LETTER 1
Augustine to Hermogenian

1. I would never dare, not even in jest, to challenge the Academics. For how could the authority of such great men fail to move me, unless I supposed that their view was far other than is commonly believed? And so I have imitated them as best I could, rather than refuted them, which I am wholly unable to do. For it seems to me to have suited their times well enough that, if anything pure flowed from the Platonic spring, it should be channeled through shady and thorny thickets to feed a very few men, rather than that, flowing through open ground, it should be impossible to keep clear and pure with cattle bursting in everywhere. For what is more fitting for cattle than to think that the soul is a body? Against men of this sort I judge that art and method of concealing the truth to have been usefully devised. But in this age, when we see no philosophers at all—except perhaps in the cloak that covers the body, and these I would hardly think worthy of so venerable a name—it seems to me that men must be led back (if the Academics' view, through cleverness with words, has frightened any away from grasping reality) to the hope of finding the truth, lest what was suited to the times for rooting out the deepest errors should now begin to be an obstacle to implanting knowledge.

2. For in those days the pursuits of the various schools burned so fiercely that nothing was to be feared but the approval of what is false. And anyone driven by their arguments from what he had believed he held firm and unshaken sought something else all the more steadily and cautiously, the greater his diligence in conduct and the more deeply and intricately he sensed that the truth lay hidden in the nature of things and of minds. But now there is such a flight from labor and such neglect of the liberal arts that, as soon as the word has sounded that it seemed to the sharpest philosophers that nothing can be grasped, men let their minds go and shroud them in everlasting darkness. For they do not dare to trust those men so far as to find evident to themselves what Carneades, with all his study, talent, and leisure, with all his manifold learning, and finally with the longest of lives, could not discover. And if, struggling a little against laziness, they do read the very books in which, as it were, the denial of perception to human nature is shown, they fall asleep in such torpor that they would not wake even at the trumpet of heaven.

3. Therefore, since I hold your faithful judgment of my little books most dear, and set such store by you that neither error can befall your prudence nor pretense your friendship, I ask all the more that you consider carefully and write back to me whether you approve of what, toward the end of the third book, I thought ought to be believed—more cautiously perhaps than confidently, yet, as I judge, more usefully than incredibly. For my part, however those writings stand, I am pleased not so much that, as you write, I have defeated the Academics (for you write this more affectionately perhaps than truly) as that I have broken for myself a most hateful tether by which I was held back from the breast of philosophy through despair of the truth, which is the food of the mind.

LETTER 2
Augustine to Zenobius

1. We agree well enough between us, I think, that all the things the bodily senses reach cannot remain the same for even a moment of time, but slip away, flow off, and possess nothing present—that is, to put it in Latin, they do not exist. And so true and divine philosophy warns us to curb and lull to sleep the love of these things, a love most ruinous and most full of punishments, so that the mind, even while it drives this body, may with its whole self be carried toward and yearn for the things that are always of the same kind and that do not please by a borrowed beauty. Since this is so, and since the mind sees you in yourself as true and simple, such as you can be loved without any anxiety, we confess nonetheless that we seek this meeting and sight of you, and long for it while we may, when you depart from us in body and are separated by distance. And this fault, if I know you well, you love in us; and though you wish all good things for your dearest and closest friends, you are afraid to have them cured of this. But if you are of so powerful a mind that you can both recognize this snare and laugh at those caught in it, then truly you are great and quite another sort of man. As for me, so long as I miss someone who is absent, I want to be missed in turn. Yet I keep watch, as much as I can, and strive to love nothing that can be taken from me against my will. With which duty in mind I urge you meanwhile, whatever sort of man you are, that the discussion begun with you must be completed, if we have any care for ourselves. For I would by no means allow it to be completed with Alypius, even if he were willing. But he is not willing. For it is not in keeping with his kindness now to lend me his help, so that in as many letters as we could we might keep you here with us, who flee, I know not by what necessity.

LETTER 3
Augustine to Nebridius

1. Whether I should think it the work of some flattering speech of yours, so to say, or whether the matter truly stands so, is uncertain to me. For it happened suddenly and was not sufficiently weighed how far it ought to be entrusted to belief. You are waiting to hear what this is. What do you suppose? You have nearly persuaded me, not indeed that I am happy—for that is the possession of the wise man alone—but at least that I am as it were happy: as we say a man is a man, as it were, in comparison with that man whom Plato knew; or that the things we see are round, as it were, and square, as it were, when they are far removed from those things the mind of a few can see. For I read your letter by the lamp after I had already dined; bedtime was near, but not yet sleep-time. Indeed, lying long in bed I thought with myself and held this conversation, Augustine himself with Augustine: Is it not true, as it pleases Nebridius, that we are happy? Surely not; for that we are still foolish not even he himself dares to deny. What if the happy life befalls even the foolish? A hard saying—as if folly were some small misery, or any other than folly itself. How then did it seem so to him? Or did he, on reading those little books, dare to believe me even wise? No, a joy that exults is not so rash, especially in a man whose weight of judgment we know well. This, then, is it: he wrote what he thought would be most sweet to us, because whatever I set down in those writings became sweet to him too, and he wrote rejoicing and did not heed what a rejoicing pen should be entrusted with. What if he had read the Soliloquies? He would have rejoiced far more abundantly, yet he would have found nothing more to call me than happy. So he quickly poured out upon me the highest name and kept nothing in reserve to assert of me more gladly. See what joy does!

2. But where is this happy life? Where? Where in the world? Oh, if only it were to repel the atoms of Epicurus! Oh, if only it were to know that there is nothing below except the world! Oh, if only it were to know that the extremities of the sphere rotate more slowly than its middle! And other such things that we likewise know. But as things are, how am I happy, even in any qualified way, when I do not know why so great a world exists, since the principles of the figures by which it exists in no way prevent its being as much larger as anyone might wish? Or how would it not be said to me—indeed, how would we not be forced to confess—that bodies are divided to infinity, so that from a certain base, as it were, a certain number of little bodies might rise to a certain quantity? Therefore, since no body is allowed to be the smallest, in what way are we to allow there to be a largest, beyond which nothing larger could exist? Unless perhaps that point which I once told Alypius most secretly has great force: namely, that since that intelligible number increases infinitely yet is not infinitely diminished—for it cannot be resolved beyond the monad—the sensible number, by contrast (for what else is a sensible number than the quantity of corporeal things or bodies?), can indeed be diminished infinitely, but cannot increase infinitely. And so perhaps the philosophers rightly place riches in intelligible things and poverty in sensible ones. For what is more wretched than always to be able to become less and less? What is richer than to grow as much as you wish, to go where you wish, to return when you wish, as far as you wish, and to love greatly this thing that cannot be diminished? For whoever understands these numbers loves nothing so much as the monad—and no wonder, since it is through the monad that the rest come to be loved. But still, why is the world so large? For it could have been either larger or smaller. I do not know: it is simply such. And why in this place rather than that? Nor should there be a question on a matter where, wherever it might be, there would be a question. One thing greatly troubled me: that bodies are divided to infinity. To this perhaps an answer has been given, from the contrary force of intelligible number.

3. But wait; let us see what this something is, whatever it is, that is suggested to the mind. Surely the sensible world is said to be the image of some intelligible world. Now it is remarkable what we see in the images that mirrors reflect: for however vast the mirrors are, they do not return images larger than even the smallest bodies set before them. But in little glasses, as in the pupils of the eyes, even if a great face presents itself, a very small image is formed in proportion to the glass. Therefore the images of bodies may be diminished if the mirrors are diminished, but they may not be enlarged if the mirrors are enlarged. Surely something lies hidden here, but now I must sleep. For I seem to Nebridius to be happy not by seeking, but perhaps by finding something. But what is that something? Is it that reasoning which I am wont to flatter as my one and only, and which delights me too much?

4. Of what are we composed? Of mind and body. Which of these is better? The mind, of course. What is praised in the body? I see nothing other than its beauty. What is the beauty of the body? A fitting arrangement of parts together with a certain pleasantness of color. Is this form better where it is true or where it is false? Who could doubt that it is better where it is true? Where, then, is it true? In the mind, of course. Therefore the mind is more to be loved than the body. But in what part of the mind is this truth? In the understanding and the intelligence. What is opposed to this? Sense. Are we then to resist the senses with all the strength of the mind? Clearly. What if sensible things give too much delight? Let it be brought about that they do not delight. How is this brought about? By the habit of doing without them and of seeking better things. What if the mind dies? Then either truth dies, or the intelligence is not truth, or the intelligence is not in the mind, or something can die in which there is something immortal. But our Soliloquies already contain the proof that none of these can happen, and we are sufficiently persuaded; yet by some habit of evils we are terrified and waver. Finally, even if the mind dies—which I see can in no way happen—nevertheless that the happy life does not consist in delight in sensible things, this is sufficiently established at our leisure. By these considerations perhaps, and such as these, I seem to my Nebridius, if not happy, at least as it were happy: let me seem so to myself as well; what do I lose thereby, or why should I begrudge a good opinion? This I said to myself; then I prayed, as was my custom, and slept.

5. It pleased me to write this to you. For it delights me that you thank me if I hide from you nothing of what comes to my lips; and I rejoice that I thus please you. With whom, then, may I more freely play the fool than with one whom I cannot displease? But if it lies in fortune's power for one man to love another, see how happy I am, who rejoice so much in things that come by chance, and who—I confess—long to have such goods grow upon me abundantly. Yet the truest sages, who alone may rightly be called happy, willed that the goods of fortune be neither feared nor desired—or is it 'coveted'? You shall see. And this comes in nicely. For I want you to make me aware of this conjugation. For when I join similar words, I become more uncertain. For it is cupio like fugio, like sapio, like iacio, like capio; but whether the infinitive is fugiri or fugi, whether sapiri or sapi, I do not know. I could attend to iaci and capi, were I not afraid that the man who proved that iactum and captum are one thing and fugitum, cupitum, sapitum another might catch me and toss me about for sport wherever he pleased. And as for these same three, I likewise do not know whether they are to be pronounced with the penultimate syllable long and circumflexed or short with a grave accent. I have provoked you to a longer letter; I ask that I may read you a little while longer. For I cannot say as much as it is a pleasure to read you.

LETTER 4
Augustine to Nebridius

1. It is altogether remarkable how, beyond my expectation, it has turned out that, when I look for which of your letters still remain for me to answer, I have found only one that still holds me a debtor—the one in which you ask that, out of all the leisure which you suppose to be ours, or which you wish were ours together, we tell you what progress we have made in distinguishing the sensible from the intelligible nature. But I do not think it hidden from you that, if a person is the more entangled in false opinions the more often and familiarly he wallows in them, this happens much more easily to the mind in the case of true things. Yet it happens gradually, as we make progress with age. For although there is a great distance between a boy and a young man, no one who is questioned daily from boyhood will at any point say that he is now a young man.

2. I do not want you to take this in such a way as to think that in these matters we have arrived, as it were, at a certain maturity of mind, with the strength of a firmer understanding. For we are boys—but, as the saying goes, perhaps pretty ones, and not bad. For very often, when the eyes of the mind are troubled and laden with the cares of sensible blows, that little argument so well known to you lifts them up to take breath: that the mind and the intelligence are better than the eyes and this common kind of sight—which would not be so unless the things we understand had more being than these things we discern. Whether anything is strongly opposed to this reasoning, I ask you to consider with me. Meanwhile, refreshed by it, when, having prayed to God for help, I begin to be raised both into him and into those things that are most truly true, I am sometimes filled with so great an assurance of abiding things that I marvel now and then that I need that reasoning in order to believe these things exist, which are present to me with as great a presence as each person is present to himself. You too recall it; for I confess you are more careful in this matter, lest perhaps without knowing it I still owe you a reply. For so sudden a setting-down of so many burdens, which I had once counted up, does not win my belief—although I do not doubt that you received my letters, the answers to which I do not have.

LETTER 5
Nebridius to Augustine

1. Is it so, my Augustine? You devote your courage and endurance to the affairs of your fellow citizens, and still that longed-for rest is not given back to you? I ask you, what men interrupt you who are so good? I suppose those who do not know what you love, what you desire. Have you no friend who would tell them of your loves? Not Romanianus, not Lucinianus? Let them at least listen to me. I will cry out, I will testify that you love God, that you long to serve him and to cling to him. I would like to call you to my country estate and have you find rest there. For I shall not fear to be called a seducer of you by your fellow citizens, whom you love too much, and by whom you are too much loved.

LETTER 6
Nebridius to Augustine

1. It pleases me greatly to keep your letters as I keep my own eyes. For they are great, not in size, but in their matter, and they contain great proofs of great things. They will sound to me of Christ, of Plato, of Plotinus. They will therefore be both sweet for me to hear because of their eloquence, easy to read because of their brevity, and wholesome to understand because of their wisdom. So you will take care to teach me what has seemed holy and good to your mind. And you will reply to this letter when you have argued something more subtly about imagination and memory. For it seems to me that, although not every imagination is accompanied by memory, yet no memory can exist without imagination. But you say: What of when we remember that we have understood or thought something? Against this I answer and say that this has come about because, when we understood or thought something corporeal and temporal, we generated what pertains to imagination: for either we joined to our understanding and thoughts words, which words do not exist without time and pertain to sense or imagination; or our understanding underwent in thought something of such a kind as could make a memory in the imaginative mind. This I have said, as I usually do, without due consideration and confusedly: you will examine it and, rejecting what is false, will set down the truth in writing.

2. Hear another point: why, I ask you, do we not say that the imagination has all its images from itself rather than from sense? For just as the intellectual mind is prompted by sense to see its own intelligible objects rather than receiving anything from it, so too the imaginative mind may be prompted by sense to contemplate its own images rather than taking anything from it. For perhaps it happens from this that it can behold those things which sense does not see—which is a sign that it has all its images in itself and from itself. On this matter too you will reply with what you think.

LETTER 7
Augustine to Nebridius

1. 1. I shall pass over a preface and quickly begin what you now want me to say, especially since I shall not quickly leave off. It seems to you that there can be no memory without images or imaginary sights, which you chose to call by the name of imaginations: I think otherwise. First, then, we must see that we do not always remember things that pass away, but for the most part things that abide. Therefore, although memory claims for itself a tenacious grasp of past time, it nevertheless consists partly of things that desert us and partly of things deserted by us. For when I remember my father, I remember what has deserted me and now no longer exists; but when I remember Carthage, I remember what exists and what I myself deserted. In both of these kinds, however, memory holds the past. For I remember both that man and that city from the fact that I saw them, not from the fact that I see them.

1. 2. Here perhaps you ask: To what end is all this? especially since you observe that neither of these can come into memory except through that imaginary sight. But for me it is enough to have shown thus far, for the time being, that there can be said to be a memory even of those things that have not yet perished. But pay close attention, so that you may grasp how this helps me. Some bring a charge against that most noble discovery of Socrates, by which it is asserted that the things we learn are not, as it were, implanted in us as new, but are recalled to memory by recollection. They say that memory is of past things, but that these things which we learn by understanding remain forever—Plato himself being the authority—and cannot perish, and so are not past. But they do not notice that the vision is past by which we once saw these things with the mind; and because we have flowed down from that vision and have begun to see one thing in one way and another in another, we revisit those things by recollecting, that is, through memory. Therefore, if—to pass over other examples—eternity itself always abides and seeks no imaginary fictions as vehicles, so to speak, by which to come into the mind, and yet could not come unless we remembered it, then there can be a memory of certain things without any imagination.

2. 3. Now as for what seems to you—that the soul, even without having used the senses of the body, can imagine corporeal things—this is shown to be false in the following way. If the soul, before it uses the body for perceiving bodies, can imagine those same bodies, and was better disposed before it became entangled with these deceitful senses (which no sane person doubts), then the souls of sleepers are better disposed than those of the waking, and those of the frenzied better than those free from such a plague; for these are affected by the images by which they were affected before these most deceitful messengers, the senses. And either the sun that those people see will be truer than the one the sane and waking see, or false things will be better than true. And since these conclusions are absurd, as indeed they are, that imagination, my Nebridius, is nothing other than a blow inflicted through the senses—by which, not (as you write) a certain reminding takes place so that such things are formed in the soul, but rather the very introduction, or, to put it more expressly, the impression of this falsity. What truly moves you—how it comes about that we think of those faces and forms which we have never seen—moves you with good reason. And so I shall do what may stretch this letter beyond the usual length; but not with you, for whom no page is more welcome than one that brings me to you more talkative.

2. 4. All these images, which you, along with many, call imaginations, I see may be most conveniently and most truly distributed into three kinds: one of them is impressed from things sensed, another from things supposed, the third from things reckoned. Examples of the first kind are when the mind forms within itself your face, or Carthage, or our former friend Verecundus, or anything else of abiding or dead things which nevertheless I have seen and sensed. To the second kind belong those things which we suppose to have been so or to be so—as when for the sake of argument we ourselves invent certain things that in no way hinder the truth, or such things as we picture when we read histories, and when we either hear or compose or suspect fabulous tales. For I shape for myself, as I please and as it comes to mind, the face of Aeneas, of Medea with her winged serpents yoked to her chariot, of Chremes or of some Parmeno. To this kind also belong those things which, whether wise men wrapping some truth in such figures, or fools, the founders of various superstitions, have put forward as true: such as the Tartarean Phlegethon, and the five caverns of the race of darkness, and the northern pillar holding up the heaven, and a thousand other portents of poets and heretics. We also say, in arguing, 'suppose there are three worlds one above another, like this one' and 'suppose the earth is contained within a square figure' and the like. For all these we invent and suppose as the storm of our thinking happens to have it. Now as to the third kind of images, it has to do chiefly with numbers and dimensions: which is partly in the nature of things—as when the figure of the whole world is discovered, and an image follows this discovery in the mind of the one thinking—and partly in the disciplines, as in geometrical figures, in musical rhythms, and in the infinite variety of numbers; and although these are grasped as true, as I maintain, they nevertheless beget false imaginings which reason itself scarcely resists—though it is not even easy for the very discipline of argument to be free of this evil, since in our divisions and conclusions we imagine certain counters, as it were.

2. 5. In this whole forest of images, I believe that the first kind does not seem to you to pertain to the soul before it clings to the senses; and on this we need not argue any longer. Regarding the two remaining kinds, a question could still rightly be raised, were it not manifest that the soul is less liable to falsehoods when it has not yet undergone the vanity of sensible things and of the senses; but who could doubt that these images are far falser than those sensible things? For the things we suppose and believe, or invent, are in every respect wholly false, and surely, as you see, the things we see and sense are far truer. Now in that third kind, whatever corporeal extension I shall have shaped in my mind—although thought seems to have produced it by the principles of the disciplines, which by no means deceive—I prove by those same principles, when they argue, that it is false. Hence it comes about that I can in no way believe that the soul, not yet sensing through a body, not yet beaten by the most deceitful senses with their mortal and fleeting substance, lay in so great a disgrace of falsehood.

3. 6. Whence, then, does it come about that we think of things we have not seen? What do you suppose, except that there is a certain power of diminishing and enlarging implanted in the soul, which it must bring with it wherever it comes? This power can be observed especially in numbers. By it, for example, the image of a crow set before the eyes, as it were—which of course is known from what we have looked upon—is led, by taking away and adding certain things, to any image at all that has never been seen. By it, it comes about that, as such souls turn these things over in habitual fashion, figures of this sort rush into our thoughts as if of their own accord. Thus the imagining soul may, from those things which sense has brought into it, by taking away (as has been said) and adding, beget things which as wholes it has reached by no sense, though it has reached the parts of them in various things. So we, born and reared among inland peoples, could already imagine the seas, having seen water even in a small cup; whereas the taste of strawberries and cornel-cherries, before we tasted them in Italy, could in no way come into our minds. Hence it is that those blind from earliest age, when questioned about light and colors, do not find what to answer. For they undergo no colored images, who have sensed none.

3. 7. And do not wonder how it is that the things which are figured and can be invented in the nature of things are not first turned over by the soul, which is mingled and present in all things, though it has never sensed them from without. For we too, when by indignation or joy and the other motions of the mind of this sort we form in our body many expressions and colors, our thought does not first conceive that we can make such images. These follow in those wonderful ways—to be entrusted to your own reflection—when in the soul, without any figure of corporeal things, hidden numbers of falsehoods are set in motion. From which I would have you understand that, since you perceive there to be so many motions of the soul devoid of all those images about which you are now inquiring, the soul obtains a body by some other motion than by the thinking of sensible forms, which I judge it can in no way undergo before it uses a body and the senses. Therefore, by our friendship and by faith in the divine law itself, I would earnestly warn you, my dearest and most delightful friend, to couple no friendship with those infernal shades, and not to delay tearing apart that friendship which has been coupled. For in no way are the senses of the body resisted—which is for us a most sacred discipline—if we flatter the blows and wounds inflicted through them.

LETTER 8
Nebridius to Augustine

1. For me, hastening to get to the point, no preface, no introduction pleases. How is it, my Augustine, or what is that method which the higher powers use—those I wish to be understood as heavenly—when it pleases them to show us, while we sleep, certain dreams? What, I say, is the method; that is, how do they do it, by what art, by what machinery, by what instruments or medicines? Do they impel our mind through their own thoughts, so that we too, thinking those things, imagine them? Or do they themselves, in their own body or in their own imagination, present and show us things they have made? But if they do these things in their own body, it follows that we too have other, bodily eyes within us when we sleep, by which we see those things which they have formed in their own body. But if they are not aided in these matters by their own body, but arrange these things in their imaginative faculty, and thus touch our imaginations, and what is a dream is seen—why, I ask you, do I not compel your imaginative faculty, by my own, to generate those dreams which I first formed in my own? Surely I too have imagination, and what I wish it is able to fashion, yet I make no dream for you at all; rather, I see that our very body generates dreams within us. For when once it has, through the affection by which it is coupled to the soul, it forces us by wondrous ways to simulate that very thing through imagination. Often, when we are thirsty in sleep, we dream of drinking, and when we are hungry, we seem as it were to be eating; and many such things, which are transferred, as if by a kind of exchange, from the body into the soul in imaginative fashion. Because of their obscurity, and because of my own inexperience, do not be surprised if these things are explained less elegantly and less subtly: you will labor to do this as well as you can.

LETTER 9
Augustine to Nebridius

1. Although you know my mind, perhaps you do not know how much I wish to enjoy your presence. But God will at some time grant this so great a benefit. I read your most correct letter, in which you complained of solitude and of a certain abandonment by your friends, with whom life is most sweet. But what else am I to say to you here, except what I do not doubt you do? Betake yourself to your own mind, and lift it up into God as much as you can. For there you hold us too more surely—not through corporeal images, which we must now use in our recollection, but through that thought by which you understand that we are not together in a place.

2. When I considered your letters, in which I answered great questions for you who asked them—and there is no doubt of this—that question greatly terrified me in which you ask how it comes about that certain thoughts and dreams are introduced into us by the higher powers or by demons. For it is a great matter, which you too with your prudence perceive must be answered not by a letter, but either by a conversation in person or by some book. Nevertheless I shall try, knowing your talent, to sow beforehand certain glimmers of light upon this question, so that you may either weave the rest together yourself, or at least not despair that one can arrive at a probable investigation of so great a matter.

3. For I think that every motion of the mind produces something in the body. And this reaches even our senses, dull and slow as they are, when the motions of the mind are greater—as when we are angry, or sad, or joyful. From which one may conjecture that, even when we think something and it does not appear to us in our own body, it can nevertheless appear to airy or ethereal living beings, whose sense is most keen, and in comparison with which ours is not to be thought a sense at all. Therefore those traces, so to speak, of its own motion which the mind fixes in the body can both remain and produce a certain disposition, as it were; and these, when they have been secretly stirred and handled according to the will of the one stirring and handling them, bring upon us thoughts and dreams; and this happens with wonderful ease. For if it is manifest that the exercises of our earthly and most sluggish bodies—in playing musical instruments, or on the tightrope, and in countless other spectacles of this sort—have reached certain incredible feats, it is by no means absurd that those who do something in bodies with an airy or ethereal body, which by the natural order they penetrate, use far greater ease in moving whatever they wish, without our perceiving it, and yet our suffering something from it. For we do not perceive how an abundance of bile drives us to more frequent anger; and yet it does drive us, though this very abundance, which I mentioned, has been produced by our being angry.

4. But if you do not wish to accept this comparison from me in passing, turn it over in thought as much as you can. For if some difficulty in doing and fulfilling what it desires constantly arises in the mind, it is constantly angry. Now anger, as far as my opinion goes, is a turbulent appetite for removing the things that hinder ease of action. And so for the most part we are angry not only at men, but at the pen in writing, and we dash it down and break it; and dice-players at the dice, and painters at the brush, and anyone at any instrument by which he judges himself to suffer difficulty. By this constancy of being angry, even the physicians affirm that the bile grows. And by the increase of bile we are in turn easily angered, and with almost no causes present. Thus what the mind has produced in the body by its own motion will avail in turn to stir the mind itself.

5. These matters can be treated very fully, and brought by many testimonies of things to a surer and fuller understanding. But to this letter add that one which I recently sent you about images and memory, and treat it more carefully: for it appeared to me from your reply that it was understood by you less than fully. To this letter, then, which you are now reading, when you have added what was said there about a certain natural faculty of the mind that by thought diminishes and enlarges anything whatever, perhaps it will no longer move you how it comes about that even forms of bodies which we have never seen are figured among us, whether in thinking or in dreaming.

LETTER 10
Augustine to Nebridius

1. Never has any of your inquiries held me so feverish in thought as that which I read in your most recent letter, where you charge us with neglecting to take counsel that we might be allowed to live together. A great accusation, and, were it not false, a most dangerous one. But since a probable argument seems to show that we can live here according to our wish rather than at Carthage or even in the country, I am altogether uncertain, my Nebridius, what to do with you. Should a most suitable carriage be sent to you? For our friend Lucinianus assures us that you could be conveyed safely in a litter. But I think of my mother, who could not bear my absence when she was well, and would bear it far less when she is weak. Should I myself come to you? But here there are those who could not come with me, and whom I think it wrong to abandon. For you are able to dwell pleasantly even in your own mind; but that these men may do the same is being worked at. Should I go to and fro often, and be now with you, now with them? But this is to live neither together nor according to our wish. For the road is not short, but altogether so long that often to undertake the business of completing it is not to have arrived at the longed-for rest. Add to this the weakness of the body, by which I too, as you know, cannot do what I wish, unless I cease altogether to wish anything more than I am able to do.

2. Therefore to think about journeys, which you cannot have quiet and easy, through one's whole life is not the mark of a man who thinks about that one last journey which is called death—about which alone you understand that we must truly think. God has indeed granted to a certain few, whom he willed to be governors of the churches, both to await that journey not only bravely but even to desire it eagerly, and to undertake the labors of carrying it out without any anguish. But neither to those who are dragged toward administrations of this kind by love of temporal honor, nor again to those who, though they are private men, seek a busy life, do I think this so great a good is granted: that amid the din and the restless gatherings and comings and goings they should attain that familiarity with death which we seek; for to both groups it was possible to be made godlike in leisure. Or if this is false, I am of all men—not to say the most foolish—at least the most idle, since unless a certain secure rest comes to me, I cannot taste and love that pure good. There is need, believe me, of a great withdrawal from the tumult of fleeting things, so that it may come about in a man, not by hardness, not by audacity, not by desire for empty glory, not by superstitious credulity, that he fear nothing. For from this comes also that solid joy which is to be compared with no other joys, not in any single part.

3. But if such a life does not fall within human nature, why does this security sometimes come? Why does it come the more often, the more each person adores God in the innermost recesses of his mind? Why does this tranquillity for the most part remain even in human action, if each one proceeds to act from that inner sanctuary? Why do we sometimes, even when we are speaking, not dread death, but when we are not speaking, even desire it? I say to you—for I would not say this to just anyone—to you, I say, whose journeys into the heavenly realms I know well: will you, when you have often experienced how sweetly one lives when the mind dies to corporeal love, deny in the end that the whole life of a man can become fearless, so that he may rightly be named wise? Or will you dare to assert that this disposition, on which reason rests, has ever befallen you, except when you are anguished in your inmost depths? Since this is so, you see that one thing remains: that you too take counsel for the common good, that we may live together. For what is to be done about your mother, whom surely brother Victor does not abandon, you understand much better than I. I did not want to write other things, lest I turn you away from this reflection.

LETTER 11
Augustine to Nebridius

1. When the question greatly agitated me which you proposed some time ago, even with a certain friendly reproach—namely, by what means we might live together—and I had determined to write back to you on this alone, and to demand answers, and to turn my pen to nothing else pertaining to our studies until this very matter was settled between us, the very brief and very true argument of your recent letter quickly set me at ease: namely, that we need not think about this, since either we, when we are able, must necessarily come to you, or you, when you are able, must come to us. Set at ease, then, by this, as I said, I considered all your letters, to see for which replies I was a debtor. In them I found so many questions that, even if they could be easily resolved, by their very heap they would overwhelm anyone's talent and leisure. But they are so difficult that, even if one of them had been laid upon me, I would not hesitate to confess myself most heavily burdened. This preface, however, is meant for this: that you cease for a while to seek new questions, until we are freed from the whole debt, and that you write back to me about your judgment alone. Although I know how much this is against me, who put off being a sharer, even for a while, in your divine reflections.

2. Receive, then, what seems to me concerning the mystical assumption of the man, which the religion in which we have been instructed commends as having been brought about for our salvation, and as something to be believed and known—a question I have chosen, not as the easiest of all to answer, but because it seemed to me worthier than the rest to have the effort of my reflection spent upon it. For those things that are asked about this world do not seem to me to pertain much to obtaining the happy life; and if they bring some pleasure when they are investigated, it is nonetheless to be feared that they occupy time that should be spent on better things. And so, as for what pertains to this matter undertaken at present, I first marvel that you are troubled why the Father and the Son are not said to have assumed the man, but also the Holy Spirit. For this Trinity is so commended and believed by the catholic faith to be inseparable, and so understood by a few holy and blessed persons, that whatever is done by it must be thought to be done at once by the Father, and by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit: nor does the Father do anything which the Son and the Holy Spirit do not also do, nor the Holy Spirit anything which the Father and the Son do not, nor the Son anything which the Father and the Holy Spirit do not do. From which it seems to follow that the whole Trinity assumed the man: for if the Son assumed it, but the Father and the Holy Spirit did not, they do something apart from one another. Why, then, is it celebrated in our mysteries and sacred rites that the assumption of the man is attributed to the Son? This is a most full question, so difficult, and about so great a matter, that here neither a view sufficiently ready, nor its proof sufficiently secure, can be had. Yet I dare, since I am writing to you, to indicate rather than to explain what my mind holds; so that you may, by your own talent and our friendship, by which it comes about that you know me very well, conjecture the rest yourself.

3. There is no nature, Nebridius, and absolutely no substance, which does not have in itself and display these three things: first, that it is; next, that it is this or that; third, that, as far as it can, it abides in what it is. The first shows the cause of nature itself, from which all things are; the second, the form through which all things are fashioned and in a way given shape; the third, a certain abiding, so to speak, in which all things are. But if it can come about that something exists which is not this or that, nor abides in its own kind; or which is either this or that, but does not exist, nor abides in its own kind as far as it can; or which abides indeed in its own kind, by the powers of that very kind of its own, but yet neither exists nor is this or that—then it can also come about that in that Trinity some person does something apart from the others. But if you discern that it is necessary that whatever exists immediately both is this or that and abides in its own kind as far as it can, then those three do nothing apart from one another. I see that I have so far dealt with the part of this question which makes its solution difficult. But I wanted to open up for you briefly how subtly, and with how great truth, the inseparability of this Trinity is understood in the Catholic faith.

4. Now receive how that which moves your mind may not move it. The form which is properly attributed to the Son pertains also to discipline, and to a certain art (if we rightly use this word in these matters), and to the intelligence by which the mind itself is formed by the thinking of things. And so, since through that assumption of the man it was brought about that a certain discipline of living and an example of precept might be instilled in us under the majesty and clarity of certain truths, not without reason is this whole thing attributed to the Son. For in many matters which I commit to your thought and prudence, although many things are present, yet something stands out, and therefore not absurdly claims for itself a certain propriety; as in those three kinds of questions, even if it is asked whether a thing is, there too is also what it is, for it surely cannot exist unless it is something; there too is also whether it should be approved or disapproved, for whatever exists is worthy of some estimation. So when it is asked what a thing is, it is necessary that it both exists and is weighed by some estimation. In this way too, when it is asked of what quality it is, it is also surely something, since all these are inseparably joined to one another; yet the question takes its name not from all of them, but according to the intention of the one asking. Therefore a discipline was necessary for men, by which they might be instructed and by which they might be shaped to the right measure. Yet that very thing which comes about in men through this discipline we cannot say either does not exist or is not to be sought; rather, we aim first to know, and that by which we may conjecture something, and that in which we may abide. Therefore a certain norm and rule of discipline had first to be shown; which was done through that dispensation of the assumed man which is properly to be attributed to the Son, so that there might follow also the knowledge of the Father himself—that is, of the one principle from which all things are—through the Son, and a certain inner and ineffable sweetness and pleasantness in abiding in this knowledge and in despising all mortal things, which gift and office is properly attributed to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, although all things are done with the highest communion and inseparability, they nevertheless had to be shown distinctly because of our weakness, who have fallen from unity into variety. For no one raises another to that in which he himself is, unless he descend somewhat to that in which the other is. You have a letter, not one that has ended your care about this matter, but one that has perhaps begun your reflections on some sure foundation; so that you may pursue the rest by the talent which is very well known to me, and attain it by the piety on which above all one must stand.

LETTER 12
Augustine to Nebridius

1. You write that you sent more letters than we have received; but I can neither disbelieve you, nor you me. For although I am unable to be your equal in writing back, yet your letters are kept by me with no less care than they are sent frequently by you. As for my longer letters, however, we agree between us that you have received no more than two; for we did not send a third. Indeed, on examining the copies, I noticed that nearly five of your requests have been answered; except that one question there, touched on as if in passing—though not rashly entrusted to your talent—perhaps did not satisfy your greed; which you need to rein in a little, and to bear certain abridgments gladly. So, plainly, if I in any way cheat your understanding while I am sparing in words, do not spare me at all; but by the right by which something might perhaps have more force with me, if anything could be more pleasant, demand the whole of what is owed. This letter, then, you will count among my smaller letters, which I did not allow to diminish my heap at all. For neither do you send smaller ones that do not increase that same heap. Therefore that question of yours about the Son of God—why he himself rather than the Father is said to have assumed the man, since both are present at once—you will discern most easily if you recall those discussions of ours by which, as we could (for it is something ineffable), we said what the Son of God is, by whom we are joined. To touch on this here briefly: the very discipline and form of God, through which all things were made that were made, is called the Son. But whatever was accomplished through that assumed man was accomplished for our instruction and shaping.

LETTER 13
Augustine to Nebridius

1. To write to you of the usual things is not pleasing; of new things is not permitted. For the one I see does not suit you, the other I have no leisure for. For since I left you, no opportunity, no leisure has been given me for stirring up and turning over those things we are accustomed to inquire into between us. The winter nights are indeed exceedingly long, nor are they wholly slept away by me; but when there is leisure, things present themselves to be thought about which are necessary for breaking up that very leisure. What, then, am I to do? Am I to be mute with you, or silent? You want neither, I will neither. So come, and receive what the last part of the night could hammer out concerning me, for as long as it ran on, the time in which this letter was written.

2. You must remember what has often been bandied about between us in conversation, and what set us panting and feverish—namely, the question of the soul's either having some perpetual body or quasi-body, which you recall is even called a vehicle by some. As for this matter, it is clear that, if it is moved through place, it is not intelligible. Now whatever is not intelligible cannot be understood. But what escapes the understanding, if at least it does not escape the senses, is not altogether forbidden to be estimated thereby with some verisimilitude. But what can neither be understood nor sensed begets an opinion too rash and trifling; and this thing we are dealing with is of that kind, if indeed it exists at all. Why, then, I ask you, do we not declare a holiday for this little question, and lift our whole selves, having prayed to God, into the supreme serenity of the supreme living nature?

3. Here perhaps you will say that, although bodies cannot be perceived, we can nevertheless perceive intelligibly many things pertaining to body—as is the fact that we know there is body. For who would deny this, or who would confess this to be verisimilar rather than true? Thus, while body itself is verisimilar, it is nevertheless most true that there is some such thing in nature: therefore body is judged to be sensible, but that there is body is judged intelligibly; for it could not otherwise be perceived. So that body of some sort, about which we are inquiring—on which the soul is thought to lean in order to pass from place to place—although it would be sensible, if not to our senses, yet to certain far more vigorous ones, whether it nevertheless exists can be known intelligibly.

4. If you say this, let it come to mind that what we call understanding takes place in us in two ways: either by the mind and reason themselves, inwardly, of themselves—as when we understand that the understanding itself exists; or by a prompting from the senses—as that which has just been mentioned, when we understand that body exists. Of these two kinds, we understand the first through ourselves, that is, by consulting God concerning what is with us; the second, concerning what is reported by the body and the sense, none the less by consulting God. And if this holds, no one can understand whether that body exists unless his sense has reported something about it to him. And if among the class of living beings there is any such—since we perceive that we are not of that class—I think that point too is established which I had begun to make above: that this question does not pertain to us. I would have you think these things over again and again, and take care that I may know what you beget by thinking.

LETTER 14
Augustine to Nebridius

1. I have preferred to answer your most recent letter; not because I have despised your earlier questions, or because they delighted me less, but because in answering them I am undertaking greater things than you suppose. For although you have prescribed that I send you a letter longer than the longest, we nevertheless do not have as much leisure as you think, and as you know we have always wished and still wish to have. And do not ask why this is so: for I could more easily set forth those things by which I am hindered than why I am hindered.

2. You write asking why, though you and I are each single individuals, we do many of the same things, while the sun does not do the same as the other heavenly bodies. I will try to explain the cause of this. For if we do the same things, the sun too does many things along with the other stars; if it does not, neither do we. I walk and you walk, the sun moves and they move; I am awake and you are awake; the sun shines and they shine; I argue and you argue; the sun circles and they circle around—although the act of the mind is in no way to be compared with the things we see. But if you compare mind with mind, as is fair, then the stars, if any mind is in them, are rather to be considered as thinking or contemplating the same thing—or whatever else is more aptly said—than men are. As for the rest, in the motions of bodies, if you attend carefully, as you usually do, nothing at all can be done identically by two things. Or do you suppose that, when we walk together, we are at once doing the same thing? Far be that from your prudence. For of the two of us walking, the one nearer the north pole must either go ahead of the other with an equal motion or step more slowly; yet neither can be perceived. But you, unless I am mistaken, are waiting for what we understand, not what we perceive. But if we should go from the pole toward the south, joined and clinging to one another as closely as we can, and lean on smooth and level marble or even on ivory, the motion of the two can no more be the same than the pulse of the veins, than the shape, than the face. Remove us and set in our place the offspring of Daucus, and you will have accomplished nothing. For even in twins as alike as these the necessity that they move each in their own way is as great as was the necessity that they be born one by one.

3. But this, you will say, is so only to reason: whereas the sun's difference from the stars is clear and manifest even to the senses. If you compel me to consider its magnitude, you know how many things are said about distances, and to what great uncertainty that apparent clarity is reduced. But to grant that it is as it appears—for so I too believe—whose sense, after all, has not been deceived by that height of Naevius, who was taller by a foot than the tallest man of six? whom I believe you sought too hard for as a man's equal, and, having failed utterly to find one, you wanted to stretch our letter to the very measure of his form. Therefore, since something of this sort exists on earth too, I think there is nothing to wonder at concerning the heavens. But if it moves you that no star except the sun fills the day with its light—who, I ask you, has appeared to men so great as that man whom God assumed, far otherwise than the other holy and wise men? If you compare him with other men, they are separated by a greater distance than the other stars are by comparison with the sun. Observe this likeness carefully. For it may be brought about by the mind in which you excel that, in passing, we have resolved a certain question about the man Christ proposed by you.

4. You ask likewise whether that supreme truth and supreme wisdom and form of things, through which all things were made, whom our sacred writings profess to be the only Son of God, contains the rational principle of man in general, or also of each one of us. A great question. But it seems to me that, as far as concerns the making of man, the rational principle of man only, and not mine or yours, is there; but as far as concerns the cycle of time, the various rational principles of men live in that purity. But since this is most obscure, by what likeness it can be illustrated I do not know—unless perhaps we must take refuge in those arts that are in our mind. For in the discipline of measuring there is one rational principle of an angle, one of a square. And so, whenever I want to demonstrate an angle, only one rational principle of an angle occurs to me. But I would by no means draw a square unless I beheld the principle of four angles at once: thus any man whatever was made by one rational principle, by which a man is understood. But that a people may come to be—although this too is one rational principle—it is nevertheless not the principle of a man, but of men. If, therefore, Nebridius is a part of this universe, as he is, and the whole universe is composed of parts, God, the founder of the universe, could not lack the rational principle of the parts. Wherefore, that the rational principle of very many men is there does not pertain to man as such—although again, in wondrous ways, all things are brought back to one. But you will think this out more aptly: be content with this for the time being, I ask, although I have already gone beyond Naevius.

LETTER 15
Augustine to Romanianus

1. This letter does not so much indicate a lack of paper as testify that parchment, at least, is plentiful. The ivory tablets that I have I sent to your uncle along with a letter. For you will more easily pardon this little scrap of skin, because what I wrote to him could not be put off, and not to write to you I judged the height of folly. But the tablets, if any of ours are there, I ask you to send, for needs of this kind. I have written something about the catholic religion, as much as the Lord has deigned to grant, which I want to send you before my arrival, if paper does not run out meanwhile. For you will tolerate whatever sort of writing comes from the workshop of Maiorinus. As for the books, except the books on the orator, the whole matter has slipped my mind. But I could write back nothing more than that you yourself take whichever ones you please, and I still hold to the same opinion. For being absent, I find nothing more that I can do.

2. It is most welcome to me that in your last letter you wished to make me a sharer in your domestic joy. But, do you bid me be ignorant of the calm sea's face and its quiet waves (Virgil, Aeneid 5.848–49)? Although you neither bid me nor are yourself ignorant. Therefore, if some rest has been granted you for thinking better thoughts, make use of the divine benefit. For we ought not to congratulate ourselves when these things come to us, but rather him through whom they come: since a just and dutiful administration of temporal things, more peaceful and tranquil after its own kind, begets the merit of receiving eternal things—if it does not hold on when it is held, nor become entangled when it is multiplied, nor wrap itself up when it is set at peace. For it has been said by the mouth of Truth itself: if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own (Luke 16:12)? Therefore, with our cares about changeable things loosened, let us seek the stable and certain goods, let us fly above our earthly riches. For even amid an abundance of honey the little bee does not have wings in vain; for the honey kills it when it sticks fast.

LETTER 16
Maximus of Madaura to Augustine

1. Eager to be gladdened often by your addresses, and prompted by your own discourse, with which a little while ago you very pleasantly struck me—our love safe—I have not failed to return like for like, lest you should call my silence a sign of regret. But I beg that, if you reckon these to be, as it were, the limbs of an old man, you will follow them with the indulgence of kindly ears. That Mount Olympus is the dwelling of the gods, Greece relates in tales, on uncertain faith. But the forum of our own city we see and prove to be possessed by a throng of salutary divinities. Indeed, that there is one supreme God, without beginning, without offspring of his nature, a great and magnificent father, as it were—who is so mad, so out of his mind, as to deny that this is most certain? His powers, diffused throughout the work of the world, we invoke under many names, since we are all of course ignorant of his proper name. For "God" is a name common to all religions. So it comes about that, while we follow his limbs, as it were, piecemeal with various supplications, we plainly seem to worship the whole.

2. But I cannot pretend that I am not impatient at so great an error. For who could bear that a Mygdon be preferred to Jupiter brandishing his thunderbolts; a Sanaes to Juno, Minerva, Venus, and Vesta; and to all the immortal gods—oh, the outrage!—the arch-martyr Namphamo? Among whom Lucitas too is looked up to with no less worship, and others without limit in number (names hateful to gods and men), who, conscious of unspeakable crimes, under the guise of a glorious death, heaping their crimes upon crimes, found an end, befouled, worthy of their characters and deeds. The tombs of these men—if it is worth mentioning—the foolish frequent, abandoning the temples and neglecting the shades of their own ancestors, so that the prophecy of that bard who took it ill stands out: and Rome shall swear by shades in the temples of the gods. But to me in this storm it seems almost as though the war of Actium has arisen again, in which Egyptian monsters dare to brandish their weapons against the gods of the Romans—weapons that will by no means last.

3. But this I ask, most wise of men: that, setting aside and casting off the strength of eloquence by which you are renowned among all, and omitting too the Chrysippean arguments with which you used to do battle, and putting aside for a little while dialectic—which, by the wrestling of its sinews, strives to leave nothing certain for anyone—you approve by the thing itself who this God is whom you Christians claim as if your own, and whom you compose yourselves to see present in hidden places. For we worship our gods in the light, openly, before the eyes and ears of all mortals, with pious prayers, and we make them propitious to us through pleasant sacrifices, and we contend that all these things are seen and approved by everyone.

4. But, an invalid old man, I withdraw myself from this further contest, and gladly proceed to the opinion of the Mantuan rhetorician: each is drawn by his own pleasure (Virgil, Eclogues 2.65). After this I do not doubt, excellent man, who have strayed from my sect, that this letter, stolen away by the theft of some persons, will perish in the flames or in some other way. But if this should happen, the loss will be of the little paper, not of our discourse, a copy of which I shall keep forever in the hands of all the religious. May the gods preserve you, through whom we, all mortals whom the earth sustains, in a thousand ways, in harmonious discord, venerate and worship both them and the common father of them and of all mortals.

LETTER 17
To Maximus of Madaura

1. Are we conducting something serious between us, or do you wish to jest? For as your letter speaks, I am uncertain whether it was from the weakness of the cause itself, or from the affability of your character, that you preferred to be more witty than prepared. For first a comparison was made between Mount Olympus and your forum: which I do not know to what end it tended, unless to remind me that on that mountain Jupiter pitched his camp when he was waging war against his father, as that history teaches which your people too call sacred; and to make me recall that in that forum there are, in two statues, one Mars naked and another armed, whose divinity, most hostile to the citizens, a human statue set opposite, with three fingers extended, holds in check. Could I ever, then, have believed that, in mentioning that forum, you wanted to renew for me the memory of such divinities, unless you preferred to jest rather than to deal seriously! But that point, plainly, where you said that such gods are certain limbs of the one great God, I warn you—since you think it worthy—to abstain greatly from sacrilegious witticisms of this kind. For if you call him the one God about whom, as the ancients said, the learned and the unlearned agree, do you say that these are limbs of him whose monstrousness—or, if you prefer, whose power—the image of a dead man holds in check? I could say more on this; for you see, with your prudence, how widely this point lies open to censure. But I restrain myself, lest I be thought by you to be acting as a rhetorician rather than a teller of truth.

2. Now as for the fact that you have collected certain Punic names of dead men, with which you thought to hurl festive insults, as it seemed to you, against our religion, I do not know whether I ought to repel them or pass them over in silence. For if these matters seem as trivial to your gravity as they are, I have not much leisure to jest. But if they seem grave to you, I marvel that, moved by the absurdity of the names, it did not come into your mind that you too have Eucaddires among your priests and Abaddires among your divinities. I do not think these were absent from your mind when you wrote, but, after the manner of your humanity and charm, you wanted to remind us, for the relaxing of the mind, how many things in your superstition are laughable. For you could not so far have forgotten yourself that, an African writing to Africans, since we are both settled in Africa, you would think Punic names worthy of mockery. For if we interpret these words, what else does Namphamo mean than a man of good foot—that is, one whose coming brings some happiness; as we are accustomed to say that one has entered with a favorable foot whose entrance some prosperity has followed? If this language is disapproved by you, deny that many things were wisely committed to memory in Punic books, as is reported by most learned men. Surely you ought to regret having been born where the cradle of this language is still warm. But if the sound too displeases us not without reason, and you recognize that I have interpreted that word well, you have grounds for being angry with your Virgil, who invites your Hercules to the rites celebrated for him by Evander in this way: come favorably to both us and your rites with a foot of good omen (Virgil, Aeneid 8.302). He wishes him to come with a favorable foot. Therefore he wishes Hercules to come as a Namphamo, about whom you deign to insult us greatly. But nevertheless, if it delights you to laugh, you have among yourselves great material for witticisms: the god Stercutius, the goddess Cloacina, the bald Venus, the god Fear, the god Pallor, the goddess Fever, and countless others of this sort, to whom the ancient Romans, worshippers of images, built temples and decreed that they be worshipped: which if you neglect, you neglect the Roman gods; from which it will be understood that you are not initiated into Roman rites, and yet you scorn and despise Punic names as though you were devoted to the altars of the Roman divinities.

3. But you seem to me to set little or no value on those rites—perhaps even less than we do—and rather to seek from them some pleasure for the passage of this life: since you did not even hesitate to take refuge in Maro, as you write, and to defend yourself by his verse, where he says: each is drawn by his own pleasure (Virgil, Eclogues 2.65). For if the authority of Maro pleases you, as you indicate it does, then surely this too pleases you: first from heavenly Olympus came Saturn, fleeing the arms of Jove, an exile from his lost kingdom (Virgil, Aeneid 8.319–20), and the rest, by which he wishes it to be understood that he and your gods of this sort were men. For he had read much history, strengthened by ancient authority, which Tully too had read, who recounts this same thing in his dialogues more than we would dare to demand, and strives to bring it to the knowledge of men, as far as those times allowed.

4. But as for your saying that your rites are to be preferred to ours because you worship the gods publicly, while we use more secret little assemblies: first I ask you this—how you have forgotten that Liber whom you think must be entrusted to the eyes of a few initiates. Next, you yourself judge that you wanted to do nothing else, when you recounted the public celebration of your rites, than to set before our eyes, as it were spectacles, your decurions and leading men of the city raving and frenzied through the streets of your city: in which celebration, if you are inhabited by a divinity, surely you see what sort of thing that is which takes away the mind. But if you are pretending, what then are these secrets of yours even in public, or to what does so base a lie pertain? Next, why do you not chant future things, if you are seers? Or why do you despoil the bystanders, if you are sane?

5. Since, then, you have made us recall these things and others which I now think should be passed over, through your letter, why should we not laugh at your gods, whom everyone understands to be subtly laughed at by you yourself—everyone who both knows your talent and has read your letter? And so, if you want us to deal with some matter of these things that befits your age and prudence, and that can finally rightly be demanded of us by our dearest friends concerning our purpose, seek something worthy of our discussion: and take care to say, on behalf of your divinities, things in which we may not think you a betrayer of your own cause, whereby you remind us more of what can be said against them than say anything on their behalf. To sum up, however, lest this escape you and draw you unawares into sacrilegious abuse, know that by catholic Christians, whose church is established even in your town, no dead man is worshipped, and nothing at all is adored as a divinity that has been made and founded by God, but only that one God himself who made and founded all things. These matters will be discussed at greater length, with the help of the true and one God himself, when I learn that you wish to act seriously.

LETTER 18
Augustine to Caelestinus

1. Oh, that I could constantly say something to you! And that something is this: that we might strip off empty cares and put on useful ones. For as to security, I do not know whether anything is to be hoped for in this world. I wrote, and received no reply. I sent the books against the Manichees, which I was able to send ready and corrected, and nothing of your judgment and reaction to them has been made known to me. Now it is fitting that I ask for them back, and that you return them. I therefore ask that you not put off sending them back with a reply, by which I desire to know what you are doing about them, or what armor you think you still need for overthrowing that error.

2. Since indeed I know you, take this something great and brief. There is a nature changeable through places and times, such as body. And there is a nature in no way changeable through places, but changeable only through times, such as the soul. And there is a nature that can be changed neither through places nor through times; this is God. What I have here suggested as changeable in any way is called creation; what is unchangeable, the Creator. But since everything that we say exists, we say to exist insofar as it abides, and insofar as it is one, and since further the form of all beauty is unity: you surely see, in this distribution of natures, what is supreme, what is lowest and yet exists, and what is in the middle, greater than the lowest and less than the supreme. That supreme thing is blessedness itself; the lowest is that which can be neither blessed nor wretched; but that which is in the middle lives wretchedly by inclining toward the lowest, and blessedly by turning toward the supreme. He who believes in Christ does not love the lowest, does not grow proud in the middle, and thus becomes fit to cling to the supreme: and this is the whole of what we are commanded, admonished, and set afire to do.

LETTER 19
Augustine to Gaius

1. Since we parted from you, it cannot be told with what great sweetness the memory of you has flooded over us, and often floods over us still. For we recall that, by the ardor of your inquiry, though it was marvelous, the modesty of your discussing was not disturbed. For I could not easily find anyone questioning more ardently or listening more tranquilly. And so I would like to talk much with you: for it would not be much, however much it were, if I were talking with you. But since this is difficult, what need is there to seek the reasons? It is downright difficult: it will perhaps at some time be very easy; God willing it so: now at least it is otherwise. I have therefore given a charge to the brother through whom I send this letter, to offer all our writings to be read by your most prudent Charity. For he will not force anything of mine upon you unwilling; for I know what kindliness you bear toward us in your mind. Yet if you should read and approve them, and see through to their truth, do not think that they are ours, except in that they were given; and you may turn for this to that source from which it was given to you too to approve them. For no one perceives that what he reads is true in the book itself, or in the one who wrote it, but rather in himself, if upon his mind there has been impressed a light of truth not commonly bright and most far removed from the dregs of the body. But if you should find some things false and to be disapproved, know that they have been bedewed from the human cloud, and reckon those to be truly ours. I would urge you to inquire, did I not seem to myself to see certain open mouths of your heart; I would urge you also to hold manfully to the truth you have come to know, did you not display before you the most evident strength of your mind and counsel. For in a short time, with the coverings of the body almost cast off, all that lives in you opened itself to me. And in no way may the most merciful providence of our Lord allow that you, so good a man and outstandingly wise of heart, be a stranger to the catholic flock of Christ.

LETTER 20
Augustine to Antoninus

1. Since writings were owed to you by two of us, the part has been more abundantly repaid, in that you see one of us present, from whose mouth, since you receive me too, I could have not written back, had I not done so at his bidding—he, on whose departure, what I have done seemed superfluous. And so I perhaps converse with you more fruitfully than if I were present in person, since you both read my letter and hear him in whose breast you know very well that I dwell. With great joy I have considered and pondered the letter of your Holiness, because it displays both your Christian mind, without any disguise of the wicked time, and your most friendly disposition toward us.

2. I congratulate you, and give thanks to God and our Lord for your hope and faith and love, and for yourself before him, because you think so well of us as to believe that we are faithful servants of God, and because you love that very thing in us with a most pure heart: although for this your goodwill is rather to be congratulated than thanks to be given to you. For it profits you to direct goodness itself, which surely he loves who, in loving one whom he believes good, loves him whether the man be such or otherwise than he is believed to be. Only one error in this matter is to be guarded against: that no one think of the good of man itself—not of the man—otherwise than the truth requires. But you, most beloved brother, who in no way err in believing or knowing that it is a great good to serve God freely and chastely, when you love any man whatever because you believe him a sharer in this good, your fruit is with you, even if he be not such. Wherefore you are to be congratulated about this matter; but he is to be congratulated, not if he is loved on this account, but if he is such as the one who loves him on this account judges him to be. Therefore, what sort of men we are, and how far we have advanced toward God, let him see whose judgment cannot err either about the good of man or about the man himself. For you, as far as the reward of blessedness in this matter is concerned, it is enough that, believing us to be such as the servants of God ought to be, you embrace us with the whole bosom of your heart. We give you abundant thanks, however, because, when you praise us as though we were such, you wondrously exhort us to desire to be such; and still more abundant thanks, if you not only commend yourself to our prayers, but also do not fail to pray for us. For prayer for a brother is more pleasing to God, where the sacrifice of love is offered.

3. I greet your little one most warmly, and, according to the salutary precepts of the Lord, I wish him to grow up. For your household too I desire and pray that the one faith and true devotion, which alone is catholic, may come about: in which matter, if you should perhaps think any other help of ours necessary, do not hesitate to claim it for yourself, relying both on the common Lord and on the right of love. This indeed I would urge upon your most religious prudence: that you implant or nourish in your weaker vessel a fear of God that is not unreasonable, by divine reading and grave conversation. For no one who is rightly anxious about the state of his soul, and on this account is intent without obstinacy on inquiring into the will of the Lord, fails—when he has used a good demonstrator—to discern what difference there is between any schism whatever and the one Catholic Church.

LETTER 21
To the most blessed and venerable lord, in the sight of the Lord most dear by sincere love, his father Bishop Valerius, Augustine the presbyter sends greeting in the Lord

1. Before all things I ask that your religious prudence consider that there is nothing in this life, and especially at this time, easier, more pleasant, and more acceptable to men than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, if the matter is handled perfunctorily and with flattery; but nothing before God more wretched, more sorrowful, and more damnable. And again, that there is nothing in this life, and especially at this time, more difficult, more laborious, more dangerous than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon; but before God nothing more blessed, if one serves as a soldier in the way our commander bids. But what that way is, I learned neither in my boyhood nor in my youth: and at the very time when I had begun to learn, force was done to me—deservedly for my sins (for what else am I to think, I do not know)—so that the second place at the helm was handed over to me, who did not know how to hold an oar.

2. But I think my Lord wished to correct me in this way for this reason: that, before I had experienced what is done there, I dared, as though more learned and better, to reprove the sins of many sailors. And so, after I was sent into the midst of it, then I began to feel the rashness of my reproofs; although even before I judged this ministry most dangerous. And from this came those tears which some brothers noticed me shedding in the city at the time of my ordination; and not knowing the causes of my grief, they consoled me, with what words they could—words that did not at all touch my wound—yet with good intent. But I experienced far more, and much more amply, than I had thought: not because I saw any new waves or storms which I had not known before, or had not heard of, or had not read of, or had not thought of; but because I did not at all know my own skill and strength for avoiding or enduring them, and judged them to be of some account. But the Lord laughed at me, and willed by the very facts to show me to myself.

3. But if he did this not by condemning but by pitying—for this at least I hope, now that my sickness has become known—I ought to search through all the medicines of his Scriptures, and by praying and reading to act so that fitting health may be granted to my soul for such dangerous affairs; which I did not do before, because I did not even have the time. For I was ordained at the very time when we were thinking about that very time of leisure for coming to know the divine Scriptures, and wished so to arrange ourselves that we might have leisure for this business. And, what is true, I did not yet know what I lacked for such a work as now tortures and crushes me. But if for this reason I have learned in the matter itself what is necessary for a man who ministers the sacrament and the word of God to the people, so that I am now not permitted to attain what I have recognized I do not have: do you then bid me perish, father Valerius? Where is your love? Surely you love me? Surely you love the very Church to which you wished me thus to minister? And yet I am certain that you love both me and her. But you think me fit, while I know myself better—I who would not even have known myself, had I not learned by experience.

4. But perhaps your Holiness will say: I would like to know what is lacking to your training. But there are so many things that I could more easily enumerate what I have than what I desire to have. For I would dare to say that I know, and hold with full faith, what pertains to our salvation. But this very thing—how am I to minister it for the salvation of others, not seeking what is useful to me, but what is useful to many, that they may be saved (1 Cor 10:33)? And there are perhaps some counsels—indeed, it is not to be doubted that there are—written in the holy Books, by which, when they are known and grasped, the man of God may minister in ecclesiastical affairs in a more orderly way, or at least, amid the hands of the wicked, may either live with a healthier conscience or die so that that life is not lost, for which alone humble and meek Christian hearts sigh. But how can this come about, except, as the Lord himself says, by asking, seeking, knocking (Matt 7:7)—that is, by praying, reading, lamenting? For this business I wanted to obtain, through the brothers, a little time, until Easter as it were, from your most sincere and venerable Charity, and now through these prayers I ask it.

5. For what shall I answer to the Lord my judge? I could not now seek these things, because I was hindered by ecclesiastical affairs? If then he should say to me: Wicked servant (See Matt 25:26), if some estate of the Church were to suffer a slanderer, on the gathering of whose fruits great labor is spent—if, the field I have watered with my blood being neglected, you could do something for it before the judge of the earth, would you not, with everyone consenting and some even bidding and compelling, set out, and, if it were judged against you, even cross the sea? And in this way no complaint would call back your absence of a year or even more, lest another possess land necessary not for the soul but for the body of the poor, whose hunger nevertheless my living trees would much more easily, and to me more gratefully, satisfy if they were diligently cultivated? Why, then, do you plead that you lacked leisure of time for learning my agriculture? Tell me what I am to answer, I beg you. Or do you perhaps want me to say: Old Valerius, while he believed me to be furnished with all things, the more he loved me, the less did he permit me to learn these things?

6. Attend to all these things, old Valerius, I beseech you by the goodness and severity of Christ, by his mercy and judgment, by him who inspired in you so great a love toward us that we dare not offend you even for the gain of our soul. And yet you make God and Christ a witness to me of your innocence and love, and of the sincere affection you have toward us, as though I could not swear to all these things. I therefore implore that very love and affection, that you have mercy on me and grant me, for what I have asked, as much time as I have asked, and help me with your prayers, that my desire be not empty, nor my absence unfruitful to the Church of Christ and to the benefit of my brothers and fellow servants. I know that the Lord does not despise that love praying for me, especially in such a cause; and, accepting it as a sacrifice of sweetness, he will perhaps, in a shorter time than I have asked, give me back furnished with most salutary counsels from his Scriptures.

LETTER 22
To Bishop Aurelius, from Augustine the presbyter

1. 1. Since for a long time, hesitating, I could not find with what grace I should answer the letter of your Holiness (for the affection of my mind has overcome everything, which affection, already rising of its own accord, the reading of your letter has roused much more ardently), I have nevertheless committed myself to God, that he might work in me according to my strength, so that I might write back those things which would suit the zeal of both of us in the Lord and the ecclesiastical care, according to your excellence and my compliance. And that first point, that you believe yourself to be aided by my prayers, I not only do not flee, but even gladly embrace. For thus, even if not by mine, at least by yours, our Lord will hear me. That brother Alypius has remained in our union, so as to be an example to the brothers who desire to avoid the cares of this world, you have received most kindly: I give thanks which I could explain in no words: may the Lord repay this into your soul. And so the whole assembly of brothers, which has begun to grow together among us, is bound to you by so great a prerogative that, though separated by such far-distant places on earth, you have taken thought for us as though most present in spirit. Wherefore we apply ourselves to prayers as much as we are able, that the Lord may deign to sustain with you the flock committed to you, and nowhere to desert you, but to be present as a helper in your opportunities, showing mercy with his Church through your priesthood, such as spiritual men, with tears and groans, intercede that he show.

1. 2. Know, then, most blessed lord and venerable in fullest love, that we do not despair—indeed, we hope vehemently—that our Lord and God, through the authority of the person you bear, which we trust has been laid not upon your flesh but upon your spirit, may be able to heal, with the grave sword of councils and through you, many carnal foulnesses and sicknesses which the African Church suffers in many and groans over in a few. For when the Apostle briefly set down in one place three kinds of vices to be detested and avoided, from which arises a crop of innumerable vices, one of these, which he set in the second place, is most sharply punished in the Church; but the two remaining, that is, the first and the last, seem tolerable to men, and so little by little it can come about that they are no longer even thought to be vices. For the vessel of election says: not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and deceit; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in its desires (Rom 13:13–14).

1. 3. Of these three, then, debauchery and licentiousness are thought so great a crime that no one who has stained himself with that sin seems worthy not only of ecclesiastical ministry but even of the communion of the sacraments themselves: and rightly so, altogether. But why this alone? For reveling and drunkenness are thought so permitted and lawful that they are celebrated even in honor of the most blessed martyrs, not only on solemn days (which itself, who that looks at these things not with the eyes of the flesh would not see is to be lamented), but even daily. If this foulness were only shameful and not also sacrilegious, we would think it must be borne with whatever strength of toleration we have. And yet where is that point, where the same Apostle, having enumerated many vices, among which he placed drunkards, so concluded as to say that with such persons we are not even to eat bread (See 1 Cor 5:11)? But let us bear these things in the luxury and stain of the home, and of those banquets that are contained within private walls, and let us receive the body of Christ with those with whom we are forbidden to eat bread; let so great a disgrace be kept away at least from the sepulchres of the holy bodies, at least from the places of the sacraments, from the houses of prayer. For who dares to forbid in private what, when it is frequented in holy places, is called the honor of the martyrs?

1. 4. If Africa were the first to try to remove these things, she would deserve to be imitated by other lands: but since, both through the greatest part of Italy and in all or nearly all other churches across the sea, these practices—partly because they were never done, partly because, whether newly arisen or grown old, they have been extinguished and abolished by the diligence and animadversion of holy bishops who truly think about the life to come—[. . .] how can we doubt that we may amend so great a corruption of morals, even by setting so wide an example? And we indeed have a bishop from those parts, for which we give great thanks to God: although such is his modesty and gentleness, such finally his prudence and solicitude in the Lord, that even if he were an African, he would quickly be persuaded from the Scriptures that the wound which a licentious and ill-free custom has inflicted must be cured. But so great is the pestilence of this evil that it cannot be healed at all, as it seems to me, except by the authority of a council. Or if the medicine must be begun from one church, then, as it seems audacious to try to change what the Church of Carthage holds, so it is great shamelessness to wish to keep what the Church of Carthage has corrected. And for this matter what other bishop should be wished for than one who, as a deacon, abhorred these things?

1. 5. But what was then to be lamented must now be removed; not harshly, but, as it is written, in a spirit of gentleness and meekness (See Gal 6:1). For your letters, the tokens of a most genuine love, give me confidence to dare to converse with you as with myself. Therefore not harshly, as I judge, not hardly, not in an imperious manner are these things removed; rather by teaching than by commanding, rather by admonishing than by threatening. For thus one must act with the multitude: but severity is to be exercised against the sins of a few. And if we threaten anything, let it be done with grief, threatening from the Scriptures the punishment to come, so that not we ourselves in our own power, but God in our discourse, may be feared. Thus first the spiritual, or those nearest to the spiritual, will be moved, by whose authority, and by admonitions most gentle indeed but most insistent, the rest of the multitude may be broken in.

1. 6. But since these drunkennesses and luxurious banquets in the cemeteries are usually believed by the carnal and unskilled populace to be not only honors of the martyrs but also consolations of the dead, it seems to me that this foulness and baseness could be more easily dissuaded from them, if it both be prohibited from the Scriptures, and the offerings for the spirits of those who sleep—which we must truly believe to help them somewhat—be not lavish upon the memorials themselves, and be provided to all who ask, without pride and with cheerfulness: and not sold; but if anyone wishes to offer some money, out of religion, let him distribute it on the spot to the poor. Thus they will neither seem to desert the memorials of their own—which can beget no light grief of heart—and that will be celebrated in the Church which is celebrated piously and honorably. Let these things, for the present, be said about reveling and drunkenness.

2. 7. But about quarreling and deceit, what need is there for me to speak, since these vices are graver not in the populace but in our own number? The mother of these diseases is pride, and greed for human praise, which often even begets hypocrisy. This is not resisted unless, by frequent testimonies of the divine Books, the fear and love of God be struck into the heart: provided, however, that he who does this offer himself as an example of patience and humility, by taking to himself less than is offered; yet, from those who honor him, by accepting neither all nor nothing, and accepting that praise or honor which is accepted not for his own sake—who ought to be wholly before God and to despise human things—but for the sake of those for whom he cannot take thought if he becomes cheap through too great a self-abasement. For to this pertains what was said: Let no one despise your youth (1 Tim 4:12); since he said this who in another place says: If I wished to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10).

2. 8. It is a great thing not to rejoice in the honors and praises of men, but also to cut off all empty pomp, and, if anything necessary is retained thereof, to confer it all to the benefit and salvation of those who honor. For it was not said in vain: God will break the bones of those who wish to please men (Ps 53:5 (52:6)). For what is more languid, what so without stability and strength—which bones signify—than a man whom the tongue of evil-speakers weakens, when he knows that the things said are false? The grief of which thing would in no way tear apart the inmost depths of the soul, if love of praise did not break his bones. I presume upon the strength of your mind: and so these things which I share with you, I say to myself; yet you deign, I believe, to consider with me how grave, how difficult they are. For no one feels the forces of this enemy except one who has declared war on him; because, though it is easy for anyone to be without praise while it is denied, it is difficult not to be delighted by it when it is offered; and yet so great must be the mind's suspension toward God that, if we are praised undeservedly, we correct those whom we can, lest they think either that there is in us what is not, or that what is God's is ours, or that they praise things which, though they are not lacking in us, or even abound, are nevertheless by no means praiseworthy—such as are all the goods which we have in common either with cattle or with impious men. But if we are praised deservedly on God's account, let us congratulate those who are pleased by the true good; yet not ourselves, because we please men, but if before God we are such as they believe us to be, and it is attributed not to us, but to God, whose gifts are all things that are truly and deservedly praised. These things I sing to myself daily, or rather he sings them whose salutary precepts they are, whatever are found either in the divine Readings or are inwardly suggested to the mind; and yet, vehemently struggling with the adversary, I often receive wounds from him, when I cannot take from myself the delight of praise offered.

2. 9. I have written these things for this reason: that, if they are no longer necessary to your Holiness—whether because you yourself think of more things of this kind, and more useful, or because your Holiness has no need of this medicine—my evils may nevertheless be known to you, and you may know whence you should deign to ask God on behalf of my weakness: which that you may do most earnestly, I beseech you by the humanity of him who gave the precept that we bear one another's burdens (See Gal 6:2). There are many things which I would bewail concerning our life and manner of living, which I would not wish to come to you through letters, if between my heart and your heart there were any means of communication other than my mouth and your ears. But if the old man Saturninus—venerable to us and most dear to us all in all sincerity, whose truly brotherly kindness and zeal toward you I perceived when I was present—should deign, when it seems opportune, to come to us, whatever we are able to converse about with his Holiness and spiritual affection will differ either not at all or not much from doing it with your Dignity. That you may deign to ask and obtain this from him along with us, I beg with such prayers as no words suffice for. For the people of Hippo vehemently and exceedingly dread my absence even at so great a distance, and in no way are willing to trust me so far as that I too should see the field which we have learned was given to the brothers by your provision and liberality, before your letter, through our holy brother and fellow servant Parthenius, from whom we have heard many other things which we desired to hear. The Lord will grant that the rest also, which we still desire, be fulfilled.

LETTER 23
To the most beloved lord and honorable brother Maximinus, Augustine the presbyter of the catholic Church sends greeting in the Lord

1. Before I come to the matter about which I wished to write to your Benevolence, I will briefly give the reason for the heading of this letter, lest it move either you or anyone else. I have written lord, because it is written: You were called to freedom, brothers; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another (Gal 5:13). Since, then, by this very service of a letter I serve you through love, not absurdly do I call you lord, on account of the one and true Lord of ours who commanded us these things. But as for my having written most beloved, God knows that I not only love you, but love you as myself; since I am well conscious to myself that I wish for you the good things I wish for myself. And as for my having added honorable, I did not add it in order to honor your episcopate; for to me you are not a bishop—and do not take this said as an insult—but from the disposition which ought to be in our mouth: Yes, yes; No, no (Matt 5:37). For you are not unaware, nor is any man who knows us unaware, that you are not my bishop, nor I your presbyter. I therefore gladly call you honorable from that rule by which I know you to be a man, and know that man was made to the image and likeness of God (See Gen 1:26), and is set in honor by the very order and right of nature, if indeed, by understanding the things that are to be understood, he preserves his honor. For so it is written: Man, set in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts, and was made like to them (Ps 49:12 (48:13)). Why, then, should I not call you honorable insofar as you are a man, especially since I dare not despair of your salvation and correction so long as you are in this life? But that I should call you brother, you are not unaware that it has been divinely commanded us to say, even to those who deny that they are our brothers: You are our brothers; and this has great force for the cause for which I wished to write to your Fraternity. For now, having given the reason why I made such a doorway for the letter, hear most calmly what follows.

2. When in this region I was detesting, in whatever words I could, the custom of men—a custom to be mourned and bewailed—who, though they glory in the Christian name, do not hesitate to rebaptize Christians, there were no lack of those who praised you and told me that you do not do these things. I confess, at first I did not believe it. Then, considering that it could come about that the fear of God should seize a human soul thinking about the life to come, so that it would restrain itself from a most open crime, I rejoiced and believed that with such a purpose you were unwilling to be too estranged from the catholic Church. I was indeed seeking an occasion of speaking with you, so that, if it could be done, the small dissension that had remained between us might be removed; when behold, a few days ago it was reported that you had rebaptized our deacon of Mutugenna. I grieved vehemently, both at his pitiable fall and at your unexpected crime, brother. For I know what the catholic Church is. The nations are the inheritance of Christ, and the ends of the earth are Christ's possession (See Ps 2:8). You too know this, or if you do not know it, take note; it can most easily be known by those who are willing. To rebaptize, then, a heretic who has received these signs of holiness which Christian teaching has handed down is altogether a sin; but to rebaptize a catholic is a most monstrous crime. Yet not quite believing it, because I held a good opinion of you, I went to Mutugenna myself; and the wretched man I could not see, but from his parents I heard that he had now even been made your deacon. And yet I still feel so well about your heart that I do not believe him to have been rebaptized.

3. Therefore I beseech you, most beloved brother, by the divinity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you deign to write back to me what was done, and to write back in such a way as knowing that I wish to read your letter to our brothers in the Church. I have written this so that, when I afterward do what you would not expect me to do, I might not offend your Charity and lay before our common friends a just complaint about me. What, then, should hinder you from writing back, I do not see. For if you do rebaptize, there is nothing about the men of your college for you to fear, since you will have written back that you do what they would bid you do even if you were unwilling. And when you have defended, with as many documents as you could, that it ought to be done, they will not only not be angry but will even praise you. But if you do not rebaptize, seize Christian freedom, brother Maximinus, seize it, I beg you; in the contemplation of Christ, fear no man's reproach and dread no man's power. The honor of this world passes away, ambition passes away. At the future judgment of Christ, neither tiered apses, nor veiled chairs, nor throngs of nuns running to meet and singing will be brought forward for the defense, when consciences begin to accuse and the arbiter of consciences to judge. The things that here honor us, there burden us; the things that here relieve us, there weigh us down. These things which are displayed for our honor for the time being, on account of the benefit of the Church, will perhaps be defended by a good conscience; but they will not be able to defend a bad one.

4. Therefore, what you do with so pious and so religious a mind—if indeed you do it—namely, that you do not repeat the baptism of the catholic Church, but rather approve it as that of the one most true mother, who offers her bosom to all nations to be reborn and pours her breasts upon the reborn, as the one possession of Christ, stretching itself to the ends of the earth (See Ps 2:8); if you truly do this, why do you not burst forth into an exulting and free voice? Why do you press the so useful splendor of your lamp under a bushel (See Matt 5:15)? Why do you not, having torn off and cast away the old skins of timid servitude, rather clothe yourself in Christian confidence, go forth, and say: "I know one baptism, consecrated and sealed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; where I find this form, I must approve it; I do not destroy what I recognize as the Lord's, I do not blow contempt upon the standard of my king"? Even those who divided Christ's garment did not violate it (See John 19:23–24); and they had not yet believed that Christ would rise, but saw him dying. If the garment of him hanging on the cross was not torn by the persecutors, why is the sacrament of him sitting in heaven destroyed by Christians? If in the times of the old people I were a Jew, when I could be nothing better, I would surely have received circumcision. This seal of the righteousness of faith (See Rom 4:11) had so great a force at that time, before it was made void by the Lord's coming, that an angel would have strangled the infant son of Moses, had not the mother, seizing a flint, circumcised the boy and by this sacrament driven off the impending destruction (See Exod 4:24–26). This sacrament even held back the river Jordan and led it back to its source (See Josh 3:16). This sacrament the Lord himself, although by being crucified he made it void, nevertheless received by being born. For those seals were not condemned, but gave way as more fitting ones succeeded. For just as the first coming of the Lord took away circumcision, so the second coming will take away baptism. For just as now, after the freedom of faith has come and the yoke of servitude has been removed, no Christian is circumcised in the flesh; so then, when the just reign with the Lord and the impious are condemned, no one will be baptized, but that which these things prefigure—that is, the circumcision of the heart and the cleanness of conscience—will remain forever. If, then, at that time I were a Jew, and a Samaritan came to me and wished, abandoning that error which the Lord too disapproved when he said, You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22)—if, then, the Samaritan, whom the Samaritans had circumcised, wished to become a Jew, the audacity of repetition would surely be idle, and we would be compelled not to repeat but to approve that which had been done among the heresy, which God had commanded. But if, in the flesh of a circumcised man, I should find no place where I might repeat the circumcision, because that member is one; far less is a place found in one heart where the baptism of Christ may be repeated. Therefore you who wish to double baptism must altogether seek out double hearts.

5. Cry out, then, that you do rightly, if you do not rebaptize; and write back to me about it not only without trembling, but even with joy. Let none of your councils terrify you, brother. For if this displeases them, they are not worthy to have you; but if it pleases them, we trust in the mercy of the Lord, who never deserts those who fear to displease him and strive to please him, that peace will soon be between you and us: lest, on account of our honors—about which burden a dangerous account is rendered—the wretched peoples who believe in Christ have common food in their houses, and yet cannot have the table of Christ in common. Do we not groan that husband and wife, in order to join their bodies faithfully, often swear to one another by Christ, and yet tear apart that very body of Christ by a divided communion? If, through your modesty and prudence, and through the love which we owe to him who poured out his blood for us, so great a scandal, so great a triumph of the devil, so great a ruin of souls be taken out of the way in these regions, who could explain in words what a palm the Lord prepares for you—that from you there should proceed so imitable an example of medicine for healing the other members which, decayed, lie pitiably throughout all Africa? How I fear, since you cannot see my heart, that I may seem to you to speak with insult rather than with love! But surely I find nothing more to do than to offer my discourse to you for inspection, and my mind to God.

6. Let us take out of the way the empty objections which the unskilled parties are accustomed to hurl against one another; do not you object the times of Macarius, nor I the savagery of the Circumcellions: if this does not pertain to you, neither does that to me. The Lord's threshing floor has not yet been winnowed; it cannot be without chaff. Let us pray, and act as much as we can, that we may be wheat. About our rebaptized deacon I cannot be silent: for I know how dangerous silence is for me. For I do not intend to pass my time in ecclesiastical honors as in windy seasons, but I intend to render an account to the prince of all shepherds about the sheep committed to me. If perhaps you would not wish me to write these things to you, you must, brother, pardon my fear. For I greatly fear that, while I am silent and dissemble, others too may be rebaptized by you. I have therefore resolved, as far as the Lord deigns to grant strength and means, so to conduct this cause that, by our peaceful conferences, all who are in communion with us may know how far the catholic Church differs from heresies or schisms, and how greatly the ruin of tares, or of branches cut off from the Lord's vine, is to be guarded against. If you undertake this conference with me with a willing mind, so that, with us in concord, the letters of us both may be read to the peoples, I shall exult with ineffable joy. But if you do not accept this with an even mind, what shall I do, brother, except read our letters even against your will to the catholic people, that it may be the better instructed? But if you do not deign to write back, I have resolved to read at least my own, so that, your diffidence being known, men may at least blush to be rebaptized.

7. And I will not do this while the soldier is present, lest any of you suppose that I wished to act more tumultuously than the reasoning of peace requires; but after the soldier's departure, so that all who hear us may understand that it is not my purpose that men be compelled unwilling to anyone's communion, but that the truth may become known to those who seek it most quietly. The terror of temporal powers will cease on our side: let the terror of the assembled Circumcellions also cease on your side. Let us deal with the matter, let us deal by reason, let us deal by the authorities of the divine Scriptures, let us, quiet and tranquil as far as we can, ask, seek, knock (See Matt 7:7), that we may receive and find, and it may be opened to us; that perhaps it may come about that, the Lord aiding our concordant efforts and prayers, so great a deformity and impiety of the African regions may begin to be abolished from our lands. If you do not believe that I wish to act after the departure of the soldiers, write back after the departure of the soldiers. For if I should wish to read my letter to the people while the soldier is present, my letter, when produced, will show me to be a violator of good faith. May the mercy of the Lord turn this away from my character and from my purpose, which he has deigned to inspire in me through his yoke.

8. My bishop would perhaps rather have sent a letter to your Benevolence, had he been present, or I would have written at his bidding or with his permission. But in his absence, since the deacon's rebaptism is recent, or is said to be, I did not allow the action itself to grow cold by delay, stirred by the sharpest stings of grief over a brotherly and true death. This grief of mine, with the help of the Lord's mercy and providence, the compensation of peace will perhaps soothe. May God and our Lord deign to inspire in you a peaceful mind, most beloved lord and brother.

LETTER 24
To the deservedly honorable lord and most blessed father Alypius, Paulinus and Therasia, sinners

1. This is true love, this is perfect affection, which you have taught us is in you toward our lowliness, truly holy lord, and deservedly most blessed and desirable. For we have received, through our man Julian returning from Carthage, a letter bringing us so great a light of your Holiness that we seemed not to recognize your love, but to recognize it again. Because, of course, from him who predestined us to himself from the origin of the world (See Eph 1:4–5), that love has flowed, in whom we were made before we were born, because he made us, and not we ourselves (Ps 100:3 (99:3)), who made the things that are to be. Formed, therefore, by his foreknowledge and work into a likeness of wills and a unity of faith—or rather, joined by a love that anticipates the knowledge of the unity of faith—we have come to know one another, before any bodily sight, the Spirit revealing it. We therefore rejoice and glory in the Lord, who, one and the same everywhere on earth, works in his own his own love through the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon all flesh (See Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17), gladdening his city with the rush of a river (See Ps 46:4 (45:5)). Among whose citizens he has deservedly placed you among the chief, with the princes of his people (See Ps 113:8 (112:8)), in the apostolic see: and us too, whom he raised up when cast down and lifted up the needy from the earth, he willed to be numbered in your lot. But we rejoice still more in that gift of the Lord by which he set us in the dwelling of your breast; and by which he deigned so to insinuate us into your innermost being that we claim for ourselves a special confidence in your love, drawn on by these services and gifts, so that we may not be permitted to love you distrustfully or lightly.

2. For we have received the special token of your affection and solicitude, the work of a man holy and perfect in Christ the Lord, our brother Augustine, composed in five books, which we so admire and look up to that we believe the words to be divinely dictated. And so, with the confidence of looking up to your unanimity, we have dared to write to him as well, presuming to be excused to him through you for our inexperience, and commended to his love; as we shall doubtless take care, with equal affection, to greet through your Holiness all the holy ones, by whose services, though absent, you have deigned to keep us well, both your companions in the clergy of your Holiness and the emulators of your faith and virtue in the monasteries. For although you act among the peoples and over the people, ruling the sheep of the Lord's pasture, a watchful shepherd with anxious vigils (See John 21:15–17; Acts 20:28), yet by renouncing the world and rejecting flesh and blood, you have made a desert for yourself, set apart from the many, called among the few.

3. Indeed, by a service that is to some extent a vicarious one—though, as you had bidden, everything I send is unequal to you—I have provided that history of all times by the venerable bishop Eusebius of Constantinople. But in this there was a delay in obeying, because, at your prompting, since I myself did not have this book, I found it at Rome with our truly most holy kinsman Domnio, who without doubt complied with me the more readily in this favor, which I indicated should be conveyed to you. Nevertheless, because you deigned to indicate your whereabouts to me, as you yourself advised, we have written to the venerable partner of your crown, our father Aurelius, in such a way that, if you are now living at Hippo Regius, he might deign to send you our letter and the parchment copied at Carthage. And we have asked the holy men Comes and Evodius, whom by the token of their own love we came to know through your discourse, to take care to write themselves, lest either the kinsman Domnio be longer without his book, or, once conveyed to you, it remain with you without any necessity of returning it.

4. But this I ask of you especially, since you have filled me, unworthy and unexpecting, with great love of you: that in return for this history of the times you relate to me the whole history of your Holiness: namely, that you set forth what your descent is, from what home (See Virgil, Aeneid 8.114) you, called by the Lord, by what beginnings, set apart from your mother's womb, you passed over—the stock of flesh and blood forsworn—to the mother of the sons of God rejoicing in her offspring, and were transferred into a royal and priestly race (See 1 Pet 2:9). For what you indicated, that you had already learned of our lowliness's name at Milan when you were being initiated there, I confess I wish to learn the more curiously, so that I may know you in every part, the more to rejoice if you were either invited to the faith or consecrated to the priesthood by our father Ambrose, whom I received, so that we may both seem to have the same author. For although I was baptized by Delphinus at Bordeaux, and consecrated by Lampius at Barcelona in Spain, through the force of a people suddenly inflamed; yet I was always nourished, by Ambrose's love, toward the faith, and now I am cherished in the order of the priesthood. Indeed, he wished to claim me for his own clergy, so that, even though I live in various places, I may be reckoned his presbyter.

5. But about me, that you may know what you do not know: know that a most ancient sinner, not so long ago led out from darkness and the shadow of death (See Luke 1:79), has drunk the breath of the air of life, and not so long ago has put his hand to the plow (See Luke 9:62) and taken up the cross of the Lord; that we may be able to carry it to the end, may we be helped by your prayers. This reward will be heaped upon your merits, if by your intervention you relieve our burdens. For a holy man helping one who labors (since we do not dare to say "a brother") shall be exalted like a great city (See Prov 18:19). And you indeed are a city built upon a mountain, or a lamp kindled upon a lampstand (See Matt 5:14–15), shining with sevenfold brightness; we lie hidden under the bushel of sins: visit us with your letters, and bring us forth into the light in which you yourself dwell, conspicuous upon the golden lampstands. Your words will be a light to our paths (See Ps 119:105 (118:105)), and with the oil of your lamp our head will be made fat (See Ps 23:5 (22:5)). And our faith will be kindled, when from the breath of your mouth we take food for the mind and light for the soul.

6. The peace and grace of God be with you, and may a crown of righteousness remain for you on that day (See 2 Tim 4:8), lord and father, deservedly most beloved and venerable and most longed-for. We ask, with much affection and devoted service, that the blessed companions and emulators of your Holiness, our brothers in the Lord, if they deign, both in the churches and in the monasteries at Carthage, Thagaste, Hippo Regius, and in all your parishes and all the places known to you throughout Africa, who serve the Lord in the catholic way, be greeted. If you receive the parchment of holy Domnio, you will deign to send it back to us when copied. And I ask that you write to me which hymn of mine you have come to know. We have sent your Holiness one loaf, as a token of the grace of unity, in which also the solidity of the Trinity is contained. You will make this loaf a blessing by deigning to receive it.

LETTER 25
To the lord, brother of one mind and venerable, Augustine, Paulinus and Therasia, sinners

1. The love of Christ which urges us on (See 2 Cor 5:14), and binds together those who are absent through the unity of faith, has itself, shame put aside, given me the confidence to write to you: and has brought you, through your letters, into my inmost being—letters both overflowing with scholarly riches and sweet with heavenly honeycombs, which, as medicine and nourishment to my soul, I keep meanwhile in the five books that we received as the gift of our blessed and venerable bishop Alypius, not only for our instruction but also for the benefit of the Church of many cities. These books, then, I now have for reading; in these I delight myself; from these I take food, not that which perishes (See John 6:27), but that which works the substance of eternal life through our faith, by which we are incorporated in Christ Jesus our Lord: since our faith, which, neglecting the visible, gapes for the invisible (See 2 Cor 4:18), is strengthened, through love, believing all things according to the truth of almighty God, by the writings and examples of the faithful. O truly the salt of the earth (See Matt 5:13), with which our hearts are seasoned, lest they vanish away in the error of the age! O lamp worthily set above the lampstand (See Matt 5:15) of the Church, which, pouring forth far and wide over the catholic cities a light fed from the sevenfold wick with the oil of gladness, scatters the dense fogs of the heretics, and clears the light of truth from the confusion of darkness by the splendor of your enlightening discourse!

