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Bible Encyclopedias
Augustine
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (Aurelius Augustinus), bishop of Hippo, was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, Nov. 13, 354. His mother, Monica, was a Christian and a woman of piety, who took care to have her son instructed in the true faith and placed among the catechumens. His father was as yet unbaptized, and appears to have cared more to advance his son in worldly knowledge: he spared nothing for his education; and, after giving him the rudiments of grammar at Tagaste, sent him to Madaura, a town in the neighborhood, and afterward removed him to Carthage, to learn rhetoric (this was about the end of the year 371); and here he first imbibed the Manichaean errors. He also fell into immoral habits, of which he afterward gave a minute account in his remarkable "Confessions." In 383 he left Carthage, against the will of his mother, and repaired to Rome; and, still adhering to his sect, he lodged at the house of a Manichaean, where he fell ill. After his recovery be was sent by Symmachus, the prefect of the city, to Milan, where the inhabitants were in want of a professor of rhetoric. Here he came into intercourse with Ambrose, and was in a short time so convinced by his doctrine that he resolved to forsake the Manichaean sect: this design he communicated to his mother, who came to Milan to see him. "Augustine listened to the preaching of Ambrose frequently, but the more he was forced to admire his eloquence, the more he guarded himself against persuasion. Obstinate in seeking truth outside of her only sanctuary, agitated by the stings of his conscience, bound by habit, drawn by fear, subjugated by passion, touched with the beauty of virtue, seduced by the charms of vice, victim of both, never satisfied in his false delights, struggling constantly against the errors of his sect and the mysteries of religion, an unfortunate running from rock to rock to escape shipwreck, he flees from the light which pursues him — such is the picture by which he himself describes his conflicts in his Confessions. At last, one day, torn by the most violent struggles, his face bathed in tears, which flowed involuntarily, he fled for solitude and calm to a retired spot in his garden. There, throwing himself on the ground, he implored, though confusedly, the aid of Heaven. All at once he seemed to hear a voice, as if coming from a neighboring house, which said to him, Tolle; lege: Take and read. Never before had such emotion seized his soul. Surprised, beside himself, he asks himself in vain whence came the voice, or what he was to read. He was sustained by a force he knew not, and sought his friend Alype. A book was placed before him-the epistles of St. Paul. Augustine opens it at hazard, and falls upon this passage of the apostle: ‘ Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness... But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.' Augustine needed not any further reading. Hardly had he finished this passage before a ray of divine light broke upon him, enlightening his understanding, dissipating all his shadows, and kindling in his heart a flame of celestial fire. The conversion of Augustine was fully as striking and efficacious as St. Paul's had been. All the apostle's spirit had passed in an instant into the new proselyte. He was then in his thirty-second year. When once again with his mother, the virtuous Monica, to whom his wanderings had cost so many tears, he related to her all that had passed, and also communicated his new resolutions, with that peaceful firmness which changes not. Monica heard this consoling recital with lively joy. All these particulars he himself gives in his Confessions, with a charm and simplicity which have, before or since, never been surpassed."
After remaining for the space of two years among the catechumens, he was baptized by Ambrose at Easter, 387. Soon after his baptism, having given up his profession, he resolved to return to his own country; and on his way thither, while at Ostia, his mother died. About this time he wrote his treatises De Moribus Eccl. Catholicae et de Moribus Manichceorum, also De Quantitate Animr. He arrived in Africa at the end of 388, and removed to Tagaste, where he dwelt for three years with some of his friends, occupied solely with prayer, meditation, and study. At this period he wrote the treatises De Genesi contra Manichaeos and De Vera Religione. In 391 he went to Hippo; and while there, in spite of his tears and reluctance, the people of that city chose him to fill the office of priest in their church, and brought him to Valerius, their bishop, that he might ordain him. When priest, he instituted a monastery in the church of Hippo, where he entirely devoted himself to works of piety and devotion, and to teaching. Valerius, the bishop, contrary to the custom of the African churches, permitted Augustine to preach in his place, even when he himself was present; and, when this was objected to, he excused himself on the ground that, being himself a Greek, he could not so well preach in Latin. After this the practice became more general. About 393 Augustine wrote the treatise De duabus animabus, contra Manichceos. In 395 he was elected colleague to Valerius in his episcopacy, and consecrated Bishop of Hippo, contrary to the canons of the church. The duties of his office were discharged with the greatest fidelity; but, amid all his labors, he found time for the composition of his most elaborate works. His treatise De Libero Arbitrio was finished in 395; the Confessionum Libri XIII in 398; most of the treatises against the Donatists between 400 and 415; those against the Pelagians between 412 and 428. The De Civitate Dei was begun in 413 and finished in 426. The singular candor of Augustine is shown in his Retractationes (written in 428), in which he explains and qualifies his former writings, and not unfrequently acknowledges his mistakes opinion. In 430, the Vandals, under Genseric, laid siegeto Hippo, and in the third month of the siege (August 28) Augustine died, in his 76th year.
