Venerable Brothers,
Greeting and Apostolic Blessings

    To the Church providentially established by Him for the salvation of mankind, Jesus Christ has ever given and forever will give most efficacious assistance.  Apart from its obvious fitness and even its necessity, apart also from the Promise of the Divine Founder as we read in the Gospel, this is abundantly evidenced by the History of the Church: that Church which the plague of error has never defiled, nor any falling away of her children, however numerous, has overthrown, nor even persecution by wicked men, though carried to the utmost of atrocity, has hindered from regaining the vigor of youth to flourish anew and always.
    Our Lord does not, indeed, use one and the same means, nor follow one and the same course, in securing the stability and furthering the growth of His Church which belongs to every age.  He rather has raised up in each age illustrious men, whose genius and deeds, fully in keeping with the needs of time and circumstance, enabled them to check and vanquish the powers of darkness, to the great joy of the Christian people.

Augustine Providential Figure
    Such Providential choice is far more evident in the case of Augustine of Tagaste than in most others.  In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was as a Light set upon a Candlestick, a destroyer of heresy in every form, a Leader in the way of Eternal Salvation.  Not only has he continued through the Centuries to teach and comfort the faithful of Christ, but further, in this age of ours, it is largely due to him that the Truth of Faith ceases not to shine forth among them nor the Fire of Divine Charity to burn.  Nay, more, it is a matter of common knowledge that for many who differ from us or who seemingly have no faith at all, the writings of Augustine have a power to charm, so grand are they and so delightful.
    Hence it is that the Fifteen Hundredth Anniversary of his death, which occurs this year, will be fittingly observed by Christians throughout the world who are eager to honor his memory and to give expression to their admiration and reverent esteem for this great Bishop and Doctor.  We therefore, with a deep sense of Our Apostolic Office, and with desire exceeding great, are resolved to have Our share in this world-wide tribute.  We exhort you all, then, Venerable Brothers, as also the Clergy and people under your charge, to unite with Us in a special Thanksgiving to Our Heavenly Father for having enriched His Church with benefits so many and so great through Augustine, who out of the abundance of Gifts Divinely bestowed on him drew such large profit for himself and with it endowed the whole Catholic Body.  Today, then, it behooves the faithful indeed to glory in a man who long ago was joined as it were by a Miracle to the Mystic Body of Christ--a man than whom, by the verdict of History, past ages produced no greater or grander in all the world; and, what is more, it behooves them to imbue and nourish themselves with his Doctrine, to follow the example he gave of Holiest Living.
    At no time has the Church of God, the Roman Pontiffs in particular, wearied of praising Augustine.  Even during the life-time of the Holy Bishop, Innocent I, greeted him as a dearly beloved friend and spoke in highest terms of the Letters which he had received from Augustine and four other Bishops who loved him--"Letters full of Faith and strong with all the vigor of the Catholic Religion."  Shortly after Augustine's death, Celestine I defended him against his enemies in these splendid words: "We have ever had in communion with us Augustine of Holy Memory for the sake of his life and merits; never has the slightest breath of evil suspicion tarnished his name.  We have always kept him in memory as a man of such great learning that my Predecessors ranked him with the foremost Masters.  Unanimously they held him in high esteem, for all loved him and paid him Honor."

