THE FIFTH CENTURY.
Christianity the only Possible Religion.――Adventures of
Placidia.――Her Marriage with Adolphus the Goth.――Scenes of
Violence and Crime.――Attila the Hun.――Nuptials of Idaho.
――Eudoxia and her Fate.――Triumph of Odoacer the Goth.――Character
of the Roman Nobles.――Conquests of Theodoric.――John Chrysostom.
――The Origin of Monasticism.――Augustine.――His Dissipation,
Conversion, and Christian Career.――His “Confessions.”
THE fifth century dawned luridly upon our sad world. There was no
stable government anywhere. The Roman empire, which, oppressive as
it had often been, was far better than anarchy, had now become but a
crumbling ruin, which no human energy or skill could rebuild. The
attempt by Julian the Apostate to reinstate paganism had proved so
utter and humiliating a failure, that there was no possibility of the
undertaking being ever again repeated.
There can be but one religion which an enlightened world will accept;
and that is Christianity. If Christianity is renounced, the world
will never adopt any substitute which has yet been proposed. The
superstitions of barbarians are all too senseless to be thought of for
a moment. Though there was a political party in the Roman empire who
rallied around Julian, even many of his partisans regarded his efforts
to reinstate paganism with ridicule and contempt. The wits of the day
lampooned him mercilessly.
Honorius, Emperor of the West, after a disastrous reign of
twenty-eight years, died in the year 423. Weary scenes of anarchy
and bloodshed ensued, which we have no space to describe. Placidia, a
Christian princess, daughter of the great Theodosius, had been carried
away captive by the Goths. The splendor of her birth, her marvellous
personal beauty, and the elegance of her manners, won universal
admiration. The young Gothic king Adolphus, who was a man of unusual
grace both of person and mind, won the hand and heart of his captive.
The nuptials were attended with great splendor at Narbonne, as we have
mentioned in the previous chapter.
“The bride,” writes Gibbon, “attired and adorned like a Roman
empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the Goths,
who assumed on this occasion the Roman habit, contented himself with
a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift, which, according
to the custom of his nation, was offered to Placidia, consisted of
the rare and magnificent spoils of her country. The barbarians enjoyed
the insolence of their triumph; and the provincials rejoiced in this
alliance, which tempered by the mild influence of love and reason the
fierce spirit of their Gothic lord.”[194]
The love of Adolphus for his beautiful bride was not abated by time
or possession. A year passed, when they rejoiced in the birth of a
son, whom they named Theodosius, after his illustrious grandfather. The
death of this child in his infancy caused great grief to his parents.
He was buried in a silver coffin in one of the churches near Barcelona.
Soon after this, Adolphus was assassinated in his palace, at Barcelona,
by one of his followers,――Sarus. Singeric, the brother of Sarus,
seized the Gothic throne. He immediately murdered the six children of
Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage. Placidia was treated with
the most cruel and wanton insult. The daughter of the renowned Emperor
Theodosius was driven on foot, amidst a crowd of vulgar captives,
twelve miles, before the horse of a barbarian who had murdered her
husband.
Singeric enjoyed his elevation but seven days, when assassination
terminated his earthly being. Wallia, who by the suffrages of the Goths
succeeded to the throne, restored Placidia to her brother Honorius. The
reign of the barbarians in Gaul, with their wars and their plunderings,
caused for a time the ruin of those once opulent provinces.
Attila the Hun, to whom we have alluded, with an innumerable horde
of the ferocious warriors, invaded Italy, everywhere perpetrating
atrocious acts of cruelty. The barbarians massacred their prisoners,
inflicting upon them inhuman tortures, apparently from the mere love
of cruelty. Two hundred beautiful young maidens were exposed to every
cruelty which savage ingenuity could devise. Their bodies were torn
asunder by wild horses, and their mutilated limbs left unburied. Attila
overran the rich plains of Lombardy, and established himself in the
palace of Milan. The senate of Rome, terror-stricken, sent an embassage
to implore peace of the barbarian. Attila demanded the Princess Honoria,
daughter of the Emperor Valentinian, for his bride, and one-half of
the kingdom of Italy as her dowry. While negotiations were pending,
and Honoria was trembling in anticipation of her dreadful doom, the
fierce Hun ravaged large portions of Gaul and Italy at the head of half
a million of warriors as fierce and merciless as wolves.
