from "The Catholic Encyclopaedia" at New Advent
The great St. Augustine's life is unfolded to us in documents of unrivaled richness, and of no great character of ancient times have we information comparable to that contained in the "Confessions," which relate the touching story of his soul, the "Retractations," which give the history of his mind, and the "Life of Augustine," written by his friend Possidius, telling of the saint's apostolate.Before long he was obliged to confess to Monica that he had formed a
sinful liaison with the person who bore him a son (372), "the son of his
sin" — an entanglement from which he only delivered himself at Milan after
fifteen years of its thralldom. Two extremes are to be avoided in the
appreciation of this crisis. Some, like Mommsen, misled perhaps by the
tone of grief in the "Confessions," have exaggerated it: in the "Realencyklopädie"
(3d ed., II, 268) Loofs reproves Mommsen on this score, and yet he himself
is to lenient towards Augustine, when he claims that in those days, the
Church permitted concubinage. The "Confessions" alone prove that Loofs did
not understand the 17th canon of Toledo. However, it may be said that,
even in his fall, Augustine maintained a certain dignity and felt a
compunction which does him honour, and that, from the age of nineteen, he
had a genuine desire to break the chain. In fact, in 373, an entirely new
inclination manifested itself in his life, brought about by the reading
Cicero's "Hortensius" whence he imbibed a love of the wisdom which Cicero
so eloquently praises. Thenceforward Augustine looked upon rhetoric merely
as a profession; his heart was in philosophy.
Unfortunately, his faith, as well as his morals, was to pass though a
terrible crisis. In this same year, 373, Augustine and his friend
Honoratus fell into the snares of the Manichæans. It seems strange that so
great a mind should have been victimized by Oriental vapourings,
synthesized by the Persian Mani (215-276) into coarse, material dualism,
and introduced into Africa scarcely fifty years previously. Augustine
himself tells us that he was enticed by the promises of a free philosophy
unbridled by faith; by the boasts of the Manichæans, who claimed to have
discovered contradictions in Holy Writ; and, above all, by the hope of
finding in their doctrine a scientific explanation of nature and its most
mysterious phenomena. Augustine's inquiring mind was enthusiastic for the
natural sciences, and the Manichæans declared that nature withheld no
secrets from Faustus, their doctor. Moreover, being tortured by the
problem of the origin of evil, Augustine, in default of solving it,
acknowledged a conflict of two principles. And then, again, there was a
very powerful charm in the moral irresponsibility resulting from a
doctrine which denied liberty and attributed the commission of crime to a
foreign principle.
Once won over to this sect, Augustine devoted himself to it with all the
ardour of his character; he read all its books, adopted and defended all
its opinions. His furious proselytism drew into error his friend Alypius
and Romanianus, his Mæcenas of Tagaste, the friend of his father who was
defraying the expenses of Augustine's studies. It was during this
Manichæan period that Augustine's literary faculties reached their full
development, and he was still a student at Carthage when he embraced
error. His studies ended, he should in due course have entered the forum
litigiosum, but he preferred the career of letters, and Possidius tells us
that he returned to Tagaste to "teach grammar."
The young professor captivated his pupils, one of whom, Alypius, hardly younger than his master, loath to leave, him after following him into error, was afterwards baptized with him at Milan, eventually becoming Bishop of Tagaste, his native city. But Monica deeply deplored Augustine's heresy and would not have received him into her home or at her table but for the advice of a saintly bishop, who declared that "the son of so many tears could not perish." Soon afterwards Augustine went to Carthage, where he continued to teach rhetoric. His talents shone to even better advantage on this wider stage, and by an indefatigable pursuit of the liberal arts his intellect attained its full maturity. Having taken part in a poetic tournament, he carried off the prize, and the Proconsul Vindicianus publicly conferred upon him the corona agonistica. It was at this moment of literary intoxication, when he had just completed his first work on æsthetics, now lost that he began to repudiate Manichæism.
