The Confessions of St. Augustin (part 2 of 7)

Notes

1. 186

   "To be is no other than to be one. In as far, therefore, as anything attains unity, in so far it is.' For unity worketh congruity and harmony, whereby things composite are in so far as they are; for things uncompounded are in themselves, because they are one; but things compounded imitate unity by the harmony of their parts, and, so far as they attain to unity, they are. Wherefore order and rule secure being, disorder tends to not being."—Aug. De Morib. Manich. c. 6.

2. 187

   Ps. xxxix. 11.

3. 188

   Matt. xvii. 17.

4. 189

   1 Cor. vii. 28.

5. 190

   1 Cor. vii. 1.

6. 191

   1 Cor. vii. 32, 33.

7. 192

   Matt. xix. 12.

8. 193

   Isa. x. 26.

9. 194

   Deut. xxxii. 39.

10. 195

    Ps. xciii. 20, Vulg. "Lit. Formest trouble in or as a precept.' Thou makest to us a precept out of trouble, so that trouble itself shall be a precept to us, i.e. hast willed so to discipline and instruct those Thy sons, that they should not be without fear, lest they should love something else, and forget Thee, their true good."—S. Aug. ad loc.—E. B. P.

11. 196

    "Formerly an episcopal city: now a small village. At this time the inhabitants were heathen. St. Augustin calls them his fathers,' in a letter persuading them to embrace the gospel.—Ep. 232."—E. B. P.

12. 197

    Ps. cxxx. 1.

13. 198

    Nondum fideli, not having rehearsed the articles of the Christian faith at baptism. See i. sec. 17, note, above; and below, sec. 1, note.

14. 199

    Jer. ii. 27.

15. 200

    Ps. cxvi. 16.

16. 201

    Jer. li. 6.

17. 202

    Ps. lxxiii. 7.

18. 203

    Ps. lxiv. 10.

19. 204

    Sallust, De Bello Catil. c. 9.

20. 205

    Ps. xlv. 2.

21. 206

    Ps. lxxvi. 7.

22. 207

    Ps. vii. 15.

23. 208

    Ps. vii. 15.

24. 209

    Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8.

25. 210

    "For even souls, in their very sins, strive after nothing else but some kind of likeness of God, in a proud and preposterous, and, so to say, slavish liberty. So neither could our first parents have been persuaded to sin unless it had been said, Ye shall be as gods.'"—Aug. De Trin. xi. 5.

26. 211

    Jonah i. and iv.

27. 212

    Ps. cxvi. 12.

28. 213

    Rev. iii. 5.

29. 214

    Luke iv. 23.

30. 215

    Rom. vi. 21.

31. 216

    Ps. xix. 12.

32. 217

    Matt. xxv. 21.

33. 218

    The early Fathers strongly reprobated stage-plays, and those who went to them were excluded from baptism. This is not to be wondered at, when we learn that "even the laws of Rome prohibited actors from being enrolled as citizens" (De Civ. Dei, ii. 14), and that they were accounted infamous (Tertullian, De Spectac. sec. xxii.). See also Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. vii.

34. 219

    See i. 9, note, above.

35. 220

    An allusion, probably, as Watts suggests, to the sea of Sodom, which, according to Tacitus (Hist. book v.), throws up bitumen "at stated seasons of the year." Tacitus likewise alludes to its pestiferous odour, and to its being deadly to birds and fish. See also Gen. xiv. 3, 10.

36. 221

    Song of the Three Holy Children, verse 3.

37. 222

    2 Cor. ii. 16.

38. 223

    Eversores. "These for their boldness were like our Roarers,' and for their jeering like the worser sort of those that would be called The Wits.'"—W. W. "This appears to have been a name which a pestilent and savage set of persons gave themselves, licentious alike in speech and action. Augustin names them again, De Vera Relig. c. 40; Ep. 185 ad Bonifac. c. 4; and below, v. c. 12; whence they seemed to have consisted mainly of Carthaginian students, whose savage life is mentioned again, ib. c. 8."—E. B. P.

39. 224

    Up to the time of Cicero the Romans employed the term sapientia for philosophia (Monboddo's Ancient Metaphys. i. 5). It is interesting to watch the effect of the philosophy in which they had been trained on the writings of some of the Fathers. Even Justin Martyr, the first after the "Apostolic," has traces of this influence. See the account of his search for "wisdom," and conversion, in his Dialogue with Trypho, ii. and iii.

40. 225

    Luke xv. 18.

41. 226

    See above, note 1.

42. 227

    Col. ii. 8, 9.

43. 228

    In connection with the opinion Augustin formed of the Scriptures before and after his conversion, it is interesting to recall Fénélon's glowing description of the literary merit of the Bible. The whole passage might well be quoted did space permit:—"L'Ecriture surpasse en naïveté, en vivacité, en grandeur, tous les écrivains de Rome et de la Grèce. Jamais Homère même n'a approché de la sublimité de Moïse dans ses cantiques....Jamais nulle ode Grecque ou Latine n'a pu atteindre à la hauteur des Psaumes....Jamais Homerè ni aucun autre poëte n'a égalé Isaïe peignant la majesté de Dieu....Tantôt ce prophète à toute la douceur et toute la tendresse d'une églogue, dans les riantes peintures qu'il fait de la paix, tantôt il s'élève jusqu' à laisser tout au-dessous de lui. Mais qu'y a-t-il, dans l'antiquité profane, de comparable au tendre Jérémie, déplorant les maux de son peuple; ou à Nahum, voyant de loin, en esprit, tomber la superbe Ninive sous les efforts d'une armée innombrable? On croit voir cette armée, ou croit entendre le bruit des armes et des chariots; tout est dépeint d'une manière vive qui saisit l'imagination; il laisse Homère loin derrière lui....Enfin, il y a autant de différence entre les poëtes profanes et les prophètes, qu'il y en a entre le véritable enthousiasme et le faux."—Sur l' Eloq. de la Chaire, Dial. iii.

