Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
from their mutual love for Origen, although afterwards this was to prove the occasion of the most bitter enmity (§ 51, 2). About A.D. 397 he returned to Italy. He died in A.D. 410. His literary activity was mainly directed to the transplanting of the writings of Greek fathers to Latin soil. To his zeal in this direction we owe the preservation of Origen’s most important work Περὶ ἀρχῶν, De principiis, and of no fewer than 124 Homilies. The former, indeed, has been in many places altered in an arbitrary manner. He also translated several Homilies of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (§ 28, 3), etc. There are extant of his own works: the Continuation of his Latin reproduction of the Church History of Eusebius, down to A.D. 388, the romancing Historia eremitica s. Vitæ Patrum, biographies of 33 saints of the Nitrian desert (§ 51, 1), an Apologia pro fide sua, the Invectivæ Hieron. in 2 bks. the treatise De benedictionibus Patriarcharum, an exposition of Genesis xlix. in the spirit and style of Origen, and an Expositio symboli apost.
2 Sulpicius Severus149 from Aquitania in Gaul, had gained great reputation by his eloquence as an advocate, when the death of his young wife disgusted him with the world, and led him to withdraw into a monastery. He died about A.D. 410. In his Chronica or Historia sacra (§ 5, 1), a summary of biblical and ecclesiastical history, he imitates not unsuccessfully the eloquence of Sallust, so that he has been called “the Christian Sallust.” His Vita of Martin of Tours is a panegyric overflowing with reports of miracles. The three dialogues on the virtues of Eastern Monks and on the merits of St. Martin, may be regarded as a supplement to the Vita.
3 Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus is the name by which Peter, bishop of Ravenna, is best known. He also received the title Chrysostomus Latinorum. He died in A.D. 450. Among the 176 Sermones ascribed to him, the discourses expository of the baptismal formula are deserving of special mention. Of his Epistles, one in Latin and Greek addressed to Eutyches (§ 52, 4) is still preserved, in which the writer warns Eutyches against doctrinal errors.
§ 47.18. The Hero of the Soteriological Controversy.—Augustine—Aurelius Augustinus—was born in A.D. 354 at Tagaste in Numidia. From his pious mother Monica he early received Christian religious impressions which, however, were again in great measure effaced by his pagan father the Decurio Patricius. While he studied in Carthage, he gave way to sensuality and worldly pleasure. Cicero’s Hortensius first awakened again in him a longing after higher things. From about A.D. 374 he sought satisfaction in the tenets of the Manichæan sect, strongly represented in Africa, and for ten years he continued a catechumen of that order. But here, too, at last finding himself cruelly deceived in his struggle after the knowledge of the truth, he would have sunk into the most utter scepticism, had not the study of the Platonic philosophy still for awhile held him back. In A.D. 383 he left Africa and went to Rome, and in the following year he took up his residence in Milan as a teacher of eloquence. An African bishop, once himself a Manichæan, had comforted his anxious mother, who followed him hither, by assuring her that the son of so many sighs and prayers could not be finally lost. At Milan too the sermons of Ambrose made an impression on Augustine’s heart. He now began diligently to search the scriptures. At last the hour arrived of his complete renewal of heart and life. After an earnest conversation with his friend Alypius, he hastened into the solitude of the garden. While agonizing in prayer he heard the words thrice repeated: Tolle, lege! He took up the scriptures, and his eye fell upon the passage Rom. xiii. 13, 14. This utterance of stern Christian morality seemed as if written for himself alone, and from this moment he received into his wounded spirit a peace such as he had never known before. In order to prepare for baptism he withdrew with his mother and some friends to the country house of one of them, where scientific studies, pious exercises and conversations on the highest problems of life occupied his time. Out of these conversations sprang his philosophical writings. At Easter A.D. 387 Ambrose baptized him, and at the same time his illegitimate son Adeodatus, who not long afterwards died. His return journey to Africa was delayed by the death of his mother at Ostia, and at last, after almost a year’s residence in Rome, he reached his old home again. In Rome he applied himself to combat the errors of Manichæism, arguing with many of his old companions whom he met there. After his return to Africa in A.D. 388, he