No More Learning

But he does not make clear
enough what this voluntary privation exactly meant. He speaks of a house
and some little meadows--_paucis agellulis_--that he sequestrated. Still,
he did not cease to live in the house all the time he was at Thagaste. The
probability is that he did sell the few acres of land he still owned and
bestowed the product of the sale on the poor. As to the house, he must have
made it over with the outbuildings to the Catholic body of his native town,
on condition of keeping the usufruct and of receiving for himself and his
brethren the necessities of life. At this period many pious persons acted
in this way when they gave their property to the Church. Church goods
being unseizable, and exempt from taxation, this was a roundabout way of
getting the better of fiscal extortion, whether in the shape of arbitrary
confiscations, or eviction by force of arms. In any case, such souls as
were tired of the world and longing for repose, found in these bequests an
heroic method of saving themselves the trouble of looking after a fortune
or a landed estate. When these fortunes and lands were extensive, the
generous donors felt, we are told, an actual relief in getting rid of them.

This financial question settled, Augustin took up the task of turning the
house into a monastery, like those he had seen at Rome and Milan. His son
Adeodatus, his friends Alypius and Evodius, Severus, who became Bishop
of Milevia, shared his solitude. But it is certain that he had other
solitaries with him whom he alludes to in his letters. Their rule was as
yet a little easy, no doubt. The brothers of Thagaste were not confined
in a cloister. They were simply obliged to fasts, to a special diet, to
prayers and meditations in common.

In this half-rustic retreat (the monastery was situated at the gates of
the town) Augustin was happy: he had at last realized the project he had
had so long at heart. To enter into himself, pray, above all, to study
the Scripture, to fathom even its most obscure places, to comment it with
the fervour and piety which the African of all times has brought to _what
is written down_--it seemed to him that he had enough there to fill all
the minutes of his life. But no man can teach, lecture, discuss, write,
during twenty years, in vain. However much Augustin might be converted, he
remembered the school at Thagaste, just as he did at Cassicium. Still, it
was necessary to finish with this sort of thing once for all. The new monk
made what may be called his will as a professor.

He finished, at this time, or revised his school treatises, which he had
begun at Milan, comprising all the liberal arts--grammar, dialectic,
rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, philosophy, music. Of all these books he
only finished the first, the treatise on grammar. The others were only
summaries, and are now lost. On the other hand, we have still the six
books on music, likewise begun at Milan, which he finished, almost as an
amusement, at Thagaste. They are dialogues between himself and his pupil,
the poet Licentius, upon metre and scansion. But we know from himself that
he intended to make this book longer, and to write a second part upon
melody, that is to say, music, properly so called. He never found the time:
"Once," he says, "the burthen of ecclesiastical affairs was placed on my
shoulders, _all these pleasant things_ slipped from my hands. "

Thus, the monk Augustin only rests from prayer and meditation to study
music and poetry. He has thought it necessary to excuse himself. "In all
that," says he, "I had but one purpose. For, as I did not wish to pluck
away too suddenly either young men, or those of another age, on whom God
had bestowed good wits, from ideas of the senses and carnal literature,
_things it is very hard for them not to be attached to_, I have tried
by reasoning lessons to turn them little by little, and by the love of
unchanging truth, to attach them to God, sole master of all things. . . . He
who reads these books will see that if I have touched upon the poets and
grammarians, 'twas more by the exigency of the journey than by any desire
to settle among them. . . . Such is the life I have chosen to walk with the
feeble, not being very strong myself, rather than to hurl myself out on the
void with wings still half-fledged. . . . "