44. 229

    That is probably the "spiritual" meaning on which Ambrose (vi. 6, below) laid so much emphasis. How different is the attitude of mind indicated in xi. 3 from the spiritual pride which beset him at this period of his life! When converted he became as a little child, and ever looked to God as a Father, from whom he must receive both light and strength. He speaks, on Ps. cxlvi., of the Scriptures, which were plain to "the little ones," being obscured to the mocking spirit of the Manichæans. See also below, iii. 14, note.

45. 230

    So, in Book xxii. sec. 13 of his reply to Faustus, he charges them with "professing to believe the New Testament in order to entrap the unwary;" and again, in sec. 15, he says: " They claim the impious liberty of holding and teaching, that whatever they deem favourable to their heresy was said by Christ and the apostles; while they have the profane boldness to say, that whatever in the same writings is unfavourable to them is a spurious interpolation." They professed to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, but affirmed (ibid. xx. 6) "that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air." It was this employment of the phraseology of Scripture to convey doctrines utterly unscriptural that rendered their teaching such a snare to the unwary. See also below, v. 12, note.

46. 231

    1 John ii. 4.

47. 232

    There was something peculiarly enthralling to an ardent mind like Augustin's in the Manichæan system. That system was kindred in many ways to modern Rationalism. Reason was exalted at the expense of faith. Nothing was received on mere authority, and the disciple's inner consciousness was the touchstone of truth. The result of this is well pointed out by Augustin (Con. Faust, xxxii. sec. 19): "Your design, clearly, is to deprive Scripture of all authority, and to make every man's mind the judge what passage of Scripture he is to approve of, and what to disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture in matters of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval, every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct." Compare also Con. Faust, xi. sec. 2, and xxxii. sec. 16.

48. 233

    Jas. i. 17.

49. 234

    Ps. lxix. 3.

50. 235

    Luke xv. 16; and see below, vi. sec. 3, note.

51. 236

    See below, xii. sec. 6, note.

52. 237

    "Of this passage St. Augustin is probably speaking when he says, Praises bestowed on bread in simplicity of heart, let him (Petilian) defame, if he will, by the ludicrous title of poisoning and corrupting frenzy.' Augustin meant in mockery, that by verses he could get his bread; his calumniator seems to have twisted the word to signify a love-potion.—Con. Lit. Petiliani, iii. 16."—E. B. P.

53. 238

    Prov. ix. 18.

54. 239

    Prov. ix. 13.

55. 240

    Prov. ix. 14, 17.

56. 241

    The strange mixture of the pensive philosophy of Persia with Gnosticism and Christianity, propounded by Manichæus, attempted to solve this question, which was "the great object of heretical inquiry" (Mansel's Gnostics, lec. i.). It was Augustin's desire for knowledge concerning it that united him to this sect, and which also led him to forsake it, when he found therein nothing but empty fables (De Lib. Arb. i. sec. 4). Manichæus taught that evil and good were primeval, and had independent existences. Augustin, on the other hand, maintains that it was not possible for evil so to exist (De Civ. Dei, xi. sec. 22) but, as he here states, evil is "a privation of good." The evil will has a causa deficiens, but not a causa efficiens (ibid. xii. 6), as is exemplified in the fall of the angels.

57. 242

    1 Kings xviii. 40.

58. 243

    John iv. 24.

59. 244

    Gen. i. 27; see vi. sec. 4, note.

60. 245

    Heb. xi. 8-40.

61. 246

    1 Cor. iv. 3.

62. 247

    The law of the development of revelation implied in the above passage is one to which Augustin frequently resorts in confutation of objections such as those to which he refers in the previous and following sections. It may likewise be effectively used when similar objections are raised by modern sceptics. In the Rabbinical books there is a tradition of the wanderings of the children of Israel, that not only did their clothes not wax old (Deut. xxix. 5) during those forty years, but that they grew with their growth. The written word is as it were the swaddling-clothes of the holy child Jesus; and as the revelation concerning Him—the Word Incarnate—grew, did the written word grow. God spoke in sundry parts [poluemros] and in divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. i. 1); but when the "fulness of the time was come" (Gal. iv. 4), He completed the revelation in His Son. Our Lord indicates this principle when He speaks of divorce in Matt. xix. 8. "Moses," he says, "because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so." (See Con. Faust. xix. 26, 29.) When objections, then, as to obsolete ritual usages, or the sins committed by Old Testament worthies are urged, the answer is plain: the ritual has become obsolete, because only intended for the infancy of revelation, and the sins, while recorded in, are not approved by Scripture, and those who committed them will be judged according to the measure of revelation they received. See also De Ver. Relig. xvii.; in Ps. lxxiii. 1, liv. 22; Con. Faust. xxii. 25; Trench, Hulsean Lecs. iv., v. (1845); and Candlish's Reason and Revelation, pp. 58-75.

63. 248

    Job xiv. 1.

64. 249

    Here, as at the end of sec. 17, he alludes to the typical and allegorical character of Old Testament histories. Though he does not with Origen go so far as to disparage the letter of Scripture (see De Civ. Dei, xiii. 21), but upholds it, he constantly employs the allegorical principle. He (alluding to the patriarchs) goes so far, indeed, as to say (Con. Faust., xxii. 24), that "not only the speech but the life of these men was prophetic; and the whole kingdom of the Hebrews was like a great prophet;" and again: "We may discover a prophecy of the coming of Christ and of the Church both in what they said and what they did". This method of interpretation he first learned from Ambrose. See note on "the letter killeth," etc. (below, vi. sec. 6), for the danger attending it. On the general subject, reference may also be made to his in Ps. cxxxvi. 3; Serm. 2; De Tentat. Abr. sec. 7; and De Civ. Dei, xvii. 3.

65. 250

    Deut. vi. 5, and Matt. xxii. 37-39.