2. You see, brother of one mind, admirable and to be received in Christ the Lord, how familiarly I have come to know you, with what amazement I admire you, with how great a love I embrace you—I who daily enjoy the conversation of your letters and feed on the breath of your mouth. For I might deservedly call your mouth a pipe of living water and a vein of the eternal fountain, because in you Christ has been made a fountain of water leaping up into eternal life (See John 4:14). With desire of him my soul has thirsted in you (See Ps 63:1 (62:2)), and my land has longed to be inebriated with the abundance of your river (See Ps 65:9–10 (64:10–11)). And so, since with this Pentateuch of yours against the Manichees you have armed me sufficiently, if you have prepared any defenses against the other enemies of the catholic faith too (since our enemy, who has a thousand arts of harming, must be assailed with weapons as various as the ambushes by which he attacks), I ask you to bring out for me from your armory, and not to refuse to confer on me the weapons of righteousness. For I am a toiling sinner, even now under a great burden, a veteran in the number of sinners, but to the eternal king a new recruit in incorporeal warfare. Wretched, until now I have admired the wisdom of the world, and through useless letters and a reprobate prudence I have been foolish and mute before God. After I had grown old among my enemies (See Ps 6:7 (6:8)) and become vain in my thoughts (See Rom 1:21), I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, looking to the precepts of the law and the gifts of grace: whence help came to me from the Lord (See Ps 121:1–2 (120:1–2)), who, not repaying according to our iniquities (See Ps 103:10 (102:10)), enlightened the blind, loosed the fettered (See Ps 146:7–8 (145:7–8)), humbled one wrongly raised up, that he might raise up one piously humbled.

3. I follow, then, with steps not yet even, the great footsteps of the just, if by your prayers I may be able to lay hold of that in which I have been laid hold of by the mercies of God. Guide, then, a little child creeping on the ground, and teach him to walk in your steps. For I do not want you to consider me by the age of my bodily birth rather than of my spiritual emergence. For my age according to the flesh is now that which his was who was healed by the Apostles in the Beautiful Gate, by the power of the word (See Acts 3:2–8). But in the births of the soul, my time is still that of that infancy which, slain by the wounds aimed at Christ (See Matt 2:16), with worthy blood ran before the victim of the Lamb, and gave the first omen of the Lord's passion. And therefore, as one still an infant in the word of God and a suckling in spiritual age, nourish me with your words, gaping for the breasts of faith, wisdom, and love. If you consider our common office, you are a brother; if the maturity of your talent and senses, you are a father to me, even though you are perhaps younger in age, because a hoary prudence has advanced you, young as you are, to the maturity of merit and the honor of elders. Cherish, then, and strengthen me in the sacred Scriptures and in spiritual studies—me who am, as I said, new in this season, and on this account, after long perils, after many shipwrecks, unskilled in practice, scarcely yet emerging from the waves of the age—you who, already set on the solid shore, receive me into a safe bosom, that in the harbor of salvation, if you think it worthy, we may sail together. Meanwhile, as I strive to escape from the perils of this life and the deep of sins, sustain me by your prayers as if by a plank, that I may escape from this world as if naked from a shipwreck.

4. For I have taken care to relieve myself of my burdens, and to strip off the garments that weigh me down, so that, unencumbered, at Christ's bidding and with his help, I may swim across this billowy sea of the present life, which separates us from God by the sins that bark between, with every covering of the flesh and care for the morrow (See Matt 6:34). Nor do I boast that I have accomplished this, for even if I could boast, I would boast in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17), whose it is to perfect what it is given us to will (See Phil 2:13; Rom 7:18): but my soul still longs to desire the judgments of the Lord (See Ps 119:20 (118:20)). See when he attains the will of God in effect, who still desires to desire it. Yet, as far as is in me, I have loved the beauty of the holy house (See Ps 26:8 (25:8)), and, as far as was in me, I had chosen to be lowly in the house of the Lord (See Ps 84:10 (83:11)). But he to whom it was pleasing to set me apart from my mother's womb (See Gal 1:15) and to draw me from the friendship of flesh and blood to his grace, was also pleased to raise me, destitute of all good merit, up from the earth (See Ps 113:7 (112:7)) and to lead me out from the pit of miseries and from the mire of dregs (See Ps 40:2 (39:3)), that he might place me with the princes of his people (See Ps 113:8 (112:8)) and set my portion in your lot, that, you supplying my merits, I might be made equal, joined to you in office.

5. By a presumption, then, not my own, but by the good pleasure and ordinance of the Lord, claiming for myself the bond of your Fraternity, I, unworthy of so great an honor, deem myself worthy of it; because I know for certain, by your holiness, that you are wise with truth—not to be high-minded, but to consort with the lowly (See Rom 12:16). And therefore I hope that you will receive promptly and inwardly the love of our lowliness, which indeed I trust you have already received through the most blessed priest Alypius, our father (since he deigns to be such). For he without doubt gave you an example, in himself, of loving us before acquaintance and beyond our merit, who, by the spirit of true love, which everywhere both penetrates and is poured out, was able both to see us, unknown to him and separated by a long interval of land or sea, by directing his gaze, and to reach us by addressing us. He gave us the first tokens of his affection, and the pledges of your love, in the aforesaid worthy gift of books. And with how great expense of zeal he strove that we might not be able to love your Holiness moderately, having come to know it not only by his words but more fully by your own eloquence and faith, we believe the same man took such pains, so that in turn, by imitation of him, you might love us very much. The grace of God be with you, as it is, forever, we wish, brother in Christ the Lord of one mind, venerable, most longed-for: we greet with much affection of unanimous brotherhood your whole household, and every companion and emulator of your holiness in the Lord. The one loaf, which as a token of unanimity we have sent to your Charity, we ask that you bless by receiving it.

LETTER 26
Augustine to Licentius

1. I have scarcely found an occasion of writing to you; who would believe it? But Licentius, at least, must believe me. I do not want you to search out the causes and reasons, which, even if they could be given, I do not owe to the faith by which you believe me. For I did not even receive your letter through those by whom I could send back what I write. But what you asked me to ask, I have seen to, through a letter, as far as seemed to need to be brought forward; but what I have accomplished, you will see. And if it is not yet accomplished, I will either act more insistently when I learn of it, or when you yourself remind me again. Thus far let me have spoken with you of the things that make the chains of this life clamor: now receive in few words the surgings of my heart concerning your hope, which is not transitory—in what way the road to God may lie open for you.

2. My Licentius, while you again and again refuse and dread the fetters of wisdom, I fear that you are being fettered most strongly and most ruinously by mortal things. For those whom wisdom has first bound and tamed by certain exercising labors, she afterward looses, and gives herself to those set free to be enjoyed; and those whom she has first trained by temporal bonds, she will afterward bind by eternal embraces—than which bond nothing more pleasant or more solid can be conceived. These first bonds I confess to be somewhat hard; but those last I would call neither hard, because they are most sweet, nor soft, because they are most firm. What, then, are they but that which cannot be told, yet can be believed and hoped for and loved? But the bonds of this world have a true harshness, a false pleasantness; a certain pain, an uncertain delight; a hard labor, a fearful rest; a thing full of misery, an empty hope of blessedness. Into these do you insert your neck and hands and feet, when you both desire to be subjugated to honors of this kind, and think your deeds not otherwise fruitful, and seek to cling to that to which you ought to have gone not only uninvited but not even compelled? Here perhaps you will give me the answer of Terence's slave: Oh, you pour out words of wisdom here! Take it, then, that I may pour them out rather than pour them away. Or if I sing, while you dance to another tune, not even so do I repent. For the singing itself has its own gladness, even when it does not move to itself the limbs of the one to whom it is sung with a strain full of love. Certain words in your letters moved me, but to deal with these, while concern for your deeds and your whole life burns me, I have thought unfitting. A Poem of Licentius to Augustine his teacher

3. Scrutinizing the hidden path of profound Varro, my mind grows dull, and, terrified, flees the hostile light.
No wonder, for all my care for reading lies prostrate when you do not lend a hand, and dreads to rise alone.
For though love urged me to unroll the intricate compendia of so great a man, and to touch his sacred meanings—
he who gave number its tones, and discoursed that the world sings to the Thunderer and dances in matching choirs—
he has wrapped my breast in a manifold mist, and the violence of these matters has drawn a cloud over my mind.
So I, distracted, demand the forms of figures set down without sand, and stumble upon other grievous shadows.
In short, the causes of the stars and their bright courses, whose obscure positions he shows through the clouds,
I lay nodding over them, so that no one who keeps us from knowing the hidden places of heaven could give such a total collapse,
nor the persona of the dead, trusting in the caverns.
For the old fictions of the Pelasgians tell of Proteus, who, when he is unwilling to disclose the future to the anxious,
foams as a boar, flows as a wave, roars as a lion, hisses as a snake, yet, caught at last, gives small gifts in return for the birds.
But as for me, who am tormented too much by graver cares, I seek the sweet things of the soul, the half-sweet fodder; the answers of Varro lie hidden. What protection, or nymph, with suppliant song should I beg, and what rivers should I ask for?
Or should I call on you by name, whom the ruler of bright Olympus set over the springs of infants, and bade pour forth far-off streams from the hidden richness of the mind?
Bring help at once, master, do not forsake my weak strength, and begin with me to overturn the sacred clods: for the time, unless mortal things deceive me, slips away and draws on toward old age. For you our Apollo fills the heart, and reconciles his Father and the Father of the gods, and shows the good law and the bloody peace, and, the veil drawn aside, lays open each thing.
For you had perhaps measured twenty long circuits of the sun, when the most beautiful order of the world, richer than empires and sweeter than all nectar, seized you, and fixed you, wandering, and set you in the middle, whence you could direct your gaze to all things.
O good man, take up the journey of the years, by how much wisdom grows by love of itself, ever finding new summits.
Go on the way by which the glorious offspring of the Thunderer leads you, leveling the steep places into flat plains.
And when the evening has put off in your heart the light-bringing risings, and has blessed over the holy fire, be yourself mindful of me: you who set a thirsty ear to the unconquered laws, beat your breasts with your palms, stretch your limbs on the ground, and rightly stir up your griefs, and forbid the wickedness—God commands one thing to all, the bishop admonishes, and the coming thunderbolts terrify.
Oh, if only the former dawn would call back for me, on its gladdening wheels, the suns now spent, which, trying free leisure with you and the bright laws of the good, we passed in the midst of Italy, among the high mountains!
The hard frosts of the hoary cold would not keep me back, nor the fierce storm of the Zephyrs and the roaring of Boreas, from pressing your footsteps with anxious step.
Only bid this work, and let blood water my limbs: at the solstice we will follow the Neuri, in winter the Hister.
The unknown Garamas will loose for me the bonds of his nation, and the Hypanian stream, fleeing the Xampaean lakes, sounds foaming by the Scythian waves of the Callipidae.
We will go too to the Leuci, where Leucia stretches toward the risings of the sun; and the deserted peaks of vast Casius, with which Casia makes the Epidamnian crags equal to itself, whence I might see the resting dawn, and the chariots unyoked, and the day laid to sleep at midnight—at your urging I will seek it: for no labor or fear terrifies, where he hears the innocent by their open prayers to God.
And now I would forsake the seats of the sons of Romulus, the empty roof-peaks of the dwelling, the riotous houses, and the empty tumults, and come once and wholly into your heart, did not my mind, set upon marriage, hold me back as I go.
Believe, O learned one, my ills and my true grief, that without you the sails promise no harbors, and we wander far over the troubled seas of life.
Headlong, as sailors in a dense fog, whom the southern fury and the whistling blast from Eurus have struck, and the whirlwind has bereft of their snatched-away helmsmen; straightway the wretches are tossed amid the broken waves: neither the deck nor the prow, nor then the sails, can bear the storms, and the art of steering lies stupefied:
so the wind drives me, and the surges of desire roll me into the death-bearing sea, nor are the lands at once at hand.
But, reckoning with myself your bright words, master, I rather think these are to be believed by you: it is a cunning thing, it deceives, and weaves nets for our minds.
For, forgetful of things past, the present things I now offer to you, dear one, we now, slipped from your breast—alas for me, whither shall I be carried, whence I would wish to lay open my mind to you!
Sooner shall the doves fit pious dwellings under the Aegean, and the changed halcyon build her nests on a tree; sooner shall the hungry lioness feed pursuing calves, and the wolf, long unfed, nourish tender lambs, and, changing the world divided into their own parts, either the Barcaean shall feed the bull or Hyrcania the lizards: sooner, again ill-frightened by the feasts of Thyestes, shall the interrupted day vanish into recurring risings; sooner shall the rains give the Nile, the deer wander above the upper air, the mountains grow hoary, and the rivers clap their hands, than your gifts come to me behind my back, master.
Love wards it off, and the common bond of the honorable holds. Here, here reigns the glory of friendship, with the enemy put to flight.
For not for the sake of glassy wealth and rebel gold do we join the assents of our minds: nor did the crumbling fortune of the crowd, which separates the lofty, join us.
But labor, gathering up inner things, the common things in books, and the things discovered by your mind, and the noble teaching uttered, and the good answers brought back in reply.
And my Calliope, although she shudders at you close at hand, exalted, and hides her face, handling useless things: yet this, this bond of mind and these faithful ties, not even he who broke the Alps strengthened on their mountainous crags, and crushed the Italian cities with their walls, could break, or terrify anything of our strength.
Go far off, you waters with the swelling windings of the Oxus, or from the Aremphaei the Rhipaean heights or the towns of the Caspian, and the Cimmerian homes that a broad river separates; and let the regions of the Maeotians, which the Pontus of Helle overwhelms, stretch far the boundaries of Europe and Asia.
Did not Dodona, wearying her herds along both flanks, cut off the Molossians from the borders of Thalarus, and the kindred Arabs? Nor did a friendly treaty of peace remain between the Sidonians and the kingdom of Pelops and the sacrilegious Phrygians, although for a time there was a common hospitality for all. What, finally, shall I sing of the discord of brothers and their fights? what of the honorable beatings by parents, what of the fury of mothers and the proud sons?
There is even among the gods above a harmonious discord of things, and as many rites flow as opinion gives laws.
Nor does one love hold all: not if Boreas should give me a hundred murmurs and as many lives, and a hundred tongues, stiff with adamant, should roar through my mouths, could I have the power to recount what the nature of the ancient places, joined together before, has set apart, and what the rounded gravel has filed away from the smooth world.
But I pass over us, that we rise from one city, that one house bore us, that we are touched by one blood of the ages, that the Christian faith has joined us, and that, though an immense journey separates us, and the interfused expanse of the sea confines us, love despises both.
He who, scorning the joys of the eyes, ever enjoys an absent friend; since he hangs from the deep heart, and searches out the fodder of the inner fiber.
Meanwhile there will come whatever writings of the good things to come, of the saving discourse, and those to be likened to the honeycombs of the ancients, reckoning which, conceived in the deep breast, you have spewed forth into the light, the nectar-honey—these very things will render you present to me, if you grant my wish and hand over the books in which slow Music reclines upon you, for I burn wholly for them.
Grant it, that the truth may thus lie open to us by reason, that it may flow more than the Eridanus, and that the contagions of the world may flit in vain around the fields of us your husbandmen. God, not the desires, is to be served

4. If your verse were turned the wrong way by ill-ordered measures, if it did not stand by its own laws, if it offended the hearer's ear by unequal measures, you would surely be ashamed, and you would neither put it off nor cease until you had ordered, corrected, settled, and made even your verse, by learning and practicing the art of meter with the sharpest zeal and any labor whatever: why, then, when you yourself are turned the wrong way, ill-ordered—when you yourself do not stand by the laws of your God, nor harmonize, in the living of your life, with the honorable prayers of your friends and with this very learning of yours—do you think it must be cast behind your back and neglected? As if you were of less worth to yourself than the sound of your tongue, and as if your offending the ears of God by ill-ordered morals were a lighter matter than if grammatical authority were angry at your ill-ordered syllables. You write: Oh, if only the former dawn would call back for me, on its gladdening wheels, the suns now spent, which, trying free leisure with you and the bright laws of the good, we passed in the midst of Italy, among the high mountains! The hard frosts of the hoary cold would not keep me back, nor the fierce storm of the Zephyrs and the roaring of Boreas, from pressing your footsteps with anxious step. Only bid this work. Wretched me, if I do not bid it, if I do not compel and command it, if I do not ask and beseech it. But if your ears are closed against my words, let them lie open to your own mouth, lie open to your own poem; hear yourself, hardest, most monstrous, most deaf of men. What good to me is a golden tongue and an iron heart? With what songs—nay, with what laments—shall I suffice to bewail your poems, in which I see what a soul, what a talent it is not permitted me to lay hold of and offer up to our God? Do you wait for me to bid you be good, be quiet, be blessed; as if any day could dawn more welcome to me than that I might enjoy your talent in the Lord—or do you truly not know how I hunger and thirst for you, or do you not confess this very thing in that poem? Call back the mind with which you wrote these things; now say to me: Only bid this work. Behold my bidding: give me yourself, if this is the only work; give yourself to my Lord, who is the Lord of us all, who gave you that talent. For what am I, except your servant through him, and your fellow servant under him?

5. Or does he himself not bid it? Hear the Gospel: Jesus stood, it says, and cried out (See John 7:37): Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28–30). If these things are not heard, or are heard only as far as the ears, do you wait, Licentius, for Augustine to bid his fellow servant, and not rather to bewail that his Lord bids in vain—nay, does not bid, but in a way invites and asks, that those who labor may be refreshed by him? But of course, to a most strong and overconfident neck, the yoke of the world is more pleasant than the yoke of Christ: who, if he forced us to labor, see who would be forcing, and with what reward he would force. Go into Campania, learn how Paulinus, the excellent and holy servant of God, unhesitatingly shook off so great a pride of this age, with a neck the more noble the more humble, that he might submit it to the yoke of Christ, as he did submit it; and now, with that ruler of his journey, quiet and modest, he exults. Go, learn with what riches of talent he offers him sacrifices of praise, pouring back to him whatever good he has received from him, lest he lose all, if he does not store it up in him from whom he has these things.

6. Why do you seethe? Why do you toss about? Why do you lend your ear to the imaginings of death-bearing pleasures, and turn it away from us? They lie, they die, they drag into death. They lie, Licentius: "that the truth may thus lie open to us by reason, as you wish; that it may flow more than the Eridanus." Nothing speaks the truth but Truth: Christ is the Truth (See John 14:6); let us come to him, that we may not labor. Even though he himself does not refresh us, let us take his yoke upon us, and learn of him, for he is meek and humble of heart, and we shall find rest for our souls. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light (See Matt 11:29–30). The devil seeks to be adorned by you. If you had found a golden cup in the earth, you would give it to the Church of God. You have received from God a talent spiritually golden, and you minister with it to your lusts, and in it you offer up yourself as a drink to Satan! Do not, I beseech you; so may you at some time feel with what a wretched and pitiable heart I have written these things; and may you have mercy on me now, if you have grown cheap to yourself.

LETTER 27
To the truly holy and venerable lord, and to be proclaimed with outstanding praise in Christ, his brother Paulinus, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. O good man and good brother, you were hidden from my soul: and I tell it to bear that you are still hidden from my eyes, and it scarcely obeys me; indeed, it does not obey. Or does it bear it? Since the longing for you tortures me within the soul itself? For if I were suffering bodily troubles, and if they did not disturb the equanimity of my mind, I would rightly be said to bear them; but since I do not bear it with an even mind that I do not see you, it is intolerable to call this toleration. But since you are such as you are, to be without you would perhaps be more intolerably borne. It is well, then, that I cannot bear it with an even mind, since, if I bore it with an even mind, I would not be one to be borne with an even mind. It is a strange thing, but yet true, that has happened to me: I grieve that I do not see you, and grief itself consoles me. So displeasing to me is the fortitude by which the absence of good men such as you are is patiently borne. For we surely long for the future Jerusalem, and the more impatiently we long for it, the more patiently we endure all things for its sake. Who, then, can fail to rejoice at seeing you, so that he can fail to grieve so long as he does not see you! Therefore I can do neither; and since, if I could, I would do it monstrously, I am delighted that I cannot, and in the fact that I am delighted there is some consolation. And so, as I grieve, a grief not soothed but pondered consoles me. Do not reproach me, I beg, with the holier gravity in which you excel, and say that I do not rightly grieve that I do not yet know you, since you have laid open your mind to me—that is, your inner self—to be looked upon. For what? If I had learned somewhere, even in your earthly city, that you were my brother and lover, and so great and such a man in the Lord, would you think I would feel no grief if I were not allowed to know your home? How, then, should I not grieve that I do not yet know your face—that is, the home of your soul, which I know as my own?

2. For I read your letters flowing with milk and honey (See Exod 3:8), displaying the simplicity of your heart, in which you seek the Lord, thinking of him in goodness (See Wis 1:1), and bringing to him brightness and honor (See Ps 29:1–2 (28:1–2)). The brothers have read them, and they rejoice untiringly and ineffably at such abundant and such excellent gifts of God, your good things. As many as have read them snatch at them, because they are snatched away when they read. How sweet the odor of Christ (See 2 Cor 2:15), and how it is fragrant from them, cannot be told. While those letters offer you to be seen, how they rouse us to seek you! For they make you both clearly perceptible and desirable. For the more they in some way display your presence to us, the more they do not allow us to bear your absence. All love you in them, and desire to be loved by you. God is praised and blessed, by whose grace you are such. There Christ is roused, that he may deign to calm the winds and seas for you as you head toward his stability. There the reader sees a wife, not a leader to softness for her husband, but a leader back to fortitude into the bones of her husband, whom, brought back and restored to your unity, and joined to you by spiritual bonds the firmer for being the more chaste, with the services due to your Holiness, we greet again in you alone. There the cedars of Lebanon, laid low to the ground and raised up in the framing of the ark by the joinery of love, cleave the waves of this world without decay. There glory is despised in order to be acquired, and the world is left in order to be obtained. There the little ones—or even the somewhat grown-up sons of Babylon—are dashed against the rock (See Ps 137:9 (136:9)), that is, the vices of confusion and worldly pride.

3. These and such most sweet and most sacred spectacles your letters offer to those who read them; those letters, letters of unfeigned faith, letters of good hope, letters of pure love. How they breathe upon us your thirst, and the longing and the fainting of your soul for the courts of the Lord (See Ps 84:2 (83:3))! What riches of a sincere heart do they boil up, breathing what most holy love! What thanks they give to God! what they obtain from God! Are they more soothing or more ardent; more luminous or more fruitful? For what is it that so caresses us, so kindles us, so rains upon us, and is so serene? What is it, I ask you, or what shall I repay you for them, except that I am wholly yours in him whose you are wholly? If this is little, surely I have no more. But you have brought it about that it does not seem little to me, you who in that letter deigned to honor me with such great praises that, when I pour myself back to you, if I should think this little, I would be convicted of not having believed you. I am indeed ashamed to believe so much good about myself, but I am more loath not to believe you. There is something I can do: I will not believe myself to be such as you suppose, since I do not recognize it; and I will believe that I am loved by you, since I feel it and plainly perceive it: thus I shall prove neither rash toward myself nor ungrateful toward you. And when I offer myself wholly to you, it is not little: for I offer one whom you most vehemently love; and I offer, if not such as you judge me to be, yet him for whom you pray that I may deserve to be such. For this I now rather ask you to do: that you not wish less to be added to me, toward what I am, while you esteem me already to be what I am not.

4. Behold, he is my most dear friend, and from early youth most familiarly dearest to me, who brings this letter to your Excellence and most outstanding Charity. His name is in the book On Religion, which your Holiness, as far as you indicate in your letter, read most gladly: for he has become more pleasant to you by the commendation of so great a man, who sent him to you. Yet I would not have you believe what this so familiar friend of mine may perhaps have said in praise of me. For I have often perceived even him to judge falsely, not from zeal for lying, but from a proneness to love, and to suppose that I had already received certain things, for the receiving of which I was gaping toward the Lord with the open mouth of my heart. And if this is to my face, who would not guess how much, when I am absent, he joyfully pours out about me—things better than true? But he will provide a supply of our books for your venerable zeal: for I do not know that I have written anything, whether for the ears of those who are outside the Church of God, or for those of the brothers, which he himself does not have. But when you read, my holy Paulinus, do not let the things which truth speaks through our weakness so snatch you away that you attend less diligently to the things which I myself speak; lest, while you eagerly drink in the good and right things which are given to the minister, you not pray for the sins and errors which I myself commit. For in those things which, if you attend, will rightly displease you, I myself am seen; but in those things which, through the gift of the Spirit which you have received, rightly please you in my books, he is to be loved, he is to be proclaimed, with whom is the fountain of life, and in whose light we shall see light (See Ps 36:9 (35:10)), not in a riddle, but face to face; but now we see in a riddle (See 1 Cor 13:12). In those things, then, which I myself have belched up from the old leaven, when, reading them, I recognize them, I judge myself with grief; but in those which I have said from the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, the gift of God, I exult with trembling. For what have we that we have not received (See 1 Cor 4:7)? But he is better who is rich in greater and more numerous gifts of God than he who is rich in fewer and smaller ones. Who denies it? But again, it is better to give thanks to God himself even for a small gift of God than to wish thanks to be given to oneself for a great one. That I may always confess these things from the heart, and that my heart may not be out of tune with my tongue, pray for me, brother. Pray, I beseech you, that I may call upon the Lord not wishing to be praised, but praising, and I shall be saved from my enemies (See Ps 18:3 (17:4)).

5. There is also another reason for you to love this brother more: for he is a kinsman of the venerable and truly blessed bishop Alypius, whom you embrace with your whole heart, and rightly; for whoever thinks kindly of that man thinks of God's great mercy and of God's wonderful gifts. And so, when he had read your request, by which you indicated that you desired him to write his history for you, he both wished to do it, on account of your goodwill, and was unwilling, on account of his modesty: and when I saw him wavering between love and shame, I transferred the burden from him to my own shoulders; for this he even bade me do by letter. Quickly, then, if the Lord helps, I will set the whole of Alypius into your heart; for this is what I especially feared, lest he should be afraid to disclose all that the Lord has conferred upon him, lest to someone of less understanding (for they would not be read by you alone) he should seem to be proclaiming not God's divine gifts granted to men, but himself, and you, who know how to read these things, should, on account of guarding against the weakness of others, be cheated of the debt of brotherly acquaintance: which I would have done already, and you would already be reading him, had not the brother's sudden departure been resolved upon. Him I so commend to your heart and tongue that you may show yourself to him as courteously as if you had learned of him not now, but before, along with me. For if he does not hesitate to disclose himself to your heart, he will be healed, either wholly or in great part, through your tongue. For I want him to be pounded more often by the voices of those who love a friend not in a worldly way.

6. But his son, our son, whose name too you will find in some of our books, even if he were not himself going to your Charity's presence, I had resolved to hand over into your hand by letter, to be consoled, exhorted, instructed, not so much by the sound of your mouth as by the example of your strength. For I burn that, while his age is still in green grass, he may turn the tares into grain, and may believe those who have experienced what he dangerously desires to experience. Now, then, from his poem, and from the letter which I sent to him, your most kindly and most gentle prudence understands what I grieve about him, what I fear, what I desire. Nor do I despair that the Lord will be present, so that through you, his minister, I may be freed from such great surgings of cares. Indeed, since you will read many of our writings, your love will be much more pleasing to me, if from those things which displease you, you will correct me, a just man in mercy, and reprove me (See Ps 141:5 (140:5)). For you are not such that I should fear to have my head made fat with your oil. The brothers—not only those who dwell with us, and those who, dwelling anywhere, serve God equally, but nearly all who have gladly come to know us in Christ—greet, venerate, and long for your Brotherliness, your Blessedness, your Kindness. I do not dare to ask; but if you have leisure from ecclesiastical duties, you see what Africa thirsts for along with me.

LETTER 28
To the most beloved lord, and a brother and fellow presbyter to be obeyed and embraced with the most sincere devotion of love, Jerome, from Augustine

1. 1. Never has anyone become so well known to another by his face as the quiet, glad, and truly liberal exercise of your studies in the Lord has become to me. Although, therefore, I very much desire to know you altogether, yet I lack some small part of you—namely, the presence of the body: and even this, after our brother Alypius, now a most blessed bishop but then already worthy of the episcopate, saw you, and on returning seemed to me to have been seen, I cannot deny was in great part impressed upon me by his report; and before his return, when he was seeing you there, I was seeing you, but with his eyes. For anyone who knows us would say that we are, not in mind, but only in body, two—that is, by concord and a most faithful familiarity, though not by the merits in which he excels. Since, then, you love me first by the communion of spirit by which we strive toward one, and then from his mouth; I by no means impudently, as one unknown, commend to your Brotherliness our brother Profuturus, who, we hope, will truly profit us by our efforts and then by your help; unless perhaps he is such that I myself am made more commended to you through him than he through me. Thus far perhaps I ought to write, if I wished to be content with the manner of customary letters; but my mind teems with talk to be shared with you about our studies, which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, who deigns, even through your love, to minister to us in no small measure many useful things, and certain provisions for the journey he has shown us.

2. 2. We ask, then—and the whole zealous society of the African Churches asks with us—that you not be reluctant to spend care and labor on translating the books of those who have treated our Scriptures most excellently in Greek. For you can bring it about that we too have such men, and one most of all, whom you sound more gladly in your letters. But about translating the holy canonical Scriptures into the Latin tongue, I would not want you to labor, except in the way in which you translated Job: namely, with signs added, so that it may appear what difference there is between this translation of yours and the Septuagint, whose authority is most weighty. But I cannot sufficiently marvel if anything is now found in the Hebrew copies which escaped so many translators most skilled in that tongue. For I pass over the Septuagint, about whose greater concord, whether of counsel or of spirit, than if it were one man, I do not dare to give any fixed opinion on either side, except that I think the preeminent authority must be attributed to them in this task without controversy. Those move me more who, although they translated later, and held tightly, as is said, to the way and rules of the Hebrew words and expressions, not only did not agree among themselves, but even left many things to be dug out and brought to light so long afterward. And either these things are obscure or they are manifest: for if they are obscure, you too are believed able to be deceived in them; if manifest, those translators are not believed to have been able to be deceived in them. Therefore, about this matter, by your love, I beseech you to make me certain, the causes set forth.

3. 3. I have also read certain writings said to be yours on the Epistles of the apostle Paul; of which, when you wished to unravel the one to the Galatians, that passage came into my hands where the apostle Peter is recalled from a ruinous pretense. There, that a defense of lying was undertaken, whether by you, such a man, or by anyone, if another wrote those things, I confess I grieve in no small measure, until those things which move me are refuted, if perhaps they can be refuted. For it seems to me most destructive to believe that any lie is contained in the holy Books; that is, that those men through whom that Scripture was ministered and written down for us told any lie in their books. For it is one question whether it is ever right for a good man to lie; and another question whether it was right for a writer of the holy Scriptures to lie: nay rather, it is not another question, but no question at all. For once an officious lie of any kind is admitted into so high a summit of authority, no particle of those books will remain which, as it seems difficult to anyone in morals or incredible in faith, may not, by that same most destructive rule, be referred to the design and office of a lying author.

3. 4. For if the apostle Paul was lying when, rebuking the apostle Peter, he said: If you, being a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how do you compel the gentiles to live like Jews? (Gal 2:14)—and if it seemed to him that Peter had acted rightly, whom he both said and wrote had not acted rightly, in order, as it were, to soothe the minds of those who were in an uproar; what shall we answer when perverse men rise up, forbidding marriage, whose coming he himself foretold (See 1 Tim 4:1–3), and say that all that the same Apostle spoke for the confirming of the right of marriages was a lie spoken on account of men who could be roused to an uproar by love of their spouses—namely, not because he thought this, but in order that their hostility might be appeased? There is no need to recall many things. For even the praises of God can seem to be officious lies, so that the love of him may glow more among the more sluggish men; and thus nowhere in the holy Books will there be a sure authority of chaste truth. Do we not notice that the same Apostle, with great care for commending the truth, says: But if Christ has not risen, vain is our preaching, vain too is your faith; and we are found even false witnesses of God, because we have given testimony against God, that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up (1 Cor 15:14–15)? If anyone should say to him: Why do you shudder at this lie, since you said that which, even if it were false, pertains most of all to the praise of God? Would he not, detesting the man's madness, in whatever words and meanings he could, lay open the inner chambers of his heart, crying out that it is no less—or perhaps even a greater—crime to praise falsehood in God than to find fault with the truth? It must therefore be brought about that such a man approach the knowledge of the divine Scriptures as thinks so holily and truly about the holy Books that he is unwilling to be delighted by any part of them through officious lies, and would rather pass over what he does not understand than prefer his own heart to that truth. For surely, when he says this, he asks to be believed himself, and acts so that we may not believe the authorities of the divine Scriptures.

3. 5. And I indeed, with whatever strength the Lord supplies, would show that all those testimonies which have been brought forward to establish the usefulness of lying must be understood otherwise, so that everywhere their firm truth may be taught. For as testimonies ought not to be lies, so they ought not to favor a lie. But this I leave to your understanding. For when more diligent consideration is brought to the reading, you will perhaps see it much more easily than I. But to this consideration the piety will compel you by which you recognize that the authority of the divine Scriptures becomes unsteady, so that each believes in them what he wants and does not believe what he does not want, if it is once persuaded that those men, through whom these things were ministered to us, could have lied officiously in their writings. Unless perhaps you are going to give certain rules by which we may know where it is right to lie and where it is not right. If this can be done, I beg, by no means explain it by lying and doubtful reasonings; and do not judge me burdensome or impudent, by the most truthful humanity of our Lord. For—not to say it is no fault—surely it is no great fault that my error favors the truth, if rightly in you the truth can favor a lie.

4. 6. I would desire to speak many other things with your most sincere heart, and to confer about Christian study; but no letter is sufficient for this desire of mine. I can do the same thing more abundantly through the brother, whom I rejoice to have sent to be mingled with and nourished by your sweet and useful conversations. And yet, much as I would wish, perhaps not even he (let me say it with his leave) holds it all; although I would in no way prefer myself to him. For I confess myself more capacious than he: but I see that he is being made fuller, in which he without doubt excels me: and after he returns, which with the Lord's help I hope will prosper, when I have become a sharer in his breast heaped full by you, he will not fill up what in me will still be empty and greedy of your thoughts. So it will come about that even then I shall be the more needy, and he the more abundant. Indeed, the same brother carries some of our writings with him; to the reading of which if you grant the favor, I beg you also to apply a sincere and brotherly severity. For I do not understand otherwise what is written: The just man shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner make fat my head (Ps 141:5 (140:5)); except that a healing reprover loves more than a flattering anointer of the head. But I, a most poor judge, read with the greatest difficulty what I have written, being either more timid than is right or more eager. I sometimes even see my own faults; but these I prefer to hear from better men, lest, when perhaps I have rightly reproved myself, I again flatter myself, and seem to myself to have passed a fearful rather than a just sentence upon myself.

LETTER 29
Letter of the presbyter of Hippo Regius to Alypius, bishop of Thagaste, concerning the birthday of Leontius, formerly bishop of Hippo

1. About the business which meanwhile I cannot help being concerned about, I could write nothing certain, brother Macarius being absent, who is said to be returning soon; and what, with God's help, can be carried through, will be carried through. But about our solicitude for them, although our brothers who are fellow citizens and were present could set their own at ease; yet a thing worthy of epistolary conversation, by which we console one another, has been granted by the Lord; in the obtaining of which we believe we have been greatly helped by your very solicitude, which surely could not have been without intercession for us.

2. And so let us not fail to relate to your Charity what was done, that you may give thanks to God with us for the benefit received, you who poured out prayers with us for the receiving of it. When, after your departure, it had been reported to us that the people were in an uproar and saying that they could not bear that the festival should be forbidden which, calling it "Joy," they vainly try to hide under the name of drunkenness—as was being reported even while you were present—it opportunely happened for us, by the hidden ordinance of almighty God, that on the fourth day of the week that chapter in the Gospel was being treated in due course: Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine (Matt 7:6). There was, then, a treatment about dogs and swine, in such a way that both those quarreling with obstinate barking against God's precepts, and those given over to the filth of carnal pleasures, were compelled to blush; and it was so concluded that they saw how wicked it was to do within the walls of the church, in the name of religion, that which, if they persisted in doing it in their own houses, ought to keep them away from what is holy and from the ecclesiastical pearls.

3. But although these things were gratefully received, yet, because few had assembled, so great a matter was not yet settled. And when this sermon was bandied about outside by those who were present, each according to his ability and zeal, it had many contradictors. But after the day of Lent had dawned, and a frequent multitude came to the hour of the treatment, that passage in the Gospel was read where the Lord, having driven the sellers of animals from the temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers, said that the house of his Father had been made a den of thieves instead of a house of prayer (See Matt 21:12–13; John 2:14–16): which chapter, when I had made them attentive by setting forth the question of drunkenness, I myself also recited, and added a discussion by which I might show how much more movingly and vehemently our Lord would drive drunken banquets, which are everywhere base, from the temple, from which he thus drove out permitted commerce, when those things were being sold which were necessary for the sacrifices lawful at that time; asking them to which they thought a den of thieves more like, those selling necessary things or those drinking immoderately.

4. And since I held in store the prepared readings to be supplied, I then added that the still carnal people of the Jews themselves, in that temple where the body and blood of the Lord was not yet offered, never celebrated banquets, not only with drunkenness, but not even sober ones; nor are they found in their history to have been intoxicated publicly in the name of religion, except when they kept festival to a fabricated idol (See Exod 32:6). And while I was saying these things, I took the book and recited that whole passage. I added also, with what grief I could, that since the Apostle says, to distinguish the Christian people from the hardness of the Jews, that his Epistle was written not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart (See 2 Cor 3:3), when Moses the servant of God, on account of those leaders, had broken the two tablets of stone (See Exod 32:19), how could we not break the hearts of these men, who, men of the New Testament, wished solemnly to display, on the days of the saints to be celebrated, those things which the people of the Old Testament celebrated both once and to an idol.

5. Then, the book of Exodus returned, exaggerating the crime of drunkenness as much as time allowed, I took up the apostle Paul, and showed among what sins it was placed, reading that passage: If anyone is named a brother and is either a fornicator, or a servant of idols, or covetous, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber, with such a one not even to take food (1 Cor 5:11); warning, with groaning, with how great a danger we would banquet with those who got drunk even in their houses. I read also that which follows at no long interval: Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor servants of idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with men, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God. And such indeed you were; but you have been washed, but you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9–11). When these had been read, I said that they should consider how the faithful could hear, but you have been washed, who still allow the filth of such desire, against which the kingdom of heaven is closed, to be in their heart, that is, in the inner temple of God. Then we came to that chapter: When you come together into one, it is not to celebrate the Lord's supper: for each one takes his own supper first in the eating; and one indeed is hungry, another is drunk. Have you not houses to eat and drink in? or do you despise the Church of God? (1 Cor 11:20–22) which, when recited, I more diligently urged that not even honorable and sober banquets ought to be celebrated in the church; since the Apostle did not say: Have you not houses to get drunk in? as if only getting drunk were not permitted in the church; but: to eat and drink in, which can be done honorably, but apart from the church, by those who have houses where they can be refreshed with necessary food; and yet that we have been brought to these straits of corrupt times and dissolute morals that we wish for, not yet modest banquets, but at least a household reign of drunkenness.

6. I recalled also the chapter of the Gospel which I had treated the day before, where it is said of false prophets: By their fruits you will know them (Matt 7:16). Then I called to mind that the fruits in that place are called nothing but works; then I asked among which fruits drunkenness was named, and recited that passage to the Galatians: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, lusts, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, quarrels, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkennesses, revelings, and the like; which I foretell to you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19–21). After which words I asked how we could be recognized as Christians by the fruit of drunkenness, whom the Lord bade be recognized by their fruits. I added also, to be read, that which follows: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence (Gal 5:22–23): and I urged them to consider how shameful and lamentable it was that, of those fruits of the flesh, they desired not only to live by them privately, but even to render an honor of the Church to them, and, if the power were given, would fill the whole space of so great a basilica with crowds of feasters and drunkards; but of the spiritual fruits, to which they were invited both by the authority of the divine Scriptures and by our groans, they are unwilling to offer gifts to God, and to celebrate, by these most of all, the festivals of the saints.

7. When these things were done, I returned the book, and, prayer having been ordered, as much as I was able, and as much as the very danger pressed me and the Lord deigned to administer strength, I set before their eyes the common danger, both of those who were committed to us and of us who were going to render an account of them to the prince of shepherds; and by his humility, his signal insults, the blows and the spittings in his face, and the slaps, and the crown of thorns, and the cross and the blood, I beseeched them that, if they had offended themselves in anything, they would at least have pity on us, and would consider the ineffable love of the venerable old man Valerius toward me, who did not hesitate to lay upon me, on their account, the so dangerous burden of treating the words of truth, and who often told them that his prayers had been heard concerning our coming; whom he rejoiced to have come to him surely not for a common death or for a spectacle of their death, but for a common effort toward eternal life. Finally, I also said that I was certain, and trusted in him who cannot lie, who promised through the mouth of his prophet, saying of our Lord Jesus Christ: If his sons forsake my law, and do not walk in my precepts, if they profane my statutes, I will visit their crimes with a rod, and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I will not take away (Ps 89:30–33 (88:31–34)): that I trusted in him, therefore, that if they should despise these so great things which had been read and said to them, he would visit them with a rod and with a scourge, and would not permit them to be condemned with this world. In which complaint it was so done that, according to the greatness of the business and the danger, our protector and governor supplied courage and ability. I did not move their tears with my tears; but when such things were being said, I confess, anticipated by their weeping, I could not hold back my own. And when we had now wept together, in fullest hope of their correction, an end was made of my sermon.

8. But on the next day, when the day had dawned for which they were accustomed to prepare their throats and bellies, it was reported to me that some, even of those who had been present at the sermon, had not yet ceased from murmuring, and that the force of a most evil custom prevailed so greatly in them that, using only its voice, they would say: Why now? For surely those who in former times did not forbid these things were not non-Christians. Hearing this, I was altogether at a loss what greater engines to prepare for stirring them: I was nevertheless arranging, if they thought they should persist, to read that passage from the prophet Ezekiel: The watchman is acquitted, if he has announced the danger, even if those to whom it is announced refuse to take heed (See Ezek 33:1–9), to shake out my garments and depart. But then the Lord showed that he does not desert us, and in what ways he exhorts us to presume upon him: for before the hour at which we were to mount the platform, those very men whom I had heard had complained about the assault on the old custom came in to me; whom, kindly received, I brought over in a few words to a sound opinion; and when the time of discussion came, omitting the reading I had prepared, because it now seemed unnecessary, I discoursed a little about this very question, that we could bring forward nothing either briefer or truer against those who say, Why now? than that we too should say: At least now.

9. Nevertheless, lest those who before us either permitted or did not dare to forbid such manifest crimes of the unskilled multitude should seem to be touched by any insult from us, I set forth to them by what necessity these things seemed to have arisen in the Church: namely, that after persecutions so many and so violent, when peace had been made, the crowds of the gentiles wishing to come to the Christian name were hindered by this, that they were accustomed to spend their festal days with their idols in an abundance of feasting and drunkenness, and could not easily abstain from these most ruinous and so very ancient pleasures, it had seemed good to our forefathers that this part of their weakness should be spared for the time being, and that in place of the festal days they were leaving behind they should celebrate other days in honor of the holy martyrs, with at least not a similar sacrilege, though with a similar luxury: now that they were bound together by the name of Christ and subjected to the yoke of so great an authority, the salutary precepts of sobriety might be handed over to them, which they would now be unable to resist on account of the honor and fear of him who commands them; and that therefore it was now time that those who do not dare to deny themselves Christians should begin to live according to the will of Christ, so that the things which were granted in order that they might become Christians should be rejected now that they are Christians.

10. Then I exhorted them that we should be willing to be imitators of the churches across the sea, in which these things have either never been admitted, or have already, through good rulers, with the people obeying, been corrected. And since examples of daily wine-drinking were brought forward from the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter, I said first that we had often heard it had been forbidden, but that, because the place is far removed from the bishop's dwelling, and in so great a city there is a great multitude of carnal men—especially pilgrims, who keep coming, new ones again and again, the more violently retaining that custom the more ignorantly—so monstrous a plague had not yet been able to be checked and quieted. But that we, if we honored the apostle Peter, ought to hear his precepts, and to look much more devoutly upon the Epistle in which his will appears than upon the basilica in which it does not appear; and immediately, having taken the book, I recited where he says: For since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from the flesh, so as now to live the rest of his time in the flesh no longer by the desires of men, but by the will of God. For the time past suffices to have accomplished the will of men, walking in lusts, desires, drunkenness, revelings, and unspeakable services of idols (1 Pet 4:1–3). When these had been done, since I saw all going with one mind into good will, despising the evil custom, I exhorted them to be present at the divine readings and psalms at the noon hour; that thus that day might be celebrated much more purely and sincerely; and surely from the multitude of those assembling it could easily appear who followed the mind and who the belly. And so, all having been read, the sermon was ended.

11. But on the afternoon of the day a greater multitude was present than before noon, and up to the hour at which we went out with the bishop, there was reading and psalm-singing in turn; and after we had gone out, two psalms were read. Then the old man compelled me, unwilling—for I now desired that so dangerous a day were finished—and bade me say something to them. I gave a brief sermon, by which I might give thanks to God. And since we heard that in the basilica of the heretics they were celebrating their accustomed banquets, since they still, even at that very time when these things were being done by us, persisted in their cups, I said that the beauty of the day is adorned by comparison with night, and the white color made more pleasing by the nearness of black; that thus our gathering for a spiritual celebration would perhaps have been less pleasant, had not, on the other side, a carnal gorging been set against it; and I exhorted them to seek such feasts eagerly, if they had tasted how sweet the Lord is; but that those were to be feared who, as though it were the highest good, pursue what will at some time be destroyed, since each becomes the companion of the thing he worships, and that the Apostle insulted such men saying: whose God is the belly (Phil 3:19), though the same Apostle said in another place: Food for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both this and that (1 Cor 6:13). That we ought therefore to follow that which is not destroyed, which, most remote from the affection of the flesh, is retained by the sanctification of the spirit; and to this effect, for the time, when the things which the Lord deigned to suggest had been said, the evening services which are customary each day were performed, and as we withdrew with the bishop, the brothers sang a hymn in the same place, a not small multitude of both sexes remaining and singing psalms until the day grew dark.

12. I have set forth to you, as briefly as I could, what who could doubt that you desired to hear? Pray that God may deign to turn away from our efforts all scandals and all weariness. We rest with you in great part with the alacrity of fervor, because such frequent gifts of the spiritual Church of Thagaste are reported to us. The ship with the brothers has not yet come. At Hasna, where the presbyter brother Argentius is, the Circumcellions, invading our basilica, shattered the altar. The case is now being conducted; that it may be conducted peacefully and as befits the catholic Church, for the suppressing of the tongues of an unpeaceful heresy, we greatly beg you to pray. We have sent the letter of the Asiarch. Most blessed ones, may you persevere in the Lord, mindful of us. Amen.

LETTER 30
To the lord, brother of one mind and venerable, Augustine, Paulinus and Therasia, sinners

1. Long ago, my brother of one mind in Christ the Lord, when I came to know you, unknowing, in your holy and pious labors, and saw you, absent, having embraced you with my whole mind, I hastened to approach you also with a familiar and brotherly address through letters. And I believe that, in the hand and the grace of the Lord, my discourse was brought to you; but, the boy still delaying whom we had sent before winter to greet you and others alike beloved of God, we could no longer suspend our duty and temper our most eager longing for your discourse. And so we have now written a second time, if our former letter deserved to reach you; or for the first time, if it did not have the good fortune of reaching your hands.

2. But you, a spiritual brother who judges all things (See 1 Cor 2:15), do not weigh our love for you by duty alone, or by the date of the letter. For the Lord is witness, who, one and the same, works (See 1 Cor 12:6, 11) his love in his own everywhere, that from the time when we came to know you, by the kindness of the venerable bishops Aurelius and Alypius, through your works against the Manichees, your love was so implanted in us that we seemed to ourselves not to be taking up some new friendship, but as it were to be resuming an old love. And so now, even if we write as those untrained in discourse, yet not as those untrained in affection, and in turn we, as it were, recognize you again in spirit through the inner man. Nor is it strange if, though absent, we are present to one another, and, though unknown, we know one another; since we are members of one body (See Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:12), have one head, are flooded by one grace, live by one bread, walk on one road, dwell in the same house. Finally, in all that we are, with the whole hope and faith by which we stand in the present, we strive toward the future; as much in the spirit as in the body of the Lord we are one, lest we be nothing if we fall away from the One.

3. How little, then, is that which bodily absence begrudges us of one another—unless indeed that fruit by which the eyes of those who watch for temporal things are fed? Although not even bodily favor ought to be called temporal among spiritual men, to whom the resurrection will lavish even the eternity of their bodies, as we dare to presume, even unworthy, in the power of Christ and the goodness of God the Father. Wherefore, would that the grace of God might grant us this gift too, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might see your face even in the flesh! Not only would great joy be conferred on our longings, but light too would grow upon our minds, and from your abundance our poverty would be enriched. Which indeed you can lavish even on the absent, especially on this occasion, on which our sons, of one mind and most dear to us in the Lord, Romanus and Agilis—whom, as we do others, we commend to you—will return in the name of the Lord, the work of love accomplished; in which we ask that they may especially make use of the affection of your love. For you know how lofty things the Most High promises to a brother helping a brother (See Prov 18:19). Through these men, if you should wish to repay me with any gift of the grace given to you, you will safely do so. For they are, I would have you believe, one heart and one soul (See Acts 4:32) in the Lord with us. The grace of God be with you, as it is, forever, brother in Christ the Lord of one mind, venerable, most beloved, and desirable. Greet from us all the saints in Christ, such as without doubt cleave to you. Commend us to all the saints, that they may deign to pray with you for us.

LETTER 31
To the most beloved and most sincere lords, truly most blessed brothers, most excellent by the most abundant grace of God, Paulinus and Therasia, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. Although I had wished that my letter, by which I answered your earlier one—if indeed your letter can in any way be answered by me—should come most swiftly into the hands of your Charity, so that in some way, though absent, I might quickly be with you, my own slowness brought me the gain of your letter. The Lord is good, who often does not grant what we want, in order to bestow what we would prefer. For it is one thing that you will write upon receiving my letter, another that you wrote without receiving it. Which, when we read it most joyfully, this joy would surely have been lacking to us, if, as we wished and most greatly wanted, our letter had quickly made its way to your Holiness. But now both to have this written and to hope for that as a reply delights us with a more heaped-up joy. Thus neither can our fault be accused, and the Lord's more bountiful kindness has done what he judged more conducive to our desire.

2. The holy brothers Romanus and Agilis, another letter of yours, hearing voices and giving them back, and a most sweet part of your presence—but one by which we gaped the more greedily to see you—we received with great pleasantness in the Lord. Whence, or when, or how could either you grant or we exact that you should teach us about yourselves by writing as much as we learned from their mouth? There was present also, what can be present to no paper, so great a joy in those narrating, that through the very face and eyes of those speaking we read you, written in their hearts, with ineffable gladness. This too was more: that any page whatsoever, however much good it contains written, profits itself nothing, although it is unfolded for the profit of others; but this letter of yours—that is, your brotherly soul—we so read in their conversation that it appeared to us the more blessed the more abundantly it had been written from you. And so we have, in imitation of the same blessedness, most zealously transcribed it into our hearts, inquiring everything about you.

3. Nor on that account did we let them go from us so quickly, though returning to you, without trouble. For see, I beg you, by what affections we were shaken. They were surely to be sent off the more swiftly the more earnestly they desired to obey you; but the more they desired this, the more they made you present to us: for thereby they showed how dear your inmost being was; therefore we wished the less to let them go, the more justly they urged to be let go. O thing not to be borne, did we not, by this parting, part from ourselves, were we not "members of one body, did we not have one head, were we not flooded by one grace, did we not live by one bread, walk on one road, dwell in the same house!" For why should we not use even the same words? For you recognize, I believe, that these are from your letter. But why are these your words rather than mine, which, true as they are, come to us from the communion of the same head? And if they have something proper, granted to you, the more for that did I so love them that they besieged the way of my breast, and would not allow words to pass from my heart to my tongue until those went forth first, the more they are yours. Holy brothers and beloved of God, and our members in turn, who could doubt that we are quickened by one spirit, except one who does not feel by what love we are bound?

4. Yet I would like to know whether you tolerate this bodily absence more patiently and more easily than we do? If it is so, I confess, I do not love that fortitude of yours—unless perhaps because we are such that we ought to be desired less by you than you ought to desire us. In me, at least, if there were a patience for bearing your absence, it would displease me; for I would act slothfully in seeing you: and what is more absurd than to become more slothful through fortitude? But by what care of the Church I am held, your Charity ought to attend to from this: that the most blessed father Valerius—how much he greets you along with us, and how he thirsts for you, you will hear from the brothers—did not allow me to be his presbyter, except by imposing on me the greater burden of a joint episcopate. Which, indeed, because I believed that the Lord willed it, by his so great love and the people's so great zeal, with some examples already preceding by which every excuse was shut off from me, I vehemently feared to refuse. But although the yoke of Christ is in itself easy, and his burden light (See Matt 11:30); yet, on account of our roughness and weakness, if this bond bites me at all, and this burden presses me, it would be rendered, ineffably to me, somewhat more tolerable and bearable by the solace of your presence, you whom I hear to live more free and unencumbered of cares of this kind. Wherefore not impudently do I ask you, and beg, and demand, that you deign to come to Africa, which labors with a greater thirst for such men than with the renown of its drought.

5. God knows that not only on account of my own longing, nor only on account of those who learned of your purpose either through us or from fame proclaiming it anywhere, but also on account of the rest who partly do not hear, and partly, having heard, do not believe, yet can verify what they have ascertained, we desire you to be present in these lands even bodily. For although you do this diligently and mercifully, yet let your works shine even before the men of our regions, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (See Matt 5:16). The fishermen, when the Lord called them, because they left their little boats and nets, rejoiced even in recalling that they had left all things and followed the Lord (See Matt 4:19–20; 19:27). And in truth he despises all things who despises not only as much as he was able, but even as much as he wished, to have. But in what was desired, the eyes of God are witnesses; in what was possessed, also those of men. But somehow, when one was seeking from the Lord superfluous and certain things, when he had heard that earthly things which are loved must all be sold, the things obtained bind more tightly than the things coveted. For why did that man depart sad, who, having taken counsel about eternal life, was advised both to distribute to the poor and to have treasure in heaven, if he wished to be perfect, except because, as the Gospel says, he had great riches (See Matt 19:16–22)? For it is one thing to be unwilling to incorporate what is lacking, another to tear away what is already incorporated: the former are rejected as food, the latter are cut off as members. With how great and how marvelous a joy, then, does Christian love behold, in our times, that done with gladness through the Lord's Gospel which the rich man heard from the mouth of the Lord with sadness?

6. Although I cannot explain in any words the conception and the bringing to birth of my heart; yet because you prudently and piously understand that this glory is not yours, that is, human, but in you the glory of the Lord—for you both most cautiously watch the enemy, and most devoutly act so that, as disciples of Christ, you may be humble of heart and meek (See Matt 11:29); for earthly wealth is more usefully held humbly than relinquished proudly: because, then, you rightly understand that this is not your glory, but the Lord's, you see how small and slight a thing I have said. For I spoke of the praises of Christ, for which the tongues of angels are unequal. This glory of Christ, then, we desire to be brought also to the eyes of our men: in one marriage, set before both sexes, examples of pride to be trodden down, of perfection not to be despaired of. I do not know whether you do anything more merciful than this: that you are only as unwilling to be hidden, that you are such, as you were willing to be such.

7. Vetustinus, a boy pitiable even to the impious, I commend to your kindness and love: the causes of his calamity and his wandering you will hear from himself. For both his purpose, by which he promises that he will serve God, a longer time, a more robust age, and the passing of his fear will indicate more surely. Three books—and would that they were as good at unraveling so great a question as they are large—I have sent to your Holiness and Charity, fearing the labor of reading them in you the less, the more I perceive your ardor of loving; for their question is On Free Will. But I know that brother Romanianus does not have these, or does not have them all, through whom I gave nearly all the things I could write fitted to any ears whatever, by your zeal toward us, not to be brought to you, but I indicated them to be read. For he already had everything, and carried it with him: but through him I sent the first reply. I believe your Holiness has already perceived, by the spiritual sagacity which the Lord has granted you, what good that man bears in his mind, and in what weakness a part of him limps. Whence to your kindness and love I have, as I hope, with what solicitude commended both him and his son, of whom you have read, and by what great closeness they are joined to me. May the Lord build them up through you. Which is rather to be asked of him; for how much you would wish it, I know.

8. That you are writing against the Pagans I have learned from the brothers: if we deserve anything from your breast, send it without reserve for us to read. For your breast is such an oracle of the Lord that from it we presume that answers so pleasing, and so well unfolded against the most loquacious questions, are given to us. The books of the most blessed pope Ambrose I believe your Holiness has; but I greatly desire those which he wrote most diligently and most copiously against certain most unskilled and most proud men who contend that the Lord made progress from the books of Plato.

9. The most blessed brother Severus, my fellow student, prelate of the Church of Milevis, well known to the brothers in the same city, greets your Holiness with the duty owed along with us. All the brothers too, serving the Lord with us, do this as much as they long for you; they long for you as much as they love you, and they love you as much as you are good. The loaf which we have sent will become a more abundant blessing by the love of your kindness in receiving it. May the Lord keep you from this generation forever (See Ps 12:7 (11:8)), most beloved and most sincere lords, truly kind, and most excellent by the most abundant grace of the Lord, brothers.

LETTER 32
To the deservedly praiseworthy and honorable lord and brother Romanianus, Paulinus and Therasia

1. The day before we sent this, our brothers having returned from Africa—in expectation of whom you saw us hanging—we had received from there, most longed-for of holy and most dear men, letters, that is, of Aurelius, Alypius, Augustine, Profuturus, Severus, now all alike bishops. Therefore, rejoicing at the most recent discourses of so many such holy men, we hastened to report to you our gladness, that to you too we might convey, with most festive tokens, a joy longed-for amid your anxious pilgrimage. If by chance you have learned the same things about these venerable and most loving men through the arrival of other ships, receive them, repeated, through us as well, and exult again with renewed cheerfulness. But if this first message should come to you from us, rejoice that so great a love has been won for us, by Christ's gift, in your homeland, so that whatever divine Providence does there, always wonderful, as it is written, in his saints (See Ps 68:35 (67:36)), we may know either among the first, or with the first.

2. But we write not only that this is to be rejoiced at, that Augustine has received the episcopate, but that the African Churches have deserved this care of God, that they should receive heavenly words from the mouth of Augustine, who, advanced in a new manner to the greater grace of the Lord's gift, was so consecrated that he did not succeed the bishop in his chair, but was added to him. For while Valerius, bishop of the Church of Hippo, is unharmed, Augustine is his co-bishop. And that blessed old man, whose most pure mind no stain of envious ill-will has ever overspread, now takes from the Most High fruits worthy of the peace of his heart, so that he whom he simply wished to be the successor of his priesthood, he deserves to hold as a colleague. Could this be believed before it happened? But in this work too of the Almighty that gospel saying can be spoken: These things are arduous for men; but with God all things are possible (See Matt 19:26). Let us therefore exult and be glad in him who alone does wonders (See Ps 72:18 (71:18)), and who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house (See Ps 68:6 (67:7)), since he himself has looked upon our lowliness (See Luke 1:48), and visited in good his people (See Luke 1:68; Ps 106:4 (105:4)): who raised up a horn in the house of David his servant (See Luke 1:69), and now has exalted the horn of his Church among his elect, that the horns of sinners, as he promises through the prophet—that is, of the Donatists and Manichees—he may break (See Ps 75:10 (74:11)).

3. Would that the hearing of our son Licentius might now be struck by this trumpet of the Lord, which sounds through Augustine, but that he might hear it with that ear by which Christ enters, from which the enemy does not snatch the seed of God (See Matt 13:19)! Then Augustine will truly seem to himself the highest pontiff of Christ, because then he will feel himself heard from on high, if him whom he begot worthy of you in letters, this one he may worthily beget for himself as a son in Christ. For even now, I would have you believe, he wrote to us with the most burning solicitude about him. We trust in almighty Christ that the spiritual prayers of Augustine will prevail over the carnal wishes of our young man. He will be conquered, even unwilling (believe me); he will be conquered by the faith of his most pious parent, lest an evil victory conquer, if he should prefer to conquer to his own ruin rather than to be overcome for his salvation. Lest the duty of brotherly kindness should seem empty, from the biscuit of the Christian campaign, in whose battle-line we daily serve as soldiers for the ration of frugality, we have sent five loaves to you and to our son Licentius alike. For we could not separate from the blessing him whom we take in the same grace to be inwardly bound to us. Yet let us speak in a few words to him also, lest he deny that what is written to you about him is written to him. For it is to Aeschinus that what Micio hears is said. But why should I speak of another's affairs, when from my own I can speak all things, and to speak of another's is not usually the mark of a sound head? By which sound head, by God's grace, we are sound and safe, we whose head is Christ. May we have you unharmed for very many years, and ever blessed with your whole household, as we desire, in Christ, lord brother, deservedly most honorable and most longed-for. 4. Hear, then, my son, the law of your father, that is, the faith of Augustine, and do not reject the counsels of your mother (See Prov 1:8), which name the piety of Augustine equally and rightly claims for itself over you, who carried you, so small, in his bosom, and, when from your childhood you had been steeped in the first milk of worldly wisdom, now also yearns to suckle and nourish you for the Lord at spiritual breasts. Since he sees you, grown up in bodily age, still wailing in your spiritual cradle, still an infant in the word of God, scarcely creeping with your first steps in Christ and with a faltering footing, if only the teaching of Augustine, as a mother's hand and a nurse's arm, may guide the unsteady little one. Whom if you hear and follow, that I may again entice you with the discourse of Solomon, my son, you will receive a crown of graces upon your head (See Prov 1:9). And then truly you will be that consul and pontiff, not dreamed in a phantasm, but formed by Truth itself, Christ filling the empty images of a false work with the solid effects of his own working. For truly a pontiff and truly a consul, Licentius, you will be, if you cleave to the footsteps of Augustine, to prophetic and apostolic disciplines, as blessed Elisha to the consecrated Elijah (See 2 Kgs 2:9–15), as the young Timothy to the illustrious Apostle (See 1 Tim 4:12; 2 Tim 1:2), with an undivided company along the divine journeys, so that you may both learn to deserve the priesthood with a perfect heart, and take counsel for the peoples' salvation with the mouth of a teacher. 5. Enough of this for warning and exhortation: for I judge, my Licentius, that with little discourse and labor you can be stirred toward Christ, since from childhood you were inflamed for the pursuits of truth and wisdom—which both truly are Christ, and the highest good of all good—by the spirit and mouth of the venerable Augustine. Who, if he availed little with you on your behalf, what shall I, so far his inferior by distance, and poor in all his resources, accomplish? But because, trusting both in the power of his ability and in the kindness of your talent, I hope for fuller and greater things wrought in you than to be wrought, I have dared to open my mouth with a double grace: both that I might be compared, with due love, to that man in solicitude for you, and that, among those who love your salvation, I might be numbered at least by attested affection. For I know that the palm in your perfecting is destined chiefly for Augustine. I fear, my son, that I have offended your ears by the roughness of a rash discourse, and through your ears have inflicted on your mind too the wound of my weariness. But your letter came to mind, by which I understood you to be familiar with musical measures: from which pursuit I myself, once of your age, did not shrink. And so, to soothe your mind, if in anything I had chafed it, I found a remedy, recalling your letter, that I might call you, by the modulation of a song, to the Lord, the artificer of all-formed harmony. I beg you to hear with your ear, and not to spurn the cause of your salvation in my words; but to receive gladly the pious care and fatherly mind even in despised discourses, in which the implanted name of Christ, which is above every name (See Phil 2:9), makes this veneration due, that it cannot be despised by a believer. An elegiac poem of Paulinus to Licentius Come then, break off delays (See Virgil, Aeneid 4.569), and the tenacious chains of the age:
nor fear the mild yoke of the gentle Lord.
Fair indeed, but a marvel to wandering minds, is the present face of things; yet a wise spirit is not amazed at these.
Now Rome, ill-counseling, solicits you with various figures—alas, mighty even to overturn the strong!
But for you, my son, I pray, may father Augustine always meet you against all the City's enticements.
Looking upon him amid such perils of fragile life, and holding him in your heart, you will be safe.
This too, again and again, I will warn (See Virgil, Aeneid 3.436): that you flee the slippery ways of hard warfare.
Honor is a flattering name, an evil servitude, a sickly end—what now it pleases to will, soon it grieves to have willed.
It pleases to climb the heights, but it is a terror to descend from the heights: if you stumble, you fall worse from the topmost citadel.
Now false goods please you, now ambition snatches you with every breeze, and hollow rumor bears you in its empty bosom.
But when the ruinous belt has girded you with great heat, and barren labor has then broken you,
too late and in vain will you accuse empty hopes, and the chains you now weave you will wish to break:
then you will remember, grieving, that you despised in vain the truth-telling warnings of father Augustine.
Wherefore, if you are wise and if you are pious, boy, hear, and take the words of the fathers and the counsel of the elders.
Why do you draw back your wild neck from the yoke? My burden is gentle, the yoke of Christ is sweet (See Matt 11:30)—a pious voice; believe God:
and add your head to the yoke, give your face to the soft halter, and put your lowered shoulders under the light burden (See Matt 11:29–30).
Now you can do this, while you act free, while no chains hold you back, no care of the marriage-bed, nor lofty honor.
This is good freedom: to serve Christ, and in him to be above all things; not to the lords of men,
not to vices does he serve, not to proud kings, who only has given himself to Christ the Lord.
Nor let that nobility seem free to you, which you now see borne aloft in the astonished City.
Which you see to seem to itself of such great freedom that it scorns to bend its neck to God.
That wretch serves many mortals (See Wis 9:14–15), and even slaves, and buys handmaids that they may lord it over him.
They know it who have endured eunuchs and the great palaces, and whoever, of his own will wretched, endures Rome:
at what price of sweat, and at what loss of honor, the honor of the cloak costs there, the honor of office here.
Nor yet does the powerful man himself, who has bought to be loftier than all, that he might serve no one, attain it.
When he has well boasted himself lord through the whole City, he serves demons, if he worships idols.
Alas the grief! For the sake of these you linger in the City, Licentius, and spurn the kingdom of Christ, that you may please these:
these you call lords, and with bent neck you greet, whom you behold to be the slaves of wood and stone!
Under a divine name they venerate silver and gold; what the disease of avarice loves is their religion.
I pray that he may love these who does not love Augustine, nor worship Christ, to whom it is pleasing to worship these.
Hence God himself says that two lords cannot be served (See Matt 6:24), since one mind pleases God:
one faith, one God (See Eph 4:5–6), and an only Christ from the Father; no double servitude belongs to one lord.
For as great as is the distance between heaven and earth, so great is that between the things and the rules of Caesar and of Christ.
Be lifted from the ground; but now, while the spirit rules these limbs (See Virgil, Aeneid 4.336), penetrate the sky with your mind: no delay of the flesh stands in the way.
Die now to bodily acts, and with a clear soul premeditate the goods of the heavenly life.
You are a spirit, though you are held by the body, if now with a pious mind, victor, you destroy the work of the flesh.
These things, dear boy, compelled by faithful love, I have written for you; if you receive them, you will be received by God.
Believe that Augustine is now doubled for you in me; take two fathers with one piety.
Are we spurned? You will be torn away with greater grief from the two: are we heard? You will be a sweet pledge to the two.
In you the glad care of two fathers has sweated, and to you it is a great honor to have gladdened two.
But when I couple myself with Augustine, I do not boast myself equal in merits; I compare myself only by love of you.
For what should I pour upon you, dripping in a poor stream? Besides me, you would be washed by a twin river:
Alypius is your kinsman, and Augustine your teacher—the one a sharer of your blood, the other the begetter of your talent.
With so great a brother you are strong, and with such a teacher, Licentius, and do you hesitate to follow the stars on such wings?
Whatever you do (for the world should not hope you a friend), you will not be given to the earth, a soul owed to Christ.
Though you meditate marriage-chambers and lofty honors, now or one day you will be restored to your Lord.
I believe two just men will conquer one sinner, and the prayers of your brother will drive away your wishes.
Return, then, by the voice with which your parent, by the blood with which your brother—both priests—bid you come back.
They draw you back to your own, for now you seek what is alien; these things rather, which hold the kingdoms of you, are your own.
Seek these again, gape for these, do not waste your time on alien things; if you should be unwilling for your own, who will give you another's?
You will not be your own, but, sent far through foreign places, alas, you will live an exile from the senses of your own breast.
It is enough that an anxious parent has sung these things to his son, while for you I either wish or fear what I do for myself.
These things, if you receive them, this page will one day bring you life: if you refuse, this same page will be a witness.
May Christ grant you to me unharmed, dearest son, and give you to himself as a servant forever.
Live, I pray, but live to God: for to live to the world is the work of death; to live to God is to live the living life.

LETTER 33
To the honorable and most beloved lord Proculeianus, Augustine

1. On account of the vanities of unskilled men, I ought not to argue longer with you about the heading of my letter. For when we try to call one another back from error, although, before the fullest discussion of the case, it can seem to some uncertain which of us errs; yet we serve one another, if we deal with one another in good will, that we may be freed from the perversity of discord. That I do this with a sincere heart, and with the trembling of Christian humility, even if it is not open to most men, yet he sees to whom no hearts are closed. But what I would not hesitate to honor in you, you easily understand. For I do not judge the error of schism—from which, as far as I am concerned, I desire all men to be healed—worthy of any honor: but you, before all else, because you are bound to us by the very bond of human society itself, and because there preeminent in you are certain indications of a more peaceable mind, by which it is in no way to be despaired that you can easily embrace the truth when it has been demonstrated, I think to be honored without any surge of doubt. But of love I owe you as much as he commands us who loved us even to the reproach of the cross.

2. But do not be surprised that I have long been silent toward your Benevolence; I did not think you were of this opinion, which brother Evodius, to whom I cannot but give credence, joyfully indicated to me. For when it had by chance happened that you came together into one house, and a conversation arose between you about our hope, that is, about the inheritance of Christ, he says that your Kindness said that you wished to confer with us, with good men sitting by. Which I greatly rejoice that you deigned to offer to our lowliness; nor can I in any way desert so great an occasion of your kindly disposition, but, as far as the Lord deigns to grant strength, I will seek out and discuss with you what cause, what origin, what reason there has been, in the Church of Christ, to whom he said: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you (John 14:27), for so lamentable and deplorable a rending.

3. I heard indeed that you complained about the aforementioned brother, that he gave you some insulting answer: which, I beg you, do not reckon an insult; for it is certain to me that it did not proceed from a proud mind, for I know my brother; but if in arguing he said something perhaps too fervently for his faith and for the love of the Church, which your gravity would not wish to hear, that is to be called not contumacy, but confidence. For he desired to be a conferrer and debater, not a flatterer and fawner. For this is the oil of the sinner, with which the prophet does not wish his head to be made fat; for thus he says: The just man shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner make fat my head (Ps 141:5 (140:5)). For he prefers to be corrected by the severe mercy of the just than to be praised by the gentle anointing of flattery. Whence also that prophetic word: Those who call you happy lead you into error (See Isa 3:12). And therefore of a man whom false flatteries make arrogant it is even commonly and rightly said: His head has grown; for it has been made fat with the oil of the sinner; that is, not with the harsh truth of one correcting, but with the gentle falsehood of one praising. Nor do I ask you to take this in such a way as if I wished it to be understood that I myself was corrected by brother Evodius as by a just man. For I fear lest you suppose that I too am saying something insulting against you, which I vehemently guard against, as much as I can. But he is just who said: I am the Truth (John 14:6). And so, when from the mouth of any man whatever the truth sounds to us with some harshness, we are corrected not by that man, who perhaps is a sinner, but by Truth itself, that is, by Christ, who is just; lest the anointing of flattering but ruinous adulation, that is, the oil of the sinner, make fat our head. Although even if brother Evodius, somewhat disturbed in defense of his communion, had said something more loftily with a too excited mind, you ought to pardon the man's age and the necessity of the case.

4. But what you deigned to promise, I beg you to remember: that, with men sitting by whom you yourself shall have chosen (provided our words are not vainly bandied about, but are taken down by the pen, so that we may discuss both more tranquilly and more orderly, and that, if perhaps something said by us should slip from memory, it may be recalled by the recitation), we may seek out with concord a matter so great and pertaining to the salvation of all. Or, if it pleases, with no intermediary interposed, let us first confer between ourselves, whether by letters, or by conversation and reading, wherever it shall please: lest perhaps some intemperate hearers prefer, as it were, to await our contest than to think about their own salvation in our conversation: so that what shall have been settled between us, the people may afterward learn through us; or if it pleases to act through letters, let those very letters be recited to the congregations, so that at length there may be said to be, not congregations, but one congregation. Just as you shall wish, just as you shall command, just as it shall please you, I gladly embrace it. And concerning the mind of the most blessed and venerable father Valerius, now absent, I promise with all assurance that he will learn this with great gladness: for I know how much he loves peace, and is puffed up by no emptiness of vain pride.

5. I ask you, what have we to do with old dissensions, that those wounds should have lasted until now which the animosity of proud men inflicted on our members; from the festering of which wounds we have even lost the pain by which the physician is wont to be summoned? You see with how great and how pitiable a foulness Christian homes and households have been disfigured. Husbands and wives agree together about their own bed, and disagree about the altar of Christ. By him they swear to one another, that they may have peace between themselves, and in him they cannot have it. Sons have one home of their own with their parents, and do not have one house of God. They desire to succeed to the inheritance of those with whom they quarrel about the inheritance of Christ. Slaves and masters divide their common Lord, who took the form of a servant (See Phil 2:7), that by serving he might free all. Your people honor us, our people honor you. By our crown your people adjure us, by your crown our people adjure you. We accept the words of all, we wish to offend no one. Why does Christ alone offend us, whose members we tear apart? And men indeed desiring to settle their worldly causes before us call us holy and servants of God in the manner we have been necessary to them, that they may transact the business of their earth; let us too at some time transact the business of our salvation and of their salvation, not about gold, not about silver, not about lands and herds, for which things we are daily greeted with bowed head, that we may settle the dissensions of men, but about our very head there is so base and ruinous a dissension between us. However much they bow their heads who greet us, that we may make them concordant on earth, from heaven even to the cross our head was bowed, in whom we are not concordant.

6. I ask you and beseech you, if there is in you any humanity, which many proclaim, let your goodness appear here, if it is not feigned for the sake of transitory honors, so that the bowels of mercy may quake within you, and you may wish that the matter be at some time discussed, by pressing on with prayers along with us, and conferring all things peaceably: lest the wretched congregations, which defer to our honors, oppress us by their deferences in the judgment of God; but rather, called back by our unfeigned love along with us from errors and dissensions, may be directed onto the paths of truth and peace. I wish you to be blessed before the eyes of God, honorable and most beloved lord.

LETTER 34
To the honorable and most beloved lord Proculeianus, Augustine

1. God knows, to whom the secrets of the human heart are manifest, that as much as I love Christian peace, so much am I moved by the sacrilegious deeds of those who persevere unworthily and impiously in dissension from it; and that this motion of my mind is peaceful, and that I do not act so that anyone may be compelled unwilling to catholic communion, but that the open truth may be declared to all who err, and that, manifested through our ministry, with God's help, it may itself sufficiently persuade that it should be embraced and followed.

2. For what is more execrable, I ask you, to be silent about other things, than what has now happened? A young man is rebuked by his bishop, mad with frequent beatings of his mother, and not even in those days, when even the severity of the laws spares the most wicked, recalling his impious hands from the womb from which he was born. He threatens the same mother that he will cross over to the party of Donatus, and that he will destroy her whom he is wont to beat with incredible fury. He threatens her, crosses over to the party of Donatus, is rebaptized in his fury, and, raging for his mother's blood, is dressed in white robes. He is set within the railings, eminent and conspicuous, and, before the eyes of all who groan, the meditator of matricide is set forth as if renewed.

3. Do these things, at last, please you, most grave man? By no means would I believe this of you: I know your consideration. The carnal mother is being beaten, it is believed, in the members with which she bore and nourished the ingrate; mother Church, the spiritual one, forbids this, and she too is beaten in the sacraments with which she bore and nourished the ingrate. Does he not seem to you to have said, gnashing parricidally: What shall I do to the Church which forbids me to beat my mother? I have found what I shall do: let her too be struck with what injuries she can be; let something be done in me from which her members may grieve. I will go to those who know how to blow contempt upon the grace in which I was born there, to destroy the form which I received in her womb. I will torture both my mothers with savage torments: let the one who bore me later bring forth the earlier. To the grief of the one, I will die spiritually; to the slaying of the other, I will live carnally. What else do we await, honorable man Eusebius, except that against the wretched woman, decrepit with age, destitute by widowhood, from beating whom he was forbidden in the Catholic Church, the Donatist may now be armed without fear? For what else did he conceive in his raging heart, when he said to his mother: I will transfer myself to the party of Donatus, and I will drink your blood? Behold, now bloodstained in conscience, whitened in dress, he has accomplished part of his promise; the other part remains, that he drink his mother's blood. If, then, these things please, let him be urged by his clergy and his sanctifiers to discharge, within his octave, the whole of what he vowed.

4. The right hand of the Lord is indeed powerful, which may restrain his fury from the wretched and desolate widow, and may deter him, in the ways it knows, from so wicked a design; nevertheless, struck with so great a grief of mind, what should I do but at least speak? Or do they do these things to her, and to me it is said: Be silent? May the Lord turn this madness from me, that, when he himself commands me through his Apostle, and says that those teaching what they ought not must be refuted by the bishop (See Titus 1:9–11), I, terrified by their indignations, should be silent? For that I wished so sacrilegious a wickedness to be attached to the public Records, I wished for this purpose: that no one, especially in other cities where it shall be opportune, may suppose that I, lamenting these things, am inventing something, since even at Hippo itself it is now said that Proculeianus did not order this which the public office reported.

5. But what can we do more modestly than that I conduct so grave a cause through you, a man both endowed with the most illustrious dignity and tranquil with the most considerate will? I ask, therefore, as I have already asked through our brothers, good and honorable men whom I sent to your Excellence, that you deign to inquire whether Proculeianus's presbyter Victor did not receive this order from his bishop which the public office reported; or whether perhaps, when Victor himself said otherwise, those who took it down recorded something false in the Records, since they are of the same communion. Or if he consents that we treat peaceably this whole question of our dissension, so that the error which is already manifest may become more manifestly known, I gladly embrace it. For I heard that he said that, without a popular uproar, ten grave and honorable men from each side should be present with us, and that we should search out, according to the Scriptures, what is in the truth. For that which some again reported to me that he had said—why I did not go to Constantina, when they themselves were there in greater numbers, or that I ought to go to Milevis, because there, as they allege, they are soon to hold a council—it is ridiculous to say, as though any care belonged to me but my own, of the Church of Hippo. For me the whole reasoning of this question is chiefly with Proculeianus. But if perhaps he thinks himself unequal, let him implore the help of whichever of his colleagues he wishes. For in other cities we do only as much as pertains to the Church as either we are permitted, or is imposed on us, by the bishops of those same cities, our brothers and fellow priests.

6. Although this man too, who calls himself a bishop of so many years, what he fears in me, a recruit, that he should be unwilling to confer discourse with me, I do not sufficiently understand: if it is the learning of liberal letters, which perhaps he himself either did not learn, or learned less, what has this to do with that question which must be discussed either from the holy Scriptures or from ecclesiastical or public documents, in which he has been engaged for so many years, whence he ought to be more skilled in them? Finally, there is here my brother and colleague, Samsucius, bishop of the church of Tursa, who learned none of the things which this man is said to dread: let him be present, let him deal with him. I will ask him, and, as I trust in the name of Christ, he will easily grant me to take my place in this matter, and the Lord will help him, contending for the truth, unpolished though he be in discourse, yet, as we trust, instructed in true faith. There is therefore no reason why he should refer it to certain others I know not, rather than that we accomplish between ourselves what pertains to us. Nor yet, as I said, do I avoid even those, if he himself demands their help.

LETTER 35
To the excellent lord, deservedly to be received and honorable brother Eusebius, Augustine

1. I, a troublesome exhorter or petitioner, did not impose upon your unwilling will a judgment, as you say, to be undertaken among bishops. And indeed, even if I had wished to persuade you of this, I could perhaps easily show how able you are to judge between us in a case so manifest and open, and what sort of thing it is that you do—that, the parties not heard, you do not hesitate already to pass sentence for one party, you who dread to judge; but this, as I said, I omit for now. But I had asked nothing else of your honorable kindness—which I beg you at last in this letter at least to deign to attend to—except that you ask Proculeianus whether he himself said this to his presbyter Victor, which the public office reported as said to it by him; or whether perhaps those who were sent recorded in the Records, not what they heard from Victor, but something false; and then what seemed to him about the whole question itself to be discussed between us. But I think that he does not become a judge who is asked to question someone, and to deign to write back what shall have been answered to him. This, then, even now I ask you not to be reluctant to do, because he, as I have also experienced, is unwilling to accept my letter: which if he had been willing to do, I would surely not be doing this through your Excellence. But since he is unwilling, what can I do more gently than that, through you, such a man, and one who loves him, something be asked, about which my burden forbids me to be silent? But that a mother beaten by her son displeased your gravity—yet, you said, if he knew, he would forbid so wicked a young man from his communion: I answer briefly: now he has learned, now let him forbid.

2. I add also another matter: A former subdeacon of the church of Spania, by name Primus, when he was forbidden the undisciplined approach to the nuns, and despised the orderly and sound precepts, was removed from the clergy, and he himself, provoked against the discipline of God, transferred himself to those people, and was rebaptized. He also transferred—or they followed him—two nuns, his fellow tenants, from the estate of catholic Christians, and they too were rebaptized; and now, with the bands of Circumcellions, among the wandering bands of women who refused to have husbands lest they should have discipline, in the riotous frenzies of detestable wine-drinking he exults, proud, rejoicing that the widest license of evil conduct has been opened to him, from which he was forbidden in the Catholic Church. And this perhaps Proculeianus does not know. Therefore let it be brought to his notice through your gravity and modesty; let him order that the man, who chose that communion for no other reason than that he had lost his clergy-rank in the Catholic Church on account of disobedience and lost morals, be removed from his communion.

3. For I, if it pleases the Lord, keep this rule: that whoever, degraded among them on account of discipline, shall wish to cross over to the Catholic Church, be received in the humiliation of penance—to which they perhaps would even compel him, if he had wished to remain among them. But consider, I beg you, how execrably it is done by them, that those whom, living evilly, we rebuke by ecclesiastical discipline, are persuaded to come to another washing, and, in order that they may deserve to receive it, answer that they are Pagans; that which word, lest it should proceed from a Christian mouth, so much blood of the martyrs was shed: then, as though renewed and as though sanctified, made worse for the discipline which they could not bear, under the appearance of a new grace, they insult by the sacrilege of a new fury. But if I do wrong to take care, through your goodwill, that these things be corrected, let no one complain of me if I cause these things to be brought to his notice through the public records, which, as I judge, cannot be denied me in the Roman city. For since God commands that we speak and preach the word, and refute those teaching what they ought not, and be insistent in season and out of season, as I prove from the Lord's and the Apostle's writings (See 2 Tim 4:2; Titus 1:9), let no man suppose that silence about these matters must be persuaded to me. But if they think anything must be dared violently or by brigandage, the Lord will not be lacking to protect his Church, who has subjected all earthly kingdoms to his yoke in her bosom spread throughout the whole world.

4. For when a certain tenant of the church wished, with paternal severity, to recall his daughter—who had been a catechumen among us and was seduced over to them, against her parents' will, so that, baptized there, she might also take up the form of a nun—to catholic communion, and I had been unwilling that a woman of corrupted mind be received unless willing and, by free choice, loving the better things; that rustic began to press her even with blows, that his daughter should consent to him; which I forbade to be done at once in every way: yet, as we were passing through Spania, his presbyter, standing in the midst of the estate of a catholic and praiseworthy woman, cried out after us with a most shameless voice that we were traitors and persecutors; which reproach he also hurled at that woman, who is of our communion, in the midst of whose estate he was standing; which words, when I heard them, I not only restrained myself from a quarrel, but even checked the multitude that accompanied me. And yet if I should say: Let it be inquired who are or were the traitors or persecutors; it is answered to me: We do not wish to dispute, and we do wish to rebaptize. Let us plunder your sheep, in the manner of wolves, with treacherous bites; you, if you are good shepherds, be silent. For what else did Proculeianus order, if indeed he himself ordered? If you are a Christian, keep to this judgment of God: unless we do it, you be silent. The same presbyter even dared to threaten a rustic man, the tenant of the church's estate.

5. All these things too, I beg, let Proculeianus learn through you; let him restrain the madness of his clergy, about which, honorable Eusebius, I have not been silent toward you. You will therefore deign to write back to me, not what you yourself think about all these things—lest you suppose that the burden of a judge is being imposed on you by me—but what they answer me. May the mercy of God keep you unharmed, excellent lord and deservedly to be received and most beloved brother.

LETTER 36
To his most beloved and most longed-for brother and fellow presbyter Casulanus, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. 1. I do not know how it came about that I did not return mine for your first letter: yet I know that I did not do this out of contempt for you. For I am delighted both by your studies and by your very discourse, and I both wish and exhort that in this youthful age you make progress in the word of God and abound to the edification of the Church. But now, having received your second writings, in which you demand, with a brotherly and most fair right of the love in which we are one, that at length some time you be answered, I have thought that the desire of your affection should be put off no longer, and amid my most pressing occupations I have undertaken to discharge this debt to you.

1. 2. As to what you consult me about, then—whether it is permitted to fast on the Sabbath: I answer that, if it were in no way permitted, surely neither Moses, nor Elijah, nor the Lord himself would have fasted forty continuous days. But by this reasoning it is concluded that fasting is not unlawful even on the Lord's day. And yet whoever shall think that this day must be decreed for fasting, as certain people who fast observe the Sabbath, will be a not small scandal to the Church, and not undeservedly. For in those matters about which the divine Scripture has established nothing certain, the custom of the people of God, or the institutions of our forefathers, must be held as law. About which, if we should wish to dispute, and from the custom of some to disapprove others, an unending wrestling will arise, which, when by the labor of discoursing it conveys no sure documents of truth, must surely be guarded against, lest by the storm of contention it cloud over the serenity of love. Which danger he neglected to avoid, whose lengthy disputation you judged should be sent with your first letter, that I might answer him.

2. 3. But the spaces of time are not so large for me that I should spend on refuting his individual opinions what I have necessary for unfolding other, more pressing works. But with that talent by which you show yourself to me in your letters—which gift of God in you I greatly love—consider yourself, a little more diligently, the same discourse of a certain Urbicus, as you write, and you will see that he has by no means feared to lacerate almost the whole Church of Christ, from the rising of the sun to its setting, with most injurious words. Nor would I say almost the whole, but plainly the whole. For he is found not even to have spared the Romans themselves, whose custom he seems to himself to be defending; but how the onslaught of his abuse overflows onto them too he does not know, since he does not notice. For when arguments fail him, by which to prove that one must fast on the Sabbath, he inveighs insultingly against the luxuries of feasts and drunken banquets and the most worthless drunkennesses, as though not to fast were the same as to be drunk. But if this is so, what then does it profit the Romans to fast on the Sabbath? since on the other days on which they do not fast, it is necessary, according to this man's disputation, for them to be judged drunkards and belly-worshippers. Moreover, if it is one thing to weigh down the heart with gluttony and drunkenness (See Luke 21:34), which is always evil, but another to relax a fast with modesty and temperance preserved—which surely, when it is done on the Lord's day, has no Christian reprover; let this man first distinguish the luncheons of the saints from the voracity and drunkenness of belly-worshippers, lest he make the Romans themselves belly-worshippers when they do not fast, and then let him inquire, not whether it is permitted to be drunk on the Sabbath—which is not permitted even on the Lord's day—but whether one ought not even to fast on the Sabbath, as one is not wont to do on the Lord's day.

2. 4. Would that he would so inquire, or so affirm, that he might not most openly blaspheme the Church spread through the whole world, except the Romans and as yet a few Westerners. But now, who could bear that, throughout all the eastern, and many western, Christian peoples, of so many and so great menservants and maidservants of Christ who lunch soberly and modestly on the Sabbath, it should be said by this man that they are in the flesh and cannot please God, and that of them it is written: Let the wicked depart from me, I do not wish to know their way (See Ps 6:8; Ps 139:24 (138:24)); and that they are belly-worshippers, preferring the Judea to the Church, and the sons of the bondwoman; and consulting, by a law not just but voluptuary, the belly, not submitting to discipline; and that they are flesh, and savor death (See Rom 8:5–8), and other things of this kind: which, if he said them of any one servant of God, who ought to hear him, who not to shun him? But since with these reproaches and curses he assails the Church fructifying and growing throughout the whole world and lunching almost everywhere on the Sabbath day, I admonish whoever he is to restrain himself. For whose name you wished me not to know, surely about him you wished me not to judge.

