TO THE MOST BLESSED FATHER AUGUSTINE THE BISHOP, FROM OROSIUS

1. I had indeed already suggested this to your Holiness, but I was planning to present a memorandum on the matter I had suggested once I sensed that your mind was free from other obligations of dictation. But since my lords, your sons, the bishops Eutropius and Paul, moved by the same concern for the salvation of all that moves me too, your servant boy, have already produced a memorandum about a number of heresies, yet did not point out all of them, it became necessary for me to bring it out in haste and to heap together into one all the trees of perdition with their roots and branches, and to offer them to your fiery spirit (See Mt 3:10; 7:19), so that, once you have viewed their array and discerned their wickedness, you may measure out what disposition of power you can bring to bear. Only do you, most blessed father, root out and cut down the malignant plantings or graftings of others (See Mt 15:13), and scatter the true seed for us from your own springs that will water it (See 1 Cor 3:7). I pledge God as my witness and hope for the increase of your work, because that land, which now, insincerely cultivated, yields ungrateful fruits, if you visit it by entrusting and refilling it from that hidden manna (See Rev 2:17; 2 Macc 2:4-8) at my hands, will one day, poured out more freely, advance even to the hundredfold fruit in its abundance (See Mt 13:8, 23).

Through you the Lord our God, through you, I say, blessed father, may he amend in word those whom he has chastised with the sword. I was sent to you by God; through him I hope for help from you, as I consider in what manner it came about that I came here. I recognize why I came: without willing it, without necessity, without consent I went out from my homeland, driven by a certain hidden force, until I was carried to the shore of this land. Here at last I came to my senses and understood that I was being directed to come to you. Do not judge me shameless if you receive me confessing it. Make me a fit merchant for my beloved mistress, having found the pearl (See Mt 13:45-46), that I may not return a runaway slave with his substance squandered. We have been torn apart more grievously by corrupt teachers than by the most bloodthirsty enemies. We confess the offense; you see through to the wound; the one thing that remains is this: with the Lord's help, bestow the medicine. Briefly, then, I will show both what was badly planted before and grew strong, and what was afterward grafted in worse and prevailed.

2. Priscillian, in the first place more wretched than the Manicheans in this, that he confirmed his heresy from the Old Testament as well, teaches that the soul, which is born of God, proceeds from a certain storehouse, professes before God that it will do battle, and is instructed by the exhortation of angels; then, descending through certain circles, it is captured by the malignant principalities and, according to the will of the victorious prince, is thrust into various bodies, and a bond is ascribed to them. From this he also affirmed that astrology prevails, asserting that Christ canceled this bond and fixed it to the cross through his passion (See Col 2:14), as Priscillian himself says in one of his letters: "This is the first wisdom, to understand in the patterns of souls the natures of the divine powers and the arrangement of the body. In this both heaven and earth seem bound, and all the principalities of the world seem to be constrained to overcome the arrangements of the saints. For the patriarchs hold the first circle of God and the divine bond of the souls to be sent in flesh, fashioned by the consent of the angels and of God and of all souls, who possess it against the work of the formal warfare," and so on. He further taught that the names of the patriarchs are members of the soul, in that Reuben is in the head, Judah in the breast, Levi in the heart, Benjamin in the thighs, and the like. Conversely, in the members of the body the signs of heaven are arranged—that is, Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the arms, Cancer in the breast, and the rest—wishing it to be understood that the eternal darkness, and from it the prince of the world, came forth. And he confirms this very thing from a certain book entitled "The Memoir of the Apostles," where the Savior seems to be questioned secretly by the disciples and to expound the gospel parable that reads, A sower went out to sow (Mt 13:3), claiming that the sower was not good, asserting that, if he had been good, he would not have been careless, nor would he have let the seed fall either along the path or on rocky ground or on uncultivated land (See Mt 13:4-5), wishing it to be understood that this is the one who sows, who scatters the captured souls into whatever various bodies he pleases. In this book too many things are said about the prince of the waters and the prince of fire, wishing it to be understood that all good things are brought about in this world by art, not by the power of God. For he says that there is a certain virgin of light, whom God, wishing to give rain to men, shows to the prince of the waters, who, while he desires to seize her, is stirred up, sweats, and makes rain, and, deserted by her, rouses thunder with his bellowing. The Trinity, however, he spoke of in word only; for, asserting a unity without any existence or distinct property, by removing the "and" he taught that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit—this is the one Christ.

