Latin Theological Quotes Worth Knowing: St. Augustine on the Authority of the Church

Our next quote comes from St. Augustine (Contra epistulam Manichaei [Against the letter of Manichaeus] 5). In this quote he tells us why he believes in the Gospel.

Latin:
ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me commoveret catholicae ecclesiae auctoritas.

Literal Translation of the English:
I would not believe in the gospel, unless the authority of the catholic church were impelling me.

First a fascinating (at least to me) grammatical observation. The use of two imperfect subjunctive verbs in a conditional sentence like this is called the "Present Contrary to Fact" condition. Notice that what is "Contrary to Fact" here is that he does not believe (because he does).

Notice with his word order St. Augustine saves the main point for last. Generally speaking, anytime a Roman departs from the traditional "Subject-Object-Verb" word order, it is providing emphasis. It is the AUTHORITY of the Catholic Church that has compelled him to faith. Even though he attributes his conversion to reading a verse of Scripture (Romans 13:13), reflection years later on his faith journey inclines him to place his faith in the Gospel on the authority of the Church, not the Bible. 

Here is a grammatical study of the passage:

Latin	English	Parsing	Grammar Points
ego	I	1st pers. sing. nom. pronoun
vero	truly		adv.
evangelio	the gospel	dat. sing. neut. noun	evangelium, evangelii
non	not		adv.
crederem	would believe	1st pers. sing. imperf. act. subj. verb	crēdō, crēdere, crēdidī, crēditus
nisi	unless		conj.
me	me	1st pers. sing. acc. pronoun
commoveret	were shaking	3rd pers. sing. imperf. act. subj. verb	commoveō, commovēre, commōvī, commōtus
catholicae	of the catholic	gen. sing. fem. adj.	catholicus, catholica, catholicum
ecclesiae	[of the] church	gen. sing. fem. noun	ecclesia, ecclesiae
auctoritas	authority	nom. sing. fem. noun	auctoritas, auctoritatis