he Apostles
deserves to have no faith placed in it, when it is so loyal and is
supported by the conformity of so many brethren; when these have
handed down their writings to posterity so conscientiously, and when
the Church has so strictly maintained the succession of teachers, down
to our present bishops?"

Augustine's mode of thought told him, that with the coming of Christ
other conditions had set in for souls seeking after the spirit than
those which had previously existed. For him it was firmly established
that in Christ Jesus had been revealed in outer historical fact that
which the Mystic had sought in the Mysteries through preparation. One
of his most significant utterances is the following, "What is now
called the Christian religion already existed amongst the ancients and
was not lacking at the very beginnings of the human race. When Christ
appeared in the flesh, the true religion already in existence received
the name of Christian." There were two ways possible for such a method
of thought. One way is that if the human soul develops within it the
forces which lead it to the knowledge of its true self, it will, if it
only goes far enough, come also to the knowledge of the Christ and of
everything connected with him. This would have been a mystery-wisdom
enriched through the Christ event. The other way is taken by Augustine
and is that by which he became the great model for his successors. It
consists in cutting off the development of the forces of the soul at a
certain point, and in borrowing the ideas connected with the coming
of Christ from written accounts and oral traditions. Augustine
rejected the first way as springing from pride of the soul; he thought
the second was the way of true humility. Thus he says to those who
wished to follow the first way: "You may find peace in the truth, but
for that humility is needed, which does not suit your proud neck." On
the other hand, he was filled with boundless inward happiness by the
fact that since the coming of Christ in the flesh, it was possible to
say that every soul can come to spiritual experience which goes as far
as it can in seeking within itself, and then, in order to attain to
the highest, has confidence in what the written and oral traditions of
the Christian Church tell us about the Christ and his revelation. He
says on this point: "What bliss, what abiding enjoyment of supreme and
true good is offered us, what serenity, what a breath of eternity! Ho