St. Augustine names his successor, but keeps him a priest for now

HIPPO REGIUS, Numidia, September 26, 426 AD — Saint Augustine of Hippo named Eraclius, one of the priests of his church, as his successor today, before a crowd larger than usual in the Church of Peace. He had the church’s notaries write down his words and every shout of the people’s consent. But he ruled that Eraclius would stay a priest and would not be made a bishop until after St. Augustine’s death. Instead he handed the younger man all the business the people used to bring to their bishop, and asked to be left free to study Scripture.

St. Augustine is 71 and has been bishop of this port in Numidia for about thirty years. He had often seen churches thrown into turmoil after their bishop died, by men who wanted the office or were out for a quarrel, and he meant to spare Hippo that. He needed two things from the people of Hippo. The first was their consent, on the record, to the man he had chosen. The second was a promise to leave him free for his work on Scripture, and they had made that promise once before and broken it.

St. Augustine had raised the matter the day before and asked them to come. He took his seat with two other bishops. Seven priests of the city were present, Eraclius among them, and the rest of the clergy and a large crowd of lay people stood around them. He told them the succession had to be settled at once, because they were so taken up with it that they would hardly listen to anything else.

He began with his age. Every stage of life looks forward to the next, he said, “but old age has no other period of this life to look forward to with expectation.” “I came to this town — for such was the will of God — when I was in the prime of life. I was young then, but now I am old,” St. Augustine told them.

Only recently St. Augustine had been at Milevis, another town in Numidia, because Christians there feared trouble after the death of their bishop, Severus, and asked him to come. Severus had chosen his successor, but he had told the name only to his clergy, not to the people, and some of the people were unhappy. The complaints died down, and the man Severus chose was ordained. St. Augustine said he wanted no such complaint at Hippo, and then gave the name: “I wish to have for my successor the presbyter Eraclius.”

The people shouted “To God be thanks! To Christ be praise!” twenty-three times, “O Christ, hear us; may Augustine live long!” sixteen times, and “We will have you as our father, you as our bishop” eight times. The notaries counted every cry and wrote down the number. Each time St. Augustine spoke again, he first had to wait for the crowd to be quiet.

He would not praise Eraclius to his face. “I esteem his wisdom and spare his modesty; it is enough that you know him,” St. Augustine said. Then he pointed the people to the notaries at work. “The notaries of the church are, as you observe, recording what I say, and recording what you say,” he said. The written record, he told them, would make the choice firm as far as that lay in human hands. For the rest, he asked them to pray that God would confirm what He had done among them. The people answered with round after round of cheers, and a little later cried “You, our father! Eraclius, our bishop!” six times.

Then St. Augustine told them there was one thing he would not do: Eraclius would not be made a bishop while St. Augustine lived. The Council of Nicaea had forbidden ordaining a second bishop for a church while its own bishop was still alive.

About thirty years earlier, Valerius, then bishop of Hippo, was old and ill, and afraid that another church would take St. Augustine from him. Valerius wrote secretly to the bishop of Carthage and asked that St. Augustine be made bishop of Hippo alongside him. When the senior bishop of Numidia came to visit Hippo, Valerius announced his wish to the bishops, the clergy and the people, and they called loudly for it to be done. St. Augustine refused, because his own bishop was still alive, until they told him it was commonly done in Africa and overseas. Then he gave in. In the years after, St. Augustine got the councils of bishops to require that the rules be explained to men before they were ordained.

Everyone in the church knew what had been done in his case, St. Augustine told them, except those not yet born at the time or too young to understand it. “When my father and bishop, the aged Valerius, of blessed memory, was still living, I was ordained bishop and occupied the episcopal see along with him which I did not know to have been forbidden by the Council of Nicaea; and he was equally ignorant of the prohibition,” St. Augustine said. “I do not wish to have my son here exposed to the same censure as was incurred in my own case.” He gave his ruling: “He shall be as he now is, a presbyter, meanwhile; but afterwards, at such time as may please God, your bishop.”

Then St. Augustine raised the question of time for his work on Scripture. Councils of bishops in Numidia and at Carthage had given him that work, and the people of Hippo had agreed that no one would come to him with business on five days of each week. The agreement was written down, the people shouted their consent, and the record was read back to them. The people kept the agreement for a short time and then stopped. “Forenoon and afternoon alike, I am involved in the affairs of other people demanding my attention,” St. Augustine said.

He asked their permission to pass that part of his work to Eraclius, whom he called “this young man.” The people shouted “We give thanks for your decision” twenty-six times.

From now on, St. Augustine said, everything the people used to bring to him was to go to Eraclius. St. Augustine would still give his advice whenever Eraclius needed it, and Eraclius could come to him as to a father. St. Augustine would give the rest of his days, “be they few or many,” to the study of Scripture, “so far as Eraclius kindly gives me leave.” “Let no one therefore grudge me this leisure, for I claim it only in order to do important work,” he said.

He asked everyone who could to sign their names to the record, and called for their answer. The people shouted their assent in round after round, among them “O Christ, hear us; preserve Eraclius!” eighteen times.

It was now the hour set for prayer. St. Augustine closed by asking the congregation to put aside their own work and business, and to “pour out before the Lord your petitions for this church, and for me, and for the presbyter Eraclius.”