The Conversion of Saint Augustine

Irish Jesuit Province

The Conversion of Saint AugustineAuthor(s): Arthur LittleSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 74, No. 872 (Feb., 1946), pp. 59-67Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515479 .

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5**

The Conversion of Saint Augustine

By Arthur Little, S.J.

AT the end of the Libyan campaign, while the Allied armies were advancing from the Mareth Line, Dr. Bourke

must have been completing his history of a far more momentous contest once fought on the same territory1. His

account of Augustine's struggle to find the truth and purge the Church of heresy is a philosophical biography that is hardly short of excellent. It is lucid, penetrating, almost perfectly accurate, and nearly throughout fascinating to read. The few points on

which its accuracy might be questioned are too trivial in relation to the subject to be worth mentioning. Some may regret Dr.

Bourke's strict adhesion to the chronological order of events, for

it forces him to interrupt with matters of less moment the exciting narrative, for instance, of the strife with the Donatists. Others

may complain that he has been too sparing of explanations like those of his master, M. Gilson, in his exposition of Augustinian doctrine ; the doctrine of Illuminism could itself be illuminated

by referring to its relation to doctrines of innate ideas. To both he could reply effectively that his aim has been solely the clarity of factual truth, which required fidelity at once to chronology and to text. As it is he has revived for us not only the actions but the living thoughts of Augustine, and indeed the whole

experience of living in the yet delightful twilight of a doomed civilisation?a refuge for the spirit, if only because its troubles are no longer ours.

^Augustine's Quest of Wisdom. By Verncn L Bourke. Milwaukee: Bruce. 1945. S3?



60 THE IRISH MONTHLY

But' one aspect of Augustine lay outside the scope of Dr. Bourke's book though it is suggested by it. Probably a

philosophy of history such as Vico attempted, a demonstrated

interpretation of human enterprise in terms of the designs of

Providence, is impossible. It would require at one pole knowledge of men devising and executing their policies as

premise of the argument, and at the other pole the conclusion to God decreeing the conditions in which He foresees that men will

freely choose the courses that will serve His main purpose. But this purpose is the spiritual good of human souls, and rarely can

we assess, except by rather hazardous conjecture, the spiritual

good resulting from any historical movement, still less dis

tinguish the ultimate good intended by God. Nevertheless a man sometimes appears in history who so conspicuously fulfils a

need and inspires with spiritual strength his own and succeeding generations, that we can declare with some confidence that it

was precisely for this work that God had destined him. Clearly such men should be commonest amongst the saints, for amongst them God secures His purpose by their own deliberate co-opera tion and not, so to speak, by divine diplomacy. In other words, it is reasonable to assume that what they will God wills. Yet even amongst the saints, at least subsequent to the Apostles, it

is hard to find one whose work seems to play such a necessary part in God's plan as Augustine's. Dr. Bourke has briefly but

admirably outlined his influence on subsequent philosophers. As a vessel of election destined to play a decisive r?le in the con

tinuance of Christ's Church in history he remains for us to

consider.

That he was indeed such a vessel of election is first indicated

by the circumstances in which he finally resolved to become a

practising member of the Catholic Church. At this moment hi$

knowledge of the Faith was less than that of most of the great



THE CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE 61

converts whetf they took their resolutions, far less than he him self afterwards 'attained. This already suggests the conclusion that there was some unusual quality about the grace ?that he received. The other circumstances of his conversion emphasise that conclusion. Recall that agony in the garden in 886 that so>

fittingly led him to his work of securing the fruits of the

Redemption. He was struggling to choose between his own life of honour and pleasure and that of sacrifice for the honour and

pleasure of God. Suddenly he heard a voice, apparently of a

child in a neighbouring house, crying repeatedly; "

Take up and read! Take up and read!" With admirable and slightly amusing presence of mind Augustine at once began to criticise the source of the order before obeying it. He could not recall

any children's game in which these words were used. Let us note that children arc not wont to include reading as an element in their games. Moreover, Augustine should have known as a

fact whether they did so, for he appears in the Confessions as an

expert on childish amusements. At all events, he did conclude that the words were a divine command. And, taking up the

New Testament that lay at hand, he read the words that clinched his resolve and through his work preserved the Faith through the

ensuing centuries of tempest.