66. 251

    Ps. cxliv. 9. "St. Augustin (Quæst in Exod. ii. qu. 71) mentions the two modes of dividing the ten commandments into three and seven, or four and six, and gives what appear to have been his own private reasons for preferring the first. Both commonly existed in his day, but the Anglican mode appears to have been the most usual. It occurs in Origen, Greg. Naz., Jerome, Ambrose, Chrys. St. Augustin alludes to his division again, Serm. 8, 9, de x.Chordis, and sec. 33 on this psalm: To the first commandment there belong three strings because God is trine. To the other, i.e., the love of our neighbour, seven strings. These let us join to those three, which belong to the love of God, if we would on the psaltery of ten strings sing a new song.'"—E.B.P.

67. 252

    Ps. xxvii. 12, Vulg.

68. 253

    Rom. i. 24-29.

69. 254

    Acts ix. 5.

70. 255

    Ps. cii. 20.

71. 256

    The Manichæans, like the deistical writers of the last century, attacked the spoiling of the Egyptians, the slaughter of the Canaanites, and such episodes. Referring to the former, Augustin says (Con. Faust. xxii. 71), "Then, as for Faustus' objection to the spoiling of the Egyptians, he knows not what he says. In this Moses not only did not sin, but it would have been sin not to do it. It was by the command of God, who, from His knowledge both of the actions and of the hearts of men, can decide upon what every one should be made to suffer, and through whose agency. The people at that time were still carnal, and engrossed with earthly affection; while the Egyptians were in open rebellion against God, for they used the gold, God's creature, in the service of idols, to the dishonour of the Creator, and they had grievously oppressed strangers by making them work without pay. Thus the Egyptians deserved the punishment, and the Israelites were suitably employed in inflicting it." For an exhaustive vindication of the conduct of the children of Israel as the agents of God in punishing the Canaanites, see Graves on the Pentateuch, Part iii. lecture I. See also De Civ. Dei, i. 26; and Quæst. in Jos. 8, 16, etc.

72. 257

    See note on sec. 14, above.

73. 258

    i.e. Manichæan saint.

74. 259

    According to this extraordinary system, it was the privilege of the "elect" to set free in eating such parts of the divine substance as were imprisoned in the vegetable creation (Con. Faust. xxxi. 5). They did not marry or work in the fields, and led an ascetic life, the "hearers" or catechumens being privileged to provide them with food. The "elect" passed immediately on dying into the realm of light, while, as a reward for their service, the souls of the "hearers" after death transmigrated into plants (from which they might be most readily freed), or into the "elect," so as, in their turn, to pass away into the realm of light. See Con. Faust. v. 10, xx. 23; and in Ps. cxl.

75. 260

    Augustin frequently alludes to their conduct to the poor, in refusing to give them bread or the fruits of the earth, lest in eating they should defile the portion of God contained therein. But to avoid the odium of their conduct, they would inconsequently give money whereby food might be bought. See in Ps. cxl. sec. 12; and De Mor. Manich. 36, 37, and 53.

76. 261

    Ps. cxliv. 7.

77. 262

    He alludes here to that devout manner of the Eastern ancients, who used to lie flat on their faces in prayer.—W. W.

78. 263

    Symbolical of the rule of faith. See viii. sec. 30, below.

79. 264

    Ps. lxxxviii. 1.

80. 265

    We can easily understand that Augustin's dialectic skill would render him a formidable opponent, while, with the zeal of a neophyte, he urged those difficulties of Scripture (De Agon. Christ. iv ) which the Manichæans knew so well how to employ. In an interesting passage (De Duab. Anim. con. Manich. ix.) he tells us that his victories over "inexperienced persons" stimulated him to fresh conquests, and thus kept him bound longer than he would otherwise have been in the chains of this heresy.

81. 266

    Augustin tells us that he went not beyond the rank of a "hearer," because he found the Manichæan teachers readier in refuting others than in establishing their own views, and seems only to have looked for some esoteric doctrine to have been disclosed to him under their materialistic teaching as to God—viz. that He was an unmeasured Light that extended all ways but one, infinitely (Serm. iv. sec 5.)—rather than to have really accepted it.—De Util. Cred. Præf. See also iii. sec. 18, notes 1 and 2, above.

82. 267

    Ps. cxvi. 17.

83. 268

    1 Pet. ii. 2.

84. 269

    John vi. 27.

85. 270

    Ps. lxxiv. 21.

86. 271

    Isa. xlii. 3, and Matt. xii. 20.

87. 272

    Ps. iv. 2.

88. 273

    "He alone is truly pure who waiteth on God, and keepeth himself to Him alone " (Aug. De Vita Beata, sec. 18). "Whoso seeketh God is pure, because the soul hath in God her legitimate husband. Whosoever seeketh of God anything besides God, doth not love God purely. If a wife loved her husband because he is rich, she is not pure, for she loveth not her husband but the gold of her husband" (Aug. Serm. 137). "Whoso seeks from God any other reward but God, and for it would serve God, esteems what he wishes to receive more than Him from whom he would receive it. What, then? hath God no reward? None, save Himself. The reward of God is God Himself. This it loveth; if it love aught beside, it is no pure love. You depart from the immortal flame, you will be chilled, corrupted. Do not depart; it will be thy corruption, will be fornication in thee" (Aug. in Ps. lxxii. sec. 32). "The pure fear of the Lord (Ps. xix. 9) is that wherewith the Church, the more ardently she loveth her husband, the more diligently she avoids offending Him, and therefore love, when perfected, casteth not out this fear, but it remaineth for ever and ever" (Aug. in loc.). "Under the name of pure fear is signified that will whereby we must needs be averse from sin, and avoid sin, not through the constant anxiety of infirmity, but through the tranquillity of affection" (De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec. 65).—E. B. P.

89. 274

    See note on sec. 9, below.

