His whole career, after his profession of the Chris- tian faith, was consistent with his high calling; the only faults with which he can be charged are an oc- casional undue severity in controversy and the share which he bore in the persecution of the Donatists (q. v.). His intellect was acute, vigorous, and com- prehensive; his style rapid and forcible, but not re- markable for purity or elegance. " Of all the fathers of the Latin Church" (says M. Villemain, in his Tab- leau de V Eloquence de la chaire au quatrieme siecle, 1849, 8vo), "St. Augustine brought the highest degree of imagination in theology, and the most eloquence and even sensibility in scholasticism. Give him another century, place him in the highest civilization, and a man never will have appeared endowed with a vaster or more flexible genius. Metaphysics, history, an- tiquities, science, and manners, Augustine had em- braced them all. He writes on music as well as on the freedom of the will ; he explains the intellectual phenomenon of the memory as well as reasons on the fall of the Roman Empire. His subtile and vigorous mind has often consumed in mystical problems an amount of sagacity which would suffice for the most sublime conceptions. His eloquence, tinged with af- fectation and barbarisms, is often fresh and simple. His austere morality displeased the corrupt casuists whom Pascal had so severely handled. His works are not only the perennial source of that scientific theology which has agitated Europe for so many ages, but also the most vivid image of Christian society at the end of the fourth century."
"If we contemplate Augustine as a scholar, our judgment of him will vary according to the different demands we make of a theologian. If we compare the famous bishop with learned theologians of the present time, he can scarcely deserve the name of such a one ; for we shall not readily reckon among learned theo- logians any one who knows nothing at all of Hebrew and but little of Greek. But if we estimate Augustine according to his own period, as it is proper we should, he was by all means a learned man, and was surpassed by but few, and among the Latin fathers perhaps onty by Jerome, though by him in a high degree. Thus much, however, is certain, Augustine had more genius than learning, more wit and penetration than funda- mental science. Augustine's was a philosophical and especially a logical mind. His works sufficiently prove his talent for system-making and a logical develop-
ment of ideas. We also find in them much philosoph- ical speculation peculiar to himself. But the value of those speculations is not to be highly rated, since be was far from being so much of a metaphysician in gen- eral as he was of a logician. Nor was he wanting in a knowledge of philosophical systems and the specula- tions of others. His weakest point as a scholar was in a knowledge of languages. In this he was sur- passed even by Pelagius, who was only a layman; for although, as before remarked, he was not entirely ignorant of Greek, his knowledge of it was very lim- ited, and we meet with a multitude of oversights on this account. Hence he generally used only the Latin translation of the Bible, which is so often faulty ; and even in the New Testament he recurs but seldom to the original text. His ignorance and incapacity in expounding the Scriptures, at least of the Old Testa- ment, he himself acknowledges (Retract, i, 18). Hence he very often founds his arguments from the sacred books on erroneous interpretations. He also employed philosophical reasons to support his positive doctrines, and strove to unite the rational with the revealed be- lief, as Christian theologians had before attempted to do from the time of Justin. His supernatural system he defended not only with exegetical, but also with philosophical weapons. His knowledge of the opinions of the earlier fathers often failed him. In a letter to Jerome (Ep. 67 ; Opp. Hieron. Vail. ed.~), he frankly confesses that he knows not the errors charged upon Origen, and begs Jerome to point them out to him; His taste was not sufficiently formed by the study of the classics. Hence his style (though we find some good remarks of his on grammar, and his ability for eloquence is sufficiently manifest in particular pas- sages) was on the whole defective in purity and ele- gance, as could not but be expected in an age when the study of Cicero had begun to be regarded as a sin. He also believed that rhetorical euphony was rather hurtful than beneficial to t! c presentation of Christian truths, as they thus lose their dignity. In other re- spects he did not despise the liberal arts, but believed they could be profitably used only when those who practice them are inspired by the Christian spirit (Ep. 101, ad Memoriian." — Wigiicrs, Avgudi.nism and Pela- gianism, chap, i.) His knowledge of Greek was mod- erate, and his biblical criticisms are therefore of com- paratively little value (see Clausen, Augustinus S. Scr. interpres, Hafn. 1828); but as a theologian he made a deep impression upon his own age, and, indeed, upon the whole theology of the church down to the present time. "His influence may be compared with that of Origen in the East, but it was more general and en- during in the West. He was one of those great men, of world-wide celebrity, whose agency is not limited to their own times, but is felt afresh at various epochs in the lapse of centuries. His position in reference to theology was similar to that of Plato and Aristotle in the department of philosophy. On the one hand, the development of the Catholic dogma which appears in the writings of the schoolmen proceeded from him, and, on the other hand, a reaction of the pure Chris- tian consciousness against the foreign elements of the Catholic dogma. Those tendencies within the pale of the Catholic Church from which a new Christian life emanated connect themselves with him. Even the more complete reaction at the Reformation, and the various revivals which the evangelical church has ex- perienced, may be traceable to the same source. He resembled Origen in his turn for speculation, but sur- passed him in originality, depth, and acuteness. Both passed through Platonism in the process of their cul- ture ; he did not, however, like Origen, mingle the Christian and Platonic elements, but developed the principles of Christianity independently of Platonism, and even in opposition to it. But Origen excelled him in greater mental freedom and erudite historical culture, while Augustine's mind was fettered by a def-