Here again, how human all that is, and wise--yes, and modest too. Augustin
has no whit of the fanatic about him. No straighter conscience than his,
or even more persistent in uprooting error. But he knows what man is, that
life here below is a voyage among other men weak as himself, and he fits in
with the needs of the voyage. Oh, yes, no doubt, for the Christian who has
arrived at supreme renunciation--what is poetry, what is knowledge, "what
is everything that is not eternal? " But this carnal literature and science
are so many steps of a height proportionate to our feebleness, to lead
us imperceptibly to the conceptual world. As a prudent guide of souls,
Augustin did not wish to make the ascent too rapidly. As for music, he has
still more indulgence for that than for any of the other arts, for "it
is by sounds that we best perceive the power of numbers in every variety
of movement, and their study thus leads us gradually to the closest and
highest secrets of truth, and discovers to those who love and seek it
the divine Wisdom and Providence in all things. . . . " He is always coming
back to it--to this music he loves so much; he comes back to it in spite
of himself. Later, in great severity, he will reproach himself for the
pleasure he takes in the liturgical chants, but nevertheless the old
instinct will remain. He was born a musician. He will remain one to his
last gasp.

If he did not break completely with profane art and letters at this present
moment of his life, his chief reasons were of a practical order. Still
another object may be discerned in these educational treatises--namely, to
prove to the pagans that one may be a Christian and yet not be a barbarian
and ignorant. Augustin's position in front of his adversaries is very
strong indeed. None of them can attempt to cope with him either in breadth
of knowledge, or in happy versatility, or in plenitude of intellectual
gifts. He had the entire heritage of the ancient world between his hands.
Well might he say to the pagans: "What you admire in your orators and
philosophers, I have made my own. Behold it! On my lips recognize the
accent of your orators. . . . Well, all that, which you deem so high, I
despise. The knowledge of this world is nothing without the wisdom of
Christ. "

Of course, Augustin has paid the price of this all-round knowledge--too
far-reaching, perhaps, at certain points. He has often too much paraded his
knowledge, his dialectic and oratorical talents. What matters that, if even
in this excess he aims solely at the welfare of souls--to edify them and
set them aglow with the fire of his charity? At Thagaste, he disputes with
his brethren, with his son Adeodatus. He is always the master--he knows it;
but what humility he puts into this dangerous part! The conclusion of his
book, _The Master_, which he wrote then, is that all the words of him who
teaches are useless, if the hidden Master reveal not the truth to him who
listens.

So, under his ungainly monk's habit, he continues his profession of
rhetorician. He has come to Thagaste with the intention of retiring from
the world and living in God; and here he is disputing, lecturing, writing
more than ever. The world pursues him and occupies him even in his retreat.
He says to himself that down there at Rome, at Carthage, at Hippo, there
are men speaking in the forums or in the basilicas, whispering in secret
meetings, seducing poor souls defenceless against error. These impostors
must be immediately unmasked, confounded, reduced to silence. With all his
heart Augustin throws himself into this work at which he excels. Above all,
he attacks his old friends the Manichees. . . . He wrote many tracts against
them. From the animosity he put into these, may be judged to what extent
Manicheeism filled his thoughts, and also the progress of the sect in
Africa.

This campaign was even the cause of a complete change in his way of
writing. With the object of reaching the plainest sort of people, he began
to employ the popular language, not recoiling before a solecism, when the
solecism appeared to him indispensable to explain his thought. This must
have been a cruel mortification for him. In his very latest writings he
made a point of shewing that no elegance of language was unknown to him.
But his real originality is not in that. When he writes the fine style,
his period is heavy, entangled, often obscure. On the other hand, nothing
is more lively, clear and coloured, and, as we say to-day, more direct,
than the familiar language of his sermons and certain of his treatises.
This language he has really created. He wanted to clarify, comment, give
details, and he felt how awkward classical Latin is to decompose ideas
and render shades. And so, in a popular Latin, already very close to the
Romance languages, he has thrown out the plan of analytical prose, the
instrument of thought of the modern West.

Not only did he battle against the heretics, but his restless friendship
continually scaled the walls of his cell to fly to the absent ones dear
to his heart. He feels that he must expand to his friends, and make them
sharers in his meditations: this nervous man, in poor health, spends a part
of his nights meditating. The argument he has hit upon in last night's
insomnia--his friends must be told that! He heaps his letters on them. He
writes to Nebridius, to Romanianus, to Paulinus of Nola; to people unknown
and celebrated, in Africa, Italy, Spain, and Palestine. A time will come
when his letters will be real encyclicals, read throughout Christendom. He
writes so much that he is often short of paper. He has not tablets enough
to put down his notes. He asks Romanianus to give him some. His beautiful
tablets, the ivory ones, are used up; he has used the last one for a
ceremonial letter, and he asks his friend's pardon for writing to him on
a wretched bit of vellum.

