soul, nor at the cemetery before the coffin, did he weep. From a sense of
Christian seemliness, he feared to scandalize his brethren by imitating
the desolation of the pagans and of those who die without hope. But this
very effort that he made to keep back his tears became another cause of
suffering. The day ended in a black sadness, a sadness he could not shake
off. It stifled him. Then he remembered the Greek proverb--"The bath
drives away sorrow;" and he determined to go and bathe. He went into the
_tepidarium_ and stretched himself out on the hot slab. Useless remedy!
"The bitterness of my trouble was not carried from my heart with the sweat
that flowed from my limbs." The attendants rolled him in warm towels and
led him to the resting-couch. Worn out by tiredness and so many emotions,
he fell into a heavy sleep. The next day, upon awaking, a fresh briskness
was in all his being. Some verses came singing into his memory; they were
the first words of the confident and joyous hymn of St. Ambrose:
"Creator of the earth and sky,
Ruling the firmament on high,
Clothing the day with robes of light,
Blessing with gracious sleep the night,--
That rest may comfort weary men
To face their usual toil again,
And soothe awhile the harassed mind,
And sorrow's heavy load unbind."
Suddenly, at the word _sorrow_, the thought of his dead mother came back
to him, with the regret for that kind heart he had lost. A wave of despair
overwhelmed him. He flung himself sobbing on the bed, and at last wept all
the tears he had pent up so long.
III
THE MONK OF THAGASTE
Almost a year went by before Augustin continued his journey. It is hard to
account for this delay. Why should he thus put off his return to Africa, he
who was so anxious to fly the world?
It is likely that Monnica's illness, the arrangements about her funeral,
and other matters to settle, kept him at Ostia till the beginning of
winter. The weather became stormy, the sea dangerous. Navigation was
regularly interrupted from November--sometimes even earlier, from the
first days of October, if the tempests and the equinox were exceptionally
violent. It would then be necessary to wait till spring. Besides, word
came that the fleet of the usurper Maximus, then at war with Theodosius,
blockaded the African coast. Travellers ran the risk of being captured by
the enemy. From all these reasons, Augustin would be prevented from sailing
before the end of the following summer. In the meantime, he went to live in
Rome. He employed his leisure to work up a case against the Manichees, his
brethren of the day before. Once he had adopted Catholicism, he must have
expected passionate attacks from his former brothers in religion. To close
their mouths, he gathered against them an elaborate mass of documents,
bristling with the latest scandals. He busied himself also with a
thorough study of their doctrines, the better to refute them: in him the
dialectician never slept. Then, when he had an opportunity, he visited the
Roman monasteries, studying their rule and organization, so as to decide on
a model for the convent which he always intended to establish in his own
country. At last, he went back to Ostia some time in August or September,
388, where he found a ship bound for Carthage.
Four years earlier, about the same time of year, he had made the same
voyage, coming the opposite way. He had a calm crossing; hardly could one
notice the movement of the ship. It is the season of smooth seas in the
Mediterranean. Never is it more etherial than in these summer months. The
vague blue sky is confused with the bleached sea, spread out in a large
sheet without creases--liquid and flexible silk, swept by quivering amber
glow and orange saffron when the sun falls. No distinct shape, only strange
suffusions of soft light, a pearl-like haze, the wistful blue reaching away
indefinably.
At Carthage, Augustin had grown used to the magnificence of this pageantry
of the sea. Now, the sea had the same appeased and gleaming face he had
seen four years sooner. But how much his soul had since been changed!
Instead of the tumult and falsehood which rent his heart and filled it
with darkness, the serene light of Truth, and deeper than the sea's peace,
the great appeasement of Grace. Augustin dreamed. Far off the Æolian isles
were gloomed in the impending shadows, the smoky crater of Stromboli was
no more than a black point circled by the double blue of waves and sky. So
the remembrance of his passions, of all that earlier life, sank under the
triumphant uprising of heavenly peace. He believed that this blissful state
was going to continue and fill all the hours of his new life, and he knew
of nothing so sweet....