The victorious Hun retired to the wilds of the North to replenish his
diminished hordes, threatening to return and inflict still more signal
vengeance, unless the bride he demanded, and the dowry claimed with her,
were immediately granted him. In the mean time, he added to his harem
of innumerable wives a beautiful maiden named Idaho.
“Their marriage,” writes Gibbon, “was celebrated with barbarian pomp
and festivity at his wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch,
oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet
to the nuptial-couch. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures
or his repose the greater part of the ensuing day, till the unusual
silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after attempting to
awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke into the
royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside,
hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger, as well
as the death of the king, who had expired during the night. An artery
had suddenly burst; and, as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was
suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage
through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body
was solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain under a silken pavilion;
and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling around in measured
evolutions, chanted a funeral-song in memory of a hero glorious in his
life, invincible in his death, the father of his people, and the terror
of the world.
“According to their national custom, the barbarians cut off a part
of their hair, gashed their faces with unseemly wounds, and bewailed
their valiant leader as he deserved, not with the tears of women, but
with the blood of warriors. The remains of Attila were enclosed within
three coffins,――of gold, of silver, and of iron,――and were privately
buried in the night. The spoils of nations were thrown into his grave.
The captives who had opened the ground were inhumanly massacred; and
the same Huns who had indulged such excessive grief, feasted, with
dissolute and intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their
king.”
Valentinian inveigled a noble lady, alike illustrious for beauty and
piety, to his palace, where he treated her with such indignities as
to rouse to the highest pitch the wrath of her husband and friends.
A conspiracy was formed by her husband Maximus, a Roman senator; and
Valentinian died beneath the daggers which his crimes had unsheathed.
The solders placed the diadem upon the brow of Maximus. His wife
soon after died; and he endeavored to compel Eudoxia, the widow of
Valentinian, to become his spouse. She recoiled from throwing herself
into the arms of the murderer of her husband, and appealed for aid to
Genseric, one of those powerful Vandal kings who had wrested Africa
from the Roman empire.
Genseric joyfully espoused her cause. With a large fleet he entered
the Tiber, advanced to Rome, and captured the city. In the struggle,
Maximus was slain, and unhappy Rome was surrendered to the Moors and
the Vandals to be pillaged for fourteen days. The barbarian Genseric
carried back into the wilds of Africa, as slaves, Eudoxia, the widowed
Empress of Rome, and her two daughters. Many other Roman matrons
and maidens swelled the long train of captives who were dragged into
life-long bondage.
“Eudoxia,” writes Gibbon, “was rudely stripped of her jewels; and
the unfortunate empress, with her two daughters, the only surviving
remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled as a captive to follow
the haughty Vandal, who immediately hoisted sail, and returned, with
a prosperous navigation, to the port of Carthage. Many thousand Romans
of both sexes, chosen for some useful or agreeable qualifications,
reluctantly embarked on board the fleet of Genseric; and their distress
was aggravated by the unfeeling barbarians, who, in the division of the
booty, separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from
their parents.”
The whole world seemed to be now essentially in the condition of a city
surrendered to the mob. There was no stable government anywhere. There
was nowhere peace or prosperity or joy. Man’s corruption had filled the
earth with misery. Still there were thousands of individual Christians,
in obscurity and through much tribulation, struggling nobly to their
throne and their crown in heaven.
It is difficult to conceive of a more melancholy spectacle than Italy
presented. The barbarians were masters of the whole Peninsula. Odoacer,
a stern Gothic warrior, after several years of the wildest anarchy,
with wars and assassinations too numerous to mention, in the year 476
compelled the Roman senate by a formal decree to abolish the imperial
succession, and to recognize him as the military chieftain of Italy.
Thus, after the decay of ages, the Roman empire fell, to rise no more.
Sagaciously this ferocious barbarian respected time-honored
institutions. He conferred upon his captains titles of dukes and counts,
thus perpetuating and extending the feudal system. The Roman nobles,
surrendering themselves to all sensual indulgence, had sunk into the
lowest debasement. A contemporary historian, Ammianus Marcellinus,
gives the following graphic account of the aristocracy of Rome at that
time:――
“The ostentation of presenting the rent-roll of their estates provokes
the resentment of every man who remembers that their poor ancestors
were not distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers. The modern
nobles measure their rank by the splendor of their carriages and the
magnificence of their dress. Followed by a train of fifty slaves, they
sweep the streets with impetuous speed. When they condescend to visit
the public baths, they assume a tone of loud and insolent command, and
appropriate to themselves conveniences designed for the Roman people.
