Saint Augustin by Louis Bertrand
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Louis Bertrand >> Saint Augustin
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The bishops, on their side, avoided all discussion. Augustin tried in vain
to arrange an argument with Proculeianus, his Donatist colleague at Hippo.
And if some of them shewed themselves more obliging, the evasions and
reticences of the antagonist, and sometimes outside circumstances, made the
debate utterly futile. At Thubursicum the audience raised such a noise in
the place where Augustin was debating with the bishop Fortunius, that they
were no longer able to hear each other. At other times, the meeting sank to
an oratorical joust, wherein they tired themselves out passading against
words, instead of attacking the matters at issue. Augustin felt that he was
losing his time. Besides, the Donatist bishops presented an obstinate front
against which everything smashed.
"Leave us in our errors," they said ironically. "If we are lost in your
eyes, why follow us about? We don't want to be saved."
And they prohibited their flocks from saluting Catholics, from speaking to
them, from going into their churches or into their houses, from sitting
down in the midst of them. They laid an interdict on their adversaries.
Primanius, the Donatist Primate of Carthage, upon being invited to a
conference, answered proudly:
"The sons of the martyrs can have nothing to do with the race of traitors."
This being the state of the case, no method of pacification was left but
written controversy. Augustin shewed himself tireless at it. It was chiefly
in these letters and treatises against the Donatists that he was not afraid
to repeat himself. He knew that he was dealing with the deaf, and with
the deaf who did not want to hear: he was obliged to raise his voice.
With admirable self-denial he reiterated the same arguments a hundred
times over, a hundred times took up the history of the quarrel from the
beginning, spreading such a light over the quibbles and refinings of his
contradictors, that it should have brought conviction to the bluntest
minds. "No," he repeated, "Cęcilianus was not a _traditor_, nor Felix of
Abthugni either who consecrated him bishop. The documents are there to
prove this. And even supposing they were, can the fault of a single man
be charged to the whole Church?... Then why do you baptize the Catholics
under the pretence that their priests are _traditors_ and as such unworthy
to administer the Sacraments? It is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and not
the virtue of the priest which renders baptism efficacious. If it were
otherwise, what was the good of the Redemption? It is the fact that by the
voluntary death of Christ, all men have been called to salvation. Salvation
is not the privilege of Africans only. Being Catholic, the Church should
take in the whole world...."
In the long run, these continual repetitions end by seeming wearisome to
modern readers: for us there arises out of all these discussions a dense
and intolerable boredom. But let us remember that all this was singularly
living for Augustin's cotemporaries, that these thankless developments were
read with passion. And then, too, it was a question of the unity of the
Church which involved, as we cannot too often repeat, the interest of the
Empire and civilization.
Against so persuasive a power the Donatists opposed a conspiracy of
silence. Their bishops forbade the people to read what Augustin wrote. They
did more--they concealed their own libels so that it was impossible to
reply to them. But Augustin used all his skill to unearth them. He refuted
them, and had his refutations recopied and posted on the walls of the
basilicas. The copies circulated through the province and the whole Roman
world.
This would have had an excellent result if the quarrel had been entirely
over questions of theory. But immense property interests came into it,
and rancours and terrible hates. Augustin was forced to pass from verbal
polemics to direct action--defensive action, at first, and then attack.
While he and his fellow-bishops did their utmost to preach peace, the
Donatist bishops urged their followers to the holy war. Augustin even
received threats on his life. During one of his visitations, he was nearly
assassinated. Men in ambush lay in wait for him. By a providential chance,
he took the wrong road, and owed his life to this mistake. His pupil
Possidius, who was then Bishop of Guelma, was not so lucky. Brought to
bay in a house by the Donatist bishop Crispinus, he defended himself
desperately. They set fire to the house to turn him out. When there was
nothing else left but to be burned alive, he did come out. The band of
Donatists seized him, and would have beaten his brains out, if Crispinus
himself, fearing a prosecution for murder, had not interfered. But the
assailants sacked the property and slaughtered all the horses and mules
in the stables. At Bagai, Bishop Maximianus was stabbed in his basilica.
A furious mob smashed the altar and began to strike the victim with the
fragments, and left him for dead on the flags. The Catholics lifted up his
body, but the Donatists plucked him out of their hands and flung him from
the top of a tower, and he fell on a dunghill which broke the fall. The
unhappy man still breathed, and by a miracle he recovered.
