1. By the inspiration of God, the maker and governor of all things, and mindful of my own resolve, by which through the grace of the Savior I have determined to serve the almighty and divine Trinity by faith—both formerly in the life of the laity and now in the office of bishops—striving, according to whatever talent and speech I have received, to be of use for the building up of the holy and true catholic Church of Christ the Lord, I have determined by no means to keep silent about the life and character of that excellent priest Augustine, who was predestined and presented in his own time, concerning the things I saw in him and heard from him.

2. For we read and learn that this very thing was often done even before us by the most devout men of holy mother the catholic Church, who, inspired by the divine Spirit, by their own speech and pen, brought to the knowledge of those eager to learn—both for the ears and for the eyes—by speaking and writing, things of a like kind: what sort and how great were the men who, by the common grace of the Lord, were granted both to live among human affairs and to persevere to the very end of their death.

3. Therefore I too, the least of all stewards (1 Cor 15:9; Eph 3:8), with faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5), by which the faithful must serve and please the Lord of lords (Deut 10:17; 1 Tim 6:15; Rev 19:16) and all good people, have undertaken to set forth, concerning the rise, the course, and the due end of the aforesaid venerable man, the things I have learned through him and experienced, cleaving to his love for as many years as the Lord granted.

4. But I beg the supreme majesty that I may so carry out and complete a task of this kind, taken up by me, as neither to offend the truth of the Father of lights (Jas 1:17), nor to seem in any part to defraud the love of the good children of the Church.

5. Nor shall I attempt to set out all those things which this most blessed Augustine himself described concerning himself in his books of Confessions—what sort of man he was before he received grace, and what sort of life he led once he had received it.

6. For he wished to do this, as the Apostle says, so that no one might believe or think of him beyond what he knew himself to be, or what had been heard of him (2 Cor 12:6), deceiving no one at all, after the manner of holy humility, but seeking praise not for himself but for his Lord, concerning his own deliverance and the gift bestowed on him—namely, from those things which he had already received—and asking for the prayers of the brethren concerning those things which he desired to receive.

7. Therefore, it is good to keep hidden the secret of a king, as it was uttered by angelic authority, but to reveal and confess the works of the Lord is honorable (Tob 12:7).

1. 1. He was born, then, in the African province, in the city of Thagaste, of honorable and Christian parents belonging to the rank of the town councillors; and he was reared and nourished by their care and diligence and at their expense, thoroughly educated in secular letters, that is, instructed in all those disciplines which are called liberal.

1. 2. For he taught grammar first in his own city, and afterward rhetoric in Carthage, the capital of Africa. In the time that followed, he also taught across the sea in the city of Rome and at Milan, where the court of the younger emperor Valentinian was then established.

1. 3. In that city there was then administering the episcopate Ambrose, a priest most acceptable to God and most distinguished among the best of men. Standing among the people at the very frequent discourses of this preacher of the word of God in the church, Augustine listened, intent and held fast.

1. 4. But at one time, as a young man at Carthage, he had been seduced by the error of the Manicheans; and for this reason he was present more intently than others, lest anything be said either for or against that heresy.

1. 5. And it came about, through the mercy of God his deliverer, who was working upon the heart of his priest, that the questions of the law which bore upon that error were resolved as they arose; and so, being instructed, that heresy was little by little and gradually driven from his mind by the divine compassion. Forthwith, being confirmed in the catholic faith, there was born in him an ardor of love for making progress in religion, so that as the holy days of Easter drew near he might receive the water of salvation.

1. 6. And it came to pass, by the granting of divine aid, that through such and so great a bishop as Ambrose he received both the saving teaching of the catholic Church and the divine sacraments.

2. 1. Soon, from the inmost marrow of his heart, he forsook all the hope he had in the world, no longer seeking a wife, nor children of the flesh (Rom 9:8), nor riches, nor the honors of the world, but he resolved to serve God together with his own people, eager to be in and of that little flock which the Lord addresses, saying: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves purses that do not grow old, a treasure that does not fail in heaven (Luke 12:32-33).

2. 2. And that holy man also desired to do what the Lord says again: If you would be perfect, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me (Matt 19:21). And upon the foundation of faith he longed to build, not wood, hay, and stubble, but gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor 3:12).

2. 3. And he was then more than thirty years old, his mother alone surviving and clinging to him, and rejoicing more over the resolve he had taken up to serve God than over grandchildren of the flesh. For his father had died beforehand.

2. 4. He also gave notice to the students whom he was teaching as a rhetorician, that they should provide themselves another master, since he had resolved to serve God.

3. 1. And it pleased him, once he had received grace, to return to Africa and to his own home and lands together with other fellow citizens and friends of his who were likewise serving God.

3. 2. Coming to them, and settled among them for nearly three years, and now estranged from himself, he lived for God (Rom 6:11) together with those who clung to him, in fastings, in prayers (Luke 2:37), in good works, meditating day and night on the law of the Lord (Ps 1:2). And concerning those things which God revealed to his understanding as he pondered and prayed, he taught both those present and those absent by his discourses and his books.

3. 3. It happened by chance at that same time that a certain man, of those they call imperial agents, stationed at Hippo Regius, a good Christian and one who feared God (Exod 18:21; Tob 2:2; Job 1:1; Acts 10:2), having learned of Augustine's good repute and teaching, desired and wished to see him, promising that he could despise all the desires (1 John 2:17) and enticements of this world, if at some time he might be granted to hear the word of God (Luke 5:1; Acts 13:7) from his mouth.

3. 4. When this had been reported to Augustine by a faithful account, desiring to free the man's soul from the perils of this life and from eternal death (Ps 120:2 (119:2)), he came of his own accord and at once to the aforesaid city, and, having seen the man, addressed and exhorted him very frequently, as far as God granted, that he might fulfill what he had vowed to God (Eccl 5:3).

3. 5. And the man kept promising that he would do so from day to day, yet did not fulfill it then in Augustine's presence; but it could by no means be void and empty that, through such a vessel made for honor, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work (2 Tim 2:21), divine providence was at work in every place.

4. 1. At that time, then, the holy Valerius held the episcopate in the catholic Church of Hippo. When, at the demand of ecclesiastical necessity, he was addressing and exhorting the people of God about providing and ordaining a priest for the city, the catholics, already knowing the resolve and teaching of holy Augustine, laid hands on him (since he too was standing among the people, untroubled and unaware of what was to come; for as a layman, as he used to tell us, he was accustomed to keep away only from those churches which had no bishops);

4. 2. they took hold of him, then, and, as is customary in such cases, brought him forward to be ordained by the bishop, all of them asking with one accord and one desire that this be done and accomplished, and demanding it with great zeal and shouting, while he wept abundantly; some indeed at that time interpreting his tears arrogantly, and as it were consoling him and saying that the office of priest, although he was worthy of a greater one, nevertheless drew near to the episcopate;

4. 3. whereas that man of God, as he told us, with greater consideration both understood and groaned over how many and how great the perils of his life were now hanging over him and arising from the rule and governance of the Church, and for this reason he wept. And their desire was fulfilled, as they wished.

5. 1. Having been made a priest, he soon established a monastery within the church, and began to live with the servants of God according to the manner and rule established under the holy Apostles (Acts 4:32): chiefly that no one should have anything of his own in that community, but that all things should be common to them, and distribution made to each as he had need (Acts 4:35); which he himself had already done earlier, when he had returned from across the sea to his own home.

5. 2. But holy Valerius, who had ordained him, since he was a devout man and one who feared God, rejoiced (Ps 9:3 (9:2); Luke 1:47) and gave thanks to God that his prayers had been heard by the Lord (Gen 30:17; Tob 3:24)—prayers which he related that he had very frequently poured out, that there might be divinely granted to him such a man as could build up the Church of the Lord by the word of God (Luke 11:28; Acts 18:11) and by sound teaching (Matt 16:18); for which task he, being a Greek by birth and less instructed in the Latin tongue and letters, perceived himself to be less useful.

5. 3. He gave to this priest the power to preach the Gospel in the church in his presence (Matt 4:23), and very frequently to expound it—contrary indeed to the use and custom of the African Churches; on which account some bishops also disparaged him.

5. 4. But that venerable and provident man, knowing and certain that this was done by custom in the Eastern Churches, and consulting the advantage of the Church, paid no heed to the tongues of his detractors, provided that there was done by the priest what he saw could by no means be accomplished by himself as bishop.

5. 5. Whence the lamp, kindled and burning, lifted up upon the lampstand, gave light to all who were in the house (Matt 5:15). And afterward, as such a report ran and flew abroad, with this good example going before, some priests, having received the power from the bishops, began to expound in the presence of the bishops before the people.

6. 1. Now in that city of Hippo at that time the pestilence of the Manicheans had both infected and penetrated very many, whether citizens or foreigners, a certain priest of that heresy named Fortunatus seducing and deceiving them, who was dwelling and remaining there.

6. 2. Meanwhile the Christian citizens and foreigners of Hippo, both catholics and also Donatists, went to the priest and demanded that he see that Manichean priest, whom they believed learned, and dispute with him about the Law.

