. There are considerable
remains of the ancient road from Eporedia (mod. _Ivrea_) to Augusta
Praetoria, up the Valle d' Aosta, which the modern railway follows,
notably the Pont St Martin, with a single arch with a span of 116 ft.
and a roadway 15 ft. wide, the cutting of Donnaz, and the Roman bridges
of Chatillon (Pont St Vincent) and Aosta (Pont de Pierre), &c.
See C. Promis, _Le antichita di Aosta_ (Turin, 1862); E. Berard in
_Atti della Societa di Archeologia di Torino_, iii. 119 seq.; _Notizie
degli Scavi_, passim; A. d'Andrade, _Relazione dell' Ufficio Regionale
per la consenazione dei Monumenti del Piemonte e della Liguria_
(Turin, 1899), 46 seq. (T. As.)
AUGUSTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN WILHELM (1772-1841), German theologian, born
at Eschenberga, near Gotha, was of Jewish descent, his grandfather
having been a converted rabbi. He was educated at the gymnasium at Gotha
and the university of Jena. At Jena he studied oriental languages, of
which he became professor there in 1803. Subsequently he became ordinary
professor of theology (1812), and for a time rector, at Breslau. In 1819
he was transferred to the university of Bonn, where he was made
professor primarius. In 1828 he was appointed chief member of the
consistorial council at Coblenz. Here he was afterwards made director of
the consistory. He died at Coblenz in 1841. Augusti had little sympathy
with the modern philosophical interpretations of dogma, and although he
took up a position of free criticism with regard to the Biblical
narratives, he held fast to the traditional faith. His works on theology
(_Dogmengeschichte_, 1805; 4th ed., 1835) are simple statements of fact;
they do not attempt a speculative treatment of their subjects. In 1809
he published in conjunction with W.M.L. de Wette a new translation of
the Old Testament. Mention should also be made of his _Grundriss einer
historischkritischen Einleitung ins Alte Testament_ (1806), his
_Exegetisches Handbuch des Alten Testaments_ (1797-1800), and his
edition of _Die Apokryphen des A. T._ (1804). In addition to these, his
most important writings are the _Denkwurdigkeiten aus der Christlichen
Archaologie_, 12 vols. (1817-1831), a partially digested mass of
materials, and the _Handbuch der Christ. Archaologie_, 3 vols.
(1836-1837), which gives the substance of the larger work in a more
compact and systematic form.
AUGUSTINE, SAINT (354-430), one of the four great fathers of the Latin
Church. Augustinus--the _praenomen_ Aurelius is used indeed by his
disciples Orosius and Prosper, and is found in the oldest Augustine
MSS., but is not used by himself, nor in the letters addressed to
him--was born at Tagaste, a town of Numidia, now Suk Ahras in
Constantine, on the 13th of November 354. His father, Patricius, was a
burgess of Tagaste and still a pagan at the time of his son's birth. His
mother, Monica, was not only a Christian, but a woman of the most tender
and devoted piety, whose beautiful faith and enthusiasm and patient
prayer for both her husband and son (at length crowned with success in
both cases) have made her a type of womanly saintliness for all ages.
She early instructed her son in the faith and love of Jesus Christ, and
for a time he seems to have been impressed by her teaching. Falling ill,
he wished to be baptized; but when the danger was past, the rite was
deferred and, in spite of his mother's admonitions and prayers,
Augustine grew up without any profession of Christian piety or any
devotion to Christian principles.