3. 5. The Son of man, he says, is Lord of the Sabbath: on which it is most of all permitted to do good rather than evil (See Matt 12:8, 12; Mark 3:4). If, then, we do evil when we lunch, on no Lord's day do we live well. But that he confesses the Apostles to have eaten on the Sabbath, and says that it was not the time for fasting then, on account of which the Lord says: The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then the sons of the bridegroom will fast (See Matt 9:15; Mark 2:20), because there is a time of joy and a time of mourning (See Eccl 3:4)—he ought first to have attended to this, that there the Lord was speaking about fasting, not about fasting on the Sabbath. Then, since he wants mourning to be understood by fasting, and joy to be reckoned to food, why does he not consider that, whatever it is that God wished to signify in that which is written, that he rested on the seventh day from all his works (See Gen 2:2), not mourning was signified there, but joy? Unless perhaps he is going to say that in that rest of God and the sanctification of the Sabbath, joy was signified to the Jews, mourning to the Christians. And yet neither when God sanctified the seventh day, because in it he rested from all his works, did he express anything about fasting or lunching on the Sabbath; nor when he afterward commanded the Hebrew people about the observance of that day, did he say anything about foods either to be taken or not to be taken. Only a rest from one's own, or from servile, works is commanded for man: which the former people, receiving in a shadow of things to come (See Col 2:16–17; Heb 10:1), so rested from works as we now see the Jews rest; not, as is supposed, the carnal Jews not rightly understanding what the Christians rightly understand. For we do not understand these things better than the Prophets, who nevertheless, at that time when it was right that it should be so done, kept this rest of the Sabbath which the Jews think must still be kept. Whence it is that God ordered a man to be stoned who had gathered wood on the Sabbath (See Num 15:32–36); but nowhere do we read that anyone, whether fasting on the Sabbath or lunching, was stoned or judged worthy of any punishment. But which of these two suits rest and which labor, let him himself see, who reckoned joy to those eating, mourning to those fasting, or understood that it was reckoned by the Lord, where, answering about fasting, he says: The sons of the bridegroom cannot mourn so long as the bridegroom is with them (See Matt 9:15).

3. 6. But as for his saying that the Apostles ate on the Sabbath because it was not yet the time for fasting on the Sabbath—which, namely, the tradition of the ancients forbade—was it then already the time for not resting on the Sabbath? Did not the tradition of the ancients forbid this too, and compel resting? And yet on that very Sabbath day, on which we read that Christ's disciples ate, they surely plucked the ears of grain (See Matt 12:1); which was not permitted on the Sabbath, because the tradition of the ancients forbade it. Let him see, then, lest perhaps it be more fittingly answered to him that the Lord on that day willed these two things to be done by the disciples—one about plucking the ears, the other about taking food—so that the former might be against those who wish to rest on the Sabbath, but the latter against those who compel fasting on the Sabbath: since he had signified that the former, the time being changed, was now superstitious, but had willed the latter to be free at either time. Nor would I say this by way of confirming it, but I would show what could be answered to him much more aptly than are the things he says.

4. 7. "How," he says, "shall we not be condemned with the Pharisee, fasting twice in the Sabbath?"—as though the Pharisee were condemned because he fasted twice in the week, and not because, swollen, he exalted himself above the publican (See Luke 18:11–12). But this man can say that even those who give the tithes of all their fruits to the poor are condemned with the Pharisee, because he too proclaimed this among his works; which we desire to be done by many Christians, and we scarcely find the very fewest: or indeed that whoever has not been unjust, an adulterer, and a robber will be condemned with the Pharisee, because that man boasted that he was not such; which surely whoever thinks, is mad. Moreover, if these things—without doubt good—which the Pharisee recalled to be in him, are not to be had with the proud boasting which appeared in him, but yet are to be had with the humble piety which was not in him: so too to fast twice in the week, in a man such as that Pharisee was, is fruitless; but in a man humbly faithful, or faithfully humble, it is religious: although the gospel Scripture did not say that the Pharisee was condemned, but rather said that the publican was justified (See Luke 18:14).

4. 8. But if this man thinks that what the Lord says—Unless your righteousness shall abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20)—must be understood in such a way that, unless we fast more than twice in the week, we cannot fulfill this precept; it is well that there are seven days which are recalled by their own traces in the rolling of times. When, therefore, anyone has subtracted two days out of the seven, that he not fast on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, there remain five days by which he can surpass the Pharisee fasting twice in the week. For I think that if anyone fasts three times in the week, he already surpasses the Pharisee, who fasted twice in the week. But if four times, or even so that no day be passed over except the Sabbath and the Lord's day, so that one fasts five times in the week, which many do their whole life, especially those settled in monasteries; not only the Pharisee who fasted twice in the week, but even the Christian who is accustomed to fast on the fourth day, the sixth day, and the Sabbath itself, which the Roman people frequently do, will be surpassed in the labor of fasting: and yet this man, whoever he is, this disputer Urbicus, as you say, even if someone fast five continuous days besides the Sabbath and the Lord's day so that on no day at all does he refresh his body, calls him carnal, as though food and drink on the other days did not pertain to the flesh; and judges him a belly-worshipper, as though the lunch of the Sabbath alone went down into the belly.

5. 9. For this man, indeed, it does not suffice that for surpassing the Pharisee it already suffices to fast three times in the week; but, excepting the Lord's day, he compels fasting on the six other days, so that he says: "The old stain removed, two in one flesh, now abiding under the discipline of Christ, ought not, with the sons without law and with the princes of Sodom and with the people of Gomorrah, to hold the voluptuary banquets of the Sabbath (See Isa 1:10); but, with the dwellers in holiness and those devoted to God, to fast more and more lawfully by solemn and ecclesiastical right, that the error, even slight, of the six days may be washed away by the fountains of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, so that, refreshed by the Lord's good fare, we may all with equal heart worthily sing: You have filled, Lord, the empty soul, and given drink to the thirsting soul (See Ps 107:9 (106:9))." Saying these things, and excepting from frequent fasting only the Lord's day, he, improvident and incautious, accuses not only the Christian peoples of the East and the West, among whom no one fasts on the Sabbath, but even the Roman Church itself. For when he says: "Those abiding under the discipline of Christ ought not, with the sons without law, with the princes of Sodom, with the people of Gomorrah, to hold the voluptuary banquets of the Sabbath, but, with the dwellers in holiness and those devoted to God, to fast more and more lawfully by solemn and ecclesiastical right"; and then, defining what it is to fast lawfully, he adds and says: "that the error, even slight, of the six days may be washed away by the fountains of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving": surely he thinks that those who fast fewer than six days in the week do not lawfully practice fasting, nor are devoted to God, nor wash away the stains of error which are contracted from this mortal life. Let the Romans, then, see what they do, because they too are treated all too insultingly by this man's disputation; among whom, on all these six days, except for the very few clergy or monks, how rare is anyone found who frequents daily fasts? especially because there it does not seem right to fast on the fifth day of the week.

5. 10. Then I ask: if the error, even slight, of each day is loosed or washed away by the fasting of that day—for thus he says: "that the error, even slight, of the six days may be washed away also by the fountains of fasting"—what shall we do about that error which has crept in on the Lord's day, on which it is a scandal to fast? Or if no error creeps upon Christians on that day, let this man, who accuses belly-worshippers as a great faster, see how much honor and usefulness he attributes to bellies, if there is no erring then, when one lunches. Or does he perhaps establish so great a good in the fasting of the Sabbath that the fasting of the Sabbath alone can abolish the error, even slight, as he says, of the other six days—that is, even of the Lord's day itself—and that there is no erring only on that very day on which the whole is surely fasted? What is it, then, that he prefers the Lord's day to the Sabbath, as though by a Christian right? Behold, according to him the Sabbath day is found much holier, on which both there is no erring, when one fasts through its whole span, and by the same fasting the error of the other six days, and thereby of the Lord's day itself, is washed away: I think this presumption does not please you.

5. 11. But now, since he wishes himself to seem a spiritual man, and accuses the Sabbath-lunchers as carnal, attend to how he is refreshed on the Lord's day not with a sparing lunch, but is delighted with feasting. Now what is alogia—a word borrowed from the Greek tongue—except when one indulges in feasts so that one is led astray from the path of reason? Whence the animals lacking reason are called aloga, to which those given over to the belly are like: for which reason an immoderate banquet, by which the mind, in which reason rules, is in a manner overwhelmed by the gorging of eating and drinking, is named alogia. Moreover, on account of food and drink, he says that the alogia, not of the mind but of the belly, of the Lord's day must be sung: You have filled, Lord, the empty soul, and given drink to the thirsting soul (See Ps 107:9 (106:9)). O spiritual man! O reprover of the carnal! O great faster, and no belly-worshipper! Behold, he who admonishes us not to corrupt the law of the Lord by the law of the belly, not to sell the bread of heaven for earthly food, and adds: "Because by food Adam perished from paradise, by food Esau lost his birthright." Behold, he who says: "For it is Satan's usual calumny, the temptation of the belly, to which he persuades a little, that he may take away the whole. And the interpretation of these precepts," he says, "bends the belly-worshippers less."

5. 12. Does he not seem, by these words of his, to be aiming at this: that one should fast even on the Lord's day? Otherwise the Sabbath day, on which the Lord rested in the tomb, will be holier than the Lord's day, on which he rose from the dead. For surely the Sabbath is holier, if, according to this man's words, on the Sabbath every sin is avoided by fasting, and what was contracted on the other days is abolished: but on the Lord's day, by the food of the belly, the temptation is not guarded against, and place is given to diabolical calumny, and one perishes from paradise, and loses the birthright. What is it, then, that, again contrary to himself, he admonishes that we should not be refreshed with a modest, sober, Christian lunch on the Lord's day, but, rejoicing and clapping in alogia, should sing: You have filled, Lord, the empty soul, and given drink to the thirsting soul (See Ps 107:9 (106:9))? For surely, if we do not err then, when we fast, and we wash away the errors of the other six days when we fast on the Sabbath, none will be worse than the Lord's day, none better than the Sabbath. Believe, most beloved brother, no one understands the law as this man does, except one who does not understand it. For if it was not food, but forbidden food, that destroyed Adam (See Gen 3:6, 17), and Esau, the grandson of holy Abraham, was condemned not by food, but by food coveted even to the contempt of the sacrament which he had in his birthright (See Gen 25:33–34; Heb 12:16): so by the holy and faithful one lunches piously, just as by the sacrilegious and unbelieving one fasts impiously. But the Lord's day is preferred to the Sabbath by the faith of the resurrection, not by the custom of refreshment, or even by the license of wine-drinking song.

6. 13. "Moses," he says, "for forty days ate no bread, nor drank water (See Exod 34:28)." But why he said this, he adds, saying: "Behold Moses, the friend of God, dweller in the cloud, deliverer of the Law, and leader of the people, celebrating twice-three Sabbaths with fasting, gained not offense but merit." Does he not notice what can consequently be objected to this? For surely, if he sets forth the example of Moses fasting because in those forty days he fasted twice-three Sabbaths, as he says, and from this wishes to persuade that one should fast on the Sabbath; then from this let him persuade that one should fast on the Lord's day too, because in those forty days Moses no less fasted twice-three Lord's days. But he adds and says: "And still, with Christ, the Lord's day was being kept for the imminent Church": which, why he said it, I do not know. For if it is because one must fast much more, after the Lord's day came with Christ; then, God forbid, one should fast even on the Lord's day itself. But if he feared lest, on account of the forty-day fast, it should be objected that one must fast on the Lord's day too, and therefore added that "still, with Christ, the Lord's day was being kept by God for the imminent Church," so that it may be understood that Moses fasted for this reason even on the day that follows the Sabbath, because Christ had not yet come, through whom that Lord's day itself was made, on which it is not expedient to fast; why did Christ himself likewise fast for forty days (See Matt 4:2)? Why did he not, in those forty days, on the twice-three days that followed the Sabbath, break his fast, so as to commend the lunch of the Lord's day even before his resurrection, just as he gave his blood to be drunk before his passion? You surely see that the forty-day fast, which this man recalls, no more pertains to the point that we should fast on the Sabbath than it pertains to the point that we should fast on the Lord's day.

6. 14. He utterly fails to notice what can be objected to him about the Lord's day, when, just as drunken banquets and all voracious and intoxicated luxury are to be accused, so he accuses the lunches of the Sabbath, although these too can be the lunches of the modest and sober. And therefore he is not to be answered point by point, since, in reproving the vices of luxury for the lunch of the Sabbath, he says the same things over and over; finding nothing else to say, except what he says emptily and not to the point. The question is whether one ought not to fast on the Sabbath, not whether one ought not to indulge in luxury on the Sabbath; which those who fear God do not do even on the Lord's day, although on that day they surely do not fast. But who would say what this man has dared to say? "How," he says, "shall things be ratified to God for us, or through us, or worthy, which on a sanctified day force us to sin?" He confesses the Sabbath day to be sanctified, and says that men are forced to sin, because one lunches. And thereby, according to this man, either the Lord's day is not sanctified, and the Sabbath begins to be better; or, if the Lord's day too is sanctified, we are forced to sin, because we lunch.

7. 15. And he tries to prove by divine testimonies that one must fast on the Sabbath: but whence he might prove this he finds not at all. "Jacob," he says, "ate and drank wine, and was filled, and departed from God his Savior, and there fell on one day twenty-three thousand" (See Deut 32:15; 1 Cor 10:8): as though it were said: Jacob lunched on the Sabbath, and departed from God his Savior. And the Apostle, when he recalled that so many thousands fell, did not say: Nor let us lunch on the Sabbath, as they lunched; but said: Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell on one day twenty-three thousand (1 Cor 10:8). What also does he mean by saying: But the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play (1 Cor 10:7; Exod 32:6)? The Apostle indeed set down this testimony too, but in order to forbid the service of idols, not the Sabbath lunch. But that this happened on the Sabbath, this man does not prove, but surmises as he pleases. For just as it can come about that one fasts, and, when the fast is broken, if anyone is a drunkard, he then gets drunk; so it can come about that one does not fast, and, if men are temperate, one lunches most modestly. What is it, then, that, wishing to persuade the fasting of the Sabbath, he brings the Apostle as witness, saying: Do not be drunk with wine, in which is all luxury (Eph 5:18); as though he said: Do not lunch on the Sabbath, because therein is all luxury. But just as this apostolic precept that they not be drunk with wine, in which is all luxury, is observed by God-fearing Christians when one lunches on the Lord's day, so it is observed when one lunches on the Sabbath too.

7. 16. "That I may more expressly contradict those who err," he says, "no one offends God by fasting, even if he does not earn merit; moreover, even not to offend is to earn merit." Who would say this, except one who would not consider what he was saying? Therefore the Pagans, when they fast, do not on that account offend God more: or if he wished what he said to be understood of Christians, who will not offend God, if he should wish to fast on the Lord's day, with scandal to the whole Church which is spread everywhere? Then he subjoins testimonies from the Scriptures availing nothing for the cause he has undertaken. "By fasting," he says, "Elijah, granted to paradise, reigns in the body" (See 1 Kgs 19:8; 2 Kgs 2:11): as though those who do not fast on the Sabbath did not preach fasting, just as those preach fasting who nevertheless do not fast on the Lord's day; or as though Elijah fasted at that time, when the people of God fasted even on the Sabbath. But what we have answered about the forty days of Moses' fast, this I reckon must be answered also about the forty days of Elijah. "By fasting," he says, "Daniel, unharmed, escaped the dry rage of the lions' mouths" (See Dan 6:16–23): as though he had read that he fasted on the Sabbath, or even that he was among those very lions on the Sabbath; where, however, we read that he also lunched (See Dan 14:33–39). "By fasting," he says, "the faithful brotherhood of three, lording it over the fire-flashing prison, adored the Lord received into the hospitality of the pyre" (See Dan 3:19–25). These examples of the saints do not avail even to persuade the fasting of any day whatever; how much less of the Sabbath? Since not only do we not read that the three men were cast on the Sabbath into the burning fiery furnace; but we do not even read that they were there so long that anyone could say they fasted—nay rather, there is scarcely the space of one hour, in which their confession and hymn is sung: nor did they walk among those harmless flames longer than they finished that canticle. Unless perhaps even the space of one hour is reckoned by this man as fasting. But if it is so, he has no grounds to be angry at the Sabbath-lunchers: for until the hour of lunch, one fasts much longer than in that furnace.

7. 17. He brings forward also that testimony of the Apostle, where he says: The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17); and by the kingdom of God he wishes the Church to be understood, in which God reigns. I beseech you, was the Apostle, when he spoke these things, aiming at this, that Christians should fast on the Sabbath? But he was not even speaking about the fasting of any day whatever, when he said these things. For it was said against those who, in the manner of the Jews, according to the old Law, thought there was cleanness in the observance of certain foods, and for the admonition of those brothers by whose food and drink, indifferently received, the weak were scandalized. Therefore, when he had said: Do not by your food destroy him for whom Christ died; and: Let not our good be blasphemed (Rom 14:15–16); then he added: For the kingdom of God is not food and drink. For according as this man understands these words of the Apostle, that the kingdom of God, which is the Church, is not in food and drink, but in fasting; we ought, I do not say to fast on Sabbaths, but never at all to take food and drink, lest we ever depart from this kingdom of God. But I think that, by this man's own confession, we belong somewhat more religiously to the Church on the Lord's day, when nevertheless, even by his own concession, we lunch.

8. 18. "Why," he says, "do we murmur to offer to the more powerful Lord a sacrifice dear to him, which the spirit desires and the angel praises?" then he adds the testimony of the angel saying: Good is prayer with fasting and almsgiving (See Tob 12:8). What he meant by the more powerful Lord, I do not know, unless perhaps the scribe erred, and it escaped you, so that you did not correct what you sent me to read. By the sacrifice dear to the Lord, then, he wishes fasting to be understood, as though this question turned on fasting, and not on fasting on the Sabbath. For neither is the Lord's day passed without a sacrifice, which is dear to God, because one does not fast. He goes on still and heaps up testimonies utterly foreign to the cause which he undertook to defend. Offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Ps 50:14 (49:14)), he says; and, wishing somehow to connect this voice of the divine psalm to what is at issue: "Surely," he says, "not a banquet of blood or of drunkenness, in which not the praises due to God, but blasphemies, with the devil seconding, run wild." O improvident presumption! Therefore a sacrifice of praise is not offered on the Lord's day, because one does not fast; but a banquet of drunkenness is held, and blasphemies, with the devil seconding, run wild. But if it is wicked to say this, let him understand that fasting is not signified in what is written: Offer to God a sacrifice of praise. For fasting is not practiced on certain days, and especially on feast days. But the sacrifice of praise is offered by the Church spread through the whole world on all days. Otherwise—what no one, I do not say Christian, but not even a madman, would dare to say—those fifty days after Easter until Pentecost, on which one does not fast, will, according to this man, be foreign to the sacrifice of praise; on which days only, in many churches, but in all most of all, Alleluia is sung; which voice no Christian, however unskilled, is ignorant to be a voice of praise.

8. 19. Yet he himself confesses that on the Lord's day one lunches not in drunkenness but in cheerfulness, when he says that we ought, from Jews and gentiles, many of the Christian name, few elect by faith, at the evening kindling of the Sabbath, in place of the victims of cattle, to offer to God by praises a fasting pleasing to him, by whose fervor, burned up, the works of sins fail. "And in the morning," he says, "a hearing heard by us will hear us, and there will be houses for us to eat and drink in, not in drunkenness, but in cheerfulness, the Lord's celebration accomplished." Then, therefore, eulogia is celebrated, not, as he says above, alogia. But what offends him about the Sabbath day, which the Lord sanctified, I do not know, that on it he should think one cannot eat and drink with such cheerfulness as lacks drunkenness; since we can fast before the Sabbath, just as he says one must fast on the Sabbath before the Lord's day: or does he judge it wicked to lunch two days continuously? Let him see, then, with how great insult he affects the Roman Church itself, where even in those weeks in which one fasts on the fourth day, the sixth day, and the Sabbath, one nevertheless lunches on three continuous days, namely the Lord's day and then the second and the third.

8. 20. "It is certain," he says, "that the life of the sheep hangs on the judgment of the shepherds; but: Woe to those who call good evil, and darkness light, and light darkness, and bitter sweet, and sweet bitter (Isa 5:20)." What these words of his mean, I do not sufficiently understand. For if, as you write, Urbicus says these things; in the City the people, hanging on the judgment of the shepherd, fast on the Sabbath with their bishop. But if he wrote these things to you because in your letter you yourself wrote something of the sort; let him not persuade you to praise the Christian city fasting on the Sabbath in such a way that you are compelled to condemn the Christian world lunching. For when he says: "Woe to those who call good evil, and darkness light, and light darkness, and bitter sweet, and sweet bitter," wishing the fasting of the Sabbath to be understood as good and light and sweet, but the lunch as evil and darkness and bitter; who doubts that he condemns the whole world of lands in all the Christians lunching on the Sabbath? He neither regards himself nor attends to what he says, so as to be restrained by his own writings from this headlong audacity. For immediately he subjoined: Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink (Col 2:16): which he himself surely does, who so accuses those taking food and drink on the Sabbath. How fitting it would have been that there should have come into his mind from this also that which the same Apostle says elsewhere: He who eats, let him not despise him who does not eat; and he who does not eat, let him not judge him who eats (Rom 14:3)? Let him keep this measure, this temper, by which he might avoid scandals between those fasting on the Sabbath and those eating, so that one eating might not despise him who does not eat, and one not eating might not judge him who eats.

9. 21. "Peter too," he says, "the head of the Apostles, the doorkeeper of heaven, and the foundation of the Church, having extinguished Simon—who had been a figure of the devil, to be conquered only by fasting—taught this same thing to the Romans, whose faith is announced to the whole world (See Rom 1:8)." Did the other Apostles, then, teach Christians, against Peter, to lunch throughout the whole world of lands? Just, then, as Peter and his fellow disciples lived concordantly among themselves, so let those whom Peter planted, fasting on the Sabbath, and those whom his fellow disciples planted, lunching on the Sabbath, live concordantly among themselves. There is indeed this opinion too among very many—although most Romans declare it to be false—that the apostle Peter, being about to contend with Simon Magus on the Lord's day, on account of the very peril of that great temptation, fasted the day before with the Church of that city, and, after so prosperous and glorious a success had followed, kept the same custom, and some Churches of the West imitated him. But if, as this man says, Simon Magus was a figure of the devil, that tempter is plainly neither a Sabbatarian nor a Lord's-day man, but a daily one; nor yet is there fasting against him daily, since on all the Lord's days, on the fifty days after Easter, and in various places on the solemn days of the martyrs and on every feast, one lunches: and yet the devil is conquered, if our eyes are always to the Lord, that he himself may pluck our feet out of the snare (See Ps 25:15 (24:15)); and if whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31); and, as far as is in us, we are without offense to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God (See 1 Cor 10:32). Which those consider too little who eat with offense, or fast with offense, and through either intemperance stir up scandals, by which the devil is not overcome, but gladdened.

9. 22. But if it is answered that James taught this at Jerusalem, John at Ephesus, and the rest in other places, what Peter taught at Rome, that is, that one should fast on the Sabbath, but that the other lands deviated from this teaching, and Rome stood firm in it: and on the contrary it is replied that rather some places of the West, in which Rome is, did not keep what the Apostles handed down; but that the lands of the East, whence the Gospel itself began to be preached, remained, without any variation, in that which was handed down by all the Apostles together with Peter himself, namely that one should not fast on the Sabbath: this is an interminable contention, begetting quarrels, not ending questions. Let there be, then, one faith of the universal Church, which is everywhere spread, as it were within in the members, even if that very unity of faith is celebrated by certain diverse observances, by which in no way is that which is true in the faith hindered. For all the beauty of the king's daughter is within: but those observances which are variously celebrated are understood to be in her garment; whence it is there said: In golden fringes, clothed around with variety (Ps 45:13–14 (44:14–15)). But let that garment too be varied by diverse celebrations in such a way that it is not torn apart by adverse contentions.

10. 23. "Finally," he says, "if the Jew, by keeping the Sabbath, denies the Lord's day, how does the Christian observe the Sabbath? Either let us be Christians, and keep the Lord's day; or let us be Jews, and observe the Sabbath: for no one can serve two lords (Matt 6:24)." Does he not speak as though the lord of the Sabbath were one, and of the Lord's day another? Nor does he hear that which he himself also recalled: For the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8). But that he wishes us to be so foreign to the Sabbath as the Jews are foreign to the Lord's day, does he not err so much that he could even say that we ought not to receive the Law or the Prophets, just as the Jews do not receive the Gospel or the Apostles? Which whoever savors, you surely understand what evil he savors. But "the old things," he says, "have all passed away, and in Christ they have been made new (See 2 Cor 5:17)": this is true. For therefore we do not, like the Jews, keep idle on Sabbaths, even if, to signify the rest which was signified on that day, with Christian sobriety and frugality preserved, we relax the bond of fasting. And if some of our brothers do not think that the rest of the Sabbath should be signified by the relaxation of fasting, we by no means quarrel about the variety of the royal garment, lest we vex the inner members of the queen herself, where we retain one faith even about that rest. For although, since the old things have passed away, with them the carnal rest of the Sabbath too has passed away; yet, because we lunch on the Sabbath and the Lord's day without superstitious idleness, we do not on that account serve two lords, because the lord of the Sabbath and of the Lord's day is one.

10. 24. But this man, who says that the old things have so passed away that "in Christ the altar of sacrifice gave way to the altar, the sword to fasting, the fire to prayers, the cattle to bread, the blood to the cup," does not know that the name "altar" is more frequented in the writings of the Law and the Prophets, and that an altar was first set up for God in the tabernacle, which was made through Moses (See Exod 27:1); and that the altar of sacrifice too is found in the apostolic writings, where the Martyrs cry out under the altar of God (See Rev 6:9). He says that the sword gave way to fasting, not recalling that with which the evangelical soldiers are armed from both Testaments, the twice-sharp sword (See Heb 4:12; Rev 1:16). He says that the fire gave way to prayers, as though prayers were not then offered in the temple too, and now fire has been sent by Christ into the world (See Luke 12:49). He says that the cattle gave way to bread, as though not knowing that then too the loaves of proposition used to be placed on the Lord's table (See Exod 25:30), and that now he takes a part of the body of the immaculate Lamb. He says that the blood gave way to the cup, not considering that even now he receives blood in the cup. How much better and more fittingly, then, would he say that the old things have passed away and the new have been made in Christ, in such a way that the altar gave way to the altar, the sword to the sword, the fire to the fire, the bread to the bread, the cattle to the cattle, the blood to the blood. For we see in all these the carnal oldness giving way to the spiritual newness. So, then, it must be understood, whether on this revolving seventh day one lunches, or whether by some one even fasts, yet that the carnal Sabbath has given way to the spiritual Sabbath; since on the latter the everlasting and true rest is desired, while on the former the now-superstitious temporal idleness is despised.

11. 25. The rest that follows, by which this man concludes his disputation, like certain other things which I have not thought worth recalling thence, pertain much more not to the cause, in which there is dispute about fasting or lunching on the Sabbath. But these I leave to you yourself to attend to and judge, especially if you are helped in anything by the things said by me. But if, since I think I have answered this man sufficiently, as far as I could, you ask my opinion on this matter, I, turning it over in mind in the evangelical and apostolic writings, and the whole instrument which is called the New Testament, see that fasting is commanded. But on which days one ought not to fast, and on which one ought, I do not find defined by a precept of the Lord or of the Apostles. And thereby I judge that—not indeed for obtaining the rest which faith obtains, and the righteousness in which is the beauty of the king's daughter within (See Ps 45:13 (44:14)), but for signifying the everlasting rest where the true Sabbath is—the relaxation rather than the constriction of fasting more aptly suits.

11. 26. Nevertheless, in the fasting or lunching of this Sabbath, nothing seems to me to be more safely and peaceably observed than that he who eats, let him not despise him who does not eat, and he who does not eat, let him not judge him who eats; because neither if we eat shall we abound, nor if we do not eat shall we be in want (See Rom 14:3; 1 Cor 8:8): the unoffending fellowship of those among whom we live, and with whom we live to God, being preserved in these matters. For just as what the Apostle says is true, that it is evil for the man who eats with offense (See Rom 14:20); so it is evil for the man who fasts with offense. Let us therefore not be like those who, seeing John neither eating nor drinking, said: He has a demon (Matt 11:18). But neither, again, like those who, seeing Christ eating and drinking, said: Behold a man voracious and a wine-drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners (Matt 11:19). For the Lord himself subjoined to these words a very necessary thing, saying: And wisdom is justified by her children (Matt 11:19). But who these are, if you ask, read what is written: The children of wisdom are the Church of the just (See Sir 4:11): these are they who, when they eat, do not despise those who do not eat; when they do not eat, do not judge those who eat; but they plainly either despise or judge those who, with offense, do not eat or eat.

12. 27. And about the Sabbath day, indeed, the case is easier, because both the Roman Church fasts, and some others, even if few, whether near it or far off: but to fast on the Lord's day is a great scandal, especially after the heresy of the Manichees, detestable and most openly contrary to the catholic faith and the divine Scriptures, became known—who appointed for their hearers this day, as it were, as a lawful day for fasting; through which it came about that fasting on the Lord's day was held the more horrible. Unless perhaps someone is fit to continue a fast beyond a week with no refreshment interposed, so as to approach, as far as he can, the fasting of forty days, as we have known some to have done. For that someone even reached that very forty-day number has been affirmed to us by brothers most worthy of trust. For just as in the times of the ancient fathers, Moses and Elijah did nothing against the lunches of the Sabbath, when they fasted for forty days; so he who has been able to pass seven days by fasting did not choose the Lord's day for fasting, but found it among those very many days which he vowed to fast. Yet a fast, even a continued one, if it must be broken within a week, is broken on no day more fittingly than the Lord's day. But if the body is refreshed after a week, the Lord's day is surely not chosen for fasting; but it is found in the number which it was resolved to vow.

12. 28. Nor let it move you that the Priscillianists, most like the Manichees, are wont to bring forward, for fasting on the Lord's day, a testimony from the Acts of the Apostles, when the apostle Paul was at Troas. For thus it is written: On the first day of the week, when we had gathered to break bread, Paul discoursed to them, being about to depart the next day, and he prolonged his discourse until the middle of the night (Acts 20:7). Then, when he had come down from the upper room, where they had gathered, to raise up the young man who, weighed down by sleep, had fallen from the window and was being carried as dead, the Scripture speaks thus of the Apostle himself: But having gone up, it says, when he had broken bread and tasted, and had spoken enough until daybreak, he so set out (Acts 20:11). Far be it that this should be so taken, as though the Apostles were wont to fast solemnly on the Lord's day. For "the first of the week" was then called the day which is now called the Lord's day, which is found more openly in the Gospels. For the day of the Lord's resurrection is called by Matthew the first of the Sabbath (See Matt 28:1), but by the other three the first of the week (See Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1); which it is agreed is that day which was afterward called the Lord's day. Either, then, after the Sabbath day was finished, they had gathered at the beginning of the night, which night surely now pertained to the Lord's day, that is, to the first of the week; and so on the same night, about to break bread, as it is broken in the sacrament of the body of Christ, he prolonged the discourse until the middle of the night, so that, after the sacraments were celebrated, again addressing those gathered until daybreak, since he was in much haste, he might set out as the Lord's day was dawning: or surely, if on the first of the week they had gathered not through the night, but through the day at the hour of the Lord's day; by the very fact that it was said, Paul discoursed to them, being about to depart the next day, the cause of prolonging the discourse is expressed, because he was about to depart, and desired to instruct them sufficiently. They did not therefore solemnly fast on the Lord's day, but the necessary discourse, which was heard with the ardor of most fervent zeal, seemed not to need to be interrupted for the sake of refreshing the body, by the Apostle about to set out, who, on account of his various other journeys here and there, either never or most rarely visited them; especially because then, as the sequel teaches, he was about to depart from those lands in such a way that he would no longer see them in the flesh. And thereby it is rather shown that fasts were not customary for them on the Lord's days, because, lest this be believed, the writer of the book took care to set forth the cause of prolonging the discourse; so that we might know that, if some necessity arises, lunch is not to be preferred to a more urgent action: although by those listening most avidly, and thinking of the very fountain about to depart, and therefore drinking with great thirst, not of water but of the word, whatever flowed in, without satiety, not only the carnal lunch but even the supper was despised.

12. 29. But then, although fasts were not customary for them on the Lord's day, there was not yet so signal an offense to the Church, if, by some such necessity as the apostle Paul had, they did not take care to refresh their bodies for a whole Lord's day until the middle of the night, or even until daybreak. But now, after the heretics, especially the most impious Manichees, began to dogmatize and became known to the Christian peoples for practicing fasts on the Lord's day, not when some necessity occurred, but as if by an appointed sacred solemnity; surely I judge that not even by such a necessity as the Apostle had ought one to do what he did, lest a greater evil be incurred in the scandal than good be gained from the word. Yet whatever cause or necessity should arise, why a Christian man should be compelled to fast on the Lord's day—as we find also that case in the Acts of the Apostles, in the peril of shipwreck, where the Apostle himself was sailing, when there was fasting for fourteen days, and thereby for two Lord's days (See Acts 27:33)—we ought in no way to doubt that the Lord's day, when not several days to be continued without any refreshment are vowed, is not to be placed among the days of fasting.

13. 30. But why the Church fasts especially on the fourth and sixth days, this reason seems to be given: that, considering the Gospel, on that very fourth day of the week, which is commonly called the fourth feria, the Jews are found to have taken counsel to kill the Lord. But, one day having been passed—on the evening of which the Lord ate the Passover with his disciples, which was the end of that day which we call the fifth of the week—he was then betrayed on that night which already pertained to the sixth of the week, which is the manifest day of his passion. This was the first day of unleavened bread, beginning from the evening. But the evangelist Matthew says that the fifth of the week was the first day of unleavened bread; because, on its following evening, the paschal supper was to be, at which supper the unleavened bread and the sacrifice of the lamb began to be eaten. From which it is gathered that it was the fourth of the week, when the Lord said: You know that after two days the Passover will be, and the Son of man will be betrayed to be crucified (Matt 26:2): and thereby that day itself is reckoned for fasting, because, as the Evangelist continues and says: Then the chief priests and elders of the people gathered in the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and took counsel to take Jesus by deceit and to kill him (Matt 26:3–4). But, one day having been passed, of which the Gospel says: On the first day of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where do you wish that we prepare for you to eat the Passover? (Matt 26:17)—on this day, then, being passed, the Lord suffered, which no one doubts, on the sixth of the week; wherefore the sixth too is rightly reckoned for fasting: for fasts signify humility. Whence it is said: And I humbled my soul in fasting (Ps 35:13 (34:13)).

13. 31. There follows the Sabbath, on which day the flesh of Christ rested in the tomb, just as in the first works of the world God rested on that day from all his works (See Gen 2:2). Hence arose this variety in the garment of that queen, so that some—as especially the peoples of the East—preferred, in order to signify the rest, to relax the fast, while others, on account of the humility of the Lord's death, preferred to fast, as the Roman and some Western Churches. Which indeed, on the one day on which Easter is celebrated, on account of renewing the memory of the deed by which the disciples humanly mourned the death of the Lord, is fasted by all in such a way that even those who lunch on the other Sabbaths through the whole year most devoutly celebrate the fast of that Sabbath; signifying, of course, both things—both, on the one anniversary day, the mourning of the disciples, and, on the other Sabbaths, the good of rest. For there are two things which cause the blessedness of the just, and the end of all misery, to be hoped for: the death and the resurrection of the dead. In death there is rest, of which it is said through the Prophet: My people, enter into your chambers; hide yourself for a little while until the wrath of the Lord pass over (Isa 26:20). But in the resurrection there is, in the whole man, that is, in flesh and spirit, perfect happiness. Hence it came about that each of these two was thought to be signified not by the labor of fasting, but rather by the cheerfulness of refreshment, except for the one paschal Sabbath, on which, as we have said, the mourning of the disciples, on account of the memory of the deed, was to be signified by a more prolonged fast.

14. 32. But since we do not find, as I have already recalled above, in the evangelical and apostolic writings, which properly pertain to the revelation of the New Testament, that fasts are evidently commanded to be observed on any certain days, and therefore this matter too, like very many others which it is difficult to enumerate, has found in the garment of that king's daughter, that is, of the Church, a place of variety; I will indicate to you what the venerable Ambrose, by whom I was baptized, bishop of Milan, answered me when I inquired about this. For when my mother was with me in that same city, and we, still catechumens, caring little about these things, she bore a solicitude whether, according to the custom of our city, she ought to fast on the Sabbath, or, according to the custom of the Church of Milan, to lunch, that I might free her from this hesitation, I asked the aforesaid man of God. But he: "What can I teach you herein," he said, "more than I myself do?" Where I had thought that by this answer he had prescribed nothing except that we should lunch on the Sabbath; for I knew that he himself did this: but he went on and added: "When I am here, I do not fast on the Sabbath; when I am at Rome, I fast on the Sabbath: and to whatever Church you come," he said, "keep its custom, if you do not wish to suffer scandal or to cause it." This answer I reported to my mother, and it sufficed her, nor did she doubt that it must be obeyed: this we too followed. But since it happens, especially in Africa, that one Church, or the Churches of one region, have some who lunch on the Sabbath, others who fast; the custom of those to whom the governing of the congregation of those peoples has been committed seems to me to be the one I must follow. Wherefore, if you gladly acquiesce in my counsel—especially because in this cause I have perhaps spoken more than was enough, at your asking and urging—do not resist your bishop in this matter, and what he himself does, follow without any scruple or dispute.

LETTER 37
To the most blessed lord and father, to be embraced with venerably most sincere love, Simplician, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. A letter full of good joys, that you are mindful of me, and love me as you are wont, and that whatever of his gifts the Lord has deigned to confer on me by his mercy, not by my merits, is to you a matter of great congratulation—a letter sent by the gift of your Holiness, I have received: in which I have drawn the fatherly affection toward me from your most kindly heart not as something sudden and new, but have revisited it as something surely experienced and known, most blessed lord, and to be embraced with venerably most sincere love.

2. But whence has so great a felicity arisen for our literary labor, in which we have sweated in the writing of certain books, that they should be read by your Dignity? except because the Lord, to whom my soul is subject, wished to console my cares, and to refresh me from the fear by which it is necessary that I be anxious in such works, lest perhaps somewhere, more unlearned or more incautious, I should stumble, although on the most level field of truth. For when what I write pleases you, I know whom it pleases; since I know who dwells in you. For the same distributor and bestower of all spiritual gifts has, through your verdict, confirmed my obedience. For whatever those writings have worthy of your delight, in my ministry God said, Let it be made, and it was made: but in your approval God saw that it is good (See Gen 1:31).

3. The little questions, indeed, which you deigned to bid me unravel, even if, entangled by my own slowness, I did not understand them, yet, helped by your merits, I would open up. Only this I ask, that for my weakness you beseech God, and that, whether in those matters in which you kindly and fatherly wished to exercise me, or in others, whatever of ours may by chance come into your holy hands—since I recognize both the things given by God and my own errors—you not only bestow the care of a reader, but also assume the censure of a corrector. Farewell.

LETTER 38
Augustine to brother Profuturus

1. According to the spirit, as far as it pleases the Lord and he himself deigns to grant strength, we are well; but in body, I am in bed. For I can neither walk, nor stand, nor sit, from the pain and swelling of fissures or hemorrhoids. But even so, since it pleases the Lord, what else is to be said except that we are well? For rather, if we do not want what he wants, we are to be blamed, than that he is to be thought to do or to permit anything not rightly. You know all this: but because you are to me another self, what would I more gladly speak with you than what I speak with myself? We commend, then, to your holy prayers our days and our nights, that you may pray for us, that we not use the days intemperately, that we may bear the nights with an even mind, that even if we walk in the midst of the shadow of death, the Lord may be with us that we fear no evils (See Ps 23:4 (22:4)).

2. That old Megalius has died, who could doubt that you have already heard? For there were, from the laying down of his body, when I wrote this, almost twenty-four days. Whether you have already seen—for you were arranging it—the successor to his primacy, we wish, if it can be done, to know. There is no lack of scandals, but neither of refuge; no lack of sorrows, but neither of consolations. And amid these, how one must keep watch lest hatred of anyone hold the inmost parts of the heart, and not allow us to pray to God in our chamber with the door shut (See Matt 6:6), but shut the door against God himself, you know very well, very good brother: but it creeps in, since to no one who is angry does his own anger seem unjust. For thus, growing old, anger becomes hatred, while a sweetness, as it were, mixed with just grief, holds it longer in the vessel, until the whole grows sour and corrupts the vessel. Wherefore it is much better that we not be angry at anyone even justly, than that, by being angry as if justly, we slip into hatred of someone by the hidden facility of anger. For in receiving unknown guests, we are wont to say that it is much better to endure an evil man than perhaps through ignorance to exclude a good one, while we guard against an evil one being received: but in the affections of the mind it is the contrary. For it is incomparably more wholesome not to open the inner chamber of the heart even to anger justly knocking, than to admit it, not easily to depart, and about to advance from a twig to a beam. For it dares shamelessly even to grow more quickly than is supposed. For it does not blush in the darkness, when the sun has set upon it (See Eph 4:26). You surely recall with what care and how great solicitude I have written these things, if you recall what you lately said with me on a certain journey.

3. Brother Severus, and those who are with him, we greet. Perhaps we would even write to them, if the haste of the bearer permitted. But I ask that, with the same brother of ours Victor—to whom I give thanks even before your Holiness, because he indicated, when he was going to Constantina—you help by asking, on account of the business which he himself knows, about which I bear a most grievous weight from the elder Nectarius much beseeching for that matter, that he not be reluctant to return by way of Calama: for so he promised me. Farewell.

LETTER 39
To the truly holy and most blessed pope Augustine, Jerome, greeting in Christ

1. 1. Last year, through our brother Asterius the subdeacon, I had sent a letter to your Dignity, rendering a prompt duty of greeting; which I think was delivered to you. Now too, through my holy brother Praesidius the deacon, I beseech you, first, that you be mindful of me: then, that you hold the bearer of this letter commended, and know him to be most genuinely mine, and that, in whatever necessity may demand, you cherish and sustain him; not that he is in need of anything (by Christ's granting), but because he most avidly seeks the friendships of good men, and thinks that in joining these he has obtained the greatest benefit. But why he has sailed to the West, you will be able to learn from his own telling.

2. 2. We, settled in the monastery, are shaken by various waves on this side and that, and endure the troubles of pilgrimage. But we believe in him who said: Be confident; I have overcome the world (John 16:33), that, by his granting and protection, we may obtain victory against the enemy, the devil. I beseech you to greet, with my service, the holy and venerable brother our pope Alypius. The holy brothers, who hasten with us to serve the Lord in the monastery, greet you very much. May Christ our God, the almighty, keep you unharmed and mindful of me, truly holy and to-be-received pope.

LETTER 40
To the most beloved lord, and a brother and fellow presbyter to be observed and embraced with the most sincere devotion of love, Jerome, from Augustine

1. 1. I am thankful that, for a subscribed greeting, you returned me a full letter, but a much briefer one than I would wish to receive from you—from such a man, from whom, however much time he occupies, no discourse is long. Although, therefore, we are surrounded by huge cares of others' affairs, and those secular ones; yet I would not easily pardon the brevity of your letter, did I not consider with how much fewer words of mine it would be repaid. Wherefore, undertake, I beg, this literary conversation with us, lest bodily absence avail much to disjoin us: although in the Lord we are joined by the unity of the spirit (See Eph 4:3), even if we rest from the pen and are silent. And the books, indeed, which you have wrought from the Lord's granary almost exhibit you wholly to us. For if we do not know you on this account, that we have not seen the face of your body: in this way neither do you know yourself; for you too do not see it. But if you are known to yourself for no other reason than that you know your own mind; we too know it in no small measure in your letters, in which we bless the Lord that he has given you, such as you are, to you, and to us, and to all the brothers who read your works.

2. 2. A certain book of yours, among others, came not long ago into our hands: what its title is, we do not yet know; for the codex itself did not, as is usual, set it forth on the opening page. Yet the brother with whom it was found said it was called Epitaphium; which name we would believe had pleased you to be given to it, if we had there read only the lives or writings of those who were already dead. But since the works of many living both at the time when it was written, and even now, are recalled there; we wonder why you either imposed this title on it, or are believed to have imposed it. We sufficiently approve that the same book was usefully written by you.

3. 3. In your exposition too of the Epistle of the apostle Paul to the Galatians, we find something that greatly moves us. For if into the holy Scriptures officious lies, as it were, are admitted, what authority will remain in them? what opinion, finally, will be brought forth from those Scriptures, by whose weight the wickedness of contentious falsehood may be crushed? For as soon as you have brought it forth, if one who strives against it savors otherwise, he will say that the very thing brought forth was lied by the writer out of some honorable duty. For where will this not be possible, if it was possible in that narrative which the Apostle, beginning, says: But the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie (Gal 1:20), for it to be believed and affirmed that he lied in that place where he said of Peter and Barnabas: When I saw that they were not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel (Gal 2:14)? For if they were walking rightly, he lied; but if he lied there, where did he speak the truth? Or will he be thought to have spoken the truth there where he said that which the reader savors; but when something occurs against the reader's sense, it will be reckoned an officious lie? For there will be no lack of causes why it may be thought that he not only could, but even ought to have lied, if place is granted to this rule. There is no need to plead this cause with many words, especially with you, to whom, wisely providing, enough is said. By no means would I arrogate to myself that I should strive to enrich your talent, golden by a divine gift, with my coins; nor is there anyone more fit than you to correct that work.

4. 4. For you need not be taught by me how that is to be understood which the same Apostle says: I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews (1 Cor 9:20), and the other things which are said there, out of the compassion of mercy, not the pretense of deceit. For it is done as a healthy man who ministers to a sick man; not when he lies that he himself has a fever, but when, with the mind of one suffering along, he thinks how he himself would wish to be served, if he were ill. For he was surely a Jew; but, made a Christian, he had not abandoned the Jewish sacraments, which that people had received fittingly and lawfully at the time when it was right. And so he undertook to celebrate them, though now an Apostle of Christ; but in order to teach that they are not ruinous to those who wished to keep them, as they had received them from their parents through the Law, even when they had believed in Christ, provided they did not now place in them the hope of salvation; since through the Lord Jesus salvation itself, which was signified by those sacraments, had arrived. And therefore he judged that they ought in no way to be imposed on the gentiles, since they would call back from the faith men unaccustomed to them by a heavy and unnecessary burden.

4. 5. Wherefore he did not correct Peter for this, that he observed the ancestral traditions: which, if he wished to do, he would do neither mendaciously nor unfittingly; for although now superfluous, yet, being customary, they would not harm: but because he was compelling the gentiles to live like Jews (See Gal 2:14), which he could in no way do, except by so acting as though they were still, even after the Lord's coming, necessary to salvation; which the truth, through the apostolate of Paul, vehemently dissuaded. Nor was the apostle Peter ignorant of this; but he did it, fearing those who were of the circumcision (Gal 2:12). Thus both he himself was truly corrected, and Paul narrated true things, lest the holy Scripture, which was published for the faith of posterity, with the authority of a lie admitted, should waver and fluctuate, wholly doubtful. For it can neither be, nor ought to be, explained in writing how great and how inexplicable evils follow, if we grant this. But it could be demonstrated opportunely and less dangerously, if we conversed between ourselves face to face.

4. 6. This, then, of the Jews Paul had abandoned, which they had as evil; and first of all that, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, they were not subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3). Then, that after the passion and resurrection of Christ, the sacrament of grace according to the order of Melchizedek (See Ps 110:4 (109:4); Heb 7:17) being given and made manifest, they still thought the old sacraments must be celebrated, not from the custom of solemnity, but from the necessity of salvation: which, however, if they had never been necessary, the Maccabees would have become martyrs for them fruitlessly and emptily (See 2 Macc 7). Finally, this, that the Jews persecuted the preachers of grace, the Christians, as enemies of the Law. These and such errors and vices he says he reckoned loss and dung, that he might gain Christ (Phil 3:8); not the observances of the Law, if they were celebrated after the ancestral manner, as they were celebrated even by him without any necessity of salvation—not as the Jews thought they must be celebrated, or by a deceitful pretense, which he had reproved in Peter. For if he celebrated those sacraments for the reason that he pretended to be a Jew that he might gain them; why did he not also sacrifice with the gentiles, since to those who were without the Law he became as one without the Law, that he might gain them too (See 1 Cor 9:21)—unless because the one thing he did as a Jew by nature, and all this he said, not that he might deceitfully feign himself to be what he was not, but that he might feel that they must be mercifully helped in such a way as if he himself labored in the same error; not, of course, by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one suffering along? Just as in that very place he generally inferred: I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak; so that the following conclusion: I became all things to all, that I might gain all (1 Cor 9:22), may be understood as referring to this, that he may appear to have pitied each one's weakness as though in himself. For neither, when he said: Who is weak, and I am not weak? (2 Cor 11:29), did he wish it understood that he had simulated rather than suffered along with another's weakness.

4. 7. Wherefore seize, I beseech you, an ingenuous and truly Christian severity, with love, to correct and emend that work, and, as it is said, sing a palinode. For incomparably more beautiful is the truth of the Christians than the Helen of the Greeks. For our martyrs fought more bravely for that truth, against this Sodom, than those heroes for her, against Troy. Nor do I say this in order that you may receive the eyes of the heart; which far be it that you have lost: but that you may turn them—which, though you have them sound and watchful, you have, by I know not what dissimulation, turned away, so as not to attend to what adversities follow, if it should once be believed that a writer of the divine Books can honorably and piously lie in some part of his work.

5. 8. I had already once written you a letter on this matter, which was not delivered, because the one to whom I had given it to deliver did not set out: from which this was suggested to me, while I was dictating this one, which in this one too I ought not to omit: that, if your opinion is otherwise, and the same is better, you would gladly pardon my fear. For if you think otherwise, and you think the truth (for unless it be true, it cannot be better), then—not to say it is no fault—surely it is no great fault that my error favors the truth, if rightly in anyone the truth can favor a lie.

6. 9. But as to what you deigned to write back about Origen, I already knew that you approve and praise the right and true things which we find not only in ecclesiastical writings, but in all; but disapprove and reprove the false and depraved. But this I desired, and still desire, from your prudence and learning: that you make known to us those very errors of his, by which that so great a man is convicted of having departed from the faith of the truth. In the book too in which you recalled all the ecclesiastical writers, of whom you could be mindful, and their writings, it would be done more conveniently, as I judge, if, having named those whom you know to be heresiarchs—since you were unwilling to pass over even them—you subjoined also in what respects they were to be guarded against: although you have also passed over some; which I would desire to know with what counsel it was done. Or if perhaps you were unwilling to burden that volume, so that, the heretics being recalled, you would not add in what respects catholic authority condemned them; I ask that it not be grievous to your literary labor—by which, through the grace of our Lord God, you have in no small measure both kindled and helped the studies of the holy in the Latin tongue—that which, through my lowliness, brotherly love indicates to you: that, if your occupations allow, you publish, briefly digested in one little book, the perverse dogmas of all the heretics who, up to this time, have tried, whether by impudence or by obstinacy, to deprave the rectitude of the Christian faith, for the knowledge of those who either have not leisure on account of other business, or are not able on account of a foreign tongue, to read and learn so many things. I would ask you long, were this not wont to be a sign of one presuming too little upon love. Meanwhile I much commend to your kindness this brother of ours Paul in Christ, to whose good repute in our regions we bear good testimony before God.

LETTER 41
To the most blessed lord, venerably to be received, and most sincerely most dear brother and fellow priest, pope Aurelius, Alypius and Augustine send greeting in the Lord

1. Our mouth has been filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation (See Ps 126:2 (125:2)), your letter announcing that your holy thought, with the help of the Lord who inspired it, has been brought to effect, concerning all our ordained brothers, and especially concerning the discourse of the presbyters, which is poured forth in your presence before the people; through whose tongues your love cries out with a greater voice in the hearts of men than they in their ears: thanks be to God. For what better thing should we both bear in mind, and bring forth with the mouth, and express with the pen, than, thanks be to God? This can neither be said more briefly, nor heard more joyfully, nor understood more grandly, nor done more fruitfully. Thanks be to God, who both enriched you with so faithful a heart toward your sons, and brought out into the light that which you had in the inmost part of your soul, where the human eye does not penetrate, granting you not only to will well, but also things in which what you willed could appear. So plainly let it be, let it be: let these works shine before men, that they may see, rejoice, glorify the Father who is in heaven (See Matt 5:16). May you delight in such things in the Lord: may he deign to hear you praying for them, whom you do not disdain to hear speaking through them. Let us go, let us walk, let us run in the way of the Lord; let the little ones be blessed with the great, made glad among those who say to them: we will go into the house of the Lord (See Ps 122:1 (121:1)): let those go before, and let these follow, having become imitators of them, as they too of Christ (See 1 Cor 11:1). Let the journey of the holy ants grow fervent, let the works of the holy bees be fragrant, let fruit be borne with endurance and with safety, persevering even to the end. And may the Lord not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, but with the temptation may he also make a way out, that we may be able to endure (See 1 Cor 10:13).

2. Pray for us, you who are worthy to be heard; since with so great a sacrifice you approach God, of most sincere love and of his praise in your works: pray that these things may shine in us too; since he whom you pray knows with how great a joy of ours they shine in you. These are our prayers, by these the multitudes of consolations according to the multitude of our sorrows in our heart gladden our soul (See Ps 94:19 (93:19)). So it is, because so it was promised; so it will be, what remains, as it was promised. We beseech you, by him who granted you these things, and flooded the people whom you serve with this blessing through you, that you order the individual discourses of theirs which you wish, written down and corrected, to be sent to us. For I too do not neglect what you ordered, and about the seven rules or keys of Tyconius, as I have often already written, I await to learn what seems to you. We much commend brother Hilarinus, archiater and chief man of Hippo. For about brother Romanus, what you are busy about we know, and nothing is to be asked except that the Lord help you on his behalf. Amen.

LETTER 42
To the praiseworthy lords, most holy in Christ, brothers Paulinus and Therasia, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. Could this too be hoped for or expected, that through brother Severus we should demand a reply, not given back to us for so long, ardent as we are, by your Charity? What is it that we are compelled to thirst for two summers, and those in Africa? What more shall I say? O you who daily give away your own goods, render the debt. Or have you perhaps, because I had heard that you were writing against the demon-worshippers, and had shown that I vehemently desired that work, wishing to finish and send it, put off your letters to us for so long a time? Would that at least with so rich a table you would now receive my year-long fast from your pen: which, if it is not yet prepared, we will not cease to complain, if you do not, while you are finishing that, meanwhile refresh us. Greet the brothers, especially Romanus and Agilis. Those who are with us here greet you, and are a little angry with us, if they love a little.

LETTER 43
To the most beloved and deservedly to be proclaimed lords and brothers Glorius, Eleusius, the two Felixes, Grammaticus, and all the rest to whom this is welcome, Augustine

1. 1. The apostle Paul indeed said: A heretical man, after one correction, avoid, knowing that such a one is subverted, and sins, and is condemned by his own judgment (Titus 3:10–11). But those who defend their opinion, however false and perverse, with no obstinate animosity—especially one which they did not beget by the audacity of their own presumption, but received from parents who had been seduced and fallen into error—and who seek the truth with cautious solicitude, ready to be corrected when they have found it, are by no means to be reckoned among heretics. Unless I believed that you were such, I would perhaps send you no letter. Although even the heretic himself, however swollen with hateful pride and mad with the obstinacy of evil contention—just as we are admonished that he is to be avoided, lest he deceive the weak and the little ones—so we do not refuse that he is to be corrected, by whatever means we can. Whence it came about that we wrote even to some of the chief Donatists, not letters of communion, which they have long since, on account of their perversity, not accepted from the catholic unity which is spread throughout the whole world; but such private letters as it is permitted us to use even toward Pagans, which they, even if they sometimes read, yet either would not, or, as is rather to be believed, could not answer. Wherein it seemed to us enough that we had fulfilled the duty of love, which the Holy Spirit teaches us we owe not only to our own but to all, who says to us through the Apostle: But may the Lord multiply you, and make you abound in love, toward one another and toward all (See 1 Thess 3:12). He also admonishes, in another place, that those who think differently are to be corrected in moderation; Lest perhaps, he says, God give them repentance to know the truth, and they come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, captured by him into his own will (See 2 Tim 2:25–26).

1. 2. I have said this beforehand, lest anyone think that I have sent you writings more impudently than prudently, and that in this way I wished to deal with you about the business of your soul, because you are not of our communion: when nevertheless, if I were writing you something about the business of an estate, or of settling some monetary lawsuit, no one perhaps would reproach me. So dear is this world to men, and they have grown cheap to themselves! Therefore this letter will be to me, for my defense, a witness in the judgment of God, who knows with what mind I have done it, and who said: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God (Matt 5:9).

2. 3. Therefore, that you may deign to remember, when we were in your city, and were dealing with you about the communion of Christian unity, certain Records were brought forward by your party, by which it was recited that about seventy bishops condemned Caecilian, formerly bishop of the Church of Carthage, of our communion, with his colleagues and ordainers. There also the case of Felix of Aptungi was bandied about far more invidiously and accusingly than the rest. And when all these had been read through, we answered that it was not to be wondered at if men who then made that schism—not without the drawing up of Records—thought that those against whom they had been stirred up by jealous and abandoned men ought to be rashly condemned, absent, the case unheard. But that we have other ecclesiastical Records, in which Secundus of Tigisi, who then held the primacy in Numidia, left to God to be judged those who were present and confessed traitors, and permitted them to remain in their episcopal sees, as they were, whose names are numbered among the condemners of Caecilian; whereas Secundus himself also held the headship of that same council, where he condemned absent men, as traitors, by their sentences, men whom, when present and confessed, he had pardoned.

2. 4. Then we said that, some time after the ordination of Majorinus, whom by a wicked crime they raised up against Caecilian, erecting altar against altar, and dissipating the unity of Christ by furious discords, they had asked of Constantine, then emperor, bishops as judges, who, with a mediating arbiter, should judge concerning their questions which, having arisen in Africa, were tearing apart the bond of peace. And after this was done, with Caecilian present and those who had sailed against him, Melchiades, then bishop of the city of Rome, judging, with his colleagues whom the Emperor had sent at the prayers of the Donatists, nothing could be proved against Caecilian, and thereby, with him confirmed in his episcopate, Donatus, who was then present against him, was disapproved. These things being done, since all those persevered in the obstinacy of a most wicked schism, the said emperor afterward, at Arles, took care that the same cause be more diligently examined and ended. But they appealed from the ecclesiastical judgment, that Constantine should hear the cause. After this was reached, with both parties present, Caecilian was judged innocent, and they withdrew, defeated, and yet remained in the same perversity. Nor did negligence follow in the case of Felix of Aptungi, but at the order of the same prince, by proconsular Records, he too was cleared.

2. 5. But because we said all these things only, and did not also read them, we surely seemed to you to be doing less than you expected from our insistence. When we sensed this, we did not delay to send for those things which we had promised to read. All which, while we ran out to the Church of Geliza, intending to return thence to your town, came with an interval of not a full two days, and, as you know, as much as time allowed, were recited to you in one day. First, where Secundus of Tigisi did not dare to remove confessed traitors from his own college, with whom he afterward dared to condemn Caecilian, not confessed and absent, and his other colleagues: then the proconsular Records, where Felix, by the most diligent examination, was proved innocent. These you remember were read to you before noon. But after noon we recited their petitions to Constantine, and the ecclesiastical Records held in the city of Rome, judges having been given by him, by which they were disapproved, but Caecilian was confirmed in episcopal honor. Finally the letters of the emperor Constantine, by which all things shone forth most fully attested.

3. 6. What do you want more, men; what do you want more? It is not about your gold and silver that the matter turns; not land, not estates, not finally the health of your body is called into peril: we urge your souls about attaining eternal life and fleeing eternal death. Wake up at last: we are not engaged in any obscure question, we are not searching out hidden secrets, for the penetrating of which no, or rare, human hearts suffice; the matter is in the open. What stands out more clearly? what is discerned more quickly? We say that by a rash council, however most numerous, innocent and absent men were condemned. We prove this by the proconsular Records, by which that man was judged free of all crime of betrayal whom the Records of your council, brought forward by your own people, proclaimed most criminal. We say that by confessed traitors sentences were pronounced against those who were called traitors. We prove this by the ecclesiastical Records, where they are declared by name, among whom Secundus of Tigisi pardoned, as if with a view to peace, the things he knew, and with whom he afterward, the peace torn apart, condemned what he did not know. Whence it appeared that he too, even at first, did not consult peace, but feared for himself. For Purpurius of Limata had objected to him that he himself too, when he had been detained by the curator and council that he might hand over the Scriptures, was released—surely not for nothing, except because he handed over, or ordered something to be handed over. Fearing this sufficiently probable suspicion, having received counsel from the younger Secundus his kinsman, and having consulted the other bishops who were with him, he left the most manifest crimes to God to be judged, and so seemed to have looked to peace; which was false, since he looked to himself.

3. 7. For if the thought of peace dwelt in his heart, he would not afterward at Carthage condemn, with the crime of betrayal, those whom no one had convicted before him, absent, while with the traitors whom, present and confessed, he had left to God. For he ought to have feared so much the more lest the peace of unity be violated, the more Carthage was an ample and illustrious city, whence the evil that arose there could pour itself, as from a summit, through the whole body of Africa. It was also near to the regions across the sea, and noble with a most celebrated fame: whence it surely had a bishop of no mediocre authority, who could disregard a conspiring multitude of enemies, when he saw himself joined, by letters of communion, both to the Roman Church, in which the primacy of the apostolic chair has always flourished, and to the other lands whence the Gospel came to Africa itself, where he would be ready to plead his cause, if his adversaries tried to alienate those Churches from him. Because, then, he was unwilling to come to the lodging of colleagues whom he felt or suspected, or, as they themselves assert, pretended, to have been perverted by his enemies against the truth of his cause, so much the more ought Secundus, if he had wished to be the guardian of true peace, to have guarded against the absent being condemned, who were altogether unwilling to be present at their judgment. For it was not about presbyters or deacons or clergy of lower order, but about colleagues, who could keep their cause intact for the judgment of other colleagues, especially of the apostolic Churches; where sentences pronounced against the absent would in no way avail anything, since they did not desert their judgment after first approaching it, but, always holding it suspect, never wished to approach it.

3. 8. This matter ought to have most greatly troubled Secundus, who was then primate, if he governed the council for this purpose, that he might consult peace; for he could perhaps easily have repressed, calmed, or bridled the rabid mouths against the absent, if he said: You see, brothers, after so great a slaughter of persecution, that by the mercy of God peace has been granted by the princes of the world; we Christians and bishops ought not to break the Christian unity which now no pagan enemy assails. Therefore either let us leave all these cases, which the disaster of a most turbulent time inflicted on the Church, to God the judge: or, if there are any among you who know the certain crimes of these men so well that they could easily teach them and convict those who deny them, and who dread to communicate with such men, let them go to our brothers and colleagues, the bishops of the Churches across the sea, and there first complain of these men's deeds and contumacy, that, being conscious of evil in themselves, they were unwilling to come to the judgment of their African colleagues, so that it may be announced to them from there that they are to come, and there answer the charges. But if they do not do this, there too their depravity and perversity will become known, and, a circular letter being sent concerning their name throughout the whole world of lands, wherever the Church of Christ is now spread, their communion will be cut off by all the Churches, lest any error arise in the Chair of the Church of Carthage. Then at last, secure, we will ordain another bishop for the people of Carthage, when these men have been separated from the whole Church: lest perhaps, when another has just been ordained, he be not communicated with by the Church across the sea, because this one will not seem to have been deposed from honor, whom, already ordained, fame has celebrated, and to whom it has caused letters of communion to come; and so a great scandal of schism arise in the unity of Christ, in times now at peace, while we wish to rush our sentences too hastily, and dare to erect another altar, not against Caecilian, but against the world of lands, which communicates with him through ignorance.

3. 9. If anyone unbridled had been unwilling to obey this so sound and right counsel, what would he have done? or how would he condemn any of the absent colleagues, when he did not have the Acts of the council in his power, the primate contradicting? But if so great a sedition arose even against the first see, that some now wished to condemn those whom he wished to be deferred, how much better to dissent from such men, plotting unquiet and unpeaceful things, than from the communion of the whole world? But because there was nothing in Caecilian and his ordainers which could be proved by a judgment across the sea, therefore neither, before they pronounced sentences against him, did they wish to refer it, nor, after they pronounced them, did they perseveringly act to have it brought to the notice of the Churches across the sea, the communion of which traitors, condemned in Africa, they ought to avoid. For if they had attempted to do this, Caecilian and the rest would have been present to themselves, and would have cleared their cause against the deceitful accusers, before the ecclesiastical judges across the sea, by a most diligent discussion.

3. 10. And so that council, perverse and wicked, was, as it is believed, chiefly of traitors, whom, confessed, Secundus of Tigisi had pardoned: so that, since the report about betrayal had grown frequent, by defaming others they might turn suspicion from themselves, and, while men throughout all Africa, believing the bishops, spoke false things about innocent men—that traitors had been condemned at Carthage—they themselves, who had truly betrayed, might lie hidden, as it were, in the fog of a most lying rumor. Whence you see, dearest ones, that it could have come about—which some of you said was not verisimilar—that those who had confessed their own betrayal, and had obtained that their cause ought to be left to God, the same afterward sat as judges and condemners, as it were, of absent traitors. For they rather embraced the occasion by which they could spread a false accusation upon others, and in this way turn aside the tongues of men, turned against them, from the inquiry into their own crimes. Otherwise, if it could not come about that anyone judges in another the evil which he himself commits, the apostle Paul would not say to certain men: Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, everyone who judges. For wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you do the same things which you judge (Rom 2:1). Which they did altogether, so that these apostolic words apply to them wholly and aptly.

3. 11. Not then did Secundus, when he left their crimes to God, consult peace and unity: otherwise he would rather have provided for this at Carthage, that no schism be made, where no one was present to whom, confessed, he would be compelled to forgive a crime; but, what was easiest, the whole preservation of peace would be to be unwilling to condemn the absent. And so they would do injury to the innocent, even if they had been willing to pardon them, not convicted, nor confessed, nor at all present. For he receives pardon whose fault is most certain. How much more monstrous and blind, then, were they who thought they could condemn things which, unknown, they could not even have pardoned? But there things known were left to God, lest others be inquired into: here things unknown were condemned, that those might be covered. But someone will say: They knew them. Which even if I grant, even so the absent surely ought to have been spared. For neither had they deserted a judgment where they had never at all stood; nor was the Church in those African bishops alone, so that those who had been unwilling to present themselves to their judgment would seem to have avoided every ecclesiastical judgment. For thousands of colleagues across the sea remained, where it appeared that those could be judged who seemed to hold their African or Numidian colleagues suspect. For where is that which the Scripture cries: Before you ask, do not blame anyone; and when you have asked, rebuke justly (See Sir 11:7)? If, then, the Holy Spirit wished no one to be blamed or rebuked except when asked; how much more wickedly were those condemned outright—not blamed or rebuked—who, absent, could be asked nothing about their crimes?

3. 12. But yet these men—who say that, although of absent men, and men by no means deserting a judgment, since they were never present, and always declared that wedge to be suspect to them, yet condemned crimes that were known—I ask you, my brothers, how did they know them? You answer: We do not know, since the very knowledge is not set forth in those Records. But I will show you how they knew. Attend to the case of Felix of Aptungi, and first read how much more vehement they were against him. So, then, they knew the cause of the rest as they knew that of this man, who was afterward proved most innocent by a diligent and terrible inquiry. How much more justly, then, and more safely and quickly, ought we to esteem those innocent whose crimes were more lightly accused by these men, and condemned with a more sparing reproof, when that man was found innocent against whom they raged much more monstrously!

4. 13. Or perhaps, as a certain man said—which, when it was said to you, displeased, but yet is not to be passed over; for a certain man said: A bishop ought not to have been cleared by a proconsular judgment: as though indeed he himself procured this for himself, and not the emperor ordered it to be so inquired into, to whose care, of which he would render an account to God, that matter most especially pertained. For they had made him the arbiter and judge of the cause of betrayal and schism, who had even sent prayers to him, to whom they afterward appealed; and yet they were unwilling to acquiesce in his judgment. And so, if he is to be blamed whom an earthly judge absolved, when he himself had not asked this for himself; how much more are they to be blamed who wished an earthly king to be the judge of their cause? But if it is no crime to appeal to the emperor, it is no crime to be heard by the emperor: therefore neither by him to whom the emperor has delegated the cause. That friend wished even to accuse a certain man, hung on the rack in the case of bishop Felix, so that someone might even be tortured with the claws. Could Felix contradict, lest the matter be inquired into with so great diligence or severity, when the examiner was conducting the finding of his cause? For what else was it to be unwilling to be so inquired into than to confess the crime? And yet that proconsul himself, amid the terrible voices of the heralds and the bloody hands of the torturers, would never condemn an absent colleague who had been unwilling to present himself to his judgment, when he had another means by which he could be heard. Or if he should condemn, surely even by the secular laws themselves he would pay just and due penalties.

5. 14. But if the proconsular Records displease, yield to the ecclesiastical ones. All were recited to you in order. Or perhaps Melchiades, bishop of the Roman Church, with his colleagues the bishops across the sea, ought not to have usurped to himself that judgment which had been ended by the seventy Africans, where the primate of Tigisi presided? What of the fact that he himself did not usurp it? For, being asked, he sent to the emperor bishops as judges who should sit with him, and decide concerning that whole cause what seemed just. This we prove both by the prayers of the Donatists, and by the words of the emperor himself: for you remember that both were read to you, and you now have license to inspect and copy them. Read and consider all. See with how great care for preserving or restoring peace and unity all things were discussed; how the person of the accusers was treated, and with what stains some of them were disapproved, and how, by the voices of those present, it clearly was established that they had nothing to say against Caecilian, but wished to transfer the whole cause to the people of the party of Majorinus—that is, to a seditious multitude estranged from the peace of the Church—so that by that crowd, of course, Caecilian might be accused, which they judged could, by tumultuous cries alone, with no attestation of documents, with no examination of truth, twist the minds of the judges to their will; unless perhaps a furious multitude, drunk with the cup of error and corruption, would speak true crimes against Caecilian, where seventy bishops, as was established about Felix of Aptungi, condemned absent and innocent colleagues with so insane a rashness. For to such a crowd they had consented, that they pronounced sentences against innocent men not interrogated; by such a crowd they wished Caecilian to be accused again. But plainly they had found such judges, to whom they might persuade that madness.

5. 15. For you can, by your prudence, both attend there to their perversity, and to the gravity of the judges, how in the end they could not be persuaded that Caecilian should be accused by the people of the party of Majorinus, which had no certain person; and the accusers or witnesses or those in any way necessary to the cause were demanded of them, who had come with them from Africa, and who, it was said, had been present and had been withdrawn by Donatus. The same Donatus promised that he would produce them: which, when he had promised not once but often, he was unwilling to approach that judgment further, where he had now confessed so much that, by not approaching, he seemed to wish nothing else than not to be condemned when present; although the things which were to be condemned had been made manifest with him present and interrogated. Another thing too occurred, that by certain men a libel of denunciation against Caecilian was given: after which deed, how the inquiry was again stirred, and what persons gave that libel, and how nothing could be proved against Caecilian, why should I say, when you have both heard all things, and can read them as often as you wish?

5. 16. But about the number of seventy bishops, when it was set forth as if the weightiest authority, you remember what was said; and yet the most weighty men preferred to temper their judgment, away from infinite questions binding themselves to one another by a certain inexplicable chain, by no means caring how many those bishops were, or whence collected, whom they saw blinded by so great rashness that, against absent and uninterrogated colleagues, they dared to pronounce sentences so headlong. And yet how innocent, how upright, how provident and peaceful is the final sentence pronounced of the blessed Melchiades himself, by which he neither dared to remove from his college colleagues in whom nothing had been established, and, Donatus alone, whom he had found the chief of all the evil, being especially blamed, made free for the rest the option of recovering soundness, ready to send letters of communion even to those whom it was established had been ordained by Majorinus: so that in whatever places there were two bishops, whom dissension had doubled, he wished him to be confirmed who had been ordained first, but for the other of them another people would be provided to be governed. O most excellent man! O son of Christian peace, and father of the Christian people! Compare now this fewness with that multitude of bishops, and compare not number with number, but weight with weight: here modesty, there rashness, here vigilance, there blindness. Here neither did gentleness corrupt integrity, nor integrity fight against gentleness; but there both fear was covered by fury, and fury was incited by fear. For these had gathered to reject false things by the knowledge of true crimes; those, to cover true things by the condemnation of false ones.

6. 17. Would Caecilian at last commit himself to be heard and judged by those men, when he had such men before whom, if a cause were moved against him, he could most easily show his innocence? He would in no way commit himself to them—not even if, as a stranger, he had suddenly been ordained bishop of the Church of Carthage, and did not know what a certain most wealthy woman, Lucilla, could then do toward corrupting the minds of the wicked or the unskilled, whom he, when he was a deacon, had offended by rebuking her for ecclesiastical discipline: for this evil too had been added to the perfecting of that iniquity. For in that council, where absent and innocent men were condemned by confessed traitors, there were a certain few who desired to cover their own crimes by defaming others, that men might be turned away from the inquiry into the truth, called off by false rumors. Few, then, there were who most especially busied themselves with this affair, although among them there was greater authority, on account of the fellowship of Secundus himself, who, terrified, had spared them. But the rest are reported to have been bought and instigated against Caecilian chiefly by the money of Lucilla. There are extant Records before Zenophilus the consular, where a certain Nundinarius, a deacon degraded by Silvanus, bishop of Cirta—as far as is understood from the Records themselves—when he had tried in vain to satisfy them through the letters of other bishops, disclosed many things in anger, and brought them before a public court: among which it is read recalled this too, that, the bishops having been corrupted by the money of Lucilla, in the Church of Carthage, in the head of Africa, altar was raised against altar. I know that we did not read these Records to you, but you remember that there was not time. There was also some grief of mind coming from the swelling of pride, that they themselves had not ordained the bishop at Carthage.

6. 18. By all these things, since Caecilian recognized that they had come together not as true judges, but as enemies and corrupted men; how could it come about that either he himself would wish, or the people over whom he presided would permit, that, leaving the church, he should go into a private house, not to be examined by the scrutiny of colleagues, but to be slaughtered by the wedge of a faction and by womanly hatreds? especially when he saw that, before the Church across the sea, foreign to private enmities and to dissension on either side, an uncorrupted and intact examination of his cause remained for him. Where, if his adversaries should wish to do nothing, they themselves would cut themselves off from the most innocent communion of the world of lands. But if they should there attempt to accuse him, then he would be present to himself, then he would defend his innocence against their machinations, as you have learned was afterward done: when nevertheless they, too late, sought a judgment across the sea, being now guilty of schism, now stained with the horrendous crime of an altar raised. For they would do it first if they relied on the truth; but, false rumors being strengthened by length of time, they wished to come to judgment as if with old fame prejudging: or, what is rather to be believed, Caecilian having first been condemned, as it pleased them, they seemed secure to themselves, overconfident in their number, and not daring to move so evil a cause elsewhere, where, no corruption working, the truth could be found.

7. 19. But after they had experienced by the very facts that the communion of the world of lands remained with Caecilian, and that letters of communion were sent to him from the Churches across the sea, not to him whom they themselves had wickedly ordained, they were ashamed always to be silent, because it could be objected to them, why they suffered the Church, ignorant through so many nations, to communicate with the condemned, and why they themselves cut themselves off from the communion of the innocent world of lands, when by being silent they allowed the bishop whom they had ordained for the Carthaginians not to be communicated with by the whole world. They chose, as it is said, to plead their cause with Caecilian before the Churches across the sea on a double track, ready for either outcome: so that, if they could by any cunning of false accusation prevail against him, they would most fully satisfy their desire; but if they could not, they would indeed endure in the same perversity, but yet would now, as if they had something to say, have suffered evil judges; which is the voice of all evil litigants, when they have been overcome even by the most manifest truth: as though it could not be said to them, and most justly said: Behold, let us suppose those bishops who judged at Rome were not good judges; there yet remained a plenary council of the universal Church, where the cause could be agitated even with those judges themselves, so that, if they were convicted of having judged ill, their sentences might be loosed. Whether they did this, let them prove: for we easily prove it was not done, from the fact that the whole world does not communicate with them: or if it was done, there too they were defeated; which their very separation makes manifest.

7. 20. But yet what they did afterward is most sufficiently shown by the emperor's letters. For they dared to accuse the ecclesiastical judges, bishops of so great authority, by whose judgment both the innocence of Caecilian and their own wickedness was declared, not before other colleagues, but before the emperor, that they judged ill. He gave another judgment at Arles, of other bishops, namely: not because it was now necessary, but yielding to their perversities, and desiring in every way to check so great an impudence. For a Christian emperor did not dare so to take up their tumultuous and deceitful complaints as himself to judge concerning the judgment of the bishops who had sat at Rome; but he gave, as I said, other bishops: from whom, however, they preferred to appeal again to the emperor himself; for you have heard how he detests them in the matter. And would that at least by his judgment they had put an end to their most insane animosities, and, as he himself yielded to them, to judge concerning that cause after the bishops—being about afterward to ask pardon of the holy prelates, provided that they would have nothing further to say, if they did not obey the sentence of him to whom they themselves appealed—so they too would at some time yield to the truth. For he ordered that the parties should come to Rome to plead the cause. When Caecilian, for some reason I do not know, had not come there, being importuned by them, he ordered them to follow to Milan. Then some of them began to withdraw, perhaps indignant because Constantine did not imitate them, so as immediately and swiftly to condemn the absent Caecilian. When the provident emperor learned this, he had the rest, guarded by officers, brought to Milan. When Caecilian too had come there, he too, as he wrote, produced him, and, the cause being known—with what diligence, with what caution, with what foresight, as his letters indicate—he judged Caecilian most innocent, those men most wicked.

8. 21. And still they baptize outside the church, and, if they can, they rebaptize the Church; they sacrifice in dissension and schism, and greet the peoples in the name of peace, whom they banish from the peace of salvation. The unity of Christ is rent, the inheritance of Christ is blasphemed, the baptism of Christ is blown upon with contempt; and they are unwilling that these things in themselves be corrected by ordinary human powers with temporal scourges, lest they be destined to eternal punishments for so great sacrileges. We object to them the fury of schism, the madness of rebaptizing, the wicked separation from the inheritance of Christ which is spread through all nations. From the codices not only ours but even theirs, we recite the churches whose names they read today, and with whom today they do not communicate: which, when they are recited in their little assemblies, they say to their readers: Peace be with you; and with those very peoples to whom those letters were written, they do not have peace. And they themselves object to us either false crimes of the dead, or, even if true, yet another's; not understanding that in those things which we object to them, all of them are held; but in those things which they object to us, the chaff or the tares of the Lord's harvest are reproved, but the crime does not pertain to the grain: nor considering that those to whom the evil are pleasing in unity, themselves communicate with the evil; but those to whom they are displeasing, and who cannot correct them, nor dare before the time of harvest to root out the tares, lest they root up the wheat too (See Matt 13:29), communicate not with their deeds but with the altar of Christ: so that they are not only not stained by them, but even deserve to be praised and proclaimed by the divine words; since, lest the name of Christ be blasphemed through horrible schisms, for the good of unity they tolerate what for the good of equity they hate.

8. 22. If they have ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches (See Rev 2:7). For thus it is read in the Apocalypse of John: To the angel, it says, of the Church of Ephesus write: These things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: I know your works and your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear evil men; and you have tested those who say they are apostles, and are not, and you have found them liars: and you have patience, and you have borne them for my name's sake, and have not failed (Rev 2:1–3). But if he wished it to be understood of an angel of the higher heavens, and not of the rulers of the Church, he would not consequently say: But I have against you that you have left your first love. Be mindful therefore whence you have fallen, and do penance, and do the first works; but if not, I come to you and will move your lampstand out of its place, unless you do penance (Rev 2:4–5). This cannot be said to the higher angels, who retain perpetual love, whence those who failed and fell are the devil and his angels (See Matt 25:41). Therefore he says "first love," because he bore the false apostles for the name of Christ, which he bids him resume, and do his former works. And the crimes of evil men are objected to us, not ours, but another's; and those partly unknown, which, even if we saw them true and present, and, sparing the tares for the sake of the grain, tolerated them for unity, whoever heard the holy Scriptures not deaf in heart would say us worthy not only of no reproach, but even of no small praise.

8. 23. Aaron tolerates the multitude demanding and fashioning and adoring the idol (See Exod 32). Moses tolerates so many thousands murmuring against God, and so often offending his holy name (See Num 14). David tolerates Saul his persecutor, deserting heavenly things by his wicked ways, seeking the things below by magic arts; he avenges him when slain, and calls him even the anointed of the Lord on account of the sacrament of the venerable anointing (See 1 Sam 26:9; 2 Sam 1:14). Samuel tolerates the wicked sons of Eli, and his own perverse sons, whom, because the people would not tolerate, it was accused by divine truth and corrected by divine severity (See 1 Sam 2–3; 8). He tolerates, finally, the proud people themselves, the despisers of God. Isaiah tolerates those against whom he hurls so many true accusations. Jeremiah tolerates those by whom he suffers so much. Zechariah tolerates the Pharisees and Scribes, such as the Scripture testifies they were at that time. I know that I have passed over many: let those who wish, let those who can, read the heavenly oracles, and they will find that all the holy servants and friends of God always had those whom they tolerated in their own people; with whom, nevertheless, communicating in the sacraments of that time, they were not only not defiled, but even praiseworthily endured them, endeavoring, as the Apostle says, to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:3). Let them attend also to the time after the Lord's coming, where we would find many more examples of this toleration throughout the whole world, if all could have been written and reduced to authority; yet attend to these very ones which we have. The Lord himself tolerates Judas, a devil, a thief, and his seller: he allows him to receive among the innocent disciples what the faithful know to be our price. The Apostles tolerate false apostles; and, among those seeking their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ, Paul, not seeking his own things but those of Jesus Christ (See Phil 2:21), conducts himself with most glorious toleration. Finally, what I recalled a little before, by a divine voice the ruler of the Church, under the name of an angel, is praised, because, although he hated the evil, he yet, when they had been tested and found out, tolerated them for the Lord's name.

8. 24. To sum up, let them question themselves: Are not the slaughters and burnings of the Circumcellions tolerated by them—worshippers of the corpses of men hurled down of their own accord—and, under the incredible evil of one Optatus, the groans of all Africa for so many years? I now spare to speak of the tyrannical powers and public brigandages of the several regions and cities and estates throughout Africa. For you yourselves say these things to yourselves better, whether in the ear or openly, as it pleases. For wherever you turn your eyes, what I say will meet you, or rather what I am silent about. Nor do we on this account accuse those whom you love there. For they do not displease us because they tolerate the evil; but because they are intolerably evil on account of the schism, on account of altar against altar, on account of the separation from the inheritance of Christ spread through the whole world, as it was so long ago promised. We bewail and mourn peace violated, unity torn, baptisms repeated, sacraments blown upon with contempt, which are holy even in wicked men. Which, if they hold of small account, let them behold the examples by which it is shown how greatly God held these things. Those who made the idol were killed by the customary death of the sword (See Exod 32:27–28): but those who wished to make a schism, the princes were devoured by the gaping of the earth, and the consenting crowd was consumed by fire (See Num 16:31–35). By the diversity of the punishments, the diversity of the deserts is recognized.

9. 25. The holy Codices are handed over in persecution, the traitors confess, and are left to God. The innocent are not interrogated, and are condemned by rash men. He is proved upright by certain judgments who, among the absent condemned, was accused much more vehemently than the rest. The judgment of the bishops is appealed to the emperor: the emperor is chosen judge; the emperor, judging, is despised. What was done then you have read, what is being done now you see: if you doubt about those things in anything, behold now these. Surely let us not deal with old papers, not with public archives, not with forensic or ecclesiastical Records. Our greater book is the world of lands; in it I read fulfilled what in the Book of God I read promised: The Lord, it says, said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you: ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Ps 2:7–8). Whoever does not communicate with this inheritance, let him hold whatever books he will, let him know that he is disinherited. Whoever assails this inheritance, sufficiently indicates that he is a stranger to the family of God. Surely the question turns on the betrayal of the divine Books, where this inheritance is promised. Let him, then, be believed to have handed over the testament to the flames, who litigates against the will of the testator. What did the Church of the Corinthians do to you, O party of Donatus, what did it do to you? But what I say about it, I wish to be understood of all such and so far-placed Churches. What did those do to you, who could not know at all either what you have done, or whom you have defamed? or, because Caecilian offended Lucilla in Africa, has the world lost the light of Christ?

9. 26. Let them at last perceive what they have done: deservedly, by a certain interval of years, their own deed has been rolled back before their eyes. Inquire through what woman Maximian, who is said to be a kinsman of Donatus, cut himself off from the communion of Primian, and how, a faction of bishops having been gathered, he condemned Primian absent, and a bishop was ordained against him; just as Majorinus, a faction of bishops having been gathered through Lucilla, condemned Caecilian absent, and a bishop was ordained against him. Or do you perhaps wish it to be valid that Primian was cleared by the other African bishops of his communion against the faction of Maximian; and not wish it to be valid that Caecilian was cleared by the bishops of unity across the sea against the faction of Majorinus? I ask, my brothers, what great thing do I seek? what difficult thing do I desire to be understood by you? There is indeed much difference, and incomparably distant whether in authority or in number, is the African Church, if it be compared with the other parts of the world: and it is far less—even if there were unity here, it is far, far less, compared with all the other Christian nations, than the party of Maximian compared with the party of Primian; yet I ask, and judge it just, that the council of Secundus of Tigisi, which Lucilla blew up against the absent Caecilian and the apostolic sees and the whole world communicating with Caecilian, be of as much validity as the council of the Maximianists, which similarly some woman I know not blew up against the absent Primian, and the rest of the multitude through Africa communicating with Primian. What is discerned more openly? what is demanded more fairly?

9. 27. You see all these things, and know them, and groan; and yet God too sees that no thing compels you to remain in so pestilent and sacrilegious a cutting-off, if for the sake of attaining the spiritual kingdom you overcome carnal affection, and do not fear to offend, for the sake of avoiding everlasting punishments, the friendships of men, which will profit nothing in the judgment of God. Behold, go, take counsel; learn what they can answer against these things of ours: if they bring forward papers, we bring forward papers; if they say ours are false, let them not be indignant that we say this of theirs. No one deletes from heaven the ordinance of God, no one deletes from the earth the Church of God: he promised the whole world, she has filled the whole world; and she has both evil and good, but she neither loses on earth any but the evil, nor admits into heaven any but the good. But this discourse will be for you—he himself knows from the gift of God with how great love both of peace and of you we have brought it forth—a correction if you will, but a witness even if you will not.

LETTER 44
To the most genuine, most beloved, and in Christ praiseworthy lords and brothers Eleusius, Glorius, and the two Felixes, Augustine

1. 1. Fortunius, whom you have as bishop of Tubursicum, we experienced—through that same city, though in greatest haste, when we were going to the Church of Cirta—altogether as you are wont most kindly to promise concerning him. For when we reported to him that very conversation of yours about him, wishing to see him, he did not refuse. And so we came to him; because it seemed to us that this ought to be deferred to his age, rather than that it should be exacted that he himself come to us first. We therefore set out, accompanied by not a few, whom that time had found gathered to us by chance. But when we had sat down with him, the rumor being spread abroad, no small crowd besides flowed together; but to us, in all that multitude, very few appeared who desired that that cause be conducted usefully and wholesomely, and that so great a question of so great a matter be discussed prudently and piously. But the rest had gathered rather for a spectacle, as it were of our altercation, after the almost theatrical custom, than for the instruction of salvation with Christian devotion. Wherefore they could neither afford us silence, nor converse intently and with us at least modestly and orderly, except, as I said, a few, whose religious and simple intent appeared. And so, with all freely speaking immoderately according to each one's impulse of mind, everything was disturbed by the din, nor could we, whether by asking, sometimes even by chiding, prevail, that a modest silence be afforded us.

