Saint Augustin | Page 7

partly explains his laxity. It would
doubtless be going too far to say that he remained faithful to paganism
all his life. It is not likely that this urban councillor of Thagaste was a
particularly assured pagan. Speculative and intellectual considerations
made a very moderate appeal to him. He was not an arguer like his son.
He was pagan from habit, from that instinctive conservatism of the
citizen and landowner who sticks obstinately to his class and family
traditions. Prudence and diplomacy had also something to do with it.
Many great landlords continued to defend and practise paganism,
probably from motives similar to those of Patricius himself. As for him,
he had no desire to get wrong with the important and influential people

of the country; he might have need of their protection to save his small
property from the ravenous public treasury. Moreover, the best-paid
posts were still controlled by the pagan priesthood. And so Augustin's
father thought himself very wise in dealing cautiously with a religion
which was always so powerful, and rewarded its adherents so well.
But for all that, it is undeniable that paganism about this time was in an
awkward position from a political point of view. The Government eyed
it with disapproval. Since the death of Constantine, the "accursed
emperors" had waged against it a furious war. In 353, just before the
birth of Augustin, Constantius promulgated an edict renewing the order
for the closing of the temples and the abolition of sacrifices--and that
too under pain of death and confiscation. But in distant provinces, such
as Numidia, the action of the central power was slow and irregular. It
was often represented by officials who were hostile or indifferent to
Christianity. The local aristocracy and their following scoffed at it
more or less openly. In their immense villas, behind the walls of their
parks, the rich landowners offered sacrifices and organized processions
and feasts as if there were no law at all. Patricius knew all that. And, on
the other side, he could take note of the encroachments of the new
religion. During the first half of the fourth century Thagaste had been
conquered by the Donatists. Since the edict of Constans against these
schismatics, the inhabitants of the little city had come back to
Catholicism out of fear of the severity of the imperial government. But
the settlement was far from being complete and final. As a consequence
of the edict, the whole region of the Aures had been in revolution. The
Bishop of Bagai, fortified in his episcopal city and basilica, had stood
an actual siege from the Roman troops. Almost everywhere the struggle
between Donatists and Catholics still went on below the surface. There
cannot be the least doubt that Thagaste took its share in these quarrels.
To those who urged him to be baptized, the father of Augustin might
well answer with ironic politeness: "I am only waiting till you agree
among yourselves, to see where the truth lies." In his heart this rather
lukewarm pagan had no inveterate dislike to Christianity.
What proves it at once is that he married a Christian.
How did Monnica become the wife of Patricius? How did these two
beings, so little alike, between whom there was such a great difference
of age, not to mention all the rest, come to join their fate? Those are

questions which it would never have occurred to the people of Thagaste
to ask. Patricius married to be like everybody else--and also because he
was well over forty, and his mother an old woman who would soon be
no longer able to run his house.
Monnica also had her mother. The two old women had a meeting, with
many politenesses and ceremonious bowings, and because the thing
appeared to them reasonable and most suitable, they settled the
marriage. Had Patricius ever seen the girl that he was going to take,
according to custom, so as to have a child-bearer and housewife? It is
quite likely he had not. Was she pretty, rich, or poor? He considered
such matters as secondary, since the marriage was not a love-match but
a traditional duty to fulfil. If the union was respectable, that was quite
enough. But however the matter fell out, what is certain is that Monnica
was very young. She was twenty-two when Augustin was born, and he
was probably not her first child. We know that she was hardly
marriageable when she was handed over, as Arab parents do to-day
with their adolescent or little girls, to the man who was going to marry
her. Now in Africa girls become marriageable at a very early age. They
are married at fourteen, sometimes even at twelve. Perhaps she was
seventeen or eighteen at most when she married Patricius. She must
have had