Augustin was well aware of it. He knew that the Western Empire was in a
critical position. Theodosius had just died, in the midst of war with the
usurper Eugenius. The Barbarians, who made up the greater part of the Roman
armies, shewed themselves more and more threatening. Alaric, entrenched
in the Peloponnesus, was getting ready to invade Italy. However, the
all-powerful minister of the young Honorius, the half-Barbarian Stilicho,
did his best to conciliate the Catholics, and assured them that he would
continue the protection they had had from Theodosius, Augustin therefore
turned to the central power. It alone could bring about a little order in
the provinces--and then, besides, the new emperors were firmly attached
to the defence of Catholicism. The Catholic Bishop of Hippo did his
best, accordingly, to keep on good terms with the representatives of the
Metropolitan Government--the proconsuls; the proprætors; the counts;
and the tribunes, or the secretaries, sent by the Emperor as Government
commissioners.
There was no suspicion of flattery in his attitude, no idolatry of power.
At Milan, Augustin had been near enough to the Court to know what the
Imperial functionaries were worth. Now, he simply adapted himself as well
as he could to the needs of the moment. And with all that, he could have
wished in the depths of his heart that this power were stronger, so as to
give the Church more effective support. This cultured man, brought up in
the respect of the Roman majesty, was by instinct a faithful servant of
the Cæsars. A man who held to authority and tradition, he maintained that
obedience is due to princes: "There is a general agreement," he said,
"of human society to obey its Kings." In one of his sermons he compares
thought, which commands the body, to the Emperor seated upon his throne,
and from the depths of his palace dictating orders which set the whole
Empire moving--a purely ideal image of the sovereign of that time, but one
which pleased his Latin imagination. Alas! Augustin had no illusions about
the effect of Imperial edicts; he knew too well how little they were
regarded, especially in Africa.
So he could hardly count upon Government support for the defence of
Catholic unity and peace. He found he must trust to himself; and all
his strength was in his intelligence, in his charity, in his deeply
compassionate soul. Most earnestly did he wish that Catholicism might be a
religion of love, open to all the nations of the earth, even as its Divine
Founder Himself had wished. A glowing and dominating intelligence, charity
which never tired--those were Augustin's arms. And they were enough. These
qualities gave him an overwhelming superiority over all the men of his
time. Among them, pagans or Christians, he looks like a colossus. From what
a height he crushes, not only the professors who had been his colleagues,
such as Nectarius of Guelma or Maximus of Madaura, but the most celebrated
writers of his time--Symmachus, for instance, and Ammianus Marcellinus.
After reading a treatise of Augustin's, one is astounded by the
intellectual meagreness of these last pagans. The narrowness of their
mind and platitude of thought is a thing that leaves one aghast. Even the
illustrious Apuleius, who belonged to the golden age of African literature,
the author of _The Doctrine of Plato_, praises philosophy and the Supreme
Being in terms which recall the professions of faith of the chemist and
druggist, Homais, in _Madame Bovary_.
Nor among those who surrounded Augustin, his fellow-bishops, was there one
fit to be compared with him, even at a distance. Except perhaps Nebridius,
his dearest friends, Alypius, Severus, or Evodius, are merely disciples,
not to say servants of his thought. Aurelius, Primate of Carthage, an
energetic administrator, a firm and upright character, if he is not on
Augustin's level, is at any rate capable of understanding and supporting
him. The others are decent men, like that Samsucius, Bishop of Tours, very
nearly illiterate, but full of good sense and experience, and on this
ground consulted respectfully by his colleague of Hippo. Or else they are
plotters, given to debauch, engaged in business, like Paulus, Bishop of
Cataqua, who became involved in risky speculations, swindled the revenue,
and by his expensive way of life ruined his diocese. Others, on the
Donatist side, are mere swashbucklers, half-brigands, half-fanatics, like
the Gildonian Optatus, Bishop of Thimgad, a manifestation in advance of
the Mussulman _marabout_ who preached the holy war against the Catholics,
raiding, killing, burning, converting by sabre blows and bludgeoning.
