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ST. AUGUSTIN

LETTERS 124-145 (Beginning of the third division)

[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.]


THIRD DIVISION.

LETTERS WHICH WERE WRITTEN BY AUGUSTIN AFTER THE TIME OF THE CONFERENCE
WITH THE DONATISTS AND THE RISE OF THE PELAGIAN HERESY IN AFRICA; I.E.,
DURING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS OF HIS LIFE (A.D. 411-430).

LETTER CXXIV. (A.D. 411.)

TO ALBINA, PINIANUS, AND MELANIA, HONOURED IN THE LORD, BELOVED IN HOLINESS
AND LONGED FOR IN BROTHERLY AFFECTION AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. I AM, whether through present infirmity or by natural temperament,
very susceptible of cold; nevertheless, it would not be possible for me to
suffer greater heat than I have done throughout this exceptionally dreadful
winter, having been kept in a fever by distress because I have been unable,
I do not say to hasten, but to fly to you (to visit whom it would have been
fitting for me to fly across the seas), after you had been settled so near
to me, and had come from so remote a land to see me. It may be, also, that
you have supposed the rigorous weather of this winter to be the only cause
of my suffering this disappointment; I pray you, beloved, give no place to
this thought. For what inconvenience, hardship, or even danger, can these
heavy rains bring, which I would not have encountered and endured in order
to make my way to you, who are such comforters to us in our great
calamities, and who, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, are
lights kindled into vehement flame by the Supreme Light, raised aloft by
lowliness of spirit, and deriving more glorious lustre from the glory which
you have despised? Moreover, I would have enjoyed participation in the
spiritual felicity vouchsafed to my earthly birthplace, in that it has been
permitted to have you present, of whom when absent its citizens had heard
much--so much, indeed, that although giving charitable credence to the
report of what you were by nature and had become by grace, they feared,
perchance, to repeat it to others, lest it should be disbelieved.

   2. I shall therefore tell you the reason why I have not come, and the
trials by which I have been kept back from so great a privilege, that I may
obtain not only your forgiveness, but also, through your prayers, the mercy
of Him who so works in you that ye live to Him. The congregation of Hippo,
whom the Lord has ordained me to serve, is in great measure, and almost
wholly, of a constitution so infirm, that the pressure of even a
comparatively light affliction might seriously endanger its well-being; at
present, however, it is smitten with tribulation so overwhelming, that,
even were it strong, it could scarcely survive the imposition of the
burden. Moreover, when I returned to it recently, I found it offended to a
most dangerous degree by my absence; and you, over whose spiritual strength
we rejoice in the Lord, can with healthful taste relish and approve the
saying of Paul: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I
burn not ?"(2) I feel this especially because there are many here who by
disparaging us attempt to excite against us the minds of the others by whom
we seem to be loved, in order that they may make room in them for the
devil. But when those whose salvation is our care are angry with us, their
strong determination to take vengeance on us is only an unreasonable desire
for bringing death to themselves,- not the death of the body, but of the
soul, in which the fact of death discovers itself mysteriously by the odour
of corruption before it is possible for our care to foresee and provide
against it.

   Doubtless you will readily excuse this anxiety on my part, especially
because, if you were displeased and wished to punish me, you could perhaps
invent no severer pain than what I already suffer in not seeing you at
Thagaste. I trust, however, that, assisted by your prayers, I may be
permitted when the present hindrance has been removed with all speed to
come to you, in whatsoever part of Africa you may be, if this town in which
I labour is not worthy (and I do not presume to pronounce it worthy) to be
along with us made joyful by your presence.

LETTER CXXV. (A.D. 411)

TO ALYPIUS, MY LORD MOST BLESSED AND BROTHER BELOVED WITH ALL REVERENCE,
AND MY PARTNER IN THE PRIESTLY OFFICE, AND TO THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH
HIM, AUGUSTIN AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH HIM SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. We are deeply grieved, and can by no means regard it as a small
matter, that the people of Hippo clamorously said so much to the
disparagement of your Holiness; but, my good brother, their clamorous
utterance of these things is not so great a cause for grief as the fact
that we are, without open accusation, deemed guilty of similar things. For
when we are believed to be actuated in retaining God's servants among us,
not by love of righteousness, but by love of money, is it not to be desired
that persons who believe this concerning us should with their voices avow
what is hidden in their hearts, and so obtain, if possible, remedies great
in proportion to the disease, rather than silently perish under the venom
of these fatal suspicions? Wherefore it ought to be a greater care to us
(and for this reason we conferred together before this happened) to provide
how men to whom we are commanded to be examples in good works may be
convinced that there is no ground for suspicions which they cherish, than
to provide how those may be rebuked who in words give definite utterance to
their suspicions.

   2. Wherefore I am not angry with the pious Albina, nor do I judge her
to deserve rebuke; but I think she requires to be cured of such suspicions.
It is true that she has not pointed at myself the words to which I refer,
but has complained of the people of Hippo, as it were, alleging that their
covetousness has been brought to light, and that in desiring to retain
among them a man of' wealth who was known to despise money, and to give it
away freely, they were moved, not by his fitness for the office, but by
regard to his ample means; nevertheless, she almost said openly that she
had the same suspicion of myself, and not she only, but also her pious son-
in-law and daughter, who, on that very day, said the same thing in the apse
of the church. In my opinion, it is more necessary that the suspicions of
these persons should be removed than that their utterance of them should be
rebuked. For where can immunity and rest from such thorns be provided and
given to us, if they can sprout forth against us even in the hearts of
intimate friends, so pious and so much beloved by us? It is by the ignorant
multitude that such things have been thought concerning you, but I am the
victim of similar suspicions from those who are the lights of the Church;
you may see, therefore, which of us has the greater cause for grief. It
seems to me that both cases call, not for invectives, but for remedial
measures; for they are men, and their suspicions are of men, and therefore
such things as they suspect, though they may be false, are not incredible.
Persons such as these are of course not so foolish as to believe that the
people are coveting their money, especially after their experience that the
people of Thagaste obtained none of their money, from which it was certain
that the people of Hippo would also obtain none. Nay, all the violence of
this odium comes against the clergy alone, and especially against the
bishops, whose authority is visibly pre-eminent, and who are supposed to
use and enjoy as owners and lords the property of the Church. My dear
Alypius, let not the weak be encouraged through our example to cherish this
pernicious and fatal covetousness. Call to mind what we said to each other
before the occurrence of this temptation, which makes the duty all the more
urgent. Let us rather by God's help endeavour to have this difficulty
removed by friendly conference, and let us not count it sufficient to be
guided by our own conscience alone; for this is not one of the cases in
which its voice alone is sufficient for our direction. For if we be not
unworthy servants of our God, if there live in us a spark of that charity
which seeketh not her own, we are bound by all means to provide things
honest, not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of men, lest:
while drinking untroubled waters in our own conscience, we be chargeable
with treading with incautious feet, and so making the Lord's flock drink
from a turbid stream.

   3. For as to the proposal in your letter that we should discuss
together the obligation of an oath which has been extorted by force, I
beseech you, let not the method of our discussion involve in obscurity
things which are perfectly clear. For if inevitable death were threatened
in order to compel a servant of God to swear that he would do something
forbidden by laws both human and divine, it would be his duty to prefer
death to such an oath, lest he should be guilty of a crime in fulfilling
his oath. But in this case, in which the determined clamour of the people,
and only this, was forcing the man, not to a crime, but to that which if it
were done would be lawfully done; when, moreover, there was indeed
apprehension lest some reckless men, such as are mixed with a multitude
even of good men, should through love of rioting break out into some wicked
deeds of violence, if they found a pretext for disturbance and for
plausibly justifiable indignation, but there was no certainty of this fear
being realized, --who will affirm that it is lawful to commit a deliberate
act of perjury in order to escape from uncertain consequences, involving, I
shall not say loss or bodily injury, but even death itself? Regulus had not
heard anything from the Holy Scriptures concerning the impiety of perjury,
he had never heard of the flying roll of Zechariah, and he confirmed his
oath to the Carthaginians, not by the sacraments of Christ, but by the
abominations of false gods; and yet in the face of inevitable tortures, and
a death of unprecedented horror, he was not moved by fear so as to swear
under constraint, but, because he had given his oath, he of his own free
will submitted to these, test he should be guilty of perjury. In that age,
also, the Roman censors refused to inscribe in the roll, not of saints
inheriting heavenly glory, but of senators received into the curia of Rome,
not only men who, through fear of death and of cruel tortures, had chosen
rather to commit manifest perjury than to return to merciless enemies, but
also one who had believed himself clear of the guilt of perjury, because,
after giving his oath, he had under the pretext of alleged necessity
violated it by returning; in which we see that those who expelled him from
the senate took into consideration, not what he himself had in his mind
when he gave his oath, but what those to! whom he pledged his word expected
from him. Yet they had never read what we sing continually in the Psalm:
"He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not." (2) We are wont to
speak of these instances of virtue with the highest admiration, although
they are found in men who were strangers to the grace and to the name of
Christ; and yet do we seriously imagine that the question whether perjury
is occasionally lawful is one for an answer to which we should search the
divine books, in which, to prevent us from falling into this sin by
inconsiderate oaths, this prohibition is written: "Swear not at all "?

   4. I by no means dispute the perfect correctness of the maxim, that
good faith requires an oath to be kept, not according to the mere words of
him who gives it, but according to that which the person giving the oath
knows to be the expectation of the person to whom he swears. For it is very
difficult to define in words, especially in few words, the promise in
regard to which security is exacted from him who gives his oath. They,
therefore, are guilty of perjury, who, while adhering to the letter of
their promise, disappoint the known expectation of those to whom their oath
was given; and they are not guilty of perjury, who, even though departing
from the letter of the promise, fulfil that which was expected of them when
they gave their oath. Wherefore, seeing that the people of Hippo desired to
have the holy Pinianus, not as a prisoner who had forfeited liberty, but as
a much-loved resident in their town, the limits of that which they expected
from him, though it could not be adequately embraced in the words of his
promise, are nevertheless so obvious that the fact of his being at this
moment absent, after giving his oath to remain among them, does not disturb
any one who may have heard that he was to leave this place for a definite
purpose, and with the intention of returning. Accordingly, he will not be
guilty of perjury, nor will he be regarded by them as violating his oath,
unless he disappoint their expectation; and he will not disappoint their
expectation, unless he either abandon his purpose of residing among them,
or at some future time depart from them without intending to return. May
God forbid that he should so depart from the holiness and fidelity which he
owes to Christ and to the Church! For, not to speak of the dread judgment
of God upon perjurers, which you know as well as myself, I am perfectly
certain that henceforth we shall have no right to be displeased With any
one who may refuse to believe what we attest by an oath, if we are found to
think that i perjury in such a man as Pinianus is to be not only tolerated
without indignation, but actually defended. From this may we be saved by
the mercy of Him who delivers from temptation those who put their trust in
Him! Let Pinianus, therefore, as you have written in your communication,
fulfil the promise by which he bound himself not to depart from Hippo, just
as I myself and the other inhabitants of the town do not depart from it,
having, of course, full freedom in going and returning at any time; the
only difference being, that those who are not bound by any oath to reside
here have it also in their power at any time, without being chargeable with
perjury, to depart with no purpose of coming back again.

   5. As to our clergy and the brethren settled in our monastery, I do not
know that it can be proved that they either aided or abetted in the
reproaches which were made against you. For when I inquired into this, I
was informed that only one from our monastery, a man of Carthage, had taken
part in the clamour of the people; and this was not when they were uttering
insults against you, but when they were demanding Pinianus as presbyter.

   I have annexed to this letter a copy of the promise given to him, taken
from the very paper which he subscribed and corrected under my own
inspection.

LETTER CXXVI. (A.D. 411.)

TO THE HOLY LADY AND VENERABLE HANDMAID OF GOD ALBINA, AUGUSTIN SENDS
GREETING IN THE LORD,

   1. As to the sorrow of your spirit, which you describe as
inexpressible, it becomes me to assuage rather than to augment its
bitterness, endeavouring if possible to remove your suspicions, instead of
increasing the agitation of one so venerable and so devoted to God by
giving vent to indignation because of that which I have suffered in this
matter. Nothing was done to our holy brother, your son-in-law Pinianus, by
the people of Hippo which might justly awaken in him the fear of death,
although, perchance, he himself had such fears. Indeed, we also were
apprehensive lest some of the reckless characters who are often secretly
banded together for mischief in a crowd might break out into bold acts of
violence, finding occasion for beginning a riot with some plausible pretext
for passionate excitement. Nothing of this nature, however, was either
spoken of or attempted by any one, as I have since had opportunity to
ascertain; but against my brother Alypius the people did clamorously utter
many opprobrious and unworthy reproaches, for which great sin I desire that
they may obtain pardon in answer to his prayers. For my own part, after
their outcries began, when I had told them how I was precluded by promise
from ordaining him against his will, adding that, if they obtained him as
their presbyter through my breaking my word, they could not retain me as
their bishop, I left the multitude, and returned to my own seat. Thereupon,
they being made for a little while to pause and waver by my unexpected
reply, like a flame driven back for a moment by the wind, began to be much
more warmly excited, imagining that possibly a violation of my promise
might be extorted from me, or that, in the event of my abiding by my
promise, he might be ordained by another bishop. To all to whom I could
address myself, namely, to the more venerable and aged men who had come up
to me in the apse, I stated that I could not be moved to break my word, and
that in the church committed to my care he could not be ordained by any
other bishop except with my consent asked and obtained, in granting which I
should be no less guilty of a breach of faith. I said, moreover, that if he
were ordained against his own will, the people were only wishing him to
depart from us as soon as he was ordained. They did not believe that this
was possible. But the crowd having gathered in front of the steps, and
persisting in the same determination with terrible and incessant clamour
and shouting, made them irresolute and perplexed. At that time unworthy
reproaches were loudly uttered against my brother Alypius: at that time,
also, more serious consequences were apprehended by us.

   2. But although I was much disturbed by so great a commotion among the
people, and such trepidation among the office-bearers of the church, I did
not say to that mob anything else than that I could not ordain him against
his own will; nor after all that had passed was I influenced to do what I
had also promised not to do, namely, to advise him m any way to accept the
office of presbyter, which had I been able to persuade him to do, his
ordination would have been with his consent. I remained faithful to both
the promises which I had made, -- not only to the one which I had shortly
before intimated to the people, but also to the one in regard to which I
was bound, so far as men were concerned, by only one witness. I was
faithful, I say, not to an oath, but to my bare promise, even in the face
of such danger. It is true that the fears of danger were, as we afterwards
ascertained, without foundation; but whatever the danger might be, it was
shared by us all alike. The fear was also shared by all; and I myself had
thoughts of retiring, being alarmed chiefly for the safety of the building
in which we were assembled. But there was reason to apprehend that if I
were absent some disaster might be more likely to occur, as the people
would then be more exasperated by disappointment, and less restrained by
reverential sentiments. Again, if I had gone through the dense mob along
with Alypius, I had reason to fear lest some one should dare to lay violent
hands on him; if, on the other hand, I had gone without him, what would
have been the most natural opinion for men to have formed, if any accident
had befallen Alypius, and I appeared to have deserted him in order to hand
him over to the power of an infuriated people?

   3. In the midst of this excitement and great distress, when, being at
our wit's end, we could not, so to speak, take breath, behold our pious son
Pinianus, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, sends to me a servant of God, to
tell me that he wished to swear to the people, that if he were ordained
against his will he would leave Africa altogether, thinking, I believe,
that the people, knowing that of course he could not violate his oath,
would not continue their outcry, seeing that by perseverance they could
gain nothing, but only drive from among us a man whom we ought at least to
retain as a neighbour, if he was to be no more. As it seemed to me,
however, that it was to be feared that the vehemence of the people's grief
would be increased by his taking an oath of this kind, I was silent in
regard to it; and as he had by the same messenger begged me to come to him,
I went without delay. When he had said to me again what he had stated by
the messenger, he immediately added to the same oath what he had sent
another messenger to.intimate to me while I was hastening towards him,
namely, that he would consent to reside in Hippo if no one compelled him to
accept against his will the burden of the clerical office. On this, being
comforted in my perplexities as by a breath of air when in danger of
suffocation, I made no reply, but went with quickened pace to my brother
Alypius, and told him what Pinianus had said. But he, being careful, I
suppose, lest anything should be done with his sanction by which he thought
you might. be offended, said, "Let no one ask my opinion on this subject."
Having heard this, I hastened to the noisy crowd, and having obtained
silence, declared to them what had been promised, along with the proffered
guarantee of an oath. The people, however, having no other thought or
desire than that he should be their presbyter, did not receive the proposal
as I had expected they would, but, after talking in an under-tone among
themselves, made the request that to this promise and oath a clause might
be added, that if at any time he should be pleased to consent to accept the
clerical office, he should do so in no other church than that of Hippo. I
reported this to him: without hesitation he agreed to it. I returned to
them with his answer; they were filled with joy, and presently demanded the
promised oath.

   4. I came back to your son-in-law, and found him at a loss as to the
words in which his promise, confirmed by oath, could be expressed, because
of various kinds of necessity which might emerge and might make it
necessary for him to leave Hippo. He stated at the time what he feared,
namely, that a hostile incursion of barbarians might occur, to avoid which
it would be necessary to leave the place. The holy Melania wished to add
also, as a possible reason for departure, the unhealthiness of the climate;
but she was kept from this by his reply. I said, however, that he had
brought forward an important reason deserving consideration, and one which,
if it occurred, would compel the citizens themselves to abandon the place;
but that, if this reason were stated to the people, we might justly fear
lest they should regard us as prophet-saying evil, and, on the other hand,
if a pretext for withdrawing from the promise were put under the general
name of necessity, it might be thought that the necessity was only covering
an intention to deceive. It seemed good to him, therefore, that we should
test the feeling of the people in regard to this, and we found the result
exactly as I had expected. For when the words which he had dictated were
read by the deacon, and had been received with approbation, as soon as the
clause concerning necessity which might hinder the fulfilment of his
promise fell upon their ears, there arose at once a shout of remonstrance,
and the promise was rejected; and the tumult began to break out again, the
people thinking that these negotiations had no other object than to deceive
them. When our pious son saw this, he ordered the clause regarding
necessity to be struck out, and the people recovered their cheerfulness
once more.

   5. I would gladly have excused myself on the ground of fatigue, but he
would not go to the people unless I accompanied him; so we went together.
He told them that he had himself dictated what they had heard from the
deacon, that he had confirmed the promise by an oath, and would do the
things promised, after which he forthwith rehearsed all in the words which
he had dictated. The response of the people was, "Thanks be unto God !" and
they begged that all which was written should be subscribed. We dismissed
the catechumens, and he adhibited his signature to the document at once.
Then we [Alypius and myself] began to be urged, not by the voices of the
crowd, but by faithful men of good report as their representatives, that we
also as bishops should subscribe the writing. But when I began to do this,
the pious Melania protested against it. I wondered why she did this so
late, as if we could make his promise and oath void by forbearing from
appending our names to it; I obeyed, however, and so my signature remained
incomplete, and no one thought it necessary to insist further upon our
subscription.

   6. I have been at pains to communicate to your Holiness, so far as I
thought sufficient, what were the feelings, or rather the remarks, of the
people on the following day, when they heard that he had left the town.
Whoever, therefore, may have told you anything contradicting what I stated,
is either intentionally or through his own mistake misleading you. For I am
aware that I passed over some things which seemed to me irrelevant, but I
know that I said nothing but the truth. It is therefore true that our holy
son Pinianus took his oath in my presence and with my permission, but it is
not true that he did it in obedience to any command from me. He himself
knows this: it is also known to those servants of God whom he sent to me,
the first being the pious Barnabas, the second Timasius, by whom also he
sent me the promise of his remaining in Hippo. As for the people
themselves, moreover, they were urging him by their cries to accept the
office of presbyter. They did not ask for his oath, but they did not refuse
it when offered, because they hoped that if he remained amongst us, there
might be produced in him a willingness to consent to ordination, while they
feared lest, if ordained against his will, he should, according to his
oath, leave Africa. And therefore they also were actuated in their
clamorous procedure by regard to God's work (for surely the consecration of
a presbyter is a work of God); and inasmuch as they did not feel satisfied
with his promise of remaining in Hippo, unless it were also promised that,
in the event of his at any time accepting the clerical office, he should do
it nowhere else than among them, it is perfectly manifest what they hoped
for from his dwelling among them, and that they did not abandon their zeal
for the work of God.

   7. On what ground, then, do you allege that the people did this out of
a base desire for money? In the first place, the people who were so
clamorous have nothing whatever of this kind to gain; for as the people of
Thagaste derive from the gifts which you have bestowed on their church no
profit but the joy of seeing your good work, it will be the same in the
case of the people of Hippo, or of any other place in which you have obeyed
or may yet obey the law of your Lord concerning the "mammon of
unrighteousness." The people, therefore, in most vehemently insisting upon
guiding the procedure of their church in regard to so great a man, did not
ask from you a pecuniary advantage, but testified their admiration for your
contempt of, money. For if in my own case, because they had heard that,
despising my patrimony, which i consisted of only a few small fields, I had
consecrated myself to the liberty of serving God, they loved this
disinterestedness, and did not grudge this gift to the church of my
birthplace, Thagaste, but, when it had not imposed upon me the clerical
office, made me by force, so to speak, their own, how much more ardently
might they love in our Pinianus his overcoming and treading under foot with
such remarkable decision riches so great and hopes so bright, and a strong
natural capacity for enjoying this world! I indeed seem, in the opinion of
many, who compare themselves with themselves, to have rather found than
forsaken wealth. For my patrimony can scarcely be considered a twentieth
part of the ecclesiastical property which I am now supposed to possess as
master. But in whatever church, especially in Africa, our Pinianus might be
ordained (I do not say a presbyter, but) a bishop, he would be still in
deep poverty compared with his former affluence, even if he were using the
church's revenues in the spirit of one lording it over God's heritage.
Christian poverty is much more clearly and certainly loved in the case of
one in whom there is no room for suspecting a desire for acquiring an
accession to his wealth. It was this admiration which kindled the minds of
the people, and roused them to such violence of persevering clamour. Let us
therefore not charge them gratuitously with base covetousness, but rather,
without imputing unworthy motives, allow them at least to love in others
that good thing which they do not themselves possess, For although there
may have mixed in the crowd some who are indigent or beggars, who helped to
increase the clamour, and were actuated by the hope of some relief to their
wants out of your honourable affluence, even this is not, in my opinion,
base covetousness.

