0' (Aug. Retract. ii. 1). To him St. Augustin wrote two books, De Diversis Quaestionibus (Op. t. vi. p. 82 sq.), and calls him `father
0' (ibid.), speaks of his `fatherly affections from his most benevolent heart, not recent or sudden, but tried and known
0' (Ep. 37), requests his `remarks and corrections of any books of his which might chance to fall into his holy hands
0' (ibid.) St. Ambrose mentions his `having traversed the whole world, for the sake of the faith, and of acquiring divine knowledge, and having given the whole period of this life to holy reading, night and day: that he had an acute mind, whereby he took in intellectual studies, and was in the habit of proving how far the books of philosophy were gone astray from the truth,
0' Ep. 65, sec 5, p. 1052, ed. Ben. See also Tillemont, H. E. t. 10, Art. `S. Simplicien.
0' "-E. B. P.
0' of the Lord's Prayer, meaning the hidden meaning conveyed therein, which could only be appreciated by a Christian. The Fathers sometimes speak of confirmation as a sacrament, because the chrism signified the grace of the Holy Ghost; and the imposition of hands was not merely a bare sign, but the form by which it was conveyed. See Bingham, book xii. c. 1, sec. 4. Yet at the same time they continually speak of two great sacraments of the Christian Church" (Palmer's Origines Liturgicae, vol. ii. c. 6, sec. 1, p. 201).
0' This rite of turning to the west at the renunciation of Satan is also spoken of by Jerome, Gregory, Nazianzen, and Ambrose; and it was sometimes performed with exsufflations and other external.signs of enmity to Satan, and rejection of him and his works. To the present day these customs remain in the patriarchate of Constantinople, where the candidates for baptism turn to the west to renounce Satan, stretching forth their hands and using an exsufflation as a sign of enmity against him. And the Monophysites of Antioch and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Armenia, also retain the custom of renouncing Satan with faces turned to the west."
0' etc. Ye have received them, and given back [reddidistis] what ye ought to retain in heart and mind, what ye should repeat in your beds, think on in the streets, and forget not in your meals, and while sleeping in body, in heart watch therein. For this is the faith, and the rule of salvation, that `We believe in God, the Father Almighty,
0' " etc. (Aug. Serm. 215, in Redditione Symboli). "On the Sabbath day [Saturday], when we shall keep a vigil through the mercy of God, ye will give back [reddituri] not the [Lord's] Prayer, but the Creed" (Serm. 58, sec. ult.). "What ye have briefly heard, ye ought not only to believe, but to commit to memory in so many words, and utter with your mouth" (Serm. 214, in Tradit. Symb. 3, sec. 2). "Nor, in order to retain the very words of the Creed, ought ye any wise to write it, but to learn it thoroughly by hearing, nor, when ye have learnt it, ought ye to write it, but always to keep and refresh it in your memories.-`This is my covenant, which I will make with them after those days,
0' saith the Lord; `I will place my law in their minds, and in their hearts will I write it.
0' To convey this, the Creed is learnt by hearing, and not written on tables or any other substance, but on the heart" (Serm. 212, sec. 2). See the Roman Liturgy (Assem, Cod. Liturg. t. i. p. 11 sq., 16), and the Gothic and Gallican (pp. 30 sq., 38 sq., 40 sq., etc.). "The renunciation of Satan," to quote once more from Palmer's Origines (c. 5, sec. 3), "was always followed by a profession of faith in Christ, as it is now in the English ritual....The promise of obedience and faith in Christ was made by the catechumens and sponsors, with their faces turned towards the east, as we learn from Cyril of Jerusalem and many other writers. Tertullian speaks of the profession of faith made at baptism, in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in the Church. Cyprian mentions the interrogation, `Dost thou believe in eternal life, and remission of sins through the Holy Church?
0' Eusebius and many other Fathers also speak of the profession of faith made at this time; and it is especially noted in the Apostolical Constitutions, which were written in the East at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. The profession of faith in the Eastern churches has generally been made by the sponsor, or the person to be baptized, not in the form of answers to questions, but by repeating the Creed after the priest. In the Western churches, the immemorial custom has been, for the priest to interrogate the candidate for baptism, or his sponsor, on the principal articles of the Christian faith."
0' (Jerome, Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. init). Origen mentions the same opinion (which is indeed suggested by the relation in the Acts), but thinks that the apostle had originally two names (Praef. in Comm. in Ep. ad Rom.), which, as a Roman, may very well have been, and yet that he made use of his Roman name Paul first in connection with the conversion of the proconsul; Chrysostom says that it was doubtless changed at the command of God, which is to be supposed, but still may have been at this time."-E. B. P.
