(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)
Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.
ST. AUGUSTIN
LETTERS 58-86
From the Second Division, which consists of letters which were written
from the beginning of his episcopate to just before the time of and before
the conference held with the donatists at carthage, and the discovery of the
heresy of Pelagius in Africa (a.d. 396-410).
[Translated by The Rev. J. G. Cunningham, M.A., Vicar of St. Mark's West
Hackney; and sometime clerical secretary of the Bishop of London's Fund.]
LETTER LVIII. (A.D. 401.)
TO MY NOBLE AND WORTHY LORD PAMMACHIUS, MY SON, DEARLY BELOVED IN THE
BOWELS OF CHRIST, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. The good works which spring from the grace of Christ in you have
given you a claim to be esteemed by us His members, and have made you as
truly known and as much beloved by us as you could be. For even were I
daily seeing your face, this could add nothing to the completeness of the
acquaintance with you which I now have, when in the shining light of one of
your actions I have seen your inner being, fair with the loveliness of
peace, and beaming with the brightness of truth. Seeing this has made me
know you, and knowing you has made me love you; and therefore, in
addressing you, I write to one who, notwithstanding our distance from each
other, has become known to me, and is my beloved friend. The bond which
binds us together is indeed of earlier date, and we were living united
under One Head: for had you not been rooted in His love, the Catholic unity
would not have been so dear to you, and you would not have dealt as you
have done with your African tenants(6) settled in the midst of the consular
province of Numidia, the very country in which the folly of the Donatists
began, addressing them in such terms, and encouraging them with such
enthusiasm, as to persuade them with unhesitating devotion to choose that
course which they believed that a man of your character and position would
not adopt on other grounds than truth ascertained and acknowledged, and to
submit themselves, though so remote from you, to the same Head; so that
along with yourself they are reckoned for ever as members of Him by whose
command they are for the time dependent upon you.
2. Embracing you, therefore, as known to me by this transaction, I am
moved by joyful feelings to congratulate you in Christ Jesus our Lord, .and
to send you this letter as a proof of , my heart's love towards you; for I
cannot do more. I beseech you, however, not to measure the amount of my
love by this letter; but by means of this letter, when you have read it,
pass l on by the unseen inner passage which thought I opens up into my
heart, and see what is there felt towards you. For to the eye of love that
sanctuary of love shall be unveiled which we shut against the disquieting
trifles of this world when there we worship God; and there you will see the
ecstasy of my joy in your good work, an ecstasy which I cannot describe
with tongue for pen, glowing and burning in the offering of praise to Him
by whose inspiration you were made willing, and by whose help you were made
able to serve Him in this way. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift!"(7)
3. Oh how we desire in Africa to see such work as this by which you
have gladdened us done by many, who are, like yourself, senators in the
State, and sons of the holy Church! It is, however, hazardous to give them
this exhortation: they may refuse to follow it, and the enemies of the
Church will take advantage of this to deceive the weak, as if they had
gained a victory over us in the minds of those who disregarded our counsel.
But it is safe for me to express gratitude to you; for you have already
done that by which, in the emancipation of those who were weak, the enemies
of the Church are confounded. I have therefore thought it sufficient to ask
you to read this letter with friendly boldness to any to whom you can do so
on the ground of their Christian profession. For thus learning what you
have achieved, they will believe that that, about which as an impossibility
they are now indifferent, can be done in Africa. As to the snares which
these heretics contrive in the perversity of their hearts, I have resolved
not to speak of them in this! letter, because I have been only amused at
their imagining that they could gain any advantage over your mind, which
Christ holds as His possession. You will hear them, however, from my
brethren, whom I earnestly commend to your Excellency: they fear lest you
should disdain some things which to you might seem unnecessary in
connection with the great and unlooked for salvation of those men over
whom, in consequence of your work, their Catholic Mother rejoices.
LETTER LIX. (A.D. 401.)
TO MY MOST BLESSED LORD AND VENERABLE FATHER VICTORINUS, MY BROTHER IN THE
PRIESTHOOD, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. Your summons to the Council reached me on the fifth day before the
Ides of November, in the evening, and found me very much indisposed, so
that I could not possibly attend. However, I submit to your pious and wise
judgment whether certain perplexities which the summons occasioned were due
to my own ignorance or to sufficient grounds. I read in that summons that
it was written also to the districts of Mauritania, which, as we know, have
their own primates. Now, if these provinces were to be represented in a
Council held in Numidia, it was by all means proper that the names of some
of the more eminent bishops who are in Mauritania should be attached to the
circular letter; and not finding this, I have been greatly surprised.
Moreover, to the bishops of Numidia it has been addressed in such a
confused and careless manner, that my own name I find in the third place,
although I know my proper order to be much further down in the roll of
bishops. This wrongs others, and grieves me. Moreover, our venerable father
and colleague, Xantippus of Tagosa, says that the primacy belongs to him,
and by very many he is regarded as the primate, and he issues such letters
as you have sent. Even supposing that this be a mistake, which your
Holiness can easily discover and correct, certainly his name should not
have been omitted in the summons which you have issued. If his name had
been placed in the middle of the list, and not in the first line, I would
have wondered much; how much greater, then, is my surprise, when I find in
it no mention whatever made of him who, above all others, behoved to be
present in the Council, that by the bishops of all the Numidian churches
this question of the order of the primacy might be debated before any other
!
2. For these reasons, I might even hesitate to come to the Council, lest
the summons in which so many flagrant mistakes are found should be a
forgery; even were I not hindered both by the !shortness of the notice, and
manifold other important engagements standing in the way, I therefore beg
you, most blessed prelate, to excuse me, and to be pleased to give
attention, in the first instance, to bring about between your Holiness and
the aged Xantippus a cordial mutual understanding as to the question which
of you ought to summon the Council; or at least, as I think would be still
better, let both of you, without prejudging the claim of either, conjointly
call together our colleagues, especially those who have been nearly as long
in the episcopate as yourselves, who may easily discover land decide which
of you has truth on his side,(1) that this question may be settled first
among a few of you; and then, when the mistake has been rectified, let the
younger bishops be gathered together, who, having no others whom it would
be either possible or right for them to accept as witnesses in this matter
but yourselves, are meanwhile at a loss to know to which of you the
preference is to be given.
I have sent this letter sealed with a ring which represents a man's
profile.
LETTER LX. (A.D. 401.)
TO FATHER AURELIUS, MY LORD MOST BLESSED, AND REVERED WITH MOST JUSTLY
MERITED RESPECT, MY BROTHER IN THE PRIESTHOOD, MOST SINCERELY BELOVED,
AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. I have received no letter from your Holiness since we parted; but I
have now read a letter of your Grace concerning Donatus and his brother,
and I have long hesitated as to the reply which I ought to give. After
frequently reconsidering what is in such a case conducive to the welfare of
those whom we serve in Christ, and seek to nourish in Him, nothing has
occurred to me which would alter my opinion that: it is not right to give
occasion for God's servants to think that promotion to a better position is
more readily given to those who have become worse. Such a rule would make
monks less careful of falling, and a most grievous wrong would be done to
the order of clergy, if those who have deserted their duty as monks be
chosen to serve as clergy, seeing that our custom is to select for that
office only the more tried and superior men of those who continue faithful
to their calling as monks; unless, perchance, the common people are to be
taught to joke at our expense, saying "a bad monk make: a good clerk," as
they are wont to say that "a poor flute-player makes a good singer." It
would be an intolerable calamity if we were to encourage the monks to such
fatal pride, and were to consent to brand with so grievous disgrace the
clerical order to which we ourselves belong: seeing that sometimes even a
good monk is scarcely qualified to be a good clerk; for though he be
proficient in self-denial, he may lack the necessary instruction, or be
disqualified by some personal defect.
2. I believe, however, that your Holiness understood these monks to
have left the monastery with my consent, in order that they might rather be
useful to the people of their own district; but this was not the case: of
their own accord they departed, of their own accord they deserted us,
notwithstanding my resisting, from a regard to their welfare, to the utmost
of my power. As to Donatus, seeing that he has obtained ordination before
we could arrive at any decision in the Council(1) as to his case, do as
your wisdom may guide you; it may be that his proud obstinacy has been
subdued. But as to his brother, who was the chief cause of Donatus leaving
the monastery, I know not what to write, since you know what I think of
him. I do not presume to oppose what may seem best to one of your wisdom,
rank, and piety; and I hope with all my heart that you will do whatever you
judge most profitable for the members of the Church.
LETTER LXI. (A.D. 401.)
TO HIS WELL-BELOVED BROTHER THEODORUS, BISHOP AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN
THE LORD.
1. I have resolved to commit to writing in this letter what I said when
you and I were conversing together as to the terms on which we would
welcome clergy of the party of Donatus desiring to become Catholics, in
order that, if any one asked you what are our sentiments and practice in
regard to this, you might exhibit these by producing what I have written
with my own hand. Be assured, therefore, that we detest nothing in the
Donatist clergy but that which renders them schismatics and heretics,
namely, their dissent from the unity and truth of the Catholic Church, in
their not remaining in peace with the people of God, which is spread abroad
throughout the world, and in their refusing to recognise the baptism of
Christ in those who have received it. This their grievous error, therefore,
we reject; but the good name of God which they bear, and His sacrament
which they have received, we acknowledge in them, and embrace it with
reverence and love. But for this very reason we grieve over their
wandering, and long to gain them for God by the love of Christ, that they
may have within the peace of the Church that holy sacrament for their
salvation, which they meanwhile have beyond the pale of the Church for
their destruction. If, therefore, there be taken away from between us the
evil things which proceed from men, and if the good which comes from God
and belongs to both parties in common be duly honoured, there will ensue
such brotherly concord, such amiable peace, that the love of Christ shall
gain the victory in men's hearts over the temptation of the devil.
2. When, therefore, any come to us from the party of Donatus, we do not
welcome the evil which belongs to them, viz. their error and schism: these,
the only obstacles to our concord, are removed from between us, and we
embrace our brethren, standing with them, as the apostle says, in "the
unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace,"(2) and acknowledging in them
the good things which are divine, as their holy baptism, 'the blessing
conferred by ordination, their profession of self-denial, their vow of
celibacy, their faith in the Trinity, and such like; all which things were
indeed theirs before, but "profited them nothing, because they had not
charity." For what truth is there in the profession of Christian charity by
him who does not embrace Christian unity? When, therefore, they come to the
Catholic Church, they gain thereby not what they already possessed, but
something which they had not before,- namely, that those things which they
possessed begin then to be profitable to them. For in the Catholic Church
they obtain the root of charity in the bond of peace and in the fellowship
of unity: so that all the sacraments of truth which they hold serve not to
condemn, but to deliver them. The branches ought not to boast that their
wood is the wood of the vine, not of the thorn; for if they do not live by
union to the root, they shall, notwithstanding their outward appearance, be
cast into the fire. But of some branches which were broken off the apostle
says that "God is able to graft them in again."(1) Wherefore, beloved
brother, if you see any one of the Donatist party in doubt as to the place
into which they shall be welcomed by us, show them this writing in my own
hand, which is familiar to you, and let them have it to read if they desire
it; for "I call God for a record upon my soul," that I will welcome them on
such terms as that they shah retain not only the baptism of Christ which
they have received, but also the honour due to their vow of holiness and to
their self-denying virtue.
LETTER LXII. (A.D. 401)
ALYPIUS, AUGUSTIN, AND SAMSUCIUS, AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH THEM, SEND
GREETING IN THE LORD TO SEVERUS,(2) THEIR LORD MOST BLESSED, AND WITH ALL
REVERENCE MOST BELOVED, THEIR BROTHER IN TRUTH, AND PARTNER IN THE PRIESTLY
OFFICE, AND TO ALL THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH HIM.
1. When we came to Subsana, and inquired into the things which had been
done there in our absence and against our will, we found some things
exactly as we had heard reported, and some things otherwise, but all things
calling for lamentation and forbearance; and we endeavoured, in so far as
the Lord gave His help, to put them right by reproof, admonition, and
prayer. What distressed us most, since your departure from the place, was
that the brethren who went thence to you were allowed to go without a
guide, which we beg you to excuse, as having taken place not from malice,
but from an excessive caution. For, believing as they did that these men
were sent by our son Timotheus in order to move you to be displeased with
us, and being anxious to reserve the whole matter untouched until we should
come (when they hoped to see you along with us), they thought that the
departure of these men would be prevented if they were not furnished with a
guide. That they did wrong in thus attempting to detain the brethren we
admit,- nay, who could doubt it? Hence also arose the story which was told
to Fossor,(3) that Timotheus had already gone to you with these same
brethren. This was wholly false, but the statement was not made by the
presbyter; and that Carcedonius our brother was wholly unaware of all these
things, was most clearly proved to us by all the ways in which such things
are susceptible of proof.
2. But why spend more time on these circumstances! Our son Timotheus,
being greatly disturbed because he found himself, altogether in spite of
his own wish, in such unlooked for perplexity, informed us that, when you
were urging him to serve God at Subsana, he broke forth vehemently, and
swore that he would never on any account leave you. And when we questioned
him as to his present wish, he replied that by this oath he was precluded
from going to the place which we had previously wished him to occupy, even
though his mind were set at rest by the evidence given as to his freedom
from restraint. When we showed him that he would not be guilty of violating
his oath if a bar was put in the way of his being with you, not by him, but
by you, in order to avoid a scandal; seeing that he could by his oath bind
only his own will, not yours, and he admitted that you had not bound
yourself reciprocally by your oath; at last he said, as it became a servant
of God and a son of the Church to say, that he would without hesitation
agree to whatever should seem good to us, along with i your Holiness, to
appoint concerning him. We ;therefore ask, and by the love of Christ
implore you, in the exercise of your sagacity, to remember all that we
spoke to each other in this matter, and to make us glad by your reply to
this letter. For "we that are strong" (if, indeed, amid so great and
perilous temptations, we may presume to claim this title) are bound, as the
apostle says, to "bear the infirmities of the weak." (4) Our brother
Timotheus has not written to your Holiness, because your venerable brother
has reported to all you. May you be joyful the Lord, and remember us, our
lord most blessed, and with all reverence most beloved, our brother in
sincerity.
LETTER LXIII. (A.D. 401.)
TO SEVERUS, MY LORD MOST BLESSED AND VENERABLE, A BROTHER WORTHY OF BEING
EMBRACED WITH UNFEIGNED LOVE, AND PARTNER IN THE PRIESTLY OFFICE, AND TO
THE BRETHREN THAT ARE. WITH HIM, AUGUSTIN AND THE BRETHREN WITH HIM SEND
GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. If I frankly say all that this case compels me to say, you may
perhaps ask me where is my concern for the preservation of charity but if I
may not thus say all that the case demands, may I not ask you where is the
liberty conceded to friendship? Hesitating between these two alternatives,
I have chosen to write so much as may justify me without accusing you. You
wrote that you were surprised that we, notwithstanding our great grief at
what was done, acquiesced in it, when it might have been remedied by our
correction; as if when things wrongly done have been afterwards, so far as
possible, corrected, they are no longer to be deplored; and more
particularly, as if it were absurd for us to acquiesce in that which,
though wrongly done, ill is impossible for us to undo. Wherefore, my
brother, sincerely esteemed as such, your surprise may cease. For Timotheus
was ordained a subdeacon at Subsana against my advice and desire, at the
time when the decision of his case was still pending as the subject of
deliberation and conference between us. Behold me still grieving over this,
although he has now returned to you; and we do not regret that in our
consenting to his return we obeyed your will.
2. May it please you to hear how, by rebuke, admonition, and prayer, we
had, even before he went away from this place, corrected the wrong which
had been done, lest it should appear to you that up to that time nothing
had been corrected by us because he had not returned to you. By rebuke,
addressing ourselves first to Timotheus himself, because he did not obey
you, but went away to your Holiness without consulting our brother
Carcedonius, to which act of his the origin of this affliction is to be
traced; and afterwards censuring the presbyter (Carcedonius) and Verinus,
through whom we found that the ordination of Timotheus had been managed.
When all of these admitted, under our rebuke, that in all the things
alleged they had done wrong and begged forgiveness, we would have acted
with undue haughtiness if we had refused to believe that they were
sufficiently corrected. For they could not make that to be not done which
had been done; and we by our rebuke were not expecting or desiring to do
more than bring them to acknowledge their faults, and grieve over them. By
admonition: first, in warning all never to dare again to do such things,
lest they should incur God's wrath; and then especially charging Timotheus,
who said that he was bound only by his oath to go to your Grace, that if
your Holiness, considering all that we had spoken together on the matter,
should, as we hoped _might be the case, decide not to have him with you,
out of regard for the weak for whom Christ died, who might be offended, and
for the discipline of the Church, which it is perilous to disregard, seeing
that he had begun to be a reader in this diocese, -- he should then, being
free from the bond of his oath, devote himself with undisturbed mind to the
service of God, to whom we are to give an account of all our actions. By
such admonitions as we were able to give, we had also persuaded our brother
Carcedonius to submit with perfect resignation to whatever might be seen to
be necessary in regard to him for the preservation of the discipline of the
Church. By prayer, moreover, we had laboured to correct ourselves,
commending both the guidance and the issues of our counsels to the mercy of
God, and seeking that if any sinful anger had wounded us, we might be cured
by taking refuge under His healing right hand. Behold how much we had
corrected by rebuke, admonition, and prayer !
3. And now, considering the bond of charity, that we may not be
possessed by Satan,-- for we are not ignorant of his devices,-- what else
ought we to have done than obey your wish, seeing that you thought that
what had been done could be remedied in no other way than by our giving
back to your authority him in whose person you complained that wrong had
been done to you. Even our brother Carcedonius himself consented to this,
not indeed without much distress of spirit, on account of which I entreat
you to pray for him, but eventually without opposition, believing that he
submitted to Christ in submitting to you. Nay, even when I still thought it
might be our duty to consider whether I should not write a second letter to
you, my brother, while Timotheus still remained here, he himself, with
filial reverence, feared to displease you, and cut my deliberations short
by not only consenting, but even urging, that Timotheus should be restored
to you.
4. I therefore, brother Severus, leave my case to be decided by you.
For I am sure that Christ dwells in your heart, and by Him I beseech you to
ask counsel from Him, submitting your mind to His direction regarding the
question whether, when a man had begun to be a Reader in the Church
confided to my care, having read, not once only, but a second and a third
time, at Subsana, and in company with the presbyter of the Church of
Subsana had done the same also at Turres and Ciza and Verbalis, it is
either possible or right that he be pronounced to have never been a Reader.
And as we have, in obedience to God, corrected that which was afterwards
done contrary to our will, do you also, in obedience to Him, correct in
like manner that which was formerly, through your not knowing the facts of
the case, wrongly done. For I have no fear of your failing to perceive what
a door is opened for breaking down the discipline of l the Church, if, when
a clergyman of any church has sworn to one of another church that he will
not leave him, that other encourage him to remain with him, alleging that
he does so that he may not be the occasion of the breaking of an oath;
seeing that he who forbids this, and declines to allow the other to remain
with him (because that other could by his vow bind only his own
conscience), unquestionably preserves the order which is necessary to peace
in a way which none can justly censure.
LETTER LXIV. (A.D. 401)
TO MY LORD QUINTIANUS, MY MOST BELOVED BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRESBYTER,
AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. We do not disdain to look upon bodies which are defective in beauty,
especially seeing that our souls themselves are not yet so beautiful as we
hope that they shall be when He who is of ineffable beauty shall have
appeared, in whom, though now we see Him not, we believe i for then "we
shall be like Him," when "we shall see Him as He is."(1) If you receive my
counsel in a kindly and brotherly spirit, I exhort you to think thus of
your soul, as we do of our own, and not presumptuously imagine that it is
already perfect in beauty i but, as the apostle enjoins, "rejoice in hope,"
and obey the precept which he annexes to this, when he says, "Rejoicing in
hope, patient in tribulation:"(2) "for we are saved by hope," as he says
again; "but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it."(3) Let not this patience be wanting in thee, but
with a good conscience "wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall
strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." (4)
2. It is, of course, obvious that if you come to us while debarred from
communion with the venerable bishop Aurelius, you cannot be admitted to
communion with us; but we would act towards you with that same charity
which we are assured shall guide his conduct. Your coming to us, however,
should not on this account be embarrassing to us, because the duty of
submission to this, out of regard to the discipline of the Church, ought to
be felt by yourself, especially if you have the approval of your own
conscience, which is known to yourself and to God. For if Aurelius has
deferred the examination of your case, he has done this not from dislike to
you, but from the pressure of other engagements; and if you knew his
circumstances as well as you know your own, the delay would cause you
neither surprise nor sorrow. That it is the same with myself, I entreat you
to believe on my word, as you. are equally unable to know how I am
occupied. But there are other bishops older than I am, and both in
authority more worthy and in place more convenient, by whose help you may
more easily expedite the affairs now pending in the Church committed to
your charge. I have not, however, failed to make mention of your distress,
and of the complaint in your letter to my venerable brother and colleague
the aged Aurelius, whom I esteem with the respect due to his worth; I took
care to acquaint him with your innocence of the things laid to your charge,
by sending him a copy of your letter. It was not until a day, or at the
most two, before Christmas,(5) that I received the letter in which you
informed me of his intention to visit the Church at Badesile, by which you
fear lest the people be disturbed and influenced against you. I do not
therefore presume to address by letter your people; for I could write a
reply to any who had written to me, but how could I put myself forward
unasked to write to a people not committed to my care ?
3. Nevertheless, what I now say to you, who alone have written to me,
may, through you, reach others who should hear it. I charge you then, in
the first place, not to bring the Church into reproach by reading in the
public assemblies those writings which the Canon of the Church has not
acknowledged; for by these, heretics, and especially the Manichaeans (of
whom I hear that some are lurking, not without encouragement, in your
district), are accustomed to subvert the minds of the inexperienced. I am
amazed that a man of your wisdom should admonish me to forbid the reception
into the monastery of those who have come from you to us, in order that a
decree of the Council may be obeyed, and at the same time should forget
another decree(6) of the same Council, declaring what are the canonical
Scriptures which ought to be read to the people. Read again the proceedings
of the Council, and commit them to memory: you will there find that the
Canon which you refer to (7) as prohibiting the indiscriminate reception of
applicants for admission to a monastery, was not framed in regard to
laymen, but applies to the clergy alone. It is true there is no mention of
monasteries in the canon; but it is laid down in general, that no one may
receive a clergyman belonging to another diocese [except in such a way as
upholds the discipline of the Church]. Moreover, it has been enacted in a
recent Council,(8) that any who desert a monastery, or are expelled from
one, shall not be elsewhere admitted either to clerical office or to the]
charge of a monastery. If, therefore, you are in any measure disturbed
regarding Privatio, let me inform you that he has not yet been received by
us into the monastery; but that I have submitted his case to the aged
Aurelius, and will act according to his decision. For it seems strange to
me, if a man can be reckoned a Reader who has read only once in public, and
on that occasion read writings which are not canonical. If for this reason
he is regarded as an ecclesiastical reader, it follows that the writing
which he read must be esteemed as sanctioned by the Church. But if the
writing be not sanctioned by the Church as canonical, it follows that,
although a man may have read it to a congregation, he is not thereby made
an ecclesiastical reader, ['but is, as before, a layman]. Nevertheless I
must, in regard to the young man in question, abide by the decision of the
arbiter whom I have named.
4. As to the people of Vigesile, who are to us as well as to you
beloved in the bowels of Christ, if they have refused to accept a bishop
who has been deposed .by a plenary Council in Africa,(1) they act wisely,
and cannot be compelled to yield, nor ought to be. And whoever shall
attempt to compel them by violence to receive him, will show plainly what
is his character, and will make men well understand what his real character
was at an earlier time, when he would have had them believe no evil of him.
For no one more effectually discovers the worthlessness of his cause, than
the man who, employing the secular power, or any other kind of violent
means, endeavours by agitating and complaining to recover the
ecclesiastical rank which he has forfeited. For his desire is not to yield
to Christ service which He claims, but to usurp over Christians an
authority which they disown. Brethren, be cautious; great is the craft of
the devil, but Christ is the wisdom of God.