Meanwhile, the Circoncelliones, armed with their bludgeons, continued to
pillage and burn the farms. They tortured the owners to extract their money
from them. They made them toil round the mill-path like beasts of burthen,
while they lashed at them with whips. At their back, the Donatist priests
invaded the Catholic churches and lands. There and then they rebaptized
the labourers. These doings were, indeed, very like the practices of the
African Mussulmans to-day, who, in like circumstances, always begin by
converting the Christian farm-hands by main force. Then they purified
the basilicas by scraping down the walls and washing the floors with big
douches of water; and after demolishing the altar, they scattered salt
where it had stood. It was a perfect disinfection. The Donatists treated
the Catholics like the plague-stricken.
Such acts cried out for vengeance. Augustin, who up till this time had
recoiled from asking the public authorities to prosecute, who, as an
observer of the apostolic tradition, did not recognize the interference
of the civil power in Church matters--well, Augustin had to give way to
circumstances, and also to the pressure brought to bear on him by his
colleagues. Councils assembled at Carthage petitioned the Emperor to take
exceptional measures against the Donatists, who laughed at all the laws
directed against heretics. When they were summoned before the courts they
demonstrated to the judges, who were often pagans incompetent to decide in
these questions, that it was they who really belonged to the only orthodox
Church. Something must be done to end this equivocal position, and to bring
about once for all a categorical condemnation of the schism. Augustin,
acting in concert with the primate Aurelius, was the ruling spirit of these
meetings.
Let us not judge his conduct by modern ideas, or be in a hurry to exclaim
against his intolerance. He and the Catholic bishops, in acting thus,
were complying with the old tradition which had influenced all the pagan
governments. Rome, particularly, though it recognized all the local sects,
all the foreign religions, never allowed any of its subjects to refuse to
fall in with the official religion. The persecutions of the Christians and
the Jews had no other motive. Now that it was become the State religion,
Christianity, willingly or unwillingly, had to summon people to the same
obedience. The Emperors made a special point of this from political reasons
easy to understand--to prevent riots and maintain public order. Even if the
bishops had refrained from all complaint, the Imperial Government would
have acted without them and suppressed the disturbances caused by the
heretics.
Just look at the situation and the men as they were at that moment in
Africa. It was the Catholics who were persecuted, and that with revolting
fury and cruelty. They were obliged to defend themselves. In the next
place, the distribution of property in those countries made conversions
in batches singularly easy. Multitudes of farm tenants, workmen, and
agricultural slaves, lived upon the immense estates of one owner. Without
any interest in dogmatic questions, they were Donatists simply because
their master was. To change these devouring wolves into tranquil sheep, it
was often quite enough if the master got converted. The great blessing of
peace depended upon pressure being brought to bear on certain persons. When
all day and every day there was a risk of being murdered or burned out by
irresponsible ruffians, the temptation was very strong to fall back on such
a prompt and simple remedy. Augustin and his colleagues ended by making up
their minds to do so. For that matter, they had no choice. They were bound
to strike, or be themselves suppressed by their enemies.
However, before resorting to rigorous measures, they resolved to send forth
a supreme appeal for reconciliation. The Catholics proposed a meeting to
the Donatists in which they would loyally examine one another's grievances.
As personal or material questions made the great bar to an understanding,
they promised that every Donatist bishop who turned convert should keep
his see. In places where a schismatic and an orthodox bishop were found
together, they would come to a friendly agreement to govern the diocese by
turns. Where it was impossible for this to be done, it was proposed that
the Catholic should resign in favour of the other. Augustin lent all his
eloquence to carry this motion, which was sufficiently heroic for a good
number of bishops who were not so detached as he from the goods of this
world. And one must allow that it was difficult to go much further in the
way of self-denial.
After a good deal of skirmishing and hesitation on the side of the
schismatics, the Conference met at Carthage in June of the year 411, under
the presidency of an Imperial commissioner, the tribune Marcellinus. Once
again, the Donatists saw themselves condemned. Upon the report of the
commissioner, a decree of Honorius classed them definitely among heretics.
They were forbidden to rebaptize or to assemble together, under penalties
of fine and confiscation. Refractory countrymen and slaves would be liable
to corporal punishment, and as for the clerics, they would be banished.
