Augustine and the Mercy of God (A.D. 400)[1]
The Perplexity of Deogratias
Deogratias was perplexed. As a deacon in Carthage his task was to instruct converts and catechumens in the substance of the Christian faith. But how was he to present that truth most suitably? With what should he begin? How much should he include? With what images should he portray Christ’s acts for our salvation? And should he end by pointing to practical applications, or giving a brief statement about the precepts that govern the Christian way of life?
In a letter Deogratias laid his difficulties before Augustine, the bishop of Hippo. With the generosity typical of his nature Augustine responded to the deacon by composing a book, Instruction for Beginners. The advice in the Instruction was clear: Tell your hearers a little at a time, but tell it well; tell it as a story, the account of how God has dealt with us from the beginning until now; and tell it so that those who hear may learn that they are loved by God. The writer of the advice had had much experience in instructing converts and teaching the Christian faith to the congregations that thronged the Great Church in Hippo.
Around the year A.D. 400 the coastal strip of Africa was a wealthy and heavily populated region. The harbor town of Hippo, enfolded by a curve in the coastline, was indistinguishable from many other Mediterranean towns and ports. Dirty white houses rose steeply from the sea. On one side, the forum was overshadowed by cult temples; on the other it opened out to the noisy porticoed bazaars. A well adorned theater was close by, and a stadium in which musicians, pantomimists, artists, and charioteers provided entertainment. Hippo also contained the Great Church, the basilica major, with its baptistery and adjoining devotional chapel for the relics of St. Stephen. Among the buildings were the bishop’s palace and a little monastery which housed a community of monks under the leadership of their bishop.
Some Strange Ideas of the Inhabitants of Hippo
In the basilica Augustine preached to his monks and people. He was seated on a marble chair on the dais of the apse, or, when the church was thronged, he stood upright on the top step of the apse. The people followed his words and arguments with lively interest, laughter, applause, and even at times conversation with him. Augustine knew his people well and they knew his favorite texts by heart, and what were his favorite chapters in the Bible. In the reception room he met with those who were preparing in a more intimate atmosphere for reception into the Catholic church. He always asked why they were seeking instruction. It was a delicate moment, for he knew that their motives were mixed and their minds confused by strange ideas. Many told him how they used astrology to forecast the outcome of their acts. He gently rebuked them; but he was well aware that some of them were saying: “I will not start on my journey, because it is an unlucky day” or “because the moon is in such a quarter,” or “I will start, because the position of the stars guarantees luck.” “I will not carry on business this month, because that star works against me,” or “I will carry on, because it favors the month,” or “I will not plant a vineyard this year because it is leap year.”
The desire to foretell the future, Augustine explained to his people, is a grave error, a deceitful folly: “A Christian must completely reject and shun all the arts or a superstition like this.” Astrology was part of the legacy of paganism, an apparatus used by the demons to decieve the simple and credulous, an instrument of seduction: “In all these sciences, therefore, we must dread and avoid association with demons, who strive, along with the Devil their leader, solely to block and cut off our way back home.”
The Death that Overcame the Devil
In one of his Ascension sermons Augustine spoke to his people about the meaning of salvation as Christ’s defeat of the devil:
We have our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ hanging on a cross, now enthroned in heaven. He paid our price when he hung upon the cross; he gathers what he purchased when he sits enthroned in heaven. If he had not been put to death, death would not have died. The Devil was overcome by his own trophy, for the Devil rejoiced when, by seducing the first man, he cast him into death. By seducing the first man, he killed him; by killing the last Man, he lost the first from his snare.
The Apostle Peter says, “It is necessary for you to be on your guard against temptations, for your adversary the devil goes about seeking someone to devour.” Who would be safe from the teeth of this lion if the Lion of the tribe of Judah had not prevailed? The Lion stood against the lion; the Lamb against the wolf. The Devil exulted when Christ died, and by that very death of Christ the Devil was overcome: he took food, as it were, from a trap. He gloated over the death as if he were appointed a deputy of death; that in which he rejoiced became a prison for him. The Cross of the Lord became a trap for the Devil; the death of the Lord was the food by which he was ensnared. And behold, our Lord Jesus Christ rose again. Where is the death which hung upon the cross?
On this day, as you have heard, our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; may our hearts, too, ascend with him. Let us hearken to the Apostle when he says: “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth.” For, just as he ascended into heaven without departing from us, so we, too, are already there with him although that which he promised us has not yet been accomplished in our body. He has already been exalted above the heavens.
On earth let us meditate on that which we look forward to in heaven. Then we shall put off the flesh of mortality; now let us put aside the sluggishness of our mind. The body will easily be lifted to the heights of heaven if the weight of our sins does not press down upon our spirit.
