He taught that the true Church was charac terized by four qualities—Amity. holiness. catho licity, and apostolicity. Outside this Church there could be no salvation. It alone was the 'ark of safety' in which a perishing world must take refuge through submission to its authority. Convinced of the indispensable necessity of church membership. Augustine finally came to believe it right to coerce the intractable; it was the duty of the Christian State to 'compel them to come in.' rhis force-doctrine, so repellent to our modern ideas, and so fraught with evil in the history of religion, may be found clearly stated by Augustine in his Ninety-third Epistle (a.n. 408), where he cites the Parable of the Wedding-Feast in support of his position, and also in the proceedings of the Synod of Carthage. held in the year 411, which is commonly said to have ended the Donatist schism. Augustine's doctrine stood between the extremes of Pelagian ism and Manielneism. Against Pelagian natu ralism he held that death came into the world as the result of sin, and that man is saved by divine grace: against i\lanichieism he vigorously de fended free-will. A misunderstanding of his position on grace and free-will often arises from neglecting to consider that he is at the same time an ardent defender of human freedom against fatalism, and the champion of divine grace against the theory of complete human in dependence.
Augustine was an energetic controversialist, as we have seen. He was also a powerful preacher; but his sermons, owing partly to the great dif ference between their style and method and that to which we are accustomed, and partly to their fanciful interpretation of Scripture, often disap point the modern reader. The editors have ac cepted 363 sermons as genuine, among a much larger number which bear his name. In his great apologetic work, the City of God, Augustine appeared in the rule of seer, unfolding the mean ing of the past and the seerets of the future with abundant learning and marvelous fertility of im agination. Ten of the 22 books into which this long work is divided are devoted to refuting the pagan notion that the worship of the gods in sures prosperity in this life or in the life to come. The remaining 12 trace the origin, prog ress, and destiny of the two cities, one of God.
the other of this world, with the final triumph of the former, which is the Christian Church. Thirteen years of Augustine's busy life (413 426) were occupied with this sublime attempt to construct a Christian philosophy of history. In 428, shortly before his death, Augustine wrote the Retractions, in which he registers his final verdict upon the books he had previously written. correcting whatever his maturer judgment held to he misleading or wrong.
The Confessions were written in 397; the Ppistles, of which there are 270 in the Bene dictine edition, are variously dated between 3S6 and 429. Among other important works may be noted his treatise On Free-Trill (388-395) : On Christian Doctrine (397) ; On Baptism: Against the Donatists (400); On the Trinity (400-416) ; On Nature and Grace ( 415 ) ; and Homilies upon several books of the Bible. The Benedictine edi tion of Augustine's works is still authoritative (Paris, 1079.1700, 11 vols., repriAted in Migne's Patrologia Latina, and elsewhere) : but it is safe to predict that the standard edition will be that now in process of publication under the auspices of the Vienna Academy (in the Corpus Scriptornm Berlesiastieorum Latin orum), of which eight volumes had appeared in 1900. The most important of Augustine's works may be rend in English in the Nicene and Post-Nirene Fathers. first series, edited by Philip Schaff (New York, 18S6-SS, S vols.). Separate translations of the Confessions are numerous, e.g. by W. G. T. Shedd (Andover, 1860), and Charles Bigg (London. 1900). F. R. M. Hitch cock, Saint Augustine's Treatise on the City of God (London, 1900), is a convenient abstract of the complete work. Consult: "Augustine." in Smith and Race, _Mr-Nom/2T of Christian Biog raphy (London, 1887) : Farrar. Lives of the Fathers, Vol. II. (Edinburgh, 1859) ; Harnack, History of Dogma, English translation by Neil Buchanan, Vol. V. (London, 1898) Cunning ham, Saint Austin and Ills Place in the His tory of Christian Thought (London, 1SS5) ; and ugustine's Confessions, English trans lation (London, 1901). For an unfavorable view of Augustine, see A. V. G. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought (Boston, 1894).