0'(Acts. xiii. 10). As if he had said, `You have learned this of your father the devil,-to haunt the courts of princes, wind into the favour of great ones. There is a double policy Satan hath in gaining such to his side.-(a) None have such advantage to draw others to their way. Corrupt the captain, and it is hard it he bring not off his troop with him. When the princes-men of renown in their tribes-stood up with Korah, presently a multitude are drawn into the conspiracy (Num. xvi. 2, 19). Let Jeroboam set up idolatry, and Israel is soon in a snare. It is said [that] the people willingly walked after his commandment (Hos. v. 11). (b) Should the sin stay at court, and the infection go no further, yet the sin of such a one, though a good man, may cost a whole kingdom dear. Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel (1 Chron. xxi. 1). He owed Israel a spite, and he pays them home in their king's sin, which dropped in a fearful plague upon their heads,"-Gurhall, The Christian in Complete Armour, vol. i. part 2.
0' "
0' (Ps. cxi. 10); whereas, on the other hand also, `pride
0' is entitled `the beginning of all sin
0' (Ecclus. x. 13). Let the proud, therefore, seek after and love the kingdoms of the earth, but `blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
0' "
8 Ps. xxvi. 8.
9 1 Cor. vii 7.
10 Matt. xix. 12.
11 Wisd. xiii. 1.
12 See iv. sec, 18, and note, above.
13 "And the Holy Ghost." These words, though in the text of the Benedictine edition are not, as the editors point out, found in the majority of the best Mss.
14 Rom. i. 21.
15 Ps. xviii. 35.
16 Job xxviii. 28.
17 Prov. iii. 7.
18 Rom. i. 22.
19 In his Quaest. ex. Matt. 13, likewise, Augustin compares Christ to the pearl of great price, who is in every way able to satisfy the cravings of man.
20 Matt. xiii. 46.
21 Simplicianus succeeded Ambrose, 397 A.D. He has already been referred to, in the extract from De Civ. Dei, in note 1, p. 113, above as "the old saint Simplicianus, afterwards Bishop of Milan." In Ep. p. 37, Augustin addresses him as "his father, most worthy of being cherished with respect and sincere affection." When Simplicianus is spoken of above as "the father of Ambrose in receiving Thy grace," reference is doubtless made to his having been instrumental in his conversion-he having "begotten" him "through the gospel" (I Cor. iv. 15). Ambrose, when writing to him (Ep.65), concludes, "Vale, et nos parentis affectu dilige, ut facis."
22 Col. ii. 8.
23 i.e. the Platonists.
24 In like manner Augustin, in his De Civ. Dei (viii. 5), says: "No philosophers come nearer to us than the Platonists;" and elsewhere, in the same book, he speaks, in exalted terms, of their superiority to other philosophers. When he speaks of the Platonists, he means the Neo-Platonists, from whom he conceived that he could best derive a knowledge of Plato, who had, by pusuing the Socratic method in concealing his opinions, rendered it difficult "to discover clearly what he himself thought on various matters, any more than it is to discover what were the real opinions of Socrates" (ibid. sec 4). Whether Plato himself had or not knowledge of the revelation contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, as Augustin supposed (De Civ. Dei, viii. 11, 12), it is clear that the later Platonists were considerably affected by Judaic ideas, even as the philosophizing Jews were indebted to Platonism. This view has been embodied in the proverb frequently found in the Fathers, Latin as well as Greek, H IIla/twn filonizei h/ filwn platwnizei. Archer Butler, in the fourth of his Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, treats of the vitality of Plato's teaching and the causes of its influence, and shows how in certain points there is a harmony between his ideas and the precepts of the gospel. On the difficulty of unravelling the subtleties of the Platonic philosophy, see Burton's Bampton Lectures (lect. 3).
25 See iv. sec. 19, above.
26 Matt xi. 25
27 "Victorinus, by birth an African, taught rhetoric at Rome under Constantius, and in extreme old age, giving himself up to the faith of Christ, wrote some books against Arius, dialectically [and so] very obscure, which are not understood but by the learned, and a commentary on the Apostle" [Paul] (Jerome, De Viris Ill. c. 101). It is of the same, probably, that Gennadius speaks (De Viris Ill. c. 60), "that he commented in a Christian and pious strain, but inasmuch as he was a man taken up with secular literature, and not trained in the Divine Scriptures by any teacher, he produced what was comparatively of little weight." Comp. Jerome, Praef. in Comm. in Gal., and see Tillemont, 1. c. p. 179, sq. Some of his works are extant.-E. B. P.
