Aurelius Augustine was born at Tagaste, a city of Numidia, on
November 13, 354. This greatest of the Latin Christian Fathers
was the son of a magistrate named Patricius, who was a pagan
till near the close of his life. Augustine was sent to school
at Madaura, and next to study at Carthage. His mother, Monica,
early became an ardent Christian, and her saintly influence
guided the youth towards the light; but entanglement in
philosophic doubts constrained him to associate with the
Manichæans, and then with the Platonists. His mental struggles
lasted eleven years. Going to Rome to teach rhetoric, he was
invited to Milan to lecture, and there was attracted by the
eloquent preaching of Bishop Ambrose. His whole current of
thought was changed, and the two became ardent friends. In
391, Augustine was ordained priest by Valerius, Bishop of
Hippo, whose colleague he was appointed in 395. At the age of
41, he was designated Bishop of Hippo, and filled the office
for 35 years, passing away in his 76th year, on August 28,
430, during the third year of the siege of Hippo by the
Vandals under Genseric. His numerous and remarkable works
stamp him as one of the world's transcendent intellects. His
two monumental treatises are the "Confessions" and "The City
of God."
_I.--Regrets of a Mis-spent Youth_
"Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised." My faith, Lord,
should call on Thee, which Thou hast given me by the incarnation of Thy
Son, through the ministry of the preacher, Ambrose. How shall I call
upon my God? What room is there within me, wherein my God can come?
Narrow is the house of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that it may be able to
receive Thee. Thou madest us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless
until they rest in Thee.
I began, as yet a boy, to pray to Thee, that I might not be beaten at
school; but I sinned in disobeying the commands of parents and teachers
through love of play, delighting in the pride of victory in my contests.
I loved not study, and hated to be forced to it. Unless forced, I did
not learn at all. But no one does well against his will, even though
what he does is good. But what was well came to me from Thee, my God,
for Thou hast decreed that every inordinate affection should carry with
it its own punishment.
But why did I so much hate the Greek which I was taught as a boy? I do
not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first masters,
but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first
lessons--reading, writing, and arithmetic--I thought as great a burden
and as vexatious as any Greek. But in the other lessons I learned the
wanderings of Æneas, forgetful of my own, and wept for the dead Dido
because she killed herself for love; while, with dry eyes, I endured my
miserable self-dying among these things, far from Thee, my God, my life.
Why, then, did I hate the Greek classics, full of like fictions to those
in Virgil? For Homer also curiously wove similar stories, and is most
pleasant, yet was disagreeable to my boyish taste. In truth, the
difficulty of a foreign tongue dashed as with gall all the sweetness of
the Greek fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me
learn I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and stripes. Yet I
learned with delight the fictions in Latin concerning the wicked doings
of Jove and Juno, and for this I was pronounced a helpful boy, being
applauded above many of my own age and class.
I will now call to mind my past uncleanness and the carnal corruptions
of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God.
What was it that I delighted in, but to love and to be loved? But I kept
not the measure of love of soul to soul, friendship's bright boundary,
for I could not discern the brightness of love from the fog of lust.
Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy house, in
that sixteenth year of my age, when the madness of licence took the rule
over me? My friends, meanwhile, took no care by marriage to prevent my
fall; their only care was that I should learn to speak excellently, and
become a great orator. Now, for that year my studies were intermitted;
whilst, after my return from Madaura--a neighbouring city whither I had
journeyed to learn grammar and rhetoric--the expenses for a further
journey to Carthage were provided for me; and that rather by sacrifice
than by the ordinary means of my father, who was but a poor citizen of
Tagaste. But yet this same father had no concern how I grew towards
Thee; or how chaste I were; or, so that I were but eloquent, how barren
I were to Thy culture, O God.
But while in that my sixteenth year I lived with my parents, the briers
of unclean desires grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to root
them out. My father rejoiced to see me growing towards manhood, but in
my mother's breast Thou hadst already begun Thy temple, whereas my
father was as yet but a catechumen, and that but recently. I remember
how she, seized with a holy fear and trembling, in private warned me
with great anxiety against fornication. These seemed to me womanish
advices which I should blush to obey. But they were Thine, and I knew it
not. I ran headlong with such blindness that amongst my equals I was
ashamed of being less shameless than others when I heard them boast of
their wickedness. I would even say I had done what I had not done that I
might not seem contemptible exactly in proportion as I was innocent.