   8. It remains, therefore, that the reproach of disgraceful covetousness
must be levelled indirectly at the clergy, and especially at the bishop.
For we are supposed to act as lords of the church's property; we are
supposed to enjoy its revenues. In short, whatever money we have received
for the church either is still in our possession or has been spent
according to our judgment; and of it we have given nothing to any of the
people besides the clergy and the brethren in the monastery, excepting only
a very few indigent persons. I do not mean by this to say that the things
which were said by you must necessarily have been said specially against
us, but that, if said against any others than ourselves, they must have
been incredible. What, then, shall we do? If it be not possible to clear
ourselves before enemies, by what means may we at least clear ourselves
before you? The matter is one pertaining to the soul; it is within us,
hidden from the eyes of men, and known to God alone. What, then, remains
for us but to call to witness God, to whom it is known? When, therefore,
you harbour these suspicions concerning us, you do not command but
absolutely compel us to give our oath,--a much more grievous wrong than the
commanding of an oath, which you have thought proper in your letter to
censure as highly culpable in me; you compel us, I say, not by menacing
death to the body, as the people of Hippo were supposed to have done, but
by menacing death to our good name, which deserves to be regarded by us as
more precious than life itself, for the sake of those weak brethren to whom
we endeavour in all circumstances to exhibit ourselves as ensamples in good
works.

   9. We, however, are not indignant against you who compel us to this
oath, as you are indignant against the people of Hippo. For you believe, as
men judging of other men, things which, though not actually existing in us,
might possibly have existed. Your suspicions we must labour not so much to
reprove as to remove; and since our conscience is clear in the sight of
God, we must seek to clear our character in your sight. It may be, as
Alypius and I said to each other before this trial occurred, that God will
grant that not only you, our much-beloved fellow-members of Christ's body,
but even our most implacable enemies, may be thoroughly satisfied that we
are not defiled by any love of money in our administration of
ecclesiastical affairs. Until this be done (if the Lord, answering our
prayer, permit it to be done), hear in the meantime what we are compelled
to do, rather than put off for any length of time the healing of your
heart. God is my witness that, as for the whole management of those
ecclesiastical revenues over which we are supposed to love to exercise
lordship, I only bear it as a burden which is imposed on me by love to the
brethren and fear of God: I do not love it; nay, if I could, without
unfaithfulness to my office, I would desire to be rid of it. God also is my
witness that I believe the sentiments of Alypius to be the same as mine in
this matter. Nevertheless, on the one hand, the people, and what is worse,
the people of Hippo, have hastily done Alypius great wrong by entertaining
another opinion of his character; and on the other hand, you who are saints
of God and full of unfeigned compassion have, through believing such things
concerning us, thought proper to touch and admonish us while nominally
censuring the same people of Hippo, who have no part whatever in the guilt
of the alleged covetousness. You have desired unquestionably to correct us,
and that without hating us (this be far from you!); wherefore I ought not
to be angry with you, but to thank you, because it was not possible for you
to have combined modesty and freedom more happily than when, instead of
stating your sentiments as an offensive accusation against the bishop, you
left them to be discovered by indirect inferences.

   10. Let not the fact that I have thought it necessary thus to confirm
my statements by oath cause you vexation by making you think that you are
treated with harshness. There was no hardness or lack of kindly feeling in
the apostle towards those to whom he wrote: "Neither used we at any time
flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness."
In the thing which was opened to men's observation he appealed to their own
testimony, but in regard to that which was hidden, to whom could he appeal
but to God? If, therefore, fear lest the ignorance of men should make them
entertain some such thoughts concerning him was reasonably felt even by
Paul, whose labours, as all men knew, were such that except in extreme
necessity he never took anything for his own benefit from the communities
to which he dispensed the grace of Christ, obtaining in all other cases the
necessary provision for his support by working with his own hands, how much
more pains must be taken to establish confidence in our disinterestedness
by us, who are, both in the merit of holiness and in strength of mind, so
far behind him, and who are not only unable to do anything by the work of
our hands to support ourselves, but also precluded from this, even if we
could work, by an accumulation of duties from which I believe that the
apostles were exempt! Let the charge, therefore, of most base covetousness
be brought no more in this matter against the Christian people- that is,
the Church of Christ. For it is more tolerable that this charge be alleged
against us, on whom the suspicion, though groundless, might fall without
being utterly improbable, than on the people, of whom it is certainly known
that they could not either cherish the covetous desire or be reasonably
suspected of entertaining it.

   11. For persons possessing any faith land how much more the Christian
faith! To be unfaithful to their oath, I do not say by doing something
contrary to it, but by hesitating at all as to its fulfilment, is utterly
wrong. What my judgment is on this question I have with sufficient fulness
declared in the letter which I sent to my brother Alypius. Your Holiness
wrote asking me "whether I or the people of Hippo consider any one under
obligation to fulfil an oath which has been extorted by violence." But what
is your opinion? Do you think that even if death, which in this case was
feared without reason, were certainly imminent, a Christian might use the
name of his Lord to confirm a lie, and call his God to be witness to a
falsehood? For assuredly a Christian, if urged by the menace of instant
death to perjure himself by false testimony, ought to fear the loss of
honour more than the loss of life. Hostile armies confront each other in
the battle-field with mutual menaces of death, about which there can be no
uncertainty; and yet, when they pledge themselves to each other by oath, we
praise those who are faithful to their engagement, and we justly abhor
those who are unfaithful. Now what was the motive leading them to swear to
each other, but the fear on both sides of being killed or taken prisoners?
And by this promise even such men hold themselves bound, lest they be
guilty of sacrilege and perjury if they did not fulfil the oath extorted by
the fear of death or captivity, and broke the promise given in such
circumstances: they are more afraid of breaking their oath than of taking a
man's life. And do we propose to discuss as a debatable question whether an
oath must be fulfilled which has been given under fear of harm by servants
of God, who are under pre-eminent obligations to holiness, by monks who are
running the race towards Christian perfection, by distributing their
property according to Christ's command?

   12. Tell me, I beseech you, what hardship deserving the name of exile,
or transportation, or banishment, is involved in his promise to reside
here? I suppose that the office of presbyter is: not exile. Would our
Pinianus prefer exile to that office? Far be it from us to find such
apology for one who is a saint of God and very dear to us: God forbid, I
say, that it should be said of him that he preferred exile to the office of
presbyter, and preferred to perjure himself rather than submit to exile.
This I would say even if it were true that the oath by which he promised to
reside among us had been extorted from him but the fact is that, instead of
being extorted in spite of his refusal, it was accepted when he had
proffered it himself. It was accepted, moreover, as I have already said,
because of the hope, which was encouraged by his remaining here, that he
might also consent to comply with our desire that he should accept the
clerical office. In fine, whatever opinion may be entertained concerning us
or concerning the people of Hippo, the case of those who may have compelled
him to take the oath is very different from that of those who may have -- I
do not say compelled, but at least--counselled him to break the oath. I
trust, also, that Pinianus himself will not refuse to consider seriously
whether it is worse to swear under the pressure of fear, however great, or,
in the absence of all alarm, to commit deliberate perjury.

   13. God be thanked that the men of Hippo regard his promise of
residence here as kept fully, if only he come with the intention of making
this town his home, and in going whithersoever necessity may call him, go
with the intention of coming back to us again. For if they were to exact
literal fulfilment of the words of the promise, it would be the duty of a
servant of God to adhere to every sentence of it rather than forswear
himself. But as it would be a crime for them so to bind any one, much more
such a man as he is, so they have themselves proved that they had no such
unreasonable expectation; for on hearing that he had gone away with the
intention of returning, they expressed their satisfaction; and fidelity to
an oath requires no more than the performance of what was expected by those
to whom it was given. Let me ask, moreover, what is meant by saying that
he, in giving the oath with his own lips, mentioned the possibility of
necessity preventing his fulfilment of the promise? The truth is, that with
his own lips he ordered the qualifying clause to be removed. If he put it
in, it would be when he himself spoke to the people; but if he had done so,
they assuredly would not have answered, "Thanks be unto God," but would
have renewed the protestations which they made when it was read with the
qualifying clause by the deacon. And what difference does it really make
whether this plea of necessity for departing from the promise was or was
not inserted? Nothing more than we have stated above was expected from him;
but he who disappoints the known expectation of those to whom his oath is
given, cannot but be a perjured person.

   14. Wherefore, let his promise be fulfilled, and let the hearts of the
weak be healed, lest, on the one hand, those who approve of it be taught by
such a conspicuous example to imitate an act of perjury, and lest, on the
other hand, those who condemn it have just grounds for saying that none of
us is worthy to be believed, not only when we make promises, but even when
we give our oath. Let us especially guard against giving occasion in this
to the tongues of enemies, which are used by the great Enemy as darts
wherewith to slay the weak. But God forbid that we should expect from a man
like Pinianus anything else than what the fear of God inspires, and the
superior excellence of his own piety approves. As for myself, whom you
blame for not interfering to forbid his oath, I admit that I could not
bring myself to believe that, in circumstances so disorderly and
scandalous, I ought rather to allow the church which I serve to be
overthrown, than accept the deliverance which was offered to us by such a
man.

LETTER CXXX. (A.D. 412.)

TO PROBA, A DEVOTED HANDMAID OF GOD, BISHOP AUGUSTIN, A SERVANT OF CHRIST
AND OF CHRIST'S SERVANTS, SENDS GREETING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD OF LORDS.

   CHAP. I.-- 1. Recollecting your request and my promise, that as soon as
time and opportunity should be given by Him to whom we pray, I would write
you something on the subject of prayer to God, I feel it my duty now to
discharge this debt, and in the love of Christ to minister to the
satisfaction of your pious desire. I cannot express in words how greatly I
rejoiced because of the request, in which I perceived how great is your
solicitude about this supremely important matter. For what could be more
suitably the business of your widowhood than to continue in supplications
night and day, according to the apostle's admonition, "She that is a widow
indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications
night and day"? It might, indeed, appear wonderful that solicitude about
prayer should occupy your heart and claim the first place in it, when you
are, so far as this world is concerned, noble and wealthy, and the mother
of such an illustrious family, and, although a widow, not desolate, were it
not that you wisely understand that in this world and in this life the soul
has no sure portion.

   2. Wherefore He who inspired you with this thought is assuredly doing
what He promised to His disciples when they were grieved, not for
themselves, but for the whole human family, and were despairing of the
salvation of any one, after they heard from Him that it was easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of heaven. He gave them this marvellous and merciful reply:
"The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."(2) He,
therefore, with whom it is possible to make even the rich enter into the
kingdom of heaven, inspired you with that devout anxiety which makes you
think it necessary to ask my counsel on the question how you ought to pray.
For while tie was yet on earth, He brought Zaccheus,(3) though rich, into
the kingdom of heaven, and, after being glorified in His resurrection and
ascension, He made many who were rich to despise this present world, and
made them more truly rich by extinguishing their desire for riches through
His imparting to them His Holy Spirit. For how could you desire so much to
pray to God if you did not trust in Him? And how could you trust in Him if
you were fixing your trust in uncertain riches, and neglecting the
wholesome exhortation of the apostle: "Charge them that are rich in this
world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in
the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do
good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to
communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation, that they
may lay hold on eternal life"? (4)

   CHAP. II.-- 3. It becomes you, therefore, out of love to this true
life, to account yourself "desolate" in this world, however great the
prosperity of your lot may be. For as that is the true life, in comparison
with which the present life, which is much loved, is not worthy to be
called life, however happy and prolonged it be, so is it also the true
consolation promised by the Lord in the words of Isaiah, "I will give him
the true consolation, peace upon peace,"(4) without which consolation men
find themselves, in the midst of every mere earthly solace, rather desolate
than comforted. For as for riches and high rank, and all other things in
which men who are strangers to true felicity imagine that happiness exists,
what comfort do they bring, seeing that it is better to be independent of
such things than to enjoy abundance of them, because, when possessed, they
occasion, through our fear of losing them, more vexation than was caused by
the strength of desire with which their possession was coveted? Men are not
made good by possessing these so-called good things, but, if men have
become good otherwise, they make these things to be really good by using
them well. Therefore true comfort is to be found not in them, but rather in
those things in which true life is found. For a man can be made blessed
only by the same power by which he is made good.

   4. It is true, indeed, that good men are seen to be the sources of no
small comfort to others in this world. For if we be harassed by poverty, or
saddened by bereavement, or disquieted by bodily pain, or pining in exile,
or vexed by any kind of calamity, let good men visit us, men who can not
only rejoice with them that !rejoice, but also weep with them that weep,(6)
and who know how to give profitable counsel, and win us to express our
feelings in conversation: the effect is, that rough things become smooth,
heavy burdens are lightened, and difficulties vanquished most wonderfully.
But this is done in and through them by Him who has made them good by His
Spirit. On the other hand, although riches may abound, and no bereavement
befal us, and health of body be enjoyed, and we live in our own country in
peace and safety, if, at the same time, we have as our neighbours wicked
men, among whom there is not one who can be trusted, not one from whom we
do not apprehend and experience treachery, deceit, outbursts of anger,
dissensions, and snares, in such a case are not all these other things made
bitter and vexatious, so that nothing sweet or pleasant is left in them?
Whatever, therefore, be our circumstances in this world, there is nothing
truly enjoyable without a friend. But how rarely is one found in this life
about whose spirit and behaviour as a true friend there may be perfect
confidence! For no one is known to another so intimately as he is known to
himself, and yet no one is so well known even to himself that he can be
sure as to his own conduct on the morrow; wherefore, although many are
known by their fruits, and some gladden their neighhours by their good
lives, while others grieve their neighbours by their evil lives, yet the
minds of men are so unknown and so unstable, that there is the highest
wisdom in the exhortation 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."

   5. In the darkness, then, of this world, in which we are pilgrims
absent from the Lord as long as "we walk by faith and not by sight,"(2) the
Christian soul ought to feel itself desolate, and continue in prayer, and
learn to fix the eye of faith on the word of the divine sacred Scriptures,
as "on a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-
star arise in our hearts."(3) For the ineffable source from which this lamp
borrows its light is the Light which shineth in darkness, but the darkness
comprehendeth it not- the Light, in order to seeing which our hearts must
be purified by faith; for "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God; "(4) and "we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him,
foe we shall see Him as He is." (4) Then after death shall come the true
life, and after desolation the true consolation, that life shall deliver
our "souls from death "that consolation shall deliver our "eyes from
tears," and, as follows in the psalm, our feet shall be delivered from
falling; for there shall be no temptation there.(6) Moreover, if there be
no temptation, there will be no prayer; for there we shall not be waiting
for promised blessings,: but contemplating the blessings actually bestowed;
wherefore he adds, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living,"
(7) where we shall then be--not in the wilderness of the dead, where we now
are: "For ye are dead," says the apostle, "and your life is hid with Christ
in God; when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also
appear with Him in glory."(8) For that is the true life on which the rich
are exhorted to lay hold by being rich in good works; and in it is the true
consolation, for want of which, meanwhile, a widow is "desolate" indeed,
even though she has sons and grandchildren, and conducts her household
piously, entreating all dear to her to put their hope in God: and in the
midst of all this, she says in her prayer, "My soul thirsteth for Thee; my
flesh longeth in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;" (9) and this
dying life is nothing else than such a land, however numerous our mortal
comforts, however pleasant our companions in the pilgrimage, and however
great the abundance of our possessions. You know how uncertain all these
things are; and even if they were not uncertain, what would they be in
comparison with the felicity which is promised in the life to come !

   6. In saying these things to you, who, being a widow, rich and noble,
and the mother of an illustrious family, have asked from me a discourse on
prayer, my aim has been to make you feel that, even while your family are
spared to you, and live as you would desire, you are desolate so long as
you have not attained to that life in which is the true and abiding
consolation, in which shall be fulfilled what is spoken in prophecy: "We
are satisfied in the morning with Thy mercy, we rejoice and are glad all
our days; we are made glad according to the days wherein Thou hast
afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil."(10)

   CHAP. III.-- 7. Wherefore, until that consolation come, remember, in
order to your "continuing in prayers and supplications night and day,"
that, however great the temporal prosperity may be which flows around you,
you are desolate. For the apostle does not ascribe this gift to every
widow, but to her who, being a widow indeed, and desolate, "trusteth in
God, and continueth in supplication night and day." Observe, however, most
vigilantly the warning which follows: "But she that liveth in pleasure is
dead while she liveth;"(11) for a person lives in those things which he
loves, which he greatly desires, and in which he believes himself to be
blessed. Wherefore, what Scripture has said of riches: "If riches increase,
set not your heart upon them,"(12) I say to you concerning pleasures: "If
pleasures increase, set not your heart upon them." Do not, therefore,'think
highly of yourself because these things are not wanting, but are yours
abundantly, flowing, as it were, from a most copious fountain of earthly
felicity. 'By all means look upon your possession of these things with
indifference and contempt, and seek nothing from them beyond health of
body. For this is a blessing not to be despised, because of its being
necessary to the work of life until "this mortal shall have put on
immortality" in other words, the true, perfect, and everlasting health,
which is neither reduced by earthly infirmities nor repaired by corruptible
gratification, but, enduring with celestial rigour, is animated with a life
eternally incorruptible. For the apostle himself says, "Make not provision
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof," (2) because we must take care
of the flesh, but only in so far as is necessary for health; "For no man
ever yet hated his own flesh,"(3) as he himself likewise says. Hence, also,
he admonished Timothy, who was, as it appears, too severe upon his body,
that he should "use a little wine for his stomach's sake, and for his often
infirmities." (4)

   8. Many holy men and women, using every precaution against those
pleasures in which she that liveth, cleaving to them, and dwelling in them
as her heart's delight, is dead while she liveth, have cast from them that
which is as it were the mother of pleasures, by distributing their wealth
among the poor, and so have stored it in the safer keeping of the treasury
of heaven. If you are hindered from doing this by some consideration of
duty to your family, you know yourself what account you can give to God of
your use of riches. For no one knoweth what passeth within a man, "but the
spirit of the man which is in him."(4) We ought not to judge anything
"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." (6) It pertains,
therefore, to your care as a widow, to see to it that if pleasures increase
you do not set your heart upon them, lest that which ought to rise that it
may live, die through contact with their corrupting influence. Reckon
yourself to be one of those of whom it is written, "Their hearts shall live
for ever." (7)

   CHAP. IV. -- 9. You have now heard what manner of person you should be
if you would pray; hear, in the next place, what you ought to pray for.
This is the subject on which you have thought it most necessary to ask my
opinion, because you were disturbed by the words of the apostle: "We know
not what we should pray for as we ought;"(8) and you became alarmed lest it
should do you more harm to pray otherwise than you ought, than to desist
from praying altogether. A short solution of your difficulty may be given
thus: "Pray for a happy life." This all men wish to have; for even those
whose lives are worst and most abandoned would by no means live thus,
unless they thought that in this way they either were made or might be made
truly happy. Now what else ought we to pray for than that which both bad
and good desire, but which only the good obtain ?

   CHAP. V. -- 10. You ask, perchance, What is this happy life? On this
question the talents and leisure of many philosophers have been wasted,
who, nevertheless, failed in their researches after it just in proportion
as they failed to honour Him from whom it proceeds, and were unthankful to
Him. In the first place, then, consider whether we should accept the
opinion of those philosophers who pronounce that man happy who lives
according to his own will. Far be it, surely, from us to believe this; for
what if a man's will inclines him to live in wickedness? Is he not proved
to be a miserable man in proportion to the facility with which his depraved
will is carried out? Even philosophers who were strangers to the worship of
God have rejected this sentiment with deserved abhorrence. One of them, a
man of the greatest eloquence, says: "Behold, however, others, not
philosophers indeed, but men of ready power in disputation, who affirm that
all men are happy who live according to their own will. But this is
certainly untrue, for to wish that which is unbecoming is itself a most
miserable thing; nor is it so miserable a thing to fail in obtaining what
you wish as to wish to obtain what you ought not to desire."(9) What is
your opinion? Are not these words, by whomsoever they are spoken, derived
from the Truth itself? We may therefore here say what the apostle said of a
certain Cretan poet(10) whose sentiment had pleased him: "This witness is
true."(11)

   11. He, therefore, is truly happy who has all that he wishes to have,
and wishes to have nothing which he ought not to wish. This being
understood, let us now observe what things men may without impropriety wish
to have. One desires marriage; another, having become a widower, chooses
thereafter to live a life of continence; a third chooses to practise
continence though he is married. And although of these three conditions one
may be found better than another, we cannot say that any one of the three
persons is wishing what he ought not: the same is true of the desire for
children as the fruit of marriage, and for life and health to be enjoyed by
the children who have been received,- of which desires the latter is one
with which widows remaining unmarried are for the most part occupied; for
although, refusing a second marriage, they do not now wish to have
children, they wish that the children that they have may live in health.
From all such care those who preserve their virginity intact are free.
Nevertheless, all have some dear to them whose temporal welfare they do
without impropriety desire. But when men have obtained this health for
themselves, and for those whom they love, are we at liberty to say that
they are now happy? They have, it is true, something which it is quite
becoming to desire; but if they have not other things which are greater,
better, and more full both of utility and beauty, they are still far short
of possessing a happy life.

   CHAP. VI. -- 12. Shall we then say, that in addition to this health of
body men may desire for themselves and for those dear to them honour and
power? By all means, if they desire these in order that by obtaining them
they may promote the interest of those who may be their dependants. If they
seek these things not for the sake of the things themselves, but for some
good thing which may through this means be accomplished, the wish is a
proper one; but if it be merely for the empty gratification of pride, and
arrogance, and for a superfluous and pernicious triumph of vanity, the wish
is improper. Wherefore, men do nothing wrong in desiring for themselves and
for their kindred the competent portion of necessary things, of which the
apostle speaks when he says: "Godliness with a competency [contentment in
English version] is great gain; for we brought nothing into this world, and
it is certain we can carry nothing out: and having food and raiment, let us
be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation, and
a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
destruction and perdition; for the love of money is the root of all evil,
which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows." This competent portion he desires
without impropriety who desires it and nothing beyond it; for if his
desires go beyond it, he is not desiring it, and therefore his desire is
improper. This was desired, and was prayed for by him who said: "Give me
neither poverty nor riches: feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be
full, and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest be poor, and steal,
and take the name of my God in vain."(2) You see assuredly that this
competency is desired not for its own sake, but to secure the health of the
body, and such provision of house and clothing as is befitting the man's
circumstances, that he may appear as he ought to do among those amongst
whom he has lo live, so as to retain their respect and discharge the duties
of his position.

