1020 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
with a firm c})iscoi)al organization, an unbroken successioiij and the Apostles' Creed, triuniphaiitly withstood the eighty or the himdred opposing sects in the heretical catalogue of the day, and had its visible centre in Rome. In this church he had found rescue from the shipwreck of his life, the home of true Christianity, firm ground for ids thinking, satisfaction for his heart, and a commensurate field for the wide range of his powers. The predicate of infallibility alone he does not plainly bring forward ; he assumes a progressive correction of earlier councils by later ; and in the Pelagian controversy he asserts the same independence towards pope Zosinms, which Cyprian before hira had shown towards pope Stephen in the controversy on heretical baptism, with the advantage of having the right on his side, so that Zosimus found himself compelled to yield to the African church.'
lie was the fii'st to give a clear and fixed definitioji of the sacrament, as a visible sign of invisible grace, resting on divine appointment ; but he knows nothing of the number seven ; this was a much later enactment. In the doctrine of baptism he is entirely Catholic,^ though in logical contradiction with his dogma of predestination ; but in the doctrine of the holy communion he stands, like his predecessors, Tertullian and Cyprian, nearer to the Calvinistic theory of a spiritual presence and fruition of Christ's body and blood. He also contributed to promote, at least in his later writings, the Catholic faith of miracles,
' On Augustine's doctrine of the church, see § 71, above, and especially the thorough account by R. Rotre : Anfiinge der christl. Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, vol. i. (183Y), pp. 679-711. "Augustine," says he, "decidedly adopted Cyprian's conception [of the church] in all essential points. And once adopting it, he penetrated it in its whole depth with his wonderfully powerful and exuberant soul, and, by means of his own clear, logical luind, gave it the perfect and rigorous system which perhaps it still lacked" (p. 679 f.). "Augustine's conception of tlie doctrine of the church was about standard for succeeding times" (p. 685).
^ Respecting Augustinf's doctrine of baptism, see the thorough di.^cussion in W. Wall's History of Infant Baptism, vol. i. p. 173 ft'. (Oxford ed. of 1862). His view of the slight condemnation of all unbaptized children contains the germ of tho scholastic fancy of the limhus irtfantmn and the pcena damni, as distinct from the lower regions of hell and the poena sensus.
' In his former writings he espre.'ssed a truly philosojihical view concerning miracles (De vera relig. c. 25, §47; c. 50, §98; De utilit. credendi, c. 16, §84- De peccat. mentis et remiss. 1. ii. c. 32, §52, and De civit. Dei, xxii. c. 8); 'out it
§ 180. Augustine's relation to Catholicism, etc. 1021
and the worship of Mary ; ' though he exempts the Virgin only from actual sin, not from original, and, with all his reverence for her, never calls her mother of God. '
At lirst an advocate of religious liberty and of pm-ely spiritual methods of opposing error, he afterwards asserted the fatal principle of the coge intrare^ and lent the great weight of his authority to the system of civil persecution, at the bloody fruits of which in the middle age he himself would have shuddered ; for he was always at heart a man of love and gentleness, and personally acted on tlie glorious principle : •'Nothing conquers but truth, and the victory of truth is love." '
Thus even truly great and good men have unintentionally, through mistaken zeal, become the authors of much mischief.
3. But, on the other hand, Augustine is, of all the fathers, nearest to evangelical Protestantism^ and may be called, in respect of his doctrine of sin and grace, the first forerunner of the Keformation. The Lutheran and Reformed churches have ever conceded to him, without scruple, the cognonjen of Saint,
his Retract. 1. i. c. 14, § 5, he corrects or modifies a former remark in his book De utilit. credendi, stating that he did not mean to deny the continuance of miracles altogether, but only such great miracles as occurred at the time of Christ ("quia non tanta nee omnia, non quia nulla fiunt"). See above, §§8*7 and 88, and the instructive monograph of the younger Nitzsch (Lie. and Piivatdocent in BerUn) ; Augustinus' Lehre vom Wunder, Berlin, 1865 (97 pp.).
* See above, §§ 81 and 82.
^ Comp. Tract, in Evang. Joannis, viii. c. 9, where he says : " Cur ergo ait matri filius : Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier? nondutn venit hora mea (John ii. 4). Dominua noster Jesus Christus et Deus erat et homo : secundum quod Deus erat, matrem non habebat ; secundum quod homo erat, habebat. Mater ergo [Maria] erat carnis, mater humanitatis, mater infirmitatis quam suscepit propter nos." This strict separation of the Godhead from the manhood of Jesus in his birth from the Virgin would have exposed Augustine in the East to the suspicion of Nestorianism. But he died a year before the council of Ephesus, at which Nestorius was condemned.
' See above, § 27, p. 144 f. He changed his view partly from his experienca that the Donatists, in his own diocese, were converted to the catholic unity " timore legum imperialium," and were afterwards perfectly good Catholics. He adduces also a misinterpretation of Luke xiv. 23, and Prov. ix. 9 : "Da sapienti occasionem et sapientior erit." Ep. 93, ad Vincentium Rogatistam, § 17 (torn. ii. p. 237 sq. ed. Bened.V But he expressly discouraged the infliction of death on heretics, and adjured the proconsul Donatus, Ep. 100, by Jesus Christ, not to repay the DonatisU ai kind. " Corrigi eos cupimus, non necari."