2. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH.

§ 47.14.

  1. During the Period of the Arian Controversy.
    1. Jul. Firmicus Maternus. Under this name we have a treatise De errore profanarum religionum, addressed to the sons of Constantine the Great, in which the writer combats heathenism upon the Euhemerist theory (which traces the worship of the heathen gods from the deifying of famous ancestors), but besides reclaims many myths as corruptions of the biblical history, and shows that the violent overthrow of all idolatry is the sacred duty of a Christian ruler from God’s command to Joshua to destroy utterly the Canaanites.
    2. Lucifer of Calăris [Calaris] in Sardinia, was a violent, determined, and stubborn zealot for the Nicene doctrine, whose excessive severity against the penitent Arians and semi-Arians drove him into schism (§ [50, 8]). He died in A.D. 371. In his tract, Ad Constantium Augustum pro S. Athansio, lb. ii., written in A.D. 360, he upbraids the emperor with his faults so bitterly as to describe him as a reckless apostate, antichrist, and Satan. He boldly acknowledged the authorship and, in prospect of a death sentence, wrote in A.D. 361 his consolatory treatise, Moriendum esse pro filio Dei. The early death of the emperor, however, permitted his return from exile (§ [50, 2], [4]), where he had written De regibus apostaticis and De non conveniendo cum hæreticis.
    3. Marius Victorinus from Africa, often confounded with the martyr of the same name (§ [31, 12]), was converted to Christianity when advanced in life, about A.D. 360, while occupying a distinguished position as a heathen rhetorician in Rome. He gave proof of his zeal as a neophyte by the composition of controversial treatises against the Manichæans, Ad Justinum Manichæum, and against the Arians, Lb. iv. adv. Arium, De generatione divina ad Candidum, De ὁμοουσίῳ recipiendo. In his treatise, De verbis scripturæ, Gen. i. 5, he shows that the creative days began not with the evening, but with the morning. He composed three hymns de Trinitate, and an epic poem on the seven brothers, the Maccabees.
    4. Hilary of Poitiers—Hilarius Pictavienses—styled the Athanasius of the West, and made doctor ecclesiæ by Pius IX. in A.D. 1851, was sprung from a noble pagan family of Poitiers (Pictavium). With wife and daughter he embraced Christianity, and was soon thereafter, about A.D. 350, made bishop of his native city. In A.D. 356, however, as a zealous opponent of Arianism, he was banished to Phrygia, from which he returned in A.D. 360. Two years later he travelled to Milan, in order if possible to win from his error the bishop of that place, Auxentius, a zealous Arian. That bishop, however, obtained an imperial edict which obliged him instantly to withdraw. He died in A.D. 366. The study of Origen seems to have had a decided influence upon his theological development. His strength lay in the speculative treatment of the groundworks of doctrine. At the same time he is the first exegete proper among the Western fathers writing the Latin language. He follows exactly the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. His works embrace commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew, several polemical lectures (§ [50, 6]), and his speculative dogmatic masterpiece de Trinitate in xii. books.
    5. Zeno, bishop of Verona, who died about A.D. 380, left behind ninety-three Sermones which, in beautiful language and spirited style, treat of various subjects connected with faith and morals, combat paganism and Arianism, and eagerly recommend virginity and monasticism.
    6. Philaster, bishop of Brescia, contemporary of Zeno, in his book De hæresibus, described in harsh and obscure language, in an uncritical fashion and with an extremely loose application of the word heresy, 28 pre-Christian and 128 post-Christian systems of error.
    7. Martin of Tours,[146] son of a soldier, had before baptism, but after his heart had been filled with the love of Christ, entered the Roman cavalry. Once, legend relates, he parted his military cloak into two pieces in order to shield a naked beggar from the cold, and on the following night the Lord Jesus appeared to him clothed in this very cloak. In his eighteenth year he was baptized, and for some years thereafter attached himself to Hilary of Poitiers, and then went to his parents in Pannonia. He did not succeed in converting his father, but he was successful with his mother and many of the people. Scourged and driven away by the Arian party which there prevailed, he turned to Milan where, however, he got just as little welcome from the Arian bishop Auxentius. He then lived some years on the island of Gallinaria, near Genoa. When Hilary returned from banishment to Pictavium, he followed him there, and founded in the neighbourhood a monastery, the earliest in Gaul. He was guilefully decoyed to Tours, and forced to mount the episcopal chair there in A.D. 375. He converted whole crowds of heathen peasants, and, according to the legend given by Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours (§ [90, 2]), wrought miracle after miracle. But he was himself with his holy zeal, his activity in doing good, his undoubted power over men’s hearts, and a countenance before which even the emperor quailed (§ [54, 2]), the greatest and the most credible miracle. He died about A.D. 400 in the monastery of Marmontiers [Marmoutiers], which he had founded out from Tours. His tomb was one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage. He was wholly without scholarly culture, but the force of intellect with which he was endowed lent him a commanding eloquence. The Confessio de s. Trinitate attributed to him is not genuine.