Even when Augustine was in his first fervour, the teachings of Mani had
been far from quieting his restlessness, and although he has been accused
of becoming a priest of the sect, he was never initiated or numbered among
the "elect," but remained an "auditor" the lowest degree in the hierarchy.
He himself gives the reason for his disenchantment. First of all there was
the fearful depravity of Manichæan philosophy — "They destroy everything
and build up nothing"; then, the dreadful immorality in contrast with
their affectation of virtue; the feebleness of their arguments in
controversy with the Catholics, to whose Scriptural arguments their only
reply was: "The Scriptures have been falsified." But, worse than all, he
did not find science among them — science in the modern sense of the word
— that knowledge of nature and its laws which they had promised him. When
he questioned them concerning the movements of the stars, none of them
could answer him. "Wait for Faustus," they said, "he will explain
everything to you." Faustus of Mileve, the celebrated Manichæan bishop, at
last came to Carthage; Augustine visited and questioned him, and
discovered in his responses the vulgar rhetorician, the utter stranger to
all scientific culture. The spell was broken, and, although Augustine did
not immediately abandon the sect, his mind rejected Manichæan doctrines.
The illusion had lasted nine years.
But the religious crisis of this great soul was only to be resolved in
Italy, under the influence of Ambrose. In 383 Augustine, at the age of
twenty-nine, yielded to the irresistible attraction which Italy had for
him, but his mother suspected his departure and was so reluctant to be
separated from him that he resorted to a subterfuge and embarked under
cover of the night. He had only just arrived in Rome when he was taken
seriously ill; upon recovering he opened a school of rhetoric, but,
disgusted by the tricks of his pupils, who shamelessly defrauded him of
their tuition fees, he applied for a vacant professorship at Milan,
obtained it, and was accepted by the prefect, Symmachus.
Having visited Bishop Ambrose, the fascination of that saint's kindness induced him to become a regular attendant at his preachings. However, before embracing the Faith, Augustine underwent a three years' struggle during which his mind passed through several distinct phases. At first he turned towards the philosophy of the Academics, with its pessimistic scepticism; then neo-Platonic philosophy inspired him with genuine enthusiasm. At Milan he had scarcely read certain works of Plato and, more especially, of Plotinus, before the hope of finding the truth dawned upon him. Once more he began to dream that he and his friends might lead a life dedicated to the search for it, a life purged of all vulgar aspirations after honours, wealth, or pleasure, and with celibacy for its rule (Confessions, VI). But it was only a dream; his passions still enslaved him.
Monica, who had joined her son at Milan, prevailed upon him to become
betrothed, but his affianced bride was too young, and although Augustine
dismissed the mother of Adeodatus, her place was soon filled by another.
Thus did he pass through one last period of struggle and anguish. Finally,
through the reading of the Holy Scriptures light penetrated his mind. Soon
he possessed the certainty that Jesus Christ is the only way to truth and
salvation. After that resistance came only from the heart. An interview
with Simplicianus, the future successor of St. Ambrose, who told Augustine
the story of the conversion of the celebrated neo-Platonic rhetorician,
Victorinus (Confessions, VIII, i, ii), prepared the way for the grand
stroke of grace which, at the age of thirty-three, smote him to the ground
in the garden at Milan (September, 386). A few days later Augustine, being
ill, took advantage of the autumn holidays and, resigning his
professorship, went with Monica, Adeodatus, and his friends to Cassisiacum,
the country estate of Verecundus, there to devote himself to the pursuit
of true philosophy which, for him, was now inseparable from Christianity.
II. FROM HIS CONVERSION TO HIS EPISCOPATE (386-395)
Augustine gradually became acquainted with Christian doctrine, and in his
mind the fusion of Platonic philosophy with revealed dogmas was taking
place. The law that governed this change of thought has of late years been
frequently misconstrued; it is sufficiently important to be precisely
defined. The solitude of Cassisiacum realized a long-cherished dream. In
his books "Against the Academics," Augustine has described the ideal
serenity of this existence, enlivened only by the passion for truth. He
completed the education of his young friends, now by literary readings in
common, now by philosophical conferences to which he sometimes invited
Monica, and the accounts of which, compiled by a secretary, have supplied
the foundation of the "Dialogues." Licentius, in his "Letters," would
later on recall these delightful philosophical mornings and evenings, at
which Augustine was wont to evolve the most elevating discussions from the
most commonplace incidents. The favourite topics at their conferences were
truth, certainty (Against the Academics), true happiness in philosophy (On
a Happy Life), the Providential order of the world and the problem of evil
(On Order) and finally God and the soul (Soliloquies, On the Immortality
of the Soul).
