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Augustinus, Aurelius

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

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Augustinus, Aurelius.

A. EARLY LIFE.—§§ 1, 2, Name, Materials for biography; § 3. Early life; § 4. Manicheism; § 5. Philosophical period; § 6. Conversion; § 7. Early Christian life: (a ) as layman, (b ) as presbyter.

B. EPISCOPATE.—§ 8. Donatism: (a ) Origin, (b ) Early history, (c ) Augustine and the schism; § 9. Paganism and the de Civitate Dei; § 10. Pelagianism: (a ) Origin, (b ) Zosimus and Julian, (c ) The semi-Pelagians, (d ) Doctrinal issues; § 11. Augustine and Greek Christendom; § 12. Augustine and the hierarchy: (a ) Church authority and episcopate, (b ) Equality of episcopate, (c ) Rome and the episcopate: Case of Apiarius, (d ) Rome and doctrinal authority, (e ) Ultimate authority; § 13. Death and character.

C. INFLUENCE.—§ 14. Writings; § 15. Asceticism and the "Rule": The Church and property; § 16. Intellectual influence: (a ) Philosophic Theism, (b ) Ecclesiasticism, (c ) Predestinarianism; § 17. Bibliography.

A. EARLY LIFE.—§ 1. Name. —Orosius, Hist. adv. Pagan. I. 4; Prosper, Car. de Ingrat. i. 3, and Chron. ad ann. 430; Claudian Mamert. de Stat. An. ii. 10; Bede, Vit. St. Cuthb. , give the name as above. The name Aurelius is not given by Possidius, nor is it ever used by Augustine himself nor by any of his correspondents. But the Benedictine editors find it in the earliest MS. titles of his works, and it is probably authentic.

§ 2. Materials for Biography. —These are exceptionally ample. For his first thirty-three years we have, in the Confessions , the most perfect of religious autobiographies (see below, § 8, ad init. ). The word "Confessions" includes not only the idea of self-accusation, but also that of thanksgiving (see IX. vi. confiteor tibi dona tua, and the use of confiteor in the Vulgate Psalter). For his career as a Christian and a bishop, we possess an admirably simple and graphic life by his pupil and friend Possidius, bp. of Calamis. The writings and correspondence of Augustine himself copiously supplement the narrative. The Benedictine editors have worked up the whole of the material into a very accurate biography in eight books. It fills 513 columns of the Patr. Lat. , and leaves little to be added by others. (See below, § 17.)

§ 3. Birth and Early Years (354–373).—Augustine was born at Thagaste in Numidia Proconsularis, on Nov. 13, 354 (for evidence as to this date, see Bened. Life in Patr. Lat. I. 118). His father Patricius, a jovial, sensual, passionate man, and till near the end of his life a heathen, was one of the curiales of the town, but without large means. His mother Monnica was a Christian by parentage, conviction, and character. Augustine acknowledged ( de Vit. Beat. i. 6) that he owed his all to her; conversely we can trace to her anxious care for her son's spiritual well-being a distinct deepening of her own character (see Conf. II. iii. sub fin.; IX. viii. ix.). >From his mother he received the elements of Christian teaching, and, as he tells us, a devotion to the very name of Jesus Christ which his later spiritual wanderings never wholly extinguished, and which forbade him to find satisfaction in any writings which lacked it (Conf. III. iv. 3). As a child he had a severe illness, and demanded baptism. His mother had agreed to allow it; but when he recovered, in accordance with the then prevailing dread of post-baptismal sin, she put off his baptism to riper years. Augustine was one of several children (we read of his brother Navigius, Conf. IX. xi., de Beat. Vit. i. 6; a sister, Ep. 211 ⁴; nieces, Possid. xxvi.; nephew Patricius and nieces, Serm. 356 ³ , see Bened. Life , I. i. 4). He early shewed signs of pre-eminent ability, and his parents, both of whom entertained the ordinary parental ambitions, found means to send him to school at the neighbouring town of Madaura. Here, though he found the study of Greek distasteful, he made good progress; in fact it became clear that he was ripe for the higher schools of Carthage, and he was withdrawn from Madaura. The difficulty of providing the means for his studies at the more expensive and distant capital kept him at home for a year (369–370). He laments bitterly the company he kept and the habits into which he fell at this period. The boyish freak of robbing a pear-tree with his companions weighed heavily on his mind in later years (Conf. II. iv. ix.). He tells us, however, with shame, that in order not to be outdone by his companions he boasted of licentious acts which he had not committed. This may modify our natural inferences from the self-accusing language of the Confessions.

At last, aided by their wealthy and benevolent neighbour Romanianus, his parents were able to send him to Carthage. Here, at the age of sixteen, Augustine began his "university" life; as a student of Rhetoric. Again he speaks with an agony of remorse of his life as a student. It is certain that he contracted an irregular union, and in 372 he became the father of a son, Adeodatus. But he remained faithful to his mistress until the very eve of his conversion, and watched over his son's education and character. Eventually father and son were baptized together (see below, § 6; also cf. Conf. VI. xv. 25). We must infer that his life was on the whole above the average level of student life in Carthage. He tells us that the "best set" among them were given to brutal horse-play, directed especially against shy freshmen; but although he associated with these "eversores," he took no part in their wild doings.

In 371 his father had died, but, aided once more by the kindness of Romanianus, Monnica was able still to keep her son at Carthage. Ambition for social success, and for a future career at the bar, rather than any deeper motive, led him to pursue his studies with ardour. But in his nineteenth year, while reading Cicero's Hortensius, he became deeply impressed with the supreme value of Wisdom, as contrasted with the vain hopes and fleeting opinions of the world. From this time onward he is a restless seeker after Truth (Conf. III. iv.). His first impulse was toward the Scriptures, but their simplicity repelled him; "they seemed to me to be far inferior to the dignity of Tully."

