The Conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo (Augustinum Hipponesm) by Pope John Paul II
I
We know the progress of his conversion from his own works written in the solitude of Cassiciacum before his baptism,[8] and above all from the famous Confessions, a work that is simultaneously autobiography, philosophy, theology, mysticism and poetry, a work in which those who thirst for truth and know their own limitations have always discovered their own selves. Toward the end of his life, he wrote: "Which of my works succeeded more often in being known and loved than the books of my Confessions?"[9] History has never contradicted this judgment, but has amply confirmed it. Even today, the Confessions of St. Augustine are widely read, since the richness of their interior insight and religious emotion have a profound effect on the minds of men and women, stimulating them and disturbing them. This is true not only of believers; even one without faith, but in search at least of a certainty that will allow him to understand himself, his deep aspirations and his torments, reads this work with advantage. The conversion of St. Augustine, an event totally dominated by the need to find the truth, has much to teach the men and women of today, who are so often mistaken about the greatest question of all life.
It is well known that this conversion took a wholly individual path, because it was not a case of arriving for the first time at the Catholic faith, but of rediscovering it. He had lost it, convinced that in so doing, he was abandoning only the Church, not Christ.
He had been brought up in a Christian manner by his mother,[10] the pious and holy Monica.[11] In virtue of this education, Augustine always remained not only a believer in God, in providence and in the future life,[12] but also a believer in Christ, whose name he "had drunk in," as he says, "with my mother's milk."[13] After he had returned to the faith of the Catholic Church, he said that he had returned "to the faith which was instilled in me as a child and which had entered into my very marrow."[14] If one wishes to understand his interior evolution, and what is perhaps the most profound aspect of his personality and his thought, one must take this fact as one's starting-point.
He awoke at the age of nineteen to the love of wisdom, when he read the Hortensius of Cicero—"That book altered my way of thinking . . . and I desired wisdom's immortality with an incredible ardor in my heart."[15] He loved the truth deeply, and sought it always with all the strength of his soul: "O Truth, Truth, how deep even then was the yearning for you in the inmost depths of my mind![16]
Despite this love for truth, Augustine fell into serious errors. Scholars who look for the reasons for this indicate three directions: first, a mistaken, account of the relationship between reason and faith, so that he would have to choose between them; second, in the supposed contrast between Christ and the Church, with the consequent conviction that it was necessary to abandon the Church in order to belong more fully to Christ; and third, the desire to free himself from the consciousness of sin, not by means of the remission of sin through the working of grace, but by means of the denial of the involvement of human responsibility in the sin itself.
The first error consisted, therefore, in a certain spirit of rationalism which led Augustine to believe that "one should believe those who teach, rather than those who issue commands."[17] With this spirit, he read the Sacred Scriptures and felt himself repelled by the mysteries that they contain, mysteries that need to be accepted with humble faith. When he spoke later to his people about this period of his life, he said: "I who speak to you was once deceived, when I first came to the divine Scriptures as a youth, preferring to discuss intellectual points rather than to seek piety.... In my wretchedness, I thought that I could fly, and left the nest; and before I could fly, I fell."[18] It was at this time that Augustine met the Manichaeans, heard them and followed them.
The chief reason for this was that "they said that, having set aside the terrible authority, they would lead to God by pure and simple reason those willing to listen to them, freed from all errors"[19] Augustine then presented himself as "one wishing to grasp and imbibe the open and authentic truth"[20] with the force of reason alone.
After long years of study, especially of philosophical study,[21] he realized that he had been deceived, but the effect of the Manichaean propaganda was to keep him convinced that the truth was not to be found in the Catholic Church.[22] He fell into a profound depression and indeed despaired of ever coming to know the truth: "the Academicians kept my rudder for long in the middle of the streams, resisting all winds."[23]
It was the same love for truth which he always had within him, that rescued him from this interior crisis. He realized that it was impossible that the path to truth should be closed to the human mind; if it is not found, it is because men neglect and despise the means that will lead to the discovery of truth.[24] Strengthened by this conviction, he replies to himself: "Rather, let us seek more diligently, and not despair."[25] He therefore continued to search, and reached the harbor under the guidance of the divine grace which his mother implored for him in her supplications and abundant tears.[26]
He understood that reason and faith are two forces that are to cooperate to bring the human person to know the truth,[27] and that each of these has its own primacy: faith comes first in the sequence of time, reason has the absolute primacy: "the authority is first in the order of time, but in reality the primacy belongs to the reason."[28] He understood that if faith is to be sure, it needs a divine authority, and that this is none other than the authority of Christ, the supreme teacher—Augustine had never doubted this[29]—and that the authority of Christ is found in the Sacred Scriptures[30] that are guaranteed by the authority of the Catholic Church.[31]