6. 3. He, being, as it is written, ready to make an answer to everyone who asks of him a reason concerning the faith and hope that is in God (1 Pet 3:15), and able to exhort in sound doctrine and to confute those who contradict (Titus 1:9), by no means refused. But he inquired whether the other too wished this to be done.

6. 4. They at once brought this to Fortunatus himself, asking and exhorting and demanding that he by no means refuse it. But since this same Fortunatus had already known holy Augustine at Carthage while he was still established in the same error with him, he was afraid to meet with him.

6. 5. Nevertheless, compelled and shamed chiefly by the insistence of his own people, he promised that he would come to a face-to-face encounter and undergo the contest of disputation.

6. 6. Whence, on the appointed day and place, they came together into one place, with very many eager people and curious crowds gathering, and with the notaries' tablets open, the disputation was both begun on the first day and finished on the second.

6. 7. In it that Manichean teacher, as the record of the proceedings attests, could neither overthrow the catholic affirmation nor was he able to prove that the sect of the Manicheans rested upon truth; but, failing in his final response, he went on to say that he would lay before his elders the things he could not refute, and that, if perchance they did not satisfy him concerning these matters, he would take counsel for his own soul. And so he was judged by all, among whom he had seemed great and learned, to have availed nothing in the defense of his sect.

6. 8. Affected by this confusion, and afterward departing from the city of Hippo, he did not return to it again; and so, through the aforesaid man of God, that error was taken away from the hearts of all—whether of those who were present, or of those who, being absent, had come to know what had been done—and the catholic religion was made known in its purity and held fast.

7. 1. And he taught and preached, privately and publicly, in the house and in the church, the word of salvation with all confidence (Acts 4:29) against the African heresies, and chiefly against the Donatists, the Manicheans, and the pagans, by books composed and by extemporaneous discourses, while the Christians admired him beyond words and praised him, and did not keep silent about this very thing where they could, but spread it abroad.

7. 2. And by the gift of God the catholic Church in Africa began to lift up her head, she who for a long time, while those heretics were growing strong—especially the party of Donatus rebaptizing the greater multitude of Africans—lay seduced and pressed down and oppressed.

7. 3. And these books and treatises of his, coming forth and flowing on by the wonderful grace of God, furnished with an abundance of reasoning and with the authority of the holy Scriptures, the heretics themselves, flocking together with the catholics, listened to with great ardor; and anyone who wished and was able employed notaries who took down and transcribed what was said.

7. 4. And thereupon, throughout the whole body of Africa, the illustrious teaching and the most sweet fragrance of Christ were spread abroad and made manifest, the Church of God across the sea also rejoicing together at the news. For just as while one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, so when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together (1 Cor 12:26).

8. 1. But that blessed old man Valerius, rejoicing more than the rest on this account and giving thanks to God for the special benefit granted to him, began to fear—as the human mind does—lest Augustine, sought for the episcopate by another church deprived of its priest, be taken away from him; and this indeed would have come to pass, had not the bishop, learning of it, taken care to have Augustine move to a secret place, and, by hiding him, brought it about that he was not found at all by those who sought him.

8. 2. Whence this same venerable old man, fearing more, and knowing himself to be most infirm in body and in age, treated by secret letters with the primate of the bishops at Carthage, alleging the weakness of his body and the burden of his age, and beseeching that a bishop be ordained for the Church of Hippo, so that Augustine might come not so much to succeed to his see as to be added as a fellow priest. And, exerting himself for what he desired and asked, he obtained it by a written reply.

8. 3. And afterward, when Megalius, bishop of Calama, then primate of Numidia, had been asked to make a visitation and was coming to the Church of Hippo, the prelate Valerius made known his wish—unexpected to all—to the bishops who happened then to be present, and to all the clergy of Hippo, and to the whole people. And while all who heard rejoiced and cried out with great desire that this be done and accomplished, the priest refused to take up the episcopate, contrary to the custom of the Church, while his own bishop was living.

8. 4. And while it was urged upon him by all that this was wont to be done, and while he, being unaware of it, was challenged by examples of churches across the sea and in Africa, he gave way, compelled and constrained, and took up ordination to the higher office.

8. 5. That this ought not afterward to have been done in his case, namely that he be ordained while his own bishop was living, he both said and wrote (Letter 213, n. 4), on account of the prohibition of a universal council, which, once ordained, he had learned; nor did he wish to be done to others what he grieved had been done to himself.

8. 6. Whence he also exerted himself that it might be established by councils of bishops that the ordainers ought to bring to the notice of those to be ordained, or those already ordained, all the statutes of the priests; and so it was done.

9. 1. And as bishop he preached the word of eternal salvation (Acts 13:26) much more insistently and fervently, with greater authority, no longer in one region only but wherever, being asked, he had come, eagerly and diligently, as the Church of the Lord sprang up and grew (Acts 6:7), ever ready to render to those who asked a reason concerning the faith and hope that is in God. And his sayings and the records taken down, especially the Donatists dwelling in that same city of Hippo or in the neighboring one, brought to their own bishops.

9. 2. When these had heard them, and perchance said something in reply, they were either refuted by their own people, or those same responses were brought to holy Augustine; and these, once learned, he worked out the salvation of men patiently and gently and, as it is written, with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12): showing how they neither wished nor were able to refute anything of his, and how true and manifest is what the faith of the Church of God holds and has learned. And these things were done by him continually, by day and by night.

9. 3. For he also sent private letters to certain eminent bishops of that same error, and to laymen, giving a reason and admonishing and exhorting them either to correct themselves of that depravity, or at least to come to a disputation.

9. 4. But they, from distrust of their cause, never even wished to write back; rather, in their anger they spoke furiously, and both privately and publicly proclaimed that Augustine was a seducer and a deceiver of souls; and they said and treated him as a wolf to be killed in defense of their flock (Matt 7:15); and that it was to be believed without doubt that all sins could be forgiven by God to those who had been able to do and accomplish this, neither fearing God nor feeling shame before men (Luke 18:4). And he labored that the distrust of their cause might become known to all; and, summoned by public proceedings, they did not dare to confer.

10. 1. These same Donatists had also, throughout almost all their churches, an unheard-of kind of men, perverse and violent, who walked about as it were under a profession of continence, and were called Circumcellions. And they were established in great number and in crowds throughout almost all the regions of Africa.

10. 2. Imbued by evil teachers, with proud audacity and unlawful rashness, they spared at no time either their own or others, intervening against right and divine law in the affairs of unwary men; and unless these obeyed, they were afflicted with the gravest losses and slaughter, while the Circumcellions, armed with various weapons, raged through fields and farmsteads, not fearing to go even to the shedding of blood.

10. 3. But while the word of God was being diligently preached, and a reckoning of peace was kept with those who hated peace, they, as they spoke, made war without cause (Ps 120:7 (119:7)).

10. 4. And when the truth became known against their teaching, those who wished and were able either snatched themselves away from it or withdrew, and clung, with such of their own people as they could, to the peace and unity of the Church.

10. 5. Whence those men, seeing the congregations of their error diminished, and envying the increases of the Church, blazed up, kindled with the gravest anger, and, banded together, inflicted intolerable persecutions upon the unity of the Church; and they brought upon the catholic priests and ministers themselves daily and nightly assaults and the plundering of all their goods.

10. 6. For they also maimed many servants of God by their beatings. On some they even cast lime mixed with vinegar into their eyes, and others they killed. Whence these same Donatist rebaptizers came to be hated even by their own people.

11. 1. Moreover, as the divine teaching advanced, those serving God in the monastery under holy Augustine and with holy Augustine began to be ordained clergy for the Church of Hippo.

11. 2. And then, as the truth of the catholic Church's preaching became known and grew clear from day to day, and the resolve, continence, and profound poverty of the holy servants of God likewise, the peace and unity of the Church both began at first to ask and to receive, with great desire, bishops and clergy from the monastery which had begun to exist and to grow through that memorable man, and afterward obtained them.

11. 3. For about ten holy and venerable men, continent and learned, whom I myself knew, the most blessed Augustine, being asked, gave to various churches, some of them also to the more eminent ones.

11. 4. And in like manner these men too, coming from the resolve of those holy ones, when the churches of the Lord had been spread, both established monasteries; and, with zeal for the building up of the word of God increasing, they furnished brothers, promoted to the other churches, to take up the priesthood.

11. 5. Whence, as the saving teaching of the faith, hope, and charity of the Church became known through many and in many places, not only throughout all the parts of Africa but also across the sea, and through books published and translated into the Greek tongue, all these things, by God's favor, were granted to become known—from that one man, and that man through many.

11. 6. And hence, as it is written, the sinner, seeing it, was angry; he gnashed with his teeth and wasted away (Ps 112:10 (111:10)): but your servants, as it is said, were peaceable with those who hated peace; and when they spoke, war was made upon them without cause by them (Ps 120:7 (119:7)).

12. 1. Sometimes, indeed, these same armed Circumcellions also beset the roads against the servant of God, Augustine, when he happened to be going, at request, to visit, instruct, and exhort the catholic congregations—which he did very frequently.

12. 2. And it once happened that those who had been set in ambush failed of their capture: for it came about, by God's providence indeed, but by the error of the man who was his guide, that the priest came by another road with his companions to where he was bound, and by this error, which he afterward recognized, escaped their impious hands. And when he had given thanks with all to God his deliverer—and they, after their manner, spared neither laymen nor clergy at all, as the public records attest.

