The year St. Augustine stayed home waiting for school fees

THAGASTE, Numidia, 371 AD — In 369 AD, Saint Augustine had nothing to do. His father, Patricius, was collecting the money to send him to the schools of Carthage, and it took several months. Until the money was there, the boy stayed at home in Thagaste.

Fees went straight into the hand of the master. A teacher lived on whatever his pupils brought him.

Patricius was one of the town councillors of Thagaste. The family was well thought of, but they did not have much money. The councillors had to hand the town’s share of the emperor’s taxes to the Roman governor out of their own pockets. Afterwards they got back from the townspeople what they could. On top of that, Patricius had taken on the training of a son. It cost him more than he had.

The money was the trouble

St. Augustine had done well at school. He learned grammar at Thagaste and was then sent to the schools of Madaura. He did so well at Madaura that his father decided to send him to Carthage next. What Patricius wanted out of the schools was a son who could speak well. He did not worry about whether the boy was growing towards God, or about how he was living.

A rich man of the town called Romanianus, a friend of Patricius, had been helping with the schooling from the beginning. He had helped at Thagaste and at Madaura.

Patricius did not have the money, and he raised it anyway. Men in Thagaste with more than he had spent less on their own sons.

His father’s last year

In 369 AD, while St. Augustine was still at home, his father saw him at the public baths. Patricius realised the boy had grown up. He went home pleased and told his wife, Saint Monica, a Christian, that the boy was a man now. He was already looking ahead to grandchildren.

Patricius was warm with his friends, and he had a violent temper. In that town husbands beat their wives, and the women showed one another the marks in private. Those same women of Thagaste said that Patricius had never once struck St. Monica.

Not long before, Patricius had become a catechumen. He was enrolled for instruction in the Church, but he had not been baptised. In those days people often put baptism off. They believed that a sin committed after baptism was worse than a sin committed before it.

Patricius was baptised in 371 AD, at the close of his life. For years he had not been faithful to St. Monica. She never picked a quarrel with him about it, because she was waiting for Patricius to believe. After the baptism St. Monica had no more of that to bear. Patricius died that same year at Thagaste.

Towards the end of 370 AD St. Augustine had reached Carthage at last. He began studying rhetoric there, and he stayed. There were years of the course still to be paid for. From 371 AD the fees were paid out of St. Monica’s own money and with the help of Romanianus.