Our father among the saints Augustine of Canterbury

Saint Augustine of Canterbury

Tomorrow in the Orthodox Church, we venerate the gentle, humble academic historian whose writing was actually the most successful in leading me into the Church – I mean, of course, the Venerable Bede. Given that I have spent much of the last seven months with Bede once more in my project of the hagiographical treatments of various pre-Schismatic British, Welsh, Irish and Lowlander saints, it would seem a mark of ingratitude if I passed over his feast day in silence. Bede was a remarkably important figure in English letters and, even if one may see a certain ideological bent to his writing, was well ahead of his time in his proto-Rankean active pursuit and use of multiple (and particularly primary) source materials and his critical eye on past historical events. More than that, though, he was the ‘real deal’ in terms of holiness. He didn’t blow his own trumpet. Stern with himself and mild with others, a man who genuinely valued peace and contemplation, his accounts of the lives of past saints often reflect the virtues he successfully cultivated in his own life. Holy Bede, sweet and gentle teacher of the English folk, we sinners entreat your prayers to Christ for our salvation!

His feast day meetly follows upon that of a most distinguished Italian Benedictine : Augustine, the father of Bede’s order in Britain who, with justice, may be considered the singular and most important father of English Christianity. Saint Augustine’s early life is relatively unknown. We know little of his youth or upbringing except that he was a resident of Rome and thus probably Roman himself, and that he entered the monastic life in the Abbey of Saint Andrew (today the Chiesa di San Gregorio Magno al Celio) which had been established by the holy Pope Gregory Dialogos out of his own inheritance.

He was probably quite close to Pope Gregory, being trusted enough to be made prior of Saint Andrew’s. In 596, after Pope Gregory had formed the conviction to embark on the commission to the heathen Angles and Saxons and Jutes who had settled in Britain, Augustine was chief among the monks selected to carry out this mission. The reputation of the Teutonic peoples of the north was well-established: it was known to the monks that the people of England were rough in their manners, fell and baneful in their hearts. Moreover, the monks were worried for their safety in crossing the waters of the English Channel. By consensus, the monks of the Gregorian mission sent Augustine back to Rome to deliver to Pope Gregory their request to be recalled from the mission. The letter that Pope Gregory sent back to them by Augustine, as recounted by Holy Bede, was to this effect:

GREGORY, Servant of the servants of God, to the servants of God. My very dear sons, it is better never to undertake any high enterprise than to abandon it when once begun. So with the help of God you must carry out this holy task which you have begun. Be constant and zealous in carrying out this enterprise which, under God’s guidance, you have undertaken: and be assured that the greater the labour, the greater will be the glory of your æternal reward. When Augustine your leader returns, whom We have appointed your abbot, obey him humbly in all things, remembering that whatever he directs you to do will always be to the good of your souls. May Almighty God protect you with His grace, and grant me to see the result of your labours in our heavenly home. And although my office prevents me from working at your side, yet because I long to do so, I hope to share in your joyful reward. God keep you safe, my dearest sons.

Dated the twenty-third of July, in the fourteenth year of the reign of our most devout lord Maurice Tiberius Augustus, and the thirteenth year after the Consulship of our said Lord. The fourteenth interdiction.

Augustine having delivered this letter to his brother-monks, they continued heartened on their journey to English shores. (Pope Gregory also managed to secure along their way the assistance and hospitality of the Archbishop Ætherius of Arles for his monks’ benefit.) Once there, Augustine and his fellow monks from Rome had their famous meeting in the open at Thanet with Æþelberht King and his retinue. (Noteworthy is that Bede recounts Augustine’s procession in Thanet ‘carrying a silver cross as their standard, and the likeness of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board’!) , They also received much-needed aid from Æþelberht’s devoted wife Saint Berhte, who gifted them provisions, as well as the old Roman chapel she and her bishop Léodheard had for their personal use.

