SAINT AUGUSTIN, MELANCHTHON, NEANDER. THREE BIOGRAPHIES BV PHILIP SCHAFF. NEW YOEK: UNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS, 10 AND 12 DEY STREET. 1886. All Sights Reserved. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tne year 1885, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. i 4 I TO 1 DEDICATE THESE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ST. AUGUSTIN, MELANCHTHON, AND NEANDER, THE CHURCH FATHER, THE REFORMER, AND THE CHURCH HISTORIAN, THREE OF THE BEST AMONG THE GREAT, AND OF THE GREATEST AMONG THE GOOD, AS WITNESSES OF THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, AND AS INSPIRING EXAMPLES OF CONSECRATION TO THE SERVICE OF CHRIST. PHILIP SCHAFF. UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, New York, December, 1885. CONTENTS. SAINT AUGUSTIN. PAGE INTRODUCTORY 7 CHAPTER I. Augustin's Youtli 11 CHAPTER II. Augustin at Cartilage 17 CHAPTER III. Cicero's Hortensius 19 CHAPTER IV. Augustin Among the Manichseans 21 CHAPTER V. The Loss of a Friend, 24 CHAPTER VI. Augustin Leaves Manichseism 26 CHAPTER VII. Error Overruled for Truth 28 CHAPTER VIII. Augustin a Skeptic in Rome 80 CHAPTER IX. Augustin at Milan. St. Ambrose 03 CHAPTER X. Augustin a Catechisman in the Catholic Church. . . 89 CHAPTER XI. Monnica's Arrival 44 CHAPTER XII. Moral Conflicts. Project of Marriage 45 CHAPTER XIII. Mental Conflicts 48 CHAPTER XIV. Influence of Platonism 50 CHAPTER XV. Study of the Scriptures 52 CHAPTER XVI. Augustin's Conversion 54 CHAPTER XVII. Sojourn in the Country 61 CHAPTER XVIII. Augustin's Baptism 66 CHAPTER XIX. Monnica's Last Days and Death 68 CHAPTER XX. Second Visit to Rome, and Return to Africa 75 CHAPTER XXI. Augustin is Appointed Priest and Bishop of Hippo 77 CHAPTER XXII. Augustin's Domestic Life 79 CHAPTER XXIII. Administration of the Episcopal Office and Public Activity 81 CHAPTER XXIV. Last Years and Death 84 CHAPTER XXV. Augustin's Writings 86 CHAPTER XXVI. Influence of Augustin on His Own and Suc ceeding Ages , 96 CHAPTER XXVII. The Augustinian System 103 vi CONTENTS. MELANCHTHON. PAGE His Youth and Education 107 Melanclitlion in Tubingen 109 Melanclithon in Wittenberg , 110 Luther and Melanclithon 113 Domestic and Private Life 116 The Closing Years of Melanchthon 120 His Death 122 His Public Character and Services 123 REMINISCENCES OF NEANDER. Sketch of His Life .128 Neander's Training for His Work 132 His Outward Appearance 137 Home Life 140 Hannah Neander 141 Neander as a Teacher 142 Neander as a Friend of Students 143 His Interest in Foreigners 147 Character of Neander 148 His Theology 153 The Last Birthday 155 Sickness and Death 157 The Funeral 162 A Letter of Neander. . . 1G5 SAINT AUGUSTIN. INTEODUCTOEY. THE chief, almost the only source of the life of St. Augustin till the time of his conversion is his auto biography ; his faithful friend, Possidius, added a few notices ; his public labors till his death are recorded in his numerous writings ; his influence is written on the pages of mediaeval and modern church history. Among religious autobiographies the Confessions of Augustin still hold the first rank. In them this remark able man, endowed with a lofty genius and a burning heart, lays open his inner life before God and the world, and at the same time the life of God in his own soul, which struggled for the mastery, and at last obtained it. A more honest book was never written. He conceals nothing, he palliates nothing. Like a faithful witness against himself, standing at the bar of the omniscient Judge, he tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Like King David, in the fifty-first Psalm, he openly confesses his transgressions \fith un feigned sorrow and grief, yet in the joyous conscious ness of forgiveness. To his sense of sin corresponds his sense of grace : they are the controlling ideas of his spiritual life and of his system of theology. The deeper the descent into the hell of self-knowledge, the higher the ascent to the knowledge of God. Augustin might have kept the secret of his youthful aberrations ; posterity knows them only from his pen. 8 SAINT AUGUSTUS. He committed no murder nor adultery, like the King of Israel ; lie never denied his Saviour, like Peter ; he was no persecutor of the Church, like Paul ; his sins preceded his conversion and baptism, and they were compatible with the highest honor in heathen society. But his Christian experience quickened his sense of guilt, and he told the story for his own humiliation and for the glory of God's redeeming grace. The Confessions are a solemn soliloquy before the throne of the Searcher of hearts within the hearing of the world. They enter into the deepest recesses of re ligious experience, and rise to the lofty summit of theo logical thought. They exhibit a mind .intensely pious and at the same time intensely speculative. His prayers are meditations, and his meditations are prayers ; and both shine and burn like Africa's tropical sun. They re flect, as Guizot says, "a unique mixture of passion and gentleness, of authority and sympathy, of largeness of mind and logical rigor. " Dr. Shedd ranks them among those rare autobiographies in which " the ordinary ex periences of human life attain to such a pitch of intensity and such a breadth, range, and depth as to strike the reader with both a sense of familiarity and a sense of strangeness. It is his own human thought and human feeling that he finds expressed ; and yet it is spoken with so much greater clearness, depth, and energy than he is himself capable of, or than is characteristic of the mass of men, that it seems like the experience of another sphere and another race of beings." * Even in a psychological and literary point of view the Confessions of Augustin rank among the most interest- * See the thoughtful introduction to his edition of the Confessions of Augustin, Andover, I860, p. ix. INTRODUCTORY. ing of autobiographies, and are not inferior to Rousseau's Confessions and Goethe's Truth and Fiction • while in religious value there is no comparison between them. They are equally frank, and blend the personal with the general human interest ; but while the French philoso pher and the German poet are absorbed in the analysis of their own self, and dwell upon it with satisfaction, the African father goes into the minute details of his sins and follies with intense abhorrence of sin, and rises above himself to the contemplation of divine mercy, which delivered him from the degrading slavery. The former wrote for the glory of man, the latter for the glory of God. Augustin lived in an age when the West ern Roman Empire was fast approaching dissolution, and the Christian Church, the true City of God, was being built on its ruins. He was not free from the defects of an artificial and degenerate rhetoric ; nevertheless he rises not seldom to the height of passionate eloquence, and scatters gems of the rarest beauty. He was master of