3. Then two of my fellow citizens, Avitus and another Avitus, when by now truth alone had laid bare so foul a confusion by itself, sought out foreign parts. For the one set out for Jerusalem, the other for Rome. On their return, the one reported Origen, the other Victorinus; of these two the one yielded to the other, yet both condemned Priscillian. Of Victorinus we know little, because, almost before his publications appeared, the follower of Victorinus gave way to Origen. So they began to put forward many magnificent things from Origen, which on slight occasion the truth itself would cut away. For we learned a doctrine concerning the Trinity sound enough, that all things which were made were made by God (See Jn 1:3) and were all very good (See Gen 1:31) and were made from nothing, and then, after that, interpretations of the Scriptures sober enough. All these things were at once received by the wise, with a faithful purging of the old errors. There remained only the offense regarding "from nothing." For it had been settled by persuasion that the soul exists; yet it could not be settled that it was made from nothing (See Col 1:16), since they argued that the will of God cannot be nothing. This remains, almost down to the present. But those two Avitii, and with them the Greek Basil, who taught these things most blessedly, handed down certain things from the books of Origen himself that were not correct, as I now thoroughly understand. First, saying that all things, before they appeared as made, had always remained made in the wisdom of God, in these words: "For whatever God made, he did not begin by making it." Then they said that of angels, principalities, powers, souls, and demons there is one origin and one substance, and that a place was given to the archangel or to the soul or to the demon according to the quality of its merits, using these words: "A lesser fault earned a greater place." That the world was made last, in order that in it the souls might be purified that had sinned beforehand. The eternal fire, indeed, by which sinners are punished, they declared to be neither a true fire nor eternal, saying that "fire" was said to mean the punishment of one's own conscience, and that "eternal," according to the Greek etymology, is not everlasting—adding even a Latin proof, that it is said forever and unto the age of the age (Ps 9:5 (9:6); 10:16 (9:37)), where it set "age" after "eternal"; and that thus all the souls of sinners, after the purification of conscience, would return into the unity of the body of Christ. They also wished to assert this concerning the devil, but they did not prevail, namely that, since the good substance made in him cannot perish, once the malice of the devil is wholly burned away his substance is at some time to be saved. Concerning the body of the Lord they handed down this, that the Son of God, coming all the way down to us after so many thousands of years, was not idle up to that point, but, preaching forgiveness to the angels, to the powers, and to all the higher beings—taking on the quality of the form of those whom he was visiting—thickened all the way to the palpability of flesh in the appearance of his assumption; determining this by his passion and resurrection, he again, until he should come to the Father, thinned it out by ascending; and so neither was the body laid down anywhere, nor is God, reigning in any body, circumscribed. They also said that the sun and the moon and the stars are the creation that is to be understood as subject to corruption unwillingly; and that these are not elemental fires but rational powers, and that they render their service to corruption because of him who subjected it in hope (Rom 8:20).

4. This, so far as I have been able to retain it, has been briefly set forth, so that, with all the diseases observed, you may hasten to apply the medicine. The truth of Christ is in me (2 Cor 11:10), that, out of the venerable reverence due to your holiness, I would not dare to be shameless, did I not recognize, by the evident judgment and ordinance of God, that remedies are to be brought forth for that great and excellent people, upon whom, as upon a sinner, a blow has been laid (See Ex 9:14), just as after the blow a cure is owed—and that you have been chosen and I have been sent. Be mindful of me, most blessed father, and of the many who, together with me, await your eloquence to descend upon them like dew. Deign to do so.

To dig out and uproot the root of a most loquacious error is the shorter way.

