Augustine of Hippo

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, AURELIUS, ILLUSTRIOUS DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH AND BISHOP OF HIPPO,

AT HIPPO REGIUS IN AFRICA,

In the year CDXXX.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, AURELIUS, ILLUSTRIOUS DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH AND BISHOP OF HIPPO

BHL Number: 0795, 0796, 0800

BY G. C.

§ I. Preliminary notice of the monuments from which the Life of this holy Prelate will be illustrated.

After I had begun to examine more attentively the renowned deeds of St. Augustine and the posthumous glory of that illustrious Doctor, presently at the very beginning of my inquiry I gradually found by experience that so great and so various a matter for handling was offered me, that abundance makes me poor. For if I should wish to commemorate one by one, or to set forth more diffusely, all things which in any way regard this holy Man, I shall overstep the accustomed limits of our Commentaries, and by this lucubration alone I shall without difficulty fill up an entire volume of our Work — whereas nevertheless in the same volume it is fitting to illustrate several Saints. But if I should wish to be too brief, I rightly and deservedly fear lest I become obscure. Wherefore a middle way must be chosen, which I shall endeavor to keep, that the chief glory of this holy Bishop may be briefly and clearly set forth. Whence I shall only in passing assign the chronological questions of lesser moment, laboriously agitated by others, lest my Commentary grow to too great a bulk. Besides, I shall omit certain odious controversies which would require a prolix dissertation, and in its place I shall indicate the just cause of that omission. Whether I have stood by my promises, the learned reader will afterwards judge, to whom for the sake of clearness I shall here first display the literary furniture which I have at hand for elucidating the Acts of St. Augustine.

[2] First among the biographers occurs the holy Doctor himself, [a part of his own deeds written by Augustine himself, and to be published from him:] who in various writings has left certain of his own Acts to posterity: for in the books of the Confessions he distinctly narrates the things which he did from the beginning of his life down to the thirty-third year of his age. This first part of the Acts, excerpted from the nine earlier books of the Confessions, we shall reprint in the first place after the preliminary Commentary. But since St. Augustine has there described that part of his life copiously enough, we shall touch it lightly in our Commentary, lest the same things be repeated twice to the reader's weariness. If nevertheless from other Works of the excellent Doctor some things can be supplied, or these very things more clearly explained, we shall diligently gather those testimonies of the Saint. And if certain more recent biographers have departed from this authentic fragment of the Life, or have elsewhere wandered from the truth, we shall endeavor to correct them and bring them back to the way.

[3] the second part written by St. Possidius, The other writer of the Acts is St. Possidius, bishop of Calama in Africa, who for nearly forty years lived familiarly with St. Augustine, and expressed his notable deeds with a sincere pen, as will be established below from his own prologue and epilogue. Whence I cannot sufficiently marvel at the rash censure of Jean Le Clerc, who under the Greek surname of Phereponus, that is, Laborious, strives to take away credit from this holy biographer in his heterodox Animadversions upon all the Works of St. Augustine, where he also shamelessly charges with falsehood the most holy doctors of the Church, and eyewitnesses beyond all exception. But the Reverend Lord John Salinas of Naples, of the Order of Canons Regular, in the preface to the same lucubration of St. Possidius, which he published at Rome in the year of Christ 1731, took up that heretical censor according to his deserts; whom we too shall meet below on another occasion. Meanwhile let the reader know that this St. Possidius has a place in our Work at the day XVII of May, and that the Life by that same contemporary biographer and eyewitness was more distinctly reprinted by the praised John Salinas at Rome in the year 1731, and illustrated with copious notes.

[4] Further, that holy prelate of Calama chiefly narrates the things which St. Augustine did after his conversion, to be published after the former: as is clear from his preface, in which he thus writes: Nor shall I attempt to set forth all those things which that same most blessed Augustine has designated concerning himself in his books of Confessions — what sort of man he was before he received grace, and what sort he lived when he had received it. Since therefore the holy Doctor himself committed the first part of his life to writing, and St. Possidius pursued it down to the death of the venerable Prelate, we shall below subjoin this second part of the Acts to the first. For the rest, that lucubration of St. Possidius has already been printed often, and is found everywhere annexed to the Works of St. Augustine; and the praised John Salinas not long ago collated it with other manuscript codices, and ordered it to be reprinted at Rome in the year 1731, as we have already advised. We shall follow this most recent Roman edition, which nevertheless we shall collate with an ancient manuscript codex of our Museum, which is marked P. Ms. 5. If some difference worthy of note

should occur between the edition and our codex, we shall take care that it be observed in the margin or in the Annotations. But if St. Possidius should have passed over some deeds of the illustrious Doctor, or indicated them too briefly or obscurely, we shall supply them from the writings of St. Augustine himself in the preliminary Commentary, or shall set them forth more clearly.

[5] But I would have the reader forewarned that only three editions of the Augustinian Work are at hand for us. three editions of the Works of St. Augustine among us, The first is the Basel edition of the year 1556, which came forth from the Froben press, and to which a dedicatory letter of Erasmus of Rotterdam, addressed to the most illustrious Alfonso Fonseca, archbishop of Toledo, is prefixed by the printer. The second is the Antwerp edition, which a century and a half ago some theologians of Louvain corrected and illustrated with notes, and which Christophe Plantin, the most famous royal architypographer of that time, then elegantly printed at Antwerp. The third finally, which we received as a gift, and which wished to imitate the Paris edition of the Benedictine monks, was reprinted at the beginning of this century with Dutch types, although it is craftily pretended to be printed at Antwerp at the expense of a company with privilege, as all the learned inhabitants of this city, and most Belgians, now know.

[6] Casimir Oudin himself, an apostate, a fugitive from his monastery into Holland, among which the Amsterdam edition, falsely inscribed as made at Antwerp, publicly disclosed even to foreign nations this gross fraud of the Dutch booksellers, when in his Commentary on ecclesiastical writers, volume 1, column 986 and the following, he writes in this manner: John Le Clerc, who condemns others devoting themselves to new editions of the holy Fathers, … himself first of all fell into that of which he accuses others, in the Amsterdam edition of all the Works of St. Augustine of the year MDCC, which we have seen sold here at Leiden, divided into fourteen volumes in folio, at an enormous auction of price, with a useless partition and binding of so many volumes, and with a deception meditated by the booksellers of those who attend too little to not squandering themselves and their money. Not content with these things, that he might comply with the printers who hired him as a mercenary, in the year MDCCIII he undertook to publish an Augustinian Appendix under the feigned name of John Phereponus, and with the title of a twelfth volume, against the principles established by himself against others. Whence the price of the Augustinian Works was increased, and the copies of the new edition, which were not selling, were made yet more difficult to sell… That work is falsely inscribed as printed in the year MDCCIII at Antwerp at the expense of a Company, whereas it is agreed that it was published at Amsterdam by the brothers Huguetan and Pierre Mortier, with whom it is sold. We do not trust this Dutch edition, and we now at once give the reason of our distrust.

[7] and which is corrupted in many ways; The men of Leipzig in the Acta eruditorum at the year of Christ 1707, page 94 and following, recite a monitory sheet of Giovanni Battista Clarelli, a Venetian bookseller, who promises a new impression of the Augustinian Works, and accuses the already mentioned Dutch edition in these words: But as to the Amsterdam edition, published under the name of Antwerp, it is reprobated on every side, not only on account of the twelfth volume, containing a great abundance of unsound doctrine, but also on account of the unfaithfulness of the transcription of the text of the holy Father himself, which they have not only adulterated by taking away many words, but have even rendered mutilated by removing entire periods, besides innumerable errors inserted everywhere. Certainly it is agreed among Catholic scholars that this twelfth volume is contaminated with Le Clerc's heretical notes, as I could prove by evident arguments, if I wished to play the polemical theologian, which here is alien to my design.

[8] nor does Oudin rightly Although Casimir Oudin in the place cited above does not approve that repeated edition of the Dutch, yet he thus frigidly excuses the corruption of the aforesaid Dutch edition objected by Clarelli: This imprudent bookseller is here deceived; for although I do not approve John Le Clerc's twelfth volume on account of the swelling with which it is full, and the uselessness of the Work, yet it is false that it contains a great abundance of unsound doctrine; and likewise that many words have been plucked away, and even entire periods removed: if any such things have happened, they are the faults and errors of correctors too little accurate, not of those who wished that edition to be repeated. An easy indeed and novel method of excusing all corrupters not only of the holy Fathers but even of sacred Scripture: for thus Luther could have accused a drowsy corrector, when he wrongly asserted from the Apostle that man is justified by faith alone, although he himself fraudulently added this word favoring his own heresy. Thus Calvin and Beza and other heretics could have imputed to unskilled or too little accurate correctors the various corruptions of the sacred Codices of which they were convicted.

[9] excuse its errors; Meanwhile Oudin in the same place, without witnesses or documents, affirms that the Works of the holy Fathers are corrupted rather by Pontificians or Pope-worshipers (so it has pleased him here to call the Catholics) than by Lutherans or Calvinists; and then goes on to refute Clarelli in these words: Nor, I think, will the Venetian edition be more correct than the Amsterdam one, which, though ill corrected, has hitherto nevertheless been accused by no one of the Pontificians of an adulteration made of set purpose. Nay, it is publicly sold as authentic, both at Antwerp and in the Pontifician parts of Belgium, no one contradicting; which the Belgians would not have suffered, if this edition had been adulterated of set purpose. But who in this matter would straightway believe an apostate man, who was unfaithful to God and to his own religious profession? Whence first I should wish to know where, and by whom, in Catholic Belgium that Amsterdam edition is now publicly sold as authentic. Nay, Oudin would establish nothing, even if I should gratuitously concede to him that at the beginning of the present century some unskilled Belgians, or persons deceived by the false title of the place, either bought or sold that edition: for by daily experience we learn that foreign Catholics are not seldom deceived by cunning Dutch booksellers with feigned editions of books. But why did they pretend that all these Works of St. Augustine were published in a Catholic city of Belgium, unless to deceive incautious buyers? But whether those errors crept in from negligence, or were heaped up of set purpose in the Amsterdam edition, we have not leisure to collate it with the most recent Paris edition (between those two Clarelli without doubt found a great discrepancy); and therefore we leave that collation to those who have more leisure.

[10] Probably Oudin sought these evasions that he might please the men of the new sect to whom he had deserted, but he more truly acknowledges John Le Clerc, and that he might seem seriously to hate the Catholics from whom he had departed. Whence I more readily give him credit when in the same place, column 988, he reproaches John Le Clerc, his fellow, with the pride which of itself strikes the eyes of every reader, in these words: John Phereponus begins with a preface which he prefixes to this twelfth volume, to give a reason for this added Appendix and to review what is contained in it. But how much John Le Clerc presumes of himself, with how great haughtiness he swells, is abundantly clear from that preface, where he makes Augustine far inferior to himself. Then he reports Le Clerc's own words, and from them thus concludes: Nothing more insolent can ever be said than those words, by which John Le Clerc desires his own erudition to be commended to the literary world.

[11] Finally Oudin, after enumerating the lucubrations of others that the author of the edition is a man of unheard-of arrogance. which are contained in this Appendix, there at column 990 thus hisses off the scanty labor of John the Laborious or Phereponus: In this twelfth volume, from page 1 to 470, there is nothing at all that pertains to the labor of John Le Clerc, except the preface, which discloses his pride to the literary world. From page 471 to 622, with which the volume is concluded, scarcely twenty columns proceed from the Clerican labor; all the rest belonging to Desiderius Erasmus, to Henry de Noris, or to others. Whence it is strange that with so great haughtiness he prefixed his name to this volume, in which so slight a part of the labor belongs to him. To this ridiculous ostentation of erudition is added the shamelessness with which Le Clerc does not blush to accuse the most holy Fathers of the Church of falsehood, as perhaps on another occasion I shall indicate in passing. But now it behooves us to return from this digression into the way, and to review the other biographers of St. Augustine.

[12] In the twelfth century Philip of Aumône, a Premonstratensian abbot in Hainaut, composed a Life of St. Augustine, More recently a Life of St. Augustine was written by Philip of Aumône, as Valerius Andreas in the Bibliotheca Belgica and other bibliographers everywhere testify. We have this Life, which the Reverend Lord Nicolas Chamart, abbot of the same monastery, caused to be published at Douai in the year 1620 or 1621 with other little works of abbot Philip. And Philip seems to have abridged those Acts of the holy Doctor from the books of the Confessions and from St. Possidius, as he hints in the prologue in these words: Those things therefore which either he himself humbly said of himself, or another truly wrote of him, I have inserted into the present little work, as with his help and by obtaining grace I was able to gather by reading: for the things which are here said of him are written elsewhere, though not in the same words, yet in the same sense, and there perhaps better, but here more briefly, so that he who has not leisure there to gather by reading may here, if he please, read what has been gathered. We do not need that compendium of the Life, nor is there need to follow the streamlets when we can go to the fountains themselves. Since nevertheless abbot Philip has some things regarding the posthumous glory of the holy Doctor, we shall afterwards use them.

[13] Jacobus de Voragine, of the Order of Preachers, raised to the see of Genoa, collected the Acts of St. Augustine in the thirteenth century. Jacobus de Voragine, But he mingled with them some things which we do not find elsewhere, and which we shall afterwards discuss. Meanwhile hear Échard, who among the Writers of the Order of Preachers reviewed, volume 1, page 456, thus discourses concerning the credit of that writer: It must nevertheless be confessed that in this Work there are not a few things which have deservedly displeased learned men — and not only Juan Luis Vives or Melchior Cano, writers of the sixteenth century, but long before them Berengar de Landorre, thirteenth Master of the Order, afterwards archbishop of Compostela, who for that reason bade Bernard Gui gather and publish another Legend from more genuine Acts; which also he did, as will be said afterwards, where we treat of him: which nevertheless did not hinder the Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, convenient by its brevity, from being everywhere sought out by all and eagerly read. But a just defense of Jacobus is that which he himself hints, that these Lives of the Saints were not composed by him, but, as he himself says, only compiled — that is, that they were long before written by various persons, but, being scattered among various persons, were gathered by him, digested into order, and enriched from the sacred historians who in his age were held in esteem, and so came forth into the light, with his own annotations added here and there. We should only wish to learn from what authors Jacobus de Voragine received those histories which he reports among the deeds of the holy Doctor, as will appear from what is to be said below.

[14] Jordan of Saxony, Besides, in the fourteenth century Jordan of Saxony, of the Order of Augustinian Hermits, wove together the same Life of St. Augustine from the holy Doctor himself and from St. Possidius, as he manifestly declares in his prologue, which in Jacques Hommey, a French Augustinian, in the Supplement of the Fathers, page 569, thus begins: Being about faithfully to describe the birth, the course, and the end of the life of the divine Father and excellent Doctor, bishop of Hippo — with the help of him who is praised in his Saints — I have judged that nothing should be inserted into this Work which is not contained in his own sayings, or in the authentic writings of others; following especially the footstep of that venerable man, St. Possidonius, bishop of Calama, disciple of the same holy Father, and formerly a Canon in his monastery, who wrote diffusely his deeds as he had seen them and had learned them by experience, referring himself chiefly to those times in which he himself had conversed with him in person. Neither do we need that collection of Jordan, since after this preliminary Commentary we are about to publish the primitive authors themselves from whom he drew his narrative. Nevertheless there are read there certain things concerning the chronology of the Acts and the two translations of the sacred body, which will have to be examined below.

[15] an anonymous Carthusian, Finally, in the fifteenth century a certain Carthusian Religious, whose transcript we keep in our Museum, gathered copiously the Acts of St. Augustine from his Works, and divided them into two parts, as is plain from the end of that lucubration, where we read the following: Here end the two little books upon the Life of the most blessed Augustine, compiled in the year MCDLXXXIV, and finished on the eighth day of November in the house of Val-Royal of the Carthusian Order near Ghent, by a certain Brother of the same Order. But that anonymous Carthusian filled these Acts with certain supposititious little works of the holy Doctor, and amplified them with moral instructions and other superfluous digressions. Hence that prolix and interpolated collection also can be of no use to us, since we have before our eyes the genuine and more correct writings of St. Augustine themselves. We omit here other transcripts of more recent or uncertain age which contain the Life of the same Saint and are preserved in our Museum.

[16] Neither do we wish in this place to review one by one Gerard Moringus, and many others. Prosper Stellartius, Cornelius Lancilottus, Jean Naeve, Jean Rivius, Sébastien Tillemont, the French Benedictines of the congregation of St. Maur, and very many other writers who have committed the Life of St. Augustine to the press. Nevertheless we promise that these authors are to be examined by us, that we may cling to their footsteps, or refute them when they err: for as the French Benedictines just praised set down the Life of the holy Doctor, which they published in Latin, as in great part received from the Tillemontian monuments, so we shall gladly use another's labor, if this way shall appear the shorter for finding the truth and illustrating the Saint's glory. Nonetheless everywhere we shall consult the testimonies of St. Augustine in the fountain itself, and shall cite them, for the reason alleged above, from the Plantin edition — which let it suffice to have advised here once for all. These things being premised for a clearer understanding of the matters to be spoken of, let us begin to illustrate the Acts themselves of the holy Doctor from the beginning of his birth.

§ II. The Saint's native country, the time of his birth, his name, his parents and kinsfolk.

The Saint's native country Our Saint of today, as the splendid light of the whole Church, illustrated by his birth an obscure town of Africa which was called Thagaste or Tagasta, and which was situated between Hippo Regius and Madauros in the inland part of Numidia. He himself, now Prelate of Hippo, acknowledges this as his native country in letter 227, which he wrote to Roman guests who out of desire for him had come into Africa and were staying at Tagaste. In this letter he excuses himself that, on account of the necessity of his presence in the church of Hippo, he could not visit them and run over to Tagaste: For if this had been permitted me, he says, I should at the same time enjoy also so spiritual a felicity of my carnal fatherland, which has deserved to have you present. Then he thus concludes that letter: You without doubt gladly pardon this my solicitude; especially since, if you were angry and wished to take vengeance, you would perhaps find nothing more grievous than that which I suffer, when I do not see you at Tagaste. But I hope, aided by your prayers, that it will be granted me to come to you as soon as possible, wherever in Africa you shall be, when this by which I am now detained shall have passed; if this city, in which we labor, is not worthy (since neither do I dare to think it worthy) to rejoice together with us over your presence. Moreover in letter 225, which he addressed to Albina, a pious woman, Tagaste is called by him my carnal fatherland.

[18] Finally the illustrious Doctor of the Church, in letter 48, Tagaste, addressed to Vincentius the Rogatist, changes a certain former opinion of his, and on this occasion again makes mention of his native country thus: My opinion at first was that no one should be compelled to the unity of Christ; that we must act by word, fight by disputation, conquer by reason, lest we should have feigned Catholics whom we had known as open heretics. But this opinion of mine was overcome, not by the words of gainsayers, but by the examples of those who demonstrated: for first my own city was set against me, which, when it was wholly on Donatus' side, was converted to Catholic unity by fear of the imperial laws, which now we see so to detest the destructiveness of this animosity of yours, that it is believed never to have been in it. This is the city of Tagaste, which about the year of Christ 349, under the emperor Constans, was compelled to forsake the schism of the Donatists, and afterwards firmly adhered to Catholic unity, as Alypius, the disciple and fellow-townsman of St. Augustine, testifies in the first Conference of Carthage, §136, where in our Labbe, volume 2 of the Councils, column [ ], this citizen and bishop of Tagaste is introduced speaking thus: Alypius, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: I, a man of Tagaste, appointed at Carthage, in the presence of the most distinguished man Marcellinus, tribune and notary, have received and subscribed this mandate. Wherefore the same man said: Would that, as Tagaste rejoices in its ancient unity, so we might rejoice also concerning the other places.

[19] not Carthage, as some have wrongly From all these things it evidently appears that St. Augustine was born in the town of Tagaste. Wherefore Jacobus de Voragine errs, when in the Paris edition of the year 1475, chapter 119, he thus begins the Life of our Saint: Augustine, the excellent doctor, was born in the African province, in the city of Carthage. We do not know where that Carthaginian native country of St. Augustine was found by that simple Man, who in good faith, but without severe examination, cast upon paper very many fabulous histories. Perhaps he was deceived by that impostor who under the feigned name of St. Ambrose composed the ninety-second sermon. That indeed, in the century which was everywhere ignorant of the critical art, in which Jacobus de Voragine lived, is not greatly to be wondered at. But we wonder the more that Prosper Stellartius, an Augustinian hermit, cavils about this matter in his Augustino-machia, book 1, Dissertation 1, and contends by useless little reasonings against the most eminent Baronius that this holy Doctor can rightly be called a Carthaginian. But that man, more skilled in the humaner letters than in the critical art, was led to seize upon this exotic opinion by the authority of the ninety-second Sermon on the baptism of St. Augustine, which in certain editions is read among the Works of St. Ambrose, and in which the Basel edition of the same Works, volume 3, page 397, has the following: We ought to give innumerable thanks to the divine clemency, that Augustine the African of Carthage, a most acute philosopher, having despised the worship of the Gentiles, came at length by the divine will to the true Christian religion.

[20] have thought: Stellartius therefore wrongly judges that this is a genuine sermon of St. Ambrose, and upon that hypothesis argues against the most eminent Baronius. But this hypothesis had first to be solidly proved, since most learned men judge that sermon unworthy of St. Ambrose; among whom the most eminent Bellarmine, in his Work On ecclesiastical writers, among us at page 142 and the following, rejects that spurious offspring in these words: The ninety-second sermon also, on the baptism of St. Augustine, stands very far distant from the style and gravity of Ambrose; nor is it in any way credible, what is said in that sermon, that Ambrose often prayed God to free him from Augustine's captious questions: for Augustine was converted to the Catholic faith not by disputing with Ambrose, but by hearing him preach, as he himself testifies in book V of the Confessions, chapter XIII, and book VI, chapter 1. Cardinal Baronius, in the Life of St. Ambrose prefixed to his Works, passes a like judgment concerning the same supposititious sermon, which the more exact bibliographers everywhere confirm by their censure. Let no one therefore hereafter doubt, on account of this false hypothesis of Stellartius, that St. Augustine first beheld the light in the town of Tagaste.

[21] Now the Saint was born there on the Ides of November of the year 354, he was born on the Ides of November in the year 354: since he passed to the heavenly ones in the year 430, on the day XXVIII of August, when he had nearly completed the seventy-sixth year of his age, as we shall afterwards gather at his death from the lucubration of Possidius and the Chronicle of Prosper. Hence the most eminent Baronius must be corrected, and Jean Naeve, an Augustinian hermit, and other writers, who fixed his birth to the year of Christ 355. Further from this true chronology of ours did Jordan of Saxony wander, when in Hommey's Supplement of the Fathers, page 633, he assigns the time of his birth and death in these words: The most illustrious doctor Augustine was born, so far as is gathered from the Chronicle of Eusebius, in the year of the Lord CCCLX, in the fifth year of the Pontificate of Pope Liberius; but in the nineteenth year of the reign of Constantius, son of the late Constantine the Great… And that same most holy Father died in the year of the Lord CDXXXVI, in the second year of the Pontificate of Pope Sixtus III; but in the nineteenth year of the reign of Theodosius the younger. This whole chronology of Jordan collapses, and does not cohere with the assigned years of the Pontiffs and emperors, as will become manifest to anyone willing to consult the more accurate chronologists. Further, the holy Doctor in the book On the Happy Life, among us in volume 1 of the Works, page 213, thus openly and briefly indicates the day of his birth: On the Ides of November was my birthday.

[22] Perhaps it came about from lowliness of mind that the holy Doctor himself in his writings called himself only Augustine, [he had not only the name of Augustine, of which some have invented ridiculous etymologies,] although he had also another forename, as we shall presently show. Jacobus de Voragine devised a futile etymology of the name used by the Saint himself, and explained it to posterity in this manner: Augustine obtained this name on account of the excellence of his dignity, or the fervor of his love, or on account of the etymology of the name. On account of the excellence of his dignity, since, as the emperor Augustus excelled all kings, so also does he excel all doctors… Secondly, on account of the fervor of his love; since, as the month of August greatly glows with the heat of warmth, so also did he greatly grow warm with the fire of divine love… Thirdly, on account of the etymology of the name; for Augustinus is said from AUGEO, and ASTIN, which is "city," and ANA, which is "above"; whence Augustinus,

as it were increasing the city above. That simple man moves the learned to laughter, when he mixes and ineptly cements together that last etymology of the name from the Latin verb augeo and two Greek words. Nevertheless Échard, in the Writers of the Order of Preachers reviewed, volume 1, page 456, endeavors to excuse like fooleries of Jacobus of Genoa in these words: The prefaces added by Jacobus to each Life, which are almost plays upon the Saint's name, do not please the sounder palate of this age; but such was the taste of the thirteenth century and of those that followed; and what is not to be pardoned to our fathers, where it is not a question of faith? Although Échard judges that this is to be pardoned to his fellow and to his age, yet we not a little doubt whether he will be so kindly toward Cornelius Lancilottus, an Augustinian, who flourished in the past century, and who in the Life of St. Augustine published at Antwerp with the Plantin types, book 1, chapter 1, alludes to the name of the same holy Doctor in this manner: The very name, which seems to have something of a good omen, has an aptness to his praise; for as to Octavian the name of Augustus was given, because he was increased with the honor of the most ample dignity which then was upon earth, or because at home and in war, the fury of war being lulled, he increased the dignity of the fallen commonwealth to the splendor of its former felicity, so also Augustine, as by a presage of his life, seems named from increasing, because by his unconquered labor, the errors of heretics being refuted far and wide, and by his surpassing doctrine, the Catholic Church was to be defended and increased against the sectaries. Passing over the other etymologies which Lancilottus there brings forward for explaining both names of the Saint, let us now rather prove from ancient and credible monuments that the forename of Aurelius also was formerly given to this excellent Doctor.

[23] but he was called Aurelius Augustine: First, Paulus Orosius, a Spanish priest and contemporary of our holy Doctor, directed his seven books of Histories, which he had written against the pagans, to Aurelius Augustine in the year 417, as is read in the title of the preface; concerning which Ludwig Lautz, in the preliminary notes to the Mainz edition of the year 1615, advises the following: That this is the true inscription, both the end of these Histories especially declares, and the authority of a most ancient codex of the metropolitan library of Cologne confirms. Secondly, Claudianus Mamertus, nearly contemporary with Orosius, in his Work On the State of the Soul, book 2, chapter 10, greatly praises the same holy Doctor, who is there expressly named by him Aurelius Augustine. Thirdly, the venerable Bede, in the Life of St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, which our Elders diligently illustrated at the day XX of March, in the third volume of that month, page 113, on account of the likeness of the miracle by which each holy prelate, when now near death, healed a sick man, writes these things to our purpose: In which cure indeed he followed the example of the most holy and most reverend father Aurelius Augustine, bishop. Finally the French Benedictines, who not long ago reprinted the Works of St. Augustine, in the Life of that holy Doctor at number 3 testify that they found that forename of Aurelius prefixed to various and more ancient volumes of his little works. Now we proceed to the parents and other kinsfolk of our Saint.

[24] The Saint's father Patricius at first a heathen, This illustrious Doctor of the Church was born in the city of Tagaste, of respectable and Christian parents of the number of the curiales, as will appear from these very words of St. Possidius, to be repeated below. Jean Rivius, an Augustinian, in the Life of St. Augustine, book 1, chapter 1, §2, and other more recent biographers, understand here by the name of curiales those who administered the office of the curia and managed the civil functions, so that in the municipalities those were called curiales who at Rome and in the colonies were called senators. That explanation does not seem improbable to us. But at first sight we do not so easily see how St. Possidius affirms that the same Saint was born of Christian parents, since St. Augustine in book 2 of the Confessions, chapter 3, asserts concerning his father Patricius that he was still a catechumen, and that recently, when he himself was in the sixteenth year of his age, as after this Commentary in the first part of the Acts, at number 30, we shall again hear. These things nevertheless can be reconciled with each other, if it be said that St. Possidius used a prolepsis, and by an anticipation of time called our Saint's father a Christian, because he afterwards embraced the Christian faith.

[25] afterwards converted; The most illustrious Giuseppe Panfilo did not very happily correct this doubtful phrase of St. Possidius, when he began the Chronicle of the Order of Augustinian Hermits in these words: In the year from the Virgin's childbearing CCCLIV, on the Ides of November, the holy father Augustine was born at Tagaste in Africa, not far from Carthage, of a catechumen father, by name Patricius of Carthage, and of a recently Christian mother, by name Monica. How could St. Augustine be born of a father already a catechumen, when Patricius was a catechumen, and that recently, in the sixteenth year of this his Son, as we have proved above? Besides, the holy Doctor hints that his father was converted to the faith in the last years of his life, when in book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 9, after other things he thus praises his mother Monica: At length she gained her husband also for thee (he here addresses God) at the very end of his temporal life; nor did she lament in him now a believer what she had endured in him not yet a believer. We do not see therefore that that assertion of Giuseppe Panfilo is agreeable to the truth, unless he too be said to speak proleptically — which we pardon rather to the ancient writer Possidius than to this more recent one.

[26] But much less do we understand how the same Panfilo could assert the mother Monica a Christian and born of Christian parents; that the holy Doctor was born of a recently Christian mother, since St. Augustine himself indicated that she, being sprung from Christian parents, learned from her very childhood the faith and fear of the Lord, as is easily gathered from book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 8, where he thus writes concerning his mother: The rod of thy Christ trained her in thy fear, the governance of thine only Son, in a believing house, a good member of thy Church. Nor did she so much extol the diligence of her mother toward her training as that of a certain decrepit maidservant, who had carried her father as an infant, as little ones are wont to be carried on the back of somewhat bigger girls. For which cause, and on account of her old age and her excellent character, she was honored enough by her masters in a Christian house. By what appearance of likelihood, therefore, can Monica be called a recent Christian, whom a diligent handmaid brought up carefully in a believing house and a good member of the Church, and imbued with the best morals? These things we have wished to report in this place from the books of the Confessions, because after this Commentary, in the first part of the Acts, we shall pass over the Life of St. Monica, which in our Work at the day IV of May has been sufficiently illustrated. These matters concerning the faith of the parents being examined, let us briefly treat of their condition or estate.

[27] Giovanni Battista Melgar, a Canon Regular, in the Life of St. Augustine their nobility not sufficiently proved, which was published at Venice in the year 1648, endows the holy Doctor's father with illustrious nobility, and there at page 194 delivers these things concerning his parents: He had for mother Monica, renowned for integrity of life, and a father so noble that he was of the equestrian order, and a patrician, and a curialis. Jean Naeve, an Augustinian hermit, in the Life of the same Saint, chapter 1, calls his father noble in house. Many others also, without any testimony of the ancient writers, admit the noble stock of Patricius. Nay, there have not been wanting those who ascribed great wealth to this Saint's parents, as Prosper Stellartius testifies in his Augustino-machia, where in the second dissertation he doubts of the ancestral nobility of Patricius, and thus refutes other rash assertors of riches: Now of his fortune, which was not so broad and splendid as certain persons I know not who report, proclaiming them most distinguished and most noble and most wealthy. Let them have said it, and let them prove it by a most exact affirmation. I can only suspect an ancestral and generous stock, until something more certain shall have come to my ears or eyes: for that I should call them abounding in wealth and riches, the very truth of the matter, which I know, forbids.

[28] riches refuted from Augustine himself: Then Stellartius proves this truth by the very words of St. Augustine which he excerpted from the books of the Confessions, and which will be read among us below after the preliminary Commentary. To these we add a single and evident testimony of the same holy Doctor from Sermon 50 On Divers Matters, where in volume 10 of the Antwerp edition, page 523, he publicly pronounced before the people of Hippo the following: Let there be offered to me, for example, a costly cloak: perhaps it becomes a bishop, although it does not become Augustine, that is, a poor man born of poor parents. We well know that poverty or slender means of household substance is not repugnant to the ancestral pedigree of nobles. But with Stellartius we candidly confess that that nobility of Patricius is hitherto uncertain to us, and we shall gladly acknowledge it when it shall have been proved by ancient and credible documents. But those things which are said to be circulated concerning the ample wealth or fortunes of his parents are so manifestly false that they need no further refutation.

[29] the kinsfolk of St. Augustine, Further, St. Augustine at the beginning of the book On the Happy Life names certain of his kinsfolk, namely St. Monica his mother, Adeodatus his son, Navigius his brother, Lastidianus and Rusticus his cousins, and other disciples and friends who migrated with him from the city of Milan to the country estate of Verecundus, that they might there more tranquilly give themselves to Christian philosophy, as we shall report below from him on another occasion. Besides, in Letter 109 the holy Prelate also makes mention of his sister, who, a widow serving God, lived a long time down to the day of her death as superior of the handmaids of God, as St. Possidius will testify among us below at number 54, where he also makes mention of the same Saint's nieces. And in Sermon 50 just cited On Divers Matters St. Augustine among others praises his nephew in these words: All my brethren and clerics who dwell with me — priests, deacons, subdeacons, and Patricius my nephew — I have found such as I desired. That Patricius was a subdeacon, as he is expressly named a little below in the same place.

[30] of whom he strives to draw one away from the Donatists. Finally the holy Doctor had a kinsman, by name Severinus, whom he endeavors to draw back from the schism of the Donatists in Letter 170, which he thus begins: The letter of thy fraternity, though very late, though otherwise than I had hoped, I received nevertheless with gladness; and I was filled with an especially fuller joy when I had learned that your man had come to Hippo for this sole cause, that he might bring to me the letter of thy fraternity: for I thought that this had arisen in thy mind, that thou shouldst recall our kinship — unless perhaps thou perceivest (as I know the not slight weight of thy prudence) how much it is to be lamented that we who are brothers according to the flesh do not live in one fellowship in the body of Christ. But toward the end of that letter this kinsman

of his he exhorts to follow the unity of the Catholic Church in these words: But I know not what carnal custom, brother Severinus, holds you there; and long since I grieve, long since I groan, especially when I consider thy prudence; and long since I desire to see thee, that I might speak with thee of this matter. For what does either temporal welfare or kinship profit, if in our kindred we despise the eternal inheritance of Christ and everlasting salvation? If we shall find any other kinsfolk of the same Saint, or notable disciples or friends, we shall record them on another occasion. Meanwhile we proceed to the deeds of his boyhood and youth, which, since the Saint himself has written them one by one, we shall only gather the ears left behind, and shall more clearly explain some things connected with them or pertaining to this part of his Life.

§ III. His deeds and studies in boyhood and youth.

From his earliest years he is imbued with the Catholic religion: Holy Monica took care that her little son Augustine should from infancy be enrolled among the catechumens of the Catholic Church, and diligently taught him the Christian faith from his tender years. This the holy Prelate himself indicates, when he afterwards often lamented that for nearly nine years he had adhered to the errors of the Manichæans, the religion being despised which had been implanted in me as a little boy by my parents, as he writes in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, chapter 1, which he addressed to Honoratus. This is also clear from the Book on the Two Souls against the Manichæans, which the Saint began in these words: By the help of God's mercy, the snares of the Manichæans being broken and abandoned, being at length established in the bosom of the Catholic Church, it is pleasing now at least to consider and to bewail that misery of mine: for there were many things which I ought to have done, that the seeds of the truest religion, wholesomely implanted in me from boyhood, should not so easily and in a few days, being dug out by the error and fraud of false and deceitful men, be driven from my soul. From these things anyone easily understands that St. Augustine was imbued with the Catholic faith from his earliest years, which nevertheless will be more fully and distinctly explained in the first Book of the Confessions to be published below.

[32] Since the Boy was strong in talent and memory, his parents delivered him early to a master, being to be trained in letters, the boy is more intent upon play, that he might be imbued with the liberal arts. But Augustine, more inclined to play than to the study of letters, as that age bears, indulged in boyish exercises and trifles. He also seems to have been given to bird-catching, as we gather from the book On the Greatness of the Soul, where at chapter 21 the Saint speaks thus of himself: As a boy I used to accomplish much more of a journey without fainting, when I was exercised in walking by the pursuit of bird-catching, than as a youth, when I had betaken myself to other studies, by which I was rather compelled to sit. Therefore at that time he deceived with innumerable lies both his pedagogue and his masters and his parents, out of love of playing and eagerness for watching trifles, as he himself will below in the first part of the Acts, at number 23, ingenuously confess in these very words. And so he cared for nothing less than the study of letters, so that he had to be driven to it by threats and blows.

[33] But most of all he shrank from Greek letters, which nevertheless he was compelled unwillingly to learn. and he shrinks from Greek; which nevertheless he learned, Whence at that time he did not advance much in the learning of the Greek tongue, as generally happens in those studies which we are compelled to take up with a reluctant mind, or, as they commonly say, with Minerva unwilling. But perhaps afterwards St. Augustine, being older, having perceived the usefulness of that tongue, repeated with riper zeal the rudiments of Greek grammar which he had heard as a boy, and by private reading perceived them at least somewhat more clearly. For although the Saint in book 2 Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, chapter 38, with his accustomed lowliness of mind grants that he is scarcely, or not even scarcely, skilled in the Greek tongue, yet in the same place he refutes that adversary, who had fraudulently interpreted a certain Greek word, in these words: And I indeed have attained very little of the Greek tongue, and nearly nothing. Yet I do not shamelessly say that I know that ὅλον is not ONE, but WHOLE, and καθόλου, ACCORDING TO THE WHOLE; whence the Catholic Church received its name.

[34] and knew, using Greek learning Often elsewhere the holy Doctor refuted heretics by his Greek erudition, as, among other examples, is plain from book 1 Against Julian the Pelagian, to whom, objecting Basil the Great, the Saint answers at chapter 5 of the cited first book in this manner: But hear, as regards the present matter, what that holy Basil says without any ambiguity concerning the sin of the first man that pertains also to us; which, although I found it translated, yet for the sake of a more diligent fidelity to the truth I preferred to render word for word from the Greek. Besides, in the same place he accurately translated other sentences of the Greek Fathers into the Latin tongue. Nay rather, he read and understood the books of St. Epiphanius not yet rendered into Latin, as we draw from the letter addressed to Quodvultdeus, which in volume 6 of the Works among us at page 3 is prefixed to the book On Heresies, and where the following occur to our purpose: Epiphanius also, a Cypriot bishop, laudably renowned in the doctrine of the Catholic faith, wrote in Greek; but he, gathering the heresies of both periods, comprised eighty… See therefore whether I ought perhaps to send thee the book of St. Epiphanius (for I judge that he has spoken more learnedly on this subject than Philastrius), which could be translated into the Latin tongue at Carthage more easily and conveniently, so that thou rather shouldst furnish us what thou seekest from us.

[35] on various Finally he frequently interpreted sacred Scripture from Greek codices, as we learn from Letter 59 concerning the nine questions which bishop Paulinus had proposed to him, of which the holy Doctor thus explained the first: But that sense, by which what is written, THEY ARE FILLED WITH CHILDREN, is thus expounded, had not occurred to me when I wrote back before; but I have reviewed a certain very brief exposition of the same psalm which I had long since dictated, and have found this set down by me briefly enough. I have also inspected the Greek codices, whether what is said, WITH CHILDREN, were the dative case, or the genitive, which that tongue uses for the ablative; and I found the genitive. And if it were interpreted word for word, it would be written, THEY ARE FILLED OF CHILDREN; but the translator has rightly followed the sense, and said after the Latin manner: THEY ARE FILLED WITH CHILDREN. In the same place, and in the seven books On the Locutions of the Divine Scriptures, St. Augustine everywhere compares Greek codices with Latin, and illustrates or resolves occurring questions from the Greek codices. These and other things sufficiently prove that St. Augustine was more skilled in the Greek tongue than some commonly judge.

[36] occasions: Therefore we gladly subscribe to the opinion of the French Benedictines, who in the Life of this holy Doctor, not long ago published in Latin, book 1, chapter 2, number 5, thus discourse of his Greek learning: But although the Greeks are most skilled in weaving fables, yet by the foreignness of their tongue he was very greatly estranged from them; and he wholly rejected Homer also, though delighting minds with pleasant deliriums. The Boy was pressed with savage terrors and punishments to learn Greek letters thoroughly; but since a man makes little progress in that which he does unwillingly, Augustine confesses that he was but lightly imbued with these letters. He does not dissemble that by the lack of this tongue he and his African fellow-countrymen were unequal to reading the books on the divine Trinity written in Greek. Yet that little knowledge of the Greek speech, such as it was, which he had procured for himself, he used so happily that, had he not out of his innate modesty professed himself unlearned in it, he might have seemed exceedingly well trained in Greek letters: for he read Epiphanius' commentary on the heresies, or at least an abridgment of it, not yet given to Latinity. Then he perused the books of other Greek Fathers, from which he drew not a few testimonies against the heretics. Finally the frequent interpretation of Greek words which occurs everywhere in his little works, and the restoration of very many passages of Scripture from the collation of Greek codices with Latin, may serve as proof that Augustine knew Greek by no means so moderately.

[37] On this occasion it might be asked whether St. Augustine also in like manner knew the Hebrew tongue. he was ignorant of the Hebrew tongue, Jean Rivius, in the Life of the Saint, book 1, chapter 2, §8, seems to patronize the affirmative opinion; and his assertion is favored by Letter 120, which he composed concerning five questions proposed by Honoratus, and where at chapter 3 he confidently sets forth the signification of a Hebrew word in these words: But when the fullness of time came, that the grace which was hidden in the old Testament might now be revealed in the new, God sent his Son made of a woman — by which name, by the property of the Hebrew tongue, every female is called, whether untouched by a man or already joined with one. But the holy Doctor himself in Letter 131, toward the end, confesses that he is ignorant of the Hebrew tongue; and in book XI of the Confessions, chapter 3, he writes thus concerning Moses: If he should speak with a Hebrew voice, he would beat upon my sense in vain; nor would anything thence touch my mind; but if in Latin, I should know what he said.

[38] Although in this place St. Augustine says that he would not understand Moses speaking in Hebrew, although he understood certain Hebrew words: yet it does not thence follow that all Hebrew words were unknown to him. So, for example, a German or a Belgian or a Frenchman will not understand an Englishman speaking in his native tongue, even though those three nations, from their own vernacular idiom, recognize very many English words, changed a little in pronunciation or inflection, on account of their affinity with their own tongues. Wherefore we judge that many Hebrew words were known to St. Augustine, especially those akin to the Punic idiom; concerning which affinity of tongues the holy Doctor himself, in book 2 Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, chapter 104, treating of Christ, delivers the following: Him the Hebrews call Messiah, which word is consonant with the Punic tongue, as are very many other Hebrew words, and nearly all. From this kinship of both tongues it will follow that St. Augustine was not altogether unskilled in the Hebrew tongue, if he knew the Punic idiom, some skill in which we shall now endeavor to claim for him.

[39] Not altogether rashly do we conjecture that this Saint in boyhood or youth learned the Punic tongue, the Punic speech as a boy which at that time the Africans still used, especially those who lived in the country, or dwelt in small and inland towns: for often in his writings he displays some knowledge of this tongue. Whence the holy Doctor, in Letter 44, thus answers, after other things, Maximus of Madauros, a grammarian who had laughed at certain Punic names of Saints: For thou couldst not so far forget thyself that, being an African writing to Africans, when we are both established in Africa, thou shouldst think Punic names to be assailed. For if we interpret those words, what else does Namphanio signify than "a man of the good foot," that is, one whose coming brings something of felicity — as we are wont to say that a man entered with a favorable foot, whose entrance some prosperity has followed? Which tongue

if it be disapproved by thee, deny that in Punic books, as is reported by most learned men, many things have wisely been committed to memory. Let it repent thee at any rate to have been born there where the cradles of such a tongue are still warm. Then the Saint in the same place proves by an argument to the pagan man, from Virgil, that he has rightly explained the name of St. Namphanio, of whom in our Work Sollier treated in passing at the day IV of July.

[40] he seems to have learned, So also in Sermon 35 On the Words of the Lord, chapter 2, he interprets the Hebrew word mammon from the Punic idiom in these words: First, what is mammon? For it is a word which is not Latin. It is a Hebrew word, akin to the Punic tongue; for these tongues are associated with each other by a certain nearness of signification. What the Punic speakers call mammon is in Latin called gain. What the Hebrews call mammona is in Latin called riches. In other places of his Works also St. Augustine not seldom expounds Hebrew words and phrases from the Punic manner of speaking, and by these explanations shows that the Punic tongue was well enough known to him. Not improbably therefore have we conjectured above that he learned the Punic tongue in boyhood or youth. For confirmation's sake, however, we add a single argument of this matter, which the Saint himself in Sermon 24 On the Words of the Apostle, chapter 3, suggests in these words: A Punic proverb is well known, which indeed I shall tell you in Latin, since not all of you know Punic. For it is an ancient Punic proverb: "The plague asks a coin; give it two, and let it take itself off." Does not this proverb seem born of the Gospel?

[41] [which among the Africans had nearly grown obsolete by the use of the Latin tongue:] From this last sermon we learn that the Latin tongue was so common in the populous cities of Africa that many Africans no longer understood their own old Punic idiom. Nor is this greatly to be wondered at, since the victorious Romans always took care that the imperious city should impose upon the conquered nations not only its yoke but also its tongue, through the peace of fellowship, as the holy Doctor writes in his Work On the City of God, book 19, chapter 7. Hence also we more clearly understand how St. Augustine as a boy began to learn the Latin tongue amid the blandishments of nurses, as he himself will testify in the first part of the Acts at number 15, after this preliminary Commentary. But afterwards he weighed these first rudiments of Latinity so scrupulously by the prescribed laws of Grammar, that he dreaded a barbarism against the precepts of Grammar more than a sin against the commandments of God, as we shall hear below from his Confessions.

[42] He goes to Carthage to learn Rhetoric; there by the reading of poets, After he had overcome the harsh difficulties of Grammar, he applied his mind to reading the poets, and was chiefly delighted with their fables. But thence his mind began to be inflamed to lust, which afterwards grew greater, and which the Saint, when brought back to good fruit, publicly lamented. But when he had already given attention to the humaner letters in his native country and in the town of Madauros, he was sent to Carthage for the sake of learning eloquence — Romanianus, a leading citizen of Tagaste and a rich man, partly bearing the expense of the journey and of the studies on account of the slender fortune of his parents; whom the Saint, mindful of this benefit, thus addresses in his Work Against the Academics, book 2, chapter 2: Shall I then not repay thee thanks? Or do I perhaps owe but a little? Thou didst receive me, a poor young man setting out for studies abroad, both with a home and with expense and (what is more) with affection. When I was bereft of my father thou didst console me with friendship, animate me with exhortation, help me with means. Thou in our very municipality, by favor, by familiarity, by the sharing of thy house, didst make me almost as distinguished and as much a leading man as thyself. Then he commemorates other benefits of this Mæcenas, of which perhaps we shall make mention below.

[43] While he was staying in the city of Carthage, there sputtered around him on every side a frying-pan of shameful loves, and by the obscene spectacles which he frequented, which he nourished with obscene spectacles and theatrical shows and other kindlings of wantonness, as the Saint himself in penitence will humbly and ingenuously declare in the first part of the Acts after this Commentary, at number 62 and following. These and such pernicious spectacles, if I mistake not, the Saint himself in his Work On the City of God, book 2, chapter 4, describes and condemns in these words: We too as young men used at times to come to the spectacles and mockeries of sacrileges. We used to watch men caught up in frenzy, we used to hear the musicians; we were delighted with the most base shows which were exhibited to the gods and goddesses. To the heavenly virgin and to Berecynthia, mother of all the gods, before her litter on the solemn day of her washing, such things were sung publicly by the most worthless stage-players as it would not befit — I do not say the mother of the gods, but the mother of any senators whatever, or of any honorable men; nay rather, such as it would not befit even the mother of the stage-players themselves to hear. Then in the same book 2, chapter 26, the holy Doctor repeats like things in this manner: where we beheld that image set up, all of us flowing together from every side, and standing where each could, most intently watching the shows which were performed, gazing with alternating view, on this side upon the harlot procession, on that upon the virgin goddess; her adored with supplication, and before her base things celebrated. There we saw no bashful mimes, no more modest actress; all the offices of obscenity were fulfilled.

[44] Driven therefore by these goads of lusts, Augustine as a young man fell into luxury, he falls into luxury, and begets a son of a concubine. so that in the eighteenth year of his age he had a son by a concubine, whom he kept with him for many years, as we shall see afterwards. Further, he was endowed with a ready and penetrating talent, and so excelled in eloquence and in the other sciences, that afterwards he taught rhetoric at Carthage with great applause. But he abused these gifts of God, since he grew proud on account of that keenness of talent, and defiled his soul with ambition, vainglory, and other sins, as in the books of the Confessions he candidly confesses. At that time, however, he took care to cover the inward wounds of his mind, and outwardly in public society to preserve a certain seemliness: for since he was foul and dishonorable, as he says in the books of the Confessions just cited, he wished to seem elegant and urbane, out of abounding vanity. Whence Vincentius the Rogatist, who had known the Saint at Carthage while he was still a youth, as the holy Doctor himself testifies in Letter 48 toward the end, wrote to him after many years in this manner: Since I know very well that thou, still far removed from the Christian faith, and formerly given to the studies of letters, wast a cultivator of quiet and of honorableness, etc.

[45] Yet St. Augustine himself, more conscious of his own offenses, which sins he himself acknowledged; ingenuously and of his own accord confesses that he lived basely in the city of Carthage. Therefore in Discourse 3 on Psalm 36, which he delivered publicly before the people of Carthage, in volume 8 of the Works, page 125, he acknowledges the sins committed by him there, and thus answers the Donatist heretics objecting his past vices to him: For they see that they have nothing in the case, and they turn their tongues upon us, and begin to speak evil of us — many things which they know, many which they do not know. What they know are our past deeds: for we were once, as the Apostle says, foolish and unbelieving, and reprobate unto every good work. In perverse error we were senseless and mad; we do not deny it; and the more we do not deny our past, so much the more do we praise God, who has pardoned us.

[46] and bewailed. What then, heretic, dost thou leave the case and go to the man? For what am I? Who am I? Am I the Catholic Church? Am I the inheritance of Christ spread abroad among the nations? It suffices me that I be in it. Thou blamest my past evils. What great thing dost thou do? I am severer upon my own evils than thou: what thou hast blamed, I have condemned. Would that thou wert willing to imitate me, that thy error might at some time become past! These are the past evils which they know, especially in this city: for here we lived ill, which I confess; and as much as I rejoice over the grace of God, so much do I fear for my past. What shall I say? Do I grieve? I should grieve, if I were still such. What shall I say? Do I rejoice? Neither can I say this: for would that I had never been such! Yet whatever I was, in the name of Christ it is past. But what they now reprehend, they do not know. Although the holy Doctor in the books of the Confessions narrates at sufficient length how he fell into the heresy of the Manichæans, and afterwards began to hold it suspect, yet this narrative will now be confirmed from his other little works, and will receive some light from the following paragraph.

elsewhere restitutum*

§ IV. The cause or occasion by which he embraced the sect of the Manichæans and drew others to it; some reasons for which he began to hold this heresy suspect; and his first lucubration.

Augustine, out of pride, God by a hidden but just judgment sometimes permits that men of talent and swollen with knowledge should, on account of pride, slip into shameful crimes and infamous and ridiculous errors, as the holy apostle Paul indicates in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1, in these words: When they had known God, they glorified him not as God, nor gave thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened: for professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of creeping things. For which cause God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. This text of the Apostle nearly suits the young Augustine, who, puffed up by the fame of his learning and swollen with haughtiness, fell into the absurd heresy of the Manichæans, as will appear from what follows.

[48] by contempt When he was in the nineteenth year of his age, having read Cicero's Hortensius, he burned with love of wisdom and truth, as he himself testifies at the beginning of the book On the Happy Life: I, from the nineteenth year of my age, he says, after I received in the school of rhetoric that book of Cicero which is called Hortensius, was kindled with so great a love of philosophy that I meditated at once transferring myself to it. But neither were there wanting clouds by which my course was confounded; and long, I confess, I gazed at stars sinking into the Ocean, by which I was led into error. But in vain did he seek truth among the heathen philosophers and vain astrologers, while meanwhile he proudly despised the sacred Letters, in which it was to be found, on account of their humble style.

[49] This impious disparagement of sacred Scripture, of sacred Scripture, and this ambitious rashness in inquiring after truth, and other like vices, gave the chief cause of the shameful fall and of the long-continued error of the proud Youth, as he himself afterwards in Sermon 65 On Divers Matters, chapter 5, publicly confessed before the people in this manner: I speak to you as one once deceived, when at first as a boy I wished to bring to the divine Scriptures rather the keenness of one discussing than the piety of one seeking. I myself by my perverse manners was shutting against myself the door of my Lord. Whereas I ought to have knocked

that it might be opened, I was rather adding that it might be shut: for being proud I dared to seek what none but the humble can find. How much more blessed are you now, how securely you learn, how usefully all of you who are still little ones in the nest of faith receive spiritual food! But I, wretched man, when I thought myself fit for flying, forsook the nest, and fell before I flew. But the merciful Lord lifted me up, lest I should be trodden down by passers-by and die, and set me back in the nest. Now let us hear the other causes by which he was induced to defend and follow incautiously for nearly nine years this base sect of the Manichæans.

[50] The Saint himself, to a certain Honoratus, whom, not yet a Christian, he had driven to embrace that heresy, and by the frauds of heretics sets forth in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, chapter 1, the chief cause of his fall and error, in these words: It is my design therefore to prove to thee, if I can, that the Manichæans sacrilegiously and rashly inveigh against those who, following the authority of the Catholic faith, before they are able to behold that truth which is discerned by a pure mind, are fortified beforehand by believing, and are prepared for God who will enlighten them. For thou knowest, Honoratus, that we fell in with such men for no other cause than that they said that, terrible authority being set aside, by a wonderful and simple reason they would lead those who were willing to hear them to God, and would free them from all error. For what else compelled me for nearly nine years, the religion which had been implanted in me as a little boy by my parents being despised, to follow those men and diligently to hear them, save that they said that we were terrified by superstition, and that faith was commanded us before reason; but that they pressed no one to faith unless the truth were first discussed and unraveled? Who would not be enticed by these promises — especially the mind of a young man desirous of truth, and moreover proud and garrulous from the disputations of certain learned men in the school; such as they then found me, despising forsooth as old wives' fables, and desiring to hold and to drink in the open and sincere truth promised by them?

[51] Besides, in the book On the Two Souls, chapter 9, he thus brings forward two other causes of that same blindness and obstinacy of his: he slips into the heresy of the Manichæans, But two things especially, which easily catch that incautious age, wore me down through wonderful circuits; of which one is familiarity, creeping in I know not how by a certain image of goodness, like some winding chain wrapped manifoldly about the neck. The other, that a certain harmful victory almost always came to me in disputations, when I discoursed with unskilled Christians, who nevertheless strove eagerly, as each was able, to defend their faith. By which most frequent success the young man's spiritedness swelled, and by its own impetus imprudently inclined toward the great evil of stubbornness. And because I had taken up this kind of altercation after hearing them, whatever I could do either by my own poor talent or by other readings, I most gladly attributed to them alone. So from their discourses ardor was stirred in the outcome of the contests, and love toward them was daily stirred []. From which it came about that whatever they said, in certain wonderful ways I approved as true — not because I knew it, but because I wished it to be true.*

[52] and leads others into it; On account of these frequent successes in disputations and these harmful victories, Augustine, being lifted up with arrogance, defended that foul heresy with youthful impetus, and laid waste the Catholic faith with a most wretched and most furious loquacity, that I may use the same words in which he in book 2 On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 20, expressed his blind obstinacy of that time. Not content with championing the errors of the Manichæans, he also induced certain of his friends to embrace the same sect. Among these we know Alypius, Romanianus his patron, and a certain Honoratus, who last still adhered to those heretics when St. Augustine had already been initiated into the priesthood, as we shall see below. Therefore the Saint sent him the book On the Usefulness of Believing, where at chapter 1 he thus addresses him: Thou, not yet a Christian, who at my exhortation, when thou didst vehemently execrate them, wast scarcely brought to think that they ought to be heard and examined by thee — by what other thing, I ask, wast thou delighted (recall it, I beseech thee) save by a certain great presumption and promise of reasons? Then by various arguments he strives to move this man, whom he had formerly seduced when incautious, to profess the faith of the Catholic Church.

[53] yet he never was in the rank But although Augustine at that time so fervently defended and propagated the heresy of the Manichæans, yet among them he was unwilling to ascend to the rank of the Elect, which was more highly esteemed: for they willed that their church should consist of two professions, that is, of Elect and Hearers, as he says in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, heresy 46. And so he kept himself in the rank of Hearers, who were ignorant of the secret mysteries and hidden disgraces of that sect. Whence in the first Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichæan, or volume 6 of the Works, page 66, he thus answers that priest of the Manichæans: But concerning your manners those can fully know who are your Elect. But you know that I was not one of your Elect, but a Hearer. And so, although I was present also at your prayer, as thou hast asked whether you have separately with you some prayer, God alone and you can know. Yet in the prayer at which I was present I saw nothing base done, but only noticed, against the faith which I afterwards learned and approved, that you make your prayer toward the sun. Besides this, in that prayer of yours I learned nothing new. But whoever raises any question with you concerning morals, let him raise it with your Elect. But what you do among yourselves who are Elect, I cannot know: for I have often heard from you that you receive the Eucharist; but since the time of receiving was hidden from me, whence could I know what you receive? And so keep, if it please thee, the question of morals, that it may be discussed among your Elect, if it can be discussed. A faith was given me by you, which today I disapprove. The holy Doctor here wished to dispute against Fortunatus concerning faith alone, even though he knew abundantly the corrupt morals of the Manichæans, as will be plain from what is to be said afterwards.

[54] From these things it evidently appears that Augustine was never among the Manichæans in the number of the Elect or of the priests, of the Elect. although Petilian the Donatist wished to fasten this calumny upon him. Wherefore he himself in book 3 Against the Letters of Petilian, chapter 17, lightly hisses off that manifest falsehood of his accuser in these words: Let him go on with a discourse of many words, but plainly of empty words, in those matters which he wholly does not know, or in which rather he abuses the ignorance of very many; and from the confession of a certain woman, in that she said herself a catechumen of the Manichæans — who had been a nun and a Catholic — let him say what pleases him concerning their baptism; and let him write, not knowing, or feigning not to know, that they are not unlawfully called catechumens, as though baptism were at some time owed to such a one, but that those are so called who are also called Hearers, because forsooth they cannot observe the better and greater precepts which are observed by those whom they think should be distinguished and honored by the name of Elect. Let him also contend with wonderful rashness — either deceived or deceiving — that I was a priest of the Manichæans. Let us now report from the Saint's own writings (always excepting in this place the books of the Confessions, which after this Commentary will for the greatest part be reprinted) for what causes the seduced Young man began to waver in the sect of the Manichæans.

[55] The holy Doctor assigns one of those causes in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, The causes which made when there at chapter 1 he thus writes among other things to Honoratus: And what reason again called me back, that I should not utterly cleave to them, but should hold myself in that rank which they call of Hearers, so that I should not lay aside the hope and business of this world — save that I noticed that they too were more eloquent and copious in refuting others than they remained firm and certain in proving their own?… But because they disputed long and much, most widely and most vehemently, about the errors of the unskilled, which for anyone moderately learned would be very easy, I learned too late. If they also inserted anything of their own into us, we thought it must be retained of necessity, since other things did not occur in which we might acquiesce. And so they did to us what treacherous fowlers are wont to do, who fix limed twigs near the water, that they may deceive thirsty birds: for they cover over and in a manner conceal the other waters which are round about, or even frighten them away thence by terrifying contrivances, so that men fall into their guiles not by choice but by want.

[56] Augustine was also vehemently displeased by that custom of his sect the heresy of the Manichæans whereby the Manichæans nearly wholly neglected the yearly feast of Easter, which he knew to be solemnly celebrated by all Christians. Wherefore in the book Against the Letter of Mani which they call Fundamental, chapter 8, he thus indicates his suspicion of the cause of that neglect: What else therefore I should suspect I do not know, save that this Manichæus, who through the name of Christ seeks an entrance to the minds of the unskilled, wished himself to be honored in the place of that same Christ. Whence I conjecture this, I shall briefly say. When I often asked of you at that time when I was hearing you what the cause was that the Pasch of the Lord was for the most part frequented with no celebration, and now and then by a few with a most lukewarm one — no vigils, no more prolonged fast being appointed for your Hearers, no more festive preparation at last — whereas your bema (the Greek word βῆμα signifies a step or tribunal, from which signification that festival of the Manichæans probably drew its name), that is, the day on which Manichæus was slain, you attend with great honors, a tribunal being set up with five steps and adorned with precious linens, and placed in readiness and set before the worshipers.

[57] suspect to him When therefore I asked this, it was answered that the day of his passion ought to be celebrated who truly suffered; but that Christ, who was not born, and had shown to human eyes not true but simulated flesh, did not endure but feigned a passion. Who would not groan that men who wish to be called Christians fear lest truth be polluted from a Virgin's womb, and do not fear from a lie? But, to return to the matter, who would not suspect, if he attended diligently, that it is therefore denied by Manichæus that Christ was born of a woman and had a human body, lest his passion — which is now the most festive time of the whole world — should be celebrated by those who had believed him, and lest the longed-for solemnity should honor the day of his own death with less devotion? For this was to us most agreeable in that celebration of the bema, that it was frequented at Easter; since we the more vehemently desired that feast day, another being withdrawn which used to be the sweetest. Although this custom of the Manichæans and other fanatical opinions of theirs without doubt offended Augustine, endowed with a subtle talent and by no means credulous, yet two snares still detained him among them, which he in book 1 On the Morals of the Catholic Church, chapter 1, explains in these words: There are two chief allurements of the Manichæans, by which the incautious are deceived, so that

they wish to have them as teachers. One, when they blame the Scriptures, either those which they ill understand, or those which they wish to be ill understood. The other, when they display an appearance of a chaste life and of memorable continence. This book will contain our opinion, agreeable to Catholic discipline, concerning life and morals; in which perhaps it will be understood both how easy it is to feign virtue, and how difficult to have it. I shall indeed keep this measure, if I can, that I may not inveigh against their diseases, which are most well known to me, so gravely as they against those things which they do not know: for I wish rather that they be healed, if it can be done, than assailed. But he broke both those snares, after he had perused the sacred Letters with a humble heart, and had detected the obscene and depraved morals of the Manichæans.

[58] to Augustine. Meanwhile the arrival of the famous Manichæan Faustus had also contributed not a little to increasing the suspicions of his wavering mind; whom, long awaited, Augustine in his doubt consulted at Carthage. But presence lessened his fame: for the keen Young man in this conference at Carthage found by experience that that Faustus of great name was eloquent rather than learned or erudite, and found him unequal to resolving his doubts, as in the first part of the Acts after this preliminary Commentary, chapter 9, will be distinctly narrated. Afterwards Augustine, writing a great Work against the same Faustus, still remembered that conference at Carthage, as he sufficiently hints in the proem of the said Work, which begins in these words: There was a certain Faustus, an African by race, of the city of Milevis, sweet in speech, crafty in talent, a Manichæan by sect, and by this perverted with abominable error. I myself had known the man, as I have commemorated in the books of my Confessions. Then in the same place he sets forth on what occasion and by what method he undertook to refute the heretical lucubrations of this Faustus.

[59] He writes his first little work, which has perished. At the time when Augustine was still living at Carthage, for the sake of exercising or displaying his talent he composed a Work On the Beautiful and the Fitting; concerning which first lucubration of his the Reverend Father Jean Rivius, an Augustinian Hermit, in the Life of our Saint, book 1, chapter 1, § XI, thus discourses: But when he was now of twenty-six or twenty-seven years, and a lover of the beautiful and of beauty, he applied his mind to the contemplation of these and to investigating the cause why such things are loved, and wrote two or three books On the Beautiful and the Fitting. And he defined and distinguished the beautiful as that which is comely through itself, but the fitting as that which is comely as accommodated to something else, and supported this with corporeal examples. These books, which have perished, he dedicated to Hierius, an orator of the city of Rome, a Syrian by birth, most eloquent in Greek and Latin, and most knowing in matters pertaining to the study of wisdom; whom even then he loved from the fame of his learning, though unknown to him by face. But Augustine will make mention of that first little work of his in the Acts to be reprinted after this Commentary, where at number 76 and following we shall hear like things more fully, scattered here and there, from the Author himself. Meanwhile we shall now faithfully and carefully accompany him as he departs from Carthage, to sail from Africa into Italy, and as he stays at Rome.

elsewhere novabatur*

§ V. His departure from Africa into Italy, his stay at Rome, the corrupt morals of the Manichæans there detected, his passage from the Manichæans to the Academics.

From Africa he seeks Rome, In the year of Christ 383 St. Augustine sailed from Africa to Rome, that he might escape the turbulent seditions of the students of Carthage, and there might teach rhetoric more quietly. From that year of his migration the gross calumny of the Donatists is refuted, who against all likelihood of truth pretended that Augustine, being still a Manichæan, fled from Africa into Italy on account of the sentence which the proconsul Messianus had passed against the Manichæans. Wherefore the holy Doctor himself in book 3 Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, chapter 25, thus refutes that evident falsehood: Among many things also not at all pertaining to the matter, he says that I was struck by the sentence of the proconsul Messianus, so that I fled from Africa; and on account of this falsehood (which if he did not himself invent, he certainly with ill will believed the ill-willed inventors) how many other falsehoods he consequently did not fear, with wonderful rashness, not merely to say somehow, but even to write — whereas I came to Milan before the consulship of Bauto, and to that consul on the Kalends of January, in so great an assembly and sight of men, I recited a panegyric according to my then rhetorical profession; and from that sojourn I sought Africa again only after the death of the tyrant Maximus; but the proconsul Messianus heard the Manichæans after the consulship of Bauto, as the date of the proceedings inserted by that same Petilian shows. Which things, if it were necessary to prove them to doubters or gainsayers, I could bring forward many men illustrious in the world as most abundant witnesses of that whole period of my life. Hence we evidently see that those accusers of St. Augustine shamelessly lied, since the sentence of Messianus against the Manichæans was given in the year of Christ 386, before and after which the Saint was staying in Italy.

[61] Further, he departed from Africa into Italy without the knowledge of his friends and of his patron Romanianus himself, his friends not knowing, whose sons, his pupils, he had left at Carthage, and whom he afterwards in book 2 Against the Academics, chapter 2, thus addresses: Thou too, when I had sailed in thy absence and without thy knowledge, being in no way angry that I had not communicated it to thee, as I was wont, and suspecting anything rather than contumacy, didst remain unshaken in friendship; nor were thy children, deserted by their master, more before thine eyes than the inner recesses and purity of our mind. Nevertheless of that journey his friend Martianus seems to have known or suspected something, who chanted to him, as he was about to set out for Italy, that verse of Terence, Now this day brings another life, demands other manners, as we gather from Letter 155, which he wrote to that old friend of his. But how he deceived holy Monica, who wished to accompany her Son, and had followed him as far as the sea, we shall learn below from the books of the Confessions.

[62] At Rome he lodges with a Manichæan, When St. Augustine had reached Rome, he used the lodging of a Manichæan Hearer, and there labored under a dangerous illness: for although he held the doctrine of the Manichæans suspect of falsity, as he indicated to his host, yet he still dealt familiarly with their Hearers and Elect, who lived secretly at Rome in great number. Perhaps this familiarity afforded him occasion of detecting the various disgraces of the Manichæans, which in book 2 On the Morals of the Manichæans, chapters 19 and 20, he afterwards confidently reproached them with in this manner: In short, so many and so grave sins are detected in these morals, that if any man of some ability wished to accuse them all, he could take each one at the least in a volume apiece. If therefore you kept these rules and fulfilled your profession, nothing would be more inept than you, nothing more foolish, nothing more unskilled. But since you praise and teach these things and do not do them, what more deceitful, what more treacherous, what more malicious can be said or found than you?

[63] and the morals Nine whole years I heard you with great care and diligence; not one of the Elect could become known to me who, according to these precepts, was not either caught in sin, or at least subject to suspicion. Many were found in wine and flesh, many bathing in the baths. But these things we used to hear. Some were proved to have seduced other men's wives, so that I plainly cannot doubt. But let this too be rather rumor than truth. I myself saw — not I alone, but with those who are partly now freed from that superstition, and partly, as I still hope, will be freed. We saw therefore at a crossroads of Carthage, in a most frequented street, not one but more than three of the Elect together, neighing after some women passing by with so wanton a gesture as to surpass the unchastity and shamelessness of all the men of the streets. That this came of a great habit, and that they so lived among themselves, was sufficiently evident; since no one, fearing the presence of his fellow, showed that all, or at any rate almost all, were held by the same plague: for these were not of one house, but, dwelling in quite different places, they had happened to come down together from that place where the assembly of them all had been held.

[64] of the Manichæans But we, being gravely moved, gravely also complained. Who at last thought that this should be punished — I do not say by separation from the church, but at least, in proportion to the greatness of the disgrace, by more vehement rebukes? And this was the whole excuse for their impunity, that at that time, when their conventicles were forbidden by public law, it was feared that those who were hurt might betray something. Where then is that which they proclaim, that a perpetual persecution will be theirs in this world, and by which they wish to be held the more commendable — interpreting hence that this world hates them, and therefore affirming that truth must be sought with them, because in the promise of the Holy Spirit the Paraclete it was said that the world cannot receive him? Of which matter this is not the place to discourse. But certainly if a perpetual persecution is to be yours down to the end of the world, perpetual also will be this dissolution and the unpunished contagion of so great baseness, if you dread to hurt such men.

[65] This answer also was given us, when we had brought it to their very chiefs, corrupt, that a woman had complained to us that in a chamber where she was with other women — secure forsooth in the sanctity of those men — several of the Elect entered, and the lamp being put out by one of them, she was, uncertain which of them it was in the darkness, sought with an embrace, and forced toward disgrace, unless she had escaped by the help of a cry. This wickedness, most well known to you too, from how great a habit must it be thought to have come? And this was done on that night on which the festal vigils were celebrated among you. But indeed, even if there were no fear of betrayal, who could present for condemnation to the bishop one who had so taken precaution that he should not be recognized? As though indeed the same crime did not hold all involved who had entered together: for the putting out of the lamp had pleased all as they jested wantonly.

[66] But how great doors were opened to suspicions, when we found them envious, and various when covetous, when most greedy of exquisite banquets, when most frequent in quarrels, when most changeable about trifling matters? We surely do not think that those men could restrain themselves from things from which they professed to restrain themselves, when they should find hiding-places and darkness. Two indeed there were of a fairly good reputation, of ready talent, and chief in those disputations of theirs, joined to us more and more familiarly than the rest; of whom one, who on account of liberal studies clung to us here more closely, is now said to be a priest there. These grievously envied one another, and the one charged the other, not by manifest accusation, but by speech among those with whom he could, and by whispers, that the wife of a certain Hearer had been violently attempted by him. But he, clearing himself, meanwhile accused before us another of the Elect of the same crime, who dwelt with that same Hearer as though a most faithful friend; whom, since suddenly entering he had caught with the woman, he said that counsel had been given to the woman and the adulterer by that enemy and envier of his, that this calumny should be got up against him, lest, if he should betray anything, he should be believed. We were distressed, and bore it most grievously, that even if concerning the woman who had been attempted

it was uncertain, yet a most bitter malice appeared in those two, than whom we found no better men there, and compelled us to conjecture other things.

[67] Finally we very often found in the theaters Elect grave both in age and (as they seemed) in morals, together with an old priest. and their abominable I pass over the young men, whom we used to catch even brawling on behalf of stage-players and charioteers; which matter is no slight argument how they can restrain themselves in secret, when they cannot overcome that desire which sustains them before the eyes of their own Hearers, and betrays them blushing and fleeing. Or would that great disgrace of that holy man too — to whose disputations we used to come in the fig-sellers' quarter — have been betrayed, if he had been able to make a consecrated virgin merely a woman and not also pregnant? But the hidden and incredible evil the growing womb did not suffer to lie hid. And when the mother had disclosed this to her young brother, he, grieving most bitterly, was nevertheless called back from public accusation by the name of religion; and he brought it about that the man was driven from that church (for no one could bear this); and that the matter might not be altogether unpunished, he took counsel that, friends being joined to him, he should beat the man with fists and heels.

[68] crimes But he, while he was being grievously beaten, cried out that he should be spared on the authority of Manichæus: that Adam, the first man, sinned, and after the sin was holier. For such is the opinion among you concerning Adam and Eve. It is a long fable; but from it I shall touch what suffices for the present. You say that Adam was so begotten by his parents, those abortive princes of darkness, that he had the greatest part of light in his soul, and a very small part of the adverse race. Who, though he lived holily on account of the overflowing abundance of good, yet that adverse part was stirred in him, so that he was turned aside to intercourse; that thus he fell and sinned, but afterwards lived holier. Here I do not so much complain of a worthless man, who by abominable defilement, under the habit of one of the Elect and of a holy man, brought another's handmaid to so great a disgrace and infamy. This I do not object to you. Let this have been rather the deed of a most abandoned man than of your custom: for I charge so great a disgrace not upon you, but upon him. Yet how that can be borne and tolerated in all of you I do not know, that, whereas you say that the soul is a part of God, you yet assert that, even by a slight admixture of evil, its greater abundance and fullness is overcome: for who, when he has believed this, and lust has assailed him, will not flee rather to such a defense than to the bridling and repressing of that lust?

[69] crimes What more shall I say of your morals? I have said what I myself learned, when I was in that city where these things were committed. But what was done at Rome in my absence it is long to explain. I will nevertheless say it briefly: for the matter broke out so far that it could not be hidden from the absent; and I indeed afterwards, when I was at Rome, established that I had heard all things true — although one so familiar and approved by me, who was present, had brought the matter to me, that I could not doubt at all. For a certain Hearer of yours, in that memorable abstinence yielding in nothing to the Elect, who was also liberally educated, and both wished and was accustomed copiously to defend your sect, bore it most grievously that, when he often disputed, the most abandoned morals of the Elect, dwelling vagrantly and most wickedly and living at large, were objected to him. He desired therefore, if it could be done, to gather into his own house all who were prepared to lead a life according to those precepts, and to maintain them at his own charges: for he was both no ordinary despiser of money, and no ordinary man of money. But he complained that his great endeavors were hindered by the dissoluteness of the bishops, by whose help he ought to have fulfilled them.

[70] little by little Meanwhile a certain bishop, a man plainly (as I myself found by experience) rustic and unpolished, but somehow by that very hardness seeming stricter in the keeping of good morals — him, long desired and at length present, this man seizes and sets forth his own wish. The other praises and consents; it is agreed that he himself should first begin to dwell in his house. And when this was done, there were gathered thither all the Elect who could be at Rome. A rule of living was proposed from the letter of Manichæus. To many it seemed intolerable. They withdrew. Not a few, however, remained for shame. They began to live as had been agreed, and as so great an authority prescribed; while meanwhile that Hearer vehemently compelled all to all things, yet no one to that which he did not himself first undertake. Meanwhile quarrels arose most frequently among the Elect; crimes were objected by them one to another, all which he heard with groaning, and took pains that in wrangling they should most incautiously betray themselves. They betrayed abominable and monstrous things. There it was learned what sort of men they were who nevertheless among the rest had thought that the force of those precepts must be undergone by them. Now of the rest what was to be suspected, or rather what to be judged?

[71] What more? Being compelled, at last they murmured that those commands could not be borne. he discloses, Thence to sedition. The Hearer pleaded his cause by a most brief dilemma: that either all those things must be kept, or that he who had commanded such things under such a condition, which no one could fulfil, must be judged most foolish. Nevertheless a most unbridled uproar overcame the opinion of one man (for it could not be otherwise). Afterwards the bishop himself also gave way and fled with great disgrace: for foods taken by him secretly beyond the rule were reported often to have been found, since he had abundant money from a purse of his own diligently hidden. If you say that these things are false, you resist things too open and widely known. But would that you might say it! For since these things are manifest and most easy to learn for those who have wished to know them, it is understood how truly they are wont to speak who shall have denied these things to be true.

[72] But you use other defenses, which I do not disapprove: which to them for either you say that there are some who keep your precepts, and that these ought not to be drenched with the crimes of others; or that it ought not at all to be asked what sort of men they are who profess your sect, but what sort the profession itself is. Both of which I shall admit, although you can neither show those to be faithful observers of the commands, nor purge the heresy itself of so many and so great trifles and crimes. Yet this I shall greatly require of you: why you assail with revilings Christians of the Catholic name, regarding the abandoned life of certain persons, when concerning your own men you either shamelessly refuse that inquiry be made, or more shamelessly do not refuse; and would have it understood that in so great a fewness of yours there lie hidden I know not who that keep their own precepts, and are unwilling that this be understood in so great a multitude of the Catholic Church?

[73] Perhaps Augustine learned a great part of this narrative from that very Roman Hearer of the Manichæans, afterwards who was called Constantius, and afterwards embraced the Catholic faith, as we learn from the Work Against Faustus the Manichæan, where the holy Doctor in book 5, chapters 5 and 6, briefly repeats a like distinction between the morals and the precepts of the Manichæans in these words: That Constantius is still among human affairs, now already our brother, a Catholic Christian, who had gathered many of you at Rome into his own house for the fulfilling of the precepts of Manichæus — vain enough indeed and inept, but such as you esteem great. To which, when your weakness gave way, you were scattered each into his own way. Whence those who wished to persevere in them made a schism from your society; and because they sleep on mats, they are called mattarii; from whose beds very unlike were the down and goat-hair coverlets of Faustus, by which affluence of delights he loathed not only the mattarii, but even the house of his father, a poor man of Milevis. Away therefore with abandoned dissimulation; if not concerning your morals, at least concerning your writings, lest your tongue with your life, like that first man with the race of darkness, should seem to fight not with lying elements but with words.

[74] he reproached: But lest anyone reprehend me as saying these things rather against men not fulfilling what is prescribed them than against the sect itself of a most empty error, I say this: such are the very precepts of Manichæus that, if you do not perform them, you are deceivers; but if you do perform them, you are deceived. For Christ did not command you not to pluck up a plant lest you commit homicide, who did not forbid his disciples, passing through the corn and hungering, to pluck ears on the Sabbath — whence he would convict both the Jews then present and the Manichæans to come: those, because it was done on the Sabbath; these indeed, because it was done at all. But plainly Manichæus commanded that with your hands idle you should live by the homicides of others: and those indeed are false homicides; but yours are true, when by such a doctrine of demons you butcher wretched souls. These and like arguments of the holy Doctor, which occur in the course against the Manichæans, will be more clearly understood below, after we shall have reported from him the delirious dogmas of those heretics. For the rest, we here pass over other abominable crimes of the Manichæans, which were afterwards discovered and juridically proved: for this discrepancy of doctrine and morals, added to the other suspicions which we recounted in the preceding paragraph, sufficed for Augustine, seeking the truth, to forsake the infamous and gross sect of these heretics.

[75] he passes over to the Academics, But Charybdis being avoided, he fell into Scylla, and passed from the Manichæans to the Academics, who doubted of all things, as the Saint himself in the book On the Happy Life, or volume 1, page 212, declares in these few words: But when, having examined them, I escaped — especially after this sea was crossed — the Academics long held my rudder, resisting all the winds, in the midst of the waves. This he indicates again in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, which he wrote to Honoratus while still a Manichæan, where at chapter 8 he candidly sets forth to him how, after leaving the sect of the Manichæans, he hesitated in doubt, after the manner of the Academics, in searching out truth: For when I departed from you across the sea, he says, already lingering and hesitating what I ought to hold, what to lay aside — which lingering arose greater in me day by day from the time I heard that man (he means Faustus the famous Manichæan, of whom we have made mention above), whose coming, as thou knowest, was promised us as from heaven for explaining all things which moved us, and whom, apart from a certain eloquence, I found to be such as I had known the rest to be — I took counsel with myself, and, being now established in Italy, held a great deliberation: not whether I should remain in that sect, into which I repented having fallen, but in what way the truth was to be found, for love of which my sighs are known to none better than to thee.

[76] and hesitates uncertain about the religion to be chosen. Often it seemed to me that it could not be found, and the great waves of my thoughts were borne toward the suffrage of the Academics. Often again, beholding, so far as I could, the human mind, so lively, so sagacious, so perspicacious, I did not think that truth lay hidden, but only that the manner of seeking it lay hidden, and that this same manner

must be taken from some divine authority. It remained to seek what that authority might be, since amid so great dissensions each promised that he would deliver it. There met me therefore an inextricable forest, into which at last it much irked me to be thrust; and amid these things, without any rest, my mind was agitated by the desire of finding the truth. Yet I was unstitching myself more and more from those whom I had already resolved to forsake. When he was hesitating uncertain amid those waves of thoughts, he was summoned from the city of Rome to Milan, that he might there profess rhetoric. On account of a certain fraud of the Roman students Augustine gladly undertook that province; and so by divine providence he was gradually coming nearer to finding the true religion, as will be explained in the following paragraph.

§ VI. His profession of rhetoric at Milan, his acquaintance with St. Ambrose the bishop, his zeal in seeking truth, his wonderful conversion to God, and the examples of pious men by which he was roused to a more perfect life.

Teaching at Milan, he goes to St. Ambrose, When Augustine was now living at Milan, on account of his rhetorical profession he was ordered to give a specimen of eloquence, and therefore on the Kalends of January of the year 385 he publicly recited a panegyric to the consul Bauto. At that time the church of Milan was governed with great fame of piety and learning by St. Ambrose the bishop; whom, when at some time Augustine had gone to him for the sake of salutation or courtesy, he was so kindly received by him that he began to love this prelate in return. But in him he loved rather the fatherly kindness than the true religion, since from the inveterate principles of the Manichæans and the uncertain tenets of the Academics he persuaded himself that the truth could not be found in the Catholic Church. Meanwhile he was seeking truth among the Academics, and daily was more and more entangled in several doubts, which he could not propose to Ambrose to be resolved, because he nearly always found him intent upon reading or hindered by other occupations.

[78] Nevertheless at one time, on account of a doubt of his mother, and consults him on his mother's behalf concerning the Saturday fast who had come from Africa to Milan, he briefly consulted Ambrose, as is read in Letter 118, addressed to Januarius, chapter 2, in these words: I believe thou hast at some time heard it from me; but nevertheless even now I commemorate it. My mother, having followed me to Milan, found the church not fasting on Saturday. She had begun to be disturbed and to waver as to what she should do, while I did not care for such things; but for her sake I consulted concerning this matter the man of most blessed memory Ambrose. He answered that he could teach me nothing but what he himself did; because if he knew anything better, he would rather observe that. And when I had thought that, no reason being rendered, he wished by his sole authority to admonish us not to fast on Saturday, he continued and said to me: "When I come to Rome, I fast on Saturday; when I am here, I do not fast. So do thou also: to whatever church thou mayest come, keep its custom, if thou wouldst not be a scandal to anyone, nor anyone to thee." When I had reported this to my mother, she gladly embraced it. The holy Doctor writes like things to the priest Casulanus toward the end of Letter 86, concerning the fasts of the ancients, for which then, not yet a Catholic, he cared little.

[79] Although on this matter, on account of his mother's anxious mind, he had briefly questioned Ambrose, and hears him preaching: yet he did not dare to propose to him his more laborious doubts, and to interrupt for long a man so exceedingly occupied. Therefore, deprived of this help, he diligently heard that prelate preaching or disputing in public, but rather for the sake of curiosity than of instruction, as below in the books of the Confessions he will roundly declare. But together with the words, of which he was a catcher, gradually the truth of the doctrine, or the very matters which he neglected, flowed into his mind, as in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, chapter 8, he writes to Honoratus, also seduced by the Manichæans, in this manner: But nothing else remained amid such great perils, than that I should entreat the divine providence with tearful and pitiable cries to bring me help. And this I diligently did; and now certain disputations of the bishop of Milan had almost moved me, so that I desired, not without some hope, to inquire many things concerning the old Testament itself, which, as thou knowest, being ill commended to us, we used to execrate. And I had determined to be a catechumen in the Church, to which I had been delivered by my parents, until either I should find what I wished, or should persuade myself that it must not be sought. Most opportune therefore, and very docile, one might then have found me, had there been anyone who could teach.

[80] he searches out the truth; he corrects the habit of swearing, and at length, Then with great labor he tracked out the truth; and, having read the books of very many writers, both profane and sacred, he began to acknowledge the infallible authority of sacred Scripture, to change his erring opinions in faith, and to correct unseemly morals in his conversation. Besides other vices he amended the bad habit of swearing rashly, as in Sermon 28 On the Words of the Apostle James, chapter 9, or volume 10 of the Works, page 148, he signifies to his hearers by this public confession: We too have sworn; everywhere we had that most foul and deadly habit. I say to your charity: from the time we began to serve God, and saw how great an evil there is in perjury, we feared vehemently, and by fear bridled that most inveterate habit. Bridled, it is restrained; restrained, it languishes; languishing, it dies out; and a good habit succeeds the bad one. Finally St. Augustine, after a long struggle and various affections of a wavering mind (all which after the preliminary Commentary will be graphically depicted in the books of the Confessions), was converted to God by a heavenly voice, and determined to embrace not only the Catholic faith, but also a more perfect rule of living.

[81] being roused by the example of the Saints, Probably Augustine determined to seize upon that more excellent kind of life among the Catholics, being roused by the example of St. Antony the hermit and of other monks, which not long before at Milan Pontianus had narrated to him, as in the first part of the Acts, chapter 16, after this Commentary will be read. Certainly this narration of Pontianus clung so firmly to his mind that in the book On the Morals of the Catholic Church, chapter 31, afterwards, newly baptized, he thus employed it against the Manichæans: Receive, Manichæans, the morals and singular continence of perfect Christians, to whom the highest chastity has seemed not only to be praised but also to be laid hold of, lest you dare shamelessly to boast before the minds of the unskilled, as of the most difficult abstinence in things, if there is any shame in you. I shall not say those things which you do not know, but those which you hide from us. For who does not know that a multitude of Christian men of the highest continence is daily spread more and more throughout the whole world, and especially in the East and in Egypt, which can in no way be hidden from you?

[82] whose morals I shall say nothing of those whom I commemorated a little before, who, most secret, wholly withdrawn from the sight of men, content with bread alone, which is brought to them at fixed intervals of time, and with water, dwell in the most desert lands, enjoying converse with God, to whom they have clung with pure minds, and most blessed in the contemplation of that beauty which cannot be perceived save by the understanding of the holy. Nothing, I say, shall I speak of these: for to some they seem to have forsaken human affairs more than they ought, who do not understand how much their mind profits us in their prayers, and their life as an example — men whose bodies we are not permitted to see. But to dispute of this I think long and superfluous: for who can see by our discourse this so excellent height of sanctity, which does not of its own accord seem worthy of wonder and honor? Only these men must be admonished, who vainly boast of themselves, that the temperance and continence of the most holy Christians of the Catholic faith has advanced so far that to some it seems that it must be restrained and, as it were, called back to human limits. That their minds have escaped beyond men, is judged even by those to whom this displeases.

[83] Further, St. Augustine made so much of the institute of these hermits and life that at one time he desired to imitate it, and would have committed this desire to execution, had not God called him away from that purpose of the solitary life, as he himself in book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 43, indicates in these words: Terrified by my sins and by the mass of my misery, I had revolved in my heart and had meditated flight into solitude; but thou didst forbid me, saying: Therefore Christ died for all, that they who live may now not live to themselves, but to him who died for them. From this text we gather clearly enough that our Saint was divinely admonished that he should rather press on to gain souls for God than profit himself alone in the desert. Whence our Wangnereck, on this passage of the Confessions — whose first ten books he published at Dillingen in the year 1631, illustrated with pious notes — usefully admonishes the reader with this observation: Although the greatness of his sins incited St. Augustine to great penitence and to a solitary life, yet God called him to the government of souls, that he might draw innumerable persons out of the mire of heresy and of crimes in which he himself had stuck. He obeyed, and preferred to live to Christ and to be made a minister of his redemption, rather than to live to himself alone; in which matter he gave an illustrious example, that even in the common life and in ecclesiastical offices the offenses of a former life can be expiated by the love of God and of one's neighbor.

[84] The holy Doctor passes from the hermits to the cenobites, and in the place cited above thus sets their common and holy life against the Manichæans: he praises But if this exceeds our endurance, who would not admire and proclaim those who, the allurements of this world being despised and forsaken, gathered together into a common most chaste and most holy life, pass their time together, living in prayers, in readings, in disputations; swollen with no pride, turbulent with no obstinacy, livid with no envy; but modest, bashful, peaceable, they offer a most concordant life, and most intent upon God, as a most acceptable gift to him from whom they have deserved to be able to do these things? No one possesses anything of his own, no one is burdensome to anyone. They work with their hands at those things by which the body may be fed and the mind not hindered from God. But they deliver their work together to those whom they call deans, because they are set over tens, so that the care of his own body may touch none of them, neither in food, nor in clothing, nor if anything else is needed either for daily necessity or for health changed, as it is wont to be. But those deans, disposing all things with great solicitude and providing at hand whatever that life requires by reason of the weakness of the body, yet themselves also render an account to one whom they call father.

[85] But these fathers, not only most holy in morals but also most excellent in divine doctrine, and he sets against lofty in all things, with no pride take counsel for those whom they call sons — with great authority of their own in commanding, with great willingness of the others in obeying. And they come together at the last time of the day, each from his own dwelling, while they are still fasting, to hear that father; and to each father there come together at the least three thousand men: for even far more numerous companies live under one. And they hear with incredible zeal, in the deepest silence, the affections of their souls, according as the discourse of him who speaks has moved them, either with groaning or with weeping,

but with a modest cry and void of clamor signifying their joy. Then the body is refreshed, as much as is enough for health and wholesomeness, each restraining concupiscence, lest it pour itself out even upon those very things which are at hand, sparing and most cheap. Thus they abstain not only from flesh and wine, so far as suffices for the taming of lusts, but also from those things which provoke the appetite of the belly and the throat the more keenly the cleaner they seem to some — under which name a base desire of exquisite foods, which is foreign to flesh-meats, is wont ridiculously and basely to be defended. Indeed, whatever is over and above necessary sustenance (for much is over from the works of their hands and from the restriction of their meals) is distributed to the needy with as great care as it was not procured by those very men who distribute it: for they in no way busy themselves that these things may abound to them, but in every way act that what has abounded may not remain with them — to such a degree that they send even laden ships into those places which the poor inhabit. There is no need to say more of a matter most well known.

[86] the perverse This is also the life of women serving God carefully and chastely, who, separated in their dwellings and removed as far from men as is fitting, are joined to them only by pious charity and by imitation of virtue; to whom there is no access of young men, nor even of the gravest and most approved old men, save as far as the vestibule, for the sake of furnishing the necessaries of which they have need: for by wool-work they exercise and sustain the body, and deliver the garments themselves to the Brethren, receiving back from them in turn what is needful for sustenance. These morals, this life, this order, this institute, if I should wish to praise, I am not able to do so worthily; and I fear lest I should seem to judge that, being merely set forth by itself, it cannot please, if I should think that beyond the simplicity of a narrator the buskin of a panegyrist must be added. Reprehend these things, Manichæans, if you can. Do not display our tares to blind men and to those unable to discern.

[87] morals of the Manichæans Then in the same place, chapter 32, he thus praises the ecclesiastical clergy: Nor yet are the excellent morals of the Catholic Church so narrow that I think only the lives of those whom I have commemorated are to be praised. For how many bishops have I known, most excellent and most holy men; how many priests, how many deacons and ministers of this kind of the divine Sacraments, whose virtue seems to me the more wonderful and worthy of greater proclamation the more difficult it is to preserve it among a manifold kind of men and in this more turbulent life: for they preside not so much over men already healed as over men to be healed. The vices of the multitude must be endured that they may be cured, and the pestilence must be tolerated before it is allayed. It is most difficult here to keep the best measure of life and a mind peaceable and tranquil. Indeed, that I may explain briefly, these live where one learns to live; those, where one lives.

[88] Finally in the following chapter of the same Work he assigns other congregations of pious men is converted, which he himself saw in Italy, and describes them in this manner: Nor yet on that account would I despise that praiseworthy kind of Christians, namely of those who dwell in cities, most removed from the common life. I myself saw at Milan a lodging of holy men, not a few in number, over whom presided one priest, a most excellent and most learned man. At Rome also I knew several, in which single men, excelling in gravity and prudence and divine knowledge, preside over the rest dwelling with them, who live in Christian charity, sanctity, and freedom; nor are they themselves burdensome to anyone, but after the manner of the East and by the authority of Paul the Apostle they support themselves with their own hands. I have learned also that many practice fasts altogether incredible: not refreshing the body once daily toward night, which is everywhere most usual, but very often passing three continuous days or more without food and drink. Nor is this among men only, but also among women; over whom likewise, many widows and virgins dwelling together and seeking a livelihood by wool and weaving, single women preside, most grave and most approved, skilled and prepared not only in training and composing morals, but also in instructing minds.

[89] And amid these things no one is urged to hard things which he cannot bear; is converted. nothing is imposed upon anyone which he refuses, nor is he on that account condemned by the rest because he confesses himself unequal to imitating them: for they remember how greatly charity is commended in all the Scriptures… Many neither eat flesh, nor yet superstitiously think it unclean. And so those very men who in health abstain, if the reason of their health compel it, receive it in sickness without any dread. Many do not drink wine, nor yet think themselves defiled by it: for to certain weaker persons, and altogether to all who without it cannot obtain bodily health, they cause it to be furnished most humanely and most modestly; and they fraternally admonish some who foolishly refuse it, lest by vain superstition they should become weaker sooner than holier… Those therefore restrain themselves who can — and they are innumerable — both from flesh and from wine, for two causes: either on account of the weakness of the Brethren, or on account of their own liberty. Charity is chiefly guarded; to charity food, to charity speech, to charity habit, to charity countenance is fitted. They come together and conspire into one charity: to violate this is held wicked as though it were God; if anyone resists it, he is overcome and cast out; if anyone offends it, he is not suffered to endure one day. Without doubt our Saint used these or like rules of pious men for directing those with whom he afterwards lived in a congregation; and he seems to have begun some specimen of that common life when he withdrew from Milan with his friends to a country estate, as we shall now say.

§ VII. The resignation of the mastership at Milan, the withdrawal into a country villa, the useful occupations there, and the little works written there.

Some months having elapsed, on account of a pain of the stomach or of the chest which had arisen, he resigned the mastership of rhetoric, and with his mother, his son, and certain friends withdrew to the villa of Verecundus, a citizen of Milan, that he might perfect himself and others in the study of Christian philosophy, The Saint resigns his mastership and to a villa and might there more tranquilly prepare himself by degrees for receiving sacred baptism. This cause of his withdrawal, and his useful occupations in it, the Saint himself in book 1 On Order, chapter 2, thus indicates: When a pain of the stomach had compelled me to leave the school — I who already, as thou knowest, was endeavoring even without such necessity to take refuge in philosophy — I immediately betook myself to the villa of our most intimate friend Verecundus. What shall I say — with what willingness on his part? Thou knowest excellently the man's singular benevolence toward all, but especially toward us. There we discussed among ourselves whatever seemed useful, a pen indeed being employed by which all might be taken down, which I saw conduced to my health: for since I was held by some care of speaking, no immoderate contention crept in during the disputation; and at the same time, if it should please us to commit anything of ours to writing, there was neither the necessity of speaking otherwise nor the labor of recollection. And these things were carried on with me by Alypius, and Navigius my brother, and Licentius, suddenly and wonderfully given to poetry. Trigetius likewise military service had restored to us, who like a veteran fell in love with history. We had also some little store in books.

[91] he withdraws with certain disciples, Then in the following chapter of the same book he thus goes on: But on a certain night, when I had awakened as usual, and was silently revolving with myself the things which came into my mind, I know not whence — for the love of finding the truth had already turned this into a habit with me, that either the first, if such cares were present, or at any rate the last, but generally about half of the night, I should lie awake thinking upon whatever it might be; nor did I suffer myself to be called away from myself by the night studies of the young men, because they too through the whole day did so much that it seemed to me too much if they should usurp any part of the nights also for the labor of studies; and they had this precept from me, that they should do something with themselves besides their books, and should accustom their mind to dwell with itself. But how the holy Doctor in that retirement trained his disciples in all piety, and how much the Master himself advanced in the knowledge and love of God, is abundantly clear from the little works which he composed at that time, and of which we shall presently make mention.

[92] burning with great love of true wisdom, Certainly he was then held by so great a love of divine philosophy that in book 2 of the Soliloquies, chapter 12, he says that he would not have felt, or would have endured as nothing, the very great pain of the teeth by which he was tormented in the villa of Verecundus, if the brightness of truth had opened itself to his mind. Wherefore in the same place he only complains that by that most bitter pain of the teeth he was hindered from searching out the truth. Besides, the measure in which he loved that heavenly knowledge he expresses in the following chapter of the same second book in these words: Now certainly I have shown that I love nothing else, since indeed what is not loved for its own sake is not loved. But I love wisdom alone for its own sake; and other things I either wish to be present to me, or fear to be absent, for its sake — life, quiet, friends. But what measure can the love of that beauty have, in which I not only do not envy others, but even seek very many who may desire it with me, may pant for it with me, may hold it with me, and may enjoy it with me — who will be the more friendly to me the more the beloved shall be common to us? Hence we gather that St. Augustine, while still a catechumen, burned with desire not only of his own salvation and perfection, but of that of others also.

[93] But he so seriously and severely trained his disciples there in true philosophy and Christian morals, that he sharply reprehended even their lighter faults, and to instil it into his disciples as the pious Master himself in book 1 On Order, chapter 10, indicates by this narration: Here, when I saw them by their silence, countenance, eyes, suspense, and immobility of limbs sufficiently moved by the greatness of the matter, and inflamed by the desire of hearing, I said: "Therefore, Licentius, if it seems good to thee, gather within thee whatever strength thou canst, file down whatever keenness thou hast, and embrace in a definition what that order is." Then he, when he heard himself compelled to define, as though sprinkled with cold water, and looking at me with a more troubled countenance, and, as it happens, smiling at his very trepidation, said: "What is this, that I seem to thee as it were — or dost thou truly believe me inflated with some adventitious spirit?" And immediately taking courage he said: "Or perhaps there is something with me"; and he was silent a little while, that whatever notion he had of order might be brought together into a definition.

[94] Then, more upright: "Order", he said, "is that by which all things are carried on which God has established." "What," said I, "does not God himself seem to thee to be carried on by order?" "Plainly," he said, "he does seem so." "Therefore God is carried on," said Trigetius. And he: "What then," he said, "dost thou deny Christ to be God, who both came to us by order, and says that he was sent by God the Father? If therefore God sent Christ to us by order, and we do not deny Christ to be God, then not only does God carry on all things, but God also is carried on by order." Here Trigetius

doubting said: "I know not how I am to take this: for when we name God, it is not Christ himself who as it were meets our minds, but the Father; whereas he meets us when we name the Son of God." "Thou makest a fine business of it," said Licentius. "Shall we then deny that the Son of God is God?" Here he, since it seemed perilous to answer him, nevertheless forced himself and said: "This one too indeed is God, but yet properly we call the Father God." To whom I said: "Restrain thyself rather; for the Son is not improperly called God."

[95] But Trigetius, being moved by religious scruple, since he wished even his own words not to be written down, diligently Licentius urged that they should remain — after the manner forsooth of boys, or rather of nearly all men (alas the shame!), as though indeed that were being done among us for the sake of boasting; whose motion of mind when I rebuked with graver words, he blushed: at which perturbation of his I noticed Trigetius laughing and rejoicing. And to both I said: "Do you act thus? Does it not move you by what masses of vices and darkness of ignorance we are pressed and covered over? Is this that attention of yours a little while ago, at which I foolishly rejoiced, and that rising up toward God and truth? O if you could see, even with eyes as blear as mine, in what perils we lie, of what disease that laughter of yours shows the madness! O if you could see how quickly, how instantly, and with how much more prolonging you would turn it into weeping! Wretched men, you know not where we are. That the minds of all the foolish and unlearned are sunk is common to them, but wisdom does not bring help and stretch out her hand to the sunken in one and the same manner. There are others, believe me, there are others who are called upward; others who are let down into the depths."

[96] "Do not, I beseech you, double my miseries. Let my own wounds suffice me," being zealous. "which, that they may be healed, praying God with almost daily tears, I nevertheless often convict myself that I am unworthy to be healed as quickly as I wish. Do not, I beseech you — if you owe me any love, any bond of intimacy; if you understand how much I love you, how much I esteem you, how much care of your morals harasses me; if I am worthy not to be neglected by you; if finally, God being witness, I do not lie in saying that I wish nothing more for myself than for you — repay me a benefit. And if you gladly call me master, render me my wage. Be good." Here, that I might not say more, tears imposed a limit upon me, etc. Presently in the same place, when Licentius asks what they had so greatly offended in, he sharply rebukes him, and paints their vain little glory in colors so foul that both promised amendment. From these and like conversations, held in that retirement, came forth some useful and acute lucubrations, which I shall now briefly enumerate.

[97] He writes Against the Academics, In this rural leisure Augustine wrote Against the Academics, to whom he had for a while previously adhered, as he relates in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 1, in this manner: When therefore I had left either what I had obtained in the desires of this world, or what I wished to obtain, and had betaken myself to the leisure of the Christian life, not yet baptized, I first wrote against the Academics, or concerning the Academics, that I might remove from my mind, by such reasons as I could, their arguments — which cast upon many a despair of finding the truth, and forbid the wise man to assent to anything, or at all to approve anything as though it were manifest and certain, since to them all things seem obscure and uncertain — because they moved me also. But the time of the beginning of this lucubration, which he dedicated to his patron Romanianus, he indicates more distinctly in book 1 of that Work against the Academics, chapter 1, thus: A very few days therefore having passed after we had begun to live in the country, when, exhorting and animating them to their studies, I saw them more prepared and altogether more eager than I had wished, I wished to test what they could do for their age.

[98] and On the Happy Life, Hence we gather that this was the first Work which Augustine began in the villa of Verecundus, and into which he interposed other lucubrations, as he himself in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 2, testifies in these words: It happened that I wrote the book On the Happy Life, not after the books on the Academics, but among them. For it arose on occasion of my birthday (it was the XIII of November, as we have said above) and was completed by a disputation of three days, as he himself sufficiently indicates. In which book it was agreed among us who were seeking together that there is no happy life save the perfect knowledge of God. But this displeases me there, that to Manlius Theodorus, to whom I wrote that book, although a learned and Christian man, I attributed more than I ought… Indeed I found that book interrupted in our own codex, and having not a little missing; and thus it was transcribed by certain brethren; nor had I hitherto found it entire with anyone from whom I might amend it, when I retracted these things.

[99] concerning which he had disputed with his disciples, Who were present at this disputation on the happy life, Augustine indicates at the end of the preface to that book in this manner: On the Ides of November was my birthday. After a repast so slight that nothing of our talents should be hindered by it, I called all who not only on that day but daily feasted together with us to sit down in the baths: for that place, suited to the season and retired, had occurred to me. And there were (for I do not fear to make them known meanwhile by name to thy singular kindness) in the first place our mother, to whose merit I believe belongs all that I live; Navigius my brother; Trigetius and Licentius, my fellow-townsmen and disciples; nor did I wish Lastidianus and Rusticus, my cousins, to be absent, although they had not endured even a grammarian; and I thought common sense itself necessary for the matter which I was undertaking. There was with us also the youngest of all in age, but whose talent, if love does not deceive me, promises something great — Adeodatus my son.

[100] Then the pious author of this disputation thus reports and praises the prudent and acute opinion of his mother Monica, in the presence of his mother Monica, whose opinion he praises; pronounced in that conversation: I, beginning again, said: "We wish to be happy." Scarcely had I poured this out when they met me consenting with one voice. "Does it seem to you," said I, "that he is happy who has not what he wills?" They denied it. "What then — is he happy who has what he wills?" Then my mother said: "If he will good things and have them, he is happy; but if he will evil things, though he have them, he is wretched." To whom I, smiling and exulting, said: "Thou hast, mother, plainly held the very citadel of philosophy. For without doubt words failed thee, that thou shouldst not just now unfold thyself as Tully did, whose words upon this opinion are these. For in the Hortensius, the book which he made upon the praise and defense of philosophy, he says: "But behold, men not indeed philosophers, but ready nevertheless for disputing, all say that those are happy who live as they themselves will. That indeed is false: for to will what is not fitting is itself the most wretched thing. Nor is it so wretched not to obtain what thou willest, as to wish to obtain what thou oughtest not: for the depravity of the will brings more of evil to anyone than fortune brings of good." At which words she so exclaimed that, wholly forgetting her sex, we believed some great man to be sitting with us; while I meanwhile understood, so far as I could, from what and how divine a fountain those things flowed.

[101] Monica uttered several sentences of this kind, most worthy of a holy woman, and at which she is wrongly derided by Jean Le Clerc: which may be read in this and the following conversation. Nevertheless the arrogant Jean Le Clerc finds no wit in these acute utterances, and in his heretical Animadversions on the Works of St. Augustine, page 478 and the following of the twelfth volume, calls them the words of a good old woman, better than which any woman a little more liberally educated would pour out even while doing something else. Nay rather, in the same place that masked critic under the name of Phereponus ineptly reprehends and derides the pious Son of St. Monica on account of these and like praises bestowed upon his mother. But that trifling Aristarchus shall not detain us in this place, since for this very puerile censure he has been sufficiently beaten by an anonymous theologian of Cambridge, who briefly and one by one defends this excellent Doctor of the Catholic Church against the heretical Animadversions of Phereponus, as we shall say below: for it does not please us again and again to interrupt our preliminary Commentary in order to refute the occurring censures of this trifler. Wherefore below, on another occasion, we shall once for all blunt in general the bold arrogance of that proud writer, and shall allege the judgments of others concerning that man. Meanwhile we proceed to review the other little works of our pious Catechumen, which that solitary place brought forth at this time.

[102] The Master praised above therefore, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 3, has the following to our purpose: he writes there also On Order, About the same time, among those which were written on the Academics, I wrote also two books On Order, in which a great question is handled — whether the order of divine providence contains all things good and evil. But when I saw the matter difficult to understand, and that those with whom I dealt could hardly be brought by disputation to the perception of it, I preferred to speak of the order of study, by which one can advance from corporeal to incorporeal things. At that conversation also St. Monica was in part present, as her grateful Son commemorates at the end of the first book On Order in these words: Meanwhile my mother entered, and asked of us what we had advanced: for the question was known to her also; and when I had bidden both her entrance and her question to be written down after our manner, she said: "What are you doing? Have I ever in those books which you read heard even women brought into this kind of disputation?"

[103] after a disputation held, his mother being again present: To whom I said: "I do not greatly care for the judgments of the proud and unskilled, who rush upon books to be read as upon men to be greeted: for they consider not what sort they themselves are, but with what sort of garments they are clad, and with how great a pomp of goods and of fortune they shine… Nor will there be wanting, believe me, such a kind of men to whom this very thing will please more, that thou philosophizest with me, than if he shall have found anything else here either of pleasantness or of gravity: for among the ancients women also have philosophized, and thy philosophy pleases me exceedingly. For that thou mayest not, mother, be ignorant of anything, this Greek word which is called philosophia is in Latin called the love of wisdom… I should therefore despise thee in these writings of mine, if thou didst not love wisdom; but I should not despise thee if thou didst love it moderately, much less if thou didst love wisdom as much as I. But now, since thou lovest it much more than myself, and I know how much thou lovest me; and since thou hast so advanced in it that now thou art deterred by the horror neither of any chance misfortune nor of death itself — which is most difficult for the most learned men, and which all confess to be the highest citadel of philosophy — shall I not gladly

give myself to thee as a disciple also?" Here she, when she had graciously and religiously said that I had never lied so greatly, and when I saw that we had poured out so many words that they must needs be written, and that there was now the measure of a book, and that no tablets remained, it pleased us that the question should be deferred.

[104] [finally the Soliloquies, to be distinguished from a supposititious Work of the same name:] Finally Augustine thus assigns his last lucubration, which he composed in the villa of Verecundus, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 4: Among these I also wrote two volumes, according to my zeal and love, a method of searching out the truth concerning those matters which I most desired to know, asking myself and answering myself, as though we were two, reason and I, when I was alone. Whence I named this Work SOLILOQUIES; but it remained unfinished. Yet in such wise that in the first book there was sought, and in some fashion appeared, what sort of man he ought to be who wishes to perceive wisdom, which assuredly is perceived not by bodily sense but by the mind. And by a certain reasoning at the end of the book it is gathered that those things which truly are, are immortal. But in the second the matter of the immortality of the soul is long handled, yet not carried through. Further, this work of the Soliloquies must be distinguished from another which bears the same title and is wrongly ascribed to St. Augustine, as the Benedictine editors in the Appendix after the sixth volume of their edition demonstrate by unanswerable arguments, before they there exhibit that supposititious little work.

[105] how greatly Augustine was changed in that retirement. For the rest, in that genuine work of the Soliloquies Augustine candidly expresses the inward state of his soul, and by various answers evidently shows how much in that retirement he had already advanced in bridling the desires of the mind: for, being asked by Reason concerning the ambition of riches and honors, he modestly and sincerely answers that riches and honors are no longer desired by him. Besides, being asked whether a wife would not please him who was beautiful, chaste, obedient, lettered, and wealthy, and adorned with other endowments, in the same place, book 1, chapter 10, he answers Reason, or himself, thus: Thou mayest paint her as much as thou wilt and heap her with all good things: I have determined that nothing is so much to be fled by me as the marriage bed. I feel that there is nothing which more casts down a manly mind from its citadel than the blandishments of a woman, and that contact of bodies without which a wife cannot be had. And so, if it pertains to the office of a wise man (which I have not yet ascertained) to give attention to children, whoever lies with a woman only for the sake of this matter may seem to me worthy of admiration, but by no means to be imitated: for to attempt this is more perilous than to be able to do it is happy. Wherefore sufficiently, as I believe, justly and usefully, for the liberty of my soul I have commanded myself neither to desire nor to seek nor to take a wife. Whoever shall wish to read more there will without difficulty understand how greatly Augustine at this time was changed from what he had been in his youth, and at the same time will judge that this pious Catechumen was now ripe for worthily receiving baptism. Wherefore we shall now visit him at Milan, to which city he will presently return for the sake of seeking this Sacrament.

§ VIII. The pious Catechumen's return to Milan, the little works written there; his baptism, the time at which this Sacrament was conferred, and certain circumstances.

He returns to Milan and prepares himself for baptism: As Lent drew near, about the beginning of which catechumens were accustomed to give in their names among the competentes or seekers of sacred baptism, Augustine, together with his son Adeodatus and his disciple Alypius, returned from the villa of Verecundus to Milan, to receive the grace of this Sacrament. But with how great humility and solicitude he prepared himself and his companions for that laver of regeneration, we abundantly gather from the book On Faith and Works, where at chapter 6 he thus writes among other things concerning preparation for baptism: But if a man in health asks a space for learning what must be learned, what other more opportune time can be found in which he may hear how he ought to become a believer and to live, than that in which, with a mind more attentive and suspended by religion itself, he seeks the Sacrament of the most healthful faith? Or do we so far dissemble from our own senses that we do not remember how attentive and solicitous we ourselves were as to what those who catechized us enjoined upon us, when we sought the sacraments of that font, and were on this account even called COMPETENTS; or do we not observe others who year by year run to the laver of regeneration, what sort they are on those very days in which they are catechized, exorcized, examined; with how great watchfulness they come together, with what zeal they glow, with what care they hang in suspense? If then it is not the time for learning what life is suitable to so great a Sacrament as they desire to receive, when will it be? From this testimony anyone easily understands how diligently that learned and then pious Man prepared his mind for receiving this singular grace of the Sacrament.

[107] At that time, still a catechumen at Milan, he wrote or began certain little works, various works partly written at Milan, of which he himself in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 5 and the following, thus makes mention: After the books of the Soliloquies, having now returned from the country to Milan, I wrote the book On the Immortality of the Soul, which I had wished to be as it were a memorandum for me for finishing the Soliloquies, which had remained incomplete. But somehow, against my will, it went out into men's hands, and is named among my little works. That this book, perhaps composed with a flying pen and still lacking due clearness, came to the hands of others without the Author's knowledge or against his will, we sufficiently gather also from the words which the Author presently subjoins in the same place: Which, from the intricacy and brevity of its reasonings, is so obscure that, when it is read, it wearies even my own attention, and is scarcely understood by myself. Then after his manner he desires certain things in that little work to be corrected, as we have now several times advised.

[108] partly there begun, Besides, in the same book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 6, he thus subjoins to this other lucubrations of the same time: About the same time in which I was at Milan to receive baptism, I attempted also to write books of the Disciplines, questioning those who were with me and did not shrink from studies of this kind; desiring through corporeal things to arrive at, or to lead others to, incorporeal things by certain fixed steps as it were. But of these I was able to finish only the book on Grammar, which I afterwards lost from our book-cupboard, and six volumes on Music, so far as concerns that part which is called rhythm. But those six books I wrote when already baptized, and already returned from Italy into Africa: for I had only begun that discipline at Milan. But of the other five disciplines similarly begun there — on dialectic, on rhetoric, on geometry, on arithmetic, on philosophy — only the beginnings remained, which nevertheless we have also lost; but I judge that they are had by some. This Work thus begins: All nouns are thirteen.

[109] of which there survive the six books On Music; This lucubration on Music he again reviews in the eleventh chapter of the same first book in these words: Then, as I have commemorated above, I wrote six books On Music, of which the sixth itself became especially well known, since a matter worthy of knowledge is handled in it: how from corporeal and spiritual, but changeable, numbers one may come to unchangeable numbers, which are now in the unchangeable truth itself; and so the invisible things of God may be seen, being understood by the things that are made. When bishop Memorius afterwards asked that Work of Augustine, he thus answers him among other things in Letter 131: Which little work indeed, if I shall be able to send it, thou wilt repent, not indeed that I obeyed thee, but that thou didst so greatly demand this from me: for five books in it are understood with the greatest difficulty, if there be not one present who can not only distinguish the persons of the disputants, but also in pronouncing so sound the little delays of syllables that by them the kinds of numbers may be expressed and may strike the sense of the ears; especially since in certain places even measured intervals of silences are mingled, which can by no means be perceived unless the pronouncer instruct the hearer. The sixth book indeed, which I found corrected, in which is all the fruit of the rest, I have not delayed to send to thy charity; perhaps it itself will not much shrink from thy gravity. Whence the men of Louvain and the Benedictines published those six books of the Music among the genuine lucubrations of St. Augustine.

[110] the book On Grammar adjudged to Augustine by the men of Louvain, But the Benedictine editors cast the other books on the disciplines, which the men of Louvain had published among the Works of St. Augustine, into the appendix of the first volume, and deny them to him for the following reasons: The book On Grammar, attributed to Augustine in earlier printings, we reckon among the supposititious little works, chiefly for this cause, that in method and in aim alike it wholly differs from that which he himself, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 6, acknowledges to have been composed by him at Milan when he was on the point of receiving baptism. For he had written these books in the form of a dialogue, and with this mind, that "through corporeal things, by certain fixed steps as it were," as he there says, "he might arrive at, or lead others to," incorporeal things. For indeed from the time of his conversion he made it a matter of religion thereafter to give attention to letters only if they served Christ, from book IX of the Confessions, chapter IV, number VII. But further, the little work here subjoined neither bears the form of a dialogue, nor advances the mind toward incorporeal things.

[111] Besides, it does not exhibit the skill of any learned writer, much less of so great a man; which skill appears then most singular and highest when he exercises himself in a matter in itself humble and common. Compare the books On Music, and also that passage of the second book On Order, where he lightly touches upon the order of the disciplines among themselves, and their occasion, nature, and properties: hence assuredly thou wilt understand that nothing everywhere obvious, or that was worn by all men's feet, was committed to writing by him concerning grammar. Which reasons indeed avail no less against three other little works which we have likewise cast hither, which are entitled Principles of dialectic, the Ten categories, and Principles of rhetoric. A scruple was cast in by the clause stitched on to chapter VI of book 1 of the Retractations, namely, this work thus begins: All nouns are thirteen… But we have detected the fraud from manuscripts, both old and also more recent, which do not have it. So much for what the learned Man did and wrote in Italy before baptism.

[112] At length St. Augustine, with Adeodatus and Alypius and others, was baptized He is baptized by Ambrose, as the holy days of Easter drew near, as Possidius asserts in chapter 1 of his Life; and therefore probably, according to the custom of that time, on the vigil of Easter, which in the year of Christ 387 fell on the day XXV of April, and which St. Ambrose himself, on account of a certain controversy which had arisen, had ordered to be celebrated on that day. The Sacrament of baptism was conferred upon him by St. Ambrose, which benefit St. Augustine with grateful mind often records in his writings, and by name recalls in book 1 Against Julian, chapter 3, where he thus objects to that Pelagian heretic the testimony of that holy prelate of Milan: But hear yet another excellent

steward of God, whom I venerate as a father, for in Christ Jesus by the Gospel he himself begot me, and by that minister of Christ I received the laver of regeneration; I speak of blessed Ambrose, whose grace, constancy, labors, and perils for the Catholic faith, whether in works or in discourses, I myself have experienced, and the Roman world does not hesitate to proclaim with me.

[113] We are not unaware that among the learned there is subtle and lengthy dispute concerning the year in which St. Augustine was converted to God, more probably in the year 387, and afterwards received baptism from Ambrose, as may be read in Tillemont, volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, pages 954 and 962, in French; or in the Life of the holy Doctor which the French Benedictines gathered from Tillemont, book 2, chapters 7 and 11, in Latin. All the arguments being attentively considered, the opinion of those seems to us more probable who fix his conversion to the year of Christ 386 and his baptism to the following year. But whatever be the case as to the certain year in which these things happened, the Roman Church made so much of that conversion of St. Augustine that it inserted it into its Martyrology, and still each year renews its solemn memory on the day V of May with this announcement: At Milan … the conversion of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church, whom blessed Ambrose the bishop taught the truth of the Catholic faith, and baptized on this day.

[114] as several learned men now judge, The most eminent Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 388, number 71, reports from the testimony of Possidius that St. Augustine was baptized in the year 388 at the Paschal season, so that by this wider manner of speaking he might probably place the holy Doctor's baptism on the day V of May, or defend the announcement of the Roman Martyrology. But (be it said with the leave of that most learned man) he does not seem to have weighed with sufficient scruple the words of Possidius, who in chapter 1 of the Life asserts in a phrase by no means obscure that as the holy days of Easter drew near — and accordingly, consequently, before the Paschal feasts, unless we are deceived — this excellent Doctor of the Catholic Church was washed with the saving waters. Wherefore Pagi, in his Historico-chronological Critique of the Annals of the most learned Baronius, at the year 388, number 9, corrects the chronology of that most eminent man, and sets against him the more common opinion in this manner: That St. Augustine received baptism in the thirty-third year of his age ought to be agreed among all. The whole difficulty is whether that year was completed or only begun. Baronius and Rivius, book 1 on the Life of Augustine, chapter 1, and others contend that the holy Doctor was washed with the saving waters in the thirty-third year of his age completed. But that Augustine was baptized on the twenty-fourth day of April, on Holy Saturday, in the year three hundred and eighty-seven, when he had not yet passed the thirty-third year of his age, is now the common opinion of the learned. Then Pagi laboriously proves this chronology of his by solid arguments.

[115] and on the 24 day of April. Further, the French Benedictines in the Latin Life of St. Augustine, book 2, chapter 11, number 3, follow Pagi, Tillemont, and others; and, adhering to the words of Possidius reported above, especially refute the assignment of the fifth day of May to this baptism by these reasons: Thence Baronius inferred that he was regenerated at the Paschal season, with this design indeed, that he might adapt his baptism to the fifth day of May, on which day the Church now celebrates his conversion; although those words of Possidius, if they be expounded according to the custom which the Church then kept, signify that he was baptized on the eve of Easter — which day was especially destined for the baptism of adults, so that to wash many with the saving waters outside that day, as happened in Augustine's regeneration, was infrequent and very rare. This therefore happened on that night which preceded the twenty-fifth day of April; on which day Ambrose had proved by a public letter that Easter was to be celebrated in the year three hundred and eighty-seven. But although baptism was not conferred upon Augustine on the fifth day of May, yet the Church, in instituting the yearly memory of this conversion, honored that holy Doctor with so great an honor as has hitherto befallen none of the Saints in like manner, if the Apostle Paul alone be excepted, whose conversion also is celebrated yearly on the day XXV of January in the Roman Martyrology.

[116] Whether the hymn Te Deum laudamus was then composed, This water of salvation, or grace of baptism, rendered St. Augustine so anointed with great joy that, from the tender sweetness of his mind, amid the glad hymns of the church of Milan he poured forth most abundant tears, as the Saint himself will testify in the first part of the Acts at number 238. Hence perhaps has its origin that tradition of uncertain authority which Rivius, in the Life of the holy Doctor, book 1, chapter 1, §31, propounds in these words: But to this matter nothing has been equal from the beginning of the Church, nothing is second; namely that, Augustine being baptized, in order to give thanks to the best and greatest God, they report that Ambrose began to sing Te Deum laudamus, and that Augustine answered Te Dominum confitemur; and that by their alternating voices that most sweet hymn was composed to the very end, which moreover the whole Church ceases not to frequent with daily jubilation. Then he endeavors in the same place to prove this common tradition from a fragment of a Chronicle which is ascribed to St. Datius, bishop of Milan, who departed from this life about the middle of the sixth century. Great indeed would be the authority of that ancient prelate of Milan in this matter, if that Chronicle had been written by him. But several learned writers deny that Chronicle to him, as we shall now see.

[117] In the first place, Hugh Ménard the Benedictine, in the notes and observations on the Book of Sacraments of St. Gregory the Pope, page 400 and the following, affirms as some will have it from a Chronicle wrongly attributed to Datius of Milan, that this Chronicle is wrongly attributed to St. Datius, bishop of Milan, or cited under his name, as the most eminent Cardinal Bona in the Treatise on the Harmony of the Church at Psalmody, chapter 16, §12, reports in these words: Hugh Ménard, in the notes on the Sacramentary of the same St. Gregory, says it is certain that that Chronicle, from which the aforealleged authority is taken, is not St. Datius', because it does not savor of the style of those times, and also contains certain false things. To Ménard's opinion Bartolomeo Gavanti subscribes, and says that the whole canticle is owed to Ambrose alone, since it lacks dialogue form. Besides, Mabillon sought fuller notice of this Chronicle from Milan by letters, and from the very answers of the men of Milan gathered that that little Work is by no means to be attributed to St. Datius, prelate of Milan, as may be seen in volume 1 of the Old Analecta, page 3 and following. Finally Muratori, among the Writers of Italian Affairs published not long ago, takes the same Chronicle from St. Datius, and in volume 4 of that Collection, page 50 and following, ascribes it to Landulf the elder, as may there be read at length.

[118] Although Gavanti thinks that this hymn is owed to St. Ambrose alone, who is the author of that hymn yet in the Rubrics of the Breviary, section 5, chapter 19, he adds that in a most ancient manuscript Breviary of the Anician College in the City the following title is prefixed to this canticle: A hymn of St. Abundius. Besides, in an old Breviary of the monastery of Monte Cassino, which was written in the eleventh century, it is called a hymn of Sisebutus the monk; and in a manuscript Psalter of the basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, a hymn of St. Sisebutus. Finally in a Latin-French Psalter the same hymn is attributed to St. Nicetius, as Pagi in the Critique at the year of Christ 388, number 11, testifies, where at the end of that number he concludes from this diversity of inscriptions that the author of this hymn is still unknown to us.

[119] But the author of that canticle has now been detected, is not yet sufficiently established. if we subscribe to the opinion of the Benedictines who published the Works of St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, at Paris in the year 1693, where in the Preface to that edition, number 22, they thus discourse concerning the present controversy: Concerning the author of the hymn Te Deum the opinions are no less various. He who judged that it was composed by some disciple of our holy Father Benedict, because in his Rule, chapter 9, it is prescribed that it be sung on each Lord's Day, is refuted from the Rule of Cæsarius, contemporary with Benedict — nay, even a little earlier — in which the same hymn is recorded at chapter 21. But the common opinion which makes Ambrose and Augustine its authors rests solely upon the Chronicle of pseudo-Datius, book 1, chapter 10. We have seen the same in a manuscript written four hundred years ago ascribed to Ambrose alone, Smaragdus on the Rule of Benedict, chapter 11, supporting this, where he calls that hymn Ambrosian.

[120] But Abbo of Fleury, in a letter left in a manuscript of Pithou, in which he explains some rules of Grammar, sets down the matter as known and settled, that its parent is our Hilary. Then the Benedictines praised in the same place recite the very words of Abbo of Fleury, who so confidently attributes this hymn to St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, and a renowned writer of the fourth century, in this manner: In the palinode of God, which Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, composed, not according to the error of certain unskilled men SUSCEPISTI, but rather SUSCEPTURUS must be read: Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, etc. Since that Smaragdus of Verdun, the expositor of the Benedictine Rule, flourished before the middle of the ninth century, as Mabillon proves in the Benedictine Annals, book 28, number 91, and Abbo of Fleury was killed at the beginning of the eleventh century, the learned will deservedly doubt whether the authority of the elder Smaragdus, who calls this hymn Ambrosian, ought not to be preferred to the testimony of Abbo of Fleury, as the Benedictine editors confess. From all these things the learned reader easily gathers that the certain author of that hymn is not yet established, and consequently that that tradition is still more doubtful to us which ascribes the wonderful composition of the same hymn to the holy Ambrose and Augustine singing alternately. I know indeed that Nicholas Crusenius, in the Augustinian Monasticon, part 1, chapter 5, thought this tradition confirmed from a certain Sermon which he there strives to claim for St. Ambrose. But it does not please us in this place laboriously to demonstrate the false ineptitudes of this pseudo-sermon, which perhaps below on another occasion we shall discuss. Meanwhile let us pursue the more certain deeds of our Saint, and the remainder of his stay in Italy.

§ IX. The journey to Ostia on the Tiber, the death of his mother, the second stay at Rome, the lucubrations written there.

[Some attribute 12 companions to Augustine as he was about to return to his native land:] We do not know how long our Neophyte remained at Milan after receiving the Sacrament of baptism. But certainly he had determined to return into his native land with his kinsfolk and friends, that they might there together lead a common and pious life. Wherefore he departed from Milan to Ostia on the Tiber, about to sail back shortly into Africa, had not the sudden death of his mother intervened, as will be understood from what is to be said below. Jordan of Saxony, whom we cited in the first paragraph of this preliminary Commentary, joins twelve hermit companions to Augustine as he was then about to set out for Ostia on the Tiber, and in the Supplement of the Fathers in Hommey, page 589, delivers the following: But after these things, when at the instigation of his pious mother he was arranging to withdraw from Milan and to return to Africa, he went to St. Simplicianus, asking that he would give him some of his Brethren the hermits, servants of God, whom he might take with him into Africa,

and with whom he might there plant the Order: to whose pious prayers that pious father Simplicianus assenting, gave him twelve Brethren, religious men; with whom, his dearest friends being joined to him, who had long been with him — Nebridius, Evodius, Alypius, and Pontianus — together with his mother and his son Adeodatus, he took the road of setting out for Africa.

[122] But this whole narrative of Jordan comes forth from the twenty-first sermon To the Brethren in the Desert, from sermon 21 To the Brethren in the Desert, which is supposititious, which the Louvain editors cast into the Appendix of the tenth volume, page 723. The most eminent Baronius and Bellarmine, and other prudent critics, now everywhere judge most of those Sermons to the Brethren in the desert to be supposititious, and censure them sharply, as may be seen in the preliminary admonition which the French Benedictines prefixed to the same sermons in the Appendix of the sixth volume. Nay, Christian Lupus the Augustinian himself, in the Quodlibetical Question, chapter 38, thus by name hisses off the narrative of this Sermon: First, it is false that Augustine brought those Italian monks with him from Italy into Africa. This is plain from St. Possidius: for he says that Augustine returned into Africa with other fellow-citizens and friends of his own, no mention being made of those Italians. And from Augustine's own Confessions: for he says that he returned into Africa with his brother Navigius, his son Adeodatus, Alypius, Evodius, and Nebridius. He says that he dealt with Simplicianus before he heard Pontitianus, and accordingly before he knew of monks, or thought about monasticism. And surely, if those Italians accompanied Augustine to the Africans, why is there no mention or memory at all of them in him? Accordingly that company must be reckoned among fables.

[123] Although therefore more recent biographers keep deep silence about those twelve Italian companions, others lead him to the hermits of Etruria, yet some still draw out too long delays on that journey from Milan toward Ostia on the Tiber, and seek an improbable detour, concerning which Cornelius Lancilottus in the Life of our Saint, book 2, chapter 8, delivers these things: But Augustine, judging that in his native land he could more conveniently give himself to God, his mother's entreaties also being added, girds himself for the journey toward Rome; and, farewell being said to his friends, especially to Simplicianus and Ambrose, and a blessing obtained from them, he sets out with Alypius and Evodius through the deserts of Etruria, which others call Monte Pisano. In which places, when he had perceived as it were a most sweet odor of the sanctity of those hermits who were dwelling there, he eagerly turned aside to them, and found several in those parts which they called Centumcellæ (now there were as many cells of a hundred judges, which the emperor Hadrian caused to be built for hearing cases in his presence), distinguished by holiness of life.

[124] Among these buildings, now ruined, were living those same religious men, where they will have it that he dwelt in the desert; who received with great honor Augustine — long since known to them by learning and sanctity (as has been shown above from Petrarch and others) — clothed in a religious garment, they themselves likewise being clad in monastic garments: who, being much delighted with the company of such men, not unlike his own, drew out longer delays among them, as Martin V, Gerson, and Mantuanus testify concerning him; for speaking of St. Augustine he says:

He is recorded to have dwelt in the desert Of the Tuscan sea near the shores of the hundred Cells, where there was a village; he sought Ostia On the Tiber.

That digression to the hermits of Tuscany is also read in Jordan of Saxony, who at page 590 of the aforesaid Work writes thus: But passing and making his journey through Tuscany, where, as it is reported, there were several eremitic places, wherever he found Brethren of his own purpose, he visited them charitably, and sweetly refreshed them with his conferences, the food of salvation. Nicholas Crusenius in the Augustinian Monasticon, chapter 6 of the first part, and Simplicianus of St. Martin in the French Apology against Gabriel Pennotti, chapter 1, §1, and other Augustinian hermits endeavor to establish the truth of this tradition by various verses and inscriptions.

[125] which others attack on the ground of time. But the Canons Regular answer those testimonies; and most recently Nicolas Desnos, book 3, chapter 8, thus attacks that longer digression on the ground of time: But baptism being received, he says, Augustine stayed a very short time in Italy; for he at once hastened his return into Africa. And thence it is false, what the Augustinian Hermits say, that he, being thirty years old when he received baptism, remained in Italy for the three following years, and was engaged with monks in Etruria and at Centumcellæ, now Civitavecchia: for the years of Augustine must be observed, when he received baptism, and the time at which, Italy being left, he went back into Africa. Then he strives to overturn that opinion of the Augustinian Hermits by various chronological arguments, which the curious reader may there read and weigh: for we have firmly determined henceforth no longer to insert traditions or controversies of this popular kind into this Commentary, lest perhaps false things be mingled with true, or certain with doubtful. Wherefore in this place we pass over the common story of the little boy who was trying to enclose the whole sea with a spoon in a little hollow, and who under such a form is said to have appeared at that time to St. Augustine as he walked beside the Tuscan sea and examined the mystery of the most holy Trinity. And so henceforth for this and like stories or traditions which shall offer themselves in the course, we shall reserve one or another paragraph at the end of the preliminary Commentary, after the holy Doctor's death, and shall inquire into their first writers, so that the learned reader may at one and the same time be able to pass a prudent judgment upon narratives of this kind. Now let us return into the way, and hasten with our holy Neophyte to the end of that journey.

[126] [With his mother he has a conversation about eternal life, and is at her side as she dies:] When Augustine had reached Ostia on the Tiber, his mother, as though foreknowing her impending death, had a pious conversation with her Son concerning eternal life, as he himself in book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 10, testifies in these words: But as the day drew near on which she was to go out of this life — which day thou knewest, we not knowing — it had come about (as I believe) by thy procuring in thy hidden ways, that I and she alone stood leaning at a certain window, whence the garden within the house that held us was looked out upon, there at Ostia on the Tiber, where, far from the crowds, after the labor of a long journey we were refreshing ourselves for the voyage. We conversed therefore alone very sweetly, and, forgetting the things behind, stretching out toward those which are before, we sought between us, in the presence of the Truth which thou art, what the eternal life of the Saints would be like, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it ascended into the heart of man. Not long after this conversation, which Augustine there reports in full, St. Monica fell into a fever, and on the ninth day of her sickness rendered her spirit to her Creator, as is narrated in the same place in the following chapter. The grateful Son faithfully stood by his dying mother, to whose prayers and tears he attributed his conversion in great part. Besides, he ordered her obsequies to be seemly celebrated, prayed for the soul of the deceased, and left to posterity the pious deeds and the merited praises of the virtues of that holy woman. We here and below suppress all these things, lest we do what has been done, since on the day IV of May our Papebroch has illustrated these and other matters pertaining to St. Monica copiously enough.

[127] His mother being dead, the Saint for causes unknown to us deferred his return into Africa, Two little works written at Rome; and stayed for a while at Rome, as we gather from the little Work then written there, which he himself in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 7, thus indicates: But being now baptized, when I was at Rome, and could not silently bear the boasting of the Manichæans concerning a false and deceitful continence or abstinence, by which, for the deceiving of the unskilled, they even set themselves before true Christians, with whom they are not to be compared, I wrote two books: one On the Morals of the Catholic Church, the other On the Morals of the Manichæans. A part of this second book we transcribed above in § V, on occasion of his first stay at Rome, in the interval of which he perhaps came to know the wicked morals of the Manichæans and began to be estranged from their sect, as we there advised. There also he composed the little Work On the Greatness of the Soul, as in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 8, he testifies in these words: In the same city I wrote a Dialogue, in which many things are asked and discussed concerning the soul: that is, whence it is, of what sort it is, how great it is, why it was given to the body, what it becomes when it comes to the body, what when it has departed. But since it was disputed most diligently and most subtly how great it is — that we might show, if we could, that it is not of corporeal quantity, and yet is something great — from this one inquiry the whole book took its name, so that it was called ON THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL. This disputation the holy Man calls a dialogue, because it is written by way of a conversation which Augustine held with Evodius; to whom afterwards, when he proposed many questions, the holy Doctor thus answered among other things in Letter 101: If thou wouldst read again those things which have long been known to thee, or, unless I am deceived, were known — since thou hast perhaps forgotten them — which I wrote while thou didst confer and converse with me, whether On the greatness of the soul or On free will, thou wilt find whence to resolve, even without my labor, thy doubts.

[128] Finally in the same city the pious Neophyte began the work On Free Will, another begun there. of which he himself in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 9, thus makes mention: While we were still staying at Rome, we wished to seek by disputing whence evil is; and we disputed in such a way that, if we could, reason considered and handled might bring to our understanding also, so far as by discussing, with God's help, we might be able to accomplish it, that which concerning this matter we believed, being subject to divine authority. And since it was agreed among us, reason being diligently discussed, that evil arose only from the free choice of the will, the three books which that same disputation brought forth were called ON FREE WILL: of which I finished the second and third in Africa, being then already ordained a priest at Hippo Regius, as I then could. In these books many things are so discussed that some incidental questions, which either I could not unravel, or which required a long discourse at the time, were so deferred that from either side, or from all the sides of those same questions in which it did not appear what rather agreed with the truth, our reasoning should nevertheless be concluded to this: that, whichever of them were true, God should be believed, or even shown, worthy of praise. For that disputation was undertaken on account of those who deny that the origin of evil is drawn from the free choice of the will, and contend that, if it be so, God the creator of all natures must be blamed; wishing in that way, according to the error of their impiety (for they are Manichæans), to introduce a certain unchangeable nature of evil coeternal with God.

[129] and afterwards finished. But concerning the grace of God, by which he has so predestined his elect that he himself also prepares the wills of those who already among them use free choice, nothing was disputed in these books, on account of the question proposed. But where a place fell for making mention of this grace, it was mentioned in passing, not defended by laborious reasoning as though the matter were there treated. For it is one thing to ask whence evil is, and another to ask whence one returns to the former, or attains to a greater, good. Wherefore let the new Pelagian heretics, who so assert the free choice of the will as to leave no place for the grace of God — since they assert that it is given according to our merits — not exalt themselves, as though I had pleaded their cause; because I said many things in these books in favor of free will which the occasion of that disputation demanded. Then by various arguments he shows that the Pelagian heresy, before it arose, was rather attacked than defended by him in this Work, although he wrote it especially against the Manichæans. But on account of the Manichæans, whom Augustine at this time began to assail and afterwards frequently refuted, it will be necessary in the following paragraph to digress in order to learn their origin and impious doctrine, that various things occurring in this preliminary Commentary, and the Acts themselves to be published after it, may be more easily understood.

§ X. On occasion of the books which the pious Neophyte wrote at Rome against the Manichæans, the chief author of this heresy is assigned, and the impious dogmas of his followers are reviewed.

The author of the Manichæans, Now for the reason just brought forward we digress to the first master or standard-bearer of the Manichæans, and to the abominable deliriums of his disciples, all which the holy Doctor in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, number 46, thus sets forth: The Manichæans arose from a certain Persian who was called Manes, although his own name too, with his insane doctrine, had begun to be proclaimed: for before this he was called Urbicus (Epiphanius in heresy 66 calls him Cubricus). But in Greece his disciples, avoiding the name of insanity, as though more learned and by that very fact more lying, with the letter N doubled called him Mannichæus, as it were one pouring forth manna instead of Manichæus, that is, insane. He composed two principles, different and adverse to each other, and these eternal and coeternal, that is, that they always were; and he supposed two natures and substances, namely of good and of evil, following other ancient heretics; and, affirming according to his own dogmas their mutual battle and commixture, and the purgation of the good from the evil, and the eternal damnation with the evil of that good which cannot be purged, he fables many things which it would be too long to weave into this Work.

[131] and his deliriums, To these deserve to be added the things which Socrates in book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 22, thus briefly abridged from an author contemporary with this heretic, concerning the doctrine and death of Manes or Manichæus: These things being received, the freedman Cubricus, setting out into Persia, called himself Manes, his name being changed; and delivered the books of Buddas or Terebinthus to his followers as though written by himself. Further, the contents of these books in words indeed put forward the religion of Christ; but if you attend to the dogmas, they come nearer to heathenism: for Manichæus, as an impious man, taught that many gods must be worshiped. He teaches also that the sun must be adored. He introduces besides fate, and takes away the freedom of human choice. The same asserts that bodies are transmuted from some into others, manifestly following the opinion of Empedocles and Pythagoras and of the Egyptians. And he denies indeed that Christ existed in the flesh, saying that he was a phantasm. But he rejects the law and the prophets, and calls himself the Paraclete. All which things it is agreed are alien from the right faith of the Church. Nay, in his letters he even dared to name himself an Apostle. But at length he paid the due penalties of this false error, for this cause.

[132] The son of the king of the Persians had by chance fallen into sickness: and his punishment: his father, that he might free him from the disease, moved, as they commonly say, every stone. And when the fame of Manichæus had come to him, thinking the man's prodigies and miracles to be true, he sends for him as an Apostle, hoping namely that his son would be healed by his work. And he, when he had come, with a feigned and simulated appearance takes the royal boy into his hands to be cured. But the king, who had seen the boy die between his hands, orders the man to be cast into chains, being about to inflict on him the extreme penalty presently. But he, slipping from his chains, fled into Mesopotamia. But the king of the Persians, having learned that Manichæus was staying in those parts, ordered him to be seized thence and flayed, and hung up his skin, stuffed with chaff, before the gates of the city. And these things we have by no means invented, but have excerpted from a certain disputation of Archelaus, bishop of the city of Carchar in Mesopotamia, which we have read: for this Archelaus says that he disputed with Manichæus himself face to face, and records concerning his life the things which have been reported above by us. Thus far Socrates, whose credit as a historian is here confirmed from the very disputation of the prelate Archelaus with Manichæus, which Lorenzo Alessandro Zaccagni, most learned prefect of the Vatican library, not long ago found, and published at Rome in the year 1698 among the Collectanea of ancient monuments, from an ancient Latin version.

[133] Further, let us now go on to hear the insipid fables of the Manichæans, the insipid which the mad disciples deduced from the principles of their master, as Augustine, exceedingly skilled in this insane dogma, testifies in the same place in this manner: But from these their vain and impious fables they are compelled to say that the good souls, which they judge must be freed from the commixture of evil souls, namely of a contrary nature, are of that nature of which God is. Accordingly they confess indeed that the world was made by the nature of good, that is, by the nature of God; but out of the commixture of good and evil which was made when both natures fought with each other. But that very purgation and liberation of the good from the evil they say the power of God works not only throughout the whole world and out of all its elements, but also that their Elect work it through the foods which they take: for to those foods, as to the whole world, they declare that the substance of God is mingled; which they think is purged in their Elect by that kind of life in which the Elect of the Manichæans live, as being more holy than their Hearers: for they willed that their church should consist of these two professions, that is, of Elect and Hearers.

[134] errors of the Manichæans But in the rest of men, even in their own Hearers, they think that this part of the good and divine substance, which mixed and bound is held in meats and drinks, is bound more closely and more foully, and especially in those who beget children. But whatever light is purged from every quarter, they say is restored to the kingdom of God, as to its proper seats, by certain ships, which they will to be the moon and the sun; which ships they likewise declare to have been fabricated of the pure substance of God. And that corporeal light which lies before the eyes of mortal living things, not only in these ships, where they believe it purest, but also in any other bright things, where according to them it is held mingled and is believed to be purged, they say is of the nature of God. For they attribute to the race of darkness five elements which begot their own princes; and they call those elements by these names: smoke, darkness, fire, water, wind. In smoke they judge that two-footed animals were born, whence men draw their origin; in darkness creeping things, in fire four-footed beasts, in the waters swimming things, in wind flying things. And that for the subduing of these five evil elements five other elements were sent from the kingdom and substance of God, and were mingled in that battle: to smoke, air; to darkness, light; to evil fire, good fire; to evil water, good water; to evil wind, good wind. But those ships, that is, the two luminaries of heaven, they so distinguish that they say the moon was made of good water, but the sun of good fire; and that in those ships are holy powers which transfigure themselves into males, that they may allure the females of the adverse part; and that by this enticement, their concupiscence being stirred, the light may flee from them which they held mingled with their own members, and may be received to be purged by the angels of light, and, being purged, may be placed in those ships to be carried back to its own kingdoms.

[135] errors On which occasion, or rather by a certain necessity of an execrable superstition, their Elect are compelled to take as it were a eucharist sprinkled with human seed, that thence also, as from the other foods which they receive, that divine substance may be purged. But they deny that they do this, and affirm that others, I know not who, do it under the name of Manichæans. Yet they were detected in the church, as thou knowest, at Carthage, when thou wast already established there as a deacon, when, at the instance of the tribune Ursus, who then presided over the royal house, some were brought forward: where that girl by name Margarita disclosed this abominable baseness; who, being twelve years old, said that she had been violated on account of this wicked mystery. Then he scarcely compelled a certain Manichæan woman, Eusebia, a nun as it were, to confess that she had suffered the same for the same cause, when at first she had asserted herself untouched, and had demanded to be inspected by a midwife; who, being inspected and found what she was, likewise disclosed that whole most base crime, in which meal is spread beneath for receiving and mingling the seed of those lying together (which, upon Margarita's disclosure, she being absent had not heard). And recently some of them, being found and brought to the church, as the episcopal proceedings which thou hast sent us show, confessed under careful interrogation this — not a sacrament but an execration; of whom one, by name Viator, saying that those who do these things are properly called Catharists that is, cleansers or purgers, while he declared that the other parts of the same Manichæan sect were distributed into Macarians and specially Manichæans, yet could not deny that all these three forms were propagated from one author, and that all were generally Manichæans.

[136] Certainly those books of Manichæus are without doubt common to all, from him in which books those monstrous things are written concerning the transfiguration of males into females and of females into males, for enticing and dissolving through concupiscence the princes of darkness of either sex, that the divine substance which was held captive in them might, being freed, flee from them; whence that baseness of theirs, however they deny that it pertains to them, has flowed down. For they think that they imitate, so far as they can, the divine powers, that they may purge the part of their god; which assuredly, as in all bodies celestial and terrestrial, and in the seeds of all things, so also in the seed of man they judge to be held defiled. And by this it follows that they must purge it from human seed by eating, just as from the other seeds which they take in their foods. Whence also they are called Catharists, as it were purgers, purging it with so great diligence that they do not abstain even from this so horrible baseness of food. Nor yet do they feed upon flesh, as though from things dead or slain there had fled

the divine substance, and there remained thence only so much and such as is not now worthy to be purged in the belly of the Elect. Nor do they take even eggs, as though these too, when they are broken, expire; and as though one ought not to feed upon any dead bodies, and this alone lives of flesh which is received into meal that it may not die. But neither do they use the nourishment of milk, although it is milked or sucked from the living body of an animal; not because they think that nothing of the divine substance is mingled there, but because that error is not consistent with itself. For neither do they drink wine, saying that it is the gall of the princes of darkness, whereas they feed upon grapes; nor do they sip any must, even the freshest.

[137] They judge that the souls of their Hearers are turned back into the Elect, or by a happier short cut into the foods of their Elect, by Augustine so that thenceforth, being purged, they may return into no bodies. But the other souls they think both return into cattle, and that all things which are fixed by roots and are nourished in the earth (herbs also and trees) so live that they believe the life which is in them both feels and grieves when they are injured; and that no one can pluck or gather anything thence without their torture; for which reason they hold it wicked even to purge a field of thorns. Whence, being mad, they accuse agriculture, which of all arts is the most innocent, as guilty of many homicides; and they think that these things are therefore pardoned to their Hearers, because they thereby furnish foods to their Elect, so that that divine substance, being purged in their belly, may obtain pardon for those by whose oblation it is delivered to be purged. And so the Elect themselves, neither working in the fields, nor plucking fruits, nor even pulling any leaves, wait for these things to be brought for their own uses by their Hearers, living upon so many and so great homicides of others, according to their own vanity. They admonish also those same Hearers of theirs that, if they feed upon flesh, they should not kill animals, lest they offend the princes of darkness bound in the heavenly places, from whom they say all flesh draws its origin; and that, if they use wives, they should nevertheless avoid conception and generation, lest the divine substance which enters into them through foods should be bound with fleshly bonds in the offspring: for thus they believe that souls come into all flesh, that is, through meats and drinks. Whence without doubt they condemn marriages, and, so far as in them lies, forbid them, when they forbid begetting, on account of which marriages are to be joined.

[138] more fully They assert that Adam and Eve were born of parents who were princes of smoke, when their father, by name Saclas, had devoured the offspring of all his companions, and, lying with his wife, had bound in the flesh of the offspring, as with a most tenacious bond, whatever mingled with the divine substance he had thence received. But they affirm that Christ was he whom our Scripture calls the serpent, by whom they assert that they were enlightened, so as to open the eyes of knowledge and to discern good and evil; and that this Christ came in the last times to free souls, not bodies; and that he was not in true flesh, but presented a simulated appearance of flesh for the mocking of human senses, in which he likewise feigned not only death but also resurrection: that the God who gave the law through Moses and spoke in the Hebrew prophets is not the true God, but one of the princes of darkness. And they so read the Scriptures of the new testament itself, as though falsified, that they take thence what they will and reject what they will not; and they prefer certain apocryphal writings to them as not containing the whole truth.

[139] reported, They say that the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, was fulfilled in their heresiarch Manichæus. Whence in his own writings he calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ promised that he would send him, and in him sent the Holy Spirit. For which reason Manichæus himself also had twelve disciples after the likeness of the apostolic number, which number the Manichæans keep to this day: for out of their Elect they have twelve whom they call masters, and a thirteenth as their chief; but seventy-two bishops, who are ordained by the masters; and priests, who are ordained by the bishops. The bishops also have deacons. Now the rest are called only Elect; but those of them who seem fit are also sent to sustain and increase this error where it is, or to disseminate it where it is not. They declare that baptism in water brings no salvation to anyone, nor do they think that any of those whom they deceive is to be baptized. They make prayers to the sun by day, wherever it goes round; to the moon by night, if it appears; but if it does not appear, they stand praying toward the northern quarter, by which the sun, when it has set, returns to the East. They attribute the origin of sins not to the free choice of the will, but to the substance of the adverse race; which, dogmatizing that it is mingled with men, they declare that all flesh is the workmanship not of God but of an evil mind, which they say is coeternal with God from a contrary principle.

[140] and set forth. Carnal concupiscence, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit, they will to be not an infirmity present in us from a nature vitiated in the first man, but a contrary substance so adhering to us that, when we are freed and purged, it is separated from us, and itself also lives immortally in its own nature; and that those two souls, or two minds — one good, the other evil — have a conflict between themselves in one man, when the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; and that this vice, when healed in us, will never, as we say, cease to be, but that this substance of evil, sundered and shut off from us, and this world being ended, after the conflagration of the world, will live in a certain globe as in an everlasting prison; to which globe they affirm that there will always accede and adhere, as a covering and roofing, souls good indeed by nature, but which nevertheless could not be purged from the contagion of the evil nature. St. Epiphanius in heresy 66 relates a like origin of the Manichæans and their gross errors much more fully. But the old wives' fables of those heretics already reported suffice us; which it will be useful to recall below, when the penitent Augustine in the first part of the Acts will lament that for nine years he adhered to the insane Manichæans.

[141] But how, you will say, could a keen and talented Young man give credit to these inept figments of the Manichæans? In what way it could come about In the first place we answer that Augustine in this matter was like those proud philosophers whom the Apostle Paul mentions in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1, as we said above at the beginning of the fourth paragraph. Whence our Wangnereck, in the observations on the Confessions of St. Augustine, which he published at Dillingen in the year 1631 together with useful notes, admonishes the pious reader at book 3, chapter 10, in these words: That was fulfilled in Augustine which St. Paul said with great emphasis concerning the philosophers: "They became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened: for professing themselves wise, they became fools." What is more foolish than to believe such things? And yet the proud and wanton Augustine was gradually led to believe these trifles. So that even from this example I am persuaded that learned men also, however talented, can be given over to a reprobate sense, not only to do but even to believe what is not fitting; and, because they do impious things, to believe foolish ones, and to become in earnest heretics by the just but terrible judgment of God.

[142] Besides, we answer that Augustine was not then yet conscious of the disgraceful deeds that Augustine which the Manichæans committed in secret, and consequently was only a speculative follower of that heresy: for he always remained among them in the rank of Hearer, as we have heard above from himself, and detected their wicked morals especially in the city of Rome. Also without doubt at Rome (whether in his first or in his second stay at Rome, we do not know) he heard of the horrible crimes which the Manichæans were perpetrating in other regions, and of which Augustine in the book On the Nature of Good, chapter 47, thus makes mention in passing: Some are reported to have confessed that they do this in a public trial, not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, as I heard from a certain Catholic Christian at Rome. Although this ignorance of hidden crimes does not excuse the sin of heresy in the rash Young man, yet it somewhat lessens his guilt.

[143] Let no one therefore with the Donatist and Pelagian heretics harshly reproach Augustine with his past errors, gave credit to insane deliriums of this kind which he himself afterwards so often bewailed. But let each rather be moved with such an affection of compassion as he showed toward the blind Manichæans, whom in the book Against the Fundamental Letter, chapter 2 and the following, he thus addresses: Let those rage against you who know not with what labor the truth is found, and how difficult it is to beware of errors. Let those rage against you who know not how rare and arduous it is to overcome carnal phantasms by the serenity of a pious mind. Let those rage against you who know not with how great difficulty the eye of the inner man is healed, that it may be able to gaze upon its own sun — not that which you worship, shining and radiating with a heavenly body upon the fleshly eyes both of men and of beasts, but that of which it is written by the prophet: "The Sun of justice has arisen for me"; and of which it is said in the Gospel: "He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world." Let those rage against you who know not by what sighs and groanings it comes about that God may be understood in however small a part.

[144] might have faith. Lastly, let those rage against you who have never been deceived by such an error as they see you deceived by. But I, who long and greatly tossed about was at length able to perceive what that sincerity is which is received without the narration of an empty fable; who, wretched man, scarcely deserved, with God's help, to convict the vain imaginings of my mind gathered from various opinions and errors; who so tardily submitted myself to the most merciful Physician calling and coaxing me to wipe away the darkness of my mind; who long wept that the unchangeable and unstainable substance, the divine Books agreeing together, would deign to persuade me of itself inwardly; who finally both curiously sought and attentively heard and rashly believed all those figments which hold you entangled and bound by long habit, and urgently persuaded of them whom I could, and pertinaciously and spiritedly defended them against others — I cannot rage against you, whom, as I did myself at that time, so now I ought to bear with, and to deal with you with as great patience as my neighbors dealt with me, when I was raving and blindly erring in your dogma. It is now time that we return from Italy into Africa: for probably Augustine remained at Rome until the end of the month of July or of August of the year 388, since he returned into Africa only after the slaying of the tyrant Maximus, as will now be proved.

§ XI. The return into Africa, the stay in the city of Carthage, the miracles there seen or heard of.

The Saint's return into Africa: A tyrant by name Maximus, who in the year of Christ

387 had driven Valentinian the younger from the empire of the West, was in the following year overcome by the emperor Theodosius and slain on the day XXVIII of July or the XXVII of August, as is read in Socrates, book 5, chapter 14, by order of the victor, as the more exact chronologists show from the ancient authors. Since therefore St. Augustine in book 3 Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, chapter 25, testifies that after the death of the tyrant Maximus he sailed back from Italy into Africa, that return must probably be placed about the month of October or November of the year 388, even though certain writers fix it to the year of Christ 389. And our Saint, now greatly changed from that Augustine who in the year of Christ 383 had departed from Africa into Italy, seems first to have landed at Carthage, and to have stayed there for some time, as the most eminent Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 389, number 7, affirms: for at Carthage happened those marvels which we shall now report from the Saint's own testimony.

[146] prodigies which he heard of, In the book On the Care to be had for the Dead St. Augustine reviews various apparitions, and there at chapter 11 sets forth a certain wonderful thing concerning himself, which he heard at Carthage after his return from Italy, in these words: At almost the same time at which we heard this — that is, while we were established at Milan — Eulogius, a rhetor of Carthage, who had been my pupil in the same art, as he himself related to me after we had returned into Africa, when he was delivering the rhetorical books of Cicero to his pupils, reviewing the lesson which he was to deliver on the next day, met with a certain obscure passage. Which not being understood, he could scarcely sleep for anxiety; on which night, as he dreamed, I expounded to him what he did not understand — nay, not I, but an image of me, without my knowing it, and so far away across the sea either doing or dreaming something else, and caring nothing at all about his cares. How these things happen I know not. But in whatever way they happen, why do we not believe that it happens in the same way that anyone sees a dead man in his sleep, as it happens that he sees a living one also? A little before he had narrated the example of a dead father who had appeared to his son, and which at Milan he had heard narrated for certain. Hence above he says that that apparition of himself living had to be made to Eulogius at almost the same time at which at Milan that father, being dead, appeared to his son, or at which, being established at Milan, he himself heard that matter for certain.

[147] The holy Doctor in book 22 On the City of God, chapter 8, disputes against the heathen and saw, who denied the miracles of Christ and of the Saints, and objected to Christians that in their own time such prodigies were no longer wrought as they themselves proclaimed from the sacred Letters or from ancient monuments. This objection of the heathen the Saint there acutely refutes, and on that occasion thus commemorates certain miracles of his own age: Even now miracles are wrought in his name, whether through his Sacraments, or through the prayers or memorials of his Saints… The miracle which was done at Milan when we were there, when a blind man was enlightened, could come to the knowledge of many, because the city is great, and the emperor was then there, and the thing was done with an immense people as witness, as they ran together to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius; which, when they lay hidden and were utterly unknown, being revealed in a dream to bishop Ambrose, were found, where that blind man, the old darkness being driven away, saw the day.

[148] To this he subjoins another, which happened at Carthage after his return from Italy, and a miracle and which he himself as an eyewitness thus narrates: But at Carthage, who knows, besides a very few indeed, the recovery which happened to Innocentius, formerly advocate of the vicarian prefecture, at which we were present and beheld with our own eyes? For, as we were coming from across the sea, he had received me and my brother Alypius, not yet indeed clerics, but already serving God — for he was, with all his household, most religious — and we were then dwelling with him. He was being treated by physicians on account of fistulas, which he had, many and intricate, in the hinder and lowest part of his body. They had already cut him, and were treating the rest by the medicines of their art. But he had suffered in that cutting both long-continued and bitter pains. But one among the many sinuses had escaped the physicians, and had so lain hid that they did not touch it, which they ought to have opened with the knife. At length, all being healed which they were treating when opened, that one alone remained, upon which labor was spent in vain. Which delays he held suspect, and greatly feared lest he should be cut again, as another physician of his own household had foretold him — whom they had not admitted even to see, when he was first cut, how they did it; and, being angry, he had cast him out of the house and had scarcely received him back. He burst out and said: "Are you going to cut me again? Am I to come to the words of him whom you would not have present?" They laughed at the unskilled physician, and soothed the man's fear with good words and promises.