Praised by Many Pontiffs
    Gelasius I declared Augustine and Jerome "the Lights of Ecclesiastical Teachers."  Hormisdas, writing to Possessor, a Bishop who had sought counsel of him, replied in these significant words: "The Doctrine on free will and Divine Grace which the Roman, that is the Catholic Church follows and proclaims, though it can be learned in various books of Blessed Augustine, especially in those addressed to Hilary and Prosper, is nevertheless expressly stated in the records of the Church."  Of the same tenor is the eulogy pronounced by John II, who cites as against the heretics the works of Augustine, "whose Doctrien," he declares, "the Roman Church, in accordance with the decrees of my Predecessors, follows and maintains."  And who does not know how thoroughly the Roman Pontiffs in the ages which followed closely on Augustie's death, as, for instance, Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, were versed in his Doctrine?   St. Gregory, indeed, so modest regarding himself, so eager to Honor Augustine, wrote to Innocent, Prefect of Africa: "Would you feast on delicious food, read the works of your countryman, the Blessed Augustine, nor ask Us to give you what, as compared with his white flour, is but our bran."
    Furthermore, it is well known that Hadrian I was accustomed frequently to cite passages from Augustine, whom he called the "excellent Doctor," likewise that Clement VIII, in clearing up difficult controversies, and Pius VI, (in his Apostolic Constitution "Auctorem Fidei". )  in laying bare the evasions of the condemned Synod of Pistoia, used as their support Augustine's Authority.
    It redounds moreover to the credit of the Bishop of Hippo that more than once the Fathers lawfully assembled in Councils adopted his very words in defining Catholic Truth; suffice it under this Head to mention the Second Council of Orange and the Council of Trent.
    And, going back to Our own early years, We gladly recall and, as it were with intense pleasure, ponder the words with which Our Predecessor of Immortal Memory, Leo XIII, after mentioning those who had lived before Augustine, praised the latter for the help he had given to Christian Philosophy: "Augustine bore off the palm from all others; with the power of his genius, and the fulness of his knowledge in every field both Sacred and profane, he battled relentlessly against all the errors of his day--perfect in Faith and in learning no less.  What problem in Philosophy did he not touch upon--or rather what problem did he not most thoroughly investigate, either expounding the deepest Mysteries of the Faith to believers and defending them against the senseless attacks of adversaries, or again, through his refutation of theAcademicians and Manicheans, restoring and securing the Foundations of Human Knowledge, or tracing the Character, Origin and Causes of the evils with which mankind is burdened?"

Correct Understanding Needful
    But, before coming to closer range with our subject, We would remind all that the eloquent tributes paid to Augustine by the writers of old must be correctly understood--and not, as has been thought by some who lacked the Catholic Sense, in such a way as to set the Authority of Augustine the exponent above the Authority of the Church Herself, the Teacher.
    How wonderful is God in His Saints!  God, whose mercy toward him, Augustine, with words springing from the very depth of his thankful and loving soul, so eloquently sets forth and extols in his Book of Confessions.  For under God's most Providential Inspiration, the pious Monica, ere yet he had reached his boyhood, so inflamed him with the Love of Christ that later he could say: "For this Name according to Thy Mercy, this Name of my Savior Thy Son, had my tender heart, even with my mothers' milk, devoutly drunk in and deeply treasured; and whatsoever was without that Name, though never so learned and polished and true, took not entire hold of me."
    As a youth, however, when he had left his mother and become the pupil of pagan teachers, the Most High God permitted that he should fall away from his early piety, enslave himself to sensuous pleasure and be caught in the toils of the Manicheans, whose sect he followed for nearly nine years.  This God permitted in order that he who was to be the Doctor of Grace should learn by experience, and teach all who came after him, how weak and frail is even the noblest mind unless it be strengthened in the way of virtue by the safeguards of Christian education and by constant Prayer.  This is especially true of youth, the age in which the soul is more easily lured and led astray by error and troubled by the first stirring of sensuous impulse.  So God permitted that Augustine should realize in his own case how wretched is the man who seeks fulfillment and satisfaction in created things, as he himself later on frankly acknowledged before the Lord:  "For Thou were ever with me, mercifully severe and besprinkling with most bitter alloy all my unlawful pleasures, that I might seek pleasure without alloy, but where to find such I could not discover save in Thee, O God."
    And why, then, should Augustine be left to himself by his Heavenly Father, Whom Monica with tears and prayers besought--Monica, that model of mothers, who, with calmness and gentleness of soul, through incessant appeal to the mercy of God, succeed at length in bringing back their sons to right ways of living?  It was not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.  As he himself says: "And as to what I set down in those same books about my conversion, when God led me back to that faith which I was laying waste with my mad and abominable talkativeness--do you not recall that this was told in order to show that because of my mother's tears, daily and faithfully shed, God granted I should not perish?"