Inheriting from his father a passionate nature, he formed while still a
mere youth an irregular union with a girl, by whom he became the father
of a son, whom in a fit of pious emotion he named Adeodatus ("by God
given"), and to whom he was passionately attached. In his _Confessions_
he afterwards described this period of his life in the blackest colours;
for in the light of his conversion he saw behind him only shadows. Yet,
whatever his youthful aberrations, Augustine was from the first an
earnest student. His father, noticing his early promise, destined him
for the brilliant and lucrative career of a rhetorician, for which he
spared no expense in training him. Augustine studied at his native town
and afterwards at Madaura and Carthage, especially devoting himself to
the works of the Latin poets, many traces of his love for which are to
be found in his writings. His acquaintance with Greek literature was
much more limited, and, indeed, it has been doubted, though without
sufficient reason, whether he could use the Greek scriptures in the
original. Cicero's _Hortensius_, which he read in his nineteenth year,
first awakened in his mind the spirit of speculation and the impulse
towards the knowledge of the truth. But he passed from one phase of
thought to another, unable to find satisfaction in any. Manichaeism,
that mixed product of Zoroastrian and Christian-gnostic elements, first
enthralled him. He became a fervent member of the sect, and was admitted
into the class of _auditors_ or "hearers." Manichaeism seemed to him to
solve the mysteries of the world, and of his own experiences by which he
was perplexed. His insatiable imagination drew congenial food from the
fanciful religious world of the Manichaeans, decked out as this was with
the luxuriant wealth of Oriental myth. His strongly developed sense of a
need of salvation sought satisfaction in the contest of the two
principles of Good and Evil, and found peace, at least for the moment,
in the conviction that the portions of light present in him would be
freed from the darkness in which they were immersed. The ideal of
chastity and self-restraint, which promised a foretaste of union with
God, amazed him, bound as he was in the fetters of sensuality and for
ever shaking at these fetters. But while his moral force was not
sufficient for the attainment of this ideal, gradually everything else
which Manichaeism seemed to offer him dissolved before his criticism.
Increasingly occupied with the exact sciences, he learnt the
incompatibility of the Manichaean astrology with the facts. More and
more absorbed in the problems of psychology, he realized the
insufficiency of dualism, which did not solve the ultimate questions but
merely set them back. The Manichaean propaganda seemed to him
invertebrate and lacking in force, and a discussion which he had with
Faustus, a distinguished Manichaean bishop and controversialist, left
him greatly disappointed.
Meanwhile nine years had passed. Augustine, after finishing his studies,
had returned to Tagaste, where he became a teacher of grammar. He must
have been an excellent master, who knew how to influence the whole
personality of his pupils. It was then that Alypius, who in the later
stages of Augustine's life proved a true friend and companion, attached
himself to him. He remained in his native town little more than a year,
during which time he lived with his mother, who was comforted by the
bishop for the estrangement of her son from the Catholic faith ("a son
of so many tears cannot be lost": _Confess._ III. xii. S 21), comforted
also, and above all, by the famous vision, which Augustine thus
describes: "She saw herself standing on a certain wooden rule, and a
shining youth coming towards her, cheerful and smiling upon her the
while she grieved, and was consumed with grief: and when he had inquired
of her the causes of her grief and daily tears (for the sake, as is
their wont, of teaching, not of learning) and she had made answer that
she was bewailing my perdition, he bade her be at ease, and advised her
to look and observe, 'That where she was, there was I also.' And when
she looked there, she saw me standing by her on the same rule"
(_Confess._ III. xi.). Augustine now returned for a second time to
Carthage, where he devoted himself zealously to work. Thence, probably
in the spring of 383, he migrated to Rome. His Manichaean friends urged
him to take this step, which was rendered easier by the licentious lives
of the students at Carthage. His stay at Rome may have lasted about a
year, no agreeable time for Augustine, since his patrons and friends
belonged to just those Manichaean circles with which he had in the
meantime entirely lost all intellectual touch. He, therefore, accepted
an invitation from Milan, where the people were in search of a teacher
of rhetoric.
