As it seems to me, dearly beloved son Dulcitius, I have not been slow to answer your questions. For this year at Easter, when I was at home with my own people, I received on the thirtieth of March the letter your Charity had sent me from Carthage.

But after those holy days I set out at once for Carthage, where the excessive press of business that cannot be lacking in that city left me no time to dictate anything.

But after I returned from there, having spent fifteen days among my own people, who after my long absence compelled me to attend to other matters (for I had been permitted to return only after three months), I did not put off writing back about these things; and as for the questions you had sent me, which I had already treated in various small works of mine, I have given from those same works either the solution or at least my discussion of them. Finally, the one point alone where you ask why the Lord, who surely foreknew the future, said, I have chosen David according to my own heart (1 Sam 13:14), though that man had committed such great offenses—where I treated this and how I explained it, I could not find, and whether it is in any book or letter of mine I do not know.

And for this reason, since you have laid upon me from this the necessity of a fresh discussion, I have put it last in this reply of mine, wishing first to set down what I had ready in my other volumes, so as neither to fail your Holiness in your zeal—which is most welcome to me—nor to be compelled to say the same things in another way, which would have been most laborious for me and would have helped you nothing further.

1.1. Your first proposition, then, is this: whether at some point those who are sinners after baptism come out of hell. For on this matter, you say, there are differing opinions, some replying that, just as the reward of the just has no end, so neither do the torments of sinners. For they want to maintain that the punishment endures as eternally as the reward. Against these is set that gospel statement which says: 'you will not come out from there until you have paid the last penny (Matt 5:26).'

It remains, then, that once this is paid one can come out. We believe this too from the Apostle's pronouncement, who says: 'but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor 3:15).'

But since we read elsewhere, you say: 'and he did not know her until she had brought forth (Matt 1:25),' which we cannot interpret in that way, we therefore desire to be made more certain about this. Thus far your proposition.

1.2. To this I reply out of my book entitled Faith and Works, where I spoke as follows on this matter. James, I said, is so vehemently opposed to those who think that faith without works avails for salvation that he even compares them to the demons, saying: 'you believe that there is one God: you do well; the demons also believe and tremble (Jas 2:19).'

What could be said more briefly, more truly, more forcefully, since in the Gospel too we read that the demons said this, when they confessed Christ to be the Son of God and were rebuked by him (See Matt 8:28-32; Mark 1:24-25)—the very thing that was praised in Peter's confession (See Matt 16:16-17)?

'What will it profit,' says James, 'my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him?' He also says: 'that faith without works is dead (Jas 2:14, 20).' How far astray, then, are those who promise themselves eternal life from a dead faith?

1.3. Therefore we must attend diligently to how that statement of the Apostle Paul is to be taken—plainly difficult to understand—where he says: 'for no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus. But if anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will be made manifest. For the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed in fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one's is. If anyone's work that he has built up endures, he will receive a reward; but if anyone's work burns, he will suffer loss. He himself, however, will be saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor 3:11-15).'

1.4. If this is so, we admit that these people, with a praiseworthy love, are striving to have all admitted to baptism without distinction—not only adulterers and adulteresses who put forward false marriages against the Lord's pronouncement, but even public prostitutes persisting in their most shameful profession, whom certainly no Church, however negligent, has been accustomed to admit unless they were first freed from that prostitution.

But then those texts would be false which have neither obscurity nor ambiguity: 'if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing' (1 Cor 13:2); and: 'what will it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him? (Jas 2:14).'

And that text too would be false: 'do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the abusive, nor the rapacious will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10).' And that one false too: 'the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, shamelessness, debauchery, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, quarrels, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and the like, of which I forewarn you, as I have forewarned you, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21).'

And such were some of you, but you have been washed (1 Cor 6:11), 'though even when washed they are such things.'

Pointless too will seem what Peter said: 'so baptism likewise saves you in a similar fashion—not the putting off of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience' (1 Pet 3:21); since even those who have the worst consciences, full of every disgrace and crime, and unchanged by repentance for those evils, are nonetheless saved by baptism; for on account of the foundation laid in that same baptism, though through fire, they will be saved.

This too I do not see: why the Lord said, 'if you would come to life, keep the commandments (Matt 19:17-19),' and recalled those that pertain to good conduct, if even without keeping these one can come to life through faith alone, which 'without works is dead.' And then, how will that be true which he will say to those whom he will set on his left:

For surely, lest anyone promise himself eternal life from a faith that without works is dead, he said for this reason that he would separate all the nations, which had been using the same pastures intermingled, so that it might appear that those who said to him, 'Lord, when did we see you suffering this and that and did not minister to you?' are those who believed in him but took no care to do good works, as though one might attain eternal life from that very dead faith.

