433

admits that there is a class of Christians not good enough to be saved for what they are in themselves, and not too bad to be saved by the intercessions which their alms have purchased for them. All the other views are rejected, and we can hardly say refuted, for when the author has shown the defects of the exegesis pressed into their support, he is content to exclaim at the presumption of men who would be more merciful than God.

The chapter on the Beatific Vision is pale after the rapturous colloquy with St. Monica, recorded in the ninth book of the "Confessions:" the author had outlived the passion of his eloquence, though not his hopes. The peroration, with its recurring catchwords and assonances, is certainly lofty and musical:

"Ibi vacabimus et videbimus: videbimus et amabimus, amabimus et laudabimus. Ecce quod erit in fine sine fine? Nam quis alius noster est finis, nisi pervenire ad regnum cujus nullus est finis?" The key-note is taken from a text quoted some way further back: "Ibi perficietur vacate, et videte quoniam ego sum Deus""-"Be still, and know that I am God."

Quite incidentally we have a remarkable argument about miracles. After affirming the great paradox of the resurrection of the body, St. Augustin is led to reflect on the wonderful means by which belief in this wonder came about, and this again leads to a contrast between the states of mind in which the apotheosis of Romulus and the Godhead of Christ were accepted. It was the Romans' love to their founder which made them believe him a god; it was the Christian belief in Christ's Godhead which led Christendom to love Christ. And as the belief in this wonder was independent, it must have been due to divine power rather than persuasion. Then comes the question how it is that the same divine power is not continuously exerted. And here we have a twofold answer: (1) It is quite true that miracles were necessary to found such a belief, but their repetition is not necessary to sustain it. The author does not take up the position of eighteenth-century apologists: that belief always rests upon historical proof II.—19

that miracles happened long ago. Rather he maintains that the truth of the belief is proved by its power, and its power is a proof of its miraculous origin. (2) In fact miracles are as frequent and as remarkable as ever, but they make less impression, which St. Augustin thinks the fault of those who benefit by them, to be corrected by ecclesiastical diligence, of which he himself is one of the earliest and most illustrious examples. The miracles he records are of the kind familiar in processes of canonization-especially those which occurred in connection with the "memorials" to St. Stephen recently introduced into Africa, in consequence of the supposed discovery of his relics, and those of Gamaliel (who, according to the "revelation," had buried him), in Palestine. St. Augustin himself vouches for one very curious story, which he tells at great length, of a pious elderly gentleman who was operated on for fistula: the doctors left one wound to heal itself, and the patient fretted over this, feeling sure that another operation would be necessary, and that it would kill him; after some considerable delay, as the wound did not heal, they admitted that the operation would be necessary, and the patient determined to call in another surgeon to perform it. He, with proper professional feeling, did not like to interfere with a case in the hands of competent professional brethren. No doubt a new operation would be necessary, but the previous operations had been admirably performed. The operation was fixed for the next day; the patient waited in an agony of prayer; when the time for the operation came the doctors pronounced it unnecessary, as the wound was replaced by a very firm scar. The only point in this story which at first sight seems questionable is the interval between the second opinion and the day fixed for the operation, for St. Augustin is writing between thirty and forty years after the facts. On the other hand, we know only what the patient-evidently not a very reasonable patient-told his spiritual counsellor that the doctors had said: we do not know how far the doctors among themselves said the same as they were reported to say by the patient-a very religious man, who at the time was entertaining St. Augustin and Alypius, who had given up their

property to the poor and were living on charity themselves. until they were ordained.

66

One characteristic work remains to be noticed, the Retractations," in which the author about three years before his death went over all that he had hitherto published, in order to correct the bad effect of any inadvertences which might have escaped him in works many of which were circulated without the author's sanction. His anxiety descended to minutiæ he thought the conjecture in the "Confessions," that his fear of death when his friend, who was one soul with him, died, might have come of an unwillingness that his friend should die altogether, savored more of the lightness of declamation than of the gravity of confession. He also holds that he was over-bold in pronouncing that the waters above the firmament were spiritual and the waters below the firmament material, as the passage is exceedingly mysterious. In the tenth book of the "City of God" he ought to have remembered that the flame from heaven which ran between the victims in Abraham's sacrifice appeared in a vision, and consequently was not strictly miraculous. In the seventeenth book he ought not to have denied that Samuel was of the sons of Aaron, because his father was not a priest; whereas the father of Samuel was a son of Aaron in the same sense as all Israelites were sons of Israel.

PART X.

LITERATURE OF THE DECLINE.

THE fifth century is a period, upon the whole, of decline, but at the beginning of it we meet two or three not unworthy survivors of better days. The earliest of these is Maropius Pontus Anicius Paulinus, whose popular reputation reached its height after he was made bishop of Nola in 409, where he distinguished himself by his devotion to the local martyr St. Felix, who he hoped might love him a little as a master loves his dog. Paulinus originally belonged to the circle of the rhetoricians of Bordeaux; he composed a panegyric on Theodosius, dwelling especially upon his piety. Fragments of this have been edited; but such of his works as have reached us are chiefly letters and poems. Most of his poems date from the period of his retirement, which seems to have been determined partly by the fact that his marriage was long childless and that his only child died prematurely, partly by the fact that he was vexed by an accusation of fratricide, which drove him from Spain, the country where his wife's property lay, as his own restlessness had driven him from Gaul. He made a great impression upon his contemporaries, as the first man of rank and breeding who had given up his secular position in the West for voluntary poverty, though he retained enough control over the property which had been his to build and decorate a basilica. His poems are chiefly remarkable for their diffuse amiability of feeling, and for the tendency, which was not uncommon, to slay the slain polytheist.

A really clever lady, Faltonia Proba, who had written upon Constantius's victory over Magnentius, afterwards amused her

self and her children by constructing a cento from Vergil to tell the story of the creation, the fall, and the deluge and the gospel history: such things have no merit for any public but that which knows the original by heart.

A more interesting writer was Sulpicius Severus, who was born about eleven years after St. Augustin; like Paulinus, he belonged to the school of Bordeaux; like Paulinus, he made a rich marriage; and when he lost his wife early he retired, like Paulinus, from the world. His principal works are a short chronicle carried down to the consulship of Stilicho in A.D. 400, and two treatises on the "Life of St. Martin," one in the form of a history, the other in the form of a dialogue in two parts. The chronicle is very carefully and well written: the author's object is to convince the educated classes that the Old Testament history is trustworthy by a free use of synchronisms, and to conquer their prejudices against the style of the Hebrew records by as many reminiscences of the Roman classics as possible for instance, the destruction of Jerusalem is taken from Tacitus; but even where he has no better source than Eusebius (he is not given to name his authorities) his style is more than creditable. His style. shows to equal advantage, in spite of his protests that he had forgotten all his rhetorical skill, in the "Life of St. Martin” and the two supplementary dialogues. Both are remarkable for the resolute acceptance of many miracles which are not all of a character to convince posterity; and it is worth inquiring how the judgment of an intelligent and cultivated. man who had been intimate with his hero came to differ so far from our own. For one thing, Sulpicius was fascinated by St. Martin's love of poverty. Sulpicius was by birth and education a gentleman, which in the judgment of several contemporary bishops St. Martin was not. People on different social levels either idealize or depreciate each other. Then it is clear from the operation on the eyes of Paulinus that St. Martin had great gifts of healing as a skilful empiric, and ascribed his gifts to the Giver; moreover, he operated upon the natives of the country parts of Gaul who had never been operated upon before, and they naturally treated such cures as miracu