LETTER LXV. (A.D. 402.)
TO THE AGED(2) XANTIPPUS, MY LORD MOST BLESSED AND WORTHY OF VENERATION,
AND MY FATHER AND COLLEAGUE IN THE PRIESTLY OFFICE, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING
IN THE LORD.
1. Saluting your Excellency with the respect due to your worth, and
earnestly seeking an interest in your prayers, I beg to submit to the
consideration of your wisdom the case of a certain Abundantius, ordained a
presbyter in the domain of Strabonia, belonging to my diocese. He had begun
to be unfavourably reported of, through his not walking in the way which
becomes the servants of God; and I being on this account alarmed, though
not believing the rumours without examination, was made more watchful of
his conduct, and devoted some pains to obtain, if possible, indisputable
evidences of the evil courses with which he was charged. The first thing
which I ascertained was, that he had embezzled the money of a countryman,
entrusted to him for religious purposes, and could give no satisfactory
account of his stewardship. The next thing proved against him, and admitted
by his own confession, was, that on Christmas day, on which the fast was
observed by the Church of Gippe as by all the other Churches, after taking
leave of his colleague the presbyter of Gippe, as if going to his own
church about 11 A.M., he remained, without having any ecclesiastic in his
company, in the same parish, and dined, supped, and spent the night in the
house of a woman of ill fame. It happened that lodging in the same place
was one of our clergy of Hippo, who had gone thither; and as the facts were
known beyond dispute to this witness, Abundantius could not deny the
charge. As to the things which he did deny, I left them to the divine
tribunal, passing sentence upon him only in regard to those things which he
had not been permitted to conceal. I was afraid to leave him in charge of a
Church, especially of one placed as his was, in the very midst of rabid and
barking heretics. And when he begged me to give him a letter with a
statement of his case to the presbyter of the parish of Armema, in the
district of Bulla, from which he had come to us, so as to prevent any
exaggerated suspicion there of his character, and in order that he might
there live, if possible, a more consistent life, having no duties as a
presbyter, I was moved by compassion to do as he desired. At the same time,
it was very specially incumbent on me to submit to your wisdom these facts,
test any deception should be practised upon you.
2. I pronounced sentence in his case one hundred days before Easter
Sunday, which falls this year on the 7th of April. I have taken care to
acquaint you with the date, because of the decree of Council,(3) which I
also did not conceal from him, but explained to him the law of the Church,
that if he thought anything could be done to reverse my decision, unless he
began proceedings with this view within a year, no one would, after the
lapse of that time, listen to his pleading. For my own part, my lord most
blessed, and father worthy of all veneration, I assure you that if I did
not think that these instances of vicious conversation in an ecclesiastic,
especially when accompanied with an evil reputation, deserved to be visited
with the punishment appointed by the Council, I would be compelled now to
attempt to sift things which cannot be known, and either to condemn the
accused upon doubtful evidence, or acquit him for want of proof. When a
presbyter, upon a day of fasting which was observed as such also in the
place in which he was, having taken leave of his colleague in the ministry
in that place, and being unattended by any ecclesiastic, ventured to tarry
in the house of a woman of ill fame, and to dine and sup and spend the
night there, it seemed to me, whatever others might think, that he behoved
to be deposed from his office, as I durst not commit to his charge a Church
of God. If it should so happen that a different opinion be held by the
ecclesiastical judges to whom he may appeal, seeing that it has been
decreed by the Council,(1) that the decision of six bishops be final in the
case of a presbyter, let who will commit to him a Church within his
jurisdiction, I confess, for my own part, that I fear to entrust any
congregation whatever to persons like him, especially when nothing in the
way of general good character can be alleged as a reason for excusing these
delinquencies; lest, if he were to break forth into some more ruinous
wickedness, I should be compelled with sorrow to blame myself for the harm
done by his crime.
LETTER LXVI. (A.D. 402.)
ADDRESSED, WITHOUT SALUTATION, TO CRISPINUS, THE DONATIST BISHOP OF CALAMA.
1. You ought to have been influenced by the fear of God; but since, in
your work of rebaptizing the Mappalians,(2) you have chosen to take
advantage of the fear with which as man you could inspire them, let me ask
you what hinders the order of the sovereign from being carried out in the
province, when the order of the governor of the province has been so fully
enforced in a village? If you compare the persons concerned, you are but a
vassal in possession; he is the Emperor. If you compare the positions of
both, you are in a property, he is on a throne; if you compare the causes
maintained by both, his aim is to heal division, and yours is to rend unity
in twain. But we do not bid you stand in awe of man: though we might take
steps to compel you to pay, according to the imperial decree, ten pounds of
gold as the penalty of your outrage. Perhaps you might be unable to pay the
fine imposed upon those who rebaptize members of the Church, having been
involved in so much expense in buying people whom you might compel to
submit to the rite. But, as I have said, we do not bid you be afraid of
man: rather let Christ fill you with fear. I should like to know what
answer you could give Him, if He said to you: "Crispinus, was it a great
price which you paid in order to buy the fear of the Mappalian peasantry;
and does My death, the price paid by Me to purchase the love of all
nations, seem little in your eyes? Was the money which was counted out from
your purse in acquiring these serfs in order to their being rebaptized, a
more costly sacrifice than the blood which flowed from My side in redeeming
the nations in order to their being baptized ?" I know that, if you would
listen to Christ, you might hear many more such appeals, and might, even by
the possession which you have obtained, be warned how impious are the
things which you have spoken against Christ. For if you think that your
title to hold what you have bought with money is sure by human law, how
much more sure, by divine law, is Christ's title to that which He hath
bought with His own blood! And it is true that He of whom it is written,
"He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends
of the earth," shall hold with invincible might all which He has purchased/
but how can you expect with any assurance to retain that which you think
you have made your own by purchase in Africa, when you affirm that Christ
has lost the whole world, and been left with Africa alone as His portion?
2. But why multiply words? If these Mappalians have passed of their own
free will into our communion, let them hear both you and me on the question
which divides us,-- the words of each of us being written down, and
translated into the Punic tongue after having been attested by our
signatures; and then, all pressure through fear of their superior being
removed, let these vassals choose what they please. For by the things which
we shall say it will be made manifest whether they remain in error under
coercion, or hold what they believe to be truth with their own consent.
They either understand these matters, or they do not: if they do not, how
could you dare to transfer them in their ignorance to your communion? and
if they do, let them, as i have said, hear both sides, and act freely for
themselves. If there be any communities that have passed over from you to
us, which you believe to have yielded to the pressure of their superiors,
let the same be done in their case; let them hear both sides, and choose
for themselves. Now, if you reject this proposal, who can fail to be
convinced that your reliance is not upon the force of truth? But you ought
to beware of the wrath of God both here and hereafter. I adjure you by
Christ to give a reply to what I have written.
LETTER LXVII. (A.D. 402.)
TO MY LORD MOST BELOVED AND LONGED FOR, MY HONOURED BROTHER IN CHRIST, AND
FELLOW-PRESBYTER, JEROME, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
CHAP. I-- 1. I have heard that my letter has come to your hand. I have
not yet received a reply, but I do not on this account question your
affection; doubtless something has hitherto prevented you. Wherefore I know
and avow that my prayer should be, that God would put it in your power to
forward your reply, for He has already given you power to prepare it,
seeing that you can do so with the utmost ease if you feel disposed.
CHAP. II. --2. I have hesitated whether to give credence or not to a
certain report which has reached me; but I felt that I ought not to
hesitate as to writing a few lines to you regarding the matter. To be
brief, I have heard that some brethren have told your Charity that I have
written a book against you and have sent it to Rome. Be assured that this
is false: I call God to witness that I have not done this. But if perchance
there be some things in some of my writings in which I am found to have
been of a different opinion from you, I think you ought to know, or if it
cannot be certainly known, at least to believe, that such things have been
written not with a view of contradicting you, but only of stating my own
views. In saying this, however, let me assure you that not only am I most
ready to hear in a brotherly spirit the objections which you may entertain
to anything in my writings which has displeased you, but I entreat, nay
implore you, to acquaint me with them; and thus I shah be made glad either
by the correction of my mistake, or at least by the expression of your
goodwill.
3. Oh that it were in my power, by our living near each other, if not
under the same roof, to enjoy frequent and sweet conference with you in the
Lord! Since, however, this is not granted, I beg you to take pains that
this one way in which we can be together in the Lord be kept up; nay more,
improved and perfected. Do not refuse to write me in return, however
seldom.
Greet with my respects our holy brother Paulinianus, and all the
brethren who with you, and because of you, rejoice in the Lord. May you,
remembering us, be heard by the Lord in regard to all your holy desires, my
lord most beloved and longed for, my honoured brother in Christ.
LETTER LXVIII. (A.D. 402.)
TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD, TRULY HOLY AND MOST BLESSED FATHER,(1) JEROME SENDS
GREETING IN CHRIST.
1. When my kinsman, our holy son Asterius, subdeacon, was just on the
point of beginning his journey, the letter of your Grace arrived, in which
you clear yourself of the charge of having sent to Rome a book written
against your humble servant.(2) I had not heard that charge; but by our
brother Sysinnius, deacon, copies of a letter addressed by some one
apparently to me have come hither. In the said letter I am exhorted to sing
the palinwdi'a, confessing mistake in regard to a paragraph of the
apostle's writing, and to imitate Stesichorus, who, vacillating between
disparagement and praises of Helen, recovered, by praising her, the
eyesight which he had forfeited by speaking against her.(3) Although the
style and the method of argument appeared to be yours, I must frankly
confess to your Excellency that I did not think it right to assume without
examination the authenticity of a letter of which I had only seen copies,
lest perchance, if offended by my reply, you should with justice complain
that it was my duty first to have made sure that you were the author, and
only after that was ascertained, to address you in reply. Another reason
for my delay was the protracted illness of the pious and venerable Paula.
For, while occupied long in attending Upon her m severe illness, I had
almost forgotten your letter, or more correctly, the letter written in your
name, remembering the verse, "Like music in the day of mourning is an
unseasonable discourse." (4) Therefore, if it is your letter, write me
frankly that it is so, or send me a more accurate copy, in order that
without any passionate rancour we may devote ourselves to discuss
scriptural truth; and I may either correct my own mistake, or show that
another has without good reason found fault with me.
2. Far be it from me to presume to attack anything which your Grace has
written. For it is enough for me to prove my own views without
controverting what others hold. But it is well known to one of your wisdom,
that every one is satisfied with his own opinion, and that it is puerile
self-sufficiency to seek, as young men have of old been wont to do, to gain
glory to one's own name by assailing men who have become renowned. I am not
so foolish as to think myself insulted by the fact that you give an
explanation different from mine; since you, on the other hand, are not
wronged by my views being contrary to those which you maintain. But that is
the kind of reproof by which friends may truly benefit each other, when
each, not seeing his own bag of faults, observes, as Persius has it, the
wallet borne by the other.(1) Let me say further, love one who loves you,
and do not because you are young challenge a veteran in the field of
Scripture. I have had my time, and have run my course to the utmost of my
strength. It is but fair that I should rest, while you in your turn run and
accomplish great distances; at the same time (with your leave, and without
intending any disrespect), lest it should seem that to quote from the poets
is a thing which you alone can do, let me remind you of the encounter
between Dares and Entellus,(2) and of the proverb, "The tired ox treads
with a firmer step." With sorrow I have dictated these words. Would that I
could receive your embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in
learning !
3. With his usual effrontery, Calphurnius, surnamed Lanarius,(3) has
sent me his execrable writings, which I understand that he has been at
pains to disseminate in Africa also. To these I have replied in past, and
shortly; and I have sent you a copy of my treatise, intending by the first
opportunity to send you a larger work, when e I have leisure to prepare it.
In this treatise I have been careful not to offend Christian feeling in
any, but only to confute the lies and hallucinations arising from his
ignorance and madness.
Remember me, holy and venerable father. See how sincerely I love thee,
in that I am unwilling, even when challenged, to reply, and refuse to
believe you to be the author of that which in another I would sharply
rebuke. Our brother Communis sends his respectful salutation.
LETTER LXIX. (A.D. 402.)
TO THEIR JUSTLY BELOVED LORD CASTORIUS, THEIR TRULY WELCOMED AND WORTHILY
HONOURED SON, ALYPIUS AND AUGUSTIN SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. An attempt was made by the enemy of Christians to cause, by occasion
of our very dear and sweet son your brother, the agitation of a most
dangerous scandal within the Catholic Church, which as a mother welcomed
you to her affectionate embrace when you fled from a disinherited and
separated fragment into the heritage of Christ; the desire of that enemy
being evidently to becloud with unseemly melancholy the calm beauty of joy
which was imparted to us by the blessing of your conversion. But the Lord
our God, who is compassionate and merciful, who comforteth them that are
cast down, nourishing the infants, and cherishing the infirm, permitted him
to gain in some measure success in this design, only to make us rejoice
more over the prevention of the calamity than we grieved over the danger.
For it is a far more magnanimous thing to have resigned the onerous
responsibilities of the bishop's dignity in order to save the Church from
danger, than to have accepted these in order to have a share in her
government. He truly proves that he was worthy of holding that office, had
the interests of peace permitted him to do so, who does not insist upon
retaining it when he cannot do so without endangering the peace of the
Church. It has accordingly pleased God to show, by means of your brother,
our beloved son Maximianus, unto the enemies of His Church, that there are
within her those who seek not their own things, but the things of Jesus
Christ. For in laying down that ministry of stewardship of the mysteries of
God, he was not deserting his duty under the pressure of some worldly
desire, but acting under the impulse of a pious love of peace, lest, on
account of the honour conferred upon him, there should arise among the
members of Christ an unseemly and dangerous, perhaps even fatal,
dissension. For could anything have been more infatuated and worthy of
utter reprobation, than to forsake schismatics because of the peace of the
Catholic Church, and then to trouble that same Catholic peace by the
question of one's own rank and preferment? On the other hand, could
anything be more praiseworthy, and more in accordance with Christian
charity, than that, after having forsaken the frenzied pride of the
Donatists, he should, in the manner of his cleaving to the heritage of
Christ, give such a signal proof of humility under the power of love for
the unity of the Church? As for him, therefore, we rejoice indeed that he
has been proved of such stability that the storm of this temptation has not
cast down what divine truth had built in his heart; and therefore we desire
and pray the Lord to grant that, by his life and conversation in the
future, he may make it more and more manifest how well he would have
discharged the responsibilities of that office which he would have accepted
if that had been his duty. May that eternal peace which is promised to the
Church be given in recompense to him, who discerned that the things which
were not compatible with the peace of the Church were not expedient for him
!
2. As for you, our dear son, in whom we have great joy, since you are
not restrained from accepting the office of bishop by any such
considerations as have guided your brother in declining it, it becomes one
of your disposition to devote to Christ that which is in you by His own
gift. Your talents, prudence, eloquence, gravity, self-control, and
everything else which adorns your conversation, are the gifts of God. To
what service can they be more fittingly devoted than to His by whom they
were bestowed, in order that they may be preserved, increased, perfected,
and rewarded by Him? Let them not be devoted to the service of this world,
lest with it they pass away and perish. We know that, in dealing with you,
it is not necessary to insist much on your reflecting, as you may so easily
do, upon the hopes of vain men, their insatiable desires, and the
uncertainty of life. Away, therefore, with every expectation of deceptive
and earthly felicity which your mind had grasped: labour in the vineyard of
God, where the fruit is sure, where so many promises have already received
so large measure of' fulfilment, that it would be the height of madness to
despair as to those which remain. We beseech you by the divinity and
humanity of Christ, and by the peace of that heavenly city where we receive
eternal rest after labouring for the time of our pilgrimage, to take the
place as the bishop of the Church of Vagina which your brother has
resigned, not under ignominious deposition, but by magnanimous concession.
Let that people for whom we expect the richest increase of blessings
through your mind and tongue, endowed and adorned by the gifts of God,--
let that people, we say, perceive through you, that m what your brother has
done, he was consulting not his own indolence, but their peace.
We have given orders that this letter be not read to you until' those
to whom you are necessary hold you in actual possession.(1) For we hold you
in the bond of spiritual love, because to us also you are very necessary as
a colleague. Our reason for not coming in person to you, you shall
afterwards learn.
LETTER LXX. (A.D. 402.)
This letter is addressed by Alypius and Augustin to Naucelio a person
through whom they had discussed the question of the Donatist schism with
Clarentius, an aged Donatist bishop (probably the same with the Numidian
bishop of Tabraca, who took part in the Conference at Carthage in 411
A.D.). The ground traversed in the letter is the same as in pages 206 and
297, in Letter LI., regarding the inconsistencies of the Donatists in the
case of Felicianus of Musti. We therefore leave it untranslated.
LETTER LXXI. (A.D. 403.)
TO ME VENERABLE LORD JEROME, MY ESTEEMED AND HOLY BROTHER AND FELLOW-
PRESBYTER, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
CHAP. I.-- 1. Never since I began to write to you, and to long for your
writing in return, have I met with a better opportunity for our exchanging
communications than now, when my letter is to be carried to you by a most
faithful servant and minister of God, who is also a very dear friend of
mine, namely, our son Cyprian, deacon. Through him I expect to receive a
letter from you with all the certainty which is in a matter of this kind
possible. For the son whom I have named will not be found wanting in
respect of .zeal in asking, or persuasive influence in obtaining a reply
from you; nor will he fail in diligently keeping, promptly bearing, and
faithfully delivering the same. I only pray that if I be in any way worthy
of this, the Lord may give His help and favour to your heart and to my
desire, so that no higher will may hinder that which your brotherly
goodwill inclines you to do.
2. As I have sent you two letters already to which I have received no
reply, I have resolved to send you at this time copies of both of them, for
I suppose that they never reached you. If they did reach you, and your
replies have failed, as may be the case, to reach me, send me a second time
the same as you sent before, if you have copies of them preserved: if you
have not, dictate again what I may read, and do not refuse to send to these
former letters the answer for which I have been waiting so long. My first
letter to you, which I had prepared while I was a presbyter, was to be
delivered to you by a brother of ours, Profuturus, who afterwards became my
colleague in the episcopate, and has since then departed from this life;
but he could not then bear it to you in person, because at the very time
when he intended to begin his journey, he was prevented by his ordination
to the weighty office of bishop, and shortly afterwards he died. This
letter I have resolved also to send at this time, that you may know how
long I have cherished a burning desire for conversation with you, and with
what reluctance I submit to the remote separation which prevents my mind
from having access to yours through our bodily senses, my brother, most
amiable and honoured among the members of the Lord.
CHAP. II.-- 3. In this letter I have further to say, that I have since
heard that you have translated Job out of the original Hebrew, although in
your own translation of the same prophet from the Greek tongue we had
already a version of that book. In that earlier version you marked with
asterisks the words found in the Hebrew but wanting in the Greek, and with
obelisks the words found in the Greek but wanting in the Hebrew; and this
was done with such astonishing exactness, that in some places we have every
word distinguished by a separate asterisk, as a sign that these words are
in the Hebrew, but not in the Greek. Now, however, in this more recent
version from the Hebrew, there is not the same scrupulous fidelity as to
the words; and it perplexes any thoughtful reader to understand either what
was the reason for marking the asterisks in the former version with so much
care that they indicate the absence from the Greek version of even the
smallest grammatical particles which have not been rendered from the
Hebrew, or what is the reason for so much less care having been taken in
this recent version from the Hebrew to secure that these same particles be
found in their own places. I would have put down here an extract or two in
illustration of this criticism; but at present I have not access to the Ms.
of the translation from the Hebrew. Since, however, your quick discernment
anticipates and goes beyond not only what I have said, but also what I
meant to say, you already understand, I think, enough to be able, by giving
the reason for the plan which you have adopted, to explain what perplexes
me.
4. For my part, I would much rather that you would furnish us with a
translation of the Greek version of the canonical Scriptures known as the
work of the Seventy translators. For if your translation begins to be more
generally read in many churches, it will be a grievous thing that, in the
reading of Scripture, differences must arise between the Latin Churches and
the Greek Churches, especially seeing that the discrepancy is easily
condemned in a Latin version by the production of the original in Greek,
which is a language very widely known; whereas, if any one has been
disturbed by the occurrence of something to which he was not accustomed in
the translation taken from the Hebrew, and alleges that the new translation
is wrong, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to get at the
Hebrew documents by which the version to which exception is taken may be
defended. And when they are obtained, who will submit, to have so many
Latin and Greek authorities: pronounced to be in the wrong? Besides all
this, Jews, if consulted as to the meaning of the Hebrew text, may give a
different opinion from yours: in which case it will seem as if your
presence were indispensable, as being the only one who could refute their
view; and it would be a miracle if one could be found capable of acting as
arbiter between you and them.
CHAP. III.-- 5. A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having
introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your
version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you
have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old
familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been
chanted for so many generations in the church.(1) Thereupon arose such a
tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what
had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was
compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town
of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the
words in the Hebrew MSS. were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and
in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was
compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely
translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation,-- a
calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this case we also are led to think
that you may be occasionally mistaken. You will also observe how great must
have been the difficulty if this had occurred in those writings which
cannot be explained by comparing the testimony of languages now in use.
CHAP. IV. --6. At the same time, we are in no small measure thankful to
God for the work 'in which you have translated the Gospels from the
original Greek, because in almost ever), passage we have found nothing to
object to, when we compared it with the Greek Scriptures. By this work, any
disputant who supports an old false translation is either convinced or
confuted with the utmost ease by the production and collation of Mss. And
if, as indeed very rarely happens, something be found to which exception
may be taken, who would be so unreasonable as not to excuse it readily in a
work so useful that it cannot be too highly praised? I wish you would have
the kindness to open up to me what you think to be the reason of the
frequent discrepancies between the text supported by the Hebrew codices and
the Greek Septuagint version. For the latter has no mean authority, seeing
that it has obtained so wide circulation, and was the one which the
apostles used, as is not only proved by looking to the text itself, but has
also been, as I remember, affirmed by yourself. You would therefore confer
upon us a much greater boon if you gave an exact Latin translation of the
Greek Septuagint version: for the variations found in the different codices
of the Latin text are intolerably numerous; and it is so justly open to
suspicion as possibly different from what is to be found in the Greek, that
one has no confidence in either quoting it or proving anything by its help.
I thought that this letter was to be a short one, but it has somehow
been as pleasant to me to go on with it as if I were talking with you. I
conclude with entreating you by the Lord kindly to send me a full reply,
and thus give me, so far as is in your power, the pleasure of your
presence.
LETTER LXXII. (A.D. 404.)
TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD TRULY HOLY, AND MOST BLESSED FATHER, JEROME SENDS
GREETING IN THE LORD.'
CHAP. I -- 1. You are sending me letter upon letter, and often urging
me to answer a certain letter of yours, a copy of which, without your
signature, had reached me through our brother Sysinnius, deacon, as I have
already written, which letter you tell me that you entrusted first to our
brother Profuturus, and afterwards to some one else; but that Profuturus
was prevented from finishing his intended journey, and having been ordained
a bishop, was removed by sudden death; and the second messenger, whose name
you do not give, was afraid of the perils! of the sea, and gave up the
voyage which he E had intended. These things being so, I am at! a loss to
express my surprise that the same letter! is reported to be in the
possession of most of the Christians in Rome, and throughout Italy, and has
come to every one but myself, to whom alone it was ostensibly sent. I
wonder at this: all the more, because the brother Sysinnius aforesaid tells
me that he found it among the rest of your published works, not in Africa,
not in your possession, but in an island of the Adriatic some five years
ago.
