not mean that of your minds, for I see well that they are tireless, but the
strength of your bodies which are the servants of your souls. Go then and
restore your bodies so that they may do their work well, and when they are
restored, come back here and take your spiritual food."
Upon certain days, a blast of the sirocco has passed over the town. The
faithful, crowded in the aisles, are stifling, covered with sweat. The
preacher himself, who is very much worked up, has his face dripping, and
his clothes are all wet. By this he perceives that once more he has been
extremely long. He excuses himself modestly. Or again, he jokes like a
rough apostle who is not repelled by the odour of a lot of human-kind
gathered together.
"Oh, what a smell!" says he. "I must have been speaking a long while
to-day."
These good-natured ways won the hearts of the simple folk who listened to
him. He is aware of the charm he exerts on them, and of the sympathy they
give him back in gratitude for his charity.
"You have loved to come and hear me, my brothers," he said to them. "But
whom have you loved? If it is me--ah, even that is good, my brothers, for
I want to be loved by you, if I do not want to be loved for myself. As for
me, I love you in Christ. And you too, do you love me in Him. Let our love
for one another moan together up to God--and that is the moaning of the
Dove spoken of in the Scripture...."
Although he preaches from the height of his episcopal throne, he is anxious
that his hearers should regard him, Christianly, as their equal. So he
seems as little of the bishop as possible.
"All Christians are servants of the same master.... I have been in the
place where you are--you, my brothers, who listen to me. And now, if I
give the spiritual bread from the height of this chair to the servants of
the Master of us all--well, it is but a few years since I received this
spiritual food with them in a lower place. A bishop, I speak to laymen, but
I know to how many future bishops I speak...."
So he puts himself on an equal footing with his audience by the brotherly
accent in his words. It is not Christendom, the Universal Church, or I know
not what abstract listener he addresses, but the Africans, the people of
Hippo, the parishioners of the Basilica of Peace. He knows the allusions,
the comparisons drawn from local customs, which are likely to impress their
minds. The day of the festival of St. Crispina, a martyr of those parts,
after he had developed his subject at very great length, he asked pardon in
these terms:
"Let us think, brothers, that I have invited you to celebrate the birthday
of the blessed Crispina, and that I have kept up the feast a little too
long. Well, might not the same thing happen if some soldier were to ask you
to dinner and obliged you to drink more than is wise? Let me do as much for
the Word of God, with which you should be drunk and surfeited."
Marriages, as well as birthday feasts, supplied the orator with vivid
allegories. Thus he says that when a marriage feast is made in a house,
organs play upon the threshold, and musicians and dancers begin to sing and
to act their songs. And yet how poor are these earthly enjoyments which
pass away so soon!... "In the House of God, the feast has no end."
Continually, through the commentaries on the Psalms, like comparisons rise
to the surface--parables suited to stir the imagination of Africans. A
thousand details borrowed from local habits and daily life enliven the
exegesis of the Bishop of Hippo. The mules and horses that buck when one
is trying to cure them, are his symbol for the recalcitrant Donatists. The
little donkeys, obstinate and cunning, that trot in the narrow lanes of
Algerian _casbahs_, appear here and there in his sermons. The gnats bite in
them. The unendurable flies plaster themselves in buzzing patches on the
tables and walls. Then there are the illnesses and drugs of that country:
the ophthalmias and collyrium. What else? The tarentulas that run along
the beams on the ceiling; the hares that scurry without warning between
the horses' feet on the great Numidian plains. Elsewhere, he reminds his
audience of those men who wear an earring as a talisman; of the dealings
between traders and sailors--a comparison which would go home to this
seafaring people.