1.1. To answer you when you ask, my most beloved son Orosius, I neither ought to reply to everything you have set down in your memorandum, nor ought I to fail to reply at all, lest I seem to have despised your zeal—which is most pleasing to me—and thereby give offense intemperately. For in certain of our little works, which you either have read or will be able to read, many things have been said that may avail against the heresy of the Priscillianists, even though I had not set out to refute them; but while I was doing something else, I now understand that I was doing this too, now that I hear from you what they hold. For what I have argued in many places against the Manicheans concerning the soul—that although it is in its own way immortal, yet it is shown to be changeable, by falling away to the worse and advancing to the better, and through this it is most clearly shown not to be the substance of God—at the same time also overturns the teaching of Priscillian. For once this one thing is most firmly established, which is both most true and which each person, once reminded, most easily recognizes in himself, neither those nor these find anything from which to weave their fables. But what need is there to go pruning the branches of a most loquacious error, the root of which it is the shorter way to dig out and uproot—especially since you yourself rejoice that those most fabulous ravings have now been refuted among you?

2.2. But the question concerning the soul is still being debated—whether, since it is now established that it is not a portion or an emanation of him, God should be said to have created it from nothing, seeing that it appears harsh and impious to say that the will of God, by whose willing it was created, is nothing—this indeed no longer pertains to refuting the sacrilegious folly of Priscillian. For whether the soul was made from nothing, or whether it should not be said to have been made from nothing because it was made by the will of God, which will is certainly not nothing—nevertheless, because it was made and is not the nature of God, that heresy is surely refuted which contends that the soul was originally the nature of God, so that it might have a basis from which to connect whatever else of falsehood it adds on. But because we ought not to scorn this question either, nor to leave it undiscussed, we must inquire of those who for this reason refuse to believe that the soul was made from nothing, lest they assert that the will of God by which it was made is nothing—we must inquire, then, whether they grant that no creation at all was made from nothing. For if they think this, it is to be feared that they may try to introduce some other nature, which is neither God nor yet nothing, which God must have had as a kind of matter lying ready beneath him; otherwise he could not have found anything from which to make whatever he made. For when it is asked from what God made his creation, some sort of matter is sought, as wood or any other body is for a carpenter, which unless he has it, he will be wholly unable to make the things that are demanded of his craft. When, therefore, the answer is given, "from nothing," what else is answered but that there was no matter lying ready beneath him which he himself had not made, so that he might have something from which to make whatever he willed, and which unless he had it he could not make? For the matter of the world, which is in some fashion discerned in changeable things, was established by the very one by whom the world was established. Wherefore, even if God made or makes anything from some other thing, yet he did not make it or make it from a thing which he himself had not made. For which reason, setting the nature of the soul aside for a little, if they grant that God made something from nothing, let them attend and see that, whatever that something is, he made it by his will; for he would not have made anything unwillingly; nor yet, for that reason, is that same will nothing, because by his will something was made by him from nothing. Why, then, do they fear to say of the soul what they do not hesitate to say of any other things whatever? Or, if they hold that the soul alone was made by the will of God, do they contend that he did not make the rest by his will? What more absurd, what more insane could be said? But if he certainly made by his will all the things he made—and yet, when we say this, we do not say that that same will is nothing—let them accept this concerning the soul as well.

3.3. For when it is said, God made from nothing (2 Macc 7:28), nothing else is said than: There was no source from which to make it, and yet, because he willed it, he made it. So far, then, is the will not said to be nothing in that which he made from nothing, that it is especially commended. For to him it is said: For it is in your power to act whenever you will (Wis 12:18): whether there be a source from which it may come to be, or there be none, the will suffices where the power is supreme. How, then, in that which is created from nothing, is the will of the Creator said to be nothing, when something can be created from nothing precisely because the will of the Creator suffices for itself even without matter? But if perhaps they wish to acknowledge that not only the soul but no creation at all was made from nothing—on the ground that whatever God made, he made by his will, which will is certainly not nothing—let them consider whence man was made according to the body. For certainly, as Scripture testifies, God made him from the mud or from the dust of the earth, and beyond doubt made him by his will (See Gen 2:7), and yet the will of God is not dust or mud. Just as, then, in that which was made from mud, although it was made by his will, the will is not mud, so in that which was made from nothing, although it was made by his will, the will is not nothing.