   13. Among all these things, our own welfare and the benefits which
friendship bids us ask for others are things to be desired on their own
account; but a competency of the necessaries of life is usually sought, if
it be sought in the proper way, not on its own account, but for the sake of
the two higher benefits. Welfare consists in the possession of life itself,
and health and soundness of mind and body. The claims of friendship,
moreover, are not to be confined within tao narrow range, for it embraces
all to whom love and kindly affection are due, although the heart goes out
to some of these more freely, to others more cautiously; yea, it even
extends to our enemies, for whom also we are commanded to pray. There is
accordingly no one in the whole human family to whom kindly affection is
not due by reason of the bond of a common humanity, although it may not be
due on the ground of reciprocal love; Chap. vii.--but in those by whom we
are requited with a holy and pure love, we find great and reasonable
pleasure.

   For these things, therefore, it becomes us to pray: if we have them,
that we may keep them; if we have them not, that we may get them.

   14. Is this all? Are these the benefits in which exclusively the happy
life is found? Or does truth teach us that something else is to be
preferred to them all? We know that both the competency of things
necessary, and the well-being of ourselves and of our friends, so long as
these concern this present world alone, are to be cast aside as dross in
comparison with the obtaining of eternal life; for although the body may be
in health, the mind cannot be regarded as sound which does not prefer
eternal to temporal things; yea, the life which we live in time is wasted,
if it be not spent in obtaining that by which we may be worthy of eternal
life. Therefore all things which are the objects of useful and becoming
desire are unquestionably to be viewed with reference to that one life
which is lived with God, and is derived from Him. In so doing, we love
ourselves if we love God; and we truly love our neighbours as ourselves,
according to the second great commandment, if, so far as is in our power,
we persuade them to a similar love of God. We love God, therefore, for what
He is in Himself, and ourselves and our neighbours for His sake. Even when
living thus, let us not think that we are securely established in that
happy life, as if there was nothing more for which we should still pray.
For how could we be said to live a happy life now, while that which alone
is the object of a well-directed life is still wanting to us?

   CHAP. VIII. -- 15. Why, then, are our desires scattered over many
things, and why, through fear of not praying as we ought, do we ask what we
should pray for, and not rather say with the Psalmist: "One thing have I
desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and
to inquire in His temple "? For in the house of the Lord "all the days of
life" are not days distinguished by their successively coming and passing
away: the beginning of one day is not the end of another; but they are all
alike unending in that place where the life which is made up of them has
itself no end. In order to our obtaining this true blessed life, He who is
Himself the True Blessed Life has taught us to pray, not with much
speaking, as if our being heard depended upon the fluency with which we
express ourselves, seeing that we are praying to One who, as the Lord tells
us, "knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him."(2) Whence it
may seem surprising that, although He has forbidden "much speaking," He who
knoweth before we ask Him what things we need has nevertheless given us
exhortation to prayer in such words as these: "Men ought always to pray and
not to faint;" setting before us the case of a widow, who, desiring to have
justice done to her against her adversary, did by her persevering
entreaties persuade an unjust judge to listen to her, not moved by a regard
either to justice or to mercy, but overcome by her wearisome importunity;
in order that we might be admonished bow much more certainly the Lord God,
who is merciful and just, gives ear to us praying continually to Him, when
this widow, by her unremitting supplication, prevailed over the
indifference of an unjust and wicked judge, and how willingly and
benignantly He fulfils the good desires of those whom He knows to have
forgiven others their trespasses, when this suppliant, though seeking
vengeance upon her adversary, obtained her desire.(3) A similar lesson the
Lord gives in the parable of the man to whom a friend in his journey had
come, and who, having nothing to set before him, desired to borrow from
another friend three loaves (in which, perhaps, there is a figure of the
Trinity of persons of one substance), and finding him already along with
his household asleep, succeeded by very urgent and importunate entreaties
in rousing him up, so! that he gave him as many as he needed, being moved
rather by a wish to avoid further annoyance than by benevolent thoughts:
from which! the Lord would have us understand that, if even one who was
asleep is constrained to give, even in spite of himself, after being
disturbed in his sleep by the person who asks of him, how much more kindly
will He give who never sleeps, and who rouses us from sleep that we may ask
from Him.(4)

   16. With the same design He added: "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek,
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one
that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that
knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is
a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish
give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a
scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to them
that ask Him ?"(4) We have here what corresponds to those three things
which the apostle commends: faith is signified by 'the fish, either on
account of the element of water used in baptism, or because it remains
unharmed amid the tempestuous waves of this world, contrasted with which is
the serpent, that with poisonous deceit persuaded man to disbelieve God;
hope is signified by the egg, because the life of the young bird is not yet
in it, but is to be is not seen, but hoped for, because "hope which is seen
is not hope,"(6) -- contrasted with which is the scorpion, for the man who
hopes for eternal life forgets the things which are behind, and reaches
forth to the things which are before, for to him it is dangerous to look
back; but the scorpion is to be guarded against on account of what it has
in its tail, namely, a sharp and venomous sting; charity, is signified by
bread, for "the greatest of these is charity," and bread surpasses all
other kinds of food in usefulness, --contrasted with which is a stone,
because hard hearts refuse to exercise charity. Whether this be the meaning
of these symbols, or some other more suitable be found, it is at least
certain that He who knoweth how to give good gifts to His children urges us
to "ask and seek and knock."

   17. Why this should be done by Him who "before we ask Him knoweth what
things we have need of," might perplex our minds, if we did not understand
that the Lord our God requires us to ask not that thereby our wish may be
intimated to Him, for to Him it cannot be unknown, but in order that by
prayer there may be exercised in us by supplications that desire by which
we may receive what He prepares to bestow. His gifts are very great, but we
are small and straitened in our capacity of receiving. Wherefore it is said
to us: "Be ye enlarged, not bearing the yoke along with unbelievers. (7)
For, in proportion to the simplicity of our faith, the firmness of our
hope, and the ardour of our desire, will we more largely receive of that
which is immensely great; which "eye hath not seen," for it is not colour;
which "the ear hath not heard," for it is not sound; and which hath not
ascended into the heart of man, for the heart of man must ascend to it.

   CHAP. IX -- 18. When we cherish uninterrupted desire along with the
exercise of faith and hope and charity, we "pray always." But at certain
stated hours and seasons we also use. words in prayer to God, that by these
signs of things we may admonish ourselves, and may acquaint ourselves with
the measure of progress which we have made in this desire, and may more
warmly excite ourselves to obtain an increase of its strength. For the
effect following upon prayer will be excellent in proportion to the fen,
our of the desire which precedes its utterance. And therefore, what else is
intended by the words of the apostle: "Pray without ceasing," (2) than,"
Desire without intermission, from Him who alone can give it, a happy life,
which no life can be but that which is eternal "? This, therefore, let us
desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually.
But at certain hours we recall our minds from other cares and business, in
which desire itself somehow is cooled down, to the business of prayer,
admonishing ourselves by the words of our prayer to fix attention upon that
which we desire, lest what had begun to lose heat become altogether cold,
and be finally extinguished, if the flame be not more frequently fanned.
Whence, also, when the same apostle says, "Let your requests be made known
unto God," (3) this is not to be understood as if thereby they become known
to God, who certainly knew them before they were uttered, but in this
sense, that they are to be made known to ourselves in the presence of God
by patient waiting upon Him, not in the presence of men by ostentatious
worship. Or perhaps that they may be made known also to the angels that are
in the presence of God, that these beings may in some way present them to
God, and consult Him concerning them, and may bring to us, either
manifestly or secretly, that which, hearkening to His commandment, they may
have learned to be His will, and which must be fulfilled by them according
to that which they have there learned to be their duty; for the angel said
to Tobias:(4) "Now, therefore, when thou didst pray, and Sara thy daughter-
in-law, I did bring the remembrance of your prayers before the Holy One."

   CHAP. X. -- 19. Wherefore it is neither wrong! nor unprofitable to
spend much time in praying, if there be leisure for this without hindering
other good and necessary works to which duty calls us, although even in the
doing of these, as I have said, we ought by cherishing holy desire to pray
without ceasing. For to spend a long time in prayer is not, as some think,
the same thing as to pray "with much speaking." Multiplied words are one
thing, long-continued warmth of desire is another. For even of the Lord
Himself it is written, that He continued all night in prayer,(4) and that
His prayer was more prolonged when He was in an agony;(6) and in this is
not an example given to us by Him who is in time an Intercessor such as we
need, and who is with the Father eternally the Hearer of prayer ?

   20. The brethren in Egypt are reported to 'have very frequent prayers,
but these very brief, and, as it were, sudden and ejaculatory, lest the
wakeful and aroused attention which is indispensable in prayer should by
protracted exercises vanish or lose its keenness. And in this they
themselves show plainly enough, that just as this attention is not to be
allowed to become exhausted if it cannot continue long, so it is not to be
suddenly suspended if it is sustained. Far be it from us either to use
"much speaking" in prayer, or to refrain from prolonged prayer, if fervent
attention of the soul continue. To use much speaking in prayer is to employ
a superfluity of words in asking a necessary thing; but to prolong prayer
is to have the heart throbbing with continued pious emotion towards Him to
whom we pray. For in most cases prayer consists more in groaning than in
speaking, in tears rather than in words. But He setteth our tears in His
sight, and our groaning is not hidden from Him who made all things by the
word, and does not need human words.

   CHAP. XI -- 21. To us, therefore, words are necessary, that by them we
may be assisted in considering and observing what we ask, not as means by
which we expect that God is to be either informed or moved to compliance.
When, therefore, we say: "Hallowed be Thy name," we admonish ourselves to
desire that His name, which is always holy, may be also among men esteemed
holy, that is to say, not despised ;. which is an advantage not to God, but
to men. When we say: "Thy kingdom come," which shall certainly come whether
we wish it or not, we do by these words stir up our own desires for that
kingdom, that it may come to us, and that we may be found worthy to reign
in it. When we say: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we pray
for ourselves that He would give us the grace of obedience, that His will
may be done by us in the same way as it is done in heavenly places by His
angels. When we say: "Give us this day our daily bread," the word "this
day" signifies for the present time, in which we ask either for that
competency of temporal blessings which I have spoken of before ("bread"
being used to designate the whole of those blessings, because of its
constituting so important a part of them), or the sacrament of believers,
which is in this present time necessary, but necessary in order to obtain
the felicity not of the present time, but of eternity. When we say:
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," we remind ourselves both
what we should ask, and what we should do in order that we may be worthy to
receive what we ask. When we say: "Lead us not into temptation," we
admonish ourselves to seek that we may not, through being deprived of God's
help, be either ensnared to consent or compelled to yield to temptation.
When we say: "Deliver us from evil," we admonish ourselves to consider that
we are not yet enjoying that good estate in which we shall experience no
evil. And this petition, which stands last in the Lord's Prayer, is so
comprehensive that a Christian, in whatsoever affliction he be placed, may
in using it give utterance to his groans and find vent for his tears -- may
begin with this petition, go on with it, and with it conclude his prayer.
For it was necessary that by the use of these words the things which they
signify should be kept before our memory.

   CHAP. XI. -- 22. For whatever other words we may say,- whether the
desire of the person praying go before the words, and employ them in order
to give definite form to its requests, or come after them, and concentrate
attention upon them, that it may increase in fervour, -- if we pray
rightly, and as becomes our wants, we say nothing but what is already
contained in the Lord's Prayer. And whoever says in prayer anything which
cannot find its place in that gospel prayer, is praying in a way which, if
it be not unlawful, is at least not spiritual; and I know not how carnal
prayers can be lawful, since it becomes those who are born again by the
Spirit to pray in no i other way than spiritually. For example, when one
prays: "Be Thou glorified among all nations as Thou art glorified among
us," and "Let Thy prophets be found faithful," what else does he ask than,
"Hallowed be Thy name "? When one says: "Turn us again, O Lord God of
hosts, cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved,"(2) what else is he
saying than, "Let Thy kingdom come "? When one says: "Order my steps in Thy
word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me," (3) what else is he
saying than, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? When one says:
"Give me neither poverty nor riches," (4) what else is this than, Give us
this day our daily bread "? When one says: "Lord, remember David, and all
his compassion,"(4) or, "O Lord, if I have done this, if there be iniquity
in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to them that did evil to me," (6) what
else is this than, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors "? When
one says: "Take away from me the lusts of the appetite, and let not sensual
desire take hold on me," (7) what else is this than, "Lead us not into
temptation"? When one says: "Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God; defend
me from them that rise up against me,"(8) what else is this than, "Deliver
us from evil "? And if you go over all the words of holy prayers, you will,
I believe, find nothing which cannot be comprised and summed up in the
petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Wherefore, in praying, we are free to use
different words to any extent, but we must ask the same things; in this we
have no choice.

   23. These things it is our duty to ask without hesitation for ourselves
and for our friends, and for strangers -- yea, even for enemies; although
in the heart of the person praying, desire for one and for another may
arise, differing in nature or in strength according to the more immediate
or more remote relationship. But he who says in prayer such words as, "O
Lord, multiply my riches;" or, "Give me as much wealth as Thou hast given
to this or that man;" or, "Increase my honours, make me eminent for power
and fame in this world," or something else of this sort, and who asks
merely from a desire for these things, and not in order through them to
benefit men agreeably to God's will, I do not think that he will find any
part of the Lord's Prayer in connection with which he could fit in these
requests. Wherefore let us be ashamed at least to ask these things, if we
be not ashamed to desire them. If, however, we are ashamed of even desiring
them, but feel ourselves overcome by the desire, how much better would it
be to ask to be freed from this plague of desire by Him to whom we say,
"Deliver us from evil" !

   CHAP. XIII. -- 24. You have now, if I am not mistaken, an answer to two
questions, -- what kind of person you ought to be if you would pray, and
what things you should ask in prayer; and the answer has been given not by
my teaching, but by His who has condescended to teach us all. A happy life
is to be sought after, and this is to be asked from the Lord God. Many
different answers have been given by many in discussing wherein true
happiness consists; but why should we go to many teachers, or consider many
answers to this question? It has been briefly and truly stated in the
divine Scriptures, "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord." That we
may be numbered among this people, and that we may attain to beholding Him
and dwelling for ever with Him, "the end of the commandment is, charity out
of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned."(2) In
the same three, hope has been placed instead of a good conscience. Faith,
hope, and charity, therefore, lead unto God the man who prays, i.e. who
believes, hopes, and desires, and is guided as to what he should ask from
the Lord by studying the Lord's Prayer. Fasting, and abstinence from
gratifying carnal desire in other pleasures without injury to health, and
especially frequent almsgiving, are a great assistance in prayer; so that
we may be able to say, "In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord, with my
hands in the night before Him, and I was not deceived."(3) For how can God,
who is a Spirit, and who cannot be touched, be sought with hands in any
other sense than by good works?

   CHAP. XIV. -- 25. Perhaps you may still ask why the apostle said, "We
know not what to pray for as we ought,"(4) for it is wholly incredible that
either he or those to whom he wrote were ignorant of the Lord's Prayer. He
could not say this either rashly or falsely; what, then, do we suppose to
be his reason for the statement? Is it not that vexations and troubles in
this world are for the most part profitable either to heal the swelling of
pride, or to prove and exercise patience, for which, after such probation
and discipline, a greater reward is reserved, or to punish and eradicate
some sins; but we, not knowing what beneficial purpose these may serve,
desire to be freed from all tribulation? To this ignorance the apostle
showed that even he himself was not a stranger (unless, perhaps, he did it
notwithstanding his knowing what to pray for as he ought), when, lest he
should be exalted above measure by the greatness of the revelations, there
was given unto him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet
him; for which thing, not knowing surely what he ought to pray for, he
besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him. At length he
received! the answer of God, declaring why that which so great a man prayed
for was denied, and why it was expedient that it should not be done: "My
grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness."(4)

   26. Accordingly, we know not what to pray for as we ought in regard to
tribulations, which may do us good or harm; and yet, because they are hard
and painful, and against the natural feelings of our weak nature, we pray,
with a desire which is common to mankind, that they may be removed from us.
But we ought to exercise such submission to the will of the Lord our God,
that if He does not remove those vexations, we do not suppose ourselves to
be neglected by Him, but rather, in patient endurance of evil, hope to be
made partakers of greater good, for so His strength is perfected in our
weakness. God has sometimes in anger granted the request of impatient
petitioners, as in mercy He denied it to the apostle. For we read what the
Israelites asked, and in what manner they asked and obtained their request;
but while their desire was granted, their impatience was severely
corrected.(6) Again, He gave them, in answer to their request, a king
according to their heart, as it is written, not according to His own
heart.(7) He granted also what the devil asked, namely, that His servant,
who was to be proved, might be tempted.(8) He granted also the request of
unclean spirits, when they besought Him that their legion might be sent
into the great herd of swine.(9) These things are written to prevent any
one from thinking too highly of himself if he has received an answer when
he was urgently asking anything which it would be more advantageous for him
not to receive, or to prevent him from being cast down and despairing of
the divine compassion towards himself if he be not heard, when, perchance,
he is asking something by the obtaining of which he might be more
grievously afflicted, or might be by the corrupting influences of
prosperity wholly destroyed. In regard to such things, therefore, we know
not what to pray for as we ought. Accordingly, if anything is ordered in a
way contrary to our prayer, we ought, patiently bearing the disappointment,
and in everything giving thanks to God, to entertain no doubt whatever that
it was right that the will of God and not our will should be done. For of
this the Mediator has given us an example, inasmuch as, after He had said,
"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," transforming the
human will which was in Him through His incarnation, He immediately added,
"Nevertheless, O Father, not as I will but as Thou wilt."(10) Wherefore,
not without reason are many made righteous by the obedience of One.(11)

   27. But whoever desires from the Lord that "one thing," and seeks after
it, (12) asks in certainty and in confidence, and has no fear lest when
obtained it be injurious to him, seeing that, without it, anything else
which he may have obtained by asking in a right way is of no advantage to
him. The thing referred to is the one true and only happy life, in which,
immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit, we may contemplate the joy
of the Lord for ever. All other things are desired, and are without
impropriety prayed for, with a view to this one thing. For whosoever has it
shall have all that he wishes, and cannot possibly wish to have anything
along with it which would be unbecoming. For in it is the fountain of life,
which we must now thirst for in prayer so long as we live in hope, not yet
seeing that which we hope for, trusting under the shadow of His wings
before whom are all our desires, that we may be abundantly satisfied with
the fatness of His house, and made to drink of the river of His pleasures;
because with Him is the fountain of life, and in His light we shall see
light,, when our desire shall be satisfied with good things, and when there
shall be nothing beyond to be sought after with groaning, but all things
shall be possessed by us with rejoicing. At the same time, because this
blessing is nothing else than the "peace which passeth all
understanding,"(2) even when we are asking it in our prayers, we know not
what to pray for as we ought. For inasmuch as we cannot present it to our
minds as it really is, we do not know it, but whatever image of it may be
presented to our minds we reject, disown, and condemn; we know it is not
what we are seeking, although we do not yet know enough to be able to
define what we seek.

   CHAP. XV.--28. There is therefore in us a certain learned ignorance, so
to speak--an ignorance which we learn from that Spirit of God who helps our
infirmities. For after the apostle said, "If we hope for that we see not,
then do we with patience wait for it," he added in the same passage,
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we
should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the
hearts knoweth what is in the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh
intercession for the saints according to the will of God."(3) This is not
to be understood as if it meant that the Holy Spirit of God, who is in the
Trinity, God unchangeable, and is one God with the Father and the Son,
intercedes for the saints like one who is not a divine person; for it is
said, "He maketh intercession for the saints," because He enables the
saints to make intercession, as in another place it is said, "The Lord your
God proverb you, that He may know whether ye love Him," (4) i.e. that He
may make you know. He therefore makes the saints intercede with groanings
which cannot be uttered, when He inspires them with longings for that great
blessing, as yet unknown, for which we patiently wait. For how is that
which is desired set forth in language if it be unknown, for if it were
utterly unknown it would' not be desired; and on the other hand, if it were
seen, it would not be desired nor sought for with groanings ?

   CHAP. XVI. -- 29. Considering all these things, and whatever else the
Lord shall have made known to you in this matter, which either does not
occur to me or would take too much time to state here, strive in prayer to
overcome this world: pray in hope, pray in faith, pray in love, pray
earnestly and patiently, pray as a widow belonging to Christ. For although
prayer is, as He has taught, the duty of all His members, i.e. of all who
believe in Him and are united to His body, a more assiduous attention to
prayer is found to be specially enjoined in Scripture upon those who are
widows. Two women of the name of Anna are honourably named there, -- the
one, Elkanah's wife, who was the mother of holy Samuel; the other, the
widow who recognised the Most Holy One when He was yet a babe. The former,
though married, prayed with sorrow of mind and brokenness of heart because
she had no sons; and she obtained Samuel, and dedicated him to the Lord,
because she vowed to do so when she prayed for him.(4) It is not easy,
however, to find to what petition of the Lord's Prayer her petition could
be referred, unless it be to the last, "Deliver us from evil," because it
was esteemed to be an evil to be married and not to have offspring as the
fruit of marriage. Observe, however, what is written concerning the other
Anna, the widow: she "departed not from the temple, but served God with
fastings and prayers night and day." (6) In like manner, the apostle said
in words already quoted, "She that is a widow indeed, and desolate,
trusteth in God and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day
;" (7) and the Lord, when exhorting men to pray always and not to faint,
made mention of a widow, who, by persevering importunity, persuaded a judge
to attend to her cause, though he was an unjust and wicked man, and one who
neither feared God nor regarded man. How incumbent it is on widows to go
beyond others in devoting time to prayer may be plainly enough seen from
the fact that from among them are taken the examples set forth as an
exhortation to all to earnestness in prayer.

   30. Now what makes this work specially suitable to widows but their
bereaved and desolate condition? Whosoever, then, understands that he is in
this world bereaved and desolate as long as he is a pilgrim absent from his
Lord, is careful to commit his widowhood, so to speak, to his God as his
shield in continual and most fervent prayer. Pray, therefore, as a widow of
Christ, not yet seeing Him whose help you implore. And though you are very
wealthy, pray as a poor person, for you have not yet the true riches of the
world to come, in which you have no loss to fear. Though you have sons and
grandchildren, and a large household, still pray, as I said already, as one
who is desolate, for we have no certainty in regard to all temporal
blessings that they shall abide for our consolation even to the end of this
present life. If you seek and relish the things that are above, you desire
things everlasting and sure; and as long as you do not yet possess them,
you ought to regard yourself as desolate, even though all your family are
spared to you, and live as you desire. And if you thus act, assuredly your
example will be followed by your most devout daughter-in-law, and the other
holy widows and virgins that are settled in peace under your care; for the
more pious the manner in which you order your house, the more are you bound
to persevere fervently in prayer, not engaging yourselves with the affairs
of this world further than is demanded in the interests of religion.