[149] of a sudden healing, Very many other days also passed, and all that was done profited nothing. The physicians nevertheless persisted in their promise, that they would close that sinus not with the knife but with medicines. They called in also another physician, now aged and sufficiently praised in that art (for he was still alive), Ammonius I mean, who, the place being inspected, promised the same as they, from their diligence and skill; by whose authority he, being made secure, mocked with witty gaiety, as though already whole, his own household physician who had foretold that another cutting would come. What more? Afterwards so many days passed, uselessly spent, that, wearied and confounded, they confessed that he could in no way be healed save by the knife. He was terrified, he grew pale, being disturbed by excessive fear; and when he had collected himself and could speak, he ordered them to depart and to come to him no more. Nor did anything else occur to him, wearied with tears and now constrained by that necessity, but to call in a certain Alexandrian, who was then held a wonderful surgeon, that he himself might do what in his anger he was unwilling should be done by them. But after he had come, and had seen as an expert their labor in the scars, discharging the office of a good man, he persuaded the man that they rather, who had labored on him so much as he himself, inspecting, marveled at, should enjoy the end of their own cure; adding that in truth, unless he were cut, he could not be whole; but that it was very abhorrent to his own character that, from men whose most skilful work, industry, and diligence he saw with admiration in his scars, he should, on account of the little that remained, carry off the palm of so great a labor. They were restored to his mind, and it was agreed that, the same Alexandrian assisting, they themselves should open with the knife that sinus, which by the consent of all was now thought otherwise incurable. Which matter was deferred to the following day.

[150] which he saw, But when they had departed, from the excessive sorrow of their master so great a grief arose in that house that it was scarcely repressed by us, like the wailing of a funeral. Holy men visited him daily: Saturninus, then bishop of Uzalis, of blessed memory, and the priest Gelosus, and deacons of the church of Carthage; among whom there was, and of whom alone is now among human affairs, a bishop to be named by us with the honor due to him, Aurelius — with whom, recalling the wonderful works of God, we have often conversed upon this matter, and we have found that he well remembers what we relate. And when they visited him in the evening, as they were wont, he asked them with pitiable tears that in the morning they would deign to be present rather at his funeral than at his pain: for so great a fear had invaded him from his former pains that he did not doubt that he would die between the physicians' hands. They consoled him and exhorted him to trust in God and manfully to bear his will. Thence we entered upon prayer; where, as we according to custom were bending our knees and casting ourselves upon the ground, he so threw himself down as though he had been laid prostrate by someone thrusting him, and began to pray. In what manner, with what affection, with what motion of mind, with what river of tears, with what groanings and sobs shaking all his limbs and almost stopping his breath — who could unfold it in any words? Whether the others were praying, and were not turning their attention to these things, I did not know. I, however, could not pray at all: this only did I say briefly in my heart: "Lord, what prayers of thine own dost thou hear, if thou hearest not these?" For nothing seemed to me could now be added, unless he should expire in praying. And so we rose, and, a blessing being received from the bishop, we departed, he asking that in the morning they would be present, and they exhorting him to be of an even mind.

[151] The day dawned which was feared; the servants of God were present, while he was at Carthage, as they had promised that they would be. The physicians entered; all things are prepared which that hour demanded; the dreadful instruments are brought forth, all being astounded and in suspense. But while those whose authority was greater raised his failing spirit by consoling him, his limbs are arranged upon the bed to the hands of the one about to cut; the knots of the bandages are loosed, the place is bared, the physician inspects, and, armed and intent, searches for that sinus which was to be cut. He scrutinizes it with his eyes and handles it with his fingers. He tries at last in every way; he finds a most firm scar. Now that joy and praise and thanksgiving to the merciful and almighty God, which was poured forth from the mouth of all with weeping joys, is not to be committed to my words; let it rather be thought than said. The holy Doctor in the same chapter narrates several miracles which happened publicly in his own time through the Sacrament of regeneration or the intercession of the Saints, and of which he was an eyewitness or an ear-witness. Although it is not of our design here to transcribe those prodigies, yet on their occasion we shall afterwards take up according to his deserts the famous Jean Le Clerc, who under the name of Phereponus shamelessly hissed off like narratives of eye- or ear-witnesses.

[152] Further, we have wished to report at greater length the sudden healing of Innocentius, and which some too liberally because abbot Philip of Aumône, who in the twelfth century gathered the Life of our Saint, at chapter 17 chiefly attributes that benefit to the prayers of Augustine in this manner: Augustine, pitying the wretched lot of his host, when he saw that he and many of his household despaired of the physicians' help, his knees being fixed, took refuge in the remedy of prayer, praying him who alone does great marvels, that he would mercifully succor in so great a peril a man so liberal, so hospitable, so religious; and (if it is lawful to say it — nay, since it is) that God would obey the vows of men: for God is read to have obeyed Joshua fighting and praying, when at the command of that same Joshua the sun, forgetful of its course, stood immovable over Gibeon and the moon over the valley of Ajalon, until he should overcome the tyranny of five kings. Armed with the same faith, the devout recruit Augustine prayed, and obtained the effect from the same God under whose standards he too served as a chief soldier.

[153] Jordan of Saxony without doubt followed Philip, the Premonstratensian abbot, attribute to Augustine's prayers; when in the Life of the holy Doctor in Hommey in

the Supplement of the Fathers, page 592, he thus briefly makes mention of the same miracle: Coming to Carthage, he was received into lodging by a certain honorable man (Innocentius by name); who, when on account of a grave infirmity of the body he had to be cut by a physician, Augustine, piously compassionating his host, cured him by his prayer, all being astounded that he was so suddenly cured of so grave an infirmity. Cornelius Lancilottus in the Life of the same Saint, book 2, chapter 11, and other more recent biographers confidently assert like things. But we do not know whether they can allege any witnesses of this assertion of theirs older than the two already cited. Wherefore I could wish that St. Possidius had made mention of this miracle, so that no room for doubting might remain: for on account of that silence of Possidius, unless I am deceived, Jean Rivius in the Life of the holy Doctor, book 1, chapter 1, §36; Tillemont in volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 122; and the French Benedictines in the Latin Acts of St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 1, ascribe that wonderful cure of Innocentius to our Saint only doubtfully.

[154] although the miracle itself cannot be called into doubt. But I do not sufficiently understand what Giovanni Battista Melegari, a Canon Regular of the Lateran Congregation, means, when in the Work On the institutes and progress of the Clerks Regular, among those things which he thinks must be corrected or omitted in the Acts of St. Augustine, at page 250 he places the said miracle in these words: I should not judge worthy of all credit the miracle of the healing of the leg of Innocentius of Carthage, in whose house at his first coming into Africa he stayed with his companions, since I do not find it narrated by classical authors. If Melegari by this manner of speaking only denies that this miracle was wrought by the intercession of St. Augustine, his censure is tolerable, although abbot Philip and Jordan of Saxony assertively ascribe it to his prayers. But if Melegari by this obscure phrase wished to signify that this miracle is not worthy of all credit because he does not find it narrated by classical authors, he betrays ignorance of the testimony reported above, and has been shamefully mistaken, since St. Augustine, an eyewitness, expressly narrated it — who easily supplies the place of classical authors in this matter, and to whom alone Melegari could have given historical credit. Since nevertheless it befits us always to interpret the ambiguous words of a Catholic and Religious writer in the better part, we shall gladly understand this obscure sentence in the sense of the former explanation. Now let us pursue the other things which Augustine seems then to have done at Carthage.

[155] He seems to have disputed at Carthage against a certain Manichæan; Probably in this stay at Carthage our Saint endeavored to convert to the Catholic faith that Manichæan whom he had reduced to a standstill by his arguments, and whose answer he recites in the book On the Morals of the Manichæans, chapter 12, in these words: But that had not yet been said which I lately heard at Carthage; for when a certain man, whom I especially desire to be freed from that error, was being driven by this question into the same straits, he dared to say, namely, that the kingdom had certain bounds of its own which could be invaded by the contrary race; for that God himself could in no way be violated. But he said what not even that author of yours would in any way be compelled to say: for he perhaps saw the consequent ruins of his sect to be far easier after this opinion than by the other. And indeed the matter stands thus, that if anyone of moderate sense shall hear that in that nature one thing was violable, another inviolable, he easily understands that there are now not two natures but three: one inviolable, another violable, a third violating. Perhaps to the time of this stay at Carthage also belong the shameless morals of several of the Elect, which Augustine testifies that he saw at a crossroads of Carthage, and which he reproaches the Manichæans with in the book just cited, as on another occasion we reported above in §5.

[156] [where and when the book On the Morals of the Manichæans was composed and finished.] But how, you will say, could Augustine narrate these later Carthaginian sayings or deeds of the Manichæans in the book On the Morals of the Manichæans, which he wrote at Rome before he had returned into Africa, as was said in §9? The French Benedictine Fathers in the Life of St. Augustine, book 2, chapter 14, number 1, treating of both those lucubrations written at Rome, rightly loose that knot in these words: At the very beginning he testifies (namely Augustine in the books On the Morals of the Catholic Church and of the Manichæans) that he has sufficiently shown in other books how the error and impiety with which the Manichæans inveigh against the old Testament may be assailed. Yet we do not read that he treated of this matter in his earlier little works. Wherefore we judge that the books there mentioned by him are none other than those two in which, after his return into Africa, he expounded the beginning of Genesis against the calumnies of the Manichæans. And if this is so, the books On the Morals of the Church and On the Morals of the Manichæans were indeed written at Rome, since the author himself testifies it; yet they were not published there, nor altogether finished, save when Augustine was already established in Africa. For indeed in several places he has spoken just as though he were then absent from Rome, as may be seen in chapter thirty-three of the first book, and chapter twenty of the second. What of this, that in chapter twelve of the same second book he records a certain new answer on behalf of the Manichæan heresy, which he testifies that he lately heard at Carthage? Some addition, that is, could afterwards be made in Africa to these books first written at Rome, before they were published. Like things the praised Benedictine Fathers repeat in the admonition which they prefixed to this twofold little Work. Now, on occasion of the miracles which we have assigned above from Augustine as an eye- or ear-witness, the self-love of Jean Le Clerc must be blunted, who under the glorious name of Phereponus foolishly praises himself, and judges that his heretical cavillings are to be preferred to the open testimonies of the ancient Fathers.

§ XII. The rashness of Phereponus chastised, and a defense against him on behalf of the miracles which our Saint confirmed by his eye- or ear-witness testimony.

Notable Not only Catholics but also heterodox writers complain of the vain arrogance of Jean Le Clerc, or Phereponus, by which he despises the ancient Fathers of the Church and prefers his own light little reasonings or sophisms to their opinions. Already above in §1 of this preliminary Commentary we reported what Oudin the apostate judged concerning his manifest haughtiness, by which he extols his own literary labors and stupidly admires himself. To him we add William Cave, who in the Apologetic Letter against the unjust criminations of Jean Le Clerc, published at London in the year 1700, at page 16 and the following, thus imputes to him the contempt of the holy Fathers growing strong among his own Englishmen: It comes upon me indeed to wonder how it has come about that the prelates of venerable antiquity, who through all the ages of Christian affairs have been held in great esteem and in the highest honor, whom the Christian world has hitherto cultivated with so great veneration, should at last, in this age in which we live, come into contempt, grow cheap day by day, and be accounted as nothing.

[158] If any defect occurs in their books, it is presently increased and amplified; arrogance if even the slightest mistake, it is exaggerated and advanced into a monstrous error; the interpretations of the sacred Letters employed by them are rejected as sportive, insipid, and plainly ἀπροδιόνυσοι; their reasons and arguments are hissed off as futile, of fig-wood, feeble. Why many words? They are derided by most as stupid, dull, slow, dolts, babblers, at least in comparison with the fertile, sublime, and most acute wits of our time. What, good God! is the cause of so stupendous a change? Whence so inverted a turn of affairs? To me, weighing these things seriously with myself, scarcely any more suitable reason occurs than that the holy Fathers are unshaken witnesses and most keen champions of the Catholic faith and of the Nicene dogmas; who propagated even to us the faith handed down by the Apostles and received from their forefathers, and confirmed what they received by their life, their voice, and even their blood, and by unconquered arguments preserved it whole and safe against all the machinations of heretics; and who can be bent by no sophisms to bear testimony in the cause of the Unitarians. Hence those tears, hence this ruin of the estate. By this closing sentence Cave signifies that Jean Le Clerc is chiefly hostile to the holy Fathers of the Church because these champions of the ancient faith withstood the Arian heretics; and thus he tacitly charges him with Socinianism, of which heresy other writers have more openly accused him, as may be seen in the same Apologetic Letter of Cave, page 105 and following.

[159] and rashness, An anonymous theologian of Cambridge, who in the year 1707 published at Cambridge with the academic types a Defense of St. Augustine, in the Preface more severely refutes the same Jean Le Clerc or Phereponus in these words: Although there have long been many who have shown a mind too unfair and hostile toward the holy Fathers of the Church, yet I think no one is hitherto found who with greater zeal and labor than Jean Le Clerc has loaded them with reproaches and revilings. For what writing has ever fallen from a man perpetually writing in which he would not have something detracted from their reputation and authority? What else could he seem to have proposed to himself in the critical Art which he devised, and in the Libraries which he calls either universal or select, than that he might be able to despoil them both of the praise of learning and of the honor of integrity? Justin Martyr, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and other most learned and most holy Fathers he long since assailed, and daily, seizing any occasion, so assails that he endeavors to render them to all utterly contemptible and ridiculous. But lately he chose Augustine especially for himself, in whom he might show what he both can and dares in this kind of contest; whom therefore I have judged at this time chiefly to be defended, nor have I judged it to be borne that one who by his own right and merit has hitherto flourished in the glory of piety and learning should be held in mockery by anyone's arrogance or ill will — especially since his detractor has often shown himself so basely and ridiculously in his Animadversions, that Augustine's fame may be increased and grow illustrious from that very thing whereby he wished a stain to be sprinkled upon him.

[160] as they themselves acknowledge And yet the crafty man is eager to lie hid under the feigned name of Phereponus; which perhaps he demands to be attributed to modesty, when nevertheless there is no one who doubts of the author's true name; and he judged that under this mask he could most safely display his own huge and continual labors, and reproach the too ungrateful literary Republic, if you please, with the benefits conferred upon it. But let that be a mark of modesty, that he does not profess his own name, but preferred to be entitled from his labors, after so great weariness at last devoured in unrolling the books of Augustine, so that he could not restrain himself from a truly lamentable complaint. Let him take to himself as many titles and names as he pleases; I do not grudge it. Let him be of what sort and how great he himself wishes; I contradict nothing: but whatever praise of industry or of erudition may be owed to John either Le Clerc or Phereponus, he will nevertheless not thereby have flown upon the fame and merit of the holy Fathers with more excuse or more impunity. But I have hitherto restrained myself, that I might wait

so long, whether anyone from the learned family of the Benedictines — to whose care and diligence we owe the most recent edition of the Works of Augustine — would wash away the reprehensions with which the Animadversions written upon it by Phereponus swarm. To these monks the good Phereponus has rather often seemed to fawn, and to be somewhat afraid lest they should exact penalties for Augustine contumeliously handled. But since those most learned men daily bestow their labors more usefully than to have leisure for those dirges, they will favor, I think, the undertaking of a man who shows that so many and so great lucubrations of theirs in reprinting the Works of the holy Fathers have not been in vain.

[161] Then, after other things which for brevity's sake we here pass over, heterodox writers, that anonymous of Cambridge thus pursues his Preface: But those things Animadverted by Phereponus which seemed most of all to make for Augustine's ignominy are recorded in the preface, are reduced into an index, are hawked about in a threepenny Library: for Phereponus, not content to have spoken evil once, peddles his evil sayings almost every month, and assails Augustine with Animadversions, prefaces, indexes, Libraries, and moves not only every stone but every syllable and letter, that he may be able to kindle envy and hatred against him. But since there was in Augustine so great a dignity and excellence of piety and erudition that he is not wont to be named even by Donatists or by Pelagians without at least some signification of a certain honor, Phereponus did not think it should be allowed that those whom he often surpassed in the enmities undertaken against Augustine should nevertheless not sometimes have this custom of theirs imitated by him. And yet if he perchance praises him, he does it so sparingly and so restrictedly, as though he grudged it; certainly it is manifest that he does it unwillingly: and of these praises which he has sprinkled in — malignant indeed and treacherous, that his vituperations may find easier credit — he makes mention again in the preface, in the conclusion of the Animadversions, in the index. So does he everywhere in every way make sport of the holy Father.

[162] Finally the said anonymous scourge-of-Phereponus concludes his Preface in these words: John Who therefore would not take it ill that a shameless, vehement, implacable man, an admirer of himself, a despiser of others, especially of the ancients, should think himself at last sufficiently learned and blessed if he can detect the errors of others, and sufficiently famous by another's infamy? If anyone thinks anything in him to be reprehended, he grows hot, he vociferates, he calls upon the good faith of men, he threatens the judgment of God; as though it were lawful for him alone to blame others by no means blamably. Reviling toward the Fathers, arrogant toward all, he so fills and infests all things with daily pamphlets, as though he judged that both religion and philosophy rested upon his own single eyebrow. But Augustine he rends with revilings, cuts to pieces, overwhelms with whole volumes; nor does he think it enough to have written so many atrocious things against so great a Man, unless he also mingle rank witticisms and unpleasant and scurrilous jests. That he sometimes erred Augustine himself confesses; nor would anyone, I think, thereafter have denied it: but it is not free from the mark of ingratitude toward God to wish to bring into contempt and a meaner opinion among men him through whom it pleased God to confer such great benefits upon his Church; and to endeavor to remove from the number not only of learned men but also of upright men one who approved the truth of religion not by writings alone, but much more by his life and deeds and morals. This therefore I take upon myself to prove: that this grave and atrocious reprehender of Augustine very often not so much errs as raves; but that Augustine, if at any time reason failed him, yet piety did not fail him, nor zeal for the truth, nor a good mind and charity — which Phereponus everywhere reproaches the most holy Father with: how rashly and unjustly he has done this will be plain from what shall be said hereafter. But I shall set forth first the words of St. Augustine, repeated a little further back than the Animadverter judged should be repeated by him; then the Animadversions of Phereponus; last I shall subjoin my own answers. With these lively colors that anonymous writer, unknown to us, has depicted Phereponus in general, whom afterwards in the manner promised he refutes one by one.

[163] Le Clerc Muratori also, under the name of Lamindus Pritanius, composed a Latin Work of considerable bulk On the Moderation of Wits in the business of religion, which was reprinted at Paris in the year 1737, as at least the title of the edition which we have at hand declares. The author in this lucubration often vindicates St. Augustine from the inept censures of Phereponus, and on behalf of the miracles narrated by that Saint thus begins the eleventh chapter of the third book: Augustine says that the heretics were condemned also by the majesty of miracles. But these too Phereponus accounts as nothing. Behold the most powerful reason why our critic hisses them off. These, he says, were in that age ecclesiastical stratagems, by which a trick was played upon the common people. An ingenious method indeed, by which a litigant may quickly rid himself of his adversaries. When reasons press, and no other way out is given, the facts themselves, though clearer than light, are denied. But this very puerile witticism of Phereponus is as easily denied as it is uttered. Or does that proud Critic perhaps think that Catholics are so stupid, or that he himself has such authority, that they will at once believe him blurting out whatever he pleases without witnesses and documents, and denying evident miracles? But lest we be said to insult a dead lion, who died some years ago, we confidently challenge any of his followers to defend at least speciously the absurd calumnies of Phereponus. If any of the heterodox should wish to maintain this bad cause, we shall vindicate in a special dissertation the historical credit of those miracles which the holy Fathers as eyewitnesses narrate: for we may not here discuss them one by one. Meanwhile we refer the curious reader who desires to read refutations of this particular kind to the anonymous of Cambridge or to Muratori.

[164] accuses Augustine of feigned miracles, Further, the bold Phereponus, on occasion of the miracles which St. Augustine in book 22 On the City of God, chapter 8, proves to be still wrought in his own age, agrees with the ancient heathen, and at page 594 of the said heretical medley thus accuses the holy Doctor of a crafty change of his opinion and of impious falsehood: There is an objection of the heathen, for the more convenient solving of which there were feigned, especially in the fourth century, innumerable miracles of Relics, which before had been unheard of. When the Christians of this age spoke more incautiously and therefore more truly, they confessed that miracles were no longer wrought, which happened to Augustine in the book On True Religion, chapter XXV, where he denies that those miracles (such as the Apostles') were permitted to endure into our times. But afterwards he retracted these words on account of new miracles, whose (that scrupulous grammarian would better have said quorum, as the right construction of the sentence demands) usefulness he began too late to notice. By these words the shameless Phereponus strives to persuade an incautious reader that Augustine at first acknowledged no miracles of his own age, but afterwards, the usefulness of miracles being known, changed his former opinion, or rather feigned miracles, that he might more easily elude the objections of the heathen.

[165] There is no need of long reasoning that we may detect this gross fraud of Phereponus: and ill expounds his words: for Phereponus without doubt knew that in Augustine and in the ancient authors of the Latin tongue retractare generally signifies to treat again or to go over more accurately. But that lying censor preferred to use the ambiguous word retractare in another sense, that he might the more easily deceive the reader and fraudulently persuade him that the former opinion was afterwards changed or revoked by Augustine. Now therefore let us evidently convict that critic of bad faith from the holy Doctor himself, who in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 13, retracting — that is, again reviewing — the work On True Religion, does not change or revoke the opinion concerning the miracles of his own time delivered before, but rather confirms it and sets it forth more clearly in these words: Likewise, what I said, "nor were those miracles permitted to endure into our times, lest the soul should always seek visible things, and the human race should grow cold by the habit of those things at whose novelty it had glowed" — is indeed true: for even now, when the hand is laid upon the baptized, they do not so receive the Holy Spirit that they speak with the tongues of all nations; nor even now are the sick healed at the shadow of the preachers of Christ passing by; and if any such things were done, it is manifest that they afterwards ceased. But what I said is not so to be taken as though no miracles are now believed to be wrought in the name of Christ: for I myself, when I wrote that very book, already knew that at Milan a blind man had been enlightened at the bodies of the Martyrs in that same city, and some other things of such a kind as are done in such numbers even in these times, that we can neither know them all, nor enumerate those which we know. From this closing passage the malignant falsehood of Jean Le Clerc is plain, since St. Augustine there expressly testifies that innumerable miracles are still wrought in his own time.

[166] Although Phereponus elsewhere very often hisses off the miracles reported by Augustine, Le Clerc charges Ambrose with the same sacrilegious invention, yet he craftily keeps silence about that blind man who at Milan was enlightened at the tomb of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. But he attempted to subvert the foundation of this miracle, when in his heretical Animadversions, page 475, he endeavored to render the very finding of these Martyrs suspect of fraud by this frivolous censure of his: If these, he says, and other findings of holy bodies of this kind had not been joined with immense gain and emolument to those who dug them up, many who believe these to be the figments of crafty men for keeping the common people in their duty would not easily take away credit from them. This finding, for example, increased not a little the esteem and authority of Ambrose, since by it the mind of Justina, the Arian princess, as our author has it (namely St. Augustine in book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 7), although not enlarged [] to the soundness of believing, was nevertheless repressed from the fury of persecuting. Hence, after other ineptitudes which the anonymous of Cambridge and Muratori laboriously refute, he thus concludes from his own rash suspicion: But read the rest, where the tortured devils, by the help of these Martyrs, most opportunely condemn the Arians; and thou wilt no longer wonder that there are those who judge this to have been an Ambrosian stratagem, devised that he might bind the people to himself and terrify Justina and the Arians.*

[167] a follower in this matter of the ancient Arians, These words of Le Clerc, roundly expounded, signify that St. Ambrose was a sacrilegious impostor, who for the sake of gain or of a vain little glory deceived by feigned miracles the Arians and the Catholics and all posterity: for consequently he must also deny that at that time at Milan a blind man, a citizen most well known to the city, as our Saint of today says in book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 7, was publicly and truly enlightened through the intercession of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, before an innumerable people who ran together to the sacred relics of these Martyrs. Or did perhaps this man of uncertain sect (some think Le Clerc to have been addicted to the Socinian heresy) wish by such a calumny to favor his forefathers the Arians, who at that time pertinaciously and stupidly denied manifest miracles then wrought? But of whatever sect that hypercritic may have been, in this matter he treads closely in the footsteps of the ancient Arians, whom St. Ambrose himself, in the Paris edition of his Works published in the years 1686 and 1690, volume 2, column 878 and the following, thus evidently convicts:

They deny that the blind man was enlightened; but he does not deny that he was healed. He says: I see, who did not see. He says: I have ceased to be blind; and he proves it by the fact. These deny the benefit, who cannot deny the fact. The man is well known, devoted, while he was strong, to public services, Severus by name, a butcher by trade. He had laid down his office after the hindrance had befallen him. He calls to testimony the men by whose services he was formerly sustained. He summons as declarers of his recovery of sight those whom he had as witnesses and judges of his blindness. After these things the holy prelate of Milan compares with him the Gospel blind man enlightened by Christ, and by evident arguments shows that the Arians are more obstinate than the Jews.

[168] although nothing is more certain than the miracle which he attacks: Whence the Benedictine editors in the same place, in the notes on this text of St. Ambrose, rightly advise the following: Nothing is more certain or more attested than this miracle, not only on account of the most weighty authority of Ambrose, and its circumstances most fully known to all the people of Milan, whom this same prelate was addressing; but also on account of the eyewitness testimony (pardon the word) of Augustine, which may be read in book 22 On the City of God, chapter 8, and yet more expressly in the sermon on the Birthday of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius. The same miracle also, together with the others which are recorded in this letter, is narrated by one who likewise could have been an eyewitness, Paulinus in the Life of Ambrose. It is wonderful therefore that so great was the obstinacy of the Arians that they held miracles so evident for fabrications — nay even, as Paulinus is the author, for things feigned for a price. Nevertheless from the same Augustine and Paulinus we learn that the perfidy of the heretics was, if not broken, at least weakened by that manifestation of the martyrs, and that the persecution cooled. And hence indeed we the more wonder that among the heterodox of our time — who show scarcely a greater veneration for any other of the Fathers than for our Ambrose — one has nevertheless been found who would renew the old calumny of the Arians, though under certain wrappings of witticisms. Perhaps Jean Le Clerc himself is here tacitly designated, who does not blush to prefer his light little reasonings or futile conjectures to the most weighty testimonies of the holy Fathers.

[169] Nay rather, that severe censor plays the actor in a serious matter, and in the cited medley of his heresy, page 550, petulantly compares to a comedy the genuine Sermons which St. Augustine delivered concerning the authentic miracles of St. Stephen, the same man depicts Augustine as a comedian; in this manner: In Sermon CCCXXII may be read, and indeed ought to be read, a play, from which a certain judgment may be passed concerning the whole play-acting of that age. On the first day of Easter there is produced one Paul, I know not who, from Cappadocia — of men the most productive of worthless ones, if we believe old report and Isidore of Pelusium — cured by St. Stephen; but his little book, that is, the history of his disease and cure, is deferred, that the common people may be the more inflamed with the desire of learning it. That is the first Act, which is of Sermon CCCXX… The second Act is had in Sermon CCCXXI, where that marvelous little book is promised to the people, because he had indicated some things to Augustine which the people ought to know for their greater admiration and the glory of our Lord. The third is in Sermon CCCXXII, in which Augustine speaks a preface; then he orders the history of Paul, cured on the day of Easter, to be recited. The fourth Act is contained in Sermon CCCXXIII, where, as Augustine is speaking to the people, Paul's sister is suddenly cured, and there follows an acclamation of the people. The fifth Act finally is embraced by Sermon CCCXXIV, where the pious Prelate turns everything to his own purpose, and prudently admonishes the people that, although God could have wrought these so notable miracles elsewhere, where also there were relics of St. Stephen, yet Paul and his sister were directed to him; to which, unless I am deceived, the whole play looked. Then from the genuine Sermons of the Saint he excerpts the whole history of the miracle, and there at page 552 puerilely blurts out that nothing is lacking to this comedy save that common or like closing formula of the theater: May the matter turn out well for me and for you; spectators, applaud.

[170] Are these arguments worthy of a man who wishes to seem grave and learned? but the impious arrogance of the proud man displeases even the heretics, We have made so much of them that we have judged that the very words of this swollen heretic could be recited here without danger: for even the simpler Catholics are confirmed in their ancestral faith when they read or hear that such ineptitudes are set against the eyewitness and venerable testimonies of the holy Fathers. Therefore we doubt whether this shameless rashness of Phereponus, or Jean Le Clerc, will not be displeasing to prudent and moderate Lutherans and Calvinists themselves. Certainly it could not please the heterodox William Cave, who in the Literary History of ecclesiastical writers, among us at page 149, greatly praises St. Ambrose, and by whom that prelate of Milan is there called a man venerable for the highest piety and every virtue; a prelate of unconquered spirit, who spiritedly resisted Jews, heathen, and heretics of every kind; most skilled in Greek letters as well as in Latin. But a man so pious, and so great a despiser of himself and of perishable things, feigned miracles against the Arians by an impious stratagem for the sake of gain or empty glory, if it please us to give credit to the chattering Le Clerc. Believe it, posterity!

[171] Cave at page 169 of the same Literary History adorns St. Augustine, after a brief synopsis of his Acts, with this eulogy: who greatly praise Augustine and Ambrose. The excellent manners of that most holy Man through the whole course of his life Possidius beautifully depicts. He was assuredly pious, modest, chaste, gentle, mild, courteous, placid; frequent in preaching, keen in disputing, unwearied in writing, diligent and assiduous in transacting business both civil and ecclesiastical, zealous for the poor, for whom he provided either from the revenues of the church or from the offerings of the faithful, etc. Nay rather, above at number 169 the same holy Doctor is called by Le Clerc himself (whether in jest or in earnest we do not know) a pious prelate. If in earnest, how will Le Clerc reconcile this piety of St. Augustine with the base invention of miracles which he imputes to him, and which gravely offends God, as all theologians teach? But if in jest or ironically he has called him pious, he rashly contradicts all antiquity, which religiously venerated the sanctity and learning of so great a Man; and this insipid reviling of the hypercritic deserves rather to be laughed at than refuted. Wherefore let us rather pass on to the other deeds of our Saint.

elsewhere applicitus*

§ XIII. The Saint's pious life passed for nearly three years at Tagaste with his companions, and the lucubrations written at that time.

He leads a common life with his companions, After some stay in the city of Carthage our Saint departed thence to Tagaste, that he might there lead a common and pious life with some fellow-townsmen and friends. Further, below in the Acts we shall briefly hear of that nearly three-year stay with his companions from St. Possidius, whose words abbot Philip in the Life, chapter 18, somewhat amplified in this manner: Augustine, Carthage being left, set out to his own fields, and there with his own people, giving himself to fastings and prayers, lived for three years in the lay order. But during the same time, intent upon reading and writing, he was writing books and teaching the unlearned, reading and not neglecting, because this is the piety which above all things is profitable unto all things. For labor, according to the Apostle, though it is profitable, is profitable for a little; but piety is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come: which piety indeed is by nothing more fittingly understood, as it is expounded by the holy doctors, than by exercise in the divine Scriptures, when they are devoutly read, fulfilled, taught, according to the prophet who teaches: "How sweet are thy words to my jaws! I lifted up my hands to thy commandments; I will declare all thy wondrous works." Bestowing therefore solicitous zeal upon these things, he fulfilled the office of Martha and of Mary: with Martha, feeding the Lord by teaching his neighbors; with Mary, hearing the Lord by reading and meditating. Hence we easily gather with what occupations St. Augustine was engaged during that stay at Tagaste.

[173] He writes the book of the 83 Questions, From the useful conversations and learned disputations with which the Saint at that time instructed his companions arose the book of the Eighty-three questions, which he afterwards, being then bishop, published, and of which in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 26, he thus makes mention: There is also among those things which we have written a certain prolix Work, which nevertheless is reckoned one book, whose title is, Of divers questions, eighty-three. But since they had been scattered through many little papers, because from the very first time of my conversion, after we came into Africa, as I was questioned by the brethren when they saw me at leisure, they were dictated by me with no order preserved, I ordered them, when now a bishop, to be collected, and one book to be made of them, numbers being added, so that whatever anyone shall wish to read he may easily find. Then he reviews one by one the titles of those questions, which the curious reader may unroll in the Plantin edition of the Works, volume four, from page 231.

[174] Probably also in that retirement at Tagaste the holy Man published two books On Genesis against the Manichæans, two On Genesis against the Manichæans, as in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 10, he records in these words: But being now established in Africa, I wrote two books On Genesis against the Manichæans: for although in the earlier books, whatever I disputed in order to show that God is the supremely good and unchangeable creator of all changeable natures, and that there is no evil nature or substance in so far as it is nature and substance, our intention was on the watch against the Manichæans, yet these two books were published most openly against them in defense of the old Law, which they assail with the vehement zeal of a mad error. In this exposition of Genesis he followed the allegorical sense, since he did not then yet dare to explain so great secrets of natural things according to the letter, as we shall see below on another occasion. Afterwards, however, he attempted to give a literal explanation of the same Book; but he was compelled to leave that little work unfinished — although at length, being more practiced in expounding the sacred Letters, he wrote twelve books On Genesis according to the letter, of which we shall make mention below.

[175] Further, the Saint at the beginning of the said Work On Genesis against the Manichæans displays the humble modesty of his mind, in which he purposely uses a humbler style, when he renders a reason why, being admonished by others, he composed it in a simpler style, and in book 1, chapter 1, thus prefaces: If the Manichæans chose whom they should deceive, we too would choose the words with which to answer them. But since they pursue with their error both those learned in letters and the unlearned, and, while they promise truth, endeavor to turn men from truth, their vanity must be convicted not by ornate and polished discourse, but by manifest facts. For the opinion of certain truly Christian men pleased me, who, though they are trained in liberal letters, yet, when they had read those other books of ours which we published against the Manichæans, saw that they were understood by the less skilled either scarcely or with difficulty, and most benevolently admonished me that I should not forsake the common custom of speaking,

if I meant to drive out those so pernicious errors from the minds even of the unskilled: for this usual and simple speech even the learned understand, but that other the unlearned do not understand. The Manichæans therefore are wont to disparage the Scriptures of the old Testament, which they do not know, and by that disparagement to deride and deceive our weak and little ones, who do not find how to answer them.

[176] Besides, the holy Doctor in another Work, On Genesis according to the letter, book 8, chapter 2, thus again reviews these two books On Genesis against the Manichæans: he did not everywhere give the literal sense in them, I, against the Manichæans — who err concerning these writings of the old Testament not by taking them otherwise than they ought, but blaspheme by not taking them at all and by detesting them — wrote two books at a time recent to my conversion, wishing quickly to confute their deliriums, or to raise up men's intention to seek in the Letters which they hate the Christian and evangelical faith. And because there did not then occur to me all the ways in which they could be taken in their proper sense, they rather seemed unable to be so taken, or scarcely or with difficulty; and, lest I should be delayed, I explained with what brevity and clearness I could what those things signified figuratively which I could not find according to the letter, lest men, deterred either by much reading or by the obscurity of the disputation, should not care to take them in hand. Yet, mindful of what I especially wished and could not do — that all things should be understood at first not figuratively but properly — and not altogether despairing that they could be understood so too, I set down this very thing in the first part of the second book thus. "Indeed," I said, "whoever shall wish to take all that has been said according to the letter — that is, to understand it not otherwise than the letter sounds — and can avoid blasphemies and proclaim all things agreeable to the Catholic faith, not only is he not to be envied, but he is to be held an outstanding and greatly praiseworthy interpreter."

[177] he finishes the books On Music, The six books On Music also, which our Saint had begun in Italy, he finished about this time in Africa, as we said above in §8. The five earlier books of this Work, however learnedly written, the Author himself humbly reckons among trifles, which he judges can be excused before benevolent readers under the name of a dutiful labor, as is clear from the beginning of the sixth book, to which he prefixed the following prologue: Long enough, and almost, nay plainly, in a boyish fashion, have we lingered through five books upon the traces of numbers pertaining to the durations of times; which triviality of ours a dutiful labor may perhaps easily excuse among benevolent men — a labor which we thought must be undertaken for no other reason than that young men, or men of any age whom God has endowed with a good talent, should be torn away, not too hastily but by certain steps, under the guidance of reason, from the senses of the flesh and from carnal writings, to which it is difficult for them not to cling, and should cleave, by the love of unchangeable truth, to the one God and Lord of all things, who presides over human minds with no nature interposed. Then he especially commends the sixth book for its usefulness, in which the pious mind of the reader is raised from the consideration of numbers to God himself.

[178] he publishes the dialogue On the Teacher, About the same time he published the dialogue On the Teacher, of which St. Augustine in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 12, thus makes mention after the six books of the Music: At the same time I wrote a book whose title is On the Teacher; in which it is disputed and sought and found that there is no teacher who teaches man knowledge save God; according to that also which is written in the Gospel: One is your master, Christ. The most recent Benedictine Fathers, the editors, in the admonition which they prefix to this little Work, thus discourse concerning the time of its writing: The age of the following little work its Author himself discloses in book IX of the Confessions, chapter VI, where, having noted beforehand that Adeodatus was about fifteen years old when he was joined as a companion to himself and his fellows as they went to Milan for the sake of receiving baptism, he testifies immediately after that this dialogue was held with him at that time when he was in his sixteenth year — that is, in the second year from their baptism, in which they were certainly initiated in the year of Christ CCCLXXXVII. Wherefore, having reviewed the books On Genesis against the Manichæans and On Music, which had been finished about the year CCCLXXXIX, Augustine added in the first book of the Retractations, chapter 12, that he wrote the book On the Teacher at the same time. After this preliminary Commentary, in the first part of the Acts at number 237, this age of Adeodatus, and consequently the asserted chronology of that lucubration, will be confirmed from the Father's own testimony.

[179] he publishes the book On True Religion, Finally St. Augustine assigns his last little Work which he wrote before receiving the dignity of the priesthood, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 13, in this manner: Then also I wrote the book On True Religion, in which it is disputed in manifold ways and most copiously that one true God, that is, the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is to be worshiped with true religion; and with how great mercy of his the Christian religion, which is the true religion, has been granted to men by a temporal dispensation; and how man is to be fitted by a certain manner of life to that same worship of God. Chiefly, however, this book speaks against the two natures of the Manichæans. You have here in passing the matter of that book, which the Saint dedicated to Romanianus, his fellow-townsman and patron. But the time of this lucubration the French Benedictine Fathers in the preliminary admonition refer to the year of Christ 390, since it is reckoned in the last place among his little works written before the priesthood, which he received in the year of Christ 391.

[180] Our Saint had promised the subject of this writing some years before to his friend Romanianus, as he had promised his friend Romanianus, as is plain from chapter 7 of the same Work, where he thus addresses him: Since a few years ago I promised thee, Romanianus most dear to me, to write what I thought concerning true religion, I have judged that now is the time, since, by that charity by which I am bound to thee, I can no longer endure that thy most keen questionings should waver without any certain end. All therefore being repudiated who neither philosophize in sacred things nor are consecrated in philosophy; and those who, being proud either from a perverse opinion or from some grudge, have deviated from the rule and communion of the Catholic Church; and those who were unwilling to have the light of the holy Scriptures and the grace of the spiritual people, which is called the new Testament — whom I have touched upon with what brevity I could — the Christian religion must be held by us, and the communion of that Church which is Catholic, and is named Catholic not only by its own but also by all its enemies: for willing or unwilling, the heretics themselves also and the nurslings of schisms, when they speak not with their own but with strangers, call the Catholic Church nothing else than Catholic: for they cannot be understood unless they distinguish it by this name, by which it is called by the whole world.

[181] When St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, had received from Alypius this book On True Religion, together with the two books On the Morals of the Church and of the Manichæans, which with the four others written against the Manichæans, and two others On Genesis — which for that reason he calls a Pentateuch against the Manichæans — in the most recent Verona edition of his Works, column 13, he thus begins his fourth letter, and thus praises the Author of that Pentateuch: The charity of Christ, which urges me and binds together even the absent through unity of faith, itself has furnished me confidence to write to thee, shame being driven away, and has brought thee into my inmost parts through thy letters, which — both flowing with scholastic resources and sweet with heavenly honeycombs — I hold meanwhile as physicians and nurses of my soul in five books, which we have received by the gift of our blessed and venerable bishop Alypius, not for our instruction only, but also for the profit of the church of many cities. These books therefore I now have for reading; in these I delight; from these I take food — not that which perishes, but that which works the substance of eternal life through our faith, by which we are embodied in Christ Jesus our Lord; while our faith, which, neglecting visible things, pants for the invisible, is strengthened through charity by the writings and examples of the faithful, believing all things according to the truth of almighty God.

[182] Then, carried away by immense admiration and love, he thus exclaims to the praise of St. Augustine: with great commendation of the Saint, O truly salt of the earth, by which our hearts are seasoned, lest they be able to grow vain by the error of the world! O lamp worthily placed above the candlestick of the Church, which, pouring forth widely upon Catholic cities from a sevenfold wick a light fed with the oil of gladness, dost scatter the dense mists of heretics, and dost unclothe the light of truth from the confusion of darkness by the splendor of thy illuminating discourse! Finally he runs out again into the praises of the same Saint thus: Thou seest, brother of one soul, admirable in Christ the Lord and to be received, how familiarly I have known thee, with how great astonishment I admire thee, with how great love I embrace thee — I who daily enjoy the converse of thy letters, and feed upon the breath of thy mouth: for thy mouth I might deservedly call a pipe of living water and a vein of an eternal fountain; in thee Christ has become a fountain of water springing up into eternal life; for the desire of whom my soul has thirsted in thee, and my land has longed to be made drunk with the abundance of thy river. And therefore, since with this Pentateuch of thine thou hast sufficiently armed me against the Manichæans, if thou hast prepared any defenses also against the other enemies of the Catholic faith — since our enemy, who has a thousand arts of hurting, must be assailed with weapons as various as the snares by which he assails — I beseech thee, do not refuse to bring forth for me from thy armory and to bestow the arms of justice. Rather often elsewhere this Saint adorns our Doctor with merited praises.

[183] pleased St. Paulinus exceedingly: But in this Pentateuch the book On True Religion seems especially to have pleased Paulinus, as we draw from Letter 32, by which St. Augustine answers him, and among other things commends his friend Romanianus in these words: Behold, he who brings this letter to thy excellence and most surpassing charity is most dear to me, and from my earliest youth most familiarly my friend; his name is in the book On True Religion, which thy sanctity (so far as thou indicatest by letters) most gladly read: for he has been made the more pleasant to thee even by the commendation of so great a man, who sent him to thee. Certainly the Saint, still a neophyte and endowed only with the name of a Catholic Christian, when he wrote that Work On True Religion, explained in it the mysteries of our religion so clearly that he fulfilled the part of an ancient and excellent Catholic doctor. Whence we gladly subscribe to the eulogy which in the Life of St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 3, number 4, the praised French Benedictine Fathers wove for him on account of it, in this manner: There is scarcely any of Augustine's lucubrations which avails more to demonstrate the greatness of his incredible talent. For nothing is more worthy of admiration, or more stupendous, than that a man recently imbued with the mysteries of the Christian religion, and not

yet adorned in the Church with any other name than that of Faithful, could discourse so excellently concerning that divine religion, and could depict so outstanding an image of its dignity and excellence.

[184] letters written, and very many affairs transacted For brevity's sake we here pass over the letters which the Saint during that three-year period addressed to Nebridius, to Maximus of Madauros, a heathen, and to other men of various professions. To these letters written to and fro were added the affairs which the holy Master was compelled to undertake on behalf of his disciples or fellow-townsmen, as we gather from Letter 114 of Nebridius, who complains that his friend's longed-for quiet was too much interrupted by those affairs, in this manner: Is it so, my Augustine? Dost thou furnish fortitude and endurance to the affairs of thy fellow-citizens, and is that longed-for cessation not yet rendered to thee? I ask, what men interrupt thee who art so good? I believe, those who know not what thou lovest, what thou desirest. Hast thou none of thy friends who may report thy loves to them? Neither Romanianus, nor Lucinianus? Let them at least hear me. I will cry out, I will testify that thou lovest God, that thou desirest to serve him and to cleave to him. I could wish therefore to call thee to my country place, and there to rest: for I shall not fear to be called a seducer of thee by thy fellow-citizens, whom thou lovest too much, and by whom thou art too much loved. From all these things it is abundantly plain that that nearly three-year period of the stay at Tagaste was usefully passed by Augustine rather in a busy retirement than in tranquil solitude.

[185] Since nevertheless the holy Man there, secular cares being put away from him, in that retirement, in which some assert that he was a monk, others deny it. lived for nearly three years in a community, and pressed on with fastings, prayers, and good works, meditating in the Law of the Lord day and night, as St. Possidius in the Acts below at number 6 will testify, some writers confidently assert that St. Augustine then led the monastic life, and presided over companions who were monks. But others contend that all these exercises of piety suit excellently pious and learned laymen or seculars who live together and leave the care of household affairs to some steward. Wherefore they altogether deny this monkhood of St. Augustine, and by various arguments contend that he then led only a social life, such as he had led in the villa of Verecundus, and such as he had long before desired to lead, had not the love of women disturbed that desire or purpose, as is read below in the first part of the Acts at number 144. But what you would most wonder at, both parties of the contenders allege the same text of St. Possidius for their own opinion. Hence between the Augustinian Hermits and the Canons Regular there arose a controversy which in the fifteenth century stirred up such great tumults that the Roman Pontiff imposed silence upon both Religious Orders and upon any of their defenders under pain of excommunication, and forbade that question thereafter to be agitated. But afterwards liberty of modestly defending their own opinion was restored, at least to the members of both those Orders, as we shall see in the following paragraph.

elsewhere in lectione*

§ XIV. The dispute between the Augustinian Hermits and the Canons Regular concerning the monastic profession of our Saint, which the latter deny and the former assert.

From the pious and common life of the holy Doctor Gerard Moringus, a Belgian — concerning whom mention will recur below, and the Library of Belgian writers may be consulted — in the Life of St. Augustine, §20, does not seem to mingle himself in this controversy; but there sets forth only the pious exercises of the aforesaid retirement at Tagaste and the chief occupations of our Saint in it, in these words: Having crossed into Africa with Alypius and Evodius and some friends touched by the same spirit, he first (as it is reported) remained three years in his native soil, because there, as we have said, each had his own fields and the fortunes necessary for maintaining life: for they were nearly all sprung from that same place. Nor indeed did he here relax anything of the ardor he had conceived; nay rather, their means being brought together into a common stock — as the Apostles lived at the beginning of the evangelical Church — he never ceased to apply himself, as before, to sacred prayers and other pious deeds with those with whom he was. He grew daily more inflamed with the study of the sacred Letters. If the divine goodness had opened anything to him as he searched more keenly or prayed more intently, then both by living voice and by published writings he kindly brought it forth for the public good, not unaware that it was to the harm of the slothful servant that he had unfruitfully buried in the earth the talent committed to him by his Lord, that he might bring it forth for usury; so that in a short time even in those places the sanctity of his life and his surpassing erudition in sacred matters was proclaimed round about by the mouth of all.

[187] a contention arose about the Saint's monkhood: From this social and pious manner of living, which has been described here and in the preceding paragraph, and will again be briefly described below by Possidius, the Hermits of Augustine deduce the monastic profession of St. Augustine, and most of them refer to it the beginnings of their Order — although some of them will have it that this institute of life, and consequently the origin of their eremitic Order, began in the villa of Verecundus, or at the Saint's baptism itself, as is plain from the Augustinian Monasticon of Nicholas Crusenius and from other books of theirs. But to this opinion the Canons Regular contradict, and by various arguments strive to show that St. Augustine was never at any time a monk. Meanwhile the Augustinian Hermits contend that this monkhood is certain from the holy Doctor's own testimony, and confidently and strenuously champion it. This question was so keenly agitated toward the end of the fifteenth century that in the year of Christ 1484 Pope Sixtus IV imposed silence upon both parties. Abraham Bzowski, a Dominican, in the Ecclesiastical Annals continued after the most eminent Baronius, at the year of Christ 1484, number 2, narrates the origin of this tumultuous dispute from Celso Maffei, a Canon Regular, and imputes the chief cause of that altercation to the Augustinian Hermits. But Domenico Antonio Gandolfo, in the Historical Dissertation on two hundred most famous Augustinian writers, page 56 and the following, contends that that narrative of Bzowski is false. But it so little concerns us to know who were the first authors of that discord, that we are unwilling to inquire more laboriously into the matter.

[188] The Supreme Pontiff At least in the Augustinian Bullarium, which Lorenzo Empoli, an Augustinian Hermit, published at Rome in the year 1628, at page 321 and following, the constitution of Pope Sixtus IV runs thus: Sixtus, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the perpetual memory of the matter. He who commanded the Apostles that they should love one another showed that without mutual love no good can be perfect; for in it consists all the reckoning and working of living well: if hatreds pass into love, if enmities are turned into peace, if tranquillity extinguishes anger, if meekness remits the desire of conquering. But the craftiness of the ancient enemy, where it beholds the fervor of greater charity to be, there the more sagaciously bends its forces, that, the faithful servants of Christ being drawn aside through by-paths and superfluous contentions, it may rejoice in its own sagacity; whose attempts to meet, and to nourish mutual charity and the sweetness of peace among all the faithful — especially among those warring for God under the same vocation and the sweet yoke of Religion — and to pluck out and root up with all our endeavors, the sickle of pastoral vigilance being laid to the root, the fuel of discords and empty contentions, which pertain nothing to the matter, nor edify but destroy, we toil; lest the feeble beginning of simplicity should through long altercation break out into inextricable errors, which afterwards can with more difficulty be amended.

[189] Sixtus IV Indeed not without a singular displeasure of our mind it has now for a long time several times come to our hearing that between our beloved sons the Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine of the Lateran congregation, and the Brethren of the Order of Hermits of the same blessed Augustine, a certain less necessary and less laudable controversy has begun to sprout concerning the habit of that most illustrious doctor of the Church Augustine, and concerning his picture, and the institution of Orders of this kind, either party feeling and preaching in a different manner; nor have they feared to compose books upon levities of this kind, and to read them and to give them to others to read, not without scandal and perturbation of the minds of the readers and of other faithful of Christ; and by ineptitudes of this kind they hasten to destroy those whom they ought to gain for God.

[190] We, considering that to affirm or to deny that Augustine, the most illustrious light of the Church, wore any other habit besides that of the episcopal dignity, or subjected himself to another's profession, does not pertain to the matter, save so far as superfluous contention strives to catch at it; and wishing utterly to remove from the midst and to root out so enormous a misdeed and such perilous contentions, of our own motion, not at the instance of any petition offered to us upon this matter, but of our own certain knowledge and mere will, both to the Canons Regular of the said Congregation and to each and all the Brethren of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, by whatever names they be reckoned and with whatever dignity they shine, in virtue of holy obedience, and under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ, which upon the several persons both of the Hermit Brethren and of the aforesaid Canons acting contrary we pronounce in these writings — from which they cannot be absolved save by Us or by our successors the Roman Pontiffs canonically entering, or when set in the article of death — by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents we forbid, and strictly commanding we enjoin, that they wholly abstain from contentions and from assertions of this kind concerning blessed Augustine, from preachings, disputations, wranglings and controversies, and that they make no mention of them henceforth, and that they love one another with mutual charity in Christ Jesus our Lord; and, mutually venerating one another, and alternately asserting those things which concern the honor and comeliness of both parties, let them preach to the people those things which edify and instruct and profit for the salvation of the souls of Christ's faithful, vain assertions and altercations being omitted and utterly rejected []; so that the Order given by blessed Augustine, which is the same in all, although the particular institutes differ somewhat, may be accounted by all also as undivided, not factious, not contaminated, but one, peaceable, whole and unspotted, as it is and ought to be.*

[191] Besides, that ecclesiastical censure may be feared by all, under pain of excommunication we will that, besides the Canons Regular and the Brethren of the Hermits of this kind, those also who shall have given to the same Canons and Brethren in the premises help, counsel, and favor, publicly or secretly, directly or indirectly, under any sought pretext, incur the aforesaid sentences, censures, and penalties by that very fact, unless, after they shall have had notice of these presents, they shall have desisted from affording help, counsel, and favor. And nonetheless upon the Rector and General of the same Canons Regular and Hermit Brethren, present and for the time being, and upon their general Chapter, under like penalties we enjoin, that they solemnly publish and interpret these present letters in their monasteries, cloisters, and chapters, when the greater multitude of the aforesaid Canons and Hermit Brethren shall have assembled, once, twice, thrice and more often, so that they may be plainly understood by all, even by those ignorant of Grammar; and that a transcript or copy of these letters to each monastery of the Canons

and of the Hermit Brethren of this kind they transmit.

[192] imposed silence: But if they shall act otherwise, and shall not obey the Apostolic commands (which be far from them), from now as from then, and from then as from now, we decree and declare, by the aforesaid motion, authority, and knowledge, that they and the several persons among them have incurred the aforesaid penalties of excommunication latæ sententiæ, of anathema, and of eternal malediction, and are entangled in them; and we will and command that they be reputed such by all, until and so long as the Apostolic See shall have thought fit to determine otherwise upon a contention of this kind. Then, after the accustomed clauses of Pontifical constitutions, this decree is noted as given at Rome at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand four hundred and eighty-four, on the fifth of the Ides of May, in the thirteenth year of our Pontificate. This edition of Empoli, which is here and there faulty, we have corrected from two copies of the same Bull, one of which Bzowski inserted into his Ecclesiastical Annals, and the other Gabriel Pennotti published in the preface to the Tripartite History of the Canons Regular.

[193] but later Pontiffs gave to the Augustinian Hermits, Gandolfo, an Augustinian Hermit, at page 57 of the Work praised above, thus admonishes the reader concerning that Bull of Sixtus: It must besides be known that Innocent VIII by an oracle of the living voice, made to Cardinal Riario the chamberlain, declared the decree of Sixtus IV, as in the Bullarium of the Order, page 324; in which declaration these words, among others, sparkle: "They may publicly and privately answer and defend themselves in judgment and outside judgment; and the books and treatises composed and published by the same Brethren of the Order of Hermits, and on their part and for their defense against the same Canons Regular and their books and treatises, and those of any others on their behalf, hitherto upon this matter, shall remain in their force, and may freely be written, sold, retained, and used and bestowed by the same Brethren of the Order of Hermits." Here we have enclosed in brackets those words which Gandolfo had omitted. Certainly an error crept into the year of this declaration, which at page 326 of the said Augustinian Bullarium is noted in these words: Given at Rome in our house at St. Lawrence in Damaso, on the penultimate day of March, one thousand four hundred and eighty-three, in the … year of the Pontificate of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, Lord Innocent, by divine providence Pope, the eighth… But in that year one thousand four hundred and eighty-three, which is here expressed in clear words, Innocent VIII was not yet Roman Pontiff, since only in the month of August of the year 1484 did he succeed in the place of the deceased Sixtus IV.

[194] as also to the Canons Regular, leave For my part I sufficiently understand from this declaration that the Augustinian Hermits received the faculty of defending themselves against the Canons Regular, and that the books published at that time in their favor may lawfully be retained and distributed by the same Brethren of the Order of Hermits; but I do not yet see that that faculty was extended to others who shall have given to the same Canons and Brethren in the premises help, counsel, and favor, publicly or secretly, directly or indirectly, as Sixtus IV says above at number 191, and whom the same sentence of excommunication involved. A like or the same faculty was afterwards granted to the Canons Regular, as Pennotti in his Preface to the Tripartite History testifies. Nor am I ignorant that many illustrious authors of various condition, who belonged to neither of the litigating Orders, after the publication of the Bull of Sixtus IV mingled themselves in this controversy, that they might patronize one or the other party. But these without doubt believed that this constitution of the Pontiff had been utterly revoked, which hitherto I cannot at all persuade myself. Although in this matter I may seem to some too scrupulous, yet for this and other reasons to be brought forward below I have firmly determined reverently to observe the said decree of Pope Sixtus IV.

[195] Nor does the authority of Abraham Bzowski move me, of defending their own opinion: which some think extended to all. who in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1484, number 5, writes the following upon this matter: For the rest, since after the times of the same Sixtus IV several books upon this matter have come forth, and now come forth, this decree seems to have gone into disuse; especially since two years ago the Lateran Canons Regular urged before the most illustrious and most reverend lords the Cardinals of the sacred Congregation of the Index that a book recently published by Juan Márquez, an Augustinian Hermit, on the origin of the Hermits, in which he handles many things concerning the same subject, should not be published; and nevertheless, the same most illustrious lords the Cardinals granting it, that book was published. Like things Pennotti reports in the aforesaid Preface of his, and there adds that then also the faculty was given to the Lateran Canons Regular of writing for their own opinion, and of answering the things which Márquez should bring forward to their prejudice. But all these things prove only that this was lawful to the members of both religious Orders, and do not suffice to remove the above scruple from me.

[196] Further, let us see how this controversy after the decree of Sixtus IV began again to be agitated, Hence the controversy, which had been lulled, and, after many books published on both sides, still persists in our age. This progress of the ancient dispute Peter of Saint-Trond, a Canon Regular — who at Louvain in the year 1654 published an Examination of the testament of St. Augustine against the excellent Father Lupus the Augustinian — carries down to his own times, and in the preface of the aforesaid little Work briefly relates in this manner: The supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV, wishing to impose an end upon contention of this kind, imposed silence upon both, a special decree being published thereupon, which Pennotti reports in the Tripartite History, and Bzowski in the Annals at the year MCDLXXXIV. And by this decree a controversy of this kind was indeed for a time lulled, yet not altogether extinguished: for little by little, being again revived, it blazed up, though not with so great a stridor and stumbling-block; for some of both parties, besides the aforesaid (a little above he had treated of the first and keener champions of both Orders) brought forth again into the light the same controverted subject in writings and published pamphlets: of the Canons Regular, Jean-Philippe of Novara, Anselm bishop of Havelberg and afterwards archbishop of Ravenna (I do not grasp why that Anselm, who flourished in the twelfth century, is cited in this place), Juan Trullo of Aragon, Jean Mombaer of Brussels, Peter Heligerius, and the rest. Of the Hermits, Luis de los Ángeles, Cornelius Lancilottus the Belgian, Giles of the Presentation the Portuguese, or Nicolas Plenevaulx of Liège, and the rest — many learned men, theologians, jurists, and historians conspiring on both sides. Whence that decree of Pope Sixtus IV (according at least to their judgment) seems either to have gone into disuse, or not to have bound so strictly in all places.

[197] was again renewed, Finally in this our time this cause was again brought to the tribunal of the Pontiffs: for when Father Juan Márquez, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, doctor of sacred theology at Salamanca and royal preacher, had published in the Spanish tongue a book on the origin of his Order, and it, being translated into Italian, was, at the procuring of the Canons Regular of the Lateran Congregation, offered to the most illustrious Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church of the Congregation called of the Index, it was permitted by them to be published; a faculty being at the same time given to the Canons Regular, notwithstanding the decree of Sixtus IV, of writing for the opinion of their own, and of answering those things which the aforesaid Father Márquez should write to their prejudice — this however being saved, that they should altogether abstain from contumelies and revilings, as befits Religious men. And this Dom Gabriel Pennotti of Novara, Canon Regular of the Lateran Congregation, then abbot of St. Julian near Spoleto, and finally abbot General of his whole Congregation, performed so clearly, abundantly, and solidly by the commission of his Superiors, in his Tripartite History of the Order of Clerks Canonical, published first at Rome and afterwards at Cologne in the year of the Lord MDCXXX — searching out and shaking most exactly to the very bottom the foundations of his adversaries, and showing them to be nothing but mere mists of phantasms — that he convicts also the monkhood ascribed to Augustine by them of being altogether vain and null; as can easily be established for any reader attached to neither party, if with a fair and attentive mind he shall be willing to peruse his writings.

[198] both parties contending that they rest upon most firm arguments: Let no one wonder that Peter of Saint-Trond here at the end so confidently appeals to fair and attentive readers, and glories as though victory were already won: for the Canons Regular and the Augustinian Hermits think that they rest upon most firm foundations, and judge the arguments of their adversaries far weaker than their own. Whence Simplicianus of St. Martin, an Augustinian, in the preface of his French Work in which he refutes the Tripartite History of Gabriel Pennotti, only asks the kindly reader, free from party zeal, that he be willing to suspend judgment until he shall have perused his lucubration. Then in the same place he promises that he will show clearer than light that Pennotti could not resolve the difficulties objected to him, and filled his History with nothing but gross errors and impostures. One or two examples of like confidence we shall reserve for the following paragraph.

[199] keenly for the Hermits wrote Meanwhile let us behold two learned champions who after the middle of the seventeenth century descended with no less confidence on both sides to single combat. Both wish to fight by compact with sincere and equal arms — that is, they strive to establish their opposed opinions from the genuine writings of St. Augustine. The first of these two illustrious athletes is the Reverend Father Christian Lupus, an Augustinian Hermit, who brought forth into the light at Douai in the year 1651 a Quodlibetical Question on this controversy. In the first place, in the dedicatory Letter of this lucubration, which he offered to his own brethren, he thus intrepidly pronounces concerning his opinion: To any diligent reader of Augustine the lay monkhood of the Hermits so densely strikes the eyes, that not even Carneades himself could doubt of it. Then from St. Optatus of Milevis he sets forth a comparison of sons who after their father's death litigate about the inheritance, and, the father's testament being at length produced, are brought back to concord. Whence with great confidence he addresses his brethren, and from this comparison thus concludes: By this very right, reverend Fathers, I have believed that in the present question I must deal with my brothers the Canons Regular. I have wished them convicted from the testament of our Father himself, that is, from the very Works of St. Augustine. Whether I have truly done this, I would have judged by no one rather than by your judgment: for I could not obtain fairer judges. For that testament of our Father is daily turned before your eyes, and the right arisen for us from it thou, excellent Father Prior, didst lately in this academy, in thy doctoral hall, most keenly champion. Meanwhile I seek judges, not hired heralds: for I plead a cause worthy to be pleaded even before a hostile judge.

[200] Finally the excellent Father Lupus, in the preliminary Question before the first chapter, Christian Lupus; or pages 6 and 7 of the same lucubration of his, assails his adversaries more keenly in these words: Whoever takes away from Augustine his monasteries, and his monks — not clerics in episcopal houses, but monks in the fields and in desert islands —

is not only calumnious, and a forger of sinister arms, but besides wishes to torment him, bereft of all solace and refuge, and to consume him with sorrow. This crime his sons will — sons estranged, armed with trifling little reasonings, as with parricidal daggers, against a pious Father. But to the matter. Let us show that the Hermits were instituted and founded by Augustine, and indeed as his firstborn and by far his dearest sons; and that from Augustine himself.

[201] Now from the adverse side there comes forth into the arena the Reverend Dom Peter of Saint-Trond, to whom on behalf of the Canons answered Prior of the Canons Regular in the Louvain monastery of St. Martin, and a most learned Licentiate of sacred theology, who at Louvain in the year 1654 published against the Quodlibetical Question of the excellent Father Lupus a little Work which he entitled Examination of the testament of St. Augustine. And he in the Preface of this little Work thus forewarns the reader concerning the method and assertions of his adversary: Leaving the path hitherto worn by his confreres — by which, for imposing monkhood upon Augustine and asserting themselves his genuine sons, they are wont to use the various histories, sermons, letters, and the rest of various men — he wishes the Canons Regular convicted from the writings of St. Augustine alone or of the Fathers of his time, that he and his confreres the Hermits are his firstborn and by far his dearest sons; but the Canons Regular only second-born; nay, what is harder, that because they deny to St. Augustine monks and monasteries of Hermits in desert islands and fields, they are even his estranged sons, and armed as with parricidal daggers — that is, with trifling little reasonings — against a pious Father; calumnious, forgers of sinister arms, and wishing to torment him, bereft of all solace and refuge, and to consume him with sorrow. Before this Father Lupus there had danced (but with greater modesty and gravity) the excellent Father Jean Rivius, doctor of sacred theology and Prior Provincial of the Hermits of St. Augustine throughout Lower Germany, in the Life of St. Augustine put together from his Works, in which also he inserts here and there some things prejudicial to the Canonical profession of St. Augustine and to the institute of the Canons Regular.

[202] After these things he there sets forth the cause and manner of his refutation thus: Peter of Saint-Trond: These decisions of these two excellent Fathers, Rivius and Lupus, of the same color, deviating too much, as at least it seems to me, from the truth — for the sake of that love and zeal which I owe to truth, to the Clerical institute of St. Augustine, and to our Order; certain most learned and excellent men also urging me, and disapproving our silence in this very cause — I have judged that I must in a few words meet them. And because the chief aim of my intention is to inquire the true and legitimate sense of the writings and testimonies of St. Augustine, and to propose to others to be judged whether those things which the venerable Fathers the aforesaid Hermits allege for their cause or pretended primogeniture favor them against the Canons Regular; and since Father Lupus calls these the testament of St. Augustine, this writing of ours had to be entitled Examination of the testament of St. Augustine: in which, following Father Lupus especially with as it were an equal step, beginning from the very first purpose of St. Augustine before and at the beginnings of his conversion, I shall endeavor to show that from the force of the words of his testament it is manifestly established that the Canons Regular are not estranged but his own sons, firstborn, or rather only-begotten; but that the Hermits are acknowledged in it neither as firstborn, nor as second- or third-born; and accordingly that they must seek elsewhere what sort of sons of Augustine they are, what sort of brethren of ours, and whence they are called Augustinians.

[203] and these several others followed. These two athletes were followed by other more recent men of both religious Orders, who maintain the common opinion of their own Order in this controversy. Of the Canons Regular there occur Nicolas Desnos in a Latin Work which is entitled The secular and Regular Canon, and another in the Latin Disquisitions on the Order of Canons, who is said to be surnamed Le Large, although he did not prefix his name to this Work. Of the Augustinian Hermits there are at hand the most eminent Noris, Jacques Hommey, and Domenico Antonio Gandolfo, of whom we shall make mention below. To these and other defenders of their Orders were added outsiders, or members of neither Order — namely Sébastien Tillemont, Étienne Baluze, Louis Thomassin, Noël Alexandre, and the French Benedictines, who not long ago published the Latin Life of St. Augustine with his Works. Among these outsiders some favor the Augustinian Hermits, some oppose them, so that this dispute is not yet plainly decided. Which party conquers by arguments I leave to be judged by diligent readers who shall be willing to peruse their Works: for I have firmly resolved to pass no judgment upon that controversy, and in the two following paragraphs I shall now allege several reasons for this resolve of mine.

elsewhere relictis*

§ XV. Certain writers of neither Order sharply reprehended by both dissenting parties, because they mingled themselves in this dispute.

The reasons are reviewed for which the author Although it would be lawful for me to champion one or the other opinion without that scruple which in the preceding paragraph I set forth on account of the express words of the Sixtine decree, yet I still judge that the decision of that dispute would here be alien from my design: for then the several documents of the Canons Regular and of the Augustinian Hermits would have to be brought forward, that the dispute might prudently be decided according to what is alleged and proved. But in the first place all these things are not at hand for us, even though we have many of them. Besides, this allegation of documents would be so copious that it would occupy the greatest part of this preliminary Commentary. Hence other things would have to be omitted which look more closely to our Saint, and which curious and pious readers esteem more highly.

[205] Perhaps someone will say that I could have briefly abridged that numerous heap of documents, is unwilling to mingle himself in this dispute, or have proposed to the curious reader only the chief arguments of either party, and, these being maturely weighed, have passed a fair judgment upon the whole controversy. But to this I candidly answer that that compendious collection of the chief arguments is liable to suspicions and complaints: for it could easily happen that I should judge certain reasonings, which the Canons Regular or the Augustinian Hermits think most firm and unconquerable, to be of small strength or moment, and should accordingly pass them over. Hence one or the other, or even both parties, will complain that the solid foundations of their opinion were not faithfully assigned, and will accuse me of party zeal, or at least hold me suspect. I confess indeed that we have sometimes, in little questions of small bulk, after reporting the arguments of both parties, judged concerning the greater likelihood of one or the other opinion. But this cannot be done briefly in this prolix question, upon which the defenders on both sides have published many and great books. Add to these that litigants of either party are wont to take it ill if any arbiter or judge of another profession mingles himself in their dispute, and generally rebuke those censors more sharply than their accustomed and open adversaries. I shall now bring forward some examples of this matter, which have rendered me more cautious.

[206] Curious readers of German history without doubt know and the difficulties are explained, with what difficulties Jakob Wimpheling entangled himself on account of this controversy — a learned and thoroughly Catholic man, whom Wilhelm Eisengrein in the Catalogue of witnesses of the truth, folio 184, praises in these words: Jakob Wimpheling of Schlettstadt, a German, doctor of the sacred page and professor of the gymnasium of Erfurt, afterwards of Heidelberg, priest of the church of Speyer, discharged the office of preacher among the Nemetes with no small praise. A man Catholic in faith, most exercised in the law of God and most learned in the sacred Scriptures, a distinguished philosopher, a weighty historian, a most eloquent poet and orator, he composed for Berthold, archbishop of Mainz, a most famous Work in most elegant hexameter and pentameter verse in praise of blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of God, to which the title On the Threefold Whiteness is given. On the praises and ceremonies of the church of the Nemetes he wrote a poem to Ludwig of Helmstadt, prelate of Speyer. Again at the request of bishop Ludwig he composed an Office of the compassion of blessed Mary ever Virgin, which is solemnly performed each year throughout the diocese of Speyer. On the angelic message he completed a heroic poem. He transmitted an excuse to Pope Julius II, because he had written that Augustine had not been a monk, or a mendicant Friar. Then he enumerates other lucubrations of the same writer.

[207] Although Eisengrein, in recording this excuse to Julius II, which certain learned men hints not obscurely that the Augustinian Hermits complained of Wimpheling to the Roman Pontiff, yet he does not sufficiently set forth the circumstances and consequences of those complaints. Wherefore on this matter let us rather hear Johannes Trithemius, a contemporary abbot of the Benedictine Order, who in the Familiar Letters, book 2, letter 52, to his friend Matthäus Herben, in the year 1507, after other things thus writes: Jakob Wimpheling is at Strasbourg, sustaining a grave persecution from the Brethren Hermits of St. Augustine, because in a certain Work of his prefaced ON INTEGRITY he wrote that Augustine himself was not a monk or cowled. I compassionate the man bearing a trouble almost beyond his strength, whose noble talent, now growing old, is driven to the wranglings of jurists. For they have procured that he be cited in his own person to the Apostolic See; whose apology, published in a hundred little verses, I have sent thee with my letters, that thou mayest understand the man's excuse.

[208] incurred, You hear here again mention made of an excuse written to the Roman Pontiff. But on account of this ambiguous manner of speaking it can be doubted whether Wimpheling revoked or mitigated his former opinion, or whether for just causes he only excused himself from making the journey to Rome — since Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam in his letters, book 23, letter 10, seems to attribute an honorable and happy end of that persecution to Wimpheling, when in his eulogy of him he thus briefly narrates the same matter: The man, slow both from old age and from a rupture, was summoned to Rome by the work of the Augustinian monks, because he had somewhere written that Augustine had not been a monk, or at any rate not such as the Augustinians now are held to be — since these nevertheless exhibit him in pictures and pamphlets with a long beard, a black cowl, and a leathern girdle. This conflagration, about to spread more widely from the smallest spark, the authority of Julius the Second repressed, and that with the applause of all good men.

[209] because of the aforesaid controversy But in whatever way this dispute was ended, Wimpheling could have avoided all those troubles if he had not disputed about that odious question, or at least had passed no judgment. Whence the abbot Trithemius praised above, in the year of Christ 1507, in letter 38 of the second book, among other things thus writes to Wimpheling himself: I compassionate from a most faithful heart the tribulations which thou sufferest; and if thou judgest that I can do anything for thy peace, let me know, and presently thou wilt find me prepared for all things. Trust in the Lord Jesus, and walk firmly in the way of truth, and the truth itself will free thee. This one thing only do I admonish thee: be not over-ready henceforth to occupy thyself with the affairs and matters of cloistered men; because what is outside thee and the condition of thy state is nothing to thee. For what is it to thee whether Augustine was cowled or gowned? Thou hast written in that little book of thine On Integrity,

that Bede was not a monk, and very many others whom I have reckoned among monks in my book On ecclesiastical Writers, which, unless thou wouldst defer to me as a friend, thou promisest that thou wilt easily prove. Let us join battle between us, if it please thee; those whom I have written to be monks — and Bede especially — thou wilt by no means teach not to have been monks. Thou seemest to me not to have surveyed sufficiently the histories of time past, who knowest not that Bede was a monk. But I have thought that I must spare thee, whom I understand to be more than enough afflicted by the vexations of the Brethren Hermits of St. Augustine. To this Wimpheling we join some writers of a more recent age who, following one or the other opinion of this question, exposed themselves to the sharper reprehensions of their adversaries.

[210] had mingled themselves, Laurentius Landtmeter, a Canon of the Premonstratensian Order, in his Work On the Ancient Cleric-Monk, book 1, part 1, chapter 13, candidly denies the monkhood of St. Augustine, and before setting forth his opinion thus modestly prefaces: That I may here explain what I think, first I ask the reader not to judge that I assert anything in the spirit of contradiction or contention. For I hate those animosities and battles of words, long since condemned beforehand by the Apostle; and if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom. But I have judged that in an obscure matter it is free to each to abound in his own sense. But I have preferred to follow Augustine speaking of himself, the disciple concerning the Master, rather than any other. Then from the holy Doctor himself and from St. Possidius his disciple he endeavors to prove that St. Augustine was never a monk in the strict sense, however much he kept a cenobitic manner of living with others.

[211] But that opinion offended Giles of the Presentation, an Augustinian Hermit, and for the part who therefore in his Augustinian Primate, chapter 10, or page 231, alluding to the surname of his adversary, which in the Flemish tongue signifies a measurer of field or land, censures him in these words: But before I go on, I cannot sufficiently marvel how the Reverend Dom P. Landtmeter, in his On the Ancient Cleric-Monk, published at Louvain in the year MDCXXV, has so liberally measured out the boundaries of his own field, that in digressing he goes forth wandering and straying very far. By this path, I beseech him, let him cut back and return. At the same time in the same place he thus reprehends our George Witweiler, who in the German Life of St. Augustine, published at Constance in the year 1624, chapter 13, had indicated the same opinion in passing: The same I attest of my own accord concerning George Witweiler in that Life of Augustine which he wrote in German; who, as he is a member of the new Society (yet one most dear to me for its heroic men), so is a new inventor of new things, while he endeavors unjustly to deprive the most ancient Order of Hermits of its most ancient head and founder Augustine.

[212] On the contrary side Giovanni Battista Melegari, a Canon Regular, judges our Louis Cellot — because he had patronized the Augustinian Hermits in that dispute — one or the other worthy of this sharp reprehension: Nevertheless, he says at page 260 of the Work cited above, although many Fathers of the Hermits, vainly seeking glory and honor for themselves, from the year MCCXL down to this time have both said and written many things against the Canonical Order, yet no one outside the Order of Hermits has so beside the purpose given himself to this hazard and litigation as Father Louis Cellot, a priest of Paris; who, degenerating from the custom of the sacred Society of Jesus (which from its very beginnings has hitherto seemed to think of our Canonical Order with all modesty and praise), first disclosed his mind so opposed to those Canons — concerning whose progress, although in the fifth book of his Hierarchy and Hierarchs he touched something of those many things which could truly and rightly have been said, yet in the same book, chapter 9, §§1, 2, 3, and 4, he discourses so prolixly and widely (though falsely) concerning the Eremitic Order itself as founded immediately (as he himself says) by the holy Father Augustine, and concerning their Rule composed for them by him, that I cannot restrain astonishment in considering that an author of such weight should have wished to insert into so excellent a Work (such as is the matter of the celestial and ecclesiastical Hierarchy) a treatise so arduous and so opposed to all classical authors and to all who are free from passion. Then he suspects that Cellot embraced this opinion in order to return thanks to the Augustinian Hermits, who had approved his lucubration with a eulogy.

[213] Finally Melegari thus concludes his Apologetic answer against Cellot at page 412 of the said Work: I confirm myself the more in my opinion already adduced, had brought forward their opinion, namely, that unfairly and beside the purpose (against the accustomed manner of the most holy Society of Jesus) Father Cellot there wished to embrace all his ill feeling against the Canons Regular; whereas it were fitting and fair that he too, with his Master (Cellot in the Hierarchy had called St. Augustine his master, and had modestly said with him that he was of the number of those who write by profiting and profit by writing) and Doctor, should be ashamed to have wished to bring forth judgment and oracle concerning little disputes and dissensions of this kind, not pertaining to him; since rather this office befits only the supreme Pontiffs, or judges delegated by them — to whom I too submit whatever in this slight labor of mine, undertaken with an even mind for my grateful mother the Canonical Religion, I have discoursed; not against the most venerable Fathers of the Society of Jesus, whom I have always pursued with the highest honor, but against those who, degenerating from their forefathers, have endeavored by false boastings and lies to make of no account our most ancient Religion of Canons Regular — first established by the holy Apostles, again restored by St. Augustine (who never professed any other Religion than this, will the adversaries or not) under a Rule established by the holy Apostles, and adorned with praises by so many supreme Pontiffs, most holy Fathers, and excellent doctors. Without doubt milder arbiters of the same dispute will judge that Cellot, a learned and weighty man, ought not to have been so severely reprehended for an opinion which so many others before him had defended.

[214] were most bitterly No less harshly is beaten from the other side Francisco Macedo, who passed from our Society to the Order of Minorites, and whom Fulgentius Fosseus the Augustinian — or, more truly, the most eminent Noris wishing to lie hid under this name — among the Fifty Dreams, page 62 and following, addresses in these stinging words: We Augustinians alone take it ill that thou, whom we long carried in our eyes and heart, shouldst commit to writing things by which among all men thou art held in ridicule at this thine age, not advanced but plainly decrepit. Us indeed thou hast dreamed to be Aborigines and born without any certain author, as also the rest. But know that the monkhood of St. Augustine rests upon a more solid foundation than that it could by a dreamer be — I will not say undermined — but even the least bit moved from its place. Angelico Aprosio of Ventimiglia, a great ornament of the good arts and of our fellowship, lately sent me a letter in which he signified that Father Master Luigi Torelli of Bologna, in the preface of the sixth volume of the Augustinian Centuries, has scattered to the winds with one breath of his mouth that cabbage — recooked and eaten (the third epithet, which would best suit this offspring of thine, thou wilt find twice in Catullus, Epigram thirty-seven) — which thou hast set down again from Pennotti.

[215] reprehended on this account, Gabriel Pennotti, certainly a better historian than thou, had heaped up more things against the monkhood of Augustine, which nevertheless Thomas Herrera, Petrus of Campo, Joseph Sabbatino, and especially the praised Torelli have learnedly and solidly confuted. Meanwhile, mingling thyself in others' litigations, thou writest certain things which will publish thee rather Pennotti's disciple than his advocate, of which he has the greatest need: for, our books being unknown to thee, clothed in another's arms, thou descendest into the contest with a certain empty rush of words, when thou shouldst have known thine enemies at least by name before thou didst challenge them to battle. For the rest, the Augustinians, unmindful of the recent endeavors of thee their adversary, and mindful only of the old friendship, have judged that thou shouldst be admonished by this writing, that thou wouldst call back thy itinerary of Augustine, not indeed to the file, but to the anvil; and if perchance thou art not able to reduce it to a better form, since nearly all its letters demand erasure, that thou wouldst tear into a thousand pieces and consume in the flames those two little pages which thou hast dreamed. Not all fair estimators of matters will judge, as I think, that this learned and decrepit old man was worthy of so great vituperation for an opinion previously championed by many others. Whatever be the case as to the just or unjust cause of this bitter rebuke, from the examples brought forward it is plain that the Canons Regular and the Augustinian Hermits more easily pardon professed adversaries than outside censors passing judgment upon their dispute, as I have again advised above.

[216] Certainly it did not befit religious men, on account of this question of small moment and even more than they ought to have expected from Religious men. and everywhere controverted among learned authors, to pour forth so many bitter words and to wound fraternal charity. Wherefore I altogether agree with Gerard Moringus, who dedicated the Life of St. Augustine briefly composed by him to the Canons Regular of Bethlehem near Louvain in the year 1531, and in this lucubration of his — which Antonius Sanderus caused to be reprinted at Antwerp in the year 1644 — at §23 truly and candidly writes the following: If we set affections aside, what does it matter to piety whether Augustine was a monk and had clerics who were monks, or not? For neither is it on that account to be granted that there were no monks at all at that time. Nay, that even then there was such a kind of monks as there now is, Jerome, writing in the letter to Eustochium, is an abundant author. Likewise Augustine in the book On the Morals of the Catholic Church just cited. But whether Augustine was such a monk or not, to what does it pertain? Thence it cannot be gathered that he was not a man most holy in every way. And besides, genuine piety is not chiefly placed in these things. They are symbols of that piety which is within in the breast, or at any rate ought to be within; which if it does not correspond, all outward trappings are wholly idle and empty. Wherefore it will be most advisable, all contention being laid aside, rather to express with all our strength the integrity of manners and the eminent erudition of the holy Father, than for the sake of certain things of no account to break fraternal charity. This will be more pleasing both to God and to that most holy Father; and those at last will he acknowledge as his true disciples and followers; the rest he will hold for bastards and supposititious. Although these things would suffice for prudently omitting the decision of that controversy, yet even now we shall assign other causes of our silence.

§ XVI. The chief reasons for which we have wished to leave this dispute undecided.

Other reasons, The examples of severe reprehension which were recited in the preceding paragraph, and, from these or the like, perhaps the impending danger of discord, move me to abstain from passing judgment, even though from the hypothetical revocation of the Sixtine Bull it would be most certainly lawful for me to maintain either party of the litigants: for, as human frailty bears, easily

it could happen that, being of their own accord provoked by stinging censures of this kind, I should answer one or the other party too sharply. Perhaps hence would arise quarrels among religious men, more useful studies would have to be interrupted, and fraternal charity would be wounded. And so by silence I shall avoid that hazard, since I altogether do not wish that it could truly be said of me what the most illustrious Henri de Sponde in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1484, number 1, wrote against certain too fervid defenders of both parties in this very matter: In the year of Christ one thousand four hundred and eighty-four, in the second Indiction, Pope Sixtus defined and established the authority of the major Penitentiary, which on many heads was being torn at by some, a Constitution being published on the seventh of the Ides of May. And two days after, namely on the fifth of the Ides, by another Constitution, striving to restrain the Canons Regular called Lateran and the Hermits of the Order of St. Augustine, who were contending most spiritedly, to the grave scandal of the Church, concerning the habit and picture of the same holy Father and concerning the institution of the Order, he forbade under anathema that they should persist further in contentions of this kind, but that they should altogether be quiet and love one another with mutual charity.

[218] why the examination of this controversy But most monks and Regulars are not such as easily to acquiesce in Apostolic commands. Wherefore, since the adverse writings and public invective sermons of Dominic of Treviso, a Canon Regular, and Bartholomew of Padua, a Hermit, had chiefly given cause for the Pontifical edict, even after the Pontifical decree had been published, Ambrose Coranus, or Coriolanus, a Roman, Prior General of the Hermits, a learned man, dared to write an apology against the Canons, and to dedicate it to Pope Sixtus himself; which, when the Pontiff had committed it to three Cardinals to be examined, was, by their sentence, reprobated on account of the reproaches and contumelies with which it swarmed — as Celso Maffei of Verona, who then pleaded that cause for his Canons at the Apostolic See, narrates in the book in which he answered the objections of that same Coriolanus. Nor finally have those controversies among them ceased hitherto, but they are still most keenly disputed. And what you should especially observe in all altercations of Regulars of this kind is that those who contend more sharply about them are for the most part least of all solicitous about the imitation of the Saints concerning whom they contend: who indeed, if they had been led by that spirit by which very many of these are led, would scarcely ever have come to the fatherland of the Saints. Pardon me, Brethren; you know that I speak the truth, and do not fight over the bark, but penetrate to the marrow, which is found in charity and humility. A truly fatherly admonition of the prelate of Pamiers, which ought to rouse all us Regulars to the exact observance of Apostolic decrees, to mutual charity, and to the imitation of the Saints!

[219] is passed over, Besides, I am unwilling to weigh maturely all the documents of this dispute with a notable expenditure of time and at length to judge of them, because I expect no fruit of so laborious an examination or judgment: for after the laborious and long-continued disputations of so many illustrious men, what will my authority effect, which I know to be very slight, or rather none at all in this matter? Wherefore I compare this controversy with those scholastic questions concerning which there has been dispute among Catholic theologians from time immemorial, and which probably will never be decided unless the Apostolic See shall have ended them by its authority. But if anyone shall come forward to defend one or the other opinion (for example, physical Predetermination or Middle Knowledge), neither party will on that account much lose or gain. So too my judgment in this historical question will contribute nothing to deciding the dispute, especially since either party clings to its own opinion with its teeth, and thinks the opinion of its own Order most certain. Now, besides those examples of this persuasion which were produced in the preceding paragraph, I here exhibit one or two specimens of the same confidence.

[220] Pennotti, cited above, in the preface to the Tripartite History, alleges for his Canons Regular some words of St. Augustine and St. Possidius, beyond what could be hoped for, from which he there most confidently concludes thus: From these most open testimonies, far beyond all exception, the whole consensus of the learned about four hundred years ago deduced these two most certain truths: namely, that blessed Augustine was by profession a canonical or Regular Cleric; that he wore the habit of canonical Clerics; that he led a common life with canonical Clerics; and that he wrote and delivered to those same canonical Clerics a Rule squared to the example of the Apostolic life. Further, these truths the whole consensus of doctors for eight hundred years and more so firmly embraced, so freely proclaimed, and so constantly asserted and defended, that, if thou shouldst unroll all the books of the ancients, the decrees of supreme Pontiffs, of councils, and of the sacred canons, the monuments of historians, thou wouldst find absolutely no one who hesitated about them even in a jot. Among the learned it is disputed for whom this Rule was first written, as may be seen in Tillemont, volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 163.

[221] Further, Pennotti in the same place after other things goes on in these words: Since these things were so, who, pray, would have believed, or could even have suspected, that a truth so constant, so perspicuous, so open — a stream so clear, preserved pure and limpid through the courses of so many centuries — would ever at any time be troubled? ever to be, And behold, that too, after a long course, has been troubled, and the truth has at some time been called not only into doubt but into manifest hazard: for when, after the times of the holy Lateran council, through Innocent III, Pontiff of this name, taken from the Order of Canons Regular, there arose the sacred Order of Hermits — freed, and before called that of Brother John Bonus, or, as others prefer, of St. William; but afterwards endowed by the concession of supreme Pontiffs with the Rule and title of blessed Augustine — there began gradually to arise with it, among common people ignorant of the truth, a doubt whether that Order was truly instituted by St. Augustine, or whether Augustine at any time held such a kind of life. Which doubt, as the Institute of the Hermits itself was gradually increased through various provinces in the number of places and persons, began to coalesce into an opinion, and by the successes of times to break out from opinion into a certain and constant assent [] among not a few; and it furnished the fuel of no light contention among ecclesiastical persons.*

[222] But with no less confidence, after other Augustinian Hermits so that one party who refuted Pennotti's Tripartite History, the above-mentioned Gandolfo, in the preface to his Historical Dissertation on two hundred most famous Augustinian writers, which he published at Rome in the year 1704, thus questions this and other adversaries: I direct my discourse to those who proclaim that we are Aborigines, and that only some existed a very few years before the great union under the name of St. Augustine. If they think so, and eagerly wish it to be so, who then were those Augustinian Hermits of Fonte Giardo and of Linceium, of whom blessed Innocent III spoke in his Brief directed to Hugh the abbot and the Convent of the greater monastery of Tours, in the XIV year of his Pontificate, namely MCCXII, whose cause had already been agitated while Eugene III was living, namely MCXLV, and whose beginning my most learned professor of several languages, especially Oriental, Guillaume Bonjour of Toulouse, shows from truthful monuments and certain histories almost to reach the times of Father Augustine?

[223] or the other After these things he further challenges the same adversaries to answer, in this manner: Who then were those Brethren Hermits of St. Mary of Morimond under the Rule of St. Augustine, to whom another Brief of the same Pontiff Innocent III was directed, found by me in our archive at Perugia, given in the XVI year of his Pontificate, namely MCCXIII, a copy of which I shall set at the end of this preface? Who were those to whom Innocent II wrote: "To his beloved sons Guido the Prior and the Brethren of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, professing the regular life in the Church of blessed Mary of Reno, etc. Given at Pisa MCXXXVI, in the VII year of our Pontificate" — as the cited Leal of Portugal brings forward, exhibiting the letters at length? Who were those Brethren Hermits of St. Mary of Aphricum of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine in the territory of Montecatini in Tuscany, whose monastery in the year of Christ CMIII was burned with fire, as Torelli exhibited the writing in authentic form at page 633, volume 7 of the Augustinian Centuries? Who finally were those — to pass over very many other things which appear in our writers — to whom the greater part of the Sermons to the Brethren in the desert was directed (for which Sermons nevertheless I gladly embrace the censure of the latest edition of the Works of the divine Father Augustine), which existed in manuscript, as one of our opponents, Mombaer, abbot of Livry, testifies, in the time of Pepin king of the Franks, namely about the year DCCLX? If these things are so patent and clear that they can be seen by anyone, then the Order and name of Hermits of St. Augustine is not so modern as some more recent men, recooking cabbage, have attempted to show.

[224] might change its opinion, Nevertheless by these and other arguments of the Augustinian Hermits the Canons Regular are not terrified; of whom Nicolas Desnos, in his Secular and Regular Canon, book 3, chapter 10, as though certain of victory, thus writes: So great and such a man was Augustine in morals, learning, and talent, that all vied with their whole desire to have him either as master or as parent. All the learned profess themselves his disciples; Clerics and Monks, his sons and emulators. Whence, as formerly and lately there arose among learned men tumultuous contests of those drawing Augustine to themselves on both sides, so long since and even not long ago there has been contention with an altogether incredible zeal between Clerics and Monks for determining the institute of St. Augustine, which the Canons cry to be clerical, but the Monks cry back to be monastic — both maintaining Augustine to be either the author or the follower of their own observance and kind of life. I should be too long if I wished here to report the tragedies which excessive love of their own parties stirred up in this matter. These may be read in Gabriel Pennotti, Peter of Saint-Trond, and John Melegari; of whom the first long since, but the other two lately, put together learned apologies published at Rome and at Louvain for vindicating Augustine's Clericate and abjuring his monkhood, against the new champions of monasticism of this kind — Rivius, Lupus, the Augustinian Hermits, and Cellot the Jesuit — whom everyone will perceive to have been utterly disarmed by the praised writers, who shall have read those apologies.

[225] On the contrary Gandolfo, just praised, judges since both that his own Augustinian Hermits have carried off a notable victory, and that their adversaries are now utterly disarmed, since after those contests he begins the said preface to the two hundred writers of his Order with these magnificent words: That the Eremitan monastic Religion, the mother of so many most famous heroes, derives from the planting of the divine Augustine, the great parent and greatest doctor, very many supreme Pontiffs have approved; emperors and kings have acknowledged in their diplomas; more than three hundred and twenty most illustrious writers have testified, among whom some are Saints and blessed, as Emmanuel Leal of Portugal distinctly shows in his Purifying Crucible, printed at Lisbon; and they have openly demonstrated, publishing upon this

subject volumes expressly founded upon it, more than forty doctors of my same Order; and, what is more notable, the great Parent himself by his apparitions — which the accurate Herrera in his Peaceful Answer enumerates as about twelve — has deigned to confirm it and to favor it as his lawful offspring.

[226] Nevertheless this truth, illustrated with such lucid rays, certain modern writers have endeavored to obscure, to their own opinion and, either not attending to its splendors, or unwilling to consider the most clear foundations proving it, to raise again into the air the mists of certain arguments already scattered and dissipated by the most powerful winds of our writers. Yet with what outcome they have done this, the learned can openly discern: for to Nicolas Desnos the Frenchman, Nicolas of St. Mary the Portuguese, Canons Regular; to Francisco Macedo the Minorite; to Philippe Labbe the Jesuit of Bourges; and to Thomassin, gainsayers — so well-founded an opposition have Luigi Torelli, Eustachius of St. Ubaldus, formerly friends, and the cited Emmanuel Leal made, that they have proved most true what the most eminent author brought forward in his learned pamphlet against the Fifty Macedonian Dreams, page 63, concerning the arguments brought by Macedo against Augustine's monkhood. Among those wishing to obscure it there have also appeared lately men otherwise most illustrious: Noël Alexandre in his Dissertations upon selected chapters of ecclesiastical history; the abbot Baluze incidentally in the Lives of the Popes of Avignon; and others who have written in the French tongue. But since they bring forward nothing which has not been elucidated by our aforesaid men, I judge that in publishing Works they can walk by another way, namely a safe one.

[227] Some also of our opponents have moved every engine against the monkhood of the divine Augustine; might most firmly adhere. but with such strong defenses — taken precisely from the most clear texts of the same holy Father — have so many of our writers walled that fortress, among whom the first place is held by the most eminent Purpled Noris in the Pelagian History, and lastly the most wise monks of St.-Germain-des-Prés at Paris in the last volume of the Works of the divine Augustine, that it is now impossible to overthrow it. Others have directed their battle-line against the succession, asserting that we cannot prove the series of succession. But they either did not see, or were unwilling to observe, our learned men Márquez, Herrera, Sabbatino, and the copious Torelli, who in their Works have set forth very many things openly showing the series of the succession. I ingenuously confess that various things adduced by some of our writers are either weak or infirm, as resting upon the unsubstantial histories of Marcus Maximus, Flavius Dexter, Julianus, and the like; but others are beheld so clear and evident that they cannot be denied without the mark of pertinacity and obstinacy. Who, with a manifest danger of giving offense, would interpose himself among these glorious champions? Since therefore no fruit of my judgment is to be hoped for, I embrace the prudent counsel of Gerard Moringus, which I transcribed on another occasion, and from this digression I proceed to the more illustrious part of our Saint's Life.

perhaps assertum*

§ XVII. The occasion on which the Saint was chosen for the priesthood at Hippo Regius, obtained a monastery, and asked a small time of delay, that he might prepare himself for better exercising the functions of his office.

On what occasion the Saint After our Saint had lived for nearly three years in common and piously with his companions in the town or district of Tagaste, he came for the sake of a certain business to Hippo Regius, and there was compelled to receive the priesthood, as will be established from the narration of St. Possidius to be given below, which Philip, the Premonstratensian abbot, abridged in the Life of our same Saint, chapter 18, in these words: Since the light of so great sanctity could not longer lie hid, but it was fitting that it should appear to all who are in the house, a certain citizen of Hippo heard his fame, thinking and thinking again within himself that, if he should deserve to see him and to speak with him, he would, according to his counsel, forsake the world and be converted to the Lord. And when this became known to blessed Augustine through a messenger, the holy Man, wishing to gain a soul for God, set out for Hippo, and exhorted the aforesaid man as much as he could to the contempt of the world and the love of God; who, rejoicing in his presence, received his exhortation gratefully enough; but nevertheless, by God's hidden counsel, deferred for the present to fulfil what he had promised.

[229] came to Hippo Regius, But when the divine wisdom, which sweetly disposes all things, made the coming of the holy Man — which already seemed to him useless — profitable to many; and when he, teaching, was not profiting the one whom he wished, he was compelled to profit many; whence also he grieved the more: for it happened that blessed Valerius, who at that time governed the bishopric of Hippo, when he was speaking the word of God to the people, in the course of his speaking sought the counsel and assent of that same people concerning the choosing of a priest in the church, blessed Augustine standing in the crowd and hearing the word of God with the crowd. Whose fame, because blessed Valerius had learned it, and had heard him to be a man learned, eloquent, religious, by the prompting of the divine Spirit he chose him to be ordained; both clergy and people unanimously agreeing, and demanding that it be done without delay. Which being learned, the holy Man groaned deeply, having read and understood how great a peril hung over those who are set as judges of the people.

[230] He wept therefore vehemently, and wavered uncertain, since that word of the Prophet terrified him: there, resisting Woe to them that feed themselves, and not my sheep; but that word of the Gospel compelled him: If thou lovest me, feed my sheep. At length, as he wept and vainly resisted, blessed Valerius separated him from the crowd, and, though unwilling, ordained him priest. But knowing his desire and purpose — namely that, having nothing, he desired to live with clerics having nothing — he gave him a garden, in which, a monastery being presently built, he began to gather Brethren of the same purpose, and to live with them according to the manner and rule of the holy Apostles: namely, that all things should be common to them, and that no one should call anything his own, and that there should be distributed to each what was needful; which indeed he himself had already done first, when he returned from beyond the sea to his own country.

[231] This narration the holy Doctor himself confirms by his testimony, being ordained priest, when in Sermon 49 On Divers Matters, chapter 1, he thus addresses his hearers of Hippo: I, whom by God's favor you see your bishop, came as a young man to this city, as many of you know. I was seeking where I might establish a monastery and live with my Brethren. For I had left all hope of the world, and what I could have been I was unwilling to be; nor yet did I seek to be what I am. I chose to be abject in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners. From those who love the world I separated myself; but with those who preside over peoples I did not make myself equal; nor at the banquet of my Lord did I choose the higher place, but the lower and abject; and it pleased him to say: Go up higher. But I feared the episcopate so much that, since my fame had begun to be of some moment among the servants of God, I took care not to go to a place in which I knew there was no bishop. And this I did as far as I could, that I might be saved in a humble place, lest I should be endangered in a high one. But, as I have said, a servant ought not to contradict his Lord.

[232] I came to this city to see a friend, and being ordained lived in common. whom I thought I could gain for God, so that he might be with us in the monastery. I came as though secure, because the place had a bishop. Being laid hold of, I was made a priest, and by this step I came to the episcopate. I brought nothing with me; I came to this church with nothing but those garments with which I was then clothed. And because I purposed to be here in a monastery with the Brethren, my institute and will being known, the old man Valerius of blessed memory gave me that garden in which the monastery now is. I began to gather Brethren of good purpose, my equals, having nothing as I had nothing, and imitating me; that, as I sold my slender little poverty and laid it out upon the poor, so should they do also who wished to be with me, so that we might live from a common store; and that our common store, a great and most abundant estate, should be God himself.

[233] The monastery of Hippo, of which mention has here been made, the Saint's monastery at Hippo, the most eminent Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 391, number 24, hints to have been the first which St. Augustine established in Africa, as we gather from these words of his: For the rest, before his priesthood, while still a layman, together with his companions of whom we have spoken, he had cultivated the same kind of life in Africa at Tagaste; but no monastery had yet been established by him, for the erecting of which he had betaken himself to Hippo, to meet a citizen of Hippo, an Agens in rebus, whom Possidius mentions, by whom he had been summoned. But others think that the monastery of Tagaste is to be set before this one of Hippo, and therefore reckon it first in order and in time. Besides, the most eminent founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals in the same place, at the following number, suspects that this monastery of Hippo was confused by St. Possidius with another which our Saint, afterwards raised to the episcopate, established at Hippo Regius. But we do not sufficiently clearly see why this improbable confusion of two monasteries should be attributed to a contemporary witness, as will appear from what is to be said below.

[234] in which whether there dwelt But on occasion of that monastery of Hippo there is more dispute among the learned as to what profession the men were who inhabited it. Upon this matter the opinions of authors are various, which Louis Thomassin, a priest of the French Oratory, in the Work On the Ancient and New Discipline of the Church, volume 1 or part 1, book 3, chapter 2, number 7, after reciting the words of St. Possidius, thus reviews: It escapes no one how great is the dissension of opinions upon this institute of Augustine. Some judge that a monastery was built by him and assigned to monks. Others prefer to ascribe to him the institution of Canons Regular. To others it has seemed that Clerics were invited and brought by him into the fellowship of a common life. Finally some have stitched together that he was the parent of a twofold college or congregation, one of clerics, the other of monks. I do not here take upon myself the part of judge or arbiter. My skill or authority is not of such worth. Yet, having first professed my reverence and highest respect for all those who have burned with so beautiful and praiseworthy a desire of adopting Augustine as parent and patron, and have been split into parties over it, I shall say what has seemed to me to come nearer to the truth, having shaken out and winnowed, with all the diligence I could, the writings of Augustine and Possidius.

[235] laymen, Thomassin in the same place, in the following numbers, modestly propounds his opinion, and it seems to him more probable that in that monastery there dwelt together pious laymen, such as St. Augustine had formerly seen at Milan and at Rome, from among whom the more capable were co-opted into the order of clerics, that afterwards, being initiated in sacred orders, they might discharge apostolic or clerical functions. This opinion, which we neither approve nor disapprove, does not displease the Canons Regular, among whom Gabriel Pennotti

in part 1 of the Tripartite History, chapter 12, number 14, thus writes: The first monastery founded by blessed Augustine in the garden of Valerius was not of monks or of hermits, but of clerics, who either in act or at least in proximate aptitude were such.

[236] or clerics, Then Pennotti sets forth this assertion of his in these words: This assertion must first be explained, and then proved. For I said pointedly that those religious men established and instituted in Augustine's first monastery were clerics either in act or at least in aptitude; because I would not believe that all who entered that monastery were clerics at their very entrance, or that it was appointed by Augustine by any fixed law that they should be such; but that that monastery was a college of religious men, from which, according to the various needs of the churches, clerics themselves were taken — as now they are taken from seminaries and colleges instituted for this same end in almost all cities, of which we see several especially at Rome: as the Roman seminary, the German college, that of the Greeks, of the English, and others.

[237] But the excellent Christian Lupus, an Augustinian Hermit, in the Quodlibetical Question, chapter 15, thus refutes that opinion of Pennotti and some of his proofs: or monks, These devious thoughts of his Pennotti proves first from St. Possidius, who says that many were promoted from Augustine's first monastery at Hippo to the episcopate and to every other lower clericate. Then from Augustine himself writing to Pope Celestine concerning that most unhappy first bishop of the church of Fussala, Anthony. He says that from his tender age he was brought up with him in the monastery, and known only by the grade of lector. That monastery of Anthony Pennotti thinks to have been the first monastery, because in the second no little boys were brought up; and from this he infers that the Brethren of the first monastery were everywhere lectors, or other minor clerics, candidates of the higher orders.

[238] Then Lupus confidently thus addresses Pennotti: we do not determine. But, Pennotti, thou errest in manifold ways. First, when thou sayest that the first monastery of the district of Hippo was as it were the seminary and novitiate of the second monastery, and that in it lived minor clerics, candidates of the higher grades. For the first monastery was instituted by Augustine without any ordering toward the second — he who then thought of the second no more than of the episcopal summit; and therefore it could not be the novitiate and training-ground of the second: for a novitiate is something relative. The first monastery, I say, was a house of mourning and of the deepest silence, in which lived several irregular Brethren, unfit for any ecclesiastical ordination. How therefore could it be the arena and training-ground of minor clerics hoping for greater things? We know indeed that several were taken from it to the clericate; but contrary to their own hope and purpose, and contrary to the aim of their institute. Finally the praised Lupus in the same place heaps up several arguments, which Peter of Saint-Trond afterwards laboriously refuted one by one in the Examination of the testament of St. Augustine, chapter 12 and following. If anyone shall wish to mingle himself in this controversy, he will be able to read both those writers and attentively to examine their contrary opinions. For us, for the reasons alleged above, it is neither lawful nor pleasing to pass judgment upon that dispute.

[239] Wherefore more usefully, for the benefit of those who are at some time to receive sacred orders, The Saint we shall exhibit the hundred and forty-eighth letter of our holy newly-ordained priest, from which perhaps some already initiated in sacred orders will now for the first time learn, not without a salutary shame, what preparation St. Augustine requires for rightly administering the priestly office. This letter, which the Saint addressed to his bishop Valerius, deserves on account of its example of most modest piety to be transcribed entire, and among us in volume 2 of his Works, page 262, runs thus: To the most blessed lord and venerable father Valerius, most dear in the sight of the Lord with sincere charity, Augustine the priest, greeting in the Lord. Before all things I ask that thy religious prudence consider that there is nothing in this life, and especially at this time, easier and more pleasant and more acceptable to men than the office of a bishop or priest or deacon, if the business be carried on perfunctorily and flatteringly; but nothing with God more wretched and sadder and more damnable. Likewise that there is nothing in this life, and especially at this time, more difficult, more laborious, more perilous than the office of a bishop or priest or deacon; but with God nothing more blessed, if the warfare be waged in that manner in which our Commander bids. But what that manner is, I have learned neither from my boyhood nor from my youth; and at that time at which I had begun to learn, force was done to me — deservedly for my sins (for what else to judge I know not) — that the second place at the helm should be delivered to me, who did not know how to hold an oar.

[240] most humbly But I think that my Lord therefore wished thus to amend me, because I dared to reprehend the sins of many sailors, before I had experienced what is done there, as though I were more learned and better. And so, after I was sent into the midst, then I began to feel the rashness of my reprehensions — although even before I judged this ministry most perilous. And hence were those tears which some brethren observed me to pour forth in the city at the time of my ordination; and, not knowing the causes of my grief, with such words as they could, which in no way pertained to my wound, they nevertheless with good will consoled me. But I have experienced far more, much more than I thought; not because I have seen any new waves or tempests which I did not know before, or had not heard of, or had not read of, or had not thought of; but because I did not at all know my own skill and strength for avoiding or enduring them, and thought them of some moment.

[241] thinking of himself But the Lord laughed at me, and by the facts themselves wished to show me myself. And if he did this not in condemning but in pitying (for this I hope), certainly even now, my sickness being known, I ought to search out all the medicines of his Scriptures, and by praying and reading to act so that a health fit for such perilous businesses may be granted to my soul; which I did not do before, because I had not the time: for I was ordained at that very time when we were thinking about a season of action for coming to know the divine Scriptures, and wished so to dispose ourselves that we might have leisure for this business. And, what is true, I did not yet know what was lacking to me for such a work as now tortures and wears me down. But if for this reason I have learned in the matter itself what is necessary for a man who ministers to the people the Sacrament and the word of God, so that it is now not permitted me to attain what I have learned that I do not possess — dost thou then command that I perish, father Valerius? Where is thy charity? Certainly thou lovest me; certainly thou lovest that very Church, to which thou hast willed me thus to minister; and yet I am sure that thou lovest both me and it. But thou thinkest me fit, whereas I know myself better — I who nevertheless would not know myself, had I not learned by experience.

[242] asks time But thy sanctity perhaps says: I could wish to know what is lacking to thy instruction. But there are so many things that I could more easily enumerate what I have than what I desire to have: for I dare to say that I know, and hold with full faith, what pertains to our salvation. But how am I to minister this very thing to the salvation of others, not seeking what is useful to me, but what is useful to many, that they may be saved? And there are perhaps some counsels — nay, it is not to be doubted that there are — written in the holy Books, by which, being known and grasped, the man of God may minister in ecclesiastical affairs more orderly, or at any rate, among the hands of the wicked, may either live with a sounder conscience or die, so that that life be not lost, for which alone humble and meek Christian hearts breathe. But how can this be done, save as the Lord himself says, by asking, seeking, knocking — that is, by praying, reading, mourning []? For this business I wished a little time, even until Easter, to be obtained for me through the Brethren from thy most sincere and venerable charity, and now I wish it through these prayers.*

[243] For what shall I answer to the Lord the judge? "I could not seek these things then, in which to prepare himself for the priestly office since I was hindered by ecclesiastical affairs." If therefore he should say to me: Wicked servant, if a farm of the church suffered some slanderer, great labor being spent upon gathering its fruits, the field being neglected which I watered with my blood — if thou couldst do anything for it before the judge of the earth, wouldst thou not, all consenting, and some even commanding and compelling, set out? And if judgment were given against thee, wouldst thou not even journey across the sea; and in this way no complaint would call back thy absence of a year or more, lest another should possess land needful not to the soul but to the body of the poor — whose hunger nevertheless my living trees, if they were diligently cultivated, would satisfy far more easily and more pleasingly to me? Why then dost thou plead that leisure of time was lacking to thee for learning my husbandry? Tell me, I beg thee, what I shall answer. Or dost thou perhaps wish that I say: The old man Valerius, when he had believed me instructed in all things, the more he loved me, so much the less permitted me to learn these things?

[244] Attend to all these things, old Valerius, I beseech thee by the goodness and severity of Christ, to be rightly discharged, by his mercy and judgment, by him who inspired in thee so great a charity toward us that we dare not offend thee even for the gain of our soul. But thou dost so make God and Christ witness to me of the innocence and charity and sincere affection which thou hast toward us, as though I could not swear to all these things. That very charity therefore and affection I implore, that thou wouldst have mercy upon me and grant me for what I have asked as much time as I have asked, and wouldst help me with thy prayers, that my desire may not be empty, nor my absence unfruitful to the Church of Christ and to the profit of my brethren and fellow-servants. I know that the Lord will not despise that charity praying for me, especially in such a cause; and, receiving it as a sacrifice of sweetness, will perhaps in a shorter time than I have asked render me instructed with the most healthful counsels from his Scriptures. From this letter we gather how humbly the holy newly-made priest thought of himself, and how much he distrusted his own talent.

[245] Further, we scarcely doubt that bishop Valerius satisfied this pious desire of St. Augustine, which was probably granted him. and granted him the time of preparation he sought, until Easter. Whence Jean Rivius the Augustinian, in the Life of the Saint, book 1, chapter 2, §1, writes that he was probably ordained priest at the beginning of Lent of the year 391, and then until Easter of the same year applied himself to the sacred Letters, that he might so much the better prepare himself for exercising the sacred functions of his ministry. But Tillemont, in volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 151,

prefers that St. Augustine was raised to the grade of the priesthood at the end of the year of Christ 390 or the beginning of 391, and began to discharge the office of his grade about the feast of Easter, which in the year of Christ 391 fell on the sixth day of April. Whatever be the case as to this slight difference of time, most authors fix his priestly ordination to the year 391; among whom Fulgentius Fosseus the Augustinian, or more truly the most eminent Noris, in the Fifty Dreams, page 34 or Dream 29, pronounces the following: Augustine in the year CCCLXXXVIII returned to Tagaste, and lived on his paternal fields FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS, according to Possidius his disciple, chapter 3. At the beginning of the year CCCXCI he is ordained priest by bishop Valerius, from whom he asked a little time, even until Easter, that he might prepare himself for more praiseworthily exercising the office laid upon him, from letter 148. Now we shall illustrate the chief of those things which the Saint did and wrote during the time of his priesthood.

elsewhere agendo*

§ XVIII. The holy Priest's sermons to the people; his care for the diocese of Hippo; the government of his monastery, to which he admitted men of various condition.

He is appointed by his bishop to teach the people in preaching, Since Valerius, bishop of Hippo, a Greek by nation, was not skilled in the Latin tongue, and accordingly was less apt for delivering sermons before the people, he promoted St. Augustine to the priesthood chiefly to this end, that the latter should supply his place in preaching public sermons — as Philip, the Premonstratensian abbot praised above, briefly reports from St. Possidius in the cited Life of the Saint, chapter 19, in these words: But holy Valerius, who had ordained him, exulting, gave thanks to God the more abundantly, because he had bestowed upon him such a Man according to his desire, who could edify the Church with the word and with wholesome doctrine; for which matter he foresaw himself not sufficiently fit, who was a Greek by birth, and less instructed in the Latin tongue and letters. Wherefore he conferred upon that same Augustine the power of speaking the word of God to the people even in his own presence, although this had hitherto been held unusual in the African churches. Whence some bishops, murmuring, disparaged it, and asserted that it ought not to be done thus against custom. But the holy man Valerius, knowing that this was practiced in the Eastern churches, cared not for the tongues of the disparagers; and, seeking not his own but God's glory, preferred that the people of God should be made learned through another rather than remain unlearned through himself. Whence afterwards, as this report ran about and the good example went forward, some priests in whom there was fitting and learned eloquence, having received the power, began to speak the word of God to the people, even in the presence of their bishops. Concerning that African custom the authors may be consulted whom Tillemont alleges in volume 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, article 62.

[247] and other affairs of the diocese also are committed to him, Nay rather, Valerius seems not only to have entrusted the office of preaching to St. Augustine, but also to have left him nearly the whole care of his diocese: for when the Donatists had rebaptized a certain deacon of Mutugenna, the Saint, still a priest, addressed Letter 203 to Maximinus, a bishop of the Donatists, in which toward the end he thus writes concerning the flock of Hippo committed to his fidelity, as Valerius' vicar: I, our deacon having been rebaptized, cannot keep silence. For I know how perilous silence is to me. For I do not think of passing windy seasons in ecclesiastical honors; but I think that I shall render an account to the Prince of all shepherds concerning the sheep committed to me. If perchance thou wouldst not that I write these things to thee, thou must, brother, pardon my fear. For I greatly fear lest, while I keep silence and dissemble, others also be rebaptized by you. I have determined therefore, so far as the Lord deigns to afford strength and means, so to plead this cause, that by our peaceful conferences all who communicate with us may know how far the Catholic Church stands from heresies or schisms, and how greatly the destruction is to be avoided, whether of the tares or of the shoots cut off from the Lord's vine. Which conference if thou shalt undertake with me with a willing mind, so that, we being in accord, the letters of both may be read to the peoples, I shall exult with unspeakable gladness.

[248] But if thou dost not receive this with an even mind, as is plain from the letter written about the rebaptized deacon. what shall I do, brother, but that even against thy will I read our letters to the Catholic people, that it may be the better instructed? And if thou shalt not have deigned to write back, I have determined to read mine alone, that at least, your diffidence being known, they may blush to be rebaptized… My bishop would perhaps rather have sent letters to thy benevolence, if he were present; or I, at his bidding or with his permission, would have written. But in his absence, since the deacon's rebaptism is said to be recent, I have not suffered the action itself to grow cold by delay, being roused by the stings of most bitter grief over a fraternal and true death. Which grief of mine, by the help of the mercy and providence of the Lord, the compensation of peace will perhaps soothe. May God and our Lord deign to inspire in thee a peaceable mind, most beloved lord brother. Mutugenna belonged to the diocese of Hippo, and thither Augustine had betaken himself for the sake of investigating this deed, as is indicated in this very letter, another fragment of which we shall give in the following paragraph. Hence meanwhile it is clear that our Priest was endowed with such authority that even in graver causes, such as this was, he confidently supplied the place of his bishop.

[249] To these and other occupations of his office was added the care of the monastery, He has the care of his monastery, from which many for which he had obtained a place from bishop Valerius, as we heard in the preceding paragraph: for, being ordained priest, he began to gather certain Brethren of good purpose, with whom he might live from a common store, as he himself testifies above. Among these St. Possidius seems to have been enrolled at that time, who in the Life of St. Augustine, chapter 31, or among us below at number 72, asserts that he lived familiarly and sweetly with that holy Doctor for nearly forty years. Nay rather, St. Augustine himself indicates that Possidius was instructed by him in spiritual doctrine, when in Letter 131 he thus writes to bishop Memorius after other things: I ought therefore now to have sent the books which I had promised that I would correct; and I have not sent them because I have not corrected them — not because I would not, but because I could not, being occupied namely with many and greatly prevailing cares. But it would have been too ungrateful and iron-hearted that thou, who so lovest us, shouldst either not know this holy brother and colleague of ours Possidius, in whom thou wilt find no small presence of ourselves, or shouldst know him without letters of ours: for he has been nourished by our ministry, not with those letters which the slaves of various lusts call liberal, but with the Lord's bread, so much as could be dispensed to him through our straitness.

[250] Besides Possidius, bishop of Calama, there came forth from that monastery several other men illustrious in learning and sanctity, came forth illustrious in sanctity. who were raised to various sees of Africa, and whom Possidius himself below at number 22 will testify to have been known to him. Without doubt St. Alypius, bishop of Tagaste, and other prelates taken from this congregation to the mitre established that cenobitic kind of life in their own dioceses and propagated it widely through Africa. Whence St. Paulinus of Nola, writing to Alypius, in the new Verona edition of his Works concludes the third letter with these words: The blessed companions and emulators of thy sanctity, our brethren in the Lord, if they deign to be such, serving the Lord catholically both in churches and in monasteries, at Carthage, at Tagaste, at Hippo Regius, and in all thy parishes and in all places known to thee throughout Africa, we ask to be greeted with much affection and observance. When the praised Paulinus in other letters addressed to Augustine had bidden his pious companions be greeted in his own name, the Prelate of Hippo thus answers him at the end of Letter 32: The brethren, not only those who dwell with us, and those who, dwelling anywhere, alike serve God, but nearly all who gladly know us in Christ, salute, venerate, and long for thy brotherhood, thy blessedness, thy kindness. I dare not ask it; but if thou hast leisure from ecclesiastical duties, come and see what Africa thinks with me.

[251] the Donatists wrongly compared their Circumcellions with the monks; Petilian the Donatist despised that monastic manner of living, as we gather from St. Augustine, who against his Letters, book 3, chapter 40, writes the following: Thereafter he (namely Petilian) went on with reviling mouth to the disparagement of monasteries and monks, charging me also that this kind was instituted by me. Of what sort this kind of life altogether is, he knows not; or rather he feigns himself not to know what is most well known to the whole world. Yet other Donatists, convicted perhaps by the good repute of the monks, seem afterwards to have set their circumcellions (these were furious followers of the same heresy, concerning whom Optatus of Milevis in the third book and our Saint in various places may be consulted) against the Catholic monks, or to have compared them with them: for St. Augustine in his Exposition on Psalm 132 thus admonishes his hearers concerning the inequality of this comparison: From the voice of this psalm monks also were named, lest anyone taunt you Catholics with that name. When you have rightly begun to taunt the heretics about the circumcellions, that by blushing they may be saved, they taunt you about the monks. First, if they are to be compared, do you look. If our words are needed, you already labor. There is no need, save that I admonish each to attend. Let him only attend and compare. What need is there of our words? Let the drunken be compared with the sober, the headlong with the considerate, the raging with the simple, the wandering with the gathered.

[252] the African monks were sober and upright, although among them From this comparison we learn that those monks of Africa led a sober and pious life. But that this praise could not truly be attributed to all of them, the holy Doctor himself confesses, thus pursuing the explanation of the same Psalm a little after: Nevertheless, dearly beloved, there are also those who are false monks; and we have known such. But the pious brotherhood has not perished on account of those who profess what they are not: for there are false monks just as there are also false clerics and false faithful. All these kinds, my brethren, which we have sometimes commended to you, and, as I think, not once, have their good ones, have their bad ones. Rather often elsewhere he repeats like things; and the pious Master himself had in his congregation perverse disciples, who afterwards by their morals gave scandal and troubled the peace of the Church. Such was Paul, bishop of Cataqua, whom the holy Doctor had begotten in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, and from whose communion he had to separate himself on account of the tumults stirred up in the church of Hippo. Besides, such was Antony, whom from his tender years he had nourished in his monastery and had advanced to the bishopric of Fussala: for he afterwards discharged his office perversely, and afflicted his nourisher with so great sorrow that St. Augustine thought of resigning the episcopate, and as a private man for the error

of his recommendation wished to do penance.

[253] To omit others, such also were Donatus and his brother, some wicked men were found: who of their own accord had deserted the monastery of Hippo, that in the church of Carthage they might be promoted to the clericate; and concerning whom the holy Man writes to Aurelius of Carthage in Letter 76 in this manner: I have read the letter of thy kindness concerning Donatus and his brother, and I have long wavered what I should answer. But nevertheless, as I consider again and again what is useful for the salvation of those whom we serve to nourish in Christ, nothing else could occur to me but that this way is not to be given to the servants of God, that they should think themselves the more easily chosen for something better if they have been made worse. For both an easy fall comes to them, and a most unworthy injury is done to the order of clerics, if deserters from the monks are chosen for the warfare of the clericate — whereas, out of those who remain in the monastery, we are wont nevertheless to take into the clergy only the more approved and better. Unless perhaps, as common folk say, "a bad flute-player is a good singer," so those same common folk will jest about us, saying: "A bad monk is a good cleric." It is exceedingly to be lamented if we raise monks up to so ruinous a pride, and think clerics — in whose number we are — worthy of so grave a contumely; since sometimes even a good monk scarcely makes a good cleric, if he has sufficient continence and yet lacks the necessary instruction, or the integrity of a regular person. Among the Clerics also whom the Saint afterwards, adorned with the episcopal dignity, had in his household, a grave scandal arose, as perhaps we shall report below.

[254] It is assuredly no wonder that among most good monks some bad ones were mingled, The Saint used to admit all sorts to his monastery, since the pious Father, solicitous for the salvation of all, admitted to his monastery obscure men of any condition whatever, as he himself confesses in the book On the Work of Monks, among us at chapter 22, in these words: But now there come for the most part to this profession of the service of God both men from a servile condition, or even freedmen, or those for this cause freed by their masters or to be freed; and from the rustic life and from the practice of craftsmen and from plebeian labor — all the more happily indeed as they have been the more sturdily brought up; who, if they be not admitted, it is a grave sin: for many out of that number have proved truly great and to be imitated. For therefore also God chose the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong; and chose the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise; and the ignoble things of the world, and the things which are not, as though they were, that the things which are might be brought to nought, that no flesh should glory before God. This pious and holy consideration therefore brings it about that even such are admitted as bring no proof of a life changed for the better. For neither does it appear whether they have come out of a purpose of serving God, or whether, fleeing a needy and laborious life, they have wished to be fed and clothed at no cost, and moreover to be honored by those by whom they were wont to be despised and worn down.

[256] But why (someone will say) did the prudent Father receive indiscriminately into his monastery unknown men of every lot? and why he did this, he indicates; To this question St. Augustine long ago answered in the Exposition on Psalm 99 in this manner: What is he going to say to me, whoever perchance presides over such places — nay rather serves the brethren in those which are called monasteries? What is he going to say? "I will be cautious; I will admit no evil man." How wilt thou admit no evil man? "I shall admit no evil man, no evil brother entering; with a few good men it will be well with me." How dost thou know him whom perchance thou wishest to shut out? That a bad man may be known, he must be tested within. How then dost thou shut out one about to enter, who is afterwards to be tested, and cannot be tested unless he enter? Wilt thou drive away all the bad? For thou sayest that thou knowest how to look into them. All who are about to enter come to thee with bared hearts. They do not know themselves; how much less thou! For many have promised themselves that they would fulfil that holy life, having all things in common, where no one calls anything his own, in whom there is one soul and one heart toward God. They were put into the furnace and cracked. How then dost thou know him who is still unknown to himself? Thou wilt shut out bad brethren from the assembly of the good. From thine own heart, whoever thou art that sayest these things, shut out all evil thoughts from thee, if thou canst. Let not even an evil suggestion enter into thy heart.

[257] teaching that not all can be good, nor all are bad, Then in the same place from these things he concludes that a perfect congregation of the good will not be save in heaven, and thus refutes the error of those who extolled the monastic or clerical life with excessive praises, or too much disparaged it: But hence men are deceived, so that they either do not take up a better life or rashly enter upon it; because both those who wish to praise it so praise it as not to mention the evils which are mingled there; and those who wish to disparage it disparage it with so envious and perverse a mind that they close their eyes against the good things, and exaggerate only the evils which either are there or are thought to be. Hence it comes about that any profession ill praised — that is, not cautiously praised — when it has invited men by its praise, those who come thither find some such as they did not believe to be there; and, being offended by the bad, they recoil from the good. Brethren, apply this discipline to your own life, and so hear that you may live. There is praised, to speak generally, the Church of God: "Great men are the Christians; the Christians alone; great is the Catholic Church; they all love one another; each spends upon another what he can; there is leisure for prayers, fastings, hymns throughout the whole world; with one consent of peace God is praised." One who knows not hears perhaps that silence is kept about the bad who are mingled; he comes, invited by the praise; he finds bad men mingled, who were not foretold to him before he came; he is offended by false Christians, he flees from true Christians.

[258] as happens among Christians and among clerics, Again the hateful and evil-speaking rush into disparagement: "What sort of Christians? Which Christians? Covetous men, usurers. Are they not the very men who fill the theaters and amphitheaters at the games and at other spectacles, who fill the churches on feast days? Drunkards, gluttons, envious men, persecutors of one another?" There are such, but not such alone. And that disparager with blind mind keeps silence about the good, and that praiser with incautious mind keeps silence about the bad. But if we praise the Church of God at this time, let it be as the Scriptures praise it. Behold how it has just now said: "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." A man hears, considers; the lily pleases him; he enters, he cleaves to the lily, he endures the thorns; he will deserve to be in the praise and in the eyes of the Bridegroom who says: "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." So also among clerics. The praisers of clerics look there to the good ministers, the faithful stewards, the bearers with all, spending their own inward parts upon those whom they wish to profit, not seeking the things that are their own, but the things that are Jesus Christ's. These things they praise; they forget that they are mingled with the bad. Again there are those who reprehend the avarice of clerics, the wickednesses of clerics, the lawsuits of clerics — men coveting others' goods, drunken, gluttonous, boastful. And thou enviously disparagest, and thou incautiously praisest. Thou who praisest, say that the bad are mingled; thou who disparagest, see the good also there.

[259] So also in that common life of brethren which is in a monastery, great men, holy men, live thence daily in hymns, and explaining whence it arises, in prayers, in the praises of God. Their business is with reading. They labor with their own hands; thence they support themselves; they ask nothing covetously. Whatever is brought to them by pious brethren, they use with sufficiency and with charity. No one usurps for himself anything which another has not. All love one another, all bear with one another. He praises who knows not what is done within; who knows not how, when that wind enters (above he had compared the monastery to a harbor, in which ships are sometimes endangered, dashed together by the wind), even ships are dashed together in the harbor. He enters as though hoping for security, about to have no one to bear with; he finds there bad brethren, who could not be found bad unless they were admitted. And it is necessary that they be first borne with, in case they may be corrected. Nor can they easily be shut out unless they have first been borne with; and he himself becomes one of intolerable patience. "Who sought me here? I thought that charity was here." And, being irritated by the trouble of a few men, since he has not persevered in fulfilling what he knew, he becomes a deserter of so holy a purpose, and guilty of a vow not rendered.

[260] But now, when he has gone out thence, he too becomes a disparager and an evil-speaker; so that many speak ill of Religious. and he says only those things which he asserts that he could not, as it were, endure — and perhaps true things. But true evils are to be endured for the sake of the fellowship of the good. The Scripture says to him: "Woe to those who have lost endurance." And what is more, he belches forth indignations, the odor of the bad, whereby he frightens off those about to enter, because he himself, when he had entered, could not endure. "What sort are they? Envious, quarrelsome, bearing with no one, covetous. That man did this there, and that man did that there." O evil man, why art thou silent about the good? Those whom thou couldst not bear with, thou proclaimest; those who bore with thee, a bad man, thou passest over in silence. Finally the Saint there confirms this opinion of his by other comparisons, which for brevity's sake we here pass over. Further, that monastery of Hippo which gave occasion to this disquisition seems to have been like those which St. Augustine had formerly seen at Milan and at Rome, as we reported above in §6. For the rest, concerning the monasteries of clerics and of nuns which he afterwards established as bishop we shall make mention below. Meanwhile we proceed to the polemical labors which the Saint, while still a priest, endured against the various sects of heretics, and added to his remaining occupations.

§ XIX. The holy Priest's zeal for converting heretics, both Manichæans and Donatists.

[The Saint's zeal for converting the Manichæans, from the book On the Usefulness of Believing,] The frequent and various occupations of the new Priest did not hinder him from contending, both by written books and by living voice, against the Manichæans and Donatists, a great number of whom were living at Hippo Regius. St. Possidius, in the second part of the Acts to be published after this preliminary Commentary, will for the most part briefly or generally narrate these contests, which we shall now confirm from St. Augustine's own testimony or set forth more distinctly. Our newly-ordained Priest displayed the first specimen of his fervor for converting the Manichæans toward Honoratus, whom some years before he had seduced into their sect, as is plain from the book On the Usefulness of Believing, of which he makes mention in the Retractations, book 1, chapter 14, in this manner: But now at Hippo Regius, as a priest, I wrote the book On the Usefulness of Believing, to a friend of mine whom, deceived by the Manichæans, and still in that error

I had known to be held fast, and to mock at the discipline of the Catholic faith, because men were commanded to believe, but were not taught by the most certain reasoning what the truth was.

[262] his pure intention in writing against them: With how pure and simple an intention St. Augustine wrote that book, he indicates at the beginning of the same Work in these words: Nothing is easier, my dearest friend, than not only to say that one has found the truth, but even to think so; but how very difficult it is in fact, you will recognize, as I trust, from this letter of mine. And that it may profit you, or at least do no harm, and to all whatsoever into whose hands it may chance to come, I have asked God and do ask; and I hope that it will be so, if I am rightly conscious to myself that I approached this composition with a pious and dutiful mind, not from an appetite for empty renown or trifling ostentation. Then in chapter 2, from this pious intention he strengthens his hope, and thus goes on to address his old friend: But I wish and hope that you will receive this in the same spirit in which the things are said by me. God knows, to whom the secrets of my conscience are known, that I do nothing maliciously in this discourse, but, as I judge it ought to be received, for the sake of proving the truth, for which one thing alone I have long since resolved to live, and out of an incredible anxiety, lest it should have been most easy for me to err with you, while to hold the right way with you is, that I may not speak too harshly, most difficult. But I presume that in this hope also, wherein I hope that you will attain the way of wisdom with me, He will not desert me to whom I am consecrated, whom day and night I strive to gaze upon; and since, because of my sins and because of habit, bearing the eye of my soul wounded by the strokes of lethargic opinions, I know myself to be weak, I often ask with tears… He will not therefore desert me, if I feign nothing, if I am led by duty, if I love the truth, if I cherish friendship, if I greatly fear lest you be deceived. Now God seems to have made our pious Priest master of his wish, since this Honoratus is very probably the same as that Catholic of the same name, to whom St. Augustine, afterwards bishop, wrote Letter 120, as Rivius, Tillemont, and others with probability judge.

[263] The little work On the Two Souls. The second little Work which the holy Presbyter published at about the same time against the Manichees is reviewed in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 15, in these words: After this book I wrote, while still a presbyter, against the Manichees, on the Two Souls, of which they say that one part is of God, the other of the race of darkness, which God did not create, and which is coeternal with God; and they rave that both these souls, one good, the other evil, are in one man. That evil one, namely, they say to be proper to the flesh, which flesh also they say to be of the race of darkness; but that good one they say to be from an adventitious part of God, which fought with the race of darkness and mingled the two; and all the good things of man they attribute to that good soul, but all the evil things to that evil soul. The Pelagians afterwards wrested certain texts of this little Work in favor of their heresy; but St. Augustine so explained them here and elsewhere in his Retractations, that they in no way support their errors. Further, we assign these two little Works to the year of Christ 391 or 392, not yet elapsed, because the Saint places them before the public disputation which in the year 392, about the end of the month of August, he held with Fortunatus the Manichee, and of which we shall now treat.

[264] The time of this disputation, which was taken down by public notaries, A public disputation against Fortunatus the Manichee, is thus expressed at the beginning of the authentic report, in our tome 6 of the Works, page 66: On the fifth of the Kalends of September, Arcadius Augustus for the second time and Rufinus, most illustrious men, being consuls, a disputation was held against Fortunatus, presbyter of the Manichees, in the city of the Hipponensian districts, in the Baths of Sossius, in the presence of the people. After these things there follow alternately the reasonings of both disputants, at the end of which Fortunatus, page 71, confesses that he is unequal to dissolving his adversary's arguments; and to him as he fell silent the holy Presbyter said these words: And I know that you have nothing to say, and that I myself, when I used to hear you, never found in this question what I might say; and that thence I was divinely admonished to abandon that error, and to convert myself to the Catholic faith, or rather to be called back by the indulgence of Him who did not suffer me always to cleave to this deceit. But if you confess that you have nothing to answer, with all hearing and acknowledging, since they are faithful, I will set forth the Catholic faith, if they permit and wish it.

[265] About the end of this reply a certain difficulty arises from an ambiguous clause, in which a certain doubt is set forth, on which the French Benedictines, after Tillemont, in the Latin Life of St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 7, number 3, have noted the following: Toward the end of the Acts you would believe it to be signified that only the baptized faithful were present at the second disputation. Nevertheless it is clear from Possidius that several Manichees also were present when Fortunatus fell dumb in it; and it can scarcely, or not even scarcely, be believed that the matter stood otherwise. But this apparent contradiction between Augustine and Possidius seems capable of being removed, if we take the conjunction quoniam, expressed above, for the conjunction quod, in that sense in which it is read in Matthew, chapter 2, verse 16: Then Herod, seeing that (quoniam) he was mocked by the wise men. In this signification the words of Augustine can be thus explained, as if he had said: With all the Catholics here present, and also others acknowledging that they are faithful in desire, or wish to become Catholics, I will explain the Catholic faith, if they permit and wish it. If all who were present at this disputation had been faithful or Catholics, why would Augustine have required their permission or willingness in order to set forth the Catholic faith? Whatever be the case with this interpretation of ours, which we wish to be taken only as a conjecture, in that way the holy Master can be reconciled with his holy disciple in this narration.

[266] Meanwhile Fortunatus, reduced to his last shift, at length replied thus: and in which he confesses himself vanquished, yet is not converted: Without prejudice to my profession let me say: those things which are objected by you, when I shall have reconsidered them with my elders, if they answer less than this question of mine requires, which is likewise now offered to me by you, it will be within my contemplation (because I too desire that my soul be freed by a sure faith) to come to the investigation of this matter, which is offered to me by you, and which you promise you will show. After this promise of Fortunatus our holy Priest gave thanks to God, and thus that disputation was ended. Who would not believe that this Manichee, manifestly convicted, would afterwards have yielded his hands to the truth? Yet the holy Doctor himself, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 16, after many years narrates the outcome of this disputation thus: At the same time of my presbyterate I disputed against a certain Fortunatus, a presbyter of the Manichees, who had lived a very long time at Hippo, and had seduced so many that on their account it pleased him to dwell there. Which disputation, as we contended, was taken down by notaries, as though public acts were being drawn up: for it has both a day and a consul. This we took care to have transcribed to be committed to a book of record. The question is there handled, whence comes evil; I asserting that man's evil arose from the free choice of the will; but he endeavoring to persuade that the nature of evil is coeternal with God. But on the following day he at last confessed that he found nothing to say against us. Nor indeed did he become a Catholic; but nevertheless he departed from Hippo. Possidius below in the Acts will relate again more fully the occasion and the outcome of this disputation.

[267] He writes against Adimantus the Manichee. Lest we separate those lucubrations which our Saint, while still a presbyter, published against the Manichees, we here subjoin to the preceding ones of the same matter a little Work written after certain others, which he himself in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 22, thus reviews: At the same time (namely of my presbyterate) there came into my hands certain disputations of Adimantus, who had been a disciple of Manichæus, which he wrote against the law and the prophets, endeavoring to show that the evangelical and apostolic writings were contrary to them. To him therefore I replied, setting down his words and rendering my answer to them. Which Work I concluded in a single volume, and in it I answered certain questions not once but twice; because what I had first answered had been lost, and was found afterward, when I had already answered a second time. Some indeed of the same questions I resolved in popular ecclesiastical discourses, and to certain others I have not yet replied; some remained which, other matters being more pressing, were passed over, the weight of forgetfulness being also added. It is now time that we pass from the Manichees to the Donatists, whom also St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, began to assail.

[268] The origin of the Donatists, and the occasion of their schism, But for a clearer understanding of the things to be said, it must first be known what the Donatists taught, and how savage followers of their error they had. This knowledge the holy Doctor himself supplies to the curious reader in the book On Heresies, where at number 69 he describes their origin, doctrine, division, obstinacy, and rage in these words: The Donatians or Donatists are those who first made a schism on account of Cæcilian, ordained bishop of the church of Carthage against their will, objecting to him crimes not proved, and especially that he had been ordained by traitors who surrendered the divine Scriptures. But after the case had been pleaded with him and concluded, being caught in falsehood, and their obstinate dissension being confirmed, they turned the schism into a heresy: as though the Church of Christ, on account of the crimes of Cæcilian, whether true or (as appeared rather to the judges) false, had perished from the whole world, where it was promised that it should be, and had remained in Africa in the party of Donatus, being extinguished in the other parts of the world as if by the contagion of communion. They dare also to rebaptize Catholics, wherein they have more strongly established themselves as heretics, since it has pleased the whole Catholic Church not to rescind the common baptism even among heretics themselves.

[269] We understand that the head of this heresy was Donatus, who, coming from Numidia and dividing the Christian people against Cæcilian, with bishops of the same faction joined to him, their leaders, ordained Majorinus bishop at Carthage: to which Majorinus another Donatus, a bishop, succeeded in the same division, who by his eloquence so confirmed this heresy that many think they are called Donatists rather on his account. There are extant writings of his, in which it appears that he also did not hold a Catholic opinion concerning the Trinity; but that, though of the same substance, he thought the Son less than the Father, and the Holy Spirit less than the Son. But the multitude of the Donatists was not intent upon this error which he held concerning the Trinity, nor is any one easily found among them who knows that he thought this. These heretics in the city of Rome are called Montenses, to whom they are wont to send a bishop hence from Africa, or their African bishops to proceed thence thither, if perchance it should have pleased them to ordain him there.

[270] To this heresy in Africa those also belong

who are called Circumcellions, and their divisions: a rustic kind of men and of most notorious audacity, not only by perpetrating monstrous crimes against others, but by not sparing even themselves with the same insane ferocity: for they were wont to kill themselves by various deaths, chiefly of precipices and waters and fires; and to seduce into that frenzy others of both sexes whom they could, sometimes threatening death unless they did it, that they might be slain by others. Nevertheless such men displease very many of the Donatists, nor do they think themselves contaminated by the communion of those who madly cast in the teeth of the Christian world the crime of unknown Africans. Many schisms also have been made among them, and from them some and others separated themselves into diverse assemblies, whose separation the rest of the great multitude did not perceive. But at Carthage Maximianus, ordained against Primianus by nearly a hundred bishops of the same error, and condemned by the remaining three hundred and ten, together with those twelve who took part in his ordination even by bodily presence, with a most atrocious accusation, compelled them to acknowledge that the baptism of Christ can be given even outside the church: for they received certain of them, together with those whom they had baptized outside their church, in their own honors, without any repetition of baptism in any one; nor did they cease to act through the public powers to correct them, nor did they fear to contaminate their own communion by the crimes of those men, though vehemently exaggerated by the sentence of their council.

[271] From these things we easily gather that in Africa the Donatists were innumerable in multitude and terrible in ferocity. their multitude, power, and hatred of Augustine. Certainly at Hippo-Regius, not long before the coming of St. Augustine, so great was their violence or authority that Faustinus, their bishop in this city, forbade bread to be baked for the Catholics, as the holy Doctor himself, in book 2 Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, chapter 83, indicates by this question: Are there not lacking at Hippo, where I am, men who remember that your Faustinus, in the time of his reign, since there was there a scarcity of Catholics, gave orders that no one should bake bread for them, so that a certain baker, tenant of one of our deacons, threw away his master's unbaked bread, and, though he was condemned by no law of exile, denied him communication not only in the Roman city (Hippo-Regius is here called a Roman city, because it was under the jurisdiction of the Romans) but even in his own country; and not only in his country, but even in his own house? Nay rather, the rage of the Donatists against our holy Presbyter went so far that they publicly named him a seducer of souls and a wolf, and promised a certain pardon of all sins to those men of their party who should have killed Augustine, as holy Possidius will testify in the Acts to be given below, number 18.

[272] The Saint writes various things But the intrepid Vindicator of the Catholic faith was not terrified by these threats of his adversaries, and against so many and so formidable enemies of the truth he published, still in the time of his presbyterate, a public little Work, whose matter and method he thus briefly indicates in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 20: Wishing also that the cause of the Donatists should come to the knowledge of the very humblest common people and of the wholly unskilled and unlettered, and that it should, so far as could be done through us, cleave to their memory, I made a Psalm to be sung by them, through the Latin letters; but only as far as the letter V (for such they call abecedarian psalms), while the last three I omitted; but in place of them I added at the end a kind of epilogue, as though mother Church were addressing them. The Hypopsalma also, which was to be responded, and the proem of the case, which was nonetheless to be sung, are not in the order of the letters: for their order begins after the proem. And I wished this not to be done in any kind of verse, lest metrical necessity should compel me to certain words which are less used among the common people. This abecedarian Psalm is printed in the Plantin edition of the Works of St. Augustine at the beginning of tome seven, page 3, on which the annotations of the Louvain theologians after the same tome, page 6, may be consulted.

[173] he writes The Saint commemorates another lucubration then published against the Donatists, which has now perished, or still lies hidden somewhere, in the same book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 21, in these words: A book also against the Letter of Donatus, who was of the party of Donatus the second bishop after Majorinus at Carthage, I wrote at the same time of my presbyterate; in which letter he maintains that the baptism of Christ is to be believed to exist only in his communion, which we contradict. Then he corrects, explains, or retracts certain opinions delivered by himself in that Work. Whence it is evidently plain to all with how great candor of mind St. Augustine would acknowledge even his literary or historical errors. About the same time he addressed Letter 203 to Maximinus, a bishop of the Donatists, a fragment of which we exhibited in the preceding paragraph, in order to show how great a care St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, bore for the diocese of Hippo. This whole letter would deserve to be transcribed, were it not too prolix. Wherefore we here exhibit another fragment of the same, that from it it may be made manifest how humanely and gently our Saint dealt with the Donatists, and invited them to embrace the Catholic faith.

[274] against the Donatists, And so the peaceable Presbyter, after the honorable and friendly titles which he bestows on this Donatist bishop Maximinus, and of which he renders an account in the opening, thus continues Letter 203, just now cited: When in this region I was detesting, in such words as I could, the custom of men — to be lamented and bewailed — who, while they glory in the Christian name, do not hesitate to rebaptize Christians, there were not lacking praisers of yours who told me that you did not do these things. I confess that at first I did not believe it. Then, considering that it might be that the fear of God had entered a human soul thinking upon the life to come, so that it restrained itself from a most open crime, I congratulated and believed that by such a purpose you had been unwilling to be too much a stranger to the Catholic Church. I was indeed seeking an occasion of speaking with you, so that, if it could be done, that small dissension which remained between us might be removed. When behold, a few days ago it was announced that you had rebaptized our deacon of Mutugenna. I grieved vehemently both at his pitiable lapse and at your unlooked-for crime, brother: for I know what the Catholic Church is; the nations are the inheritance of Christ, and the ends of the earth the possession of Christ. You too know it, or if you do not know it, take heed; it can most easily be known by those who wish. To rebaptize, therefore, a heretical man who has received these signs of holiness which Christian discipline has handed down, is altogether a sin; but to rebaptize a Catholic is a most monstrous crime.

[275] Nevertheless, not altogether believing it, because I held myself well persuaded concerning you, and Maximinus their bishop I went myself to Mutugenna, and indeed I could not see that wretched man; but from his parents I heard that he has already been made even a deacon of yours. And yet I still think so well of your heart that I do not believe he was rebaptized. Wherefore I beseech you, most beloved brother, by the divinity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you deign to write back to me what was done; and so to write back, knowing that I wish to read your letter in church to our brethren. Which I have therefore written, lest, when I should afterwards do that which you would not expect me to do, I should offend your charity, and you should lay a just complaint of me before our common friends. What then may hinder you from writing back, I do not see: for if you do rebaptize, there is nothing for you to fear from the men of your college, since you will have written that you do that which they would command you to do even if you were unwilling. And when you shall have defended, with whatever proofs you can, that it ought to be done, they will not only not be angry, but will even proclaim it. But if you do not rebaptize, seize Christian liberty, brother Maximinus, seize it, I beg you: in the contemplation of Christ fear no man's reproof, nor shudder at his power. The honor of this world passes away, ambition passes away. In the future judgment of Christ neither stepped apses, nor veiled chairs, nor the flocks of nuns running to meet and singing will be brought forward for a defense, when conscience shall have begun to accuse, and the Arbiter of consciences to judge. The things that honor here, burden there; the things that lighten here, weigh down there. Those things which for the time are displayed for our honor because of the utility of the Church, are perhaps defended by a good conscience, but they will not be able to defend a bad one.

[276] That therefore which you do with so pious and so religious a mind by most kindly letters — if indeed you do it — namely, that you do not repeat the baptism of the Catholic Church, but rather approve it as of the one most true mother, who both spreads her bosom to all nations to be regenerated and pours her breasts upon the regenerate, as of the one possession of Christ, extending itself even to the ends of the earth: if you truly do this, why do you not break forth into an exulting and free voice? Why do you press the so useful splendor of your lamp under a bushel?… Cry aloud, therefore, that you act rightly, if you do not rebaptize; and write back to me thereupon not only without trepidation, but even with joy. Let no counsels of your own people terrify you, brother: for if this displeases them, they are not worthy to have you. But if it pleases them, we trust in the mercy of the Lord, who never deserts those who fear to displease Him and strive to please Him, that between us and you there will soon be peace, lest, on account of our honors — of which burden a perilous account shall be rendered — the wretched peoples believing in Christ should have common food in their houses, and yet not be able to have the table of Christ in common. Do we not groan that husband and wife, that they may faithfully join their bodies, commonly swear to each other by Christ, and yet tear asunder the very body of Christ by diverse communion? If this so great scandal, so great a triumph of the devil, so great a destruction of souls, shall have been taken out of the midst in these regions by your modesty and prudence and love, which we owe to Him who poured out His blood for us, who could unfold in words what a palm the Lord prepares for you, so that for the healing of the remaining members, which throughout all Africa lie wretchedly wasted, there should proceed from you so imitable a proof of medicine?

[277] he invites them to the Catholic faith: How I fear, since you cannot see my heart, that I may seem to you to speak rather with insult than with love. But certainly I find nothing further to do, save to offer my discourse to you for inspection, and my mind to God. Let us take out of the midst the empty objections which are wont to be flung by unskilled parties against one another; neither do you cast up the Macarian times, nor I the savagery of the Circumcellions. If this does not pertain to you, neither does that to me. The Lord's threshing-floor has not yet been winnowed; it cannot be without chaff. Let us pray and act, so far as we can, that we may be the wheat… Let us act by fact, let us act by reason; let us act by the authorities of the divine Scriptures, quiet and tranquil so far as we can; let us ask, seek, knock, that we may receive and find, and that it may be opened to us; lest perchance it may come about that, with the Lord's help, our concordant efforts and prayers may remove so great a deformity and

impiety of the African regions may begin to be abolished from our lands.

[278] who probably was converted. Perhaps that Maximinus was moved by this sweet and strong exhortation, so that he afterwards embraced the Catholic faith: for Maximinus, bishop of Sinita, passed over from the schism of the Donatists to the unity of the Catholic Church, as St. Augustine testifies in Letter 166. Now Holstenius and others with probability judge that this one is the same as that. However that may be, let these specimens suffice to show the fervor which the Saint had in the time of his presbyterate for the conversion of the Manichees and Donatists. Afterwards, in the course of this preliminary Commentary, we shall briefly bring forward the other contests which the Saint, when already raised to the see of Hippo, entered into with the Manichees, the Donatists, and other heretics. Meanwhile in the following paragraph we shall gather those things which St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, wrote and did for the profit of the Church.

§ XX. The remaining writings which the Saint published in the time of his presbyterate, and the controversy arising out of the last of these between himself and St. Jerome.

The Saint's disputation On Faith and the Creed: At Hippo-Regius a general council of all Africa was celebrated in the month of October of the year 393, as the editors of the councils and the chronologists agree. In this synod St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, was bidden to discourse on faith and the creed, and that dissertation, at the request of friends, he afterwards published in writing, as he himself testifies in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 17, in this manner: At the same time, before the bishops who bade me this, who were holding a plenary council of all Africa at Hippo-Regius , I, a presbyter, disputed on faith and the creed: which disputation, at the most zealous insistence of certain of those who loved us more familiarly, I gathered into a book, in which the matters themselves are so discussed that nevertheless there is not made that connected text of words which is delivered to the candidates to be held by memory. Other lucubrations of nearly the same time we shall arrange in that order in which the holy Doctor reviews them in the books of the Retractations*.

[279] And so in book 1, chapter 18, he mentions a certain unfinished Work in these words: The unfinished little work On Genesis according to the Letter: When I had composed two books on Genesis against the Manichees, since I had treated the words of Scripture according to an allegorical exposition, not daring to expound so great secrets of natural things according to the letter — that is, in what manner the things there said could be taken according to historical propriety — I wished to try in this most laborious and most difficult Work also what I could do; but my apprenticeship in expounding the Scriptures sank under so great a mass of burden: and, one book not yet being finished, I rested from the labor which I could not sustain. But in this Work, when I was reviewing my little Works, this very one, unfinished as it was, came into my hands, which I had neither published, and had resolved to destroy, since I afterwards wrote XII books, whose title is: On Genesis according to the Letter. In which, although many things seem rather sought than found, nevertheless this one is in no way to be compared with them. But this one too, after I had reviewed it, I wished to remain, that it might be an index — not useless, as I judge — of my rudiments in unfolding and searching out the divine Oracles; and I wished its title to be On Genesis according to the Letter, unfinished*.

[280] The Saint in the same book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 19, testifies other works on holy Scripture that at the same time he wrote two volumes on the Lord's sermon on the mount according to Matthew. In the three following chapters of the same book he enumerates his little Works which he then published against the Donatists and against Adimantus the Manichee, and which we mentioned in the preceding paragraph. To these he there subjoins three commentaries on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, the occasion of which he relates in chapter 23 in this manner: When I was still a presbyter, it happened that at Carthage, among us who were together, the Apostle's Epistle to the Romans was read, and I was asked certain things by the brethren; and when I answered them as I could, they wished rather that what I said should be written down, than poured forth without letters: and when I complied with them, one book was added to my little Works. From this book the Semi-Pelagians drew patronage for their opinion. But Augustine, in book 1 On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 3 and the following, candidly acknowledges his error, changes his former opinion, and invites those erring followers of his former opinion to imitate his example.

[281] In book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 24, he thus commemorates another little Work of nearly the same kind: Little works: After this book I expounded the same Apostle's Epistle to the Galatians, not piecemeal, that is, passing over some things, but continuously and entire. And this exposition I comprised in one volume. But the holy Interpreter could not keep this method of explication in another commentary on holy Scripture, which he there reviews in chapter 25 in these words: Of the Epistle to the Romans also, as of that to the Galatians, I had undertaken an exposition. But of this Work, if it were completed, there would have been several books; of which I finished one in the discussion of the salutation alone, that is, from the beginning as far as that place where he says: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." For it came about that we lingered, when we wished to resolve a most difficult question falling in the way of our discourse, concerning the sin against the Holy Spirit, which is not remitted either in this world or in the world to come. But thereafter I ceased to add other volumes expounding the whole Epistle, being deterred by the magnitude and labor of the Work itself, and I turned aside to other easier matters. So it came about that I left alone the book which I had made first, whose title I wished to be, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, begun*.

[282] when the book of Eighty-three Questions was written. We wonder that in the same place, chapter 26, the book On Eighty-three Questions is placed among the Works which St. Augustine wrote while still a presbyter: for the holy Doctor there testifies that those questions were dictated by him in the first time of his conversion, after he returned into Africa, and that afterwards, being already a bishop, he ordered them to be collected in order and reduced into one book. Perhaps he revised them as a presbyter, and published them afterwards as a bishop, and therefore they are reviewed in the time of his presbyterate. But whatever be the cause of this order, we have referred them in §13 to the retirement at Tagaste, to which they owe their origin. So too above, in §9, we reviewed the Work On Free Choice, which the Saint began at Rome while still a layman, even though he finished it in Africa when already a presbyter. We have wished to note nothing here concerning the private letters which the Saint addressed to Paulinus and others in the time of his presbyterate, lest our preliminary Commentary grow too large.

[283] He writes On Lying, and Against Lying, Finally the Saint, in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 27, indicates the last Work composed by him as a presbyter, and distinguishes it from another of like matter in these words: Likewise I wrote a book On Lying, which, although it is understood with some labor, has nevertheless a not useless exercise of wit and mind, and profits the morals rather toward the loving of truth-speaking. This too I had resolved to remove from my little Works, because it seemed to me both obscure and tortuous and altogether troublesome; for which reason I had not even published it. Then when I had afterwards written another, whose title is AGAINST LYING, I had much more resolved and commanded that this one should not exist; but it was not done. And so in this review of my little Works, when I had found it unharmed, I ordered that it too should remain, having been reviewed; especially because there are in it certain necessary things which are not in that other one. But the inscription of that one is AGAINST LYING, and of this one ON LYING: because through the whole of that one there is an open assault upon lying; while a great part of this one is occupied in the discussion of inquiry. Yet each is directed to the same end. Both those Works are printed in the Plantin edition at the beginning of tome four.

[284] in which he tacitly reproves St. Jerome, In the epilogue of this former little work On Lying he refutes the contrary opinion of certain men in these words: But whoever shall have thought that there is some kind of lying which is not a sin, will basely deceive himself, when he thinks himself an honorable deceiver of others. Moreover so great a blindness has occupied the minds of men, that it is too little for them if we say that certain lies are not sins, unless in certain cases they also say that it is a sin if we refuse to lie; and they have been brought so far by defending lying, that they say the apostle Paul used even that first kind which is the most wicked of all: for in the Epistle to the Galatians, which surely, like the rest, was written for the doctrine of religion and piety, they say that he lied in that place where he says of Peter and Barnabas: "When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel." For while they wish to defend Peter from error and from that crookedness of way into which he had fallen, they attempt to overthrow the very way of religion, in which is salvation for all, by breaking and shattering the authority of the Scriptures. Wherein they do not see that they charge the Apostle not only with the crime of lying but also of perjury, in the very doctrine of piety, that is, in the Epistle in which he preaches the Gospel; for there he says, before he narrates these things: "Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I lie not."

[285] Here, with the name suppressed, St. Augustine reproves Jerome, who had taught that Paul withstood Peter who in his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians had already written the following: From the fact that Peter, before certain men came from Jerusalem to Antioch, used to eat with the Gentiles, it is shown that he had not forgotten the precept: to call no man common and unclean; but that, because of those who still thought the Law must be observed, he had withdrawn himself a little from the company of the Gentiles; so that the rest also, who were of the Jews, did likewise; and Barnabas, who with Paul preached the Gospel among the Gentiles, was compelled to do this; and those who at Antioch had believed from among the Gentiles, and had not been circumcised, were being compelled to pass over to the burdens of the Law; not understanding the dispensation of Peter, whereby he desired the Jews to be saved, but thinking that such was the reckoning of the Gospel. When therefore the Apostle Paul had seen the grace of Christ endangered, that warrior of his used a new art of fighting, that he might correct the dispensation of Peter, whereby he desired the Jews to be saved, by a new dispensation of his own contradiction, and withstand him to the face — not censuring his purpose, but as if contradicting in public, so that from the fact that Paul withstood him with censure, those who had believed from among the Gentiles might be preserved.

[286] But if anyone thinks that Paul truly withstood the Apostle Peter, out of a certain feigning. and for the truth of the Gospel intrepidly did an injury to his predecessor, that will not stand for him, since Paul himself also became a Jew to the Jews, that he might gain the Jews, and he will be held guilty of the same feigning, when he shaved his head at Cenchreae and, his baldness being made, offered an oblation at Jerusalem; and circumcised Timothy, and practiced going barefoot, which things surely most manifestly

belong to the ceremonies of the Jews. If therefore he himself, who had been sent to the preaching of the Gentiles, did not think it beside the point to say: "Be without offense to the Jews and to the Church of God; even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to many, that they may be saved" — and did certain things which were contrary to the liberty of the Gospel, lest he should scandalize the Jews: by what authority, with what face does he dare to reprove in Peter, who was the Apostle of the circumcision, that which the Apostle of the Gentiles himself is charged with having committed? But, as we have already said before, he withstood Peter and the rest according to a public face, so that the hypocrisy of observing the law, which was harming those who had believed from among the Gentiles, might be amended by the hypocrisy of a rebuke, and each people might be made safe; while both those who praise circumcision follow Peter, and those who are unwilling to be circumcised proclaim the liberty of Paul. But as to what he says, HE WAS BLAMEWORTHY, he therefore tempered it in a middle way, that we might understand that he was blameworthy not so much by Paul as by those brethren with whom he had eaten before, and from whom he afterwards separated himself. Then St. Jerome strives to show by various examples that this rebuke was, by an agreement of both Apostles, feigned for the sake of others, and lawful.

[287] and he thought Jerome a patron of the officious lie: But this opinion in no way pleases Augustine, who, while still a presbyter, addressed to Jerome the eighth Letter, in which, chapter 3, he thus speaks to him: I have also read certain writings said to be yours upon the epistles of the Apostle Paul, and when you wished to unravel that to the Galatians, there came into my hands that place in which the Apostle Peter is called back from a pernicious dissimulation; and that a patronage of lying was there undertaken, either by you, such a man as you are, or by someone else (if another wrote those things), I confess, grieves me not a little, until they be refuted — if perchance they can be refuted — the things which move me: for it seems to me most destructive to believe that there is any lie in the holy Books, that is, that those men through whom that Scripture was ministered to us and written down lied about anything in their books…: for once an officious lie has been admitted into so lofty a height of authority, no particle of those Books will remain which will not, as it shall seem to each — whether difficult as to morals, or incredible as to faith — be referred by that same most pernicious rule to the design and purpose of a lying author. Then our Saint presses this argument of his in the same place with several reasonings, and repeats it again in the following letter.

[288] Jerome, somewhat angered, replies to Augustine, But Jerome, in the eleventh Letter among the Augustinian ones, refers Augustine back to the preface of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, where he had assigned the ancient defenders of the same opinion, and concludes the third chapter of that eleventh Letter in these words: I — nay rather, others before me — set forth the reason which they had supposed, not defending an officious lie, as you write, but teaching an honorable dispensation, that they might both demonstrate the prudence of the Apostles and restrain the imprudence of the blaspheming Porphyry, who says that Peter and Paul fought between themselves with a childish contest; nay, that Paul blazed up in envy of the virtues of Peter, and wrote boastfully those things which either he did not do, or, if he did them, did them insolently, reproving in another what he himself had committed. Those men interpreted it as they could. How will you expound that passage — you who are surely about to say better things, since you have rejected the opinion of the ancients? Therefore on the occasion of the little Work On Lying, and from the letters written on this matter to and fro between these two holy and most learned men, there arose that controversy which little by little began to be agitated more hotly: for Jerome afterwards addressed two sharper letters to Augustine, which may be read among the Augustinian ones under numbers XIII and XIV.