The effect of these new laws was not long in appearing, and it fully
answered the wishes of the orthodox bishops. Many populations returned, or
pretended to return, to the Catholic communion. This result was largely
the work of Augustin, who for twenty years had worked to bring it about by
preaching and controversy. But, as might be expected, he did not overdo
his triumph. Without delay, he set himself to preach moderation to the
conquerors. Nor had he waited till the enemy was defeated to do that. Ten
years before, while the Donatists were besetting the Catholics everywhere,
he said to the priests of his communion:
"Remember this, my brothers, so as to practise and preach it with
never-varying gentleness. Love the men; kill the lie! Lean on truth without
pride; fight for it without cruelty. Pray for those whom you chide, and for
those to whom you shew their error."
However, the victory of the party of peace was not so thorough as it had
seemed at first. A good many fanatics here and there grew obstinate in
their resistance. The Circoncelliones, maddened, distinguished themselves
by a new outbreak of ravages and cruelties. They tortured and mutilated all
the Catholics who fell into their hands. They had invented an unheard-of
refinement of torture, which was to cover with lime diluted with vinegar
the eyes of their victims. The priest Restitutus was assassinated in the
suburbs of Hippo. A bishop had his tongue and his hand cut off. If the
towns were pretty quiet, terror began to reign once more in the country
places.
The Roman authorities exerted themselves to put an end to these bloody
scenes. They heavily chastised the offenders whenever they could catch
them. In his charity, Augustin interceded for them with the judges. He
wrote to the tribune Marcellinus:
"We would not that the servants of God should be revenged by hurts like to
those they suffered. Surely, we are not against depriving the guilty of the
means to do harm, but we consider it will be enough, without taking their
lives or wrenching any limb from them, to turn them from their senseless
tumult by the restraining power of the laws, in bringing them back to calm
and reason; or, in a last resort, to take away the opportunity for criminal
actions by employing them in some useful work.... Christian judge, in this
matter fulfil the duty of a father, and while repressing injustice, do not
forget humanity."
This compassion of Augustin was shewn particularly in his meeting with
Emeritus, the Donatist Bishop of Cherchell (or as it was then called,
Mauretanian Cęsarea), one of the most stubborn among the irreconcilables.
His attitude in dealing with this uncompromising enemy was not only humane,
but courteous, full of graciousness, and of the most sensitive charity.
This fell out in the autumn of the year 418, seven years after the great
Conference at Carthage. Augustin was sixty-four years old. How was it
that he who had always had such feeble health undertook at this age the
long journey from Hippo to Cęsarea? We know that the Pope, Zozimus, had
entrusted him with a mission to the Church of that town. With his tireless
zeal, always ready to march for the glory of Christ, the old bishop
doubtless saw in this journey a fresh opportunity for an apostle. So
he started off, in spite of the roads, which were very unsafe in those
troublous times, in spite of the crushing heat of the season--the end of
September. He travelled six hundred miles across the endless Numidian
plain and the mountainous regions of the Atlas, preaching in the churches,
halting in the towns and the hamlets to decide questions of private
interest, ever pursued by a thousand business worries and by the squabbles
of litigants and the discontented. At last, after many weeks of fatigue and
tribulation, he reached Cherchell, where he was the guest of Deuterius, the
metropolitan Bishop of Mauretania.
Now Emeritus, the deposed bishop, lived mysteriously in the suburbs, in
constant fear of some forcible action on the part of the authorities.
When he learned the friendly intentions of Augustin, he came out of his
hiding-place and shewed himself in the town. In one of the squares of
Cęsarea the two prelates met. Augustin, who had formerly seen Emeritus at
Carthage, recognized him, hurried over to him, saluted him, and at once
suggested a friendly talk.
"Let us go into the church," he said. "This square is hardly suitable for a
talk between two bishops."
Emeritus, flattered, agreed. The conversation continued in such a cordial
tone that Augustin was already rejoicing upon having won back the
schismatic. Deuterius, following the line of conduct which the Catholic
bishops had adopted, spoke of resigning and handing over the see to the
other. It was agreed that within two days Emeritus should come to the
cathedral for a public discussion with his colleague of Hippo. At the
appointed hour he appeared. A great crowd of people gathered to hear
the two orators. The basilica was full. Then Augustin, turning to the
impenitent Donatist, said to him mildly:
"Emeritus, my brother, you are here. You were also at our Conference at
Carthage. If you were beaten there, why do you come here now? If, on the
other hand, you think that you were not beaten, tell us what leads you to
believe that you had the advantage...."