His Gradual Conversion
    Augustine therefore was gradually drawn away from the Manichean heresy, and guided as it were by a Divine Inspiration and impulse to Milan and to Ambrose its Bishop.  Little by little the Lord, "with hand most gentle and most merciful laying hold of his heart and setting it right," brought it to pass that he should be led by the most wise discourses of Ambrose to believe in the Catholic Church and in the Truth of the Bible.  Even then, Monica's son, though not yet wholly free from anxiety and from the allurements of vice, held firmly that by Divine Providence the way of salvation was marked out in no other than in Christ our Lord and in the Holy Scriptures for whose Truth only the Authority of the Catholic Church could vouch.
    But how difficult and how laborious was the conversion of a man who for long had wandered from the path!  He was still enslaved by his desires and the tumult of his soul, powerless to restrain them.  So far was  he from getting out of the Platonic teachings about God and creatures the strength he needed, that, on the contrary, he would have made his wretched plight more wretched still--through pride--had he not learned at length from the Apostle Paul's Epistles that whosoever would lead a Christian life must be grounded in humility and supported by the Grace of God.
    And so--We recall a thing which no one can narrate without shedding tears--bewailing the evil deeds of his past and drawn by the example of so many Christians who had suffered the loss of all things else to gain the "one thing necessary," Augustine finally surrendered to the Divine Mercy which had sweetly pursued him when, as he was at prayer, on a sudden a voice smote him--"take up and read"--whereupon he opened the book of the Epistles which he had at hand, and, carried onward by the efficacious impulse of Heavenly Grace, he glanced upon the words: "not in rioting and in drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and in envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences."
    From that moment, as is well known, until his spirit fled, Augustine was wholly given to God.
    It very soon appeared what a "vessel of election" the Lord had fashioned for Himself in Augustine and to what glorious achievements he was destined.  Ordained to the Priesthood and later raised to the Episcopal Dignity as Bishop of Hippo, he began to spread the light of his copious learning and the benefit of his Apostlate not only over Christian Africa but also upon the Church Universal.  He therefore devoted himself to meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, to long and frequent prayers, (whose spirit and words still echo in his books)  to diligent study of the works of the Fathers and Doctors who had preceded him and whom he revered in all humility--in order that he might gain day by day a clearer insight and a fuller knowledge of the Truths revealed by God.  He came indeed later than those Holy Men who, as brightest stars, had shed luster on the Catholic name--e.g., Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Hilary, Athanasius, Cyprian, Ambrose, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom.  Jerome was his contemporary; and yet Augustine even now arouses the admiration of mankind by reason of the keenness and power of his thought and because of the wonderful wisdom which his writings, composed and published during the long space of nearly fifty years, still exhale.

His Teaching Applied to Today
    Difficult it is to follow his thought throught those numerous Treatises, so rich in learning, which deal with all the questions of Theology, of Biblical exegesis and of moral science, and therefore can hardly be grasped and understood by any commentor.  And yet, may we not draw out from this great mass of Doctrine certain teachings which seem peculiarly adapted to the needs of our age and useful to Christian society?
    To begin with, Augustine took the utmost pains that all men might learn and fully realize for what end--for what supreme purpose--they are destined, and the way by which alone they can attain true happiness.  Who, We ask, however thoughtless and frivolous, could hear without emotion a man so long a devotee of pleasure and so highly skilled in the art of making the best of this life, avow to God: "Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."  These words, which sum up the whole of Wisdom, most fittingly express, on one hand, the Love of God for us and the singular dignity of man, and, on the other, the wretched plight of those who live far from their Creator.
    Certainly in our age as never before, when the marvels of creation come day by day more clearly to view and when man with his intelligence brings under control the prodigious forces and powers of nature to use them for his advantage and luxury and enjoyment; today, We say, when devices and contrivances produced either by inventive genius or by the artisan's toil are constantly multiplied and carried with incredible speed to every part of the world; our mind too often gives itself entirely to created things and forgets the Creator: it runs after fleeting goods to the neglect of the Eternal, and it perverts to harmful uses both private and public, as well as to its own ruin, those gifts which it received from a bounteous God that it might extend the Kingdom of Christ and further its own salvation.  Lest we allow ourselves to become absorbed by this kind of worldliness, which is wholly bent on material things and sensuous pleasures, it behooves us to search out and ponder the Principles of Christian Wisdom which the Bishop of Hippo so aptly proposed and explained.
    "God, then, the most Wise Creator and most just Disposer of all natures, Who placed the human race upon earth as its chief ornament, bestowed on men some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace such as can be had in this mortal life in the enjoyment of health and safety and human fellowship, and all things needful for the preservation or recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are fitly and suitably accommodated to our senses--light, night, air to breathe, water to drink and everything the body requires to sustain, shelter, heal or beautify it.  God bestowed all under this most equitable condition, that all who made right use of such good things adapted to the peace of mortals should receive greater and richer blessings, namely, the peace of immortality and, as befitting it, glory and honor in an endless life for the enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that all who used the present blessings badly, should forfeit them and should not receive the others."