1. 2. The matter, however, began somehow to be conducted, and we drew out several hours in alternate discourse, as much as we were allowed, the voices of the variously tumultuous ones resting in between. But at the very beginning of the disputation, when we saw that the things which were said slipped from time to time from the memory either of ours, or of those whose salvation we most cared for; and that our treatment might be more cautious and more modest, and at the same time that you and other brothers who were absent might learn by reading what had been done between us, we asked that our words be taken down by notaries. For a long time it was resisted by him or by those agreeing with him; afterward, however, he himself granted it. But the notaries who were present, and could do this vigorously, for some reason I do not know were unwilling to take it down. We at least arranged that the brothers who were with us should take it down, although in this matter they could do it more slowly, promising that we would leave the same tablets there. It was agreed. Our words began to be taken down, and some things were said to one another for the tablets. Afterward, the notaries, unable to sustain the disorderly interruptions of the clamorous ones, and on that account our too tumultuous disputation, gave up; we, indeed, not desisting, and, as opportunity was given to each, saying many things. From all which words of ours, as far as I could recall, I have been unwilling to defraud your Love of the conduct of the whole cause. For you can read my letter to him, that either he may approve that I have written true things; or that he himself may, without hesitation, indicate to you if he recalls anything better.

2. 3. For first he deigned to proclaim our life, which he said he had learned from you—relating it more benevolently perhaps than truly—adding that he had said to you that we could do well all the things which you had told about us, if we did them in the Church. Then we began to ask what that Church was, where one ought so to live; whether that one which, as the holy Scripture so long ago foretold, would spread itself through the world of lands, or that one which a small part either of the Africans or of Africa contained. Here first he tried to assert that his communion was everywhere on earth. I asked whether he could give letters of communion, which we call "formed," to wherever I wished, and I affirmed, what was manifest to all, that in this way that question could most easily be ended. But I was preparing that, if he should consent, such letters should be sent by us to those churches which, in the apostolic authorities, we would read alike to have been founded at that time.

2. 4. But because the matter was openly false, with mixed words it was quickly departed from there; among which words he recalled that gospel admonition of the Lord, by which he said: Beware of false prophets; many will come to you in the clothing of sheep, but within they are ravening wolves: by their fruits you will know them (Matt 7:15–16). Which words of the Lord, when we said the same could be recited by us against them, it was thence come to the exaggeration of persecution, which he said his party had often endured; hence wishing to show that his were Christians, because they suffered persecution. Among which words, when I was preparing to answer from the Gospel, he recalled the chapter first, where the Lord says: Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:10). At which place I, rejoicing, immediately subjoined that this, then, was to be inquired into: whether they suffered persecution for righteousness' sake. In which question I desired it to be discussed—which indeed was clear to all—whether the times of Macarius found them established in the unity of the Church, or already divided in schism; so that those who wished to see whether they suffered persecution for righteousness might rather attend to this, whether they rightly cut themselves off from the unity of the whole world. But if they were found to have done unjustly, it would be manifest that they suffered persecution rather for injustice than for righteousness; and therefore could not be added to the number of the blessed, of whom it is said: Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. There the more famous than certain betrayal of the Codices was recalled. But it was answered by our party that their chief men had rather been the traitors: but that, if they would not believe our letters about this matter, neither ought we to be compelled to believe their letters.

3. 5. But yet, that doubtful question set aside, I asked how these men had justly separated themselves from the innocence of the other Christians, who, throughout the world of lands keeping the order of succession, established in the most ancient Churches, were utterly ignorant who had been traitors in Africa; who surely could not communicate except with those whom they heard sitting in the episcopal sees. He answered that the Churches of the parts across the sea had remained innocent so long, until they consented to the blood of those whom he said had endured the Macarian persecution. Whereupon I could indeed say that the innocence of the Churches across the sea could not have been contaminated even by the odium of the Macarian time; since it would in no way be proved that those men had done even what Macarius had done at their authorship. But I preferred to ask by way of a shortcut, if the savagery of Macarius, from which the Churches across the sea were said to have consented to it, made them lose their innocence, whether it could at least be proved that until those times the Donatists remained in unity with the eastern Churches and the other parts of the world.

3. 6. Then he brought forward a certain volume, where he wished to show that the Council of Sardica had given a letter to the African bishops who were of the communion of Donatus. Which, when it was read, we heard the name of Donatus among the other bishops to whom they had written. And so we began to demand that it be said whether this was the Donatus from whose party these men are named: for it could have come about that they wrote to some Donatus, a bishop of another heresy, since especially in those names not even mention of Africa was made. How then could he prove that Donatus, the bishop of the party of Donatus, was to be taken by that name, when he could not even prove whether those letters had been sent specifically to the bishops of the African Churches? For although the name of Donatus is wont to be African, yet it would not be repugnant to the truth that either someone of those parts be called by an African name, or that some African be established a bishop in those parts. For neither in them do we find either the day or the consul, so that at least, the times being considered, something certain might shine forth. Indeed, since at some time we had heard that the Arians, when they had differed from catholic communion, had tried to ally the Donatists in Africa to themselves: brother Alypius suggested this very thing to me in my ear. Then, the volume itself being taken, considering the statutes of the same council, I read that Athanasius, the catholic bishop of Alexandria, whose conflict of most fierce disputations against the Arians especially stood out, and Julius, bishop of the Roman Church, no less catholic, had been disapproved by that Council of Sardica. Whence it was established with us that it had been a council of the Arians, whom these catholic bishops most vehemently resisted. And so, for an even more diligent discussion of the times, we wished to take the volume itself and carry it off with us. He was unwilling to give it, saying that we had it there, when we wished to consider anything in it. I asked also that he permit it to be noted by my hand—fearing, I confess, lest perhaps, the cause requiring it, when it should be asked for, another should be brought forward in its place; but neither did he wish this.

4. 7. Then he began to press me to answer briefly to his question, asking of me whom I thought just, him who persecuted, or him who suffered persecution. To whom I answered that it was not rightly so asked: for it could come about that both be wicked, it could even come about that the more just persecute the more wicked. It is not therefore consequent that anyone is the more just because he suffers persecution, although this often happens. Then, when I saw that he dwelt much on this, that he wished the righteousness of his party to be understood as certain from the fact that it had suffered persecution; I asked of him whether he thought Ambrose, bishop of the Church of Milan, just and a Christian. He was surely compelled to deny that that man was a Christian and just; because, if he confessed it, we would immediately object that he judged him to be rebaptized. When, therefore, he was compelled to say those things by which that man would not be held a Christian and just, I recalled how great a persecution he had endured, the church even surrounded by armed soldiers. I asked also whether he thought Maximian, who had made a schism from them at Carthage, both just and a Christian. He could only deny it. I recalled, then, that he too had endured such persecution that his church was destroyed to its foundations. By these examples, then, I strove, if I could, to persuade him that he should now cease to say that the endurance of persecution is a most certain document of Christian righteousness.

4. 8. He also related that, in the very newness of the schism, his elders, when they were considering the fault of Caecilian, in order that a schism might not be made, wishing in some way to lull it, gave a certain interventor to the people of his communion established at Carthage, before Majorinus was ordained against Caecilian. This interventor, then, he said had been killed by our people in his own little assembly. Which, I confess, I had never before at all heard, although so many crimes objected by them were refuted and confuted by our people, and more and greater ones hurled against them. But yet, after he related this, he again began insistently to ask of me whom I thought just, him who killed, or him who had been killed; as though he had now proved to me that it had been committed as he had related. I said, therefore, that first it was to be inquired whether it were true; for one ought not rashly to believe whatever is said: and yet it could have come about, that either both were equally evil, or even that some evil man killed a worse one. For in truth it can come about that the rebaptizer of the whole man is more wicked than the slayer of the body only.

4. 9. Whence that too which he afterward asked of me was now not to be asked. For he said also that an evil man ought not to have been killed by Christians and just men; as though we call those just who do these things in the Catholic Church: which, however, are wont to be said by these men against us more easily than proved, when so many most violent slaughters and massacres very many of them—both bishops and presbyters and any clergy whatever—cease not to inflict, crowds of most furious men being gathered, not only on catholics, but sometimes even on their own, where they can. Since this is so, yet dissembling about the most wicked deeds of his own, which he himself knows better, he urged that I say which of the just had killed even some evil man. Which, even if it now did not pertain to the cause; for we confessed that these things, wherever they were done under the Christian name, were not done by good men; yet, that he might be admonished what was to be inquired into, we answered, asking whether Elijah seemed to him to have been just: which he could not deny. Then we subjoined how many false prophets he slew with his own hand (See 1 Kgs 18:40). Here in truth he saw what was to be seen, that such things had been permitted to the just. For these things they did by a prophetic spirit, by the authority of God, who without doubt knows for whom it is even profitable to be killed. He demanded, then, that I show, now in the times of the New Testament, which of the just had killed anyone, even a wicked and impious man.

5. 10. Then it was returned to the earlier treatment, by which we wished to show that neither ought we to object to them the crimes of their own, nor they to us, if any such deeds of ours were found. For I showed that from the New Testament it could not indeed be shown that any just man had killed anyone; but yet that this could be proved by the very example of the Lord, that the wicked were tolerated by the innocent. For he endured his betrayer, who had now received his price, among the innocent with him even to the last kiss of peace: to whom he did not keep silent that there was among them a man of so great a crime; and yet the first sacrament of his body and his blood, that man not yet excluded, he gave in common to all (See Matt 26:20–25; Luke 22:19–21). By which example, when nearly all were moved, he tried to say that, before the Lord's passion, that communion with the wicked man did not harm the Apostles, because they did not yet have the baptism of Christ, but the baptism of John. After he said this, I began to ask of him how, then, it was written that Jesus baptized more than John, since he himself did not baptize, but his disciples—that is, that he baptized through his disciples (See John 4:1–2). How then did they give what they had not received? which they themselves are especially wont to say. Or did Christ perhaps baptize with the baptism of John? Then in this opinion I was about to ask many things: how it was then asked of John himself about the Lord's baptism, and he answered that the one had the bride, and the other was the bridegroom (See John 3:26–29). Was it then right that the bridegroom baptize with the baptism of John—that is, with the baptism of a friend or a servant? Then, how could they receive the Eucharist not yet baptized? Or how did he answer Peter wishing to be wholly washed: He who is once washed need not, when it is right, be washed again, but is wholly clean (See John 13:9–10)? For perfect cleansing is baptism not in the name of John, but of the Lord, if he who receives it shows himself worthy of it; but if unworthy, the sacraments will remain in him not for salvation, but for ruin. When, therefore, I was about to ask these things, he himself too saw that he ought not to have raised the question about the baptism of the Lord's disciples.

5. 11. Thence it went to another matter, many speaking on both sides as they could: among which it was said that our people would still persecute them; and he said to us that he wished to see what sort of men we would show ourselves in that persecution, whether we would consent to such savagery, or would lend no consent. We said that God sees our hearts, which they themselves could not: and that they rashly feared for themselves these things, which, if they should happen, happen from evil men, than whom they hold worse men themselves; nor yet ought we on that account to separate ourselves from catholic communion, if anything should perhaps be done with us unwilling, or even, if we should be able, contradicting, since we have learned a peaceful toleration, the Apostle saying: Bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:2–3). Which peace and toleration we said those had not kept who made the schism, so that now among their own, who are gentler than they, they tolerate graver things, lest what is torn be torn further; when they were unwilling to tolerate lighter things for unity itself. We said also that in the times of the ancients the peace of unity and toleration had not yet been proclaimed with so great a commendation as by the example of the Lord and the love of the New Testament; and yet those Prophets and holy men were wont to speak the crimes of their people against the people, when nevertheless they had not attempted to tear themselves from the unity of that people and from the communion of the sacraments to be received alike which then existed.

5. 12. Thence, I know not how, it came to the mention of Genethlius of blessed memory, the bishop of Carthage before Aurelius, that he suppressed some ordinance given against them, and did not allow it to have effect. All praised him, and most kindly preferred him. Among which praises it was subjoined by us that yet that very Genethlius too, if he had fallen into their hands, would be judged to be rebaptized. And these things we spoke now standing, because the time of departing pressed. There plainly that old man said that a form had now been made, that whoever of the faithful came to them from us should be baptized, which he, unwilling and with grief of mind, said, as much as he could, it appeared. Indeed, since he himself too most openly groaned over and showed many evils of his own, which was proved by the testimony of his whole city, how removed he was from such deeds, and brought forth, with a modest complaint, the things he was wont to say to his own people, and we recalled that passage of the prophet Ezekiel, where it is openly written that neither the fault of the son is to be imputed to the father, nor the fault of the father to his son, where it is said: For as the soul of the father is mine, so also the soul of the son is mine; for the soul which sins, it alone shall die (Ezek 18:4, 20), it pleased all that in such disputations the violent deeds of evil men ought not to be objected to one another by us. There remained, then, the question of schism. And so we exhorted him to strive with us again and again, with a placid and peaceful mind, that so great an inquiry might take an end by a diligent examination. When he kindly said that we alone sought these things, but that our people were unwilling that these be inquired into: with this promise made, we departed, that we would produce for him more of our colleagues—at least ten—who would wish this to be inquired into with as much benevolence and gentleness and as pious a zeal as we now felt that he himself had noticed and approved in us. This too he himself promised, from the number of his own.

6. 13. Whence I exhort and beseech you, by the blood of the Lord, that you remind him of his promise, and gravely insist, that the matter begun be carried through, which you see has now come almost to its end. For, as I judge, you can most hardly find in your bishops so useful a mind and will as we perceived in this old man. For on the next day he himself came to us, and we had begun again to inquire into these things. But because the necessity of ordaining a bishop was now snatching us away from there, we could not be with him longer. For we had already sent to the Elder of the Coelicolae, whom we had heard had arisen among them as the founder of a new baptism, and had seduced many by that sacrilege, that we might speak something with him, as much as the straits of that very time allowed. After he learned that the latter would come, seeing that we had undertaken another business, since some necessity of departure pressed him too, he departed from us kindly and peacefully.

6. 14. But it seems to me that, in order that we may altogether avoid turbulent crowds, which bring an impediment rather than a help, and may truly, from a friendly and tranquil mind, carry through, with the Lord's aid, so great a business undertaken, we ought to come together at some not large country estate, where there would be a church of none of us: which estate, however, men both of our communion and of his hold in common, as is the estate of Titiana. Whether, then, in the territory of Tubursicum, or of Thagaste, such a place, either the one I have recalled, or some other, be found, let us make the canonical Codices to be at hand. And if any documents can be brought forward from either party: so that, the rest being set aside, with no trouble interrupting, if it please the Lord, on however many days we can have leisure for this, and each of us, before his own host, beseeching the Lord—him aiding to whom Christian peace is most pleasing—we may carry through a matter so great and begun with good mind to the end of the inquiry. Write back, indeed, what seems about this matter either to you or to him.

LETTER 45
To the most genuine, most beloved, and in Christ praiseworthy lords and brothers Paulinus and Therasia, Alypius and Augustine send greeting in the Lord

1. By no means has some delay of yours—through which, for two whole years, from the time when our most sweet brothers Romanus and Agilis returned to you from us, we have received no letter from you—made us slothful to write. For while in other matters the more anyone is loved, the worthier of imitation he seems, in this matter it is the contrary. For the more ardently we love you, the less do we bear that you do not write to us; nor do we wish to imitate you in that. Behold, then, we greet you, if not answering your letters—which none come to us—at least demanding them, and not grieving moderately, although perhaps your Charity too similarly complains, since you know that those sent by you have not reached us, and in turn that those which had been sent by us were not given to you. But if it is so, let us turn our complaints into prayers to the Lord, that he not deny us such consolations.

2. We had heard that you were writing against the Pagans; which, if it is finished, we ask that you not delay to send through the bearer of this letter. He is dear to us, to whose esteem in our regions we can, not rashly, bear good testimony. He asks, through us, your Holiness, that you deign to commend him to those with whom he has business, and before whom he fears lest his good cause be oppressed. What is being done in the matter he himself will narrate more conveniently: he can also be asked about each thing which may perhaps move the mind, and we hold it most welcome, and give thanks before our Lord God to your most sincere kindness, if through your work we may rejoice over the safety of a Christian brother.

LETTER 46
To the beloved and venerable father, bishop Augustine, Publicola

1. In the Arzuges, as I have heard, the barbarians are wont to swear to the decurion who is in charge of the frontier, or to the tribune, swearing by their demons, those who have made a pact to lead the pack-animals, or some to guard the crops themselves; and the individual landholders or tenants are wont to receive them, as now trustworthy, to guard the crops, the decurion sending a letter, or the individual travelers to whom it is necessary to pass through their territory. But a doubt has arisen in my heart, whether that landholder who has received a barbarian, whose good faith has seemed firm through the swearing by demons, is not himself defiled, or those things which he guards, or that man who is led by the barbarian guide. But this you ought to know, that the barbarian who swears receives from the landholder gold for guarding the crops, or the guide from the traveler; but yet, along with this, as it were, payment which is wont to be given by the landholder or by the traveler, that mortal oath too, given to the decurion or tribune, stands in the midst: which disturbs me, lest it pollute him who receives the barbarian's oath, or those things which the barbarian guards. For on whatever condition—even gold given and hostages given, as I have heard—yet an iniquitous oath has intervened in the midst. Deign to write back to me definitively, and not in suspense. For if you yourself should write doubtfully, I can fall into greater doubts than before I asked.

2. This too I have heard, that those very tenant men who are in charge of my property receive an oath, for guarding the crops, from the barbarians swearing by their demons. If, then, when they swear by their demons that they will guard the crops, they do not pollute the crops themselves—so that if a Christian should eat of them knowingly, or should have profited from the price of those very things, he be defiled—deign to indicate.

3. Again, from another I have heard that no oath is sworn to the tenant by the barbarian, and another said that an oath is sworn to the tenant. If even he who said that an oath is sworn to the tenant told me falsely, ought I now, on account of this alone which I have heard, not to use those crops, or the price of them, merely because of hearsay, because it is said: But if anyone says: This is offered in sacrifice to idols, do not eat, on account of him who pointed it out (See 1 Cor 10:28)? If, however, this case too is like the case about what is offered in sacrifice. But if it is so, what ought I to do about those crops, or about the price of them?

4. Ought I to inquire of both—he who told me that no oath is sworn to the tenant, and he who said that an oath is sworn to the tenant—and to prove the statement of each by witnesses, which of those two spoke the truth, and so long not to touch those crops, or the price, until it has been proved to me whether he spoke the truth who said that no oath is sworn to the tenant?

5. If the barbarian who, by his oath, swears an evil oath, has made that Christian tenant, or the tribune who is in charge of the frontier, swear to him, for keeping faith with him in guarding the crops, by that same mortal oath by which he himself swears—is that Christian alone defiled? Are not also those things for the sake of which he swears? Or if a pagan who is in charge of the frontier has sworn to a barbarian, for keeping faith with him, by a mortal oath—does he not defile those for whom he swears? If I send someone to the Arzuges, is it permitted him to receive that mortal oath from a barbarian; and is he not defiled, if a Christian accepts such an oath?

6. If, from the threshing floor of wheat or of any pulse, or from the winepress, something has been offered to a demon, is it permitted for a Christian knowingly to eat thereof? Concerning wood taken from a grove.

7. Concerning a grove, is it permitted for a Christian knowingly to take wood for any use of his own?

8. If someone going to the meat market buys meat which is not offered in sacrifice, and has had two thoughts in his heart—that it was offered, and that it was not offered—and held that thought by which he will think it not offered, does he sin if he eats it?

9. If someone does a good thing, about which he doubts whether it is good or evil, thinking it good, although he had also thought it evil, is the sin imputed to him?

10. If someone says that it is offered in sacrifice, lying, and afterward says again that he lied, and truly lied as to the fact, is it permitted for a Christian thereupon to eat, or to sell, and to use the price, from what he has heard?

11. If some Christian walking, suffering necessity, overcome by the hunger of one day, or of two, or of many days, so that he can now no longer hold out, should so come upon it that, in that very necessity of hunger, in which he sees death now drawing near to him, he finds food set in an idol-shrine, where there is none of men, and cannot find other food, ought he to die or to be fed thereon? How far it is permitted to repel force with force.

12. If a Christian sees that a barbarian or a Roman wishes to kill him, ought that Christian himself to kill them, lest he be killed by them: or is it permitted, without killing, to repel them or to fight them off, because it is said: Do not resist evil (See Matt 5:39)? Concerning harms foreseen but not desired.

13. Ought a Christian to build a wall for his property on account of an enemy, and is that Christian who built the wall not the cause of homicide, when from it some have begun to fight and to kill enemies?

14. Is it permitted to drink from a spring, or from a well, into which something of a sacrifice has been cast? Ought a Christian to drink from a well that is in a temple, and has been made deserted? If in a temple where an idol is worshipped there is a well or a spring, and nothing has been done there in the same well or spring, ought a Christian to draw water thence, and drink?

15. Ought a Christian to wash in the baths, or in the hot baths, in which sacrifice is made to images? Ought a Christian to wash in the baths in which the Pagans have washed on their feast day, whether with them or without them?

16. If into a basin into which the Pagans have gone down, coming from the idols on their feast day, they have done something there in the basin of their sacrilege, and a Christian knows it, ought he to go down into the same basin?

17. If a Christian, invited by someone, has had meat set before him for food, of which it has been said to him that it is offered in sacrifice, and he has not eaten it; but afterward, the same meat having been moved elsewhere by someone, he finds it by some chance for sale, and buys it, or, invited by some other, has it set before him, and does not recognize it, and eats it, does he sin?

18. Ought a Christian knowingly to buy from the garden or the property of the idols or of their priests a vegetable, or any fruit, and to eat thereof? Indeed, concerning the oath, or concerning the idols, that you may not suffer labor in inquiring, I wished to set before your eyes what, by the Lord's granting, we have found: but if you find anything else more open or better in the Scriptures, deign to indicate it to me. Whence the things we have found are these: where Laban said to Jacob: The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor (See Gen 31:53); but what God, the Scripture did not indicate. And again: Abimelech, when he came to Isaac, where he swore, or those who were with him (See Gen 26:26–31); but what kind of oath, the Scripture did not indicate. Again, concerning idols, where it was said to Gideon by the Lord in the book of Judges, that of the calf which he had killed he should make a holocaust (See Judg 6:25–26). And in Joshua, concerning Jericho, that all the gold, silver, and bronze should be brought into the treasuries of the Lord, and called holy, from the city which is accursed (See Josh 6:19, 24). And what is that which is set in Deuteronomy: You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become accursed, as this very thing is (See Deut 7:25–26)? May the Lord keep you: I greet you; pray for me.

LETTER 47
To the honorable and most beloved son Publicola, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. After I learned the surgings of your mind from your letter, mine too at once became such—not that all such things moved me, by which you indicated that you were moved: but how these surgings might be taken from you, I confess, I surged; especially because you ask that I write back to you definitively, lest you fall into greater doubts than before you asked. For I see that this is not in my power. For however I shall write the things which seem to me most certain, if I do not persuade you, you will without doubt be more uncertain. But it is not the case that, as it lies with me to persuade, in the same way it lies with me to persuade anyone. Nevertheless, lest I deny your love my little labor, after some deliberation I have thought I ought to write back.

2. You are surely moved whether the faith of one who has sworn by demons that he will keep it is to be used. Here I want you first to consider whether, if anyone swears by false gods that he will keep faith, and does not keep it, it does not seem to you that he has sinned twice. For if, by such an oath, he kept the promised faith, he would be judged to have sinned only on this account, that he swore by such gods; but that, no one would rightly reproach, that he kept faith. But now, because he both swore by those by whom he ought not, and acted against the promised faith, which he ought not, he has surely sinned twice; and thereby he who uses the faith of one who is established to have sworn by false gods, and uses it not for evil, but for what is lawful and good, associates himself not with that sin of his by which he swore by demons, but with that good pact of his by which he kept faith. Nor do I here speak of that faith by which those are called faithful who are baptized in Christ. For that is far other and far distinct from the faith of human agreements and pacts. Nevertheless, without any doubt it is a lesser evil to swear truthfully by a false god than to swear deceitfully by the true God. For the more holy that by which one swears is, the more penal is the perjury. Therefore it is another question whether he sins not who has had an oath sworn to him by false gods, because he who swears to him worships false gods. To which question those testimonies can lend support which you yourself recalled, of Laban and Abimelech, if indeed Abimelech swore by his own gods, as Laban by the God of Nahor. This, as I said, is another question, which would perhaps rightly move me, had not those examples of Isaac and Jacob occurred, and any others that can be found. If indeed that does not yet move you which is said in the New Testament, that we should not swear at all (See Matt 5:34). Which indeed seems to me to be said for this reason, not because to swear truly is a sin, but because to swear falsely is a monstrous sin; from which he wished us to be far, who admonished us in every way not to swear. But I know that it seems otherwise to you; whence we must not now dispute, that we may rather deal with that on which you thought I should be consulted. Accordingly, just as you do not swear, so neither do you compel another, if this please you, to swear: although it is said that we should not swear; but nowhere in the holy Scriptures do I remember to have read that we should not accept an oath from another. But it is another question, whether we ought to use that peace which has been made between others swearing to one another. Which, if we are unwilling, where we may live on earth I do not know whether we can find. For not only to the frontier, but to all the provinces, peace is procured by barbarian oath-swearing. Whence this too will follow, that not only the crops which are guarded by those who have sworn by false gods, but everywhere all things are defiled which are protected by that very peace which that oath-swearing confirms. But if it is most absurd to say this, neither let those things move you which were moving you.

3. Again, if from the threshing floor or the winepress something is taken for the sacrifices of demons, with a Christian knowing, he sins if he permits it to be done, where there is the power of forbidding. But if he learns that it was done, or did not have the power of forbidding, he uses the rest of the clean fruits from which those were taken; just as we use springs from which we most certainly know that water is drawn for the use of sacrifices. The same reasoning holds also for the baths. For we do not hesitate to draw breath from the air, into which we know smoke goes from all the altars and incense of demons. Whence it appears that this was forbidden: that we not use anything in honor of strange gods, or be thought to use it, by so accepting it that, although we despise them in our mind, we nevertheless build up to honoring these things those who are ignorant of our mind. And when temples, idols, groves, and anything of this kind, the power being given, are overthrown, although it is manifest, when we do this, that we do not honor them, but rather detest them, yet we ought not, for our own private and proper uses only, to usurp anything thence, so that it may appear that we destroy these things from piety, not from avarice. But when they are converted to common uses, not proper and private, or to the honor of the true God, that is done concerning them which is done concerning men themselves, when from sacrilegious and impious they are changed into the true religion. This God is understood to have taught by those testimonies which you yourself set down, when, concerning the grove of strange gods, he ordered wood to be applied for a holocaust (See Judg 6:25–26); and concerning Jericho, that all the gold, silver, and bronze should be brought into the treasuries of the Lord (See Josh 6:19). Wherefore that too which is written in Deuteronomy: You shall not covet their silver or gold, nor take any of it for yourself, lest you transgress on account of it: for it is an abomination to the Lord your God: and you shall not bring an execration into your house, and you will be accursed, as it too is, and by offense you will offend, and by defilement you will be defiled with that abomination, because it is accursed (See Deut 7:25–26); sufficiently appears that either the private uses themselves in such things are forbidden, or that nothing be so brought in thence as to be honored: for then it is an abomination and an execration; not when the sacrilegious honor of such things is overthrown by a most open destruction.

4. But about the foods of idols, be certain that we ought to observe nothing more than what the Apostle commanded. And therefore recall his words about this matter, which, if they were obscure, we would expound according to our small measure. But he does not sin who afterward, not knowing, eats food which before he rejected as offered to an idol. A vegetable or any fruit born in any field is his who created it; because the earth is the Lord's, and its fullness (Ps 24:1 (23:1)); and every creature of God is good (1 Tim 4:4). But if that which is born in the fields is consecrated to an idol, or sacrificed, then it is to be reckoned among things offered to idols. For care must be taken, lest, if we think that we must not eat a vegetable which is born in the garden of an idol's temple, it follow that we should think the Apostle ought not to have taken food at Athens, because the city was Minerva's and consecrated to her divinity. This I would answer also about a well or a spring that is in a temple. But it moves one more, in truth, if something of the sacrifices is thrown into a spring or well. But the same reasoning holds for the air, which receives all that smoke, about which we spoke above: or if this is thought to differ on this account, that the sacrifice from which the smoke is mingled with the air is made not to the air itself, but to some idol or demon, whereas sometimes things are sent into the waters in sacrifice in such a way that sacrifice is made to the waters themselves; we surely do not on that account fail to use the light of this sun, because the sacrilegious cease not to sacrifice to it where they can. Sacrifice is made also to the winds, which nevertheless we use for our so great conveniences, when they themselves seem in some way to draw in and devour the smoke of those same sacrifices. If anyone doubts about some meat, whether it is offered in sacrifice, and it is not offered, if he holds that knowledge that it is not offered, and eats of it, he surely does not sin; because it neither is, nor is now thought, offered in sacrifice, even if before it was thought so. For it is not unlawful to correct thoughts from falsehood to truth. But if anyone thinks that to be good which is evil, and does it, in thinking this he surely sins. And these are all sins of ignorance, when anyone thinks that to be done well which is done ill.

5. About killing men, lest anyone be killed by them, the counsel does not please me; unless perhaps he be a soldier, or held by a public function, so that he does this not for himself, but for others, or for the city in which he himself also is, having received lawful power, if it befits his person. But those who are repelled by some terror, lest they do evil, something is perhaps even afforded to those very men. But it was said, let us not resist evil (See Matt 5:39), lest vengeance delight us, which feeds the mind on another's evil; not that we neglect the correction of men. Whence neither is he guilty of another's death who has drawn a wall around his own property, if someone, struck by its ruins, perishes. For neither is a Christian guilty, if his ox by goring, or his horse by kicking, kills someone; nor on that account ought Christians not to have oxen with horns, or a horse with hoofs, or a dog with teeth; nor indeed, because the apostle Paul took sufficient care that it be brought to the tribune's notice that ambushes were being prepared for him by certain abandoned men, and on this account received armed escorts (See Acts 23:16–24), would Paul, if wicked men had fallen upon those arms, recognize his crime in the shedding of their blood. Far be it that the things which we do, or have, for the sake of what is good and lawful, if through these any evil should happen to anyone beyond our will, should be imputed to us. Otherwise neither domestic nor rustic iron tools are to be had, lest anyone kill himself or another with them; nor a tree or a rope, lest anyone hang himself from it; nor is a window to be made, lest anyone cast himself down through it. Why should I recall more, when in recalling them I could not finish? For what is there in the good and lawful use of men, from which ruin too could not be inflicted?

6. It remains, unless I am mistaken, that we say something about that Christian traveler whom you recalled, overcome by the necessity of hunger, if he finds nothing anywhere except food set in an idol-shrine, where there is no other man, whether it is better for him to die of hunger than to take that for nourishment: in which question, since it is not consequent that that food be offered to an idol—for it could have been left, by forgetfulness or by will, by those who, turning aside from their journey, had refreshed their body there, or set there for any other cause whatever—I answer briefly. Either it is certain that it is offered to an idol, or it is certain that it is not, or it is unknown: if, then, it is certain that it is, it is better rejected by Christian virtue; but if either it is known not to be, or it is unknown, it is taken for the use of necessity without any scruple of conscience.

LETTER 48
To the beloved and most longed-for lord, brother and fellow presbyter Eudoxius, and the brothers who are with you, Augustine, and the brothers who are with me, send greeting in the Lord

1. When we think of your rest, which you have in Christ, we too, although we are engaged in various and harsh labors, rest in your love. For we are one body under one head, so that you are busy in us, and we are at leisure in you, because if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it (1 Cor 12:26). We therefore admonish and ask and beseech, by the most high humility and most merciful loftiness of Christ, that you be mindful of us in your holy prayers, which we believe you have more vigilant and more sober: for ours the fog and tumult of secular actions often wounds and weakens; which, although we do not have as ours, yet, of those who compel us to go a mile, and we are bidden to go with them another two (See Matt 5:41), are heaped upon us so greatly that we can scarcely breathe: yet trusting that he in whose sight enters the groaning of the fettered (See Ps 79:11 (78:11)), will, as we persevere in that ministry in which he has deigned to place us with a promised reward, with your prayers aiding, free us from all anguish.

2. But you, brothers, we exhort in the Lord that you guard your purpose, and persevere even to the end (See Matt 10:22): and if mother Church should desire any work of yours, neither take it up with greedy elation, nor reject it with flattering sloth; but with meek heart obey God, with gentleness bearing him who rules you, who directs the meek in judgment, who teaches the gentle his ways (See Ps 25:9 (24:9)). Nor prefer your leisure to the necessities of the Church, to which, in her travail, if no good men were willing to minister, you would not find how you should be born. But just as a way must be kept between fire and water, so that a man neither be burned up nor drowned; so between the peak of pride and the abyss of sloth we ought to temper our journey, as it is written: Not turning aside, either to the right or to the left (See Prov 4:27). For there are those who, while they too greatly fear lest, snatched as it were to the right, they be exalted, slipping to the left, are drowned. And there are again those who, while they too greatly withdraw themselves from the left, lest they be swallowed by the torpid softness of leisure, corrupted and consumed on the other side by the pride of boasting, vanish into ash and smoke. So then, most beloved, love leisure in such a way that you restrain yourselves from all earthly delight, and remember that there is no place where he cannot stretch his snares who fears lest we fly back to God; and let us judge the enemy of all good things, whose captives we were; and let us think that there is no perfect rest for us, until iniquity pass away, and judgment be turned into justice (See Ps 94:15 (93:15)).

3. Likewise, when you do anything vigorously and cheerfully and work tirelessly, whether in prayers, or in fasts, or in almsgiving; whether giving something to the needy, or forgiving injuries, as God too in Christ forgave us (See Eph 4:32); whether taming ruinous habits, and chastising the body, and bringing it into servitude (See 1 Cor 9:27); whether enduring tribulation, and before all things one another in love—for what does he endure who does not endure a brother?—whether looking out for the cunning and ambushes of the tempter, and with the shield of faith repelling and extinguishing his fiery darts (See Eph 6:16); whether singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord (See Eph 5:19), or with voices not out of tune with the heart, do all things to the glory of God, who works all things in all (See 1 Cor 12:6; 1 Cor 10:31); and so be fervent in spirit that your soul may be praised in the Lord (See Ps 34:2 (33:3)). For this is the action of the right journey, which always has its eyes toward the Lord, since he himself will pluck the feet out of the snare (See Ps 25:15 (24:15)). Such action is neither chilled by business, nor cold in leisure, neither turbulent nor languid; neither bold nor fugitive; neither headlong nor prostrate. Do these things, and the God of peace will be with you (See Phil 4:9).

4. Nor let your Charity think me importunate, because I wished to speak to you even by letter. For I have not admonished you of this which I do not think you do; but I believed that I am no little commended to God by you, if you do the things which you do by his gift, with the memory of our address. For both before by fame, and now the brothers who have come from you, Eustasius and Andreas, have brought to us the good odor of Christ from your holy manner of life. Of whom Eustasius has gone before into that rest which, like an island, is beaten by no waves, nor desires Capraria, because it does not now seek to be clothed in haircloth.

LETTER 49
To Honoratus, a bishop of the party of Donatus, Augustine, bishop of the catholic Church

1. Your counsel pleased us much, which you deigned to convey through brother Herotes, a man most dear to us and praiseworthy in Christ, that we should deal between ourselves by letters, where no tumult of crowds could disturb our arrangement, which is to be undertaken and conducted with all gentleness and peace of mind, as the Apostle says: But the servant of the Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle toward all, teachable, patient, correcting in moderation those who think differently (See 2 Tim 2:24–25). And so we briefly intimate what we desire to be answered by you.

2. Since we see the Church of God, which is called catholic, as was prophesied of it, spread throughout the world of lands, we judge that we ought not to doubt about so most evident a fulfillment of the holy prophecy, which the Lord also confirmed in the Gospel, and the Apostles, through whom that same Church was spread, as had been foretold of it. For in the head of the most sacred Psalter it is written of the Son of God: The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Ps 2:7–8). And the Lord Jesus Christ himself says that his Gospel will be in all nations (See Matt 24:14). And the apostle Paul, before the word of God had reached Africa, in the very head of the Epistle which he wrote to the Romans: Through whom we received, he says, grace and apostleship, for the obedience of faith, among all nations for his name (See Rom 1:5). Then he himself, from Jerusalem round about through all Asia even to Illyricum, preached the Gospel (See Rom 15:19), established and founded Churches; not he, but the grace of God with him (See 1 Cor 15:10), as he himself testifies. But what can appear more evident than that in his Epistles we find even the names of regions or cities? He writes to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians. John too writes to seven Churches (See Rev 1:4, 11), which he recalls as established in those parts, in which we understand also that the universal Church is commended by the sevenfold number—Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamum, Thyatira. With all which Churches it is manifest that we today communicate, just as it is manifest that you do not communicate with these Churches.

3. We ask, then, that you not be reluctant to answer us, what cause you perhaps know, by which it came about that Christ lost his inheritance, spread throughout the world of lands, and suddenly remained among the Africans alone, and not even all of them. For indeed the catholic Church is also in Africa, because through all lands God willed it to be and foretold it. But your party, which is called that of Donatus, is not in all those places in which both the writings and the discourse and the deeds of the apostles ran. But lest you say that our Church is not called catholic but Macarian, as you call it; you ought to know—which can most easily be done—that in all those parts whence the Gospel of Christ flooded these lands, neither is the name of Donatus known, nor the name of Macarius. But that yours is called the party of Donatus, neither can you deny, and it is known to all, wherever your communion is. Deign, then, to write back to us, that we may know how it can come about that Christ lost his Church from the whole world, and began to have it among you alone: for it is for you to show this; for it suffices for our cause that we see the prophecy and the holy Scriptures fulfilled throughout the world of lands. But this I, Augustine, have dictated, because I have long wished to speak with you about it. For it seems to me that, even on account of our very nearness, we can converse by letters about this matter without any tumult, God aiding, as much as the very necessity requires.

LETTER 50
To the leaders and chief men or elders of the colony of Sufes, Augustine the bishop

1. The most notorious crime of your monstrousness, and your unexpected cruelty, shakes the earth, and strikes the heaven, so that in your streets and shrines blood gleams, and homicide resounds. Among you the Roman laws are buried, the terror of upright judgments is trodden underfoot. Of the emperors, surely, there is no veneration nor fear. Among you the innocent blood of sixty brothers in number has been shed, and if anyone killed more, he was discharged with praises, and held the chief place in your senate-house. Come, now let us come to the principal cause. If you say it is your Hercules, well then, we will restore him: there are mines at hand, and stones are not lacking; there are added also kinds of marble, a supply of craftsmen is at hand. Besides, your god, while he is diligently sculpted, is turned on the lathe and adorned. We add also the red ochre which paints the redness, by which your sacred vows can resound. For if you say it is your Hercules, individual coins being collected, we buy you a god from your own craftsman. Restore, then, the souls which your savage hand has wrenched away, and, just as your Hercules is restored by us, so also let the souls of so many be restored by you.

LETTER 51
[Augustine to Crispinus] missing in the manuscripts

1. Because your people reproach our lowliness, therefore I have so prefaced the letter; for I would seem to have done it to your insult, if I did not so await from you that you write back. About the Carthaginian promise—whether your or our insistence—why should I recall much? However we conducted those things, let them pass, lest they hinder what remains. Now there is no excuse, unless I am mistaken, the Lord aiding; we are both in Numidia, and we are near to one another in respect of place. Rumor has brought to me that you still wish to try, by disputing with me, the question which divides our communion. See how briefly all circuitous evasions are taken away: answer this letter, if it please, and perhaps it will suffice, not only for us, but also for those who desire to hear us; or if writings and replies do not suffice, until they suffice, they shall be repeated. For what can the so great nearness of the cities we inhabit afford us more conveniently? For I have resolved to deal with you about this matter in no way except by letters, either lest what is said slip from the memory of any of us, or lest the zealous for such things, who perhaps cannot be present, be defrauded. You are wont to boast false things about past deeds, what you will—perhaps not from zeal for lying, but from error. Accordingly, if it please, let us measure those by present things. Without doubt it does not escape you that in the times of the former people both the sacrilege of idolatry was committed (See Exod 32), and a prophetic book was burned by a contemptuous king (See Jer 36:23); by neither of which crimes would the evil of schism be punished more atrociously, unless it were weighed more gravely. For surely you recall how the gaping earth swallowed the authors of schism alive, and the fire rushing from heaven consumed those who had consented (See Num 16:31–35). So neither did the idol fashioned and adored, nor the sacred Book burned, deserve to be avenged.

2. Why, then, you who are wont to object to us crimes not only not proved in our people, but rather proved in your own, of those who, driven by the dread of persecution, handed over the books of the Lord to be burned with fire—why did you receive into the same episcopate in which you condemned them those whom, for the crime of schism, you condemned, as is there written, with the truth-telling mouth of your plenary council? I mean Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras. For these were not, as you say to those who do not know, of that number to whom your council had prolonged and fixed a day, within which, unless they returned to your communion, they would be held by the same sentence; but they were of that number whom you condemned without delay on the very day on which you gave a delay to the others. I will prove it, if you deny it: your council speaks; we have the proconsular Records in hand, by which you alleged it not once. Prepare, then, another defense, if you can, lest, while you deny what I will prove, we make delays. If, then, Felicianus and Praetextatus were innocent, why were they so condemned? If wicked, why were they so received? If you prove them innocent, why should we not believe that by far fewer of your elders, by the false crime of betrayal, innocent men could have been condemned, if by three hundred and ten of their successors—where it is even written, as a great thing, "with the truth-telling mouth of a plenary council"—innocent men could be condemned with the false crime of schism? But if you prove that they were rightly condemned, what defense remains why they were received into the same episcopate, except that, exaggerating the usefulness and wholesomeness of peace, you show that these things too are to be tolerated for the bond of unity? Which would that you did with the strength not of the mouth but of the heart! you would surely perceive how, by no calumnies, was the peace of Christ to be violated throughout the world of lands, if it is permitted in Africa for those condemned even in sacrilegious schism to be received into the same episcopate for the peace of Donatus.

3. Likewise you are wont to object to us that we persecute you through earthly powers. In which matter I do not dispute either what you deserve for the monstrousness of so great a sacrilege, or how much Christian gentleness tempers us; this I say: if this is a crime, why did you grievously assail those same Maximianists through judges sent by those emperors whom our communion begot through the Gospel, and disturb them out of the basilicas which they held, in which the very split found them, both by the din of controversies and by the power of orders and by the onset of auxiliaries? In which conflict what they suffered in the several places, the recent traces of the matter attest; what was ordered, the papers indicate; what was done, the lands cry out, in which also the holy memory of that Optatus, your tribune, is proclaimed.

4. Likewise you are wont to say that we do not have the baptism of Christ, and that, apart from your communion, it is nowhere. I could discourse on this somewhat more copiously. But against you there is now no need, who, with Felicianus and Praetextatus, have received even the baptism of the Maximianists. For as many as they baptized when they were in communion with Maximian—when you were even trying to expel those very men by name, that is, Felicianus and Praetextatus, from their basilicas, as the records testify, by a long conflict of judgments—as many, then, as they baptized at that time, they now have with themselves and with you, baptized, not only through the perils of sicknesses, but also through the paschal solemnities in so many churches belonging to their cities, and in those very great cities, outside, in the crime of schism, none of whom had baptism repeated. And would that you could prove that those whom Felicianus and Praetextatus had baptized outside, in the crime of schism, as it were emptily, were, when those men were received within, again, as it were usefully, baptized. For if these were to be baptized again, those were to be ordained again. For they had lost the episcopate when they withdrew from you, if they could not baptize outside your communion. For if, withdrawing, they had not lost the episcopate, they surely could baptize. But if they had lost it, then, that what they had lost might be restored to them, they ought, returning, to be ordained. But do not fear: just as it is certain that they returned with the same episcopate with which they had gone out, so it is certain that all whom they baptized in the schism of Maximian they reconciled to your communion with themselves without any repetition of baptism.

5. With what tears, then, are we sufficient to bewail that the baptism of the Maximianists is received, and the baptism of the world of lands is blown upon with contempt? Whether heard or unheard, whether justly or unjustly, you condemned Felicianus, you condemned Praetextatus; tell me: which bishop of the Corinthians did any of you hear, or condemn? which of the Galatians, which of the Ephesians, which of the Colossians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and of all the other cities, of which it was said: All the families of the nations will adore in his sight (Ps 22:27 (21:28))? Therefore the baptism of these is accepted, and that of those is blown upon; which is neither of these nor of those, but of him of whom it was said: This is he who baptizes (John 1:33). But I do not deal from this; attend to those things which are at hand, behold those things which strike even blind eyes: the condemned have baptism; and the unheard do not have it! Those expressly named and cast out in the crime of schism have it; and the unknown, far foreign, never accused, never judged, do not have it! Those who, from a cut-off part of Africa, were cut off again, have it; and those whence the Gospel itself came to Africa do not have it! Why do I burden you with more? Answer to these things. Attend to the sacrilege of schism exaggerated by your council against the Maximianists; attend to the persecutions through judiciary powers which you inflicted on them; attend to their baptism, which, with those whom you condemned, you received; and answer, if you can, whether you have anything by which you may cast fogs upon the unskilled, why you should be separated from the world of lands by a far greater crime of schism than that which you boast you condemned in the Maximianists. May the peace of Christ conquer in your heart.

LETTER 52
To the much-to-be-longed-for lord and very dear brother Severinus, Augustine

1. The letter of your Fraternity, although very late, although otherwise than I had hoped, I yet received with joy, and was flooded with an especially ampler gladness, when I learned that your man had come to Hippo for this one cause alone, that he might bring to me a letter of your Fraternity. For I thought that not without cause this had arisen in your mind, that you should recall our kinship; except because perhaps you perceive—as I know the not-light weight of your prudence—how it is to be grieved, that we who are brothers according to the flesh do not live in the body of Christ in one fellowship, especially because it is easy for you to attend to and see the city set upon a mountain, of which the Lord says in the Gospel that it cannot be hidden (See Matt 5:14). For that is the catholic Church; whence it is called in Greek katholikē, because it is spread throughout the whole world of lands. This no one is permitted to be ignorant of; therefore, according to the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, it cannot be hidden.

2. But the party of Donatus, among the Africans alone, calumniates the world of lands, and does not consider that, by that sterility by which it was unwilling to bear the fruit of peace and love, it has been cut off from that root of the Eastern Churches, whence the Gospel came to Africa: whence, if earth from there be brought to them, the faithful man adores; but if a faithful man come thence, they even blow upon him and rebaptize him. For this too the Son of God, who is the truth (See John 14:6), foretold: that he is the vine, but his sons are the branches, and his Father the husbandman: The branch, he says, which in me does not bear fruit, my Father will take away; but the branch which in me bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bear more fruit (See John 15:1–2). It is no wonder, then, if from that vine which grew and filled all lands (See Ps 80:8–11 (79:9–12)), those were cut off who were unwilling to bear the fruit of love.

3. If they had objected true crimes to their colleagues, their elders, when they made the schism, would themselves have won their cause before the Church across the sea, whence the authority of the Christian faith flowed to these parts, so that those would be outside to whom they objected those same crimes. But now, since those are found within, communicating with the apostolic Churches, whose names they have in the holy Books and recite, but these are placed outside and separated from that communion, who does not understand that those had a good cause, who could win it before mediating judges? Or if they had a good cause, and could not prove it to the Churches across the sea, what did the world of lands harm them, where bishops could not rashly condemn their colleagues, who had not been convicted before them by objected crimes? And so the innocent are rebaptized, and Christ in the innocent is blown upon with contempt. But if these same Donatists knew true crimes of their African colleagues, and neglected to demonstrate and prove them to the Churches across the sea, they themselves cut themselves off from the unity of Christ by a most wicked schism; they have nothing to excuse, and you know it; especially because so many wicked men arose among them, and they tolerated them through so many years, lest they should rend the party of Donatus, and did not hesitate at that time, objecting their false suspicions, to disrupt the peace and unity of Christ, and you see it.

4. But some carnal habit, brother Severinus, holds you there; and I have long grieved, long groaned, especially thinking of your prudence, and I have long desired to see you, that I might speak with you about this matter. For what does either temporal safety or kinship profit, if we despise the eternal inheritance of Christ and perpetual salvation in our kinship? Let it suffice that I have written these things meanwhile, which to hard hearts are very few and almost none; but to your mind, which I know well, are very many and very great. For they are not mine, who am nothing, except that I await the mercy of God; but of God himself, the almighty, whom whoever despises in this age as a father, will find in the future as a judge.

LETTER 53
To the most beloved and honorable brother Generosus, Fortunatus, Alypius, and Augustine send greeting in the Lord

1. 1. Since you wished the letter which a presbyter of the Donatists gave to you to be known to us—although you too, with a catholic mind, laughed at it: yet, that you may rather take thought for him, if he does not rave despairingly, we ask that you bring these things written back to him. For he wrote that an angel had bidden him intimate to you the order of the Christianity of your city, while you hold the Christianity not of your city only, nor only of Africa or of the Africans, but of the whole world of lands, which has been announced and is announced to all nations. Whence it is too little for them that they are not ashamed to be cut off, nor help themselves, that, when they can, they return to the root, unless they also try to cut off others with themselves, and, like dry wood, to destine them for the fire. Wherefore, if an angel himself had stood by you—whom that man, as we judge, with cunning vanity feigns to have stood by him on your account—and had said to you these very things which this man says he intimates to you by his command, you ought to be mindful of the apostolic sentence, who says: Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than that which we preached to you, let him be anathema (See Gal 1:8). For it has been preached to you, through the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, that his Gospel will be announced to all nations, and then the end will be (See Matt 24:14). It has been preached to you, through the prophetic and apostolic writings, that the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ (See Gal 3:16), when God said to him: In your seed all the nations will be blessed (See Gen 22:18). To you, then, holding these promises, if an angel from heaven should say: Abandon the Christianity of the world of lands, and hold that of the party of Donatus, whose order is set forth to you in the letter of the bishop of your city, he ought to be anathema; because he would try to cut you off from the whole, and to thrust you into a part, and to alienate you from the promises of God.

1. 2. For if the order of bishops succeeding one another is to be considered, how much more certainly and truly wholesomely do we number from Peter himself, to whom, bearing the figure of the whole Church, the Lord says: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not conquer it (See Matt 16:18). For to Peter succeeded Linus; to Linus, Clement; to Clement, Anacletus; to Anacletus, Evaristus; to Evaristus, Sixtus; to Sixtus, Telesphorus; to Telesphorus, Hyginus; to Hyginus, Anicetus; to Anicetus, Pius; to Pius, Soter; to Soter, Alexander; to Alexander, Victor; to Victor, Zephyrinus; to Zephyrinus, Callistus; to Callistus, Urban; to Urban, Pontian; to Pontian, Anterus; to Anterus, Fabian; to Fabian, Cornelius; to Cornelius, Lucius; to Lucius, Stephen; to Stephen, Sixtus; to Sixtus, Dionysius; to Dionysius, Felix; to Felix, Eutychian; to Eutychian, Gaius; to Gaius, Marcellus; to Marcellus, Eusebius; to Eusebius, Miltiades; to Miltiades, Sylvester; to Sylvester, Mark; to Mark, Julius; to Julius, Liberius; to Liberius, Damasus; to Damasus, Siricius; to Siricius, Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. But, from across the way, they sent one ordained from Africa, who, presiding over a few Africans in the city of Rome, propagated the name of the Mountain-men or the Cutzupitae.

1. 3. But in that order of bishops which is led from Peter himself even to Anastasius, who now sits in that same chair, even if any traitor had crept in through those times, it would prejudge nothing against the Church and the innocent Christians, for whom the Lord, providing, says of evil rulers: What they say, do; but what they do, do not do: for they say, and do not (See Matt 23:3). So that the hope of the faithful may be sure, which, placed not in man, but in the Lord, may never be dissipated by the storm of a sacrilegious schism; as these men are dissipated, who read in the holy codices the Churches to which the Apostles wrote, and have no bishop among them. But what is more perverse and more insane than, while the readers read those same Epistles, to say: Peace be with you, and to be separated from the peace of those Churches to which those very Epistles were written?

2. 4. Yet, lest he flatter himself even concerning the Constantinian, that is, the order of bishops of your city, recite to him the Records held before Munatius Felix, perpetual flamen and curator of your same city at that time, in the eighth consulship of Diocletian and the seventh of Maximian, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, by which it was clearly established that Paul the bishop so handed over that Silvanus was then his subdeacon, and handed over with him, bringing forth the instruments of the Lord, even those which had been carefully hidden, a silver casket and a silver lamp, so that a certain Victor said to him: You would have been dead, if you had not found those. This Silvanus, a most manifest traitor, this man recalls as a great matter in the letter which he writes to you, ordained bishop at that time by Secundus of Tigisi, bishop of the first see. Let their proud tongue, then, be quiet, and let it recognize its own crimes, lest, raving, it speak of another's. Recite to him also, if he wishes, the ecclesiastical Records of the same Secundus of Tigisi, held in the house of Urbanus Donatus, where he left the confessed traitors to God the judge—Donatus of Masculi, Marinus of Aquae Tibilitanae, Donatus of Calama—with which confessed traitors he ordained for them bishop the said traitor Silvanus. Recite to him the Records held before Zenophilus the consular, where a certain Nundinarius, a deacon angry with Silvanus because he had been excommunicated by him, disclosed all these things to the courts, which, by certain documents and the responses of witnesses, and the recitation of the Records and of many letters, were established clearer than light.

2. 5. There are many other things which you may recite to him, if he is willing not to act contentiously, but to listen prudently: the petitions of the Donatists to Constantine, that, for settling that cause among the African bishops, he should send bishops from Gaul as judges. The letters too of the same emperor, where he sent bishops to the city of Rome. The Records too held in the city of Rome, where by the bishops whom he had sent the cause was known and discussed. And likewise other letters, where the said emperor declares that they had complained to him about the judgment of their colleagues, that is, of the bishops whom he had sent to the city of Rome; where he also willed that other bishops should judge at Arles; where these men appealed even from their judgment to the same emperor; where finally he himself knew the cause between the parties; where he most vehemently detests that they were overcome by the innocence of Caecilian. Which, if he wishes, he will hear, and be silent, and cease to lie in wait for the truth.

3. 6. Although we presume not so much upon these documents as upon the holy Scriptures, where the inheritance of Christ is promised to the ends of the earth among all nations (See Ps 2:8): whence these men, separated by a wicked schism, hurl crimes against the chaff of the Lord's harvest; which must be tolerated, mingled, even to the end, until by the last judgment the whole threshing floor is winnowed (See Matt 3:12). Whence it is manifest that these crimes, whether true or false, do not pertain to the Lord's grain, which through the whole field, that is, this world, must grow even to the end of the age, as not a false angel in this man's error, but the Lord in the Gospel speaks (See Matt 13:30, 38–39). And therefore God deservedly repaid these wretched Donatists, who hurl many false and empty crimes against innocent Christians, who throughout the whole world are mingled with evil Christians as with their own chaff or tares: so that they condemned the Maximianists at Carthage, their own schismatics, the condemners of Primian, the baptizers apart from Primian, the rebaptizers after Primian, by their universal council: so that, after no little time, some of their number—Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras—they received into the honors of their episcopate, Optatus the Gildonian compelling, with all those whom the condemned had baptized outside. But if they are not stained by those whom they condemned with their own mouth as wicked and sacrilegious, and whom they compared to those first schismatics whom the earth swallowed alive (See Num 16:31–33), when they communicate with them, received again into their honor; let them at some time wake up, let them think with how great blindness and how great madness they say that the world of lands is stained by the unknown crimes of the Africans, and that the inheritance of Christ, which, promised, has been displayed among all nations, was deleted by the sins of the Africans through the contagion of communication, when they are unwilling to seem themselves deleted and stained, while they communicate with those whose known crimes they have judged.

3. 7. Wherefore, since the apostle Paul says again that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light, whence it is no wonder if his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness (See 2 Cor 11:14–15); if this man truly saw some angel, a messenger of error, and desiring to separate Christians from catholic unity, he himself suffered an angel of Satan transforming himself as it were into an angel of light. But if he lies, and saw nothing of the sort, he himself is a minister of Satan, transforming himself as it were into a minister of righteousness. And yet, considering all these things, if he is not willing to be too perverse and obstinate, he will be able to be freed from all seduction, whether another's or his own. For we, on your occasion, have approached without any hatred, observing toward him that which the Apostle says: But the servant of the Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle toward all, teachable, patient, correcting in moderation those who think differently; lest perhaps God give them repentance to know the truth, and they come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, captured by him into his own will (See 2 Tim 2:24–26). If, then, we have said anything harshly, let him recognize that it avails not for the bitterness of dissension, but for the correction of love. May you live unharmed in Christ, most beloved and honorable brother. Amen.

LETTER 54
To the most beloved son Januarius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. 1. To the things which you have asked me, I would prefer first to know what you yourself, being asked, would answer; for thus, by either approving or amending your answers, I could answer much more briefly, and most easily either confirm or correct you. This indeed, as I said, I would prefer. But yet, that I might answer you now, I have preferred to make a longer discourse rather than a longer delay. First, then, I want you to hold what is the head of this disputation: that our Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself says in the Gospel, has subjected us to his easy yoke and light burden (See Matt 11:30): whence by sacraments very few in number, very easy in observance, most excellent in signification, he has bound together the fellowship of the new people, such as is baptism consecrated in the name of the Trinity, the communion of his body and blood, and whatever else is commended in the canonical Scriptures, except those things which burdened the servitude of the old people, in accordance with the fitness of their heart and of the prophetic time, which are read also in the five books of Moses. But those things which we keep not written but handed down, which indeed are observed throughout the whole world of lands, are given to be understood as commended and appointed to be retained either by the Apostles themselves, or by plenary councils, whose authority in the Church is most wholesome: such as that the Lord's passion and resurrection and ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven, are celebrated by an anniversary solemnity, and whatever else of the kind occurs which is observed by the universal Church, wherever it spreads itself.

2. 2. But other things which vary through the places and regions of lands—such as that some fast on the Sabbath, others do not; some communicate daily in the body and blood of the Lord, others receive on certain days; in one place no day is passed over on which it is not offered, in another only on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, in another only on the Lord's day: and whatever else of this kind can be observed—this whole class of matters has free observances; nor is there any better discipline in these for a grave and prudent Christian than to act in the way in which he sees the Church to which he perhaps comes to act. For what is proved to be neither against the faith nor against good morals is to be held indifferent, and is to be observed for the sake of the fellowship of those among whom one lives.

2. 3. I believe you have at some time heard from me, but yet even now I recall it. My mother, having followed me to Milan, found the Church not fasting on the Sabbath; she began to be troubled and to waver as to what she should do: at that time I did not care about such things, but on her account I consulted Ambrose, a man of most blessed memory, about this matter; he answered me that he could teach me nothing except what he himself did, because, if he knew anything better, he would rather observe that. And when I had thought that, no reason being given, he wished to admonish us by his authority alone not to fast on the Sabbath, he went on and said to me: When I come to Rome, I fast on the Sabbath; when I am here, I do not fast. So you too, to whatever Church you come, observe its custom, if you do not wish to be a scandal to anyone, nor anyone to you. When I had reported this to my mother, she gladly embraced it. But I, thinking again and again about this opinion, always held it as though I had received it from a heavenly oracle. For I have often felt, grieving and groaning, that many disturbances of the weak come about, through the contentious obstinacy or superstitious timidity of certain brothers, who, in matters of this kind, which can come to no certain determination by the authority of holy Scripture, nor by the tradition of the universal Church, nor by the usefulness of correcting life (only because there underlies some reasoning of one thinking, or because in his own homeland he himself was so accustomed, or because he saw it otherwise elsewhere, and on his travels thinks himself the more learned the more remote he was made from his own people); stir up such litigious questions that they esteem nothing right except what they themselves do.

3. 4. Someone will say that the Eucharist ought not to be received daily: you will ask why. Because, he says, days are to be chosen on which a man lives more purely and more continently, so that he may approach so great a sacrament worthily: For he who eats unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself (1 Cor 11:29). Another, on the contrary: Nay, he says, if the wound of sin and the force of the disease is so great that such medicines are to be deferred, each one ought, by the authority of the prelate, to be removed from the altar to do penance, and by the same authority to be reconciled. For this is to receive unworthily, if one receive at that time when one ought to do penance; not that, by one's own judgment, when one pleases, one either withdraw oneself from communion or restore oneself. But for the rest, if sins are not so great that one is judged to be excommunicated, one ought not to separate oneself from the daily medicine of the Lord's body. Perhaps someone settles the quarrel between them more rightly who admonishes that they especially remain in the peace of Christ: but let each one do what, according to his faith, he piously believes ought to be done. For neither of them dishonors the body and blood of the Lord, but they vie in striving to honor the most wholesome sacrament. For Zacchaeus and that Centurion did not quarrel with one another, nor did either of them set himself before the other, when the one of them received the Lord into his house rejoicing (See Luke 19:6), and the other said: I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof (Matt 8:8): both honoring the Savior in a diverse and as it were contrary manner; both wretched in sins, both having obtained mercy. To this likeness it also avails that, in the first people, the manna tasted in each one's mouth according to his own will (See Wis 16:20–21), so in the heart of each Christian that sacrament by which the world has been subjugated. For the one, by honoring it, does not dare to take it daily, and the other, by honoring it, does not dare to pass over any day. This food alone refuses contempt, as the manna refused disgust. For thence too the Apostle says that it was received unworthily by those who did not distinguish it from other foods by the veneration singularly due: for immediately when he had said: He eats and drinks judgment to himself, he added so as to say: not discerning the body of the Lord (1 Cor 11:29); which sufficiently appears in that whole passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, if it is diligently attended to.

4. 5. Suppose someone is a stranger in some place, perhaps, where, persevering in the observance of Lent, they do not bathe even on the fifth day of the week, nor relax the fast: I will not fast today, he says. The cause is asked: Because it is not done, he says, in my homeland. What else does he do but try to prefer his own custom to another's custom? For he will not recite this to me from the Book of God, nor will he contend, with the full voice of the whole Church wherever it spreads, nor will he show that the other acts against the faith, but he according to the faith and the best morals, nor will he convict the other of violating, or himself of keeping. They do indeed violate their own quiet and peace by quarreling over a superfluous question. Yet I would prefer, in matters of this kind, that both the one in this man's, and this one in the other's homeland, should not shrink from what the rest do. But if, even in a foreign homeland, when he was traveling, where the people of God is greater and more frequent and more fervent, he saw, for example, that on the fifth day of the week of the last week of Lent there was an offering twice, both in the morning and toward evening, and, coming into his own homeland, where the custom is to offer at the end of the day, should contend that it is done ill and unlawfully, because he himself saw it otherwise elsewhere, this is a childish sense, to be guarded against in ourselves, to be tolerated and corrected in our own people.

5. 6. Therefore your first inquiry, which you set in your memorandum, attend to of which of these three kinds it is. For you ask in these words: "What ought to be done on the fifth feria of the last week of Lent? Is it to be offered in the morning, and again after supper, on account of that which was said, Likewise after they had supped (See Luke 22:20)? Or is one to fast, and to offer only after supper? Or is one even to fast, and, after the oblation, as we are wont to do, to sup?" To these, then, I answer thus: that, as to which of these is to be done, if the authority of divine Scripture prescribes, it is not to be doubted that we ought to do so as we read, so that we now dispute not how it is to be done, but how the sacrament is to be understood. Similarly too, if the whole Church throughout the world frequents any of these: for here too it is the height of insolent madness to dispute that it is to be so done. But neither this nor that is in what you ask. It remains, then, that it be of that third kind, which varies through places and regions. Let each one, then, do what he finds in the Church to which he comes. For none of those things is done against the faith, or against morals better on this side or that. For by these causes, that is, either on account of the faith, or on account of morals, either what was being done amiss ought to be amended, or what was not being done ought to be instituted. For the very change of custom, even that which helps by usefulness, disturbs by novelty. Wherefore that which is not useful, by an unfruitful disturbance, is consequently harmful.

5. 7. Nor ought it to be thought that it was instituted in many places that on that day, after a meal, it should be offered, because it is written: Likewise also the cup, after they had supped, saying, etc. For he could have called that the supper at which they had now received the body, so that afterward they might receive the cup. For the Apostle elsewhere says: When you come together into one, it is not to eat the Lord's supper (See 1 Cor 11:20), calling this very reception of the Eucharist the Lord's supper. 6. This could rather have moved men, whether, already refreshed on that day, they should either offer or take the Eucharist, because in the Gospel it is said: But while they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it (See Matt 26:26); when he had also said above: When it was evening, he reclined with the twelve, and while they were eating he said: One of you will betray me (See Matt 26:20–21). For afterward he gave the sacrament. And it clearly appears that, when the disciples first received the body and blood of the Lord, they did not receive it fasting.

6. 8. Yet is the universal Church on that account to be calumniated, because it is always received by those fasting? For from this it pleased the Holy Spirit that, in honor of so great a sacrament, the Lord's body should enter the mouth of the Christian before other foods: for therefore throughout the whole world this custom is observed. For not because the Lord gave it after food, ought brothers on that account, having lunched or supped, to come together to receive that sacrament, or, as those did whom the Apostle reproves and amends, to mingle these things with their own tables. For the Savior, in order the more vehemently to commend the loftiness of that mystery, willed to fix this last in the hearts and memory of the disciples, from whom he was about to depart to his passion. And therefore he did not prescribe in what order it should thereafter be taken, that he might reserve this place for the Apostles, through whom he was about to arrange the Churches. For if he had admonished this, that it should always be received after other foods, I believe that no one would have varied that custom. But when the Apostle says, speaking of this sacrament: Wherefore, brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, that you may not come together unto judgment (See 1 Cor 11:33–34); he immediately subjoined: But the rest I will set in order when I come (1 Cor 11:34). Whence it is given to be understood (because it was too much that in a letter he should intimate to them the whole order of acting which the universal Church throughout the world observes) that it was set in order by him which is varied by no diversity of morals.

7. 9. But a certain probable reasoning has delighted some, that on one certain day in the year, on which the Lord himself gave that supper, as for a more notable commemoration, it is permitted that the body and blood of the Lord be offered and received after food. But I judge it more becoming that it be done at that hour, so that one who has even fasted may, after the refreshment which takes place at the ninth hour, be able to come to the oblation. Wherefore we compel no one to lunch before that Lord's supper, but neither do we dare to contradict anyone. Yet I think this was not instituted except because the more, and nearly all, in most places, were accustomed to bathe on that day. And because some also keep the fast, in the morning it is offered on account of those who lunch, because they cannot endure fasts and baths at the same time; but toward evening on account of those who fast.

7. 10. But if you ask why the custom of bathing too arose: nothing more probable occurs to me thinking about this matter, except that the bodies of those to be baptized, soiled through the observance of Lent, would come to the font with an offense to the sense, unless they were washed on some day. But this day was rather chosen for this, on which the Lord's supper is celebrated annually. And because this was granted to those about to receive baptism, many wished to bathe with them, and to relax the fast. These things having been disputed as I could, I admonish that you keep, as far as you can, the things I have prefaced, as becomes a prudent and peaceful son of the Church. The other things you have asked, if the Lord wills, I will unfold at another time.

LETTER 55
To the Inquiries of Januarius, Book II

1. 1. When I had read your letter, in which you admonished me to render the debt of unraveling the remaining questions which you had asked long before, I could not endure that the most welcome and dearest desire of your zeal be longer deferred; and although in the midst of the heaps of my occupations, I made this my chief one, to answer the things you asked. But I do not wish to dispute longer about your letter, lest this very thing hinder me from at last rendering what I owe.

1. 2. You ask what cause there is "why the anniversary day of celebrating the Lord's passion does not return to the same day of the year, as the day on which it is handed down that he was born"; and then you subjoin: "if this happens on account of the Sabbath and the moon, what does the observance of the Sabbath and the moon mean in this matter." Here first you ought to know that the Birthday of the Lord is not celebrated in a sacrament, but only recalled to memory that he was born; and thereby there was no need but that the recurring day of the year, on which the thing itself was done, be marked by festal devotion. But there is a sacrament in some celebration, when the commemoration of a deed is so made that something is understood to be also signified, which is to be received in a holy way. And so we keep Easter in such a way that we not only recall to memory what was done—that is, that Christ died and rose again—but also do not omit the other things which are attested concerning him, for the signification of the sacraments. For because, as the Apostle says: He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25); a certain passing-over from death to life was consecrated in that passion and resurrection of the Lord. For even the very word which is called Pascha is not Greek, as it is commonly thought, but, those who know both tongues say, Hebrew. For not from suffering—since in Greek "to suffer" is said paschein—but from that which is passed over, as I said, from death to life, the thing was named by a Hebrew word: in which speech Pascha is said "a passing-over," as those who know this report. Which the Lord himself wished to touch when he says: He who believes in me will pass from death to life (See John 5:24). And the same Evangelist is understood to have especially wished to express this, when, of the Lord about to celebrate the Passover with his disciples, where he gave them the mystical supper, When Jesus had seen, he says, that his hour had come, that he should pass from this world to the Father (See John 13:1). Therefore the passing-over from this mortal life into another, immortal life—this is, namely, from death to life—is commended in the passion and resurrection of the Lord.

2. 3. This passing-over is now made by us through faith, which is to us for the remission of sins, in the hope of eternal life, for those who love God and neighbor; because faith works through love (Gal 5:6), and the just man lives by faith (Rom 1:17). But hope that is seen is not hope: for what anyone sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience (Rom 8:24–25); according to this faith, and hope, and love, by which we have begun to be under grace, we have already died with Christ, and been buried with him through baptism into death (See Rom 6:4), as the Apostle says: Because our old man too was crucified together with him (Rom 6:6); and we have risen with him: because he raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6). Whence is also that exhortation: savor the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth (Col 3:2). But what follows and says: For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, your life, then you too will appear with him in glory (Col 3:3–4); sufficiently indicates what he wishes to be understood: that now our passing-over from death to life, which is made through faith, is carried out in the hope of the future resurrection and glory at the end, when this corruptible, that is, this flesh in which we now groan, shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53). For now indeed we already have the firstfruits of the Spirit through faith, but still we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body: for by hope we were saved (Rom 8:23–24). When we are in this hope, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But see what follows: But if the Spirit of him, he says, who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you; he who raised Christ from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you (Rom 8:10–11). This, then, the whole Church, which is found in the pilgrimage of mortality, awaits at the end of the age, which was foreshown in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn from the dead (See Col 1:18), because his body too, whose head he himself is, is nothing but the Church.

3. 4. For some, attending to the words which the Apostle assiduously says, that we have both died with Christ (See Rom 6:8), and risen with him, and not understanding in what sense they are said, have thought that the resurrection has already been made, and that none further is to be hoped for at the end of times: Of whom, he says, are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection has already been made, and have subverted the faith of some (2 Tim 2:17–18). The same Apostle, reproving them, detests them, who nevertheless says that we have risen with Christ. Whence, except because he says this has been made in us through faith, and hope, and love, according to the firstfruits of the Spirit? But because hope that is seen is not hope, and therefore if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience (See Rom 8:24–25); there surely remains the redemption of our body, awaiting which we groan within ourselves. Whence is also that: Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation (Rom 12:12).

3. 5. This renewal of our life, then, is a certain passing-over from death to life, which is first made through faith, that we may rejoice in hope, and be patient in tribulation, while still our outer man is corrupted, but the inner is renewed from day to day (See 2 Cor 4:16). On account of that very beginning of the new life, on account of the new man whom we are bidden to put on, and to put off the old (See Eph 4:22–24); purging out the old leaven, that we may be a new lump, since Christ our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7): on account, then, of this newness of life, the first month among the months of the year has been assigned to this celebration. For it too is called the month of the new things (See Exod 12:2; 13:4). But because in the whole time of the age the third time has now appeared, therefore the resurrection of the Lord is on the third day. For the first time is before the Law, the second under the Law, the third under Grace, where now is the manifestation of the sacrament before hidden in a prophetic riddle. This, then, is also signified in the lunar number; for because the number seven is wont to appear mystically in the Scriptures with reference to a certain perfection, Easter is celebrated in the third week of the moon, the day of which falls from the fourteenth to the twenty-first.

4. 6. There is there also another sacrament, which, if it is obscure to you, because in such inquiries you are less learned, do not be saddened; nor on that account think me better, because I learned these things in boyish studies: for He who glories, let him glory in this, he says, to know and understand that I am the Lord (See Jer 9:24). Some, then, zealous for such things, have inquired much about the numbers and motions of the stars. And those who have scrutinized these things more subtly have conjectured the increases and decreases of the moon from the turning of its globe—not that any substance either accrues to it when it is increased, or departs from it when it is diminished, which the Manichee, in his raving inexperience supposing, said that it is filled, as a ship is filled, from a fugitive part of God, which, mingled with the princes of darkness and defiled by their filth, they do not hesitate, with sacrilegious heart and mouth, both to believe and to speak. From this, then, they say the moon is filled, when that same part of God, with great labors purged from defilement, fleeing from the whole world and all its sewers, is restored to the mourning God until it return; and that it is filled through half a month, and through the other half is poured back into the sun, as into another ship. Nor yet, amid these blasphemies to be anathematized, could they ever invent anything, why, whether beginning to shine or ceasing, it gleams with a horned light, or why it begins to diminish from the half-month, and does not come to the full for pouring back.

4. 7. But those who have investigated these things by certain numbers, so as to foretell long before not only why the eclipses of the sun and moon happen, but also when they were going to happen, and to fix them by determined intervals of time by a canonical reckoning, and to commit them to writing—which those who now read and understand no less foretell, nor do they happen otherwise or at other times than they foretell. Such men, then (who are not to be pardoned, as the holy Scripture says; because when they availed so much as to be able to estimate the age, its Lord, whom by suppliant piety they could have, they did not the more easily find (See Wis 13:9)), have conjectured, from those very horns of the moon which are turned away from the sun, whether waxing or waning, that it is either illuminated by the sun—and the more it withdrew from it, the more from that part which appears to the lands it received its rays; but the more, after the half-month, from the other semicircle it approached it, the more, illuminated from the upper part, it could not, from that part which it turned toward the lands, receive the rays, and therefore seemed to decrease: or, if it had its own light, that it had it on one part in the hemisphere, which part, when, withdrawing from the sun, it gradually showed to the lands, until it showed the whole, it as it were displayed increases, while not what was lacking is added, but what was within is brought forth; and again gradually hid what lay open, and therefore seemed to decrease. But whichever of these two it be, this surely is manifest, and easily known to anyone attending, that the moon is not increased to our eyes, except by withdrawing from the sun, nor diminished, except by approaching the sun from the other part.

5. 8. Attend now to what is read in Proverbs: The wise man abides like the sun; but the fool changes like the moon (See Sir 27:11). And who is the wise man who abides, except that sun of righteousness of whom it is said: The sun of righteousness has risen for me (See Mal 4:2), and whom the impious, lamenting on the last day that it had not risen for them, will say: And the light of righteousness did not shine for us, and the sun did not rise for us (Wis 5:6)? For this sun visible to the eyes of the flesh, God makes to rise upon the good and the evil, who also rains upon the just and the unjust (See Matt 5:45). But fitting likenesses are always drawn from visible things to the invisible. Who, then, is that fool who changes like the moon, except Adam in whom all sinned? For the human soul, withdrawing from the sun of righteousness—that is, from that inner contemplation of unchangeable truth—turns all its powers to earthly things, and is more and more darkened in its inner and higher parts: but when it begins to return to that unchangeable wisdom, the more it approaches it by the affection of piety, the more the outer man is corrupted, but the inner is renewed from day to day, and all that light of talent, which was sinking toward lower things, is turned to higher things, and is in a manner withdrawn from earthly things, so as to die more and more to this age, and its life be hidden with Christ in God (See Col 3:3).

5. 9. It is changed, then, for the worse, advancing to outer things, and casting away its inmost things in its life (See Sir 10:9–10); and this seems better to the earth, that is, to those who savor earthly things (See Phil 3:19), when the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquitous things is blessed (See Ps 10:3 (9:24)). But it is changed for the better, when it gradually turns its intention and glory away from earthly things, which appear in this age, and turns to higher and inner things; and this seems worse to the earth, that is, to those who savor earthly things. Whence those impious ones, at last doing fruitless penance, will say even this among many things: These are they whom at one time we held in derision and in the likeness of reproach: we, senseless, esteemed their life madness (Wis 5:3–4). And thereby the Holy Spirit, drawing a likeness from visible things to invisible, and from corporeal to spiritual sacraments, willed that passing-over from one life into another life, which is named Pascha, to be observed from the fourteenth moon, so that not only on account of the third time, which I recalled above, because thence the third week begins; but also on account of that very turning from outer to inner things, a likeness should be taken from the moon: but even to the twenty-first, on account of that number seven, by which the signification of universality is often figured, which is also attributed to the Church herself, on account of the image of universality.

6. 10. Therefore the apostle John in the Apocalypse writes to seven Churches (See Rev 1:4). But the Church, still established in this mortality of the flesh, is signified in the Scriptures by the name of the moon, on account of that very changeableness. Whence is that: They have prepared their arrows in the quiver, to shoot in the dark moon the upright in heart (See Ps 11:2 (10:3)). For before that comes to pass which the Apostle says: When Christ shall appear, your life, then you too will appear with him in glory (Col 3:4), the Church seems dark in the time of her pilgrimage, groaning amid many iniquities; and then are to be feared the ambushes of deceitful seducers, which he wished to be understood by the name of arrows. Whence in another place, on account of the most faithful messengers of the truth, whom the Church everywhere bears, it is said: The moon a faithful witness in heaven (Ps 89:37 (88:38)). And when the Psalmist sang of the kingdom of the Lord: There shall arise, he says, in his days righteousness and abundance of peace, until the moon be slain (See Ps 72:7 (71:7)): that is, the abundance of peace will so increase, until it consume all the changeableness of mortality. Then the last enemy, death, will be destroyed, and whatever resists us from the weakness of the flesh, whence there is for us not yet perfect peace, will be wholly consumed, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15:53). Whence also the walls of that city which is called Jericho—which in the Hebrew speech is said to be interpreted "Moon"—fell down, the ark of the Testament being carried round in a seventh circuit (See Josh 6:15–20). For what else does the announcement of the kingdom of heaven now do, than the carrying-round of the ark signified, except that all the fortifications of mortal life—that is, all the hope of this age, which resists the hope of the future age—be destroyed by the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit through free choice? For on this account, the ark being carried round, those walls fell not by a violent thrust, but of their own accord. There are also other testimonies of the Scriptures, which press upon us, through the mention of the moon, the signification of the Church, which in this mortality, away from that Jerusalem whose citizens are the holy angels, makes its pilgrimage in toils and labors.

6. 11. Yet on that account the foolish, who are unwilling to be changed for the better, ought not to think that those luminaries are to be adored, because from them a likeness is sometimes drawn to figure divine mysteries; for it is drawn from every creature. Nor on that account ought we to rush into the sentence of condemnation which is uttered by the apostolic mouth concerning certain men, who worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever (See Rom 1:25). For just as we do not adore the cattle, although Christ is called both a lamb and a calf (See John 1:29; Luke 15:23); nor a wild beast, because he is called the lion of the tribe of Judah (See Rev 5:5); nor a stone, because Christ was the rock (See 1 Cor 10:4); nor Mount Zion, because in it the Church is figured: so neither the sun nor the moon, although from that heavenly creature, as from many earthly ones, the figures of the sacraments are taken for mystical instructions.

7. 12. Wherefore the ravings of the Manichees are to be laughed at with detestation; to whom, when we object their empty fictions, by which they cast men headlong into the error into which they themselves were first cast headlong, they seem to themselves talkative, when they say to us: Why do you too celebrate Easter according to the computation of the sun and moon? as though we found fault with the orders of the stars, or the alternations of times, founded by the highest and best God, and not with their perversity, which abuses things most wisely founded for the most empty opinions of its folly. For if a mathematician is going to contradict us, that we draw likenesses from the stars and luminaries of heaven to figure the sacraments mystically, let the augurs also contradict, lest it be said to us: Be simple as doves; let the Marsi also contradict, lest it be said to us: Crafty as serpents (See Matt 10:16); let the actors contradict, lest in the Psalms we name the lyre. Or because from these things signs of likenesses are taken for the mysteries of the word of God, let them say, if it please, that we either catch at auspices, or concoct poisons, or affect theatrical luxuries, which it is most insane to say.

7. 13. We therefore do not conjecture from the sun and moon, by yearly or monthly times, the outcomes of our actions, lest in the most perilous tempests of human life, dashed as it were upon the rocks of a wretched servitude, we make shipwreck of free choice: but for signifying a thing sacredly, we take up fitting likenesses with most religious devotion, as from the rest of creation—from the winds, from the sea, from the earth, from birds, from fishes, from cattle, from trees, from men—for discourse indeed in manifold ways, but for the celebration of the sacraments, now with Christian liberty, most sparingly; as from water, from grain, from wine, from oil. But in the servitude of the old people many things too were commanded to be celebrated, which are handed down to us only to be understood. We therefore do not observe days and years and months and times, lest we hear from the Apostle: I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored among you in vain (See Gal 4:11). For he blames those who say: I will not set out today, because it is the day after, or because the moon is so disposed; or: I will set out so that prosperous things may follow, because the position of the stars is thus: I will not transact business this month, because that star governs my month for me; or: I will, because it favors the month: I will not plant a vineyard this year, because it is a leap year. But let no wise man think that observers of times are to be reproved who say: I will not set out today, because a storm has arisen; or: I will not sail, because there are still the remnants of winter; or: It is the time of sowing, because the earth is satiated with the autumn rains; or if perhaps any other natural effects concerning the motion of the air and the humors for varying the qualities of times have been noted in the most orderly turning of the stars, of which it was said when they were founded: And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years (Gen 1:14). But if any figures of likenesses are drawn, not only from heaven and the stars, but also from the lower creation, for the dispensation of the sacraments, it is a certain eloquence of wholesome teaching, accommodated to moving the affection of the learners, from visible to invisible things, from corporeal to spiritual, from temporal to eternal.

8. 14. Nor does any of us attend to the fact that at the time when we celebrate Easter, the sun is in Aries, as they call a certain place of the stars, where indeed in the month of the new things the sun is found: but whether they wish to call that place Aries, or anything else, we have learned this from the holy Scriptures, that God founded all the stars, and set them in order in the heavenly places where he willed; which, marked and ordered by stars, into whatever parts they divide, by whatever names they note them, wherever the sun should be in the month of the new things, this celebration would find it there, on account of the likeness of the sacrament of renewing life, of which we have disputed enough above. But if even that place of the stars could be called Aries, on account of some fittingness of figure, the divine discourse would not even fear to draw from such a thing some likeness of a sacrament, as from other creatures not only heavenly but also earthly; as from Orion and the Pleiades, as from Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, as from the rivers which are called Gihon, Pishon, Tigris, Euphrates, as from that river Jordan, so often ennobled in the holy mysteries, it has drawn mystical likenesses of things to be figuratively intimated.

8. 15. But how great is the difference between observations of the stars accommodated to the qualities of the air, as farmers or sailors observe; or for noting the parts of the world and directing a course somewhere and from somewhere, which the steersmen of ships do, and those who go through the sandy solitudes into the interior of the South by no certain or straight path; or when, for signifying figuratively something useful in teaching, some mention is made of certain stars: how great, then, is the difference between these uses, and the vanities of men observing the stars for this, that they may seek out neither the qualities of the air, nor the ways of the regions, nor merely the numbers of the times, nor the likenesses of spiritual things, but as it were the fatal outcomes of things already settled—who does not understand?

9. 16. But now let us next see why it is also observed, when Easter is celebrated, that the Sabbath fall: for this is proper to the Christian religion. For the Jews observe only the month of the new things and the moon from the fourteenth to the twenty-first. But because that Passover of theirs on which the Lord suffered so fell that between his death and resurrection the Sabbath day was in the middle, our fathers judged it should be added, that our festival too should be distinguished from the festival of the Jews; and that—which is to be believed not to have been done in vain by him who is before the times, and through whom the times were made, and who came in the fullness of the times (See Gal 4:4), and who had power to lay down his soul and again to take it up (See John 10:18), and therefore awaited an hour not fatal, but opportune for the sacrament which he had resolved to commend, when he said: My hour has not yet come (John 2:4)—should be kept by posterity in the anniversary celebration of his passion.

9. 17. For that which now, as I said above, we carry out in faith and hope, and for attaining which we busy ourselves in love, is a certain rest from all the labor of all troubles, holy and perpetual: into it our passing-over is made from this life, which our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to foreshow and consecrate by his passion. But in that rest there is not slothful idleness, but a certain ineffable tranquillity of leisured action. For one rests at the end from the works of this life in such a way that one rejoices in the action of the other life. But because such action is carried out in the praise of God, without labor of the limbs, without anguish of cares; one does not so pass over to it through quiet that labor succeeds to it—that is, action does not so begin to be, that quiet ceases to be: for one does not return to labors and cares; but that which pertains to quiet remains in the action, neither to labor in work, nor to fluctuate in thought. Because, then, through rest one returns to the first life, whence the soul fell into sin, therefore by the Sabbath rest is signified. But that first life, which is restored to those returning from pilgrimage and receiving the first robe (See Luke 15:22), is figured by the first day of the week, which we call the Lord's day. Seek the seven days, read Genesis: you will find the seventh without an evening, because it signifies rest without end. The first life, then, was not everlasting for the sinner: but the last rest is everlasting, and thereby the eighth too will have everlasting blessedness, because that rest, which is everlasting, is taken up by the eighth, not extinguished; for otherwise it would not be everlasting. So, then, that will be the eighth which is the first, that the first life be not taken away, but restored eternal.

10. 18. Yet the Sabbath was commended to the former people to be celebrated corporeally in idleness, that it might be a figure of the sanctification in the rest of the Holy Spirit. For nowhere do we read in Genesis sanctification through all the former days; but of the Sabbath alone it is said: And God sanctified the seventh day (See Gen 2:3). For souls love rest, whether pious or iniquitous; but by what they may attain to that which they love, very many do not know: nor do the bodies themselves seek anything by their weights, except what souls seek by their loves. For just as a body strives by its weight, whether downward or upward, until, coming to the place to which it strives, it comes to rest—for the weight of oil, if it be let go in the air, strives downward; but if under the waters, upward—so souls strive toward the things they love, for this reason, that, by attaining them, they may rest. And many things indeed delight through the body, but in them there is no eternal rest, nor even a lasting one; and therefore they rather soil the soul, and weigh it down rather, so as to hinder its sincere weight, by which it is borne to the heights. When, then, the soul is delighted by itself, it is not yet delighted by an unchangeable thing; and therefore it is still proud, because it holds itself for the highest, when God is higher. Nor is it left unpunished in such a sin, because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). But when it is delighted by God, there it finds true, certain, eternal rest, which it sought in other things, and did not find. Accordingly it is admonished in the psalm: Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart (Ps 37:4 (36:4)).

10. 19. Because, then, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5), therefore the sanctification is recalled on the seventh day, where rest is commended. But because we cannot work well, except aided by his gift, as the Apostle says: For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, according to good will (Phil 2:13), nor will we be able to rest after all our good works which we do in this life, except, by his gift, sanctified and perfected unto eternity; therefore of God himself it is said that, when he had made all his works very good, on the seventh day he rested from all his works which he made (See Gen 1:31; 2:2). For he was signifying the future rest, which he was about to give us men after good works. For just as, when we work well, he is said to work in us, by whose gift we work well: so when we rest, he is said to rest, by whose gift we rest.

11. 20. Hence it is that even in the three first precepts of the Decalogue which pertain to God (for the other seven pertain to the neighbor, that is, to man, because on two precepts the whole law hangs (See Matt 22:40)), the third is there placed concerning the observance of the Sabbath: so that in the first precept we understand the Father, where it is forbidden that any likeness of God be worshipped in the figments of men; not because God has no image, but because no image of his ought to be worshipped except that which is the same as he himself; nor it for him, but with him. And because the creature is changeable, and therefore it is said: every creature is subject to vanity (See Rom 8:20), since the nature of the universe is shown even in a part; lest anyone think the Son of God, the Word through whom all things were made (See John 1:3), to be a creature, there follows the other precept: You shall not take in vain the name of the Lord your God (Exod 20:7). But the Holy Spirit, in whom that rest is granted us which we love everywhere, but find not except by loving God—when his love is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (See Rom 5:5), because God sanctified the seventh day on which he rested—is intimated in the third precept of the law, which is written about the observance of the Sabbath; not that we should think we now rest in this life, but that all things which we do well should have no intention except in the future everlasting rest. For remember most of all, what I have already recalled above, that by hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope (Rom 8:24).