Besides all that, he interests himself in the affairs of his
fellow-townsmen. Augustin is a personage at Thagaste. The good folk of the
free-town are well aware that he is eloquent, that he has a far-reaching
acquaintance, and that he has great influence in high quarters. They
ask for his protection and his interference. It is even possible that
they obliged him to defend them in the courts. They were proud of their
Augustin. And as they were afraid that some neighbouring town might steal
away their great man, they kept a guard round his house. They prevented him
from shewing himself too much in the neighbourhood. Augustin himself agreed
with this, and lived retired as far as he could, for he was afraid they
would make him a bishop or priest in spite of himself. In those days that
was a danger incurred by all Christians who were rich or had talent. The
rich gave their goods to the poor when they took orders. The men of talent
defended the interests of the community, or attracted opulent benefactors.
And because of all these reasons, the needy or badly managed churches
stalked as a prey the celebrated Augustin.

In spite of this supervision, this unremitting rush of business, the work
of all kinds which he undertook, he experienced at Thagaste a peace which
he was never to find again. One might say that he pauses and gathers
together all his strength before the great exhausting labour of his
apostolate. In this Numidian country, so verdant and cool, where a thousand
memories of childhood encompassed him, where he was not able to take a step
without encountering the ever-living image of his mother, he soared towards
God with more confidence. He who sought in the things of sense ladder-rungs
whereby to mount to spiritual realities, still turned kindly eyes on
the natural scene. From the windows of his room he saw the forest pines
rounding their heads, like little crystal goblets with stems slim and thin.
His scarred chest breathed in deliriously the resinous breath of the fine
trees. He listened like a musician to the orchestra of birds. The changing
scenes of country life always attracted him. It is now that he wrote:
"Tell me, does not the nightingale seem to you to modulate her voice
delightfully? Is not her song, so harmonious, so suave, so well attuned to
the season, the very voice of the spring? . . . "




IV

AUGUSTIN A PRIEST


This halt did not last long. Soon was going to begin for Augustin the time
of tribulation, that of his struggles and apostolic journeys.

And first, he must mourn his son Adeodatus, that young man who seemed
destined to such great things. It is indeed most probable that the young
monk died at Thagaste during the three years that his father spent there.
Augustin was deeply grieved; but, as in the case of his mother's death, he
mastered his sorrow by all the force of his Christian hope. No doubt he
loved his son as much as he was proud of him. It will be remembered what
words he used to speak of this youthful genius, whose precocity frightened
him. Little by little his grief quietened down, and in its place came a
mild resignation. Some years later he will write about Adeodatus: "Lord,
early didst Thou cut off his life from this earth, but I remember him
without a shadow of misgiving. My remembrance is not mixed with any fear
for his boyhood, or the youth he was, or the man he would have been. " No
fear! What a difference between this and the habitual feelings of the
Jansenists, who believed themselves his disciples! While Augustin thinks of
his son's death with a calm and grave joy which he can scarce hide, those
of Port Royal could only think in trembling of the judgment of God. Their
faith did not much resemble the luminous and confident faith of Augustin.
For him, salvation is the conquest of joy.

At Thagaste he lived in joy. Every morning in awaking before the forest
pines, glistening with the dews of the morning, he might well say with a
full heart: "My God, give me the grace to live here under the shades of Thy
peace, while awaiting that of Thy Paradise. " But the Christians continued
to watch him. It was to the interest of a number of people that this light
should not be hid under a bushel. Perhaps a snare was deliberately laid for
him. At any rate, he was imprudent enough to come out of his retreat and
travel to Hippo. He thought he might be safe there, because, as the town
had a bishop already, they would not have any excuse to get him consecrated
in spite of himself.

