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Rh to transfer the church at Milan to the Arian bishop, anticipated the medieval theory of the absolute right of the church to ecclesiastical property, a right with which the emperor, who is intra ecclesiam, may not presume to tamper. This agrees perfectly with principles laid down by Augustine in the de Civitate Dei (supra, § 9: imperium in ecclesia, etc.). But Augustine, defending the action of Honorius (or his ministers) in transferring to the Catholics the church property of the Donatists, strongly maintains that all rights to property are created by the State. The church's external power, and property are hers by indirect Divine right, i.e. because they are conferred on her by the ordinatissima potestas of the sovereign power (Ep. 1055, 6). "Per jura regum possidentur possessiones" (in Joh. Tr. vi. 25); the Donatist objects to state interference with religion, but "Noli dicere Quid mihi et Regi! Quid tibi et possessioni?&#8202;" (ib. 15). As one side of Augustine's theory of the church prepares the way for the Gregorian system (§ 9), so here we have that conception of Apostolic poverty consistently applied to church property, which underlies so much medieval reaction against the Gregorian system from Arnold of Brescia onwards.

§ 16. Intellectual Influence on Christian Posterity.—The diverse influences which met in Augustine, held together rather than fused into unison by the strength of his superb personality, parted in after-times into often conflicting streams. It has been said with truth (Loofs) that three primary elements determine Augustine's complex realm of ideas: his neo-Platonist philosophical training (supra, § 5), his profound Biblical studies (§§ 7, b, 10, init.), and his position as an officer of the church. In combinations which we can in part analyse, these elements, given the Augustine of A.D. 387, go to constitute Augustine as he became—the greatest of the Latin doctors, the pioneer of modern Christianity—in his threefold significance for the church of all time. Augustine is (a) the prince of theists, (b) the incomparable type of reasoned devotion to the Catholic church, and (c) the founder of the theology of sin and grace.

(a) Theistic Transcendentalism.—The passion of theism was the core of his personal religion. His was an experimental theism, a theism of the heart. The often quoted words, "Tu Domine fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te" (Conf. I. i.), sum up his inmost personal experience. This is, above all, what Augustine found in the Psalms, which were his introduction to the deeper study of Scripture (supra, § 6). "Mihi autem adhaerere Deo bonum est" (Ps. lxxii. 28, Vulg.) is the immovable centre upon which his whole religion and theology turns. But his theism was also speculative and metaphysical, and intimately bound up with the philosophical framework of his theology. God, though not beyond our apprehension ("ex minima quidem parte, sed tamen sine dubitatione," c. Ep. Fund. 5), is beyond our knowledge; "ego sum qui sum quae mens potest capere?" (in Joh. Tr. viii. 8). To be, to be good, to be one, are correlative attributes; they belong to God alone. All things that

exist, do so by "participation" of God (in Joh. Tr. xxxix. 8—the Platonic doctrine of μέθεξις; but by comparison with God they are non-existent (''Enarr. in Ps.'' xxxviii. 22, cxxxiv. 4). Real being is incommutable being, which belongs to God only. Reality, then, can only be found out of time: "ut ergo et tu sis, transcende tempus" (''in Joh. Tr.'' xxxviii. 10); anything mutable is not really existent—it is in process, has been, is to be, but is not in being: "praesens quaero, nihil stat" (ib.). Absolute good is therefore the only reality, namely, God. Absolute evil is the non-existent. All created existence, so far as it has reality ("Deus fecit hominem, substantiam [i.e. aliquid esse] fecit," ''Enarr. in Ps.'' lxviii. 5), is good ("in quantum sumus, boni sumus," ''de Doctr. I. 35). There is no "natura tenebrarum," no evil substance (Conf.'' IV. xv. 24). Sin has its roots in the evil will; it is negative ("non est substantia," Ps. lxviii. 3, Vulg.); the evil will consists in "inordinate moveri, bona inferiora superioribus praeponendo" (de Gen. ad lit. xi. 17); sin is therefore an inclinatio in nihilum; yet the sinner "non penitus perit, sed in infimis ordinatur" (''Enarr. in Ps.'' viii. 19)—even Satan, in that he exists, has something of the good, though he is worse than the worst we know. "In quantum mali sumus, in tantum etiam minus sumas" (de Doctr., u.s.). It is easy to see that this idealism, taken by itself, tends to lower the importance of everything that takes place in time, of everything empirical and historical, in comparison with the transcendent being and unchangeable will of God, in which nothing "takes place," but all is eternally, immovably real. In Augustine this idealism did not stand alone; but under all his passionate appreciation of the church and the historical elements of Christianity there is in the background, as a limiting influence, the appeal to the view of things sub specie aeterni; and the drift of his theological reflection strengthened this element in his view of ultimate problems.

From this point of view we can partly understand Augustine's famous conception of the ''universality of the Christian Religion. This he insists on in his letter to Deogratias (Ep. 102) contra Paganos. ''At all times, he writes, since the world began, the same faith has been revealed to men, at one time more obscurely, at another more plainly, as the circumstances altered; but what we now call the Christian religion is but the clearest revelation of a religion as old as the world. Never has its offer of salvation been withheld from those who were worthy of it (see references, Reuter, p. 91 n), even though they may not be (like Job, etc.) mentioned in the sacred record. Such men, who followed His commands (however unconsciously), were implicit believers in Christ. The changing (and therefore semi-real) form represents the one constant reality, the saving grace of God, revealed through the passion and resurrection of Christ (Ep. 18915).

(b) Catholic Churchmanship.—Of this we have already spoken (§ 8). Augustine was not the first to formulate belief in the Holy Catholic Church; but no one before him had reflected so deeply, or expressed himself with such inimitable tenderness and devotion, on 