This time, again, he was mistaken about himself. Upon the thin plank of the
boat which carried him, he did not feel the force of the immense element,
asleep now under his feet, but quick to be unchained at the first gust of
wind; and he did not feel either the overflowing energy swelling his heart
renewed by Grace--an energy which was going to set in motion one of the
most complete and strenuous existences, one of the richest in thought,
charity, and works which have enlightened history. Thinking only of the
cloister, amidst the friends who surrounded him, no doubt he repeated the
words of the Psalm: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity." He pressed the hands of Alypius and Evodius,
and tears came to his eyes.
The sun was gone. All the cold waste of waters, forsaken by the gleam,
blurred gradually in vague anguish beneath the fall of night.
* * * * *
After skirting the Sicilian coasts, they arrived at last at Carthage.
Augustin did not linger there; he was eager to see Thagaste once more, and
to retire finally from the world. Favourable omens drew him to the place,
and seemed to hearten him in his resolution. A dream had foretold his
return to his former pupil, Elogius, the rhetorician. He was present, too,
at the miraculous cure of a Carthage lawyer, Innocentius, in whose house he
dwelt with his friends.
Accordingly, he left for Thagaste as soon as he could. There he made
himself popular at once by giving to the poor, as the Gospel prescribed,
what little remained of his father's heritage. But he does not make clear
enough what this voluntary privation exactly meant. He speaks of a house
and some little meadows--_paucis agellulis_--that he sequestrated. Still,
he did not cease to live in the house all the time he was at Thagaste. The
probability is that he did sell the few acres of land he still owned and
bestowed the product of the sale on the poor. As to the house, he must have
made it over with the outbuildings to the Catholic body of his native town,
on condition of keeping the usufruct and of receiving for himself and his
brethren the necessities of life. At this period many pious persons acted
in this way when they gave their property to the Church. Church goods
being unseizable, and exempt from taxation, this was a roundabout way of
getting the better of fiscal extortion, whether in the shape of arbitrary
confiscations, or eviction by force of arms. In any case, such souls as
were tired of the world and longing for repose, found in these bequests an
heroic method of saving themselves the trouble of looking after a fortune
or a landed estate. When these fortunes and lands were extensive, the
generous donors felt, we are told, an actual relief in getting rid of them.
This financial question settled, Augustin took up the task of turning the
house into a monastery, like those he had seen at Rome and Milan. His son
Adeodatus, his friends Alypius and Evodius, Severus, who became Bishop
of Milevia, shared his solitude. But it is certain that he had other
solitaries with him whom he alludes to in his letters. Their rule was as
yet a little easy, no doubt. The brothers of Thagaste were not confined
in a cloister. They were simply obliged to fasts, to a special diet, to
prayers and meditations in common.
In this half-rustic retreat (the monastery was situated at the gates of
the town) Augustin was happy: he had at last realized the project he had
had so long at heart. To enter into himself, pray, above all, to study
the Scripture, to fathom even its most obscure places, to comment it with
the fervour and piety which the African of all times has brought to _what
is written down_--it seemed to him that he had enough there to fill all
the minutes of his life. But no man can teach, lecture, discuss, write,
during twenty years, in vain. However much Augustin might be converted, he
remembered the school at Thagaste, just as he did at Cassicium. Still, it
was necessary to finish with this sort of thing once for all. The new monk
made what may be called his will as a professor.
He finished, at this time, or revised his school treatises, which he had
begun at Milan, comprising all the liberal arts--grammar, dialectic,
rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, philosophy, music. Of all these books he
only finished the first, the treatise on grammar. The others were only
summaries, and are now lost. On the other hand, we have still the six
books on music, likewise begun at Milan, which he finished, almost as an
amusement, at Thagaste. They are dialogues between himself and his pupil,
the poet Licentius, upon metre and scansion. But we know from himself that
he intended to make this book longer, and to write a second part upon
melody, that is to say, music, properly so called. He never found the time:
"Once," he says, "the burthen of ecclesiastical affairs was placed on my
shoulders, _all these pleasant things_ slipped from my hands."