   31. By all means remember to pray earnestly for me. I would not have
you yield such deference to the office fraught with perils which I bear, as
to refrain from giving the assistance which I know myself to need. Prayer
was made by the household of Christ for Peter and for Paul. I rejoice that
you are in His household; and I need, incomparably more than Peter and Paul
did, the help of the prayers of the brethren. Emulate each other in prayer
with a holy rivalry, with one heart, for you wrestle not against each
other, but against the devil, who is the common enemy of all the saints.
"By fasting, by vigils, and all mortification of the body, prayer is
greatly helped." (2) Let each one do what she can; what one cannot herself
do, she does by another who can do it, if she loves in another that which
personal inability alone hinders her from doing; wherefore let her who can
do less not keep back the one who can do more, and let her who can do more
not urge unduly her who can do less. For your conscience is responsible to
God; to each other owe nothing but mutual love. May the Lord, who is able
to do above what we ask or think, give ear to your prayers.(3)

LETTER CXXXI. (A.D. 412.)

TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT DAUGHTER, THE NOBLE AND DESERVEDLY ILLUSTRIOUS LADY
PROBA, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   You speak the truth when you say that the soul, having its abode in a
corruptible body, is restrained by this measure of contact with the earth,
and is somehow so bent and crushed by this burden that its desires and
thoughts go more easily downwards to many things than upwards to one. For
Holy Scripture says the same: "The corruptible body presseth down the soul,
and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many
things." (4) But our Saviour, who by His healing word raised up the woman
in the gospel that had been eighteen years bowed down (4) (whose case was,
perchance, a figure of spiritual infirmity), came for this purpose, that
Christians might not hear in vain the call, "Lift up your hearts," and
might truly reply, "We lift them up to the Lord." Looking to this, you do
well to regard the evils of this world as easy to bear because of the hope
of the world to come. For thus, by being rightly used, these evils become a
blessing, because, while they do not increase our desires for this world,
they exercise our patience; as to which the apostle says, "We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God: "(6) all things, he
saith -- not only, therefore, those which are desired because pleasant, but
also those which are shunned because painful; since we receive the former
without being carried away by them, and bear the latter without being
crushed by them, and in all give thanks, according to the divine command,
to Him of whom we say, "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise
shall continually be in my mouth," (7) and, "It is good for me that Thou
hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy statutes." (8) The truth is, most
noble lady, that if the calm of this treacherous prosperity were always
smiling upon us, the soul of man would never make for the haven of true and
certain safety. Wherefore, in returning the respectful salutation due to
your Excellency, and expressing my gratitude for your most pious care for
my welfare, I ask of the Lord that He may grant to you the rewards of the
life to come, and consolation in the present life; and I commend myself to
the love and prayers of all of you in whose hearts Christ dwells by faith.

   (In another hand.) May the true and faithful God truly comfort your
heart and preserve your health, my most excellent daughter and noble lady,
deservedly illustrious.

LETTER CXXXII. (A.D. 412.)

TO VOLUSIANUS, MY NOBLE LORD AND MOST JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED SON, BISHOP
AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   In my desire for your welfare, both in this world and in Christ, I am
perhaps not even surpassed by the prayers of your pious mother. Wherefore,
in reciprocating your salutation with the respect due to your worth, I beg
to exhort you, as earnestly as I can, not to grudge to devote attention to
the study of the Writings which are truly and unquestionably holy. For they
are genuine and solid truth, not winning their way to the mind by
artificial eloquence, nor giving forth with flattering voice a vain and
uncertain sound. They deeply interest the man who is hungering not for
words but for things; and they cause great alarm at first in him whom they
are to render safe from fear. I exhort you especially to read the writings
of the apostles, for from them you will receive a stimulus to acquaint
yourself with the prophets, whose testimonies the apostles use. If in your
reading or meditation on what you have read any question arises to the
solution of which I may appear necessary, write to me, that I may write in
reply. For, with the Lord helping me, I may perhaps be more able to serve
you in this way than by personally conversing with you on such subjects,
partly because, through the difference in our occupations, it does not
happen that you have leisure at the same times as I might have it, but
especially because of the irrepressible intrusion of those who are for the
most part not adapted to such discussions, and take more pleasure in a war
of words than in the clear light of knowledge; whereas, whatever is written
stands always at the service of the reader when he has leisure, and there
can be nothing burdensome in the society of that which is taken up or laid
aside at your own pleasure.

LETTER CXXXIII. (A.D. 412.)

TO MARCELLINUS, MY NOBLE LORD, JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED, MY SON VERY MUCH
BELOVED AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. I have learned that the Circumcelliones and clergy of the Donatist
faction belonging to the district of Hippo, whom the guardians of public
order had brought to trial for their deeds, have been examined by your
Excellency, and that the most of them have confessed their share in the
violent death which the presbyter Restitutus suffered at their hands, and
in the beating of Innocentius, another Catholic presbyter, as well as in
digging out the eye and cutting off the finger of the said Innocentius.
This news has plunged me into the deepest anxiety, lest perchance your
Excellency should judge them worthy, according to the laws, of punishment
not less severe than suffering in their own persons the same injuries as
they have inflicted on others. Wherefore I write this letter to implore you
by your faith in Christ, and by the mercy of Christ the Lord Himself, by no
means to do this or permit it to be done. For although we might silently
pass over the execution of criminals who may be regarded as brought up for
trial not upon an accusation of ours, but by an indictment presented by
those to whose vigilance the preservation of the public peace is entrusted,
we do not wish to have the sufferings of the servants of God avenged by the
infliction of precisely similar injuries in the way of retaliation. Not, of
course, that we object to the removal from these wicked men of the liberty
to perpetrate further crimes; but our desire is rather that justice be
satisfied without the taking of their lives or the maiming of their bodies
in any part, and that, by such coercive measures as may be in accordance
with the laws, they be turned from their insane frenzy to the quietness of
men in their sound judgment, or compelled to give up mischievous violence
and betake themselves to some useful labour. This is indeed called a penal
sentence; but who does not see that when a restraint is put upon the
boldness of savage violence, and the remedies fitted to produce repentance
are not withdrawn, this discipline should be called a benefit rather than
vindictive punishment?

   2. Fulfil, Christian judge, the duty of an affectionate father; let
your indignation against their: crimes be tempered by considerations of
humanity; be not provoked by the atrocity of their sinful deeds to gratify
the passion of revenge, but rather be moved by the wounds which these deeds
have inflicted on their own souls to exercise a desire to heal them. Do not
lose now that fatherly care which you maintained when prosecuting the
examination, in doing which you :extracted the confession of such horrid
crimes, not by stretching them on the rack, not by furrowing their flesh
with iron claws, not by scorching them with flames, but by beating them
with rods, a mode of correction used by schoolmasters,(2) and by parents
themselves in chastising children, and often also by bishops in the
sentences awarded by them. Do not, therefore, now punish with extreme
severity the crimes which you searched out with lenity. The necessity for
harshness is greater in the investigation than in the infliction of
punishment; for even the gentlest men use diligence and stringency in
searching out a hidden crime, that they may find to whom they may show
mercy. Wherefore it is generally necessary to use more rigour in making
inquisition, so that when the crime has been brought to light, there may be
scope for displaying clemency. For all good works love to be set in the
light, not in order to obtain glory from men, but, as the Lord saith, "that
they seeing your good works may glorify your Father who is in heaven." (3)
And, for the same reason, the apostle was not satisfied with merely
exhorting us to practise moderation, but also commands us to make it known:
"Let your moderation," he says, "be known unto all men; "(4) and in another
place, "Showing all meekness unto all men." (4) Hence, also, that most
signal forbearance of the holy David, when he mercifully spared his enemy
when delivered into his hand,(6) would not have been so conspicuous had not
his power to act otherwise been manifest. Therefore let not the power of
executing vengeance inspire you with harshness, seeing that the necessity
of examining the criminals did not make you lay aside your clemency. Do not
call for the executioner now when the crime has been found out, after
having forborne from calling in the tormentor when you were finding it out.

   3. In fine, you have been sent hither for the benefit of the Church. I
solemnly declare that what I recommend is expedient in the interests of the
Catholic Church, or, that I may not seem to pass beyond the boundaries of
my own charge, I protest that it is for the good of the Church belonging to
the diocese of Hippo. If you do not hearken to me asking this favour as a
friend, hearken to me offering this counsel as a bishop; although, indeed,
it would not be presumption for me to say -- since I am addressing a
Christian, and especially in such a case as this -- that it becomes you to
hearkem to me as a bishop commanding with authority, my noble and justly
distinguished lord and much -- loved son. I am aware that the principal
charge of law cases connected with the affairs of the Church has been
devolved on your Excellency, but as I believe that this particular case
belongs to the very illustrious and honourable proconsul, I have written a
letter (7) to him also, which I beg you not to refuse to give to him, or,
if necessary, recommend to his attention; and I entreat you both not to
resent our intercession, or counsel, or anxiety, as officious. And let not
the sufferings of Catholic servants of God, which ought to be useful in the
spiritual upbuilding of the weak, be sullied by the retaliation of injuries
on those who did them wrong, but rather, tempering the rigour of justice,
let it be your care as sons of the Church to commend both your own faith
and your Mother's clemency.

   May almighty God enrich your Excellency with all good things, my noble
and justly distinguished lord and dearly beloved son !

LETTER CXXXV. (A.D. 412.)

TO BISHOP AUGUSTIN, MY LORD TRULY HOLY, AND FATHER JUSTLY REVERED,
VOLUSIANUS SENDS GREETING.

   1. O man who art a pattern of goodness and uprightness, you ask me to
apply to you for instruction in regard to some of the obscure passages
which occur in my reading. I accept at your command the favour of this
kindness, and willingly offer myself to be taught by you, acknowledging the
authority of the ancient proverb, "We are never too old to learn." With
good reason the author of this proverb has not restricted by any limits or
end our pursuit of wisdom; for truth,(8) secluded in its original
principles, is never so disclosed to those who approach it as to be wholly
revealed to their knowledge. It seems to me, therefore, my lord truly holy,
and father justly revered, worth while to communicate to you the substance
of a conversation which recently took place among us. I was present at a
gathering of friends, and a great many opinions were brought forward there,
such as the disposition and studies of each suggested. Our discourse was
chiefly, however, on the department of rhetoric which treats of proper
arrangement.(9) I speak to one familiar with the subject, for you were not
long ago a teacher of these things. Upon this followed a discussion
regarding "invention" in rhetoric, its nature, what boldness it requires,
how great the labour, involved in methodical arrangement, what is the charm
of metaphors, and the beauty of illustrations, and the power of applying
epithets suitable to the character and nature of the subject in hand.
Others extolled with partiality the poet's art. This part also of eloquence
is not left unnoticed or unhonoured by you. We may appropriately apply to
you that line of the poet: "The ivy is intertwined with the laurels which
reward your victory." We spoke, accordingly, of the embellishments which
skilful arrangement adds to a poem, of the beauty of metaphors, and of the
sublimity of well-chosen comparisons; then we spoke of smooth and flowing
versification, and, if I may use the expression, the harmonious variation
of the pauses in the lines.(2) The conversation turned next to a subject
with which you are very familiar, namely, that philosophy which you were
wont yourself to cherish after the manner of Aristotle and Isocrates. We
asked what had been achieved by the philosopher of the Lyceum, by the
varied and incessant doubtings of the Academy, by the debater of the Porch,
by the discoveries of natural philosophers, by the self-indulgence of the
Epicureans; and what had been the result of their boundless zeal in
disputation with each other, and how truth was more than ever unknown by
them after they assumed that its knowledge was attainable.

   2. While our conversation continues on these. topics, one of the large
company says: "Who among us is so thoroughly acquainted with the wisdom
taught by Christianity as to be able to resolve the doubts by which I am
entangled, and to give firmness to my hesitating acceptance of its teaching
by arguments in which truth or probability may claim my belief ?" We are
all dumb with amazement. Then, of his own accord, he breaks forth in these
words: "I wonder whether the Lord and Ruler of the world did indeed fill
the womb of a virgin; -- did His mother endure the protracted fatigues of
ten months, and, being yet a virgin, in due season bring forth her child,
and continue even after that with her virginity intact?" To this he adds
other statements: "Within the small body of a crying infant He is concealed
whom the universe .scarcely can contain; He bears the years of childhood,
He grows up, He is established in the rigour of manhood; this Governor is
so long an exile from His own dwelling-place, and the care of the whole
world is transferred to one body of insignificant dimensions. Moreover, He
falls asleep, takes food to support Him, is subject to all the sensations
of mortal men. Nor did the proofs of so great majesty shine forth with
adequate fulness of evidence; for the casting out of devils, the curing of
the sick, and the restoration of the dead to life are, if you consider
others who have wrought these wonders, but small works for God to do." We
prevent him from continuing such questions, and the meeting having broken
up, we referred the matter to the valuable decision of experience beyond
our own, lest, by too rashly intruding into hidden things, the error,
innocent thus far, should become blameworthy.

   You have heard, O man worthy of all honour, the confession of our
ignorance; you perceive what is requested at your hands. Your reputation is
interested in our obtaining an answer to these questions. Ignorance may,
without harm to religion, be tolerated in other priests; but when we come
to Bishop Augustin, whatever we find unknown to him is no part of the
Christian system. May the Supreme God protect your venerable Grace, my lord
truly holy and justly revered !

LETTER CXXXVI. (A.D. 412.)

TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD MOST VENERABLE, AND FATHER SINGULARLY WORTHY OF ALL
POSSIBLE SERVICE FROM ME, I, MARCELLINUS SEND GREETING.

   1. The noble Volusianus read to me the letter of your Holiness, and, at
my urgent solicitation, he read to many more the sentences which had won my
admiration, for, like everything else coming from your pen, they were
worthy of admiration. Breathing as it did a humble spirit, and rich in the
grace of divine eloquence, it succeeded easily in pleasing the reader..
What especially pleased me was your strenuous effort to establish and hold
up the steps of one who is somewhat hesitating, by counselling him to form
a good resolution. For I have every day some discussion with the same man,
so far as my abilities, or rather my lack of talent, may enable me. Moved
by the earnest entreaties of his pious another, I am at pains to visit him
frequently, and he is so good as to return my visits from time to time. But
on receiving this letter from your venerable Eminence, though he is kept
back from firm faith in the true God by the influence of a class of persons
who abound in this city, he was so moved, that, as he himself tells me, he
was prevented only by the fear of undue prolixity in his letter from
unfolding to you every possible difficulty in regard to the Christian
faith. Some things, however, he has very earnestly asked you to explain,
expressing himself in a polished and accurate style, and with the
perspicuity and brilliancy of Roman eloquence, such as you will yourself
deem worthy of approbation. The question which he has submitted to you is
indeed worn threadbare in controversy, and the craftiness which, from the
same quarter, assails with reproaches the Lord's incarnation is well known.
But as I am confident that whatever you write in reply will be of use to a
very large number, I would approach you with the request, that even in this
question you would condescend to give a thoroughly guarded answer to their
false statement that in His works the Lord performed nothing beyond what
other men have been able to do. They are accustomed to bring forward their
Apollonius and Apuleius, and other men who professed magical arts, whose
miracles they maintained to have been greater than the Lord's.

   2. The noble Volusianus aforesaid declared also in the presence of a
number, that there were many other things which might not unreasonably be
added to the question which he has sent, were it not that, as I have
already stated, brevity had been specially studied by him in his letter.
Although, however, he forbore from writing them, he did not pass them over
in silence. For he is wont to say that, even if a reasonable account of the
Lord's incarnation were now given to him, it would still be very difficult
to give a satisfactory reason why this God, who is affirmed to be the God
also of the Old Testament, is pleased with new sacrifices after having
rejected the ancient sacrifices. For he alleges that nothing could be
corrected but that which is proved to have been previously not rightly
done; or that what has once been done rightly ought not to be altered in
the very least. That which has been rightly done, he said, cannot be
changed without wrong, especially because the variation might bring upon
the Deity the reproach of inconstancy. Another objection which he stated
was, that the Christian doctrine and preaching were in no way consistent
with the duties and rights of citizens; because, to quote an instance
frequently alleged, among its precepts we find, "Recompense to no man evil
for evil," and, "Whosoever shall smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the
other also; and if any man take away thy coat, let him have I thy cloak
also; and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain;"(2)
-- all which he affirms to be contrary to the duties and rights of
citizens. For who would submit to have anything taken from him by an enemy,
or forbear from retaliating the evils of war upon an invader who ravaged a
Roman province? The other precepts, as your Eminence understands, are open
to similar objections. Volusianus thinks that all these difficulties may be
added to the question formerly stated, especially because it is manifest
(though he is silent on this point) that very great calamities have
befallen the commonwealth under the government of emperors observing, for
the most part, the Christian religion.(3)

   3. Wherefore, as your Grace condescends along with me to acknowledge,
it is important that all these difficulties be met by a full, thorough, and
luminous reply (since the welcome answer of your Holiness will doubtless be
put into many hands); especially because, while this discussion was going
on, a distinguished lord and proprietor in the region of Hippo was present,
who ironically said some flattering things concerning your Holiness, and
affirmed that he had been by no means satisfied when he inquired into these
matters himself.

   I, therefore, not unmindful of your promise, but insisting on its
fulfilment, beseech you to write, on the questions submitted, treatises
which will be of incredible service to the Church, especially at the
present time.

LETTER CXXXVII. (A.D. 412.)

TO MY MOST EXCELLENT SON, THE NOBLE AND JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED LORD
VOLUSIANUS, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   CHAP. I. -- 1. I have read your letter, containing an abstract of a
notable conversation given with praiseworthy conciseness. I feel bound to
reply to it, and to forbear from alleging any excuse for delay; for it
happens opportunely that I have a short time of leisure from occupation
with the affairs of other persons. I have also put off in the meantime
dictating to my amanuensis certain things to which I had purposed to devote
this leisure, for I think it would be a grievous injustice to delay
answering questions which I had myself exhorted the questioner to pro.
pound. For which of us who are administering, as we are able, the grace of
Christ would wish to see you instructed in Christian doctrine only so far
as might suffice to secure to yourself salvation not salvation in this
present life, which, as the word of God is careful to remind us, is but a
vapor appearing for a little while and then vanishing away, but that
salvation in order to the obtaining and eternal possession of which we are
Christians? It seems to us too l little that you should receive only so
much instructions suffices to your own. deliverance. For your gifted mind,
and your singularly able land lucid power of speaking, ought to be of
service to all others around you, against whom, whether slowness or
perversity be the cause, it is necessary to defend in a competent way the
dispensation of such abounding grace, which small minds in their arrogance
despise, boasting that they can do very great things, while in fact they
can do nothing to cure or even to curb their own vices.

   2. You ask: "Whether the Lord and Ruler of the world did indeed fill
the womb of a virgin? did His mother endure the protracted fatigues of ten
months, and, being yet a virgin, in due season bring forth her child, and
continue even after that with her virginity intact? Was He whom the
universe is supposed to be scarcely able to contain concealed within the
small body of a crying infant? did He bear the years of childhood, and grow
up and become established in the rigour of manhood? Was this Governor so
long an exile from His own  dwelling-place, and was the care of the whole
world transferred to a body of such insignificant dimensions? Did He sleep,
did He take food as nourishment, and was He subject to all the sensations
of mortal men?" You go on to say that "the proofs of His great majesty do
not shine forth with any adequate fulness of evidence; for the casting out
of devils, the curing of the sick, and the restoration of the dead are, if
we consider others who have performed these wonders, but small works for
God to do." This question, you say, was introduced in a certain meeting of
friends by one of the company, but that the rest of you prevented him from
bringing forward any further questions, and, breaking up the meeting,
deferred the consideration of the matter till you should have the benefit
of experience beyond your own, lest, by too rashly intruding into hidden
things, the error, innocent thus far, should become blame-worthy.

   3. Thereupon you appeal to me, and request me to observe what is
desired from me after this confession of your ignorance. You add, that my
reputation is concerned in your obtaining an answer to these questions,
because, though ignorance is tolerated without injury to religion in other
priests, when an inquiry is addressed to me, who am a bishop, whatever is
not known to me must be no part of the Christian system.

   I begin, therefore, by requesting you to lay aside the opinion which
you have too easily. formed concerning me, and dismiss those sentiments,
though they are gratifying evidences of your goodwill, and believe my
testimony rather than any other's regarding myself, if you reciprocate my
affection. For such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures, that even if
I were attempting to study them and nothing else from early boyhood to
decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and
talents greater than I have, I would be still daily making progress in
discovering their treasures; not that there is so great difficulty in
coming through them to know the things necessary to salvation, but when any
one has accepted these truths with the faith that is indispensable as the
foundation of a life of piety and uprightness, so many things which are
veiled under manifold shadows of mystery remain to be inquired into by
those who are advancing in the study, and so great is the depth of wisdom
not only in the words in which these have been expressed, but also in the
things themselves, that the experience of the oldest, the ablest, and the
most zealous students of Scripture illustrates what Scripture itself has
said: "When a man hath done, then he beginneth."(2)

   CHAP. II. -- 4. But why say more as to this? must rather address myself
to the question which you propose. In the first place, I wish you to
understand that the Christian doctrine does not hold that the Godhead was
so blended with the human nature in which He was born of the virgin that He
either relinquished or lost the administration of the universe, or
transferred it to that body as a small and limited material substance. Such
an opinion is held only by men who are incapable of conceiving of anything
but material substances -- whether more dense, like water and earth, or
more subtle, like air and light; but all alike distinguished by this
condition, that none of them can be in its entirety everywhere, because, by
reason of its many parts, it cannot but have one part here, another there,
and however great or small the body may be, it must occupy some place, and
so fill it that in its entirety it is in no one part of the space occupied.
And hence it is the distinctive property of material bodies that they can
be condensed and rarefied, contracted and dilated, crushed into small
fragments and enlarged to great masses. The nature of the soul is very far
different from that of the body; and how much more different must be the
nature of God, who is the Creator of both soul and body! God is not said to
fill the world in the same way as water, air, and even light occupy space,
so that with a greater or smaller part of Himself He occupies a greater or
smaller part of the world. He is able to be everywhere present in the
entirety of His being: He cannot be confined in any place: He can come
without leaving the place where He was: He can depart without forsaking the
place to which He had come.