12. 3. Meanwhile, this must not be passed over in silence, which to the praise of God was done and accomplished through the zeal of that man so distinguished in the Church and through his zeal for the house of God (Ps 69:9 (68:10)) against the aforesaid Donatist rebaptizers.

12. 4. When one of those whom he had furnished as bishops to the Church from his own monastery and clergy happened to be visiting the diocese of the Church of Calama, which belonged to his care, and to be preaching what he had learned for the peace of the Church against that heresy, it came about that in the middle of the journey he fell into their ambush, and they, having overrun him with all who accompanied him, and carrying off the animals and goods, afflicted him with injuries and the gravest beating.

12. 5. About this matter, lest the progress of the Church's peace be further hindered, the defender of the Church did not keep silent before the law. And Crispinus, who was bishop of those same Donatists in the city and region of Calama—long renowned, indeed, and learned—was ordered to be held to the fine in gold established by the public laws against heretics.

12. 6. He, resisting the laws, when, brought before the proconsul, he denied that he was a heretic, a necessity arose that, the defender of the Church withdrawing, he be opposed by the catholic bishop and convicted of being what he had denied himself to be: for if it were left unchallenged by him, perhaps the catholic bishop might be believed a heretic by those who did not know, since the other denied being what he was, and thus from this negligence a scandal would arise for the weak (1 Cor 8:9).

12. 7. And with the memorable prelate Augustine pressing the matter in every way, both those bishops of Calama came to the controversy and held a contest with each other a third time concerning their differing communion, a great multitude of Christian peoples awaiting the outcome of the case, both at Carthage and throughout all Africa; and that Crispinus was pronounced a heretic by the proconsular sentence and by a written ruling.

12. 8. On his behalf the catholic bishop interceded before the judge, that the fine in gold not be exacted; and the favor was obtained for him. Whence, when Crispinus, ungrateful, had appealed to the most devout emperor, both the due reply to the report was given by the emperor, and consequently it was decreed that the Donatist heretics ought to have no standing place at all, and that they ought everywhere to be held to the force of all the laws passed against heretics.

12. 9. As a result of this, both the judge, and the staff, and Crispinus himself, because the fine had not at all been exacted, were ordered to pay ten pounds of gold each to the treasury. But at once effort was made by the catholic bishops, especially by Augustine of holy memory, that that condemnation of them all be remitted by the indulgence of the emperor; and, with the Lord's help, it was accomplished. By this diligence and holy zeal the Church grew greatly.

13. 1. And for all these things done for the peace of the Church, the Lord both gave Augustine the palm here and laid up for him with himself the crown of righteousness (1 Cor 9:25); and more and more, with Christ's help, the unity of peace and the brotherhood of the Church of God were increased and multiplied from day to day (Acts 5:14).

13. 2. And this came about chiefly after the conference which was afterward held by all the catholic bishops at Carthage with those same bishops of the Donatists, at the command of the most glorious and most devout emperor Honorius; for the accomplishing of which he had also sent from his own side the tribune and notary Marcellinus to Africa as judge.

13. 3. In that controversy they, confuted in every way and convicted of error by the catholics, were marked by the sentence of the judge; and after their appeal, they were condemned by the reply of the most devout emperor as unjust among the heretics.

13. 4. For which reason their bishops, more than was usual, entered into communion with their clergy and congregations, and, holding the catholic peace, endured many persecutions from them, even to the amputation of limbs and to slaughter.

13. 5. And all that good work, as I have said, through that holy man, with our bishops consenting and likewise exerting themselves, was both begun and accomplished.

14. 1. Moreover, since after that conference which was held with the Donatists there were not lacking those who said that these same bishops had not been permitted to say everything for their side before the authority that heard the case, because the judge, being of catholic communion, favored his own Church:

14. 2. although, failing and defeated, they boasted this by way of excuse—since even before the controversy these same heretics had known that he was of catholic communion, and, when they were summoned by him through public proceedings to appear at the conference, they had undertaken that they would do so. They could certainly, if they held him suspect, have refused the encounter.

14. 3. Nevertheless almighty God provided his help, so that afterward, when Augustine of venerable memory was at the city of Caesarea in Mauretania—where letters of the Apostolic See had compelled him to come, together with others of his fellow bishops, in order, namely, to settle other needs of the Church:

14. 4. on this occasion, then, it came about that he saw Emeritus, the Donatist bishop of that place, whom they had had as the chief defender of their sect in that conference, and disputed publicly with him in the church, with the people of the differing communion standing by, on this very point, and challenged him by ecclesiastical proceedings: that whatever he could perhaps have set forth at the conference, as they said, but had not been permitted to, he should now have no hesitation in saying freely, without the prohibition or power of any authority, and should not have refused, in his own city, with all his fellow citizens present, to defend his own communion with confidence.

14. 5. He, neither by this exhortation nor by the urgent request of his own kinsmen and fellow citizens, was willing to do this—they who promised him that they would return to his communion, even at the risk of their patrimonies and of their temporal welfare, if only he should overcome the catholic affirmation.

14. 6. But he was neither willing nor able to say anything further in those proceedings, except only: "The proceedings drawn up at Carthage among the bishops already contain whether we have won or have been defeated."

14. 7. And in another place, when he was admonished by the notary to reply, he said, "Proceed"; and when he kept silent, his distrust being made manifest to all, increases and supports came to the Church of God. Whoever, then, wishes to know more fully the diligence and labor of Augustine of most blessed memory on behalf of the state of the Church of God, let him also run through those proceedings: and he will find what things, and of what kind, Augustine brought forward, by which he challenged that learned, eloquent, and renowned man, and exhorted him to declare what he wished in defense of his side; and he will recognize that the man was defeated.

15. 1. I likewise know—and not I alone, but also other brothers and fellow servants who then lived with us within the Church of Hippo together with that same holy man—that, while we were seated together at table, he said to us:

15. 2. "Did you notice today in the church that my sermon, both its beginning and its end, proceeded contrary to my custom, since I did not bring to completion the matter I had set out, but left it hanging?"

15. 3. We replied to him: "We know and acknowledge that we wondered at it at the time." But he said: "I believe that perhaps the Lord wished some erring person in the congregation to be taught and healed through our forgetfulness and error—in whose hand are both we and our words (Wis 7:16).

15. 4. For while I was treating the hidden depths of the question I had set out, I went off in the course of my discourse onto another matter, and so, with the question neither concluded nor explained, I ended the disputation, arguing rather against the error of the Manicheans—about which I had resolved to say nothing—than about the things I had proposed to maintain."

15. 5. And after this, unless I am mistaken, behold, on another day, or two days later, there came a certain man named Firmus, a merchant; and while holy Augustine was sitting within the monastery, in our presence, he threw himself down at his feet, prostrate on his knees, pouring out tears, and asking that the priest, together with the holy ones, pray to the Lord for his offenses (Sir 39:5), confessing that he had followed the sect of the Manicheans, and had lived in it very many years, and on that account had paid out much money in vain to the Manicheans themselves, or to those whom they call the elect; and that in the church, by the mercy of God, he had recently been corrected by Augustine's discourses and made a catholic.

15. 6. And both the venerable Augustine himself, and we who were then present, inquiring diligently of him from what part of that discourse, especially, he had been satisfied, and as he related it and we all recognized the sequence of the sermon, marveling and astonished at the deep counsel of God for the salvation of souls, we glorified his holy name and blessed him (See Ps 86:9-12 (85:9-12))—he who, when he wills, and from what he wills, and in what manner he wills, both through those who know and through those who do not know, works the salvation of souls.

15. 7. And from then on that man, clinging to the resolve of the servants of God, gave up the business of a merchant, and, making progress among the members of the Church, in another region was also sought and constrained, by the will of God, to take up the office of the priesthood, holding and guarding the holiness of his resolve; and perhaps he is still living to this day among human affairs, established across the sea.

16. 1. At Carthage too, when, through a certain steward of the royal household named Ursus, a man of the catholic faith, certain of the Manicheans—whom they call the elect, male and female—were reached and brought and led to the church by him, they were heard by the bishops, with the record taken down.

16. 2. Among these was also Augustine of holy memory, who beyond the rest knew that execrable sect; and, exposing their damnable blasphemies of this kind from passages of the books which those Manicheans accept, he brought them to the point of confessing those same blasphemies; and the unworthy and shameful things which, after their evil manner, they were accustomed to do among themselves were declared in those ecclesiastical proceedings by the disclosure of those women, the so-called elect.

16. 3. And so, by the diligence of the shepherds, both an increase came to the Lord's flock, and a fitting defense was procured against the thieves and robbers (John 10:1, 8).

16. 4. With a certain Felix too, of the number of those whom the Manicheans call the elect, he disputed publicly in the church of Hippo, with notaries taking it down and the people standing by; and after the second or third conference that Manichean, the vanity and error of his very sect having been frustrated, was converted to our faith and Church, as that same writing, when read over, can show.