Sometimes they visit their plantations in the country, and, by the
toil of servile hands, engage in the amusements of the chase. When
they travel, they are followed by a multitude of cooks and inferior
servants, accompanied by a promiscuous crowd of slaves and dependent
plebeians. They express exquisite sensibility for any personal injury,
and contemptuous indifference for all the rest of the human species.
Should they call for some water, and a slave be tardy in bringing it,
the slave would be punished with three hundred lashes.
“A sure method of introduction to the society of the great is skill
in gambling. The confederates are united by an indissoluble bond of
friendship, or rather of conspiracy. The acquisition of knowledge
seldom engages their attention who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
advantages of study. The distress which chastises extravagant luxury
often reduces them to the most humiliating expedients. When they wish
to borrow, they are as suppliant as a slave. When called upon to pay,
they assume airs of indolence, as if they were the grandsons of
Hercules.”
Italy had indeed fallen: the barbaric leader of a semi-civilized band
was her enthroned monarch. During a reign of fourteen years, vast
crowds of emigrants from the bleak realms north of the Rhine and the
Danube flocked into sunny Italy.
They received a cordial welcome from Odoacer, and rapidly blended
with the people among whom they took up their residence. But fertile
and beautiful Italy was too rich a prize in the eyes of the powerful
Northern nations to be long left in the undisputed possession of
Odoacer.
Upon the northern banks of the Euxine Sea there was a populous nation
called the Ostrogoths. Their king, Theodoric, had been educated at
Constantinople, and was a civilized man, reigning over a comparatively
barbaric people. He commenced his march upon Italy, accompanied by the
whole nation.
“The march of Theodoric,” says Gibbon, “must be considered as the
emigration of an entire people. Each bold barbarian who had heard of
the wealth and beauty of Italy was impatient to seek, through the most
perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting objects. The
wives and children of the Goths, their aged parents and most precious
effects, were carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of
the heavy baggage that followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand
wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of
Epirus. For their subsistence the Goths depended on the magazines of
corn, which was ground in portable mills by the hands of their women;
on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds; on the casual produce
of the chase; and upon the contributions which they might impose on all
who should presume to dispute their passage or to refuse their friendly
assistance. Notwithstanding these precautions, they were exposed to
the danger and almost to the distress of famine in a march of seven
hundred miles, which had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous
winter.”[195]
Their march was through provinces devastated by war and famine.
Still Theodoric had many fierce battles to wage ere he descended the
southern declivities of the Julian Alps, and displayed his banners
on the confines of Italy. Odoacer met him on the eastern frontiers of
Venetia. Conquered in a bloody battle, he retreated to the walls of
Verona; and all Venetia fell into the hands of the Ostrogoths. Odoacer
made another stand upon the banks of the Adige: a still more sanguinary
battle was fought, and the broken bands of Odoacer fled to Ravenna,
on the Adriatic. Theodoric marched triumphantly to Milan, where the
ever-fickle multitude received the conqueror with every demonstration
of joy. Still, for three years, wretched Italy was desolated by war:
misery reigned from the Alps to the extremity of the Peninsula, as
man’s inhumanity to man caused countless millions to mourn.
At length, Theodoric was victorious: having annihilated the armies
of the Goths, and plunged his sword into the bosom of Odoacer,
he entered upon the undisputed sovereignty of the whole of Italy.
Theodoric governed this most beautiful of realms with energy, wisdom,
and humanity. A third of the lands of Italy were divided among his
own people. For thirty-three years he reigned with sagacity, which has
given him the designation of “the Great.” He was nominally a Christian,
as were very many of his followers. The days of paganism had passed,
never to return. Christianity had in a remarkable degree pervaded the
barbaric nations outside the limits of the Roman empire.
Christianity, which had gained such signal victories over the learned
and luxurious Romans, was equally triumphant over the warlike
barbarians of Scythia and Germany. These fierce hordes, in their
military incursions, carried back into their savage wilds thousands of
captives. Many of these were Christians, and some were clergymen. They
were dispersed as slaves throughout the wide realms of their conquerors.
