Augustine said:
‘To Carthage I came where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I loved not as yet, yet I loved to love; and, with a hidden want, I abhorred myself that I wanted not. I searched about for something to love, in love with loving, and hating security, and a way not beset with snares...For this reason my soul was far from well, and, full of ulcers, it miserably cast itself forth, craving to be excited by contact with objects of sense...To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved. I befouled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I dimmed its luster with the hell of lustfulness; and yet, foul and dishonorable as I was, I craved though and excess of vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane. I fell precipitately then...’
And this was the man whom God made into a saint so mighty that he over- tops the ages, ranks as second figure in the great Evangelical Succession, and spreads the brightness of his sanctity through all the centuries since.
No branch of the church could exist without saints. Indeed, their presence is one proof that it is a true branch of the vine. Only God can make a saint. God, therefore, is in any branch of the church in which they grow. It would be a telling part of the answer of any Christians to those who would unchurch them, simply to say: ‘Look at our saints’. How the saint is defined, and whether or not precision in definition is possible, is a subject which must engage us later. Our present concern is only to stress the church’s need of saints. Not only is their presence in the church proof of God’s presence also, but a chief means in the education of those who come after. [part V]