His whole career, after his profession of the Christian faith, was consistent with his high calling; the only faults with which he can be charged are an occasional undue severity in controversy and the share which he bore in the persecution of the Donatists (q.v.). His intellect was acute, vigorous, and comprehensive; his style rapid and forcible, but not remarkable for purity or elegance. "Of all the fathers of the Latin Church" (says M. Villemain, in his Tableau de l'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, antiquities, science, and manners, Augustine had embraced 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 affectation 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 theologians 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 only 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 fundamental science. Augustine's was a philosophical and especially a logical mind. His works sufficiently prove his talent for system-making and a logical development of ideas. We also find in them much philosophical speculation peculiar to himself. But the value of those speculations is not to be highly rated, since he was far from being so much of a metaphysician in general as he was of a logician. Nor was he wanting in a knowledge of philosophical systems and the speculations of others. His weakest point as a scholar was in a knowledge of languages. In this he was surpassed 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 limited, 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 Testament, he himself acknowledges (Retract. 1, 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 belief, 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; Omh Hieron. Vall. ed.), he frankly confesses that he knows not the errors charged upon Origen, and begs Jerome to point them out to him.c. 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 passages) was on the whole defective in purity and elegance, 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 the presentation of Christian truths, as they thus lose their dignity. In other respects 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 Memorium." — Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, chap. 1.) His knowledge of Greek was moderate, and his biblical criticisms are therefore of comparatively 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 enduring 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 Christian 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 experienced, may be traceable to the same source. He resembled Origen in his turn for speculation, but surpassed him in originality, depth, and acuteness. Both passed through Platonism in the process of their culture; 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 definite church-system. The union of their mental elements would, without doubt, have made the most complete church teacher. Nevertheless, many qualities were united in Augustine, which we find scattered in separate tendencies of theological development, and hence we see the various periods of the church shadowed forth in his mental career" (Neander, Hist. of Dogmas, 2, 258).
"In estimating Augustine as a theologian, we must remember that he commenced life as a Manichaean; and many believe that traces of the Manichaean doctrine (of the evil nature of matter, etc.) can be traced in the later and severer forms of his belief. In attacking the Manichaeans, he wrote his treatise De Libero Arbitrio, which certainly would have received a different shape had he written it at a later period, i.e. during his disputes with the Pelagians. In the various discussions which have arisen concerning predestination and the doctrines with which it is connected, some modern divines have quoted the arguments of Augustine against the Manichaeans, and others those which he employed against the Pelagians, according to the discordant views which the combatants severally entertain on these controverted points. One of them has thus expressed himself, in his endeavor to reconcile Augustine with himself: ‘ The heresy of Pelagius being suppressed, the catholic doctrine in that point became more settled and confirmed by the opposition; such freedom being left to the will of man as was subservient unto grace, co-operating in some measure with those heavenly influences. And so much is confessed by Augustine himself, where he asks this question, "Doth any man affirm that free will is perished utterly from man by the fall of Adam?" And thereunto he makes this answer: "Freedom is perished by sin; but it is that freedom only which we had in Paradise, of having perfect righteousness with immortality." For, otherwise, it appears to be his opinion that man was not merely passive in all the acts of grace which conduced to glory, according to the memorable saying of his, so common in the mouths of all men, "He who first made us without our help, will not vouchsafe to save us at least without our concurrence." If any harsher expressions have escaped his pen (as commonly it happeneth in the heats of a disputation), they are to be qualified by this last rule, and by that before, in which