Required Adherence to  Church
    Having discoursed on the supreme and appointed for man, Augustine hastens to add that whoever would attain it will strive in vain unless they submit to the Catholic Church and humbly obey it, since it alone is Divinely established to bring into the souls of men that light and strength without which they inevitably go astray and run headlong in the way that leads to perdition.
    God in His great goodness never lets those who seek after Him go blindly on and reeling, as it were, "to seek God, if happily they may feel after Him or find Him," but dispelling the darkness of their ignorance, He makes Himself known to them through Revelation and calls the erring ones to repentance--"And God indeed, having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men that all should everywhere do Penance."  Having inspired the Sacred Writers, He entrusted the Bible to the Church founded by His only begotten Son as the custodian and Authentic interpreter of His Word.  And the Divine Origin of that Church, He from the very beginning showed and proved on the ground of the Miracles wrought by Christ, Its Founder--"The sick healed, the lepers cleansed, the lame made to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear.  The men of that time beheld water changed into wine, five thousand fed upon five loaves, the seas crossed over on foot, the dead brought back to life.  Thus, some of His Works were of visible benefit to the body, others, less visibly, of profit to the soul, while all bore witness before men to His power and majesty; thereby the Divine Authority stirred up and drew to itself the erring minds of mortal men."
    Granted that since then Miracles are somewhat less frequent, We may ask why?  Simply because through the wonderful spread of the faith and the betterment of human society due to the Christian moral teaching, God's witness (to the Divine Origin of the Church.)  became ever more impressive.  "Think you, " says Augustine in his endeavor to win back to the Church his friend Honoratur, "think you that but slight advantage accrued to human welfare from the fact that not a few of the most learned contend, while ignorant multitudes also of men and women among so many different peoples believe and declare, that no thing of earth or fire or any such object of sense is to be worshipped instead of God, Whom the intellect alone can approach?  That abstinence is carried even to the barest living on bread and water, fasting not merely for a single day but for many days in succession, chastity even to the refusal of marriage and offspring, patience even to the making light of crosses and flames, liberality to the point of distributing among the poor one's family fortune; in fine, contempt for the whole world even to the longing for death?  Few there be who do such things, fewer still who do them wisely and well; but the people approve them; the people praise them; the people look on them with favor; the people love them; the people acknowledge that such things are beyond their reach--; and this acknowledgment in itself implies some advance toward God, some gleaming of virtue.  This has been brought about by Divine Providence through the predictions of the Prophets, the Incarnation and Teaching of Christ, the journeyings of the Apostles, the sufferings of the Martyrs under insult and torment, unto the shedding of blood and death, the praiseworthy lives of the Saints, and, along with all this as opportunity offered Miracles befitting such noble deeds, such marvels of Virtue.

Vigor of Teachings Persists
    "Considering, then, the manifest intervention of God, so great in results and advantages, shall We hesitate to betake ourselves to the Bosom of the Church which, as the human race recognizes, holds, in the Apostolic See through the succession of Bishops, the summit of Authority, while the heretics go yelping about in vain, condemned as they are, partly by the verdict of the people, partly by the Solemn Decrees of Councils, partly, too, by the overwhelming evidence of Miracles?"
    These declarations of Augustine, which in the course of time have lost nothing of their vigor and weight, are rather borne out, as is plain to everyone, by the facts of the long space of fifteen Centuries.  For during these ages the Church of  God, though tried by so many calamities and unheavals, torn by heresy and dissension, grieved by the disloyalty and unworthiness of so many of her children, nevertheless, with unwavering trust on her Founder's promises, while human institutions all about her crumbled, not only remained safe and sound, but also in each succeeding age abounded more and more in wondrous examples of holiness and devout living, kindled and quickened the Flame of Charity in numberless Christian souls, gathered new peoples into her fold through the labors of her Missionaries and Martyrs, among whom the Glory of Virginity and the Dignity of the Priesthood and of the Episcopal Office are in flower and vigor; and finally imbued all races of men with her Spirit of Charity and Justice, so thoroughly that even those who neglect or assail her cannot but borrow her manner of speech and her method of action.
    Rightly, therefore, in his controversy with the Donatists (who boldly sought to narrow down and confine the True Church of Christ to a certain corner of Aftica.)  after holding against them, in rebuttal of their claim, the Universality, or, as it is called, the "Catholicity" of the Church, embracing all men that they may be helped and defended by Divine Grace, rightly did Augustine bring his argument to its close with the Solemn Asseveration--"With Judgment sure the world entire decides"--words which not very long ago so impressed a man most highly distinguished for his learning and nobleness of soul (John Henry Newman)  that he forthwith determined to enter the One Fold of Christ the Shepherd.