   5. The mind of man wonders at this, and because it cannot comprehend
it, refuses, perhaps, to believe it. I,et it, however, not go on to wonder
incredulously at the attributes of the Deity without first wondering in
like manner at the mysteries within itself; let it, if possible, raise
itself for a little above the body, and above those things which it is
accustomed to perceive by the bodily organs, and let it contemplate what
that is which uses the body as its instrument. Perhaps it cannot do this,
for it requires, as one has said, great power of mind to call the mind
aside from the senses, and to lead thought away from its wonted track.(2)
Let the mind, then, examine the bodily senses in this somewhat unusual
manner, and with the utmost attention. There are five distinct bodily
senses, which cannot exist either without the body or without the soul;
because perception by the senses is possible, on the one hand, only while a
man lives, and the body receives life from the soul; and on the other hand,
only by the instrumentality of the body vessels and organs, through which
we exercise sight, hearing, and the three other senses. Let the reasoning m
soul concentrate attention upon this subject, and: consider the senses of
the body not by these senses themselves, but by its own intelligence and,
reason. A man cannot, of course, perceive by these senses unless he lives;
but up to the time when soul and body are separated by death, he lives in
the body. How, then, does his soul,  which lives nowhere else than in his
body, perceive things which are beyond the surface of that body? Are not
the stars in heaven very remote from his body? and yet does he not see the
sun yonder? and is not seeing an exercise of the bodily senses -- may, is
it not the noblest of them all? What, then? Does he live in heaven as well
as in his body, because he perceives by one of his senses what is in
heaven, and perception by sense cannot be in a place where there is no life
of the person perceiving? Or does he perceive even where he is not living -
- because while he lives only in his own body, his perceptive sense is
active also in those places which, outside of his body and remote from it,
contain the objects with which he is in contact by sight? Do you see how
great a mystery there is even in a sense so open to our observation as that
which we call sight? Consider hearing also, and say whether the soul
diffuses itself in some way abroad beyond the body. For how do we say,
"Some one knocks at the door," unless we exercise the sense of hearing at
the place where the knock is sounding? In this case also, therefore, we
live beyond the limits of our bodies. Or can we perceive by sense in a
place in which we are not living? But we know that sense cannot be in
exercise where life is not.

   6. The other three senses are exercised through immediate contact with
their own organs. Perhaps this may be reasonably disputed in regard to the
sense of smell; but there is no controversy ins to the senses of taste and
touch, that we perceive nowhere else than by contact with our bodily
organism the things which we taste and touch. Let these three senses,
therefore, be set aside from present consideration The senses of sight and
hearing present to us a wondered question, requiring us to explain either
how the soul I can perceive by these senses in a place where it does not
live, or how it can live in a place where it is not. For it is not anywhere
but in its own body, and yet it perceives by these senses in places beyond
that body. For in whatever place the soul sees anything, in that place it
is exercising the faculty of perception, because seeing is an act of
perception; and in whatever place the soul hears anything, in that place it
is exercising the faculty of perception, because hearing is an act of
perception. Wherefore the soul is either living in that place where it sees
or hears, and consequently is itself in that place, or it exercises
perception in a place where it is not living, or it is living in a place
and yet at the same moment is not there. All these things are astonishing;
not one of them can be stated without seeming absurdity; and we are
speaking only of senses which are mortal. What, then, is the soul itself
which is beyond the bodily senses, that is to say, which resides in the
understanding I whereby it considers these mysteries? For it is not by
means of the senses that it forms a judgment concerning the senses
themselves. And do we suppose that something incredible is told us
regarding the omnipotence of God, when it is affirmed that the Word of God,
by whom all things were made, did so assume a body from the Virgin, and
manifest Himself with mortal senses, as neither to destroy His own
immortality, nor to change His eternity, nor to diminish His power, nor to
relinquish the government of the world, nor to withdraw from the bosom of
the Father, that is, from the secret place where He is with Him and in Him?

   7. Understand the nature of the Word of God, by whom all things were
made, to be such that you cannot think of any part of the Word as passing,
and, from being future, becoming past. He remains as He is, and He is
everywhere in His entirety. He comes when He is manifested, and departs
when He is concealed. But whether concealed or manifested, He is present
with us as light is present to the eyes both of the seeing and of the
blind; but it is felt to be present by the man who sees, and absent by him
who is blind. In like manner, the sound of the voice is near alike to the
hearing and to the deaf, but it makes its presence known to the former and
is hidden from the latter. But what is more wonderful than what happens in
connection with the sound of our voices and our words, a thing, forsooth,
which passes away in a month? For when we speak, there is no place for even
the next syllable till after the preceding one has ceased to sound;
nevertheless, if one hearer be present, he hears the whole of what we say,
and if two hearers be present, both hear the same, and to each of them it
is the whole; and if a multitude listen in silence, they do not break up
the sounds like loaves of bread, to be distributed among them individually,
but all that is uttered is imparted to all and to each in its entirety.
Consider this, and say if it is not more incredible that the abiding word
of God should not accomplish in the universe what the passing word of man
accomplishes in the ears of listeners, namely, that as the word of man is
present in its entirety to each and all of the hearers, so tile Word of God
should be present in the entirety of His being at the same moment
everywhere.

   8. There is, therefore, no reason to fear in regard to the small body
of the Lord in His infancy, lest in it the Godhead should seem to have been
straitened. For it is not in vast size but in power that God is great: He
has in His providence given to ants and to bees senses superior to those
given to asses and camels; He forms the huge proportions of the fig-tree
from one of the minutest seeds, although many smaller plants spring from
much larger seeds; He also has furnished the small pupil of the eye with
the power which. by one glance, sweeps over almost the half of heaven in a
moment; He diffuses the whole fivefold system of the nerves over tile body
from one centre and point in the brain; He dispenses vital motion
throughout the whole body from the heart, a member comparatively small; and
by these and other similar things, He, who in small things is great,
mysteriously produces that which is great from things which are exceedingly
little. Such is the greatness of His power that He is conscious of no
difficulty in that which is difficult. It was this same power which
originated, not from without, but from within, the conception of a child in
the Virgin's womb: this same power associated with Himself a human soul,
and through it also a human body in short, the whole human nature to be
elevated by its union with Him -- without His being thereby lowered in any
degree; justly assuming from it the name of humanity, while amply giving to
it the name of Godhead. The body of the infant Jesus was brought forth from
the womb of His mother, still a virgin, by the same power which afterwards
introduced His body when He was a man through the closed door into the
upper chamber.(2) Here, if the reason of the event is sought out, it will
no longer be a miracle; if an example of a precisely similar event is
demanded. it will no longer be unique.(3) Let us grant that God can do
something which we must admit to be beyond our comprehension. In such
wonders the whole explanation of the work is the power of Him by whom it is
wrought.

   CHAP. III. -- 9. The fact that He took rest in sleep, and was nourished
by food, and experienced all the feelings of humanity, is the evidence to
men of the reality of that human nature which He assumed but did not
destroy. Behold, this was the fact; and yet some heretics, by a perverted
admiration and praise of His power, have refused altogether to  acknowledge
the reality of His human nature, in which is he guarantee of all that grace
by which He saves those who believe in Him, containing deep treasures of
wisdom and knowledge, and imparting faith to the minds which He raises to
the eternal contemplation of unchangeable truth. What if the Almighty had
created the human nature of Christ not by causing Him to be born of a
mother, but by some other way, and had presented Him suddenly to the eyes
of mankind? What if the Lord had not passed through the stages of progress
from infancy to manhood, and had taken neither food nor sleep? Would not
this have confirmed the erroneous impression above referred to, and have
made it impossible to believe at all that He had taken to Himself true
human nature; and, while leaving what was marvellous, would eliminate the
element of mercy from His actions? But now He has so appeared as the
Mediator between God and men, that, uniting the two natures in one person,
He both exalted what was ordinary by what was extraordinary, and tempered
what was extraordinary by what was ordinary in Himself.

   10. But where in all the varied movements of creation is there any work
of God which is not wonderful, were it not that through familiarity these
wonders have become small in our esteem? Nay, how many common things are
trodden under foot, which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment!
Take, for example, the propertries of seeds: who can either comprehend or
declare the variety of species, the vitality, vigour, and secret power by
which they from within small compass evolve great things? Now the human
body and soul which He took to Himself was created without seed by Him who
in the natural world created originally seeds from no pre-existent seeds.
In the body which thus became His, he who, without any liability to change
in Himself, has woven according to His counsel the vicissitudes of all past
centuries, became subject o the succession of seasons and the ordinary
rages of the life of man. For His body, as it began to exist at a point of
time, became developed with the lapse of time. But the Word of God, who was
in the beginning, and to whom, he ages of time owe their existence, did not
how to time as bringing round the event of His incarnation apart from His
consent, but chose he point of time at which He freely took our nature to
Himself. The human nature was brought into union with the divine; God did
not withdraw from Himself.

   11. Some resist upon being furnished with an explanation of the manner
in which the Godhead was so united with a human soul and body as to
constitute the one person of Christ, when it was necessary that this should
be done once in the world's history, with as much boldness as if they were
themselves able to furnish an explanation  of the manner in which the soul
is so united to: he body as to constitute the one person of man, an event
which is occurring every day. For just as the soul is united to the body in
one person so as to constitute man, in the same way God united to man in
one person so as to constitute Christ. In the former personality there is a
combination of soul and body; in the latter here is a combination of the
Godhead and man. I let my reader, however, guard against borrowing his idea
of the combination from the properties of material bodies, by which two
fluids when combined are so mixed that neither preserves its original
character; although even among material bodies there are exceptions, such
as light, which sustains no change when combined with the atmosphere. In
the person of man, therefore, there is a combination of soul and body; in
the person of Christ there is a combination of the Godhead with man; for
when the Word of God was united to a soul having a body, He took into union
with Himself both the soul and the body. The former event takes place daily
in the beginning of life in individuals of the human race; the latter took
place once for the salvation of men. And yet of the two events, the
combination of two immaterial substances ought to be more easily behaved
than a combination in which the one is immaterial and the other material.
For if the soul is not mistaken in regard to its own nature, it understands
itself to be immaterial. Much more certainly does this attribute belong to
the Word of God; and consequently the combination of the Word with the
human soul is a combination which ought to be much more credible than that
of soul and body. The latter is realized by us in ourselves; the former we
are commanded to believe to have been realized in Christ. But if both of
them were alike foreign to our experience, and we were enjoined to believe
that both had taken place, which of the two would we more readily believe
to have occurred? Would were not admit that two immaterial substances could
be more easily combined than one immaterial and one material; unless,
perhaps, it be unsuitable to use the word combination in connection with
these things, because of the difference between their nature and that of
material substances, both in themselves and as known to us ?

   12. Wherefore the Word of God, who is also the Son of God, co-eternal
with the Father, the Power and the Wisdom of God,(2) mightily pervading and
harmoniously ordering all things, from the highest limit of the intelligent
to the lowest limit of the material creation,(3) revealed and concealed,
nowhere confined, nowhere divided, nowhere distended, but without
dimensions, everywhere present in His entirety, -- this Word of God, I say,
took to Himself, in a manner entirely different from that in which He is
present to other creatures, the soul and body of a man, and made, by the
union of Himself therewith, the one person Jesus Christ, Mediator between
God and men,(4) he His Deity equal with the Father, in His flesh, i.e. in
His human nature, inferior to the Father, -- unchangeably immortal in
respect of the divine nature, in which He is equal with the Father, and yet
changeable and mortal in respect of the infirmity which was His through
participation with our nature.

   In this Christ there came to men, at the time which He knew to be most
fitting, and which He had fixed before the world began, the instruction and
the help necessary to the obtaining of eternal salvation. Instruction came
by Him, because those truths which had been, for men's advantage, spoken
before that time on earth not only by the holy prophets, all whose words
were true, but also by philosophers and even poets and authors in every
department of literature (for beyond question they mixed much truth with
what was false), might by the actual presentation of His authority in human
nature be confirmed as true for the sake of those who could not perceive
and distinguish them in the light of essential Truth, which Truth was, even
before He assumed human nature, present to all who were capable of
receiving truth. Moreover, by the fact of His incarnation, He taught this
above all other things for our benefit, -- that whereas men longing after
the Divine Being supposed, from pride rather than piety, that they must
approach Him not directly, but through heavenly powers which they regarded
as gods, and through various forbidden rites which were holy but profane, -
- in which worship devils succeed, through the bond which pride forms
between mankind and them in taking the place of holy angels, -- now men
might understand that the God whom they were regarding as far removed, and
whom they approached not directly but through mediating powers, is actually
so very near to the pious longings of men after Him, that He has
condescended to take a human soul and body into such union with Himself
that this complete man is joined to Him in the same way as the body is
joined to the soul in man, excepting that whereas both body and soul have a
common progressive development, He does not participate in this growth,
because it implies mutability, a property which God cannot assume. Again,
in this Christ the held necessary to salvation was brought to men, for
without the grace of that faith which is from Him, no one can either subdue
vicious desires, or be cleansed by pardon from the guilt of any power of
sinful desire which he may not have wholly vanquished. As to the effects
produced by His instruction, is there now even an imbecile, however weak,
or a silly woman, however low, that does not believe in the immortality of
the soul and the reality of a life after death? Yet these are truths which,
when Pherecydes  the Assyrian for the first time  maintained them in
discussion among the Greeks of old, moved Pythagoras of Samos so deeply by
their novelty, as to make him turn from the exercises of the athlete to the
studies of the philosopher. But now what Virgil said we all behold: "The
balsam of Assyria grows everywhere."(2) And as to the help given through
the grace of Christ, in Him truly are the words of the same poet fulfilled:
"With Thee as our leader, the obliteration of all the traces of our sin
which remain shall deliver the earth from perpetual alarm." (3)

   CHAP. IV. -- 13. "But," they say, "the proofs of so great majesty did
not shine forth with adequate fulness of evidence; for the casting out of
devils, the healing of the sick, and the restoration of the dead to life
are but small works for God to do, if the others who have wrought similar
wonders be borne in mind." (4) We ourselves admit that the prophets wrought
some miracles like those performed by Christ. For among these miracles what
is more wonderful than the raising of the dead? Yet both Elijah and Elisha
did this.(4) As to the miracles of magicians, and the question whether they
also raised the dead, let those pronounce an opinion who strive, not as
accusers, but as panegyrists, to prove Apuleius guilty of those charges of
practising magical arts from which he himself takes abundant pains to
defend his reputation. We read that the magicians of Egypt, the most
skilled in these arts, were vanquished by Moses, the servant of God, when
they were working wonderfully by impious enchantments, and he, by simply
calling upon God in prayer, overthrew all their machinations.(6) But this
Moses himself and all the other true prophets prophesied concerning the
Lord Christ, and gave to Him great glory; they predicted that He would come
not as One merely equal or superior to them in the same power of working
miracles, but as One who was truly God the Lord of all, and who became man
for the benefit of men. He was pleased to do also some miracles, such as
they had done, to prevent the incongruity of His not doing in person such
things as He had done by them. Nevertheless, He was to do also some things
peculiar to Him, self, namely, to be born of a virgin, to rise from the
dead, to ascend to heaven. I know not what greater things he can look for
who thinks these too little for God to do.

   14. For I think that such signs of divine power are demanded by these
objectors as were not suitable for Him to do when wearing the nature of
men. The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God, and by Him all things were made.(7) Now, when the Word became
flesh, was it necessary for Him to create another world, that we might
believe Him to be the person by whom the world was made? But within this
world it would have been impossible to make another greater than itself, or
equal to it. If, however, He were to make a world inferior to that which
now exists, this, too, would be considered too small a work to prove His
deity. Wherefore, since it was not necessary that He should make a new
world, He made new things in the world. For that a man should be born of a
virgin, and raised from the dead to eternal life, and exalted above the
heavens, is perchance a work involving a greater exertion of power than the
creating of a world. Here, probably, objectors ma, answer that they do not
believe that these things took place. What, then, can be done for men who
despise smaller evidences as inadequate, and reject greater evidences as
incredible? That life has been restored to the dead is believed, because it
has been accomplished by others, and I is too small a work to prove him who
performs it to be God: that a true body was created in a virgin, and being
raised from death to eternal life, was taken up to heaven, is not believed,
because no one else has done this, and it is what God alone could do. On
this principle every man is to accept with equanimity whatever he thinks
easy for himself not indeed to do, but to conceive, and is to reject as
false and fictitious whatever goes beyond that limit. I beseech you, do'
not be like these men.

   15. These topics are elsewhere more amply discussed, and in fundamental
questions of doctrine every intricate point has been opened up by thorough
investigation and debate; but faith gives the understanding access to these
things, unbelief closes the door. What man might not be moved to faith in
the doctrine of Christ by such a remarkable chain of events from the
beginning, and by the manner in which the epochs of the world are linked
together, so that our faith in regard to present things is assisted by what
happened in the past, and the record of earlier and ancient things is
attested by later and more recent events? One is chosen from among the
Chaldeans, a man endowed with most eminent piety and faith, that to him may
be given divine promises, appointed to be fulfilled in the last times of
the world, after the lapse of so many centuries; and it is foretold that in
his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. This man,
worshipping the one true God, the Creator of the universe, begets in his
old age a son, when sterility and advanced years had made his wife give up
all expectation of becoming a mother. The descendants of this son become a
very numerous tribe, being increased in Egypt, to which place they had been
removed from the East, by Divine Providence multiplying as time went on
both the promises given and the works wrought on their behalf. From Egypt
they come forth a mighty nation, being brought out with terrible signs and
wonders; and the wicked nations of the promised land being driven out from
before them, they are brought into it and settled there, and exalted to the
position of a kingdom. Thereafter, frequently provoking by prevailing sin
and idolatrous impieties the true God, who had bestowed on them so many
benefits, and experiencing alternately the chastisements of calamity land
the consolations of restored prosperity, the history of the nation is
brought down to the incarnation and the manifestation of Christ.
Predictions that this Christ, being the Word of God, the Son of God, and
God Himself, was to become incarnate, to die, to rise again, to ascend into
heaven, to have multitudes of all nations through the power of His name
surrendering themselves to Him, and that by Him pardon of sins and eternal
salvation would be given to all who believe in Him,- these predictions, I
say, have been published by all tim promises given to that nation, by all
the prophecies, the institution of the priesthood, the sacrifices, the
temple, and, in short, by all their sacred mysteries.

   16. Accordingly Christ comes: in His birth, life, words, deeds,
sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, all which the prophets had
foretold is fulfilled.(2) He sends the Holy Spirit; fills with this Spirit
the believers when they are assembled in one house, and expecting with
prayer and ardent desire this promised gift. Being thus filled with the
Holy Spirit, they speak immediately in the tongues of all nations, they
boldly confute errors, they preach the truth that is most profitable for
mankind, they exhort men to repent of their past blameworthy lives, and
promise pardon by the free grace of God. Signs and miracles suitable for
confirmation follow their preaching of piety and of the true religion. The
cruel enmity of unbelief is stirred up against them; they bear predicted
trials, they hope for promised blessings, and teach that which they had
been commanded to make known. Few in number at first, they become scattered
like seed throughout the world; they convert nations with wondrous
facility; they grow in number in the midst of enemies; they become
increased by persecutions; and, under the severity of hardships, instead of
being straitened, they extend their influence to the utmost boundaries of
the earth. From being very ignorant, despised, and few, They become
enlightened, distinguished, and numerous, men of illustrious talents and of
polished eloquence; they also bring under the yoke of Christ, and attract
to the work of preaching the way of holiness and salvation, the marvellous
attainments of men remarkable for genius, eloquence, and erudition. Amid
alternations of adversity and prosperity, they watchfully practise patience
and self-control; and when the world's day is drawing near its close, and
the approaching consummation is heralded by the calamities which exhaust
its energies, they, seeing in this the fulfilment of prophecy, only expect
with increased. confidence the everlasting blessedness of the heavenly
city. Moreover, amidst all these changes, the unbelief of the heathen
nations continues to rage against the Church of Christ; she gains the
victory by patient endurance, and by the maintenance of unshaken faith in
the face of the cruelties of her adversaries. The sacrifice of Him in whom
the truth, long veiled under mystic promises, is revealed, having been
offered, those sacrifices by which it was prefigured are finally abolished
by the utter destruction of the Jewish temple. The Jewish nation, itself
rejected because of unbelief, being now rooted out from its own land, is
dispersed to every region of the world, in order that it may carry
everywhere the Holy Scriptures, and that in this way our adversaries
themselves may bring before mankind the testimony furnished by the
prophecies concerning Christ and His Church, thus precluding the
possibility of the supposition that these predictions were forged by us to
suit the time; in which prophecies, also, the unbelief of these very Jews
is foretold. The temples, images, and impious worship of the heathen
divinities are overthrown gradually and in succession, according to the
prophetic intimations. Heresies bud forth against the name of Christ,
though veiling themselves under His name, as had been foretold, by which
the doctrine of the holy religion is tested and developed. All these things
are now seen to be accomplished, in exact fulfilment of the predictions
which we read in Scripture; and from these important and numerous instances
of fulfilled prophecy, the fulfilment of the predictions which remain is
confidently expected. Where, then, is the mind, having aspirations after
eternity, and moved by the shortness of this present life, which can resist
the clearness and perfection of these evidences of the divine origin of our
faith ?

   CHAP. V. -- 17. What discourses or writings of philosophers, what laws
of any commonwealth in any land or age, are worthy for a moment to be
compared with the two commandments on which Christ saith that all the law
and the prophets hang: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself"? All philosophy is here, -- physics, ethics,
logic: the first, because in God the Creator are all the causes of all
existences in nature; the second, because a good and honest life is not
produced in any other way than by loving, in the manner in which they
should be loved, the proper objects of our love, namely, God and our
neighbour; and the third, because God alone is the Truth and the Light of
the rational soul. Here also is security for the welfare and renown of a
commonwealth; for no state is perfectly established and preserved otherwise
than on the foundation and by the bond of faith and of firm concord, when
the highest and truest common good, namely, God, is loved by all, and men
love each other in Him without dissimulation, because they love one another
for His sake from whom they cannot disguise the real character of their
love.

   18. Consider, moreover, the style in which Sacred Scripture is
composed, -- how accessible it is to all men, though its deeper mysteries
are penetrable to very few. The plain truths which it contains it declares
in the artless language of familiar friendship to the hearts both of the
unlearned and of the learned; but even the truths which it veils in symbols
it does not set forth in stiff and stately sentences, which a mind somewhat
sluggish and uneducated might shrink from approaching, as a poor man
shrinks from the presence of the rich; but, by the condescension of its
style, it invites all not only to be fed with the truth which is plain, but
also to be exercised by the truth which is concealed, having both m its
simple and in its obscure portions the same truth. Lest what is easily
understood should beget satiety in the reader, the same truth being in
another place more obscurely expressed becomes again desired, and, being
desired, is somehow invested with a new attractiveness, and thus is
received with pleasure into the heart. By these means wayward minds are
corrected, weak minds are nourished, and strong minds are filled with
pleasure, in such a way as is profitable to all. This doctrine has no enemy
but the man who, being in error, is ignorant of its incomparable
usefulness, or, being spiritually diseased, is averse to its healing power.