[289] whom he softens by a gentle reply, Nevertheless our Saint returned the fifteenth letter to these expostulatory letters, where in chapter 2 he appeased the somewhat angered Jerome by this gentle reply: It remains, therefore, that you were disposed to wound me by writing back, if you knew by certain proof that that letter was mine. And so, because I do not believe that you would think me unjustly to be wounded, it remains that I acknowledge my sin, that I first wounded you by that letter which I cannot deny to be mine. Why therefore do I strive against the current of the river, and not rather ask pardon? I beseech you therefore by the meekness of Christ, that, if I have wounded you, you forgive me, and do not in turn, by wounding me, render evil for evil. But you will wound me if you keep silence to me about my error, which you may perchance have found in my deeds or words: for if you reprove in me those things which are not to be reproved, you wound yourself rather than me; and far be it from your character and your holy purpose that you should do this with a will to wound, blaming in me with a slanderous tooth something which with a truthful mind you know is not to be blamed. And by this, either reprove with a kindly heart the man whom you think ought to be reproved, even though he lack the fault; or soothe with fatherly affection the man whom you cannot amend: for it may come about that something appears otherwise to you than the truth holds; provided only that nothing be done by you otherwise than charity holds: for I too shall most gratefully receive a most friendly reproof, even if that which can rightly be defended did not deserve to be reproved; or I shall acknowledge at once both your benevolence and my fault, and, so far as the Lord grants, be found in the one thankful, in the other amended. Moreover our Saint in the nineteenth letter replied to Jerome more fully, and again sweetly and strongly refuted his opinion concerning the reproved Peter.

[290] Thus that dispute was laid to rest between those illustrious Doctors of the Church, so that their friendship was thereby increased, and this quarrel of lovers seems to have been a renewal of love, as we gather from the twenty-fifth letter, in which afterwards holy Jerome praises Augustine in these words: At all times indeed I have venerated your blessedness with the honor that is fitting, and have loved the Lord the Savior dwelling in you; but now, if it can be done, we add something to the heap and fill up what is full, so that we do not suffer even a single hour to pass by without mention of your name — you who against contrary winds have stood firm in the ardor of faith, and preferred, so far as in you lay, to be delivered alone out of Sodom, rather than to abide with those who perish. Your prudence knows what I mean. Well done for your virtue; you are celebrated in the world; Catholics venerate and look up to you as the founder anew of the ancient faith; and — which is the sign of greater glory — all heretics detest you; and they persecute me with equal hatred, so that those whom they cannot kill with the sword they kill with their wish. May the clemency of Christ the Lord guard you safe and mindful of me, venerable lord and most blessed pope.

[291] Nay, we do not doubt that Jerome at length embraced St. Augustine's opinion in this matter, and Jerome seems to have passed over to Augustine's opinion: since afterwards in the Dialogue against the Pelagians, book 1, chapter 8, under the name of Critobulus, he writes the following: The Apostle (namely Paul) says of Peter that he did not walk with a straight foot in the truth of the Gospel, and was so far blameworthy that Barnabas also was led into the same dissimulation. Who will be indignant that that is denied to him which the prince of the Apostles did not have? This change of his former opinion is confirmed by St. Augustine himself, who to Oceanus, desiring to renew this old controversy, replies in letter 260, after other things, thus: But why longer upon this? since concerning this question I and the aforesaid venerable brother Jerome have dealt sufficiently in letters; and in this most recent Work, which he lately published under the name of Critobulus against Pelagius, he has held the same opinion concerning that Apostolic deed and words which we too have followed from the most blessed Cyprian.

[292] To avoid the difficulties which are objected from this opinion, how some explain the passage about the reproved Cephas. certain ancient writers asserted that that Cephas who was reproved was not the Apostle Peter, but another different from him, as in the above-cited Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians Jerome relates in these words: There are those who think that the Cephas whom Paul here writes that he withstood to the face is not the Apostle Peter, but another of the seventy disciples called by that name; and they say that Peter could by no means have withdrawn himself from the company of the Gentiles, he who had baptized also the centurion Cornelius; .. especially since Luke, the writer of the history, makes no mention of this dissension, nor says that Peter was ever at Antioch with Paul; and that place is given to the blaspheming Porphyry, if either Peter is believed to have erred, or Paul to have insolently confuted the prince of the Apostles. Although St. Jerome in the same place presently refutes this ancient opinion, nevertheless our Harduin and other more recent writers, following him, have raised it up again, and defend it hitherto with arguments not to be despised. Since it is not of our design here to maintain the more probable of these opinions, we leave that controversy to be further investigated by the theologians and interpreters of holy Scripture; on which meanwhile may be consulted the Historia Apostolica which Antonio Sandini published at Padua in the year 1731, and Gerard Casteel in his Ecclesiastico-historical Controversies, printed at Cologne in the year 1734, controversy XIII. Now from these learned and useful writings of our Saint we pass to a distinguished exploit of his, which he performed still in the time of his presbyterate.

al. they were having*

§ XXI. At Hippo-Regius the sacrilegious custom of feasting in the church, which on the festival days of certain Saints was wont to be kept under a mask of piety, abolished by the exhortation of our Saint.

Since wine-sodden banquets were being celebrated in the church by the Africans, It was a base custom of the Africans that under a false show of religion they should set up wine-sodden banquets in the cemeteries of the Martyrs, or in the venerable churches of the Saints, and in that manner celebrate — or more truly profane — their yearly festivity. Our holy Presbyter bore this sacrilegious custom most grievously, and therefore in the year of Christ 392 he had written to Aurelius, recently elected bishop of Carthage, the sixty-fourth letter of the Plantin edition, in which he gravely exhorted him that by the authority of the councils and by the leading example of his own church of Carthage he should strongly and at the same time gently expel this abuse out of Africa. It is unknown to us whether Aurelius, prelate of Carthage, was able to commit this to execution, although in our Labbe, tome 2 of the Councils, column [ ], among the canons of the African church, procured probably by Augustine, the following, forty-second in order, is expressed in these words: That no bishops or clerics feast in the church, unless perchance travelers refresh themselves there from the necessity of lodgings; the people also, so far as can be done, are to be forbidden banquets of this kind. But certainly our Saint at Hippo-Regius ordered this canon to be observed, and utterly abolished that foul custom of banqueting in church, as we learn from the twenty-ninth Letter of the most recent Paris edition, which St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, wrote to Alypius, already bishop of Tagaste, and which the French Benedictine Fathers not long since found in a manuscript codex of the Cistercians.

[294] The Saint, while still a presbyter, against that abuse Although this letter is rather long, and the praised

Benedictine Fathers in the Life of St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 11, have reduced its matter into a compendium, which could thence more easily be excerpted here, nevertheless we prefer to relate this splendidly accomplished affair from our holy Presbyter himself, and therefore we shall not grudge to transcribe in this place his rather prolix narration. Alypius in the year of Christ 395 was staying in the city of Hippo, when the yearly festivity of St. Leontius, formerly bishop of Hippo, was drawing near, which the citizens had resolved to celebrate with the accustomed apparatus of banquets. But that prelate, knowing the firm purpose of our Presbyter, had poured forth prayers for the happy outcome of the matter, and perhaps because of the pressing business of his own diocese had departed thence before that abuse was removed, as we gather from the beginning of the letter mentioned, which our Saint continues thus: When after your departure it had been announced to us that men were in tumult, and were saying that they could not bear that that solemnity should be forbidden which, calling it JOY, they vainly attempt to hide under the name of drunkenness — as was also being announced in your presence at that very time — it happened opportunely for us, by the hidden ordering of almighty God, that on the fourth day of the week that chapter in the Gospel came in course to be treated: "Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine." There was treatment therefore concerning dogs and concerning swine, so that both those who wrangle with obstinate barking against the commandments of God, and those given over to the filth of carnal pleasures, were compelled to blush; and it was so concluded that they might see how wicked a thing it was to do within the walls of the church, in the name of religion, that which, if they persevered in doing it in their own houses, they ought to be kept back for it from the Holy Thing and the Pearls of the church.

[295] But although these things were gratefully received, nevertheless, because few had assembled, having vehemently inveighed, so great a business was not satisfied. But when this discourse was ventilated outside by those who were present, according to each one's ability and zeal, it had many contradictors. But after the days of Lent had dawned, and a frequent multitude ran together at the hour of the discourse, that passage was read in the Gospel where the Lord, the sellers of animals having been driven from the temple and the tables of the money-changers overturned, said that His Father's house, instead of a house of prayers, had been made a den of thieves. Which chapter, when I had made them attentive by proposing the question of drunkenness, I also myself recited; and I added a discussion by which I might show how much more indignantly and vehemently our Lord would drive drunken banquets — which are base everywhere — out of the temple, whence He so drove out permitted trafficking, since those things were being sold which were necessary for the sacrifices lawful at that time; asking of them to which they thought a den of thieves the more like: those selling necessary things, or those drinking immoderately. And since prepared readings were held ready to be supplied to me, I then added that the still carnal people of the Jews themselves, in that temple where the Body and Blood of the Lord was not yet offered, celebrated not only no wine-sodden banquets, but not even sober ones ever; nor are they found in history to have been publicly made drunk in the name of religion, save when they were discharging festivals to a fabricated idol: and while I was saying these things, I also took the codex and recited that whole passage. I added also, with such grief as I could, that since the Apostle says, in order to distinguish the Christian people from the hardness of the Jews, that his letter was written not on tablets of stone but on the fleshly tablets of the heart, whereas Moses the servant of God, on account of those leaders, had broken the two stone tablets — how can we not break the hearts of these men, who, being men of the new Testament, would wish solemnly to display, on the days of the Saints to be celebrated, those things which the people of the old Testament celebrated both once only, and to an idol?

[296] Then, the codex of Exodus being returned, exaggerating the crime of drunkenness so far as time allowed, and having demonstrated from the Scriptures I took up the apostle Paul, and showed among which sins it was placed, reading that passage: "If any be named a brother, and be a fornicator, or a server of idols, or covetous, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one not even to take food"; admonishing with a groan with how great peril they feasted together with those who were made drunk even in their houses. I read also that which follows after no long interval: "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor servers of idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God. And these things indeed you were; but you are washed, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." Which being read, I said that they should consider how the faithful could hear, BUT YOU ARE WASHED, who still suffer the filth of such concupiscence — against which the kingdom of heaven is shut — to be in their heart, that is, in the inner temple of God. Thence we came to that chapter: "When therefore you come together into one, it is not to celebrate the Lord's supper; for each one takes his own supper first in eating; and one indeed is hungry, another is drunken with eating and drinking. Do you despise the church of God?" Which being recited, I more diligently urged that not even honorable and sober banquets ought to be celebrated in church, seeing that the Apostle did not say: Have you not houses in which to make yourselves drunk? — as though it were only unlawful to be made drunk in church; but, To eat and to drink, which can honorably be done, but outside the church, by those who have houses where they can be refreshed with necessary nourishments: and yet that we have been brought to these straits of corrupt and dissolute morals, that for these men we wish not yet modest banquets, but at least a domestic reign of drunkenness.

[297] by the baseness of the matter and the peril to souls arising from it, I recalled also the chapter of the Gospel which I had treated the day before, where it is said of false prophets: "By their fruits you shall know them." Then I brought back to memory that in that place nothing is called fruits but works. Then I sought among which fruits drunkenness had been named, and recited that passage to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonness, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, emulations, angers, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkennesses, revellings, and such like; which I foretell to you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God." After which words I asked how Christians could be recognized by the fruit of drunkenness, whom the Lord commanded to be recognized by their fruits. I added also that there should be read what follows: "But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence." And I brought it about that they should consider how shameful and lamentable it was, that they should desire not only to live privately by those fruits of the flesh, but even to confer upon them the honor of the church, and, if power were given, to fill the whole space of so great a basilica with crowds of feasters and drunkards: whereas of the spiritual fruits, to which they were invited both by the authority of the divine Scriptures and by our groans, they are unwilling to bring gifts to God, and by these above all to celebrate the festivals of the Saints.

[298] These things being accomplished, I returned the codex, and with an unprepared discourse, he sets an end to his speech with the weeping of others and his own: so far as I was able, and so far as the peril itself pressed me, and as the Lord deigned to administer strength, I set before their eyes the common peril both of themselves, who had been committed to us, and of us, who should render an account of them to the Prince of shepherds; by whose humility, notable insults, buffets, and spittings in the face, and blows, and thorny crown, and cross and blood I besought them that, if they had offended anything against themselves, they would at least have pity on us, and would consider the ineffable charity of the venerable old man Valerius toward me, who did not hesitate to lay upon me, for their sake, so perilous a burden of treating the words of truth, and often said to them that his prayers had been heard concerning our coming; whom indeed he rejoiced to have come to him not for a common death or the spectacle of their death, but for a common striving toward eternal life. Finally I said also that I was certain, and trusted in Him who knows not how to lie, who through the mouth of His Prophet promised concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: "If his children forsake my law and walk not in my commandments; if they profane my justifications, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes; but my mercy I will not take away." That I therefore trusted in Him that, if they should despise these so great things which had been read and said to them, He would visit them with rod and scourge, and not permit them to be damned with this world. In which complaint it was so managed as our protector and governor supplied spirit and ability according to the magnitude of the business and of the peril. I did not move their tears by my tears; but when such things were being said, I confess, being forestalled by their weeping, I could not restrain my own. And when we had now wept together, in fullest hope of their correction an end was made of my discourse.

[299] But on the next day, when the day had dawned for which their throats and bellies were wont to prepare themselves, while nevertheless some still murmured, it is announced to me that some even of those who had been present at the discourse had not yet ceased from murmuring, and that the force of a most evil custom so prevailed in them that they used only its voice and said: "Why now? for were not those Christians who formerly did not forbid these things?" Which being heard, what greater engines I should prepare for moving them I altogether did not know; yet I was disposing myself, if they thought they must persevere, when that passage from the prophet Ezechiel had been read — "The watchman is absolved if he has announced the peril, even though those to whom it is announced have been unwilling to beware" — to shake out my garments and depart. But then the Lord showed that He does not desert us, and by what ways He exhorts us to presume upon Him: for before the hour at which we should ascend the seat, there came in to me those very men whom I had heard to have complained about the assault upon the ancient custom; whom, being kindly received, I brought over in a few words to a sound opinion; and when the time of the discourse came, the reading which I had prepared being omitted, because it now did not seem necessary, I discoursed a few things on this very question: that we could bring forward nothing either briefer or truer against those who say WHY NOW, unless we too say EVEN NOW.

[300] he appeases them by a prudent discourse, Nevertheless, lest those who before us either permitted such manifest crimes of an unskilled multitude, or did not dare to forbid them, should seem to be visited with any insult by us, I explained to them by what necessity these things seemed to have arisen in the Church: namely that after so many and so vehement persecutions, when, peace being made, crowds of the heathen desiring to come into the Christian name were hindered by this — that they were wont to spend their festival days with their idols in abundance of feasting and in drunkenness, nor could they easily abstain from these most pernicious and so most ancient pleasures — it had seemed good to our elders that for the time this portion of infirmity should be spared, and that after those festival days which they were leaving, other days should be celebrated in honor of the holy Martyrs, if not with a like sacrilege, yet with a like luxury; now that, in the name of Christ

being bound together, and made subject to the yoke of so great an authority, the wholesome precepts of sobriety might be delivered to them, which now, because of the honor and fear of Him who commands, they would not be able to resist: wherefore it was now time that those who do not dare to deny themselves Christians should begin to live according to the will of Christ, so that those things which were conceded in order that they might be Christians should be rejected now that they are Christians.

[301] and effectively breaks off the abuse, Then I exhorted them that we should be willing to be imitators of the churches beyond the sea, in which these things were partly never received, and partly already corrected by good rulers with the people complying. And since examples of daily wine-bibbing were being brought forward from the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter, I said first that we had often heard that it had been forbidden; but that, because the place is remote from the bishop's converse, and in so great a city there is a great multitude of carnal men — especially strangers, who keep coming newly, and retain that custom the more violently the more ignorantly — so monstrous a plague could not yet be checked and quieted. Nevertheless that we, if we honored the apostle Peter, ought to hear his precepts, and to look far more devoutly upon the Epistle, in which his will appears, than upon the basilica, in which it does not appear; and at once, the codex being taken, I recited where he says: "Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from the flesh, that now he may live the remaining time in the flesh not by the desires of men, but by the will of God. For the time past is sufficient for you to have fulfilled the will of men, walking in lusts, desires, drunkenness, revellings, and unlawful services of idols." These things being done, when I saw all going with one mind into a good will, the evil custom being despised, I wished urged that at the noon hour they should be present at the divine readings and psalms; that so that day might much more purely and sincerely be pleasing to be celebrated; and certainly from the multitude of those assembling it could easily appear who followed the mind, and who the belly. Thus, all things being read, the discourse was ended.

[302] hymns and divine praises being substituted in the place of feasts. But on the afternoon of the day a greater multitude was present than before noon, and up to the hour at which we should come forth with the bishop, there was reading and psalm-singing alternately; and when we had come forth, two psalms were read. Then the Old Man's command compelled me, unwilling as I was, who already desired that so perilous a day were over, to speak something to them. I gave a brief discourse, in which I gave thanks to God. And since we heard that the accustomed banquets were being celebrated by them in the basilica of the heretics — since even at that very time in which these things were being done by us, those men persisted over their cups — I said that the beauty of day is adorned by comparison with night, and the white color is more pleasing by the nearness of black; so our assembly of spiritual celebration would perhaps have been less joyful, unless from the other side the carnal gorging were set beside it; and I exhorted them that they should earnestly seek such feasts, if they had tasted how sweet the Lord is; but that those men are to be feared for, who pursue as a first thing that which will one day be destroyed; since each becomes the companion of that which he worships, and the Apostle mocked such men saying: "Whose god is the belly," since the same in another place said: "Meat for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God will destroy both this and these." That we accordingly ought to follow that which is not destroyed, which, being most remote from the affection of the flesh, is retained by the sanctification of the spirit. And when in this sense, according to the time, those things had been said which the Lord deigned to suggest, the evening offices were performed which are wont to be daily; and as we withdrew with the Bishop, the brethren said a hymn in that same place, no small multitude of both sexes remaining until the day was darkened, and singing psalms.

[303] From these things it abundantly appears how happily and how movingly St. Augustine removed this inveterate custom. A difficulty concerning the time of the deed But a difficulty occurs concerning the time of the year 395 at which this matter happened: for since our Saint in the letter exhibited above at number 295 says that he then held a discourse before the people when the days of Lent had dawned, this could seem to have been done on the XII day of February, seeing that the Pasch of the year 395 fell on the XXV day of March; whence, going back forty days, we shall come to the twelfth day of February, or the beginning of Lent. But the yearly solemnity of St. Leontius, bishop of Hippo, had been accustomed to be celebrated after Pasch, and sometimes fell together with the feast of the Lord's Ascension, as we learn from Sermon thirteen On Various Matters of the Plantin edition, which St. Augustine, when already bishop, delivered in the Leontian basilica on the feast of the Ascension, and in which after other things he speaks thus: Today therefore we celebrate the day of His Ascension. But there occurs to this church a solemnity from the tabernacle others better: in the vernacular; today is the deposition of the holy Leontius, founder of this basilica. But let the star deign to be obscured by the sun. Let us therefore rather speak of the Lord, as we had begun. A good servant rejoices when his lord is praised. On this day therefore, that is, on the fortieth day after His Resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven.

[304] Because of the alleged words of the letter mentioned and the express time of this later Sermon, some doubtfully admit two festivities of St. Leontius, is explained: of which one could be celebrated yearly in the month of February, the other in the month of May. But we, with Tillemont in the Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome XIII, page 974 and following, more probably judge that a copyist's error crept into this Letter, and that for dies Quadragesimæ (the days of Lent), a single letter being changed, we must read dies quadragesima (the fortieth day — namely after the Lord's Resurrection). The most recent editors of the Works of St. Augustine do not shrink from this opinion of ours, when in the notes to the same Letter they advise the following: One might suspect that we must read DIES QUADRAGESIMA ILLUXISSET, that is, the day of the Ascension: especially because Augustine nowhere here opposes the religion of the Lenten fast to the banquets and drinking-bouts to which the Catholics desired to give themselves, and to which the Donatists were given the whole of that day.

[305] Since our Elders have not mentioned St. Leontius, prelate of Hippo, and a few things are noted concerning St. Leontius. he seems here to have been unknown to them and to the ancient Martyrologists: for if that holy founder of the basilica of Hippo had been known to them from Sermon thirteen just now cited, they would at least have made mention of him among the Omitted, even if they were ignorant of his deeds. Although the most eminent Baronius did not insert this same holy prelate into the Roman Martyrology, nevertheless on another occasion he makes mention of him: but he wrongly attributes to him the bishopric of Tagaste, when on the XIII day of January, in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, he writes thus: Africa too has its holy Leontius, bishop of Tagaste, concerning whom St. Augustine speaks in Sermon XIII On Various Matters, and there also concerning the Leontine basilica so called from him. The most eminent man, in attributing to this holy Leontius the bishopric of Tagaste, evidently errs, as is clear from Letter XXIX already recited, to which this ancient title is prefixed: A letter of a presbyter of the Hipponenses-Regii to Alypius, bishop of the Tagastenses, on the birthday of Leontius, formerly bishop of Hippo. Further, Tillemont, tome XIII of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 211 and following, thinks that this bishop of Hippo flourished in the third century, and that his yearly festivity was constantly celebrated on the IV day of May. Wherefore Castellanus also, in the Corollary of his universal Martyrology, page 735, announces him on the IV day of May. Whatever be the case concerning the certain time of the age in which that holy prelate was illustrious, or the fixed day of the month on which his yearly solemnity was kept, Augustine in the year of Christ 395 strongly broke off that most evil custom which has furnished the matter for this digression. Finally our holy Presbyter by this illustrious exploit, and by other distinguished writings and deeds, obtained so great authority that Valerius, bishop of Hippo, resolved to take him to himself as a colleague, or partner of his dignity, as we shall see in the following paragraph.

perhaps hortatus* (exhorted)

perhaps sexus* (of sex) is missing

* others better: in the vernacular

§ XXII. The promotion of the Saint to the see of the church of Hippo, which he ruled together with Valerius, and the manner and time of this episcopal ordination.

The Saint is consecrated co-bishop while Valerius still lived, Since the illustrious name of St. Augustine grew more and more widely known every day, Valerius, prelate of Hippo, not without cause feared lest perchance he should be demanded as bishop by other churches of Africa, as holy Possidius will narrate in the Acts to be reprinted afterwards, number 16. Having therefore weighed this peril of losing him, the pious old man Valerius sought Augustine — whom he formerly desired to have as his successor — as a colleague, and brought it about with the other prelates of Africa that he should be made master of his wish, as we learn from Letter 36 among the Augustinian ones, which St. Paulinus addressed to Romanianus, and in which he writes thus to our purpose: We write this not only that congratulation is due because Augustine has received the episcopate, but because the African churches have deserved this care of God, that they should perceive heavenly words by the mouth of Augustine; who, advanced by a new manner to a greater grace of the Lord's gift, was so consecrated that he did not succeed to the chair, but was added to it: for while Valerius, bishop of the church of Hippo, is safe and sound, Augustine is co-bishop; and that blessed old man, whose most pure mind no stain of livid envy ever suffused, now receives from the Most High fruits worthy of the peace of his heart, so that he whom he suppliantly desired as the successor of his priesthood, he has deserved to hold as a colleague. But a twofold obstacle had to be removed before that matter was brought to its desired end, as we shall now relate.

[307] First, the humility of Augustine had to be overcome, who thought himself unworthy of the episcopal office. where examples persuaded him that other ordinations of this kind had preceded; He refused also to occupy the see of Hippo together with Valerius, because he probably knew that it was not the custom among Catholics that two prelates should sit in the same city and govern the same diocese. But at length, fearing lest he should resist the divine will, he yielded to the prayers of Valerius and the common desire of the whole clergy and people, especially since examples of a twofold prelate in the same city were brought forward, as he sufficiently intimates in Letter 34, addressed to Paulinus and Therasia, in these words: But by what care of the church I am held, your charity ought to attend from this: that the most blessed father Valerius — who how greatly he salutes you along with us, how greatly he thirsts for you, you will hear from the brethren — did not suffer me to be his presbyter, save by imposing on me the greater burden of the co-episcopate. Which indeed, because by his so great charity and by so great a zeal of the people I believed that the Lord willed it, some examples already preceding by which every excuse was shut off from me, I vehemently feared to excuse myself from.

[308] Whatever those examples of two bishops in the same city may have been, yet he afterwards repented of this consecration. which Augustine mentions in this place, the holy Prelate afterwards repented of that unlawful episcopal consecration, as he openly declared in the authentic instrument by which he designated the presbyter Eradius as his successor in the episcopate (it is now the hundred and tenth Letter of the Plantin edition), where after other things he thus addresses the clergy and people: I know what you also know; but I do not wish that to be done concerning him which

was done concerning me; but what was done, many of you know. Those alone do not know it who at that time either were not yet born, or had not yet the age for knowing. While my father and bishop of blessed memory, the old man Valerius, was still placed in the body, I was ordained bishop, and sat with him — which I did not know had been forbidden by the council of Nicæa, nor did he himself know it. What therefore was reproved in me, I do not wish to be reproved in my son… He will be a presbyter, as he is, and when God shall have willed it, a future bishop. Thus our Saint drew others back from the peril of erring, and at the same time betrayed the harmless candor of his own mind.

[309] Meanwhile Megalius, bishop of Calama and primate of Numidia, brought another impediment to this ordination, Before his consecration accused by Megalius of Calama and, being angry with Augustine (for what cause is not certainly known), was unwilling to confer episcopal consecration on him. Only this is established from authentic testimony, that Megalius at that time wrote a letter in which he accused Augustine of some matter wrongly done. Indeed I am not ignorant that Johannes Rivius, in the Life of our Saint, book 1, chapter 3, §1, confidently expressed the cause of this refusal in these words: Megalius was unwilling to ordain Augustine, alleging that a love-philtre had been given by him to a certain woman, her husband not only being aware but even favoring it; which he also signified to other bishops by letters. But this impudent calumny seems rather to be ascribed to Petilian the Donatist than to Megalius the Catholic prelate, as we gather from Augustine himself, who Against the Letters of that heretic, book 3, chapter 16, thus explodes this false accusation: Let him read the titles of my letters, inscribed by himself or by his people as it pleased them, and let him exult as though he had caught me in them, confessing that blessings of bread were given simply and cheerfully, and let him defame them by a ridiculous name and by venomous baseness and fury, and think so ill of our heart as to presume that it can be believed of him that love-charms were given to a woman, her husband not only being aware but even favoring it. What the future ordainer of my episcopate wrote of me in anger while I was still a presbyter, he wishes to avail against me; but that he sought and obtained pardon from the holy council for this, wherein he so sinned against us, he does not wish to avail for me — being thus either ignorant or forgetful of Christian meekness and of the Gospel precept, so that he makes a charge even out of that which was clemently pardoned to a brother humbly asking that it be pardoned him. The Saint by this manner of speaking probably intimates that that calumny of the philtre given was not excerpted from the letters of Megalius, but was rather fabricated by Petilian himself, who had hoped that so gross an accusation could be believed by the incautious adversaries of Augustine.

[310] concerning some uncertain matter, but absolved Nay rather, Cresconius the grammarian indicates that he himself did not know of what matter Megalius accused Augustine, when he objects to him these words: Not a few of our people hold the letter of your primate, in which he wrote I know not what about you, when he was unwilling that you should be ordained. Certainly this heretical calumniator, out of his hatred against Augustine, would not have kept silence about so base a crime, if it had been known to him from the letters of Megalius the primate. Whence our Saint in the same place, book 3 Against Cresconius, chapter 80, despises this letter, even if Megalius had persevered in his accusation, and briefly refutes that objection of his adversary in these words: But I should care very little for that (namely the letter of Megalius) not even if the plain sentence in our favor of him by whom it is said to have been written were not read, condemning that calumny and falsehood; how much less does the Catholic Church care for it, whose cause we plead against you — the Church which, relying on so many divine testimonies, no human testimonies about any man, whether true or false, deprive of the truth in which she rejoices. Cease from such things; I am one man: the cause of the Church is at issue between us, not mine: of the Church, I say, which has learned from her Redeemer to place her hope in no man.

[311] by the testimony even of his accuser, When a dissension had arisen between Felicianus and Primianus, Donatists, our Saint by an argument ad hominem, as it is commonly called, thus refutes the same objection of Cresconius the Donatist, in book 4 of the Work just cited, chapter 64: When I shall read that the letter of our primate — of which you made ^a mention with the same urbane obliquity — which he wrote about me in anger, when in a council of bishops he was pressed to prove what he had alleged, was condemned by the sentence of that very man correcting himself and asking pardon in this matter: do you seek whether you can read where Felicianus, corrected, condemned what he said against Primianus, not as accuser but as condemner; or at least whether Primianus himself annulled what he said as condemner against Felicianus. But if you should find it, not even so will the case be equal; because that man had instituted an accusation which, perceiving it to be false, he condemned with a request for pardon, not spurning the humility of amendment because of the dignity of the primacy, but rather prudently recalling what is written: "The greater you are, the more humble yourself in all things, and you shall find grace before God." But these men had not accused one another before others, but had sat as judges against one another; accordingly they had condemned one another, and, condemned, they came to agreement. We do not envy the peace of the condemned in the party of Donatus, if they do not also reject the peace of Christ throughout the world.

[312] Therefore by this public palinode of the primate the other impediment of the ordination was removed, and Augustine was consecrated bishop by Megalius himself, he is consecrated by the same Megalius. as we learn from the Breviculus of the conferences held with the Donatists over three days, where these heretics desired to gnaw at that consecration, as the holy Doctor himself narrates in chapter 7 of the third day in this manner: They asked also who had ordained Augustine, preparing I know not what calumnies, as was boasted. When he intrepidly answered them that he had been ordained by Megalius, who was at that time primate of the bishops of the Catholic Church in Numidia, and urged insistently that they should now bring forth what they had prepared, so that there too they might be shown to be calumnious, they twisted their intention to something else, returning to the person of Cæcilian, whom they said did not harm the Catholic Church, even if his crimes were shown to be true, and yet that even these could not be shown to be true. Now we shall briefly assign the more probable year of this consecration.

[313] Tillemont, tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 214 and especially page 975, proposes various difficulties concerning the time Although the year of the consecration at which St. Augustine was ordained bishop, which the French Benedictine Fathers, in the Acts of the same holy Doctor, book 4, chapter 1, number 4, have contracted into Latin in these words: This indeed was the promotion of Augustine, whose memory he yearly renewed… There is extant on this matter a discourse excellent beyond the rest, delivered to the people on the very day of his episcopal ordination, in which he says that the Lord's Nativity was at hand. This observation brings it about that no one would think that his consecration — which it has seemed good to refer to the end of this three hundred and ninety-fifth year — should be thrown back beyond the year three hundred and ninety-six; since indeed in the year three hundred and ninety-seven Augustine subscribed among the bishops to the sanctions of the third council of Carthage, celebrated on the first day of September or the twenty-eighth of August; at whose instigation also, as we have said, it was established in that synod that the decrees of the councils should be read beforehand to those to be ordained bishops or clerics.

[314] Yet lest that ordination be placed before the same year three hundred and ninety-six, labor under some difficulty, another observation seems to stand in the way; namely because, of the books which as bishop he elaborated at the very beginning, as he says, of his episcopate, the first are the two to Simplicianus of Milan, whom both in the dedicatory letter and at the beginning of the book he calls FATHER; with which title he can be thought to have adorned him because he had already succeeded Ambrose, who nevertheless did not depart from this life until the year three hundred and ninety-seven, on the day before the Nones of April. Wherefore, while Augustine's ordination is said to have preceded the three hundred and ninety-sixth year of Christ, it seems that we must confess that he passed nearly two years in idleness, with no lucubration published; which surely could scarcely be believed of that holy Doctor, who said that he placed the cares which he was bound to bestow on his brethren especially in this, that he should serve them above all with his tongue and his pen, which pair of horses charity drove in him.

[315] Even though this argumentation has its force, nevertheless the praised Benedictine Fathers, with Tillemont, more probably fix the episcopal consecration of St. Augustine in the year of Christ 395, because of the express testimony of St. Prosper, yet it does not seem that we should depart from the year 395. who in his Chronicle, under the consuls Olybrius and Probinus, writes thus: Augustine, disciple of the blessed Ambrose, a man excelling in much eloquence and learning, is ordained bishop at Hippo-Regius in Africa. Certainly the consulate of these two brothers falls in the year of Christ 395, as the consular Fasti and Cassiodorus confirm. Wherefore we too with most writers embrace this opinion, and in the same place with the praised Benedictine Fathers thus conclude: As many as have written the deeds of Augustine have held this so express authority, as a chronological epoch, ratified and fixed and by no means doubtful. And so, that we may not depart from it, we shall afterwards inquire at what time the books to Simplicianus were written, or why he, though still a presbyter, could be held worthy of the appellation of FATHER by Augustine, now a bishop.

[316] The joy of all good men at the exaltation of the Saint, For the rest, this promotion of Augustine to the episcopal dignity was received with the highest applause of all Catholic Africa, as abundantly appears from Letter 36 mentioned above, which St. Paulinus wrote to Romanianus, where after the other things already related he bursts forth into these glad utterances: Let us therefore exult and rejoice in Him who alone does marvelous things, and who makes men of one mind to dwell in a house, because He has regarded our lowliness, and has visited His people in good; who has raised up a horn in the house of David His servant, and now has exalted the horn of His church in His elect, that He may break the horns of sinners — that is, of the Donatists and Manichees — as He promises by the prophet. Would that now the trumpet of the Lord, with which He thunders through Augustine, might strike the ears of our son Licentius; but that he might hear it with that ear by which Christ enters, from which the enemy does not snatch the seed of God. Then truly will Augustine seem to himself the highest pontiff of Christ, because he will then feel himself heard by the Most High, if the one whom he begot worthy of himself in letters, this same one he may worthily bring forth as a son to himself in Christ: for even now, believe me, he has written to us about him with the most burning solicitude.

[317] but his own great solicitude But amid these and like applauses of those congratulating him, the elected Bishop was distressed, while he considered the heavy burden of the office imposed upon him, as we sufficiently plainly gather from Homily XXV, which he delivered on the anniversary day of his episcopal consecration, and which in tome 10 of the Plantin edition, page

173, thus begins: This present day, brethren, admonishes me to think more attentively upon my burden; concerning whose weight, even though I ought to think day and night, nevertheless in some way this anniversary day drives it upon my senses, so that I cannot at all dissemble the thinking of it: and the more the years come on — nay rather, go by — and make us nearer to the last day, which without doubt will surely come at some time, the sharper is my thought and the fuller the goad, as to what account I may be able to render to the Lord our God for you: for this is the difference between each one of you and us, that you are about to render an account almost of yourselves alone; but we both of ourselves and of all of you. Therefore the burden is greater; but well borne it procures a greater glory, while unfaithfully carried it hurls one down to a most monstrous punishment.

[318] on rightly discharging his office. What therefore must I chiefly do today, save commend to you my peril, that you may be my joy? But my peril is, if I attend to how you praise, and dissemble how you live: for He knows, under whose eyes I speak — nay, under whose eyes I think — that I am not so much delighted by popular praises as goaded and distressed as to how they live who praise me. But to be praised by those who live ill I do not wish, I shrink from, I detest; it is a grief to me, not a pleasure. But to be praised by those who live well — if I say I do not wish it, I lie: if I say I do wish it, I fear lest I be more desirous of emptiness than of solidity. What therefore shall I say? I neither fully wish it, nor fully refuse it. I do not fully wish it, lest I be endangered in human praise. I do not fully refuse it, lest those to whom I preach be ungrateful. Then he explains the difficulty of the episcopal office from the prophet Ezechiel in such a way as may terrify any shepherds of souls whatever. Finally he exhorts his hearers that by living piously they should lighten his burden, and, because the Lord's Nativity is at hand, that they should profitably feed upon the food of spiritual instruction which he offered to each and to all. The Saint also elsewhere very often, in public discourses or private letters, sets forth the burdensome load of his pastoral solicitude, and demands the prayers of his hearers or friends, that he may be able to bear it more easily and more usefully. Now we shall here imitate other biographers, and in some following paragraphs we shall depict the likeness of St. Augustine, now a bishop, in those colors which the holy Prelate himself will supply from his writings. But we shall furnish this only in passing in this place, and shall leave the ruder lineaments of our picture to be perfected by holy Possidius after this preliminary Commentary.

al., faultily, quia fecisset*

§ XXIII. The hidden state of his soul, which the Saint himself, now prelate of Hippo, declared in the tenth book of the Confessions.

For what cause the Saint wrote the books of the Confessions, The holy Doctor in the fourth or fifth year after his episcopal consecration wrote the books of the Confessions, in the first nine of which he narrates the offenses of his youth, and at last his conversion to God, as the reader will see in the first part of the Acts after this Commentary. Although the rash and suspicious Phereponus, in his heretical Animadversions, page 475, maliciously chatters about the motive of this lucubration, and, measuring Augustine by his own pride, charges him with vainglory or self-love, nevertheless we rather give credence to the holy Prelate himself, who in book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 3, indicates the cause of his public confession, thus addressing God: The confessions of my past evils, which Thou hast remitted and covered, that Thou mightest make me blessed in Thee, changing my soul by Thy faith and Thy sacrament — when they are read and heard, they arouse the heart, that it may not sleep in despair and say, I cannot; but that it may awake in the love of Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy grace, by which every weak man is strong, who through it becomes conscious to himself of his own weakness. And it delights the good to hear the past evils of those who are now free from them; nor does it delight because they are evils, but because they were, and are not.

[320] Moreover Augustine, being asked by certain persons that he should also disclose the then present state of his soul, and in them opened the state of his soul: added to the nine preceding books a tenth, in which, now a bishop, he ingenuously confesses the good and evil propensities of his mind. But why he satisfied this petition of his friends, he sets forth in the same place in the chapter just cited and at the beginning of the following one, where he again thus addresses God: With what fruit, therefore, O Lord my God, to whom my conscience daily confesses, more secure in the hope of Thy mercy than in its own innocence — with what fruit, I ask, do I also confess to men in Thy presence through these letters, still what I am, not what I was? For that fruit I have seen and commemorated. But what I still am, behold, at this very time of my confessions — and many desire to know this, who have known me and have not known me, who have heard something from me or about me… They wish therefore to hear me confessing what I am within, whither they can direct neither eye nor ear nor mind… But with what fruit do they wish it? Do they desire to congratulate me when they have heard how much I approach Thee by Thy gift, and to pray for me when they have heard how much I am retarded by my own weight? I will show myself to such men: for it is no small fruit, O Lord my God, that thanks be given Thee by many concerning us, and that Thou be entreated by many for us. Now therefore from this tenth book, than which no more certain testimony can be sought, we shall gather here and there certain inner sentiments of his mind.

[321] which indeed he does most humbly, First of all our holy Bishop discourses thus in chapters 27 and 28 concerning his charity toward God, which, begun too late, he desires to be perfected: Late have I loved Thee, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved Thee. And behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there I sought Thee, and, deformed, I rushed upon those shapely things which Thou hast made. Thou wert with me, and I was not with Thee. Those things held me far from Thee which, if they were not in Thee, would not be. Thou didst call and cry out, and didst break my deafness. Thou didst flash, Thou didst shine, and didst put my blindness to flight. Thou didst breathe fragrance, and I drew breath, and I pant for Thee. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace… When I shall cleave to Thee with all of me, there will altogether nowhere be for me grief and labor; and my life will be alive, wholly full of Thee. But now, since Thou liftest up him whom Thou fillest — because I am not full of Thee, I am a burden to myself; my joys that should be wept for contend with my sorrows that should be rejoiced in: … my evil sorrows contend with my good joys; and on which side the victory stands, I do not know. Woe is me, O Lord, have mercy on me. Woe is me! Behold, I do not hide my wounds. Thou art the Physician; I am sick. Thou art merciful; I am wretched… I desire prosperity amid adversity, I fear adversity amid prosperity. What middle place is there between these, where human life is not a temptation? The Saint by these sighs intimates that he ought to be moved neither by prosperity nor by adversity, if he possessed a pure love of God.

[322] confessing his nocturnal illusions, After Augustine had by the divine mercy betaken himself to good fruit, he so shrank from all wantonness that with a shamefaced and lowly mind he confessed even the nocturnal illusions which unwillingly he suffered in this matter, and instantly demanded from God the perfect gift of chastity, as appears from the thirtieth chapter of the same tenth book, which begins with these words: Thou certainly commandest that I refrain from the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the ambition of the world. Thou hast commanded me to refrain from concubinage; and concerning marriage itself Thou hast counseled something better than Thou hast conceded. And since Thou gavest it, it was done, even before I became a dispenser of Thy Sacrament. But there still live in my memory, of which I have spoken much, the images of such things which my habit fixed there; and they meet me when I am waking, indeed without strength; but in sleep not only up to delight, but even up to consent and to a deed most like the reality. And so much does the illusion of an image prevail in my soul and in my flesh, that false visions persuade me sleeping to what true ones cannot persuade me waking. Am I not then myself, O Lord my God? And yet there is so great a difference between myself and myself, within the moment in which I pass hence to sleep, or pass back hither from thence.

[323] which he from time to time suffered unwillingly; Where is then that reason by which the waking mind resists such suggestions, and, if the things themselves are pressed upon it, remains unshaken? Is it shut up with the eyes? Is it lulled asleep with the senses of the body? And whence is it that often even in sleep we resist, and, mindful of our purpose and most chastely abiding in it, give no assent to such enticements? And yet there is so great a difference that, when it happens otherwise, we return on waking to the rest of conscience, and by that very distance find that we did not do what nevertheless we grieve to have been in some way done in us. Is not Thy hand mighty, O God almighty, to heal all the languors of my soul, and by Thy more abundant grace to extinguish the lascivious motions even of my sleep? Thou wilt increase, O Lord, Thy gifts in me more and more, that my soul may follow me to Thee, disentangled from the birdlime of concupiscence, that it may not be rebellious against itself, and that in dreams also it may not only not perpetrate those basenesses of corruption through animal images even to the flowing of the flesh, but may not even consent: for that nothing of the kind should please, even so little as could be restrained by a nod, even in the chaste affection of one sleeping, not only in this life but even at this age, is no great thing for the Almighty, who art able to do above what we ask and understand. Yet now I have told my good Lord what I still am in this kind of my evil, exulting with trembling in that which Thou hast given me, and mourning in that which I am unfinished; hoping that Thou wilt perfect Thy mercies in me even to a full peace, which my inward and outward parts shall have with Thee, when death shall have been swallowed up in victory.

[324] In chapter 31 our Saint sets forth the incitements of gluttony, to which from time to time he was stirred, the incitements of gluttony, in these words: There is another evil of the day, which would that it were sufficient for it. For we daily repair the ruins of the body by eating and drinking, until Thou destroy both meats and belly, when Thou shalt slay my want with a marvelous satiety, and clothe this corruptible with everlasting incorruption. But now the necessity is sweet to me, and against that sweetness I fight, lest I be captured, and I wage a daily war in fastings, more often reducing my body into servitude; and my pains are driven out by pleasure: for hunger and thirst are certain pains; they burn, and like a fever they kill, unless the medicine of nourishments comes to the rescue.

And since it is at hand from the consolation of Thy gifts, in which earth and water and heaven serve our weakness, calamities are called delights. This Thou hast taught me, that I should approach to take food as I take medicines.

[325] But while I pass over to the quiet of satiety from the trouble of want, which because of the necessity of nourishing the body in the very passage the snare of concupiscence lies in wait for me: for the passage itself is a pleasure; and there is no other by which one may pass, than that by which necessity compels one to pass. And though health be the cause of eating and drinking, a perilous pleasantness joins itself as a handmaid; and for the most part it strives to go before, so that for its sake there may be done what I either say or wish to do for health's sake. Nor is the measure of both the same: for what is enough for health is too little for delight. And often it becomes uncertain whether the still necessary care of the body asks for support, or whether a voluptuary deceit of desire is supplying its service. At this uncertainty the unhappy soul grows cheerful, and in it prepares the patronage of an excuse, rejoicing that it does not appear what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretext of health it may overshadow the business of pleasure. These temptations I daily strive to resist, and I invoke Thy right hand for my salvation, and refer my tossings to Thee, because I have as yet no settled counsel in this matter. I hear the voice of my God commanding: "Let not your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness." Drunkenness is far from me; Thou wilt have mercy, that it come not near me. But surfeit sometimes creeps upon Thy servant.

[326] he could not so perfectly overcome, In this closing clause the malevolent Phereponus thinks that he has found clear matter for carping at, or rather for deriding, St. Augustine, and therefore in the Animadversions mentioned, in the medley of his heresy, page 475, he noted the following upon this text: He was not indeed a drunkard, so as to be given to wine; but sometimes nevertheless he drank enough wine that surfeit was troublesome to him. For crapula is the same in Latin as κραιπάλη in Greek, that is, the pain of the head which remains from yesterday's drinking-bout. But the anonymous theologian of Cambridge, whom we alleged above in §12, on page 32 and following refutes that frivolous observation of the proud trifler in this manner: But Phereponus might not have been ignorant that surfeit creeps in also from foods, especially when the stomach is languid and tottering from lack of food, such as was Augustine's, who waged war in fastings, more often reducing his body into servitude, as he narrates in the same place. Isidore certainly, book XX, chapter II, unskilfully enough indeed, wishes CRAPULA to be so called as it were CRUDA EPULA (raw feast), by whose rawness the heart is weighed down and the stomach is made undigested. And since Isidore lived in the century next after Augustine, this is argument enough that in Augustine's time the ailment called CRAPULA was from food, not from drink.

[327] so that a rawness of the stomach did not sometimes creep in; To these add that in the Lives of the Fathers of Merida, which were written at the beginning of the seventh century, in the most eminent Aguirre, tome 2 of the Councils of Spain, page 641, a certain gluttonous monk is said by Paul, deacon of Merida, to be already surfeited with excessive food. From this manner of speaking we gather that the ailment of the stomach which arises from too much or too raw food is called also crapula among ancient authors. And it might easily have come about that Augustine sometimes ate a little more than necessity demanded, or than his weak stomach could bear, especially since he was of infirm health, as we shall see in the following paragraph. Meanwhile let the severer Aristarchuses, like the hypercritical Phereponus, cease to reprove or to hiss off the distinguished Doctor of the Church for this light fault: for we shall willingly number this or a like surfeit arising from too much food, or even drink, if they so wish, among his lesser offenses. But we are so kind toward those rigid censors of another's fault on this condition, that after the example of St. Augustine they should wage a daily war in fastings against intemperance, and reduce their body into servitude, lest surfeit creep upon them. But if the more delicate fellows or followers of Phereponus shrink from afflictions of the body of this kind, as they are wont, and go on to despise the holy Man for this human frailty, they will imitate those austere chastisers of others of whom Christ said in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 23, verses 23 and 24: Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law, judgment and mercy and faith: these you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel. Now from this brief digression we return to our way.

[328] and the temptation of vainglory, Then the holy Doctor in some following chapters of the same tenth book of the Confessions subtly examines the enticements of the five senses, humbly acknowledging himself guilty in certain affections of lighter moment, and at length in chapter 37 reasons thus concerning the love of one's own praise: We are tempted by these temptations daily, O Lord, without ceasing we are tempted. Our daily furnace is the human tongue. Thou commandest us continence in this kind also. Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt. Thou knowest concerning this matter the groaning of my heart to Thee, and the rivers of my eyes. For I do not easily gather how far I am cleansed from that plague, and I greatly fear my hidden things, which Thy eyes know, but mine do not: for in other kinds of temptations I have some faculty of exploring myself; in this there is almost none… I beseech Thee, my God, and show me to myself, that I may confess to my brethren, who are to pray for me, what I shall have found wounded in myself. Let me again question myself more diligently. If I am moved by my neighbor's profit in my praises, why am I less moved if some other man be unjustly reviled, than if I be? Why am I more stung by that insult which is cast at me, than by that which is cast with the same iniquity at another in my presence? Do I not know this too? Does it even remain that I should seduce myself, and not do the truth before Thee in my heart and my tongue? Put that madness far from me, O Lord, lest my own mouth be to me the oil of a sinner to fatten my head. Needy and poor am I, and better in a hidden groaning, displeasing to myself and seeking Thy mercy, until my defect be repaired and perfected unto that peace which the eye of the arrogant knows not.

[329] Finally in chapters 38 and 39 he thus treats of the temptation of vainglory and self-love: [which he confesses he does not lack, showing at the same time by these things how solicitously he searched out his least defects.] But speech proceeding from the mouth, and deeds which become known to men, have a most perilous temptation from the love of praise, which for the sake of a certain private excellence gathers up begged-for votes. It tempts even when it is censured by me in myself, by the very fact that it is censured; and often a man glories the more vainly about his very contempt of vainglory; and therefore he no longer glories about the contempt of vainglory itself: for he does not despise it, when he glories within… There is also within another evil in the same kind of temptation, by which those become empty who please themselves about themselves, although they either please or displease others, and do not aim at pleasing the rest. But those pleasing themselves greatly displease Thee, not only about things not good as though good, but even about Thy good things as though their own; or even as about Thine, yet as from their own merits; or even as from Thy grace, yet not according to their merits — nevertheless not rejoicing in fellowship, but envying it to others. In all these and such perils and labors Thou seest the trembling of my heart; but I feel that my wounds are rather healed by Thee from time to time than not inflicted upon me. From the things related thus far the learned reader will doubtless conclude that St. Augustine was of a more tender and timorous conscience after he had attained the dignity of the episcopate, since at that time he searched out so diligently the inmost recesses of his heart, everywhere dreaded fault, and humbly acknowledged even the least blemishes. Hence we proceed to indicate the outward manners of the same Saint.

§ XXIV. The outward endowments of nature and of grace with which the holy Prelate was furnished, and the infirm health of his body.

The gifts of nature, and a vast knowledge of all things, God, the most munificent bestower of all good things, had adorned Augustine with a subtle wit, a happy memory, and various gifts of nature, so that he was reckoned among the most learned men of his age. Moreover from his very youth he began to read poets, philosophers, historians, and writers of divers other kinds, and by assiduous study he acquired a vast knowledge of various matters, which in the books On the City of God and in many other of his writings he displays everywhere. Whence in book 2 On Christian Doctrine, chapter 28, he commends the knowledge of chronology in these words: Whatever therefore that which is called history indicates concerning the order of past times helps us very much toward understanding the sacred Books, even if it be learned outside the Church by boyish schooling. For both by Olympiads and by the names of Consuls many things are often inquired by us; and ignorance of the Consulate in which the Lord was born, and in which He suffered, has compelled some to err, so that they thought the Lord suffered at the age of forty-six years, because it was said by the Jews that the temple, which had the image of the Lord's body, had been built through so many years. And that He was baptized at about thirty years of age we hold by Evangelical authority. But how many years afterwards He passed in this life, although it can be observed from the very text of His actions, nevertheless, lest a mist of doubt should arise from elsewhere, is more clearly and certainly gathered from the history of the nations compared with the Gospel. He confirms this in the same place by the example of Ambrose the bishop, who evidently refuted certain rash praisers of Plato from the history of the time.

[331] which he used against the heathen The holy Doctor in the same book shows here and there that the liberal arts of the heathen and the very fables of the poets are useful to Christians, and proves their lawful use there in chapter 40 by this comparison: But those who are called philosophers, if perchance they have said anything true and accommodated to our faith — especially the Platonists — not only are not to be feared, but are even to be claimed from them, as from unjust possessors, for our own use. For just as the Egyptians had not only idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel detested and fled, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver and raiment, which that people, going forth from Egypt, secretly claimed for itself as for a better use — not by its own authority, but by the precept of God, the Egyptians themselves unknowingly lending those things which they were not using well — so all the doctrines of the heathen have not only feigned and superstitious figments and heavy burdens of superfluous labor, which each one of us, going out from the society of the heathen with Christ as leader, ought to abominate

and avoid; but they also contain liberal disciplines more apt for the use of truth, and certain most useful precepts of morals, and some true things are found among them concerning the worship of the one God Himself; which of theirs is, as it were, gold and silver, which they did not themselves institute, but dug out from certain mines, as it were, of divine providence, which is everywhere infused, and which they perversely and injuriously abuse for the services of demons — this the Christian, when he separates himself in mind from their wretched society, ought to take away from them for the just use of preaching the Gospel.

[332] Their raiment also, that is, the institutions of men indeed, but nevertheless accommodated to human society, and against heretics: which in this life we cannot do without, it will be lawful to take and to have to be converted to Christian use: for what else have many good faithful men of ours done? Do we not see with how much gold and silver and raiment Cyprian, that most sweet doctor and most blessed martyr, came laden out of Egypt? With how much Lactantius? With how much Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary? To say nothing of the living, with how much innumerable Greeks? Which the most faithful servant of God, Moses, had himself done before, of whom it is written that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Our Saint imitated these defenders of the orthodox faith, and usefully applied the profane learning of the heathen, which he had learned as a boy and a youth, to the converting of pagans and heretics. Thus in book 20 Against Faustus, chapter 9, he compares the ravings of the Manichees with the fables of the poets, and demonstrates that their dogmas are worse than the heathen superstitions. Thus also in Letter 44 he learnedly refutes, out of the poet Virgil, Maximus of Madaura, a pagan, who in the preceding letter had exposed the Christian religion to mockery, and after other things answers him in these words: If it delights you to laugh, you have among you ours great matter of jests: the god Stercutius, the goddess Cloacina, the bald Venus, the god Fear, the god Pallor, the goddess Fever, and countless others of this kind, to which the ancient Romans, worshippers of images, made temples and judged that they should be worshipped: which if you neglect, you neglect the Roman gods. In the books On the City of God he more fully explodes these and like superstitions of the heathen from Roman history.

[333] Moreover St. Augustine, by his practice of the rhetorical art, his notable eloquence, which he had formerly taught at Carthage, at Rome, and at Milan, had procured for himself so great a fame of eloquence that Darius the count vehemently desired to hang upon his lips as he preached, and wrote to him thus in Letter 263: Would that, holy lord Father, as my name has been carried to your ears through the kindly favor toward me of your fellow-bishops, as you say, Urbanus and Novatus, so the God of all, your God, had offered me myself to your hands and eyes,… that I might have taken the truest and immortal fruits of your heavenly wisdom rather from your mouth, like the sweetness of some pure water, from the very present and perpetual flow of the fountain. O how blessed am I, not merely thrice or four times, as it is in I know not what author, but a thousand times and more than any number, if it had been granted me to behold in your presence your truly starlike countenance, and if it had been permitted to take and drink in your voice, divine and singing divine things — and not only the fruits of the mind, but also with the delight of the ears! I should surely think that I was receiving certain laws of immortality not only from heaven, but being established in heaven itself, and hearing certain voices of God not far from the temple, but standing close by the very tribunal of God.

[334] But if those praises proceed by hyperbole from an excessive affection of the heart, and praised even by his own adversaries, such as they also seemed to St. Augustine, let us hear Secundinus the Manichee, who cannot be suspected of a like benevolence toward him. Although this heretic in his Letter, which in the Plantin edition among us is in tome VI, page 217, sharply reproves Augustine and endeavors to lead him back to the sect of the Manichees, nevertheless he is compelled to praise his eloquence in this manner: Change your opinion, I beg; lay aside the perfidy of the Punic race, and turn back your withdrawal to the truth, which was made through fear. Do not excuse yourself with these lies: for my slender wit, and such as it is, the wit of a Roman man, has read some of the writings of your reverend dignity, in which you are so angry with the truth as Hortensius was with philosophy. And so, when I had gone over these again and again with suspended mind and agile eye, I found everywhere a supreme orator, and almost a god of all eloquence; but nowhere did I find a Christian, and one indeed armed against all things, but affirming nothing, whereas you ought rather to have shown yourself skilled in knowledge, not in speech… For I confess that the marbles of the Anician house do not gleam with such diligence, nor with so great industry, as your writings shine through with eloquence. Had you been willing to make this agree with truth, it would surely have stood forth as a great ornament to us. The holy Prelate, in the same place, page 219 and following, refuting this letter of Secundinus, shows that he is strong in no less knowledge than eloquence.

[335] which nevertheless he did not affect in a childish way, Although our Saint was eloquent and exceedingly skilled in the Latin tongue, nevertheless he did not affect elegance of Latinity after the childish fashion of certain Grammarians, who disputed scrupulously about a less Latin word or its inflection as though about a matter of great moment. Whence in book 2 Against Cresconius the Grammarian, chapter 1, concerning the name of the Donatists, which this man contended had been wrongly given to his fellows by Augustine, he answers thus in passing: Hear then, Cresconius, while I briefly show this also: that you have said nothing in your whole letter by which you might refute mine, save perhaps that you have taught me to derive or decline nouns, so as to say Donatians rather than Donatists from Donatus, which nevertheless you concede to be at least a Greek declension — namely that Donatists are so named from Donatus as Evangelists from the Gospel, wherein you say you take delight, since by a similar change the declension of the word has been made for those of yours who preach the Gospel. See therefore whether perhaps they themselves formerly wished to be so called, because they have Donatus for a Gospel;… and rather you do them an injury, when, writing in Latin speech and approving only the Latin rule, you would have them called Donatians from Donatus, as Arians and Novatians from Arius and Novatus.

[336] despising the minutiae Then by the example of Demosthenes he shows that this is a futile question about a name, and therefore willingly concedes the palm to his adversary, who disputes about goat's wool, in chapter 2 of the same book, in these words: But in a matter in which nothing of our cause is diminished, I show myself most easy, and when I deal with you, I now say Donatians; but when with others, I rather follow custom, which rightly rules over these sounds. Only remember that I, to whom you have attributed so great eloquence, do not yet know how to decline nouns, and announce security to your people, that they may no longer fear me as a dialectician, for whom you see a grammarian is still necessary. But if the discipline of disputing, whether you wish to call it dialectic or something else, teaches soberly enough that, when the matter is agreed, there is no need to labor about the name — just as I do not care whether that very thing be called dialectic, yet I do care, so far as I am able, to know and be able to dispute, that is, to distinguish truth from falsehood in speaking, because unless I care for this I shall err perniciously: so I do not care whether you be more skilfully and more literately declined Donatists or Donatians… But if I do not diligently take care to demonstrate that you are heretics, and therefore most cautiously to be avoided lest you deceive, I shall incur no small blame of negligence for the burden of my office.

[337] Certainly the holy Doctor cared more for the clear signification of words of the Grammarians, than for their polished Latinity, as he indicates in book 3 On Christian Doctrine, chapter 3, by this explanation of a certain doubtful word: There is also an ambiguity in the doubtful sound of syllables; and this indeed pertains to pronunciation: for as to what is written, "My bone is not hidden from Thee, which Thou hast made in secret," it does not appear to the reader whether he should pronounce os with the letter shortened or lengthened. For if he shortens it, it is understood as the singular number of that whose plural is OSSA (bones); but if he lengthens it, of that whose plural is ORA (mouths). But such things are decided by inspection of the preceding language: for in the Greek not στόμα but ὀστέον is set down. Whence for the most part the common custom of speaking is more useful for signifying things than literary correctness. For I should prefer that it be said with a barbarism, "My ossum is not hidden from Thee," than that it should on that account be less plain because it is more Latin. Thus also in Tract 2 on the Gospel of John, upon the word sanguinibus (bloods), which among the Latins is not used in the plural number, he briefly observes the following: "Bloods" is not Latin. But because it was set down in the plural in the Greek, he who was translating preferred so to set it down, and, as it were, to speak less Latinly according to the Grammarians, and yet to explain the truth according to the hearing of the weak; for if he said "blood" in the singular number, he would not explain what he wished: for men are born from the bloods of male and female. Let us speak therefore, and let us not fear the rods of the grammarians, provided that we arrive at a solid and more certain truth.

[338] Although the holy Prelate was more solicitous about the truth of things but by which he was terrible to the heretics, than about the elegance of words, nevertheless against the heretics he discoursed so ornately and acutely that the Donatists did not dare to dispute with him, and said that he was to be avoided by their followers because of his eloquence and dialectic. But the holy Doctor in book 1 Against the above-mentioned Cresconius, chapter 13 and following, abundantly refuted these imprudent calumniators, and evidently showed by various examples that the Donatists themselves, the Apostle Paul, and even Christ the Lord had everywhere used dialectic. Nay rather, our Saint, in order to shut off from his adversaries every escape of evasion, trusting more in the goodness of his cause than in his skill in disputing, invites Proculianus, bishop of the Donatists, to institute a peaceful disputation with a Catholic prelate who was unskilled in the liberal arts, as appears from the end of Letter 168, where he writes the following to Eusebius: For me the whole reasoning of this question is chiefly with Proculianus. But if perchance he thinks himself unequal, let him implore the help of whichever of his colleagues he will… And yet I do not sufficiently understand what this man, who calls himself a bishop of so many years, should fear in me, a raw recruit, so as to be unwilling to confer discourse with me.

[339] If he does not know the learning of liberal letters, who declined to dispute with him. which perhaps he either did not learn, or learned less, what has this to do with that question which is to be discussed either from the holy Scriptures or from ecclesiastical or public documents, in which he has been occupied for so many years, whence he ought to be the more skilled in them? Finally, here is my brother and colleague Samsucius, bishop of the church of Turres, who has learned none of those things which this man is said to dread. Let him be present, let him deal with him. I will ask him, and, as I trust in the name of Christ, he will easily concede to me,

that he take my place in this matter; and the Lord, as we trust, will help him as he contends for the truth — unskilled in speech though he be, yet learned in true faith. There is therefore no cause why he should refer the matter to I know not what others, so that we should not carry through between ourselves what pertains to ourselves. Nor yet, as I have said, do I flee even from those, if he himself asks their help. Further, from this very dread of the Donatists we conclude that St. Augustine's ornate copiousness of speech and acute subtlety of discourse, and his other endowments, were so great and so terrible to the heretics that they neither dared nor were able to resist his solid arguments. Wherefore the obstinate men only calumniated in a general way those things to which they could not reply.

[340] A most tender Perhaps because of his assiduous study of letters, or because of the natural constitution of his body, our holy Bishop enjoyed so tender and so little firm a health that he could not even bear the African cold. Wherefore in Letter 227, written to Albinus read Albina, Pinianus, and Melianus read Melania, besides other excuses he alleges the harshness of winter, on account of which he could not visit them as they were staying at Tagaste. Hence also he replies thus in Letter 251 to Nobilius, a bishop, who had invited him to the dedication of his church: So great is the solemnity to which the affection of your fraternity invites me, that my will would drag my poor little body to you, if infirmity did not hold it back. I could come, if it were not winter; I could despise the winter, if I were young: for either the fervor of youth would bear the rigor of the season, or the fervor of summer would temper the cold of age. As it is, in winter I cannot endure so long a journey with the chilly old age which I carry with me.

[341] constitution of body, For the same cause he was always compelled to abstain from distant journeys, especially those across the sea, as he indicates in Letter 138 to the people of Hippo, before whom he thus excuses his absence: First of all I ask your charity, and beseech you through Christ, that my bodily absence may not sadden you: for in spirit and in the affection of the heart I think you do not doubt that I can in no way depart from you, although it saddens me more, perhaps, than it does you yourselves, that my infirmity cannot suffice for all the cares which the members of Christ demand of me, whom both His fear and His charity compel me to serve. For let your love know this, that I have never been absent by a licentious liberty, but by a necessary servitude, which has often compelled my holy brethren and colleagues to sustain even labors by sea and beyond the sea, from which not any lack of devotion of mind, but a less fit health of body, has always excused me.

[342] and frequent To this weak habit of body were sometimes added diseases, concerning which our Saint writes thus in Letter 149 to Profuturus: According to the spirit, so far as it pleases the Lord and He Himself deigns to supply strength, we are well; but in body I am in bed: for I can neither walk nor stand nor sit, from the pain and swelling of rhagades or exochades. But even so, since it pleases the Lord, what else is to be said save that we are well? For rather, if we do not will that which He wills, we are to be blamed, than that He is to be thought to do or to permit anything not rightly. You know all these things; but because you are to me another self, what should I more willingly speak with you, than what I speak with myself? We commend therefore both our days and our nights to your holy prayers, that you may pray for us, that we may not use our days intemperately; that we may bear our nights with an even mind; that even if we walk in the midst of the shadow of death, the Lord may be with us. Now rhagades or exochades are certain oblong ulcers or fissures about the anus, concerning which Gorræus in the Medical Definitions, at these words, pages 146 and 400, may be consulted. Elsewhere, at the end of the longer Letter 56, he signifies to Dioscorus that he had labored under a disturbance of health and under fevers.

[343] By these and like diseases the feeble strength of his body was daily diminished, diseases. and hence Augustine had grown old before his time, as he intimates publicly before the people of Hippo in Sermon 49 On Various Matters, by this closing of his discourse: I have spoken much; pardon a talkative old age, but a timid infirmity. I, as you see, have already grown old by age; but by the infirmity of my body I was long since an old man. This weakness of health was known everywhere to his friends, and he sets it forth to Cæcilianus in Letter 259 in these words: But as to what I read in your letter — that you are already compelled to believe that you would not be seen by me, and that I had been denied to Carthage — you rather compel me by these words not to keep silence about the causes of my absence; one of which is that I can no longer sustain the labor which must be endured in that city, and which, if I wished to set it forth, would require as much again to be said; and that to my own infirmity, which is known to all who have known me more familiarly, there has been added also old age, which is the common infirmity of the human race. This also without doubt the praised count Darius knew, seeing that at the end of Letter 263 cited above he thus advises the holy Prelate concerning certain remedies for his disease, prescribed by an experienced physician and sent by himself: We have given certain medicaments, received from Arriater al. archiater — chief physician, who is with us, to Zazapus the sacred presbyter, to be carried to your blessedness, which, as the man mentioned affirms, will profit not a little toward the alleviation of pain and the cure of the disease. From all that has been said in this paragraph we gather that Augustine's weak little body was animated by a robust spirit. Now we proceed to the domestic converse of the same Saint.

al. commodantibus* (lending)

al. vos* (you)

al. sanguines*

* read Albina

* read Melania

al. archiatro*

§ XXV. The common and domestic life of the holy Prelate with his clerics, and their profession and origin.

The Saint sets forth the manner On the occasion of a certain offense and calumny, the holy Bishop was compelled to defend his own reputation and that of his housemates, and publicly to set forth to the people of Hippo his domestic manner of living. He performed this especially in two discourses, from which we shall here excerpt those things which more closely pertain to our purpose. Therefore in Sermon 49 On Various Matters he begins among other things to declare the common discipline of his congregation in this manner: You all know, or almost all, that we so live in that house which is called the bishop's house, that so far as we can we imitate those Saints of whom the book of the Acts of the Apostles speaks: "No one said that anything was his own, but all things were common to them." Because perhaps some of you are not such diligent searchers of our life as to know this in the way I wish you to know it, I say what it is that I have said briefly… I came to the episcopate; I saw that a bishop must show assiduous courtesy to all who come or pass by. And if I had not done this, I should be called an inhuman bishop. But if that custom were permitted in a monastery, it would be unseemly. And therefore I wished to have with me in that house of the bishop a monastery of clerics. The most recent editors of the Augustinian Works observed something on this variant reading missa for permissa, which also the Reverend Lord Canon Regular surnamed le Large, in his Disquisitions on the Order of Canons, printed in Latin at Paris in the year 1697, page 182, judged worthy of note.

[345] in which he lived in common Further, the holy Doctor in the same sermon proceeds thus to our purpose: Behold how we live. It is lawful for no one in our society to have anything of his own. But perhaps some have. It is lawful for no one: if any have, they do what is not lawful. But I think well of my brethren, and always believing well, I have refrained from this inquiry; because even to inquire into such things seemed like thinking ill: for I knew and know that all who lived with me knew our purpose, knew the law of our life… Indeed let your charity know this also, that I have said to my brethren who remain with me, that whoever has anything should either sell it, or spend it, or give it away, and make it common. He has the Church, through which God feeds us. I have given a delay until the Epiphany for the sake of those who have either not divided with their brothers and have left what they have with their brothers, or have not yet done anything about their property, because the lawful age was being awaited. Let them do with it what they will, provided only that they be poor with me, awaiting together the mercy of God.

[346] with his clerics, Certainly it was I who had determined, as you know, to ordain no cleric save one who wished to remain with me; so that if he wished to depart from the purpose, I should rightly take away his clerical office from him, because he would be deserting the promised and begun fellowship of a holy society. Behold, in the sight of God and of you, I change my counsel. Those who wish to have anything of their own, for whom God and His church do not suffice, let them remain where they will and where they can; I do not take away their clerical office from them. I do not wish to have hypocrites: for who does not know that it is an evil thing? It is an evil to fall from one's purpose; but it is worse to feign a purpose. Behold I say, hear: He who deserts the society of common life once undertaken, which is praised in the Acts of the Apostles, falls from his vow, and falls from a holy profession. Let him look, that is, to God as judge, not to me. I do not take away his clerical office from him. How great the peril is, I have set before his eyes; let him do what he will: for I know that if I should wish to degrade anyone doing this, patrons will not be lacking to him, supporters will not be lacking to him both here and among the bishops, who will say: What evil has he done? He cannot endure that life with you. He wishes to remain outside the episcopal house, and to live on his own; therefore he ought not to lose his clerical office.

[347] and their poverty I know how great an evil it is to profess something holy and not to fulfill it. "Vow," he says, "and render to the Lord your God." And it is better not to vow than to vow and not to render. A virgin, even if she has never been in a monastery, is yet a consecrated virgin, and it is not lawful for her to marry, although she is not compelled to be in a monastery. But if she has begun to be in a monastery, and has deserted it, and yet is a virgin, she has half fallen. So too a cleric has professed two things, both holiness and the clerical office. Inwardly holiness: for the clerical office God has imposed on his neck for the sake of his people, to whom it is more a burden than an honor. But who is wise and shall understand these things? Therefore he has professed holiness, he has professed the society of living in common, and he has professed how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in one. If he shall have fallen from this purpose, and remaining outside shall be a cleric, he too has half fallen. What is that to me? I do not judge him. If outside he keeps holiness, he has half fallen. But if within he shall have had dissimulation, he has wholly fallen. I do not wish him to have the necessity of dissembling. I know how men

love the clerical office: I take it away from no one who is unwilling to live in common with me. But he who wishes to remain with me has God. If he is prepared to be fed by God through His church, he ought to have nothing of his own; but either to spend it on the poor, or to put it into the common stock; let him remain with me. He who does not wish this, let him have liberty, and let him see whether he can have the eternity of happiness.

[348] The holy Doctor in Sermon 50 On Various Matters again renders an account of his clerics to the people of Hippo, he defends them against certain persons, as he had before promised, and defends their poverty against certain detractors in these words: All my brethren and clerics who dwell with me — presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, and Patricius my nephew — I have found such as I desired. But there are those who, concerning their poverty such as it is, have not yet done what they had determined. These are Valens the deacon, and my nephew, the subdeacon just now mentioned. But his mother's life was a hindrance, because she lived on it. In his case also the arrival of the lawful age was awaited, so that what he did he might do most firmly: but he has not yet done it, because he holds those small fields in common with his brother, and they possess them undivided… But my nephew, from the time he was converted and began to be with me, was himself hindered from doing anything about his little fields, since his mother, the usufructuary, was unwilling, and she died this year. Between him and his sister there are certain matters soon to be settled with Christ's help, so that he too may do what befits a servant of God. In the same place he subjoins the like impediments of some who were already poor in desire, even though they had not hitherto been able to dispose of their means, which he pledges will shortly be relinquished by them.

[349] Hence he admonishes his hearers not to call his clerics rich on account of this administration of a brief time or the report of wealth once possessed, who said that they were rich: since many are already truly most poor: The rest, that is, the subdeacons, he says, are poor, God being propitious, and they await the mercy of God. Whence they have nothing to make disposition of, and, having no means, they have ended the desires of the world. They live with us in a common society, and no one distinguishes them from those who have brought something. The unity of charity is to be preferred to the advantage of an earthly inheritance. There remain the presbyters: for so I wished to ascend to them by degrees. I would say it quickly: they are God's poor. They have brought nothing into the house of our society, save that charity itself, than which nothing is dearer. Nevertheless, because I know that rumors have arisen about their riches, they are not to be compelled by me to anything, but are to be cleared to you by my discourse. I say to you who perhaps do not know: for very many of you know that the presbyter Leporius, although illustrious in worldly birth and born among his own in a most honorable station, nevertheless, already serving God and having left all that he had, I received in poverty; not because he had nothing, but because he had already done what that Reading (namely the reading from the Acts of the Apostles which had preceded at the beginning of the discourse) urges. He did not do it here; but we know where he did it. The unity of Christ and of the church is one, wherever he did the good work. Then he demonstrates one by one that Leporius spent all his means on pious causes.

[350] Moreover he asks the people of Hippo that the alms he did not want clerics who would not live in common. which they wish to bestow on the poor clerics should rather be given to the congregation than to individual members of it, for the reason that they ought to be common to all. Finally the Saint here again renews and confirms the first sentence which he had resolved to pronounce against deserters of the established society or violators of the prescribed poverty — namely the removal of the clerical office — and which he had afterwards mitigated, in these words: Whoever shall have wished to have property of his own and to live on his own, and to act against these our precepts: it is too little for me to say, he shall not remain with me; but he shall not even be a cleric. For I had said (and I know that I said it) that if anyone were unwilling to take up the common life with me, I would not take away their clerical office from them; but that they should remain apart, and live apart, as they knew how, and live to God. And yet I set before their eyes how great an evil it is to fall from one's purpose: for I preferred to have the blind or the lame, rather than to mourn the dead. For he who is a hypocrite is dead. As therefore I would not take away his clerical office from whoever had wished to remain outside and live on his own: so now, because this common life has pleased them, God being propitious, whoever shall have lived with hypocrisy, whoever shall be found having property of his own, I do not permit him to make a will of it, but I will erase him from the roll of the clerics. Let him appeal against me to a thousand councils; let him sail against me whither he will; let him certainly be where he can — God will help me, that where I am bishop, there he cannot be a cleric.

[351] That these clerics of Augustine were bound by vows, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Petrus Aurelius, and Onuphrius Camaianus, advocate of the sacred consistorial court, and other writers who are cited by the most learned Gabriele Pennotto and Louis Thomassin, draw from these two discourses of Augustine that the clerics who were housemates of our holy Prelate were not bound by vows to lead this religious and common life. Gerard Moringus also seems tacitly to favor this opinion, when in the above-mentioned Life of St. Augustine he makes no mention of a vow, and in the same place, §23, writes thus concerning those clerics: But I think that Augustine's clerics were such as in early times bishops also in other places took to themselves. I do not now delay over what name they were called by, whether monks or otherwise. For the bishops of the early age were wont to take into their household some men of approved piety and learning, with whom they lived in common after the Apostolic life of the infant Church, singing to God at fixed hours, fleeing all worldly noise, spending all their leisure upon the divine letters and sacred prayers. But if more desired to live in that manner with the bishop than his house could hold, they were lodged nearby; but so that they should be at hand for the bishop and his household, whenever the divine service was performed, singing and praying together with them and taking food.

[352] against some who deny it, But further, as the multitude increased daily, so that all could not dwell around the bishop, they were lodged in other places under the same institute in all things, under the rule of a provost, who began to be called dean, and who thereafter was subject to the bishop; so that it is very likely that these were the first rudiments of the canons of our time; which even now the cloisters built in a circuit not obscurely argue — those which today in most places we see as appendages to the chief churches, although the kind of common life has fallen out of use with time. And these things may be gathered from the writings of the ancient fathers and from the early histories, in very many places, over the producing of which I ought not to delay here, lest I should not be doing what I am doing, as the proverb says. Moringus by this manner of speaking seems to liken those clerics of St. Augustine rather to secular canons, as they are now commonly surnamed, than to Regular canons or Religious, since he makes no mention of a stable profession or of vows. However that may be, most others judge that those housemates of the holy Prelate at least implicitly made the three substantial vows of Religion.

[353] Let there be heard, out of all, the most learned presbyter of the Gallican Oratory, Thomassin, Thomassin proves it who is in no way suspect of partisan zeal, and who in the Old and New Discipline of the Church, part 1, book 3, chapter 3, number 10, thus delivers his judgment on that controversy: But as to those who have supposed that the clerics of the Augustinian seminary were bound by no vow, by no bond — as may now be seen in the presbyters of the Oratory, both Roman and Gallican — they, namely Petrus Aurelius, Miræus, Clement Renerius, and others, might have been free of this error, had they read through those two discourses of Augustine out of which we have woven this chapter: for in express words the holy Father set forth the profession and vow of evangelical poverty, by which he bound all his clerics. But if he kept silence about the vows of obedience, of continence, and of stability, the reason was that that domestic clergy, most closely joined to the bishop, consisted only of presbyters, deacons, and clerics, who were bound by their orders as by bonds of continence, and thereby also of the obedience which was to be paid to the bishop, and finally of stability in their own church.

[354] In its own place below we shall prove that the clerics were by their very ordination attached to their church, Thomassin. made over to their bishop, and therefore that there was need of no other vow either of obedience or of stability. Upon the higher orders in the Latin church an inexorable law of continence lay, and thereby also upon the subdeacons themselves in Africa in Augustine's time. One thing therefore remained, voluntary poverty, which Augustine could sanction in his clergy, and thereby procure for it a singular grace and ornament of holiness; which also he strenuously accomplished. For the rest, Nicolas Desnos in his Canon Secular and Regular (this Work of his was published in Latin at Paris in the year 1674) deserves to be consulted, book 3, chapter 24 and following, where he dissolves one by one the contrary arguments of Erasmus of Rotterdam, refutes by name the masked Petrus Aurelius, and more distinctly explains the vows of those clerics. For us it suffices here to assign the chief defenders of each opinion, whom the curious reader will be able to consult at his leisure, since it is not of our design to decide, or to examine more laboriously, each incidental question of this kind.

[355] For that reason the controversy concerning the time at which the Regular canons arose must now also be summarily related, On the origin of the Regular Clerics, concerning which the authors have gone off into far different opinions, as the aforesaid Lord le Large, Canon Regular, forewarns at the beginning of his Disquisitions, which he published in Latin at Paris in the year 1697, page 1, in these words: Those who in our age have judged concerning the Order of Regular Canons dissent among themselves wonderfully. For some deny that there existed any Regular Canons before the eleventh century of the Church, when, by the consent of all, a great transformation of our Order was made. Some have carried back the origin of the Regular Canons to the times of the council of Aachen. There are those who refer the whole reckoning of our institute to Augustine as to its first author. Certain others fetch the matter still higher, even from the Apostolic times. Then in the course of the praised Work, which is of no small bulk, he examines those four questions, and at length on page 280 discloses his opinion in this conclusion: This therefore I contend and assert: that the Order of canonical or Regular clerics can and ought to be referred to the Apostles as its proper authors.

[356] bound by vows, Gabriele Pennotto in the Tripartite History of his Order, part 2, chapter 2 and following, relates various other opinions, and, having refuted them, in the same place, chapters 4 and 5, declares his own opinion in two assertions, of which the first is this: The Order of canonical clerics, who are now called Regular canons, was truly and properly and

immediately instituted by the most holy Apostles, or by their immediate disciples. But the other assertion runs thus: The most blessed Apostles and all the Clerics instituted in the primitive Church vowed the common life and the other substantials of Religion. Although Pennotto strives to prove both those propositions by the authority of the supreme Pontiffs, by the testimonies of the holy Fathers, and by many other arguments, nevertheless this opinion of his is not admitted by all Canons Regular: for Nicolas Desnos, a Canon of the same Order, in the Work cited above, book 3, chapter 2, explains or refutes Pennotto's reasons one by one, and at length concludes that chapter thus: Therefore for Gabriele Pennotto and his followers the water sticks here, as to proving that vow-taking Canons Regular were instituted by the Apostles and by the earliest clerics.

[357] various opinions. Then in the following chapter of the same book, after other things, he sets forth the opinion more probable to himself in these words: Augustine labored no less energetically at restoring the clergy in his church of Hippo, and he himself added and introduced vows over and above the regular institutes already brought into the clergy by Athanasius and Eusebius (namely of Vercelli). Whence those vow-taking Canons Regular, who are now simply called Canons Regular, derive their origin: for no mention of vows is found among the Clerics before Augustine, although we read of men bound by regular institutes before him. From which it is to be judged that St. Augustine was the first who roused up the Clerics, heavy and drowsy with the lethargy of private property, and called them forth to conform their life and manners to the Apostolic institution, and confirmed such a kind of life by vows pronounced to God. Since it is neither permitted nor pleasing to dwell longer upon these things, the opinions of other writers, who make the Canons Regular younger in age, may be examined in Gabriele Pennotto and Nicolas Desnos in the Works already praised, where they are fully related and confuted. Further, we understand other domestic customs of St. Augustine more distinctly from holy Possidius in the Acts to be reprinted after this Commentary. Now let us briefly illustrate our Saint's pastoral solicitude and some other of his virtues.

al. missa*

§ XXVI. The holy Pastor's care for his flock, his mercy toward the poor, his solicitude for afflicted widows and other women, and the Hipponensian congregation of nuns.

The Saint's zeal in preaching, Our diligent Prelate so frequently and so solicitously stirred up the people of Hippo committed to him, both by public discourses and by private admonitions, to avoid sins, to acquire virtues, and finally to obtain eternal salvation, that at times he preached several times in a week and sometimes twice on the same day, as can easily be gathered from the Tractates on John and the Enarration on Psalm 88 and his other writings. Even though the holy Preacher was feeble in body, nevertheless the hope of spiritual gain added strength to him, as is clear from the beginning and end of Homily 29, which he begins and concludes with these words: I, brethren, have small strength; but the word of God has great strength. Let it be strong in your hearts. Therefore even what we say slowly, you hear strongly, if you obey… You surely see that I know not how — I approach weak, and by speaking I become strong. So great is my spirit, so great my intent upon your advancement: for a workman in the field hoping for fruit feels his labor less: be you my fruit, that I may be with you; and let us all be the fruit of God.

[359] Among all the occupations of the episcopal office he reckoned one of the weightiest to be the burden of preaching the word of God, which he judged the chief part of his office: which in Homily 28, chapter 2, he sets forth to his hearers in this manner: How terribly He spoke through the prophet Ezechiel, I believe you have lent your ear; I believe you have heard how He said: "I will send you to the house of Israel, I will not send you to a people of a loftier tongue. But that people will not hear you, because they will not hear me." What does He show, save that God Himself was speaking through the prophet? But because in those prophetic words we above all were terrified — that is, we who are set over you, whom He appointed to speak to His people — let us first see our own face in those words: for there was shown to us, as the reader sounded them forth, a kind of mirror in which we might look at ourselves; and we have looked at ourselves; look you at yourselves.

[360] Behold, I do what I have heard there. "If you shall not have distinguished the just man," he says, "if you shall not have said to the sinner, You shall die the death, and shown him that he should withdraw from his iniquities, he indeed shall die in his sins; but his blood I will require at your hand: but if you shall have spoken, and he shall have despised it and not obeyed, he shall die in his crimes; but you shall have delivered your soul." I say to you, I deliver my soul: for I am placed in great — not peril, but destruction, if I keep silence. But when I shall have spoken and fulfilled my office, do you then attend to your own peril. But what do I wish? What do I desire? What do I long for? Why do I speak? Why do I sit here? Why do I live, save with this intent, that we may live together with Christ? This is my desire, this is my honor, this is my glory, this is my joy, this is my possession. But if you shall not hear me, and yet I shall not have kept silence, I shall deliver my soul. But I do not wish to be saved without you. From this moving conclusion the reader will easily draw out the ardent love with which the holy Prelate burned toward the salvation of his people, and how, after the example of the holy Apostle Paul, he desired to be anathema for his brethren.

[361] he often inveighed against sins, rebuking secret sinners in secret, Since the Africans were prone to drunkenness, wantonness, oaths, and superstitions, the holy Prelate especially censured those vices with frequent exhortations, and strove to root them out of his diocese. Yet in censuring crimes he used such caution as to rebuke secret sinners in secret, but public ones openly, and to warn them of the peril of eternal damnation, as we gather from Sermon 16 on the Gospel of Matthew, where he thus instructs his hearers concerning fraternal correction: Those things are to be rebuked before all which are sinned before all; but those things are to be rebuked more secretly which are sinned more secretly… For a bishop knows some homicide, and no one else knows him. I wish to rebuke him publicly; but you seek to have him indicted. By no means do I either betray or neglect him. I rebuke in secret; I set before his eyes the judgment of God, I terrify the blood-stained conscience, I persuade to penitence. With this charity we ought to be endowed. Whence sometimes men reprove us, as though we did not rebuke; either they think that we know what we do not know, or they think that we keep silence about what we know. But perhaps what you know, I too know. But I do not rebuke him in your presence, because I wish to cure, not to accuse. There are men adulterers in their own houses; they sin in secret; sometimes they are betrayed to us by their wives, generally jealous, sometimes seeking their husbands' salvation: we do not betray it openly, but rebuke in secret. Where the evil happened, there let the evil die. Yet we do not neglect that wound.

[362] he rebuked public sinners publicly, as is gathered Our prudent Bishop, on the contrary, punished with a public penalty a public professor of judicial astrology (that kind of superstitious men was frequent in Africa, and was then called by the name of mathematicians), as we learn from the close of the Enarration on Psalm 61, where he thus commends him, doing public penance, to the prayers of his hearers: That thirst of the Church wishes to drink this man also whom you see. At the same time also, that you may know how many, from mingling with Christians, bless with their mouth and curse in their heart: this man, from being a Christian and a believer, returns as a penitent, and, terrified by the power of the Lord, is converted to the mercy of the Lord: for, seduced by the enemy, while he was a believer, he was long a mathematician — seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving; he enticed, he cheated, he spoke many lies against God, who gave men the power of doing what is good, and of not doing what is evil. This man used to say that it was not one's own will that committed adultery, but Venus; and that it was not one's own will that committed homicide, but Mars; and that it was not God who made the just man, but Jupiter; and many other sacrilegious things, and not small ones. From how many Christians do you think he took money? How many bought a lie from him, to whom we used to say: "O sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart, why do you love vanity and seek after a lie?" Now, as we must believe of him, he has shuddered at his lie, and at the destruction of many men. He has felt that he was once enticed by the devil; he is converted to God as a penitent. We think, brethren, that this came about from a great fear of heart: for what shall we say? If a mathematician were converted from being a pagan, it would indeed be a great joy; but nevertheless it could seem that, being so converted, he sought a clerical office in the Church. He is a penitent; he seeks nothing but mercy alone.

[363] He is therefore to be commended both to your eyes and to your hearts. from a public penitent, whom, publicly rebuked, Him whom you see, love with your hearts, guard with your eyes. See him, know him, and wherever he shall pass, show him to the rest of the brethren who are not here now; and this diligence is mercy, lest that seducer draw back his heart and assail him. Guard yourselves; let not his converse, his way, be hidden from you, so that by your testimony it may be confirmed to us that he is truly converted to the Lord: for report will not be silent about his life, when he is thus offered to you both to be seen and to be pitied. You know that it is written in the Acts of the Apostles that many lost men — that is, men of such arts and followers of nefarious teachings — brought all their books to the Apostles, and so many books were burned that it belonged to a scribe to make an estimate of them and to write down the sum of their price. This surely for the glory of God, lest even such lost men should be despaired of by Him who knows how to seek what had perished. This man therefore had perished; now he is sought, found, brought in: he carries with him the books to be burned, through which he was to have been burned, so that, they being sent into the fire, he himself may pass into refreshment. Yet know, brethren, that he was knocking at the Church long ago before Easter: for before Easter he began to ask medicine of the Church of Christ. But because such is the art in which he had been practiced, which was suspect of lying and deceit, he was put off, lest he should be making trial; and yet at length he was admitted, lest he should be tried more perilously. Pray Christ for him. By all means pour forth today's prayer for him to the Lord our God: for we know and are certain that your prayer blots out all his impieties.

[364] Just as Firmus the Manichee was converted to the faith and to penitence by a single discourse of St. Augustine, he admitted into the church, after the due penance. as we shall hear below after this Commentary from Possidius, an eyewitness, so probably this vain astrologer returned to good fruit, stirred up by the discourses which the Saint often delivered against the impious followers of this vain superstition. However that may be, in that example of a public penitent

we see the severity of the holy Doctor joined with prudence and kindness toward the greatest sinners, to all of whom he promised pardon of their crimes, as becomes manifest from his Enchiridion written to Laurentius, where in chapter 65 he delivers the following: But neither concerning the remitting in the Church of those crimes themselves, however great, is mercy to be despaired of by those doing penance according to the measure of each one's own sin. But in the performance of penance, where such a crime has been committed that he who committed it is separated even from the body of Christ, not so much the measure of time is to be considered as of grief: for "a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise." But because for the most part the grief of one heart is hidden from another, and does not come into the knowledge of others through words or any other signs, though it be before Him to whom it is said, "My groaning is not hidden from Thee," rightly are times of penance appointed by those who preside over the Church, that satisfaction may be made also to the Church, in which those very sins are remitted.

[365] Further, that pastoral solicitude extended itself indiscriminately to all men of whatever condition. Wherefore in Sermon 205 On the Season, His care to instruct all, chapter 5, he instructs rich and poor together in these words: I have admonished the rich; hear, you poor. Do you give out; do you refuse to snatch. Do you bestow your means; do you bridle your desires. Hear, you poor, the same Apostle: "But godliness with sufficiency is great gain" (gain is the acquiring of profit) — "but godliness with sufficiency," he says, "is great gain." You have the world in common with the rich; you have not your house in common with the rich; but you have the sky in common, the light in common. Seek sufficiency; seek what suffices; wish for no more. The rest weighs down, does not lift up; burdens, does not honor. Godliness with sufficiency is great gain. First of all, godliness. Godliness is the worship of God; godliness with sufficiency. Have you brought anything here? But neither have you rich men brought anything. You have found everything here; with the poor you were born naked. Common to both is the infirmity of the body, common the wailing that witnesses to our miseries. But how benevolent this holy Prelate was toward the poor appears from very many discourses in which he exhorts the wealthier to distribute alms to the needy. Although this care of the Saint for the poor is everywhere known, nevertheless we shall confirm it by a singular example, which we shall here briefly bring forward.

[366] and to commend the poor It was a custom among the people of Hippo that every year they should clothe a certain number of poor persons, or rather the naked Christ in those poor, as St. Augustine speaks in Sermon 19 On Various Matters, chapter 8. This praiseworthy custom, which the pious Father of the needy had introduced, had once been omitted in his absence because of the calamity of the times. Understanding this, the beneficent Shepherd of naked sheep, and bearing this negligence ill, in Letter 138 shows that the poor were the more to be relieved in that calamitous time, and writes to the clergy and people of Hippo, after other things, in this manner: It has been announced to me that you have forgotten your custom of clothing the poor, to which mercy I exhorted you when I was present, and now exhort you, lest the wearing-down of this world overcome you and make you slothful — this world to which you see such things happening as our Lord and Redeemer, who cannot lie, foretold would come.

[367] to the mercy of the rich: Not only therefore ought you not to do less in works of mercy, but you ought to do more than you are wont: for as those who see the ruin of a house threatening, its walls being crumbled, hasten the more quickly to safer places, so Christian hearts, the more they feel the ruin of this world drawing near as tribulations grow frequent, the more ought they to transfer with unwearied speed into the heavenly treasury those goods which they were disposing to lay up on earth; so that, if any human mischance befall, he who has migrated from a ruinous place may rejoice. But if nothing of the sort has followed, let him not be saddened who, being one day to die, has commended his own goods to the immortal Lord to whom he is to come. And so, my most beloved brethren, out of that which each one has, according to his own strength, which he himself knows, do what you are wont to do, with a more cheerful mind than you are wont, and amid all the troubles of this world retain in your heart the Apostolic exhortation, where he says: "The Lord is at hand; be nothing solicitous." Let such things be announced to me of you as may let me know that you are wont to do, not because of my presence, but because of the precept of God, who is never absent, what for many years you have done in my presence, and sometimes also in my absence. This kindness toward the poor is also sufficiently drawn out from that memorable saying of his which he uttered in Sermon 49 On Various Matters, where in chapter 4 he says publicly to his hearers that it is not for a bishop to keep gold and to push away from himself the hand of a beggar.

[368] his solicitude for women of every sort, Although the holy Bishop rarely conversed with women, and permitted no woman, however closely related by blood, to stay in the episcopal house, nevertheless he bore great care especially for widows and orphans: for in Letter 121 he teaches Proba, an illustrious widow, at length how God is to be prayed to. Also in Letter 6 he consoles Italica, a widow, on the death of her husband, and in Letter 248 Sapida, a virgin, on the death of her brother, a deacon of the church of Carthage. In Letter 199 he gravely reproves a married woman named Ecdicia, because she had imprudently alienated her means without her husband's knowledge, who thence had seized an occasion of violating the vow of continence which they had made by mutual consent; and he bids her humbly to seek pardon of her husband. He instructed other women also with useful admonitions, as may briefly be seen in Rivius, Life of St. Augustine, book 1, chapter 4, §7. Finally the most vigilant Pastor solicitously took care that a female ward commended to the church of Hippo should be brought up from her tender years, and cautiously preserved up to marriageable age, as we gather from Letters 219, 233, and the following.

[369] Nay rather, the holy Prelate was the first to establish this unstable sex in one and the same house, out of whom he instituted a congregation, and out of pious women previously dwelling here and there he instituted a regular congregation of nuns; although the African church had also earlier had virgins consecrated to God, as we learn from St. Cyprian, and as the excellent Father Lupus the Augustinian, in the Quodlibetical Question mentioned above, chapter 32, fully proves. This pious community of women, which our holy Bishop had gathered, and over which his own sister had presided for several years, enjoying inward peace, advanced daily in virtues and filled St. Augustine with spiritual joy. But this domestic peace the nuns themselves afterwards troubled, when they seditiously wished to change their Prioress, and by a tumultuous dissension brought great grief upon their Founder. All these things will be more distinctly understood from Letter 109, by which the holy Prelate strives strongly and sweetly to recall them to sounder counsels in this manner: As severity is ready to punish the sins which it finds, so charity does not wish to find what it may punish. This cause brought it about that I did not come to you, when you sought my presence, not for the joy of your peace, but for the increase of your dissension. For how should I despise and leave unpunished so great a tumult of yours, if it arose even in my presence, as arose in my absence, which, though it escaped my eyes, yet beat upon my ears with your voices? For perhaps your sedition would be even greater in my presence, since it would be necessary that there should not be conceded to you what you were asking, against sound discipline and to a most pernicious example, which is not expedient for you; and so I should find you such as I do not wish, and I myself should be found by you such as you did not wish.

[370] Since therefore the Apostle writes to the Corinthians, saying: whom, disturbed and in tumult, "I call God to witness upon my soul, that sparing you I came not as yet to Corinth, not because we lord it over your faith, but we are helpers of your joy": this I too say to you, that sparing you I did not come to you. I spared myself also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow, and I chose not to show my face to you, but to pour out my heart to God for you, and to plead the cause of your great peril, not among you with words, but before God with tears — lest He turn into mourning my joy, wherewith I am wont to rejoice over you, and amid so great scandals, with which this world everywhere abounds, at times even to be consoled, thinking of your abundant congregation and chaste love and holy converse, and of the more bountiful grace of God which was given you, that you should not only despise carnal marriage, but should even choose the society of dwelling of one mind in a house, so that you might have one soul and one heart toward God. Considering these good things in you, these gifts of God, amid the many tempests by which my heart is shaken from other evils, it is wont somehow to find rest. You were running well. Who has bewitched you? That persuasion is not from God, who called you. "A little leaven" — I will not say what follows. For I rather desire, and pray, and exhort, that the leaven itself be changed for the better, lest the whole lump, as it had almost already done, be changed for the worse. If therefore you have sprouted again into sound understanding, pray that you enter not into temptation, that you fall not again into contentions, emulations, angers, dissensions, detractions, seditions, whisperings. For we have not so planted and watered the Lord's garden in you, that we should reap these thorns from you. But if your infirmity is still in tumult, pray that you may be rescued from temptation. But those who trouble you (if they still trouble you), unless they correct themselves, shall bear their judgment, whoever they may be.

[371] he strives to bring back to unity: Think what an evil it is, that, while we rejoice over those born of God in unity, we should mourn internal schisms in a monastery. Persevere in a good purpose, and you will not desire to change your Prioress — she by whose perseverance in that monastery through so many years you have grown both in number and in age; who received you as a mother, not in her womb, but in her mind: for all of you who came thither found her there either serving and pleasing the holy Prioress my sister, or else herself the Prioress who received you; under her you were trained, under her veiled, under her multiplied: and so you make a tumult in order to change her, when you ought to mourn if we wished to change her for you. She is the one whom you know, she is the one to whom you came, she is the one by having whom for so many years you have grown. You have received nothing new save a Provost; or if for his sake you seek novelty, and out of ill-will toward him you have thus rebelled against your mother, why did you not rather ask that he should be changed for you? But if you shrink from this, because I know how venerably you love him in Christ, why not rather her? For in ruling you the Provost's first attempts are so disturbed that he would rather desert you himself than bear this report and ill-will on your account — so that it be said that you would not have sought another

a Prioress, had you not begun to have him as Provost. May God therefore quiet and compose your minds; let not the work of the devil prevail in you, but let the peace of Christ conquer in your hearts: and do not, from grief of mind because what you wish is not done, or because you are ashamed to have wished what you ought not to have wished, run in your blushing into death; but rather by repenting take up virtue again, and have not the penitence of Judas the betrayer, but rather the tears of Peter the shepherd. To these things there is immediately subjoined the Rule which St. Augustine certainly prescribed for women alone, as the most eminent Bellarmine and other writers now everywhere judge, whom our Papebroch alleges in his Responses to the thirteenth article, §6, number 71 and following.

[372] The Rule written for these nuns: his care for others. We could have given in this paragraph more specimens of that pastoral care, and brought forward the private letters by which this holy Curator of souls kindles Christinus to piety, strengthens Sebastianus and Felicia against scandals, calls Chrisimus back from despair, sharply reproves a certain unchaste Cornelius, and deters many others from sins. But what has already been related seems to suffice for the ingenious reader to conclude from it that St. Augustine, after the example of the Apostle Paul, became all things to all men, that he might make all men safe. Nay, this very faction of the nuns, which we related above, afflicted the pious Father with so great grief that he could say with the same Apostle in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter XI, verse 29: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire? For brevity's sake also we have passed over other occupations of the holy Prelate in transacting the affairs of Catholics and settling their lawsuits, as those times required: for these and like matters will be narrated after this Commentary in the second part of the Acts. Meanwhile in the following paragraph we shall gather some virtues of our Saint which are the more to be admired in the most learned Augustine, because they are the more rarely found in learned men.

al. valide*

* That is, Jupiter

al. redeat ad cor*

al. cupere*

al., more correctly, effunderem*

al. Donatistis*

§ XXVII. The holy Prelate's modesty when he was praised; his moderation of mind when he was reviled; and the ingenuous confession of his ignorance when he was consulted.

[The Saint acknowledges that it is difficult not to be captured by the praise of men;] Since knowledge puffs up, as the Apostle says, it is certainly no wonder that learned men, celebrated for their erudition throughout the world, are delighted by their own praises, and are sometimes lifted up by pride. Wherefore Augustine, while still a presbyter, in Letter 64 to Aurelius of Carthage writes thus among other things concerning this perilous temptation of vainglory: It is a great thing not to rejoice in the honors and praises of men, but both to cut off all empty pomp, and, if anything necessary be retained from it, to confer the whole of it upon the profit and salvation of those who honor us… These things which I confer with you, I say to myself; yet you deign, I believe, to consider with me how heavy, how difficult they are: for no one feels the strength of this enemy save he who has declared war upon him; because, although it is easy for anyone to be without praise while it is denied, it is difficult not to be delighted by it when it is offered. And yet so great must be the suspension of the mind toward God, that, if we are praised undeservedly, we should correct those whom we can, lest they think either that there is in us what is not, or that that is ours which is God's, or lest they praise those things which, although they be not lacking to us, or even superabound, are nevertheless by no means praiseworthy — such as are all the goods which we have in common either with cattle or with impious men. But if we are deservedly praised, let us for God's sake congratulate those to whom the true good is pleasing — yet not congratulate ourselves because we please men, but if before God we are such as they believe us to be, and it be attributed not to us but to God, whose gifts are all things that are truly and deservedly praised.

[374] These things I chant to myself daily, or rather He does, whose are the wholesome precepts, yet he strove to overcome that difficulty. whatsoever are found either in the divine readings or are inwardly suggested to the mind; and yet, vehemently struggling with the adversary, I often receive wounds from him, since I cannot take away from myself the delight of praise offered. By this closing sentence the humble Man intimates that he, while still a presbyter, was sometimes delighted by his own praises freely offered. But doubtless, when now raised to the see of Hippo, and daily advancing in the acquiring of virtues, he overcame this human infirmity among the rest of the lighter faults, since when already bishop he thus prays to God in book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 36: But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little flock. Do Thou possess us; stretch forth Thy wings, and let us flee beneath them. Be Thou our glory; let us be loved for Thy sake, and let Thy word be feared in us. He who wishes to be praised by men when Thou blamest, will not be defended by men when Thou judgest, nor snatched away when Thou condemnest. Wherefore we do not doubt that Augustine, more advanced in age and instructed by his own admonitions, more and more daily despised human praises, as we shall now prove by certain examples.

[375] The praises given him by others Volusianus, an illustrious man, but still given over to heathen superstition, in the second Letter proposes to Augustine some questions concerning the mysteries of the Christian religion, and thus mingles his praises in passing among them: It concerns your reputation that we should know what we ask. Somehow, without detriment to divine worship, ignorance is tolerated in other priests; but when one comes to the prelate Augustine, whatever chances to be unknown is a defect in the law. The holy Doctor, replying to those questions in the third letter, repels this honorific estimate of Volusianus in these words: You add also that it concerns my reputation that you should know what you ask, since somehow, without detriment to divine worship, ignorance is tolerated in other priests; but when one comes to me as prelate, whatever chances to be unknown is a defect in the law. First therefore, I beg, lay aside this easily presumed opinion of me, and loose and put off that mind, however most benevolent toward me; and believe me about myself rather than any other, if you repay me the return of love: for so great is the profundity of the Christian letters, that I should daily make progress in them, if from earliest boyhood to decrepit old age I strove to learn them alone, with the greatest leisure, the highest zeal, and a better wit; not that one arrives with so great difficulty at those things in them which are necessary to salvation, but when anyone has there held the faith, without which one does not live piously and rightly, there remain so many things, and shadowed by so manifold coverings of mysteries, to be understood by those advancing, and so great a depth of wisdom lies hidden not only in the words in which these things are said, but also in the things which are to be understood, that to the most aged, the most acute, the most ardent with the desire of learning there befalls that which the same Scripture has in a certain place: "When a man has finished, then he begins."

[376] by a subtle reply A certain pious man, not unskilled in the poetic art, by name Audax, had desired lengthy letters from Augustine; but when he had received shorter ones than his expectation, he modestly complains of their brevity in Letter 139, and yet at the same time praises their Writer in these words: I therefore challenged you, sweet Prelate, not that I might receive a tiny libation of an over-bountiful breast, but that I might drink a huge river of a rich man abundantly. I desired a treasure of wisdom, but I received less than I wished — although it ought not to be called less, but a gift, whatever Augustine has conferred, the oracle of the Law, the consecrator of justice, the restorer of spiritual glory, the dispenser of eternal salvation. But the Doctor's modest mind did not endure these honorific titles of Audax, and therefore in Letter 140 he thus refutes or explains them one by one: As to what you desire of us in the same lengthiness of discourse, I answer that I am not fit for this: for you said that you had desired a treasure of wisdom, but had received less than you wished, whereas I beg a daily dole from that treasure with a beggar's prayer, and scarcely obtain it. And how am I the oracle of the Law, of whose broad and hidden inner chambers I know far more things not than I know, and whose manifold recesses and shadowy retreats I am not able to approach and penetrate as I wish, and know myself to be nothing other than less worthy? Further, who am I to be the consecrator of justice, for whom it is a very great thing that I have been consecrated? And now, as to your calling me the restorer of spiritual glory (pardon me), you greatly do not know him to whom you speak: for I myself am still so being restored in this glory that I confess it is hidden from me, from day to day, not only how much I advance, but whether I advance at all. A dispenser of eternal salvation plainly I am, along with my innumerable other fellow-servants… There are therefore many dispensers. But it is sought that among the dispensers one be found faithful.

[377] When Darius the count, of whom we made mention above, he modestly repels: had in Letter 263 adorned with greater praises the eloquence and other endowments of St. Augustine, the humble Doctor attributed that eulogy to the count's excessive affection, and toward the end of the responsory Letter 264 assigns him his Confessions to be read, in this manner: Take therefore, my son, take, good man — and not on the surface, but with Christian charity in a Christian way — take, I say, the books which you desired, of my Confessions; there look upon me, lest you praise me beyond what I am; there believe not others about me, but me; there attend to me, and see what I was in myself through myself; and if anything in me shall have pleased you, praise there together with me Him whom I wished to be praised concerning me: for not myself, since "He made us, and not we ourselves"; but we had ruined ourselves; yet He who made, remade. But when you shall have found me there, pray for me that I may not fail, but be perfected — pray, my son, pray. But when holy Paulinus in Letter 31 had praised the lucubrations of the same Doctor, St. Augustine in the following Letter replies to him thus kindly and subtly: In that letter you deigned to honor me with such great praises that, when I give myself back to you, if I should think this too little for you, I shall be convicted of not having believed you. It shames me indeed to believe so much good of myself; but it grieves me more not to believe you. There is something I may do. I will not believe myself to be such as you think, since I do not recognize it; and I will believe that I am loved by you, since I feel and plainly perceive it: thus I shall be neither rash concerning myself, nor ungrateful concerning you. And when I offer you my whole self, it is not too little: for I offer him whom you most vehemently love; and I offer, if not such a one as you judge me to be, yet him for whom you pray that I may deserve to be such. For I now ask this the more, that you do not wish less to be added to me for what I am, while you judge me already to be what I am not. From these things it is clear how zealously and at the same time how ingeniously

our Saint would elude or avoid the praises bestowed on him by his friends. Now we shall see how moderately he bore the reproofs of his adversaries, and how humbly, when consulted by others, he confessed his lack of knowledge.

[378] The holy Doctor had often ingenuously confessed the Saint's modesty, that the origin of the soul was not sufficiently known to him. On account of this ignorance a certain Vincentius Victor, young in age and a layman by profession, had scorned and reproved the prelate Augustine, who in book 4 On the Soul and its Origin, chapters 1 and 2, thus modestly answers his reprover: You have reproved me twice over, expressing even my name. And although at the beginning of your book you called yourself thoroughly conscious of your own lack of skill and destitute of the support of learning, but me, where you named me, most learned and most skilled, nevertheless in those matters in which you seemed to yourself to know what I either confess that I do not know, or presume that I know although I do not know, with the liberty that was fitting you did not hesitate to reprove — a young man an old man, a layman a bishop, and indeed a man in your own judgment most learned and most skilled. But I neither know myself to be most learned and most skilled; nay rather, I know most certainly that I am not: and I do not doubt that it can come about that something happens to be known to an unskilled and untaught man which some learned and skilled man does not know; and in this I plainly praise you, that you preferred to a man the truth — even if you never perceived it, at least what you thought was the truth: rashly indeed, because you supposed you knew what you do not know; but freely, because, not fearing the person, you chose to open what you feel…

[379] when he was reproved. O that you reproved those things of mine which are worthy of a just reproof! For I ought not to deny that, as in my very manners, so there are many things in my so many little works which could with a just judgment and with no rashness be blamed: of which, if you reproved some, I would there show you also what manner of man I should wish you to be in those things in which you did not reprove amiss; and as an elder to you a younger, and as one set over to one subject, I would exhibit an example of correction, the more wholesome the more humble. But you have reproved in me those things which humility does not compel me to correct, but which truth compels me partly to confess and partly to defend. And these are: one, that concerning the origin of the souls which after the first man have been given, or are given, to men, I have not dared to define anything, because I confess that I do not know; the other, that I said I know the soul to be a spirit, not a body. But in this second point you have reproved two things: one, that I did not believe it to be a body; the other, that I believed it to be a spirit: for it seems to you both that the soul is a body, and that it is not a spirit. After our Saint had refuted this absurd opinion of Vincentius by a familiar comparison, at the end of the third chapter in the same place he indicates his love of finding the truth in these words: I should not bear ill your rebuking and upbraiding my ignorance concerning the origin of souls — nay, moreover I should give great thanks — if you not only struck at it with hard revilings, but also shook it off with true sayings: for if you were able to teach me what I do not know, I ought most patiently to endure you striking me not only with words, but even with fists.

[380] He willingly submitted his writings to another's judgment, The holy Doctor, impelled by the same love of truth, willingly submitted his writings to the censure of others, and desired that they be corrected, as we learn from the proem of the Work directed to Simplicianus of Milan, where at the end he thus addresses that prelate: Only this I ask, that you entreat God for my infirmity, and that, whether in those things in which you kindly and fatherly wished to exercise me, or in any others of ours which may chance to come into your holy hands — since, as I acknowledge what God has given, so also I acknowledge my errors — you not only bestow the care of a reader, but also bestow the censure of a corrector, but also assume the censure of a corrector. Hence also in Letter 7 to Marcellinus the count he writes the following: Even if my opinion cannot be defended by clear reasoning, it is mine, not that Author's, whose meaning it is not lawful to disapprove, even when, it not being understood, something is thence held which is to be disapproved. I accordingly confess that I strive to be of the number of those who write as they advance, and advance as they write. Whence if anything has been set down by me either too incautiously or too unlearnedly, which is deservedly reproved not only by others who can see it, but even by myself — since I too at least ought afterwards to see it, if I am advancing — it is neither to be wondered at nor to be grieved over, but rather to be pardoned and rejoiced in, not because there was an error, but because it was disapproved: for he loves himself too perversely who wishes others also to err, so that his own error may lie hidden.

[381] Because of that peril of erring the Saint preferred to learn he more willingly learned rather than to teach, and, already an old man, he asked to be instructed by Auxilius, a younger bishop, concerning the validity of excommunication: for when Auxilius had struck with anathema a certain notable man together with his whole household on account of a personal violation, as was supposed, of ecclesiastical law, Augustine, doubting the lawful bond of that excommunication, writes to him thus in Letter 75: If you have upon this matter an opinion explored by certain reasonings or by testimonies of the Scriptures, deign to teach us also how rightly a son is anathematized for a father's sin, or a wife for her husband's, or a servant for his master's… But I, since, if anyone should ask of me whether it is rightly done, I do not find what to answer him, have never dared to do this, although I was most gravely moved by the crimes monstrously perpetrated by certain men against the Church. But if the Lord has revealed to you how justly it may be done, I by no means despise your youthful age and the first beginnings of your ecclesiastical honor. Behold, I am here, an old man ready to learn from a young co-bishop, and a bishop of so many years from a colleague not yet a year old, how we can render either to God or to men a just account, if we punish innocent souls with a spiritual penalty for another's crime, from which they do not draw original sin, as from Adam (in whom all have sinned).

[382] How much readier Augustine was to learn than to teach than he taught, appears moreover from his Work On the Eight Questions of Dulcitius, where he concludes the third question in these words: But as for what pertains to the question of the resurrection, on account of those who are believed not to be about to die, but to pass from this mortality to immortality without an intervening death, a more diligent inquiry must be applied; and if you have either heard or read anything on this matter settled and defined by a reasonable and complete discussion, or if you yourself shall still be able to hear or read or think out anything, I ask that you not grudge to send it to me: for I — which must be confessed to your charity — love more to learn than to teach. He indicates the like concerning the other questions, when at the end of the eighth question he concludes the praised Work in this manner: As I could, I have answered your inquiries. If you have found anything better on these matters, or shall be able to find it, we shall count it most welcome if you make us know it: for I, as I have also mentioned above concerning myself, love more to learn than to teach. Nor was he ashamed to confess his ignorance candidly, as we shall now prove by one or two examples.

[383] When Januarius had proposed various questions to Augustine, and he confessed his ignorance ingenuously. thinking that nothing was hidden from him, the latter at length answers him thus in Letter 119, chapter 21, after a long dissertation: If you shall not have thought these things enough for what you asked, you know too little both my strength and my occupations: for I am so far from that which you supposed — that nothing is hidden from me — that I have read nothing sadder in your letter, because it is both most openly false; and I wonder that this is hidden from you, that not only in innumerable other matters many things are hidden from me, but even in the holy Scriptures themselves I do not know far more things than I know. Finally in the book To Orosius, chapter XI, the holy Prelate humbly declares his ignorance in another matter in these words: That there are therefore thrones, dominations, principalities, powers in the heavenly array, I most firmly believe, and that they differ somewhat among themselves, I hold with undoubted faith. But — that you may despise me, whom you think to be a great doctor — what these are, and how they differ among themselves, I do not know. Nor indeed do I think that I am endangered by that ignorance, as I should be by disobedience, if I neglected the Lord's precepts. More things pertaining to this paragraph could be brought forward. But we judge these to suffice, that the pious reader may understand that our Saint's remarkable knowledge was joined with the highest lowliness of mind.

[384] The order to be henceforth kept in the Commentary. Thus far we have set forth those things which St. Augustine did or wrote from his earliest age up to his taking of the episcopate. But in some of the following paragraphs we have drawn out from his own writings the inward and outward state of the Saint, now a prelate, or his various endowments of nature and grace, and have painted them with a rude brush. In all these things we have followed almost entirely the order of the Acts which Tillemont published in French in tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, and which the Benedictine Fathers contracted into Latin in the most recent Paris edition of the Augustinian Works. But hereafter we have resolved to abandon that chronological series of the Life, and rather to join with one thread of narration the contests undertaken at different times by our Bishop against the same enemies of the Catholic Church, lest we be compelled again and again to interrupt the history and to return more often to the same pagans or heretics. Wherefore we shall divide into their classes all those enemies of the Catholic Church whom the holy Prelate assailed, so that we shall narrate separately, all at one time, those things which our Saint in different years of his episcopate did and wrote against the pagans, for example, or the Manichees, the Donatists, the Pelagians, or other heretics. To these we shall separately subjoin those deeds and writings by which the holy Doctor instructed Catholics. We know that by this method the chronological series of the things to be said is somewhat disturbed; but a remedy can easily be brought to this inconvenience at the end of this preliminary Commentary, when we shall reduce the chief things done and written by Augustine to a brief chronotaxis. Now in the following paragraph we shall begin the aforesaid division of matter from the heathen, whom the holy Bishop attempted to convert to the Christian faith.

§ XXVIII. The writings and deeds of the holy Prelate against the erring and seditious heathen.

Four books written against the Gentiles Holy Possidius in chapter 1 of his Indiculus reviews various lucubrations of St. Augustine drawn up against the pagans, which partly still exist, partly lie hidden or have perished. Nevertheless, among other Works of that kind which the holy Doctor wrote in the time of his episcopate, there still survive the four books On the Agreement of the Evangelists, which are read in tome 4 of the Plantin edition from page 160, and of which our Saint himself in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 16, makes mention in this manner: During the same years in which I was gradually dictating the books On the Trinity, I wrote others also with continuous labor,

inserting them among those times, among which are the four books On the Agreement of the Evangelists, on account of those who calumniate them as though disagreeing; of which the first book was written against those who either honor Christ as most wise, or feign that they honor Him; and therefore are unwilling to believe the Gospel, because those things were not written by Him but by His disciples, whom they judge to have by error attributed to Him the divinity whereby He is believed to be God. In the three following books he shows that the Evangelists never disagree among themselves; which subject of writing was indeed difficult for the holy Man, since he was destitute of those helps with which those abounded who afterwards treated the same matter.

[386] The holy Prelate in book 1 of this very Work, chapter 7, more clearly indicates the occasion and the aim of his lucubration thus: On the Agreement of the Evangelists, These holy four-horse chariots of the Lord, borne on which through the world He subdues the peoples with His gentle yoke and light burden, certain men assail with calumnies, either from impious vanity or unskilled rashness, that they may take away from them the credit of a truthful narrative — from those through whom the Christian religion, disseminated through the world, has come forth with so great fruitfulness, that unbelieving men now scarcely dare to mutter their calumnies even among themselves, being repressed by the faith of the nations and the devotion of all peoples. Nevertheless, because by their calumnious disputations they still either hold back some from the faith, so that they do not believe, or, by agitating, disturb as far as they can those who already believe; and since some brethren, with their faith safe, desire to know what they may answer to such questions, either for the advancement of their own knowledge or for the repelling of those men's vain talk: with our Lord God inspiring and helping (would that it might profit also their own salvation) we have undertaken in this Work to demonstrate the error or the rashness of those who think they bring forth sufficiently subtle accusations against the four books of the Gospel, which the four Evangelists wrote each one severally. And that this may be done, it must be shown how those same four writers do not contradict one another: for this they are wont to cast up as though it were the palm of their vanity, that the Evangelists themselves disagree among themselves. Tillemont, tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, article 125, asserts that these four books were written about the end of the year 399 or the beginning of 400.

[387] There also still survives the huge Work On the City of God against the heathen, the 22 books On the City of God, which St. Augustine at length finished in the year 427. The occasion of this Work of his, which comprises twenty-two books, the Saint himself assigns in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 43, in these words: Meanwhile Rome was overthrown by an inrush of the Goths acting under king Alaric, and by the onset of a great disaster; and the worshippers of many false gods, whom by the usual name we call pagans, endeavoring to refer its overthrow to the Christian religion, began to blaspheme the true God more sharply and bitterly than usual. Whence I, blazing with zeal for the house of God, resolved to write the books On the City of God against their blasphemies or errors: which Work held me for several years, because many other things kept running in between which ought not to be deferred, and which occupied me first for their settling. But this great Work On the City of God was at length finished in twenty-two books. Then in the same place he explains the matter of the Work, and after his manner corrects certain things previously said obscurely or wrongly, or illustrates them more clearly.

[388] the book On Divination, Here also belongs the book On the Divination of Demons, of which in the same book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 30, he makes mention. But on what occasion that little Work came forth, Augustine, in the Plantin edition of his Works, tome 3, page 321, that is, in the very opening of the little Work, thus sets forth: On a certain day among the holy days of the octaves (the more solemn octaves occurred about Easter, as the French Benedictine Fathers have observed here and elsewhere) when in the morning many lay Christian brethren were present with me, and we had sat down in the accustomed place, a discourse arose concerning the Christian religion against the presumption and, as it were, the marvelous and great knowledge of the pagans, which, recalled and completed, I thought should be committed to writing, without expressing the persons of those who contradicted, although they were Christians, and by contradicting seemed rather to be seeking what ought to be answered to the pagans. When therefore inquiry was made concerning the divination of demons, and it was affirmed that someone, I know not who, had foretold the overthrow of the temple of Serapis, which was made at Alexandria, I answered that it is not to be wondered at if the demons could both know and foretell that this overthrow of the temple was threatening their own images, as also many other things, so far as it is permitted them to know and to announce beforehand. Very often elsewhere he explodes the superstitious worship of the gods, and sharply upbraids certain Christians who imitated idolaters.

[389] Six questions against the pagans: Against the heathen there are resolved in Letter 49 six questions, which the holy Doctor in the book of the Retractations just cited, chapter 31, thus enumerates: Among these things there were sent me from Carthage six questions, which a certain friend, whom I desired to become a Christian, proposed, that they might be resolved against the pagans, especially because he said that some of them were proposed by the philosopher Porphyry: but I do not judge him to be that Porphyry of Sicily whose fame is most celebrated. The discussions of these questions I gathered into one book, not prolix, whose title is: Six Questions Expounded against the Pagans. But of these the first is on the resurrection; the second on the time of the Christian religion; the third on the distinction of sacrifices; the fourth on that which is written, "With what measure you shall have measured, it shall be measured back to you"; the fifth on the Son of God according to Solomon; the sixth on the prophet Jonah. Moreover the holy Prelate persuaded Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, to bring forth to light a History of the World against the Pagans. Finally our Saint himself wrote several letters for the rooting out of idolatry, which we shall not here allege one by one, although from one or two we shall now demonstrate with how great ardor he desired the salvation of the pagans.

[390] as appears from a letter of the Saint, When in a certain business the citizens of Madaura (that town of Numidia near Tagaste at that time still venerated idols) needed the good offices of the holy Prelate of Hippo, they addressed to him in the common name a most courteous letter through a certain Florentinus, who was probably one of the chief inhabitants of that city. Making use of this occasion, Augustine exhorts them to embrace the Christian faith, and answers them most courteously in Letter 42 in this manner: If perchance those among you who are Catholic Christians sent me such writings, I only wonder at this, that it was not rather in their own name than in the name of the council. But if in truth all or nearly all the men of the council deigned to send me a letter, I wonder that you wrote "salvation to the Father and in the Lord" — you whose superstitious worship of idols is most known to me with great grief; against which idols your temples are more easily shut than your hearts, or rather, which idols are enclosed not more in the temples than in your hearts — unless perchance you are at length by prudent consideration thinking of that very salvation which is in the Lord, by which you wished to salute me: for if it is not so, I ask you, how have I hurt, how have I offended your benevolence, that in the title of your letter you should think me rather to be mocked than to be honored, O praiseworthy lords and most beloved brethren? For when I read what you wrote, "To Father Augustine, eternal salvation in the Lord," I was suddenly raised up with so great hope that I believed you either had already been converted to the Lord Himself and to that eternal salvation, or desired to be converted through our ministry.

[391] But when I read the rest, my spirit grew cold. how sweetly and strongly the heathen Yet I asked of the bearer of the letter whether you were already Christians, or desired to be: and after by his answer I learned that you were by no means changed, I grieved the more heavily that you believed the name of Christ, to whom you see the whole world already subjected, must not only be repelled by you, but even mocked in us: for I could not think of another Lord according to whom a bishop could be called Father by you, save the Lord Christ. And if there were hence any doubt about the interpretation of your meaning, it would be removed by the subscription of the letter, where you plainly set down: "We wish you, lord, in God and His Christ, ever to rejoice through many years in your clergy." All which being read through and discussed, what else could occur to me, or can occur to any man, save that these things were written either with a truthful or with a deceitful mind of the writers? But if you write these things with a truthful mind, who has shut off from you the way to this truth? Who has strewn rough thickets in it? What enemy has set the steepnesses of crags against it? Finally, who has shut the door of the basilica to you who desire to enter, so that you are unwilling to have with us the same salvation in the same Lord by whom you salute us? But if you write these things deceitfully and mockingly, do you then so lay upon me the care of your business, that you dare to fan about with flattering insult, and not to lift up with due veneration, the name of Him through whom I can do anything? Know, dearest ones, that I say this with an unspeakable trembling of heart for you: for I know how much heavier and more pernicious a case you will have before God, if I shall have said this to you in vain.

[392] Then he proves the truth of the Christian religion by various arguments, he invited to the true faith: and at length concludes his letter with this peroration: Awake at last, my brethren and my parents of Madaura (perhaps he adorns them with these titles because in boyhood he gave his labor to letters at Madaura) — God has offered me this occasion of writing to you. So far indeed as I could, in the business of brother Florentinus, through whom you sent the letter, as God willed, I was present and I helped. But it was such a business as could easily be carried through even without my work: for nearly all the men of his household who are at Hippo knew Florentinus, and greatly grieve at his bereavement. But a letter was sent me by you, so that my letter might not be shameless, when, an occasion being received from you, it should speak something of Christ to worshippers of idols. But I beseech you, if you did not name Him vainly in your letter, let me not have written these things to you vainly. But if you wished to mock me, fear Him whom, first judged, the proud world mocked, and whom now, subjected, it awaits as judge: for the affection of my heart toward you, expressed through this page so far as I could, will be a witness. It will be a witness for you in the judgment of Him who will confirm those believing in Him, and confound the unbelieving. May the one and true God, freeing you from all vanity of this world, convert you to Himself, O praiseworthy lords and most beloved brethren. What the fruit of this letter was, we do not know. But we know that the illustrious man Volusianus, mention of whom occurs in the preceding paragraph, and a certain philosopher or perhaps pagan priest named Longinianus, were led by the instructions of our holy Prelate from idolatry to the Christian faith, as may be seen in Tillemont, tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, articles 105 and 224.

[393] but it is proved from elsewhere, Just as St. Augustine courteously instructed erring and teachable heathen, so he sharply refuted the obstinate and proud calumniators of Christians, as appears from the books On the City of God, where he very often publicly exposes their insipid fables to mockery. To pass over other examples of this matter, in book 18 of the praised Work, chapter 53, he first rejects the opinions of certain Christians who were making various and uncertain conjectures about the end of the world: In vain therefore, he says, do we strive to compute and define the years which remain to this world, since we hear from the mouth of Truth that it is not ours to know this; whom nevertheless some have said might be completed as four hundred, others five hundred, others even a thousand, from the ascension of the Lord to His last coming. But in what manner each of them builds up his own opinion, it is long to demonstrate and not necessary: for they use human conjectures; nothing certain is brought forward by them from the authority of the canonical Scripture. But He who says, "It is not yours to know the times which the Father has put in His own power," unbends the fingers of all who reckon upon this, and bids them rest.

[394] how sharply he refuted Then in the same place he presently thus explodes certain lying pagans who from a false oracle of their gods had boasted that the Christian religion would last only three hundred and sixty-five years: But since this is an evangelical saying, it is no wonder that the worshippers of many and false gods were not repressed by it from feigning that it had been determined by the answers of demons, whom they worship as gods, how long the Christian religion should abide: for when they saw that it could not be consumed by so many and so great persecutions, but had rather taken from these a marvelous increase, they thought out I know not what Greek verses, as though poured forth by a divine oracle to some inquirer, wherein they make Christ indeed innocent of the crime of this sacrilege, as it were; but they subjoin that Peter wrought sorceries, so that the name of Christ should be worshipped for three hundred and sixty-five years; and then, the said number of years being completed, it should without delay take its end. After these things the holy Doctor uses an argument ad hominem, and asks the imprudent authors of this fable what sort of gods those are who could foretell that misfortune and yet not avert it. Nay, he wittily derides the pagans, in that all the power of the gods had to succumb for so long to one Peter, a sorcerer.

[395] obstinate heathen. Then he thus begins the following and last chapter of the same book: These and many things of this kind I should collect, if that year had not yet passed which a feigned divination promised and a deceived vanity believed. But since, from the time that the worship of the name of Christ was instituted through His presence in the flesh and through the Apostles, three hundred and sixty-five years were completed several years ago, what else do we seek whereby that falsehood may be refuted? Finally, from the computation of the times, he evidently convicts those vain prophets of error, and shows toward the end of the chapter just cited that they had rather foretold the very ruin of their own superstition, in these words: Further, in the following year, in the consulate of Manlius Theodorus (this consulate falls in the three hundred and ninety-ninth year of Christ), when according to that oracle of the demons, or figment of men, there ought to have been no Christian religion, what perhaps was done through other parts of the earth it was not necessary to inquire. Meanwhile, what we know: in the most famous and most eminent city of Carthage in Africa, Gaudentius and Jovius, counts of the emperor Honorius, on the fourteenth of the Kalends of April overthrew the temples of the false gods and broke their images. From that time until this, through nearly thirty years, who does not see how greatly the worship of the name of Christ has grown, especially after many of them became Christians who were being called back from the faith by that supposedly true divination, and who, that same number of years being completed, saw it to be empty and laughable?

[396] But some stubborn pagans in Africa despised those laws of the emperor Honorius, When the heathen of Calama as we draw out from Letter 267, which St. Augustine, according to the most recent French editors of the Augustinian Work, addressed in the year of Christ 399 to the chief men or elders of the Suffectan Colony, and at the beginning of which he thus bitterly complains of the slaughter of sixty Christians: The most notorious crime of your monstrousness and your unlooked-for cruelty shakes the earth and strikes heaven, so that in your streets and shrines blood shines out and homicide resounds. Among you the Roman laws are buried, the terror of upright judgments is trampled down; certainly there is no veneration of the emperors, nor fear. Among you the innocent blood of sixty brethren has been poured out, and if anyone killed more, he was rewarded with praises, and held the chief place in your council. From the following words of the same letter we gather the cause of this slaughter, which the most eminent Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 399, number 72, explains more clearly. Further, these sixty Christians, then slain on that occasion, are yearly announced in the Roman Martyrology on the XXX day of this month in this manner: At the Suffetulan Colony in Africa, of the blessed sixty martyrs, who were slain by the fury of the heathen. The true arena of that martyrdom, which is here called the Suffetulan Colony, and elsewhere is surnamed Suffectan, will have to be investigated more laboriously on the thirtieth day of August, and then Tillemont, tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 324, may be consulted on this matter.

[397] Although in some following years like laws against idolaters were passed or repeatedly renewed by the emperor Honorius, had raised a grave sedition against the Christians, nevertheless the heathen of Calama in the year of Christ 408 raised a sedition against the Christians, which our Saint narrates in Letter 202 in this manner: Against the most recent laws, on the Kalends of June, at the festival of the pagans, a sacrilegious solemnity was celebrated, no one forbidding it, with so insolent a daring that — what was not done even in the times of Julian — a most wanton crowd of dancers passed in that very street directly before the doors of the church. When the clerics attempted to forbid this most unlawful and most unworthy thing, the church was stoned. Then after about eight days, when the bishop had rehearsed to the council the most well-known laws, the church was stoned again. On the next day, when our people wished to make a declaration on record, which seemed the way to impose fear upon the lost, the public rights were denied them; and on that very same day, that they might be terrified even from heaven, hail was rendered for their stonings; and when that had passed, they at once brought a third stoning, and last of all fires upon the ecclesiastical roofs and upon men; they killed one of the servants of God who, wandering about, chanced to meet them, while the rest partly lay hidden where they could, partly fled whither they could; while meanwhile the bishop, thrust down and confined, hid himself in a certain place, where he heard the voices of those who sought him to kill him, and reproached themselves that, since he was not found, they had perpetrated so great a crime for nothing.

[398] The Saint answers sharply Nectarius, a pagan, These things the holy Prelate sets forth to Nectarius, a pagan, who was one of the chief or elder citizens of Calama, and out of love of his country had interceded for his countrymen, anxiously asking Augustine by letter that innocent pagans should not be punished with the guilty on account of that sedition. But the Saint shows him that there were scarcely any of the magistracy or the leading men there who were innocent, when after the narration mentioned he thus proceeds in the same place: These things were done from about the tenth hour until no small part of the night. No one attempted to restrain, no one to help, of those whose authority could carry weight, except one stranger, through whom very many servants of God were freed from the hands of those attempting to kill them, and much was wrested from the plunderers; through whom it was made clear how easily those things either would not have happened at all, or, once begun, would have desisted, if the citizens, and especially the leading men, had forbidden them to be done and carried through. Accordingly in that whole city you will perhaps be able to distinguish, not the innocent from the guilty, but the less guilty from the more guilty: for they are in a small sin who, deterred by fear, and especially lest they offend those whom they knew to have most power in that town and to be enemies of the Church, did not dare to bring help. But all are wicked by whose willing — though they neither did these things nor sent men to do them — these things were committed; more wicked those who committed them; most wicked those who sent them… Do you think that those who remain are to be restrained by no discipline, and judge that so monstrous an example of fury is to be set forth unpunished? We do not seek to feed our anger by avenging the past, but we are busied in mercifully providing for the future.

[399] who by futile reasons begged off the punishment of the seditious, But since Nectarius had before commended the meekness or clemency which befits Christian bishops, Augustine answers him thus acutely: Your prudence in a manner prescribes to us concerning the episcopal person, and says that your native place has fallen into no light error of its people: which indeed, if we measure it by the rigor of public law, ought to be punished with a severer censure; but, you say, it is not right for a bishop to do anything save impart salvation to men, and to be present in causes for a better condition, and to obtain pardon before almighty God for the offenses of others. All these things we altogether strive to observe, that no one be punished with a severer censure, either by us or by any other with our intercession; and we desire to impart salvation to men, which is placed in the happiness of living rightly, not in security of doing evil. We press also to obtain pardon not only for our own but for others' offenses, which we cannot at all obtain save for those who are corrected. You add also and say: With all the supplication I can, I entreat that, if the matter is to be defended, the guiltless be defended, and that trouble be kept apart from the innocent. Receive briefly what has been committed, and yourself distinguish the guilty from the innocent. Then he subjoins those things which we have already related above.

[400] Not long after this tumult St. Augustine had set out for Calama, as he declares at the end of the same letter in these words: and he teaches that they must be restrained by penalties, Lately, when we were at Calama, that our people in so grave a grief might either be consoled in their affliction, or quieted in their kindling anger, we dealt with the Christians, so far as we could, in what we judged fitting at the time. Then we admitted also the pagans themselves, the head and cause of so great an evil, who asked to be seen by us, that on this occasion we might admonish them what they ought to do, if they were wise, not only for the removing of the present anxiety, but also for the seeking of perpetual salvation: they heard many things from us, they themselves also asked much; but far be it that we should be such servants as delight to be asked by those by whom our Lord is not asked. Whence you perceive, by the liveliness of your mind, that we must strive for this, Christian meekness and moderation being preserved, that we either deter the rest from imitating their perversity, or wish the rest to imitate their correction. The losses which have been inflicted are either borne by Christians or repaired by Christians: but the gains of souls, for whose acquiring we pant even at the peril of blood, we desire both to come forth more profitably in that place, and not to be hindered in other places by that example. Very often in the same letter the holy Bishop urges upon this fervent lover of his native place that there is no remedy more effectual for preserving the safety of one's country, and the just correction of one's fellow-citizens

punishment averted, than if the heathen of Calama should embrace the true and Christian faith. But that crafty worshipper of idols shuffled, and for seven or eight months answered nothing to these letters of Augustine, hoping that this sedition of his fellow-townsmen at Calama would little by little be consigned to oblivion.

[401] Meanwhile Possidius, bishop of Calama, had departed to the court of the emperor Honorius, lest they dare like things hereafter. to complain of the violated imperial laws and the injury inflicted upon the Christians. Hearing this, and rightly fearing that his riotous fellow-citizens would be severely punished by the emperor's command, Nectarius at length wrote again to Augustine, as we understand from Letter 254, which our Saint thus begins: I have read the letter of your kindness, in which you answered me long after I had given mine to be carried to you; for I had written back while my holy brother and co-bishop Possidius was still with us and had not sailed. But this letter, which for my sake you deigned to deliver to him, I received on the VI of the Kalends of April, nearly eight months after I had written. Why therefore my writings reached you so late, or yours me, I altogether do not know: unless perhaps it has now pleased your prudence to write back what you had before disdained to do. Then throughout this whole letter he partly instructs with kindly words, partly presses with subtle arguments, Nectarius, who clung to the false tenets of the philosophers and the vain superstitions of the heathen, and confirms his former reply more and more. These are the chief things which the holy Prelate wrote and did against the pagans. Hence we shall now pass on to the Manichees, whom in the time of his episcopate he assailed with various lucubrations and disputations.

al. Quodam*

al. simulacri sui*

al. quem*

§ XXIX. The writings and deeds of the holy Prelate against the Manichees, after he had ascended the see of Hippo.

He writes against the Manichees the book Against the Letter of the Foundation, On another occasion above we indicated the impious doctrine of the Manichees, which it may be useful to recall here, and at the same time we reviewed those things which our Saint, while still a layman or a presbyter, did against these heretics. But now we shall bring forward those by which, shining in the episcopal dignity, he assailed the same enemies of the Catholic Church, and among which he himself in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 2, relates the following little Work: The book Against the Letter of Manichæus which they call "of the foundation" refutes its opening portions only; but in its other parts annotations were affixed where it seemed good, by which the whole is subverted, and by which I might be reminded, if ever there had been leisure to write against the whole. The holy Prelate at the beginning of that lucubration shows a great affection of compassion toward the blinded Manichees, and confesses from his own experience the difficulty of changing an opinion once seized; seeing that he himself for nine years had clung to those same errors. Wherefore he urges them to seek the truth without prejudice and arrogance, and invites them to a peaceful disputation.

[403] in which he sets forth the motives of his own credence; Then in chapter 4 he thus proposes to his adversaries the motives of credibility by which he himself was brought back to the bosom of the Catholic Church, and is held in it: That I may therefore pass over this wisdom, which you do not believe to be in the Catholic church, there are many other things which most justly hold me in her bosom. The agreement of peoples and nations holds me; an authority holds me, begun by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, strengthened by antiquity; the succession of priests holds me, from the very See of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord after His resurrection commended His sheep to be fed, down to the present episcopate; lastly, the very name of Catholic holds me, which not without cause this Church alone has so obtained among so many heresies, that, although all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet to some stranger asking where one may assemble at the Catholic church, no heretic would dare to point out either his own basilica or his house. These therefore, so many and so great dearest bonds of the Christian name, rightly hold a man believing in the Catholic Church, even though, because of the slowness of our understanding or the merit of our life, the truth does not yet show itself most openly. But among you, where there is none of these things which invite and hold me, only the promise of truth sounds forth; which indeed if it be shown so manifestly that it cannot come into doubt, is to be preferred to all those things by which I am held in the Catholic Church. But if it is only promised and not exhibited, no one shall move me from that faith which binds my mind to the Christian religion with so many and so great ties. In the course of the dissertation he proves all these things one by one, and gradually subverts the whole foundation of the Manichees.

[404] the 33 books Against Faustus, Moreover the holy Prelate wrote against Faustus the Manichee, whose character was depicted elsewhere above, thirty-three books, of which St. Augustine himself in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 7, thus makes mention: Against Faustus the Manichee, blaspheming the law and the prophets and their God and the incarnation of Christ, and saying that the Scriptures of the new Testament, by which he is convicted, had been falsified, I wrote a great Work, setting down his words and rendering my answers: there are thirty-three disputations, which why should I not also have called books? For although there are some in them very short, nevertheless they are books. But one of them, where the life of the patriarchs is defended by us against his accusations, is of so great length as almost none of my books. Further, the holy Doctor throughout this Work (as is his manner in refuting heretics) ingeniously explodes the empty dreams of the Manichees, and solidly confirms the ancient doctrine of the Catholic Church, as the learned will easily judge with us who shall be willing to run through this lucubration of his with an attentive mind. We here add nevertheless a single specimen of a refutation of this kind, that from it the curious reader may make a conjecture about the rest.

[405] When that proud Faustus in book 5 of the Work mentioned, chapter 7, had boasted whom he sharply that the evangelical beatitudes praised by Christ suited him, and had placed among them the persecution which he and his people suffered for their doctrine, St. Augustine in the same place, in the following chapter, after other things thus sharply answers him: How do you sustain persecutions and hatreds for justice' sake — you for whom it is justice to preach and persuade these sacrilegious things; and why do you not consider how small, and almost nothing, are the things you suffer for that impious perversity, because of the mildness of Christian times? But as though you were speaking to the blind and foolish, do you wish it to be, as it were, a great sign of your justice that you sustain reproaches and suffer persecution? Further, if each man is the more just the graver the things he endures, I forbear to say — what is most easy to see — how much graver things are suffered by men polluted with one crime and outrage and another. This I say: If whoever suffers persecution for the name of Christ, however usurped and taken up, is now to be said to hold also the true faith and justice, grant that he is of truer faith and greater justice whom we can show to have endured much graver things than you; and thousands of our martyrs now meet you, and especially Cyprian himself, who is taught even by his own letters to have believed in Christ born of the Virgin Mary. For this faith, which you detest, he came even to the sword and to death, together with flocks of Christians then believing so, and so, and more grievously, dying.

[406] But Faustus, convicted or having confessed that he was a Manichee, when he had been brought with some others along with him to the proconsular judgment, by the intercession of those very Christians by whom they were brought, was banished to an island with a most trifling penalty (if indeed that is to be called a penalty); which the servants of God do of their own accord daily, desiring to remove themselves from the turbulent noise of peoples, and from which the public vows of earthly princes are wont by indulgence to release the condemned. he refutes; Finally, not long afterwards they were all dismissed thence by the same customary lot. Confess therefore that those held a truer faith and a juster life who for it deserved to endure things far more atrocious than you; or cease to boast of this, that you are detestable to many: but distinguish what it is to suffer persecution for blasphemy and to suffer persecution for justice, and for which of these you suffer, consider again and again diligently in your books. Finally, when that proud Faustus boasted of his poverty and his rigid manner of living, St. Augustine casts up against this dainty hypocrite his feather beds and goat's-hair coverlets and other conveniences of life, most well known to the Hearers of the Manichees themselves, as we related above on another occasion.

[407] the two Disputations which he held publicly with Felix, The holy Doctor in the year of Christ 404 held a public disputation with Felix the Manichee, which he commemorates in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 8, in this manner: Against a certain Manichee named Felix I disputed for two days in the church in the presence of the people. For he had come to Hippo to sow that same error; for he was one of their teachers, although unlearned in liberal letters, but nevertheless more crafty than Fortunatus. Ecclesiastical acts were drawn up; but they are reckoned among my books. There are therefore two books, in the second of which there was a disputation concerning the free choice of the will, whether toward working evil or good. But to dispute more diligently concerning the grace by which they are made free, of whom it is written, "If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed," we were compelled by no necessity, because such was the man with whom we were dealing. The Saint in this place seems to intimate that he disputed with Felix the Manichee only for two days, or twice. Yet Possidius will narrate below at number 33, in the second part of the deeds, that that Manichee, after a second or third conference held with the holy Prelate, yielded conquered hands to the truth. But these things are easily reconciled, since St. Augustine reckoned only the two disputations which he held publicly before the people and the notaries. But Possidius seems to number among them the private colloquy which had been held between them the day before, as we gather from the beginning of the first disputation, where St. Augustine thus addresses Felix: You know that yesterday you said that you could defend the writings of Manichæus, and assert that they have the truth.

[408] who by them was converted to the faith; Further, Tillemont, tome 13 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 412, and other learned men doubt whether this Felix is the same as that Manichæan presbyter whom our holy Bishop had admonished in Letter 244 in these words: And so I declare to you in the name of Christ, that if you are prepared, you should resolve the question in which your predecessor Fortunatus failed; and he departed hence in such a way as not to return, unless, after conferring in disputation with his own people, he found what he could answer against it, disputing with the brethren. But if you are not prepared for this, depart hence, and do not pervert the ways of the Lord, and ensnare and infect with poisons weak souls, lest, with the right hand of our Lord helping, you blush in a way you had not supposed. Perhaps this Felix had succeeded in the place of Fortunatus, with whom St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, had publicly disputed, as we narrated above in §19. However that may be, the fruit of this twofold disputation was the conversion of Felix to the Catholic church, who at the end of the authentic Acts recanted his errors,

and wrote these words: I, Felix, who had believed Manichæus, now anathematize him, and his doctrine, and the seducing spirit which was in him; who said that God had mingled a part of Himself with the race of darkness, and that He frees it so basely as to transfigure His powers into females against the male demons, and these again into males against the female demons, so that afterwards He fastens the remnants of that same part of Himself forever to the globe of darkness. All these and the rest of the blasphemies of Manichæus I anathematize.

[409] the book On the Nature of the Good, Moreover the holy Prelate in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 9, after this disputation with Felix, places another little Work against the Manichees, in this manner: The book On the Nature of the Good is against the Manichees, where it is shown that the unchangeable nature is God and the highest good, and that from Him are the other natures, whether spiritual or corporeal, and that all, in so far as they are natures, are good: and what evil is, or whence, and how many evils the Manichees place in the nature of the good, and how many goods in the nature of evil — which natures their error has feigned. The Saint in chapter 47 of that little Work proves that from the impious dogma of Manichæus there follow execrable crimes, which were secretly perpetrated by some of his followers, and of which they were very often juridically convicted in a public court. The like outrages of the Manichees were afterwards detected also at Carthage, and became known by authentic testimonies and by the confession of the accused themselves, as we have related above in §§5 and 10 more than sufficiently, where it was necessary to set forth their corrupt morals and the insane doctrine of Manichæus, that the things to be said thereafter might be more clearly understood.

[410] Lest therefore those foul crimes be repeated in this place, let us rather hear the ardent peroration of the pious Prelate, in which he ardently prays for the Manichees; who in the last chapter of the said lucubration thus prays to God for those blind heretics: O how great is Thy patience, O Lord, merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and of much mercy and truthful, who makest Thy sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rainest upon the just and the unjust; who dost not will the death of the sinner, so much as that he should turn and live; who sparest while Thou rebukest, giving place to repentance, that, malice being left behind, they may believe in Thee, O Lord; who by Thy patience leadest to repentance, although many according to the hardness of their heart and their impenitent heart treasure up to themselves wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of Thy just judgment, who renderest to every man according to his works: who, on whatever day a man shall have turned from his wickedness to Thy mercy and Thy truth, forgettest all his iniquities: grant us, give us, that through our ministry, by which Thou hast willed this execrable and exceedingly horrible error to be refuted, as many have already been freed, so others also may be freed, and that, whether through the sacrament of Thy holy baptism, or through the sacrifice of a troubled spirit and a contrite and humbled heart in the grief of penitence, they may deserve to receive remission of their sins and blasphemies, by which through ignorance they have offended Thee. For so greatly avail Thy prevailing mercy and power, and the truth of Thy baptism, and the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Thy holy Church, that not even those are to be despaired of, so long as they live on this earth through Thy patience, who, even knowing how great an evil it is to think or say such things of Thee, are held in that malignant profession because of some custom or acquisition of temporal and earthly advantage — if only, being rebuked by Thy corrections, they flee to Thy ineffable goodness, and prefer the heavenly and eternal life to all the enticements of the carnal life.

[411] About the year of Christ 405 Secundinus the Manichee wrote to our Saint a letter at once urbane and stinging, against Secundinus, by whom he had been bitingly assailed, to which St. Augustine opposed a longer reply, or book, and prefixed to it the very letter of Secundinus, as he himself signifies in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 10, in these words: A certain Secundinus, not of those whom the Manichees call the Elect, but of those whom they call the Hearers, whom I did not know even by face, wrote to me as a friend, honorably upbraiding me because I was assailing that heresy with my writings, and admonishing me not to do so, and rather exhorting me to follow it, with a defense of it and a reproof of the Catholic faith. To him I replied; but because at the head of that little Work I did not set down who was writing to whom, it is reckoned not among my letters, but among my books. There from the beginning his letter also is written out. But the title of this volume of mine is: Against Secundinus the Manichee; which in my judgment I easily prefer to all that I have been able to write against that plague. This rash and arrogant Manichee in his letter, a fragment of which we gave above on another occasion, mingles biting reproofs with praises of Augustine, and among other taunts dares to address the holy Bishop thus: Change your opinion, I beg; lay aside the perfidy of the Punic race, and turn back your withdrawal to the truth, which was made through fear. Do not excuse yourself with these lies.

[412] and whom nevertheless he calmly But the holy Doctor, caring nothing or little for these and like insults, calmly answers that bold calumniator, and begins the refutation of the letter mentioned in chapter 1 of his book with these gentle words: Your benevolence toward me, which appears in your letter, is pleasing to me; but as much as it is fitting that you, loving me, should be loved by me in return, so much am I sad that you have tenaciously clung to false suspicions, partly against me, partly against that Truth itself which cannot be changed. But that you do not think truly of my mind, I easily despise: for you think that which, though I do not recognize it in myself, nevertheless can be in a man. Therefore, even if you err concerning me, you do not so err that your opinion takes me out of the number of men; because you believe about me what can happen in a human mind, even if it has not happened in my mind.

[413] and strenuously refutes. There is no need therefore that I should greatly strive to take away this suspicion from you: for your hope does not hang upon me, nor will you be unable to be good unless I have been so. Think of Augustine whatever you please; only let my conscience not accuse me in the eyes of God. For as the Apostle says: "To me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man's day." But I will not repay you in kind, so as to dare to think anything of your mind in the worse part, which I am not able to behold. Nor do I say that you wished to tear me craftily; but I judge of you only so much as you show of yourself by your words. Wherefore, even if you have suspected no good of me — that from a carnal fear of some inconvenience which might come to me from your society I left the heresy of the Manichees, or from desire of the honor which I have obtained in the Catholic Church — nevertheless, not thinking ill of you in return, I believe your suspicion to be benevolent, and I judge that you wrote this not for the sake of accusing, but from a zeal for correcting. But if you would accommodate to me the benevolence of believing, since you censure the hiding places of my mind, which indeed I cannot bring forth to your eyes and demonstrate, you would easily change your opinion about it, and would no longer wish rashly to affirm what you do not know. Then throughout the whole book, almost neglecting his own defense, he defends the cause of the Catholic Church, and strenuously refutes the impious doctrine of this heretic.

[414] A Manichee, a subdeacon under the appearance of a Catholic, At Carthage about the year of Christ 421 several Manichees, whose infamous sect had long since been proscribed by the imperial laws, were detected by Ursus, tribune and procurator of the royal house, and were heard by the bishops for the record, as St. Possidius will say below in the Acts, number 32, and as we have already narrated above in §10 from St. Augustine himself. At this time also perhaps the holy Prelate discovered a hidden Manichee, who lay concealed under the mask of a Catholic subdeacon, and concerning whom he writes thus to Deuterius, metropolitan of Cæsarea, in Letter 74: I judged that I could do nothing better than write above all to your holiness, lest through negligence the enemy lay waste in your province the sheepfold of our Lord Jesus Christ — that enemy who does not cease to lie in wait, that he may destroy souls purchased at so great a price. It was established among us that a certain subdeacon of Malliana, Victorinus, was a Manichee, and in so sacrilegious an error he lay hid under the name of a cleric: for he too was questioned by me, before he could be convicted by witnesses, and he could not deny it: for he knew that they were so many and of such a kind, to whom he had incautiously poured himself out, that if he attempted to deny it, he would appear nothing else than — I do not say most shameless, but most insane. Indeed he confessed that he was a Hearer of the Manichees, not one of the Elect.

[415] Then, the difference between the Hearers and the Elect being explained, he denounces to his own bishop, that he may be expelled from the church. he summarily indicates to Deuterius the chief blasphemies of the Manichees, and concludes his Letter with the following words: These blasphemies, intolerable together with those men, this subdeacon, as though a Catholic, not only believed but with what strength he could taught: for he was uncovered while teaching, when he trusted men as though they were learners. He indeed asked me, after he had confessed himself to be a Hearer of the Manichees, that I should call him back into the way of the truth of Catholic doctrine; but, I confess, I vehemently shuddered at his feigning under the appearance of a cleric, and took care that he be restrained and driven from the city. Nor was this enough for me, without also making him known to your holiness by my letter, so that, being fittingly cast down from the rank of the clerics by ecclesiastical severity, he may be made known to all as one to be guarded against. But when he asks a place of penitence, let him then be believed, if he shall also have made known to us the others whom he knows to be there — not only in Malliana, but in that whole province altogether.

[416] Holy Possidius in chapter 2 of the Indiculus reviews several little works Several little Works written against the Manichees, which now lie hidden. which our Saint wrote against the Manichees, and of which some are now wanting. Nay, the holy Doctor himself indicates that he published many lucubrations against these heretics, when in book 3, chapter 79, Against Cresconius the Grammarian, who reproached the holy Prelate with Manicheism, he dilutes this impudent calumny with this brief refutation: For what should I judge concerning the most pestilential vanity of the Manichees, to be anathematized by all Christians, if I were wont only to speak of it, and did not also bear witness by many and manifold books written? — nor even so would there be any place for your calumny against me… But since anyone who wishes can read my so many writings against the Manichees, who once deceived me as a very young man, no one is so foolish as to believe your words about me rather than his own eyes and senses. The holy Doctor in book 4 of the same Work Against Cresconius, chapter 64, again refutes that repeated calumny, and afterwards answered nearly the like to the Pelagian heretics, who to the same man

impudently objected Manicheism, that strenuous vanquisher of the Manichees. Now we proceed to the sharper and more perilous contests which our holy Bishop entered into with the Donatists, as will appear from some of the following paragraphs.

§ XXX. The holy Prelate's intrepid love and solicitous kindness toward the Donatists.

The Saint often invited the Donatists to a conference, While our Saint still discharged the office of a presbyter, he began to assail the Donatists, as we showed above in §19, where also we briefly explained the origin of this schism and heresy. But when he had ascended the see of Hippo, he strove with greater zeal and labor to bring back those schismatics and heretics to the unity of the Catholic Church. Whence by private letters and public challenges he invited them to friendly disputations, as we gather from the testimony of St. Augustine himself, who writes thus in book 1 Against the Letters of Petilian, chapter 1: You know that we have often wished to bring forth and convict the sacrilegious error of the Donatist heretics into manifest notice, not so much from our own work as from theirs. Whence it came about that we addressed letters even to some of their leading men — not indeed letters of communion, of which they have already made themselves unworthy in the past by dissenting from the Catholic Church, nor yet insulting ones, but peaceful, so that, the question being discussed with us which tore them away from the holy communion of the whole world, and the truth being considered, they might be willing to be corrected; and might not defend with a still more foolish obstinacy the spirited perversity of their elders, but be restored to the Catholic root for the fruit of charity. But they under a frivolous pretext gave no answer to his letters, and, because of his eloquence and skill in the dialectical art, as they ineptly pleaded, did not dare to engage with the holy Prelate. Nay rather, rendering hatred for love, they threatened death to him as he fervently pressed them, as Possidius will testify below in number 18 of the Acts.

[418] and sought them out as they fled But the intrepid Defender of the Catholic faith was not terrified by these threats, as abundantly appears from the sermon or tractate On Shepherds, where in chapter 7 he has the following to our purpose against the Donatists: Here we are somehow employed among the hands of robbers and the teeth of raging wolves; and we pray that you may pray for these our perils. And the sheep are contumacious, because when they are sought as they wander, they say they are strangers to us; by their own error and their own perdition they say: What do you want of us? Why do you seek us? As though this were not the very cause why we want them and why we seek them, because they wander and perish. If I am in error, if I am in destruction, why do you want me? Why do you seek me? Because you are in error, I wish to call you back; because you have perished, I wish to find you. Thus I wish to wander, thus I wish to perish. Do you thus wish to wander, thus wish to perish? How much better that I do not wish it? I plainly dare to say: I am importunate. For I hear the Apostle saying: "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season." To whom in season? To whom out of season? In season surely to the willing; out of season to the unwilling. Plainly I am importunate, I dare to say. You wish to wander, you wish to perish. I do not wish it. Finally He does not wish it, who terrifies me. If I should wish it, see what He says; see how He rebukes. "What was wandering you did not call back, and what perished you did not seek." Shall I fear you more than Him?

[419] with wondrous ardor: "We must all be brought before the tribunal of Christ." I do not fear: for he cannot overturn the tribunal of Christ and set up the tribunal of Donatus. I will call back the wanderer, I will seek out the lost. Whether you will or not, I will do it, even though as I search the briars of the woods tear me; I will squeeze myself through every narrow place, I will shake out every hedge. As much strength as the Lord who terrifies me gives me, I will traverse all things; I will call back the wanderer, I will seek out the perishing. If you do not wish to suffer me, do not wander, do not perish. It is a small thing that I grieve for you wandering and perishing; I fear lest, by neglecting you, I kill also what is strong. For see what follows: "And what was strong, you have made an end of." If I neglect the wanderer and the perishing, then he also who is strong will take delight in wandering and perishing. I desire outward gains, but I fear more the inward losses. If I hold your error a matter of indifference, he who is strong takes note; he thinks it is nothing to go over into heresy. When some worldly advantage shall shine out, for which he may change, that strong man who is to perish at once says to me, since I do not seek you the lost one: God is both here and there. What difference does it make? Men quarreling among themselves have done this; wherever it may be, God is to be worshipped. If perchance some Donatist should say to him: I will not give you my daughter, unless you be of my party. He needs to take note and to say: If it were no evil to be of their party, our shepherds would not speak against them; they would not busy themselves over their error. If therefore we should cease and be silent, he will speak the contrary: Surely if it were an evil to be in the party of Donatus, they would speak against it, they would refute them, they would busy themselves to gain them; if they wander, they would call them back; if they perish, they would seek them. By these things the most vigilant Pastor indicates that his admonitions could not be borne ill by his adversaries, since by divine command and by his pastoral office he was bound to procure the salvation of the straying sheep.

[420] But when certain obstinate and rash Donatists opposed to our Saint's wholesome admonitions stinging writings and false insults, provoked by their calumnies, he cared nothing or little for these calumnies, and meanwhile strongly pleaded the cause of the Catholic Church, omitting the vindication of his own reputation. This gentleness or meekness of his is easily drawn out from chapter one of book three Against the Letters of Petilian, where he calmly answers that reviling Donatist in this manner: I have read, Petilian, your letters, when I was able to read them, in which you sufficiently showed that against the Catholic Church, on behalf of the party of Donatus, you were neither able to say anything fit, nor permitted to keep silence. What heats you suffered, with what tempest of heart you tossed, when you had read those things by which I answered with all the brevity and clearness I could to that part of your letter which had then come into my hands! For you saw the truth which we hold and defend strengthened with such firmness and illumined with such light, that you could not find what should be said against it, whereby, being convicted, it might be refuted. You noticed also that the expectation of many who had read those things was turned upon you, desiring to know what you would say, what you would do, by what way you would escape, whither you would break forth from the great straits by which the word of God had hemmed you in. Here you, who ought, despising the opinion of the vain, to have gone on to a true and sound judgment, did what Scripture foretold concerning such men: "You have loved malice above kindness, and iniquity rather than to speak equity."