2. True friendship can harbour no suspicion; a friend must speak to his
friend as freely as to his second self. Some of my acquaintances, vessels
of Christ, of whom there is a very large [number in Jerusalem and in the
holy places, suggested to me that this had not been done by you' in a
guileless spirit, but through desire for praise and celebrity, and eclat in
the eyes of the people, intending to become famous at my expense; that many
might know that you challenged me, and I feared to meet you; that you had
written as a man of learning, and I had by silence confessed my ignorance,
and had at last found one who knew how to stop my garrulous tongue. I,
however, let me say it frankly, refused at first to answer your Excellency,
because I did not believe that the letter, or as I may call it (using a
proverbial expression), the honeyed sword, was sent from you. Moreover, I
was cautious lest I should seem to answer uncourteously a bishop of my own
communion, and to censure anything in the letter of one who censured me,
especially as I judged some of its statements to be tainted with heresy.(1)
Lastly, I was afraid lest you should have reason to remonstrate with me,
saying, "What! had you seen the letter to be mine, --had you discovered in
the signature attached to it the autograph of a hand well known to you,
when you so carelessly wounded the feelings of your friend, and reproached
me with that which the malice of. another had conceived?"
CHAP. II.--3. Wherefore, as I have already written, either send me the
identical letter in question subscribed with your own hand, or desist from
annoying an old man, who seeks retirement in his monastic cell. If you wish
to exercise or display your learning, choose as your antagonists, young,
eloquent, and illustrious men, of whom it is said that many are found in
Rome, who may be neither unable nor afraid to meet you, and to enter the
lists with a bishop in debates concerning the Sacred Scriptures. As for me,
a soldier once, but a retired veteran now, it becomes me rather to applaud
the victories won by you and others, than with my worn-out body to take
part in the conflict; beware lest, if you persist in demanding a reply, I
call to mind the history of the way in which Quintus Maximus by his
patience defeated Hannibal, who was, in the pride of youth, confident of
success.(2)
"Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque. Saepe ego longos
Cantando puerum memini me condere soles.
Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina: vox quoque Moerin
Jam fugit ipsa."(3)
Or rather, to quote an instance from Scripture: Barzillai of Gilead, when
he declined in favour of his youthful son the kindnesses of King David and
all the charms of his court, taught us that old age ought neither to desire
these things, nor to accept them when offered.
4. As to your calling God to witness that you had not written a book
against me, and of course had not sent to Rome what you had never written,
adding that, if perchance some things were found in your works in which a
different opinion from mine was advanced, no wrong had thereby been done to
me, because you had, without any intention of offending me, written only
what you believed to be right; I beg you to hear me with patience. You
never wrote a book against me: how then has there been brought to me a
copy, written by another hand, of a treatise containing a rebuke
administered to me by you? How comes Italy to possess a treatise of yours
which you did not write? Nay, how can you reasonably ask me to reply to
that which you solemnly assure me was never written by you? Nor am I so
foolish as to think that I am insulted by you, if in anything your opinion
differs from mine. But if, challenging me as it were to single combat, you
take exception to my views, and demand a reason for what I have written,
and insist upon my correcting what you judge to be an error, and call upon
me to recant it in a humble palinw(i)di'a, and speak of your curing me of
blindness; in this I maintain that friendship is wounded, and the laws of
brotherly union are set at nought. Let not the world see us quarrelling
like children, and giving material for angry contention between those who
may become our respective supporters or adversaries. I write what I have
now written, because I desire to cherish towards you pure and Christian
love, and not to hide in my heart anything which does not agree with the
utterance of my lips. For it does not become me, who have spent my lift
from youth until now, sharing the arduous labours of pious brethren in an
obscure monastery, to presume to write anything against a bishop of my own
communion, especially against one whom I had begun to love before I knew
him, who also sought my friendship before I sought his, and whom I rejoiced
to see rising as a successor to myself in the careful study of the
Scriptures. Wherefore either disown that book, if you are not its author,
and give over! urging me to reply to that which you never wrote; or if the
book is yours, admit it frankly; so that! if I write anything in self-
defence, the responsibility may lie on you who gave, not on me who am
forced to accept, the challenge.
CHAP. III.-- 5. You say also, that if there be anything in your
writings which has displeased me, and which I would wish to correct, you
are ready to receive my criticism as a brother; and you not only assure me
that you would rejoice in such proof of my goodwill toward you, but you
earnestly ask me to do this. I tell you: again, without reserve, what I
feel: you are challenging an old man, disturbing the peace of one who asks
only to be allowed to be silent, and you seem to desire to display your
learning. It is not for one of my years to give the impression of enviously
disparaging one whom I ought rather to encourage by approbation. And if the
ingenuity of perverse men finds something which they may plausibly censure
in the writings even of evangelists and prophets, are you amazed if, in
your books, especially in your exposition of passages in Scripture which
are exceedingly difficult of interpretation, some things be found which are
not perfectly correct? This I say, however, not because I can at this time
pronounce anything in your works to merit censure. For, I in the first
place, I have never read them with attention; and in the second place, we
have not beside us a supply of copies of what you have written, excepting
the books of Soliloquies and Commentaries on some of the Psalms; which, if
I were disposed to criticise them, I could prove to be at variance, I shall
not say with my own opinion, for I am nobody, but with the interpretations
of the older Greek commentators.
Farewell, my very dear friend, my son in years, my father in
ecclesiastical dignity; and to this I most particularly request your
attention, that henceforth you make sure that I be the first to receive
whatever you may write to me.
LETTER LXXIII. (A.D. 404.)
TO JEROME, MY VENERABLE AND MOST ESTEEMED BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRESBYTER
AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD,
CHAP. I.- I. Although I suppose that, before this reaches you, you have
received through our i son the deacon Cyprian, a servant of God, the letter
which I sent by him, from which you would be apprised with certainty that I
wrote the letter of which you mentioned that a copy had been brought to
you; in consequence of which I suppose that I have begun already, like the
rash Dares, to be beaten and belaboured by the missiles and the merciless
fists of a second Entellus(1) in the reply which you have written;
nevertheless I answer in the meantime the letter which you have deigned to
send me by our holy son Asterius, in which I have found many proofs of your
most kind goodwill to me, and at the same time some signs of your having in
some measure felt agrieved by me. In reading it, therefore, I was no sooner
soothed by one sentence than I was buffeted in another; my wonder being
especially called forth by this, that after alleging, as your reason for
not rashly accepting as authentic he letter from me of which you had a
copy, the fact that, offended by your reply, I might justly remonstrate
with you, because you ought first to have ascertained that it was mine
before answering it, you go on to command me to acknowledge the letter
frankly if it is mine, or send a more reliable copy of it, in order that we
may, without any bitterness of feeling, address ourselves to the discussion
of scriptural doctrine. For how can we engage in such discussion without
bitterness of feeling, if you have made up your mind to offend me? or, if
your mind is not made up to this, what reason could I have had, when you
did not offend me, for justly complaining as having been offended by you,
that you ought first to have made sure that the letter was mine, and only
then to have replied, that is to say, only then to have offended me? For if
there had been nothing to offend me in your reply, I could have had no just
ground of com
plaint. Accordingly, when you write such a reply to that letter as must
offend me, what hope is left of our engaging without any bitterness in the
discussion of scriptural doctrine? Far be it from me to take offence if you
are willing and able to prove, by incontrovertible argument, that you have
apprehended more correctly than I have the meaning of that passage in
Paul's Epistle [to the Galatians], or of any other text in Holy Scripture:
nay, more, far be it from me to count it aught else than gain to myself,
and cause of thankfulness to you, if in anything I am either informed by
your teaching or set right by your correction.
2. But, my very dear brother, you could not think that I could be
offended by your reply, had you not thought that you were offended by what
I had written. For I could never have entertained concerning you the idea
that you had not felt yourself offended by me if you so flamed your reply
as to offend me in return. If, on the other hand, I have been supposed by
you to be capable of such preposterous folly as to take offence when you
had not written in such a way as to give me occasion, you have in this
already wronged me, that you have entertained such an opinion of me. But
surely you who are so cautious, that although you recognised my style in
the letter of which you had a copy, you refused to believe its
authenticity, would not without consideration believe me to be so different
from what your experience has proved me to be. For if you had good reason
for seeing that I might justly complain had you hastily concluded that a
letter not written by me was mine, how much more reasonably may I complain
if you form, without consideration, such an estimate of myself as is
contradicted by your own experience! You would not therefore go so far
astray in your judgment as to believe, when you had written nothing by
which I could be offended, that I would nevertheless be so foolish as to be
capable of being offended by such a reply.
CHAP II. -- 3. There can therefore be no doubt that you were prepared
to reply in such a way as would offend me, if you had only indisputable
evidence that the letter was mine. Accordingly, since I do not believe that
you would think it right to offend me unless you had just cause, it remains
for me to confess, as I now do, my fault as having been the first to offend
by writing that letter which I cannot deny to be mine. Why should I strive
to swim against the current, and not rather ask pardon? I therefore entreat
you by the mercy of Christ to forgive me wherein I have injured you, and
not to render evil for evil by injuring me in return. For it will be an
injury to me if you pass over in silence anything which you find wrong in
either word or action of mine. If, indeed, you rebuke in me that which
merits no rebuke, you do wrong to yourself, not to me; for far be it from
one of your life and holy vows to rebuke merely from a desire to give
offence, using the tongue of malice to condemn in me that which by the
truth-revealing light of reason you know to deserve no blame. Therefore
either rebuke kindly him whom, though he is free from fault, you think to
merit rebuke; or with a father's kindness soothe him whom you cannot bring
to agree with you. For it is possible that your opinion may be at variance
with the truth, while notwithstanding your actions are in harmony with
Christian charity: for I also shall most thankfully receive your rebuke as
a most friendly action, even though the thing censured be capable of
defence, and therefore ought not to have been censured; or else I shall
acknowledge both your kindness and my fault, and shall be found, so far as
the Lord enables me, grateful for the one, and corrected in regard to the
other.
4. Why, then, shah I fear your words, hard, perhaps, like the boxing-
gloves of Entellus, but certainly fitted to do me good? The blows of
Entellus were intended not to heal, but to harm, and therefore his
antagonist was conquered, not cured. But I, if I receive your correction
calmly as a necessary medicine, shall not be pained by it. If, however,
through weakness, either common to human nature or peculiar to myself, I
cannot help feeling some pain from rebuke, even when I am justly reproved,
it is far better to have a tumour in one's head cured, though the lance
cause pain, than to escape the pain by letting the disease go on. This was
clearly seen by him who said that, for the most part, our enemies who
expose our faults are more useful than friends who are afraid to reprove
us. For the former, in their angry recriminations, sometimes charge us with
what we indeed require to correct; but the latter, through fear of
destroying the sweetness of friendship, show less boldness on behalf of
right than they ought. Since;" therefore, you are, to quote your own
comparison, an ox(1) worn out, perhaps, as to your bodily strength by
reason of years, but unimpaired in mental vigour, and toiling still
assiduously and with profit in the Lord's threshing-floor; here am I, and
in whatever I have spoken amiss, tread firmly on me: the weight of your
venerable age should not be grievous to me, if the chaff of my fault be so
bruised under foot as to be separated from me.
5. Let me further say, that it is with the utmost affectionate yearning
that I read or recollect the words at the end of your letter, "Would that I
could receive your embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in
learning." For my part, I say,-- Would that we were even dwelling in parts
of the earth less widely separated; so that if we could not meet for
converse, we might at least have a more frequent exchange of letters. For
as it is, so great is the distance by which we are prevented from any kind
of access to each other through the eye and ear, that I remember writing to
your Holiness regarding these words in the Epistle to the Galatians when I
was young; and behold I am now advanced in age, and have not yet received a
reply, and a copy of my letter has reached you' by some strange accident
earlier than the letter, itself, about the transmission of which I took no:
small pains. For the man to whom I entrusted it neither delivered it to you
nor returned it to me. So great in my esteem is the value of those of your
writings which we have been able to procure, that I should prefer to all
other studies the privilege, if it were attainable by me, of sitting by
your side and learning from you: Since I cannot do this myself, I propose
to send to you one of my sons in the Lord, that he may for my benefit be
instructed by you, in the event of my receiving from you a favourable reply
in regard to the matter. For I have not now, and I can never hope to have,
such knowledge of the Divine Scriptures as I see you possess. Whatever
abilities I may have for such study, I devote entirely to the instruction
of the people whom God has entrusted to me; and I am wholly precluded by my
ecclesiastical occupations from having leisure for any further prosecution
of my studies than is necessary for my duty in public teaching.
CHAP. III. -- 6. I am not acquainted with the writings speaking
injuriously of you, which you tell me have come into Africa.. I have,
however, received the reply to these which you have been pleased to send.
After reading it, let me say frankly, I have been exceedingly grieved that
the mischief of such painful discord has arisen between persons once so
loving and intimate, and formerly united by the bond of a friendship which
was well known in almost all the Churches. In that treatise of yours, any
one may see how you are keeping yourself under restraint, and holding back
the stinging keenness of your indignation, lest you should render railing
for railing. If, however, even in reading this reply of yours, I fainted
with grief and shuddered with fear, what would be the effect produced in me
by the things which he has written against you, if they should come into my
possession! "Woe unto the world because of offences !"(1) Behold the
complete fulfilment of which He who is Truth foretold: "Because iniquity
shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. "(2) For what trusting
hearts can now pour themselves forth with any assurance of their confidence
being reciprocated? Into whose breast may confiding love now throw itself
without reserve? In short, where is the friend who may not be feared as
possibly a future enemy, if the breach that we deplore could arise between
Jerome and Rufinus? Oh, sad and pitiable is our portion! Who can rely upon
the affection of his friends because of what he knows them to be now, when
he has no foreknowledge of what they shall afterwards become? But why
should I reckon it cause for sorrow, that one man is thus ignorant of what
another may become, when no man knows even what he himself is afterwards to
be? The utmost that he knows, and that he knows but imperfectly, is his
present condition; of what he shall hereafter become he has no knowledge.
7. Do the holy and blessed angels possess not Only this knowledge of
their actual character, but also a foreknowledge of what they shall
afterward become? If they do, I cannot see how it was possible for Satan
ever to have been happy, even while he was still a good angel, knowing, as
in this case he must have known, his future transgression and eternal
punishment. I would wish to hear what you think as to this question, if
indeed it be one which it would be profitable for us to be able to answer.
But mark here what I suffer from the lands and seas which keep us, so far
as the body is concerned, distant from each other. If I were myself the
letter which you are now reading, you might have told me already what I
have just asked; but now, when will you write me a reply? when will you get
it sent away? when will it come here? when shall I receive it? And yet,
would that I were sure that it would come at last, though meanwhile I must
summon all the patience which I can command to endure the unwelcome but
unavoidable delay! Wherefore I come back to those most delightful words of
your letter, filled with your holy longing, and I in turn appropriate them
as my own: "Would that I might receive your embrace, and that by converse
we might aid each other in learning," -- if indeed there be any sense in
which I could possibly impart instruction to you.
8. When by these words, now mine not less than yours, I am gladdened
and refreshed, and when I am comforted not a little by the fact that in
both of us a desire for mutual fellowship exists, though meanwhile
unsatisfied, it is not long before I am pierced through by darts of keenest
sorrow when I consider Rufinus and you, to whom God had granted in fullest
measure and for a length of time that which both of us have longed for, so
that in most close and endearing fellowship you feasted together on the
honey of the Holy Scriptures, and think how between you the bright of such
exceeding bitterness has found its way, constraining us to ask when, where,
and in whom the same calamity may not be reasonably feared; seeing that it
has befallen you at the very time when, unencumbered, having cast away
secular burdens, you were following the Lord and were living together in
that very land which was trodden by the feet of our Lord, when He said,
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; "(1) being, moreover,
men of mature age, whose life was devote{ to the study of the word of God.
Truly "man's life on earth is a period of trial." (2) If I could anywhere
meet you both together -- which, alas, I cannot hope to do --so strong are
my agitation, grief, and fear, that I think I would cast myself at your
feet, and there weeping till I could weep no more, would, with all the
eloquence of love, appeal first to each of you for his own sake, then to
both for each other's sake, and for the sake of those, especially the weak,
"for whom Christ died,"(3) whose salvation is in peril, as they look on you
who occupy a place so conspicuous on the stage of time; imploring you not
to write and scatter abroad these hard words against each other, which, if
at any time you who are now at variance were reconciled, you could not
destroy, and which you could not then venture to read lest strife should be
kindled anew.
9. But I say to your Charity, that nothing has made me tremble more
than your estrangement from Rufinus, when I read in your letter some of the
indications of your being displeased with me. I refer not so much to what
you say of Entellus and of the wearied ox, in which you appear to me to use
genial pleasantry rather than angry threat, but to that which you have
evidently written in earnest, of which I have already spoken perhaps more
than was fitting, but not more than'. my fears compelled me to do, --
namely, the words, "lest perchance, being offended, you should have reason
to remonstrate with me." If it be possible for us to examine and discuss
anything by which our hearts may be nourished, without any bitterness of
discord, I entreat you let us address ourselves to this. But if it is not
possible for either of us to point out what he may judge to demand
correction in the other's writings, without being suspected of envy and
regarded as wounding friendship, let us, having regard to our spiritual
life and health, leave such conference alone. Let us content ourselves with
smaller attainments in that [knowledge] which puffeth up, if we can thereby
preserve unharmed that [charity] which edifieth.(4) I feel that I come far
short of that perfection of which it is written, "If any man offend not in
word, the same is a perfect man; "(5) but through God's mercy I truly
believe myself able to ask your forgiveness for that in which I have
offended you: and this you ought to make plain to me, that through my
hearing you, you may gain your brother.(6) Nor should you make it a reason
for leaving me in error, that the distance between us on the earth's
surface makes it impossible for us to meet face to face. As concerns the
subjects into which we inquire, if I know, or believe, or think that I have
got hold of the truth in a matter in which your opinion is different from
mine, I shall by all means endeavour, as the Lord may enable me, to
maintain my view without injuring you. And as to any offence which I may
give to you, so soon as I perceive your displeasure,I shall unreservedly
beg your forgiveness.
10 I think, moreover, that your reason for being displeased with me can
only be, that I have either said what I ought not, or have not expressed
myself in the manner in which I ought: for I do not wonder that we are less
thoroughly known to each other than we are to our most close and intimate
friends. Upon the love of such friends I readily cast myself without
reservation, especially when chafed and wearied by the scandals of this
world; and in their love I rest without any disturbing care: for I perceive
that God is there, on whom I confidingly cast myself, and in whom I
confidingly rest. Nor in this confidence am I disturbed by any fear of that
uncertainty as to the morrow which must be present when we lean upon human
weakness, and which I have in a former paragraph bewailed. For when I
perceive that a man is burning with Christian love, and feel that thereby
he has been made a faithful friend to me, whatever plans or thoughts of
mine I entrust to him I regard as entrusted not to the man, but to Him in
whom his character makes it evident that he dwells: for" God is love, and
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him ;"(7) and if he
cease to dwell in love, his forsaking it cannot but cause as much pain as
his abiding in it caused joy. Nevertheless, in such a case, when one who
was an intimate friend has become an enemy, it is better that he should
search out what ingenuity may help him to fabricate to our prejudice, than
that he should find what anger may provoke him to reveal. This every one
most easily secures, not by concealing what he does, but by doing nothing
which he would wish to conceal. And this the mercy of God grants to good
and pious men: they go out and in among their friends in liberty and
without fear, whatever these friends may afterwards become: the sins which
may have been committed by others within their knowledge they do not
reveal, and they themselves avoid doing what they would fear to see
revealed. For when any false charge is fabricated by a slanderer, either it
is disbelieved, or, if it is believed, our reputation alone is injured, our
spiritual wellbeing is not affected. But when, any sinful action is
committed, that action becomes a secret enemy, even though it be not:
revealed by the thoughtless or malicious talk of one acquainted with our
secrets. Wherefore any, person of discernment may see in your own; example
how, by the comfort of a good conscience, you bear what would otherwise be
insupportable -- the incredible enmity of one who was i formerly your most
intimate and beloved friend; and how even what he utters against you, even
what may to your disadvantage be believed by some, you turn to good account
as the armour of righteousness on the left hand, which is not less useful
than armour on the right hand(1) in our warfare with the devil. But truly I
would rather see him less bitter in his accusations, than see you thus more
fully armed by them. This is a great and a lamentable wonder, that you
should have passed from such amity to such enmity: it would be a joyful and
a much greater event, should you come back from such enmity to the
friendship of former days.
LETTER LXXIV. (A.D. 404.)
TO MY LORD PRAESIDIUS, MOST BLESSED, MY BROTHER AND PARTNER IN THE PRIESTLY
OFFICE, TRULY ESTEEMED, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. I write to remind you of the request which I made to you as a
sincere friend when you were here, that you would not refuse to send a
letter of mine to our holy brother and fellow-presbyter Jerome; in order,
moreover, to let your Charity know in what terms you ought to write to him
on my behalf. I have sent a copy of my letter to him, and of his to me, by
reading which your pious wisdom may easily see both the moderation of tone
which I have been careful tb preserve, and the vehemence on his part by
which I have been not unreasonably filled with fear. If, however, I have
written anything which I ought not to have written, or have expressed
myself in an unbecoming way, let it not be to him, but to myself, in
brotherly love, that you send your opinion of what I have done, in order
that, if I am convinced of my fault by your rebuke, I may ask his
forgiveness.
LETTER LXXV. (A.D. 404.) Jerome's answer to Letters XXVIII., XL, and LXXI.
TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD TRULY HOLY, AND MOST BLESSED FATHER, JEROME SENDS
GREETING IN CHRIST.
CHAP. I.--1. I have received by Cyprian, deacon, three letters, or
rather three little books, at the same time, from your Excellency,
containing what you call sundry questions, but what I feel to be
animadversions on opinions which I have published, to answer which, if I
were disposed to do it, would require a pretty large volume. Nevertheless I
shall attempt to reply without exceeding the limits of a moderately long
letter, and without causing delay to our brother, now in haste to depart,
who only three days before the time fixed for his journey asked earnestly
for a letter to take with him, in consequence of which I am compelled to
pour out these sentences, such as they are, almost without premeditation,
answering you in a rambling effusion, prepared not in the leisure of
deliberate composition, but in the hurry of extemporaneous dictation, which
usually produces a discourse that is more the offspring of chance than the
parent of instruction; just as unexpected attacks throw into confusion even
the bravest soldiers, and they are compelled to take to flight before they
can gird on their armour.
1. But our armour is Christ; it is that which the Apostle Paul
prescribes when, writing to the Ephesians, he says, "Take unto you the
whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day;" and
again, "Stand, therefore, having your loins gin about with truth, and
having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked: and
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God."(2) Armed with these weapons, King David went forth in his day
to battle: and taking from the torrent's bed five smooth rounded stones, he
proved that, even amidst all the eddying currents of the world, his
feelings were free both from roughness and from defilement; drinking of the
brook by the way, and therefore lifted up in spirit, he cut off the head of
Goliath, using the proud enemy's own sword as the fittest instrument of
death,(3) smiting the profane boaster on the forehead and wounding him in
the same place in which Uzziah was smitten with leprosy when he presumed to
usurp the priestly office; (4) the same' also in which shines the glory
that makes the saints rejoice in the Lord, saying, "The light of Thy
countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord."(1) Let us therefore also say, "My
heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise:
awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake
early;"(2) that in us may be fulfilled that word, "Open thy mouth wide, and
I will fill it; "(3) and, "The Lord shall give the word with great power to
them that publish it." (4) I am well assured that your prayer as well as
mine is, that in our contendings the victory may remain with the truth. For
you seek Christ's glory, not your own: if you are victorious, I also gain a
victory if I discover my error. On the other hand, if I win the day, the
gain is yours; for "the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but
the parents for the children."(5) We read, moreover, in Chronicles, that
the children of Israel went to battle with their minds set upon peace,(6)
seeking even amid swords and bloodshed and the prostrate slain a victory
not for themselves, but for peace. Let me therefore, if it be the will of
Christ, give an answer to all that you have written, and attempt in a short
dissertation to solve your numerous questions. I pass by the conciliatory
phrases in your courteous salutation: I say nothing of the compliments by
which you attempt to take the edge off your censure: let me come at once to
the matters in debate.