Here arises the curious question propounded modern critics: Was Augustine
a Christian when wrote these "Dialogues" at Cassisiacum? Until now no one
had doubted it; historians, relying upon the "Confessions," had all
believed that Augustine's retirement to the villa had for its twofold
object the improvement of his health and his preparation for baptism. But
certain critics nowadays claim to have discovered a radical opposition
between the philosophical "Dialogues" composed in this retirement and the
state of soul described in the "Confessions." According to Harnack, in
writing the "Confessions" Augustine must have projected upon the recluse
of 386 the sentiments of the bishop of 400. Others go farther and maintain
that the recluse of the Milanese villa could not have been at heart a
Christian, but a Platonist; and that the scene in the garden was a
conversion not to Christianity, but to philosophy, the genuinely Christian
phase beginning only in 390. But this interpretation of the "Dialogues"
cannot withstand the test of facts and texts.
It is admitted that Augustine received baptism at Easter, 387; and who
could suppose that it was for him a meaningless ceremony? So too, how can
it be admitted that the scene in the garden, the example of the recluses,
the reading of St. Paul, the conversion of Victorinus, Augustine's
ecstasies in reading the Psalms with Monica were all invented after the
fact? Again, as it was in 388 that Augustine wrote his beautiful apology
"On the Holiness of the Catholic Church," how is it conceivable that he
was not yet a Christian at that date? To settle the argument, however, it
is only necessary to read the "Dialogues" themselves. They are certainly a
purely philosophical work — a work of youth, too, not without some
pretension, as Augustine ingenuously acknowledges (Confessions, IX, iv);
nevertheless, they contain the entire history of his Christian formation.
As early as 386, the first work written at Cassisiacum reveals to us the
great underlying motive of his researches. The object of his philosophy is
to give authority the support of reason, and "for him the great authority,
that which dominates all others and from which he never wished to deviate,
is the authority of Christ"; and if he loves the Platonists it is because
he counts on finding among them interpretations always in harmony with his
faith (Against the Academics, III, c. x). To be sure such confidence was
excessive, but it remains evident that in these "Dialogues" it is a
Christian, and not a Platonist, that speaks. He reveals to us the intimate
details of his conversion, the argument that convinced him (the life and
conquests of the Apostles), his progress in the Faith at the school of St.
Paul (ibid., II, ii), his delightful conferences with his friends on the
Divinity of Jesus Christ, the wonderful transformations worked in his soul
by faith, even to that victory of his over the intellectual pride which
his Platonic studies had aroused in him (On The Happy Life, I, ii), and at
last the gradual calming of his passions and the great resolution to
choose wisdom for his only spouse (Soliloquies, I, x).
It is now easy to appreciate at its true value the influence of
neo-Platonism upon the mind of the great African Doctor. It would be
impossible for anyone who has read the works of St. Augustine to deny the
existence of this influence. However, it would be a great exaggeration of
this influence to pretend that it at any time sacrificed the Gospel to
Plato. The same learned critic thus wisely concludes his study: "So long,
therefore, as his philosophy agrees with his religious doctrines, St.