[421] Accordingly, if I too wished to repay you curses for curses, he calmly answered, what else should we be than two revilers, so that those who read us, some with sound gravity would cast us aside in detestation, others with malevolent will would drink us in sweetly? I, whenever I answer anyone either by speaking or by writing, even when provoked by insulting accusations, so far as the Lord grants me, having bridled and restrained the stings of empty indignation, and taking thought for the hearer or reader, do not act so as to be made superior to a man by reviling him, but more wholesome by convicting his error. For if those who consider what you have written have any heart at all, what has it profited you toward the cause which is at issue between us concerning Catholic communion, or the party of Donatus, that, the in some sort public business being left aside, you have pursued the life of one man with abusive reproaches out of a certain private grudge, as though that man were the cause which is under inquiry?

[422] and, leaving aside the cause of his own person, Did you think so ill — I will not say of Christians, but of the human race itself — as not to believe that your writings could come into the hands of any prudent men, who would lift themselves away from our persons, and would rather inquire into the question which was being turned between us, and would attend not to who or what sort of men we were, but to what we said for the truth or against error? And their judgment ought to have been revered by you, their reproof guarded against, lest they should judge that you had found nothing to say, unless you set before yourself someone whom you might in a manner curse: but, forsooth, you counted on the levity and vanity of certain men, who gladly hear the quarrels of trifling talkers, so that, while they notice how elegantly you revile, they may at the same time not see how truthfully you are convicted. At the same time, I suppose, you aimed also at this: that I, occupied in my own defense, should myself desert the cause I had undertaken, and thus, men being turned to the words not of disputants but of litigants, the truth might be obscured, which you dread should grow clear and become known. What therefore shall I do against such a design, save that, my own defense being rather neglected, I hold to the matter concerning which no accuser of mine may shake out my purpose? The house of my God, whose beauty I have loved, I will exalt with the heralding of a serving voice; but myself I will humble and cast down: for I have chosen to be abject in the house of my God rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of heretics. From you therefore, Petilian, I will turn my speech for a little, and turn it to those whom by your curses you have tried to turn away from me — as though I were contriving this, that men should be turned to me, and not rather with me to God.

[423] he alone defended the cause of the Church, Then in the sixth chapter of the same book the holy Hunter of souls asserts that for the love of God he bears those insults of his adversaries not only patiently but even gladly, thus addressing his Catholic readers: Doing these things with you and with all whom we desire to gain for Christ, and among the rest preaching the holy Church which we read to have been promised in the Letters of God, and which, as it was promised, we behold rendered among all nations, we have earned from those whom we desire to draw to her peaceful bosom, in place of thanksgiving, the flames of hatreds; as though we had bound them in that party for which they find nothing to say, or as though we had so long ago charged the prophets and Apostles to set down in their books no testimonies by which the party of Donatus might be taught to be the Church of Christ. And we indeed, dearly beloved, when we hear false accusations from those whom we offend by preaching the words of truth and by convicting the vain talk of error, have, as you know, most abundant consolation: for if in those things of which they accuse me the testimony of my conscience does not stand against me in the sight of God, on whom no mortal eye is fixed, I ought not only not to be saddened, but even to rejoice and exult, because my reward is great in heaven: for it is not to be considered how bitter, but how false is what I hear, and how truthful is He for whose name I hear it. Finally throughout the whole Work against Petilian, his own apology being abandoned, he strenuously vindicates the Catholic Church from the injurious accusations of the Donatists.

[424] In almost like manner the peaceable Prelate refutes Cresconius the Donatist, taking care with wondrous zeal, an insulting Grammarian also, who had brought aid to Petilian and had repeated the same calumnies against our Saint: for again, despising the injuries inflicted upon him, he strongly defends the common cause of the Catholic Church. Yet when Cresconius St. Augustine

had accused, as though he had fastened a shameful and rather bitter name upon Petilian, our public Vindicator of the Church judged that that pernicious calumny, which could have alienated the Donatists from union, must be refuted in book 3, chapter 78, by this reply: Nay, you even reprove me for not having kept the gentleness promised at the outset, because, moved by the mention of the Manichees, I said: "As, in the Lord's words, Satan cannot cast out Satan, so the error of the Manichees cannot overthrow the error of the Donatists"; as though I had compared Petilian to Satan, and not the error from whose snares I desire him to be extricated.

[425] It is well that the Apostle has fortified us against such calumnies in that very place lest by too bitter words he offend them, where he admonishes us to be mild, patient, and modest when we rebuke anyone who disagrees. For when he had said, "But the servant of the Lord must not wrangle, but be mild toward all, apt to teach, patient, in modesty rebuking those who think differently," he at once subjoined: "Lest perhaps God give them repentance to know the truth, and they recover themselves from the snares of the devil, being held captive by him at his will." Behold the Apostolic meekness: those with whom he commanded us to deal calmly, patiently, and modestly, these very ones he says are held captive by the devil; nor yet did he lose the gentleness which he commended, because he was unwilling to keep silence about the truth which he taught. Nay rather, the holy Doctor judged that lie of Cresconius so harmful to the union of the Donatists that he repeated the same refutation in chapter 64 of the fourth book against the aforesaid Cresconius in these few words: You say that I did not keep the peace and gentleness which I had promised at the beginning of my writings, because I called Petilian Satan. I compared to Satan not Petilian, nor any man in the party of Donatus, but the very error of the party of Donatus, from whose snares I desire the men whom I love to be freed: for read more carefully; you will find it.

[426] The peaceable Assailant of heresy took care not only and solicitously admonishing Catholics, not to wound the Donatists with too bitter words or turn them away from union, but also publicly exhorted the Catholics to give them no occasion of offense: for when the disputation or conference of Carthage between the Catholics and Donatists was at hand and about to be held, St. Augustine in Sermon 35 On the Praise of Peace, which is read among the forty new ones first published by our Sirmond, thus admonishes his hearers, after other things, concerning dealing amicably with the Donatists: Accordingly, dearly beloved, I exhort your charity that you show them a Christian and Catholic meekness. Now they are pressed upon to be cured. The eyes of the saints are inflamed. They must be carefully cured and gently handled. Let no one take up a quarrel with anyone; let no one now wish even to defend his own faith by wrangling, lest from a quarrel a spark be born, lest an occasion be furnished to those seeking an occasion. Plainly, you hear an insult; bear it, disregard it, pass it by; remember that he is to be cured.

[427] See how gentle physicians are toward those whom they cure even with biting remedies. lest in the conferences They hear an insult, they proffer a medicine, and do not return insult for insult. Word is met with word, so that one may be the one to be cured, the other to cure perhaps curator, the healer, not two litigants. Bear it, I beseech you, my brethren. But I do not bear it, one says, because he blasphemes the Church. This the Church asks of you, that you bear it, because the Church is blasphemed. He detracts, one says, from my bishop; he speaks a charge against my bishop, and shall I be silent? Let him speak a charge, and be you silent — not by acknowledging it, but by bearing it. This you render to your bishop, if for his sake at that time you do not mix in the fray. Understand the time, take counsel. How many blaspheme your God? Do you hear it, and He not hear it? Do you know it, and He not know it? And yet He makes His sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust; He shows patience, He defers His power. So do you too recognize the time; do not provoke swollen eyes to trouble themselves… Do not repel the reviler with revilings, but pray for him. You wish to speak to him against him; speak to God for him. I do not tell you to keep silent; but choose rather where you may speak, before whom you may speak silently, with closed lips and a crying heart. Where he does not see you, there be good on his behalf.

[428] they should furnish any Moreover the holy Doctor begins another sermon on the same matter, which among the forty new Sirmondian ones is thirty-sixth in order, in this manner: May the prayers of your holiness assist our care for you, and for our enemies and yours, and for the salvation of all, for quiet, for the common peace, for the unity which the Lord commanded and which the Lord loves, so that we may speak of it to you again and again, and rejoice with you. For indeed, if we always love peace and charity, we ought always to speak of them. Much more therefore at this time, when peace is so loved that, being placed in peril for the loving and holding of it, we are those to whom we do not render evil for evil, and with whom, as it is written, we are peaceable with those that hate peace, and because we speak peace to them, they wish to war against us without cause. Those therefore who are such are endangered between the love of peace and the confusion of shame; nor do they achieve this, when they are unwilling to be conquered, that they should be unconquered: for those who are unwilling to be conquered by the truth are conquered by error. O that charity rather than animosity might overcome them! Then they would become victors by that very thing whereby they were vanquished. We, on behalf of the Catholic Church, to whose peace and concord and reconciliation we invite her enemies, love, hold, and defend her not by human opinions but by divine testimonies. What shall I do with him who cries out for a part and litigates against the whole? Is it not good for him to be conquered — he who, if he be conquered, will hold the whole; if he conquer, will remain in a part? Nay, if he shall seem to himself to conquer: for nothing conquers save truth; the victory of truth is charity.

[429] occasion of disturbances But when Marcellinus the count, in order to avoid every handle of dissension or tumult, had prudently forbidden in the emperor's name that anyone of the Catholic people should enter the place of the disputation, St. Augustine at the end of the same sermon publicly admonishes the people in these words: Let none of you rush into the place of the conference, my brethren. Plainly, if it can be done, avoid passing even through that place, lest perchance some approach to contention and quarrel be found, or an occasion furnished, and those who seek an occasion find that very occasion. Especially since those who fear God too little, or make little of our admonition, or because they love things present, ought at least to venerate the severity of the earthly power. You have read the edict of the illustrious man publicly set forth; which indeed was not set forth on account of you, who fear God and do not despise the admonition of your bishops; but lest anyone disregard these things, lest anyone despise them.

[430] Let them therefore see what sort of men they are, lest perchance there befall them what the Apostle says: occasion. "For he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God. For princes are not to be feared for a good work, but for an evil." Let us avoid all seditions, all causes of sedition. Perhaps you say: We are intent on what we are to do. And what shall we enjoin upon you? Perhaps the rich portions of piety. Let us dispute for you; do you pray for us. Assist your prayers also, as we have already forewarned, with fastings and alms: add wings to those things by which they fly to God. Doing your business thus, perhaps you will be more useful to us than we to you: for none of us presumes upon himself in this disputation. All our hope is in God; for we are not better than the Apostle, who says: "Pray for us." Pray, he says, for me, that speech may be given me. Do you therefore ask on our behalf Him in whom we have placed our hope, that you may rejoice at our disputation. Hold to these things, brethren; we beseech you by the name of the Lord Himself, by the love of peace, by the planter of peace, we beg you to pray to Him peaceably, to entreat Him peaceably, and to remember that you are sons of Him by whom it was said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." But most of the obstinate Donatists repaid this solicitous Pastor's love with fury, as we shall relate in the following paragraph.

perhaps curator*

§ XXXI. The rage of the Donatists against Augustine and other Catholics, which had usefully to be restrained by the laws of the emperor.

[The rage of the stubborn Donatists against the Catholics on account of the conversion of certain persons,] When certain Donatists were converted to the union of the Catholic Church by the continual exhortations and unconquerable arguments of St. Augustine and other prelates, other stubborn followers of this heresy (we shall use the words of our holy Doctor in Letter 50) so blazed up, and were stirred by such goads of hatred, that against their ambushes and violences and most open brigandages scarcely any churches of our communion could be safe, scarcely any road secure by which they might travel, whoever preached peace against their rage and convicted their madness with manifest truth. To such a degree indeed was a hard condition set before not only laymen or any clerics whatever, but even the Catholic bishops themselves: for either the truth had to be kept silent, or their monstrousness endured. But if the truth were kept silent, not only would no one be freed by its silence, but many also would be lost by their seduction. But if by the preaching of the truth their fury were provoked to rage, then, some being freed and our own strengthened, fear would again hinder the weak from following the truth.

[432] which the Saint once happily escaped by straying from the road, Our Saint once happily escaped their rage, as he himself testifies in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 17, in these words: It has sometimes profited some men to err; but in the way of the feet, not in the way of morals: for it happened to us ourselves that at a certain fork of the road we went wrong, and did not go through that place where an armed band of Donatists had lain in wait watching for our passage; and so it came about that we arrived where we were going by an out-of-the-way circuit; and, their ambush being learned, we congratulated ourselves on having erred, and thence gave thanks to God. Holy Possidius in the Acts to be published after this preliminary Commentary, number 23, will narrate the same peril of St. Augustine, to which he will at once subjoin the ambushes laid for himself, and the injuries inflicted by the same raging Donatists, although that pious biographer out of modesty suppressed his own name. But from St. Augustine's Work Against Cresconius the Grammarian, book 3, chapter 46, we know that this befell that same Possidius, then bishop of Calama, as we shall presently hear.

[433] and which others experienced, The holy Doctor in Letter 166 relates the same matter concerning Possidius, where he first briefly exhibits certain other specimens of cruelty to the Donatists, addressing them thus: That we may not repeat things long past and many, at least consider your recent deeds. Marcus, presbyter of Casphaliana, compelled by no one, of his own will became a Catholic; why did your people persecute him, and would almost have killed him, had not the hand of God through men coming up repressed their violence? Restitutus of Victoriana transferred himself to the Catholic Church, no one compelling; why was he seized from his house, beaten, rolled in water, clothed in rushes,

(it is a kind of ignominious garment, on which word Du Cange in his Glossary may be consulted) and held in captivity I know not how many days, nor would he perhaps have been restored to his own liberty, had not Proculianus already seen a summons threatening himself on account of that very case? Marcianus of Urga of his own will chose Catholic unity; why, when he himself had fled, did your clerics beat his subdeacon almost to death and overwhelm him with stones — clerics whose houses were pulled down for their crime? What more shall we say? Lately you sent a herald to cry at Sinitum: Whoever shall have communicated with Maximinus, his house shall be burned. Why, before he himself was converted to the Catholic Church, and had not yet returned from overseas? For what else had we sent a presbyter to Sinitum, save that, troublesome to no one, he might visit our people, and, placed in a house of his own right, might preach Catholic peace to those willing — whom you cast out thence with grave injury?

[434] among whom St. Possidius: What else were we doing, when one of us, Possidius, bishop of Calama, was going to the Fugilinensian estate, save that our people, few as they were, who were there might be visited, and that, the word of God being heard, those who wished might be converted to the unity of Christ? For him, walking his way, they lay in wait after the manner of robbers; and because he could not fall into their ambush, they would have burned him almost alive by open violence on the Livetensian estate, together with the house whither he had fled, had not the tenants of that same estate three times extinguished the flames set beneath it, because of the peril to their own safety. What Possidius suffered from those same raging heretics after that peril of burning, the same holy Doctor in book 3 Against Cresconius the Grammarian, chapter 46, more clearly sets forth in these words: Then they hedged about with armed men the house in which Possidius had shut himself up with his people, battered it round with stones, encircled it with flames, contrived an entrance from every side; but the multitude of the inhabitants who were present, mindful of their own peril if in that place so great a crime once attempted were carried through, partly besought him to spare, whom by resisting they did not dare to offend, partly extinguished the fires set beneath. When he (namely the leader of the Donatists) no less eagerly pressed on, fervid and inexorable in his undertaking, at length the door gave way to the blows; they entered, and, having wounded with slaughter the beasts which they found in the lower part of the house, they brought down the bishop from the upper parts, afflicting him with blows and insults. All these things Possidius himself, who experienced that cruelty of the Donatists, will confirm at number 24 of the Acts, with his own name suppressed.

[435] The Catholic Clerics of the church of Hippo also, in Letter 66, of their impious cruelty against Catholics which the Donatists wrote to Januarius, bishop of the first see, rightly complain of the monstrous persecution of the Donatists in this manner: Your clerics and circumcellions rage against us with a persecution of a new kind and unheard-of cruelty. Who, if they rendered evil for evil, even so would act against the law of Christ. But now, all our deeds and yours being considered, we are found to suffer what is written: "They repaid me evil for good." And in another Psalm: "With those who hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they warred against me without cause." Then they bring forward authentic decrees of the older emperors by which the Donatists were condemned, and from these they thus discourse: You have therefore nothing to complain of concerning us; and yet the meekness of the Catholic Church would have rested altogether even from these commands of the emperors, had not your clerics and circumcellions, by their most monstrous wickednesses and furious violences disturbing and laying waste our quiet, compelled these things to be recalled and set in motion against you. For before those more recent laws, of which you now complain, had come into Africa, they laid ambushes for our bishops on their journeys, they shattered our fellow-clerics with most monstrous blows, they inflicted most grievous blows on laymen also, and set fires to their buildings.

[436] Finally the Clerics of Hippo show that these insults had not been reported by their bishop Augustine to the emperor, the cruelty but that the most mild Man had first offered the Donatists the fairest conditions of entering into peace, which they proudly rejected; and they continue their narration in this manner: Your people now do us worse evils; not only do they shatter us with cudgels and cut us down with iron, but they even throw lime mixed with vinegar into our eyes to put them out, with an incredible contrivance of crime. Moreover, plundering our houses, they have fashioned for themselves huge and terrible weapons, armed with which they run about in various directions, threatening and panting after slaughters, robberies, burnings, blindings. By which things we have been compelled first to complain to you. Let your gravity consider how many of yours — nay, all of you, who say that you suffer persecution — sit secure, under those supposedly terrible laws of the Catholic emperors, on your own possessions and on others'; and we suffer such unheard-of evils from your people. You say you suffer persecution, and we are cut down by your armed men with cudgels and iron. You say you suffer persecution, and our houses are laid waste by the plundering of your armed men. You say you suffer persecution, and our eyes are put out by your armed men with lime and vinegar. Moreover, if they inflict any deaths upon themselves of their own accord, they wish these to be odious to us and glorious to you. What they do to us, they do not impute to themselves; and what they do to themselves, they impute to us. They live like robbers; they die like circumcellions; they are honored like martyrs: and yet we have never heard that robbers blinded those whom they plundered. They carry off the slain from the light; from the living they carry off the light.

[437] Because of these and other notorious crimes of the Donatists, St. Augustine at length changed his former opinion concerning the penalties to be inflicted on heretics, gave occasion to the emperor which had always before displeased the most meek Prelate, as he confesses in Letter 48 in these words: My opinion at first was that no one should be compelled to the unity of Christ, that we must act by word, fight by disputation, conquer by reason, lest we should have feigned Catholics whom we had known as open heretics. But this opinion of mine was overcome, not by the words of those contradicting, but by the examples of those demonstrating: for first there was set against me my own city, which, though it was wholly in the party of Donatus, was converted to Catholic unity by fear of the imperial laws, and which we now see so detest the destructiveness of this animosity of yours that it would be believed never to have been in it. So many others, which were named to me one by one, so that I recognized by the facts themselves that in this case too there can rightly be understood what is written: "Give an occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser." For how many — as we certainly know — already wished to be Catholics, moved by the most manifest truth, and daily put it off out of regard for the offense of their own people.

[438] of framing laws Then the holy Doctor in Letter 50 demonstrates the justice of the imperial laws by various arguments drawn from holy Scripture, and in the same place sets forth the occasion of their promulgation in these words: Before those laws by which men are compelled to enter into the holy banquet were sent into Africa, it seemed to some brethren, among whom I too was, that although the rage of the Donatists raged on every side, we ought not to ask of the emperors that they should command that heresy itself to be altogether abolished, by appointing a penalty for those who should have wished to be in it; but that they should rather ordain this, that those who either preached the Catholic truth by speaking, or read it by establishing it, should not suffer their furious violences. Which we judged could to some extent be brought about in this way: if the law of Theodosius of most pious memory, which he promulgated generally against all heretics — that whoever of them, bishop or cleric, should be found anywhere, should be fined ten pounds of gold — they should confirm more expressly against the Donatists, who denied that they were heretics, in such a way that not all should be struck with that fine, but those in whose districts the Catholic Church suffered any violences from their clerics or from the Circumcellions or from their peoples; namely, that after a protest by the Catholics who had endured these things, the bishops or the other ministers should be held bound by the care of the municipal councils to pay the fine.

[439] against them, For thus we thought that, they being terrified and daring to do nothing of the kind, the Catholic truth could freely be taught and held, so that no one should be compelled to it, but that whoever wished without fear might follow it, lest we should have false and dissembling Catholics. And although it seemed otherwise to other brethren, now graver in age, or running over [] the examples of many cities and places where we saw a firm and true Catholic Church, which nevertheless had there been established and confirmed by such benefits of God, while by the laws of former emperors men were compelled to Catholic communion: nevertheless we prevailed that rather that which I have said should be asked of the emperors; it was decreed in our council; legates were sent to the court. But the greater mercy of God, who knew how necessary to the depraved or lukewarm minds of very many was the terror of these laws and a certain medicinal trouble, and to that hardness which cannot be amended by words, but nevertheless can be by some little severity of discipline, brought it about that our legates could not obtain what they had undertaken: for certain most grievous complaints of bishops from other places had already forestalled us, who had endured many evils from them and had been driven from their sees; especially the horrible and incredible slaughter of Maximianus, Catholic bishop of the church of Vaga [] brought it about that our legation now had nothing to do: for a law had already been promulgated that the heresy of the Donatists, of so great monstrousness — which it seemed more cruel to spare than the heresy itself raged — should be permitted not only not to be violent, but not to exist at all with impunity.

[440] To these is subjoined the monstrous crime which the cruel Donatists perpetrated against St. Maximianus, prelate of Bagai, which, as necessary, who on the third day of October is announced in the Roman Martyrology in these words: In Africa, of St. Maximianus, bishop of Bagai, who, having suffered most savage things again and again from the Donatists, and at last cast down from a high tower and left for dead, illustrious with the glory of confession, afterwards rested in the Lord. Wherefore this holy Maximianus will come to be illustrated in our Work on the said third day of October. But on this occasion we forewarn our successors that they should diligently examine whether that Maximianus ought to be distinguished from another bishop of the same name. Further, on this intricate difficulty Tillemont in the Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome 13, page 991 and following, may be consulted. The most eminent Baronius also will have to be consulted, who in the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 402, number 62, retracts his former opinion, and distinguishes two Maximiani, bishops in Africa of nearly the same time.

[441] Certainly that Maximianus, on whom the savage Donatists had inflicted so many bloody wounds, and usefully passed, and whom report had already announced as dead, being marvelously snatched from death, departed across the sea to the emperor Honorius, and with his scars still fresh accused the cruelty of the Donatists, as the Saint narrates in the same place in the following words: He therefore sought help from a Christian emperor, not so much for the sake of avenging himself as of protecting the church entrusted to him. And if he had omitted this, his patience would not have been praiseworthy, but his negligence deservedly blameworthy. For neither did the apostle Paul, of his transitory life

take counsel, but for the Church of God, when against those who had conspired to kill him he brought it about that their design should be betrayed to the tribune. Whence it came about that an armed soldier conducted him to the place to which he was to be brought, lest he should suffer their ambushes: he did not in the least hesitate also to implore the Roman laws, proclaiming himself a Roman citizen, whom it was not then lawful to afflict with stripes; and likewise, lest he should be handed over to the Jews who desired to slay him, he demanded the help of Cæsar — a Roman prince indeed, but not a Christian. Wherein he sufficiently showed what the dispensers of Christ ought to do afterwards, when they should find Christian emperors and the Church in peril. Hence therefore it came about that a religious and pious emperor, such causes being brought to his notice, preferred altogether to correct by most pious laws the error of that impiety, and by terrifying and restraining to bring back to Catholic unity those who bore the standards of Christ against Christ, rather than merely to take away the license of raging and to leave them the license of erring and perishing. But now, when those laws had come into Africa, chiefly those who were seeking an occasion, or feared the savagery of the raging, or were ashamed to offend their own people, straightway passed over to the Church.

[442] When certain desperate Donatists, impatient of these laws, after the ancient manner of their elders killed themselves or offered themselves to be killed, against the calumnies of the Donatists, and imputed this slaughter to the Catholics, Augustine in the same place thus refutes that foolish accusation by the example of Absalom and by another familiar comparison: But they — as we have said also elsewhere sometimes — both do not impute to themselves what they do to us, and impute to us what they do to themselves. For which of us would wish, not only that any of them should perish, but even that he should lose anything? But if the house of David could not otherwise deserve to have peace, unless Absalom his son had been destroyed in the war which he was waging against his father — although with great care he charged his men that so far as they could they should keep him alive and safe, that there might be one whom, repenting, a father's affection might pardon — what remained for him save to weep for the lost, and, the peace of his kingdom being acquired, to console his own sorrow?

[443] Augustine defends So therefore the Catholic mother, toward those warring against her — what else are they but her sons, since surely from that great tree itself, which by the reaching out of its branches is spread over the whole world, this little branch in Africa has been broken off — since she travails for them in charity, that they may return to the root, without which they cannot have true life, if by the loss of some she gathers so many others: especially because these perish not, like Absalom, by the chance of war, but rather by a voluntary destruction — the deliverance of so great peoples soothes and heals the grief of the mother's heart: whose joys in the peace of Christ, whose throngs, whose eagerness, whose crowded and cheerful assemblies for hearing and singing hymns and for receiving the word of God, if you should see, and the recollection in many of them, with great grief, of their past error, and with joy the consideration of the truth acknowledged, and with indignation and detestation of their lying masters, that they now recognize how false were the things they boasted about our Sacraments; and the confessions also in many of them that they had long wished to be Catholics, and did not dare among men of so great fury: if therefore you could see under one view the congregations of these peoples freed from that destruction throughout very many regions of Africa, then you would say that it would have been of excessive cruelty if, while it was feared that desperate men, not to be compared by any estimate to the innumerable multitude of these others, should be burned by their own voluntary fires, these should be left to be lost for ever and tortured in everlasting fires [*].

[444] For if two men were dwelling in one house which we most certainly knew was going to fall, and, when we foretold it to them, they were unwilling to believe us, and persisted in remaining in it; if we could drag them out thence even against their will, and afterwards show them that impending ruin, so that they would not dare to return again beneath its peril: I think that, unless we did so, we should not undeservedly be judged cruel. Augustine. Further, if one of them should say to us: When you enter to drag us out, I will at once slay myself; while the other would neither go out thence nor be dragged out, but would not dare to kill himself: what should we choose — to leave both to be crushed by the ruin, or, with one at least freed by the work of our mercy, that the other should perish not by our fault but rather by his own? There is no one so wretched as not most easily to judge what ought to be done in such matters. And I have proposed this comparison of two men, one lost and one freed. What then is to be thought of some few lost, and an innumerable multitude of peoples freed? For those men who perish by their own will are not so many as the estates, hamlets, villages, forts, towns, cities which are freed by these laws from that pestilent and eternal destruction. From this discourse we gather that by the imperial laws many Donatists were brought back to the bosom of the Catholic Church, whose number grew still further after the disputation of Carthage, which was held between the Catholics and the Donatists, as will be narrated in the following paragraph.

al. cernentibus or narrantibus*

al. Vagaiensis or Bagaiensis*

al. cremandi*

§ XXXII. The chief things which our Saint did against the Donatists at the conference of Carthage and after it.

The Donatists, who had often been invited in vain to a conference, Our holy Bishop of Hippo and other Catholic prelates of Africa had often invited the Donatists to a friendly disputation. But they proudly rejected any conditions whatever, however fair, of entering into peace, and alleged various futile little reasons for this refusal, of which in Letter 166 St. Augustine refutes one especially frivolous in this manner: Your bishops, when approached by us, have never been willing to confer peaceably with us, as though shunning to speak with sinners. Who could bear that pride — as though the apostle Paul did not confer with sinners, and with men greatly sacrilegious? Read the Acts of the Apostles and see. As though the Lord Himself did not hold discourses about the law with the Jews by whom He was crucified, and answer them fittingly? Finally, the devil is the first of all sinners, who will never be able to be converted to justice, and yet the Lord Himself did not disdain to answer him about the law; so that you may understand that these men are therefore unwilling to confer with us, because they know their cause to be lost. Nevertheless, after some years, chiefly at the instigation of St. Augustine, the emperor Honorius ordered the bishops of the Donatists to assemble at Carthage, that they might dispute with the Catholics concerning religion. Hence they, though unwilling, pretended that this meeting was desired by them, from which they had always before shrunk.

[446] The holy Doctor judged that this opportune occasion should be used they are compelled to it by the emperor, to confound publicly their arrogant bishops, and, these being openly convicted, whose obstinacy he knew, at least to lead the simpler Donatists to the union of the Catholic Church. From that conference of Carthage our Saint chiefly expected this fruit, as he sufficiently indicates in book 3 Against Julian, chapter 1, where he thus addresses the Pelagians: Neither deceive yourselves nor others, as though having such a voice against us as we had against the Donatists, whom we compelled by imperial commands to come to a conference with us. For their fury had seized all Africa, nor did they suffer the truth to be preached by Catholics against their error, laying much waste by violent assaults, brigandages, blockades of roads, robberies, fires, slaughters, and terrifying everything; with whom we could do nothing before bishops whom we did not hold in common. But what nearly a hundred years before our elders had done with them, the memory of the peoples no longer held. This necessity therefore compelled us that at least, records being drawn up by our conference, we might crush their shamelessness and repress their audacity. But your cause has just now been ended before the competent judgment of common bishops.

[447] Then in the same place he compares the Pelagians to the Maximianists, who took their origin from the Donatists, the Maximianists nevertheless being excluded. and were excluded from the colloquy of Carthage because of their fewness, as he sets forth in these words: But you are rather like the Maximianists, who, desiring to console their own scantiness at least with the name of a contest, and thereby to seem something among those to whom they were contemptible, because they were allowed to enter an examination with us, appealed to them and gave in a petition and challenged them, and we despised them: for they desired rather to be named as in a contest than feared to be overcome in the contest; nor did they hope for the glory of victory, but sought the fame of a conference, because they had not that of numbers. If therefore you think that you are victors because such an examination as you desire has not been granted you, the Maximianists have gone before you in these vain words: although the Catholic Church has given you a judgment such as it ought, wherein your cause was ended; but to them it deigned to give none, because they had been separated not from us, as you were, but from the Donatists. But if in the Maximianists you see that it does not follow that those who are not allowed to confer in any judgment ought to be thought to be confident of the truth, cease henceforth to boast these vain things; and let it suffice you that the Catholic Church has both borne with you with a mother's gentleness, and condemned you with judicial severity, or rather with medicinal necessity. The Maximianists therefore being rejected, that conference of Carthage was held in the year of Christ 411 between the Catholics and the Donatists, as we shall now briefly relate from the contracted writings of St. Augustine.

[448] The bishops assemble at Carthage, with Marcellinus the count as adjudicator The emperor Honorius committed the care of assembling and directing this conference to the most illustrious man Marcellinus the count, who by encyclical letters ordered all the bishops of both parties throughout all Africa to be admonished to assemble at Carthage within four months for the sake of holding a public disputation. Moreover Marcellinus, without command of the emperor, restored their churches to those Donatists who promised that they would come, that in this way he might soothe them, and even by benefits invite them to the meeting. Finally he offered them that they should appoint along with him another judge or adjudicator of the cause, whomever they wished, and swore by the mystery of the most holy Trinity that he would judge nothing else save what the allegations of both parties and the truth of the matter should persuade. Therefore on the Catholic side there came to Carthage two hundred and eighty-six prelates, while about a hundred and twenty remained in their churches, hindered by old age or diseases, and at that time sixty episcopal sees were bereft of pastors. But on the side of the Donatists there flowed together a hundred and fifty-nine bishops, although these falsely boasted that they were more than four hundred in number, but that the others had remained at home because of various infirmities of body. Nay rather, in their subscriptions two hundred and seventy names were read, although only a hundred and fifty-nine of their prelates were present, and many had fraudulently subscribed for those absent. But this falsity of the subscriptions, and other gross lies, were easily detected afterwards. Further, the Donatists all entered Carthage together with so great a pomp of showy procession that they turned the eyes of that great city upon themselves, as St. Augustine says; whereas the Catholics, to avoid ostentation, entered the same city not all together, but separately, as each was able.

[449] seven are chosen from each side to dispute, All the bishops of both parties being now present at Carthage, Marcellinus the count appointed the place,

the time, and the order of the conference, and among other things provided by edict that from each party eighteen should be chosen, whose duties should be so divided among themselves that of these seven should be deputed to dispute, as many, when there was need, to advise; the remaining four should preside over the writing and keeping of the records, lest anything could be added or taken away by anyone. Moreover four notaries were added, that two by two they might alternate with the recorders of the judge or adjudicator, lest anyone should plead that he had said something which had not been taken down or noted. Marcellinus also demanded that the remaining bishops of each party should promise by sealed letters to him that they would hold ratified whatever had been done by the seven. Among the Catholic bishops, of the seven disputants the more celebrated were Aurelius of Carthage, Alypius of Tagaste, and Augustine of Hippo, who, although among these three he is last in order, was nevertheless not last in transacting the business of this colloquy, as will be said below. But on the side of the Donatists the chief disputants, or rather cavillers, were Primianus of Carthage, Emeritus of Cæsarea in Mauritania, Gaudentius of Tamugadi, and Petilian, formerly a noisy pleader, and then bishop of Cirta or Constantina.

[450] Marcellinus had ordered these things so prudently that no peril of sedition or tumult should arise, the Catholics offer conditions fair to the Donatists and unfair to themselves, and to the same end had by public edict forbidden the people of Carthage to approach nearer to the place of the conference. Whence St. Augustine also in two discourses diligently admonished the Catholic people that all should comply with the edict of the most illustrious adjudicator, and give none of the Donatists any handle of offense, as we said above on another occasion. But these decrees in no way pleased the riotous enemies of concord, and first of all the Donatists demanded that the place of the conference should lie open to all their people. But as great as was the obstinacy of the Donatists against the adjudicator's edict, so great was the observance of the Catholics toward it: for the Catholics by letters addressed to the most illustrious man indicated that they consented to all that had been laid down by that edict. Moreover in the same letters they promised that, if the truth of the Church were demonstrated to them to be in the party of Donatus, they would not seek episcopal honor there, but would follow their counsel for the Christian salvation. But if the truth of the Church were rather shown to be in their own communion, they would not deny them episcopal honor; and that this was done by them for the good of peace, so that those to whom this was granted might understand that in them the Catholics detested not the Christian consecration but human error. Nay rather, the Catholic prelates were prepared to yield up their bishoprics, if peace could thus be confirmed, as the holy Doctor sets forth more fully in the book On the proceedings with Emeritus.

[451] Finally the Catholics consented that the will of the Donatists should be satisfied, who also assign the heads on which the dispute should turn: and that all of them who wished should flow together to the place of the conference, while yet of the Catholic bishops those alone should be present whom Marcellinus had assigned in his edict; so that if any tumult should arise (which the Catholics feared) it could not be imputed to those who were present in very small numbers, but rather to those who had wished their own multitude to be present. The adjudicator, having received the letters of the Donatists and the Catholics, transmitted whatever each party had written to the public notice of the people, as he had before pledged; which perhaps he did with this design, that the people, informed of all, might evidently know how fair to their adversaries and how unfair to themselves were the conditions of peace which the Catholics had admitted, and that so much the more easily the unskilled common folk following the party of Donatus might desert the Donatists obstinate in schism. Meanwhile the Catholics had given to Marcellinus the count, and committed to writing, the chief heads of the controversy which had to be discussed: namely that the Church of Christ is spread over the whole world; that Cæcilian had been wrongly accused of the crime of surrendering the Scriptures; that the imperial commands which the Catholics had sometimes obtained for themselves against the Donatists were not to be condemned, since the Donatists themselves had sometimes pursued the Maximianists, their enemies, in public courts; and other like points of the dispute, on which the hinge of the matter turned.

[452] when they had come to the place of disputation, All things therefore being thus prepared, several bishops of both parties entered the Gargilian Baths (this place was situated in the middle of Carthage and appointed for the conference) on the very Kalends of June of the year 411. There entered together with them Marcellinus the count and afterwards martyr, who was not only a military tribune but also a notary, that is, a secretary of the emperor, as is established from the title of the letter of the Catholics written to him before the conference of Carthage. Yet in that conference he bore not properly the name of judge, but of adjudicator: for so antiquity was wont to name the secular judges, by whose direction those things were arranged in synods which pertained to a peaceful and tranquil meeting. But in order that the agreements and covenants might be preserved, it was sometimes permitted them to interpose, and from authentic instruments to declare the stronger rights of one party or the other, although they left the judgment entire to the bishops, as is everywhere known from various councils, and appears in this very conference.

[453] the Donatists presently begin to shuffle; For the rest, the Donatists from the very beginning of this conference began to shuffle and cavil: for when they were asked by the adjudicator whether they had already chosen on their side those who should carry through the cause undertaken, among other inanities they said that first there must be a discussion about the time, which they contended had already passed. But the adjudicator answered that this was not an episcopal but rather a forensic objection; since, concerning the time, although it had been completed on the fourteenth of the Kalends of June, nevertheless both parties had consented to the Kalends of June themselves. Nay, he added that even if either party had not yet been present, there remained two other months, which the emperor had added in three edicts as to be observed. When the Donatists saw that this escape was shut off from them, from that answer of the adjudicator they inferred that nothing therefore ought to be transacted with them by public law, but only by the divine Scriptures. Hearing this, the adjudicator asked what pleased each party in this matter. The Catholics answered that a charge had already been laid upon their chosen disputants that the business should be conducted not by forensic arguments but by divine testimonies, and they ordered this charge to be read, however much their adversaries protested. Then they thrust forward other shufflings, so that the very thing for the doing of which they had been convoked should not be done.

[454] The Donatists; Moreover the Donatists in this three-day colloquy ignominiously and contemptuously called the Catholics traitors, and galled them with other insulting words. Let an example be the arrogant and vain superstition by which they were unwilling to sit with the Catholics in the conference: for when the adjudicator had courteously invited them to sit, they refused to do so, saying that this was not lawful for them, because in Psalm 25 it is read: I have not sat in the council of the impious. The first time the Catholics patiently bore that insult, lest in refuting trifles of this kind they should uselessly lose time. But when on the third day of the conference the Donatists repeated the same taunt, the Catholics acutely answered that they ought also not to have entered the Gargilian Baths, because in the same Psalm these words follow: And with those doing iniquity I will not go in. Wherefore our Saint in the book which he wrote to the Donatists after the conference, chapter 5, explodes that superstition in these words: Your bishops … were unwilling to sit with us, saying that it was written for them not to sit with such men; understanding surely not spiritually but carnally what is set down in the Psalm: "And with the impious I will not sit." And yet they did what in that very same place of the psalm is forbidden: for there the Prophet says, "And with those doing iniquity I will not go in." If therefore, because they either knew or thought us iniquitous, they were therefore unwilling to sit with us, why did they (which is likewise forbidden) go in with us — partly holy, partly polluted — save because, by understanding the holy Scriptures and being wise carnally, they have broken up unity itself?

[455] Finally the Catholics, innumerable shufflings and inept cavillings being cut short, being nevertheless brought to the heads of the controversy, they cannot answer: led the Donatists, even resisting, gradually to the chief heads of the controversy, and from the most evident testimonies of holy Scripture proved that the Church spread over the whole world does not perish by the contagion of the wicked. Then the case of Cæcilian was dealt with, and from various public instruments it was shown that his innocence had already many times been proved; but that the Donatists had been convicted and condemned by many ecclesiastical and civil judgments. When the Donatists could answer nothing solid to these manifest arguments, at length Marcellinus the adjudicator pronounced sentence, declaring the Donatists confuted by the Catholics through the manifestation of all the documents, as the holy Doctor testifies in the Breviculus on the conferences of the three days, chapter 25, toward the end. Holy Possidius, bishop of Calama, who took part in those three conferences, seems to attribute to St. Augustine the chief part of that business and the happy outcome of the disputation, as will be narrated below in the second part of the Acts after this preliminary Commentary, number 26.

[456] Sentence having been pronounced against the Donatists, the most upright adjudicator ordered the faith pledged to those obstinate men to be kept, [Marcellinus therefore orders the condemned to be expelled from their churches; afterwards a martyr through their hatred,] so that they might return to their dioceses without peril of life or of ambushes. But at the same time he declared to them that it was not lawful for him to defer the execution of the imperial laws any longer. Wherefore by the will of the emperor he forbade their assemblies or conventicles, and took care that the churches which the obstinate Donatists had occupied should be restored to the Catholics. Whence Marcellinus incurred the hatred of the Donatists, who falsely accused an innocent man of the Heraclian conspiracy, and by their frauds brought it about that Marinus, general of Honorius, ordered him to be beheaded. Hence Jerome in the third Dialogue against the Pelagians, toward the end, speaks thus of that pious count: That holy and eloquent man, bishop Augustine, wrote some time ago to Marcellinus — who afterwards, under the odium of the tyranny of Heraclian, was slain innocent by heretics — two books On the Baptizing of Infants against your heresy. For the rest, concerning that illustrious martyr our Work may be consulted on the VI day of April, where Godfrey Henschen, following the Roman Martyrology, gathered the deeds of St. Marcellinus from various monuments. To these could have been added Letter 259, which St. Augustine wrote to Cæcilianus, governor of Africa, and in which he enumerates various virtues of this most illustrious man.

[457] Perhaps the Donatists had hoped that the authority of the sentence of Carthage would be weakened by this slaying of Marcellinus. But the emperor Honorius, being consulted on this matter, answered Julianus, proconsul of Africa, under the consulate of Constantius and Constans, on the third of the Kalends of September — whose decree the emperor confirms: that is, at the end of the month of August of the year 414 — in this manner: By the cognizance and solicitude of Marcellinus, a man of notable memory, those things were done against the Donatists which, being transferred into the public monuments, we wish to have perpetual firmness; for the public faith ought not to perish by the death of the adjudicator. Whence the holy Doctor introduced into the chief churches of Africa the custom of publicly reciting every year the authentic Acts of the conference of Carthage, as is related in the book On the proceedings with Emeritus. Nothing therefore remained to the obstinate Donatists, condemned everywhere, save that in the accustomed manner of defendants

and especially of heretics, they should accuse of partisanship the arbiter or adjudicator of the cause, find fault with the form of the judgment, and seek other vain evasions of their condemnation.

[458] The Saint refutes But the empty calumnies of these detractors St. Augustine acutely refutes in the book written to the Donatists after the Conference of Carthage, which he thus begins: Why, Donatists, are you still seduced by your bishops, whose deceitful darknesses have been scattered by the clear light, whose error has appeared, whose obstinacy has been overcome? Why do they still boast to you vain lies? Why do you still believe conquered men? When they tell you that the judge was corrupted by a bribe, what new thing do they do? What else have all the conquered been wont to do, who are unwilling to consent to the truth, save to lie about the judge's iniquity? Then in chapter 23 of the same book he pursues this matter in these words: They object to us, in order still to seduce you, that we gave gold to the judge, that he might pronounce sentence for us against them. Do you say, if you can, how much we should have had to give to the chosen defenders, your bishops, that they should say or bring forward so many things against themselves and for us, that they should so plead our cause and so destroy their own?… For how much ought we to have bought it, that after the manner of forensic advocates they should try to bar us on the score of times and days and even of persons, and thus should show plainly enough to all men, even to those who could not understand our disputations, how bad a cause they had, which they so feared to bring forward and to plead before that judge, whose kindness and justice toward themselves they had praised with so great heralding, and of whose movement against themselves they had as yet felt nothing?

[459] the cavillings of the Donatists. Moreover the Donatists childishly asserted that the sentence of their condemnation was not valid, because it had been pronounced at night. But the holy Doctor from holy Scripture and from the very deeds of the Donatists refutes that ridiculous accusation in chapter 12 more laboriously than it deserves to be refuted. Then in the last chapter of the praised book he again explodes this and another cavil no less futile, in this manner: Why do you still attend to their insane complaints and vain lies? The case was ended at night; but so that the night of error might be ended. At night the sentence was pronounced, but shining with the light of truth. They complained that they had been shut in and as it were in prison; there we too were. Either an injury was done to both, or diligence was applied to both. But how shall we call it an injury, when we recall that we were in so spacious and bright and cooling a place? Or how was it a prison, where the judge also was? Finally, we who were within at the same time did not know that we had been shut in. Whence do they know it, unless perhaps because they wished to flee? But who does not see that they would not say these things — empty and to be laughed at rather than refuted — about such an adjudicator, if they could find anything valid to say for their cause? The unwearied Vindicator of the Catholic Church did or wrote these and other things against the Donatists after the conference of Carthage: for afterwards he rendered Emeritus, prelate of the Donatists, who had taken part in the conferences, tongue-tied in a public disputation. He also endeavored in two books to call away Gaudentius of Tamugadi, a Donatist bishop, from that impious desperation by which he threatened Dulcitius the tribune that he would burn himself, together with some obstinate Donatists and the church, if he committed the imperial laws to execution. But what victories St. Augustine won by this assiduous labor of writing and disputing, and how many erring Donatists he brought back into the way, will appear from the following paragraph.

§ XXXIII. The various lucubrations which the holy Prelate published against the Donatists, and their fruit.

Two books written against the Donatists, Against the Party of Donatus, In the nineteenth paragraph we have already made mention of some little Works which St. Augustine, while still a presbyter, began to draw up against the Donatists. To these we shall now add several others by which this strenuous Defender of the Catholic Church, promoted to the see of Hippo, assailed the same schismatics and heretics. And we shall enumerate these lucubrations in the order in which the Saint himself arranged them in the second book of the Retractations. Therefore in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 5, the first little Work which the Bishop of Hippo published against the Donatists is reviewed in this manner: There are two books of mine whose title is: Against the Party of Donatus. In the first of which books I said that it did not please me that schismatics should be violently constrained to communion by the onset of any secular power. And indeed it did not then please me, because I had not yet experienced either how much evil their impunity would dare, or how much the diligence of discipline could contribute to changing them for the better. Although this lucubration is no longer found, nevertheless we know from elsewhere that the holy Doctor was formerly of that mild opinion, which he afterwards, convinced by reasons and experience, changed, as we have already related above.

[461] Then in chapter 17 and the two following of the same book he thus commemorates three other lucubrations of this matter: [three books Against the Letter of Parmenianus, seven On Baptism, another little Work,] In the three books Against the Letter of Parmenianus, Donatist bishop of Carthage and successor of Donatus, a great question is handled and resolved: whether in unity and in the communion of the same sacraments the wicked contaminate the good; and it is discussed how they do not contaminate, on account of the Church spread over the whole world, against which by calumniating they made a schism. In the same place, chapter 18, he subjoins this notice of another Work of his: Against the Donatists, who were laboring to defend themselves by the authority of the most blessed bishop and martyr Cyprian, I wrote seven books On Baptism, in which I taught that nothing so avails to refute the Donatists and utterly to shut their mouths, so that they may not defend their schism against the Catholic Church, as the letters and the deed of Cyprian. After some emendations of this Work he thus mentions in chapter 19 another lucubration of his which is no longer found: When we were dealing much with the party of Donatus in frequent disputations, a certain layman then of their number brought to the church some things dictated or written against us, in a few, as it were, testimonies which they think support their cause. To these I replied most briefly.

[462] three books against Petilian, Having reviewed some Works of another kind, he thus returns again in chapter 25 to the controversy agitated with the Donatists: Before I finished the books On the Trinity and the books On Genesis according to the Letter, says the holy Doctor, there burst in the necessity of answering the letters of Petilian the Donatist, which he wrote against the Catholic Church, which I could not defer. And I wrote on this matter three volumes, in the first of which I answered, with what speed and truth I could, the first part of his letter which he wrote to his own people, because it had not all come into our hands, but only a small earlier part of it. That letter also is to our people; but it is reckoned among the books because the other two in the same cause are books: for afterwards we found the whole, and I answered it with as great diligence as I did Faustus the Manichee, namely setting down his words first piece by piece under his own name, and my answer to each under mine. But what I had written before we found the whole reached Petilian; and, being angry, he attempted to answer, saying against me rather whatever he pleased, but failing in the cause: which, though it could most easily be observed by comparing the writings of us both, nevertheless for the sake of the slower I took care to demonstrate by answering: thus a third book was added to that Work of ours.

[463] four books against Cresconius, Then he wrote against Cresconius the Donatist, as he testifies in the same place, chapter 26, in these words: A certain Donatist grammarian also, Cresconius, when he had found my letter in which I refuted the first parts of Petilian's letter which had then come into my hands, thought that he must answer me, and wrote this very thing to me. To that Work of his I replied in four books, in such a way indeed that in three I carried through what the whole reply demanded. But when I saw that from the case of the Maximianists alone — that they condemned their own schismatics, and again received some of them in their own honors, and did not repeat the baptism given by them outside their own communion — an answer could be made to all that he wrote, I added also a fourth book, in which I showed this very thing as diligently and evidently as I could. But when I wrote these four books, the emperor Honorius had already issued laws against the Donatists. From that closing sentence we conjecture that these four books against Cresconius were written in the year of Christ 406: for the holy Doctor in book 3 of that Work, chapter 43, signifies plainly enough that the emperor in the year 405 passed these first laws on the occasion of the deadly wounds which the raging Donatists had inflicted on Maximianus the bishop, as we saw above. And these laws of the emperor Honorius he calls in the same place, chapter 47 of the same book, "most recent." Whence we probably conclude that this Work was written about the year 406.

[464] other little Works against the same, now lost, Moreover our Saint assigns three of his lucubrations, which have now perished or still lie hidden, in chapter 27 and the two following, in this manner: After these things, that there might come to the Donatists the documents necessary against their error and for the Catholic truth, I took care, whether from ecclesiastical or from public records or from the canonical Scriptures. And first I sent to them the same as promised, that they themselves, if it could be done, might demand them: and when these had come into the hands of certain of them, there arose I know not who, who, his own name being suppressed, wrote against these things, confessing himself a Donatist as though he were so called; to whom I, replying, wrote another book. But those documents which I had promised I joined to the same little book in which I had promised them, and I wished them both to be one, and I published it in such a way that, being first set forth on the walls of the basilica which had been the Donatists', it might be read. In this little Work he corrects a chronological error, as he also does in chapter 28 in these few words: Of the other book, which I mentioned above, I wished the title to be: Against I Know Not What Donatist; where likewise concerning the acquittal of the ordainer of Cæcilian the true order of time is not observed. Afterwards in chapter 29 he writes the following: When I saw that many were hindered by the labor of reading from learning how little of reason and truth the party of Donatus has, I made a very short little book, by which I thought they should be admonished about the Maximianists alone, so that by the ease of copying it might come into the hands of very many, and by its very brevity might more easily be commended to memory.

[465] Some books of another matter being interposed, he thus proceeds in chapter 34 to other writings against the Donatists: the book On the One Baptism, another Work, At the same time a certain friend of mine received the book ON THE ONE BAPTISM from I know not what Donatist presbyter, who indicated that Petilian, their bishop of Constantina, had written it. This he brought to me, and vehemently asked that I should answer it; and it was done. But I wished my book also, in which I replied, to have the same title, that is, ON THE ONE BAPTISM. Then in chapter 35 he thus attaches another Work to this: I wrote also a book among the rest against the Donatists, not very short, as before,

but large and much more diligent, in which it appears how the case of the Maximianists alone utterly subverts their impious and most proud error against the Catholic Church — that schism which was made out of the very party of Donatus. We do not mention in this place the book On the Unity of the Church, although this is commonly placed by editors among the polemical Works of St. Augustine against the Donatists: for the holy Doctor does not mention it in the books of the Retractations, and therefore we think that lucubration belongs rather among those letters of his which, together with the sermons, he omitted to review. This opinion of ours is favored by the French Benedictine Fathers, who not long since published the Latin Acts of the holy Doctor, where in book 5 of the Life, chapter 8, number 3, they call that Work a fairly long letter.

[466] Finally our Saint reviews the little Works written against the Donatists after the conference of Carthage, The Breviculus of the Conferences, another book, and first in chapter 39 the brief history of that conference, in this manner: After our conference with the Donatists took place, I briefly recorded what was done, and comprised it in writing according to the three days on which we conferred with them; and I judged that Work useful, by which anyone being informed might either know without labor what was done, or, the numbers being consulted which I noted upon the several matters, might read in those same records at the place whatever he wished, since they wearied the reader by their excessive prolixity. But the title of this Work is: Breviculus of the Conferences. To this he thus adds in chapter 40 another lucubration of nearly the same time: I wrote also a book large enough, so far as I judge, diligently addressed to the Donatists themselves after the conference which we held with their bishops, lest they should be further seduced by them; where I answered also certain vanities of theirs which were able to reach us, which, being conquered, they boasted where they could and how they could, besides those things which I said about the records of the conference; whence what was done might be briefly known. But I did this much more briefly in a certain letter to the same men again. But because in a council of Numidia it pleased all of us who were there that this should be done, it is not among my letters. Our Saint addressed this letter to the Donatists under the common name of the Catholic prelates who had taken part in the council of Cirta.

[467] a lost book against Emeritus, another little Work. Afterwards, concerning a little Work which is no longer found, against Emeritus, Donatist bishop of Cæsarea in Mauritania, he supplies in chapter 46 this notice: To Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists, who in our conference which we held with them seemed chiefly to plead their cause, I wrote some time after the same conference a sufficiently useful book, since it embraces with convenient brevity the matters by which they are conquered or shown to have been conquered. Then in chapter 48 he thus briefly indicates another little Work against the Donatists: At the same time I wrote also a book On the Correction of the Donatists, on account of those who were unwilling that they should be corrected by the imperial laws. Finally in chapter 51 he records a victory over the above-mentioned Emeritus, publicly reported, in these words: Some time after the conference which we held with the Donatist heretics, there arose for us a necessity of proceeding into Mauritania Cæsariensis. There at Cæsarea itself we saw Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists; one, namely, of those seven whom they had chosen for the defense of their cause, and who in that cause had labored most. What we did with him, in the presence of the bishops of that province and of the people of the church of Cæsarea — in which city he was both a citizen and bishop of the aforesaid heretics — the ecclesiastical records testify, which are contained among my little Works. Where, not finding what to answer, he heard as though dumb my whole discourse, which about the Maximianists alone I unfolded in his ears and in those of all who were present.

[468] two books against Gaudentius: On what occasion at last the holy Doctor published his last Work against the Donatists, he himself sets forth in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 59, in this manner: At the same time (the most recent editors place this lucubration about the year of Christ 420) Dulcitius, tribune and notary, was here in Africa the executor of the imperial commands issued against the Donatists; who, when he had sent a letter to Gaudentius of Tamugadi, bishop of the Donatists — one of those seven whom in our conference they had chosen as the authors of their defense — exhorting him to Catholic unity and dissuading him from the burning by which he threatened to consume himself and his people together with the very church in which he was, adding also that, if they thought themselves just, they should rather flee according to the precept of the Lord Christ than burn themselves up with unspeakable fires: he wrote back two letters, one brief, the bearer, as he asserted, being in haste; the other prolix, as though answering more fully and diligently. These the above-mentioned tribune thought should be sent to me, that I rather should refute them: both of which I refuted in one book, which, when it had come into the hands of the same Gaudentius, he wrote back what seemed good to him to me myself, answering by no reasoning, but rather declaring that he could neither answer nor be silent. And although this could sufficiently appear to those reading intelligently and comparing our words and his own, nevertheless I was unwilling to leave without a reply whatever that was. Hence it came about that these our books to him were two. These are the chief works by which the holy Bishop assailed the obstinate Donatists: for we say nothing in this place of the private letters which he wrote on that matter, as we noted above.

[469] how great fruit from these writings and from the imperial laws But how great fruit from the imperial laws and from these polemical lucubrations of St. Augustine flowed back upon the Catholic Church, we shall now briefly indicate from the holy Doctor himself, who in Letter 50 thus reviews the various conversions of the Donatists: Great mercy is done to them, when even by these laws of the emperors they are first snatched away unwilling from that sect, where through the doctrines of lying demons they learned those evils, so that afterwards in the Catholic Church, accustomed to good precepts and morals, they may be healed. For many of them, whose pious fervor of faith and charity in the unity of Christ we now admire, give thanks to God with great gladness that they are free of that error in which they thought those evils good; which thanks they would not now willingly give, unless they had first even unwillingly departed from that nefarious society. What shall we say of those who daily confess to us that they had long wished to be Catholics, but dwelt among those among whom they could not be what they wished, through the weakness of fear, where, if they said one word for the Catholic Church, both they and their houses would be utterly overthrown? Who is so mad as to deny that these ought to have been helped by imperial commands, so that they might be rescued from so great an evil, while those whom they feared are compelled to fear, and by that same fear either are themselves corrected, or at least, while they pretend to be corrected, spare the corrected, by whom they were formerly feared?

[470] Further, the Saint in the same letter, after the testimonies of holy Scripture and most apt comparisons have been brought forward, thus proceeds: came about, when very many Donatists When those laws had come into Africa, chiefly those who were seeking an occasion, or feared the savagery of the raging, or were ashamed to offend their own people, straightway passed over to the Church. Many also who were held there only by a custom handed down from their parents, and had never before considered what cause the heresy itself had, and had never wished to inquire and consider — as soon as they began to take note and to find nothing in it worthy on account of which they should suffer such losses, without any difficulty became Catholics: for solicitude taught them whom security had made negligent. But the authority and persuasion of all these who went before was followed by many who were less fit to understand by themselves what difference there was between the error of the Donatists and the Catholic truth. Thus, while the true mother rejoicing received great throngs of peoples into her bosom, there remained crowds hard and standing fast in that plague with unhappy animosity. Of these also very many communicated by dissembling; others lay hid by their fewness. But those who dissembled, by gradually growing accustomed and by hearing the preaching of the truth — especially after the conference and disputation which took place between us and their bishops at Carthage — were in great part corrected. But in certain places, where a more obstinate and less peaceable multitude prevailed, whom the fewer, whose judgment concerning communion was better, could not resist; or where crowds, subjected to the authority of a few more powerful men, complied on the worse side, the labor was somewhat longer. Among these are some in which there is labor still, in which labor many Catholics, and especially bishops and clerics, have endured horrible and hard things, which it is long to recount, since the eyes of some have been put out, and the hand and tongue of a certain bishop cut off; some also have been butchered. I say nothing of most cruel slaughters and plunderings of houses by nocturnal assaults, and burnings not only of private dwellings but even of churches, into whose flames there were not lacking those who would cast the Lord's books. But us, afflicted with evils of this kind, the fruit that followed has consoled: for wherever these things were committed by the lost, there Christian unity has advanced more fervently and more perfectly, and the Lord is more abundantly praised, who has deigned to grant that His servants by their sufferings should gain their brethren, and by His blood should gather His sheep, scattered by a deadly error, into the peace of eternal salvation.

[471] returned to the Church, Nay rather, the furious circumcellions of the Donatists themselves embraced the union of the Catholic Church, as St. Augustine writes among other things in Letter 48 to Vincentius the Rogatist in these words: O that I could show you how many out of those very circumcellions we now have as manifest Catholics, condemning their former life and pitiable error, in which they thought that whatever they did with restless rashness they did for the Church of God! Hence also the Saint in book 1 Against Gaudentius of Tamugadi, chapters 28 and 29, speaks thus of the circumcellions: For who does not know this kind of men, restless in horrid crimes, idle from useful works, most cruel in others' deaths, most cheap in their own, terrifying especially in the fields, unemployed in the fields and going about the country cottages for the sake of their food (whence they took the name of circumcellions), the most notorious reproach of the African error to almost the whole world? Who therefore is ignorant how many of this kind formerly went and perished by various deaths, and how few now in comparison with them burn in their own fires?… For neither are these who perish equal in number to the salvation of those who out of that same kind are now held by the order of discipline, and, the work and name of circumcellions being laid aside, devote themselves to tilling the fields, keep chastity, hold unity.

[472] although their bishops resisted more obstinately. But why most of the prelates of the Donatists persevered obstinate in heresy and schism, St. Augustine sufficiently indicates in Sermon 22 On the Words of the Apostle, chapter 10, in this manner: For the truth let them not fear those to whom for a very long time they sold falsehood; for they fear to offend them, they blush

at human infirmity, and do not blush at the most invincible truth. Surely they fear this, lest it be said to them: Why then did you deceive us? Why did you seduce us? Why did you speak so many evil and false things? They ought to answer, if they feared God: It was human to err; but it is diabolical to remain in error through animosity. It would indeed have been better if we had never erred; but let us do at least the second best, that we should sometime amend our error. We deceived, because we had been deceived; we preached false things, we who believed false things from those who prejudged []. Let them say to their own people: Together we erred, together let us withdraw from error. We were your leaders to the pit, and you followed when we led to the pit; follow us also when we lead to the Church. But this proud stubbornness of the Donatist prelates was overcome or confounded by the countless multitude of the common people, who were converted to the union of the Catholic Church: for almost the whole city of Cirta in Numidia deserted the schism of Donatus, as is established from Letter 130. Also after the public disputation which St. Augustine held with Emeritus the Donatist, nearly all the citizens of Cæsarea came over to Catholic unity, as can be gathered from the book On the Proceedings with that obstinate Donatist. Hence Idacius in the Chronicle, which was reprinted among the collected Works of our Sirmond at Venice in the year of Christ 1728, tome 2, column 233, writes thus: Augustine, bishop of Hippo-Regius, is held to be distinguished; among whose magnificent studies the proved faith of authors demonstrates that the Donatists were overcome by him with God's help.* Now in the following paragraph there will come forth another kind of heretics, who also exercised the patience and the pen of the holy Doctor not a little with their frauds.

al. prædicantibus*

§ XXXIV. The Pelagian heresy, and its chief defenders.

The Pelagian heresy, The long war which St. Augustine had waged with great fervor against the Donatists being not yet altogether ended, Pelagius, a Briton by nation, began at Rome secretly to teach his errors, which the holy Doctor in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, heresy 88, reviews in this manner: Of the Pelagians is the heresy at this time the most recent of all, arisen from the monk Pelagius; whom Cælestius so followed as master, that their followers were called also Cælestians. These are to such a degree enemies of the grace of God — by which we are predestined unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, and by which we are rescued from the power of darkness that we may believe in Him and be transferred into His kingdom, on account of which He says, "No one comes to me unless it be given him by my Father"; and by which charity is poured out in our hearts, that faith may work through love — that they believe a man can without it do all the divine commandments; whereas, if this were true, the Lord would seem to have said in vain: "Without me you can do nothing."

[474] Finally Pelagius, being rebuked by the brethren because he attributed nothing to the help of God's grace for the doing of His commandments, yielded to their correction so far as not to set it before free choice, but with unfaithful cunning to place it under, saying that it is given to men for this, that what they are commanded to do by free choice they may be able more easily to fulfill through grace. and his By saying "that they may be able more easily," he wished it to be believed that, although with more difficulty, nevertheless men can do the divine commands without divine grace. But that grace of God, without which we can do nothing good, they say is nothing but free choice, which our nature received from Him with no preceding merits of its own — judging that He helps it only for this, that we may learn what we ought to do and what to hope for; but not for this, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we may do what we have learned is to be done: and by this they confess that knowledge, by which ignorance is driven out, is given us from God; but they deny that charity is given, by which one lives piously; so that, forsooth, while knowledge, which without charity puffs up, is God's gift, charity itself, which builds up so that knowledge may not puff up, should not be God's gift.

[475] They destroy also the prayers which the Church makes, whether for unbelievers and those resisting the doctrine of God, that they may be converted to God; or for the faithful, that faith may be increased in them and that they may persevere in it: errors. for they contend that men do not receive these things from Him, but have them from themselves, saying that the grace of God, by which we are freed from impiety, is given according to our merits. Which indeed Pelagius, fearing to be condemned in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, was compelled to condemn; but in his later writings he is found to teach it. They proceed even so far as to say that the life of the just in this world has no sin at all, and that from these the Church of Christ is perfected in this mortality, so that it is altogether without spot or wrinkle — as though that were not the Church of Christ which throughout the whole world cries to God: "Forgive us our debts." They deny also that little ones, born carnally according to Adam, contract by their first nativity the contagion of the ancient death: for they assert that they are born without any bond of original sin, so that there is altogether nothing which needs to be forgiven them by a second nativity; but that they are therefore baptized in order that, adopted by regeneration, they may be admitted to the kingdom of God, being carried over from good to better, not absolved by that renewal from any evil of an old obligation: for even if they are not baptized, they promise them, outside the kingdom of God indeed, yet a certain eternal and blessed life of their own. Adam himself also they say, even if he had not sinned, would have died in body, and died not by the desert of fault but by the condition of nature. Other things also are objected to them; but these are the chief, from which it is understood that all or nearly all the others depend.

[476] various, Although Pelagius scattered these and like errors secretly, nevertheless he once at Rome betrayed his heresy more manifestly, as St. Augustine narrates in book 2 On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 20, in these few words: But what of my little Works could become known more frequently and more delightfully than the books of my Confessions, since I published them before the Pelagian heresy existed? In them certainly I said to our God, and often said: "Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt." Which words of mine Pelagius at Rome, when they had been recalled by a certain brother and co-bishop of mine in his presence, could not bear, and, contradicting somewhat too excitedly, almost quarreled with him who had recalled them. But the holy Doctor was gradually made more certain of the errors of Pelagius, as is clear from the book On the Deeds of Pelagius, chapter 22, where our Saint himself writes thus in Vignier, Supplement to His Works, tome 1, page 428: To speak chiefly of myself, I first came to know the name of Pelagius, absent and established at Rome, with great praise of him. Afterwards a report began to be brought to us that he disputed against the grace of God; which although I grieved at, and it was told me by those whom I believed, nevertheless I desired to know something from him himself, or from some book of his, so that, if I should begin to refute it, he could not deny it.

[477] which the Saint at first refuted with the authors' names suppressed, Meanwhile the holy Doctor refuted the errors of that heresy, although he did not yet name their author, and he renders the reason of this design of his in the same place thus: But after he came into Africa (namely Pelagius) in my absence, he was received on our shore, that is, of Hippo, where, as you know, nothing whatever of this kind was heard from him, because he set out thence sooner than was expected. Afterwards I saw his face at Carthage, so far as I recall, once or twice, when I was most fully occupied with the care of the conference which we were about to hold with the Donatist heretics; but he hastened away even to parts beyond the sea. Meanwhile through the mouths of those who were reported to be his disciples these dogmas were seething, so that Cælestius came to ecclesiastical judgment and carried away a sentence worthy of his perversity. We thought indeed that it was more wholesome to act against them if, the names of the men being suppressed, the errors themselves were refuted and confuted, and so men were corrected by fear of ecclesiastical judgment, rather than punished by that judgment itself. We ceased therefore neither from books against those evils, nor from popular discourses. But when the Saint, through Timasius and Jacobus, whom Pelagius had seduced into his heresy, had after their conversion received a certain book of Pelagius, he began more openly to assail the heresiarch, yet with his name still suppressed, as is narrated in the same place in the following chapter, and as will appear from what is to be said below.

[478] Meanwhile the shifty Pelagius so craftily covered the poison of his heresy he warns St. Paulinus concerning Pelagius, that he was a friend to men exceedingly Catholic and learned. Hence afterwards St. Augustine writes thus to Paulinus the bishop in Letter 106: Pelagius — whom we believe, in order that he might be distinguished from that other who is called Pelagius of Tarentum, to have been surnamed the Briton — that you loved him as a servant of God, we know; but how you now love him, we do not know: for we too not only loved but even love him. But we love him now in one way, and once loved him in another: for then, because he seemed to us of right faith; but now, that by His mercy he may be freed from those things which he is said to hold, hostile and adverse to the grace of God. For when report was bruiting this about him for some time, it was surely not easily to be believed (for report is wont to lie); but it came nearer to our believing, that we read a certain book of his, laboring to persuade precisely those things which would destroy from the hearts of the faithful the belief in the grace of God imparted to the human race through the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus — a book delivered to us by servants of Christ who had most zealously heard him teaching such things and had followed him. To which book indeed, at the request of the same men, because we saw that this ought to be done, an answer was made, the name of the author being suppressed, lest, being offended, he should be rendered more incurable, by the disputation of one of us, which is contained in a book, and is manifoldly and abundantly asserted.

[479] Nay rather, Pelagius had addressed to St. Augustine himself a most courteous letter, having received a letter from him he briefly replies, in which he greatly praised his excellent virtues and endowments of mind. Perhaps he did this craftily, in order to win over to himself the distinguished Man whose genius and style he dreaded, or at least to restrain him from refuting his heresy. Whatever be the case concerning the intention with which Pelagius wrote that letter, St. Augustine himself in the book On the Deeds of Pelagius, chapter 27 and the following, thus recites his own reply: To the most beloved lord and most longed-for brother Pelagius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. I give very great thanks that you deigned to gladden me with your letter and to make me certain of your welfare. May the Lord render you good things, by which you may always be good, and may you live for ever with Him who is eternal, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother. But I, although I do not recognize in myself the praises of me which the letter of your kindness contains, nevertheless cannot be ungrateful for your benevolent mind toward my littleness; at the same time admonishing

that you should rather pray for me, that I may be made by the Lord such as you already judge me to be. In another hand there had been added: Mindful of us, may you in safety please the Lord, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother. Even though our Saint had written these things briefly and cautiously, nevertheless Pelagius in the synod of Diospolis produced that very little letter of St. Augustine and other letters of Catholic bishops, in order to cover his impiety with this mask and to drive off from himself every suspicion of heresy.

[480] Whence the holy Doctor in the same Deeds of Pelagius, chapter 26, explained that reply of his in these words: which letter I indeed in my letter, which he produced, not only refrained from praises of him, but also, so far as I could without stirring up [] the question of the grace of God, admonished him to be rightly wise. For I called him LORD in the salutation, which by epistolary usage we are wont to write even to certain men who are not Christians, nor that falsely, because to all men, for the obtaining of the salvation which is in Christ, we owe in a manner a free servitude. I called him MOST BELOVED, which I say even now, and shall still say, even if he has been angry, since unless I keep love toward him while he is angry, I shall hurt myself more. I called him MOST LONGED-FOR, since I greatly desired to converse somewhat with him present: for I had already heard that, whenever any mention was made of it, he strove with open contention against the grace by which we are justified.*

[481] he afterwards expounded, Finally the brief text of the letter itself indicates this: for when I had given thanks that he had gladdened me with his writings, making me certain of the welfare of himself and his people — whom surely, if we wish them corrected, we ought also to wish safe in bodily welfare — presently I wished good things to be rendered him by the Lord, not pertaining to the health of the body, but rather those which he thought were, or perhaps still thinks are, placed in the choice of the will alone and in one's own power; wishing at the same time, and for this reason, eternal life also. Then, because in his letter, to which I was replying, he had much and very kindly praised such goods in me, there too I asked of him that he should pray for me, that I might rather be made by the Lord such as he already believed me to be; so that I might thus admonish him, against what he thought, that justice itself, which he had judged praiseworthy in me, is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. This is the whole that that brief letter of mine contains, and with that intention it was dictated.

[482] and he tore off the mask from Pelagius, Then in chapter 29 of the same Work, after reciting his letter, which we have given above entire, he thus goes on to tear this mask from Pelagius: In the very subscription also, in that I set down "that he may please the Lord," I rather signified that this is by His grace than by the will of man alone, since I neither exhorted to it, nor commanded it, nor taught it, but wished it: for just as, if I exhorted or commanded or taught, I should show that this pertains to free choice, and yet should not derogate from the grace of God; so, because I wished it, I both commended the grace of God and yet did not extinguish the choice of the will. Why then did he produce this letter in this judgment? — according to which, if he had been wise from the beginning, perhaps he would in no way have been called to episcopal judgment, though by good brethren, yet ones offended by the perversity of his disputations. But further, as I have rendered an account of this letter of mine, so of theirs, if it were necessary, would those render an account whose letters are alleged, saying either what they thought, or what they did not know, or with what reason they wrote. Accordingly, though Pelagius may boast of the friendship of whatever holy men, though he may read letters of whomsoever about his praises, though he may produce whatever records of his own clearing — unless he shall have confessed and anathematized those things which by the credit of competent witnesses he is proved to have set down in his books against the grace of God by which we are called and justified, and thereafter [] shall have written and disputed against these very things, he will by no means seem to those to whom he is more fully known to have been corrected.*

[483] who strove to insinuate himself into the friendship of illustrious persons: So indeed the crafty heresiarch, by honorific and outwardly pious letters, angled for the benevolence of Catholic prelates and of illustrious matrons or virgins, so that he might sometime be able to glory in the testimony of the orthodox, and so much the more easily to thrust away the charge of heresy laid upon him. Witnesses are Paulinus, Pammachius and Oceanus, Proba, Juliana, Demetrias, Albina, Pinianus and Melania, and several other persons notable for piety and learning, into whose friendship he tried to creep, that he might breathe his error upon them, or by their help render his sect less odious. Wherefore St. Augustine began more openly to uncover these frauds of Pelagius, lest he should deceive Catholics with ambiguous explanations and feigned piety, as appears from the various lucubrations by which he afterwards assailed that heresiarch by name.

[484] Further, Pelagius had a disciple named Cælestius, Cælestius the disciple of Pelagius, who spoke more openly: concerning whose character and native land the authors do not agree, although he expended so great labor in propagating the Pelagian heresy that the men of that sect were called Cælestians from his name, as we heard at the beginning of this paragraph. This Cælestius was freer and more open than Pelagius, so that in the synod of Carthage he was at once detected and condemned. The difference between master and disciple the holy Doctor graphically marks out in the book On Original Sin, chapter 12, in these words: You see that Pelagius anathematized those who hold that Adam's sin hurt himself alone and not the human race, and that the infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before his transgression. What else therefore could the bishops as judges here understand, save that he confessed that sin passes from Adam into little ones? Which, lest he should confess it, Cælestius was unwilling to condemn those things which this man condemned. Accordingly, if I shall show that he too thinks nothing else concerning little ones save that they are born without any contagion of any fault, what difference in this question will there be between him and Cælestius, save that the one was more open, the other more secret; the one more obstinate, the other more lying — or certainly the one freer, this one craftier? For the one was unwilling even in the church of Carthage to condemn what he afterwards confessed at Rome that he held, and professed that he was prepared to be corrected, if error had crept upon him as a man. But this one both condemned that dogma as contrary to the truth, lest he himself should be condemned by Catholic judges, and reserved it to himself to be defended afterwards, either lyingly condemning it, or craftily interpreting it.

[485] To him there was afterwards added the keenest defender of the Pelagian heresy, Julian, another disciple of his, Julian, born in Apulia of the father Memor or Memorius, with whom St. Augustine had entered into no small friendship, and whose son, for the hope of good fruit, he had once held most dear, as we learn from the holy Doctor himself in Letter 131 and in book 1 Against Julian, chapter 4. But this youth clung to the Pelagian heresy so arrogantly and obstinately that he contemptuously called all Catholics Manichees, and proudly set his own opinion against the holy Fathers of the East and the West, as St. Augustine testifies in book 1 against him, chapter 5, by this question: Have Pelagius and Cælestius so much weight with you, that from the rising of the sun to its setting you dare not only to desert so many and so great doctors and defenders of the Catholic faith, both ancient and near to our age, both sleeping and remaining, but even to call them Manichees? Wherefore in book 2 of the cited Work, at the end of the eighth chapter, the holy Doctor calls this Julian a most self-confident young man, and, after the words of holy Catholic prelates have been alleged, urges him to submit his hard neck to these distinguished doctors of the Church.

[486] Then in book 3 of the same Work, chapter 1, St. Augustine reproves the intolerable arrogance of this adversary with this humble refutation: swollen with wondrous arrogance. But how choice and how charming is your self-congratulation, in that you speak of a single sally, which wishes to be understood as having in it the sum of the battle; namely that to the Pelagians you may seem David, and I Goliath. You may look to it, if you have brought in this compact and agreement with the Pelagians, that, if you be conquered, they shall dare nothing further. But far be it from me to challenge you to single combat — you whom, wherever you appear, the army of Christ everywhere spread abroad vanquishes; which vanquished Cælestius at Carthage, when I myself was not there. Finally in book 6, chapter 8, he refutes a like pride of Julian in these words: But why do you say that, forgetful of the single combat, I have taken refuge in the crowd? Who promised you my single combat? Where, when, how, in whose presence, with what arbiters? "The challenge being offered," as you speak, "it pleased that the war be settled by treaty, so that our contest should decide the battles of all." Far be it that I should arrogate to myself among Catholics what you are not ashamed to arrogate to yourself among the Pelagians. I am one of many who, as we can, refute your profane novelties, as God has apportioned to each of us the measure of faith. Before I was born into this world, and before I was reborn to God, many Catholic lights forestalled by refutation your darkness that was to come. Elsewhere very often the swollen haughtiness of that Julian is repressed by Augustine. Passing over other Pelagians of obscure fame, we have recorded only these two notorious disciples of Pelagius, whom the holy Doctor together with their master refuted by name, as we shall see in the following paragraph.

al. ullius*

al. demum*

§ XXXV. The chief writings and deeds of St. Augustine against the Pelagians, who at length were condemned by the Apostolic See.

The Saint began to assail the Pelagian heresy by discourses How and when the holy Doctor began to act and write against the Pelagians, he himself signifies in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 33, by this narration: There came also a necessity which compelled me to write against the new Pelagian heresy, against which formerly we acted not by writings but by discourses and colloquies, as each of us was able or bound. When Cælestius, condemned at Carthage, had fled into Sicily, and Hilary on that account wrote thence to Augustine, the latter, answering him at length in Letter 89, thus mentions toward the end of the third question the discourses formerly delivered by him against the Pelagians: We have said many things concerning these questions, says the holy Doctor, in others of our little works and in ecclesiastical discourses, since there were among us also certain men who, wherever they could, scattered these new seeds of their error, of whom the mercy of the Lord has healed some of that plague through our ministry and that of our brethren. Nor yet do I think that some are lacking here, especially at Carthage; but they now mutter secretly, fearing the most firmly founded faith of the Church.

[488] and by writings: For one of them, named Cælestius, had already begun to creep up to the honor of the presbyterate in the church of that same city; but by the most faithful liberty of the brethren, on account of these very disputations against the grace of Christ, he was brought even to episcopal judgment; nevertheless he was compelled to confess, on account of the little ones to be baptized, that to them also redemption

is necessary. Where, although he was unwilling to say anything more expressly about original sin, nevertheless by the very name of redemption he bound himself not a little: for whence are they to be redeemed, save from the power of the devil, in which they could not be save by the obligation of original sin? Or by what price are they redeemed, save by the blood of Christ, of which it is most openly written that it was poured out for the remission of sins? But because he departed rather convicted and detested by the Church than corrected and pacified, I have feared lest perchance he himself be there, who attempts to disturb your faith. Therefore I thought that mention of his very name should be made. But whether it be he himself, or others sharers of his error (for they are more than we can hope) — both where they are not refuted they seduce others also to their sect, and so they grow numerous, so that I know not whither they will break out. We nevertheless prefer that they be healed within the frame of the Church, rather than cut off from her body like incurable members, if however necessity itself permits this: for it is to be feared lest more rot, while the rotten are spared. Further, various discourses delivered by Augustine against the Pelagians may be read here and there in his Works.

[489] For the rest, the Saint in the place of the Retractations just cited thus reviews his first lucubrations against the errors of the Pelagians: then he writes three books On the Merits and Remission of Sins, Their questions therefore being sent me from Carthage, which I had resolved by writing back, I first wrote three books whose title is: ON THE MERITS AND REMISSION OF SINS; where there is disputation chiefly concerning the baptism of little ones, and concerning the grace of God by which we are justified, that is, made just… Against all which things, thinking otherwise, they founded a new heresy. But in these books I judged that their names should still be kept silent, hoping that they could thus more easily be corrected; nay, even in the third book, which is a letter, but reckoned among the books because of the two to which I thought it should be joined, I set down the name of Pelagius himself not without some praise, because his life was proclaimed by many: and I refuted those things of his which in his writings he set down not in his own person, but expounded as being said by others; which nevertheless he afterwards, now a heretic, defended with most obstinate animosity. But Cælestius his disciple had already, on account of such assertions, deserved excommunication at Carthage in an episcopal judgment, at which I was not present.

[490] Then in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 36, he thus reviews another lucubration against the Pelagians: On the Grace of the New Testament, At that very time, when we were being vehemently exercised against the Donatists, and had already begun to be exercised against the Pelagians, a certain friend sent me five questions from Carthage, and asked that I should expound them to him in writing… But I, looking at the aforesaid new heresy, an enemy to the grace of God, proposed to myself a sixth question, concerning the grace of the new Testament. This friend of the holy Doctor was Honoratus, to whom he had before dedicated the book On the Usefulness of Believing, in order to convert him from the heresy of the Manichees to the Catholic faith. And that learned man had proposed five questions to St. Augustine, which he resolves in Letter 120, and of his own accord added a sixth against the errors of the Pelagians, whose poison had already begun to be spread at Carthage.

[491] After Marcellinus had read the Work mentioned above, On the Merits and Remission of Sins, On the Spirit and the Letter, to whom I had written three books, says the holy Doctor in the following chapter of the same book of the Retractations, whose title is On the Merits and Remission of Sins, where there is also a diligent disputation concerning the baptism of little ones, he wrote back to me that he had been troubled because I said it could come to pass that a man should be without sin, if his will were not lacking, with divine help assisting, although no one either has been, or is, or will be of such perfect justice in this life. For he asked how I said it could come to pass, of which thing an example is lacking. Because of this inquiry of his I wrote a book whose title is ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER, treating throughout the Apostolic sentence where he says: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." In which book, so far as God helped, I disputed keenly against the enemies of the grace of God, by which the impious man is justified.

[492] On Nature and Grace, In book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 42, he records another little Work set against the Pelagians in this manner: There came also then into my hands a certain book of Pelagius, where with all the argumentation he could he defended the nature of man against the grace of God, by which the impious is justified, and by which we are Christians. Therefore the book in which I replied to this, defending grace not against nature, but that grace through which nature is freed and ruled, I entitled On Nature and Grace. How the holy Doctor received this book of Pelagius, he sets forth more clearly in the Work On the Deeds of Pelagius, chapter 23, in these words: But when that book also had been given me by the servants of God, good and honorable men, Timasius and Jacobus, where most openly Pelagius seemed to himself to resolve in no other way the question concerning the grace of God, objected to himself by himself as by an adversary — from which he was already laboring under great odium — save by saying that nature created with free choice is the grace of God, sometimes, and that thinly and not openly, joining to it either the help of the law, or even the remission of sins: then indeed without any doubt it became clear to me how great a poison, hostile to Christian salvation, that perversity was.

[493] On the Deeds of Pelagius, On the Grace of Christ, On Original Sin, Moreover the holy Doctor in the same place, chapters 47, 49, and 50, thus enumerates other lucubrations of his on the same matter: At the same time in the East, that is, in Syria Palestine, Pelagius, having been brought by certain Catholic brethren to episcopal proceedings, and in the absence of those who had presented a petition about him, since they could not come on the day of the synod, was heard by fourteen bishops, who, when he condemned those very dogmas hostile to the grace of God which were read against him out of the petition, pronounced him Catholic. But when those same records had come into our hands, I wrote a book about them, lest, he being as it were acquitted, the judges should also be thought to have approved those same dogmas, which unless he had condemned, he would in no way have gone out from them save condemned… I wrote a book On the Presence of God, where our purpose is especially watchful against the Pelagian heresy, not expressly named; but in it there is also a laborious and subtle disputation concerning the presence of that nature which we call the true and highest God, and concerning His temple… After the Pelagian heresy with its authors was convicted and condemned by the bishops of the Roman Church, first Innocent, then Zosimus, with the letters of the African councils cooperating, I wrote two books against them, one On the Grace of Christ, the other On Original Sin.

[494] On Marriage and Concupiscence, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, In the same place, chapters 53 and 61, St. Augustine goes on thus to review other little Works of this kind: I wrote two books to the illustrious Count Valerius, when I had heard that the Pelagians had written to him I know not what about us — namely, that we condemned marriage by asserting original sin; of which books the title is: ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE. For we defend the goodness of marriage, lest the concupiscence of the flesh should be thought to be its fault, and the law in the members warring against the law of the mind — which evil of lust conjugal chastity uses well for the procreating of children. But that there should be two books: the first came into the hands of Julian the Pelagian, and he wrote against it four books, from which indeed he plucked some things and sent them to Count Valerius, and he to us: which when I had received, I replied to those same things in another book… There follow the four books which I wrote against two letters of the Pelagians to Boniface, Bishop of the Roman church, because, when they had come into his hands, he himself had sent them to me, finding in them my name calumniously inserted.

[495] Finally in chapters 62, 66, and the following the holy Doctor sets an end to this matter in these words: Against Julian, On Grace and Free Choice, On Rebuke and Grace, Meanwhile the four books of Julian the Pelagian, which I mentioned above, came also into my hands, in which I found that those things which he who had sent them to Count Valerius had plucked from them were not all written to the same count in the manner in which they were said by Julian, but that some of them had been somewhat changed. I wrote therefore six books against those four; but in the first two of them, by the testimonies of the Saints who defended the Catholic faith after the Apostles, the impudence of Julian is refuted; who thought that it must be objected to us as a dogma of the Manichees, because we say that original sin is drawn from Adam, which is loosed by the laver of regeneration not only in adults but even in little ones. But how much Julian himself by certain of his opinions helps the Manichees, I have shown in the latter part of my first book. But the other four of ours are rendered to those books, one to one… On account of those who, when the grace of God is defended, thinking that free choice is denied, so defend free choice as to deny the grace of God, asserting that it is given according to our merits, I wrote a book whose title is: ON GRACE AND FREE CHOICE. But I wrote it to the monks of Adrumetum, in whose monastery a contention on this matter had begun to arise, so that some of them were compelled to consult me… Again I wrote to the same men another book, which I entitled ON REBUKE AND GRACE, when it had been announced to me that someone there had said that no one should be rebuked if he does not do the precepts of God, but that one should only pray for him that he may do them.

[496] The holy Doctor in the books of the Retractations does not mention his last Work, The unfinished Work Against Julian, upon which he died, and of which holy Prosper in the Chronicle, at the year 430, makes mention thus: Augustine, a bishop in all things most excellent, dies on the fifth of the Kalends of September, replying to the books of Julian amid the assaults of the besieging Vandals at the very end of his days, and gloriously persevering in the defense of Christian grace. Whence the same holy disciple and defender of Augustine, at the beginning of the book Against the Collator, touches upon the long and glorious contests of his holy Master against the Pelagian heresy in these few words: He scattered the fictions of the new heretics, and crushed the diabolical swelling of Pelagian pride. It is more than twenty years that the Catholic battle-line under this Man's leadership has fought and conquered against the enemies of the grace of God; and conquers, I say, because it does not suffer those whom it conquers to draw breath, and to their destruction he has written the one sentence of all the priests with his own hand. By this closing sentence St. Prosper intimates that St. Augustine labored strenuously for twenty years that the Pelagian heresy might be proscribed by the unanimous consent of the priests in various provincial councils, and at length be condemned by the Apostolic See.

[497] For the rest, to this last Work of the holy Doctor, by which he refuted Julian the Pelagian, which some prefer to call Perfect: among

Vignier, tome 2 of the Supplement, page 1, this prologue is prefixed: I wrote a book to Count Valerius, of which book the title is ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE; because I had learned that it had reached him that the Pelagians said we were condemners of marriage. Accordingly in that Work I distinguished, with such disputation as I could, the good of marriage from the evil of carnal concupiscence, which conjugal chastity uses well. Which book being received, the said illustrious man sent me on some sheets certain sentences plucked from the Work of Julian the Pelagian heretic (in which Work he thought he had answered in four books that one book which I mentioned I had written on marriage and concupiscence), sent to him by I know not whom, who thought they should be plucked, as he wished, from the first book of Julian: to which the same Valerius demanded that I should reply more speedily. And it came about that under the same title I wrote also a second book, against which Julian with excessive loquacity wrote eight others. To these I now reply, setting forth his words and subjoining to them my answer at each several place, as their refutation seemed fit to be published; since I have already sufficiently and openly refuted his four former books, after they came into my hands. Some wish that this last Work of the holy Doctor, which comprises six books, ought to be called unfinished; but others contend that the same Work ought rather to be called finished. But it is a question about a name, concerning which the most recent Benedictine editors may be consulted in the preliminary notice which they prefixed to the same Work when reprinted.

[498] Various letters against the Pelagians: the modesty of St. Augustine Among these polemical writings of St. Augustine I have not counted the various letters by which he fortified illustrious persons of both sexes against the ambiguous replies and fraudulent evasions of Pelagius. Also among his deeds against the Pelagians I have not specially reviewed the laborious industry with which the holy Doctor uncovered to the African Fathers of the provincial synods and to the successors of St. Peter themselves the hidden frauds of Pelagius and his disciples. But with how great modesty and effectiveness the holy Doctor set forth his reasons to the Roman Pontiffs may be drawn out from the books written to Pope Boniface, where in book 1, chapter 1, he addresses the supreme Pontiff in these words: I have dared to write something to your Beatitude concerning those matters which at this time solicit the episcopal care, if there is any in us, to vigilance for the Lord's flock with a fresher goad: for the new heretics, enemies of the grace of God which is given to small and great through Jesus Christ our Lord, although they are now more evidently shown to be guarded against by a more open disapproval, nevertheless do not cease by their writings to tempt the hearts of the less cautious or the less learned: to whom surely an answer would have to be made, lest they should confirm themselves or their own in that nefarious error, even if we did not fear that they might deceive any Catholic with plausible speech.

[499] writing to the Roman Pontiff. But since they do not cease to howl at the folds of the Lord's flock, and to search out approaches from every side for the plundering of sheep redeemed at so great a price, and since the office of the episcopate which we discharge is common to us all — although you yourself are preeminent in it on the loftier summit of the pastoral watchtower — I do what I can for my little portion of the office, so far as the Lord, with your prayers helping, deigns to grant me, that against their pestilent and insidious writings I may hold forth healing and fortifying writings, by which the rage with which they are frenzied may either itself be healed, or be repelled from harming others. But these things by which I answer two letters of theirs — to one, namely, which Julian is said to have sent to Rome, I believe in order that through it he might either find or make his own those whom he could; and to the other, which eighteen so-called bishops, sharers of his error, dared to write to Thessalonica, not to any chance persons, but to the bishop of that place, to be tempted by their craftiness and, if it could be done, drawn over to their party — these things therefore, which, as I said, I answer in this disputation to those two letters of theirs, I have resolved to direct chiefly to your Sanctity, not so much to be learned as to be examined, and, where perchance something shall have displeased, to be amended.

[500] At length the Pelagians, after mature examination in various provincial synods, were condemned also by the Apostolic See, The Pelagians condemned, as St. Prosper sings in the Poem on the Ungrateful, chapter 2, in this manner:

While senseless error spread such things far and wide, And drew untaught ears with deadly fictions, There came, at God's exhorting, provided throughout the world The pious care of the holy Fathers, with no unequal motion Making an end of the dread foes with heavenly darts: For in the same decrees at once one Spirit Thundered. First the See of Peter, Rome, cut back The plague as it crept in — Rome, which, made the head Of pastoral honor to the world, holds by religion Whatever it does not possess by arms.

To the ecclesiastical authority the civil power joined itself, and the emperor Honorius proscribed those heretics everywhere, as St. Augustine signifies in the book On Original Sin, chapter 17, in these few words: Assuredly you perceive that against the authors of so nefarious an error the episcopal councils, and the Apostolic See, and the whole Roman Church, and the Roman empire, which by God's favor is Christian, have most rightly been moved, until they recover themselves from the snares of the devil. But to Julian, complaining of this severity of the emperors, the holy Doctor thus replies in book 3 against him, chapter 1: Do not use that most wretched argument which all heretics use whom the laws of Catholic emperors press back from a pernicious license: for all of this kind say what you yourself said, that "that side labors from want of reason which in discussion substitutes terror, obtains no assent from the prudent, but wrings a blind assent from the timorous." You are indeed new heretics, but that voice of almost all the old heretics you have, along with the rest, acknowledged and held.

[501] But when the Pelagians also, after the accustomed manner of heretics, complained and, though without a universal synod, yet by a sufficient judgment, that their dogmas had not been ventilated and discussed in an ecumenical council, St. Augustine in book 4 to Boniface the Pontiff, in the last chapter, thus refutes them: What is it then that they say — "the subscription was extorted from simple bishops sitting in their own places without the gathering of a synod"? Was the subscription extorted from those most blessed men, most excellent in the Catholic faith, Cyprian and Ambrose, before these men, against these men — by which they subvert their impious dogmas with so great a manifestation that we can scarcely find things to say against them more manifest? Or indeed was there need of a gathering of a synod, that an open destruction should be condemned — as though no heresy has ever been condemned save by the gathering of a synod, whereas rather those are found very rare for whose condemning such a necessity has arisen; and there are many, and incomparably more, which, where they arose, there deserved to be disapproved and condemned, and thence could become known throughout the other lands as things to be avoided? But the pride of these men, which so exalts itself against God that it wishes to glory not in Him but rather in free choice, is understood to be catching at this glory also, that on their account a synod of the East and the West should be gathered: for since, God resisting them, they cannot pervert the Catholic world, they attempt at least to disturb it; whereas rather, by pastoral vigilance and diligence, after a competent and sufficient judgment has been passed on them, wherever these wolves appear they are to be crushed, whether that they may be healed and changed, or that they may be avoided for the salvation and soundness of others.

[502] and refuted chiefly by Augustine's writings. Although in the preceding paragraph St. Augustine answered out of lowliness of mind to Julian the Pelagian, who challenged him to single combat, that he was only one of many Catholic priests who were assailing the Pelagians, nevertheless St. Prosper in the Poem on the Ungrateful, chapter 3, attributes the greatest part of the victory won over the Pelagians to our holy Doctor, singing thus:

Could a holy Council come to another end, Whose leader was Aurelius, and whose genius Augustine? Whom the grace of Christ, watering him With a richer horn, gave as a light to our age, Kindled from the true Light: for to him food And life and rest is God, and all his pleasure Is the one love of Christ, his one honor is Christ's. And while he attributes no goods to himself, God becomes All things to him, and Wisdom reigns in the holy temple. His industry therefore, among all who have driven The mad beasts from the holy flock, was greater; His Work greater; more excellently he steeped the whole world… And while outside the rage of greedy wolves, shut out, Gnashed, and turned its lies to every art, Lest it might corrupt the minds of any of the sheep, Or trouble doubting hearts with crooked complaints; God wrought by the mouth of this Man: by his mouth Rivers of books flowed out through all the world.

From this metrical eulogy we conclude that by the assiduous lucubrations and labors of St. Augustine the Pelagian heresy was chiefly vanquished. But from this venomous stock, before the death of the holy Doctor, there remained or came forth a subtler shoot of errors, as we shall see in the following paragraph.

§ XXXVI. The chief errors of the Semi-Pelagians refuted by Augustine, and after his death lawfully condemned by the Roman Church.

The errors of the Semi-Pelagians The forerunner of this sect seems to have been a certain Vitalis of Carthage, to whom St. Augustine in Letter 107 writes thus after other things: How do you say what I hear you say, that for us to believe rightly in God and to consent to the Gospel is not the gift of God, but that this is to us from ourselves, that is, from our own will, which He Himself has not wrought in us in our heart? And to this, when you have heard, What then is it that the Apostle says, "God works in us both to will and to accomplish"? — you answer that God works through His law, through His Scriptures, that we may will, which we either read or hear; but that to consent to them, or not to consent, is so ours that, if we will, it comes about; but if we do not will, we make the working of God avail nothing in us: for He works, you say, so far as in Him lies, that we may will, when His words are made known to us; but if we are unwilling to acquiesce in them, we bring it about that His working profits nothing in us.

[504] Then toward the end of the same Letter, after various arguments by which he refutes that Vitalis and distinguishes him from the Pelagian heretics, the Saint refutes, he nevertheless convicts him of the same error by this reasoning: Against the Pelagians this struggle is common to you and to us; for they attribute all things pertaining to the faithful and pious life of men to the free choice of the will in such a way that they think they are to be had from ourselves, not to be asked from the Lord. But you, if the things I hear about you are true, are unwilling that the beginning of faith, where is also the beginning of a good, that is, a pious will, should be the gift of God, but contend that we have it from ourselves that we begin to believe; while you consent that God by His grace gives the other goods of a religious life to those asking, seeking, knocking out of faith. Nor do you consider that God is therefore entreated for unbelievers that they may believe, since God gives faith also. Wherefore, that I may at length conclude this discourse to you, if you deny that we must pray

that those who are unwilling to believe may be willing to believe; if you deny that thanks are to be given to God because those who were unwilling to believe have willed to believe: we must deal otherwise with you, that you may not so err, or, if you persist in erring, that you may not send others into error. But if — which I rather believe of you — you think and consent that we ought and are wont to pray God for those unwilling to believe, that they may be willing to believe, and for those who oppose and contradict His law and doctrine, that they may believe it and follow it; if you think and consent that we ought also and are wont to give thanks to God for such men, because, being converted to His faith and doctrine, they become willing from unwilling: you must without doubt confess that the wills of men are forestalled by the grace of God, and that God brings it about that men should will the good which they did not will — God, who is asked to bring it about, and to whom we know it is meet and just to give thanks when He has brought it about. May the Lord give you understanding in all things, lord brother.

[505] The holy Doctor refuted this error of Vitalis so solicitously and laboriously and he confesses that he was once in the same error, because he himself, while still a young man, before attaining the episcopate and before the rise of the Pelagian heresy, had fallen into the same, as he candidly confesses in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 3, in these words: Not so did that pious and humble doctor think (I speak of the most blessed Cyprian), who said that we must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours. Which, in order to show, he brought forward the Apostle as witness, saying: "But what have you that you have not received? And if you have received, why do you glory as though you had not received?" By which testimony especially I too was convicted, when I was similarly erring, thinking that the faith by which we believe in God is not a gift of God, but is in us from ourselves, and that through it we obtain the gifts of God by which we may live temperately and justly and piously in this world: for I did not think that faith is forestalled by the grace of God, so that through it there should be given us what we should usefully ask; save that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not precede. But that we should consent to the Gospel preached to us, I judged to be our own and to be to us from ourselves: which error of mine some of my little Works sufficiently indicate, written before my episcopate, among which is that which you recalled in your letter (he addresses Prosper and Hilary, who had indicated to him the opinions of certain Gauls, and to whom he had sent one book On the Predestination of the Saints and another On the Gift of Perseverance), where there is an exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle which is to the Romans.

[506] Finally, when I was reviewing all my little Works, and pursuing that review with my pen — of which Work I had already completed two books before I took up your more prolix writings — when I had come in the first volume to the reviewing of this book, I spoke thereupon thus. but that he had corrected it. Then, a lengthy text of his own words being alleged, he thus begins the fourth chapter in the same place: You certainly see what I then thought concerning faith and works, although I labored to commend the grace of God: in which opinion I now see these our brethren to be (he means the Massilians or Semi-Pelagians, who were then still Catholics), because they have not, as they took care to read my books, so also taken care to advance in them together with me: for if they had taken care, they would have found that question resolved according to the truth of the divine Scriptures in the first of the two books which I wrote to Simplicianus of blessed memory, bishop of the church of Milan and successor of holy Ambrose, at the very beginning of my episcopate — unless perchance they have not known them. But if it is so, bring it about that they may know them.

[507] The Semi-Pelagians, otherwise the Massilians, not condemned in Augustine's time, Therefore from St. Augustine's writings, ill understood or ill explained, this and other kindred errors passed from Africa into Gaul, where their defenders commonly received the name of Massilians, because several of them lived in the city of Marseilles. They were also called Semi-Pelagians, because they retained some tenets of Pelagius, although they rejected other dogmas of the same heretic. Among those adversaries of the holy Doctor were men notable for dignity, learning, and holiness of life, as St. Prosper will presently testify in his letter. Hence I judge that St. John Cassian and other pious prelates and monks erred innocently in this matter, and with Noël Alexandre in the Ecclesiastical History of the fifth century, chapter 3, article 9, or tome 5 of the most recent Paris edition, page 62, I therefore conclude that judgment in these words of his: However it may be, it is certain that the Semi-Pelagians were then adorned with the Catholic name, that they devoted the Pelagian heresy to anathema, that they embraced the decrees of the Apostolic See against it, that they were joined in communion with the Roman Pontiffs and the universal Church; and that in the time of Cælestine, Sixtus, and Leo — nay, and of the following Pontiffs down to Felix IV and the celebration of the synod of Orange — they did not fall from the honor of the Catholic name, nor was their opinion branded by the Church with the mark of heresy.

[508] whose dogmas Although this sect of the Semi-Pelagians was not then yet heretical, nevertheless St. Prosper judged it perilous, and therefore in the Letter which is prefixed to the books just mentioned On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, writes thus to St. Augustine: Unknown indeed to you by face, but already to some extent, if you remember, known in mind and speech; for through my holy brother Leontius the deacon I sent letters and received them; now also I dare to write to your blessedness, not only from a zeal of salutation, as then, but also from an affection for the faith by which the Church lives: for since your most vigilant industry keeps watch for all the members of the body of Christ, and fights against the ambushes of heretical doctrines with the strength of the truth, I thought I must in no way fear to be burdensome or importunate to you in a matter which pertains to the salvation of many, and thereby to your piety; since I should rather believe myself to be guilty if I did not refer to the SPECIAL PATRON OF THE FAITH those things which I understand to be exceedingly pernicious.

[509] holy Prosper writes Many therefore of the servants of Christ who reside in the city of Marseilles think that in the writings of your holiness which you composed against the Pelagian heretics, whatever you disputed in them concerning the calling of the elect according to the purpose of God is contrary to the opinion of the Fathers and to the ecclesiastical sense. And when for some time they preferred to blame their own slowness rather than to reprove what they had not understood, and some of them wished to demand from your blessedness a clearer and more open exposition on this matter, it came about by the disposition of God's mercy that, when certain men within Africa had raised like questions, you sent forth the book On Rebuke and Grace, full of divine authority. Which being brought to our notice by an unexpected opportunity, we thought that all the complaints of those resisting would be lulled to sleep; because to all the questions on which your holiness was to be consulted there was there so fully and completely an answer, as though you had specially aimed at composing what was troubled among us. But this book of your blessedness being examined, just as those who before followed the holy and Apostolic authority of your doctrine were made much more understanding and better instructed, so those who were hindered by the obscurity of their own persuasion withdrew more averse than they had been. Whose so abrupt dissension is first to be feared on their own account, lest the spirit of Pelagian impiety mock men so distinguished and so excellent in the pursuit of all virtues: and next, lest all the simpler folk, among whom there is great reverence for these men from the contemplation of their probity, should reckon it safest for themselves to hold what they hear those assert whose authority they follow without judgment.

[510] Then he thus sets forth some of their opinions to the holy Doctor: and describes This is their definition and profession: that every man indeed sinned when Adam sinned, and that no one is saved by his own works, but by the grace of God through regeneration. Yet that to all men without exception there has been set forth the propitiation which is in the sacrament of the blood of Christ, so that whoever have willed to approach faith and baptism may be able to be saved. But that who are going to believe, and who are going to abide in that faith which is thereafter to be assisted by the grace of God, God foreknew before the foundation of the world, and predestined to His kingdom those whom, being freely called, He foresaw would be worthy of election and would depart from this life with a good end: and that therefore every man is admonished by the divine institutions to believe and to hope, so that no one may despair of laying hold of eternal life, since a reward is prepared for voluntary devotion.

[511] Then he explains how some of them come nearer to the Pelagian heresy, holy Prosper, and how others answer an objection made to them, in this manner: And whereas amid these things a multitude of innumerable little ones — who surely, apart from original sin, under which all men alike are born in the condemnation of the first man, have as yet no wills of their own, no proper actions — are not without God's judgment separated, so that, being taken from the use of this life before the discernment of good and evil, some are through regeneration taken up among the heirs of the heavenly kingdom, others without baptism pass over among the debtors of perpetual death: they say that such perish and such are saved as the divine knowledge foresaw they would be in later years, if they had been preserved to an active age. Nor do they consider that they subject the grace of God — which they wish to be the companion, not the forerunner, of human merits — even to those wills which, according to their own fancy, they do not deny to have been forestalled by it; but they so far subject the election of God to whatever fictitious merits, that they feign past things which do not exist, and future things which are not to be; and by a new kind of absurdity among them things not to be done are foreknown, and things foreknown are not done. Because of this same foreknowledge of God they affirmed that the Gospel is preached to one nation rather than to another, and that certain peoples are left in darkness and the shadow of death, because, forsooth, God had foreseen that they would not believe.

[512] which Jansenius did not understand, From these principles they deduced various corollaries, which can be understood partly in a Catholic and partly in a heretical sense, as may be seen everywhere in the theologians ready to hand. Whence Jansenius of Ypres did not sufficiently know the dogmas of the Semi-Pelagians, when he defended two propositions, of which one is this: The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of interior prevenient grace for individual acts, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, that they wished that grace to be such that the human will could resist it or comply with it. But the other runs thus: It is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for absolutely all men. But those assertions were rightly and deservedly condemned among the five famous propositions of Jansenius by Innocent X and other Roman Pontiffs, as false and heretical, in the sense intended by the author. Wherefore there is no need here of a long explanation of those propositions, in order that their heretical sense may be shown, since more recent Catholic theologians have demonstrated this more than sufficiently.

[513] and which have been badly confused by some From a like ignorance of the dogmas of the Semi-Pelagians there probably arises the invidious accusation by which some unskilled men confound the Catholic opinion of certain theologians with the Semi-Pelagian error, as Noël Alexandre in the Ecclesiastical History, reprinted at Paris in the year 1714, tome 5, page 60, testifies in these words: Yet care must be taken lest the mark of Semi-Pelagian error be branded upon certain more recent theologians who contend that the predestination of the elect to glory is made by God in view of merits, and who champion a certain middle knowledge; which imprudently and rashly certain new authors have done, either ignorant of the dogmas of the Semi-Pelagians, or carried astray by partisan zeal: for great is the difference between the Semi-Pelagians and those theologians as to both these dogmas. For the Semi-Pelagians admitted no gratuitous predestination — not to glory, nor even to grace; namely, they attributed election to glory to the merits of works, and election to grace to the merit of faith, of which it could not be said, "What have you that you have not received?" — inasmuch as it remained in the same nature, though vitiated, in which it had first been given sound and perfect, as Hilary reports, writing to holy Augustine: which opinion of the Semi-Pelagians was heretical.

[514] with the doctrine of certain Catholic Theologians. But the theologians praised profess a predestination to grace altogether gratuitous. They wish only the election to glory to be made in view of merits; which indeed seems to me utterly foreign to the doctrine of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, yet not to be marked with any censure. As regards that knowledge which is called middle, the Semi-Pelagians were not heretics in this, that they admitted and championed it; but in that they asserted that from the foreknowledge of merits or sins which would never come to be, God determines the lots of men, and predestines some to glory, condemns others to punishment; and that this holds even in little ones. But those more recent theologians of whom we are speaking are far from the disgrace of that error: for the kind of middle knowledge which they champion, concerning merits or sins future under a condition which is never to be posited, is not so handled that God should have any regard to them in the business of predestination and reprobation. That opinion indeed I judge to be refuted without labor from the doctrine of St. Augustine; I think it foreign to the truth; but nevertheless it can, with religion safe, be ventilated with impunity on either side. Thus that writer, in no way suspect of excessive favor toward those theologians, whose opinion he opposes.

[515] Further, the perilous errors of the Semi-Pelagians, which St. Augustine had refuted in the books On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, At what time at last the Semi-Pelagians were condemned. St. Prosper and Hilary and others strenuously assailed after his death. At length, after many years, St. Cæsarius implored the authority of Pope Felix III against the Semi-Pelagians, to whom that Pontiff transmitted sentences collected chiefly from the books of St. Augustine. These St. Cæsarius brought forward in the second synod of Orange, which was celebrated in the year of Christ 529, and there in twenty-five canons the pernicious dogmas of the Semi-Pelagians were solemnly proscribed. This synod of Orange was followed by the synod of Valence, in which likewise the errors of the Semi-Pelagians were condemned. Meanwhile, Pope Felix III being dead, St. Cæsarius took care that both these synods should be confirmed by Boniface II, the supreme Pontiff, as may be read in our Labbe, in the Collection of Councils, tome 4, column [ ] and following. This is the last deadly wound by which that error was pierced through, which our holy Doctor had already many years before condemned in advance.

§ XXXVII. The contests of the holy Doctor against the Arians and other heretics of various kinds.

The Saint disputes with Pascentius the Arian, Holy Possidius in the Acts to be subjoined to this Commentary, with us at number 34 and following, will indicate the outcome of the twofold disputation which St. Augustine held with two Arian heretics. There is in circulation a certain debate which the holy Doctor is said to have had with Pascentius, an Arian count of the royal house. But this document exhibits so many marks of falsity that the most recent Benedictine editors of the Augustinian Works have deservedly, after other learned men, relegated it to the Appendix of the second tome. But although that document of the debate is spurious, nevertheless St. Augustine did at some time dispute with Count Pascentius concerning the faith, as the Saint himself testifies in Letter 174, which he wrote to Pascentius the Arian, and in which he thus addresses him: I had indeed wished, at your asking and insisting, as you will deign to remember — nay rather, by the desert of your age and dignity, at your bidding — to confer discourse also face to face concerning the Christian faith, so far as the Lord should grant me the ability.

[517] But because after the midday meal it displeased you, what in the morning had pleased between us, that our words should be taken down by notaries, [whom he reproaches for having been unwilling that the disputation should be written down;] lest you should say further what I hear you do not keep silent — that I did not dare to declare my faith to you — receive in this letter what both you may read, and hand over to be read to whomever you will, and to which you may answer in turn by writing what you will: for it is unfair that anyone should wish to judge concerning another, and be unwilling to be judged concerning himself. And concerning our past agreement indeed, which you were unwilling to fulfill at the appointed noon, it can easily be estimated which of us had no confidence in his own faith: whether he who wished it to be spoken and feared lest he be held to it, or he who was so unwilling that it should be withdrawn from the judgment of those disputing, that he wished it, committed to writing, to be commended also to the memory of readers, lest anyone, either supposing it by forgetfulness or provoked by disagreement, should say that by one of us either that had not been said which had been said, or that had been said which had not been said: for in these things those are wont to seek hiding places for their bad defense who are more desirous of contention than of truth. But this could be said neither by you nor by me, neither of you nor of me, if you had remained in the good faith of the agreement, that our words should be taken down and written, especially since you yourself, in those words in which you pronounced your faith, as often as you repeated them, so often varied them; which I believe was done by no fraud, but by forgetfulness.

[518] and with Maximinus, against whom he moreover writes two books: We have still another disputation which St. Augustine held publicly, in the manner of a dialogue, with Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, and which may be read in tome 6 of the Works of the Louvain edition from page 283. To this disputation the holy Doctor added two books against the same Maximinus, to the former of which he prefixed this prologue: Rendering the answer due to the disputation of Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, by whose prolixity he consumed the space of the day on which we conferred face to face, I ought to speak to him himself; whether he still judge that he must contradict when he has read it, or whether, with the Lord working marvelously in his heart, he consent to the manifest truth. What seemed good to you, O Arian man, to say so many things, and for the cause which is at issue between us to say nothing — as though this were to be able to answer, which is to be unable to keep silent? First therefore I will show that you could not refute what I said: then, so far as shall seem necessary, I will refute what you yourself said.

[519] another dissertation written against the Arians The holy Doctor himself reviews another polemical dissertation, published against the Arians, in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 52, in these words: Among these things there came into my hands a certain discourse of the Arians, without the name of its author. To this, at the asking and insisting of him who had sent it to me, I replied with all the brevity and speed I could, the same discourse being joined at the head of my reply, and numbers being applied to each part, by inspecting which it may easily be noticed what I answered to each place. For brevity's sake I do not mention in this place the various letters by which St. Augustine tried to convert the Arians to the Catholic faith, or strenuously refuted the obstinate. For the same reason I pass over the various tractates or sermons which the holy Doctor delivered against the same heretics, in order to lead them to the true confession of the most holy Trinity, or to confirm Catholics in their faith.

[520] the fifteen books On the Most Holy Trinity, But among these polemical lucubrations there deserves to be numbered the distinguished Work On the Trinity, which comprises fifteen books, and concerning which the Saint writes thus in the preliminary Letter to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage: The books On the Trinity, which is the highest and true God, I began as a young man and published as an old man: for I had laid this Work aside after I learned that they had been snatched from me before I could finish them, and, after reviewing them [], polish them, as had been my plan. For I had resolved to publish them not one by one but all together, for this reason, that the later are linked to the earlier by the progress of the inquiry. When therefore, through those men who were able to reach some of them before I wished, my plan could not be fulfilled, I had left the dictation interrupted, thinking to complain of this very thing in some of my writings, that those who could might know that those books had not been published by me, but taken away, before they seemed to me worthy of publication by me.*

[521] But compelled by the most vehement demand of many brethren, which, unfinished at first and without Augustine's knowledge, and especially by your command, I have taken care, with the Lord's help, to finish so laborious a Work; and, having emended them not as I wished but as I could, lest they should differ very much from those which, having been stolen, had already gone forth into men's hands, I have sent them to your veneration by our most beloved son the deacon, and have permitted them to be heard, copied, and read by anyone whatever; in which, if my plan could have been preserved, they would surely be — though holding the same opinions — nevertheless much more disentangled and plainer, so far as the difficulty of explaining so great matters and our own ability would allow. But there are those who have the first four, or rather five, even without prefaces, and the twelfth without a considerable last part. But if this edition can become known to them, they will emend everything, if they wish and are able. I ask indeed that you command this Letter to be placed before the head of the same books — separately indeed, yet before them. Pray for me.

[522] In book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 15, he thus reviews the same Work: had been published: The books On the Trinity, which is God, fifteen in number, I wrote over some years. But when I had not yet finished the twelfth of them, and was keeping them longer than those could endure who vehemently desired to have them, they were taken from me less emended than they ought and could have been, when I should have wished to publish them. Which after I learned — because other copies of them had remained with us — I had resolved not myself to publish them now, but so to keep them that in some other little Work of mine I might tell what had happened to me concerning them: nevertheless, with the brethren pressing, whom I was not able to resist, I emended them so far as I thought they should be emended, and completed and published them, joining to it at the head the letter which I wrote to the venerable Aurelius, bishop of the church of Carthage; by which, as it were,

as a prologue I set forth both what had happened, and what by my own thought I had wished to do, and what, the charity of the brethren compelling, I had done. Then in the same place he reviews some things from this Work, or sets them forth more clearly.

[523] Moreover the holy Doctor published against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets two books, he writes against the Adversary of the Law, at the beginning of which he thus indicates the occasion of writing this Work: The book which you sent, most beloved brethren, of I know not what heretic, found, as you wrote, in the seaside square, when the volume itself was being carried for sale, and was being read with perilous curiosity and delight by crowds running together — that I might answer it with as much brevity as I could, I first sought of what error it was: for not the Manichees alone condemn the law and the prophets, but also the Marcionites, and certain others whose sects have not become so well known to Christian peoples. But this man, whose name I have not found in the same book, detests God the fabricator of the world; whereas the Manichees, although they do not receive and do blaspheme the book of Genesis, nevertheless confess that a good God fabricated the world, though out of an alien nature and matter. But although it has not appeared to me of what sect this blasphemer is, the divine Scripture must be defended against his tongue, which he assails with slanderous disputations. And since in some way he desires to seem a Christian — whence he sets down some testimonies both from the Gospel and from the Apostle — he must be refuted also by the Scriptures pertaining to the new Testament; that it may be shown that in his reproving of the old he raves more inconsiderately than craftily. The Saint in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 58, makes a like mention of this Work of his.

[524] To Orosius against the Priscillianists and Origenists. Against Lying: When Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, had implored the help of St. Augustine against the Priscillianists and Origenists, the holy Doctor assailed them, as he himself testifies in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 44, in these words: Among these things I answered with all the brevity and clearness I could to the consultation of a certain Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, concerning the Priscillianists and concerning certain opinions of Origen which the Catholic faith disapproves; of which little Work the title is: To Orosius against the Priscillianists and Origenists. For the consultation itself also was joined at the head of my reply. He also wrote the book Against Lying, the occasion of which Work he thus indicates in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 60: Then I wrote also the book Against Lying, of which Work this was the cause: that for the investigating of the Priscillianist heretics, who think their heresy must be concealed not only by denying and lying, but even by perjuring themselves, it seemed to certain Catholics that they ought to feign themselves Priscillianists, in order to penetrate their hiding places; which I, forbidding to be done, then composed the book.

[525] The errors of the Priscillianists The holy Doctor describes the errors of these heretics and the solicitous concealment of their dogmas in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, heresy 70, in these words: The Priscillianists, whom Priscillian founded in Spain, follow chiefly the mingled dogmas of the Gnostics and the Manichees; although from other heresies also they have flowed together into those filths, as into a kind of bilge, with horrible confusion. But for the concealing of their contaminations and basenesses, they have in their dogmas also these words: "Swear, forswear, betray not the secret." These say that souls, of the same nature and substance of which God is, descend by degrees for the waging of a certain voluntary contest on earth, through seven heavens and through certain principalities, and run into a malignant prince, by whom they hold that this world was made, and are sown by this prince through various bodies of flesh. They maintain also that men are bound together by fatal stars, and that our very body is composed according to the twelve signs of heaven, like those who are commonly called Mathematicians, placing Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the shoulders, Cancer in the breast; and running through the rest of the signs by name, they come at last to the soles of the feet, which they attribute to Pisces, which is called by the astrologers the last sign.

[526] These and other fabulous, vain, sacrilegious things, which it is long to pursue, that heresy has woven together. errors; Flesh also as unclean food it avoids. Separating spouses, whom this evil has been able to persuade, both husbands from unwilling wives and wives from unwilling husbands: for the making of all flesh they attribute not to the good and true God, but to malignant angels; being craftier even than the Manichees in this, that they repudiate nothing of the canonical Scriptures, reading all things together with the apocryphal, and taking them as of authority; but turning by allegorizing into their own meanings whatever there is in the holy books which overturns their error. Of Christ they hold the Sabellian sect, saying that He Himself is the same, not only the Son, but also the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the two hundred and fifty-third Letter, which St. Augustine addressed to Ceretius the bishop, there are also read the insipid dogmas of this kind of the Priscillianists, and how they were detected is explained in the same place in these words: In the very nefarious teaching of their heresy they are said to have a precept, that for the sake of concealing their dogmas they should lie even with false swearing. Those who have had experience of them, and had been of their number, and were freed from them by the mercy of God, recall also these very words of this precept: "Swear, forswear, betray not the secret."

[527] Since the holy Doctor also wrote against the Origenists, Two Origens, and the errors of the followers of each and their sect was twofold, in the book just cited On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, heresy 42 and the following, he thus distinguishes the one from the other: The Origenians were named from a certain Origen; not from him who is known to almost all, but from another, I know not whom, of whom, or of whose followers, Epiphanius speaking says: "The Origenians, disciples of a certain Origen; but they are of a base practice: these are those doing unspeakable things, delivering their bodies to corruption." But at once subjoining other Origenians, he says: "Origenians, others, who are also followers of that expositor Adamantius, who both deny the resurrection of the dead; and say that Christ and the Holy Spirit are a creature; but do not believe that paradise and the heavens and other things are according to the letter, but in allegory." These things indeed Epiphanius reports of Origen; but his defenders say that Origen taught that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance, and did not reject the resurrection of the dead; but those who have read more of his works contradict them.

[528] There are also other dogmas of this Origen which the Catholic church altogether does not receive; errors: in which it neither falsely accuses him, nor can he be excused by his defenders — especially concerning the purgation and liberation, and again after a long time the return to the same evils, of the whole rational creature: for what Catholic Christian, whether learned or unlearned, would not vehemently shudder at that which he calls the purgation of evils — that is, that even those who ended this life in outrages and crimes and sacrileges and impieties however great; the devil himself also at the last and his angels, though after the longest times, purged and freed, are restored to the kingdom of God and to light; and again after the longest times all who have been freed slip back and return anew to these evils; and that these alternating changes of blessednesses and miseries of the rational creature have always been and always will be? Concerning which most empty impiety, against the philosophers from whom Origen learned these things, I have disputed most diligently in the books On the City of God. Namely, in book 21 of the praised Work, chapter 17 and following, he assails this and like errors of theirs.

[529] But what St. Augustine wrote against the Jovinianists, against the errors of Jovinian he himself indicates in book 2 of the Retractations, chapters 22 and 23, in this manner: The Jovinian heresy, equating the merit of consecrated virgins with conjugal chastity, so far prevailed in the city of Rome that it was said to have cast down into marriage even some nuns concerning whose chastity no suspicion had gone before, pressing them especially with this argument, saying: Are you then better than Sarah, better than Susanna or Anna? — and recounting the rest of the women most highly commended by the testimony of holy Scripture, than whom those women could not think themselves better, or even equal. In this way also he broke down the holy celibacy of holy men by the recounting and the proclaiming of the married patriarchs. To this monster the holy Church which is there most faithfully and most strongly resisted. But those disputations of his had remained in the little talks and whisperings of certain men, which no one dared openly to urge.

[530] he writes On the Good of Marriage, and On Holy Virginity. But even against poisons creeping secretly it was necessary to go, with the ability which the Lord granted; especially since it was boasted that Jovinian could not be answered with praise, but only with vituperation, of marriage. On account of this I published a book whose inscription is ON THE GOOD OF MARRIAGE… After I wrote on the good of marriage, it was expected that I should write on holy virginity; nor did I put it off, and I showed in one volume, as I could, both how great that gift of God is and with how great humility it must be guarded. The Saint in the book On Heresies, already often cited, at heresy 82, more distinctly sets forth the time, the author, and the extinction of this sect. In this place I silently pass over the Tertullianists, the Abelonians or Abelians, whose sects perished in Africa in the age of the holy Doctor, as may be read in the same place at heresies 86 and 87, and to the extinguishing of which St. Augustine perhaps contributed no small labor. I also pass over the hundred and eighth Letter, in which he refutes the Novatian heretics; and here I set an end to his glorious struggles against the impious heretics of various sects.

al. retractaturus*

§ XXXVIII. The exchange of letters with St. Paulinus: the books to Simplicianus.

BY J. S.

The death of Cuper, who wrote thus far; and the plan for pursuing the rest. Since Cuper set an end at the glorious struggles of the Saint against the heretics, and at that very place made an end of writing, I shall weave in the remaining deeds of St. Augustine partly in the order of times, partly in the order of matters, and shall go back to the first times of his episcopate, where he began to abandon the order of years in order to join together the contests against heretics or heathen, and to set them in a greater light. Nevertheless it does not please me to pursue any and every particular and more minute fact which could be deduced from the Saint's letters: both because Cuper himself, whose footsteps I follow, wished to pass these over for brevity's sake; and because various of them have been related by way of example, to which those that are passed over are similar; and finally because the Saint's letters lie open to anyone wishing to run through them, so that it is not necessary to heap up here every admonition of the holy Doctor, even though they be excellent.

[532] St. Paulinus invites Augustine to himself, St. Paulinus, afterwards bishop of Nola, concerning whose first letter to our Saint some things were said at number 181 and following, wrote to him again about the time at which Augustine was promoted to the episcopate; whom, after much testification of his love, he invites to himself in these words: Wherefore would that the grace of God might grant us this gift also, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that in the flesh also your face

we might see: not only would great joy be conferred upon our desires, but light also would grow for our minds, and our poverty be enriched from your abundance. Which indeed you can bestow even upon the absent, especially on this occasion, on which our sons, of one mind and most dear in the Lord, Romanus and Agilis — whom we commend to you as second selves — will return in the name of the Lord, the work of charity being fulfilled, in which we ask that they may specially enjoy the affection of your charity. This letter is 33 among the Augustinian ones, and was carried by the aforesaid Romanus and Agilis, whom the Saint received most courteously.

[533] Augustine replied to Paulinus by Letter 34, and he in turn invites him: in which he shows many tokens of his love toward Paulinus; then he excuses himself for being unable to come to him because of the episcopal burden, which he announces he has lately undertaken, and in turn invites Paulinus in these words: But although the yoke of Christ is in itself gentle and its burden light, nevertheless, because of our own roughness and infirmity, if this bond somewhat chafes me and this burden presses me, it would be rendered unspeakably more tolerable and bearable by some consolation of your presence — you who, as I hear, live freer and more disengaged from cares of this kind. Wherefore not shamelessly do I ask you, and demand and beg, that you deign to come into Africa, which labors with a greater thirst for such men than with the notorious drought. God knows that it is not only because of my own longing, nor only because of those who have learned your purpose either through us or from whatever quarter by the heralding of report, but also because of the rest, who partly do not hear and partly do not believe what they have heard, yet can love it when they have found it out, that we desire you to be present in these lands even bodily. For although you do this diligently and mercifully, nevertheless let your works shine also before the men of our regions, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. On the same occasion he sent the books On Free Choice, mentioned at number 128, and asked that Paulinus should send him certain books of St. Ambrose, which thereafter were lost. More concerning the mutual friendship of these Saints the praised letters will supply.

[534] Further, with how great a desire of seeing Paulinus Augustine was held, he declares again in Letter 250, written much later, in which he thus addresses him: the mutual love of those Saints, And yet, if any of us went across the sea for this alone, that he might enjoy your presence, what could be found juster, what worthier, than this cause? But our bonds would not bear it, by which we are bound to serve the languors of the weak, and not to leave them by bodily presence, unless &c. Augustine indeed did not visit Paulinus, nor he Augustine, although each greatly desired it; but a perpetual friendship remained between them, and a frequent exchange of letters. Nor did Paulinus alone press Augustine with various questions; but the latter also, since he was of no less modesty than learning, from time to time consulted Paulinus. Receive the words of Augustine from Letter 65, which teach this: Behold, that little question which I had lately proposed, as though I were putting it, being present, to one present amid sweet talk, you have resolved plainly with Christian understanding and devotion, but too hastily and briefly; for the grace of your mouth could dwell there somewhat longer and more richly, if, when you had said that you had resolved so to persevere in that place which you happily enjoy, that if anything else concerning you should please the Lord, you would prefer His will to your own, you had explained that very thing somewhat more openly — in what manner we may know the will of God, which is to be preferred to our own will. And where he had set forth this difficulty more fully, he subjoins: Hence I beg that you make me a sharer of your thoughts — what in such matters you are wont to do, or find ought to be done.

[535] Augustine also consulted Paulinus concerning the future life of the Blessed. and the modesty of both, But he, calling Augustine not only father but also master, sprinkled his reply with wondrous praises of his wisdom. A few things from his letter, 249 among the Augustinian ones, I subjoin by way of specimen: "Thy word," he says, "is ever a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths." So, as often as I receive the letters of your most blessed Sanctity, I feel the darkness of my folly scattered, and, as though a salve of delight were poured in, I see first with the eyes of my mind, the night of ignorance being driven away and the mist of doubt wiped off. Which, though I have often at other times felt granted to me through the gifts of your letters, yet especially by this recent little book of letters, of which the bearer to me was as welcome as he was worthy, the blessed man of the Lord, our brother Quintus the deacon… What then shall I, lowly and earthly, answer to this wisdom which has been given you from above, which this world does not hold, and by which no one is wise save he who is wise with the wisdom of God and eloquent with the word of God? And so, because I have experience of Christ speaking in you, in God I will praise your words, and I will not fear from the terror by night.

[536] while they consult one another, Then further below: But what our activity will be in that age of the blessed after the resurrection of the flesh, you have deigned to ask me. But I concerning the present state of my life consult you as both master and spiritual physician, that you may teach me to do the wills of God, and to walk in your footsteps after Christ, and to die first that Gospel death, before we forestall the dissolution of the flesh by a voluntary departure: withdrawing from the life of this world not by death but by resolve — a life wholly full of temptations, or, as you once said to me, wholly a temptation. Would then that my ways might be so directed after your footsteps, that by your example, loosing the old sandal from my feet, I might break my bonds, and, free, exult to run the way whereby I may attain that death by which you have died to this world, that you may live to God in Christ living in you, whose death and life are known in your body and heart and mouth. For your heart is not wise in earthly things, nor does your mouth speak the works of men, but the word of Christ abounds in your breast, and the spirit of truth is poured out on your tongue, gladdening the city of God with the rush of a heavenly river. But what virtue works this death in us, save charity, which is strong?

[537] or answer what is asked. Finally, when he had answered certain things to Augustine's question, he in turn asks of him a kindred difficulty, thus modestly and honorably addressing him: This is therefore what I, needy and poor, that foolish little one of yours, whom as a true wise man you have been wont to bear with, ask: that you teach me your knowledge or opinion upon this, because I know that you are illumined by the spirit of revelation from the very Leader and Fountain of the wise; so that, as you have known things past and see things present, so also concerning things to come you may tell what you estimate, what you judge, concerning those everlasting voices of the heavenly creatures, or even of those who minister above the heavens in the sight of the Most High — by what instruments at last they are expressed. Augustine wrote back Letter 260 to this of Paulinus, and partly answered his questions, partly asked other things of him in turn, greatly praising his opinion, in which he had said that counsel must be taken also concerning the state of the present life. Let these things suffice concerning the exchange of letters and the close friendship of our Saint with St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in whose Life among us on the XXII of June various things about these matters may also be read. But only eight letters of Augustine to Paulinus are noted in the Indiculus of Possidius, as many as still exist in the Benedictine edition: but it does not seem doubtful that he wrote more, which could easily have been unknown to Possidius, as Tillemont also observes, article 116.

[538] At the beginning of his episcopate also the holy Doctor drew up two books to Simplicianus, bishop of Milan, The Saint at the beginning of his episcopate writes the books to Simplicianus, whom he had had at Milan as a helper in his conversion, as will be read below in the Acts, numbers 190 and 191. Hence, when Simplicianus had sent certain questions to be handled, the Saint, after a most modest and most courteous letter sent to him, thus addresses him on the threshold of the Work: A most welcome and most sweet condescension of your questions you have sent me, father Simplicianus, to which, if I did not endeavor to reply, I should show myself not only obstinate but even ungrateful. Of this little Work he thus makes mention in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 1: Of the books which I elaborated as bishop, the first two are to Simplicianus, prelate of the church of Milan, who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose, on various questions, two of which, from the epistle of the apostle Paul to the Romans, I gathered into the first book… The latter question in this book is from that place where he says, "And not only she, but also Rebecca, having conceived by one, Isaac our father": as far as that where he says, "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed, we had become as Sodom, and had been like to Gomorrha": in the solution of which question there was indeed labor on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God conquered. Nor could it be arrived at otherwise than that the Apostle should be understood to have said with most clear truth, "For who distinguishes you? And what have you that you have not received? But if you have received, why do you glory as though you had not received?" Which the martyr Cyprian also, wishing to show, defined the whole of it by the very title, saying: We must glory in nothing, since nothing is ours. In the II book the remaining questions are treated and resolved according to our slender ability, which are all from the Scripture which is called of Kingdoms — which he then reviews one by one.

[539] Further, how highly are to be esteemed the things which the Saint discussed in this little Work to Simplicianus concerning the grace of God, and he always esteemed most highly what he had there discussed concerning Grace. we understand abundantly from himself. For in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 4, he refers the Semi-Pelagians thither in these words: For if they had taken care (to advance in the books of Augustine) they would have found that question resolved according to the truth of the divine Scriptures in the first of the two books which I wrote to Simplicianus of blessed memory … at the very beginning of my episcopate — unless perchance they have not known them. But if it is so, bring it about that they may know them. And, his own words from book 2 of the Retractations being adduced, he subjoins: Behold why I said above that by this Apostolic testimony especially I too was convicted, when I thought otherwise on this matter than God revealed to me in the resolving of this question, when I was writing, as I said, to bishop Simplicianus. Again in On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 21, he refers the Massilians thither: Let them see, he says, whether in the latter parts of the first book of those two which at the beginning of my episcopate, before the Pelagian heresy appeared, I wrote to Simplicianus bishop of Milan, there remained anything by which it may be called into doubt that the grace of God is not given according to our merits; and whether I did not there sufficiently establish that the beginning of faith also is the gift of God; and whether from

the things which are there said it does not consequently shine forth — even if it be not expressed — that perseverance even to the end also is granted by none save Him who predestined us to His kingdom and glory. Hence therefore it appears most clearly how highly Augustine, already an old man, esteemed what he had discussed and set forth to Simplicianus concerning grace. Nor will it seem strange that in that book Augustine's mind concerning the nature of efficacious grace is more clearly set forth, if we consider that it was written by him without any adversary, and to this end, that he might explain the passage of the Apostle in which efficacious grace is clearly asserted. But whence the holy Doctor derives the efficacy of grace, Liberius Gratianus, that is, Father Livinus de Meyer, has excellently set forth in the little Work which he composed On the Mind of St. Augustine concerning physically predetermining grace, chapter 1.

§ XXXIX. The little Works On the Christian Contest; On Christian Doctrine, the Confessions, the Questions on the Gospels, the Annotations on Job, On Catechizing the Unlearned: whether the Saint took part in the third and fourth councils of Carthage.

He writes On the Christian Contest, Augustine in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 3, reviews another little Work in this manner: The book On the Christian Contest was written in humble speech for the brethren unlearned in Latin eloquence, containing the rule of faith and the precepts of living. In it he then explains something more clearly, and subjoins: This book begins thus: The crown of victory. Since this little Work is placed in the third place among those which he wrote as bishop, there appears no doubt that it must be referred to the earlier years of his episcopate. Cassiodorus in On the Institution of Divine Letters, chapter 16, commends this book in these words: Likewise one book of the same (Augustine) which he composed On the Christian Contest, most necessary for you, who, the world being trodden underfoot, sweat in the Christian contest. Further, although this book was written for the instructing of Christians, nevertheless various things in it are also briefly disputed against heretics, as will be plain to the reader.

[541] On Christian Doctrine, After this, so far as can be gathered from the order kept in book 2 of the Retractations, the Saint began to write the books On Christian Doctrine, which he at first left unfinished, and at last completed when he had begun to draw up the books of the Retractations. Hear the Saint himself concerning them in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 4: The books On Christian Doctrine, when I had found them unfinished, I preferred to finish rather than, leaving them so, to pass on to the reviewing of other things. I completed therefore the third, which had been written as far as that place where there is recorded from the Gospel the testimony concerning the woman who hid leaven in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. (This is found in book 3, chapter 25.) I added also the last book, and filled out that Work in four books, of which the first three help toward the understanding of the Scriptures, but the fourth concerns how the things we understand are to be brought forth. After these things he reviews certain matters, which may be seen there.

[542] the Confessions, After the books just mentioned there followed the books of the Confessions, yet so that a little Work composed against the Donatists came between: but since the writings against the heretics have already been mentioned, I shall thereafter silently pass them over. Concerning his Confessions the holy Doctor speaks thus in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 6: The XIII books of my Confessions praise God the just and good, both concerning my evils and concerning my goods, and stir up toward Him the human understanding and affection; meanwhile, so far as concerns me, they wrought this in me when they were being written, and work it when they are read. What others think of them, let them see for themselves; nevertheless I know that they have pleased and do please many brethren much. From the first to the tenth they are written about myself. In the three remaining, about the holy Scriptures, from that which is written, In the beginning God made heaven and earth, as far as the rest of the Sabbath. Presently he subjoins a few things in them to be corrected. These books of the Confessions are the most brilliant witnesses of St. Augustine's profound humility, which the Saint declared still more when he sent them to Count Darius, with the words added which were cited at number 377.

[543] The occasion of another little Work the Saint sets forth in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter XI, against Hilary, and he records the little Work itself, which today does not survive, in this manner: Among these things a certain Hilary, a man of tribune's rank, a layman, a Catholic, being irritated I know not whence against the ministers of God, as is wont to happen, tore with slanderous reproof, wherever he could, the custom which had then begun to be at Carthage, that hymns from the book of Psalms should be said at the altar, either before the oblation, or when what had been offered was being distributed to the people, asserting that it ought not to be done. To him I replied at the brethren's bidding, and the book itself is called Against Hilary. This book begins thus: Those who say the mention. This book is recorded in the Indiculus of Possidius in these words: Against Hilary on the songs at the altar, one book. Tillemont, article 114, seems to have believed that Hilary objected certain things against this book, and that Augustine again replied to him: because Possidius reports another little Work of his thus: A reply to the objections of Hilary, one book. But Possidius in the same place intimates Letter 89, which was addressed to another Hilary.

[544] Presently Augustine in chapter 12 adds another little Work in this manner: the Questions on the Gospels There are certain expositions of certain places from the Gospel according to Matthew, and others likewise according to Luke; the former were reduced into one book, the latter into another. But the title of this Work is, Questions on the Gospels. He thus prefaces this Work in tome 4, page 141: This Work was not so written as though the Gospel had been undertaken by us to be expounded in order: but according to the choice and the time of him who consulted me, with whom it was being read, if anything seemed obscure to him. And therefore many things, and perhaps more obscure ones, have been passed over: because he already knew those things, who was inquiring into what he did not yet know; nor did he wish to hold back his haste in those things which he had already before so received that by assiduity in hearing and handling them he committed them stably and firmly to memory. Some things also are here found expounded not in the same order in which they are narrated in the Gospel, since certain things deferred by haste were, when time was given, taken up again: and were written in that place which, being empty, followed in the order of the matters already expounded. Which after I learned — lest perchance anyone seeking to read in this Work something which had moved him in the Gospel and stirred him to inquiry should be offended by weariness at the disturbed order, since I recognized that the things which were being dictated piecemeal, as could be, had been collected and woven into one body — I have brought it about that, the titles being prefixed in the order of the numbers, he might easily investigate whatever he needed.

[545] To these the Saint in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 13, attaches another little Work, the Annotations on Job, which he confesses pleases him less. Receive his words: The book whose title is Annotations on Job — whether it is to be held mine, or rather theirs who reduced them, as they were able or willing, into one body, copied from the margins of the codex, I could not easily say. For they are pleasant to very few who understand, who nevertheless must needs be offended, not understanding many things, since not even the very words which are expounded are in many places so written down that it appears what is being expounded. Then upon the brevity of the sentences there followed so great obscurity that the reader can scarcely bear it, who must needs pass over very many things not understood. Finally I found the Work itself so faulty in our codices that I could not emend it, nor would I wish it to be said to have been published by me, save that I know that the brethren have it, to whose zeal it could not be denied. This work begins thus: And his works were great upon the earth. But these Annotations did not displease Cassiodorus, of which he speaks thus in chapter 6 On the Institution of the Divine Scriptures: Holy Augustine also, making Annotations on the same book (Job), treated it with his accustomed care.

[546] On Catechizing the Unlearned, to Deogratias: Augustine adds in chapter 14: There is also our book On Catechizing the Unlearned, entitled with this very title. To whom, and on what occasion this book was written, in which excellent instructions are handed down, the Saint himself narrates in chapter 1, or tome 4 of the Works, page 295, in these words: You have asked of me, brother Deogratias, that I should write something to you concerning the catechizing of the unlearned which might be of use to you. For you said that often at Carthage, where you are a deacon, there are often brought to you those who are first to be imbued with the Christian faith, because you are judged to have a rich faculty of catechizing, and both the doctrine of the faith and sweetness of speech: but that you almost always suffer straits as to how that very thing whereby we are Christians by believing is fittingly to be conveyed; whence the narration should be begun, how far it should be carried; whether we ought, the narration being finished, to add some exhortation, or only precepts, by observing which he to whom we speak may know how to keep the Christian life and profession. And you confessed and complained that it had often happened to you that in a long and lukewarm discourse you became cheap to yourself and were a weariness, still more to him whom you were imbuing by speaking, and to the rest who were present as hearers: and that by that necessity you were compelled to compel me, by that charity which I owe you, not to grudge, among my occupations, to write something to you on this matter. But I am compelled, by that charity and service which I owe not only to you familiarly but also to mother Church universally, in no way to refuse — but rather with a prompt and devoted will to undertake — if by my labor, which by the bounty of our Lord I am able to furnish, the same Lord commands that those be helped whom He has made my brethren. For the more I desire to pay out the Lord's money more widely, the more it behooves me, if I learn that my fellow-servants the dispensers feel any difficulty in paying it out, to act, so far as in me lies, that they may be able easily and expeditiously to do what they unwearyingly and zealously wish.

[547] whether he afterwards was bishop of Carthage. To the same Deogratias, then a presbyter, I think, Augustine wrote Letter 49, in whose opening he commends his learning. In that letter are resolved the six questions against the Pagans, which were treated at number 389. It seems doubtful whether this is the same Deogratias who afterwards under Genseric was made bishop of Carthage, and died about the year 456 or 457. Our Elders treated of St. Deogratias the bishop on the XXII of March, and made no mention of these matters. Tillemont too, in his Augustine, article 114, intimates that he appears to be other than that bishop, which he repeats in tome 15, in Eugenius, article 14. His reason is that that Deogratias would have been more than eighty years old when in the year 454 he was consecrated bishop, since already as a deacon he was imbuing the unlearned with Christian doctrine about the year 400, when Augustine wrote the praised book to him. This reason, I confess, is not to be despised. Nevertheless, since Victor of Vita, cited among us in tome III of April, page 384, speaks of his decayed

old age, and St. Deogratias was bishop for only three years, I do not see why he cannot be the same, although the matter otherwise seems little certain; for there could have been several of the same name.

[548] In Labbe, tome 2 of the Councils, there is exhibited the third council of Carthage of the year 397, The third council of Carthage, at which forty-four bishops are said to have been present, and fifty canons framed. The subscriptions in column [ ] are expressed in this manner: Aurelius, bishop of the church of Carthage, I have consented to this decree, and having read it again have subscribed. Epigonius, bishop of the district of Bulla, I have subscribed. Augustine, bishop of the people of Hippo-Regius, I have subscribed. Likewise also all the bishops, forty-four in number, subscribed. This subscription suffices for Schelstrate in The African Church, dissertation 3, chapter 7, page 209, to believe that Augustine was present at this council; but it does not suffice for Tillemont, who in note 26 on Augustine disputes concerning his presence, and leaves the matter almost doubtful. Yet he brings forward another reason also, which seems to intimate that the Saint took part in the praised council, which I shall set forth a little more accurately.

[549] Possidius in the Life below, number 16, has thus: Whence he also busied himself that it should be established by councils of bishops that the statutes of all the priests ought to be brought to the notice of those to be ordained, or of those ordained, by their ordainers. at which the Saint is present, But in the said council, canon 3, that very thing is established in these words: Likewise it has pleased that to bishops or clerics about to be ordained, the decrees of the councils be first impressed upon their ears by their ordainers, lest they assert that they have done anything against the statutes of the council. I do not see what Possidius could have had in view save this canon. But as to what Tillemont says, that Augustine could have transacted the matter with Aurelius by letter: that it was really done by letters alone is not likely. There is added another not unlike this. Augustine in Letter 235 to Quintianus records two statutes of this council, namely concerning not receiving other men's clerics, and concerning the canonical Scriptures, and intimates that these had been decreed by him also in council, in these words: That what was established by us in council should remain. But Augustine could not have established these with others save in the third council of Carthage, so far as appears: for although the same things had been decreed in the council of Hippo, Augustine could not decree there, who was then only a presbyter. It must therefore be said that Augustine was present at the said council, not only because he is read as having subscribed, but also because from the proceedings he is discovered to have been present there. Tillemont indeed objects various things, but altogether trifling ones, and he himself abundantly resolves them. These therefore for brevity's sake I pass over.

[550] In the year 398 was celebrated the fourth council of Carthage, as also at the fourth. to which likewise St. Augustine is read as having subscribed in the third place, namely after Aurelius and Donatianus, the names of the others being omitted, as may be seen in the praised Labbe, column [ ]. Further, it is not credible that Augustine really subscribed in the third place, but the collector retained his name because of the celebrity of the Man, the names of the others being omitted. Schelstrate in The African Church, dissertation 3, chapter 8, page 214, teaches the following concerning this council: There is a grave question concerning the Acts of the present synod, which, since no mention of them has anywhere been made among the more ancient Latins, neither by the author of the council commonly called African, nor by Fulgentius Ferrandus, deacon of Carthage, nor by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, nor by those who translated the Codex of the canons of the African church into Greek, have been believed spurious by some more learned men, for whom Christophorus Justellus opened the way in his preface to the Codex of the Canons of the African Church. But Schelstrate himself answered these difficulties as best he could, and after him more fully Tillemont in note 29 on Augustine; to whom we refer the reader, that we may pass on to other deeds of the Saint.

§ XL. The Saint's little Works, To the Inquiries of Januarius, On the Work of Monks, On Genesis according to the Letter: two councils of Carthage at which he seems to have been present: he deposes the presbyter Abundantius.

The Saint answers the Inquiries of Januarius: I have reviewed thus far the writings of the holy Doctor drawn up, as appears, between the beginning of his episcopate and the year 400. Now I shall enumerate certain things which seem to be assigned to the year 400 and the following. First there present themselves various questions proposed to the Saint and resolved by him; concerning which he has thus in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 20: The two books whose title is To the Inquiries of Januarius contain many things disputed concerning the Sacraments, both those which the Church observes universally and those which it observes particularly, that is, not equally in all places; nor yet could all be recorded, but enough was answered to what was asked: of which books the former is a letter; for it has at its head who writes to whom; but this Work is reckoned among the books for this reason, that the following one, which does not have our names, is much more prolix, and in it many more things are treated… This Work begins thus: To those things which you asked of me. Both little Works are extant among the letters of Augustine, of which they are 118 and 119. With what modest words he ended the second was said at number 383. But who this Januarius was, to whose questions the answer was made, is not sufficiently established. See Tillemont in his Augustine, article 129.

[552] he writes On the Work of Monks, After the aforesaid little Works the Saint in chapter 21 reviews the book On the Work of Monks, and thus explains the occasion of writing it: That I should compose a book on the work of monks, that necessity compelled which arose because, when monasteries had begun to be at Carthage, some maintained themselves by their own hands, obeying the Apostle; but others wished so to live from the offerings of the religious that, working nothing whereby they might either have or supply necessaries, they rather judged and boasted that they were fulfilling the Gospel precept where the Lord says: "Behold the birds of the air and the lilies of the field." Whence also among laymen of a lower purpose, but nevertheless fervent in zeal, there had begun to arise tumultuous contests by which the Church was troubled, some defending this and others that. To this was added that some of those who said one ought not to work were long-haired. Whence contentions increased, of those reproving on this side, and on that of those, as it were, fighting for the zeal of the parties. On account of this the venerable old man Aurelius, bishop of the church of that city, bade me write something on this matter, and I did so. This book begins thus: To your bidding, holy brother Aurelius. We have this little Work of the holy Doctor in tome 3 of the Works, page 293 and following.

[553] Then after the writings against the Jovinian heresy, which have already been related, On Genesis according to the Letter, Augustine in chapter 24 reviews a Work of greater undertaking, a like one to which he had attempted before, as was related from him at number 279. But concerning the present Work he has thus: At the same time I wrote XII books on Genesis, from the beginning until Adam was sent out of paradise and the flaming sword was set to guard the way of the tree of life. But when as far as this XI books had been completed, I added a twelfth, in which there is a more diligent disputation concerning paradise. The title of these books is inscribed: On Genesis according to the Letter; that is, not according to allegorical significations, but according to the properties of the things done. In which Work more things are sought than found; and of those which are found, fewer are established; but the rest are so set down as being still to be inquired into. These books indeed I began later, but finished earlier than On the Trinity: therefore I have now recalled them in the order in which I began them.

[554] Further, what the Saint modestly says — that more things were sought than found in that Work — in which Work he asks more than he resolves. appears often in the little Work itself; and in book 12, chapter 1, or tome 3 of the Works, page 274, he renders the reason why he did so, which cannot be useless to the learned: From the beginning, he says, of the holy Scripture which is inscribed Genesis, until the first man was sent out of paradise, in eleven books, whether by asserting and defending what is certain to us, or by inquiring and doubting concerning things uncertain, we have discussed and written what we could and as we could — not so much prescribing to each one what he should think about obscure matters, as showing that we ourselves need to be taught in those things wherein we have doubted, and removing from the reader the rashness of affirming, where we have not been able to furnish firmness of judgment. With like modesty therefore the Saint used both in writing the Work and afterwards in reviewing it. Hear the judgment of Cassiodorus concerning this Work, chapter 1 On the Institution: Concerning the same beginnings holy Augustine also, an eloquent and most cautious disputant, wrote twelve volumes, which he clothed with the beauty of almost all the branches of learning, and called these On Genesis according to the Letter. Who, although he treated of the same matter concerning which the blessed Basil and holy Ambrose shone with most celebrated praise, nevertheless — what after eloquent men is wont to happen with difficulty — carried his own Work, by the Lord's bounty, to far another summit.

[555] At almost the same time at which these things began to be written, a twofold council was held at Carthage in the year 401, The council of Carthage of the year 401, as is gathered from the Codex of the canons of the African church in Labbe, tome 2 of the Councils. The first is noted, in column [ ], as held after the consulate of Fl. Stilicho, a most illustrious man, on the XVI of the Kalends of July, at Carthage in the sacristy of the basilica of Restituta. But Stilicho was consul with Aurelianus in the year 400, so that the council must have fallen in the aforesaid year 401. Various statutes are read in that council, partly for more easily reconciling the Donatists to the Church, partly for exterminating the remnants of heathen superstition, partly for establishing the discipline of the Church, as the reader will be able to see in the cited Labbe. It is not indeed altogether certain that Augustine took part in this council, since no mention is made of him, and Aurelius of Carthage alone is now read as having subscribed, with this closing formula: Likewise also the rest of the bishops subscribed. Nevertheless Tillemont, article 131, thinks that the Saint took part in this council as well as in the following, because the statutes of both councils seem conformable to the mind of the holy Doctor.

[556] the other of the same year, at which the Saint was present, The other, at which bishops from all the African provinces are said to have been present, is written in Labbe, column [ ], as held under Vincentius and Flavius (in others Fravita or Flavitus), most illustrious men, being consuls, on the Ides of September, at Carthage in the sacristy of the basilica of Restituta: by which epoch the same year 401 is designated, in which Vincentius and Fravita were consuls. See the decrees of this council in Labbe. Two of them I report, because they concern our Saint. In column [ ], canon 78, twenty bishops are read as appointed to the church of the Hipponenses Diarrhyti (it was a city of the proconsular province in Zeugitana, and was called Hippo Diarrhytus for distinction from Hippo Regius, concerning which Cellarius in Africa, page 102), that they should there appoint another bishop in the place of Equitius, already before deposed. But among them Augustine is numbered in the third place. Hence it is made sufficiently certain that the Saint took part in this council, which can be confirmed also from other decrees, of which I subjoin one.

[557] as is proved from his letter to Aurelius: In column [ ], canon 80, the Fathers of the council thus established: Likewise it has pleased that if anyone shall have wished either to promote to the clerical office a man received from another's monastery, or to appoint him in his own monastery as Superior of the monastery, the bishop who shall have done this, being separated from the communion of the rest, shall be content with the communion of his own people alone, and that man shall continue neither cleric nor provost. That very thing had happened before these things were established: for two brethren had departed from Augustine's monastery, against his opposition, to Carthage, one of whom, Donatus by name, Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, had enrolled among the clergy, thinking perhaps that they had gone away with Augustine's good leave. Hence the Saint in Letter 76 gravely sets before Aurelius how unfitting it is to enroll deserters of monasteries of this kind among the Clergy, and, excusing the deed of Aurelius, adds the following: But concerning these men, I believe, your blessedness judged that they had withdrawn from the monastery by our will, that they might rather be useful to their own countrymen. But it is false; they went of their own accord, they deserted of their own accord, we resisting so far as we could for their salvation. And concerning Donatus indeed, because it has already come about that he was ordained before we ESTABLISHED anything on this matter IN COUNCIL, if perchance he has been corrected from the perversity of pride, let your prudence do what it wills. But concerning his brother, on whose account especially Donatus himself also departed from the monastery, since you understand what I think, I know not what to answer. From the word we established we understand that the canon just cited was decreed by Augustine along with the others, and thus that he was present at that council; and the words recited teach at the same time how exactly he wished the statutes of the councils to be observed.

[558] Abundantius, a presbyter of no unblemished reputation, Another example of just severity and exact observance of the canons he gave toward the end of the same year 401, by removing from office Abundantius, a presbyter of no unblemished reputation. The whole matter the Saint himself narrates in Letter 236 to Xantippus, then primate of Numidia, which I transfer hither: With the service due to your merits, saluting your worthiness and greatly commending myself to your prayers, I make known to your prudence that a certain Habundantius on the Strabonianensian estate, pertaining to your care, was ordained a presbyter. Who, since he did not walk the ways of the servants of God, had begun to have no good reputation; by which I, being alarmed, yet not rashly believing anything, but plainly made more solicitous, gave attention whether in any way I might be able to come to some certain evidences of his evil manner of life.

[559] And first I found that he had embezzled the money of a certain countryman, entrusted with him by a divine pledge: so that he could render no plausible account of it. the Saint removes from office, Then he was convicted and confessed that, on the day of the fast of the Lord's Nativity, on which the church of Gippi also, like the rest, was fasting, when he had bidden farewell to his colleague the presbyter of Gippi, as though about to go on to his own church, at about the fifth hour; and, since he had no cleric with him, he stayed behind on the same estate, and both dined and supped with a certain woman of ill repute, and remained in one house. But in this woman's lodging a certain cleric of ours at Hippo had already been dismissed: and this, because he knew it perfectly well, he could not deny. For what he denied, I have left to God, judging those things which he was not permitted to hide. I feared to entrust to him a church, especially one placed amid the rage of heretics barking round about. And when he asked me to give a letter to the presbyter of the Armemanensian estate in the plain of Bulla, whence he had come to us, his case being made known, lest anything more atrocious should be suspected concerning him, so that he might live there, if it can be done, without the office of the presbyterate, more amended — moved by mercy, I did it. But it was fitting that these things especially should be intimated to your prudence, lest any deceit should creep upon you. But I heard his case when there were a hundred days to the Lord's day of Easter, which is to be on the eighth of the Ides of April.

[560] This I have taken care to intimate to your venerability on account of the council, and on that matter he writes to Xantippus, primate of Numidia. which I did not conceal from him either, but faithfully opened to him what had been appointed. And if within a year he shall have neglected to plead his case, if perchance he thinks anything must be done by him, thereafter let no one hear his voice. But we, most blessed lord and father to be venerably received, if we shall not have thought that these evidences of the evil manner of life of clerics — especially when a not good reputation has begun to accompany them — must be punished in that way which was appointed in council: we begin to be compelled to wish to discuss those things which cannot be known, and either to condemn things uncertain, or to pass over things truly unknown. I at least judged that a presbyter who — on a day of fasting, on which the church also of that same place was fasting, bidding farewell to his colleague the presbyter of that same place — dared to remain with a woman of ill fame, having no cleric with him, and to dine and sup and sleep in one house, must be removed from the office of the presbyterate, fearing thereafter to entrust to him the church of God. But if perchance it seems otherwise to ecclesiastical judges, because it was established by council that the case of a presbyter should be terminated by six bishops, let him who wishes entrust to him a church committed to his own care: I confess that I fear to entrust any people whatever to such men, especially those whom no good reputation defends, so that this could be pardoned them; lest, if anything more pernicious should break out, I, languishing, should impute it to myself.

§ XLI. The Saint's controversy with Severus, bishop of Milevis, on the occasion of Timothy the cleric, in which his moderation in defending the right of his own church wonderfully shone forth.

The Saint's controversy with Severus, bishop of Milevis, Perhaps in the same year 401, or not far advanced into the following, St. Augustine had some controversy with his old friend Severus, prelate of Milevis. The dispute began without any fault of the Saint, as will appear, and was ended without any loss to their friendship, because Augustine so wished to defend his own rights as neither to exasperate his friend nor to create scandal for the weak. The whole matter must be drawn out from two letters of Augustine, namely from 240 and 241, of which the latter was written first. There was in the diocese of Hippo a certain Timothy, a lector. He had rashly sworn to Severus that he would not withdraw from him. Severus therefore demands him from Augustine. Meanwhile, while it was being deliberated whether he ought to be handed over to Severus, without Augustine's knowledge, by the contrivances of certain men he is ordained subdeacon, so that he might thus be more firmly bound to the parish of Subsana, in which he was a lector. Hence a dispute between Severus, who sought Timothy on account of his oath, and Carcedonius, presbyter of the aforesaid parish, who, with the discipline of the Church in his favor, contended that the said Timothy must not be given up.

[562] because of Timothy the cleric, who had sworn that he would cleave to Severus: The controversy would have been ended if Severus had been willing to release Timothy from the religious obligation of the oath, and Augustine, with the bishops Alypius and Samsucius, was asking this; but Severus refused, and wished Timothy to be sent to him. And so, which was the one remedy of concord that remained, Augustine induced Carcedonius to bear patiently that Timothy should be given up, and did in fact send him to Severus, yet sweetly and strongly admonishing him to consider before God whether he could retain him without loss to ecclesiastical discipline. All these things are clearly drawn out from the praised letters. But we shall subjoin the very words of the letters, that our statements may be confirmed, and that the Saint's wonderful gentleness, joined with equal prudence, may shine forth the more.