An inhabitant of Hippo, a clerk of the Imperial Ministry of the Interior,
begged his spiritual assistance. Doubts, he maintained, still delayed him
on the way to an entire conversion. Augustin alone could help him to get
clear of them. So Augustin, counting already on a new recruit for the
Thagaste monastery, went over there at the request of this official.

Now, if there was a bishop at Hippo (a certain Valerius), priests were
lacking. Furthermore, Valerius was getting on in years. Originally Greek,
he knew Latin badly, and not a word of Punic--a great hindrance for him in
his duties of judge, administrator, and catechist. The knowledge of the two
languages was indispensable to an ecclesiastic in such a country, where the
majority of the rural population spoke only the old Carthaginian idiom.
All this proves to us that Catholicism was in bad shape in the diocese
of Hippo. Not only was there a lack of priests, but the bishop was a
foreigner, little familiar with African customs. There was a general
demand for a native to take his place--one young, active, and well enough
furnished with learning to hold his own against the heretics and the
schismatics of the party of Donatus, and also sufficiently able to watch
over the interests of the Church at Hippo, and above all, to make it
prosperous. Let us not forget that at this time, in the eyes of a crowd of
poor wretches, Christianity was first and foremost the religion which gave
out bread. Even in those early days, the Church did its best to solve the
eternal social question.

While Augustin was at Hippo, Valerius preached a sermon in the basilica in
which, precisely, he deplored this lack of priests the community suffered
from. Mingled with the congregation, Augustin listened, sure that he would
be unrecognized. But the secret of his presence had leaked out. People
pointed to him while the bishop was preaching. The next thing was that some
furious enthusiasts seized hold of him and dragged him to the foot of the
episcopal chair, yelling:

"Augustin a priest! Augustin a priest! "

Such were the democratic ways of the Church in those days. The
inconveniences are plain enough. What is certain is, that if Augustin had
resisted, he might have lost his life, and that the bishop would have
provoked a riot in refusing him the priesthood. In Africa, religious
passions are not to be trifled with, especially when they are exasperated
by questions of profit or politics. In his heart, the bishop was delighted
with this brutal capture which gained him the distinction of such a
well-known fellow-worker. There and then he ordained the Thagaste monk. And
so, as Augustin's pupil, Possidius, the future Bishop of Guelma, puts it,
"This shining lamp, which sought the darkness of solitude, was placed upon
the lamp-stand. . . " Augustin, who saw the finger of God in this adventure,
submitted to the popular will. Nevertheless, he was in despair, and he
wept at the change they were forcing on him. Then, some of those present,
mistaking the significance of his tears, said to console him:

"Yes, you are right. The priesthood is not good enough for your merits. But
you may be certain that you will be our bishop. "

Augustin well knew all that the crowd meant by that, and what it expected
of its bishop. He who only thought of leaving the world, grew frightened
at the practical cares he would have to take over. And the spiritual side
of his jurisdiction frightened him no less. To speak of God! Proclaim the
word of God! He deemed himself unworthy of so high a privilege. He was so
ill-prepared! To remedy this fault of preparation, as well as he could, he
desired that he might be given a little leisure till the following Easter.
In a letter addressed to Valerius, and no doubt intended to be made public,
he humbly set forth the reasons why he asked for delay. They were so
apposite and so creditable, that very likely the bishop yielded.
The new
priest received permission to retire to a country house near Hippo. His
flock, who did not feel at all sure of their shepherd, would not have let
him go too far off.