§ 47.15.

  1. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, sprung from a prominent Roman family, was governor of the province of Milan. After the death of the Arian Auxentius in A.D. 374 violent quarrels broke out over the choice of a successor. Then a child is said to have cried from the midst of the crowd “Ambrose is bishop,” and all the people, Arians as well as Catholics, agreed. All objection was vain. Up to this time only a catechumen, he received baptism, distributed his property among the poor, and eight days after mounted the episcopal chair. His new office he administered with truly apostolic zeal, a father of the poor, a protector of all oppressed, an unweariedly active pastor, a powerful opponent of heresy and heathenism. His eloquence, which had won him a high reputation in the forum, was yet more conspicuous in the service of the church. To ransom the prisoners he spared not even the furniture of the church. To a peculiarly winning friendliness and gentleness he added great strength of character, which prevented him being checked in his course by any respect of persons, or by any threatening and danger. He so decidedly opposed the intrigues of the Arian Empress Justina, during the minority of her son Valentinian II., that she, powerless to execute her wrath, was obliged to desist from her endeavours (§ [50, 4]). With Theodosius the Great he stood in the highest esteem. When the passionate emperor had ordered a fearful massacre without distinction of rank, age and sex, without enquiry as to guilt or innocence, of the inhabitants of Thessalonica on account of a tumult in which a general and several officers had been murdered, Ambrose wrote him a letter with an earnest call to repentance, and threatened him with exclusion from the communion of the church and its services. The emperor, already repenting of his hastiness, took patiently the rebuke administered, but did nothing to atone for his crime. Some time after he went as usual to church, but Ambrose met him at the entrance of the house of God and refused him admission. For eight months the emperor refrained from communion; then he applied for absolution, which was granted him, after he had publicly done penance before the congregation and promised never in future to carry out a death sentence within thirty days of its being pronounced. Theodosius afterwards declared that Ambrose was the only one truly deserving the name of a bishop. Ambrose was also a zealous promoter of monasticism in the West. In his sermons he so powerfully recommended virginity that many families forbade their daughters attending them.He deserves special credit for his contributions to the liturgical services (Officium Ambrosianum, Cantus Ambr., Hymn Composition, § [59, 4-6]). On all dogmatic questions he strongly favoured the realism of the North African school, while in exegesis he did not surmount the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. To the department of morals and ascetics belong the 3 bks. De Officiis Ministrorum, a Christian construction of Cicero’s celebrated work and the most important of all Ambrose’s writings; also several treatises in recommendation of virginity. The book De Mysteriis explains baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the neophytes. The 5 bks. De fide, the 3 bks. De Spiritu S. and the tract De incarnatîonis sacramento, treat of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith in opposition to Arians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, etc. These are somewhat dependent upon the Greeks, especially Athanasius, Didymus and Basil. His expositions of Old Testament histories (Hexaëmeron, De Paradiso, De Cain et Abel, De Noë et arca, De Abraham, De Jacob et anima, etc.) are allegorical and typical in the highest degree. More important are his Sermones and 92 Epistles. But all his writings are distinguished by their noble, powerful and popular eloquence.
  2. Ambrosiaster is the name given to an unknown writer whose allegorizing Commentary on Paul’s Epistles was long attributed to Ambrose. This work, highly popular on account of its pregnant brevity, was perhaps the joint work of several writers. In its earliest portions it belongs to the age of Damasus, bishop of Rome, who died in A.D. 384, who is named as a contemporary. Augustine names a Hilary, not otherwise known, as author of a passage quoted from it.
  3. Pacianus,[147] bishop of Barcelona, who died about A.D. 390, wrote in a clear style and correct Latinity three Epistles against the Novatians, from the first of which, De Catholico nomine, is borrowed the beautiful saying: Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus cognomen. He also wrote a Liber exhortatorius ad pœnitentiam and a Sermo de baptismo.

