universal in its operation, and claims eternal happiness for Socrates, Heraclitus, and, in general, for those among the heathen, who, though not knowing Jesus, lived according to Reason. Athenagoras, the author of the treatise On the Resurrection of the Dead, Tatian the Apologete, St. Clement of Alexandria, and his disciple Origen, all express Neo-Platonic conceptions in their writings. The apostles, says Origen,2 have set forth the fundamental doctrines of the faith in a manner capable of being understood by the ignorant and the learned alike, leaving it to such among their successors as were endowed with the Spirit to discover the reasons for their assertions. Origen consequently makes a distinction between the popular and the scientific manner of expressing the Christian faith, between the form it assumes in the writings of the apostles and the form in which it must be conceived by the Christian philosopher: a distinction which forms the basis of Scholastic rationalism. Finally, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and among the Latin Fathers (most of whom were hostile to philosophy), Augustine, were directly or indirectly influenced by Academic and Alexandrian teachings.

It would be impossible to enter upon a detailed study of the Patristic doctrines without encroaching upon the domain of pure theology; hence it will be enough for our special purpose to explain the philosophy of Augustine, whose writings form the connecting link between Greek thought and Scholastic speculation.

1 Apology, II., p. 83 : Τὸν Χριστὸν πρωτότοκον τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι ἐδιδάχθημεν, καὶ προεμηνύσαμεν λόγον ὄντα οὗ πᾶν γένος ἀνθρώπων μετέσχε· καὶ οἱ μετὰ λόγου βιώσαντες χριστιανοί εἰσι, κἂν ἄθεοι ἐνομίσθησαν, οἷον ἐν Ἕλλησι μὲν Σωκράτης καὶ Ἡρακλεῖτος καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοί.

2 De principis, Preface. J. Denis, De la philosophie d'Origène, Paris,

1884.

§ 28. St. Augustine

After a youth of dissipation, the rhetorician AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS of Thagaste, Africa, (354-430), embraced the religion of his mother. He united in his soul a deep love of Christ and an ardent zeal for philosophy, although, after becoming Bishop of Hippo, he gradually favored an absolute submission to the religious authority represented by him. His writings, the most important of which are the Confessions and the City of God,1 have left a deep impress upon the doctrines and the entire literature of the Roman Church.

For him as for Plato, science means a purer, clearer, more exalted life, the life of the thinker.2 Reason is capable of comprehending God (capabilis); for God has given it to us in order that we may know all things and consequently God. To philosophize is to see truth directly and without the intervention of the eyes of the body. Reason is the eye of the soul. Wisdom is the highest truth after which we should strive. Now, what is wisdom but God? To have wisdom means to have God. True philosophy is therefore identical with true religion : 4 both have the same strivings for the eternal. Why should God despise Reason, his first-born Son, Reason, which is God

etc.

-

1 Other writings of St. Augustine: De libero arbitrio ; De vera religione; De immortalitate animæ ; De prædestinatione et gratia; Retractiones; Works of St. Augustine, Paris, 1835, ff.; [vols. XXXIJ.-XLVII. of Migne's collection; tr. ed. by Dods, 15 vols., Edinburgh, 1871-77, also in Schaff's library, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vols. I.-VIII., Buffalo, 1886-88. See Bindemann, Der heilige Augustinus, 3 vols., Berlin, etc., 1844-69; A. Dorner, Augustinus, etc., Berlin, 1873; Böhringer, Geschichte der Kirche Christi (vol. XI.), 2d ed., Zurich, 1861; Neander, Allgemeine Geschichte der Religion, etc. (II., 1, 2), 3d ed., Gotha, 1856; Eng. tr. by J. Torrey. Tr.]; Ferraz, La psychologie de Saint Augustin, Paris, 1863.

2 De libero arbitrio, I., 7.

3 Id., II., 3, 6. 4 De vera religione, 5.

himself! He gave it to us in order to make us more perfect than other beings. Nay, faith, which some oppose to reason, is possible only to a being endowed with reason. Chronologically, faith precedes intelligence: in order to understand a thing we must first believe it, credo ut intelligam. However, though faith is a condition of knowledge, it is nevertheless a provisional state, inferior to knowledge, and ultimately resolves itself into it.