Amid these insignificant or violent men, Augustin will endeavour to realize
to the full the admirable type of bishop, at once spiritual father,
protector, and support of his people. He had promised himself to sacrifice
no whit of his ideal of Christian perfection. As bishop, he will remain a
monk, as he did during his priesthood. Beside the monastery established in
Valerius' garden, where it is impossible to receive properly his guests and
visitors, he will start another in the episcopal residence. He will conform
to the monastic rule as far as his duties allow. He will pray, study the
Scriptures, define dogmas, refute heresies. At the same time, he means to
neglect nothing of his material work. He has mouths to feed, property to
look after, law-cases to examine. He will labour at all that. For this
mystic and theorist it means a never-ceasing immolation.
First, to give the poor their daily bread. Like all the communities of that
time, Hippo maintained a population of beggars. Often enough, the diocesan
cash-box was empty. Augustin was obliged to hold out the hand, to deliver
from the height of his pulpit pathetic appeals for charity. Then, there are
hospitals to be built for the sick, a lodging-house for poor wanderers.
The bishop started these institutions in houses bequeathed to the church
of Hippo. For reasons of economy, he thought better not to build. That
would overload his budget. Next came the greatest of all his cares--the
administration of Church property. To increase this property, he stipulated
that his clergy should give up all they possessed in favour of the
community, thus giving the faithful an example of voluntary poverty.
He also accepted gifts from private persons. But he also often refused
these--for example, the bequest of a father or mother, who, in a moment of
anger, disinherited their children. He did not wish to profit by the bad
feelings of parents to plunder orphans. On another side, he objected to
engage the Church in suits at law with the exchequer upon receiving certain
heritages. When a business man at Hippo left to the diocese his share of
profits in the service of boats for carrying Government stores, Augustin
came to the conclusion that it would be better to refuse. In case of
shipwreck, they would be obliged to make good the lost corn to the
Treasury, or else to put the captain and surviving sailors to the torture
to prove that the crew was not responsible for the loss of the ship.
Augustin would not hear tell of it.
"Is it fit," he said, "that a bishop should be a shipowner?... A bishop
a torturer? Oh, no; that does not agree at all with a servant of Jesus
Christ."
The people of Hippo did not share his views. They blamed Augustin's
scruples. They accused him of compromising the interests of the Church. One
day he had to explain himself from the pulpit:
"Well I know, my brothers, that you often say between yourselves: 'Why do
not people give anything to the Church of Hippo? Why do not the dying make
it their heir? The reason is that Bishop Augustin is too easy; he gives all
back to the children; he keeps nothing!' I acknowledge it, I only accept
gifts which are good and pious. Whoever disinherits his son to make the
Church his heir, let him find somebody willing to accept his gifts. It is
not I who will do it, and by God's grace, I hope it will not be anybody....
Yes, I have refused many legacies, but I have also accepted many. Need I
name them to you? I will give only one instance. I accepted the heritage of
Julian. Why? Because he died without children...."
The listeners thought that their bishop really put too fine a point on
things.
They further reproached him with not knowing how to attract and flatter the
rich benefactors. Augustin would not allow, either, that they had any right
to force a passing stranger to receive the priesthood and consequently to
give up his goods to the poor. All this really was very wise, not only
according to the spirit of the Gospel, but according to human prudence.
If Augustin, for the sake of the good fame of his Church, did not wish to
incur the accusation of grasping and avarice, he dreaded nothing so much
as a law-case. To accept lightly the gifts and legacies offered was to lay
himself open to expensive pettifogging. Far better to refuse than to lose
both his money and reputation. So were reconciled, in this man of prayer
and meditation, practical good sense with the high disinterestedness of the
Christian teaching.
The bishop was disinterested; his people were covetous. The people of those
times wished the Church to grow rich, because they were the first to profit
by its riches. Now these riches were principally in houses and land. The
diocese of Hippo had to deal with many houses and immense _fundi_, upon
which lived an entire population of artisans and freed-men, agricultural
labourers, and even art-workers--smelters, embroiderers, chisellers on
metals. Upon the Church lands, these small people were protected from taxes
and the extortions of the revenue officers, and no doubt they found the
episcopal government more fatherly and mild than the civil.
