64. Vita 28 (Geerlings, 82–84); trans. Muller and Deferrari, FOTC 15:108–10. (continued)
chapter 4
Augustine the Preacher
Augustine's friend, Possidius of Calama, once remarked that "those who read what Augustine has written in his works on divine subjects profit greatly, but I believe that the ones who really profited were those who actually heard him and saw him speak in church."1 Augustine was, by all accounts, a virtuoso orator, a fact that even enemies acknowledged.2 In this chapter, we take a look at the Augustine his North African congregation knew best, Augustine the preacher.
The main church in Hippo was known as the Basilica Major (also called the Basilica Pacis, "Basilica of Peace"). Its ruins were excavated in the 1950s, and its floor plan—41 yards long, 20 yards wide—makes it one of the largest churches uncovered in Roman North Africa.3 It lay on the outskirts of town, away from the central marketplace with its old pagan temples. The first thing one would have noticed upon entering Augustine's church was the flicker of flames from small oil lamps, filling the interior with a golden glow. The basilica's floor, like that of many ancient Christian churches, was inlaid with bright-colored mosaics. There were no pews. The congregation stood, men on one side, women on the other. Services could draw packed audiences. "The great numbers," Augustine once noted, "crowd right up to the walls; they annoy each other by the pressure and almost choke each other by their over-
1. Vita 31 (Geerlings, 104); my trans. 2. Secundinus, a Manichean opponent, once called Augustine "a consummate orator and a god of eloquence" (Ep. ad Augustinum 3 [BA 17:514]).
3. Erwan Marec oversaw the archeological excavation of Hippo for two decades. His research appears in Monuments chrétiens d'Hippone: Ville épiscopale de saint Augustin (Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1958). Most scholars now accept that the ruins uncovered are those of Augustine's main church. For an overview, see Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine, 235–44; George Radan, "The Basilica Pacis of Hippo," in Schnaubelt and Van Fleteren, Augustine in Iconography, 147–88. Other church properties in Hippo include the older Basilica Leontiana and a chapel (memoria) that housed the relics of St. Stephen.