Life of Saint Monica Part 4

It was about this time that Augustine's enthusiasm for the Manicheans began to cool. He had been studying their doctrines, and had found that they were not quite what he thought. He was disappointed with their professors too.

The first unpleasant truth that dawned upon him was that they were much better at denying the doctrines of the Catholic Church than at explaining their own. It was almost impossible to find out what they believed, so vague did they become when closely questioned. And Augustine questioned very closely indeed. He was on the track of truth, and it was not easy to put him off with hazy general statements. He was still only an "auditor," and before he took any further step he wanted to be certain of his ground. The men whom he consulted did not seem very certain of their own, he remarked, but they bade him have patience. One of their bishops, Faustus by name, was soon coming to Carthage. He was one of their most brilliant preachers, and would be able to answer all Augustine's questions.

This sounded promising, and Augustine awaited his coming impatiently.

He certainly was an eloquent speaker; his sermons were charming. But when Augustine went to him privately and explained his doubts to him, the result was not what he had hoped for. He gave the same vague answers that Augustine had so often heard already. Pressed closer, he frankly replied that he was not learned enough to be able to satisfy him. Augustine was pleased with his honesty, and they became good friends. But the seeker was no nearer the truth than before.

Yet if Faustus could not answer him, which of the Manicheans could?

He began to lose faith in them.

What did the Catholic Church teach on these points? he asked. This was a question which they could all answer, and did--with great eagerness and little truth.

It might have occurred to a less intelligent man than Augustine that the enemies of the Church were not the people to answer such a question fairly or truthfully: but he accepted their facts, and decided that truth was not to be found there either. Was there such a thing at all? was the final question he asked himself. The old philosophers, heathens as they were, seemed to get nearer to the heart of things than this.

Yet now and again, out of the very sickness of his soul, a prayer would break out to that Christ Whom he had known and loved in his boyhood, but Who had grown so dim to him since the Manicheans had taught him that His Sacred Humanity was nothing but a shadow. He was weary of life, weary even of pleasure, weary of everything, weary most of all of Carthage.

Owing to the wild ways of the students it was impossible to keep anything like order in the schools. Cla.s.ses were constantly interrupted by gangs of "smashers," who might break in at any moment, setting the whole place in an uproar.

Augustine's friends pressed him to go to Rome. There, they urged, he would meet with the honour that he deserved. There the students were quieter and better-mannered; no rioting was allowed; scholars might enter no school but that of their own master. This sounded hopeful; Augustine was rather pleased with the idea. He wrote to Monica and to his patron Romania.n.u.s to tell them of the step he proposed to take.

Monica's heart sank when she read the letter. To the Christians of the fourth century Rome was another Babylon. She had poured out the blood of the saints like water; she was the home of every abomination. What would become of Augustine in Rome? Without faith, without ideals, a disabled ship, drifting with every wind.

He must not go, she decided, or if he did she would go with him. She prayed that she might be able to make him give up the project, and wrote strongly against it; but Augustine had already made up his mind. Then, in despair, she set out for Carthage to make one last effort.

Her son was touched by her grief and her entreaties, but his plans were made: he was to start that very night. "I lied to my mother," he says, "and such a mother!" He a.s.sured her that he was not going, that she might set her mind at rest. A friend of his was leaving Carthage, and he had promised to go down to the harbour to see him off.

Some instinct warned Monica that he was deceiving her. "I will go with you," she said. This was very awkward for her son; he was at his wit's end to know what to do. They went down to the harbour together, where they found Augustine's friend. No ship could put out that night, the sailors said, the wind was dead against them. The young men were unwilling to leave the harbour in case the wind should change and they should miss the boat, while Monica was determined not to leave Augustine.

They walked up and down together on the seash.o.r.e in the cool evening air. The hours pa.s.sed, and the situation became more and more difficult for Augustine. What was he to do? Monica was weary and worn out with grief. An idea suggested itself to him suddenly. It was no use waiting any longer, he said, it would be better to take some rest; the boat would certainly not start that night.

Monica was in no mood to rest; but Augustine knew her love of prayer.

There was a little chapel on the seash.o.r.e, dedicated to St. Cyprian.

Would she not at least go there and take shelter until the morning?

He promised her again that he would not leave Carthage, and she at last consented, for her soul was full of sorrow.

Kneeling there in the stillness of the little chapel, she poured out the troubles of her heart to G.o.d, beseeching Him that He would not let Augustine leave her. The answer seemed a strange one. As she prayed the wind suddenly changed; the sailors prepared to depart.

Augustine and his friend went on board, and the ship set sail for Rome.

