Saint Augustin by Louis Bertrand

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But these scratches at his self-respect, this increasing disgust of men
and things, were small matters compared to what was going on within him.
Augustin had a sick soul. The forebodings he had always been subject to
were now become the suffering of every moment. At certain times he was
assailed by those great waves of sadness which unfurl all of a sudden from
the depths of the unknown. In such minutes we believe that the whole world
is hurling itself against us. The great wave rolled him over; he got up
again all wounded. And he felt stretch forth in him a new will which was
not his own, under which the other, the will to sin, struggled. It was
like the approach of an invisible being whose contact overcame him with an
anguish which was full of pleasure. This being wanted to open out within
him, but the weight of his old sins prevented. Then his soul cried out in
pain.

In those moments, what a relief it was to let himself float on the
canticles of the Church! The liturgical chants were then something new in
the West. It was in the very year we are dealing with that St. Ambrose
started the custom in the Milanese basilicas.

The childhood of our hymns! One cannot think about that without being
moved. One envies Augustin for having heard them in their spring freshness.
These lovely musics, which were to sound during so many centuries, and
still soar against the vaults of cathedrals, were leaving the nest for the
first time. We cannot think that a day will come when they will fold their
wings and fall silent. Since human bodies, temples of the Holy Ghost, will
live again in glory, one would like to believe with Dante that the hymns,
temples of the Word, are likewise immortal, and that they will still be
heard in the everlasting. Doubtless in the twilight glens of Purgatory the
bewailing souls continue to sing the _Te lucis ante terminum_, even as in
the star-circles, where the Blessed move ever, will always leap up the
triumphant notes of the _Magnificat_....

Even on those who have lost the faith, the power of these hymns is
irresistible. "If you knew," said Renan, "the charm that the Barbarian
magicians knew how to put into their canticles. When I remember them, my
heart melts." The heart of Augustin, who had not yet the faith, melted too
in hearing them: "How I have cried, my God, over the hymns and canticles
when the sweet sound of the music of Thy Church thrilled my soul! As the
music flowed into my ears, and Thy truth trickled into my heart, the tide
of devotion swelled high within me, and the tears ran down, and there was
gladness in those tears." His heart cast off its heaviness, while his mind
was shaken by the heavenly music. Augustin loved music passionately. At
this time he conceived God as the Great Musician of the spheres; and soon
he will write that "we are a strophe in a poem." At the same time, the
vivid and lightning figures of the Psalms, sweeping over the insipid
metaphors of the rhetoric which encumbered his memory, awoke in the depths
of him his wild African imagination and sent him soaring. And then the
affectionate note, the plaint in those sacred songs: _Deus, Deus meus!_--"O
God! O _my_ God!" The Divinity was no longer a cold abstraction, a phantom
that withdrew into an unapproachable infinite; He became the actual
possession of the loving soul. He leant over His poor scarred creature,
took him in His arms, and comforted him like a kind father.

Augustin wept with tenderness and ecstasy, but also with despair. He wept
upon himself. He saw that he had not the courage to be happy with the only
possible happiness. What, indeed, was he seeking, unless it were to capture
this "blessed life" which he had pursued so long? What he had tried to get
out of all his loves was the complete gift of his soul--to realize himself
completely. Now, this completeness of self is only in God--_in Deo salutari
meo_. The souls we have wounded are in unison with us, and with themselves,
only in God.... And the sweet Christian symbolism invited him with its
most enticing images: the Shades of Paradise; the Fountain of Living
Water; the Repose in the Lord God; the green Branch of the Dove, harbinger
of peace.... But the passions still resisted. "To-morrow! Wait a little
yet! Shall we be no more with you, for ever? _Non erimus tecum ultra in
aeternum?_..." What a dismal sound in these syllables, and how terrifying
for a timid soul! They fell, heavy as bronze, on the soul of Augustin.

