Augustine Dying
On August 28 we commemorate Augustine of Hippo, who died on that day in 430—some 1,596 years ago. It is customary for Christians to remember those who have gone before us in the faith not on their earthly birthday but on the date of death, a moment that piety sometimes christens their “birthday” into the afterlife.
Twenty years before Augustine’s death, the city of Rome had been sacked by Alaric, the powerful pagan from the north. An African, Augustine was bishop of the “bustling” Hippo Regius on the Mediterranean coast; his city survived Rome for another twenty years. The Visigoths’ conquering of Rome motivated Augustine to write a great work, The City of God Against the Pagans, a task that occupied him from 413 to 426. As Augustine lay dying in 430, however, the Vandals had reached the gates of Hippo.
It is not clear whether Augustine had that news, but if he did, it is clear he did not think much of it. Augustine—like many people in pre-medicalized times—knew when he was dying. He knew and he prepared in a way that was meant to be instructive; he had reason to expect that how he died would be recorded and told to those who came after him.
In the event it was Possidius, bishop of Calama, who did so. In The Life of Augustine, Possidius wrote that Augustine “often told us in intimate conversation that the reception of baptism did not absolve Christians, and especially priests, however estimable, from the duty of doing fitting and adequate penance before departing from this life. And he acted on this himself in his last and fatal illness. For he ordered those psalms of David which are specially penitential to be copied out and, when he was very weak, used to lie in bed facing the wall where the sheets of paper were put up, gazing at them and reading them, and copiously and continuously weeping as he read.”
The scholar Isabel Moreira goes on to tell us that, “in the last ten days of his life, Augustine asked that no one disturb him except at the time when food was brought or the physician called, seeking to avoid outward distraction.” He gave himself up completely to prayer. He knew many other Christians before him who had done just that.
Once he died, everything was very simple. Possidius: “after a service was offered to God for the peaceful repose of his body, he was buried.” This is beautiful in its simplicity, I think; there was a sense that everything had been done that could be done, and now we turn him over to God.
Things are much more complicated now! Someone of Augustine’s importance would have a huge funeral and so forth. But Augustine got ready to die by focusing on, and weeping for, his sins. Through his life he had taught that no one can earn God’s favor, and he died commending himself to God’s mercy.
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Out & About. I am to preach St. Augustine’s Oak Cliff (Dallas) at 10:15am on Sun., Aug. 30.
Good Books & Good Talk: The first of four sessions on Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is also this Sun., Aug. 30—at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas from 5 to 6:30pm. We will discuss (only) Part One, which is Books I–III. Directions: From the parking garage at St. Matthew’s (which is in the Cathedral Arts apartment building just south of the cathedral), walk outside. The cathedral will be on your left; straight ahead will be the cathedral green; and Garrett Hall will be to your right. Go to the glass entrance in the middle of Garrett Hall; someone will be there from about 4:45 to let you in. We meet on the second floor.
Regarding Augustine, I have quoted above from Isabel Moreira’s fascinating essay, “Purgatory in the Writings of Augustine and Bede,” which is in Root and Buckley, editors, Heaven, Hell, . . . and Purgatory?, published by Cascade in 2015. Other authors in that volume are David Yeago, Jerry Walls, Ralph Wood, Paul Griffiths, and yours truly, who really does not belong in that otherwise exalted firmament.