§ 4. Manicheism (373–383).—A baffled inquirer, he was attracted by the Manichean system, which appears to have been actively pushed in Africa at this period. This is not the place for a description of Manicheism. From Augustine's many allusions to its tenets, it appears to have been a strange medley of dualism and materialism, asceticism and licence, theosophy and rationalism, free-thought and superstition. What specially attracted Augustine appears to have been the high moral pretensions of the sect, their criticism of Scripture difficulties, and their explanation of the origin of evil by the assumption of an independent evil principle. For nine years (373–382, Conf. IV. i., de Util. Cred. 2) Augustine was an ardent Manichean. He brought over his friends Alypius and Honoratus, and his patron Romanianus, to the same convictions, and delighted in controversy with Catholics. He remained an "auditor" only. The "electi" were bound to strict continence, and Augustine was increasingly conscious of the chasm between his ideal and his practice. "Make me chaste, but not yet," was his prayer during this period of his life ( Conf. VIII. vii.). Augustine completed his studies, and returned to Thagaste as a teacher of grammar. His mother, overwhelmed with horror at his new opinions, refused to receive him at home. At first, therefore, he lived with Romanianus. Monnica's prayers were answered by a consoling dream ( Conf. III. xi.) and a friend, a bishop, himself a convert from Manicheism, whom she entreated to argue with her son, while wisely refusing her request, dismissed her with the words, "It cannot be that the son of those tears of yours should be lost." She accepted the words as a voice from Heaven, and received Augustine into her household. The death of a dear friend—Augustine was a man of warm friendships ( Conf. IV. ix.)—moved him to leave Thagaste, and return, as a teacher of Rhetoric, to Carthage. Here he studied zealously, devoting attention to the "liberal arts," astronomy, and other subjects, and lived a life of cultivated society and successful literary effort. He tells us of a prize poem which won a crown in the theatre from the proconsul Vindicianus, a wise old physician who convinced him (but see Conf. VII. vi.) of the futility of astrology ( Conf. IV. iii.; this apparently occurred at Carthage). About this time he wrote a work in two or three books, de Pulcro et Apto, which he inscribed to Hierius, a professor of Rhetoric at Rome, whom he had come to admire by reputation. These books he did not preserve; they appear to have been his first. Meanwhile, he began to be less satisfied with the Manichean view of existence; these misgivings were intensified by disillusion in regard to the morals of the electi ( de Moribus Man. 68 sqq.). But his Manichean friends urged him to await the arrival at Carthage of Faustus, a "bishop" of the sect, who enjoyed a reputation for brilliant ability and learning, and who could be trusted to resolve all his doubts. But when the great Faustus appeared, Augustine soon discovered him to be a very ordinary person, "of charming manner and pleasant address, who said just what the others used to say, but in a much more agreeable style" ( Conf. V. iii. 6). When, after his addresses to the crowd, Augustine laid before him some of his doubts, his mediocrity was transparent. "He knew that he did not know, and was not ashamed to confess the fact . . . and for this I liked him all the better." But he liked the system all the less; and without formally separating from the Manicheans, he adopted an "academic" suspense of judgment in regard to the opinions he had hitherto adopted; henceforth he held them provisionally, pending the discovery of something better ( de Vit. Beat. i. 4).

§ 5. Rome. Philosophy (383–386)—Mainly in disgust at the rough and disorderly students of Carthage ( Conf. V. viii.), Augustine now migrated to Rome. With bitter self-reproach he tells us of the deceit by means of which he left his mother, who had followed him to Carthage, behind ( Conf. V. viii.). At Rome, his host was a Manichean, Alypius and other Manichean friends surrounded him, and in a severe illness he received the greatest kindness from them all. But the students of Rome disappointed Augustine. They were less rude, but also less honest, than those of Carthage, especially in the matter of payment of their fees ( Conf. V. xi.). Presently (about the summer of 384) Symmachus, the Praefectus Urbi, was commissioned by the Milanese to find them a professor of Rhetoric. Augustine, by the aid of his Manichean friends, obtained the post, and travelled, at the public expense, to Milan. Here he was attracted by the eloquence of Ambrose, then at the height of his fame, and soon made his acquaintance. "I began to love him, not at first as a teacher of the truth, which I despaired of finding in Thy Church, but as a fellow-creature who was kind to me." Contemptuous of the subject-matter of his sermons, Augustine listened to them as an interested professional critic. "I cared not to understand what he said, but only to hear how he said it."But it was impossible to keep form and substance wholly apart, and by degrees he began to realize that the case for Catholic Christianity was not wholly beneath discussion. This was especially the case with regard to the O.T., a principal target for Manichean ridicule. The allegorical method of exegesis by which Ambrose explained every difficulty struck away the substratum of literalism upon which Manichean objections were based. "For while I read those Scriptures in the letter, I was slain in the spirit." But though one main foundation of his Manicheism was thus giving way, the materialistic presuppositions remained. "Had I been able to conceive of a spiritual substance, all their devices would have been broken, but this as yet I found impossible." He remained in a state of suspense; his philosophic position was that of the "New Academy," one of pure negation. However, pending further light, he resumed the position he had occupied in boyhood of a catechumen in the Catholic church (Conf. V. xiv.). Alypius, who was in legal practice, had accompanied him to Milan, and presently their friend Nebridius joined them. Monnica, probably accompanied by his brother Navigius, soon followed her son to Milan ( Conf. VI. ix.). The friends appear ( Conf. VIII. viii.) to have hired a roomy house and garden. Augustine's worldly prospects seemed excellent, a career of official distinction was opening before him ( Conf. VI, xii.); his mother, hoping that it would lead to his baptism, encouraged him in the selection of a wife. But two years had to pass before the lady was of age ( Conf. VI. xiii.). Meanwhile his mistress was dismissed ( ib. xv.), to his and her great grief, and Augustine took another.

Augustine was now thirty years of age. He had almost wholly shaken off Manicheism, and was, as his mother saw, steadily gravitating towards the Catholic church. His successful and interesting work, honourable position, and delightful social surroundings made his lot outwardly enviable. But he pronounces, and apparently with some truth, that at this period he touched his lowest moral level (Conf. VI. xvii., VII. i., VIII. v.). At any rate the contrast between his actual life and his habitual idealism was never more painfully realized. His ideal was the philosophic life, and but for his matrimonial plans and his still active ambition, he would probably have joined his friends in founding a small philosophic community with a common purse and household ( Conf. VI. xiv.; c. Academ. II. ii. 4, de Beat. Vit. i. 4, ne in philosophiae gremium celeriter advolarem, uxoris honorisque illecebra detinebar). But his enthusiasm burned low ( c. Acad. II. ii. 5), until it was kindled afresh by his study of the Platonic philosophy. A friend (apparently Theodorus, who became consul in 399—see Retr. I. ii. Displicet autem, etc., and Conf. VII. ix. immanissimo typho turgidum ) put into his hands (Conf. VII. ix., de Beat. Vit. i. 4) some translations of the neo-Platonist authors, probably by Victorinus. The effect was rapid and profound. Much Christian truth he found there, but not inward peace: the eternal Word, but not Christ the Word made flesh. But his flagging idealism was braced, he was once for all lifted out of materialism, and his tormenting doubts as to the origin of evil were laid to rest by the conviction that evil has its origin in the will, that evil is but the negation of good, and that good alone has a substantive existence ( Conf. VII. vii. xiv.). His first impulse was to give up all earthly ties ("omnes illas ancoras," Vit. Beat. 4), resign his professorship, and live for philosophy alone. But this he delayed to do, until, after his conversion, a serious lung-attack gave him what was now a welcome excuse ( Conf. IX. ii., cf. Solil. I. i. 1; c. Acad. I. i. 3; de Beat. Vit. i. 4 ). Meanwhile he read with care the Epistles of St. Paul, in which he found a provision for the disease of sin, which he had vainly sought in the Platonic books. But his life remained unregenerate, and his distress thickened. He then laid his case before Simplicianus, the spiritual adviser, and eventually the successor, of Ambrose. Simplicianus described to him the conversion of the aged Victorinus, to whose translation of the Platonists he had owed so much ( Conf. VIII. ii.). Augustine longed to follow the example of his public profession of faith, but the flesh still held him back, like a man heavy with drowsiness who sinks back to sleep though he knows that the hour for rising has struck. So he went on with his usual life.