§ 47.16. During the Period of Origenistic Controversy.

  1. Jerome[148]—Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus—of Stridon in Dalmatia, received his classical training under the grammarian Donatus at Rome. In A.D. 360 he was baptized by bishop Liberius, but afterwards fell into sensual excesses which he atoned for by penitential pilgrimages to the catacombs. During a journey through Gaul and the provinces of the Rhine and Moselle he seems to have formed the fixed resolve to devote himself to theology and an ascetic life. Then for more than a year he stayed at Aquileia, A.D. 372, where he formed an intimate friendship with Rufinus. He next undertakes a journey to the East. At Antioch in a vision, during a violent fever, placed before the throne of the judge of all, having answered the question Who art thou? by the confession that he was a Christian, he heard the words distinctly uttered: Thou liest! thou art a Ciceronian and no Christian! He then sentenced himself to severe castigation and promised with an oath to give up the reading of the heathen classics which he had so much enjoyed. He afterwards indeed excused himself from the fulfilment of this twofold obligation; but this had sealed his devotion to an ascetic life, and the desert of Chalcis, the Syrian Thebaid, became for him during many years the school of ascetic discipline. Worn out with privations, penances and sensual temptations he returned in A.D. 379 to Antioch, where he was ordained presbyter but without any official district being assigned. Urged by Gregory of Nazianzum [Nazianzen], he next spent several years in Constantinople. From A.D. 382 to A.D. 385 he again lived in Rome, where bishop Damasus honoured him with his implicit confidence. This aroused against him the envy and enmity of many among the Roman clergy, while at the same time his zeal for the spread of monasticism and virginity, as well as his ascetic influence with women, drew upon him the hatred of many prominent families (§ [44, 4]). On the death of his episcopal patron in A.D. 384 his position in Rome thus became untenable. He now returned to the East, visited all the holy places in Palestine, and also made an excursion to Alexandria where he stayed for four weeks in the school of the blind Didymus. He then settled down at Bethlehem, founded there with the means of his Roman lady friends an establishment for monks, over which he presided till his death in A.D. 420; and an establishment for nuns over which St. Paula presided, who with her daughter Eustochium had accompanied him from Rome. As to his share in the Origenistic controversies into which he allowed himself to be drawn, see § [51, 2]. His character was not without defects: vanity, ambition, jealousy, passionateness, impatience and intense bitterness in debate, are only all too apparent in his life. But where these, as well as his scrupulous anxiety for the maintaining of a reputation for unwavering orthodoxy and by zeal for monasticism and asceticism, did not stand in the way, we often find in him an unexpected clearness and liberality of view. Comp. § [17, 6]; [57, 6]; [59, 1]; [61, 1]. To the instructions of the Jew Bar Hanina he was indebted for his knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldee. The greatest and most enduring service was rendered to the study of holy scripture by his pioneer labours in this direction. He is at his weakest in his dogmatic works, which mostly are disfigured by immoderately passionate polemic. In exegesis he represents the grammatico-historical method, but nevertheless frequently falls back again into allegorico-mystical explanations. His style is pure, flowing and elegant, but in polemic often reckless and coarse even to vulgarity. In the department of exegesis the first place belongs to his translation of the bible (§ [59, 1]). We have also a number of Commentaries—on Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Minor Prophets, Matthew, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon. His Onomasticon s. de situ et nominibus locorum Hebr. is a Latin reproduction of the Τοπικά of Eusebius. In the department of dogmatics we have polemics against Lucifer of Calaris (§ [50, 3]), against Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius (§ [63, 2]), against John of Jerusalem (§ [51, 2]) and in several treatises against Rufinus, and finally against the Pelagians (§ [53, 4]). In the department of history we have his Latin adaptation and continuation of the second part of the Eusebian Chronicle, his Catalogus Scriptorum ecclest. s. de viris illustr., which tells in anecdotal form about the lives and writings of biblical and ecclesiastical writers, 135 in number, from Peter down to himself, with the avowed purpose of proving the falseness of the reproach that only ignorant and uncultured men had embraced Christianity. It was afterwards continued by the Gaul Gennadius of Marseilles down to the end of the fifth century. Finally, the romancing legendary sketches of the lives of the famous monks Paul of Thebes (§ [39, 4]), Hilarion (§ [44, 3]) and Malchus, were added. His 150 Epistles are extremely important for the church history of his times. Of his translations of the Greek fathers only those of Didymus, De Spiritu S. and that of 70 Homilies of Origen, are now extant.

