sphere of scientific development. His influence may be compared with that of Origen in the East, but it was more general and enduring in the West. He was one of those great men of world-wide celebrity, whose agency is not limited to their own times, but is felt afresh at various epochs in the lapse of centuries. His position in reference to Theology was similar to that of Plato and Aristotle in the department of Philosophy. On the one hand, the development of the Catholic dogma which appears in the writings of the schoolmen proceeded from him, and, on the other hand, a reaction of the pure Christian consciousness against the foreign elements of the Catholic dogma. Those tendencies within the pale of the Catholic Church from which a new Christian life emanated connect themselves with him. Even the more complete reaction at the Reformation, and the various revivals which the evangelical Church has experienced may be traceable to the same source He resembled Origen in his turn for speculation, but surpassed him in originality, depth, and acuteness. Both passed through Platonism in the process of their culture; he did not, however, like Origen, mingle the Christian and Platonic elements, but developed the principles of Christianity independently of Platonism, and even in opposition to it. But Origen excelled him in greater mental freedom and erudite historical culture, while Augustin's mind was fettered by a definite Church system. The union of their mental elements would, without doubt, have made the most complete Church teacher. Nevertheless, many qualities were united in Augustin, which we find scattered in separate tendencies of theological development, and hence we see the various periods of the Church shadowed forth in his mental career. He was born at Tagaste, in Numidia;* the first seeds of Christianity were sown in his heart by his pious mother Monica. His great powers, his ardent temperament and powerful impulses needed to be attempered and refined by the Gospel. Hence, he had to pass through many a stormy conflict, and to be led through an intricate path, ere he could attain mental repose and steady development. In his youth he came to Carthage to study Rhetoric, and became intimately conversant with the Augustin, translated into German by Hurter: Schaffh. 1847. 2 Th. Böhringer, i. 3.

* See Confession. libb. xiii, cum præfat. A. Neandri: Berol. 1823.

classical writers of Rome, an important point in his education. He also attempted Grecian Literature, but his taste for the study of languages was not strong enough, and owing to this, he read the Bible only in the Latin translation. Had he made himself acquainted with the Scriptures, and the Oriental Fathers in the original languages, his views would have been modified in various respects. Surrounded by the moral corruption of a great city, he lost all deep sense of religion; lawless passions were kindled; worldly pursuits, noisy amusements and pleasures suppressed the divine germ in his heart; but the power of the seed of divine life, was evinced in counterworking the tendency to evil. It happened that a passage he accidentally met with in the Hortensius of Cicero in praise of Philosophy, presented the glory of such a life with such force to his soul, that he resolved to devote himself to the investigation of Truth. The Ideal rose before his view, but there was much to be overcome which prevented its attainment. This longing after the divine reminded him of his Christian education, and he turned to the Bible. But he had not the requisite disposition to understand its depth and simplicity. It was not congenial to his taste which had been formed by the study of classical literature, and he was offended by the demand the Church made on his belief. The large promises of the Manicheans appeared to him far more attractive, as they did not require faith, but gave hopes of discoveries and compre hensive knowledge. Moreover, the direction of their thinking, and of his own, agreed in one point, which had occupied him from the first; as, on the one hand, he had experienced the power of sinful desires, so, on the other, he had been attracted by the ideal of a higher life; the question, therefore, was early forced upon him, Whence this disunion in man? Whence came Evil? Manicheism promised a solution. Thus Augustin became a zealous Manichean, and knew no higher aim than to reach the degree of an electus. The sceptic Bayle, who, in the article of his Dictionary on Manicheism has urged the difficulties which beset a Theodicy as contrasted with Dualism, remarks that the cause of Manicheism would have gained much, had so acute a thinker as Augustin adhered longer to it. He might have discovered much to justify Dualism, and in his treatise De apto et pulchro (of which, however, we know nothing but the title) he has made the attempt. But Augustin

was too clear a thinker, and too truth-loving, to allow himself to be for ever enthralled in Manicheism. After spending ten years in this sect, he found out that he had been deceived, and maintained only an outward connexion with it. But after being freed from this delusion, he was in danger of falling into universal scepticism, had he not been kept by the remains of his general religious faith. At this crisis he became acquainted with a Latin translation of certain Neo-Platonic writings. He was attracted by their apparent harmony with those Christian ideas which from his childhood had still retained their hold upon him. Thus Platonism became an important point of transition in his philosophical and religious development. He experienced a reaction of an immediate religious belief against Scepticism, of Monism against Dualism.. The conception of Evil as something not positive was a transition to his later view of it. The spiritualizing of his mode of thinking was of prime importance, after having been misled by Manicheism to indulge in sensuous representations. Platonism substituted the spiritual contemplation of Ideas to the representations of the Imagination; his longing after the Ideal was again kindled. He formed an association with some of his friends for the investigation of truth; but in striving after this object, he was made sensible of certain obstacles in his own soul. He was prompted by the Platonic ideas which bore an affinity to Christianity to apply himself afresh to the study of Christian truth and of the Bible, for understanding which he was now better prepared by his inward experience. His study of Paul's Epistles made a powerful impression upon him; Paul's personal development resembled his own course; by means of it he understood the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. Yet, as an enthusiastic Platonist, he did not regard the New Testament as the highest source of religious truth, but only expected to find in it a confirmation of Platonic doctrines. He placed the superiority of Christ chiefly in his making those truths the common property of mankind which hitherto had been the exclusive possession of philosophers. The faith of the Church he regarded as a preparatory school for the higher, philosophic knowledge; they bore the same relation to each other as the Platonic doga and Torun, the one being the exoteric doctrine, the other, the esoteric. He had it in contemplation to construct a peculiar religious Idealism, and to