He took up his duties as soon as possible. Little by little he became,
to all intents, the coadjutor of the bishop, who charged him with the
preaching and the baptism of catechumens. These were the two most important
among the episcopal prerogatives. The bishops made a point of doing these
things themselves. Certain colleagues of Valerius even grew scandalized
that he should allow a simple priest to preach before him in his own
church. But soon other bishops, struck by the advantages of this
innovation, followed the example of Valerius, and allowed their clerks to
preach even in their presence. The priest of Hippo did not lose his head
among so many honours. He felt chiefly the perils of them, and he regarded
them as a trial sent by God. "I have been forced into this," he said,
"doubtless in punishment of my sins; for from what other motive can I think
that the second place at the helm should be given to me--to me who do not
even know how to hold an oar. . . . "

Meanwhile, he had not relinquished his purpose of monastic life. Though
a priest, he meant to remain a monk. It was heart-breaking for him to be
obliged to leave his monastery at Thagaste. He spoke of his regret to
Valerius, who, perceiving the usefulness of a convent as a seminary for
future priests, gave him an orchard belonging to the church of Hippo, that
he might found a new community there. So was established the monastery
which was going to supply a great number of clerks and bishops to all the
African provinces.

Among the ruins of Hippo, that old Roman and Phoenician city, they search
for the place where Augustin's monastery stood, without much hope of ever
finding it. Some have thought to locate it upon that hill where the water
brought from the near mountains by an aqueduct used to pour into immense
reservoirs, and where to-day rises a new basilica which attracts all eyes
out at sea. Behind the basilica is a convent where the Little Sisters of
the Poor lodge about a hundred old people. So is maintained among the
African Mussulmans the remembrance of the grand Christian _marabout_. One
might possibly wish to see there a building more in the pure and quiet
taste of antiquity. But after all, the piety of the intention is enough.
This hospital serves admirably to call up the memory of the illustrious
bishop who was charity itself. As for the basilica, Africa has done all she
can to make it worthy of him. She has given her most precious marbles, and
one of her fairest landscapes as a frame.

It is chiefly in the evening, in the closing dusk, that this landscape
reveals all its special charm and its finer values. The roseate glow of the
setting sun throws into sharp relief the black profile of the mountains,
which command the Seybouse valley. Under the mustering shadows, the pallid
river winds slowly to the sea. The gulf, stretching limitless, shines like
a slab of salt strangely bespangled. In this atmosphere without mists, the
sharp outlines of the coast, the dense movelessness of the aspect, has an
indescribable effect. It is like a hitherto unknown and virginal revelation
of the earth. Then the stars bloom out, with a flame, an hallucinating
palpability. Charles's Wain, burning low on the gorges of the Edough, seems
like a golden waggon rolling through the fields of Heaven. A deep peace
settles upon farmland and meadow country, only broken by a watch-dog's bark
now and then. . . .

But it matters not which spot is chosen in the surroundings of Hippo to
place Augustin's monastery, the view will be equally beautiful. From all
parts of the plain, mounded by heaps of ruins, the sea can be seen--a wide
bay circled in soft bland curves, like at Naples. All around, an arena of
mountains--the green ravines of the Edough and its wooded slopes. Along the
surbased roads rise the great sonorous pines, and through them wanders the
æolian complaint of the sea-winds. Blue of the sea, blue of the sky, noble
foliage of Italy's ancient groves--it is one of Lamartine's landscapes
under a more burning sun. The gaiety of the mornings there is a physical
luxury for heart and eyes, when the new-born light laughs upon the painted
cupolas of the houses, and dark blue veils float between the walls, glaring
white, of the steep streets.

Among the olives and orange-trees of Hippo, Augustin must have seen happy
days pass by, as at Thagaste. The rule he had given the convent, which he
himself obeyed like any one else, was neither too slack nor too strict--in
a word, such as it should be for men who have lived in the culture of
letters and works of the mind. There was no affectation of excessive
austerity. Augustin and his monks wore very simple clothes and shoes, but
suitable for a bishop and his clerks. Like laymen, they wore the byrrhus,
a garment with a hood, which seems very like the ancestor of the Arab
burnous. To keep an even line between daintiness and negligence in costume,
to have no exaggeration in anything, is what Augustin aimed at. The poet
Rutilius Numatianus, who about that time was attacking the sordid and
culture-hating monks with sombre irony, would have had a chance to admire
a restraint and decorum in the Hippo monastery which recalled what was
best in the manners of the ancient world. At table, a like moderation.
Vegetables were generally provided, and sometimes meat when any one
was sick, or guests arrived. They drank a little wine, contrary to the
regulations of St. Jerome, who condemned wine as a drink for devils. When
a monk infringed the rule, his share of the wine was stopped.