Catholic writers seem to me to have often been too hesitant in

accepting his own account of this incident. Clearly it was not

merely an imaginary voice, for he, never credulous and always

sane, spontaneously located it in the next house. His own

criticism is still valid against the view that it was indeed the

voice of a child naturally engaged in its affairs. It is not easy to believe that a child was naturally prompted to utter words unknown to the ritual of childhood yet so dramatically relevant

at that particular moment to that particular place. A miracle

is far more credible than such a coincidence. It is unimportant



m THE IRISH MONTHLY

whether that voice was that of a child supernaturally inspired or, a miraculous voice without a body (though the latter seems

more likely). It is sufficient that a thoughtful examination of the evidence does favour Augustine's conclusion that it was a

miraculous voice.

Why Providence performed that miracle for Augustine and not for other converts seems to have a clear answer. In the first

place, it is likely that, but for the divine command, his con version might have been indefinitely delayed. One reason

(already ^mentioned) for the delay would have been that he was then only imperfectly instructed in the Faith. Another reason

would have been the imperfection of his moral character at that time. Addiction to sins of the flesh was not his only fault ; he showed himself on occasion ungenerous enough to sacrifice the

happiness of others to his own interests and comfort. To give one instance, when he had determined to leave Africa and open a school in Rome, Monica, his mother, informed him that she would come with him to continue to urge him to become a

Catholic. So to avoid her loving importunity (it cannot have been very oppressive) he deceived her ?about the hour of sailing and abandoned her in Carthage. He deliberately and cruelly

wounded his mother for the sake of a very little personal case.

The splendid behaviour of Monica in following him on the next boat and uttering no complaint only underlines ?ry its contrast

Augustine's selfishness. A man so imperfect in knowledge gfeid disinterestedness was not likely easily and quickly to adopt the

heroic ideals of Christianity. On the other hand, nevertheless, it was urgently necessary to

the Church to receive without delay some such strengthening as would result from Augustine's conversion. There was

impending a break in the continuity of civilisation without

parallel in history. Already the Visigoths and the Huns had



THE CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE m

opened the onslaught on the frontiers of the Roman Empire east of Italy. Already Alaric was king of the Goths and Attila

advancing to the lordship of the Huns, leaders both of genius in the field. The unrest was to sweep like a tide untii every

province of the Empire was overrun by the barbarians. In less than a century a German mercenary was to expel into oblivion

the last Roman emperor, the boy Romulus Augustulug, who manifested even in his name the decline of Roman power in its second childhood to its original insignificance.

Now, in order that the Church should preserve its continuity in a shattered society it was necessary that it should hand on the

Faith unimpaired and with its authenticity unchallenged. And the purely human resources of the Church were at this time insufficient to do so. True, there were Catholics like St. Jerome

of moral and intellectual greatness. There was, moreover, a

vivid and widespread awareness of doctrine and its immediate

implications. But the fuller expositions and explanations of doctrines were scattered through the writings of the Fathers, no one of whom had hitherto attempted except suiAmarily to write an exhaustive survey of the Faith. Moreover, they were mostly content to explain the doctrine and illustrate it from Scripture without seeking any deep philosophical corroboration for it. At the same time, the unity of the Church was threatened by

many and powerful heresies and schisms, by Manicheanism,

Pelagianism, Donatism, and the Arianism that still lived on

among the Visigoths. With the records of the Faith thus scattered and unrelated to the truths of reason it seemed

inevitable in a time of social tumult (always prescinding from

the supernatural) that the babel of heretical sophistries would attract sufficient interest to make it impossible to distinguish traditional truth from later misunderstandings. What was needed then to strengthen the Church for the ordeal




was#a man of genius sufficient to discern and collect all authentic Catholic doctrine in writing under his own name, to show its

consistency in itself and with truth discoverable by natural reason, and by means of such knowledge to hold the heresies up to public scorn and eventually to the scorn of their former exponents. It is impossible to think of any man of Augustine's time qualified as he w?s thus to edit and illuminate the thought of the Church for its first four centuries. He had already begun to disengage the truth of Greek pagan philosophy from its falsehood. He was an historian, a widely-read man of letters, and an artist in prose. But he was also a practical man of affairs with a shrewd grip on

reality. In all he was by far the greatest teacher, even in the

comprehensive sense of master or leader, of the ancient world

at its close.

It is certain that God would have fulfilled His promise to His Church in any event. Doubtless there were many ways known

to Him by which He could have done so. Actually He chose

Augustine. But Augustine was struggling against the condition

necessary to fulfil his destiny, and its fulfilment was a pressing necessity. So he heard the voice of the Divine Prompter from the wings giving him his cue to take up and read. And, obey ing, he was fired to take a decision itself decisive for Christianity. It does not seem rash to say that in the case of Augustine's con

version we can discern both the divine means and the end. How Augustine carried out his mission is described in lucid

detail by Dr. Bourke* Though he was the greatest contro versialist of all time, his greatest argument was m>t contained in

controversy. It was contained rather in expositions of doctrine

written not against any opponent but merely to evince the

truth. In such works he proved himself the first philosophical

theologian. Taking as his natural outlook the thought of the

greatest of the Greek philosophers, that of Plato as amended by



THE CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE 65

Plotinus and again by himself, he showed that revelation is

knowledge granted by God of a world of reality that can

momentously influence the world known by natural reason.

