St Augustine is “occasional”, or in the wide sense ascetical, by nature, and it is doubtful if he could have approached theology in any other way. “The difference between Augustine and his predecessors lies neither in the problem he raised nor in the solution he provided, but in the intensity with which he lived his problem.”1 “A … trait which distinguishes the spirit of Augustinian philosophy from that of any other is its continual refusal to separate speculation from action.… Augustinism recognizes