   19. You see what a long letter I have written. If, therefore, anything
perplexes you, and you regard it of sufficient importance to be discussed
between us, let not yourself be straitened by keeping within the bounds of
ordinary letters; for you know as well as any one what long letters the
ancients wrote when they were treating of any subject which they were not
able briefly to explain. And even if the custom of authors in other
departments of literature had been different, the authority of Christian
writers, whose example has a worthier claim upon our imitation, might be
set before us. Observe, therefore, the length of the apostolic epistles,
and of the commentaries written on these divine oracles, and do not
hesitate either to ask many questions if you have many difficulties, or to
handle more fully the questions which you propound, in order that, in so
far as it can be achieved with such abilities as we possess, there may
remain no cloud of doubt to obscure the light of truth.

   20. For I am aware that your Excellency has to encounter the most
determined opposition from certain persons, who think, or would have others
think, that Christian doctrine is incompatible with the welfare of the
commonwealth, because they wish to see the commonwealth established not by
the stedfast practice of virtue, but by granting impunity to vice. But with
God the crimes in which many are banded together do not pass unavenged, as
is often the case with a king, or any other magistrate who is only a man.
Moreover, His mercy and grace, published to men by Christ, who is Himself
man, and imparted to man by the same Christ, who is also God and the Son of
God, never fail those who live by faith in Him and piously worship Him, in
adversity patiently and bravely bearing the trials of this life, in
prosperity using with self-control and with compassion for others the good
things of this life; destined to receive, for faithfulness in both
conditions, an eternal recompense in that divine and heavenly city in which
there shall be no longer calamity to be painfully endured, nor inordinate
desire to be with laborious care controlled, where our only work shall be
to preserve, without any difficulty and with perfect liberty, our love to
God and to our neighbour.

   May the infinitely compassionate omnipotence of God preserve you in
safety and increase your happiness, my noble and distinguished Lord, and my
most excellent son. With profound respect, as is due to your worth, I
salute your pious and most truly venerable mother, whose prayers on your
behalf may God hear! My pious brother and fellow bishop, Possidius, warmly
salutes your Grace.

LETTER CXXXVIII. (A.D. 412.)

TO MARCELLINUS, MY NOBLE AND JUSTLY FAMOUS LORD, MY SON MOST BELOVED AND
LONGED FOR, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   CHAP. I -- 1. In writing to the illustrious and most eloquent
Volusianus, whom we both sincerely love, I thought it right to confine
myself to answering the questions which he thought proper himself to state;
but as to the questions which you have submitted to me in your letter for
discussion and solution, as suggested or proposed either by Volusianus
himself or by others, it is fitting that such reply to these as I may be
able to give should be addressed to you. I shall attempt this, not in the
manner in which it would require to be done in a formal treatise, but in
the manner which is suitable to the conversational familiarity of a letter,
in order that, if you, who know their state of mind by daily discussions,
think it expedient, this letter also may be read to your friends. But if
this communication be not adapted to them, because of their not being
prepared by the piety of faith to give ear to it, let what you consider
adapted to them be in the first place prepared between ourselves, and
afterwards let what may have been thus prepared be communicated to them.
For there are many things from which their minds may in the meantime shrink
and recoil, which they may perhaps by and by be persuaded to accept as
true, either by the use of more copious and skilful arguments, or by an
appeal to authority which, in their opinion, may not without impropriety be
resisted.

   2. In your letter you state that some are perplexed by the question,
"Why this God, who is proved to be the God also of the Old Testament, is
pleased with new sacrifices after having rejected the ancient ones. For
they allege that nothing can be corrected but that which is proved to have
been previously not rightly done, or that what has once been done rightly
ought not to be altered in the very least: that which has been rightly
done, they say, cannot be changed without wrong." I quote these words from
your letter. Were I disposed to give a copious reply to this objection,
time would fail me long before I had exhausted the instances in which the
processes of nature itself and the works of men undergo changes according
to the circumstances of, the time, while, at the same time, there is
nothing mutable in the plan or principle by which these changes are
regulated. Of these I may mention a few, that, stimulated by them, your
wakeful observation may run, as it were, from them to many more of the same
kind. Does not summer follow winter, the temperature gradually increasing
in warmth? Do not night and day in turn succeed each other? How often do
our own lives experience changes! Boyhood departing, never to return, gives
place to youth; manhood, destined itself to continue only for a season,
takes in turn the place of youth; and old age, closing the term of manhood,
is itself closed by death.(2) All these things are changed, but the plan of
Divine Providence which appoints these successive changes is not changed. I
suppose, also, that the principles of agriculture are not changed when the
farmer appoints a different work to be done in summer from that which he
had ordered in winter. He who rises in the morning, after resting by night,
is not supposed to have changed the plan of his life. The schoolmaster
gives to the adult different tasks from those which he was accustomed to
prescribe to the scholar in his boyhood his teaching, consistent
throughout, changes the instruction when the lesson is changed, without
itself being changed.

   3. The eminent physician of our own times, Vindicianus, being consulted
by an invalid, prescribed for his disease what seemed to him a suitable
remedy at that time; health was restored by its use. Some years afterwards,
finding himself troubled again with the same disorder, the patient supposed
that the same remedy should be applied; but its application made his
illness worse. In astonishment, he again returns to the physician, and
tells him what had happened; whereupon he, being a man of very quick
penetration, answered: "The reason of your having been harmed by this
application is, that I did not order it;" upon which all who heard the
remark and did not know the man supposed that he was trusting not in the
art of medicine, but in some forbidden supernatural power. When he was
afterwards questioned by some who were amazed at his words, he explained
what they had not understood, namely, that he would not have prescribed the
same remedy to the patient at t. he age which he had now attained. While,
therefore, the principle J and methods of art remain unchanged, the change
which, in accordance with them, may be made necessary by the difference of
times is: very great.

   4. To say then, that what has once been done rightly must in no respect
whatever be changed, is to affirm what is not true. For if the
circumstances of time which occasioned anything be changed, true reason in
almost all cases demands that what had been in the former circumstances
rightly done, be now so altered that, although they say that it is not
rightly done if it be changed, truth, on the contrary, protests that it is
not rightly done unless it be changed; because, at both times, it will be
rightly done if the difference be regulated according to the difference in
the times. For just as in the cases of different persons it may happen
that, at the same moment, one man may do with impunity what another man may
not, because of a difference not in the thing done but in the person who
does it, so in the case of one and the same person at different times, that
which was duty formerly is not duty now, not because the person is
different from his former self, but because the time at which he does it is
different.

   5. The wide range opened up by this question may be seen by any one who
is competent and careful to observe the contrast between the beautiful and
the suitable, examples of which are i scattered, we may say, throughout the
universe. For the beautiful, to which the ugly and deformed is opposed, is
estimated and praised according to what it is in itself. But the suitable,
to which the incongruous is opposed, depends on something else to which it
is bound, and is estimated not according to what it is in itself, but
according to that with which it is connected: the contrast, also, between
becoming and unbecoming is either the same, or at least regarded as the
same. Now apply what we have said to the subject in hand. The divine
institution of sacrifice was suitable in the former dispensation, but is
not suitable now. For the change suitable to the present age has been
enjoined by God, who knows infinitely better than man what is fitting for
every age, and who is, whether He give or add, abolish or curtail, increase
or diminish, the unchangeable Governor as He is the unchangeable Creator of
mutable things, ordering all events in His providence until the beauty of
the completed course of time, the component parts of which are the
dispensations adapted to each successive age, shall be finished, like the
grand melody of some ineffably wise master of song, and those pass into the
eternal immediate contemplation of God who here, though it is a time of
faith, not of sight, are acceptably worshipping Him.

   6. They are mistaken, moreover, who think that God appoints these
ordinances for His own advantage or pleasure; and no wonder that, being
thus mistaken, they are perplexed, as if it was from a changing mood that
He ordered one thing to be offered to Him in a former age, and something
else now. But this is not the case. God enjoins nothing for His own
advantage, but for the benefit of those to whom the injunction is given.
Therefore He is truly Lord, for He does not need His servants, but His
servants stand in need of Him. In those same Old Testament Scriptures, and
in the age in which sacrifices were still being offered that are now
abrogated, it is said: "I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou
dost not need my good things." therefore God did not stand in need of those
sacrifices, nor does He ever need anything; but there are certain acts,
symbolical of these divine gifts, whereby the soul receives either present
grace or eternal glory, in the celebration and practice of which, pious
exercises, serviceable not to God but to ourselves, are performed.

   7. It would, however, take too long to discuss with adequate fulness
the differences between the symbolical actions of former and present times,
which, because of their pertaining to divine things, are called sacraments.
For as the man is not fickle who does one thing in the morning and another
in the evening, one thing this month and another in the next, one thing
this year and another next year, so there is no variableness with God,
though in the former period of the world's history He enjoined one kind of
offerings, and in the latter period another, therein ordering the
symbolical actions pertaining to the blessed doctrine of true religion in
harmony with the changes of successive epochs. without any change in
Himself. For in order to let those whom these things perplex understand
that the change was already in the divine counsel, and that, when the new
ordinances were! appointed, it was not because the old had suddenly lost
the divine approbation through inconstancy in His will, but that this had
been already fixed and determined by the wisdom of that God to whom, in
reference to much greater changes, these words are spoken in Scripture:
"Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the
same,"(2)--it is necessary to convince them that this exchange of the
sacraments of the Old Testament for those of the New had been predicted by
the voices of the prophets. For thus they will see, if they can see
anything, that what is new in time is not new in relation to Him who has
appointed the tithes, and who possesses, without succession of time, all
those things which He assigns according to their variety to the several
ages. For in the psalm from which I have quoted above the words: "I said
unto the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou dost not need my good things," in
proof that God does not need our sacrifices, it is added shortly after by
the Psalmist in Christ's name: "I will not gather their assemblies of
blood;"(3) that is, for tile offering of animals from their flocks, for
which the Jewish assemblies were wont to be gathered together; and in
another place he says: "I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-
goat from thy folds; "(4) and another prophet says: "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 that I made with
their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out 'of
the land of Egypt."(4) There are, besides these, many other testimonies on
this subject in which it was foretold that God would do as He has done; but
it would take too long to mention them.

   8. If it is now established that that which was for one age rightly
ordained may be in another age rightly changed,--the alteration indicating
a change in the work, not in tile plan, of Him who makes the change, the
plan being framed by His reasoning faculty, to which, unconditioned by
succession in time, those things are simultaneously present which cannot be
actually done at the same time because the ages succeed each other,--one
might perhaps at this point expect to hear from me the causes of the change
in question. You know how long it would take to discuss these fully. The
matter may be stated summarily, but sufficiently for a man of shrewd
judgment, in these words: It was fitting that Christ's future coming should
be foretold by some sacraments, and that after His coming other sacraments
should proclaim this; just as the difference in the facts has compelled us
to change the words .used by us in speaking of the advent as future or
past: to be foretold is one thing, to be proclaimed is another, and to be
about to come is one thing, to have come is another.

   CHAP. II. -- 9. Let us now observed in the second place, what follows
in your letter.(6) You have added that they said that the Christian
doctrine and preaching were in no way consistent with the duties and rights
of citizens, because among its precepts we find: "Recompense to no man evil
for evil,"(7) and, "Whosoever shall smite thee on one cheek, turn to him
the other also; and if any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also; and whosoever will compel thee to go a mile with him, go with him
twain,''(8)--all which are affirmed to be contrary to the duties and rights
of citizens; for who would submit to have anything taken from him by an
enemy, or forbear from retaliating the evils of war upon an invader who
ravaged a Roman province? To these and similar statements of persons
speaking slightingly, or perhaps I should rather say speaking as inquirers
regarding the truth, I might have given a more elaborate answer, were it
not that the persons with whom the discussion is carried on are men of
liberal education. In addressing such, why should we prolong the debate,
and not rather begin by inquiring for ourselves how it was possible that
the Republic of Rome was governed and aggrandized from insignificance and
poverty to greatness and opulence by men who, when they had suffered wrong,
would rather pardon than punish the offender; (9) or how Cicero, addressing
Caesar, the greatest statesman of his time, said, in praising his
character, that he was wont to forget nothing but the wrongs which were
done to him? For in this Cicero spoke either praise or flattery: if he
spoke praise, it was because he knew Caesar to be such as he affirmed; if
he spoke flattery, he showed that the chief magistrate of a commonwealth
ought to do such things as he falsely commended in Caesar. But what is "not
rendering evil for evil," but refraining from the passion of revenge--in
other words, choosing, when one has suffered wrong, to pardon rather than
to punish the offender, and to forget nothing but the wrongs done to us?

   10. When these things are read in their own authors, they are received
with loud applause; they are regarded as the record and recommendation of
virtues in the practice of which the Republic deserved to hold sway over so
many nations, because its citizens preferred to pardon rather than punish
those who wronged them. But when the precept, "Render to no man evil for
evil," is read as given by divine authority, and when, from the pulpits in
our churches, this wholesome counsel is published in the midst of our
congregations, or, as we might say, in places of instruction open to all,
of both sexes and of all ages and ranks, our religion is accused as an
enemy to the Republic! Yet, were our religion listened to as it deserves,
it would establish, consecrate, strengthen, and enlarge the commonwealth in
a way beyond all that Romulus, Numa, Brutus, and all the other men of
renown in Roman history achieved. For what' is a republic but a
commonwealth? Therefore its interests are common to all; they are the
interests of the State. Now what is a State but a multitude of men bound
together by some bond of concord? In one of their own authors we read:
"What was a scattered and unsettled multitude had by concord become in a
short time a State." But what exhortations to concord have they ever
appointed to be read in their temples? So far from this, they were
unhappily compelled to devise how they might worship without giving offence
to any of their gods, who were all at such variance among themselves, that,
had their worshippers imitated their quarrelling, the State must have
fallen to pieces for want of the bond of concord, as it soon afterwards
began to do through civil wars, when the morals of the people were changed
and corrupted.

   11. But who, even though he be a stranger to our religion, is so deaf
as not to know how many precepts enjoining concord, not invented by the
discussions of men, but written with the authority of God, are continually
read in the churches of Christ? For this is the tendency even of those
precepts which they are much more willing to debate than to follow: "That
to him who smites us on one cheek we should offer the other to be smitten;
to him who would take away our coat we should give our cloak also; and that
with him who compels us to go one mile we should go twain." For these
things are done only that a wicked man may be overcome by kindness, or
rather that the evil which is in the wicked man may be overcome by good,
and that the man may be delivered from the evil-not from any evil that is
external and foreign to himself, but from that which is within and is his
own, under which he suffers loss more severe and fatal than could be
inflicted by the cruelty of any enemy from without. He, therefore, who is
overcoming evil by good, submits patiently to the loss of temporal
advantages, that he may show how those things, through excessive love of
which the other is made wicked, deserve to be despised when compared with
faith and righteousness; in order that so the injurious person may learn
from him whom he wronged what is the true nature of the things for the sake
of which he committed the wrong, and may be won back with sorrow for his
sin to that concord, than which nothing is more serviceable to the State,
being overcome not by the strength of one passionately resenting, but by
the good-nature of one patiently bearing wrong. For then it is rightly done
when it seems that it will benefit him for whose sake it is done, by
producing in him amendment of his ways and concord with others. At all
events, it is to be done with this intention, even though the result may be
different from what was expected, and the man, with a view to whose
correction and conciliation this healing and salutary medicine, so to
speak, was employed, refuses to be corrected and reconciled.

   12. Moreover, if we pay attention to the words of the precept, and
consider ourselves under bondage to the literal interpretation, the right
cheek is not to be presented by us if the left has been smitten.
"Whosoever," it is said, "shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also;"(2) but the left cheek is more liable to be smitten,
because it is easier for the right hand of the assailant to smite it than
the other. But the words are commonly understood as if our Lord had said:
If any one has acted injuriously to thee in respect of the higher
possessions which thou hast, offer to him also the inferior possessions,
lest, being more concerned about revenge than about forbearance, thou
shouldst despise eternal things in comparison with temporal things, whereas
temporal things ought to be despised in comparison with eternal things, as
the left is in comparison with the right. This has been always the aim of
the holy martyrs; for final vengeance is righteously! demanded only when
there remains no room for amendment, namely, in the last great judgment.
Rut meanwhile we must be on our guard, lest, through desire for revenge, we
lose patience itself, -- a virtue which is of more value than all which an
enemy can, in spite of our resistance, take away from us. For another
evangelist, in recording the same precept, makes no mention of the right
cheek, but names merely the one and the other; so that, while the duty may
be somewhat more distinctly learned from Matthew's gospel, he simply
commends the same exercise of patience. Wherefore a righteous and pious man
ought to be prepared to endure with patience injury from those whom he
desires to make good, so that the number of good men may be increased,
instead of himself being added, by retaliation of injury, to the number of
wicked men.

   13. In fine, that these precepts pertain rather to the inward
disposition of the heart than to the actions which ate done in the sight of
men, requiring us, in the inmost heart, to cherish patience along with
benevolence, but in the outward action to do that which seems most likely
to benefit those whose good we ought to seek, is manifest from the fact
that our Lord Jesus Himself, our perfect example of patience, when He was
smitten on the face, answered: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the
evil, but if not, why smitest thou me?"(2) If we look only to the words, He
did not in this obey His own precept, for He did not present the other side
of his face to him who had smitten Him but, on the contrary, prevented him
who hac . done the wrong from adding thereto; and yet He had come prepared
not only to be smitten on the face, but even to be slain upon the cross for
those at whose hands He suffered crucifixion, and for whom, when hanging on
the cross, He prayed, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!
"(3) In like manner, the Apostle Paul seems to have failed to obey the
precept of his Lord and Master, when he, being smitten on the face as He
had been, said to the chief priest: "God shall smite thee, thou whited
wall, for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be
smitten contrary to the! law?" And when it was said by them that stood
near, "Revilest thou God's high priest?" he took pains sarcastically to
indicate what his words meant, that those of them who were discerning might
understand that now the whited wall, i.e. the hypocrisy of the Jewish
priesthood, was appointed to be thrown down by the coming of Christ; for He
said: "I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is
written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people;"(4) although
it is perfectly certain that he who had grown up in that nation and had
been in that place trained in the law, could not but know that his judge
was the chief priest, and could not, by professing ignorance on this point,
impose upon those to whom he was so well known.

   14. These precepts concerning patience ought to be always retained in
the habitual discipline of the heart, and the benevolence which prevents
the recompensing of evil for evil must be always fully cherished in the
disposition. At the same time, many things must be done in correcting with
a certain benevolent severity, even against their own wishes, men whose
welfare rather than their wishes it is our duty to consult and the
Christian Scriptures have most unambiguously commended this virtue in a
magistrate. For in the correction of a so, even with some sternness, there
is assuredly no diminution of a father's love; yet, in the correction, that
is done which is received with reluctance and pain by one whom it seems
necessary to heal by pain. And on this principle, if the commonwealth
observe the precepts of the Christian religion, even its wars themselves
will not be carried on without the benevolent design that, after the
resisting nations have been conquered, provision may be more easily made
for enjoying in peace the mutual bond of piety and justice. For the person
from whom is taken away the freedom which he abuses in doing i wrong is
vanquished with benefit to himself; since nothing is more truly a
misfortune than that good fortune of offenders, by which pernicious
impunity is maintained, and the evil disposition, like an enemy within the
man, is strengthened. But the perverse and froward . hearts of men think
human affairs are prosperous when men are concerned about magnificent
mansions, and indifferent to the ruin of souls; when mighty theatres are
built up, and the foundations of virtue are undermined; when the madness of
extravagance is highly esteemed, and works of mercy are scorned; when, out
of , the wealth and affluence of rich men, luxurious provision is made for
actors, and the poor are . grudged the necessaries of life; when that God
!who, by the public declarations of His doctrine, protests against public
vice, is blasphemer by impious communities, which demand gods of such
character that even those theatrical representations which bring disgrace
to both body and soul are fitly performed in honour of them. If God permit
these things to prevail, He is in that permission showing more grievous
displeasure: if He leave these crimes unpunished, such impunity is a more
terrible judgment. When, on the other hand, He overthrows the props of
vice, and reduces to poverty those lusts which were nursed by plenty, He
afflicts in mercy. And in mercy, also, if such a thing were possible, even
wars might be waged by the good, in order that, by bringing under the yoke
the unbridled lusts of men, those vices might be abolished which ought,
under a just government, to be either extirpated or suppressed.

   15. For if the Christian religion condemned wars of every kind, the
command given in the gospel to soldiers asking counsel as to salvation
would rather be to cast away their arms, and withdraw themselves wholly
from military service; whereas the word spoken to such was, "Do violence to
no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages,"--the
command to be content with their wages! manifestly implying no prohibition
to continue m the service. Wherefore, let those who say that the doctrine
of Christ is incompatible with the State's well-being, give us an army
composed of soldiers such as the doctrine of Christ requires them to be;
let them give us such subjects, such husbands and wives, such parents! and
children, such masters and servants, such! kings, such judges--in fine,
even such taxpayers and tax-gatherers, as the Christian religion has taught
that men should be, and then let them dare to say that it is adverse to the
State's well-being; yea, rather, let them no longer hesitate to confess
that this doctrine, if it were obeyed, would be the salvation of the
commonwealth.