CHAP. III. -- 3. You say that you received from some brother a book of
mine, in which I have given a list of ecclesiastical writers, both Greek
and Latin, but which had no title; and that when you asked the brother
aforesaid (I quote your own statement) why the title-page had no
inscription, or what was the name by which the book was known, he answered
that it was called "Epitaphium," i.e. "Obituary Notices:" upon which you
display your reasoning powers, by remarking that the name Epitaphium would
have been properly given to the book if the reader had found in it an
account of the lives and writings of deceased authors, but that inasmuch as
mention is made of the works of many who were living when the book was
written, and are at this day still living, you wonder why I should have
given the book a title so inappropriate. I think that it must be obvious to
your own common sense, that you might have discovered the title of that
book from its contents, without any other help. For you have read both
Greek and Latin biographies of eminent men, and you know that they do not
give to works of this kind the title Epitaphium, but simply "Illustrious
Men," e.g. "Illustrious Generals," or "philosophers, orators, historians,
poets," etc., as the case may be. An Epitaphium is a work written
concerning the dead; such as I remember having composed long ago after the
decease of the presbyter Nepotianus, of blessed memory. The book,
therefore, of which you speak ought to be entitled, "Concerning Illustrious
Men," or properly, "Concerning Ecclesiastical Writers," although it is said
that by many who were not qualified to make any correction of the title, it
has been called "Concerning Authors."
CHAP. III.-- 4. You ask, in the second place, my reason for saying, in
my commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, that Paul could not have
rebuked Peter for that which he himself had done,(7) and could not have
censured in another the dissimulation of which he was himself confessedly
guilty; and you affirm that that rebuke of the apostle was not a manoeuvre
of pious policy,(8) but real; and you say that I ought not to teach
falsehood, but that all things in Scripture are to be received literally as
they stand.
To this I answer, in the first place, that your wisdom ought to have
suggested the remembrance of the short preface to my commentaries, saying
of my own person, "What then? Am I so foolish and bold as to promise that
which he could not accomplish? By no means; but t have rather, as it seems
to me, with more reserve and hesitation, because feeling the deficiency of
my strength, followed the commentaries of Origen in this matter. For that
illustrious man wrote five volumes on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians,
and has occupied the tenth volume of his Stromata with a short treatise
upon his explanation of the epistle. He also composed several treatises and
fragmentary pieces upon it, which, if they even had stood alone, would have
sufficed. I pass over my revered instructor Didymus(9) (blind, it is true,
but quick-sighted in the discernment of spiritual things), and the bishop
of Laodicea,(10) who has recently left the Church, and the early heretic
Alexander, as well as Eusebius of Emesa and Theodorus of Heraclea, who have
also left some brief disquisitions upon this subject. From these works if I
were to extract even a few passages, a work which could not be altogether
despised would be produced. Let me therefore frankly say that I have read
all these; and storing up in my mind very many things which they contain, I
have dictated to my amanuensis sometimes what was borrowed from other
writers, sometimes what was my own,! without distinctly remembering the
method, or' the words, or the opinions which belonged to each. I look now
to the Lord in His mercy to grant that my want of skill and experience may
not cause the things which others have well spoken to be lost, or to fail
of finding among foreign readers the acceptance with which they have met in
the language in which they were first written. If, therefore, anything in
my explanation has seemed to you to demand correction, it would have been
seemly for one of your learning to inquire first whether what I had written
was found in the Greek writers to whom I have referred; and if they had not
advanced the opinion which you censured, you could then with propriety
condemn me for what I gave as my own view, especially seeing that I have in
the preface openly acknowledged that I had followed the commentaries of
Origen, and had dictated sometimes the view of others, sometimes my own,
and have written at the end of the chapter with which you find fault: "If
any one be dissatisfied with the interpretation here given, by which it is
shown that neither did Peter sin, nor did Paul rebuke presumptuously a
greater than himself, he is bound to show how Paul could consistently blame
in another what he himself did." By which I have made it manifest that I
did not adopt finally and irrevocably that which I had read in these Greek
authors, but had propounded what I had read, leaving to the reader's own
judgment whether it should be rejected or approved.
5. You, however, in order to avoid doing what I had asked, have devised
a new argument against the view proposed; maintaining that the Gentiles who
had believed in Christ were free from the burden of the ceremonial law, but
that the Jewish converts were under the law, and that Paul, as the teacher
of the Gentiles, rightly rebuked those who kept the law; whereas Peter, who
was the chief of the "circumcision,"(1) was justly rebuked for commanding
the Gentile converts to do that which the converts from among the Jews were
alone under obligation to observe. If this is your opinion, or rather since
it is your opinion, that all from among the Jews who believe are debtors to
do the whole law, you ought, as being a bishop of great fame in the whole
world, to publish your doctrine, and labour to persuade all other bishops
to agree with you. As for me in my humble cell,(2) along with the monks my
fellow-sinners, I do not presume to dogmatize in regard to things of great
moment; I only confess frankly that I read the writings of the Fathers,(3)
and, complying with universal usage, put down in my commentaries a variety
of explanations, that each may adopt from the number given the one which
pleases him. This method, I think, you have found in your reading, and have
approved in connection with both secular literature and the Divine
Scriptures.
6. Moreover, as to this explanation which Origen first advanced,(4) and
which all the other commentators after him have adopted, they bring
forward, chiefly for the purpose of answering, the blasphemies of Porphyry,
who accuses Paul of presumption because he dared to reprove Peter and
rebuke him to his face, and by reasoning convict him of having done wrong;
that is to say, of being in the very fault which he himself, who blamed
another for transgressing, had committed. What shall I say also of John,
who has long governed the Church of Constantinople, and holding pontifical
rank,(5) who has composed a very large book upon this paragraph, and has
followed the opinion of Origen and of the old expositors? If, therefore,
you censure me as in the wrong, suffer me, I pray you, to be mistaken in
company with such men; and when you perceive that I have so many companions
in my error, you will require to produce at least one partisan in defence
of your truth. So much on the interpretation of one paragraph of the
Epistle to the Galatians.
7. Lest, however, I should seem to rest my answer to your reasoning
wholly on the number of witnesses who are on my side, and to use the names
of illustrious men as a means of escaping from the truth, not daring to
meet you in argument, I shall briefly bring forward some examples from the
Scriptures.
In the Acts of the Apostles, a voice was heard by Peter, saying unto
him, "Rise, Peter, slay and eat," when all manner of four-looted beasts,
and creeping things, and birds of the air, were presented before him; by
which saying it is proved that no man is by nature [ceremonially] unclean,
but that all men are equally welcome to the gospel of Christ. To which
Peter answered, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is
common or unclean." And the voice spake unto him again the second time,
"What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." Therefore he went to
Caesarea, and having entered the house of Cornelius, "he opened his mouth
and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in
every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with
Him." Thereafter "the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word; and
they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came
with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of
the Holy Ghost. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these
should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."(1) "And the
apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also
received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they
that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in
to men; uncircumcised, and didst eat with them." To whom he gave a full
explanation of the reasons of his conduct, and concluded with these words!
"Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us who
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God?
When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God,
saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto
life."(2) Again, when, long after this, Paul and Barnabas had come to
Antioch, and "having gathered the Church together, rehearsed all that God
had done with them, and how He .had opened the door of faith unto the
Gentiles, certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and
said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be
saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small! dissension and
disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain
other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto] the apostles and elders
about this question. And when they were come to Jerusalem, there rose up
certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was
needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses."
And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, with his wonted
readiness, "and said, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago
God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the
word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare
them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; and put
no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now
therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that,
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as
they. Then all the multitude kept silence;" and to his opinion the Apostle
James, and all the elders together, gave consent.(3)
8. These quotations should not be tedious to the reader, but useful
both to him and to me, as proving that, even before the Apostle Paul, Peter
had come to know that the law was not to be in force after the gospel was
given; nay more, that Peter was the prime mover in issuing the decree by
which this was affirmed. Moreover, Peter was of so great authority, that
Paul has recorded in his epistle: "Then, after three years, I went !up to
Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days."(4) In the
following context, again, he adds: "Then, fourteen years after, I went up
again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went
up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach
among the Gentiles ;" proving that he had not had confidence in his
preaching of the gospel if he had not been confirmed by the consent of
Peter and those who were with him. The next words are, "but privately to
them that were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run,
in vain." Why did he this privately rather than in public? Lest offence
should be given to the faith of those who from among the Jews had believed,
since they thought that the law was still in force, and that they ought to
join observance of the law with faith in the Lord as their Saviour.
Therefore also, when at that time Peter had come to Antioch (although the
Acts of the Apostles do not mention this, but we must believe Paul's
statement), Paul affirms that he "withstood him to the face, because he was
to be blamed. For, before that certain came from James, he did eat with the
Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew, and separated himself,
fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their
dissimulation. But when I saw," he says, "that they walked not up-rightly,
according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If
thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the
Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ?"(5) etc. No
one can doubt, therefore, that the Apostle Peter was himself the author of
that rule with deviation from which he is charged. The cause of that
deviation, moreover, is seen to be fear of the Jews. For the Scripture
says, that "at first he did eat with the Gentiles, but that when certain
had come from James he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing them which
were of the circumcision." Now he feared the Jews, to whom he had been
appointed apostle, lest by occasion of the Gentiles they should go back
from the faith in Christ; imitating the Good Shepherd in his concern lest
he should lose the flock committed to him.
9. As I have shown, therefore, that Peter was thoroughly aware of the
abrogation of the law of Moses, but was compelled by fear to pretend to
observe it, let us now see whether Paul, who accuses another, ever did
anything of the same kind himself. We read in the same book: "Paul passed
through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. Then came he to Derbe
and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the
son of a certain woman which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father!
was a Greek: which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra
and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and he took and
circumcised him, because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they
knew all that his father was a Greek."(1) O blessed Apostle Paul, who hadst
rebuked Peter for dissimulation, because he withdrew himself from the
Gentiles through fear of the Jews who came from James, why art thou,
notwithstanding thine own doctrine, compelled to circumcise Timothy, the
son of a Gentile, nay more, a Gentile himself (for he was not a Jew, having
not been circumcised)? Thou wilt answer, "Because of the Jews which are in
these quarters?" If, then, thou forgiveth thyself the circumcision of a
disciple coming from the Gentiles, forgive Peter also, who has precedence
above thee, his doing some things of the same kind through fear of the
believing Jews. Again, it is written: "Paul after this tarried there yet a
good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into
Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in
Cenchrea, for he had a vow."(2) Be it granted that he was compelled through
fear of the Jews in the other case to do what he was unwilling to do;
wherefore did he let his hair grow in accordance with a vow of his own
making, and afterwards, when in Cenchrea, shave his head according to the
law, as the Nazarites, who had given themselves by vow to God, were wont to
do, according to the law of Moses ?
10 But these things are small when compared with what follows. The
sacred historian Luke further relates: "And when we were come to Jerusalem,
the brethren received us gladly;" and the day following, James, and all the
elders who were with him, having expressed their approbation of his gospel,
said to Paul: "Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are
which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: and they are informed
of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to
forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children,
neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must
needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore
this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them
take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they
may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they
were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also
walkest orderly, and keepest the law. Then Paul took the men, and the next
day purifying himself with them, entered into the temple, to signify the
accomplishment of the days of purification, until an offering should be
offered for every one of them."(3) O Paul, here again let me question thee:
Why didst thou shave thy head, why didst thou walk barefoot according to I
Jewish ceremonial law, why didst thou offer sacrifices, why were victims
slain for thee according to the law? Thou wilt answer, doubtless, "To avoid
giving offence to those of the Jews who had believed." To gain the Jews,
thou didst pretend to be a Jew; and James and all the other elders taught
thee this dissimulation. But thou didst not succeed in escaping, after all.
For when thou wast on the point of being killed in a tumult which had
arisen, thou wast rescued by the chief captain of the band, and was sent by
him to Caesarea, guarded by a careful escort of soldiers, lest the Jews
should kill thee as a dissembler, and a destroyer of the law; and from
Caesarea coming to Rome, thou didst, in thine own hired house, preach
Christ to both Jews and Gentiles, and thy. testimony was sealed under
Nero's sword.(4)
11. We have learned, therefore, that through fear of the Jews both
Peter and Paul alike pretended that they observed the precepts of the law.
How could Paul have the assurance and effrontery to reprove in another what
he had done himself? I at least, or, I should rather say, [others before
me, have given such explanation of the matter as they deemed best, not
defending the use of falsehood in the interest of religion,(5) as you
charge them with doing, but teaching the honourable exercise of a wise
discretion;(6) seeking both to show the wisdom of the apostles, and to
restrain the shameless blasphemies of Porphyry, who says that Peter and
Paul quarrelled with each other in childish rivalry, and affirms that Paul
had been inflamed with envy on account of the excellences of Peter, and had
written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if he did
them, had done with inexcusable presumption, reproving in another that
which he himself had done. They, in answering him, gave the best
interpretation of the passage which they could find; what interpretation
have you to propound? Surely you must intend to say something better than
they have said, since you have rejected the opinion of the ancient
commentators.
CHAP. IV.-- 12. You say in your letter: (1) "You do not require me to
teach you in what sense the apostle says, 'To the Jews I became as a Jew,
that I might gain the Jews;'(2) and other such things in the same passage,
which are to be ascribed to the compassion of pitying love, not to the
artifices of intentional deceit. For he that ministers to the sick becomes
as if he were sick himself, not indeed falsely pretending to be under the
fever, but considering with the mind of one truly sympathizing what he
would wish done for himself if he were in the sick man's place. Paul was
indeed a Jew; and when he had become a Christian, he had not abandoned
those Jewish sacraments which that people had received in the right way,
and for a certain appointed time. Therefore, even when he was an apostle of
Christ, he took part in observing these, but with this view, that he might
show that they were in no wise hurtful to those who, even after they had
believed in Christ, desired to retain the ceremonies which by the law they
had learned from their fathers; provided only that they did not build on
these their hope of salvation, since the salvation which was fore-shadowed
in these has now been brought in by the Lord Jesus." The sum of your whole
argument, which you have expanded into a most prolix dissertation, is this,
that Peter did not err in supposing that the law was binding on those who
from among the Jews had believed, but departed from the right course in
this, that he compelled the Gentile converts to conform to Jewish
observances. Now, if he compelled them, it was not by use of authority as a
teacher, but by the example of his own practice. And Paul, according to
your view, did not protest against what Peter had done personally, but
asked wherefore Peter would compel those who were from among the Gentiles
to conform to Jewish observances.
13. The matter in debate, therefore, or I should rather say your
opinion regarding it, is summed up in this: that since the preaching of the
gospel of Christ, the believing Jews do well in observing the precepts of
the law, i.e. in offering sacrifices as Paul did, in circumcising their
children, as Paul did in the case of Timothy, and keeping the Jewish
Sabbath, as all the Jews have been accustomed to do. If this be true, we
fall into the heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion, who, though believing in
Christ, were anathematized by the fathers for this one error, that they
mixed up the ceremonies of the law with the gospel of Christ, and professed
their faith in that which was new, without letting go what was old. Why do
I speak of the Ebionites, who make pretensions to the name of Christian? In
our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the
synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even
now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known
commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of , the
Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and
rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they
desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the
other. I therefore beseech you, who think that you are called upon to heal
my slight wound, which is no more, so to speak, than a prick or scratch
from a needle, to devote your skill in the healing art to this grievous
wound, which has been opened by a spear driven home with the impetus of a
javelin. For there is surely no proportion between the culpability of him
who exhibits the various opinions held by the fathers in a commentary on
Scripture, and the guilt of him who reintroduces within the Church a most
pestilential heresy. If, however, there is for us no alternative but to
receive the Jews into the Church, along with the usages prescribed by their
law; if, in short, it shall be declared lawful for them to continue in the
Churches of Christ what they have been accustomed to practise in the
synagogues of Satan, I will tell you my opinion of the matter: they will
not become Christians, but they will make us Jews.
14. For what Christian will submit to hear what is said in your letter?
"Paul was indeed a Jew; and when he had become a Christian, he had not
abandoned those Jewish sacraments which that people had received in the
right way, and for a certain appointed time. Therefore, even when he was an
apostle of Christ, he took part in observing these; but with this view,
that he might show that they were in no wise hurtful to those who, even
after they had believed in Christ, desired to retain the ceremonies which
by the law they had learned from their fathers." Now I implore you to hear
patiently my complaint. Paul, even when he was an apostle of Christ,
observed Jewish ceremonies; and you affirm that they are in no wise hurtful
to those who wish to retain them as they had received them from their
fathers by the law. I, on the contrary, shall maintain, and, though the
world were to protest against my view, I may boldly declare that .the
Jewish ceremonies are to Christians both hurtful and fatal; and that
whoever observes them, whether he be Jew or Gentile originally, is cast
into the pit of perdition. "For Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth,"(1) that is, to both Jew and
Gentile; for if the Jew be excepted, He is not the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth. Moreover, we read in the Gospel,
"The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist.''(2) Also, in
another place: "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He
had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father,
making Himself equal with God."(3) Again: "Of His fulness have all we
received, and grace for grace; for the law was given Moses, but grace and
truth came by Jesus: Christ." (4) Instead of the grace of the law which'
has passed away, we have received the grace of the gospel which is abiding;
and instead of the shadows and types of the old dispensation, the truth has
come by Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also prophesied thus in God's name: "Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant
which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt."(5) Observe what the prophet says,
not to Gentiles, who had not been partakers in any former covenant, but to
the Jewish nation. He who has given them the law by Moses, promises in
place of it the new covenant of the gospel, that they might no longer live
in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit. Paul
himself, moreover, in connection with whom the discussion of this question
has arisen, delivers such sentiments as these frequently, of which I
subjoin only a few, as I desire to be brief: "Behold, I Paul say unto you,
that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." Again: "Christ
is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law;
ye are fallen from grace." Again: "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not
under the law." (6) From which it is evident that he has not the Holy
Spirit who submits to the law, not, as our fathers affirmed the apostles to
have done, feignedly, under the promptings of a wise discretion,(7) but, as
you suppose to have been the case, sincerely. As to the quality of these
legal precepts, let us learn from God's own teaching: "I gave them," He
says, "statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not
live." (8) I say these things, not that I may, like Manichaeus and Marcion,
destroy the law, which I know on the testimony of the apostle to be both
holy and spiritual; but because when "faith came," and the fulness of
times, "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons," (9) and might live no longer under the law as our schoolmaster, but
under the Heir, who has now attained to full age, and is Lord.
15. It is further said in your letter: "The thing, therefore, which he
rebuked in Peter was not his observing the customs handed down from his
fathers, which Peter, if he wished, might do without being chargeable with
deceit or inconsistency." (10) Again I say: Since you are a bishop, a
teacher in the Churches of Christ, if you would prove what you assert,
receive any Jew who, after having become a Christian, circumcises any son
that may be born to him, observes the Jewish Sabbath, abstains from meats
which God has created to be used with thanksgiving, and on the evening of
the fourteenth day of the first month slays a paschal lamb; and when you
have done this, or rather, have refused to do it (for I know that you are a
Christian, and will not be guilty of a profane action), you will be
constrained, whether willingly or unwillingly, to renounce your opinion;
and then 'you will know that it is a more difficult work to reject the
opinion of others than to establish your own. Moreover, lest perhaps we
should not believe your statement, or, I should rather say, understand it
(for it is often the case that a discourse unduly extended is not
intelligible, and is less censured by the unskilled in discussion because
its weakness is not so easily perceived), you inculcate your opinion by
reiterating the statement in these words: "Paul had forsaken everything
peculiar to the Jews that was evil, especially this, that 'being ignorant
of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, they had not submitted themselves to the righteousness of
God.'(11) In this, moreover, he differed froth them, that after the passion
and resurrection of Christ, in whom had been given and made manifest the
mystery of grace, according to the order of Melchizedek, they still
considered it binding on them to celebrate, not out of mere reverence for
old customs, but as necessary to salvation, the sacraments of the old
dispensation; which were indeed at one time necessary, else had it been
unprofitable and vain for the Maccabees to suffer martyrdom as they did for
their adherence to them.(1) Lastly, in this also Paul differed from the
Jews, that they persecuted the Christian preachers of grace as enemies of
the law. These, and all similar errors and sins, he declares that he
counted but loss and dung, that he might win Christ.''(2)
16. We have learned from you what evil things peculiar to the Jews Paul
had abandoned; let us now learn from your teaching what good things which
were Jewish he retained. You will reply: "The ceremonial observances in
which they continued to follow the practice of their fathers, in the way in
which these were complied, with by Paul himself, without believing them to
be at all necessary to salvation." I do not fully understand what you mean
by the words, "without believing them to be at all necessary to salvation."
For if they do not contribute to salvation, why are they observed? And if
they must be observed, they by all means contribute to salvation;
especially seeing that, because of observing them, some have been made
martyrs: for they would not be observed unless they contributed to
salvation. For they are not things indifferent--neither good nor bad, as
philosophers say. Self-control is good, self-indulgence is bad: between
these, and indifferent, as having no moral quality, are such things as
walking, blowing one's nose, expectorating phlegm, etc. Such an action is
neither good nor bad; for whether you do it or leave it undone, it does
riot affect your standing as righteous or unrighteous. But the observance
of legal ceremonies is not a thing indifferent; it is either good or bad.
You say it is good. I affirm it to be bad, and bad not only when done by
Gentile converts, but also when done by Jews who have believed. In this
passage you fall, if I am not mistaken, into one error while avoiding
another. For while you guard yourself against the blasphemies of Porphyry,
you become entangled in the snares of Ebion; pronouncing that the law is
binding on those who from among the Jews have believed. Perceiving, again,
that what you have said is a dangerous doctrine, you attempt to qualify it
by words which are only superfluous: viz., "The law must be observed not
from any belief, such as prompted the Jews to keep it, that this is
necessary to salvation, and not in any misleading dissimulation such as
Paul reproved in Peter."
17. Peter therefore pretended to keep the law; but this censor of Peter
boldly observed the things prescribed by the law. The next words of your
letter are these: "For if Paul observed these sacraments in order, by
pretending to be a Jew, to gain the Jews, why did he not also take part
with the Gentiles in heathen sacrifices, when to them that were without law
he became as without law, that he might gain them also? The explanation is
found in this, that he took part in the Jewish rites as being himself a
Jew; and that when he said all this which I have quoted, he meant not that
he pretended to be what he was not, but that he felt with true compassion
that he must bring such help to them as would be needful for himself if he
were involved in their error.(3) Herein he exercised not the subtlety of a
deceiver, but the sympathy of a compassionate deliverer." A triumphant
vindication of Paul! You prove that he did not pretend to share the error
of the Jews, but was actually involved in it; and that he refused to
imitate Peter in a course of deception, dissembling through fear of the
Jews what he really was, but without reserve freely avowed himself to be a
Jew. Oh, unheard-of compassion of the apostle! In seeking to make the Jews
Christians, he himself became a Jew! For he could not have persuaded the
luxurious to become temperate if he had not himself become luxurious like
them; and could not have brought help, in his compassion, as you say, to
the wretched, otherwise than by experiencing in his own person their
wretchedness! Truly wretched, and worthy of most compassionate lamentation,
are those who, carried away by vehemence of disputation, and by love for
the law which has been abolished, have made Christ's apostle to be a Jew.