17. 1. Moreover, with a certain Arian named Pascentius, a count of the royal household, who, through the authority of his position, being a most vehement collector for the treasury, attacked the catholic faith savagely and continually, and harassed and disturbed very many priests of God who lived in a simpler faith, by his sharp tongue and his power—at Carthage, challenged by him, with honorable and noble men interposed, Augustine held a face-to-face conference.

17. 2. But this same heretic refused in every way that the tablets and pen—which our master both before the encounter and during the encounter most insistently wished to be present—should be there. And when he had utterly refused this, saying that out of fear of the public laws he was unwilling to put himself in danger by written tablets, and Bishop Augustine, with the fellow priests who were present, saw that it pleased the others that they dispute privately without any writing, he took up the conference, foretelling—as afterward came to pass—that after the meeting was concluded it might perhaps be open to anyone, with no documentary proof, to say that he had said what perhaps he had not said, or had not said what he had said.

17. 3. And he engaged him in discourse, and affirmed what he believed, and heard from the other what he held, and, by true reasoning and the authority of the Scriptures, taught and showed the proven supports of our faith; but the other's assertions, propped up by no truth and by no authority of the holy Scriptures, he refuted and brought to nothing.

17. 4. And when the parties had withdrawn from one another, that man, more and more angry and raging, boasted many lies on behalf of his false faith, proclaiming that Augustine, praised by the mouths of many, had been defeated by him.

17. 5. Since these things were by no means hidden, Augustine was compelled to write to Pascentius himself—out of fear of him, omitting the names of those conferring—and in that letter he faithfully set forth whatever had been said or done between the parties: having, to prove these things if they should be denied, a great supply of witnesses, namely the most distinguished and honorable men who were then present.

17. 6. And he, to the two writings directed to him, scarcely returned one reply, in which he was able rather to do injury than to set forth the reasoning of his sect. This is proved to those who wish and are able to read it.

17. 7. With a certain Maximinus too, a bishop of those same Arians, coming to Africa with the Goths, he held a conference at Hippo, with very many wishing and asking for it, and with distinguished men interposed; and what each party affirmed has been written down.

17. 8. If the studious take care to read these things diligently, they will without doubt track down either what the cunning and irrational heresy professes for seducing and deceiving, or what the catholic Church holds and preaches concerning the divine Trinity.

17. 9. But since that heretic, returning from Hippo to Carthage, boasted, out of his great loquacity in the conference, that he had withdrawn the victor from that very conference, and lied—matters which certainly could not easily be examined and judged by those ignorant of the divine law—a recapitulation of that entire conference, dealing with the several objections and replies, was made by the venerable Augustine's pen in the time that followed, and it was nonetheless demonstrated how the other could make no reply to the objections, with supplements added which in the narrow span of the conference could by no means all be brought in and written. For the man's wickedness had brought it about that, by his very long concluding speech, he occupied the whole remaining space of the day.

18. 1. Against the Pelagians too, the new heretics of our times and cunning disputants, writing with a craft more subtle and harmful, and speaking wherever they could, publicly and from house to house (Acts 20:20), he labored for nearly ten years, composing and publishing many books, and very frequently disputing about that same error before the people in the church.

18. 2. And since these same perverse men were trying, through their ambition, to persuade the Apostolic See of that same perfidy, it was also most insistently brought about in the African councils of the holy bishops that the holy pope of the City—first the venerable Innocent, and afterward the holy Zosimus, his successor—should be persuaded how much that sect was to be abominated and condemned by the catholic faith.

18. 3. And those prelates of so great a see, marking these same men at their several times, and cutting them off from the members of the Church, by letters given both to the African churches and to those of the West and of the East, decreed that they were to be anathematized and shunned by all catholics.

18. 4. And such a judgment concerning them having been pronounced by the catholic Church of God, the most devout emperor Honorius too, hearing and following it, decreed that they, condemned by his laws, ought to be reckoned among the heretics.

18. 5. Whence some of them returned to the bosom of holy mother the Church, from which they had sprung back, and still others are returning, as the truth of the right faith becomes known and prevails against that detestable error.

18. 6. And that memorable man, a chief member of the Lord's body, was always solicitous and ever watchful for the good of the universal Church.

18. 7. And it was divinely granted to him that he came to rejoice over the fruit of his labors even in this life: first, indeed, in the region of the Church of Hippo, over which he chiefly presided, in unity and peace made perfect; then in other parts of Africa, whether through himself or through others, and through the priests he himself had given, perceiving that the Church of the Lord had sprung up and been multiplied, and rejoicing that those Manicheans, Donatists, Pelagians, and pagans had for a great part fallen away and been joined to the Church of God.

18. 8. He was also favorable to and rejoiced in the advances and pursuits of all good people; piously and devoutly bearing with the want of discipline among the brethren, and groaning over the iniquities of the wicked, whether of those who are within the Church or of those who are set outside it; always, as I have said, rejoicing in the Lord's gains and mourning over his losses.

18. 9. So many things, moreover, were dictated and published by him, and so many things disputed in the church, taken down and corrected—whether against the various heretics or expounded from the canonical books for the building up of the holy children of the Church—that scarcely anyone of the studious is able to read through and know them all.

18. 10. Nevertheless, lest I seem in any way to defraud those most eager for the word of truth (2 Cor 6:7), I have determined, with God's help, to append at the end of this little work a short list of those same books, treatises, and letters; so that, when it is read, whoever loves the truth of God more than temporal riches may each choose for himself what he wishes to read and know, and may either ask for it to be copied from the library of the Church of Hippo, where more accurate copies can perhaps be found, or seek it where he wishes, and, having found it, copy it and have it, and himself also, without grudging, grant it to one who asks for it to be copied.

19. 1. According also to the saying of the Apostle, who says: When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare to go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life! If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are of no account in the Church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? (1 Cor 6:1-6).

19. 2. Being appealed to, then, by Christians, or by men of any sect, he heard cases diligently and devoutly, having before his eyes the saying of a certain man who said that he would rather hear cases between strangers than between friends: because of strangers he could gain as a friend the one for whom judgment was given by an impartial equity; but of friends he was bound to lose the one against whom the sentence was pronounced.

19. 3. And these cases—sometimes up to the hour of his meal, but sometimes fasting the whole day—he nevertheless always examined and settled, attending in them to the movements of the Christians' minds, how far each made progress in faith and good morals, or fell away from them.

19. 4. And when occasions arose, he taught the parties the truth of the divine law and impressed it upon them, and instructed and admonished them by what means they might attain eternal life (Mark 10:17): seeking nothing else from those for whom he had time for this but only obedience and Christian devotion, which is owed both to God and to men; reproving those who sinned before all, that the rest might have fear (1 Tim 5:20).

19. 5. And he did this as a watchman appointed by the Lord for the house of Israel (Ezek 33:7), preaching the word and being urgent in season and out of season, reproving, exhorting, rebuking, in all patience and teaching (2 Tim 4:2); and especially he gave effort to instructing those who were fit also to teach others (2 Tim 2:2).

19. 6. Being asked also by some in their temporal affairs, he gave letters to various people. But this occupation of his, drawn away from better things, he reckoned as a kind of forced labor, always finding sweet, in matters that are God's, either the address or the conversation of brotherly and household familiarity.

20. 1. We know also that he did not grant to his dearest friends the intercession by letter, requested of him before the powers of this world, saying that the saying of a certain wise man was to be observed, of whom it was written that, out of regard for his reputation, he did not grant many things to friends; and adding nonetheless this saying of his own, that very often the power that is sought presses hard.

20. 2. But when he saw that intercession ought to be made, having been asked, he did it so honorably and temperately that he not only did not seem burdensome and troublesome but even stood out as admirable. For when, a necessity having arisen, he intervened after his manner by letters on behalf of a suppliant before a certain vicar of Africa named Macedonius, and that man had complied, he sent back a reply in this manner:

20. 3. "I am moved in a wonderful way by your wisdom, both in those things which you have published and in those which, interceding, you do not find it burdensome to send on behalf of the troubled.

20. 4. For the former have so much acuteness, learning, and holiness that nothing could surpass them; and the latter so much modesty that, unless I do what you bid, I would judge the fault to remain with me, not in the matter, my lord deservedly venerable and father to be embraced.

20. 5. For you do not press (as most men of that office do) to extort whatever the petitioner has wished; but what has seemed to you, a judge bound by so many cares, fit to be asked, you suggest with a modesty that serves your request—which is the greatest efficacy in difficult matters among good men. Accordingly I have at once granted to your recommendations the fulfillment of their desire: for I had opened the way of hope beforehand" (See Augustine, Letter 152, n. 3).

21. 1. The councils of the holy priests held throughout the various provinces he attended when he could; seeking in them not the things that are his own, but the things that are Jesus Christ's (Phil 2:21); so that either the faith of the holy catholic Church might remain inviolate, or some priests and clergy who had been excommunicated, whether rightly or wrongly, might be either absolved or cast out.

21. 2. But in ordaining priests and clergy he judged that the wider consensus of the Christians and the custom of the Church ought to be followed.

22. 1. His clothing and footwear and bedding were of a moderate and fitting style, neither too elegant nor too mean: because by these things men are wont, for the most part, either to show themselves off insolently or to debase themselves, in both cases seeking not the things that are Jesus Christ's but their own (Phil 2:21): but he, as I said, held to the middle, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left (Num 20:17; Deut 2:27).