90. 275

    "Indisputably we must take care, lest the mind, believing that which it does not see, feign to itself something which is not, and hope for and love that which is false. For in that case it will not be charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment" (De Trin. viii. sec. 6). And again (Confessions, i. 1): "For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not may call on Thee as other than Thou art."

91. 276

    Hosea xii. 1.

92. 277

    Augustin classes the votaries of both wizards and astrologers (De Doctr. Christ. ii. 23; and De Civ. Dei, x. 9; compare also Justin Martyr, Apol. ii. c. 5) as alike "deluded and imposed on by the false angels, to whom the lowest part of the world has been put in subjection by the law of God's providence;" and he says, "All arts of this sort are either nullities, or are part of a guilty superstition springing out of a baleful fellowship between men and devils, and are to be utterly repudiated and avoided by the Christian, as the covenants of a false and treacherous friendship." It is remarkable that though these arts were strongly denounced in the Pentateuch, the Jews—acquiring them from the surrounding Gentile nations—have embedded them deeply in their oral law, said also to be given by Moses (e.g. in Moed Katon 28, and Shabbath 156, prosperity comes from the influence of the stars; in Shabbath 61 it is a question whether the influence of the stars or a charm has been effective; and in Sanhedrin 17 magic is one of the qualifications for the Sanhedrim). It might have been expected that the Christians, if only from that reaction against Judaism which shows itself in Origen's disparagement of the letter of the Old Testament Scriptures (see De Princip. iv. 15, 16), would have shrunk from such strange arts. But the influx of pagans, who had practiced them, into the Christian Church appears gradually to have leavened it in no slight degree. This is not only true of the Valentinians (see Kaye's Clement of Alex. vi.) and other heretics, but the influence of these contacts is seen even in the writings of the "orthodox." Those who can read between the lines will find no slight trace of this (after separating what they would conceive to be true from what is manifestly false) in the story told by Zonaras, in his Annals, of the controversy between the Rabbis and Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, before Constantine. The Jews were worsted in argument, and evidently thought an appeal to miracles might, from the Emperor's education, bring him over to their side. An ox is brought forth. The Jewish wonder-worker whispers a mystic name into its ear, and it falls dead; but Sylvester, according to the story, is quite equal to the occasion, and restores the animal to life again by uttering the name of the Redeemer. It may have been that the cessation of miracles may have gradually led unstable professors of Christianity to invent miracles; and, as Bishop Kaye observes (Tertullian, p. 95), "the success of the first attempts naturally encouraged others to practice similar impositions on the credulity of mankind." As to the time of the cessation of miracles, comparison may be profitably made of the views of Kaye, in the early part of c. ii. of his Tertullian, and of Blunt, in his Right Use of the Early Fathers, series ii. lecture 6.

93. 278

    Ps. xli. 4.

94. 279

    John v. 14.

95. 280

    Rom. ii. 6, and Matt. xvi. 27.

96. 281

    Ps. li. 17.

97. 282

    This physician was Vindicianus, the "acute old man" mentioned in vii. sec. 8, below, and again in Ep. 138, as "the most eminent physician of his day." Augustin's disease, however, could not be reached by his remedies. We are irresistibly reminded of the words of our great poet:—"Canst thou minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart!"—Macbeth, act. v. scene 3.

98. 283

    1 Pet. v. 5, and Jas. iv. 6.

99. 284

    Rom. v. 5.

100. 285

     Ps. xciv. 1.

101. 286

     Ps. cvi. 2.

102. 287

     Ps. xxxvi. 6, and Rom. xi. 33.

103. 288

     See i. sec. 17, note 3, above.

104. 289

     Ps. xlii. 5.

105. 290

     Ibid.

106. 291

     The mind may rest in theories and abstractions, but the heart craves a being that it can love; and Archbishop Whately has shown in one of his essays that the idol worship of every age had doubtless its origin in the craving of mind and heart for an embodiment of the object of worship. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," says Philip (John xiv. 8), and he expresses the longing of the soul; and when the Lord replies, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," He reveals to us God's satisfaction of human wants in the incarnation of His Son. Augustin's heart was now thrown in upon itself, and his view of God gave him no consolation. It satisfied his mind, perhaps, in a measure, to think of God as a "corporeal brightness" (see iii. 12; iv. 3, 12, 31; v. 19, etc.) when free from trouble, but it could not satisfy him now. He had yet to learn of Him who is the very image of God—who by His divine power raised the dead to life again, while, with perfect human sympathy, He could "weep with those that wept,"—the "Son of Man" (not of a man, He being miraculously born, but of the race of men [anthropou]), i.e. the Son of Mankind. See also viii. sec. 27, note, below.

107. 292

     For so it has ever been found to be:—"Est quædam flere voluptas; Expletur lacrymis egeriturque dolor."—Ovid, Trist. iv. 3, 38.

108. 293

     Ps. xxv. 15.

109. 294

     Horace, Carm. i. ode 3.

110. 295

     Ovid, Trist. iv. eleg. iv. 72.

111. 296

     Augustin's reference to this passage in his Retractations is quoted at the beginning of the book. He might have gone further than to describe his words here as declamatio levis, since the conclusion is not logical.

112. 297

     "The great and merciful Architect of His Church, whom not only the philosophers have styled, but the Scripture itself calls technites (an artist or artificer), employs not on us the hammer and chisel with an intent to wound or mangle us, but only to square and fashion our hard and stubborn hearts into such lively stones as may both grace and strengthen His heavenly structure."—Boyle.

113. 298

     See iii. 9; iv. 3, 12, 31; v. 19.

114. 299

     As Seneca has it: "Quod ratio non quit, sæpe sanabit mora" (Agam. 130).

115. 300

     See iv. cc. 1, 10, 12, and vi. c. 16.

116. 301

     "Friendship," says Lord Bacon, in his essay thereon,—the sentiment being perhaps suggested by Cicero's "Secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia et adversas partiens communicansque leviores" (De Amicit. 6),—"redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves." Augustin appears to have been eminently open to influences of this kind. In his De Duab. Anim. con. Manich. (c. ix.) he tells us that friendship was one of the bonds that kept him in the ranks of the Manichæans; and here we find that, aided by time and weeping, it restored him in his great grief. See also v. sec. 19, and vi. sec 26, below.

