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 vu] THE MONASTIC CHARACTER 189 Christ's teachings and the teachings of the Old Testa- ment. He veritably feels in the words of psalmist or prophet or evangelist, or in the words of Paiil.^ Yet in his Biblical phrases, and much more in his own expres- sions of Christian feeling and all that Christianity is to him, he is interpreting and reexpressing Christianity. And inasmuch as his intellectual and emotional appro- priation of Christianity was more comprehensive than that of any man for centuries after him, his understand- ing and expression of it laid the lines and set the tone of mediaeval theology and piety. It is he, for example, that strikes the mediaeval keynote of Christ's sub- limity in his humility, and the note of reverence for humility ; ' omne bonum in humilitate perficitur, would have been a good text for Benedict's twelfth chapter. Robur in inJirmitcUe perficitur ; ilia aedijicans caritas a fundamentOj quod est Christus Jesus : ^ what keynotes these of mediaeval piety. Augustine represents the sum of emotion and the capacity for love which had been gathering in Christian souls and drawing toward Christ and the love of God. Conceiving and feeling the love of God which was in Christ Jesus, he re6x- pressed it in terms which were to voice the Christian feelings of the mediaeval soul. The great heart, the great mind ; the mind led by the heart's inspiration, the heart guided by the mind — this is Augustine. Both mind and heart contribute ^ Angtutine's recurring note is the mihi adhaerere Deo bonum est, which is from Ps. Izxiii. 28. For how he sets his principles and feelings in words of psalmist and prophets, see, e.g., Civ. Dei, X, 6, 6, 18, 25, 32. 3 Of. Corf., , 24-27 ; HanuuOc, Dogmengeschichte, HI, 118-121. • CoTf., VU, 28.