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NOVEMBER
 

     Ambrose had a profound affect upon Augustine because of his masterful preaching. In his Confessions, his autobiography, Augustine wrote, "I began to love him, not indeed as a teacher of truth, ...but as a man worthy of my love. I often listened to his public discourses, not, I confess, with a pure motive, but only to prove if his eloquence was equal to his fame. I weighed his words carefully whilst I had no interest in their meaning, or despised it. I was delighted with the grace of his language ...for, although it was not my wish to learn what he said, but only to hear how he said it ...still, along with the words which I loved, there stole also into my spirit, the substance, which I had no care for; because I could not separate the two. And whilst I opened my heart to receive the eloquence which he uttered, the truth also, which he spoke, found entrance though by slow degrees."
      Abashed by his inability to understand the truth in the preaching of the man of God, Augustine turned to the Bible, but once again, he became frustrated. He could understand classics as Virgil and Cicero, but not the Word of God!
     He resolved that before the truth of God would be revealed to him, he would have to break from his known sins. He therefore left the woman with whom he had lived for thirteen years. Next, he resolved to abandon his association with the Manichaeans.
     It was at this point that he fell under the sway of Platonism and Neo-Platonism. Philip Schaff says of this pagan philosophy, "It is genuine philosophy, or love of wisdom . . .. It is beyond all dispute the noblest product of heathen speculation, and stands closer in conduct with Revelation than any other philosophical system of antiquity. It is in some measure an unconscious prophecy of Christ, in Whom alone its sublime ideals can ever become truth and reality." But as Elgin Mover, in his book Great Leaders of the Christian Church points out, there are two truths not to be found in either Platonism or Neo-Platonism:
1.) The Incarnation of Him Who is Truth, and 2.) A humble spirit manifesting itself in love."
     Augustine now began an earnest search of the Word of God, and majored his study in the epistles of Paul. One day while with his friend, Alypius, he converses with a Christian general by the name of Ponticianus. The general tells how two companions out strolling came upon a hermit's hut. Upon entering, they found a short biography of the monk, Anthony. The two companions became so gripped by the book they renounced their military commissions to devote themselves to the work of the Lord.
     Upon hearing the account, Augustine rushed out into the garden. He sensed the utter worthlessness of his life, and in despair of soul, he cried out, "Thou, my Lord, how long yet? 0 Lord, how long yet wilt Thou be angry? Remember not the sins of my youth! How long? How long? Tomorrow, and again tomorrow? Why not today? Why not now? Why not in this hour put an end to my shame?"
      At this moment, he heard the chant of a child from a neighboring house: "Take up and read! Take up and read!" To Augustine, the voice of the child was the voice of God. And so it was that he hurried to the spot where he had left both his scroll on Romans, as well as his friend, Alypius.
      Snatching up the book, he opened! His eyes fell upon the thirteenth chapter and the fourteenth verse: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof."
     "No further would I read, nor needed I:" he declares, "for instantly at the end of this sentence, a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away."          He hurried to tell his mother, yet his influence, which had been far-reaching, and which had resulted in many students coming to Milan to sit under his teaching, haunted him. He would be held responsible for them, and thus it was that he wasted no time in relating to them his newfound salvation. The year was 386, and he was now thirty-three years of age. Some one has written of   Augustine the substance of his confession --

I loved Thee late, too late I love Thee, Lord;
Yet not so late, but, Thou dost still afford
Good proof that Thou hast borne with winning art,
One sinner more upon Thy loving heart;
And may I prove when all this life is past,
Though late I loved, I loved Thee to the last:

It is based upon the words he has penned: "I have loved Thee, too late! Whose beauty is as old as eternity, and yet so new; I have loved Thee too late!"
     The succeeding year, he returned to Rome. His mother, Monica, now fifty-six years of age, became ill. "Son, what has befallen me? Nothing has any more charms for me in this life. What I am yet to do here, and why I am here, I do not know; every hope of this world being now consummated. Once there was a reason why I should live longer that I might see you a believing Christian before I die. God has now richly granted me this beyond measure in permitting me to see you in His service, having totally abandoned the world. What yet have I to do here?"        

       Augustine returned to his home in North Africa. Here he sold his inheritance left him by his father, and gave all to the poor excepting his own necessary fare. He lived modestly on the rest and because of his earlier life of lust, he entertained a very strict conduct toward women. His equally strict observance of prayer and Bible study will become a rule of conduct in many monasteries which follow Augustine's pattern of dividing the day into three tertias, or parts, each consisting of eight hours. The first he devoted to prayer and to the study of the Word of God. The second eight hours, he devoted to practical Christianity such as deeds of love and mercy; and the remaining eight hours were filled with all necessities of life as eating, sleeping, and all other necessary duties.
     In 430, the Vandals will lay siege to the city of Hippo. Augustine lies sick of a fever. For the past ten days, he has been reading the Penitential Psalms and praying. He is seventy-six years of age. His mind is still keen in his death, which occurs now before the city of Hippo is lost. All of North Africa will fall. But in God's perfect time, Augustine's life ebbs away. He leaves no inheritance except his books, which he leaves to the church; but he dies rich in the mercy of God!
     As the pastor of Hippo, 392-430, he often preached five days in succession, even twice some days. He labored hard to assist the poor and to arbitrate their disputes. He founded a seminary for training pastors and deacons that taught ten bishops, and founded several women's societies.
     At the synods that met in Hippo in 393 and in Carthage in 397, he strongly influenced the final settlement of the canon of Scripture.
     His work as an author rendered him the most powerful of the Latin Church Fathers, and they are to be found in five divisions: first, his Exegeticals on several books of the Bible; second, his Apologetics among which is his City of God; third, his Polemics and Dogmatics, which were directed against the leading heresies of the day: the Manichaeans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians; fourth, his Ascetical and Practical among which is his Soliloquies, and Meditations; and fifth, his Autobiographical writings which involve his Confessions, and his Retractions. This latter is a revision of his philosophy later in life. It is in his Confessions that we find the most famous statement in the history of philosophy --"Thou, O Lord, hast made us for Thyself; and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee!" In addition, he penned some two hundred and seventy letters.
      Augustine was for all practical purposes the father of medieval mysticism, and Scholasticism, and the Reformers will keenly feel his influence. Twelve hundred years later, Martin Luther will emerge from the "Augustinian Order" of monkery.

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