RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Augustine
thoughts on unitas, caritas, and inspiratio gratia in the Church, thoughts which again trace their origin back to his Neoplatonic foundations. In
the course of the conflict he changed
5. Develop- his opinion about the methods to be
ment of employed; he had at first been opposed
His Views, to the employment of force, but later
came to the " Compel them to come in " point of view. It may well be doubted, however, if the practical struggle with the schismatics had as much to do with Augustine's development as has been supposed. Far more weight must be attached to the fact that Augustine had become a presbyter and a bishop of the catholic Church, and as such worked continually deeper into the ecclesiastical habit of thought. This was not hard for the son of Monnica and the reverent admirer of Ambrose. His position as a bishop may fairly be said to be the only determining factor in his later views besides his Neoplatonist foundation, his earnest study of the Scripture, and the predestinarian conception of grace which he got from this. Everything else is merely secondary. Thus we find Augustine practically complete by the beginning of his episcopate — about the time when he wrote the Confessiones. It would be too much to say that his development stood still after that; the Biblical and ecclesiastical coloring of his thoughts becomes more and more visible and even vivid; but such development as this is no more significant than the effect of the years seen upon a strong face; in fact, it is even less observable here — for while the characteristic features of his spiritual mind stand out more sharply as time goes on with Augustine, his mental force shows scarcely a sign of age at seventy. His health was uncertain after 386, and his body aged before the time; on Sept. 26, 426, he solemnly designated Eraclius (or Heraclius) as his successor, though without consecrating him bishop, and transferred to him such a portion of his duties as was possible. But his intellectual vigor remained unabated to the end. We see him, as Prosper depicts him in his chronicle, " answering the books of Julian in the very end of his days, while the on-rushing Vandals were at the gates, and gloriously persevering in the defense of Christian grace." In the third month of the siege of Hippo by the barbarian invaders, he fell ill of a fever, and, after lingering more than ten days, died Aug. 28, 430. He was able to read on his sick-bed; he had the Penitential Psalms placed upon the wall of his room where he could see them. Meditating upon them, he fulfilled what he had often said before, that even Christians revered for the sanctity of their lives, even presbyters, ought not to leaye the world without fitting thoughts of penitence.
He left no property behind him but the books which he had procured for the library of the church, among which, according to Possidius, corrected copies of his own works were some of the most valuable. They constitute, in fact, Augustine's legacy to the Church at large. Certain parts of it which have not been enumerated above may be mentioned here. He himself divided his writings mto three classes: the 232 treatises (libri) discussed
in the Retractationes ; the letters; and the "popular
tractates, which the Greeks call homilies " (he calls
them sermones ad populum in another
6. Addi- place). He had intended to review tional the two latter classes as he did with
Writings, the libri in the Retractationes, but death prevented him. In so far, therefore, as the index of Possidius fails us — and this is often the case, owing to the uncertainty of titles and the great number of letters and sermons — a critical study of these classes of writings is much more difficult to make than of the libri. The edition published by the Benedictines of St. Maur (Paris, 1679-1700) in eleven folio volumes affords a useful working basis^ it includes 217 letters, though the classification is not' always justified, and a few more have come to light since. The sermons comprise a much larger number. Augustine must be considered, although his preaching did not please himself, as the greatest Western preacher of the early Church. He did not memorize his sermons, but after saturating himself with his subject, spoke from the inspiration of the moment; some of them he himself dictated for preservation after preaching them, while others were taken down by his hearers. Among those for which he is responsible are the series on the Gospel of John, dogmatically among his most interesting works (about 416), and the comments on the Psalms, partly preached (between 410 and 420).
Of works not yet mentioned, those written after 395 and named in the Retractationes, may be classified under three heads — exegetical
7. Miscel- works; minor dogmatic, polemical, laneous and practical treatises; and a separate Works. class containing four more extensive
works of special importance. The earliest of the minor treatises is De catechizandis rudibus (about 400), interesting for its connection with the history of catechetical instruction and for many other reasons. A brief enumeration of the others will suffice ; they are : De opera monachorum (about 400); De bono conjugali and De sancta virginitate (about 401), both directed against Jovinian's depreciation of virginity; De divinatione damonum (between 406 and 411); De fide et operibus (413), a completion of the argument in the De spiritu et litera, useful for a study of the difference between the Augustinian and the Lutheran doctrines of grace; De cura pro mortuis, interesting as showing his attitude toward superstition within the Church; and a few others of less interest. We come now to the four works which have deserved placing in a special category. One is the De doctrina Christiana (begun about 397, finished 426), important as giving his theory of scriptural interpretation and homiletics; another is the Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate (about 421), noteworthy as an attempt at a systematic collocation of his thoughts. There remain the two doctrinal masterpieces, the De trinitate (probably begun about 400 and finished about 416) and the De civitate Dei (begun about 413, finished about 426). The last-named, beginning with an apologetic purpose, takes on later the form of a history of the City of God from its beginnings,
Aug-ustine Aurifaber