Christianity and Morals by Edward Westermarck

IN the West Augustine dominated more or less the history of piety and dogma from the beginning of the fifth century to the eve of Reformation, and continued to exert his influence afterwards as well. His own reformation was essentially a Pauline reaction against the prevailing piety, though a Paulinism modified by popular Catholic elements. Like Paul, Augustine experienced a sudden conversion, a momentary ecstacy in which he became absorbed in the love of God, and his mind underwent a complete change; he had been a slave of lust, as he describes himself, but was now set free from all propensity to sensual indulgence. The conversion took place when he was in his thirty-second year. He tells us in his 'Confessions' that in Milan, where he was staying, he retired into a garden and, greatly agitated, cast himself down under a fig-tree, and, weeping in most bitter contrition of his heart, prayed to God to put an end to his uncleanness. Then he heard from a neighbouring house a voice, "as of a boy or girl," singing and repeating the words, "_Tolle lege_" ("take up and read"). "Instantly," he writes, "with a changed countenance, I began to think most intently, whether boys in any kind of game used to sing such a phrase; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to no other than a divine command, to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. I seized, opened, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes first fell: 'Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (_Romans_ xiii. 13 _sq._). Then his friend Alypius, who was with him, disclosed to him the following passage, "Him that is weak in the faith receive" (_ibid._ xiv. 1).

Next to the conversion of Paul, there has been no other conversion fraught with so far-reaching consequences in the history of Christianity as that of Augustine. In innumerable passages Augustine, like Paul, extols faith as the element in which the soul lives, as the beginning, middle, and end of piety. But to him the object of the faith which is necessary for salvation was the truth guaranteed by the Catholic Church, which he regarded as infallible in consequence of its authority as based on apostolicity. Augustine had forced his way through scepticism to the truth of the Church and looked upon the latter as the rock on which his faith was founded. It constitutes a real unity with Christ, so that all Catholics are "the true members of his body"; whereas heretics and schismatics "are cut off from this body," and consequently cannot be saved. At the same time, faith is only a preliminary condition of salvation. We must not fancy that faith by itself protects from future judgment: it is only the faith that works in love, faith and work, that does so. Faith and hope without love are useless; it is love that decides the measure of goodness possessed by a man. According to Augustine, faith, love, and merit are successive steps in the way to final salvation; and this became the view of the Catholic Church.