_II.--Monica's Prayers and Augustine's Paganism_
To Carthage I came, where there sang in my ears a cauldron of unholy
loves. I denied the spring of friendship with the filth of
concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lust.
Stage plays always carried me away, full of images of my miseries and of
fuel to my fire. In the theatres I rejoiced with lovers, when they
succeeded in their criminal intrigues, imaginary only in the play; and
when they lost one another I sorrowed with them. Those studies also
which were accounted commendable, led me away, having a view of
excelling in the courts of litigation, where I should be the more
praised the craftier I became. And now I was the head scholar in the
rhetoric school, whereat I swelled with conceit. I learned books of
eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent. In the course of study I
fell upon a certain book of Cicero which contains an exhortation to
philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." This book changed my
disposition, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord. I longed with an
incredible ardour for the immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise
a wish that I might return to Thee. I resolved then to turn my mind to
the Holy Scriptures, to see what they were; but when I turned to them my
pride shrank from their humility, disdaining to be one of the little
ones.
Therefore, I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal, and great
talkers, who served up to me, when hungering after Thee, the Sun and
Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but not Thyself. Yet, taking these
glittering phantasies to be Thee, I fed thereon, but was not nourished
by them, but rather became more empty. I knew not God to be a Spirit.
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness, which judgeth not according
to custom, but out of the most righteous laws of Almighty God. Under the
influence of these Manichæans I scoffed at Thy holy servants and
prophets. And Thou "sentest Thine hand from above," and deliveredst my
soul from that profound darkness. My mother, Thy faithful one, wept to
Thee for me, for she discerned the death wherein I lay, and Thou
heardest her, O Lord. Thou gavest her answers first in visions. There
passed yet nine years in which I wallowed in the mire of that deep pit
and the darkness of error. Thou gavest her meantime another answer by a
priest of Thine, a certain bishop brought up in Thy Church, and well
studied in books, whom she entreated to converse with me and to refute
my errors. He answered that I was as yet unteachable, being puffed up
with the novelty of that heresy. "But let him alone awhile," saith he;
"only pray to God for him, he will of himself, by reading, find what
that error is, and how great its impiety." He told her how he himself,
when a little one, had by his mother been consigned over to the
Manichæans, but had found out how much that sect was to be abhorred, and
had, therefore, avoided it. But he assured her that the child of such
tears as hers could not perish. Which answer she took as an oracle from
heaven.
Thus, from my nineteenth year to my twenty-eighth we lived, hunting
after popular applause and poetic prizes, and secretly following a false
religion. In those years I taught rhetoric, and in those years I had
conversation with one--not in that which is called lawful marriage--yet
with but one, remaining faithful even unto her. Those impostors whom
they style astrologers I consulted without scruple. In those years, when
I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town, I had made one my
friend, only too dear to me from a community of studies and pursuits, of
my own age, and, as myself, in the first bloom of youth. I had perverted
him also to those superstitions and pernicious fables for which my
mother bewailed me. With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be
happy without him But behold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy
fugitives, at once "God of Vengeance" and Fountain of Mercies, turning
us to Thyself by wonderful means. Thou tookest that man out of this
life, when he had scarce filled up one whole year of my friendship,
sweet to me above all sweetness of that my life. For long, sore sick of
a fever, he lay senseless in a death-sweat; so that, his recovery being
despaired of, he was baptised in that condition. He was relieved and
restored, and I essayed to jest with him, expecting him to do the same,
at that baptism which he had received when in the swoon. But he shrank
from me as from an enemy, and forbade such language. A few days
afterwards he was happily taken from my folly, that with Thee he might
be preserved for my comfort. In my absence he was attacked again by the
fever, and so died. At this grief my heart was utterly darkened. My
native country was a torment, and my father's house a strange
unhappiness to me. At length I fled out of the country, for so my eyes
missed him less where they were wont to see him. And thus from Tagaste I
came to Carthage.
_III.--The Influence of St. Ambrose on Augustine's Life_
I would lay open before my God that nine and twentieth year of my age.
