Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/90

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

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

Augustine was now thirty years of age. He had almost wholly shaken off Manicheism, and was, as his mother saw, steadily gravitating towards the Catholic church. His successful