spent some years on his small patrimonial estate at Tagaste engaged in scientific work. During a casual visit to Hippo in A.D. 391 he was, in spite of all resistance, ordained presbyter, and in A.D. 395 colleague of the aged and feeble bishop Valerius, whose successor he became in the following year. Now began the brilliant period of his career, in which he stands forth as a pillar of the church and the centre of all theological and ecclesiastical life throughout the whole Western world. In A.D. 400 began his battle against the Donatists (§ 63, 1). And scarcely had he brought this to a successful end in a religious discussion at Carthage in A.D. 411, when he was drawn into a far more important Soteriological controversy by Pelagius and his followers (§ 53), which he continued till the close of his life. His death occurred in A.D. 430 during the siege of Carthage by the Vandals. He has written his own life in his Confessiones (Engl. translat., Oxf., 1838; Edin., 1876). In the form of an address to God he here unfolds before the Omniscient One his whole past life with all its errors and gracious providences in the language of prayer full of the holiest earnestness and most profound humility, a lively commentary on the opening words: Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde. … Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. The biography of his disciple Possidius may serve as a supplement to the Confessions.—Augustine was the greatest, most powerful, and most influential of all the fathers. In consequence of his thoroughly Western characteristics he was indeed less perfectly understood and appreciated in the East; but all the greater was his reputation in the West, where the whole development of church and doctrine seemed always to move about him as its centre. The main field of his literary activity in consequence of his own peculiar mental qualities, his philosophical culture, speculative faculty, and dialectic skill, as well as the ecclesiastical conflicts of his time, to which his most important works are devoted, was Systematic Theology, Dogmatics and Ethics, Polemics and Apologetics. He is weakest as an exegete; for he had little interest in philological and grammatico-historical research into the simple literal sense of scripture. He was unacquainted with the original language of the Old Testament, and even the New Testament he treats only in a popular way according to the Latin translations. Neither does he deal much with the exegetical foundations of dogmatics, which he rather develops from the Christian consciousness by means of speculation and dialectic, and from the proof of its meeting the needs of humanity. Over against philosophy he insisted upon the independence and necessity of faith as the presupposition and basis of all religious knowledge. Rationabiliter dictum est per prophetam: Nisi credideretis non intelligetis. Credamus ut id quod credimus intelligere valeamus.
§ 47.19. Augustine’s Works.
1 Philosophical Treatises belonging to the period preceding his ordination. The 3 bks. Contra Academicos combat their main position that men cannot attain to any certain knowledge; the treatise De Vita beata shows that true happiness consists in the knowledge of God; the 2 bks. De Ordine treat of the relation of good and evil in the divine order of the world; the 2 bks. Soliloquia are monologues on the means and conditions of the knowledge of supernatural truths, and contain beside the main question an Appendix De immortalitate animæ, etc.
2 Dogmatic Treatises. The most important are: De Trinitate in 15 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1874), a speculative dogmatic construction of the dogma, of great importance for its historical development; De doctrina christiana in 4 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1875), of which the first three bks. form a guide to the exposition of scripture after the analogy of faith, while the 4th book shows how the truth thus discovered is to be used (Hermeneutics and Homiletics); finally, the two bks. Retractationes, written in his last years, in which he passes an unfavourable judgment on his earlier writings, and withdraws or modifies much in them. Among his Moral-ascetic writings the bk. De bono conjugali is of special interest, called forth by Jovinian’s utterances on non-meritoriousness of the unmarried state (§ 62, 2); he admits the high value of Christian marriage, but yet sees in celibacy genuinely chosen as a means to holiness a higher step in the Christian life. Also the bk. De adulterinis conjugis against second marriages, and two treatises De Mendacium and Contra Mendacium ad Consentium, which in opposition to the contrary doctrine of the Priscillianists (§ 54, 2), unconditionally repudiates the admissibility