Augustine is frankly neo-Platonist; as soon as a contradiction arises, he
never hesitates to subordinate his philosophy to religion, reason to
faith. He was, first of all, a Christian; the philosophical questions that
occupied his mind constantly found themselves more and more relegated to
the background" (op. cit., 155). But the method was a dangerous one; in
thus seeking harmony between the two doctrines he thought too easily to
find Christianity in Plato, or Platonism in the Gospel. More than once, in
his "Retractations" and elsewhere, he acknowledges that he has not always
shunned this danger. Thus he had imagined that in Platonism he discovered
the entire doctrine of the Word and the whole prologue of St. John. He
likewise disavowed a good number of neo-Platonic theories which had at
first misled him — the cosmological thesis of the universal soul, which
makes the world one immense animal — the Platonic doubts upon that grave
question: Is there a single soul for all or a distinct soul for each? But
on the other hand, he had always reproached the Platonists, as Schaff very
properly remarks (Saint Augustine, New York, 1886, p. 51), with being
ignorant of, or rejecting, the fundamental points of Christianity: "first,
the great mystery, the Word made flesh; and then love, resting on the
basis of humility." They also ignore grace, he says, giving sublime
precepts of morality without any help towards realizing them.
It was this Divine grace that Augustine sought in Christian baptism.
Towards the beginning of Lent, 387, he went to Milan and, with Adeodatus
and Alypius, took his place among the competentes, being baptized by
Ambrose on Easter Day, or at least during Eastertide. The tradition
maintaining that the Te Deum was sung on that occasion by the bishop and
the neophyte alternately is groundless. Nevertheless this legend is
certainly expressive of the joy of the Church upon receiving as her son
him who was to be her most illustrious doctor. It was at this time that
Augustine, Alypius, and Evodius resolved to retire into solitude in
Africa. Augustine undoubtedly remained at Milan until towards autumn,
continuing his works: "On the Immortality of the Soul" and "On Music." In
the autumn of 387, he was about to embark at Ostia, when Monica was
summoned from this life. In all literature there are no pages of more
exquisite sentiment than the story of her saintly death and Augustine's
grief (Confessions, IX). Augustine remained several months in Rome,
chiefly engaged in refuting Manichæism. He sailed for Africa after the
death of the tyrant Maximus (August 388) and after a short sojourn in
Carthage, returned to his native Tagaste. Immediately upon arriving there,
he wished to carry out his idea of a perfect life, and began by selling
all his goods and giving the proceeds to the poor. Then he and his friends
withdrew to his estate, which had already been alienated, there to lead a
common life in poverty, prayer, and the study of sacred letters. Book of
the "LXXXIII Questions" is the fruit of conferences held in this
retirement, in which he also wrote "De Genesi contra Manichæos," "De
Magistro," and, "De Vera Religione."
Augustine did not think of entering the priesthood, and, through fear of
the episcopacy, he even fled from cities in which an election was
necessary. One day, having been summoned to Hippo by a friend whose soul's
salvation was at stake, he was praying in a church when the people
suddenly gathered about him, cheered him, and begged Valerius, the bishop,
to raise him to the priesthood. In spite of his tears Augustine was
obliged to yield to their entreaties, and was ordained in 391. The new
priest looked upon his ordination as an additional reason for resuming
religious life at Tagaste, and so fully did Valerius approve that he put
some church property at Augustine's disposal, thus enabling him to
establish a monastery the second that he had founded. His priestly
ministry of five years was admirably fruitful; Valerius had bidden him
preach, in spite of the deplorable custom which in Africa reserved that
ministry to bishops. Augustine combated heresy, especially Manichæism, and
his success was prodigious. Fortunatus, one of their great doctors, whom
Augustine had challenged in public conference, was so humiliated by his
defeat that he fled from Hippo. Augustine also abolished the abuse of
holding banquets in the chapels of the martyrs. He took part, 8 October,
393, in the Plenary Council of Africa, presided over by Aurelius, Bishop
of Carthage, and, at the request of the bishops, was obliged to deliver a
discourse which, in its completed form, afterwards became the treatise "De
Fide et symbolo."