Thus, the monk Augustin only rests from prayer and meditation to study
music and poetry. He has thought it necessary to excuse himself. "In all
that," says he, "I had but one purpose. For, as I did not wish to pluck
away too suddenly either young men, or those of another age, on whom God
had bestowed good wits, from ideas of the senses and carnal literature,
_things it is very hard for them not to be attached to_, I have tried
by reasoning lessons to turn them little by little, and by the love of
unchanging truth, to attach them to God, sole master of all things.... He
who reads these books will see that if I have touched upon the poets and
grammarians, 'twas more by the exigency of the journey than by any desire
to settle among them.... Such is the life I have chosen to walk with the
feeble, not being very strong myself, rather than to hurl myself out on the
void with wings still half-fledged...."
Here again, how human all that is, and wise--yes, and modest too. Augustin
has no whit of the fanatic about him. No straighter conscience than his,
or even more persistent in uprooting error. But he knows what man is, that
life here below is a voyage among other men weak as himself, and he fits in
with the needs of the voyage. Oh, yes, no doubt, for the Christian who has
arrived at supreme renunciation--what is poetry, what is knowledge, "what
is everything that is not eternal?" But this carnal literature and science
are so many steps of a height proportionate to our feebleness, to lead
us imperceptibly to the conceptual world. As a prudent guide of souls,
Augustin did not wish to make the ascent too rapidly. As for music, he has
still more indulgence for that than for any of the other arts, for "it
is by sounds that we best perceive the power of numbers in every variety
of movement, and their study thus leads us gradually to the closest and
highest secrets of truth, and discovers to those who love and seek it
the divine Wisdom and Providence in all things...." He is always coming
back to it--to this music he loves so much; he comes back to it in spite
of himself. Later, in great severity, he will reproach himself for the
pleasure he takes in the liturgical chants, but nevertheless the old
instinct will remain. He was born a musician. He will remain one to his
last gasp.
If he did not break completely with profane art and letters at this present
moment of his life, his chief reasons were of a practical order. Still
another object may be discerned in these educational treatises--namely, to
prove to the pagans that one may be a Christian and yet not be a barbarian
and ignorant. Augustin's position in front of his adversaries is very
strong indeed. None of them can attempt to cope with him either in breadth
of knowledge, or in happy versatility, or in plenitude of intellectual
gifts. He had the entire heritage of the ancient world between his hands.
Well might he say to the pagans: "What you admire in your orators and
philosophers, I have made my own. Behold it! On my lips recognize the
accent of your orators.... Well, all that, which you deem so high, I
despise. The knowledge of this world is nothing without the wisdom of
Christ."
Of course, Augustin has paid the price of this all-round knowledge--too
far-reaching, perhaps, at certain points. He has often too much paraded his
knowledge, his dialectic and oratorical talents. What matters that, if even
in this excess he aims solely at the welfare of souls--to edify them and
set them aglow with the fire of his charity? At Thagaste, he disputes with
his brethren, with his son Adeodatus. He is always the master--he knows it;
but what humility he puts into this dangerous part! The conclusion of his
book, _The Master_, which he wrote then, is that all the words of him who
teaches are useless, if the hidden Master reveal not the truth to him who
listens.
So, under his ungainly monk's habit, he continues his profession of
rhetorician. He has come to Thagaste with the intention of retiring from
the world and living in God; and here he is disputing, lecturing, writing
more than ever. The world pursues him and occupies him even in his retreat.
He says to himself that down there at Rome, at Carthage, at Hippo, there
are men speaking in the forums or in the basilicas, whispering in secret
meetings, seducing poor souls defenceless against error. These impostors
must be immediately unmasked, confounded, reduced to silence. With all his
heart Augustin throws himself into this work at which he excels. Above all,
he attacks his old friends the Manichees.... He wrote many tracts against
them. From the animosity he put into these, may be judged to what extent
Manicheeism filled his thoughts, and also the progress of the sect in
Africa.
This campaign was even the cause of a complete change in his way of
writing. With the object of reaching the plainest sort of people, he began
to employ the popular language, not recoiling before a solecism, when the
solecism appeared to him indispensable to explain his thought. This must
have been a cruel mortification for him. In his very latest writings he
made a point of shewing that no elegance of language was unknown to him.
But his real originality is not in that. When he writes the fine style,
his period is heavy, entangled, often obscure. On the other hand, nothing
is more lively, clear and coloured, and, as we say to-day, more direct,
than the familiar language of his sermons and certain of his treatises.