The events of the time, the little happenings of the moment, glide into
his sermons. At the same time as the service in church to-day, there is
going to be horse-racing at the circus, and fights of wild beasts or
gladiators at the arena. In consequence, there will not be many people
in the Basilica. "So much the better," says Augustin. "My lungs will get
some rest." Another time, it is advertised through the town that most
sensational attractions will be offered at the theatre--there will be a
scene representing the open sea. The preacher laughs at those who have
deserted the church to go and see this illusion: "They will have," says
he, "the sea on the stage; but we, brothers--ah, we shall have our port in
Jesus Christ." This Saturday, while he is preaching, some Jewish women set
themselves to dance and sing on the terraces of the near houses, by way of
celebrating the Sabbath. In the basilica, the bashing of the crotolos can
be heard, and the thuds of the tambourines. "They would do better," says
Augustin, "to work and spin their wool."
He dwells upon the catastrophes which were then convulsing the Roman world.
The news of them spread with wonderful rapidity. Alaric's Barbarians
have taken Rome and put it to fire and sword. At Jerusalem has been an
earthquake, and the bishop John organizes a subscription for the sufferers
throughout Christendom. At Constantinople, globes of fire have been seen in
the sky. The _Serapeum_ of Alexandria has just been destroyed in a riot....
All these things follow each other in lively pictures, without any apparent
order, throughout Augustin's sermons. It is not he who divides his
discourse into three parts, and refrains from passing to the second till he
has learnedly expounded the first. Whether he comments upon the Psalms or
the Gospels, his sermons are no more than explanations of the Scriptures
which he interprets, sometimes in a literal sense, and sometimes in an
allegoric. Let us acknowledge it--his allegoric discourses repel us by
their extreme subtilty, sometimes by their bad taste; and when he confines
himself to the letter of the text, he stumbles among small points of
grammar which weary the attention. We follow him no longer. We think
his audience was very obliging to listen so long--and on their feet--to
these endless dissertations.... And then, suddenly, a great lyrical and
oratorical outburst which carries us away--a wind which blows from the
high mountains, and in the wink of an eye sweeps away like dust all those
fine-spun reasonings.
He is fond of certain commonplaces, and also of certain books of the
Bible--for instance, _The Song of Songs_ and the Gospel of St. John, the
one satisfying in him the intellectual, and the other the mystic of love.
He confronts the verse of the Psalm: "Before the morning star have I
begotten thee," with the sublime opening of the Fourth Gospel: "In the
beginning was the Word." He lingers upon the beauty of Christ: _Speciosus
forma præ filiis hominum_, "Thou art fairer than the children of men." This
is why he is always repeating with the Psalmist: "Thy face, Lord, have I
sought"--_Quæsivi vultum tuum, Domine._ And the orator, carried away by
enthusiasm, adds: "Magnificent saying! Nothing more divine could be said.
Those feel it who truly love." Another of his favourite subjects is the
kindness of God: _Videte et gustate quam mitis sit Dominus_--"O taste
and see that the Lord is good." Naught can equal the pleasure of this
contemplation, of this life in God. Augustin conceives it as a musician
who has fathomed the secret of numbers. "Let your life," he said, "be one
prolonged song.... We do not sing only with the voice and lips when we
intone a canticle, but in us is an inward singing, because there is also in
us Some One who listens...."
To live this rhythmic and divine life we must get free of ourselves, give
ourselves up utterly in a great outburst of charity.
"Why," he cries--"Oh, why do you hesitate to give yourselves lest you
should lose yourselves? It is rather by not giving yourselves that you
lose yourselves. Charity herself speaks to you by the mouth of Wisdom and
upholds you against the terror which fills you at the sound of those words:
'Give yourself.' If some one wanted to sell you a piece of land, he would
say to you: 'Give me your gold.' And for something else, he would say:
'Give me your silver, give me your money.' Listen to what Charity says to
you by the mouth of Wisdom: 'My son, give me thy heart.' 'Give me,' quoth
she. Give what? 'My son, give me thy heart.'... Thy heart was not happy
when it was governed by thee, and was thine, for it turned this way and
that way after gawds, after impure and dangerous loves. 'Tis from there thy
heart must be drawn. Whither lift it up? Where to place it? 'Give me thy
heart,' says Wisdom, 'let it be mine, and it will belong to thee for
always.'"