Nor is there, after all, a great difference between my opinion and yours:
for I say that both Peter and Paul, through fear of the believing Jews,
practised, or rather pretended to practise, the precepts of the Jewish law;
whereas you maintain that they did this out of pity, "not with the subtlety
of a deceiver, but with the sympathy of a compassionate deliverer." But by
both this is equally admitted, that (whether from fear or from pity) they
pretended to be what they were not. As to your argument against our view,
that he ought to have become to the Gentiles a Gentile, if to the Jews he
became a Jew, this favours our opinion rather than yours: for as he did not
actually become a Jew, so he did not actually become a heathen; and as he
did not actually become a heathen, so he did not actually become a Jew. His
conformity to the Gentiles consisted in this, that he received as
Christians the uncircumcised who believed in Christ, and left them free to
use without scruple meats which the Jewish law prohibited; but not, as you
suppose, in taking part in their worship of idols. For "in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but the keeping
of the commandments of God." (4)
18. I ask you, therefore, and with all urgency press the request, that
you forgive me this humble attempt at a discussion of the matter; and
wherein I have transgressed, lay the blame upon yourself who compelled me
to write in reply, and who made me out to be as blind as Stesichorus. And
do not bring the reproach of teaching the practice of lying upon me who am
a follower of Christ, who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."(1)
It is impossible for me, who am a worshipper of the Truth, to bow under the
yoke of falsehood. Moreover, refrain from stirring up against me the
unlearned crowd who esteem you as their bishop, and regard with the respect
due the priestly office the orations which you deliver in the church, but
who esteem lightly an old decrepit man like me, courting the retirement of
a monastery far from the busy haunts of men; and seek others who may be
more fitly instructed or corrected by you. For the sound of your Voice can
scarcely reach me,, who am so far separated from you by sea and land. And
if you happen to write me a letter, Italy and Rome are sure to be
acquainted with its contents long before it is brought to me, to whom alone
it ought to be sent.
CHAP. V. -- 19. In another letter you ask why a former translation
which I made of some of the canonical books was carefully marked with
asterisks and obelisks, whereas I afterwards published a translation
without these. You must pardon my saying that you seem to me not to
understand the matter: for the former translation is from the Septuagint;
and wherever obelisks are placed, :they are designed to indicate that the
Seventy have said more than is found in the Hebrew. But the asterisks
indicate what has been added by Origen from the version of Theodotion. In
that version I was translating from the Greek: but in the later version,
translating from the Hebrew itself, I have expressed what I understood it
to mean, being careful to preserve rather the exact sense than the order of
the words. I am surprised that you do not read the books of the Seventy
translators in the genuine form in which they were originally given to the
world, but as they have been corrected, or rather corrupted, by Origen,
with his obelisks and asterisks; and that you refuse to follow the
translation, however feeble, which has been given by a Christian man,
especially seeing that Origen borrowed the things which he has added from
the edition of a man who, after the passion of Christ, was a Jew and a
blasphemer. Do you wish to be a true admirer and partisan of the Seventy
translators? Then do not read what you find under the asterisks; rather
erase them from the volumes, that you may approve yourself indeed a
follower of the ancients. If, however, you do this, you will be compelled
to find fault with all the libraries of the Churches; for you will scarcely
find more than one Ms. here and there which has not these interpolations.
CHAP. VI.-- 20 A few words now as to your remark that I ought not to
have given a translation, after this had been already done by the ancients;
and the novel syllogism which you use: "The passages of which the Seventy
have given an interpretation were either obscure or plain. If they were
obscure, it is believed that you are as likely to have been mistaken as the
others if they were plain, it is not believed that the Seventy could have
been mistaken."(2)
All the commentators who have been our predecessors in the Lord in the
work of expounding the Scriptures, have expounded either what was obscure
or what was plain. If some passages were obscure, how could you, after
them, presume to discuss that which they were not able to explain? If the
passages were plain, it was a waste of time for you to have undertaken to
treat of that which could not possibly have escaped them. This syllogism
applies with peculiar force to the book of Psalms, in the interpretation of
which Greek commentators have written many volumes: viz. 1st, Origen: 2d,
Eusebius of Caesarea; 3d, Theodorus of Heraclea; 4th, Asterius of
Scythopolis; 5th, Apollinaris of Laodicea; and, 6th, Didymus of Alexandria.
There are said to be minor works on selections from the Psalms, but I speak
at present of the whole book. Moreover, among Latin writers the bishops
Hilary of Poitiers, and Eusebius of Verceil, have translated Origen and
Eusebius of Caesarea, the former of whom has in some things been followed
by our own Ambrose. Now, I put it to your wisdom to answer why you, after
all the labours of so many and so competent interpreters, differ from them
in your exposition of some passages? If the Psalms are obscure, it must be
believed that you are as likely to be mistaken as others; if they are
plain, it is incredible that these others could have fallen into mistake.
In either case, your exposition has been, by your own showing, an
unnecessary labour; and on the same principle, no one would ever venture to
speak on any subject after others have pronounced their opinion, and no one
would be at liberty to write anything regarding that which another has once
handled, however important the matter might be.
It is, however, more in keeping with your enlightened judgment, to
grant to all others the liberty which you tolerate in yourself for in my
attempt to translate into Latin, for the benefit of those who speak the
same language with myself, the corrected Greek version of the Scriptures, I
have laboured not to supersede what has been long esteemed, but only to
bring prominently forward those things which have been either omitted or
tampered with by the Jews, in order that Latin readers might know what is
found in the original Hebrew. If any one is averse to reading it, none
compels him against his will. Let him drink with satisfaction the old wine,
and despise my new wine, i.e. the sentences which I have published in
explanation of former writers, with the design of making more obvious by my
remarks what in them seemed to me to be obscure.
As to the principles which ought to be followed in the interpretation
of the Sacred Scriptures, they are stated in the book which I have
written,(1) and in all the introductions to the divine books which I have
in my edition prefixed to each; and to these I think it sufficient to refer
the prudent reader. And since you approve of my labours in revising the
translation of the New Testament, as you say,-- giving me at the same time
this as your reason, that very many are acquainted with the Greek language,
and are therefore competent judges of my work,--it would have been but fair
to have given me credit for the same fidelity in the Old Testament; for I
have not followed my own imagination, but have rendered the divine words as
I found them understood by those who speak the Hebrew language. If you have
any doubt of this in any passage, ask the Jews what is the meaning of the
original.
21. Perhaps you will say, "What if the Jews decline to answer, or
choose to impose upon us ?" Is it conceivable that the whole multitude of
Jews will agree together to be silent if asked about my translation, and
that none shall be found that has any knowledge of the Hebrew language? Or
will they all imitate those Jews whom you mention as having, in some little
town, conspired to injure my reputation? For in your letter you put
together the following story: --"A certain bishop, one of our brethren,
having introduced in the Church over which he presides the reading of your
version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you
have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old
familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been
chanted for so many generations in the Church. Thereupon arose such a
tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what
had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was
compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town
of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the
words in the Hebrew Mss. were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and
in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was
compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely
translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation,-- a
calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this case we also are led to think
that you may be occasionally mistaken."(2)
CHAP. VII. -- 22. YOU tell me that I have given a wrong translation of
some word in Jonah, and that a worthy bishop narrowly escaped losing his
charge through the clamorous tumult of his people, which was caused by the
different rendering of this one word. At the same time, you withhold from
me what the word was which I have mistranslated; thus taking away the
possibility of my saying anything in my own vindication, lest my reply
should be fatal to your objection. Perhaps it is the old dispute about the
gourd which has been revived, after slumbering for many long years since
the illustrious man, who in that day combined in his own person the
ancestral honours of the Cornelii and of Asinius Pollio,(3) brought against
me the charge of giving in my translation the word "ivy" instead of "gourd"
I have already given a sufficient answer to this in my commentary on Jonah.
At present, I deem it enough to say that m that passage, where the
Septuagint has "gourd," and Aquila and the others have rendered the word
"ivy" (ki'ssos), the Hebrew MS. has "ciceion," which is in the Syriac
tongue, as now spoken, "ciceia." It is a kind of shrub having large leaves
like a vine, and when planted it quickly springs up to the size of a small
tree, standing upright by its own stem, without requiring any support of
canes or poles, as both gourds and ivy do. If, therefore, in translating
word for word, I had put the word "ciceia," no one would know what it
meant; if I had used the word "gourd," I would have said what is not found
in the Hebrew. I therefore put down "ivy," that I might not differ from all
other translators. But if your Jews said, either through malice or
ignorance, as you yourself suggest, that the word is in the Hebrew text
which is found in the Greek and Latin versions, it is evident that they
were either unacquainted with Hebrew, or have been pleased to say what was
not true, in order to make sport of the gourd-planters.
In closing this letter, I beseech you to have some consideration for a
soldier who is now old and has long retired from active service, and not to
force him to take the field and again expose his life to the chances of
war. Do you, who are young, and who have been appointed to the conspicuous
seat of pontifical dignity, give yourself to teaching the people, and
enrich Rome with new stores from fertile Africa.(1) I am contented to make
but little noise in an obscure corner of a monastery, with one to hear me
or read to me.
LETTER LXXVI. (A.D. 402.)
1. Hear, O Donatists, what the Catholic Church says to you: "O ye sons
of men, how long will ye be slow of heart? why will ye love vanity, and
follow after lies?"(2) Why have you severed yourselves, by the heinous
impiety of schism, from the unity of the whole world? You give heed to the
falsehoods concerning the surrendering of the divine books to persecutors,
which men who are either deceiving you, or are themselves deceived, utter
in order that you may die in a state of heretical separation: and you do
not give heed to what these divine books themselves proclaim, in order that
you may live in the peace of the Catholic Church. Wherefore do you lend an
open ear to the words of men who tell you things which they have never been
able to prove, and are deaf to the voice of God speaking thus: "The Lord
hath said unto me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of
Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession "?(3) "To Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not, ' And to seeds,' as of many, but
as of one, 'And to thy seed,' which is Christ." (4) And the promise to
which the apostle refers is this: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed."(5) Therefore lift up the eyes of your souls, and see how
in the whole world all nations are blessed in Abraham's seed. Abraham, in
his day, believed what was not yet seen; but you who see it refuse to
believe what has been fulfilled.(6) The Lord's death was the ransom of the
world; He paid the price for the whole world; and you do not dwell in
concord with the whole world, as would be for your advantage, but stand
apart and strive contentiously to destroy the whole world, to your own
loss. Hear now what is said in the Psalm concerning this ransom: "They
pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones; they look and stare
upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture."
(7) Wherefore will you be guilty of dividing the garments of the Lord, and
not hold in common with the whole world that coat of charity, woven from
above throughout, which even His executioners did not rend? In the same
Psalm we read that the whole world holds this, for he says: "All the ends
of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of
the nations shall worship before Thee; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and
He is the Governor among the nations."(8) Open the ears of your soul, and
hear: "The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth,
from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof; out of Zion, the
perfection of beauty." (9) If you do not wish to understand this, hear the
gospel from the Lord's own lips, how He said: "All things must be fulfilled
which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the
Psalms, concerning Him; and that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name 'among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (10) The
words in the Psalm, "the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going
down thereof," correspond to these in the Gospel, "among all nations;" and
as He said in the Psalm, "from Zion, the perfection of beauty," He has said
in the Gospel, "beginning at Jerusalem."
2. Your imagination that you are separating yourselves, before the time
of the harvest, from the tares which are mixed with the wheat, proves that
you are only tares. For if you were wheat, you would bear with the tares,
and not separate yourselves from that which is growing in Christ's field.
Of the tares, indeed, it has been said, "Because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold;" but of the wheat it is said, "He that shall
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."(11) What grounds have you
for believing that the tares have increased and filled the world, and that
the wheat has decreased, and is found now in Africa alone? You claim to be
Christians, and you disclaim the authority of Christ. He said, "Let both
grow together till the harvest;" He said not, "Let the wheat decrease, and
let the tares multiply." He said, "The field is the world;" He said not,
"The field is Africa." He said, "The harvest is the end of the world;" He
said not, "The harvest is the time of Donatus." He said, "The reapers are
the angels;" He said not, "The reapers are the captains of the
Circumcelliones." (12) But you, by charging the good wheat with being
tares, have proved yourselves to be tares; and what is worse, you have
prematurely separated yourselves from the wheat. For some of your
predecessors, in whose impious schism you obstinately remain, delivered up
to persecutors the sacred Mss. and the vessels of the Church (as may be
seen in municipal records(1)); others of them passed over the fault which
these men confessed, and remained in communion with them; and both parties
having come together to Carthage as an infatuated faction, condemned others
without a hearing, on the charge of that fault which they had agreed, so
far as they themselves were concerned, to forgive, and then set up a bishop
against the ordained bishop, and erected an altar against the altar already
recognised. Afterwards they sent to the Emperor Constantine a letter
begging that bishops of churches beyond the sea should be appointed to
arbitrate between the bishops of Africa. When the judges whom they sought
were granted, and at Rome had given their decision, they refused! to submit
to it, and complained to the Emperor or against the bishops as having
judged unrighteously. From the sentence of another bench of bishops sent to
Arles to try the case, they appealed to the Emperor himself. When he had
heard them, and they had been proved guilty of calumny, they still
persisted in their wickedness. Awake to the interest of your salvation!
love peace, and return to unity! Whensoever you desire it, we are ready to
recite in detail the events to which we have referred.
3. He is the associate of wicked men who consents to the deeds of
wicked men; not he who suffers the tares to grow in the Lord's field unto
the harvest, or the chaff to remain until the final winnowing time. If you
hate those who do evil, shake yourselves free from the crime of schism. If
you really feared to associate with the wicked, you would not for so many
years have permitted Optatus(2) to remain among you when he was living in
the most flagrant sin. And as you now give him the name of martyr, you
must, if you are consistent, give him for whom he died the name of Christ.
Finally, wherein has the Christian world offended you, from which you have
insanely and wickedly cut yourselves off? and what claim upon your esteem
have those followers of Maximianus, whom you have received back with honour
after they had been condemned by you, and violently cast forth by warrant
of the civil authorities from their churches? Wherein has the peace of
Christ offended you, that you resist it by separating yourselves from those
whom you calumniate? and wherein has the peace of Donatus earned your
favour, that to promote it you receive back those whom you condemned?
Felicianus of Musti is now one of you. We have read concerning him, that he
was formerly condemned by your council, and afterwards accused by you at
the bar of the proconsul, and in the town of Musti was attacked as is
stated in the municipal records.
4. If the surrendering of the sacred books to destruction is a crime
which, in the case of the king who burned the book of Jeremiah, God
punished with death as a prisoner of war,(3) how much greater is the guilt
of schism! For those authors of schism to whom you have compared the
followers of Maximianus, the earth opening, swallowed up alive.(4) Why,
then, do you object against us the charge of surrendering the sacred books
which you do not prove, and at the same time both condemn and welcome back
those among yourselves who are schismatics? If you are proved to be in the
right by the fact that you have suffered persecution from the Emperor, a
still stronger claim than yours must be that of the followers of
Maximianus, whom you have yourselves persecuted by the help of judges sent
to you by Catholic emperors. If you alone have baptism, what weight do you
attach to the baptism administered by followers of Maximianus in the case
of those whom Felicianus baptized while he was under your sentence of
condemnation, who came along with him when he was afterwards restored by
you? Let your bishops answer these questions to your laity at least, if
they will not debate with us; and do you, as you value your salvation,
consider what kind of doctrine that must be about which they refuse to
enter into discussion with us. If the wolves have prudence enough to keep
out of the way of the shepherds, why have the flock so lost their prudence,
that they go into the dens of the wolves ?
LETTER LXXVII. (A.D. 404.)
TO FELIX AND HILARINUS, MY LORDS MOST BELOVED, AND BRETHREN WORTHY OF ALL
HONOUR, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. I do not wonder to see the minds of believers disturbed by Satan,
whom resist, continuing in the hope which rests on the promises of God, who
cannot lie, who has not only condescended to promise in eternity rewards to
us who believe and hope in Him, and who persevere in love unto the end, but
has also foretold that in time offences by which our faith must be tried
and proved shall not be wanting; for He said, "Because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall wax cold;" but He added immediately, "and he
that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved."(1) Why, therefore,
should it seem strange that men bring calumnies against the servants of
God, and being unable to turn them aside from an upright life, endeavour to
blacken their reputation, seeing that they do not cease uttering
blasphemies daily against God, the Lord of these servants, if they are
displeased by anything in which the execution of His righteous and secret
counsel is contrary to their desire? Wherefore I appeal to your wisdom, my
lords most beloved, and brethren worthy of all honour, and exhort you to
exercise your minds in the way which best becomes Christians, setting over
against the empty calumnies and groundless suspicions of men the written
word of God, which has foretold that these things should come, and has
warned us to meet them with fortitude.
2. Let me therefore say in a few words to your Charity, that the
presbyter Boniface has not been discovered by me to be guilty of any crime,
and that I have never believed, and do not yet believe, any charge brought
against him. How, then, could I order his name to be deleted from the roll
of presbyters, when filled with alarm by that word of our Lord in the
gospel: "With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged "? (2) For, seeing
that the dispute which has arisen between him and Spes has by their consent
been submitted to divine arbitration in a way which, if you desire it, can
be made known to you,(3) who am I, that I should presume to anticipate the
divine award by deleting or passing over his name? As a bishop, I ought not
rashly to suspect him; and as being only a man, I cannot decide infallibly
concerning things which are hidden from me. Even in secular matters, when
an appeal has been made to a higher authority, all procedure is sisted
while the case awaits the decision from which there is no appeal; because
if anything were changed while the matter is depending on his arbitration,
this would be an insult to the higher tribunal. And how great the distance
between even the highest human authority and the divine !
May the mercy of the Lord our God never forsake you, my lords most
beloved, and brethren worthy of all honour.
LETTER LXXVIII. (A.D. 404 )
TO MY MOST BELOVED BRETHREN, THE CLERGY, ELDERS, AND PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH
OF HIPPO, WHOM I SERVE IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST, I, AUGUSTIN, SEND GREETING IN
THE LORD.
1. Would that you, giving. earnest heed to the word of God, did not
require counsel of mine to support you under whatsoever offences may arise!
Would that your comfort rather came from Him by whom we also are comforted;
who has foretold not only the good things which He designs to give to those
who are holy and faithful, but also the evil things in which this world is
to abound; and has caused these to be written, in order that we may expect
the blessings which are to follow the end of this world with a certainty
not less complete than that which attends our present experience of the
evils which had been predicted as coming before the end of the world!
Wherefore also the apostle says, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime,
were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures might have hone "(4) And wherefore did our Lord Himself judge it
necessary not only to say, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun
in the kingdom of their Father"(5) which shall come to pass after the end
of the world, but also to exclaim, "Woe unto the world because of
offences!" (6) if not to prevent us from flattering ourselves with the idea
that we can reach the mansions of eternal felicity, unless we have overcome
the temptation to yield when exercised by the afflictions of time? Why was
it necessary for Him to say, "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of
many shall wax cold," if not in order that those of whom He spoke in the
next sentence," but he that shall endure to the end shall be saved,"'
might, when they saw love waxing cold through abounding iniquity, be saved
from being put to confusion, or filled with fear, or crushed with grief
about such things, as if they were strange and unlooked for, and might
rather, through witnessing the events which had been predicted as appointed
to occur before the end, be assisted in patiently enduring unto the end, so
as to obtain after the end the reward of reigning in peace in that life
which has no end ?
2. Wherefore, beloved, in regard to that scandal by which some are
troubled concerning the presbyter Boniface, I do not say to you that you
are not to be grieved for it; for in men who do not grieve for such things
the love of Christ is not, whereas those who take pleasure in such things
are filled with the malice of the devil. Not; however, that anything has
come to our knowledge which deserves censure in the presbyter aforesaid,
but that two in our house,are so situated that one of them must be regarded
as beyond all doubt wicked; and though the conscience of the other be not
defiled, his good name is forfeited in the eyes of some, and suspected by
others. Grieve for these things, for they are to be lamented; but do not so
grieve as to let your love grow cold, and yourselves be indifferent to holy
living. Let it rather burn the more vehemently in the exercise of prayer to
God, that if your presbyter is guiltless (which I am the more inclined to
believe, because, when he had discovered the immoral and vile proposal of
the other, he would neither consent to it nor conceal it), a divine
decision may speedily restore him to the exercise of his official duties
with his innocence vindicated; and that if, on the other hand, knowing
himself to be guilty, which I dare not suspect, he has deliberately tried
to destroy the good name of another when he could not corrupt his morals,
as he charges his accuser with having done, God may not permit him to hide
his wickedness, so that the thing which men cannot discover may be revealed
by the judgment of God, to the conviction of the one or of the other.
3. For when this case had long disquieted me, and I could find no way
of convicting either of the two as guilty, although I rather inclined to
believe the presbyter innocent, I had at first resolved to leave both in
the hand of God, without deciding the case, until something should be done
by the one of whom I had suspicion, giving just and unquestionable reasons
for his expulsion: from our house. But when he was labouring most earnestly
to obtain promotion to the rank of the clergy, either on the spot from
myself, or elsewhere through letter of recommendation from me, and I could
on no account be induced either to lay hands in the act of ordination upon
one of whom I thought so ill, or to consent to introduce him through
commendation of mine to any brother for the same purpose, he began to act
more violently demanding that if he was not to be promoted to clerical
orders, Boniface should not be permitted to retain his status as a
presbyter. This demand having been made, when I perceived that Boniface was
unwilling that, through doubts as to his holiness of life, offence should
be given to any who were weak and inclined to suspect him, and that he was
ready to suffer the loss of his honour among men rather than vainly persist
even to the disquieting of the Church in a contention the very nature of
which made it impossible for him to prove his innocence (of which he was
conscious) to the satisfaction of those who did not know him, or were in
doubt or prone to suspicion in regard to him, I fixed upon the following as
a means of discovering the truth. Both pledged themselves in a solemn
compact to go to a holy place, where the more awe-inspiring works of God
might much more readily make manifest the evil of which either of them was
conscious, and compel the guilty to confess, either by judgment or through
fear of judgment. God is everywhere, it is true, and He that made all
things is not contained or confined to dwell in any place; and He is to be
worshipped in spirit and in truth by His true worshippers,(1) in order
that, as He heareth in secret, He may also in secret justify and reward.
But in regard to the answers to prayer which are visible to men, who can
search out His reasons for appointing some places rather than others to be
the scene of miraculous interpositions? To many the holiness of the place
in which the body of the blessed Felix is buried is well known, and to this
place I desired them to repair; because from it we may receive more easily
and more reliably a written account of whatever may be discovered in either
of them by divine interposition. For I myself knew how, at Milan, at the
tomb of the saints, where demons are brought in a most marvellous and awful
manner to confess their deeds, a thief who had come thither intending to
deceive by perjuring himself, was compelled to own his theft, and to
restore what he had taken away; and is not Africa also full of the bodies
of holy martyrs? Yet we do not know of such things being done in any place
here. Even as the gift of healing and the gift of discerning of spirits are
not given to all saints,(2) as the apostle declares; so it is not at all
the tombs of the saints that it has pleased Him who divideth to each
severally as He will, to cause such miracles to be wrought.
4. Wherefore, although I had purposed not to let this most heavy burden
on my heart come to your knowledge, lest I should disquiet you by a painful
but useless vexation, it has pleased God to make it known to you, perhaps
for this reason, that you may along with me devote yourselves to prayer,
beseeching Him to condescend to reveal that which He knoweth, but which we
cannot know in this matter. For I did not presume to suppress or erase from
the roll of his colleagues the name of this presbyter, lest I should seem
to insult the Divine Majesty, upon whose arbitration the case now depends,
if I were to forestall His decision by any premature decision of mine: for
even in secular affairs, when a perplexing case is referred to a higher
authority, the inferior judges do not presume to make any change while the
reference is pending. Moreover, it was decreed in a Council of bishops (3)
that no clergyman who has not yet been proved guilty be suspended from
communion, unless he fail to present himself for the examination of the
charges against him. Boniface, however, humbly agreed to forego his claim
to a letter of commendation, by the use of which on his journey he might
have secured the recognition of his rank, preferring that both should stand
on a footing of equality in a place where both were alike unknown. And now
if you, prefer that his name should not be read that we "may cut off
occasion," as the apostle says, from those that desire occasion(1) to
justify their unwillingness to come to the Church, this omission of his
name shall be not our deed, but theirs on whose account it may be done. For
what does it harm any man, that men through ignorance refuse to have his
name read from that tablet, so long as a guilty conscience does not blot
his name out of the Book of Life?