With the help of the Platonist philosophers, he freed himself from the materialistic concept of being that he had taken in from Manichaeism: "Admonished by them to return to myself, I entered within myself, under Your guidance.... I entered, and I saw as with the eye of my soul ... the inalterable light above my mind."[32] It was this inalterable light that opened to him the immense horizons of the spirit of God. He understood that the first question to be asked about the serious question of evil, which was his great torment,[33] was not its origin, but what it was;[34] and he saw that evil is not a substance, but the lack of good: "All that exists is good. The evil about the origin of which I asked questions is not a substance."[35] He concluded that God is the creator of everything, and that no substance exists that was not created by Him.[36]
Taught by his own experience of life,[37] he made the decisive discovery that sin has its origin in the will of the human person, a will that is free and weak: "It was I who willed and refused; it was I, I."[38]
Although he could assert at this time that he had reached the point of arrival, this was not yet the case, because he was caught in the tentacles of a new error, the presumption that he could attain the beatifying possession of the truth by natural powers alone. An unhappy personal experience changed his opinion on this point.[39] He understood then that it is one thing to know the goal, another to reach it.[40] In order to find the necessary powers and the path itself, he took up "most eagerly," as he says, "the venerable Scripture of Your Spirit, and above all the apostle Paul."[41] He found Christ the teacher in the letters of Paul, as he had always venerated Him, but also Christ the Redeemer, the incarnate Word, the only mediator between God and men. He saw then in all its splendor "the face of philosophy"[42]—the philosophy of Paul that has as its center Christ, "the power and wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:24), and has other centers in faith, humility and grace; the "philosophy" that is at once wisdom and grace, so that it becomes possible not only to know one's homeland, but also to reach it.[43]
Having rediscovered Christ the Redeemer and embraced Him, Augustine had returned to the harbor of the Catholic faith, to the faith in which he had been brought up by his mother: "For I had heard while still a boy about the eternal life promised to us by the God who in His humility came down to our pride."[44] The love for the truth, nourished by divine grace, overcame all errors. But the path was not yet at its end. A former plan was reborn in Augustine's mind: to consecrate himself totally to wisdom once he had found it, abandoning every earthly hope in order to possess wisdom.[45] Now he could no longer make excuses: the truth so long desired was now certain.[46] Nevertheless, he hesitated, seeking reasons to put off the decision to do this.[47] The bonds that tied him to the earthly hopes were strong: honors, money, marriage,[48] especially the last, in view of the way of life that that had become customary for him. [49]
Augustine knew well that he was not forbidden to marry;[50] but he did not want to be a Catholic Christian in any other way except by renouncing the excellent ideal of the family in order to dedicate himself with "all" his soul to the love and possession of wisdom. In taking this decision which corresponded to his deepest aspirations but was in contrast to his most deeply-rooted habits, Augustine was prompted by the example of Anthony and of the monks who were beginning to spread in the West also and whom he came to know by chance.[51] He accused himself with great shame, "You could not do what these men and women do."[52] A deep and painful struggle ensued, which was brought to its close by divine grace once again.[53]
Augustine related to his mother his serene and strong decision: "Then we went to my mother and related the matter to her: she rejoiced. We related how it had come about: she exulted in triumph and she blessed You, who are able to do more than we ask or think (Eph 3:20), because she saw that You had given her so much more, as regarded me, than she had been accustomed to ask with her unhappy and tearful groanings. For You converted me to yourself, so that I might seek neither wife nor any hope of this world."[54]
From this moment, Augustine began a new life. He finished the academic year—the harvest holidays were near[55]—and withdrew to the solitude of Cassiciacum;[56] at the end of the vacation, he gave up teaching, [57] and returned to Milan at the beginning of 387. He enrolled among the catechumens and was baptized on the night of Holy Saturday—April 23-24—by Ambrose, the bishop from whose preaching he had learned so much. "We were baptized, and the care of the past life fled from us. I could not have enough in those days of the wonderful sweetness of contemplating the sublimity of Your plan of salvation for the human race." He adds, bearing witness to the profound emotion of his mind, "How much I wept at the hymns and canticles, keenly moved by the sweet voices of Your Church!"[58]
After baptism, Augustine's one desire was to find a suitable place to live with his friends according to his "holy resolution" to serve the Lord.[59] He found it in Africa, at Tagaste, his native town, where he went after the death of his mother at Ostia Tiberina[60] and after spending a few months at Rome to study the monastic movement.[61] When he arrived at Tagaste, "having now cast off from himself the cares of the world; he lived for God with those who accompanied him, in fasting, prayers, and good works, meditating on the law of the Lord by day and by night." The passionate lover of the truth wanted to dedicate his life to asceticism, to contemplation, and to the intellectual apostolate. His first biographer indeed goes on to say: "In his discourse and his books, he taught about what God had revealed to his intellect as he pondered and prayed."[62] He wrote very many books at Tagaste, as he had done at Rome and Milan and at Cassiciacum.
