The Life of Saint Monica
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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 assured 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 seashore in the cool evening air. The hours passed, 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 seashore, 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 God, 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 shore 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 God alone Who knew all the bitterness of that mother's heart. It was God 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 God 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. God 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 classes 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 competition 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 noble 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 noble 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 assailed 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 assured 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 God. 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 noble natures understood each other at once. "Thank God 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 associates, who had taken the place of the dear dead friend of his boyhood. There was Romanianus, 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 God and the blessed life."
There was in Milan a holy old priest called Simplicianus, 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 Simplicianus, amongst other things, that he had been reading a book of philosophy translated by a Roman called Victorinus. The book was good, said Simplicianus, 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 gods. He was a famous orator, and taught rhetoric to some of the noblest 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 Simplicianus sadly; the help which he needed was not to be found there.
"I went about my usual business," he says, "while my anxiety increased as I daily sighed to Thee." He frequented the Church now even when there were no sermons, for he began to feel the need of prayer.
One day when Alypius and he were alone together there came in a friend of theirs, Pontitianus, a devout Christian, who held a post at the Emperor's Court. Finding the Epistles of St. Paul upon the table, he smiled at Augustine, saying that he was glad that he was reading them, for they were full of teaching. He began to tell them about St. Anthony, and of the many hermitages and monasteries in Egypt, and even here in his own country. He spoke to them of the monastic life and its virtues, and, seeing their interest and astonishment, went on to tell them an incident that had happened a short time before.
Two young men of the Imperial Court, friends of his own, walking together in the country, came to a cottage inhabited by some holy recluses. A life of St. Anthony lay on the table. One of them took it up and began to read. His first feeling was one of astonishment, his second of admiration. "How uncertain life is!" he said suddenly to his companion. "We are in the Emperor's service. I wish we were in God's; I had rather be His friend than the Emperor's." He read on, with sighs and groans. At last he shut the book and arose. "My mind is made up," he said; "I shall enter God's service here and now. If you will not do so too, at least do not try to hinder me." "You have chosen well," said the other; "I am with you in this." They never left the hermitage.
This story only increased Augustine's misery. He had had more graces than these young men, and had wasted them; he was a coward. When Pontitianus had gone away, he left Alypius and went out into the garden. Alypius followed and sat down beside him.
"What are we about!" cried Augustine hotly. "The unlearned take heaven by force, and we, with all our heartless learning, wallow in the mire!" He sank his face in his hands and groaned. The way lay clear before him; he had found the Eternal Truth for which he had been seeking so long, and he had not the courage to go further.
This and that he would have to do; this and that he would have to give up – he could not: it was too hard.
And yet – to stand with both feet on the rock of truth, was it not worth all this and more?
So the battle raged. Good and evil struggled together in his soul.
It seemed to him then that he saw a long procession winding across the garden. It passed him and faded in the distance. First came boys and girls, young and weak, scarcely more than children, and they mocked him gently. "We have fought and conquered," they said, "even we." After them came a great multitude of men and women in the prime of life, some strong and vigorous, some feeble and sickly. It seemed to Augustine as if they looked at him with eyes full of contempt. "We have lived purely," they said, "we have striven and conquered." They were followed by old men and women, worn with age and suffering. They looked at him reproachfully. "We have fought and conquered," they said, "we have endured unto the end."
Augustine's self-control was leaving him; even Alypius' presence was more than he could bear. He leapt to his feet, went to the other end of the garden, and, throwing himself down on the ground, wept as if his heart would break. His soul, tossed this way and that in its anguish, cried desperately to God for help.
Suddenly on the stillness of the summer afternoon there broke the sound of a child's voice, sweet, insistent. "Tolle, lege," it sang; "tolle, lege" ("Take and read").
Augustine stood up. There was no one there; no human being was in sight. "Tolle, lege; tolle, lege," rang the sweet voice again and again in his ear, now on this side, now on that. Was this the answer to his prayer?
He remembered how St. Anthony had opened the sacred Scriptures on a like occasion, and had found the help that he required. Going back to Alypius, he took up the sacred volume and opened it. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh and the concupiscence thereof," he read.
Light, strength, and conviction flowed into his soul. With God's help all things were possible; he would give up all and follow Him. Then, having carefully marked the place, he sat down beside Alypius and told him of his resolution.
"What about me?" asked Alypius, "Perhaps there is something there for me too. Let me see." He took the book from Augustine, opened at the place he had marked, and read: "He that is weak in the faith take unto you." "That will do very well for me," he said.
Augustine's first thought was for Monica. He must go to her, and at once. They sat together hand in hand until the sun sank in a rose-coloured glory and the cool shadows of the evening fell like a blessing on the earth. There are some joys too deep for speech, too holy to be touched by mortal hands.