An end had to be put to it somehow. What was needed was some one who would
force him out of his indecision. Instinctively, led by that mysterious will
which he felt had arisen within him, he went to see, and consult in his
distress, an old priest named Simplicianus, who had converted or directed
Bishop Ambrose in his young days. No doubt Augustin spoke to him of what he
had lately been reading, and particularly of his Platonist studies, and of
all the efforts he made to enter the communion of Christ. He acknowledged
that he was convinced, but he could not bend to the practice of the
Christian life. Then, very skilfully, as one artful in differentiating
souls, perceiving that vanity was not yet dead in Augustin, Simplicianus
offered him as an example the very translator of those Platonic books which
he had just been reading so enthusiastically--that famous Victorinus Afer,
that orator so learned and admired, who had his statue in the Roman Forum.
Because of some remains of philosophical pride, and also from fear of
offending his friends among the Roman aristocracy, who were still almost
altogether pagan, Victorinus was a Christian only in his head. In vain
Simplicianus pointed out to him how illogical his conduct was. But suddenly
and unexpectedly he decided. The day of the baptism of the catechumens,
this celebrated man mounted the platform set up in the basilica for the
profession of faith of the newly converted, and there, like the meanest of
the faithful, he delivered his profession before all the assembled people.
That was a dramatic stroke. The crowd, jubilant over this fine performance,
cheered the neophyte. And on all sides they shouted: "Victorinus!
Victorinus!"

Augustin listened to this little story, whereof all the details were so
happily chosen to act on an imagination like his:--the statue in the
Roman Forum; the platform from the height of which the orator had spoken
a language so new and unexpected; the exulting shouts of the crowd:
"Victorinus! Victorinus!" Already he saw himself in the same position.
There he was in the basilica, on the platform, in presence of Bishop
Ambrose; he too repeated his profession of faith, and the people of Milan
clapped their hands--"Augustin! Augustin!" But can a humble and contrite
heart thus take pleasure in human adulation? If Augustin did become a
convert, it would be entirely for God and before God. Very quickly he put
aside the temptation.... Nevertheless, this example, coming from so exalted
a man, made a very deep and beneficial impression. He looked upon it as a
providential sign, a lesson in courage which concerned him personally.

Some time after that, he received a visit from a fellow-countryman, a
certain Pontitianus, who had a high position in the Imperial household.
Augustin happened to be alone in the house with his friend Alypius. They
sat down to talk, and by chance the visitor noticed the Epistles of St.
Paul lying on a table for playing games. This started the conversation.
Pontitianus, who was a Christian, praised the ascetic life, and especially
the wonders of holiness wrought by Antony and his companions in the
Egyptian deserts. This subject was in the air. In Catholic circles at
Rome, they spoke of little else than these Egyptian solitaries, and of
the number, growing larger and larger, of those who stripped themselves
of their worldly goods to live in utter renunciation. What was the good
of keeping these worldly goods, that the avarice of Government taxation
confiscated so easily, and that the Barbarians watched covetously from
afar! The brutes who came down from Germany would get hold of them sooner
or later. And even supposing one might save them, retain an ever-uncertain
enjoyment of them, was the life of the time really worth the trouble of
living? There was nothing more to hope for the Empire. The hour of the
great desolation was at hand....

Pontitianus, observing the effect of his words on his hearers, was led
to tell them a quite private adventure of his own. He was at Trèves, in
attendance on the Court. Well, one afternoon while the Emperor was at
the circus, he and three of his friends, like himself attached to the
household, went for a stroll beyond the city walls. Two of them parted
from the others and went off into the country, and there they came upon
a hut where dwelt certain hermits. They went in, and found a book--_The
Life of St. Antony_. They read in it; and for them that was a conversion
thunder-striking, instantaneous. The two courtiers resolved to join the
solitaries there and then, and they never went back to the Palace. And they
were betrothed!...

The tone of Pontitianus as he recalled this conscience-drama which he
had witnessed, betrayed a strange emotion which gradually took hold of
Augustin. His guest's words resounded in him like the blows of a clapper in
a bell. He saw himself in the two courtiers of Trèves. He too was tired of
the world, he too was betrothed. Was he going to do as the Emperor--remain
in the circus taken up with idle pleasures, while others took the road to
the sole happiness?

When Pontitianus was gone, Augustin was in a desperate state. The repentant
soul of the two courtiers had passed into his. His will uprose in grievous
conflict and tortured itself. He seized Alypius roughly by the arm and
cried out to him in extraordinary excitement:

"What are we about? Yes, I say, what are we about? Did you not hear? Simple
men arise and take Heaven by violence, and we with all our heartless
learning--look how we are wallowing in flesh and blood!"

