S. AUSTIN, OR AUGUSTINE
S. Austin the noble doctor was born in Africa in the city of Carthage, and was come of noble kindred. And his father was named Patrick and his mother Monica. He was sufficiently instructed in the arts liberal, so that he was reputed for a sufficient philosopher and a right noble doctor, for he learned all by himself, without master, in reading the books of Aristotle and all other that he might find of arts liberal. And he understood them, as he himself witnesseth in the book of Confessions, saying: 'All the books that be called of the arts liberal, then I, most wretched servant of all covetises, read all by myself alone, and understood all them that I might read; and all them of the craft of speaking and of devising, all them of divisions of figures, of music and of numbers, I read and understood without great difficulty, and without teaching of any man; this knowest thou, my Lord God; for the hastiness of understanding and the gift of learning is of thee only and cometh of thy name. But I have not sacrificed to thee therefore; and science without charity edifieth not, but swelleth.' And Austin fell in the error of Manicheans, which affirm that Jesu Christ was fantastic and reny the resurrection of the flesh; and abode therein nine years. And when he was nineteen years of age, he began to read in