[563] the Saint asks that Severus should free Timothy from the obligation of the oath; In Letter 241, where he had excused himself and the presbyter Carcedonius concerning certain matters, and had said that he had corrected certain things wrongly done partly by rebuking, partly by admonishing, partly by entreating, he asks Severus to free Timothy from the obligation of the oath in these words: Our aforesaid son Timothy, most vehemently disturbed because most unwillingly he has felt so unlooked-for a doubt, has indicated to us that, when you were dealing with him that he should serve God at Subsana, he broke out and swore that he would by no means withdraw from you. And when we inquired his will, he answered that he was hindered by this swearing from being there where even before we wished him to be: since especially he is now secure about the manifestation of his liberty. And when we had opened to him that he would not be guilty of perjury if it came about, not through himself but through you, that in order to avoid scandal he could not be with you — seeing that he could swear not of your will but of his own, and he confessed that you did not in turn swear anything to him — at last he said what it behooved a servant of God and a son of the Church to say: that whatever it should please us, with your holiness, to be done concerning him, that without doubt he would follow. Accordingly we ask, and by the charity of Christ beseech your prudence, that you remember all that we have spoken, and gladden us by your reply. For we the stronger (if however amid so great perils of temptations it must be dared to say this) ought, as the apostle says, to bear the burdens of the weak. Brother Timothy therefore did not write to your holiness, because your holy brother signified all that was done.

[564] Severus refused to do what Augustine had asked, although it could seem most equitable to anyone rightly considering the matter: and when he declined it, heaping up complaints, Augustine nay, he even sank to complaints, repeatedly saying that an injury was being done him, and contending that not only was Timothy's ordination to be grieved over, but that he must altogether be restored. To these things Augustine replied by Letter 240, in which he so excuses himself as very often to prove that Severus acted ill in demanding Timothy, and clearly to show that in that whole business nothing was sinned by himself; and at last with wonderful sweetness and energy at once he tries to induce Severus not to dare to retain Timothy, whom he was leaving to his own decision. If I say, he says, what the case itself compels me to say, where will be the solicitude of charity? But if I do not say it, where will be the freedom of friendship? Nevertheless, wavering meanwhile, I have chosen rather to clear myself than to accuse you. You wrote that you wondered that we were willing to tolerate with our grief what could have been amended by correction: as though things ill done are not to be grieved over, even if afterwards they are corrected so far as they can be; or as though that were not most of all to be tolerated which, when it is manifestly done amiss, cannot be made undone. Cease therefore to wonder, most sincere brother. For Timothy was ordained subdeacon at Subsana, apart from my counsel and will, when the deliberation as to what should be done concerning him was still wavering between our alternating opinions. Behold, I still grieve, although he has now returned to you, in which we do not repent of having obeyed your will. Hear also what by rebuking, what by admonishing, what by entreating we corrected, even before he had set out from here: lest it should still on that account seem to you that nothing was then corrected by us, because he had not yet himself returned to you.

[565] He then sets forth how seriously he had reproved all for peace's sake he sends Timothy back, who had sinned in this deed; and that they had confessed their fault to him, as may there be seen. Then he adds: But by admonishing we corrected first of all, that they should not thereafter dare such things, lest they should experience the wrath of God: then especially Timothy,

who said that he was compelled by his oath alone to go on to your charity; so that if your holiness, as we hoped would be, considering what we had spoken together, on account of the scandal of the weak, for whom Christ died, and on account of the discipline of the Church, which they perilously neglect — since here he had already begun to be a lector — should be unwilling that he be with you, he might, now free from the bond of the oath, serve God with a most even mind, to whom we are to render the account of our acts. Brother Carcedonius also, so far as we could, we had by admonishing brought to this, that he too should most patiently accept whatever the foresight and necessity of preserving ecclesiastical discipline should compel to be done concerning him. But by entreating we had corrected ourselves, that we might commend both the governance and the outcome of our counsels to the mercy of God, and that, if any indignation had stung us, we might be healed by fleeing beneath His medicinal right hand. Behold how many things, partly by rebuking, partly by admonishing, partly by entreating, we had corrected.

[566] And now, considering the bond of charity, that we may not be possessed by Satan — for we are not ignorant of his devices — what else ought we to have done save to comply with your will, but he gravely exhorts Severus, you who thought that what was done could not be corrected unless the very man in whom you complain that an injury was done you were restored to your right? This also brother Carcedonius himself, although after no light disturbance of mind, for which I ask that you pray for him, nevertheless, thinking of Christ in you, did with an even mind. And while I was still thinking that I ought to consider whether, with Timothy delaying with us, I should send another letter to your brotherliness, he himself stood in awe of your fatherly admonition, and cut short my deliberation, not only permitting but even insisting that Timothy should be restored to you. But I, brother Severus, leave my case to your judgment. For I am certain that Christ dwells in your heart: through whom I beseech you that you consult Him, presiding over your mind subject to Him: whether a man who in a church committed to my dispensation had already begun to read, and not once but a second and a third time — at Subsana, both accompanied by the presbyter of the church of Subsana, and at Turres, and at Cizan, and at Verbalis — had read, can or ought to be judged not to have been a lector.

[567] that he should not retain him against the discipline of the Church, The Saint does not mention the council of Milevis, which was celebrated in the year 402, on the VI of the Kalends of September, as it is in Labbe, tome 2, column 1100, and in which, column [ ], canon 90, it was established that whoever shall have read in a church even once shall not be held by another church for the clerical office. Hence Tillemont, article 140, rightly gathers that this dispute happened before the council of Milevis, and probably furnished the occasion of framing the said canon. He suspects likewise that Timothy was not retained by Severus: which is likely to me also, unless afterwards Augustine was perhaps content with the will of Severus, who wished to restore him. But, whatever be the case with these things, the Saint concludes the praised letter with a grave exhortation. And just as we, he says, have corrected, at God's bidding, what was afterwards done against our will: so do you also, at His same bidding, likewise correct what was before done without your knowledge. For I do not fear that you understand too little how great an entrance is opened to the dissolving of the order of ecclesiastical discipline, if, when a cleric of another church shall have sworn to anyone that he will not withdraw from him, that man permits him to be with himself, affirming that he does this lest he be the author of his perjury; whereas surely he who will not allow this, and will not permit him to remain with himself — because he could swear about himself, not about another — himself keeps the peaceable rule without any reproof. Thus the Saint by an admonition at once free and friendly desired to keep discipline unharmed, while he yielded to his friend, lest scandal should be generated, or friendship receive any loss.

[568] [Augustine's wonderful friendship even after this dispute, from the letters of Severus,] Further, that their friendship afterwards persevered, and was plainly extraordinary, we gather from the letters of both sent some years later, than which nothing can be more tender. Consult the 37th, of Severus, part of which we shall recite, that it may at the same time be understood how highly Severus esteemed Augustine's writings: Thanks be to God, he says, brother Augustine, whose gift is whatever of good joys there is in us. I confess, it is well with me in your company; I read you much: I shall say a marvelous thing, but plainly true — as much as your absence is wont to be a presence to me, so much has your absence been made a presence. No turbulent transactions of temporal affairs interpose themselves between us. I do as much as I can, though I cannot do as much as I wish: why do I say, as much as I wish? You know perfectly how greedy I am of you: nor yet do I murmur that I do not do as much as I wish, since again I do not do less than I can. Thanks therefore be to God, sweetest brother; it is well with me in your company; I rejoice to be more closely joined with you: and, so to speak, cleaving to you as one with you so far as may be, receiving the overflow of your breasts, I gather strength, if I may be made fit to shake them and press them out: so that whatever they keep more secretly and inwardly shut up, the skins being removed which they still put in for the suckling to draw upon, they may deign to pour out to me, if it be possible, the very inward parts. The inward parts, I say, I desire to be poured out to me: your inward parts, inward parts rich with heavenly fatness, and seasoned with all spiritual sweetness: your inward parts, pure inward parts, simple inward parts, save that they are girt with a twofold bond of a twin charity: your inward parts, inward parts suffused with the light of truth and reflecting the truth. To their flowing forth or rebounding I subject myself, that my night may fail in your light, so that we may be able to walk together in the brightness of day.

[569] To these Augustine replied most affectionately by Letter 135, to which Augustine replies most affectionately, in which he acknowledges Severus as a faithful friend, yet ingeniously and modestly thus answers the praises given by him: Behold, I have made for myself a new question, which you did not propose, and perhaps you expect that I should resolve it: so it was too little for me that I was a debtor, unless I heaped upon myself a still greater debt: although it is easy to show this, and, even if I do not show it, easy for you to see, that both true things can be said unfaithfully, and untrue things faithfully. For he who so believes as he speaks, even if he speaks things not true, speaks faithfully; but he who does not believe what he speaks, even if he speaks true things, speaks unfaithfully. Do I doubt then that you believe those things about me which you wrote? Which, since I do not recognize them in myself, you were able faithfully to say untrue things about me: but I do not wish you to be so deceived even by benevolence, to which benevolence I am a debtor, because I can say about you things that are true both so faithfully and so benevolently, save that, as I said above, I would spare your modesty.

[570] But I, when I am praised by the most brotherly and most intimate friend of my soul, hold it as though I were praised by myself. yet ingeniously refuting the praises given him. Which you perceive how burdensome it is, even if true things be said. How much rather, since — you being another soul of mine, nay, since your soul and mine are one — you are so deceived in me, thinking that those things are present to me which are lacking, as one man can be deceived even about himself? Which I am unwilling for, not so much lest you, whom I love, be deceived, but even lest you pray the less that I may be what you already believe me to be: nor am I your debtor in this, that by a like advance of benevolence I should believe and speak good things about you which you yourself still recognize to be lacking to you; but that with a mind indeed so benevolent I should speak only those good things of yours, gifts of God, of which I am certain in you. Which I therefore do not do, not lest I be deceived in them, but lest, praised by yours, you should seem yourself to have praised yourself: and on account of that rule of justice, because I do not wish it done to me. But if it ought to be done, I choose to be a debtor so long as I think it ought not to be done. But if it ought not to be done, neither am I a debtor. More concerning the friendship between Augustine and Severus is handed down by Tillemont in his Augustine, article 141, where he also pursues other matters concerning Severus.

[571] At the council of Milevis, which we have already said was held in the year 402, The council of Milevis, at which the Saint seems to have been present. we think Augustine took part, both because it was in Numidia, of which province he was a bishop, and because he seems to have labored that the canon there established should be committed to execution. In the said council in Labbe, column [ ], it is thus established: But concerning Maximianus of Bagai, it has pleased that letters be given from the council both to him and to the people themselves, that both he should withdraw from the episcopate, and they should seek another for themselves. Maximianus yielded, and for that cause is praised by Augustine in Letter 238, in which together with Alypius he exhorts Castorius, brother of Maximianus, who along with him had come over from the Donatists to the Catholic Church, to undertake that episcopate. Receive a few things from the letter: May there be rendered to him (Maximianus) the eternal peace which was promised to the Church, who understood that that was not expedient for himself which is not expedient for the peace of the Church. But you, dearest son, our no small joy, who are hindered by no such necessity from undertaking the episcopate, it befits your natural gifts to dedicate to Christ in yourself what He has given. For your talent, your prudence, eloquence, gravity, sobriety, and the rest by which your manners are adorned, are gifts of God. Whom do they serve better than Him by whom they were bestowed? Let them not serve this world, lest they vanish and perish with it. Like things are subjoined to these. But whether Castorius accepted the episcopate is not altogether established.

§ XLII. He is present at the council of Carthage in the year 404: a scandal arisen from the Saint's monastery: he rebukes a certain bishop, his disciple: the council of Carthage of the year 407: the Exposition of the epistle of St. James: the book On Faith and Works.

The Saint is present at the council of Carthage of the year 404: In Labbe, tome 2 of the Councils, column [ ], there is read a council of Carthage held against the violences of the Donatists, at which St. Augustine took part, as is easily gathered from the very decrees of the council, if they be compared with the words of Augustine related in §31, especially at numbers 438 and 439, when he says: Nevertheless we prevailed that rather that which I have said should be asked of the emperors; it was decreed in our council; legates were sent to the court. But he had said that it was asked that the law of Theodosius concerning the fine of heretics should be renewed in that manner in which it is read to have been done in the council itself, column [ ]. And so the Saint not only was present at this council, but his opinion also there prevailed. Nay, I judge that the letters also which the Fathers of the council decreed should be written — to the emperors, to the most eminent authorities, to the judges, and finally to the bishop of the Roman Church — were written by Augustine: Possidius

in the Indiculus joins these letters of Augustine: To Bishop Innocent, To the Emperors, To Stilicho, To the Prefects of Italy: but all these have perished. In the following year 405 another council was held at Carthage on the X of the Kalends of September, as may be seen in Labbe, column [ ]. That Augustine was present at it, as usual, is likely; but the decrees of that council have been lost.

[573] a scandal stirred up in the Saint's monastery, Amid these cares, with which the Saint was perpetually occupied for the profit of the Church, there were not lacking some adversities, by which both his patience might be exercised, and his humility and other virtues shine forth more clearly. Two men from his own monastery — the one a presbyter, Bonifacius, the other of a lower Order, whose name was Spes — accused one another of unchastity; and although Augustine tried to bring it about that the accusation should remain hidden, nevertheless it broke out with the greatest scandal of the people. The whole matter is narrated by Augustine in Letter 137, addressed to the people of Hippo, to heal the scandal which had been stirred up; he mentions it also in Letter 136 to Felix and Hilarinus. Receive a summary, that the words of the letter may afterwards be more clearly understood. Bonifacius had perceived, as he said, an unchaste movement of Spes, and had revealed it to Augustine. Spes turns the charge back upon Bonifacius, saying that he was falsely accused. The Saint, since he could convict neither, and thought ill of Spes, left the judgment indeed to God, but refused to promote Spes. But the latter, exasperated, contended that Bonifacius also must be removed from the office of the presbyterate, to which the Saint refused to consent, believing him innocent. At length both are sent to Nola to the body of St. Felix, that God might judge concerning their case. But the accusation meanwhile breaks out with scandal to the people. Hence Augustine was compelled to narrate the case, which he does in the praised Letter 137, in which he discourses admirably concerning scandals. I shall transfer hither only those things which seem more apt to our purpose.

[574] When he had learnedly premised many things concerning scandals, he sets about setting forth the case: from the mutual accusation of two men, Accordingly, dearest ones, in this scandal by which some are disturbed concerning the presbyter Bonifacius, I do not tell you not to grieve: for those who do not grieve at these things, the charity of Christ is not in them; but those who even rejoice at such things, the malignity of the devil abounds in them. Not because anything appeared in the said presbyter which might be judged worthy of condemnation, but because two of our household have such a case that one of them without doubt is held to be lost, and the reputation of the other is with some bad, with some doubtful, even though his conscience be not stained. Grieve at these things, since they are to be grieved at. Yet not so that by that grief your charity should cool from living well, but rather should be kindled to beseech the Lord, that, if our presbyter is innocent — which I rather believe, because, when he had perceived another's unchaste and unclean movement, he was willing neither to consent nor to keep silent — He may quickly restore him, made manifest by His divine sentence, to his own ministry. But if, being ill conscious to himself — which I dare not suspect — he wished to wound the other's reputation, when he could not contaminate his chastity, as the very man says with whom he has the case, may He not permit him to hide his own wickedness, so that what men cannot find out may be laid open by divine judgment concerning whichever of them. For when this case had long tormented me, and I did not find how one of the two could be convicted — although I rather believed the presbyter — I had first thought to leave both thus to God, until in the one of them who was suspect to me something should arise whereby he might be cast out of our dwelling not without a just and manifest cause.

[575] But when he strove most vehemently to be promoted in the clerical office, either there through me in what manner or elsewhere by my letters — while I could by no means be brought to lay hands of ordination on a man of whom I thought so much evil, or by my commendation to slip him in to some brother of mine — he began to act more turbulently, so that if he himself were not promoted in the clerical office, neither should the presbyter Bonifacius be permitted to remain in his own grade. In which provocation of his, when I saw that Bonifacius was unwilling that scandal should arise for any weak persons, and those prone to suspicion, from the doubt about his life, and was prepared rather to endure the loss of his honor among men than in that contest — in which he could not demonstrate his conscience to the ignorant and to the doubtful, or to those more inclined to suspect ill — to proceed vainly even to the disturbance of the Church: I chose something midway, that both should bind themselves by a certain agreement to make a pilgrimage to a holy place, where the more awful works of God would much more easily open the unsound conscience of each, and compel him to confession either by punishment or by fear. God indeed is everywhere, and is contained or enclosed by no place, who founded all things, and He must be adored by true worshippers in spirit and in truth, so that, hearing in secret, He may also in secret justify and crown. Nevertheless, as to these things which are visibly known to men, who can search out His counsel, why in some places these miracles are done and in others are not done? For to many the holiness of the place is most known where the body of blessed Felix of Nola is laid, whither I wished them to go, because from there it can more easily and more faithfully be written to us whatever shall have been divinely laid open in either of them.

[576] the Saint conducted himself, Then he teaches why he had wished the business to be secret, and why he had been unwilling to erase the name of Bonifacius from the number of the presbyters, which he pursues more fully in Letter 136. Hear the Saint again in Letter 137: Wherefore, since I had been unwilling that this most grievous grief of my heart should be brought to your notice, lest by saddening you harshly and vainly I should disturb you, perhaps therefore God was unwilling that it should be hidden from you, that you might apply yourselves with us to prayers, that what He Himself knows in this case, and we cannot know, He may deign to make manifest also to us. But the presbyter's name I have therefore not dared either to suppress or to erase from the number of his colleagues, lest I should seem to do an injury to the divine power, under whose examination the case still hangs, if I wished to forestall His judgment by my prejudgment: which judges do not do even in secular affairs, when a doubt in a case is referred to a higher authority, so as to dare to change anything while the reference is pending. And in a council of bishops it was established that no cleric who has not yet been convicted ought to be suspended from communion, unless he shall not have presented himself for the examining of his case. Bonifacius nevertheless undertook this humility, that he would not even accept letters by which on the pilgrimage he might seek his honor, so that in that place where both are unknown, equality might be preserved toward both. And now, if it pleases you that his name be not recited, lest to those who are unwilling to come to the Church, as the apostle says, we give an occasion to those seeking an occasion, this deed will not be ours, but theirs on whose account it shall have been done.

[577] who excellently refutes the detractors Many things he subjoins to these against the perverse blackeners of another's reputation, designating chiefly the Donatists, although they suit others also. Receive a few, which are most true also for our times: For to what else do these men sit, and what else do they angle for, save that, if any bishop or cleric or monk or nun shall have fallen, they may believe, boast, and contend that all are such, but that not all can be made manifest? And yet even they themselves, when some married woman is found to have committed adultery, neither cast out their own wives nor accuse their mothers. But when concerning some who profess a holy name some charge has either sounded falsely or lain open truly, they press, they bustle, they canvass, that this may be believed of all. These men therefore, angling from our griefs for the sweetness of their evil tongue, it is easy for us to compare to those dogs, if perchance they are to be understood in a bad sense, who licked the wounds of that poor man who lay before the rich man's door, and who, until he should come to the rest of Abraham's bosom, endured all laborious and unworthy things.

[578] Finally the truly humble Saint reproves those of the clergy and of monks. who had gloried over the fall of the Donatists that such things did not happen in Augustine's monastery, and teaches that there is no congregation so holy in which perverse men are not found: I hear, he says, that some of you are more saddened by this than by the fall of those two deacons who had come from the party of Donatus, as though they had insulted the discipline of Proculianus (the Donatist bishop), as if glorying over us that from our discipline nothing of the sort had arisen among the clerics. Which whoever of you did, I confess to you, you did not well. Behold, God has taught you that he who glories should glory in the Lord… Pray indeed for me, lest perchance, preaching to others, I myself be found a castaway. Nevertheless, when you glory, glory not in me but in the Lord. For however much the discipline of my house may be watchful, I am a man, and live among men, nor do I dare to arrogate to myself that my house should be better than the ark of Noah, where nevertheless among eight men one was found reprobate,… or better than the dwelling-together of the Lord Christ Himself, in which eleven good men bore with the treacherous thief Judas… Wherefore, although we are saddened by some refuse, we are consoled nevertheless by the more numerous ornaments. Do not therefore, because of the lees at which your eyes are offended, detest the presses, whence the Lord's storehouses are filled with the fruit of clearer oil. So the holy Doctor. But what became known concerning those two, or what happened, is not established. There is indeed found among the bishops of Africa a Bonifacius, afterwards bishop of Cataqua in Numidia, with whom Augustine had great friendship, as Tillemont shows on page 174: but it is uncertain whether he is the same as this presbyter Bonifacius, although it appears likely enough, as the praised Tillemont acknowledges, article 153.

[579] Another disciple also created no small grief for the Saint, He sharply rebukes Paulus, a bishop, his disciple: Paulus by name, raised to the episcopate. Tillemont, article 163, thinks he was bishop of Cataqua, which is not altogether certain. But of whatever see he was bishop, Augustine with holy freedom reproves him in Letter 216, part of which I subjoin: That I do not communicate with you, there is no cause, save that I cannot flatter you. For to you especially I am a debtor, because in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you, by truthfully rebuking with the wholesome sting of charity. Nor do I so rejoice that many, with the Lord's help, have been gathered into the Catholic Church through you, as not to have to lament that more are scattered thence. For you have so wounded the church of Hippo that, unless the Lord shall recall you, disengaged from all secular cares and burdens, to a true episcopal life and living, such a wound cannot be healed. But since you do not cease to entangle yourself more and more, so that you have even inserted yourself, after your renunciation, into those things which you renounced — which cannot in any way be defended even before the human laws themselves — and you are said to live in that profession for which the frugality of your Church could not suffice:

why do you seek my communion, when you have never been willing to hear my admonition? Or is it that men should impute to me whatever you do, whose complaints I cannot sustain? But you vainly suspect that those are your detractors who have always opposed you even in your former life. It is not so, nor is it a wonder that many things are hidden from you. But even if this were true, they ought to have found nothing in your manners which they might rightly reprove, and from which they might blaspheme the Church. Perhaps you still think that I say these things because I have not accepted your satisfaction. Nay rather, I say them lest I myself should be unable to make sufficient satisfaction to God for my sins, if I keep silence about these things to you.

[580] he probably takes part in the council of Carthage of the year 407, In the year 407 the African bishops again came together in a council, concerning which see Labbe, tome 2, column [ ], where it is said to have been held under the most glorious emperors Honorius for the seventh time and Theodosius for the second, Augusti, being consuls, on the Ides of July, at Carthage in the basilica of the second district. Many things were there established, which Labbe exhibits. But when Maurentius, bishop of Tuburcica, had a suit with the people of New Germania, he chose Augustine, with the council's approval, along with five others, as judge of his case. But concerning that suit nothing further occurs. That the Saint took part in the council is likely, although this is not expressed there. Another council again was held at Carthage in the year 408; but Augustine did not take part in it, as Tillemont shows in article 175. Now, omitting some letters in which no matters of great moment occur, I shall subjoin the little Works which seem to have been written about these times, so far as can be gathered from the order which the Saint himself observed in reporting his own.

[581] he expounds the Epistle of St. James, In book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 32, he has thus: Among my little Works I found an Exposition of the Epistle of James the apostle, which, in reviewing it, I noticed to be rather notes of the expositions of certain places in it, reduced into a book by the diligence of the brethren, who were unwilling that they should remain on the margins of the codex. It helps therefore somewhat, save that the epistle itself, which we were reading when I dictated these things, we did not have diligently translated from the Greek. This book begins thus: To the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion, greeting. Cassiodorus praises this little Work in On the Institution, chapter 8, in these words: Holy Augustine also treated the Epistle of James the apostle with the accustomed care of his diligence, which I have left you written in a parchment codex. But that book is not extant today.

[582] he writes On Faith and Works. After this, various writings against the heretics being nevertheless interposed, in Augustine, chapter 38, there follows another book, of which he thus makes mention: Meanwhile there were sent me by certain brethren, laymen indeed, but zealous for the divine oracles, some writings which so distinguished the Christian faith from good works that it was urged that without the former one could not, but without the latter one could, arrive at eternal life. Answering these, I wrote a book whose name is On Faith and Works. In which I disputed not only how those regenerated by the grace of God ought to live, but also what sort of persons should be admitted to the laver of regeneration. This book begins thus: To certain people it seems. That little Work is extant in tome 4 of the Works from page 25, in which more may be seen concerning the errors which the Saint assailed in it.

§ XLIII. Various writings On the Vision of God: he deters Dioscorus from vain studies, instructs the erring Consentius: the exchange of letters with St. Jerome.

Various writings of the Saint Just as the Saint was often consulted on questions most various, and answered various things by letters, so he declined to answer other things, as foreign to his profession. Here I shall join together what was discussed in various places concerning the Vision of God. In Letter 9, by which he consoles Italica, a Roman matron, on the death of her husband, he discourses on the Vision of God, and refutes the opinion of those who thought that God is seen with bodily eyes. This brief letter furnished the occasion for a longer one, which the Saint himself numbered among his books in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 41, where he has thus: On the seeing of God I wrote a book, where I deferred a more diligent inquiry concerning the spiritual body which will be in the resurrection of the Saints — whether or how God, who is a spirit, may be seen even through such a body; but that question, truly most difficult, I afterwards explained sufficiently, as I judge, in the last, that is, the twenty-second book On the City of God. The book just mentioned is the Saint's Letter 112 to Paulina, in which, chapter 21, he so mentions the former letter that it is sufficiently plain that from it arose the occasion of writing this longer one.

[584] Further, that the Saint in Letter 112 handled the proposed question zealously, On the Vision of God, the beginning of the letter declares, conceived in these words: Mindful of the debt which was made by your request and my promise, Paulina, religious handmaid of God, I ought not to be negligent also of its discharge. For when you had asked that I should write something to you at length and copiously concerning the invisible God — whether He can be seen through bodily eyes — I could not refuse, lest I should offend your holy zeal; but I put off the promise, either because of my other occupations, or because that was demanded of me upon which it behooved to think somewhat longer. But since so great a matter was one which by thinking became more difficult, not so much as to what ought to be thought or said about it, as in what manner it might be brought about that those who thought otherwise should be persuaded, I thought that at length an end must be put to the delay, hoping that the divine help would be present rather to me writing than to me deferring.

[585] Another little Work on the same matter the Saint records after the words just given from book 2 of the Retractations, which he denies can be done with bodily eyes: to which he subjoins these: I found also in a certain codex of ours, in which this book also is, a certain memorandum made by me on this matter to Fortunatianus, bishop of Sicca, which in the index of my little Works is named neither among the books nor among the letters. We have this little Work too among the letters, of which it is III, to Fortunatianus. But the occasion of this little Work was the same as of the preceding. Tillemont, however, article 228, thinks that from some other letter an offense arose which gave occasion to this; in which I cannot agree with him, since everything intimates that Letter 6 furnished the occasion for this: for that sixth letter, to Italica, really has certain harsher expressions, for which in this III the Saint asks pardon, and the beginning of this rightly sets forth the context of the sixth in those words which will at the same time declare the Saint's wonderful humility: As I asked in person, he says, so now I admonish, that you deign to see and to ask our brother, concerning whom we conversed, that he pardon me if he took anything said too harshly and sharply against himself in the letter which I do not repent of having written in that manner, because I said that the eyes of this body neither see God nor will see Him: for I added the reason why I said this, namely lest God Himself should be believed to be corporeal, and visible in the space and interval of a place. These things had been said, with the words a little changed, in the letter to Italica, and in this one they are confirmed by the authority of the Scriptures and of the Fathers.

[586] his wonderful humility, on account of certain harsher expressions But hear with how great and how humble a zeal the Saint tried through Fortunatianus to appease the bishop offended by his former letter — how ingenuously he wished not to extenuate but to exaggerate his fault, such as it was, lest charity should be wounded, or, if you prefer, that when wounded it might be repaired: In which letter, he says, while I was solicitous in admonishing — which I wrote with the names suppressed — I was excessive and improvident in rebuking, nor did I consider a brotherly and episcopal person as a brother and a bishop, as had been fitting: this I do not defend, but reprove; this I do not excuse, but accuse. I ask that it be pardoned; let him remember our former love, and forget the new offense. Let him certainly do what he was angry that I did not do. Let him have gentleness in giving pardon, which I did not have in writing that letter.

[687] This I ask through your charity, which I had wished to ask him in person if I had opportunity of him. through another Which when I had attempted, a venerable man, to be preferred in honor to all of us, writing to him, he was unwilling to come, suspecting perhaps some guile of mine, as most human things are, so far as I judge; from which that I am far removed, do you make him believe, so far as you can, who being present can more easily. Show him with how great and how true a grief I conversed with you concerning the offense of his mind. Let him know how far I am from despising him, and how much I fear God in him, and think of our Head, in whose body we are brethren.

[588] begging pardon. To the place in which he dwells I have therefore thought that I ought not to come, lest we should make a spectacle laughable to strangers, grievous to our own, shameful to ourselves: through your holiness and charity the whole can rightly be transacted. For it is transacted by Him who through his faith dwells in your heart, whom, I believe, he does not spurn in you, when he acknowledges Him in himself. I certainly in this case have found nothing better to do than to ask pardon of a brother who has complained that he was wounded by the harshness of my letter. Then he learnedly confirms his own opinion, and finally concludes the letter with this entreaty: Now nevertheless I beseech through Christ, that concerning that harshness of my letter, by which I have learned that he was not undeservedly offended, you obtain pardon for me from him, and gladden me by a reply, with the Lord's help. This humility of the Saint, seriously considered, will be able to profit all Writers, that they may not carp at their adversaries with excessive bile, and, if that has been done, may repair the injury.

[589] The Saint reproves Dioscorus, who asked curious things; Just as the Saint, even though he was most fully occupied, willingly answered even difficult questions of those who asked something out of piety, or things which conduced to salvation, so he freely reproved those who asked only curious things, in order to catch at an empty name of learning. This is brilliantly attested by Letter 56, in which he replies to a certain Dioscorus, a Greek youth. He had proposed to Augustine many philosophical and rhetorical questions; but as a reason why he desired them to be resolved, he had alleged these words in Letter 55: You are not ignorant of the manners of men, who are prone to blaming; and you see how, if anyone questioned has not answered, he is thought unlearned and dull. When the Saint had come to these words, and had repeated them in his own Letter 56, beginning with wonderful gravity to reprove the young man's vanity, he adds these: At this place indeed I blazed up to write back to you: for by this languor of your mind you have pierced my breast, and have burst into my cares, so that I could not dissemble — so far as God should help me — to heal you; not so that I should think about unraveling and explaining your questions, but that the happiness

of yours, hanging upon the tongues of men and wavering, I might break off from so unhappy a mooring-rope, and bind to a seat altogether unshaken and stable. Then he subjoins many things by which he exhorts him not to catch at the popular breeze with curious questions, but rather to strive to learn thoroughly those things by which he may attain to the blessed life. The whole letter may be seen, which is very prolix and contains many things most worthy of reading; but few of those things which Dioscorus had asked.

[590] At almost the same times there had recourse to Augustine, as to a common oracle, Consentius, erring out of simplicity, a certain Consentius, dwelling in the islands, and perhaps leading an eremitical life there. He had written certain little Works into which he had inserted no light errors, as he confesses in his letter, which is 221 among the Augustinian ones. Augustine had admonished him about his errors, to whom he had given his books to be corrected. Nay, the Saint with plainly fatherly benevolence had invited him to himself, that being present he might instruct him present, and might give him his books to be read in his presence, as his own words presently to be recited will teach. Receive what the truly humble Consentius answered to the aforesaid, in Letter 221: Whence I would wish to be confirmed from all things, not only present, but also by a fuller letter. For it is not right that our feet alone should be called back, at your admonition, from that way of error in which many of us walk. For since many in those islands in which we dwell, while they go straight on the highway, have run into the by-path of this tortuous error, will there be there some Augustine to whose authority they may yield, whose teaching they may believe, by whose genius they may be overcome? Or perhaps out of that affection of fatherhood you prefer to direct me by a hidden admonition rather than to rebuke me as a companion of a crooked journey? But for me, desiring to run rather for the profit of my soul than for the praise of the world, your refutation is not useless, and accordingly not bitter either, especially since it will bring forth life and praise at once both for me and for the rest. Like things he had premised, and then subjoins.

[591] Augustine therefore replied by Letter 222, a good long one and full of theological learning, he corrects with fatherly benevolence: from which I transfer hither only the beginning, that it may be plain how kindly the Saint offered him his services: I therefore, he says, asked you to come to us, since in your books I was greatly delighted with your genius. Accordingly I wished that you should read certain little Works of ours, which I judged necessary for you, not placed far from us, but rather with us, so that those things which perchance you had understood less, you might, being present, without difficulty ask about, and out of our conversation and mutual colloquy — so far as the Lord should grant both to us to bring forth and to you to receive — you might yourself recognize and yourself amend what in your books ought to be amended. For you are of such ability as to be able to explain what you have thought, and further of such probity and humility as to deserve to think what is true. And now I am of the same opinion, which ought not to displease you either. Whence I lately admonished you that in those things elaborated by us which you will read at your own place, you should make marks at those passages which trouble you, and come to me with them, and ask concerning each. What you have not yet done, I exhort you to do. For you would rightly be bashful and it would irk you to do it, if you had wished it even once and had found me difficult. This too I had said, when I had heard from you that you were wearied with most faulty codices, that you should read in ours, which you could find more correct than the rest. To these I could add letters written at almost the same times, but since they mostly concern the pastoral care, of which many things have already been related, I do not sift them one by one; but I add some things about the exchange of letters with St. Jerome.

[592] The letters to Jerome on the soul, and on the passage of James: Possidius in the Indiculus notes only six letters to St. Jerome, as many as still exist, besides two others which Possidius, as well as Augustine himself, numbered among the books, as we shall presently see. Nevertheless some doubtless have been lost. Further, that there was a sharp enough controversy between these two Saints — but one which increased rather than extinguished their friendship — was said in §20, where mention was made also of certain other letters. Two therefore I here only add, which I said were called books. Augustine in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 45, thus records both: I wrote also two books to Jerome the presbyter dwelling in Bethlehem, one On the Origin of the Human Soul, the other On the Sentence of James the Apostle, where he says: "Whoever shall have kept the whole law, but offends in one point, is made guilty of all": consulting him about both. But in the former I did not myself resolve the question which I proposed; in the latter, however, what seemed to me for its resolving I did not myself keep silent. But whether he too would approve this, I consulted him. He wrote back, praising this same consultation of mine, but answered that he had not leisure to write back. But I, so long as he was in the body, was unwilling to publish these books, lest perchance he should at some time answer, and they should rather be published together with his answer. But when he had died, I published the former for this end, that the reader might be admonished either not to inquire at all how a soul is given to those being born, or at least, in a matter most obscure, to admit that solution of this question which is not contrary to the most evident truths which the Catholic faith knows concerning original sin in little ones, who without doubt are to be condemned unless they be regenerated in Christ. But the latter for this end, that the solution also of the question there treated, which seemed good to us, may be known. This work begins thus: Our Lord, who called you.

[593] or rather books, which he modestly submits to his judgment: We have those little Works among the letters, of which they are 28 and 29. But in the former the Saint thus prefaces: Our God, who called us into His kingdom and glory, I have asked and do ask that this which I write to you, holy brother Jerome, consulting you concerning those things which I do not know, you may will to be fruitful for us. For although I consult you, much greater than I am in age, nevertheless I too am now an old man: but for learning what is needful, no age can seem to me too late; because although it more befits old men to teach than to learn, yet it more befits them to learn than to be ignorant of what they should teach. Indeed I bear nothing more grievously in all my straits, which I suffer in most difficult questions, than the so distant absence of your charity, so that I can scarcely give my letters or receive yours, at intervals not of days, not of months, but of some years: whereas, if it could be done, I would wish to have you present daily, with whom I might speak whatever I wished. Nor yet ought I therefore not to do what I could, if I could not do all that I wished. Behold, there came to me a religious young man, a brother in Catholic peace, in age a son, in honor our fellow-presbyter, Orosius, watchful in genius, ready in speech, burning with zeal, desiring to be a useful vessel in the house of the Lord, for the refuting of the false and pernicious doctrines which have slaughtered the souls of the Spaniards much more unhappily than the barbarian sword has their bodies. For thence he hastened to us all the way from the shore of the Ocean, stirred by report that from me he could hear whatever he wished concerning those things which he wished to know. Nor did he take no fruit from his coming: first, that he should not believe report too much concerning me. Then I taught the man what I could; but what I could not, I advised him whence he could learn it, and exhorted him to go to you. In which matter, since he received my counsel or command willingly and obediently, I asked him that, coming from you, he should return to his own home by way of us. Holding to this promise of his, I have believed that an occasion was granted me by the Lord whereby I might write to you concerning those things which I desire to know through you.

[694] These things abundantly show how highly Augustine esteemed Jerome. he in a friendly reply declines to judge concerning them: How highly in turn Jerome esteemed Augustine, his reply, which among the letters of Jerome is 94, will make manifest. Receive the beginning of the praised letter, which the same Orosius seems to have carried to Augustine. An honorable man, he says, my brother, the son of your worthiness, Orosius the presbyter, I received both by his own merit and at your bidding. But a most difficult time fell out, when it was better for me to keep silence than to speak; so that our studies ceased, and, according to Appius, a dog's eloquence was practiced: and so to your two little books, which you dedicated to my name, most learned and shining with all the splendor of eloquence, I could not reply: not that I think anything in them to be reproved, but because, according to the Apostle, let each one abound in his own sense, one indeed thus, another thus. Certainly whatever could be said and drawn with lofty genius from the fountains of the holy Scriptures has been set down and discussed by you: but I beg your reverence, suffer me a little to praise your genius: for we discuss among ourselves for the sake of learning. But rivals, and especially heretics, if they see differing opinions between us, will calumniously say that they proceed from rancor of mind. But it is my resolve to love you, to look up to you, to honor you, to admire you, and to defend your sayings as my own. Certainly in the dialogue also which I lately published I made mention of your blessedness, as was fitting.

[595] The very words of Jerome which he here mentions, from the Dialogue against the Pelagians, book 3, chapter 6, it is pleasing to weave into this place, how highly Jerome esteemed Augustine, which are of this kind: That holy and eloquent Man, bishop Augustine, wrote some time ago to Marcellinus — who afterwards, under the odium of the Heraclian tyranny, was slain innocent by heretics — two books On the Baptizing of Infants against your heresy, by which you wish to assert that infants are baptized not for the remission of sins but for the kingdom of heaven: according to that which is written in the Gospel: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." A third also to the same Marcellinus, against those who say the same as you, that a man can be without sin if he wills, apart from the grace of God. And a fourth lately to Hilary, against your teaching, which feigns many perverse things. Others also he is said to be forging specially against your name, which have not yet come into our hands. Whence I judge that I must forbear this labor, lest that of Horace be said to me: Carry not wood into the forest. For either we should say the same things superfluously; or, if we wished to say new things, the better ones have been taken up by a most illustrious genius.

[596] especially after the Pelagians had been confuted by him. I add Jerome's Letter 80, in which he congratulates Augustine on the victory won over the Pelagians, and declares his love toward him in this manner: At all times indeed your blessedness

I have venerated with the honor that is fitting, and have loved the Lord the Savior dwelling in you: and now, if it can be done, we add something to the heap, and fully fill it up, so that we do not suffer even a single hour to pass by without mention of your name — you who against contrary winds have stood firm in the ardor of faith. You preferred, so far as in you lay, to be delivered alone out of Sodom rather than to abide with those who perish. Your prudence knows what I mean. Well done for your virtue; you are celebrated in the world: Catholics venerate and look up to you as the founder anew of the ancient faith; and — which is the sign of greater glory — all heretics detest you, and persecute me with equal hatred, so that those whom they cannot kill with swords they kill with their wish. May the clemency of Christ the Lord guard you safe and mindful of me, venerable lord, most blessed Pope. The same Jerome writes his Letter 79 to Augustine and Alypius to nearly the same end, and adds certain other things. Receive a few, that I may conclude the exchange of letters between the praised Saints, which show their true friendship. To me, he says, every occasion is most welcome by which I write to your Reverence; calling God to witness that, if it could be done, taking the wings of a dove, I would be wrapped in your embraces — always indeed for the desert of your virtues, but now especially because, with you as fellow-workers and authors, the Cælestian heresy has been throttled: which so infected the hearts of many that, although they feel themselves overcome and condemned, nevertheless they do not lay aside the poisons of their minds; and — what alone they can — they hate us, through whom they think they have lost the liberty of teaching their heresy. These, written later, I have joined here because of the connection of the matters; but now I return to earlier things.

§ XLIV. Albina, Pinianus, and St. Melania, most noble Romans, come into Africa: what happened to Augustine on the occasion of Pinianus.

On the occasion of Rome's being besieged and at last taken by Alaric, the Arian king of the Goths, Pinianus, Albina, and Melania the younger come to Tagaste: which some assign to the year 410, others to 409, many noble men and women betook themselves elsewhere, of whom some illustrious beyond the rest came into Africa, namely Pinianus with his wife St. Melania the younger, and Albina, Melania's mother. They had left Rome and all worldly splendor, Melania the elder urging it, as Tillemont sets forth more fully in tome 10 of the Monuments under Melania the elder, and in tome 14 under St. Melania the younger. Of the latter there will be treatment in our Work on the XXXI of December, on which she is honored: whether the memory of the elder is likewise celebrated may be inquired into in its own place. But here it must be explained what St. Augustine did with those persons, illustrious no less for piety than for birth, to see whom they had made an excursion all the way to Tagaste. Melania the elder had formerly been with Augustine, as is gathered from the letter of Paulinus, 249 among the Augustinian ones, where he mentions her to our Saint in these words: Because you taught me in the spirit of truth to preserve a saving temperance of a mind that moderates itself in things that pass away, whereby you saw that blessed mother and grandmother Melania weep for the carnal death of her only son with a silent mourning indeed, yet with a grief not dry of a mother's tears. To these he adds more in praise of Melania; but I return to the younger, her granddaughter, and her husband Pinianus and Albina, who about the year 411 came to Tagaste.

[598] Augustine desired most greatly to make an excursion to Tagaste, The Saint desires to visit them, that he might visit persons so friendly and so outstanding in piety; but he was hindered partly by the harshness of winter, which his health could not bear, partly by the necessity of his own people of Hippo, whom he did not yet endure to desert. In order therefore to excuse himself, he wrote Letter 227, which, although in the old editions it is inscribed to Albinus, Pinianus, and Melianus, was addressed to Albina, Pinianus, and Melania, to whom also it is read as inscribed in the Benedictines, on the authority of Possidius in the Indiculus, chapter 7, and of a most ancient manuscript, and is there placed as 124. The whole of it I subjoin for the confirmation of what has been said: Although by the habit of my health, or by nature, I cannot bear cold, nevertheless I have never been able to endure greater heats than in this so dreadful winter: because to you, to whom seas ought to have been crossed in flight, placed so near at hand, coming from so far for the sake of seeing us, I could not — I will not say go, but fly: and perhaps your holiness has thought that same wintry harshness to be the only cause of my penalty. Far from it, dearest ones. For what heavy and troublesome, or even perilous thing have these rains, which I ought not to have undergone and borne in order to come to you — so great consolations amid our so great evils, in this crooked and perverse generation, lights so ardently kindled from the highest Light, lofty by humility undertaken, and more illustrious by illustriousness despised? At the same time also I should enjoy the so spiritual felicity of my earthly native place, which has deserved to have you even present: concerning whom, when absent, when it heard both what you were born and what by the grace of Christ you have been made, although out of charity it believed, nevertheless it perhaps feared to narrate it, lest it should not be believed.

[599] I will say therefore why I have not come, and by what evils I was hindered from so great a good: but, being hindered, excuses himself by letter: so that I may deserve not only pardon from you, but also mercy from Him who works in you that you live to Him, through your prayers. The people of Hippo, to whom the Lord has given me as a servant, since in great and almost in every part they are so weak that by the pressure even of a lighter tribulation they can be grievously sick, are now smitten with so great a tribulation that even if they were not thus weak, they would scarcely bear it with any health of soul. But just now, when I returned, I found them most perilously scandalized by my absence: but to your throats, sound as they surely are, whose spiritual strength we rejoice in in the Lord, it has savor how it was said: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?" Especially since there are many here who, by detracting from us, endeavor to disturb against us the minds of the rest by whom we seem to be loved, in order to make a place in them for the devil. But when those are angry with us about whose salvation we are busied, their great counsel of revenge is a lust for dying — not in the body, but in the heart: where the corpse is secretly perceived by its own stench sooner than it is descried by our thought. To this solicitude of mine you doubtless willingly grant pardon: especially since, if you were angry and wished to take vengeance, you would perhaps find nothing heavier than that which I suffer, when I do not see you at Tagaste. But I hope, helped by your prayers, that it will be granted me to come to you as speedily as possible, wherever in Africa you shall be, when this by which I am now detained shall have passed: if this city in which we labor is not worthy — because neither do I dare to think it worthy — to rejoice together with us over your presence.

[600] [Pinianus comes to Hippo with Melania and Alypius, having received a promise from Augustine that he should not be ordained:] When St. Augustine had excused himself by this letter, Pinianus came to Hippo with St. Melania and St. Alypius, bishop of Tagaste, Albina however remaining at Tagaste. But since Pinianus feared lest perchance he should be unwillingly compelled by the people of Hippo to accept the rank of the presbyterate, as had happened to Augustine himself, he had exacted an oath from Augustine that he should not be ordained by him unwilling, and moreover a promise that the priesthood should not be urged upon him by the same. Nevertheless that precaution did not prevent a most grievous disturbance from arising there, which created great odium for our Saint. On this account Augustine wrote two letters, in which he narrated the whole matter: one, namely, to St. Alypius, which is 224; the other, 225, to Albina, Pinianus's mother-in-law, in which he excuses himself with great modesty and charity, and dilutes the suspicion of avarice indirectly twisted against him, as though he had wished that violence to be done to Pinianus, in order that a most wealthy and most liberal man might be bound to his church. He excuses himself also, but less laboriously, concerning the insulting cries flung by the people of Hippo against Alypius on that occasion.

[601] he is demanded by the people in church for the priesthood: But before we pursue these things, let us hear of the violence done to Pinianus, from the Saint's Letter 225. When Augustine was in church, and Pinianus was present there with Alypius and Melania, suddenly there arose a huge outcry of the people demanding that Pinianus should be ordained a presbyter. But I, says the Saint, after their first outcries, when I had told them by what promise I was already bound not to ordain him unwilling; and had added that, if, my faith being violated, they should have him as presbyter, they would not have me as bishop — had returned to our benches, leaving the crowd. Then they, hesitating and disturbed a little by my unlooked-for answer, like a flame a little pressed down by the wind, then began to be roused far more ardently, thinking that it could come about either that it should be wrung from me not to keep that promise, or that, while I held the good faith of my promise, he should be ordained by another bishop. I kept saying, to those I could, who had come up to us in the apse, the more honorable and graver men, that I could neither be moved from the good faith of my promise, nor could he be ordained by another bishop in a church committed to me, unless I were consulted and gave permission. And if I permitted it, I should nonetheless swerve from my faith. I added also that they wished nothing, if he were ordained unwilling, save that, being ordained, he should depart. They did not believe that this could happen. But the multitude, stationed before the steps, persisting in the same will with a horrible and most persevering roar of outcries, made us uncertain in mind and counsel.

[602] Then those unworthy things were cried out against my brother, then graver things were feared by us. but Augustine resists the rioting people; But although I was moved by so great a commotion of the people and so great a disturbance of the church, and had said nothing else to that throng save that I could not ordain him unwilling: nevertheless not even so was I led away, because I had also promised this, that I would not do it — namely, to urge upon him anything about undertaking the presbyterate. And if I had been able to persuade him, he would not then be ordained unwilling. I kept the good faith of both promises, not only of that which I had already disclosed to the people, but also of that in which, so far as concerns men, I was bound with one witness. I kept, I say, the good faith of my promise, not of an oath, in so great a peril: which, although — as we afterwards found — it was feared falsely, nevertheless, if there were any, hung over all in common; and the fear itself was common; and I was thinking of departing through the church in which we were, fearing most of all. But it had to be feared lest, in my absence, both a lesser reverence and a more burning grief should the rather do some such thing. Then, if I should depart with brother Alypius through the crowded people, it had to be guarded against lest anyone should dare to lay a hand upon him. But if without him, what face would there be for my reputation, if perchance anything happened to him? and I should seem to have deserted him for this reason, that he might be handed over to a raging people?

[603] Amid these heats of mine and grievous sorrow,

and with no breathing-space of counsel: [But Pinianus, to avert the violence, swears to the people that he will remain at Hippo] behold, suddenly and unexpectedly our holy son Pinianus sends to me a servant of God to tell me that he wished to swear to the people that, if he were ordained unwilling, he would depart from Africa: altogether thinking, I believe, that they, since he could not perjure himself, would no longer cry out with fruitless persistence to drive out hence a man whom we ought at least to have as a neighbor. But because it seemed to me that a more vehement grief of theirs was to be feared after this swearing, I kept it silently to myself: and because he had at the same time asked that I should come to him, I did not delay. When he had said this very thing to me, he at once added to that same oath what he had, while I was going to him, sent word to me by another servant of God — namely, concerning his own presence, if no one should lay the burden of the clerical office upon him unwilling. Here I, in such straits refreshed as by a breath of air, answered him nothing; but went with a quicker step to brother Alypius, and told him what he had said. But he, as I judge, avoiding that anything should be done on his authority whereby he thought you would be offended, said: "Let no one consult me on this." Which being heard, I went on to the rioting people: and, silence being made, I disclosed what had been promised, together with the promise of an oath also.

[604] But they, who were thinking of and desiring only his presbyterate, did not, as I supposed, accept what had been offered: [and that, if he should ever wish to be ordained, he should not be ordained elsewhere:] but muttering a little among themselves, they asked that there be added to that same promise and oath, that if it should ever please him to consent to undertake the clerical office, he should not consent save in that same church of Hippo. I reported it to him: without hesitation he assented. I announced it to them; they rejoiced, and presently demanded the promised oath. I returned to our son, and found him wavering as to in what words that promise with an oath could be comprised, on account of pressing necessities which might compel him to depart. At the same time also he showed what he feared: lest some hostile inroad should rush in, which must be avoided by departure. Holy Melania wished the plea of unhealthy air to be added also: but she was checked by his answer. But I said that a grave and not to be despised cause of necessity had been urged by him, which would compel even citizens to migrate. But if these things were said to the people, it must be feared lest we should seem to be uttering an ill omen; but if the excuse were made under the name of necessity, that only a fraudulent necessity would be supposed. It pleased nevertheless that we should test the mind of the people on this matter, and we found nothing else than what we had thought. For when his words, spoken by the deacon, were being recited, and all had pleased: when the name of an interposed necessity sounded forth, at once there was a protest, and the promise displeased, the tumult breaking out afresh, and the people thinking that nothing else than fraud was being dealt them.

[605] nevertheless he departs on the next day, Which when our holy son saw, he ordered the name of necessity to be taken away thence, and again the people returned to gladness. And when I pleaded weariness, he was unwilling to go to the people without me; we went together. He said to them that he had sent word of, and had sworn, what had been heard from the deacon, and that he would do those things; and at once he went through all in that tenor in which he had dictated it. The answer was, Thanks be to God: and it was asked that the whole writing be subscribed. We dismissed the catechumens, and at once he subscribed the writing. Then we bishops began to be asked — not by the voices of the people, but nevertheless by the people through honorable faithful men — that we too should subscribe. But when I began to subscribe, holy Melania objected. I wondered why so late, as though we could make that promise and oath undone by not subscribing. But nevertheless I complied. And so my subscription remained incomplete, nor did anyone think that we must be pressed further to subscribe. But what movements or tongues of men there were on another day, after they learned that he had departed, I have taken care, so far as I judged sufficient, to intimate to your holiness by a memorandum. Whoever therefore has perchance narrated to you things contrary to what I have narrated, either lies or is deceived. For I feel that I have passed over certain things which seemed to me not to pertain to the matter in hand, yet have said nothing false. Accordingly, that our holy son Pinianus swore in my presence and with my permission, is true; but that he swore at my bidding, is false. He himself knows, the servants of God know whom he sent to me — first holy Barnabas, then Timasius, through whom also he sent me word about the promise of his presence. The people themselves also by their crying compelled him to the presbyterate, not to an oath: but they did not reject what was offered them, with this hope, that in him dwelling among us a will might be brought about whereby he should consent to ordination, lest, as he had sworn, he should depart if he were ordained unwilling.

[606] not because the oath was invalid; From what has just been said we understand that Pinianus departed from Hippo the next day, and that thence arose a disturbance among the people of Hippo. Baronius in the Annals, at the year 409, number 23, interprets the departure of Pinianus in this manner: But Pinianus, because he well knew that he was by no means held bound by what he had promised through force and fear, on the following day returned secretly with his own people to Tagaste. These things indeed are true of a simple promise; but canonists and theologians everywhere teach that an oath added to it, although wrongfully extorted, nevertheless induces an obligation, until it be relaxed. St. Alypius indeed doubted about the obligation: but Augustine thus answers him in Letter 224: For as to what you wrote, that we should inquire between ourselves concerning the kind of an oath violently extorted: I beseech you, let not our discussion make most lucid matters obscure. Then he tries at some length to prove that by an oath of this kind an obligation is induced. He proves the same again in 225 to Albina, where also he denies that the oath was extorted, writing thus: These things I should say, if truly an oath of promising his presence had been extorted from him by us or by the people. But as it is, it was not extorted while it was refused, but accepted while it was offered. And in fact the oath had not been directly extorted; but Pinianus had chosen it to free himself, from fear of ordination or of some evil.

[607] There was therefore another reason why it was lawful for Pinianus to depart from Hippo, [but because he was not bound so always to remain there that it should not be lawful to go elsewhere for a time.] with the intention nevertheless of returning thither: namely, that he had intended only to swear that he would dwell there as a citizen, to whom it is lawful to go elsewhere for a time. This reason of his departure Alypius had also alleged, and Augustine approved it in Letter 224, answering him thus: That indeed I do not doubt is most rightly said, that the good faith of an oath is fulfilled not according to the word of him who swears, but according to the expectation of him to whom it is sworn, which he who swears knows. Accordingly, since the people of Hippo wished to have holy Pinianus, not as one condemned, but as a most dear inhabitant of their city, even if it could not sufficiently be comprised in his words, nevertheless it is so much at hand what they expected from him, that the fact that he is now absent after the oath moves none of those who could hear, since he was to set out for a certain cause with the will of returning. And by this he neither will be, nor be thought by them, a perjurer, unless he shall have deceived their expectation… As therefore you wrote back in the Memorandum, let him fulfill the promise by which he promised so not to withdraw from Hippo, as I, or the Hipponenses themselves, do not withdraw, who nevertheless have free liberty both of going away and of returning. Nearly the same things he repeats in the following letter to Albina. But whether Pinianus returned to Hippo, and dwelt there for some time, is uncertain; but it is established that he did not dwell there perpetually, and it is in no way likely that he did anything against his oath, so that it seems altogether to be believed that he was freed from the obligation of the oath either by the Hipponenses themselves, with St. Augustine's exertion, or by a lawful ecclesiastical superior, from whom a relaxation of an oath of this kind can easily be obtained.

[608] Finally it is pleasing to hear with how solicitous a charity the Saint strove to appease persons most noble and most pious, How solicitously the Saint strove to remove the offense, not a little offended by this deed. He wrote to this end both letters, already often praised. But it will be enough for our purpose to subjoin the beginning of 224, to Alypius: We grieve indeed grievously, he says, nor can it be that we make light of what the people of Hippo cried out to the injury of your holiness: but far more grievously must it be grieved, good brother, that such things are thought of us, than that those things were cried out. For when we are believed to wish to retain the servants of God from a desire of money, not from a love of justice: is it not to be wished that those who believe this should testify the secret of their heart by their voice; and that so, if it can be done, some the greater remedies should be sought, rather than that they should silently perish, poisoned by pernicious suspicions? Wherefore we must rather be busied about that of which we spoke even before this happened — how men may be persuaded, to whom we are commanded to present ourselves as an example of good works, that what they suspect is false — than about how they are to be censured who declare their suspicions by voices and words. Accordingly I am not angry with holy Albina, nor do I judge that she must be censured, but healed of such a suspicion. Who, because she did not say those same words against my person, but complained as it were about the Hipponenses, that they had laid open their own greed — that they had wished to keep with them a rich man, and one such a despiser and bestower of money, not for the sake of the clerical office but of money — nevertheless what she thought of us she almost cried aloud. Nor she alone, but her holy children also, who said this even on that same day in the apse. These therefore, as I said, I judge should rather be healed of suspicions of this kind, than censured on account of them. For where can security and rest from such thorns be prepared or furnished us, if they have been able to sprout up against us in hearts so holy and most dear to us?

[609] which had arisen from the deed mentioned. Concerning you indeed the unskilled crowd thought this: concerning us, the lights of the Church. Whence you see which is the more to be grieved over. But I judge that both must be, not accused, but healed. For they are men, and about men they suspect such things — false indeed, yet not incredible. For surely such men are not so foolish as to believe that the people desire their money: especially having already learned by experience that the people of Tagaste received nothing of it: so therefore neither did the people of Hippo. But all this odium boils only against the clerics, and chiefly against the bishops, whose lordship seems to stand out, who are thought to use and enjoy the goods of the church as owners and masters. Against this so noxious and death-bringing greed, if it can be done, my Alypius, let not the weak be built up by us. Remember what we said before this temptation, which more compels to this, befell. From this rather

by conferring together let us try, with the Lord's help, to make provision: nor let our own conscience suffice us, because it is not such a case where it ought to suffice alone. For if we are servants of God, not reprobates; if there is alive in us anything of that little fire whereby charity seeks not the things that are its own: we surely ought to provide good things not only before God but also before men, lest, drinking tranquil water, we be convicted of trampling with incautious feet in our own conscience, so that the Lord's sheep drink it troubled. These and many things of this kind the Saint says with equal charity and modesty. For the rest, it is certain that friendship between Augustine and the praised persons was restored: for when afterwards they had dealt in Palestine with Pelagius, that he should condemn his errors in writing, and had written on that matter to the holy Doctor, he addressed to them the book On the Grace of Christ, to which he thus prefaces: How greatly we rejoice over your bodily and especially spiritual welfare, most sincere brethren, beloved of God, Albinus read Albina, Pinianus, and Melania — since we cannot utter it, we commit it to you to think of and believe, so that we may now rather speak of those things about which you consulted us. Then St. Jerome in his Letter 79 salutes Augustine and Alypius in the name of the same persons.

* read Albina

§ XLV. The letter On Praying to God to Proba Faltonia, the book On the Good of Widowhood to Juliana, Demetrias led to virginity, Orosius instructed to write History, the exposition of the Psalms.

Illustrious Roman matrons landed at Carthage become known to the Saint. In the year 411 the Saint took part in the Conference of Carthage, and in the following year in the council of Cirta: but concerning these there was treatment in §§32 and 33, when the deeds against the Donatists were set forth. We must therefore proceed to other things. There had come into Africa, on the occasion of the capture of Rome, a most noble Roman woman, Proba Faltonia, mother of three consuls — Probinus, Olybrius, and Probus — and she was living at Carthage with Juliana, the widow of her son Olybrius, and their daughter Demetrias, while St. Augustine was there. Of the piety, vast riches, and notable nobility of this most illustrious matron St. Jerome will supply more in Letter 8, from which we have said these few things. For me it will be enough to have set forth what our Saint furnished to these most noble women. He came to know them first by letters, then also by familiar meeting, as he himself will presently narrate. But that first meeting probably happened in the year 411, when the Saint set out for Carthage for the Conference. But how much each of them advanced in piety by Augustine's words and admonitions, the outcome taught: for Proba wished to be instructed by the Saint how she should piously pray to God; Juliana, how to order her life rightly in widowhood; while Demetrias, the enticements of the world being spurned, was led to consecrate her virginity to God. Receive each severally.

[611] Augustine fulfilled Proba's desire by Letter 121, to one of them, Proba Faltonia, he writes on Prayer, in which he gives excellent instructions on prayer, mingling nevertheless not a few things about other virtues which are more suited to widows. I transfer hither the beginning of the letter: Recollecting both that you asked, and that I promised, he says, that I should write something to you about praying to God, when by the grant of Him whom we pray to, time and opportunity have been conceded, it was fitting that I should at once discharge my debt, and serve your pious zeal in the charity of Christ. But how greatly your very request gladdened me, in which I recognized how great a care of so great a matter you bear, I cannot unfold in words. For what greater business ought there to be for your widowhood than to persist in prayer night and day, according to the Apostle's admonition? For he says: "But she who is truly a widow and desolate hopes in the Lord, and persists in prayer night and day." Whence it can seem wonderful, since you are according to this world noble, rich, and the mother of so great a family, and therefore, though a widow, yet not desolate, how the care of praying has occupied your heart and claimed it especially for itself: unless it be that you prudently understand that in this world and in this life no soul can be secure. To these he subjoins certain other things to this sense, and very many instructions, which may be read in the letter itself; and at last toward its end he modestly commends himself to their prayers in these words: Indeed remember to pray for us also not negligently. For we do not wish you so to render us the honor which we bear perilously, as to take away the help which we know to be necessary. By the household of Christ prayer was made for Peter, prayer was made for Paul; and we rejoice that you are in His household, and we need incomparably more than Peter and Paul the aids of brotherly prayers.

[612] to the other, Juliana, a book Prolix indeed is this letter, yet retained among the letters. But that which was written at the request of Juliana, On the Good of Widowhood, is now held among the Saint's books in tome 4 of the Works from page 321. Its opening also I attach, which is of this kind: That I might not be longer a debtor to your request and to your love in Christ, I have somehow, amid my other most pressing occupations, seized upon my promise to write something to you concerning the profession of holy widowhood: since you both honored me when present by asking, and, when I could not deny you this, often demanded my promise by letters. In which Work of ours indeed, when you shall have read some things pertaining not at all to your person or to yours, who live together in Christ, nor properly necessary for the admonition of your life, you ought not on that account to judge them superfluous. For this letter, although it had to be written to you, yet had not to be written for you only. But that it might profit others also through you was surely not to be neglected by us. Whatever therefore you find here which either has never been necessary for you or is not so now, and yet you perceive to be so for others, let it not irk you either to have it or to give it to be read, so that your charity may be the profit of others. Since therefore in every question which pertains to life and morals not only doctrine but also exhortation is necessary — that by doctrine we may know what is to be done, and by exhortation be roused not to be slow to do what we already know is to be done — what more therefore shall I teach you than that which we read in the Apostle? For holy Scripture fixes the rule of our doctrine, that we should not dare to be wise more than we ought to be wise, but be wise, as he says, unto sobriety, as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith. Let it be nothing else therefore for me to teach you, than to set forth to you the words of the teacher, and to discourse concerning them what the Lord shall grant.

[613] On the Good of Widowhood, There follows then a discussion long enough concerning various matters pertaining to widows, and he concludes the whole little Work with these words: Then I beseech you by Him from whom you have received this gift also, and from whom you hope for the rewards of this gift, that you remember to insert me too in your prayers, together with your whole household church. For it came about most orderly that I should write a letter on prayer to your mother, now advanced in years. For to her it especially belongs to strive by praying for you, who is less solicitous about herself than about you; and that I should make this little Work on widowed continence rather to you than to her, because for you there still remains to be surmounted what her age has already surmounted. But your holy offspring the virgin, if she desires anything concerning her own profession, has from our labors the great book On Holy Virginity, which let her read. Of the reading of which I had admonished you also, since it contains many things necessary to each chastity, that is, to the virginal and the widowed, which here I have therefore partly touched slightly, partly altogether passed over, because there I discussed them more copiously. May you persevere in the grace of Christ. We see Demetrias the virgin and Juliana herself sent to Augustine's book On Holy Virginity, and mention here made of the letter to Proba just praised, so that it is certain that this is a genuine little Work of Augustine, although it is omitted in the Retractations; which was done doubtless because it was reckoned among the letters by the Saint. Possidius too, in chapter 7 of the Indiculus, reviews both this and the preceding little Work among the Saint's letters.

[614] That Juliana's daughter Demetrias, by the exhortations of Augustine and Alypius, preferred virginity to marriage, [her daughter Demetrias, led to virginity, he fortifies against the frauds of Pelagius:] Letter 143 teaches, which those Saints wrote to Juliana her mother, that that most pious virgin might be fortified against the frauds of Pelagius, who had written to Demetrias. The letter is indeed written in the name of Alypius as well as of Augustine; but it does not seem doubtful that the latter is its chief author. Receive the beginning: It fell out most gratefully and pleasantly for us that the letter of your reverence found us stationed together at Hippo, so that we might return this reply alike, rejoicing at your safety made known, and in turn announcing our own, which we trust is dear to you, with mutual love, lady to be honored with due offices in Christ and deservedly illustrious daughter. But we know very well that you know how great an affection of religion we owe you, and how great a care we have of you both before God and among men. For although our littleness came to know you — pious and Catholic, that is, true members of Christ — first by letters, then also by bodily presence: nevertheless also through our ministry, when you had received the word of the hearing of God, as the Apostle says, you received it not as the word of men, but, as it truly is, the word of God. Of which our ministry, by the assisting grace and mercy of the Savior, so great fruit has arisen in your house, that, human nuptials being already prepared, holy Demetrias preferred the spiritual embrace of that Bridegroom, to whom — beautiful above the sons of men — virgins are wed for the having of a richer fruitfulness of the spirit, and not for the losing of the integrity of the flesh. But we should not have known how that exhortation of ours had then been received by the faithful and noble virgin, unless, after we had set out, when a little later she had professed virginal holiness, we had learned by the most joyful message and truthful testimony of your letter that this great gift of God — which through His servants indeed He plants and waters, but through Himself gives the increase — had come forth for us as workmen. All the rest tends to this, that the Pelagian frauds should be uncovered and avoided by Demetrias and by Juliana herself, as the reader will be able to perceive there.

[615] But how greatly Augustine rejoiced when he had heard from the letters of Proba and Juliana that Demetrias had chosen virginity in place of marriage, he testifies his joy his Letter 179 brilliantly shows, in which he congratulates Proba and Juliana on this matter. Since it is short, I subjoin it whole. You have filled our heart with joy, he says, the more pleasantly the dearer, the more gratefully the sooner. For the virginal holiness of your stock, which — wherever you have become known, and thereby everywhere — most celebrated report proclaims, its swiftest flight we have overtaken by the more faithful and more certain message of your letters

you have forestalled, and have made us exult at so excellent a good made known before we could doubt of it as heard. Who could unfold it in words? who could follow it up with worthy heralding — how incomparably more gloriously and more fruitfully Christ has virgin women from your blood, than the world has men who are consuls? For if it is a great and splendid thing to mark the rolls of the ages with the dignity of a name, how much greater and more splendid is it to transcend them by the integrity of heart and body?

[616] Let the girl therefore rejoice the more, noble by birth, nobler by holiness, at the virginity of Demetrias. that she is about to attain, through a divine partnership, a preeminent loftiness in heaven, than if she were about to propagate a lofty offspring through human wedlock. For more nobly did the Anician posterity choose to bless so illustrious a family by knowing no nuptials, rather than to multiply it by bearing; and already in the flesh to imitate the life of angels, rather than out of the flesh still to increase the number of mortals. This is the richer and more fruitful happiness: not to grow heavy in the womb, but to grow great in mind; not to be full of milk in the breast, but to shine white in the heart; not to bring forth earth from the bowels, but heaven by prayers. Daughters most worthy of the honor of ladies, enjoy in her what was lacking to you; may she persevere unto the end, cleaving to that wedlock which has no end. Let many handmaids imitate their mistress, the ignoble the noble, those frailly exalted her who is more loftily humble; let virgins who wish for themselves the renown of the Anicii choose holiness. For that, with however great desire, when will they attain it? But this, if they shall have fully desired it, they will presently have. May the right hand of the Most High protect you safe and happier, ladies most worthy of honor and most excellent daughters; the pledges of your special holiness, that same special holiness we salute with the office due to your merits, in the love of the Lord. The veiling-gift we have received most gratefully. More about these illustrious women the historians record. Consult Tillemont in his Augustine, article 235 and following.

[617] He impels Orosius to write history, About the year 415 Paulus Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, came into Africa and visited our Saint, by whom he was kindly received, as Tillemont sets forth more fully in his Augustine, article 245 and following. But certain writings of the Saint at the request of Orosius against the Priscillianists and Origenists have already been related in §37. And that Orosius was afterwards sent by Augustine with a letter to St. Jerome, we narrated at number 593. The same Orosius began to compose his History at Augustine's exhortation, and with the latter prescribing such a method that the mouths of the Pagans — who chattered many things against the Catholics because of the capture of Rome — should be stopped by that history no less than by his own Work On the City of God, which he was drawing up for the same cause. Hear Orosius in the Preface of his History: I have obeyed your commands, most blessed father Augustine: and would that as effectually as willingly. Although I am little moved, on either side, as to what is plain — whether I have acted rightly or otherwise: for you have already labored under this judgment, whether I could do what you commanded; but I am content with the testimony of obedience alone, if however I have adorned it with will and effort… For since my submission ought to be a deed done for the command of your Paternity, and the whole is yours which returns from you to you, this Work of mine I have rendered more fully by this alone of my own, that I did it willingly.

[618] and teaches a method useful against the heathen: You had commanded me that, against the vain-speaking perversity of those who, strangers to the City of God, from the crossroads and villages of rustic places are called PAGANS, or gentiles, because they are wise in earthly things; who, since they do not seek things to come, but either forget or know not things past, defame the present times only, as though beyond custom most infested with evils, for this reason alone, that Christ is believed and God is worshipped, but idols are less worshipped: you had commanded therefore that out of all the records of histories and annals which can be had at present, whatsoever I should find through the ages gone by that was grievous with wars, or corrupted with diseases, or sad with famine, or terrible with earthquakes, or unusual with floods of waters, or fearful with eruptions of fires, or savage with strokes of lightnings and scourges of hail, or even wretched with parricides and outrages, I should set forth in the briefly ordered text of a volume: especially since it was not fitting that your Reverence, engaged upon the eleventh book in completing your work against these very pagans, … should be occupied with a slight little Work … I have given my labor, &c. He adds in the same place that by investigating he had found that past times were no less wretched than present ones. But in the conclusion of the whole History he relates what he tried to do in these words: I have unfolded, with Christ's help, most blessed father Augustine, from the beginning of the world to the present day — that is, through five thousand M DCX and VIII [] years — the desires and punishments of sinful men, the struggles of the world, and the judgments of God, as briefly and as simply as I could, the Christian times nevertheless being distinguished from that confusion of unbelief because of the present grace of Christ. Thus now I enjoy the certain and sole fruit of my obedience, which I ought to have desired. But concerning the quality of these little Works, you must see, who commanded them: they are to be adjudged to you, if you publish them; judged by you, if you delete them.*

[619] At almost the same time St. Augustine was applying himself to the exposition of the Psalms, he explains the Psalms: as is gathered from Letter 102 to Evodius. For he reviews toward the end of the letter various little Works then composed, and among them the exposition of three Psalms, and the book to Orosius. But at the beginning of the letter he has thus concerning the Psalms explained: I have also dictated an exposition of three Psalms in no small volumes — the sixty-seventh, the seventy-first, the seventy-seventh. The rest, not yet dictated nor treated, are vehemently awaited and demanded of us. I do not wish to be called back and delayed from these by any questions whatever rushing in crosswise: so that I do not now wish to attend even to the books On the Trinity, which I long turn in my hands and have not yet completed, since they are too laborious, and I judge that they can be understood by few: whence those things press the more which we hope will be useful to more.

[620] At what time the Saint finished the exposition of the Psalms we shall examine afterwards. the 118th expounded last, and why: After all the rest he expounded the 118th, to which he thus prefaces: All the other Psalms which we know the codex of Psalms to contain — which by the Church's custom is called the Psalter — I have expounded, partly by discoursing among the people, partly by dictating, the Lord granting it, as I could: but the hundred and eighteenth Psalm I kept deferring, not so much because of its most well-known length as because of its depth, knowable by few. And when my brethren bore it most grievously that the exposition of this one alone, so far as concerns the Psalms of that same body, was lacking to our little Works, and vehemently urged me to discharge this debt, I did not for a long time yield to those asking and bidding: because, as often as I attempted to think about it, it always exceeded the strength of our attention. For the more open it seems, the deeper it is wont to seem to me, so that I cannot even demonstrate how deep it is. For of the others, which are understood with difficulty, even if the sense lies hidden in obscurity, yet the obscurity itself appears: but of this one not even that, since it presents such a surface that it is believed to need a reader and hearer, not an expositor. And now that I at last approach the handling of it, what I can do in it I altogether do not know: yet I hope that God will be present and helping, that I may be able to do something. For so I have done concerning all those which I have expounded sufficiently, when at first they seemed to me difficult and almost impossible to understand or to explain. But I have resolved to do this by discourses which are delivered among the people, which the Greeks call ὁμιλίας. For I judge this more just, that ecclesiastical assemblies should not be defrauded of the understanding also of this Psalm, with whose chanting, as with that of others, they are wont to be delighted.

[621] The prefaces to the exposition of the Psalms are not Augustine's. Further, concerning which psalms he spoke to the people, and which he expounded only in writing, the Indiculus of Possidius teaches, to be printed after the Life. Cassiodorus in his preface to the Psalter wonderfully commends Augustine's exposition of the Psalms, in which, he says, so great an abundance of sayings had been heaped together that what is cut away can scarcely be retained, which seems abundantly expounded. And further below: For indeed he is a distinguished Master of all letters; and — what is rare in abundance — a most cautious disputant. For he runs down like a most pure fountain, polluted by no dregs; but, persevering in the integrity of the faith, he knows not how to give the heretics anything whereby they might defend themselves in any struggle: he is found wholly Catholic, wholly orthodox; and shining in the Church of the Lord with the sweetest brightness, he is irradiated with the clarity of the heavenly light. A threefold preface in the Plantin edition is prefixed to the exposition of the Psalms: but none of these seems to be St. Augustine's. Concerning the first, the learned agree that it is of a more recent writer, and this is manifest, since in it Augustine himself is cited. The second was formerly attributed to Augustine even by the author of the first preface. But the Benedictine editors testify that that preface was not found in all the manuscripts; and they add in the title: It is the preface of Basil to his Commentary on the Psalms, from the translation of Rufinus. That it is Basil's the studious reader will see who shall be willing to read through his first homily on the Psalms. Concerning the third, finally, the same editors advise the following: In the older printed editions indeed it was attributed to Augustine, but it was not found in all the manuscripts, nor does it agree concerning the author of the Psalms with Augustine's opinion in book XVII On the City of God, chapter XIV. For that preface has thus: For not all the Psalms were published by David … David therefore sang only nine Psalms with his own mouth. Augustine examines that opinion in book 17 On the City, chapter 14, and pronounces thus concerning it: But to me those seem to judge more credibly who attribute all those hundred and fifty Psalms to his Work: which opinion he confirms with reasons. And so neither is this preface to be called Augustine's. More concerning the method by which the Psalms were expounded, and the copies which the Saint followed, the Benedictines discuss in their preface.

* i.e. 5618

§ XLVI. The Saint answers the questions of Evodius: the care of writing committed to him by two councils; he restricts the care of hearing litigants: he speaks to the people and writes on the Gospel and the Epistle of St. John; he writes to Dardanus the book On the Presence of God.

The Saint, consulted on various and difficult matters, Although Augustine was always most fully occupied either with pastoral care or with the writing of most useful books, nevertheless he was frequently compelled to interrupt the Works he had begun, in order to answer the questions which were sent from every side as to a common oracle. All desired to draw from that abundant fountain of knowledge; and the Saint himself burned with so great charity that he could scarcely deny anything when useful things were demanded. Evodius, bishop of Uzalis and an old friend of the Saint, beyond the rest asked various and difficult things, as may be seen from his Letter 98 and the following ones of Augustine, namely 99, 100, 101, 102, in which he answers his various questions, yet so that in various places he signifies that he is unwilling to be so occupied with difficult and curious questions as to be compelled to leave off more useful things. Receive the beginning of Letter 101, in which

we are at the same time taught with how great care the Saint proceeded when he answered the questions proposed: You ask many things, he says, of a man much occupied; and, what is graver, you think that those things ought to be hurried in dictation which are so difficult that, even when dictated or written with great diligence, they can scarcely be brought to the understanding of such men as you yourself are.

[623] To this is added that not you and such as you only are to be thought of as about to read what we write, [although he answered many things, he nevertheless fled curious and less useful matters:] but surely also those who, endowed with a less keen and less exercised wit, are nevertheless carried with such zeal to become acquainted with our writings — whether with a friendly or a hostile mind — that they can by no means be kept from them. To one who considers these things you perceive how great care there ought to be in writing, especially about matters so great that even great men labor in them. But if, when I have something in hand, it must be interrupted and deferred, in order that answer may rather be made to those things which are asked as they come upon me, what will happen if, even while these are being answered, others come upon me? Does it please you that, these too being omitted, those should be undertaken, and that the later that arise should always become the earlier, and that only those should chance to be finished during whose writing nothing arose to be asked about? Which that it should befall me is most difficult, but I do not think that this pleases you. I ought not therefore to have interrupted other things when yours came upon me, just as neither yours, if others again rushed in; and yet I am not allowed to keep this justice. For behold, in order to write you back these very things by which I might admonish you of it, I have interrupted what I was doing, and have twisted my mind away from another great intention to this letter. But it was easy to send you back this excuse, not unfair as I judge, put into a letter; but to answer your inquiries is not so easy: and I think that in those very little Works which now hold me most intent there will not be lacking certain places where I may deal with these very things which you ask, if the Lord shall favor. But he closes Letter 102 with these words: All these things (then written) if you shall wish to have, send someone to copy them all for you. But allow me to be free for seeking out and dictating those things which, since they are necessary for many, I judge must be preferred to your inquiries, which pertain to very few.

[624] Two councils were celebrated in the year 416 against the Pelagians, [the province of writing imposed upon him, he desires to restrict the time for hearing lawsuits:] one of Carthage, the other of Milevis. At the latter Augustine took part, as may be seen in Labbe, tome 2, column [ ], in the title of the synodal letter. But to these councils Baronius in the Annals, at the year 416, number 15, thinks must be referred what Augustine narrates about himself in Letter 110, or in the Acts by which the presbyter Eradius is chosen as the Saint's successor. Receive the very words of Augustine: You know what some years ago I wished to do, and you did not permit. It pleased me and you, because of the care of the Scriptures which my brethren and fathers, my fellow-bishops, deigned to impose upon me in two councils, of Numidia and of Carthage, that for five days (in the week) no one should be troublesome to me (by bringing their lawsuits to the episcopal judgment). Records were drawn up, it was resolved, you acclaimed it. Your resolve and your acclamation are recited. For a short time it was observed toward me, and afterwards it was violently broken in upon, and I am not permitted to be free for that which I wish. Before noon and after noon I am held by the occupations of men. Thus the Saint was occupied on every side, while bishops demanded writings of him, the learned the solution of their difficulties, the curious subtleties, the pious instruction by word and writing, and finally litigants peace.

[625] he explains in discourse the Gospel of St. John and his Epistle, To the instruction of his flock belong especially the tractates on the Gospel and the first Epistle of St. John, which he delivered in discourse at about these times, as we shall see afterwards. They are recorded by Possidius in the Indiculus, chapter 6, in these brief words: Tractates on the Gospel of John from the beginning to the end, in six codices. And in chapter 9: On the epistle of John to the Parthians, ten sermons. Cassiodorus in On the Institution, chapter 7, has thus concerning the Gospel: John blessed Augustine illuminated with a copious and notable exposition. And in chapter 8, concerning the Epistle: But on the first Epistle of blessed John holy Augustine discoursed in ten sermons much and marvelously concerning charity. He also frequently assailed the Donatists in these tractates, and from time to time other heretics, as will be manifest to the reader. All these tractates were delivered to the people, and indeed on days of any kind, whether feast days or ordinary days. In these especially we can marvel that the Saint, detained by so many other occupations, was able so often to speak in discourse.

[626] speaking to the people on many consecutive days; It is pleasing to exhibit as an example five tractates spoken on five days following in order. He thus concludes tractate 19: Accordingly hold me, with the Lord's help, a debtor tomorrow for this promise, which I had deferred to today's time, if it should remain. In tractate 20 he has thus at the end: The rest which follow,.. since a discourse is owed you also tomorrow, be present that you may hear. Hence it follows that tractates 19, 20, and 21 were delivered on three consecutive days. But that the 22nd followed on the next day, its beginning teaches, which is of this kind: Today's evangelical reading follows the discourses of the day before yesterday and of yesterday rendered to you. This again was followed on the next day by tractate 23, in which on page 83 he says: Today's reading therefore is easy, brethren; but on account of yesterday's debt (for I know what I deferred, not took away, and the Lord has deigned to grant me to speak to you today also) remember what you ought to demand back. Here he calls "yesterday's debt" that part of yesterday's reading not expounded: for often in the more difficult passages he did not explain everything that had been read out from the Gospel. For five days therefore he continued these sermons, perhaps for far more; but this cannot everywhere be shown, since he does not always make mention of the preceding sermons. Nay rather, at the end of tractate 8 he excuses himself for having been hindered on the preceding day, and invites his hearers for the following day, so that we may suspect that these sermons were delivered on most days when he was not hindered.

[627] [the Gospel being interrupted because of the Paschal season, he interposes the Epistle:] Nevertheless the Saint did not expound the whole Gospel of St. John consecutively, but interposed his Epistle in it, being about afterwards to resume the Gospel, for the reason which he alleges in the preface to the Epistle in these words: Your holiness remembers that we are wont to treat the Gospel according to John in the order of the readings. But because now the solemnity of the holy days has come between, on which certain readings from the Gospel must be recited in church, which are so annual that they cannot be others: that order which we had undertaken has been a little interrupted by necessity, not omitted. But when I was thinking what, according to the gladness of the present days, I should deal with among you from the Scriptures through this week — so far as the Lord deigns to grant — which could be finished in these seven or eight days, the Epistle of blessed John occurred to me, so that, since we have a little interrupted his Gospel, by treating his Epistle we might not withdraw from him; especially because in that Epistle, sweet enough to all who have a sound palate of the heart, where the bread of God has savor, and memorable enough in the holy Church of God, charity above all is commended. This interruption seems to have happened after tractate 12; and, the Epistle being expounded, the exposition of the Gospel was resumed by tractate 13, whose beginning sufficiently intimates that the tractates on the Gospel had been interrupted for some time. For the rest, the editors note that that little preface which is prefixed to the tractates on the Gospel is not Augustine's.

[628] While Augustine was occupied with these cares, he was pressed with new questions by an illustrious and pious man, Dardanus, he answers the questions of Dardanus, whom Tillemont, article 272, suspects to have been prefect of the Gauls and a patrician. The Saint replied indeed rather late, but with such a letter that he himself reviews it among his books in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 29, where he has thus: On the Presence of God I wrote a book, where our purpose is especially watchful against the Pelagian heresy, not expressly named; but in it there is also a laborious and subtle disputation concerning the presence of that nature which we call the true and highest God, and concerning His temple. This book begins thus: I confess, most beloved brother Dardanus. The questions there discussed the reader may see in the letter itself, which is 57: but it will be useful to exhibit here the beginning and the end, because they pertain more to our purpose: I confess, he says, most beloved brother Dardanus, more illustrious to me in the charity of Christ than in the dignity of this world, that I have answered your letter later than I ought. Of which matter I should not wish you to seek the causes, lest you bear me more grievously as I excuse myself at length, than you endured me writing back too late. Since therefore I would rather you easily pardoned my offense than judged concerning my defense, whatever those causes were, believe that there could have been with me no contempt of you. Nay rather, I should have written back most speedily, if I had despised you.

[629] Nor now, because I have at length at some time written back, have I therefore at least at some time contrived anything worthy of you as a reader, and which I could deservedly entitle with your name: in which reply the Saint's wonderful modesty shines forth. but I have preferred now to write back somehow, rather than to endure that this summer should pass with me a debtor of this office. Nor did your dignity terrify me and make me hesitate, since your humanity is more pleasing than that is a cause of misgiving. But whence I love you the more, thence I find it more difficult whence I may suffice for so great an avidity of your religious love. To this was added that, besides the flame of mutual charity by which it comes about that we love even those whom we have never seen, while we believe that they have what we love — wherein you have surely forestalled me and made me fear that your opinion and expectation of me should be deceived: besides this therefore, you have demanded of me in your letter such questions as, if they were proposed by anyone whatever, would make no small business even for my leisure, which is lacking to me. But since they are proposed by you, for whom, as one searching deep things, the surface of their solution is by no means enough — and are proposed to one most fully occupied and hedged about and bound by the masses of other cares: it belongs to your prudence and benevolence to consider how kindly I ought to have you, either because I have not answered for a long time, or if even now I shall not answer according to the greatness of your intent. To these the most modest Prelate subjoins his discussion of the questions proposed, and at length with the same charity and modesty thus concludes the letter: But since it delights me to speak with you, I know not whether I have kept the measure of a sufficient discourse, as though I were making up for a long silence by loquacity. But because by the religion and benevolence with which you have forestalled me you are so engrafted in my heart that I may converse with you as with a true friend, whatever in the work of our pen has been usefully elaborated

you recognize to be, give thanks to God. But if you perceive any faults of mine, pardon them as a dearest friend, wishing me a medicine with the same sincerity of love with which you also grant pardon.

§ XLVII. The Saint's journey to Cæsarea of Mauritania, and his deeds there: the letters to Optatus, Mercator, and Hesychius: he is present at the council of Carthage.

The Saint sets out for Cæsarea of Mauritania, Possidius in the Life below, number 28, narrates that St. Augustine came with other bishops to Cæsarea of Mauritania at the command of the supreme Pontiff, and that there Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists, was met by him and rendered tongue-tied. That journey happened in the year 418, as is established from the words of Augustine presently to be given. Cuper touched on those deeds at number 467: but it will be worth the trouble if we set forth more fully so celebrated a matter, and join together in this place the Saint's deeds at Cæsarea. Augustine himself mentions this journey of his in Letter 157 of the Plantin edition, and in another letter which the Benedictines first published and made 193. From this latter it is clear that the Saint had first been at Carthage, where he says he received the letter of Mercator, adding the following: But when we departed thence, we went on as far as Mauritania Cæsariensis, whither ecclesiastical necessity drew us, through all which lands, since the various things which were thrust upon our senses snatched our attention hither and thither, &c. But in the former he says that he was at Cæsarea, whither, he says, the ecclesiastical necessity enjoined upon us by the venerable Pope Zosimus, Bishop of the apostolic See, had drawn us. What that necessity was, or what the holy Prelate did in the rest of Mauritania, is not established.

[631] where he meets Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists, But his deeds at Cæsarea Augustine himself sets forth in tome 7, page 250, in the book On the Proceedings with Emeritus, which he begins in this manner: Under the most glorious emperors Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth being consuls, on the twelfth of the Kalends of October, at Cæsarea in the greater church, when Deuterius, metropolitan bishop of Cæsarea, together with Alypius of Tagaste, Augustine of Hippo, Possidius of Calama, Rusticus of Cartenna, Palladius of Tigaba, and the other bishops had come forward into the seat, with presbyters and deacons present, and the whole clergy, and a most crowded people, and Emeritus, bishop of the party of Donatus, was also present, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic church, said: Dearest brethren, you who from the beginning have been Catholics, and whoever have come to the Catholic Church from the error of the Donatists, and have known the peace of this holy Catholic Church and held it with a truthful heart, and you who still perhaps doubt about the truth of Catholic unity, hear us solicitous with pure love for you. When our brother Emeritus, still a bishop of the Donatists, came to this city the day before yesterday, it was suddenly reported to us that he was present. And since with a charity which God sees we desired his presence, we flew at once to see him, and found him standing in the street. A mutual greeting being made, we suggested that it was hard and unseemly for him to remain in the street, and that he should come with us to the church. And he consented to us without any refusal, whereupon we thought that he would so not refuse Catholic communion, just as he either offered a spontaneous coming, or in no way hesitated to come to the church. But while he delayed rather long in heretical perversity, though within the Catholic church, I addressed your love, as you deign to remember. I said many things which you heard, and which without doubt, so far as you can, you also remember. Many things about peace, many about charity, many about the unity of the holy Catholic Church, which God promised and furnished. In which discourse of mine I both addressed you and exhorted him, and, so far as the bowels of charity could avail in me, in that discourse of mine I travailed for all who are placed in peril of their soul, and desired to bring them forth to the Lord.

[632] He reviews more things said to the bystanders, and then adds whom, keeping silence before the people, in what manner he turned to Emeritus, in these words: But now he is present; let him now deign to tell us why he came. Brother Emeritus, you are present, you took part in the Conferences; if you were conquered, why have you come? But if you do not think yourself conquered, speak, whence you may seem to yourself to be conqueror? For then you were conquered, if you were conquered by truth. But if you seem to have been conquered by power, and have conquered by truth, there is not here the power by which you seem to have been conquered. Let your fellow-citizens hear whence you presume yourself to be Victor. But if you know that truth was victorious against you, why do you still reject unity? Emeritus, bishop of the party of Donatus, said: The records show whether I was conquered or conquered; whether I was conquered by truth, or oppressed by power. Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: Why then have you come? Emeritus, bishop of the party of Donatus, said: That I might say this which you ask. Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: I ask why you have come; I should not ask this, if you had not come. Emeritus, bishop of the party of Donatus, said to the notary who was taking it down: Do so. And when he kept silence, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: If therefore you have kept silence under the truth, you have not come without cause, save that you wished to deceive these people. And when he kept silence for a long time, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: You see, brethren, that he is long silent; I urge that you wish him to recover his senses; I beseech you not to follow him as he perishes.

[633] After these things he discusses many matters concerning the Conference of Carthage, many concerning the Maximianists, he addresses with a great affection of charity, who had been divided by schism from the other Donatists, and at last concludes with words which altogether demonstrate the Man's Apostolic zeal, and which therefore I judge should be exhibited to the reader: Therefore we sweat, he says, therefore we labor, therefore among their arms and the bloody furies of the Circumcellions we have been endangered, and still bear with their remnants by whatever patience God has granted, while the tree seeks its branch [] [], while the flock from the sheepfold of Christ seeks the lost sheep. If we are endowed with a shepherd's bowels, we must squeeze ourselves through hedges and thorns. With torn limbs let us seek the sheep, and carry it back with gladness to the Shepherd and Prince of all. We have said many things even when wearied, and yet our brother, on whose account we say these things to you, and to whom we say them alike, and for whom we do so much, still stands obstinate. A cruel fortitude thinks itself constant. Let him not yet glory in a vain and false fortitude. Let him hear the Apostle saying: "Strength is perfected in weakness." Let us pray for him: whence do we know what God wills? "Many are the thoughts," as it is written, "in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the Lord abides for ever."

[634] yet he does not convert him, So great a fervor of the Saint and so great a skill was useless for Emeritus; but it profited his seduced flock to the utmost, as Possidius testifies. Augustine also treats of this deed in the book Against Gaudentius the Donatist, chapter 14, where he explains more clearly certain circumstances of the matter. Receive his words: We must speak of Emeritus of Cæsarea, of whom you feared to speak. A false report indeed was bruited about him, that he became a Catholic; but as you heard this, so you could know all that was done. Why then did you wish to keep silence about the praises of your fellow-bishop, whose name was cast up to you as an example? Surely if he did anything worthy of praise, at so great a juncture it ought not to have been kept silent by you. But because you do not wish us to believe that you could have envied his praises, why then did you keep silence, save because you feared to blush for him? Emeritus therefore came to Cæsarea, while we were placed and present there. But he came not seized by anyone's cunning, not brought by another's power, but stirred by his own will; he wished to see us. We saw him, we came together to the Catholic Church, a very great multitude was present, he could say nothing for his own or your defense, he was unwilling to communicate, being put off he persevered, being convicted he fell dumb, unharmed he departed. What could have been done gentler for our meekness, what more unconquerable for Catholic truth, what more wholesome for your correction, if you are wise?

[635] but confounds him: For since he had come to us of his own accord, unless to say something for you against us, surely he would have said it, if he had found anything to say. For whatever he had prepared to say when he came, by the help of the Lord's mercy were refuted by our forestalling before they were brought forth by his circumvention. And certainly, if you think that he could have answered but was unwilling, read what was transacted with him, and answer yourself. If Emeritus had passed over into Catholic peace, you would say that he had not consented to the light of truth by divine mercy, but had yielded by human weakness to the weight of persecution. If finally he had been brought unwilling as a captive, you would boast at your pleasure that he had kept silence not from poverty of answering, but by a design of escaping. But now, since he came of his own accord, surely, when he kept silence, it was not his tongue but his cause that failed. But that he was unwilling to pass over into Catholic unity, confusion made a proud soul most obstinate: but this, as much as it availed for his own destruction and punishment, so much availed for the confirmation and salvation of others. For if they saw Emeritus communicating with us, they would suspect the man of fearing. But when they saw him both remaining in the party of Donatus and yet keeping silence against the Catholic Church, it appeared to them the more that by his silence he was condemning his own people. Or was that Emeritus, when he stood with a sound and free voice and mouth, not a fit witness for your cause against us — that Emeritus, I say, both an enemy and dumb?

[636] At the same time the Saint abolished a most evil custom, or rather took care that it should be abolished, when by a fervid discourse he induced the people to break it off. The matter he himself narrates in book 4 On Christian Doctrine, chapter 24, from which I transfer his words hither: at the same time he takes care that a most evil custom be abolished. Finally, when at Cæsarea of Mauritania I was dissuading the people from a civil — or rather more than civil — fight, which they called the CATERVA: for not only fellow-citizens, but even kinsmen and brothers, and finally parents and sons, divided into two parties, fought each other solemnly with stones for several days on end at a fixed time of the year, and each killed whomever he could: I dealt with it indeed grandly, so far as I availed, to tear away and drive out by speaking so cruel and inveterate an evil from their hearts and manners: yet I did not think that I had accomplished anything when I heard them acclaiming, but when I saw them weeping. For by their acclamations they showed that they were taught and delighted, but by their tears that they were bent. Which when I perceived, I believed that that monstrous custom, handed down from their fathers and grandfathers and far back from their ancestors, which beset — or rather possessed — their breasts as an enemy, was vanquished, before they showed it by the deed itself. And presently, the discourse being finished, I turned their hearts and mouths to giving thanks to God. And behold, it is now nearly eight years or more, by Christ's favor, since nothing of the kind has been attempted there.

[637] Augustine, returned to Hippo, neither was nor could be idle, because of the business that had arisen through his absence. Returned, he writes various letters: First of all he wrote to Optatus the bishop the good long Letter 157 On the Origin of Souls. He replied

to Mercator, to two letters, by Letter 193 of the Benedictines. Of both these letters we made mention above, and that both were written at this time we gather from the words about the journey to Cæsarea already related. There shines forth again in these letters the Saint's wonderful modesty and charity. At the end of the former, after the question has been diligently discussed, he speaks thus: This, as I could, I have answered to the letter of your holiness — not indeed addressed to me, but nevertheless to our dearest friends — not with the skill you desired, but with a solicitous love. If you receive it gratefully, and preserve, with the peace of the Church, both a brotherly and useful admonition — not by erring, but by prudently considering — thanks be to God. But if you wonder that I do not yet know these things, or even do not wonder, and do not refuse with mutual charity to teach me something certain about the origin of souls, that faith being safe which is most certain and most clear, thanks be to God far more abundantly. In almost the same sense he speaks to Mercator in the other letter, after he had answered his questions, saying: For I love more to learn than to teach… That we may learn, the sweetness of truth ought to invite us; but that we may teach, the necessity of charity ought to compel us. For the rest, this is that Marius Mercator, some of whose little Works have lately been published, concerning whom Tillemont says more in article 290, who proves in article 291 that the Saint at that time wrote to Cælestinus and to Sixtus, afterwards Roman Pontiffs.

[638] In the following year 419 the Saint took part in the sixth council of Carthage, he is present at the council of Carthage: he answers Hesychius. at which bishops from all Africa were present with the legates of the supreme Pontiff. The acts of this council Labbe gives in tome 2, and various writers who have treated of it may be consulted. Further, since all the business of this council could not be finished quickly enough, lest all the bishops should be compelled to be away from their churches, three were chosen from each province to carry through the rest. Among these also was St. Augustine, as may be seen in the praised Labbe, column [ ]. At almost the same time the holy Doctor wrote Letter 80 to Hesychius, bishop of Salona in Dalmatia, as the Benedictines note on this very letter, there 197. Hesychius had written to the Saint in Letter 79 that the last day of judgment, which he thought was not far off, must be inquired into. Augustine therefore discusses the passages of holy Scripture which record the last day, and teaches that that must not be inquired into which the Lord willed to be hidden from us. The letter is very prolix, and could be held for a book. The time at which it was written he somehow indicates in these words: From the Nativity of the Lord there are today reckoned nearly four hundred and twenty years. He mentions this letter of his in book 20 On the City of God, chapter 5.

* i.e. the Church

* i.e. the Donatists

read non venisset*

§ XLVIII. Various writings which, besides the polemical ones against heretics, were published from about the year 419 until 424.

The Locutions of the Scriptures written, There come to be recorded in this place certain writings of the Saint composed at the same time, as he himself testifies in book 2 of the Retractations, where in chapter 54 he has thus: I made seven books on seven books of the divine Scriptures — that is, the five of Moses, and one of Joshua son of Nun, and another of Judges — noting the modes of expression of each which are less usual to our tongue, which, being little noticed, those who read seek a sense of the divine oracles, whereas it is a kind of expression; and sometimes they carve out something which does not indeed shrink from the truth, yet the author by whom this was written is not found to have meant that, but rather it appears more credible that he said this by a mode of expression. But many obscure things in the holy Scriptures grow clear when the kind of expression is known. On account of which these same kinds of expression must be learned where the meanings are plain, so that even where they lie hidden that knowledge may come to the rescue and open them to the reader's purpose. The title of this Work is: Locutions on Genesis, and so on for each book. Then, a slight correction being applied, he thus concludes: This Work begins: Locutions of the Scriptures.

[640] and the Questions, praised by Cassiodorus: In chapter 55 the Saint reviews another little Work in these words: At the same time I also wrote books of Questions on those same seven divine books, which I therefore wished so to call, because the things which are there discussed I proposed rather as to be inquired into, than resolved as things inquired. Although many more things in them seem to me to be so handled that they can not undeservedly be judged also resolved and expounded. The books of Kingdoms also I had already begun to consider in the same manner: but, not having advanced much, we turned our mind to other things which pressed more. Presently he corrects various things in this little Work, and adds: This Work begins thus: When the holy Scriptures. We have this little Work in tome 4 of the Works, but the preceding one in tome 3. Cassiodorus in On the Institution, chapter 1, praises both little Works, writing thus: The Questions also, which in the sacred volumes could be covered over with steep difficulty, he set forth in seven books, most necessary and with syllogistic proof, that best Master and man keen in genius striving that what is agreed to have been granted for the salvation of souls should by no means be left undiscussed through deadly negligence. He wrote also seven other marvelous books On the Modes of Expression, where he set forth both the figures of secular letters, and many other modes of expression proper to divine Scripture — that is, such as common usage would not have; considering lest, by the novelty of the constructions found, the mind of the reader should be distressed by some stumbling-blocks []. And at the same time that this distinguished Master might show that the general modes of expression, that is, the figures of the grammarians and rhetoricians, had proceeded from thence, and that nevertheless something had been left peculiarly to them which no one of the secular teachers has yet had strength to imitate.*

[641] Augustine in chapter 56 subjoins another Work to the preceding, four books against Victor, writing thus: At the same time a certain Vincentius Victor in Mauritania Cæsariensis found with a certain Spanish presbyter Peter a little Work of mine, where in a certain place, concerning the origin of the souls of individual men — whether they are propagated from that one of the first man, and thereafter from parents, or whether, as to that one man, they are given singly to individuals without any propagation — I confessed that I did not know; but nevertheless that I knew that the soul is not a body but a spirit. And against these things of mine he wrote to the same Peter two books, which Renatus the monk sent me from Cæsarea. Which, when I had read them, I returned four books by way of my reply. One to Renatus the monk, another to Peter the presbyter, and two to the same Victor. But that to Peter, although it has the length of a book, is nevertheless a letter, which I was unwilling to separate from the other three. But in all of these, in which many necessary things are discussed, I defended my hesitation concerning the origin of the souls which are given to individual men, and showed many errors and depravities of his presumption. Whom nevertheless, as a young man not to be over-hastily detested but still to be taught, I handled with all the gentleness I could, and received from him a reply of his correction. Of this work the book to Renatus begins thus: Your sincerity toward us. But that to Peter thus: To the most beloved lord, brother, and fellow-presbyter Peter. But of the two last, to Vincentius Victor: the first begins thus: That I thought I must write to you. But the second thus: Receive now at last concerning myself. These four books are extant in tome 7 of the Works from page 481.

[642] What sort of man that Vincentius Victor was, the Saint declares in various places. a man eloquent rather than learned, In the letter to Peter, or book 2, chapter 1, he speaks thus of him and his Work: There have come to me two books of Vincentius Victor, which he wrote to your holiness, our brother Renatus sending them to me — a layman indeed, but prudently and religiously solicitous for your faith and that of those whom he loves. Which, when I had read them, I saw a man flowing in speech not only to sufficiency but even to redundancy; but in the matters of which he wished to speak not yet instructed as he ought to be; which if it shall be granted him, the Lord bestowing it, he will be able to be useful to many. For he has no small faculty by which he can explain and adorn what he thinks, if first he give attention to thinking rightly. For perverse things eloquently said are very harmful, because to less learned men, by the very fact that they are eloquent, they seem also true. But how you yourself received those same books I do not know. Nevertheless, if what I have heard is true, you are said, when they were read, so to have leapt for joy that, an old man kissing the head of that young man, and a presbyter that of a layman, you gave thanks that you had learned what you did not know. Wherein indeed I do not disapprove your humility — nay rather I even praise it — that you honored your teacher, and not the man, but that truth itself which deigned to speak to you through him; if, however, you can demonstrate what of truth you received through him. And so I could wish that by your reply you would teach me what he taught you: for far be it that I should blush to learn from a presbyter, if you have not blushed to learn from a layman with a true humility to be proclaimed and imitated. That he had formerly been a Donatist, or rather a Rogatist, these words of Augustine in book 1, chapter 2, teach: For he is free of the division and error of the Donatists, or rather of the Rogatists, by which he was formerly held: if however he understands Catholic truth as he ought, so that we may truly rejoice over his conversion.

[643] whose intention he kindly interprets, But how kindly he interpreted the intention of Victor writing against him, and how fatherly he wished to treat him, the holy Doctor discloses in the cited chapter 2, writing to Renatus. The latter had transmitted the writings of Victor, for which the Saint praises him: but at the same time he gently reproves him for having feared offense in transmitting them. Receive his words: But I am distressed a little at this, that I am still less known to your holiness than I would wish, seeing that you thought I should take it as though you had done me an injury by making known what another did. But how far this is from my mind, see, since I do not even complain that I have suffered an injury from him. For since he thought certain things otherwise than I, ought he to have kept silence? Whence it ought to be pleasing to me that he so did not keep silence that we can even read it. He ought indeed rather to write so much to me than to another about me; but because he was unknown to me, he did not dare to thrust himself upon me in the refuting of my words. Nor did he think that I must be consulted, where it seems to him that there is no doubt at all, but that he holds a plainly known and certain opinion. But he complied with his friend, by whom he says he was compelled to write. And if he expressed anything in the course of the discussion which redounded to my reproach, I would not believe that he did it with the will of one reviling, but by the necessity of one thinking differently. For where a man's mind toward me is unknown and uncertain to me, I judge it better to think better things than to blame things unexplored. For perhaps he did it out of love for me,

knowing that what he wrote could reach me, while he does not wish me to err in those matters in which he rather does not think that he errs. And therefore I ought to hold grateful even the benevolence of him whose opinion I must necessarily disapprove: and by this, in those things in which he is not rightly wise, he seems to me still to be gently corrected, not harshly detested; especially since, as I hear, he has lately been made a Catholic, on which he is to be congratulated.

[644] and whom he treats fatherly and converts. That Augustine preserved in the books to Victor that kindness which he here proposes to use, those very books teach in many places, of which I shall bring forward one as an example. In book 3, chapter 14, where he had adduced Victor's words in which he said that he willingly wished to be instructed and was not of an obstinate judgment, he thus addresses him: Now prove, dearest one, that you did not say these things deceitfully, so that the Catholic Church may rejoice over your disposition, not only ingenious but also cautious, pious, modest — not blaze up over a contentious heretical obstinacy… "Nor be of a wicked and obstinate judgment, so as to be unwilling to be bent more quickly to the path of reason." For if you have uttered these things freely, if you did not sound them on your lips but felt them within and genuinely in your heart, in so great a good as your correction you have hated even delays. For it was too little for you to say that it belongs to a wicked and obstinate judgment to be unwilling to be bent to the path of reason, unless you added MORE QUICKLY: so that hence you might show how execrable is he who never does this good; seeing that he who does it more slowly seems to you to be blamed with so great severity that he is deservedly called of a wicked and obstinate judgment. Hear therefore yourself, and above all and most of all use the fruits of your own eloquence, that you may bend yourself more quickly to the path of reason by gravity of mind, than you had turned yourself away from it, less learnedly and too little advisedly, by the slipperiness of your age. It is too long to handle and discuss all that I wish to be amended in your books, or rather in yourself, and to render you at least a brief account of each thing to be corrected. Nor yet on that account despise yourself, so as to judge that your genius and eloquence are to be little esteemed. Nor have I found the memory of the holy Scriptures to be small in you, but your learning is less than befitted so great a disposition and labor. And so I neither wish you to grow empty by attributing more to yourself than you ought, nor again to grow cold by casting yourself down and despairing. Would that I could read your writings with you, and could show by conversation rather than by writing what things are to be amended. This business would be carried through more easily by our conversation between ourselves than by letters: which, if it had to be written, would need many volumes. But these chief points, which I have wished to comprise even in a fixed number, I urgently admonish you not to delay to correct, and to make them altogether foreign to your faith and preaching: so that, with the great faculty of disputing which you have, you may use God's gift usefully for the building up, not for the destruction, of sound and wholesome doctrine. By this kindliness the distinguished Shepherd brought the straying little sheep back into the way.

[645] In chapter 57 he thus goes on to enumerate his writings: I wrote two books On Adulterous Marriages, two books On Adulterous Marriages: so far as I could according to the Scriptures, desiring to resolve a most difficult question. Whether I have done this most clearly, I do not know: nay rather, I feel that I have not attained the perfection of this matter, although I have opened many of its folds — which anyone who reads intelligently will be able to judge. Of this Work the first book begins thus: The first question is, brother. But the second thus: To those things which you had written to me. A certain Pollentius had furnished the occasion for this little Work by consulting the Saint, as may be seen in tome 6 of the Works, page 350. The same man, by adding certain other things to his first question, impelled the Saint to write the second book. For the holy Doctor thus begins this on page 357: To those things which you had written to me, religious brother Pollentius, I had already written back no small volume concerning those who, while their spouses are living, are joined to others. Which when it had become known to your love, you added some things to your little book, desiring me to answer these also. But when I was disposing myself to do this by adding also to my own, so that there should be one book of my reply, suddenly that which I had finished was published, our brethren demanding it first, and not knowing that something was still to be added. Hence it came about that I was compelled to answer in another separate little Work to the things which you added.

[646] After certain other Works written against various heretics, the Enchiridion, Augustine in chapter 63 thus continues: I wrote also a book On Faith, Hope, and Charity, when he to whom it was written had demanded of me that he might have some little Work of mine which should not depart from his hands: which kind the Greeks call Enchiridion. Wherein I seem to myself to have comprised diligently enough how God is to be worshipped, which the divine Scripture defines to be truly the wisdom of man. This book begins thus: It cannot be said. The book On Faith, Hope, and Charity, under the title Enchiridion, as it is now everywhere called, is extant in tome 3 of the Works from page 66. Further, this Enchiridion or Manual was certainly not written before the year 421, since in chapter 87 St. Jerome is cited as deceased. Laurentius, for whose sake this book was composed, was a man not only illustrious but also learned, as the Saint himself testifies in chapter 1. In the book to Dulcitius presently to be mentioned, chapter 1, citing the Enchiridion, he calls Laurentius the brother of Dulcitius.

[647] On the Sin against the Holy Spirit, Further, in chapter 83 of the Enchiridion, treating of the sin against the Holy Spirit, he says: On which difficult question I have disputed most clearly, so far as I could, in a certain little book written for this alone. Possidius too in chapter 10 of the Indiculus notes a tractate, On the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. There seems to be indicated Sermon XI On the Words of the Lord, which is very prolix, and diligently composed concerning the sin against the Holy Spirit. Certainly the Louvain editors prefix the cited words of Augustine to the said Sermon, as pertaining to it. The Benedictines agree in their notes on this Sermon, which with them is 71. Perhaps the Saint afterwards made a little book out of a sermon first delivered to the people: for the sermon is too long to seem to have been wholly delivered in discourse at one time.

[648] On the Care to be had for the Dead, There follow in the Retractations two other little Works to be recorded, drawn up not many years after the preceding. Concerning the former, in chapter 64 he has thus: I wrote the book On the Care to be had for the Dead, when I had been asked by letter whether it profits anyone after death that his body be buried near the memorial of some Saint. This book begins thus: For a long time to your holiness, venerable fellow-bishop Paulinus. It is extant in tome 4, addressed to St. Paulinus of Nola; and on page 294, in the conclusion, he confesses that he not only long deferred the answer to his question, but that there was also a danger lest, because of the huge mass of his business, he should altogether omit to answer: This book therefore, he says, how your venerable love has received it, I ask that I may know by your reply — which its bearer will without doubt make more welcome to you, namely our brother and fellow-presbyter Candidianus, whom, known through your letter, I received with all my heart and dismissed unwillingly. For he greatly consoled us by his presence in the charity of Christ, and — what must be confessed — by his insistence I obeyed you. For so many things distend my heart that, unless he had been assiduously reminding me not to be allowed to forget, surely my reply would have been lacking to your question.

[649] On the Eight Questions of Dulcitius. The other he records in chapter 65 thus: The book which I entitled On the Eight Questions of Dulcitius would not be recorded in this Work among my books, since it is put together from those things which were written by me previously in others, unless there were also found in it something of discussion interposed by us, and unless to one of those questions I had rendered a reply not from another little Work of mine, but what could then occur to me. This book begins thus: So far as it seems to me. It was published in tome 4 from page 280.

in the manuscripts, urgeretur*

§ IL. The Saint's grief over an unworthy disciple of his imprudently promoted to the episcopate, and the proceedings in his case: the marvelous healing of Paulus and Palladia, done in Augustine's presence.

The Saint's grief that to the people of Fussala, converted by his labor, The learned dispute about the year of the death of Pope Boniface I and the succession of Cælestinus: for some fix the year 423; others hold that both happened in the year 422 as it drew to a close. But it does not please me to interpose myself in this ambiguous controversy, although from that epoch there ought to be gathered the time at which St. Augustine wrote his Letter 261 to St. Cælestinus, which he thus begins: First I render congratulation to your merits, that our Lord has established you in that See without any, as we have heard, division of your people. He congratulates Cælestinus on his Pontificate, from which gather that the letter was written about the end of the year 422 or the beginning of the following, or, in the opinion of others, one year later. But let us return to Augustine, thus continuing: Then I make known to your Sanctity what our circumstances are, that you may help us not only by praying for us, but also by counseling and aiding. For, placed in great tribulation, I have directed this writing to your Beatitude. Since, wishing to profit certain members of Christ in our neighborhood, I improvidently and incautiously brought a great disaster upon them. To these the Saint subjoins the deed which created for him so great a grief, which we shall narrate chiefly from this letter: Fussala, he says, is the name of a fortified town bordering on the territory of Hippo: formerly there was never a bishop there, but together with the region adjoining it, it belonged to the parish of the church of Hippo. That land had few Catholics; the rest of the peoples, established there in a great multitude of men, the error of the Donatists wretchedly held, so that in that same town there was no Catholic at all. It was brought about, in God's mercy, that all those places clung together in the unity of the Church — through how great labors and perils of ours it is long to unfold — so that there the presbyters who were first appointed by us to gather them were stripped, beaten, maimed, blinded, killed. Whose sufferings nevertheless were not useless and barren, the security of unity there being made complete. But because the said town is separated from Hippo by forty miles, when in ruling them, and in gathering their remnants, though few, which strayed in either sex, no longer threatening but fugitive, I saw myself stretched more widely than was fitting, and did not suffice for the diligence to be applied which by most certain reasoning I perceived ought to be applied, I took care that a bishop should be ordained and established there.

[651] And that this might be done, I sought a man fit and suitable for that place, he had given Antoninus as bishop, who by episcopal judgment, who should also be instructed in the Punic tongue; and I had one ready of whom I was thinking,

a presbyter, for whose ordination I obtained by letter, asking that he should come from afar, the holy old man who then held the primacy of Numidia. And when he was already present, and the minds of all were in suspense in so great a matter, at the hour that man who seemed to me ready frustrated us by resisting in every way. But I, who surely — as the outcome taught — ought rather to have deferred than to have hurried on a perilous business, while I was unwilling that so grave and most holy an old man, wearied all the way to us, should return so far to his own place without the effect for which he had come, offered to men who were not asking for him a certain young man, Antoninus, who was then with me — brought up indeed by us in a monastery from a little age, but known by no grades and labors of the clerical office beyond the duty of reading. But those wretched men, not knowing what was to come, most obediently trusted me as I offered him. What more? It was done. He began to be their bishop. What I am to do, I am unwilling to burden your veneration with; him whom I gathered to be nourished, I am unwilling to desert; those whom I travailed with fears and griefs to gather, I am unwilling to abandon. And how I may do both I cannot find. For the matter came to so great a scandal that those men pleaded causes against him here among us who had obeyed us, as men well counseling them, about accepting his episcopate. In which causes, when the capital crimes of debaucheries — which had been objected not by those to whom he was bishop, but by certain others — could by no means be proved, and he seemed to be cleared of those things which were most invidiously bruited about, he became so pitiable both to us and to others that whatever was objected by the townsmen and the men of that region concerning his intolerable domination, his robberies, and his various oppressions and constraints, seemed to us by no means such that on this account, or on account of all of them heaped together, we thought he must be deprived of his episcopate; but that the things proved to have been taken away must be restored. Finally we so tempered our sentences that, the episcopate being safe, nevertheless those things should not be left altogether unpunished which ought not to be set forth either as to be done by that same man again and again thereafter, or as to be joined to the rest. And so we preserved his honor entire for the young man, to be corrected, but by rebuking we diminished his power — namely, that he should not any longer preside over those with whom he had so dealt that with a just grief they could by no means bear him to preside over them, and that with peril to themselves and to him they should show the impatience of their grief, perhaps about to break out into some crime. Thus far Augustine. But that this judgment was pronounced in the time of Pope Boniface, what follows sufficiently shows.

[652] he ought to have been fined a part of his diocese, Further, the penalty inflicted on Antoninus has been variously understood by various men. Christian Lupus, On Appeals, chapter 23, page 630, from Augustine's words thus infers: Antoninus therefore was not deprived of all jurisdiction, but only docked of some portion of it. He remained a true bishop, not an empty and hollow shadow of the episcopal name. And below: Not the whole diocese was withdrawn from his power, but only those places in which he had played the tyrant. All this he strives to prove from the words of St. Augustine, partly recited and partly to be recited. But Tillemont, article 315, denies that he can reconcile these things with the words of Augustine, and thinks that mere residence in the diocese was permitted to Antoninus without any jurisdiction. Tillemont ought to have proved this, not rashly asserted it, especially since Lupus had proved his own. But so far can it not be proved from the praised Letter that Antoninus was deprived of his episcopate, that nothing appears clearer than that he remained bishop in a certain part of the diocese, the other part being withdrawn from his jurisdiction. Receive the reasons briefly. He was punished, the episcopate being safe, says Augustine. How was the episcopate safe for him, if he did not remain a bishop? His honor, he says, we preserved entire for the young man. How was his honor preserved entire for him, if the episcopal jurisdiction was taken away? We diminished his power, he says. How was his power merely diminished, and not altogether taken away, if only residence in the diocese was permitted without any jurisdiction? More follows below from which the same may shine forth, since he is everywhere called a bishop, and a Catholic bishop; but I shall add only one place, from which it may at the same time be plain that Antoninus abused this milder sentence of the bishops. Hear the letter: He cries out (Antoninus): "Either I ought to have sat in my own chair, or I ought not to have been a bishop." This seems to be understood thus: Either I ought to have remained at Fussala in the cathedral church, or to have lost the whole diocese, so that the chair might seem to have been moved from Fussala to another place. The Saint answers: As though he now sits anywhere but in his own. For on this account those places were left and permitted to him in which he was bishop before, lest he should be said to have been unlawfully translated into another's chair against the statutes of the Fathers. Is it not clear that those places were permitted him for episcopal jurisdiction? For those were permitted him rather than places of another diocese, lest it should be done against the statutes of the Fathers. But it was not against the statutes of the Fathers if he had been translated to another diocese, to dwell there without jurisdiction. These places of his own diocese therefore were permitted to Antoninus, that he might be bishop there.

[653] The studious reader will be able to gather the same from the following words of Augustine, as is proved from Augustine's words. by which he refutes Antoninus, contending that either the whole diocese ought to have been taken away or the whole left: Or is anyone, he says, to be so an exactor either of severity or of leniency, that those who are not to be deprived of the honor of the episcopate should in no way have anything punished in them: or that those in whom something has seemed to be punishable should be deprived of the honor of the episcopate? Let it stand as an example — the Apostolic See itself judging, or confirming the judgments of others — that certain men for certain faults were neither despoiled of episcopal honor nor left in every way unpunished. Which things, not to seek them as most remote from our times, I shall record as recent. Let Priscus, bishop of the province of Cæsariensis, cry out: "Either the place of the primacy ought to have lain open to me as to the rest, or the episcopate ought not to have remained to me." Let another bishop of the same province, Victor, cry out, who, being left in the same penalty in which Priscus also was, is communicated with by another bishop nowhere save in his own diocese. Let him cry out, I say: "Either I ought to have communicated everywhere, or I ought not to have communicated even in my own places." Let a third bishop of the same province, Laurentius, cry out, and cry out with the very words of this man: "Either I ought to have sat in the chair to which I was ordained, or I ought not to have been a bishop." But who would find fault? — save one who attends too little, that neither must all things be left unavenged, nor all be punished in one way.

[654] These things the Saint wrote to Cælestinus, which we have adduced in this place for the sake of proof. But now it must be explained When Antoninus had dealt fraudulently with Pope Boniface through his primate, what Antoninus contrived after the bishops' judgment concerning him was set forth. That the sentence was perhaps milder than was fitting, and that Antoninus abused that clemency, Augustine intimates in these words: But in those manifold records in which our judgment concerning him is contained, I should rather have to fear lest we should seem to you to have judged less severely than was fitting, did I not know that you are so inclined to mercy that you would think that not only we, because we spared him, but he himself also must be spared. But what was done by us either kindly or leniently he attempts to turn into a prescription and to usurp: by contending that the whole diocese ought to have been left to him or the whole taken away, as we have already seen. He did this first with his primate, and through him with Pope Boniface: but secretly, and in such a way that at first he seemed to consent to the bishops' judgment. For so Augustine above: See… how he consented to our judgment to such a degree, being deprived of communion unless all things were first restored to the people of Fussala, that afterwards, as though the matter were settled, the things having been valued [], he laid aside the coins so that communion might be restored to him: with how crafty a persuasion he induced the holy old man our primate, a most grave man, to believe him in everything, whom he might commend to the venerable Pope Boniface as in every way blameless; and the rest, which what need is there for me to recall, since the said venerable old man has reported everything to your sanctity.*

[655] [and the Pontiff had ordered him to be restored, if what was reported were true; Antoninus tried to restore himself by force:] Boniface, having received Antoninus's clearing and the primate's commendation, ordered him to be restored, if everything had been faithfully set forth. This the words of Augustine below intimate, where he has thus: Because therefore the most blessed Pope Boniface with pastoral and vigilant caution set down in his letter, speaking of the bishop Antoninus, and said: "If he has faithfully indicated to us the order of things." But Antoninus, having received Boniface's letter, as though he had been altogether absolved, tried to subject the whole diocese to himself, as Augustine continuing indicates in these words: Receive now what things have been done after the letter of that man of holy memory (Boniface) was read in Africa, and come to the help of men asking your aid in the mercy of Christ much more eagerly than he from whose disquiet they desire to be freed. For judgments and public powers and military assaults, as though about to execute the sentence of the apostolic See, either he himself or most frequent rumors threaten them, so that wretched Catholic Christian men dread graver things from a Catholic bishop than, when they were heretics, they dreaded from the laws of Catholic emperors.

[656] but the African bishops resist him, and set forth the case to Cælestinus, These contrivances were resisted, along with Augustine, by other bishops, into whose party the primate had already returned, who doubtless saw that he had been deceived by Antoninus, as is gathered from the words already cited at number 654: since the said venerable old man has reported everything to your sanctity. All these judged that Antoninus had not been absolved by Boniface, because of the restriction added by him: if he has faithfully indicated to us the order of things. But in order to show that not everything had been faithfully set forth by Antoninus, they sent through the primate to Cælestinus all the records, to which Augustine added this letter of his, in which he says above: Labor together with us, I beseech you, lord venerable in piety, most blessed and holy Pope, to be venerated with due charity, and command that all the things which have been sent be recited to you. Thus far we have set forth the case. Now hear what ardent prayers the Saint adds at the end of the letter, and with how great grief he was pressed, that he had imprudently given occasion for these troubles.

[657] to whom also Augustine writes a most ardent letter, Do not suffer these things to be done, he says, I beseech you by the Blood of Christ, by the memory of the apostle Peter, who admonished those set over Christian peoples not to lord it violently among their brethren. I commend to the kindness of your holiness's charity both the Catholic people of Fussala, my sons in Christ, and Antoninus the bishop, my son in Christ, because I love both. Nor am I angry with the people of Fussala, because they bring a just complaint about me to your ears — that I inflicted upon them a man not yet proved to me, not yet even firm in age, by whom they should be so afflicted. Nor do I wish harm to this man, to whose depraved desire I the more oppose myself the more sincere the charity I have toward him. Let both deserve your mercy: those, that they may not suffer evils; he, that he may not do them: those, that they may not hate

the Catholic [] [], if they be not helped by Catholic bishops, and most of all by the Apostolic See itself, against a Catholic bishop: but he, that he may not bind himself with so great a crime as, in striving to make his own those who are unwilling, to make them strangers to Christ. As for me indeed — which must be confessed to your blessedness — in this peril of both parties so great a fear and sorrow torments me that I think of withdrawing from the office of bearing the episcopate, if I shall see the Church of God laid waste through him for whose episcopate I imprudently gave my vote, and — which God Himself avert — perish along with the destruction of him who lays it waste.

[658] For recollecting what the Apostle says, "If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord," [preferring to desert his own episcopate rather than that Antoninus should be restored.] I will judge myself, that He may spare me who is to judge the living and the dead. But if you shall both refresh from deadly fear and sadness the members of Christ which are in that region, and shall have consoled my old age by this justice of mercy, He will repay you both in the present and in the future life, who through you comes to our aid in this tribulation, and who established you in that See. The most eminent Baronius at the year 424, where he had narrated these things, rightly adds the following at number 9: That Cælestinus, the Roman Pontiff, granted Augustine's request, we take a certain conjecture from this, that the same Cælestinus greatly esteemed Augustine himself, and celebrated him with wondrous praises… For it is not fitting to believe that Cælestinus, by refusing, cast into a more vehement sorrow Augustine asking and more earnestly seeking these things, whom it is certain that he loved and held in great honor. And moreover, since it is established that after these things Augustine continued to preside as bishop over his church of Hippo, this is an equally manifest indication that Cælestinus wrote back in that same case according to his mind. The same our Henschen observes in the Acts of St. Cælestinus, tome 1 of April, page 543.

[659] The Saint in book 22 On the City, chapter 8, narrates a story at once marvelous and horrible concerning seven brothers and three sisters, Children are grievously punished by God through their mother's curse: born of no ignoble family at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, who by their mother's imprecation had been grievously punished by God, and of whom two were healed at Hippo at the relics of St. Stephen, in Augustine's presence. Their healing happened at the Paschal season, in the year 425, as Tillemont thinks in article 322. The same deed is related in the Sermons on Various Matters, where in sermon 31 is recited the little book of Paulus, the first to be healed, in which he sets forth at Augustine's bidding the cause of the evil, and why he came to Hippo with his sister Palladia. Receive his words: While we were still dwelling in our native place, Cæsarea of Cappadocia, our brother, the elder by birth, so afflicted our common mother with grievous and intolerable injuries that he did not hesitate even to lay hands on her. Which we all, the sons gathered together alike, patiently bore, so that we did not say even a word to our brother on our mother's behalf as to why he did this. But she, stirred by the goads of a woman's grief, resolved to punish her injurious son by cursing him. And when after cockcrow she was hastening to the font of holy baptism to imprecate the wrath of God upon her said son, then there met her I know not what demon in the likeness, as is understood, of our uncle, and he first asked of her whither she was going. To whom she answered that she was going to curse her son because of an intolerable insult. But then that enemy, since he could easily find a place in the heart of a raging woman, persuaded her to curse them all. But she, inflamed by his viperous counsels, prostrated herself and seized the sacred font, and with hair loosed and breasts bared demanded this above all from God: that, exiles from our native land and wandering through foreign lands, we should terrify the whole race of men by our example. Presently an effectual vengeance follows the mother's prayers: and at once so great a trembling of the limbs seized that same brother of ours, greater in age and in fault, as your holiness saw in me until three days ago. And, the order being kept in which we had been born, within one year the same penalty seized us all. But the mother, seeing that her curses had come to so great an effect, could not longer bear the consciousness of her impiety and the reproach of men: but, binding her throat with a noose, closed her sorrowful life with a more baleful end. All of us therefore, going forth and not bearing our reproach and leaving our common native land, were scattered here and there through various places.

[660] [from which a brother and sister, admonished by seeing Augustine, come to Hippo: where first the brother,] But of all us ten brothers, he who in the order of birth follows next after the first deserved health at the memorial of the glorious martyr Laurentius, which was lately set up at Ravenna, as we have heard. But I, who am in the order of birth the sixth of them, with this my sister who follows me in age, wherever in the world, wherever on earth I had learned that there were holy places in which God worked miracles, was making my journey with a great love of the health I desired. But — to keep silence about the other most celebrated places of the Saints — I came also by this same circuit to Ancona, a city of Italy, where through the most glorious martyr Stephen the Lord works many miracles. But therefore I could not be cured elsewhere, because I was being kept for this place by divine predestination. Nor did I pass over Uzalis, a city of Africa, where the blessed martyr Stephen is proclaimed frequently to work great things. Nevertheless three months ago, that is, on the day of the Kalends of June, both I and my sister, who is here with me, being still held by the same affliction, were admonished by an evident vision. For someone bright in appearance and venerable with white hair said to me that within the third month the health I desired would be at hand for me. But to my sister in a vision your holiness appeared in that form in which we see you present: by which it was signified to us that we ought to come to this place. For I too afterwards often saw your blessedness through other cities on the journey by which we were coming, altogether such as I now behold. Admonished therefore by an evident divine authority, we came to this city about fifteen days ago. Concerning that apparition the Saint himself speaks most modestly in the following sermon 32, in this manner: For what are we, that I appeared to these people without knowing it? For they saw me, and I did not know it; and they were admonished to come to this city. Who am I? I am one man out of many, not out of the great.

[661] and then the sister also, are healed at the relics of St. Stephen. Receive now what Paulus subjoins to the preceding concerning his own healing: Of my affliction, he says, either your eyes are witnesses, or my pitiable sister, who for the instruction of all offers an example of our common evil; so that those who see in her what sort of man I was may recognize in me how much the Lord has wrought through His Holy Spirit. I prayed daily with great tears in the place where the memorial of the most glorious martyr Stephen is. But on the Lord's day of Easter, as others also who were present had seen, while praying with great weeping I held the railings, I suddenly fell. But, being alienated from my senses, where I was I do not know. After a little while I rose up, and did not find that trembling in my body. Augustine adds, in book 22 On the City, chapter 8: Who then of those who beheld held back from the praises of God? The church was everywhere filled with the voices of those crying out and giving thanks. Thence men ran to me, where I was sitting, about now to come forth: one after another rushed in, each later one announcing as new what the earlier had said. And while I rejoiced and gave thanks to God within myself, he himself also enters with many, is bowed at my knees, is raised up to my kiss. After certain things still done in the church, the Saint goes on to relate the rest, together with the healing of Palladia, in these words: The man dined with us, and diligently laid before us the whole history of his own and his mother's and his brothers' calamity. And so on the following day, after the discourse was rendered, I promised that the little book of his narration should be recited to the people on the next day. And when this was done on the third day from the Lord's day of Easter, on the steps of the apse, in which I was speaking from a higher place, I made both the brother and sister stand while their little book was being read. The whole people, of both sexes, gazed at the one standing without unseemly motion, the other trembling in all her limbs. And those who had not seen him beheld in his sister what of divine mercy had been done in him. For they saw what in him was to be rejoiced over, what for her was to be prayed for. Meanwhile, their little book being recited, I bade them go away from the sight of the people: and I had begun to discourse somewhat more diligently about the whole case, when behold, while I was discoursing, other voices of new thanksgiving are heard from the martyr's memorial. Those who were hearing me turned thither, and began to run together. For she, when she came down from the steps on which she had stood, had gone on to pray to the holy martyr. Who, as soon as she touched the railings, likewise collapsed as into sleep, and rose up healed. While therefore we were asking what had happened, whence that glad noise had arisen, they entered with her into the basilica where we were, bringing her healed from the martyr's place. Then indeed so great a shout of wonder arose from both sexes that the voice, continued with tears, seemed unable to be ended. She was led to that place where a little before she had stood trembling. They exulted that she was made like her brother, for whom they had grieved that she remained unlike. And they perceived that their prayers, not yet poured forth for her, yet their forerunning will, had been so quickly heard. Voices exulted in the praise of God, without words, with as great a sound as our ears could scarcely bear. Thus far Augustine. Parents as well as children have from this deed what they may learn; nor will it be useless to heretics who hate relics, if only they be willing to open their eyes that they may see.

* so the Benedictine edition

al., more correctly, Catholicam*

§ L. A successor to the See of Hippo asked for by Augustine and obtained: Leporius retracts his errors by the help of the same Saint.

Augustine, now an old man In the year 426 St. Augustine, now more than seventy years old, when he had seen various tumults in the elections of bishops, and there had a little before been a peril of disturbances after the death of Severus, bishop of Milevis, because he had chosen a successor for himself before the clerics but not before the whole people, wished to avoid all these perils by asking for a successor for himself before the clergy and people assembled. The whole matter is narrated in the Acts drawn up on that occasion, which are exhibited among Augustine's letters as Letter 110. Receive therefore the Acts themselves, which are compendious enough: In the consulship of the most glorious Theodosius for the twelfth time and Valentinian Augustus for the second, on the sixth of the Kalends of October, when Augustine the bishop, together with his fellow-bishops Religianus and Martinianus, had taken his seat in the church of peace of the districts of Hippo, in the presence of the presbyters Saturninus, Leporius, Barnabas, Fortunatianus, Rusticus, Lazarus, and Eradius, with the clergy standing by and a crowded people,

Augustine the bishop said: What I promised yesterday to your charity, on account of which I wished you to assemble more numerously — and I see that you have assembled more numerously — must be done, all delay being set aside. For if I wished to speak of something else, you, being in suspense about that, would hear less. We are all mortals in this life, and the last day of this life is always uncertain to every man: nevertheless in infancy boyhood is hoped for; and in boyhood youth is hoped for; and in youth young manhood is hoped for; and in young manhood maturity is hoped for; and in maturity old age is hoped for: whether it comes about is uncertain; yet there is something to be hoped for. But old age has no other age which it may hope for: for it is uncertain how long old age itself may last for a man; yet this is certain, that no age remains which could succeed old age: because God willed it, I came to this city with the vigor of my age, and yet I was young and have grown old.

[663] he asks a successor for himself, I know that after the deaths of bishops churches are wont to be disturbed by ambitious or contentious men, and, as I have often experienced and grieved, I ought, so far as concerns me, to provide for this city that it may not happen. As your charity knows, I was lately in the church of Milevis: for the brethren, and especially the servants of God who are there, had asked me to come, because after the death of my brother and fellow-bishop Severus, of blessed memory, some disturbance of the people was feared there. I came, and as the Lord willed He helped us in His mercy, that they should with peace receive the bishop whom their bishop, while living, had designated. For when this had become known to them, they gladly embraced the will of their preceding and departing bishop. Yet something had been done less well, whence some were saddened, because brother Severus believed that it could suffice to designate his successor before the clerics, and did not speak of it to the people: and there was thence some sadness of certain persons. What more? It pleased God: the sadness was put to flight, joy succeeded. There was ordained the bishop whom the preceding bishop had designated. Therefore, lest anyone should have a complaint about me, I bring my will, which I believe to be God's, to the knowledge of you all: I wish the presbyter Eradius as my successor. It was acclaimed by the people: Thanks be to God, praises to Christ; it was said twenty-three times. Hear, O Christ; life to Augustine; it was said sixteen times. You as father, you as bishop; it was said eight times.

[664] and obtains him, but leaves him a presbyter; And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop said: There is no need for me to say anything about his praises; I favor his wisdom, and I spare his modesty: it suffices that you know him; and I say that I wish this which I know you wish: and if I had not known it before, I should prove it today. This therefore I wish: this I ask of the Lord our God, now even in a cold age, with fervent prayers: this I exhort, admonish, ask, that you pray with me, that, the minds of all being gathered and melted together in the peace of Christ, God may confirm what He has wrought in us. May He who sent him to me preserve him; preserve him safe, preserve him without reproach, that he who makes the joy of the living may fill the place of the dying. By the notaries of the church, as you perceive, what we say is taken down, what you say is taken down, and both my discourse and your acclamations do not fall to the ground. To speak more plainly, we are now drawing up ecclesiastical records. For thus I wish this to be confirmed, so far as concerns men. It was acclaimed by the people thirty-six times: Thanks be to God, praises to Christ. Hear, O Christ; life to Augustine, it was said thirteen times. You as father, you as bishop, it was said eight times. He is worthy and just; it was said twenty times. Well deserving, well worthy, it was said five times. And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop said: I, as I was saying, wish my will and your will to be confirmed by ecclesiastical records, so far as concerns men: but as regards the hidden will of the Almighty, let us all (as I have said) pray that God may confirm what He has wrought in us. It was acclaimed by the people: We give thanks to your judgment; it was said sixteen times. Let it be, let it be; it was said twelve times. You as father, Eradius as bishop; it was said six times. And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop said: I know what you also know; but I do not wish that to be done concerning him which was done concerning me: but what was done, many of you know: those alone do not know it who at that time either were not yet born, or had not yet the age for knowing. While my father and bishop of blessed memory, the old man Valerius, was still placed in the body, I was ordained bishop and sat with him — which I did not know had been forbidden by the council of Nicæa, nor did he himself know it. What therefore was reproved in me, I do not wish to be reproved in my son. It was acclaimed by the people: Thanks be to God, praises to Christ; it was said thirteen times. And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop says: He will be a presbyter, as he is, and when God shall have willed it, a future bishop.

[665] But plainly I am now about to do, with the mercy of Christ helping, what hitherto I have not done. he orders controversies to be referred to him, You know what some years ago I wished to do, and you did not permit. It pleased me and you, because of the care of the Scriptures which my brethren and fathers the bishops deigned to impose upon me in two councils, of Numidia and of Carthage, that for five days no one should be troublesome to me. Records were drawn up, it was resolved, you acclaimed it. Your resolve and your acclamation are recited. For a short time it was observed toward me, and afterwards it was violently broken in upon, and I am not permitted to be free for that which I wish. Before noon and after noon I am held by the occupations of men. I beseech you and bind you by Christ, that you suffer me to pour back the burdens of my occupations upon this young man, this presbyter Eradius, whom today in the name of Christ I designate bishop, my successor. It was acclaimed by the people: We give thanks to your judgment; it was said twenty-six times. And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop said: I give thanks for your charity and benevolence before the Lord our God — nay rather, thanks to God for it. Therefore, brethren, whatever it is that was brought to me, let it be brought to him: where he shall have need of counsel, I shall not deny my help. Far be it that I should withdraw myself: nevertheless, whatever it is that was brought to me, let it be brought to him. But let him himself consult me, if perchance he does not find what he ought to do, or let him ask a helper of him whom he knows as father: so that both nothing may be lacking to you, and I at length at some time, if God shall grant me any little space of this life, may not give my own little life, such as it is, to sloth nor bestow it on idleness, but may exercise it in the holy Scriptures, so far as He Himself permits and grants: this will profit both him, and through him you also. Let no one therefore begrudge my leisure, because my leisure has a great business. I see that concerning this matter, on account of which I invited you, I have transacted with you all that I ought.

[666] the name of that successor variously written: This last I ask, that you who can may deign to subscribe these records. Here I have need of your reply: let me hold your reply: acclaim something concerning this assent. It was acclaimed by the people: Let it be, let it be; said twenty-five times. It is fitting, it is just; said twenty-eight times. Let it be, let it be; said fourteen times. Long since worthy, long since deserving; said twenty-five times. We give thanks to your judgment; said thirteen times. Hear, O Christ; preserve Eradius; said eighteen times. And when there was silence, Augustine the bishop said: It is well, that we may be able to do those things which are God's concerning His sacrifice; in which hour of our supplication I especially commend to your charity that you set aside all your cases and business, and pour forth prayer to the Lord for this church, and for me, and for the presbyter Eradius. Thus far the Acts, in which something is to be noted concerning the name of St. Augustine's successor. In the Plantin edition, which we everywhere follow, he is always called Eradius, as also in others down to the Benedictine. But the Benedictine editors observe on these Acts (which there hold the place of Letter 213) that in all the manuscripts it is read Eraclius or Heraclius, and therefore with them it is everywhere read Eraclius.

[667] his virtues and merits. Further, St. Augustine treats of him in Sermon 50 On Various Matters, when he was himself a deacon, where the Louvain editors also in the text call him Eraclius, although they note in the margin that elsewhere it is read Eradius. I subjoin Augustine's words, that the virtues of Eraclius may become known from them: The deacon Eraclius, he says, moves before your eyes, and his works shine before your eyes. From his work and expended money we have the memorial [] of the holy Martyr. From his own money he also bought a possession by my counsel: for he wished that money itself to be paid out by my hands, as it should please me… He bought also a plot afterwards known to you from that church, and with his own money built a house. And this you know. A few days ago … he gave it to the church. For he was waiting to complete it, and to give it complete… I bear him witness: he has remained poor, but he has remained in the possession of charity. Some little servants of his had been left, already indeed living in a monastery, whom nevertheless he is today about to manumit by ecclesiastical records. These things suffice to show how worthy a successor Augustine wished for himself. That he spoke in discourse at Augustine's bidding, his very short sermon proves, which the Benedictine editors gave in tome 5 of Augustine's Works, column 1524, as Tillemont notes in article 325. His later deeds are unknown, save that it is established from book 1 of St. Augustine Against Maximinus*, chapter 1, where he is called Heraclius, that he disputed with Maximinus, bishop of the Arians, before the latter engaged with Augustine himself.

[668] When Leporius the monk had fallen into Pelagian and Nestorian errors, Celebrated in the fifth century was the palinode of Leporius, a monk and afterwards a presbyter, which Tillemont in his Augustine, article 323, thinks happened about the year 427. His reason is drawn from Augustine, who in chapter XI On Rebuke and Grace has these words: For no one is so blind with ignorance of this matter and of the faith as to dare to say that, although the Son of man was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, nevertheless by free choice, by living well and doing good works without sin, He deserved to be the Son of God. Yet the same Augustine in the Unfinished Work against Julian, book 4, chapter 83, attributes the same error to the Pelagians, when among other things he says thus: Does the defense of free choice against the grace of God so drive you headlong that you say that even the Mediator Himself, that He might be the only Son of God, deserved it by His own will? Hence it is gathered that that error became known to Augustine in the time between the writing of the praised little Works. And so, since that error was Leporius's, and must have become known to Augustine from

his palinode, that seems to have happened about the year 427, as Tillemont rightly gathers, who refutes Noris's contrary opinion in note 85. From this epoch the praised Tillemont proves in the same place that this Leporius is different from the Leporius, Augustine's presbyter, whom he praises in Sermon 50 On Various Matters, since that Leporius of Hippo was already a presbyter in the year 425 or 426, but the other was only a monk when he publicly corrected his errors.

[669] Further, that Leporius was brought back to his senses chiefly by the labor of St. Augustine, Gennadius of Marseilles teaches, who in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 59, has thus concerning him: Leporius, while still a monk, afterwards a presbyter, presuming upon the purity of his life, which nevertheless he had believed himself to have obtained by his own choice [] and effort, not by God's help, had begun to follow the Pelagian dogma; but, admonished by the Gallican teachers, and amended in Africa by Augustine, he wrote a little book of his amendment. In which he both makes satisfaction for his error and gives thanks for his amendment: and at the same time, correcting what he had ill thought concerning the Incarnation of Christ, he delivered the Catholic opinion, saying that, two natures remaining in Christ, one person of the Son of God is believed.* The little book of Leporius Sirmond published, in whose reprinted Works it is contained in tome 1 from column 203. From it, it is easily gathered that his errors turned chiefly about the mystery of the Incarnation, and that he was a forerunner of Nestorius: which is established also from elsewhere. This little book Augustine subscribed together with Aurelius of Carthage and two other bishops, and with the same he added a letter, that it might become known to the bishops of Gaul that Leporius had truly repented. The praised Sirmond published this letter also, and observed that from its style it appears to have been written by Augustine, although it is marked with the names of four bishops.

[670] Nay, that the little book itself was composed by Augustine, which seems to have been composed by Augustine himself. Tillemont with others judges, article 331: both because it seems conformable to the Saint's letters 3 and 57; and because it is cited under the name of St. Augustine by the Council of Chalcedon (tome 4 of the Councils, column 365), by St. Leo the Great in Letter 134, and by Theodoret in Dialogue 2, page 108; and because Leporius himself in the subscription does not say that it was composed by himself, but the little book dictated according to my meaning … I have subscribed. These reasons are such that the little book seems to be adjudged to Augustine. Yet a certain difficulty occurs. For in that little book it seems to be asserted that through the death of the cross His body was so left by the Divinity as it was left by the soul: which opinion Augustine opposes in tractate 47 on John, proving at length that the flesh of Christ, even separated from the soul, was conjoined with the Divinity. Receive the very words of the little book: Because through the death of the cross the earthly body had of necessity to be left for a time by God — not only by God, but also by His soul, which was united with God, &c. And presently: The Divinity, with the soul united to itself, .. deserted the lifeless flesh for a time. These do not appear conformable to Augustine, as I said, unless a suitable exposition could find another sense than the words themselves seem to bear. But the following words give place for an exposition: And Christ the Son of God then lay dead in the sepulchre as truly as the same Christ the Son of God descended to the lower regions. For if the Son of God lay in the sepulchre, as it is truly said, while the body lay in the sepulchre: therefore the Divinity was united with the body. We can therefore judge that the author of the little book wished by the cited words only to teach that the body of Christ was deserted by the Divinity in this sense, that the Divinity did not hinder the death of the body, although it always remained united to the body: and so nothing will stand in the way of our adjudging the little book to St. Augustine.

* i.e. the church

al. tantum*

§ LI. The books of the Retractations, the Speculum, the book On Heresies.

The Saint, thinking most modestly of his own writings, That two books of the Retractations were written by Augustine toward the end of his life, Possidius testifies below, chapter 6, number 60, naming them On the Review of his books. That the Saint had long before meditated that Work, we learn from Letter 7 to Marcellinus, which Tillemont in article 226 assigns to the year 412. It is pleasing to hear with how great modesty the most wise Doctor speaks in the same place concerning his own Works, which were received with the approval and the greatest applause of all good men. After the words of the said letter cited at number 380, of which the last are: He loves himself too perversely who wishes others also to err, so that his own error may lie hidden: the most modest Prelate thus continues: For how much better and more useful it is that, where he himself has erred, others should not err, by whose admonition he may be free of his error. But if he shall be unwilling, at least let him not have companions of his error. For if God shall grant me what I wish — that in some Work established for this very purpose I may gather and demonstrate whatever in all my books rightly displeases me — then all men will see how far I am from being a respecter of my own person. But you, who love me much, if you assert me to be such against those by whose malice, or lack of skill, or understanding I am reproved — so as to say that I have nowhere erred in my writings — you labor in vain, you have undertaken a cause that is not good, in which you are easily overcome with myself as judge: since it does not please me that I am thought by my dearest friends to be such as I am not. For surely they love not me, but another in my stead 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 about me, I am loved by them: but in so far as they attribute to me what they do not recognize in me, they love in my stead another such as they think me. Tullius, the greatest author of Roman eloquence, says: "He never uttered any word which he would wish to recall."

[672] Which praise indeed, although it seems most splendid, is nevertheless more credible of an exceedingly foolish man than of a perfect wise man. and acknowledging that he too is liable to errors, For even those whom the common people call fools, the more they are out of tune with common sense, and the more absurd and insipid they are, so much the more do they utter no word which they would wish to recall, because to repent of a bad or foolish or unfitting saying belongs surely to men of sense. But if it be taken in a good part, so that we believe there was someone such that, while he spoke all things wisely, he never uttered any word which he would wish to recall: this is rather to be believed, with most wholesome piety, of the men of God who spoke moved by the Holy Spirit, than of him whom Cicero thus praises. From this excellence I am so far removed that, if I shall have uttered no word which I would wish to recall, I should be liker to a fool than to a wise man. For the writings of that man are most worthy of the highest authority who uttered no word — not which he would wish to recall, but which he ought to recall. Whoever has not yet attained this, let him have the second place of modesty, because he could not have the first of wisdom: because he was not able diligently to say all things not to be repented of, let him repent of what he shall have recognized ought not to have been said. Since therefore — not, as certain of my dearest friends think, none or few, but rather perhaps more than even slanderers suppose — I have said words which I would prefer to recall if I could, that Tullian saying does not flatter me by which it was said, "He never uttered any word which he would wish to recall": but the Horatian saying plainly distresses me, "A word once sent forth knows not how to return." Hence it is that I keep the books of most perilous questions — namely on Genesis and on the Trinity — longer than you wish and bear: so that, if they cannot but have some things which are deservedly reproved, they may at least be fewer than they could be if they were published too inconsiderately with headlong haste. For you — as your letter indicates (for my holy brother and fellow-bishop Florentius also wrote this to me) — urge that they be published for this reason, that they may be defended by me while I live in this flesh, when they shall have begun perhaps in certain points to be accused either by biting enemies or even by friends of too little understanding. Which surely you say for this reason, because you do not think there is in them anything which could be blamed by true reason. Otherwise you would exhort me not to their publication, but rather to a more diligent amendment. But I look rather to true judges, and judges severe with truth, among whom I wish to place myself first, so that there may come to them for reproof only those things which could by no means be seen by me, however diligently searching.

[673] This mind of his he expressed also in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 21, in these words: he long meditated the books of the Retractations, Although I would wish no one so to embrace all my writings as to follow me save in those things in which he shall have perceived that I do not err. For therefore I am now making books in which I have undertaken to review my little Works, that I may show that I have not followed even myself in all things; but I judge that I have written, by God's mercy, with advance, yet not that I have begun from perfection: seeing that I speak more arrogantly than truly, if even now I say that I have already at this age come to the perfection of writing without any error. Finally in the preface to the very books of the Retractations he explains more fully both for what cause and in what order he wrote those books, when he thus renders the reason of his design: Long since I have been thinking of and planning this, which now with the Lord's help I set about: because I judge it must not be deferred that I should review my little Works, whether in books, or in letters, or in tractates, with a certain judicial severity, and should mark with a censor's pen, as it were, what offends me. For no one save an imprudent man will dare to reprove me because I reprove my own errors. But if he says that those things ought not to have been said by me which afterwards displeased even me, he says the truth, and takes my side. For he is the reprover of those things of which I too am the reprover. For neither ought I to reprove them, if I ought to have said them. But he who could not have the first place of wisdom, let him have the second place of modesty: so that he who was not able to say all things not to be repented of may at least repent of those which he shall have recognized ought not to have been said. But let each take as he will what I do; nevertheless it behooved me in this matter also to look to that Apostolic saying, where he says: "If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord." For that which is written, "From much speaking you shall not escape sin," greatly terrifies me — not because I have written many things, or because many things also which were not dictated have nevertheless been written down as said by me. For far be it that I should reckon it much speaking when necessary things are said, with however great a multitude and length of discourses they be said. But I fear that saying of holy Scripture for this reason, because from my so many discussions many things without doubt can be gathered which, if not false,

yet certainly seem, or even are proved, not necessary.

[674] of which he published two. The Sermons and Letters But whom of His faithful has Christ not terrified, when He says: "Every idle word which a man shall speak, he shall render an account of it in the day of judgment"? Whence His apostle James also says: "Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak." And in another place he says: "Be not many masters, my brethren, knowing that you receive the greater judgment: for in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, he is a perfect man." I do not arrogate this perfection to myself even now, when I am already an old man: how much less when as a young man I began to write, or to speak among the people; and so much was granted me that, wherever it was needful to speak to the people in my presence, I was most rarely permitted to keep silence and to hear others, and to be swift to hear but slow to speak. It remains therefore that I judge myself under the one Master, whose judgment upon my offenses I desire to escape. But I judge that many masters then arise when they hold opinions diverse and mutually opposed. But when all say the same thing, and say what is true, they do not withdraw from the mastership of the one true Master. But they offend, not when they say many of His things, but when they add their own. For so from much speaking they fall also into false speaking. But it has pleased me to write these things, so that I may send them forth into the hands of men from whom I cannot recall for amendment those which I have already published. Nor indeed do I pass over those which, as a catechumen — though the earthly hope which I bore was abandoned, yet still puffed up with the habit of secular letters — I wrote: because these too have gone forth into the knowledge of those copying and reading them, and are read with profit, if some things be pardoned; or, if they be not pardoned, at least if the errors be not clung to. Wherefore let all who are to read these things not imitate me erring, but advancing toward the better. For whoever shall read my little Works in the order in which they were written will perhaps find how I advanced by writing. And that he may be able to do this, I shall take care in this Work, so far as I shall be able, that he may know that same order. Thus far the Saint's preface. But how far he completed this Work he explains in the conclusion of book 2 in these words: I have recalled that I dictated these ninety-three Works in two hundred and thirty-two books, when I reviewed them, not knowing whether I should yet dictate any more: and I have published the review itself of them in two books, at the urging of the brethren, before I had begun to review the letters and the sermons to the people — some dictated, others spoken by me. Among the sermons he numbered the Exposition of the Psalms, and of the Gospel and Epistle of St. John, which he does not mention in the Retractations.

[675] The holy Doctor greatly desired indeed to recall the Letters also and the Sermons to the file. But, he wished also and had begun to review them, but, hindered by other things, while he was occupied with these, he was compelled to answer Julian the Pelagian, as he teaches in the letter to Quodvultdeus, printed in tome 6 of the Works, page 4, where he has thus: By whose insistence (he means Alypius, who was urging him to answer Julian) I was compelled always to act more remissly in what I was doing, so that I might not fail either Work — the one by day, the other by night, when I was spared from other occupations which do not cease to come from this side and that. But I was doing a most necessary thing: for I was reviewing my little Works, and, if anything in them offended me or could offend others, I was working, partly by reproving, partly by defending, at what ought and could be read: and I had already completed two volumes, all my books being reviewed, whose number I did not know; and I found that they were CCXXXII. There remained the letters and the popular tractates, which the Greeks call homilies. And I had read very many of the letters, but had not yet dictated anything thereupon, when these books of Julian too had begun to occupy me. These things to Quodvultdeus, who was asking that he should write On Heresies, which he promises he will do, and at the same time, he says, that concerning the Review of our little Works, the times being distributed severally to night and to day. So the most diligent Old Man. Yet he could complete neither, being forestalled by death, as we shall presently see concerning the little Work On Heresies.

[676] But now let us first hear the judgment of Cassiodorus concerning the books of the Retractations, he died at last upon the Work: what these books are like, which, with Possidius, he acknowledges to be two only, so that others do not seem to have been brought forth to light. He wrote these things about them in On the Institution, chapter 16: If anyone .. desires to purge his own sayings by a diligent examination, and not to offend by incautious rashness, let him run through with studious reading the two books of the Retractations of holy Augustine: whence he may both adorn himself by imitating, and may recognize how great an abundance of wisdom the divine bounty conferred upon that most blessed Father; so that he whom perhaps no one could reprove seems to correct himself by a most cautious review. It is long to record each several thing of that Man, since for the indicating of his little Works there exists no small codex; which, however briefly it records his sayings, has nevertheless run out into numerous pages of readings. For the rest, lest anyone think that great and many errors were corrected by Augustine, Rivius observes in book 4, chapter 5, §7, that, apart from the error of the Semi-Pelagians which had escaped him as a young man, nothing of notable error was corrected in them. For, as he rightly warns, they are occupied rather in explaining his doctrine, and in guarding against others' errors, and in chastising the use of certain phrases or words, than in correcting his own errors or matters of any moment.

[677] Possidius in the Life to be published below, number 60, intimates the Speculum collected from holy Scripture, that St. Augustine's Speculum also was written toward the end of his life, since he presently subjoins it to the books of the Retractations. That little Work, prolix enough, is collected from holy Scripture, and is extant in tome 3 of the Works from page 324. What the Saint intended in composing it he sets forth in the preface in these words: Concerning those things .. which are so set down in the sacred Letters, whether by commanding, or forbidding, or permitting, that even now, that is in the time of the new Testament, they pertain to the practice of a pious life and to morals, I have set about composing this Work which I have taken in hand, so that, so far as God helps me, I may gather all such things from the canonical Books, and, that they may easily be inspected, may gather them into one as into a mirror:… But in this Work we neither lead the unbeliever nor build him up to faith; nor do we exercise the wit and purpose of learners with certain wholesome difficulties: but we admonish him who, already believing, has wished to obey God, that he should here look at himself, and consider how much he has advanced in good morals and works, and how much is lacking to him. For thus he can both give thanks for those things which he has, and busy himself about those which he has not, that he may have them, and apply care and the prayers of faithful piety for the keeping of them.

[678] having planned a second book of the Speculum, he could not complete it: To these things which we have complete the Saint was planning to add others, of which he thus continues: But in all these things which I have determined to set down for inspection, whatever shall seem to be contrary to one another are afterwards, questions being proposed, to be expounded and resolved. But since Possidius records nothing about these questions, and nothing has come down to posterity, it is credible that the Saint could not complete that Work. But the Speculum itself Cassiodorus thus commends in On the Institution, chapter 16: Likewise also that book of his, as it were of moral philosophy, which for the establishing and correcting of morals he collected from divine authority and named the Speculum, must be read with great attention. Further, since what Possidius relates about Augustine's Speculum agrees exceedingly well with this Speculum, it cannot be doubted that this one is his. But by the same reasoning three other Specula, which were sometimes marked with the name of St. Augustine, must be held spurious; since Possidius records only one Speculum, and his words do not agree with those other Specula. One of the aforesaid Specula Hieronymus Vignier published, which Tillemont at greater length proves not to be Augustine's, article 336. The two others the Benedictine editors relegated to the Appendix of tome 6, and in the preliminary notice to each proved that they are of authors far later than Augustine. These therefore being dismissed, I proceed to the Work which he began last.

[679] Quodvultdeus pressing for it with many and repeated entreaties, The occasion for this was furnished by Quodvultdeus, a deacon of Carthage, who did not cease to press Augustine with the highest entreaties that he should write On Heresies, until at length he obtained what he desired. His twofold letter was published before the Work On Heresies itself, in tome 6, page 3: but in the first he thus addresses the Saint: Long was I fearful, and several times put off my daring: but chiefly, as it is wont to be said, the benevolence of your Blessedness, approved by all, gave me heart. Which while I consider, I feared the more lest by not asking I should be judged proud by the Lord, by not seeking slothful, by not knocking lazy. But I should believe such a will alone to suffice for me, if I could not obtain the fruit. But since I know for certain that the door of divine discourse, which heavenly grace has opened to your Veneration, and your holy mind which Christ possesses, is ready not only to open to all who are willing, but even to persuade the unwilling not to be slow to enter; I shall make no delay to the occupation of your Reverence with superfluous much speaking, but shall briefly indicate the desire of my entreaty. He desired, namely, that briefly, tersely, and summarily both the opinions .. of every heresy should be set down, and what the Catholic Church holds against them, so far as is enough for instruction, subjoined. Which he explains more fully, and concludes in these words: I see how burdensome I am to one thinking better things and planning greater ones, a holy Old Man and one enduring the complaints of the body. But I ask through Christ the Lord, who granted you to be a sharer of His wisdom without envy, that you give this favor to the unlearned of the Church, you who acknowledge yourself a debtor to the wise and the unwise; about to say deservedly and by right: "See that I have not labored for myself alone, but for all who seek out the truth." I could yet offer suppliant and manifold prayers, and enlist with me the ranks of the unskilled; but I preferred now to rejoice at your dictating, rather than still to occupy you in reading.

