Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/61

Rh For his courage, as Gfrörer notes (vol. 3. 753.), is even more astonishing than the freedom of his vision. In the light of ten centuries we may think his arguments truisms and wonder at the pains he took to demonstrate what seems to us to need no demonstration, to expose what is unworthy of exposure. But the fact remains that he stood absolutely alone in his generation, with the single exception of Claudius of Turin; and Claudius's interest was limited to a single branch of superstition, while Agobard undertook the destruction of the whole.

In both alike the influence of saint Augustin is paramount. It is, indeed, the continual interruption of long extracts from the fathers, and above all from Augustin, that too often defaces to our modern eyes the impression of lucidity and vigour which are the just attributes of Agobard's style. Whether or not in direct quotation the presence of the father's treatise On true Religion and of the City of God is seldom wanting. Doubtless Claudius and Agobard were here simply following the universal habit of the scholars of their day, with whom Augustin ranked second alone to the Bible; to contradict him, as Paschasius Radbert said, was impiety. But there were few who accepted his spiritual force and left out of account his extravagance of fancy; there were few who chose only his good part and wrought it with such wisdom, as these two did. (cf. Reuter I. 41 sq.) While others in the generation immediately following heard only the appeal of his less worthy utterances, the incongruous children of his genius, and were led into the opposite extreme, superstition, they used precisely those elements of his teaching which had a practical tendency. They found in him a beacon to shed light upon the deepening obscurity of the age, a weapon