117. 302

     Gen. i. 1.

118. 303

     Jer. xxiii. 24.

119. 304

     See i. 2, 3, above.

120. 305

     Ps. cxix. 142, and John xvii. 17.

121. 306

     John xiv. 6.

122. 307

     Ps. lxxx. 19.

123. 308

     See iv. cc. 1, 12, and vi. c. 16, below.

124. 309

     It is interesting in connection with the above passages to note what Augustin says elsewhere as to the origin of the law of death in the sin of our first parents. In his De Gen. ad Lit. (vi. 25) he speaks thus of their condition in the garden, and the provision made for the maintenance of their life: "Aliud est non posse mori, sicut quasdam naturas immortales creavit Deus; aliud est autem posse non mori, secundum quem modum primus creatus est homo immortalis." Adam, he goes on to say, was able to avert death, by partaking of the tree of life. He enlarges on this doctrine in Book xiii. De Civ. Dei. He says (sec. 20): "Our first parents decayed not with years, nor drew nearer to death—a condition secured to them in God's marvellous grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise." Again (sec. 19) he says: "Why do the philosophers find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches, namely, that our first parents were so created, that, if they had not sinned, they would not have been dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies?" That this was the doctrine of the early Church has been fully shown by Bishop Bull in his State of Man before the Fall, vol. ii. Theophilus of Antioch was of opinion (Ad Autolyc. c. 24) that Adam might have gone on from strength to strength, until at last he "would have been taken up into heaven." See also on this subject Dean Buckland's Sermon on Death; and Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol. vi. secs. 1 and 2.

125. 310

     Ps. ciii. 3.

126. 311

     1 Pet. i. 23.

127. 312

     See xiii. sec. 22, below.

128. 313

     A similar illustration occurs in sec. 15, above.

129. 314

     Augustin is never weary of pointing out that there is a lex occulta (in Ps. lvii. sec. 1), a law written on the heart, which cries to those who have forsaken the written law, "Return to your hearts, ye transgressors." In like manner he interprets (De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. sec. 11) "Enter into thy closet," of the heart of man. The door is the gate of the senses through which carnal thoughts enter into the mind. We are to shut the door, because the devil (in Ps. cxli. 3) si clausum invenerit transit. In sec. 16, above, the figure is changed, and we are to fear lest these objects of sense render us "deaf in the ear of our heart" with the tumult of our folly. Men will not, he says, go back into their hearts, because the heart is full of sin, and they fear the reproaches of conscience, just (in Ps. xxxiii. 5) "as those are unwilling to enter their houses who have troublesome wives." These outer things, which too often draw us away from Him, God intends should lift us up to Him who is better than they, though they could all be ours at once, since He made them all; and "woe," he says (De Lib. Arb. ii. 16), "to them who love the indications of Thee rather than Thee, and remember not what these indicated."

130. 315

     Isa. lvi. 8.

131. 316

     See iv. cc. 1, 10, above, and vi. c. 16, below.

132. 317

     Ps. xix. 5.

133. 318

     John i. 10.

134. 319

     1 Tim. i. 15.

135. 320

     Ps. xli. 4.

136. 321

     Luke xxiv. 25.

137. 322

     "The Son of God," says Augustin in another place, "became a son of man, that the sons of men might be made sons of God." He put off the form of God—that by which He manifested His divine glory in heaven—and put on the "form of a servant" (Phil. ii. 6, 7), that as the outshining [apaugasma] of the Father's glory (Heb. i. 3) He might draw us to Himself. He descended and emptied Himself of His dignity that we might ascend, giving an example for all time (in Ps. xxxiii. sec. 4); for, "lest man should disdain to imitate a humble man, God humbled Himself, so that the pride of the human race might not disdain to walk in the footsteps of God." See also v. sec. 5, note, below.

138. 323

     Ps. lxxiii. 9.

139. 324

     "There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us."—De Civ. Dei, xiv. sec. 13.

140. 325

     Ps. lxxxiv. 6.

141. 326

     See vi. sec. 13, below.

142. 327

     Matt. x. 29, 30.

143. 328

     Eph. iv. 14.

144. 329

     Ps. cxxxvi. 4.

145. 330

     Augustin tells us (De Civ. Dei, xix. 1) that Varro, in his lost book De Philosophia, gives two hundred and eighty-eight different opinions as regards the chief good, and shows us how readily they may be reduced in number. Now, as then, philosophers ask the same questions. We have our hedonists, whose "good" is their own pleasure and happiness; our materialists, who would seek the common good of all; and our intuitionists, who aim at following the dictates of conscience. When the pretensions of these various schools are examined without prejudice, the conclusion is forced upon us that we must have recourse to Revelation for a reconcilement of the difficulties of the various systems; and that the philosophers, to employ Davidson's happy illustration (Prophecies, Introd.), forgetting that their faded taper has been insensibly kindled by gospel light, are attempting now, as in Augustin's time (ibid. sec. 4), "to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life based upon a virtue as deceitful as it is proud." Christianity gives the golden key to the attainment of happiness, when it declares that "godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come " (1 Tim. iv. 8). It was a saying of Bacon (Essay on Adversity), that while "prosperity is the blessing of the old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New." He would have been nearer the truth had he said that while temporal rewards were the special promise of the Old Testament, spiritual rewards are the special promise of the New. For though Christ's immediate followers had to suffer "adversity" in the planting of our faith, adversity cannot properly be said to be the result of following Christ. It has yet to be shown that, on the whole, the greatest amount of real happiness does not result, even in this life, from a Christian life, for virtue is, even here, its own reward. The fulness of the reward, however, will only be received in the life to come. Augustin's remark, therefore, still holds good that "life eternal is the supreme good, and death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly" (ibid. sec. 4); and again, that even in the midst of the troubles of life, "as we are saved, so we are made happy, by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so it is with our happiness,...we ought patiently to endure till we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good." See Abbé Anselme, Sur le Souverain Bien, vol. v. serm. 1; and the last Chapter of Professor Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, for the conclusions at which a mind at once lucid and dispassionate has arrived on this question.