§ 6. Conversion (386–387).—One day a Christian fellow-townsman Pontitianus who held an appointment at court called to visit Alypius. Observing with pleasure a volume of St. Paul's Epistles he went on to talk to his friends of the wonderful history of the hermit Anthony whose ascetic life had begun from hearing in church a passage of the gospel (Mat_19:21) on which he had promptly acted; he then described the spread of the monastic movement and informed his astonished hearers that even at Milan there was a monastery in existence. As Pontitianus told his tale Augustine was filled with self-reproach. Conscience shamed him that after ten years of study he was still carrying a burden which men wearied by no research had already cast aside. When Pontitianus had gone he poured out his incoherent feelings to the astonished Alypius and then followed by his friend fled into the garden. "Let it be now—let it be now," he said to himself; but the vanities of his life plucked at his clothes and whispered "Do you think you can live without us?" Then again the continence of the monks and virgins confronted him with the question "Can you not do as these have done?" Alypius watched him in silence. At last he broke down and in a torrent of tears left his friend alone. He threw himself down under a fig-tree crying passionately "Lord how long?—to-morrow and to-morrow!—why not now?" Suddenly he heard a child's voice from the next house repeating in a sing-song voice "Take and read" (tolle lege). He tried to think whether the words were used in any kind of children's game; but no it must be a divine command to open the Bible and read the first verse that he should happen upon. He thought of Anthony and the lesson in church. He ran back to Alypius and opened "the Apostle" at Rom_12:13-14 "Not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." "No further would I read nor was it necessary." The peace of God was in his heart and the shadows of doubt melted away. He marked the passage and told Alypius the friends exchanged confidences and Alypius applied to himself the words a little further on "Him that is weak in the faith receive" (Rom_15:1). They went in and filled the heart of Monnica with joy at the news (Conf. VIII. viii.). It was now the beginning of the autumn vacation. Augustine decided to resign his chair before the next term and meanwhile wrote to Ambrose to announce his desire for baptism. His friend Verecundus who was himself on the eve of conversion lent his country house at Cassiciacum near Milan to Augustine and his party; there they spent the vacation and the months which were to elapse before baptism (winter 386–387). At Cassiciacum he spent a restful happy time with his mother and brother his son Adeodatus Alypius and his two pupils Licentius and Trygetius the former a son of his old patron Romanianus. He wrote several short books here "in a style which though already enlisted in Thy service still breathed in that time of waiting the pride of the School" (Conf. IX. iv.). These were the three books contra Academicos two de Ordine the de Beata Vita and two books of Soliloquies; to this period also belong letters 1–4 of which 3 and 4 are the beginning of his correspondence with Nebridius (Conf. IX. iii.). Ambrose had in answer to his request for advice recommended him to read Isaiah. But he found the first chapter so hard that he put it aside till he should be more able to enter into its meaning. The Psalms however kindled his heart at this time. To him as to many in most diverse conditions they seemed to interpret the depths of his soul and the inmost experiences of his life (Conf. IX. iv.). But Augustine's main intellectual interest was still philosophical. Except when engaged upon the classics with his pupils or on fine days in country pursuits ("in rebus rusticis ordinandis," c. Acad. I. v. 14; cf. II. iv. 10) the time was spent in discussing the philosophy of religion and life. The above-mentioned books of which those de Ordine are perhaps the most characteristic are excepting of course the Soliloquies in the form of notes of these discussions. The time to give in his name for baptism was approaching and the party returned to Milan. Augustine was baptized by Ambrose along with his heart's friend Alypius and his son Adeodatus. The church music which Milan first of all the Western churches had recently adopted from the East struck deep into his soul: "The tide of devotion swelled high within me and the tears ran down and there was gladness in those tears."

