Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
demand bishops and clerics from the monastery that had been founded and strengthened by the zealous Augustine. Later, the request was fulfilled. The most blessed founder gave ten men, holy and venerable, chaste and learned, to various churches, some of them being quite prominent. Like him, those holy men who came from that community increased the churches of the Lord and established monasteries. As their zeal for spreading God's word increased, they in turn supplied other churches with brethren who had been elevated to the priesthood. And thus, because of their number, the teaching of the Church's salutary faith, hope, and charity became known to many people. This was true not only throughout all parts of Africa but even across the sea, by means of Greek editions and translations.46
Misconduct of Antoninus of Fussala
Possidius acclaimed Augustine's successes and passed over in silence certain disastrous personnel decisions. None is more vivid or more embarrassing than the case of Antoninus, one-time bishop of Fussala. We can see the case in all its anguishing detail in one of the Divjak letters.47 Around 423, Augustine wrote to a wealthy Roman matron, Fabiola, warning her not to be taken in by Antoninus, who had been raised in Augustine's monastery and whom Augustine later nominated as bishop of Fussala. Antoninus used his office to create a sort of criminal organization that carried out all manner of illicit gain—crimes of theft, extortion, and intimidation. At a tribunal in Hippo, Augustine and Alypius handed down a verdict depriving Antoninus of his see, but allowing him to retain nominal status as a bishop. This decision left them with a legal quandary, since the Council of Nicaea had, in its canons, forbidden moving bishops from one see to another. They, therefore, granted Antoninus a sort of quiet exile to a few small rural parishes. On the eve of the ordination of a replacement for Fussala, Antoninus appealed his case to Pope Boniface, who ended up ordering an appellate investigation. The story at this point becomes extremely complex, with dramatic courtroom shenanigans. Antoninus proved a ruthless and skilled manipulator with an eye for loopholes in both canon and civil law. I have abridged this lengthy account considerably, excising the legal complexities and machinations of the case. Perhaps nowhere else in Augustine's surviving writings does one see him so powerless and so frustrated. At this same time, Augustine wrote Pope Celestine, noting that he was so disheartened by the embarrassment that he was ready to resign his bishopric.48 From Letter 20* (Divjak):
46. Vita 11 (Geerlings, 44–46); trans. Muller and Deferrari, FOTC 15:85. 47. On this, see J. E. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 154–82; also Serge Lancel, "L'affaire d'Antoninus de Fussala: pays, choses et gens de la Numidie d'Hippone saisis dans la durée procédure d'enquête épiscopale," in Lepelley, Les Lettres de saint Augustin découvertes par Johannes Divjak, 267–85; and (also in Lepelley) W. H. C. Frend, "Fussala, Augustine's Crisis of Credibility," 251–65.
48. See ep. 209 to Pope Celestine (c. 423).