V. Polemic-Theological works.
These are the most copious sources of the history of Christian doctrine in the patristic age. The heresies collectively are reviewed in the book De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, written between 428 and 430 to a friend and deacon in Carthage, and give a survey of eighty-eight heresies, from the Simonians to the Pelagians. 1 In the work De vera religione (390), Augustin proposed to show that the true religion is to be found not with the heretics and schismatics, but only in the catholic church of that time.
The other controversial works are directed against the particular heresies of Manichaeism, Donatism, Arianism, Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Augustin, with all the firmness of his convictions, was free from personal antipathy, and used the pen of controversy in the genuine Christian spirit, fortiter in re, suaviter in modo. He understood Paul's aletheuein en agape, and forms in this respect a pleasing contrast to Jerome, who had by nature no more fiery temperament than he, but was less able to control it. "Let those," he very beautifully says to the Manichaeans, "burn with hatred against you, who do not know how much pains it costs to find the truth, how hard it is to guard against error;--but I, who after so great and long wavering came to know the truth, must bear myself towards you with the same patience which my fellow-believers showed towards me while I was wandering in blind madness in your opinions." 2