After three years he went to Hippo, intending to look for a site to found a monastery, and to meet a friend whom he hoped to win for the monastic life. He found instead, in spite of himself, the priesthood.[63] But he did not give up his ideal: he asked and obtained permission to found a monastery, the monastery of the laymen, in which he lived, and from which many priests and many bishops came for all of Africa.[64] When he became bishop, five years later, he transformed the bishop's house into a monastery, the monastery of the clerics. Not even as priest and bishop did he abandoned the ideal conceived at the moment of his conversion. He wrote also a rule for the servants of God, which has had so much influence in the history of western religious life, and continues to play its part today.[65]
8 Cf. De beata vita 4: PL 32,961, Contra Acad. 2, 2, 4-6, PL 32, 921-922, Solil. 1, 1, 1-6, PL 32, 869-872.
9 De dono perseu. 20, 53: PL 45, 1026.
10 Confess. 1, 11, 17: PL 32, 699.
11 Cf. Confess. 9, 8, 17-9, 13, 17: PL 32, 771-780.
12 Cf. Confess. 6 5,8: PL 32,723.
13 Confess. 3, 4, 8: PL 32, 686; ibid. 5,
14, 25: PL 32, 718. 14 Contra Acad. 2,2,5: PL 32,921.
15 Confess. 3,4,7: PL 32,685.
16 Confess. 3, 6, 10: PL 32, 687.
17 De beata vita 4: PL 32, 961.
18 Serm. 51, 5, 6: PL 38, 336.
19 De ultitate cred. 1, 2: PL 42, 66.
20 Ibid.
21 Cf. Confess. 5, 3, 3: PL 32,707.
22 Cf. Confess. 5, 10, 19; 5, 13,
23; 5, 14, 24: PL 32, 715, 717, 718. 23 De beata vita 4: PL 32, 961; Cf. Confess. 5, 9, 19; 5, 14, 25; 6, 1, 1: PL 32, 715, 718, 719.
24 Cf. De ultitate credendi 8, 20: PL 42, 78-79.
25 Confess. 6, 11, 18: PL 32. 719.
26 Cf. Confess. 3, 12, 21: PL 32, 694.
27 Cf. Contra Acad. 3, 20, 43: PL 32, 957; Confess. 6, 5, 7: PL 32, 722-723.
28 De ordine 2, 9, 26: PL 32, 1007.
29 Cf. Confess. 7, 19, 25: PL 32, 746.
30 Cf. Confess. 6, 5, 7; 6, 11, 19; 7, 7, 11: PL 32, 723, 729, 739.
31 Cf. Confess. 7, 7, 11: PL 32, 739.
32 Confess. 7, 10, 16: PL 32, 742.
33 Cf. Confess. 7, 1, 1; 7, 7, 11: PL 32, 733, 739.
34 Cf. Confess. 7, 5, 7: PL 32, 736.
35 Confess. 7, 13, 19: PL 32, 743.
36 Cf. Confess. 7, 12, 18: PL 32, 743.
37 Cf. Confess. 7, 3, 5: PL 32, 735.
38 Confess. 8, 10, 22: PL 32, 759; Cf. Ibid. 8, 5, 10-11: PL 32, 753-754.
39 Cf. Confess. 7, 17, 23: PL 32, 744-745.
40 Cf. Confess. 7, 21, 26: PL 32, 749.
41 Confess. 7, 21, 27: PL 32, 747.
42 Contra Acad. 2, 2, 6: PL 32, 922.
43 Cf. Confess. 7, 21, 27: PL 32, 748.
44 Confess. 1, 11, 17: PL 32, 669.
45 Cf. Confess. 6, 11, 18; 8, 7, 17: PL 32, 729, 757. 17
46 Cf. Confess. 8, 5, 11, 12: PL 32, 754
47 Cf. Confess. 6, 12, 21: PL 32, 730.
48 Cf. Confess. 6, 6, 9: PL 32, 723.
49 Cf. Confess. 6, 15, 25: PL 32, 732.
50 Cf. Confess. 8, 1, 2: PL 32, 749.
51 Cf. Confess. 8, 6, 13 -15: PL 32, 755 -756.
52 Confess. 8, 11, 27: PL 32, 761.
53 Cf. Confess. 8, 7, 16 -12, 29: PL 32, 756 -762.
54 Confess 8, 12, 30: PL 32, 762.
55 Confess. 9, 2, 24; PL 32, 763.
56 Cf. Confess. 9, 4, 7 -12: PL 32, 766 -769.
57 Cf. Confess. 9, 5, 13: PL 32, 769.
58 Confess. 9, 6, 14: PL 32, 769.
59 Cf. Confess. 9, 6, 14: PL 32, 769.
60 Cf. Confess. 9, 12, 28s: PL 32, 775s.
61 Cf. De mor. Eccl. cath. 1, 33, 70: PL 32, 1340.
62 POSSIDIO, Vita S. Augustini 3, 1: PL 32, 36
63 Cf. Serm. 355, 2: PL 39, 1569.
64 Cf. POSSIDIO, Vita S. Augustini 11, 2: PL 32, 42.
65 Cf. L. VERHEIJEN, La regle de Saint Augustin, Paris 1967, I -II.