As was possible for a leader of the Christian church in his era in the Roman Empire, Augustine had the civic responsibility of being a magistrate.
His court sessions were called the audientia episcopalis (Latin for the "bishop's hearing," or the bishop's tribunal). Previously as a layman even before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine had seen Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, enveloped in the demands of this expected role. As a bishop himself ten years later, Augustine experienced at first hand how challenging and demanding this task could be.
Augustine discovered that his role as a magistrate afforded him public visibility and attention in Hippo far more quickly than did his role as a Catholic bishop. It attracted people to him. The bishop - and especially a dynamic one like Augustine - could be a vital figure in the administration of the law in a town. He had the authority to settle disputes by imposing a settlement, or by arbitration between the disputing parties. He offered a free, speedy and uncorrupt settlement of cases, even for those who were not Christian. The way he acted as bishop drew upon his Christian values, and demonstrated them to those who came to him as a magistrate.
Possidius, a fellow bishop and lifelong colleague of Augustine, wrote that the bishop held morning sessions, often right through until lunch time. Augustine was constantly called upon to adjudicate all kinds of issues that had arisen in Hippo. According to comments by Augustine in his letters, these issues varied from disputes over property and slavery ownership, contracts, and inheritance to accusations of adultery. He was empowered by civil law to impose fines or flogging. The unavailability of details about the cases heard by Augustine makes it difficult to know whether in specific instances he was exercising civil jurisdiction as a magistrate, ecclesiastical jurisdiction as a bishop, or was simply being a mediator or arbiter and not acting officially as magistrate or bishop. The task was not only time-consuming, but required a bishop to walk a fine line between justice and mercy. He was aware that any formal judgments of his tribunal had to accord with Roman law.
Even so, in the eyes of many citizens it was a world in which the leader of the local church was more to be trusted as a judge than was a public officer sent from Italy to represent Roman justice. As well, the bishop was permitted to exercise evangelical gentleness (in Latin, mansuetudo) to urge parties to reconciliation. In Letter 134 he commented that civil judges were primarily concerned with the deterrent effect of punishment, while bishops first sought to promote the moral conversion of the accused. Augustine also urged civil magistrates to adopt this priority. In his Letter 133 to a Roman tribune he interceded for Donatists accused of murder, and sought less harshness in their interrogation and sentencing.
In numerous parts of his writings he stated his abhorrence for the use of torture to extract information or to obtain confessions. In one particular in which he was acting as an official magistrate, he wrote his Letter 24 to a Roman legal expert for clarification of technical matters of law about slavery. In his biography of Augustine, Serge Lancel, emeritus professor of Latin literature and Roman civilization at the University of Grenoble, France, detects what might be called today a preferential option for the poor by Augustine in this endeavour.
Lancel cites the words of Augustine in his Commentary on Psalm 72, 12: "For He delivers the poor when they call, those who have no helper." Augustine wrote: "It is one thing to sin in need, another to sin in plenty. If a poor man commits a theft, his crime is the result of his hunger. Why should a rich man who is overflowing with so much steal the property of another person?" He did not like being an officer of the court. Augustine also wrote, "When it comes to my own creature comforts, I would much prefer to do some manual work at set times, as it is laid down in well regulated monasteries, (De opera monachorum - "The Work of Monks")He said he preferred that rather than to be exposed to the complexities of other people's arguments in secular affairs that have to be settled by a judgment or concluded by an intervention. Another area where the bishop was a victim of unclear law was the matter of protective sanctuary inside churches sought by persons who were literally being pursued by government officials; this form of sanctuary was used most frequently by debtors, who then literally had space to come to some arrangement with the pursuing creditors so as to be able to exit the church building. The practice of seeking sanctuary was based on earlier Greek and Roman tradition of sanctuary existing in pagan sacred places. The exact mixture of accepted practice and formal law on the matter of sanctuary was open to interpretation.
The bishops at the Council of Carthage in 399 petitioned the emperor to clarify the situation by affirming the legal protection of sanctuary for anybody who sought it for any reason whatsoever, i.e., that nobody could be followed into a church and dragged outside by anyone in pursuit. This broad interpretation was granted by a later emperor in the year 419, and also extended to include any place within fifty feet outside the doors of any Christian church. AN1315