the antithetical power, the majesty and melody of the language of imperial Home. Many of his sentences have passed into proverbial use, and become commonplaces in theological literature. Next to Augustin himself, his mother attracts the attention and excites the sympathy of the reader. She walks like a guardian angel from heaven through his book until her translation to that sphere. How pure and strong and enduring her devotion to him, and his devo tion to her ! She dried many tears of anxious mothers. It is impossible to read of Mon^ica without a profounder regard for wroman and a feeling of gratitude for Chris tianity, wliich raised her to so high a position. The Confessions were written about A.D. 39 7, ten years after Augustin's conversion. The historical part 10 SAINT AUQUSTIN. closes with his conversion and with the death of his mother. The work contains much that can be fully understood only by the theologian and the student of history ; and the last four of the thirteen books are devoted to subtle speculations about the nature of mem ory, eternity, time, and creation, which far transcend the grasp of the ordinary reader. Nevertheless it was read with great interest and profit in the time of the writer, and ever since, in the original Latin and numerous trans lations in various languages. In all that belongs to eleva tion, depth, and emotion there are few books so edifying and inspiring and so well worthy of careful study as Augustin's Confessions. We shall endeavor to popularize the Confessions, and to supplement the biography from other sources, for the instruction and edification of the present generation. The life of a great genius and saint like Augustin is one of the best arguments for the religion he professed, and to which he devoted his mental and moral energies. CHAPTEE I. ATJKELIUS AUGUSTINUS, the greatest and best, and the most influential of the Latin church-fathers, was born on the thirteenth of November, 354, at Tagaste, in Numidia, North Africa. His birthplace was near Hippo .Regius (now Bona), where he spent his public life as presbyter and bishop, and where he died in the seventy- sixth year of his age (Aug. 28, 430). He belonged to the Punic race, which was of Phoenician origin, but be came Latinized in language, laws, and customs under Roman rule since the destruction of Carthage (B.C. 146), yet retained the Oriental temper and the sparks of the genius of Hannibal, the sworn enemy of Rome. These traits appear in the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, who preceded Augustin and prepared the way for his theology. In Augustin we can trace the religious in tensity of the Semitic race, the tropical fervor of Africa, the Catholic grasp and comprehensiveness of Rome, and the germs of an evangelical revolt against its towering ambition and tyrannical rule. His native land has long since been laid waste by the barbarous Vandals (A.D. 439) and the Mohammedan Arabs (047), and keeps mourn ful silence over dreary ruins ; but his spirit marched 12 SAINT AUGUSTUS through the ages, and still lives and acts as a molding and stimulating power in all the branches of Western Christendom. His father, Patricins, was a member of the city Council, and a man of kindly disposition, but irritable temper and dissolute habits. lie remained a heathen till shortly before his death, but did not, as it appears, lay any obstruction to the Christian course of his wife. Monnica,* the mother of Augustin, shines among the most noble and pious women that adorn the grand tem ple of the Christian Church. She was born in the year 331 or 332, of Christian parents, probably at Tagaste. She had rare gifts of mind and heart, which were de veloped by an excellent Christian education, and dedi cated to the Saviour. To the violent passion of her husband she opposed an angelic meekness, and when the outburst was over she reproached him so tenderly that he was always shamed. Had the rebuke been adminis tered sooner it would only have fed the unhallowed fire. His conjugal infidelity she bore with patience and for giving love. Her highest aim was to win him over to the Christian faith — not so much by words as by a truly humble and godly conduct and the conscientious dis charge of her household duties. In this she was so suc cessful that, a year before his death, he enrolled himself among the catechumens and was baptized. To her it was the greatest pleasure to read the Holy Scriptures * This is the correct spelling, according to the oldest MSS. of the writings of Augustin, and is followed by Pusey, in his edition of the Confessions, by Moule, in Smith and Wace, Did. of Christian Biogra phy, III. 932, and also by K. Braune, in Monnika und Augustinus (Grimma, 1846). The usual spelling is Monica, in French Monique. It is derived by some from /n6vo^t single; by others from fj.6vvo^ or , Lat. monile, a necklace (monilia, jewels). AUGUSTIN' s YOUTH. 13 and to attend church regularly every morning and even ing, " not," as Augustin says, " to listen to vain fables, but to the Lord, in the preaching of His servants, and to offer up to Him her prayers." She esteemed it a pre cious privilege to lay on the altar each day a gift of love, to bestow alms on the poor, and to extend hospitality to strangers, especially to brethren in the faith. She brought up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. She bare Augustin, as he boasts of her, with greater pains spiritually than she had brought him forth naturally into the world.* For thirty years she prayed for the conversion of her distinguished son, until at last, a short time before her death, after manifold cares and burning tears, in the midst of which she never either murmured against God or lost hope, she found her prayers answered beyond her expectations. She has become a bright example and rich comfort for mothers, and will act as an inspiration to the end of time. From such parents sprang Augustin. Strong sensual passions he inherited from his father, but from his mother those excellent gifts of mind and heart which, though long perverted, were at last reclaimed by the regenerating grace of God, and converted into an incal culable blessing to the Church of all ages. He had a brother, by the name of Navigius, a widowed sister, who presided over a society of pious women till the day of her death, and a number of nephews and nieces. Augustin says that with his mother's milk his heart sucked in the name of the Saviour, which became so * Confess. 1. V. c. 9 : " Non enim satis eloquor, quid erga me habebat animi, tt quanta majore sollicitudine me parturiebat spiritu, quam carne perpererat." Likewise 1. IX. c. 8 : " Qua? me parlurivit, et carne, ut in hanv temporalem, el corde, ut in aitfrnam lucem nascerer." Comp. his whole description of Monnica, ix. 9-12. 