Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/286

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AUGUSTINE.
248
AUGUSTINIANS.

'ark of safety' in which a perishing world must take refuge through submission to its authority. Convinced of the indispensable necessity of church membership, Augustine finally came to believe it right to coerce the intractable; it was the duty of the Christian State to 'compel them to come in.' This force-doctrine, so rejiellent to our modern ideas, and so fraught with evil in the history of religion, may be found clearly stated by Augustine in his Ninety-third Epistle (A.D. 408), where he cites the Parable of the Wedding-Feast in support of his position, and also in the proceedings of the Synod of Carthage, held in the year 411, which is commonly said to have ended the Donatist schism. Augustine's doctrine stood between the extremes of Pelagianism and jNIanichipistii. Against Pelagian naturalism lie held that death came into the world as the result of sin, and that man is saved by divine grace ; against Manichieism he vigorously defended free-will. A misunderstanding of his position on grace and free-will often arises from neglecting to consider that he is at the same time an ardent defender of human freedom again.ot jManichaean fatalism, and the champion of divine grace against the theory of complete human in- dependence.

Augustine was an energetic controversialist, as we have seen. He was also a powerful preacher; but his sermons, owing partly to the great difference between their style and method and that to which we are accustomed, and partly to their fanciful interpretation of Scripture, often disappoint the modern reader. The editors have accepted 363 sermons as genuine, among a much larger number which bear his name. In his great apologetic work, the City of God, Augustine appeared in the role of seer, unfolding the meaning of the past and the secrets of the future with abundant learning and marvelous fertility of imagination. Ten of the 22 books into which this long work is divided are devoted to refuting the pagan notion that the worship of the gods insures prosperity in this life or in the life to come. The remaining 12 trace the origin, progress, and destiny of the two cities, one of God, the other of this world, with the final triumph of the foraier, which is the Christian Church. Thirteen years of Augustine's busy life (413- 426) were occupied with this sublime attempt to construct a Christian philosophy of history. In 428, shortly before his death, Augustine wrote the Retractions, in which he registers his final verdict upon the books he had previously written, correcting whatever his maturer judgment held to be misleading or wrong.

The Confessions were written in 397; the Epistles, of which there are 270 in the Benedictine edition, are variously dated between 386 and 420. Among other important works may be noted his treatise On Frce-Will (388-395): On Christian Doctrine (397); On Baptism: Against the Donatists (400); On the Trinity (400-416); On Natitre and Grace (415): and Homilies upon several books of the Bible. The Benedictine edition of Augustine's works is still authoritative (Paris, 1079-1700, 11 vols., reprinted in Migne's Patroloaia Latina, and elsewhere): but it is safe to predict that the standard edition will be that now in process of publication under the auspices of the Vienna Academy (in the Corpus Scripiorum Ecclcsiasticorum Latinorum) , of which eight volumes had appeared in 1900. The most important of Augustine's Works may be read in English in the Nicene and Post-nicene Fathers, first series, edited bv Philip Sehaff (New York, 1886-88, 8 vols.). Separate translations of the Confessions are numerous, e.g. bv W. G. T. Shedd (Andover, 1860). and Charles Bigg (London, 1900). F. R. M. Hitchcock, f<aint Aufiitstine's Treatise on the City of God (London. 1900), is a convenient abstract of the complete work. Consult: "Augustine," in Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (London, 1887): Farrar. Lives of the Fathers, Vol. II. (Edinburgh, 1889); Harnack, History of Dogma, English translation by Neil Buchanan, Vol. V. (London, 1898): Cunningham, Saint Austin and His Place in the History of Christian Thought (London, 1885); and Harnack, Augustine's Confessions, English translation (London, 1901). For an unfavorable view of Augustine, see A. V. G. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought (Boston, 1894).


AU'GUSTIN'IANS, or AU'GUSTINES. The name given to several religious bodies in the Roman Catholic Church. Although Saint Augus- tine never framed any formal rule of monastic life, one was deduced from sermons attrilnited to him, and was adopted by as many as 30 monas- tic fraternities, of which the chief were the Canons Regular, the Knights Templar (see Templar.s, Knights), the Begging Hermits, the Friar Preachers or Dominicans (q.v. ), and the Prenionstratensians (q.v.). The Canons Regu- lar of Saint Augustine, or Austin Canons, appear to have been founded or remodeled about the middle of the Eleventh Century. Their disci- pline was less severe than that of monks, but more rigid than that of the secular or parochial clergy. They lived together, having a common refectory. Their habit was a long cassock, with a white rochet over it, all covered by a black cloak or hood, whence they were often called Black Canons. In England, where they were established early in the Twelfth Century, they liad about 170 houses at the time of Henry VIII. 's dissolution of the monasteries, the earli- est, it would seem, being at Nostell, near Ponte- fract, in Yorkshire. In Scotland they had about 25 houses; the earliest, at Scone, was founded in 1114, and filled by canons from Nostell; the others of most note were at Inclicolm. in the Firth of Forth, Saint Andrews, Holyrood, Cam- buskeimeth, and Inchaffray. In Ireland they had 223 monasteries and 33 nunneries.

The Begging Hermits, Hermits of Saint Augustine, or Austin Friars, were a much more austere order, renouncing all property, and Aiiwing to live by the voluntary alms of the faithful. They are believed to have sprung from certain societies of recluses who, in the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries, existed especially in Italy without any regulative constitution. At the instigation, as is alleged, of the rival fraternities of Dominicans and Franciscans, Pope Innocent IV.. about the middle of the Thirteenth Century, imposed on them the rule of Saint Augustine, whom they claimed as their founder. In 1256 Pope Alexander IV. placed them under the control of a superior or president, called a 'general.' In 1287, a code of rules or constitutions was compiled, by which the Order long continued to be governed. About 1570, Friar Thomas of .lesus, a Portuguese brother of the Order, introduced a. more austere rule, the disciples of which were forbidden to