The last thing they saw as the sh.o.r.e faded away in the dim grey of the morning was the little chapel of St. Cyprian lying like a speck in the distance, But they did not see a lonely figure that stood on the sand and stretched out piteous hands to Heaven, wailing for the son whom she had lost a second time.

It was G.o.d alone Who knew all the bitterness of that mother's heart.

It was G.o.d alone Who knew how, after the first uncontrollable outburst of grief, she bent herself in faith and love to endure the heartbreak--silent and uncomplaining. And it was only G.o.d Who knew that the parting that seemed so cruel was to lead to the granting of her life-long prayer, to be the first stage in her son's conversion.

"She turned herself to Thee to pray for me," says Augustine, "and went about her accustomed affairs, and I arrived at Rome."

It seemed, indeed, as if his arrival in Rome was destined to be the end of his earthly career, for soon afterwards he was attacked by a violent fever and lay at death's door. He was lodging in the house of a Manichean, for, although he no longer held with their doctrines, he had many friends among them in Carthage who had recommended him to some of their sect in Rome.

Augustine himself was convinced that he owed his life at this time to his mother's prayers. G.o.d would not, for her sake, let him be cut off thus in all his sins, unbaptized and unrepentant, lest that mother's heart should be broken and her prayers unanswered. He recovered, and began to teach.

Already while he was in Carthage he had suspected that the lives of the Manicheans were not much better than those of the heathens among whom they lived, although they gave out that their creed was the only one likely to reform human nature. In Rome his suspicions were confirmed. Thinking that Augustine was altogether one of themselves, they threw off the mask and showed themselves in their true colours.

The pagans at least were honest. They professed openly that they lived for nothing but enjoyment, and in this great city, even more than in Carthage, one could learn how low a man might fall; but at least they were not hypocrites. He resolved to cut himself adrift from the Manicheans altogether.

There was a Christian Rome within the pagan Rome, but of this Augustine knew nothing. On the Throne of the Fisherman sat St.

Damasus, wise and holy. His secretary, St. Jerome, was already famous, no less for his eloquence than for the greatness of his character. Jerome, like Augustine, had been carried away in his youth by the downward tide, but had retrieved himself by a glorious penance. The descendants of the oldest Roman families were to be found in the hospitals tending the sick or working amongst the poor in the great city. The first monasteries were growing up, little centres of faith and prayer in the desert. They were peopled by men and women who had counted the world well lost for Christ, or by those who to save their souls had fled, as the great St. Benedict was to do later, from the corruptions that had dragged down so many into the abyss.

Augustine had been greatly attracted shortly before leaving Carthage by the preaching of Helpidius, a Catholic priest. The idea came to him while in Rome to go to the Catholics and find out what they really taught. But he dismissed it. The Manicheans had already told him, he reflected, that no intelligent man could accept their doctrines. Besides, they were too strict; their ideals were too high; he would have to give up too much.

One more honest impulse was stifled. He entered a school of philosophers who professed to believe in nothing. It was, he decided, the wisest philosophy he knew.

CHAPTER IX

HOW AUGUSTINE CAME TO MILAN, AND HOW HIS TEMPEST-TOSSED SOUL FOUND LIGHT AND PEACE AT LAST

Augustine had not been a year in Rome before he discovered that the ways of the Roman students were not quite so delightful as he had been led to believe. They were less insolent, it is true, than those of Carthage, and not so rough; but they had other defects which were quite as trying. They would, for instance, attend the cla.s.ses of a certain professor until the time arrived to pay their fees, when, deserting in a body to another school, they would proceed to play the same trick there. It was certainly one way of getting an education for nothing, but it was hard on the teachers. It seemed scarcely the profession in which one would be likely to make a fortune, even if it were possible to earn one's daily bread. Augustine was discouraged and sick at heart; everything seemed to be against him; there was no hope, no light anywhere. His life seemed doomed to be a failure, in spite of all his gifts.

And then, quite suddenly, came the opening that he had longed for.

Symmachus, the Prefect of Rome, received a letter from Milan, requesting him to name a professor of rhetoric for the vacant chair in that city. A compet.i.tion was announced in which Symmachus, himself a well-known orator, was to be the judge. Augustine entered and won the prize. It was an excellent and honourable position. The professor was supported by the State. The Emperor Valentinian held his Court in the city, which gave it a certain position.

Augustine was furnished with letters of introduction to Ambrose, the Bishop, who had been brilliantly successful at the Bar in his youth, and was probably an old friend of Symmachus. He was of a n.o.ble Roman family, and famous alike for his great learning and peculiar charm of manner. He was famous also for his holiness of life, but this was of less interest to Augustine; it was Ambrose the orator with whom he desired to make acquaintance.

