In the steps of Augustine of Hippo

The stone steps of the Roman Amphitheatre in Carthage are not the most comfortable seats to sit on after an hour, even on a star lit balmy evening in August. The concert was supposed to begin at 9.o’clock and like most things in Tunisia it is running late but everyone is in good humour from the jasmine and nut sellers wandering up and down the steps to the enormous crowds still ambling in unhurriedly.
As the music strikes up groups of aristocratic looking gentlemen in traditional long tunics which have remained in fashion here for at least two thousand years arrive and as the whole intoxicating entertainment begins with full audience participation, I feel this may well have been what Carthage was like over 1,500 years ago as a lively Roman provincial city.
This interests me for I am trying to recapture something of the atmosphere in which St Augustine of Hippo studied, lived, loved and later inspired his students as a charismatic teacher and then preacher in this idyllic place on the Mediterranean sea.
In the light of day Carthage is beautiful but with many reminders of its violent, prosperous and tragic past. On the green Byrsa hill overlooking the sea there is nothing left of Dido’s proud city or even the Roman villas built on those Carthaginian ruins where Augustine used to walk up to visit the Proconsul. Now on the summit of the hill is the 19th century Cathedral of St Louis which has mosaics depicting St Augustine’s life and behind it the National Museum of Carthage which houses the works of Augustine. Nearer the sea are the ruins of Roman baths, temples and walls, the arena where St Perpetua and Felicity early Tunisian saints were torn to pieces by the lions before Christianity became the state religion and the site where St Augustine presided over many of the endless Councils of Carthage to settle religious disputes. Not far away is the original amphitheatre regularly frequented by Augustine, a great theatre enthusiast, and his chums
The next day I sat in the sun overlooking the sea in one of the popular restaurants specialising in delicious fresh fish. As I sipped the fine Tunisian rose [forbidden of course in Islam but plentiful in Augustine’s time and for tourists now] I noticed small tourist laden cruisers tying up in the harbour - but when Augustine sailed for Rome in 383 he left from the Punic port which once held two hundred vessels. This lies a little farther along the coast and is now silted up and deserted.
Augustine spent four successful years in Italy as a professional rhetorician, first in Rome and then Milan where Ambrose was Bishop at that time. A zealous Manichean Christian Augustine became influenced by Ambrose and after much soul searching decided that his vocation lay in returning to his homeland and founding a monastery in the Christian Roman tradition.
The route across the North of Tunisia to the mountainous area in Algeria where Augustine was born on 13 November 354 and founded his monastery is rather different. Luckily the Head of Tunisian Health Spas offered to go with me as a guide and his driver took us past green hills with sheep and cattle [one rarely sees a cow south of Tunis] up steeper hills cutting through woods of cork oak and pine where there were signs up to say you could hunt wild boar. [In Augustine’s time there were also lions.]
We passed a number of small spas visited by the Romans and then drove down towards the sea into Korbous which has a great variety of healing springs where people come for treatments ranging from rheumatism to infertility. The Beys [Royal family] once had a summer palace here. We then went up into the hills into peaceful Hammam Bourguiba well known for its healing spring for respiratory ailments and its surprising Swiss style hotel clinic. The spring was used in Roman times and it is possible Augustine may have visited here for under stress he suffered breathing problems. In the hotel the tables as in Augustine’s time were laden with an amazing variety of Mediterranean fruits and vegetables like figs, almonds, oranges, olives to name a few because everything likes to grow here.
Showing my passport and visa we passed through the frontier into Algeria which was one with Tunisia until the French occupation. We drove through more oak forest, streams and springs, so untouched and fairy tale like I felt that one could spend hours or days here just thinking and meditating. When we stopped my companion cupped his hands and drank from a clear spring pouring out from under a rock saying what a wonderful fresh flavour it had and I could imagine Augustine doing much the same on the long trek by horse or foot to Annaba on the North coast [then called Hippo Regius] where he became a bishop. However he always felt very much at home in Carthage and as it was the diocesan capital he made the journey thirty three times in thirty years staying as long as he could and preaching as much as possible.
You would think that since Carthage and Annaba are harbours on the same coastline and not far from one another Augustine might have preferred sailing there on a fine day but the coastline then known as the Barbary Coast is rugged and dangerous and the sea was rife with pirates. In any case Augustine was not a keen sailor.
Up in the mountains some miles from Annaba is the birthplace of Augustine, a small place called Souk Ahras [then Thagaste]. His parents Patricius and Monica were Berber farmers who scrimped and saved so that Augustine would be educated in Latin and the classics like any noble Roman and his relationship with his mother was always very close.
In Annaba I saw the floodlit Basilica dedicated to St Augustine and his statue overlooking the harbour. Annaba is now a pretty French colonial town with mosques and in Augustine’s time a Roman colonial town, wealthy because of its fertile lands. Not far out of town there are still abundant olive groves that meant Augustine had no shortage of oil lamps when writing or studying into the night and he certainly missed this luxury when he was away.
The light is very special in North Africa, bright - almost ethereal - making colours clear and beautiful. Light was very important to Augustine and although he was not a great ‘Nature’ writer he wrote of the sun rising in the valley and perhaps this special sunlight was partly responsible for his passionate enthusiasm and energy which stayed with him throughout his long life. He died in Annaba in August 430 just as the Vandals were entering the city.
In Annaba my companion pointed out enclosed gardens with small fountains and bougainvillea, rosemary, lavender, jasmine and pots of mint. Arabs and Romans before them always loved such secluded gardens where they could walk or sit in the scented shade. Augustine too in later life wanted a garden like this for his monastery but where vegetables and fruit could also be grown for he made it a rule that a vegetarian diet was followed.
St Augustine is greatly revered among modern Islamic Algerians and Tunisians. After all he is one of their famous sons, and in many of their customs and in their character - passionate, health conscious, sociable and always eager to talk about God - I feel that as a very ordinary ‘untheological’ person I have got to know a little better this great, very complicated and fascinating Christian Saint.
First published in Church Times 12 January 2001 and in the anthology ‘To be a Pilgrim’ [pub. Kevin Mayhew] in 2002