Or will those go into eternal fire who did not do works of mercy, and those not go who plundered what belonged to others, or who, by corrupting the temple of God in themselves, were unmerciful toward themselves—as though works of mercy profit anything without love, when the Apostle says: 'if I distribute all I have to the poor but have not love, it profits me nothing' (1 Cor 13:3); or as though anyone loves his neighbor as himself who does not love himself?

'For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps 11:5 (10:6)).' Nor can that be said here in which some deceive themselves, namely, that 'eternal fire' was said, not eternal punishment itself. For they suppose that those to whom, on account of a dead faith, they promise salvation through fire will pass through a fire that will indeed be eternal, so that the fire itself is eternal but the burning of them—that is, the operation of the fire—is not eternal in them; whereas the Lord, foreseeing this too, as Lord concluded his pronouncement thus, saying: 'so these will go into eternal burning, but the just into eternal life (Matt 25:45-46).' The burning, then, will be eternal as the fire is, and the Truth said that those will go into it whose good works—not faith—he declared to be lacking. How the Apostle's passage is to be understood.

1.5. If, then, all these texts, and countless others that can be found stated without ambiguity throughout the Scriptures, are false, the true sense can be that interpretation about the wood and hay and straw, namely, that those will be saved through fire who, holding only faith in Christ, neglected good works. But if these texts are both true and clear, then beyond doubt another sense must be sought in that statement of the Apostle, and it is to be reckoned among those things which Peter says are in his writings hard to understand; which men ought not to pervert to their own destruction, so as, against the most evident testimonies of the Scriptures, to make the most wicked secure about attaining salvation while they cling most stubbornly to their wickedness, unchanged by amendment or repentance.

1.6. Here it may perhaps be asked of me what I myself think about that statement of the Apostle Paul, and in what way I judge it should be understood. I confess that I would rather hear on this matter those more intelligent and learned, who would so expound it that all those things remain true and unshaken which I have recalled above, and whatever others I have not recalled,

by which Scripture testifies most plainly that faith profits nothing except that faith which the Apostle defined, that is, 'which works through love (Gal 5:6),' and that without works it cannot save, neither apart from fire nor through fire, because if it saves through fire, then it is faith that saves. And it has been said absolutely and openly: 'what does it profit, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith save him?' (Jas 2:14).

Christ is the foundation in the structure of the wise architect. This needs no exposition; for it has been openly stated: 'for no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:11).'

But if Christ, then beyond doubt the faith of Christ; for through faith Christ dwells in our hearts, as the same Apostle says (See Eph 3:17); and further, if the faith of Christ, then surely that which the Apostle defined: 'which works through love'; for that faith of the demons—since they too believe and tremble and confess Jesus to be the Son of God (See Matt 8:28-29)—cannot be taken as the foundation. Why, except that it is not a faith that works through love, but one that is wrung out through fear? The faith of Christ, then—the faith of Christian grace, that is, the faith which works through love—placed in the foundation, allows no one to perish.

'you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 19:18-19).' Doing these things in the faith of Christ, he would beyond doubt hold the faith which works through love. For he would not love his neighbor as himself unless he had received the love of God, without which he would not love himself.

Further, if he were also to do what the Lord added, saying: 'if you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me (Matt 19:21),' he would build upon that foundation gold, silver, precious stones; for he would think of nothing but the things of God, how he might please God; and these thoughts are, as I judge, gold, silver, precious stones.

But if he were held by a certain carnal affection regarding his riches—even though out of them he gave many alms, and contrived no fraud or robbery to increase them, nor, through fear of diminishing or losing them, slipped into any crime or disgrace (otherwise he would by that very thing withdraw himself from the stability of that foundation)—but, as I said, on account of the carnal affection he had for them, by which he could not be without such goods without pain, he would build upon that foundation wood, hay, straw, especially if he also had a wife in such a way that on her account too he would think of the things of the world, how he might please his wife.

These things, then, since loved with carnal affection they are not lost without pain, those who hold them in such a way—yet so as to have in the foundation the faith which works through love, and who in no way and by no desire prefer these things to it—when in their loss they have suffered detriment, come to salvation through a certain fire of pain. From which pain and detriment each one is the more secure the less he loved those things, or the more he held them as though not having them (1 Cor 7:29). But whoever, for the sake of keeping or gaining them, has committed murder, adultery, fornication, idolatry, and any such things, will not be saved through fire on account of the foundation, but, the foundation lost, will be tormented in eternal fire. Another passage of the Apostle vainly cited by those who teach that faith without works saves.