146. 331

     "Or an unintelligent soul;' very good mss. reading sensu,' the majority, it appears, sexu.' If we read sexu,' the absolute unity of the first principle or Monad, may be insisted upon, and in the inferior principle, divided into violence' and lust,' violence,' as implying strength, may be looked on as the male, lust' was, in mythology, represented as female; if we take sensu,' it will express the living but unintelligent soul of the world in the Manichæan, as a pantheistic system."—E. B. P.

147. 332

     Ps. xviii. 28. Augustin constantly urges our recognition of the truth that God is the "Father of lights." From Him as our central sun, all light, whether of wisdom or knowledge proceedeth, and if changing the figure, our candle which He hath lighted be blown out, He again must light it. Compare Enar. in Ps. xciii. 147; and Sermons, 67 and 341.

148. 333

     John i. 16.

149. 334

     John i. 9.

150. 335

     Jas. i. 17.

151. 336

     Jas. iv. 6, and 1 Pet. v. 5.

152. 337

     Ps. lxxviii. 39.

153. 338

     It may assist those unacquainted with Augustin's writings to understand the last three sections, if we set before them a brief view of the Manichæan speculations as to the good and evil principles, and the nature of the human soul:—(1) The Manichæans believed that there were two principles or substances, one good and the other evil, and that both were eternal and opposed one to the other. The good principle they called God, and the evil, matter or Hyle (Con. Faust. xxi. 1, 2). Faustus, in his argument with Augustin, admits that they sometimes called the evil nature "God," but simply as a conventional usage. Augustin says thereon (ibid. sec. 4): "Faustus glibly defends himself by saying, We speak not of two gods, but of God and Hyle;' but when you ask for the meaning of Hyle, you find that it is in fact another god. If the Manichæans gave the name of Hyle, as the ancients did, to the unformed matter which is susceptible of bodily forms, we should not accuse them of making two gods. But it is pure folly and madness to give to matter the power of forming bodies, or to deny that what has this power is God." Augustin alludes in the above passage to the Platonic theory of matter, which, as the late Dean Mansel has shown us (Gnostic Heresies, Basilides, etc.), resulted after his time in Pantheism, and which was entirely opposed to the dualism of Manichæus. It is to this "power of forming bodies" claimed for matter, then, that Augustin alludes in our text (sec. 24) as "not only a substance but real life also." (2) The human soul the Manichæans declared to be of the same nature as God, though not created by Him—it having originated in the intermingling of part of His being with the evil principle, in the conflict between the kingdoms of light and darkness (in Ps. cxl. sec. 10). Augustin says to Faustus: "You generally call your soul not a temple, but a part or member of God " (Con. Faust. xx. 15); and thus, "identifying themselves with the nature and substance of God" (ibid. xii. 13), they did not refer their sin to themselves, but to the race of darkness, and so did not "prevail over their sin." That is, they denied original sin, and asserted that it necessarily resulted from the soul's contact with the body. To this Augustin steadily replied, that as the soul was not of the nature of God, but created by Him and endowed with free will, man was responsible for his transgressions. Again, referring to the Confessions, we find Augustin speaking consistently with his then belief, when he says that he had not then learned that the soul was not a "chief and unchangeable good" (sec. 24), or that "it was not that nature of truth" (sec. 25); and that when he transgressed "he accused flesh" rather than himself; and, as a result of his Manichæan errors (sec. 26), "contended that God's immutable substance erred of constraint, rather than admit that his mutable substance had gone astray of free will, and erred as a punishment."

154. 339

     John iii. 29.

155. 340

     Ps. li. 8, Vulg.

156. 341

     As the mathematicians did their figures, in dust or sand.

157. 342

     "The categories enumerated by Aristotle are ousia, poson, poion, prosti, pou, pote, keisthai, echein, poiein, paschein; which are usually rendered, as adequately as perhaps they can be in our language, substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, suffering. The catalogue (which certainly is but a very crude one) has been by some writers enlarged, as it is evident may easily be done by subdividing some of the heads; and by others curtailed, as it is no less evident that all may ultimately be referred to the two heads of substance and attribute, or, in the language of some logicians, accident'" (Whately's Logic, iv. 2, sec. 1, note). "These are called in Latin the prædicaments, because they can be said or predicated in the same sense of all other terms, as well as of all the objects denoted by them, whereas no other term can be correctly said of them, because no other is employed to express the full extent of their meaning" (Gillies, Analysis of Aristotle, c. 2).

158. 343

     Isa. xxxii. 13.

159. 344

     Gen. iii. 19.

160. 345

     Luke xv. 12.

161. 346

     Ps. lix. 9, Vulg.

162. 347

     Luke xv. 13.

163. 348

     See iii. 12; iv. 3, 12; v. 19.

164. 349

     Ps. xxxvi. 7.

165. 350

     Isa. xlvi. 4.

166. 351

     See xi. sec. 5, note, below.

167. 352

     Ps. xxxv. 10.

168. 353

     Ps. xix. 6.

169. 354

     St. Paul speaks of a "minding of the flesh" and a "minding of the spirit" (Rom. viii. 6, margin), and we are prone to be attracted and held by the carnal surroundings of life; that is, "quæ per carnem sentiri querunt id est per oculos, per aures, ceterosque corporis sensus" (De Vera Relig.. xxiv.). But God would have us, as we meditate on the things that enter by the gates of the senses, to arise towards Him, through these His creatures. Our Father in heaven might have ordered His creation simply in a utilitarian way, letting, for example, hunger be satisfied without any of the pleasures of taste, and so of the other senses. But He has not so done. To every sense He has given its appropriate pleasure as well as its proper use. And though this presents to us a source of temptation, still ought we for it to praise His goodness to the full, and that corde are opere.—Bradward, ii. c. 23. See also i. sec. 1, note 3, and iv. sec. 18, above.