CHAPTER X
HOW ST. MONICA LIVED AT CASSIACUM WITH AUGUSTINE AND HIS FRIENDS, AND HOW AUGUSTINE WAS BAPTIZED BY ST. AMBROSE
Amongst the saints there are two great penitents, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine, who in the first moment of their conversion shook themselves wholly free from the trammels of the past and never looked back again.
"Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder," cries St. Augustine, "to Thee will I offer the sacrifice of praise." Honours, wealth, pleasure, all the things he had desired so passionately, were now as nothing to him. "For Thou didst expel them from me," he says, "and didst come in Thyself instead of them. And I sang to Thee, my Lord God, my true honour, my riches, and my salvation."
The vacation was close at hand. Augustine resolved to give up his professorship and to go away quietly to prepare himself for Baptism. Verecundus, one of the little group of faithful friends who surrounded him, had a country house in Cassiacum, which he offered for his use while he remained in Italy. It was a happy party that gathered within its walls. There were Augustine and his younger brother Navigius; the faithful Alypius, who was to receive Baptism with his friend; Licentius and Trigetius, Augustine's two pupils; and several others. Lastly there was Monica, who was a mother to them all, and whose sunny presence did much to enliven the household. It was autumn, an Italian mid-September. The country was a glory of green and gold and crimson, the Apennines lying like purple shadows in the distance.
Here, in the seclusion that was so dear to his heart, Augustine read the Psalms for the first time. His soul was on fire with their beauty; every word carried him to God. Monica read with him, and he tells us that he would often turn to her for an explanation. "For," he continues, "she was walking steadily in the path in which I was as yet feeling my way."
There were other studies besides to be carried on, and St. Augustine tells us of some of the interesting discussions that were held on the lawn, or in the hall of the baths, which they used when the weather was not fine enough to go out.
One morning, when he and his pupils were talking of the wonderful harmony and order that exist in nature, the door opened and Monica looked in.
"How are you getting on?" she asked, for she knew what they were discussing. Augustine invited her to join them, but Monica smiled. "I have never heard of a woman amongst the philosophers," she said.
"That is a mistake," replied Augustine. "There were women philosophers amongst the ancients, and you know, my dear mother, that I like your philosophy very much. Philosophy means nothing else but love of wisdom. Now you love wisdom more even than you love me, and I know how much that is. Why, you are so far advanced in wisdom that you fear no ill-fortune, not even death itself. Everybody says that this is the very height of philosophy. I will therefore sit at your feet as your disciple."
Monica, still smiling, told her son that he had never told so many lies in his life. In spite of her protests, however, they would not let her go, and she was enrolled amongst the philosophers. The discussions, says St. Augustine, owed a good deal of their beauty to her presence.
The 15th of November was Augustine's birthday. After dinner he invited his friends to come to the hall of the baths, that their souls might be fed also.
"For I suppose you all admit," he said, when they had settled themselves for conversation, "that we are made up of soul and body." To this everybody agreed but Navigius, who was inclined to argue, and who said he did not know.
"Do you mean," asked Augustine, "that there is nothing at all that you do know, or that of the few things you do not know this is one?"
Navigius was a little put out at this question, but they pacified him, and at last persuaded him to say that he was as certain of the fact that he was made up of body and soul as anybody could be. They then agreed that food was taken for the sake of the body.
"Must not the soul have its food too?" asked Augustine. "And what is that food? Is it not knowledge?"
Monica agreed to this, but Trigetius objected.
"Why, you yourself," said Monica, "are a living proof of it. Did you not tell us at dinner that you did not know what you were eating because you were lost in thought? Yet your teeth were working all the time. Where was your soul at that moment if not feeding too?"
Then Augustine, reminding them that it was his birthday, said that as he had already given them a little feast for the body, he would now give them one for the soul.
Were they hungry? he asked.
There was an eager chorus of assent.
"Can a man be happy," he said, "if he has not what he wants, and is he happy if he has it?"
Monica was the first to answer this question. "If he wants what is good and has it," she replied, "he is happy. But if he wants what is bad, he is not happy even if he has it."
"Well said, mother!" cried Augustine. "You have reached the heights of philosophy at a single bound."
Someone then said that if a man were needy he could not be happy. Finally they all agreed that only he who possessed God could be wholly happy. But the discussion had gone on for a long time, and Augustine suggested that the soul might have too much nourishment as well as the body, and that it would be better to put off the rest until to-morrow.
The discussion was continued next day.
"Since only he who possesses God can be happy, who is he who possesses God?" asked Augustine, and they were all invited to give their opinion.
"He that leads a good life," answered one. "He who does God's will," said another. "He who is pure of heart," said a third. Navigius would not say anything, but agreed with the last speaker. Monica approved of them all.