11. 21. But to that very fire of love, to be nourished and as it were fanned, by which, as by a weight, we may be borne upward or inward to rest, all these things pertain which are figuratively intimated to us; for they move and kindle love more than if they were set forth bare, without any likenesses of the sacraments. The cause of which thing it is difficult to tell. But yet it is so, that something intimated through an allegorical signification moves more, delights more, is honored more, than if it were said most openly in proper words. I believe that the very motion of the soul, so long as it is still entangled in earthly things, is more sluggishly inflamed: but if it is borne to corporeal likenesses, and thence referred to the spiritual things which are figured by those likenesses, by that very passing-over it is in a manner quickened, and, as fire stirred in a torch, is kindled, and is snatched, with a more ardent love, to rest.

12. 22. And therefore, among all those ten precepts, only that one which is set there concerning the Sabbath is commanded to be observed figuratively; which figure we have undertaken to understand, not also to celebrate by corporeal idleness. For since by the Sabbath is signified spiritual rest, of which it is said in the psalm: Be at leisure and see, that I am the Lord (Ps 46:10 (45:11)), and to which men are called by the Lord himself saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you: take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:28–29); the other precepts there, however, we observe properly as precepts, without any figurative signification. For we have learned manifestly not to worship idols; and not to take in vain the name of the Lord our God, and to honor father and mother, and not to commit adultery, not to kill, not to steal, not to bear false witness, not to covet the neighbor's wife, not to covet any thing of the neighbor's (See Exod 20:3–17), do not figuratively hold forth one thing and mystically signify another; but they are observed as they sound. Yet we are not bidden to observe the Sabbath day to the letter, according to idleness from corporeal work, as the Jews observe it: and that observance of theirs which is so commanded, unless it signify some other spiritual rest, is judged to be laughed at. Whence not unfittingly we understand that, for kindling the love by which we tend to rest, all things avail which are figuratively said in the Scriptures; since that alone in the Decalogue is figuratively commanded, where rest is commended, which is everywhere loved, but is found certain and holy in God alone.

13. 23. Yet the Lord's day was declared, not to the Jews, but to Christians, by the resurrection of the Lord, and from then it began to have its festivity. For the souls of all the saints, before the resurrection of the body, are indeed in rest, but they are not in that action by which bodies, received again, are quickened. For such action the eighth day signifies, which is also the first, because it does not take away that rest, but glorifies it. For there does not return with the body the difficulty from the body, because neither corruption: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53). Wherefore before the resurrection of the Lord, although the sacrament of the eighth, by which the resurrection is signified, was by no means hidden from the holy fathers full of the prophetic spirit (for a psalm is inscribed "for the eighth" (See Ps 6:1 (6:1); Ps 12:1 (11:1)), and on the eighth day infants were circumcised (See Gen 17:12), and in Ecclesiastes, for the signification of the two Testaments, it is said: Give to them seven, and to them eight (See Eccl 11:2)); yet it was reserved and hidden, and only the Sabbath was handed down to be celebrated: because there was before a rest of the dead; but the resurrection was of none, who, rising from the dead, would now not die, and death would no longer have dominion over him (See Rom 6:9); so that, after such a resurrection had been made in the body of the Lord (that it might go before in the head of the Church, what the body of the Church would hope for at the end), now even the Lord's day, that is, the eighth, which is also the first, might begin to be celebrated. The very cause too is understood, why the observance of the Passover, where they are bidden to kill and eat the lamb, which most manifestly prefigures the passion of the Lord, was not so commanded them that they should attend to the Sabbath's falling, and to its concurring with the month of the new things at the third week of the moon, so that the Lord might rather mark that same day by his passion, who had also come to declare the Lord's day, that is, the eighth, which is also the first.

14. 24. Attend, therefore, to the most sacred three days of him crucified, buried, raised. Of these three, what the cross signifies, we carry out in the present life: but what the burial and resurrection signify, we carry out in faith and hope. For now it is said to a man: Take up your cross and follow me (Matt 16:24). But the flesh is crucified, when our members which are upon the earth are mortified—fornication, uncleanness, luxury, avarice (See Col 3:5), and the rest of this kind, of which he likewise says: If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you will live (Rom 8:13). Hence too he says of himself: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14). And in another place: Knowing, he says, that our old man was crucified together with him, that the body of sin may be done away, that we may no longer serve sin (Rom 6:6). So long, then, as our works are at this, that the body of sin be done away, so long as the outer man is corrupted, that the inner be renewed from day to day, it is the time of the cross.

14. 25. These are indeed good works, yet still laborious, whose reward is rest: but therefore it is said: Rejoicing in hope, that, thinking of the future rest, we may work with cheerfulness in our labors. This cheerfulness the breadth of the cross signifies, in the transverse wood, where the hands are fixed. For by the hands we understand works; by the breadth, the cheerfulness of the worker, because sadness makes straits; but by the height, to which the head is joined, the expectation of the recompense from the sublime righteousness of God, who will render to each according to his works, to those indeed who, according to the endurance of good work, seek glory, and honor, and incorruption, eternal life (See Rom 2:6–7). And so the length, by which the whole body is extended, signifies endurance itself, whence they are called long-suffering who endure. But the depth which is fixed in the earth prefigures the secret of the sacrament. For you recall, unless I am mistaken, what words of the Apostle I unfold in this designation of the cross, where he says: Rooted and founded in love, that you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the length, breadth, height, and depth (See Eph 3:17–18). But those things which we do not yet see, and do not yet hold, but carry out in faith and hope, are figured in the other two days. For these things which we now do, as it were fixed by the nails of the precepts in the fear of God, as it is written: Pierce with nails my flesh from your fear (See Ps 119:120 (118:120)), are reckoned among the necessary things, not among those which are to be sought and desired through themselves. Whence he says he desires that best thing, to be dissolved, and to be with Christ: but to remain in the flesh, he says, is necessary for your sake (See Phil 1:23–24). What, then, he says, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, thence begins the rest, which is not interrupted by the resurrection, but glorified; which yet is now held by faith, because the just man lives by faith (Rom 1:17). Or do you not know, he says, that as many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus, were baptized in his death? We were buried together with him, then, through baptism into death (Rom 6:3–4). Whence, except by faith? For it is not yet perfected in us, while we still groan within ourselves, and await the adoption, the redemption of our body: For by hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what anyone sees, why does he hope for it? but if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience (Rom 8:24–25).

14. 26. Which—remember how often I recall it—lest we now think that in this life we ought to become blessed and free from all difficulties; and so, in the straits of temporal things, murmur against God with a sacrilegious mouth, as though he did not display what he promised. He promised indeed the necessities even of this life; but the consolations of the wretched are one thing, the joys of the blessed another. Lord, he says, according to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your exhortations have gladdened my soul (Ps 94:19 (93:19)). Let us not, then, murmur in difficulties, lest we lose the breadth of cheerfulness, of which it is said: Rejoicing in hope; because it follows: patient in tribulation (Rom 12:12). The new life, then, is now begun in faith, and carried out in hope: for then it will be perfect, when death shall be swallowed up in victory (See 1 Cor 15:54), when that last enemy, death, shall be destroyed (See 1 Cor 15:26), when we shall have been changed, and made equal to the angels: For we shall all, he says, rise; but not all shall be changed (See 1 Cor 15:51). And the Lord: They will be, he says, equal to the angels of God (See Luke 20:36). For we have now been laid hold of, in fear, through faith, but then we shall lay hold, in love, through sight. For so long as we are in the body, we are on pilgrimage away from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). And so the Apostle himself, who says: that I may lay hold, as I have been laid hold of, openly confesses that he has not laid hold: Brothers, he says, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold (See Phil 3:12–13). But yet, because that very hope, from the promise of the truth, is certain to us, when he had said: We were buried together with him, then, through baptism into death, he subjoined and said: that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4). We walk, then, in the matter of labor, but in the hope of quiet; in the flesh of the old, but in the faith of the new. For he says: The body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you; he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you (Rom 8:10–11).

15. 27. These things, both from the authority of the divine Scriptures and from the consent of the universal Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, are celebrated through the anniversary Easter. 15. In a great sacrament, surely, as you now understand. And in the old Scriptures indeed no time is commanded for keeping the Passover, except from the month of the new things, from the fourteenth moon to the twenty-first: yet from the Gospel, because it is manifest on what day also the Lord was crucified, and was in the tomb, and rose again, there has been added too the observance of those very days through the councils of the fathers, and the whole Christian world has been persuaded that Easter ought to be celebrated in that manner.

15. 28. Lent indeed of the fasts has authority, both in the old Books from the fasting of Moses and Elijah (See Exod 34:28; 1 Kgs 19:8); and from the Gospel, because for as many days the Lord fasted (See Matt 4:2), showing that the Gospel does not dissent from the Law and the Prophets. For in the person of Moses, the Law; in the person of Elijah, the Prophets are taken, among whom also he appeared glorious on the mountain (See Matt 17:3); that it might more evidently stand out which the Apostle says of him: Having testimony from the Law and the Prophets (See Rom 3:21). In what part of the year, then, could the observance of Lent be more fittingly established than next to and contiguous with the Lord's passion? Because in it is signified this laborious life, for which there is need of continence, that we may fast from the friendship of the world itself; which surely ceases not to flatter deceitfully, and to scatter about and toss the painted colors of its enticements. But I think this life is figured by the number forty for this reason: that the number ten, in which is the perfection of our blessedness—as in the number eight, because it returns to the first, so in this, because the creature, which is figured by the number seven, cleaves to the Creator, in whom the unity of the Trinity is declared—was announced temporally throughout the whole world, because the world is both delineated from the four winds, and raised up from the four elements, and varied by the turns of the four seasons of the year. But ten times four are consummated in forty; but the number forty, reckoned by its parts, adds the number ten itself, and they become fifty, as it were the reward of labor and continence. For not in vain did the Lord himself both abide forty days after the resurrection on this earth and in this life with the Disciples, and, after he ascended into heaven, ten days being interposed, sent the promised Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost being completed: which fiftieth day has another sacrament, that seven times seven make forty-nine; and when one returns to the beginning, which is the eighth, which is also the first day, fifty are completed; which are celebrated after the Lord's resurrection, now in the figure not of labor, but of quiet and gladness. On this account both the fasts are relaxed, and we pray standing, which is a sign of the resurrection. Whence also on all the Lord's days this is observed at the altar, and Alleluia is sung, which signifies that our future action will be nothing but to praise God, as it is written: Blessed are those who dwell in your house, Lord; forever and ever they will praise you (Ps 84:4 (83:5)).

16. 29. But the fifty days are commended also in the Scriptures; and not only in the Gospel, because then the Holy Spirit came, but also in the old Books. For there too, after they had celebrated the Passover, the lamb being killed, fifty days are numbered up to the day on which the Law was given on Mount Sinai to Moses the servant of God, written by the finger of God: but in the books of the Gospel it is most openly declared that the finger of God signifies the Holy Spirit. For when one evangelist had said: By the finger of God I cast out demons (Luke 11:20); another said this same thing thus: By the Spirit of God I cast out demons (Matt 12:28). Who would not prefer this gladness of the divine sacraments, when they grow bright with the light of sound doctrine, to all the empires of this world, even though pacified with an unusual felicity? Do not the two Seraphim, as it were, cry to one another, singing together the praises of the Most High: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth (Isa 6:3); so do the two Testaments, faithfully agreeing, sing together the consecrated truth? The lamb is killed, the Passover is celebrated, and, fifty days being interposed, the Law is given, written for fear by the finger of God (See Exod 31:18). Christ is killed, who like a lamb was led to be sacrificed (See Isa 53:7), as Isaiah testifies, the true Passover is celebrated, and, fifty days being interposed, the Holy Spirit is given for love, who is the finger of God, contrary to men seeking their own things, and therefore bearing a harsh yoke and a heavy burden, and not finding rest for their souls; because love does not seek the things that are its own (1 Cor 13:5). Therefore the animosity of the heretics is always unquiet, whom the Apostle declares to have the attempt of the magicians of Pharaoh, saying: For as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these too resist the truth, men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith: but they will proceed no further; for their madness will be manifest to all, as theirs too was (2 Tim 3:8–9). For because through that very corruption of mind they were most unquiet, they failed at the third sign, confessing that the Holy Spirit who was in Moses was adverse to them. For, failing, they said: This is the finger of God (Exod 8:19). But just as the Holy Spirit, reconciled and appeased, grants rest to the meek and humble of heart, so, contrary and adverse, he agitates the unmeek and the proud with unquiet. Which unquiet those most brief flies signified, under which the magicians of Pharaoh failed, saying: This is the finger of God.

16. 30. Read Exodus, and see where they celebrated the Passover, after how many days the Law was given. God speaks to Moses in the desert of Sinai on the third day of the third month. Note, then, one day from the entrance of that third month, and see what he says among the rest: Go down, he says, testify to the people, and purify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready on the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before all the people (See Exod 19:10–11): then the Law was given, namely on the third day of the third month. Number, then, from the fourteenth day of the first month, on which the Passover was made, to the third day of the third month, and you will find seventeen days of the first month, thirty of the second, three of the third, which make fifty. The Law in the ark is the sanctification in the body of the Lord, through whose resurrection the future rest is promised to us, for receiving which love is inspired by the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). Whence that prophecy was sung: Arise, Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification (Ps 132:8 (131:8)). Where rest, there sanctification. Whence now, that we may love and desire, we have received a pledge. But all are called to the rest of the other life, to which one passes over from this life, which Pascha signifies, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (See Matt 28:19).

17. 31. Therefore the number fifty, multiplied by three, the number three itself being added for the eminence of the sacrament, is found also in those great fishes, which the Lord, after the resurrection demonstrating the new life, commanded to be lifted from the right side; nor were the nets broken (See John 21:6, 11), because then there will be no unquiet of the heretics. Then the man, perfect and quiet, purged in soul and body through the chaste oracles of the Lord—silver tried by fire from the earth, purged sevenfold (See Ps 12:6 (11:7))—will receive as reward the denarius (See Matt 20:9–10), so that there are seventeen. For in this number too, as in others exhibiting manifold figures, a wonderful sacrament is found. Nor undeservedly is the seventeenth psalm alone read entire in the books of Kingdoms (See 2 Sam 22); because it signifies that kingdom where we shall have no adversary. For its title is: On the day on which the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul (See Ps 18:1 (17:1)). For who is figured in David, except he who came according to the flesh from the seed of David (See Rom 1:3)? Who surely, in his body, which is the Church, still suffers enemies. Whence to that persecutor whom he struck down with his voice, and, transfixing into his own body, in a manner devoured, there sounded from heaven: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4) But when will this body of his be delivered from the hand of all his enemies, except when that last enemy, death, shall be destroyed (See 1 Cor 15:26)? To this time pertained that number of a hundred and fifty-three fishes. For the very number seventeen, rising into a triangle, completes the sum of a hundred and fifty-three. For rising from one to seventeen, add all the middle numbers, and you will find it: to one, namely, add two, they become three; add three, they become six; add four, they become ten; add five, they become fifteen; add six, they become twenty-one; add thus the rest, and the seventeenth itself, they become a hundred and fifty-three.

17. 32. These things are most firmly held from the Scriptures, that is, Easter and Pentecost. For that those forty days before Easter be observed, the custom of the Church has strengthened; so too that the eight days of the Neophytes be distinguished from the rest, that is, that the eighth sing together with the first. But that Alleluia be sung in the Church through those fifty days alone is not everywhere observed: for on other days too it is variously sung here and there; but on those days everywhere. But whether it be observed everywhere that we pray standing on those days and on all Lord's days, I do not know: yet what the Church follows in it, I have said as I could, and I judge it to be manifest.

18. 33. But about the washing of feet, since the Lord commended this on account of the form of humility, for the teaching of which he came, as he himself consequently set forth (See John 13:14–15), it has been asked at what time so great a thing should especially be taught even by deed, and that time occurred on which the very commendation might more religiously inhere. But lest it should seem to pertain to the sacrament of baptism itself, many were unwilling to receive this into custom. Some even did not hesitate to remove it from custom. But others, that they might both commend this at a more sacred time, and distinguish it from the sacrament of baptism, chose either the third day of the octave, because the number three too excels in many sacraments, or even the eighth itself, on which to do this.

18. 34. I wonder, indeed, why you so wished that I should write you something about those things which are variously observed through diverse places, when it is both not necessary, and one most wholesome rule in these is to be retained: that those things which are not against the faith, nor against good morals, and have something toward the exhortation of a better life, wherever we see them instituted, or learn that they have been instituted, we not only not disapprove, but even, by praising and imitating, follow—if the weakness of some does not so hinder that there be more detriment. For if it should so hinder that greater gains of the zealous are to be hoped for than the detriments of the calumniators are to be feared, it is without doubt to be done, especially that which can also be defended from the Scriptures; as about the singing of hymns and psalms, since we have both the examples and the precepts of the Lord himself and of the Apostles. About this matter, so useful for moving the mind piously, and kindling the affection of divine love, the custom is various, and most of the members of the Church in Africa are rather sluggish: so that the Donatists reproach us, because we soberly sing in church the divine canticles of the Prophets, while they inflame their drunkennesses to the singing of psalms composed by human talent, as if to the trumpets of exhortation. But when is it not the time, when brothers are gathered in church, of singing holy things, except when there is reading, or disputing, or the prelate prays with a clear voice, or common prayer is announced by the voice of the deacon?

19. 35. But at other little portions of the times, what better thing could be done by gathered Christians, what more useful, what holier, I do not see at all. But that which is instituted contrary to custom, as though it were the observance of a sacrament, I cannot approve, even if I do not dare more freely to disapprove many things of this kind, on account of avoiding the scandals of certain persons, whether holy or turbulent. But this I grieve over too much, that many things which are most wholesomely commanded in the divine books are less cared for; and all things are so full of so many presumptions, that one is more grievously rebuked who has touched the earth with a bare foot during his octave, than one who has buried his mind in wine-drinking. All such things, therefore, which are neither contained in the authorities of the holy Scriptures, nor found established in the councils of bishops, nor strengthened by the custom of the universal Church, but are innumerably varied according to the diverse motions of diverse places, so that the causes can scarcely or never at all be found which men followed in instituting them, I judge are, where the opportunity is given, to be cut away without any doubt. For although neither this can be found, in what way they are against the faith; yet they press down religion itself—which the mercy of God willed to be free with the very fewest and most manifest sacraments of celebrations—with servile burdens, so that the condition of the Jews is more tolerable, who, even if they did not recognize the time of freedom, are yet subjected to legal burdens, not to human presumptions. But the Church of God, established amid much chaff and many tares (See Matt 13:25, 30), tolerates many things, and yet does not approve those which are against the faith or a good life, nor is silent about them, nor does them.

20. 36. And so that which you wrote, that certain brothers so abstain from eating meats that they think them unclean, is most openly against the faith and sound doctrine. From this, then, if I should wish to dispute longer, it could be thought by some that the Apostle commanded this obscurely; who even, among the many things he said about this matter, so detested the impious opinion of the heretics as to say: But the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, attending to spirits of seduction and to doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars, having their conscience cauterized, forbidding to marry, to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by those who have known the truth: because every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer (1 Tim 4:1–5). And in another place he speaks of these matters: All things are clean to the clean; but to the unclean and to unbelievers nothing is clean; but both their mind and their conscience are polluted (Titus 1:15). You yourself, read the rest, and recite it to those to whom you can, that they may not make void in themselves the grace of God, because they were called to freedom; only let them not take up freedom as an occasion for the flesh (See Gal 5:13), and therefore now refuse, for the sake of restraining the desire of the flesh, to abstain from any foods, because it is not permitted them to do so superstitiously and unbelievingly.

20. 37. But those who read lots from the gospel pages, even though it is to be wished that they do this rather than run to consult demons; yet this custom too displeases me, to wish to turn the divine oracles, which speak about another life, to secular business and to the vanity of this life.

21. 38. If you do not think these things sufficient for what you have asked, you are too ignorant both of my strength and of my occupations. For I am so far from that which you supposed, that nothing escapes me, that I have read nothing more saddening in your letter, because it is also most openly false; and I marvel that this escapes you, that not only in countless other matters do many things escape me, but even in the holy Scriptures themselves I do not know far more than I know. But for this reason I bear a hope not unfruitful in the name of Christ, because I not only have believed my God that on those two precepts the whole Law and the Prophets hang (See Matt 22:40), but have also experienced it, and experience it daily; since no sacrament, or any discourse rather obscure of the sacred writings, is opened to me, where I do not find those same precepts: For the end of the precept is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5); and love is the fullness of the law (Rom 13:10).

21. 39. And so you too, most beloved, whether these things or others, so read, so learn, that you remember it was most truly said: Knowledge puffs up, love builds up (1 Cor 8:1). But love is not jealous, is not puffed up (See 1 Cor 13:4). So, then, let knowledge be applied as a certain scaffold, by which the structure of love may rise, which abides forever, even when knowledge will be destroyed (See 1 Cor 13:8); which, applied to the end of love, is much useful; but of itself, without such an end, is not only superfluous, but even proved harmful. But I know how a holy thought guards you under the shade of the wings of the Lord our God. Yet for this reason I have admonished these things, though briefly, because I know that that same love of yours, which is not jealous, will give and read this letter to many.

LETTER 56
To the excellent lord and deservedly honorable and most beloved son Celer, Augustine

1. I am not unmindful of my promise and of your wish. But since by necessity I set out to visit the churches belonging to my care, and could not at once render the debt by myself: yet I did not wish to owe it to you longer, since it could be repaid even with me away. Accordingly I have delegated to my most beloved son, the presbyter Optatus, that at those hours which you see to be more opportune for you, he read with you the things I promised: when he has perceived that the whole can be done, your Excellence too, however gratefully you receive this, he will urge to do as tirelessly and keenly. But how much I love you, and how I would wish you to be delighted and exercised in wholesome studies in the knowledge of divine and human things, I believe you very well understand.

2. If you do not spurn the love of my duty, I hope, in the Christian faith itself and in the morals befitting your person, now so constituted, that you will have such advances that the last day of this smoke or temporal vapor, which is called human life, which no mortal is granted to escape, you may await—whether eager, or secure, or at least not despairingly anxious—not in the vanity of error, but in the solidity of truth. For as certain as it is to you that you live, so certain let it be, by wholesome teaching, that this life which is spent in temporal delights, in comparison with the eternal life which is promised to us through Christ and in Christ, is to be reckoned not life but death. But in no way would I doubt of your character, that you will most easily extricate yourself from that custom of the Donatists, if you most religiously do not lightly esteem Christian purity itself. For by what unshaken foundations of documents that error is convicted, it is no great matter even for those slow of talent to perceive thoroughly, if only they listen patiently and attentively. But to follow an unaccustomed rightness, to break off the bond of an accustomed and as it were familiar perversity, is for greater strength. And by no means is one to despair, with our Lord God himself aiding and exhorting, concerning your noble freedom and plainly manly breast. May the mercy of our Lord God keep you unharmed, excellent lord and deservedly honorable and most beloved son.

LETTER 57
To the most beloved lord and deservedly honorable and to-be-received son Celer, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. That there was no just cause why the party of Donatus should cut itself off from the world of lands, throughout which the catholic Church is spread according to the prophetic and evangelical promises, I believe that your prudence, considering it the more, most easily understands. About which matter, if a more diligent disputation is necessary, I remember that I gave to your benevolence a book to read, when my most dear—your son, my Caecilius—had intimated that you had asked for it; which book was with you for not a few days. Which, if from zeal for knowing this matter, or amid your occupations, you either wished or were able to read, I do not doubt that your prudence has found that they have nothing they can probably contradict. And if anything perhaps still moves you, as far as God grants and allows, perhaps we shall be able to answer your asking, or likewise to give something to read, most beloved lord and deservedly honorable and to-be-received son.

2. Wherefore I ask that you more diligently commend the catholic unity to the region of Hippo, to your men, especially to Paternus and Maurusius. I know the vigilance of your heart, nor is there need, I think, to write more; since, if you wish, you can most easily learn both what others take care of and guard against on your estates, and what is done in your affairs. That there is in your affairs—it has been very strongly affirmed to me—a friend with whom I desire to be in concord; I ask that you favor this matter, so that you may have both great praise among men and a great reward with God: for already he had sent me word, through a certain Carus, a go-between of us both, that he feared lest some violent men of his prevent him from doing it, whom in your affairs and with your favor he will not be able to fear; nor ought you yourself to love in him not constancy, but plainly obstinacy. For it is shameful to change an opinion, but a true and right one; for a foolish and harmful one, it is both praiseworthy and wholesome. But just as constancy does not allow a man to be depraved, so obstinacy does not allow him to be corrected: accordingly, just as the former is to be praised, so the latter is to be amended. The presbyter whom I have sent will more plainly intimate the rest to your prudence. May the mercy of God keep you unharmed and happy, most beloved lord and deservedly honorable and to-be-received son.

LETTER 58
To the excellent lord and deservedly to-be-received and, in the bowels of Christ, most beloved son Pammachius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. Your good works, germinating by the grace of Christ, have made you to be honored by us in his members, and plainly most known and most beloved. For if I saw your face daily, you would not be more known to me than when I beheld your inner self, beautiful with the comeliness of peace and radiant with the light of truth, in the brightness of one deed of yours; I beheld and recognized it, recognized and loved it. To this self I now speak, to this I write, to my beloved friend, who, though absent, became known to me, body absent. Yet now we were together at once, and joined under one head we lived, in whose love unless you were rooted, catholic unity would not be so dear to you, nor would you admonish your African tenants—settled in that land of the earth whence the fury of the Donatists arose, that is, established in the midst of consular Numidia—with such an address, and animate them with so great a fervor of spirit, that with the readiest devotion they chose to follow that which they considered that they should follow such and so great a man as you only when the truth was recognized, and, so far removed from you by intervals of place, should go under the same head, and in his members be reckoned forever with you, by whose precept they serve you temporally.

2. In this deed of yours, then, embracing you, recognized, I exulted, that I might congratulate you in Christ Jesus our Lord, and send you this congratulatory letter as some token of my heart and love toward you; for I could not do more. But I ask that you not measure by this alone how much I love you: when you have read it through, pass over this letter by that invisible passing-over which is made within, and proceed, by thinking, into my breast, and discern what is being done there about you. For the chamber of love will lie open to the eye of love, which we shut against the tumultuous trifles of the age, when there we adore God; and you will see there the delights of my gladness over so good a deed of yours, which I am not able to utter by tongue nor express by pen, glowing and blazing in the sacrifice of his praise, by whose inspiring you willed this, and by whose aid you were able. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift (2 Cor 9:15).

3. O of how many senators together with you, and likewise sons of the holy Church, do we desire such a work in Africa, of the kind we rejoice over in yours! But it is dangerous to exhort them, secure to congratulate you. For they perhaps will not do it, and, as though the enemies of the Church had conquered us in their mind, will lie in wait to deceive the weak. But you have already done that whence the enemies of the Church, the weak being freed, are confounded. Accordingly it has seemed sufficient that you yourself, with a friendly confidence, read this letter to those to whom you can by Christian right. For thus, from your deed, they will believe that it can be done in Africa, which perhaps, while they think it cannot be done, they grow sluggish over. But the ambushes which the heretics themselves with distorted heart plot, since I laughed that they thought they availed anything in the possession of Christ, I did not wish even to write to your mind. Yet you will hear these things from my brothers, whom I much commend to your Excellence, lest in so great and so unhoped-for a salvation of men, over whom, through you, the Catholic mother exults, you spurn even those fearing superfluous things.

LETTER 59
To the most blessed and venerable lord, father and fellow priest Victorinus, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. The circular letter came to me on the fifth day before the Ides of November, the day being already ended, and found me very much indisposed, so that I could not come at all. Nevertheless, whether it has moved my inexperience, or whether I am justly moved, it is for your Holiness and Gravity to judge. I read in the same circular letter that it was written also to the Mauretanias, which provinces we know have their own primates. But if from them too a council was to be convoked to Numidia, it surely behooved that the names of some of the Moorish bishops, who there are the senior ones, be set in the circular letter; which, not finding in this circular letter, I greatly wondered. Then, to the Numidians themselves it was written with the order so disturbed and neglected, that I found my name in the third place, who know how long after many bishops I was made. Which thing is both injurious enough to others, and invidious to me. Besides, our venerable brother and colleague, Xantippus of Tagosa, says that since the primacy itself befalls him, he is both so regarded by very many, and sends such letters. Which error too, even if it can easily be known and corrected among your Holiness, yet his name ought not to have been passed over in the circular letter which your Venerability sent. But if it were written in the middle places, and not set in the first, I would greatly wonder; how much more is it to be wondered at that no mention was made to you of him, who most of all ought to come to the council, that concerning the very order of the primacy, before all the bishops of the Churches of the Numidians, the primacy might be dealt with?

2. For these causes I would even hesitate to come, lest perhaps the circular letter be false, by which so great a perversity appears; although both the strait of time and other grave necessities hinder me in manifold ways. Whence I ask your Blessedness to pardon me, and first to deign to insist that between your Holiness and old Xantippus it be settled concordantly which of you ought to convoke the council: or surely—which I judge more wholesome—without anyone's prejudice, do you both convoke our colleagues, especially those who are near to you in age of episcopate, who may easily recognize which of you speaks the truth, so that among you few that same question may be settled before the rest, and, the error removed, the lesser ones may be convoked by the rest, who can neither nor ought, except to believe you in this matter as the senior ones, and now do not know which of you they should especially believe. This letter I have sent sealed with the ring which depicts the face of a man looking to the side.

LETTER 60
To the most blessed lord and, with due observance, venerable, and most sincerely dear brother and fellow priest, pope Aurelius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. I have received no letter of your Venerability, from the time when we parted bodily from one another. But now I have read the letter of your Kindness about Donatus and his brother, and what I should answer I have long wavered over. But yet, thinking again and again what is useful to the salvation of those whom, to be nourished in Christ, we serve, nothing else could occur to me except that this way ought not to be given to the servants of God, that they should think themselves more easily chosen for something better, if they have become worse. For both an easy fall comes to them, and a most unworthy injury is done to the order of the clergy, if deserters of the monasteries are chosen for the service of the clergy, since from those who remain in the monastery we are nevertheless wont to take into the clergy none but the more approved and better: unless perhaps, as the common folk say: A bad piper is a good chorus-singer; so those same common folk will joke about us, saying: A bad monk is a good clergyman. It is too much to be grieved, if we raise up monks to so ruinous a pride, and think the clergy worthy of so grave an insult, in whose number we are; when sometimes even a good monk scarcely makes a good clergyman, if there be in him sufficient continence, and yet there be lacking the necessary instruction, or the integrity of a regular person.

2. But about these I believe your Blessedness has judged that by our will, that they might rather be useful to their own fellow countrymen, they had withdrawn from the monastery: but it is false; they went of their own accord, deserted of their own accord, we resisting, as much as we could, for their salvation. And about Donatus indeed, because it has now been done, that before we settled anything about this matter in council, he was ordained, if perhaps he has been corrected from the perversity of pride, let your prudence do what it wishes. But about his brother, on whose account most of all Donatus himself too withdrew from the monastery, although you understand what I feel, I do not know what to answer. Yet I do not dare to contradict your prudence, honor, and love; and indeed I hope that you will do that which you perceive to be wholesome for the members of the Church.

LETTER 61
To his most beloved brother Theodore, Augustine

1. When your Benevolence spoke with me, how we should receive clergy from the party of Donatus, if they should wish to be catholics, it pleased me to express also in this letter given to you that which I answered you, so that, if anyone should question you about this matter, you may show, even brought forth in my hand, what we feel or do about this matter. Know, then, that we detest in them nothing but their dissension itself, through which they have become schismatics or heretics, because they do not hold the unity and truth of the catholic Church, in that they do not have peace with the people of God, which is spread throughout the whole world of lands, and in that in men they do not recognize the Baptism of Christ. We disapprove, then, the evil error of theirs which they have; but the good name of God which they have, and his sacrament, we recognize in them, and venerate, and embrace. But for this reason we grieve over them as they err, and desire to gain them for God through the love of Christ, that the holy sacrament which outside the Church they have for ruin, in the peace of the Church they may have for salvation. If, then, the evils of men be taken out of the way, and the good things of God be honored in men; there will be brotherly concord, and lovable peace, that in the hearts of men the love of Christ may conquer the persuasion of the devil.

2. And so, when they come to us from the party of Donatus, we do not receive their evils, that is, dissension and error, but these are taken out of the way as impediments to concord, and we embrace our brothers, standing with them, as the Apostle says, in the unity of the spirit, in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:3), and recognizing in them the good things of God, whether holy Baptism, or the blessing of Ordination, or the profession of continence, or the consecration of virginity, or the faith of the Trinity, and whatever else there is: all which, even if they were present, yet profited nothing, when love was not there (See 1 Cor 13:1–3). But who truly says that he has the love of Christ, when he does not embrace his unity? When, then, they come to the Catholic Church, they do not here receive what they had; but that what they had may begin to profit them, they receive here what they did not have. For here they receive the root of love in the bond of peace, and in the fellowship of unity; that all the sacraments of truth which they have may avail them not for damnation, but for liberation. For the branches ought not to boast, because they are not the wood of thorns, but of the vine (See John 15:5). For if they do not live in the root, they will be cast into the fire with all their appearance. But about certain broken branches the Apostle said that God is able to graft them in again (Rom 11:23). And therefore, most beloved brother, whomever of them you see perhaps doubting in what order they are received by us, show them this my hand which you know well, and if they should wish to have it with them, let them have it; because I make God a witness upon my soul, that I will so receive them, that they may not only have the Baptism of Christ which they received, but also the honor of consecration and of continence.

LETTER 62
To the most blessed and venerably dearest and most sincere lord, brother and fellow priest Severus, and the brothers who are with you, Alypius, Augustine, and Samsucius, and the brothers who are with us, send greeting in the Lord

1. When we had come to Subsana, and were inquiring into the things which had there been done in our absence against our will; some things as we had heard, but some done otherwise, all however to be grieved over and to be tolerated, as the Lord helped us, partly by chiding, partly by admonishing, partly by praying, we corrected. That indeed which, after your Holiness's departure, saddened us most, that the brothers were sent from there without a guide for the journey, we ask you to pardon, and to know it was done more timidly than maliciously. For when they thought that they were sent by our son Timothy for this purpose, especially to provoke your Charity against us to anger, but themselves wished to keep all things intact for our arrival, which they hoped would be with you, they thought they would not set out if they did not receive a guide for the journey. But yet that it was a sin, who doubts? Hence too it came about that it was even said to Fossor that Timothy had now set out with those same brothers; which surely was false: yet not said by the presbyter; and that brother Carcedonius was wholly ignorant of all these things has been most manifestly declared to us, as far as these things are wont to be made manifest.

2. But why should we delay with more words? Our aforesaid son Timothy, most vehemently disturbed because, most unwilling, he had felt so unexpected a doubt, indicated to us that when you were dealing with him that he should serve God at Subsana, he burst out and swore that he would by no means withdraw from you. And when we inquired into his will, he answered that he was hindered by this oath from being where we wished him to be even before; especially since he is now secure about the manifestation of his freedom. And when we had disclosed to him that he would not be guilty of perjury, if not through him, but through you it came about that, on account of avoiding scandal, he could not be with you; since he could swear not about your will, but about his own, nor did he confess that you had in turn sworn anything to him; at last he said, what a servant of God, a son of the Church, ought to say, that whatever it should please us, with your Holiness, to be done about him, that he would without doubt follow. Accordingly we ask, and through the love of Christ beseech your prudence, that you remember all the things we have spoken, and gladden us with your reply. For we, the firmer ones (if indeed amid such great perils of temptations this must be dared to say), ought, as the Apostle says, to sustain the burdens of the weak (See Rom 15:1). Brother Timothy did not write to your Holiness for this reason, because your holy brother indicated all the things that were done. Mindful of us, may you glory in the Lord, most blessed and venerably dearest and most sincere lord and brother.

LETTER 63
To the most blessed and venerable lord, and to be embraced with most sincere love, brother and fellow priest Severus, and the brothers who are with you, Augustine, and the brothers who are with me, send greeting in the Lord

1. If I say the things which the very cause compels me to say, where will be the solicitude of love? But if I do not say them, where will be the freedom of friendship? Yet, wavering meanwhile, I have chosen to clear myself rather than to accuse you. You wrote that you wonder that we, with our grief, wished to tolerate what could have been amended by correction: as though things ill done are not to be grieved over, even if afterward, as far as they can be, they are corrected; or as though that is not most of all to be tolerated which, when it is manifest that it was done amiss, cannot be made undone. Cease therefore to wonder, most sincere brother. For Timothy was ordained subdeacon at Subsana, against my counsel and will; while what should be done about him, deliberation still wavered amid our alternating opinions. Behold, I still grieve, although he has now returned to you; in which we do not repent of having obeyed your will.

2. Hear also what by chiding, what by admonishing, what by praying we corrected, even before he had set out from here; lest it still seem to you on that account that nothing was then corrected by us, because he himself had not yet returned to you. By chiding we corrected, first the man himself who did not obey you, that, brother Carcedonius being unconsulted, he set out before to your Holiness, whence the origin of this our tribulation arose; then the presbyter and Verinus, through whom we learned that it was done that he was ordained. For when, we chiding, all confessed that all these things were not rightly done, and asked that they be pardoned; we would act too proudly, if we did not believe them to be corrected. For neither could they bring it about that the things were not done; but neither did we, by chiding, do anything else, except that they might recognize and grieve that they had done amiss. But by admonishing we corrected, first all, that henceforth they not dare such things, lest they experience the wrath of God: then especially Timothy, who said that by an oath alone he was compelled to go to your Charity; that, if your Holiness, as we hoped it would be, considering the things we had spoken together, on account of the scandal of the weak, for whom Christ died, and on account of the discipline of the Church, which they perilously neglect, since here he had already begun to be a reader, should not wish him to be with you; he, now free from the bond of the oath, might with a most even mind serve God, to whom we are to render an account of our acts. Brother Carcedonius himself too, as much as we could, by admonishing we had brought to this, that he himself too should most patiently accept whatever the provision and necessity of preserving ecclesiastical discipline should compel to be done about him. But by praying we had corrected ourselves, that we might commend both the governings and the outcomes of our counsels to the mercy of God, and, if any indignation had bitten us, by fleeing under his medicinal right hand, be healed. Behold how many things, partly by chiding, partly by admonishing, partly by praying, we had corrected.

3. And now, considering the bond of love, that we not be possessed by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices (See 2 Cor 2:11), what else ought we to do but obey your will, who thought that what was done could not be corrected, unless he, in whom you complain that an injury was done to you, were restored to your right? This too brother Carcedonius himself, although not without a not-light disturbance of mind, about which I ask that you pray for him, yet, thinking of Christ in you, did with equanimity. And when I still thought it should be considered whether, Timothy remaining with us, I should send another letter to your Brotherliness; he himself feared your fatherly commotion; and cut short my deliberation, not only allowing, but even insisting, that Timothy be restored to you.

4. But I, brother Severus, leave my cause to your judgment. For I am certain that Christ dwells in your heart; through whom I beseech you that you consult him, presiding over your mind subject to him, whether a man who, in the church committed to my dispensation, had already begun to read, and not once, but a second and a third time, had read at Subsana—accompanied also by the presbyter of the Church of Subsana—and at Turres, and at Cizan, and at Verbalis, can or ought to be judged not to have been a reader. And just as we corrected, by God's bidding, what was afterward done with us unwilling; so do you too, by the same one bidding, similarly correct what was first done without your knowing. For I do not fear lest you understand too little how great an entrance is opened to dissolving the order of ecclesiastical discipline, if the clergyman of another Church should swear to anyone that he will not withdraw from him, while he allows him to be with him, affirming that he does this lest he be the author of his perjury; whereas surely he who will not allow this, will not permit the man to remain with him either, because he could swear about himself, not about another, and he himself keeps the peaceful rule without any reproach.

LETTER 64
To his most beloved brother and fellow presbyter Quintian, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. We do not disdain to look upon bodies less beautiful, especially since our own souls are not yet beautiful, as we hope they will be, when he, ineffably beautiful, shall appear to us, in whom now, not seeing him, we believe: for then we shall be like him, since we shall see him as he is (See 1 John 3:2). Which we admonish that you too feel about your soul, if you receive me gladly and as a brother, and not presume that it is beautiful, but, as the Apostle prescribes, rejoice in hope, and do what follows; for thus he says: Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation; for by hope we were saved (Rom 12:12; 8:24); as again the same man himself says: But hope that is seen is not hope: for what anyone sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience (Rom 8:24–25). Let this patience not fail in you, and in a good conscience wait for the Lord, and act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Ps 27:14 (26:14)).

2. It is indeed manifest that if you came to us, not in communion with the venerable bishop Aurelius, neither could you communicate with us; but we would do this with that love with which we do not doubt that he too does it. Nor yet on that account would your arrival be burdensome to us; because you too ought to do this with an even mind for the discipline of the Church, especially with your conscience safe, which you and God know. For neither did he, if he deferred your cause to be discussed, do it from hatred of you, and not from his own necessities; which, if you knew them as you know your own, you would neither wonder nor be saddened. Which we ask you also to believe about ours, because you likewise cannot know them. But there are bishops greater than we, and worthier in authority, and nearer in place, through whom you can more easily pursue the causes of the Church belonging to your care. Nor yet did I keep silent, before the venerable—and, by the due honor for his merits, to-be-received—brother and colleague of mine, the old man Aurelius, your tribulation and the complaint of your letter; but through a copy of your letter I took care to convey your innocence to him. But your letter I received either the day before or two days before the Lord's Birthday, when you intimated that he was about to come to the Church of Badesilis, by which you fear that the people of God will be troubled and corrupted. Wherefore by letter indeed I do not dare to address your people; but to write back to those who write to me, I could: but to write of my own accord to a people which is not committed to my dispensation, whence could I?

3. Nevertheless, what I say to you alone, who wrote to me, let it reach, through you yourself, to those to whom it is needful to be said. You yourselves, first, do not put the Church into scandal, by reading among the peoples scriptures which the ecclesiastical canon has not received; for with these the heretics, and especially the Manichees, are wont to overturn unskilled minds, whom I hear lie hidden gladly in your field. I wonder, then, at your prudence, that you admonished me that I should bid that those not be received who come to us from you to the monastery, that what was established by us in council might remain; and you do not remember that it was instituted in council which are the canonical Scriptures which ought to be read among the people of God. Review, then, the council, and commend to memory all things which you read there; and there too you will find that it was established only about clergy, not also about laymen, that those coming from anywhere not be received into a monastery. Not because mention was made of a monastery; but because it was so instituted, that no one receive another's clergyman. But in a recent council it was established that those who withdraw from any monastery, or are expelled, become neither elsewhere clergy nor superiors of monasteries. If, then, something has moved you about Privatio, know that he has not yet been received by us into a monastery; but I have sent his cause to the old man Aurelius, that what he shall establish about him, this I may do. For I wonder whether one can already be reckoned a reader who has only once read scriptures even not canonical. For if on that account he is now an ecclesiastical reader, surely that scripture too is ecclesiastical. But if that scripture is not ecclesiastical, whoever reads it, even though in church, is not an ecclesiastical reader. Yet about this young man, what shall seem good to the said prelate, this I ought to observe.

4. But the people of Vegesela, most dear with you to us in the bowels of Christ (See Phil 1:8), if they have been unwilling to receive a bishop degraded in a plenary council of Africa, will do it with a sound head, and can neither be compelled, nor ought to be. And whoever shall violently compel them, will show what sort of man he is; and will make it understood what sort he was before, when he wished nothing evil to be believed about himself. For no one is so betrayed as to what sort of cause he had, as he who, through secular powers, or any violences whatever, with disturbance and complaint, tries to recover the honor which he lost. For he does not wish to serve Christ who wills it, but to lord it over Christians who do not will it. Brothers, be cautious: the devil is very crafty; but Christ is the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24).

LETTER 65
To the most blessed and venerably to-be-received lord, father and fellow priest, the old man Xantippus, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. With the duty owed to your merits, greeting your Dignity, and much commending myself to your prayers, I intimate to your prudence that a certain Abundantius was ordained presbyter on the estate of Strabonia belonging to our care. Who, since he did not walk the ways of the servants of God, had begun to have a not good reputation; by which I, terrified, yet not rashly believing anything, but plainly made more solicitous, took pains, if in any way I could, to come to some certain indications of his evil conduct. And first I learned that he had embezzled the money of a certain rustic, deposited with him for a religious purpose, so that he could render no probable account thereof. Then he was convicted and confessed that, on the fast day of the Lord's Birthday, on which also the Church of Gippi, like the rest, was fasting, when, as if about to set out to his own Church, he had said farewell to his colleague, the presbyter of Gippi, about the fifth hour, and, having no clergyman with him, he stayed on the same estate, and both lunched and supped at the house of a certain woman of evil reputation, and remained in the same house. But in this woman's lodging a certain clergyman of ours of Hippo had already been removed; and this, because this man knew well, he could not deny. For the things he denied, I left to God, judging the things which he was not permitted to hide. I feared to entrust the Church to him, especially established amid the rage of the heretics barking around. And when he asked me to give a letter, his case being intimated, to the presbyter of the estate of Armemane in the field of Bulla, whence he had come to us, lest he should suspect anything more atrocious about him, that he might live there, if it can be done, more corrected, without the office of the presbyterate, I, moved by mercy, did it. But this it especially behooved me to intimate to your prudence, lest some deceit creep upon you.

2. But I heard his cause when there were a hundred days to the Lord's Easter, which is to be on the eighth day before the Ides of April. This, on account of the council, I took care to intimate to your Venerability, which I did not conceal even from him, but faithfully disclosed to him what had been established: that if within a year he should neglect to plead his cause, if perhaps he thinks he has anything to do, henceforth let no one hear his voice. But we, most blessed lord and venerably to-be-received father, if we do not think these indications of the evil conduct of clergy—especially when a not good reputation has begun to accompany them—are to be punished except in that way which is established in council; we begin to be compelled to wish to discuss things which cannot be known, and either to condemn uncertain things, or to pass over things truly unknown. I, at least, judged that a presbyter—and one who, on a fast day, on which the Church of that same place too was fasting, saying farewell to his colleague, the presbyter of that same place, dared to remain at the house of a notorious woman, having no clergyman with him, and to lunch and sup, and to sleep in one house—was to be removed from the office of the presbyterate, fearing to entrust the Church of God to him henceforth. But if perhaps it seems otherwise to the ecclesiastical judges, because it was established in council that the cause of a presbyter be ended by six bishops, let him who wishes entrust to him the Church committed to his care: I, I confess, fear to entrust any people whatever to such men, especially those whom no good reputation defends, so that this could be pardoned them; lest, if anything more ruinous should burst forth, I, languishing, should impute it to myself.

LETTER 66
Augustine to Crispinus

1. You ought indeed to have feared God; but because, in rebaptizing the people of Mappala, you wished, like a man, to be feared, why should the royal command not avail in a province, if the command of a provincial availed so much on an estate? If you compare persons, you are a landholder, he an emperor. If you compare places, you are on an estate, he in a kingdom. If you compare causes, he that division may be repaired, you that unity may be divided. But we do not terrify you concerning man. For we could act so that you should pay ten pounds of gold according to the imperial commands. Or do you perhaps not have whence to pay what the rebaptizers are bidden to give, while you spend so much to buy those whom you rebaptize? But we, as I said, do not terrify you concerning man; let Christ rather terrify you. To whom I want to know what you answer, if he should say to you: Crispinus, was your price dear, for buying the fear of the people of Mappala, and my death cheap, for buying the love of all nations? Did that which was counted out from your worldly goods avail more for rebaptizing your tenants, than that which flowed from my side availed for baptizing my peoples? I know that you can hear more, if you lend your ear to Christ, and be admonished from your very possession how impiously you speak against Christ. For if by human right you presume that you firmly possess what you bought with your silver, how much more firmly by divine right does Christ possess what he bought with his blood! And he indeed will possess unshaken the whole, of whom it was said: He will have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the world of lands (Ps 72:8 (71:8)). But surely how do you trust that you will not lose what you seem to have bought in Africa, you who say that Christ, the whole world lost, has remained in Africa alone?

2. Why say much? If the people of Mappala crossed over to your communion of their own will, let them hear us both; so that what we say may be written down, and, subscribed by us, be interpreted to them in Punic, and, the fear of domination removed, let them choose what they will. For from the things we say it will appear whether, compelled, they remain in falsehood, or, willing, hold the truth. For if they do not understand these things, by what rashness did you lead over those who do not understand? But if they do understand, let them hear us both, as I said, and do what they will. If any peoples too have crossed over from you to us, whom you think compelled by their masters, let this be done there too; let them hear us both, and choose what shall please. But if you do not wish this to be done, to whom does it not appear that you do not presume upon the truth? But the wrath of God is to be feared, both here and in the future age. I adjure you by Christ, that you answer these things.

LETTER 67
To the most dear and most longed-for and, in Christ, to be honored brother and fellow presbyter Jerome, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. 1. I have heard that my letter has come into your hands; but, that I have not yet deserved a reply, I would by no means impute to your love: there was without doubt some impediment. Whence I recognize that the Lord is rather to be beseeched by me, that he give to your will the means of sending what you have written back: for the means of writing back he has already given, since, when you wish, you will most easily be able.

2. 2. This too, surely brought to me—whether indeed I should believe it I doubted; but whether I should write something about it too to you, I ought not to doubt: but it was told me that this was briefly suggested to your Charity by I know not what brothers, that I had written a book against you, and sent it to Rome. Know that this is false; I call our God to witness, that I have not done this. But if perhaps some things are found in some writings of mine, in which I am found to have felt something otherwise than you, I think you ought to recognize—not said against you, but what seemed to me written by me; or, if it cannot be recognized, to believe it. So indeed would I say this, that I am not only most ready, if anything in my writings has moved you, fraternally to accept what you feel against it, about to rejoice either in my correction or in your very benevolence; but I even demand and entreat this of you.

2. 3. Oh, if it had been permitted, even if not dwelling together, at least to enjoy you near in the Lord for frequent and sweet conversation! But because this was not given, I ask that you study to preserve this very thing, that in the Lord we are together as much as we can, and to increase and perfect it, and not to spurn replies, however rare. Greet, with my service, the holy brother Paulinianus, and all the brothers who rejoice with you and over you in the Lord. Mindful of us, may you be heard by the Lord in every holy desire of yours, most dear and most longed-for lord, and, in Christ, to be honored brother.

LETTER 68
To the truly holy and most blessed pope Augustine, Jerome, greeting in Christ

1. At the very moment of the departure of our holy son Asterius the subdeacon, my kinsman, the letter of your Blessedness arrived, in which you make satisfaction that you did not send a book against my littleness to Rome. This I had not even heard was done; but copies of a certain letter, as though written to me, came here through our brother Sisinnius the deacon. In which you exhort me to sing a palinode about a certain chapter of the Apostle, and to imitate Stesichorus, wavering between the vituperations and the praises of Helen; so that he who, by detracting, had lost his eyes, by praising recovered them (See Plato, Phaedrus 243a–b). I confess simply to your Dignity, that although the style and your arguments seemed to me to be yours, yet I thought I ought not rashly to trust copies of a letter; lest perhaps, being wounded by my answering, you should justly complain, that I ought first to have proved the discourse to be yours, and so to write back. There was added to the delay the long sickness of the holy and venerable Paula. For while we sit by her, long languishing, we have almost forgotten your letter, or of him who had written under your name, mindful of that little verse: Music in mourning is an untimely tale (See Sir 22:6). And so, if the letter is yours, write openly, or send truer copies, that without any rancor of stomach we may engage in the disputation of the Scriptures, and either amend our own error, or teach that another reproved in vain.

2. But far be it from me, that I should dare to touch anything of the books of your Blessedness. For it is enough for me to prove my own, and not to carp at another's. But your prudence knows very well, that each one abounds in his own sense (See Rom 14:5), and that it is of boyish boasting—which formerly young men were wont to do—to seek fame for one's own name by accusing illustrious men. Nor am I so foolish as to think myself wounded by the diversity of your explanations; because neither are you wounded, if we have felt contrary things. But this is the true reproach among friends, if, not seeing our own wallet, we consider, according to Persius, the pack of others (See Persius, Satires 4.24; cf. Matt 7:3). It remains that you love one loving you, and, a young man, do not provoke an old man in the field of the Scriptures. We have had our times, and we have run as much as we could. Now, while you run, and traverse the long spaces, leisure is owed to us: and at the same time (that I may say it with your leave and honor), lest you seem to me to have proposed something about the poets to me alone, remember Dares and Entellus (See Virgil, Aeneid 5.368–484), and the common proverb, that a tired ox plants its foot more firmly. These things we have dictated sadly. Would that we deserved your embraces, and by mutual conference might either teach something or learn!

3. Calphurnius, surnamed Lanarius, has sent me, with his accustomed rashness, his slanders, which I have learned, by his zeal, have reached Africa too. To which I have briefly answered in part; and I have sent you copies of his little book, intending to send a fuller work, when it shall be opportune, at the first opportunity. In which I took care of this, that I should wound no one's Christian reputation, but only that I might confute the lie and madness of a raving and unskilled man. Remember me, holy and venerable pope. See how much I love you, that I have been unwilling to answer even when provoked, nor do I believe that to be yours which I would perhaps reprove in another. Our common brother humbly greets you.

LETTER 69
To the deservedly most beloved lord, and worthily honorable and to-be-received son Castorius, Alypius and Augustine send greeting in the Lord

1. The adversary of Christians has indeed striven, through our most dear and most sweet son, your brother, to stir up a most perilous scandal against the Catholic mother, who received you into her pious bosom as you fled from the disinherited cutting-off into the inheritance of Christ; desiring, of course, to becloud with a foul sadness the serenity of our joy, which arose to us from the good of your conduct. But the Lord our God, merciful and compassionate (See Ps 103:8 (102:8)), consoling the afflicted, nourishing the little ones, healing the weak, permitted him to be able to do something to this end, that we should rejoice over the matter corrected much more than we grieved over it afflicted. For it is far more glorious to have laid down the burden of the episcopate for the sake of avoiding the perils of the Church, than to have taken it up for the sake of governing the helm. For he shows that he could worthily have received the honor, if the reasoning of peace allowed it, who, having received it, does not unworthily defend it. God therefore willed, even through your brother, our son Maximian, to show the enemies of his Church that there are in her bowels those who seek not their own things, but the things of Jesus Christ (See Phil 2:21). For he did not, overcome by some worldly desire, desert that ministry of the dispensation of the mysteries of God (See 1 Cor 4:1), but, moved by a peaceful piety, laid it down, lest on account of his honor a foul and perilous, or perhaps even ruinous, dissension should arise in the members of Christ. For what would be blinder and worthier of all execration than, for the sake of the peace of the catholic Church, to desert a schism, and to disturb that very catholic peace by the question of one's own honor? For what is more praiseworthy, and more conducive to Christian love, than, the mad pride of the Donatists left behind, so to cleave to the inheritance of Christ that the testimony of humility be proved by love of unity? And so, as far as concerns him, just as we rejoice to have found him such that the tempest of this temptation in no way overturned what the divine word built up in his heart: so we wish and beseech of the Lord, that by his subsequent life and morals he may more and more declare how well he would have administered that which he would surely administer, if it had been necessary. Let eternal peace, which has been promised to the Church, be repaid to him, who understood that it was not expedient for him which was not expedient for the peace of the Church.

2. But you, most dear son—no mean joy of ours, who are hindered by no such necessity from taking up the episcopate—it befits your character to dedicate to Christ in you what he gave. For your talent, prudence, eloquence, gravity, sobriety, and the rest by which your morals are adorned, are gifts of God. Whom do they better serve than him by whom they were bestowed, that they may be both guarded, and increased, and perfected, and rewarded? Let them not serve this age, lest they vanish with it and perish. We know that it must not be long dealt with you in this matter—with how great ease you consider the hopes of empty men, and insatiable desires, and uncertain life. Cast away, then, from your mind whatever it had conceived in the expectation of earthly and false happiness: work in the field of God (See 1 Cor 3:9), where the fruit is certain, where so many promises have been fulfilled so long beforehand, that those which remain are most insanely despaired of. We beseech you, by the divinity and humanity of Christ, by the peace of that heavenly city, whence we, on pilgrimage, by temporal labor procure eternal rest, that you succeed to the episcopate of the Church of Bagai for your brother, not falling ingloriously, but yielding gloriously. Let that people, to which, through your mind and tongue made fruitful and adorned by the gifts of God, we hope for the most abundant increases, understand in you that your brother did what he did not for his own sloth, but for its peace. We have ordered that this letter not be read to you, except when those to whom you are necessary already hold you. For we hold you by the bond of spiritual love, because you are very necessary also to our college. But why we have not displayed also our bodily presence, you will learn afterward.

LETTER 70
To the most beloved and honorable lord, brother Naucelio, Alypius and Augustine

1. When you had reported to us what was answered by your bishop Clarentius—that is, that about Felicianus of Musti he did not deny that he was both condemned by them, and afterward received into his honor, but that he was condemned innocent, because he was absent, and proved that he was absent; we say this, that he may answer to it, because it was not permitted to condemn unheard one whom they themselves now say to have been innocent, who condemned him. Either, then, an innocent man ought not to have been condemned, or a guilty man, condemned, ought not to have been received. If an innocent man was received, an innocent man was condemned; if a guilty man was condemned, a guilty man was received. If those who condemned him did not know whether he was innocent, they are to be charged with rashness, because they dared to condemn an unheard, innocent man, about whom they did not know; and from the present deed we understand that with the same rashness they condemned also the earlier men whom they defamed with the crime of betrayal. For if an innocent man could be condemned by them, those too could be called traitors by them who were not traitors.

2. Then the same Felicianus, condemned by them, communicated for a long time with Maximian; if he was innocent when he was condemned, why, at a later time, communicating with the wicked Maximian, did he baptize many outside their communion? They themselves are witnesses, who acted before the proconsul that the same Felicianus, as one with Maximian, should be excluded from the basilica. It was too little, then, to have condemned an absent man, to have condemned an unheard man, to have condemned, as they say, an innocent man; moreover, the proconsul too was approached against him, that he might be expelled from the church. Even then, when they were expelling him from the church, they confess that they reckoned him among the condemned and wicked and the Maximianists. When, then, that man baptized men, communicating with Maximian, did he give true baptism or false? If he who communicated with Maximian gave true baptism, why is the baptism of the world of lands accused? But if he gave false baptism, when he communicated with Maximian, why were those whom he baptized in the schism of Maximian received with him, and no one in your party rebaptized them?

LETTER 71
To the venerable and desirable holy lord, brother and fellow presbyter Jerome, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. 1. From the time I began to write to you and to desire your writings, no better occasion has ever occurred to me than that my letter should be brought to you through a servant and most faithful minister of God, and most dear to me, such as is our son Cyprian the deacon. Through him, surely, I so hope for your letters, that I could hope for nothing more certain in this kind of matters. For neither will zeal in asking for replies be lacking to our said son, nor grace in deserving them, nor diligence in guarding them, nor alacrity in conveying them, nor faith in delivering them: only if in any way I deserve it, let the Lord help, and be present to your heart and to my desire, that no greater will hinder your brotherly will.

1. 2. Since, then, I have already sent two letters, but have received none of yours afterward, I wished to send those same ones again, believing that they had not reached you. Which, even if they did reach you, and perhaps rather yours could by no means reach me, send again those very writings which you have already sent, if perhaps they were kept; but if not, dictate again what I may read, provided yet that you be not reluctant to answer these, which I have now long awaited. The first letter too, which I had prepared while still a presbyter to be sent to you through a certain brother of ours, Profuturus, who afterward, made our colleague, has now migrated from this life, and could not then himself convey it, because immediately, while he arranged to set out, he was detained by the burden of the episcopate, and then shortly after died, even now I wished to send; that you may know how long I have burned for your conversations, and what violence I suffer, that the senses of your body are so far away from me, through which my mind could approach your mind, my most sweet brother, and to be honored in the members of the Lord.

2. 3. But in this letter I add this, which we learned afterward, that Job was translated by you from the Hebrew, when we already had a certain translation, yours, of the same prophet turned from the Greek tongue into Latin: where, however, you marked with asterisks the things which are in the Hebrew and are lacking in the Greek; but with obelisks the things which are found in the Greek and are not in the Hebrew, with so marvelous a diligence, that in certain places we see, for single words, single stars, signifying that those same words are in the Hebrew, but are not in the Greek. But in this latter translation, which is turned from the Hebrew, the same fidelity of words does not occur, and it not a little disturbs one thinking, either why in that first one the asterisks are fixed with so great diligence, that they indicate even the smallest particles of speech to be lacking in the Greek codices, which are in the Hebrew; or why in this other, which is from the Hebrew, this was more negligently cared for, so that these same particles were found in their places. I wished to set down something thence, for example; but at the hour the codex which is from the Hebrew was lacking to me. Nevertheless, because you fly ahead by your talent, you sufficiently understand, as I think, not only what I have said, but even what I wished to say, so that, the cause being given, you may unfold what moves me.

2. 4. I, indeed, would rather that you translate for us the Greek canonical Scriptures, which are said to be of the Seventy translators. For it will be very hard, if your translation begins to be read more frequently through many churches, that the Latin churches should be dissonant from the Greek churches, especially because a contradictor is easily convicted by the Greek book being produced, that is, of the most well-known tongue. But whoever shall be moved by something unusual in that which is translated from the Hebrew, and shall bring a charge of falsehood, scarcely or never will one come to the Hebrew testimonies, by which the objection may be defended. But if one even comes to them, who would bear that so many Latin and Greek authorities be condemned? To this is added that even Hebrews, when consulted, can answer otherwise: so that you alone seem necessary, who can convince even them; but yet, by what judge it is a wonder if you can find.

3. 5. For a certain brother of ours, a bishop, when he had appointed your translation to be read in the church over which he presides, came upon something placed by you far otherwise in the prophet Jonah than was settled in the senses and memory of all, and chanted through so many successions of ages. So great a tumult was made in the people, especially with the Greeks arguing and inflaming the accusation of falsehood, that the bishop (for it was the city of Oea) was compelled to demand the testimony of the Jews. But they, whether through inexperience or malice, answered that this was in the Hebrew codices which both the Greeks and the Latins had and said. Why say more? The man was compelled, as it were to correct a fault, willing, after great peril, not to remain without a people. Whence it also seems to us that you too could sometimes be deceived in some things. And see what sort of thing this is, in those writings which cannot be amended by the testimonies of the customary tongues collated.

4. 6. Accordingly we give no small thanks to God for your work, by which you translated the Gospel from the Greek, because almost everywhere there is no offense, when we collate the Greek Scripture. Whence, if anyone, contentious, should favor the old falsehood, the codices being produced and collated, he is either most easily taught or refuted. And if certain most rare things deservedly move one, who is so hard that he would not easily pardon a labor so useful, to which it does not suffice to render the recompense of praise? But what seems to you, why in many things the authority of the Hebrew codices is one way, and that of the Greek which is called the Seventy's another, I would wish you to deign to open. For neither has that one a small weight, which deserved so to be spread abroad, and which the Apostles used, not only the thing itself indicates, but also I remember you to have attested. And thereby you will profit very much, if you restore to Latin truth that Greek Scripture which the Seventy wrought: which is so various in different codices that it can scarcely be borne; and so suspect, lest something else be found in the Greek, that one hesitates to produce or prove anything thence. I thought this letter would be brief; but somehow it has become so sweet to me to go on in it, as if I were speaking with you. But I beseech you, by the Lord, that it not weary you to answer all things, and to afford me, as far as you can, your presence.

LETTER 72
To the truly holy and most blessed pope Augustine, Jerome

1. 1. You direct frequent letters to me, and often compel me to answer a certain letter of yours, copies of which had come to me, as I have already written before, through Sisinnius the deacon, without your subscription, and which you indicate that you sent first through brother Profuturus, secondly through a certain other; and meanwhile Profuturus, drawn back from his journey, and made a bishop, was carried off by a swift death; that other, whose name you keep silent, feared the perils of the sea, and changed his plan of navigation. Since these things are so, I cannot sufficiently wonder how that same letter is said to be held by very many both at Rome and in Italy, and to me alone has not come, to whom alone it was sent; especially since the same brother Sisinnius said, among your other treatises, that he found it not in Africa, not with you, but on an island of the Adriatic, about five years before this.

1. 2. From friendship all suspicion is to be removed, and one must so speak with a friend as with a second self. Some of my familiars, and vessels of Christ, of whom at Jerusalem and in the holy places there is a very great abundance, suggested that this was done by you not with a simple mind, but seeking the praise and the petty rumors and the little glory of the people, that you might grow at our expense; that many might know that you provoke, I fear; that you write as a learned man, I keep silent as an unskilled one; and that there has at last been found one who imposes a limit on my garrulity. But I, to confess simply, for this reason first did not wish to answer your Dignity, because I did not clearly believe the letter to be yours, nor (as the common saying about certain things is) a sword smeared with honey. Then I was guarding against this, lest I should seem to answer impudently a bishop of my communion, and to reprove some things in the letter of one reproving; especially since I judged certain things in it to be heretical.

2. 3. Finally, lest you should justly complain and say, What then? you had seen my letter, and recognized the signs of a known hand in the subscription, so as so easily to wound a friend, and to turn another's malice into an insult to me? Therefore, as I have already written before, either send the same letter subscribed with your hand; or cease to provoke an old man hiding in his little cell. But if you wish either to exercise or to show off your learning, seek young men, and eloquent, and noble, of whom there are said to be very many at Rome, who can and dare to engage with you, and to bear the yoke with a bishop in the disputation of the holy Scriptures. I, once a soldier, now a veteran, ought to praise your victories and those of others, not myself again, with a worn-out body, do battle (See Virgil, Aeneid 12.439–440); lest, if you frequently urge me to write back, I recall that story, that Quintus Maximus broke Hannibal, youthfully exulting, by his patience (See Virgil, Aeneid 6.845–846). Age bears away all things, the mind too. Often, as a boy, I remember that I laid the long suns to rest with singing: now so many songs are forgotten by me; the voice too now flees Moeris himself (Virgil, Eclogues 9.51–54). And, to speak more from the holy Scriptures, that Barzillai the Gileadite, delegating to his young son the benefits of king David and all his delights, showed that old age ought not to seek these things, nor to take up what is offered (See 2 Sam 19:34–37).

2. 4. But as for your swearing that you did not write a book against me, nor send to Rome one you did not write, but that, if perhaps some things are found in your writings which differ from my sense, I was not wounded by you, but it was written by you what seemed right to you: I beg that you hear me patiently. You did not write a book; and how have writings of your reproach of me been brought to me through others? why does Italy have what you did not write? by what reasoning do you ask that I write back to those things which you deny that you wrote? Nor am I so dull that, if you have felt differently, I should think myself wounded by you. But if you reprove my words at close quarters, and demand a reason for my writings, and compel me to amend what I have written, and provoke me to a palinode, and restore my eyes to me; in this friendship is wounded, in this the rights of intimacy are violated. Lest we seem to contend childishly, and to give our partisans or detractors in turn material for contending; I write these things, because I desire to love you purely and in a Christian way, and to retain nothing in my mind which differs from my lips. For it is not fitting that, from adolescence even to this age, sweating with labor in a little monastery with holy brothers, I should dare to write anything against a bishop of my communion, and that bishop whom I began to love before I knew, who first provoked me to friendship, whom, rising in the learning of the Scriptures after me, I rejoiced over. Therefore either deny your book, if perhaps it is not yours, and cease to demand a reply to those things which you did not write; or, if it is yours, ingenuously confess it, so that if I write something in my own defense, the fault may be in you who provoked, not in me who was compelled to answer.

3. 5. You add besides that you are ready, if anything in your writings has moved me, or I should wish to correct it, to accept it as a brother, and not only will rejoice in my benevolence toward you, but beseech that I do this very thing. Again I say what I feel: you provoke an old man, you goad one who is silent, you seem to flaunt your learning. But it is not of my age to be thought ill-disposed toward one whom I ought rather to favor. And if in the Gospels and the Prophets perverse men find something on which to lean for reproach, do you wonder if in your books, and especially in the exposition of the Scriptures, which are most obscure, certain things seem to differ from the line of right? And this I say, not because I now judge that certain things in your works are to be reproved. For I have never given attention to reading them: nor is there with us an abundance of these copies, except the books of your Soliloquies, and certain Commentaries on the Psalms; which, if I wished to discuss, I would teach to differ—not from me, who am nothing, but from the translations of the ancient Greeks. Farewell, my friend, most dear, in age a son, in dignity a parent: and observe this, asked of me by you, that whatever you write to me, you cause to come to me first.

LETTER 73
To the venerable and most longed-for lord and brother, fellow presbyter Jerome, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. 1. Although I think that, before you received these, my letter had come into your hands, which I sent through the servant of God, our son Cyprian the deacon; by which you would most certainly recognize that it is my letter, copies of which you recalled to have come there; whence I now judge that, by your reply, as by the great and sharp gauntlets of Entellus, I, like a bold Dares, have begun to be struck and tossed about (See Virgil, Aeneid 5.368–484): now nevertheless I answer those very letters of yours, which you deigned to send me through our holy son Asterius; in which I found many tokens of your most benevolent charity toward me, and again certain indications of some offense at me on your part. And so, where I was caressed in reading, there I was at once struck; wondering at this especially, that, whereas you say you did not think rashly to be believed the copies of my letters, lest perhaps, being wounded by your answering, I should justly complain, that you ought first to have proved the discourse to be mine, and so to write back, you afterward bid me, if the letter is mine, write openly, or send truer copies, that without any rancor of stomach we may engage in the disputation of the Scriptures. For in what way can we engage in this disputation without rancor, if you prepare to wound me? or, if you do not prepare it, how would I, you not wounding me, justly complain that I was wounded by you, that you ought first to have proved the discourse to be mine, and so to write back—that is, so to wound? For unless by writing back you had wounded me, I could not justly complain. Accordingly, since you so write back that you wound, what place is left to us of engaging in the disputation of the Scriptures without any rancor? Far be it indeed from me to be wounded, if with sure reasoning you should wish and be able to demonstrate to me that you have understood that passage from the Apostle's Epistle, or anything else of the holy Scriptures, more truly than I: nay rather, far be it that I should not reckon it with thanksgiving among my gains, if I be either instructed by your teaching, or corrected by your amending.

1. 2. Nevertheless, my most dear brother, unless you thought yourself wounded by my writings, you would not think that I could be wounded by your replies. For in no way would I have judged this of you, that, not thinking yourself wounded, you yet so write back as to wound. Or if, you not so writing back, I was thought able to be wounded on account of my too great foolishness, by this very thing you have plainly wounded me, that you so judged of me. But in no way would you, who have never experienced me to be such, rashly believe me to be such, you who, even when you knew my style, were unwilling rashly to believe the copies of my letters. For if you saw, not undeservedly, that I would justly complain, if you rashly believed those to be my letters which were not mine; how much more justly would I complain that I myself was rashly judged to be such as he who so judged had not experienced me to be? By no means, then, would you so slip as to think me, you not writing back so as to wound me, yet too unwise, able to be wounded even by such a reply of yours.

2. 3. It remains, then, that you disposed to wound me by writing back, if by sure document you should know those letters to be mine. And so, because I do not believe that you would think me to be wounded unjustly, it remains that I recognize my sin, that I first wounded you by those letters, which I cannot deny to be mine. Why, then, do I strive against the current of the stream, and not rather ask pardon? I beseech you, then, by the meekness of Christ (See 2 Cor 10:1), that, if I have wounded you, you forgive me, and do not in turn, by wounding me, render evil for evil. But you will wound me, if you keep silent to me about my error, which perhaps you have found in my deeds or words. For if you should reprove in me things which are not to be reproved, you wound yourself more than me; which far be it from your morals and holy purpose, that you do this with the will of wounding, blaming in me with a slandering tooth something which with a truth-telling mind you know is not to be blamed. And thereby either with a benevolent heart accuse, even if it lacks fault which you think is to be accused; or with a fatherly affection soothe one whom you cannot improve. For it can come about that something seems to you otherwise than the truth holds, provided yet that nothing be done by you otherwise than charity holds: for I too will most gratefully accept a most friendly reproof, even if what can rightly be defended did not deserve to be reproved; or I will recognize at once both your benevolence and my fault, and, as much as the Lord grants, be found in one thing grateful, in another amended.

2. 4. Why, then, should I dread your words, perhaps harsh, but surely wholesome, as the gauntlets of Entellus? He was beaten, not cured; and therefore he was conquered, not healed. But I, if I shall have accepted your medicinal correction tranquilly, shall not grieve: but if weakness, as human, or mine, even when I am truly accused, cannot but be saddened a little, it is better that the swelling of the head ache while it is cured, than that, while it is spared, it not be healed. For this is what he acutely saw who said that enemies quarreling are for the most part more useful than friends fearing to chide (See Cicero, De amicitia 24.90). For the former, while they quarrel, sometimes say true things which we may correct; but the latter exhibit less freedom of justice than they ought, while they fear to exasperate the sweetness of friendship. Wherefore, even if the ox, as you seem to yourself, is tired perhaps by the old age of the body, yet not by the vigor of the mind, sweating with fruitful labor on the Lord's threshing floor; behold, I am here: if I have said anything amiss, plant your foot more firmly. The weight of your age ought not to be burdensome to me, provided the chaff of my fault be threshed out.

2. 5. Accordingly, that which you set at the end of your letter, I either read or recall with a sigh of great longing. Would that, you say, we deserved your embraces, and by mutual conference might either teach something or learn! But I say: Would that at least we dwelt in places near on earth; that, if our conversations could not be mingled, our letters might be more frequent! But now we are so far apart by so great an interval of places from our senses, that I remember to have written to your Holiness about those words of the Apostle to the Galatians as a young man, and behold, now an old man, I have not yet deserved a reply, and the copies of my letter have more easily reached you—some occasion, I know not what, anticipating—than the letter itself by my care. For the man who then received it neither conveyed it to you, nor brought it back to me. But so great writings of yours, which were able to come into our hands, appear to me, that I would prefer nothing of my studies, if I could, to clinging to your side. Which, because I cannot, I think of sending to you for instruction some one of our sons in the Lord, if for this matter too I deserve your reply. For neither is there in me so much knowledge of the divine Scriptures, nor can there now be, as I see to be in you. And if I have any faculty in this matter, I spend it, such as it is, on the people of God. But to have leisure for studies more diligently than for instructing the things which the people hear, on account of ecclesiastical occupations, I am altogether unable.

3. 6. What slandering writings under your name have reached Africa, we do not know. We have received, however, what you deigned to send, answering those slanders. On reading which, I confess, I greatly grieved that, among persons so dear and familiar, joined by a bond of friendship most well known to nearly all the Churches, so great an evil of discord has arisen. And you indeed, how much you moderate yourself, and how much you hold the stings of your indignation, lest you render slander for slander, stands out sufficiently in your letter. Nevertheless, when I had read those very things, I wasted away with grief, and grew stiff with fear; what would those things which he wrote against you do to me, if perhaps they came into my hands? Woe to the world because of scandals (Matt 18:7). Behold it comes to pass, behold it is wholly fulfilled which the Truth says: Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matt 24:12). For what hearts faithful to one another may now be safely poured back into one another? into whose senses may a love secure cast itself wholly? what friend, finally, is not to be feared as a future enemy, if that which we bewail could arise between Jerome and Rufinus? O wretched and pitiable condition! O faithless knowledge of the present wills of friends, where there is no foreknowledge of future things! But why should I think this is to be groaned over by one about another, when not even a man himself is known to himself for the future? For he knows, somehow, scarcely perhaps, now what sort he is; but what sort he will be afterward, he does not know.

3. 7. Now this, not only knowledge of what sort each one is, but also foreknowledge of what sort he will be, if it is in the holy and blessed Angels; and how the devil could have been once blessed, while he was still a good angel, knowing his future iniquity, and his everlasting punishment, I do not see at all. About which matter, if indeed it is needful to know it, I would wish to hear from you what you feel. See what the lands and seas do which bodily separate us. If this my letter which you read were myself, you would already be telling me what I asked: but now, when will you write back? when will you send? when will it arrive? when will I receive it? And yet would that at some time it come to pass, which, because it cannot come to pass as quickly as we wish, we sustain with as much toleration as we can! Whence I return to those most sweet words of your letter, and most full of your holy desire, and make them in turn mine: "Would that we deserved your embraces; and by mutual conference might either teach something or learn"! if indeed it could in any way be that I should teach you anything.

3. 8. But in these words, now not only yours, but also mine, where I am delighted and refreshed, and even by the very desire of both of us, hanging and not attaining, I am consoled in no small part: there again I am dug with the sharpest stings of griefs, while I think that among you, to whom God had granted, largely and abundantly, this very thing which both of us wished, that, most closely joined and most familiar, you should lick together the honeys of the holy Scriptures, so great a ruin of bitterness has crept in—when, where, in what man is it not to be feared; since at that time, when, your worldly burdens now cast off, now unencumbered, you followed the Lord, and lived together in that land in which the Lord, walking with human feet, said: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you (John 14:27)—it could happen to you, men mature in age, and dwelling in the eloquence of the Lord? Truly the life of man on earth is a temptation (See Job 7:1). Alas for me, who cannot find you anywhere together! perhaps, as I am moved, as I grieve, as I fear, I would fall at your feet, would weep as much as I could, would ask as much as I love, now each of you for himself, now both for one another, and for others, and especially for the weak, for whom Christ died (See Rom 14:15), who behold you, as it were in the theater of this life, with great peril to themselves, lest you scatter abroad, by writing about each other, things which, since, in concord, you will not be able to delete, in concord you are unwilling; or which, in concord, you would fear to read, lest you again quarrel.

3. 9. I tell your charity the truth, that nothing has made me tremble more than this example, when I read in your letter certain indications of your indignation; not so much those about Entellus and the tired ox, where you seemed to me rather cheerfully to jest than angrily to threaten, as that which it sufficiently appears you wrote in earnest, whence I have spoken above—perhaps more than I ought, but not more than I feared—where you said: "Lest perhaps, being wounded, you should justly complain." I ask you, if it can be done, that there come to pass between us that we seek and discuss something whereby our hearts may be fed without the bitterness of discord. But if I cannot say what seems to me to be amended in your writings, nor you in mine, except with the suspicion of envy, or the wounding of friendship, let us rest from these things, and spare our life and salvation. Let one less attain that which puffs up, provided one not offend that which builds up (See 1 Cor 8:1). I feel myself far from that perfection of which it is written: If anyone does not offend in word, this is a perfect man (Jas 3:2). But plainly, in the mercy of God, I think I can easily ask pardon of you, if I have offended in anything; which you ought to disclose to me, that, when I have heard you, you may gain your brother (See Matt 18:15). For neither, because on account of the distance of lands you cannot do this between me and you, ought you on that account to allow me to err. Plainly, as far as concerns the very matters which we wish to know, if I know, or believe, or think I hold something true, in which you feel otherwise, as far as the Lord grants, without injury to you I will try to assert it. But as far as pertains to your offense, when I shall feel you indignant, I will beg nothing else but pardon.

3. 10. And I by no means think that you could be angry, unless either I said what I ought not, or did not say it as I ought; because I do not wonder that we know one another less than we are known by our most close and most familiar friends. Into whose love, I confess, I easily cast myself wholly, especially when wearied by the scandals of the age; and in it without any solicitude I rest: for I feel that God is there, into whom, secure, I cast myself, and in whom, secure, I rest. Nor in this my security do I at all dread that uncertain morrow of human frailty, over which I groaned above. For when I feel that a man, glowing with Christian love, has by it been made a faithful friend to me; whatever of my counsels and thoughts I commit to him, I commit not to a man, but to him in whom he abides, that he may be such. For God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16): which if he should desert, he must needs cause as much grief as, abiding, he had caused joy. Nevertheless, from an intimate friend made an enemy, let him rather seek something to invent, crafty; let him not find something to betray, angry. But this each one easily attains, not by hiding what he has done, but by not doing what he would wish to be hidden. Which the mercy of God grants to the good and pious, that among any whatever who will be friends, they may engage freely and securely, and not betray another's sins committed to them; that they themselves commit none which they would fear to be betrayed. For when something false is invented by a slanderer, it is either not believed at all, or surely, the health being intact, only the reputation is vexed. But the evil which is perpetrated is an intimate enemy, even if it be made public by the loquacity or quarrel of no intimate. Wherefore which of the prudent does not see, how tolerably you bear the now incredible enmities of one once most friendly and most familiar, conscience consoling you; and how you reckon either what he boasts, or what is perhaps believed by some, among the left-hand arms, by which no less than by the right one fights against the devil (See 2 Cor 6:7)? Nevertheless I would prefer him to be in some way milder, than you to be in this way more armed. This is a great and sad wonder, to have come from such friendships to these enmities; it will be a glad and much greater one to have returned from such enmities to the former concord.

LETTER 74
To the most blessed and deservedly venerable lord, brother and fellow priest Praesidius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord

1. As I asked your Sincerity in person, so now too I admonish, that you not be reluctant to send my letter to the holy brother and our fellow presbyter Jerome. But that your Charity may know how you too ought to write to him on my behalf, I have sent copies of the letters, both of mine to him, and of his to me, on reading which, by your holy prudence, you may easily see both my measure, which I thought should be kept, and his motion, which I not in vain feared. Or if I have written anything which I ought not, or in a way I ought not; send a discourse, not to him about me, but rather to myself, with brotherly love, by which, corrected, I may ask him to pardon, if I shall myself have recognized my fault.

LETTER 75
To the truly holy and most blessed pope Augustine, Jerome sends greeting in Christ

1. 1. Three letters at once, or rather brief little books, of your Dignity I have received through the deacon Cyprian, containing diverse, as you name them, questions, but, as I feel, reproaches of my little works: to which, if I should wish to answer, there will be need of the size of a book. Yet I will try, as much as I can, not to exceed the measure of a rather long letter, and not to make delay for the hastening brother, who, three days before he was about to set out, demanded letters from me; so that, as it were on the point of marching, I was compelled to blurt out these things, such as they are, and to answer with a tumultuary discourse, not with the maturity of a writer, but with the rashness of one dictating: which for the most part turns out not to teaching, but to chance; as sudden wars throw into confusion even the bravest soldiers, and they are compelled to flee before they can snatch up their arms.

1. 2. But our armor is Christ, and the instruction of the apostle Paul, who writes to the Ephesians: Take up the arms of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day (See Eph 6:13). And again: Stand, your loins girt in truth, and clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod for the preparation of the Gospel of peace: above all taking up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (See Eph 6:14–17). Armed once with these weapons, king David went forth to battle; and taking five smooth stones from the torrent (See 1 Sam 17:40), he showed that there was nothing of roughness and filth in his senses amid the whirlwinds of this age, drinking from the torrent in the way; and therefore, his head exalted (See Ps 110:7 (109:7)), he cut off the most proud head of Goliath with that man's own blade, striking the blasphemer on the forehead (See 1 Sam 17:49–51), and wounding him in that part of the body in which the presumer upon the priesthood, Uzziah, is struck with leprosy (See 2 Chr 26:19); and the holy man glories in the Lord saying: The light of your countenance is signed upon us, Lord (Ps 4:6 (4:7)). Let us therefore say, we too, My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and make melody in my glory. Arise, psaltery and lyre; I will rise at dawn (Ps 57:7–8 (56:8–9)): that in us may be fulfilled, Open your mouth, and I will fill it (Ps 81:10 (80:11)); and, The Lord will give the word to those who preach the Gospel with much power (Ps 68:11 (67:12)). You too I do not doubt to pray, that amid us contending the truth may conquer. For you do not seek your own glory (See John 8:50), but Christ's; and when you conquer, I too conquer, if I understand my error; and on the contrary, when I conquer, you overcome, because not sons store up treasure for parents, but parents for sons (See 2 Cor 12:14). And in the book of Chronicles we read that the sons of Israel went forth to fight with a peaceful mind, even amid the very swords and sheddings of blood, and the corpses of the slain, thinking not of their own, but of peace's victory. Let us therefore answer all things, and resolve the manifold questions, if Christ bids, in a brief discourse. I pass over the offices of greeting, with which you stroke my head; I keep silent about the flatteries with which you strive to console your reproach of me: I will come to the very causes.

2. 3. You say that you received my book from a certain brother, which had no title, in which I had enumerated the ecclesiastical Writers, both Greek and Latin; and that when you asked him, to use your words, why the opening page was not inscribed, or by what name it was reckoned, he answered that it was called Epitaphium: and you argue that it would rightly be so called, if you had read there only the lives or writings of those who were already dead; but since the works of many, both at the time when it was written, and even now living, are recalled, you wonder why I imposed this title on it. I think your prudence understands that from the work itself you could understand the title. For you have read both the Greeks and the Latins who described the lives of illustrious men, that they never wrote an Epitaphium for this work, but "On Illustrious Men," for example, generals, philosophers, orators, historians, poets, epic, tragic, comic. But an Epitaphium is properly written for the dead: which indeed I know I once did on the falling-asleep of the presbyter Nepotian, of holy memory. Therefore this book is to be called either "On Illustrious Men," or properly "On Ecclesiastical Writers"; although by very many unskilled correctors it is said to be inscribed "On Authors."

3. 4. In the second place you ask why I said, in the commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians, that Paul could not reprove in Peter that which he himself had done (See Gal 2:11–14), nor accuse in another the pretense of which he himself was guilty; and you assert that the apostolic reproof was not a matter of dispensation, but true, and that I ought not to teach a lie, but that all the things which are written sound as they are written. To which I first answer, that your prudence ought to have remembered the little preface of my commentaries, saying in my person: "What then? Am I foolish and rash, who promise that which he could not? By no means: nay rather, in this, as it seems to me, more cautious and more timid, that, feeling the weakness of my strength, I followed the commentaries of Origen. For that man wrote properly five volumes on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, and filled the tenth book of his Stromata with a concise discourse on the explanation of it; he also composed various treatises and excerpts, which alone could even suffice. I pass over my Didymus the Seeing, and the Laodicean lately gone out from the church, and Alexander, an old heretic, also Eusebius of Emesa, and Theodore of Heraclea, who too left some little commentaries on this matter. From which, if I should pick even a few things, there would be made something which would not be utterly despised. And so, to confess simply, I read all these, and heaping up very many things in my mind, a notary being summoned, I dictated either my own or another's things, mindful neither of order, nor of words sometimes, nor of meanings. It is now of the Lord's mercy, that through our inexperience things well said by others not perish, and not please among strangers, which please among their own." If, therefore, you thought anything worthy of reproof in our explanation, it would have been of your learning to inquire whether the things we wrote were held in the Greeks, so that, if they had not said them, then you might condemn my opinion properly; especially since I freely confessed in the preface that I had followed the commentaries of Origen, and dictated either my own or another's things, and at the end of that same chapter which you reprove, I wrote: "If this sense pleases anyone—by which neither is Peter shown to have sinned, nor Paul to have impudently accused a greater man—he ought to set forth by what consequence Paul reproves in another that which he himself committed." By which I showed that I do not defend definitely that which I had read in the Greeks, but expressed the things I had read, that I might leave it to the judgment of the reader, whether they were to be approved or disapproved.

3. 5. You, then, lest you should do what I had asked, found a new argument, to assert that the Gentiles who had believed in Christ were free from the burden of the Law; but that those who believed from the Jews were subject to the Law: so that, through the person of each, Paul both rightly reproved those who kept the Law, as the teacher of the Gentiles; and Peter was rightly reproved, who, the prince of the circumcision (See Gal 2:7–8), commanded the Gentiles that which only those who were of the Jews ought to have observed. If this pleases—nay rather, because it pleases, that whoever believe from the Jews are debtors to do the Law (See Gal 5:3)—you, as a bishop most well known in the whole world, ought to promulgate this opinion, and draw all your fellow bishops into agreement with you. I, in my little hut, with monks, that is, my fellow sinners, do not dare to determine about great matters, except to confess this ingenuously, that I read the writings of the elders, and in commentaries, according to the custom of all, set down various explanations, that out of many each one may follow what he wishes. Which indeed I think you too have read and approved, both in secular literature, and in the divine Books.