[680] Augustine answered that St. Epiphanius and Philastrius had written on heresies. he begins the Work On Heresies, and completes the first book. See therefore, he says to Quodvultdeus, whether perhaps I ought to send you the book of holy Epiphanius; for I judge that he spoke on this more learnedly than Philastrius, and that it could be turned into the Latin tongue at Carthage more easily and conveniently, so that you rather might furnish us with what you seek from us. Quodvultdeus did not acquiesce in this; but, having tried both by reasons and by repeated entreaties to move Augustine to undertake the Work, he thus concludes the letter there subjoined: Wherefore I flee to the special patronage of your Piety, and with my voice, but with a universal desire, I entreat the sacrosanct heart of your piety, ready for mercy

I appeal; and that, foreign flavors being set aside, the text of the former letter being considered, you may not deny African bread — which our province is wont to have as its chief — seasoned also with heavenly manna, to one knocking late and suffering hunger. For surely neither shall I cease to knock, until you yourself grant it; so that what privilege does not obtain, where there is no merit, unwearied importunity at least may deserve. Moved by this letter, Augustine began to meditate the Work, but, too much occupied with other things, he could not yet begin it, as his reply teaches, from which we have cited some things above. At length nevertheless he began, and completed the first book: but he could not finish the whole Work which he was planning. Hence Possidius in chapter 1 of the Indiculus calls it an unfinished Work. The holy Doctor had indeed written of heresies down to his own times, recording last the Pelagian, and therefore the Work may seem complete in this part: but what he further planned he sets forth in the conclusion in these words: What therefore makes a man a heretic must next be inquired; so that, when with the Lord's help we avoid this, we may avoid heretical poisons not only those which we know, but also those which we do not know — whether those which have already arisen, or those which may yet arise. Then he adds: But let this now be the end of this volume, which I therefore believed should be sent to you before I completed this whole Work, so that all of you who shall read it may help me by your prayers toward fulfilling what remains, which you see to be so great. The reading of this book also Cassiodorus commends in On the Institution, chapter 22.

§ LII. The occasion of Africa's devastation by the Vandals, the devastation itself, and the death of St. Augustine.

Boniface the count, a distinguished man and intimate with St. Augustine; The wretched devastation of Africa, wrought in the last years of St. Augustine by the Vandals and the peoples allied with them, Possidius describes in the Life among us, chapter 6. But he does not explain on what occasion those barbarians penetrated into a most flourishing province, and at length subjugated it wholly to themselves. This therefore we shall here narrate. Africa was administered under the title of count by Boniface, an intimate of St. Augustine. Of his virtues Photius in the Bibliotheca, from Olympiodorus, chapter 80, page 195, has thus: Boniface was a heroic man, who often fought strenuously with many barbarian nations, sometimes with few forces employed, sometimes with more, and sometimes even in single combat; and, to say it in a word, he drove many and various barbarian nations out of Africa. The same man was among the foremost zealous for justice, and abstinent, and a despiser of money, &c. Like things concerning his warlike valor are said by Procopius, to be cited below, and others, whom for brevity's sake I pass over. But Augustine begins thus Letter 50, which he wrote to him about restraining the Donatists: I praise, and congratulate, and admire, most beloved son Boniface, that amid the cares of wars and arms you vehemently desire to know those things which are God's. Truly from this it appears that you serve, even by that military valor itself, the faith which you have in Christ. The same in Letter 205, where he had prescribed for him at his request most holy admonitions of living in a Christian and pious manner, adds: And in these things indeed I have known you to be well zealous, and I am much delighted by your reputation, and much congratulate you in the Lord; so that this letter may be to you rather a mirror where you may see what sort of man you are, than a place where you may learn what sort of man you ought to be.

[682] to whom he with Alypius had dissuaded the monastic life, Boniface seems, while Augustine was writing these things, to have had in mind to abandon military service and all the vanity of the world: for the Saint among other things writes this to him: Do not think that no one can please God who serves in the arms of war. And, when he had proved this by various examples, he adds: Others therefore fight for you by praying against invisible enemies; you labor for them by fighting against visible barbarians… We ought not before the time to wish to live with the holy and the just alone, so that we may deserve to receive this in its own time. These things somehow indicate Boniface's mind, but rather obscurely. But that he was at some time of such a mind that, leaving military service, he wished to embrace the monastic life, and that this was dissuaded him by Augustine and Alypius, is certain from Augustine's Letter 70, in which he thus addresses Boniface: Recall what sort of man you were, while your former wife of religious memory was still placed in the body, and at her recent death, how the vanity of this world horrified you, and how you desired the servitude of God. We know, we are witnesses, what you conversed with us at Tubunæ about your mind and will. I and brother Alypius alone were with you. For I do not think that the earthly cares with which you are filled have so prevailed as to be able utterly to erase this from your memory. Namely, you desired to leave all the public acts with which you were occupied, and to betake yourself to a holy leisure, and to live in that life in which the servants of God, the monks, live. But what called you back from doing so, save that you considered, as we pointed out, how much what you were doing profited the churches of Christ, if you did it with this intention only, that, being defended from the assaults of the barbarians, they might lead a quiet and tranquil life, as the Apostle says, in all piety and chastity: while you sought nothing from this world save what was necessary for sustaining this life of yours and of your household, girt with the belt of a most chaste continence, and amid bodily arms more safely and more strongly fortified with spiritual arms. At what time these things happened is not clear.

[683] by a second marriage he slips into worse things, Further, although it cannot be denied that the counsel of Augustine and Alypius was prudent, nevertheless it had a disastrous outcome. The cause seems to have been Boniface's new marriage, by which he slipped into worse things. Hear Augustine in the place indicated: When therefore we were rejoicing that you were in this purpose, you sailed and took a wife: but to have sailed was a matter of obedience, … but you would not have taken a wife, had you not, deserting the continence you had undertaken, been overcome by concupiscence. Which when I learned, I confess, I was struck with wonder and amazement. But my grief was in some part consoled, because I heard that you had been unwilling to marry her unless she had first been made a Catholic. And yet the heresy of those who deny the true Son of God so prevailed in your house that your daughter was baptized by them. He adds other sins of his, which he wishes to be false. Then indeed: These things lie open to all — so many and so great evils which have followed you after you were married. By which words the Saint intimates that he fell into many misfortunes because by a second marriage, contracted with an Arian woman, he had offended God. Moreover Baronius judges that that marriage also furnished the occasion for the calumny by which he was crushed by his rivals. Receive his words at the year 427, number 2: Further, the handle for accusing Boniface and bringing him into suspicion with the emperor was given to his rivals by this: that when the same Boniface had to set out for Spain at the command of the same emperor, he there took a wife related to the kings of the Vandals, and had bound those barbarians to himself by a bond of marriage. This conjecture indeed is not altogether certain, yet probable enough.

[684] But it is certain that a calumny was contrived against him, and one propped upon fraudulent guile, and, assailed by calumny, he becomes suspect; from which the ruin of Africa arose. Hear Procopius, On the Vandal War, book 1, chapter 3: There were two Roman generals, Aëtius and Boniface, most brave men, and no less than any men whom that age bore, practiced in the experience of wars. They indeed differed between themselves in administering the commonwealth; but they were endowed with so great greatness of mind and with such a heap of virtue that each could truly be called the foremost man of the Romans: for indeed all Roman virtue had flowed together into that pair. When Placidia had declared Boniface count of all Africa, Aëtius bore this ill indeed, yet obscurely and dissemblingly. For their quarrels had not yet broken out; but each concealed his hatred with a lying countenance. But after Boniface had departed, Aëtius reported to Placidia that all Africa had already been snatched away from her and the emperor by that man, now a tyrant: he added that the truth could easily be discovered; for Boniface would never come, if he were summoned to Rome. Hearing this, the woman approved the counsel and carried it out. But Aëtius had already sent beforehand a secret letter to Boniface, by which he signified that the emperor's mother was plotting against him and wished to take his life: he forewarned that a great proof of the machination would be brought — for it would shortly come to pass that he would be recalled with his case unheard. This was the substance of the letter: which Boniface by no means neglecting, as soon as those were at hand who summoned him to the prince, refused to obey both him and his mother, betraying to no one Aëtius's warning. Placidia, being informed of these things, persuaded herself that the emperor's affairs were most at heart to Aëtius, and inquired what ought to be undertaken against Boniface.

[685] But this inquiry being made, war was decreed against him and he is declared an enemy of the empire: as against an enemy of the empire, and three generals were sent against him into Africa — Mavortius, Galbio, and Sinox — who all perished, as Prosper narrates in the Chronicle at the consulship of Hierius and Ardabur, which falls in the year 427. Prosper adds in the same place: Thereafter the sea was made passable to nations which knew not how to use ships, while they were called in as auxiliaries by the contending parties; and the care of the war begun against Boniface was transferred to Sigisvultus the count. The nation of the Vandals crossed from Spain to Africa — Boniface, forsooth, calling them. Nevertheless the entry of the Vandals into Africa did not happen in that same year 427: but either in the year 428, as Tillemont strives to show in tome 6 of the Emperors, note 4; or in 429, as Pagi contends with many arguments at the year 428, numbers 3 and following. There certainly preceded that inroad Augustine's Letter 70, in which he strives to bring Boniface back to his duty and to contempt of the world by most pious and most beautiful reasons, being unwilling meanwhile to judge whether he was defending himself justly or unjustly, as these words of his teach: You say indeed that you have a just cause, of which I am not the judge: since I cannot hear both parties: but of whatever sort your cause be — about which there is now no need to inquire or dispute — can you deny before God that you would not have come into this necessity, had you not loved the goods of this world, which, as a servant of God, such as we formerly knew you, you ought altogether to have despised and held for nothing? This letter could not then restrain Boniface, but perhaps it brought it about that he afterwards returned to himself.

[686] But in what manner he called in the Vandals, the praised Procopius narrates in these words: [but he, to defend himself, having made a compact with the Vandals, calls them into Africa;] But Boniface, when he saw that he could neither resist the emperor, nor, if he went to Rome, would any hope of safety arise, resolved to strive with all his power to enter into an alliance with the Vandals, who, as I said above, had fixed their seats in Spain near Africa: where, Godigisclus being now dead, his

sons had taken the lordship — Guntharis, born to him of a lawful wife, and Gizerichus, a bastard… He therefore sent some of his intimates into Spain, and joined both the sons of Godigisclus to himself on equal terms, and on these conditions: that each should hold a third part of Africa, and should preside separately over his own people. To that compact the Vandals acceded, and, the strait of Gades being crossed, they set foot in Africa. Two things in these must be corrected. For first, Godigisclus, king of the Vandals, had already been slain in Gaul before the Vandals entered Spain, as Pagi shows at the year 406, number 14. Secondly, Genseric, or Geiseric, who is here called Gizerichus, alone led the Vandals into Africa: for the praised Pagi at the year 428, number 2, relates from Idacius and Isidore that Gunderic, Genseric's brother, who is here called Guntharis, fell in Spain before the entry of the Vandals into Africa. And Procopius himself says below that he had heard from the Vandals that Gunderic or Gontharis died in Spain, and that the Vandals were led into Africa by Genseric alone.

[687] Boniface soon repented of the barbarians he had called in, but far too late. [reconciled to the empire, he fights with the Vandals, who refuse to leave Africa, and is conquered:] Hear Procopius: But at Rome those who knew Boniface more familiarly, as they considered the man's character and reflected how unbelievable was what they heard, thought it very strange that Boniface should have seized a tyranny. Some of them at Placidia's command went to Carthage: where, when they had come to a meeting with Boniface, they read Aëtius's letter: then, being taught everything in order, they returned to Rome as quickly as possible, and announced to Placidia with what mind Boniface was toward her. Placidia, astounded at these things, since Aëtius had very great power, and the affairs of the empire were already sick and tottering, therefore forbore then to avenge — nay rather even to reproach — the sins he had committed against the house of Augustus. But she disclosed to Boniface's friends the warnings by which she had been forestalled by Aëtius, and, giving her word and binding herself by an oath, besought them that, if in any way they could, they should persuade him to return to his country, and should urge him not to suffer the Roman empire to be trampled by the Barbarians. Which Boniface hearing, repenting of his deed and of the compact entered into with the Barbarians, strove both by entreaties and by most ample promises to induce them to depart from Africa. Who, when they rejected his words, thinking themselves mocked, he was compelled to decide the matter in battle; and, being conquered, he withdrew to Hippo-Regius, a fortified and maritime city of Numidia, which the Barbarians, having pitched camp, besieged under the leadership of Gizerichus, about the month of May or June of the year 430, since Augustine began to be sick in the third month of the siege, and died on the XXVIII of August.

[688] Further, with what monstrous and barbarous cruelty the Vandals laid waste Africa, [The Saint, consulted whether it was lawful for bishops to flee, answers that the flock must not be deserted:] Victor of Vita the bishop sets forth at length in book 1, to whom I refer the reader, since Possidius relates enough for our purpose in the Life. But since the barbarians raged against priests and prelates as well as against others, Augustine was consulted by the bishops Quodvultdeus and Honoratus whether prelates and other clerics ought to take counsel for themselves by flight, or to remain in their churches. The Saint answered by a letter prolix enough to Honoratus, in which he explains his mind in these words: Let the servants of Christ therefore, the ministers of His word and sacrament, do what He has commanded or permitted. Let them flee altogether from city to city, when any one of them is specially sought by the persecutors, so that the Church may not be deserted by others who are not so sought, but let them furnish sustenance to their fellow-servants, whom they know cannot otherwise live. But when the peril is common to all — that is, to bishops, clerics, and laymen [] — let those who need others not be deserted by those whom they need. Either therefore let all pass over to fortified places; or let those who have a necessity of remaining not be left by those through whom their ecclesiastical need must be supplied, so that either they may live together, or together endure what the Father of the household shall will them to suffer. When he had proved these things at length and learnedly, he thus concludes: Whoever therefore flees in such a way that the necessary ministry is not lacking to the Church through his fleeing, does what the Lord has commanded or permitted. But he who so flees that from the flock of Christ there are withdrawn the nourishments by which it spiritually lives, is that hireling who sees the wolf coming and flees, since he has no care for the sheep. Possidius inserted this letter into the Life of Augustine, in which Salinas also retained it. But the editors of the Works of St. Augustine everywhere omitted it in the Life*, and we follow their example, since it is extant among the Saint's other letters as 180 in the Louvain edition, but 228 in the Benedictine.

[689] These evils of his native land the holy Old Man was lamenting, especially because of the perils and losses of souls, as Possidius notes at number 62. while Hippo is besieged, he falls into sickness and dies piously: Meanwhile in the third month of the siege of Hippo he began to lie sick of a fever, the same witness attesting, number 66. St. Victor of Vita writes thus to our purpose in book 1: At which time the city of Hippo-Regius was besieged, which the blessed Augustine, worthy of all praise, the maker of many books, governed as bishop. Then that river of eloquence, which was running abundantly through all the fields of the Church, was dried up by that very fear, and the sweetness of its pleasantness, more sweetly poured out, was turned into the bitterness of wormwood, so that the Davidic proclamation might fit: "While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb, and was humbled, and kept silence from good things." Up to that time he had already made two hundred and thirty-two books (nay, so many are enumerated in the Retractations, but others were afterwards added), besides innumerable letters, and the exposition of the whole Psalter and of the Gospels, and the popular tractates which the Greeks call Homilies, whose number it is quite impossible to comprise. The time of his death St. Prosper notes in the Chronicle, writing thus: In the consulship of Theodosius for the XIII time and Valentinian for the III (that is the year 430) Augustine, a bishop in all things most excellent, dies on the V of the Kalends of September, replying to the books of Julian amid the assault of the besieging Vandals at the very end of his days, and gloriously persevering in the defense of Christian grace.

[690] he is summoned by the emperor to the council of Ephesus when already dead, This epoch of his death is confirmed from elsewhere. When on account of the heresy of Nestorius the synod of Ephesus was to be gathered about Pentecost of the year 431, St. Augustine was summoned with others, whose death was still unknown at Constantinople. Nay, a letter of the emperor Theodosius was directed to Augustine himself, whom he desired to be present beyond the rest. This the letter of Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, addressed to the synod, teaches, in which in Labbe, tome 3 of the Councils, column 529, these things are read: First … the letter of our lord and son the most religious emperor Theodosius, brought to our hands, was of such a kind as by a special reason demanded the presence of our brother and fellow-bishop Augustine of blessed memory. But since that letter found that he had already departed from the living, I, receiving that royal notification — although it seemed to be directed chiefly to the aforesaid Augustine — by sending suitable letters and the customary discourses to all the provinces of Africa, wished to gather a fitting synod. To these he adds the reasons by which the African bishops were hindered from coming to the synod. We see hence at the same time how highly Augustine was esteemed in the East and in the very court of the emperor, who wished him above all to be present at the synod, and inscribed the letters of convocation to him rather than to the bishop of Carthage, primate of all Africa.

[691] from which it is proved that he died in the year 430: But that the year of his death is confirmed from this, I briefly show. The letters of convocation addressed to St. Cyril of Alexandria were addressed at Constantinople on the XIII of the Kalends of December, in the consulship .. of Theodosius indeed for the XIII time, but of Valentinian for the III; that is, on the XX of November of the year 430. At that time therefore the death of Augustine was not yet known at Constantinople. But it is not credible that his death would have been unknown there, if he had died before the year 430. Then from the cited letter of Capreolus, which was read in the council in the year 431, and announces the Saint's death, it necessarily follows that he died before the council, which was gathered about Pentecost; and thus, since he died on the XXVIII of August, that he died in the year 430. And the learned agree upon this year. For the rest, Rivius in book 4, chapter XI, §10, observes these things concerning Theodosius's letter: There are those who write that this letter of the emperor Theodosius to Augustine .. once existed, or even now exists, in the library of the Paduan monastery of St. Justina: but as I have read it exhibited, it is of suspect credit, since it bears the indiction of the following year, in which the council was ended: on the fourth of the Ides of August, Bassus and Antiochus being Consuls. More concerning this letter Noris observes in the Pelagian History, book 2, chapter 9, which altogether prove that it is spurious. Of several circumstances of his sickness and death Possidius treats in chapter 6.

[692] The same, concerning his age, has these few words at number 68: He lived LXXVI years, the Saint's age. but in the clerical office or episcopate nearly XL years. But since the Saint was born on the Ides, that is the XIII of November, as was said at number 20, and died on the XXVIII of August, there were lacking to his birthday two months and sixteen days, which Possidius neglected. Hence Riccioli reasons thus in the Reformed Chronology, book 9, chapter 10, article 1: Either therefore he had not yet completed LXXVI years, but nevertheless, because the greatest part of the LXXVI year had been passed, Possidius truly said that he lived LXXVI years: and hence it follows that he was born in the year of Christ CCCLIV, as we with Petavius … and others have laid down. Or if Possidius counted only completed years, neglecting the IX supernumerary months and XIV days — which is less probable — it would follow that St. Augustine completed LXXVI years on the XIII day of November in the year of Christ CDXXIX; and thus that he was born in the year of Christ CCCLIII. He rightly says that it is less probable that Possidius neglected 9 months and 14 days, since in enumerating the years from his taking of the presbyterate he did not pass over fewer months. For he seems to have been ordained a presbyter about the beginning of the year 391, as was said at number 245.

al., laïcorum* is omitted

§ LIII. A brief chronological table of his deeds.

[693] A brief Since Cuper promised a brief chronological table of his deeds, in whose footsteps I ought to tread, I set about weaving it in this place. But in that matter I shall everywhere follow Tillemont and the Benedictine editors without new discussion, yet in such a way that I shall examine their reasons and consult other authors also. Moreover into this chronological compendium I shall briefly insert certain things which in the Commentary were passed over for brevity's sake — especially not a few letters, which I shall assign in the old edition of the Louvain men and in the new one of the Benedictines. Furthermore, at the chief deeds and writings I shall note where they have been treated, whether in the Commentary or in the Lives to be published below, so that the studious reader may be able conveniently to find each thing more fully explained by the help of this compendium.

In the year 354, on the Ides, that is the XIII of November, the Saint is born. Commentary, number 21.

Presently as an infant he is enrolled among the catechumens by his mother St. Monica. As a youth he studies first, as it appears, at Tagaste, and, seized by a grave illness, demands baptism, which is deferred when he recovers. Life I, numbers 8 and 9. He then studies at Madaura, number 29.

[694] In the year 369 toward its end, or at least at the beginning of the following, table of his deeds he is recalled from Madaura to Tagaste, and gives himself over to lust in the 16th year of his age. Life I, numbers 28 and 29.

In the year 370 his wantonness grows from idleness; he commits a theft. Life I, chapter 2. He is sent to Carthage to pursue the studies of eloquence, about the end of the same year or the beginning of the following.

In the year 371, studying at Carthage, he nourishes his lust with spectacles, and takes a concubine, of whom he begets a son, Adeodatus, born about the beginning of the following year: yet he loves quiet and decency. Commentary, number 43 and following. Life I, chapter 4. His father dies, ibid., number 47.

In the year 373, in his 19th year, having read Cicero's Hortensius, he is kindled with the love of wisdom, but disdains the sacred Letters because of the simplicity of their style. Hence in the same 19th year of his age he falls into the heresy of the Manichees, from that time seduced and seducing, as he himself says in the Life, number 62. Tillemont removes his lapse into heresy to the year 374, article 8: but less rightly, I think; because already in the 19th year of his age he was seducing others. See on his lapse the Commentary, §4, and Life I, chapters 5 and 6.

In the year 374, being nearly twenty years old, he understands the Categories of Aristotle without a teacher. Life I, number 83.

From the year, as it seems, 375 until 378 the following happened. He returns to Tagaste, where he taught Grammar. Life II, number 3. Dwelling there he loses an intimate friend, whose death he grieves vehemently, and for that cause returned to Carthage, to teach Rhetoric there. Life I, chapter 7, and number 64.

[695] of the chief In the year 379 he despises the soothsayer who promised him victory in a public disputation, number 65. But, too much given to judicial astrology, he cannot be called away from it by his friends, numbers 66, 67, and 68.

About the year 380 or 381, when he was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, he writes his first little Work On the Beautiful and the Fitting, which has perished. Commentary, number 59. He then begins to recognize the depraved morals of the Manichees, and to doubt of their doctrine.

In the year 383, in his 29th year, he deals with Faustus the Manichee, by whose frivolous reasonings he wavers the more, and holds the doctrine of the Manichees as suspect. Commentary, §4, from number 55. Life I, chapter 9. He departs from Carthage to Rome, where he teaches Rhetoric, falls into sickness, and more fully uncovers the corrupt morals of the Manichees, and passes over to the Academics, doubting about everything. Commentary, §5. Life I, chapter 10.

In the year 384 he goes from Rome to Milan, to teach Rhetoric there. He hears St. Ambrose there, by whose discourses he gradually recovers from his error. Life I, number 113 and following.

In the year 385 St. Monica comes to Milan. But Augustine from the discourses of St. Ambrose acknowledges the authority of holy Scripture, and is further instructed. Life I, chapter 11. His ambition is repressed by the example of a rejoicing beggar: he deliberates about choosing a state of life: his mother seeks a wife for him: leaving his first concubine, he takes another: he cannot understand whence evil comes: he learns the vanity of judicial astrology: in the books of the Platonists he finds certain things agreeable to Christian doctrine. Life I, chapters 11, 12, 13, 14.

In the year 386, kindled with the desire of a better life, but held back by the concupiscence of the flesh, he consults St. Simplicianus. At length, stirred by the examples of others, after much struggle of the flesh, he is bidden by a divine voice to read holy Scripture, and is fully converted. Life I, chapters 16 and 17. Commentary, §6. Having laid aside the office of teaching, he withdraws to a suburban villa with certain disciples, whom he rightly instructs. He writes there the books Against the Academics, On the Happy Life, On Order, and the Soliloquies. Life I, chapter 18. Commentary, §7. He writes likewise to Nebridius, then absent, the letter formerly 151, now 3, and others: he is also divinely freed from a toothache. Life I, numbers 229 and 335.

[696] chronological table, In the year 387 he returns to Milan, and about Easter is baptized by St. Ambrose. But before his baptism he writes there the book On the Immortality of the Soul, and begins to write On the Liberal Disciplines, completing only the book On Grammar; but the books On Music and on the other disciplines he there only began. Life I, chapter 19. Life II, chapter 1. Commentary, §8. He departs from Milan with his mother St. Monica, who dies at Ostia on the Tiber. Commentary, §9. Life I, number 241 and following.

In the year 388, staying at Rome, he writes On the Morals of the Catholic Church, On the Morals of the Manichees, and On the Greatness of the Soul. He begins there the Work On Free Choice, which he afterwards completed. Commentary, number 127 and following. He returns to Africa, and sees a miracle done at Carthage. Commentary, § XI. From Carthage he comes to Tagaste, where he embraces the common life with his companions.

In the years 389 and 390 Augustine remained in his retirement near Tagaste. Meanwhile he is pressed by various questions through letters by his friend Nebridius, to whom he writes back various letters, which, together with Nebridius's letters, the Benedictines placed among Augustine's first ones. There too was written the Work On Eighty-three Various Questions, in parts, namely, as he was questioned about each. There are added the books On Genesis against the Manichees, and the books On Music then completed. Moreover he publishes the dialogue On the Teacher, and the book On True Religion. Commentary, §13. At the same time he seems to have written the letter formerly 44, now 17, to Maximus of Madaura, a heathen, whom he wittily and learnedly derides; the letter formerly 63, now 18, to Cælestinus; likewise 84 formerly, now 19, to Caius, and 126, now 20, to Antoninus, since they seem to have been written by him while still a layman.

In the year 391 he is unwillingly ordained presbyter of Hippo by Valerius the bishop. He establishes a monastery there, in which he leads the common life with his disciples. He is bidden to speak in discourse, even in the bishop's presence. Commentary, §§17 and 18.

[697] In the year 392, when Aurelius had been created prelate of Carthage, in which briefly Augustine exhorts him to abolish certain depraved customs. The letter is 64, now 22. He writes against the Manichees the book On the Usefulness of Believing, and On the Two Souls. He overcomes Fortunatus the Manichee in a public disputation. Life II, number XI.

In the year 393 the council of Hippo is held, in which the holy Presbyter discusses On Faith and the Creed. Commentary, number 279.

In the year 394 he writes the letter formerly 8, now 28, to St. Jerome; the unfinished book On Genesis according to the Letter; two volumes On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount; on the epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians; and the little Work On Lying. Commentary, §20. In the same year he assails the Donatists, and writes against them the abecedarian Psalm, the book Against the Letter of Donatus, and addresses to Maximinus, bishop of the Donatists, the letter formerly 203, now 23. Commentary, §19. To this year also refer the little Work Against Adimantus, a disciple of Manichæus.

In the year 395 Augustine becomes known through his lucubrations to St. Paulinus of Nola, who addresses to him the letter formerly 35, now 24. Augustine replies by the letter formerly 32, now 27. But Paulinus sends him another, formerly 31, now 25. Augustine exhorts Licentius, a noble youth from whom he had received a poem, to contempt of the world, in the letter formerly 39, now 26. The Saint breaks off the custom of banqueting in church by several discourses, as he himself writes to Alypius in Letter 29 of the new edition. Commentary, §21. In that year also he seems to have completed the books On Free Choice, finished before his episcopate. Toward the end of the same year Augustine is ordained co-bishop to Valerius of Hippo, though much resisting. Life II, chapter 2; Commentary, §22. The Benedictines in the Life, book 4, record far more letters of the Saint at this year: but rather in order to set forth the manners of the holy Prelate than to designate their time. We must therefore abstain from these here.

In the year 396 the Saint informs Paulinus of his ordination in Letter 34, now 31. He attempts to confer with Proculeianus, the Donatist bishop, in Letter 147, now 33, and for that cause writes to Eusebius the letter 148, now 34, and the following, in which he complains about Proculeianus. Perhaps to this year is to be assigned Letter 86, now 36, to Casulanus, whom he instructs about the fast of the Sabbath. About the same time, through the death of Valerius, the Saint began to rule the diocese alone. Not long after he writes the books to Simplicianus. Commentary, number 538. These indeed Tillemont defers to the year 397, article III: but they were written at the beginning of his episcopate.

[698] the writings To the year 397 can be assigned various little Works, written at the beginning of his episcopate after the books to Simplicianus. Against the Manichees was published the book Against the Letter of the Foundation. Commentary, number 402. But for the instructing of Catholics was written the book On the Christian Contest, and the books On Christian Doctrine were begun, which were afterwards completed. There followed the two books Against the Party of Donatus, which are not extant. Commentary, number 460. There are added the Confessions, then written, to which he himself subjoins the notable Work Against Faustus the Manichee. Commentary, number 404. There follows the book Against Hilary, which has been lost, together with the Reply to the Objections of Hilary. There can be added the Questions on the Gospels from Matthew and Luke, the Annotations on Job, and the book On Catechizing the Unlearned. Those of these little Works which were not written in this year are certainly not later by many years; some also may have been drawn up in the preceding year. Commentary, §39. The Saint is present at the third council of Carthage. Commentary, number 549. In the same year he wrote to Profuturus the letter 149, now 38: to Paulinus the letters 42 and, with Alypius, 45 of the new edition: to Jerome 9, now 40. He goes to Cirta to be present at the ordination of Fortunatus, and on that journey confers with Fortunius, a bishop of the Donatists, on which matter he writes, at the end of this year or the beginning of the following, Letter 163, now 44. Another conference with the Donatists perhaps preceded this, which the Saint narrates in Letter 162, now 43. He disputes by Letter 161, now 49, with Honoratus, a Donatist bishop.

In the year 398 he is present at the fourth council of Carthage. Commentary, number 550. He answers by Letter 154, now 47, the questions of Publicola, which the latter had proposed in the preceding letter. In the same year perhaps he writes to Eudoxius the abbot the letter 81, now 48. In this year and the following were probably composed some of the little Works mentioned at the preceding year. About the same years he seems to have begun the books On the Trinity, which he undertook as a young man and completed as an old man. Commentary, number 520 and following.

In the year 399 he writes Letter 267, now 50, and in this or the following year against the Donatists Letter 172, now 51, to Crispinus the Donatist bishop, and perhaps 170, now 51, to Severinus the Donatist.

[699] most things, In the year 400 he composes the Work On the Agreement of the Evangelists. Commentary, §28. He answers the Inquiries of Januarius on the sacraments and various customs of the Church in Letters 118 and 119, or 54 and 55. He writes On the Work of Monks, On Genesis according to the Letter. Commentary, §40. Yet not all were finished in the same year. Many things at the same time he did and wrote against the Donatists: first of all the letter formerly 165, now 53, in which the letter of a certain Donatist presbyter is refuted; the three books Against the Letter of Parmenianus; the seven books On Baptism; and the little book whose title is Against what Centurius brought from the Donatists. Commentary, number 461. By a twofold letter, namely 237 and 210, now 56 and 57, and by an added little Work, he strives to draw Celer away from the company of the Donatists. Against the Jovinianists he writes On the Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity. Commentary, numbers 529 and 530.

In the year 401 two councils are held at Carthage; at the first the Saint was probably, at the second certainly, present. He writes to Aurelius of Carthage the letter 76, now 60, sent at the end of this year. Commentary, §40. To Pammachius he sends Letter 134, now 58; to Victorinus Letter 217, now 69; and to Quintianus 235, now 64. Toward the end of the same year he removes the presbyter Abundantius from office, and on that matter writes to Xantippus, primate of Numidia, Letter 236, now 65. Commentary, §40. He has a controversy with Severus, bishop of Milevis, about which were written Letter 241, now 62, and 240, now 63. Commentary, §41. Finally he expostulates with Crispinus, a Donatist bishop, who had rebaptized certain Catholics, in Letter 173, now 56. In this year also, I think, he drew up book 1 Against the Letters of Petilian, which Tillemont and the Benedictines recorded too hastily at the preceding year, since the Saint himself says it was begun after the Work On Genesis according to the Letter.

In the year 402 he seems to have written the second and third books Against the Letters of Petilian the Donatist, yet in such a way that before the third, in which Petilian's reply is confuted, he composed the book On the Unity of the Church, which is extant in tome 7 of the Works, and which he held for a pastoral letter written to the faithful against the Donatists, although the book is prolix enough. Commentary, numbers 462 and 465. The Saint is probably present at the council of Milevis: hence with Alypius he writes to Castorius Letter 238, now 69, that he should undertake the episcopate in place of his brother Maximianus. Commentary, number 571. He addresses Letter 12, now 67, to St. Jerome, and receives the following one from him.

[700] In the year 403 he writes Letter 10, now 71, to Jerome, and the letters and afterwards receives from him an expostulatory one, which was formerly 14, now 72. The Donatists rage against the Catholics, and in the same year perhaps Augustine, by straying from the road, is freed from their ambush. Life II, number 23. Since the Donatist bishops fled a meeting with the Catholics, the Saint writes to their laymen Letter 171, now 76.

In the year 404 St. Possidius overcomes Crispinus, a bishop of the Donatists, in a disputation. Life II, numbers 24 and 25. A council is held at Carthage against the violences of the Donatists, in which St. Augustine's opinion prevails. Commentary, number 572. A scandal arises in the Saint's monastery from the mutual accusation of Bonifacius and Spes, and on that matter were written Letters 136, now 77, and 137, now 78. He overcomes and converts Felix the Manichee in a public disputation, and writes two books about that disputation. Commentary, numbers 407 and 408. Life II, number 33. Letter 244, now 79, was probably written to that Felix.

In the year 405 a council was held at Carthage, at which it is likely that the Saint was present. Commentary, number 572. In Letter 65, now 80, he consults St. Paulinus; he strives to appease the offended St. Jerome in Letter 19, now 82; he writes to Cæcilianus the governor Letter 60, now 86, that he should restrain the Donatists. About this or the following year seem to have been composed two little Works against the Manichees — one On the Nature of the Good, the other Against Secundinus. Commentary, §29.

In the year 406 was written Letter 68, now 88, in the name of the clerics of Hippo concerning the injuries of the Donatists, and 164, now 87, to Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists, whom he presses with various arguments. He composes four books Against Cresconius the Donatist. Commentary, number 463. He reproves in Letter 216, now 85, Paulus the bishop, his disciple. Commentary, number 579. He confers with Pascentius the Arian count, and writes him a twofold letter, namely 174 and 175, now 238 and 239. All these things are not to be assigned to this year so certainly that they could not have happened a little earlier or later, since the time is not sufficiently ascertained. It is permissible here to add certain little Works written about the same time, or at least not much later, such as: the book of Proofs and Testimonies against the Donatists; another whose title was Against I know not what Donatist; and the Admonition of the Donatists concerning the Maximianists. These are lost, or hitherto hidden. Commentary, number 464. But the following are extant: the book On the Divination of Demons, and the Six Questions Resolved against the Pagans, which little Work is Letter 49, now 102.

[701] very many In the year 407 he is probably present at the council of Carthage. To about these times seems to belong the Exposition of the Epistle of St. James, which has been lost. Commentary, number 581.

In the year 408 Melania the elder comes into Africa, concerning whom the Saint writes to Paulinus, from whom he receives Letter 249, now 94, and to whom he sends his own 250, now 95. The pagans of Calama, celebrating their rites forbidden by the laws, afflict the Catholics with many injuries. Nectarius likewise, a pagan, asks Augustine in Letter 101, now 90, to intercede for the accused; to whom the Saint sharply replies in the following letter: but Possidius, bishop of Calama, sets out for that cause to the emperor. Augustine writes to Italica the widow On the Vision of God Letter 6, now 92; and then 133, now 99: to Olympius on behalf of Bonifacius, bishop of Cataqua, Letter 124, now 96, and 129, now 97, that he should uphold the laws passed against pagans and heretics: to the aforesaid Bonifacius, on questions proposed by him, Letter 23, now 98: to Memorius he sends Letter 131, now 101, together with the sixth book On Music: and finally to Donatus Letter 127, now 100, that he should restrain the Donatists. To him also he wrote Letter 128, now 112.

In the year 409 the Saint confutes Nectarius's second letter on behalf of the pagans of Calama by his own 254, now 104; in Letter 166, now 105, he exhorts the Donatists to concord; in Letter 167, now 89, he teaches Festus that the Donatists are rightly restrained by the laws; the letter of Vincentius the Rogatian he refutes in the prolix Letter 48, now 93; he deters Macrobius, the Donatist bishop of Hippo, from rebaptizing Catholics, first by the brief Letter 265, now 106, then by the more prolix 255, now 108: to Victorianus he writes the consolatory 122, now 111, on the miseries of the times. To about this time can be referred the reply to the most friendly letter of Severus of Milevis, which was 135, now is 110; and the fourfold letter given on behalf of a certain Faventius, which were formerly 229, 228, 230, 231, now 113, 114, 115, and 116. I add two little Works which do not seem far removed from this year, namely the book On the One Baptism and the book On the Maximianists, composed against the Donatists. Commentary, number 465.

[702] into a chronological order In the year 410 he partly deters Dioscorus, who was asking many curious things, from his vain zeal, and partly instructs him, in Letter 56, now 118. He teaches Consentius, erring out of simplicity, what is right, and invites him amicably to himself in Letter 222, now 120. To his people of Hippo he excuses his long absence, and exhorts them to relieve the poor in afflicted times, in Letter 138, now 122. Rome being taken by the Goths, he delivers many sermons to the people on that matter.

In the year 411 Albina, Pinianus, and Melania the younger come into Africa. The people of Hippo strive to drag Pinianus by force to the presbyterate. On this matter the Saint excuses himself in Letters 224 and 225, now 125 and 126. Before Pinianus's arrival he had addressed to them 227, now 124. In the same year perhaps he exhorted Armentarius and Paulina to contempt of the world and to keeping a vow of continence, in Letter 45, now 127. To this year certainly belong the Saint's distinguished deeds in the Conference of Carthage. Commentary, §32. In the same year, as it seems, the heresy of Pelagius becomes known to the Saint, and he begins to assail it in his discourses, but with Pelagius's name suppressed. Commentary, §§34 and 35.

In the year 412 the Saint composes against the Pelagians three books On the Merits and Remission of Sins and On the Baptism of Little Ones, and the book On the Grace of the New Testament, that is Letter 120, now 140, to Honoratus. Commentary, numbers 489 and 490. There is added Letter 144, now 145, to Anastasius. He writes against the Donatists the Breviculus of the Conferences, and Letter 152, now 141, directed to the Donatist laymen in his own name and that of the other bishops with whom he was taking part in the council of Cirta. Commentary, number 466. He was laboring at the same time that the Donatists, condemned by the emperor, should not be punished with death: to this end were sent the letters to Marcellinus the tribune, 159, now 133, and 158, now 139; but to Apringius the proconsul, 160, now 134. But to converted Donatists he offers congratulation in Letter 257, now 142, and 130, now 144. In the same year perhaps was written Letter 204, now 173, in which he exhorts Donatus, a Donatist presbyter, to come to his senses. At the same time he was solicitous with Marcellinus the tribune about the conversion of Volusianus, a noble heathen; and for this cause were written Letters 1, now 132, and 3 and 5, now 137 and 138, in which he answers the doubts proposed by Volusianus. There is added to these 7, now 143, in which at the same time he answers another question of Marcellinus.

[703] In the year 413 the Saint, I think, wrote the book On the Spirit and the Letter: chronological because it was written after Marcellinus had read through the books On the Merits and Remission of Sins. He then wrote On Faith and Works, and Letter 112, now 147, or the book On Seeing God, to Paulina; likewise Letter 111, now 148, or the Memorandum to Fortunatianus. Commentary, numbers 491, 582, and §43. In the same or the following year, in Letter 59, now 149, he answers Paulinus's various questions. Returning from Carthage, where he had preached against the Pelagians, he writes strongly to Cæcilianus about the death of Marcellinus, taken off by the guile of the Donatists, in Letter 259, now 151. About the same time he seems to have begun the great Work On the City of God, over which he sweated for many years, other things frequently interrupting it. Commentary, number 387. When the most noble widow Proba Faltonia had come into Africa with Juliana and Demetrias, the Saint dealt with them

face to face at Carthage, and, absent, by writings. Hence first, perhaps before the meeting, Letter 156, now 131, was written to Proba. Then by the prolix Letter 121, now 130, he taught her in what manner God is to be prayed to. To Juliana he writes the book On the Good of Widowhood. Demetrias by the Saint's admonitions professes virginity: about which Augustine, rejoicing, congratulates Proba and Juliana in Letter 179, now 150. Commentary, §45. About the same year the Saint replied to Pelagius in the letter which among the Benedictines is 146.

In the year 414 he sent a twofold letter to Macedonius, vicar of Africa, namely 54 and 52, now 153 and 155. Each is very prolix and full of excellent instructions. He also wrote back a very long letter to the questions of Hilary, which was formerly 89, now is 157.

In the year 415 he writes against the Pelagians the book On Nature and Grace, and another On the Perfection of Justice to Paulus and Eutropius. Of this the Saint makes no mention in his Retractations, because he reckoned it among his letters. He completes the fourth and fifth books On the City of God, and dictates the exposition of certain Psalms: but Tillemont thinks the whole Work on the Psalms was completed in the following year, because in this year he was strenuously applying himself to it, as appears from the letter to Evodius presently to be mentioned. Moreover in this year Paulus Orosius came to Augustine: on which occasion the Saint drew up the book To Orosius against the Priscillianists and Origenists. To the same he gave two books then written, to be carried to St. Jerome — one On the Origin of the Soul, the other On the Sentence of James. Commentary, number 618 and following, and numbers 592 and 593. To Evodius, bishop of Uzalis, he sent three letters, partly answering his questions, partly asking that he should not hinder better studies with curious questions: these are 100, 101, and 99, now 159, 162, and 164. There can perhaps be added Letter 66, now 170, to Maximus, and 220, now 171, to Peregrinus.

[704] are somehow recalled, In the year 416 he takes part in the council of Milevis. Two councils impose upon the Saint the care of studying holy Scripture, and therefore he desires to lay down the province of judging lawsuits. He writes to Hilary Letter 94, now 178; to John of Jerusalem Letter 152, now 174; and with others to Pope Innocent 95, now 177. All these treat of the Pelagian heresy. To which is added the letter formerly 260, now 180, to Oceanus, on the origin of the soul. In this or the following year Orosius wrote his History.

In the year 417 the Saint wrote against the Pelagians the book On the Deeds of Pelagius, and the prolix Letter 106, now 186, to Paulinus, in which he instructs him about the Pelagian heresy; and 143, now 188, to Juliana, because Pelagius had written to her daughter Demetrias. There is added the book On the Presence of God, to Dardanus, or Letter 57, now 187, in which the Pelagians also are confuted. To Boniface, tribune and then count, he wrote the book On the Correction of the Donatists, or Letter 50, now 185; and he instructs the same man in piety in Letter 95, now 189. At the same time the Saint expounded the Gospel and the first Epistle of St. John by word to the people and in written tractates. Commentary, §46.

In the year 418, after the council of Carthage, he writes against the Pelagians the books On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin. Thence he sets out for Cæsarea of Mauritania, where he confounds Emeritus, a bishop of the Donatists, and abolishes a depraved custom. He writes to Optatus On the Origin of the Soul Letter 157, now 190; to Mercator the letter which among the Benedictines is 193; to Sixtus, a presbyter and afterwards Pope, a twofold letter, namely 104 and 105, now 191 and 194; to Cælestinus, afterwards Roman Pontiff, 62, now 192; to Asellicus the bishop 200, now 196, against Aptus or Aptius, a judaizer; and finally to Hesychius 78, now 197, on not investigating the last day of the world. Commentary, §47. In the same year or the following was written the book Against a Discourse of the Arians, of which at number 519.

In the year 419 Augustine assists at the sixth council of Carthage. He writes to Hesychius the more prolix Letter 80, now 199, on the end of the world; the books On Marriage and Concupiscence against the Pelagians to Count Valerius, of which the last seems to have been written in the following year; on holy Scripture seven books of Locutions, and as many of Questions; four books On the Soul and its Origin against Victor; and finally to Pollentius two books On Adulterous Marriages. Commentary, §48.

[705] In the year 420 the Saint composes two books Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets: although a certain time against Gaudentius the Donatist likewise two books, and another Against Lying. Commentary, numbers 523, 468, 525. In the same year he publishes two books to Pope Boniface Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. Commentary, number 494. There are added the following letters, namely 61, now 204, to Dulcitius the tribune, on the Donatists; 146, now 205, to the questions of Consentius; 270, now 206, to Valerius; and perhaps 253, now 235, to Ceretius, on the frauds of the Priscillianists.

In the year 421 he writes six books Against Julian the Pelagian, which with a prefixed letter he transmits to Claudius the bishop. He denounces Victorinus, a Manichee subdeacon, to Deuterius the bishop by Letter 74, now 65. Commentary, numbers 495 and 414.

In the year 422 the Saint writes the Enchiridion to Laurentius, and in this or the following year the book On the Care to be had for the Dead, to Paulinus. About this time the case of Antoninus, bishop of Fussala, was agitated, concerning which see Commentary, §49: concerning those, §48.

In the year 423, or about that time, the Saint sends a letter to Pope Cælestinus about the case of the said Antoninus. The Benedictine editors think that about the same year were written the following letters, namely 209, now 208, to Felicia, letters, namely 209, now 211, to nuns. This latter commends concord to the nuns who had been in tumult, and prescribes for them a rule of life. See what was said at number 369 and following.

In the year 424 he composes the book On the Eight Questions of Dulcitius. Commentary, number 649. About the same time Tillemont in article 317 places the prolix letter against Vitalis, the forerunner of the Semi-Pelagians, which was formerly 107, now is 217. But the Benedictines in the Life, book 8, chapter 7, think it was written about the year 427. Commentary, §36. In this or the following year the Saint received the relics of St. Stephen the protomartyr. When toward the end of this year someone had died in the monastery of Hippo with money retained by himself, which he was bequeathing to the church, the Saint rejected it, bound his clerics more strictly to the common life, and was about to eject from the clergy all who should thereafter have anything of their own. Finally, in order to heal the scandal stirred up, he delivered two sermons to the people on his own state and that of his people. These are among the sermons On Various Matters 49 and 50, in the new edition 355 and 356. The latter was delivered after the Epiphany of the following year.

In the year 426 he is present at the ordination of the bishop of Milevis: he designates Eradius or Eraclius as his successor, and transfers the administration to him. Commentary, §50.

In the year 427 a discord arises among the monks of Adrumetum from Augustine's writings ill understood: of which the Saint being informed, he writes to them Letter 46, now 214; then the book On Grace and Free Choice, which with Letter 47, now 215, he sends to them; and finally the book On Rebuke and Grace. Commentary, number 495. Leporius is led by the labor of St. Augustine to retract publicly his errors concerning the Incarnation and grace. Commentary, number 668. Boniface the count is by the guile of Aëtius declared an enemy of the empire: the Saint, to bring him back into the way, writes him the most beautiful letter formerly 70, now 220, which may also have been written in the following year. About this time perhaps was written Letter 208, now 218, to Palatinus.

In the year 428 the Saint composes the books of the Retractations and the Speculum. Commentary, §51. He begins the Unfinished Work against Julian: he confers with Maximinus the Arian, whom in the following year he refutes in two books. Commentary, numbers 496 and 518. In this or the following year the Vandals enter Africa, which they wretchedly lay waste.

In the year 429 Augustine, informed by Prosper and Hilary of the Semi-Pelagians arisen in Gaul, writes against them the book On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance. Commentary, §36. Asked by Quodvultdeus, he begins the Work On Heresies; but he completed only the first book. Commentary, from number 679. To Alypius he writes about the miraculous conversion of Dioscorus Letter 67, now 237: and a twofold letter to Darius the count, namely 262 and 264, now 229 and 231: to the latter he adds the books of the Confessions. In this year likewise or the following was written Letter 180, now 228, in which he teaches when it is lawful for bishops to flee.

In the year 430 Boniface the count, now reconciled to the empire, fights against the Vandals, and, being conquered, withdraws to Hippo. Hence the city is besieged by the Vandals. Augustine meanwhile, remitting nothing of his accustomed labors for the Church, is seized during the time of the siege with his last sickness, and dies piously on the XXVIII of August.

§ LIV. Some uncertain things which later writers narrate about the Saint while still living.

[A little story about a boy appearing to Augustine and emptying out the water of the sea,] Since we have followed the deeds of St. Augustine, recorded in the writings of the ancients, down to the Saint's blessed death, it remains that we examine in this place certain facts lacking the authority of contemporaries and related only by later writers, so that the studious reader may understand how much credit they deserve. Petrus de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in the Catalogue of Saints, book 7, chapter 128, has the following to our purpose: It is related of him that, when he had thought to compile his book On the Trinity, passing by the shore, he saw a boy who had made a little hollow on the shore, and was putting into the hollow water drawn from the sea with a shell. And when Augustine had asked the boy what he was doing, the boy answered that he had determined to dry up the sea with the shell, and to put it into that hollow. And when Augustine said that this was impossible, and laughed at the boy's simplicity, that boy said to him that it was more possible for him to accomplish this than for Augustine to explain in his book the least part of the mysteries of the Trinity, likening the hollow to the codex, the sea to the Trinity, the shell to Augustine's understanding: which being said, the boy disappeared. But Augustine from this humbled himself, and, prayer being premised, compiled the book On the Trinity as best he could. The same is related by Ambrosius Staibano in the Augustinian Temple, chapter 8, citing several writers of the middle age. There is added Ludovico Torelli in the Augustinian Centuries written in Italian, at the year 388, numbers 12 and 13, and many other moderns.

[708] Nevertheless that fact not only suffers difficulty from the silence of all the ancient writers, seems fabulous and is unknown to the ancients: but is rendered most of all suspect from the place and time at which they wish it to have happened. For they write that the vision was presented to Augustine on the shore of the Tuscan sea near Centumcellæ, now called Urbs Vetus, and commonly Civita Vecchia.

Torelli affirms that in a certain church there these words are read: Whether you are a traveler or a resident, venerate the house of the Hermits, venerate the chapel where that most brilliant light of the Church of Christ, Augustine, began his distinguished Work On the Trinity, which, interrupted by the marvelous oracle of a heavenly boy appearing beside the shore of Bertaldus, he at length finished in Africa when already an old man. The same place is designated by Volaterranus, cited in the same place, and by others: and indeed that inscription, which is not of a style usual in the middle age, sufficiently intimates that it is an opinion of the Augustinians. But they assign that time in which the Saint remained in Italy after his conversion, and Torelli indeed the very year 388, in which he returned to Africa. They wish therefore that St. Augustine, a little after his conversion, while he was still less imbued with the sacred Letters, began the most difficult books on the sublime mystery of the most holy Trinity — which departs no less from likelihood than it was foreign to the modesty and prudence of Augustine, who always solicitously considered what his shoulders refused to bear and what they could bear. Further, that the Saint began the books On the Trinity when already a bishop, the order teaches which he kept in reviewing his writings, since in book 2 he reviews only the books elaborated in his episcopate; yet he places these there after many others in chapter 15, not in the order in which they were completed, but in that in which they were begun. Wherefore the studious reader will be able to consider what credit is owed to this whole little story about the appearing boy, since it is unknown to all the ancients and so ill apportioned to its own times.

[709] The aforesaid Torelli at the same year 388, number 76, writes that St. Augustine, another fable ridiculously fabricated: departing from Italy to Africa, came to Cagliari in Sardinia, and there became famous by a marvelous prodigy. The ancients were ignorant of that Sardinian journey, or at least did not record it; and not even those more recent writers who with greater care have separated the certain from the uncertain — among whom Rivius, who in book 1, chapter 1, §36, brings Augustine straight from Italy into Africa. Nevertheless Torelli contends not only that the Saint was in Sardinia, but also that he took care that a modest monastery should be built near Cagliari. The workmen, he says, had brought the walls of the monastery and of the church to that height that the beams now had to be placed upon them. But among the beams they found one, already raised on high, shorter than it should be, which they let down again in sadness. Augustine, beholding this, bade one of his men take hold of the beam on one side, while he himself took the other part of the beam: then both, pulling with living faith, brought it about that that beam received its proper length, God working it miraculously. He brings forward for that prodigy the common tradition; and two modern writers, namely Dionisio Bonfant and Martino Cariglio, whom he wishes to be beyond all exception, adding that the same has been written by several, of whom he chose these two as the most approved. I smiled, I confess, while writing this fable, nor is it necessary to refute it laboriously, since it collapses of its own accord, although Torelli defends it with so great ardor as though he were fighting for altars and hearths. Surely he must be ignorant of St. Augustine's modesty who thinks that he, not long after his conversion, wished to perform such marvelous prodigies, when the most humble Prelate, seized by his last sickness, could scarcely be induced to lay hands on a sick man. Deservedly therefore are prodigies of this kind despised, which without the testimony of the ancients are narrated from popular report by modern writers. Concerning the beam preserved at Cagliari, however, there will be treatment afterwards.

[710] a third no more likely: The praised bishop of Equilio, after the words adduced before, subjoins the following: A certain afflicted woman came to Augustine to implore his counsel: finding him studying, she saluted him; nor did he answer her anything. She, coming nearer, explained her business to him: but he neither turned around nor uttered a word. Whence the woman departed still more saddened. On the following day, while the woman was assisting Augustine as he celebrated, when he had elevated the Lord's Body, she is caught up in spirit before the tribunal of the Trinity, where she saw Augustine most attentively discoursing on the glory of the Trinity; and it was said to her that, when she had come to Augustine, he was thus most attentively discoursing on the Trinity, and therefore had not noticed that she had been there: but that she should return to him confidently, and would find a wholesome counselor. Which she, returning to herself, did, and found Augustine most clement. The same has Jacobus de Voragine, chapter 119. But this fact not only lacks the authority of the ancients: it has also been related in an unlikely manner. For since the Saint dealt most cautiously with women, it is not credible that any ever entered the place where he was studying, unless he had at least been forewarned and others were present. Reckon this therefore among fables rather than among true histories.

[711] a vision of the Saint destitute of ancient authority: Staibano, mentioned above, in chapter 9 narrates that Christ the Lord appeared to Augustine, dwelling in solitude, in the guise of a poor man, whose feet he washed; and that Christ, as He disappeared, said these words to Augustine: Great father Augustine, you have deserved to see the Son of God in the flesh today. This, he says, is related by Jordanus of Saxony in a certain sermon which he made about St. Augustine out of a certain book of St. Prosper of Aquitaine, and is confirmed by Ferrandus the Spaniard. Thus indeed Staibano, and the same things more fully Torelli at the year 390, number 19. But neither in the Works of St. Prosper, nor in the Life of St. Augustine which Jordanus of Saxony wrote, nor among any ancient writers, do I find anything recorded about this marvelous vision, so that I cannot give credit to what is related by Staibano, until they be supported by more certain documents: for from the Sermons of Jordanus of Saxony several things are related which will hardly find belief.

[712] miracles attributed to Augustine by some: The aforesaid bishop of Equilio adds to the preceding: He was famous also for the glory of miracles: for in book XXII On the City of God he relates two miracles about himself, speaking as though about another. Of which the first is: that when he had anointed a certain demoniac virgin with oil and had prayed for her, he freed her from the unclean spirit. For another young man also, whom he did not see, he prayed; and he was straightway free of the demon which beset him. When a certain man suffering from a fistula had to be cut, Augustine prayed together with the sick man himself and for him; and in the morning he was found healed without any incision. The same miracles Jacobus de Voragine unhesitatingly attributes to Augustine in the Legends of the Saints, chapter 119. Nevertheless the matter does not seem altogether certain, as has already been shown of the third in § XI, where it is related more fully. Of the two others receive the Saint's own words, who in book 22 On the City, chapter 8, relates them thus: I know a certain virgin of Hippo who, when she had anointed herself with oil into which a presbyter praying for her had let fall his tears, was presently healed of a demon. I know also that a bishop once prayed for a young man whom he did not see, and that he was straightway free of a demon. From these words it cannot certainly be gathered that these miracles are to be attributed to Augustine himself: yet that is not improbable, since nothing seems to stand in the way save the silence of Possidius, who could have been ignorant of them.

[713] Plainly fabulous and fictitious appears what Jacobus de Voragine relates in chapter 119 in these words: an insipid fable related about him: It is also read that, while Augustine was living in the flesh and was reading over certain things, he saw a demon passing before him, carrying a book on his shoulders: who is straightway adjured by him to disclose to him what writings lay hidden there. He asserts that the sins of men are written there, which he gathers from everywhere and stores up. And presently he bade him, if anything of his own sins were kept written there, at once to show it to him to be read. But the place being shown, Augustine found nothing there, save that on a certain occasion he had omitted Compline through forgetfulness. And, bidding the devil await his return, he entered the church and devoutly said Compline, and completely performed the accustomed prayers. And returning he told him to show him the aforesaid place again to be read. Who, when he turned it over repeatedly and at last found the place empty, said in anger: You have basely deceived me: I repent that I showed you my book, you who have blotted out your sin by the virtue of your prayers. And having said this, he vanished in confusion. I wonder that so insipid a fable could please even Torelli: for he relates the same, a little changed, at the year 430, number 57, citing Leonardus of Udine, whom he calls an ancient writer, though he did not flourish before the fifteenth century. So inept a little story does not deserve serious refutation, which could not have been invented save by a plainly unlearned man.

[714] Rivius in the Life, book 4, chapter XI, describing the destruction of Africa by the Vandals, a prayer circulated under Augustine's name. speaks thus of Augustine in §2, on the authority of more recent writers: They relate that he was wont at that time to pour forth to God a prayer very apt for it, which Cardinal Seripando, having found it somewhere, brought forward in the council of Trent, where he acted in the name of legate of the apostolic See; and which was very lately acknowledged by Pope Urban VIII. He then subjoins the prayer itself, conceived in these words: Before Thy eyes, O Lord, we bear our faults; and we carry about the wounds which we have received. If we weigh the evil which we have done, less is what we suffer, greater is what we deserve. We feel the punishment of sin, and do not avoid the obstinacy of sinning. Under Thy scourges our weakness is worn away, and our iniquity is not changed. The sick mind is tormented, and the neck is not bent. Life sighs in grief, and does not amend itself in work. If Thou wait, we are not corrected: if Thou punish, we do not endure. We confess under correction what we have done; we forget after the visitation what we have wept for. If Thou stretch out Thy hand, we promise what must be done: if Thou hold back the sword, we do not do what we promised. If Thou strike, we cry out that Thou spare: if Thou spare, we again provoke Thee to strike. Thou hast, O Lord, guilty men confessing. We know that unless Thou forgive, we rightly perish []. Grant, almighty Father, without merit what we ask; Thou who hast made out of nothing those who might ask Thee.*

al. perimas*

§ LV. Various eulogies concerning the manners, virtues, excellence of genius and learning, and the writings of St. Augustine.

Nebridius his disciple adorned Augustine with his eulogies, Since St. Augustine, as is wont to happen to any most excellent men, once had his detractors, and in our age too has unfair critics, it will be neither useless nor unwelcome to the reader if we here exhibit certain eulogies by which the reputation of a most upright and most wise Man may be vindicated against the insipid calumnies of self-pleasing men. But in reviewing these I shall try to follow generally the order of time, taking my beginning from those who knew Augustine familiarly, or at least had an exchange of letters with him; and then adding a few who lived after our Saint.

Nebridius, a disciple and intimate friend of the Saint, in Letter 114 of the Plantin edition, but 5 of the new Paris edition, expresses his love for him, lately converted,

toward God thus: Is it so, my Augustine? You furnish fortitude and endurance for the affairs of the citizens, and that longed-for rest is not yet rendered to you? I ask, who are the men that interrupt you, so good a man? Those, I believe, who do not know what you love, what you desire? Have you none of your friends who may report to them your loves? Neither Romanianus nor Lucinianus? Let them at least hear me. I will cry out, I will bear witness, that you love God, that you desire to serve Him and cleave to Him. The same in the letter formerly 71, now 6, commends Augustine's wisdom in these words: Let it please you exceedingly [] so to keep your letters as my own eyes. For they are great, not in quantity, but in matter, and they contain great proofs of great things. They will sound to me of Christ, of Plato, of Plotinus. They will therefore be to me both sweet for hearing because of their eloquence, and easy for reading because of their brevity, and wholesome for understanding because of their wisdom.*

[716] Maximus of Madaura, a pagan; St. Paulinus of Nola, The wisdom also and eloquence of Augustine was acknowledged by Maximus of Madaura, a heathen man, who in Letter 43, now 16, thus addresses him: But this, I beg, most wise Man, that, the force of eloquence being set aside and hissed off, by which you are illustrious to all, and those Chrysippean [] arguments also being omitted with which you were wont to fight, and dialectic being for a little postponed — which by the wrestling of its own sinews strives to leave nothing certain to anyone — you would approve by the fact itself who that God is, &c. St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, runs out into the praises of Augustine most frequently and most eloquently, but some things from him have already been recited; a few others nevertheless I add in this place. In Letter 35, now 24, to Alypius he has thus: For we have received the notable and outstanding work of your love and solicitude — of that holy man and one perfect in Christ the Lord, our brother Augustine — completed in five books, which we so admire and look up to that we believe the words were dictated divinely. More about these Paulinus wrote to Augustine himself, which were given at number 182. The same in Letter 58, now 121, consulting Augustine about many questions, thus addresses him at the beginning: Tell me therefore, blessed Doctor of Israel. And at the end: Expound therefore this … clause to me, because I do not doubt that it shines for your holy soul, which from the purity of its inner eye has deserved the illumination of the Holy Spirit, through whom it can search out and inspect even the deep things of God.*

[717] Januarius had conceived so great an estimate of Augustine's wisdom Januarius; Nectarius, a pagan; Severus of Milevis, that in consulting him he had written that nothing was hidden from Augustine, as is gathered from the Saint's reply, that is Letter 119, now 55, chapter 22, where he says: For I am so far from that which you supposed — that nothing is hidden from me, &c.

Nectarius the pagan in Letter 201, now 90, calls Augustine a Man instructed in all the disciplines.

Severus, prelate of Milevis, who has already praised Augustine and his writings at number 568, adorns him with these words in Letter 37, now 109: O truly skillful Bee of God, constructing honeycombs full of divine nectar, flowing with mercy and truth, running through which my soul takes delight, and with vital pasture strives to repair and prop up whatever it finds less in itself, or feels to be feeble. Blessed be the Lord through the heralding of your mouth and your faithful ministry: because you so make things sound together and answer to the Lord who sings to you, that whatever from His fullness overflows even to us is made more pleasant and welcome through your elegant service and compact neatness and faithful and chaste and simple ministry: which you make so to shine forth through your keenness and vigilance that it dazzles the eyes and snatches them to itself — unless you likewise point to the Lord, so that, referring to Him whatever delightful thing shines in you, we may acknowledge it to be His, of whose goodness you are so good, and of whose purity and simplicity and beauty you are pure, simple, and beautiful.

[718] Consentius, proposing many questions to Augustine, Consentius the monk; Volusianus the heathen; Macedonius, an illustrious man, in Letter 221, now 119, thus addresses the Saint near the beginning: Nevertheless do you, admirable Man — if that Father of ours, alone conscious of secrets, who has the key of David, has granted you with the most serene gaze of your heart to penetrate the fabric of the heavens, and (as it is written) with unveiled face to behold the glory of the Lord — so far as He who gave such a thought shall have given you the faculty of bringing it forth, declare to us, &c. And in the middle: But do you, a Man to whom, as I judge, it has been granted to enter heaven itself by the subtlety of your thoughts, .. above all the stars to that very contemplation, raise up the height of the world of the heart, &c. And at last, toward the end, wishing his errors to be publicly corrected by him: Why then, Man who art the summit of this learning which is in Christ, do you hesitate openly to censure a son to be corrected henceforth?

Volusianus, a moderate heathen, for whose conversion the Saint was laboring, in Letter 2, now 135, thus accosts Augustine: You ask of me, O Man who art the proof of probity and justice. And he commends his learning at the end in these words: It concerns your reputation that we should know what we ask. Somehow, without detriment to divine worship, ignorance is tolerated in other priests; but when one comes to the prelate Augustine, whatever chances to be unknown is a defect in the Law.

Macedonius, a man as pious as he was illustrious, writes the following to Augustine in Letter 51, now 154: I am marvelously affected by your wisdom, both in those things which you have published, and in these which, interposing on behalf of the anxious [], you do not grudge to send. For those have so much of acuteness, of knowledge, of holiness, that nothing is beyond it; and these so much of modesty that, unless I do what you enjoin, I judge that the fault remains with me, not in the business… I have unrolled your books (the first three On the City of God): for they were not so languid or dull as to suffer me to attend to anything but themselves: they laid hold of me, and, snatching me from other causes of solicitude, bound me with their own chains. So may God be favorable to me, that I am doubtful which in them I should the more admire — the perfection of priesthood, the doctrines of philosophy, the full knowledge of history, or the full pleasantness of eloquence, which can so entice even the unskilled that until they have unrolled them they do not desist, and when they have unrolled them, they still seek more.*

[719] St. Jerome; Jacobus and Timasius; Valentinus the abbot, St. Jerome in many places celebrates Augustine's learning: but, since most of these have already been related in §§20 and 43, I add here one from Jerome's letter, among the Augustinian ones 27, now 165, to Marcellinus and Anapsychia, in which he refers Marcellinus to Augustine in these words: Certainly you have there a holy and learned man, bishop Augustine, who will be able to teach you with the living voice, as they say, and to explain his own — nay rather, through himself, our own — opinion.

Jacobus and Timasius, torn away from the Pelagian errors, in the Letter which among the Benedictines is 168, celebrate St. Augustine's book On Nature and Grace in these words: So has the grace of God, ministered through your word, refreshed and recreated us, that we say plainly as true brothers, "He sent His word and healed them," most blessed lord and deservedly venerable Father. Indeed we have found that your holiness sifted the text of that little book (of Pelagius) with such diligence that we are amazed at the answers rendered to each dot. And further below: But we, although long since taught by the spirit of clarity which is in you, had cast off subjection to that error, even now give thanks for this also: that we have now learned to open to others those things which we before believed, the more abundant discourse of your Holiness opening the way of ease.

Valentinus, abbot of Adrumetum, in Letter 256, now 216, followed up with no less praise the book On Grace and Free Choice received from Augustine. I subjoin his words: The venerable writings and the book of your Holiness we have received with so trembling a heart that, as blessed Elias, when he stood on the threshold of the cave, veiled his face as the glory of the Lord passed by, so we have covered our rebuked eyes, because through the rusticity of our brethren we blushed at our own judgment; by whose disorderly setting out we deserved to salute your Beatitude, because there is a time for speaking and a time for keeping silence — lest, while we wrote through men doubting and wavering about the truth, we should seem to doubt with the doubters about the sayings of your wisdom, which is as that of an angel of God. For it was not necessary for us to inquire about your beatitude and your wisdom, which is known to us through the grace of God. For at the most sweet book of your Holiness we were so eagerly made glad, that, just as the Apostles did not dare to ask the Lord, dining with them after the resurrection, who He was — for they knew that it was Jesus — so we neither wished nor dared to ask about the book whether it was your holiness's, since the very grace of the faithful, which [] is in it liberally commended, bears witness to us that it is yours [], holy lord Pope, with most lively utterances.

[720] Quodvultdeus, a deacon of Carthage, commended the Saint with marvelous eulogies Quodvultdeus the deacon; Darius the count, when he was demanding that he should write On Heresies; but his words have already been brought forward at numbers 679 and 680: one I here add, which in Letter 223 of the Benedictines he answered to the Saint excusing himself because of the difficulty of the Work: The difficulty of the Work … I myself, not being ignorant of it, foretold before: but I presumed with a truthful heart upon the richness of the divine fountain which the Lord has bestowed on you.

Darius the count in Letter 263, now 230, declares his singular veneration toward Augustine, with equal love, in these words: Would that, holy lord Father, as my name has been carried to your ears …, so the God of all, your God, had offered me myself to your hands and eyes, … that I might have taken the truest and immortal fruits of your heavenly wisdom rather from your mouth, like the sweetness of some pure water, from the very present and perpetual flow of the fountain! O how blessed am I, not merely thrice or four times, as it is in I know not what author, but a thousand times and more than any number, if it had been granted me to behold in your presence your truly starlike countenance, and if it had been permitted to take and drink in your voice, divine and singing divine things — and not only the fruits of the mind, but also with the delight of the ears. I should surely think that I was receiving certain laws of immortality not only from heaven, but being established in heaven itself, and hearing certain voices of God not far from the temple, but standing close by the very tribunal of God. The same, after many other eulogies of the Saint, thus sets forth his love toward him: For if you believe, my Father, you have so cleaved to our senses and inmost heart, from the time when, not content with your report so glorious, so very great, we preferred to behold you in your writings [], that one letter of yours, and that a brief one, has stirred up such flames and fires of ardor in me.*

[721] Longinianus, a heathen philosopher, having received Augustine's letter, Longinianus, a heathen philosopher, in Letter 21, now 234, discloses what he thought of him: I am blessed,

he says, and greatly illumined by the pure light of your shining virtue, who have judged me worthy to be heaped with the honor of your divine address. And then: Before … Libya possessed a good man, such as you, by my faith, both will be and have been. Since indeed even yet within the memory of men — unless you concede the figure of a fable composed by the fictions of Xenophon — I have as yet heard, read, seen no one, or at least after one, no one (which, with God as witness, I would say at good and certain risk) save you, who always strives to acknowledge God, and is able most easily, heaviness being cast off, to pursue purity of mind and body, and to hold with no doubtful belief the hope of a perfect conscience. And at last toward the end: But before all things I ask you that … you deign to inform me what you judge concerning these things, or what you think, by your holy writings — as that man says, now sweeter not than honey but than nectar.

[722] Audax the grammarian, desiring a more prolix letter from Augustine, Audax the grammarian, writes this to him in Letter 139, now 260: I challenged .. you, sweet Prelate, not that I might receive a tiny libation of an over-bountiful breast, but that I might drink a huge river of a rich man abundantly. I desired a treasure of wisdom, but I received less than I wished — although it ought not to be called less, but a gift, whatever Augustine has conferred, the oracle of the Law, the consecrator of justice, the restorer of spiritual glory, the dispenser of eternal salvation. The world is as well known to you as it is marked by you: you are as well known to it as approved. I desire therefore to be fed on the flowers of wisdom, and to be watered with draughts of the living fountain.

[723] St. Prosper in the Letter to Augustine prefixed to the book On the Predestination of the Saints, St. Prosper of Aquitaine, among the Benedictines Letter 225, commends the Saint's care for the universal Church against the heretics in this manner: For since your most vigilant industry keeps watch for all the members of the body of Christ, and fights against the ambushes of heretical doctrines with the strength of the truth, I thought I must in no way fear to be burdensome or importunate to you in a matter which pertains to the salvation of many, and thereby to your piety; since I should rather believe myself to be guilty if I did not refer to the special Patron of the faith those things which I understand to be exceedingly pernicious. The same St. Prosper in the Letter to Rufinus, in the most recent edition of his Works, column 89, speaks thus of our Saint: The most blessed Augustine also, surely the outstanding portion of the Lord's priests at this time, has copiously and beautifully destroyed the craftinesses of the Pelagians in the discussions of many volumes: inasmuch as, among the many gifts of God with which the Spirit of truth most abundantly filled him, he has also this power of knowledge and wisdom out of the love of God, that he vanquished with the unconquered sword of the word not only this heresy, still palpitating in its lopped limbs, but many heresies before. Against whom, amid so many palms of contests, amid so many crowns of triumphs for the enlightening of the Church and the glory of Christ, by which he himself was illumined, certain of our own (which about them is much to be grieved over) speak against him with hidden but not unknown whisperings. These were the Semi-Pelagians. The same in the book Against the Collator, chapter 1, says: It is twenty and more years that the Catholic battle-line under this Man's leadership has fought and conquered against the enemies of the grace of God. And in chapter 21 he calls Augustine the outstanding Man in his time in ecclesiastical doctrine, and the most mighty Tower of the pastoral watchtower. A more prolix eulogy from St. Prosper was given at number 502. The same Saint has more in various places, which for brevity's sake we pass over.

[724] St. Cælestinus the Pope, St. Cælestinus the Pope, in the Letter to the bishops of Gaul, among the Works of St. Prosper, column 262, has thus: Augustine, a man of holy memory, we have always held in our communion for his life and merits, nor did even a rumor of sinister suspicion ever besprinkle him: whom we remember to have been of so great knowledge long since, that he was always held among the best masters even by my predecessors. All men therefore thought well of him in common, inasmuch as he was everywhere to all both a matter of love and of honor.

[725] Julianus Pomerius, Julianus Pomerius, who flourished at the end of the fifth century and was the master of St. Cæsarius of Arles, in the Work On the Contemplative Life, formerly ascribed to St. Prosper, but now printed in his Appendix, book 3, chapter 31, wrote the following concerning our Saint: Holy Augustine the bishop, keen in genius, sweet in eloquence, skilled in secular literature, laborious in ecclesiastical labors, illustrious in daily disputations, composed in all his action, Catholic in the exposition of our faith, acute in resolving questions, circumspect in refuting heretics, and cautious in explaining the canonical Scriptures.

[726] Gennadius of Marseilles, Gennadius of Marseilles in the Catalogue of Writers, chapter 38, partly praises and partly reproves Augustine, so that from this you may recognize a man addicted to the Semi-Pelagian errors. In Suffridus Petri, page 157, his eulogy is read printed thus: Augustine the African, bishop of the town of Hippo, a man illustrious to the world for divine and human learning, entire in faith and pure in life: he wrote as much as cannot even be found. Who then [] may boast that he has all his works? or who may read with as great zeal as he wrote? Whence to him also, speaking much [], there befell what the Holy Spirit said through Solomon: "In much speaking you shall not escape sin." Yet he published as an old man what he had begun as a young man — twelve books On the Trinity (elsewhere fifteen []) in which (as Scripture says), being brought into the King's chamber and adorned with the manifold garment of God's wisdom, he displayed a Church having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. On the Incarnation of the Lord also he published a fitting piece of piety. On the Resurrection of the dead also he ran with like sincerity: although for the less capable he created a doubt about abortive births. He remained a Catholic [] nevertheless, and his error, contracted, as I said, by much speaking, aggravated by the struggle with enemies, has not yet given occasion for a question of heresy.

[727] From these the edition of Jean Martianay in tome 5 of the Works of St. Jerome, column 35, does not much differ, [who, while he carps at certain things in the Saint, thereby betrays himself a Semi-Pelagian,] although some words here and there are changed. Certain words also are read otherwise in two of our manuscripts, as I have noted in the margin, yet the sense is the same. Further, in Suffridus the following are added, which he notes as added by some interpolator: Serving the Church with distinguished genius and excellent zeal, he replied to the books of Julian the heretic amid the assault of the besieging Vandals at the very end of his days: and, persevering in the defense of Christian wisdom, he dies while Theodosius and Valentinian reigned. For the rest, we cannot doubt that what displeased Gennadius in Augustine were the things which he writes against the Semi-Pelagians, and that he also disapproved some things in the writings against the Pelagians. But the judgment of a man foreign to the truth and addicted to errors cannot stand in the way of the Saint's glory. But as to his adding that he remained a Catholic, this was doubtless because Augustine assailed the Semi-Pelagians not as heretics but as men erring, since their errors were proscribed by the Church after the Saint's death.

[728] I could here review various Pontiffs and even ecumenical councils Finally, others being passed over, St. Gregory, which have praised and approved the doctrine of St. Augustine: but I judge this by no means necessary, since no one of sound mind doubts of the excellence of St. Augustine's doctrine and his teachings. Wherefore, since it would be endless to wish to review all the writers of the middle or of our age who have followed the Saint with excellent eulogies, all the rest being omitted, I add only two doctors of the Church, namely St. Gregory the Great and St. Bernard: to whom may be added Bernard's friend, the venerable Peter of Cluny.

Gregory in book 10, letter 37 of the most recent edition, to Innocent, prefect of Africa, who had asked for his Exposition on Job, thus writes back: If you desire to be fattened with delicious food, read the little Works of blessed Augustine, your countryman, and do not seek our bran in comparison with his fine wheat.

[729] Bernard in sermon 80 on the Canticle has thus briefly: St. Bernard and Peter of Cluny. This is Augustine, the most mighty hammer of heretics. By Peter of Cluny in the Letter to Bernard, which among the Bernardine ones of the new edition is 229, Augustine is called the greatest instructor of the churches after the Apostles. That it is not necessary to scrape together more eulogies of our Saint's Works, the common consent even today of the Church brings about, as I have already noted. I proceed therefore to other things.

al. perplacet*

* i.e. dialectical

al. sceleratis*

quæ* is omitted in the Louvain edition

Louvain: tuis*

Louvain: me*

in the manuscripts, enim*

in the manuscripts, Ex multa eloquentia*

Fifteen* in our manuscripts

* the following are not in the manuscripts

§ LVI. The cult of the Saint.

At what precise time the cult of St. Augustine was begun The Saint enrolled in the Fasti from the sixth century, cannot exactly be determined: but that his veneration flourished already in the sixth century is certain and undoubted. First of all his memory is celebrated in the most ancient Carthaginian Calendar, which Mabillon published in tome 3 of the Analecta, where on page 399, at the IV of the Kalends of September, it is thus read: The deposition of Restitutus and of Augustinus [] the bishop. It is not established why the Saint is here announced on the XXIX of August, since he died on the XXVIII of the same month. Tillemont in article 352 thence suspects that he died in the middle of the night between the XXVIII and the XXIX. But, whatever be the case with this conjecture, as Victor of Vita asserts that the Saint died on the XXVIII of August, so his festivity in the Western Church has always been celebrated on the same day, and his name is everywhere enrolled in all the Fasti. The Hieronymian ones in Florentini have thus at the XXVIII: At Hippo-Regius, the deposition of St. Augustine, bishop and confessor. The old Roman one published by Rosweyde: In Africa, of Augustine the bishop.* That in Gaul also the festivity of St. Augustine was celebrated from the sixth century, the Acts of St. Cæsarius of Arles, published on the preceding day, number 33, manifestly prove, and what was said in the same place in the preliminary Commentary, number 52.

[731] and cult on the XXVIII of August, Ado on the same day praises the Saint with a prolix eulogy, of which I subjoin only the last part: His venerable body, first translated from his own city to Sardinia because of the barbarians, was lately brought back to Ticinum by king Leutprand, a great price being given, and was honorably laid to rest. With these the Martyrologies of Usuard and Bede agree concerning the translations to be set forth afterwards. But, the others being omitted, I subjoin the eulogy of the present-day Roman one alone, which is of this kind: At Hippo-Regius in Africa, the birthday of St. Augustine, bishop and distinguished doctor of the Church: who, converted to the Catholic faith and baptized by the labor of blessed Ambrose the bishop, defended it as a most keen champion against the Manichees and other heretics; and, having discharged many other labors for the Church of God, passed to his rewards in heaven: whose relics, first carried from his own city to Sardinia because of the barbarians, and afterwards by Luitprand, king of the Lombards,

translated to Ticinum, were there honorably laid to rest.

[732] the feasts of his conversion and of both translations: On other days also the Martyrologies treat of our Saint. His conversion and baptism the Roman one, with a certain supplement of our Usuard, announces on the V day of May: but the conversion is noted in a manuscript Index of Usuard on the XVII of the same month, as our Elders observed on that day among the Omitted. Nevertheless neither is the day of his conversion or baptism, as was said in §8. But whence it came about that that day, the V of May, was written in the Martyrology, seems to be gathered from the Chronicles of Josephus Pamphilus, who on folio 52 records these things: In the year of the Lord MCCCXLI a chapter was held at Toulouse, and it is decreed that the feast of the conversion of St. Augustine should be kept, and that it should be written in the Calendar on the fifth day of May. Perhaps that day was chosen for no other reason than that the conversion of St. Monica's Son should be celebrated after her feast. Of the later translation of the sacred body the Roman one makes mention at the XXVIII of February in these words: At Pavia, the translation of the body of St. Augustine the bishop from the island of Sardinia, by the labor of Luitprand, king of the Lombards. The same translation various supplements in our Usuard record on that day. But by others the translation into Sardinia is placed there, which among the Augustinian Hermits is celebrated on the XI of October, and is recorded on the same day in various supplements of our Usuard. There is moreover in various Fasti a Commemoration of St. Augustine on various days, namely the XXIV of January, the VI of March, the 1st of April, and the V of June, as has been observed among the Omitted at the aforesaid days in our Work.

[733] Further, that the festivity of the holy Doctor was once celebrated in the manner in which the feasts of the Apostles are celebrated, the Saint's festivity formerly celebrated we learn from the Augustinian Bullarium, published by Lorenzo Empoli, in which from page 243 is recited the bull of Leo X, by which, after the example of his predecessors Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, he orders the festivity of Augustine to be celebrated in the aforesaid manner. Receive the bull itself: Pope Leo the tenth, to all and singular who shall inspect these present letters, greeting and Apostolic benediction. We have learned that, although the favor of the Saints with God is most necessary for the salvation of the human race, and our predecessor Pope Sixtus the fourth of happy memory, accordingly considering the very many and notable merits of the most blessed Augustine concerning the orthodox faith, established that his feast should thenceforth for perpetual future times be everywhere kept and celebrated by the faithful of Christ, with cessation on that day from every work, just as the feast of any Apostle, and enjoined it under sentence of excommunication; and afterwards Pope Alexander the sixth of pious memory, also our predecessor, moved by the same consideration, renewed and approved this statute and precept, as is more fully contained in the letters thereupon drawn up by them: nevertheless in some parts of the world, especially in the province of Provence, in which there are several houses of the Brothers Hermits of the Order of the same Saint, they presume to violate the aforesaid statute and precept, to the destruction of the souls of those who dare it, to the indignation of almighty God, who has willed to be venerated in His Saints, and to the contempt of Apostolic authority.

[734] Wherefore we, who together with the whole Church militant are daily refreshed in the spiritual plantings of the same Saint, which he has been wont from that time to furnish for the safeguard of the Christian religion, with cessation from work, wishing to provide wholesomely upon these matters, of our certain knowledge, by Apostolic authority approve and renew the statute and precept and letters of our predecessors Sixtus and Alexander; and exhort in the Lord and admonish all and singular the faithful of Christ of either sex, wherever established, and especially in the said province, and, strictly enjoining, command them in virtue of holy obedience and under pain of sentence of excommunication, that from now henceforth in perpetuity they solemnly keep and observe the aforesaid feast of St. Augustine — who is one of the four Doctors of the Church, whose Office was made a greater double by the ordinance of the Pontiffs — just as that of any apostle, and that they abstain on that day utterly from every work forbidden to be done on the feasts of the Apostles. Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. Finally we command that credit be given not only to these our letters, but also to copies or transcripts of them, provided they have been fortified with the seal of a prelate established in ecclesiastical dignity, and signed by the hand of some public notary. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the Fisherman's ring, on the fifth day of April, one thousand five hundred and fifteen, in the third year of our Pontificate. The same had already been established for certain particular places by John XXII and Innocent VIII, whose statutes Alexander VI extended to the whole March of Treviso, as may be seen in his bull of the year 1493, in the praised Bullarium, page 34. But how long the Saint's festivity was celebrated in that manner I do not find. If that custom was not abolished earlier, it was certainly abrogated by the constitution of Urban VIII, issued in the year 1642 and published in Cherubini's Bullarium, tome 5, page 410, by which all feasts not there expressed are abrogated: for Augustine's festivity is not prescribed in the bull as to be celebrated by precept.

[735] which afterwards began again in Spain. Nevertheless the piety of Charles II, king of the Spains, toward St. Augustine brought it about with Innocent XI that the Saint's festivity should be prescribed to be celebrated by all Spaniards. Innocent's bull Ludovico Torelli published in the Augustinian Centuries, tome 5, page 188. This was given in the year 1677, on the XXIII of February, and in it the Pontiff speaks thus: Since therefore, as our beloved son Johannes Everardus, presbyter cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, called Nidhardus, orator of the same king Charles with us and the Apostolic see, has lately set forth to us in the name of our most beloved son in Christ Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, that same king Charles, out of his singular devotion and that of his subjects dwelling in the kingdoms of the Spains toward St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo and most excellent doctor of the Church, greatly desires that the feast of the same holy Doctor should be kept by precept in the said kingdoms; we, considering with a devout and grateful devotion of mind with how great merits that best Master — adorned with distinguished praises by our holy predecessors Cælestinus and Gregory the Great — shines forth in the Church of God (which by his so many most illustrious and irrefragable writings, published for the defense of the orthodox faith, the elucidation of his own doctrine, and the instruction of life and morals to be formed by the rule of Christ, he has far and wide illumined, and does not cease to illumine even today); and accordingly, benignly inclining to the pious and earnest prayers of the said king Charles, humbly offered to us upon this: that for perpetual future times the feast of the same St. Augustine should be kept by precept in all the aforesaid kingdoms of the Spains, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, we establish and decree and ordain.

read Augustini*

§ LVII. The twofold translation of the sacred body.

That the body of St. Augustine, which had first been buried at Hippo, was carried into Sardinia, The Saint's body translated into Sardinia, thence to Ticinum: and thence afterwards translated to Ticinum, the learned agree: but concerning the time of these translations and other circumstances they do not altogether agree, since in them various difficulties occur, which we here undertake to examine and explain. A letter about both translations is said to have been written to Charlemagne by Petrus Oldradus, archbishop of Milan: but both the credit of that letter is quite suspect, and the things narrated in it are not so accurate and certain that from its authority we could determine the times and other circumstances. And so, before we recite the said letter, we shall try to establish those things from elsewhere, so far as we can.

[737] [the first translation made in the time of the Vandal persecution, under Trasamund, as is believed,] All the writers who have recorded the translation from Africa into Sardinia testify that it was made because of the barbarians, that is, the Arian Vandals, who persecuted the Catholics in Africa under various kings, so that from this it does not become certain under which king of the Vandals the translation was carried out. The mentioned letter of Peter of Milan has it that the translation happened in the persecution of Trasamund, who banished the African bishops into Sardinia; and that opinion has been approved by very many. Baronius in the Annals at the year 504, treating of this banishment of the bishops, adds the following at number 38: Then plainly it is related to have happened that the bishop of Hippo and the other priests of his province of Numidia secretly (as they could) carried away with them a sacred treasure, namely the venerable body of that great master of the whole Catholic Church, Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo, and at the same time the ornament of that same sacred head, the episcopal mitre, and the badge of the episcopate, the pastoral staff, and moreover carried off with them many other relics of the Saints. Ruinart in the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter XI, number 17, agrees in these words: But among the other treasures which the African bishops brought with them into Sardinia, one certainly of the most precious was the body of blessed Augustine. Whose translation indeed, although no writer of that time has recorded it, we know most certainly from those things which afterwards happened to have been made then.

[738] Tillemont, tome 13 of the Monuments, article 353, although Tillemont opposes it; whose first reason is worthless, and note 95, opposes these, and strives to prove that the bones were more probably translated in the persecution stirred up by Hunneric in the year 484, which was universal. But the reasons which he alleges are these. Oldradus says that the body of St. Augustine remained in Africa 56 years: and so it could not have been translated in the time of Trasamund, who obtained the kingdom about the year 496. But this reason proves nothing, since Oldradus contradicts himself, from which I thus turn back Tillemont's argument. Oldradus asserts that the Saint's bones were translated by faithful and Catholic bishops, who for the faith of Christ had been banished by the wicked king Trasamund, together with Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, … to that same island (Sardinia). Longer therefore did the sacred bones remain in Africa than 56 years. But, he says, it would be better to abandon the authority of Oldradus in what he affirms about Trasamund and Fulgentius, and to cling to the epoch of 56 years, which he doubtless found elsewhere. I marvel at this criticism, especially since he himself presently overturns it. For he at once adds that for 56 years 54 must be substituted. How then does he cling to the epoch of Oldradus, which he doubtless found elsewhere? But now, who does not know that writers err more easily in computing years than in reporting facts? Who is ignorant that numbers are often disturbed by the fault of copyists, and that years rightly numbered by writers thence afterwards appear faulty? And so, if any authority is to be attributed to Oldradus's letter, the persons whom he expresses must be retained, and the numbers corrected. But Tillemont reasons from Oldradus's epoch against Oldradus, and meanwhile of the three epochs which he lays down keeps none unharmed, but contends that all must be corrected. This first reason of his therefore proves nothing, but rather opposes him, since Oldradus clearly declares that the translation was made under Trasamund, and could easily have found this in older writers, or drawn it from documents found at Ticinum or elsewhere.

[739] His other reason, on which he chiefly relies, is openly erroneous and false. the other plainly erroneous, The persecution, he says, of the year DVIII under Trasamund perhaps did not concern any but the Byzacene province, and thus was not the cause of the translation of the body of St. Augustine, which was in Numidia. The most illustrious Fontanini, archbishop of Ancyra, in his Disquisition on the body of St. Augustine, where in chapter 4 he had at length proved that Trasamund's persecution was universal in Africa, thus proceeds in chapter 5: Nevertheless Tillemont suspected that this persecution was stirred up by Hunneric, not by Trasamund.. But I do not at all doubt that the learned man was carried away into error by his own suspicions, in which he often too much indulged. Since indeed Ferrandus in Chifflet's edition at the beginning of chapter XXI, Victor of Tunnuna, Isidore, Ado, Paul the deacon, the Anonymous of Ruinart, and the author of the Life of St. Avitus, all adduced by me just now — whom Tillemont, wearied and as it were overwhelmed by the magnitude of his own Work, by no means seems to have consulted — speak by name certainly not of Hunneric but of Trasamund, and this is clear to one who consults those same historians. Ruinart in the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter XI, number 8, had already shown the same before; but Tillemont was deceived by the author of the Life of St. Fulgentius, who wrote that sixty and more bishops bound with a chain were of the exile, because, as Ruinart has it, he records only the prelates of the province of Byzacena.

[740] as is proved: But let us hear from the praised Ruinart how widely the said persecution of Trasamund extended itself: Certainly Victor of Tunnuna, a bishop in Africa, who flourished while Justinian lived, affirms in express words in his Chronicle that a hundred and twenty bishops from all Africa were thrust into exile by Trasamund. These are his words: "Trasamund, full of Arian madness, persecutes the Catholics, shuts the churches of the Catholics, and sends into exile in Sardinia a hundred and twenty bishops from the whole African church." The same has Isidore in his brief History of the Vandals, era DXXVI. They are said to have been two hundred and twenty in number in the brief Chronicle which was published above by us. As many the author of the Historia Miscella reviews, which is commonly inscribed with the name of Paul the deacon. Five more Sigebert and Marianus Scotus add. But Hermannus Contractus records that two hundred and thirty bishops were afflicted by Trasamund in Sardinia and various islands. Nearly the same have other writers of that age, whom it profits nothing to review one by one; but from the example of Eugenius of Carthage alone it is plain that bishops of other provinces besides Byzacena also were ejected from their sees by Trasamund.

[741] the year of this translation uncertain. And so Tillemont could have acquiesced in the opinion everywhere received, by which it is believed that the bones of St. Augustine were carried into Sardinia in the time of Trasamund's persecution by the bishops banished thither. For he himself confesses that in Hunneric's persecution the bishops were not sent away into Sardinia, but partly sent into Corsica, partly retained in Africa; so that it becomes in no way likely that the Saint's bones were then carried into Sardinia; and one would have to invent another translation, of which no one ever made mention even in a word. But in what year of Trasamund, or of the Christian epoch, the translation happened, cannot certainly be determined. If we believe Oldradus's letter, that it was made while St. Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, was sent into exile by Trasamund, it could not have been made before the year 508, in which St. Fulgentius was ordained bishop, as the learned everywhere hand down. But I confess that the authority of the letter is not so great in this matter that by it the thing becomes sufficiently certain. Let it suffice therefore to have said that the translation happened under Trasamund about the beginning of the sixth century.

[742] Various opinions about the year of the second translation: After the sacred bones had lain deposited in Sardinia for more than two hundred years, when the island was being laid waste by the Saracens, they were redeemed at a great price by the labor of Luitprand, king of the Lombards, and translated to Ticinum. Concerning the year of this translation the learned dispute: for some lay down 712, others 721, others 722 or even 723 and 725, others finally other years, as is wont to happen in an obscure and uncertain matter. Baronius in the Annals at the year 725, number 1, believed that the Saint's bones were translated in that very year. Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of his Order, tome 3, page 437, bound the translation to the year 722: but in the Museum Italicum, tome 1, page 221, because of a certain diploma of Luitprand which had been found, he changed his opinion and designated the year 712, which Ruinart also embraced in the History of the Vandal Persecution, chapter XI, number 17. But Tillemont in his Augustine, note 95, and Pagi in the Critica at the year 725, number 1, contend that the year of this translation is still uncertain, and assail Mabillon's second opinion with so many reasons that he himself again abandoned it in the Benedictine Annals, tome 2, page 67, and again tied the translation to the year 722. Fontanini in the Disquisition on the body of St. Augustine, chapter 10, not only embraces the year 722, but also confidently adds: Wherefore the year of the translation, which seemed uncertain to Pagi … and to Tillemont, must now be held certain. So they. But before we investigate these things, let us hear the translation as asserted by ancient writers, that thence light may shine upon our discussion.

[743] The venerable Bede, who lived at that very time, from Bede we have that it was made in the first nine years of Leo the Isaurian; at the end of the book On the Six Ages of the World, describing the first nine years of Leo the Isaurian, records these things last of all: Liudbrand, hearing that the Saracens, having ravaged Sardinia, were defiling also those places where the bones of the holy bishop Augustine had once been translated because of the devastation of the barbarians and honorably laid to rest, sent, and, a great price being given, received them and translated them to Ticinum, and there laid them up again with the honor due to so great a Father. With these Paul the Deacon fully agrees in book 6 On the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 48. Fontanini in chapter 7 adds the genuine Martyrology of Bede, as he calls it, page 413, whose words are these: In Africa, of St. Augustine the bishop, who, first translated from his own city to Sardinia because of the barbarians, was lately brought back to Ticinum by Liuthbrand, king of the Lombards, and honorably laid to rest. From these nothing follows for fixing the time of the translation, save that the translation happened within the first nine years of the reign of Leo the Isaurian, that is, between the XXV of March of the year 717, in which Pagi at the year 716, number 3, proves that Leo was raised to the empire, and the said day of the year 726. Baronius, praised just now, nevertheless drew his conjecture from Bede's words, writing thus: Namely because he, extending his commentary On the Six Ages down to the ninth year of the emperor Leo, and placing in the last place that translation, with which he closes that lucubration, we can judge that in this year (725) it happened. But since Bede reports confusedly everything that was done in the nine years of Leo, this conjecture seems to fail. Yet it is legitimately deduced from Bede's words that the translation was not made in the year 712, as Mabillon acknowledged; or in the year 734, to which Marianus Scotus had referred it.

[744] Now let us see whether the year 722, which is confirmed by the reckoning of various authors, various writers designate the year 722, and thus appears at least probable, ought also to be held certain. The praised Fontanini in chapter 10, after adducing the authority of a very ancient Chronicle, in which Mabillon had said in the Acts of the Saints of his Order, tome 3, page 437, that the translation is recorded in the year 722, adds the following: That Chronicle of Germanus is not the only one which connects the translation of Augustine's bones with that year DCCXXII; but others also do this. For the authors of the Elnonensian, the Würzburg, and the Saxon Chronicles confirm this very thing with one mouth. The first Edmond Martène published in the Thesaurus Anecdotorum, tome III, page MCCCXCIII; the second Étienne Baluze in the Miscellanea, tome 1, page DII; the third Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the Historical Accessions, tome 2, page CX. In this third Chronicle, however, the year of Christ DCCXXII, in which the things we have said were done, is coupled with the V, not the VI, year of the reign of Leo the Isaurian, because the Saxon Chronographer tied the first year of Leo to A.D. DCCXVIII, which he ought to have tied to A.D. DCCXVII. To these at last he subjoins the authority of Sigonio, who in book 3 On the Kingdom of Italy records the translation in the same year.

[745] others however 721, so that neither is altogether certain. These Chronicles indeed, which were written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seem to me to suffice for our fixing the translation about the year 722, until more certain monuments be brought forward. But they are not of such weight to me that I should dare with Fontanini to affirm that the year 722 is altogether certain, especially because Sigebert, abbot of Gembloux, Alberic, a Cistercian monk, the Strozzian anonymous in Fontanini, chapter 14, and Hermannus Contractus in his Chronicles, dissent: of whom the first three record the translation in the year 721, the third in the year 723 — which years can be fitted with Bede's reckonings as well as 722. But as to what Fontanini says, that the little tablets of these chronologists have been moved out of place, it cannot be said save by divination, and with little probability, since he adduces no proof of that corruption. Wherefore I should prefer to fix the translation about the year 722 with some latitude, rather than to affirm that it was certainly made in the year 722; for nearly equal weights fight for the year 721, which was designated also by Vincent of Beauvais, as his words to be cited below will teach.

[746] Another translation, asserted by some, does not seem to have taken place. Odoricus Raynaldus in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1228, number 37, thought that he had found some other translation, when he wrote thus: Nor does that seem to be passed over in silence in this place — that there is inserted in the Pontifical register of this year a diploma of Gregory concerning the translation of the body of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor, which lay at Ticinum in the church called of St. Peter of the Golden Heaven, into the sacred temple of Mortara, celebrated with solemn pomp. Perhaps Raynaldus found a bull of the Pontiff in which it was permitted to translate the sacred body to Mortara: but it is not credible that it was ever translated thither, whether because the men of Ticinum never permitted it, or for any other cause whatever. It could also be doubted whether the rescript which Raynaldus saw is sufficiently authentic, and, if it be such, whether the translation has been rightly deduced from it, since he did not bring forward the words. Whatever be the case, that translation Ludovico Torelli fully refutes in the Augustinian Centuries at the same year, and the same will be sufficiently refuted from those things which we shall say in the following §.

§ LVIII. The letter published under the name of Petrus Oldradus concerning both translations is examined.

The letter published under the name of Petrus Oldradus is either interpolated, Pagi at the year 725, number 2, contends by various reasons that the whole letter of Peter of Milan is spurious and supposititious, which I transfer hither: For this, he says, is its inscription: "To the most pious lord of kings, Charlemagne, Petrus Oldradus, unworthy archbishop of the Milanese." For in the year of Christ DCCXCVI, in which it is said to have been given, Charles in letters [was] not called Magnus

was not surnamed; nay, neither, so long as he was among the living, is he found named with this title. (He proves this from Mabillon, tome 2 of the Analecta, page 420.) Secondly, in the time of Charlemagne bishops expressed only their own name, never a surname. Nay, that surnames had not yet at that time been instituted, the common opinion holds. Thirdly, Papebroch in the Exegesis on the Bishops of Milan, prefixed to tome VII of the Saints of the month of May, observes that certain diplomas were falsely ascribed to Petrus Oldradus, bishop of Milan, and recited by Ughelli in Italia Sacra, whose falsity is manifest on various heads, and especially because in them Peter is called Oldradus — namely for the gratification of a family of that name. Finally that letter is befouled with so many anachronisms that it deserves no credit at all.

[748] These reasons prove that the inscription of the letter is either fictitious or at least adulterated. or rather supposititious, and of a writer later than he: But it could easily have come about that someone should add to the name of Charles the surname Magnus, and augment the name of Peter with the surname Oldradus. But what Pagi says about diplomas falsely ascribed to Petrus Oldradus is not free of error. For Papebroch holds the diplomas of Peter of Milan which Ughelli published to be legitimate, but disapproves one diploma of Charlemagne, because in it Peter is surnamed Oldradus. As to what is finally objected about anachronisms, it does not suffice for holding Peter's whole letter as supposititious, since they are not so great that they could not have escaped Peter, because at that time chronological science was less perfect. Nevertheless something else also occurs in this letter which is displeasing. Hear Fontanini in chapter XI: The mention also, thrown in once and again, of our common era — which at the beginning of the sixth century was privately arranged by Dionysius Exiguus, and only after Charlemagne was received into public use in Italy — can in no way be approved. From these things one must conclude either that the letter has been interpolated, or that it is of a less ancient writer, to whom a lying inscription was afterwards attached: which last will appear the more likely from what is to be said.

[749] Nevertheless Fontanini thinks that the greater part of the Letter is true, [yet many things in it seem true. There is related in it the translation of the Saint into Sardinia;] because most of the things related in it are affirmed by other writers also, as will appear. I therefore subjoin the whole, with certain observations, from Baronius's edition at the year 725. To the most pious lord of kings, Charlemagne, Petrus Oldradus, unworthy archbishop of the Milanese, an everlasting crown in Christ. The work which your highness, while you were staying in the city of Milan, deigned to impose upon me — that I should investigate something about the translation of the body of blessed Augustine the bishop from Sardinia to Pavia, and should transcribe it for your highness in a faithful account — I have elaborated so far as human frailty could labor: and what from the letters and books of the Kings of the Lombards, and also from the tradition of many, I have read and heard, with God's help I shall briefly write. Blessed Augustine, doctor of the Churches of Christ, after many signs of miracles by which he shone in this world, after much sweat of labors by which he had assailed the obstinacy of heretics depraving the straight path of the way, rendering his soul to God, was honorably buried by the faithful in the city of Hippo in his own bishopric, in the church of St. Stephen, in the running year of the Incarnation of Christ four hundred and thirty; and there, honorably buried by the hand of his disciples, he lay nearly fifty-six years: then he was translated into Sardinia by faithful and Catholic bishops, who for the faith of Christ had been banished by the wicked king Trasamund, together with Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, with countless faithful of Christ, into that same island, at which time the Vandals were laying waste Africa with arms; and, lest so great a gem and treasure should be polluted by unclean spirits, they carried him away with them together with some other relics of the Saints. There he was famous for many miracles for two hundred and twenty-three years. Whereby it is given manifestly to be understood that those whom God holds dear He glorifies and marks out with the powers of miracles, for the testimony of their holiness. Further, in what city of Sardinia the Saint's body was received and kept, the ancients do not express. But more recent writers designate Cagliari, where they affirm that he was both famous for miracles and is even today honored with great solemnity. Torelli may be seen, tome 2 at the year 505, from number 21, whose assertions it does not please me to discuss here. Let us return to the letter.

[750] the piety of Luitprand, king of the Lombards, Whence, Luitprand, son of Asprand, king of the Lombards — at which time two hundred and eighty years had rolled by from the day of the Saint's own death — having obtained the kingdom of the Lombards, and persevering in a true purpose of religion, inasmuch as he stood forth as the protector and faithful defender of the churches of God, a man certainly most worthy of so great a princedom, if anyone should look at the prudence, wisdom, and counsel in which he greatly excelled; while he was held so distinguished for justice and clemency that it would be judged difficult in which of the two he deserved the greater praise: he was so most Christian, and a lover of religion, that he never permitted any churches to be built in his kingdom without his own support: for, to say nothing of the rest, at Pavia he built very many churches with marvelous adornment, many castles and possessions being given and added: and especially in his own palace he raised an oratory in honor of the Savior of the world, where he also appointed many priests and clerics who should discharge the divine offices day and night, many goods being assigned, that they might be able to serve God more honorably and more eagerly. And in the first year of his reign he confirmed the donation which king Aripert had given to blessed Peter, namely the Cottian Alps, in which Genoa is, and whatever from that city the Alps contained as far as the borders of the Gauls. And to blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, he built a monastery in the suburb of Pavia, excellently adorned with the work of a craftsman, to which also he gave the name Golden Heaven. Of the construction of the monastery and church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven there will be treatment below.

[751] by whose command the sacred body is carried from Sardinia to Genoa, An infinite multitude therefore of barbarians set about storming Sardinia: which, when they had invaded it and were destroying it after subjugating it, they violently attacked and polluted also the holy places, among them the sepulchre of blessed Augustine. When king Luitprand, cultivator of justice and lover of religion, had heard from Peter of holy memory, bishop of Pavia — whom the king followed with the greatest honor and highest reverence for the holiness of his life — namely that the place of the most holy Augustine was being defiled and dishonorably treated, he sent his legates, noble magnates, with a great weight of gold and silver into Sardinia, that they might redeem the body of so great a Saint at a price, and translate it as soon as possible to the city of Pavia. Who, desiring to satisfy the command and desire of the most pious king, came by ship into Sardinia, and, redeeming the holy body from the barbarians and placing it on the ship, by God's mercy and with their own immense joy were brought with full sails over a tranquil sea in the space of one day and night before the port and station of Genoa; and by legates they announced to the king what had been done, and that they should come to meet them honorably to receive the relics of so glorious a body.

[752] Which being heard, the king, suffused with immense joy, rendered great thanks to God, that He had fulfilled his desire: [thence through the territory of Tortona, whither the king himself is said to have gone to meet it,] and, all business being set aside, having asked and convoked all the bishops of his cities and the whole clergy, he went forward as far as the border of the territory of Tortona with the greatest humility to receive so illustrious a gift of God; and after the manner of David, to receive the Ark of the Lord and to place it in a more fitting spot, he hastened with an innumerable multitude of magnates and of people of either sex, all giving thanks to God for so great gifts bestowed. But when he had drawn near to the place where the holy body lay, laying aside the insignia of the royal court, and with head and feet bared, he went forward with so great humility and devotion that all who were present marveled and praised God for so great a devotion of the most pious king. But for the glorifying of His Confessor the merciful Lord deigned to work many miracles: for many were present deprived of some function of the body, who, health being recovered, crying out eagerly to the praise and honor of God, returned gladly to their own homes. Whence, carrying the body of the blessed Confessor with praises and hymns, they came to the borders of the territory of Tortona, to the estate which they call Savinariense, where the king Luitprand, with the whole company of bishops and magnates, passing the night and worthily performing the office due to so great a Father: the king himself, like one of the common people, passed the night near the relics of the most holy body, burning with an exceeding zeal of devotion.

[753] But when the dawn of the following day was breaking, as they were setting themselves to accomplish the journey to the city of Ticinum, and where the body, made immovable, but, a vow being uttered, again movable, they could by no means move the holy body. When therefore several approached the bier and accomplished nothing, king Luitprand, his garments rent and his face disfigured, rolled upon the ground; inasmuch as he was burning exceedingly with an immense desire of translating the relics of so great a Father to the city of Ticinum: but then he had fallen altogether from every hope that the holy body could be moved. At which miracle all the bishops and magnates were astounded, considering within themselves what almighty God might wish to indicate concerning the relics of so glorious a Doctor. There was present among the company of bishops Gratianus of holy memory, prelate of the church of Novara, a man endowed with much learning and illustrious in every kind of the sciences, and truly a priest of God, who approached king Luitprand confidently, affirming that the mercy of God must be implored not by words and outward acts, but rather by vows and works. Which admonitions the king most willingly hearing, a vow being made, he resolved that, if the Lord God almighty should permit the body of blessed Augustine to be carried to Ticinum, he would bestow the above-named estate Savinariense upon God and upon the church of blessed Peter, to which he wished to carry that same holy body, to be held in perpetuity. It came to pass therefore that, when he had discharged his vow, he approached the bier: who, when he tried to lift the body from the ground, found it so exceedingly light that, with no further weight hindering, the most blessed body — which before could not be moved by several — was now not prevented from being carried by two. They accomplished therefore the journey they had begun, praising with immense joy and exultation the omnipotence of God, who had so easily heard the king's vows.

[754] But when it was heard in the city about the coming of the king with the relics of the most blessed Confessor: all who had remained hastened to run to receive the most holy body, is translated to Ticinum and grows famous by miracles. and with the highest honor, as due to so great a Father, they bore it with hymns and songs, and with a concourse of the whole people, suffused with the highest joy, and laid it in the church of blessed Peter in the Golden Heaven. And rightly was he placed in an apostolic church, who, fighting for the faith of the church, scattered the diabolical frauds of heretics. Where also, for the testimony of his holiness and for a proof of faith to posterity, he was famous for many signs and miracles. That memorable thing happened after the translation to Pavia was made, whereby it became known that that translation was pleasing to God and to blessed father Augustine: since indeed

many, by the mere touch of the sacred pledges, at once recovered from various diseases.

[755] A notable healing of many, preceded by an apparition of the Saint: But notable was that apparition made to certain men from beyond the mountains, forty in number, who, seeking Rome, passing the night near the hamlet of Cava, about three thousand paces distant from Pavia, that they might there tend their limbs wearied on the long journey, about the second hour of the night saw coming forth from the church which was nearby, dedicated to the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, a man adorned in pontifical habit, who, drawing near to them, asked whither they were going. When they had answered that they were setting out for Rome to the basilicas of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, in order to obtain from the Lord to be freed from the infirmities with which each of them was afflicted (for they were all sick, and therefore were making the pilgrimage to Rome), both that they might visit the holy places and that God might heal them by the merits of the Saints resting there, the Pontiff said to them: Direct your steps to the city near you, namely Pavia, and enter the church of blessed Peter in the Golden Heaven; on entering you shall be healed of your languors. To the pilgrims asking who he was, he answered that he was Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Hearing this, filled with amazement and joy, hastening to Pavia and entering the church, crying out they said: Holy Augustine, as you promised, restore health to us. These words scarcely uttered, they felt themselves restored to their former soundness, and, giving thanks to God and to blessed Augustine, returned to their own homes glad and sound, narrating the marvels which the Lord had done by the intercession of so great a Doctor. The same relates Jacobus de Voragine in chapter 191, but he designates the year about 912: which, if it be the right epoch, this cannot be a letter of Peter the archbishop to Charlemagne, but will have a far later author. Let us hear nevertheless the rest.

[756] the piety of king Luitprand toward Augustine. But the gifts which the most pious king Luitprand gave to the church of blessed Peter, both in estates and possessions and in vessels of gold and silver and in vestments pertaining to the worship of God, exceed the opinion of all pious and Catholic men. But that king thought that he could not give so much to the ministers who guarded the body of the blessed Father as would fully satisfy his own opinion and will. And he was filled with so great joy at the body of so great a Man received, that day and night he passed the night in the church in hymns and songs of God with the clerics and priests, and, like one of the ministers, exercised himself in the songs of God and in psalmody. This translation of the body of St. Augustine was made on the day before the Kalends of March, while Gregory the second of that name, of good memory, sat on the holy See of Peter. May Christ the Lord, King of kings, deign to guard the excellence of your greatness through many courses of years by His power. Given in the city of Milan in the year of the saving Incarnation of the Lord seven hundred and ninety-six. Thus far the letter, formerly marked with the name of Petrus Oldradus, but perhaps written some centuries after Peter and Charlemagne. Certainly that letter was unknown to Philip of Bonne-Espérance, who will presently say that he could not find it written when .., or how, or by whom the sacred body of Augustine was translated into Sardinia: which he would not have said, if he had seen this letter. For this cause, since the letter deserves little credit, I shall subjoin from other writers which circumstances of these translations seem more certain.

§ LIX. Most of the things related in the preceding letter are confirmed from other writers, and there is discussion of the monastery and church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, where the body was deposited.

Most of the aforesaid Philip of Bonne-Espérance, abbot, in the Life of St. Augustine, chapter 33, wrote thus concerning the translations: Blessed Augustine therefore, having died in his own city of Hippo, in the third month of its siege, on the fifth of the Kalends of September, was buried there with mourning and grief by his holy fellow-bishops who were present and by his brethren: but thence afterwards, by God's disposing counsel, he was translated to Sardinia. But when, or how, or by whom he was translated thither, I have not wished nor ought to commit to writing, because I could not find it written. But there he lay honorably until nearly the two hundred and eightieth year from his death, until by God's hidden but not unjust judgment that city too succumbed to destruction. We see here, and shall see below in others, the same anachronism about the second translation which occurs in the letter ascribed to Peter of Milan. But that that letter was unknown to this writer I have already said from his cited words. I return to Philip.

[758] For the Saracens, rushing in, smote it with the edge of the sword, and, not knowing God, overthrew all that was God's: concerning the twofold and — what is more detestable — they unworthily defiled even the sacred places themselves, all veneration being cast aside. Nevertheless, when that same city was succumbing to hostile destruction, divine providence did not suffer the fame of the holy Man to be held in silence. At that time the religious king Leuthbrand [], by God's disposing, was ruling Italy, who, loving the things that are God's, greatly venerated the holy Church… That Leuthbrand indeed, stirred by no small devotion, built in honor of blessed Peter the apostle a basilica beyond [] the walls of the city of Pavia, which, notable for royal adornment, he named the Golden Cell. And while he was bestowing anxious zeal upon it, he heard that the hostile impiety of the Saracens was ravaging Sardinia, and that that venerable place in which blessed Augustine had long honorably rested was being held in contempt. Taking therefore legates whom he judged energetic and faithful, he sent them thither with a great weight of gold and silver, praying and by praying obtaining that either by entreaty, or by price, or by any device, they should strive to take that holy body from Sardinia and to bring it to him. For the devout prince said that his church would shine with a worthy splendor, if it deserved to be enriched with so great a treasure.

[759] translation of the sacred body But they, faithfully executing the duty enjoined upon them, set out for Sardinia, and, the body being taken and a great price given, returned with joy. Who, fortified by so great a Protector and secure in so great a defense, committed themselves to the sea; and, the zephyr filling the sails, the west wind whistling and the level of the sea rippling, they furrowed the deep with swift oar and prosperous course, and entered the port of the city of Memia [], and there, anchors being cast, they rested a while. But king Leuthbrand, learning that the messengers were returning with their wish fulfilled, attended by a great company of soldiers, met them there rejoicing, and, falling on his face with bended knee, humbly adored that holy body. In whose presence God worked many miracles there through blessed Augustine, so that he whose life had been marvelous should after death appear no less praiseworthy. With these concerning the second translation various writers agree. In the same way speak the Strozzian Anonymous, cited in Fontanini, chapter 14, and Vincent of Beauvais, book 23, chapter 148, whose words I attach: In the IV year of Leo, Luitprand, king of the Lombards, hearing that the Saracens, having ravaged Sardinia, had also defiled those places where the bones of blessed Augustine, once translated from Hippo because of the devastation of the barbarians, had been laid up, directed his legates thither, who, much gold being given, carried away with them those precious relics, and returned to the city of Genoa, where the aforesaid king, meeting them with joy, devoutly adored the health-bringing body and reverently received it — miracles indeed having been seen, wrought there for the declaring of the Saint's merit. Petrus de Natalibus, book 3, chapter 161, and Jacobus de Voragine in the Genoese Chronicle, which was published in tome 9 of the Writers of Italy*, page 77, chapter 7, likewise affirm that the body was carried from Sardinia to Genoa, and that Luitprand came thither to meet it.

[760] To the preceding Philip the abbot subjoins these: Then, the naval station being cast off and the body taken up, the king and his men set out thence, and, coming into the bishopric of Tortona [], entered a certain royal hamlet which is commonly called Mons Samarius. But because, the day's labor being finished, the sun was already preparing its setting, and, evening pressing on, the day was verging to its end, the body being set down, they rested there, and with tapers and lamps, with hymns and praises, made the whole night festal. But in the morning … the king, impatient of delay, ordered at daybreak that the body be taken up, hoping to set out as usual without any difficulty. The king's command being heard, the bearers seize the bier, finding a thing full of miracle. For that body was found of such heaviness, was found of such weight, that not only could it not be lifted by those former bearers, but could not even be moved by them all. They are struck with fear and wonder as to what fault they had contracted in the night just past, if by singing psalms and praising they had incurred so great an offense. At length the king, admonished by a divine impulse, … offered a gift to appease the holy Man, saying: If you, father Augustine, shall permit yourself to be carried to the place which (read which) I have chosen, this estate in which we are, and all that belongs to it, I shall give you in perpetuity for the uses of those ministering to you. Marvelous thing: that blessed Saint, who according to Scripture shook his hands from every gift, is appeased by such a gift; and his body, which a little before was utterly immovable, on hearing the offer rendered itself portable.*

[761] The same, in fewer words, Vincent of Beauvais in the place already assigned and the Strozzian Anonymous record. are confirmed from other writers Hear the former: Indeed the king and his men, setting out thence (from Genoa) with that most precious treasure, went to a certain estate situated in the diocese of Tortona. Nevertheless, when they wished to take the most holy body away thence, it stood so immovable that no force, no human art could move it. Which the king seeing, he vowed a vow, that if the blessed Confessor should permit himself to be taken from that place and carried across to Pavia, he would grant the estate with all its appurtenances to his servants, to be possessed in perpetuity. The vow being made and confirmed, the most holy body is lifted with inestimable ease. Jacobus de Voragine, mentioned above, narrates the same miracle, but writes that it happened at Genoa. Receive his words: But when the king wished those bones to be carried to Pavia, they weighed so much that they could by no means be lifted by the bearers. Then the king vowed a vow to blessed Augustine, that if he would allow himself to be lifted and led to Pavia, he would have a church built in his honor in that place, namely, where he had been lodged near Genoa. The vow therefore being made, at once those who were carrying the body lifted it lightly, and the king faithfully fulfilled his vow. But where that church now is, is not found, nor is it known. Because, as I judge, it was never built. For more credit is owed to the writers cited before, who write that that miracle was done in the territory of Tortona, than to this one; or even to Petrus de Natalibus, who affirms that the miracle was done in both places, and that a church was built by Luitprand in both — nay, in all the places in which the sacred body passed the night with the king.

[762] Philip the abbot pursues the rest pertaining to the translation in this manner: are confirmed: That indeed being given and confirmed which king Leuthbrand

had devoutly promised, the bearers lifted that holy body, all difficulty being removed, and, undertaking the desired journey, came together to Pavia with joy. But messengers running before, the whole city was stirred with ineffable gladness, and a countless multitude of either sex went forth to meet it with hymns and praises. Who, praising the Lord by whose incomprehensible grace they had deserved to receive so great relics, returning to the royal basilica, honorably laid them there on the fifth of the Ides of October. Vincent of Beauvais has thus concerning these: The body being carried across as far as Ticinum, with clergy and people alike running together, is honorably and joyfully received, and most worthily placed in the basilica of blessed Peter, which the aforesaid king, in founding it, had called the Golden Heaven. The same likewise the Strozzian Anonymous in Fontanini, chapter 14, adding nevertheless: But the translation was made in the year of the Lord DCCXXI, CCLXXXI [] years having now run by from the passing of that same Confessor.*

[763] There comes to be observed in this place the day of this translation, on the day of each translation. since Philip the abbot, against the opinion of most, assigns to it the XI of October: for in the letter of Oldradus, in Petrus de Natalibus, in an ancient Calendar in Florentini at the XXVIII of February, and finally in most Martyrologies, it is said to have been made on the XXVIII of February, on which its festivity is celebrated among the Augustinians and the people of Ticinum. But on the contrary the first translation into Sardinia is recalled among the Augustinians on the XI of October, on which Philip the abbot affirms that the second happened. Hence we gather that one translation was made on the XXVIII of February, the other on the XI of October — or at least that this was long believed; but that there was not the same consent among all as to which happened on the XXVIII of February and which on the XI of October, since in the supplements to Usuard there is a marvelous discrepancy concerning them, as I noted at number 732. Nevertheless, since even today that opinion is everywhere received by which the second translation is believed to have been made on the XXVIII of February, and the same rests upon more foundations, we can suspect that Philip the abbot confused the day of the first translation with the day of the second, and that from him the same error crept into the augmented codices of Usuard. For the interpretation of Fontanini in chapter 15 seems more kindly than probable, where he strives to reconcile Philip with the others in this manner: It comes before my mind that the remains of the great Father were perhaps carried to Ticinum on the XXVIII day of February, and then brought into the confession, which had then to be built, on the XI day of October, or the reverse.

[764] [The church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven seems to have been founded before Luitprand, by whom it was enlarged,] That with the body of St. Augustine other bodies also of the Saints were translated and deposited in the same church, various writers record: but that does not concern us in this place. The Anonymous of Ticinum, published in tome XI of the Writers of Italy, in the book On the Praises of Pavia, chapter 4, column 13, writes thus of the church where the bones of St. Augustine and of others were deposited: Within the circuit of the third and outer wall, by which that city was further enlarged round about, these other churches are contained… The church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, which Luitprand, king of the Lombards, enlarged and endowed. In which lies the body of the most blessed Augustine, bishop of Hippo, distinguished doctor, who showed many powers there. This writer not obscurely intimates that that church was built before Luitprand, when he says enlarged. The same becomes likely from this, that in the same church Severinus Boëthius was buried, who was slain at Ticinum long before Luitprand's times, and of whom it is related, says the same writer, that, having been beheaded, he carried his own head in his arms from the place of beheading as far as the aforesaid church. That fact I do not discuss: but from it I only gather that that church is older than Luitprand. Nay, I have a suspicion that Paul the Deacon speaks of the same church when in book 4, chapter 32, he says: At Ticinum also, in the basilica of blessed Peter the apostle, Peter the cantor was struck by lightning — in the time of king Agilulf, and a whole century before Luitprand. That author indeed speaks in book 6, chapter 5, of another church of St. Peter at Ticinum; but he adds, which is called ad Vincula, so that in the former place he seems to speak of the first, which received the name of the Golden Heaven from Luitprand. Mabillon in the Italian Journey, tome 1, part 1, page 222, writes thus: The same Luitprand in the third year of his reign confirms the donation of his predecessor king Aripert "to the basilica of the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, situated outside the walls of the city of Ticinum, and to the venerable man Lucedus the presbyter." Which again clearly intimate that the church was founded before Luitprand — provided that diploma, published in Gabriele Pennotto's Tripartite History, book 1, chapter 58, be sufficiently authentic.

[765] and a monastery added to the church: Hence I cannot assent to the modern writers who assert with Vincent of Beauvais that that church was built by Luitprand. Still less does the opinion of the most illustrious Fontanini please me, who prefixed this title to the tenth chapter of his Disquisition: The basilica of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven built by king Luitprand for the sole purpose of depositing Augustine's body in its confession, where it has always rested. For the words of Paul the Deacon, book 6, chapter 58, which are alleged for proving that, only establish that the monastery was founded by Luitprand, and nothing besides. Hear his very words: This most glorious king built many basilicas in Christ's honor in the several places where he was wont to dwell. He founded the monastery of blessed Peter, which is situated outside the walls of the city of Ticinum and is called the Golden Heaven. I should prefer therefore to judge that only the monastery, which belonged to the Benedictines, was built by Luitprand, but that the church was enlarged and adorned — which could have furnished some with occasion for writing that the church itself was built by him.

[766] For the rest, that church with the monastery was transferred by Honorius III, the supreme Pontiff, from the Benedictines to the Canons Regular, [which was first inhabited by Benedictines: to whom succeeded the Canons and the Augustinian Hermits.] to whom afterwards the Augustinian Hermits were added by John XXII. The first Mabillon hands down in the Italian Journey, page 222; both Fontanini in the Disquisition, chapter 18, where he adds these things: They (the Hermits) and the Lateran Canons already, according to the statutes of Boniface IX, discharge the divine Offices in alternate months in the middle of the building at the high altar. The Hermits, as he presently adds, occupy the southern side of the basilica, the Canons Regular the northern, or at least the Gospel side. These things Mabillon and Papebroch, to be alleged below, saw. But now it must be set forth with how great zeal the sacred body was laid up and preserved.

* i.e. Luitprand

* i.e. outside

read Genuensis*

* The city of Dertona is commonly called Tortona.

* perhaps CCXCI

§ LX. The body laid up with great care: the place in which many believed it deposited: the finding and recognition of the body.

The opinion of certain men about the body laid up in an unknown place: Bernardo Sacco in the History of Ticinum, book 10, chapter 3, writes these things: In the church therefore of St. Peter built by Lytprand the body of Augustine was laid up; and, lest it could easily be found out in what place the body was, they relate that Lytprand, three places being dug out and sepulchres built, then ordered the body to be laid up elsewhere by night, few being employed in the work, all the sepulchres being closed at the same time on that same night, so that, the certain seat of the body being unknown, the occasion of searching it out and snatching it away might for ever become more difficult. Then in another century a chapel was built to St. Augustine beside the church of St. Peter, in which chapel that famous marble ark was set up, representing Augustine's sepulchre. That writer expresses what two centuries ago was believed by some concerning our Saint's sepulchre. But he is too late for us to have to swear by his words. Certainly, if that chapel of Augustine, or the rear part of the church which contains the high altar and the choir, was built after the other part of the church, as this author asserts, we can deservedly suspect that that part was added to the church by Luitprand, since we have proved that the church was not founded but enlarged by him; and thence it will become likely that that place was built for depositing in it the body of Augustine.

[768] Indeed our Papebroch, when he returned from Rome into Belgium, [the crypt in which most long believed the body deposited: a health-giving well there:] diligently examined that church, and in his manuscript Return, page 226, wrote thus of it: The Augustinian Prior led me to the church which is named under the Golden Heaven. Whose front part is divided between the Hermits and the Canons. This is called by the ancient name of St. Peter, the other by the more recent one of St. Augustine. They use the choir alternately by months, under which is an altar and a huge brick tomb, in which the bones of St. Augustine are believed by many to be laid up. Nor indeed does it appear what other use it had, save to cover a sepulchre: the more so because a well, from which those who come draw water for their health, is said to have arisen next to the burial-place of the body. Of this well Vincent of Beauvais discourses in book 23, chapter 148, in this manner: But that in the aforesaid church the precious treasure of his body is laid up shines forth by a stupendous and evident miracle. Since indeed in the crypt of the church in which he lies there is a well which for some years, overflowing on the day of the feast, flowed over the whole crypt, as a sign that, as this water washes away filth, so his abounding doctrine wiped away from the Church the filth of heresy. The same has the Strozzian Anonymous in Fontanini, chapter 14, with only this difference: Which (well) every year on the day of the feast flows out over the whole bare crypt. But since this one says every year it flows out, but Vincent of Beauvais for some years it overflowed, thence it seems to be gathered that that overflowing flow of the well had ceased before Vincent of Beauvais wrote, although the well itself remained.

[769] other indications of the body preserved there: Mabillon in the Italian Journey, page 221, where he had said that the sacred body was translated by Luitprand to the praised church, which now, he says, lies hidden there in an uncertain place, subjoins these things to our purpose: Nevertheless in the crypt under the altar, where the bodies of Saints were formerly wont to be laid, there stands a mausoleum of baked stones, and a lamp burning before the mausoleum: which is an indication that the body of the holy Doctor survives there, or was there at some time. His elegant cenotaph is seen on the side of the Augustinian Hermits, who occupy the southern side of the church, the Canons Regular the northern, or at least the Gospel side. Thus Mabillon, as also above Papebroch, before the finding of the sacred body. Of the lamp mentioned by Mabillon Fontanini writes in chapter 19 that it by the care of the Canons Regular and of the Hermits in alternate months .. burned there perpetually; and that two others were added to it by the Hermits. Hence the studious reader will easily gather that it was believed by most that the sacred relics of St. Augustine were laid up in that crypt, or confession, as they call it, although some doubted about the determinate place, and long ago doubted, as I shall now show.

[770] [from the great care of the people of Ticinum in preserving the body, the place of the crypt,] The Anonymous of Ticinum, a writer of the fourteenth century praised before, in On the Praises of Pavia, chapter 17, records these things: And it must be known that those visiting the altars and the enclosures of the holy bodies, especially of the blessed confessors Syrus and Augustine, which are in the crypts of the churches, always stand — the men on the north and the women on the south, for decency's sake. For they have that most blessed Augustine as their special patron. Whence, lest (which God forbid) he should be taken from them by any kings or princes, they had enclosed him in a deep and most secret place by such a contrivance that he could not be taken away, even if many should labor there for a long time. And moreover it was established by them that he ought to be visited by all once in the week. For, in order that he might be kept within the enclosure of the city, on that side they enclosed by the third wall only so much space of ground that that monastery of St. Peter is now held within the city walls: for they would rather lose the life of the body than lose him. For never did blessed Valerius, his predecessor, bishop of Hippo, hold him dearer while living than we possess him dead. These things at the same time indicate how highly the people of Ticinum esteemed the body of St. Augustine. The same was the mind of Philip the abbot, already often praised, who at the end of the Life expresses it thus: I should call that church happy which is enriched with such a treasure, which is deservedly judged more precious than all gold, more illustrious than gems. Happy, I say, which has deserved to contain for the present so great relics!… I should prefer that our church be enriched and adorned with the bones of Augustine, which are contained in the church of Pavia, than with silken garments, of which many (as I have heard) are found for sale in the market of Pavia. I should prefer that the precious relics of Augustine be preserved in our church, than the pompous riches of Croesus.

[771] Since that Anonymous of Ticinum narrates in which the body was deposited, was unknown, but not the crypt itself: that it came about from the highest desire of the people of Ticinum to preserve the sacred body, that they deposited it in a deep and most secret place, I judge that his words must not be interpreted, as some have interpreted them, as though he had wished to signify that it is altogether unknown in what part of the whole church the sacred body was deposited. For that would be in some way to throw away a most beloved treasure, lest it be lost. But he seems to have wished only this: that it was unknown in his time in what part of the crypt or confession the sacred treasure was hidden, yet so that it was established that it was deposited in the aforesaid crypt. Such an interpretation his very words demand. For of SS. Syrus and Augustine he says, which are in the crypts of the churches. He adds that it was established that he ought to be visited by all once in the week. But he could not be visited unless the place were in some way known. And the author would not have said that he is in the crypt, if he had not known in what part of the church the body was deposited. Hence therefore, in my judgment at least, it is only gathered that the determinate place of the crypt or confession was unknown before the finding of the body, which is sufficiently established from elsewhere. Nevertheless it afterwards began to be doubted whether the sacred body really survived in that crypt, as abundantly appears from the words of Mabillon related before.

[772] There have not been wanting those who contended that the sacred body of Augustine did not always rest in the same place Some wished that the sacred body had at some time been removed from that place; where it was deposited by Luitprand. Bernard de Montfaucon in the Italian Diary, chapter 2, page 26, declares that opinion of certain men in these words: But they say that from a certain Chronicle of Brescia, and from an inscription which is seen on the left of the chapel of St. Apianus, it is established that in the year MCCXXIII, from fear of the French making incursions, whose mind was to steal away those relics and carry them off into Gaul, the sacred body was translated and buried under the altar of St. Apianus; but thence, after the people of Ticinum had breathed again from the French fear, it was brought back XL years later into its former seat; and that it is the opinion of almost all that the bones of the holy Doctor always lay hidden there. Gabriele Pennotto in the Tripartite History, book 1, chapter 37, number 8, affirms the same from the Chronicle of Brescia. But Fontanini laughs at these in chapter 17, and affirms that they were first brought forward by Pennotto: But this Pennotto, he says, is thrashed by Augustinians who are not timid — Petrus Campensis, Thomas Herrera, Aloysius Taurellus, Josephus Sabbatinus, and Cardinal Noris in the Fifty Dreams wittily shaken out, where he says that Franciscus Macedus received his dreams about Augustine gratis from Pennotto, who prettily lulled him to sleep with the poppy of his own writings.

[773] Although I do not wish to interpose myself as judge in this dispute, which others vehemently deny: it will nevertheless be useful to hear what Fontanini objects to that contentious translation: For what fear of the French they thrust upon us, you easily see must be reckoned among dreams. Since indeed, if you inquire the epoch of this fear, now the frightened men fly to the eighth century, now to the ninth and tenth, now at last to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and sixteenth they flee, sorrowful and uncertain of their safety — after that celebrated and true translation, known to all, made by Liutprand, dreaming at their own pleasure six others by no means true and known to themselves alone, lest they should confess that Augustine's true body was long since found. But those old wives' fables, thought out far too late and ill put together, the Pontiffs and bishops of Ticinum, witnesses of those same centuries down to our age, utterly overthrow, bearing with one voice express testimony about Augustine's body preserved in the Confession. In so grave a matter we can scarcely restrain laughter, when we recall that fear of the French thrust upon us to nausea in published pamphlets. You see, reader, that that translation is asserted by some and denied by others: nor is it of such moment for our purpose that it is necessary for me to mix myself into bitter quarrels.

[774] on what occasion the body was found, and in what manner, Whatever therefore be the case with that translation, the body was found toward the end of the preceding century in the place where we have said it was deposited. Hear the praised Montfaucon in the Italian Diary, page 27: At last in the year MDCXCV, on the first day of October, when they were restoring the Church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, and desired to adorn in a more elegant form the crypt in which it was the opinion that the Saint's relics lay, the relics were found by chance, which are now called into doubt. But that crypt, which they likewise call the SCUROLUM and the CONFESSION, is the underground of the greater chapel, and there is a lower altar. But from the upper chapel to the lower there is a descent by about twenty steps. When therefore they were engaged upon this work, it happened by chance that the workmen touched with iron a certain brick structure behind the altar, raised as it were to a vault, and struck off certain brick fragments; then, cracks being opened, it is explored that a marble vessel was shut up within: hence they are roused to search more curiously; the brick mass is knocked away on this side and that, and a marble ark is uncovered, three ells and as many inches in length, one ell and two inches in width, one ell and four inches in height, whose four corners were each fortified with a most strong iron seal. But in the act of stripping the said marble ark of the cement with which it was covered on all sides, they say in a certain little book published for that cause, there appeared to be read, first in Gothic letters on the part of the cement not yet removed from the marble, this name, Agostino, and then on the thickness of the marble lid of the said ark this same word, Agostino, formed of some easily effaceable material, as it were of charcoal. From which name, although effaced by the workman's inadvertence, there began to arise a hope of at length finding on this occasion — but perhaps by divine counsel — the body and relics of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church: these it has seemed good to transcribe word for word, because they are of great moment on either side.

[775] about the name Augustine read in two places, Fontanini in chapter 20 contends that the name read there was not Agostino but Augustino. Receive his very words: Under the brick mausoleum, on a crust of building stone, in letters made with black color, as it were with charcoal, and these uncial ones, but fading through age, there was read, Augustino, from the primeval character of the nascent Italian tongue, as it were in an oblique case, and without the prænomen SANCTUS after the most ancient manner. But that those letters were Gothic no one affirmed in the Acts, although in the pamphlets then published this is read… Presently in the brick mausoleum was uncovered a white marble sarcophagus closed on all sides. On the tablet covering its front part likewise, as on the crust, there was read by all in the light of kindled torches Augustino, after the most ancient manner, as I said, and without the prænomen Sanctus… In the marble itself, after the dark color of the letters had also vanished, traces of the same remained. So we read in the public Acts, transmitted by the most illustrious and most reverend bishop of Ticinum to the supreme Pontiff here in the city. But the name Augustino was read in two places with such ease, because of the distinct size of the uncial characters, that it could be distinguished and read even by the masons themselves, who otherwise read with little fluency: which, being bound by oath, they deposed in public tablets and acts. This very thing and the rest we have learned from the same tablets, drawn up then by public authority, and lately transmitted hither to Rome, as I said. It was certainly not read Agostino, as the pamphlets published in print exhibit, and as it is reported from the account of those same pamphleteers by our friend Bernard de Montfaucon. Thus far Fontanini.

[776] But Montfaucon after the preceding thus continues: other things found together with the body and in the arks: The bishop being then absent, his vicar is summoned to inspect it, with a notary and others, who, since there was no other means of opening the ark, order the leaden seals and iron bindings to be broken: nor yet could the lid of the ark be moved from its place, until, the corners being broken, there was opportunity to shake the mass from below. Within the marble ark there stood a silver casket, of the length of an ell and five inches, with a lid likewise of silver. A round lock, not closed with a key, was placed on the outside above a cross put together of thin plates, to which cross three others like and altogether equal were seen, and they bore the face of the Lord Jesus with the letters J.C., and also a small rose at the extremities. In the silver casket these things were found: a silken veil, which at the first touch dissolved into minute parts; certain parts besides of some leaden case, as it seemed; a small fragment of some plank; and besides these two little glass vessels, as if tinged with blood. These latter things Fontanini describes in chapter 21 in this manner: The marble ark being uncovered, the silver one presently opened most easily. Wherefore, its lid being removed, a silken veil marked with little red lines first presented itself, yet everywhere falling apart with age; and under that same veil the bones of blessed Augustine appeared in a case of lead, which long age had worn away. This leaden coffer we think was made at Hippo for receiving the bones of Augustine.

And presently in chapter 22: Three cases therefore, one within another, were found: the first of marble, the second of silver, the third of lead, the oldest of all… In the silver case there stood two glass phials, but empty and oblong, one larger and rather long, the other smaller. But that these phials were not red, as though tinged with blood, as Montfaucon has it, Fontanini proves in chapter 33 from the Acts.

[777] He proceeds in chapter 22 in this manner: The several bones, after the leaden ark, at once overturned by the slightest touch, had been kept within the silver one, being carefully and reverently laid out upon the altar to be subjected to the examination of those skilled in anatomy, and diligently inspected and handled, were these… the recognition of the sacred bones,

I. Ten pieces of the cranium, and certain other very small particles together with a part of the basilar bone.

II. The lower jaw with two molar teeth.

III. One of the petrous bones with the auditory passage.

IV. Ten vertebrae of the spinal marrow, of which some are of the neck, some of the back, some of the loins.

V. A portion of the sacrum.

VI. The left clavicle with a fragment of the shoulder blade.

VII. Of the true and false ribs, twenty-seven fragments.

VIII. A portion of the pubic bone.

IX. One and another fragment of the ilium.

X. The ischium and femur of each hip. To one of the femur bones, however, the uppermost part is lacking. To the other, broken into three parts, the extreme parts are lacking.

XI. A fragment of the tibia with its fibula.

XII. The bone of the right shoulder from the shoulder to the elbow, split into two parts. Johannes a Vico of Genoa in his Surgical Practice, book 1, chapter XIII, in the speech of the Ligurians and Insubrians calls it the bone ADJUTORIUM.

XIII. Two bones from the bend of the right arm to the extremity of the hand, otherwise the ulna and radius.

[778] of which a few are missing. XIV. There is lacking the other bone of the left shoulder from the shoulder to the elbow, given as a gift to St. Egelnoth, archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. MXXII, and translated first to the abbey of Coventry in England, then to the monastery of Glastonbury, as we shall say afterwards. Yet there are present the bones which are called ulna and radius, or the twin lesser bones of that same left shoulder.

XV. Certain little fragments of the carpus and metacarpus, or the bones of the hand. Also certain bones of the tarsus and metatarsus, or of the feet. Likewise nine bones, otherwise joints, of the fingers of the hands and toes of the feet.

XVI. The talus of each foot.

XVII. Eighty-six particles of several bones, besides other little fragments.

XVIII. The dust rises to the weight of seven pounds and three ounces, and, with the bones reviewed, completes the just measure of a human body.

These things more briefly Montfaucon in these words: An anatomist is summoned to survey the bones, who, the several bones being diligently inspected, pronounced that all the more solid parts of the human body were present, although many were broken up: for there were ten larger particles of the cranium and others smaller, and likewise other particles almost reduced to dust. And the anatomist says that only the bone of the arm from the shoulder to the elbow is absent, and that nothing besides is wanting. Nevertheless in the last recognition, made on the XXV and XXVI of June in the year 1728, it was observed that the first spinal vertebra also, which physicians call the Atlas, is wanting.

§ LXI. The long controversy about the body found, which was at last ended by an episcopal judgment, confirmed by the supreme Pontiff.

The long controversy about the body found: After the finding of the sacred body just related there arose a sharp contention, which for nearly thirty-three years was agitated with great partisan zeal, because many denied that the body which had been found was St. Augustine's. Of them the often-praised Fontanini speaks thus in chapter 19: So long as the mausoleum in which the body was found stood untouched, they openly boasted that it was empty: that the body of the holy Doctor had indeed been in it, but was so no longer. When afterwards it was found not empty but full, and the body of Augustine was found there in a silver ark, then they cried out that the blessed Man's body must be sought elsewhere. That controversy exercised the pen of many learned men. But I judge it too prolix, and, after the sentence has been pronounced, by no means necessary, to discuss curiously all the arguments brought forward on either side. It will nevertheless be useful to give a brief compendium of the whole controversy, which I shall draw chiefly from the Collection of the acts and allegations in this cause, printed at Venice by Sebastiano Coleti in the year 1729. To this Collection there is prefixed, in place of a preface, a Historical and chronological Series of the acts, which will furnish light upon the whole controversy.

[780] When the sacred bones had been found on the 1st day of October in the year 1695, the bones reviewed on various occasions, and witnesses heard; the first visitation of the bones was made by the vicar general, the bishop being absent. There followed a second visitation and review by anatomists on the IX day of February in the year 1696. On the XXIII of June the most illustrious prelate of Ticinum, Lorenzo Trotti, went to the confession of St. Augustine, and himself surveyed everything and recognized what had been described in both visitations of the bones. Then in the year 1698, on the XV day of May, another review and description of the sacred bones was again made. Meanwhile in the months of November and December of the year 1695, and in the month of February of the following year, witnesses were examined concerning the name Augustino read at the finding of the body, that a perpetual record might be made. The same witnesses were again heard in the year 1698, in the months of February and March, except those who had died in the meantime. In the same year 1698, according to an instruction transmitted from Rome, another examination was instituted, in which witnesses were heard upon the public voice, report, and tradition concerning the perpetual existence of St. Augustine's body in the confession of the church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven. So much for the examinations instituted while the first dispute was hot. Now receive what things were meanwhile written, as the whole matter is related in the said Series of the acts.

[781] Michael de Collibus, a Clerk Regular Barnabite, tried by various writings to prove [various writings for the genuineness of the Augustinian body: against which another writing,] that the body which had been found was that of St. Augustine. He had been chosen as advocate of the cause by the prelates of both monasteries, and not only brought forward five writings for ascribing the bones to St. Augustine about the time mentioned, but answered also three other objections of the fiscal advocate, as they call him. Moreover the praised de Collibus put together a compendium of the whole process and of the reasons alleged, which he transmitted, with his other writings, to the chief theologians of Italy. Of these, thirty-three theologians and jurisconsults, enumerated in the Series of the acts, and men altogether distinguished, wrote back their opinion in favor of the body of St. Augustine. At the same time also two Augustinian Hermits of Ticinum published their lucubrations in favor of the body found, namely Father Mathis in the Italian tongue and Father Bandini in Latin. On the other side Ferdinando Lera, abbot of the Lateran Canons Regular, had issued a certain manuscript little book under the name of an Apologetic Reply to the Hermit Fathers, by which he strove to prove that the body which had been found was not St. Augustine's.

[782] But the praised abbot retracted his opinion, or at least renounced his writing, is struck by a sudden infirmity, as the Series has on page 4, where his letter, addressed to a certain friend, is recited, from which this is shown. That letter is in Italian, and concerns St. Augustine most especially. Wherefore I here render the whole in Latin: On the occasion of the ark found in the crypt of our greater church, in which the bones of the body of our father St. Augustine are asserted to be preserved — which Father de Collibus the Barnabite, of the college of St. Mary of Cella Nova, was trying to prove by his writings and by various allegations of authors — I was ordered to contradict him, which I carried out. As I was returning to my chamber, I had scarcely reached the middle of the cloister when there seizes me an ailment so marvelous, with pains so huge, that only with great labor could I go back to sit on a nearby bench at the exit of our sacristy: and there I was so vehemently overwhelmed that I had to be carried rather than led to my bed. A physician and a surgeon being summoned at once, with all diligence and care applied to me some remedies, by which I was not much relieved. I dismissed rather late those who were attending me, in order to try whether I could sleep, and also that they might rest: when at midnight there seized me pains so horrible that all my bones seemed to me to be shattered and my inward parts tormented, so that, being deprived also of a voice by which I could be heard, wholly cast down, I was as it were brought to my agony.

[783] and, an apparition of Augustine having occurred, he renounces his writings: In that state, when I was alone, so much sense remained to me that in mind I had recourse to our father St. Augustine, imploring his help in that extreme necessity. After this St. Augustine appeared to me, marked with pontifical adornment and crozier, as he is wont to be painted. (It is certain that I was not dreaming.) Hence I humbly and confidently repeated my prayers to him. He said to me: "A fine occasion indeed I have for helping you." Whereupon, being made more prudent by this, I promised the Saint that I would at once renounce all my writings composed against others in his cause, offering them to him as a gift, with a protestation that I would not mix myself in like contradictions. The Saint seemed to say to me: "Rightly: trust that I shall come to your aid." Which being said, the vision disappeared: and in fact I felt myself relieved from that great oppression, so that I stretched myself out and rested for the remainder of the night somewhat in body, but not in mind. When at length day dawned, I ordered the Father Prior of the Augustinians to be asked to come to me, because I had to communicate with him a most urgent matter. Which when he had kindly done, I handed him the autograph, renouncing all that was contained in it, and adding to the Father Prior that he should give it to Father de Collibus, or to whomever he wished, and should do with it what he judged expedient. And indeed of those writings, or of others pertaining to the same cause, I have not kept even a word. And these things indeed, so far as I can signify them, concerning my sickness. And if in fact those were the relics of our holy Father Augustine, it would greatly delight me that they should be exposed to public veneration. Thus far he.

[784] [but the dispute was ended neither then, nor in the year 1700, in which many things were again written on both sides:] Antonio Pacini, supreme moderator of the Augustinian Order, came to Ticinum, and stayed there for four months to promote the cause. But all things were then attempted in vain, nor could a declaration in favor of the bones found be obtained, so that the sacred bones remained in darkness without any public veneration. About the year 1700 a new hope shone upon the Augustinian Fathers of obtaining the desired declaration. But there stood in the way again another lucubration of Giuseppe Maria Bellini, a Canon Regular, which he entitled Doubts by which the reasons for the tomb and relics lately found … are ventilated, set forth. Against this there presently came forth with their writings Michael de Turribus, advocate of the cause, Gaspare Baretta, a Cassinese Benedictine, and Alberto Castellani of the Order of Preachers. Their efforts were rendered vain by an Italian pamphlet,

published in the year 1703 under the name of Mario Callini, a Canon Regular, with this title, which I render in Latin: Motives which compel one to doubt whether the relics found in the confession of St. Peter in the year MDCXCV are the same as the most sacred bones of our holy Father Augustine. To this little book Michael de Turribus indeed replied by a lucubration likewise in Italian, which he entitled A Summary of the reasons hitherto alleged, &c. Nevertheless nothing could be obtained in favor of the bones, because the doubts arisen from the aforesaid little book could not so quickly be dissipated. At length, the death of Michael de Turribus having followed, the suit hung undecided, and was as it were abandoned from the year 1704 until 1728. Hence the studious reader will be able to gather how cautiously the Church proceeds in approving the relics of Saints.

[785] When the supreme Pontiff Benedict XIII had heard Benedict XIII orders the suit to be resumed, and to be ended within two months: that this suit was hanging undecided, and that the sacred bones lay without honor, he wished the controversy to be terminated without delay. And so in the year 1728, on the XXIII day of January, he sent a letter to Francesco Pertusati, bishop of Ticinum, in which he orders him to set an end to the suit by an episcopal judgment. This letter Fontanini published before his Disquisition, page 9, from which receive a few things: And so we diligently enjoin upon your fraternity that, all other questions about finding another body being set aside, you institute a judgment concerning the aforesaid body alone, which the documents that have been entered in the acts of that episcopal court hand down as having been found in the year MDCXCV there in the church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, in the confession. We will therefore and command that you meet, even by ecclesiastical censures, the cavillings of those who shall have attempted to hinder the decision and definition of this cause. But to those by whom the cause is to be examined, the same remedies being applied if there shall be need, you shall declare that they yield to no services, recommendations, or partisan zeal, but have only the God of truth before their eyes. But lest there be place for new procrastinations, we fix a period of two months for the completing of this judgment. But if within two months from the day on which these our letters in the form of a brief shall have been delivered to your fraternity the cause be not concluded, we declare that it shall thereupon be devolved to us. This letter was presented to the bishop of Ticinum on the XIX of May.

[786] Meanwhile, at the Pontiff's command, an epitome of the process previously made had been sent to the City; the bishop of Ticinum with fifteen consultors the Disquisition on the body of St. Augustine had been composed by the most illustrious Fontanini; the supreme moderator of the Augustinian Order, Fulgentius Bellelli, had betaken himself to Ticinum with the said letters of Pope Benedict, to be presented to the bishop. But since the bishop had gone away to visit his diocese, his return had to be awaited; and meanwhile prayers were appointed by the Provost of the Augustinian Order for imploring divine help. To the bishop on his return the Pontifical letter was offered by Giuseppe de Gregoriis and Luigi Bellagente, Augustinians, appointed procurators of the cause. But the bishop, having received this letter, on that same XIX day of May gave notice to each litigating party that within fifteen days they should bring forward what they wished brought forward for their cause. Wherefore the Augustinian procurators appeared on the XXVI of the same month, and adduced for themselves the things previously brought forward: to which they added certain new ones, namely Fontanini's Disquisition, and a Writing of law and fact, which one of the procurators, Giuseppe de Gregoriis, had composed. On the XXVIII of the same month the bishop chose fourteen consultors from various orders — seven theologians and as many canonists — whose names the Series of the acts exhibits on page XI. To these one was afterwards added, Stefano Antonio Sassi, prefect of the Ambrosian library at Milan. Those consultors were made known to each party, so that all documents and informations might be carried to them, as was done.

[787] weighs the arguments of the litigants, On the VII of June there appeared before the bishop the Canons Regular, professing that they willingly wished to acquiesce in his judgment. On the XIV of the same month was held the first congregation of the consultors before the bishop, at which all were present except one canonist, hindered by sickness. In it there was discussion of the word Augustino, read at the finding of the body, as the witnesses had deposed: and it was concluded that there must be no doubt about that name having been read. On the XVI was the second congregation, in which it was judged that the body had been in the confession of the church of St. Peter from time immemorial, whether it had at some time been translated elsewhere or not. Meanwhile Fulgentius Bellelli, provost of the Augustinians, spread abroad two Italian little Works, his name however being suppressed, chiefly against Callini's Motives mentioned before, and against the Annotations upon those things which have hitherto been brought forward for the identity of the sacred bones, &c., which had been published by the opposing party. The third congregation of the consultors was held on the XVIII of the same month of June; but the fourth on the XX, in which the remaining arguments were examined. On the same day the bishop issued a decree by which he prescribed various exercises of piety to his people for imploring divine help. Hence on the XXIII a pious supplication was instituted, and a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit was sung: a fast also was appointed for the following Friday, that is the XXV, and the priests were ordered to recite in their Sacrifices the Collect, as they call it, of the Holy Spirit. Finally the venerable Sacrament was exposed, and various prayers prescribed or commended to various orders of men.

[788] visits again the bones and the other things found in the arks, On the XXV and XXVI of the same June the bones were again visited by the bishop, as also all the other things which had been found with the bones. What was observed in this visitation a letter explains, written on this matter in Italian by the secretary of the Augustinian Order to the bishop of Foligno, and rendered into Latin and printed, in which these things are read: Besides the adjutorium bone of the left arm, translated into England by archbishop Egelnoth in the year MXXII, there is lacking also the Atlas bone, which supports the head, and which from ancient time — as is established from authentic letters which his holiness caused to be sent from Ragusa, and which the Father General alleged — is preserved in the above-said city. In the two glass ampullæ, which are really empty, and which the contradictors will have to be tinged with blood, no tincture is observed. The larger is in the form of a little pitcher with its handle: the smaller is like a little vessel for preserving balsam. The particles of wood which for so long a time disputed the identity of the most glorious Confessor are four in number: one four fingers broad, five long, and half a finger thick. Two others are smaller, but like the first. The fourth clearly appears to be the remainder of the rim of some little chest, joined to a little knob of the same: so that it is manifest that they are the remaining fragments of an ancient wooden chest; just as also without doubt fragments of an ancient leaden chest are the leaden particles which are likewise found there. The ancient rotten veil, which has been wholly reduced to fragments and almost to dust, shows no native color. The silver chest has a weight of about CCXXV imperial ounces, not including the bronze plate which, surrounding its rim, strengthens it, with which the weight rises to CCXLVI ounces. The face of the Savior, and the crosses at the sides, have been rendered like those which king Luitprand used, according to the testimony of Paul the deacon, of Gualla, and of Breventano.

[789] On the XXX of the same month was the last congregation of the consultors, and at last, all the consultors agreeing, pronounces sentence, in which all went over to the same opinion. Then in the following month each brought his vote, written out and fortified with a seal, to the bishop: which he on the VII and VIII of July opened and examined before four witnesses. These judgments of the consultors were fortified with various reasons, except a few in which the reasons were passed over. Nay, the Apologetic Letter of Giuseppe Antonio Sassi, which need not yield to the other dissertations composed on this matter, seems to have been written by him for no other cause than to convey his opinion to the bishop. It may be seen in the Collection of the acts, part 2, from page 17; as also the judgments or votes of others subjoined to it. On the XIII of July the bishop ordered the litigating parties to be informed that he would pronounce his sentence on the XVI: that therefore they should join prayers to prayers, and that the procurators should be present at the appointed time to hear the sentence. But on the said XVI day, a Mass of the Holy Spirit having first been celebrated, he had the sentence read out to the procurators of the cause, and then subscribed it, all the consultors being present.

[790] On the XIX day of the same month of July there followed the solemn promulgation of the sentence, and solemnly promulgates it, by which the bones are ascribed to St. Augustine: concerning which the praised letter of the secretary has thus: Finally on Monday, the XIX of the same month, in the morning the said sentence was solemnly published in the cathedral church: then a Mass of thanksgiving was sung, at which the same lord bishop assisted with the most exemplary devotion and piety, who thereafter, clothed in pontifical vestments, intoned the Te Deum: at which time the bells of the cathedral church rang in festal manner, with which were joined the remaining bells of the other churches, with the discharge of cannon. Besides a multitude of the clergy, there were present at this function the most illustrious and most excellent lords senators, the marshal of the city, the most illustrious lords abbots, and the decurions, with a great number of nobles and a most crowded people. In the evening of the same Monday, to the festal sound of all the bells was joined an illumination of the whole aforesaid city, and artificial fires on the citadel, which the Fathers of both monasteries, of St. Peter and of St. Augustine, caused to be set up in token of joy.

[791] The sentence itself of the most illustrious bishop may be read in the Collection of the acts, part 2, the Pontiff congratulates the bishop: a monument of this declaration. page 193. To these on page 197 is subjoined the letter of Benedict XIII, in which he congratulates the bishop on the judgment accomplished, and shows himself most solicitous that the sacred remains should be diligently guarded, in these words: Wherefore we strictly forbid that anyone dare to take away, carry off, or draw off any particle whatever of that most sacred deposit, under pain of excommunication of sentence already passed, the absolution of which we reserve to your fraternity. Moreover we impart to your fraternity the necessary and opportune faculties, so that, if any difficulties and controversies shall arise in carrying out the most desired celebration of the finding, you may yourself, as apostolic delegate, decree what you shall judge agreeable to reason. From this power were done the things which the Series of the acts relates on page 20 in this manner: But that a most illustrious monument of so great a declaration might remain to posterity, on the XVIII day of the month of September the outer enclosures of the Augustinian sacred sepulchre were again unfastened, and to the outermost front of the inner silver ark there was affixed with twelve little nails a plate likewise of silver overlaid with gold, in the presence of the most reverend count Paleari, provicar of the most illustrious and most reverend bishop of Ticinum, of the most reverend father Prior general of the Order, and of the most reverend father abbot of St. Peter, and others: and it was inscribed with engraved characters.

THE BODY OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

BISHOP OF HIPPO

In the year MDCXCV, on the 1st day of October, found in this silver casket beside the altar of the confession of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, in the year MDCCXXVIII recognized, and on the XVI day of July juridically declared, under Benedict XIII supreme pontiff, Charles VI emperor, by Lord Francesco Pertusati, bishop of Ticinum.

[792] The constitution of Benedict XIII, Finally I subjoin the bull of Benedict XIII, by which he confirmed the episcopal judgment and forbade it to be contradicted. This was given in the same year, on the X of the Kalends of October, and conceived in these words: Benedict, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the perpetual memory of the matter. For the amplifying of the glory of the most high God in His Saint, a marvelous thing was lately done in our eyes, when the remains of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo and most excellent doctor of the Church — whose veneration the ancient enemy of God and of the Saints had for some time attempted to disturb — were at length restored, with the whole Church applauding, to the cult of all the faithful of Christ and to their former honor.

[793] in which are narrated the finding of the body, It is established by most approved monuments of letters that, the persecution of the Vandals having been stirred up against the African church, the most holy bishops of those parts and confessors of the Catholic faith, condemned to exile in Sardinia, translated with them into that same island the body of the distinguished Doctor at the end of the fifth century, and that there it was guarded with Christian — that is, with the greatest — religion until the beginning of the eighth century. For then, when the Saracens, who had burst into Sardinia, were impiously defiling the sacred places, Liutprand, king of the Lombards, moved by piety toward the holy relics of Augustine, through legates sent thither by him, took care that they should be redeemed at a great price and translated with sacred pomp to Ticinum, which is otherwise called Pavia, where, in the confession of the church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven — then first built at the king's command for this one purpose — the treasure of the Augustinian body was deposited with the honor due to so great a Father; and, peoples flocking thither from every side for devotion's sake down to our age, it was preserved with most pious zeal in the crypt of that same confession, between the well flowing with health-giving water and the lower altar. But at length on the 1st day of October in the year of the Lord MDCXCV a white marble sarcophagus was uncovered in that same place under a brick mausoleum, and in it were found the most sacred remains of Augustine, enclosed in a silver ark: all which, canonically proved before very many witnesses, were then set down by the ministers and registrars of the episcopal court in processes and commentaries fortified with public authority and written with the highest fidelity; and throughout a whole five years they were disputed, the brothers Hermits of the Order of St. Augustine — who in that same basilica of St. Peter, equally with the Canons Regular of the Lateran Congregation, discharge the divine offices in alternate months — not slothfully pleading against the doubts of certain men, until thirty-one doctors of the sacred Page and of decrees published in writing their opinion in favor of those same relics of Augustine, confirmed with marvelous agreement.

[794] But when it had come to our hearing that, because doubts of this kind had not been extinguished and abolished by an episcopal judgment of the prelates of Ticinum, the venerable ashes of so great a Doctor were held as uncertain, without due honor, the Pontiff's command for ending the suit, we, struck by the gravity of the matter, sent our letter under the fisherman's ring on the XXIII day of January of this year to our venerable brother the bishop of Ticinum, seriously enjoining upon him that he should bring to an end the judgment concerning the body of St. Augustine found there, all further delay being removed, according to God and truth, all other questions about finding another body being set aside; commanding him moreover that he should meet, even by ecclesiastical censures, the cavillings of those who should have attempted to hinder the decision and definition of this cause; and that to those by whom the cause was to be examined, the same remedies being applied if there should be need, he should declare that they should yield to no services, recommendations, or partisan zeal, but should have only the God of truth before their eyes. And lest in defining so great a matter there could be place for new procrastinations, we fixed a period of two months for the completing of this judgment. But this letter our beloved son Fulgentius Bellelli, prior general of the brothers Hermits of the whole Order of St. Augustine, established at Ticinum in the monastery beside the aforesaid church of the holy Doctor, otherwise of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven, took care to have presented to the bishop himself through our beloved sons Giuseppe de Gregoriis of Sant' Elpidio and Luigi de Bellagente of Ticinum, brothers Hermits of the same Order, as special procurators deputed by him in this cause.