§ 7. (a ) Early Christian Life. Death of Monnica. Return to Africa. Life as a Layman (387–391).—While waiting for baptism at Milan, Augustine had written a short book, de Immortalitate Animae, and the first part, de Grammatica, of a work on the "liberal arts": the latter, though included by Possidius in his list of Augustine's literary remains, was early lost by him (Retr. I. vi.). After the baptism, Augustine, with Alypius, and Evodius, a fellow-townsman, converted before Augustine himself, who had joined him at Milan, set out for Africa, with the intention of continuing their common life. But at Ostia, Monnica was seized with fever, and died "in the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the thirty-third of mine." Augustine's account of her life and character, and of his conversations with her, shortly before her death, on Eternal Life, forms perhaps the most exquisite and touching part of the Confessions (IX. viii.–xiii.). He prayed for her soul, believing that what he prayed for was already performed. "Let none have power to drag her away from Thy protection. . . . For she will not answer that she owes nothing, lest she should be confuted and seized by the crafty accuser; but she will answer that her debt has been forgiven by Him, to Whom none can give back the ransom which He paid on our behalf, though He owed it not." Augustine now remained in Rome till the autumn of 388 ("jam post Maximi tyranni mortem," c. lit. Petil. III. 30, cf. Retr. I. vii.–ix.). Of his life there, the two books de Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae et de Moribus Manichaeorum, the de Quantitate Animae, and the first of his three books de Libero Arbitrio, are the monument. From them we gather that he lived with Evodius a life of "abundant leisure," entirely given to the studies begun at Cassiciacum. The book on the morals of the Manicheans, founded on his former converse with them at Rome (see above, § 5), was reserved for completion and publication in Africa (xii. 26). At last Augustine crossed with Alypius to Carthage ( de Civ. XXII. viii.), and returned to Thagaste. A work composed by him here, de Magistro (Conf. IX. vi.; Retr. I. xii.), is in the form of a dialogue with Adeodatus, and Augustine assures us that the substance of the words was really from the lips of his son at the age of sixteen, i.e. not later than 388. The boy died young, full of piety and promise; we do not know the date, but he was present at Monnica's death (Conf. IX. xi.), and very probably lived to accompany his father to Africa. At Thagaste Augustine and his friends lived on his paternal estate for nearly three years, a quiet, industrious, and prayerful life. Nebridius ( Ephesians 5 ) condoles with him for having to give so much time to the negotia civium; but evidently there was plenty of leisure for study. We saw above (§ 6) that Augustine's studies were, up to the present, philosophical rather than Biblical. His ordination found him still but little versed in Scripture ( Ep. 213). His continued correspondence with Nebridius (Epp. 5–14) shews the continued predominance of philosophical interest; the same may be said of the writings of the period, de Genesi adv. Manichaeos, de Musica, de Magistro, de Vera Religione, and parts of the Liber de Diversis Quaestionibus LXXXIII. The de Musica was a portion of the above-named unfinished work on the "liberal arts": he wrote it at the request of an African bishop. It is interesting as giving one side of Augustine's view of secular culture, for which he claims, in the spirit of Plato, that if rightly used, it leads up to God, the underlying Truth of all things. The other works of this period are still pervaded with the Manichean controversy. This is the origin of the de Vera Religione, one of Augustine's ablest works; years later (about 414) he refers Evodius to it for the theistic argument (Ep. 162, 2). There is a difference of opinion as to the exact time at which Augustine sold his father's estate, and as to the monastic or lay character of the life at Thagaste. The Benedictine Life (III. ii.-v.), maintaining that Augustine's settlement at Thagaste was strictly monastic, accounts for the fact that he lived on his patrimony by supposing that he did so as a tenant of the purchaser. Of this there is no evidence whatever. The most probable inference from the crucial passage ( Serm. 355, 2) combined with the statements of Possidius, is briefly as follows:—Augustine and his friends lived at his home in Thagaste, realizing approximately the ideal, formed already at Milan ( Conf. VI. xiv.), and partially realized at Cassiciacum, of a common life of study and detachment from worldly cares. The tendency to a monastic ideal was there, and as time went on, Augustine determined to sell his property, and find a home more suitable for a monastery. Possibly the importunate demands of his fellow-citizens upon his kindness (see above) made Thagaste itself unsuitable. Hand in hand with the question of the place went the question of recruits. Augustine travelled to different places in search of a suitable site—avoiding towns where the see was vacant, for he knew that his growing fame might lead men to think of him. Among other places, he came to Hippo (Bona ), where he knew of a young official whom he hoped to enlist for his monastery ("juvenis veni ad istam civitatem, quaerebam ubi constituerem monasterium . . . veni ad istam civitatem propter videndum amicum quem putabam lucrari me posse Deo ut nobiscum esset in monasterio." The monasterium is clearly prospective). This was probably early in 391. Augustine had come to Hippo intending to stay no time, "with nothing but his clothes"; but as it happened, he entered the church just as Valerius, the aged bishop, was addressing the people on the necessity of choosing a new presbyter. Valerius, by birth a Greek (Possid. v. "homo natura Graecus"), wanted a fluent Latin preacher. Augustine's reputation had come before him. With one accord the people seized Augustine, and presented him to Valerius for ordination. With sincere reluctance and many tears Augustine yielded; Hippo became his home, and the Christian ministry his calling. Knowing of his plans, Valerius gave him a monasterium in the episcopal gardens. He had possibly already sold his small estate at Thagaste; if not, he did so now: the proceeds were spent on the poor of that place, and the people of Hippo approved and felt no jealousy (see Ep. 126⁷ , I57³⁹ ). He assembled in his monastery a number of brethren like-minded, each with nothing of his own and all things common; above all, the common aim, "commune nobis ut esset magnum et uberrinum praedium ipse Deus."

(b ) Augustine a Presbyter of Hippo (391–395).—Augustine at the time of his ordination as presbyter (he does not appear to have passed, as Ambrose had formally done, through the diaconate) was a Christian Platonist. His temper was absolutely Christian, his stock of ideas wholly Platonic. He had used the Bible devotionally rather than worked at its theology. Fully conscious of this, he obtained from his bishop a short period of leisure in order to master the minimum of Scriptural knowledge necessary for the discharge of his office ( Ep. 21). At Easter, 391, he was entrusted with the traditio symboli. His addresses to the candidates for baptism on that occasion are still extant (Serm. 214–216). He was, in fact, soon full of work. His monastery, the first in Africa (see below, § 15), became a training-school for clergy. Possidius tells us of ten bishops who proceeded from it. Among the earliest were Alypius, who in 394 went to Thagaste, and Evodius, to Uzala. Possidius himself became bp. of Calamus, but appears to have spent much of his time at Hippo, which was only some forty miles away. Moreover, the example of the monastic life spread rapidly ( Ep. 24, sub fin. ); before Augustine died, there were at least three monasteries in Hippo alone (Vit. Ben. III. v. 4). Of his life as a presbyter we know few details. He corresponds with Aurelius, the new bp. of Carthage, with a view to putting down the disorderly feasts over the tombs of the martyrs ( Epp. 22, 29; Conf. V. ii.). At the end of Aug. 392, he held a public discussion for two days with Fortunatus, a Manichean presbyter, the notes of which remain. Possidius tells us that as the result Fortunatus left Hippo and never returned. In 393 a general council of African bishops met at Hippo, and Augustine preached to them de Fide et Symbolo (one of his best-known shorter works); he also mentions (Retr. I. 23) a stay at Carthage which must have been of some length, as it was there that he held his epoch-marking discussions of difficulties in the Ep. to the Romans, and at the request of his friends committed the results to writing (see below, § 10). We know that a council was held at Carthage in 394: possibly that may have been the occasion of his presence. The Manichean controversy still claimed his energies. In addition to the public discussions already referred to, he wrote at this time the famous tract de Utilitate Credendi; another, de Duabus Animabus, a tract against the Manichean Adimantus; and the imperfect work de Genesi ad Literam, a work which he abandoned, as he felt his novice-hand unequal to the task (Retr. I. xviii.; see below, § 14). A new task, imposed upon him by his official responsibilities, was the controversy with the Donatists (see below, § 8). Early in his presbyterate he wrote to a neighbouring bishop of that sect to remonstrate with him for rebaptizing ( Ep. 23). He also composed, for popular use, an acrostic song in refutation of the sect (about 394: Psalmus contra partem Donati ), and a tract, now lost, contra Epistolam Donati. To this period, lastly, belong a group of exegetical works which shew a rapid advance in the command of Holy Scripture, the fruit of systematic study: an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, a commentary on Galatians, some of the Quaestiones LXXXIII. ( supra , § 7a ), and the above-mentioned notes on Romans. He began a continuous commentary on the Epistle, but only succeeded in completing the Salutation. The de Mendacio (see Retr. I. xxvii.) was also written at this period, but its issue was deferred till about 420, when the contra Mend. was also published (Retr. II. Ix.). Generally speaking, the works of this transition period are remarkable for the supersession of the philosophical form of the older works by Biblical, and to a great extent Pauline, categories. The philosophical substratum of Platonism remains, but Augustine is now a Biblical and ecclesiastical theologian. (For a detailed analysis of the ideas distinctive of this and the preceding periods respectively, see the masterly article of Loofs, mentioned at the end of this article, pp. 270–276.) Lastly, it was as a presbyter that he completed his three books de Libero Arbitrio (supra , § 7 a ): they were directed against the Manichean theory of the origin of evil (supra , § 4), and vindicate the moral responsibility of man against the theory of a physical principle of evil. To the position taken up in these books the Pelagians (infra , § 10) appealed, against Augustine's later doctrine of irresistible grace. Augustine has no difficulty in shewing that he had even at this early date refuted them by anticipation. But it was less easy to meet the appeal of the so-called semi-Pelagians (see below, § 10 d ), who were on the side of the church against Pelagius, but demurred to positions taken up by Augustine later in life. Of personal interest is Augustine's correspondence with the saintly Paulinus of Nola, to whom he sent the books on Free Will. Paulinus had heard of the growing fame of Augustine, and sought his acquaintance by letters addressed to Alypius and to Augustine himself (Epp. 24–27, 30–32). Augustine at this period also began to correspond with Jerome ( Ep. 28); in a letter of about this date he indignantly rejects the theory that the scene at Antioch between SS. Paul and Peter was to be explained patrocinium mendacii suscipiendo.