Saint Augustine remained in contact with Pope Gregory after this successful foray into Kent. He apparently wrote the Pope with a long list of questions about church administration and pastoral ethics, with particular attention to questions of how the church should address problems of cleanliness, marriage and sexual relations. Pope Gregory’s answers are a very model of pastoral understanding and what we Orthodox types nowadays somewhat pretentiously call ‘οἰκονομία’, or œconomy. He advises the English mission to follow the Book of Acts and share all property in common, but also makes provision for married clerics and allows Saint Augustine to appoint his own bishops. He advises Saint Augustine to select from the various different Liturgical settings (Roman, Gallic and British) based on what resonates with the English faithful; he gives Augustine authority over bishops in Britain, but emphatically not in Gaul. He provides a broad latitude for Saint Augustine to punish church-robbers but with a clear preference for mercy and charity for those genuinely in need. He allows for double in-law marriage and (more reluctantly, as Roman law permitted it) first-cousin marriage, but absolutely forbids other forms of incest. He gave similar guidance on other matters of sexual ethics and cleanliness – and did not forbid women to come to the chalice during their periods or after childbirth, or forbid baptism to expecting mothers.

Pope Gregory continued to take a keen and personal interest in the success of his mission to the English. He sent Saint Augustine an omophor rather than having him come to Rome to get it; and he also sent an additional four monastic clerics to aid Augustine in his labours: Mellitus, Paulinus, Justus and Rufinianus. Upon hearing that Saint Augustine was working wonders among his English flock, Gregory at once wrote him a stern letter warning him not to let it go to his head. Saint Augustine also established the Priory of Christ Church (now part of Canterbury Cathedral) and the Abbey of Saints Peter and Paul (later Saint Augustine’s Abbey) which was later consecrated by Saint Laurence. The first abbot of this Benedictine community, a holy man named Peter, was caught at sea and drowned off Ambleteuse, where he was unceremoniously buried by the locals. After a light appeared over his grave, however, the men of Ambleteuse took up his poor remains and translated them to the church at Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he now rests.

Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury

Saint Augustine’s efforts at reconciling the English with their British (i.e. Welsh) neighbours were considerably less successful. He called a meeting at a place Bede calls ‘Augustine’s Oak’ on the marches of Hwicce, which nowadays probably lies somewhere in the vicinity of Gloucester. Among the issues discussed were the Easter dating issue; the laxity of Welsh missionary efforts; and possibly also church administration. Saint Augustine does not appear to have been very politick in his arguments, because the Welsh bishops refused to yield on any point. In frustration, Saint Augustine asked the British to bring forth a sick man so that a wonder from God might change their mind; they brought out a blind man whose eyes Saint Augustine promptly healed. The Welsh bishops then acknowledged Saint Augustine’s holiness but would not concede in any particular to his demands until they could confer with their own people.

A second synod was thereafter called – the infamous Synod of Urbs Legionis [Chester] which, from a standpoint of church unity, was an even bigger débâcle than the first meeting had been. Alas that Saint Augustine had not heeded better his letter from Pope Gregory cautioning against pride! The Welsh bishops and monks who met with Saint Augustine were deeply offended when the bishop did not do them the common brotherly courtesy of rising to greet them on their arrival. Saint Augustine thereafter pleaded with them on the issues of the Easter date and proselytising the English, but the damage to his own cause had already been done. The synod ended acrimoniously, with Saint Augustine shouting threats at the Welsh that the heathen English would attack and destroy them for their stubborn arrogance. (It so happened a good while afterward, that the heathen king of Northumbria Æþelfrið destroyed the Welsh armies at Chester and slaughtered nearly twelve hundred of the monks of Bangor.)

This unfortunate episode left a long divide between the British Christians who kept to their own rite and calendar, and the English Christians who held to the Roman rule. However, Saint Augustine did many other things to establish Christianity among the English people. He helped Æþelberht King draught the first written code of laws for the English folk, and also established a school to promote literacy. As among the last acts of his earthly life, Holy Father Augustine consecrated Mellitus and Justus as bishops to rule in his stead – Mellitus in London, and Justus in Rochester. When Saint Augustine blessedly reposed in the Lord on the twenty-sixth of May, 604, he was laid to rest at the threshold of the new and yet-incomplete abbey he had commissioned; after the abbey was properly consecrated, his relics were translated inside and interred under the north porch in a seat of honour. Holy Father Augustine, wonderworker and first-called among the apostles to the English, we ask your prayers to our Lord Christ that our souls may be saved!

Sent forth by thy master the great Gregory,
Thou hast marched with the holy Cross and the image of the Saviour,
Baptising the multitude with the clear waters of faith into the spiritual flock of Christ.
As thou hast enlightened and hallowed the English land,
Sowing the seed of heaven in the earth of Kent,
So do thou now enlighten and hallow us anew,
O thou boast of Canterbury, holy archpastor Augustine!