I don't know that he said it was "deficient." He said that while +Augustine mastered Latin, he didn't do as well with Greek. I found equally interesting Benedict's comment that +Augustine found the Latin translation of the bible to be "insufficient." In order to come to that conclusion, wouldn't +Augustine need a pretty good grasp of Greek (assuming he was comparing the Greek and Latin versions)?
A very interesting point on language and insufficient knowledge of Greek as one of the possible starting points of the Schism. +Gregory the Great, if I recall correctly, was the first Bishop of Rome to have no real knowledge of Greek, and during his pontificate the fracture greatly accelerated.
“I don’t know that he said it was “deficient.” “
Deficient was my word. I think the Holy Father was being, as ever, politic!
“In order to come to that conclusion, wouldn’t +Augustine need a pretty good grasp of Greek (assuming he was comparing the Greek and Latin versions)?”
You know, its possible he was reading what was passing for scripture in those days in Punic and making a comparison to Latin. Its also possible that having been trained and acquired skill in classical Latin (as His Holiness points out), he may have been disappointed with a dog Latin version of some scripture. I think it is pretty well accepted that Blessed Augustine’s grasp of Greek was at best very limited.
Key though is that St. Augustine's huge volume of works (OVER 500 WORKS STILL EXTANT TODAY) were done in Latin, not Greek. Apparently he was not equally conversant in each language, since he didn't write in Greek, though he did read NT scripture in it's original language.
Since the Roman capitol was officially moved to Constantinople just before that time, and Rome's northern territories were starting to contract (Rome was 1st sacked in 411, the middle of +Augustine's career), the Latin and Greek worlds were slowly but surely drifting apart--quite unlike the era of the 1st Apostles.