   CHAP. III -- 16. But what am I to answer to the assertion made that
many calamities have befallen the Roman Empire through some Christian
emperors? This sweeping accusation is a calumny. For if they would more
clearly quote some indisputable facts in support of it from the history of
past emperors, I also could mention similar, perhaps even greater
calamities in the reigns of other emperors who were not Christians; so that
men may understand that these were either faults in the men, not in their
religion, or were due not to the emperors themselves, but to others without
whom emperors can do nothing. As to the date of the commencement of the
downfall of the Roman Republic, there is ample evidence; their own
literature speaks plainly as to this. Long before the name of Christ had
shone abroad on the earth, this was said of Rome: "O venal city, and doomed
to perish speedily, if only it could find a purchaser!"(2) In his book on
the Catilinarian conspiracy, which was before the coming of Christ, the
same most illustrious Roman historian declares plainly the time when the
army of the Roman people began to be wanton and drunken; to set a high
value on statues, paintings, and embossed vases; to take these by violence
both from individuals and from the State; to rob temples and pollute
everything, sacred and profane. When, therefore, the avarice and grasping
violence of the corrupt and abandoned manners of the time spared neither
men nor those whom they esteemed as gods, the famous honour and safety of
the commonwealth began to decline. What progress the worst vices made from
that time forward, and with how great mischief to the interests of mankind
the wickedness of the Empire went on, it would take too long to rehearse.
Let them hear their own satirist speaking playfully yet truly thus: --

   Once poor, and therefore chaste, in former times
   Our matrons were no luxury found room
   In low-roofed houses and bare walls of loam;
   Their hands with labour burdened while 'tis light,
   A frugal sleep supplied the quiet night;
   While, pinched with want, their hunger held them strait,
   When Hannibal was hovering at the gate;
   But wanton now, and lolling at our ease,
   We suffer all the inveterate ills of peace
   And wasteful riot, whose destructive charms
   Revenge the vanquished world of our victorious arms.
   No crime, no lustful postures are unknown,
   Since poverty, our guardian-god, is gone."(3)

Why, then, do you expect me to multiply examples of the evils which were
brought in by wickedness uplifted by prosperity, seeing that among
themselves, those who observed events with somewhat' closer attention
discerned that Rome had more reason to regret the departure of its poverty
than of its opulence; because in its poverty the integrity of its virtue
was secured, but through its opulence, dire corruption, more terrible than
any invader, had taken violent possession not of the walls of the city, but
of the mind of the State ?

   17. Thanks be unto the Lord our God, who has sent unto us unprecedented
help in resisting these evils. For whither might not men have been carried
away by that flood of the appalling wickedness of the human race, whom
would it have spared, and in what depths would it not have engulfed its
victims, had not the cross of Christ, resting on such a solid rock of
authority (so to speak), been planted too high add too strong for the flood
to sweep it away? so that by laying hold of its strength we may become
stedfast, and not be carried off our feet and overwhelmed in the mighty
whirlpool of the evil counsels and evil impulses of this world. For when
the empire was sinking in the vile abyss of utterly depraved manners, and
of the effete ancient religion, it was signally important that heavenly
authority should come to the rescue, persuading men to the practice of
voluntary poverty, continence, benevolence, justice, and concord among
themselves, as well as true piety towards God, and all the other bright and
sterling virtues of life, -- not only with a view to the I spending of this
present life in the most honourable way, nor only with a view to secure the
most perfect bond of concord in the earthly common wealth, but also in
order to the obtaining of eternal salvation, and a place in the divine and
celestial republic of a people which shall endure for ever--a republic to
the citizenship of which faith, hope, and charity admit us; so that, while
absent from it on our pilgrimage here, we may patiently tolerate, if we
cannot correct, those who desire, by leaving vices unpunished, to give
stability to that republic which the early Romans founded and enlarged by
their virtues, when, though they had not the true piety towards the true
God which could bring them, by a religion of saving power, to the
commonwealth which ii eternal, they did nevertheless observe a certain
integrity of its own kind, which might suffice for founding, enlarging, and
preserving an earthly commonwealth. For in the most opulent and illustrious
Empire of Rome, God has shown how great is the influence of even civil
virtues without true religion, in order that it might be understood that,
when this is added to such virtues, men are made citizens of another
commonwealth, of which the king is Truth, the law is Love, and the duration
is Eternity.

   CHAP. IV. -- 18. Who can help feeling that there is something simply
ridiculous in their attempt to compare with Christ, or rather to put in a
higher place, Apollonius and Apuleius, and others who were most skilful in
magical arts? Yet this is to be tolerated with less impatience, because
they bring into comparison with Him these men rather than their own gods;
for Apollonius was, as we must admit, a much worthier character than that
author and perpetrator of innumerable gross acts of immorality whom they
call Jupiter. "These legends about our gods," they reply, "are fables."
Why, then, do they go on praising that luxurious, licentious, and
manifestly profane prosperity of the Republic, which invented these
infamous crimes of the gods, and not only left them to reach the ears of
men as fables, but also exhibited them to the eyes of men in the theatres;
in which, more numerous than their deities were the crimes which the gods
themselves were well pleased to see openly perpetrated in their honour,
whereas they should have punished their worshippers for even tolerating
such spectacles? "But," they reply, "those are not the gods themselves
whose worship is celebrated according to the lying invention of such
fables." Who, then, are they who are propitiated by the practising in
worship of such abominations? Because, forsooth, Christianity has exposed
the perversity and chicanery of those devils, by whose power also magical
arts deceive the minds of men, and because it has made this patent to the
world, and, having brought out the distinction between the holy angels and
these malignant adversaries, has warned men to be on their guard against
them, showing them also how this may be done, -- it is called an enemy to
the Republic, as if, even though temporal prosperity could be secured by
their aid, and, amount of adversity would not be preferable to the
prosperity obtained through such means. And yet it pleased God to prevent
men from being perplexed in this matter; for in the age of the comparative
darkness of the Old Testament, in which is the covering of the New
Testament, He distinguished the first nation which worshiped the true God
and despised false gods by such remarkable prosperity in this world, that
any. ode may perceive from l. heir case that prosperity is not at the
disposal of devils, but only of Him whom angels serve and devils fear.

   19. Apuleius (of whom I choose rather to speak, because, as our own
countryman, he is better known to us Africans), though born in a place of
some note, and a man of superior education and great eloquence, never
succeeded, with all his magical arts, in reaching, I do not say the supreme
power, but even any subordinate office as a magistrate in the Empire. Does
it seem probable that he, as a philosopher, voluntarily despised these
things, who, being the priest of a province, was so ambitious of greatness
that he gave spectacles of gladiatorial combats, provided the dresses worn
by those who fought with wild beasts in the circus, and, in order to get a
statue of himself erected in the town of Coea, the birthplace of his wife,
appealed to law against the opposition made by some of the citizens to the
proposal, and then, to prevent this from being forgotten by posterity,
published the speech delivered by him on that occasion? So far, therefore,
as concerns worldly prosperity, that magician did his utmost in order to
success; whence it is manifest that he failed not because he was not
wishful, but because he was not able to do more. At the same time we admit
that the defended himself with brilliant eloquence against some who imputed
to him the crime of practising magical arts; which makes me wonder at his
panegyrists, who, in affirming that by these arts he wrought some miracles,
attempt to bring evidence contradicting his own defence of himself from the
charge. Let them, however, examine whether, indeed, they are bringing true
testimony, and he was guilty of pleading what he knew to be false. Those
who pursue magical arts only with a view to worldly prosperity or from an
accursed curiosity, and those also who, though innocent of such arts,
nevertheless praise them with a dangerous admiration, I would exhort to
give heed, if they be wise, and to observe how, without any such arts, the
position of a shepherd was exchanged for the dignity of the kingly office
by David, of whom Scripture has faithfully recorded both the sinful and the
meritorious actions, in order that we might know both how to avoid
offending God, and how, when He has been offended, His wrath may be
appeased.

   20. As to those miracles, however, which are performed in order to
excite the wonder of men, they do greatly err who compare heathen magicians
with the holy prophets, who completely eclipse them by the fame of their
great miracles. How much more do they err if they compare them with Christ,
of whom the prophets, so incomparably superior to magicians of every name,
foretold that He would come both in the human nature, which he took in
being born of the Virgin, and in the divine nature, in which He is never
separated from the Father!

   I see that I have written a very long letter, and yet have not said all
concerning Christ which might meet the case either of those who from
sluggishness of intellect are unable to comprehend divine things, or of
those who, though endowed with acuteness, are kept back from discerning
truth through their love of contradiction and the prepossession of their
minds in favour of long-cherished error. Howbeit, take note of anything
which influences them against our doctrine, and write to me again, so that,
if the Lord help us, we may, by letters or by treatises, furnish an answer
to all their objections. May you, by the grace and mercy of the Lord, be
happy in Him, my noble and justly distinguished lord, my son dearly beloved
and longed for!

LETTER CXXXIX. (A.D. 412.)

TO MARCELLINUS, MY LORD JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED MY SON VERY MUCH BELOVED AND
LONGED FOR AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. The Acts which your Excellency promised to send I am eagerly
expecting, and I am longing to have them read as soon as possible in the
church at Hippo, and also, if it can be done, in all the churches
established within the diocese, that all may hear and become thoroughly
familiar with the men who have confessed their crimes, not because the fear
of God subdued them to repentance, but because the rigour of their judges
broke through the hardness of their most cruel hearts, -- some of them
confessing to the murder of one presbyter [Restitutus], and the blinding
and maiming of another [Innocentius]; others not daring to deny that they
might have known of these outrages, although they say that they disapproved
of them, and persisting in the impiety of schism in fellowship with such a
multitude of atrocious villains, while deserting the peace of the Catholic
Church on the pretext of unwillingness to be polluted by other men's
crimes; others declaring that they will not forsake the schismatics, even
though the certainty of Catholic truth and the perversity of the Donatists
have been demonstrated to them. The work, which it has pleased God to
entrust to your diligence, is of great importance. My heart's desire is,
that many similar Donatist cases may be tried and decided by you as these
have been, and that in this way the crimes and the insane obstinacy of
these men may be often brought to light; and that the Acts recording: these
proceedings may be published, and brought !to the knowledge of all men.

   As to the statement in your Excellency's letter, that you are uncertain
whether you ought to command the said Acts to be published in
Theoprepia,(2) my reply is, Let this be done, if a large multitude of
hearers can be gathered there; if this be not the case, some other place of
more general resort must be provided; it must not, however, be omitted on
any account.

   2. As to the punishment of these men, I beseech you to make it
something less severe than sentence of death, although they have, by their
own confession, been guilty of such grievous crimes. I ask this out of a
regard both for our own consciences and for the testimony thereby given to
Catholic clemency. For this is the special advantage secured to us by their
confession, that the Catholic Church has found an opportunity of
maintaining and exhibiting forbearance towards her most violent enemies;
since in a case where such cruelty was practised, any punishment short of
death will be seen by all men to proceed from great leniency. And although
such treatment appears to some of our communion, whose minds are agitated
by these atrocities, to be less than the crimes deserve, and to have
somewhat the aspect of weakness and dereliction of duty, nevertheless, when
the feelings, which are wont to be immoderately excited while such events
are recent, have subsided after a time, the kindness shown to the guilty
will shine with most conspicuous brightness, and men will take much more
pleasure in reading these Acts and showing them to others, my lord justly
distinguished, and son very much beloved and longed for.

   My holy brother and co-bishop Boniface is on the spot, and I have
forwarded by the deacon Peregrinus, who travelled along with him, a letter
of instructions; accept these as representing me. And whatever may seem in
your joint opinion to be for the Church's interest, let it be done with the
help of the Lord, who is able in the midst of so great evils graciously to
succour you. One of their bishops, Macrobius, is at present going round in
all directions, followed by bands of wretched men and women, and has opened
for himself the [Donatist] churches which fear, however slight, had moved
their owners to close for a time. By the presence, however, of one whom I
have commended and again heartily commend to your love, namely, Spondeus,
the deputy of the illustrious Celer, their presumption was indeed somewhat
checked; but now, since his departure to Carthage, Macrobius has opened the
Donatist churches ever within his property, and is gathering congregations
for worship in them. In his company, moreover, is Donatus, a deacon,
rebaptized by them even when he was a tenant of lands belonging to the
Church, who was implicated as a ringleader in the outrage [on Innocentius].
When this man is his associate, who can tell what kind of followers may be
in his retinue? If the sentence on these men is to be pronounced by the
Proconsul, or by both of you together, and if he perchance insist upon
inflicting capital punishment, although he is a Christian and, so far as we
have had opportunity of observing, not disposed to such severity -- if, I
say, his determination make it necessary, order those letters of mine,
which I deemed it my duty to address to you severally on this subject,(2)
to be brought before you while the trial is still going on; for I am
accustomed to hear that it is in the power of the judge to mitigate the
sentence, and inflict a milder penalty than the law prescribes. If,
however, notwithstanding these letters from me, he refuse to grant this
request, let him at least allow that the men be remanded for a time; and we
will endeavour to obtain this concession from the clemency of the Emperors,
so that the sufferings of the martyrs, which ought to shed bright glory on
the Church, may not be tarnished by the blood of their enemies; for I know
that in the case of the clergy in the valley of Anaunia,(3) who were slain
by the Pagans, and are now honoured as martyrs, the Emperor granted readily
a petition that the murderers, who had been discovered and imprisoned,
might not be visited with a capital punishment.

   3. As to the books concerning the baptism of infants, of which I had
sent the original manuscript to your Excellency, I have forgotten for what
reason I received them again from you; unless, perhaps, it was that, after
examining them, I found them faulty, and wished to make some corrections,
which, by reason of extraordinary hindrances, I have not yet been able to
overtake. I must also confess that the letter intended to be addressed to
you and added to these books, and which I had begun to dictate when I was
with you, is still unfinished, little having been added to it since that
time. If, however, I could set before you a statement of the toil which it
is absolutely necessary for me to devote, both by day and by night, to
other duties, you would deeply sympathize with me, and would be astonished
at the amount of business not admitting of delay which distracts my mind
and hinders me from accomplishing those .things to which you urge me in
entreaties and admonitions, addressed to one most willing to oblige you,
and inexpressibly grieved that it is beyond his power; for when I obtain a
little leisure from the urgent necessary business of those men, who so
press me into their service (4) that I am neither able to escape them nor
at liberty to neglect them, there are always subjects to which I must, in
dictating to my amanuenses, give the first place, because they are so
connected with the present hour as not to admit of being postponed. Of such
things one instance was the abridgement of the proceedings at our
Conference,(4) a work involving much labour, but necessary, because I saw
that no one would attempt the perusal of such a mass of writing; another
was a letter to the Donatist laity (6) concerning the said Conference, a
document which I have just completed, after labouring at it for several
nights; another was the composition of two long letters,(7) one addressed
to yourself, my beloved friend, the other to the illustrious Volusianus,
which I suppose you both have received; another is a book, with which I am
occupied at present, addressed to our friend Honoratus,(8) in regard to
five questions proposed by him in a letter to me, and you see that to him I
was unquestionably in duty bound to send a prompt reply. For love deals
with her sons as a nurse does with children, devoting her attention to them
not in the order of the love felt for each, but according to the urgency of
each case; she gives a preference to the weaker, because she -desires to
impart to them such strength as is possessed by the stronger, whom she
passes by meanwhile not because of her slighting them, but because her mind
is at rest in regard to them. Emergencies of this kind, compelling me to
employ my amanuenses in writing on subjects which prevent me from using
their pens in work much more congenial to the ardent desires of my heart,
can never fail to occur, because I have difficulty in obtaining even a very
little leisure, amidst the accumulation of business into which, in spite of
my own inclinations, I am dragged by other men's wishes or necessities; and
what I am to do, I really do not know.

   4. You have heard the burdens, for my deliverance from which I wish you
to join your prayers with mine; but at the same time I do not wish you to
desist from admonishing me, as you do, with such importunity and frequency;
your words are not without some effect. I commend at the same time to your
Excellency a church planted in Numidia, on behalf of which, in its present
necessities, my holy brother and co-bishop Delphinus has been sent by my
brethren and co-bishops who share the toils and the dangers of their work
in that region. I no more on this matter, because you will hear all from
his own lips when he comes to you. All other necessary particulars you will
find in the letters of instruction, which are sent by me to the presbyter
either now or by the deacon Peregrinus, so that I need not again repeat
them.

   May your heart be ever strong in Christ, my lord justly distinguished,
and son very much beloved and longed for!

   I commend to your Excellency our son Ruffinus, the Provost of Cirta.

LETTER CXLIII. (A.D. 412.)

TO MARCELLINUS, MY NOBLE LORD, JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED, MY SON VERY MUCH
BELOVED, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. Desiring to reply to the letter which I received from you through
our holy brother, my co-bishop Boniface, I have sought for it, but have not
found it. I have recalled to mind, however, that you asked me in that
letter how the magicians of Pharaoh could, after all the water of Egypt had
been turned into blood, find any with which to imitate the miracle. There
are two ways in which the question is commonly answered: either that it was
possible for water to have been brought from the sea, or, which is more
credible, that these plagues were not inflicted on the district in which
the children of Israel were; for the clear, express statements to this
effect in some parts of that scriptural narrative entitle us to assume this
in places where the statement is omitted.

   2. In your other letter, brought to me by the presbyter Urbanus, a
question is proposed, taken from a passage not in the Divine Scriptures,
but in one of my own books, namely, that which I wrote on Free Will. On
questions of this kind, however, I do not bestow much labour; because. even
if the statement objected to does not admit of unanswerable vindication, it
is mine only; it is not an utterance of that Author whose words it is
impiety to reject, even when, through our misapprehension of their meaning,
the interpretation which we put on them deserves to be rejected. I freely
confess, accordingly, that I endeavour to be one of those who write because
they have made some progress, and who, by-means of writing, make further
progress. If, therefore, through inadvertence or want of knowledge,
anything has been stated by me which may with good reason be condemned, not
only by others who are able to discover this, but also by myself (for if I
am making progress, I ought, at least after it has been pointed out, to see
it), such a mistake is not to be regarded with surprise or grief, but
rather forgiven, and made the occasion of congratulating me, not, of
course, on having erred, but on having renounced an error. For there is an
extravagant perversity in the self-love of the man who desires other men to
be in error, that the fact of his having erred may not be discovered. How
much better and more profitable is it that in the points in which he has
erred others should not err, so that he may be delivered from his error by
their advice, or, if he refuse this, may at least have no followers in his
error. For, if God permit me, as I desire, to gather together and point
out, in a work devoted to this express purpose, all the things which most
justly displease me in my books, men will then see how far I am from being
a partial judge in my own case.

   3. As for you, however, who love me warmly, if, in opposing those by
whom, whether through malice or ignorance or superior intelligence, I am
censured, you maintain the position that I have nowhere in my writings made
a mistake, you labour in a hopeless enterprise- you have undertaken a bad
cause, in which, even if myself were judge, you must be easily worsted; for
it is no pleasure to me that my dearest friends should think me to be such
as I am not, since assuredly they love not me, but instead of me another
under my name, if they love not what I am, but what I am not; for in so far
as they know me, or believe what is true concerning me, I am loved by them;
but in so far as they ascribe to me what they do not know to be in me, they
love another person, such as they suppose me to be. Cicero, the prince of
Roman orators, says of some one, "He never uttered a word which he would
wish to recall." This commendation, though it seems to be the highest
possible, is nevertheless more likely to be true of a consummate fool than
of a man perfectly wise; for it is true of idiots, that the more absurd and
foolish they are, and the more their opinions diverge from those
universally held, the more likely are they to utter no word which they will
wish to recall; for to regret an evil, or foolish, or ill-timed word is
characteristic of a wise man. If, however, the words quoted are taken in a
good sense, as intended to make us believe that some one was such that, by
reason of his speaking all things wisely, he never uttered any word which
he would wish to recall,--this we are, in accordance with sound piety, to
believe rather concerning men of God, who spoke as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost, than concerning the man whom Cicero commends. For my part, so
far am I from this excellence, that if I have uttered no word which I would
wish to recall, it must be because I resemble more the idiot than the wise
man. The man whose writings are most worthy of the highest authority is he
who has uttered no word, I do not say which it would: be his desire, but
which it would be his duty to i recall. Let him that has not attained to
this! occupy the second rank through his humility, I since he cannot take
the first rank through his wisdom. Since he has been unable, with all his:
care, to exclude every. expression whose use may i be justly regretted, let
him acknowledge his regret for anything which, as he may now have
discovered, ought not to have been said.

   4. Since, therefore, the words spoken by me which I would if I could
recall, are not, as my very dear friends suppose, few or none, but perhaps
even more than my enemies imagine, I am not gratified by such commendation
as Cicero's sentence, "He never uttered a word which he would wish to
recall," but I am deeply distressed by the saying of Horace, "The word once
uttered cannot be recalled."(2) This is the reason why I keep beside me,
longer than you wish or patiently bear, the books which I have written on
difficult and important questions on the book of Genesis and the doctrine
of the Trinity, hoping that, if it be impossible to avoid having some
things which may deservedly be found fault with, the number of these may at
least be smaller than it might have been, if, through impatient haste, the
works had been published without due deliberation; for you, as your letters
indicate (our holy brother and co-bishop Florentius having written me to
this effect), are urgent for the publication of these works now, in order
that they may be defended in my own lifetime by myself, when, perhaps, they
may begin to be assailed in some particulars, either through the cavilling
of enemies or the misapprehensions of friends. You say this doubtless
because you think there is nothing in them which might with justice be
censured, otherwise you would not exhort me to publish the books, but
rather to revise them more carefully. But I fix my eye rather on those who
are true judges, sternly impartial, between whom and myself I wish, in the
first place, to make sure of my ground, so that the only faults coming to
be censured by them may be those which it was impossible for me to observe,
though using the most diligent scrutiny.

   5. Notwithstanding what I have just said, I am prepared to defend the
sentence in the third book of my treatise on Free Will, in which,
discoursing on the rational substance, I have expressed my opinion in these
words: "The soul, appointed to occupy a body inferior in nature to itself
after the entrance of sin, governs its own body, not absolutely according
to its free will, but only in so far as the laws of the universe permit." I
bespeak the particular attention of those who think that I have here fixed
and defined, as ascertained concerning the human soul, either that it comes
by propagation from the parents, or that it has, through sins committed in
a higher celestial life, incurred the penalty of being shut up in a
corruptible body. Let them, I say, observe that the words in question have
been so carefully weighed by me, that while they hold fast what I regard as
certain, namely, that after the sin of the first man, all other men. have
been born and continue to be born in that sinful flesh, for the healing of
which "the likeness of sinful flesh "(3) came in the person of the Lord,
they are also so chosen as not to pronounce upon' any one of those four
opinions which I have in the sequel expounded and distinguished--not
attempting to establish any one of them as preferable to the others, but
disposing in the meantime of the matter under discussion, and reserving the
consideration of these opinions, so that whichever of them may be true,
praise should unhesitatingly be given to God.

