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| His Mother Having Followed Him to Milan, Declares that She Will Not Die Before Her Son Shall Have Embraced the Catholic Faith.
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Chapter I.—His Mother Having
Followed Him to Milan, Declares that She Will Not Die Before Her
Son Shall Have Embraced the Catholic Faith.
1. O Thou, my hope
from my youth,432
where wert
Thou to me, and whither hadst Thou gone? For in truth, hadst Thou
not created me, and made a difference between me and the beasts of
the field and fowls of the air? Thou hadst made me wiser than they,
yet did I wander about in dark and slippery places, and sought Thee
abroad out of myself, and found not the God of my heart;433
| 433 See iv. sec. 18, note, above. | and had
entered the depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired finding
out the truth. By this time my mother, made strong by her piety,
had come to me, following me over sea and land, in all perils
feeling secure in Thee. For in the dangers of the sea she comforted
the very sailors (to whom the inexperienced passengers, when
alarmed, were wont rather to go for comfort), assuring them of a
safe arrival, because she had been so assured by Thee in a vision.
She found me in grievous danger, through despair of ever finding
truth. But when I had disclosed to her that I was now no longer a
Manichæan, though not yet a Catholic Christian, she did not leap
for joy as at what was unexpected; although she was now reassured
as to that part of my misery for which she had mourned me as one
dead, but who would be raised to Thee, carrying me forth upon the
bier of her thoughts, that Thou mightest say unto the widow’s
son, “Young man, I say unto Thee, arise,” and he should revive,
and begin to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him to his mother.434
Her heart,
then, was not agitated with any violent exultation, when she had
heard that to be already in so great a part accomplished which she
daily, with tears, entreated of Thee might be done,—that though I
had not yet grasped the truth, I was rescued from falsehood. Yea,
rather, for that she was fully confident that Thou, who hadst
promised the whole, wouldst give the rest, most calmly, and with a
breast full of confidence, she replied to me, “She believed in
Christ, that before she departed this life, she would see me a
Catholic believer.”435
| 435 Fidelem Catholicum—those who are baptized
being usually designated Fideles. The following extract from
Kaye’s Tertullian (pp. 230, 231) is worthy of
note:—“As the converts from heathenism, to use Tertullian’s
expression, were not born, but became Christians [fiunt,
nascuntur, Christiani], they went through a course of
instruction in the principles and doctrines of the gospel, and were
subjected to a strict probation before they were admitted to the
rite of baptism. In this stage of their progress they were called
catechumens, of whom, according to Suicer, there were two
classes,—one called ‘Audientes,’ who had only entered upon
their course, and begun to hear the word of God; the other, συναιτοῦντες, or ‘Competentes,’ who had
made such advances in Christian knowledge and practice as to be
qualified to appear at the font. Tertullian, however, appears
either not to have known or to have neglected this distinction,
since he applies the names of ‘Audientes’ and ‘Auditores’
indifferently to all who had not partaken of the rite of baptism.
When the catechumens had given full proof of the ripeness of their
knowledge, and of the stedfastness of their faith, they were
baptized, admitted to the table of the Lord, and styled
Fideles. The importance which Tertullian attached to this
previous probation of the candidates for baptism, appears from the
fact that he founds upon the neglect of it one of his charges
against the heretics. ‘Among them,’ he says, ‘no distinction
is made between the catechumen and the faithful or confirmed
Christian; the catechumen is pronounced fit for baptism before he
is instructed; all come in indiscriminately; all hear, all pray
together.’” There were certain peculiar forms used in the
admission of catechumens; as, for example, anointing with oil,
imposition of hands, and the consecration and giving of salt; and
when, from the progress of Christianity, Tertullian’s above
description as to converts from heathenism had ceased to be
correct, these forms were continued in many churches as part of the
baptismal service, whether of infants or adults. See Palmer’s
Origines Liturgicæ, v. 1, and also i. sec. 17, above, where
Augustin says: “I was signed with the sign of the cross, and was
seasoned with His salt, even from the womb of my mother.” | And thus much said she to me; but
to Thee, O Fountain of mercies, poured she out more frequent
prayers and tears, that Thou wouldest hasten Thy aid, and enlighten
my darkness; and she hurried all the more assiduously to the
church, and hung upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the
fountain of water that springeth up into everlasting life.436
For she
loved that man as an angel of God, because she knew that it was by
him that I had been brought, for the present, to that perplexing
state of agitation437
| 437 “Sermons,” says Goodwin in his Evangelical
Communicant, “are, for the most part, as showers of rain that
water for the instant; such as may tickle the ear and warm the
affections, and put the soul into a posture of obedience. Hence it
is that men are oft-times sermon-sick, as some are sea-sick; very
ill, much troubled for the present, but by and by all is well again
as they were.” | I was now in, through which she was
fully persuaded that I should pass from
sickness unto health, after an excess, as
it were, of a sharper fit, which doctors term the
“crisis.”
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