III. AS BISHOP OF HIPPO (396-430)
Enfeebled by old age, Valerius, Bishop of Hippo, obtained the
authorization of Aurelius, Primate of Africa, to associate Augustine with
himself as coadjutor. Augustine had to resign himself to consecration at
the hands of Megalius, Primate of Numidia. He was then forty two, and was
to occupy the See of Hippo for thirty-four years. The new bishop
understood well how to combine the exercise of his pastoral duties with
the austerities of the religious life, and although he left his convent,
his episcopal residence became a monastery where he lived a community life
with his clergy, who bound themselves to observe religious poverty. Was it
an order of regular clerics or of monks that he thus founded? This is a
question often asked, but we feel that Augustine gave but little thought
to such distinctions. Be that as it may, the episcopal house of Hippo
became a veritable nursery which supplied the founders of the monasteries
that were soon spread all over Africa and the bishops who occupied the
neighbouring sees. Possidius (Vita S. August., xxii) enumerates ten of the
saint's friends and disciples who were promoted to the episcopacy. Thus it
was that Augustine earned the title of patriarch of the religious, and
renovator of the clerical, life in Africa.
But he was above all the defender of truth and the shepherd of souls. His
doctrinal activities, the influence of which was destined to last as long
as the Church itself, were manifold: he preached frequently, sometimes for
five days consecutively, his sermons breathing a spirit of charity that
won all hearts; he wrote letters which scattered broadcast through the
then known world his solutions of the problems of that day; he impressed
his spirit upon divers African councils at which he assisted, for
instance, those of Carthage in 398, 401, 407, 419 and of Mileve in 416 and
418; and lastly struggled indefatigably against all errors. To relate
these struggles were endless; we shall, therefore, select only the chief
controversies and indicate in each the doctrinal attitude of the great
Bishop of Hippo.
A. The Manichæan Controversy and the Problem of Evil
After Augustine became bishop the zeal which, from the time of his
baptism, he had manifested in bringing his former co-religionists into the
true Church, took on a more paternal form without losing its pristine
ardour — "let those rage against us who know not at what a bitter cost
truth is attained. . . . As for me, I should show you the same forbearance
that my brethren had for me when I blind, was wandering in your doctrines"
(Contra Epistolam Fundamenti, iii). Among the most memorable events that
occurred during this controversy was the great victory won in 404 over
Felix, one of the "elect" of the Manichæans and the great doctor of the
sect. He was propagating his errors in Hippo, and Augustine invited him to
a public conference the issue of which would necessarily cause a great
stir; Felix declared himself vanquished, embraced the Faith, and, together
with Augustine, subscribed the acts of the conference. In his writings
Augustine successively refuted Mani (397), the famous Faustus (400),
Secundinus (405), and (about 415) the fatalistic Priscillianists whom
Paulus Orosius had denounced to him. These writings contain the saint's
clear, unquestionable views on the eternal problem of evil, views based on
an optimism proclaiming, like the Platonists, that every work of God is
good and that the only source of moral evil is the liberty of creatures
(De Civitate Dei, XIX, c. xiii, n. 2). Augustine takes up the defence of
free will, even in man as he is, with such ardour that his works against
the Manichæan are an inexhaustible storehouse of arguments in this still
living controversy.
In vain have the Jansenists maintained that Augustine was unconsciously a
Pelagian and that he afterwards acknowledged the loss of liberty through
the sin of Adam. Modern critics, doubtless unfamiliar with Augustine's
complicated system and his peculiar terminology, have gone much farther.
In the "Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses" (1899, p. 447), M.
Margival exhibits St. Augustine as the victim of metaphysical pessimism
unconsciously imbibed from Manichæan doctrines. "Never," says he, "will
the Oriental idea of the necessity and the eternity of evil have a more
zealous defender than this bishop." Nothing is more opposed to the facts.
Augustine acknowledges that he had not yet understood how the first good
inclination of the will is a gift of God (Retractions, I, xxiii, n, 3);
but it should be remembered that he never retracted his leading theories
on liberty, never modified his opinion upon what constitutes its essential
condition, that is to say, the full power of choosing or of deciding. Who
will dare to say that in revising his own writings on so important a point
he lacked either clearness of perception or sincerity?
