Part 50 (2/2)
The following pa.s.sages from the _Confessions_ are intended to ill.u.s.trate Augustines type of piety.
Ch. 29. My whole hope is only in Thy exceeding great mercy. Give what Thou commandest and command what Thou wilt.(167) Thou imposest continency upon us. And when I perceived, saith one, that no one could be continent except G.o.d gave it; and this was a point of wisdom also to know whose this gift was [Wis. 8:21]. For by continency are we bound up and brought into one, whence we were scattered abroad into many. For he loves Thee too little, who besides Thee loves aught which he loves not for Thee. O love, who ever burnest and art never quenched! O charity, my G.o.d, kindle me!
Thou commandest continency; give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.
Ch. 27. Too late have I loved Thee, O fairness, so ancient, yet so new!
Too late have I loved Thee. For behold Thou wast within and I was without, and I was seeking Thee there; I, without love, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou wast with me, but I was not with Thee.
Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and Thou broke through my deafness.
Thou didst gleam and s.h.i.+ne and chase away my blindness. Thou didst exhale fragrance and I drew in my breath and I panted for Thee. I tasted, and did hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
Ch. 43. O how Thou hast loved us, O good Father, who sparedst not thine only Son, but didst deliver Him up for us wicked ones! [Rom. 8:32.] O how Thou hast loved us, for whom He, who thought it not robbery to be equal with Thee, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross [Phil. 2:8]. He alone, free among the dead [Psalm 88:5], that had power to lay down His life, and power to take it again [John 10:18]; for us was He unto Thee both victor and the victim, and the victor became the victim; for He was unto Thee both priest and sacrifice, and priest because sacrifice; making us from being slaves to become Thy sons, by being born of Thee, and by serving us. Rightly, then, is my strong hope in Him, because Thou didst cure all my diseases by Him who sitteth at Thy right hand and maketh intercession for us [Rom. 8:34]; else should I utterly despair. For numerous and great are my infirmities, yea numerous and great are they; but Thy medicine is greater. We might think that Thy word was removed from union with man and despair of ourselves had not He been made flesh and dwelt among us [John 1:14].
(_c_) Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, XIII, 3, 14. (MSL, 41:378; 86.)
The Fall of Man and Original Sin.
The _City of G.o.d_ is Augustines great theodicy, apology, and philosophy of universal history. It was begun shortly after the capture of Rome, and the author was engaged upon it from 413 to 426. It was the source whence the medival ecclesiastics drew their theoretical justification for the curialistic principles of the relation of State and Church, and at the same time the one work of St. Augustine that Gibbon the historian regarded highly.
For an a.n.a.lysis see Presense, art. Augustine in DCB.
Compare the position of Augustine with the following pa.s.sage from St. Ambrose, _On the Death of Satyrus_, II, 6, Death is alike to all, without difference for the poor, without exception for the rich. And so although through the sin of one alone, yet it pa.s.sed upon all; In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of paradise. In Adam I died; how shall the Lord call me back, except He find me in Adam; guilty as I was in him, so now justified in Christ. [MSL, 16:1374.]
The first men would not have suffered death if they had not sinned. But having become sinners they were so punished with death, that whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished with the same death. For nothing else could be born of them than what they themselves had been. The condemnation changed their nature for the worse in proportion to the greatness of their sin, so that what was before as punishment in the man who had first sinned, followed as of nature in others who were born. In the first man, therefore, the whole human nature was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity when that conjugal union received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when he was created but when he sinned, and was punished, this he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned.
Ch. 14. For G.o.d, the author of natures, not of vices, created man upright; but man, being by his own will corrupt and justly condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For we were all in that one man when we were all that one man, who fell into sin by the woman who had been made from him before the sin. For not yet was the particular form created and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to live; but already the seminal nature was there from which we were to be propagated; and this being vitiated by sin, and bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could not be born of man in any other state. And thus from the bad use of free will, there originated a whole series of evils, which with its train of miseries conducts the human race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only being excepted who are freed by the grace of G.o.d.
(_d_) Augustine, _De Correptione et Gratia_, 2. (MSL, 44:917.)
Grace and Free Will.
Now the Lord not only shows us what evil we should shun, and what good we should do, which is all the letter of the law can do; but moreover He helps us that we may shun evil and do good [Psalm 37:27], which none can do without the spirit of grace; and if this be wanting, the law is present merely to make us guilty and to slay us. It is on this account that the Apostle says: The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life [II Cor.
3:6]. He, then, who lawfully uses the law, learns therein evil and good, and not trusting in his own strength, flees to grace, by the help of which he may shun evil and do good. But who flees to grace except when the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He wills his ways? [Psalm 37:23.] And thus also to desire the help of grace is the beginning of grace. It is to be confessed, therefore, that we have free choice to do both evil and good; but in doing evil every one is free from righteousness and is a servant of sin, while in doing good no one can be free, unless he have been made free by Him who said: If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed [John 8:36]. Neither is it thus, that when any one shall have been made free from the dominion of sin, he no longer needs the help of his Deliverer; but rather thus, that hearing from Him, Without me ye can do nothing [John 15:5], he himself also says to Him: Be Thou my helper! Forsake me not!
(_e_) Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, XV, 1. (MSL, 41:437.)
Predestination.
Inasmuch as all men are born condemned, and of themselves have not the power to turn to grace, which alone can save them, it follows that the bestowal of grace whereby they may turn is not dependent upon the man but upon G.o.ds sovereign good pleasure. This is expressed in the doctrine of Predestination. For a discussion of the position of Augustine respecting Predestination and his other doctrines as connected with it, see J. B. Mozley, _A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination_, 1873, a book of great ability. _Cf._ also Tixeront, _History of Dogmas_, vol. II.
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