4.4. But now, as for what you have added that is to be lamented—that among you men fell from the heresy of Priscillian into the error of Origen, and could not be healed of that plague unless the very medicine had introduced something diseased—this grief is indeed not to be blamed: for truth, not falsehood, ought to have driven out falsehood, since to do this is to change the evil, not to escape it. Nevertheless, because you recall that concerning God himself, the founder of all created things—that is, concerning the coeternal and unchangeable Trinity itself—those who brought the books of Origen to you handed down what the truth holds (against which truth Priscillian restored the ancient Sabellian dogma, in which the Father himself is held to be the Son and also the Holy Spirit—this man being worse in that he also holds such a view of the soul that he refuses to let it have its own proper nature, but dares to affirm with the Manicheans that it flows down from God himself as a kind of portion, and is so foully defiled and changed for the worse)—your province has gained no little good from those books, especially in that matter in which the error is most grave; for it is concerning the Creator, not concerning the creation, that such false and such wicked things are held. Whether, then, those who had strayed have been restored to this faith, or those who did not yet know it have learned it by reading those disputations, let them rejoice to have learned this, which is sound. But as for what is also erroneous in them—although I see that you have already come to know it—nevertheless how such things are to be argued against you will be able to learn better there, where the error itself both long ago arose and not long ago was exposed.

5.5. As far as I can, however, I too admonish you to dare to think nothing about the correction of the devil and his angels and their restoration to their former state—not because we envy the devil and the demons and in that way repay, as it were, malevolence in kind, since they, driven by nothing but the goads of envy, try to disturb our journeys by which we make our way to God, but because, out of our own presumption, we ought to add nothing to the final sentence of the supreme and most truthful judge. For he himself foretold that he would say to those like them: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41). Nor ought it to move us, so as to take "eternal" here for "long-lasting," that elsewhere it is written: Forever and unto the age of the age (Ps 9:5 (9:6); 10:16 (9:37)). For the Latin translator did not wish to say, "Forever and forever of the eternal." But since that which
is said in Greek can be rendered both "age" and "eternal," other translators have rendered it more conveniently: Unto the age and unto the age of the age. But this is not what was said where it was said: Go into the eternal fire. For it was not said
, but : so that if it had been derived from "age," it would be called in Latin "secular," not "eternal," which no translator ever dared to say. Wherefore, although in Latin "age" may be understood as having some end, "eternal," however, is not usually
called anything except that which is without end; whereas in Greek
is understood to signify sometimes "eternal," sometimes "age": yet what is derived from this noun and called
, not even the Greeks themselves, so far as I judge, are accustomed to understand except as that which has no end. We, however, whether
or
, are not accustomed to say except "eternal"; but
we say also "age," whereas
we say only "eternal," although certain people sometimes even dare to say "eternale," lest a derivation from the same noun seem to be lacking to the Latin language.

5.6. And perhaps, indeed, according to the usage of the Scriptures, these people may find something said to be
which is not without end, as God in the books of the Old Testament constantly says: This shall be a perpetual ordinance for you (Ex 28:43; Lev 16:29, 34)—which the Greek has as
—when he often gave such commands in this way concerning sacred rites that were going to have an end; although, if the words are understood more carefully, the things perhaps which were signified by those rites were not going to have an end. For so—not to wander further—we call God eternal, certainly not these two very brief syllables, but that which is signified by them. The Apostle spoke of eternal times (See 2 Tim 1:9) that are prior and ancient, which in Greek reads: . For writing to Titus he says: In hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before eternal times (Tit 1:2). But since the times reckoned backward seem to have their beginning from the foundation of the world, how are they eternal, unless because he called those eternal which have before them no time?

6.7. But whoever prudently notes that what was said, Go into the eternal fire, was said of that which has no end, proves it from the contrary in that very gospel passage concerning the eternal life that the righteous are to receive: for that too does not have an end. For he concluded thus: So these will go into eternal burning; but the righteous into eternal life (Mt 25:41-46). In both the Greek has
. If mercy prompts us to believe that the punishment of the wicked will not be without end, what are we going to believe concerning the reward of the righteous, since in both parts, in the same place, in the same sentence, in the same word, eternity is pronounced? Or shall we say again that the righteous too will relapse, from that sanctification and eternal life, into the uncleanness of sinners and into death (See 1 Thess 4:7)? Far be this from the soundness of the Christian faith. Both, therefore, are called eternal as being without end—that is,
—lest, while we grieve over the punishments of the devil, we should doubt concerning the kingdom of Christ. Finally, if "eternal" and "eternale"—that is,
and —are accustomed to be placed in the Scriptures, under either sense, sometimes without end and sometimes with an end, what shall we reply concerning those words of the prophet, where it is written: Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched (Isa 66:24)? Whatever kind of punishment was signified by the name of "worm" and "fire," surely, if it shall not die nor be quenched, it has been foretold as without end; nor was the prophet doing anything else, when he said this, but foretelling it as without end.