What change had Emeritus undergone in two days? Whatever it was, he
disappointed the hopes of Augustin and the people of Cęsarea. He returned
only ambiguous phrases to the most pressing and brotherly urging. Finally,
he took refuge in an angry silence from which it was found impossible to
draw him.
Augustin went home without having converted the heretic. No doubt he was
sorely disappointed. Nevertheless, he shewed no resentment; he even took
measures to ensure the safety of the recalcitrant, in a charitable fear
less the roused people might do him a bad turn. With all that, when he
looked back at the results of nearly thirty years of struggle against
schism, he might well say to himself that he had done good work for the
Church. Donatism, in fact, was conquered, and conquered by him. Was he
at last to have a chance to rest himself, with the only rest suitable
to a soul like his, in a steady meditation and study of the Scriptures?
Henceforth, would he be allowed to live a little less as a bishop and a
little more as a monk? This was always the strong desire of his heart....
But new and worse trials awaited him at Hippo.
THE SIXTH PART
FACE TO FACE WITH THE BARBARIANS
Et nunc veniant omnes quicumque amant Paradisum, locum quietis, locum
securitatis, locum perpetuae felicitatis, locum in quo non pertimescas
Barbarum.
"And now let all those come who love Paradise, the place of quiet, the
place of safety, the place of eternal happiness, the place where the
Barbarian need be feared no more."
_Sermon upon the Barbarian Persecution_, vii, 9.
I
THE SACK OF ROME
During June of the year 403, an astonishing event convulsed the former
capital of the Empire. The youthful Honorius, attended by the regent
Stilicho, came there to celebrate his triumph over Alaric and the Gothic
army, defeated at Pollentia.
The pageantry of a triumph was indeed a very astonishing sight for
the Romans of that period. They had got so unused to them! And no
less wonderful was the presence of the Emperor at the Palatine. Since
Constantine's reign, the Imperial palaces had been deserted. They had
hardly been visited four times in a century by their master.
Rome had never got reconciled to the desertion of her princes. When the
Court was moved to Milan, and then to Ravenna, she felt she had been
uncrowned. Time after time the Senate appealed to Honorius to shew himself,
at least, to his Roman subjects, since political reasons were against his
dwelling among them. This journey was always put off. The truth is, the
Christian Cęsars did not like Rome, and mistrusted her still half-pagan
Senate and people. It needed this unhoped-for victory to bring Honorius
and his councillors to make up their minds. The feeling of a common danger
had for the moment drawn the two opposing religions together, and here
they were apparently making friends in the same patriotic delight. Old
hates were forgotten. In fact, the pagan aristocracy had hopes of better
treatment from Stilicho. On account of all these reasons, the triumphant
Cęsar was received at Rome with delirious joy.
The Court, upon leaving Ravenna, had crossed the Apennines. A halt was
called on the banks of the Clitumnus, where in ancient times the great
white herds were found which were sacrificed at the Capitol during a
triumph. But the gods of the land had fallen; there would be no opiman bull
this time on their altars. The pagans felt bitter about it.
Thence, by Narnia and the Tiber valley, they made their way down into the
plain. The measured step of the legions rang upon the large flags of the
Flaminian way. They crossed the Mulvius bridge--and old Rome rose like a
new city. In anticipation of a siege, the regent had repaired the Aurelian
wall. The red bricks of the enclosure and the fresh mason-work of the
towers gleamed in the sun. Finally, striking into the _Via lata_, the
procession marched to the Palatine.
The crowd was packed in this long, narrow street, and overflowed into the
nearest alleys. Women, elaborately dressed, thronged the balconies, and
even the terraces of the palace. All at once the people remarked that the
Senate was not walking before the Imperial chariot. Stilicho, who wished to
conciliate their good graces, had, contrary to custom, dispensed them from
marching on foot before the conqueror. People talked with approval of this
wily measure in which they saw a promise of new liberties. But applause and
enthusiastic cheers greeted the young Honorius as he passed by, sharing
with Stilicho the honour of the triumphal car.