Augustin, who had made a vow of poverty and given his heritage to the poor,
became by a cruel irony a great landowner as soon as he was elected Bishop
of Hippo. Doubtless he had stewards under him to look after the property
of the diocese. This did not save him from going into details of management
and supervising his agents. He heard the complaints, not only of his
own tenants, but also of those who belonged to other estates and were
victimized by dishonest bailiffs. Anyhow, we have a thousand signs to shew
that no detail of country life was unfamiliar to him.
On horseback or muleback, he rode for miles through the country about
Hippo to visit his vineyards and olivets. He examined, found out things,
questioned the workmen, went into the presses and the mills. He knew the
grape good to eat, and the grape to make wine with. He pointed out where
the ensilage pits had been dug in too marshy land, which endangered the
young corn. As a capable landowner he was abreast of the law, careful
about the terms of contracts. He knew the formulas employed for sales or
benefactions. He saw to it that charcoal was buried around the landmarks in
the fields, so that if the post disappeared, its place could be found. And
as he was a poet, he gathered on his course a whole booty of rural images
which later on went to brighten his sermons. He made ingenious comparisons
with the citron-tree, "which is seen to give flowers and fruits all the
year if it be watered constantly," or else with the goat "who gets upon her
two hind legs to crop the bitter leaves of the wild olive."
These journeys in the open air, however tiring they might be, were after
all a rest for his overworked brain. But there was one among his episcopal
duties which wearied him to disgust. Every day he had to listen to parties
in dispute and give judgment. Following recent Imperial legislation, the
bishop became judge in civil cases--a tiresome and endless work in a
country where tricky quibbling raged with obstinate fury. The litigants
pursued Augustin, overran his house, like those fellahs in dirty burnous
who block our law-courts with their rags. In the _secretarium_ of the
basilica, or under the portico of the court leading to the church, Augustin
sat like a Mussulman cadi in the court of the mosque.
The emperors had only regulated an old custom of apostolic times in placing
the Christians under the jurisdiction of their bishop. In accordance with
St. Paul's advice, the priests did their utmost to settle differences among
the faithful. Later, when their number had considerably increased, the
Government adopted a system not unlike the "Capitulations" in countries
under the Ottoman suzerainty. Lawsuits between clerics and laymen could not
be equitably judged by civil servants, who were often pagans. Moreover, the
parties based their claims on theological principles or religious laws that
the arbitrator generally knew nothing about. In these conditions, it was
natural enough that the Imperial authority should say to the disputants,
"Fight it out among yourselves".
And it happened, just at the moment when Augustin began to fill the see of
Hippo, that Theodosius broadened still more the judicial prerogatives of
the bishops. The unhappy judge was overwhelmed with law-cases. Every day he
sat till the hour of his meal, and sometimes the whole day when he fasted.
To those who accused him of laziness, he answered:
"I can declare on my soul that if it were question of my own convenience, I
should like much better to work at some manual labour at certain hours of
the day, as the rule is in well-governed monasteries, and have the rest of
the time free to read or pray or meditate upon the Holy Scripture, instead
of being troubled with all the complications and dull talk of lawsuits."
The rascality of the litigants made him indignant. From the pulpit he gave
them advice full of Christian wisdom, but which could not have been much
relished. A suit at law, according to him, was a loss of time and a cause
of sorrow. It would be better to let the opponent have the money, than to
lose time and be filled with uneasiness. Nor was this, added the preacher
in all good faith, to encourage injustice; for the robber would be robbed
in his turn by a greater robber than himself.
These reasons seemed only moderately convincing. The pettifoggers did not
get discouraged. On the contrary, they infested the bishop with their
pleas. As soon as he appeared, they rushed up to him in a mob, surrounded
him, kissed his hand and his shoulder, protesting their respect and
obedience, urging him, constraining him to busy himself about their
affairs. Augustin yielded. But the next day in a vehement sermon he cried
out to them:
_Discedite a me, maligni!_--"Go far from me, ye wicked ones, and let me
study in peace the commandments of my God!"
II
WHAT WAS HEARD IN THE BASILICA OF PEACE
Let us try to see Augustin in his pulpit and in his episcopal city.