it was affirmed that "God could not with justice judge and condemn the world, if all men's sins proceeded not from their own free will, but from some overruling providence which enforced them to it."' Another admirer of this father offers the following as an attempt at reconciliation: Augustine denied that the co-operation of man is at all exerted to produce the renewal of our nature; but, when the renewal had been produced, he admitted that there was an exercise of the will combined with the workings of grace. In the tenth chapter of his work against the Manichaeans, the bishop of Hippo thus expresses himself: "Who is it that will not exclaim, How foolish it is to deliver precepts to that man who is not at liberty to perform what is commanded! And how unjust it is to condemn him who had not power to full the commands! Yet these unhappy persons [the Manichaeans] do not perceive that they are ascribing such injustice and want of equity to God. But what greater truth is there than this, that God has delivered precepts, and that human spirits have freedom of will?" Elsewhere he says, "Nothing is more within our power than our own will. The will is that by which we commit sin, and by which we live righteously." — Nothing can be plainer than that the writer of these passages admitted the liberty of the human will, and the necessity of our own exertions in conjunction with divine grace. How this is to be reconciled with his general doctrine is perhaps indicated in the following passage from his book De Gratia et lib. Arbitrio, c. 17. Speaking of grace, he says "that we may will God works without us; but when we will, and so will as to do, he co-works with us; yet, unless he either works that we may will, or co-works when we do will, we are utterly incapable of doing any thing in the good works of piety.'"
These are but very slight specimens of the mode in which learned and ingenious — men have tried to give a kind of symmetrical proportion to this father's doctrinal system. Several large treatises have been published with the same praiseworthy intention; the pious authors of them either entirely forgetting, or having never read the rather ‘ latitudinarian indulgence of opinion which St. Augustine claims for himself in his ‘ Retractations.' If. however, an estimate may be formed of what this father intended in his various pacificatory doctrinal explanations from what he has actually admitted and expressed, it may be safely affirmed that no systematic a writer of theology seems so completely to have entered into the best views of the bishop of Hippo, or so nearly reconciled the apparent discordances in them, as ARMINIUS has done" (Watson, Theol. Dictionary, s.v.). The changes in Augustine's theolory are described as follows by Neander (History of Dognzas, 2, 347). "In his treatises de Lib. Arbitrio and de Vera Religione he supposes everything in man to be conditioned on free will. In his exposition of Romans 9 (A.D. 394) he expressly opposes the interpretation of that passage as implying predestination and the exclusion of free will. Man indeed, he says, could not merit divine grace by his works, for, in order to perform works that are truly pious, he must have first a suitable state of heart, the inward justitia. But this source of goodness man has not from himself; only the Holy Spirit can impart it to him in regeneration; antecedently to this all men are in equal estrangement from God; but it depends on themselves whether, by believing, they make themselves susceptible for the Holy Spirit or not. (Cap. 60. — Quod credimus nostrum est; quod autem bonum operamur illius qui credentibus in se dat Spiritumn Sanctum.) God has chosen faith. It is written, God works all in all men, but he does not believe all in all. Faith is man's concern. (Non quidem Deus elegit opera quae ipse largitur quum dat Spiritum Sanctum ut per caritatem bona operemur; sed tamen elegit fidem.) From this point we can trace the gradual revolution in Augustine's mode of thinking to its later harsher form. Yet in his treatise De 83 diversis quaestionibus (written about A.D. 388), he says, in explaining Romans 9:18 (‘ Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and I whom he will he hardeneth'). This will of God is not unrighteous, for it is conditioned by the most secret relations of congruity; all men, indeed, are corrupt, but yet there is a difference among them; there is in sinners something antecedent by which they become I deserving of justification or of hardening (Quaestio 168, § 4. — Venit enim de occultissimis meritis, quia et ipsi peccatores cum propter generale peccatum unam massam fecerint, non tamen nulla est inter illos diversitas. Praecedit ergo aliquid in peccatoribus quo, quamvis nondum sint justificati digni efficiantur justificatione et item praecedit in aliis peccatoribus quo digni sunt obtusione). The calling of individuals and of whole nations belongs to those high and deep things which man does not understand if he is not spiritually minded. But it must be always maintained that God does nothing unrighteous, and that there is no being who does not owe everything to God.