There had then come to Carthage a certain Bishop of the Manichæans,
Faustus by name, a great snare of the Devil, and many were entangled by
him through the smooth lure of his language. Because he had read some of
Cicero's orations and a few of Seneca's books, some of the poets, and
such volumes of his own sect as were written in good Latin, he acquired
a certain seductive eloquence. But it soon became clear that he was
ignorant in those arts in which I thought he excelled, and I began to
despair of his solving the difficulties which perplexed me. He was
sensible of his ignorance in these things, and confessed it, and thus my
zeal for the writings of the Manichæans was blunted. Thus Faustus, to so
many a snare of death, had now, neither willing nor witting it, begun to
loosen that wherein I was taken. Thou didst deal with me that I should
be persuaded to go to Rome and to teach there rather what I was teaching
at Carthage, my chief and only reason being that I heard that young men
studied there more peacefully, and were kept under a more regular
discipline. My mother remained behind weeping and praying. And, behold,
at Rome I was received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was
going down to hell, carrying all the sins that I had committed. Thou
healdest me of that sickness that I might live for Thee to bestow upon
me a better and more abiding health. I began then diligently to teach
rhetoric in Rome when, lo! I found other offences committed in that
city, to which I had not been exposed in Africa, for, on a sudden, a
number of youths plot together to avoid paying their master's salary,
and remove to another school. When, therefore, they of Milan had sent to
Rome to the prefect of the city, to furnish them with a rhetoric reader
for their city, I made application that Symmachus, then prefect of the
city, would try me by setting me some subject for oration, and so send
me. Thus to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, best known to the whole
world as among the best of men, Thy servant. To him I was unknowingly
led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be led to Thee. That man of
God received me as a father, and showed me an episcopal kindness at my
coming. Thenceforth I began to love him. I was delighted with his
eloquence as he preached to the people, though I took no pains to learn
what he taught, but only to hear how he spake.
My mother had now come to me. When I had discovered to her that I was
now no longer a Manichaean, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she was
not overjoyed as at something unexpected. But she redoubled her prayers
and tears for me now that what she had begged of Thee daily with tears
was in so great part realised; and she hurried the more eagerly to the
church, and hung on the lips of Ambrose, whom she loved as "an angel of
God," because she knew that by him I had been brought to that wavering I
was now in. I heard him every Lord's Day expound the word of truth, and
was sure that all the knots of the Manichæans could be unravelled. So I
was confounded and converted. Yet I panted after honours, gains,
marriage--and in these desires I underwent most bitter crosses.
One day, when I was preparing to recite a panegyric on the Emperor
[probably the Emperor Valentinian the Younger], wherein I was to utter
many a lie, and, lying, was to be applauded by those who knew I lied,
while passing through the streets of Milan, I observed a poor beggar
joking and joyous. I sighed, and spoke to the friends around me of the
many sorrows of the phantoms we pursued--for by all our effort and toil
we yet looked to arrive only at the very joyousness whither that beggar
had arrived before us. I was racked with cares, but he, by saying "God
bless you!" had got some good wine; I, by talking lies, was hunting
after empty praise. Chiefly did I speak of such things with Alypius and
Bebridius, of whom Alypius was born in the same town with me, and had
studied under me, and loved me. But the whirlpool of Carthaginian habits
had, when he lived there, drawn him into follies of the circus. One day
as I sat teaching my scholars, he entered and listened attentively,
while I by chance had in hand a passage which, while I was explaining,
suggested to me a simile from the circensian races, not without a jibe
at those who were enthralled by that folly. Alpius took it wholly to
himself, and he returned no more to the filths of the circensian
pastimes in Carthage. But he had gone before me to Rome, and there he
was carried away with an incredible eagerness after the shows of
gladiators. Him I found at Rome, and he clave to me and went with me to
Milan, that he might be with me, and also practise something of the law
that he had studied. Bebridius also left Carthage, that with me he might
continue the search after truth.
Meantime my sins were being multiplied. Continual effort was made to
have me married, chiefly through my mother's pains, that so once
married, the health-giving baptism might cleanse me. My concubine being
torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart, which clave
unto her, was torn and wounded; and she returned to Africa, leaving with
me my son by her. But, unhappy, I procured another, though no wife.
To Thee be praise, Fountain of Mercies! I was becoming more miserable,
and Thou drewest nearer to me in my misery!
_IV.--The Birth of a New Life_
My evil and abominable youth was now dead. I was passing into early
manhood. Meeting with certain books of the Platonists, translated from
Greek into Latin, I therein read, not in the same words, but to the same
purpose, that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God." But that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us" I read not there. That Jesus humbled Himself to the death of the
Cross, and was raised from the dead and exalted unto glory, that at His
name every knee should bow, I read not there.
Then I sought a way of obtaining strength, and found it not until I
embraced "that Mediator between God and Man, the Man Christ Jesus."
Eagerly did I seize that venerable writing of Thy Spirit, and chiefly
the Apostle Paul. Whereupon those difficulties vanished wherein he
formerly seemed to me to contradict himself and the text of his
discourse not to agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets.