1.7. Wherefore that text too which they cite, as if wishing to prove how much faith alone avails, where the Apostle says: 'but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; for the brother or sister is not bound to servitude in such cases (1 Cor 7:15),' that is, "that for the sake of the faith of Christ even one's own lawful wife, joined in lawful union, may be left without any fault, if she should be unwilling to remain with a Christian husband for the very reason that he is a Christian"—

For then the man to whom his wife says this, if he has truly done penance for dead works when he came to baptism, and has in the foundation the faith which works through love, will beyond doubt be held more by love of divine grace than of his wife's flesh, and he strongly cuts off the member that scandalizes him. But whatever pain of heart he sustains in this separation on account of the carnal affection for his spouse—this is the detriment he will suffer, this is the fire through which, the hay burning, he himself will be saved. But if he already held his wife as though not having her—not for the sake of concupiscence but for mercy, lest perchance he might save her, rendering rather than exacting the marriage debt—then surely he will not grieve carnally when such a union is severed from him, for he was thinking of nothing in her but the things of God, how he might please God (See 1 Cor 7:29-32). And to this extent, insofar as he was building gold, silver, and precious stones upon those thoughts, he will suffer no detriment; to that extent his structure, which was not of hay, will be consumed by no fire.

1.8. Whether, then, men suffer such things in this life only, or whether after this life too certain such judgments follow, this understanding of this statement is not, as I judge, repugnant to the reason of truth. Yet even if there is another that does not occur to me which should rather be chosen, so long as we hold this one we are not compelled to say to the unjust and insubordinate, to the wicked and defiled, to parricides, matricides, murderers, fornicators, men who lie with men, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, which is according to the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God: 'if only you believe in Christ and receive the sacrament of his baptism, then even if you do not change this most wicked life of yours, you will be saved (See 1 Tim 1:9-11).'

1.9. Hence neither does that Canaanite woman prescribe a rule for us, in that the Lord granted her what she asked, though he had first said: 'it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs,' because he, the searcher of hearts, saw her changed when he praised her.

And so he did not say, "O dog, great is your faith," but: 'O woman, great is your faith (Matt 15:26, 28).' He changed the word because he saw the disposition changed, and he recognized that that rebuke had borne fruit.

1.10. Likewise in that book whose title is Faith, Hope, and Charity, which I wrote to my son, your brother Laurence, these words of mine bear on this matter. Some believe, I said, that even those who do not forsake the name of Christ and are baptized in his font in the Church, and are not cut off from it by any schism or heresy, however great the crimes in which they live—crimes they neither wash away by repenting nor redeem by alms, but persist in most stubbornly to the last day of this life—will yet be saved through fire, though punished, in proportion to the magnitude of their crimes and disgraces, by a fire that is long-lasting but not eternal.

But those who believe this and yet are Catholics seem to me to be deceived by a certain human kindliness; for the divine Scripture, when consulted, answers otherwise. I have written a book on this question, whose title is Faith and Works, where, according to the holy Scriptures, as far as I could with God's help, I showed that the faith which saves is that which the Apostle Paul expressed clearly enough, saying: 'for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love (Gal 5:6).' But if it works wickedly, not well, then beyond doubt, according to the Apostle James, it 'is dead in itself (Jas 2:17).'

And he again says: 'if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can his faith save him?' (Jas 2:17, 14). Furthermore, if a wicked man is saved through fire on account of faith alone, and what blessed Paul says is to be taken thus: 'but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor 3:15),' then faith will be able to save without works, and what his fellow Apostle James said will be false, and that also will be false which Paul himself says: 'do not,' he says, 'be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the abusive, nor the rapacious will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10).' For if, even while persisting in these crimes, they will nevertheless be saved on account of the faith of Christ, how will they not be in the kingdom of God?

1.11. But because these most manifest and most open apostolic testimonies cannot be false, that which was said obscurely about those who build upon the foundation, which is Christ, not gold, silver, precious stones, but wood, hay, straw (for of these it was said that they will be saved through fire, since by the merit of the foundation they will not perish), must be so understood that it not be found contrary to these manifest texts.

For the fire of which the Apostle spoke in that passage must be understood to be such that both pass through it, that is, both he who 'builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones' and he who 'builds wood, hay, straw.' For when he had said this, he added: 'the fire will test what sort each one's work is. If anyone's work that he has built up endures, he will receive a reward. But if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself, however, will be saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor 3:13-15).' The fire, then, will test the work not of one of them but of both.

1.12. There is a certain fire, the trial of tribulation, of which it is written plainly in another place: 'the furnace tests the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests just men (Sir 27:5).' This fire, meanwhile in this life, does what the Apostle said, if it befalls two believers—one, namely, thinking of 'the things of God, how he may please God,' that is, building upon Christ the foundation gold, silver, precious stones; the other thinking of the things 'of the world, how he may please his wife (1 Cor 7:32-33),' that is, building upon the same foundation wood, hay, straw: for the work of the former is not burned, because he did not love things by the loss of which he would be tormented; but the work of the latter is burned, since the things possessed with love do not perish without pain.