Avowed Authority of Popes
    Augustine, for that matter, openly avowed that the Unity of the Church Catholic and, as well, the immunity from all error of its teaching proceeded not only from its invisible Head, Christ Jesus, Who from Heaven "Rules His Body" and speaks through His teaching Church, but also from its Visible Head on earth, the Roman Pontiff, who by Lawful right of succession occupies the Chair of Peter.  For the series of Peter's Successors is "the very Rock against which the proud gates of hell shall not prevail; and beginning with Peter the Apostle, (whom the Lord after His Resurrection charged with the feeding of His sheep.)  the succession of Priests down to the present Episcopate holds Us, with fullest right, in the Bosom of the Church."
    Hence when the Pelagian heresy broke out and its followers, with craft and trickery, strove to disturb the minds and souls of the faithful, the Fathers of the Council of Mileve (under the prompting and guidance of Augustine.)  referred to Innocent I for his approval the question which they had discussed and the Decrees which they had drawn up to settle the same.  He in reply praised those Bishops for their zeal in behalf of Religion and for their earnest Devotion to the Roman Pontiff.  "They knew well," he said to them, "that from the Apostolic source answers always go out through every part of the world to those who seek them: in particular, whenever the Rule of Faith is the issue, I consider that all Our Brethren and Colleagues in the Episcopate ought to have recourse to Peter only, that is, to the Source of their Title and Honor, just as you, Beloved Brothers, have done in this instance, seeing that he can be helpful to all the Churches in common throughout the world."
    Thus after the condemnation pronounced by the Roman Pontiffs against Pelagius and Celestius had reached those parts, Augustine, preaching to the people, uttered those memorable words: "Regarding this matter, the decisions of two Councils have been sent to the Apostolic See and from that See replies have come back.  The cause is ended: would that the error also might at length be ended."  These words indeed, in somewhat briefer form, have become proverbial: Rome has spoken, the cause is ended.
    In another passage, after citing the decision whereby Pope Zozimus condemned and reprobated the Pelagians wherever they might be, the same Augustine declares: "In these words of the Apostolic See, the Catholic Faith rings out--so old and well established, so clear and sure that it were wicked for a Christian to doubt it."

Obedience to the Church
    Furthermore, whosoever obeys the Church which has received from her Divine Spouse the riches of Heavely Grace that she might dispense  them especially through the Sacraments, such a one, after the pattern of the Good Samaritan, pours oil and wine into the wounds of the children of Adam to cleanse the sinner of his sin, to strengthen the weak and the ailing and to fashion the souls of the just upon higher ideals of holy living.  Let us admit that now and then some Minister of Christ may have failed in his duty: did that mean that the Power of Christ had lost its effecacy and come to naught?  "And I say"--let us hear the Bishop of Hippo--"and we all say that it behooves the Ministers of so great a Judge to be upright; let the Ministers be upright, if they will, but if they who sit upon the Chair of Moses will not be upright, I nevertheless have been assured by my Master of Whom His Spirit said: 'This is He Who Baptizeth'."  Would that Augustine's words had been heeded by all who, in the past or in our day, after the manner of the Donatists, made the fall of this or that Priest a pretext for rending the seamless Garment of Christ and for miserably casting themselves away from the path of Salvation.
    We have seen how humbly Augustine, sublime genius as he was, submitted to the Authority of the Teaching Church, in the conviction that as long as he did so he would not vary by a hair-breadth from Catholic Doctrine.  Moreover, having carefully considered those words--"unless ye believe, ye shall not understand"--he knew full well that those who, holding fast to the Faith, meditate with prayerful and submissive minds upon the Word of God, are illumined with a Heavenly Light which is denied the proud; but he also knew that Priests, whose lips must keep knowledge, since it is their duty to explain suitably and defend the Truths of Revelation and open its meaning to the faithful, are obliged, so far as it may be given them of God, to search and penetrate the Truths of Faith.
    Wherefore, prompted by uncreated Wisdom, through prayer and meditation on the Divine Mysteries, he achieved so much in his writings that he bequeathed as it were to posterity a vast and impressive Body of Sacred Doctrine.  Whoever, Venerable Brothers, is even slightly acquainted with these momumental works cannot but realize how keenly the Bishop of Hippo bent all the enerbies of his soul that he might gain a fuller knowledge of God.  How truly he discerned in the Universe of created things and its ordering the work of his Maker!  How effectively he wrote and preached that the people under his charge might also attain this insight!