After the chant of love, the chant of the Resurrection. _Cantate mihi
canticum novum_--"Sing to me a new song!" Augustin repeats these words over
and over again. "We wish to rise from the dead," cry souls craving for
eternity. And the Church answers: "Verily, I say unto you, that you shall
rise from the dead. Resurrection of bodies, resurrection of souls, ye shall
be altogether reborn." Augustin has explained no dogma more passionately.
None was more pleasing to the faithful of those times. Ceaselessly they
begged to be strengthened in the conviction of immortality and of meeting
again brotherlike in God.
With what intrepid delight it rose--this song of the Resurrection in
those clear African basilicas swimming in light, with all their brilliant
ornamentation of mosaics and marbles of a thousand colours! And what
artless and confident language those symbolic figures spoke which peopled
their walls--the lambs browsing among clusters of asphodels, the doves, the
green trees of Paradise. As in the Gospel parables, the birds of the field
and farmyard, the fruits of the earth, figured the Christian truths and
virtues. Their purified forms accompanied man in his ascension towards
God. Around the mystic chrisms, circled garlands of oranges and pears and
pomegranates. Cocks, ducks, partridges, flamingoes, sought their pasture in
the Paradisal fields painted upon the walls of churches and cemeteries.
Those young basilicas were truly the temples of the Resurrection, where
all the creatures of the Ark saved from the waters had found their refuge.
Never more in the centuries to follow shall humanity know this frank joy at
having triumphed over death--this youth of hope.
III
THE BISHOP'S BURTHEN
Augustin is not only the most human of all the saints, he is also one
of the most amiable in all the senses of that hackneyed word--amiable
according to the world, amiable according to Christ.
To be convinced of this, he should be observed in his dealings with his
hearers, with his correspondents, even with those he attacks--with the
bitterest enemies of the faith. Preaching, the administration of property,
and sitting in judgment were but a part of that episcopal burthen, _Sarcina
episcopatus_, under which he so often groaned. He had furthermore to
catechize, baptize, direct consciences, guard the faithful against error,
and dispute with all those who threatened Catholicism. Augustin was a light
of the Church. He knew it.
Doing his best, with admirable conscientiousness and charity he undertook
these tasks. God knows what it must have cost this Intellectual to fulfil
precisely all the duties of his ministry, down to the humblest. What
he would have liked, above all, was to pass his life in studying the
Scriptures and meditating on the dogmas--not from a love of trifling with
theories, but because he believed such knowledge necessary to whoever gave
forth the Word of God. Most of the priests of that age arrived at the
priesthood without any previous study. They had to improvise, as quick
as they could, a complete education in religious subjects. We are left
astounded before the huge labour which Augustin must have given to acquire
his. Before long he even dominated the whole exegetical and theological
knowledge of his time. In his zeal for divine letters, he knew sleep no
more.
And yet he did not neglect any of his tasks. Like the least of our
parish priests, he prepared the neophytes for the Sacraments. He was
an incomparable catechist, so clear-sighted and scrupulous that his
instructions may still be taken as models by the catechists of to-day.
Neither did he, as an aristocrat of the intelligence, only trouble himself
with persons of culture, and leave to his deacons the care of God's common
people. All had a right to his lessons, the simple peasants as well as the
rich and scholarly. One day, a farmer he was teaching walked off and left
him there in the middle of his discourse. The poor man, who had fasted, and
now listened to his bishop standing, was faint from hunger and felt his
legs tremble under him. He thought it better to run away than to fall down
exhausted at the feet of the learned preacher.
With his knowledge of men, Augustin carefully studied the kind of people
his catechumens were, and adapted his instructions to the character of
each. If they were city folk, Carthaginians, used to spending their time in
theatres and taverns, drunken and lazy, he took a different tone with them
from what he used with rustics who had never left their native _gourbi_.
If he were dealing with fashionable people who had a taste for literature,
he did not fail to exalt the beauties of the Scripture, although, he would
say, they had there a very trifling attraction compared to the truths
contained in it. Of all the catechumens, the hardest to deal with, the
most fearsome in his eyes, were the professors--the rhetoricians and the
grammarians. These men are bloated with vanity, puffed up with intellectual
pride. Augustin knew something about that. It will be necessary to rouse
them violently, and before anything else, to exhort them to humility of
mind.