1.13. That something of this kind also takes place after this life is not incredible, and whether it is so can be inquired into—and it may either be found or remain hidden that some believers are saved through a certain purgatorial fire the more slowly or quickly the more or less they loved the perishing goods;

yet not such men as those of whom it was said that they 'will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10),' unless those same crimes are forgiven to those who fittingly repent.

And I said 'fittingly' so that they not be barren in almsgiving, to which divine Scripture attributes so much that the Lord foretells that he will reckon to those on his right only the fruit of almsgiving, and to those on his left only the barrenness of it, when he is about to say to these: 'come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom,' but to those others: 'go into the eternal fire (Matt 25:34, 41).'

I think these answers from my two small works are enough for your question.

1.14. But as for that statement of the Lord: you will not come out from there until you pay the last penny (Matt 5:26), it was not necessary for me to answer, since you yourself solved the question by a similar expression from the Gospel, where it is written: he did not know her until she had brought forth (Matt 1:25).

Indeed, that I may not hide my thinking from you on this matter: I would wish, if it could be, indeed I do wish, if it can be, to be overcome by truth in this question.

For that which is said—that at some point, even after a very long time, those who die in Catholic communion, although they lived to the end of this life most disgracefully and most wickedly, will come out of their avenging punishments—touches more intimately my affection, which we have toward those who share with us the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ, even though we hate their ruined ways, ways which we cannot correct by ecclesiastical discipline or separate from the Lord's table.

But I wish to be overcome by that truth which does not resist the most open sacred Letters. For what resists these is not to be called or thought truth on any account. But meanwhile, until we hear or read something of the kind, let us hearken to him who says: do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, and so on, will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10).

For if the things urged on the contrary are such that they cannot lead the plain meaning of these apostolic words into some other sense, then surely the same Apostle has armed us against them and wished us to be ready, saying: but know this, understanding that no fornicator or unclean or covetous person—which is the service of idols—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God; let no one deceive you with empty words (Eph 5:5-6).

When, therefore, we hear that certain fornicators and unclean and covetous persons are saved through fire so as to have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, let us not turn deaf against him who cries out against this and says: no fornicator or unclean or covetous person has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, and, lest we acquiesce in those other words, who at once adds: let no one deceive you with empty words.

2.1. Your second question is this: whether the offering made for those at rest confers anything on their souls, since clearly we are either helped or burdened by our own actions, if indeed we read that in hell no one can any longer confess to the Lord.

2.2. I have said something on this matter in the book I recently wrote to the holy Paulinus, bishop of Nola, when he had consulted me whether burial made in the memorial shrines of the martyrs profits anything to the spirits of the dead.

Hence comes this which I insert in this letter to you. For a long time, I said, I have been a debtor to your Holiness of a reply, venerable fellow bishop Paulinus, ever since you wrote to me through the people of our most devout daughter Flora, asking me whether it profits anyone after death that his body is buried near the memorial shrine of some saint.

2.3. But although these things are so, how this is not contrary to what the Apostle says you indicate that you do not sufficiently see: 'for we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ, that each may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor 5:10).'

2.4. I have also said something of this kind to Laurence, which runs thus: but the time, I said, that is interposed between a man's death and the final resurrection holds the souls in hidden receptacles, as each is worthy of rest or of hardship in proportion to what it has obtained in the flesh while it lived.

These things, then, which the Church practices for commending the dead, are not contrary to that apostolic statement in which it was said: 'for we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ, that each may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil' (2 Cor 5:10) because this merit too each one acquired for himself while he lived in the body, that these things might be able to profit him. For they do not profit all.

3.1. Your third question is this: whether it is to be believed that the judgment will be at once at the Lord's coming, or after an interval of time has been interposed. Since in the days of his coming we read, you say, that those who survive 'will be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so will be forever with the Lord' (1 Thess 4:17), I wish to know whether the judgment follows immediately upon the coming, and whether those who will be caught up in the clouds are dissolved in death—unless perhaps we ought to take that very change itself in place of death.

3.2. To this question of yours, in which you ask whether at the Lord's coming the judgment is at once to be believed to be at hand, I think the faith of the Creed suffices, by which we confess that Christ will come from the right hand of the Father to judge the living and the dead. Since, then, this is itself his reason for coming, what else will he do as soon as he comes but that for which he comes?

But concerning those who will be caught up in the clouds, in a certain letter which I wrote to my son named Mercator, beyond doubt very well known to you, when he had consulted me about certain questions of the Pelagians, who deny that death was meted out as the recompense of sin,

read in what follows how far I discussed it: but those, I said, of whom the Apostle spoke when he was treating of the resurrection of the dead: 'and we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall be forever with the Lord (1 Thess 4:16),'

3.3. But I would rather hear on this the more learned, lest the Apostle be found saying even to those who think that some, without death preceding, are to be made alive and to pass over to perpetual life: 'fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies (1 Cor 15:36).' For that too which is read in very many manuscripts: 'we shall all rise again (1 Cor 15:51),' how can it come about unless we all die?