They, like the early disciples who were scattered from Jerusalem,
proclaimed, in the huts of their barbaric masters, the gospel of Jesus,
and won many triumphs to the cross of Christ.
John Chrysostom, whom we have mentioned as one of the most illustrious
men of these days, upon becoming a Christian when but little over
twenty years of age, abandoned all the ambition of life, and retired to
the cells of the anchorites who were dwelling on the mountains in the
vicinity of Antioch. Chrysostom gives us the following account of the
mode of life then adopted by the anchorites:――
“They rise with the first crowing of the cock, or at midnight. After
having read psalms and hymns in common, each, in his separate cell, is
occupied in reading the Holy Scriptures, or in copying books. Then they
proceed to church, and, after mass, return quietly to their habitations.
They never speak to each other. Their nourishment is bread and salt:
some add oil to it, and the invalids vegetables. After meals they rest
a few moments, and then return to their usual occupations. They till
the ground, fell wood, make baskets and clothes, and wash the feet
of travellers. Their bed is a mat spread upon the ground; their dress
consists of skins or cloths made of the hair of goats or camels. They
go barefooted, have no property, and never pronounce the words _mine_
and _thine_. Undisturbed peace dwells in their habitations, and a
cheerfulness scarcely known in the world.”
There can be no question as to the sincerity of these cloistered monks,
misguided as they were. Chrysostom dwelt in a cavern for two years,
without lying down. His penance was so severe, that he was thrown into
a fit of sickness, which compelled his return to Antioch. After a life
of tireless activity, many persecutions, and efficient devotion to the
interests of the Church, he died, as we have mentioned, in exile, in
the sixty-third year of his age.
“The name of Chrysostom, ‘Golden-mouthed,’ was assigned to him
after his death to express the eloquence which he possessed in so
much greater a degree than the other fathers of the Church. He never
repeats himself, and is always original. The vivacity and power of his
imagination, the force of his logic, his power of arousing the passions,
the beauty and accuracy of his comparisons, the neatness and purity
of his style, his clearness and sublimity, place him on a level with
the most celebrated Greek authors. The Greek Church has not a more
accomplished orator.”[196]
The inclination for monastic seclusion very rapidly increased. Some
sought the silence of the desert because they felt unable to resist
the temptations of busy life; some, to escape from persecution; some,
as a refuge from remorse; some, from the conviction that sin might be
atoned for by self-inflicted suffering; some, from disgust at life, or
a natural fondness for solitude and contemplation. In the middle of the
fourth century, there was a colony of these anchorets upon the Island
of Tabenna, in the Nile, numbering fifty thousand persons. They lived
in the extreme of abstinence, occupying cheerless cells in very humble
huts.
Men only at first entered upon this hermit life. About the middle
of the fourth century, female monasteries, or convents of nuns, were
instituted.
This retirement from the world to the cloister in those troublous times
proved by no means an unmixed evil. Gradually very solemn monastic vows
and extremely rigid rules of discipline were introduced.
“These houses now became the dwellings of piety, industry, and
temperance, and the refuge of learning driven to them for shelter
from the troubles of the times. Missionaries were sent out from them:
deserts and solitudes were made habitable by industrious monks. And in
promoting the progress of agriculture, and civilizing the German and
Sclavonian nations, they certainly rendered great services to the world
from the sixth century to the ninth. But it must be admitted that these
institutions, so useful in the dark ages of barbarism, changed their
character to a great degree as their wealth and influence increased.
Idleness and luxury crept within their walls, together with all the
vices of the world; and their decay became inevitable.”[197]
In the early part of this century Augustine died, a man whose renown
has been fresh in the Church for fourteen hundred years. He was born
in Tagasta, a small city in Africa, on the 13th of November, 354.
His father was a pagan, though he became a disciple of Jesus just
before his death. His mother was an earnest Christian, by whose pious
teachings Augustine in his early childhood was deeply impressed. While
a mere boy, upon a sudden attack of dangerous sickness, he entreated
that he might be baptized, and received into the fold of Christ. The
sudden disappearance of alarming symptoms led his mother to hesitate,
fearing that he might again fall into sin, and that then his baptism
would only add to his condemnation. Augustine afterwards expressed the
opinion that this was a great mistake. He thought, that, had he then
made a profession of his faith in Christ, it would have operated as an
incentive to a holy life, and would have saved him from much subsequent
sin and suffering.