Alypius stared at him, stupefied. "The truth is," adds Augustin, "that I
scarcely knew what I said. My face, my eyes, my colour, and the change in
my voice expressed my meaning much better than my words." If he guessed
from this upheaval of his whole frame how close at hand was the heavenly
visitation, all he felt at the moment was a great need to weep, and he
wanted solitude to weep freely. He went down into the garden. Alypius,
feeling uneasy, followed at a distance, and in silence sat down beside him
on the bench where he had paused. Augustin did not even notice that his
friend was there. His agony of spirit began again. All his faults, all his
old stains came once more to his mind, and he grew furious against his
cowardly feebleness as he felt how much he still clung to them. Oh, to tear
himself free from all these miseries--to finish with them once for all!...
Suddenly he sprang up. It was as if a gust of the tempest had struck him.
He rushed to the end of the garden, flung himself on his knees under a
fig-tree, and with his forehead pressed against the earth he burst into
tears. Even as the olive-tree at Jerusalem which sheltered the last watch
of the Divine Master, the fig-tree of Milan saw fall upon its roots a sweat
of blood. Augustin, breathless in the victorious embrace of Grace, panted:
"How long, how long?... To-morrow and to-morrow?... Why not now? Why not
this hour make an end of my vileness?..."

Now, at this very moment a child's voice from the neighbouring house began
repeating in a kind of chant: "_Take and read, take and read_." Augustin
shuddered. What was this refrain? Was it a nursery-rhyme that the little
children of the countryside used to sing? He could not recollect it; he had
never heard it before.... Immediately, as upon a divine command, he rose to
his feet and ran back to the place where Alypius was sitting, for he had
left St. Paul's Epistles lying there. He opened the book, and the passage
on which his eyes first fell was this: _Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof_.... The
flesh!... The sacred text aimed at him directly--at him, Augustin, still so
full of lust! This command was the answer from on high....

He put his finger between the leaves, closed the volume. His frenzy had
passed away. A great peace was shed upon him--it was all over. With a calm
face he told Alypius what had happened, and without lingering he went into
Monnica's room to tell her also. The Saint was not surprised. It was long
now since she had been told, "Where I am, there shalt thou be also." But
she gave way to an outburst of joy. Her mission was done. Now she might
sing her canticle of thanksgiving and enter into God's peace.

Meanwhile, the good Alypius, always circumspect and practical, had opened
the book again and shewn his friend what followed the verse, for Augustin,
in his excitement, had neglected to read further. The Apostle said, "_Him
that is weak in the faith receive ye_." This also applied to Augustin.
That was only too certain: his new faith was still very unsteady. Let not
presumption blind him! Yes, no doubt with all his soul he desired to be a
Christian. It now remained for him to become one.

THE FOURTH PART

THE HIDDEN LIFE

Fac me, Pater, quaerere te.
"Cause me to seek Thee, O my Father."

_Soliloquies_, I, i.

I

THE LAST SMILE OF THE MUSE

Now that Augustin had been at last touched by grace, was he after all
going to make a sensational conversion like his professional brother, the
celebrated Victorinus?

He knew well enough that there is a good example set by these noisy
conversions which works on a vast number of people. And however "contrite
and humble" his heart might be, he was quite aware that in Milan he
was an important personage. What excitement, if he were to resign his
professorship on the ground that he wished to spend the rest of his life in
the ascetic way of the Christians!... But he preferred to avoid the scandal
on one side, and the loud praise on the other. God alone and some very dear
friends should witness his repentance.

There were now hardly twenty days before the vacation. He would be patient
till then. Thus, the parents of his pupils would not have any ground to
reproach him for leaving them before the end of term, and as his health
was getting worse, he would have a good excuse to give up his post. The
dampness of the climate had given him a sort of chronic bronchitis which
the summer had not cured. He had difficulty in breathing; his voice was
muffled and thin--so much so, that he began to think his lungs were
attacked. Augustin's health really needed care. This was a quite good
enough reason to interrupt his lectures. Having fulfilled his professional
duties to the very end--and he assures us that it took some courage--he
left the professorial chair with the declared intention of never occupying
it again.