Through some remains of fastidious habits in Augustin, or perhaps because
he had nothing else, the table service he used himself was silver. On the
other hand, the pots and dishes were of earthenware, or wood, or common
alabaster. Augustin, who was very temperate in eating and drinking, seemed
at table to pay attention only to what was being read or talked about.
He cared very little what he ate, provided the food was not a stimulant
to lubricity. He used to say to those Christians who paraded a Pharisaic
severity: "It is the pure heart which makes pure food. " Then, with his
constant desire for charity, he prohibited all spiteful gossip in the
conversation in the refectory. In those times of religious struggle, the
clerics ferociously blackened each other's characters. Augustin caused to
have written on the walls a distich, which ran thus:

"He who takes pleasure in slandering the life of the absent,
Should know he is unworthy to sit at this table. "

"One day," says Possidius, "some of his intimate friends, even other
bishops, having forgotten this sentence, he reproached them warmly, and
very much perturbed, he cried out that he was going to remove those verses
from the refectory, or rise from table and withdraw to his cell. I was
present with many others when this happened. "

It was not only slanderous talk or interior dissensions which troubled
Augustin's peace of mind. He combined the duties of priest, of a head of
a convent, and of an apostle. He had to preach, instruct the catechumens,
battle against the disaffected. The town of Hippo was very unruly, full
of heretics, schismatics, pagans. Those of the party of Donatus were
triumphant, driving the Catholics from their churches and lands. When
Augustin came into the country, Catholicism was very low. And then the
ineradicable Manichees continued to recruit proselytes. He never stopped
writing tracts, disputing against them, overwhelming them under the close
logic of his arguments. At the request of the Donatists themselves, he had
an argument with one of their priests, a certain Fortunatus, in the baths
of Sossius at Hippo. He reduced this man to silence and to flight. Not in
the least discouraged were the Manichees: they sent another priest.

If the enemies of the Church shewed themselves stubborn, Augustin's own
congregation were singularly turbulent, hard to manage. The weakness of old
Valerius must have allowed a good many abuses to creep into the community.
Ere long the priest of Hippo had a foretaste of the difficulties which
awaited him as bishop.

Following the example of Ambrose, he undertook to abolish the custom
of feasts in the basilicas and on the tombs of the martyrs. This was a
survival of paganism, of which the festivals included gluttonous eating and
orgies. At every solemnity, and they were frequent, the pagans ate in the
courts and under the porticoes around the temples. In Africa, above all,
these public repasts gave an opportunity for repugnant scenes of stuffing
and drunkenness. As a rule, the African is very sober; but when he does let
himself go he is terrible. This is quite easily seen to-day, in the great
Muslem feasts, when the rich distribute broken bits of meat to the poor of
their district. As soon as these people, used to drink water and to eat a
little boiled rice, have tasted meat, or drunk only one cup of wine, there
is no holding them: there are fights, stabbing matches, a general brawl
in the hovels. Just picture this popular debauch in full blast in the
cemeteries and the courts of the basilicas, and it will be understood why
Augustin did his best to put an end to such scandals.

For this purpose, he joined hands first of all with his bishop, Valerius,
and then with the Primate of Carthage, Aurelius, who shall be henceforth
his firmest support in his struggle against the schismatics.

During Lent, the subject fitting in naturally with the season, he
spoke against these pagan orgies; and this gave rise to a good deal of
discontent, outside. Easter went by without trouble. But the day after the
Ascension, the people of Hippo were used to celebrate what they called "the
Joy-day," by a traditional good feed and drink. The day before, which was
the religious festival, Augustin intrepidly spoke against "the Joy-day. "
They interrupted the preacher. Some of them shouted that as much was done
at Rome in St. Peter's basilica. At Carthage, they danced round the tomb of
St. Cyprian. To the shrilling of flutes, amid the dull blows of the gongs,
mimes gave themselves up to obscene contortions, while the spectators
sang to the clapping of their hands. . . . Augustin knew all about that.
He declared that these abominations might have been tolerated in former
times so as not to discourage the pagans from becoming converts; but that
henceforth the people, altogether Christian, should give them up. In the
end, he spoke with such touching eloquence that the audience burst into
tears. He believed he had won.

