who observes, that many were converted, when they perceived A. D. 399. the falsehood of their oracle. 1 miss. 3. 8. 2. § 4. The most famous temple at Carthage, was that of the goddess Cœlestis, supposed to be the same with Cybele'. It was De pronot destroyed at this time, but having been shut up for many e. 38. ap. years, was overgrown with grass and brambles; and the Prosp.. [tom. 2. pagans reported, that it was guarded by dragons and asps. P. 129.] The Christians desired that it might be turned into a church, to which Aurelius the Bishop consented, and placed there his Episcopal chair 2. This was done at the solemnity of Easter. [ Bingh. The temple was opened and cleansed without any accident, Supr. bk. and these words were found engraved on the front: Dedicated 19. ch. 29. note g.] by Aurelius, the Pontiff. This was some pagan Pontiff, but the coincidence in the name, seemed to the people to be a presage of the truth. The pagans gave out an oracle of the goddess Cœlestis, which promised the restoration of her worship in that temple; but, on the contrary, it was ruined about twenty years after, and made a burying-place. About the same time sixty Christians suffered martyrdom, for having pulled down and broken in pieces an idol of Hercules, being massacred by the pagans of the colony of Suffecta. This we learn from a letter which St. Augustine wrote3 to the Elders of that colony, reproaching them with their cruelty, and contempt of the laws. The Church commemorates these P. 116.] Martyrs on the 30th of August. 3 Ep. 50. al. 267. [tom. 2. Fifth Coun 4 Conc. Schelstr. We have a Council of Africa4, the date of which, most to be XLIII. depended on, is the 438th year of the Spanish æra, on the cil of Carsixth of the calends of June, that is, on the twenty-seventh of thage. May, A. D. 4005. Aurelius presided, and with him sixty- tom. 2. two Bishops subscribed the Canons, which were fifteen in P 1215. [Mans. 3. number, and of which the last ordained, that the Emperor p. 967.7 should be addressed, to abolish the remains of idolatry, even Diss. 3. c.9. [p. 226. in the groves and trees. The citation of Clerks to give See L'Art evidence in courts of justice, is prohibited. It was said, that les dates. a Clerk, of what rank soever, condemned by the sentence of tom.1.p.xl.] [ Qu. Sethe Bishops, ought not to be defended, either by the Church venty-two.] which he had governed, or by any other person whatever; i. e. as it is elsewhere' explained, the Council proposed that the Emperors should be applied to to make this law. Accordingly we find a law made by Honorius, dated the fourth of Exig. § 62. [p. 152.] Cod. Th. [16. Tit. 2.] 1. 35. de Episcop. de Verif. 8 7 can. 15. 9 can. 1. Big. 5. 2. § 1.] can. 2. 1 Dion. A. D. 400. February, in the same year 400, which confirms the deposition of Bishops by Councils, enjoining the deposed Bishop not to remain within a hundred miles of the city which he had governed; and forbidding any person whatsoever, to solicit the Emperor for his restoration. can. 4. [Bingh. 5. 6. § 7.] can. 5. fibid. 6. 4. $ 7.1 Bingh, 2. 15. and 16. § 20. 4. 4 can. 8. can. 1o. The Council forbids' Bishops to alienate the estates of the Church, without the authority of the Primate of the province and the Council; or to reside in any part of the diocese, but in the cathedral church'. The Intercessor3, that is, the person who takes care of a church during a vacancy, otherwise called the Visitor, was required to procure a Bishop within the 2. 11. § 1. year; otherwise, after the expiration of the year, another 2. § 7. 14.] Intercessor shall be put in his place. All Bishops were obliged to be present at the Council, or in case of a just excuse, to send it in writing; and it was decreed that the Primate of each province, should distribute his Bishops into two or three bodies, that they might attend the Council by turns, for there were a great number of Bishops in each province. can. 11. None were to lay violent hands on Priests or Deacons who had been guilty of any crime, to put them under penance, as though they were laymen. This was an abuse practised by the Donatists'. An excommunicated Clerk shall not be heard in his own justification, after the year is expired. The Bishop who shall have ordained as Clerk or as Superior of his monastery a Monk belonging to another Bishop, shall be reduced to the communion of his own church; and such Monk shall be neither Clerk nor Su1 Ep. 60. perior. St. Augustine' mentions this Canon in two of his Aurel. Ep. letters, where he says, that the deserters of monasteries ought 64. al. 235. not to be ordained Clerks, but the fittest persons among the ▾ Optat. 