   6. For whether all souls are derived by propagation from the first, or
are in the case of each individual specially created, or being created
apart from the body are sent into it, or introduce themselves into it of
their own accord, without doubt this creature endowed with reason, namely,
the human soul- appointed to occupy an inferior, that is, an earthly body-
after the entrance of sin, does not govern its own body absolutely
according to its free will. For I did not say, "after his sin," or "after
he sinned," but after the entrance of sin, that whatever might afterwards,
if possible, be determined by reason as to the question whether the sin was
his own or the sin of the first parent of mankind, it might be perceived
that in saying that "the soul, appointed, after the entrance of sin, to
occupy an inferior body, does not govern its body absolutely according to
its own free will," I stated what is true; for "the flesh lusteth against
the spirit,(2) and in this we groan, being burdened,"(3) and "the
corruptible body weighs down the soul,"(4)--in short, who can enumerate all
the evils arising from the infirmity of the flesh, which shall assuredly
cease when "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption," so that "that
which is mortal shall be swallowed up of life"?(4) In that future
condition, therefore, the soul shall govern its spiritual body with
absolute freedom of will; but in the meantime its freedom is not absolute,
but conditioned by the laws of the universe, according to which -it is
fixed, that bodies having experienced birth experience death, and having
grown to maturity decline in old age. For the soul of the first man did,
before the entrance of sin, govern his body with perfect freedom of will,
although that body was not yet spiritual, but animal; but after the
entrance of sin, that is, after sin had been committed in that flesh from
which sinful flesh was thenceforward to be propagated, the reasonable soul
is so appointed to occupy an inferior body, that it does not govern its
body with absolute freedom of will. That infant children, even before they
have committed any sin of their own, are partakers of sinful flesh, is, in
my opinion, proved by their requiring to have it healed in them also, by
the application in their baptism of the remedy provided in Him who came in
the likeness of sinful flesh. But even those who do not acquiesce in this
view have no just ground for taking offence at the sentence quoted from my
book; for it is certain, if I am not mistaken. that even if the infirmity
be the consequence not of sin, but of nature, it was at all events only
after the entrance of sin that bodies having this infirmity began to be
produced; for Adam was not created thus, and he did not beget any offspring
before he sinned.

   7. Let my critics, therefore, seek other passages to censure, not only
in my other more hastily published works, but also in these books of mine
on Free Will. For I by no means deny that they may in this search discover
opportunities of conferring a benefit on me; for if the books, having
passed into so many hands, cannot now be corrected, I myself may, being
still alive. Those words, however, so carefully selected by me to avoid
committing myself to any one of the four opinions or theories regarding the
soul's origin, are liable to censure only from those who think that my
hesitation as to any definite view in a matter so obscure is blameworthy;
against whom I do not defend myself by saying that I think it right to
pronounce no opinion whatever on the subject, seeing that I have no doubt
either that the soul is immortal -- not in the same sense in which God is
immortal, who alone hath immortality,(6) but in a certain way peculiar to
itself--or that the soul is a creature and not a part of the substance of
the Creator, or as to any other thing which I regard as most certain
concerning its nature. But seeing that the obscurity of this most
mysterious subject, the origin of the soul, compels me to do as I have
done, let them rather stretch out a friendly hand to me, confessing my
ignorance, and desiring to know whatever is the truth on the subject; and
let them, if they can, teach or demonstrate to me what they may either have
learned by the exercise of sound reason, or have believed on indisputably
plain testimony of the divine oracles. For if reason be found contradicting
the authority of Divine Scriptures, it only deceives by a semblance of
truth, however acute it be, for its deductions cannot in that case be true.
On the other hand, if, against the most manifest and reliable testimony of
reason, anything be set up claiming to have the authority of the Holy
Scriptures, he who does this does it through a misapprehension of what he
has read, and is setting up against the truth not the real meaning of
Scripture, which he has failed to discover, but an opinion of his own; he
alleges not what he has found in the Scriptures, but what he has found in
himself as their interpreter.

   8. Let me give an example, to which I solicit l your earnest attention.
In a passage near the end of Ecclesiastes, where the author is speak-ling
of man's dissolution through death separating the soul from the body, it is
written, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it." (7) A statement having the authority on
which this one is based is true beyond all dispute, and is not intended to
deceive any one; yet if any one wishes to put upon it such an
interpretation as may help him in attempting to support the theory of the
propagation of souls, according to which all other souls are derived from
that one which God gave to the first man, what is there said concerning the
body under the name of "dust" (for obviously nothing else than body and
soul are to be understood by "dust" and "spirit" in this passage) seems to
favour his view; for he may affirm that the soul is said to return to God
because of its being derived from the original stock of that soul which God
gave to the first man, in the same way as the body is said to return to the
dust because of its being derived from the original stock of that body
which was made of dust in the first man and therefore may argue that, from
what we know perfectly as to the body, we ought to believe what is hidden
from our observation as to the soul; for there is no difference of opinion
as to the original stock of the body, but there is as to the original stock
of the soul. In the text thus brought forward as a proof, statements are
made concerning both, as if the manner of the return of each to its
original was precisely similar in both,- the body, on the one hand,
returning to the earth as it was, for thence was it taken when the first
man was formed; the soul, on the other hand, returning to God, for He gave
it when He breathed into the nostrils of the man whom He had formed the
breath of life, and he became a living soul, so that thenceforward the
propagation of each part should go on from the corresponding part in the
parent.

   9. If, however, the true account of the soul's origin be, that God
gives to each individual man a soul, not propagated from that first soul,
but created in some other way, the statement that the "spirit returns to
God who gave it," is equally consistent with this view. The two other
opinions regarding the soul's origin are, then, the only ones which seem to
be excluded by this text. For in the first place, as to the opinion that
every man's soul is made separately within him at the time of his creation,
it is supposed that, if this were the case, the soul should have been
spoken of as returning, not to God who gave it, but to God who made it; for
the word "gave" seems to imply that that which could be given had already a
separate existence. The words "returneth to God" are further insisted upon
by some, who say, How could it return to a place where it had never been
before? Accordingly they maintain that, if the soul is to be believed to
have never been with God before, the words should have been "it goes," or
"goes on," or "goes away," rather than it" returns" to God. In like manner,
as to the opinion that each soul glides of its own accord into its body, it
is not easy to explain how this theory is reconcilable with the statement
that God gave it. The words of this scriptural passage are consequently
somewhat adverse to these two opinions, namely, the one which supposes each
soul to be created in its own body, and the one which supposes each soul to
introduce itself into its own body spontaneously. But there is no
difficulty in showing that the words are consistent with either of the
other two opinions, namely, that all souls are derived by propagation from
the one first created, or that, having been created and kept in readiness
with God, they are given to each body as required.

   10. Nevertheless, even if the theory that each soul is created in its
own body may not be wholly excluded by this text, -- for if its advocates
affirm that God is here said to have given the spirit (or the soul) in the
same way as He is said to have given us eyes, ears, hands, or other such
members, which were not made elsewhere by Him, and kept in store that He
might give them, i.e. add and join them to our bodies, but are made by Him
in that body to which He is said to have given them,- I do not see what
could be said in reply, unless, perchance, the opinion could be refuted,
either by other passages of Scripture, or by valid reasoning. In like
manner, those who think that each soul flows of its own accord into its
body take the words"' God gave it" in the sense in which it is said, "He
gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts."(2)
Only one word, therefore, remains apparently irreconcilable with the theory
that each soul is made in its own . body, namely, the word "returneth," in
the expression "returneth to God;" for in what sense can the soul return to
Him with whom it has not formerly been? By this one word alone are the
supporters of this one of the four opinions embarrassed. And yet I do not
think that this opinion ought to be held as refuted by this one word, for
it may be possible to show that in the ordinary style of scriptural
language it may be quite correct to use the word "return," as signifying
the spirit created by God returns to Him not because of its having been
with Him before its union with the body, but because of its having received
being from His creative power.

   11. I have written these things in order to show that whoever is
disposed to maintain and vindicate any one of these four theories of the
soul's origin, must bring forward, either from the Scriptures received into
ecclesiastical authority, passages which do not admit of any other
interpretation,--as the statement that God made man,--or reasonings founded
on premises so obviously true that to call them in question would be
madness, such as the statement that none but the living are capable of
knowledge or of error; for a statement like this does not require the
authority of Scripture to prove its truth, as if the common sense of
mankind did not of itself announce its truth with such transparent cogency
of reason, that whoever contradicts it must be held to be hopelessly mad.
If any one .is able to produce such arguments in discussing _the very
obscure question of the soul's origin, let him help me in my ignorance; but
if he cannot do this, let him forbear from blaming my hesitation on the
question.

   12. As to the virginity of the Holy Mary, if what I have written on
this subject does not suffice to prove that it was possible, we must refuse
to believe every record of anything miraculous having taken place in the
body of any. If, however, the objection to believing this miracle is, that
it happened only once, ask the friend who is still perplexed by this,
whether instances may not be quoted from secular literature of events which
were, like this one, unique, and which, nevertheless, are believed, not
merely as fables are believed by the simple, but with that faith with which
the history of facts is received --ask him, I beseech you, this question.
For if he says that nothing of this kind is to be found in these writings,
he ought to have such instances pointed out to him; if he admits this, the
question is decided by his admission.

LETTER CXLIV. (A.D. 412.)

TO MY HONOURABLE AND JUSTLY ESTEEMED LORDS, THE, INHABITANTS OF CIRTA, OF
ALL RANKS, BRETHREN DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED FOR, BISHOP AUGUSTIN SENDS
GREETING.

   1. If that which greatly distressed me in your town has now been
removed; if the obduracy of hearts which resisted most evident and, as we
might call it, notorious truth, has by the force of truth been overcome; if
the sweetness of peace is relished, and the love which tends to unity is
the occasion no longer of pain to eyes diseased, but of light and vigour to
eyes restored to health,--this is God's work, not ours; on no account would
I ascribe these results to human efforts, even had such a remarkable
conversion of your whole community taken place when I was with you, and in
connection with my own preaching and exhortations. The operation and the
success are His who, by His servants, calls men's attention outwardly by
the signs of things, and Himself teaches men inwardly by the things
themselves. The fact, however, that whatever praiseworthy change has been
wrought among you is to be ascribed not to us, but to Him who alone doeth
wonderful works, is no reason for our being more reluctant to be persuaded
to visit you. For we ought to hasten much more readily to see the works of
God than our own works, for we ourselves also, if we be of service in any
work, owe this not to men but to Him; wherefore the apostle says, "Neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth: but God that giveth
the increase." (2)

   2. You allude in your letter to a fact which I also remember from
classic literature, that by discoursing on the benefits of temperance,
Xenocrates suddenly converted Polemo from a dissipated to a sober life,
though this man was not only habitually intemperate, but was actually
intoxicated at the time. Now although this was, as you have wisely and
truthfully apprehended, a case not of conversion to God, but of
emancipation from the thraldom of self-indulgence, I would not ascribe even
the amount of improvement wrought in him to the work of man, but to the
work of God. For even in the body, the lowest part of our nature, all
excellent things, such as beauty, vigour, health, and so on, are the work
of God, to whom nature owes its creation and perfection; how much more
certain, therefore, must it be that no other can impart excellent
properties to the soul! For what imagination of human folly could be more
full of pride and ingratitude than the notion that, although God alone can
give comeliness to the body, it belongs to man to give purity to the soul?
It is written in the book of Christian Wisdom, "I perceived that no one can
have self-restraint unless God give it to him, and that this is a part of
true wisdom to know whose gift it is." (3) If, therefore, Polemo, when he
exchanged a life of dissipation for a life of sobriety, had so understood
whence the gift came, that, renouncing the superstitions of the heathen, he
had rendered worship to the Divine Giver, he would then have become not
only temperate, but truly wise and savingly religious, which would have
secured to him not merely the practice of virtue in this life, but also the
possession of immortality in the life to come. How much less, then, should
I presume to take to myself the honour of your conversion, or of that of
your people which you have now reported to me, which, when I was neither
speaking to you nor even present with you, was accomplished unquestionably
by divine power in all in whom it has really taken place. This, therefore,
know above all things, meditate on this with devout humility. To God, my
brethren, to God give thanks. Fear Him, that ye may not go backward: love
Him, that ye may go forward.(4)

   3. If, however, love of men still keeps some secretly alienated from
the flock of Christ, while fear of other men constrains them to a feigned
reconciliation, I charge all such to consider that before God the
conscience of man has no covering, and that they can neither impose on Him
as a Witness, nor escape from Him as a Judge. But if, by reason of anxiety
as to their own salvation, anything as to the question of the unity of
Christ's flock perplex them, let them make this demand upon themselves,-
and it seems to me a most just demand, --that in regard to the Catholic
Church, i.e. the Church spread abroad over the whole world, they believe
rather the words of Divine Scripture than the calumnies of human tongues.
Moreover, with respect to the schism which has arisen among men (who
assuredly, whatsoever they may be, do not frustrate the promises of God to
Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," --
promises believed when brought to their ears as a prophecy, but denied,
forsooth, when set before their eyes as an accomplished fact), let them
meanwhile ponder this one very brief, but, if I mistake not, unanswerable
argument: the question out of which the dispute arose either has or has not
been tried before ecclesiastical tribunals beyond the sea; if it has not
been tried before these, then no guilt in this matter is chargeable on the
whole flock of Christ in the nations beyond the sea, in communion with
which we rejoice, and therefore their separation from these guiltless
communities is an act of impious schism; if, on the other hand, the
question has been tried before the tribunal of these churches, who does not
understand and feel, nay, who does not see, that those whose communion is
now separated from these churches were the party defeated in the trial? Let
them therefore choose to whom they should prefer to give credence, whether
to the ecclesiastical judges who decided the question, or to the complaints
of the vanquished litigants. Observe wisely how impossible it is for them
reasonably to answer this brief and most intelligible dilemma;
nevertheless, it were easier to turn Polemo from a life of intemperance,
than to drive them out of the madness of inveterate error.

   Pardon me, my noble and worthy lords, brethren most dearly beloved and
longed for, for writing you a letter more prolix than agreeable, but
fitted, as I think, to benefit rather than to flatter you. As to my coming
to you, may God fulfil the desire which we both equally cherish! For I
cannot express in words, but I am sure you will gladly believe, with what
fervour of love I burn to see you.

LETTER CXLV. (A.D. 412 or 413.)

TO ANASTASIUS, MY HOLY AND BELOVED LORD AND BROTHER, AUGUSTIN SENDS
GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. A most satisfactory opportunity of saluting your genuine worth is
furnished by our brethren Lupicinus and Concordialis, honourable servants
of God, from whom, even without my writing, you might learn all that is
going on among us here. But knowing, as I do, how much you love us in
Christ, because of your knowing how warmly your love is reciprocated by us
in Him, I was sure that it might have disappointed you if you had seen
them, and could not but know that they had come directly from us, and were
most intimately united in friendship with us, and yet had received with
them no letter from me. Besides this, I am owing you a reply, for I am not
aware of having written to you since I received your last letter; so great
are the cares by which I am encumbered and distracted, that know not
whether I have written or not before now.

   2. We desire eagerly to know how you are, and whether the Lord has
given you some rest, so far as in this world He can bestow it; for "if one
member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it;''(2) and so it is
almost always our experience, that when, in the midst of our anxieties, we
turn our thoughts to some of our brethren placed in a condition of
comparative rest, we are in no small measure revived, as if in them we
ourselves enjoyed a more peaceful and tranquil life. At the same time, when
vexatious cares are multiplied in this uncertain life, they compel us to
long for the everlasting rest. For this world is more dangerous to us in
pleasant than in painful hours, and is to be guarded against more when it
allures us to love it than when it warns and constrains us to despise it.
For although "all that is in the world" is "the lust of the flesh, and the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,"(3) nevertheless, even in the case
of men who prefer to these the things which are spiritual, unseen, and
eternal, the sweetness of earthly things insinuates itself into our
affections, and accompanies our steps on the path of duty with its
seductive allurements. For the violence with which present things acquire
sway over our weakness is exactly proportioned to the superior value by
which future things command our love. And oh that those who have learned to
observe and bewail this may succeed in overcoming and escaping from this
power of terrestrial things! Such victory and emancipation cannot, without
God's grace, be achieved by the human will, which is by no means to be
called free so long as it is subject to prevailing and enslaving lusts;
"For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage." And
the Son of God has Himself said, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall
be free indeed."(2)

   3. The law, therefore, by teaching and commanding what cannot be
fulfilled without grace, demonstrates to man his weakness, in order that
the weakness thus proved may resort to the Saviour, by whose healing the
will may be able to do what in its feebleness it found impossible. So,
then, the law brings us to faith, faith obtains the Spirit in fuller
measure, the Spirit sheds love abroad in us, and love fulfils the law. For
this reason the law is called a "schoolmaster," (3) under whose
threatenings and severity "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be delivered." (4) But how shall they call on Him in whom they have
not believed?"(4) Wherefore unto them that believe and call on Him the
quickening Spirit is given, lest the letter without the Spirit should kill
them.(6) But by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us, the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts,(7) so that the words of the same apostle, "Love
is the fulfilling of the law,"(8) are realized. So the law is good to the
man who uses it lawfully;(9) and he uses it lawfully who, understanding
wherefore it was given, betakes himself, under the pressure of its
threatenings, to grace, which sets him free. Whoever unthankfully despises
this grace, by which the ungodly are justified, and trusts in his own
strength, as if he thereby could fulfil the law, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish his own righteousness, is not
submitting himself to the righteousness of God;(10) and thus the law
becomes to him not a help to pardon, but the bond fastening his guilt to
him. Not that the law is evil, but because sin worketh death in such
persons by that which is good.(11) For by occasion of the commandment he
sins more grievously who, by the commandment, knows how evil are the sins
which he commits.

   4. In vain, however, does any one think himself to have gained the
victory over sin, if, through nothing but fear of punishment, he refrains
from sin; because, although the outward action to which an evil desire
prompts him is not performed, the evil desire itself within the man is an
enemy unsubdued. And who is found innocent in God's sight who is willing to
do the sin which is forbidden if you only remove the punishment which is
feared? And consequently, even in the volition itself, he is guilty of sin
who wishes to do what is unlawful, but refrains from doing it because it
cannot be done with impunity; for, so far as he is concerned, he would
prefer that there were no righteousness forbidding and punishing sins. And
assuredly, if he would prefer that there should be no righteousness, who
can doubt that he would if he could abolish it altogether? How, then, can
that man be called righteous who is such an enemy to righteousness that, if
he had the power, he would abolish its authority, that he might not be
subject to its threatenings or its penalties? He, then, is an enemy to
righteousness who refrains from sin only through fear of punishment; but he
will become the friend of righteousness if through love of it he sin not,
for then he will be really afraid to sin. For the man who only fears the
flames of hell is afraid not of sinning, but of being burned; but the man
who hates sin as much as he hates hell is afraid to sin. This is the "fear
of the Lord," which "is pure, enduring for ever."(12) For the fear of
punishment has torment, and is not in love; and love, when it is perfect,
casts it out.(13)

   5. Moreover, every one hates sin just in proportion as he loves
righteousness; which he will be enabled to do not through the law putting
him in fear by the letter of its prohibitions, but by the Spirit healing
him by grace. Then that is done which the apostle enjoins in the
admonition," I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of
your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and
to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to
righteousness unto holiness."(14) For what is the force of the conjunctions
"as" and "even so," if it be not this: "As no fear compelled you to sin,
but the desire for it, and the pleasure taken in sin, even so let not the
fear of punishment drive you to a life of righteousness; but let the
pleasure found in righteousness and the love you bear to it draw you to
practise it"? And even this is, as it seems to me, a righteousness, so to
speak, somewhat mature, but not perfect. For he would not have prefaced the
admonition with the words, "I speak after the manner of men because of the
infirmity of your flesh," had there not been something else that ought to
have been said if they had been by that time able to bear it. For surely
more devoted service is due to righteousness than men are wont to yield to
sin. For pain of body restrains men, if not from the desire of sin, at
least from the commission of sinful actions; and we should not easily find
any one who would openly commit a sin procuring to him an impure and
unlawful gratification, if it was certain that the penalty of torture would
immediately follow the crime. But righteousness ought to be so loved that
not even bodily sufferings should hinder us from doing its works, but that,
even when we are in the hands of cruel enemies, our good works should so
shine before men that those who are capable of taking pleasure therein may
glorify our Father who is in heaven.

   6. Hence it comes that that most devoted lover of righteousness
exclaims," Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword? (As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day
long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."(2) Observe how he does not say simply,
"Who shall separate us from Christ?" but, indicating that by which we cling
to Christ, he says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" We
cling to Christ, then, by love, not by fear of punishment. Again, after
having enumerated those things which seem to be sufficiently fierce, but
have not sufficient force to effect a separation, he has, in the
conclusion, called that the love of God which he had previously spoken of
as the love of Christ. And what is this "love of Christ" but love of
righteousness? for it is said of Him that He "is made of God unto us
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that,
according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
(3) As, therefore he is superlatively wicked who is not deterred even by
the penalty of bodily sufferings from the vile works of sordid pleasure, so
is he superlatively righteous who is not restrained even by the fear of
bodily sufferings from the holy works of most glorious love.

   7. This love of God, which must be maintained by unremitting, devout
meditation, "is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given
to us," (4) so that he who glories in it must glory in the Lord. Forasmuch,
therefore, as we feel ourselves to be poor and destitute of that love by
which the law is most truly fulfilled, we ought not to expect and demand
its riches from our own indigence, but to ask, seek, and knock in prayer,
that He with whom is" the fountain of life" "may satisfy us abundantly with
the fatness of His house, and make us drink of the river of His pleasures,"
(4) so that, watered and revived by its full flood, we may not only escape
from being swallowed up by sorrow, but may even "glory in tribulations:
knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and
experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; "-- not that we can do this
of ourselves, but "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost, which is given to us." (6)

   8. It has been a pleasure to me to say, at least by a letter, these
things which I could not say when you were present. I write them, not in
reference to yourself, for you do not affect high things, but are contented
with that which is lowly,(7) but in reference to some who arrogate too much
to the human will, imagining that, the law being given, the will is of its
own strength sufficient to fulfil that law, though not assisted by any
grace imparted by the Holy Spirit, in addition to instruction in the law;
and by their reasonings they persuade the wretched and impoverished
weakness of man to believe that it is not our duty to pray that we may not
enter into temptation. Not that they dare openly to say this; but this is,
whether they acknowledge it or not, an inevitable consequence of their
doctrine.(8) For wherefore is it said to us, "Watch and pray, that ye enter
not into temptation; "(9) and wherefore was it that, when He was teaching
us to pray, He prescribed, in accordance with this injunction, the use of
the petition "lead us not into temptation,"(10) if this be wholly in the
power of the will of man, and does not require the help of divine grace in.
order to its accomplishment ?

   Why should I say more? Salute the brethren, who are with you, and pray
for us, that we may be saved with that salvation of which it is said,.
"They that are whole need not a physician, but: they that are sick: I came
not to call the righteous, but sinners."(11) Pray, therefore, for us that
we may be righteous,--an attainment wholly beyond a man's reach, unless he
know righteousness and be willing to practise it, but one which is
immediately realized when he is perfectly willing; but this full consent of
his will can never be in him unless he is healed and assisted by the grace
of the Spirit.


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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