Here, then, he is free from all worldly ties. From now on he can prepare
himself for baptism in silence and retreat. But still he must live somehow!
Augustin had more souls depending on him than ever: his son, his mother,
his brother, his cousins--a heavy burthen which he had been struggling
under for a long time. It is probable that once more Romanianus, who was
still in Milan, came to his assistance. It will be remembered that the
Mæcenas of Thagaste had taken up warmly the plan of a lay monastery which
Augustin and his friends had lost their heads over, and he had promised
to subscribe a large sum. Augustin's retreat was a first step towards
realizing this plan in a new shape. Romanianus, no doubt, approved of
it. In any case, he asked Augustin to keep on giving lessons to his son
Licentius. Another young man, Trygetius, begged for the same favour.
Augustin therefore did not intend to give up his employment altogether. He
had changed, for the present at least, from a Government professor into a
private one.

This meant that he had a certain living. All he wanted now was a shelter.
A friend, a colleague, the grammarian Verecundus, graciously offered him
this. Verecundus thus repaid a favour which Augustin had quite recently
done him. It was at Augustin's request that Nebridius, who was a friend of
both, agreed to take over the classes of the grammarian, who was obliged
to go away. Although rich, full of talent, and very eager for peace and
solitude, Nebridius, simply out of good-nature, was willing to take the
place of Verecundus in his very modest employment. One cannot too much
admire the generosity and kindliness of these ancient and Christian
manners. In those days, friendship knew nothing of our narrow and shabby
egoisms.

Now Verecundus owned a country house just outside Milan, at Cassicium. He
suggested to Augustin to spend the vacation there, and even to live there
permanently with all his people, on condition of looking after the property
and keeping it up.

Attempts have been made to find traces of this hospitable dwelling where
the future monk of Thagaste and Hippo bade farewell to the world. Cassicium
has disappeared. The imagination is free to rebuild it fancifully in any
part of the rich country which lies about Milan. Still, if the youthful
Licentius has not yielded too much to metaphor in the verses wherein he
recalls to Augustin "Departed suns among Italian mountain-heights," it is
likely that the estate of Verecundus lay upon those first mountain-slopes
which roll into the Brianza range. Even to-day, the rich Milanese have
their country houses among those hills.

To Augustin and his companions this flourishing Lombardy must have seemed
another promised land. The country, wonderfully fertile and cultivated,
is one orchard, where fruit trees cluster, and, in all ways, deep streams
wind, slow-flowing and stocked with fish. Everywhere is the tremor of
running water--inconceivably fresh music for African ears. A scent of mint
and aniseed; fields with grass growing high and straight in which you
plunge up to the knees. Here and there, deeply engulfed little valleys
with their bunches of green covert, slashed with the rose plumes of the
lime trees and the burnished leaves of the hazels, and where already the
northern firs lift their black needles. Far off, blended in one violet
mass, the Alps, peak upon peak, covered with snow; and nearer in view,
sheer cliffs, jutting fastnesses, ploughed through with black gorges which
make flare out plainer the bronze-gold of their slopes. Not far off, the
enchanted lakes slumber. It seems that an emblazonment fluctuates from
their waters, and writhing above the crags which imprison them drifts
athwart a sky sometimes a little chill--Leonardo's pensive sky of shadowed
amethyst--again of a flushed blue, whereupon float great clouds, silken
and ruddy, as in the backgrounds of Veronese's pictures. The beauty of the
light lightens and beautifies the over-heavy opulence of the land.

And wherever the country house of Verecundus may be placed, some bit of
this triumphal landscape will be found. As for the house itself, Augustin
has said enough about it for us to see it fairly well. It was no doubt one
of those old rustic buildings, inhabited only some few months of the year,
in the warmest season, and for the rest of the time given over to the
frolics of mice and rats. Without any pretence to architectural form, it
had been enlarged and renovated simply for the greater convenience of those
who lived there. There was no attempt at symmetry; the main door was not in
the middle of the building, and there was another door on one of the sides.
The sole luxury of this country house was perhaps the bath-houses. These
baths, however simple they might be, nevertheless reminded Augustin of
the decoration of gymnasiums. Does this mean that he found there rich
pavements, mosaics, and statues? These were quite usual things in Roman
villas. The Italians have always had, at all periods, a great fondness
for statues and mosaics. Not very particular about the quality, they made
up for it by the quantity. And when they could not treat themselves to
the real thing, it was good enough to give themselves the make-believe in
painting. I can imagine easily enough Verecundus' house, painted in fresco
from top to bottom, inside and out, like those houses at Pompeii, or the
modern Milanese villas.