The theodicy of St. Augustine is essentially Platonic, and at times even approaches the boldest conceptions of the school of Alexandria. God is the being beyond whom, outside of whom, and without whom, nothing exists; he is the being below whom, in and through whom, everything exists that has reality; he is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things.1 Goodness, justice, and wisdom are not accidental attributes of God, but his innermost essence. The same is true of his metaphysical attributes. Omnipotence, omnipresence, and eternity are not mere accidents of the Divine Being, but his divine essence. God is substantially omnipresent, without, however, being everything; everything is in him, though he is not the All. He is good and yet without quality; he is great, without being a quantity; he is the creator of intelligence and yet superior to it; he is present everywhere, without being bound to any place; he exists and yet is nowhere; he lives eternally and yet is not in time; he is the principle of all change and yet immutable. In speculating about God, reason is necessarily involved in a series of antinomies; it states what he is not, without arriving at any definite conclusion as to his nature; it conceives him, - in this sense it is capable of him (capabilis), — but it cannot comprehend him in the fullness of his perfection. The important point is to distinguish carefully between God and the world. St. Augustine, whose conceptions closely border upon panthe1 Soliloq., I., 3-4.

ism, as the preceding shows, escapes it by his doctrine of creation ex nihilo.1 If the universe has emanated from God, then it is itself of divine essence and identical with God. Hence, it is not an emanation but was created by an act of divine freedom. God is not the soul of the world; the world is not the body of God, as the Stoics held. The immanency of God in the world would be contrary to the divine majesty.2

Some falsely interpret the doctrine of the Trinity in the tritheistic or polytheistic sense. Here lies another danger. The three hypostases, although distinct, constitute but one and the same God, just as reason, will, and the emotions form but one and the same human being.3 St. Augustine's criticisms on Arianism are very profound. What do you mean, he demands of the Arians, by assuming that the Son created the world at the command of the Father? Do you not thereby assert that God the Father did not create the world, but simply ordered a demiurge to create it? What is the Son if not the word of God, and what is a command if not an act of speech? Hence, God commanded the Son through the Son to create the world. What a strange and absurd conclusion! Arianism errs in that it desires to picture the Trinity to itself; it imagines two beings placed very near to each other; each one, however, occupying his particular place; and one of them commands, while the other obeys. Arianism should have seen that the command by means of which God created the world out of nothing simply means the creative Word itself. God is a spirit, and we should not and cannot form an image of the immaterial.4

Inasmuch as God created the world by an act of freedom, we must assume that the world had a beginning; for

1 De libero arbitrio, I., 2.

3 De trinitate, IX., 3; X., 11.

2 De civitate Dei, IV., 12.

4 Contra serm. arian.

eternal creation, the conception of Origen and the NeoPlatonists, is synonymous with emanation. Philosophers raise the objection that creation in time would imply an eternity of inaction on part of the Creator; but they are wrong. Their error consists in considering the eternity which preceded creation as an infinitely-long duraDuration is time. Now, outside of creation there is neither space, nor time, nor, consequently, duration.1 Time or duration is the measure of motion; where there is no movement there is no duration. Since there is no movement in eternity and in God, there is no duration in him, and time, as Plato aptly remarks, begins only with movement, that is, with the existence of finite things. Hence, it is incorrect to say that the God of the Christians did not create things until after an infinite series of infinitely-long periods of absolute inaction. Moreover, St. Augustine recognizes the difficulty of conceiving God \ without the universe. On this point, as well as on many others, Augustine the philosopher conflicts with Augustine the Christian. This constant discord between his faith and his reason leads to numerous inconsistencies and contradictions. God, for example, created the world by an act of his free-will, and yet creation is not the result of caprice but of an eternal and immutable decree.2 It is immaterial whether the immutable will of God compels him to create the world at a fixed period of time or whether it eternally compels him to do it; in either case we have absolute determination. St. Augustine realizes this, and eventually unreservedly declares that divine freedom is the principle and supreme norm of things. Since the divine will is the ultimate principle, than which there is nothing higher, it is useless and absurd to inquire into the final cause of

1 Confess., XI., 10 ff.; De civ. Dei, XI., 4-6.

2 De civ. Dei, XII., 17.