B. EPISCOPATE (from 395).—§ 8. The Donatist Controversy. (a) Origin.—Valerius was old and infirm and had marked out Augustine as his successor. But he daily feared that some other church might elect him as bishop and that he would therefore be lost to Hippo. So with the eager consent of his flock he took a step then almost without precedent and unconsciously breaking the letter of the eighth canon of Nicaea induced Megalius of Calama the "primae sedis Episcopus," i.e. bishop senior by consecration in Numidia to consecrate Augustine as his coadjutor with right of succession. Valerius had (Possid. viii.) privately gained the consent of Aurelius bp. of Carthage; Megalius made some personal objections which he subsequently withdrew (references in Vit. Ben. IV. i. 2). Valerius did not long survive the fulfilment of his hopes and prayers; for nearly thirty-five years Augustine was bp. of Hippo. His episcopate was occupied by grave controversies and productive of monumental works; but it was not eventful as regards Augustine's personal history. It will be best therefore to deal with it not by annalistic narrative but by considering in turn the great questions with which Augustine had to deal. We have spoken sufficiently of the Manichean controversy. As a bishop (about 397–400) Augustine wrote against these heretics the tracts c. Ep. Fundamenti and de Agone Christiano. The Confessions written about this time give an insight into Augustine's personal experiences of Manicheism (see above §§ 2 4). About 400 he refuted in thirty-three short books a treatise by his old Manichean friend Faustus; at the end of 404 (Retr. II. viii. cf. Ep. 29) he held a public discussion with a Manichean named Felix and as a result penned the short tract de Natura Boni. Somewhat later he was brought into controversy with the Manichean "auditor" Secundianus. Of his reply he says "omnibus quae adversus illam pestem scribere potui facile praepono." These are writings drawn out by occasional contact with a controversy which Augustine had outgrown. It was otherwise with the Donatist struggle which pressed continually upon him for the first twenty years of his episcopate. As we have seen it claimed some of his energy already as a presbyter. But it may fairly be called the one great question of his earlier episcopate. According to Possidius the Donatists were at the time of Augustine's ordination a majority among the Christians of the African provinces; at Hippo they were a very large majority and terrorized the Catholics by exclusive dealing (c. Duas Lit. Petil. II. 184). The schism had existed since about 311 when Caecilianus was elected bp. of Carthage. Personal dislike to the election found a pretext for denying its validity. Felix of Aptunga his consecrator was alleged to have been a traditor—i.e. to have given up the sacred books during persecution. This it was argued vitiated his power to give valid Orders. For to communicate with an offender is to take part in his offence; and Felix's offence ipso facto cut him off from the church. Like Cyprian the opponents of Caecilianus denied the validity of any sacrament conferred outside the church. These two principles then were involved: firstly the old Cyprianic denial of the validity of sacraments conferred by heretical (or schismatical) hands; secondly the nullity of sacraments performed by unworthy ministers: "oleum peccatoris non impinguet caput meum" (Psa_140:5 Vulg.). The question at issue then was really that of the essential nature of the church as a holy society (see Reuter pp. 236 sqq note 2). The Catholics in reply insist on the fact that the church throughout the world is on their side and that the Donatists are by their separation offenders against the bond of charity which maintains the peace and unity of the church: "Una est columba mea speciosa mea" (Son_6:9).

(b ) Earlier History of Donatists. —It is not necessary here to detail the phases through which the controversy had passed in the nearly three generations which preceded the episcopate of Augustine, nor to unravel the intricate charges and counter-charges which encumber the real principles at issue. The principal landmarks in the question were: (1) The appeal to Constantine, apparently first made by the Donatists, which resulted in the adverse decisions of the councils of Rome (313) and Arles (314). (2) The consecration of Majorinus as bp. of Carthage in opposition to Caecilianus (311). He died in 315, and was succeeded by Donatus, a man of great energy, to whom the schism probably owes its name. (3) Imperial persecution of the Donatists, first by Constantine in 316, and then, after an attempt to bribe the Donatists into submission (340), a ruthless suppression by Constans in 347. This was successful in producing temporary submission, but it intensified the feeling of protest; moreover, the fanatical ferocity of the "Circumcellions," which Constantine's first persecuting edict had evoked, was smouldering in readiness to break out again. (4) Return of the Donatists under Julian. In 361, agreeably to his general policy of the restoration of ecclesiastical exiles, Julian repealed his predecessor's measures against the Donatists, and during his short reign they exercised a violent supremacy in Africa. (5) Optatus and Parmenian. Donatus had died in exile, and was now succeeded by Parmenianus, an able and comparatively moderate man. With him begins the first phase of the literary debate between Donatists and Catholics. The opponent of Parmenianus was Optatus of Milevis, who was still living after 384. His work on the Donatist schism is a rich mine of materials for its history. It is to be noted that Parmenianus and Optatus both believe in the visible unity of the church. But Parmenianus, insisting on the holiness of the church, identifies it with the separatist body in Africa, while Optatus insists upon the Catholicity of the church, and upon its Apostolicity as tested by communion with the chair of St. Peter and with the seven churches of the Apocalypse. (6) Disintegration of Donatism. This began to be apparent in the Mauretanian schism of Rogatus, whose followers unchurched the other Donatists, and repudiated the Circumcellions; in the moderate Donatism of Tyconius (the author of a work on exegesis, of which Augustine speaks highly, de Doctr. Chr. III. xxx.), who exposed the inconsistencies of the Donatist position, and was consequently excommunicated by Parmenianus; and lastly, in the formidable Maximianist schism of 393, which resulted in the election of a second Donatist bishop, Maximianus, at Carthage, in opposition to Primianus. the successor of Parmenianus. Over 100 bishops sided with Maximianus; a council of 310 Donatist bishops in 394 decided against him. The civil authority was then invoked against the dissidents, who were persecuted with the usual severity.