5. Wherefore, my brethren who fear God,: remember what the Apostle
Peter says: Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour."(2) When he cannot devour a man through
seducing him into iniquity, he attempts to injure his good name, that if it
be possible, he may give way under the reproaches of men and the calumnies
of slandering tongues, and may thus fall into his jaws. If, however, he be
unable even to sully the good name of one who is innocent, he tries to
persuade him to cherish unkindly suspicions of his brother, and judge him
harshly, and so become entangled, and be an easy prey. And who is able to
know or to tell all his snares and wiles? Nevertheless, in reference to
those three, which belong more especially to the case before us; in the
first place, lest you should be turned aside to wickedness through
following bad examples, God gives you by the apostle these warnings: "Be ye
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion, hath light with
darkness ?" (3) and in another place :, "Be not deceived; evil
communications corrupt good manners: awake to righteousness,(4) and sin
not."(5) Secondly, that ye may not give way under the tongues of
slanderers, He saith by the prophet, "Hearken unto Me, ye that know
righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law: fear ye not the
reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.(6) For the moth
shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool;
but My righteousness shall be for ever." (7) And thirdly, lest you should
be undone through groundless and malevolent suspicions concerning any
servants of God, remember that word of the apostle, "Judge nothing before
the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden
things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels 'of the hearts, and
then shall every man have praise of God;"(8) and this also, "The things
which are revealed belong to you, but the secret things belong unto the
Lord your God."(9)
6. It is indeed manifest that such things do not take place in the
Church without great sorrow on the part of saints and believers; but let
Him be our Comforter who hath foretold all these events, and has warned us
not to become cold in love through abounding iniquity, to endure to the end
that we may be saved. For, as far as I am concerned, if there be in me a
spark of the love of Christ, who among you is weak, and I am not weak? who
among you is offended, and I burn not?(10) Do not therefore add to my
distresses, by your yielding either by groundless !suspicions or by
occasion of other men's sins. Do not, I beseech you, lest I say of you,
"They have added to the pain of my wounds."(11) For it is much more easy to
bear the reproach of those who take open pleasure in these our pains, of
whom it was foretold in regard to Christ Himself, "They that sit in the
gate speak against Me, and I was the song of the drunkards,"(12) for whom
also we have been taught to pray, and to seek their welfare. For why do
they sit at the gate, and what do they watch for, if it be not for this,
that so soon as any bishop or clergyman or monk or nun has fallen, they may
have ground for believing, and boasting, and maintaining that all are the
same as the one that has fallen, but that all cannot be convicted and
unmasked? Yet these very men do not straightway cast forth their wives, or
bring accusation against their mothers, ff some married woman has been
discovered to be an adulteress But the moment that any crime is either
falsely alleged or actually proved against any one who makes a profession
of piety, these men are incessant and unwearied in their efforts to make
this charge be believed against all religious men. Those men, therefore,
who eagerly find what is sweet to their malicious tongues in the things
which grieve us, we may compare to those dogs (if, indeed, they are to be
understood as increasing his misery) which licked the sores of the beggar
who lay before the rich man's gate, and endured with patience every
hardship and indignity until he should come to rest in Abraham's bosom.(13)
7. Do not add to my sorrows, O ye who have some hope toward God. Let
not the wounds which these lick be multiplied by you, for whom we are in
jeopardy every hour, having fightings without and fears within, and perils
in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils by the heathen, and perils by
false brethren.(1) I know that you are grieved, but is your grief more
poignant than mine? I know that you are disquieted, and I fear lest by the
tongues of slanderers some weak one for whom Christ died should perish. Let
not my grief be increased by you, for it is not through my fault that this
grief was made yours. For I used the utmost precautions to secure, if it
were possible, both that the steps necessary for the prevention of this
evil should not be neglected, and that it should not be brought to your
knowledge, since this could only cause unavailing vexation to the strong,
and dangerous disquietude to the weak, among you. But may He who hath
permitted you to be tempted by knowing this, give you strength to bear the
trial, and "teach you out of His law, and give you rest from the days of
adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked."(2)
8. I hear that some of you are more cast down with sorrow by this
event, than by the fall of the two deacons who had joined us from the
Donatist party, as if they had brought reproach upon the discipline of
Proculeianus; (3) whereas this checks your boasting about me, that under my
discipline no such inconsistency among the clergy had taken place. Let me
frankly say to you, whoever you are that have done this, you have not done
well. Behold, God hath taught you, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord;" (4) and ye ought to bring no reproach against heretics but this,
that they are not Catholics. Be not like these heretics, who, because they
have nothing to plead in ,defence of their schism, attempt nothing beyond
heaping up charges against the men from whom they are separated, and most
falsely boast that in these we have an unenviable pre-eminence, in order
that since they can neither impugn nor darken the truth of the Divine
Scripture, from which the Church of Christ spread abroad everywhere
receives its testimony, they may bring into disfavour the men by whom it is
preached, against whom they are capable of affirming anything--whatever
comes into their mind. "But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye
have heard Him, and have been taught by Him."(5) For He Himself has guarded
His believing people from undue disquietude concerning wickedness, even in
stewards of the divine mysteries, as doing evil which was their own, but
speaking good which was His. "All therefore whatsoever they bid you
observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they
say, and do not."(6) Pray by all means for me, lest perchance "when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway;" (7) but when you glory,
glory not in me, but in the Lord. For however watchful the discipline of my
house may be, I am but a man, and I live among men; and I do not presume to
pretend that my house is better than the ark of Noah, in which among eight
persons one was found a castaway;(8) or better than the house of Abraham,
regarding which it was said, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son; "(9) or
better than the house of Isaac, regarding whose twin sons it was said, "I
loved Jacob, and I hated Esau;"(10) or better than the house of Jacob
himself, in which Reuben defiled his father's bed;(11) or better than the
house of David, in which one son wrought folly with his sister.(12) and
another rebelled against a father of such holy clemency; or better than the
band of companions of Paul the apostle, who nevertheless would not have
said, as above quoted, "Without are fightings, and within are fears," if he
had dwelt with none but good men; nor would have said, in speaking of the
holiness and fidelity of Timothy, "I have no man like-minded who will
naturally care for your state; for all seek their own, not the things which
are Jesus Christ's;"(13) or better than the band of the disciples of the
Lord Christ Himself, in which eleven good men bore with Judas, who was a
thief and a traitor; or, finally, better than heaven itself, from which the
angels fell.
9. I frankly avow to your Charity, before the Lord our God, whom I have
taken, since the time when I began to serve Him, as a witness upon my soul,
that as I have hardly found any men better than those who have done well in
monasteries, so I have not found any men worse than monks who have fallen;
whence I suppose that to them applies the word written in the Apocalypse,
"He that is righteous, let him be still more righteous; and he that is
filthy, let: him be still more filthy."(14) Wherefore, if we be grieved by
some foul blemishes, we are comforted by a much larger proportion of
examples of an opposite kind. Let not, therefore, the dregs which offend
your eyes cause you to hate the oil-presses whence the Lord's storehouses
are supplied to their profit with a more brightly illuminating oil.
May the mercy of our Lord keep you in His peace, safe from all the
snares of the enemy, my dearly beloved brethren.
LETTER LXXIX. (A.D. 404.) A short and stern challenge to some Manichaean
teacher who had succeeded Fortunatus (supposed to be Felix).
Your attempts at evasion are to no purpose: your real character is
patent even a long way off. My brethren have reported to me their
conversation with you. You say that you do not fear death; it is well: but
you ought to fear that death which you are bringing upon yourself by your
blasphemous assertions concerning God. As to your understanding that the
visible death which all men know is a separation between soul and body,
this is a truth which demands no great grasp of intellect. But as to the
statement which you annex to this, that death is a separation between good
and evil, do you not see that, if the soul be good and the body be evil, he
who joined them together,(1) is not good? But you affirm that the good God
has joined them together; from which it follows that He is either evil, or
swayed by fear of one who is evil. Yet you boast of your having no fear of
man, when at the same time you conceive God to be such! that, through fear
of Darkness, He would join together good and evil. Be not uplifted, as your
writing shows you to be, by supposing that I magnify you, by my resolving
to check the out-flowing of your poison, lest its insidious and
pestilential power should do harm: for the apostle does not magnify those
whom he calls "dogs," saying to the Philippians, "Beware of dogs; "(2) nor
does he magnify those of whom he says that their word doth eat as a
canker.(3) Therefore, in the name of Christ, I demand of you to answer, if
you are able, the question which baffled ),our predecessor Fortunatus.(4)
For he went from the scene of our discussion declaring that he would not
return, unless, after conferring with his party, he found something by
which he could answer the arguments used by our brethren. And if you are
not prepared to do this, begone from this place, and do not pervert the
right ways of the Lord, ensnaring and infecting with your poison the minds
of the weak, lest, by the Lord's right hand helping me, you be put to
confusion in a way which you did not expect.
LETTER LXXX. (A.D. 404.)
A letter to Paulinus, asking him to explain more fully how we may know what
is the will of God and rule of our duty in the ordinary course of
providence. This letter may be omitted as merely propounding a question,
and containing nothing specially noticeable.
LETTER LXXXI. (A.D. 405.)
TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD TRULY HOLY, AND MOST BLESSED FATHER, JEROME SENDS
GREETING IN THE LORD.
Having anxiously inquired of our holy brother Firmus regarding your
state, I was glad to hear that you are well. I expected him to bring, or, I
should rather say, I insisted upon his giving me, a letter from you; upon
which he told me that he had set out from Africa without communicating to
you his intention. I therefore send to you my respectful salutations
through this brother, who clings to you with a singular warmth of
affection; and at the same time, in regard to my last letter, I beg you to
forgive the modesty which made it impossible for me to refuse you, when you
had so long required me to write you in reply. That letter, moreover, was
not an answer from me to you, but a confronting of my arguments with yours.
And if it was a fault in me to send a reply (I beseech you hear me
patiently),.the fault of him who insisted upon it was still greater. But
let us be done with such quarrelling; let there be sincere brotherliness
between us.; and henceforth let us exchange 'letters, not of controversy,
but of mutual charity. The holy brethren who with me serve the Lord send
you cordial salutations. Salute from us the holy brethren who with you bear
Christ's easy yoke; especially I beseech you to convey my respectful
salutation to the holy father Alypius, worthy of all esteem. May Christ,
our almighty God, preserve you safe, and not unmindful of me, my lord truly
holy, and most blessed father. If you have read my commentary on Jonah, I
think you will not recur to the ridiculous gourd-debate. If, moreover, the
friend who first assaulted me with his sword has been driven back by my
pen, I rely upon your good feeling and equity to lay blame on the one who
brought, and not on the one who repelled, the accusation. Let us, if you
please, exercise ourselves(5) in the field of Scripture without wounding
each other.
LETTER LXXXII. (A.D. 405.) A Reply to Letters LXXII., LXXV., and LXXXI.
TO JEROME, MY LORD BELOVED AND HONOURED IN THE BOWELS OF CHRIST, MY HOLY
BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRESBYTER, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. Long ago I sent to your Charity a long letter in reply to the one
which you remember sending to me by your holy son Asterius, who is now not
only my brother, but also my colleague. Whether that reply reached you or
not I do not know, unless I am to infer this from the words in your letter
brought to me by our most sincere friend Firmus, that if the one who first
assaulted you with his sword has been driven back by your pen, you rely
upon my good feeling and equity to lay blame on the one who brought, not on
the one who repelled, the accusation. From this one indication, though very
slight, I infer that you have read my letter. In that letter I expressed
indeed my sorrow that so great discord had arisen between you and Rufinus,
over the strength of whose former friendship brotherly love was wont to
rejoice in all parts to which the fame of it had come; but I did not in
this intend to rebuke you, my brother, whom I dare not say that I have
found blameable in that matter. I only lamented the sad lot of men in this
world, in whose friendships, depending as they do on the continuance of
mutual regard, there is no stability, however great that regard may
sometimes be. I would rather, however, have been informed by your letter
whether you have granted me the pardon which I begged, of which I now
desire you to give me more explicit assurance; although the more genial and
cheerful tone of your letter seems to signify that I have obtained what I
asked in mine, if indeed it was despatched after mine had been read by you,
which is, as I have said, not clearly indicated.
2. You ask, or rather you give a command with the confiding boldness of
charity, that we should amuse ourselves(1) in the field of Scripture
without wounding each other. For my part, I am by all means disposed to
exercise myself in earnest much rather than in mere amusement on such
themes. If, however, you have chosen this word because of its suggesting
easy exercise, let me frankly say that I desire something more from one who
has, as you have, great talents under the control of a benignant
disposition, together with wisdom enlightened by erudition, and whose
application to study, hindered by no other distractions, is year after year
impelled by enthusiasm and guided by genius: the Holy Spirit not only
giving you all these advantages, but expressly charging you to come with
help to those who are engaged in great and difficult investigations; not as
if, in studying Scripture, they were amusing themselves on a level plain,
but as men punting and toiling up a steep ascent. If, however, perchance,
you selected the expression "ludamus" [let us amuse ourselves] because of
the genial kindliness which befits discussion between loving friends,
whether the matter debated be obvious and easy, or intricate and difficult,
I beseech you to teach me how I may succeed in securing this; so that when
I am dissatisfied with anything which, not through want of careful
attention, but perhaps through my slowness of apprehension, has not been
demonstrated to me, if I should, in attempting to make good an opposite
opinion, express myself with a measure of unguarded frankness, I may not
fall under the suspicion of childish conceit and forwardness, as if I
sought to bring my own name into renown by assailing illustrious men;(2)
and that if, when something harsh has been demanded by the exigencies of
argument, I attempt to make it less hard to bear by stating it in mild and
courteous phrases, I may not be pronounced guilty of wielding a "honeyed
sword." The only way which I can see for avoiding both these faults, or the
suspicion of either of them, is to consent that when I am thus arguing with
a friend more learned than myself, I must approve of everything which he
says, and may not, even for the sake of more accurate information, hesitate
before accepting his decisions.
3. On such terms we might amuse ourselves without fear of offending
each other in the field of Scripture, but I might well wonder if the
amusement was not at my expense. For I confess to your Charity that I have
learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of
Scripture: of these alone do I most !firmly believe that the authors were
completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by
anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose
that either the Ms. is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning
of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other
writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to
myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on
the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they
have succeeded in convincing my judgment of in truth either by means of
these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my
reason. I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as
mine. I do not need to say that I do not suppose you to wish your books to
be read like those of prophets or of apostles, concerning which it would be
wrong to doubt that they are free from error. Far be such arrogance from
that humble piety and just estimate of yourself which I know you to have,
and without which assuredly you would not have said, "Would that I could
receive your embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in
learning!"(3)
CHAP. II.--4. Now if, knowing as I do your life and conversation, I do
not believe in regard to you that you have spoken anything with an
intention of dissimulation and deceit, how much more reasonable is it for
me to believe, in regard to the Apostle Paul, that he did not think one
thing and affirm another when he wrote of Peter and Barnabas: "When I saw
that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, I
said unto Peter before them all, 'If thou, being a Jew, livest after the
manner of the Gentiles, and not as to the Jews, why compellest thou the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews?'"(1) For whom can I confide in, as
assuredly not deceiving me by spoken or written statements, if the apostle
deceived his own "children," for whom he "travailed in birth again until
Christ (who is the Truth) were formed in them"?(2) After having previously
said to them, "The things which J. write unto you, behold, before God, I
lie not," a could he in writing to these same persons state what was not
true, and deceive them by a fraud which was in some way sanctioned by
expediency, when he said that he had seen Peter and Barnabas not walking
uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, and that he had withstood
Peter to the face because of this, that he was compelling the Gentiles to
live after the manner of the Jews?
5. But you will say it is better to believe that the Apostle Paul wrote
what was not true, than to believe that the Apostle Peter did what was not
right. On this principle, we must say (which far be it from us to say),
that it is better to believe that the gospel history is false, than to
believe that Christ was denied by Peter;(4) and better to charge the book
of Kings [second book of Samuel] with false statements, than believe that
so great a prophet, and one so signally chosen by the Lord God as David
was, committed adultery in lusting after and taking away the wife of
another. and committed such detestable homicide in procuring the death of
her husband.(5) Better far that I should read with certainty and persuasion
of its truth the Holy Scripture, placed on the highest (even the heavenly)
pinnacle of authority, and should, without questioning the trustworthiness
of its statements, learn from it that men have been either.commended, or
corrected, or condemned, than that, through fear of believing that by men,
who, though of most praiseworthy excellence, were no more than men, actions
deserving rebuke might sometimes be done, I should admit suspicions
affecting the trustworthiness of the whole "oracles of God."
6. The Manichaeans maintain that the greater part of the Divine
Scripture, by which their wicked error is in the most explicit terms
confuted, is not worthy of credit, because they cannot pervert its language
so as to support their opinions; yet they lay the blame of the alleged
mistake not upon the apostles who originally wrote the words, but upon some
unknown corrupters of the manuscripts. Forasmuch, however, as they have
never succeeded in proving this by more numerous and by earlier
manuscripts, or by appealing to the original language from which the Latin
translations have been drawn, they retire from the arena of debate,
vanquished and confounded by truth which is well known to all. Does not
your holy prudence discern how great scope is given to their malice against
the truth, if we say not (as they do) that the apostolic writings have been
tampered with by others, but that the apostles themselves wrote what they
knew to be untrue ?
7. You say that it is incredible that Paul should have rebuked in Peter
that which Paul himself had done. I am not at present inquiring about what
Paul did, but about what he wrote. This is most pertinent to the matter
which I have in hand,- namely, the confirmation of the universal and
unquestionable truth of the Divine Scriptures, which have been delivered to
us for our edification in the faith, not by unknown men, but by the
apostles, and have on this account been received as the authoritative
canonical standard. For if Peter did on that occasion what he ought to have
done, Paul falsely affirmed that he saw him walking not uprightly,
according to the truth of the gospel. For whoever does what he ought to do,
walks uprightly. He therefore is guilty of falsehood. who, knowing that
another has done what he ought to have done, says that he has not done
uprightly, If, then, Paul wrote what was true, it is true that Peter was
not then walking up-rightly, according to the truth of the gospel. He was
therefore doing what he ought not to have done; and if Paul had himself
already done something of the same kind, I would prefer to believe that,
having been himself corrected, he could not omit the correction of his
brother apostle, than to believe that he put down any false statement in
his epistle; and if in any epistle of Paul this would be strange, how much
more in the one in the preface of which he says, "The things which I write
unto you, behold, before God, I lie not"!
8. For my part, I believe that Peter so acted on this occasion as to
compel the Gentiles to live as Jews: because I read that Paul wrote this,
and I do not believe that he lied. And therefore Peter was not acting
uprightly. For it was contrary to the truth of the gospel, that those who
believed in Christ should think that without those ancient ceremonies they
could not be saved. This was the position maintained at Antioch by those of
the circumcision who had believed; against whom Paul protested constantly
and vehemently. As to Paul's circumcising of Timothy,(1) performing a vow
at Cenchrea,(2) and undertaking on the suggestion of James at Jerusalem to
share the performance of the appointed rites with some who had made a
vow,(3) it is manifest that Paul's design in these things was not to give
to others the impression that he thought that by these observances
salvation is given under the Christian dispensation, but to prevent men
from believing that he condemned as no better than heathen idolatrous
worship, those rites which God had appointed in the former dispensation as
suitable to it, and as shadows of things to come. For this is what James
said to him, that the report had gone abroad concerning him that he taught
men "to forsake Moses."(4) This would be by all means wrong for those who
believe in Christ, to forsake him who prophesied of Christ, as if they
detested and condemned the teaching of him of whom Christ said, "Had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me."
9. For mark, I beseech you, the words of James: "Thou seest, brother,
how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all
zealous of the law: and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all
the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they
ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will
hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have
four men which have a vow on them; them take, and purify thyself with them,
and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may
know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are
nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
As touching the Gentiles which have believed, we have written and concluded
that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from
things offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and
from fornication."(5) It is, in my opinion, very clear that the reason why
James gave this advice was, that the falsity of what they had heard
concerning him might be known to those Jews, who, though they had believed
in Christ, were jealous for the honour of the law, and would not have it
thought that the institutions which had been given by Moses to their
fathers were condemned by the doctrine of Christ as if they were profane,
and had not been originally given by divine authority. For the men who had
brought this reproach against Paul were not those who understood the right
spirit in which observance of these ceremonies should be practised under
the Christian dispensation by believing Jews, -- namely, as a way of
declaring the divine authority of these rites, and their holy use in the
prophetic dispensation, and not as a means of obtaining salvation, which
was to them already revealed in Christ and ministered by baptism. On the
contrary, the men who had spread abroad this report against the apostle
were those who would have these rites observed, as if without their
observance there could be no salvation to those who believed the gospel.
For these false teachers had found him to be a most zealous preacher of
free grace, and a most decided opponent of their views, teaching as he did
that men are not justified by these things, but by the grace of Jesus
Christ, which these ceremonies of the law were appointed to foreshadow.
This party, therefore, endeavouring to raise odium and persecution against
him, charged him with being an enemy of the law and of the divine
institutions; and there was no more fitting way in which he could turn
aside the odium caused by this false accusation, than by himself
celebrating those rites which he was supposed to condemn as profane, and
thus showing that, on the one hand, the Jews were not to be debarred from
them as if they were unlawful, and on the other hand, that the Gentiles
were not to be compelled to observe them as if they were necessary.
10 For if he did in truth condemn these things in the way in which he
was reported to have done, and undertook to perform these rites in order
that he might, by dissembling, disguise his real sentiments, James would
not have said to him, "and all shall know," but, "all shall think that
those things whereof they were informed concerning thee are nothing;" (6)
especially seeing that in Jerusalem itself the apostles had already decreed
that no one should compel the Gentiles to adopt Jewish ceremonies, but had
not decreed that no one should then prevent the Jews from living according
to their customs, although upon them also Christian doctrine imposed no
such obligation. Wherefore, if it was after the apostle's decree that
Peter's dissimulation at Antioch took place, whereby he was compelling the
Gentiles to live after the manner of the Jews, which he himself was not
compelled to do, although he was not forbidden to use Jewish rites in order
to declare the honour of the oracles of God which were committed to the
Jews;--if this,'I say, were the case, was it strange that Paul should
exhort him to declare freely that decree which he remembered to have framed
in conjunction with the other apostles at Jerusalem ?
11. If, however, as I am more inclined to think, Peter did this before
the meeting of that council at Jerusalem, in that case also it is not
strange that Paul wished him not to conceal timidly, but to declare boldly,
a rule of practice in regard to which he already knew that they were both
of the same mind; whether he was aware of this from having conferred with
him as to the gospel which both preached, or from having heard that, at the
calling of the centurion Cornelius, Peter had been divinely instructed in
regard to this matter, or from having seen him eating with Gentile converts
before those whom he feared to offend had come to Antioch. For we do not
deny that Peter was already of the same opinion in regard to this question
as Paul himself was. Paul, therefore, was not teaching Peter what was the
truth concerning that matter, but was reproving his dissimulation as a
thing by which the Gentiles were compelled to act as Jews did; for no other
reason than this, that the tendency of all such dissembling was to convey
or confirm the impression that they taught the truth who held that
believers could not be saved without circumcision and other ceremonies,
which were shadows of things to come.
12. For this reason also he circumcised Timothy, lest to the Jews, and
especially to his relations by the mother's side, it should seem that the
Gentiles who had believed in Christ abhorred circumcision as they abhorred
the worship of idols; whereas the former was appointed by God, and the
latter invented by Satan. Again, he did not circumcise Titus, lest he
should give occasion to those who said that believers could not be saved
without circumcision, and who, in order to deceive the Gentiles, openly
declared that this was the view held by Paul. This is plainly enough
intimated by himself, when he says: "But neither Titus, who was with me,
being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: and that because of false
brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty
which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to
whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of
the gospel might continue with you."(1) Here we see plainly what he
perceived them to be eagerly watching for, and why it was that he did not
do in the case of Titus as he had done in the case of Timothy, and as he
might otherwise have done in the exercise of that liberty, by which he had
shown that these observances were neither to be demanded as necessary to
salvation, nor denounced as unlawful.