§ 47.17.

  1. Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia after receiving baptism lived for a long time in monastic retirement. His enthusiasm for monasticism and asceticism led him in A.D. 373 to Egypt. At Alexandria he spent several years in intercourse with Didymus. He contracted there that enthusiastic admiration of Origen which made his after life so full of debate and strife. He next went in A.D. 379 to Jerusalem, where bishop John ordained him presbyter. Here he found Jerome, with whom he had become acquainted at Aquileia, and the two friends were brought more closely together from their mutual love for Origen, although afterwards this was to prove the occasion of the most bitter enmity (§ [51, 2]). About A.D. 397 he returned to Italy. He died in A.D. 410. His literary activity was mainly directed to the transplanting of the writings of Greek fathers to Latin soil. To his zeal in this direction we owe the preservation of Origen’s most important work Περὶ ἀρχῶν, De principiis, and of no fewer than 124 Homilies. The former, indeed, has been in many places altered in an arbitrary manner. He also translated several Homilies of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (§ [28, 3]), etc. There are extant of his own works: the Continuation of his Latin reproduction of the Church History of Eusebius, down to A.D. 388, the romancing Historia eremitica s. Vitæ Patrum, biographies of 33 saints of the Nitrian desert (§ [51, 1]), an Apologia pro fide sua, the Invectivæ Hieron. in 2 bks. the treatise De benedictionibus Patriarcharum, an exposition of Genesis xlix. in the spirit and style of Origen, and an Expositio symboli apost.
  2. Sulpicius Severus[149] from Aquitania in Gaul, had gained great reputation by his eloquence as an advocate, when the death of his young wife disgusted him with the world, and led him to withdraw into a monastery. He died about A.D. 410. In his Chronica or Historia sacra (§ [5, 1]), a summary of biblical and ecclesiastical history, he imitates not unsuccessfully the eloquence of Sallust, so that he has been called “the Christian Sallust.” His Vita of Martin of Tours is a panegyric overflowing with reports of miracles. The three dialogues on the virtues of Eastern Monks and on the merits of St. Martin, may be regarded as a supplement to the Vita.
  3. Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus is the name by which Peter, bishop of Ravenna, is best known. He also received the title Chrysostomus Latinorum. He died in A.D. 450. Among the 176 Sermones ascribed to him, the discourses expository of the baptismal formula are deserving of special mention. Of his Epistles, one in Latin and Greek addressed to Eutyches (§ [52, 4]) is still preserved, in which the writer warns Eutyches against doctrinal errors.