Meanwhile the council of Hippo in 393 (supra , § 7 b ) had, by judicious reforms and conciliatory provisions, paved the way back to the church for any Donatists who might be disillusioned by the inward breakdown of the sect. But its external position was still imposing. Edicts issued against the Donatists (since 373, Cod. Theod. XVI. vi.) by Valentinian and Gratian had had, owing to the state of the empire, but little effect. The edict of Theodosius against heretics (392, Cod. Theod. XVI. v.) was not enforced against them; in fact, from some time previous to the death of Theodosius in 395 till 398 the imperial writ did not run in the African provinces.

(c ) Augustine and Donatism. —When Stilicho recovered Africa for Honorius from the usurper Gildo, Augustine had been a bishop seven years. He had preached, corresponded, and written actively against the Donatists, who had heard his sermons and read his tracts in great numbers. Their leaders had realized that they were now opposed by a champion of unexampled power, and endeavoured to keep their publications from falling into his hands. His earliest episcopal work, contra Partem Donati , is lost. But in 400 he wrote a reply to an old letter of Parmenianus, and the seven books de Bapt. c. Donat. In 401 and 402 he replied to a letter of Petilianus, the Donatist bp. of Cirta, and wrote his letter to the Catholics, de Unitate Ecclesiae, an important contribution to the controversy. In 403 the Catholic bishops in synod at Carthage agreed to propose a decisive conference; the Donatists declined, and in 404 the Catholic synod determined to ask for a revival of the imperial laws against the schism. From 405–409 the remedy of force was once more tried, with very partial success. In the latter year the Catholic synod petitioned Honorius to order a conference, and as the Donatists were now understood to agree, Marcellinus, a "tribune," was specially commissioned to arrange for the meeting. At the conference Augustine naturally played the principal part on the Catholic side. Marcellinus closed the proceedings by giving judgment in favour of the Catholics, and in 412 this was followed up by an imperial edict of drastic severity.

During this period Augustine wrote, in addition to twenty-one extant letters on the controversy, and four lost works, the following, which we still have: four books contra Cresconium; one de Unico Baptismo, the Breviculus Collationis (a report of the conference mentioned above), and a book contra Donatistas post Collationem. After 412, physical force had to some extent diminished the need for argument. A few more letters—an address to the people at Caesarea (Algiers), a public discussion with Emeritus, on Sept. 20, 418, two books contra Gaudentium (a Donatist bishop, c. 420),—are the remains of a waning controversy. For a fuller account of the history, and of the contents of some of Augustine's anti-Donatist writings, see art. Donatism, D. C. B. (4-vol. ed.).

It remains to gather up briefly the importance of the controversy in Augustine's life and thought. So far as Donatism fell before argument, its fall was the work of Augustine. But what was the reflex effect of the controversy upon Augustine himself? Augustine was the first Christian writer who made the church, as such, the subject of systematic thought. But this was not wholly the result of the Donatist crisis. He fought Donatism in part with arguments which had been current for over two generations of the controversy, and which we find less lucidly formulated in Optatus, partly with conceptions which his own personal history and reflections had impressed upon his mind before he came into the conflict. The utmost that can justly be said—but that much is important—is that the Donatist conflict crystallized ideas which needed a shock of the kind to bring them into clear shape and form. It was beside the purpose to insist, as Cyprian had done, upon the episcopate, which the Donatists possessed, or upon the unity of the church, which they claimed for themselves. The question at issue went behind these points to the spiritual conditions necessary to the saving efficacy of means of grace. This exists, argued Augustine, only in the Catholic church. The baptism and orders of the Donatists were valid sacramentally, but useless spiritually. In a sense, the Holy Spirit operates in schismatical sacraments, so that a convert to the Catholic church will not be re-baptized or re-ordained. But it is only in the Catholic church that the Spirit operates, as the Spirit of peace and love. "Non autem habent Dei caritatem qui ecclesiae non diligunt unitatem; ac per hoc recte intelligitur dici non accipi nisi in Catholica Spiritus Sanctus" (de Bapt. III. xvi.). Augustine formulates with a clearness not found in any previous writer the distinction between what in later times was called the "gratis gratis data," which confers status only (the indelible "character" of a "baptizatus" or a priest), without any necessary change in the moral or spiritual character; and "gratia gratum faciens," which makes a man not only a member of the visible church, but a real member of Christ, not merely a priest, but a good priest. This distinction was hardly perceived by Cyprian (see Cypr. Epp. 65–67, esp. 66: "credere quod indigni . . . sint qui ordinantur quid aliud est quam contendere quod non a Deo. . . . sacerdotes ejus in ecclesia constituantur?"), who regarded a deposed bishop as a mere layman with but "the empty name and shadow" of priesthood. The recognition of the validity of Donatist orders and sacraments was imposed upon Augustine by the settled judgment of the Catholic church, especially of the council of Arles, in 314 (Can. xiii., cf. viii., rejecting the Cyprianic view). But he clearly found it difficult to grasp habitually the distinction between the " Spiritus Sanctus, " the agent in every "valid" sacrament (="gratia gratis data"), and the " Spiritus caritatis, " which makes the sacrament a means of grace ("gratum faciens") to the Catholic recipient. His frequent denials that "the Holy Spirit" could be possessed outside the visible unity of the church relate really to the latter, though there are passages which seem to extend to the former. But on the whole his mind is clear. He distinguishes sharply between Office and Person; between the sacramental act and its benefit to the soul. The former can exist outside the Catholic church, the latter only within it. In this respect Augustine is an uncompromising assertor of Cyprian's axiom, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. But it must be observed that he subordinates the institutional to the spiritual conception of the church. The Donatists are wrong, because they have broken the bond of caritas which unites the Catholic society. It is this, and not the mere fact, necessary though it be, of the episcopal succession, that unites Catholics with the Apostolic churches and through them by an "inconcussa series" with the Apostles themselves. (See below, § 16, b, c; also Gore, The Church and the Ministry, latter part of c, iii.; Hatch, Organisation , v.; Reuter, pp. 231–283, an able and thorough discussion.)