At Milan the conflict within his mind in search of truth still
continued. It was now that he separated himself openly from the
Manichaean sect. As a thinker he came entirely under the influence of
the New Academy; he professed the Sceptic philosophy, without being able
to find in it the final conclusion of wisdom. He was, however, not far
from the decision. Two things determined his further development. He
became acquainted with the Neo-Platonic philosophy; its monism replaced
the dualism, its intellectualized world of ideas the materialism of
Manichaeism. Here he found the admonition to seek for truth outside the
material world, and from created things he learnt to recognize the
invisible God; he attained the certainty that this God is, and is
eternal, always the same, subject to change neither in his parts nor in
his motions. And while thus Augustine's metaphysical convictions were
being slowly remodelled, he met, in Ambrose, bishop of Milan, a man in
whom complete worldly culture and the nobility of a ripe Christian
personality were wonderfully united. He heard him preach; but at first
it was the orator and not the contents of the sermons that enchained
him. He sought an opportunity of conversation with him, but this was not
easily found. Ambrose had no leisure for philosophic discussion. He was
accessible to all who sought him, but never for a moment free from study
or the cares of duty. Augustine, as he himself tells us, used to enter
without being announced, as all persons might; but after staying for a
while, afraid of interrupting him, he would depart again. He continued,
however, to hear Ambrose preach, and gradually the gospel of divine
truth and grace was received into his heart. He was busy with his friend
Alypius in studying the Pauline epistles; certain words were driven home
with irresistible force to his conscience. His struggle of mind became
more and more intolerable, the thought of divine purity fighting in his
heart with the love of the world and the flesh. That sensuality was his
worst enemy he had long known. The mother of his child had accompanied
him to Milan. When he became betrothed he dismissed her; but neither the
pain of this parting nor consideration for his not yet marriageable
bride prevented him from forming a fresh connexion of the same kind.
Meanwhile, the determination to renounce the old life with its pleasures
of sense, was ever being forced upon him with more and more
distinctness. He then received a visit from a Christian compatriot named
Pontitian, who told him about St Anthony and the monachism in Egypt, and
also of a monastery near Milan. He was shaken to the depths when he
learnt from Pontitian that two young officials, like himself betrothed,
had suddenly formed a determination to turn their backs upon the life of
the world. He could no longer bear to be inside the house; in terrible
excitement he rushed into the garden; and now followed that scene which
he himself in the _Confessions_ has described to us with such graphic
realism. He flung himself under a fig tree, burst into a passion of
weeping, and poured out his heart to God. Suddenly he seemed to hear a
voice bidding him consult the divine oracle: "Take up and read, take up
and read." He left off weeping, rose up, sought the volume where Alypius
was sitting, and opening it read in silence the following passage from
the Epistle to the Romans (xiii. 13, 14): "Not in rioting and
drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and
envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." He adds: "I had neither desire
nor need to read further. As I finished the sentence, as though the
light of peace had been poured into the heart, all the shadows of doubt
dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted me to Thee, so as no longer to seek
either for wife or other hope of the world, standing fast in that rule
of faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed me to my
mother" (_in qua me ante lot annos ei revelaveras: Confess_. VIII. xii.
S 30).[1]
The conversion of Augustine, as we have been accustomed to call this
event, took place in the late summer of 386, a few weeks before the
beginning of the vacation. The determination to give up his post was
rendered easier by a chest-trouble which was not without danger, and
which for months made him incapable of work. He withdrew with several
companions to the country estate of Cassisiacum near Milan, which had
been lent him by a friend, and announced himself to the bishop as a
candidate for baptism. His religious opinions were still to some extent
unformed, and even his habits by no means altogether such as his great
change demanded. He mentions, for example, that during this time he
broke himself of a habit of profane swearing, and in other ways sought
to discipline his character and conduct for the reception of the sacred
rite. He received baptism the Easter following, in his thirty-third
year, and along with him his son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius were
admitted to the Church. Monica, his mother, had rejoined him, and at
length rejoiced in the fulfilment of her prayers. She died at Ostia,
just as they were about to embark for Africa, her last hours being
gladdened by his Christian sympathy. In the account of the conversation
which he had with his mother before her end, in the narrative of her
death and burial (_Confess_. IX. x.-xi., SS 23-28), Augustine's literary
power is displayed at its highest.
The plan of returning home, remained for the present unaccomplished.