28 Aeneid, viii. 736-8. The Kennedys.
29 Ps. cxliv. 5.
30 Ps. xxix. 5.
31 Luke ix. 26.
32 . "The Fathers gave the name of sacrament, or mystery, to everything which conveyed one signification or property to unassisted reason, and another to faith. Hence Cyprian speaks of the `sacraments
33 That is, he became a catechumen. In addition to the information on this subject, already given in the note to book vi. sec. 2, above, the following references to it may prove instructive. (1) Justin Martyr, describing the manner of receiving converts into the Church in his day, says (Apol. i. 61): "As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray, and to entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings." And again (ibid. 65): "We, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers, in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place....Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread, and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost....And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present, to partake of, the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion." And once more (ibid. 66): "This food is called among us Eu0xaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined." (2) In Watts' translation, we have the following note on this episode in our text: "Here be divers particulars of the primitive fashion, in this story of Victorinus. First, being converted, he was to take some well-known Christian (who was to be his godfather) to go with him to the bishop, who, upon notice of it, admitted him a catechumenus, and gave him those six points of catechistical doctrine mentioned Heb. vi, 1, 2. When the time of baptism drew near, the young Christian came to give in his heathen name, which was presently registered, submitting himself to examination. On the eve, was he, in a set form, first, to renounce the devil, and to pronounce, I confess to Thee, O Christ, repeating the Creed with it, in the form here recorded. The time for giving in their names must be within the two first weeks in Lent; and the solemn day to renounce upon was Maundy Thursday. So bids the Council of Laodicea (Can. 45 and 46)." The renunciation adverted to by Watts in the above passage may be traced to an early period in the writings of the Fathers. It is mentioned by Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome, and "in the fourth century," says Palmer (Origines Liturgicae, c. 5, sec. 2, where the authorities will be found), "the renunciation was made with great solemnity. Cyril of Jerusalem, speaking to those who had been recently baptized, said, `First, you have entered into the vestibule of the baptistry, and, standing towards the west, you have heard, and been commanded, and stretch forth your hands, and renounce Satan as if he were present.
34 Ps. cxii. 10.
35 Ps. xxxi. 6, 14, 18.
36 Literally, "give back," reddere.
37 Anciently, as Palmer has noted in the introduction to his Origines Liturgicae, the liturgies of the various churches were learnt by heart. They probably began to be committed to writing about Augustin's day. The reference, however, in this place, is to the Apostles' Creed, which, Dr. Pusey in a note remarks, was delivered orally to the catechumens to commit it to memory, and by them delivered back, i. e. publicly repeated before they were baptized. "The symbol [creed] bearing hallowed testimony, which ye have together received, and are this day severally to give back [reddidistis], are the words in which the faith of our mother the Church is solidly constructed on a stable foundation, which is Christ the Lord. `For other foundation can no man lay,
38 Luke xv 4-10.
39 Luke xv 32.
40 See ix. sec 19, , note.
41 Luke xv. 32.
42 See xii. sec. 12, and xiii. sec. 11, below.
43 Cant, i. 4.
44 John i. 12.
45 1 Cor. i. 27, 28.
46 1Cor. xv. 9.
47 Acts. xiii. 12.
48 Matt. xi. 30.
49 " `As Scipio, after the conquest of Africa, took the name of Africanus, so Saul also, being sent to preach to the Gentiles, brought back his trophy out of the first spoils won by the Church, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and set up his banner, in that for Saul he was called Paul
50 "Satan makes choice of persons of place and power. These are either in the Commonwealth or church. If he can, he will secure the throne and the pulpit, as the two forts that command the whole line....A prince or a ruler may stand for a thousand; therefore saith Paul to Elymas when he would have turned the deputy from the faith, `O full of all subtilty, thou child of the devil!
51 Matt. xii. 29.
52 Luke xi, 22, 25.
53 2 Tim. ii. 21.
