St. Augustine
A Monument to St. Augustine : Essays on some aspects of his Thought written in commemoration of his lath centenary. (Sheed and Ward. 123. 6d.) St. Augustine's Conversion : an Outline of his Development to the Time of his Ordination. By W. J. Sparrow Simpson, D.D. (S.P.C.K. Its. 6d.)
ON August 28th, fifteen hundred years ago, one of the most powerful and creative intellects which have ever devoted them- selves to the service of the Christian Church passed from this earth. Yet the influence of St. Augustine—second only to that of St. Paul—is still felt within that Church's life, alike as mystic, theologian, and moralist ; and hardly one masterpiece of spiritual literature has been produced since the Patristic age which does not owe something to his genius for reality. Fully to understand the development of that literature, at least on its mystical and devotional side, we need almost to know his Confessions by heart ; for this book is the main channel through which the Neoplatonic tradition of the spiritual life has entered the Christian consciousness, and coloured the most secret experience of countless souls. This only represents a small section of the field over which Augustine's great influence has worked. Catholic and Pro- testant, dogmatist and contemplative, alike appeal to his authority, which for mediaeval Christianity approached that of the Bible itself. Called by Von Hugel "one of the greatest of all teachers of adoration," he has left the mark of his pene- trating intellect on the most formal definitions of theology. Invoked on behalf of the forbidding doctrines of the Jansenists, he was yet the " deere deere Saint " whose writings nourished the ardent soul of Gertrude More. A mind of such depth and range, which can thus reach down the centuries to help and correct the spiritual adventures of men, must itself be interest- ing to us. But, beyond this, the human and psychological de- velopment of St. Augustine's life—on the whole better known to us than that of any other great doctor of the Church—is unsurpassed in importance to students of religious experience. The.reconstruction of his cultural background, and the careful dating and comparison of his numerous writings, have now made fairly clear the stages of his spiritual growth ; and the extent in which the outpourings of the Confessions represent " emotion remembered in tranquillity." We now see in them the record not of a miraculous conversion of sinner to saint, but of the struggles of a young man of genius, consumed by a thirst for reality, cutting his own path through the moral and intellectual jungle of his time.
The variety of interests which meet in Augustinian studies is well demonstrated in the admirable collection of essays which a group of distinguished Roman Catholic scholars have produced in honour of the Saint. Even so, as the editor observes, no single volume could survey more than one corner of this vast field ; therefore Augustine's contributions to the technique of theology are here left on one side, and we are shown the great African—so passionately human, and so incurably spiritual—chiefly as philosopher, mystic, man of letters and moralist. The symposium as a whole reaches a very high level ; among the most generally interesting contri- butions being Mr. Christopher Dawson's discussion of the spiritual politics of " The City of God," Mr. E. I. Watkin on Augustine the mystic, Father D'Arcy on his philosophy, and M. Maritain on his relations with Thomism. The most attrac- tive of the essays is without doubt Father Martindale's brilliant sketch of Augustine's life and character ; by far the best short account of his psychological development, the reactions of his " passionate and perhaps unstable temper " to the varied instruments of " an austere and patient Provi- dence " which has yet appeared.
Dr. Sparrow Simpson's study inevitably challenges com- parison first with Louis Bertrand's vivid biography, and now with Father Martindale. But though he cannot rival then movement and colour, his quieter method, supported at every point by a profound knowledge of St. Augustine's thought, has its own value for the serious student. Dr. McDougall's slighter sketch, written with an eye to the special needs and outlook of Indian students, has also something to contribute 0 our under- standing of this mighty spiritual realist. It was once the fashion to regard St. Augustine as the typical example of William James' " twice-born soul " ; but this easy simplifica- tion gives far too crude an account of his interior growth. Both Father Martindale and Dr. Sparrow Simpson admirably bring out its gradual and profoundly organic character ; show- ing us Augustine's passage through Manichean dualism and Neoplatonic monism, not as the wilful aberrations of an arrogant mind, but as useful stages in the development of a powerful and fearless intellect devoured by the mystical passion for ultimates. Thus we are able to place the actual " conversion " in its proper context, and grasp its close con- nexion with all that had gone before ; the long search of the restless spirit for a road by which it could " return to the infinite Loveliness from whom it had departed." We realize, too, how great a growth both in knowledge and spirituality intervenes between the scene in the garden and the time when the Confessions were composed ; and the conversion itself, as above all a surrender of the will to spiritual and ethical pressure—to the practical implications, rather than the dog- matic statements, of the Christian creed, the elements of which had indeed been familiar to Augustine from childhood. It was the final capitulation of the whole man to the self- revealed Reality ; for belief without appropriate action could never have brought peace to this intensely realistic spirit, so acutely conscious of the presence and attraction of the Infinite, and its immanent workings on the finite dependent life. " I tossed upon the waves and Thou didst steer, oh Thou who standest at the helm of all things Thou hast made." This strand in the saint's experience is admirably brought out by Dr. McDougall in her chapter on his devotional life.
Dr. Sparrow Simpson works hard to defend Augustine from the charge of excessive Theocentricism. Yet it is surely this adoring recognition of God Pure which constitutes his peculiar contribution to the mind of the Church. Great and solid Christian though he certainly became, the trend of his spirit was ever to the transcendental side of mystical experience. The language he attributes to himself when describing the conversation with St. Monica at Ostia—full though it be of reminiscences of Plotinus—is characteristic of his spirituality and cannot be dismissed, as Dr. Sparrow Simpson suggests, as the devotional utterance of a neophyte " still under the spell of Neoplatonic philosophy." It is the unique glory of St. Augustine that in him two great streams of spiritual culture, one Platonic, the other Judeo-Christian, meet and fuse. In discrediting the Hellenistic element or placing it in opposition to the Gospel, we do small honour to the mighty genius who harmonized these diverse visions of the one Reality, and won for Christianity the greatest spiritual legacy of the ancient
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