This language he has really created. He wanted to clarify, comment, give
details, and he felt how awkward classical Latin is to decompose ideas
and render shades. And so, in a popular Latin, already very close to the
Romance languages, he has thrown out the plan of analytical prose, the
instrument of thought of the modern West.
Not only did he battle against the heretics, but his restless friendship
continually scaled the walls of his cell to fly to the absent ones dear
to his heart. He feels that he must expand to his friends, and make them
sharers in his meditations: this nervous man, in poor health, spends a part
of his nights meditating. The argument he has hit upon in last night's
insomnia--his friends must be told that! He heaps his letters on them. He
writes to Nebridius, to Romanianus, to Paulinus of Nola; to people unknown
and celebrated, in Africa, Italy, Spain, and Palestine. A time will come
when his letters will be real encyclicals, read throughout Christendom. He
writes so much that he is often short of paper. He has not tablets enough
to put down his notes. He asks Romanianus to give him some. His beautiful
tablets, the ivory ones, are used up; he has used the last one for a
ceremonial letter, and he asks his friend's pardon for writing to him on
a wretched bit of vellum.
Besides all that, he interests himself in the affairs of his
fellow-townsmen. Augustin is a personage at Thagaste. The good folk of the
free-town are well aware that he is eloquent, that he has a far-reaching
acquaintance, and that he has great influence in high quarters. They
ask for his protection and his interference. It is even possible that
they obliged him to defend them in the courts. They were proud of their
Augustin. And as they were afraid that some neighbouring town might steal
away their great man, they kept a guard round his house. They prevented him
from shewing himself too much in the neighbourhood. Augustin himself agreed
with this, and lived retired as far as he could, for he was afraid they
would make him a bishop or priest in spite of himself. In those days that
was a danger incurred by all Christians who were rich or had talent. The
rich gave their goods to the poor when they took orders. The men of talent
defended the interests of the community, or attracted opulent benefactors.
And because of all these reasons, the needy or badly managed churches
stalked as a prey the celebrated Augustin.
In spite of this supervision, this unremitting rush of business, the work
of all kinds which he undertook, he experienced at Thagaste a peace which
he was never to find again. One might say that he pauses and gathers
together all his strength before the great exhausting labour of his
apostolate. In this Numidian country, so verdant and cool, where a thousand
memories of childhood encompassed him, where he was not able to take a step
without encountering the ever-living image of his mother, he soared towards
God with more confidence. He who sought in the things of sense ladder-rungs
whereby to mount to spiritual realities, still turned kindly eyes on
the natural scene. From the windows of his room he saw the forest pines
rounding their heads, like little crystal goblets with stems slim and thin.
His scarred chest breathed in deliriously the resinous breath of the fine
trees. He listened like a musician to the orchestra of birds. The changing
scenes of country life always attracted him. It is now that he wrote:
"Tell me, does not the nightingale seem to you to modulate her voice
delightfully? Is not her song, so harmonious, so suave, so well attuned to
the season, the very voice of the spring?..."
IV
AUGUSTIN A PRIEST
This halt did not last long. Soon was going to begin for Augustin the time
of tribulation, that of his struggles and apostolic journeys.
And first, he must mourn his son Adeodatus, that young man who seemed
destined to such great things. It is indeed most probable that the young
monk died at Thagaste during the three years that his father spent there.
Augustin was deeply grieved; but, as in the case of his mother's death, he
mastered his sorrow by all the force of his Christian hope. No doubt he
loved his son as much as he was proud of him. It will be remembered what
words he used to speak of this youthful genius, whose precocity frightened
him. Little by little his grief quietened down, and in its place came a
mild resignation. Some years later he will write about Adeodatus: "Lord,
early didst Thou cut off his life from this earth, but I remember him
without a shadow of misgiving. My remembrance is not mixed with any fear
for his boyhood, or the youth he was, or the man he would have been." No
fear! What a difference between this and the habitual feelings of the
Jansenists, who believed themselves his disciples! While Augustin thinks of
his son's death with a calm and grave joy which he can scarce hide, those
of Port Royal could only think in trembling of the judgment of God. Their
faith did not much resemble the luminous and confident faith of Augustin.