3. 6. But this explanation, which first Origen, in the tenth book of his Stromata, where he interprets the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, and the rest of the interpreters thereafter followed, they bring in for this cause especially, that they may answer Porphyry the blasphemer, who charges Paul with impudence, that he dared to reprove Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and to accuse him to his face, and to constrain him with reason, that he had done amiss—that is, that he was in that error in which was the very man who accused another of erring. What shall I say of John, who long ago in the pontifical rank ruled the Church of Constantinople, and properly wrote a very full book on this chapter, in which he followed the opinion of Origen and the ancients? If, therefore, you reprove me erring, permit me, I beg, to err with such men; and when you perceive that I have many companions of my error, you ought at least to produce one supporter of your truth. So much for the explanation of one chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians.

3. 7. But lest I seem to strive against your reasoning by the number of witnesses, and, on the occasion of illustrious men, to flee the truth, and not dare to join hands, I will briefly set forth examples from the Scriptures. In the Acts of the Apostles, a voice was made to Peter saying, Rise, Peter, kill and eat, that is, all the animals of the four-footed, and the serpents of the earth, and the birds of heaven (See Acts 10:11–13). By which saying it is shown that no man is by nature polluted, but all are equally called to the Gospel of Christ. To which Peter answered: Far be it, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean. And a voice came to him from heaven a second time, saying: What God has cleansed, do not you call common (See Acts 10:14–15). And so he went to Caesarea, and entering to Cornelius, opening his mouth, he said: In truth I have learned that God is not a respecter of persons; but in every nation, he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him (See Acts 10:34–35). Finally the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and the faithful of the circumcision who had come with Peter were astonished, that on the Nations too the grace of the Holy Spirit had been poured out. Then Peter answered: Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized? The Apostles and brothers who were in Judea heard that the Nations too had received the word of God. But when Peter had gone up to Jerusalem, those who were of the circumcision disputed against him, saying: Why did you go in to men having uncircumcision, and eat with them? (See Acts 10:44–48; 11:1–3) To whom, every reason being set forth, at last he concluded his discourse with this saying: If, then, God gave them the same grace as to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, that I could forbid God? Hearing these things, they were silent; and glorified God saying: Therefore to the Nations too God has given repentance unto life (See Acts 11:17–18). Again, when, a long time after, Paul and Barnabas had come to Antioch, and, the Church being gathered, had related how great things God had done with them, and that God had opened to the Nations the door of faith (See Acts 14:27); certain ones, coming down from Judea, taught the brothers and said: Unless you be circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. A sedition therefore not small being stirred against Paul and Barnabas, they resolved to go up, both those who were accused, and those who accused, to the Apostles and presbyters at Jerusalem about this question. And when they had gone to Jerusalem, certain ones of the heresy of the Pharisees, who had believed in Christ, rose up, saying: It is right to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the Law of Moses. And when a great question arose about this word, Peter, with his accustomed freedom: Men, he says, brothers, you know that from ancient days God chose among us, through my mouth, that the Nations should hear the word of the Gospel and believe; and God who knows hearts bore testimony, giving them the Holy Spirit, as to us also, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. But now why do you tempt God to impose a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we could bear? But through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we believe we are saved, as they too. And all the multitude was silent (See Acts 15:1–12), and the apostle James, and all the presbyters together, went over to his opinion.

3. 8. These things ought not to be burdensome to the reader, but useful both to him and to me, that we may prove that, before the apostle Paul, Peter was not ignorant—nay rather, was the chief author of this decree, that the Law was not to be kept after the Gospel. Finally, Peter was of so great authority, that Paul wrote in his Epistle: Then, after three years, I came to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days (See Gal 1:18). And again in what follows: After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. But I went up according to revelation, and set forth to them the Gospel which I preach among the Nations (See Gal 2:1–2): showing that he did not have security of preaching the Gospel, unless it had been strengthened by the opinion of Peter and those who were with him. And immediately it follows: But privately to those who seemed to be something, lest perhaps I should run, or had run, in vain (See Gal 2:2). Why privately, and not in public? Lest perhaps a scandal of faith should arise to the faithful of the number of the Jews, who thought the Law was to be kept, and so to believe in the Lord and Savior. Therefore at that time too, when Peter had come to Antioch (although the Acts of the Apostles do not write this, but Paul affirming it is to be believed), Paul writes that he withstood him to his face, because he was reprehensible. For before certain ones came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they had come, he withdrew himself and separated, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the other Jews consented with him, so that even Barnabas was led by them into that pretense. But when I saw, he says, that they did not walk rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before all: If you, being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? (See Gal 2:11–14) and the rest. To no one, therefore, is it doubtful that the apostle Peter was the first author of this opinion, of which he is now charged as a transgressor. But the cause of the transgression is the fear of the Jews. For the Scripture says that first he ate with the Gentiles; but when certain ones had come from James, he withdrew himself and separated, fearing those who were of the circumcision (See Gal 2:12). But he fears the Jews, whose apostle he was, lest on the occasion of the Gentiles they should withdraw from the faith of Christ, and he, the imitator of the good shepherd, should lose the flock entrusted to him.

3. 9. As, then, we have shown that Peter felt rightly indeed about the abolition of the Mosaic Law, but was compelled by fear to a pretense of observing it; let us see whether Paul himself, who accuses another, did any such thing. We read in the same book: But Paul went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches: and he came to Derbe and Lystra; and behold, there was a certain disciple there, by name Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, by a Gentile father. To him those who were at Lystra and Iconium, the brothers, bore testimony. Him Paul wished to go forth with him; and taking him, he circumcised him on account of the Jews who were in those places: for all knew that his father was a Gentile (See Acts 16:1–3). O blessed apostle Paul, who in Peter had reproved the pretense by which he withdrew himself from the Gentiles for fear of the Jews who had come from James; why are you compelled, against your own opinion, to circumcise Timothy, the son of a Gentile man, surely himself also a Gentile (for he was not a Jew, who had not been circumcised)? You will answer me: On account of the Jews who were in those places. Whoever, then, pardons yourself in the circumcision of a disciple coming from the Gentiles, pardon Peter too, your predecessor, that he did some things for fear of the believing Jews. Again it is written: But Paul, when he had still endured many days, bidding the brothers farewell, sailed to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila: and he shaved his head at Cenchreae; for he had a vow (See Acts 18:18). Be it so, that there he was compelled by fear of the Jews to do what he did not wish; why did he let his hair grow by a vow, and afterward shave it at Cenchreae according to the Law, which the Nazirites who vow themselves to God are wont to do, according to the precept of Moses (See Num 6:18)?

3. 10. But these are small in comparison with the matter which follows. Luke, the writer of the sacred history, relates: When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly (See Acts 21:17); and the following day James and all the elders who were with him, his Gospel being approved, said to him: You see, brother, how many thousands there are in Judea who have believed in Christ, and all these are zealots for the Law. But they have heard about you that you teach a departure from Moses to those Jews who are among the Nations, saying that they ought not to circumcise their sons, nor to walk according to the custom. What then? Surely the multitude must come together; for they have heard that you have arrived. Do, therefore, this which we tell you. There are with us four men having a vow upon them; taking these, sanctify yourself with them, and spend on them that they may shave their heads; and all will know that the things they have heard about you are false, but that you yourself also walk keeping the Law. Then Paul, taking the men, the next day purified with them, entered into the temple, announcing the fulfilment of the days of purification, until an offering should be offered for each one of them (See Acts 21:20–26). O Paul, in this too I again ask you; why did you shave your head, why did you go barefoot according to the ceremonies of the Jews, why did you offer sacrifices, and victims be sacrificed for you according to the Law? Surely you will answer: Lest those who had believed from the Jews be scandalized. You pretended, then, to be a Jew, that you might gain the Jews; and this very pretense James and the other presbyters taught you: but yet you could not escape. For a sedition being stirred, when you were to be killed, you were snatched away by the tribune, and sent by him to Caesarea, under the careful guard of soldiers, lest the Jews should kill you as a pretender and destroyer of the Law; and whence, coming to Rome, in the lodging which you had rented for yourself, you preached Christ both to Jews and to Gentiles: and your opinion was confirmed by the sword of Nero (See Acts 21:30–33; 23:23–24; 28:16, 30–31).

3. 11. We have learned that, on account of fear of the Jews, both Peter and Paul equally feigned that they kept the precepts of the Law. With what brow, then, with what audacity, does Paul reprove in another that which he himself committed? I—nay rather, others before me—set forth the cause which they thought, not defending an officious lie, as you write, but teaching an honorable dispensation; that they might both demonstrate the prudence of the Apostles, and check the impudence of the blaspheming Porphyry, who says that Peter and Paul fought between themselves in a boyish contest; nay, that Paul burned with envy of the virtues of Peter, and wrote boastfully the things which he either did not do, or, if he did, did impudently, reproving in another that which he himself had committed. They interpreted as they could; how do you unfold this passage? Surely you are about to say better things, who have reproved the opinion of the ancients.

4. 12. You write to me in your letter: "For you need not be taught by me how that is to be understood which the same Apostle says: I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews (See 1 Cor 9:20), and the other things which are said there, out of the compassion of mercy, not the pretense of deceit. For it is done as a sick man who ministers to a sick man; not when he lies that he has a fever, but when, with the mind of one suffering along, he thinks how he himself would wish to be served, if he were ill. For he was surely a Jew; but, made a Christian, he had not abandoned the Jewish sacraments, which that people had received fittingly, and at the lawful time when it was right: and therefore he undertook to celebrate them, when he was now an apostle of Christ, in order to teach that they were not ruinous to those who wished to keep them, as they had received them from their parents through the Law, even when they had believed in Christ; provided they did not now place in them the hope of salvation, since through the Lord Jesus salvation itself, which was signified by those sacraments, had arrived." The sense of your whole discourse, which you have drawn out in a most lengthy disputation, is this: that Peter did not err in thinking that the Law was to be kept by those who had believed from the Jews; but in this he deviated from the line of right, that he compelled the Gentiles to live like Jews. But he compelled them not by the command of one teaching, but by the example of his conduct. And that Paul did not speak contrary to the things which he himself had done; but rather why Peter should compel those who were of the Gentiles to live like Jews.

4. 13. This, then, is the sum of the question, nay rather of your opinion: that, after the Gospel of Christ, believing Jews do well if they keep the commandments of the Law; that is, if they offer the sacrifices which Paul offered, if they circumcise their sons, if they keep the Sabbath, as Paul did in Timothy, and all the Jews observed. If this is true, we fall into the heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion, who, believing in Christ, were anathematized by the fathers for this alone, that they mingled the ceremonies of the Law with the Gospel of Christ, and so confessed the new things that they did not let go the old. What shall I say of the Ebionites, who pretend to be Christians? Even today, through all the synagogues of the East among the Jews, there is a heresy which is called that of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees, whom the common folk call Nazarenes, who believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that he is the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again, in whom we too believe: but while they wish to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians. I beg you, then, you who think my little wound is to be healed—which was bored, nay rather, pricked, as it is said, with a needle—to heal the wound of this opinion, which has been struck with a lance, and, so to speak, with the mass of a heavy javelin. For it is not the same crime, in the explanation of the Scriptures to set down the diverse opinions of the elders, and again to introduce a most wicked heresy into the Church. But if this necessity weighs upon us, that we receive the Jews with their legal observances, and it shall be permitted them to observe in the churches of Christ that which they practiced in the synagogues of Satan, I will say what I feel: they will not become Christians, but they will make us Jews.

4. 14. For what Christian would patiently hear that which is contained in your letter: "Paul was a Jew; but, made a Christian, he had not abandoned the Jewish sacraments, which that people had received fittingly, and at the lawful time when it was right: and therefore he undertook to celebrate them, when he was now an apostle of Christ, in order to teach that they were not ruinous to those who wished, as they had received them from their parents through the Law, to keep them." Again I beseech you, that with your peace you hear my grief. Paul observed the ceremonies of the Jews, when he was now an apostle of Christ, and you say "they were not ruinous to those who wished to keep them, as they had received them from their parents." I, on the contrary, will speak, and, the world crying out against it, with free voice will pronounce, that the ceremonies of the Jews are both ruinous and deadly to Christians; and that whoever observes them, whether from the Jews or from the Gentiles, has been rolled down into the abyss of the devil. For Christ is the end of the Law, unto righteousness to everyone who believes, namely Jew and Gentile (See Rom 10:4): for it will not be the end unto righteousness to everyone who believes, if the Jew is excepted. And in the Gospel we read: The Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist (See Luke 16:16). And in another place: Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal to God (See John 5:18). And again: Of his fullness we all received, and grace for grace, because the Law was given through Moses; but Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (See John 1:16–17). For the grace of the Law which passed away, we received the grace of the Gospel which abides; and for the shadows and images of the old Instrument, the truth came through Jesus Christ. Jeremiah too prophesies in the person of God: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will accomplish for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new testament; not according to the testament which I disposed for their fathers, in the day when I took their hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt (See Jer 31:31–32). Observe what he says, that not to the people of the Gentiles, with whom he had not before made a Testament, but to the people of the Jews, to whom he had given the Law through Moses, he promises the new Testament of the Gospel; that they may by no means live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the Spirit (See Rom 7:6). But Paul, over whose name the question is now ventilated, sets down frequent opinions of this kind; of which, for brevity's sake, I will subjoin a few. Behold, I Paul say to you that if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (See Gal 5:2). And again: You are emptied of Christ, you who are justified in the Law; you have fallen from grace (See Gal 5:4). And below: If you are led by the spirit, you are no longer under the Law (See Gal 5:18). From which it appears that he who is under the Law, not by way of dispensation, as our elders wished, but truly, as you understand, does not have the Holy Spirit. But what sort the legal precepts are, let us learn by God's teaching. I, he says, gave them precepts not good, and ordinances in which they should not live by them (See Ezek 20:25). These things we say, not because, after Manichaeus and Marcion, we destroy the Law, which we know to be both holy and spiritual according to the Apostle (See Rom 7:12, 14); but because, after faith came and the fullness of times, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (See Gal 4:4–5); and that we may by no means live under a tutor (See Gal 3:25), but under the adult and Lord, the heir.

4. 15. It follows in your letter: "He did not on that account amend Peter, that he observed the ancestral traditions; which, if he wished to do, he would do neither mendaciously nor unfittingly." Again I say: you are a bishop, a teacher of the Churches of Christ, that you may prove what you assert to be true, receive some one of the Jews, who, made a Christian, circumcises the son born to him, who observes the Sabbath, who abstains from the foods which God created to be used with thanksgiving (See 1 Tim 4:3), who on the fourteenth day of the first month kills a lamb toward evening; and when you have done this—nay rather, when you have not done it (for I know that you are a Christian, and will not do a sacrilegious thing)—willing or unwilling, you will reprove your own opinion; and then you will know that it is harder by deed to confirm one's own than to reprove another's. And lest perhaps we should not believe you, or rather should not understand what you say (for often a discourse drawn out at length lacks understanding; and while it is not perceived, it is less reproved by the unskilled), you inculcate and repeat: "This, then, of the Jews Paul had abandoned, which they had as evil." What is the evil of the Jews which Paul had abandoned? Surely that which follows: because, being ignorant, he says, of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, they were not subject to the righteousness of God (See Rom 10:3); then, that after the passion and resurrection of Christ, the sacrament of grace being given and made manifest according to the order of Melchizedek (See Ps 110:4 (109:4); Heb 7:17), they still thought the old sacraments were to be celebrated not from the custom of solemnity, but from the necessity of salvation; which, however, if they had never been necessary, the Maccabees would have become martyrs for them fruitlessly and emptily: finally, that the Jews persecuted the preachers of grace, the Christians, as enemies of the Law. These and such errors and vices he says he reckoned loss and as dung, that he might gain Christ (See Phil 3:8)."

4. 16. We have learned through you what evils of the Jews the apostle Paul abandoned; again, by your teaching, let us learn what good things of theirs he kept. "The observances of the Law," you will say, "which they celebrate after the ancestral manner, as they were celebrated by Paul himself, without any necessity of salvation." What you wish to say by "without any necessity of salvation" I do not sufficiently understand. For if they do not bring salvation, why are they observed? But if they are to be observed, surely they bring salvation; especially those which, observed, make martyrs. For they would not be observed, unless they brought salvation. For they are not indifferent between good and evil, as the philosophers dispute. Continence is good, luxury is evil; between the two, indifferent: to walk, to digest the dung of the belly, to cast forth from the nostrils the purgings of the head, to throw out rheum by spitting: this is neither good nor evil; for whether you do it or do not do it, you will have neither righteousness nor unrighteousness. But to observe the ceremonies of the Law cannot be indifferent; but it is either evil or good. You say good; I assert evil; and evil not only to those who believed from the Gentiles, but also to those who believed from the Jewish people. In this passage, unless I am mistaken, while you avoid one thing, you roll into another. For while you fear the blaspheming Porphyry, you run into the snares of Ebion, decreeing that the Law is to be observed by those who believe from the Jews. And you, who understand that what you say is perilous, again try to temper it with superfluous words: "Without any necessity of salvation, as the Jews thought they were to be celebrated, or with the deceitful pretense which Paul had reproved in Peter."

4. 17. Peter, then, feigned the keeping of the Law; but this reprover of Peter boldly observed the legal things. For it follows in your letter: "For if he celebrated those sacraments for this reason, that he pretended to be a Jew, that he might gain them, why did he not also sacrifice with the Gentiles, since to those too who were without the Law he became as one without the Law, that he might gain them too (See 1 Cor 9:21); unless because the one thing he did as a Jew by nature, and all this he said, not that Paul might feign himself to be what he was not, but that he might feel that they must be mercifully so helped, as if he himself labored in the same error; not, of course, by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one suffering along." You defend Paul well, that he did not feign the error of the Jews, but truly was in error; nor wished to imitate Peter lying, so as, for fear of the Jews, to dissimulate what he was; but with all freedom said that he was a Jew. A new clemency of the Apostle! while he wishes to make the Jews Christians, he himself became a Jew. For he could not lead back the luxurious to frugality, unless he had proved himself luxurious, and mercifully, as you yourself say, help the wretched, unless he himself felt himself wretched. For truly wretched, and mercifully to be bewailed, are they who, by their contention and love of the abolished Law, made the apostle of Christ a Jew. Nor is there much difference between my opinion and yours, because I say that both Peter and Paul, for fear of the believing Jews, practiced—nay rather, feigned—the commandments of the Law; but you assert that they did this clemently, "not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one suffering along": provided this be established, that either by fear or by mercy they feigned themselves to be what they were not. But that argument which you use against us, that he ought to have become a Gentile to the Gentiles too, if he became a Jew to the Jews, makes rather for us: for just as he was not truly a Jew, so neither was he truly a Gentile; and just as he was not truly a Gentile, so neither was he truly a Jew. But in this he is an imitator of the Gentiles, that he receives uncircumcision in the faith of Christ, and indifferently permits the eating of foods which the Jews condemn; not by the worship, as you think, of idols (See 1 Cor 8:4–8). For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but the observance of the commandments of God (See 1 Cor 7:19).

4. 18. I beg you, therefore, and again and again I implore you, to pardon my little disputation; and that, if I have exceeded my own measure, you charge it to yourself, who forced me to write back, and who, like Stesichorus, have deprived me of my eyes. Do not think me a teacher of falsehood, I who follow Christ when he says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). Nor can it be that I, a worshiper of the truth, should bow my neck to a lie. And do not stir up against me the little crowd of the untaught, who venerate you as a bishop and, when you preach in the church, look up to you with the honor of the priesthood, while they make little of me, a man of advanced age, nearly decrepit, who keeps to the seclusion of the monastery and the countryside; and seek out for yourself those whom you may teach or rebuke. For to us, separated from you by such vast stretches of sea and land, the sound of your voice scarcely reaches. And if perhaps you write a letter, Italy and Rome will receive it before it is brought to me, to whom it is to be sent.

5. 19. As for what you ask in your other letters, why my earlier translation of the canonical books has asterisks and obeli marked in it, and why I afterward published another translation without these signs—with your leave I will say it—you seem to me not to understand what you asked. For that earlier translation is that of the Septuagint translators; and wherever there are obeli, that is, daggers, it is signified that the Septuagint said more than is contained in the Hebrew; but where there are asterisks, that is, shining stars, something has been added by Origen from the edition of Theodotion. And there we translated the Greek, here we expressed from the Hebrew itself what we understood, preserving the truth of the meanings rather than at times the order of the words. And I marvel how you read the books of the Septuagint translators not in their pure form, as they were published by them, but as emended—or rather corrupted—by Origen with obeli and asterisks, and do not follow the little translation of a Christian man; especially since he translated what was added from the edition of a Jewish and blasphemous man, made after the passion of Christ. Do you wish to be a true lover of the Septuagint translators? Do not read what is under the asterisks; rather, scrape it from the volumes, that you may prove yourself a partisan of the ancients. But if you do this, you will be forced to condemn all the libraries of the churches. For scarcely one book or another will be found that does not have these things.

6. 20. Further, as for your saying that I ought not to have translated after the ancients, and your use of a new syllogism: "Either the things the Septuagint translated were obscure, or they were plain. If obscure, then it must be believed that you too could be deceived in them; if plain, then it is clear that they could not be deceived in them"—I answer you with your own words. All the ancient commentators who preceded us in the Lord, and who translated the holy Scriptures, translated either obscure things or plain ones. If obscure, how have you dared to discuss after them what they were unable to explain? If plain, it is superfluous for you to have wished to discuss what could not have been hidden from them—especially in the explanation of the Psalms, which among the Greeks were translated in many volumes: first by Origen, second by Eusebius of Caesarea, third by Theodore of Heraclea, fourth by Asterius of Scythopolis, fifth by Apollinaris of Laodicea, sixth by Didymus of Alexandria. There are also passed down works by various authors on a few psalms; but now I speak of the whole body of the Psalms. Among the Latins, moreover, Hilary of Poitiers and Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, translated Origen and Eusebius, of whom our own Ambrose also followed the former in certain places. Let your prudence answer me: why, after so many and such great translators, have you held different views in the explanation of the Psalms? For if the Psalms are obscure, then it must be believed that you too could be deceived in them; if plain, then it is not believed that they could be deceived in them; and so in either way your translation will be superfluous. And by this rule, after the earlier writers no one will dare to speak, and whatever one has taken up, another will have no license to write about it. Rather, it is the part of your humanity to grant to others the indulgence you grant to yourself. For I have not so much tried to abolish the old things, which I translated, corrected, from Greek into Latin for the men of my own tongue, as to bring into the open those testimonies that were passed over or corrupted by the Jews, so that our people might know what the Hebrew truth contains. If anyone does not care to read it, no one compels the unwilling. Let him drink the old wine with pleasure, and despise our new wines, which were published in explanation of the earlier writers, so that wherever those are not understood, they may be made clearer from ours. As for what kind of translation is to be followed in the holy Scriptures, the book I wrote On the Best Kind of Translating, and all the little prefaces that I set before the divine volumes in our edition, explain; and to these I think the prudent reader should be referred. And if, as you say, you accept me in the correction of the New Testament, and you set out the reason why you accept it—because very many who have knowledge of the Greek tongue can judge my work—you ought to have credited the same integrity also in the Old Testament, for there we did not fabricate things of our own, but translated the divine words as we found them among the Hebrews. Wherever you doubt, ask the Hebrews.

6. 21. But perhaps you will say: What if the Hebrews are unwilling to answer, or wish to lie? Will the whole throng of the Jews keep silent about my translation, and will no one be found who has knowledge of the Hebrew tongue? Or will they all imitate those Jews whom you say were found in a little town of Africa to have conspired in a slander against me? For you weave a tale of this sort in your letter: "A certain brother of ours, a bishop, when he had established that your translation be read in the church over which he presides, came upon something rendered by you far differently in the prophet Jonah from what had grown old in the ears and memory of all and had been chanted through the succession of so many ages. So great an uproar arose among the people, with the Greeks especially objecting and inflaming the charge of falsity, that the bishop was forced—for it was the city of Oea—to demand the testimony of the Jews. But they, whether through ignorance or malice, answered that this stood in the Hebrew codices, what both the Greeks and Latins had and said. What more? The man was compelled, as it were, to correct the error, unwilling, after great danger, to be left without his people. Hence it also seems to us that you too could sometimes have been deceived in some matters."

7. 22. You say that I translated something badly in the prophet Jonah, and that, with the people clamoring in sedition over the discrepancy of a single word, the bishop nearly lost his priesthood. And you withdraw what it was that I supposedly translated badly, taking from me the occasion of my defense, lest whatever you said be dissolved by my reply—unless perhaps, as so many years ago, the gourd comes into the middle, with Cornelius and Asinius Pollio of that time asserting that I had translated "ivy" for "gourd." On this matter I have answered more fully in my commentary on the prophet Jonah. I am content now to have said only this: that in that passage, where the Septuagint translators rendered "gourd," and Aquila with the rest rendered "ivy," that is, kissos, in the Hebrew volume it is written ciceion, which the Syrians commonly call ciceia. It is a kind of shrub with broad leaves, like a vine-shoot; and when it has been planted, it quickly rises into a little tree, without any supports of reeds or stakes, which both gourds and ivy need, sustaining itself by its own trunk. Therefore, in expounding this word from the word itself, if I had wished to render it ciceion, no one would understand; if "gourd," I would be saying what is not in the Hebrew; I put "ivy," so as to agree with the other translators. But if your Jews, as you yourself assert, said through malice or ignorance that what is contained in the Greek and Latin codices stands in the volumes of the Hebrews, it is plain that they either do not know Hebrew letters, or wished to lie in order to mock the gourd-men. I ask, at the end of the letter, that you not force a resting old man and a long-since veteran to do military service and to risk his life again. You who are young, and placed on the pontifical summit, teach the peoples; and enrich the roofs of Rome with the new fruits of Africa. For me it is enough to whisper in a corner of the monastery with a poor little hearer and reader.

1. To you, Donatists, the Catholic Church says: O sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after a lie? (Ps 4:2 (4:3)) Why have you divided yourselves from the unity of the whole world by the wicked sacrilege of schism? You attend to the false things told to you by men—men either lying or in error—about the handing over of the divine books, so that you may die in a heretical separation; and you do not attend to what the books themselves tell you, so that you may live in Catholic peace. Why do you open your ears to the speech of men who say what they could never prove, and are deaf to the speech of God, who says: The Lord said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps 2:7-8)? The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, And to offsprings, as of many, but as of one; And to your offspring, which is Christ (Gal 3:16). In your offspring, he says, shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18). Lift up the eyes of your heart, and consider the whole world, how in the offspring of Abraham all the nations are blessed. Then it was believed by one what was not yet seen; now you see it, and still you envy. The passion of the Lord is the price of the whole world; he redeemed the whole world; and you do not agree with the whole world for your gain, but rather contend in a part to your loss, so that you lose the whole. Hear in the Psalm at what price we were redeemed: They have dug, he says, my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones. They themselves looked and gazed upon me; they divided my garments among them, and over my garment they cast lots (Ps 22:16-18 (21:17-19)). Why do you wish to be dividers of the Lord's garments, and do not wish to hold with the whole world that tunic of love, woven from above, which not even his persecutors divided? In the Psalm itself it is read that the whole world holds it: All the ends of the earth, he says, shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall rule over the nations (Ps 22:27-28 (21:28-29)). Open the ears of your heart and hear that the Lord, the God of gods, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting; out of Zion is the form of his beauty (Ps 50:1-2 (49:1-2)). If you are unwilling to understand this, hear the Gospel, with the Lord himself now speaking through his own mouth and saying: That it was necessary that everything written about Christ in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms should be fulfilled, and I preached in his name repentance and the forgiveness of sins among all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (See Lk 24:44-47). What he said in the Psalm, he called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, this in the Gospel is, among all the nations; and what he said in the Psalm, out of Zion is the form of his beauty, this in the Gospel he said, beginning from Jerusalem.

2. You pretend that you flee the intermingled weeds before the time of harvest, because you yourselves are the only weeds. For if you were wheat, you would tolerate the intermingled weeds, and would not divide yourselves from the crop of Christ. Of the weeds indeed it was said: Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold; but of the wheat also it was said: He who perseveres to the end will be saved (Matt 24:12-13). Why do you believe that the weeds have grown and filled the world, but that the wheat has dwindled and remained in Africa alone? You call yourselves Christians, and you contradict Christ. He himself said: Let both grow until the harvest; he did not say: Let the weeds grow, let the wheat dwindle. He himself said: The field is this world; he did not say: The field is Africa. He himself said: The harvest is the end of the age; he did not say, the harvest is the time of Donatus. He himself said: The reapers are angels (See Matt 13:30, 38-39); he did not say: The reapers are the chiefs of the Circumcellions. But because you have accused the wheat in place of the weeds, you have shown yourselves to be the weeds; and, what is graver, you have separated yourselves from the wheat before the time. For your forebears—in whose sacrilegious cutting-off you persevere—some of them, by the municipal records, handed over the holy books and the instruments of the Church to the persecutors; some, confessing it, let them go and communicated with them; and both parties, in a frenzied faction, gathered at Carthage and, concerning the crime of handing over—on which they had already agreed among themselves—condemned men unheard, ordained bishop against bishop, raised altar against altar. Afterward they sent letters to the emperor Constantine, that bishops from overseas might judge among the Africans; and when judges had been given, as they had requested, and were judging at Rome, they did not obey, but accused the bishops before the emperor of having judged badly. Appealing again to other bishops sent to Arles, they appealed to the emperor himself; and when they had been heard by him and found to be slanderers, they remained in the same crime. Wake up to your salvation, love peace, return to unity. How these things were done, whenever you wish, we will recite to you in full.

3. He communicates with the wicked who consents to the deeds of the wicked, not he who tolerates the weeds in the Lord's field until the harvest, or the chaff until the final winnowing. If you hate the wicked, change yourselves from the crime of schism. If you feared intermingling with the wicked, you would not have kept Optatus among you, living in the most open iniquity for so many years. Since you now call him a martyr, it remains for you to call Christ him for whom he died. Finally, what has the Christian world done to offend you, from which you have cut yourselves off in wicked madness? And what have the Maximianists deserved from you, whom—condemned by you and driven out of the basilicas by public judgments—you have again received back into their honor? What has the peace of Christ done to offend you, against which you divide yourselves from those whom you defame? And what has the peace of Donatus deserved from you, for which you take up those whom you condemn? Felicianus of Musti is now with you. We read that he was first condemned in your council, and afterward accused by you before the proconsul, and attacked in the city of Musti by the municipal records.

4. If the handing over of the books is a wicked thing, which God avenged with death in war upon the king who burned the book of Jeremiah (See Jer 36:23-30), how much more wicked is the sacrilege of schism, whose authors—to whom you have compared the Maximianists—the earth, opening up, swallowed alive (See Num 16:31-33)! How, then, do you cast at us the crime of handing over, which you do not prove, while you both condemn and accept your own schismatics? If you are righteous for this reason, that you have suffered persecution through the emperors, then the Maximianists themselves are more righteous than you, whom you yourselves persecuted through judges sent by the Catholic emperors. If you alone have Baptism, what is the baptism of the Maximianists doing among you, in those whom Felicianus—condemned, and afterward recalled to you—baptized? Let your bishops answer these things to you laymen, if they are unwilling to speak with us; and consider, for your salvation, what this very thing means, that they are unwilling to speak with us. If the wolves have held a council not to answer the shepherds, why have the sheep lost their reason, so as to approach the dens of the wolves?

LETTER 77
TO HIS MOST BELOVED LORDS AND DESERVEDLY HONORABLE BROTHERS FELIX AND HILARINUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. I do not wonder that Satan disturbs the minds of the faithful; resist him, abiding in the hope of the promises of God, who cannot deceive, who has deigned not only to promise eternal rewards to us who believe in him, and hope, and persevere in his love to the end, but has also foretold that temporal scandals would not be lacking, by which our faith should be exercised and proved. For he says: Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold; but immediately he added: But he who perseveres to the end will be saved (Matt 24:12-13). What wonder is it, then, if men disparage the servants of God, and—because they cannot pervert their life—try to discolor their reputation, when they do not cease daily to blaspheme God himself and their Lord, since whatever he does against their will by his just and hidden judgment displeases them? Hence I exhort your prudence, my most beloved lords and deservedly honorable brothers, to consider the Scripture of God—who foretold to us all these things to come, and forewarned us that we ought to stand firm against them—against the slanderous idle talk of men and rash suspicions, with a most Christian heart.

2. Briefly, then, I say to your Charity that the priest Boniface has been detected by me in no crime, and that I have by no means believed or believe any such thing of him. How, then, would I order his name to be removed from the number of the priests, when the Gospel terrifies me vehemently, where the Lord says: With what judgment you have judged, you will be judged (Matt 7:2)? For since the case that has arisen between him and Spes hangs under the divine examination according to their agreement—which can be recited to you, if you wish—who am I to dare to anticipate the sentence of God by deleting or suppressing the name of one of whom I, as bishop, ought neither rashly to suspect anything evil, nor, as a man, could clearly judge concerning the hidden things of men? For even in secular cases, when the power of judging is referred to a higher authority, while all things remain as they were, that sentence is awaited from which it is no longer permitted to appeal, lest an injury be done to the higher judge if, while his judgment is pending, something were changed. And surely there is a great difference between the divine power and any human power, however exalted. May the mercy of the Lord our God never desert you, my most beloved and honorable lord brothers.

LETTER 78
TO HIS MOST BELOVED BROTHERS, THE CLERGY, THE ELDERS, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH OF HIPPO, WHOM I SERVE IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. Would that, attending to the Scriptures of God with anxious mind, you had no need of the help of my words in any scandals, and that rather he consoled you who consoles us also: he who foretold beforehand not only the good things that he will render to his saints and faithful, but also the evil things with which this world was to abound, and took care that they be written down beforehand, so that we might more surely await the good things to follow after the end of the age than feel the evil things, likewise foretold beforehand, going before the end of the age. Hence the Apostle also says: For whatever was written beforehand was written for our instruction, so that through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope toward God (Rom 15:4). But what need was there that the Lord Jesus himself should not only say: Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt 13:43), which will come to pass after the end of the age, but should also cry out: Woe to the world because of scandals (Matt 18:7)—except so that we might not flatter ourselves that we can come to the seats of eternal happiness unless, exercised by temporal evils, we have not failed? What need was there for him to say: Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold—except so that those of whom he immediately went on to speak, when he added: He who perseveres to the end will be saved (Matt 24:12-13), when they saw, with this abundance of iniquity, love growing cold, might not be disturbed, might not be terrified, might not, as if at things unhoped-for and unexpected, fail in grief; but rather, seeing come to pass the things foretold to be before the end, might patiently persevere to the end, so that, secure, they might deserve to reign after the end in that life which has no end?

2. Accordingly, dearly beloved, in this scandal by which some are disturbed concerning the priest Boniface, I do not tell you not to grieve—for those who do not grieve at these things have not in them the love of Christ; while those who even rejoice at such things have abounding in them the malignity of the devil. Not that anything appeared in the said priest that would be judged worthy of condemnation, but because two from our house have such a case that one of them is without doubt held to be ruined, and the reputation of the other is, in the eyes of some, bad, in the eyes of some, doubtful, even if his conscience is not stained. Grieve at these things, since they are to be grieved at; yet not so that by that grief your love should grow cold from living well, but rather should burn for beseeching the Lord, so that if your priest is innocent—which I rather believe, because when he perceived the impure and unclean motion of the other, he neither wished to consent nor to be silent—the divine sentence may quickly present him, vindicated, to his own ministry; but if he was evilly conscious to himself—which I do not dare to suspect—and wished to wound the reputation of the other, since he could not defile his chastity, as the one with whom he has the case says, may God not permit him to hide his own wickedness, so that what men cannot find out may be revealed by the divine judgment concerning whichever of them.

3. For when this case had long tormented me, and I could not find how one of the two could be convicted—though I had rather believed the priest—I had first thought to leave both of them thus to God, until in the one who was suspected by me something should arise by which he might be cast out of our dwelling not without a just and manifest cause. But when he most vehemently strove to be promoted to the clerical state—either there through me, or elsewhere through my letters—while I could by no means be brought to lay the hands of ordination upon a man of whom I thought so much evil, or to slip him in by my commendation to some brother of mine, he began to act more turbulently, so that if he himself were not promoted to the clerical state, neither would the priest Boniface be permitted to remain in his rank. In this challenge of his, when I saw that Boniface was unwilling that, to any of the weak and those inclined to suspicion, a scandal should arise from a doubt about his life, and that he was prepared to suffer the loss of his honor among men rather than, in that contention—in which he could not demonstrate his conscience to the ignorant and the doubting, or to those more prone to suspect evil—to proceed vainly even to the disturbance of the Church, I chose something in between: that by a fixed agreement they should both bind themselves to go to a holy place, where the more terrible works of God might far more easily lay open the unsound conscience of either, and by punishment or fear compel them to confession. God is indeed everywhere, and is contained or enclosed in no place, he who founded all things, and he must be worshiped by true worshipers in spirit and in truth (See Jn 4:23-24), so that, hearing in secret, he may also in secret justify and crown. Nevertheless, as for these things that are visibly known to men, who can search out his counsel—why in some places these miracles happen, in others they do not happen? For the holiness of the place where the body of blessed Felix of Nola is buried is most well known to many—to which I wished them to go, because from there whatever may have been divinely revealed in either of them can more easily and faithfully be written to us. For we too know that at Milan, at the memorial of the saints—where the demons confess in a marvelous and terrible manner—a certain thief, who had come to that place to deceive by swearing falsely, was compelled to confess the theft, and to restore what he had taken away. Is not Africa too full of the bodies of holy martyrs? And yet nowhere here do we know such things to happen. For just as, as the Apostle says, not all the saints have gifts of healing, nor do all have the discernment of spirits (See 1 Cor 12:9-10, 30), so neither at all the memorials of the saints has he willed these things to happen, who distributes to each one his own as he wills (See 1 Cor 12:11).

4. Therefore, although I had not wished this most grievous grief of my heart to be brought to your notice, lest I disturb you by saddening you terribly and vainly, perhaps for this reason God did not wish it to be hidden from you, so that you might join with us in prayers, that what he himself knows in this case—but we cannot know—he may deign to make manifest even to us. As for the name of the priest, I did not dare either to suppress or delete it from the number of his colleagues, lest I should seem to do an injury to the divine power, under whose examination the case still hangs, if I wished to anticipate his judgment by my prejudgment—which not even judges do in secular affairs, when the doubtful matter of a case is referred to a higher authority, so as to dare to change anything while the referral is pending. And in a council of bishops it was established that no cleric who has not yet been convicted ought to be suspended from communion, unless he fails to present himself to have his case examined. Boniface, however, has taken on this humility, that he would not even accept letters by which he might seek his honor in his pilgrimage, so that in that place where both are unknown, equality might be preserved toward both. And now, if it pleases you that his name not be recited, lest, as the Apostle says, we give an occasion to those who seek an occasion (See 2 Cor 11:12), who are unwilling to come to the Church, this deed will not be ours, but theirs for whose sake it shall have been done. For what harm is it to a man that human ignorance does not wish him to be recited from that tablet, if an iniquitous conscience does not delete him from the book of the living?

5. Accordingly, my brothers, you who fear God, remember what the apostle Peter says: Because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8). Whomever he cannot devour by seducing to wickedness, he tries to befoul his reputation, so that, if it can be done, the man may fail through the reproaches of men and the disparagement of evil tongues, and so rush into his jaws. But if he cannot stain even the reputation of the innocent, he tries to persuade him to judge his brother by malevolent suspicions, and so, entangled, to be swallowed by him. And who could either grasp or enumerate all his snares and entrapments? Against these three things, however, which pertain to the present case, God addresses you through the Apostle—first, lest by imitating evil examples you be seduced into wickedness, thus: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers; for what partnership has righteousness with iniquity, or what fellowship has light with darkness (2 Cor 6:14)? Likewise in another place he says: Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals. Be sober, righteous, and do not sin (1 Cor 15:33-34). And, so that you may not fail before the tongues of disparagers, he says thus through the Prophet: Hear me, you who know judgment, my people, in whose heart is my law: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be overcome by their disparagement, nor count it a great thing that they despise you. For as a garment, so will they be consumed by time, and as wool they will be eaten by the moth; but my righteousness abides forever (See Isa 51:7-8). And further, lest with malevolent mind you perish by falsely suspecting the servants of God, recall that word of the Apostle, where he says: Do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, and illuminates the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart, and then each one will have praise from God (1 Cor 4:5). And likewise that which is written: The things that are manifest are for you; but the things that are hidden are for the Lord your God (See Deut 29:29).

6. It is indeed manifest that these things do not happen in the Church without grave sorrow of the holy and faithful; nevertheless, let him console us who foretold all things, and warned us that, with the abundance of iniquity, we should not grow cold, but persevere to the end, so that we may be saved (See Matt 24:12-13). For as far as it concerns me, if there is in me even the least love of Christ, who among you is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I do not burn (2 Cor 11:29)? Do not, then, increase my torments by failing either in false suspicions or in the sins of others. Do not, I beg you, let me say of you: And to the pain of my wounds they added more (See Ps 69:26 (68:27)). For those who rejoice at these sorrows of ours—of whom it was foretold so long beforehand, in the person of the body of Christ: They insulted me who sat in the gate, and they sang of me who drank wine (See Ps 69:12 (68:13))—are borne with far more tolerably; for whom, nevertheless, even for them, we have learned to pray and to wish them good. For what else do these men sit for, and what else do they aim at, except that, whenever any bishop, or cleric, or monk, or nun has fallen, they may believe, boast, and contend that all such are alike, but that not all can be made manifest? And yet they themselves, when some married woman is found to be an adulteress, neither cast out their own wives, nor accuse their own mothers. But when, of some who profess the holy name, some charge has either falsely sounded forth or truly lain open, they press on, busy themselves, and go about to have it believed of all. These men, then, who seize on the sweetness of their evil tongue from our sorrows, are easily compared—if perhaps they are to be understood in the bad sense—to those dogs that licked the wounds of that poor man who lay before the rich man's door, and who, until he came to the rest of Abraham's bosom, endured all things laborious and unworthy (See Lk 16:20-22).

7. Do not torment me further, you who have any hope toward God; do not multiply those very wounds which they lick; you for whom we are in peril every hour, having fightings without, fears within, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils from the nations, perils from false brothers (See 2 Cor 7:5, 11:26). I know that you grieve; but is it more keenly than I? I know that you are troubled, and I fear lest, amid the tongues of the slanderous, the weak one fail and perish, for whom Christ died (See 1 Cor 8:11). Let not our sorrow be increased from you, since your sorrow was not made by our fault. For this is what I tried to forestall: that, if it could be done, this evil should neither be neglected as something not to be avoided, nor be brought to your notice, where the firm would be fruitlessly tormented, and the weak dangerously disturbed. But may he who, knowing this, permitted you to be tempted, give you strength to endure, and instruct you out of his law; may he teach you and soothe you from the days of evil, until a pit be dug for the sinner (See Ps 94:12-13 (93:12-13)).

8. I hear that some of you are saddened by this more than by the fall of those two deacons who had come over from the party of Donatus, as though they had insulted the discipline of Proculeianus, boasting, as it were, about us, that out of our discipline nothing of the kind had appeared among the clergy. Whoever of you did this, I confess to you, you did not do well. Behold, God has taught you, that he who boasts should boast in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17); nor should you reproach heretics, except that they are not Catholics, lest you be like them who, having nothing to defend in the cause of their division, aim only to gather the crimes of men, and boast of these very things, mostly most falsely; so that, because they cannot accuse and obscure the very truth of the divine Scripture, by which the Church of Christ, spread everywhere, is commended, they may bring into hatred the men through whom it is preached—about whom they can also invent whatever comes into their mind. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him, and have been taught in him (See Eph 4:20-21). For he himself made his faithful secure even concerning evil stewards, doing their own evil deeds and speaking his good words, where he says: Do what they say; but what they do, do not do; for they say, and do not do (See Matt 23:3). Pray indeed for me, lest perhaps, preaching to others, I myself be found reprobate (See 1 Cor 9:27); nevertheless, when you boast, boast not in me, but in the Lord. For however much the discipline of my house may keep watch, I am a man, and I live among men, nor do I dare to arrogate to myself that my house should be better than the ark of Noah, where nevertheless among eight men one reprobate was found (See Gen 6:18, 9:22-25; 1 Pet 3:20); or better than the house of Abraham, where it was said: cast out the slave woman and her son (Gen 21:10); or better than the house of Isaac, of whose two twins it was said: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Rom 9:13; see Mal 1:2-3); or better than the house of Jacob himself, where the son defiled his father's bed (See Gen 35:22); or better than the house of David, whose son lay with his sister (See 2 Sam 13:14), and whose other son rebelled against the father's so holy gentleness (See 2 Sam 15); or better than the cohabitation of the apostle Paul, who nevertheless, if he had dwelt among all good men, would not have said what I mentioned above, fightings without, fears within (2 Cor 7:5); nor would he have said, when he spoke of the holiness and faith of Timothy: I have no one who is genuinely concerned for you. For all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ (Phil 2:20-21); or better than the cohabitation of the Lord Christ himself, in which eleven good men tolerated the treacherous Judas, a thief; or better, finally, than heaven, from which the angels fell.

9. I confess plainly to your Charity, before the Lord our God, who is witness over my soul, that from the time I began to serve God: just as I have found it difficult to find any better than those who have advanced in monasteries, so I have not found any worse than those who have fallen in monasteries—so that from this I think it is written in the Apocalypse: Let the righteous become more righteous, and let the filthy become filthier still (See Rev 22:11). Therefore, even if we are saddened concerning certain refuse, we are nevertheless consoled concerning the more numerous ornaments. Do not, then, on account of the lees by which your eyes are offended, detest the wine-presses from which the storehouses of the Lord are filled with the fruit of a more shining oil. May the mercy of the Lord our God guard you in his peace against all the snares of the enemy, most beloved brothers.

1. Without cause you shuffle about, since it is plain from afar what sort of man you are. What the brothers said to you, they have reported to me. It is good that you do not fear death; but you ought to fear that death which you make for yourself by blaspheming such things about God. And as for your understanding that this visible death, which all men know, is the separation of the mind from the body—it is no great thing to understand. But what you add from your own teaching, that it is the separation of good from evil: if the mind is good and the body evil, then he who joined them together is not good; but you say that God, who is good, joined these things together; therefore he is either evil, or he feared evil. And do you boast that you do not fear a man, while you fashion for yourself such a God, who feared the darkness, so as to mingle good and evil? But do not be lifted up in spirit, as you have written, because we make you great by wishing to hinder your poisons, lest the plague creep on to men; for the Apostle does not make great those whom he calls dogs, when he says: Beware of the dogs (Phil 3:2); nor did he make great those whose speech he said creeps like a cancer (See 2 Tim 2:17). And so I declare to you, in the name of Christ, that if you are prepared, solve the question in which your predecessor Fortunatus failed. And he had gone from here in such a way as not to return, unless, after conferring in disputation with his own, he should find what he could answer in reply, disputing with the brothers. But if you are not prepared for this, depart from here, and do not pervert the ways of the Lord, and ensnare so as to infect with poisons the weak souls, lest, with the right hand of our Lord helping, you blush as you did not think you would.

LETTER 80
TO THE HOLY AND GOD-BELOVED BROTHERS PAULINUS AND THERASIA, DESERVEDLY VENERABLE AND MUCH LONGED-FOR, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. When my dearest brother Celsus asked again for a reply, I hastened to render my debt—but truly I hastened. For while I thought he would stay with us some days yet, having suddenly learned of the chance of a ship, he indicated to me at night his departure for the following day. What was I to do, since I could not hold him; and since he was hurrying to you, with whom it was better for him to be, I ought not, even if I could? Accordingly, I snatched up at once these few things to be dictated and sent, confessing myself the debtor of a longer letter, when, after the return of our venerable brothers and colleagues Theasius and Evodius, I shall first have been satisfied with news of you in part. For we hope, in the name and with the help of Christ, that you will come to us more abundantly, even now, in their breasts and mouths. While I was writing this, I had also, a few days before, given another letter through our like-minded son Fortunatianus, priest of the Church of Thagaste, about to sail to Rome. Now therefore I ask what I am wont to ask, that you do what you are wont to do. Pray for us, that God may see our humility and our toil, and forgive all our sins (See Ps 25:18 (24:18)).

2. I desire to converse with you about such matters, if you would deign, by letters, as we might converse if we were present to your senses. Behold, that little question which I recently proposed—as if I, present, were laying it before you, present, amid sweet discourses—you have solved with a plainly Christian understanding and devotion, but too hastily and briefly; for the grace of your mouth could dwell there somewhat longer and more abundantly, if, when you had said that you had resolved to persevere in that place which you happily occupy, in such a way that, if God should be pleased to have anything else for you, you would prefer his will to your own, you would explain this very thing somewhat more openly. In what way, then, are we to know the will of God, which is to be set before our own will—whether only in that matter which we ought therefore to bear willingly, because even unwilling we would be compelled? For there it indeed comes to pass what we do not wish; but we correct ourselves so as to wish it, because he wills it, whose will it is neither right to refuse in its excellence, nor permitted to evade in its omnipotence; just as another girded Peter and bore him where he did not wish, yet he went where he would not, and willing he underwent a harsh death (See Jn 21:18). Or even there, where there is the power not to change one's resolution, although something else occurs in which the will of God may rather appear, calling us to change our resolution—not because ours was evil, but a resolution in which one would rightly remain, unless we were called by him to another. For it was not evil for Abraham to nourish and bring up his son as long as he could, as far as it lay in himself, even to the end of his own life; but, suddenly bidden to kill him, he changed a resolution not previously evil, but one that would have been evil if, after the command, it had not been changed (See Gen 22:1-12). On this point too I do not doubt that nothing else seems so to you.

3. But for the most part, not by a voice from heaven, not through a prophet, not through a revelation either of a dream or of that transport of mind which is called ecstasy, but by the things themselves happening and calling us to something other than we had determined, we are compelled to recognize that the will of God is other than ours was: as if we had determined to set out, and something should arise which the truth, consulted about our duty, forbade us to abandon; or, to us determining to remain there, something should be announced which, by the same truth consulted, would compel us to set out. Concerning this third kind of cause for changing one's resolution, I ask that you converse with me more fully and clearly about what seems to you. For it often troubles us, and it is difficult not to omit something that ought rather to have been done, while we are unwilling to change that in which we had first determined to remain—not indeed something evil, yet now evil for this reason, that what ought rather to be done is abandoned when it presents itself; whereas, if it did not present itself, one would persevere in that former course not only without blame, but even with praise. Here it is difficult not to be deceived; here the prophetic voice altogether prevails: Who understands his faults (Ps 19:12 (18:13))? Hence I pray that you make me a sharer in your thoughts: what in such matters you are wont to do, or find ought to be done.

LETTER 81
TO THE TRULY HOLY AND MOST BLESSED LORD POPE AUGUSTINE, JEROME SENDS GREETING IN CHRIST.

1. When I was anxiously asking our holy brother Firmus how you were, I was glad to hear that you are safe. And again, when I was, I will not say hoping for, but demanding your letters, he said that he had set out from Africa without your knowledge. And so I render to you through him the offices of greeting, who embraces you with a singular love; and at the same time I beseech you to pardon my modesty, in that I could not refuse one who long enjoined me to write back. Nor did I answer you, but cause answered cause. And if it is a fault to have answered, much greater is it to have provoked. But let complaints of this sort be done away; let there be between us pure brotherhood; and henceforth let us send to each other writings not of questions, but of love. The holy brothers who serve the Lord with us greet you abundantly. I beg that you greet, with my homage, the saints who with you draw the light yoke of Christ, especially the holy and worthy-to-be-received Pope Alypius. May Christ our God almighty keep you safe and mindful of me, truly holy and most blessed lord Pope. If you have read the book of Explanations on Jonah, I think you will not take up the ridiculous question of the gourd. But if a friend who first attacked me with the sword has been repelled with the pen, let it be the part of your humanity and justice to rebuke the accuser, not the one who answers. In the field of the Scriptures, if it please you, let us sport without mutual hurt to one another.

LETTER 82
TO HIS MOST BELOVED LORD, AND TO BE HONORED IN THE BOWELS OF CHRIST, HIS HOLY BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST JEROME, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. 1. Long ago I sent your Charity a lengthy letter, answering that one of yours which you recall having sent through your holy son Asterius, now not only my brother but also my colleague. Whether it deserved to come into your hands, I still do not know; except that, since you write through the most sincere brother Firmus, that if the one who first attacked you with the sword has been repelled with the pen, it should be the part of my humanity and justice to rebuke the accuser, not the one who answers—by this one slenderest indication I somehow conjecture that you have read that letter of mine. For in it I lamented that so great a discord had arisen between you—you of whose great friendship, wherever fame had spread it, brotherly love rejoiced. This I did not do by way of reproaching your Brotherliness, of whom I would not dare to say that I had known any fault in that matter; but by grieving over human misery, whose continuance in friendships, in retaining them by mutual love—however great that love may be—is uncertain. But I had rather have learned from your reply whether you had given me the pardon I had asked: which I desire to be made known to me more openly; although a certain more cheerful look of your letter seems to signify that I have obtained even this—if, however, it was sent after that letter was read, which by no means appears in it.

1. 2. You ask, or rather with the confidence of love you bid, that in the field of the Scriptures we sport without mutual hurt to one another. For my part, as far as it concerns me, I would rather we did these things in earnest than in sport. But if you were pleased to use this word on account of its easiness, I confess, I look for something greater from the goodness of your powers, and from a prudence so learned and unhurried, mature in years, studious, and ingenious in diligence—these things being given you, indeed even dictated, by the Holy Spirit—namely, that in great and laborious questions you would help me, not as one sporting in the field of the Scriptures, but as one panting on the mountains. But if, on account of the cheerfulness that befits the dearest friends discussing together, you thought it should be said, "Let us sport": whether what we discuss be open and plain, or arduous and difficult, teach me this very thing, I beg you, in what way we may be able to attain it: so that when perhaps something moves us which has not been proved to us—even if we attend not too cautiously, at least are slower to understand—and we try on the contrary to assert what seems to us, if we say this with somewhat more secure freedom, we may not fall into the suspicion of childish boastfulness, as though we sought fame for our own name by accusing illustrious men; and if anything harsh is brought forth out of the necessity of refuting, we may, so that it become tolerable, surround it with gentler eloquence, lest we be judged to draw a sword smeared with honey. Unless perhaps that is the way by which we may avoid both this fault, or the suspicion of fault—if we dispute with a more learned friend in such a way that whatever he says must be approved, nor is it permitted, even for the sake of inquiry, to resist a little.

1. 3. Then indeed, without any fear of giving offense, one sports as in a field; but it would be a wonder if one were not mocked. For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to render this fear and honor only to those books of the Scriptures that are now called canonical, so that I most firmly believe that none of their authors erred in anything in writing. And if I come upon anything in those Letters which seems contrary to the truth, I will not doubt that either the codex is faulty, or the translator did not attain what was said, or that I have by no means understood it. But others I so read that, however much they excel in holiness and learning, I do not therefore think it true because they themselves thought so; but because they were able to persuade me, either through those canonical authors, or by probable reason, that it does not depart from the truth. Nor do I think, my brother, that you feel otherwise: indeed, I say, I do not suppose that you wish your books to be read as though they were the books of the Prophets or the Apostles, of whose writings—that they are free from all error—it is wicked to doubt. Far be this from your pious humility and truthful thinking about yourself; for unless you were endowed with it, you would surely not say: "Would that we deserved your embraces, and by mutual conference might either teach something or learn."

2. 4. But if I believe that you said this about yourself—from a consideration of your life and morals—not feignedly nor deceitfully, how much more just is it for me to believe that the apostle Paul felt nothing other than what he wrote, where he says of Peter and Barnabas: When I saw that they were not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews (Gal 2:14)? For of whom shall I be certain that he does not deceive me in writing or speaking, if the Apostle deceived his sons, whom he was bringing forth again in travail, until Christ, that is, the truth, should be formed in them (See Gal 4:19)? To whom, when he had said first: What I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie (Gal 1:20)—yet he was not writing truthfully, but by some dispensational dissimulation was deceiving them, that he had seen Peter and Barnabas not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, and had withstood Peter to his face, for no other reason than that he was compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews!

2. 5. But indeed it is better to believe that the apostle Paul wrote something not truthfully, than that the apostle Peter did something not rightly. If it is so, let us say—which God forbid—that it is better to believe that the Gospel lies, than that Christ was denied by Peter (See Matt 26:69-75); and that the book of Kingdoms lies, than that so great a prophet, so excellently chosen by the Lord God, committed adultery in coveting and carrying off another man's wife, and so dreadful a homicide in slaying her husband (See 2 Sam 11). No: rather let me read holy Scripture, placed on the highest and heavenly summit of authority, certain and secure of its truth, and let me there truthfully learn that men were either approved, or corrected, or condemned—rather than, while I sometimes fear to believe that things to be reproached were done by certain persons of praiseworthy excellence, let the divine words themselves be everywhere suspect to me.

2. 6. The Manicheans contend that very many of the divine Scriptures—by which their wicked error is convicted with the clearest perspicuity of statements—are false, because they cannot twist them into another sense; in such a way, however, that they attribute that same falsity not to the Apostles who wrote them, but to certain corrupters of the codices, I know not whom. Yet because they could never prove this either by more or more ancient copies, or by the authority of the preceding language from which the Latin books were translated, they depart overcome and confounded by the truth most well known to all. Does not your holy prudence understand how great an occasion for their malice lies open, if we say that the apostolic Letters were falsified not by others, but that the Apostles themselves wrote false things?

2. 7. It is not credible, you say, that Paul reproved in Peter what Paul himself had done. I do not now inquire what he did; I ask what he wrote: this pertains most of all to the question I have undertaken—that the truth of the divine Scriptures, committed to memory for the building up of our faith, written not by just anyone, but by the Apostles themselves, and through this received into the canonical summit of authority, should remain in every part truthful and beyond doubt. For if Peter did what he ought to have done, Paul lied in saying that he saw him not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel. For whoever does what he ought to do, surely does rightly. And therefore he says a falsehood about him who says that he did not do rightly what he knew he ought to have done. But if Paul wrote the truth, it is true that Peter was then not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel. He was therefore doing what he ought not to have done; and if Paul himself had already done some such thing, I will rather believe that he too, corrected, could not have neglected the correction of his fellow-apostle, than that he set down something mendaciously in his Epistle—and in any Epistle whatever: how much more in that one in which he had said beforehand: What I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie (Gal 1:20)?

2. 8. I indeed believe that Peter acted thus, so as to compel the Gentiles to live like Jews. For this I read that Paul wrote, whom I do not believe to have lied. And therefore Peter was not acting rightly in this. For it was against the truth of the Gospel that those who believed in Christ should think they could not be saved without those old sacraments. For this is what those at Antioch who had believed from the circumcision were contending; against whom Paul perseveringly and sharply fought. But Paul himself did not do this—whether that he circumcised Timothy (See Acts 16:3), or paid a vow at Cenchreae (See Acts 18:18), or at Jerusalem, admonished by James, took up with those who knew them the celebration of those legal observances (See Acts 21:18-26)—in order that it might be thought that through those sacraments Christian salvation also is given; but lest those things which God had bidden be done in former times, as was fitting, in the shadows of things to come, be believed to be condemned, like the idolatry of the Gentiles. For this is what James said to him: that it had been heard of him that he teaches a falling-away from Moses (See Acts 21:21). And this is surely wicked: that those who believe in Christ should fall away from the prophet of Christ, as though detesting and condemning his teaching; of whom Christ himself says: If you believed Moses, you would also believe me; for he wrote of me (Jn 5:46).

2. 9. For attend, I beg, to the very words of James: You see, he says, brother, how many thousands there are in Judea who have believed in Christ; and these are all zealous for the Law. Now they have heard of you that you teach a falling-away from Moses to those Jews who are among the Gentiles, telling them not to circumcise their sons, nor to walk according to the custom. What then is it? Surely the multitude must come together; for they have heard that you have arrived. Do this, then, which we tell you. We have four men who have a vow upon them; take them, sanctify yourself with them, and pay for them, that they may shave their heads; and all will know that the things they have heard about you are false, but that you yourself also follow, keeping the law. But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we have given judgment that they should observe nothing of this kind, except that they keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from fornication (See Acts 21:20-25). It is not, I think, obscure that James gave this advice for this reason: that those who, though they had believed in Christ from among the Jews, were nevertheless zealous for the Law, might know that the things they had heard about him were false—lest, through the teaching of Christ, the things which had been ministered through Moses to the fathers should be thought condemned as sacrilegious and not written down at God's command. For this had been spread abroad about Paul—not by those who understood with what mind these things ought then to be observed by the faithful Jews, namely for the sake of commending the divine authority and the prophetic holiness of those sacraments, not for the sake of obtaining salvation, which was now revealed in Christ and ministered through the sacrament of Baptism; but those had spread this about Paul who wished them to be observed in such a way as though without them there could be no salvation for believers in the Gospel. For they had perceived him to be a most vehement preacher of grace, and most opposed to their intention, teaching that man is justified not through those things, but through the grace of Jesus Christ, for the foretelling of which those shadows were commanded in the Law. And therefore they, contriving to stir up ill will and persecution, accused him as an enemy of the Law and of the divine commandments; the ill will of which false accusation he could not more fittingly avoid than by himself celebrating those very things which he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious, and so showing that neither were the Jews then to be forbidden them as wicked things, nor were the Gentiles to be compelled to them as necessary.

2. 10. For if he had really reproved them in the way it had been heard of him, and had therefore undertaken to celebrate them so that by a feigned action he might be able to conceal his own opinion, James would not say to him: And all will know; but he would say, And all will think, that the things they have heard about you are false (See Acts 21:24)—especially since in Jerusalem itself the Apostles had already decreed that no one should compel the Gentiles to live like Jews (See Acts 15); but they had not decreed that no one should then forbid the Jews to live like Jews, although Christian teaching no longer compelled even them. Accordingly, if after the decree of the Apostles Peter had that dissimulation at Antioch, by which he compelled the Gentiles to live like Jews—which he himself was no longer compelled to do, though, for the sake of commending the words of God which were entrusted to the Jews (See Rom 3:2), he was not forbidden—what wonder is it if Paul constrained him to assert freely what he remembered he had decreed at Jerusalem along with the other Apostles?

2. 11. But if Peter did this—which I rather think—before that Jerusalem council, neither so is it a wonder that Paul wished him not timidly to cover up, but confidently to assert, what he knew Peter already felt alike with himself: whether because he had conferred the Gospel with him; or because in the calling of the centurion Cornelius he had received that Peter had been divinely admonished about this matter (See Acts 10); or because, before those whom he had feared came to Antioch, he had seen him eat together with the Gentiles. For we do not deny that Peter was already of this opinion in which Paul also was. Paul was therefore not then teaching him what was true in that matter; but he was reproving his dissimulation, by which the Gentiles were being compelled to live like Jews—for no other reason than that all those things were being conducted by way of pretense, as though it were true what those said who thought that believers could not be saved without the circumcision of the foreskin and the other observances which were shadows of things to come (See Col 2:16-17).

2. 12. Therefore he both circumcised Timothy (See Acts 16:3), for this reason: lest to the Jews, and especially to his mother's kindred, those who had believed in Christ from among the Gentiles should seem to detest circumcision, as idolatry is to be detested—since God had commanded the former to be done, while Satan persuaded the latter. And Titus he did not circumcise, for this reason: lest he give occasion to those who said that believers could not be saved without that circumcision, and, to the deception of the Gentiles, boast that Paul too held this view. This he himself sufficiently signifies where he says: But not even Titus, who was with me, although he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised; but on account of false brothers secretly brought in, who had slipped in to spy out our liberty, that they might bring us into slavery, to whom we did not yield in subjection even for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might remain among you (Gal 2:3-5). Here it appears what he understood them to be aiming at, so that he would not do what he had done in the case of Timothy, and what he was able to do by that liberty by which he showed that those sacraments ought neither to be sought after as necessary, nor condemned as sacrilegious.

2. 13. But we must beware, in this disputation, lest, like the philosophers, we call certain deeds of men things in between right action and sin, which are reckoned neither among right actions nor among sins; and lest we be pressed by the fact that to observe the ceremonies of the Law cannot be indifferent, but must be either good or evil—so that, if we call them good, we too are compelled to observe them; but if evil, we believe that they were observed by the Apostles not truly, but by pretense. For my part, I do not so much fear for the Apostles the example of the philosophers, since they too in their disputation say something true, as that of forensic advocates, when in the conduct of others' cases they lie. If their likeness has been thought fittingly introduced, in the very exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, to confirm the pretense of Peter and Paul—why should I fear before you the name of the philosophers, who are vain not because they say all things false, but because they both trust in most things that are false, and where they are found to say true things, are estranged from the grace of Christ, who is truth itself?

2. 14. But why should I not say that those precepts of the old sacraments were neither good, because men are not justified by them—for they are shadows foretelling the grace by which we are justified—nor yet evil, because they were divinely commanded, suited to the time and to the persons: especially since even a prophetic statement helps me, where God says that he gave that people precepts that were not good (See Ezek 20:25)? For perhaps for this reason he did not say "evil," but only "not good," that is, not such that by them men are made good, or without them are not made good. I would wish your kind Sincerity to teach me whether any holy man of the East, when he has come to Rome, fasts feignedly on the Sabbath, except on that day of the paschal vigil. For if we say that this is evil, we will condemn not only the Roman Church, but also many neighboring it, and some somewhat more remote, where the same custom is held and remains. But if we think that not to fast on the Sabbath is evil, with what rashness shall we accuse so many churches of the East, and a much greater part of the Christian world? Does it please you that we call it something in between, which is nevertheless acceptable to him who does it not feignedly, but with a fitting fellowship and observance? And yet we read nothing concerning this commanded to Christians in the canonical books. How much more do I not dare to call evil that which I cannot, by the Christian faith itself, deny that God commanded—by which faith I have learned that I am justified not by it, but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord?

2. 15. I say, therefore, that the circumcision of the foreskin and the other things of this kind were divinely given to the former people, through the Testament which is called Old, for the signification of things to come which had to be fulfilled through Christ; and that, when these had come, those things remained for Christians only to be read, for the understanding of the prophecy that had gone before, but not to be done as necessary, as though the revelation of the faith which was signified by them as to come were still to be awaited. But although they were not to be imposed on the Gentiles, yet they ought not to have been taken away from the custom of the Jews in such a way as to be detested and condemned. Accordingly, gradually and little by little, as the sound preaching of the grace of Christ grew warm—by which alone believers might know themselves to be justified and saved, not by those shadows of things formerly to come, now coming and present—so that, in the calling of those Jews whom the presence of the Lord's flesh and the apostolic times had found in this state, all that action of the shadows might be consumed. This sufficed them for commendation: that it should not be avoided as a thing to be detested and like idolatry; but it should have no further progress, lest it be thought necessary, as though either salvation were from it, or could not be without it. This the heretics thought, who, while they wish to be both Jews and Christians, could be neither Jews nor Christians. Whose opinion you have most kindly deigned to warn me to beware of, although I was never in it. Into the not the consent but the pretense of which opinion Peter had fallen through fear, so that of him Paul most truly wrote that he had seen him not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, and most truly said to him that he was compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews. Which Paul surely was not compelling, for this reason truthfully observing those old things, where there was need, that he might show they were not to be condemned; yet preaching insistently that not by them, but by the revealed grace of faith, the faithful are saved, lest he compel anyone to take them up as though necessary. But I so believe that the apostle Paul did all those things truthfully, and yet I now neither compel nor allow anyone made a Christian out of a Jew to celebrate such things truthfully; just as neither do you, to whom Paul seems to have pretended them, compel or allow such a one to pretend them.

2. 16. Or do you wish that I too should say that this is the sum of the question, or rather of your opinion: that after the Gospel of Christ, believing Jews do well if they offer the sacrifices which Paul offered, if they circumcise their sons, if they observe the Sabbath, as Paul did in the case of Timothy, and as all the Jews observed—provided they do these things feignedly and deceitfully? If it is so, we slip not now into the heresy of Ebion, or of those whom they commonly call Nazarenes, or any other old one, but into some new one, I know not what, which is the more pernicious in that it is not by error, but by deliberate purpose and a deceitful will. But if you answer, in order to clear yourself of this opinion, that the Apostles then pretended these things laudably, lest the weak be scandalized, who had believed in great numbers from among the Jews and did not yet understand that they were to be rejected; but that now, with the teaching of Christian grace confirmed through so many nations, confirmed also through all the Churches of Christ by the reading of the Law and the Prophets—in such a way that these things are recited to be understood, not observed—whoever should wish to do them by pretense is mad: why is it not permitted me to say that the apostle Paul, and other Christians of right faith, ought then truthfully to commend those old sacraments by observing them a little while, lest those observances of prophetic signification, kept by the most pious fathers, be thought, like diabolical sacrileges, to be detested by their descendants? For now, when the faith had come which, foretold beforehand by those observances, was after the death and resurrection of the Lord revealed, they had lost, as it were, the life of their office. Nevertheless, just as the bodies of the dead must be conducted, by the offices of their kinsmen, in some sort to burial—and not by pretense, but religiously—and not deserted at once, or cast out to the disparagements of enemies like the bites of dogs: so now, whoever of the Christians, though he be from among the Jews, should wish to celebrate them in like manner, as though digging up ashes laid to rest, will not be a pious conductor or bearer of the body, but an impious violator of the burial.

2. 17. I confess indeed that in what my letter contains—that for this reason Paul had undertaken to celebrate the sacraments of the Jews, when he was already an apostle of Christ, so as to teach that they were not pernicious to those who wished to keep them, as they had received them from their parents through the Law—I put too little: at that time only, when the grace of faith was first revealed; for then this was not pernicious. But with the progress of time those observances were to be abandoned by all Christians; lest, if it were done then, what God commanded to his people through Moses should not be distinguished from what in the temples of demons the unclean spirit instituted. Accordingly, my negligence is rather to be blamed, because I did not add this, than your reproof. Nevertheless, long before I had received your letters—when writing against Faustus the Manichean, in what way I explained the same passage, though briefly, and that I did not pass over this point there—you will be able to read, if you do not disdain to, your Kindness; and from our dearest friends, through whom I now send these writings, you will, however you wish, be assured that I dictated that before; and believe me concerning my mind, which, speaking before God, I claim by the right of love: that it never seemed to me that even now Christians made out of Jews ought, with any disposition, with any mind, to celebrate those old sacraments, or that it is in any way permitted them—since I have always so held concerning Paul, from the time his Letters became known to me—just as it does not seem to you that anyone ought at this time to pretend these things, although you believe the Apostles did this.

2. 18. Accordingly, just as you, on the contrary, declare—and, as you write, though the world cry out against it, with free voice pronounce—that the ceremonies of the Jews are both pernicious and deadly to Christians, and that whoever observes them, whether from among the Jews or from among the Gentiles, has been cast headlong into the pit of the devil: so I altogether confirm this word of yours, and add: Whoever observes them, whether from among the Jews or from among the Gentiles, not only truthfully but even by pretense, has been cast headlong into the pit of the devil. What more do you seek? But just as you separate the pretense of the Apostles from the reckoning of this present time, so I separate the truthful conduct of the apostle Paul, then in all these things, from the observance of the Jewish ceremonies at this present time—an observance by no means pretended; since then it was to be approved, now to be detested. Thus, although we have read: The Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist (See Lk 16:16); and that for this reason the Jews sought to kill Christ, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his Father, making himself equal to God (Jn 5:18); and that we have received grace for grace (Jn 1:16); and that the Law was given through Moses, but Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17); and that through Jeremiah it was promised that God would give a new Testament to the house of Judah, not according to the Testament which he had arranged with their fathers (See Jer 31:31-32): nevertheless I do not think that the Lord himself was deceitfully circumcised by his parents. Or if, on account of his age, he in no way forbade it, neither do I think that he said deceitfully to the leper—whom surely not that observance commanded through Moses, but he himself had commanded: Go and offer for yourself the sacrifice which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them (Matt 8:4). Nor did he deceitfully go up to the feast day, so far from doing so for the sake of ostentation before men that he did not go up openly, but secretly (See Jn 7:8-10).

2. 19. But, you say, the same Apostle said: Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2). He deceived Timothy, then, and made Christ profit him nothing. Or is it that, because this was done deceitfully, it therefore did no harm? But he himself did not put it thus, nor did he say: If you are circumcised truthfully, as not deceitfully; but without any exception he said: If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Just as, then, you wish to give place here to your opinion, so that you would have it understood as "unless deceitfully," so I, not without shame, demand that you allow us there to understand it said to those: If you are circumcised, who wished to be circumcised for this reason, that they thought they could not otherwise be saved in Christ. With this mind, then, with this will, with this intention, whoever was then circumcised, Christ profited him nothing at all—just as elsewhere he openly says: For if righteousness is through the Law, then Christ died in vain (Gal 2:21). This is declared also by what you yourself recalled: You who are justified by the Law have been emptied of Christ; you have fallen from grace (Gal 5:4). He therefore reproved those who believed they were justified in the Law, not those who observed those legal things in honor of him by whom they were commanded, understanding both by what reason of foretelling the truth they were commanded, and how long they ought to last. Hence is that which he says: If you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the Law (Gal 5:18)—from which, as you gather, it appears that he who is under the Law has not the Holy Spirit, not in a dispensational sense, as you think our elders wished, but truly, as I understand.

2. 20. It seems to me a great question, what it is to be under the Law in the way the Apostle blames. For I do not think he says this on account of circumcision, or those sacrifices which were then performed by the fathers and are now not performed by Christians, and other things of this kind; but this very thing which the Law also says: You shall not covet (Exod 20:17), which we certainly confess that Christians ought to observe, and which is preached above all by the illumination of the Gospel—he says the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good (See Rom 7:12); then he adds: Has then what is good become death to me? God forbid; but sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through what is good, so that the sinner, or sin, might become exceedingly sinful through the commandment (See Rom 7:13). But what he here says, that sin becomes exceedingly so through the commandment, this he says elsewhere: The Law crept in so that the offense might abound. But where the offense abounded, grace abounded all the more (Rom 5:20). And elsewhere, when he had spoken above of the dispensation of grace, that it itself justifies, he says, as if asking: Why then the Law? and to this question he immediately answered: It was set down because of transgression, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made (See Gal 3:19). He therefore says that those are damnably under the Law whom the Law makes guilty, not fulfilling the Law, while—not understanding the benefit of grace for doing the precepts of God—they presume, as it were, upon their own powers with proud elation. For the fullness of the Law is love (See Rom 13:10). And the love of God is poured out in our hearts, not through ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). But to explain this matter as much as is sufficient, a longer discourse, perhaps, of its own proper volume is owed. If, then, that which the Law says, You shall not covet, if human weakness has not been helped by the grace of God, holds the man guilty under itself, and condemns him as a transgressor rather than frees him as a sinner, how much more could those things which were commanded for the sake of signification—circumcision, and the rest, which it had been necessary to abolish as the revelation of grace became more widely known—justify no one? Yet they were not for that reason to be fled, like the diabolical sacrileges of the Gentiles, even when grace itself had now begun to be revealed, which had been foretold by such shadows; but they were to be permitted a little while, especially to those who had come from that people to whom they had been given. Afterward, however, having as it were been buried with honor, they were to be irreparably abandoned by all Christians.

2. 21. But this which you say: not in a dispensational sense, as our elders wished; what does it mean, I ask you? For either it is what I call a dutiful lie, so that this dispensation is a kind of office, as it were, of lying honorably; or what else it may be, I altogether do not see—unless perhaps, with the name of "dispensation" added, it comes about that a lie is not a lie; and if this is absurd, why then do you not openly say that the dutiful lie is to be defended? Unless perhaps the word troubles you, because the term "office" is not so customary in ecclesiastical books—a word which our Ambrose did not fear, who wished to call certain books of his, full of useful precepts, On Offices. Or is it that, if anyone lies dutifully, he is to be blamed; but if dispensationally, he is to be approved? I ask you: let him who thinks this lie where he chooses; for in this too there is a great question, whether it is ever permitted for a good man—indeed, a Christian man—to lie, to whom it was said: Let it be in your mouth, Yes, yes, No, no, so that you do not fall under judgment (See Jas 5:12; Matt 5:37); and who with faith hear: You will destroy all who speak a lie (Ps 5:6 (5:7)).

2. 22. But this, as I said, both this and other great questions; let him who thinks this choose where he will lie—provided, however, that of the writing authors of the holy Scriptures, and especially the canonical ones, it be believed without shaking, and defended, that a lie is altogether absent; lest the stewards of Christ, of whom it was said: Here now it is sought among stewards that one be found faithful (1 Cor 4:2), should seem to have faithfully learned something great for themselves—to lie for the sake of dispensing the truth—since faith itself is so called in the Latin tongue, because what is said is done. But where what is said is done, there is surely no place for lying. The faithful steward, the apostle Paul, therefore shows us beyond doubt his faith in writing, because he was a steward of truth, not of falsehood. And through this he wrote the truth, that he had seen Peter not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, and had withstood him to his face, because he was compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews (See Gal 2:14). But Peter himself accepted what Paul was doing usefully by the liberty of love, with the holy and kindly piety of humility; and so he furnished posterity a rarer and holier example, by which they would not disdain, if perhaps anywhere they had left the path of rectitude, to be corrected even by those who came after, than Paul, by which lesser men would confidently dare to resist greater ones for the sake of defending the truth of the Gospel, with brotherly love preserved. For although it is better to deviate from the road being kept in nothing than in anything, it is nevertheless far more marvelous and praiseworthy to accept the corrector willingly than to correct the one who strays boldly. There is therefore praise of just liberty in Paul, and of holy humility in Peter: which—as far as it seems to me according to my small measure—ought rather to have been defended against the slandering Porphyry, than that a greater occasion of disparagement be given him, by which he would much more bitingly accuse Christians of either writing their letters or carrying the sacraments of their God deceitfully.

3. 23. You demand of me that I show at least some one whose opinion I have followed in this matter, since you have recalled by name so many who preceded you in what you maintain; asking that, if I reprove you for erring in it, I allow you to err with such men, of whom, I confess, I have read none. But although there are about six or seven of them, the authority of four of these you yourself also weaken. For the man of Laodicea, whose name you keep silent, you say recently departed from the Church; Alexander you call an old heretic; and Origen and Didymus I read reproved by you in your more recent works, and not mildly, nor on mild questions—although you had previously praised Origen marvelously. With these, then, I think I would err, because you yourself would not allow it—although this is said just as if they had not erred in this opinion. For who is there who would wish to err with anyone at all? Three therefore remain: Eusebius of Emesa, Theodore of Heraclea, and the one you mention a little later, John, who not long ago governed the Church of Constantinople in the pontifical rank.

3. 24. Further, if you seek out or recall what our Ambrose thought on this, and likewise our Cyprian, you will perhaps find that we too were not without men whom we might follow in what we assert. Although, as I said a little before, I owe this ingenuous servitude only to the canonical Scriptures, by which I so follow them alone that I do not doubt that their authors erred in nothing at all in them, set down nothing deceitfully. Accordingly, when I seek a third, so that I too may oppose three to three, I could indeed, I think, easily find one, if I had read much; nevertheless, the apostle Paul himself meets me in place of all these—indeed, above all these. To him I flee; to him I appeal from all who think otherwise, the expositors of his letters; questioning him, I call upon him and inquire in what he wrote to the Galatians (See Gal 2:11-14), that he had seen Peter not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, and had withstood him to his face for this reason, that by that pretense he was compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews—whether he wrote the truth, or perhaps lied by some dispensational falsity, I know not what. And I hear him, a little above, at the beginning of that same narration, crying out to me with a religious voice: What I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie (Gal 1:20).

3. 25. Let whoever thinks otherwise grant pardon; I rather believe so great an apostle swearing in his own letters and for his own letters, than anyone most learned disputing about another's letters. Nor do I fear to be told that I so defend Paul that he did not pretend the error of the Jews, but truly was in error. For neither did he pretend an error who, by apostolic liberty, as befitted that time, by performing those old sacraments where there was need, commended them—established prophetically not by Satan's cunning to deceive men, but by God's providence to foretell things to come; nor had he truly been in the error of the Jews, who not only knew, but also insistently and sharply preached, that those erred who thought they were to be imposed on the Gentiles, or were necessary for the justification of any believers whatever.

3. 26. But as for my saying that he became to the Jews as a Jew, and to the Gentiles as a Gentile, not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate: in what way I said it, you seem to me to have attended too little; or rather, perhaps I could not explain this sufficiently. For I did not say this because he mercifully pretended those things; but because he so did not pretend the things he did that were like the Jews, just as neither those that he did that were like the Gentiles, which you too have recalled; and in this you have helped me, which I confess not ungratefully. For when I had asked you in my letter how he can be thought to have become to the Jews as a Jew because he deceitfully took up the sacraments of the Jews, when to the Gentiles also he became as a Gentile, and yet did not deceitfully take up the sacrifices of the Gentiles, you answered that he became to the Gentiles as a Gentile in that he received the uncircumcision, in that he indifferently permitted himself to eat foods which the Jews condemn; whereupon I ask whether he also did this by pretense; and if that is most absurd and most false, then likewise also those things in which he conformed to the custom of the Jews were done by prudent liberty, not by servile necessity, or, what is more unworthy, by a deceitful rather than a faithful dispensation.

3. 27. For to the faithful, and to those who have known the truth, as he himself testifies—unless perhaps here too he deceives—every creation of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4). Therefore to Paul himself—not only a man, but also a most faithful steward, not only a knower, but also a teacher of truth—surely every creation of God in foods was good not by pretense, but truly. Why, then, by taking up nothing of the sacred rites and ceremonies of the Gentiles by pretense, but by feeling and teaching the truth about foods and uncircumcision, did he nevertheless become to the Gentiles as a Gentile, and could not become to the Jews as a Jew, except by deceitfully taking up the sacraments of the Jews? Why, with the wild olive grafted in, did he preserve the truthful faith of his dispensation (See Rom 11:17-24), while over the natural branches—set not outside, but in the tree—he drew some veil of dispensational pretense, I know not what? Why, having become to the Gentiles as a Gentile, does he teach what he feels, and feel what he does; but having become to the Jews as a Jew, does he shut up one thing in his breast and bring forth another in words, in deeds, in writings? But far be it to think this. For to both he owed love from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith (See 1 Tim 1:5). And through this he became all things to all, that he might gain all (See 1 Cor 9:22)—not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate; that is, not by deceitfully doing all the evils of men, but by procuring, for all the evils of all others as if they were his own, the diligence of a merciful medicine.

3. 28. And so, since he by no means refused that those sacraments of the Old Testament should be performed even by himself, he was not mercifully deceiving, but, deceiving not at all, and in this way commending that they had been commanded by the Lord God for a dispensation up to a certain time, he distinguished them from the sacrilegious rites of the Gentiles. But then, not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate, he became to the Jews as a Jew, when he desired so to free them from that error—by which they either were unwilling to believe in Christ, or thought that through their old priesthoods and observances of ceremonies they could be cleansed from sins and made saved—as if he himself were held by that error; loving, surely, his neighbor as himself, and doing to others these things which he would wish to be done to him by others, if he had this need: which, when the Lord had advised, he added: For this is the Law and the Prophets (Matt 7:12).

3. 29. This affection of one compassionate he commands in the same Epistle to the Galatians, saying: If a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you also be tempted (Gal 6:1). See whether he did not say: Become as he is, so that you may gain him. Not, surely, that he should deceitfully act the beloved one, or pretend to have what he had; but that in another's fault he should attend to what could also happen to himself, and so come mercifully to the aid of the other, as he would wish to be aided by another himself: this is not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate. Thus to the Jew, thus to the Gentile, thus to any man at all set in some error or sin, Paul, not by pretending what he was not, but by being compassionate, because he could have been such—as one who thought of himself as a man—became all things to all, that he might gain all (See 1 Cor 9:22).

4. 30. Look, if you please, I beg you, a little at yourself; at yourself, I say, in relation to me; and recall—or, if you have them written down, reread—your words in that shorter letter which you sent me through our brother, now my colleague, Cyprian, with how truthful, how genuine, how full an affection of love, when you had gravely expostulated that I had committed certain things against you, you added: In this friendship is wounded, in this the rights of intimacy are violated, lest we seem to contend childishly, and to give material for contending to those who favor us, or to those who disparage us, in turn. I perceive these words to have been said by you not only from the heart, but also with a kindly mind to counsel me. Finally you add—what would be apparent even if you did not add it—and you say: I write this because I desire to love you purely and as a Christian, and to retain nothing in my mind that differs from my lips. O holy man, and beloved by me, as God sees my soul, with a truthful heart, this very thing which you set down in your letter, which I do not doubt you displayed toward me, this very thing I believe the apostle Paul altogether displayed in his Letters—not to any one man, but to the Jews, and the Greeks, and all the Gentiles, his sons, whom he had begotten in the Gospel, and whom he was bringing forth in travail to be born (See 1 Cor 4:15; Gal 4:19); and then to so many thousands of later faithful Christians, for whose sake that Epistle was committed to memory—so that he retained nothing in his mind that differed from his lips.

4. 31. Surely you too became, as I did, not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate, when you thought that I was as little to be left in that fault into which you supposed me to have slipped, as you would wish to be yourself, if you had slipped in that way. Hence, giving thanks to your kindly mind toward me, I at the same time ask that you also not be angry with me, that, when certain things in your works moved me, I made my being moved known to you—wishing this to be preserved toward me by all, which I myself preserved toward you: that whatever they think should be disapproved in my writings, they neither shut up in a crafty breast, nor so reprove before others as to be silent before me; thinking that hence rather friendship is wounded and the rights of intimacy violated. For I do not know whether those are to be thought Christian friendships in which the common proverb prevails more: Compliance begets friends, truth begets hatred, than the ecclesiastical one: More faithful are the wounds of a friend than the voluntary kisses of an enemy (See Prov 27:6).

4. 32. Accordingly, let us rather teach our dearest friends, who most sincerely favor our labors, with as much insistence as we can, so that they may know that it can come to pass that among the dearest something be contradicted by one or the other in speech, and yet love itself not be diminished, nor truth, which is owed to friendship, beget hatred—whether what is contradicted be true, or whatever it be, be said with a truthful heart, retaining nothing in the mind that differs from the lips. Let our brothers, then, your intimates, to whom you bear witness that they are vessels of Christ, believe that it was done against my will, and that no small grief about this matter is in my heart, that my letters came into the hands of many before they could reach you, to whom they were written. But in what way this happened, it is both long to tell, and, unless I am mistaken, superfluous: since it suffices, if anything is credited to me in this, that it was not done with the mind that is supposed; nor was it at all of my will, or arrangement, or consent, or even thought, that it should be done. If they do not believe this, which I say with God as witness, I have nothing more to do. Yet far be it that I should believe that they suggest these things to your Holiness with a malevolent mind, to stir up enmities between us—which may the mercy of the Lord our God turn away from us—but that, without any mind to harm, they easily suspect human faults of a man. For it is fair for me to believe this about them: if they are vessels of Christ, made not for dishonor, but for honor, and set in a great house by God, for a good work (See 2 Tim 2:20-21). But if, after this attestation of mine, if it shall have come to their notice, they should wish to do it, how wrongly they would act, you too see.

4. 33. What indeed I had written, that I had sent no book against you to Rome, I had written for this reason: because I distinguished the name "book" from that letter—from which I altogether did not know what else you had heard; and because I had sent to Rome not even the letter itself, but to you; and I did not think it was against you, since I knew I had done it in the sincerity of friendship, either to admonish, or to correct you, or to be corrected by you. But, apart from your intimates, I beg you yourself, through the grace by which we were redeemed, not to think that whatever good things of yours—which were granted you by the goodness of the Lord—I set down in my letters, I set down by insidious flattery. But if I have sinned against you in anything, forgive me. Nor draw to yourself, more than I said, that which was recalled by me, perhaps more ineptly than learnedly, about the deed of some poet, I know not whom: since I immediately added that I did not say this so that you might recover the eyes of your heart, which far be it, I say, that you have lost; but so that you might attend to how sound and watchful you have them. For the sake, then, of imitating the palinode alone—if we have written anything which we ought to destroy by a later writing—not for the sake of the blindness of Stesichorus, which I neither attributed to your heart nor feared, I thought that should be touched on; and again and again I ask that you confidently correct me, where you perceive that I have need of this. For although, according to the titles of honors which the usage of the Church has now obtained, the episcopate is greater than the priesthood, yet in many things Augustine is less than Jerome; though correction is not to be shunned or disdained even from any lesser one whatever.