Augustine stayed for a year in Rome, occupied in literary work,
particularly in controversy with Manichaeism. It was not until the
autumn of 388 that he returned to Tagaste, probably still accompanied by
his son, who, however, must have died shortly afterwards. With some
friends, who joined him in devotion, he formed a small religious
community, which looked to him as its head. Their mode of life was not
formally monastic according to any special rule, but the experience of
this time of seclusion was, no doubt, the basis of that monastic system
which Augustine afterwards sketched and which derived its name from him
(see AUGUSTINIANS). As may be imagined, the fame of such a convert in
such a position soon spread, and invitations to a more active
ecclesiastical life came to him from many quarters. He shrank from the
responsibility, but his destiny was not to be avoided. After two and a
half years spent in retirement he went to Hippo, to see a Christian
friend, who desired to converse with him as to his design of quitting
the world and devoting himself to a religious life. The Christian
community there being in want of a presbyter and Augustine being present
at the meeting, the people unanimously chose him and he was ordained to
the presbyterate. A few years afterwards, 395 or 396, he was made
coadjutor to the bishop, and finally became bishop of the see.
Henceforth Augustine's life is filled up with his ecclesiastical
labours, and is more marked by the series of his numerous writings and
the great controversies in which they engaged him than by anything else.
His life was spent in a perpetual strife. During the first half this had
been against himself; but even when others stepped into his place, it
always seems as though a part of Augustine himself were incarnate in
them. Augustine had early distinguished himself as an author. He had
written several philosophical treatises, and, as teacher of rhetoric at
Carthage, he had composed a work _De pulchro et apto_, which is no
longer extant. Whenat Cassisiacum he had combated the scepticism of the
New Academy (_Contra Academicos_), had treated of the "blessed life"
(_De Vita beata_), of the significance of evil in the order of the world
(_De ordine_), of the means for the elucidation of spiritual truths
(_Soliloquia_). Shortly before the time of his baptism, he was occupied
with the question of the immortality of the soul (_De immortalitate
animae_), and in Rome and at Tagaste he was still engaged with
philosophical problems, as is evidenced by the writings _De quantitate
animae_ and _De magistro_. In all these treatises is apparent the
influence of the Neo-Platonic method of thought, which for him, as for
so many others, had become the bridge to the Christian. While still in
Rome, he began to come to a reckoning with the Manichaeans, and wrote
two books on the morals of the Catholic Church and of the Manichaeans
(_De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum libri
duo_). For many years he pursued this controversy in a long series of
writings, of which the most conspicuous is the elaborate reply to his
old associate and disputant, Faustus of Mileve (_Contra Faustum
Manichaeum_, A.D. 400). It was natural that the Manichaean heresy, which
had so long enslaved his own mind, should have first exercised
Augustine's great powers as a theological thinker and controversialist.
He was able from his own experience to give force to his arguments for
the unity of creation and of the spiritual life, and to strengthen the
mind of the Christian Church in its last struggle with that dualistic
spirit which had animated and moulded in succession so many forms of
thought at variance with Christianity.
But the time was one of almost universal ecclesiastical and intellectual
excitement; and so powerful a mental activity as his was naturally drawn
forth in all directions. Following his writings against the Manichaeans
came those against the Donatists. The controversy was one which strongly
interested him, involving as it did the whole question of the
constitution of the Church and the idea of catholic order, to which the
circumstances of the age gave special prominence. The Donatist
controversy sprang out of the Diocletian persecution in the beginning of
the century. A party in the Church of Carthage, fired with fanatic zeal
on behalf of those who had courted martyrdom by resistance to the
imperial mandates, resented deeply the appointment of a bishop of
moderate opinions, whose consecration had been performed, they alleged,
by a _traditor_, viz. a bishop who had "delivered" the holy scriptures
to the magistrates. They set up, in consequence, a bishop of their own,
of the name of Majorinus, succeeded in 315 by Donatus. The party made
great pretensions to purity of discipline, and rapidly rose in popular
favour, notwithstanding a decision given against them both by the bishop
of Rome and by the emperor Cons tan tine. Augustine was strongly moved
by the lawlessness of the party and launched forth a series of writings
against them, the most important of which survive. Amongst these are
"Seven Books on Baptism" (_De baptismo contra Donatistas_, c. A.D. 400)
and a lengthy answer, in three books, to Petilian, bishop of Cirta, who
was the most eminent theologian amongst the Donatist divines. At a later
period, about 417, Augustine wrote a treatise concerning the correction
of the Donatists (_De correctione Donatistarum_) "for the sake of
those," he says in his _Retractations_, "who were not willing that the
Donatists should be subjected to the correction of the imperial laws."
