Style........................................ 22
Manuscripts.................................... 23
Editions........................................ 32
The Text....................................... 34
2. Abbreviations in the apparatus criticus ............... 37
3. Latin Text and Translation........................38
4. Notes...........................................147
5. Select Bibliography ..........................169
6. Index to Latin Text..............................170
7. Index to Notes...................................172
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INTRODUCTION
Sources for the life of Augustine.
Our knowledge of the life of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, is derived from two main sources: (1) Augustine's own Confessiones, covering the period up to the time of his conversion in 387 and setting forth chiefly the history of his spiritual development, and (2) the Vita Augustini of Possidius, covering the time from Augustine's conversion to his death in 430 and containing a record of his daily life and activities. Outside of these two main sources many references also occur in his other writings, chiefly in the Epistles.
Early Life.
Aurelius Augustinus was born at Tagaste in Numidia on November 13, 354, about seven years after Chrysostom and fourteen after Jerome and Ambrose. After spending a free and careless boyhood at Tagaste, he pursued the usual course of grammar and rhetoric at Madaura and Carthage and afterward taught for a short time in his native town. In 374 he returned to Carthage and taught rhetoric for nine years. During this period he became deeply interested in Manichaeanism, merely as an auditor, however, and not as one of the electi. It was here he met the famous Manichaean teacher Faustus from whom he expected much, but soon found that, despite his gorgeous rhetoric, he was unable to answer any searching questions. Dissatisfied with his life at Carthage and seeking a larger career, he went to Rome. Moreover he had heard that the students of Rome were better behaved than those at Carthage. |8 Among the latter were those known as eversores, who went about in groups, broke into classes, overthrew the benches and provoked disorder in general. So in spite of the tearful entreaties of his mother Monica, he evaded her and by night secretly took ship for Italy. However, when he arrived in Rome he soon discovered that while his students kept better order, they had a custom which was to prove most annoying to him. For after they had attended his classes a while they would go off to another teacher and leave their fees unpaid. Accordingly when the way was opened for him to teach in Milan he went there without delay.
By this time he had abandoned Manichaeanism and was taken for a short time with the scepticism of the New Academy. In Milan he soon became engrossed in studying Neo-Platonism and also came under the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of that city. After a memorable moral and intellectual struggle he was converted to the Christian faith and baptized by Ambrose at Easter 387. He then returned to Tagaste, travelling with his mother who died on the way at Ostia. On arriving at Tagaste he lived in seclusion till he was made presbyter in the church at Hippo in 391. At this point the narrative of Possidius begins.
Family.
Augustine's father Patricius was a man of curial rank in rather humble circumstances. He was of a somewhat coarse and sensual temper, given to occasional fits of anger, but generally easy-going. He was anxious that his son should distinguish himself as a lawyer and even borrowed money to enable him to study at Carthage. Aside from this, however, Patricius seems to have paid little heed to his welfare and training. He had not been a Christian up to the time of his son's departure for Carthage, but through the influence of his wife Monica became a catechumen about the year 370 and was baptized shortly before his death in the following year.
Monica, the mother of Augustine, is forever revered in Christian history. Augustine was not ignorant of her religion, |9 for she had trained him in his childhood, but it soon slipped from his memory when he went away to school. From this time to his conversion in 387, while he was trying one philosophy after another, Monica did not cease to hope and pray that her son would yet become a Christian, though she was at one time unwilling to have him with her in the house because of his outspoken contempt for the Christian faith. He says that she wept more bitterly over his spiritual death than other mothers over the bodily death of their children. When, in spite of her entreaties, he stole away and took ship for Italy, she would not leave him but followed all the way to Milan, where she constantly attended the sermons of the statesman-bishop Ambrose. With Augustine's conversion her mission on earth was ended and she saw nothing of his later far-reaching influence, for she died at Ostia in the fall of that same year. Augustine's tribute to his mother is one of the most perfect and touching in literature.
Augustine was not the only child. He had a brother, Navigius and one sister referred to in his letter to the nuns. Possidius also mentions her. Though her name is not known, tradition gives it as Perpetua. Whether Augustine had any other brothers or sisters is not certain. His natural son Adeodatus, born about 372, gave promise of marked ability, but died in his youth. He was baptized with his father in 387. The names of several other relatives outside the circle of his immediate family appear in his writings. In the De Beata |10 Vita i 6 he speaks of two cousins, Lastidianus and Rusticus, who took part in the discussions at Cassiciacum and in Serm. CCCLVI 3 he mentions, without naming him, a nephew who was a subdiaconus. Ep. LII is written to another cousin, Severinus, urging him to leave the Donatists and return to the Catholic Church. Besides these Possidius writes of fratris sui filiae in Chapter XXVI—a phrase, which also seems to prove that Augustine had only one brother.
Friends.
In speaking of Augustine's friends we mean only the most intimate. They are to be found in two groups, the earlier at the Villa of Cassiciacum, near Milan, to which Augustine and his friends retired during the months immediately preceding his baptism, and the later group at Hippo. Chief among these friends was his fellow-townsman and life-long companion Alypius, who accompanied him through the years of uncertainty at Carthage and Milan and faithfully reflected each of Augustine's changes of faith. After living with Augustine in the monastery at Hippo for several years, he became bishop of his native town Tagaste. The group at Cassiciacum was small and most intimate, consisting of Monica, who not infrequently took part in the debate, Adeodatus, Navigius, Alypius., the two cousins Lastidianus and Rusticus mentioned above, and two pupils, Trygetius and Licentius, a son of his former patron Romanianus. They spent the time studying and discussing questions of religion and philosophy. The other circle of friends which calls for special mention is found in the monastery at Hippo. Here Possidius and others first appear in Augustine's life. Their intimate manner of life is described |11 by Possidius and even more satisfactorily in two of Augustine's sermons.
The monastery.
This monastery which had its beginning at Tagaste and was later established at Hippo when Augustine became presbyter there, was the first one in North Africa and the parent of the other North African monasteries. Possidius states that the bishops who went out from this monastery at Hippo followed their master's example and established other monasteries in their episcopal sees. Augustine's original purpose had been merely to withdraw from the world with a few friends and have time for undisturbed meditation and prayer. He pursued this kind of life for almost three years at Tagaste (388-391) until he was forcibly ordained presbyter at Hippo. After that he continued his purpose, but adapting it to circumstances, made the monastery rather a school for the training of the clergy. His conception of the kind of life the clergy should lead is clearly set forth in two of his sermons. He also established a monastery for women over which his sister presided, and after her death in 423 wrote them a letter to settle their differences and to guide them in the conduct of life.