5. 34. Concerning your translation, you have now persuaded me with what usefulness you wished to translate the Scriptures from the Hebrew—namely, that you might bring into the open those things which were passed over or corrupted by the Jews. But I beg you to deign to indicate by which Jews: whether by those very ones who translated before the coming of the Lord; and if so, by which, or where, of them; or by those later ones, who can for this reason be thought either to have subtracted certain things from the Greek codices, or to have corrupted them in them, lest by those testimonies they be convicted concerning the Christian faith. But those earlier ones—why they would have wished to do this, I do not find. Next, send us, I beg, your translation of the Septuagint, which I did not know you had published. Your book also, of which you made mention, On the Best Kind of Translating, I desire to read, and still to know how the skill of languages in a translator is to be made equal to the conjectures of those who treat the Scriptures by expounding them—who must, even if they are of a right and single faith, beget various opinions in the obscurity of many passages; although that variety by no means discords from the unity of the same faith; just as even one expositor, according to the same faith, can expound the same passage in one way and another, because its obscurity allows this.

5. 35. But for this reason I desire your translation of the Septuagint: both that we may, as much as we can, be free of the great inexperience of Latin translators—whoever they may have been—who dared this; and that those who think I envy your useful labors may at last, sometime, if it can be done, understand that I am unwilling that your translation from the Hebrew be read in the churches for this reason: lest, against the authority of the Septuagint, as though bringing forth something new, we disturb with great scandal the people of Christ, whose ears and hearts have grown accustomed to hear that translation which was also approved by the Apostles. Hence too, as for that shrub in Jonah, if in the Hebrew it is neither ivy nor gourd, but something else, I know not what, which, resting on its own trunk, is raised up to be supported by no props, I would rather that now in all Latin copies "gourd" be read. For I do not think the Septuagint set this down in vain, except that they knew something similar to this also.

5. 36. I think I have answered enough—indeed, perhaps more than enough—to your three letters; of which I received two through Cyprian, one through Firmus. Write back what seems good, for instructing us or others. But I will take more diligent care, as much as the Lord helps me, that the letters I write to you reach you before anyone from whom they might be more widely scattered. For I confess that I do not wish this to be done to me with your letters to me, which you most justly expostulate was done with mine to you. Nevertheless, let not only love, but also the liberty of friendship, please us in turn: that you not be silent before me, nor I before you, about what in our letters moves us in turn—with that mind, namely, which does not displease the eyes of God in brotherly love. But if you do not think this can be done between us without a ruinous offense to that very love, let it not be done. For that love which I would wish to have with you is surely greater; but better this lesser than none at all.

LETTER 83
TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, AND VENERABLY MOST BELOVED AND MOST LONGED-FOR BROTHER AND FELLOW-BISHOP ALYPIUS, AND TO THE BROTHERS WHO ARE WITH YOU, AUGUSTINE AND THE BROTHERS WHO ARE WITH ME SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. The sorrow of the Church of Thiava does not permit my heart to rest, until I hear from you that they have been restored to their former spirit; which must be done quickly. For if the Apostle busied himself so much about one man only, saying: Lest such a one be swallowed up by greater sorrow; where he also says: So that we may not be taken possession of by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his minds (See 2 Cor 2:7, 11)—how much more does it behoove us to act vigilantly, lest we lament this in the whole flock, and especially in those who have now come to Catholic peace, and whom I can in no way abandon. But because the narrowness of time did not allow us to refine together there an opinion carefully deliberated, let your Holiness receive what has pleased me, after our parting, on long reflection; and if it pleases you too, let the letter which I wrote to them in our common name now be sent without delay.

2. You said that they should have half, and that the other half should be provided for them by me from somewhere. But I think that, if the whole were taken from them, there would be something for which we might be said to have labored so greatly not about money, but about justice. But when we grant them half, and in that way compose peace with them at some point, it will sufficiently appear that our concern was nothing other than financial; and you see what ruin follows. For both we will seem to them to have taken away half of another's property; and they will seem to us to have suffered dishonorably and unfairly, so as to be helped from the half, when the whole had been the poor's. For as for what you said: "Care must be taken, lest, when we wish a doubtful matter to be corrected, we make greater wounds," it will be worth just as much, if half is granted them. For on account of that very half, those whose conversion we wish to provide for—so that by this example it be done with them—will put off the sale of their goods through those excusatory delays. Then it would be a wonder if a doubtful matter caused so great a scandal of the whole people, when they think their bishops, whom they hold in high regard, stained with sordid avarice, while the malign appearance is not avoided.

3. For when anyone is converted to the monastery, if he is converted with a truthful heart, he does not think of that, especially when admonished how great an evil it is. But if he is false, and seeks his own, not the things of Jesus Christ (See Phil 2:21), he surely does not have love. And what does it profit him, if he distributes all his goods to the poor, and hands over his body to be burned (See 1 Cor 13:3)? To this is added that that thing, as we have already discussed, can henceforth be avoided, and dealt with regarding him who is converted, if he cannot be admitted to the fellowship of the brothers before he has stripped himself of all those impediments, and is drawn out of leisure once his property has ceased to be his. But this death of the weak, and so great an impediment to the salvation of those for whom we labor so greatly to gain them for Catholic peace, cannot otherwise be avoided, except that they understand most openly that we in no way busy ourselves about money in such cases. Which they will in no way understand, unless we leave for their uses that thing which they always thought belonged to the priests; for even if it did not belong to him, they ought to have known this from the beginning.

4. It seems to me, therefore, that this rule is to be retained in matters of this kind: that whatever, by the law by which such things are possessed, has belonged to one who is ordained a cleric somewhere, should pertain to the Church in which he is ordained. But the matter in question is so much the priest Honoratus's by the same law that, not only had he been ordained elsewhere, but were he still established in the monastery of Thagaste to die without his property having been sold, or transferred to anyone by a manifest donation, none but his heirs would succeed to it—just as the brother Aemilianus succeeded the brother Privatus in those thirty solidi. These things, then, are to be guarded against beforehand; but if they have not been guarded against, those rights must be preserved for them which, according to civil society, are established for having or not having such things; so that we may abstain, as much as we can, from every malign thing—indeed, even appearance (See 1 Thess 5:22)—and may keep a good reputation, very necessary to our stewardship. But how malign the appearance is, let your holy prudence observe. Apart from their sorrow, which we have experienced, lest perhaps I myself be deceived, as is wont to happen while I err, more prone toward my own opinion, I told the case to our brother and colleague Samsucius, not yet saying what now seems to me, but rather adding what had seemed to both of us when we were resisting them: he was vehemently horrified, and marveled that this had seemed so to us; moved by nothing else than the foul appearance itself, most unworthy not of our life, but of anyone's life and morals.

5. Accordingly, I beg you not to delay sending, signed, the letter which I wrote to them in our common name. And if perhaps you most acutely perceive that to be just, let the weak not be compelled now to learn what I do not yet understand, so that in their regard, in this case, that may be observed which the Lord says: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (Jn 16:12). For sparing such weakness, he also said, concerning the paying of tribute: Therefore the sons are free; but lest we scandalize them, and the rest, when he sent Peter to pay the didrachmas which were then exacted (See Matt 17:25-27). For he knew another law, by which he owed nothing of the kind; but by that law he paid him tribute, by which law we said the heir of the priest Honoratus would have succeeded, if he had died before he either gave away or sold his property. Although even in the very law of the Church the apostle Paul spares the weak, and does not exact the stipend due to him, certain in conscience that he would most rightly exact it; but avoiding nothing other than the suspicion that disturbs the good odor of Christ, and abstaining from that malign appearance, in those regions where he knew this behooved (See 1 Cor 9:12-18; 2 Cor 11:7-9), and perhaps before he had experienced the sorrow of men. But let us, slower, or having experienced it, correct what we ought to have foreseen.

6. Finally, because I fear everything, and I remember what you proposed at our parting—that the brothers of Thagaste hold me debtor for half of that price—if you clearly perceive this to be just, I do not refuse, on this condition only: that I repay when I have it, that is, when something so great accrues to the monastery of Hippo that this can be done without straitness; so that, with so great a sum withdrawn there, no less than an equal part, according to the number of those dwelling together, may come to ours.

LETTER 84
TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, AND VENERABLE AND DESIRABLE BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST NOVATUS, AND TO THE BROTHERS WHO ARE WITH YOU, AUGUSTINE AND THE BROTHERS WHO ARE WITH ME SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. I too feel how hard I may seem, and I can scarcely bear myself, in that I do not send and grant to your Holiness my son the deacon Lucillus, your brother. But when you yourself also begin to grant from yourself some, very dear and very sweet from your own nurturing, to the needs of Churches set far away, then you will feel by what goads of longing I am pierced, that certain men joined to me in the greatest and sweetest familiarity are not also bodily with me. For—to send your thought far—however much the brotherhood of your blood may avail, it does not overcome the bond of friendship by which I and the brother Severus cleave to each other in turn; and yet you know how rarely it happens to me to see him. And this was done surely not by my will or his; but while we set the needs of mother Church—on account of the age to come, in which we shall live together with one another inseparably—before the needs of our own time. How much more fairly, then, ought you to tolerate, for the usefulness of mother Church herself, the absence of that brother of yours, with whom you do not so long ruminate the Lord's food as I do with my sweetest fellow-citizen Severus, who nevertheless now scarcely, and only occasionally, speaks with me through scant little papers—and those indeed more filled with other cares and businesses than carrying anything of our meadows in the sweetness of Christ?

2. Here perhaps you will say: What then? Will my brother not be useful to the Church among us also, or do I desire to have him with me for some other reason? Plainly, if his presence seemed to you as useful for gaining or ruling the Lord's sheep as it does to me here, no one would not rightly blame, I do not say my hardness, but my iniquity. But since the Latin tongue, of whose scarcity in our regions the dispensing of the Gospel labors much, while there the use of the same tongue is altogether common—do you so judge that we ought to provide for the salvation of the Lord's peoples by sending this faculty there, and taking it away from here, where we seek it with a great heat of heart? Grant pardon, therefore, that I do not only against your desire, but even against my own sense, what the care of our burden constrains me to do. The Lord, in whom you have placed your heart, will grant that your labors be such that you may be rewarded for this benefit; for thus, to the most burning thirst of our regions, you rather have granted the deacon Lucillus. For you will furnish no small thing, when you no longer burden me with any petition about this matter, lest I appear nothing other than harder to your venerable and holy Benevolence.

LETTER 85
TO THE LORD SINCERELY MOST BELOVED, AND TO BE BLESSED WITH ALL VOWS, BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST PAUL, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. You would not call me so inexorable, unless you also thought me a liar. For what else do you believe about my mind, when you write such things to me, except that I hold against you a blemish of discord and a detestable hatred—as though, in a manifest matter, I did not take care, lest, preaching to others, I myself be found reprobate (See 1 Cor 9:27); or as though I wished so to cast the straw out of your eye that I nourish a beam in my own (See Matt 7:3-5)? It is not what you think. Behold, again I say and call God to witness, that if you wished for yourself what I wish for you, you would long since live secure in Christ, and in the glory of his name would gladden his whole Church. Behold, I have now written that you are not only my brother, but also my colleague. For it cannot be that any bishop whatever of the Catholic Church—of whatever sort he may be, condemned by no ecclesiastical judgment—should not be my colleague. But that I should not commune with you, there is no cause, except that I cannot flatter you. For I owe most to you, because in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you (See 1 Cor 4:15), by truthfully rebuking with the wholesome bite of love. Nor do I so rejoice that many, with the Lord helping, have been gathered into the Catholic Church through you, that I ought not to lament that more are scattered thence. For you have so wounded the Church of Hippo that, unless the Lord recall you—freed of all secular cares and burdens—to a true episcopal life and sustenance, such a wound cannot be healed.

2. But since you cease not to entangle yourself more and more, so that you have inserted yourself, even after your renunciation, into the very things you renounced—which cannot in any way be defended even before human laws themselves—and you are said to live in that profession for which the frugality of your Church cannot suffice: why do you seek my communion, when you have never wished to hear my admonition? Is it so that men, whose complaints I cannot endure, may impute to me whatever you do? But in vain do you suspect that those are your detractors who have always been opposed to you, even in your former life. It is not so; nor is it a wonder that many things are hidden from you. But even if this were true, they ought to have found nothing in your morals which they could rightly reprove, and from which they might blaspheme the Church. Perhaps you still think I say these things because I have not accepted your satisfaction. On the contrary, I say them for this reason, lest I myself be unable to make sufficient satisfaction to God for my sins, if I keep silent about these things to you. I know that you have a heart; but even a slow heart is secure when it is in heaven; and a sharp heart is nothing when it is on the earth. The episcopate is not a craft for transacting a deceitful life. The Lord God will teach you what I say—he who has shut off for you all the ways which you wished to use for that end, so that he may direct you, if you understand, into that way for the walking of which so holy a burden was imposed on you.

LETTER 86
TO THE DISTINGUISHED LORD, AND IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST TRULY AND DESERVEDLY HONORABLE AND ESTEEMED SON CAECILIANUS, BISHOP AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. The brightness of your administration and the fame of your virtues, the praiseworthy diligence too of your Christian piety and faithful sincerity—which you rejoice were granted you as divine gifts by him from whom, as he promises, you hope for greater—have roused me to share, in this letter-address, the heat of my affairs with your Excellency. For as much as we rejoice that you have, with marvelous efficacy, provided for Catholic unity throughout the other lands of Africa, so much do we grieve that the region of Hippo Regius and the parts neighboring it, bordering Numidia, have not yet deserved to be helped by the protective force of your edict, distinguished lord, and in the love of Christ truly and deservedly honorable and esteemed son. Lest this be ascribed rather to my negligence—I who bear the episcopal burden at Hippo—I thought it should not be kept silent from your Magnificence. How much heretical audacity even presumes in the field of Hippo, if you should deign to hear from my brothers and colleagues, who can relate these things to your Sublimity, or from the priest whom I have sent with my letter, then, with the Lord our God helping, you will doubtless provide that the swelling of sacrilegious vanity be healed by terrifying it, rather than cut away by avenging it.

LETTER 87
TO THE DESIRABLE AND BELOVED BROTHER EMERITUS, AUGUSTINE.

1. When I hear that someone endowed with a good natural gift, and learned in the liberal disciplines—although the salvation of the soul is not placed there—nevertheless thinks otherwise than the truth demands in a most easy question, the more I marvel, the more I burn to know the man and to converse with him; or, if I cannot do that, at least by letters, which fly very far, to touch his mind, and to be touched by him in turn. As I hear that you are such a man, and I grieve that you are torn off and shut out from the Catholic Church, which, as was foretold by the Holy Spirit, is spread through the whole world—for what cause, I do not know. For it is certain that to a great part of the Roman world—not to say also to the barbarian nations, to whom too the Apostle said he was a debtor (See Rom 1:14), whose communion of Christian faith is woven together with ours—the party of Donatus is unknown; nor do they at all know either when or for what causes that dissension arose. All of whom, surely, all Christians, unless you confess them to be innocent of those crimes which you cast at the Africans, you will be compelled to say are liable to all evil deeds—since among you the ruined, to put it more mildly, lie hidden, so that you all are polluted. For you do not expel anyone from your communion; or you first expel him only when he has first done that for which he is to be expelled. Or do you not condemn one who lay hidden for some time, and was afterward betrayed and convicted? I ask, therefore, whether he contaminated you during the time when he lay hidden? You will answer: In no way. He would therefore contaminate you at no time, even if he should always lie hidden; for even of the dead, many things committed are often betrayed, nor is it a fraud to the Christians who communed with them while living. Why, then, have you cut yourselves off, by so rash and sacrilegious a sundering, from the communion of innumerable Eastern Churches, from which what was done—or which you teach or feign was done—in Africa always lay hidden, and still lies hidden?

2. For it is another question, whether you say true things—which indeed we convict to be false by much more probable documents, and which we declare those very things which you cast at us were then proved rather among your own. But this, as I said, is another question, to be taken up and discussed then, when there is need. Let now the vigilance of your mind attend to this: that no one can be contaminated by the unknown crimes of unknown men. Hence it is manifest that you have been separated, by a sacrilegious schism, from the communion of the world, to which the crimes—whether false or true—which you charge against the Africans are utterly unknown and always have been unknown; although this too must not be kept silent: that even known wicked men do not harm the good in the Church, if either the power to prohibit them from communion is lacking, or some reason of preserving peace hinders it. For who are those who, in the prophet Ezekiel, deserved both to be marked before the devastation of the lost, and to escape unharmed when those were devastated (See Ezek 9:4-6), except—as is most plainly shown there—those who mourn and groan over the sins and iniquities of the people of God which are done in their midst? But who groans and mourns over what he does not know? From the same reasoning the apostle Paul too tolerates false brothers. For he does not say of unknown ones: For all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ (Phil 2:21); whom nevertheless he shows to have been with him. But of what kind are those who chose to offer incense to idols, or to hand over the divine books, rather than die, except of those who seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ?

3. I pass over many testimonies of the Scriptures, lest I make a letter longer than is necessary, and I leave more to be considered by your erudition through yourself. But what is enough, see, I beg: if so many iniquitous men among one people of God did not make those who witnessed against them such as they themselves were—if that multitude of false brothers did not make the apostle Paul, set in one Church with them, one who sought his own, not the things of Jesus Christ—it is manifest that a man is not made this, that some wicked one is, with whom one approaches the altar of Christ, even if he be not unknown, provided only he be not approved, and be separated by a good conscience displeased with him. It is manifest, therefore, that to concur with a thief (See Ps 50:18 (49:18)) is nothing other than either to steal with him, or to receive his theft by the assent of the heart. This we say, in order to remove infinite and superfluous questions about the deeds of men, which in no way impede our reasoning.

4. But you too, unless you think this, will all be such as Optatus was in your communion, with you not ignorant of it: which far be it from the morals of Emeritus and of others such as he, of whom I do not doubt there are among you, far estranged from his deeds. For we cast at you nothing but the crime of schism, which you have made even a heresy by evilly persevering. But at how great a price this crime is reckoned by the divine judgment, read what I do not doubt you have read. You will find Dathan and Abiron devoured by the gaping of the earth, and all the rest, who had consented to them, consumed by a fire arising from their midst (See Num 16:31-35). That crime, then, the Lord God marked with a present punishment, as an example to be avoided, so that, while he most patiently spares such men, he might show what he reserves for the last judgment. For we do not reprehend your reasonings, if at that time when Optatus was boasting that he raged with insane power—when the accuser of him was the groaning of all Africa, with you groaning together, if indeed you are such as fame proclaims you, which God knows I both believe and wish—we do not, then, reprehend if at that time, lest he drag many excommunicated along with him, and cut off your communion by the fury of schism, you were unwilling to excommunicate him. But this very thing is what convicts you in the judgment of God, brother Emeritus, that, when you saw it was so great an evil for the party of Donatus to be divided that Optatus was thought rather to be tolerated in communion than that should be allowed, you remain in that evil which was perpetrated by your forebears in dividing the Church of Christ.

5. Here perhaps, in the narrowness of replying, you will try to defend Optatus. Do not, brother, do not, I beg; it does not become you; and if perhaps it becomes some other—if indeed anything becomes the wicked—it certainly does not become Emeritus to defend Optatus. But perhaps not to accuse him either. Be it so, then. Use a middle course of speech, and say: Each one bears his own burden (Gal 6:5). Who are you to judge another's servant (Rom 14:4)? If, then, at the testimony of all Africa—indeed, of all lands wherever the fame of Gildo was seething—for he too was known—you never dared to judge about Optatus, lest you rashly judge about unknown things, can we, or ought we, at your testimony alone, to pass a rash sentence about unknown things concerning those who lived before us—so that it is too little that you charge us with unknown things, unless we too judge unknown things? For you defend not Optatus, even if perhaps he is imperiled by a false ill will, but yourself, when you say: I do not know what sort of man he was. How much more, then, does the Eastern world not know what sort of men the Africans were, whom you accuse though more unknown? From which Churches, nevertheless—whose names you have in the books and recite—you are sundered by a wicked dissension. If your most notorious and most ill-famed bishop of Thamugadi was unknown not to, I will not say, the colleague at Caesarea, but at Sitifis, of his own time, how could the Church of the Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Antiochenes, of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and the other parts of the world built up in Christ by the Apostles, either know the African traditors, whoever they were, or deserve to be condemned by you, because it could not? And yet you do not commune with them, and you say they are not Christians, and you try to rebaptize them. What shall I say? What shall I lament? Or what shall I cry out? If I speak with a sensible man, I share with you the stings of this indignation. For you surely see what I would say, if I wished to say it.

6. Or did your forebears perhaps hold a council among themselves, and condemn the whole Christian world besides themselves? Has the estimation of things been brought to this: that the council of the Maximianists, who were cut off from your cutting-off, because compared with you they are very few, has no force against you; but your council has force against the nations, the inheritance of Christ, and his possession, the ends of the earth (See Ps 2:8)? I wonder whether he has blood in his body, who does not blush about this matter. Write back to these things, I beg: for from some, whom I could not but believe, I have heard that you would write back, if I wrote to you. I have indeed sent one letter even before; whether you received it or answered it—and perhaps I did not receive yours—I do not know. Now meanwhile I ask that it not be burdensome to you to answer these things, what seems good to you. But do not lift yourself into other questions; for here is the head of the most orderly inquiry: why the schism was made.

7. For even the earthly powers, when they persecute schismatics, defend themselves by that rule by which the Apostle says: He who resists the power resists the ordinance of God; and those who resist acquire judgment for themselves. For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you will have praise from it; for it is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, fear: for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is God's minister, an avenger in wrath upon him who does evil (Rom 13:2-4). The whole question, then, is whether schism is no evil, or whether you have not made a schism, so that you resist the powers for a good work, not for an evil one, whence you acquire judgment for yourselves. For this reason the Lord most providently did not say: Blessed are those who suffer persecution only; but he added, for the sake of righteousness (Matt 5:10). If, then, it is righteousness which you have worked in that dissension, in which you also remain, according to what I said above, I desire to know from you. But if it is iniquity to condemn the Christian world unheard—either because it did not hear what you heard, or because what you rashly believed was not proved to it, or you accused without certain documentation—and therefore to wish to rebaptize so many Churches of the Lord himself, founded by the preaching and toil of his Apostles while he was yet here in the flesh: because it is permitted you either not to know your African colleagues, wicked men living together, together handling the Sacraments, or even to know, but to tolerate them, lest the party of Donatus be divided; but to those set in a most remote world, it is not permitted not to know what you either know, or believe, or have heard, or feign about the Africans? What so great perversity is this, to embrace one's own iniquity, and to accuse the severity of the powers?

8. But indeed, it is not permitted to Christians to persecute even the wicked. Be it so, let it not be permitted; but is it lawful to cast this very thing at the powers ordained for this very purpose? Or shall we delete the Apostle? Or do your codices not have what I recalled a little before? But you, you will say, ought not to commune with such men. What then? Did you not commune with Flavianus, once vicar, a man of your party, because, serving the laws, he killed the guilty whom he had found? But, you will say, by you the Roman princes are roused against us. No, rather by you against yourselves, you who have dared both to mangle by cutting-off the Church—of which they, as was foretold so long before, are now members (for it was said of Christ: And all the kings of the earth will adore him (See Ps 72:11 (71:11)))—and persist in daring to rebaptize. But our people, against the unlawful and private violences of yours—which you too there, who do not do such things, grieve and groan over—seek protection from the ordained powers; not that they may persecute you, but that they may defend themselves; just as the apostle Paul, against the Jews conspiring to kill him (See Acts 23:12-24), before the Roman empire was Christian, acted so that protection even of armed men might be given him. But those princes, learning by whatever occasion of the wickedness of your schism, establish against you, by their solicitude and power, what they will. For they do not bear the sword in vain; for they are ministers of God, avengers in wrath upon those who do evil (See Rom 13:4). Finally, even if some of our people do these things without Christian moderation, it displeases us; but yet we do not on their account abandon the Catholic Church, if we cannot purge it of the chaff before the final time of winnowing (See Matt 3:12)—since you too, on account of Optatus, when you did not dare to expel him, did not abandon the party of Donatus.

9. But indeed you say: Why do you wish us to be joined to you, if we are wicked? Because you still live, and can be corrected if you will. For when you are joined to us, that is, to the Church of God, the inheritance of Christ, whose possession are the ends of the earth (See Ps 2:8), you are corrected so as to live in the root. For of the broken branches the Apostle says thus: For God is able to graft them in again (Rom 11:23). You, then, change from that part in which you dissented; although the Sacraments which you had, since they are the same in all, are holy. Wherefore we wish you to be changed from your perversity, that is, that your cutting-off be rooted anew. For the Sacraments which you have not changed, as you have them, are approved by us; lest perhaps, when we wish to correct your depravity, we do a sacrilegious injury to those mysteries of Christ which were not depraved in your depravity. For neither had Saul depraved the anointing which he had received; to which anointing the king David, the pious servant of God, showed so great an honor (See 1 Sam 24:6-10; 26:9-23). For this reason, therefore, we do not rebaptize you, because we desire to restore the root to you; yet the form of the cut-off shoot, if it has not been changed, we approve—which, however, though whole, is in no way fruitful without the root. It is another question about persecutions, which you say you suffer amid so great gentleness and mildness of ours, while yours truly do worse things unlawfully and privately; another about Baptism, which we do not ask where it is, but where it profits. For wherever it is, it is itself; but he who receives it is not also, wherever he is, himself. And so we detest the private impiety of men in schism; but the baptism of Christ we venerate everywhere: for if deserters carry over the emperor's standards with them, those men being either punished by condemnation or corrected by indulgence, the standards are received back safe, if they have remained safe. And if anything is to be inquired into more diligently about this matter, it is, as I said, another question. For this is to be observed in these matters, what the Church of God observes.

10. But it is asked whether yours or ours is the Church of God. Wherefore that must be sought from the head: why you made the schism. If you do not write back, I have, as far as I believe, an easy case before God; because to a man whom I have heard—apart from the schism—to be good and liberally instructed, I sent peacemaking letters. You will see what you answer to him, whose patience is now to be praised, but whose sentence at the end is to be feared. But if you write back with that care with which you see has been written to you, the mercy of God will be present, so that at some time the error which sunders us may perish both by the love of peace and by the reason of truth. Remember that I have said nothing about the Rogatists, who are said to call you Firmians, just as you call us Macarians. Nor about your bishop of Rusiccade, who is reported to have bargained with Firmus for the safety of his own people, so that the gates might be opened to him, and the Catholics given over to devastation, and other innumerable things. Cease, therefore, by commonplaces to exaggerate the deeds of men, whether heard or known. For you see what things of yours I keep silent, so that the matter may be dealt with concerning the origin of the schism, where the whole case lies. May the Lord God inspire in you a peaceful thought, desirable and beloved brother.

LETTER 88
TO JANUARIUS, OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF THE REGION OF HIPPO REGIUS.

1. Your clergy and Circumcellions rage against us with a persecution of a new kind and unheard-of cruelty. Who, if they were rendering evil for evil, would even so act against the law of Christ. But now, all our deeds and yours being considered, we are found to suffer what is written: They repaid me evil for good (See Ps 35:12 (34:12)); and in another psalm: With those who hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause (See Ps 120:7 (119:7); Ps 109:3 (108:3)). For since you are established at so great an age, we judge that you know very well that the party of Donatus, which was first at Carthage called the party of Majorinus, of its own accord accused Caecilianus, then bishop of the Church of Carthage, before that ancient emperor Constantine. But lest perhaps either your gravity has forgotten this, or you dissemble that you know it, or even—which we do not think—you perhaps do not know it, we insert in these our letters a copy of the report of the proconsul Anulinus, whom the party of Majorinus then petitioned, that those crimes which it charged against Caecilianus might be sent by the same proconsul to the said emperor.
TO OUR LORDS THE THREE AUGUSTI AND THE THREE CAESARS. ANULINUS, MAN OF DISTINCTION, PROCONSUL OF AFRICA.

2. The heavenly writings of your Majesty, received and adored, my devotion took care to make known, in the records of my smallness, to Caecilianus and to those who act under him and are called clergy; and it exhorted them that, unity having been made by the consent of all, since they appear to have been freed by the indulgence of your Majesty from every public burden whatsoever, they should, with the holiness of the Catholic law preserved, serve divine things with the reverence due. But after a few days there arose certain men who, having gathered to themselves a multitude of the people, thought that Caecilianus must be contradicted, and who offered to my judgment a bundle sealed in leather and a document without seal, and earnestly demanded that I direct them to the sacred and venerable court of your Divinity; which my smallness took care to direct, Caecilianus remaining in his state, with their acts subjoined, so that your Majesty may be able to discern all things. Two documents have been transmitted, the one inscribed on leather thus: "The document of the Catholic Church, of the crimes of Caecilianus, handed over by the party of Majorinus"; likewise another, without seal, attached to the same leather, given on the seventeenth day before the calends of May, at Carthage, our lord Constantine Augustus being consul for the third time.

3. After this report was sent to him, the Emperor ordered the parties to come to an episcopal judgment to be held in the city of Rome; where, how the case was pleaded and finished, and Caecilianus judged innocent, the ecclesiastical records indicate. Now surely, after the peaceful conduct of the episcopal judgment, all the obstinacy of contention and animosity ought to have been extinguished. But again your forebears returned to the Emperor, and complained that it had not been rightly judged, nor the whole case heard. Hence he gave another episcopal judgment to be held in the city of Arles in Gaul, where many of yours, having condemned the vain and diabolical dissension, returned to concord with Caecilianus; but others, most obstinate and most litigious, appealed to the same emperor. Afterward he too, compelled, terminated the episcopal case, examined between the parties, and was the first to establish a law against your party, that the places of your assemblies should be claimed for the treasury: of all which matters, if we wished to insert the documents, we would make the letter exceedingly long. Yet this must in no way be passed over: how the case of Felix of Aptungi—whom, in the council of Carthage, your fathers said to be the fount of all evils, on the authority of Secundus, primate of Tigisis—was, with your people pressing before the Emperor, discussed and finished by a public judgment. For the said Emperor testifies in his letters that your people were before him as accusers and assiduous petitioners in this very case, a copy of which we have written below.
THE EMPERORS AND CAESARS, FLAVIUS CONSTANTINUS MAXIMUS, AND VALERIUS LICINIANUS LICINIUS, TO PROBIANUS, PROCONSUL OF AFRICA.

4. Aelianus, your predecessor, rightly—while the most perfect man, Verus, vicar of the prefects, was then held by an unfavorable state of health throughout our Africa, and he discharged the duties of that office—believed that, among other things, this business too, or rather the ill will which seems to have been stirred up concerning Caecilianus, bishop of the Catholic Church, must be recalled to his examination and decision. For when he had already caused to be present Superius the centurion, and Caecilianus the magistrate of the people of Aptungi, and Saturninus the ex-curator, and Calibius the younger, curator of the same city, and Solus the public slave of the above-written city, he gave a competent hearing: so that, when it had been objected against Caecilianus that the episcopate seemed to have been conferred on him by Felix, against whom the betrayal and burning of the divine Scriptures seemed to be charged, it was established that Felix was innocent of it. Finally, when Maximus contended that Ingentius, a decurion of the city of Ziqua, had falsified a letter of Caecilianus from the duumvir, we saw that same Ingentius, suspended on the basis of the acts which were at hand, and therefore by no means tortured, because he had asserted himself to be a decurion of the city of Ziqua. Wherefore we wish that you send that same Ingentius, under a suitable escort, to my court of Constantine Augustus, so that, to those who are now acting and do not cease to petition day by day, hearing and standing by in presence, it may appear and be made known that they wished in vain to procure ill will against the bishop Caecilianus, and to rise up violently against him. For thus it will come about that, with contentions of this kind set aside, as is fitting, the people may, without any dissension, serve their own religion with the veneration due.

5. Since you see that these things are so, what is the reason that you stir up ill will against us concerning the commands of the emperors which are established against you, when you yourselves rather did all this beforehand? If the emperors ought to command nothing in these cases, if this care ought not to pertain to Christian emperors, who was it that pressed your forebears to send the case of Caecilianus to the Emperor through the proconsul, and to accuse again before the Emperor a bishop against whom, in his absence, you had already passed sentences in some fashion—so that, with him pronounced innocent, they might contrive other slanders against his ordainer Felix before the same emperor? And now what else lives but the very judgment of the elder Constantine himself against your party, which your forebears chose, which they extorted by assiduous petitions, which they preferred to the episcopal judgment? If the imperial judgments displease you, who first compelled the emperors to be roused to them for you? For you now clamor against the Catholic Church, in those things which are decreed against you by the emperors, just as if those who were sent to be consumed by the same lions—by which they themselves first wished him to be consumed—wished to clamor against Daniel, who had been freed (See Dan 6:16-24): for it is written: There is no difference between the threats of a king and the wrath of a lion (See Prov 19:12). The slanderous enemies compelled Daniel to be sent into the lions' den; his innocence overcame their malice; he was lifted out from there unharmed; they themselves, sent there, perished. Likewise your forebears cast Caecilianus and his fellowship to be consumed by the royal wrath, whose innocence having been freed, you suffer from the same kings the same things which yours wished those men to suffer; since it is written: He who prepares a pit for his neighbor will himself fall into it (See Prov 26:27; Ps 7:15 (7:16)).

6. You have, then, no ground to complain about us; and yet the gentleness of the Catholic Church had altogether rested even from these commands of the emperors, had not your clergy and Circumcellions—disturbing and devastating our peace by their most monstrous wickednesses and frenzied violences—compelled these things to be recalled and set in motion against you. For before those more recent laws, of which you now complain, had come into Africa, they laid ambushes for our bishops on the roads, battered our fellow-clergy with most monstrous blows, inflicted most grievous blows on laymen also, and set fires to their buildings. A certain priest too—because by his own free will he chose the unity of our communion—they seized from his house, and, having most savagely beaten him at their pleasure, rolled him even in a muddy pool, clothed him with reeds, and, in the pomp of their outrage, displayed him as a thing to be grieved over by some, to be laughed at by others; then, leading him off wherever they wished, they scarcely released him after twelve days. Wherefore, when Proculeianus was summoned by the municipal records by our bishop, and had dissembled about investigating the case, and was again immediately summoned, he stated in the records that he would say nothing further. And today those who did this are your priests, still terrifying us besides, and persecuting us as they can.

7. Yet about these injuries and persecutions which the Catholic Church in our region then endured, our bishop did not complain to the emperors. But a council having been held, it was decided that you should be peacefully approached, so that, if it could be done, you might have a conference among yourselves, and, with the error removed, brotherly love might rejoice in the bond of peace. And in that very approach, what Proculeianus first answered—that you would hold a council, and there see what you ought to answer; then what he afterward, when on account of his promise he was again approached, stated in the records, refusing a peaceful conference—let the records themselves instruct your Gravity. Then, since the monstrosity, most well known to all, of your clergy and Circumcellions did not cease, the case was pleaded; Crispinus was judged a heretic, and was not, through Catholic gentleness, permitted to be struck with the penalty of ten pounds of gold which had been established against heretics by the emperors, and yet he thought he should appeal to the emperors. That his appeal was answered as it was—did not the preceding wickedness of your people, and that very appeal of his, extort that it should be done? And yet even after that rescript, with our bishops interceding before the Emperor, he was not fined with the same condemnation of gold. But from a council our bishops sent legates to the court, who should obtain that not all the bishops and clergy of your party should be held to the same condemnation of ten pounds of gold, which was established against all heretics, but only those in whose places the Catholic Church suffered any violences from yours. But when the legates came to Rome, the horrible and most recent scars of the Catholic bishop of Bagai had already moved the Emperor, so that such laws were sent as indeed were sent. When these had come into Africa, since surely you had begun to be urged not toward evil, but toward good, what ought you to have done but also to send to our bishops, so that, in the way you yourselves had been approached, you might be approached by them, and rather, by a conference, the truth might appear?

8. But not only have you not done this; your people now do us worse evils. They not only batter us with clubs and cut us with iron; they even, with an incredible inventiveness of crime, put lime mixed with vinegar into our eyes to extinguish them. Plundering our houses besides, they have fabricated for themselves huge and terrible weapons, with which, armed, they run about through various places, threatening and panting after slaughters, robberies, fires, blindings. By these things we have been compelled to complain to you first of all, that your Gravity may consider how many of you—indeed, all of you, who say you suffer persecution—sit secure on your possessions and others' under those laws of the Catholic emperors, as if terrible, while we suffer such unheard-of evils from yours. You say you suffer persecution; and we are cut by your armed men with clubs and iron. You say you suffer persecution; and our houses are devastated by your armed men with plundering. You say you suffer persecution; and our eyes are extinguished by your armed men with lime and vinegar. Besides, if they bring any deaths upon themselves of their own accord, they wish these to be odious to us, glorious to themselves. What they do to us, they do not impute to themselves; and what they do to themselves, they impute to us. They live like robbers, they die like Circumcellions, they are honored like martyrs; and yet we have never heard even of robbers blinding those whom they plundered. They carry off the slain from the light; they do not take the light from the living.

9. We meanwhile, if ever we hold any of yours, keep them unharmed with great love, speak to them, and read to them all the things by which that very error is convicted which separates brothers from brothers; we do what the Lord commanded through the prophet Isaiah, saying: Hear, you who fear the word of the Lord; say, You are our brothers, to those who hate you and who curse you, so that the name of the Lord may be honored, and may appear to them in joy; but let them themselves be ashamed (See Isa 66:5). And so, when some of them consider the evidence of the truth and the beauty of peace, we associate them—not by the Baptism which, as deserters, they had already received like a royal mark, but to the faith which they lacked, and to the love of the Holy Spirit, and to the body of Christ. For it is written: cleansing their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9); and likewise it is written: Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). But if, either by excessive hardness, or by shame at not bearing the insults of those with whom they boasted so many false things against us and devised so many evils, or rather by fear, lest they suffer with us such things as they formerly did to us, they are unwilling to consent to the unity of Christ, then, just as they were kept unharmed, so they are released by us unharmed: this, as much as we can, we advise even our laymen, that they keep them unharmed, and bring them to us to be corrected and instructed. But some hear us, and do it if they can; others deal with them as with robbers, because they truly suffer them to be such. Some repel their blows, threatening their own bodies, by striking, lest they be struck by them first; some offer those they seize to the judges, and do not spare them even with us interceding, while they dread to suffer monstrous evils from them. In all of which, those men do not lay aside the deeds of robbers, and demand for themselves the honor of martyrs.

10. This, then, is our desire, which we lay before your Gravity by these letters, and through the brothers whom we have sent. First, if it can be done, that you confer peacefully with our bishops, so that in whomever it be found, not the men, but the error itself may be removed; that men be not punished, but corrected; that you now be approached, since you previously despised approaching them. For how much better do you do this among yourselves—that you send to the Emperor what you have done, written and signed—than that this be done before the earthly powers, which can only serve the laws already given against you? For your colleagues who had sailed said before the prefects that they had come to be heard. And they named our holy father, the Catholic bishop Valentinus, who was then at the court, saying that they wished to be heard with him: which the judge could not grant them, who was now judging according to the laws which were established against you; nor had that bishop come thus, or received any such mandate from his bishops. How much better, then, can the emperor himself—who is not subject to those same laws, and who has it in his power to pass other laws—when your conference has been recited to him, judge about that whole case, although it was long ago said to have been terminated? But we wish you to confer for this reason, not that the case be again finished, but that to those who do not know, it may be shown already finished. And if your bishops are willing to do this, what do you lose thereby, and do you not rather gain, since your will becomes known, lest your diffidence be deservedly reproached? Or do you perhaps think it is not permitted to be done, when it does not escape you that the Lord Christ spoke even with the devil about the Law (See Matt 4:1-11); that with the apostle Paul not only the Jews, but even the philosophers of the Gentiles, of the heresy of the Stoics and Epicureans, conferred (See Acts 17:18)? Or do perhaps those laws of the Emperor not permit you to approach our bishops? Behold, meanwhile, approach your bishops who are in the region of Hippo, where we suffer such great evils from yours. For how much more freely and at liberty do your writings reach us, through your own people, than their weapons?

11. Finally, through these very brothers of ours whom we have sent to you, write back such things. But if you do not wish even this, at least hear us together with your people, from whom we suffer such things. Show us the truth, for which you say you suffer persecution, while we suffer so great a cruelty from yours. For if you convict us of being in error, perhaps you will grant us not to be rebaptized by you, thinking it just to grant us this who were baptized by those whom you have condemned by no judgment, as you granted to those whom Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras had baptized over so long a time, when you tried to expel them from the basilicas by the orders of judges, because they communed with Maximianus, with whom they were expressly and by name condemned by you in the council of Bagai. All which we demonstrate by the judicial and municipal records, where you also adduced that very council of yours, while you wished to show the judges that you were expelling your schismatics from the basilicas. And yet you who made a schism from that very offspring of Abraham, in which all the nations are blessed (See Gen 22:18), do not wish to be expelled from the basilicas, not by judges, as you did to your schismatics, but by those very kings of the earth, who, the prophecy being fulfilled, adore Christ, before whom you, accusing Caecilianus, withdrew defeated.

12. But if you wish neither to hear nor to teach us, come, or send with us into the region of Hippo, men who may see your armed army; although no soldier has added to the number of his weapons lime and vinegar for the eyes of barbarians. If you wish not even this, at least write to those men, that they no longer do these things, that they now restrain themselves from our slaughters, from robberies, from blinding. We do not wish to say: Condemn them. For you will see for yourselves how those whom we have now shown to be robbers in your communion do not defile you, while those whom you could never show to be traditors defile us. Of all these things, choose what you will. But if you despise our complaints, we shall in no way repent of having wished to act in a peaceful order. The Lord will be present to his Church, so that you rather may repent of having despised our humility.

LETTER 89
TO THE MOST BELOVED LORD, AND HONORABLE AND ESTEEMED SON FESTUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. If, for the sake of error and a damnable dissension and a falsity convicted in every way, men presume so much that they do not cease so boldly to lay snares and threaten the Catholic Church which seeks their salvation, how much more fair is it, and behooving, that those who assert the truth of Christian peace and unity—manifest even to all who dissemble and resist—should busy themselves insistently and tirelessly, not only for the protection of those who are already Catholics, but also for the correction of those who are not yet? For if obstinacy tries to have insuperable powers, how great a constancy ought to have, which, in that good which it does perseveringly and indefatigably, both knows that it pleases God, and doubtless cannot displease prudent men?

2. But what is more unhappy and more perverse than, as the Donatists do—who boast that they endure persecution—not only not to know to be confounded about the coercion of their iniquity, but even to wish to be praised; ignorant by a marvelous blindness, or by a damnable animosity dissembling that they know, that it is not the penalty that makes true martyrs, but the cause? And this indeed I would say against those whom the mere gloom of heretical error enwrapped, for which sacrilege they would pay most worthy penalties, and yet would not dare by any violent madness to injure anyone. But against these men, what shall I say, whose so pernicious perversity is either coerced by the terror of fines, or taught by exile how widely the Church is spread, as was foretold to come (See Ps 2:8)—which they prefer to attack rather than to acknowledge? And if the things they suffer through a most merciful discipline are compared with those deeds which they commit with frenzied rashness, who does not see which are rather to be called persecutors? Although evil sons, only by living so destructively, even if they lay no violent hands, persecute the piety of their parents more grievously than when the father or mother, the more they love them, the more they compel them, without any dissembling, to a good life.

3. There exist most firm documents of the public monuments, which you can read if you will—indeed, I ask and exhort that you read them—by which it is proved that the forebears of those who first divided themselves from the peace of the Church dared, of their own accord, through Anulinus, then proconsul, to accuse Caecilianus before the emperor Constantine. In which judgment, surely, if they had won, what was Caecilianus to suffer from the Emperor, except what he pronounced against these men after they were defeated? But evidently, if, with them accusing and prevailing, Caecilianus and his colleagues had been expelled from the seats they held, or even, persisting in their conspiracy, had been more grievously punished (for the royal censure could not despise the defeated and resisting), then these men would fan their providence and their solicitous care for the Church to be proclaimed with praises. But now, because they themselves were overcome, because they could by no means prove what they intended, if they suffer anything for their iniquity, they call it persecution; and not only do they not repress their abandoned fury, but they even seek the honor of martyrs: as though indeed the Christian Catholic emperors followed against their most obstinate iniquity anything other than the judgment of Constantine, before whom they were, of their own accord, the accusers of Caecilianus, whose authority they preferred to all the overseas bishops, so as to bring the case of the Church not to them, but to him; so as to accuse again before him the episcopal judgment given in the city of Rome, in which they were first defeated; so as to appeal to him from another episcopal judgment given at Arles: before whom, nevertheless, finally overcome, they remained in their perversity. I think that the devil himself, if by the authority of a judge whom he had of his own accord chosen, he were so often defeated, would not be so shameless as to persist in that case.

4. But let these be reckoned human judgments, and let it be said that they could have been circumvented and deceived, or even corrupted. Why, then, is the Christian world still accused, and defamed by I know not what crimes of traditors—the world which surely neither could nor ought to believe any but the chosen judges rather than the defeated litigants? Those judges have their case before God, whether good or evil: what did the Church, spread through the whole world, do, which is judged to be rebaptized by these men for no other reason than that, in that case in which it could not judge what was true, it thought it should believe rather those who could judge than those who, not even defeated, yielded? O great crime of all the nations, which God promised would be blessed in the offspring of Abraham (See Gen 22:18), and, as he promised, displayed! Which, when they say with one voice, Why do you wish to rebaptize us? are answered: Because you do not know who were the traditors of the holy books in Africa, and in that which you did not know, you chose to believe the judges rather than the accusers. If another's crime burdens no one, what does it concern the world what anyone committed in Africa? If an unknown crime burdens no one, whence could the world know either the crime of the judges or of the accused? Judge, you who have a heart. This is heretical justice: that, because the world does not condemn an unknown crime, the party of Donatus condemns the world unheard. But surely it suffices the world to hold the promises of God, and to see fulfilled in itself what the Prophets sang so long before; to recognize the Church in the same Scriptures, where its king Christ also is recognized. For where such things were foretold of Christ as we read fulfilled in the Gospel, there were foretold of the Church such things as we now discern fulfilled throughout the whole world.

5. Unless perhaps some prudent man will be moved by what they are wont to say about Baptism: that the baptism of Christ is true only when it is given by a just man—since the world holds even from this the most evident and evangelical truth, where John says: He who sent me to baptize in water, he himself said to me: On whomever you see the Spirit descending like a dove, and remaining upon him, he it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:33). Hence the secure Church does not place its hope in man, lest it fall into that sentence in which it is written: Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (See Jer 17:5); but places its hope in Christ, who so took the form of a servant that he did not lose the form of God (See Phil 2:6-7), of whom it was said: He it is who baptizes. Accordingly, any man whatever is the minister of his baptism—whatever burden he bears—not he, but the one upon whom the dove descended, he it is who baptizes. But so great an absurdity follows those who think vain things that they do not find how to flee from it. For when they confess that Baptism is ratified and true when some criminal among them baptizes, whose crimes are hidden, we say to them: Who then baptizes? And they have nothing to answer except, God; for they cannot say that an adulterous man sanctifies anyone. To whom we answer: If, then, when a manifestly just man baptizes, he himself sanctifies, but when a hidden iniquitous man baptizes, then not he, but God sanctifies, those who are baptized ought to wish to be baptized rather by hidden evil men than by manifest good men; for God sanctifies them much better than any just man whatever. But if it is absurd that anyone to be baptized should wish to be baptized rather by a hidden adulterer than by a manifest chaste man, it surely remains that whichever of the human ministers approaches, Baptism is ratified for this reason, that the one upon whom the dove descended, he himself baptizes.

6. And yet, though so perspicuous a truth strikes the ears and hearts of men, so great a gulf of evil habit has submerged some that they prefer to resist all authorities and reasons than to consent. But they resist in two ways: either by raging, or by growing slothful. What, then, shall the medicine of the Church do here, seeking the salvation of all with maternal love, as if heated amid the frenzied and the lethargic? Ought it, or can it, despise or desist? It must be troublesome to both, because it is an enemy to neither. For both the frenzied do not wish to be bound, and the lethargic do not wish to be roused; but the diligence of love perseveres—to chasten the frenzied, to goad the lethargic, to love both. Both are offended, but both are loved; both, while troubled, as long as they are sick, are indignant, but both, when healed, give thanks.

7. Finally, we do not, as they think and as they boast, receive them such as they were, but altogether changed; for they do not begin to be Catholics unless they have ceased to be heretics. For their sacraments, which are common to them with us, are not hostile to us; because they are not human, but divine. Their own error is to be taken away, which they evilly imbibed, not the sacraments which they likewise received, which they carry and have to their own punishment—the more unworthily they have them, yet they have them. And so, the error having been abandoned, the depravity of separation corrected, they pass over from heresy to the peace of the Church, which they did not have, and without which what they had was pernicious to them. But if, when they pass over, they are feigned, this is now not our judgment, but God's. And yet some, when they were thought feigned—because they passed over through the terror of the command to us—were afterward found, in certain temptations, to be such that they were preferred to certain old Catholics. Nothing, then, is done in vain, when it is done insistently. For the wall of hard habit is not stormed by human terrors alone; but the faith and understanding of the mind is instructed also by divine authorities and reasons.

8. Since these things are so, let your Benignity know that your men who are in the region of Hippo are still Donatists, and that your letters availed nothing among them. But why they did not avail, there is no need to write; rather, send some one of your own—whether of your household or your friends—to whom you can entrust this faith, who may come not to those places, but first to us, with them altogether unknowing, and, the matter having first been treated in counsel with us, may do what shall have seemed, with the Lord helping, ought to be done. For we do not act so much for them when we do this, as also for our own who are already made Catholics, to whom the nearness of those men is so hostile that it can in no way be despised by us. And this indeed I could write briefly; but I wished you to have something of our letters, by which you might not only yourself know the reason of my care, but might also have what to answer to anyone dissuading you from insistently spending labor on the correction of your own people, and disparaging us because we wish such things. But if I have done this superfluously, because you had already either learned these things, or yourself thought of them, or have been burdensome because, to one so occupied with public cares, I have thrust a lengthy letter, I ask you to grant pardon—provided, however, that you do not spurn what I have suggested and asked. So may the mercy of God protect you.

LETTER 90
TO THE DISTINGUISHED LORD, AND DESERVEDLY ESTEEMED BROTHER, BISHOP AUGUSTINE, NECTARIUS.

1. How great the love of one's native land is, since you know, I pass over. For it alone is the love that overcomes the affection owed to parents by right. If there were any measure or limit to consulting it for good men, we would already worthily have deserved to be excused from its duties. But since the love and favor of one's city grows with each single day, and the nearer one's age is to its end, the more one desires to leave one's native land safe and flourishing: for this reason I rejoice, first, that this discourse of mine has been set before a man instructed in all the disciplines. In the colony of Calama there are many things which we deservedly love: whether that we were born in it, or that we seem to have conferred great services on it. This, then, most excellent lord, and deservedly to be esteemed, has fallen through no light error of its people. Which indeed, if we measure it by the rigor of public law, ought to be struck with a severer censure. But it is not lawful for a bishop except to impart salvation to men, and to be present for cases for a better state, and before the omnipotent God to deserve pardon for the faults of others. Wherefore, with all the supplication I can, I beseech that, if the matter is to be defended, the harmless be defended, that trouble be separated from the innocent. Grant this, which, according to your nature, you perceive is being asked. Of damages an easy assessment can be made; we deprecate only the punishments. May you live more acceptable to God, distinguished lord, and deservedly to be esteemed brother.

LETTER 91
TO THE DISTINGUISHED LORD, AND DESERVEDLY HONORABLE BROTHER NECTARIUS, AUGUSTINE.

1. That, with your limbs now growing cold with age, your mind is fervent with love of your native land, I neither wonder at nor blame; and that you not only hold it in memory, but also demonstrate by your life and morals that there is no measure or limit to consulting one's native land for good men, I accept not unwillingly—indeed, even gladly. Hence we would wish you to have yourself such a citizen also of a certain higher native land—in whose holy love, according to our small measure, among those whom we counsel to lay hold of it, we are in peril and labor—that you would judge there to be no measure and limit of consulting for its little portion sojourning on this earth; becoming so much the better, the more you paid the duties owed to a better city, destined to find no end of rejoicing in its eternal peace, for whose temporal labors you would set yourself no end of consulting.

2. But until this comes to pass—for it is not to be despaired of, that you can acquire that native land, or already most prudently think of acquiring it, to which your father too, who begot you in this one, has gone before you—until this comes to pass, then, grant us pardon, if, on account of our native land which we desire never to leave, we sadden your native land which you desire to leave flourishing. About whose flowers, indeed, if we dispute with your prudence, it is not to be feared either that you will be persuaded with difficulty, or that it will not even readily occur to you in what way a city ought to flourish. That most renowned poet of your literature recalled certain flowers of Italy (See Virgil, Aeneid 7.643-44); but in your native land we have not so much experienced by what men that land flourished, as by what arms it burned—indeed, not by arms, but by flames; nor that it burned, but that it set fire. If so great a crime goes unpunished, with no worthy correction of the depraved, do you think you will leave your native land flourishing? O flowers plainly not of fruits, but of thorns! Compare now whether you would rather your native land flourish by piety or by impunity, by corrected morals or by secure outrages. Compare these, and see whether you overcome us in the love of your native land; whether you desire it to flourish more and more truly than we do.

3. Look a little at those very books On the Republic, from which you drank in that affection of a most loving citizen, that there is no measure or limit to consulting one's native land for good men. Look, I beg you, and discern with how great praises frugality and continence are there proclaimed, and fidelity toward the marriage bond, and chaste, honest, and upright morals, in which when a city excels, it is truly to be said to flourish (See Cicero, On the Republic 5.1-2). But these morals are taught and learned in the Churches growing throughout the whole world, as in holy auditoriums of the peoples; and especially the piety by which the true and truthful God is worshiped, who both commands that all these things—by which the human mind is instructed and fitted for the divine fellowship, to inhabit the eternal and heavenly city—be undertaken, and also grants that they be fulfilled. Hence it is that he both foretold that the images of the many false gods would be overthrown, and commanded that they be overthrown (See Deut 7:5, 12:3). For nothing renders men so unsociable by the perversity of life as the imitation of those gods, such as they are described and commended in their literature.

4. Finally, those most learned men, who sought out, or even described, the republic and the earthly city, such as it seemed to them it ought to be, in domestic disputations rather than established and formed it by public actions, proposed for the instructing of the disposition of youth the excellent and praiseworthy men, whom they thought such, rather than their gods, to be imitated. And truly that young man of Terence, who, looking at a picture painted on the wall, where there was a painting of the adultery of the king of the gods, kindled the lust by which he was carried away even with the goads of so great an authority, would in no way slip into that disgrace either by coveting, or be immersed in it by perpetrating, if he had preferred to imitate Cato rather than Jupiter; but how could he do that, when in the temples he was compelled to adore Jupiter rather than Cato? But these things from comedy, by which the luxury and sacrilegious superstition of the impious might be convicted, perhaps we ought not to bring forward. Read, or recall, in those same books how prudently it is discussed that the writings and performances of comedies could in no way have been received, unless the morals of those receiving them were in accord: thus, by the authority of most renowned men excelling in the republic and disputing about the republic, it is confirmed that the most wicked men are made worse by the imitation of gods—not, indeed, true ones, but false and fictitious.

5. But, you say, all those things which were written of old about the life and morals of the gods are to be understood and interpreted by the wise far otherwise. And yet that such wholesome interpretations are recited in the temples to the peoples gathered together—we heard yesterday and the day before. I ask you, is the human race so blind against the truth that it does not perceive things so open and manifest? In so many places Jupiter is painted, cast, hammered, sculpted, written, read, acted, sung, danced, committing so great adulteries; how much would it have been, that at least in his own Capitol he be read forbidding these things? These evils, most full of dishonor and impiety, if, with no one forbidding, they grow hot among the peoples, are adored in the temples, laughed at in the theaters; if, when they immolate victims to these gods, even the cattle of the poor are laid waste; if, when actors perform and dance these things, the patrimonies of the rich are poured out—are cities said to flourish? Of these flowers, plainly, no fertile earth, no opulent virtue, but that goddess Flora has been found a worthy mother, whose scenic games are celebrated with such more lavish and licentious turpitude that anyone may understand what sort of demon it is, which cannot be appeased otherwise than that there—not birds, not quadrupeds, not, finally, human blood, but, much more wickedly, human modesty—should perish, as if immolated.

6. I have said these things because you wrote that, the nearer your age is to its end, you desire to leave your native land safe and flourishing. Let all those vain and insane things be taken away; let men be turned to the true worship of God and to chaste and pious morals; then you will see your native land flourishing, not in the opinion of fools, but in the truth of the wise—when this native land of your carnal generation shall be a portion of that native land into which we are born, not by the body, but by faith, where all the saints and faithful of God, after the as-it-were wintry labors of this life, will flourish in unending eternity. And so it is in our heart neither to lose Christian gentleness, nor to leave in that city a pernicious example of imitation to others. In what way we may do this, God will be present, if he is not too grievously angry with them. Otherwise, both the gentleness which we desire to preserve, and the discipline which we strive to use moderately, can be hindered, if something else pleases God in secret—whether judging this so great evil to be struck with a sharper scourge, or even more vehemently angry, if he should will it, for a time, to be unpunished, with them neither corrected nor turned to himself.

7. Your prudence in a manner prescribes to us concerning the episcopal person, and you say that your native land has fallen through no light error of its people: which indeed, if we measure it by the rigor of public law, ought to be struck with a severer censure; But it is not lawful for a bishop, you say, except to impart salvation to men, and to be present for cases for a better state, and before the omnipotent God to deserve pardon for the faults of others. This we altogether try to preserve, that no one be struck with a severer censure, neither by us, nor by any other with us interceding; and we desire to impart salvation to men, which is placed in the felicity of living rightly, not in the security of doing evil. We also insist on deserving pardon not only for our own faults, but also for those of others—which we can obtain only for the corrected. You add too, and say: With all the supplication I can, I beseech that, if the matter is to be defended, the harmless be defended, that trouble be separated from the innocent.

8. Receive briefly what was committed, and yourself distinguish the guilty from the innocent. Against the most recent laws, on the calends of June, the sacrilegious solemnity of a pagan festival was conducted, with no one forbidding, with so insolent an audacity that—what was not done even in the times of Julian—a most petulant crowd of dancers passed through that very street right before the doors of the church. When the clergy tried to forbid this most unlawful and most unworthy thing, the church was stoned. Then, after about eight days, when the bishop had recounted the most well-known laws to the town council, and while they were, as it were, disposing to fulfill what was commanded, again the church was stoned. The next day, when our people wished to say before the records, in order to impose fear on the abandoned, the public laws were denied them. And on that same day, that they might at least be divinely terrified, hail was rendered for the stonings; which being over, immediately they brought a third stoning, and finally fires upon the ecclesiastical buildings and men; one of the servants of God, who, wandering, could meet them, they killed, while the rest partly hid where they could, partly fled by whatever way they could, when meanwhile the bishop, thrust together and confined in a certain place, concealed himself, where he heard the voices of those seeking him to death, and reproaching themselves that, with him not found, they had perpetrated so great a crime for nothing. These things were done from about the tenth hour until no small part of the night. No one tried to restrain, no one to come to the aid, of those whose authority could be weighty, except one stranger, through whom both very many servants of God were freed from the hands of those trying to kill them, and many things were extorted from the plunderers; through whom it was made clear how easily those things would either not be done at all, or, once begun, would desist, if the citizens, and especially the leading men, had forbidden them to be done and accomplished.

9. Accordingly, in that whole city you will perhaps be able to distinguish not the innocent from the guilty, but the less guilty from the more guilty. For those are in a small fault who, deterred by fear—and especially lest they offend those whom they knew to be very powerful in that town and enemies of the Church—did not dare to bring aid; but all are wicked by whom, even if not doing or instigating, yet wishing, these things were committed; more wicked, those who committed them; most wicked, those who instigated them. But let us suppose the instigation to be a suspicion, not the truth, and let us not discuss those things which can in no way be found out except by the torments of those through whom they are investigated. Let us also grant pardon to the fear of those who thought God should rather be beseeched for the bishop and his servants than the powerful enemies of the Church should be offended. Do you think that those who remain are to be coerced by no discipline, and do you judge that so monstrous an example of fury is to be set forth unpunished? We do not study to feed our anger by avenging the past; but we busy ourselves by mercifully consulting for the future. Evil men have wherein they may, even through Christians, be struck not only gently, but also usefully and wholesomely. For they have that they live with body unharmed; they have wherewith they live; they have wherewith they live evilly. Let the first two be safe, that there be those who may repent; this we wish, this, as far as in us lies, we insist on even with labor expended. But the third, if God will, to be cut away like something rotten and harmful, he will punish very mercifully. But if he should will either more, or should not even permit this, the reason of a higher and surely juster counsel is in his hands: by us the care and duty must be expended, as far as it is granted to see, beseeching him that he approve our mind, by which we wish all to be consulted for, and that he allow nothing to be done through us which he knows far better than we do not to be expedient for us and for his Church.

10. Lately, when we were at Calama, that our people in so grave a grief might either be consoled when afflicted, or calmed when inflamed, as much as we could, what we judged behooved at the time, we dealt with the Christians. Then we also admitted the pagans themselves, the head and cause of so great an evil, who asked that they be seen by us, so that on this occasion we might admonish them what they ought to do, if they were wise—not only for removing the present anxiety, but also for inquiring into perpetual salvation. They heard many things from us; they also themselves asked much; but far be it that we be such servants as it delights to be asked by those by whom our Lord is not asked. Hence you perceive, by the vivacity of your mind, that we must strive for this, with Christian gentleness and moderation preserved: that either we deter others from imitating their perversity, or we wish others to imitate their correction. The damages that were inflicted are either tolerated by Christians, or repaired through Christians. The gains of souls, which we gape after to acquire, even with peril of blood, we desire both to come forth more profitably in that place, and not to be hindered in other places by that example. May the mercy of God grant us to rejoice over your salvation.

LETTER 92
TO THE DISTINGUISHED LADY, AND DESERVEDLY MOST EXCELLENT, AND IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST HONORABLE DAUGHTER ITALICA, BISHOP AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. Not only by your letter, but also by the report of the one who brought it, I have learned that you greatly demand letters of mine, believing that from them you can have very much consolation. You yourself, then, will see what you take from them; I, nevertheless, ought not to deny or defer them. But may your faith and hope console you, and that very love which is poured out in the hearts of the pious through the Holy Spirit (See Rom 5:5), of which we have now received something as a pledge (See 2 Cor 1:22, 5:5), so that we may know to desire that very fullness. For you ought not to think yourself desolate, when in the inner man you have Christ present through faith in your heart (See Eph 3:16-17); nor ought you so to be saddened as the nations which have no hope (See 1 Thess 4:13), since by a most truthful promise we hope that we shall come, from this life—whence, about to migrate, we have not lost certain of our own who migrate, but have sent them ahead—to that life, where they will be to us, the more known, the dearer surely, and lovable without fear of any departure.

2. But here, although your husband, by whose departure you are called a widow, was most well known to you, yet he was more known to himself than to you. And whence is this, when you saw his bodily face, which he surely did not see, except because the knowledge of ourselves is more certain within, where no one knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him (See 1 Cor 2:11)? But when the Lord comes, and illuminates the hidden things of darkness, and makes manifest the thoughts of the heart (See 1 Cor 4:5), then nothing of a neighbor will lie hidden in a neighbor, nor will there be what anyone may open to his own and conceal from strangers, where there will be no stranger. But that light itself, by which all these things which are now hidden away in hearts will be illuminated—of what sort or how great it is, who may bring it forth with his tongue, who may even touch it with his weak mind? Surely that light is God himself, since God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all (1 Jn 1:5); but the light of purified minds, not of these eyes of the body. There will be then, therefore, a mind fit to see that light, which now it is not yet.

3. But this the eye of the body can neither now see, nor will then be able to see. For everything which can be beheld by the eyes of the body must be in some place, nor is it whole everywhere, but with its lesser part occupies a lesser place, and with its greater a greater. Not so is God, invisible and incorruptible, who alone has immortality, and inhabits light inaccessible; whom no man has seen, nor can see (1 Tim 6:16). For he cannot be seen by man through that by which man sees bodies by the body. For if he were inaccessible to the minds of the pious, it would not be said: Draw near to him, and be illuminated (See Ps 34:5 (33:6)); and if he were invisible to the minds of the pious, it would not be said: We shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). For consider that whole sentence in the Epistle of John: Beloved, he says, we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). We shall see, then, in so far as we shall be like him; for even now we do not see in so far as we are unlike. Thence, therefore, we shall see, whence we shall be like. But who would say, in the greatest madness, that we are, or shall be, like God by the body? In the inner man, therefore, is this likeness; who is renewed in the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created him (See Col 3:10). And we are made so much the more like him, the more we advance in the knowledge and love of him; because although our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed from day to day (2 Cor 4:16): so indeed that in this life, however far one has advanced, he is far from that perfection of likeness which will be fit for seeing God, as the Apostle says, face to face (1 Cor 13:12). In which words, certainly, if we wished to take it of a bodily face, it will follow that God too has such a face, and that there is some interval between ours and his, when we shall see him face to face. And if an interval, then surely an end, and a bounded disposition of members, and other absurdities, impious to say and to think, by which the animal man, not perceiving the things which are of the Spirit of God (See 1 Cor 2:14), is sported with by most deceptive vanities.

4. For certain of those who prate such things say—as it could reach me—that we see God now by the mind, then by the body; so that they assert that even the impious will see him in like manner. See how much they have advanced for the worse, while, without limit of fear or shame, an unpunished loquacity is borne wandering hither and thither. Formerly they said that Christ granted this to his flesh alone, that with bodily eyes he should see God; then they added also that all the saints, with their bodies received again in the resurrection, would in the same way see God; now they have already given this possibility even to the impious. Let them give, indeed, as much as they wish, and to whom they wish; for who would dare to contradict men giving of their own? For he who speaks a lie speaks of his own (Jn 8:44). But you, with those who hold sound doctrine, dare to usurp nothing of these things of your own: but when you read: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8), understand that the impious shall not see; for the impious are not blessed and pure in heart. Likewise, when you read: We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face (1 Cor 13:12), understand that we shall then see face to face by that whence we now see through a mirror in an enigma. But both of these are a function of the inner man—whether when, in this pilgrimage, one still walks by faith, in which he uses the mirror and the enigma, or in that native land when one shall contemplate through sight: for which vision it is set down, face to face.

5. Let the flesh, drunk with carnal thoughts, hear: God is Spirit, and therefore those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:24). If they must worship, how much more see? For who would dare to affirm that the substance of God is seen bodily, when he was unwilling that it be worshiped bodily? But they think they say something acute, and, as if by questioning, to press us: Could Christ grant to his flesh that with bodily eyes it should see the Father, or could he not? So that, if we answer that he could not, they may proclaim that we have derogated from the omnipotence of God; but if we concede that he could, they may conclude their argument from our answer. How much more tolerably do those rave who assert that the flesh will be converted into the substance of God, and will be what God is, so that thus, at least by seeing, they may make it fit for God—now unlike by so great a diversity! Which vanity I believe these men drive from their faith, and perhaps from their ears too. And yet, if they are likewise pressed by a question about this, whether God can do this or cannot effect it, will they detract from his power, if they answer that he cannot, or will they confess that this will be, if they concede that he can? In what way, then, they would come out of this snare of another's, so let them come out of their own. Then, why do they contend that this gift was attributed to the bodily eyes of Christ alone, and not also to the other senses? Will God, then, be a sound, so that he can be perceived also by the ears? And will he be a breath, so that he can be perceived by smell? And will he be some liquid, so that he can also be drunk? And will he be a mass, so that he can also be touched? No, they say. What then? Can God do that, and not this? If they say he cannot, why do they derogate from the omnipotence of God? If they answer that he can but will not, why do they favor the eyes alone, but begrudge the other senses of Christ's body? Or how long do they wish to rave? How much better do we, who fix no limits to their folly, but are unwilling that they rave at all!

6. Many things can be brought forward to refute that madness. But if at some time they should burst upon your ears, read these things to them meanwhile, and let it not weary you to write back what they answer, as you can. For to this end are our hearts cleansed by faith (See Acts 15:9), because the vision of God is promised us as the reward of faith. Which, if it shall be through the eyes of the body, in vain is the mind of the saints exercised for perceiving it: indeed, a mind feeling so perversely is not exercised in itself, but is wholly in the flesh. For where will it dwell more tenaciously and more fixedly than whence it presumes it will see God? Which, certainly, how great an evil it is, I leave rather to your intelligence than labor to explain by a long discourse. May your heart always dwell in the protection of the Lord, distinguished lady, and deservedly most excellent, and in the love of Christ honorable daughter. Greet again, with the duty owed to your merits, your honorable sons, beloved by you and by us in the Lord.

LETTER 92/A
TO THE LORD DESERVEDLY MOST SINCERE, AND HOLY BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST CYPRIAN, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. I have sent letters to our blessed daughter Italica, which I ask that you yourself deign to deliver to her, in which I said something against the opinion of those who can hope nothing of God except what they feel about bodies—although they do not dare to say that God is a body. Yet in another way they altogether say this, when they assert that he can be seen by the eyes of the body, which he created only for beholding bodies. But these men seem to me to know neither what a body is, nor how far God, as Spirit, is from a body. On the occasion, then, on which I thought she was somehow to be consoled, I did not wish to pass over where the true consolation of the pilgrimage of us all is established. But what those who hold that opinion say against what we have tried to refute in few words, let your Holiness not find it burdensome to write to me, if perhaps her modesty should be reluctant to take up this conflict, as it were, even on another's presumption; or at least let your Charity bring it about that those who hold this opinion, and do not cease to scatter and trample these things everywhere, write back to me on these things which I have written, so that with them henceforth may be dealt what your holy prudence perceives with me ought to be dealt about this matter. For not for nothing is the rational soul, fed on such phantasms, shut off and utterly stopped up, lest it perceive that highest and unchangeable good, if its hope is fixed on this, that it presumes it will see God by the body. But I give thanks to your Charity, that you sent me to read the things which I asked for.

LETTER 93
TO THE MOST BELOVED BROTHER VINCENT, AUGUSTINE.

1. 1. I have received a letter which it did not seem incredible to me to be yours: for the one who brought it, who was known to be a Catholic Christian, would not, as I think, dare to lie to me. But even if perhaps the letter is not yours, I thought I should write back to the one who wrote it. You knew me at Carthage, then a young man, when Rogatus, whom you succeeded, was still alive, to be rather avid for, and seeking, quiet. But the Donatists are too unquiet, whom to be coerced and corrected through the powers ordained by God does not seem to me useless. For we now rejoice over the correction of many, who so truthfully hold and defend Catholic unity, and so rejoice that they have been freed from their former error, that we marvel at them with great gratulation. Who nevertheless, by I know not what force of habit, would in no way have thought of being changed for the better, unless, struck by this terror, they had turned their solicitous mind to the consideration of the truth; lest perhaps, if not for righteousness, but for the perversity and presumption of men, they should endure those temporal troubles by a fruitless and vain tolerance, and afterward find before God nothing but the due penalties of the impious, who had despised his so gentle admonition and his fatherly scourges: and so, made docile by this thought, they might find, not in the slanders and human tales, but in the divine books, the Church promised through all the nations, which they would behold restored to their own eyes, in which they would by no means doubt that Christ too, who was foretold, was above the heavens, even unseen. Was I, then, to envy the salvation of these men, so as to recall my colleagues from a fatherly diligence of this kind, through which it has come about that we see many accusing their former blindness? Who, when they believed, even not seeing, that Christ was exalted above the heavens, yet denied his glory over all the earth, even seeing it, when the Prophet embraced both in one sentence with so great a manifestation, saying: Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory over all the earth (Ps 57:5, 11 (56:6, 12)).

1. 2. If, then, we so despised and tolerated these men—once our atrocious enemies, grievously infesting our peace and quiet with various kinds of grave violences and ambushes—that nothing at all should be devised and proved by us which could avail to terrify and correct them, we would truly be rendering evil for evil. For if anyone saw his enemy, made frenzied by dangerous fevers, running headlong, would he not then rather render evil for evil, if he permitted him so to run, than if he took care to seize and bind him? And yet then he would seem to him most troublesome and most adverse, when he had stood forth most useful and most merciful: but plainly, with health restored, he would give him thanks so much the more abundantly, the less he had felt him spare him. O if I could show you, of the Circumcellions themselves, how many we now have as manifest Catholics, condemning their former life and the miserable error by which they thought they were doing for the Church of God whatever they did with unquiet rashness! Who nevertheless would not be brought to this soundness, unless, by the bonds of those laws which displease you, they were bound like frenzied men. What of that other kind of most grave disease—of those who indeed did not have a turbulent audacity, but were pressed by a certain old sluggishness, saying to us, You indeed speak the truth, there is nothing to answer; but it is hard for us to leave the tradition of our parents: were they not wholesomely to be shaken out by the rule of temporal troubles, that they might emerge as from a lethargic sleep, and wake up to the salvation of unity? How many of them, now rejoicing with us, accuse the former weight of their pernicious work, and confess that we ought to have been troublesome to them, lest they perish, as by a deadly sleep, so by the disease of a lethargic habit?

1. 3. But, you say, these things do not profit certain men. Is the medicine therefore to be neglected, because the plague of some is incurable? You attend only to those who are so hard that they do not receive even this discipline. For of such it is written: In vain have I scourged your sons; they have not received discipline (Jer 2:30). Yet I think that they were scourged in love, not in hatred. But you ought also to attend to so many over whose salvation we rejoice. For if they were terrified, and not taught, it would seem an improper domination, as it were. Again, if they were taught and not terrified, hardened by the oldness of habit, they would be moved more sluggishly to lay hold of the way of salvation; since many—which we know well—when the reason had been rendered to them and the truth manifested by divine testimonies, answered us that they desired to pass over into the communion of the Catholic Church, but dreaded the violent enmities of abandoned men: which indeed they ought to have despised for righteousness and for eternal life; but the weakness of such men, until they are made firm, is to be supported, not despaired of. Nor must we forget that the Lord himself said to the still-weak Peter: You cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward (Jn 13:36). But when wholesome teaching is joined to useful terror, so that not only does the light of truth expel the darkness of error, but the force of fear also breaks the bonds of evil habit, we rejoice, as I said, over the salvation of many, who bless with us, and give thanks to God that, his promise fulfilled by which he promised that the kings of the earth would serve Christ (See Ps 72:11 (71:11)), he has so cared for the diseased, so healed the weak.

2. 4. Not everyone who spares is a friend; nor everyone who beats, an enemy. Better are the wounds of a friend than the voluntary kisses of an enemy (See Prov 27:6). It is better to love with severity than to deceive with leniency. More usefully is bread taken from the hungry, if, secure about food, he neglects righteousness, than bread is broken for the hungry, so that, seduced, he acquiesces in injustice. And he who binds the frenzied, and he who rouses the lethargic, troublesome to both, loves both. Who can love us more than God? And yet he ceases not only to teach us sweetly, but also wholesomely to terrify us. To the gentle soothings by which he consoles, often adding even the most biting medicament of tribulation, he exercises with hunger the Patriarchs, even the pious and religious; he agitates the contumacious people with graver penalties (See Num 11; 14); he does not take away from the Apostle the goad of the flesh, though asked three times, that he may perfect virtue in weakness (See 2 Cor 12:7-9). Let us love even our enemies, because this is just, and God commands this, that we may be sons of our Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). But just as we praise these gifts of his, so let us also reflect on his scourges upon those whom he loves.

2. 5. Do you think that no one ought to be compelled to righteousness, when you read that the head of the household said to his servants: Whomever you find, compel them to come in (Lk 14:23); when you read too that Saul himself—first Saul, afterward Paul—was compelled, by the great violence of Christ compelling him, to know and hold the truth (See Acts 9:1-22)? Unless perhaps you think money, or any possession whatever, is dearer to men than this light which is taken in by the eyes. This light, suddenly lost when he was prostrated by the heavenly voice, he did not recover until he was incorporated into the holy Church. And do you think that no force is to be applied to a man, that he may be freed from the destruction of error, when you see God himself—than whom no one loves us more usefully—doing this by most certain examples, and hear Christ saying: No one comes to me, unless the Father has drawn him (Jn 6:44), which is done in the hearts of all who are turned to him by fear of the divine wrath; and when you know that sometimes a thief scatters fodder to lead away the cattle, and sometimes a shepherd recalls the straying cattle to the flock with a scourge?

2. 6. Did not Sara rather afflict the contumacious slave woman, by the power given her (See Gen 16:6)? And surely she did not cruelly hate her whom above, by her own benefit, she had made a mother; but in her she wholesomely tamed pride. But you are not ignorant that those two women, Sara and Hagar, and their two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, are figures of the spiritual and the carnal. And although we read that the slave woman and her son suffered grave troubles from Sara, yet the apostle Paul says that Isaac suffered persecution from Ishmael: But just as then, he says, he who was according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also now (Gal 4:29)—so that those who can may understand that the Catholic Church rather suffers persecution by the pride and impiety of carnal men, whom it tries to amend by temporal troubles and terrors. Whatever, then, the true and lawful mother does, even if it be felt harsh and bitter, she does not render evil for evil; but she applies the good of discipline, by expelling the evil of iniquity, not from a hatred of harming, but from a love of healing. When the good and the evil do the same things, and suffer the same things, they are to be distinguished surely not by the deeds and penalties, but by the causes. Pharaoh wore down the people of God with hard labors (See Exod 1:11-14); Moses afflicted the same people, acting impiously, with hard coercions (See Exod 32:27-28): they did similar things, but did not wish to profit in a similar way; the one was inflated by domination, the other inflamed by love. Jezebel killed the Prophets; Elijah killed the false prophets (See 1 Kgs 18:4, 40; 19:1-2): I think that the merits of the doers are diverse, the merits of the sufferers diverse.

2. 7. Look also at the times of the New Testament, when now the very gentleness of love was to be preserved not only in the heart, but also shown in the light; when Peter's sword is recalled into its sheath by Christ, and it is shown that it ought not to have been drawn from the sheath even for Christ (See Matt 26:51-52; Jn 18:11). Yet we read not only that the Jews beat the apostle Paul (See Acts 16:22-23), but also that the Greeks beat the Jew Sosthenes for the apostle Paul (See Acts 18:17): does not the likeness of the deed, as it were, join both, and yet the unlikeness of cause distinguish them? Surely God did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all (Rom 8:32): surely of the Son himself it is said: Who loved me, and handed himself over for me (Gal 2:20): surely of Judas too it is said that Satan entered into him, to hand over Christ (See Jn 13:27). When, then, both the Father handed over his Son, and Christ himself his own body, and Judas his Lord, why in this handing-over is God pious, and the man guilty, except because in the one thing they did, the cause is not one for which they did it? Three crosses were in one place; on one, a robber to be freed; on another, a robber to be condemned; in the middle, Christ, about to free the one, to condemn the other (See Lk 23:33-43): what is more like than these crosses? What more unlike than these hanging men? Paul was handed over to be shut up and bound (See Acts 21:33); but than any keeper of a prison whatever, surely Satan is worse; to whom nevertheless Paul himself handed over a man for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 5:5). And here what do we say? Behold, the cruel deliverer handed over to a milder, the merciful deliverer handed over to a crueler. Let us learn, brother, in the likeness of works to distinguish the minds of the workers, lest with closed eyes we slander, and accuse the well-meaning in place of the harmful. Likewise, when the same Apostle says that he handed over certain men to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim 1:20), did he render evil for evil, or rather judge it a good work to amend the evil even through evil?

2. 8. If it were always praiseworthy to suffer persecution, it would suffice the Lord to say: Blessed are those who suffer persecution; nor would he add, for the sake of righteousness (Matt 5:10). Likewise, if it were always blameworthy to make persecution, it would not be written in the holy books: Him who secretly disparaged his neighbor, this man I persecuted (See Ps 101:5 (100:5)). Sometimes, then, both he who suffers it is unjust, and he who makes it is just. But plainly always both evil men have persecuted the good, and good men have persecuted the evil: the former by harming through injustice, the latter by consulting through discipline; the former monstrously, the latter temperately; the former serving cupidity, the latter love. For he who slaughters does not consider how he may mangle; but he who heals considers how he may cut: for the one pursues health, the other rottenness. The impious killed the Prophets; the Prophets too killed the impious. The Jews scourged Christ (See Mk 15:15); Christ too scourged the Jews (See Jn 2:15). The Apostles were handed over by men to human power; the Apostles too handed over men to the power of Satan. In all these things, what is attended to, except which of them acts for the truth, which for iniquity; which for the sake of harming, which of amending?

3. 9. No example is found in the evangelical and apostolic Letters of anything's being asked from the kings of the earth for the Church, against the enemies of the Church. Who denies that it is not found? But that prophecy was not yet being fulfilled: And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth; serve the Lord in fear (Ps 2:10-11). For there was still being fulfilled what is said a little above in the same psalm: Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes came together as one, against the Lord, and against his Christ (Ps 2:1-2). Nevertheless, if past deeds in the prophetic books were figures of things to come, in that king who was called Nebuchadnezzar both times were figured—both that which the Church had under the Apostles, and that which it now has. And so in the times of the Apostles and martyrs that was being fulfilled which was figured, when the said king compelled the pious and just to adore an image, and cast those who refused into the flame. But now that is being fulfilled which was figured a little after in the same king, when, converted to honoring the true God, he decreed in his kingdom that whoever should blaspheme the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should be subject to due penalties (See Dan 3). The earlier time of that king, then, signified the earlier times of the unbelieving kings, whom the Christians suffered for the impious; but the later time of that king signified the times of the later kings, now believing, whom the impious suffer for the Christians.

3. 10. But plainly, in the case of those who err under the name of Christ, seduced by perverse men—lest perhaps they be straying sheep of Christ, and are so to be recalled to the flock—a tempered severity, and rather gentleness, is preserved, so that by the coercion of exiles and fines they may be admonished to consider what and why they suffer, and may learn to prefer to the rumors and slanders of men the Scriptures which they read. For who of us, who of you, does not praise the laws given by the emperors against the sacrifices of the pagans? And certainly there a far severer penalty is established; for of that impiety the punishment is capital. But concerning the correcting and coercing of you, reason was had, that you might rather be admonished to depart from error than be punished for crime. For perhaps it can be said of you too what the Apostle says of the Jews: I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not been subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:2-3). For what else do you too wish but to establish your own righteousness, when you say that none are justified except those who could be baptized by you? In this apostolic sentence, then, which he brought forth concerning the Jews, you differ from the Jews in this: that you have the Christian Sacraments, which they still lack. But as for what he says: ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, and that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, you are altogether equal—except, at least, those among you, whoever they are, who know what is true, and, for the animosity of their perversity, fight against the truth even most well known to themselves. For the impiety of these perhaps even surpasses idolatry. But because they cannot easily be convicted (for this evil lies hidden in the mind), you are all coerced, as less estranged from us, with a milder severity. And this indeed I would say either of all heretics who are imbued with the Christian Sacraments and dissent from the truth or unity of Christ, or of all Donatists.

3. 11. But as for what pertains to you, who are called not only, in common with them, Donatists from Donatus, but also, properly, Rogatists from Rogatus, you indeed seem to be milder, because you do not rage with the most monstrous bands of the Circumcellions; but no beast, if it wounds no one, is therefore called gentle because it has no teeth and claws. You say that you do not wish to rage; I think that you cannot. For you are so few in number that you would not dare to move yourselves against the multitudes adverse to you, even if you desired it. But let us grant that you do not even wish what you are unable to do; let us grant that you so understand, so hold, the evangelical sentence in which it is written: If anyone wishes to take your tunic and contend with you at law, leave him your cloak also (See Matt 5:40), that you think no resistance should be made to those who persecute you, not only by any injury, but even by any right; this understanding, certainly, Rogatus your founder either did not have, or did not fulfill, who, about some matters which, as you say, were yours, fought with the keenest perseverance, even by a forensic dispute. To whom, if it were said: Which of the Apostles ever defended his goods in a public judgment in a case of faith?—just as you set down in your letter: Which of the Apostles ever invaded another's goods in a case of faith?—he would indeed find no example of this deed in the divine Letters; but yet he would perhaps find some true defense, if he held the true Church, and did not, under the name of the true Church, shamelessly possess something.

4. 12. But as for what pertains to the commands of the earthly powers, to be obtained or exercised against schismatics or heretics, those from whom you separated were most keen, both against you, as far as we could hear, and against the Maximianists, which we prove even by certain documents of the records; but yet you were not yet separated from them, when they said to the emperor Julian, in their petition, that with him justice alone had place; whom surely they knew to be an apostate, and saw to be so given over to idolatries that they would either confess that justice was idolatry, or could not deny that they had wickedly lied, in saying before him that justice alone had place, before whom they discerned idolatry to have a great place. But suppose there was an error in the word; what do you say about the deed itself? If nothing just is to be sought from an emperor, why was that sought from Julian which was thought just?

4. 13. Or is this to be sought, that each one recover his own, not that he accuse someone, by whom he may be coerced by the emperor? Meanwhile, even in the suit for recovering one's own goods, one departs from the apostolic examples, because none of them is found to have done this. But yet, when your forebears accused Caecilianus himself, then bishop of the Church of Carthage—with whom, as with a criminal, they were unwilling to commune—before the prince Constantine through the proconsul Anulinus, they did not sue for their own lost goods, but slanderously assailed an innocent man, as we judge and as the very outcome of the judgments taught: than which what more wicked could be done by them? But if, as you falsely judge, they handed over to the earthly powers one to be judged truly a criminal, why do you cast at us what the presumption of your own people first did? Whom we would not reprove because they did it, if they had done it not with an envious and harmful mind, but with the will of amending and correcting. But you we reprove without doubt, to whom it seems a crime to complain anything to a Christian emperor about the enemies of our communion, when the document given by your forebears to the proconsul Anulinus, and to be sent to the emperor Constantine, was thus inscribed: The document of the Catholic Church, of the crimes of Caecilianus, handed over by the party of Majorinus. But we reprove them rather on this account: that, when they had of their own accord accused Caecilianus before the Emperor—whom they ought first surely to have convicted before their overseas colleagues—with the Emperor himself acting far more orderly, so as to send the case of the bishops, brought to him, to bishops, they were unwilling, when defeated, to have peace with the brothers; but again they came to the same emperor; again they accused not only Caecilianus, but also the bishops given to them as judges, before an earthly king; again they appealed from another episcopal judgment to the same emperor. Nor, even with him examining and judging between the parties, did they think they ought to yield either to the truth or to peace.

4. 14. But what else would Constantine have established against Caecilianus and his companions, if they had been defeated with your forebears accusing, than what he established against those very men who, when they had of their own accord accused, and could not prove what they intended, were unwilling to consent to the truth even when defeated? For that emperor was the first to establish, in this case, that the goods of the convicted and of those obstinately resisting unity should be claimed for the treasury. But evidently, if, with your forebears accusing and prevailing, the emperor had decreed any such thing against the communion of Caecilianus, you would wish to be named providers for the Church, defenders of peace and unity. But when, against those who, accusing of their own accord, could prove nothing, and were unwilling to consent even to the offered bosom of peace by which they might, corrected, be received, such things are decreed by the emperors, an unworthy deed is cried out: it is contended that no one is to be compelled to unity, that evil is to be rendered to no one for evil. What is this other than that which someone wrote about you: What we wish is holy? And now it was not great nor difficult to consider and reflect that the judgment and sentence of Constantine against you are in force, which were promulgated against you, with your forebears so often accusing Caecilianus before the Emperor and not convicting him; and that the other emperors, especially Catholic Christians, necessarily follow it, as often as the necessity of your obstinacy compels them to do something about you.