In these writings, while vigorously maintaining the validity of the
Church as it then stood in the Roman world, and the necessity for
moderation in the exercise of church discipline, Augustine yet gave
currency, in his zeal against the Donatists, to certain maxims as to the
duty of the civil power to control schism, which were of evil omen, and
have been productive of much disaster in the history of Christianity.
The third controversy in which Augustine engaged was the most important,
and the most intimately associated with his distinctive greatness as a
theologian. As may be supposed, owing to the conflicts through which he
had passed, the bishop of Hippo was intensely interested in what may be
called the anthropological aspect of the great Christian idea of
redemption. He had himself been brought out of darkness into "marvellous
light," only by entering into the depths of his own soul, and finding,
after many struggles, that there was no power but divine grace, as
revealed in the life and death of the Son of God, which could bring rest
to human weariness, or pardon and peace for human guilt. He had found
human nature in his own case too weak and sinful to find any good for
itself. In God alone he had found good. This deep sense of human
sinfulness coloured all his theology, and gave to it at once its
depth--its profound and sympathetic adaptation to all who feel the
reality of sin--and that tinge of darkness and exaggeration which has as
surely repelled others. When the expression "Augustinism" is used, it
points especially to those opinions of the great teacher which were
evoked in the Pelagian controversy, to which he devoted the most mature
and powerful period of his life. His opponents in this controversy were
Pelagius, from whom it derives its name, and Coelestius and Julianus,
pupils of the former. Nothing is certainly known as to the home of
Pelagius. Augustine calls him Brito, and so do Marius Mercator and
Orosius. Jerome points to his Scottish descent, in such terms, however,
as to leave it uncertain whether he was a native of Scotland or of
Ireland. He was a man of blameless character, devoted to the reformation
of society, full of that confidence in the natural impulses of humanity
which often accompanies philanthropic enthusiasm. About the year 400 he
came, no longer a young man, to Rome, where he lived for more than a
decade, and soon made himself conspicuous by his activity and by his
opinions. His pupil Coelestius, a lawyer of unknown origin, developed
the views of his master with a more outspoken logic, and, while
travelling with Pelagius in Africa, in the year 411, was at length
arraigned before the bishop of Carthage for the following, amongst other
heretical opinions:--(1) that Adam's sin was purely personal, and
affected none but himself; (2) that each man, consequently, is born with
powers as incorrupt as those of Adam, and only falls into sin under the
force of temptation and evil example; (3) that children who die in
infancy, being untainted by sin, are saved without baptism. Views such
as these were obviously in conflict with the whole course of Augustine's
experience, as well as with his interpretation of the catholic doctrine
of the Church. And when his attention was drawn to them by the trial and
excommunication of Coelestius, he undertook their refutation, first of
all in three books on the punishment and forgiveness of sins and the
baptism of infants (_De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo
parvulorum_), addressed to his friend Marcellinus, in which he
vindicated the necessity of baptism of infants because of original sin
and the grace of God by which we are justified (_Retract._ ii. 23). This
was in 412. In the same year he addressed a further treatise to the same
Marcellinus on _The Spirit and the Letter_ (_De spiritu et littera_).