14 SAINT AUGUSTUS. firmly lodged there that nothing which did not savor of that name, however learned and attractive it might other wise be, could ever fully charm him. He early lisped out prayers to God, whose all-em'bracing love revealed itself to his childish spirit. These germs of piety were overgrown by the weeds of youthful vice and impure lusts, but never wholly smothered. Even in the midst of his furthest wanderings he still heard the low, sad echo of his youthful religious impressions, was attended by the guardian genius of his praying mother, and felt in the depths of his noble spirit the pulse-beat of that strong desire after God, to which, in the opening of his Confessions, he gives utterance in the incompar able words : " Thou, O God, hast created us for Thy self, and our heart is without rest, until it rests in Thee." * He was not baptized in infancy, but merely offered to the initiation of a catechumen by the sign of the cross and the salting with salt.f There was at that time no O ' compulsory baptism of infants : it was left to the free choice of the parents. Monnica probably shared the view of Tertullian that it was safer to postpone baptism to years of discretion than to run the risk of forfeiting its benefit by a relapse. Augustin was sent to school at an early age, with the hope on the part of his father that he might become dis tinguished in the world ; on that of his mother, that * Confess. I. 1 : "Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donee requiescat in Te." Dr. Pusey, in his translation (based on an older one), obliterates the paronomasia — inquietum, requiescat : " Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee." Dr. Shedd retains this translation. f Confess. I. 11. AUGUSTIJST'S YOUTH. 15 "the common studies might not only prove innocent, but also in some degree useful in leading him afterward to God." Elementary instruction and mathematics were, how ever, too dry for the boy ; and he was, in consequence, severely punished by his teachers. Play was his chief delight. In order to shine as the first among his com panions he even cheated them ; and for the purpose of providing himself with playthings, or of gratifying his appetite, he went so far as to steal from the store-room and the table of his parents. At public shows he pas sionately crowded himself into the front ranks of the spectators. And yet for all this he had to endure the reproaches of conscience. On one occasion, when, seized by a vio lent cramp in the stomach, he believed his last hour had come, he earnestly begged to be baptized. But after his mother had made the necessary preparations he sud denly grew better, and the baptism, according to a pre vailing notion of the age, was postponed, lest this pre cious means for the washing away of past sins might be rendered vain by the contraction of new guilt, in which case no other remedy was to be found. At a later period he thought it would have been far better for him had he been early received by baptism into the commu nion of the Church, and thus placed under her protecting care. His dislike for learning ceased when Augustin passed over from rudimentary studies into the grammar school. The poet Yergil charmed his fancy and filled him with fresh enthusiasm. "With the deepest interest he followed -^Eneas in his wanderings, and shed tears over the death of Dido, who slew herself for love ; while at the same time, as he tells us, he ouajht to have mourned over his own 16 SAINT AUGUSTIN. death in estrangement from God.* The wooden horse full of armed warriors, the burning of Troy, and the shade of Creusa were continually before his soul. The Grecian classics were not so much to his taste, because his defective knowledge of the language, which he never had the patience to master, prevented the enjoyment of their works. By his gift of lively representation and brilliant orator ical talent he made a figure in the school, and awakened the fondest hopes in the hearts of his parents. His father destined him to the then highly respectable and influential office of rhetorician, or public teacher of forensic eloquence. For further improvement he sent him to the larger neighboring city of Madaura, where heathenism still held almost exclusive sway. His resi dence there was probably injurious to him in a moral point of view. In the sixteenth year of his age he returned home in order to prepare himself, in as cheap a manner as possi ble, for the University of the metropolis of Northern Africa. But instead of growing better he entered upon the path of folly, and plunged into the excesses of sensu ality. His mother earnestly exhorted him to lead a chaste life ; but he was ashamed to heed the exhortation of a woman. This false shame drove him even to pre tend frequently to crimes which he had never commit ted, so as not to seem to fall behind his comrades. He himself confesses, " I was not able to distinguish the brighter purity of love from the darkness of lust. Both * Confess. I. 13 : " Quid enim miserius misero non miserante selpsum, et flenie Didonis mortem, qua; fiebat amando JEneam / non fiente autem mortem suam, quos fiebat non amando Te, Deus lumen cordis mei, et panif* oris intus animce mece, et virtus maritans mentem meam, et sinum cogitationis mecv?" AUGUSTUS AT CARTHAGE. 17 were mingled together in confusion ; youth in its weak ness, hurried to the abyss of desire, was swallowed up in the pool of vice." Yet, amid these wild impulses, it was not well with him. Thai; longing after God, so deeply rooted in his soul, asserted its power again and again. He became more and more discontented with himself, and after every indulgence felt an inward pang. The guiding hand of the Lord mixed in the cup of his enjoyment " the whole some bitterness that leads us back from destructive pleas ure, by which we are estranged from God." CHAPTER II. AUGUSTIN AT CARTHAGE. IN his seventeenth year, the same in which his father died, he entered the High School of Carthage, sup ported by his mother and the richest citizen of Tagaste, Romanianus, who was a distant relative. Carthage was the Rome of Africa, with many marble palaces, numer ous schools, countless shows, and shameless vices. Mon- nica did not see her son depart for the great and volup tuous city without fear and trembling, but she was not willing now to interrupt his career, and she knew Him who is stronger than all temptation, and listens to the prayers of His children. In Carthage Augustin studied oratory and other sciences, astrology even, and raised himself to the first rank by his talent. This increased his ambition and fed his pride. With his morals he fared badly. He consorted with a 18 SAIXT AUGUSTIN. class of students who sought their honor in deriding good conduct, and called themselves " Destroyers." Al though their rough and vulgar doings were peculiarly disagreeable to a nature so noble as his, yet their society must have exerted over him a pernicious influence. He frequently visited also the tragic theatre, because it was always, says he, " filled with pictures of my misery, and tinder for my desires." In his eighteenth year he took up with a woman, with whom he lived thirteen years without marriage, and was faithful to her. She bore him a son, Adeodatus, whose promising gifts gave his father much joy, but he died at an early age. She walks veiled through the Confes sions, a memory without a name, and disappears with a sigh of repentance and a vow to devote herself to a pure and single life. It should be borne in mind that the excesses of his youth are known to us only from his own honest Con fessions. His worst sin was common in the best heathen society, and sanctioned by the Roman law. It did not in the least affect his respectability in the eyes of the world. Even the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the model saint and philosopher of ancient Rome, kept a concubine after the death of his wife, without feeling the least scruple. Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, and other eminent fathers who embraced Christianity in adult years, were probably no better than Augustin before his conversion, but they left only vague allusions. Augustin never was a profli gate. He was strictly faithful to the one woman of his affection, the first from Africa, the second from Italy.* It is therefore an inexcusable slander to call him " the * Confess. IV. 2 : " Tn iliis annis unam hdbebam, , . sed unam tamcn, ei quoque servans tori fidem." Comp. VI. 15. CICERO'S HORTENSIUS. 19 promiscuous lover of the frail beauties of Cartilage." It was wicked and brutal in Byron to write that Saint Augustin's " fine Confessions make the reader envy his transgressions. ' ' The wisdom of some parts of his Con fessions may be doubted, but they were made to impress the reader with his own intense abhorrence of sin, and we must admire the fearless honesty and keen moral sensibility of the man in revealing the secrets of his former life, which otherwise would never have been known. CHAPTER III. CICEKO'S HORTEJSTSITJS. MEANWHILE, beneath this rushing stream of external activity, the soul of Augustin sighed after true wisdom. His ardent thirst for something ideal and enduring first of all showed itself in the study of the Ilortensius of Cicero, which came up regularly in the course of his education. This lost volume contained an encourage ment to true philosophy, and gave the direction, in its study, to aim at truth only, and, above all, to hail her footsteps with enthusiasm and without regard to the in terest of party. This roused the young man to an ear nest struggle after truth. " This book," says he, " transformed my inclinations and turned my prayers to Thee, O God, and changed my wishes and my desires. Every vain hope was ex tinguished ; and I longed, with an incredible fervor of spirit, after the immortality of wisdom. I began to raise myself that I might return to Thee. I studied this book 20 SAINT AUGUSTUS. again and again, not for the refinement of my language nor for aid in the art of speaking, but in order that I might be persuaded by its doctrine. Oh, how I burned, my God — how I burned to fly back from the things of earth to Thee. And I knew not what Thou hadst de signed with me. For with Thee is wisdom, and these writings excited me toward love, toward wisdom, toward philosophy. And this particularly delighted me, that I was not asked therein to love, to seek, to attain, and to hold in firm embrace this or that school — but wisdom alone, as she might reveal herself. I was charmed and inflamed." But the volume contained one blemish : the name of Christ was not there. Such a secret power did that name, imprinted on his tender soul, exert over him, even during his wanderings. In this thirst after truth he laid hold of the records of revelation — that holy book to which his mother clung with such reverent devotion. But there was yet a great gulf fixed between him and the Bible. In order to be understood it requires an humble, childlike disposition. To the proud in spirit it is a book with seven seals. The natural man perceives not the things that belong to the Spirit of God : they are foolishness unto him, because they are spiritually discerned. Augustin was not yet ac quainted with the depth of his corruption, which the Holy Scriptures disclosed to him on every page. u The Scriptures," he says, " thrive among the childlike ; but I refused to become a child, and thought myself great in my own presumption." He desired not truth in her simple beauty, but arrayed in a specious garb of rhetoric, to flatter his vanity ; he desired her not as a chaste virgin, but as a voluptuous courtesan. Ilence he now turned to the sect of the Manichseans, AUGUSTIN AMONG THE MAisICII^EANS. 21 who Lad the word truth always on their lips, but held their disciples captive in the bondage of error. CHAPTEK IV. ATJGUSTIN AMONG THE MANICIT.EANS. THE Manieliceans, so called from their founder, the Persian Mani, or Maniclueus (died 274:), were a sect allied to the Gnostics. They blended together heathen ism and Christianity in a fantastic system, which they set up in opposition to Judaism and the Catholic Church. The groundwork of their doctrine is the Old Persian religion, into which a few Christian elements are intro duced in a distorted form. They were dualists ; they taught, as Zoroaster, an original antagonism between God and matter ; between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness ; between good and evil. Man stands in the middle between both these kingdoms ; he has a spark of light in him which longs after redemp tion, but, at the same time, is possessed of a corrupt body and a corrupt soul, which are to be gradually anni hilated. To a certain degree they acknowledged Christ as a Saviour, but confounded Him with the sun ; for they were accustomed to drag down the spiritual ideas of the gospel into the sphere of natural life. In the entire economy of nature, which, along with the perfume of the flower, sends the miasmatic breath, and causes the gloomy night to succeed the clear day, they saw a con flict between the two opposite kingdoms ; in every plant a crucified Christ, an imprisoned spirit of light, which 22 SAINT AUGUSTUS worked itself up from the dark bosom of the earth and strove toward the sun. The class of the perfect among them durst slay or wound no animal, pluck no flower, break no stalk of grass, for fear of injuring the higher spirit dwelling in it. They regarded the whole Catholic Church as contaminated by Judaistic elements. Mani is the Paraclete or Advocate promised by Christ, who is to restore again the true Church. They reproached the orthodox Christians for believing blindly, on mere authority, and for not elevating themselves to the stand point of independent knowledge. They, the Manichse- ans, thought themselves, on the contrary, in the posses sion of perfect knowledge, of truth in her pnre, unveiled form. The words truth, science, reason, never out of their mouths, were