4. 15. It was easy to reflect on these things, so as to say at some time to yourselves: If Caecilianus was either innocent, or could not be convicted of guilt, in what did the Christian society, so far and wide diffused, sin in this affair? Why was it not permitted the Christian world to be ignorant of what those who had accused could not demonstrate? Why are those whom Christ sowed in his field, that is, in this world, and bade grow among the weeds until the harvest (See Matt 13:24-30); why are so many thousands of the faithful in all nations, whose multitude the Lord compared to the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, whom he promised would be blessed in the offspring of Abraham, and rendered so, denied to be Christians, because in this case, in the discussing of which they were not present, they chose to believe the judges judging at their own peril, rather than the defeated litigants? Surely no one's crime stains one who knows it not. How could the faithful, diffused throughout the whole world, know the crime of traditors, which the accusers, even if they knew it, yet could not show them? That these, then, are innocent of this crime, surely their very ignorance most easily shows. Why, then, are the innocent accused of false crimes, because they did not know another's crimes, whether false or true? What place is reserved for innocence, if it is one's own crime not to know another's crime? Further, if their very ignorance, as has been said, shows the peoples of so many nations innocent, how great a crime is it to be separated from the communion of these innocent ones? For even the deeds of the guilty, which cannot be demonstrated to the innocent, or believed by the innocent, stain no one, if, for the sake of fellowship with the innocent, even when known, they are endured. For the good are not to be deserted on account of the evil, but the evil are to be tolerated on account of the good: as the Prophets tolerated those against whom they said such great things, nor did they leave the communion of the sacraments of that people; as the Lord himself tolerated the guilty Judas until his fitting end, and permitted him to share the sacred supper with the innocent; as the Apostles tolerated those who through envy—which is the vice of the devil himself—announced Christ (See Phil 1:15); as Cyprian tolerated the avarice of his colleagues, which, according to the Apostle, he calls idolatry (See Col 3:5). Finally, whatever was then done among those bishops, even if perhaps it was known by some of them, is now, if there is no respect of persons, unknown to all. Why, then, is not peace loved by all? You could reflect on these things most easily, or perhaps you even reflect on them. But it was better for you to love earthly possessions, which, fearing to lose, you would consent to the known truth, than to love the most vain glory of men, which you think you lose if you consent to the known truth.

5. 16. You see, then, now, as I think, that one must not consider what each is compelled to, but of what sort that is to which he is compelled, whether good or evil: not that anyone can be good unwillingly; but, by fearing what he does not wish to suffer, he either leaves the animosity that hindered him, or is compelled to know the truth he was ignorant of, so that, fearing, he either rejects the falsehood about which he contended, or seeks the truth he did not know, and, willing, now holds what he was unwilling to hold. This might perhaps be said in vain in any words whatever, if it were not shown by so many examples. We see that not these or those men, but many cities have been Donatist and are now Catholic, vehemently detesting the diabolical separation, ardently loving unity: which, nevertheless, were made Catholic, by the occasions of this fear which displeases you, through the laws of the emperors—from Constantine, before whom your people first accused Caecilianus of their own accord, down to the present emperors, who most justly decree that the judgment of him whom your people chose, whom they preferred to the bishop-judges, is to be kept against you.

5. 17. By these examples, then, proposed to me by my colleagues, I yielded. For my opinion at first was none other than that no one was to be compelled to the unity of Christ; that we must act by word, fight by disputation, conquer by reason, lest we have as feigned Catholics those whom we knew as open heretics. But this opinion of mine was overcome, not by the words of those contradicting, but by the examples of those demonstrating. For first my own city was set against me, which, when it was wholly in the party of Donatus, was converted to Catholic unity by the fear of the imperial laws; which we now see so detest the destructiveness of this animosity of yours that it is believed never to have been in it. So too many others, which were recalled to me by name, so that by the very facts I might recognize that even in this case what is written can be rightly understood: Give the wise man an occasion, and he will be wiser (See Prov 9:9). For how many—which we know for certain—now wished to be Catholics, moved by the most manifest truth, and, out of reverence for the offense of their own people, daily put it off! How many were bound by no truth, in which you never had ground, but by the grave bond of a hardened habit, so that in them was fulfilled that divine sentence: A hard servant will not be amended by words; for even if he understands, he will not obey (See Prov 29:19)! How many thought the party of Donatus the true Church for this reason, that security made them torpid, fastidious, and sluggish in coming to know the Catholic truth! How many had the entrance of coming in barred by the rumors of slanderers, who kept boasting that we put I know not what else on the altar of God! How many, believing it made no difference in which party each was a Christian, remained in the party of Donatus for this reason, that they were born there, and no one compelled them to depart thence and to pass over to the Catholic Church!

5. 18. To all these the terror of these laws—in promulgating which the kings serve the Lord in fear (See Ps 2:11)—so profited that now some say: We wished this already; but thanks be to God, who furnished us an occasion of doing it at once, and cut off the little delays of postponements. Others say: We already knew this to be true; but we were held by I know not what habit: thanks to the Lord, who broke our bonds, and transferred us to the bond of peace. Others say: We did not know the truth was here, nor did we wish to learn it; but fear made us intent on coming to know it, by which we feared lest perhaps, without any gains of eternal things, we be struck by the loss of temporal things: thanks to the Lord, who shook off our negligence with the goad of terror, so that, at least anxious, we might seek what, secure, we never cared to know. Others say: We were terrified by false rumors from entering, which we would not know to be false if we did not enter; nor would we enter, unless we were compelled: thanks to the Lord, who took away our trepidation with the scourge, and taught us by experience how vain and empty the things were that lying fame boasted about his Church; hence we now believe that those things too are false which the authors of this heresy charged, when their descendants have invented things so false and worse. Others say: We thought indeed it made no difference where we held the faith of Christ; but thanks to the Lord, who gathered us from division, and showed that this befits the one God, that he be worshiped in unity.

5. 19. For the hindering, then, of these gains of the Lord, should I have set myself against my colleagues to contradict them, lest, on your mountains and hills—that is, in the swellings of your pride—the straying sheep of Christ be gathered into the sheepfold of peace, where there is one flock and one shepherd (Jn 10:16)? Should I indeed have contradicted this provision, lest you lose the things you call yours, and, secure, proscribe Christ: so that you might make wills by Roman law, and by calumnious accusations break the Testament arranged for the fathers by divine law, where it is written: In your offspring shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18): so that in buyings and sellings you might have free contracts, and dare to divide among yourselves what Christ, sold, bought: so that what any of you had given to anyone might be valid, and what the God of gods gave to his sons, called from the rising of the sun to its setting, might not be valid: so that you might not be sent into exile from the land of your body, and Christ from the kingdom of his blood, from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (See Ps 72:8 (71:8))? Should I try to make Christ an exile? No, rather let the kings of the earth serve Christ, even by passing laws for Christ. Your forebears cast Caecilianus and his companions, by false crimes, to be punished by the kings of the earth; let the lions be turned to crush the bones of the slanderers, nor let Daniel himself intercede, proved innocent, and freed from the den in which they perish (See Dan 6:24): for he who prepares a pit for his neighbor will himself more justly fall into it (See Prov 26:27).

6. 20. Snatch yourself, brother, while you live in this flesh, from the wrath which is to come upon the obstinate and the proud. The terror of temporal powers, when it attacks the truth, is a glorious proving to the just and strong, a dangerous temptation to the weak; but when it preaches the truth, it is a useful admonition to the sensible who err, and a useless affliction to the senseless. There is nevertheless no power except from God; but he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God: for rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you will have praise from it (Rom 13:1-3). For whether the power, favoring the truth, corrects someone, he who has been amended has praise from it; or whether, hostile to the truth, it rages against someone, he who has been crowned as victor has praise from it. But you do not do good, so that you ought not to fear the power: unless perhaps it is good to sit, and disparage not a brother (See Ps 50:20 (49:20)), but all the brothers established in all the nations, to whom the Prophets, Christ, and the Apostles bear witness, when it is read: In your offspring shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18); when it is read: From the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice is offered to my name; for my name is glorified among the nations, says the Lord (See Mal 1:11); hear, says the Lord; not, says Donatus, or Rogatus, or Vincent, or Hilary, or Ambrose, or Augustine; but, says the Lord: when it is read: And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all the nations shall magnify him. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things; and blessed be the name of his glory forever, and unto the age of the age: and all the earth shall be filled with his glory; so be it, so be it (Ps 72:17-19 (71:17-19)). And you sit at Cartenna, and with the ten Rogatists who have remained, you say: So be it not, so be it not.

6. 21. You hear the Gospel speak: It was necessary that everything written in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms about me should be fulfilled. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (See Lk 24:44-47). You read too the Acts of the Apostles, how this Gospel began from Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit first filled those hundred and twenty (See Acts 1:15, 2:1-4), and thence went out into Judea and Samaria, and into all nations, as he had said to them when about to ascend into heaven: You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8): for their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (See Ps 19:4 (18:5); Rom 10:18). And you contradict the divine testimonies, strengthened with so great firmness, manifested with so great a light, and try to bring the inheritance of Christ to that proscription, so that, although in his name, as he said, repentance is preached among all the nations, whoever has been moved by this preaching, in any part of the world, unless he has sought and found Vincent of Cartenna lying hidden in Mauretania Caesariensis, or some one of his nine or ten partners, cannot have his sins forgiven him. What would the conceit of a dead little skin not dare? Into what would the presumption of flesh and blood not hurl itself? Is this your good work, on account of which you should not fear the power? You set so great a scandal against the son of your mother (See Ps 50:20 (49:20))—a little one, namely, and weak, for whom Christ died (See Rom 14:15; 1 Cor 8:11), not yet fit for the father's food, but still to be nourished by the mother's milk: and you set against me the books of Hilary, so as to deny the Church growing among all the nations until the end of the age, which God promised, with an oath, against your unbelief! And whereas you would be most unhappy if you resisted then, when it was being promised, now also, when it is rendered, you contradict it.

7. 22. But, learned historian, you have found something great, which you thought should be brought forth against the testimonies of God. For you say: As far as it pertains to the parts of the whole world, it is a modest part, in comparison with the whole world, in which the Christian faith is named: nor do you wish to attend, or you dissemble that you know, into how many barbarian nations the Gospel has already come, in so short a time, that not even the enemies of Christ can now doubt that there will be, in a short time, what he answered to the Disciples asking about the end of the age: And this Gospel will be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come (Matt 24:14). On this both clamor and contend, as much as you can—that even if the Gospel be preached among the Persians and Indians, where indeed it is now long preached, unless whoever hears this comes to Cartenna, or into the neighborhood of the people of Cartenna, he cannot at all be cleansed from his faults. So, if you lacked that utterance, you fear to be laughed at; and when you do not lack it, do you not wish to be wept over?

7. 23. But you seem to yourself to say something acute, when you interpret the name "Catholic" not from the communion of the whole world, but from the observation of all the divine precepts and all the Sacraments: as though we—even if perhaps it was called "Catholic" from this, that it truthfully holds the whole, certain particles of which truth are found even in various heresies—were relying on the testimony of this name to demonstrate the Church in all the nations, and not on the promises of God and so many and so manifest oracles of truth itself. But surely this is the whole of what you try to persuade us: that the Rogatists alone have remained, who are rightly to be called Catholics, from the observation of all the divine precepts and all the Sacraments; and that you alone are those in whom, when the Son of man comes, he will find faith (See Lk 18:8). Grant pardon, we do not believe it. For although you perhaps dare to say even this—that, since faith can be found in you, which the Lord said he would not find on earth, you are to be reckoned not on earth, but in heaven—the Apostle has nevertheless made us so cautious that he commanded that even an angel from heaven, evangelizing to us anything other than what we received, ought to be anathema (See Gal 1:8). But how do we trust that we have received from the divine Letters a manifest Christ, if we have not thence received also a manifest Church? Let anyone weave whatever handles and hooks against the simplicity of the truth, let him pour over it whatever clouds of crafty falsehood; just as he will be anathema who announces that Christ neither suffered nor rose again on the third day—since in the evangelical truth we have received: It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day (See Lk 24:46)—so he will be anathema, whoever announces a Church apart from the communion of all nations; because by the same truth we have consequently received that repentance and the forgiveness of sins are to be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (See Lk 24:47), and we ought to hold without shaking, whoever announces to you anything other than what you have received, let him be anathema (See Gal 1:9).

8. 24. But if we do not heed all the Donatists when they put themselves forward as the Church of Christ, because they bring forth no testimony for themselves from the divine books by which they teach it, how much less, I ask you, ought we to heed the Rogatists, who will not even try to interpret for themselves what is written: Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon (Song 1:7)? For if in this passage of the Scriptures "noon" is to be understood as Africa, in the party of Donatus—because it is under a more fervent region of the sky—all the Maximianists will surpass you, whose schism flared up in Byzacium and in Tripolitania. But let the Arzuges contend with them, and claim that this rather pertains to themselves: yet Mauretania Caesariensis, nearer to the western than to the southern part—since it does not even wish to be called Africa—how will it boast of the noon, I do not say against the world, but against the very party of Donatus, whence the party of Rogatus, a most tiny fragment, was cut off from a larger fragment? But who would strive, most shamelessly, to interpret for himself something set in allegory, unless he had also manifest testimonies, by whose light the obscure things may be illumined?

8. 25. But what we are wont to say to all the Donatists, how much more strongly do we say to you: If some can—which cannot be done—have a just cause by which they separate their communion from the communion of the world, and call it the Church of Christ, because they have justly separated themselves from the communion of all nations; whence do you know, in the Christian society so far and wide diffused, whether perhaps before you separated, some had already separated themselves by a just cause in most distant lands, whence the fame of their justice could not reach you? How can the Church be in you, rather than in those who perhaps separated themselves earlier? So it comes about that, when you do not know this, you are uncertain about your own selves: which must necessarily befall all who use, for their own society, a testimony not divine, but their own. For neither can you say, If this had happened, it could not be hidden from us, since, of Africa itself, how many parties have already been made out of the party of Donatus, if you were asked, you would not say: especially since those who do this seem to themselves so much the more just, the fewer they have been; and surely they are so much the more hidden. And through this you are uncertain whether perhaps a few just men—and therefore little known—somewhere far against the south of Africa, before the party of Donatus separated its justice from the iniquity of the rest of men, may first have separated themselves by a most fair cause in the side of the north, and that it may rather be the Church of God, as a spiritual Zion, which preceded you all by a just separation, and much more presumptuously, I beg, interpret for itself what is written: Mount Zion, the sides of the north, the city of the great king (Ps 48:2 (47:3)), than the party of Donatus interprets for itself: Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon (Song 1:7).

8. 26. And yet you fear lest, when you are compelled to unity by the imperial laws, the name of God be longer blasphemed by the Jews and pagans: as though the Jews did not know how the first people of Israel even wished to destroy by war those two and a half tribes which had received lands beyond the Jordan, when they thought that they had separated themselves from the unity of their people (See Josh 22). But the pagans can rather blaspheme us about the laws which the Christian emperors passed against the worshipers of idols; and yet many of them, corrected, were turned to the living and true God, and are daily turned. But plainly both the Jews and the pagans, if they thought the Christians as few as you are few, who maintain that you alone are Christians, would not deign to blaspheme us, but would never cease to laugh. Do you not fear lest the Jews say to you: Where is what your Paul understands as your Church, where it is said: Rejoice, you barren one who do not bear, break forth and cry out, you who do not travail; for many are the sons of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband (See Isa 54:1; Gal 4:27), setting the multitude of Christians before the multitude of Jews, if your fewness is the Church of Christ? Will you say this to them: For this reason we are more just, because we are few; and do you not attend that they will answer: However many you say you are, yet you are not those of whom it was said: Many are the sons of the deserted one, if you have remained so scanty in number?

8. 27. Here you will set against me the example of that just man in the flood, who alone with his house was found worthy to be freed (See Gen 7). You see, then, how far you still are from justice? Plainly, until you remain among seven, of whom you are the eighth, we do not say that you are just; if, however, no one—as I was saying—seized this justice before the party of Donatus, and, moved by some just cause, separated himself with his own seven far elsewhere, and freed himself from the flood of this world. And since you do not know whether this was done, and it is thus unheard of by you, just as to many peoples of Christians established in distant lands the name of Donatus is unheard of, you are uncertain where the Church is. For it will be there, where perhaps was first done what you afterward did, if there could be any just cause by which you could separate yourselves from the communion of all the nations.

9. 28. But we are certain, for this reason, that no one could justly separate himself from the communion of all the nations, because none of us seeks the Church in his own justice, but in the divine Scriptures, and beholds it rendered as it was promised. For it is that of which it is said: As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters (Song 2:2): who cannot be called thorns except by the malignity of their morals, nor daughters except by the communion of the Sacraments. For it is that which says: From the ends of the earth I have cried to you, when my heart was in anguish (Ps 61:2 (60:3)). Which in another psalm says: A weariness held me because of the sinners who forsake your law; and: I saw the senseless, and I wasted away (See Ps 119:53 (118:53); Ps 119:158 (118:158)). It is that which says to its spouse: Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon; lest perhaps I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions (Song 1:7). That is what is said elsewhere: Make known to me your right hand, and those instructed in heart in wisdom (See Ps 90:12 (89:12)): in whom, shining with light and fervent with love, you rest as at noon; lest perhaps, as one veiled—that is, hidden and unknown—I rush, not into your flock, but into the flocks of your companions, that is, of the heretics. Whom it calls "companions," just as it calls those thorns "daughters," on account of the communion of the Sacraments. Of whom it is said elsewhere: But you, my like-minded one, and my guide, and my acquaintance, who together with me took sweet food; in the house of the Lord we walked with consent. Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell (Ps 55:13-15 (54:14-16)), like Dathan and Abiron, the authors of an impious separation (See Num 16).

9. 29. It is that to which it is immediately answered: Unless you know yourself, O fair one among women, go out yourself in the footsteps of the flocks, and feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds (Song 1:8). O answer of the sweetest spouse! Unless you know yourself, he says: for surely a city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden (Matt 5:14); and therefore you are not veiled, so as to run into the flocks of my companions. For I am a mountain prepared on the summit of the mountains, to which all the nations will come (See Isa 2:2): Unless, then, you know yourself, not in the words of slanderers, but in the testimonies of my Books. Unless you know yourself, for of you it was said: Stretch out your cords farther, and make firm your strong stakes: again and again extend to the right and to the left. For your offspring will inherit the nations, and you will inhabit the cities that were deserted. There is nothing for you to fear, for you will prevail; nor be ashamed that you were detestable. For you will forget the confusion forever; you will not be mindful of the disgrace of your widowhood. For I am the Lord who makes you, the Lord is his name. And he who rescues you, he, the God of Israel, will be called the God of all the earth (See Isa 54:2-5). Unless you know yourself, O fair one among women; for of you it was said: The king has desired your beauty (See Ps 45:11 (44:12)); for of you it was said: In place of your fathers, sons have been born to you; you will set them princes over all the earth (Ps 45:16 (44:17)). Unless, then, you know yourself, go out yourself; I do not cast you out, but go out yourself, so that it may be said of you: They went out from us; but they were not of us (1 Jn 2:19). Go out yourself in the footsteps of the flocks, not in my footsteps, but in the footsteps of the flocks; and not of one flock, but of divided and straying flocks. And feed your kids: not as Peter, to whom it is said: Feed my sheep (Jn 21:17); but feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds, not in the tent of the shepherd, where there is one flock and one shepherd (See Jn 10:16). For she knows herself, lest this befall her which befell those who did not know themselves in her.

9. 30. It is that of whose fewness it is said, in comparison with the very many evil: Narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, and few are they who walk in it (Matt 7:14). And again, it is that of whose multitude it is said: So shall your offspring be, as the stars of heaven, and as the sand of the sea (See Gen 22:17). For the same faithful, holy and good, are both, in comparison with the more numerous evil, few, and in themselves many: for many are the sons of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband (See Isa 54:1); and many will come from the east and west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 8:11); and because God provides for himself an abundant people, a zealot of good works (See Titus 2:14); and many thousands which no one can number are seen in the Apocalypse, from every tribe and tongue, in white robes and with victorious palms (See Rev 7:9). It is that which is sometimes obscured, and, as it were, beclouded by a multitude of scandals, when the sinners bend the bow, to shoot in the dark moon the upright of heart (See Ps 11:2 (10:3)). But even then it stands out in its most firm members. And if any distribution is to be made in these divine words, perhaps it was not in vain said of the offspring of Abraham: As the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is on the shore of the sea (See Gen 22:17): so that in the stars of heaven the fewer, firmer, and clearer may be understood; but in the sand of the seashore, the great multitude of the weak and carnal, which sometimes, in the tranquility of the time, appears quiet and free, but sometimes is covered and troubled by the waves of tribulations and temptations.

9. 31. Such, then, was the time about which Hilary wrote, whence you thought you should lay a snare against so many divine testimonies, as though the Church had perished from the world. You can in this way say that there were not even so many Churches of Galatia then, when the Apostle said: O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that, when you began with the spirit, you are now made perfect by the flesh (Gal 3:1, 3)? For thus you slander the learned man, who gravely rebuked the slow of heart and the timid, whom he was again bringing forth in travail, until Christ should be formed in them (See Gal 4:19). For who does not know that at that time, by obscure words, many of little sense were deluded, so that they thought what was believed by the Arians was what they too believed; but that others yielded through fear and feignedly consented, not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel (See Gal 2:14)—whom afterward, corrected, you would be unwilling to be pardoned, just as it is unknown? You plainly do not know the Letters of God. For read what Paul wrote of Peter, and what Cyprian too thought thence; and let not the gentleness of the Church displease you, which gathers the dispersed members of Christ, and does not disperse the gathered: although even those who were then most firm, and could understand the insidious words of the heretics—few indeed in comparison with the rest, but yet they too—some bravely went into exile for the faith, some lay hidden throughout the whole world. And so the Church which grows through all the nations was preserved in the Lord's grain, and will be preserved unto the end, until it holds absolutely all the nations, even the barbarian ones. For it is the Church in the good seed which the Son of man sowed, and which he foretold would grow among the weeds until the harvest. But the field is the world, the harvest is the end of the age (See Matt 13:24-39).

9. 32. Hilary, then, was reproving, of the ten Asian provinces, either weeds, not wheat, or even the wheat itself which was imperiled by a certain failing—which he thought ought to be reproved so much the more usefully, the more vehemently. For the canonical Scriptures too have this manner of reproving, that it is said, as it were, to all, and the word reaches certain ones. For what the Apostle says to the Corinthians: How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12)? surely manifests that not all are such, and yet testifies that even such were not outside, but among them: by whom, lest those be seduced who did not think so, he admonished a little after, saying: Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals. Be sober, righteous, and do not sin: for some have an ignorance of God; I speak to your shame (1 Cor 15:33-34). But what he says: For since there are among you envy and contention, are you not carnal, and walk according to man (See 1 Cor 3:3)? he says, as it were, to all; and you see how grave is what he says. Accordingly, unless we read in the same Epistle: I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in all things you were enriched in him, in all speech and in all knowledge, as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you lack nothing in any grace (1 Cor 1:4-7), we would think all the Corinthians carnal and animal, not perceiving the things which are of the Spirit of God (See 1 Cor 2:14), contentious, envious, walking according to man. And so both the whole world is set in the evil one (1 Jn 5:19), on account of the weeds which are throughout the whole world; and Christ is the propitiator of our sins, not only of ours, but also of the whole world (See 1 Jn 2:2), on account of the wheat which is throughout the whole world.

9. 33. But the love of many grows cold (See Matt 24:12) on account of the abundance of scandals, the more and more, with the name of Christ glorified, there are gathered into the communion of his Sacraments even the malicious, and the altogether perseveringly perverse, but yet, like chaff, to be separated from the Lord's threshing-floor only at the final winnowing (See Matt 3:12). These do not extinguish the Lord's grain—few indeed in comparison with them, but many in themselves; they do not extinguish the elect of God, to be gathered at the end of the age, as the Gospel says, from the four winds, from the heights of the heavens unto their ends (See Matt 24:31). For theirs is the voice: Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed, for truths are diminished from among the sons of men (Ps 12:1 (11:2)): of whom the Lord too says, amid the abundance of iniquity, he who perseveres to the end, this one will be saved (See Matt 24:13). Finally, that not one man, but several speak in the same psalm, the following words teach, where it is said: You, O Lord, will preserve us, and will keep us from this generation forever (Ps 12:7 (11:8)). For on account of this abundance of iniquity, which the Lord foretold would be, that too was set down: When the Son of man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth (Lk 18:8)? For the doubt of him who knows all things prefigured our doubt in him, when the Church—deceived often by many of whom it hoped much, because they were found other than they were believed—is so disturbed in its own members that it is unwilling easily to believe anything good of anyone. Yet that those, whose faith he is to find on the earth, grow throughout the whole field with the weeds, it is not lawful to doubt.

9. 34. It is, then, that Church which swims within the Lord's net with the bad fish (See Matt 13:47-48), from whom in heart it is always separated, and in morals departs, so that it may be presented to its husband glorious, having no spot or wrinkle (See Eph 5:27). But the bodily separation it awaits on the seashore, that is, at the end of the age (See Matt 13:48-49), correcting those it can, tolerating those it cannot correct: yet, on account of the iniquity of those it does not correct, it does not desert the very unity of the good.

10. 35. Do not, then, brother, against so many, so clear, so undoubted divine testimonies, wish to gather slanders from the writings of bishops—whether ours, like Hilary; or, before the party of Donatus separated, those of unity itself, like Cyprian and Agrippinus: first, because this kind of literature is to be distinguished from the authority of the canon. For they are not read in such a way that testimony is so brought forth from them that it is not permitted to think otherwise, wherever perhaps they thought otherwise than the truth demands. For we are in that number to whom it is not disdainful to accept what was said by the Apostle: And if you think anything otherwise, this too God will reveal to you. Nevertheless, in what we have attained, in it let us walk (Phil 3:15-16); in that way, namely, which is Christ (See Jn 14:6): about which way the Psalm thus speaks: May God have mercy on us, and bless us; may he illuminate his countenance over us, that we may know your way on the earth, your salvation among all the nations (Ps 67:1-2 (66:2-3)).

10. 36. Next, if the authority of the holy bishop Cyprian and glorious martyr delights you—which indeed, as I said, we distinguish from the canonical authority—why does it not delight you in this, that he both held the unity of the world and of all the nations by loving it, and defended it by disputing; that he judged most arrogant and most proud those who had wished to separate themselves from it as though just, deriding them for taking upon themselves this, which the Lord did not concede even to the Apostles, that they should gather the weeds before the time, or that it had been granted to them, as it were, to bear the chaff and purge the threshing-floor, that they should try to separate the chaff from the wheat (See Matt 13:28-30); that he showed that no one can be stained by another's sins—which all the authors of impious sedition take to themselves as the sole cause of separation; that in that very point in which he thought otherwise, he decreed that colleagues thinking differently were neither to be judged, nor to be removed from the right of communion; that in that very letter to Jubaianus—which was first recited in the council whose authority you say you follow for rebaptizing—although he confesses that in the past those who had been baptized elsewhere were so admitted into the Church that they were not baptized again, whence he judges that they had been without Baptism; yet he places so much usefulness and wholesomeness in the peace of the Church that, on account of it, he does not believe them to be separated from the gifts of the Church?

10. 37. In which matter, as I know your wit, you most easily perceive your whole cause utterly overthrown and extinguished. For if, by sharing the Sacraments with sinners, as you think, the Church which had been in the world perished (for you separated for this reason), it had already perished wholly before, when, as Cyprian says, those were admitted into it without Baptism: and so not even Cyprian himself had a Church in which to be born; how much more your author and father Donatus, much later? But if at that time, when those were admitted into it without Baptism, there was nevertheless a Church which bore Cyprian, which bore Donatus too, it is manifest that the just are not contaminated by another's sins, when they share the Sacraments with them. And through this, the separation by which you went out from unity, by what excuse you can wash it away, you do not have; and there is fulfilled in you that oracle of holy Scripture: The evil son himself calls himself just, but he does not wash away his going-out (See Prov 30:12).

10. 38. But he is not so equaled to the merits of Cyprian, who, on account of equal Sacraments, does not dare to rebaptize even heretics themselves, just as he is not equaled to the merits of Peter, whoever does not compel the Gentiles to live like Jews. But that not only stumbling of Peter, but also correction, is contained in the canonical Scriptures: but that Cyprian thought otherwise about Baptism than the form and custom of the Church held, is found not in the canonical, but in his own and the council's letters; but that he corrected this opinion is not found—yet it is not incongruous to judge of such a man that he corrected it, and that perhaps it was suppressed by those who were too greatly delighted by this error, and were unwilling to lack so great a patronage, as it were. Although there are not lacking those who contend that Cyprian thought this not at all, but that it was fabricated under his name by presumptuous men and liars. For the integrity and knowledge of the letters of one bishop, however illustrious, could not be guarded as the canonical Scripture is guarded, by the letters of so many tongues, and the order and succession of ecclesiastical celebration—against which, nevertheless, there were not lacking those who fabricated many things under the names of the Apostles: in vain indeed, because that Scripture is so commended, so celebrated, so known; but what it could do against letters not founded on canonical authority, the attempt of impious audacity demonstrated even from this, that it did not omit to raise itself even against those which are strengthened by so great a mass of recognition.

10. 39. We, nevertheless, for two reasons, do not deny that Cyprian thought that: both because his style has a certain proper face by which it can be recognized; and because there our cause is shown the more invincible against you, and the presumption of your separation—namely, lest you be stained by another's sins—is overturned with all ease, when it appears in the Letters of Cyprian that the Sacraments were shared with sinners, when those were admitted into the Church who, according to your opinion, and as you wish, his opinion, did not have Baptism, and yet that the Church did not perish, but that the Lord's grain, scattered through the whole world, remained in the dignity of its kind. And through this, if, disturbed, you flee to the authority of Cyprian as to some harbor, you see what reef your error strikes there; but if you now do not dare even to flee thither, you are shipwrecked without any struggle.

10. 40. Further, Cyprian either did not think at all what you recite him to have thought; or he afterward corrected this by the rule of truth; or he covered this, as it were, a blemish of his most candid breast, with the abundance of love, while he both most copiously defended the unity of the Church growing throughout the whole world, and most perseveringly held the bond of peace: for it is written: Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). There was added to this also that, like a most fruitful shoot, if there had been anything in him to be amended, the Father purged it with the pruning-knife of passion: For the shoot, says the Lord, which in me bears fruit, my Father purges it, that it may bear more fruit (See Jn 15:2). Whence, unless because, clinging in the spreading of the vine, he did not desert the root of unity? For even if he handed over his body to be burned, but had not love, it would profit him nothing (See 1 Cor 13:3).

10. 41. Attend yet a little to the Letters of Cyprian, that you may observe how inexcusable he showed him to be, who wished to separate himself from the unity of the Church (which God promised and rendered in all the nations), as if for the cause of his own justice, and that you may better understand how true is the sentence recalled by me a little before: The evil son himself calls himself just, but he does not wash away his going-out (See Prov 30:12). He sets down, in a certain letter which he wrote to Antonianus, a certain matter quite necessary to that of which we now treat; but it is better that we insert his words. "Certain of our predecessors among the bishops," he says, "here in our province thought that peace should not be given to adulterers, and wholly closed the place of repentance against adulteries: yet they did not withdraw from the college of their fellow-bishops, nor break the unity of the Catholic Church by the hardness or obstinacy of their censure, so that, because among others peace was given to adulterers, he who did not give it should be separated from the Church. With the bond of concord remaining, and the undivided sacrament of the Catholic Church persevering, each bishop disposes and directs his own act, about to render an account of his purpose to the Lord." What do you say to these things, brother Vincent? Surely you behold that this so great man, a peaceful bishop, and a most brave martyr, busied himself with nothing more vehemently than that the bond of unity not be broken. You see him in travail, not only that the little ones conceived in Christ be born, but also that those already born be not shaken from the bosom of the mother and die.

10. 42. Further, attend to the very matter which he recalled against the impious separators. If those who gave peace to penitent adulterers communicated with adulterers, were not those who did not do this stained by the college of those? But if—as the truth holds, and as the Church deservedly holds—peace was rightly given to penitent adulterers, those who wholly closed the place of repentance against adulterers were surely acting impiously, who denied health to the members of Christ, and withdrew the keys of the Church from those knocking, and, by hard cruelty, contradicted the most merciful patience of God, who therefore permitted them to live, that, by repenting, they might be healed by the offered sacrifice of a contrite spirit and a troubled heart (See Ps 51:17 (50:19)). And yet so monstrous an error and impiety of theirs did not stain those merciful and peaceful men, sharing the Christian Sacraments with them, and tolerating them within the nets of unity, until, brought to the shore, they should be separated; or, if it did stain them, then already the Church was destroyed by the communion of the evil, nor was there one to bear Cyprian himself. But if—which is certain—the Church remained, it is certain too that no one, in the unity of Christ, can be stained by another's sins, not consenting to the deeds of the evil, lest he be polluted by sharing those very sins, but, for the sake of the fellowship of the good, tolerating the evil like chaff until the final winnowing on the Lord's threshing-floor. Since these things are so, where is the presumption of your separation? Are you not evil sons; you call yourselves just, but do not wash away your going-out?

10. 43. Now if I should wish to recall those things too which Tyconius, a man of your communion, inserts in his writings—who wrote more against you, for the Catholic Church, separating himself in vain from the communion of the Africans, as though traditors, by which one thing alone Parmenian smothers him—what could you answer, except what the same Tyconius said about you, and which I recalled a little before: What we wish is holy? For that Tyconius writes, a man, as I said, of your communion, that a council was held at Carthage by two hundred and seventy bishops of yours: in which council, through seventy-five days, with all past things set aside, a sentence was refined and decreed, that to traditors guilty of an immense crime, if they were unwilling to be baptized, communion should be given as to those whole. He also says that Deuterius, a Macrian bishop of your communion, mingled with the Church a gathered people of traditors, and, according to the statutes of that council made by two hundred and seventy of your bishops, made unity with traditors, and that Donatus continually communed with this Deuterius after this deed; and not only with this Deuterius, but also with all the bishops of the Moors for forty years, whom he says communed with traditors without Baptism, up until the persecution made through Macarius.

10. 44. But you say: Who is this Tyconius to me? He is that Tyconius whom Parmenian restrains by writing back, and deters from writing such things: yet he does not refute those very things which he writes; but, as I said above, presses him with one thing, that, when he said such things about the Church diffused throughout the whole world, and that another's sins stained no one in its unity, he nevertheless removed himself from the contagion of the Africans, as though traditors, and was in the party of Donatus. But Parmenian could say that he had lied in all those things; but, as the same Tyconius recalls, many were still living through whom these things could be shown to be most certain and most open.

10. 45. But about these things I am silent: contend that Tyconius lied; I recall you to Cyprian, of whom you yourself made mention. Plainly, according to the writings of Cyprian, if anyone in unity is stained by another's sins, the Church already perished before Cyprian, nor was there whence Cyprian himself might arise. But if it is sacrilegious to think this, and it is certain that the Church remains, no one in its unity is stained by another's sins; in vain do you evil sons call yourselves just—you do not wash away your going-out, you do not purge it.

11. 46. Why, then, you say, do you seek us? Why do you so receive those whom you call heretics? See how easily and briefly I answer. We seek you because you were lost, so that we may rejoice over you found, over whom, when lost, we grieved. But we say that you are heretics—yet before you are converted to Catholic peace, before you are stripped of the error in which you are ensnared. But when you pass over to us, you first surely leave what you were, lest you pass over to us as heretics. Baptize me, then, you say. I would, if you were not baptized, or if you were baptized with the baptism of Donatus or Rogatus, not of Christ. The Christian Sacraments do not make you a heretic, but the depraved dissension. The good which remained in you is not to be denied on account of the evil which proceeded from you, which you have to your own evil, if you do not have there whence is the good which you have. For from the Catholic Church are all the Lord's Sacraments, which you so have and give as they were had and given even before you went out thence. Yet you do not for this reason not have them, because you are not there whence are the things which you have. We do not change in you the things in which you are with us; for in many things you are with us; for of such it was said: Because they were with me in many things (See Ps 55:18 (54:19)): but we correct those things in which you are not with us, and we wish you to receive here those which you do not have there where you are. But you are with us in Baptism, in the creed, in the other Lord's Sacraments. But in the spirit of unity and the bond of peace, in the Catholic Church itself, finally, you are not with us. If you receive these, then the things you have will not begin to be present, but will then profit. We do not, then, as you think, receive your people, but by receiving we make ours those who depart from you, that they may be received by us; and that they may begin to be ours, they first cease to be yours. Nor do we compel the workers of the error which we detest to be joined to us; but we wish those men to be joined to us for this reason, that they not be what we detest.

11. 47. But, you say, the apostle Paul baptized after John. Surely not after a heretic? Or if perhaps you dare to call that friend of the bridegroom a heretic, and to say that he was not in the unity of the Church, I want you to write this too. But if this is most insane either to think or to say, it is now for your prudence to consider why the apostle Paul baptized after John. For if after an equal, you all ought to baptize after one another. If after a greater, you too ought to baptize after Rogatus. If after a lesser, Rogatus ought to have baptized after you, when as a priest you had baptized. But if the baptism which is now given is therefore equally valid in those to whom it is given, although those through whom it is given are of unequal merit, because it is Christ's, not theirs by whom it is ministered, I think you now understand that Paul gave the baptism of Christ to certain men for this reason, that they had been baptized with the baptism of John, not of Christ; for it was called "the baptism of John," as the divine Scripture testifies in many places—as the Lord himself says: The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or from men (Matt 21:25)? But the baptism which Peter gave was not Peter's, but Christ's; and which Paul gave was not Paul's, but Christ's; and which those gave who, in the time of the Apostles, announced Christ not chastely, but through envy (See Phil 1:15), was not theirs, but Christ's; and which those gave who, in the time of Cyprian, seized estates by insidious frauds, and increased their interest by multiplying usuries, was not theirs, but Christ's. And because it was Christ's, therefore, although it was not given through equals, yet it equally profited those to whom it was given. For if anyone is so much the better baptized, the better the one by whom he was baptized, the Apostle does not rightly give thanks that he baptized none of the Corinthians except Crispus and Gaius and the house of Stephanas (See 1 Cor 1:14-16): for they would be so much the better baptized, the better Paul was, if they were baptized by him. Finally, when he says: I planted, Apollos watered (1 Cor 3:6), he seems to signify that he evangelized, the other baptized. Was Apollos better than John? Why, then, did he who had baptized after John not baptize after this one, except because this baptism, given through anyone whatever, was Christ's; but that one, given through anyone whatever, although it prepared the way for Christ, yet was John's?

11. 48. It seems to be said invidiously, There was baptizing after John, and there is no baptizing after heretics: but this too can be said invidiously, There was baptizing after John, and there is no baptizing after drunkards. For I better recall this vice, which not even those in whom it reigns can hide; and how many there are everywhere, who, even blind, does not know? And yet among the works of the flesh, of which those who do them will not possess the kingdom of God, the Apostle sets even this, where he also enumerates heresies: But manifest, he says, are the works of the flesh, which are fornications, uncleannesses, luxury, the slavery of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, carousings, and things like these, which I foretell to you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). By this reasoning, then, although there was baptizing after John, there is no baptizing after a heretic, by which reasoning, although there was baptizing after John, there is no baptizing after a drunkard; since both heresies and drunkennesses are among those works, the doers of which works will not possess the kingdom of God. Does it not seem to you, as it were intolerably unworthy, that, although there was baptizing after him who, drinking wine not soberly—nay, not drinking wine at all—prepared the way for the kingdom of God, there is no baptizing after a drunkard, who will not possess the kingdom of God? What is answered here, except that that was the baptism of John, after which the Apostle baptized with the baptism of Christ; but this is the baptism of Christ, with which the drunkard baptized? Between John and a drunkard there is much difference, by contrast: between the baptism of Christ and the baptism of John there is much difference, not by contrast, but yet much. Between the Apostle and a drunkard there is much difference: between the baptism of Christ which the Apostle gave, and the baptism of Christ which a drunkard gave, there is no difference. So between John and a heretic, by contrast, there is much difference; and between the baptism of John, and the baptism of Christ which a heretic gives, there is much difference, not by contrast. But between the baptism of Christ which the Apostle gave, and the baptism of Christ which a heretic gives, there is no difference. For the form of the Sacraments is recognized as equal, even when there is a great difference in the merits of men.

11. 49. But grant pardon, I erred, when I wished to convince you by a baptizing drunkard; it had slipped my mind that I have to do with a Rogatist, not with any Donatist whatever. For you can perhaps, among your so few colleagues, and in all your clergy, find no drunkard. For you are those who hold the Catholic faith not from the communion of the whole world, but from the observation of all the divine precepts and all the Sacraments: in whom alone he will find it, when the Son of man comes, when he will not find faith on the earth; because you are neither the earth, nor on the earth, but, heavenly ones, you dwell in heaven! And do you not fear, nor attend, that God resists the proud, but to the humble gives grace (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5)? Nor does that very passage of the Gospel prick you, where the Lord says: When the Son of man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth (Lk 18:8)? For immediately, as if foreknowing that some would proudly arrogate this faith to themselves, he said to certain men, who seemed to themselves just and despised the rest, this likeness: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican (Lk 18:10), and the rest. Now answer yourself what follows. Yet inspect more diligently your own few, whether no drunkard baptizes there. For this plague so widely lays waste souls, and dominates with so great liberty, that I greatly wonder if it has not penetrated even your little flock; although, before the very coming of the Son of man, the one good shepherd, you already boast that you have separated the sheep from the kids.

12. 50. Hear, indeed, through me the voice of the Lord's grain, laboring among the chaff on the Lord's threshing-floor until the final winnowing—namely, throughout the whole world, because God called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (See Ps 50:1 (49:1)), where even children praise the Lord (See Ps 113:1-3 (112:1-3)): Whoever of you persecutes us on the occasion of this imperial law, not from the love of correcting, but from the hatred of enmity, displeases us. And although any earthly thing whatever cannot rightly be possessed by anyone except either by divine right, by which all things are the just men's, or by human right, which is in the power of the kings of the earth—and therefore you falsely call those things yours which you neither possess as just men, and which you were ordered to lose according to the laws of the earthly kings, and you say in vain, We labored to gather them, when you read it written: The just will eat the labors of the impious (See Prov 13:22)—yet whoever, on the occasion of this law which the kings of the earth, serving Christ, promulgated for the amending of your impiety, greedily covets your own goods, displeases us. Whoever, finally, holds the very goods of the poor, or the basilicas of the congregations which you held under the name of the Church—which are absolutely owed only to that Church which is the true Church of Christ—not by justice, but by avarice, displeases us. Whoever receives one cast out by you for some disgrace or crime, as those are received who, apart from the error by which you are separated from us, lived without crime among you, displeases us. But you do not easily show these things; and if you should show them, we tolerate some whom we cannot correct or punish: nor do we, on account of the chaff, leave the Lord's threshing-floor, nor, on account of the bad fish, break the Lord's nets, nor, on account of the kids to be set apart at the end, desert the Lord's flock, nor, on account of the vessels made for dishonor, migrate from the Lord's house.

13. 51. But you, brother, as it seems to me, if you do not attend to the vain glory of men, and despise the reproach of the senseless, who will say, Why do you now destroy what you formerly built—you will without doubt pass over to the Church which I understand you to perceive to be true: nor do I seek far for testimonies of this opinion of yours. For you, at the beginning of that same letter of yours, to which I now answer, set down these words: "Since I know very well," you say, "that you have until now been set far from the Christian faith, and, once given to the studies of letters, were a cultivator of quiet and honesty; and since afterward, converted to the Christian faith, as I learned from the report of many, you gave attention to legal disputations." Certainly, if you sent me that letter, these are your words. Since, then, you confess that I was converted to the Christian faith; since I was converted neither to the Donatists nor to the Rogatists, you confirm without any doubt that, apart from the Rogatists and apart from the Donatists, there is the Christian faith. This faith, then, as we say, is spread among all the nations, which are blessed in the offspring of Abraham according to the testimony of God (See Gen 22:18). Why, then, do you still doubt to hold what you perceive, except because you are confounded that what you now perceive you either at some time did not perceive, or defended something else; and while you blush to correct error, you do not blush to remain in error, which surely was rather to be blushed at?

13. 52. This is that which the Scripture did not keep silent: There is a confusion that brings sin, and there is a confusion that brings grace and glory (See Sir 4:21). Confusion brings sin, when anyone blushes to change a depraved opinion, lest he be either thought inconstant, or held, by his own judgment, to have long erred: thus they go down alive into hell (See Ps 55:15 (54:16)), that is, feeling their own perdition; whom Dathan and Abiron and Korah, swallowed by the gaping of the earth (See Num 16:31-33), prefigured so long before as those to come. But confusion brings grace and glory, when anyone blushes at his own iniquity, and, by repenting, is changed for the better; which it irks you to do, overcome by that pernicious confusion; lest there be cast at you by men who do not know what they say that apostolic sentence: For if I again build the same things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor (Gal 2:18). Which, if it could be said even against those who, corrected, preach the truth which, perverse, they were attacking, it would be said first against Paul himself, in whom the Churches of Christ magnified God, hearing that he evangelized the faith which he once laid waste (See Gal 1:23-24).

13. 53. Nor think that anyone can pass over from error to truth, or from any sin whatever, whether great or small, to correction, without repentance. But it is a too shameless error to wish hence to slander the Church—which by so many divine testimonies is established to be the Church of Christ—because it treats otherwise those who desert it, if they correct this very thing by repenting, and otherwise those who were not yet in it, and then first receive its peace; humbling the former more, receiving the latter more gently, loving both, serving both, to be healed, with maternal love. You have a letter perhaps longer than you would wish. But it would be much briefer, if I considered only you in answering: but now, even if it profit you nothing, I do not think it will profit nothing to those who shall have cared to read it with the fear of God, and without respect of persons. Amen.

LETTER 94
TO THE HOLY ONE OF THE LORD, MOST BLESSED AND UNIQUELY LIKE-MINDED WITH US, AND VENERABLE FATHER, BROTHER, MASTER, BISHOP AUGUSTINE, PAULINUS AND THERASIA, SINNERS.

1. Your word is always a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths (See Ps 119:105 (118:105)). So, as often as I receive the letters of your most blessed Holiness, I feel the darkness of my foolishness scattered, and, as if with the salve of clarification poured into the eyes of my mind, I see more purely, the night of ignorance driven off and the mist of doubt wiped away. Which, although I have often felt granted to me at other times through the gift of your letters, especially in this little book of recent letters, whose bearer was to me as welcome as he was worthy, the blessed man of the Lord, our brother Quintus the deacon: who indeed, a long while after he had come to the City, when I had come there with him, according to my solemn custom after the Lord's Pasch, for the veneration of the Apostles and martyrs, rendered to us the blessing of your mouth; yet, with the time blotted out which, without my knowing, he had spent at Rome, he seemed to me most recently come from your sight, so that I could scarcely then believe that he had come to me from you, when I first saw him, and when he offered me the full odor of your sweetness in your words, fragrant with the chastity of a heavenly ointment. Yet I confess to your venerable Like-mindedness that I could not read that volume at Rome, as soon as I had received it. For there were such crowds there that I could not diligently inspect your gift, and enjoy it as I desired; namely, so as to read it through continuously, if I had begun to read. And so, as is wont to happen in the secure expectation of a prepared banquet, I reined in the hunger of my eager mind, and with the sure hope of taking my fill, while I held in my hand the loaves of my desire in the volume to be devoured—which afterward, to me devouring it, was both in mouth and in belly most sweet—I easily suspended my gluttony, gaping after the honeycombs of your letters, until I should set out from the City, and devote wholly to this work that day which we were to interpose, at the stations of the journey, in the town of Formiae, so that in the spiritual delights of your letter I might feast, free from all dregs and from the suffocation of crowds.

2. What, then, shall I, humble and earthly, answer to this wisdom which has been given you from above, which this world does not grasp, and which no one knows, except the wisdom of God, wise, and eloquent by the Word of God? And so, because I have experience of Christ speaking in you, in God I will praise your words (See Ps 56:4 (55:5)), and I will not fear from the terror by night (See Ps 91:5 (90:5)). For you have taught me, in the spirit of truth, the wholesome tempering of moderating the mind amid the falling things of mortal life, by which you saw that blessed mother and grandmother Melania weep the carnal death of her only son, with a silent grief indeed, yet not dry of a mother's tears in her sorrow. Whose modest and grave tears, as you understood the more deeply, being nearer or more equal to her spirit, and, of a woman perfect in Christ, with the bravery of a manly mind preserved, you contemplated her maternal heart the better, from an equal state, out of the likeness of your own heart, so as to perceive that she wept, first moved by natural affection, then pricked by a weightier cause—not so much that human thing, that she had lost her only son, deceased by a mortal condition, in the present age, as that, anticipated, as it were, in worldly vanity (because the ambition of senatorial dignity had not yet deserted him), she did not think him taken up according to the holy avarice of her vows—so that he might have passed from the glory of his manner of life to the glory of the resurrection, about to take a rest common with his mother, and a crown, if in the life of this age he had, by his mother's example, preferred the sackcloth to the toga, and the monastery to the Senate.

3. Nevertheless, that same man, as I think I have also previously related to your Holiness, departed enriched by these works, so that, the nobility of his mother's humility, if he did not wear it in garb, yet he displayed it in mind. For he was, according to the word of the Lord, so gentle in morals and humble in heart (See Matt 11:29), that he is not undeservedly believed to have entered into the rest of the Lord. For there are remnants for the peaceful man (See Ps 37:37 (36:37)), and the meek shall possess the earth (Ps 37:11 (36:11); Matt 5:5), pleasing God in the region of the living (See Ps 116:9 (114:9)). For surely he also fulfilled that word of the Apostle, not only by the silent affection of the mind, but also by conspicuous religious offices, so that, although he was a colleague of the high ones of this age in rank and honor, yet, not as one glorious of the earth, he was high-minded, but, as a perfect imitator of Christ, he consented to the humble (See Rom 12:16), and persisted all the day long in showing mercy and lending (See Ps 37:26 (36:26)). Whence his offspring too became powerful in the earth, among those who, the strong gods of the earth, are exceedingly exalted (See Ps 112:2 (111:2); Ps 47:9 (46:10)); so that even from the blessed visitation of his family and house the man's holy merit may be revealed. The generation, he says, of the upright shall be blessed. Glory, not perishable, and riches, not slipping away, in his house (See Ps 112:2-3 (111:2-3)): a house which is built in the heavens, not by the labor of hands, but by the holiness of works. But I cease to relate more about the memory of a man as beloved by me as he was devoted to Christ, since I both recall having narrated not a few things about him in former letters, and I can say nothing better or holier about the blessed mother of this son, and the holy root equal to the branches, Melania, than your Holiness has deigned to speak and discuss about her; so that, because I, a sinner, having unclean lips, could say nothing worthy, being far from the merits of her faith and the virtues of her soul, you, that man of Christ, teacher of Israel in the Church of truth, by the grace of God procuring better things, might be made a worthier herald of so manly a soul in Christ, who would both behold her mind strengthened by divine virtue, as I said, with a nearer spirit, and praise her piety mixed with virtue in worthier eloquence.

4. But what the action of the blessed will be after the resurrection of the flesh in that age, you have deigned to ask me. But I consult you, as master and spiritual physician, about the present state of my life, that you may teach me to do the wills of God, and to walk in your footsteps after Christ, and first to die by that evangelical death, by which we anticipate the carnal dissolution by a voluntary departure; withdrawing from the life of this age not by death, but by resolve, which is wholly of temptations—or, as you once said to me, is wholly a temptation. Would, then, that my ways be so directed after your footsteps, that, by your example, loosing the old sandal from my feet, I may break my bonds, and, free, exult to run the way (See Ps 19:5 (18:6)), by which I may be able to attain that death by which you died to this age, that you may live to God in Christ living in you, whose death and life are known in your body and heart and mouth! For your heart does not savor earthly things, nor does your mouth speak the works of men; but the word of Christ abounds in your breast (See Col 3:16), and the spirit of truth is poured out on your tongue, with the rush of a heavenly river gladdening the city of God (See Ps 46:4 (45:5)).

5. But what virtue effects this death in us, except love, which is strong as death (Song 8:6)? For it so blots out and slays this age for us, that it fulfills the effect of death through the affection of Christ, to whom turned, we are turned away from this world, and to whom living, we die from the elements of this world (See Col 2:20). Nor do we, as living in their sight and use, make decisions, because our portion is the death of Christ: whose resurrection from the dead we do not lay hold of in glory, unless we imitate his death on the cross, with the members and senses of the flesh mortified; so that now we may live not by our own will, but by his, whose will is our sanctification (See 1 Thess 4:3), and who therefore died for us and rose again, that now we may live not for ourselves, but for him (See 2 Cor 5:15), who died for us and rose again, and gave us the pledge of his promise by his Spirit, just as he placed the pledge of our life in the heavens in his body, which is the head of our body. Whence now our expectation is the Lord and our substance (See Ps 39:7 (38:8)), which was made by him with him, and in him, and through him, who was conformed to the body of our humility, that he might conform us to the body of his glory (See Phil 3:21), and set us with him in the heavenly places. Therefore those too who shall have been worthy of eternal life will be in the glory of his kingdom, so that they may be with him (See 1 Thess 4:17), as the Apostle says, and remain with him, as the Lord himself said to the Father: I will that where I am, they also may be with me (See Jn 17:24).

6. Without doubt this is that which you have in the Psalms: Blessed are those who dwell in your house; forever and ever they will praise you (See Ps 84:4 (83:5)). But I think that this praise is to be brought forth by the voices of those singing together: even though the bodies of the saints rising again will be changed, so that they may be as the Lord's body appeared after the resurrection; in which, surely, the living image of the human resurrection shone forth, so that the Lord himself, who in that very body in which he had suffered and risen, was, as it were, a mirror of contemplation to all. For surely, when he had risen in the same flesh in which he had died and been buried, he displayed all the functions of all his members, expressed to the eyes and ears of men, having often been together with them. But if even angels, whose creation is simply spiritual, are said to have tongues, with which surely they sing praises to the Lord the Creator and do not cease to give thanks, how much more will men—even if their bodies are now spiritual after the resurrection, yet with all the members of the glorified flesh remaining, and, throughout all the members, their forms and numbers—both have tongues in their mouths, and, with tongues uttering, give voices (See Ps 68:33 (67:34)), by which they may bring forth through words the divine praises, or the affections of their senses and joys. Perhaps too the Lord will add this to the grace and glory of his saints, in the ages of his kingdom, that they may sing with tongues and voices so much the more excellent, the more they have advanced, by a blessed change, to a happier nature of bodies, so that, now established in bodies already spiritual, they may now speak perhaps not in human, but in those angelic and heavenly words, such as the Apostle heard in paradise (See 2 Cor 12:4). And therefore perhaps he testified that those words were unspeakable to man, because for the saints, among the other kinds of rewards, new tongues are already prepared. Which therefore the men of this age are not yet permitted to use, so that, now with these befitting their glory, the immortals may speak, of whom it was said, For they will cry out and will say a hymn (See Ps 65:13 (64:14)); without doubt in the heavenly places, where they will be with the Lord, and will be delighted in the abundance of peace (See Ps 37:11 (36:11)), rejoicing in the sight of the throne, sending before the feet of the Lamb their bowls and crowns, and singing to him a new song (See Rev 5:8-9), joined to the choirs of Angels, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, so that they too, with the Cherubim and Seraphim, and those four living creatures, singing together with a perpetual voice, may say, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts (See Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8), and the rest which you know.

7. This, then, is what I, the needy and poor one, that foolish and little one of yours—whom, as a true wise man, you have been accustomed to bear—ask: that you teach me your knowledge or opinion about this (because I know that you are illuminated by the spirit of revelation from the very leader and fount of the wise, so that, as you have known things past, and see things present, so also you may estimate things to come); what you judge about these eternal voices of the heavenly creatures, or even of those acting above the heavens in the sight of the Most High—by what organs, after all, they are expressed. For although the Apostle, by saying, If I speak with the tongues of Angels (See 1 Cor 13:1), showed that they have a certain speech proper to their nature, or, so to say, to their race, so much higher than human senses and eloquence, as the very creation and station of the Angels surpasses mortal dwellers and earthly seats: yet perhaps he said "the tongues of Angels" for kinds of voices and speech, just as, discoursing about the variety of charisms, he numbers among the gifts of graces "kinds of tongues" (See 1 Cor 12:10, 28), surely signifying this to be in a sign, that it was granted to individuals to speak in the speech of many nations. But the voice of God too, often sent forth to the saints from a cloud, shows that speech can be without a tongue. For although the tongue is a member of the body, small, and great. But perhaps from this very thing, that God placed in this member the function of voice, he called also the speech and voices of the incorporeal creation of Angels a "tongue," just as the Scripture is wont to assign to God too, according to the kinds of operations, the names of members. Pray for us, and teach us.

8. Our dearest and sweetest brother Quintus, as slowly as he returns to us from you, so quickly does he hasten to return from us to you: but his insistence in demanding letters this letter too speaks, fuller of erasures than of lines—the excessive haste of the said exactor has made it a hasty draft. For on the day before the ides of May he came to us to ask for a reply, and on the ides, before the sixth hour, he obtained leave to be dismissed. See, then, whether by a testimony of this kind I have commended him, or accused him. For perhaps—indeed, without doubt—he will be judged praiseworthy rather than blameworthy, who most justly hastened back from the darkness, which we are in comparison with your light, to his own light.

LETTER 95
TO HIS MOST BELOVED AND MOST SINCERE LORDS, HOLY AND DESIRABLE AND VENERABLE BROTHERS, FELLOW-DISCIPLES UNDER THE MASTER, THE LORD JESUS, PAULINUS AND THERASIA, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. When our brothers, most closely joined to us—whom, longed-for, you are wont to long for with us, and, greeted, to greet again—see you assiduously, our good things are not so much increased as our evil things consoled. For we try, as much as we can, to avoid the very cases and necessities, and yet, I know not how—I believe for our merits—they cannot be lacking: but when they come to us, and see us, there happens what is written: According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your exhortations have gladdened my soul (Ps 94:19 (93:19)). Accordingly, as to that joy with which brother Possidius is with you, when you hear from him what a sad cause compelled him, you will know that I say this most truly: and yet, if any of us were to go across the sea for this alone, to enjoy your presence, what could be found more just than this cause, what more worthy? But this our bonds would not bear, by which we are bound to serve the sicknesses of the weak, and not to leave them by bodily presence, except when this is compelled the more imperiously, the more dangerously they are ill. Whether we are exercised by these things, or rather chastised, I do not know, except that he does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities (See Ps 103:10 (102:10)), who mixes so great consolations with our sorrows, and acts by a marvelous medicine, lest we love the world, lest we fail in the world.

2. I asked of you in my earlier letter what the future eternal life of the saints seems to you to be like; but you answered me well, that consultation must surely still be had also about the state of the present life: except that you wished me to consult about what either you do not know with me, or know with me, or perhaps know more than I; since you said most truly that we must first die the evangelical death, before we anticipate the carnal dissolution by a voluntary departure, withdrawing from the life of this age not by death, but by resolve. This action is simple, and fluctuates with no surge of doubt—that we judge we ought so to live in this mortal life that we be in some way fitted to the immortal life. But the whole question which disturbs men, such as I am, in acting and inquiring, is this: in what way one must live, either among or for the sake of those who do not yet know how to live by dying—not by the dissolution of the body, but by turning themselves, by a certain affection of the mind, from bodily allurements. For for the most part it seems to us that, unless we conform a little to them in those very things from which we desire them to be drawn out, we will be able to do nothing wholesome with them. And when we do this, the delight of such things creeps over us too, so that often it even delights us to speak vain things, and to lend an ear to those speaking, and not only to smile, but even to be overcome and dissolved by laughter: thus, burdening our souls with certain dusty—or even muddy—affections, we lift them more laboriously and sluggishly to God, that we may live the evangelical life, by dying the evangelical death. But if at some time we succeed, immediately there is suggested, Bravo, Bravo; not by men—for no man perceives such a recognition of the mind in another—but in a certain inner silence, from I know not where it is cried, Bravo, Bravo. On account of this kind of temptation, so great an Apostle confesses that he was buffeted by an angel (See 2 Cor 12:7). Behold, whence human life upon the earth is wholly a temptation; when even there a man is tempted, where, as much as he can, he is fitted to the likeness of the heavenly life.

3. What shall I say about avenging, or not avenging? since we wish this whole thing to profit the salvation of those against whom we judge it must be avenged or not avenged. What too the measure of avenging may be—not only according to the quality or quantity of the faults, but also according to certain strengths of souls, what each may bear, what refuse, lest he not only not profit, but even fail—how deep and full of hiding-places it is! Of those too fearing the impending vengeance which is feared from men, I do not know whether more have been corrected than have gone to the worse. What, when it often happens that, if you have avenged against someone, he himself perishes; if you have left it unavenged, another perishes? I confess that I daily sin in these things, and do not know when, or in what way, to keep that which is written: Reprove those who sin before all, that the rest may have fear (1 Tim 5:20); and what is written: Rebuke him between you and him alone (Matt 18:15); and what is written: Do not judge before the time (1 Cor 4:5); and what is written: Do not judge, that we be not judged (See Matt 7:1)—for here he did not add "before the time"; and what is written: Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls: but he will stand; for God is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4); whence he confirms that he speaks of those who are within: and again he bids them be judged, when he says: For what is it to me to judge those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are within? Remove the evil from among yourselves (1 Cor 5:12-13). And when this too seems must be done, to what extent it should be done, of how great care and fear it is? lest perhaps there befall what is understood, of that very man, to be warned against in the second Epistle to the same, lest such a one be swallowed up by greater sorrow (2 Cor 2:7). And lest anyone think this not much to be cared for, there he says: That we be not taken possession of by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his minds (2 Cor 2:11). What trembling, my Paulinus, holy man of God, is in all these things! What trembling, what darkness! Do we not think it was said of these things: Fear and trembling have come upon me, and darkness has covered me; and I said: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest? Behold, I have gone far off, fleeing, and I have remained in the wilderness (Ps 55:5-7 (54:6-8)). Yet even in the wilderness itself, perhaps, he experienced what he adds: I awaited him who would save me from faintheartedness and the storm (Ps 55:8 (54:9)). Surely, then, human life upon the earth is a temptation (See Job 7:1).

4. What of this: are not the divine words themselves rather groped at than handled by us, while in very many more things we seek rather what should be thought than think something defined and fixed? And though that caution be full of solicitude, it is yet much better than the rashness of affirming. Is it not, in many things, if a man does not savor according to the flesh—which the Apostle says is death—a great scandal to him who still savors according to the flesh (See Rom 8:6)? where both to say what you think is most dangerous, and not to say it most laborious, and to say something other than you think most pernicious. What? when, the things which we do not approve in the speech or writings of those who are within, thinking it pertains to the liberty of brotherly love, we do not hide our judgment, and this we are believed to do not from benevolence, but from envy—how much is sinned against us! and when likewise we suspect those who reprove our opinions of wishing rather to wound than to correct, how much do we sin against others! Certainly hence enmities arise for the most part even among the dearest and most familiar persons, while, beyond what is written, one is puffed up for one against another (See 1 Cor 4:6), and while they bite and devour one another, it is to be feared lest they be consumed by one another (See Gal 5:15). Who, then, will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away, and be at rest (Ps 55:6 (54:7))? For whether because the perils in which each is engaged are graver than the unexperienced, or because in truth it is so, any faintheartedness and storm of the wilderness whatever seems to me less troublesome than those things which we either suffer, or fear, in crowds.

5. Accordingly, I much approve your opinion, that we must deal with the state of this life, or rather the course rather than the state. I add another thing, that this must first be inquired into and held than that—of what sort that will be to which this course bears. Thence, therefore, I asked what you think, as though, the right rule of this life retained and preserved, we were now secure, while in so many things, and especially in those which, briefly, as I could, I recalled, I feel that I labor most dangerously. But because all this ignorance and difficulty seems to me to arise hence, that, in the great variety of morals, and of souls having most hidden wills and weaknesses, we conduct the affair of a people—not earthly and Roman, but of the heavenly Jerusalem—it pleased me rather to speak with you out of that which we shall be, than out of this which we are. For there, even if we do not know what good things are to come, yet we are certain about no small matter: that these evils will not be there.

6. Concerning, then, the conducting of this temporal life, in the way by which one must come to the eternal, I know that carnal desires are to be bridled; and that one must yield to the delights of the bodily senses only as much as is enough for sustaining and conducting a life of this kind, and that all temporal troubles, for the truth of God, and for our eternal salvation and our neighbor's, are to be patiently and bravely tolerated. I know too that one's neighbor must be consulted, with all the zeal of love, to this end: that he conduct this life rightly for the sake of the eternal. That spiritual things, too, are to be preferred by us to carnal, the unchangeable to the changeable; and that a man can do all these things so much the more or the less, the more or the less he is helped by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. But why one is helped thus, and another thus, or is not helped, I do not know: yet I know that God does this with the highest equity, known to himself. But concerning those things which I recalled above—how one must live with men—if anything is clearly explored by you, teach me, I beg. But if these things move you also as they do me, confer them with some gentle physician of the heart, whether you find one there where you dwell, or when you go to Rome every year; and what the Lord shall have opened to you through him speaking, or to you conversing together, write to me.

7. But concerning the resurrection of bodies, and the future functions of the members in that incorruption and immortality—since you in turn asked me what I think—hear briefly what, if it is not enough, can, if the Lord helps, be disputed more broadly. It is most firmly to be held—whence there is a truthful and clear sentence of the holy Scriptures—that these visible and earthly bodies, which are now called animal, will be spiritual in the resurrection of the faithful and the just. Further, the quality of a spiritual body, being unexperienced by us, how it can be either grasped or insinuated, I do not know. There will certainly be no corruption there, and through this they will not then need this corruptible food which they now need; nor yet will they be unable to take it, and truly consume it, by power, not by necessity. Otherwise neither would the Lord have taken it after the resurrection, who furnished us the example of bodily resurrection in such a way that the Apostle says hence: If the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen (1 Cor 15:16). He, when he appeared with all his members, and used their functions, also showed the places of his wounds. Which I have always taken to be scars, not the wounds themselves, and those very things by power, not by necessity. The ease of which power he then most showed, when he either displayed himself in another form (See Mk 16:12), or, with the doors shut, appeared as true to the disciples established in the house (See Jn 20:19, 26).

8. Hence arises the question about the Angels, whether they have bodies fit for their functions and runnings-about, or are only spirits? For if we say that they have them, there occurs to us: Who makes his Angels spirits (Ps 104:4 (103:4)). But if we say that they do not have them, it has more of a scruple, how it is written that they were presented to the bodily senses of men without a body, received into hospitality, their feet washed, ministry done to them eating and drinking (See Gen 18:1-8, 19:1-3). For it can more easily seem that the Angels were called spirits in such a way as men are called souls—as it is written that with Jacob so many souls went down into Egypt (See Gen 46:27) (for they did not lack bodies)—than that all those things be believed done without bodies. Then a certain definite stature of an Angel is defined in the Apocalypse (See Rev 21:17), in a measure which can only be of bodies, so that what appeared to men may be referred not to falsehood, but to that power and ease of spiritual bodies. But whether the Angels have bodies, or whether anyone can show how, not having bodies, they could do all those things, yet in that city of the saints—where those too, redeemed through Christ from this generation, will be joined forever to the thousands of Angels—bodily voices will indicate minds that are not hidden; because in that divine society nothing of thought can be hidden from a neighbor, but there will be a concord, in agreement in the praise of God, expressed not only by the spirit, but also by the spiritual body: this seems to me.

9. Meanwhile, if you either already hold something more fitting to the truth, or could hear it from teachers, I most studiously await knowing it through you. Review, indeed, my letter, to which—since you alleged the deacon's haste as the reason you answered me most hastily—I therefore do not complain, but rather recall it, so that what was then omitted may now be rendered. For both what you think about Christian leisure for receiving or discoursing Christian wisdom, and about the leisure which I thought was yours—whose incredible occupations have been reported to me—seek out and see what I asked to know from you. (And in another hand.) Mindful of us, live happily, our great joys and consolations, holy ones of God.

LETTER 96
TO HIS MOST BELOVED LORD, AND IN THE MEMBERS OF CHRIST HONORABLY TO BE EMBRACED SON OLYMPIUS, AUGUSTINE.

1. Whatever you may be according to the course of this age, we nevertheless write most faithfully to our dearest and most sincere fellow-servant Olympius, a Christian. For we know that to be more glorious to you than all glory, and more sublime than all sublimity. For fame has brought to us that you have attained a higher honor; whether this was true had not yet been confirmed among us, when this occasion of writing arose. But since we know that you have learned from the Lord not to be high-minded, but to consent to the humble (See Rom 12:16), to whatever summit you have been advanced, we presume that you will receive our letter no otherwise than you are wont, most beloved lord, and in the members of Christ honorably to be embraced son. But we do not doubt at all that you will prudently use temporal felicity for eternal gains, so that, the more you can in this earthly republic, the more you may spend on that heavenly city which bore you in Christ, that it may be repaid you more abundantly in the region of the living (See Ps 116:9 (114:9)), and in the true peace of those secure and of joys remaining without end.

2. The petition of my holy brother and fellow-bishop Boniface I again commend to your Charity, lest perhaps it can now be done which before could not. For although he could, perhaps without any question, consequently retain himself what his predecessor had acquired—though under another's name—and had already begun to possess under the name of the Church, we are nevertheless unwilling, since he was a debtor to the treasury, that he have this scruple in his conscience. For that fraud, because it was done against the treasury, was not therefore not done. And that Paul indeed, after he was made a bishop, about to renounce all his goods on account of the immense heap of fiscal debts, having exacted a certain bond in which a fixed weight of silver was owed him, acquired these scanty little fields, from which to sustain his living, as though for the Church, then under the name of a most powerful house, so that even from them, following his custom, when he did not pay the treasury, he might suffer no troubles from the exactors. But this man, who, that one having died, was ordained for the same Church, feared to take up these fields: and although he could, for the fiscal debts alone which that man had contracted from the said little possessions, request an imperial benefit, he preferred to confess the whole—that Paul had bought them with his own silver, when he was liable to the treasury, from the auction—so that the Church might possess them, if it can be done, not by the hidden iniquity of a bishop, but by the manifest liberality of a Christian emperor. But if this cannot be done, the servants of God better tolerate the labor of want than that they obtain the means of necessities with a conscience of fraud.

3. To this end we ask that you deign to impart your support: because what was first obtained, he was unwilling to adduce, lest he again cut off for himself the faculty of supplicating; for there was no answer to the things desired. But now, since you are of the same benignity as you are wont, but ampler in power, we do not despair that, with the Lord helping, this can easily be granted to your merits: since even if in your own name you sought those same places, and yourself gave them to the said Church, who would reprehend, or who would not most highly proclaim your petition, serving not earthly cupidity, but Christian piety? May the mercy of the Lord our God keep you happier in Christ, lord son.

1. Although, as soon as we heard that you had been deservedly raised up—when the fame itself was not yet most certain to us—we believed nothing else of your mind toward the Church of God, of which we rejoice that you are truly a son, than what you soon opened in your letter; yet even after reading those letters which, of your own accord, you deigned to send, we write to you with greater confidence, even if we were sluggish and hesitant to send a most benevolent exhortation that, our humility instructing, through your religious obedience, the Lord, by whose gift you are such, may now at once come to the aid of his Church, distinguished lord, and deservedly most excellent, and much in the love of Christ to be honored son.

2. And indeed many of my holy brothers and colleagues, the Church being gravely disturbed, set out, almost fleeing, to the most glorious court—whom you have either already seen, or whose letters you have received from the city of Rome on the occasion of some opportunity: I, nevertheless, although I could share no counsel with them, could not omit, through this my brother and fellow-priest—who, urgent necessity pressing, for the salvation of his fellow-citizen, was compelled to come somehow to those parts even in mid-winter—both to greet and to admonish your Charity which you have in Christ Jesus our Lord, that your good work be hastened with most diligent insistence, by which the enemies of the Church may know that those laws which were sent into Africa, while Stilicho was living, about breaking idols and correcting heretics, were established by the will of the most pious and most faithful Emperor; which they boast was done either with him not knowing or unwilling—whether they boast it deceitfully, or willingly think it so—and hence render the minds of the unskilled most turbulent, and dangerously and vehemently hostile to us.

3. But this which, by asking or suggesting, I admonish your Excellency, I do not doubt is done by the will of all my colleagues throughout Africa; and I judge that, on whatever occasion first arising, it can and ought most easily to be hastened, so that, as I said, vain men—whose salvation, even of those opposing us, we seek—may know that the laws which were sent for the Church of Christ, the son of Theodosius rather than Stilicho took care to be sent. For this reason, indeed, the said priest, the bearer of these letters, since he is from the region of Mileve, was ordered by his bishop, my venerable brother Severus—who greets your most sincere Love much with me—to pass through Hippo Regius, where I am; because, when we happened to be together in great tribulations and disturbances of the Church, we were seeking an occasion of writing to your Distinction, and were not finding it. I had already indeed sent one letter in the business of my holy brother and colleague Boniface, bishop of Cataqua; but there had not yet come to us the graver things which agitate us more vehemently: for the suppressing or correcting of which, how by a better counsel, according to the way of Christ, aid may be brought, the bishops who for this reason sailed will more conveniently act, with so great a benignity of your heart—who could, by common counsel, bring something more diligently deliberated, as much as the narrowness of time permitted. Yet that by which the province may know the mind of the most clement and most religious prince toward the Church must in no way be deferred; but even before you see the bishops who set out, as soon as your most excellent vigilance, for the members of Christ established in the greatest tribulation, can, I suggest, ask, beseech, demand that it be hastened. For the Lord has offered no small consolation in these evils, in that he willed you to be able much more than you were able, when we were already rejoicing over your many and great good works.

4. We greatly rejoice, indeed, over the firm and stable faith of certain men—and not few—who, on the occasion of those very laws, were converted to the Christian religion or to Catholic peace; for whose eternal salvation it delights us to be in peril even in this temporal life. For especially for this reason do we now sustain graver assaults of enmities from men exceedingly and harshly perverse, which some of them sustain with us most patiently: but we fear most for the weakness, until they learn and are able, with the most merciful grace of the Lord helping, to despise the present age and the day of men with a stronger strength of heart. The memorandum which I sent to the brother bishops, if, as I think, they are not yet there, let it be handed to them by your Distinction when they come. For we have so great a confidence in your most sincere breast that, with the Lord our God helping, we wish you to be not only an imparter of aid, but also a partaker of counsel.

LETTER 98
TO BISHOP BONIFACE, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. You ask of me whether parents harm their baptized little ones, when they try to heal them by the sacrifices of demons. And if they do not harm them, how the faith of the parents profits them when they are baptized, whose unbelief cannot harm them. Here I answer that so great is the power of that Sacrament, that is, of saving Baptism, in the holy structure of the body of Christ, that, once begotten through the carnal pleasure of others, when he has once been regenerated through the spiritual will of others, henceforth he cannot be bound by the chain of another's iniquity, to which he consents by no will of his own. For both the soul of the father is mine, he says, and the soul of the son is mine. The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezek 18:4): but that soul does not sin, when the parents, with it altogether unknowing, or anyone else, apply to it the sacrileges of demons. But for this reason it drew from Adam that which is loosed by the grace of that Sacrament, because the soul was not yet living separately—that is, another soul, of which it might be said, And the soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine. And so now, when a man is in himself, made another from him who begot him, he is not held liable for another's sin without his own consent. He drew guilt, therefore, because he was one with him, and in him, from whom he drew it, when what he drew was committed. But one does not draw from another, when, each living his own proper life, there is now whence it may be said: The soul that sins, it shall die.

2. But that he can be regenerated through the office of another's will, when he is offered to be consecrated, this one Spirit does, by whom the offered one is regenerated. For it is not written, Unless one is born again of the parents' will, or of the faith of those offering or ministering; but: Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:5). Water, therefore, exhibiting outwardly the sacrament of grace, and the Spirit working inwardly the benefit of grace, loosing the chain of guilt, reconciling the good of nature, regenerate the man in the one Christ, begotten from the one Adam. The regenerating Spirit, then, in the elders offering, and in the little one offered and reborn, is common: therefore, through this fellowship of one and the same Spirit, the will of those offering profits the little one offered. But when elders sin against a little one, offering it and trying to bind it by the sacrilegious chains of demons, the soul of the two is not common, so that they could even have a common guilt. For guilt is not shared through another's will in the way that grace is shared through the unity of the Holy Spirit. For the one Holy Spirit can be both in this and in that man, even if they do not know one another, through whom the grace of both is common. But the spirit of a man cannot be both this man's and that man's, through whom, with one sinning and the other not sinning, the guilt should nevertheless be common. And through this, a little one, once begotten from the flesh of his parents, can be regenerated by the Spirit of God, so that the obligation contracted from them is loosed. But once regenerated by the Spirit of God, he cannot be regenerated from the flesh of his parents, so that the obligation which has been loosed is contracted again. And therefore the little one does not lose the grace of Christ once received, except by his own impiety, if with the advance of age he turns out so evil. For then he will begin to have even his own proper sins, which are not taken away by regeneration, but healed by another cure.

3. Nevertheless, parents—or whatever elders—trying to bind their sons, or any baptized little ones whatever, by the sacrileges of demons, are rightly called spiritually murderers. For in them indeed they do not effect a killing, but, as far as it lies in themselves, they become killers. It is rightly said to them, when they are forbidden from this crime, Do not kill your little ones: for the Apostle too says: Do not extinguish the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19); not because he can be extinguished, but, as far as it lies in themselves, they are deservedly called his extinguishers who so act as to wish him extinguished. In this sense can rightly be understood what the most blessed Cyprian wrote in his letter On the Lapsed, when reproving those who in the time of persecution had sacrificed to idols: "And lest anything be lacking," he says, "to the heap of crime, infants too, placed in their parents' hands or handled by them, the little ones lost, at the very first beginning of their nativity, what they had obtained." They lost it, he said, as far as it pertained to the crime of those by whom they were compelled to lose it. They lost it in the mind and will of those who committed so great an outrage against them. For if they had lost it in themselves, they would surely have remained to be condemned by the divine sentence without any defense. But if holy Cyprian had judged this, he would not have immediately subjoined their defense, saying: "Will they not, when the day of judgment comes, say, We did nothing, nor, forsaking the food and cup of the Lord, did we of our own accord hasten to profane contagions; another's perfidy destroyed us, we found our parents to be parricides: they denied us the Church as mother, they denied us the Lord as father, so that, while little and improvident, and ignorant of so great an outrage, we were joined through others to the fellowship of the crime, and were caught by another's fraud?" He would not append this defense, unless he believed it most just, and that it would profit the little ones in the judgment of God. For if it is truly said, We did nothing; The soul that sins, it shall die, neither will those perish under the just judgment of God, whom their parents, by their own crime, as far as pertains to the little ones themselves, destroyed.

4. But that which is recalled in the same letter—that a certain little girl, left to her nurse when her parents fled in confusion, and forced by the same nurse into the sacrileges of demons, afterward, when the Eucharist was brought to her in the church, rejected it with marvelous motions—seems to me to have been done divinely for this reason: lest the elders should think that they sinned nothing against the little ones in that iniquity, but rather should understand, through that gesture, signifying in a way, of the bodies of those who could not speak, that they were marvelously admonished what they themselves ought to do, who, after that so great wickedness, rushed upon the saving sacraments, from which they ought surely, by repenting, to abstain. Nor, when divine providence does any such thing through infants, is it to be believed that they themselves do it by knowledge or reason. For neither, because God willed to coerce the madness of a certain prophet even by an ass speaking (See Num 22:28-30), is the wisdom of asses therefore to be admired. Further, if through an irrational animal something most like a man sounded forth, which is to be attributed to a divine miracle, not to an asinine heart, so could the Omnipotent, through the soul of an infant—not where there was no reason, but where it was still asleep—show, by the gesture of its body, what those who had sinned both against themselves and against their little ones ought to take care of. But, since the infant does not return into the parent, so as to be one man with him and in him, but is altogether another, having his own flesh and his own soul: The soul that sins, it shall die.

5. Nor let this move you, that some bring little ones to receive Baptism not with that faith, that they be regenerated by spiritual grace to eternal life, but because they think that by this remedy they retain or recover temporal health. For they are not for that reason not regenerated, because they are not offered by these people with this intention. For through them the necessary ministries are celebrated, and the words of the sacraments, without which the little one cannot be consecrated. But that Holy Spirit who dwells in the saints—of whom that one silvered dove is forged by the fire of love (See Ps 68:13 (67:14))—does what he does even through the service, sometimes, not only of those simply ignorant, but even of those damnably unworthy. For the little ones are offered to receive spiritual grace, not so much by those in whose hands they are carried (although also by them, if they too are good faithful), as by the whole society of the saints and faithful. For they are rightly understood to be offered by all to whom it is pleasing that they are offered, and by whose holy and undivided love they are helped to the communication of the Holy Spirit. The whole mother Church, therefore, which is in the saints, does this, because the whole bears all, the whole bears each. For if the sacrament of Christian baptism, when it is one and the same, is valid and suffices for consecration even among heretics—although it does not suffice for participation in eternal life; which consecration indeed makes the heretic guilty, having the Lord's mark outside the Lord's flock, yet sound doctrine admonishes that he is to be corrected, not consecrated again likewise—how much more in the Catholic Church is the grain to be purged carried even through the ministry of the stubble, so that it may be brought, the threshing-floor mediating, to the fellowship of the mass?

6. But I do not wish this to deceive you, that you think the chain of guilt drawn from Adam cannot otherwise be broken, unless the little ones be offered by their parents to receive the grace of Christ: for so, writing, you say: "So that, just as the parents were the authors to their punishment, they may likewise be justified through the faith of the parents": when you see that many are offered not by parents, but even by any outsiders whatever, as little slaves are sometimes offered by their masters. And sometimes, with their parents dead, little ones are baptized, offered by those who could show them a mercy of this kind. Sometimes too those whom their parents cruelly exposed, to be nourished by anyone, are sometimes gathered by holy virgins, and offered by them to Baptism; who certainly neither had any children of their own, nor dispose to have them: and through this you see nothing else done here except what is written in the Gospel, when the Lord had asked which had been the neighbor to the man wounded by robbers and left half-alive in the road; for it was answered: He who showed mercy on him (Lk 10:36-37).

7. You seemed indeed to propose to me a most difficult question, at the end of your inquiry, with that intention, namely, by which you are wont vehemently to beware of a lie. "If I set before you," you say, "a little one, and ask whether, when he grows up, he will be chaste, or will not be a thief; without doubt you will answer: I do not know. And whether, established in that very infant age, he is thinking something good or evil; you will say: I do not know. If, then, you dare to promise nothing certain about his future morals, and about his present thought; what is it that, when they are offered to Baptism, the parents answer for them as sureties, and say that they do what that age cannot think, or, if it can, is hidden? For we ask those by whom they are offered, and say: Does he believe in God? Of that age, which knows not whether God exists, they answer: He believes; and to the rest it is so answered, the several things which are asked. Hence I wonder that the parents in these matters answer so confidently for the little one, as to say that he does such great good things which, at the hour at which he is baptized, the baptizer asks—yet at that same hour, if I should subjoin, Will he who is baptized be chaste, or will he not be a thief? I do not know whether anyone dares to say, One of these things he will be, or will not be, as he answers me without doubt that he believes in God, and that he turns himself to God." Then, concluding your writing, you add and say: "To these questions, then, I ask that you deign to answer briefly, in such a way that you do not prescribe to me from custom, but render a reason."

8. These your letters read and reread, and considered as much as the narrowness of time allowed, I remembered Nebridius my friend, who, although he was a most diligent and most keen inquirer into obscure matters pertaining especially to the teaching of piety, greatly hated a brief answer to a great question. And whoever demanded this, he bore most ill, and, if his person allowed it, he restrained him with an indignant face and voice, deeming unworthy one who sought such things, when he did not know how many things could and ought to be said about so great a matter. But I am not, like him, angry with you in the same way: for you are a bishop occupied with many cares, as I am; whence neither does it easily have leisure for you to read anything lengthy, nor for me to write it. For that man, then a young man, who was unwilling to hear such things briefly, and asked about many things in our conversation, asked, at leisure, of one at leisure: but you, considering now who, and from whom, you demand these things, bid me answer briefly about so great a matter. Behold, I do as much as I can; may the Lord help that I may be able to do what you ask.

9. Surely we often speak in such a way that, as the Pasch approaches, we say that the Lord's passion is tomorrow or the day after, when he suffered so many years ago, and that passion was done only once. Surely on the Lord's day itself we say, Today the Lord rose; when so many years have passed since he rose. Why is no one so inept as to argue that we, speaking thus, have lied, except because we name these days according to the likeness of those on which these things were done, so that the day itself is said which is not itself, but, by the revolution of time, like it, and it is said that on that day there is done, on account of the celebration of the sacrament, what was done not on that day, but already long ago? Was not Christ immolated once in himself, and yet in the sacrament he is immolated for the peoples not only at all the solemnities of the Pasch, but every day, nor surely does he lie who, being asked, answers that he is immolated? For if the sacraments did not have a certain likeness of those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. But from this likeness, for the most part, they also receive the names of the things themselves. As, then, according to a certain manner, the sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ, the sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of Christ, so the sacrament of faith is faith. But to believe is nothing else than to have faith. And through this, when it is answered that the little one believes, who does not yet have the affection of faith, it is answered that he has faith on account of the sacrament of faith, and that he turns himself to God on account of the sacrament of conversion, because that very answer too pertains to the celebration of the sacrament. As the Apostle says of Baptism itself: We have been buried together with Christ through Baptism into death (Rom 6:4). He does not say: We signified a burial; but plainly says: We have been buried together. The sacrament of so great a thing, then, he named by no other name than that of the thing itself.

10. And so, although that faith which consists in the will of believers does not yet make the little one a believer, yet the sacrament of that very faith now makes him faithful. For just as it is answered that he believes, so too he is called faithful, not by assenting to the thing itself with the mind, but by receiving the sacrament of the thing itself. But when a man has begun to be wise, he will not repeat that sacrament, but will understand it, and will be fitted, with a will in accord, to its truth. As long as he cannot do this, the sacrament will avail for his protection against the contrary powers; and it will avail so much that, if before the use of reason he migrates from this life, through that very sacrament, with the love of the Church commending him, he is freed by Christian help from that condemnation which entered the world through one man (See Rom 5:12). He who does not believe this, and judges that it cannot be done, is surely unfaithful, even if he has the sacrament of faith; and far better than him is the little one, who, even if he does not yet have faith in thought, yet does not oppose to it the obstacle of a contrary thought, whence he wholesomely receives the sacrament of it. I have answered, as I think, your questions—as far as pertains to the less capable, and to the contentious, not enough; but as far as to the peaceable and understanding, perhaps more than enough. Nor have I, for my excuse, cast at you a most firm custom, but I have rendered, as I could, the reason of a most wholesome custom.

LETTER 99
TO THE MOST RELIGIOUS AND, IN THE MEMBERS OF CHRIST, DESERVEDLY AND HOLILY PRAISEWORTHY HANDMAID OF GOD ITALICA, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

1. I had received three letters of your Benignity, when I wrote this back. One which still demanded my letters, another which indicated that mine had now reached you, the third which contained your most benevolent care for us, even concerning the house of the most distinguished and excellent young man Julian, which adjoins our walls. Having received it, I did not defer to answer at once, because the procurator of your Distinction wrote that he could quickly send to Rome: by whose letters we were gravely saddened, because what is being done there in the City, or around the City, he did not take care to insinuate to us, so that it might become certain among us, which we were unwilling to believe to uncertain fame. For by the letters of the brothers sent before, although troublesome and hard, yet much lighter things were announced. I wondered, indeed, more than can be said, that, even on so great an occasion of your people, the holy brother bishops did not write, nor did your letter insinuate to us anything about your so great tribulations; which surely, through the bowels of love, are ours too; unless perhaps you thought you should not do what you judged would profit nothing, or you were unwilling that we be saddened by your letters. It profits something, as I judge, even to know these things. First, because it is unjust to wish to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to be unwilling to weep with those who weep (See Rom 12:15): then, because tribulation works patience, patience proving, proving hope; but hope does not confound, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (See Rom 5:3-5).

2. Far be it, therefore, that we refuse to hear even what is bitter and sad concerning our dearest ones. For, I know not in what way, less becomes what one member suffers, if the other members suffer with it (See 1 Cor 12:26). Nor is the relief of the evil itself made through the communion of the calamity, but through the consolation of love, so that, although some suffer by bearing, others suffer with them by knowing, yet the tribulation may be common to those to whom the proving, the hope, the love, and the Spirit are common. But the Lord consoles us all, who both foretold these temporal evils, and after these promised eternal good things: nor ought he, when he does battle, to be broken who wishes to be crowned after the battle, with him supplying strength to those contending, who prepares unspeakable gifts for the victors.

3. Let that reply of ours not take away from you the confidence of writing to us, especially because you have softened our fear by a not improbable defense. We greet again your little ones, and we wish them to grow up for you in Christ—who already at this age discern how perilous and harmful is the love of this age; and would that, when they are shaken by great and hard things, the small and flexible things may be corrected. About that house, what shall I say, except give thanks to your most benign care? For the one which we can give, they do not wish; but the one which they wish, we cannot give. For it was not, as they falsely heard, left to the Church by my predecessor, but is possessed among its ancient estates, and so adjoins another ancient church as that one in question adjoins another.