incorporate it with Christianity. But the Spirit of the Scriptures, especially of Paul's Epistles, overpowered him; Christian truths became more to him than he expected; religious faith, the Christian consciousness as the common property of all Christians, gradually overcame his individual philosophic training. From being a Platonic religious philosopher he became a believing Christian, who, on the foundation of faith, sought to raise a superstructure of knowledge. In addition to this, he attended at Milan on the preaching of AMBROSE, from which he acquired a more correct knowledge of the doctrines of the Church than from the caricatures of the Manicheans. He was still agitated by a fierce internal conflict, when some one told him of a man of the world, who had given up everything in order to devote himself entirely to Religion. This filled him with shame, and brought his self conflict to a crisis; in this state he heard the words TOLLE! LEGE! He opened his Bible, and lighted on Romans xiii. 13, 14. This decided him; he now gave all his energies to Christianity. In his further development, it became apparent how the Christian Spirit had worked its way out of Manicheism and Piatonism. In this view his treatises De vera religione, and De utilitate credendi are very important. If, at an earlier stage, he had set knowledge in opposition to the faith of authority, he now maintained it as a first principle that Christian knowledge could proceed only from faith. As long as a man continues opposed to divine things in his disposition, they must appear strange and unintelligible to him, hence what the Manicheans affirm, that knowledge must precede faith, is the reverse of the truth. Man must first of all, by the surrender of his heart, enter into divine truth, and then the enlightened reason will discern the contents of Christian truth. True knowledge must also proceed from the experience of the life which is founded on Faith. Hence the maxim, fides præcedit intellectum. On this, Augustin founded an independent scientific Dogmatic, which had for its basis Christian faith and Christian experience, and, therefore, the Christian consciousness, and in which the office was assigned to enlightened reason, of developing the contents of Christianity. Accordingly, there were two principal points to which he applied himself; in the first place, to maintain the independence and dignity of Faith against a profane speculation, and secondly, to promote a

rational knowledge in Religion, and to prove the connexion of Faith with Reason. He originated not only a practical, but a peculiar speculative development, one that was rooted in the Christian consciousness and vital experience. On this side, there was a connexion between his ideas and Scholasticism. The reconciliation of rational and scientific knowledge with the essential truths of Christianity, formed a counterpoise to that one-sided faith of authority which had hitherto prevailed in the Western Church, and had treated every free mode of thought as heretical. At first, indeed, when under the influence of Platonism, and engaged chiefly in the controversy against Manicheism, Augustin was, in many respects, more free and susceptible than, at a later period, when, indeed, he developed the Christian system in opposition to Platonism, but also became more inflexible in his systematic and ecclesiastical tendencies. His School maintained itself amidst the ravages of the Vandals down to the sixth century, and sent out men who ably vindicated the dogmatic standpoint of Augustin; such as FACUNDUS, bishop of Hermiane, and FULGENTIUS, bishop of Ruspe, both in Numidia. We also recognise the wide-spread influence of Augustin's scientific and dogmatic spirit in LEO the Great, bishop of Rome, ‡ and GREGORY the Great. § Gregory who closes this period as the last classical teacher of the West shows, along with the strong sensuous element of the religious spirit which characterizes Catholicism, a deep reflective piety which harmonizes with the Augustinian view of Christianity, and in both respects exerted an influence on after ages.

*

* Pro Defensione Trium Capitulorum, libb. xii. Contra Mucianum. Opp. ed. Sirmond: Par. 1629, 8. Biblioth. P. P. Gallandi, t. xi.

De Veritate Prædestinationis et Gratiæ, libb. 3. Bibl. Patr. Lugd. ix.

Opp. ed. Quesnel: Par. 1675, 2 t. 4; Ballaini: Venet. 1755-57, 3 t. fol. Avendt. Leo. d. Gr. u. s. Zeit. Mainz. Pecthel, Leb. u. Lehren des Papster Leo: Jen. 1843.

8 Expos. in Job s. Moralium. libb. 35. Liber Pastoralis curæ, Dialogor. de Vita et Miracul. Patr. libb. iv. Epp. libb. 14. Opp. ed. Bened. Par. 1705, 4 t. f.; Galliccioli: Venet. 1768, 17 t. 4. Pauli Warnefordi (775), De Vita S. Gregorii Papæ, libb. 4. Joannis Diaconi Eccles. Rom. (875), De Vita S. Gregorii, libb. 4. G. F. Wiggen, De Gregorio M. ejusque Placitis Anthropologicis: Rost. 1838. See also his Essay in D. Zeitschr. f. Histor. Theol. 1853. Lau, Gregor. I. nach s. Leben u. s. Lehre, 1845. Pfahler, Gregor. d. Gr. u. s. Zeit.: Fkf. 1853.