Sketches from the Lives of the Fathers of the Early Church

SKETCHES FROM THE LIVES OF THE FATHERS OF THE EARLY CHURCH. COMPILED BY FREDERIC CLIFT, M. D., OF THE FACULTY OF THE BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY.

AUGUSTINE, A. D. 354-430.

[It is perhaps profitable for the elders of the Church to know something

more about the early fathers of the Church, than is generally known. With this thought in view, Dr. Clift has prepared this sketch and others to follow. The extracts also may be suggestive to our elders, or prove that the fathers were in possession of many true views of the gospel, and thus corroborate the teachings of the Latter-day Saints today. Editors.]

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo — the greatest of the Latin fathers of the early Christian church — was born of a Pagan father and a Christian mother, A. D. 354, and died at Hippo, near Carthage, North Africa, A. D. 430. In his Confessions he admits that his early life was immoral, and that he was given to profanity. At 30, he became professor of rhetoric at Milan, Italy; and was a follower of the philosophers who were then the vogue, and filled the lecture stands of the various schools of learning. The men who knew "all there was to know," were as much in evidence then, as in the day and age in which we ourselves live. Two years later, however, he was converted to Christianity, and at 41 became bishop of Hippo, and held his bishopric for 35 years. Augustine was a voluminous writer. Of his Confessions it has been said, ' 'To the devout utterances and aspirations of a great soul, they add the charm of personal disclosure, and have never ceased to excite admiration in all spirits of kindred piety." The City of God {Be Civitati Dei) is a vindication of Christianity and

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of the Christian church — a new civic order rising on the ruins of the Roman empire. Of his philosophical studies, he writes, "And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly and swelled with arrogancy. * * * Among such as these (teachers and fellow students) in that unsettled age of mine, learned I books of eloquence wherein I desired to be eminent out of a damnable and a vain-glorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study, I upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech fell

almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius. But this book altered my affections and turned my prayers to thyself, * Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. * *

I resolved then to bend my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud, nor laid open to children; lowly in access, in its recesses lofty, and veiled with mysteries; and I was not as could enter into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak, did I feel when I turned to those Scriptures: but they seemed to me unworthy to be compared to the stateliness of Tully; for my swelling pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the interior thereof. Yet were they such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to be a little one; and, swollen with pride, took myself to be a great one. Therefore I fell among men, proudly doting, exceeding carnal and prating, in whose mouths were the snare of the devil, limed with the mixture of the syllables of thy name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These names departed not out of their mouth: but so far forth as the sound only and the noise of the tongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet they cried out ''Truth, truth!' and spake much thereof to me, yet it was not in them; but they spake falsehood, not of thee only (who truly art truth), but even of those elements of this world, thy creatures. * * * And these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after thee, they, instead of thee, served up the sun and moon —beautiful works of thine, but yet thy works, not thyself: no, nor thy first works. For thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial though they may

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be, and shining. " (Augustine seems to have had a clear understanding of the meaning of the first two chapters of Genesis). He proceeds, "Such empty husks was I fed on, and was not fed. * * * For other than this, that which really is I knew not; and was, as it were through sharpness of wit, persuaded to assent to foolish deceivers, when they asked me, 'Whence is evil?' 'Is God bounded by a bodily shape, and ha3 hairs and nails?' 'Are they to be esteemed righteous, who had many wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures?' At which I in my ignorance, was much troubled, and departing from the truth, seemed to myself to be making toward it. * * * Nor knew I that true inward righteousness, which judgeth not according to custom, but cut of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby the way of places and times were disposed, according to those times and places; itself being the same, always and everywhere, not one thing in one place and another in an )ther; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses; and David, were righteous, and all these commended by the mouth of God: but were judged unrighteous by silly men judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits the moral habits of the whole human race." How many of our professors of rhetoric, of our boys and girls, who are seeking the educational advantages of this great country of ours, are placed in the midst of similar temptations? May their early training enable them to rise above their mundane teachers, and lead them to seek their inspiration from above. To him that seeks it shall be given. Provo, Utah.