7.8. Concerning the kingdom of Christ also—not according to that by which in the beginning he was the Word, God with God (See Jn 1:1) (for from that no one ever doubted that he is the king of all ages (See Rev 15:3)), but according to the assumption of manhood and the sacrament of the mediator (See 1 Tim 2:5) and the incarnation from the Virgin—it has been said most plainly that it will not have an end, where the angel, speaking to Mary, his future mother who would yet remain a virgin, says among other things: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end (Lk 1:32-33). In what respect will there be no end of his kingdom, unless according to that by which he will reign over the house of Jacob? For what he says, forever, he expounded, on account of that very ambiguity, by adding of his kingdom there will be no end, lest anyone should here take "forever" in the way that an "age" will at some point have an end. But can the kingdom over the house of Jacob and on the throne of David be understood except in the Church and in that people which is his kingdom? Of which the Apostle also says: When he hands over the kingdom to God and the Father (1 Cor 15:24)—that is, when he has led his saints to the contemplation of the Father, and certainly to his own as well, according to that by which he is God equal to the Father. For he does not so hand it over that he himself loses it, since the Father too gave to the Son to have life in himself (Jn 5:26), nor did he himself lose it. And through this, if of his kingdom there will be no end, then surely his saints, who are his kingdom, will reign with him without end (See Rev 22:5). But where the Apostle says in that place, Then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God and the Father, there he signifies an end that does not consume but perfects. As it was said: For Christ is the end of the law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4)—by which the law is perfected, not by which it is abolished. This he signifies there too, where he says: I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17).

8.9. But as for what they say concerning the rational creatures—that is, the holy angels and the unclean demons and the very minds of men—that a lesser fault earned a greater place, I do not see with what effrontery they try to persuade the Church of Christ of it. We therefore better believe that God was not led to the construction of the world by the sins of rational spirits, lest those absurdities follow: that it would be necessary for us to have two suns, or three, or however many, if a great number of spirits, through free choice, had committed a fault so great that they had to be enclosed in similar globes of the heavenly bodies. Rather, the world was made great and good by the goodness of God, by the supreme and uncreated Good, so that in it all things came to be very good according to their nature, some better than others, arranged in distinct degrees from the highest creatures down to the lowest, in such a way that all things might exist while the more excellent did not exist alone, and that they might have the limit of that number which the Creator God of all the natures of creatures saw was to be set within himself—he who did not learn them once they were made, but knew that they were to be made. Hence what they say, that all things had already been made in his wisdom before they were brought forth into these proper forms and modes and appeared in their own orders, is not soberly said. For when would they have been made, before they were made? Rather, in the wisdom of God the accounts of all the things to be made could exist, yet not the things themselves as made. For all things were made through it; it itself was not also made, since it itself is the Word of whom it is said: All things were made through him (Jn 1:3). God, therefore, knew all the things he made before he made them. For we cannot say that he made things unknown to him and learned them only once they were made, that he did not know what he was making, but knew what he had made. For if we said this of any human craftsman, we would judge most foolishly. He knew them, therefore, as to be made, not as made; he knew so that he might make them, not because he had made them. Accordingly, although they were already known—since they would not come to be except from one who knew them—nevertheless the things did not begin to be made, which were known in order that they might come to be, except later; the things which were known, in order that they might rightly come to be, before they came to be.