The good saint goes further. Not only is he anxious about the souls, but
also about the bodies of his listeners. Are they comfortable for listening?
As soon as they feel tired they must not hesitate to sit down, as is the
usage in the basilicas beyond seas.
"Would not our arrogance be unbearable," he asked, "if we forbade men who
are our brothers to sit down in our presence, and, much more, men whom we
ought to try with all possible care to make our brothers?..."
If they are seen to yawn, "then things ought to be said to them to awaken
their attention, or to scatter the sad thoughts which may have come into
their minds." The catechist should shew, now a serene joy--the joy of
certainty; now a gaiety which charms people into belief; "and always that
light-heartedness we should have in teaching." Even if we ourselves are sad
from this reason or that, let us remember that Jesus Christ died for those
who are listening to us. Is not the thought of bringing Him disciples
enough to make us joyful?
Bishop Augustin set the example for his priests. It is not enough to
have prepared the conversion of his catechumens with the subtlety of the
psychologist, and such perfect Christian charity; but he accompanies them
to the very end, and charges them once more before the baptismal piscina.
How he is changed! One thinks of the boon-fellow of Romanianus and of
Manlius Theodorus, of the young man who followed the hunts at Thagaste,
and who held forth on literature and philosophy in a select company before
the beautiful horizons of the lake of Como. Here he is now with peasants,
slaves, sailors, and traders. And he takes pleasure in their society. It is
his flock. He ought to love it with all his soul in Jesus Christ. What an
effort and what a victory upon himself an attitude so strange reveals to
us! For really this liking for mean people was not natural to him. He must
have put an heroic will-power into it, helped by Grace.
A like sinking of his preferences is evident in the director of consciences
he became. Here he was obliged to give himself more thoroughly. He was
at the mercy of the souls who questioned him, who consulted him as
their physician. He spends his time in advising them, and exercises a
never-failing supervision of their morals. It is an almost discouraging
enterprise to bend these hardened pagans--above all, these Africans--to
Christian discipline. Augustin is continually reproaching their
drunkenness, gluttony, and lust. The populace were not the only ones to get
drunk and over-eat themselves. The rich at their feasts literally stuffed
till they choked. The Bishop of Hippo never lets a chance go by to recall
them to sobriety.
Oftener still, he recalls them to chastity. He writes long letters on this
subject which are actual treatises. The morals of the age and country are
fully disclosed in them. Husbands are found loudly claiming a right to free
love for themselves, while they force their wives to conjugal fidelity. The
adultery they allow themselves, they punish with death in their wives. They
make an abusive practice of divorce. Upon the most futile reasons, they
send the wife the _libellus repudii_--the bill repudiating the marriage--as
the various peoples of Islam do still. This society in a state of
transition was always creating cases of conscience for strict Christians.
For example: If a man cast off his wife under pretext of adultery, might
he marry again? Augustin held that no marriage can be dissolved as long as
both parties are living. But may not this prohibition provoke husbands to
kill their adulterous wives, so as to be free to take a new wife? Another
problem: A catechumen divorced under the pagan law and since remarried,
presents himself for baptism. Is he not an adulterer in the eyes of the
Church? A man who lives with a woman and does not hide it, who even
declares his firm intention of continuing to live with his concubine--can
he be admitted to baptism? Augustin has to answer all these questions, and
go into the very smallest details of casuistry.
Is it forbidden to eat the meats consecrated to idols, even when a man
or woman is dying of hunger? May one enter into agreements with native
camel-drivers and carriers who swear by their gods to keep the bargain?
May a lie be told in certain conditions?--say, so as to get among heretics
in pretending to be one of themselves, and thus be able to spy on them
and denounce them? May adultery be practised with a woman who promises in
exchange to point out heretics?... The Bishop of Hippo severely condemns
all these devious or shameful ways, all these compromises which are
contrary to the pure moral teaching of the Gospel. But he does this without
affecting intolerance and rigidity, and with a reminder that the evil of
sin lies altogether in the intention, and in the consent of the will. In a
word, one must tolerate and put up with what one is powerless to hinder.