No sooner had he arrived in Milan than he presented himself before the Bishop, who received him with a cordial courtesy that attracted Augustine at once. The only way to judge of his eloquence was to attend the sermons at the cathedral. This Augustine began to do regularly. He found that Ambrose had not been overpraised. He listened to him at first with the pleasure it always gave him to hear an eloquent speaker; then, gradually, with a shock of surprise, he began to attend to what the Bishop said, as well as to his manner of saying it.

Ambrose was explaining the doctrines of the Church. He spoke very clearly and simply, to the intelligence no less than to the heart, for there were many catechumens in his congregation, as well as pagans who were seeking for the truth.

The Manicheans had deceived him, then, thought Augustine; they had lied about the Church's teaching; or they themselves had been ignorant of it, and he had let himself be deceived. This was altogether unlike what they had told him. It was n.o.ble and sublime; all that was great and good in him responded. Had he found the Truth at last?

In the meantime Monica, determined to rejoin her son, arrived in Milan. The journey had been long and dangerous; they had been a.s.sailed by terrible storms; even the sailors had lost courage. It was she who had comforted them in their fear. "The storm will soon be over," she a.s.sured them; "I know that we shall reach our journey's end in safety." She had a strong conviction that she would not die until her prayers had won Augustine back to G.o.d. The sailors took heart again at her words; her calm eyes strengthened them; they felt that this gentle woman knew things that were hidden from them.

Monica's first visit was to St. Ambrose. The two n.o.ble natures understood each other at once. "Thank G.o.d for having given you such a mother," said the Bishop to Augustine, when he met him a few days later; "she is one in a thousand."

Much had happened since mother and son had parted, and much had to be told. The first thing that Monica heard was that Augustine had left the Manicheans. At this she rejoiced greatly; she was convinced, she told him, that she would see him a Catholic before she died. "Thus she spoke to me," says Augustine, "but to Thee, O Fountain of Mercy, she redoubled her prayers and her tears, beseeching Thee to hasten Thine aid and dispel my darkness." They went together now to the sermons and sat side by side in the Church as in the days of Augustine's childhood. One by one he laid aside the false ideas of the truth that had been given to him by the Manicheans. It was growing clearer to him every day. True, there was much that was above his understanding--above the understanding of any human being, as Ambrose frankly acknowledged--but not above their faith. The Manicheans had sneered at faith as childish and credulous; and yet, thought Augustine, how many things he believed that he could have no possibility of proving. He believed, for instance, that Hannibal had crossed the Alps, although he had not been present at the time. He believed that Athens existed, although he had never been there.

As of old, a little group of friends had gathered round him at Milan.

There was Alypius, the most beloved of all his a.s.sociates, who had taken the place of the dear dead friend of his boyhood. There was Romania.n.u.s, who was there on State business, and Licentius, his son, with Trigetius, both pupils of Augustine's; Nebridius, who had been with him in Carthage, and was, like himself, a native of Roman Africa; and several new friends he had made in Milan. It was agreed amongst them that they should set apart a certain time every day to seek for the truth, reading and discussing among themselves. The Scriptures were to form part of the reading.

"Great hope has dawned," wrote Augustine; "the Catholic Faith teaches not what we thought and vainly accused it of. Life is vain, death uncertain; if it steals upon us of a sudden, in what state shall we depart hence? And where shall we learn what here we have neglected?

Let us not delay to seek after G.o.d and the blessed life."

There was in Milan a holy old priest called Simplicia.n.u.s, greatly beloved by St. Ambrose, for he had been his teacher and guide in early life. To him Augustine resolved to go; he might be able to help him. He told Simplicia.n.u.s, amongst other things, that he had been reading a book of philosophy translated by a Roman called Victorinus.

The book was good, said Simplicia.n.u.s, but the story of Victorinus'

own life was better. He had known him well in Rome. Augustine was interested; he would like to hear the story, he said.

Victorinus, said the old man, was a pagan and a worshipper of the heathen G.o.ds. He was a famous orator, and taught rhetoric to some of the n.o.blest citizens of Rome. He was learned in every science, and was so celebrated for his virtue that a statue had been erected to him in the forum. In his old age, after earnest study, he became a Christian, but remained a long time a catechumen through fears of what his friends would say. At last taking courage, he prepared himself for Baptism, and, to punish himself for his human respect, insisted on reading his profession of faith aloud before the whole congregation, instead of making it, as was usual, in private.

This courageous action of an old man made Augustine feel his own cowardice. He believed now that the Catholic Church was the true Church, and yet he could not face the thought of Baptism. He would have to give up so much. The Christian standard was high for a man who had spent his life in self-indulgence. He could never attain to it. He took leave of Simplicia.n.u.s sadly; the help which he needed was not to be found there.