8.10. But since the truth—which neither forms opinions about things unknown nor deceives anyone—promises that our purification (See Heb 1:3), indeed our perfection too, even after the resurrection of spiritual bodies, will come to be all the way up to equality with the angels, how are those same holy angels, to whom we, fully purified, will be equal (See Lk 20:33-36; Phil 3:11), said still to be in need of being purified from their sins? And since God promises a new heaven and a new earth (See 2 Pet 3:13; Isa 65:17; 66:22; Rev 21:1), a dwelling place for the saints and for those purified from every stain of this age, with what audacity, in the end, is it asserted that the world—that is, heaven and earth—would not have existed except for the necessity of purifying the rational spirits, who would not be either in heaven or on earth except on account of the merits of their sins? What need, then, have those who are purified of a new heaven and a new earth, if the purified are restored to this, that they may be as they were before heaven and earth, without heaven and earth? But if this were altogether true, we ought to stretch our hope all the way to that which Scripture promises. And if from there we were to be transferred to something better, we would much more reasonably learn this then, once we were already placed there, than now not only rashly believe it but even shamelessly try to teach it. And what is more absurd than to say: Heaven and earth would not exist unless the structure of the world were necessary for those to be purified—when Scripture promises to those who are purified another heaven and another earth (See 2 Pet 3:13; Isa 65:17; 66:22; Rev 21:1)?

8.11. Further, concerning the sun and the moon and the rest of the stars, that they are heavenly bodies we see; that they are animate, we do not see. Let this be read in the divine books, and we believe it. For the testimony from the Apostle's epistle (See Rom 8:20), which you have set down as something they are accustomed to cite, can be understood even of men alone, since in each individual man every creature exists—not universally, as heaven and earth and all that is in them exist, but in a certain generic way; for there is in him both the rational, which the angels are either proved or believed to have, and, so to speak, the sensible, which the beasts also do not lack (for they use the senses and sense-movements to seek what is useful and avoid what is harmful), and the vital that is deprived of sense, such as can be observed in trees; for in us too the growths of the body come about without our sensing it, and the hairs do not feel it when they are cut, and yet they grow. Moreover, the bodily creation itself appears more evidently in us, which, although it was made and formed from earth, nevertheless has in it certain particles from all the elements of this corporeal world, contributing to the balance of health. For the members are quickened by heat, which comes from fire, whose light also shines forth through the eyes; and by air the coursing of the veins which they call arteries, and the air-passages of the lung, are filled; and were there no moisture, no spittle would flow together, and dryness would consume life. For the blood itself too, in a moist gliding, filling now these veins, now those, is diffused through all parts as if by streams and rivers. Thus there is no kind of creature that cannot be recognized in man; and so every creature groans and grieves in him, awaiting the revelation of the sons of God (See Rom 8:22-23). And every creature, even through the resurrection of the body—though not in all men—will nevertheless be freed from the slavery of corruption (See Rom 8:21), because in each individual the whole is present. And if that same passage of the apostolic writings can be better understood in some other way, still it does not follow from those same words that we should believe that the sun and the moon and the stars groan together until at the end of the age they are freed from the slavery of corruption.

9.12. Now since I said, "Let it be read in the divine books, and we believe it," lest perhaps you be misled by what those who assert these things are accustomed to bring forward from the book of holy Job, where it is written: How shall a man be righteous before the Lord, or how shall one born of woman cleanse himself? If he commands the moon and it does not shine, and the stars are not clean before him; how much more is man rottenness, and the son of man a worm? (Job 25:4-6) For from this they wish it to be understood both that the stars have a rational spirit and that they are not clean from sin, but are in the heavens for this reason, that a lesser fault earned a greater or better place. I do not think this sentence is to be received as having divine authority: for Job himself did not utter it—he to whom in a singular way testimony is divinely borne that he did not sin with his lips (Job 1:22) before the Lord—but one of those friends, who were called all comforters of evils (Job 16:2) and were reproved by the divine sentence. But just as in the Gospel, although it is altogether true that the things were said, yet not all the things that were said are believed to be true—since the truthful writing of the Gospel testifies that many false and impious things were said by the Jews—so in this book, where many persons are narrated to have spoken, not only what is said but also by whom it is said must be considered, lest, indiscriminately receiving the things written in any holy book whatever, we be forced to confess—which God forbid—that the things were true and righteous which the foolish woman suggested to her holy husband, that by speaking something against God he might be freed from that intolerable suffering by dying (See Job 2:9). I would not say this as though those friends, reproved by the Lord and rightly blamed by that very holy servant of God, could speak nothing true (See Job 42:7), but because not all the things they spoke are to be thought true. Although, therefore, they said nothing true against Job, nevertheless even from their words one who knows how to discern things wisely said can take up some sound sentence as testimony to the truth; but when, inquiring, we wish something to be proved to us by the testimony of the holy oracles, let it not be said to us that we must believe even what is written in the Gospel, if perhaps the evangelist records that this was said by one to whom faith is not to be given. For there it was said to the Lord Christ by the Jews: Do we not say truly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? (Jn 8:48) This voice we detest all the more, the dearer Christ is to us; yet that it was uttered by the Jews we cannot doubt, who believe the gospel narrative to be most true. Thus we neither detract from the faith due to the evangelist who writes, nor do we shrink from the voice of the Jew who blasphemes. And not only to impious and wicked men, but not even to those little ones in the faith and still untrained and unlearned who are perhaps recorded as speaking there, do we accord faith as to canonical authority. For not because that man whose eyes, blind from birth, the Lord had opened, said, We know that God does not hear sinners (Jn 9:31), ought we therefore so to receive that sentence as of gospel authority that we resist the very words of the Lord in the Gospel, who confirmed by his divine voice that the one who said, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner, went down from the temple more justified than the Pharisee who recalled and boasted of his own righteous deeds (See Lk 18:10-14). Let this man, recently enlightened in the flesh, not be angry that we have said he, in the novitiate of his faith—when he did not yet know who it was who had healed him—put forward a less circumspect sentence, that God does not hear sinners: since the Apostles themselves, chosen before the rest and clinging to the Lord's side and hanging upon his mouth, are found to have said many blameworthy things, which it would be tedious to recount, so that blessed Peter, for certain of his words, deserved not only to be rebuked but even to be called Satan (See Mt 16:23).