For there is no resurrection unless death has preceded. And what some manuscripts have: 'we shall all sleep,' compels this to be understood much more easily and openly; and if anything else of the sort is found in the sacred Letters, it seems to drive toward this: that no man be thought to attain immortality unless death has preceded. Accordingly, when the Apostle said: 'and we who are alive, who are left at the coming of the Lord, will not go before those who have fallen asleep.'

For the Lord himself, at the command, at the voice of the archangel, and at the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall be forever with the Lord (1 Thess 4:14-16);

3.4. But if in these words of the Apostle no other sense could be found, and it became clear that he wished this to be understood which the words themselves seem to proclaim—that is, that there will be at the end of the age and at the coming of the Lord those who are not stripped of the body but clothed over with immortality, that the mortal may be swallowed up by life (See 2 Cor 5:4)—

then to this sense will beyond doubt accord what in the rule of faith we confess, that the Lord will come to judge the living and the dead (See 2 Tim 4:1), so that here we understand not the living as the just and the dead as the unjust—although the just and the unjust are to be judged—but the living as those whom his coming finds not yet departed from their bodies, and the dead as those whom it finds already departed.

If this should be established as so, then those words must be sifted, how we are to take them: 'what you sow is not made alive unless it dies' (1 Cor 15:36, 51), and: 'we shall all rise again,' or: 'we shall all sleep (1 Cor 15:51),' so that they not be contrary to this sense, by which some are believed to be going to live forever even with their bodies, without tasting death.

3.5. But whichever of these is found to be the truer and more perceptive understanding, what does it matter to the case of those people, whether all are smitten with the death that is due, or whether some are spared this condition—since it is nonetheless established that death, not only of the soul but also of the body, would not have followed had sin not preceded, and that it is by a more marvelous power of grace that the just are restored to life from death unto eternal blessedness than that they should not come into the experience of death at all?

3.6. For the rest, as to what pertains to the question of the resurrection, on account of those who are believed not to be going to die but to pass over from this mortality to immortality with no death intervening, a more diligent inquiry must be applied; and if you have heard or read anything settled and definite on this from a reasonable and complete discussion, or have even been able to think it out yourself—or if you should yet be able to hear or read or think it out—I beg you not to find it burdensome to send it to me.

For I—as must be confessed to your Charity—love to learn more than to teach; for we are admonished of this by the Apostle James also, who says: 'let every man be quick to hear, but slow to speak (Jas 1:19).' That we may learn, then, the sweetness of truth ought to invite us; but that we may teach, the necessity of love ought to compel us, where it is rather to be wished that this necessity by which a man teaches a man something might pass away, and that we may all be taught of God (See John 6:45)—though we are this even when we learn the things that pertain to true piety, even when a man seems to teach them. For 'neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7).' Since, then, if God did not give the growth, the Apostles who plant and water would be nothing, how much more I or you or any men of this age, when we seem to ourselves to be teachers.

4.1. Your fourth question is this: why David said: 'his seed will be mighty in the land, the generation of the upright will be blessed (Ps 112:2 (111:2)),' since we know that the children of the just both have been and are cursed, and those of the unjust both have been and are blessed.

4.2. To this question I reply from the exposition of that very Psalm, which, when I was treating it before the people, I said: 'blessed' indeed is 'the man who fears the Lord; in his commandments he will delight greatly (Ps 112:1 (111:1)).' God, who alone judges both truly and mercifully, will see how far this man advances in his commandments; since 'human life upon earth is a trial (Job 7:1),' as holy Job says;

and again it is written: 'for the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that ponders many things (Wis 9:15).' But it is the Lord who judges us; nor ought we to judge before the time, until the Lord comes, and lights up the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart; 'and then each will have praise from God (See 1 Cor 4:4-5).'

Let him, then, see how far each one advances in his commandments; yet he will delight greatly who has come to love the peace of that building together, nor ought he now to despair, since 'in his commandments he will delight greatly,' and 'peace on earth to men of good will (See Luke 2:14).'

4.3. Hence 'his seed will be mighty in the land.' That the seed of the future harvest is works of mercy, the Apostle is witness, who says: 'but in doing good let us not grow weary; for in due season we shall reap (Gal 6:9),' and again: 'but this,' he says, 'he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly (2 Cor 9:6).'

But what, brethren, is mightier than that not only Zacchaeus should buy the kingdom of heaven with half his goods (See Luke 19:8), but the widow too with two small coins (See Mark 12:42), and that each should there possess just as much?

What is mightier than that the same kingdom should be within reach both of the rich man's treasures (See Matt 13:44) and of the poor man's cup of cold water? (See Matt 10:42) But there are those who do these things while seeking earthly gain, either hoping here for a reward from the Lord or desiring to please men; but:

(but to be upright in heart is not to resist the Father when he corrects, and to believe him when he promises), not the works of those whose feet are moved and whose steps are poured out and slip, as is sung in another psalm, while they are jealous, seeing the peace of sinners among sinners (See Ps 73:2-3 (72:2-3)), and think that their own works perish, because no perishable reward is rendered to them.