Proof of Creator's Work
    "The beauty of earth," he said, "is the Voice as it were of the speechless earth.  You observe and see its loveliness, you see its fruitfulness, you see its wondrous forces, how it begets the living germ, how it not rarely brings forth even where no seed has been sown.  These things you behold, and dwelling upon them, you in a way put questions to nature: your very searching is a questioning.  But when, in wonderment, you have sought out and examined the ways of nature, when you have come to appreciate its grandeur, its surpassing beauty and power, and to understand that it could not have such power in and of itself, forthwith it occurs to you that the world could not have gotten its being from itself, but only from the Creator.  What you find is the voice of nature, bearing witness and calling on you to Praise the Creator.  When you consider the bearty of the world in all its parts, does  not that very beauty give answer and declare: I did not make myself: God made me."
    How often he extolled in splendid phrase the absolute perfection, beauty, goodness, eternnity, immutability and power of the Creator, albeit he never ceased repeating that our thought of God comes nearer the Truth than our words, while His Being is far Truer than anything we can think; and that the Name which above all others befits the Creator is that which God Himself revealed when Moses asked by whom he was sent.
    Augustine was not content with merely seeking to know the Nature of God so far as the unaided powers of human intelligence might lead him.  With the Sacred Scriptures lighting his way, and the Spirit of Wisdom guiding him, he focused his surpassing intellect upon the greatest of all Mysteries which so many of the Fathers and of his other Predecessors, with the utmost steadfastness and wonderful ardor, had upheld against the impious onslaughts of heresy--We mean the Adorable Trinity of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost in the Oneness of Divine Nature.
    Aglow with light from above, he treated this Supreme Doctrine and Foundation of Catholic Faith with such depth and penetration that for the Doctors of all later time it was in a way sufficient to draw from Augustine's writings material wherewith they raised about Theological Truth such solid bulwarks that the shafts of wayward reason hurled in every age against this Mystery, the farthest beyond the grasp of finite minds, were hurled in vain.

His Statement on the Trinity
    Let Us cite the Doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo:  "In that Trinity those things are predicated of each Person severally which denote their reciprocal relations, such as Father and Son, and the Gift of Both, namely the Holy Ghost.  For the Father is not the Trinity, the Son is not the Trinity, the Gift is not the Trinity.  But what is predicated of each as in Himself does not mean that they plurally are Three, but only One, the Trinity Itself; thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God.  Again, the Father is Good, the Son is Good, the Holy Ghost is Good; likewise the Father is Omnipotent, the Son is Omnipotent, the Holy Ghost is Omnipotent: and yet there are not three Gods nor three Goods nor three Omnipotents, but One God, Good, Omnipotent, the Trinity Itself.  So with everything else which imports not a reciprocal relation but several ascription to each.  For this Names them according to Essense, because here Being is equivalent to being great, to being Good, to being Wise, and whatever else each Person in Himself, or the Trinity Itself, is called."
    Concise indeed, and subtle, these utterances; yet their author, to help somewhat our understanding, makes use of most fitting illustrations--as for instance when he beholds the Image of the Trinity reflected in the human soul which goes forward in the way of Holiness.  For then remembring God, it thinks of God and loves Him.  So that we come to sse, in some measure, how the Word is begotten of the Father, "Who in a manner has expressed in His Coeternal Word, all that He has substantially," likewise how the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and thus "gives an idea of the mutual Love wherewith the Father and the Son Love each Other.
    Thereupon Augustine reminds us to make this likeness of God in us clearer and lovelier day by day, right on to the end of our lives, so that when He shall come, "the Divine Image already graven in our souls may be perfected by the Vision which then, the judgment over, shall be face to face, but which even now, though in a glass darkly, is for our weal."