There was no attempt at ornamental gardens at Cassicium. The surroundings
must have been kitchen-garden, grazing-land, or ploughed fields, as in
a farm. A meadow--not in the least the lawns found in front of a large
country house--lay before the dwelling, which was protected from sun and
wind by clumps of chestnut trees. There, stretched on the grass under the
shade of one of these spreading trees, they chatted gaily while listening
to the broken song of the brook, as it flowed under the windows of the
baths. They lived very close to nature, almost the life of field-tillers.
The whole charm of Cassicium consisted in its silence, its peace, and,
above all, its fresh air. Augustin's tired lungs breathed there a purer air
than in Milan, where the humid summer heat is crushing. His soul, yearning
for retirement, discovered a retreat here in harmony with his new desires,
a country solitude of which the Virgilian grace still appealed to his
literary imagination. The days he passed there were days of blessedness for
him. Long afterwards he was deeply moved when he recalled them, and in an
outburst of gratitude towards his host, he prayed God to pay him his debt.
"Thou wilt recompense him, O Lord, on the day of the resurrection of the
just.... For that country house at Cassicium where we found shelter in Thee
from the burning summer of our time, Thou wilt repay to Verecundus the
coolness and evergreen shade of Thy paradise...."

That was an unequalled moment in Augustin's life. Following immediately
upon the mental crisis which had even worn out his body, he seems to be
experiencing the pleasure of convalescence. He slackens, and, as he says
himself, he rests. His excitement is quenched, but his faith remains
as firm as ever. With a cairn and supremely lucid mind he judges his
condition; he sees clearly all that he has still to do ere he becomes a
thorough Christian. First, he must grow familiar with the Scripture, solve
certain urgent questions--that of the soul, for example, its nature and
origin--which possessed him just then. Then he must change his conduct,
alter his ways of thought, and, if one may so speak, disinfect his mind
still all saturated with pagan influences: a delicate work--yes, and an
uneasy, at times even painful, which would take more than one day.

After twenty centuries of Christianity, and in spite of our claim to
understand all things, we do not yet realize very well what an abyss
lies between us and paganism. When by chance we come upon pagan traces
in certain primitive regions of the South of Europe, we get muddled, and
attribute to Catholicism what is but a survival of old abolished customs,
so far from us that we cannot recognize them any more. Augustin, on the
contrary, was right next to them. When he strolled over the fields and
through the woods around Cassicium, the Fauns and woodland Nymphs of the
old mythology haunted his memory, and all but stood before his eyes. He
could not take a walk without coming upon one of their chapels, or striking
against a boundary-mark still all greasy from the oil with which the
superstitious peasants had drenched it. Like himself, the old pagan land
had not yet quite put on the Christ of the new era. He was like that Hermes
Criophorus, who awkwardly symbolized the Saviour on the walls of the
Catacombs. Even as the Bearer of Rams changed little by little into the
Good Shepherd, the Bishop of Hippo emerged slowly from the rhetorician
Augustin.

He became aware of it during that languid autumn at Cassicium--that autumn
heavy with all the rotting of summer, but which already promised the
great winter peace. The yellow leaves of the chestnuts were heaped by the
roadside. They fell in the brook which flowed near the baths, and the
slowed water ceased to sing. Augustin strained his ears for it. His soul
also was blocked, choked up by all the deposit of his passions. But he knew
that soon the chant of his new life would begin in triumphal fashion, and
he said over to himself the words of the psalm: _Cantate mihi canticum
novum_--"Sing unto me a new song."

Unfortunately for Augustin, his soul and its salvation was not his only
care at Cassicium: he had a thousand others. So it shall be with him
throughout his life. Till the very end he will long for solitude, for the
life in God, and till the end God will charge him with the care of his
brethren. This great spirit shall live above all by charity.

At the house of Verecundus he was not only the head, but he had a complete
country estate to direct and supervise. Probably all the guests in the
house helped him. They divided the duties. The good Alypius, who was used
to business and versed in the twisted ways of the law, took over the
foreign affairs--the buying and selling, probably the accounts also. He was
continually on the road to Milan. Augustin attended to the correspondence,
and every morning appointed their work to the farm-labourers. Monnica
looked after the household, no easy work in a house where nine sat down to
table every day. But the Saint fulfilled her humble duties with touching
kindness and forgetfulness of self: "She took care of us," says Augustin,
"as if we had all been her children, and she served us as if each of us had
been her father."

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