United States or Saint Pierre and Miquelon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Most earnestly did he wish that Catholicism might be a religion of love, open to all the nations of the earth, even as its Divine Founder Himself had wished. A glowing and dominating intelligence, charity which never tired those were Augustin's arms. And they were enough. These qualities gave him an overwhelming superiority over all the men of his time.
Their noise interfered with Augustin's sermons. Possibly the situation had become slightly better in Hippo since the edict of Theodosius. But it was not so long ago that those of the Donatist party had the upper hand. A little before the arrival of the new bishop, the Donatist clergy forbade their faithful to bake bread for Catholics.
Here he is, then, as if unfastened from his child's soul separated from himself. The object of his youthful faith has no more meaning for him. He understands no longer, and it is all one to him that he does not. Thus, told by himself, does this first crisis of Augustin's life emerge from the autobiography; and it takes on a general significance.
It is probable that some time during the inquiry he had got to know Valerius' coadjutor better. Augustin's charm, taken with the austerity of his life, acted upon the vexed old man and altered his views. Be that so or not, it was at any rate by Megalius, Bishop of Guelma and Primate of Numidia, that Augustin was consecrated Bishop of Hippo. He was in consternation over his rise.
But at all events, at the present moment, he was not the man to interfere with Augustin's pleasures: he only thought of the eventual fortune of the young man. Alone, Monnica might have had some influence on him, and she herself was fascinated by his future career in the world.
Pagan notions were still very strong in this community, and the place of burial was an important consideration. Monnica, like all other widows, had settled upon hers. At Thagaste she had had her place prepared beside her husband Patricius. And here now she appeared to give that up. Augustin's companions were astonished at such abnegation.
But Monnica intrepidly encouraged them. "Never you fear, we shall arrive in port safe and sound!" God, she declared, had promised her this. If, in her Christian life, she knew other minutes more divine, that was truly the most heroic. Across Augustin's calm narrative, we witness the scene.
Primo ergo nobis certum sit haec animantia non in virtute tantum aut in semine, sed actu, et in seipsis, facta fuisse his diebus in quibus facta narrantur. Quanquam Augustinus lib. 3, Gen. ad liter, cap. 5 in sua persistens sententia contrarium sentire videatur." But Suarez proceeds to refute Augustin's opinions at great length, and his final judgment may be gathered from the following passage:
The dampness of the climate had given him a sort of chronic bronchitis which the summer had not cured. He had difficulty in breathing; his voice was muffled and thin so much so, that he began to think his lungs were attacked. Augustin's health really needed care. This was a quite good enough reason to interrupt his lectures.
So while the fire at the head of the lake blazed high, and band after band of the "boys" came in, thirsting for fight, and while song and revelry lorded it in the forecourt and on the strand, and not whisky only but cognac, taken from Captain Augustin's sloop, flowed freely, the two men pacing the walk behind the Florence yews gave scarce a thought to the present moment.
Word Of The Day