slavery of incontinence and pride which had so long held him from 
decisive commitment to the Christian faith.  The second was the 
development of an adequate understanding of the Christian faith 
itself and his baptismal confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and 
Saviour.  The former was achieved in the Milanese garden.  The 
latter came more slowly and had no "dramatic moment." The 
dialogues that Augustine wrote at Cassiciacum the year following 
his conversion show few substantial signs of a theological 
understanding, decisively or distinctively Christian.  But by the 
time of his ordination to the presbyterate we can see the basic 
lines of a comprehensive and orthodox theology firmly laid out.  
Augustine neglects to tell us (in 398) what had happened in his 
thought between 385 and 391.  He had other questions, more 
interesting to him, with which to wrestle.

     One does not read far in the Confessions before he recognizes 
that the term "confess" has a double range of meaning.  On the one 
hand, it obviously refers to the free acknowledgment, before God, 
of the truth one knows about oneself -- and this obviously meant, 
for Augustine, the "confession of sins." But, at the same time, 
and more importantly, confiteri means to acknowledge, to God, the 
truth one knows about God.  To confess, then, is to praise and 
glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility 
in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.

     Thus the Confessions are by no means complete when the 
personal history is concluded at the end of Book IX.  There are 
two more closely related problems to be explored: First, how does 
the finite self find the infinite God (or, how is it found of 
him?)?  And, secondly, how may we interpret God's action in 
producing this created world in which such personal histories and 
revelations do occur?  Book X, therefore, is an exploration of 
_man's way to God_, a way which begins in sense experience but 
swiftly passes beyond it, through and beyond the awesome mystery 
of memory, to the ineffable encounter between God and the soul in 
man's inmost subject-self.  But such a journey is not complete 
until the process is reversed and man has looked as deeply as may 
be into the mystery of creation, on which all our history and 
experience depend.  In Book XI, therefore, we discover why _time_ 
is such a problem and how "In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth" is the basic formula of a massive Christian 
metaphysical world view.  In Books XII and XIII, Augustine 
elaborates, in loving patience and with considerable allegorical 
license, the mysteries of creation -- exegeting the first chapter 
of Genesis, verse by verse, until he is able to relate the whole 
round of creation to the point where we can view the drama of 
God's enterprise in human history on the vast stage of the cosmos 
itself.  The Creator is the Redeemer!  Man's end and the beginning 
meet at a single point!

     The Enchiridion is a briefer treatise on the grace of God and 
represents Augustine's fully matured theological perspective -- 
after the magnificent achievements of the De Trinitate and the 
greater part of the De civitate Dei, and after the tremendous 
turmoil of the Pelagian controversy in which the doctrine of grace 
was the exact epicenter.  Sometime in 421, Augustine received a 
request from one Laurentius, a Christian layman who was the 
brother of the tribune Dulcitius (for whom Augustine wrote the De 
octo dulcitii quaestionibus in 423-425).  This Laurentius wanted a 
handbook (enchiridion)  that would sum up the essential Christian 
teaching in the briefest possible form.  Augustine dryly comments 
that the shortest complete summary of the Christian faith is that 
God is to be served by man in faith, hope, and love.  Then, 
acknowledging that this answer might indeed be _too_ brief, he 
proceeds to expand it in an essay in which he tries unsuccessfully 
to subdue his natural digressive manner by imposing on it a 
patently artificial schematism.  Despite its awkward form, 
however, the Enchiridion is one of the most important of all of 
Augustine's writings, for it is a conscious effort of the 
theological magistrate of the Western Church to stand on final 
ground of testimony to the Christian truth.

     For his framework, Augustine chooses the Apostles' Creed and 
the Lord's Prayer.  The treatise begins, naturally enough, with a 
discussion of God's work in creation.  Augustine makes a firm 
distinction between the comparatively unimportant knowledge of 
nature and the supremely important acknowledgment of the Creator 
of nature.  But creation lies under the shadow of sin and evil and 
Augustine reviews his famous (and borrowed!) doctrine of the 
privative character of evil.  From this he digresses into an 
extended comment on error and lying as special instances of evil.  
He then returns to the hopeless case of fallen man, to which God's 
wholly unmerited grace has responded in the incarnation of the 
Mediator and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  The questions about the 
appropriation of God's grace lead naturally to a discussion of 
baptism and justification, and beyond these, to the Holy Spirit 
and the Church. Augustine then sets forth the benefits of 
redeeming grace and weighs the balance between faith and good 
works in the forgiven sinner.  But redemption looks forward toward 
resurrection, and Augustine feels he must devote a good deal of 
energy and subtle speculation to the questions about the manner 
and mode of the life everlasting.  From this he moves on to the 
problem of the destiny of the wicked and the mystery of 
predestination.  Nor does he shrink from these grim topics; 
indeed, he actually _expands_ some of his most rigid ideas of 
God's ruthless justice toward the damned.  Having thus treated the 
Christian faith and Christian hope, he turns in a too-brief 
concluding section to the virtue of Christian love as the heart of 
the Christian life.  This, then, is the "handbook" on faith, hope, 
and love which he hopes Laurence will put to use and not leave as