esteemed as excellent baits for stran gers. These lofty pretensions and promises to unravel all the riddles of existence, the longing after redemption, char acteristic of the system, its inward sympathy with the life of nature, the dazzling show of its subtle dialectics and polemics against the doctrines of the church, and the ascetic severity of its course of life, explain the attractive power which the Manichsean philosophy exerted over many of the more profound spirits of the age, and the extensive propagation which it met with even in the West. We can readily imagine how Augustin, taken up with his struggles after truth, but at the same time full of in tellectual pride, as he then was, should be won over by its delusive charms. He enrolled himself in the class of the auditors, or catechumens. His mother mourned over this new aberration, but was consoled by a dream, in which a shining youth told her that her son should stand just where she stood. When she informed her son AUGUSTIN AMONG THE MANICH^ANS. Z6 of it, lie interpreted the dream as implying tlie speedy conversion of his mother to his side. " No, no," an swered she, " it was not said to me, where he is there shalt thou be also ; but, where thou art, there shall he be also. " Augustin confesses that this prompt reply made a greater impression on him than the dream itself. She was likewise comforted by a bishop, who, at a former period, had been himself a Mimiclioean. She begged him to convince her son of his error. But he thought disputation would be of no avail. She should only con tinue to pray for him, and gradually, of his own accord, through study and experience, he would come to a clearer understanding. " As sure as you live," he add ed, "it is not possible that a son of such tears should be lost." Monnica treasured up these words as a prophetic voice from heaven. For nine years, up to the twenty- eighth of his life, Augustin remained in connection with these heretics — • led astray, and leading others astray. Their discovery of seeming contradictions in the doctrines of the Church, their polemics against the Old Testament, their specula tions concerning the origin of evil, which they traced back to a primordial principle co-existent with God Him self, spoke to his understanding, while their symbolical interpretations of the varied aspects of nature addressed his lively imagination. And yet, for all this, the deepest want of his reason remained unsatisfied. At the time of the high church festivals particularly, when all Christians flocked to the services of the altar, in order to die with the Lord on Good Friday, and rise again with Him on Easter morn ing, he was seized with a strong desire after their com munion. For this reason he took no step toward enter ing the higher class of the initiated, or elect, among the 24 SAINT AUGUSTIN. Manichaeans, but devoted himself more zealously to those studies which belonged to his calling as a rhetori cian. CHAPTER Y. THE LOSS OF A FKEEND. AFTEE the completion of his course of study he re turned to Tagaste, in order to settle there as a teacher of rhetoric. He was master of every qualification for in spiring his scholars with enthusiasm, and many of them, especially Alypius, adhered to him through life with the most heartfelt gratitude. About this time he lost a very dear friend, who, with an almost feminine susceptibility, had resigned himself to the commanding power of his creative intellect, and had even followed him into the mazes of Manichseism. He was suddenly prostrated by a fever. Baptism was administered to him without his knowledge ; Augustin, who was with him night and day, made a mock of it. But his friend, when he again became conscious, with stood him with an independence that he had never be- fore exhibited. The empty shadow of a Christ, the sun, the moon, the air, and whatever else was pointed out by Manichseism to the soul thirsting after salvation, could now yield him no comfort — but the simple, childlike faith of the Catholic Church alone. In this faith he de parted, when the fever returned with renewed violence. The death of this friend filled Augustin with inexpres sible anguish. Neither the splendor of light, nor the peaceful innocence of the flowers, nor the joys of the THE LOSS OF A FIIIE^D. 20 banquet, nor tlic pleasures of sense, had any interest for him now ; even his books, for a long while, lost their charms. "Everything I looked upon was death. My fatherland became a torment to me — my father's house a scene of the deepest suffering. Above all, my eyes sought after him ; but he was not given back to me again. I hated everything because he was not there. I had become a great enigma to myself." He afterward saw how wrong it was to place such un bounded dependence on the creature. " Oh, the folly," he laments, " of not knowing how to love men as men ! Oh, foolish man, to suffer what is human beyond due measure, as I then did !" " Blessed is he, O Lord, who loves Thee, " are his inimitable words, u and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake. He alone loses no dear ones, to whom all are dear in Him, who can never be lost to us. And who is He, but our God, the God who made heaven and earth, and fills them all ! K~o one loses Thee but he who forsakes Thee." * And yet we see in this uncontrollable anguish what a deep fountain of love was gushing in his bosom. Could this love only find its proper object, and be purified by the Spirit of God, what a rich ornament and source of blessing must it become to the Church and the world ! At the same time this severe suffering reveals the inter- O nal weakness of the Manichaean dogmas and of mere human wisdom. Their consolations cannot reach into the dark hours of trouble ; their promises are convicted * Confess. IV. 9 : " Beatus quiamat Te, et amicum in Te, et inlmicum propier Te. Solas enitn nullum carum amittit, cui omnes in illo can sunt, qui non amilitur. El quis est isle, nisi Dens noster, Deus qui fecit ccelum et terrain, et implet ea, quia implendo ea fecit ea ? Te nemo amittit, nisi qui dimittit; et qui dimittit, quo it, aid quo fugit, nisi a Te placido ad Te iratum?" 26 SAINT AUGUSTIN. of falsehood at the brink of the grave. It is true, in deed, that this visitation to his soul passed by without waking him up from his sleep of sin. Still, the death bed of his friend, which he could not banish from his memory, had certainly the effect of undermining his faith in the Manichsean system. CHAPTER YI. ATJGIJSTIN LEAVES MANICII^EISM. IN consequence of this loss, which embittered his life in his native city, and impelled also by an ambitious de sire for a distinguished career, Augustin went back to Carthage, and opened there a school of forensic elo quence. Amid new relationships and in the society of new friends his wounds were gradually healed, and he went forward in his accustomed path with success, though at times the recklessness of the students gave him great pain. He appeared also as an author, and published a large philosophical work on Fitness and Beauty.