[795] The bishop of Ticinum, having received our letter, and having juridically summoned those to be summoned, who formerly, for the declaring of the identity of the sacred body, had been summoned in the name of those same brothers Hermits dwelling in the said monastery, and having inspected the acts drawn up in the same cause from the month of October of the year MDCXCV until the month of March of the year MDCXCIX, things done by the bishop of Ticinum before the judgment, together with the visitations and recognitions of the body itself of St. Augustine likewise made in the years MDCXCV, MDCXCVI, and MDCXCVIII, as also the rights, documents, depositions of witnesses, and other monuments and writings drawn up by public authority then and in the following years; theologians also and interpreters of the sacred canons having been several times gathered before him, whom out of pious and learned men, according to the prescriptions of the most holy council of Trent, he had chosen to be taken into counsel with him, and upon whom he laid the penalties expressed in that same letter of ours — the several points of the cause were attentively discussed and maturely considered. But at length the same bishop on the XXV day of June, together with those same counselors of his in this cause chosen by him, in the presence of the brothers Augustinian Hermits and of the Canons Regular of the Lateran, exactly and diligently visited on the XXV and XXVI days of June the sacred body found in the confession in the year MDCXCV — the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus having been recited at the high altar, and the body, enclosed in a casket, having been reverently carried from the confession to that same altar by six presbyters amid kindled torches — three of the more skilled professors of anatomy of the city being called in, bound by oath to speak the truth; who, carefully recognizing the several parts of the sacred body, noticed that the BONE OF THE LEFT ARM from the shoulder to the elbow, and another which is called the ATLAS, were lacking: of which the first had been given as a gift at Ticinum by our predecessor of happy memory Pope Benedict VIII to blessed Egelnoth, primate of Canterbury; but the other is preserved in Dalmatia in the treasury of sacred relics of the metropolitan church of Ragusa.

[796] These things being accomplished, and the sacred deposit being restored with the same ceremony to its former place in the confession, the bishop's own sentence concerning the body, the same bishop of Ticinum appointed solemn supplications and other public and assiduous prayers for obtaining divine help for the passing of a right judgment according to God and truth, at which he devoutly took part with both clergies and the people of the city; and at length, all things to be seen having been seen, and all things to be considered having been considered, and the masters of sacred theology and professors of the canons — whom, as we have already said, he had previously called into counsel according to the sanctions of the council of Trent — being again gathered before him, and who, seventeen in number, are recorded to have pronounced a unanimous opinion in favor of the genuineness and identity of the relics of St. Augustine: he himself, in the presence of our beloved sons the prior general of the whole order of the brothers Hermits of St. Augustine and the provost of the Canons Regular of the Lateran Congregation, and of very many others who had assembled there to hear the supreme episcopal judgment on this matter, after the sacrifice of a Mass of the Holy Spirit had been celebrated, having the God of truth alone before his eyes, in this same year MDCCXXVIII, in the VI Indiction, on the VI feria, the XVI day of the month of July, at the hour of tierce, sitting on the tribunal in the episcopal palace, pronounced this decree with full cognizance of the cause: "The name of Christ being invoked again, by this our definitive sentence we say, pronounce, and declare that it is sufficiently established that the body found in the confession of the church of St. Peter in the Golden Heaven of this city on the first day of October of the year MDCXCV, and lately recognized by us and fortified with our seal, is the body of St. Augustine, doctor of the Church, and that therefore it is to be honored as such and exposed to the public veneration of the faithful." Lord Francesco, Bishop of Pavia.

[797] and things done by the Pontiff after the sentence was passed, The news of so holy, so grave and mature an episcopal judgment being brought to us, our heart leapt for joy, and, suffused with the highest gladness, we gave thanks to God, that He willed to increase His glory in the remains of St. Augustine canonically vindicated — whom, for his holiness and the undefiled excellence of his doctrine, as a most brilliant light of the Church, Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, Cælestinus, Gelasius, Hormisdas, and our other predecessors the Roman Pontiffs always held in great honor, and whom we ourselves venerate as father no less than as master, inasmuch as we have professed his Rule and doctrine in our Order of Preachers from the first years of our youth, and, God favoring, do profess. But that our joy, and that of the whole Church alike, might be spread abroad everywhere, by our letter inscribed to all the faithful of Christ on the IV day of August we granted to all and singular of either sex, truly penitent and confessed, who should have visited any of the churches of the Brothers or of the Sisters of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, existing anywhere, on a day to be designated by the ordinaries of the places, and should there have poured forth pious prayers to God for the concord of Christian princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy mother Church, a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins; and on the following day we sent another letter to the bishop of Ticinum, praising his piety and faith, because he had striven by so accurate an examination to dispel every cloud of doubt about the genuineness of the body of St. Augustine; strictly forbidding, under pain of excommunication of sentence already passed, that anyone should dare to take away, carry off, or draw off any particle whatever of that most sacred deposit. Thereafter, on the feast day of the same Doctor of the Church, the XXVIII of August, we ourselves going to the church of that title and to the monastery of the brothers Hermits, celebrated in his honor the most holy sacrifice of the Mass with pontifical rite, our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops assisting us; and after the divine mysteries had been performed, in thanksgiving for his holy body brilliantly and canonically proved, intoning with solemn ceremony the hymn Te Deum, the herald of Christian gladness, we praised together the one God in three Persons.

[798] But lest anything be omitted by us from the debt of our pastoral office toward the preservation and veneration of the holy relics of Augustine, which finally is approved and confirmed by this constitution. all doubts, controversies, causes, and suits arisen or introduced in whatever manner concerning the body of St. Augustine, and all their rights, writings, and titles — holding them by these presents as fully expressed, and, so far as need be, calling them to ourselves — we utterly extinguish and abolish, and impose perpetual silence upon them. And lest ever in future times there could in any way be hesitation about the aforesaid episcopal judgment, completed according to the more holy rules of the Church, at the humble prayers of our beloved son Felix Leoni, procurator general of the whole Order of those same brothers Hermits, offered to us in his petition, following in the footsteps of our predecessor of pious memory Pope Martin V — who approved by his apostolic letter beginning Pia caritas the translation of the body of blessed Monica, the venerable mother of Augustine, made from our city of Ostia to this same church of the house of the Brothers of the said Order of Hermits of St. Augustine — we also, holding ratified and acceptable by the tenor of these presents the judgment of the bishop of Ticinum concerning the genuineness of the body of the holy Doctor, that it may become better known and more manifest among the faithful of Christ, and that devotion toward Augustine may be the more kindled, of our certain knowledge, and also

of our own motion, by Apostolic authority on every side we approve and confirm, and we decree that it is and shall be always firm and valid for all future times, notwithstanding anything whatsoever.

Let it therefore be lawful for no man at all to infringe this page of our constitution, revocation, extinction, abolition, imposition of silence, decree of approbation, confirmation, and will, or with rash daring to go against it.

But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul, his Apostles.

Given at Rome at St. Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight, on the tenth of the Kalends of October, in the fifth year of our pontificate.

§ LXII. Certain benefits which are related to have been wrought on the occasion of the finding of the body.

[Certain benefits obtained through the Saint while the suit concerning the body was in progress:] Various benefits obtained by the help of St. Augustine, while the controversy concerning the body that had been found was in vigor, are reported in the Collection of acts already so often mentioned, which it will be useful to gather together in this place. In part 1 of the Collection, in the Summary of documents, page 79 and following, various witnesses, lawfully interrogated, affirmed in general that they had heard that health had been restored to divers sick persons who had come to the chest that had been found. And on page 83 five are expressed by name, namely Carlo Emmanuele Marcellino, canon of the cathedral church; the countess Gambarana; the advocate Solivetta; Maddalena Marcona; and the son of Anna Francesca Sala. Of these four were juridically interrogated, and set forth at length the grace bestowed upon them, with all its circumstances, as may be seen in the same place, page 89 and following. The deposition of these four witnesses is reported also in part 2, page 87, in the Vote of Carlo Giuseppe Caimotti, promoter pro-fiscal, with those things omitted, however, which regard the form of law rather than the illustration of the facts. For this reason I shall follow Caimotti's relation as the briefer, and shall here express in Latin the Italian words of the witnesses.

[800] namely, a certain canon of a vertigo of the head, The Very Reverend Don Carlo Emmanuele Marcellino, ordinary canon of the cathedral church, testified, according to Caimotti, these things in Italian: It was now about three or four years that I was afflicted with an ailment of the head in the manner of a vertigo, so that, when at times it seized me twice in the week, it brought upon me so great a fear and so great a weakness of the nerves that, while I stood at the altar to celebrate the most holy sacrifice of the Mass, when I had to turn myself to the people, I seemed to myself about to fall. Hence I always had to stand leaning with one hand upon the altar, and in the best manner I could, so as to fortify myself against a fear of this kind of falling. After the relics of the Saint had been found, kneeling, as he goes on, upon the step of the iron gratings, having first made an act of faith, I said words to this effect: "Lord, if the matter so stands, out of thy kindness and mercy in the manifesting of the sacred relics of St. Augustine, if these are indeed they, I pray thee to grant me the grace, and to free me from this ailment of the head, that I may be able freely to celebrate the most holy sacrifice of the Mass." And so I felt myself on the following day for the greater part free of that first fear: and so, as time went on, I found myself always more free; nor did I ever thereafter experience at the altar a fear of this kind. These things, clothed with all their circumstances, are reported more fully in the place first alleged.

[801] Don Francesco Bernardo Mayo Solivetta, advocate, another of a dangerous fever, being likewise lawfully interrogated, answered thus: On the thirteenth day of the month of September in the year 1696 I was overcome by a fever, which, when the physicians had examined it and judged it mortal, and I myself felt myself gravely oppressed and without strength to resist the malady, being kindled with piety toward the glorious father St. Augustine, I thought to ask, as indeed I did, that water should be taken for me from the well which is in the confession where the body of the same Saint is said to rest. When it had been brought to me, I sipped a little of it out of devotion on the twenty-second day of the said month. On the following day, the twenty-third, which was a Sunday, feeling myself more vehemently afflicted, I turned myself with my whole soul to the image of the Blessed Virgin with Jesus and Joseph, which was, as it still is, at the side of the chamber in which I lay, and with my whole heart commended myself to them, asking health. Scarcely was the prayer finished when I experienced a tranquillity of soul, and very quickly fell into sleep. Then I seemed to hear a voice saying: "Drink the water of St. Augustine, and thou shalt be saved." Since that voice had been brought to me in sleep, I paid it no heed; but, continuing the same repose or sleep, I heard within a little time the same voice repeated, at my very ear: "Drink the water of St. Augustine, and thou shalt be saved." Nevertheless, not attending to the said voice, I continued my sleep or repose. But hearing the aforesaid voice still repeated, "Drink the water of St. Augustine, and thou shalt be saved," I suddenly awoke with a joyful mind, and said that they should bring me the water of St. Augustine …, because I wished to taste of it out of devotion, considering the grace obtained through the help and intercession of the Saint, since I felt myself as it were altogether restored from that fever. The water being presently brought to me, I tasted of it, and feeling myself much more relieved of that fever, I professed that I had obtained the grace by the intercession of the said Saint, and in thanksgiving for the benefit I sang with my household the Te Deum laudamus. In the morning of the following day, which was Monday and the twenty-fourth, I sent to the sepulchre, in thanksgiving, a waxen torch, which was lighted to the same Saint.* These things are from his own testimony, part 1, pages 91 and 92, which have been abridged by Caimotti. In both places there is subjoined a vision, which for brevity's sake I reduce to a summary. On the same night, when after drinking the aforesaid water he was easier, it seemed to him that he was in the confession in which the Saint's sepulchre is, and that he saw the Saint himself, adorned in pontifical habit, coming forth from the chest in which the sacred body rests, and proceeding to the altar, where he blessed him and promised that he would be well.

[802] Receive likewise in summary what is more fully related in Italian in part 1, page 93, a boy with his mother of foul ulcers, and part 2, page 89. Anna Francesca Valle, wife of Paolo Sala Pelizzari, a woman of forty years, had a little son of sixteen months, by name Giuseppe Antonio Domenico, whom she herself was suckling. That infant had now for three months labored under a fever, and had his whole mouth full of ulcers, with which he had also infected his mother's breasts most dangerously. Hence the mother, tortured with the gravest pains, when she heard that the body of St. Augustine had been found, resolved to have recourse to the Saint, and for three days carried her son to the chest that had been found, and would have done the same longer had she not been deterred by a continuous rain of six days. On the night following those six days, while she was suckling her son, she saw a bishop, distinguished by pontifical ornament and mitre, like to the painted image of St. Augustine, which she afterwards saw. He said to the woman these words in Italian: Thou didst say that thou wouldst carry that son of thine to St. Augustine, and thou hast not carried him. Carry him, for he shall be healed. Since on that day she had not yet carried her son, on account of the continued rain, on the following night the same vision appeared and the same command was repeated. Hence on the following day she betook herself with her son to the confession of St. Augustine, where she herself kissed his chest, and saw to it that her little son kissed it. Then with water drawn from the Saint's well she washed her little son's mouth and her own breasts; she also drank with her son of the same water. Afterwards she returned home with her son; and within two days the infant was healed of the fever and the ulcers, and the mother was freed of the malady of her breasts. These things are said to have happened in the same year in which the sacred bones were found, in the month of October, as the woman herself testified after two years before the judges.

[803] There is subjoined in both places a fourth benefit, which, superfluities omitted, runs thus. and a woman freed from the pains of sciatica. Maddalena Massarola, wife of Carlo Antonio Marconi, thirty-four years of age, had for seven months labored under such great pains of sciatica that she could not walk save with the greatest difficulty. After seven months she had to lie constantly abed for two months. Meanwhile she heard that the bones of St. Augustine had been found, whose help she began to implore. Those two months being past, she could from time to time raise herself from the bed and walk about the chamber leaning on a crutch. She had been thus for two months more, when on a certain night, being afflicted more vehemently than usual, she invoked St. Augustine with her whole soul; who, as she herself says in Italian, appeared to me in pontifical habit, with a mitre on his head and a pastoral staff, in the form of a tall man with a hoary beard; and together with his presence I saw a huge splendor in my chamber, which lighted it up as if a light had been kindled; and he said to me these very words: "Doubt not, thou shalt shortly obtain the grace which thou hast asked of me"; and thereupon he suddenly disappeared. Hence in the morning she went to the confession of St. Augustine leaning on her crutch and with her husband's help. After prayers and other offices of piety, she returned thence somewhat restored, and left her crutch at the Saint's chest, her husband nevertheless assisting her. On the two following days she returned to the Saint's chest, her husband again accompanying her; and daily she was better, so that she walked without any pain while she was appearing before the judges. She confessed, however, that from time to time she had again felt something of the preceding pain; but she affirmed that her gait had never been so hindered as it had been before. The praised Caimotti, in part 2 of the Collection, page 90, having reported these benefits, reasons thus: These miracles, which are not far from the truth, joined with the apparitions and locutions of the Saint, which followed without perturbation of mind, nay with relief and cheerfulness of the sick person, and which obtained the promised effect, and therefore did not proceed from an evil spirit or from the imagination, are divine seals by which the bones found in the confession of St. Peter in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia are authenticated to be those of St. Augustine, bishop and eminent doctor of the Church. Now we shall exhibit certain relics of the Saint preserved in other places.

* elsewhere Bernardino

§ LXIII. Relics preserved in other places.

Relics of the Saint carried into England, William of Malmesbury, On the Deeds of the Kings of the English, book 2, chapter 11, page 275, records these things concerning Æthelnoth, bishop of Canterbury, after he had described his journey to Rome: Returning home, he sent to Coventry the arm of St. Augustine the doctor, purchased at Pavia for a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. It was a monastery in the diocese of Chester, as the same writer affirms in the Deeds of the Pontiffs of the English, book 4, page 289, where he has these things again: At Coventry is kept the arm of the great Augustine, enclosed in a silver case; and there are seen in the engraving letters of this sort: "This arm of St. Augustine Æthelnoth the archbishop, returning from Rome to Pavia, bought for a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." Alford, in the Annals of the English Church, at the year 1020, number 14, does not admit that the arm was bought by Æthelnoth, but contends that it was received as a gift. The same is vehemently contested by Fontanini in the Disquisition so often mentioned, chapter 40,

drawing his argument from the enormous price which he supposes to have been given by Liutprand for the redemption of the whole body.

[805] purchased, as is reported, for a price, But Baronius at the year 1027, number 7, and Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century 6, page 448, reporting the same, do not deny the purchase. And indeed the price here recorded does not prove that that bone of the arm was not bought, since a talent at that time was taken so variously that it is found expounded even as a florin, as may be seen in Du Cange's Glossary at the word Talentum. Then too, the purchase of relics was not at that time unusual even among certain upright men, who were unaware that it was unlawful. What I have said on this matter in the preceding volume, in the treatise on St. Bartholomew, page 104, number 269, may be consulted. St. Antoninus, in his History, title 16, chapter 7, §3, reporting the same fact, warns that the words are to be understood in a sound sense: For it is not lawful, he says, to sell or to buy the relics of the Saints, which is simoniacal. But, when they have been offered gratis, it is lawful out of gratitude to bestow something liberally upon the givers, or even to buy the golden or silver vessels themselves. This exposition, indeed, even though it be more kindly than certain, is nevertheless more probable than is this conclusion of Fontanini: And so I in no wise doubt that William, erring from notices ill digested by himself, falsely applied to the purchase of a single arm the price once paid for redeeming the whole body of Augustine, attributing to the primate of Canterbury what should have been attributed to the king of the Lombards.

[806] Further, these relics of St. Augustine were delivered to Æthelnoth, bishop of Canterbury, by Æthelnoth, archbishop of Canterbury: not to Cnut or Canute the king, as Baronius wrote by a slip of the pen in the place just assigned. Nor did he receive them at Rome, as others have wrongly asserted, but at Ticinum, or Pavia. Fontanini, chapter 41, thinks that this happened in the year 1022, while Benedict VIII was celebrating a council there, concerning which see Labbe, volume 9, columns 819 and following; and thence he judges that at that time several relics of the Saint were sent to other places. These things may be admitted as probable; but they are not certain. The same author notes that that Augustinian bone which Æthelnoth had given to the monastery of Coventry was afterwards translated to the abbey of Glastonbury in the county of Somerset. Certainly in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 6, among the relics of the church of Glastonbury there is numbered one bone of St. Augustine the doctor. Nor does it matter that Malmesbury calls it an arm; for one bone of the arm is not seldom called an arm, when relics are in question. I confess, however, that it is not hence certain that this is the same bone which was preserved at Coventry.

[807] At Ragusa in Dalmatia is preserved that vertebra which the physicians call the atlas bone. others preserved at Ragusa in Dalmatia, The chapter of Ragusa testifies to this in letters given in the year 1728, on the nineteenth of February, which the Collection of Acts in the cause of the body of Augustine sets forth in part 1, page 34. Receive a few things out of them: We testify that among the venerable relics of the Blessed of this most excellent republic there is kept, in a very ancient work of silver representing the form of a human back, a vertebra of St. Augustine, doctor of the Church, recognized by physicians and by those skilled in the anatomical art, and by these said to be the first and nearest to the head, called Atlas, but by the Greeks [ ]. This, enclosed in the said work beneath the effigy of the same Saint, has this inscription, engraved in ancient capital letters: the spine of St. Augustine the doctor; which inscription is seen on a parchment affixed to the same vertebra. Further, in the index which is agreed to have been written in the year of restored salvation one thousand three hundred and five, and in the later indices which are kept in this treasury of sacred relics, there are moreover these words: The backbone of St. Augustine the doctor. Which relics indeed have from time immemorial always been venerated with a particular worship of religion and piety, and are venerated at present also. That in the later recognition of the body it was observed that this vertebra was wanting, we have already said.

[808] Fontanini, in the Disquisition, chapter 22, assigns three fingers of the Saint in these words: others One of the fingers of the Man of God the church of the Hermits of St. Augustine at Monte Ilcino preserves, from Luigi Torelli in the fifth Augustinian century, page 84, number 20. Another is preserved at Piacenza in the church of St. Augustine, otherwise of St. Benedict, from Pietro Maria Campi in the History of the same city, volume 3, book 24, page 205, column 2. A third among the Augustinians at Valencia in Spain, from Tomás de Herrera's Alphabetum, page 539. To the finger Herrera adds the mitre and staff of St. Augustine. Torelli, however, says that the finger mentioned is the index of the right hand, which he asserts to be enclosed in a case locked with three keys. Fontanini subjoins: That something else is kept at Lisbon among the priests of the Society of Jesus in the church of St. Roch, John Bolland teaches, volume 2 of January, page 612. And in chapter 37, among the relics given to Cassino by Benedict VIII, he numbers some particle of St. Augustine*, from Leo of Ostia. Nor does he mention more remains of the Saint; others, however, are shown in various places, as I shall briefly declare.

[809] in various places Arnold Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum assigns various ones: first of all, on page 55 he testifies that he had seen something of the bones of Augustine, doctor of the Church, in the monastery of Canons Regular of Eaucourt near Bapaume in Artois; on page 91 he affirms that something of the sacred relics … of Augustine, most excellent doctor of the Church, is preserved at Douai in the monastery of Beaulieu, which is of virgins of the Order of St. Augustine; on page 209 he assigns a bone of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo and doctor of the Church, to an abbey of the same Order at Mont-Saint-Éloi near Arras; on page 395 he records relics of the arm of St. Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo, enclosed in a silver arm, in the oratory of the palace of Brussels, which some years ago was almost wholly reduced to ashes. These things can be sufficiently reconciled with the bones of the Saint recounted at Ticinum, since they seem to be particles not large. But, if it must be understood as the words sound, what the same writer records on page 452 in these words does not seem equally to agree with them: A half of the arm of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo and most illustrious doctor of the Church, is possessed, as he had said before, by the Charterhouse of Roermond on the bank of the Meuse. But perhaps a certain part of one of the bones of the arm is called half an arm. By the testimony of the same Raissius, page 119, in the abbey of Bonne-Espérance near Binche in Hainault, which is of the Premonstratensian Order, there is preserved a knife which St. Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo, is handed down to have used. In the Life of St. Angilbert, volume 3 of February, page 103, among the relics of the abbey of Centula in the province of Ponthieu, relics of St. Augustine are numbered.

[810] of various sorts: Aegidius Gelenius, in his work On the Greatness of Cologne Agrippina, attributes sacred remains of St. Augustine to various churches of his city, namely on page 266 to the collegiate church of St. Gereon, on page 289 likewise to the collegiate church of St. Cunibert, on page 442 to St. Catherine of the Teutonic Order; on page 456 he ascribes two large bones from the body of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church, to the church of the Carthusians; on page 492 a particle of the garments of the most holy Father Augustine to the church of the Augustinian Hermits; on page 587 relics of the same Saint to the church of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, which likewise on page 597 he says are preserved in the monastery of St. Apollonia, enclosed in a silver arm; and finally on page 615 in the chapel of SS. Willibrord and Boniface. All these are without doubt tiny particles, excepting the two bones mentioned. Thomas Johannes Pessina de Czechorod, in the Phosphorus Pragensis, page 516, concerning the relics of our Saint preserved in the metropolis of Prague, has thus: A notable fragment of St. Augustine the bishop, brought from Hungary by King Wenceslaus II in the year 1304; likewise two other parts, by Charles, in 1355. Masini, in Bologna perlustrata, volume 1, page 432, ascribes relics of the same Saint to the church of St. James the Greater of the Augustinian Hermits, and to the church of St. John in Monte of the Lateran Canons at Bologna. The relics thus far enumerated will be able to be sufficiently reconciled with the bones found at Ticinum, if we weigh that the bones of Saints which are called even notable, remarkable, and large, are minute little bones, or not large parts of larger bones; that even a little dust goes under the name of relics. But not a few particles of this kind are wanting from the treasury of Ticinum, as anyone will easily understand who has considered the bones enumerated in the recognition.

[811] The marvels which are read as related concerning a finger of St. Augustine among some writers will find no credit among the learned. certain fabulous things concerning the Saint's thumb, It is agreeable to let all hear Giuseppe Panfilo in the Chronicles of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at the year 1477, folio 91, where he has thus: Paul of Verona, theologian and eminent preacher … in the sermon which is inscribed On Prayer, relates a notable miracle which is said to have happened at Pavia about the body of blessed Augustine. A certain man, a noble of Siena by birth, since he vehemently longed to have with him some particle of the body of St. Augustine which he might venerate, set out for Ticinum and earnestly begged it of the keeper of the holy body, a great sum of money being set before him. The keeper undertook that he would do it: but not daring to take away anything of the most holy body, feigning to serve that man, he approached the sepulchre of a certain person who had been buried a few days before, and, having cut off the thumb of that corpse's right hand and wrapped it in silk, he handed it to that nobleman, asserting that it was the finger of St. Augustine. The patrician, receiving it reverently, venerated it most religiously, now putting it to his mouth, now to his eyes, and often cherishing it in his bosom. On a certain night, while he was not fully asleep in his house, St. Augustine appeared to the man in a great light, and said to him: "Son, thou believest that thou hast with thee something of the relics of my body, but thou art deceived; for the finger which thou venerest is not mine, but another's who has departed this life; and that I may prove my words by the fact, my hands are entire (behold!); but lest thy faith be vain, receive this finger of mine." And straightway, having taken off the thumb of his right hand, he gave it to him as a gift, and vanished from his eyes. Many indeed were the signs and prodigies which that man wrought with the sacred finger wherever he was present. Hearing which, the king of the Lombards ordered the keeper of the holy body to be cast into prison, and wished to know the matter thoroughly. But the keeper affirming that he had handed to that patrician the thumb cut from another's corpse, the king ordered the place where the body of St. Augustine was kept to be laid open, and found that from the holy body the thumb of the right hand, and nothing besides, was wanting. Thus Paul of Verona, and, older than he, Jordan of Saxony in his book of Sermons on the Saints, sermon 59, on the translation of St. Augustine. That finger is today venerably preserved in our church of St. Augustine at Monte Ilcino in Etruria, an illustrious region of Italy.* Torelli prudently omitted these things, as fabulous, I suppose, although he treats of the index finger of the Saint preserved at Monte Ilcino, as we saw above. Certainly, since the king of the Lombards is brought into the fable, that event ought to have happened before the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy was extinguished, that is, before the ninth century; and so Jordan

of Saxony, who flourished in the fourteenth century, is too recent to be able to make us secure and to extort belief concerning a fact so marvelous that it would not be credible unless it were supported by the testimony of contemporaries; and which besides ill coheres with that supreme diligence with which the Saint's body was always guarded.

[812] and things feigned about his heart. It is wearisome to relate what some have fabled concerning the heart of Augustine, with whom Torelli seems to agree at the year 430, that is, volume 1, pages 615 and 616. When the Saint had died, they say, an angel descended from heaven and drew the heart out of the body, and in the year 951 gave it to St. Sigebert, bishop of Lurudunum. I do not know that holy Sigebert, bishop of Lurudunum, nor have I even found Lurudunum. If Torelli knew it, he ought to have explained in what province it is situated. Jerónimo Román found that history in a very ancient book, according to Torelli's testimony. But, in my judgment, both Jerónimo Román and Torelli himself ought to have been more prudent than to write a thing so incredible without irrefragable authority; for otherwise they could with reason fear that they were exposing themselves to the laughter of the learned, who are wont to number facts of this kind among fables, even though they be reported by various moderns. Further, marvels have also been narrated concerning the motions of the heart of St. Augustine; but since I nowhere find it proved that the heart, separated from the body, was preserved elsewhere, and no one names the city in which it either is or has been exposed to veneration, I had rather bury all these things in silence than refute them with many words.

* the word is omitted.

* commonly Torelli

read custodem*

§ LXIV. Various apparitions of the Saint, and benefits conferred upon others.

Visions and apparitions are not all to be rejected or admitted: Although I am not unaware that many are found today who commonly number visions and apparitions among fables, and with lofty brow despise whatever is related about these in the Lives of the Saints and in ecclesiastical histories, nevertheless I have been unwilling to omit what I have found written in various places concerning the apparitions of St. Augustine, even though I willingly confess that not all of them are equally certain or probable. For, as we do not approve too credulous writers, who without any examination embrace everything which they have found written elsewhere, so neither can we assent to certain over-severe critics, who at once hold as fables whatever they read marked with the name of visions, apparitions, revelations, and miracles; since it is established from the sacred Scriptures that miracles and visions and apparitions did occur under the old and the new Law, and so there is no reason why we cannot give credit to those things which are reported by approved writers and which besides involve nothing whereby they should be rendered suspect. Receive, therefore, kind reader, what pertains to our Saint; in recounting which I shall endeavor so far as I can to show which of them deserve more or less credit.

[814] a twin vision is related with some difference: Peter de Natalibus, book 7, chapter 128, has these things: At the same hour in which the Saint died (as this author will have it, but the thing happened later) a certain monk in a certain monastery, being rapt in spirit, saw Augustine sitting in a cloud, adorned with pontifical vestments, whose eyes like the rays of the sun illuminated the whole church, and an exceeding fragrance breathed forth from him. At another time also, while his sermons were being read at Matins in the church, blessed Bernard saw Augustine the bishop, out of whose mouth so great a rush of waters went forth that it flooded the whole church. Both of these are reported also by Jacobus de Voragine, chapter 119, with some change, however: In the monastery, he says, which is called Elemosina, a certain monk on the vigil of St. Augustine, being rapt, saw in spirit a shining cloud gliding down from heaven, and upon the cloud Augustine sitting, adorned with pontifical vestments, whose eyes, like the rays of the sun, illuminated that whole church, and an exceeding fragrance breathed forth thence. St. Bernard also, when on a certain occasion, being at Matins, he had dozed a little, and lessons were being read from a certain treatise of Augustine, saw a certain most beautiful youth standing there, out of whose mouth so great a rush of overflowing waters went forth that it seemed to fill that whole church. Whom he did not doubt to be Augustine, who watered the whole Church with the fountain of doctrine. This second relation of the former vision is at least more probable than the first, in which the thing is said to have happened at the death of the Saint. Now Elemosina is an abbey of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Chartres. Let judgment concerning these two visions belong to the prudent reader; for, although they contain nothing which shows their falsity, yet the authority of those who report them is not so great as ought to extort undoubted belief.

[815] The aforesaid Jacobus de Voragine prefixed to the things just related two other miracles, a twofold benefit bestowed by the Saint: narrated in these words: A certain miller, having a special devotion toward blessed Augustine, when he suffered in his shin a certain infirmity which is called salt phlegm, devoutly invoked blessed Augustine to his help. To whom St. Augustine appeared in a vision, and touching the shin with his hand, restored it to entire health. He, being roused, found himself freed, and rendered thanks to God and to blessed Augustine. A certain boy, when he was oppressed by the malady of the stone, and by the counsel of the physicians was to be cut; the boy's mother, fearing for herself the danger of his death, devoutly invoked blessed Augustine to the aid of her son, and straightway, the prayer being poured forth, the boy voided the stone with his urine, and received full health. I do not see why we cannot have some faith in these, which may be said of the following vision also.

[816] In Burgundy, he says, in the monastery which is called Fontenay, another vision: there was a certain monk, Hugh by name, exceedingly devoted to St. Augustine, who was fed with a marvelous longing upon his writings: who also had asked him with frequent supplication that he would not suffer him to depart from this light save on the day of his most sacred solemnity. He therefore, fifteen days before that feast, began so to burn with harsh fevers that on the vigil of it he was laid upon the ground as one dying. And behold, several comely and shining men, clothed in white, entered the church of the said monastery in procession; whom there followed a certain reverend person adorned with pontifical vestments. But a certain monk, standing in the church, seeing this was astounded, and inquired who they might be, or whither they were going. To whom one of them said that it was St. Augustine with his canons, who was going to his devout servant as he lay dying, that he might carry his soul to the kingdom of glory. After this, that reverend procession entered the infirmary, where, when it had stayed some while, that holy soul was loosed from the flesh, which that sweet friend both rendered secure from the snares of the enemies and brought into the joys of heaven. The same is reported by Angel Manrique in the Annals of the Cistercian Order, volume 3, at the year 1190, chapter 4, numbers 9 and 10, where that monk is called Hugh of Flavigny, prior of Fontenay. Now he cites the Additions to the Exordium magnum Cisterciense, chapters 24 and 25, where the vision is narrated in these words: Now on that very night a revelation of this kind was made to a certain religious monk of that monastery: for he saw a procession of white-robed persons coming from heaven enter the church, and stand about the body which was there kept according to custom. Further, one of them, tall of stature, glorious and resplendent in countenance and in raiment, came up to that monk, and began to speak with him. But he inquired who he was, and for what cause they had come. To whom the Saint answered thus: "Those whom thou seest are angels of God and other Saints; but I am Augustine, bishop of Hippo: and the cause of our coming is that we may lead the soul of this brother with us to the stars." These relations differ in certain circumstances, whence it is gathered that the one did not take from the other; but it can be determined only with difficulty which of them narrated the matter more exactly.

[817] a prisoner freed in his prison, The praised Voragine subjoins other marvels, writing thus after a little: When certain men of Pavia were being detained in prison by the marquis Malaspina, all drink was utterly forbidden them, so that a great sum of money might be extorted from them. Whence very many were already breathing forth their spirit; but some were drinking their own urine. But a certain youth among them, who had a great devotion toward blessed Augustine, invoked him to his help. Then about the middle of the night St. Augustine appeared to the aforesaid young man, and as it were taking his right hand, led him as far as the river Gravelone, and there with a vine-leaf moistened in the water so cooled his tongue that he who had desired to drink urine cared nothing for a draught of nectar.

[818] a sick man healed, another of a twofold malady, The provost of a certain church, having a great devotion toward blessed Augustine, when for three years he had fallen into a grievous infirmity, so that he was not able to rise from his bed, at the coming of the solemnity of St. Augustine, when the bell was already being rung for Vespers on the vigil, betook himself with all devotion to entreating St. Augustine. To whom Augustine, appearing in white, said, calling him thrice by his own name: "Behold, I am here, so often entreated by thee. Rise quickly and celebrate for me the evening Office." He, rising whole, to the amazement of all, entered the church and devoutly performed the Office. When a savage ulcer had arisen between the shoulder-blades of a certain shepherd, the disease so prevailed that he was now destitute of all his strength. He, while he was sending forth prayers to St. Augustine, Augustine appeared to him in a vision, and laying his hand upon the diseased place, perfectly healed him. The same man also, as time went on, was deprived of the light of his eyes. He, when he was assiduously invoking St. Augustine, on a certain day about noon Augustine appeared to him, and wiping his eyes with his hands, restored to him his former health.

[819] a certain vision which appears to be fictitious; The miracles hitherto related seem to involve nothing why we should refuse them belief, although the writer who narrated them, even though he appears sincere enough, yet by his excessive credulity obtains not much credit among the learned, and is often refuted in our Work. A harder time in finding belief among the prudent will another vision have, which the same author mingled with the preceding in these words: It is also reported that, when a certain holy man, being rapt in spirit, had beheld the Saints in glory, and had not at all seen blessed Augustine, he asked one of the Saints where Augustine might be. Who answered: "Augustine dwells in the heights, where he disputes concerning the glory of the most excellent Trinity." This vision seems to have been made up out of the fact refuted at number 710, which is like enough to this vision and seems equally fictitious.

[820] Simpliciano di San Martino, in his Life of St. Augustine, page 75, endeavors to show the notable glory of the Saint from an apparition of St. Gregory with other Saints, another which little regards Augustine: which is narrated in the preface to the books of the Morals of St. Gregory. The matter stands thus. Tajo, bishop of Zaragoza, having set out for Rome, was seeking the books of the Morals of St. Gregory, but in vain. Now to him, as he was praying by night in the church of St. Peter, there appeared

St. Gregory with SS. Peter and Paul and several others, and taught Tajo in what place the books of the Morals had been laid. But when Tajo asked whether St. Augustine were present among the Saints whom he beheld, St. Gregory is said to have answered: Blessed Augustine, that most excellent man of whom thou askest, a loftier place contains than ours. Hence the praised writer would gladly conclude that St. Augustine possesses in heaven a loftier place than Gregory and the other Saints there present, Peter and Paul, however, excepted. But those words perhaps signify nothing except that Augustine was not present with the Saints who appeared there; nor is it fitting to institute a comparison among the Saints, preferring one to another, but rather to venerate them all.

[821] About the year 1121 St. Augustine appeared to St. Norbert, the Saint, appearing to St. Norbert, delivered his Rule to him: and delivered his Rule to him. This vision is narrated in various places. In the Life of Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg, chapter 3, in our volume 1 of January, page 847, the matter is set forth thus: I heard likewise the same asserter of orthodox truth (St. Norbert, of whom he there treats) in the common chapter pursuing these things which follow: "I know," he said, "one of the brethren of our profession, to whom, as he was more studiously investigating concerning our Rule, blessed Augustine appeared — not indeed by his own merits, but rather by the prayers of his brethren — who held out to him a golden Rule brought forth from his right side, and made himself known to him in a clear discourse, saying: 'He whom thou seest, I am Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Behold, thou hast the Rule which I wrote, under which, if thy brethren, my sons, shall have well warred, they shall stand secure before Christ in the terror of the last judgment.'" And indeed these things he set forth humbly as concerning another; but we perceived without doubt that it was he himself to whom this was revealed. The same is reported by the brethren of Cappenberg in the Acts of St. Norbert, volume 1 of June, page 859, and they use entirely the same words, except that at the beginning they say We heard, where this one has I heard. And the same vision is more briefly narrated from a Cappenberg manuscript in the Addenda to the Life of Blessed Godfrey, volume 1 of January, page 1112, in these words: Moreover, blessed Augustine appeared to the same (St. Norbert) at Cappenberg, who also held out to him a golden Rule brought forth from his right side, and said: "He whom thou seest, I am Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Behold, thou hast the Rule which I wrote, under which, if thy brethren, my sons, shall have well warred, they shall stand secure before Christ in the terror of the last judgment." There is no reason why we should doubt of this apparition, since it is narrated from the mouth of St. Norbert himself by contemporary writers.

[822] Another apparition of St. Augustine together with St. Monica is had in the History of the translation of the relics of St. Monica, another apparition of the Saint: which happened after the middle of the same century, and was composed by Walter, Canon Regular of Arrouaise in Flanders, who had himself translated the relics of the Saint. To a certain religious of the said monastery, who with another had watched in prayer at the relics of St. Monica until nearly midnight, sleep crept on so lightly that he did not even think himself to be sleeping. Nevertheless, his senses being lulled, … by a marvelous going forth, it seemed to him that he lay prostrate in prayer before the altar of blessed Augustine. And when he had risen from prayer, he saw a certain matron of comely face and shining in most splendid raiment, who with dignity and reverend authority seemed to stand upon the altar. But when he beheld both the comeliness of her countenance and the brightness of her habit with great admiration, he pondered who she might be, and of what authority, by whose splendor that whole place grew bright, and how, coming thither, she stood at that hour contrary to custom upon the altar. As he was pondering such things, suddenly blessed Augustine appeared, clothed in episcopal vesture, standing beside her upon that same altar, and said to the brother: "What lookest thou at, and why dost thou so greatly wonder? Know most certainly that this is my mother, and I am her son." But the brother already understood through the spirit that it was St. Augustine himself who spoke such things to him, etc. The sub-sacristan also saw almost the like, but differently. For he saw a certain person gloriously clothed in pontifical vesture, sitting on high in an episcopal seat beside the altar of blessed Augustine; beside whom was a certain matron, comely of countenance and venerable in illustrious habit. To whom the Bishop with cheerful countenance showed the familiarity of a great friendship, and honored her so far that both that brother and several others who seemed to be present wondered greatly. To whom the Bishop said: "Wonder not if I love her and pay her honor, for she is my mother." Thus far that account.

[823] another presented to Alexander IV, Another vision, presented after the middle of the thirteenth century to Alexander IV, Supreme Pontiff, many writers report, among whom is found Henry of Ulm, who flourished in the same century, and Jordan of Saxony, who in the following, so that the matter seems abundantly attested. The words of Henry of Ulm, from his work On the Origin of the Order of St. Augustine, which I have not at hand, Torelli adduces thus at the year 1256, number 11: For in the time of Alexander IV, as he himself testified, blessed Augustine appeared to him in a vision, large indeed of head, but slender in his limbs. Warned by which vision as by a divine oracle, the Pope united to the brethren Hermits of St. Augustine several other Orders likewise dwelling in the deserts. These things he afterwards repeats twice in almost the same words. Jordan of Saxony, in the Lives of the brethren, book 1, chapter 14, relates that the joining of the various Hermits under the one Rule of St. Augustine was begun by Innocent IV, but perfected by Alexander IV, warned by this vision: Whence, he says, blessed Augustine, wishing the scattered parts of his Religion to be gathered together, appeared in a vision to him who succeeded him (Innocent IV) in the Apostolic See, namely to the lord Pope Alexander the fourth, large indeed of head, but slender in his limbs. Warned by which vision as by a divine oracle, the Pope consummated the union begun by his predecessor the lord Innocent. For he reduced into one all the brethren Hermits of the various Orders — of whom some were reckoned of St. William, others of brother John Bonus, others of Fabali, others of the Brettini; while others also wavered among men under ambiguous appellations; and likewise the brethren of the Penitence of Jesus Christ, who were called Sackites — all these, I say, he brought together into one, and effectually incorporated and united with the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine. So he. But whether all the congregations enumerated were certainly joined with the Augustinians, I do not dispute in this place.

[824] Pennotto set himself against this vision in the Tripartite History, book 1, which Pennotto attacks: chapter 40, number 5, because the Pontiffs in the bulls of the Pontiffs by which they reduced the Hermits into one body made no mention of it. But that reason does not seem sufficient to take away all credit from the praised writers, since the Pontiffs ought not to allege a vision, but rather solid reasons by which the usefulness of that union should be made manifest to all. Nay, the praised Torelli at number 16 contends that Pope Alexander made mention of that vision in a certain bull of his. That bull, on Torelli's testimony, Jerónimo Román saw in the archives of the convents of Crassa and of Würzburg, and out of it produced these words: When I was in the deeper quiet of the night, resting on my couch from the continual labor of my office, suddenly I was surrounded by a certain splendor; and behold, in the midst of it St. Augustine, clothed in pontificals, that is, in cope and mitre; and beneath he wore a black cowl, girt with a leathern girdle, and over it a monk's hood; and the holy Doctor seemed to have a huge head, but his other limbs slender; and this befell me on three nights together; whereat I, marveling, called men learned in divine letters, and asked that they should interpret that vision for me; and answer was made me by all that by the great head was represented the great foundation which he had been in the Church, but by the slender limbs were denoted his brethren, who were too much destitute of favor, and scattered throughout all Christendom. Jerónimo Román had written these things in Spanish, whose words Herrera rendered into Latin, says Torelli. But I do not doubt that both those words and the bull itself will be suspect to the learned; for it will seem strange why neither Herrera nor Torelli himself sought out and found that bull, if Jerónimo Román saw and read it in the convents mentioned.

[825] Abraham Bzovius in the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 1268, relates the following: locusts driven away through the Saint In this very year in the Spains the territory of Toledo was so laid waste by swarms of locusts that they devoured even the leaves of the trees, and not only the grass or the crops. Hence the peoples, oppressed by the greatest calamity, since they both feared famine and looked for pestilence from the death of the locusts, which burst when glutted and infected the air, came as suppliants to God, and, processions being appointed, implored his mercy with the greatest self-abasement. Not in vain were the prayers poured forth by them. For St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, whom before the other Saints they had asked as intercessor, appeared to all those peoples driving away the swarms of locusts with his pastoral staff, gathering the dead ones, and plunging them into the Tagus flowing by. Jerónimo Román, century 9 of the Augustinian Chronicles. Torelli at the same year, number 12, reports the same, and asserts, from Luis de Angelis, that in an ancient parchment book of the church of Toledo these words are read: On this day we are under obligation to make a procession as far as the monastery of St. Augustine, from a vow made on account of the locust. But Lancellotti, in the Life of the Saint, book 3, chapter 67, writes that the same miracle happened in three places. For these (locusts), he says, being entreated, he drove away, first in the city of Guadalajara in the kingdom of Toledo, then near Malagón in the city of Hernán Caballeros; and long before he snatched the city of Toledo itself, laboring under extreme famine, from a most imminent death. Thus he.

[826] In the Life of St. Nicholas of Tolentino in Surius, at the tenth of September, is read another apparition of the Saint, made together with Jesus and Mary to the dying Nicholas, various apparitions: as will be more fully explained in the Acts of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, and as Torelli has already set forth at the year 1305, number 50. That Augustine also appeared with other Saints to Blessed Clare of Montefalco as she was dying, Torelli affirms at the year 1308, number 44. The same author reports from report at the year 1310, number 26, that our Saint was seen by the dying Christina, or Christiana, of Santa Croce of the Valdarno. More unusual than these is what Herrera writes in the Augustinian Alphabet concerning Gonsalvo Ruiz, who died at Toledo in the year 1323. His corpse, he says, was solemnly buried in the parish of St. Thomas, and was honored by the citizens of heaven with an unwonted kind of honor. For when the remains of Gonsalvo were to be borne into the sepulchre, the people standing by and all beholding, Stephen and Augustine, sent from heaven — the one the patron of the church of the Augustinians, the other the Father of the Hermits — the holy man's body with their own

hands bore into the tomb, adding these words: "He who serves God and the Saints is thus honored by the Lord." The same has Torelli at the year 1323, number 20: but I could wish that they had assigned the authors on whose word we might safely believe a thing so marvelous.

[827] a vision presented to Jordan of Saxony Jordan of Saxony, in the Lives of the Brethren, book 1, chapter 18, where he had narrated the efforts of the Augustinian Hermits with John XXII, Supreme Pontiff, to obtain the body of St. Augustine, which at that time the Canons Regular of Ticinum alone possessed, subjoins a vision presented to himself, as the Augustinians think, by which it was obscurely intimated that the body was shortly to be obtained. Receive the words of Jordan: Further, that long-desired reunion, before it was accomplished, was revealed by a vision to a certain brother of note in the Order in this manner. For it seemed to him that he, with many Brethren and with the better persons of the Order, was in a certain church not of our Order, in which was a certain raised sepulchre of some great holy Bishop, as was shown by the figure of the image carved above it; which sepulchre indeed was kept less becomingly by the persons of that church. For desks and old candlesticks with dust appeared irreverently thrown upon it. And so, while the Brethren were standing in the church and looking at the sepulchre, behold, the image of the bishop was seen to raise itself and indignantly to throw off that rubbish cast upon it: and thus the bishop, rising from the tomb clothed pontifically, went and stood before the altar; and, calling the Brethren to himself, began to sing: "Come, come, sons, hear me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord"; and he sang these words to the known gradual tone, as bishops are wont to sing at their enthronements. Which being finished, he himself sits down, and bade all the Brethren sit before him in order, and then made a sweet exhortation, as a father to his sons: from which that brother understood in spirit that he was blessed Augustine.

[828] concerning the Saint's body to be obtained by the Augustinians; But the same prelate, wishing to show a singular love toward the Brethren, had indeed in his hand a clean glass with a very clear and beautiful drink. He drank first himself, and afterwards in order gave to each from his own hand to drink, intoning most sweetly and singing: "The Lord gave them the water of wisdom to drink." And when the bishop had come to that Brother, he too drank, and the drink was noble and sweet, having an unwonted savor as of an old claret; from which drink that Brother was wholly gladdened: and when all had drunk, the Bishop blessed them, and so began to return to the sepulchre; which the Brethren seeing, they wept with one accord, grieving at the Father's departure. But he, consoling them fatherly, said to them: "Weep not, sons: for behold, I will be with you even to the consummation of the world." This said, that Brother awoke, and found his mouth, tongue, and palate greatly sweetened by that drink. Whence, filled with astonishment and joy, he gave thanks to God, hoping that that vision was not idle, but presageful of some good for the Order, as not long afterwards became clear in the event. For within two months, or thereabouts, sure letters came from the Roman court announcing the news, how the body of our most blessed father Augustine had been given back to the Order. Blessed be God in all things.*

[829] Thus far Jordan. Now the body of St. Augustine was given to the Hermits of his Order which really came to pass: when they were in the year 1326 introduced by John XXII into the church of St. Peter in Ciel d'Oro, where the Saint's body rests. Further, that this vision was presented to Jordan himself they gather from a note which is had in an ancient copy at the foot of this chapter, expressed in these words: Here it is to be known that a certain brother of our Order, namely of the brethren Hermits of St. Augustine, greatly desiring to know the name of that brother to whom God showed this vision, wrote to that most reverend father and most devout lecturer Jordan, the compiler of that book, that he would deign to intimate to him who that brother had been. To whom among other things he answered formally in these words: "But as to what you ask to be written to you, who is that brother who had that vision, of which mention is made in book 1, chapter 18 of the Lives of the Brethren at the end: concerning this I know not what else to write to you, save that he is a sinner, and therefore pray you God's mercy for him. This one thing know, that most certainly the vision was just as it is written there." From which answer it manifestly appears that so marvelous and gracious a vision was revealed to himself, although by reason of humility and to avoid boasting he here omitted to express his own name.*

[830] Torelli at the year 1327, number 23, writes that St. Augustine appeared with St. Michael the Archangel to the parents of Blessed Angelo of Naples, enemies overcome, the Saint appearing, as is reported: and that this blessed son was then promised to his parents. But that vision has circumstances so marvelous that it ought to be confirmed by irrefragable authority. Since this has not been done, we do not report it more fully. Giuseppe Panfilo, bishop of Segni, in the Chronicle of the Order of the Hermits, at the year 1400, records the following: Francesco Gonzaga the son, marquis of Mantua, when for a whole year he had waged a most grievous war, not without danger to his own realm, with the Ligurians and with Gian Galeazzo, duke of Milan, on the very day of St. Augustine, to whom he had beforehand vowed himself, and who had also appeared to him promising victory, inflicted a twofold and pitiable defeat upon the Ligurians and the duke of Milan; and afterwards had Augustine painted in that manner in which he had appeared, namely clothed in a black cowl and in pontificals; and ordered his feast to be celebrated at Mantua in our church of St. Agnes with great solemnities; and by a worthy epigram handed down to posterity the memory of the manner in which he had gained such a victory, calling St. Augustine himself the protector of his country and his own. Hear also the epigram mentioned.

Ye citizens of the fatherland, for whom this father once twice drove out the Ligurians, and twice gave a glad triumph to be had, while his feasts were twice given in the same circuit of the year: be mindful of the good, and mark the grateful gifts, and with me celebrate praises to him, with me these honors. Protector of our fatherland, and our most sure hope, Augustine, parent, doctor, illustrious light of sacred eloquence, receive innumerable Ocnean praises. Thence we stretch out humble hands, and eyes beseeching: protect us, prince, in adversities to come, as of old.

These verses various authors recite, among whom Simpliciano di San Martino in the Apology for the monkhood of St. Augustine, page 130, where he expounds Ocnean praises as Mantuan, because the founder was called Ocnus. Now the twofold victory of Francesco Gonzaga over Gian Galeazzo, duke of the Milanese, various writers have narrated, among whom Rinaldi at the year 397, number 2; but I have not read of the apparition of St. Augustine except among Augustinian writers.

[831] various apparitions of the Saint: In the Life of Blessed Rita, in our volume 5 of May, page 225, it is read that St. Augustine with SS. John the Baptist and Nicholas of Tolentino appeared to Blessed Rita, and brought her into the monastery of St. Mary Magdalen of the Augustinian Order at Cascia in Umbria. Receive the matter in summary. Rita, after the death of her husband, had often sought entrance into the said monastery, but having always suffered a refusal, on a certain night by the help of SS. John the Baptist, Augustine, and Nicholas appearing to her, she penetrated within that monastery, all the doors and windows remaining shut as they were. Moved by which miracle, the nuns admitted her, as is more fully related in the place assigned. Torelli reports that fact at the year 1418, number 12. In the Life of Blessed Helen of Udine, volume 3 of April, page 253, St. Augustine is said to have appeared with Christ and other Saints to Blessed Helen, as Torelli also has at the year 1458, number 36. In the Life of Blessed Veronica of Binasco, volume 1 of January, page 895, a threefold apparition of the Saint is recorded, made to Blessed Veronica as she prayed in the year 1497, with very many days interposed between the several apparitions. The habit of him who appeared is thus described: He was encompassed by such a light that the whole place in which the enclosed virgin was hidden was lighted up as if it were day. Augustine was covered with a silken cope and a purple garment. He seemed of a certain divine aspect, bearing on his head a most refulgent mitre. At first Veronica shuddered at the immense brightness, then she exulted with heavenly joys, etc.

[832] Ticinum freed from the plague, Torelli at the year 1503, number 9, relates that Ticinum was in that year afflicted with a savage pestilence, but that, a vow being made, by the intercession of St. Augustine [ ]. Hence an image of the Saint was painted by order of the men of Ticinum, beneath which they had the following words written: In the year 1503, our city being smitten with a most savage plague, human counsel being despaired of and vain, having pronounced a vow that they would offer eighteen white torches yearly to their heavenly Protector, they obtained a healthy state. He adds that from that time a supplication was appointed every year to the church of the Augustinians of Ticinum, and eighteen torches offered, as is more fully declared in the instrument of the city, which was made on the twenty-seventh of August in the year 1507, and which Torelli recites at the same year, number 23. The fact is set forth in the said instrument thus: Considering that on the morrow there is the feast of the most glorious St. Augustine, the true protector and defender of this city, and that, although by ancient custom the city was wont to make an offering to the church in which his body rests; yet considering that in the year now past 1503, while a most greedy plague was raging in this city, which was as it were forsaken by all, the citizens then serving among the officials most devoutly had recourse to the aforesaid most glorious body, vowing and making a vow that each of them who had been present, to the number of eighteen, would carry one torch of the weight of one pound, on the feast-day of the same most glorious Saint, and that he would deign to entreat God that this city might be freed from so great and greedy a venom in which it was entangled; and that vow being thus made, forthwith the plague itself miraculously ceased, in such wise that from that time forward no one was endangered by the plague, and the city itself remained clean of that plague, as is notorious; and this is still attested by the excellent men the lords Giovanni Agostino de Giorgi and Giacomo Filippo de Poma, then officers of health at Pavia, and now over the office of health.*

[833] Whence the aforesaid lords, persevering in the devotion already begun toward the aforesaid glorious St. Augustine, hence various decrees there passed in honor of the Saint: and being unwilling to fail in anything so far as is possible for them, have ordained that on the morrow the said offering be made in every way, and so always every year in perpetuity, according to custom, and that the people be invited, and the said torches be carried to the aforesaid offering; and moreover, lest in the future the aforesaid devotion be blotted out, and that the aforesaid miracle may remain perpetually fixed in the heart of the aforesaid city, they have ordained and do ordain that in the present chamber of provision, where it shall be designated and shall have been designated, there be painted a most ornate image of the aforesaid most glorious St. Augustine with the insignia of the city of Pavia, and of the said miracle, and that in verses to be set thereupon mention be made of the aforesaid miracle and obligation: trusting

in the aforesaid most glorious Saint aforesaid , that the aforesaid city ought to be preserved from every pestiferous contagion and from every other danger.*

[834] Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet, page 420, narrates a benefit conferred upon a noble and military man, Juan de Pineda. a certain man snatched from the danger of death by the Saint's benefit: He had borne himself bravely in the American wars; but when, a quarrel having arisen, he behaved irreverently in church before the governor, he was cast into prison and condemned to death without human hope of remission. But he in the night, being anxious, implores the divine help, and with groaning has recourse to the Virgin Mother of God, and demands the patronage of Augustine, promising that he would embrace his Eremitical institute if he lived. Augustine, as though having care of his client, does not suffer the governor to sleep, and softens his stony heart, so that in the morning he granted Juan his life, the penalty of death being commuted to exile. Hence Juan fulfilled his vow, taking in the year 1559 at Lima the Augustinian habit together with Diego de Arana, who was drawn to the same institute of life, in which each proved himself excellently.

[835] Torelli at the year 1573, number 33, describing the foundation of the monastery of his Order at Lima, an image of Augustine renowned by a prodigy. narrates a prodigy wrought at that time through an image of St. Augustine. I set forth the matter in few words. The Augustinians had dwelt at Lima in a less convenient place, and for that cause desired to transfer both their monastery and their church to another place. A site being obtained, a church was being built; but, when they desired to add two chapels on either side of the church, a certain layman obstinately refused to sell his house, which was necessary for one of the chapels. The Augustinian Fathers have recourse to prayer, when suddenly the panel of the high altar, distinguished with the effigy of St. Augustine, of its own accord separates itself from the altar and affixes itself to the house of that aforesaid layman. But he, moved by that prodigy, granted his house, that a chapel might be erected there. Of that prodigious effigy of the Saint Herrera also makes mention in the Alphabet, volume 2, page 40.

* that is, an artificial wine, or spiced wine

that is, of the Lives*

* that is, a torch

* it is redundant

§ LXV. Certain memorials which are shown concerning the Saint.

Certain places religious with the Saint's memory; At length, that we may conclude this Commentary, it is agreeable to recount certain ancient monuments which are shown as pertaining to St. Augustine, although concerning most of them nothing certain can be affirmed. Mabillon in the Italian Journey, page 16, treating of the monuments of Milan, records these things: In the garden of the Ambrosian monastery there stands a chapel under the title of St. Remigius, in that place (as they believe) where Augustine heard this oracle, Take up and read. On the southern side of the basilica, not far from the same church, there stands another chapel, in which they hand down that Augustine received baptism from St. Ambrose. Concerning the place of the baptism this appears more probable than concerning the place of the conversion, since the latter does not seem to have been so near the Ambrosian church, and the chapel itself is consecrated not to St. Augustine but to St. Remigius. Now that place could have been chosen to honor the Saint's conversion, because the place of the conversion was unknown. Montfaucon in the Italian Diary, page 186, where he records the things seen at Rome, has thus: Next is situated the church of St. Mary in Cosmedin, which is a Cardinalitial title: of old it was called the Greek school, in which they hand down that St. Augustine taught rhetoric.

[837] a prodigious beam; Cornelio Lancellotti in the Life of St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 70, has thus: It is agreed also that at this very time there survives at Cagliari in Sardinia a beam which grew by divine power, when it was too short to be able to extend from one part of the chapel (this was being built beside the sepulchre of St. Augustine) to the other side. That very beam, divided daily into parts, chiefly for those suffering from fever, is not diminished, nor does it decrease in the least. This beam various writers celebrate, both Sardinian and Augustinian, whom Torelli cited in volume 1 at the year 388, numbers 80 and following. In the same place also, at number 83, there is related a miracle which is said to have happened in the year 1636 on the vigil of St. Francis, and is of this kind. Diego Trusillo of Cagliari seemed near to death from a most grievous disease; who drank a little something torn off from the wood of the beam by scraping and put into water, and immediately was better, and within a few days wholly recovered. Further, even though at number 709 we have denied that this beam was extended by St. Augustine while alive — which not even Lancellotti believed, since he will have it extended while the chapel was being built beside the Saint's sepulchre — nevertheless we do not deny that that beam survives at Cagliari; but we believe it uncertain at what time that extension of the beam took place; nay, we think the extension of the beam itself not altogether certain, since it could have arisen from some other cause that God willed it to grow famous by miracles, either because the Saint's body was once laid upon it, as Martino Cariglio has in Torelli, number 81, or for some other cause unknown to us. [a notable image of the Mother of God, which some without foundation have thought to be Augustine's:]

[838] In the monastery of Blessed Mary, which is called Regla, and is of the Augustinian order, on the shore of the Ocean in Spain, there is a famous and ancient image of the Blessed Virgin, which some have wished to have been of old venerated by Augustine, as Herrera writes in the Alphabet, part 2, page 366, who himself refutes their opinion. Receive his words: They report that in the year 1630 it was revealed to a certain Religious that this sacred image of the Mother of God was brought from Africa into the Spains by the Augustinian Hermits after the death of St. Augustine; and they add that a demon who was besetting a certain woman, being compelled in the year 1630 by an exorcist, declared that that image had of old been venerated by Augustine, brought from the city of Thagaste by St. Cyprian the deacon, an Augustinian Hermit; and hidden in the devastation of Spain by the venerable Brother Simon, likewise an Augustinian Hermit and prior of the monastery; and that our Hermits lived in that monastery 270 years; and therefore the image was brought over in the year 443. But revelations of this sort *, especially in these times, and the testifyings of demons, are to be examined cautiously and weighed maturely; nor is credit easily to be given to the revelations of men whosoever they be, or to the testimonies of demons.

[839] Jean-Baptiste Gramaye in Africa illustrata, book 5, certain places chapter 3, assigns various places which in Numidia are held in veneration even by the Moors on account of the memory of St. Augustine: Augustine's fatherland, he says, was the town of Thagaste in Numidia … Of the town no traces whatever survive; there survives meanwhile a cave cut in the rock, and it is venerated by the Moors for the memory of blessed Augustine, where they add that he was born. And the garrison-soldiers of Oran have long been wont twice yearly, namely on the Ides of November and on the fifth of the Kalends of September (that is, on the day on which the Saint was born, and on which he died) to betake themselves thither and to perform the divine Service. For there survives a middling altar, to which one ascends by four steps, in the lowest of which is a round hole cut in the stone, into which the Arabs, pouring oil, kindle a votive light, and in time of barrenness pour forth prayers, having often experienced saving help. Further, the altar does not adhere to the wall, but can be gone round, and remains of paintings are seen elsewhere on the walls and the vault. That he had also seen there a statue of Augustine mitred, and clothed and girt in white, of rare antiquity, Brother Jerónimo Hiurada of Oran, a Religious of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy, bound to me by the closest intimacy at Algiers, testified to me; from whose fuller account I curiously preserve the cave itself roughly delineated by García Pamano, a servant, likewise an eye-witness. Thus far the praised writer, who calls the inhabitants of Oran Horamenses. Now Oran was then under the king of the Spaniards, as it is today, and so its garrison-soldiers were Spaniards.

[840] After certain other things Gramaye assigns another place in Africa, venerable for the memory of Augustine, in these words: On this side of the banks of the Rubricatus the Moors show, in a rock beside a village called in the native tongue Chasa, a carved couch, which they honor and believe to be Augustine's, and it is their custom to lay ulcerous infants upon it, with the most certain solace, as they say, of recovering health; as I learned at Algiers from Joseph Dominici, a merchant, till lately a captive among the Arabs, an eye-witness of the miracles. Gramaye refers these things to the Saint's first solitude, in which he lived before he was ordained priest at Hippo by Valerius. He then subjoins the ruins, as he supposes, of the first monastery built near Hippo: The place, he says, and the ruins of this monastery survive, and are held in the highest veneration among the inhabitants, for that they not only report that it is not possible for any brute beast, should it chance to go within the enclosure, to come out whole and sound, but they also believe that no venomous animals, nor indeed birds, have ever polluted that place with their nests. Hard by is the palace of a rich Moor, and several of his servants told me that they had frequently seen lights there by night, and that harmonies, nay angelic ones, were from time to time heard by the Moors themselves on the Kalends of July.

[841] These, he says, were the beginnings of the monks of Africa, whom, fleeing into the deserts from the Vandal persecution, posterity called Hermits, distinct from the Clerics, whose life also … he recalled to the norm observed in Italy … The ruins also of this place (the monastery founded for Clerics) and certain buildings survive not far from the secondary mosque, seen by us, and a notable chapel of antiquity near the workhouse of the Moor Ramírez, with an altar and above it an old panel: where the holy Pontiff, while the Vandals besiege the city, lies dying on his bed, mitred, and with arms clothed in white and stretched out over the coverlet, a crowd of Religious wrapped in skins standing at his feet, and one of them holding their cross upraised, while in front others are clothed in surplice or rochet, with a black habit projecting beneath. Who were both kneeling, and with a crown marking their head, as it appeared, and one held an open codex resting on the bed …

[842] the Saint's memory. But what remains at Hippo of this great Prelate and doctor of the Church, besides the monasteries above mentioned, is an old inscription on the outer side of the mosque toward the South, where letters were once carved in the stone and the figure of a bishop, there still remaining the mitre and part of the pastoral staff and these Gothic letters AU, the rest being worn away. And certain of the Jews asserted to me that on the inner side opposite the temple, beside a column, there is a sepulchral stone where they think Augustine was buried; and the Moors believe it to be the memorial of a Marabout slain there, but not his sepulchre. Besides, a priest of Hippo informed me that on the Kalends of July dances are wont to be performed yearly by certain hill-dwellers, and the trees to be adorned with garlands, in memory of a certain great prophet of Hippo whom they call Kuast, a name probably corrupted from Gust, which was how Augustine sounded in contracted form to the Goths. These things the praised Gramaye, which make it manifest that the memory of St. Augustine has not altogether perished in Africa. How true or how certain these traditions of the Africans may be, I do not inquire. The praised writer adds to these certain little fables of the Moors, which I pass over; as also

the Azuages, who trace their race back to Augustine. Nor is it agreeable to refute those who have endeavored to show the kinship of the kings of the Spains, and of others, with Augustine, as he reports in the same chapter: for they are rather to be laughed at than refuted.

read hujusmodi or hæ*

EARLIER ACTS, OR THE FIRST PART OF THE LIFE,

From infancy to the thirty-third year of his age,

BY ST. AUGUSTINE HIMSELF,

Excerpted from the nine earlier books of his Confessions, which Balthasar Moretus published at Antwerp in the year 1650.

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, AT HIPPO REGIUS IN AFRICA

By St. Augustine himself.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's infancy, boyhood, sickness, and the accustomed vices of this age.

Book I.

Chapters VI and VII.

I confess to thee, Lord of heaven and earth, speaking praise to thee concerning my first beginnings and my infancy, Augustine is unmindful of his own infancy which I do not remember: and thou hast granted to man to conjecture these things about himself from others, and to believe many things about himself even on the authority of poor women … This age, therefore, O Lord, in which I do not remember that I lived, concerning which I have believed others, and which I have conjectured that I passed from observing other infants — although that conjecture be much to be trusted — it irks me to number among this life of mine which I live in this world. For, so far as concerns the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is equal to that in which I lived in my mother's womb. But if I was both conceived in iniquity, and my mother nourished me in sins in the womb, where, I ask thee, my God, where, O Lord, was I, thy servant, where or when was I innocent? But behold, I pass over that time. And what have I now to do with it, of which I recall no traces?

VIII.

[2] Did I not, passing hither from infancy, come into boyhood? Or rather, did it not come into me, he describes his boyhood, and succeed to infancy? Nor did that depart (for whither did it go?); and yet it was no longer. For I was no longer an infant who could not speak, but was now a boy speaking: and this I remember; and whence I learned to speak I afterwards observed. For my elders did not teach me, presenting me with words in some certain order of instruction, as a little later with letters: but I myself, with the mind which thou gavest me, my God, when with groanings and various cries and various motions of my limbs I wished to bring forth the meanings of my heart, that my will might be obeyed; and yet I could not do all that I wished, nor to all whom I wished; I grasped all things * by memory: when they themselves named some thing, and when according to that word they moved the body toward something, I saw, and I held that that thing was called by them what they sounded, when they wished to point it out.

[3] But that this was their will was disclosed by the motion of the body; as it were by the natural words of all nations, which are made by the countenance and the nod of the eyes, and by the action of the other limbs, and by the sound of the voice signifying the affection of the mind in seeking, in which he learned to speak. in having, in rejecting, or in doing things. Thus, words set in their places in various sentences, and often heard, I gradually gathered of what things they were the signs; and, my mouth being now tamed to those signs, I uttered my own wishes through them. Thus with those among whom I was I shared the signs of wishes to be uttered, and I entered more deeply into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending upon the authority of my parents and the nod of my elders.

IX.

[4] O God, my God, what miseries and mockeries did I there experience, Then he narrates, since it was set before me as a boy that right living meant obeying those who admonished me, that I might flourish in this world and excel in wordy arts, which serve the honor of men and false riches. Thence I was put to school, that I might learn letters, in which what use there was I, wretched, knew not; and yet, if I was sluggish in learning, I was beaten. For this was praised by my elders: and many living that life before us had built up beforehand the toilsome ways through which we were compelled to pass, with multiplied labor and grief for the sons of Adam.

[5] how he was sent to school But we found, O Lord, men praying to thee; and we learned from them, perceiving thee (as we could) to be some great one, who couldst, even without appearing to our senses, hear us and help us. For as a boy I began to pray to thee, my Help and my Refuge; and in calling upon thee I broke the knots of my tongue: and I prayed to thee, little though I was, with no little affection, that I might not be beaten at school. And when thou didst not hear me (which was not to my folly), my stripes were laughed at by my elders, even by my very parents, who wished no evil to befall me — my stripes, then a great and grievous evil to me. Is there any one, O Lord, of soul so great, cleaving to thee with exceeding great affection; is there, I say, any one? (For a certain stolidity also does this.) Is there, then, one who by cleaving devoutly to thee is so greatly affected that he esteems the racks and the claws and the various torments of this kind — for the escaping of which men supplicate thee with great fear throughout all lands — so lightly, laughing at those who most bitterly dread these things, as our parents laughed at the torments with which we boys were afflicted by our masters? For we neither feared them the less, nor the less besought thee to escape them; and yet we sinned by writing, or reading, or thinking about our letters less than was exacted of us.

[6] for love of playing For there was no lack, O Lord, of memory or of ability, which thou didst will us to have for that age; but it pleased us well enough to play, and vengeance was taken upon us by those who assuredly did such things themselves. But the trifles of elders are called business; while, though such things in boys are the same, they are punished by their elders: and no one pities the boys, or those elders, or both. Unless indeed some good judge of things should approve my having been beaten because as a boy I played at ball, and by that play was hindered from learning letters more quickly, by which as a grown man I should play more unbecomingly. That very man by whom I was beaten did nothing else: who, if in some petty question he had been vanquished by a fellow-teacher, was more tortured by bile and envy than I when in a contest at ball I was overcome by my play-fellow.

[7] And yet I sinned, O Lord God, orderer and creator of all natural things, that he neglected his parents' commands, but of sins only not ^a the orderer. O Lord my God, I sinned by acting against the precepts of my parents and of those masters. For I could afterwards have used well the letters which they wished me to learn, with whatever mind those elders of mine wished it. For I was disobedient not from choosing better things, but from love of play, loving in contests proud victories, and to have my ears scratched with false fables, that they might itch the more ardently, the same curiosity glittering more and more dangerously through my eyes toward the spectacles and games of my elders; who, however, are so endowed with dignity that almost all wish this for their own little ones — whom nevertheless they willingly suffer to be beaten, if by such spectacles they are hindered from the study by which they desire them to attain to the producing of such things. Look upon these things, O Lord, mercifully, and free us who now call upon thee; free also those who do not yet call upon thee, that they may call upon thee, and thou mayest free them.

XI.

[8] For I had heard, while yet a boy, of the eternal life promised to us through the humility of thy Son, our Lord God, that when sick he asked for baptism, descending to our pride; and I was already signed with the sign of his cross, and seasoned with his salt, even from the womb of my mother ^b, who greatly hoped in thee. Thou sawest, O Lord, when I was still a boy, and on a certain day, oppressed with a pain of the stomach, was suddenly in a fever and nearly at the point of death. Thou sawest, my God, since thou wast already my keeper, with what motion of mind and with what faith I begged the baptism of thy Christ, my God and Lord, from the piety of my mother and of the mother of us all, thy Church. And the mother of my flesh, being troubled — since with a chaste heart in thy faith she was in travail with even greater love for my eternal salvation — would in haste have seen to it that I should be initiated and washed in the saving Sacraments, confessing thee, Lord Jesus, unto the remission of sins, had I not straightway been restored.

[9] And so my cleansing was deferred; as if it were necessary which nevertheless was deferred, that I should still be defiled, if I lived; because forsooth after that washing the guilt in the defilements of transgressions would be greater and more perilous. So I already believed, and she, and the whole household, except my father ^c alone; who nevertheless did not overcome in me the right of a mother's piety, so as to prevent my believing in Christ, as he had not yet believed. For she was busied that thou shouldst be my father, my God, rather than he; and in this thou didst help her to overcome her husband, whom, though the better, she served; because in this also she served thee, who assuredly so commandest. I ask thee, my God, I would fain know, if thou also willedst it, with what counsel my baptism was then deferred: whether it was for my good that the reins of sinning were, as it were, loosened for me, or whether they were not loosened. Whence, then, even now does it sound on every side in our ears concerning one and another, Let him alone, let him do what he will; for he is not yet baptized: and yet in the health of the body we do not say, Let him alone, let him be wounded further; for he is not yet healed? How much better, then, ^d that I should quickly be healed, and that it should be brought about with me by my own diligence and that of my friends, that the recovered health of my soul might be safe under thy protection, who hadst given it! Better indeed. But how many and how great waves of temptations seemed to hang over me after boyhood: my mother already knew them, and wished rather to commit to them the earth ^e out of which I was afterwards to be formed, than the very image itself.

XII.

[10] In that very boyhood, however (concerning which less was feared for me than concerning adolescence), I did not love letters, and that he had to be forced to his first studies of letters. and I hated to be urged toward them: and yet I was urged, and it was well done to me, nor did I myself do well; for I would not have learned had I not been compelled. For no one does well against his will, even if what he does is good. Nor did they who urged me do well; but well was done to me by thee, my God. For they did not consider to what end I should refer what they compelled me to learn, save to the satisfying of the insatiable desires of a copious poverty and an ignominious glory. But thou, by whom the hairs of our head are numbered, didst use the error of all who pressed me to learn for my profit; but my own error, who was unwilling to learn, thou didst use for my punishment; because I was not undeserving of chastisement, so tiny a boy and so great a sinner. Thus out of those who did not do well thou didst do well to me; and out of him who sinned

myself, thou didst justly recompense me. For thou hast commanded, and so it is, that every disordered soul should be its own punishment.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere prensabam*

CHAPTER II.

His study of the humane letters, his hatred of the Greek tongue, and his love of poetic fables.

XIII.

But what the cause was why I hated Greek letters, With Greek letters and his first studies, in which as a little boy I was steeped, is not even now sufficiently ascertained by me. For I had come to love the Latin — not those which the first masters teach, but those which are taught by those who are called Grammarians. For those first ones, in which reading and writing and reckoning are learned, I held no less burdensome and penal than all the Greek. Whence, however, came this too, save from sin and the vanity of life? For I was flesh, and a spirit going and not returning. For assuredly those first letters were better, because more certain (by which it was brought about in me — and it was done, and I have this, that I both read if I find anything written, and myself write if I wish anything) — better than those by which I was compelled to keep in mind the wanderings of a certain Aeneas ^a, forgetful of my own wanderings; and to weep for Dido dead because she slew herself for love; while meanwhile, most wretched, I bore with dry eyes my own self dying in these things away from thee, O God, my life. For what is more wretched than a wretch who does not pity himself, and who weeps for the death of Dido, which came about by loving Aeneas, but does not weep for his own death, which came about by not loving thee?

[12] O God, light of my heart, and bread of the inner mouth of my soul, with which boys must be steeped, and power wedding my mind and the bosom of my thought, I did not love thee: and I committed fornication away from thee, and to me as I fornicated there sounded on every side, Well done, well done. For the friendship of this world is fornication away from thee: and Well done, well done is said, that a man may be ashamed if he be not so. And these things I did not weep for; but I wept for Dido put to death and having sought her end by the sword, while I myself followed the lowest of thy creatures, having forsaken thee, and, being earth, going into earth: and if I were forbidden to read these things, I should grieve, because I could not read what would make me grieve. Such madness was thought more honorable and richer letters than those by which I learned to read and write.

[13] But now let my God cry out in my soul, and let thy truth say to me: that they may rightly read, write, and reckon, It is not so, it is not so; far better is that earlier learning. For behold, I am readier to forget the wanderings of Aeneas, and all things of that sort, than to write and read. But curtains hang at the doors of the grammar schools; yet they signify not so much the honor of the mysteries as the covering of error. Let them not cry out against me, whom I no longer fear, while I confess to thee, my God, what my soul wills, and acquiesce in the reproof of my evil ways, that I may love thy good ways. Let not the sellers of grammar cry out against me, nor the buyers: for if I set before them the question whether it be true that Aeneas once came to Carthage ^b, as the Poet says, the less learned will answer that they do not know, while the more learned will even deny that it is true.

[14] But if I ask with what letters the name of Aeneas is written, he preferred the useless figments of the poets, all who have learned these things answer me truly, according to that compact and consent by which men have established these signs among themselves. Likewise if I should ask which of these one would forget with greater inconvenience to this life — to read and write, or those poetic figments — who does not see what he would answer who is not utterly forgetful of himself? I sinned therefore as a boy, when in my love I preferred those empty things to these more useful ones: or rather, I hated these, I loved those. But already one and one make two, two and two make four was a hateful chant to me; and a most sweet spectacle of vanity was the wooden horse ^c full of armed men, and the burning of Troy, and the very shade of Creusa.

XIV.

[15] Why then did I hate the Greek grammar also, which chants such things? and how greatly he hated the Greek tongue, For Homer too skillfully wove such little fables, and is most sweetly vain; yet to me as a boy he was bitter. I believe that Virgil is so to Greek boys also, when they are compelled to learn him as I learned that other, namely with difficulty. The difficulty altogether of thoroughly learning a foreign tongue sprinkled as with gall all the Greek sweetnesses of fabulous narrations. For I knew none of those words, and with harsh terrors and punishments I was vehemently pressed to know them. For once (as an infant, of course) I knew no Latin words either: and yet by attending I learned them, without any fear or torment, amid even the caresses of nurses ^d, and the jests of those who smiled, and the gladness of those who played with me.

XV.

[16] I learned those, indeed, without the penal burden of those who urged me, since my own heart urged me to bring forth its conceptions: and this could not be unless I had learned some words, not from teachers, but from speakers, in whose ears I too was in travail with whatever I felt. which appeared difficult to him, Hence it shines out clearly enough that free curiosity has greater force for learning these things than fearful necessity … O Lord, my King, let whatever useful thing I learned as a boy serve thee; let that which I speak, and write, and read, and reckon serve thee. For when I was learning vain things, thou wast giving me discipline: and in those vain things thou hast forgiven me the sins of my delights. For I learned in them many useful words: but they can be learned also in things not vain; and that is the safe way in which boys should walk.

XVI.

[17] But woe to thee, O torrent of human custom! Who shall resist thee? so much was he delighted with wanton fables, How long wilt thou not be dried up? How long wilt thou roll the sons of Eve into that great and formidable sea, which they scarcely cross who have mounted the wood ? Did I not read in thee both of Jove thundering and committing adultery? And assuredly he could not do both these things; but it was so contrived that he might have authority for imitating true adultery, with the false thunder playing the pander. But which of the cloaked ^e masters hears with sober ear a man crying out from that same dust and saying, Homer feigned these things, and transferred human things to the gods: I had rather he had brought divine things to us*? But it is more truly said that he indeed feigned these things, but by attributing divine things to shameful men, that shameful deeds might not be thought shameful; and that whoever did them might seem to have imitated not lost men, but the gods of heaven.

[18] which concerning the adultery of Jove And yet, O infernal torrent! the sons of men are cast into thee with fees that they may learn these things: and a great matter is transacted when this is transacted publicly in the forum, in the sight of laws decreeing salaries over and above the fee: and thou beatest against thy rocks and soundest, saying: Here words are learned; here is acquired eloquence, most necessary for persuading in matters and for unfolding opinions. Should we then indeed not know these words — golden shower, and lap, and deceit, and the temples of heaven, and the other words which are written in that place — unless Terence brought on a worthless youth setting Jove before himself as an example of debauchery, while he looks at a certain picture painted on the wall, wherein was this picture: how they say that Jove once sent a golden shower into Danaë's lap, a deceit practised on the woman.*

[19] he willingly heard or read: And see how he rouses himself to lust, as if by a heavenly teaching. "But what a God!" he says. "He who shakes the temples of heaven with his highest thunder. Should I, a poor little man, not do it? Nay, I have done it, and gladly." Not at all are these words more conveniently learned by means of this baseness, but by means of these words that baseness is more confidently perpetrated. I do not accuse the words, as chosen and precious vessels; but the wine of error which in them was pledged to us by drunken teachers: and unless we drank it, we were beaten; nor was it allowed to appeal to any sober judge. And yet I, my God, in whose sight my remembrance is now secure, gladly learned these things, and, wretched, was delighted, and on this account was called a boy of good hope.

XVII.

[20] Suffer me, my God, to say something also of my talent, from which study he attained this, thy gift, and among what ravings it was worn away. For a task was set before me disquieting enough to my soul, with the reward of praise and the fear of disgrace or of stripes, that I should speak the words of Juno, angry and grieving because she could not turn the king of the Teucrians away from Italy — words which I had never heard that Juno had spoken; but we were compelled, wandering, to follow the traces of poetic figments, and to say in loosened words something such as the Poet had said in verses. And he spoke the more praiseworthily in whom, according to the dignity of the shadowed person, a likeness of the affection of anger and grief stood out the more, the words clothing the sentiments congruously. What was that to me, O my true life, my God? Why was I applauded as I recited, before many of my equals in age and fellow-students? Behold, were not all those things smoke and wind? Was there indeed nothing else wherein my talent and my tongue might be exercised? Thy praises, O Lord, thy praises through thy Scriptures might have upheld the tendril of my heart; and it would not have been carried off through the emptinesses of trifles, a base prey to the winged ones ^f. For it is not in one manner only that sacrifice is offered to the transgressor angels.

XVIII.

[21] But what wonder that I was thus borne into vanities, so that by the example of others he cared more and went forth away from thee, my God; when men were set before me for imitation who, if in relating some deeds of their own that were not evil they uttered them with a barbarism or a solecism, were reproved and put to confusion?

but if they narrated their own lusts copiously and ornately in sound words duly following one another, they were praised and gloried in it? Thou seest these things, O Lord, and art silent, long-suffering and of much mercy and truthful. Wilt thou be silent always? And now thou dost draw out of this most monstrous deep the soul that seeks thee, and thirsts after thy delights, and whose heart says to thee: I have sought thy face; thy face, O Lord, will I seek. For far from thy face had I gone in a darkened affection. For it is not by feet and by the spaces of places that one goes away from thee or returns to thee. Or did that younger son of thine ^g seek horses or chariots or ships, or fly away on a visible wing, or make his journey by moving the knee, that living in a far country he might prodigally squander what thou hadst given him at his departure? A sweet Father, because thou hadst given; and sweeter to him returning in want. In a lustful affection, therefore — that is, in a darkened one — and that is far from thy face.

[22] See, O Lord God, and patiently, as thou seest, see how diligently the sons of men observe the covenants of letters and syllables to observe the laws of Grammar rather than the precepts of God, received from earlier speakers, and neglect the eternal covenants of perpetual salvation received from thee: so that one who holds or teaches those old conventions of sounds, if against the grammatical discipline he has said OMINEM without the aspiration of the first syllable, displeases men more than if against thy precepts he hates a man, being himself a man. As if indeed any human enemy were more destructive to him than the very hatred by which he is provoked against him; or as if anyone laid waste another by persecuting him more grievously than he lays waste his own heart by his enmity. And certainly the knowledge of letters is not more inward than the conscience written within, that one is doing to another what he would not himself suffer. How secret art thou, dwelling on high in silence, God alone great, by an untiring law scattering penal blindnesses upon unlawful desires. When a man seeks the fame of eloquence, standing before a man who is judge, with a multitude of men standing round, pursuing his enemy with a most monstrous hatred, he takes most watchful care lest by an error of the tongue he say INTER HOMINIBUS; and lest by the frenzy of his mind he take away a man from among men, he takes no care.

XIX.

[23] I, wretched, lay as a boy on the threshold of these manners, which with frequent lies, and that was the wrestling-ground of this arena, where I was more afraid of committing a barbarism than I was careful, if I committed one, not to envy those who did not commit them. I say these things and confess to thee, my God, the things in which I was praised by those to please whom was then for me to live honorably. For I did not see the abyss of baseness into which I had been cast away from thy eyes. For in those eyes what was now fouler than I? — since I displeased even such men as those, deceiving with innumerable lies both my tutor and my masters and my parents, for love of play, from a passion for watching trifling shows, and from a restlessness in imitating stage plays.

[24] by thefts, and by other sins he violated. I even committed thefts from my parents' cellar and from their table, either at the command of gluttony, or that I might have something to give to the boys who sold me their play, though they were assuredly delighted with it equally themselves. In that play also I often hunted after fraudulent victories, myself overcome by a vain desire of preeminence. But what was I so unwilling to suffer, and did so fiercely accuse if I detected it, as that which I was doing to others? And if, being detected, I was accused, I chose rather to rage than to yield. Is this the innocence of boyhood? It is not, O Lord, O Lord, it is not, I beseech thee, my God. For these very things are what pass on, as greater ages succeed, from tutors and masters, from nuts and little balls and sparrows, to prefects and kings, to gold, estates, slaves: these very things altogether pass on, just as greater punishments succeed the rod …

ANNOTATA.

* that is, a ship

elsewhere supra*

CHAPTER III.

The sins of his adolescence lamented, and namely the theft then perpetrated out of malice on account of his depraved companions.

Book II.

Chapter I.

I wish to recall my past foulnesses, and the carnal corruptions of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love thee, my God. For love of thy love I do this, He laments his obscene desires going back over my most wicked ways in the bitterness of my recollection, that thou mayest grow sweet to me — a sweetness not deceitful, a sweetness happy and secure, and gathering me together out of the dispersion in which I was torn piecemeal, while, turned away from thee who art one, I vanished away into many things. For once in my adolescence I burned to be satisfied in ^a hell; and I dared to run wild with various and shadowy loves: and my comeliness wasted away, and I rotted before thine eyes, pleasing myself and desiring to please the eyes of men.

[26] And what was it that delighted me, save to love and to be loved? But the measure was not kept from soul to soul, and other sins of this kind, to the point where the luminous boundary of friendship is: but mists breathed forth out of the slimy concupiscence of the flesh and the bubbling of puberty; and they clouded over and darkened my heart, so that the serenity of love was not distinguished from the gloom of lust. Both boiled up in confusion, and swept my feeble age over the precipices of desires, and plunged me in a whirlpool. Thy wrath had grown strong over me, and I knew it not. I had grown foul * with the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of my soul's pride; and I went further from thee, and thou didst suffer it; and I was tossed about, and poured out, and I flowed away and boiled over in my fornications, and thou wast silent. O my tardy pace! Thou wast then silent, and I went on far away from thee into more and more barren seeds of sorrows, with a proud dejection and a restless weariness.

[27] Who might have moderated my misery, and turned to use the fleeting beauties of the lowest things, which, having entered adolescence, and set bounds to their sweetnesses, so that the waves of my age might have surged up to the conjugal shore, if tranquillity in them could not be — content with the end of children to be procreated, as thy law prescribes, O Lord, who dost also form the offspring of our mortality , able to lay a gentle hand upon the tempering of the thorns shut out from thy paradise? For thy omnipotence is not far from us, even when we are far from thee: or at least I might have marked more watchfully the sound of thy clouds: But such shall have tribulation of the flesh. But I spare you. And, It is good for a man not to touch a woman. And, He that is without a wife thinks on the things that are of God, how he may please God: but he that is joined in matrimony thinks on the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.

[28] These voices, then, I should have heard more watchfully, and being made a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven, in the sixteenth year of his age he committed, I should more happily have awaited thy embraces. But I, wretched, boiled over, following the impulse of my own flux, having forsaken thee; and I passed beyond all thy lawful bounds, nor did I escape thy scourges. For what mortal does? For thou wast always present, mercifully raging, and sprinkling with the bitterest offenses all my unlawful joys, that I might thus seek to rejoice without offense. And where I might be able to do this, I could find nothing but thee, O Lord, but thee, who dost fashion pain in thy precept, and dost strike that thou mayest heal, and dost slay us lest we die away from thee. Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of thy house in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness of lust took its sceptre over me — lust licentious through human disgrace, but unlawful by thy laws — and I gave up my whole hands to it? There was no care among my people to catch me falling by marriage; but the care was only that I should learn to make as good a speech as possible, and to persuade by discourse.

III.

[29] And in that year indeed my studies were interrupted, while for a while he interrupted his studies, while, having been brought back from Madaura ^b (in which neighboring city I had already begun to sojourn for the sake of acquiring literature and oratory), the expenses of a more distant sojourn at Carthage ^c were being prepared for me — more by the high spirit than by the means of my father, a townsman of Thagaste of very slender fortune ^d. To whom do I tell these things? For not to thee, my God; but before thee I tell these things to my own kind, to the human race, however small a portion of it may chance upon these writings of mine. And to what end? Namely that I, and whoever reads these things, may consider out of how deep a place we must cry to thee. And what is nearer to thy ears than a confessing heart and a life of faith? For which of men did not then extol my father with praises, because beyond the strength of his family estate he spent on his son whatever was needful even to one sojourning far away for the sake of studies? For of many citizens far more wealthy none had such a business on behalf of their children; while meanwhile the same father was not busied about what sort of man I was growing to be for thee, or how chaste I was, provided only that I were eloquent — or rather deserted by thy husbandry, O God, who art the one, true, and good Lord of thy field, my heart.

[30] his father caring little for this corruption of manners, But when in that sixteenth year, leisure being interposed from domestic necessity, I began, released from all school, to be with my parents, the brambles of lusts grew up over my head, and there was no hand to root them out. Nay rather, when that father of mine saw me in the baths growing toward manhood and clothed with a restless adolescence, as if already from this he were exulting toward grandchildren, he joyfully told my mother — joyful with that intoxication in which this world has forgotten thee its Creator, and has loved thy creature instead of thee, out of the invisible wine of a will * perverse and bent down to the lowest things. But in my mother's breast thou hadst already begun thy temple and the beginning of thy holy habitation. For he was still a catechumen, and that but lately. And so she started up with a pious trepidation and trembling: although I was not yet of the faithful, she nevertheless feared those crooked ways in which they walk who set to thee their back and not their face.

[31] and his mother in vain dissuading him from those vices, Woe is me! and do I dare to say that thou wast silent, my God, when I was going further away from thee? Wast thou indeed then silent to me? And whose were those words but thine, which through my mother, thy faithful one, thou didst sing into my ears? Nor did anything of it go down

into my heart, that I should do it. For she wished — and I remember that in secret she admonished me with a huge solicitude — that I should not fornicate, and above all that I should not commit adultery with any man's wife. These admonitions seemed to me womanish, and I should have blushed to obey them. But they were thine, and I knew it not: and I thought that thou wast silent, and that she was speaking, through whom thou wast not silent to me: and in her thou wast despised by me, by me her son, the son of thy handmaid, thy servant. But I knew it not; and I went headlong with such blindness that among my equals in age I was ashamed of a lesser shamelessness, when I heard them boasting of their disgraceful deeds, and glorying the more the more base they were: and it was pleasant to do it not only from the lust of the deed, but also from the lust of praise.

[32] whose pious admonitions he counted as nothing. What is worthy of blame but vice? I, that I might not be blamed, became more vicious; and where there was no ground on which, having committed it, I might be matched with the lost, I feigned that I had done what I had not done, lest I should seem the more abject the more innocent I was, and lest I should be held the cheaper the more chaste I was. Behold with what companions I made my journey through the streets of Babylon, and wallowed in its mire as though in spices and precious ointments. And that I might cleave the more tenaciously to its very navel, the invisible enemy trod me down and seduced me, because I was one apt to be seduced. For neither did she who had already fled from the midst of Babylon — but who went more slowly in its outer parts — the mother of my flesh, take care of my chastity in the way in which she admonished me, with regard to what she had heard about me from her husband. And now she perceived it to be pestilential and dangerous for the future, to restrain it within the bound of conjugal affection, if it could not be cut back to the quick. She took no care of this, because there was a fear lest my hope be hindered by a wife's fetter — not that hope which my mother had in thee for the age to come, but the hope of letters, which each parent too much wished me to know. He, because he thought almost nothing about thee, but empty things about me; but she, because she judged that those customary studies of learning would be profitable, not only with no detriment, but even with some help toward attaining thee. So at least I conjecture, recalling as I can the characters of my parents. The reins too were slackened for me toward play, beyond the tempering of severity, into the dissoluteness of various affections; and in all things there was a gloom cutting me off, my God, from the serenity of thy truth; and my iniquity went forth as it were out of fatness.

IV.

[33] Certainly thy law punishes theft, O Lord, Chiefly he laments a theft, and the law written in the hearts of men, which not even iniquity itself blots out. For what thief bears with a thief with an even mind? Nor does a rich one bear with one driven by want. And I wished to commit a theft, and did so, compelled by no need, nor by penury, but from a loathing of justice and a surfeit of iniquity. For I stole that of which I had abundance, and much better. Nor did I wish to enjoy that thing which I sought by the theft, but the theft itself and the sin. There was a pear tree in the neighborhood of our vineyard, loaded with fruits alluring neither in form nor in taste. To shake this and to carry off its fruit we most worthless young fellows set out at dead of night, having prolonged our play, after the manner of a pestilence, upon the open places; and we bore away thence huge burdens, not for our own feasting, but even to be thrown to the swine, even though we ate something of it; provided only that we did what pleased us for the very reason that it was not allowed.

[34] Behold my heart, my God, behold my heart, which against the custom of men, which thou hadst pity upon in the depth of the abyss. Let my heart now tell thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, and that there should be no cause of my malice save malice itself, foul thing. And I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved my own defect — not that toward which I was defecting, but my very defect itself I loved, a base soul and leaping away from thy firmament unto destruction, seeking not something by disgrace, but disgrace itself … And so, when it is asked concerning a crime for what cause it was done, it is not usually believed, unless it shall appear that there could have been an appetite for obtaining some one of those goods which we have called the lowest, or a fear of losing them. For they are beautiful and comely; although in comparison with the higher goods and the beatifying riches they are abject and lowly.

[35] in which something in the sin appears useful, He has committed a murder. Why did he do it? He fell in love with the man's wife or his estate; or he wished to plunder, that he might have whereby to live; or he feared to lose some such thing at that man's hands; or, being injured, he burned to avenge himself. Would he commit murder without cause, delighted with the murder itself? Who would believe it? For even of that senseless and exceedingly cruel man of whom it was said that he was rather gratuitously evil and cruel, a cause was nevertheless stated beforehand: lest through idleness, he says, his hand or mind should grow torpid. Why that also? Why so? Namely, that by that exercise of crimes, the city being taken, he might attain honors, commands, riches; and be free from the fear of the laws and from the difficulty of affairs, on account of the poverty of his family estate and the consciousness of his crimes. Not even Catiline ^e himself, therefore, loved his own crimes, but assuredly something else, for the sake of which he did them.

VI.

[36] What then, wretched that I am, did I love in thee, O my theft, without any advantage to himself O that nocturnal deed of mine of the sixteenth year of my age? For thou wast not beautiful, since thou wast a theft; or art thou indeed anything at all, that I should speak to thee? Beautiful were those fruits which we stole, since they were thy creation, thou most beautiful of all, Creator of all, good God, God the highest good, and my true good. Beautiful were those fruits, but it was not they that my miserable soul coveted: for I had abundance of better ones; those I plucked only that I might steal. For, having plucked them, I threw them away, having feasted only on the iniquity itself, in which I rejoiced. For even if any of those fruits entered my mouth, the crime was the seasoning there …

VII.

[37] O rottenness, O monster of a life, and depth of death! and out of mere malice Could that which was not allowed be pleasing for no other reason than that it was not allowed? What shall I render to the Lord, that my memory recalls these things, and my soul is not afraid because of it? * I will love thee, O Lord, and give thanks, and confess to thy name, since thou hast forgiven me such great evils and my nefarious works. To thy grace I ascribe it, and to thy mercy, that thou hast melted my sins as ice. To thy grace I ascribe also whatever evils I have not done. For what could I not have done, who loved even a gratuitous crime? And I confess that all has been forgiven me, both the evils which I did of my own will, and those which by thy guidance I did not do.

[38] he perpetrated, Who is there among men who, considering his own infirmity, dares to attribute his chastity and his innocence to his own strength, so as to love thee the less, as though thy mercy had been less necessary to him — that mercy by which thou dost forgive the sins of those who turn to thee? For let him who, being called by thee, has followed thy voice and has avoided those things which he reads of me as I recall and confess my own self, not deride me for being healed as a sick man by that Physician by whom it was granted to him that he should not fall sick, or rather that he should be less sick. And therefore let him love thee just as much, nay rather more; because through him by whom he sees me delivered from such great languors of my sins, he sees himself not entangled in such great languors of sins.

VIII.

[39] What fruit had I, wretched, once in those things so that with depraved companions which, now recalling them, I blush for — chiefly in that theft, in which I loved the theft itself, and nothing else; since it too was nothing, and by that very fact I the more wretched? And yet alone I would not have done it — thus do I recall my mind at that time — alone I would in no way have done it. Therefore I loved there also the fellowship of those with whom I did it. Therefore I loved not nothing else than the theft; nay rather nothing else, since that also is nothing. What is it in truth? Who is there to teach me, save he who enlightens my heart and discerns its shadows? What is it that has come into my mind to inquire, and to discuss, and to consider? For if I had then loved those fruits which I stole, and had desired to enjoy them, I could even alone, if it were enough to commit that iniquity by which I might come to my pleasure, have done it; nor would I have kindled the itching of my desire by the rubbing together * of conscious minds. But since the pleasure for me was not in those fruits, it was in the crime itself, which the fellowship of those sinning together produced.

IX.

[40] What was that affection of mind? For certainly it was plainly too base, might be pleasing. and woe was me who had it. But yet what was it? Who understands his transgressions? It was a laughter as of a heart tickled, because we were deceiving those who did not think that these things were done by us, and vehemently did not wish it. Why then was I delighted by this, that I did not do it alone? Is it because no one easily laughs alone? No one indeed easily: but yet even men alone and singly, when no other is present, laughter sometimes overcomes, if something exceedingly ridiculous meets either their senses or their mind. But I would not have done that alone; I would in no way have done it alone. Behold, before thee, my God, is the living remembrance of my soul. Alone I would not have committed that theft, in which what pleased me was not what I stole, but that I stole; which, to do alone, would altogether not have pleased me, nor would I have done it. O too unfriendly friendship, seduction of the mind, unsearchable greediness of doing harm out of sport and jest, and appetite for another's loss, with no lust of gain to myself, none of revenge: but when it is said, Let us go, let us do it, and one is ashamed not to be shameless … I flowed away from thee, and wandered, my God, too far astray from thy stability in my adolescence, and I became to myself a region of want.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere voluptates*

elsewhere quo*

elsewhere obsurdueram*

elsewhere modularetur*

elsewhere mortis*

elsewhere voluptatis*

elsewhere Inde diligam*

elsewhere reorum*

elsewhere confricationem*

elsewhere pruritu*

CHAPTER IV.

His luxurious manner of life in the city of Carthage, his desire of tragic spectacles, his philosophical studies, and his contempt of holy Scripture on account of its simple style.

Book III.

Chapter I.

I came to Carthage, and on every side there crackled about me a frying-pan of shameful loves. I did not yet love, At Carthage his impure loves and I loved to love *; and with a more hidden neediness I hated myself for being less needy. I sought what I might love, loving to love, and I hated security and a way without mousetraps. Since there was within me a famine from the inner food, thyself, my God, and by that famine I was not hungry; but I was without desire of incorruptible nourishments; not because I was full of them, but because the emptier I was, the more I loathed them. And therefore my soul was not in good health; and, full of ulcers, it cast itself forth miserably, greedy to be scratched by the touch of things of sense. But if these had not a soul, they would assuredly not be loved. To love and to be loved was sweet to me the more if I enjoyed also the body of the beloved. I was therefore defiling the vein of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and clouding over its brightness out of the hell of lust; and yet, foul and dishonorable, I was eager, out of abundant vanity, to be elegant and urbane. I rushed also into a love in which I desired to be caught. My God, my mercy, with how much gall didst thou, and how good thou wast, sprinkle that sweetness for me; because I was both loved, and came secretly to the bond of enjoying, and was gladly bound with wretched fetters, that I might be beaten with the burning iron rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels. Theatrical spectacles carried me away, full of the images of my own miseries and of tinder for my fire.

II.

[42] What is it that a man there wishes to grieve at, when he watches mournful and tragic things, he nourished with theatrical spectacles, which he himself would nevertheless not wish to suffer? And yet the spectator wishes to suffer grief from them, and grief itself is his pleasure. What is this but a pitiable madness? For each is moved by them the more, the less he is sound of such affections: although, when he himself suffers, it is wont to be called misery; when he suffers with others, mercy. But what sort of mercy after all is there in feigned and scenic matters? For the hearer is not called forth to give help, but is only invited to grieve: and he favors the author * of those images the more, the more he grieves. And if those calamities of men, whether ancient or false, are so acted that the spectator does not grieve, he goes away thence loathing and finding fault. But if he grieves, he stays intent, and rejoicing weeps. Are tears then loved, and griefs? Surely every man wishes to rejoice. Or is it that, though no one likes to be miserable, one nevertheless likes to be merciful? And since this is not without grief, for this one cause are griefs loved. And this too is from that vein of friendship.

[43] in which by a false mercy he grieved with But whither does it go? whither does it flow? To what end does it run down into a torrent of boiling pitch, the monstrous heats of foul lusts, into which it is itself changed and turned by its own inclination, wrested and cast down from heavenly serenity? Shall mercy then be repudiated? By no means. Therefore let griefs sometimes be loved. But beware of uncleanness, my soul, under the guardianship of my God, the God of our Fathers, who is praiseworthy and exalted above all ages — beware of uncleanness: for neither am I now without mercy; but then in the theaters I rejoiced together with lovers when they enjoyed one another through shameful deeds, although these things were performed in imagination in the play of the spectacle. But when they lost one another, as though merciful I was made sad, and yet each delighted me. But now I have more pity on him who rejoices in a shameful deed than on him who suffers as it were hard things by the loss of a pernicious pleasure and the losing of a wretched felicity.

[44] the unhappy outcomes of lovers, This is certainly the truer mercy, but the heart is not delighted in it. For although he who grieves for the wretched is approved by the office of charity; yet he who is genuinely merciful would assuredly rather that there were nothing to grieve for. For if there be a malevolent benevolence — which cannot be — then he too who truly and sincerely has pity can desire that there be wretched persons, that he may pity them. Some grief, therefore, is to be approved; none is to be loved. For this thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls, dost far and wide more purely and more incorruptibly pity, in that thou art wounded by no grief. And who is sufficient for these things? But I then, wretched, loved to grieve, and sought that there should be something to grieve for, when in another's misery — and that feigned and of the stage — that acting of the player pleased me the more, and allured me the more vehemently, by which tears were shaken out of me. But what wonder, since, an unhappy sheep straying from thy flock and impatient of thy keeping, I was befouled with a base scab? And thence came those loves of griefs — not such as should pierce me more deeply (for I did not love to suffer such things as I loved to look at) — but such that, being heard and feigned, I was as it were scraped on the surface: which griefs, however, like the nails of scratchers, a fervid swelling and corruption and horrid gore followed. Was such a life of mine any life at all, my God?

III.

[45] And thy faithful mercy hovered over me from afar. and in the very temple he cherished evil thoughts; Into how many iniquities did I melt away, and follow a sacrilegious curiosity, so that, forsaking thee, it might lead me down to the treacherous depths and the beguiling services of demons, to which I offered up my evil deeds, and in all things thou didst scourge me. I even dared, in the celebration of thy solemnities, within the walls of thy church, to lust and to transact the business of procuring the fruits of death. Wherefore thou didst beat me with grievous punishments: but nothing in comparison with my fault, O thou my exceeding great mercy, my God, my refuge from the terrible and harmful things among which I wandered with an over-confident neck, that I might withdraw far from thee — loving my own ways and not thine, loving a fugitive liberty.

[46] Those studies also which were called honorable had their course looking toward the litigious forums, but he hated the shameless mockers or subverters, that I might excel in them, the more praiseworthy the more fraudulent. So great is the blindness of men, who glory even in their blindness. And I was now the elder in the school of the rhetorician, and I rejoiced proudly, and swelled with conceit; although far more settled, O Lord, thou knowest, and altogether removed from the subversions which the subverters made (for this savage and diabolical name is as it were the badge of urbanity), among whom I lived with a shameless shame, because I was not such: and I was with them, and was at times delighted with their friendships, whose deeds I always abhorred, that is, their subversions; by which they wantonly assailed the modesty of strangers, which they would disturb by mocking them gratuitously, and thence feeding their own malevolent joys. Nothing is more like the acts of demons than that act. What therefore could be truer than that they should be called subverters*? Plainly subverted first themselves and perverted, deceitful spirits secretly deriding and seducing them, in that very thing wherein they love to mock and to deceive others.

IV.

[47] Among these I, then of a feeble age, was learning the books of eloquence, and from a certain book of Cicero in which I desired to be eminent, with a damnable and windy end, through the joys of human vanity: and in the customary order of learning I had come to a certain book of a certain Cicero, whose tongue almost all admire, his heart not so: but that book of his contains an exhortation to Philosophy, and is called Hortensius. That book indeed changed my affection, and changed my prayers to thyself, O Lord, and made my vows and desires other than they had been. Suddenly every vain hope became worthless to me, and with an incredible ardor of heart I longed for the immortality of wisdom, and had now begun to rise, that I might return to thee. For not to sharpen my tongue — which was what I seemed to be buying with my mother's payments, when I was in the nineteenth year of my age, my father having died two years before. Not therefore to the sharpening of my tongue did I refer that book; nor had it persuaded me by its manner of speaking, but by what it spoke.

[48] How I burned, my God, how I burned to fly back from earthly things to thee! he conceived a desire of wisdom, and I knew not what thou wast doing with me. For with thee is wisdom. But the love of wisdom has the Greek name Φιλοσοφίαν, with which those writings kindled me. There are those who seduce through philosophy, coloring and painting over their errors with a great and bland and honorable name; and almost all who in those and earlier times were such are marked and pointed out in that book; and there is made manifest that saving admonition of thy Spirit through thy good and pious servant: "See that no man deceive you through philosophy and vain seduction, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world, and not according to Christ: for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And I at that time — thou knowest, light of my heart — since these Apostolic sayings were not yet known to me; yet in that exhortation I was delighted by this alone, that I was stirred not to love and seek and attain and hold and embrace this or that sect, but wisdom itself, whatever it might be. I was strongly roused by that discourse, and kindled and burning: and this alone in so great a blaze checked me, that the name of Christ was not there. For this name, according to thy mercy, O Lord, this name of my Savior, thy Son, my tender heart had piously drunk in with my mother's very milk, and deeply retained; and whatever was without this name, however literary and polished and truthful, did not wholly carry me away.

[49] And so I resolved to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, yet despising the simplicity of holy Scripture. that I might see what they were like. And behold, I see a thing not discovered by the proud, nor laid bare to children; but lowly in its approach, lofty in its advance, and veiled in mysteries: and I was not such a one as could enter into it, or bend my neck to its entrances. For I did not feel then as I now speak, when I turned my attention to that Scripture; but it seemed to me unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully. For my swelling shrank from its manner, and my sharpness of sight did not penetrate its inner parts. Nevertheless it was such as would grow together with the little ones. But I disdained to be a little one, and, puffed up with pride, I seemed to myself great.

elsewhere amare*

elsewhere actori*

elsewhere delectat dolor*

elsewhere alteque*

elsewhere scævum*

CHAPTER V.

His lapse into the heresy of the Manichees, his mother's grief and prayers on this account, and the consolation divinely obtained by her.

VI.

And so I fell in with men proudly raving, and exceedingly carnal, Having fallen into the heresy of the Manichees, and talkative; in whose mouth were the snares of the devil, and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of thy name, and of that of the Lord

Jesus Christ, and of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. All these names did not depart from their mouth, but only so far as sound and the noise of the tongue, while for the rest their heart was empty of truth. And they said: Truth and truth; and many spoke it to me, and it was nowhere in them; but they spoke falsehoods, not only concerning thee, who art truly the Truth, but even concerning these elements of this world, thy creatures; concerning which, even when the philosophers spoke truly, I ought to have passed beyond them for love of thee, my Father supremely good, beauty of all things beautiful. O Truth, Truth, how inwardly even then did the marrow of my mind sigh after thee, when they sounded thee to me frequently and manifoldly with the voice alone, and with many and huge books. And these were the dishes on which, while I hungered for thee, there were set before me in thy stead the sun and moon, thy beautiful works, but yet thy works, not thou, nor even the first of them. For thy spiritual works are prior to these bodily ones, however luminous and heavenly.

[51] he followed their ravings, But I hungered and thirsted not even for those prior ones, but for thee thyself, O Truth, in whom is no change nor shadow of alteration: and there were still set before me on those dishes splendid phantasms, in comparison with which it were already better to love this sun, at least true to these eyes, than those false things loved by a mind deceived through the eyes. And yet, because I thought them to be thee, I ate; not indeed greedily, since thou didst not taste in my mouth as thou art: for neither wast thou those empty figments, nor was I nourished by them, but rather drained. Food in dreams is exceedingly like the food of the waking; by which nevertheless sleepers are not nourished, for they are asleep. But those things were in no way even like thee, as thou hast now spoken to me; for they were corporeal phantasms, false bodies, than which these true bodies are more certain, which we see with fleshly sight, whether heavenly or earthly: with the cattle and the birds we see these, and they are more certain than when we imagine them. And again we imagine them more certainly than from them we surmise other things vaster and infinite, which are altogether nothing; on which empty things I was then fed, and was not fed.

[52] But thou, my Love, in whom I faint that I may be strong, which were worse than the fables of the poets, art neither these bodies which we see, though from heaven, nor art thou those which we do not see there: for thou didst found these, nor dost thou hold them among thy highest creations. How far, therefore, art thou from those phantasms of mine, phantasms of bodies which do not exist at all: than which the fancies of the bodies that do exist are more certain; and more certain than these are the bodies themselves, which nevertheless thou art not: nor art thou the soul, which is the life of bodies. Therefore the life of bodies is better and more certain than bodies. But thou art the life of souls, the life of lives, living by thyself, and thou art not changed, O life of my soul. Where then wast thou to me at that time, and how far off? And far did I journey away from thee, shut out even from the husks of the swine whom I fed with husks. For how much better were the little fables of the grammarians and poets than that snare! For verse and song and the flying Medea are surely more useful than the five elements variously painted over, on account of the five caverns of darkness, which are altogether nothing, and slay him who believes them. For verse and song I even transfer to true relishes *. But though I sang of the flying Medea, I did not assert it; and if I heard it sung, I did not believe it: but those things I did believe.

VII.

[53] I did not truly know that other thing, which is; and I was moved as it were subtly so that he believed God to be endowed with a body, to side with the foolish deceivers, when they asked me whence is evil, and whether God were bounded by a bodily form and had hair and nails, and whether those were to be esteemed just who had many wives at once, and slew men, and offered sacrifice of animals. By which questions, being ignorant, I was troubled: and withdrawing from truth, I seemed to myself to be going into it; because I did not know that evil is nothing but the privation of good, even to that which is not at all. And whence should I see that, whose seeing with the eyes reached only to body, and with the mind only to a phantasm?

[54] And I did not know God to be a spirit, one who has no members in length and breadth, and mocked at the just of the Old Testament and for whom to be is not to be a mass; because a mass is less in a part than in its whole, and if it be infinite, it is less in some part bounded by a certain space than throughout the infinite: and it is not whole everywhere, as a spirit is, as God is. And what there might be in us according to which we should be like to God, and whether we are rightly said in the Scriptures to be made to the image of God — this I was utterly ignorant of. And I did not know the true inward justice, which judges not from custom, but from the most right law of Almighty God, by which the manners of regions and of days were formed to suit those regions and days: while that law itself was everywhere and always, not one thing in one place and another elsewhere, nor otherwise at other times: according to which Abraham was just, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those praised by the mouth of God; but that they are judged unrighteous by the unskilled, who judge from the human day, and measure all the manners of the human race by the portion of their own manner: as if someone ignorant in armor, as to what is fitted to each limb, should wish the head to be covered with a greave and the foot shod with a helmet, and should grumble that it did not fit aptly; or as if, on a day when a suspension of business had been proclaimed from the afternoon hours, someone should be vexed that he was not allowed to offer anything for sale, because in the morning it was allowed; or as if in one house he should see something handled by some servant which he who serves the cups is not permitted to do; or something done behind the stalls which is forbidden before the table; and should be indignant that, since there is one dwelling and one household, the same is not granted everywhere and to all.

[55] because certain things were lawful for them, Such are those who are indignant when they hear that in that age something was lawful for the just which in this is not lawful for the just, and that God commanded one thing to those and another to these for temporal causes, whereas both served the same justice: whereas in one man, and in one day, and in one house, they see one thing suit one limb and another another, and that a thing was lawful a while ago and after an hour is not lawful; that something is permitted or commanded in that corner which in this is justly forbidden and punished. Is justice then various and changeable? But the times over which it presides do not run alike; for they are times. But men, whose life upon the earth is short, since by their sense they are not able to weave together the causes of earlier ages and of other nations, which they have not experienced, with those which they have experienced; while in one body or day or house they can easily see what suits each limb, at what moments, for what parts or persons: at those things they take offense; to these they submit.

[56] which are now unlawful, These things I then did not know, nor did I notice; and they struck my eyes on every side, and I did not see. And I sang songs, and I was not permitted to place any foot anywhere I pleased, but in one meter and another differently and differently, and in some one verse not the same foot in all places. And the very art by which I sang did not have one thing in one place and another elsewhere, but all things at once. And I did not perceive that justice, which good and holy men served, holds all the things which God commanded far more excellently and sublimely all at once, and is in no part varied; and yet at various times distributes and enjoins not all things at once, but the things proper to each. And I, blind, blamed the pious fathers, who not only used the things present as God commanded and inspired, but also foretold things to come as God revealed …

[57] Knowing not these things, I mocked at those holy servants and prophets of thine. and supposed that the fig weeps when it is plucked, And what was I doing when I mocked them, but that I should be mocked by thee, being little by little led on to those trifles, so that I believed that the fig weeps when it is plucked, and its mother tree with milky tears? Which fig, however, if some holy man had eaten it, plucked assuredly by another's crime and not his own, he would mingle with his bowels, and would breathe out from it angels, nay rather particles of God, groaning in prayer and belching; which particles of the highest and true God would have been bound in that fruit, unless they were loosed by the tooth and belly of an elect Saint. And I, wretched, believed that mercy ought rather to be shown to the fruits of the earth than to men, for whose sake they are born. For if some hungry man who was not a Manichee were to ask, a morsel would seem to deserve to be condemned as by a capital punishment, if it were given him ^a.

XI.

[58] And thou didst put forth thy hand from on high, and out of this deep gloom didst draw my soul, for which errors his mother, weeping, when my mother, thy faithful one, wept for me before thee more than mothers weep at bodily funerals. For she saw my death by the faith and spirit which she had from thee, and thou didst hear her, O Lord. Thou didst hear her, nor didst thou despise her tears, when, flowing forth, they watered the ground beneath her eyes in every place of her prayer; and thou didst hear her. For whence that dream by which thou didst console her, so that she believed * that I lived with her and had with her the same table in the house — which she had begun to be unwilling for, turning away and detesting the blasphemies of my error? For she saw herself standing upon a certain wooden rule, and a shining youth coming to her, cheerful and smiling upon her, while she was mourning and worn out with mourning. Who, when he had asked her the causes of her sadness and of her daily tears (for the sake of teaching, as is customary, not of learning), and she had answered that she was bewailing my perdition, he bade her, that she might be secure, and admonished her to attend and see; that where she was, there was I also. And when she attended to this, she saw me standing beside her upon the same rule. Whence this, save that thine ears were at her heart?

[59] O thou, good Almighty, who so carest for each one of us as though thou didst care for him alone, is refreshed by a heavenly vision, and so for all as for each. Whence also that, when she had narrated to me that very vision, and I tried to draw it to this, that she should rather not despair of being herself to become what I was, straightway

without any hesitation she said, No; for it was not said to me, Where he is, there art thou also; but, Where thou art, there is he also. I confess to thee, O Lord, my remembrance, so far as I recall it (which I have often not been silent about), that I was even then more moved by this answer of thine through my waking mother — because she was not troubled by so near a falsity of interpretation, and so quickly saw what had to be seen (which I certainly had not seen before she spoke) — than by the dream itself, by which the joy of that pious woman, so long afterwards to come, was so long beforehand foretold for the consolation of her then present solicitude. For nearly nine years followed, in which I was rolled about in that mire of the deep and in the darkness of falsehood, though I often tried to rise and was the more heavily dashed down; while yet that chaste, pious, and sober widow — such as thou lovest — though now indeed more alert in hope, yet no less unwearied in weeping and groaning, did not cease at all the hours of her prayers to bewail me before thee. And her prayers entered into thy sight, and yet thou didst still let me be rolled and enwrapped in that gloom.

XII.

[60] And thou gavest meanwhile another answer, which I recall. and from a certain bishop For I pass over many things, because I hasten to those which press me more to confess to thee, and many things I do not remember. Thou gavest, then, another through a priest of thine, a certain bishop, nurtured in the Church and exercised in thy books. Whom, when that woman had asked that he would deign to converse with me, and to refute my errors, and to unteach me evils and teach me good things (for he did this, if by chance he found any fit for it), he was unwilling — prudently indeed, so far as I afterwards perceived. For he answered that I was still unteachable, because I was puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already harassed many unskilled persons with certain petty questions, as she had indicated to him. But let him be there, he said; only pray the Lord for him; he himself by reading will discover what that error is, and how great its impiety.

[61] At the same time he also related that he too, as a little one, had been given by his own seduced mother to the Manichees, he receives consolation. and had not only read almost all their books, but had even copied them out; and that it had become apparent to him, with no one disputing against him and convincing him, how much that sect was to be fled; and so he had fled it. When he had said these things, and she was unwilling to acquiesce, but pressed the more, entreating and weeping abundantly, that he would see me and discourse with me; he, now somewhat vexed with weariness, said: Go from me; so may you live: for it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish. Which she often recalled, in her conversations with me, that she had so received it, as though it had sounded from heaven.

ANNOTATION.

elsewhere hæc enim omnia*

elsewhere multum*

elsewhere elementa*

elsewhere me concederet*

CHAPTER VI.

His open profession of Manichaeism, his mastership of rhetoric, a son born of a concubine, soothsaying despised; but a superstitious credulity toward astrology.

Book IV.

Chapter I.

Through that same period of nine years, from my nineteenth year of age to my twenty-eighth, we were seduced and we seduced, Seduced for nine years by heretics, deceived and deceiving in various desires; openly through the teachings which they call liberal, but secretly under a false name of religion: here proud, there superstitious, everywhere vain, and following the emptiness of popular glory, even to theatrical applause, and contentious contests *, and the striving for garlands of straw, and the trifles of spectacles, and the intemperance of lusts. But on the other side, seeking to be purged from these defilements, we brought food to those who are called the elect and the holy, that out of it they might fabricate for us in the workshop of their belly angels and gods, through whom we might be delivered; and I followed these things and did them with my friends, deceived through me and along with me.

[63] he seduces others also, Let the arrogant deride me, and those not yet healthfully prostrated and dashed down by thee, my God: yet will I confess to thee my disgraces in thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech thee, and grant me to go round with my present memory the past circuits of my error, and to offer to thee the sacrifice of jubilation. For what am I to myself without thee, but a guide to the precipice? Or what am I when it is well with me, but one sucking thy milk or enjoying thee as the food that is not corrupted? And what is any man whatsoever, seeing he is a man? But let the strong and powerful deride us; let us, the weak and needy, confess to thee.

II.

[64] I taught in those years the art of rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, I sold a victorious loquacity. and teaching rhetoric at Carthage, I preferred, however, O Lord, thou knowest, to have good pupils, as they are called good; and without guile I taught them guiles, not that they should act against the life of an innocent man, but sometimes on behalf of the life of a guilty one. And thou, O God, sawest from afar my faith slipping on the slippery ground, and glittering amid much smoke, which I displayed in that mastership to those who loved vanity and sought a lie, being their companion. In those years I had one woman, known not by that which is called lawful wedlock, but whom a wandering ardor, void of prudence, had tracked out: but one, nevertheless, keeping faith of the bed to her also; in whom I might indeed learn by my own example what difference there is between the measure of the conjugal compact, which is covenanted for the sake of begetting, and the bargain of a lustful love, where offspring is born even against one's wish, although once born it compels itself to be loved.

[65] I recall also that, when it had pleased me to enter a contest of theatrical song, he abhors soothsaying; some soothsayer or other sent to ask me what reward I would give him that I might win; but that I, detesting and abominating those foul sacraments, answered that not even if that crown were of immortal gold would I suffer a fly to be killed for my victory. For he was going to slay living creatures in his sacrifices, and by those honors seemed about to invite demons to favor me. But this evil too I repudiated not out of thy chastity *, O God of my heart: for I did not know how to love thee, who knew not how to conceive anything but corporeal splendors. For a soul sighing after such figments — does it not commit fornication away from thee, and trust in falsehoods, and feed the winds? But forsooth I would not have sacrifice offered for me to demons, to whom by that superstition I was myself sacrificing myself. For what else is it to feed the winds than to feed them — that is, by going astray to be their pleasure and their derision?

III.

[66] For that reason I plainly did not cease to consult those Planetarii , whom they call Mathematicians, but given over to a vain astrology, because with them, as it seemed, there was no sacrifice, and no prayers were directed to any spirit for the sake of divination: which, however, Christian and true piety consistently rejects and condemns. For it is good to confess to thee, O Lord, and to say, Have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee. Nor to abuse thy indulgence unto license of sinning, but to remember the Lord's word, Behold, thou art made whole; now sin no more, lest something worse befall thee. All which healthfulness those men strive to destroy, when they say: From heaven comes to thee an inevitable cause of sinning; and, Venus did this, or Saturn, or Mars*: namely, that man may be without fault, being flesh and blood and proud rottenness; but that the Creator and orderer of heaven and the stars is to be blamed. And who is this but our God, the sweetness and origin of justice, who wilt render to each according to his works, and dost not despise a contrite and humbled heart?

[67] There was at that time a shrewd man, most skilled in the art of medicine, from this superstition and most renowned in it; who as proconsul ^a had with his own hand placed that agonistic crown upon my unsound head, but not as a physician. For of that disease thou art the healer, who resistest the proud, but givest grace to the humble. Yet didst thou fail me even through that old man, or cease to heal my soul? For since I had become more familiar with him, and clung assiduously and fixedly to his discourses (for they were, without ornament of words, pleasant and weighty by the liveliness of their sentiments); when he learned from my conversation that I was given over to the books of the casters of nativities, he kindly and fatherly admonished me to throw them away, and not to spend in vain upon that vanity the care and labor necessary for useful things; saying that he had so learned that art that in the first years of his age he had wished to make its profession his livelihood, whereby he might pass his life — since he had understood Hippocrates, and could assuredly have understood those writings too; and yet that afterwards he had left them and taken up medicine for no other cause than that he had found them most utterly false, and, being a serious man, was unwilling to seek a livelihood by deceiving men. But thou, he said, hast rhetoric to sustain thee among men; but this fallacy thou followest from a free pursuit, not from necessity of household means; wherefore thou oughtest the more to believe me about it, who labored to learn it as perfectly as I wished to live by it alone.

[68] When I had asked of him what cause then brought it about that many true things were pronounced from it, he answered, as he could, that the force of chance, diffused everywhere in the nature of things, did this. he cannot be torn away by friends. For if, when someone happened to consult the pages of some poet singing and intending something far different, there often came out a verse wonderfully consonant with the business; it was not, he said, to be wondered at if out of the human soul, by some higher instinct, not knowing what was done within itself, there sounded, not by art but by chance, something which chimed with the affairs and deeds of the questioner. And this indeed thou didst provide for me from him or through him, and didst sketch in my memory what I myself should afterwards seek out by myself. But at that time neither he himself, nor my dearest Nebridius ^b, a youth exceedingly good and exceedingly cautious, deriding that whole kind of divination, could persuade me to throw these things away; since the authority of the authors themselves moved me more; and I had as yet found no certain proof, such as I sought, whereby it might appear to me without ambiguity that the true things which were said by them when consulted were said by hap or by chance, and not by the art of inspecting the stars.

ANNOTATA.

at number 158. Augustine praises the same man in letter 5 (in the later edition 138) to Marcellinus.

elsewhere carmina*

elsewhere caritate*

elsewhere planos*, that is, impostors

CHAPTER VII.

His vehement sadness at the death of a friend, his fatherland forsaken on account of it, and on that occasion a little work composed by him.

IV.

In those years, at the time when I first began to teach in the township ^a At Thagaste he had a friend, in which I was born, I had acquired a friend exceedingly dear to me from a fellowship of studies, of my own age, and flowering together with me in the flower of adolescence. He had grown up with me as a boy, and we had gone to school together and played together. But he was not yet a friend in that way — although not even then was it as true friendship is: for it is not true unless thou dost cement it among those who cleave to thee by the charity poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. But nevertheless it was exceedingly sweet, ripened by the fervor of like studies. For I had also turned him aside from the true faith, which as a youth he did not hold genuinely and thoroughly, into those superstitious and pernicious little fables on account of which my mother bewailed me. That man was already wandering with me in mind, and my soul could not be without him. And behold thou, hanging over the backs of thy fugitives, God of vengeances and fountain of mercies at once , who dost turn us to thee by wondrous ways; behold, thou didst take that man out of this life, when he had scarcely completed a year in a friendship with me sweeter to me above all the sweetnesses of that life of mine.

[70] Who can enumerate, being one, thy praises which he has experienced in himself alone? who after receiving baptism had wonderfully recovered, What didst thou then do, my God, and how unsearchable is the abyss of thy judgments! For when he labored with fevers, he lay long without sense in a deathly sweat. And when he was despaired of, he was baptized without knowing it, I not caring, and presuming that his soul would rather retain what it had received from me, and not what was done in the body of one unknowing. But it was far otherwise: for he was restored and made whole. And straightway, as soon as I could speak with him (and I could as soon as he could; for I did not leave him, and we depended too much on one another), I attempted to jest with him, as though he too would jest with me about the baptism which he had received while utterly absent in mind and sense, but which he had nevertheless already learned that he had received. But he so shrank from me as from an enemy, and admonished me with a marvelous and sudden freedom that, if I wished to be his friend, I should cease to say such things to him.

[71] But I, stupefied and troubled, put off all my emotions and, relapsing into sickness, had died, until he should first grow strong and be fit in the strength of health, so that I might deal with him as I wished. But he was snatched away from my madness, that he might be kept with thee for my consolation: after a few days, in my absence, he is seized again by fevers, and dies. By which grief my heart was darkened; and whatever I looked upon was death. And my fatherland was a torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness: and whatever I had shared with him turned, without him, into a monstrous torture. My eyes sought him everywhere, and he was not given to me: and I hated all things because they did not have him. Nor could they now say to me, Behold, he will come, as when he was alive and absent. And I had become to myself a great question, and I asked my soul why it was sad and why it troubled me exceedingly: and it knew not what to answer me. And if I said, Hope in God, it justly did not obey: because the man whom it had lost, most dear, was truer and better than the phantasm ^b in which it was bidden to hope. Weeping alone was sweet to me, and had succeeded to my friend in the delights of my mind …

VI.

[72] Such was I at that time, and I wept most bitterly, and found rest in bitterness. at whose death So wretched was I, and I held that wretched life itself dearer than that friend of mine. For although I wished to change it, yet I was less willing to lose it than him. And I know not whether I would have been willing even for his sake: as is handed down concerning Orestes and Pylades, if it is not a fiction, who wished to die for one another or together, because to them it was worse than death not to live together. But in me there had arisen some affection exceedingly contrary to this; and there was in me a most grievous weariness of living, and a fear of dying. I believe that the more I loved him, the more I hated and feared death, which had taken him from me, as a most atrocious enemy; and I thought that it would suddenly consume all men, since it had been able to consume him. Thus I was altogether, I remember.

[73] Behold my heart, my God: behold, look within, he was affected with so great a grief, since I remember it, my hope, who dost cleanse me from the uncleanness of such affections, directing my eyes to thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare. For I marveled that other mortals lived, since he whom I had loved as though he would not die was dead; and I marveled the more at myself, that I lived when he was dead, since I was another self to him. Well did a certain man say of his friend, Half of my soul: for I felt that my soul and his soul had been one soul in two bodies: and therefore life was a horror to me, because I was unwilling to live as a half. And ^c therefore perhaps I feared to die, lest he whom I had greatly loved should wholly die.

VII.

[74] O madness that knows not how to love men humanly! so that, forsaking his fatherland, O foolish man, immoderately suffering things human, as I then was! And so I burned, I sighed, I wept, I was troubled; and there was neither rest nor counsel. For I carried about my torn and bleeding soul, impatient of being carried by me; and where I might lay it down I did not find: not in pleasant groves, not in games and songs, nor in sweet-smelling places, nor in furnished banquets, nor in the pleasure of couch and bed, nor finally in books and poems did it find rest. All things were a horror, even the light itself: and whatever was not what he was, was hateful and odious, save groaning and tears. For in these alone was there a little rest.

[75] he returned from Thagaste to Carthage, But when my soul was taken away from these, a great burden of misery loaded me, which by thee, O Lord, was to be lifted and healed. I knew it, but I neither wished nor was able, and the more so because thou wast not to me anything solid and firm when I thought of thee. For it was not thou, but an empty phantasm, and my error was my god. If I tried to lay my soul there, that it might rest, it slipped through the void and again fell back upon me; and I had remained to myself an unhappy place where I could neither be nor withdraw from it. For whither should my heart flee from my heart? Whither should I flee from myself, whither should I not follow myself? And yet I fled from my fatherland. For my eyes sought him less where they were not accustomed to see him; and from the town of Thagaste I came to Carthage …

X and XIII.

[76] O God of hosts, turn us, and show thy face, on which occasion he wrote the books on the Beautiful and the Fitting, and we shall be saved. For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, it is fixed upon sorrows anywhere but in thee; even though it be fixed upon beautiful things outside thee and outside itself … These things I did not then know, and I loved lower beauties, and I was going into the depth, and I said to my friends: Do we love anything but the beautiful? What then is the beautiful? and what is beauty? What is it that allures us and conciliates us to the things we love? For unless there were in them comeliness and form, they would in no way move us toward themselves. And indeed I noticed and saw that in bodies themselves there is one thing which is as it were the whole, and therefore beautiful; and another which is therefore becoming, because it is aptly fitted to something else, as a part of the body to its whole, or a shoe to the foot, and the like. And this consideration welled up in my mind out of my inmost heart; and I wrote books On the Beautiful and the Fitting, two or three, I think. Thou knowest, O God: for it has slipped from me: for we do not have them, but they have strayed from us, I know not how.

XIV.

[77] But what was it that moved me, O Lord my God, which he dedicated to a Roman orator unknown to him, to write those books to Hierius ^d, an orator of the city of Rome, whom I did not know by face, but had loved the man from the fame of his learning, which was renowned; and I had heard certain words of his, and they had pleased me? But it pleased me the more because they pleased others, and extolled him with praises, amazed that out of a Syrian man, first learned in Greek eloquence, there had afterwards arisen a wonderful teacher in Latin also, and that he was most knowing in the things pertaining to the pursuit of wisdom. A man is praised, and is loved though absent. Does that love enter from the mouth of the praiser into the heart of the hearer? Far from it. But from one lover another is kindled. For hence he who is praised is loved, when he is believed to be extolled with no deceitful heart on the praiser's part — that is, when one who loves him praises him. For so at that time I loved men from the judgment of men, not from thine, my God, in which no one is deceived. But yet why not as a noble charioteer, as a hunter noised abroad by popular enthusiasms, but far otherwise and gravely, and even as I should wish to be praised myself?

[78] But I should not wish to be so praised and loved but renowned for the fame of his learning, as the players are — although I myself both praised and loved them; but choosing rather to lie hidden than to be thus known, and even to be held in hatred rather than to be thus loved. Where are these weights of various and diverse loves distributed in one soul? What is it that I love in another which again, unless I hated it, I should not detest and repel from myself, since each of us is a man? For not as a good horse is loved by one who would not wish to be this, even if he could, is this to be said of the player also, who is a fellow of our nature. Do I then love in a man that which I hate to be, since I am a man? A great deep is man himself, whose very hairs thou, O Lord, hast numbered, and they are not diminished in thee: and yet his hairs are more easily numbered than his affections and the motions of his heart.

[79] But that rhetorician was of that kind whom I so loved he dedicated to the display of his own talent, that I wished to be such myself: and I erred

by conceit, and was carried about by every wind, and was too secretly steered by thee. And whence do I know, and whence do I confess to thee with certainty, that I had loved him more for the love of those who praised him than for the very things for which he was praised? Because if those same men, instead of praising him, had blamed him, and in blaming and despising him had narrated those very things, I should not have been kindled toward him nor stirred up. And certainly the things would not have been other, nor the man himself other, but only the affection of the narrators other. Behold where the weak soul lies, not yet cleaving to the solidity of truth. As the breezes of tongues blow from the breasts of those who form opinions, so is it borne and turned, twisted and twisted back, and the light is clouded over for it, and the truth is not discerned: and behold, it is before us. And it was a great thing to me if my discourse and my studies should become known to that man: which if he approved, I should blaze the more; but if he disapproved, my heart, empty and void of thy solidity, would be wounded. And yet that Beautiful and Fitting, about which I had written to him, I gladly turned over in my mind, and marveled at the display ^e of my own contemplation with no one to praise it.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere coacta*

elsewhere simulque convertens nos*

elsewhere Hierium*

elsewhere dictor*

CHAPTER VIII.

His difficulty in perceiving spiritual things, and his facility in understanding the categories of Aristotle.

XV.

But the hinge of so great a matter in thy art I did not yet see, With so great an ignorance of spiritual things he then labored, O Almighty, who alone workest wonders: and my mind went through bodily forms; and I defined and distinguished the Beautiful as that which is such of itself, but the Fitting as that which is becoming from being accommodated to something else, and I built up my case with bodily examples. And I turned myself to the nature of the mind; and the false opinion which I held concerning spiritual things did not suffer me to discern the truth. And the very force of the true rushed upon my eyes; and I turned my palpitating mind away from the incorporeal thing to lineaments and colors and swelling magnitudes. And because I could not see these in the mind, I thought I could not see my own mind. And whereas in virtue I loved peace, but in viciousness hated discord; in the one I noted a unity, in the other a certain division. And in that unity the rational mind and the nature of truth and of the highest good seemed to me to consist; but in that division, wretch that I was, I supposed some substance of an irrational life, and the nature of the highest evil, which should not only be a substance but should be life altogether, and yet should not be from thee, my God, from whom are all things. And yet the one I called a Monad, as it were a mind without any sex ; but this a Dyad ^a — anger in crimes, lust in shameful deeds — not knowing what I said.

[81] so that he feigned to himself two substances, For I had not known nor learned either that no substance is evil, or that our very mind is not the highest and unchangeable good. For just as crimes exist if that motion of the mind in which there is impulse is vicious, and it tosses itself insolently and turbulently; and shameful deeds if that affection of the soul is immoderate by which carnal pleasures are drunk in: so errors and false opinions contaminate life, if the rational mind itself is vicious; such as it then was in me, not knowing that it must be illumined by another light that it may be a partaker of truth, since it is not itself the nature of truth. For thou wilt light my lamp, O Lord my God, thou wilt lighten my darkness: and of thy fullness have we all received. For thou art the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world; because in thee there is no change, nor shadow of a moment. But I strove toward thee, and was repelled by thee, that I might taste death, for thou resistest the proud.

[82] of which one should be supremely good, the other supremely evil, But what more proud than that I should assert, with a marvelous madness, that I was by nature that which thou art? For since I was mutable, and this was manifest to me from the very fact that I assuredly desired to be wise in order to become better out of worse, I nevertheless preferred even to think thee mutable rather than that I should not be that which thou art. And so I was repelled, and thou didst resist my windy neck, and I imagined bodily forms, and, being flesh, I accused flesh, and, being a spirit that goes, I did not yet return to thee, and in going I went among those things which are not, neither in thee, nor in me, nor in body. Nor were they created for me by thy truth, but were feigned out of body by my own vanity: and I spoke to thy little ones, the faithful, my fellow citizens, from whom, unknowing, I was in exile. I said to them, garrulous and inept: Why then does the soul err which God made? And I was unwilling to have it said to me: Why then does God err? And I contended rather that thy unchangeable substance was compelled to err than that my own changeable substance had gone astray of its own accord, and I almost * confessed that I erred. And I was perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age when I wrote those volumes, turning over within me bodily figments which clamored in the ears of my heart; which ears I was straining, O sweet Truth, toward thy inward melody, thinking about the Beautiful and the Fitting, and desiring to stand and hear thee, and to rejoice with joy because of the Bridegroom's voice; and I could not, for I was swept outward by the voices of my error, and by the weight of my pride I fell down into the depths. For thou didst not give to my hearing joy and gladness, nor did my bones exult, which had not been humbled.

[83] And what did it profit me that, being about twenty years of age, and although he easily understood the categories of Aristotle when there had come into my hands certain Aristotelian writings which they call the Ten Categories — at whose very name, when my master, the rhetorician of Carthage, and others who were held to be learned, mentioned them with cheeks bursting with conceit, I hung agape as at some great and divine thing? I read them alone, and understood them. And when I had compared them with those who said that they had scarcely understood them with the help of the most erudite masters, not only speaking but drawing many things in the dust, they could tell me nothing else about them than what I, reading alone by myself, had come to know. And they seemed to me to speak plainly enough concerning substances, such as man is; and concerning what might be in them, as the figure of a man, of what sort he is and what his stature, how many feet he is; and kinship, whose brother he is, or where he is placed; or when he was born, or whether he stands, or sits, or is shod or armed; or does something, or suffers something: and whatever innumerable things are found in these nine genera, of which for example's sake I have set down some, or in the very genus of substance.

[84] What did this profit me, when it even harmed me: since, thinking that whatever exists at all was comprehended in those ten predicaments, I tried so to understand even thee, my God, without a teacher, wonderfully simple and unchangeable, as though thou too wast subject to thy greatness or thy beauty, so that these were in thee as in a subject, as in a body: whereas thy greatness and thy beauty are thyself; but a body is not great and beautiful by that whereby it is a body, since even if it were less great and less beautiful it would nonetheless be a body. For what I thought concerning thee was falsity, not truth, and the figments of my misery, not the firm supports of thy blessedness. For thou hadst commanded, and so it came about in me, that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles for me, and that with labor I should come to my bread.

[85] And what did it profit me that I read by myself and understood all the books of the arts which they call Liberal, yet that keenness of talent profited him nothing, whatever I was able to read, being then the most worthless slave of evil desires? And I rejoiced in them, and did not know whence came whatever in them was true and certain: for I had my back to the light ^b, and my face toward the things that are illuminated; whence my very face, by which I discerned the things illumined, was not itself illumined. Whatever I understood, without great difficulty and with no man teaching me, concerning the art of speaking and of discoursing, whatever concerning the dimensions of figures, and concerning music, and concerning numbers, thou knowest, O Lord my God, that both quickness of understanding and keenness in disputation is thy gift: but I did not thence sacrifice to thee. And so it availed me not for use, but rather for ruin: because I was busy to have so good a portion of my substance in my own power; and I kept not my strength for thee, but departed from thee into a far country, that I might squander it in harlot desires. For what did a good thing profit me, who used it not well? For I did not perceive that those arts are understood with the greatest difficulty even by the studious and the talented, until I tried to expound the same to them: and he was the most excellent among them who followed me not too slowly as I expounded.

[86] since he used God's gifts ill. But what did this profit me, thinking that thou, O Lord my God, the Truth, wast a luminous and immense body, and I a fragment of that body? Exceeding perversity. But such was I: nor do I blush, my God, to confess to thee thy mercies toward me, and to call upon thee — I who did not blush then to profess to men my blasphemies, and to bark against thee. What then did it profit me at that time to have a talent nimble through those disciplines, and so many most knotty books unraveled with no support of human teaching, when in the doctrine of piety I was erring deformedly and with a sacrilegious baseness? Or what so greatly harmed thy little ones a far slower talent, since they did not withdraw far from thee, so that in the nest of thy Church they might safely grow their feathers and nourish the wings of charity with the nourishment of a sound faith? O Lord our God, let us hope under the covering of thy wings; and protect us, and carry us. Thou wilt carry both the little ones, and even to hoary hairs wilt thou carry us: for when our firmness is thou, then is it firmness; but when it is our own, it is infirmity.

Our good lives always with thee; and because we have turned away from it, we are perverse. Let us now return, O Lord, that we be not overturned: for our good lives with thee without any defect, which good is thyself: and we shall not fear lest there be no place to which we may return, because we fell down from it; but while we are absent, our house, thy eternity, does not fall.

ANNOTATA.

b. He means God.

elsewhere rationalis vel irrationalis*

certain manuscripts sensu*

elsewhere, more rightly, pœna*

elsewhere dispiciendi or discendi*

elsewhere meretrices*

CHAPTER IX.

His conversation with Faustus, the Manichaean bishop, and after it the Saint's just suspicion of the false dogma of the Manichees.

Book V.

Chapter III.

I will speak in the sight of my God of that twenty-ninth year of my age. There had already come to Carthage a certain bishop of the Manichees, Faustus ^a by name, He narrates the coming of Faustus the Manichee, a great snare of the devil: and many were entangled in him through the allurement of his sweet speech, which I, although I praised it, nevertheless distinguished from the truth of the things which I was eager to learn: nor did I look at the sort of vessel of discourse, but at what of knowledge that Faustus, famed among them, might set before me to eat. For report had spoken to me beforehand of him, that he was most skilled in all honorable doctrines, and preeminently erudite in the liberal disciplines.

[88] And since I had read many things of the philosophers, and retained them committed to memory, whom in the knowledge of astrology I compared certain of them with those long fables of the Manichees: and those things seemed to me more probable which were said by those men who had such power as to be able to estimate the world, although they by no means found its Lord. For thou art great, O Lord, and hast regard to lowly things, but the lofty thou knowest from afar. Nor dost thou draw near save to the contrite of heart, nor art thou found by the proud; not even if with a curious skill they number the stars and the sand, and measure out the starry tracts and investigate the ways of the heavenly bodies. For they seek these things with their own mind and with the talent which thou hast given them: and they have found much, and have foretold many years beforehand the eclipses of the luminaries, the sun and the moon — on what day, at what hour, to what extent they would be; and their calculation did not deceive them, and it came about as they foretold: and they wrote down the rules they had traced out, and they are read today, and from them it is foretold in what year and in what month of the year, and on what day of the month, and at what hour of the day, and in what portion of its light the moon or the sun will be eclipsed: and it will come to pass as it is foretold.

[89] And men who do not know these things wonder and are amazed at them, the gentile philosophers far surpassed, and those who know them exult and are lifted up; and, withdrawing and falling away from thy light by an impious pride, they foresee so long beforehand an eclipse of the sun which is to come, and do not see their own in the present. For they do not religiously ask whence they have the talent by which they seek these things. And finding that thou hast made them, they do not give themselves to thee that thou mayest preserve what thou hast made, and such as they had made themselves: they slay * themselves for thee, and slaughter their exaltations like birds, and their curiosities like the fishes of the sea, by which they wander through the secret paths of the abyss, and their wantonness like the cattle of the field; that thou, O God, a consuming fire, mayest consume their dead cares, recreating them immortally.

[90] But they have not known the way, thy Word, through which thou madest the things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense by which they discern what they number, and the mind by which they number; and of thy wisdom there is no number. But the Only-begotten himself has been made for us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and was numbered among us, and paid tribute to Caesar. They have not known this way, whereby they might descend from themselves to him, and by it ascend to him. They have not known this way, and they think themselves exalted with the stars and shining, and behold, they have fallen to the earth, and their foolish heart has been darkened. And they say many true things concerning the creature, and do not piously seek the Truth, the artificer of the creature, and therefore do not find it: or if they find it, knowing God, they do not honor him as God, nor give thanks; but become vain in their thoughts, and say that they are wise, ascribing to themselves what is thine: and by this they strive with a most perverse blindness to ascribe to thee also what is their own — namely, laying lies upon thee, who art Truth, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents; and they turn thy truth into a lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.

[91] Yet I retained many true things said by them out of the creature itself, and the reason of it met me through numbers and the order of times and the visible attestations of the stars; and I compared it with the sayings of Manichaeus, who wrote many things about these matters, raving most copiously; on account of this knowledge, and there met me no reason either of the solstices and equinoxes, or of the eclipses of the luminaries *, or whatever of that sort I had learned in the books of secular wisdom. But there I was bidden to believe, and it did not agree with those reasons explored by my numbers and my eyes, but was far different.

IV.

[92] Is it so, O Lord God of truth, that whoever knows these things thereby pleases thee? although the knowledge of God alone would have rendered them worthy of praise. For unhappy is the man who knows all those things, but knows not thee; but blessed is he who knows thee, even if he knows not those things. But he who knows both thee and them is not the more blessed on account of them, but is blessed on account of thee alone, if, knowing thee, he glorifies thee as God, and gives thanks, and does not become vain in his thoughts. For just as he is better who knows how to possess a tree, and gives thanks to thee for the use of it, although he knows not either how many cubits high it is or with how great a breadth it spreads, than he who measures it and numbers all its branches, and neither possesses it nor knows or loves its creator; so of the faithful man, whose is the whole world of riches, and who, as having nothing, possesses all things by cleaving to thee whom all things serve, although he knows not even the circlings of the Bear, it is foolish to doubt that he is assuredly better than the measurer of heaven and the numberer of the stars and the weigher of the elements, who neglects thee, who hast disposed all things in measure and number and weight.

[93] But yet who required that some Manichaeus or other should write even these things, without skill in which piety could be learned? Faustus taught many false things concerning the stars, For thou hast said to man: Behold, piety is wisdom — which he could be ignorant of, even if he knew these things perfectly: but these things, since he did not know them, yet most impudently dared to teach, he could not possibly know that wisdom. For it is vanity to profess these worldly things even when known; but it is piety to confess to thee. Whence that wanderer spoke much of these matters, that, being convicted by those who had truly learned them, it might be manifestly known what his understanding was in the rest, which are more hidden. For he did not wish to be esteemed a small matter, but strove to persuade men that the Holy Spirit, the comforter and enricher of thy faithful, was personally in him with plenary authority.

[94] and impudently boasted the author of this his opinion And so, when he was found to have spoken falsely concerning the heaven and the stars and the motions of the sun and moon; although these things do not pertain to the doctrine of religion, yet it would sufficiently stand out that his daring had been sacrilegious: since he uttered these things not only unknown but even falsified, with so mad a vanity of pride that he strove to attribute them to himself as to a divine person. For when I hear some Christian brother, this one or that, ignorant of these things and holding one thing for another, I patiently look upon a man forming opinions; nor do I see that it harms him, when he believes nothing unworthy concerning thee, O Lord, creator of all things, if perchance he is ignorant of the situation and disposition of the bodily creature. But it does harm if he judges this to pertain to the very form of the doctrine of piety, and dares more obstinately to affirm what he does not know.

[95] to be the Holy Spirit, But even such an infirmity in the cradles of faith is borne with by charity our mother, until the new man rise up into a perfect man, and be no longer able to be carried about by every wind of doctrine. But in him who dared to make himself the teacher, the author, the leader and chief of those to whom he urged these things, so that those who followed him thought that they were following not any man whatsoever, but thy Holy Spirit — who would not judge that so great a madness, wherever he should be convicted of having spoken falsely, was to be detested and cast far away? But nevertheless I had not yet clearly discovered whether the vicissitudes of longer and shorter days and nights, and of night and day themselves, and the eclipses of the luminaries, and whatever of that kind I had read in other books, could be expounded according to his words also: so that, if perchance they could, it would indeed become uncertain to me whether the matter stood thus or not thus, but I would set his authority before my faith on account of his believed sanctity.

VI.

[96] And through those nearly nine years in which I heard them with a wandering mind, I awaited with too outstretched a longing the coming of that Faustus. and strove to persuade this by his natural eloquence; For the rest of them, upon whom I might chance to fall, who failed at the questions on such matters which I objected, kept promising him to me; at whose coming and in conference with him these things, and whatever greater matters I might chance to seek, would most easily be disentangled for me with the greatest clearness. Therefore, when he came, I found him a man agreeable and pleasant in words, and prattling much more sweetly those very things which they are wont to say. But what was that to my thirst, a most comely server of precious cups? My ears were already sated with such things: nor did they seem to me better because they were better said; nor true because eloquent; nor the soul wise because the face was comely and the speech graceful. But those who promised him to me were not good judges of things; and therefore he seemed to them prudent and wise, because he delighted them by speaking.

[97] But I perceived that another kind of men holds even truth suspect, but Augustine, caring more for the truth of things, and is unwilling to acquiesce in it if it be set forth in a polished and copious discourse. But thou hadst already taught me, my God, in wonderful and hidden ways: and therefore I believe that thou hast taught me, because it is true: nor is there any other teacher of the true besides thee, wherever and whencesoever it may shine forth. Now therefore I had learned from thee

that nothing ought to seem true for the reason that it is eloquently said; nor false because the signs of the lips sound uncomposedly. And again, that nothing is true because it is uttered without polish, nor false because the discourse is splendid: but that wisdom and folly are like foods useful and useless; and that with ornate and unornate words, as with vessels of the city and of the country, either kind of food can be served. Therefore my greediness, with which I had so long awaited that man, was indeed delighted with the movement and feeling of him as he disputed, and with words fitting and readily occurring for clothing his opinions.

[98] And I was delighted, and along with many, or even beyond many, I praised him and extolled him; but that eloquence of words, but I took it ill that in the assembly of hearers I was not permitted to press upon him and to share with him the cares of my questions, by conferring familiarly and by giving and receiving discourse. And when I was able to do this, and began to occupy his ears together with my friends at a time when it was not unbecoming to discourse by turns, and I brought forward certain things that moved me, I found the man first of all destitute of the liberal disciplines, except grammar, and of that only in the customary manner. And because he had read some Orations of Tully, and a very few books of Seneca, and some things of the poets, and whatever volumes of his own sect were written in Latin and in an orderly style; and because there was at hand a daily exercise of speaking, thence his eloquence was supplied; which became the more acceptable and the more seductive by a governance of talent and a certain natural charm. Is it so, as I recall, O Lord my God, judge of my conscience? Before thee is my heart and my remembrance, who wast then leading me by the hidden secret of thy providence, and wast already turning my dishonorable errors before my face, that I might see them and hate them.

VII.

[99] For after it had sufficiently appeared to me that he was unskilled in those arts in which I had thought him to excel, his unskillfulness in other sciences being discovered, I began to despair of his being able to open and resolve for me the things which moved me; of which indeed a man might be ignorant and yet hold the truth of piety — but only if he were not a Manichee. For their books are full of most prolix fables concerning the heaven and the stars, and the sun and the moon: which I now no longer thought that he could subtly explain to me — as indeed I desired, the calculations of numbers being compared which I had read elsewhere — whether they rather were so as they were contained in the books of the Manichees, or whether at least an equal reason could be rendered from those books. Yet when I brought these things forward to be considered and discussed, he, modestly indeed, did not dare to take up that burden. For he knew that he did not know these things, nor was he ashamed to confess it. He was not of such as those many talkative men whom I had endured, trying to teach me these things and saying nothing. But this man had a heart, though not right toward thee, yet not too incautious toward himself. He was not altogether unskilled in his own unskillfulness, and he was unwilling to be hemmed in by rashly disputing in matters from which there would be for him neither any way out nor an easy return. And from this he pleased me the more. For more beautiful is the temperance of a confessing mind than those things which I desired to know: and I found him such in all the more difficult and subtle questions.

[100] he began to be estranged from the sect of the Manichees. And so, my zeal being broken with which I had been intent upon the writings of Manichaeus, and despairing the more of the rest of their teachers, since in many things which moved me that famous man had so appeared, I began to spend my life with him for the sake of that pursuit with which he himself burned toward those writings which, being then already a rhetorician, I was teaching to the young men at Carthage; and to read with him either what he desired to hear, or what I myself judged fit for such a talent. But all my endeavor, by which I had determined to advance in that sect, upon acquaintance with that man wholly fell away; not so that I should be altogether separated from them, but, as one finding nothing better than that upon which I had already in some fashion rushed, I had determined to be content meanwhile, unless something perchance should shine forth which was more to be chosen. Thus that Faustus, who was to many a snare of death, had now begun, neither willing it nor knowing it, to loosen mine, in which I had been caught. For thy hands, my God, in the secret of thy providence, did not forsake my soul; and out of the blood of my mother's heart, through her tears, sacrifice was offered to thee for me day and night, and thou didst deal with me in wonderful and hidden ways. Thou didst do it, my God. For by the Lord shall the steps of a man be directed, and he shall will his way. Or what procuring of salvation is there, save thy hand remaking what thou hast made?

ANNOTATION.

elsewhere occidant & trucident*

elsewhere lunarium*

CHAPTER X.

His journey from the city of Carthage to Rome fraudulently undertaken; a dangerous sickness there, his familiarity with the Manichees, and the reason for migrating thence to Milan, where the sermons of St. Ambrose the prelate were heard by him.

VIII.

Thou didst therefore deal with me, so that I was persuaded to go to Rome, Hating the excessive license and rather to teach there what I was teaching at Carthage. And whence I was persuaded of this I will not pass over confessing to thee: since in these things also thy deepest recesses and thy most present mercy toward us are to be pondered and proclaimed. I did not wish to go to Rome because greater gains and a greater dignity were promised me by the friends who urged this (although these things too were then leading my mind), but that was then the greatest and almost the only cause, that I heard that the young men there studied more quietly, and were kept in order by a more regulated restraint of discipline, so that they should not rush in at random and wantonly into the school of one whom they do not use as master; nor be admitted at all unless he permitted.

[102] On the contrary, at Carthage the license of the students is foul and intemperate. of the students of Carthage, They break in shamelessly, and with an almost frenzied countenance disturb the order which anyone has established for his pupils' advancement. They do many injurious things with a strange stupidity, and things to be punished by the laws, unless custom be their patroness: showing them the more wretched in this, that they now do, as if it were lawful, what by thy eternal law will never be lawful; and they think that they do it with impunity, whereas they are punished by the very blindness of doing it, and suffer incomparably worse than they do. Therefore the manners which, when I was a student, I refused to be my own *, these, when I was a teacher, I was compelled to endure in others: and therefore it pleased me to go where all who knew declared that such things were not done. But thou in truth, my Hope and my portion in the land of the living, wast, for the changing of my earthly place for the salvation of my soul, applying at Carthage the goads by which I should be torn away thence, and setting before me at Rome the allurements by which I should be drawn, through men who loved a dead life, here doing insane things, there promising vain ones: and to correct my steps thou wast secretly using both their perversity and my own. For both those who disturbed my quiet were blind with a foul madness; and those who invited me to something else savored of earth. But I, who here detested a true misery, there sought after a false felicity.

[103] But why I should go from here and go thither, thou knewest, O God; his mother deceived, who grieved vehemently, nor didst thou show it to me or to my mother, who atrociously bewailed my departure and followed me even to the sea. But I deceived her as she held me violently, that she might either recall me or go with me; and I feigned that I was unwilling to leave a friend until, the wind having risen, he should sail. And I lied to my mother — and to such a mother — and got away. Because this too thou hast mercifully forgiven me, keeping me, full of execrable defilements, from the waters of the sea, even to the water of thy grace, by which, when I was washed, the rivers of my mother's eyes would be dried, with which for me she daily watered the ground beneath her face before thee. And yet, since she refused to return without me, I scarcely persuaded her to remain that night in a place next to our ship, the memorial of blessed Cyprian ^a. But that night I secretly set out; but she remained praying and weeping. And what was she asking of thee, my God, with so many tears, but that thou wouldst not suffer me to sail? But thou, taking counsel deeply and hearing the hinge of her desire, didst not regard what she then asked, that thou mightest work in me what she was always asking.

[104] he departs from Carthage to Rome, The wind blew and filled our sails, and withdrew the shore from our sight: on which in the morning she was frantic with grief, and filled thine ears with complaints and groaning, which thou didst disregard; while thou wast both hurrying me away by my own desires to the ending of those very desires, and her carnal longing was scourged with the just lash of sorrows. For she loved to have me present with her, after the manner of mothers, but far more than many: and she knew not what joys thou wast about to make for her out of my absence. She knew not, and therefore she wept and wailed, and by those torments was convicted as inheriting the remnants * of Eve, seeking with groaning what with groaning she had brought forth. And yet, after the accusation of my deceits and cruelty, being turned again to entreat thee for me, she went away to her accustomed tasks, and I to Rome.

IX.

[105] And behold, I am there received with the scourge of bodily sickness, where he labors under a dangerous disease, and I was already going to the lower regions, bearing all the evils which I had committed both against thee and against myself and against others, many and grievous, over and above the bond of original sin, by which we all die in Adam. For thou hadst not yet forgiven me anything in Christ; nor had he loosed on his cross * the enmities which I had contracted with thee by my sins. For how should he loose them on the cross of a phantasm, which is what I had believed him to be? As false, then, as the death of his flesh seemed to me, so true was the death of my soul; and as true as was the death of his flesh, so false was the life of my soul, which did not believe it. And, my fevers growing heavier, I was already going and perishing. For whither should I go if I had then departed hence, but into the fire and the torments deserved by my deeds, in the truth of thy ordering? And she knew not this, and yet, absent, she prayed for me. But thou, present everywhere, wast hearing her where she was, and wast having mercy on me where I was, that I might recover the health of my body, still mad in a sacrilegious heart. For neither did I desire thy baptism in that so great peril; and I was better as a boy, when I begged for it from my mother's piety, as I have already recalled and confessed.