For him, salvation is the conquest of joy.
At Thagaste he lived in joy. Every morning in awaking before the forest
pines, glistening with the dews of the morning, he might well say with a
full heart: "My God, give me the grace to live here under the shades of Thy
peace, while awaiting that of Thy Paradise." But the Christians continued
to watch him. It was to the interest of a number of people that this light
should not be hid under a bushel. Perhaps a snare was deliberately laid for
him. At any rate, he was imprudent enough to come out of his retreat and
travel to Hippo. He thought he might be safe there, because, as the town
had a bishop already, they would not have any excuse to get him consecrated
in spite of himself.
An inhabitant of Hippo, a clerk of the Imperial Ministry of the Interior,
begged his spiritual assistance. Doubts, he maintained, still delayed him
on the way to an entire conversion. Augustin alone could help him to get
clear of them. So Augustin, counting already on a new recruit for the
Thagaste monastery, went over there at the request of this official.
Now, if there was a bishop at Hippo (a certain Valerius), priests were
lacking. Furthermore, Valerius was getting on in years. Originally Greek,
he knew Latin badly, and not a word of Punic--a great hindrance for him in
his duties of judge, administrator, and catechist. The knowledge of the two
languages was indispensable to an ecclesiastic in such a country, where the
majority of the rural population spoke only the old Carthaginian idiom.
All this proves to us that Catholicism was in bad shape in the diocese
of Hippo. Not only was there a lack of priests, but the bishop was a
foreigner, little familiar with African customs. There was a general
demand for a native to take his place--one young, active, and well enough
furnished with learning to hold his own against the heretics and the
schismatics of the party of Donatus, and also sufficiently able to watch
over the interests of the Church at Hippo, and above all, to make it
prosperous. Let us not forget that at this time, in the eyes of a crowd of
poor wretches, Christianity was first and foremost the religion which gave
out bread. Even in those early days, the Church did its best to solve the
eternal social question.
While Augustin was at Hippo, Valerius preached a sermon in the basilica in
which, precisely, he deplored this lack of priests the community suffered
from. Mingled with the congregation, Augustin listened, sure that he would
be unrecognized. But the secret of his presence had leaked out. People
pointed to him while the bishop was preaching. The next thing was that some
furious enthusiasts seized hold of him and dragged him to the foot of the
episcopal chair, yelling:
"Augustin a priest! Augustin a priest!"
Such were the democratic ways of the Church in those days. The
inconveniences are plain enough. What is certain is, that if Augustin had
resisted, he might have lost his life, and that the bishop would have
provoked a riot in refusing him the priesthood. In Africa, religious
passions are not to be trifled with, especially when they are exasperated
by questions of profit or politics. In his heart, the bishop was delighted
with this brutal capture which gained him the distinction of such a
well-known fellow-worker. There and then he ordained the Thagaste monk. And
so, as Augustin's pupil, Possidius, the future Bishop of Guelma, puts it,
"This shining lamp, which sought the darkness of solitude, was placed upon
the lamp-stand..." Augustin, who saw the finger of God in this adventure,
submitted to the popular will. Nevertheless, he was in despair, and he
wept at the change they were forcing on him. Then, some of those present,
mistaking the significance of his tears, said to console him:
"Yes, you are right. The priesthood is not good enough for your merits. But
you may be certain that you will be our bishop."
Augustin well knew all that the crowd meant by that, and what it expected
of its bishop. He who only thought of leaving the world, grew frightened
at the practical cares he would have to take over. And the spiritual side
of his jurisdiction frightened him no less. To speak of God! Proclaim the
word of God! He deemed himself unworthy of so high a privilege. He was so
ill-prepared! To remedy this fault of preparation, as well as he could, he
desired that he might be given a little leisure till the following Easter.
In a letter addressed to Valerius, and no doubt intended to be made public,
he humbly set forth the reasons why he asked for delay. They were so
apposite and so creditable, that very likely the bishop yielded. The new
priest received permission to retire to a country house near Hippo. His
flock, who did not feel at all sure of their shepherd, would not have let
him go too far off.