54 During the reign of Constantius, laws of a persecuting character were enacted against Paganism, which led multitudes nominally to adopt the Christian faith. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he took steps immediately to reinstate Paganism in all its ancient splendour. His court was filled with Platonic philosophers and diviners, and he sacrificed daily to the gods. But, instead of imitating the example of his predecessor, and enacting laws against the Christians, he endeavoured by subtlety to destroy their faith. In addition to the measures mentioned by Augustin above, he endeavoured to foment divisions in the Church by recalling the banished Donatists, and stimulating them to disseminate their doctrines, and he himself wrote treatises against it. In order, if possible, to counteract the influence of Christianity, he instructed his priests to imitate the Christians in their relief of the poor and care for the sick. But while in every way enacting measures of disability against the Christians, he showed great favour to the Jews, and with the view of confuting the predictions of Christ, went so far as to encourage them to rebuild the Temple.
55 Wisd, x. 21.
56 There would appear to be a law at work in the moral and spiritual worlds similar to that of gravitation in the natural, which "acts inversely as the square of the distance." As we are more affected, for example, by events that have taken place near us either in time or place, than by those which are more remote, so in spiritual things, the monitions of conscience would seem to become feeble with far greater rapidity than the continuance of our resistance would lead us to expect, while the power of sin, in like proportion, becomes strong. When tempted, men see not the end from the beginning. The allurement, however, which at first is but as a gossamer thread, is soon felt to have the strength of a cable. "Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse" (2 Tim. iii. 13), and when it is too late they learn that the embrace of the siren is but the prelude to destruction. "Thus,"as Gurnall has it (The Christian in Complete Armour, vol. i. part 2), "Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, that let them not see the bottom whither they are going....Many who at this day lie in open profaneness, never thought they should have rolled so far from their modest beginnings. O Christians, give not place to Satan, no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a beggar and a modest one without doors, will command the house if let in. Yield at first, and thou givest away thy strength to resist him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel out, if it be not mended by timely repentance." See Müller, Lehre von der Sünde, book v., where the beginnings and alarming progress of evil in the soul are graphically described. See ix. sec. 18, note, below.
57 Gal. v. 17.
58 See iv. sec. 26, note, and v. sec. 18, above.
59 Rom. vii. 20.
60 See v. sec. 2, note 6, above.
61 Illud placebat et vincebat; hoc libebat et vinciebat. Watts renders freely, "But notwithstanding that former course pleased and overcame my reason, yet did this latter tickle and enthrall my senses."
62 Eph. v. 14
63 As Bishop Wilberforce, eloquently describing this condition of mind, says, in his sermon on The Almost Christian, "New, strange wishes were rising in his heart. The Mighty One was brooding over its currents, was stirring up its tides, was fain to overrule their troubled flow-to arise in open splendour on his eyes; to glorify his life with His own blessed presence. And he himself was evidently conscious of the struggle; he was almost won; he was drawn towards that mysterious birth, and he well-nigh yielded. He even knew what was passing within his soul; he could appreciate something of its importance, of the living value of that moment. If that conflict was indeed visible to higher powers around him; if they who longed to keep him in the kingdom of darkness, and they who were ready to rejoice at his repentance-if they could see the inner waters of that troubled heart, as they surged and eddied underneath these mighty influences, how must they have waited for the doubtful choice! how would they strain their observation to see if that Almost should turn into an Altogether, or die away again, and leave his heart harder than it had been before!"
64 Rom. vii. 22-24. This difficilis et periculosus locus (Serm. cliv. 1) he interprets differently at different periods of his life. In this place, as elsewhere in his writings, he makes the passage refer (according to the general interpretation in the Church up to that time) to man convinced of sin under the influence of the law, but not under grace. In his Retractations, however (i. 23, sec. 1), he points out that he had found reason to interpret the passage not of man convinced of sin, but of man renewed and regenerated in Christ Jesus. This is the view constantly taken in his anti-Pelagian writings, which were published subsequently to the date of his Confessions; and indeed this change in interpretation probably arose from the pressure of the Pelagian controversy (see Con. Duas Ep. Pel. i. 10, secs. 18 and 22), and the fear lest the old view should too much favour the heretics, and their exaltation of the powers of the natural man to the disparagement of the influence of the grace of God.