* For some time yet he adhered to Maniclueism, until at last, in his twenty-ninth year, a crisis arrived. By de grees many doubts had arisen in his mind concerning the system. His confidence in the boasted sanctity of the Manichsean priesthood, the class of the elect, was shaken by the rumor of secret vices, which held sway among them, under the hypocritical mask of peculiar, ascetic * De Apto et Pulchro. AUGUSTUS LEAVES MANICH^ISiT. 27 virtues. By the thorough study of philosophy he was able to gain an insight into the many contradictions and untenable points of Manichsean speculation. The notion of evil as a substance co-eternal with God could not sat isfy his mind in its struggle after unity. The Manichseans were unable to solve his doubts, and instead of attempting it, promised to introduce him to their famous bishop, Faustus, who was then regarded as their oracle. He lived at Mileve, a city in the north western part of Numidia. Augustin himself was very desirous of becoming acquainted with him. This honor was at last granted. They met in Carthage. He discov ered in him a brilliant orator and a subtle dialectician, but at the same time a man of moderate culture and without any depth or earnestness of spirit. He compares him to a cup-bearer who, with graceful politeness, pre sents a costly goblet without anything in it. " With such things," says he, in allusion to his discourses, " my ears are already satiated. They did not appear better because beautifully spoken, nor tr.ue because eloquent, nor spiritually wise because the look was expressive and the discourse select. Thou, my God, hast taught me, in wonderful and hidden ways, that a thing should not seem true because portrayed with eloquence, nor false because the breath of the lips is not sounded according to the rules of art ; on the other hand, that a thing is not necessarily true because conveyed in rude, nor false because conveyed in brilliant, language ; but that wisdom and folly are like wholesome and noxious viands — both may be contained in tasteful or unadorned words, as they in rough or finely- wrought vessels." In the pri vate conversations which he held with Faustus the latter could not answer questions of vital importance to the truth of the Manichsean system, and was obliged to re- 28 SAINT AUGUSTIN. sort to the Socratic confession of ignorance. But that did not agree well with the intellectual arrogance of this sect. Now, after their boasted champion had so sadly disap pointed his expectations, Augustin resolved on breaking with the heresy, although he did not yet formally re nounce his place among its adherents. CHAPTER VII. ERROR OVERRULED FOR TRUTH. BEFORE we go on with our church-father let us take a glance at the connection between his wanderings and his later activity in the Church. The marvellous wisdom of God reveals itself in bringing good out of evil and making even the sins and errors of His servants contrib ute to their own sanctification and an increase of their usefulness. "He overrules the wrath of men for His glory." David's double crime followed by his repent ance, Peter's denial wiped out by his bitter tears, Paul's persecuting zeal turned into apostolic devotion, have been an unfailing source of comfort and encouragement to Christians in their struggle with temptation and sin. And yet by no means docs this render wickedness ex cusable. To the question, " Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ?" the Apostle Paul answers with horror, " God forbid !" The wild, reckless life of Augustin prepared him to look afterward, in the light of grace, far down into the abyss of sin — into the thorough corruption and ingrati- ERROR OVERRULED FOR TRUTH. 29 tude of the human heart. The bare thought of it must have deeply troubled him, but the humility that can say with Paul, "I am the chief of sinners," is one of the most beautiful pearls in the crown of (he Christian char acter, while spiritual pride and self -righteousness gnaw like worms at the root of piety. There is no church- father who, in regard to deep, unfeigned humility, bears so much resemblance, or stands so near to the great apostle of the Gentiles as Augustin. He manifests in all his writings a noble renunciation of self in the pres ence of the Most Holy, and his spirit goes forth in thankfulness to the superabounding grace which, in spite of his unworthiness, had drawn him up out of the depths of corruption and overwhelmed him with mercy. By his own painful experience he was also fitted to develop the doctrine of sin, with such rare penetration and subtlety, to refute the superficial theories of Pelagius, and thus to render an invaluable service to theology and • the Church. Further, his theoretical aberration into Manichseism fitted him to overthrow this false and dan gerous system, and to prove, by a striking example, how fruitless the search after truth must be outside of the simple, humble faith in Christ. Thus also was St. Paul, by his learned Pharisaic education, better qualified than any other apostle for contending successfully against the false exegesis and legal righteousness of his Judaistic opponents. 30 SAINT AUGUSTUS. CHAPTEK VIII. ATJGUSTIN A SCEPTIC IN KOME. AFTER Augustin had lost faith in Manichaeism he found himself in the same situation as he was ten years before. There was the same longing after truth, but linked now with a feeling of desolation, a bitter sense of deception, and a large measure of scepticism. He was no longer at ease in Carthage. lie hankered after new associations, new scenes, new fountains out of which to drink the good so ardently desired. This disposition of mind, in connection with a dislike for the rudeness of the Carthaginian students and the exactions of friends, made him resolve on a journey to Rome, where he ventured to hope for a yet more brill iant and profitable career as a rhetorician. Thus he drew nigher to the place where his inward change was to be decided. He endeavored to conceal his resolution from his mother, who in the mean time had joined him at Car thage. But she found out something about it, and wished either to prevent him from going, or to go with him. Augustin would listen to neither proposal, and resort ed to a trick to carry out his plan. One evening, in the year 383, he went down to the sea-shore, in order to take ship, near the place where two chapels had been dedicated to the memory of the great church-father and martyr, St. Cyprian. His mother suspected his design, and followed him. He pretended that he merely wished to visit a friend on board, and remain with him until his departure. As she was not satisfied with this explana- AUGUSTUS" A SCEPTIC IX ROME. 31 tion, and unwilling to turn back alone, he insisted on her spending at least that one night in the church of the martyr, and then he