The next day it was all to do over again. Agitators had worked among the
crowd to such an extent that a riot was feared. Nevertheless, Augustin,
preceded by his bishop, entered the basilica at the hour of service. At the
same moment the Donatists were banqueting in their church, which was quite
near. Through the walls of their own church the Catholics heard the noise
of this carouse. It required the coadjutor's most urgent remonstrances to
keep them from imitating their neighbours. The last murmurs died down, and
the ceremony ended with the singing of the sacred hymns.

Augustin had carried the position. But the conflict had got to the point
that he had to threaten the people with his resignation, and, as he wrote
to Alypius, "to shake out on them the dust from his clothes. " All this
promised very ill for the future. He who already considered the priesthood
as a trial, saw with terror the bishopric drawing near.




THE FIFTH PART

THE APOSTLE OF PEACE AND OF CATHOLIC UNITY


Dic eis ista, ut plorent . . . et sic eos rape tecum ad Deum: quia de
spiritu ejus haec dicis eis, si dicis ardens igne caritatis.

"Tell them this, O my soul, that they may weep . . . and thus carry them
up with thyself to God; because by His Spirit thou sayest these things,
if Thou speakest burning with the flame of charity. "

_Confessions_, IV, 12.




I

THE BISHOP OF HIPPO


In his monastery, Augustin was still spied upon by the neighbouring
Churches, who wanted him for their bishop. They would capture him on the
first opportunity. The old Valerius, fearing his priest would be taken
unawares, urged him to hide himself. But he knew by the very case of
Augustin, forced into the priesthood in spite of himself, that the greatest
precautions are useless against those determined to gain their ends by any
means. It would be safest to anticipate the danger.

He determined therefore to share the bishopric with Augustin, to have him
consecrated during his own lifetime, and to indicate him as his successor.
This was against the African usage, and what was more, against the Canons
of the Council of Nice--though it is true that Valerius, like Augustin
himself, was unaware of this latter point. But surely the rule could be
waived in view of the exceptional merits of the priest of Hippo. The old
bishop began by sounding Aurelius, the Primate of Carthage, and when he was
satisfied as to the agreement and support of this high personage, he took
the opportunity of a religious solemnity to make known his intentions to
the people.

Some of the neighbouring bishops--Megalius, Bishop of Guelma and Primate of
Numidia, among them--being gathered at Hippo to consecrate a new bishop,
Valerius announced publicly in the basilica that he wished Augustin to be
consecrated at the same ceremony. This had been the wish of his people
for a long time. Really, in demanding this honour for his priest, the old
bishop did no more than follow the wish of the public. Immediately, his
words were received with cheers. The faithful with loud shouts demanded
Augustin's consecration.

Megalius alone objected. He even made himself the voice of certain
calumnies, so as to have the candidate put aside as unworthy. There is
nothing astonishing in such an attitude. This Megalius was old (he died a
short time after), and, like all old men, he took the gloomiest view of
innovations. Already, in the face of settled custom, had Valerius granted
Augustin the right to preach in his presence. And see now, by a new
sinking, he was attempting to place two bishops at once in the see of
Hippo! Whatever this young priest's talents might be, enough, had been
done for him--a recent convert into the bargain, and, what was still more
serious, a refugee from the Manicheans. What was not related about the
abominations committed in the mysteries of those people? Just how far had
Augustin dipped into them? They snarled against him everywhere at Hippo,
and at Carthage too, where he had compromised himself by his excessive
zeal; Catholics and Donatists alike gossiped. Megalius, a punctilious
defender of discipline and the hierarchy, no doubt gathered up these
malevolent rumours with pleasure. He used them as an excuse for making
Augustin mark time, so to speak. Commonplace people always feel a secret
delight in humiliating to the common rule those whom they can feel are
beings of a different quality from themselves.

