III. Relation of Alfred to St. Augustine.
Why should the practical warrior-king of Wessex have become the translator of the Latin Father? The answer to this question need not take us far afield. We have but to recall the exact historic position of St. Augustine in relation to the Latin Catholic system, and then to consider what were the circumstances of the English king, and the motives prompting him.
1. St. Augustine. — It is the accepted view of those competent to judge, that St. Augustine was the greatest of the Latin Fathers. Some class him with Jerome alone. Others admit Gregory the Great and Ambrose to be of equal rank with Augustine. At any rate his influence in formulating and expressing the Catholic dogmas that made the church such a power in the Middle Ages was enormous. 'Thou hast made us for Thee, and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee' is the one expression of St. Augustine that epitomizes his life and character. Bindemann[1] calls him 'one of the greatest personages in the Church, ...and it can well be said that among the Church Fathers the first place is due to him'. Nourrisson[2] places him in the first rank of the masters of human thought, alongside of Plato and Leibnitz, Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet.
In his intensity of character and in his miraculous conversion to the Christianity which he had persecuted, there is, in him, a striking resemblence to St. Paul.