22. 2. He kept a frugal and sparing table, which indeed, amid herbs and vegetables, also had meat sometimes on account of guests or the more infirm, but always had wine. For he knew, and taught, as the Apostle says, that everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim 4:4-5).

22. 3. And, as that same holy Augustine set down in his books of Confessions, saying: "I do not fear the uncleanness of food, but the uncleanness of desire. I know that Noah was permitted to eat every kind of flesh that was of use for food (Gen 9:2-3); that Elijah was refreshed with the food of flesh (1 Kgs 17:6); that John, endowed with marvelous abstinence, was not defiled by the animals—that is, the locusts—that fell to him as food (Matt 3:4). I know too that Esau was deceived by his craving for lentils (Gen 25:29-34); that David reproached himself on account of his longing for water (2 Sam 23:15-17); and that our King was tempted not concerning flesh, but concerning bread (Luke 4:3). And therefore the people in the desert too deserved to be reproved, not because they desired flesh, but because, out of their desire for food, they murmured against the Lord (Num 11:4-34)" (Confessions 10.31.46).

22. 4. But concerning the taking of wine there is the saying of the Apostle, writing to Timothy and saying: No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments (1 Tim 5:23).

22. 5. Using only silver spoons, the other vessels in which food was brought to the table were of earthenware, or wood, or marble: not, however, from the want of necessity, but by deliberate choice of will.

22. 6. But he also always showed hospitality. And at the table itself he loved reading or discussion more than feasting and drinking. And against the pestilence of human custom he had inscribed there thus: Whoever loves to gnaw with his words the life of the absent, let him know that this table is unworthy of him. And therefore he admonished that every guest ought to abstain from superfluous and harmful tales.

22. 7. For some of his most intimate fellow bishops, having forgotten that inscription and speaking against it, he sometimes rebuked so sharply, being moved, that he said either that those verses must be erased from the table, or that he would rise in the middle of the meal and go to his own room. This both I and others who were present at that table have experienced.

23. 1. He was always mindful of the fellow poor, and gave out to them from the same source from which he provided for himself and all who lived with him: that is, either from the revenues of the Church's possessions, or also from the offerings of the faithful.

23. 2. And when perchance (as commonly happens) ill will arose against the clergy on account of those very possessions, he would address the people of God, saying that he would rather live from the contributions of the people of God than endure the care or governance of those possessions, and that he was ready to give them up, so that all the servants and ministers of God might live in the manner in which we read in the Old Testament (Deut 18:1-5) that those serving the altar shared from the same. But the laity never wished to take this up.

24. 1. The care of the Church's house and all its substance he delegated and entrusted, by turns, to the more capable clergy. Never having a key, never a ring, in his hand: but by those same superintendents of the house all that was received and disbursed was noted down; which, when the year was completed, was read out to him, so that it might be known how much had been received, and how much disbursed, or what remained to be disbursed; and in many entries he followed rather the good faith of that superintendent of the house than knowing it proved and made plain.

24. 2. He never wished to buy a house, a field, or a farm. But if perchance something of the kind was either freely given to the Church by anyone, or left to it under title of a bequest, he did not refuse it, but ordered it to be accepted.

24. 3. For we know that he refused some inheritances too, not because they could be useless to the poor, but because he saw it to be just and fair that they be possessed rather by the sons, parents, or kinsmen of the dead, to whom those departing had been unwilling to leave them.

24. 4. A certain man, too, of the honorable men of Hippo, living at Carthage, wished to give a possession to the Church of Hippo, and, having drawn up the deeds and retained for himself the use and produce, of his own accord sent them to that same Augustine of holy memory: whose offering he gladly accepted, congratulating him that he was mindful of his eternal salvation.

24. 5. But after some years, when we happened to be with him in person, behold, that donor, sending a letter through his son, asked that those deeds of donation be returned to his son; but he directed that a hundred solidi be given out to the poor.

24. 6. When that holy man learned of this, he groaned that the man had either feigned the donation or had repented of his good work, and, as God prompted his heart, he said as much as he could, with grief of soul, concerning that withdrawal—namely, for the man's rebuke and correction.

24. 7. And the deeds which the man had sent of his own accord, neither desired nor demanded, he at once returned, and rejected that money; and by his reply he both reproved and rebuked him, as was fitting, admonishing him to make satisfaction to God for his pretense or iniquity by the humility of penance, lest he depart from this world with so grave an offense.

24. 8. He also said quite frequently that the Church ought more safely and securely to accept legacies left by the deceased than inheritances that were perhaps troublesome and ruinous; and that those very legacies ought rather to be offered than demanded.

24. 9. Things entrusted for safekeeping he himself did not accept, but he did not forbid clergy who wished to accept them.

24. 10. In those things too which the Church had and possessed, he was not intent through love or entangled: but, held aloft and clinging rather to greater and spiritual things, he sometimes relaxed himself toward those temporal matters from the contemplation of eternal things (2 Cor 4:18) and set them down.

24. 11. When these had been arranged and ordered by him, then, as if from biting and troublesome matters, he made his mind run back to the interior of his mind and to higher things; where he might either think about discovering divine things, or dictate something about those already discovered, or at least correct something from things already dictated and transcribed. And this he did, laboring by day and working by lamplight at night.

24. 12. And he was like that most devout Mary, bearing the type of the Church above, of whom it is written that she sat at the feet of the Lord and listened intently to his word: about whom her sister complained, that, being occupied about much serving, she was not helped by her, and heard: Martha, Martha, Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her (Luke 10:38-42).

24. 13. For he never had a zeal for new buildings, avoiding in them the entanglement of his mind, which he always wished to keep free from every temporal trouble: yet he did not forbid those who wished to build, except only the immoderate.

24. 14. Meanwhile, when the Church's money ran short, he announced this very thing to the Christian people, that he had nothing to give out to the needy.

24. 15. For he ordered that even some of the vessels of the Lord, on account of captives and very many in need, be broken up and melted down, and distributed to the needy.

24. 16. This I would not have mentioned, except that I saw it being done against the carnal understanding of some. And Ambrose of venerable memory both said and wrote that this very thing ought without doubt to be done in such necessities (See Ambrose, On Duties 2.28.136-43).

24. 17. But he also sometimes admonished, speaking in the church, about the treasury and the sacristy being neglected by the faithful, from which the things necessary for the altar were to be supplied: which he had once related to us that the most blessed Ambrose too had dealt with in the church in his presence.

25. 1. The clergy were always with him, fed and clothed in one house and at one table and from common expenses.

25. 2. And lest anyone, by easy swearing, fall even into perjury, he both preached to the people in the church and had instructed his own household that no one should swear, not even at table. And if anyone, slipping, did so, he lost one of the appointed drinks: for there was a fixed number of cups for those dwelling and dining with him.

25. 3. The lapses of discipline and transgressions of his household from the right and honorable rule he both reproved and bore with, as far as was becoming and fitting: in such matters teaching especially that no one's heart should be turned aside to malicious words, to make excuses for sins (Ps 141:4 (140:4)).

25. 4. And that when anyone offers his gift at the altar, and there remembers that his brother has something against him, the gift is to be left at the altar, and one is to go to be reconciled to his brother, and then to come and offer the gift at the altar (Matt 5:23-24). But if he himself had something against his brother, he ought to rebuke him in private; and if he heard him, he had gained his brother; but if not, one or two were to be brought in; and if he scorned these too, the Church was to be brought in; but if he would not obey this either, he should be to him as a gentile and a tax collector.

25. 5. And adding this, that to a brother who sins and asks pardon the offense is to be forgiven not seven times, but seventy times seven (Matt 18:15-17, 21-22), just as each one daily asks of the Lord that it be forgiven to himself (Matt 6:12).

26. 1. No woman ever dwelt within his house, none remained there—not even his own sister, who, serving God as a widow for a long time, lived as superior of the handmaids of God until the day of her death. Nor even his brother's daughters, who likewise served God: persons whom the councils of the holy bishops placed among the exceptions.

26. 2. But he said that, although no evil suspicion could arise concerning a sister and nieces dwelling with him, nevertheless, since those persons could not be without other necessary women remaining with them, and since other women would also come in from outside to them, from these a stumbling block or scandal might arise for the weaker (1 Cor 8:9); and that those who happened to remain with a bishop or any clergyman might, from all those women dwelling together or coming as visitors, either perish through human temptations, or at least be most grievously slandered by the evil suspicions of men.

26. 3. For this reason, then, he said that women ought never to remain in one house together with the servants of God, even the most chaste, lest, as has been said, by such an example some scandal or stumbling block be set before the weaker; and if perchance he was asked by some women to be seen or greeted, they never came in to him without clergy as witnesses, nor did he ever speak alone with women alone, unless some confidential matter was involved.

27. 1. In his visitations he kept the measure defined by the Apostle, that he visit only orphans and widows set in their tribulations (Jas 1:27).

27. 2. And if perchance he was asked by the sick for this, that he pray the Lord for them in their presence and lay hands on them, he went without delay.

27. 3. But the monasteries of women he visited only when necessities pressed.