B. The Donatist Controversy and the Theory of the Church
The Donatist schism was the last episode in the Montanist and Novatian
controversies which had agitated the Church from the second century. While
the East was discussing under varying aspects the Divine and
Christological problem of the Word, the West, doubtless because of its
more practical genius, took up the moral question of sin in all its forms.
The general problem was the holiness of the Church; could the sinner be
pardoned, and remain in her bosom? In Africa the question especially
concerned the holiness of the hierarchy. The bishops of Numidia, who, in
312, had refused to accept as valid the consecration of Cæcilian, Bishop
of Carthage, by a traditor, had inaugurated the schism and at the same
time proposed these grave questions: Do the hierarchical powers depend
upon the moral worthiness of the priest? How can the holiness of the
Church be compatible with the unworthiness of its ministers?
At the time of Augustine's arrival in Hippo, the schism had attained
immense proportions, having become identified with political tendencies —
perhaps with a national movement against Roman domination. In any event,
it is easy to discover in it an undercurrent of anti-social revenge which
the emperors had to combat by strict laws. The strange sect known as
"Soldiers of Christ," and called by Catholics Circumcelliones (brigands,
vagrants), resembled the revolutionary sects of the Middle Ages in point
of fanatic destructiveness — a fact that must not be lost sight of, if the
severe legislation of the emperors is to be properly appreciated.
The history of Augustine's struggles with the Donatists is also that of
his change of opinion on the employment of rigorous measures against the
heretics; and the Church in Africa, of whose councils he had been the very
soul, followed him in the change. This change of views is solemnly
attested by the Bishop of Hippo himself, especially in his Letters, xciii
(in the year 408). In the beginning, it was by conferences and a friendly
controversy that he sought to re-establish unity. He inspired various
conciliatory measures of the African councils, and sent ambassadors to the
Donatists to invite them to re-enter the Church, or at least to urge them
to send deputies to a conference (403). The Donatists met these advances
at first with silence, then with insults, and lastly with such violence
that Possidius Bishop of Calamet, Augustine's friend, escaped death only
by flight, the Bishop of Bagaïa was left covered with horrible wounds, and
the life of the Bishop of Hippo himself was several times attempted
(Letter lxxxviii, to Januarius, the Donatist bishop). This madness of the
Circumcelliones required harsh repression, and Augustine, witnessing the
many conversions that resulted therefrom, thenceforth approved rigid laws.
However, this important restriction must be pointed out: that St.
Augustine never wished heresy to be punishable by death — Vos rogamus ne
occidatis (Letter c, to the Proconsul Donatus). But the bishops still
favoured a conference with the schismatics, and in 410 an edict issued by
Honorius put an end to the refusal of the Donatists. A solemn conference
took place at Carthage, in June, 411, in presence of 286 Catholic, and 279
Donatist bishops. The Donatist spokesmen were Petilian of Constantine,
Primian of Carthage, and Emeritus of Cæsarea; the Catholic orators,
Aurelius and Augustine. On the historic question then at issue, the Bishop
of Hippo proved the innocence of Cæcilian and his consecrator Felix, and
in the dogmatic debate he established the Catholic thesis that the Church,
as long as it is upon earth, can, without losing its holiness, tolerate
sinners within its pale for the sake of converting them. In the name of
the emperor the Proconsul Marcellinus sanctioned the victory of the
Catholics on all points. Little by little Donatism died out, to disappear
with the coming of the Vandals.
So amply and magnificently did Augustine develop his theory on the Church
that, according to Specht "he deserves to be named the Doctor of the
Church as well as the "Doctor of Grace"; and Möhler (Dogmatik, 351) is not
afraid to write: "For depth of feeling and power of conception nothing
written on the Church since St. Paul's time, is comparable to the works of
St. Augustine." He has corrected, perfected, and even excelled the
beautiful pages of St. Cyprian on the Divine institution of the Church,
its authority, its essential marks, and its mission in the economy of
grace and the administration of the sacraments. The Protestant critics,
Dorner, Bindemann, Böhringer and especially Reuter, loudly proclaim, and
sometimes even exaggerate, this rôle of the Doctor of Hippo; and while
Harnack does not quite agree with them in every respect he does not
hesitate to say (History of Dogma, II, c. iii): "It is one of the points
upon which Augustine specially affirms and strengthens the Catholic
idea.... He was the first [!] to transform the authority of the Church
into a religious power, and to confer upon practical religion the gift of
a doctrine of the Church." He was not the first, for Dorner acknowledges (Augustinus,
88) that Optatus of Mileve had expressed the basis of the same doctrines.