With returning health, temptation came, and the boy of ardent passions
was swept away by the flood. “My weak age,” he writes, “was hurried
along through the whirlpool of flagitiousness. The displeasure of God
was all the time imbittering my soul. Where was I, in that sixteenth
year of my age, when the madness of lust seized me altogether? My God,
thou spakest to me by my mother, and through her warned me strongly
against the ways of vice. But my mother’s voice I despised, and
thought it to be only the voice of a woman. So blinded was I, that
I was ashamed to be thought less guilty than my companions. I even
invented false stories of my sinful exploits, that I might win their
commendation.
“I committed theft from the wantonness of iniquity: it was not the
effect of the theft, but the sin itself, which I wished to enjoy. There
was a pear-tree in the neighborhood loaded with fruit. At dead of night,
in company with some profligate youths, I plundered the tree. The spoil
was thrown away; for I had abundance of better fruit at home. What did
I mean that I should be gratuitously wicked?”
The father of Augustine, though not wealthy, had sufficient means
and the disposition to afford his son all existing facilities for the
acquisition of a thorough education. The young man devoted himself
sedulously to the cultivation of eloquence. In the pursuit of his
studies, he repaired to Carthage, then the abode of intellect, wealth,
and splendor. Here he plunged quite recklessly into fashionable
dissipation. When seventeen years of age, his father died; but his
fond mother maintained him at Carthage. It is manifest that he was
still the subject of deep religious impressions. Upon reading the
“Hortensius” of Cicero, he was charmed with its philosophy; but he
writes,――
“The only thing which damped my zeal was, that the name of Christ
was not there,――that precious name, which from my mother’s milk I had
learned to reverence; and whatever was without this name, however just
and learned and polite, could not wholly carry away my heart.”
He commenced studying the Scriptures, but with that proud,
self-sufficient spirit which debarred him from all spiritual
enlightenment. His haughty frame, he afterwards confessed, “justly
exposed him to believe in the most ridiculous absurdities.”
“For nine years,” he writes, “while I was rolling in the slime of
sin, often attempting to rise, and still sinking deeper, did my mother
in vigorous hope persist in incessant prayer for me. She entreated a
certain bishop to reason me out of my errors. He replied, ‘Your son is
too much elated at present with the pleasing novelty of his error to
regard any arguments, as appears by the pleasure he takes in puzzling
many ignorant persons with his captious questions. Let him alone: only
continue to pray to the Lord for him. It is not possible that a child
of such tears should perish.’”
“My mother,” writes Augustine, “has often told me since, that this
answer impressed her mind like a voice from heaven.”
For nine years, from the nineteenth to the twenty-eighth of his age,
this very brilliant young man lived in the indulgence of practices
which he knew to be sinful. His pride of character and his high
intellectual attainments precluded his entrance upon scenes of low and
vulgar vice. He was genteelly and fashionably wicked. He had attained
distinction as a teacher of rhetoric, and supported himself in that
way. There was a young man in Carthage who had been a nominal Christian,
the child of Christian parents, and a companion and friend of Augustine
from childhood. A very strong friendship sprang up between them; and
Augustine succeeded in drawing this young man away from the Christian
faith, and in luring him into his own paths of error and of sin.
This young man was taken dangerously sick. When unconscious, and
apparently near his end, he was, by the wish of his parents, baptized.
Contrary to all expectation, he recovered. Augustine writes,――
“I regarded his baptism when in a state of unconsciousness with great
indifference, not doubting that he would adhere to my instructions.
As soon as I had an opportunity of conversing with him, I attempted
to turn into ridicule his late baptism, in which I expected his
concurrence. But he dreaded me as an enemy, and with wonderful freedom
admonished me, that, if I would be his friend, I should drop the
subject. Confounded at this unexpected behavior, I deferred the
conversation till he should be thoroughly recovered.”
There was a relapse, and the young man died. Augustine was overwhelmed
with anguish: remorse was manifestly in some degree commingled with
his grief. Time gradually lessened his sorrow; and in his restlessness
he resolved to go to Rome, there to seek new excitements and a larger
field of ambition. Knowing that his widowed mother’s heart would be
broken by his abandonment of her, he deceived her, and, upon pretence
of taking a sail with a friend, left his home to seek his fortune in
the renowned metropolis of the world.