27. 4. He also reported that there ought to be observed, in the life and conduct of a man of God, what he had learned in the practice of Ambrose of holy memory: that he should never ask a wife for anyone, nor recommend one wishing to enter military service for this, nor go to a banquet in his own homeland when invited.

27. 5. He gave reasons for each of these things: namely, lest, when married couples quarreled among themselves, they curse the one through whom they had been joined; but that the priest plainly ought to be present, when asked, for those already consenting to this, in order that their agreements or pledges might be confirmed or blessed. And lest one recommended for military service and behaving badly have his fault attributed to the one who supported him. And lest, through frequenting banquets in his homeland, the measure of temperance be lost.

27. 6. He had also told us that he had heard a most wise and most devout reply of the aforesaid man of blessed memory, set at the end of his life, and he praised and proclaimed it greatly.

27. 7. For when that venerable man lay in his last illness, and the honorable faithful were standing by his bed and seeing that he would pass from this world to God, and were grieving on this account that the Church could be deprived of so great and such a prelate, of the dispensing of the word and sacrament of God, and he was asked with tears that he beg of the Lord a furlough of life for himself, he said to them: "I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live among you; but neither do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord."

27. 8. And in these words our aged Augustine admired and praised the polished and weighed words. For he said that it must be understood that the man had said, "Neither do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord," lest he be believed to have, out of overconfidence about his own most pure conduct, prefaced it with: "I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live among you." For he had said this with reference to what men could know of a man. But before the scrutiny of divine equity, he trusted rather in the good Lord: to whom also, in the daily prayer of the Lord, he said: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12).

27. 9. He also very frequently related the saying of a certain fellow bishop and most intimate friend of his, made at the end of his life, on such matters: to whom, when he had come to visit him as he was already drawing near to death, and the man signified by a gesture of his hand that he would depart from this world, and it was answered him by Augustine that he could still live, being necessary to the Church, the man, lest he be thought to be held by a desire for this life, replied: "If never, well; if at some time, why not now?"

27. 10. And he marveled and praised that such a saying had been uttered by a man who feared God, indeed, but was born and reared on a country estate, and not instructed by much knowledge of reading.

27. 11. In contrast, namely, to that sentiment of an ailing bishop, about which the holy martyr Cyprian, in his letter which he wrote on mortality, related thus, saying: "When one of our colleagues and fellow priests, worn out by infirmity and anxious about approaching death, prayed for a furlough for himself, there stood by him as he prayed and was now nearly dying a young man, venerable in honor and majesty, lofty in stature and bright in countenance, and one whom, standing by him, the human gaze could scarcely behold with the eyes of the flesh, except that one about to depart from this world could already see such a one: and that young man, not without a certain indignation of mind and voice, growled and said: You are afraid to suffer, you are unwilling to depart; what shall I do with you?"

28. 1. Before the day nearest to his death, he reviewed the books dictated and published by him—whether those he had dictated in the first period of his conversion while still a layman, or those as a priest, or those as a bishop: and whatever in these he recognized to have been dictated and written by him otherwise than the ecclesiastical rule holds, when he as yet knew less of ecclesiastical usage and had less understanding, were by himself both reproved and corrected. Whence he also composed two volumes, whose title is "On the Review of His Books" (Revisions).

28. 2. He complained too that certain of his books had been snatched from him by some of the brethren before a more careful emendation, although he had afterward emended them. He also left certain of his books unfinished, forestalled by death.

28. 3. And wishing to be of use to all—both to those able to read many books and to those not able—he excerpted, from each divine Testament, the Old and the New, with a preface set before, the divine precepts or prohibitions pertaining to the rule of life, and from these made a single volume; so that whoever wished might read, and in it recognize how obedient or disobedient he was to God: and this work he wished to be called the Mirror.

28. 4. But in the short time that followed, it came about, by the divine will and power, that a vast host, armed with various weapons and exercised in wars—of the savage enemy Vandals and Alans, having mingled with itself the Gothic people and persons of various other peoples—flowed in from the parts of Spain across the sea, by ships, and burst upon Africa;

28. 5. and, passing through all the regions of the two Mauretanias even to our other provinces and regions, raging with every cruelty and atrocity, it laid waste all that it could by plunder, slaughter, various tortures, burnings, and other innumerable and unspeakable evils; sparing no sex, no age, not even the priests or ministers of God themselves, nor the ornaments, furnishings, or buildings of the churches themselves.

28. 6. And this most ferocious onslaught and devastation of the enemy, that man of God perceived—both that it had been done and was being done—not as the rest of men perceived and thought, but, considering these things more deeply and profoundly, and foreseeing in them especially the perils or deaths of souls, more than was usual—since, as it is written, He who adds knowledge adds sorrow (Eccl 1:18), and: An understanding heart is a moth to the bones (See Prov 14:30)—his tears were his bread day and night (Ps 42:3 (41:4)), and he led and endured a life now nearly at the end of his old age, most bitter and mournful beyond the rest.

28. 7. For that man of God saw cities destroyed by ruin, and likewise, along with the buildings, the inhabitants of the country estates—some slain by the enemy's sword, others put to flight and scattered; churches deprived of priests and ministers, and sacred virgins and all the continent everywhere dispersed; and among these, some had failed under tortures, some had been slain by the sword, some, in captivity, having lost the integrity of soul and body and of faith, served the enemy in an evil and harsh manner;

28. 8. the hymns and praises of God had perished from the churches, the buildings of the churches in very many places had been burned up by fires, the solemn sacrifices that are owed to God had ceased from their proper places (Joel 1:9), the divine sacraments were either not sought, or, for one seeking them, one to administer them was not easily found;

28. 9. those fleeing for refuge into the very forests of the mountains, the caves of the rocks and the caverns (Heb 11:38), or to any fortifications—some had been stormed and killed, others so stripped and deprived of the necessary supports that they wasted away with hunger; and the very superintendents of the churches and the clergy, who perchance by God's favor had either not fallen in with them, or, falling in, escaped, despoiled and stripped of all their goods, begged in utter want, nor could they all be relieved in all the things by which they should be sustained;

28. 10. scarcely three churches surviving out of innumerable ones—that is, the church of Carthage, of Hippo, and of Cirta—which by God's favor were not destroyed, and their cities remain, propped up by both divine and human protection; although after his death the city of Hippo, abandoned by its inhabitants, was burned up by the enemy.

28. 11. And amid these evils he consoled himself with the saying of a certain wise man, who said: "He will not be great who thinks it a great thing that wood and stones fall, and that mortals die."

28. 12. All these things, then, he, being deeply wise, bewailed abundantly every day. And his griefs and lamentations increased, so that, while he still stood firm in his own position, the enemy came to besiege that same city of Hippo Regius: for there had then been stationed in its defense the former count Boniface with an army of allied Goths; and they besieged that city, shut up for nearly fourteen months: for they also took away from it the sea-coast by blockade.

28. 13. Thither we too had fled for refuge from nearby, with others of our fellow bishops, and we were there during the whole time of that siege. Whence we very often conversed together, and considered the fearful judgments of God set before our eyes, saying: You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right (Ps 119:137 (118:137)). And grieving, groaning, and weeping together, we prayed the Father of mercies and God of all consolation (2 Cor 1:3-4) that he would deign to relieve us in that same tribulation.

29. 1. And it happened that, seated together with him at table and conversing there, he said to us: "Know that at this time of our calamity I ask this of God: that he either deign to free this city, surrounded by the enemy, or, if something else seems good to him, make his servants strong to bear his will, or at least take me from this world to himself."

29. 2. As he said these things and instructed us, thereupon, together with him, both we and all our people and those who were in that same city likewise asked the same of the Most High God.

29. 3. And behold, in the third month of that siege he took to his bed with fevers, and was tried by that last illness. Nor indeed did the Lord defraud his servant of the fruit of his prayer. For both for himself and for that same city he obtained in due time what he had begged with tearful prayers.

29. 4. I know too that this same man, both as priest and as bishop, was asked to pray for certain persons suffering from demonic possession, and that he, pouring out tears in prayer, asked God, and the demons departed from the men.

29. 5. Likewise that a certain man came with his sick relative to him as he was ailing and confined to bed, and asked that he lay his hand on the sick one, that he might be made well; and that he answered, if he could do anything in such matters, he would surely have first granted it to himself: and that the man said he had been visited, and that it had been said to him in a dream: "Go to Augustine the bishop, that he lay his hand on him, and he will be well." When Augustine learned this, he did not delay to do it, and the Lord at once made that sick man depart from him healed.

30. 1. Meanwhile this must by no means be passed over in silence, that, when the aforesaid enemy was threatening, our fellow bishop Honoratus of the Church of Thiava consulted the holy man by letter as to whether, when they came, the bishops or clergy ought to withdraw from the churches or not: and that Augustine made known to him by a reply what was more to be feared from those destroyers of the Roman world.

30. 2. I have wished to insert his letter into this writing: for it is very useful and necessary for the conduct of the priests and ministers of God.

30. 3. "To his holy brother and fellow bishop Honoratus, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. Having sent to your charity a copy of the letter which I wrote to our brother and fellow bishop Quodvultdeus, I thought I had been freed of this burden which you laid upon me by seeking counsel as to what you ought to do in these perils which our times have brought upon us.

