Popes on St. Augustine of Hippo
The praise of Augustine has never ceased to be proclaimed in the Church of God, even by the Roman Pontiffs. While the holy Bishop was yet alive, Innocent I greeted him as a beloved friend and extolled the letter which he had received from the Saint and from four Bishops, his friends: “A letter instinct with faith and staunch with all the vigor of the Catholic religion.”
Shortly after the death of Augustine, Celestine I defends him against his opponents in the following noble words: “We have ever deemed Augustine a man to be remembered for his sanctity, because of his life and services in our communion, nor has rumor at any time darkened his name with the suspicion of evil. So great was his knowledge, as we recall, that he was always reckoned by my predecessors also among our foremost teachers. All alike, therefore, thought highly of him as a man held in affection and honor by all.”
Gelasius I hailed Jerome and Augustine as “luminaries among ecclesiastical teachers.” Hormisdas wrote in answer to Bishop Possessor’s request for direction these weighty words: “What the Roman, that is, the Catholic Church follows and maintains touching free will and the grace of God, can be learned from the different works of blessed Augustine, those especially which he addressed to Hilary and Prosper, though the formal chapters are contained in the ecclesiastical records.” A like testimony was uttered by John II, when in refutation of heretics he appealed to the works of Augustine: “Whose teaching,” he said, “according to the enactments of my predecessors, the Roman Church follows and maintains.”
Can anyone be unaware how thoroughly familiar with the doctrine of Augustine were the Roman Pontiffs, during the ages that followed close upon his death, as Leo the Great, for example, and Gregory the Great? Thus Saint Gregory, thinking as highly of Augustine as he thought humbly of himself, wrote to Innocentius, prefect of Africa: “If you wish to feast on choice food, read the works of blessed Augustine, your fellow countryman. His writings are as fine wheat. Seek not for our bran.” It is well known that Adrian I was in the habit of quoting passages from Augustine, whom he styled “an eminent doctor.” Again, Clement VIII, to throw light on the obscure features of abstruse debates, and Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution “Auctorem fidei,” to unmask the evasions of the condemned Synod of Pistoia, availed themselves of the support of Augustine’s authority.
It is a further tribute to the glory of the Bishop of Hippo, that more than once the Fathers in lawful Councils assembled, made use of his very words in defining Catholic truth. In illustration it is enough to cite the Second Council of Orange and the Council of Trent. Yet again, to cast a backward glance at the years of Our own youth, We wish at this point to recall and delightedly to ponder the words in which Our predecessor of immortal memory Leo XIII, after mentioning writers earlier than Augustine, lauded the help afforded by him to Christian philosophy: “But it is Augustine who seems to have borne off the palm from all. Of towering genius and thoroughly versed in sacred and profane knowledge, he waged relentless war on all the errors of his age with matchless faith and equal learning. What part of philosophy did he have untouched? Nay rather into what part did he not make thorough search as when he unfolded to the Faithful the deepest mysteries of the Faith or defended them against the mad attacks of foes; or again when, brushing away the false theories of Academics and Manicheans, he laid a sure and solid foundation for human knowledge, or studied in detail the nature and source and causes of the evils which harass mankind?”
Ad Salutem, On St. Augustine, by Pope Pius XI – 1930 (#2-5)