“Thus,” he writes, “did I deceive my mother; and _such_ a mother! Yet
was I preserved from the dangers of the sea, foul as I was in the mire
of sin. But the time was coming when thou, O God! wouldst wipe away
my mother’s tears; and even this base undutifulness thou hast forgiven
me. The wind favored us, and carried us out of sight of shore. In the
morning, my mother was distracted with grief: she wept and wailed, and
was inconsolable in her violent agonies. In her, affection was very
strong. But, wearied of grief, she returned to her former employment of
praying for me, and went home; while I continued my journey to Rome.”
Soon after his arrival in the city, he was taken dangerously sick, and
his life was despaired of. In the lethargy of his sickness, he thought
but little of his sins and his danger. His mother, though uninformed of
his sickness, repaired to the church every morning and evening, there
to pray for the conversion of her son. Gradually Augustine regained his
health, and was invited to give some lectures upon rhetoric in Milan.
Bishop Ambrose was pastor of the church there,――a man of superior
intellectual powers, and who had acquired renown both as a logician and
an orator. Young Augustine called upon the bishop.
“The man of God,” he writes, “received me as a father; and I
conceived an affection for him, not as a teacher of truth, which I
had no idea of discovering in the Church, but as a man kind to me.
I studiously attended his preaching, only with a curious desire of
discovering whether fame had done justice to his eloquence or not.
Gradually I was brought to attend to the doctrine of the bishop. I
found reason to rebuke myself for the hasty conclusions I had formed of
the indefensible nature of the law and the prophets. The possibility of
finding truth in the Church of Christ appeared.”
His mother, drawn by love and anxiety, now left Carthage, and,
crossing the Mediterranean, went to Milan, where she became united to
her wayward and wandering son. Augustine informed his mother of the
partial change which had taken place in his views, and that he was in
the habit of attending the preaching of Bishop Ambrose. She replied,
“I believe in Christ, that, before I leave this world, I shall see you
a sound believer.” She made the acquaintance of the bishop, interested
him still more deeply in her son, and, with renewed fervor, pleaded
with God for his conversion.
“Ambrose,” Augustine writes, “was charmed with the fervor of
my mother’s piety, her amiableness, and her good works. He often
congratulated me that I had such a mother, little knowing what sort of
a son she had. The state of my mind was now somewhat altered. Ashamed
of past delusions, I was the more anxious to be guided right for the
time to come. I was completely convinced of the falsehood of the many
things I had once uttered with so much confidence.”
A season of great anxiety and sadness now ensued. He was firmly
convinced of the divine authority of that Bible, which, in his
infidelity, he had rejected. Still he had not as yet surrendered
his heart to the Saviour, and had found no peace in believing. In
comparison with eternal things, all the pursuits of this world seemed
trivial. His heart was like the troubled sea: his conscience reproached
him for neglecting the salvation of his soul. The following extract
from his “Confessions” gives a vivid idea of the struggles in which his
spirit was then engaged:――
“Your mornings,” I said to myself, “are for your pupils: why, then, do
you not attend to religious duties in the afternoon? But, then, what
time should I have to attend to the levees of the great? What, then, if
death should suddenly seize you, and judgment overtake you unprepared?
But what if death be the end of our being? Yet far from my soul be
such a thought! God would never have given such proof of the truth of
Christianity if the soul died with the body. Why, then, do I not give
myself wholly to God? But do not be in a hurry. You have influential
friends, and may yet attain wealth and honor in the world. In such an
agitation of mind,” continues Augustine, “did I live, seeking happiness,
yet flying from it.”
Twelve years had now passed away, during which Augustine had been
professedly seeking the truth, and yet had found no peace. “I had,”
he writes, “deferred from day to day devoting myself to God, under
the pretence that I was uncertain where the truth lay.”
And then the question occurred to him, “How is it that so many humble
persons find peace so speedily in religion, while I, with all my
philosophy and anxious reasonings, remain year after year in darkness
and doubt?” Conscious that the difficulty was to be found in his own
stubborn will, he retired in great agitation to a secluded spot in
the garden, and, as he writes, “with vehement indignation I rebuked my
sinful spirit because it would not give itself up to God.” His anguish
was great, and he wept bitterly. Falling upon his knees beneath a
fig-tree, with tears and trembling utterance he exclaimed,――
“O Lord! how long shall I say to-morrow? Why should not this hour put
an end to my slavery?”