would come for her. While she was there in tears, praying and wrestling with God to prevent his voyage, Augustin sailed for the coasts of Italy, and his deceived mother found herself the next morning alone on the shore of the sea. She had learned, however, the heavenly art of forgiving, and believing also, where she could not see. In quiet resig nation she returned to the city, and continued to pray for the salvation of her son, waiting the time when the hand of Supreme Wisdom would solve the dark riddle. Though meaning well, she this time erred in her prayer, for the journey of Augustin was the means of his salva tion. The denial of the prayer was, in fact, the answer ing of it. Instead of the form, God granted rather the substance of her petition in the conversion of her son. " Therefore," says he—" therefore hadst Thou, O God, regard to the aim and essence of her desires, and didst not do what she then prayed for, that Thou mightest do for me what she continually implored." After a prosperous voyage across the Mediterranean Augustin found lodging in Rome with a Manichsean host, of the class of the auditors, and mingled in the so ciety of the elect. lie wras soon attacked, in the house of this heretic, by a disease brought on and aggravated by the agonies of his soul, dissatisfaction with his course of life, homesickness, and remorse for the heartless deception practised on his mother. The fever rose so high that signs of approaching dissolution had already appeared, and yet Providence had reserved him for a long and active life. " Thou, O God, didst permit me to recover from that disease, and didst make the son of Thy handmaid whole, first in body, that he might be- 32 SAINTT AUGUSTUS. come one on whom Thou couldst bestow a better and more secure restoration." Again restored to health, he began to counsel his com panions against Manichseism, to which before he had so zealously labored to win over adherents. And yet he could not lead them to the truth. His dislike to the Church had rather increased. The doctrine of the in carnation of the Son of God had become particularly of fensive to him, as it was to all Gnostics and Manichseans. He despaired of finding truth in the Church. Yet scepticism could not satisfy him, and so he was tossed wildly between two waters, that would not flow peace fully together. " The more earnestly and perse veringly I reflected on the activity, the acuteness, and the depths of the human soul, the more 1 was led to believe that truth could not be a thing inaccessible to man, and came thus to the conclusion that the right path to its attain ment had not hitherto been discovered, and that this path must be marked out by divine authority. But now the question arose what this divine authority might be, since among so many conflicting sects each professed to teach in its name. A forest full of mazes stood again before my eyes, in which I wras to wander about, and to be compelled to tread, which rendered me fearful." In this unsettled state of mind he felt himself drawn toward the doctrines of the New Academy.* This sys tem, whose representatives were Arcesilaus and Car- neades, denied, in most decided opposition to Stoicism, the possibility of an infallible knowledge of any object ; it could only arrive at a subjective probability, not truth. * Confess. V. 10 : " Etenim suborla est eliam mihi cogitatio, pruden- tiores coeteris fuisse illos philosophos, quos Academicos appellant, quod de omnibus dubitandum esse censuerant, nee aliquid veri db homine com- prehendi posse decreverant." AUGUSTIN IN MILAN— ST. AMBROSE. 33 But our church-father could not rest content with a philosophy so sceptical. It only served to give him a deeper sense of his emptiness, and thus, in a negative manner, to pave the way for something better. A change in his external circumstances soon occurred which has tened the great crisis of his life. After he had been in Rome not quite a year the pre fect Symmachus, the eloquent advocate of declining heathenism, was requested to send an able teacher of rhetoric to Milan. The choice fell on Augustin. The recommendation of Manichaean patrons, and still more his trial-speech, obtained for him the honorable and lucrative post. He forsook Borne the more willingly because the manners of the students did not please him. They were accustomed to leave one teacher in the midst of his course, without paying their dues, and go to an other. With this removal to Milan we approach the great crisis in the life of Augustin, when he was freed forever from the fetters of Manichseism and scepticism, and be came a glorious light in the Church of Jesus Christ. CHAPTER IX. ATJGIISTIN IN MILAN ST. AMBROSE. IN the spring of the year 381 Augustin, accompanied by his old friend Alypius, journeyed to Milan, the sec ond capital of Italy and frequent residence of the Roman Emperor. The episcopal chair at that place was then filled by one 34 SAINT AUGUSTUS of the most venerable of the Latin fathers, one who not only earned enduring honors in the sphere of theology, but also in that of sacred poetry and sacred music, and distinguished himself as an ecclesiastical prince by the energetic and wise management of his diocese and his bold defence of the interests of the Church, even against the Emperor himself. Ambrose was born at Treves, in the year 340, of a very ancient and illustrious family. His father was gov ernor of Gaul, one of the three great dioceses of the Western Roman Empire. When yet a little boy, as he lay sleeping in the cradle with his mouth open, a swarm of bees came buzzing around, and flew in and out of his mouth, without doing him any harm. The father, as tonished at the unexpected vanishing of the danger, cried out in a prophetic mood : *' Truly, this child, if he lives, will turn out something great !" A similar story is told of Plato. After the early death of the prefect his pious widow moved to Home with her three children, and gave them a careful education. Ambrose w^as marked out for a brilliant worldly career by man, but not by God. After the completion of his studies he made his appearance as an attorney, and ac quitted himself so well by his eloquent discourses that Probus, the governor of Italy, appointed him his coun sellor. Soon after he conveyed to him the prefecture or viceregency of the provinces of Liguria and ^Emilia, in Upper Italy, with the remarkable words, afterward in terpreted as an involuntary prophecy : " Go, and act, not as judge, but as bishop." Ambrose administered his office with dignity, justice, and clemency, and won for himself universal esteem. The Church of Milan wTas then involved in a battle between Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ, AUGUSTIK IN MILAN" — ST. AMBROSE. 