48. See ep. 209 to Pope Celestine (c. 423).
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).
The Bishop 111
(2) I have found out that with great kindness you have taken in my beloved son and fellow bishop Antoninus in his need, and with your usual hospitality you have been most Christian to him. Let me tell you then who I am to Antoninus and who Antoninus is to me and what I owe him and what I am going to ask of you. He came to Hippo as a small boy with his mother and stepfather. They were very poor, not knowing where their next meal would come from. Then when they came to the church for help, I discovered that Antoninus's real father was still living and that his mother, after separating from her husband, had united herself to this other man. I was able to convince both to embrace continence. And so it came about that the man went with the boy to the monastery, while the mother was on the rolls of the poor supported by the church. So in God's mercy, they all came to be part of our pastoral responsibility. Time passed—to make a long story short—the man died, the mother grew old, the boy grew up. Among his colleagues, he filled the post of reader and soon began to appear to be a good prospect so that our brother, Urbanus, then a presbyter here and prior of the monastery, now the bishop of Sicca, while I was away, wanted to have him become a presbyter in some nearby rural area in our diocese. . . .
(3) Then there came a time when I could no longer cope in the way that was required with a diocese suddenly made so much larger by the influx of converted Donatists not only in the town itself but also in the surrounding rural districts. Talking this over with the clergy, it seemed to me that in the area of the village of Fussala, which came under the see of Hippo, someone should be ordained bishop to whose care this charge could be entrusted. I contacted the primate; he agreed to come. At the last minute, the presbyter I thought I had ready ran out on us. What was I to do to avoid postponing so important a matter? I was afraid that the elderly gentleman who had come such a long distance to us would be coming on a fruitless mission and that all those who were to be the beneficiaries would be crushed. There they would find those whom the enemies of the Church would deceive, by jeering at our frustrated endeavor. So I decided that it would be best to put forward for ordination one who was available, especially since I had heard that he knew Punic, and so, when I did put him forward, the responsibility was mine. [The people of Fussala] did not ask for him on their own initiative, but they did not dare refuse someone from my own community whom I liked.
(4) Thus did I thrust such a burden on this young man, hardly more than twenty years of age, one not tested previously in other ranks of the clergy. The things I should have known about him earlier, I did not. So you see my great sin; now consider the consequences. At first the young man was frightened, rising so suddenly to the honor of the episcopate but without deserving such promotion by his previous work. Then, seeing both clergy and laity subject to him, he quickly learned the lesson and became puffed up with the arrogance of power. Rather than teaching by example, he gave orders, forcing people to do his will. He was happy to see himself feared when he did not see himself loved.
(5) As if to fill out the role completely, he sought out others like himself. There was in our monastery a copyist from my staff who, to my sorrow, had not turned out very well. Because he was once found by the prior of the monastery alone at an unreasonable hour talking with certain nuns, he was punished with a beating and was generally thereafter held in low esteem. This is the one who, taking off from the monastery, betook himself as quickly as possible to this same bishop about whom we have been talking and was ordained presbyter by the same, though I knew nothing about it and my views were not sought. Before I had heard what was done, how could I have believed what was going to happen, even if someone worthy of credence had pointed it out to me? Then, when I began to dread the coming desolation of that church because of him, I ask you to understand the grief that flooded into my heart though I cannot fully explain it to myself. . . . He also made another deacon, one sent to him in correct fashion from the monastery, though the man in question did not appear to be unsettled before he became a deacon.
(6) Through these two clerics, presbyter and deacon, and through the defender of the Church,49 and through whomever else, whether former soldier or deserter, to whom he habitually gave orders, and through those men of the same village whom he made guards for the night watches, and those he used when there was need for some slightly greater force—what evils that village and the surrounding territory endured because of these men, anyone can learn who can stomach reading the record which was drawn up in sadness from the testimony of many given in the presence of the bishops gathered in Hippo, among whom I also sat. There the reader will find the sorrowful grievances of poor men and women and, worse still, of widows whom neither the very name which Holy Scripture commends to us as in special need of protection nor even old age was able to shelter to some degree from the thefts and pillaging and unspeakable injuries which were done by them. Anyone who fell into their clutches lost money, furnishings, clothing, farm animals, fruits, wood, finally even stones. The homes of some people were taken over, the houses of others were even demolished, to provide materials necessary for new buildings; some things were "purchased," but payment was nev-
49. "Defender of the Church" (Defensor ecclesiae): a lay official charged with protecting the welfare and legal rights of the local church. The Council of Carthage in 407 asked for the establishment of this position. The bishop nominated the candidate, and the emperor approved the choice.
The Bishop
er made; some people had their fields occupied; they were handed back but only after all the produce from several years had been carried off. . . .
(8) [At a tribunal held in Hippo] we ordered that all the spoils be restored, but we allowed the bishop to keep his episcopal rank safe and intact. But in order that those evil deeds not remain completely unpunished, lest they be perpetuated by him, or imitated by others, we permitted him only this much: that he sit as a bishop on one of his cathedrae, lest it be said that he had been transferred to another, that we were acting against the canons, and that he might no longer remain in control at Fussala since the people there would tolerate him no longer.50 I think that this type of penalty should be seen as a blessing, for if he stayed there where they did not want him, his presence might inflame dangerously their already bitter hatred. We did not imagine it possible to enter into communion with him again until the stolen goods were first restored. This decision of ours he also embraced to the extent that he did not appeal, and after a very few days he was able to make restitution for the pillaged goods with borrowed money so that communion would not be withheld from him any longer. And many of the brethren and my sons consequently felt sorry for him, as I did, because of the serious capital offenses of four counts of sexual assault which some people (though not the inhabitants of Fussala, but others whom he had injured in some way) either had charged him with or intended to do so. He was cleared of these charges by the best evidence available so that they in fraternal joy congratulated him on the outcome.51 . . . [Initially Antoninus accepted the verdict but then appealed to Pope Boniface, who demanded a fresh investigation and a retrial. The long middle section of the letter details negotiations, fact-finding missions, the gathering of witnesses and collecting of formal depositions, as well as Antoninus's often clever diversionary legal maneuvers. The affair came to a head once Antoninus realized he would never regain his seat of power in Fussala.]
(25) Then when he found himself being urged by the words of the bishops to whom he could not respond, at last what was hidden in his heart came out, and, with frightful countenance and words, he said he would never accept the proposition that there was no possibility of bringing about his return to the see of Fussala. When we heard this, I began to press the primate that something should be done with him in line with the decisions at Tegulata for the digest of proceedings that could be sent to the apostolic see. "I am not going to say anything for the record," he declared, and he got up and stormed out. He immediately came back in and, disturbed mentally and physically, threat-
50. "The canons": Canon 15 of Nicaea forbade the translation of a bishop from one see to another. 51. "Counts of sexual assault" (stuprum): If Antoninus had been found guilty of this, he could have been given the death penalty; that is why his being cleared was such a relief to Augustine and his colleagues.