8 9 can. 12. 9 can. 13. al. 76. ad ad Quin tian. 2 can. 6. [Bingh. 12. 5. § 3.] Monks. 8 It was decreed that those children of whose baptism there were no certain proofs, should be baptized without scruple; can. 14. and that altars3, dedicated to the memory of Martyrs, without good grounds, or upon pretended revelations, should be re['formata] moved. Easter-day was to be announced by letters in form. The law relating to continence is confirmed in respect to Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. These are the regulations of ingh.3.11. this Council, which is reckoned the fifth of Carthage, and the third under Aurelius. 3 1 Retract.2. sent c. 4. He reli- non viden- He p. 141. the St. Augustine' still continued his labours for the Church, A. D. 400. and about the same year 400 composed a great number of XLIV. Writings of books; among the rest a small treatise on the Belief of St. AuThings Invisible2, which seems to have been a sermon, and gustine. therefore is not mentioned in his Retractations; but he it long after to Count Darius, as one of his works. there opposes the heathens, who derided the Christian gion, because it required the belief of things invisible. at first proves that we cannot, without overthrowing foundations of civil society, forbear giving our assent things, which neither our bodily eyes externally, nor those of P; 842.] our thought internally, can discern. He afterwards shews [ § 2.] that our faith is grounded on sensible proofs; viz. the pro- [' § 5.] phecies, which we read and we see fulfilled, especially the calling of the Gentiles, and the establishment of the Church throughout the world, which was the more apparent at that time, as it had more recently happened. The things before our eyes incline us to believe the things past and the promises of the future, contained in the same books. These [ § 8.] books are in the hands of the Jews, our enemies, a people preserved on purpose to be our evidence. And though there [ § 9.] were no prophecies, the mere conversion of the world', (which [' c. 7. $ 10.] has forsaken its former superstitions to adore a crucified Man, preached by illiterate persons, whose successors had no defence but their sufferings), is of itself a sufficient demonstration that Christianity is the work of God. chiz, rudib. St. Augustine about the same time composed the treatise. On Catechizing2, at the desire of Deogratias, a Deacon of [ De CateCarthage, to whom that office was committed3. He shews him tom. 6. in what manner he ought to perform it, and the substance of P: 263] [3 Bingh.3. what he was to say to the Catechumens, who were not Chris- 10. § 1.] tian children but adult pagans, who had become converts. St. Augustine had begun some years before the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, which was meant to shew more at large, Retr. 2. in what manner the Holy Scripture was to be understood and explained; but he did not finish this till about five and twenty years after. 4 c.4. [tom. 1. p. 43.] About this time, that is, about the year 400, he began his great work on the TRINITY", which he dictated by a little Ibid. c. 15. at a time, and did not finish till more than fifteen years after. ch. 42. Retr. 2. c. 12. c. 13.] A. D. 400. He left it off, to write without interruption the four books Ibid.c. 16. On the Agreement of the Evangelists'; the first of which is taken up in confuting those, who, under pretence of honouring JESUS CHRIST as a man of great wisdom, discredited the Gospels, because He had not written them Himself, as though His disciples had made additions to His doctrine, by ascribing divinity to Him, and by affirming that He had prohibited the adoration of other gods. This book is an excellent work against the pagans. He proves the superiority of the God of the Jews, by the completion of the prophecies concerning the conversion of all nations, and the ruin of Supra, idolatry, which was accomplished by the last2 