13. You say, however, that in this discussion we must beware of
affirming, with the philosophers, that some of the actions of men lie in a
region between right and wrong, and are to be reckoned, accordingly,
neither among good actions nor among the opposite;(2) and it is urged in
your argument that the observance of legal ceremonies cannot be a thing
indifferent, but either good or bad; so that if I affirm it to be good, I
acknowledge that we also are bound to observe these ceremonies; but if I
affirm it to be bad, I am bound to believe that the apostles observed them
not sincerely, but in a way of dissimulation. I, for my part, would not be
so much afraid of defending the apostles by the authority of philosophers,
since these teach some measure of truth in their dissertations, as of
pleading on their behalf the practice of advocates at the bar, in sometimes
serving their clients' interests at the expense of truth. If, as is stated
in your exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, this practice of
barristers may be in your opinion with propriety quoted as resembling and
justifying dissimulation on the part of Peter and Paul, why should I fear
to allege to you the authority of philosophers whose teaching we account
worthless, not because everything which they say is false, but because they
are in most things mistaken, and wherein they are found affirming truth,
are notwithstanding strangers to the grace of Christ, who is the Truth ?
14. But why may I not say regarding these institutions of the old
economy, that they are neither good nor bad: not good, since men are not by
them justified, they having been only shadows predicting the grace by which
we are justified; and not bad, since they were divinely appointed as
suitable both to the time and to the people? Why may I not say this, when I
am supported by that saying of the prophet, that I God gave unto His people
"statutes that were not good"?(3) For we have in this perhaps the reason of
his not calling them "bad," but calling them "not good," i.e. not such that
either by them men could be made good, or that without them men could not
possibly become good. I would esteem it a favour to be informed by your
Sincerity, whether any saint, coming from 'the East to Rome, would be
guilty of dissimulation if he fasted on the seventh day of each week,
excepting the Saturday before Easter. For if we say that it is wrong to
fast on the seventh day, we shall condemn not only the Church of Rome, but
also many other churches, both neighbouring and more remote, in which the
same custom continues to be observed. if, on the other hand, we pronounce
it wrong not to fast on the seventh day, how great is our presumption in
censuring so many churches in the East, and by far the greater part of the
Christian world! Or do you prefer to say of this practice, that it is a
thing indifferent in itself, but commendable in him who conforms with it,
not as a dissembler, but from a seemly desire for the fellowship and
deference for the feelings of others? No precept, however, concerning this
practice is given to Christians in the canonical books. How much more,
then, may I shrink from pronouncing that to be bad which I cannot deny to
be of divine institution !--this fact being admitted by me in the exercise
of the same faith by which I know that not through these observances, but
by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, I am justified.
15. I maintain, therefore, that circumcision, and other things of this
kind, were, by means of what is called the Old Testament, given to the Jews
with divine authority, as signs of future things which were to be fulfilled
in Christ; and that now, when these things have been fulfilled, the laws
concerning these rights remained only to be read by Christians in order to
their understanding the prophecies which had been given before, but not to
be of necessity practised by them, as if the coming of that revelation of
faith which they prefigured was still future. Although, however, these
rites were not to be imposed upon the Gentiles, the compliance with them,
to which the Jews had been accustomed, was not to be prohibited in such a
way as to give the impression that it was worthy of abhorrence and
condemnation. Therefore slowly, and by degrees, all this observance of
these types was to vanish away through the power of the sound preaching of
the truth of the grace of Christ, to which alone believers would be taught
to ascribe their justification and salvation, and not to those types and
shadows of things which till then had been future, but which were now newly
come and present, as at the time of the calling of those Jews whom the
personal coming of our Lord and the apostolic times had found accustomed to
the observance of these ceremonial institutions. The toleration, for the
time, of their continuing to observe these was enough to declare their
excellence as things which, though they were to be given up, were not, like
the worship of idols, worthy of abhorrence; but they were not to be imposed
upon others, lest they should be thought necessary, either as means or as
conditions of salvation. This was the opinion of those heretics who, while
anxious to be both Jews and Christians, could not be either the one or the
other. Against this opinion you have most benevolently condescended to warn
me, although I never entertained it. This also was the opinion with which,
through fear, Peter fell into the fault of pretending to yield concurrence,
though in reality he did not agree with it; for which reason Paul wrote
most truly of him, that he saw him not walking up-rightly, according to the
truth of the gospel, and most truly said of him that he was compelling the
Gentiles to live as did the Jews. Paul did not impose this burden on the
Gentiles through his sincerely complying, when it was needful, with these
ceremonies, with the design of proving that they were not to be utterly
condemned (as idol-worship ought to be); for he nevertheless constantly
preached that not by these things, but by the grace revealed to faith,
believers obtain salvation, lest he should lead any one to take up these
Jewish observances as necessary to salvation. Thus, therefore, I believe
that the Apostle Paul did all these things honestly, and without
dissimulation; and yet if any one now leave Judaism and become a Christian,
I neither compel nor permit him to imitate Paul's example, and go on with
the sincere observance of Jewish rites, any more than you, who think that
Paul dissembled when he practised these rites, would compel or permit such
an one to follow the apostle in that dissimulation.
16. Shall I also sum up "the matter in debate, or rather your opinion
concerning it "(1) (to quote your own expression)? It seems to me to be
this: that after the gospel of Christ has been published, the Jews who
believe do rightly if they offer sacrifices as Paul did, if they circumcise
their children as Paul circumcised Timothy, and if they observe the
"seventh day of the week, as the Jews have always done, provided only that
they do all this as dissemblers and deceivers." If this is your doctrine,
we are now precipitated, not into the heresy of Ebion, or of those who are
commonly called Nazarenes, or any other known heresy, but into some new
error, which is all the more pernicious because it originates not in
mistake, but in deliberate and designed endeavour to deceive. If, in order
to clear yourself from the charge of entertaining such sentiments, you
answer that the apostles were to be commended for dissimulation in these
instances, their purpose being to avoid giving offence to the many weak
Jewish believers who did not yet understand that these things were to be
rejected, but that now, when the doctrine of Christ's grace has been firmly
established throughout so many nations, and when, by the reading of the Law
and the Prophets throughout all the churches of Christ, it is well known
that these are not read for our observance, but for our instruction, any
man who should propose to feign compliance with these rites would be
regarded as a madman. What objection can there be to my affirming that the
Apostle Paul, and other sound and faithful Christians, were bound sincerely
to declare the worth of these old observances by occasionally honouring
them, lest it should be thought that these institutions, originally full of
prophetic significance, and cherished sacredly by their most pious
forefathers, were to be abhorred by their posterity as profane inventions
of the devil? For now, when the faith had come, which, previously
foreshadowed by these ceremonies, was revealed after the death and
resurrection of the Lord, they became, so far as their office was
concerned, defunct. But just as it is seemly that the bodies of the
deceased be carried honourably to the grave by their kindred, so was it
fitting that these rites should be removed in a manner worthy of their
origin and history, and this not with pretence of respect, but as a
religious duty, instead of being forsaken at once, or cast forth to be torn
in pieces by the reproaches of their enemies, as by the teeth of dogs. To
carry the illustration further, if now any Christian (though he may have
been converted from Judaism) were proposing to imitate the apostles in the
observance of these ceremonies, like one who disturbs the ashes of those
who rest, he would be not piously performing his part in the obsequies, but
impiously violating. the sepulchre.
17. I acknowledge that in the statement contained in my letter, to the
effect that the reason why Paul undertook (although he was an apostle of
Christ) to perform certain rites, was that he might show that these
ceremonies were not pernicious to those who desired to continue that which
they had received by the Law from their fathers, I have not explicitly
enough qualified the statement, by adding that this was the case only in
that time in which the grace of faith was at first revealed, for at that
time this was not pernicious. These observances were to be given up by all
Christians step by step, as time advanced; not all at once, lest, if this
were done, men should not perceive the difference between what God by Moses
appointed to His ancient people, and the rites which the unclean spirit
taught men to practise in the temples of heathen deities. I grant,
therefore, that in this your censure is justifiable, and my omission
deserved rebuke. Nevertheless, long before the time of: my receiving your
letter, when I wrote a treatise against Faustus the Manichaean, I did not
omit to insert the qualifying douse which I have just stated, in a short
exposition which I gave of the same passage, as you may see for yourself if
you kindly condescend to read that treatise; or you may be satisfied in any
other way that you please by the bearer of this letter, that I had long ago
published this restriction of the general affirmation. And I now, as
speaking in the sight of God, beseech you by the law of charity to believe
me when I say with my whole heart, that it never was my opinion that in our
time, Jews who become Christians were either required or at liberty to
observe in any manner, or from any motive whatever, the ceremonies of the
ancient dispensation; although I have always held, in regard to the Apostle
Paul, the opinion which you call in question, from the time that I became
acquainted with his writings. Nor can these two things appear incompatible
to you; for you do not think it is the duty of any one in our day to feign
compliance with these Jewish observances, although you believe that the
apostles did this.
18. Accordingly, as you in opposing me affirm, and, to quote your own
words, "though the world were to protest against it, boldly declare that
the Jewish ceremonies are to Christians both hurtful and fatal, and that
whoever observes them, whether he was originally Jew or Gentile, is on his
way to the pit of perdition,"(1) I entirely indorse that statement, and add
to it, "Whoever observes these ceremonies, whether he was originally Jew or
Gentile, is on his way to the pit of perdition, not only if he is sincerely
observing them, but also if he is observing them with dissimulation." What
more do you ask? But as you draw a distinction between the dissimulation
which you hold to have been practised by the apostles, and the rule of
conduct befitting the present time, I do the same between the course which
Paul, as I think, sincerely followed in all these examples then, and the
matter of observing in our day these Jewish ceremonies, although it were
done, as by him, without any dissimulation, since it was then to be
approved, but is now to be abhorred. Thus, although we read that "the law
and the prophets were until John,"(2) and that "therefore the Jews sought
the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said
also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God,"(3) and that
"we have received grace for grace for the law was given by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ;" (4) and although it was promised by
Jeremiah that God would make a new covenant with the house of Judah, not
according to the covenant which He made with their fathers;(5) nevertheless
I do not think that the Circumcision of our Lord by His parents was an act
of dissimulation. If any one object that He did not forbid this because He
was but an infant, I go on to say that I do not think that it was with
intention to deceive that He said to the leper, "Offer for thy cleansing
those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them,"(1) --thereby
adding His own precept to the authority of the law of Moses regarding that
ceremonial usage. Nor was there dissimulation in His going up to the
feast,(2) as there was also no desire to be seen of men; for He went up,
not openly, but secretly.
19. But the words of the apostle himself may be quoted against me:
"Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing." (3) It follows from this that he deceived Timothy, and
made Christ profit him nothing, for he circumcised Timothy, Do you answer
that this circumcision did Timothy no harm, because it was done with an
intention to deceive? I reply that the apostle has not made any such
exception. He does not say, If ye be circumcised without dissimulation, any
more than, If ye be circumcised with dissimulation. He says unreservedly,
"If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." As, therefore, you
insist upon finding room for your interpretation, by proposing to supply
the words, "unless it be done as an act of dissimulation," I make no
unreasonable demand in asking you to permit me to understand the words, "if
ye be circumcised," to be in that passage addressed to those who demanded
circumcision, for this reason, that they thought it impossible for them to
be otherwise saved by Christ. Whoever was then circumcised because of such
persuasion and desire, and with this design, Christ assuredly profited him
nothing, as the apostle elsewhere expressly affirms, "If righteousness come
by the law, Christ is dead in vain. (4) The same is affirmed in words which
you have quoted: "Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you is
justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."(5) His rebuke, therefore,
was addressed to those who believed that they were to be justified by the
law,- not to those who, knowing well the design with which the legal
ceremonies were instituted as foreshadowing truth, and the time for which
they were destined to be in force, observed them in order to honour Him who
appointed them at first. Wherefore also he says elsewhere, "If ye be led of
the Spirit, ye are not under the law," (6)--a passage from which you infer,
that evidently "he has not the Holy Spirit who submits to the Law, not, as
our fathers affirmed the apostles to have done, feignedly under the
promptings of a wise discretion, but "--as I suppose to have been the case
-- "sincerely." (7)
20 It seems to me important to ascertain precisely what is that
submission to the law which the apostle here condemns; for I do not think
that he speaks here of circumcision merely, or of the sacrifices then
offered by our fathers, but now not offered by Christians, and other
observances of the same nature. I rather hold that he includes also that
precept of the law, "Thou shalt not covet," (8) which we confess that
Christians are unquestionably bound to obey, and which we find most fully
proclaimed by the light which the Gospel has shed upon it.(9) "The law," he
says, "is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good;" and then
adds, "Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? God forbid." "But
sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good;
that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful." (10) As he
says here, "that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful," so
elsewhere, "The law entered that the offence might abound; but where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound."(11) Again, in another place, after
affirming, when speaking of the dispensation of grace, that grace alone
justifies, he asks, "Wherefore then serveth the law?" and answers
immediately, "It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should
come to whom the promises were made."(12) The persons, therefore, whose
submission to the law the apostle here pronounces to be the cause of their
own condemnation, are those whom the law brings in guilty, as not
fulfilling its requirements, and who, not understanding the efficacy of
free grace, rely with self-satisfied presumption on their own strength to
enable them to keep the law of God; for "love is the fulfilling of the
law."(13) Now "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts," not by our
own power, but "by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." (14) The
satisfactory discussion of this, however, would require too long a
digression, if not a separate volume. If, then, that precept of the law,
"Thou shalt not covet," holds under it as guilty the man whose human
weakness is not assisted by the grace of God, and instead of acquitting the
sinner, condemns him as a transgressor, how much more was it impossible for
those ordinances which were merely typical, circumcision and the rest,
which were destined to be abolished when the revelation of grace became
more widely known, to be the means of justifying any man! Nevertheless they
were not on this ground to be immediately shunned with abhorrence, like the
diabolical impieties of heathenism, from the first beginning of the
revelation of the grace which had been by these shadows prefigured; but to
be for a little while tolerated, especially among those who joined the
Christian Church from that nation to whom these ordinances had been given.
When, however, they had been, as it were, honourably buried, they were
thenceforward to be finally abandoned by all Christians.
21. Now, as to the words which you use, "non dispensative, ut nostri
voluere majores,"(1) -- "not in a way justifiable by expediency, the ground
on which our fathers were disposed to explain the conduct of the apostles,"
-- pray what do these words mean? Surely nothing else than that which I
call "officiosum mendacium," the liberty granted by expediency being
equivalent to a call of duty to utter a falsehood with pious intention. I
at least can see no other explanation, unless, of course, the mere addition
of the words "permitted by expediency" be enough to make a lie cease to be
a lie; and if this be absurd, why do you not openly say that a lie spoken
in the way of duty(2) is to be defended? Perhaps the name offends you,
because the word "officium" is .not common in ecclesiastical books; but
this did not deter our Ambrose from its use, for he has chosen the title
"De Officiis" for some of his books that are full of useful rules. Do you
mean to say, that whoever utters a lie from a sense of duty is to be
blamed, and whoever does the same on the ground of expediency is to be
approved? I beseech you, consider that the man who thinks this may lie
whenever he thinks fit, because this involves the whole important question
whether to say what is false be at any time the duty of a good man,
especially of a Christian man, to whom it has been' said, "Let your yea be
yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation," (3) and who
believes the Psalmist's word, "Thou wilt destroy all them that speak lies."
(4)
22. This, however, is, as I have said, another and a weighty question;
I leave him who is of this opinion to judge for himself the circumstances
in which he is at liberty to utter a lie: provided, however, that it be
most assuredly believed and maintained that this way of lying is far
removed from the authors who were employed to write holy writings,
especially the canonical Scriptures; lest those who are the stewards of
Christ, of whom it is said, "It is required in stewards, that a man be
found faithful,"(5) should seem to have proved their fidelity by learning
as an important lesson to speak what is false when this is expedient for
the truth's sake, although the word fidelity itself, in the! Latin tongue,
is said to Signify originally a real correspondence between what is said
and what is done.(6) Now, where that which is spoken is actually done,
there is assuredly no room for falsehood. Paul therefore, as a "faithful
steward" doubtless is to be regarded as approving his fidelity in his
writings; for he was "steward of truth, not of falsehood. Therefore he
wrote the truth when he wrote that he had seen Peter walking not uprightly,
according to the truth of the gospel, and that he had withstood him to the
face because he was compelling the Gentiles to live as the Jews did. And
Peter himself received, with the holy and loving humility which became him,
the rebuke which Paul, in the interests of truth, and with the boldness of
love, administered. Therein Peter left to those that came after him an
example, that, if at any time they deviated from the right path, they
should not think it beneath them to accept correction from those who were
their juniors, -- an example more rare, and requiring greater piety, than
that which Paul's conduct on the same occasion left us, that those who are
younger should have courage even to withstand their seniors if the defence
of evangelical truth required it, yet in such a way as to preserve unbroken
brotherly love. For while it is better for one to succeed in perfectly
keeping the right path, it is a thing much more worthy of admiration and
praise to receive admonition meekly, than to admonish a transgressor
boldly. On that occasion, therefore, Paul was to be praised for upright
courage, Peter was to be praised for holy humility; and so far as my
judgment enables me to form an opinion, this ought rather to have been
asserted in answer to the calumnies of Porphyry, than further occasion
given to him for finding fault, by putting it in his power to bring against
Christians this much more damaging accusation, that either in writing their
letters or in complying with the ordinances of God they practised deceit.
CHAP. III.-- 23. You call upon me to bring forward the name of even one
whose opinion I have followed in this matter, and at the same time you have
quoted the names of many who , have held before you the opinion which you
defend(7) You also say that if I censure you for an error in this, you beg
to be allowed to remain in error in company with such great men. I have not
read their writings; but although they are only six or seven in all, you
have yourself impugned the authority of four of them. For as to the
Laodicean author,(8) whose name you do not give, you say that he has lately
forsaken the Church; Alexander you describe as a heretic of old standing;
and as to Origen and Didymus, I read in some of your more recent works,
censure passed on their opinions, and that in no measured terms, nor in
regard to insignificant questions, although formerly you gave Origen
marvellous praise. I suppose, therefore, that .you would not even yourself
be contented to be in error with these men; although the language which I
refer to is equivalent to an assertion that in this matter they have not
erred. For who is there that would consent to be knowingly mistaken, with
whatever company he might share his errors? Three of the seven therefore
alone remain, Eusebius of Emesa, Theodorus of Heraclea, and John, whom you
afterwards mention, who formerly presided as pontiff over the Church of
Constantinople.
24. However, if you inquire or recall to memory the opinion of our
Ambrose,(1) and also of our Cyprian,(2) on the point in question, you will
perhaps find that I also have not been without some whose footsteps I
follow in that which I have maintained. At the same time, as I have said
already, it is to the canonical Scriptures alone that I am bound to yield
such implicit subjection as to follow their teaching, without admitting the
slightest suspicion that in them any mistake or any statement intended to
mislead could find a place. Wherefore, when I look round for a third name
that I may oppose three on my side to your three, I might indeed easily
find one, I believe, if my reading had been extensive; but one occurs to me
whose name is as good as all these others, nay, of greater authority -- I
mean the Apostle Paul himself. To him I betake myself; to himself I appeal
from the verdict of all those commentators on his writings who advance an
opinion different from mine. I interrogate him, and demand from himself to
know whether he wrote what was true, or under some plea of expediency wrote
what he knew to be false, when he wrote that he saw Peter not walking
uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, and withstood him to his
face. because by that dissimulation he was compelling the Gentiles to live
after the manner of the Jews. And I hear him in reply proclaiming with a
solemn oath in an earlier part of the epistle, where he began this
narration, "The things that I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie
not."(3)
25. Let those who think otherwise, however great their names, excuse my
differing from them. The testimony of so great an apostle using, in his own
writings. an oath as a confirmation of their truth, is of more weight with
me than the opinion of any man, however learned, who is discussing the
writings of another. Nor am I afraid lest men should say that, in
vindicating Paul from the charge of pretending to conform to the errors of
Jewish prejudice, I affirm him to have actually so conformed. For as, on
the one hand, he was not guilty of pretending conformity to error when,
with the liberty of an apostle, such as was suitable to that period of
transition, he did, by practising those ancient holy ordinances, when it
was necessary to declare their original excellence as appointed not by the
wiles of Satan to deceive men, but by the wisdom of God for the purpose of
typically foretelling things to come; so, on the other hand, he was not
guilty of real conformity to the errors of Judaism, seeing that he not only
knew, but also preached constantly and vehemently, that those were in error
who thought that these ceremonies were to be imposed upon the Gentile
converts, or were necessary to the justification of any who believed.
26. Moreover, as to my saying that to the Jews he became as a Jew, and
to the Gentiles as a Gentile, not with the subtlety of intentional deceit,
but with the compassion of pitying love,(4) it seems to me that you have
not sufficiently considered my meaning in the words; or rather, perhaps, I
have not succeeded in making it plain. For I did not mean by this that I
supposed him to have practised in either case a feigned conformity; but I
said it because his conformity was sincere, not less in the things in which
he became to the Jews as a Jew, than in those in which he became to the
Gentiles as a Gentile,a parallel which you yourself suggested, and by which
I thankfully acknowledge that you have materially assisted my argument. For
when I had in my letter asked you to explain how it could be supposed that
Paul's becoming to the Jews as a Jew involved the supposition that he must
have acted deceitfully in conforming to the Jewish observances, seeing that
no such deceptive conformity to heathen customs was involved in his
becoming as a Gentile to the Gentiles; your answer was, that his becoming
to the Gentiles as a Gentile meant no more than his receiving the
uncircumcised, and permitting the free use of those meats which were
pronounced unclean by Jewish law. If, then, when I ask whether in this also
he practised dissimulation, such an idea is repudiated as palpably most
absurd and false: it is an obvious inference, that in his performing those
things in which he became as a Jew to the Jews, he was using a wise
liberty, not yielding to a degrading compulsion, nor doing what would be
still more unworthy of him, viz. stooping from integrity to fraud out of a
regard to expediency.
27. For to believers, and to those who know the truth, as the apostle
testifies (unless here too, perhaps, he is deceiving his readers), "every
creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with
thanksgiving.''(1) Therefore to Paul himself, not only as a man, but as a
steward eminently faithful, not only as knowing, but also as a teacher of
the truth, every creature of God which is used for food was not feignedly
but truly good. If, then, to the Gentiles he became as a Gentile, by
holding and teaching the truth concerning meats and circumcision although
he feigned no conformity to the rites and ceremonies of the Gentiles, why
say that it was impossible for him to become as a Jew to the Jews, unless
he practised dissimulation in performing the rites of their religion Why
did he maintain the true faithfulness of a steward towards the wild olive
branch that was engrafted, and yet hold up a strange veil of dissimulation,
on the plea of expediency, before those who were the natural and original
branches of the olive tree? Why was it that, in becoming as a Gentile to
the Gentiles, his teaching and his conduct(2) are in harmony with his real
sentiments; but that, in becoming as a Jew to the Jews, he shuts up one
thing in his heart, and declares something wholly different in his words,
deeds, and writings? But far be it from us to entertain such thoughts of
him. To both Jews and Gentiles he owed "charity out of a pure heart, and of
a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned; "(3) and therefore he became all
things! to all men, that he might gain all,(4) not with the subtlety of a
deceiver, but with the love of one filled with compassion; that is to say,
not by pretending himself to do all the evil things which other men did,
but by using the utmost pains to minister with all compassion the remedies
required by the evils under which other men laboured, as if their case had
been his own.