§ 9. Augustine and the Heathen. Philosophy of History .—Augustine tells us (de Civ. Dei, XVIII. liii. 2) of an oracle current among the heathen, that the Christian religion would last 365 years, and then come to an end. He reckons that this time expired in the year 399. As a matter of fact, the year in question was marked by a widespread destruction of pagan temples throughout the Roman world ( Vit. Bened. IV. xvi.). In this year apparently the counts Gaudentius and Jovius arrived in Africa to execute an imperial decree for the dismantling of the temples. At Carthage the splendid temple of Dea Coelestis, which had been closed, as it seems, since the law of 391 ( Cod. Th. XVI. x. 10), and was already overgrown with weeds and bushes, was taken possession of by the Christians. But in 421 it was razed to the ground (Prosper, de Praed. III. xxxviii.). In some places images were hidden to preserve them from destruction. Heathen customs, as we gather from a sermon of Augustine (Serm. 62, 4); were still secretly observed even by some Christians. A council at Carthage in 401 petitioned the emperor to abolish public feasts and games which were, in spite of a previous imperial prohibition ( Cod. Th. ib. 17), occasions of heathenish observances. The destruction of a statue of Hercules at Colonia Suffectana (? Sufetula) was the cause of a riot in which sixty Christians lost their lives ( Ep. 50). In 407–408 a sweeping law, confiscating temples and ordering the destruction of altars, images, etc., was issued ( Cod. Th. ib. 19, cf. Vit. Bened. VI. iv. 2, v. 3). Its promulgation was attended by most serious riots at Calama, where the church was repeatedly wrecked by the heathen ( Ep. 90, 91, 103, 104). The murder of Stilicho (Sept. 408), and the rumours that the laws against the heathen and the Donatists passed during his life lapsed with his death, caused a further widespread outburst of heathen violence in Africa (cf. Cod. Th. App. Sirm. XIV.; Aug. Ep. 97). A stringent law, passed apparently at the instance of the provincial council at Carthage, of which Augustine was not a member, ordered rigorous penalties against all the offenders, and against conniving officials. Alarmed by the state of the empire, the ministers of Honorius appear to have relaxed for a time the rigour of the laws against paganism and heresy alike, but at the urgent request of the African bishops they were again strictly enforced. On the whole, Augustine's tone and attitude towards the pagans is dignified and conciliatory ( Epp. 133, etc.), but he shares in the general responsibility for persecution which must be allotted to the churchmen of this degenerate age.

In 408 and 409 the Goths, under Alaric, had laid siege to Rome, and after long and fruitless negotiations, the city was taken and sacked on Aug. 24, 410. The sack of Rome, in its direct effects, was but an incident in the profound abasement of the empire in the miserable reign of Honorius. But the downfall of the "Eternal City" struck awe into the minds of men who failed to appreciate the material and moral exhaustion which the disaster merely symbolized. Augustine's friend Marcellinus, the imperial officer who had been in charge of the conference with the Donatists introduced him to a distinguished ("illustris") official, Volusianus, who was kept back from the Christian faith by difficulties relating to the Old Testament, the Incarnation, and the incompatibility of some principles of the Gospel with civil life and the public good (Epp. 135–138, cf. 132). The last-named question naturally connected itself with the prevalent heathen explanation of the fall of Rome, as due to the desertion of the old gods and the progress of Christianity. Augustine, unable at the time to discuss this question except in passing ( Ep. 138^{1, 9–16,} cf. 136 ³ ), presently began a more thorough consideration of it. This is his famous treatise de Civitate Dei, begun about the end of 412, and not completed until 426. The first two books are addressed to Marcellinus, who was put to death, Sept. 13, 413; with a third book, they were published before 415. In this year, about Lent, he wrote two more ( Ep. 169 ¹ ) In 416–417, when he was advising Orosius to write his Historia adversus Paganos, Augustine had published ten books, and was at work on the eleventh. By 420 he had published fourteen; the eighteenth was finished "nearly thirty years" after the consulate of Theodorus (399), i.e. hardly earlier than 426. The work then was continued amid interruptions, and the plan widened out from a refutation of the heathen calumny (Retr. II. xliii.) to a comprehensive explanation of the course of human affairs—a religious philosophy of history.

The problem was one of terrible actuality. The ancient world and its civilization were in real truth breaking up, and the end of Rome seemed like a giving way of the solid earth beneath men's feet. Lesser men were moved to write: Orosius, mentioned above, in 417, and Salvian, whose lurid indictment of the sins of the Christian world (de Gubernatione Dei ) was penned in 451, four years before the sack of Rome by Gaiseric. But it was Augustine who brought the problem under a single master-idea. This idea (which occurs already in de Catech. Rud. , written as early as A.D. 400) is that of the two civitates , which, after a refutation of paganism as useless alike in this world (I.-V.) and in the next (VI.-X.), are treated of constructively in the remainder of the work, in respect of their origin (XI.-XIV.), history (XV.-XVIII.), and destiny (XIX.-XXII.). The work would have gained by condensation, but as it stands, with all the marks of discontinuous production, it is a priceless legacy of Augustine's most characteristic thoughts (on Ep. 102, which illustrates the de Civ. , and was written about 409, see below, § 16a ). By the word civitas, commonly rendered "city," Augustine means rather a bond of union, or citizenship (cf. Philipp 3:20 Gk., " duo quaedam genera humanae societatatis " XIV. i., the "civitas" takes visible form in the shape of a government, but its essential character is in the spirit that animates it). There are then two, and only two, civitates, the one heavenly, the other earthly. The civitas terrena began with the fall of the angels, was continued by that of man, in the history of the Cainites, of Babel, and of the great world-empires. The civitas Dei began with Creation; its earthly realization is traceable in the history of the Sethites, of Noah, Abraham, Israel, of Christ, and of His people. The one is rooted in love of God, usque ad contemptum sui; the other in love of self, usque ad contemptum Dei. The chief good of the one is the pax coelestis (XIX. 13), that of the other, the pax terrena. The great empires are, in their genesis, the State is per se ( remota justitia ), "latrocinium magnum" (IV. 4). So that, looked upon in the abstract, since there are but two civitates, the state is the civitas diaboli, the church the civitas Dei.