In another of his sermons the bishop of Hippo explained the role of Christ’s humanity in his work of salvation:
From what he has of himself he is the Son of God; from what he has of us he is the Son of man. He has received the lesser part from us; he has given us the greater part. For he also died because he is the Son of man, not because he is the Son of God. Nevertheless the Son of God died, although he died according to the flesh and not according to the Word… Therefore because he died, he died of what he had of us; because we live, we live from what we have of him.
And for us, what does it mean that Jesus Christ has died? In one of his Lenten sermons Augustine interpreted his understanding of a Pauline text:
“And they who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24). In fact, the Christian ought to be suspended constantly on this cross through his entire life, passed as it is in the midst of temptation. For there is no time in this life when we can tear out the nails of which the Psalmist speaks in the words: “Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear” (Ps. 118:20). Bodily desires constitute the flesh, and the precepts of justice, the nails with which the fear of the Lord pierces our flesh and crucifies us as victims acceptable to the Lord. Whence the same Apostle says: “I exhort you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God.” (Rom. 12:1)
Hence, there is a cross in regard to which the servant of God, far from being confounded, rejoices, saying: “But as for me, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Col. 6:14). That is a cross, I say, not of forty days’ duration, but of one’s whole life…. Live always in this fashion, O Christian; if you do not wish to sink into the mire of this earth, do not come down from the cross.
The Response to Deogratias
In his response to the deacon of Carthage, Augustine set down his own understanding of religious education. He admitted to the difficulties of the task and his own dissatisfaction with his efforts. But he not only outlined the method of narration which the catechist should follow. At the conclusion of the treatise he provided also a longer and a shorter example of catechism. Both outlined the story of salvation and the work of Christ. In the briefer form of instruction, Augustine described again, as he had so often before, the meaning of the death of Christ:
As death entered into the human race by one man who was the first created, that is, Adam, because he consented to his wife, who had been led astray by the devil, so that they transgressed the commandment of God; so through one man who is also God, Jesus Christ, after their past sins had been utterly blotted out, all who believe in him might enter into eternal life.
Once a flood took place over the whole earth, that sinners might be destroyed. And yet those who escaped in the Ark were a figure of the Church that was to be, which now floats upon the waves of the world, and is saved from sinking by the wood of the Cross of Christ.
It was foretold by the Prophets that he should suffer upon the Cross…It was foretold that he should rise again. He rose again. And according to the very predictions of the Prophets, he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to his disciples.
Do you, therefore, since you believe this, be on your guard against temptations (for the devil seeks some to perish with him), so that not only many that enemy fail to seduce you through those who are without the Church… but also that you may not imitate those in the Catholic Church herself whom you see leading evil lives, either those who indulge without restraint in the pleasures of the belly and the palate, or the unchaste, or those given to vain or unlawful practices, or of shows or of diabolical charms and divinations, or those who live in the pomp and vanity of covetousness and pride, or who lead any life that the Decalogue conedemns and punishes; but may rather associate with the good, whom you will easily find, if you are such yourself; so that together with them you may worship and love God for his own sake, for he himself shall be our whole reward, that we may have the frutition of his goodness and beauty in that blessed life. But he is to be loved not as anything that is seen by the eyes, but as wisdom is loved, and truth and holiness and justice and charity, and any other such virtues: not as these are found among men, but as they are in the very fount of incorruptible and unchangeable wisdom. Whosoever therefore you see lovin these virtues, to them be joined, that through Christ who became man that he might be the Mediator between God and man, you may be reconciled to God.
Imitate, then, the good, bear with the evil, love all; for you do not know what he shall be tomorrow who today is evil. And do not love their wrongdoing; but love them to the end that they may attain holiness; for not only is love of God enjoined upon us, but likewise love of neighbor, and on these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets.
When Deogratias turned to his task of instructing the inquirers, he had an end to which he could refer all that he had to say. But since there were questions: Where in the Bible should he begin? What was essential in speaking about the faith? How should our salvation be explained? What should catechism say?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following materials were used in the preparation of this case and are recommended for further study.
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Burnaby, J. Amor Dei. A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine. London: Hodder &
Stoughton, Ltd., 1938.
Campenhausen, Hans von. The Fathers of the Latin Church. Translated by Manfred
Hoffman. Stanford University Press, 1969.
Frend, W. H. C. The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952.
Harnack, Adolf von. History of Dogma. Vol. V. Dover Publications, Inc., 1961.
Marrou, H.I. St. Augustine and His Influence Through the Ages. Translated by
Patrick Hepburns-Scott. Harper & Brothers, Harper Torchbooks, 1957.
Nock, A. D. Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to
Augustine of Hippo. Oxford University Press, 1933.
O’Meara, J. The Young Augustine: The Growth of Augustine’s Mind Up to His
Conversion. Longmans, Green & Co., Inc., 1954.
Portalie, E. A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine. Translated by Ralph J. Bastian.
London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1960.
Van der Meer, Frederick. Augustine the Bishop: The Life and Work of a Father of the
Church. Translated by Brian Buttershaw and G. R. Lamb. Sheed & Ward,
Inc., 1962.