But that man who fears the Lord, and is fitted into the holy temple of God by the turning of an upright heart, neither seeks the glory of men nor covets earthly riches, and yet 'glory and riches are in his house.' For his house is his heart, where, with God praising him, he dwells more richly with the hope of eternal life than the man who, with men flattering him, dwells in marbled and paneled ceilings with the fear of eternal death. For this man's 'righteousness abides forever and ever' (See Ps 112:1-3 (111:1-3)): that is his very glory, those his riches. But the other man's purple and fine linen and splendid feasts both pass away when they are at hand, and when they have come to their end, his burning tongue, longing for a drop of water trickling from a finger, will cry out (See Luke 16:19, 24). These are the things I remember having expounded in the said psalm, and I think them now enough for the solution of your question proposed in the fourth place.

But in the fifth place you proposed that point which I promised to discuss after all the rest.

6.1. Your sixth proposition is this: whether, according to the narrative of the books of Kingdoms, the medium called up the prophet Samuel himself from hell (See 1 Sam 28:7-19).

6.2. This Simplicianus, bishop of Milan, of blessed memory, once asked of me. What, then, I answered him, read below. Likewise you ask, I said, whether the unclean spirit that was in the medium could bring it about that Samuel should be seen by Saul and should speak with him (See 1 Sam 28:7-19).

But it is a much greater wonder that Satan himself, the prince of all unclean spirits, was able to speak with God and to ask to tempt Job, that most just man (See Job 1:11)—he who asked also to tempt the Apostles (Luke 22:31).

But if this troubles us, that it should be permitted to a malign spirit to rouse the soul of a just man and, as it were, to call it up from the hidden receptacles of the dead, is it not rather to be wondered at that Satan took up the Lord himself and set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple (See Matt 4:5)?

6.3. And yet in this incident there can be another easier way out and a readier understanding, namely, that we should believe that the spirit of Samuel was not truly roused from its rest, but that some phantasm and imaginary illusion was produced by the devil's contrivances, which Scripture for this reason calls by the name of Samuel, because images are accustomed to be called by the names of the things of which they are images;

Hence the cherubim, though they are heavenly powers, yet fashioned out of metal—as God commanded—over the Ark of the Covenant for the sake of signifying a great matter, those figures too are called nothing other than Cherubim (See Exod 25:18).

And Pharaoh said that he had seen in dreams ears of grain and oxen (See Gen 41:17-28), not images of ears or of oxen. If, therefore, it is clearly established that images are called by the names of the things of which they are images, it is no wonder that Scripture says Samuel was seen, even if perhaps an image of Samuel appeared by the contrivance of him who transforms himself, as it were, into an angel of light, and his ministers into ministers of righteousness (See 2 Cor 11:14-15).

6.4. But now, if this troubles us, how even by a malign spirit true things were foretold to Saul, that too can seem a wonder, how the demons recognized Christ (See Matt 8:29), whom the Jews did not recognize. For when God wills that someone should know true things—at any rate temporal things and things pertaining to this mortal life—even through the lowest and infernal spirits, it is easy and not unfitting that the almighty and just God, for the punishment of those to whom these things are foretold (so that they may suffer the evil that hangs over them by foreknowing it before it comes), should, by the hidden ordering of his ministries, impart some power of divination even to such spirits, so that what they hear from the angels they may foretell to men.

But they hear only so much as the Lord and Governor of all either commands or permits. Hence even the python spirit in the Acts of the Apostles bears witness to the Apostle Paul and tries to be an evangelist (See Acts 16:17). Yet these spirits mingle in deceits, and what truth they could come to know they foretell with the end not so much of teaching as of deceiving.

And perhaps this is why, when that image of Samuel foretold to Saul (1 Sam 28:20) that he would die, it said also that he would be with him—which is certainly false. For in the Gospel we read that the good are separated from the bad by a great interval after death, since the Lord testifies that between that proud rich man, when he was now suffering torments in hell, and that ulcerous man who had lain at his gate, now set in rest, a great chasm was fixed between them (See Luke 16:21). Or if Samuel said to Saul: 'you will be with me (1 Sam 28:19),' this is to be referred not to an equality of happiness but to a like condition of death—that each was a man and each could die, and that, being now dead, he was foretelling death to the living man.