The more Augustine advanced in a deeper perception of faith, the more he recognized it as a living principle, and not as a mere faith of authority, and he acquired a stronger conviction that faith presupposed a divine operation in the soul of man, and that the Bible referred it to divine agency. He was now easily impelled to the other extreme, and to give a one-sided prominence to the divine factor in faith. Resignation to God became his ruling principle, and. looking back at his earlier life, he learned more and more to trace everything to his training by divine grace. He now allowed the conditioning element of free human susceptibility to vanish altogether. That theodicy now appeared to him untenable, which made the attainment of faith by individuals or nations, or their remaining strangers to the Gospel, dependent on their worthiness and the divine prescience; in opposition to this view, he now sought for a foundation in the secret absolute decrees of God, according to which one was chosen and another not. This view was confirmed by the opinion prevalent in the North African Church, that outward baptism was essential to salvation. He now inquired how it was that one child received baptism and another not, and this seemed to confirm the unconditionality of the divine predestination. The alteration in his mode of thinking occupied perhaps a space of four years. In the diversae questiones ad Simplicianum, written about A.D. 397, this is shown most decidedly, as he himself says in his treatise de dono perseverantice that he had then arrived at the perception that even the beginning of faith was the gift of God. In that work (lib. 1, questio 2) he derives all good in man from the divine agency; from the words of Paul, ‘ What hast thou that thou hast not received?' (1 Corinthians 4:7), he infers that nothing can come from man himself.
‘ How can it be explained,' he asks, ‘ that the Gospel reaches one man and not another? and that even the same dispensations act quite differently on different persons? It belongs to God to furnish the means which lead every man to believe; consequently, the reason of the difference can only be that, according to his own decree, it seems good to withhold it from one and not from another. All men, in consequence of the first transgression, are exposed to perdition; in this state there can be no higher movement, therefore none at all, in them toward conversion. But God, out of compassion, chooses some to whom he imparts divine grace, gratia efficax, which operates upon them in an irresistible manner, but yet in accordance with their rational nature, so that they cannot do otherwise than follow it. The rest he leaves to their merited perdition.' From the preceding remarks it is clear that Augustine reached the standpoint fixed by his own experience; and we perceive how false it is that his system in this form was derived from his excessive opposition to Pelagianism, since it had been formed ten years before his conflict with it. We might rather affirm of Pelagius that he would not have developed his doctrine in its actual form had he not been opposed to Augustine."
In the year 412 Augustine began to write against the doctrines of PELAGIUS, a native of Britain, who had resided for a considerable time at Rome, and acquired universal esteem by the purity of his manners, his piety, and his erudition. In the defense of his opinions Pelagius was seconded by Celestius, a man equally eminent for his talents and his virtues. Their principles were propagated rapidly, and were speedily transplanted to almost every corner of Christendom. If the brief notices which have come down to us respecting their tenets, in the writings of their adversaries, be correct, they
(1) denied the regeneration of infants in baptism and the damnation of all unbaptized infants;
(2) they denied that Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity, and went so far as to reject original sin entirely;
(3) they asserted the freedom of the will, and its capacity for good without supernatural grace.
"It is not," they said, "free will if it requires the aid of God; because every one has it within the power of his own will to do any thing, or not to do it. Our victory over sin and Satan proceeds not from the help which God affords, but is owing to our own free will. The unrestricted capability of men's own free will is amply sufficient for all these things, and therefore no necessity exists for asking of God those things which we are able of ourselves to obtain; the gifts of grace being only necessary to enable men to do that more easily and completely which yet they could do themselves though more slowly and with greater difficulty, seeing that they are perfectly free creatures." These opinions were assailed by St. Augustine and St. Jerome, as well as by Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, and they were condemned as heresies in the Council of Carthage and in that of Milevis. In his eagerness to confute these opponents, St. Augustine employed language so strong as made it susceptible of an interpretation wholly at variance with the accountability of man. This led to farther explanations and modifications of his sentiments, which were multiplied when the Semi- Pelagians arose, who thought that the truth lay between his doctrines and those of the Pelagians. Concerning original sin, he maintained that it was derived from our first parents; and he believed he had ascertained in what the original sin conveyed by Adam to his posterity consisted. In his sentiments, however, upon the latter point he was rather