§ 47.18. The Hero of the Soteriological Controversy.—Augustine—Aurelius Augustinus—was born in A.D. 354 at Tagaste in Numidia. From his pious mother Monica he early received Christian religious impressions which, however, were again in great measure effaced by his pagan father the Decurio Patricius. While he studied in Carthage, he gave way to sensuality and worldly pleasure. Cicero’s Hortensius first awakened again in him a longing after higher things. From about A.D. 374 he sought satisfaction in the tenets of the Manichæan sect, strongly represented in Africa, and for ten years he continued a catechumen of that order. But here, too, at last finding himself cruelly deceived in his struggle after the knowledge of the truth, he would have sunk into the most utter scepticism, had not the study of the Platonic philosophy still for awhile held him back. In A.D. 383 he left Africa and went to Rome, and in the following year he took up his residence in Milan as a teacher of eloquence. An African bishop, once himself a Manichæan, had comforted his anxious mother, who followed him hither, by assuring her that the son of so many sighs and prayers could not be finally lost. At Milan too the sermons of Ambrose made an impression on Augustine’s heart. He now began diligently to search the scriptures. At last the hour arrived of his complete renewal of heart and life. After an earnest conversation with his friend Alypius, he hastened into the solitude of the garden. While agonizing in prayer he heard the words thrice repeated: Tolle, lege! He took up the scriptures, and his eye fell upon the passage Rom. xiii. 13, 14. This utterance of stern Christian morality seemed as if written for himself alone, and from this moment he received into his wounded spirit a peace such as he had never known before. In order to prepare for baptism he withdrew with his mother and some friends to the country house of one of them, where scientific studies, pious exercises and conversations on the highest problems of life occupied his time. Out of these conversations sprang his philosophical writings. At Easter A.D. 387 Ambrose baptized him, and at the same time his illegitimate son Adeodatus, who not long afterwards died. His return journey to Africa was delayed by the death of his mother at Ostia, and at last, after almost a year’s residence in Rome, he reached his old home again. In Rome he applied himself to combat the errors of Manichæism, arguing with many of his old companions whom he met there. After his return to Africa in A.D. 388, he spent some years on his small patrimonial estate at Tagaste engaged in scientific work. During a casual visit to Hippo in A.D. 391 he was, in spite of all resistance, ordained presbyter, and in A.D. 395 colleague of the aged and feeble bishop Valerius, whose successor he became in the following year. Now began the brilliant period of his career, in which he stands forth as a pillar of the church and the centre of all theological and ecclesiastical life throughout the whole Western world. In A.D. 400 began his battle against the Donatists (§ [63, 1]). And scarcely had he brought this to a successful end in a religious discussion at Carthage in A.D. 411, when he was drawn into a far more important Soteriological controversy by Pelagius and his followers (§ [53]), which he continued till the close of his life. His death occurred in A.D. 430 during the siege of Carthage by the Vandals. He has written his own life in his Confessiones (Engl. translat., Oxf., 1838; Edin., 1876). In the form of an address to God he here unfolds before the Omniscient One his whole past life with all its errors and gracious providences in the language of prayer full of the holiest earnestness and most profound humility, a lively commentary on the opening words: Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde.... Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. The biography of his disciple Possidius may serve as a supplement to the Confessions.—Augustine was the greatest, most powerful, and most influential of all the fathers. In consequence of his thoroughly Western characteristics he was indeed less perfectly understood and appreciated in the East; but all the greater was his reputation in the West, where the whole development of church and doctrine seemed always to move about him as its centre. The main field of his literary activity in consequence of his own peculiar mental qualities, his philosophical culture, speculative faculty, and dialectic skill, as well as the ecclesiastical conflicts of his time, to which his most important works are devoted, was Systematic Theology, Dogmatics and Ethics, Polemics and Apologetics. He is weakest as an exegete; for he had little interest in philological and grammatico-historical research into the simple literal sense of scripture. He was unacquainted with the original language of the Old Testament, and even the New Testament he treats only in a popular way according to the Latin translations. Neither does he deal much with the exegetical foundations of dogmatics, which he rather develops from the Christian consciousness by means of speculation and dialectic, and from the proof of its meeting the needs of humanity. Over against philosophy he insisted upon the independence and necessity of faith as the presupposition and basis of all religious knowledge. Rationabiliter dictum est per prophetam: Nisi credideretis non intelligetis. Credamus ut id quod credimus intelligere valeamus.