28 August: Boreham on Augustine

The Foundations of Thought
From time immemorial, August 28 has been regarded as sacred to the memory of Augustine of Hippo, who died on that day more than 15 centuries ago. Quite apart from his position in the ecclesiastical calendar, Augustine has countless claims on the reverence and gratitude of posterity. His "Confessions" stands as the first, and, in some respects, the greatest of autobiographies. Sir John Lubbock places it ninth in his famous list of the best 10 books ever written. Many men have made as great a mark on their own time as did he; but no other man has exercised his authority for so long. Principal John Tulloch declares that no single name has ever exercised such power over the centuries, and that no one mind has ever made so indelible an impression on subsequent thought. Dr. Tulloch adds that, for more than 1,000 years, scholars of all kinds, creeds, and classes have acknowledged their indebtedness to the depth and clarity of Augustine's convictions, and to the strength, solidity, and penetration with which he handled the most difficult questions, weaving all the elements of his variegated experience into a noble system of thought.

He began badly. He ran away from his North African home, leaving a trail of dishonour behind him, and nearly breaking the heart of Monica, his mother, in the process. Our first clear glimpse of him is at Rome. He is a tall fellow of 30, of swarthy skin, dark earnest eyes, jet-black hair, and lean, emaciated features. The historic splendours of the eternal city fascinate him. There is a glamour about every arch and column. Yet his stay is but brief. Soon after his arrival he hears that, in Milan, there is a vacancy for a professor of rhetoric. It is the position of which he has always dreamed. Travelling north through the picturesque Italian countryside, he seeks and obtains the appointment.

Agelong Value Of An Exalted Friendship
It often happens that the biggest thing in even the biggest city is the commanding personality of one man. As, in the great after years, Augustine looked back on his coming to Milan, the towering figure of Ambrose the Bishop seemed to dominate the horizon. Ambrose was just the man for Augustine. Incidentally, he was renowned for his rhetoric, and Augustine regarded oratory as the queen of the arts. Excitedly, the newcomer seized the first opportunity of hearing him. He could have wished that his hero were something other than a bishop, but Augustine pocketed his prejudices in that regard in order to hear one who was a natural master of great assemblies."I was anxious to see," Augustine says, "whether his eloquence was really as wonderful as had been reported." Ambrose rose, and, almost instantly, Augustine was electrified. He sat spellbound. As a professor of rhetoric himself, he realised that, in Ambrose, he had met a perfect expositor of the orator's craft.

But, besides winning his wholehearted admiration, Ambrose affected Augustine in two important ways. He became conscious of a passionate desire to meet Ambrose and to form his personal friendship. And, the eloquence of Ambrose having achieved the purpose for which all its oratory is designed, he found his mind in a ferment of curiosity and concern in relation to the exalted themes on which Ambrose so earnestly discoursed. His wish was gratified. In due course, meeting Ambrose his hero-worship was intensified by the intimate experience of contact and conversation. And, his hungry mind applying itself with avidity to the sacred literature to which Ambrose directed him, he found his outlook on life positively transfigured.

History abounds in illustrations of the way in which a master, by personal contact with a disciple will light a torch that illumines the world with a brighter light than he himself has ever been able to radiate. But there are few such triumphs that can compare with the achievement of Ambrose. Under the influence of these sensational happenings Augustine wrote to his mother, Monica, begging her to join him in Milan. She came.

A Lamp That Can Never Be Extinguished
One beautiful afternoon, soon after Monica's arrival, Augustine was sitting with Alypius, a friend of his boyhood, who had also followed him to Milan, in a delicious garden overlooking the most attractive suburbs of the city. Alypius had fallen under the same uplifting influences that had so profoundly stirred the heart of his friend. "We agreed," Augustine writes in his classical autobiography, "to spend our lives in a most ardent search after truth and wisdom. Like me he sighed; like me he walked; an earnest seeker after true life and a most acute examiner of the most difficult questions. He loved me because I seemed to him kind and learned, and I loved him for his gentleness and modesty and virtue." The exquisite passage in which Augustine tells of the ecstatic climax of this patient search stands, with parallel passages in the personal confidences of Dante, Teresa, Bunyan, Newton, and Wesley, as one of the choicest treasures of all literature.

Monica did not long survive her illustrious son's dedication of himself to his life-work. "My son," she says softly, as they sit together at a window in Ostia, "I know not to what end I linger here. I had but one deep and fond desire, and that desire has been abundantly gratified. There is no reason why I should tarry longer." They remain together at the window until the bright sunshine and the lengthening shadows have alike departed. A week later Augustine turns sadly but gratefully from his mother's quiet resting place and commences the work that has made him one of the most potent, one of the most salutary, and one of the most sublime forces in the history of the world.

F W Boreham

Image: Augustine of Hippo