inconsistent, at one time asserting that the essence of original sin was concupiscence, and at another expressing doubts respecting his own position. This subject was bequeathed as a legacy to the schoolmen of a subsequent age, who exercised their subtle wits upon all its ramifications down to the period of the Council of Trent. On the consequences of the fall of our first parents, St. Augustine taught that by it human nature was totally corrupted, and deprived of all inclination and ability to do good. Before the age in which he lived, the early fathers held what, in the language of systematic theology, is termed the synergistic system, or the needfulness of human co- operation in the works of holiness; but, though the freedom of the will was not considered by them as excluding or rendering unnecessary the grace of God, yet much vagueness is perceptible in the manner in which they express themselves. In fact, there was no scientific view as yet on these topics. Those early divines generally used the language of Scripture, the fertile invention of controversial writers not having as yet displayed itself, except on the divine nature of Jesus Christ, and subsidiary terms and learned distinctions not being then required by any great differences of opinion. But as soon as Pelggius broached his errors, the attention of Christians was naturally turned to the investigation of the doctrine of grace. The personal experience of Augustine, coinciding with the views of the great body of the Christian Church, admitted the necessity of divine grace, or the influence of the Holy Spirit, for our obedience to the law of God. He ascribed the renovation of our moral constitution wholly to this grace, denied all cooperation of man with it for answering the end to be accomplished, and represented it as irresistible. He farther affirmed that it was given only to a certain portion of the human race, to those who showed the fruits of it in their sanctification, and that it secured the perseverance of all upon whom it was bestowed. His view of predestination has been summed up as follows:
1. That God from all eternity decreed to create mankind holy and good.
2. That he foresaw man, being tempted by Satan, would fall into sin, if God did not hinder it; he decreed not to hinder.
3. That out of mankind, seen fallen into sin and misery, he chose a certain number to raise to righteousness and to eternal life, and rejected the rest, leaving them in their sins.
4. That for these his chosen he decreed to send his Son to redeem them, and his Spirit to call them and sanctify them; the rest he decreed to forsake, leaving them to Satan and themselves, and to punish them for their sins.
After Augustine had thus almost newly-molded the science of theology, and had combined with it, as an essential part of divine truth, that the fate of men was determined by the divine decree independently of their own effirts and conduct, and that they were thus divided into the elect and reprobate, it became necessary, in order to preserve consistency to introduce into his system a limitation with respect to baptism, and to preserve the opinions concerning it from interfering with those which flowed from the doctrine of predestination. He accordingly taught that baptismn brings with it the forgiveness of sins; that it is so essential that the omission of it will expose us to condemnation; and that it is attended with regeneration. He also affirmed that the virtue of baptism is not in the water; that the ministers of Christ perform the external ceremony, but that Christ accompanies it with invisible grace; that baptism is common to all, while grace is not so; and that the same external rite may be death to some and life to others. By this distinction he rids himself of the difficulty which would have pressed upon his scheme of theology, had pardon, regeneration, and salvation been necessarily connected with the outward ordinance of baptism, and limits its proper efficacy to those who are comprehended, as the heirs of eternal life, in the decree of the Almighty. Many, however, of those who strictly adhere to him in other parts of his doctrinal system desert him at this point. (See PELAGIANISM).
His honest anxiety for the honor of the grace of God led him to overlook the human side of the question, and to make the operation of grace more like physical necessity than moral influence. The traces of his Manichaean habit of thought appear plainly here. "Here," says Kling, in his excellent article on Augustine in Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie (1, 623), "is a weak side in Augustine's system. In the attempt of his fiery and impulsive intellect to give fixity and stability to the doctrine of Christian anthropology, and to leave no room in his system for self-righteousness, he fell into the labyrinth of unconditional predestination, implying a dualism in the Divine will which has never gained the mind of the Christian Church as a correct interpretation of Scripture as a whole. In fact, the system has been a stumbling-block in the church from Augustine's time till now. As for the better part of Augustine's doctrine, which is, in fact, its true essence, viz. that the entire glory of the renewal of human nature is due to divine grace, and is due in no respect whatever to mere human ability, because the consequences of the fall have left that nature incapable of renewal except by a divine power of renovation, this doctrine has penetrated the heart and intellect of the church, and has found expression in her creeds and confessions in all ages." (See AUGUSTINISM).