Three years later he composed the treatises on _Nature and Grace_ (_De
natura et gratia_) and the relation of the human to the divine
righteousness (_De perfectione iustitiae hominis_). The controversy was
continued during many years in no fewer than fifteen treatises. Upon no
subject did Augustine bestow more of his intellectual strength, and in
relation to no other have his views so deeply and permanently affected
the course of Christian thought. Even those who most usually agree with
his theological standpoint will hardly deny that, while he did much in
these writings to vindicate divine truth and to expound the true
relations of the divine and human, he also, here as elsewhere, was
hurried into extreme expressions as to the absoluteness of divine grace
and the extent of human corruption. Like his great disciple in a later
age--Luther--Augustine was prone to emphasize the side of truth which he
had most realized in his own experience, and, in contradistinction to
the Pelagian exaltation of human nature, to depreciate its capabilities
beyond measure.
In addition to these controversial writings, which mark the great epochs
of Augustine's life and ecclesiastical activity after his settlement as
a bishop at Hippo, he was the author of other works, some of them better
known and even more important. His great work, the most elaborate, and
in some respects the most significant, that came from his pen, is _The
City of God_ (_De civitate Dei_). It is designed as a great apologetic
treatise in vindication of Christianity and the Christian Church,--the
latter conceived as rising in the form of a new civic order on the
crumbling ruins of the Roman empire,--but it is also, perhaps, the
earliest contribution to the philosophy of history, as it is a repertory
throughout of his cherished theological opinions. This work and his
_Confessions_ are, probably, those by which he is best known, the one as
the highest expression of his thought, and the other as the best
monument of his living piety and Christian experience. _The City of God_
was begun in 413, and continued to be issued in its several portions for
a period of thirteen years, or till 426. The _Confessions_ were written
shortly after he became a bishop, about 397, and give a vivid sketch of
his early career. To the devout utterances and aspirations of a great
soul they add the charm of personal disclosure, and have never ceased to
excite admiration in all spirits of kindred piety. Something of this
charm also belongs to the _Retractations_, that remarkable work in which
Augustine, in 427, towards the end of his life, held as it were a review
of his literary activity, in order to improve what was erroneous and to
make clear what was doubtful in it. His systematic treatise on _The
Trinity_ (_De Trinitate_) which extends to fifteen books and occupied
him for nearly thirty years, must not be passed over. This important
work, unlike most of his dogmatic writings, was not provoked by any
special controversial emergency, but grew up silently during this long
period in the author's mind. This has given it something more of
completeness and organic arrangement than is usual with Augustine, if it
has also led him into the prolonged discussion of various analogies,
more curious than apt in their bearing on the doctrine which he
expounds. Brief and concise is the presentation of the Catholic doctrine
in the compendium, which, about 421, he wrote at the request of a Roman
layman named Laurentius (_Encheiridion, sive de fide spe et caritate_).
In spite of its title, the compendious work on Christian doctrine (_De
doctrina Christiana_), begun as early as 393, but only finished in 426,
does not belong to the dogmatic writings. It is a sort of Biblical
hermeneutic, in which homiletic questions are also dealt with. His
catechetical principles Augustine developed in the charming writing _De
catechizandis rudibus_ (c. 400). A large number of tractates are devoted
to moral and theological problems (_Contra mendacium_, c. 420; _De bono
conjugali_, 401, &c.). A widespread influence was exercised by the
treatise _De opere monachorum_ (c. 400), in which, on the ground of
Holy Scripture, manual work was demanded of monks. Of less importance
than the remaining works are the numerous exegetical writings, among
which the commentary on the Gospel of St John deserves a special
mention. These have a value owing to Augustine's appreciation of the
deeper spiritual meaning of scripture, but hardly for their exegetical
qualities. His _Letters_ are full of interest owing to the light they
throw on many questions in the ecclesiastical history of the time, and
owing to his relations with such contemporary theologians as Jerome.
They have, however, neither the liveliness nor the varied interest of
the letters of Jerome himself. As a preacher Augustine was of great
importance. We still possess almost four hundred sermons which may be
ascribed to him with certainty. Many others only pass under his
celebrated name.