But this conclusion is not, thus baldly stated, that of Augustine. To begin with, his conception of the church (see §§ 8, 16, b , c ) is not consistent. Does he mean the visible church, the communio externa, or the communio sanctorum, the number of those predestined to life, to which not all belong who are members of the visible church, and to which some belong who are not? Augustine's language on this point is not always uniform. But at the time when he wrote the de Civitate , the predestinarian idea was growing upon him, and the two civitates tend to coincide with the predestined on the one hand, and, on the other, the rest of mankind. Again, the visible church, even apart from its merely nominal members, is but part of a larger whole, but the empirical shadow of a transcendent reality, the civitas superna, which includes angels as well as redeemed humanity (XI. 7). And in its earthly visible existence the church borrows the form of the earthly state (XV. 2). Again, historically, the two civitates are mingled together and interpenetrate. Moreover, the church needs the pax terrena, and is dependent for it on the civitas terrena (XIX. 17, cf. "per jura regum possidentur possessiones," in Joh. Tr. VI. 15); practically for all civil purposes the churchman must obey the law. But, on the other hand, the civitas terrena cannot attain its chief good, the pax terrena, unless heavenly motives are brought to bear; for the social bond of caritas, for the elementary requisite of justitia, it is dependent upon the civitas Dei.

The destiny of the civitas terrena therefore when at the judgment the two are finally separated is the destruction of its social bond; it will cease to be a civitas at all. There is then if we look at things in their eternal aspect only one civitas and applying the ideal to the empirical the state (qua good i.e. if Christian) is in the church. Optatus had said (de Schism. III. 3) "Ecclesia in Imperio." Augustine reverses this relation: "Dominus jugo suo in gremio ecclesiae toto orbe diffuso omnia terrena regna subjecit." The state is in the church and is bound to carry out the church's aims. The subject of "Church and State" was not the theme of the book and it is not easy to extract from it a strictly consistent theory of their relations (see Reuter pp. 125–150 380–392). But these relations were the question of the future and in the de Civitate Augustine laid the theoretical foundation for the medieval system (see also below § 16 ad fin.). The modifying ideas alluded to above were not forgotten but their assertion was the work of the opponents of the medieval hierocracy; and Dante de Monarchia is practically a reversal of the characteristic doctrine of the de Civitate Dei after that doctrine tested by being put into practice has been found to lead to unchristian results. One unchristian corollary of Augustine's doctrine was the persecution of heretics as a duty of the Christian state. In his earlier days Augustine disapproved of this (contr. Ep. Man_1:1-3; Ep. 23 7; 93 2 5 etc.); but the stress of the Donatist controversy changed his mind; in the interest of the doubtful the weak the generations to come he found a sanction for persecution in St. Luk_14:23 : Cogite intrare.

§ 10. The Pelagian Controversy (412–430).—Augustine in his first days as a Christian held the common view that while the grace of God is necessary to the salvation of man the first step the act of faith by which man gains access to grace is the act of man and not itself the gift of God (de Praed. III. 7). This view is manifest in the Expos. Propos. in Rom. 13–18 55 etc. and traceable in de Quaest. LXXXIII. qu. 68 and 83). He came to see that faith itself is the gift of God and that the very first step to Godward must be of God's doing not of our own. This conviction was not due to reaction against Pelagianism; on the contrary Pelagius himself was roused to contradiction by Augustine's language in his Confessions: "Domine da quod jubes" (see de Don. Persev. 53). Augustine's change of mind was directly and wholly due to his study of St. Paul (see above § 7 b); partly his wrestling with the difficulties of the Ep. to the Romans; but especially his reflection on St. Paul's question (1Co_4:7) "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" coupled with Rom_9:16. The change may be assigned to the year 396 when in the first book he wrote as a bishop (de Divers. Quaest. ad Simplic. I.) as he says (Retr. II. i. 1) "to solve this question we laboured in the cause of the freedom of the human will but the grace of God won the day" (cf. de Don. Pers. 52 plenius sapere coepi). To Simplicianus he says I. ii. 13: "If it is in man's own power not to obey the call it would be equally correct to say 'Therefore it is not of God that sheweth mercy but of man that runs and wills,' because the mercy of Him that calls does not suffice unless the obedience of him who is called results. . . . God shows mercy on no man in vain; but on whom He has mercy him He calls in such sort as He knows to be fitted for him

[congruere] so that He does not reject him that calleth." Here we have the essential of the "Augustinian" doctrine of grace the distinction of the vocatio congrua and vocatio non congrua ("Illi enim electi qui congruenter vocati") formulated more than fifteen years before the Pelagian controversy began (see also Loofs pp. 279–280 who shows in detail that Augustine's whole later position is virtually contained in de Div. Quaest. ad Simplician.). For the details of this controversy see the church histories; D. C. B. (4-vol. ed.) s.v.; Bright Introd. to Anti-Pelagian Treatises and other authorities. (A lucid summary in Gibson XXXIX. Articles art. ix.) It will suffice here to mention the main outlines.

(a ) 410–417.—Pelagius, offended at a passage in Augustine's Confessions (see above), began at Rome (405–409) to express his disapproval of such an insistence upon Divine grace as should undermine human responsibility. Before the siege of Rome ( supra , § 9) he left with his friend Coelestius for Africa; there Pelagius left Coelestius, and went to Palestine. Coelestius sought ordination at Carthage, and thus attracted additional attention to his doctrines. A council of bishops in 412 condemned him; he went away to Ephesus, and there he was ordained. Subsequently he went to Constantinople and (417) to Rome. Meanwhile, opposed by Jerome in Palestine, Pelagius was found not guilty of heresy by John, bp. of Jerusalem, and by councils at Jerusalem and Diospolis (415). He dispatched to Rome (417) a confession of faith to be submitted to Innocentius: it arrived after that bishop's death. Coelestius shortly afterwards (still in 417) arrived at Rome, and submitted his confession of faith to the new bp. Zosimus. Augustine appears to have been partly aware of the opinions of Pelagius before his arrival in Africa (see de Gest. Pel. 46; also probably through Paulinus of Nola, see de Grat. Christi , 38), but he appears to have attached little importance to them at the time; and the arrival of Pelagius found him in the very thick of other questions (see above, §§ 8, 9). He alludes to the Pelagian doctrines (without any mention of names) in preaching (Serm. 170, 174, 175), but took no part in the proceedings at Carthage in 412. But his friend Marcellinus ( supra , § 9) pressed him for his opinion upon the questions there discussed, and his first anti-Pelagian writings (A.D. 412, de Pecc. Meritis et Remiss. lib. III., and de Spiritu et Litera ) were addressed to him. In 415 he wrote de Natura et Gratia , and probably the tract, in the form of a letter to Eutropius and Paulus, de Perfectione Justitiae Hominis , in refutation of the propositions of Coelestius in 412; in 417 he wrote de Gestis Pelagii , a discussion of the proceedings in Palestine above referred to. Augustine and the African bishops, who had been represented in Palestine not only by Jerome, but by Orosius, fresh from Hippo, were naturally dismayed at what had happened there. They knew that Pelagius and Coelestius were lik