But now they appeared to me to contain one pure and uniform doctrine;
and I learned to "rejoice with trembling."
I had now found the goodly pearl, which, selling all I had, I ought to
have bought, and I hesitated. To Simplicianus [sent from Rome to be an
instructor and director to Ambrose], then I went, the spiritual father
of Ambrose and now a bishop, to whom I related the mazes of my
wanderings. He testified his joy that I had read certain books of the
Platonists and had not fallen on the writings of other deceitful
philosophers. And he related to me the story of the conversion of
Victorianus, the translator of those Platonist books, who was not
ashamed to become the humble little child of Thy Christ, after he had
for years with thundering eloquence inspired the people with the love of
Anubis, the barking deity, and all the monster gods who fought against
Neptune, Venus and Minerva, so that Rome now adored the deities she had
formerly conquered. But this proud worshipper of daemons suddenly and
unexpectedly said to Simplicianus, "Get us to the Church; I wish to be
made a Christian." And he was baptised to the wonder of Rome and the joy
of the Church. I was fired by this story and longed now to devote myself
entirely to God, but still did my two wills, one new and the other old,
one carnal and the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their
discord undid my soul.
And now Thou didst deliver me out of the bonds of desire, wherewith I
was bound most straitly to carnal concupiscence, I will now declare and
confess. Upon a day there came to see me and Alpius one Pontitianus, an
African fellow-countryman, in high office at the Emperor's court, who
was a Christian and baptised. He told us how one afternoon at Trier,
when the Emperor was taken up with the circensian games, he and three
companions went to walk in gardens near the city walls and lighten on a
certain cottage, inhabited by certain of Thy servants, and there they
found a little book containing the life of Antony. This some of them
began to read and admire; and he, as he read, began to meditate on
taking up such a life. By that book he was changed inwardly, as was one
of his companions also. Both had affianced brides, who, when they heard
of this change, also dedicated their virginity to God.
_V.--God's Command to Augustine and the Death of Monica_
After much soul-sickness and torment of spirit took place an incident by
which Thou didst wholly break my chains. I was bewailing and weeping in
my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice as of a
boy or girl, I know not what, chanting, and oft repeating "Tolle, lege;
tolle, lege" ["Take up and read; take up and read"]. Instantly I rose
up, interpreting it to be no other than the voice of God, to open the
Book and read the first chapter I should find. Eagerly I seized the
volume of the apostle and opened and read that section on which my eyes
fell first: "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 no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof." No further would I read, nor needed I, for a light as it were
of serenity diffused in my heart, and all the darkness of doubt vanished
away.
When shall I recall all that passed in those holy days? The
vintage-vacation I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars
with another master to sell words to them; for I had made my choice to
serve Thee. It pleased Alypius also, when the time was come for my
baptism, to be born again with me in Thee. We joined with us the boy
Adeodatus, born of me, in my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He
was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpassed many grave and learned men.
We were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us.
The time was now approaching when Thy handmaid, my mother Monica, was to
depart this life. She fell sick of a fever, and on the ninth day of that
sickness, and the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the three and
thirtieth of mine, was that religious and holy soul set free from the
body. Being thus forsaken of so great comfort in her, my soul was
wounded. Little by little the wound was healed as I recovered my former
thoughts of her holy conversation towards Thee and her holy tenderness
and observance towards us. May she rest in peace with her sometime
husband Patricius, whom she obeyed, "with patience bringing forth fruit"
unto Thee, that she might win him also unto Thee.
This is the object of my confessions now of what I am, not of what I
have been--to confess this not before Thee only, but in the ears also of
the believing sons of men. Too late I loved Thee! Thou wast with me, but
I was not with Thee. And now my whole hope is in nothing but Thy great
mercy. Since Thou gavest me continency I have observed it; but I retain
the memory of evil habits, and their images come up oft before me. And
Thou hast taught me concerning eating and drinking, that I should set
myself to take food as medicine. I strive daily against concupiscence in
eating and drinking. Thou hast disentangled me from the delights of the
ear and from the lusts of the eye. Into many snares of the senses my
mind wanders miserably, but Thou pluckest me out mercifully. By pride,
vainglory, and love of praise I am tempted, but I seek Thy mercy till
what is lacking in me by Thee be renewed and perfected. Thou knowest my
unskillfulness; teach me the wondrous things out of Thy law and heal me.
* * * * *