The Donatist controversy was one of the bitterest waged by Augustine, and was, perhaps, on the whole, the least honorable to him. Before this controversy, and even during the earlier period of it, he had always treated heretics with mildness and charity, and opposed the passage of several laws against the Donatists. "But at a later period, after the Donatists had made alarming progress among the African churches, the urgent representations of his colleagues caused a radical change of his views. He became the most ardent advocate of the compulsory suppression of every heresy, and he based this shocking theory on the passage in Luke 14, where the master of a house, after the invited guests have declined to come, orders the servants to bring in the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind, from the streets and lanes of the city, and, when there was yet room, to ‘ go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.' This interpretation by a church father so profoundly revered, has been, in all following centuries, the source of incalculable mischief. It is one of the principal weapons with which ecclesiastical and royal despots have attempted to justify the murder of millions on the charge of heresy. Even men like Bossuet were induced, by the weight of Augustine's authority, to advocate compulsory measures against heretics" (Neander, Church History, 3, 197-217; Flottes, Etudes sur Saint Augustin, Paris, 1862). St. Augustine's works have been printed in a collected form repeatedly: at Paris, in 10 vols. folio, 1532; by Erasmus, from Frobenius's press, 10 vols. folio, 1540-43; by the divines of Louvain, 10 vols. folio, Lugd. 1586; and by the Benedictines of the congregation of St. Maur, 10 vols. folio, Paris, 1679-1700, 12 vols. folio, 1688-1703, and 12 vols. folio, Antwerp, 1700-1703; reprinted, Paris, 1836-39, 11 vols. 4to. The latest edition (not the best) is that of the Benedictines, edited by Migne (Paris, 1842, 15 vols. imp. 8vo). A review of his literary activity is given by Busch, Librorum Augustini recensus (Dorpat. 1826). Of his separate works many editions have been published. The Benedictine edition gives a copious Life of Augustine; and the 13th vol. of Tillemont's Mesmoires pour servier l'Histoire Ecclesiastique is a 4to of 1075 pages devoted entirely to his biography. Dupin (Eccles. Writers) gives a copious and minute analysis of all of Augustine's works. English versions of the Confessions, and of the Expositions of the Gospels and Psalms, may be found in the Library of the Fathers (Oxf. 1839-1855). A translation of the Confessions, with an introduction by Prof. Shedd, has also been published at Andover (1860). M. Poujoulat, the author of a Life of St. Augustine and numerous other works, has commenced (1864), in connection with abbe Raulx, a translation of the complete works of St. Augustine. The translators claim that this is the first complete French translation of the great church father. The work will be completed in twelve volumes (Saint Augustin; CEuvres Completes). Recent editions of the De Ciitate Dei have been published by Bruder (Leipsic, 1838) and Strange (Cologne, 1850); of the Confessiones, by Bruder (Leipsic, 1837), Pusey (Oxford, 1838), Raumer (Stuttgart, 1856); of the AMelitationes, by Sintzel (Sulzbach, 1844) and Westhoff (Mainster, 1854). German translations of the Confessiones have been published by Rapp (3d edition, Stuttgart, 1856), Groninger (4th edit. Minster, 1859), and by several anonymous translators (Passau, 6th edit. 1856; Ratisbon, 1853; Reutlingen, 1858); and of the City of God, by Silbert (1825, 2 vols.) — Neander, Ch. Hist. 2:354, 564; Hist. of Dogmnas, vol. 1, pdssia; Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (Lond. 1855); Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 1, 110, 156; Wigoers, History of Augustinianism and Pelagianism (vol. 1 trans. by Emerson, And. 1840, 8vo); Schaff, Life and Labors of Augustine (N. Y. 1854, 12mo); Bohringer, Kircheng. in Biogqraphien, I, pt. 3, 99 sq.; Kloth, Der heil. Kirchenlehrer Augustinus (Aachen, 1840); Bindemann, Des' heil. Augustinus (Berlin, 1844); Poujoulat, Histoire de St. Augustin (Paris, 1844, 3 vols.); Shedd, History of Doctrines, bk. 4; Am. Bib. Repos. 5, 195; Meth. Qu. Rev. 1857, 352 sq.; Princeton Rev. July, 1862, art. in; Watson, Dictionary, s.v.; Hook, Eccles. Biog.. vol. 1; Taylor, Ancient Christianity, 1, 231; Jahrb. f. deutsche Theologie, 1862; Church Review, July, 1863, 316.
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Augustine'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/a/augustine.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