The unequalled splendour of his _trabea_, of which the embroideries
disappeared under the number and flash of colour of the jewels, left the
populace gaping. The diadem, a masterpiece of goldsmith's work, pressed
heavily on his temples. Emerald pendants twinkled on each side of his neck,
which, as it was rather fat, with almost feminine curves, suggested at once
to the onlookers a comparison with Bacchus. They found he had an agreeable
face, and even a soldierly air with his square shoulders and stocky neck.
Matrons gazed with tender eyes on this Cęsar of nineteen, who had, at that
time, a certain beauty, and the brilliance, so to speak, of youth. This
degenerate Spaniard, who was really a crowned eunuch, and was to spend his
life in the society of the palace eunuchs and die of dropsy--this son of
Theodosius was just then fond of violent exercise, of hunting and horses.
But he was even now becoming ponderous with unhealthy fat. His build and
bloated flesh gave those who saw him at a distance a false notion of his
strength. The Romans were most favourably impressed by him, especially the
young men.
But the army, the safeguard of the country, was perhaps even more admired
than the Emperor. The legions, following the ruler, had almost deserted
the capital. The flower of the troops were almost unknown there. In
consequence, the march past of the cavalry was quite a new sight for the
people. A great murmur of admiration sounded as the _cataphracti_ appeared,
gleaming in the coats of mail which covered them from head to foot. Upon
their horses, caparisoned in defensive armour, they looked like equestrian,
statues--like silver horsemen on bronze horses. Childish cries greeted each
_draconarius_ as he marched by carrying his ensign--a dragon embroidered on
a long piece of cloth which flapped in the wind. And the crowd pointed at
the crests of the helmets plumed with peacock feathers, and the scarfs of
scarlet silk flowing over the camber of the gilded cuirasses....
The military show poured into the Forum, swept up the _Via Sacra_, and when
it had passed under the triumphal arches of the old emperors, halted at the
Palace of Septimus Severus. In the Stadium, the crowd awaited Honorius.
When he appeared on the balcony of the Imperial box, wild cheering burst
out on all the rows of seats. The Emperor, diadem on head, bowed to the
people. Upon that the cheers became a tempest. Rome did not know how to
express her happiness at having at last got her master back.
On the eve of the worst catastrophes she had this supreme day of glory, of
desperate pride, of unconquerable faith in her destiny. The public frenzy
encouraged them in the maddest hopes. The poet Claudian, who had followed
the Court, became the mouthpiece of these perilous illusions. "Arise!" he
cried to Rome, "I prithee arise, O venerable queen! Trust in the goodwill
of the gods. O city, fling away the mean fears of age, _thou who art
immortal as the heavens_!..."
For all that, the Barbarian danger continued to threaten. The victory
of Pollentia, which, moreover, was not a complete victory, had settled
nothing. Alaric was in flight in the Alps, but he kept his eye open for a
favourable chance to fall back upon Italy and wrench concessions of money
and honours from the Court of Ravenna. Supported by his army of mercenaries
and adventurers in the pay of the Empire like himself, his dealings with
Honorius were a kind of continual blackmail. If the Imperial Government
refused to pay the sums which he protested it owed him for the maintenance
of his troops, he would pay himself by force. Rome, where fabulous riches
had accumulated for so many centuries, was an obvious prey for him and his
men. He had coveted it for a long time; and to get up his courage for this
daring exploit, as well as to work upon his soldiers, he pretended that he
had a mission from Heaven to chastise and destroy the new Babylon. In his
Pannonian forests it would seem he had heard mysterious voices which said
to him: "Advance, and thou shalt destroy the city!"
This leader of clans had nothing of the conqueror about him. He understood
that he was in no wise cut out to wear the purple; he himself felt the
Barbarian's cureless inferiority. But he also felt that neither was he
born to obey. If he asked for the title of Prefect of the City, and if he
persisted in offering his services to the Empire, it was as a means to get
the upper hand of it more surely. Repulsed, disdained by the Court, he
tried to raise himself in his own eyes and in the eyes of the common people
by giving himself the airs of an instrument of justice, a man designed by
fate, who marches blindly to a terrible purpose indicated by the divine
wrath. It often happened that he was duped by his own mummery. This turbid
Barbarian soul was prone to the most superstitious terrors.
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