Augustine, however, deepened, systematized, and completed the views of St.
Cyprian and Optatus. But it is impossible here to go into detail. (See
Specht, Die Lehre von der Kirche nach dem hl. Augustinus, Paderborn,
l892.)
C. The Pelagian Controversy and the Doctor of Grace
The close of the struggle against the Donatists almost coincided with the
beginnings of a very grave theological dispute which not only was to
demand Augustine's unremitting attention up to the time of his death, but
was to become an eternal problem for individuals and for the Church.
Farther on we shall enlarge upon Augustine's system; here we need only
indicate the phases of the controversy. Africa, where Pelagius and his
disciple Celestius had sought refuge after the taking of Rome by Alaric,
was the principal centre of the first Pelagian disturbances; as early as
412 a council held at Carthage condemned Pelagians for their attacks upon
the doctrine of original sin. Among other books directed against them by
Augustine was his famous "De naturâ et gratiâ." Thanks to his activity the
condemnation of these innovators, who had succeeded in deceiving a synod
convened at Diospolis in Palestine, was reiterated by councils held later
at Carthage and Mileve and confirmed by Pope Innocent I (417). A second
period of Pelagian intrigues developed at Rome, but Pope Zosimus, whom the
stratagems of Celestius had for a moment deluded, being enlightened by
Augustine, pronounced the solemn condemnation of these heretics in 418.
Thenceforth the combat was conducted in writing against Julian of Eclanum,
who assumed the leadership of the party and violently attacked Augustine.
Towards 426 there entered the lists a school which afterwards acquired the
name of Semipelagian, the first members being monks of Hadrumetum in
Africa, who were followed by others from Marseilles, led by Cassian, the
celebrated abbot of Saint-Victor. Unable to admit the absolute
gratuitousness of predestination, they sought a middle course between
Augustine and Pelagius, and maintained that grace must be given to those
who merit it and denied to others; hence goodwill has the precedence, it
desires, it asks, and God rewards. Informed of their views by Prosper of
Aquitaine, the holy Doctor once more expounded, in "De Prædestinatione
Sanctorum," how even these first desires for salvation are due to the
grace of God, which therefore absolutely controls our predestination.
D. Struggles against Arianism and Closing Years
In 426 the holy Bishop of Hippo, at the age of seventy-two, wishing to
spare his episcopal city the turmoil of an election after his death,
caused both clergy and people to acclaim the choice of the deacon
Heraclius as his auxiliary and successor, and transferred to him the
administration of externals. Augustine might then have enjoyed some rest
had Africa not been agitated by the undeserved disgrace and the revolt of
Count Boniface (427). The Goths, sent by the Empress Placidia to oppose
Boniface, and the Vandals, whom the latter summoned to his assistance,
were all Arians. Maximinus, an Arian bishop, entered Hippo with the
imperial troops. The holy Doctor defended the Faith at a public conference
(428) and in various writings. Being deeply grieved at the devastation of
Africa, he laboured to effect a reconciliation between Count Boniface and
the empress. Peace was indeed re stablished, but not with Genseric, the
Vandal king. Boniface, vanquished, sought refuge in Hippo, whither many
bishops had already fled for protection and this well fortified city was
to suffer the horrors of an eighteen months' siege. Endeavouring to
control his anguish, Augustine continued to refute Julian of Eclanum; but
early in the siege he was stricken with what he realized to be a fatal
illness, and, after three months of admirable patience and fervent prayer,
departed from this land of exile on 28 August, 430, in the seventy-sixth
year of his age.