The closing years of the great bishop were full of sorrow. The Vandals,
who had been gradually enclosing the Roman empire, appeared before the
gates of Hippo, and laid siege to it. Augustine was ill with his last
illness, and could only pray for his fellow-citizens. He passed away
during the siege, on the 28th of August 430, at the age of seventy-five,
and thus was spared the indignity of seeing the city in the hands of the
enemy.
The character of Augustine, both as a man and as a theologian, has been
briefly indicated in the course of our sketch. None can deny the
greatness of Augustine's soul--his enthusiasm, his unceasing search
after truth, his affectionate disposition, his ardour, his
self-devotion. And even those who may doubt the soundness of his
dogmatic conclusions, cannot but acknowledge the depth of his spiritual
convictions, and the logical force and penetration with which he handled
the most difficult questions, thus weaving all the elements of his
experience and of his profound scriptural knowledge into a great system
of Christian thought. Of the four great Fathers of the Church he was
admittedly the greatest--more profound than Ambrose, his spiritual
father, more original and systematic than Jerome, his correspondent, and
intellectually far more distinguished than Gregory the Great, his pupil
on the papal throne. The theological position and influence of Augustine
may be said to be unrivalled. No single name has ever exercised such
power over the Christian Church, and no one mind ever made so deep an
impression upon Christian thought. In him scholastics and mystics, popes
and the opponents of the papal supremacy, have seen their champion. He
was the fulcrum on which Luther rested the thoughts by which he sought
to lift the past of the Church out of the rut; yet the judgment of
Catholics still proclaims the ideas of Augustine as the only sound basis
of philosophy.
The best complete edition of Augustine's works is that of the
Maurines, in 11 vols. fol. published at Paris, 1679-1700, and
reprinted in Migne's _Patrologie_ (Paris, 1841-1842). Of the new
critical edition in the _Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum
Latinorum_, issued by the Vienna Academy, thirteen volumes had been
published in 1908, including the _Confessions_, the _Retractations_,
_De civitate Dei_, and a number of exegetical and of dogmatic
polemical works, together with a portion of the _Letters_. An English
translation of nearly the whole of Augustine's writings will be found
in the _Select Library of the Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church_ (series 1, Buffalo, 1886, &c.). Tillemont, in his
_Memoires pour servir a l'histoire ecclesiastique des VI premiers
siecles_, has devoted a quarto volume (vol. xiii.) to Augustine's life
and writings. The most complete monographs are those on the Catholic
side by Kloth (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1839-1840, 3 vols.) and J.J.F.
Poujoulat (7th ed., Paris, 1886, 2 vols.), and on the Protestant side
by Bindemann (Berlin, Leipzig, Greifswald, 1844-1869, 3 vols,). There
are interesting sketches, from quite different points of view, by von
Hertling, _Augustinus_ (2nd ed., Mainz, 1904), and Joseph McCabe, _St
Augustine and His Age_ (London, 1902). See also Nourrisson, _La
Philosophie de St Augustin_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1866, 2 vols.); H.A.
Naville, _St Augustin, etude sur la developpement de sa pensee jusqu'a
l'epoque de son ordination_ (Geneva, 1872); Dorner, _Augustinus_
(Berlin, 1873); Reuter, _Augustinische Studien_ (Gotha, 1886); F.
Scheel, _Die Anschauung Augustins uber Christi Person und Werk_
(Tubingen, 1901); A. Hatzfeld, _Saint Augustin_ (6th ed., Paris,
1902); G. von Hertling, _Augustin_ (Mainz, 1902); A. Egger, _Der
heilige Augustinus_ (Kempten, 1904); J.N. Espenberger, _Die Elemente
der Erbsunde nach Augustin und der Fruhscholastik_ (Mainz, 1905); S.
Angus, _The Sources of the First Ten Books of Augustine's De Civitate
Dei_ (Princeton, 1906); and the more modern text-books of the history
of dogma, especially Harnack. (G. K.)