30. 4. For although I wrote that letter briefly, I think nevertheless that I omitted nothing that would suffice both for one answering to say and for one inquiring to hear: since I said that those who desire to migrate, if they can, to fortified places are not to be forbidden; and that the bonds of our ministry, by which the love of Christ has bound us not to desert the churches we ought to serve, are not to be broken.

30. 5. These indeed are the words I set down in that letter: It remains, then, I said, that we, whose ministry is so necessary to whatever portion of the people of God remains where we are, that it is not right for it to remain without this ministry, say to the Lord: Be for us a protecting God and a fortified place (Ps 31:3 (30:3)).

30. 6. But this counsel does not suffice for you, as you write, lest we strive to act against the precept or example of the Lord, where he warns that one must flee from city to city. For we recall the words of him who says: When they persecute you in this town, flee to another (Matt 10:23).

30. 7. But who would believe that the Lord wished this to be done in such a way that the flocks, which he purchased with his own blood, should be deserted, deprived of the necessary ministry without which they cannot live?

30. 8. Did he do this himself, when as a little child he fled into Egypt, carried by his parents (Matt 2:13-14)—he who had not yet gathered the churches, which we might say were deserted by him?

30. 9. When the apostle Paul, lest the enemy seize him, was let down in a basket through a window and escaped his hands (2 Cor 11:33), was the church that was there deserted of its necessary ministry, and was not what was needful fulfilled by other brethren established there? For the Apostle had done this at their wish, in order to preserve for the Church himself, whom that persecutor was especially seeking.

30. 10. Let the servants of Christ, then, the ministers of his word and sacrament, do what he commanded or permitted. Let them by all means flee from city to city, when any one of them is specifically sought by the persecutors, so that the church may not be deserted by others who are not so sought, but that they may furnish food to their fellow servants, who they know cannot otherwise live.

30. 11. But when the danger is common to all—that is, to bishops and clergy and laity—let those who need others not be deserted by those whom they need. Either, therefore, let all cross over to fortified places; or let those who have a necessity of remaining not be left by those through whom their ecclesiastical need is to be supplied, so that they may either live together, or together suffer what the Father of the household wills them to endure.

30. 12. But if it should happen that—whether some suffer less and others more, or all equally—it becomes clear who among them are those who suffer for others: namely, those who, when they could have snatched themselves from such evils by fleeing, preferred to remain rather than to desert the need of others. By this especially is that love proved which the apostle John commends, saying: As Christ laid down his life for us, so we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16).

30. 13. For those who flee, or who, bound by their own necessities, cannot flee, if, being captured, they suffer, they suffer for themselves, not for the brethren; but those who suffer for this reason, that they were unwilling to desert the brethren who needed them for their Christian salvation, without doubt lay down their lives for the brethren.

30. 14. Whence that which we have heard a certain bishop say: "If the Lord commanded us to flee in those persecutions where there can be the fruit of martyrdom, how much more ought we to flee fruitless sufferings, when there is an incursion of barbarians and enemies?" This is indeed true and acceptable, but for those whom the bonds of ecclesiastical office do not hold.

30. 15. For he who does not flee the enemy's destruction, though he could escape, lest he desert the ministry of Christ, without which men can neither become nor live as Christians, finds a greater fruit of love than he who, fleeing not for the sake of the brethren but for his own sake, and being captured, does not deny Christ and undergoes martyrdom.

30. 16. What, then, is it that you set down in your earlier letter? For you say: "If we must persist in the churches, I do not see what we shall profit either ourselves or the people, except that before our eyes the men fall, the women are violated, the churches are burned, and we ourselves fail under tortures, when there is demanded of us what we do not have."

30. 17. God is indeed able to hear the prayers of his household and to avert these things that are dreaded; nor, however, on account of these things, which are uncertain, ought there to be a certain desertion of our office, without which there is a certain ruin for the people—not in the things of this life, but of another, which is to be cared for with incomparably greater diligence and solicitude.

30. 18. For if those evils which are feared, lest perchance they befall in the places in which we are, were certain, all those for whose sake we must remain there would flee from there first, and would render us free from the necessity of remaining: for there is no one who would say that ministers ought to remain where there are no longer those whom they must serve.

30. 19. Thus certain holy bishops fled from Spain, after their congregations had partly slipped away in flight, partly been killed, partly been consumed by the siege, partly been scattered into captivity: but far more remained, under the same density of perils, while those for whose sake they would remain remained there. And if some deserted their congregations, this is what we say ought not to be done: for such men were not taught by divine authority, but were either deceived by human error or overcome by fear.

30. 20. For why do they think the precept is to be obeyed indiscriminately, where they read that one must flee from city to city, and yet do not shudder at the hireling, who sees the wolf coming and flees, because he has no care for the sheep (John 10:12-13)? Why do they not strive so to understand these two true sayings of the Lord—the one, namely, where flight is permitted or commanded, the other where it is reproved and blamed—that they be found not to be contrary to one another, as indeed they are not?

30. 21. And how is this found, unless one attends to what I argued above: that then, when persecution presses, the ministers of Christ ought to flee from the places in which we are, when either there is no people of Christ there to be served, or the necessary ministry can be fulfilled through others who do not have the same reason for fleeing;

30. 22. as the Apostle fled, let down in a basket, which I mentioned above (Acts 9:25), when he himself was especially sought by the persecutor, while others certainly did not have a like necessity, by whom far be it that the ministry of the Church there should be deserted; as the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, fled, when the emperor Constantius desired to seize him in particular, the catholic people who dwelt in Alexandria by no means being deserted by the other ministers.

30. 23. But when the people remain, and the ministers flee, and the ministry is withdrawn, what will it be but that damnable flight of the hirelings, who have no care for the sheep? For the wolf will come—not a man, but the devil, who has very often persuaded the faithful to be apostates, when the daily ministry of the Lord's body was lacking to them; and the weak brother, for whom Christ died, will perish, not through your knowledge but through your ignorance (1 Cor 8:11).

30. 24. But as for those who in this matter are not deceived by error, but are overcome by dread, why do they not rather, with the Lord's mercy and help, fight bravely against their fear, lest evils incomparably graver, which are much more to be dreaded, come to pass?

30. 25. This happens where the love of God blazes, not where the desire of the world smolders. For love says: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant? (2 Cor 11:29). But love is from God. Let us pray, then, that it be given by him by whom it is commanded: and through this let us fear more that the sheep of Christ be slaughtered by the sword of spiritual wickedness in the heart, than by the sword in the body, where, whenever and by whatever kind of death, they are going to die.

30. 26. Let us fear more that, the inner sense being corrupted, the chastity of faith may perish, than that women may be violently ravished in the flesh: by which violence chastity is not violated, if it is preserved in the mind; since it is not violated even in the flesh, when the will of the one suffering does not use her own flesh basely, but, without consent, endures what another does.

30. 27. Let us fear more that the living stones be extinguished by our deserting them, than that the stones and wood of earthly buildings be burned while we are present. Let us fear more that the members of the body of Christ, deprived of spiritual food, be slain, than that the members of our own body, overwhelmed by the enemy's assault, be tortured.

30. 28. Not that these things are not to be avoided when they can be; but that they are rather to be borne, when they cannot be avoided without impiety: unless perhaps someone should contend that a minister is not impious who withdraws the ministry necessary to piety precisely when it is more necessary.

30. 29. Or do we not consider, when one comes to the extremity of these perils, and there is no power of fleeing, how great a throng is wont to gather in the church, of both sexes and of every age: some demanding baptism, others reconciliation, others even the performance of penance itself, all of them consolation and the confecting and dispensing of the sacraments?

30. 30. There, if the ministers are lacking, how great a ruin follows those who depart from this world either unregenerated or bound! How great too is the grief of their faithful, who will not have them with themselves in the rest of eternal life! How great, finally, the groaning of all, and how great, in some, the blasphemy over the absence of the ministries and the ministers!

30. 31. See what the fear of temporal evils does, and how great an acquisition of eternal evils is in it. But if the ministers are present, all are helped according to the strength which the Lord supplies them: some are baptized, others reconciled, none are defrauded of the communion of the Lord's body, all are consoled, built up, exhorted to ask God, who is able to avert all that is feared; prepared for either outcome, so that, if this cup cannot pass from them, his will be done (Matt 26:39-42), who can will nothing evil.

30. 32. Surely you now see what you had written that you did not see: how much good Christian peoples obtain, if in present evils the presence of Christ's ministers is not lacking to them: whose absence too you see how greatly it harms, while they seek their own things, not the things that are Jesus Christ's (Phil 2:21); nor do they have that love of which it was said: It does not seek its own (1 Cor 13:5); nor do they imitate him who said: Not seeking what is useful to me, but what is useful to the many, that they may be saved (1 Cor 10:33).

30. 33. He too would not have fled the ambushes of that persecuting prince, had he not wished to preserve himself for others to whom he was necessary: on account of which he says: I am hard pressed between the two: having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account (Phil 1:23-24).