10.13. Although, in comparison with the righteousness of God, if not even the holy angels in heaven are said to be righteous, this does not seem to me an unwarranted statement—not because, in order to be righteous, they fell away from righteousness, but because they were made and are not God, and cannot have as much of the spiritual light as he has from whom they were made. For there is the supreme righteousness where there is the supreme wisdom: and this is God, of whom it is said: To God alone wise (Rom 16:27). But it is another question how much of that very righteousness the angels grasp and how much they do not grasp. For by participation in whom they are righteous, in comparison with him they are not even righteous.

11.14. But it is another question, as I said, this one, and another the question concerning the stars and the sun and the moon, whether they have rational spirits within these conspicuous and shining bodies—bodies which whoever doubts to be bodies is wholly ignorant of what a body is. Nor do these things much pertain to us, that we should take care to investigate with the utmost zeal things that are remote from our senses and from the understanding of human weakness, and that are not so set down in the Scriptures themselves that the knowledge of them is enjoined upon us. Rather, lest by headlong suspicion we rush into sacrilegious fables, the divine Scripture cries out: Do not seek things too high for you, and do not search into things too strong for you, but think always upon those things which the Lord has commanded you (Sir 3:22), so that in these matters a reckless presumption rather than a cautious ignorance should seem to be blamed. Certainly the Apostle says: Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers (Col 1:16). That there are, therefore, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers in the heavenly array, I most firmly believe, and that they differ among themselves in some way I hold with undoubting faith; but—so that you may despise me, whom you think to be a great teacher—what these things may be and how they differ among themselves I do not know. Nor do I think I am imperiled by that ignorance, as I would be by disobedience, if I were to neglect the Lord's commands; and therefore I think that by the Spirit of God, through our authors, the writers of the holy oracles, these things were not fully set forth, but touched in passing and lightly grazed, so that if to anyone such as we are something of this kind has perhaps been shown through a higher revelation, he should not believe that those were inferior through whom the holy proclamations of the canonical Scriptures were ministered to us. For however far anyone advances in knowledge, he will find himself below those letters which God set, as it were as a firmament, over all human hearts. There is no need, therefore, to be wiser, but to be wise unto sobriety, as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith (Rom 12:3). These things will perhaps be taught you by more learned men, if you bring to them as great a knowledge for learning as you have care for knowing, lest you suppose things unknown to be known, lest you believe what is not to be believed or fail to believe what is to be believed. Rather, that one Master (See Mt 23:10) and true one will teach you, whether through them or by whatever means he wills—he who, as you labor for his Church, looks within you, where he has also bestowed this upon you: he himself will unlock the truth more fully, who beholds the charity that knocks—the charity which he has deigned to give.