65 Ps. xix. 14.
66 It may be well here to say a few words in regard to Monachism and Antony's relation to it:-(1) There is much in the later Platonism, with its austerities and bodily mortifications (see vii. sec. 13, note 2, above), which is in common with the asceticism of the early Church. The Therapeutae of Philo, indeed, of whom there were numbers in the neighbourhood of Alexandria in the first century, may be considered as the natural forerunners of the Egyptian monks. (2) Monachism, according to Sozomen (i. 12), had its origin in a desire to escape persecution by retirement into the wilderness. It is probable, however, that, as in the case of Paul the hermit of Thebais, the desire for freedom from the cares of life, so that by contemplation and mortification of the body, the lo/goj or inner reason (which was held to be an emanation of God) might be purified, had as much to do with the hermit life as a fear of persecution. Mosheim, indeed (Ecc. Hist. i. part 2, c. 3), supposes Paul to have been influenced entirely by these Platonic notions. (3) Antony was born in the district of Thebes, A.D. 251, and visited Paul in the Egyptian desert a little before his death. To Antony is the world indebted for establishing communities of monks, as distinguished from the solitary asceticism of Paul; he therefore is rightly viewed as the founder of Monachism. He appears to have known little more than how to speak his native Coptic, yet during his long life (said to have been 100 years) he by his fervent enthusiasm made for himself a name little inferior to that of the "king of men," Athanasius, whom in the time of the Arian troubles he stedfastly supported, and by whom his life has been handed down to us. Augustin, in his De Doctr. Christ. (Prol. sec. 4), speaks of him as " a just and holy man, who, not being able to read himself, is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory through hearing them read by others, and by dint of wise meditation to have arrived at a thorough understanding of them." (4) According to Sozomen (iii. 14), monasteries had not been established in Europe A.D. 340. They were, Baronius tells us, introduced into Rome about that date by Athanasius, during a visit to that city. Athanasius mentions "ascetics" as dwelling at Rome A.D. 355. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Martin, Bishop of Tours, and Jerome were enthusiastic suppporters of the system. (5) Monachism in Europe presented more of its practical and less of its contemplative side, than in its cradle in the East. An example of how the monks of the East did work for the good of others is seen in the instance of the monks of Pachomius; still in this respect, as in matters of doctrine, the West has generally shown itself more practical than the East. Probably climate and the style of living consequent thereon have much to do with this. Sulpicius Severus (dial. i. 2, De Vita Martini) may be taken to give a quaint illustration of this, when he makes one of his characters say, as he hears of the mode of living of the Eastern monks, that their diet was only suited to angels. However mistaken we may think the monkish systems to be, it cannot be concealed that in the days of anarchy and semi-barbarism they were oftentimes centres of civilisation. Certainly in its originating idea of meditative seclusion, there is much that is worthy of commendation; for, as Farindon has it (Works, iv. 130), "This has been the practice not only of holy men, but of heathen men. Thus did Tully, and Antony, and Crassus make way to that honour and renown which they afterwards purchased in eloquence (Cicero, De Officiis, ii. 13, viii. 7); thus did they pass a solitudine in scholas, a scholis in forum,-`from their secret retirement into the schools, and from the schools into the pleading-place.
67 Augustin, when comparing Christian with Manichaean asceticism, says in his De Mor. Eccl. Cath. (sec. 70), "I saw at Milan a lodging-house of saints, in number not a few, presided over by one presbyter, a man of great excellence and learning." In the previous note we have given the generally received opinion, that the first monastery in Europe was established at Rome. It may be mentioned here that Muratori maintains that the institution was transplanted from the East first to Milan; others contend that the first European society was at Aquileia.
68 See vi. sec. 12, note 1, above.
69 Matt. v. 3. Roman commentators are ever ready to use this text of Scripture as an argument in favour of monastic poverty, and some may feel disposed from its context to imagine such an interpretation to be implied in this place. This, however, can hardly be so. Augustin constantly points out in his sermons, etc. in what the poverty that is pleasing to God consists. "Pauper Dei," he says (in Ps. cxxxi. 15), "in animo est, non in sacculo;" and his interpretation of this passage in his Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (i. 3) is entirely opposed to the Roman view. We there read: "The poor in spirit are rightly understood here as meaning the humble and God-fearing, i.e. those who have not a spirit which puffeth up. Nor ought blessedness to begin at any other point whatever, if indeed it is to reach the highest wisdom. `The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
70 "Agentes in rebus. There was a society of them still about the court. Their militia or employments were to gather in the emperor's tributes; to fetch in offenders; to do Palatini obsequia, officers of court provide corn, etc., ride on errands like messengers of the chamber, lie abroad as spies and intelligencers. They were often preferred to places of magistracy in the provinces; such were called Principesor Magistriani. St. Hierome upon Abdias, c. 1, calls them messengers. They succeeded the Frumentarii, between which two and the Curiosi and the Speculatores there was not much difference."-W. W.
71 Luke xiv. 26-35.