170. 355

     Augustin frequently recurs to the idea, that in God's overruling Providence, the foulness and sin of man does not disturb the order and fairness of the universe. He illustrates the idea by reference to music, painting, and oratory. "For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 23). So again, he says, God would never have created angels or men whose future wickedness he foreknew, unless He could turn them to the use of the good, "thus embellishing the course of the ages as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses" (ibid. xi. 18); and further on, in the same section, "as the oppositions of contraries lend beauty to language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things." These reflections affected Augustin's views as to the last things. They seemed to him to render the idea entertained by Origen (De Princ. i. 6) and other Fathers as to a general restoration [apokatastasis] unnecessary. See Hagenbach's Hist. of Doct. etc. i. 383 (Clark).

171. 356

     "In Scripture they are called God's enemies who oppose His rule not by nature but by vice, having no power to hurt Him, but only themselves. For they are His enemies not through their power to hurt, but by their will to oppose Him. For God is unchangeable, and wholly proof against injury" (De Civ. Dei, xii. 3).

172. 357

     Ps. cxxxix. 7.

173. 358

     Gen. xvi. 13, 14.

174. 359

     Wisd. ii. 26. Old ver.

175. 360

     He also refers to the injury man does himself by sin in ii. sec. 13, above; and elsewhere he suggests the law which underlies it: "The vice which makes those who are called God's enemies resist Him, is an evil not to God but to themselves. And to them it is an evil solely because it corrupts the good of their nature." And when we suffer for our sins we should thank God that we are not unpunished (De Civ. Dei, xii. 3). But if, when God punishes us, we still continue in our sin, we shall be more confirmed in habits of sin, and then, as Augustin in another place (in Ps. vii. 15) warns us, "our facility in sinning will be the punishment of God for our former yieldings to sin." See also Butler's Analogy, Pt. i. ch. 5, "On a state of probation as intended for moral discipline and improvement."

176. 361

     Ps. lxxiii. 27.

177. 362

     Wisd. xiii. 9.

178. 363

     Ps. cxxxviii 6.

179. 364

     Ps. xxxiv. 18, and cxlv. 18.

180. 365

     See Book iv. sec. 19, note, above.

181. 366

     He makes use of the same illustrations on Psalms viii. and xi. , where the birds of the air represent the proud, the fishes of the sea those who have too great a curiosity, while the beasts of the field are those given to carnal pleasures. It will be seen that there is a correspondence between them and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, in 1 John ii. 16. See also above, Book iii. sec. 16; and below, Book x. sec. 41, etc.

182. 367

     Ps. viii. 7, 8.

183. 368

     Deut. iv. 24.

184. 369

     John i. 3.

185. 370

     Ps. cxlvii. 5, Vulg.

186. 371

     1 Cor. i. 30.

187. 372

     Matt. xvii. 27.

188. 373

     In Sermon 123, sec. 3, we have: "Christ as God is the country to which we go—Christ as man is the way by which we go." See note on Book iv. sec. 19, above.

189. 374

     Isa. xiv. 13.

190. 375

     Rev. xii. 4.

191. 376

     Rom. i. 21.

192. 377

     Ibid.

193. 378

     Rom. i. 22.

194. 379

     Rom. i. 23.

195. 380

     Rom. i. 25.

196. 381

     What a contrast does his attitude here present to his supreme regard for secular learning before his conversion! We have constantly in his writings expressions of the same kind. On Psalm ciii. he dilates lovingly on the fount of happiness the word of God is, as compared with the writings of Cicero, Tully, and Plato; and again on Psalm xxxviii. he shows that the word is the source of all true joy. So likewise in De Trin. iv. 1: "That mind is more praiseworthy which knows even its own weakness, than that which, without regard to this, searches out and even comes to know the ways of the stars, or which holds fast such knowledge already acquired, while ignorant of the way by which itself to enter into its own proper health and strength....Such a one has preferred to know his own weakness, rather than to know the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth, and the pinnacles of heaven." See iii. sec. 9, note, above.

197. 382

     Rom. i. 21.

198. 383

     Prov. xvii. 6, in the LXX.

199. 384

     2 Cor. vi. 10.

200. 385

     Wisd. xi. 20.

201. 386

     Job xxviii. 28 in LXX. reads: Idou he theosebea esti sophia.

202. 387

     This claim of Manichæus was supported by referring to the Lord's promise (John xvi. 12, 13) to send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to guide the apostles into that truth which they were as yet "not able to bear." The Manichæans used the words "Paraclete" and "Comforter," as indeed the names of the other two persons of the blessed Trinity, in a sense entirely different from that of the gospel. These terms were little more than the bodily frame, the soul of which was his own heretical belief. Whenever opposition appeared between that belief and the teaching of Scripture, their ready answer was that the Scriptures had been corrupted (De Mor. Ecc. Cath. xxviii. and xxix.); and in such a case, as we find Faustus contending (Con. Faust. xxxii. 6), the Paraclete taught them what part to receive and what to reject, according to the promise of Jesus that He should "guide them into all truth," and much more to the same effect. Augustin's whole argument in reply is well worthy of attention. Amongst other things, he points out that the Manichæan pretension to having received the promised Paraclete was precisely the same as that of the Montanists in the previous century. It should be observed that Beausobre (Histoire, i. 254, 264, etc.) vigorously rebuts the charge brought against Manichæus of claiming to be the Holy Ghost. An interesting examination of the claims of Montanus will be found in Kaye's Tertullian, pp. 13 to 33.

203. 388

     Eph. iv. 13, 14.