30. 34. Here perhaps someone may say that the ministers of God ought to flee when such evils threaten, in order to preserve themselves for the good of the Church in more tranquil times. This is rightly done by some, when others are not lacking through whom the ecclesiastical ministry may be supplied, lest it be deserted by all; which we said above that Athanasius did: for how necessary it was to the Church, and how much it profited, that that man remained in the flesh, the catholic faith knows, which was defended against the Arian heretics by his mouth and his love.

30. 35. But when the danger is common, and it is rather to be feared lest anyone be believed to do this not from a wish to take counsel but from fear of dying, and lest he harm more by the example of fleeing than profit by the duty of living, it is by no means to be done.

30. 36. Finally, holy David, lest he commit himself to the perils of battle and perchance the lamp of Israel be extinguished, as it was there said, took this course at the asking of his own people (2 Sam 21:17), and did not presume it of himself; otherwise he would have made many imitators of cowardice, who would believe that he had done this not from consideration of the good of others, but from the disturbance of his own dread.

30. 37. But another question occurs which we ought not to despise. For if this advantage is not to be neglected, that some ministers flee when some devastation threatens, in order that those may be preserved who may minister to whomever they can find remaining after that disaster, what will happen where all seem about to perish, unless some flee?

30. 38. For what if that destruction rages so far as to persecute only the ministers of the Church? What shall we say? Is the Church to be abandoned by fleeing ministers, lest it be more miserably abandoned by dying ones? But if the laity are not sought for death, they can in some way hide their bishops and clergy, as he may help in whose power are all things, who is able to preserve even one who does not flee, by a marvelous power.

30. 39. But we ask what we ought to do, lest, by awaiting divine miracles in all things, we be judged to tempt the Lord. This storm, indeed, is not of such a kind, when the danger is common to laity and clergy, as in one ship the danger is common to merchants and sailors. But far be it that this ship of ours should be so prized that the sailors, and especially the helmsman, ought to desert it in peril, even if by leaping into the skiff or even by swimming they could escape.

30. 40. For those whom we fear may perish by our desertion, we fear may suffer not temporal death, which will come at some time, but eternal death, which can come if it is not guarded against, and can, if it is guarded against, also not come.

30. 41. But in the common danger of this life, why do we suppose that, wherever there is an enemy incursion, all the clergy and not also all the laity will die, so that they end this life together, for which the clergy are necessary? Or why do we not hope that, just as some laity, so also some clergy will remain, by whom the necessary ministry may be furnished to them?

30. 42. And yet, oh, if only there were a dispute among the ministers of God as to which of them should remain, lest the Church be deserted by the flight of all, and which of them should flee, lest it be deserted by the death of all! For such a contest will be among them, where both sides burn with love, and both sides please love.

30. 43. If this dispute cannot be ended otherwise, then, as far as it seems to me, those who are to remain and those who are to flee are to be chosen by lot. For those who say that they ought rather to flee will seem either timid, because they were unwilling to endure the threatening evil, or arrogant, because they judged themselves, who were to be preserved, more necessary to the Church.

30. 44. Then, perhaps those who are better will choose to lay down their lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16); and those will be preserved by fleeing whose life is less useful, because they have less skill in counseling and governing: who nevertheless, if they are devoutly wise, will contradict those whom they see both ought rather to live, and prefer to die rather than to flee.

30. 45. Therefore, as it is written: The casting of lots puts an end to disputes and decides between the powerful (Prov 18:18): for God judges better than men in matters of this uncertainty; whether he deign to call the better to the fruit of suffering and spare the weak, or make these latter stronger for enduring evils, and withdraw from this life those whose life cannot profit the Church of God as much as theirs. The thing will indeed be less usual, if this casting of lots is done: but if it is done, who will dare to reprove it? Who, unless ignorant or envious, will not praise it with fitting commendation?

30. 46. But if it does not please to do that, of which no example of its being done occurs, let no one's flight cause the ministry of the Church—most necessary and due especially in such great perils—to be lacking. Let no one take account of his own person, so that, if he seems to excel in some grace, he therefore say himself more worthy of life, and on this account of flight. For whoever thinks this pleases himself too much; but whoever even says this displeases all.

30. 47. There are indeed some who think that bishops and clergy who do not flee in such perils, but remain, cause the congregations to be deceived, since they do not flee for this reason, that they see their superiors remaining.

30. 48. But it is easy to avoid this reproach or ill will, by addressing those same congregations and saying: "Do not let it deceive you that we do not flee from this place: for it is not for our own sake, but rather for yours, that we remain here, lest we fail to minister to you whatever we know to be necessary for your salvation, which is in Christ. If, then, you wish to flee, you also loose us from these bonds by which we are held."

30. 49. This I think is to be said when it truly seems useful to migrate to safer places. When this is heard, if either all or some say: "We are in the power of him whose anger no one, wherever he goes, escapes, and whose mercy, wherever he is, he can find who wishes to go nowhere—whether hindered by sure necessities, or unwilling to toil toward uncertain refuges, and toward not ending but merely changing the dangers": without doubt these are not to be deserted by Christian ministry. But if, having heard this, they prefer to depart, then those who were remaining for their sake need not remain either; because there are no longer there those for whose sake they still ought to remain.

30. 50. Whoever, therefore, flees in such a way that the necessary ministry of the Church is not lacking by his fleeing, does what the Lord commanded or permitted. But whoever flees in such a way that the food by which it spiritually lives is withdrawn from the flock of Christ, that man is the hireling who sees the wolf coming and flees, because he has no care for the sheep (John 10:12).

30. 51. These things, my most beloved brother, since you consulted me, I have written back to you with what truth and sure love I have judged; but I have not laid them down as a rule, that you should not follow a better opinion, if you find one. Yet in these perils we cannot find anything better to do than prayers to the Lord our God, that he have mercy on us. And this very thing—namely, not to desert the churches of God—some prudent and holy men, by the gift of God, were granted both to wish and to do, and amid the teeth of detractors by no means fell away from the intention of their resolve."

31. 1. Now that holy man, in his long life divinely granted for the good and happiness of the holy Church—for he lived seventy-six years, and in the clerical state or episcopate nearly forty years—was wont to say to us in our familiar conversations that, after the reception of baptism, even praiseworthy Christians and priests ought not to depart from the body without worthy and fitting penance.

31. 2. And this he himself did, in the last illness of which he died: for he had ordered the psalms of David, which are very few, that are about penance, to be written out for himself, and, lying in bed, he gazed upon those quires set against the wall during the days of his infirmity, and read them, and wept continually and abundantly.

31. 3. And lest his attention be hindered by anyone, about ten days before he departed from the body he asked of us who were present that no one come in to him except only at those hours when the physicians entered to examine him, or when refreshment was brought to him. And so it was observed and done: and during all that time he gave himself to prayer.

31. 4. Up to his very last illness, without interruption, eagerly and bravely, with sound mind and sound counsel, he preached the word of God in the church.

31. 5. Whole in all the members of his body, with sight and hearing intact, and, as it is written, while we stood by and saw and prayed, he slept with his fathers (1 Kgs 2:10; 1 Chr 29:28), nourished in a good old age; and in our presence the sacrifice was offered to God for the commending of the laying down of his body, and he was buried.

31. 6. He made no will, because, being one of God's poor, he had nothing from which to make one. He always ordered the library of the Church and all its books to be carefully guarded for posterity. But whatever the Church had, whether in funds or in ornaments, he left to the good faith of the priest who under him bore the care of the Church's house.

31. 7. Nor did he treat his own kinsmen, whether set within the religious life or outside it, in his life and death after the manner of the common crowd: to whom, while he yet survived, he gave out, if there was need, what he gave to the rest as well, not that they might have riches, but that they might either not be in want, or be in less want.

31. 8. He left to the Church a most ample clergy, and monasteries of men and of women, full of the continent with their superiors, together with libraries containing the books and treatises whether his own or of other holy men, in which it is known, by the gift of God, of what sort and how great he was in the Church, and in these he is found by the faithful to live forever. According to which a certain poet of the worldly, too, bidding his people place a tomb for him when dead upon a public mound, composed by way of an inscription, saying: Traveler, do you wish to know that the poet lives on after death?

31. 9. And in his writings, indeed, that priest, acceptable and dear to God, is shown—as far as it is granted to see by the shining of truth—to have lived rightly and soundly, in the faith, hope, and charity of the catholic Church: which those recognize who make progress by reading him as he writes about divine things. But I think that those could have profited more from him who were able both to hear and to see him speaking, present in the church, and especially were not ignorant of his manner of life among men.

31. 10. For he was not only a scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth from his treasure things new and old, and one of the merchants who, having found the precious pearl, bought it by selling what he had (Matt 13:52, 45-46): but also one of those to whom it was written: So speak, and so act (Jas 2:12); and of whom the Savior says: Whoever does and teaches men thus shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:19).

31. 11. But I earnestly beg your charity, you who read these writings, that you give thanks with me to almighty God and bless the Lord, who granted me the understanding both to wish and to be able to bring these things to the knowledge of men, present and absent, of the present time and of the future; and that you pray with me and for me, that I may show myself, in this world, an emulator and imitator of that man with whom, by the gift of God, I lived familiarly and sweetly for nearly forty years without any bitter dissension, and in the world to come may enjoy with him the promises of almighty God. Amen.