We cannot do much more than reconstruct them by analogy. Royal Hippo is
utterly gone. Bona, which has taken its place, is about a mile and a half
away, and the fragments which have been dug out of the soil of the dead
city are very inadequate. But Africa is full of Christian ruins, and
chiefly of basilicas. Rome has nothing equal to offer. And that is easily
understood. The Roman basilicas, always living, have been changed in the
course of centuries, and have put on, time after time, the garb forced upon
them by the fashion. Those of Africa have remained just as they were--at
least in their principal lines--on the morrow of the Arab invasion, as
Augustin's eyes had seen them. They are ruins, no doubt, and some very
mutilated, but ruins of which no restoration has altered the plan or
changed the features.
As the traces of Hippo and its church are swept away or deeply buried, we
are obliged, in order to get some approximate idea, to turn towards another
African town which has suffered less from time and devastation. Theveste
with its basilica, the best preserved, the finest and largest in all
Africa, can restore to us a little of the look and colour and atmosphere of
Hippo in those final years of the fourth century.
Ancient Theveste was much larger than the present town, the French Tebessa.
This, even reduced to the perimeter of the Byzantine fortress built under
Justinian, still surprises the traveller by its singularly original aspect.
Amid the wide plains of alfa-grass which surround it, with its quadrangular
enclosure, its roads on the projection of the walls behind the battlements,
its squat turrets, it has a look as archaic, as strange, as our own
Aigues-Mortes amid its marshy fen. Nothing can be more rich and joyous to
the eye than the rust which covers its ruins--a complete gilding that one
would say had been laid on by the hand of man.
It has a little temple which is a wonder and has been compared to the
ancient Roman temple--the _Maison Carrée_--at Nîmes. But how much warmer,
more living are the stones! The shafts of the columns, and the pilasters of
the peristyle, barked by time, seem as scaly and full of sap as the trunks
of palm-trees. The carved acanthus-leaves in the capitals of the pillars
droop like bunches of palms reddened by the summer.
Quite near, at the end of a narrow street, lined with modern and squalid
hovels, the triumphal arch of Septimus Severus and of Caracalla extends its
luminous bow; and high above the heavy mass of architecture, resting upon
slim aerial little columns, a buoyant _ædiculus_ shines like a coral
tabernacle or a coffer of yellow ivory.
All about, forms in long draperies are huddled. The Numidian burnous has
the whiteness of the toga. It has also the same graceful folds. At the
sight of them you suddenly feel yourself to be in a strange land--carried
back very far across the centuries. No sooner is the vision of antiquity
outlined than it grows firm. Down below there, a horseman, clad in white,
is framed with his white horse in the moulded cincture of a door. He
passes, and upon the white wall of the near tower his shadow rests a
moment, like a bas-relief upon the marble of a frieze.
Beyond the Byzantine enclosure, the basilica, with its minor buildings,
forms another town almost as large as the present Theveste, and also closed
in by a belt of towers and ramparts. One is immediately struck by the
opulent colour of the stones--rose, grown pale and thinner in the sun; and
next, by the solid workmanship and the structural finish. The stones, as
in the Greek temples, are placed on top of one another in regular layers:
the whole holds together by the weight of the blocks and the polish of the
surfaces.
The proportions are on a large scale. There was no grudging for the
buildings, or the materials, or the land. In front of the basilica is a
wide rectangular court bordered with terraces; a portico at the far end;
and in the middle four large fountains to water the walk. A flagged avenue,
closed by two gateways, divides this court from the basilica, properly so
called, which is reached by a staircase between two columns. The staircase
leads to the _atrium_ decorated by a Corinthian portico. In the centre
is the font for purifications, a huge monolithic bason in the shape of a
four-leaved clover. Three doors give entrance from the _atrium_ to the
basilica, which is divided by rows of green marble columns into three
aisles. The galleries spread out along the side aisles. The floor was in
mosaic. In the apse, behind the altar, stood the bishop's throne.