The result wscs not only that the Faith received from him an

unprecedented illumination but also that its congruity with

other truths was manifested and its own apparently separated doctrines assumed something of the unity of a vision. Though the image exaggerates the defect of system in the earlier

Fathers, it was rather as i6 he had come upon the various dogmas like scattered images of animals and human beings and, discern

ing their mutual relations, arranged them into the crib. The

result was to make the Faith as intelligible as possible without

depriving it of its essential character of transcending all

peremptory evidence except the authority of God. No longer a little dreamlike in its seeming disconnection, it now stood forth

as the orderly filling of that blank space beyond natural human

knowledge that reason could not fill, the divine breaching of the

barrier at which reason halted, baffled by the Infinite.

The second part of Augustine's task was to purge the Church

of heresy. There are only two effective ways of destroying a

religious belief: to exterminate its adherents or to persuade them. Mere refutation in controversy or imposition of penalties for dissent is insufficient. By the first method Catholicism was

once expelled from Japan. The second is the method of the

Church (and only by the Church successfully applicable) and

Augustine was its greatest exponent. The dramatic narrative

of how he, almost single-handed, overwhelmed in turn

Manicheanism, Donatism, and Pelagianism, bringing his

opponents to their knees not in terror but in penitence, must be

read in Dr. Bourke's clear and full account. He attacked no

one, but he defended the truth. And he defended it, moreover,

even against the cut-throat bands of the Donatists, solely by




force of argument devoid of invective. Himself he did not defend at all. To a Pelagian who libelled his private life he

replied that the sins of a bishop are no argument against the

justice of his cause. Beside this heroic 4i

Publish but be saved !" of Augustine's Wellington's

" Publish and be damned!" looks

merely fussy and bad-tempered. It was this impersonal love of

truth, hatred of sin joined to love of the sinner, that won him a

distinction unique in history?to have vanquished and extin

guished three heresies solely by his own efforts. It is stirring to see the Church in Africa under Augustine's guidance thus

overcoming by spiritual weapons all its enemies in their panoply of power.

Augustine thus sent forth the Church to endure alone through the disruption of civil society with her claim to divine origin virtually unchallenged and her doctrine luminously declared.

He was the instrument through whom the Church remained the

solitary strand unsevered in the continuity of civilisation. To

crown his achievement he had written his Retractationes, a re

cension of all his works that for ever puts their authenticity be

yond dispute. Two facts suffice to show that he was regarded as

the spokesman par excellence of the true Church above all the

other Fathers until European culture once more began to spread.

When Charlemagne issued his Admonitio Generalis in 789 to restore general education the modest course in philosophy pre

scribed with the Quadrivium, the seed of all mediaeval

philosophy, was confined to texts from Augustine's writings.

And half a century later when the next great philosopher after

Augustine appeared, John the Irishman or Scotus Eriugena,

he* quoted Augustine more than any'other author, more, even

than the heterodox Neoplatonist called the Pseudo-Areopagite, from whose errors Augustine nearly, but not quite, liberated

Eriugena.



THE CONVERSION OF ST. AUGUSTINE m

Is Augustine's work then finished except in its effect? Or can it still exercise new influence on the modern world ? I am sure

that it can and most of all at this moment of another crisis in civilisation. The central practical principle of his spiritual life

always was that in times of oecumenical disaster, when th? whole

world is shaken with the sallies of evil, then the good man must seek God not in the world, which has lost His likeness, but in

his own soul. The four freedoms won by those Libyan armies

will bring happiness to no one who does not achieve the freedom

of his soul preached and practised by the great Libyan bishop. More vividly than ever at the end he showed the principle in

practice. The enemy had approached Hippo and Augustine had

refused to flee. And there in 430 he was overtaken by his last

illness. Eut during that last ten days, while the Vandals were

thundering on the city gates, and Rome had been pillaged by the Goths, and the paganism that covered the north from Asia

to Ireland was creeping down upon the Church, Augustine

ordered that no one should visit his room save his physician for

a few minutes each day and, for the rest of the time, the Beauty

ever ancient and ever new. Never since then has anyone made

such a gesture of contempt for the world.



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The Conversion of Saint Augustine