One of the slanders set abroad about Valerius' priest, Megalius seems to
have believed. He allowed himself to be persuaded that Augustin had given
a philtre to a woman, one of his penitents, whom he wished to possess. It
was then the fashion among the pious to exchange _eulogies_, or bits of
holy bread, to signify a spiritual communion. Augustin was said to have
mixed certain magic potions with some of these breads and offered them
hypocritically to the woman he was in love with. This accusation started a
big scandal, and the remembrance of it persisted long, because five or six
years later the Donatist Petilian was still repeating it.

Augustin cleared himself victoriously. Megalius avowed his mistake. He did
better: not only did he apologize to him he had slandered, but he solemnly
asked forgiveness from his fellow-bishops for having misled them upon false
rumours. It is probable that some time during the inquiry he had got to
know Valerius' coadjutor better. Augustin's charm, taken with the austerity
of his life, acted upon the vexed old man and altered his views. Be that
so or not, it was at any rate by Megalius, Bishop of Guelma and Primate of
Numidia, that Augustin was consecrated Bishop of Hippo.

He was in consternation over his rise. He has said it again and again. We
may take his word for it. Yet the honours and advantages of the episcopate
were then so considerable that his enemies were able to describe him as an
ambitious man. Nothing could agree less with his character. In his heart,
Augustin only wished to live in quiet. Since his retreat at Cassicium,
fortune he had given up, as well as literary glory. His sole wish was to
live in pondering the divine truths, and to draw nearer to God. _Videte et
gustate quam mitis sit Dominus_--"O taste and see that the Lord is good. "
This perhaps, of the whole Bible, is the verse he liked best, which
answered best to the close desire of his soul; and he quotes it oftenest
in his sermons. Then, to study the Holy Writings, scan the least syllables
of them, since all truth lies there--well, a whole life is not too much
for such labour as that! And to do it, one should sever all ties with the
world, take refuge forbiddingly in the cloister.

But this sincere Christian analysed himself too skilfully not to perceive
that he had a dangerous tendency to isolation. He took too much pleasure
in cutting himself off from the society of mankind to enshroud himself
in study and meditation. He who acknowledged a secret tendency to the
Epicurean indolence--was he going to live a life of the dilettante and the
self-indulgent under cover of holiness? Alone could action save him from
selfishness. Others doubtless fulfilled the laws of charity in praying,
in mortifying themselves for their brethren. But when, like him, a man
has exceptional faculties of persuasion and eloquence, such vigour in
dialectics, such widespread culture, such power to bring to naught the
wrong--would it not be insulting to God to let such gifts lie idle, and a
serious failure in charity to deprive his brethren of the support of such
an engine?

Besides that, he well knew that no man draws near to truth without a
purified heart. Might not his passions, which were so violent, begin to
torment him again after this respite with greater frenzy than before his
conversion? Against that, too, action was the main antidote. In the duties
of the bishopric he saw a means of asceticism--a kind of courageous
purification. He would load himself of his own will with so many anxieties
and so much work that he would have no time left to listen to the insidious
voice of his "old friends. " Could he manage to silence them at once?
This unheard-of grace--would it be granted to him? Or would not rather
the struggle continue in the depths of his conscience? What comes out as
certain is that those terrible passions which turned his youth upside down,
nevermore play any part in his life. From the moment he fell on his knees
under the fig-tree at Milan, his sinful heart is a dead heart. He has been
freed from almost all the weaknesses of the old nature, not only from its
vices and carnal affections, but from its most pardonable lapses--save,
perhaps, some old sediment of intellectual and literary vanity.

His books, at the first glance, shew us him no more save as the doctor, and
already the saint. What is seen at once is an entirely bare intelligence,
an entirely pure heart, fired only by the divine love. And yet the
affectionate and tender heart which his had been, always warms his
discussions and his most abstract exegesis. It does not take long to feel
the heat of them, the power of pouring forth emotion. Augustin takes no
heed of that. Of himself he no longer thinks; he no longer belongs to
himself.