Just then, he fancied that he heard a voice saying to him, “Take up,
and read.” He had with him Paul’s epistles. Opening the book, the first
passage which met his eye was this, found in the thirteenth chapter of
Romans, thirteenth and fourteenth verses:――
“Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to
fulfil the lusts thereof.”
The besetting sin of Augustine, and the great and crying shame of the
times, was sensuality. The passage came to his mind as a direct message
from Heaven. It said to him, “Abandon every sin, renounce your pursuits
of earthly ambition, and commence a new life of faith in Jesus Christ.”
He at once was enabled to make the surrender: all his doubts vanished;
and that “hope, which we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and
steadfast,” dawned upon his mind.
He immediately hastened to his mother to inform her of the joyful
event; and she rejoiced with him with heartfelt sympathy such as
none but a Christian mother can understand. In commenting upon this
change, Augustine writes, “The whole of my difficulty lay in a _will_
stubbornly set in opposition to God. But from what deep secret was my
free will called out in a moment, by which I bowed my shoulders to thy
light burden, Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer?” Where is the
thoughtful Christian who has not often asked this question?――
“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”
The reply which our Saviour makes to this inquiry is not an explanation:
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every
one that is born of the Spirit.”
Augustine relinquished his profession of a teacher of rhetoric,
and, guided by Bishop Ambrose, entered upon the study of theology.
He was baptized in the church of Milan with his son Adeodatus, whom
he acknowledged as his child. Augustine decided to return to Carthage
with his mother; but, just as they were about to embark at the mouth of
the Tiber, she was taken sick, and died. The afflicted son pays a very
beautiful tribute to her memory, as one of the most noble of Christian
women. In this eulogy he makes the following statements illustrative of
her character and of the times:――
“My mother, when young, had learned by degrees to drink wine, having
been sent to draw it for the use of the family. How was she delivered
from this snare? God provided for her a malignant reproach from a maid
in the house, who in a passion called her a drunkard. Thus was she
cured of her evil practice.
“After her marriage with my father, Patricius, she endeavored to win
him to Christianity by her amiable manners; and patiently she bore his
unfaithfulness. His temper was hasty, but his spirit kind. She knew how
to bear with him when angry by a perfect silence and composure; and,
when she saw him cool, would meekly expostulate with him. Many matrons
would complain of the blows and harsh treatment they received from
their husbands, whom she would exhort to govern their tongues. When
they expressed astonishment that it was never heard that Patricius had
beaten his wife, or that they ever were at variance a single day, she
informed them of her plan. Those who followed it thanked her for its
good success: those who did not experienced vexation.
“It was a great gift which, O my God! thou gavest her, that she never
repeated the unkind things which she had heard from persons who were at
variance with one another; and she was conscientiously exact in saying
nothing but what might tend to heal and to reconcile. At length, in the
extremity of life, she gained her husband to thee, and he died in the
faith of Christ.
“My mother and I stood alone at a window facing the east, near
the mouth of the Tiber, where we were preparing for our voyage. Our
discourse ascended above the noblest parts of the material creation
to the consideration of our own minds; and, passing above them, we
attempted to reach heaven itself,――to come to thee, by whom all things
were made. At that moment the world appeared to us of no value. She
said, ‘Son, I have now no clinging to life. It was your conversion
alone for which I wished to live. God has given me this. What more is
there for me to do here?’ Scarcely five days after, she fell into a
fever. She departed this life on the ninth day of her illness, in the
fifty-sixth year of her age, and the thirty-third of mine.”
Augustine returned to Africa, where, after three years of retirement
and study, he was ordained a preacher of the gospel. The fame of his
eloquence rapidly spread throughout the Western world, drawing crowds
of the pagans, as well as of the Christians, to his church; and ere
long he was elected Bishop of Hippo. After a life of unwearied devotion
to the interests of Christianity, preaching the gospel of Christ
with simplicity, purity, and fervor rarely equalled, and with his pen
defending the doctrines of grace with logical acumen and philosophic
breadth of view perhaps never surpassed, this illustrious man died in
the year 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and the fortieth of
his ministry.