Around the main building clustered a great number of others: a baptistry;
many chapels (one vaulted in the shape of a three-leaved clover) dedicated,
probably, to local martyrs; a graveyard; a convent with its cells, and its
windows narrow as loop-holes; stables, sheds, and barns. Sheltered within
its walls and towers, amid its gardens and outbuildings, the basilica of
Theveste thus early resembled one of our great monasteries of the Middle
Age, and also in certain ways the great mosques of Islam--the one at
Cordova, or that at Damascus, with their vestibules surrounded by arcades,
their basons for purification, and their walks bordered with orange-trees.
The faithful and the pilgrims were at home there. They might spend the day
stretched upon the flags of the porticoes, in loafing or sleeping in the
blue shade of the columns and the cool of the fountains. In the full sense
of the word, the church was the House of God, open to all.
Very likely the basilicas at Hippo had neither the size nor the splendour
of this one. Nor were there very many. At the time Augustin was ordained
priest, that is to say, when the Donatists had still a majority in the
town, it seems clear that the orthodox community owned but one single
church, the _Basilica major_, or Basilica of Peace. Its very name proves
this. With the schismatics, "Peace" was the official name for Catholicism.
"Basilica of Peace" meant simply "Catholic Basilica." Was not this as
much as to say that the others belonged to the dissenters? Doubtless they
restored later on, after the promulgations of Honorius, the Leontian
Basilica, founded by Leontius, Bishop of Hippo, and a martyr. A third was
built by Augustin during his episcopate--the Basilica of the Eight Martyrs
of the White Mace.
It was in the Major, or Cathedral, that Augustin generally preached. To
preach was not only a duty, but one of the privileges of a bishop. As has
been said, the bishop alone had the right to preach in his church. This
arose from the fact that the African dioceses, although comparatively
widespread, had scarcely more people than one of our large parishes to-day.
The position of a bishop was like that of one of our parish priests. There
were almost as many as there were villages, and they were counted by
hundreds.
However that may be, preaching, the real apostolic ministry, was an
exhausting task. Augustin preached almost every day, and often many times a
day--rough work for a man with such a fragile chest. Thus it often happened
that, to save his voice, he had to ask his audience to keep still. He spoke
without study, in a language very near the language of the common people.
Stenographers took down his sermons as he improvised them: hence those
repetitions and lengthinesses which astonish the reader who does not know
the reason for them. There is no plan evident in these addresses. Sometimes
the speaker has not enough time to develop his thought. Then he puts off
the continuation till the next day. Sometimes he comes with a subject all
prepared, and then treats of another, in obedience to a sudden inspiration
which has come to him with a verse of Scripture he has just read. Other
times, he comments many passages in succession, without the least care for
unity or composition.
Let us listen to him in this Basilica of Peace, where during thirty-five
years he never failed to announce the Word of God.... The chant of the
Psalms has just died away. At the far end of the apse, Augustin rises from
his throne with its back to the wall, his pale face distinct against the
golden hue of the mosaic. From that place, as from the height of a pulpit,
he commands the congregation, looking at them above the altar, which is a
plain wooden table placed at the end of the great aisle.
The congregation is standing, the men on one side, the women on the other.
On the other side of the balustrade which separates them from the crowd,
are the widows and consecrated virgins, wrapped in their veils black or
purple. Some matrons, rather overdressed, lean forward in the front rank
of the galleries. Their cheeks are painted, their eyelashes and eyebrows
blackened, their ears and necks overloaded with jewels. Augustin has
noticed them; after a while he will read them a lesson. This audience is
all alive with sympathy and curiosity before he begins. With all its faith
and all its passion it collaborates with the orator. It is turbulent also.
It expresses its opinions and emotions with perfect freedom. The democratic
customs of those African Churches surprise us to-day. People made a noise
as at the theatre or the circus. They applauded; they interrupted the
preacher. Certain among them disputed what was said, quoting passages from
the Bible.
Augustin is thus in perpetual communication with his audience. Nobody has
done less soaring than he. He keeps his eye on the facial expressions
and the attitudes of his public. He talks to them familiarly. When his
sermon is a little lengthy, he wants to know if his listeners are getting
tired--he has kept them standing so long! The time of the morning meal
draws near. Bellies are fasting, stomachs wax impatient. Then says he to
them with loving good-fellowship: