AUGUSTINE
S3
AUGUSTINE
tine and his companions seem to ha\e established
■without delay the ordinary routine of the Benedictine
rule as practised at the close of the sixth centurj'; and
to it they seem to have added in a quiet way the apos-
I folic ministry of preaching. The church dedicated to
St. Martin in the eastern part of the city which had
been set apart for the convenience of Bishop Luidhard
and Queen Bertha's followers many years before was
also thrown open to them until the king should permit
a more highly organized attempt at evangelization.
The e\ndent sincerity of the missionaries , their single-
mindedness, their courage under trial, and, above all,
the disinterested character of Augustine himself and
the unworldly note of his doctrine made a profound
impression on the mind of the king. He asked to be
instructed and his baptism was appointed to take
place at Pentecost. Whether the queen and her
Prankish bishop had any real hand in the process of
this comparatively sudden conversion, it is impossible
to say. St. Gregory's letter ^^Titten to Bertha her-
self, when the news of the king's baptism had reached
Rome, would lead us to infer, that, while httle or
nothing had been done before Augustine's arrival,
afterwards there was an endeavour on the part of the
queen to make up for past remissness. The pope
writes: "Et quoniam, Deo volente. aptum nunc
tempus est, agite, ut di\'ina gratia co-operante, cum
augmento possitis quod neglect um est reparare".
[Greg., Epp., XI (indie, iv), 29.] The remissness does
seem to have been atoned for, when we take into
account the Christian acti\-ity associated with the
names of this royal pair during the next few months.
-Ethelberht's conversion naturally gave a great im-
petus to the enterprise of Augustine and his com-
panions. Augustine himself determined to act at
once upon the pro\'isionaI instructions he had re-
ceived from Pope Gregory. He crossed over to Gaul
and sought episcopal consecration at the hands of
Virgilius, the Metropolitan of Aries. Returning al-
most immediately to Kent, he made preparations for
that more active and open form of propaganda for
which ^Ethelberht's public baptism had prepared a
way. It is characteristic of the spirit which actuated
Augustine and his companions that no attempt was
made to secure converts on a large scale by the em-
plojTnent of force. Bede tells us that it was part of
the king's uniform policy "to compel no man to
embrace Christianity" (H. E., I, xx\-i) and we know
from more than one of his extant letters what the
pope thought of a method so strangely at variance
with the teaching of the Gospels. On Cliristmas Day,
597. more than ten thousand persons were baptized
by the first "Archbishop of the English". The great
ceremony probably took place in the waters of the
Swale, not far from the mouth of the Medway. News
of these extraordinary events was at once dispatched
to the pope, who WTote in turn to express his
joy to his friend Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, to
Augustine himself, and to the king and queen. (Epp. ,
VIII, xxx; XI, xxviii; ibid., Ixvi; Bede, H. E., I, xxxi,
xxxii.) Augustine's message to Gregorj' was carried
by LawTcnce the Presbyter, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Peter one of the original colony of
missionarj' monks. They were instructed to ask for
more Gospel labourers, and, if we may trust Bede's
account in this particular and the curious group of
letters embodied in his narrative, they bore with them
a list of diibia, or questions, bearing upon several
points of discipline and ritual with regard to which
Augustine awaited the pope's answer.
The genuineness of the document or libellits, as Bede calls it (H. E., II, i), in which the pope is alleged to have answered the doubts of the new archbishop has not been seriously called in question; though scholars have felt the force of the objection which St. Boniface, writing in the second quarter of the eighth centurj', urges, viz. that no trace of it could be found in
the official collection of St. Gregory's correspondence
preserved in the registry of the Roman Church.
(Haddan and Stubbs, IH, 336; Dudden, "Gregory
the Great", II, 130, note; Mason, "Mission of St.
Augustine", preface, pp. \-iii and ix; Duchesne, "Orig-
ines ", 3d ed., p. 99, note.) It contains nine responsa,
the most important of which are those that touch
upon local differences of ritual, the question of juris-
diction, and the perpetually recurring problem of
marriage relationships. "Why ' ', Augustine had asked
"since the faith is one, should there be different
usages in different churches; one way of saj-ing Mass in
the Roman Church, for instance, and another in the
Church of Gaul?" The pope's reply is, that while
"Augustine is not to forget the Cliyrch in which he
has been brought up", he is at liberty to adopt from
the usage of other Churches whatever is most likely
to prove pleasing to Almighty God. "For institu-
tions", he adds, "are not to be loved for the sake of
places; but places, rather, for the sake of institu-
tions". With regard to the delicate question of juris-
diction Augustine is informed that he is to exercise
no authority over the churches of Gaul; but that "all
the bishops of Britain are entrusted to him, to the
end that the unlearned maj^ be instructed, the waver-
ing strengthened by persuasion and the perverse
corrected with authority". [Greg., Epp., XI (indie,
iv), 64; Bede, H. E., I, xx\'ii.] Augustine seized the
first convenient opportunity to carry out the graver
pro\nsions of this last enactment. He had already
received the pallium on the return of Peter and Law-
rence from Rome in 601. The original band of mis-
sionaries had also been reinforced by fresh recruits,
among whom "the first and most distinguished", as
Bede notes, "were Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and
Ruffinianus". Of these Ruffinianus was afterwards
chosen abbot of the monastery established by Augus-
tine in honour of St. Peter outside the eastern walls
of the Kentish capital, ilellitus became the first
English Bishop of London; Justus was appointed to
the new see of Rochester, and Paulinus became Metro-
politan of York.
^Ethelberht, as Bretwalda, allowed his wider territory to be mapped out into dioceses, and ex- erted him.self in Augustine's behalf to bring about a meeting with the Celtic bishops of South- ern Britain. The conference took place in Malmes- bury, on the borders of Wessex, not far from the Severn, at a spot long described in popular legend as Austin's Oak. (Bede, H. E., II, ii.) Nothing came of this attempt to introduce ecclesiastical uniformity. Augustine seems to have been willing enough to yield certain points; but on three important issues he would not compromise. He insisted on an unconditional surrender on the Easter controversy; on the mode of administering the Sacrament of Baptism; and on the duty of taking active measures in concert with him for the evangelization of the Saxon conquerors. The Celtic bishops refused to yield, and the meeting was broken up. A second conference was afterwards planned at which only seven of the British bishops convened. They were accompanied this time by a group of their "most learned men" headed by Dinoth. the abbot of the celebrated monasterj' of Bangor-is- coed. The result was, if anj-thing, more discouraging than before. Accusations of unworthy motives were freely bandied on both sides. Augustine's Roman regard for form, together with his punctiliousness for personal precedence as Pope Gregory's representa- tive, gave umbrage to the Celts. They denounced the Archbishop for his pride, and retired behind their mountains. As they were on the point of withdraw- ing, they heard the only angrj- threat that is recorded of the saint : " If ye will not have peace with the breth- ren, ye shall have war from your enemies; and if ye will not preach the way of life to the English, ye shall suffer the punislmient of death at their hands".