28. When, therefore, he did not refuse to practise some of these Old
Testament observances, he was not led by his compassion for Jews to feign
this conformity, but unquestionably was acting sincerely; and by this
course of action declaring his respect for those things which in the former
dispensation had been for a time enjoined by God, he distinguished between
them and the impious rites of heathenism. At that time, moreover, not with
the subtlety of a deceiver, but with the love of one moved by compassion,
he became to the Jews as a Jew, when, seeing them to be in error, which
either made them unwilling to believe in Christ, or made them think that by
these old sacrifices and ceremonial observances they could be cleansed from
sin and made partakers of salvation, he desired so to deliver them from
that error as if he saw not them, but himself, entangled in it; thus truly
loving his neighbour as himself, and doing to others as he would have
others do to him if he required their help,--a duty to the statement of
which our Lord added these words, "This is the law and the prophets."(5)
29. This compassionate affection Paul recommends in the same Epistle to
the Galatians, saying: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are
spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted." (6) See whether he has not said, "Make
thyself as he is, that thou mayest gain him." Not, indeed, that one should
commit or pretend to have committed the same fault as the one who has been
overtaken, but that in the fault of that other he should consider what
might happen to himself, and so compassionately render assistance to that
other, as he would wish that other to do to him if the case were his; that
is, not with the subtlety of a deceiver, but with the love of one filled
with compassion. Thus, whatever the error or fault in which Jew or Gentile
or any man was found by Paul, to all men he became all things,- not by
feigning what was not true, but by feeling, because the case might have
been his own, the compassion of one who put himself in the other's place,-
that he might gain all.
CHAP. IV.- 30. I beseech you to look, if you please, for a little into
your own heart, -- I mean, into your own heart as it stands affected
towards myself, --and recall, or if you have it in writing beside you, read
again, your own words in that letter (only too brief) which you sent to me
by Cyprian our brother, now my colleague. Read with what sincere brotherly
and loving earnestness you have added to a serious complaint of what I had
done to you these words: "In this friendship is wounded, and the laws of
brotherly union are set at nought. Let not the world see us quarrelling
like children, and giving material for angry contention between those who
may become our respective supporters or adversaries."(7) These words I
perceive to be spoken by you from the heart, and from a heart kindly
seeking to give me good advice. Then you add, what would have been obvious
to me even without your stating it: "I write what I have now written,
because I desire to cherish towards you pure and Christian love, and not to
hide in my heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of my
lips." O pious man, beloved by me, as God who seeth my soul is witness,
with a true heart I believe your statement; and just as I do not question
the sincerity of the profession which you have thus made in a letter to me,
so do I by all means believe the Apostle Paul when he makes the very same
profession in his letter, addressed not to any one individual, but to Jews
and Greeks, and all those Gentiles who were his children in the gospel, for
whose spiritual birth he travailed, and after them to so many thousands of
believers in Christ, for whose sake that letter has been preserved. I
believe, I say, that he did not "hide in his heart anything which did not
agree with the utterance of his lips."
31. You have indeed yourself done towards me this very thing,- becoming
to me as I am,--"not with the subtlety of deception, but with the love of
compassion," when you thought that it behoved you to take as much pains to
prevent me from being left in a mistake, in which you believed me to be, as
you would have wished another to take for your deliverance if the case had
been your own. Wherefore, gratefully acknowledging this evidence of your
goodwill towards me, I also claim that you also be not displeased with me,
if, when anything in your treatises disquieted me, I acquainted you with my
distress, desiring the same course to be followed by all towards me as I
have followed towards you, that whatever they think worthy of censure in my
writings, they would neither flatter me with deceitful commendation nor
blame me before others for that of which they are silent towards myself;
thereby, as it seems to me, more seriously "wounding friendship and setting
at nought the laws of brotherly union." For I would hesitate to give the
name of Christian to those friendships in which the common proverb,
"Flattery makes friends, and truth makes enemies,"(1) is of more authority
than the scriptural proverb, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the
kisses of an enemy are deceitful."(2)
32. Wherefore let us rather do our utmost to set before our beloved
friends, who most cordially wish us well in our labours, such an example
that they may know that it is possible for the most intimate friends to
differ so much in opinion, that the views of the one may be contradicted by
the other without any diminution of their mutual affection, and without
hatred being kindled by that truth which is due to genuine friendship,
whether the contradiction be in itself in accordance with truth, or at
least, whatever its intrinsic value is, be spoken from a sincere heart by
one who is resolved not "to hide in his heart anything which does not agree
with the utterance of his lips." Let therefore our brethren, your friends,
of whom you bear testimony that they are vessels of Christ, believe me when
I say that it was wholly against my will that my letter came into the hands
of many others before it reached your own, and that my heart is filled with
no small sorrow for this mistake. How it happened would take long to tell,
and this is now, if I am not mistaken, unnecessary; since, if my word is to
be taken at all in regard to this, it suffices for me to say that it was
not done by me with the sinister intention which is supposed by some, and
that it was not by my wish, or arrangement, or consent, or design that this
has taken place. If they do not believe this, which I affirm in the sight
of God, I can do no more to satisfy them. Far be it, however, from me.to
believe that they made this suggestion to your Holiness with the malicious
desire to kindle enmity between you and me, from which may God in His mercy
defend us! Doubtless, without any intention of doing me wrong, they readily
suspected me, as a man, to be capable of failings common to human nature.
For it is right for me to believe this concerning them, if they be vessels
of Christ appointed not to dishonour, but to honour, and made meet by God
for every good work in His great house.(3) If, however, this my solemn
protestation come to their knowledge, and they still persist in the same
opinion of my conduct, you will yourself see that in this they will do
wrong.
33. As to my having written that I had never sent to Rome a book
against you, I wrote this because, in the first place, I did not regard the
name "book" as applicable to my letter, and therefore was under the
impression that you had heard of something else entirely different from it;
in the second place, I had not sent the letter in question to Rome, but to
you; and in the third place, I did not consider it to be against you,
because I knew that I had been prompted by the sincerity of friendship,
which should give I liberty for the exchange of suggestions and corrections
between us. Leaving out of sight for a little while your friends of whom I
have spoken, I implore yourself, by the grace whereby we have been
redeemed, not to suppose that I have been guilty of artful flattery in
anything which I have said in my letters concerning the good gifts which
have been by the Lord's goodness bestowed on you. If, however, I have in
anything wronged you, forgive me. As to that incident in the life of some
forgotten bard, which, with perhaps more pedantry than good taste, I quoted
from classic literature, I beg you not to carry the application of it to
yourself further than my words warranted for I immediately added: "I do not
say this in order that you may recover the faculty of spiritual sight- far
be it from me to say that you have lost it !--but that, having eyes both
clear and quick in discernment, you may turn them to this matter." (4) I
thought a reference to that incident suitable exclusively in connection
with the palinwdi'a, in which we ought all to imitale Stesichorus if we
have written anything which it becomes our duty to correct in a writing of
later date, and not at all in connection with the blindness of Stesichorus,
which I neither ascribed to your mind, nor feared as likely to be fall you.
And again, I beseech you to correct boldly whatever you see needful to
censure in my writings. For although, so far as the titles of honour which
prevail in the Church are concerned, a bishop's rank is above that of a
presbyter, nevertheless in many things Augustin is in inferior to Jerome;
albeit correction is not to be refused nor despised, even when it comes
from I one who in all respects may be an inferior.
CHAP. V.- 34. As to your translation, you have now convinced me of the
benefits to be secured by your proposal to translate the Scriptures from
the original Hebrew, in order that you may bring to light those things
which have been either omitted or perverted by the Jews. But I beg you to
be so good as state by what Jews this has been done, whether by those who
before the Lord's advent translated the Old Testament- and if so, by what
one or more of them --or by the Jews of later times, who may be supposed to
have mutilated or corrupted the Greek Mss., in order to prevent themselves
from being unable to answer the evidence given by these concerning the
Christian faith. I cannot find any reason which should have prompted the
earlier Jewish translators to such unfaithfulness. I beg of you, moreover,
to send us your translation of the Septuagint, which I did not know that
you had published. I am also longing to read that book of yours which you
named De optimo genere interpretandi, and to know from it how to adjust the
balance between the product of the translator's acquaintance with the
original language, and the conjectures of those who are able commentators
on the Scripture, who, notwithstanding their common loyalty to the one true
faith, must often bring forward various opinions on account of the
obscurity of many passages;(1) although this difference of interpretation
by no means involves departure from the unity of the faith; just as one
commentator may himself give, in harmony with the faith which he holds, two
different interpretations of the same passage, because the obscurity of the
passage makes both equally admissible.
35. I desire, moreover, your translation of the Septuagint, in order
that we may be delivered, so far as is possible, from the consequences of
the notable incompetency of those who, whether qualified or not, have
attempted a Latin translation; and in order that those who think that I
look with jealousy on your useful labours, may at length, if it be
possible, perceive that my only reason for objecting to the public reading
of your translation from the Hebrew in our churches was, lest, bringing
forward anything which was, as it were, new and opposed to the authority of
the Septuagint version, we should trouble by serious cause of offence the
flocks of Christ, whose ears and hearts have become accustomed to listen to
that version to which the seal of approbation was given by the apostles
themselves. Wherefore, as to that shrub in the book of Jonah,(2) if in the
Hebrew it is neither "gourd" nor "ivy," but something else which stands
erect, supported by its own stem without other props, I would prefer to
call it "gourd" in all our Latin versions; for I do not think that the
Seventy would have rendered it thus at random, had they not known that the
plant was something like a gourd.
36. I think I have now given a sufficient answer (perhaps more than
sufficient) to your three letters; of which I received two by Cyprian, and
one by Firmus. In replying, send whatever you think likely to be of use in
instructing me and others. And I shall take more care, as the Lord may help
me, that any letter which I may write to you shall reach yourself before it
fills into the hand of any other, by whom its contents may be published
abroad; for I confess that I would not like any letter of yours to me to
meet with the fate of which you justly complain as having befallen my
letter to you. Let us, however, resolve to maintain between ourselves the
liberty as well as the love of friends; so that in the letters which we
exchange, neither of us shall be restrained from frankly stating to the
other whatever seems to him open to correction, provided always that this
be done in the spirit which does not, as inconsistent with i brotherly
love, displease God. if, however, you do not think that this can be done
between us without endangering that brotherly love, let us not do it: for
the love which I should like to see maintained between us is assuredly the
greater love which would make this mutual freedom possible; but the smaller
measure of it is better than none at all.(3)
LETTER LXXXIII. (A.D. 405.)
TO MY LORD ALYPIUS MOST BLESSED, MY BROTHER AND COLLEAGUE, BELOVED AND
LONGED FOR WITH SINCERE VENERATION, AND TO THE BRETHREN THAT ARE WITH HIM,
AUGUSTIN AND THE BRETHREN WITH HIM SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. The sorrow of the members of the Church at Thiave prevents my heart
from having any rest until I hear that they have been brought again to be
of the same mind towards you as they formerly were; which must be
accomplished without delay. For if the apostle was concerned about one
individual, "lest perhaps such an one should be swallowed up with overmuch
sorrow," adding in the same context the words, "lest Satan should get an
advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices,"(1) how much more
does it become us to act with caution, lest we cause similar grief to a
whole flock, and especially one composed of persons who have lately been
reconciled to the Catholic Church, and whom I can upon no account forsake!
As, however, the short time at our disposal did not permit us so to take
counsel together as to arrive at a mature and satisfactory decision, may it
please your Holiness to accept in this letter the finding which commended
itself most to me when I had long reflected upon the matter since we
parted; and if you approve of it, let the enclosed letter,(2) which I have
written to them in the name of both of us, be sent to them without delay.
2. You proposed that they should have the one half [of the property
left by Honoratus], and that the other half should be made up to them/by me
from such resources as might be at my disposal. I think, however, that if
the whole property had been taken from them, men might reasonably have said
that we had taken the great pains in this matter which we have done, for
the sake of justice, not for pecuniary advantage. But when we concede to
them one half, and in that way settle with them by a compromise, it will be
manifest that our anxiety has been only about the money; and you see what
harm must follow from this. For, on the one hand, we shall be regarded by
them as having taken away one half of a property to which we had no claim;
and, on the other hand, they will be regarded by us as dishonourably and
unjustly consenting to accept aid from one half of a property of which the
whole belonged to the poor. For your remark, "We must beware lest, in our
efforts to obtain a right adjustment of a difficult question, we cause more
serious wounds," applies with no less force if the half be conceded to
them. For those whose turning from the world to monastic life we desire to
secure, will, for the sake of this half of their private estates, be
disposed to find some excuse for putting off the sale of these, in order
that their case may be dealt with according to this precedent. Moreover,
would it not be strange, if, in a question like this, where much may be
said on both sides, a whole community should, through our not avoiding the
appearance of evil, be offended by the impression that their bishops, whom
they hold in high esteem, are smitten with sordid avarice?
3. For when any one is turned to adopt the life of a monk, if he is
adopting it with a true heart, he does not think of that which I have just
mentioned, especially if he be admonished of the sinfulness of such
conduct. But if he be a deceiver, and is seeking "his own things, not the
things which are Jesus Christ's," (3) he has not charity; and without this,
what does it profit him, "though he bestow all his goods to feed the poor,
and though he give his body to be burned"? (4) Moreover, as we agreed when
conversing together, this may be henceforth avoided, and an arrangement
made with each individual who is disposed to enter a monastery, if he
cannot be admitted to the society of the brethren before he has relieved
himself of all these encumbrances, and comes as one at leisure from all
business, because the property which belonged to him has ceased to be his.
But there is no other way in which this spiritual death of weak brethren,
and grievous obstacle to the salvation of those for whose reconciliation
with the Catholic Church we so earnestly labour, can be avoided, than by
our giving them most clearly to understand that we are by no means anxious
about money in such cases as this. And this they cannot be made to
understand, unless we leave to their use the estate which they always
supposed to belong to their late presbyter; because, even if it was not
his, they ought to have known this from the beginning.
4. It seems to me, therefore, that in matters of this kind, the rule
which ought to hold is, that whatever belonged, according to the ordinary
civil laws regarding property, to him who is an ordained clergyman in any
place, belongs after his death to the Church over which he was ordained.
Now, by civil law, the property in question belonged to the presbyter
Honoratus; so that not only on account of his being ordained elsewhere. but
even had he remained in the monastery of Thagaste, if he had died without
having either sold his estate or handed it over by express deed of gift to
any one, the right of succession to it would belong only to his heirs: as
brother Aemilianus inherited those thirty shillings(5) left by the brother
Privatus. This, therefore, behoved to be considered and provided for in
time i but if no provision was made for it, we must, in the disposal of the
estate, comply with the laws which have been appointed to regulate in civil
society the holding or not holding of property; that we may, so far as is
in our power, abstain not only from the reality, but also from all
appearance of evil, and preserve that good name which is so necessary to
our office as stewards. How truly this procedure has the appearance of
evil, I beseech your wisdom to observe. For having heard of their sorrow,
which we ourselves witnessed at Thiave, fearing lest, as frequently
happens, I should myself be mistaken through partiality for my own opinion,
I stated the facts of the case to our brother and colleague Samsucius,
without telling him at the time my present view of the matter, but rather
stating the view taken up by both of us when we were resisting their
demands. He was exceedingly shocked, and wondered that we had entertained
such a view; being moved by nothing else but the ugly appearance of the
transaction, as one wholly unworthy not only of us, but of any man.
5. Wherefore I implore you to subscribe and transmit without delay the
letter which I have written to them in name of both of us. And even if,
perchance, you discern the other course to be a just one in the matter, let
not these brethren who are weak be compelled to learn now what I myself
cannot understand; rather let this word of the Lord be remembered in
dealing with them: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now."(1) For He Himself, out of condescension to such weakness,
said on another occasion (it was in reference to the payment of tribute),
"Then are the children free; notwithstanding lest we offend them," etc.;
and sent Peter to pay the didrachmae which were then exacted.(2) For He
knew another law according to which he was not bound to make any such
payment; but He made the payment which was imposed upon Him by that law
according to which, as I have said, succession to the estate of Honoratus
behoved to be regulated, if he died before either giving away or selling
his property. Nay, even in regard to the law of the Church, Paul showed
forbearance towards the weak, and did not insist upon his receiving the
money due to him, although fully persuaded in his conscience that he might
with perfect justice insist upon it; waiving his claim, however, only
because he thereby avoided a suspicion of his motives which would mar the
sweet savour of Christ among them, and abstained from the appearance of
evil in a region in which he knew that this was his duty, and probably even
before he had known by experience the sorrow which it would occasion. Let
us now, though we are somewhat behind-hand, and have been admonished by
experience, correct that which we ought to have foreseen.
6. I remember that you proposed when we parted that the brethren at
Thagaste should hold me responsible to make up the half of the sum claimed;
let me say in conclusion, that as I fear everything which may make my
attempt unsuccessful, if you clearly perceive that proposal to be a just
one, I do not refuse to comply with it on this condition, however, that I
am to pay the amount only when I have it in my power, i.e. when something
so considerable falls to our monastery at Hippo that this can be done
without unduly straitening us, -- the amount remaining after the
subtraction of so large a sum being still such as to provide for our
monastery here aft equal share in proportion to the number of resident
brethren.
LETTER LXXXIV. (A.D. 405.)
TO MY LORD NOVATUS, MOST BLESSED, MY BROTHER AND PARTNER IN THE PRIESTLY
OFFICE, ESTEEMED AND LONGED FOR, AND TO THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH HIM,
AUGUSTIN AND THE BRETHREN WITH HIM SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. I myself feel how hard-hearted I must appear to you, and I can
scarcely excuse to myself my conduct in not consenting to send to your
Holiness my son the deacon Lucillus, your own brother. But when your own
time comes to surrender to the claims of Churches in remote places some of
those whom you have educated, and who are most dear and sweet to you, then,
and not till then, will you know the pangs of longing which pierce me
through and through for some who, once united to me in the strongest and
most pleasing intimacy, are no more beside me. Let me submit to your
thoughts the case of one who is far away. However strong be the bond of
kindred between brothers, it does not surpass the bond by which my brother
Severus and I are united to each other, and yet you know how rarely I have
the happiness of seeing him. And this has been caused neither by his wish
nor by mine, but because of our giving to the claims of our mother the
Church precedency above the claims of this present world, out of regard to
that coming eternity in which we shall dwell together and part no more. How
much more reasonable, therefore, is it for you to submit for the sake of
the Church's welfare to the absence of that brother, with whom you have not
shared the food which the Lord our Shepherd provides for nearly so long a
period as I did with my most amiable fellow-townsman Severus, who now only
with an effort and at long intervals converses with me by means of brief
letters, --letters, moreover, which are for the most part burdened with the
cares and affairs of other men, instead of bearing to me any reminiscence
of those green pastures in which we were wont to lie down under Christ's
loving care !
2. You will perhaps reply, "What then? May not my brother be of service
to the Church here also? Is it for any other end than usefulness to the
Church that I desire to have him with me ?" Truly, if his being beside you
seemed to me to be as important for the gathering in or ruling of the
Lord's flock as his presence here is for these ends, every one might justly
blame me for being not merely hard-hearted, but unjust. But since he is
conversant with the Punic(1) language, through want of which the preaching
of the gospel is greatly hindered in these parts, whereas the use of that
language is general with you, do you think that we would be doing our duty
in consulting for the welfare of the Lord's flocks, if we were to send this
talent to a place where it is not specially needful, and remove it from
this region, where we thirst for it with such parched spirits? Forgive me,
therefore, when I do, not only against your will, but also against my own
feeling, what the care of the burden imposed upon me compels me to do. The
Lord, to whom you have given your heart, will grant you such aid in your
labours that you shall be recompensed for this kindness; for we acknowledge
that you have with a good grace rather than of necessity conceded the
deacon Lucillus to the burning thirst of the regions in which our lot is
cast. For you will do me no small favour if you do not burden me with any
further request upon this subject, lest I should have occasion to appear
anything more than somewhat hard-hearted to you, whom I revere for your
holy benignity of disposition.
LETTER LXXXV. (A.D. 405.)
TO MY LORD PAULUS, MOST BELOVED, MY BROTHER AND COLLEAGUE IN THE
PRIESTHOOD, WHOSE HIGHEST WELFARE IS SOUGHT BY ALL MY PRAYERS, AUGUSTIN
SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
1. You would not call me so inexorable if you did not think me also a
dissembler. For what else do you believe concerning my spirit, if I am to
judge by what you have written, than that I cherish towards you dislike and
antipathy which merit blame and detestation; as if in a matter about which,
there could be but one opinion I was not careful lest, while warning
others, I myself should deserve reproof,(2) or were wishing to cast the
mote out of your eye while retaining and fostering the beam in my own? (3)
It is by no means as you suppose. Behold! I repeat this, and call God to
witness, that if you were only to desire for yourself what I desire on your
behalf, you would now be living in Christ free from all disquietude, and
would make the whole Church rejoice in glory brought by you to His name.
Observe, I pray you, that I have addressed you not only as my brother, but
also as my colleague. For it cannot be that any bishop whatsoever of the
Catholic Church should cease to be my colleague, so long as he has not been
condemned by any ecclesiastical tribunal. As to my refusing to hold
communion with you, the only reason for this is that I cannot flatter you.
For inasmuch as I have begotten you in Christ, I am under very special
obligation to render to you the salutary severity of love in faithful
admonition and reproof. It is true that I rejoice in the numbers who have
been, by God's blessing on your work, gathered into the Catholic Church;
but this does not make me less bound to weep that a greater number are
being by you scattered from the Church. For you have so wounded the Church
of Hippo,(4) that unless the Lord make you disengage yourself from all
secular cares and burdens, and recall you to the manner of living and
deportment which become the true bishop, the wound may soon be beyond
remedy.
2. Seeing, however, that you continue to involve yourself more and more
deeply in these affairs, and have, notwithstanding your vow of
:renunciation, entangled yourself again with the things which you had
solemnly laid aside,- a step which could not be justified even by the laws
of ordinary human affairs; seeing also that you are reported to be living
in a style of extravagance which cannot be maintained by the slender income
of your church,- why do you insist upon communion with me, while you refuse
to hear my rebuke of your faults? Is it that men whose complaints I cannot
bear, may justly blame me for whatever you do? You are, moreover, mistaken
in suspecting that those who find fault with you are persons who have
always been against you even in your earlier life. It is not so: and you
have no reason to be surprised that many things escape your observation.
But even were this the case, it is your duty to secure that they find
nothing in your conduct which they might reasonably blame, and for which
they might bring reproach against the Church. Perhaps you think that my
reason for saying these things is, that I have not accepted what you urged
in your defence. Nay, rather my reason is, that if I were to say nothing
regarding these things, I would be guilty of that for which I could urge
nothing in my defence before God. I know your abilities; but even a man of
dull mind is kept from disquietude if he sets his affections on heavenly
things, whereas a man of acute mind has this gift in vain if he set his
affections on earthly things. The office of a bishop is not designed to
enable one to spend a life of vanity. The Lord God, who has closed against
you all the ways by which you were disposed to make Him minister to your
gain, in order that He may guide you, if you but understand Him, into that
way, with a view to the pursuit of which that holy responsibility was laid
upon you, will Himself teach you what I now say.
LETTER LXXXVI. (A.D. 405.)
TO MY NOBLE LORD CAECILIANUS, MY SON TRULY AND JUSTLY HONOURABLE AND
ESTEEMED IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST, AUGUSTIN, BISHOP, SENDS GREETING IN THE
LORD.
The renown of your administration and the fame of your virtues, as well
as the praiseworthy zeal and faithful sincerity of your Christian piety, --
gifts of God which make you rejoice in Him from whom they came, and from
whom you hope to receive yet greater things, -- have moved me to acquaint
your Excellency by this letter with the cares which agitate my mind. As our
joy is great that throughout the rest of Africa you have taken measures
with remarkable success on behalf of Catholic unity, our sorrow is
proportionately great because the district of Hippo(1) and the neighbouring
regions on the borders of Numidia have not enjoyed the benefit of the
vigour with which as a magistrate you have enforced your proclamation, my
noble lord, and my son truly and justly honourable and esteemed in the love
of Christ. Lest this should be regarded rather as due to the neglect of
duty by me who bear the burden of the episcopal office at Hippo, I have
considered myself bound to mention it to your Excellency. If you condescend
to acquaint yourself with the extremities to which the effrontery of the
heretics has proceeded in the region of Hippo, as you may do by questioning
my brethren and colleagues, who are able to furnish your Excellency with
information, or the presbyter whom I have sent with this letter, I am sure
you will so deal with this tumour of impious presumption, that it shall be
healed by warning rather than painfully removed afterwards by punishment.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/I, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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