6.5. These are the things I then wrote back about the medium and Samuel. But that it was not without reason that I said we ought to suppose, step by step in this episode, that a simulated image of Samuel was presented by the malign ministry of the medium, lest we prescribe in advance against more diligent inquiries—my later inquiry has made clear, when I found in the book of Ecclesiasticus, where the Fathers are praised in order, that Samuel himself was so praised that he was said to have prophesied even when dead (See Sir 46:20). But if this book is contradicted on the ground of the Hebrews, because it is not in their canon, what shall we say of Moses, who certainly both is read to have died in Deuteronomy (See Deut 34:5) and, in the Gospel, together with Elijah—who did not die—is read to have appeared to the living? (Matt 17:3)

7.1. Your seventh proposition is this: how those are to be answered who say that Sarah did not escape defilement, since they say that Abimelech was recalled from intercourse with her by a dream (See Gen 20), but that Pharaoh was admitted to union with her (See Gen 12:15-19)?

7.2. How they say that Pharaoh was admitted to union with her, I do not see, since Scripture does not compel us to believe this. For he indeed took her as wife, and Abraham was at once enriched on her account with many gifts of the Egyptians; but it is not written that Pharaoh slept with her and was joined to her, since God did not permit him to do this, afflicting him with many and great calamities.

For women who pleased kings for marriage were not at once joined to them in the flesh as well. But, as we read in the book entitled Esther, for several months—indeed for a whole year—their bodies were treated with ointments, perfumes, and aromatics before they were united to the royal body (See Esth 2:12-13). In this interval, then, those things took place which are written, until Pharaoh, crushed and terrified, restored the wife to her husband (See Gen 12:19).

But as for Abimelech, since he was forbidden intercourse with her by a dream (See Gen 20:3-4), those who contend that Sarah did not avoid defilement suppose that the king could not have slept, so as to dream, except after lying with her. As though, to say nothing of the time during which, as I said above, the bodies of women were treated for the royal pleasure, God could not, before they came together, plunge him into sleep and admonish him through a dream.

7.3. I will tell what happened in Mauretania Sitifensis. For the God of the holy Fathers is none other than our God as well. A certain young catechumen named Celticius seized a widow who had resolved upon a life of continence, that he might have her as his wife. Before they lay together, weighed down by sleep and terrified by a dream, he gave her back untouched to the bishop of Sitifis, who was most vehemently demanding her.

Those of whom I speak are still living. He, baptized and converted to the Lord by the very miracle worked in him, came by his venerable uprightness to the episcopate; she perseveres in holy widowhood.

7.4. But what I said in Answer to Faustus the Manichee, when he slandered father Abraham for having sold his wife to two kings for intercourse, the passage I have appended will show. But that he, I said, calling a just and faithful man the most disgraceful trafficker in his own marriage, asserts that, for the sake of greed and his belly, he lyingly called Sarah, his most beautiful wife, his sister, and sold her for intercourse to two kings, Abimelech and Pharaoh, at different times—this does not, with a truthful mouth, separate honor from baseness, but with a slanderous mouth turns the whole into a crime.

For neither did Abraham consent to his wife's disgrace and sell her to adultery; but just as she handed over her maidservant not to her husband's lust but, of her own accord, brought her in for the office of begetting (See Gen 16:1-3)—with the natural order in no way disturbed, where her power lay, commanding the obedient one rather than yielding to one who lusted—so he too, his wife being chaste and clinging to him with a chaste heart, of whose mind, where the virtue of modesty dwells, he in no way doubted,

Nor did faith and hope deceive him. For Pharaoh, terrified by portents and afflicted with many evils on her account, when he learned by divine means that she was his wife, restored her unharmed and with honor; and Abimelech, admonished by a dream and likewise instructed, did the same (See Gen 12:12-19; 20:2-16).

Finally, concerning the Spirit of God who was borne over the water, whether it is the Holy Spirit himself.

8.1. Last of all you ask for an exposition concerning the Spirit of God who was borne over the water. For some assert, you say, that it is the Holy Spirit; others say a worldly spirit, saying that the historian could not have enumerated the Creator together with creatures, nor assigned any place to him, who is everywhere whole, namely, together with the Father and the Son.

8.2. What, then, of these views I have held, I have transferred into this small work from the first book of those which, as I could, I wrote On Genesis in twelve books, not according to allegories but according to the trustworthiness of the events.

There is in God, I said, a kindness supreme and holy and just, and a certain love toward his works coming not from need but from beneficence. Therefore, before it was written: 'God said: let there be light (Gen 1:3),' Scripture went before, saying: 'and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2),'

who is the beginning not to the Father but through himself—first and chiefly of the spiritual creation, created at the start, and consequently of the whole creation as well—and when Scripture says: 'and the Spirit of God was borne over the water,' we recognize the complete mention of the Trinity) so also in the turning and perfecting of the creation, that the forms of things may be set in order, the same Trinity is suggested: namely, the Word of God and the Begetter of the Word, when it is said: 'God said,' and the holy Goodness, in which whatever is perfect according to the measure of its nature pleases God, when it is said: 'God saw that it was good (Gen 1:4).'