Other questions, which it is quite impossible to repeat here, give us a
strange idea of the corruption of pagan morals. Augustin had all he
could do to maintain the Christian rule in such surroundings, where the
Christians themselves were more or less tainted with paganism. But if this
troop of sinners and backsliders was hard to drive, the devout were perhaps
harder. There were the _continents_--the widowers and widows who had made a
vow of chastity and found this vow heavy; the consecrated virgins who lived
in too worldly a fashion; the nuns who rebelled against their spiritual
director or their superior; the monks, either former slaves who did not
want to do another stroke of work, or charlatans who played upon public
credulity in selling talismans and miraculous ointments. Then, the married
women who refused themselves to their husbands; and those who gave away
their goods to the poor without their husbands' consent; and also the proud
virgins and widows who despised and condemned marriage.
Then came the crowd of pious souls who questioned Augustin on points of
dogma, who wanted to know all, to clear up everything; those who thought
they should be able here below to see God face to face, to know how we
shall arise, and who asked if the angels had bodies.... Augustin complains
that they are annoying, when he has so many other things to trouble him,
and that they take him from his studies. But he tries charitably to satisfy
them all.
Besides all this, he was obliged to keep up a correspondence with a great
number of people. In addition to his friends and fellow-bishops, he wrote
to unknown people and foreigners; to men in high place and to lowly people;
to the proconsuls, the counts and the vicars of Africa; to the very mighty
Olympius, Master of the Household to the Emperor Honorius; or again, "to
the Right Honourable Lady Maxima," "to the Illustrious Ladies Proba and
Juliana," "to the Very Holy Lady Albina"--women who belonged either to the
provincial nobility, or to the highest aristocracy of Rome. To whom did he
not write?...
And what is admirable in these letters is that he does not answer
negligently to get rid of a tiresome duty. Almost all of them are full
of substantial teaching, long thought over. Many were intended to be
published--they are practically charges. And yet, however grave the tone
of them may be, the cultivated man of the world he had been may be traced.
His correspondents, after the fashion of the time, overwhelm the bishop
with the most fulsome praises. These he accepts, with much ceremony
indeed, but he does accept them as evidence of the charity of his
brethren. Ingenuously, he does his best to return them. Let us not grow
over-scandalized because our men of letters of to-day have debased the
value of complimentary language by squandering and exaggerating it. The
most austere cotemporaries of Augustin, and Augustin himself, outdid them
by a long way in the art and in the abuse of compliments.
Paulinus of Nola, always beflowered and elegant, wrote to Augustin:
"Your letters are a luminous collyrium spread over the eyes of my mind."
Augustin, who remonstrated with him upon the scarcity of his own letters,
replies in language which our own _Précieuses_ would not have disowned:
"What! You allow me to pass two summers--and two African summers!--in such
thirst?... Would to God that you would allow enter to the opulent banquet
of your book, the long fast from your writings which you have put me
upon during all a year! If this banquet be not ready, I shall not give
over my complaints, unless, indeed, that in the time between, you send me
something to keep up my strength." A certain Audax, who begged the honour
of a special letter from the great man, calls him "the oracle of the Law";
protests that the whole world celebrates and admires him; and finally, at
the end of his arguments, conjures him in verse to "Let fall upon me the
dew of thy divine word." Augustin, with modesty and benignity, returns his
compliments, but not without slipping into his reply a touch of banter:
"Allow me to point out to you that your fifth line has seven feet. Has
your ear betrayed you, or did you want to find out if I was still capable
of judging these things?"... Truly, he is always capable of judging these
things, nor is he sorry to have it known. A young Greek named Dioscorus,
who is passing through Carthage, questions him upon the philosophy of
Cicero. Augustin exclaims at any one daring to interrupt a bishop about
such trifles. Then, little by little, he grows milder, and carried away by
his old passion, he ends by sending the young man quite a dissertation on
this good subject.