laws of the Emperors. The three other books reconcile in detail the seeming contradictions of the Evangelists. To the same time are to be referred the Questions3 on the two Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and the Annotations upon Job. About the same time also, St. Augustine wrote the thirteen books of his • Ibid. c.6. Confessions, for his own and others' edification. The ten first are the History of his Life; the three last are Meditations on the allegorical Sense of the first Part of Genesis, which he some time after expounded according to the literal meaning, in his twelve Books on Genesis according to the Ibid. c. 24. Letter 6. The main design of these books was to provide answers to the calumnies of the Manichees, and they contain more questions than solutions; they were not completed till fourteen years after. He more openly confutes the tenets of Ibid. c. 7. the Manichees in the thirty-three books against Faustus, the same Manichæan Bishop with whom he had been acquainted while a young man, and with whose instructions Supr. bk. he had been so dissatisfied. He was an African of Milevis, and when accused to the Proconsul, with some other ManiFaust. § 1. chees, instead of suffering death, which he had incurred by [tom. 8.] the laws, he was, at the desire of the Christians, only banished to an island', whence he was recalled soon after. He wrote a book against the Catholic faith, which St. Augustine, at the desire of the faithful, undertook to refute in detail, setting down first the text of Faustus, and then his own answers; for which reason these books are very unequal in their length, varying according as those of Faustus furnished him with more or less matter. This work is, 18. ch. 50. 9 Lib. 1. contr. 1 Lib. 5. c. 8. chiefly, a defence of the Old Testament against the Ma- A. D. 400. nichees. c. 22.] 3 c. 24.] Although the heresy of Jovinian had been condemned at Rome, where it had first appeared, there were still some who disputed about it in secret, insisting chiefly that they could not answer Jovinian in favour of virginity, without censuring marriage. This reproach principally regarded St. Jerome. In order to overthrow this reasoning, St. Augustine wrote the book On the Goodness of a Wedded Life', shewing' that marriage [' Retr. 2. is good, not as being a lesser evil, but as a real good; and tom. 6. that there are three principal blessings annexed to it; Chil- P; 319] dren, reciprocal Fidelity, and the "Sacrament" or Mystery, which renders it indissoluble. As Jovinian drew his most seducing argument from this question to the virgins, Whe- ['Retr.ibid. De Bono ther they were more perfect than Sarah or Hannah? he Conj.c.22.] maintained that the holy persons who lived in a married state in the Old Testament, were at least as perfect as those who professed continence under the New; because they had the same virtue in the disposition of their heart, and perfect obedience, which was better than continence. It was expected that St. Augustine would also write on Holy Vir- [ Retr. 2. ginity; this he soon performed, and he shews the excellency tom. 6. of this gift of GoD, and with what humility it ought to be P. 341.] preserved. These two treatises are referred to the year 401. 5 7 c. 23. Vid. Letters to c. 26.] 400.] aliud in The Answers to the Questions of Januarius, which are placed XLV. among the letters of St. Augustine, are also of the same date. Januarius. These questions all relate to the different usages of the [ Retr. 2. Churches. He lays it down as a fundamental maxim, that Ep. 54. [ A. D. our LORD JESUS CHRIST gave to His new people but few Sacraments, and very easy to be observed, as Baptism, the Communication of His Body and Blood, and whatever else' [ Si quid is recommended in the writings of the New Testament. "As Ser. ca"to those which are not written, but handed down by tradi- nonicis "tion," he says, "if they are observed all over the world, tur] we are to understand that they are retained as having been 4. de Bap"recommended and ordained by the Apostles or the plenary [§ 31. tom. "Councils, whose authority is most wholesome in the Church, 9. p. 140.] "as the celebration of the Passion, the Resurrection, the As❝cension of the LORD and the Coming of the HOLY GHOST 66 A A commenda Vid. Lib. tism. c. 24. |