On Dual Nature of  Christ
    Nor can we ever sufficiently admire the Doctor of Hippo for his exposition of the Mysteries of the Only-Begotten Son of God clothed in human flesh, and for his insistence in so many words--which St. Leo the Great cites in his Dogmatic Epistle to Leo Augustus--"that we acknowledge in Christ a twofold substance, the One, Divine, by which He is equal to the Father, the other, human, by which the Father is greater.  Yet Christ, though both, is not two but One:  nor is God fourfold but threefold.  For as the rational soul and the flesh form but one man, so God and man form but One Christ."  Wisely, therefore, did Theodoius the Younger act in commanding that the Great Doctor should be summoned, with every possible mark of respect, to the Council of Ephesus at which the Nestorian heresy was crushed: but Augustine's unexpected death prevented him from joining to the voices of the assembled Fathers his own, so earnest and forceful, in execration of the heretic who, so to speak, dared to divide Christ and to assail the Divine Maternity of the Most Blessed Virgin.
    Nor should We here omit, though We touch it only in passing, the fact that the Dignity of Christ the King, in defense of which, and in order to stir up the Devotion of the faithful, We published at the close of the Jubilee Year our Encyclical "Quas Primas," (The Kingship of Christ.)  was more than once set forth by Augustine: witness the lessons taken from his writings which We saw fit to include in the Liturgy of the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.
    There is no one, perhaps, who does not know how grandly he discourses in his splendid work the "City of God" on the Divine Governance of all things and events, sweeping as it were in one broad survey over the History of the World with the aid of the knowledge he had gained through constant study of the Bible and drawn from every human source which was then availale.  With the keen discernment that was his, he marks out and recognizes, in the stages and processes of human society, two cities built by two loves: the earthly by the love of self even to the contempt of God; the other Heavenly, by the love of God even to the comtempt of self, the first, Babylon, the second Jerusalem; and these "are mingled, and mingled they continue to be from the very beginning of human kind on to the end of the world."  Yet is the outcome not one and the same for both, for the dwellers in Jerusalem are to Reign forever with God while the slaves of Babylon are doomed to suffer for their sins, with the demons, through all Eternity.

His View of Human Society
    Hence to the searching view of Augustine the History of human society appears as nothing else than the Record of God's Love unceasingly lavished on us by Him Who carries onward, through triumphs and through hardships alike, the Heavenly City which He established, in such Wise that  he turns to its advantage even the madness and the wickedness of the earthly city--in keeping with those words of the Apostle, "to them that Love God all things work together unto Good, to such as according to His purpose are called to be Saints."
    Hence it must be pointed out that they act foolishly and stupidly who think that the course of events is controlled simply by the whim and play of blind chance or by the desires and the ambitions of the powerful among men or by the ceaseless agitation of minds intent upon developing man's natural powers, furthering the arts and securing the good things of this life.   On the contrary, the events of the natural order are meant only to serve in building up the City of God, to wit, by spreading the Truth of the Gospel and helping on the salvation of souls in accordance with the hidden yet ever merciful Design of Him Who "reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly."
    To dwell somewhat longer on this matter, let Us add that Augustine set the mark, or, more truly, the burning brand of vileness, of the paganism of the Greeks and Romans while some of our modern writers, frivolous and wanton, seem to be fairly carried away with the enthusiasm for the pagan religion which in their judgment is of marvelous beauty, harmony and sweetness.  Knowing, moreover, quite well that the people of his day were unhappily forgetful of God, he recalls, now with biting phrase and again with words full of indignation, all the evils--the coercions and absurdities, the atrocities and excesses--which the demons, through the worship of false gods, had brought into human life.
    Nor can there be salvation for anyone in that vain ideal of fulfillment and perfection which the earthly city sets up for itself; since hardly anyone will realize it and, if anyone should, he will enjoy but an empty fleeting glory.
    Augustine indeed praises the Romans of the elder day, "who despised their own private affairs for the sake of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted for the good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted neither to what their Laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust.  By all these acts, as by the True Way, they pressed forward to honors, power and glory; they were  honored amongst almost all nations, they imposed the laws of their empire upon many peoples."  Yet as he remarks a little farther on, what did they gain with all their striving, "except that most empty pomp of human glory in which they received their reward who burned with ardent desire of it, and for it with utmost ardor waged their wars.'

    (Because this is such a long Encyclical Letter it will be in 2 files.  To continue click on CONTINUE below.)