204. 389

     See vi. sec. 12, note, below.

205. 390

     Sec. vii. sec. 15, below.

206. 391

     "This was the old fashion of the East, where the scholars had liberty to ask questions of their masters, and to move doubts as the professors were reading, or so soon as the lecture was done. Thus did our Saviour with the doctors (Luke ii. 46). So it is still in some European Universities."—W. W.

207. 392

     We have referred in the note on iii. sec. 10, above, to the way in which the Manichæans parodied Scripture names. In these "fables" this is remarkably evidenced. "To these filthy rags of yours," says Augustin (Con. Faust. xx. 6), "you would unite the mystery of the Trinity; for you say that the Father dwells in a secret light, the power of the Son in the sun, and His wisdom in the moon, and the Holy Spirit in the air." The Manichæan doctrine as to the mixture of the divine nature with the substance of evil, and the way in which that nature was released by the "elect," has already been pointed out (see note iii. sec. 18, above). The part of sun and moon, also, in accomplishing this release, is alluded to in his De Mor. Manich. "This part of God," he says (c. xxxvi.), "is daily being set free in all parts of the world, and restored to its own domain. But in its passage upwards as vapour from earth to heaven, it enters plants, because their roots are fixed in the earth, and so gives fertility and strength to all herbs and shrubs." These parts of God, arrested in their rise by the vegetable world, were released, as above stated, by the "elect". All that escaped from them in the act of eating, as well as what was set free by evaporation, passed into the sun and moon, as into a kind of purgatorial state—they being purer light than the only recently emancipated good nature. In his letter to Januarius (Ep. lv. 6), he tells us that the moon's waxing and waning were said by the Manichæans to be caused by its receiving souls from matter as it were into a ship, and transferring them "into the sun as into another ship." The sun was called Christ, and was worshipped; and accordingly we find Augustin, after alluding to these monstrous doctrines, saying (Con. Faust. v. 11): "If your affections were set upon spiritual and intellectual good instead of material forms, you would not pay homage to the material sun as a divine substance and as the light of wisdom." Many other interesting quotations might be added, but we must content ourselves with the following. In his Reply to Faustus (xx. 6), he says: "You call the sun a ship, so that you are not only astray worlds off, as the saying is, but adrift. Next, while every one sees that the sun is round, which is the form corresponding from its perfection to his position among the heavenly bodies, you maintain that he is triangular [perhaps in allusion to the early symbol of the Trinity]; that is, that his light shines on the earth through a triangular window in heaven. Hence it is that you bend and bow your heads to the sun, while you worship not this visible sun, but some imaginary ship, which you suppose to be shining through a triangular opening."

208. 393

     Joel ii. 26.

209. 394

     Ps. xxxvii. 23.

210. 395

     See iii. sec. 6, note, above.

211. 396

     Ps. cxlii. 5.

212. 397

     See vi. sec. 2, note, below.

213. 398

     1 Cor. xv. 22.

214. 399

     Eph. ii. 15, and Col. i. 20, etc.

215. 400

     The Manichæan belief in regard to the unreal nature of Christ's body may be gathered from Augustin's Reply to Faustus: "You ask," argues Faustus (xxvi. i.), "if Jesus was not born, how did He die?...In return I ask you, how did Elias not die, though he was a man? Could a mortal encroach upon the limits of immortality, and could not Christ add to His immortality whatever experience of death was required?...Accordingly, if it is a good argument that Jesus was a man because He died, it is an equally good argument that Elias was not a man because he did not die....As, from the outset of His taking the likeness of man, He underwent in appearance all the experiences of humanity, it was quite consistent that He should complete the system by appearing to die." So that with him the whole life of Jesus was a "phantasm." His birth, circumcision, crucifixion, baptism, and temptation were (ibid. xxxii. 7) the mere result of the interpolation of crafty men, or sprung from the ignorance of the apostles, when as yet they had not reached perfection in knowledge. It is noticeable that Augustin, referring to Eph. ii. 15, substitutes His cross for His flesh, he, as a Manichæan, not believing in the real humanity of the Son of God. See iii. sec. 9, note, above.

216. 401

     See i. sec. 10, above.

217. 402

     See also iv. sec. 8, above, where he derides his friend's baptism.

218. 403

     Ps. li. 19.

219. 404

     1 Tim. v. 10.

220. 405

     Watts gives the following note here:—"Oblations were those offerings of bread, meal, or wine, for making of the Eucharist, or of alms besides for the poor, which the primitive Christians every time they communicated brought to the church, where it was received by the deacons, who presented them to the priest or bishop. Here note: (1) They communicated daily; (2) they had service morning and evening, and two sermons a day many times," etc. An interesting trace of an old use in this matter of oblations is found in the Queen's Coronation Service. After other oblations had been offered, the Queen knelt before the Archbishop and presented to him "oblations" of bread and wine for the Holy Communion. See also Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, iv. 8, who demonstrates by reference to patristic writers that the custom was universal in the primitive Church:—"But though all the churches of the East and West agreed in this respect, they differed in appointing the time and place at which the oblations of the people were received." It would appear from the following account of early Christian worship, that in the time of Justin Martyr the oblations were collected after the reception of the Lord's Supper. In his First Apology we read (c. lxvii.): "On the day called Sunday [tou heliou legomene hemera] all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits them. When the reader has ceased, the president [ho proestos] verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray [euchas pempomen], and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability [Kaye renders (p. 89) euchas homoios kai eucharistias, hose dunamis auto, anapempei, "with his utmost power"], and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks had been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected [to sullegomenon] is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the stranger sojourning among us, and, in a word, takes care of all who are in need." The whole passage is given, as portions of it will be found to have a bearing on other parts of the Confessions. Bishop Kaye's Justin Martyr, c. iv., may be referred to for his view of the controverted points in the passage. See also Bingham's Antiquities, ii. 2-9; and notes to vi. sec. 2, and ix. secs. 6 and 27, below.