8.3. But why is the creation, though imperfect, mentioned first, and the Spirit of God mentioned afterward, Scripture first saying: 'but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the deep,' and then adding: 'and the Spirit of God was borne over the water' (Gen 1:2)?

Mindful of this, the Apostle, about to speak of love, says he will show a more excellent way (See 1 Cor 12:31), and in another place he says: 'the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19).'

5.1. Now at last attend a little to that which I had deferred for discussion. For you ask: why the Lord, who surely foreknew the future, said: 'I have chosen David according to my own heart (Acts 13:22; 1 Sam 13:14),' though that man himself committed such great offenses.

5.2. If indeed we understand this to be said of David himself, who, after Saul was rejected and slain, was king of Israel (See 2 Sam 5:3), then, rather because God is foreknowing of the future, he foresaw in him such great piety and so true a repentance that he would be among the number of those of whom he himself says: blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin (Ps 32:1-2 (31:1-2)).

Since, then, God foreknew that he would both sin and would blot out his sins by pious humility and sincere repentance, why should he not say: I have found David according to my own heart (Acts 13:22; 1 Sam 13:14), to whom he was not going to impute sin—a man doing so many good things and living with such great piety and, by that very piety, offering for his sins the sacrifice of a contrite spirit?

On account of all this it was most truly said: I have found David according to my own heart. For although what he sinned was not according to the heart of God, yet it was according to the heart of God that he made satisfaction for his sins by a fitting repentance.

This alone, then, in him was not according to the heart of God, which God did not impute to him. With this taken away, then—that is, not imputed—what remained but that from which it might most truly be said: I have found David according to my own heart?

5.3. But if we wish to take this as said prophetically of Christ, no knot of the question will arise, unless perhaps it be asked of us how he could rightly call Christ by this name. But we answer: on account of the seed of David, from which Christ took flesh. Nor do we give the reason for this name in Christ without precedent.

For we find most plainly that Christ Jesus is called David in the prophet Ezekiel, where it is read, in the person of God the Father: and I will raise up over my flock one shepherd to feed them, my servant David; and he himself will feed them, and he himself will be their shepherd. But I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince in their midst, I the Lord have spoken (Ezek 34:23-24).

And in another place: and one king, he says, will rule over them all; and they will no longer be two nations, nor be divided any more into two kingdoms, nor be defiled any more with their idols and their abominations and all their iniquities; and I will save them out of all their dwellings in which they sinned, and I will cleanse them. And they will be my people, and I will be their God; and my servant David king over them, and one shepherd will there be of them all (Ezek 37:22-24).

The prophet Hosea too, when he foretold the time of the Jews, such as they now have, and that they would afterward believe in Christ, prophesied the same Christ under the name of David, saying: for many days the children of Israel will sit without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without altar, without priesthood, without manifestations (Hos 3:4).

That the Jews are now such no one doubts. But what the Apostle Paul says, speaking to the gentiles: for just as you once did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy through their unbelief, so they too have now not believed in your mercy, that they too may obtain mercy (Rom 11:30-31);

this the prophet, foretelling it so long before, went on to add: and afterward the children of Israel will return, and will seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they will be amazed at the Lord and at his good things in the last days (Hos 3:5). Behold, here too Christ is prophesied under the name of David, since, when these things were prophesied, that David, king of Israel, had long since fallen asleep. But the Lord Jesus was to come in the flesh from his seed, on account of which he was called David in the prophetic manner of speaking.

But the Apostle Paul seems to have set down this testimony in the Acts of the Apostles in such a way that it can be understood only of that king David who succeeded Saul. For among other things he says: and thereafter, he says, they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had been removed, he raised up for them David as king, to whom also he bore witness and said: I have found David the son of Jesse, a man according to my own heart, who will do all my wishes.

But since he goes on to add and says: of his seed God, according to the promise, has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus (Acts 13:21-23), he indicated more deeply that this testimony is rather to be understood of the Lord Jesus, who truly did all the wishes of God the Father, than of that king David, who—although, according to the discussion above, with his sins forgiven and not imputed, he can also, on account of that very pious repentance, not undeservedly be said to have been found according to the heart of God—yet how did he do all the wishes of God?

For when he was being most excellently praised, when Scripture narrated his times and deeds, he was nevertheless noted for not having destroyed the high places, where the people of God sacrificed against the precept of God, who had commanded sacrifice to be offered to him only in the tabernacle of the testimony—although on those same high places sacrifice was offered to the same God. These high places King Hezekiah, descended from the seed of that very David, afterward overthrew, with the testimony of great praise for it (2 Kgs 18:4).

5.4. As I could, I have answered your inquiries. If you have found anything better on these matters, or should be able to find it, we will count it most welcome if you let us know. For I, as I have mentioned of myself above too, love to learn more than to teach.