35 and Nicene orthodoxy, which maintained the essential equality of the Son with the Father. Augentius, an Arian, had succeeded in driving into exile the Catholic bishop Dionysius, and usurping the episcopal chair. But he died in the year 374. At the election of a new bishop bloody scenes were apprehended. Ambrose thought it his duty as governor to go into the church and silence the uproar of the par ties. His speech to the assembled multitude was sud denly interrupted by the cry of a child — ' t Ambrose, be bishop !" As swift as lightning the voice of the child became the voice of the people, who with one accord would have him and no other for their chief shepherd. Ambrose was confounded. He was then still in the class of catechumens, and hence not baptized, and had, moreover, so high an opinion of the dignity and respon sibility of the episcopal office that he deemed himself altogether unworthy of it and unfit for it. He .resorted to flight, cunning, and the strangest devices to evade the call. But it availed nothing ; and when now also the imperial confirmation of the choice arrived, he submitted to the will of God, which addressed him so powerfully through these circumstances. After being baptized by an orthodox bishop, and having run through the different clerical stages, he received episcopal consecration on the eighth day. His friend Basil, of Csesarea, was highly rejoiced at the result. ""We praise God," so he wrote, " that in all ages He chooses such as are pleasing to Him. He once chose a shepherd and set him up as ruler over His people. Moses, as he tended the goats, was filled with the Spirit of God, and raised to the dignity of a prophet. But in our days He sent out of the royal city, the metrop olis of the world, a man of lofty spirit, distinguished by 3G SAINT AUGUSTIN. noble birth and the splendor of riches and by an elo quence, at which the world wonders ; one who renounces all these earthly glories, and esteems them but loss that he may win Christ, and accepts, on behalf of the Church, the helm of a great ship made famous by his faith. So be of good cheer, O man of God !" From this time forward until the day of his death, which occurred on Good Friday of the year 397, Am brose acted the part of a genuine bishop : he was the shepherd of the congregation, the defender of the op pressed, the watchman of the Church, the teacher of the people, the adviser and reprover of kings. He began by distributing his lands, his gold, and his silver among the poor. His life was exceedingly severe and simple. He took no dinner, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and the festivals of celebrated martyrs. Invitations to banquets he declined, except when his office required his presence, and then he set an example of temperance. The day was devoted to the duties of his calling, the most of the night to prayer, meditation on divine things, the study of the Bible and the Greek fathers, and the writing of theological works. He preached every Sunday, and in cases of necessity during the week, sometimes twice a day. To his catechumens he attended with especial care, but exerted an influence on a wider circle by means of his writings, in which old Roman vigor, dignity, and sententiousness were united with a deep and ardent prac tical Christianity. He was easy of access to all — to the lowest as well as the highest. His revenues were given to the needy, whom he called, on this account, his stew ards and treasurers. With dauntless heart he battled against the Arian heresy, and, as the Athanasius of the West, helped Nicene orthodoxy to its triumph in Upper Italy. AUGUSTUS IK MILAN — ST. AMBROSE. 3? Sucli was Ambrose. If any one was fitted for win ning over to the Church the highly-gifted stranger who came into his neighborhood, it was he. Au«rustiii O ' O visited the bishop, not as a Christian, but as a celebrated and eminent man. He was received by him with pater nal kindness, and at once felt himself drawn toward him in love. " Unconsciously was I led to him, my God, by Thee, in order to be consciously led by him to Thee." He also frequently attended his preaching, not that he might be converted by him, and obtain food for his soul, but that he might listen to a beautiful and eloquent ser mon. The personal character and renown of Ambrose attracted him. The influence of curiosity was predomi nant ; and yet it could not but happen that the contents of the discourses also should soon make an impression on him, even against his will. " I began to love him," says he, " not, indeed, at first as a teacher of the truth, which I despaired of finding in Thy Church, but as a man worthy of my love. I often listened to his public discourses, I confess, not with a pure motive, but only to prove if his eloquence was equal to his fame. I weighed his words carefully, while I had no interest in their meaning, or despised it. I was de lighted with the grace of his language, which was more learned, more full of intrinsic value, but in delivery less brilliant and flattering, than that of Faustus, the Mani- chsean. In regard to the contents, there was no com parison between them ; for while the latter conducted into Manichsean errors, the former taught salvation in the surest way. From sinnero, like I was then, salvation is indeed far off ; yet was I gradually and unconsciously drawing near to it. For although it was not my wish to learn what he said, but only to hear how he said it (this vain interest was left me, who despaired of the truth), 38 SAINT AUGUSTIN. still, along with the words, which I loved, there stole also into my spirit the substance, which I had no care for, because I could not separate the two. And while I opened my heart to receive the eloquence which he ut tered, the truth also which he spake found entrance, though by slow degrees."* By this preaching the Old Testament was filled with new light to Augustin. He had imbibed a prejudice against it from the Manichgeans. lie regarded it as little else than a letter that kills. Ambrose unfolded its life- giving spirit by means of allegorical interpretation, which was then in vogue among the Fathers, especially those of the Alexandrian school. Its aim was, above all, to spiritualize the historical parts of the Bible, and to resolve the external husk into universal ideas. Thus gross vio lence was often done to the text, and things were dragged into the Bible, which, to an unbiassed mind, were not contained there, at least not in the exact place indicated. And yet this mode of interpretation was born of the spirit of faith and reverence, which bowed to the Word of God as to a source of the most profound truths, and, so far, was instructive and edifying. To Augustin, who himself used it freely in his writings, often to capriciousness, al though he afterward inclined rather to a cautious, gram matical, and historical apprehension of the Scripture, it was then very acceptable, and had the good effect of weaning him still further from Manichseism. He soon threw it aside altogether. But even the Platonic phil osophers, whom he preferred to it, lie would not blindly trust, because