[106] and the health restored to him But I had grown up unto my own disgrace, and, mad, I mocked at the counsels of thy medicine, who didst not

suffer me, such as I was, to die twice. With which wound if my mother's heart had been struck, it would never have been healed. For I do not sufficiently express what mind she had toward me, and with how much greater solicitude she was in travail with me in the spirit than she had brought me forth in the flesh. And so I do not see how she would have been healed, if such a death of mine had transfixed the bowels of her love. And where would have been so many prayers, and so frequent and without intermission? Nowhere but with thee. Or wouldst thou, God of mercies, despise the contrite and humbled heart of a chaste and sober widow, frequent in almsgiving, obedient to and serving thy Saints, letting no day pass without an offering at thy altar, coming twice a day, morning and evening, to thy church without any intermission — not to vain fables and old wives' talk, but that she might hear thee in thy discourses, and thou her in her prayers?

[107] Wouldst thou despise her tears, and repel them from thy help — hers, who by them was asking of thee neither gold nor silver, nor any changeable or unstable good, but the salvation of her son's soul; he ascribes to the continual prayers of his mother. thou, by whose gift she was such? By no means, O Lord. Nay rather, thou wast present, and wast hearing, and wast doing in that order in which thou hadst predestined it to be done. Far be it that thou shouldst deceive her in those visions and answers of thine, both those which I have already recorded and those which I have not, which she held in her faithful breast; and always praying, she pressed them upon thee as though they were thy bonds. For thou dost deign, since thy mercy is for ever, to become a debtor even by thy promises to those to whom thou forgivest all debts.

[108] Thou didst therefore restore me from that sickness, and didst make whole the son of thy handmaid, Although at Rome he still lived familiarly with the Manichees, then for the meantime in body, that there might be one to whom thou mightest give a better and surer health. And I was then at Rome joined also to those false and deceiving saints: not only to their hearers (of whose number was also he in whose house I had been sick and had recovered), but even to those whom they call the elect. For it still seemed to me that it is not we who sin, but that some other nature within us sins; and it delighted my pride to be outside fault. And when I had done something evil, not to confess that I had done it, that thou mightest heal my soul, since I was sinning against thee; but I loved to excuse it, and to accuse I know not what else that was with me and yet was not I. But in truth the whole was I, and my impiety had divided me against myself: and that was the more incurable sin, whereby I did not judge myself a sinner: and it was an execrable iniquity to prefer, O Almighty God, that thou shouldst be overcome by me to my destruction, rather than I by thee to my salvation.

[109] Thou hadst not then yet set a watch before my mouth, and doubted of the truth of their dogma, and a door of continence about my lips, that my heart should not decline into malignant words, to make excuses in sins with men that work iniquity; and therefore I was still joined with their elect. But nevertheless, now despairing of being able to advance in that false doctrine, I held even those things, with which I had determined to be content if I found nothing better, now more loosely and negligently. For there had arisen in me the thought that those philosophers whom they call Academics ^b had been more prudent than the rest, in that they had judged that all things are to be doubted of, and had determined that nothing of the truth can be apprehended by man. For so they too seemed to me clearly to have felt, as they are commonly held, by one who did not yet understand even their intention.

[110] Nor did I refrain from restraining that same host of mine from the excessive confidence which I perceived him to have concerning the fabulous matters of which the books of the Manichees are full. as he showed to his Manichaean host, Nevertheless I used their friendship more familiarly than that of other men who had not been in that heresy. Nor did I defend it with my former animosity: but yet their familiarity (for Rome hides many of them *) made me the slower to seek something else; especially as I despaired of being able to find the truth in thy Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible, from which they had turned me away. And it seemed to me exceedingly base to believe that thou hast the figure of human flesh, and art bounded by the bodily lineaments of our members. And since, when I wished to think of my God, I knew not how to think save of masses of bodies (for it did not seem to me that anything existed which was not such), that was the chief and almost the sole cause of my inevitable error.

[111] yet through ignorance of incorporeal substance For hence I also believed evil to be a certain substance of that kind, and to have its own mass, foul and deformed, whether gross, which they called earth, or thin and subtle, as is the body of air, which they imagine to be a malignant mind creeping * through that earth. And because whatever piety I had compelled me to believe that the good God had created no evil nature, I set up two masses over against one another, each infinite, but the evil one narrower, the good one vaster: and from this pestilent beginning the other sacrileges followed me. For when my mind tried to run back to the Catholic faith, I was beaten back: because that was not the Catholic faith which I thought it to be. And I seemed to myself more pious if I believed thee, my God, to whom thy mercies confess out of me, infinite at least on the other sides (although on the one side, on which the mass of evil was set against thee, I was compelled to confess thee finite), than if I supposed thee to be bounded on all sides in the form of a human body.

[112] he was hindered from embracing the faith of the Catholics, And it seemed to me better to believe that thou hadst created no evil — which to me, not knowing, seemed not only some substance, but even a corporeal one, because I knew not how to think of a mind save as being a subtle body which nevertheless should be diffused through the spaces of place — than to believe that from thee was such a nature of evil as I supposed. Our Savior himself also, thy Only-begotten, I thought of as stretched forth for our salvation out of the mass of thy most luminous bulk, so that I believed nothing else of him than what I could imagine in my vanity. And so I judged that such a nature of his could not be born of the Virgin Mary unless it were mingled with the flesh. But I did not see how what I so pictured to myself could be mingled and not be defiled. And so I feared to believe him born in the flesh, lest I should be compelled to believe him defiled by the flesh. Now thy spiritual ones will laugh at me kindly and lovingly, if they read these confessions of mine: but nevertheless such was I.

XI.

[113] Then I did not think that what those men had found fault with in thy Scriptures could be defended: to whose arguments the Manichees could not resist. but sometimes indeed I desired to confer on particular points with someone most learned in those books, and to try what he thought of the matter. For already at Carthage the discourses of a certain Helpidius, speaking and disputing publicly against those same Manichees, had begun to move me, since he brought forward such things out of the Scriptures as could not easily be resisted, and their answer seemed to me feeble. Which indeed they did not easily bring forth openly, but to us more secretly, when they said that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been falsified by I know not whom, who wished to insert the law of the Jews into the Christian faith; and yet they themselves brought forward no uncorrupted copies. But those masses, which pressed me down as I thought of bodily things, most of all held me captive and choked me; under which, gasping, I could not breathe again the pure and simple air of thy truth.

XII.

[114] I therefore began diligently to do that for which I had come, Because of the fraud of his pupils namely to teach the art of rhetoric at Rome; and first to gather at my house some to whom and through whom I had begun to become known: and behold, I learn that other things are done at Rome which I did not suffer in Africa. For in truth it was made clear to me that those subversions by lost young men were not done there. But suddenly, that they may not pay the master his fee, many young men conspire and transfer themselves to another, deserters of good faith, and to whom, for love of money, justice is cheap. My heart hated these also, though not with a perfect hatred. For perhaps I hated what I was going to suffer from them more than the fact that they did unlawful things to anyone whatever. Certainly, however, such men are base, and commit fornication away from thee, loving the fleeting mockeries of the times and filthy gain, which when it is grasped defiles the hand, and embracing the world that flees, despising thee who abidest and callest back, and pardonest the human soul, a harlot, when it returns to thee. And now I hate such depraved and distorted men, although I love them to be corrected; that they should prefer to money the very learning which they learn, and to that learning thee, God, the truth and abundance of certain good and the most chaste peace. But then I was less unwilling that they should be evil for my sake than I wished them to become good for thy sake.

XIII.

[115] And so, after word was sent from Milan to Rome to the prefect of the city, he migrates from Rome to Milan, that a master of rhetoric should be provided for that city, a public conveyance ^c also being granted; I myself canvassed for it through those very men drunk with Manichaean vanities, that by being rid of whom I was going. But both we and they knew not, that upon a discourse being proposed I should be approved and sent by Symmachus ^d, then prefect. And I came to Milan, to Ambrose ^e the bishop, known throughout the world among the best, thy pious worshiper; whose eloquence at that time strenuously ministered to thy people the fatness of thy wheat, and the gladness of oil, and the sober intoxication of wine. To him I was being led by thee unknowing, that through him I might be led to thee knowing. That man of God received me paternally, and loved my sojourning quite in the manner of a bishop.

[116] And I began to love him, at first indeed not as a teacher of the truth (which in thy Church I utterly despaired of), but as a man kind toward me. where out of curiosity And I studiously heard him disputing before the people, not with the intention I ought to have had, but as it were exploring his eloquence, whether it matched his fame, or flowed greater or less than was proclaimed: and I hung intent upon his words; but I stood by careless and contemptuous of the matters, and was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse — though more erudite, yet less cheering and soothing than that of Faustus was, as regards the manner of speaking. But of the matters themselves there was no comparison: for the one strayed through Manichaean fallacies, while the other most healthfully taught salvation. But salvation is far from sinners, such as I then was: and yet I was drawing near little by little, and knew it not *.

XIV.

[117] For since I was not busy to learn what he said, but only to hear how he said it (for that empty care had remained to me, now despairing that a way to thee lay open to man), he hears the sermons of St. Ambrose the bishop, there came into my mind, together with the words which I loved, the matters also which I disregarded. Nor

could I separate them. And while I opened my heart to receive * how eloquently he spoke, there entered along with it how truly he spoke — gradually, indeed. For first it had already begun to seem to me that these things too could be defended: and the Catholic faith, on behalf of which I had thought that nothing could be said against the assailing Manichees, I now judged to be asserted without impudence; especially after one and another, and more often, an enigma of the old Scriptures had been resolved: where, when I took it according to the letter, it slew me spiritually.

[118] And so, very many passages of those books having been expounded, roused by which, to forsake the sect of the Manichees I now blamed my own despair — that despair, at least, by which I had believed that those who detest and mock the law and the prophets could not be resisted at all. Nor yet did I therefore feel that the Catholic way must be held by me, because it too could have its teachers and defenders, who copiously and not absurdly refuted the objections; nor did I therefore hold that the other must be condemned, because the parts of the defense were equal. For the Catholic cause did not so seem to me vanquished, as that it should yet appear victorious. Then indeed I strongly bent my mind to see whether I could in any way convict the Manichees of falsity by any sure proofs. For if I could conceive a spiritual substance, straightway all those contrivances would be dissolved and cast out of my mind; but I could not.

[119] and to search further for the truth he resolved. Nevertheless, concerning the body of this world itself, and every nature which the sense of the flesh reaches, I judged, as I considered and compared more and more, that most of the philosophers had held far more probable opinions. And so, after the manner of the Academics, as they are esteemed, doubting of all things and fluctuating among all things, I determined that the Manichees at least must be left; not thinking that in that very time of my doubting I ought to remain in that sect, to which I now preferred some of the philosophers; to which philosophers, nevertheless, since they were without the name of the saving Christ, I altogether refused to commit the healing of my soul's languor. I resolved therefore to be a catechumen in the Catholic Church, commended to me by my parents, until something certain should shine out by which I might direct my course.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere volui*

elsewhere non mansit*

elsewhere ut me*

elsewhere in ea reliquiarium*

elsewhere in carne*

elsewhere peccabat*

elsewhere in me*

elsewhere circumstantiæ*

elsewhere combinabam*

elsewhere occultabat*

elsewhere tetram repente*

elsewhere nesciens or nescivi*

elsewhere decipiendum*

CHAPTER XI.

The joy of St. Monica on coming to Milan at her son's begun conversion, her reverence toward St. Ambrose, and the authority of holy Scripture acknowledged by Augustine from the sermons of that prelate.

Book VI.

Chapter I.

O my hope from my youth, where wast thou to me, and whither hadst thou withdrawn? Hadst thou not indeed made me, and set me apart from the four-footed beasts and the birds of the air? Augustine's mother, coming to Milan, rejoices, Thou hadst made me wiser, and I was walking through darkness and slippery places, and I sought thee outside myself, and did not find the God of my heart; and I had come into the depth of the sea, and I distrusted and despaired of finding the truth. My mother had already come to me, strong in piety, following me by land and sea, and secure in thee amid all dangers. For even amid the perils of the sea she consoled the very sailors, by whom unpracticed travelers of the deep are wont to be consoled when they are alarmed, promising them arrival with safety, because thou hadst promised her this in a vision. And she found me in grave peril indeed from despair of tracking out the truth. But nevertheless, when I had told her that I was not now a Manichee, but neither a Catholic Christian, she did not leap up with joy as if she had heard something unlooked for; since she was already secure concerning that part of my misery in which she wept for me before thee as one dead, but to be raised again; and she offered me upon the bier of her thought, that thou mightest say to the widow's son, Young man, I say to thee, arise: and he should revive and begin to speak, and thou shouldst give him to his mother.

[121] With no turbulent exultation, therefore, did her heart tremble when she heard that so great a part of what she daily bewailed before thee that it might be done had already been done — that I had not yet attained the truth, but was already snatched from falsehood. Nay rather, because she was certain that thou wouldst give what remained also, who hadst promised the whole, she answered me most calmly and with a breast full of confidence that she believed in Christ that before she departed out of this life she should see me a faithful Catholic. And this indeed to me: but to thee, Fountain of mercies, more frequent prayers and tears, that thou wouldst hasten thy help and enlighten my darkness: and she ran the more eagerly to the church, and hung upon the lips of Ambrose , and upon the fountain of water leaping up into life eternal. Now she loved that man as an angel of God, because she had learned through him that I had meanwhile been brought to that doubtful fluctuation through which she confidently presumed that I should pass from sickness to health, a sharper danger intervening, as it were through that access which the physicians call a crisis.

II.

[122] And so, when she had brought to the memorials of the Saints, as she was wont in Africa, and she omits the custom of Africa porridge and bread and wine ^a, and was forbidden by the doorkeeper; when she learned that the bishop had forbidden this, she embraced it so piously and obediently that I myself marveled that she was made so easily an accuser rather of her own custom than a disputer of that prohibition. For wine-bibbing did not besiege her spirit, nor did love of wine goad her into hatred of the truth, as it does very many men and women, who are nauseated at a song of sobriety as drenched persons are at a watered drink: but she, when she had brought her basket with the solemn viands to be first tasted and then distributed, did not set down more even than one little cup * tempered to her own palate, sober enough, from which she might take a taste of respect. And if there were many memorials of the departed which seemed in that manner to be honored, she carried round that same single cup which she would set down everywhere; which now not only most watered but also most tepid, she would share by tiny sips with those present with her: because she sought piety there, not pleasure.

[123] And so, when she found that it had been enjoined by that illustrious preacher and prelate of piety that these things should not be done, out of reverence toward St. Ambrose, not even by those who did them soberly, lest any occasion of gorging themselves should be given to the drunken; and because those quasi-parentalia were most like to the superstition of the gentiles, she abstained most willingly; and instead of a basket full of earthly fruits, she had learned to bring to the memorials of the Martyrs a breast full of purer vows; that she might both give what she could to the needy, and that thus the communion of the Lord's Body might there be celebrated, by imitation of whose passion the Martyrs were immolated and crowned. But nevertheless it seems to me, O Lord my God, and thus is my heart in thy sight concerning this matter, that perhaps my mother would not easily have yielded about cutting off this custom, if it had been forbidden by another whom she did not love as she loved Ambrose, whom on account of my salvation she loved most of all; and he loved her on account of her most religious manner of life, in which, so fervent in spirit in good works, she frequented the church: so that often, when he saw me, he broke out into praise of her, congratulating me that I had such a mother, not knowing what sort of son she had — I who doubted of all those things, and thought that the way of life could by no means be found.

III.

[124] Nor did I now groan in prayer that thou wouldst help me: who was taken up with so many occupations, but my mind was intent upon seeking and restless for disputing. And Ambrose himself I esteemed a man happy according to the world, whom such great powers honored; only his celibacy seemed to me laborious. But what hope he bore, and what struggle he had against the temptations of that very eminence, and what solace in adversities, and the hidden mouth which was in his heart — what savory joys it ruminated from thy bread — I neither knew how to conjecture nor had experienced; nor did he know my heats, nor the pit of my danger. For I could not ask of him what I wished, as I wished, since crowds of busy men, to whose infirmities he ministered, shut me off from his ear and mouth. When he was not with them (which was for a very little time), he either refreshed his body with necessary sustenance, or his mind with reading. But when he read, his eyes were led along the pages, and his heart searched out the sense, while his voice and tongue were at rest.

[125] so that Augustine could not conveniently and at length consult him; Often, when we were present (for no one was forbidden to enter, nor was it the custom for a visitor to be announced to him), we saw him thus reading silently, and never otherwise. And sitting in long silence (for who would dare to be a burden to one so intent?), we would depart: and we conjectured that in that little time which he obtained for repairing his mind, being at leisure from the din of other men's affairs, he did not wish to be called away to something else; and that he took care perhaps lest, with a hearer suspended and intent, if the author he was reading had set down anything more obscurely, it might be necessary also to expound it, or to discuss some more difficult questions; and, time being spent on this work, he should unroll fewer volumes than he wished: although the cause of preserving his voice, which was very easily made hoarse, could be a juster reason for reading silently. With whatever mind he did it, that man assuredly did it with a good one.

[126] but from his public sermons he learned But certainly no opportunity was given me of inquiring what I desired of that so holy oracle of thine, his breast, save when something was to be heard briefly. But those heats of mine required him to be quite at leisure, that they might be poured out into him, and never found him so. And him indeed I heard every Lord's day rightly handling the word of truth among the people; and it was more and more confirmed to me that all the knots of crafty calumnies which those deceivers of ours wove * against the divine Books could be untied. And when I also found that man was made by thee to thine image, and that this was not so understood by thy spiritual sons, whom thou hast regenerated through grace of our Catholic mother, that thou art bounded by the form of a human body

as they believed and thought: although how a spiritual substance might be constituted I did not so much as faintly and in a riddle surmise; yet, rejoicing, I blushed that for so many years I had barked, not against the Catholic faith, but against the figments of carnal imaginations. For I had been so rash and impious in this, that what I ought to have learned by inquiring I had pronounced by accusing. For thou, Most High and most near, most secret and most present, who hast not some members greater and others smaller, but art wholly everywhere and nowhere in place — thou art assuredly not this bodily form: yet thou didst make man to thine image, and behold, he from head to foot is in a place.

IV.

[127] Since therefore I knew not how this image of thine might subsist, various truths of the Catholic religion, I ought, knocking , to have propounded how it was to be believed, and not, insulting, to have objected as though it were so believed. So much the sharper, then, did care gnaw at my inmost parts as to what certainty I should hold, the more it shamed me that for so long, mocked and deceived by the promise of certainties, I had with a childish error and animosity prated so many uncertain things as though certain. For that they were false became clear to me afterwards. It was certain, however, that they were uncertain, and that they had once been held by me as certain, when with blind contentions I accused thy Catholic Church — which, though I had not yet found it teaching true things, at least was not teaching those things of which I gravely accused it. And so I was confounded, and I was turned about; and I rejoiced, my God, that thy one only Church , the body of thine Only-begotten, in which the name of Christ was set upon me as an infant, did not savor of infantile trifles; nor had it this in its sound doctrine, that it should thrust thee, the Creator of all things, into a space of place, however supreme and ample, yet bounded on every side by the figure of human members.

[128] And I rejoiced also that the old writings of the Law and of the prophets were now set before me to be read not with that eye with which formerly they seemed absurd, when I accused thy holy ones as thinking so, whereas in truth they did not think so. which he had before desired to be demonstrated to him, And I gladly heard Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, often saying, as though most diligently commending it as a rule: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life; when, the mystical veil being removed, he opened spiritually those things which according to the letter seemed to teach perversity, saying nothing that would offend me, although he said things whether they were true I as yet knew not. For I held back my heart from all assent, fearing a headlong fall, and I was rather being killed by that suspense. For I wished to be made as certain of the things which I did not see as I was certain that seven and three are ten. For I was not so insane as to think that not even this could be comprehended; but as I was certain of this, so I desired to be of the rest: whether of bodily things which were not present before my senses, or of spiritual things, of which I knew not how to think save corporeally. And I could have been healed by believing, that the purged edge of my mind might be directed in some way toward thy truth, which always abides and fails in nothing. But as it usually happens that one who has experienced a bad physician fears to commit himself even to a good one, so was the health of my soul, which assuredly could not be healed save by believing; and lest it should believe falsehoods, it refused to be cured, resisting thy hands, who hast compounded the medicines of faith, and sprinkled them upon the diseases of the world, and given them so great authority.

[129] From this, however, already preferring the Catholic doctrine, and to which nevertheless he afterwards simply gave assent I felt that there it was more modestly and least deceitfully commanded that what was not demonstrated should be believed (whether there were something, but to one to whom perhaps it could not be shown, or whether there were not even a something) than that there credulity should be mocked by a rash promise of knowledge, and afterwards so many most fabulous and most absurd things be commanded to be believed, because they could not be demonstrated. Then little by little, thou, O Lord, with a most gentle and most merciful hand handling and composing my heart, as I considered how innumerable were the things which I believed which I had not seen, nor been present when they were done — as so many things in the history of the nations, so many things about places and cities which I had not seen; so many things upon the word of friends, so many upon that of physicians, so many upon that of other and other men, which, unless they were believed, we should do nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unshaken a faith I held fixed of what parents I was born, which I could not know unless I had believed it by hearing.

[130] because of the authority of holy Scripture, Thou didst persuade me that not those who believed thy books, which thou hast established with so great authority among almost all nations, but those who did not believe them, were to be blamed; nor were those to be listened to who might perchance say to me, Whence knowest thou that those books were ministered to the human race by the Spirit of the one true and most truthful God? For that very thing was most of all to be believed, since no pugnacity of calumnious questions among so many philosophers, conflicting with one another, whom I had read, could ever extort from me that I should not believe that thou art, whatever thou wert, which I knew not, or that the administration of human affairs belongs to thee. But I believed this sometimes more robustly, sometimes more feebly: yet always I believed both that thou art, and that thou hast care of us, even though I was ignorant either what was to be thought concerning thy substance, or what way might lead or lead back to thee.

[131] which he recognized to be worthy of the highest faith. And therefore, since we were too weak to find out the truth by clear reason, and for this cause we needed the authority of the holy Writings, I had already begun to believe that thou wouldst in no way have given to that Scripture so excellent an authority throughout all lands, unless thou hadst willed both that thou shouldst be believed through it, and that thou shouldst be sought through it. For now the absurdity which used to offend me in those Writings, after I had heard many of them probably expounded, I referred to the depth of the mysteries: and that authority appeared to me the more venerable and the more worthy of a sacrosanct faith, in that it was both at hand for all to read and preserved the dignity of its secret in a profounder understanding, offering itself to all in the plainest words and the humblest manner of speaking, and exercising the attention of those who are not light of heart: that it might receive all in its popular bosom, and through narrow apertures pass a few over to thee; yet far more than if it were not eminent with so great a peak of authority, nor drew in the multitudes to the bosom of holy humility. These things I pondered, and thou wast present with me: I sighed, and thou didst hear me: I fluctuated, and thou didst steer me: I went along the broad way of the world, and thou didst not forsake me.

ANNOTATION.

elsewhere currerem*

elsewhere in Ambrosium*

elsewhere potillum*

elsewhere invectabant*

elsewhere dicere*

elsewhere pulsans*

elsewhere they add tua*

CHAPTER XII.

Augustine's anxious ambition checked by the example of a rejoicing beggar, his deliberation about choosing a settled manner of life, and his weakness for overcoming the allurements of the flesh.

VI.

I gaped after honors, gains, marriage; and thou didst mock. Having seen a certain beggar jesting, I suffered in those desires most bitter difficulties, thou being the more propitious the less thou didst suffer that to grow sweet to me which was not thou. Behold my heart, O Lord, who hast willed that I should recall this and confess to thee. Now let my soul cleave to thee, which thou hast plucked from the so tenacious birdlime of death. How wretched it was! And thou wast pricking the sense of the wound, that, all things being left, it might turn to thee, who art above all things, and without whom all things would be nothing; that it might be turned and be healed. How wretched, then, was I! And how didst thou deal with me that I should feel my misery on that day when, as I was preparing to recite praises of the emperor ^a, in which I should lie about many things, and to me lying favor should be shown by those who knew, and my heart panted after these cares and boiled with the fevers of wasting thoughts; passing through a certain street of Milan, I noticed a poor beggar, already, I believe, full, jesting and rejoicing: and I groaned, and spoke with the friends who were with me of the many sorrows of our insanities; because by all such endeavors of ours (such as those under which I then labored, dragging under the goads of desires the burden of my unhappiness, and by dragging making it heavier) we wished nothing else but to arrive at a secure gladness, whither that beggar had already gone before us, whither perhaps we should never come. For what he had already obtained with a few little coins begged for, this I was going about to obtain by such toilsome windings and circuits — namely the gladness of a temporal felicity.

[133] For he did not have true joy, but I too was seeking a joy far falser by those ambitions. he recognizes the misery of his ambition, And certainly he was rejoicing, while I was anxious; he was secure, I trembling. And if anyone should ask me whether I would rather exult or fear, I should answer, exult. Again, if he should ask whether I would rather be such as he was, or such as I then was, I should choose myself, worn out with cares and fears — but by perversity: was it by truth? For neither ought I to set myself before him because I was more learned, since I did not rejoice from that, but sought from it to please men; not that I might teach them, but only that I might please. Therefore thou too wast breaking my bones with the staff of thy discipline. Let them depart, then, from my soul who say to it: It matters whence a man rejoices.

[134] That beggar rejoiced in wine-bibbing, thou didst desire to rejoice in glory. which lacked all gladness, In what glory, O Lord? That which is not in thee. For as that was not true joy, so neither was that true glory, and it overturned my mind the more. And he that very night would digest his drunkenness; but I had slept with mine and risen, and was going to sleep with it and to rise — see for how many days. It does indeed matter whence a man rejoices, I know: and the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably far from that vanity; but even then there was a distance between us. For assuredly he was the happier, not only because he was steeped in cheerfulness while I was disemboweled with cares; but also because he had acquired wine by wishing men well, while I was seeking conceit by lying. I said many things to this effect at that time to my dear ones; and I often observed in these how it was with me; and I found that it was ill with me, and I grieved, and doubled that very ill. And if anything prosperous smiled upon me, it was wearisome to grasp it: for almost before it was held it flew away.

VII and X.

[135] We groaned together over these things, we who lived together as friends, and therefore with his friends, and most of all and most familiarly I discoursed of these matters with Alypius and Nebridius; of whom Alypius ^b was sprung from the same township as I, of parents who were chief men of the township, younger than I in birth; for he had studied under me, both when I began to teach in our town and afterwards at Carthage: and he loved me much, because I seemed to him good and

learned; and I loved him for the great natural bent toward virtue which at no great age stood out sufficiently in him … This man, then, I had found at Rome, and he clung to me with a most strong bond, and set out with me to Milan, that he might neither leave me and might practice something of the law which he had learned, according to his parents' wish rather than his own …

[136] who had come to Milan, Nebridius too, who, having left his native place near Carthage and Carthage itself, where he was very often, having left his father's excellent country estate, having left his house and a mother not without anxiety, had come to Milan for no other cause than that he might live with me in a most burning zeal for truth and wisdom: he sighed alike, and fluctuated alike, an ardent inquirer after the blessed life, and a most keen searcher of the most difficult questions. And there were the mouths of three needy men, panting out their want to one another, and awaiting from thee that thou wouldst give them their food in due season; and in all the bitterness which by thy mercy followed our worldly acts, when we looked at the end for which we suffered these things, darkness met us; and we turned away groaning, and said, How long these things?* And this we said often: and saying it we did not leave them, because nothing certain shone forth which, these things being left, we might lay hold of.

XI.

[137] And I most of all marveled, being busied and recalling how long a time it was since that nineteenth year of my age, amid the diverse fluctuations of his mind in which I had begun to burn with zeal for wisdom; purposing, when it was found, to leave all the empty hopes of vain desires and their lying insanities. And behold, I was already carrying my thirtieth year, sticking in the same mire from greed of enjoying present things which fled and scattered me, while I say, Tomorrow I shall find it: behold, it will appear plainly, and I shall hold it: behold, Faustus will come and will expound all things. O ye great men, the Academics, can nothing certain be grasped for the conduct of life? Nay, let us seek more diligently, and not despair. Behold, the things in the Church's books which seemed absurd are now not absurd, and can be understood otherwise and honorably. I will plant my feet on that step on which as a boy I was set by my parents, until the perspicuous truth be found.

[138] about further seeking the truth But where shall it be sought? when shall it be sought? Ambrose has no leisure; there is no leisure for reading. Where do we seek the very books? Whence or when do we procure them? From whom do we take them? Let times be appointed, let hours be distributed for the health of the soul. A great hope has arisen. The Catholic faith does not teach what we thought, and vainly accused. Its learned men hold it a wickedness to believe God bounded by the figure of a human body: and do we hesitate to knock, that the rest may be opened? The forenoon hours my pupils occupy; what do we do with the rest? Why do we not do this? But when do we salute our greater friends, whose support we need? When do we prepare what the students may buy? When do we repair ourselves, relaxing the mind from the strain of cares? Let all things perish, and let us dismiss these vain and empty things; let us betake ourselves to the sole search for truth. This life is wretched, death is uncertain. If it should suddenly creep upon us, in what state shall we go hence? And where are we to learn what here we have neglected? Or must not rather the punishments of this negligence be paid? What if death itself shall cut off and end all care along with sense? Therefore this too must be sought out. But far be it that it should be so. It is not empty, it is not vain, that so eminent a summit of the authority of the Christian faith is spread through the whole world. Never would such and so great things be wrought for us by God, if by the death of the body the life of the soul also were consumed. Why then do we delay, and, having left the hope of the world, do not betake ourselves wholly to seeking God and the blessed life?*

[139] But wait: these things too are pleasant, they have no small sweetness of their own. and he deliberates about choosing a tranquil manner of life. Our attention is not easily to be cut off from them, for it is base to return to them again. Behold, how much is it now to obtain some honor? And what more is to be desired in these things? There is an abundance of great friends at hand, that — if nothing else, and if we make much haste — a governorship at least can be given; and a wife must be married with some money, lest she burden our expense: and that will be the measure of desire. Many great men, most worthy of imitation, have been devoted to the pursuit of wisdom together with wives. While I was saying these things, and these winds alternated and drove my heart hither and thither, the times were passing, and I delayed to turn to the Lord God; and I put off from day to day to live in thee, and did not put off daily to die in myself. Loving the blessed life, I feared it in its own seat; and fleeing from it, I sought it. For I thought that I should be too wretched if I were deprived of a woman's embraces; and I did not think of the medicine of thy mercy for healing that same infirmity: because I had not tried it, and believed continence to be of one's own strength: of which I was not conscious in myself, being so foolish that I knew not, as it is written, that no one can be continent unless thou give it. Assuredly thou wouldst have given it, if with an inward groaning I had knocked at thine ears, and with a solid faith had cast my care upon thee.

XII.

[140] Alypius indeed kept me from marrying a wife, arguing that we could in no way live together in secure leisure in the love of wisdom, While Augustine judged the celibate life, as we had long desired, if I did that. For he was himself in that matter even then most chaste, so that it was a wonder; for he had indeed taken some experience of it at the entrance of his adolescence, but had not stuck fast, and had rather grieved and despised it; and thereafter he lived most continently. But I resisted him with the examples of those who, being married, had cultivated wisdom, and had deserved well of God, and had faithfully had and loved friends. From whose greatness of soul I indeed was far removed: and, delighted * with the disease of the flesh and its death-bearing sweetness, I dragged my chain, fearing to be loosed; and, as though my wound were shaken, I repelled the words of him who counseled me well, as the hand of one loosing me.

[141] Moreover, through me the serpent also spoke to Alypius himself, concerning which he had disputed with Alypius, and wove and scattered through my tongue sweet snares in his path, in which those honorable and free feet might be entangled. For when he wondered that I, whom he did not lightly esteem, should so stick in the birdlime of that pleasure, that I affirmed, as often as we inquired of it between ourselves, that I could in no way lead a celibate life; and when I saw him wondering, defended myself by saying that there was a great difference between what he had hastily and furtively experienced, which he now scarcely even remembered, and therefore could easily despise with no trouble, and the delights of my habit: to which, if the honorable name of matrimony were added, he ought not to wonder why I could not despise that life — he too began to desire marriage, by no means overcome by the lust of such pleasure, but by that of curiosity. For he said that he desired to know what that might be without which my life, which so pleased him, seemed to me not life but punishment.

[142] intolerable for himself, For his mind, free from that chain, was astonished at my servitude, and by astonishment went on into a desire of experiencing, and would come into the very experience, and thence perhaps fall into that servitude at which it was astonished, since it wished to make a covenant with death. And he who loves danger shall fall into it. For neither of us was led, save slightly, by whatever conjugal honor there is in the duty of governing a marriage and of raising children. But for the great part and vehemently the habit of satisfying an insatiable concupiscence tortured me, its captive; but him admiration was drawing on to be captured. So we were, until thou, Most High, not forsaking our dust, having pity on the wretched, camest to our aid in wonderful and hidden ways.

XIII.

[143] And there was unwearied pressure upon me to marry a wife. I was already asking, his mother procures a wife for him; it was already being promised, my mother chiefly taking pains that, once I were married, the saving baptism might wash me — for which she rejoiced that I was daily being made fit; and she perceived that her vows and thy promises were being fulfilled in my faith. When indeed, both at my request and from her own desire, with a strong cry of the heart she besought thee daily that thou wouldst show her in a vision something concerning my future marriage, thou never wouldst. And she saw certain vain and fantastic things, such as the impulse of the human spirit busied about this matter forced upon her, and she told me of them, not with that confidence which she had when thou wast showing her, but despising them. For she said that she discerned by I know not what savor, which she could not explain in words, what difference there was between thee revealing and her own soul dreaming. Yet pressure was put upon me, and a girl was asked for, whose age was almost two years short of marriageable; and because she pleased, she was waited for.

XIV.

[144] And many of us friends had turned it over in our minds, and, conversing together and detesting the turbulent troubles of human life, we had almost settled to live at leisure apart from the crowds; but he meanwhile, the plan of a common life being cast off, planning that leisure thus, that whatever we could have we should bring into the common stock, and make one household estate out of all; so that by the sincerity of friendship there should not be one thing of this man's and another of that man's, but what should be made one out of all should be the whole belonging to each, and all things belong to all: since it seemed to us that there could be about ten men in that same society, and there were among us very rich men, especially Romanianus ^c, our fellow townsman, whom at that time grave storms of his own affairs had drawn to the court ^d, most familiar to me from my earliest years; who was most urgent for this affair, and had great authority in persuading, because his ample estate far surpassed the rest. And it had pleased us that two, as it were annual magistrates, should look after all necessaries, the rest being at rest. But after it began to be considered whether the little women would allow this — those whom some of us already had, and whom we wished to have — that whole scheme, which we were shaping well , fell to pieces in our hands, and was broken and cast away. Thence to sighs and groanings *, and to steps for following the broad and beaten ways of the world; because many were the thoughts in our heart, but thy counsel abides for ever. Out of which counsel thou didst deride ours, and wast preparing thine own, about to give us food in due season, and to open thy hand and fill our souls with blessing.

XV.

[145] Meanwhile my sins were multiplied; and she with whom I had been wont to lie having been torn from my side he substitutes another for his concubine who was departing, as an impediment to marriage, my heart, where it clung to her, was cut through and wounded, and drew blood. And she had returned to Africa, vowing to thee that she would know no other man, leaving with me my natural son ^e by her. But I, unhappy,

and no imitator of that woman, impatient of delay, since I was to receive after two years her whom I sought, because I was not a lover of marriage but a slave of lust, procured another woman — not indeed a wife; by whom, as it were, the disease of my soul might be sustained and carried on, whole or even increased, by the escort of an enduring habit into the kingdom of wedlock. Nor was that wound of mine healed which had been made by the cutting away of the former, but after the fervor and the sharpest pain it festered, and pained me as it were more coldly, but more desperately.

XVI.

[146] To thee be praise, to thee be glory, fountain of mercies. I was becoming more wretched, and in the pleasures of the flesh he sought the blessed life, and thou more near. Thy right hand was already at hand to snatch me out of the mire and to wash me, and I knew it not. Nor did anything call me back from a deeper whirlpool of carnal pleasures save the fear of death and of thy judgment to come; which indeed, through various opinions, never departed from my breast. And I disputed with my friends Alypius and Nebridius concerning the ends of goods and evils: that Epicurus ^f would have carried off the palm in my mind, had I not believed that after death there remains life for the soul, and the consequences of merits, which Epicurus refused to believe.

[147] And I asked, if we were immortal and lived in perpetual pleasure of the body, without any terror of losing it, which he could find in God alone. why we should not be blessed, or what else we should seek? Not knowing that this very thing pertained to great misery, that being thus sunk down and blind I could not think upon the light of honor and of a beauty to be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of the flesh does not see, and which is seen from within. Nor did I consider, wretched man, from what vein it flowed to me that even those very things, foul as they were, I discussed sweetly with friends; nor could I be blessed without friends, even according to the sense which I then had, in whatever abundance of carnal pleasures. Which friends assuredly I loved for their own sake, and in turn perceived that I was loved by them for my own sake. O tortuous ways! Woe to the audacious soul which hoped that, if it withdrew from thee, it would have something better. It turns and returns upon back, and sides, and belly; and all things are hard, and thou alone art rest. And behold, thou art present; and thou freest us from wretched errors, and settest us in thy way, and consolest us, and sayest: Run, I will bear you up, and I will lead you through, and there also I will bear you up.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere secutura*

elsewhere meridianis horis*

elsewhere delicatus, or deligatus*

elsewhere multa*

elsewhere firmabamus*

elsewhere there is added convertebamur*

CHAPTER XIII.

The knowledge of God as unchangeable and infinitely good growing in him little by little, against the errors of the Manichees.

Book VII.

Chapter I.

Now was my evil and nefarious adolescence dead, and I was passing into young manhood, the greater in age, While he believed God inviolable the baser in vanity; I who could not think of any substance save such as is wont to be seen through these eyes. I did not think of thee, O God, under the figure of a human body, from the time when I began to hear anything of wisdom: this I always fled; and I rejoiced that I had found this in the faith of our spiritual mother, thy Catholic Church: but what else to think thee did not occur to me. And I, a man, and such a man, tried to think thee the highest and only and true God: and I believed thee with all my marrow to be incorruptible, and inviolable, and unchangeable; because, not knowing whence or how, yet I plainly saw and was certain that what can be corrupted is worse than that which cannot: and what cannot be violated I without hesitation preferred to the violable; and that which suffers no change is better than that which can be changed.

[149] and unchangeable, My heart cried out violently against all my phantasms, and with this one blow I tried to drive away from the sight of my mind the swarm of uncleanness flying about it: and scarcely was it dispersed in the twinkling of an eye when, lo, gathered together again it was present, and rushed upon my gaze, and clouded it; so that, although not under the form of a human body, yet I was compelled to think something corporeal, through the spaces of places, whether infused into the world or even diffused beyond the world through the infinite — even that very incorruptible and inviolable and unchangeable, which I preferred to the corruptible and violable and changeable: since whatever I deprived of such spaces seemed to me nothing. But utterly nothing, not even a void — as though, if a body be taken from a place, the place should remain emptied of every body, earthly and moist and airy and heavenly, but nevertheless there should be an empty place, as it were a spacious nothing.

[150] although not yet incorporeal, I therefore, thick of heart, and not even manifest to myself, judged that whatever was not stretched out through some spaces, or diffused, or gathered together, or swollen, or did not take or could not take something of that kind, was utterly nothing. For through such forms as my eyes are wont to go, through such images my heart went: nor did I see that this very act of attention, by which I formed those images, was not anything of that kind — which nevertheless would not form them, unless it were something great. So too I thought of thee, Life of my life, as vast through infinite spaces, penetrating on every side the whole mass of the world, and beyond it in every direction through the immeasurable without end, so that the earth should have thee, the heaven should have thee, all things should have thee, and they should be bounded in thee, but thou nowhere. But as the body of this air which is above the earth does not resist the light of the sun, so as to prevent its passing through and penetrating it, not by bursting or cutting it, but by filling it wholly; so I thought that not only the body of heaven and air and sea, but even that of earth, was pervious to thee and penetrable in all its greatest and least parts, to receive thy presence, which by a hidden inspiration administers within and without all things which thou hast created. So I surmised, because I could not think otherwise; for it was false. For in that manner a greater part of the earth would have a greater part of thee, and a lesser a lesser; and thus all things would be full of thee in such wise that the body of an elephant should hold more of thee than that of a sparrow, in that it is larger than the latter and occupies a larger place; and thus piecemeal, to the parts of the world, thou wouldst make great parts of thyself present to great parts, and small to small. But thou art not so. But thou hadst not yet illumined my darkness.

II.

[151] It was enough for me, O Lord, against those deceived and deceivers and talkative mutes, yet from this he recognized the error of the Manichees, since thy word did not sound from them: enough, then, was that which long since, from Carthage onward, was wont to be propounded by Nebridius, and by which all of us who heard it were shaken. What was that nation of darkness, whatever it be, which they are wont to set against thee out of the opposing mass, going to do to thee, if thou hadst been unwilling * to fight with it? For if it were answered that it would have done some harm, then thou wouldst be violable and corruptible. But if it were said that it could do no harm, then no cause of fighting would be brought forward; and of such fighting that a certain portion of thee and a member of thee, or an offspring of thy very substance, should be mingled with adverse powers and natures not created by thee; and should be so far corrupted by them and changed for the worse that it should be turned from blessedness into misery, and should need help by which it might be rescued and purged: and that this is the soul, to which thy word, free, would come to the aid of the enslaved, pure of the contaminated, whole of the corrupted; but itself also corruptible, since it is of one and the same substance. And so, if they said that thou, whatever thou art — that is, thy substance — art incorruptible, then all those things were false and execrable: but if corruptible, then that very thing was already false, and to be abominated at the first utterance. This, then, was enough against those men who were altogether to be vomited out from the oppression of my breast; because they had no way out, without a horrible sacrilege of heart and tongue, in thinking and speaking such things of thee.

III.

[152] But I too, although I called thee incontaminable and inconvertible and hence he perceived, and in no part changeable, and firmly held thee to be the Lord our true God, who hast made not only our souls but also our bodies, and not only our souls and bodies but all men and all things, did not hold the explicit and unraveled cause of evil. Yet, whatever it might be, I saw * that it must be so sought as that I should not be constrained by it to believe the unchangeable God changeable, lest I myself should become what I was seeking. And so I sought it secure, and certain that what those men said was not true; whom I fled with my whole mind, because I saw that in asking whence is evil they were filled with malice, whereby they held the opinion that thy substance rather suffers evil than that their own does evil. And I strained to discern what I had heard, that the free choice of the will is the cause of our doing evil, and thy right judgment the cause of our suffering; and I could not discern it clearly.

[153] that free choice is the cause of sin, And so, striving to draw the edge of my mind out of the deep, I was plunged in again, and often striving I was plunged in again and again. For this raised me toward thy light, that I now knew that I had a will as well as that I lived. And so, when I willed or did not will anything, I was most certain that it was no other than I who willed and did not will, and I now more and more perceived that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did unwillingly, I saw that I rather suffered than did; and this I judged to be not fault but punishment, by which, considering thee just, I quickly confessed that I was not unjustly chastised. But again I said: Who made me? Was it not my God, not only good, but the good itself? Whence then is it in me to will evil and not to will good, so that there should be reason why I should justly pay penalties? Who put this in me, and engrafted in me a nursery-bed of bitterness, when I was wholly made by my most sweet God? If the devil is the author, whence is the devil himself? But if he too by a perverse

will was made a devil out of a good angel; whence in him also came that evil will by which he should become a devil, when the whole angel had been made good by the best of makers? And by these thoughts I was pressed down again and choked; but I was not brought down as far as that hell of error where no one confesses to thee, while thou wast rather thought to suffer evil than man to do it.

IV.

[154] For I strove so to find out the rest, as I had already found and that God cannot be compelled, that the incorruptible is better than the corruptible: and therefore I confessed that thou, whatever thou wert, art incorruptible. For no soul ever could, or will be able to, think anything which is better than thou, who art the highest and best good. But since most truly and most certainly the incorruptible is preferred to the corruptible (as I already preferred it), I could already reach by thought something which should be better than my God, unless thou wert incorruptible. Where therefore I saw that the incorruptible must be preferred to the corruptible, there I ought to have sought thee, and thence to have observed whence is evil, that is, whence is that very corruption by which thy substance can in no way be violated. For in no way at all does corruption violate our God, by no will, by no necessity, by no unforeseen chance; since he himself is God, and what he wills for himself is good, and he himself is that same good. But to be corrupted is not good. Nor art thou compelled unwillingly to anything; because thy will is not greater than thy power. But it would be greater if thou wert greater than thyself: for the will and the power of God is God himself. And what is unforeseen to thee, who knowest all things? And there is no nature save because thou knowest it. And why do we say many things as to why that substance which is God is not corruptible, when, if it were this, it would not be God?

[155] And I sought whence is evil; and I sought ill; who, being supremely good, filled every creature, and in my very search I did not see the evil. And I set before the sight of my spirit the whole creation, whatever in it we can discern; as the earth and the sea and the air and the stars and the trees and mortal animals; and whatever in it we do not see, as the firmament of heaven, and moreover all the angels and all its spiritual beings: but even these my imagination arranged in places and places, as though they were bodies. And I made one great mass, distinguished by the kinds of the bodies of thy creatures , whether those which really were bodies, or those which I myself had feigned for spirits. And I made it great, not as great as it was (which I could not know), but as great as I pleased, yet on every side finite. But thee, O Lord, I imagined as surrounding and penetrating it on every side, but everywhere infinite: as if there were sea everywhere, and on every side through immeasurable spaces one infinite sea only, and it had within it a sponge of any size, but yet finite; that sponge would be filled on every side from every part of it out of the immeasurable sea: so I thought thy finite creation full of thee infinite, and I said: Behold God, and behold what God has created, and God is good, and most mightily and by far more excellent than these; but yet, being good, he created good things, and behold how he surrounds and fills them.*

[156] Where then is evil, and whence, and by what way did it creep in hither? Augustine anxiously sought, What is its root, and what its seed? Or is it not at all? Why then do we fear and guard against what is not? Or if we fear it emptily, certainly that very fear is an evil, by which the heart is goaded and tortured to no purpose. And so much the graver an evil, in that there is not what we should fear, and we fear. Therefore either the evil which we fear exists; or this is an evil, that we fear. Whence then is it? Since God made all these things, being good and they good. The greater indeed and highest good made lesser goods; but yet both the creating and the created are all good. Whence is evil? Or ^a whence did he make them? Was there some evil matter, and did he form and order it, but leave something in it which he did not convert into good? Why so? Was he impotent to turn and change it wholly, so that no evil should remain, since he is all-powerful? Lastly, why did he wish to make anything out of it, and not rather by that same omnipotence bring it about that it should not exist at all? Or indeed could it exist against his will? Or if it were eternal, why did he suffer it so to be for so long through infinite spaces of time backward, and so long afterward was pleased to make something of it?

[157] Or if he suddenly willed to do something, this rather would the Almighty do, whence evil crept in. that it should not be, and that he alone should be, the whole true and highest and infinite good. Or if it were not well that he who was good should not also fabricate and found something good, then, that matter which was evil being taken away and reduced to nothing, he should himself have established a good one out of which to create all things. For he would not be omnipotent if he could not found something good unless he were helped by that matter which he had not himself founded. Such things I turned over in my wretched breast, made heavy with most gnawing cares from the fear of death and from the truth not being found: yet steadfastly there clung in my heart, within the Catholic Church, the faith of thy Christ, our Lord and Savior; in many things indeed still unformed and floating * outside the norm of doctrine, but yet my mind did not leave it, nay day by day drank it in more and more.

ANNOTATION.

elsewhere voluisses?*

elsewhere putabam*

elsewhere creaturam tuam*

elsewhere fluctuans*

CHAPTER XIV.

The vanity of astrological divination shown to him, the origin of evil sought out with difficulty, and certain things consonant with the Christian faith found in the books of the Platonists.

VI.

I had by now rejected also the fallacious divinations and impious ravings of the Mathematicians. He despises the vain divinations of the astrologers, Let thy mercies confess to thee for this also out of the inmost bowels of my soul, my God. For thou, thou altogether; for who else calls us back from the death of every error, save the Life which knows not how to die, and the Wisdom which enlightens minds that are in need, itself needing no light, by which the world is administered, even to the fluttering leaves of trees? Thou didst provide for that obstinacy of mine, with which I struggled against Vindicianus ^a, that keen old man, and Nebridius, a young man of a marvelous soul; the one vehemently affirming, the other with some doubt indeed but yet often saying, that there is no * art of foreseeing things to come; but that men's conjectures often have the force of a lot, and that by saying many things, many come to pass which those who said them did not know, but hit upon by not keeping silent.

[159] when he hears from a certain friend, Thou didst therefore provide a man, a friend, not indeed a lax consulter of the Mathematicians, nor well versed in those writings, but (as I said) a curious consulter: and yet one knowing something which he said he had heard from his father; how much it availed to overturn the credit of that art he knew not. This man, then, by name Firminus ^b, liberally educated and polished in eloquence, when he consulted me as a most dear friend about certain of his affairs, in which his worldly hope had swelled, as to what seemed to me according to those things which they call constellations; I, who had already begun to be bent toward Nebridius's opinion about this matter, did not indeed refuse to conjecture and to say what occurred to me as I wavered, but nevertheless added that I was now almost persuaded that those things were ridiculous and empty.

[160] that under the same constellation there were born Then he told me that his father had been a most curious student of such books, and had had a friend equally pursuing them along with him, who with equal zeal and comparing burned * toward those trifles with the fire of their heart: so that they observed the moments of the births even of dumb animals, if any brought forth in their houses, and noted for these the position of the sky, whence they might gather experiments of that so-called art. And so he said he had heard from his father that, when his mother was pregnant with this same Firminus, a certain maidservant of that paternal friend was likewise growing great with child, which could not be hidden from her master, who took care to know with the most exact diligence the litters even of his bitches. And so it came about that, while the one counted the days and hours and the smaller divisions of hours of his wife with the most careful observation, and the other of his handmaid, both women brought forth at the same time: so that they were compelled to make the same constellations, even to the same minutes, for each newborn — the one for his son, the other for his little slave. For when the women had begun to be in labor, both told each other what was going on in each one's house, and prepared messengers to send to one another as soon as what was being brought forth should be born, and it should be announced to each; and that it should be announced immediately they had easily arranged, as in their own realms. And thus he said that those who were sent by each met one another at such equal intervals from the houses that neither of them was allowed to note a different position of the stars or different particles of moments. And yet Firminus, born in an ample station among his own people, ran along the whiter ways of the world, and was increased with riches and raised with honors: but that slave, the yoke of his condition in no way relaxed, served his masters — as he himself declared who knew him.

[161] These things therefore being heard and believed (for such a man had told them), all that resistance of mine was dissolved and fell: a master and a slave, and first I tried to recall Firminus himself from that curiosity, saying that, on inspecting his constellations, if I were to foretell true things, I ought assuredly to have seen there that his parents were among the first of their people, a noble family of their own city, freeborn birth, an honorable upbringing, and liberal learning. But if that slave had consulted me from the same constellations, since they were his also, in order that I might bring forth true things for him too, I ought again to have seen there a most abject family, a servile condition, and the rest far removed from the former and far distant. Whence then would it come about that, inspecting the same things, I should say diverse things, if I said true things; but if I said the same things, I should say false ones? Thence I most certainly gathered that the true things which were said upon consideration of the constellations were said not by art but by chance: but the false ones, not from unskillfulness of art, but from the lying of chance.

[162] But having taken this approach *, ruminating such things with myself, nay rather twins of different condition. lest any of those same madmen who follow such gain (whom I now longed to attack and to refute with mockery) should resist me as though either Firminus had told me falsehoods, or his father had told him falsehoods, I bent my consideration upon those who are born twins: of whom very many are so poured forth from the womb one after the other that the small

interval of time itself, whatever force they contend it has in the nature of things, yet cannot be gathered by human observation, and is altogether incapable of being marked down in those writings which the Mathematician is going to inspect in order to pronounce true things. And they will not be true, because, inspecting the same writings, he must have said the same things concerning Esau and Jacob. But the same things did not befall both: therefore he would say false things. Or if he said true things, he would not say the same things, though he inspected the same. Not therefore by art, but by chance would he say true things. For thou, most just Lord, moderator of the universe, dost by a hidden instinct so act, both upon those consulting and upon those consulted, they knowing it not, that when anyone consults, he hears what he ought to hear according to the hidden merits of souls and the abyss of thy just judgment; to which let not man say, What is this? or, Why this?* Let him not say it, let him not say it; for he is a man.

VII.

[163] And so, my Helper, thou hadst already loosed me from those bonds; Although he labored in vain to investigate the origin of evil, and I sought whence is evil, and there was no way out. But thou didst not suffer me to be carried away by any waves of thought from that faith by which I believed both that thou art, and that thy substance is unchangeable, and that thou hast care and judgment of men: and that in Christ thy Son our Lord, and in the holy Scriptures, which the authority of thy Catholic Church commends, thou hadst set the way of human salvation unto that life which is to be after this death. These things therefore being safe and unshakenly strengthened in my mind, I sought in a fever whence is evil. What torments of my heart in travail, what groanings, my God! And there were thine ears, I not knowing it. And while in silence I strongly sought, they were great cries to thy mercy, the silent contritions of my mind.

[164] and through pride knew not Thou knewest what I suffered, and no man. For how little was it that was digested thence through my tongue into the ears of my most familiar friends? Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which neither time nor my mouth sufficed, sound to them? Yet the whole of it went into thy hearing — that which I roared from the groaning of my heart; and before thee was my desire, and the light of my eyes was not with me. For it was within, but I was without. Nor was that in a place: but I strained toward those things which are contained in places, and there I found no place for resting: nor did they receive me so that I might say, It is enough, and it is well*; nor did they let me go back to where it might be well enough with me. For I was above these things, but below thee: and thou art my true joy when I am subject to thee, and thou hadst subjected to me the things which thou hast created below me.

[165] what spirit might be, And this was the right tempering, and the middle region of my health, that I should abide in thine image, and by serving thee should be lord over the body. But when I rose proudly against thee, and ran against the Lord with the thick neck of my shield, even those lowest things were made above me, and pressed me, and nowhere was there loosening and breathing-space. They met me on every side in heaps and masses as I looked: but as I thought, the images of bodies themselves were set in the way of my returning, as though it were said: Whither goest thou, unworthy and defiled? And these things had grown out of my wound, because thou hast humbled the proud man as one wounded, and by my swelling I was separated from thee, and my too puffed-up face closed up my eyes.

VIII.

[166] But thou, O Lord, abidest for ever: and thou art not angry with us for ever, yet with God's help, since thou hast had pity upon earth and ashes; and it pleased thee in thy sight to reform my deformities. And with inward goads thou didst stir me, that I should be impatient until thou shouldst be made certain to me by an inward look. And so my swelling subsided under the hidden hand of thy medicine, and the disturbed and darkened edge of my mind was healed from day to day by the sharp salve of my salutary pains.

IX.

[167] And first, willing to show me how thou dost resist the proud, in certain books of the Platonists but givest grace to the humble; and with how great a mercy of thine the way of humility was shown to men, in that thy Word was made flesh and dwelt among men: thou didst procure for me, through a certain man swollen with a most monstrous conceit, certain books of the Platonists translated from the Greek tongue into Latin: and there I read — not indeed in these words, but this very same thing urged by many and manifold reasons — that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God: all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. What was made in him is life: and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. And that the soul of man, although it bear witness of the light, is yet not itself the light, but the Word of God. For God is the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. And that he was in this world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. But that he came unto his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, to them that believe in his name — that I did not read there.

[168] Likewise I read there: that God the Word was born not of flesh, not of blood, not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. he found the divinity of Christ, But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us — that I did not read there. For I traced in those writings, said variously and in many ways, that the Son is in the form of the Father, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, since by nature he is that same thing. But that he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man, humbled himself, being made obedient even to death, and that the death of the cross. For which cause God exalted him from the dead, and gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father — those books do not have.

[169] For that before all times, and above all times, thine only-begotten Son abides unchangeably coeternal with thee; but not his humility, and that souls receive of his fullness that they may be blessed, and that by participation in the wisdom which abides in itself they are renewed that they may be wise — that is there. But that in time he died for the ungodly, and that thou didst not spare thine only Son, but didst deliver him up for us all — that is not there. For thou hast hidden these things from the wise, and hast revealed them to little ones, that they that labor and are burdened might come to him and he might refresh them, since he is meek and humble of heart; and he directs the meek in judgment, and teaches the gentle his ways, seeing our lowliness and our labor, and forgiving all our sins. But they who, lifted up as it were on the buskin of a loftier doctrine, do not hear him saying, Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls: even if they know God, they do not glorify him as God, nor give thanks, but become vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart is darkened; saying that they are wise, they have become fools.

[170] And therefore I read there also that the glory of thy incorruption had been changed into idols and various images, and thence he gathered as it were the spoils of Egypt. into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents; namely that Egyptian ^c food for which Esau lost his birthright, since the firstborn people honored the head of a four-footed beast in thy stead, being turned in heart to Egypt, and bowing thine image, their own soul, before the image of a calf that eats hay. I found these things there, and I did not eat. For it pleased thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger, and thou hast called the nations into thine inheritance. And I had come to thee out of the nations, and I fixed my mind upon the gold which thou didst will thy people to carry off from Egypt, since it was thine, wherever it was. And thou didst say to the Athenians through thine Apostle that in thee we live and move and are; as certain also among them had said. And assuredly those books were from thence. And I did not attend to the idols of the Egyptians, whom they served out of thy gold, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere illam*

elsewhere flatabant*

elsewhere auditu*

elsewhere etiamsi*

elsewhere rapiebant*

CHAPTER XV.

The knowledge of God and of the incarnate Word drawn by him more clearly out of the sacred Writings than out of the books of the Platonists, since in these many mysteries of our faith are omitted.

And thence being admonished to return to myself, I entered into my inmost parts with thee as my guide: At length by divine inspiration he learns, and I was able, since thou wast made my helper. I entered, and saw with the eye of my soul, such as it was, above that same eye of my soul, above my mind, the unchangeable light of the Lord — not this common one visible to all flesh; nor was it as it were greater of the same kind, as though this one should shine much and much more clearly and should fill all things with its greatness. Not this was that, but another, another altogether from all these. Nor was it above my mind as oil is above water, nor as heaven above earth; but higher, because it made me, and I lower, because I was made by it. He who knows the truth knows it: and he who knows it knows eternity. Charity knows it.

[172] what God is, O eternal Truth, and true Charity, and dear Eternity! Thou art my God: to thee I sigh

day and night. And when I first knew thee, thou didst take me up, that I might see that there was something to see, and that I was not yet one who could see. And thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, shining vehemently upon me, and I trembled with love and horror: and I found myself to be far from thee in a region of unlikeness, as though I heard thy voice from on high: I am the food of the grown; grow, and thou shalt eat me. Nor shalt thou change me into thee as the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be changed into me. And I knew that for iniquity thou hast instructed man; and thou hast made my soul waste away like a spider's web. And I said: Is Truth then nothing, since it is diffused neither through finite nor through infinite spaces of places? And thou didst cry from afar: Nay rather, I am that I am. And I heard, as one hears in the heart; and there was utterly nothing whence I might doubt. And I should more easily have doubted that I lived than that Truth is not, which is clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

XI.

[173] And I looked upon the other things below thee, and saw that they neither altogether are how creatures both are and are not, nor altogether are not. They are indeed, since they are from thee: but they are not, since they are not that which thou art. For that truly is which abides unchangeably. But for me it is good to cleave to God: for if I shall not abide in him, neither shall I be able to abide in myself. But he, abiding in himself, renews all things. And thou art my Lord, since thou hast no need of my goods.

XII.

[174] And it was made manifest to me that those things are good which are corrupted; which could neither be corrupted and he explains how among these if they were the highest goods, nor could be corrupted unless they were goods. For if they were the highest goods, they would be incorruptible: but if they were no goods at all, there would be nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption does harm, and unless it lessened a good it would do no harm. Either therefore corruption does no harm — which cannot be — or, what is most certain, all things which are corrupted are deprived of good. But if they shall be deprived of every good, they will not be at all. For if they shall be, and can no longer be corrupted, they will be better, because they will remain incorruptibly.

[175] And what is more monstrous than to say that those things, having lost every good, have been made better? all things are good, Therefore, if they shall be deprived of every good, they will be nothing at all. Therefore, as long as they are, they are good. Therefore whatsoever things are, are good. And that evil, whence it might be that I sought, is not a substance: for if it were a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, assuredly a great good; or it would be a corruptible substance, which unless it were good could not be corrupted. And so I saw, and it was made manifest to me, that thou hast made all things good; and there are no substances at all which thou hast not made. And since thou hast not made all things equal, therefore all things are (because each singly is good) and at the same time all things are very good: for thou hast made, our God, all things very good.

XIII.

[176] And for thee evil altogether is not; not only for thee, and let them praise God, but neither for thy whole creation: because outside thee ^a there is not anything which may break in and corrupt the order which thou hast set for it. But in its parts, certain things, because they do not agree with certain others, are thought evil: and those same things agree with others, and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which do not agree with one another agree with the lower part of things, which we call earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky, congruous with itself. And far be it that I should say that these things alone exist ^b: for even if I discerned these things alone, I should indeed desire better ones, but even from these alone I ought to praise thee: since dragons and all deeps show forth from the earth that thou art to be praised; fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm, which do thy word; mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle, creeping things and feathered fowl; kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth; young men and maidens, old men with younger, let them praise thy name. But since they praise thee also from the heavens, let all thine angels praise thee, our God, in the heights, all thy powers, sun and moon, all the stars and light, the heavens of heavens and the waters that are above the heavens — let them praise thy name. I no longer desired better things, because I thought of all things; and better things indeed the higher than the lower; but with a sounder judgment I weighed all things as better than the higher alone.

XIV.

[177] There is no soundness in those to whom anything of thy creation is displeasing; and nothing ought to displease in those things, as there was none in me, when many things which thou hadst made displeased me. And because my soul did not dare that my God should displease it, it refused to have as thine whatever displeased it. And thence it had gone off into the opinion of two substances, and did not rest, and spoke things alien: and returning thence, it had made for itself a God through infinite spaces of all places, and had thought that he was thou; and had placed him in its own heart, and had again become the temple of its own idol, abominable to thee. But after thou hadst cherished the head of me who knew it not, and hadst closed my eyes that they might not see vanity, I ceased a little from myself, and my madness was lulled to sleep. And I awoke in thee, and saw thee infinite in another way; and that sight was not drawn from the flesh.

XV.

[178] And I looked back upon other things, and saw that they owe it to thee that they are, and that all finite things are in thee: which God has created, but otherwise, not as in a place, but because thou art all-holding with the hand of truth, and all things are true insofar as they are: nor is anything falsehood, save when that is thought to be which is not. And I saw that not only do all things suit their own places, but also their own times: and that thou, who alone art eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable spaces of times; because all spaces of times, both those which have passed and those which will pass, would neither go nor come save by thy working and abiding.

XVI.

[179] And I perceived, and I found by experience, that it is no wonder that to an unsound palate bread is a punishment although some things are not fitted to certain others: which to a sound one is sweet; and to sick eyes the light is hateful which to pure ones is lovely. And thy justice displeases the wicked: much more the viper and the little worm, which thou hast created good, fitted to the lower parts of thy creation — to which the wicked themselves too are fitted, the more unlike they are to thee; but they are fitted to the higher parts the more like to thee they become. And I sought what iniquity might be, and I found not a substance; but a perversity of the will turned aside from thee, the highest substance, unto the lowest ^c, casting away its inmost things and swelling outward.

XVII.

[180] And I marveled that I now loved thee, and not a phantasm in thy stead. He confesses that step by step from the soul And I did not stand to enjoy my God, but I was carried up to thee by thy beauty; and soon I was torn away from thee by my own weight, and fell back into these things with a groan: and this weight was carnal habit. But the memory of thee was with me; nor did I in any way doubt that there was one to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet one who could cleave: since the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that thinks many things. And I was most certain that thy invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, thy eternal power also and divinity. For seeking whence I approved the beauty of bodies, whether heavenly or earthly, and what was at hand for me judging soundly concerning changeable things and saying, This ought to be so, that not so* — seeking therefore this, whence I judged, when I so judged, I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind. And so step by step from bodies to the soul which perceives through the body; and thence to its inner power, to which the sense of the body announces outward things, and so far as beasts can go. And thence again to the reasoning power, to which is referred for judgment what is taken from the senses of the body.

[181] he arrived at some acknowledgment of the divinity, Which power, finding itself also changeable in me, raised itself to its own understanding, and drew thought away from habit, withdrawing itself from the contradicting crowds of phantasms, that it might find with what light it was sprinkled; when it cried out without any doubt that the unchangeable is to be preferred to the changeable, whence it knew the unchangeable itself: which unless it had somehow known, it would in no way have preferred it with certainty to the changeable. And it arrived at that which is, in the flash of a trembling glance. Then indeed I clearly saw thy invisible things, understood by the things that are made, but I was not able to fix my gaze: and, my weakness being beaten back, I was restored to my accustomed state, and carried with me nothing but a loving memory, and, as it were, a longing for things whose fragrance I had caught but which I could not yet eat.

XVIII.

[182] And I sought a way of acquiring the strength which should be fit for enjoying thee; nor did I find it, until I embraced the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who is over all things God blessed for ever, and in Christ, who is the way to salvation, calling and saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life: and mingling with flesh the food which I was too weak to take: since the Word was made flesh, that thy wisdom, by which thou hast created all things, might become milk for our infancy. For I did not hold my Lord Jesus Christ, being lowly and he lowly; nor did I know of what thing his weakness was the teacher. For thy Word, the eternal truth, towering above the higher parts of thy creation, raises those who are subject to itself: but in the lower parts it built for itself a lowly house out of our clay, whereby it might bring down from themselves those who were to be made subject, and bring them over to itself, healing their swelling and nourishing their love; lest by confidence in themselves they should go further, but should rather be made weak, seeing before their feet a weak divinity from the sharing of our garment of skins; and, wearied, should cast themselves down upon it, and it, rising, should lift them up.

XIX.

[183] But I thought otherwise, and felt only so much concerning my Lord Christ that he had not acknowledged his divinity, as concerning a man of excellent wisdom, to whom none could be equaled; especially since, being wondrously born of a Virgin, he seemed by divine care for us, as an example of despising temporal things for the attaining of immortality, to have merited so great an authority of teaching. But what mystery there was in the Word made flesh I could not even surmise. So much only had I learned from those things which were handed down written of him: that he ate, drank, slept, walked, was made glad, was made sorrowful, discoursed

— that that flesh did not cleave to thy Word save together with a human soul and mind. Everyone knows this who knows the unchangeableness of thy Word, which I had already come to know so far as I could; nor did I doubt anything at all about it. For now to move the members of the body by will, now not to move them; now to be affected with some emotion, now not to be affected; now to utter wise sentences through signs, now to be in silence — these are proper to the changeableness of soul and mind. And if these things had been falsely written of him, all the rest also would be endangered by the lie; nor would any saving faith remain for the human race in those writings.

[184] Since therefore what is written is true, I acknowledged a whole man in Christ; but the authority of an excellent wisdom, not the body only of a man, or a soul with a body without a mind, but the very man — whom I judged to be preferred to the rest not by the person of truth, but by some great excellence of human nature and by a more perfect participation of wisdom. Alypius, however, supposed that God clothed with flesh was so believed by the Catholics that besides God and flesh there was no soul in Christ, and he did not think that a human mind was preached in him. And since he held it well persuaded that those things which are handed down to memory concerning him could not be done without a living and rational creature, he was moved the more sluggishly toward the Christian faith itself. But afterwards, learning that this was the error of the Apollinarist ^d heretics, he rejoiced with the Catholic faith and was brought into harmony with it. But I confess that I learned somewhat later, in that the Word was made flesh, how the Catholic truth is separated from the falsehood of Photinus ^e. For the reproof of heretics makes it stand out what thy Church holds, and what sound doctrine has. For it behooved that there should be heresies also, that the approved might be made manifest among the weak.

XX.

[185] But at that time, having read those books of the Platonists, after I had been thence admonished to seek incorporeal truth, until, roused in the books of the Platonists I clearly saw thy invisible things, understood by the things that are made: and, being repulsed, I perceived what it was that through the darkness of my soul I was not permitted to contemplate — being certain that thou art, and art infinite, and yet art not diffused through finite or infinite places; and that thou truly art, who art always the same self, in no part and by no motion otherwise and otherwise; but that all other things are from thee, by this one most firm proof, that they are. I was certain indeed in these things, yet too weak to enjoy thee. I prated plainly as though I were expert: and unless I had sought thy way in Christ our Savior, I should have been not expert but about to perish. For I had already begun to wish to appear wise, being full of my own punishment, and I did not weep, but moreover I was puffed up with knowledge.

[186] to seek incorporeal truth, For where was that charity which builds from the foundation of humility, which is Christ Jesus? Or when would those books have taught it me? Into which I believe thou didst therefore will me to fall, before I should consider thy Scriptures, that it might be imprinted on my memory how I was affected by them: and that when afterwards I had been made gentle by thy books, and my wounds were handled by thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish what difference there is between presumption and confession; between those who see whither one must go and do not see the way, and the way that leads to the beatific fatherland, not only to be beheld but also to be dwelt in. For if I had first been formed by thy holy Writings, and thou hadst grown sweet to me in familiarity with them, and afterwards I had fallen upon those volumes, perhaps they would either have snatched me away from the solid ground of piety; or, if I had persisted in that affection which I had healthfully drunk in, I should have thought that it too could be conceived from those books, if anyone had learned them alone.

XXI.

[187] And so most greedily I seized the venerable style of thy Spirit, in holy Scripture he found humility, and before the rest the Apostle Paul: and those questions perished in which he had once seemed to me to contradict himself, and the text of his discourse not to agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets. And there appeared to me one face of the chaste eloquences, and I learned to exult with trembling. And I began, and I found that whatever true thing I had read there was said with this commendation of thy grace, that he who sees may not so glory as though he had not received, not only that which he sees, but also that he sees. For what has he which he has not received? And that he may not only be admonished to see thee, who art always the same, but also be healed, that he may hold thee. And that he who cannot see from afar may yet walk the way by which he may come and see and hold. For even if a man delights in the law of God according to the inner man, what shall he do about that other law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and leading him captive into the law of sin which is in his members? Since thou art just, O Lord, but we have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have dealt impiously, and thy hand has been heavy upon us, and we have been justly delivered over to that ancient sinner, the president of death; because he persuaded our will into a likeness of his own will, whereby he did not stand in thy truth.

[188] and the way of salvation unknown to the Platonists. What shall wretched man do? Who shall free him from the body of this death, save thy grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord, whom thou hast begotten coeternal, and hast created in the beginning of thy ways, in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, and slew him, and the handwriting which was against us was made void? This those writings do not have. Those pages do not have the countenance of this piety, the tears of confession, thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, the salvation of the people, the espoused city, the pledge of the Holy Spirit, the cup of our price. No one there sings, Shall not my soul be subject to God? for from him is my salvation. For he is my God, and my salvation, my upholder; I shall be moved no more. No one there hears him calling, Come to me, you who labor*: and they disdain to learn of him, since he is meek and humble of heart. For thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. And it is one thing to see from a wooded summit the fatherland of peace, and not to find the way to it, and to strive in vain through pathless places, with fugitive deserters besetting and lying in wait round about, together with their prince, the lion and the dragon; and another to hold the road that leads thither, guarded by the care of the heavenly Emperor, where those who have deserted the heavenly warfare do not lie in wait: for they shun it as a punishment. These things were wrought into my very bowels in wondrous ways, when I read the least ^f of thy Apostles, and had considered thy works, and had been afraid.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere instabam*

elsewhere pervenit*

elsewhere non est*

elsewhere & possedisti*

CHAPTER XVI.

Augustine roused to conversion by the examples of others; but the desire of imitating them still languid in him, and the various affections of his fluctuating mind.

Book VIII.

Chapter I.

My God, let me remember in thanksgiving to thee, and confess thy mercies toward me. Augustine, being certain of the Catholic faith, Let my bones be steeped in thy love , and let them say, Lord, who is like unto thee? Thou hast burst my bonds; let me sacrifice to thee the sacrifice of praise. How thou didst burst them I will narrate; and all who adore thee will say, when they hear these things: Blessed be the Lord in heaven and on earth; great and wonderful is his name.* Thy words had cleaved to my inmost parts, and on every side I was walled about by thee. Of thy eternal life I was certain, although I saw it in a riddle and as through a glass. Yet all doubt concerning the incorruptible substance, that from it is every substance, had been taken from me: nor did I desire to be more certain concerning thee, but more stable in thee. But concerning my temporal life all things wavered, and my heart had to be cleansed from the old leaven: and the Way itself, the Savior, pleased me, and yet it still irked me to go through its narrows.

[190] he resolves to go to St. Simplicianus, And thou didst put into my mind, and it seemed good in my sight, to go to Simplicianus ^a, who appeared to me a good servant of thine, and thy grace shone in him. I had heard also that from his youth he had lived most devoutly to thee: and by then he had grown old, and in a long life spent in so good a pursuit of following thy way he seemed to me to have experienced much and to have learned much; and truly so it was. Whence I wished that, as I laid my heats before him, he should bring forth for me what might be the fit way for one affected as I was, for walking in thy way. For I saw the Church full; and one went this way, another that. But what I did in the world displeased me, and was a great burden to me, since desires no longer inflamed me, as they used, with hope of honor and money, for the enduring of that so heavy servitude. For those things no longer delighted me in comparison with thy sweetness, and the beauty of thy house, which I have loved: but still I was tenaciously bound by woman; nor did the Apostle forbid me to marry, although he exhorted to something better, wishing above all that all men should be as he was.

[191] and although still given to women, But I, being weaker, chose the softer place: and on account of this one thing I was rolled about in the rest, languid and wasting away with withering cares, because in other matters also which I did not wish to suffer I was compelled to conform to the married life to which, being given over, I was bound fast. I had heard from the mouth of Truth that there are eunuchs who have made themselves such for the kingdom of heaven; but, He that can take it, he says, let him take it. Vain assuredly are all men in whom is not the knowledge of God; nor from the things which seem good could they find him who is. But I was no longer in that vanity: I had gone beyond it, and, with thy whole creation bearing witness, I had found thee our Creator, and thy Word with thee, God, and together with thee and the Holy Spirit one God, through which thou hast created all things. And there is another kind of the impious,

who, knowing God, did not glorify him as God, nor give thanks. Into this also I had fallen, and thy right hand, O God, took me up, and, taking me thence, set me where I might recover; for thou hast said to man, Behold, piety is wisdom, and, Do not wish to seem wise; since they, saying that they were wise, became fools. And I had already found the good pearl; and, all that I had being sold, it must be bought — and I hesitated.

II.

[192] I went therefore to Simplicianus ^a, the father, in the receiving of thy grace, of Ambrose then bishop, he consults him about the state of life to be embraced, whom he truly loved as a father. I told him the circuits of my error. But when I mentioned that I had read certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, once a rhetorician of the city of Rome, whom I had heard to have died a Christian, had translated into the Latin tongue, he congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the writings of other Philosophers, full of fallacies and deceptions according to the elements of this world; whereas in those Platonists God and his Word are insinuated in all manner of ways. Then, that he might exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise and revealed to little ones, he called to mind Victorinus himself, whom, when he was at Rome, he had known most familiarly; and about him he told me what I will not pass over in silence.

[193] who tells him the conversion of Victorinus the rhetorician, For it has a great praise of thy grace to be confessed to thee: how that most learned old man, most skilled in all the liberal doctrines, who had read and judged and elucidated so many things of the philosophers, the teacher of so many noble senators, who also for the distinction of his illustrious mastership — which the citizens of this world think a signal thing — had merited and received a statue in the Roman forum; a worshiper of idols even to that age, and a sharer in sacrilegious rites (with which nearly all the Roman nobility was then puffed up and breathed *, and the people too, and the monstrous gods of every sort, and Anubis the barker, which once had held weapons against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva, and which, though vanquished by her, Rome now supplicated — all which that old man Victorinus had for so many years defended with a terror-thundering mouth) — that he did not blush to become the child of thy Christ, and the infant of thy font, submitting his neck to the yoke of humility and taming his brow to the reproach of the cross …

[194] But when thy man Simplicianus had told me these things about Victorinus ^b, which indeed he wished to imitate; I burned to imitate him. For to this end he had told them. But after he had added also that in the times of the emperor Julian a law was given by which Christians were forbidden to teach literature and oratory ^c, and that he, embracing that law, chose rather to leave the talkative school than thy word, by which thou makest the tongues of infants eloquent — he seemed to me not so much braver as happier, because he found an occasion of being at leisure for thee. For which thing I sighed, bound not with another's iron, but with my own iron will. The enemy held my will, and thence had made a chain for me, and had bound me fast. For from a perverse will came lust; and while lust is served, it became habit; and while habit is not resisted, it became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together — whence I called it a chain — a harsh servitude held me bound. But the new will, which had begun to be in me, that I should worship thee freely and wish to enjoy thee, O God, the only sure delight, was not yet fit to overcome the former one strengthened by age. So my two wills, one old, the other new, that carnal, this spiritual, conflicted with one another, and by their discord scattered my soul.

[195] So I understood by my own experience that which I had read, but still with the concupiscence of the flesh how the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. I indeed was in both, but more I in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in myself. For in the latter it was now rather not I, since in great part I suffered unwillingly what I was doing willingly. But nevertheless habit, more pugnacious against me, had been made out of me; since willingly I had come whither I did not will. And who could justly gainsay it, when a just punishment followed the sinner? And there was now no * excuse by which I used to seem to myself not yet to be serving thee, the world being despised, because the perception of the truth was uncertain to me: for now that too was certain. But I, still bound, refused to serve as thy soldier; and I feared to be disencumbered of all encumbrances as one ought to fear to be encumbered. Thus by the burden of the world I was sweetly pressed down, as is wont to happen in sleep; and the thoughts by which I meditated upon thee were like the efforts of those who wish to awake, who nevertheless, overcome by the depth of their drowsiness, sink back. And as there is no one who wishes always to sleep, and by the sound judgment of all it is better to be awake, yet a man for the most part defers to shake off sleep when a heavy torpor is in his limbs, and, though it now displeases him, he takes it the more willingly although the time of rising has come; so I held it certain that it was better to give myself to thy charity than to yield to my own desire.

[196] But the one pleased and conquered; the other was pleasant and bound me. For there was nothing I could answer thee when thou saidst to me, Rise, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee; and when on every side thou didst show that thou wast speaking the truth, and struggled with a depraved habit. there was nothing at all that I could answer, being convicted by the truth, save only slow and sleepy words: Presently, behold presently; leave me a little. But presently and presently had no measure; and leave me a little went on for a long while. In vain did I delight in thy law according to the inner man, when another law in my members warred against the law of my mind, and led me captive into the law of sin which was in my members. For the law of sin is the violence of habit, by which the mind is dragged and held even against its will, deserving it in this, that willingly it slipped into it. Who therefore would free me, wretched man, from the body of this death, save thy grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord?

VI.

[197] And how thou didst rescue me from the bond of the desire of concubinage, by which I was most tightly held, Pontitianus, an African, and from the servitude of secular business, I will narrate and confess to thy name, O Lord, my helper and my redeemer. I went about my accustomed affairs with growing anxiety, and daily I sighed to thee. I frequented thy church, so far as I had leisure from those businesses under whose weight I groaned . Alypius was with me, at leisure from the work of jurisconsults after his third assessorship , awaiting those to whom he might again sell counsels, as I sold the faculty of speaking, if any such can be furnished by teaching. But Nebridius had yielded to our friendship so far as to teach under Verecundus ^d, a citizen and grammarian of Milan, the most familiar of us all, who vehemently desired and by the right of familiarity demanded from our number a faithful help, of which he had great need. It was not therefore the desire of advantages that drew Nebridius thither (for he could get greater, if he wished to deal in letters), but out of the duty of benevolence that most sweet and most gentle friend was unwilling to despise our request. But he did it most prudently, taking care not to become known to persons who are greater according to this world; avoiding among them every disquiet of mind, which he wished to have free, and at leisure for as many hours as he could, for seeking something, or reading, or hearing concerning wisdom.

[198] as he was reading the sacred Writings On a certain day, then — I do not recall the cause on account of which Nebridius was absent — behold, there came to our house, to me and Alypius, a certain Pontitianus, our fellow countryman insofar as he was an African, serving with distinction in the palace. He wanted something or other from us: and we sat down to converse, and by chance he noticed upon a gaming table which was before us a codex; he took it, opened it, and found the Apostle Paul — quite unexpectedly, for he had supposed it to be something from those books whose profession was wearing me out. Then indeed, smiling and looking at me, he wondered in a congratulatory way that he had suddenly found these writings, and these only, before my eyes; for he was a Christian and faithful, and often prostrated himself before thee our God in the church with frequent and long prayers.

[199] tells the life of St. Anthony the hermit, To whom, when I had indicated that I bestowed the greatest care upon those Scriptures, there arose a discourse (he himself narrating) concerning Anthony ^e, the Egyptian monk, whose name shone forth excellently among thy servants, but was hidden from us until that hour. When he found this out, he lingered upon that discourse, making so great a man known to those who did not know him, and marveling at that same ignorance of ours. And we were amazed, hearing thy marvels so recently remembered and almost in our own times most fully attested in the right faith and the Catholic Church. All of us marveled — we, because they were so great, and he, because they were unheard of by us.

[200] Thence his discourse rolled on to the flocks of the monasteries, and he narrates how by the reading of that Life and the manners of thy sweet fragrance, and the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, of which we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan full of good Brethren outside the city walls under Ambrose as its nourisher, and we knew it not. He went on and spoke still, and we listened intently in silence. Whence it fell out that he told how at some time he and three of his companions — namely at Trier, when the emperor ^f was engaged in the afternoon spectacle of the Circus — had gone out to walk in the gardens adjoining the walls; and there, as they happened to stroll in pairs, one went apart with him, and the other two likewise apart together: but that those wanderers had come upon a certain hut, where dwelt some of thy servants poor in spirit, of such as is the kingdom of heaven; and had found there a codex in which was written the life of Anthony. Which one of them began to read, and to marvel, and to be kindled; and while reading, to think of laying hold of such a life, and, secular soldiering being left, of serving thee. And he was * one of those whom they call Agents in Affairs ^g.

[201] Then, suddenly filled with a holy love and a sober shame, two courtiers of the emperor angry at himself, he cast his eyes upon his friend and said to him: Tell me, I pray thee, by all these labors of ours whither do we go about to arrive? What do we seek? For what cause do we serve? Can our hope in the palace be greater than that we should be friends of the emperor? And there what is not fragile and full of dangers? And through how many dangers does one arrive at a greater danger? And how long will this be? But if I will, behold, now I become a friend of God.*

[202] He said this, and, troubled with the travail of a new life, were roused to imitation, he turned his eyes back to the pages; and he read, and was changed within, where thou didst see, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon appeared. For while he read and turned over the waves of his heart, he roared aloud at one point, and discerned, and decreed the better things; and now thine, he said to his friend: I have now broken myself away from

that hope of ours, and have resolved to serve God; and this I enter upon from this hour, in this place: if it irks thee to imitate me, do not oppose me. The other answered that he would cleave to his companion in so great a reward and so great a warfare. And both, now thine, were building a tower at the fit cost of leaving all their own things and following thee. Then Pontitianus, and he who walked with him through other parts of the garden, seeking them, came to the same place, and, finding them, admonished them to return, for the day had already declined.

[203] But they, having told their resolve and purpose, and in what manner such a will had arisen and been confirmed in them, and left their betrothed; asked that they should not be troublesome to them if they refused to join them. But these, in no way changed from their former selves, nevertheless wept for themselves, as he said; and piously congratulated them, and commended themselves to their prayers; and, dragging their heart along the ground, went away to the palace: but those, fixing their heart in heaven, remained in the hut. And both had betrothed brides; who, after they heard this, likewise dedicated their virginity to thee.

VII.

[204] These things Pontitianus told. But thou, O Lord, by hearing which examples, during his words wast turning me back toward myself, taking me from behind my own back where I had put myself while I refused to attend to myself; and thou didst set me before my own face, that I might see how base I was, and how distorted and defiled and spotted and ulcerous. And I saw and shuddered; and there was nowhere I might flee from myself. And if I tried to turn my gaze from myself, he went on telling what he was telling: and thou didst again set me over against myself, and thrust me into my own eyes, that I might find my iniquity and hate it. I had known it; but I dissembled and winked and forgot. But then, the more ardently I loved those men of whom I heard the healthful affections, that they had given themselves wholly to thee to be healed, the more execrably did I hate myself compared with them, since many of my years had flowed away with me — perhaps twelve years — since from the nineteenth year of my age, having read Cicero's Hortensius, I had been roused to a zeal for wisdom, and I kept deferring to despise earthly felicity and be at leisure to search out that wisdom, of which not the finding, but even the mere seeking, was already to be preferred to treasures found and to the kingdoms of the nations, and to bodily pleasures flowing about me at a nod.

[205] Augustine blushed, But I, a most wretched youth, wretched at the very outset of my adolescence, had even asked chastity of thee, and had said: Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. For I feared lest thou shouldst quickly hear me, and quickly heal me of the disease of concupiscence, which I preferred to have satisfied rather than extinguished. And I had gone by depraved ways in a sacrilegious superstition, not indeed certain in it, but as it were preferring it to the rest, which I did not piously seek but assailed as an enemy. And therefore I had thought that I deferred from day to day to despise the hope of the world and to follow thee alone, because nothing certain appeared to me by which I might direct my course. And the day had come when I should be laid bare to myself, and my conscience should rebuke me.

[206] that he still deferred the contempt of earthly felicity. Where art thou, tongue? Surely thou wast saying that on account of the uncertainty of the truth thou wouldst not cast off the burden of vanity. Behold, now it is certain, and that burden still presses thee; and men with freer shoulders receive wings, who have neither been so worn down by inquiring, nor have meditated these things for ten years and more. Thus was I gnawed within, and vehemently confounded with a horrible shame, while Pontitianus spoke such things. And his discourse and the cause for which he had come being finished, he went away. And I to myself — what did I not say against myself? With what scourges of judgments did I not lash my soul, that it might follow me striving to go after thee? And it resisted, it refused, and it did not excuse itself. All arguments were consumed and confuted; there remained a mute trembling; and it dreaded, as it were death, to be restrained from that flux of habit by which it was wasting away unto death.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere delectatione*

elsewhere inspirabat*

elsewhere there is added in*

elsewhere quam*

elsewhere illa*

elsewhere degebam*

elsewhere ascensionem*

elsewhere erant*

elsewhere quando*

elsewhere viderem*

elsewhere convivebam*

CHAPTER XVII.

After a long struggle of flesh and spirit, an unknown voice heard, bidding him read holy Scripture; and, this being read, a firm resolve conceived of amending his life.

VIII.

Then, in that great quarrel of my inner house, which I had strongly stirred up with my soul in our chamber, my heart, Mindful of the things which he had heard narrated, troubled as much in countenance as in mind, I fall upon Alypius and exclaim: What are we suffering? What is this? What hast thou heard? The unlearned rise up and seize heaven, and we with our learning, and without heart — behold where we wallow in flesh and blood! Is it because they have gone before that we are ashamed to follow, and not ashamed not even to follow? I said some such things; and my fever tore me away from him, while he kept silence, gazing at me astonished. For I did not sound as usual; my brow, cheeks, eyes, color, tone of voice spoke my mind more than the words which I brought forth.

[208] There was a little garden belonging to our lodging, which we used as we did the whole house: with Alypius he departs into the garden for our host, the master of the house, did not dwell there. Thither had the tumult of my breast carried me, where no one might hinder the burning suit which I had entered upon with myself, until it should come out — how, thou knewest; but I did not; only I was madly healthfully mad, and was dying vitally, knowing what evil I was, and not knowing what good I should be after a little. I withdrew therefore into the garden, and Alypius foot * after foot. For my secret was not less mine where he was present. Or when would he desert me thus affected? We sat down as far as we could from the buildings. I raged in spirit, being indignant with a most turbulent indignation that I did not go over into the covenant and compact with thee, my God, into which all my bones cried out that I must go, and lifted it to heaven with praises; and thither one went not by ships, or chariots, or feet, so far even as I had gone from the house to that place where we were sitting.

[209] For not only to go, but even to arrive thither, and he is indignant with himself, was nothing else than to will to go, but to will strongly and wholly, not to turn and toss a half-wounded will this way and that, struggling with one part rising while another part fell. Finally, in the very fevers of my hesitation I did with my body so many things which men sometimes will and cannot do, if either they have not the very limbs, or these are bound with fetters, or slackened with weakness, or in some way hindered. If I tore my hair, if I struck my forehead, if with interlocked fingers I clasped my knee, I did it because I willed. But I could have willed and not done it, if the mobility of my limbs had not obeyed. So many things therefore I did, where to will was not the same as to be able; and I did not do what both pleased me with an incomparably greater affection, and which, as soon as I should will, I should be able to do; because as soon as I should will, I should assuredly will. For there the faculty was the same as the will, and to will was already to do; and yet it was not done. And the body more easily obeyed the slightest will of the soul, so that the limbs moved at a nod, than the soul obeyed itself in accomplishing its own great desire in the will alone.

IX.

[210] Whence this monstrous thing? and why this? Let thy mercy shine forth; and let me ask, if perhaps the hiding-places of men's punishments and the most darksome contritions of the sons of Adam can answer me. that he partly willed and partly did not will to serve God, Whence this monstrous thing, and why this? The mind commands the body, and it is obeyed at once: the mind commands itself, and it is resisted. The mind commands that the hand be moved, and so great is the readiness that the command is scarcely distinguished from the service: and the mind is mind, but the hand is body. The mind commands that the mind will, and it is not another, and yet it does not do it. Whence this monstrous thing? and why this? It commands, I say, that it will, which would not command unless it willed, and what it commands is not done. But it does not will wholly; therefore it does not command wholly. For it commands insofar as it wills; and insofar as it does not will, what it commands is not done. Since the will commands that there be a will — not another, but itself. But assuredly it does not command fully, therefore what it commands is not. For if it were full, it would not even command that it be, because it would already be. It is not therefore a monstrous thing partly to will and partly not to will, but a sickness of the mind; because it does not wholly rise, being lifted by truth, weighed down by habit. And therefore there are two wills, because one of them is not whole; and that is present to the one which is lacking to the other.

[211] Let them perish from before thy face, O God, as they do perish, the vain talkers and seducers of the mind, which struggle does not prove that there are two natures in man, who, when they have noticed two wills in deliberating, assert that there are two ^a natures of two minds, one good, the other evil. They themselves are truly evil, when they think these evil things; and these same men will be good, if they think true things and consent to the true; so that thy Apostle may say to them, You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord. For they, while they wish to be light, not in the Lord but in themselves, thinking the nature of the soul to be that which God is, have thus become denser darkness: since by a horrible arrogance they have withdrawn further from thee, the true light enlightening every man that comes into this world. Attend to what

you say, and blush; and draw near to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not blush. I, when I was deliberating that I should now serve the Lord my God, as I had long purposed, I was the one who willed, I was the one who did not will; it was I, I; neither did I fully will, nor did I fully not will. Therefore I strove with myself, and was scattered by my own self. And that very scattering came about indeed against my will; nor yet did it show the nature of an alien mind, but the punishment of my own. And therefore it was now not I who wrought it, but the sin that dwelt in me, from the punishment of a freer sin, because I was a son of Adam. For if there are as many contrary natures as there are wills resisting one another, then there will be not two, but many.

[212] of which one is good, the other evil; If anyone deliberates whether he should go to their conventicle or to the theater, these men cry out: Behold two natures, one good leads this way, the other evil leads back that way. For whence that hesitation of wills opposing one another? But I say that both are evil — both that which leads to them and that which leads back to the theater. But they do not believe that any but the good one is that by which one goes to them. What then if one of us deliberates, and fluctuates with two wills contending within him, whether he should go to the theater or to our Church — will not these men also fluctuate as to what they should answer? For either they will confess (which they do not wish) that one goes by a good will into our Church, as they go into it who have been imbued with its sacraments and are held by them; or they will suppose that two evil natures and two evil minds conflict in one man; and it will not be true what they are wont to say, that one is good and the other evil: or they will be converted to the truth, and will not deny that when anyone deliberates, one soul is in a fever with diverse wills. Let them therefore no longer say, when they perceive two wills in one man opposing one another, that two contrary minds out of two contrary substances and out of two contrary principles are contending, one good and the other evil.

[213] For thou, O truthful God, disapprovest them, and refutest and convictest them, but that one and the same soul as in the case of two evil wills, when anyone deliberates whether he should kill a man with poison or with the sword: whether he should seize this estate of another's or that, when he cannot both: whether luxury should buy pleasure, or avarice keep the money: whether he should go to the circus or to the theater, if both are exhibited on one day: I add also a third, whether to a theft from another's house, if the occasion offers: I add also a fourth, whether to the committing of adultery, if the opportunity for that too opens at the same time; if all things concur in one point of time, and all are equally desired which cannot be done at once.

[214] For they tear the mind apart with four wills opposing one another, is in a fever with diverse wills. or even with more, in so great an abundance of things which are sought; and yet they are not wont to speak of so great a multitude of diverse substances: so also in the case of good wills. For I ask of them whether it is good to be delighted in reading the Apostle; and whether it is good to be delighted in a sober Psalm; and whether it is good to discourse upon the Gospel. They will answer to each: Good. What then if all delight equally and at one and the same time — do not diverse wills stretch the heart of man, when it is deliberated which we should chiefly lay hold of? And all are good, and they strive with one another until one is chosen, toward which the whole one will is borne, which was divided into several. So too, when eternity delights above, and the pleasure of a temporal good holds below, it is the same soul, willing this or that not with a whole will: and therefore it is torn with a heavy trouble, while by truth it prefers the one, while by familiarity it does not put away the other.

XI.

[215] Thus I was sick and tortured, accusing myself much more bitterly than usual, At length after various affections of mind, and rolling and turning myself in my chain, until that whole should be broken by which I was now but slightly held, yet was held nevertheless. And thou wast pressing upon me in my hidden parts, O Lord, with a severe mercy, redoubling the scourges of fear and shame, lest I should give over again, and that very slight and slender thing which remained should not be broken, and should grow strong again and bind me more robustly. For I said within myself: Behold, let it be done now, let it be done now. And with the word I was already going into the covenant. I was already almost doing it, and I did not do it: nor did I fall back into my former state, but stood close by, and drew breath. And again I tried, and I was little short of being there, and little short and now, now I was touching and holding it: and I was not there, nor did I touch nor hold it, hesitating to die to death and to live to life: and the worse, being ingrained, prevailed more in me than the better, being unaccustomed. And the very point of time in which I should become another thing, the nearer it was brought, struck the greater horror into me: but it did not strike me back nor turn me away, but held me in suspense.

[216] The trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, my ancient mistresses, held me back, worldly pleasures holding him back on this side, and plucked at my garment of flesh, and murmured beneath their breath: Dost thou dismiss us? and from this moment shall we not be with thee any more for ever? and from this moment shall this thing and that thing not be lawful for thee any more for ever? And what things they suggested in that which I have called this thing and that thing — what things they suggested, my God, let thy mercy turn away from the soul of thy servant. What defilements they suggested! what disgraces! And I heard them now far less than half, not as though freely contradicting me by coming in my way, but as it were muttering behind my back, and, as I departed, furtively plucking at me that I might look back. Yet they delayed me as I hesitated to tear myself away and shake myself free from them, and to leap across whither I was called, while a violent habit said to me: Dost thou think thou canst be without these things?

[217] and the examples of the Saints inviting him on that side, But by then it said this most tepidly. For there was opening, on that side toward which I had set my face and toward which I trembled to cross over, the chaste dignity of continence, serene and cheerful without dissoluteness, honorably enticing me to come and not to doubt, and stretching out to receive and embrace me her pious hands, full of flocks of good examples. There were so many boys and girls; there was much youth, and every age, and grave widows, and aged virgins; and in all of them continence herself was by no means barren, but a fruitful mother of the children of joys, from thee, O Lord, her husband. And she mocked me with an exhorting mockery, as if she said: Canst thou not do what these men and these women can? Or can these men and these women do it in themselves, and not in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me to them. Why dost thou stand upon thyself, and dost not stand? Cast thyself upon him, fear not, he will not withdraw himself that thou shouldst fall. Cast thyself securely, he will receive and heal thee. And I blushed exceedingly, because I still heard the murmur of those trifles, and hung hesitating. And again she, as if she said: Be deaf against those unclean members of thine upon the earth, that they may be mortified. They tell thee of delights, but not according to the law of the Lord thy God. This controversy in my heart was nothing but myself against myself. But Alypius, fixed at my side, silently awaited the outcome of my unwonted agitation.

XII.

[218] But when a deep consideration had drawn together and heaped up all my misery from a hidden depth into the sight of my heart, pouring forth tears abundantly, there arose a huge storm, bearing a huge shower of tears. And that I might pour out the whole with its own utterances, I rose up from Alypius: for solitude suggested itself to me as fitter for the business of weeping. And I withdrew further off, so that even his presence could not be burdensome to me. Thus I then was, and he perceived ^b something or other. For I think I had said something in which the sound of my voice appeared already heavy with weeping, and thus I had risen up. He remained, then, where we were sitting, exceedingly astonished. I flung myself down under a certain fig tree, I know not how; and I gave the reins to my tears, and the floods of my eyes burst forth, an acceptable sacrifice to thee: and, not indeed in these words, but to this effect, I said many things to thee: And thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry unto the end? Remember not our ancient iniquities. For I felt myself held by them; and I threw out miserable cries: How long, how long, tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not this very hour an end of my baseness?

[219] by a heavenly voice he is bidden to read holy Scripture, I said these things and wept in the most bitter contrition of my heart: and behold, I hear a voice from a neighboring house, saying in a chant and often repeating, as of a boy or a girl, I know not which: Take up and read, take up and read. And straightway, my countenance changed, I began most intently to consider whether boys were wont in any kind of game to sing something of the sort; nor did it occur to me at all that I had ever heard it anywhere. And, the rush of tears being checked, I rose up, interpreting it as nothing else than that I was divinely commanded to open the codex and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Anthony that from a Gospel reading upon which he had chanced to come he had been admonished, as though what was being read were said to him: Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me; and that by such an oracle he had been at once converted to thee.

[220] And so, stirred up, I returned to that place where Alypius was sitting: which being read, he is wholly converted to God, for there I had put down the codex of the Apostle when I had risen thence. I seized it, opened it, and read in silence the chapter upon which my eyes first fell: "Not in revelings and drunkenness; not in beds and shamelessnesses; not in strife and emulation; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences." Nor did I wish to read further, nor was there need. For straightway, with the end of this sentence, as though a light of security had been poured into my heart, all the darkness of doubt fled away. Then, having marked the place with a finger or with some other sign, I closed the codex, and with a now tranquil countenance made it known to Alypius. But he thus made known what was going on in him, which I did not know. He asks to see what I had read; I showed him: and he attended even beyond what I had read, and I did not know what followed. But there followed: "But him that is weak in faith, receive." Which he applied to himself and disclosed to me. But by such an admonition he was strengthened, and by a good resolve and purpose most congruous with his own manners, in which he had long since been far and greatly better than I, he was joined to me without any turbulent hesitation.

[221] Thence we go in to my mother, we tell her: she rejoices. his mother greatly rejoicing. We narrate how it came about:

she exults and triumphs, and blesses thee, who art able to do beyond what we ask or understand, since she saw that so much more had been granted her by thee concerning me than she was wont to ask with pitiable and tearful groanings. For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any hope of this world, standing in that rule of faith in which so many years before thou hadst revealed me to her. And thou didst turn her mourning into a joy far more abundant than she had wished; and far dearer and chaster than that which she sought from grandchildren of my flesh.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere pede*

CHAPTER XVIII.

The profession of teaching rhetoric renounced, his retirement to a country house near Milan, and there his preparation for receiving baptism.

Book IX.

Chapter I.

O Lord, I am thy servant, I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast burst my bonds; to thee will I sacrifice the victim of praise. He gives thanks to God for his conversion, Let my heart and my tongue praise thee, and let all my bones say, Lord, who is like unto thee? Let them say it, and answer thou me, and say to my soul, I am thy salvation. Who am I, and what sort of man am I? What evil have I not been ^a, either in my deeds; or, if not in deeds, in my words; or, if not in words, in my will? But thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and thy right hand looked upon the depth of my death, and out of the bottom of my heart drained the abyss of corruption. And this was the whole of it: not to will what thou wast willing *, and to will what thou wast not willing. But where, through so long a span of years, and out of what deep and lofty secret, was my free will called forth in a moment, whereby I should submit my neck to thy gentle yoke and my shoulders to thy light burden, O Christ Jesus, my helper and my redeemer? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetnesses of trifles; and what I had feared to lose, it was now a joy to dismiss. For thou wast casting them out from me, thou the true and highest Sweetness: thou wast casting them out, and entering in their stead, sweeter than every pleasure, but not to flesh and blood; brighter than every light, but more inward than every secret; loftier than every honor, but not to those who are lofty in their own eyes. Now was my mind free from the gnawing cares of canvassing and acquiring and wallowing and scratching the itch of lusts: and I prattled to thee, my brightness and my riches and my salvation, the Lord my God.

II.

[223] And it pleased me in thy sight not tumultuously to snatch away, and the mastership of rhetoric, but gently to withdraw the ministry of my tongue from the market of talkativeness; lest thereafter boys, meditating not thy law, not thy peace, but lying insanities and forensic wars, should buy from my mouth arms for their fury. And opportunely there now remained very few days to the vintage vacation; and I resolved to endure them, that I might depart in the customary way, and, being redeemed by thee, might not return for sale. Our counsel therefore was before thee, but before men, save our own, it was not. And it had been agreed among us that it should not be poured out at random to anyone: although thou hadst given us, as we ascended from the valley of weeping and sang the song of degrees, sharp arrows and desolating coals against a deceitful tongue, which contradicts as though counseling, and consumes by loving as food is wont to be consumed. Thou hadst pierced our heart with the arrow of thy charity, and we bore thy words fixed in our bowels; and the examples of thy servants (whom from black thou hadst made shining, and from dead alive), heaped into the bosom of our thought, burned up and consumed our heavy torpor, that we should not sink to the depths; and they kindled us so strongly that every blast of contradiction from a deceitful tongue could inflame us the more sharply, not extinguish us.

[224] which he was exercising at Milan, Nevertheless, since on account of thy name, which thou hast sanctified throughout the lands, our vow and purpose would assuredly have its praisers too, it seemed like boasting not to wait for the so near time of the vacation, but to depart beforehand from a public profession set before the eyes of all, so that, all men's mouths being turned upon my act, since I had wished to anticipate the near day of the vintage, they should say many things, as though I had sought to seem great. And what was it to me that men should think and dispute about my mind, and that our good should be blasphemed? Nay more, that in that very summer my lung had begun to give way under excessive literary labor, and to draw breath with difficulty, and to testify by pains of the chest that it was injured, and to refuse a louder or more prolonged utterance — this had at first troubled me, because it almost of necessity compelled me now to lay down the burden of that mastership; or, if I could be cured and grow strong again, at least to interrupt it. But when a full will for being at leisure and for seeing that thou art God arose in me and was confirmed, thou knowest, my God, that I even began to rejoice that this too was at hand as a not untruthful excuse, which might temper the offense of men who for their children's sake never wished me to be free.

[225] Full therefore of such joy I bore that interval of time about the vintage vacation he renounces it, until it should run out. I do not know whether it was even twenty days, but yet they were bravely borne: because the desire had withdrawn which used to bear with me that heavy business; and I should have remained to be crushed, unless patience had succeeded. Some one of thy servants, my brethren, may say that I sinned in this, that with a heart now full of thy warfare I suffered myself to sit even for a single hour in the chair of lying. But I do not contend. But thou, most merciful Lord, hast thou not forgiven and remitted to me this sin also, along with the rest, horrid and deadly, in the holy water?

III.

[226] Verecundus was worn with anxiety over this good of ours, when Verecundus offered him his country house, because on account of his own bonds, by which he was most tenaciously held, he saw himself deserted by our fellowship — not yet a Christian, though his wife was of the faithful: yet by that very fetter, tighter than the rest, he was held back from the journey which we had entered upon. Nor did he say that he wished to be a Christian in any other way than that in which he could not. Kindly indeed he offered that, so long as we should be there, we should be on his estate. Thou wilt repay him, O Lord, in the resurrection of the just, since thou hast already repaid him that very lot. For although in our absence, when we were already at Rome, he was seized with a bodily sickness, and in it was made a Christian and one of the faithful, and departed out of this life; thus thou hadst mercy not only on him but also on us, lest, thinking upon our friend's outstanding kindness toward us and not numbering him in thy flock, we should be tortured with an intolerable grief.

[227] Thanks to thee, our God; we are thine: thy exhortations and consolations declare it. into which, with Nebridius, whose conversion O faithful promiser, thou wilt render to Verecundus, in return for that country estate of his at Cassiciacum, where we rested in thee from the heat of the world, the pleasantness of thy everlastingly green paradise; since thou hast forgiven him his sins upon earth, in the rich mountain, thy mountain, the fruitful mountain. He therefore was then troubled; but Nebridius rejoiced along with us. For although he too, not yet a Christian, had fallen into that pit of a most pernicious error, so as to believe the flesh of thy Son, the Truth, to be a phantasm; yet emerging thence, so he was — not yet imbued with any of thy Church's Sacraments, but a most ardent inquirer after truth. Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration through thy baptism, being himself also a faithful Catholic, serving thee in perfect chastity and continence in Africa among his own people, when his whole household had through him been made Christian, thou didst loose from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham's bosom.

[228] Whatever that is which is signified by that bosom, and happy death he narrates, there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend; but thine, O Lord, an adopted son out of a freedman, there he lives. For what other place is there for such a soul? There he lives, whence he asked me many things, a poor inexperienced little man. Now he no longer sets his ear to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth to thy fountain; and drinks as much as he can of wisdom according to his greediness, happy without end. Nor do I think that he is so inebriated by it as to forget me, since thou, O Lord, whom he drinks , art mindful of us. So then were we, consoling the sad Verecundus, our friendship unharmed, concerning this conversion of ours; and exhorting him to faith in his own degree, namely the conjugal life: but awaiting Nebridius, when he should follow, which from so near he was able to do, and was on the very point of doing: when behold, those days were at last unrolled; for they seemed long and many for love of that leisured liberty in which to sing from all my marrow: My heart hath said to thee, I have sought thy face; thy face, O Lord, will I seek.

IV.

[229] And the day came on which I should also in fact be loosed from the rhetorical profession, and other friends, he withdrew, that he might be at leisure for himself, from which in thought I was already loosed. And it was done. And thou didst rescue my tongue, whence thou hadst already rescued my heart; and I blessed thee, rejoicing, having set out for the country house with all my people. What I did there in writings, now indeed serving thee, but still panting after the school of pride as though in a pause, the books ^b testify which were disputed with those present, and with myself alone before thee: but what was done with the absent Nebridius, the letters ^c testify. And when would time suffice me for recording all thy great benefits toward us at that time, especially when I hasten to other and greater ones? For my memory recalls me; and it becomes sweet to me, O Lord, to confess to thee by what inward goads thou didst tame me, and how thou didst level me by laying low the mountains and hills of my thoughts, and didst straighten my crooked places and smooth my rough ones: and in what manner too thou didst subdue even Alypius, the brother of my heart, to the name of thine Only-begotten, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which at first he disdained to have inserted in our writings. For he wished them rather to be redolent of the cedars of the schools, which the Lord has now broken, than of the healthful herbs of the Church, adverse to serpents.

[230] and in this tranquil place read the Psalms of David, What cries I gave to thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, faithful songs and sounds of piety shutting out the swollen spirit — I, raw in thy genuine love, a catechumen in a country house, at leisure with the catechumen Alypius; my mother clinging to us, in woman's habit but with a man's faith, with the security of age, the charity of a mother, the piety of a Christian. What cries I gave to thee in those Psalms, and how I was inflamed toward thee by them, and kindled to recite them, if I could, throughout the whole world, against the conceit of the human race! And yet they are sung throughout the whole world, and there is none that can hide himself from thy heat. With what vehement and sharp grief was I indignant

with the Manichees, and again I pitied them, that they knew not those mysteries, those medicines, and were mad against the antidote by which they might have been made whole! I could wish that they had been somewhere near, without my knowing whether they heard at that time; and that, without my knowing that they were there, they had looked upon my face and heard my voice, when in that leisure I read the fourth Psalm — what that Psalm did with me.

[231] of which he expounds the fourth When I called upon thee, thou didst hear me, O God of my justice; in tribulation thou didst enlarge me. Have mercy on me, O Lord; and thou didst hear my prayer. Let them hear, without my knowing whether they heard: lest they should think that I said those things on their account which I said among these words. Since in truth I should neither say them, nor so say them, if I felt myself to be heard and seen by them: nor, if I said them, would they so take them as when with myself and to myself before thee I shuddered with fear out of the familiar affection of my mind, and in the same place grew hot with hope, and with exultation in thy mercy, O Father. And all these things went out through my eyes and my voice, when thy good Spirit, turned toward us, said to us: Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? why do you love vanity and seek a lie? For I had loved vanity and had sought a lie. And thou, O Lord, hadst already magnified thy Holy One, raising him from the dead and setting him at thy right hand, whence he might send from on high his promise, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth: and he had already sent him, but I knew it not.

[232] He had sent him, because he was already magnified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. against the Manichees, But before, the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. And the Prophet cries out: How long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek a lie? And, Know that the Lord hath made wonderful his Holy One. He cries, How long; he cries, Know: and I so long, not knowing, loved vanity and sought a lie. And therefore I heard and trembled, since these things are said to such as I remembered myself to have been. For in the phantasms which I had held for truth there was vanity and a lie. And I uttered aloud many things gravely and strongly in the grief of my remembrance. Which would that they had heard who even to this day love vanity and seek a lie: perhaps they would be troubled and would vomit it forth; and thou wouldst hear them when they cried to thee; since by a true death of the flesh he died for us who intercedes with thee for us.

[233] I read, Be angry, and sin not. And how was I moved, my God, and lamenting his past blindness who had already learned to be angry with myself for things past, that thereafter I might not sin? And rightly to be angry, because it was not another nature of the race of darkness that sinned out of me, as they say who are not angry with themselves, and who treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath, of the revelation of thy just judgment. Nor were my goods now outside, nor were they sought with fleshly eyes in this sun: for they who wish to rejoice outwardly easily vanish away, and are poured out upon the things which are seen and are temporal, and with a famished thought they lick their images. And oh, that they might be wearied with hunger and say: Who will show us good things? And that we might say, and they hear: The light of thy countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord. For we are not the light which enlightens every man; but we are enlightened by thee, that we who were once darkness may be light in thee.

[234] Oh, if they could see the inward eternal light, which, because I had tasted it, in defending their heresy, I gnashed my teeth, since I could not show it to them; if they had brought to me their heart in their eyes, outside thee, and said: Who will show us good things? For there, there within my chamber I was angry with myself, where I was pricked with compunction, where I had sacrificed, slaying my old self, and, the meditation of my renewal being begun, hoping in thee: there thou hadst begun to grow sweet to me, and hadst given gladness in my heart. And I cried out as I read these things outwardly, and acknowledged them inwardly. Nor did I wish to be multiplied with earthly goods, devouring times and devoured by things temporal ; since I had in eternal simplicity another corn and wine and oil. And I cried out in the following verse with a deep cry of my heart: O in peace! O in the selfsame! O what did he say: I will sleep and take my rest? For who shall resist us when that word shall come to pass which is written: Death is swallowed up in victory? And thou art in the highest degree that selfsame, who art not changed; and in thee is a rest forgetful of all labors, since there is none other with thee; nor for obtaining other many things which are not what thou art; but thou, O Lord, hast singularly established me in hope. I read, and I burned: nor did I find what I might do for the deaf dead, of whom I had been one — a plague, a bitter barker, and blind against writings honeyed with the honey of heaven and luminous with thy light: and over the enemies of this Scripture ^d I wasted away, when I recalled all the things of those days of vacation.

[235] by God's power he is freed from a pain of the teeth. But neither have I forgotten, nor will I be silent about, the sharpness of thy scourge and the wonderful swiftness of thy mercy. Thou didst then torture me with pain of the teeth: and when it grew so heavy that I could not speak, it came into my heart to admonish all my people who were present that they should entreat thee for me, the God of all-manner salvation. And I wrote this on wax, and gave it to them to be read. As soon as we bent our knees with a suppliant affection, that pain fled. But what pain? or how did it flee? I was afraid, I confess, my Lord, my God; for I had experienced nothing of the sort from my earliest age. And thy nods were made known to me in the depth, and rejoicing in faith I praised thy name. And that faith did not suffer me to be secure concerning my past sins, which had not yet been remitted to me through thy Baptism.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere volebam*

elsewhere quo potatur*

elsewhere conversatione*

elsewhere ubi*

elsewhere temporibus*

CHAPTER XIX.

Baptism solemnly administered to him and to others at Milan by Ambrose, and, shortly following it, the death of St. Monica at the mouth of the Tiber, and the Saint's prayers for the soul of his dead mother.

The vintage vacation being ended, I gave notice that the Milanese should provide another seller of words for their students, Having first consulted St. Ambrose, because I had both chosen to serve thee, and, on account of difficulty of breathing and pain of the chest, was not equal to that profession. And I made known by letters to thy prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and my present vow, that he might advise what above all I ought to read of thy books, whereby I might become readier and fitter for receiving so great a grace. But he bade me read the Prophet Isaiah; I believe because he is, before the rest, a plainer foreteller of the Gospel and of the calling of the nations. Nevertheless I, not understanding the first reading of him, and judging the whole to be such, put it off to be taken up again when I should be more practiced in the Lord's discourse.

VI.

[237] Thence, when the time came at which I ought to give in my name, he is baptized at Milan with others, leaving the country, we returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be born again in thee along with me, being already clothed with a humility congruous with thy Sacraments, and a most brave tamer of the body, even to treading the Italian soil with bare foot in the frost, with an unwonted daring. We joined to ourselves also the boy Adeodatus ^a, born of me carnally of my sin. Thou hadst made him well. He was about fifteen years old, and in talent he surpassed many grave and learned men. Thy gifts I confess to thee, O Lord my God, Creator of all things, and mighty to reform our deformities: for in that boy I had nothing but the sin. That he was nurtured by us in thy discipline, thou hadst inspired us — no other. Thy gifts I confess to thee. There is our book which is entitled On the Master ^b: he himself there converses with me. Thou knowest that all the thoughts are his which are there introduced from the person of my interlocutor, when he was in his sixteenth year.

[238] Many other more wonderful things of his I experienced. That talent was a thing of awe to me: and, steeped in spiritual joy, he weeps amid the hymns, and who besides thee is the maker of such marvels? Quickly didst thou take away his life from the earth; and I remember him the more securely, fearing nothing for his boyhood, nor his adolescence, nor for that man at all. We joined him to ourselves, of like age with us in thy grace, to be brought up in thy discipline: and we were baptized, and the anxiety of our past life fled from us. Nor was I sated in those days with a wonderful sweetness in considering the depth of thy counsel concerning the salvation of the human race. How much did I weep amid thy hymns and canticles, keenly moved by the voices of thy sweetly sounding Church! Those voices flowed into my ears, and thy truth was distilled into my heart; and thence there boiled up * an affection of piety, and tears ran down, and it was well with me in them.

VII.

[239] Not long before had the church of Milan begun to practice this kind of consolation and exhortation, whose origin in the church of Milan with great zeal of the brethren singing together with voices and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, since Justina ^c, the mother of Valentinian the boy-king, persecuted thy man Ambrose on account of her heresy, into which she had been seduced by the Arians. The pious people kept watch in the church, ready to die with their bishop, thy servant. There my mother, thy handmaid, holding the first parts in solicitude and in vigils, lived by prayers. We, still cold from the heat of thy Spirit, were nevertheless stirred by the city being astonished and troubled. Then it was appointed that hymns and psalms should be sung, according to the custom of the Eastern parts, lest the people should waste away with the weariness of sorrow: and from that

time retained to this day, with many and almost all thy flocks throughout the rest of the world imitating it.

[240] Then to thy aforesaid prelate thou didst reveal in a vision and there he recounts the finding of SS. Gervasius and Protasius the martyrs. in what place lay hidden the bodies of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius ^d, which through so many years thou hadst laid up incorrupt in the treasury of thy secret, whence thou mightest opportunely bring them forth to check a woman's fury, but a queen's. For when, being disclosed and dug up, they were translated with due honor to the Ambrosian basilica, not only were those whom unclean spirits vexed healed, those same demons confessing; but also a certain citizen, blind for many years and very well known to the city, when he had asked and heard the cause of the tumultuous joy of the people, leaped up and asked his guide to lead him thither. Being led thither, he obtained to be admitted, that he might touch with his handkerchief the bier of those whose death is precious in thy sight, thy Saints. And when he had done this and applied it to his eyes, they were straightway opened. Thence report ran abroad; thence thy praises shone fervently; thence the mind of that enemy, though not brought to the soundness of believing, was nevertheless restrained from the fury of persecuting. Thanks to thee, my God. Whence and whither hast thou led my remembrance, that I should confess to thee these things also, which, great as they are, I had forgetfully passed over. And yet at that time, when the fragrance of thy ointments so blazed, we did not run after thee; and therefore I wept the more amid the songs of thy hymns, having long sighed after thee, and at last * breathing again, so far as the air can enter in a house of hay.

VIII.

[241] Thou who makest men of one mind to dwell in a house, didst join to us also Evodius ^e, a young man of our township. At that time his mother, Who, while he served as an Agent in Affairs, was converted to thee before us, and baptized; and, leaving the secular warfare, he girded himself for thine. We were together, and were to dwell together * in our holy resolve. We sought what place might more usefully hold us serving thee. Together we were returning to Africa. And when we were at the mouth of the Tiber, my mother died. Many things I pass over, because I make much haste. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, my God, for innumerable things even in silence. But I will not pass over whatever my soul brings forth concerning that handmaid of thine, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born into this temporal light, and in the heart, that I might be born again into the eternal ^f …

[242] Now, the day drawing near on which she was to depart out of this life, who fervently converses with him which day thou knewest, though we knew it not, it had come about (as I believe) by thy providing in thy hidden ways, that she and I stood alone, leaning at a certain window, whence the garden within the house that held us was looked upon — there at the mouth of the Tiber, where, removed from the crowds, after the labor of a long journey we were refreshing ourselves for the voyage. We were conversing therefore alone very sweetly: and, forgetting the things behind, stretched out toward those which are before, we sought between ourselves, in the presence of the Truth which thou art, what the eternal life of the Saints was to be — which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man. But we gaped with the mouth of the heart toward the supernal streams of thy fountain, the fountain of life which is with thee, that, being sprinkled thence according to our capacity, we might in some way think upon so great a matter. And when our discourse had been brought to that end, that the delight of the carnal senses, however great, in however great a bodily light, seemed, in comparison with the pleasantness of that life, not worthy of comparison nor even of mention; raising ourselves with a more ardent affection toward the Selfsame, we passed step by step through all bodily things, and through the very heaven whence the sun and moon and stars shine upon the earth. And still further we ascended inwardly, by thinking and speaking of thee and marveling at thy works: and we came to our own minds, and passed beyond them, that we might reach that region of unfailing abundance, where thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth; and where life is wisdom, through which all these things are made, both those which have been and those which are to come; and it is not made, but is as it was, and so it shall be always; nay, rather, to have been and to be about to be is not in it, but only to be, since it is eternal. For to have been and to be about to be is not eternal. And while we speak and gape after it, we touch it ^g slightly with the whole beat of the heart; and we sighed, and left there bound the first fruits of the spirit; and we returned to the noise of our own mouth, where a word is both begun and ended. And what is like to thy Word, our Lord, abiding in himself without growing old, and renewing all things?

[243] We said therefore: If for anyone the tumult of the flesh should be silent, concerning heavenly blessedness, silent the phantasms of earth and waters and air; silent also the poles, and let the soul itself be silent to itself and pass beyond itself by not thinking of itself; let dreams and imaginary revelations be silent, every tongue and every sign, and whatever comes to be by passing away — if for anyone all this should be altogether silent. Since, if any hear, all these things say: We did not make ourselves, but he made us who abides for ever. These things having been said, if now they should be silent, since they have raised the ear toward him who made them, and he alone should speak, not through them but through himself, that we might hear his word, not through a tongue of flesh, nor through an angel's voice, nor through the sound of a cloud, nor through the riddle of a likeness; but himself, whom in these things we love, himself without these might we hear — as now we stretch ourselves out and with a swift thought touch the eternal wisdom abiding above all things; if this should be continued, and other visions of a far unequal kind be withdrawn, and this one should ravish and absorb and hide away its beholder in inward joys, so that eternal life should be such as was this moment of understanding ^h for which we sighed: is not this, Enter into the joy of thy Lord? And that, when? Shall it be when we all rise again, but shall not all be changed?

[244] Such things we said, though not in this manner and in these words. she dies, Yet, O Lord, thou knowest that on that day, when we were speaking such things, and this world with all its delights grew worthless to us amid our words, then she said: Son, so far as concerns me, I am delighted by nothing now in this life. What I should do here any longer, and why I am here, I know not, the hope of this world being now spent. One thing there was on account of which I desired to linger somewhat in this life: that I might see thee a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has granted me this more abundantly, that I should see thee even, earthly felicity being despised, his servant. What do I here? …

XIII.

[245] Although she, being quickened in Christ, lived even before she was loosed from the flesh in such wise for whose eternal rest, that thy name should be praised in her faith and manners; yet I do not dare to say that from the time when thou didst regenerate her through baptism, no word went forth from her mouth against thy precept. And it has been said by the Truth, thy Son: If anyone shall say to his brother, Thou fool, he shall be liable to the hell of fire. And woe even to the praiseworthy life of men, if, mercy being set aside, thou shouldst examine it. But since thou dost not inquire vehemently into transgressions, we confidently hope to find some place of indulgence with thee. But whoever enumerates to thee his true merits, what does he enumerate to thee but thy gifts? Oh, that all * men might know themselves; and that he who glories might glory in the Lord! I therefore, my praise and my life, God of my heart, laying aside for a little her good deeds, for which I joyfully give thee thanks, now beseech thee for my mother's sins: hear me through the medicine of our wounds, which hung upon the tree, and, sitting at thy right hand, intercedes with thee for us. I know that she wrought mercifully, and from her heart forgave the debts of her debtors; forgive thou also her debts, if she contracted any through so many years after the Water of salvation. Forgive, O Lord, forgive, I beseech thee; enter not into judgment with her. Let mercy be exalted above judgment, since thy words are true, and thou hast promised mercy to the merciful. That they should be such, thou gavest them, who wilt have mercy on whom thou hast had mercy; and wilt show mercy to him to whom thou hast been merciful. And I believe that thou hast already done what I ask of thee; but approve, O Lord, the free offerings of my mouth.

[246] as she herself had asked before her death, For she, the day of her dissolution drawing near, did not think about her body being covered at great expense, or embalmed with spices, nor did she desire a chosen monument, nor care for a sepulchre in her fatherland. These things she did not enjoin upon us, but desired only that a memorial of her should be made at thy altar, which she had served with the omission of not a single day, whence she knew that holy victim to be dispensed by which was blotted out the handwriting that was against us, by which the enemy was triumphed over who reckons up our transgressions and seeks what he may object, and finds nothing in him in whom we conquer. Who shall pour back to him the innocent blood? Who shall restore to him the price by which he bought us, that he might take us from him? To the sacrament of this our price thy handmaid bound her soul with the bond of faith.

[247] he prays God. Let no one tear her away from thy protection. Let neither the lion nor the dragon interpose himself, either by force or by snares. For she will not answer that she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and taken by the crafty accuser; but she will answer that her debts are forgiven by him to whom no one shall repay what he, owing nothing, repaid for us. Let her therefore be in peace with her husband, before whom she was married to none, and after whom to none; whom she served, bringing forth fruit to thee with patience, that she might win him too for thee. And inspire, O Lord my God, inspire thy servants my brethren, thy sons my masters, whom with voice and heart and writings I serve, that as many as shall read these things may remember at thy altar Monica, thy handmaid, together with Patricius, once her husband; through whose flesh thou didst bring me into this life, in what manner I know not. Let them remember with pious affection my parents in this transitory light, and my brethren under thee as father in our Catholic mother, and my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which the pilgrimage of thy people sighs from its going out even to its return: that what she asked of me at the last may more abundantly be granted her in the prayers of many, both through my confessions and through my prayers *.

ANNOTATA.

Paulinus his notary, written to Augustine, where the finding of the bodies of SS. Gervasius and Protasius is also related, and to it are subjoined these words: Finally, from this time the persecution began to be allayed which was kindled by Justina's fury, that the priest (Ambrose) should be driven from the church.

elsewhere ex ea æstuabat*

elsewhere tantum*

elsewhere habitabamus*

elsewhere homines homines*

elsewhere offerat*

elsewhere operationes*

OTHER ACTS, OR THE SECOND PART OF THE LIFE,

Chiefly from the thirty-third year of his age to his death.

BY ST. POSSIDIUS, DISCIPLE OF THE HOLY DOCTOR, AND HIS COMPANION FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS.

From the Roman edition of the year 1731, which we have collated with the ancient codex of our Museum, marked P. Ms. 5.

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, AT HIPPO REGIUS IN AFRICA

BHL Number: 0785

By St. Possidius.

PREFACE.

By the inspiration of God, the maker and governor of all things, The cause of writing mindful of my resolve, by which through the grace of the Savior I determined to serve the almighty and divine Trinity through faith, both formerly in the life of laymen and now in the office of bishops, striving out of whatever talent and speech I have received to be of profit to the edification of the holy and true Catholic Church of Christ the Lord, I ought by no means to keep silence ^a concerning the life and manners of that predestined and in his own time presented * most excellent priest Augustine — those things which I saw in him and heard from him. For we read and have learned that this was often done even before us by most religious men of our holy mother the Catholic Church, who, breathed upon by the divine Spirit, in their own speech and style brought to the knowledge of the studious, by speaking and by writing, the like things for the ears and eyes of those who wished to know, namely what and how great men by the common grace of the Lord ^b deserved both to live among human affairs and to persevere even to the end of their departure.

[2] Therefore I also, the least of all dispensers, and the author explains his manner. with an unfeigned faith, by which the Lord of lords must be served and all the good among the faithful must be pleased, have undertaken to set forth , as the Lord shall grant, concerning the aforesaid venerable Man's birth, and course, and due end, those things which I learned through him and experienced, cleaving to his charity for very many years. But I beseech the highest Majesty that I may so bear and accomplish a task of this kind taken up by me, that I may neither offend against the truth of the Father of lights, nor seem in any part to defraud the charity of the good sons of the Church. Nor shall I attempt to convey all those things which that most blessed Augustine set down in his books of Confessions concerning himself — what he was before grace was received, and what he lived when it had been taken up. For this he wished to do, as the Apostle says, lest any of men should believe or think of him beyond what he knew himself to be, or what had been heard of him — using the manner of holy humility, and now deceiving no one ^c, but seeking not his own praise but that of his Lord, for his own liberation and gift, namely from those things which he had already received; and asking the prayers of the brethren for those which he desired to receive. Therefore it is good to hide the sacrament of the king, as was uttered by angelic authority; but to reveal the works of the Lord, and to confess them, is honorable.*

ANNOTATA.

in the Ms. Omnipotentiæ Trinitatis*

elsewhere ædificationis*

elsewhere præelecti*

in the Ms. suscipio*

in the Ms. autem*

CHAPTER I.

His perverse adolescence, his conversion to a good life, his baptism, his priesthood, and his acts up to the beginning of his episcopate.

The Saint's birth and adolescence: From the African province ^a, then, from the city of Thagaste ^b, he was born of honorable and Christian parents of the number of the curials; and, fostered and nurtured by their care and diligence and at their expense ^c, he was preeminently instructed in secular letters, being namely imbued with all those disciplines which they call liberal. For he first taught grammar in his own city, and afterwards rhetoric at Carthage, the capital of Africa. And in the following time also across the sea in the city of Rome, and at Milan, where at that time the court of the emperor Valentinian ^d the younger had been established. In which city there then administered the bishopric that priest most acceptable to God and most illustrious among the best of men, Ambrose. Meanwhile, standing among the people at the very frequent discourses of this preacher of God's word in the church, he attended in suspense and fixed upon him.

[4] his conversion from the heresy of the Manichees, and his baptism: But at one time, as a young man at Carthage, he had been seduced by the error of the Manichees: and therefore he was present more attentively than the rest, lest anything should be said either for or against that heresy. And the clemency of God the deliverer forestalled the heart of his priest as he was handling the questions of the Law which arose against that error, that they should be resolved: and thus, being taught, that heresy was by divine compassion driven little by little and gradually from his mind: and forthwith, being himself confirmed in the Catholic faith, there was born in him an ardor of love for advancing in religion, whereby, as the holy days of Easter drew near, he should receive the water of salvation. And it came to pass, by the granting of divine help, that through that so great prelate Ambrose he received both the saving doctrine of the Catholic Church and the divine Sacraments ^e.

[5] And presently, being converted to God ^f from the inmost marrow of his heart, he leaves all hope of earthly things, he forsook all the hope which he had in the world; now seeking neither wife, nor sons of the flesh, nor riches, nor honors of the world: but ^g he resolved to serve God with his own people, striving to be in and of that little flock which the Lord addresses, saying: "Fear not, little flock: for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom. Sell what you possess, and give alms: make for yourselves bags that grow not old, a treasure that fails not in the heavens," and the rest. And that same holy Man, desiring to do what the Lord says again: "If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And desiring to build upon the foundation of faith not wood, hay, and stubble, but gold, silver, and precious stones. And he was then more than thirty years old, his mother alone surviving ^h and cleaving to him, and exulting more over the resolve he had taken of serving God than over grandchildren of the flesh. For his father had died before. He also gave notice to the students whom he was teaching rhetoric * that they should provide themselves with another master, because he had resolved to serve God.

[6] And it pleased him, grace having been received ⁱ, with other citizens and friends of his and with his companions he withdraws: he comes to Hippo Regius, who were serving God together with him, to return to Africa and to his own house and lands. Coming to which, and settled in them, for nearly three years, secular cares being now alienated from him ^k, he lived to God with those who clave to him, in fastings, prayers, and good works, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night. And concerning those things which God revealed to him as he pondered and prayed, he taught both those present and those absent by discourses and by books. It happened at that same time that a certain one of those whom they call Agents in Affairs, stationed at Hippo Regius ^l, a good Christian and fearing God, having learned of his good repute and doctrine, desired and wished to see him, promising that he could despise all the desires and allurements of this world if at some time he might deserve to hear the word of God from his mouth. When this had been brought to him by a faithful report, desiring to free ^m a soul from the perils of this life and from eternal death, he came of his own accord and at once to the said city, and, having seen the man, addressed him frequently and exhorted him, so far as God granted, that he should render what he had vowed to God. And he kept promising that he would do it from day to day, nor yet did he then fulfill it in his presence: but that could not be empty or void which the divine providence was working in every place through such a vessel, clean and in honor, useful to the Lord and prepared unto every good work.

[7] At that same time, then, in the Catholic church of Hippo the holy Valerius ⁿ held the bishopric. where he is ordained priest, Who, when, at the demand of ecclesiastical necessity, he was addressing and exhorting the people of God about providing and ordaining a priest for the city , the Catholics, already knowing the resolve and doctrine of holy Augustine, laying hands on him (since he too stood among the people without fear and ignorant of what was to come: for as a layman, as he used to tell us, he was wont to withhold his presence only from those churches which had no bishops) — they therefore held him, and, as is customary ^o in such cases, brought him to the bishop to be ordained, all with one consent and desire asking that this be done and completed, and demanding it with great zeal and outcry, while he wept abundantly: some indeed at that time interpreting his tears proudly, as he himself told us, and as it were consoling him and saying that even the place of the priesthood, although he was worthy of a greater, yet drew near to the episcopate; whereas that Man of God, as

he told us, understood with a greater consideration and groaned at how many and how great perils to his life he already saw hanging over him and coming upon him from the rule and government of a church, and therefore wept. And their desire was fulfilled as they wished.

[8] and he founds a monastery: Being made * a priest, therefore, he presently founded a monastery within the church, and began to live with the servants of God according to the manner and rule established under [p] the holy Apostles; chiefly that no one in that society should have anything of his own, but that all things should be common to them, and distribution be made to each as there was need: which he himself had already done before, when he had returned to his own from beyond the sea. But holy Valerius, his ordainer, being a pious man and fearing God, exulted and gave thanks to God that his prayers had been heard by the Lord — those which he said he had most frequently poured out, that such a man might be granted him from God as could edify the Church of the Lord with the word of God and with saving doctrine: for which task he, a man Greek by birth, and less instructed in the Latin tongue and letters, perceived himself to be less useful.

[9] he also preaches in the bishop's presence, And he gave that Priest the power of preaching the Gospel in the church in his presence [q], and of discoursing very frequently; against the usage indeed and custom of the African churches: whence some bishops also disparaged him. But that venerable and provident man, knowing and being certain that this was done by custom in the Eastern churches, and looking to the profit of the Church, did not care for the tongues of the detractors, provided only that there should be practiced by a priest what he perceived could by no means be fulfilled by himself, the bishop. Whence a lamp kindled and burning, lifted upon a candlestick, gave light to all who were in the house. And afterwards, a report of this kind running and flying abroad, a good example going before, some priests, having received the power from the bishops, began to discourse upon the word of God [r] to the people in the presence of the bishops.

[10] he disputes with Fortunatus the Manichee, Now at that time in that city of Hippo the pestilence of the Manichees had infected and penetrated very many, whether citizens or strangers, a certain priest of that heresy, Fortunatus [s] by name, dwelling and remaining there, seducing and deceiving them. Meanwhile the citizens of Hippo and the Christian strangers, both Catholics and also Donatists, approach [t] the priest, and demand that he should see that man, the priest of the Manichees, whom they believed to be learned, and should discourse with him about the Law. Which he, as it is written, "being ready to answer everyone that asks him a reason of the faith and hope which is in God, and mighty to exhort in sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers," by no means refused. But he asked whether that man too were willing that this should be done. And they at once carried this to Fortunatus himself, asking and exhorting and demanding that he should by no means refuse it.

[11] Now, since that same Fortunatus had already known holy Augustine at Carthage, with the people present, while he was still involved with him in the same error, he was afraid to engage with him. Nevertheless, compelled and shamed chiefly by the insistence of his own people, he promised that he would come to close quarters and undergo the contest of disputation. Whence, a day and place being appointed, they came together in one place, very many students and curious crowds running together, and, the notaries' tablets being opened, the disputation was begun on the first day and finished on the second.

[12] In which that Manichaean teacher, as the record of the proceedings shows, and overcomes him: could neither make void the Catholic assertion, nor was he able to prove that the sect of the Manichees rested upon truth: but, failing in his last answer, he went on to say that he would confer with his elders about those things which he could not refute; and that, if perchance they should not satisfy him about these matters, he would take counsel for his own soul: and thus by all, among whom he had seemed great and learned, he was judged to have availed nothing in the assertion of his sect. Being affected with that confusion, and departing in the following time from the city of Hippo, he never returned to it: and thus, through the aforesaid Man of God, that error was taken away from the hearts of all, both of those who were present and of those who, being absent, had come to know * what was done; and the Catholic Religion was made known and retained in its sincerity.

[13] And he taught and preached both privately and publicly, he writes various things against the heretics, in the house and in the church, the word of salvation with all confidence against the African heresies, and chiefly against the Donatists, Manichees, and Pagans [u], by books composed and by extempore sermons, the Christians ineffably marveling and rejoicing together , and, wherever they could, not keeping silence about this very thing, but noising it abroad. And thus [x], with the Lord's help, the Catholic Church in Africa began to lift up its head, which for a long time there, with the heretics growing strong, and chiefly with the party of Donatus rebaptizing the greater multitude of the Africans, had lain seduced and oppressed *.

[14] And these books or treatises of his, proceeding and flowing forth by God's wonderful grace, furnished with abundance of reason and with the authority of the holy Scriptures, even the heretics themselves, running together with the Catholics, heard with immense ardor: and whoever wished and was able, employing notaries , took down and wrote out even the things which were spoken. And thence already through the whole body of Africa his illustrious doctrine and the sweetest fragrance of Christ was diffused and made manifest, the Church of God beyond the sea likewise rejoicing at learning it . Since, as "when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, so also when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together" [y].

ANNOTATA.

p. Vatican codex 118, as Salinas notes, ab Apostolis.

q. Hence it cannot be inferred that priests did not preach at all in Africa before Augustine, but only that they did not do so in the bishop's presence. Salinas may be consulted in the notes on this passage, and Tillemont, article 62.

r. Verbum Dei is omitted in our Ms.

s. The disputation against Fortunatus has been more fully set forth in the Commentary, number 264 and following.

t. In other editions there is added Augustinum, as also in our Ms., although Salinas testifies that it is absent from his manuscripts.

u. In the earlier editions there was read Pelagianos, against all the manuscripts, says Salinas, who also observes that the Pelagians were not yet known while Augustine was a priest.

x. The Royal codex, according to Salinas: Sicque dono Dei pax in Africana ecclesia orta est, apud quam multo tempore, etc. In the manuscripts of the Benedictines and in ours, atque Dei dono levare.

y. In the editions there is added, says Salinas: At the same time, in the presence of the bishops, at their bidding, who were holding a plenary council of all Africa at Hippo, Augustine, still a priest, disputed concerning faith and the creed. Which words, transferred hither from book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 17, he rightly observes, since they are had in no manuscripts.

in the Ms. there is added Augustinus*

in the Ms. propria*

in the Ms. provenit*

in the Ms. injectus*

Ms. Rhetor*

Ms. his*

in the Ms. reddidisset*

elsewhere hæc*

elsewhere vacuum*

Lyons edition Civitatis*

in the Ms. propinquaret*

in the Ms. factusque*

Ms. vel*

in the Ms. confessionem*

in the Ms. cognoverunt*

elsewhere repetitis*

in the Ms. conlaudantibus*

in the Ms. &*

in the Ms. majore multitudine*

in the Ms. & pressa & obsessa libri ejus magni fiunt*

Ms. adds omni*

Ms. adhibentes .. descripserunt*

Ms. diffusa*, etc.

Ms. id comperta*

CHAPTER II.

His election to the bishopric of Hippo, and various things done in it against the Donatist heretics, and the fury of these.

The Saint, Valerius the bishop bringing it about, But that blessed old man Valerius, exulting in this beyond the rest and giving thanks to God for the special benefit granted him, began to fear, as the human mind is wont, lest, some other church being deprived of a priest, he should be sought for the episcopate and taken away from him: for this too would have come about, had not the bishop, on learning of it, taken care that he should pass over to a secret place, and by hiding him made him not to be found by those who sought him. Whence, fearing the more, that same venerable old man, and knowing himself to be most infirm in body and in age, dealt by secret letters with the primate of the bishops *, of Carthage ^a, alleging the weakness of his body and the heaviness of his age, and beseeching that Augustine might be ordained bishop for the church of Hippo, so that he should not so much succeed to his own chair as be added as a fellow priest. And what he wished and asked in his solicitude, he obtained by rescript.

[16] And afterwards, Megalius, bishop of Calama ^c, then primate of Numidia, being asked ^b to visit and coming to the church of Hippo, is consecrated bishop while he yet lived, and Valerius the prelate * — to the bishops who happened then to be present, and to all the clergy of Hippo, and to the whole

people, he then makes known his will, unlooked for by all: and while all who heard congratulated him and cried out with immense desire that this should be done and completed, the Priest refused to undertake the episcopate against the custom of the Church, his own bishop being alive. And while it was urged upon him by all that this was wont to be done, and it was proved to him, who knew it not, by examples of churches beyond the sea and in Africa, being compelled and constrained he yielded, and undertook the care of the episcopate ^d and the ordination to a greater place. Which he both said and wrote afterwards ought not to have been done in his own case *, namely that he should be ordained while his bishop lived, on account of the prohibition of a universal council, which, being already ordained, he learned: nor did he wish that to be done to others which he grieved to have been done to himself ^e. Whence also he took pains that it should be established by councils of bishops that all the statutes of the priests ought by the ordainers to be brought to the notice of those who were to be ordained or had been ordained.

[17] And so it came about that as bishop he preached the word of eternal salvation much more insistently and fervently, with greater authority, no longer in one region only but wherever, being asked, he had come, briskly and diligently ^f, with the Lord's Church sprouting and growing, being always ready to render to those who asked a reason of the faith and hope which is in God. he labors strenuously that the Donatists And his sayings, taken down, the Donatists chiefly who remained in that same city of Hippo or in the neighboring one carried to their own bishops. Which when they had heard, and perchance said something against them, they were either refuted by their own people, or those same answers were brought to holy Augustine; and when these had been learned , patiently and gently, and, as it is written, "with fear and trembling he wrought the salvation of all" ^g: showing how they had neither wished nor been able to refute anything of his, and how true and manifest is what the faith of God's Church holds and teaches.

[18] And these things were done by him continually by day and by night. may be brought back to the Church, For he also gave private Letters to each of the bishops of that error ^h, and to eminent laymen, giving a reason and admonishing and exhorting them either to correct themselves from that depravity, or at least to come to a disputation. But they, from distrust of their cause ⁱ, would never so much as ^k write back: but in anger they spoke furious things, and both privately and publicly cried out that Augustine was a seducer and deceiver of souls; and they said and handled it that he was to be killed as a wolf in defense of their flock; and that it must be believed without doubt that all sins could be forgiven by God to those * who had been able to do and accomplish this, neither fearing God nor blushing before men ^l. And he labored that the distrust of their cause should become known to all: and, being challenged by public proceedings, they did not dare to confer ^m.

[19] their Circumcellions raging, Those same Donatists also had through almost all their churches an unheard-of kind of perverse and violent men, walking as it were under the profession of continents, who were called Circumcellions ⁿ. And they were established in a huge number and in throngs through almost all the African regions. Who, imbued by evil teachers, with a proud audacity and unlawful rashness, spared at times neither their own nor others, forbidding men in their affairs against right and law: and unless men obeyed, they were visited with the gravest losses and slaughters, armed with divers weapons, raging through fields and farmsteads, not fearing to proceed even to the shedding of blood.

[20] and cruelly persecuting the Catholics: But while the Word of God was diligently preached, and with those who hated peace an account of peace was had, they warred against him as he spoke without cause; and when the truth became known against their dogma, those who wished and were able either snatched or withdrew themselves thence, and clave, with those whom they could, to the peace and unity of the Church. Whence they, seeing the congregations of their error diminished, and envying the increases of the Church, being kindled, blazed with a most grievous anger, and, banded together ^o, made intolerable persecutions against the unity of the Church; and inflicted upon the Catholic priests themselves [p] and ministers assaults by day and by night, and plunderings of all their goods. For they also crippled many servants of God with beatings. Upon some also they threw lime with vinegar into their eyes, and others they killed. Whence also those same Donatist rebaptizers came into hatred with their own people.

[21] called forth from Augustine's monastery Moreover, as the divine doctrine advanced [q], those serving God in the monastery under holy Augustine and with him began to be ordained clerics for the church of Hippo. And thereafter, as the truth of the Catholic Church's [r] preaching became known and grew clear from day to day, and the resolve, continence, and profound poverty of the holy servants of God, the peace and unity of the Church both began first to ask with great desire and to receive bishops and clerics from the monastery [s] which through that memorable Man had begun both to be and to grow, and afterwards obtained them.

[22] to sees, they labor excellently with him: For blessed Augustine, being asked, gave to divers churches, and to some of the more eminent, nearly ten [t] holy and venerable men, continent and most learned, whom I myself knew. And in like manner these themselves, coming from that resolve of holy men, when the Lord's churches were propagated, also founded monasteries; and, the zeal for the edification of the Word of God growing, they furnished brethren promoted to other churches for the undertaking of the priesthood. Whence, through many and in many places the saving doctrine of the Church's faith, hope, and charity becoming known, not only through all the parts of Africa but even in lands beyond the sea, and by books published and translated into the Greek [u] tongue, from that one Man, and through him from many, by God's favor many things deserved to become known. And hence, as it is written, "the sinner, seeing, was angry, he gnashed with his teeth and pined away": but the servants of God , as has been said, "with those who hated peace were peaceable, and when they spoke, they were warred upon by them without cause."*

[23] But sometimes those same armed Circumcellions also beset the roads against God's servant Augustine , The Saint by a mistake of the road escapes the snares of the heretics: while he happened to be going, being asked, to visit, instruct, and exhort Catholic congregations, which he very frequently did. And it once happened that those lying in ambush thus far lost their prey: for it came about by God's providence indeed, but by an error of the man who guided him, that the Priest with his companions came by another road to the place whither he was going, and by this error, which he afterwards recognized, escaped impious hands. And when he had given thanks in all things to God his deliverer, those raging men [x] altogether after their manner spared neither laymen nor clerics, as the public records testify.

[24] Meanwhile it must not be passed over in silence what, to the praise of God, was done and accomplished against the aforesaid Donatist rebaptizers through the zeal of that so eminent Man in the Church and his zeal for God's house. a bishop of the Donatists overcome by Possidius in disputation, When one [y] of those whom he had propagated as bishops of the Church from his own monastery and clergy happened to be visiting the diocese of the church of Calama, which belonged to his charge, and to be preaching what he had learned, for the peace of the Church, against that heresy, it came about that in the middle of the journey he fell into their snares, and, being set upon along with all his companions, their beasts and goods being taken away, they afflicted him with injuries and a most grievous beating. Concerning which matter, lest the progress of the Church's peace should be further hindered, the defender of the Church did not keep silence before the laws. And Crispinus, who was bishop of those same Donatists in the city and region of Calama, was ordered — being namely renowned * and of long standing and learned — to be held to the heavy [z] fine of gold established by the public laws against heretics. Who, resisting the laws and being brought forward, when before the proconsul he denied that he was a heretic, a necessity arose that, the defender of the Church withdrawing, he should be resisted by a Catholic bishop and convicted of being what he had denied himself to be: since, if this were passed over by him, perhaps the Catholic bishop would be believed by the ignorant to be a heretic, while the other denied himself to be what he was; and thus from this slackness a scandal would arise for the weak.

[25] And, the memorable prelate Augustine urging it in every way, the Donatists fined by the imperial laws: both those bishops of Calama came to the controversy, and three times held a conflict with one another about that difference of communion, a great multitude of Christian peoples awaiting the outcome of the case both at Carthage and throughout all Africa: and that Crispinus was pronounced a heretic by proconsular sentence and by written judgment. On whose behalf that Catholic bishop interceded with the Judge, that the fine of gold should not be exacted; and the favor was obtained for him. Whence, when, ungrateful, he had appealed to the most pious prince, and the due answer was given by the emperor to the report, there followed also a decree that the Donatist heretics ought to have no place at all, and that they ought everywhere to be held to the force of all the laws passed against heretics. From which both the judge and the Office [aa] and that same Crispinus, because he had by no means been made to pay, were ordered to bring in ten pounds of gold each to the rights of the treasury. But at once pains were taken by the Catholic bishops, and chiefly by Augustine of holy memory, that that condemnation of them all should be remitted by the prince's indulgence: and with the Lord's help it was accomplished. By which diligence and holy zeal the Church greatly increased.

[26] many of them converted after the conference, And for all these things done for the peace of the Church, the Lord both gave Augustine the palm here, and reserved with himself the crown of justice: and more and more, with Christ's help, from day to day the unity of peace and the brotherhood of God's Church was increased and multiplied. And this was chiefly done after the conference which was afterwards held at Carthage by all the Catholic bishops with those same bishops of the Donatists, at the bidding of the most glorious and most religious emperor Honorius [bb], for the accomplishing of which he had also sent from his own side into Africa as judge the tribune and notary Marcellinus [cc]. In which controversy they, being in every way confuted and convicted of error by the Catholics, were marked by the sentence of the Judge, and, after their appeal, were justly condemned among the heretics by the answer of the most pious King. For which reason their bishops with their clergy and congregations entered into communion more abundantly than usual, and, holding Catholic peace, endured many persecutions from them even to the amputation of limbs and to slaughter. And all that good, as I have said, was both begun and accomplished through that holy Man, our * bishops consenting and equally taking pains.

[27] and Emeritus, boasting much against the Catholics, Furthermore, since after that conference which was held with the Donatists there were not lacking those who said that those same bishops had not been permitted to say all things on behalf of their party before the authority which heard the case, because the Judge, being of Catholic communion, favored his own Church — although the failing and vanquished put this forward as an excuse, since even before the controversy those same heretics had known him to be of Catholic communion, and when * they were summoned by him by public records to the conference

they went on to say that they would do so. They could assuredly, if they held him suspect, have refused the meeting.

[28] in a public disputation Nevertheless Almighty God furnished help, so that afterwards Augustine of venerable memory, being at the city of Caesarea [dd] in Mauretania, whither letters of the Apostolic See had compelled him to come with others of his fellow bishops, namely for the settling of other necessities of the Church — on this occasion, then, it came about that he saw Emeritus [ee], the bishop of the Donatists of that place, whom they had as the chief defender of their sect in that conference, and disputed with him publicly in the church, with a people of a different communion standing by, on this very matter, and challenged him by ecclesiastical records that what, as they said, he perchance could have set forth in the conference but had not been permitted to, he should now by no means hesitate to say securely, without the prohibition or power of any authority, and should not refuse * confidently to defend his own communion in his own city with all his fellow citizens present.

[29] But he would do it neither at this exhortation , nor at the urgent petition of his own kinsfolk and fellow citizens, confounded by Augustine. who promised him that they would return to his communion, even at the risk of their patrimonies and of their temporal welfare, if only he should overcome the Catholic assertion. But he would say nothing more in those proceedings, nor was he able, save only this: "Those records," he said, "which were drawn up at Carthage among the bishops, already contain whether we conquered or were conquered." And in another place, when he was admonished by the notary to answer, and kept silence, his distrust being made manifest to all, increases and strengthenings of God's Church followed. Whoever therefore shall wish more fully to know the diligence and labor of Augustine of most blessed memory for the state of God's Church, let him also run through those records: and he will find what and what sort of things he brought forward, by which he challenged that learned, eloquent, and renowned man, and exhorted him to declare what he wished in defense of his party; and he will recognize that he was overcome.

ANNOTATA.

p. In the same place, Vatican codex 1190, justis Catholicisque sacerdotibus.

q. Some codices in Salinas, proficientes.

r. The Cistercian codex, says Salinas, Ecclesia Catholica.

s. Concerning this monastery consult §§18 and 25 of the Commentary.

t. Salinas in this place notes the following: Besides himself (Possidius), who was bishop of Calama, of these ten, seven have come to our knowledge: namely Alypius of Thagaste, Evodius of Uzalis, Profuturus, metropolitan of Cirta in Numidia, Fortunatus his successor, Severus of Milevis, Urbanus of Sicca, and Peregrinus. Concerning these and more Tillemont treats in Augustine, article 63: but we are not equally certain about all of them.

u. Salinas does not dare to assert that the books were translated into the Greek tongue by Augustine himself, nor does that seem probable to me, or asserted by Possidius; although the Saint was not ignorant of the Greek tongue, as has been shown in the Commentary, §3.

x. This little word, which is not in the others, we have inserted on the authority of codex 541, says Salinas.

y. That one is Possidius himself, as was said in the Commentary, numbers 433 and 434.

z. This fine was of ten pounds of gold. See the Commentary, number 438.

aa. Officium here designates the ministers of forensic business.

bb. Honorius began to reign, if we pass over the years in which he held the title of emperor while his father lived, in the year 395; he died in the year 423. Concerning the laws passed by him against the Donatists certain things have been said in the Commentary.

cc. Concerning St. Marcellinus, the most pious tribune and afterwards martyr, we have treated at the sixth day of April. See also the Commentary, number 456.

dd. Caesarea was a maritime city of Mauretania, whose ancient names, when Cellarius had set them forth in the ancient Geography of Africa, he adds these words concerning the modern name, page 128: Many agree in this, that it is Caesarea, which today they call Algiers, famous for arms and piracy: which its barbarian name confirms not a little.

ee. Concerning Emeritus more in the Commentary, number 467.

elsewhere episcopum*

in the Ms. Valerio episcopo .. insinuante*

in the Ms. ipse*

in the Ms. prædicabat*

in the Ms. eaque comperta*

in the Ms. his*

in the Ms. fere*

elsewhere incautis*

in the Ms. intercedentes*

elsewhere afficiebant*

elsewhere ex illorum*

in the Ms. fremebat*

in the Ms. tui*

in the Ms. famulo Dei Augustino*

Ms. suis*

in the Ms. prædicator*

Louvain per*

etiam* is absent from the Ms.

Ms. ad*

in the Ms. injusti*

the Ms. does not have nostris*

Ms. dum*

Ms. compulerunt*

Ms. &*

Ms. denegasset*

Ms. nec hac oratione*

Ms. facta .. manifesta*

CHAPTER III.

The struggles of the holy Prelate against the Manichaean, Arian, and Pelagian heretics.

The Saint in preaching drawn away from the disputation he had proposed, I know — and not I alone, but also other brethren and fellow servants who at that time lived with us within the church of Hippo together with that same holy Man — that he said to us as we sat together at table: Did you notice today in the church that my sermon, and both its beginning and its end, proceeded contrary to my custom, since I did not set forth as concluded the matter which I had proposed, but left it hanging? To whom we answered that we both knew and acknowledged that we had wondered at it at the time. But he said: I believe that the Lord, in whose hand are both we and our discourses, perchance wished someone erring among the people to be taught and healed through my forgetfulness and error. For while I was handling the hidden depths of the question proposed, I went on by a digression of speech into another matter; and thus, the question being neither concluded nor explained, I ended the discourse, disputing rather against the error of the Manichees, about which I had resolved to say nothing, than about those things which I had proposed to assert.*

[31] he converts a Manichee: And after these things, unless I am mistaken, behold, on another day or after two days there came a certain man, Firmus ^a by name, a merchant; and, while holy Augustine sat within the monastery, in our presence he cast himself down at his feet upon his knees, pouring forth tears and asking that the Priest with the Saints * would pray to the Lord for his transgressions, confessing that he had followed the sect of the Manichees, and had lived in it for very many years, and had on that account paid out much money in vain to those same Manichees, or to those whom they call the elect; and that in the Church, by God's mercy, he had lately been corrected by his discourses and made a Catholic. Which, when both the venerable Augustine himself and we who were then present diligently inquired of him from what point in that discourse he had chiefly been satisfied, and he told it, and we all recognized the sequence of the sermon, marveling and amazed at the profound counsel of God for the salvation of souls, we glorified his holy name and blessed it; who, when he wills, and whence he wills, and how he wills, works the salvation of souls both through those who know and through those who know not. And from that time that man, cleaving to the resolve of God's servants, gave up the business of a merchant, and advancing among the members of the Church, in another region was by God's will also asked and compelled to enter upon the office of the priesthood, holding and guarding the sanctity of his resolve: and perhaps he is even to this day alive among human affairs, established beyond the sea.

[32] At Carthage also, when through a certain procurator of the royal household, the base practices of the Manichees uncovered, Ursus by name, a man of the Catholic faith, some of the Manichees, whom they call elect men and elect women, were come upon and were led and brought by him to the church, they were heard by the bishops with the records taken down ^b. Among whom Augustine of holy memory also was, who beyond the rest knew that execrable sect; and, bringing forth their damnable blasphemies of this kind out of passages of the books which those Manichees accept, he brought them to the confession of those same blasphemies: and the unworthy and base things which they had been wont to do among themselves after their evil manner were declared in those ecclesiastical records by the disclosure of those women, as it were elect.

[33] And thus by the diligence of the shepherds both an increase came to the Lord's flock, and Felix converted through the Saint. and a fitting defense was provided against thieves and robbers. With a certain Felix also, of the number of those whom the Manichees call the elect ^c, he disputed publicly in the church of Hippo, with notaries taking it down and the people standing by: and after the second or third conference that Manichee, the vanity and error of his sect being frustrated, was converted to our faith ^d and Church, as that same writing, being read over, can show.

[34] Moreover, with a certain Pascentius ^e also, an Arian, count of the royal household, The Saint with Count Pascentius the Arian who by the authority of his person, a most vehement exactor of the treasury, atrociously and continually assailed the Catholic faith, and with his sharp tongue and his power harassed and disturbed very many priests of God living in a simpler faith, honorable and noble men being interposed *

at Carthage, being challenged by him, he conferred face to face. But that same heretic altogether refused that tablets and stylus should be present, which our Master both before the meeting and in the meeting most insistently wished to be done. And when he had utterly denied this, saying that for fear of the public laws he was unwilling to be endangered by written tablets; and when Augustine the bishop, with his fellow priests who were present, saw that it pleased those who were interposed that they should dispute privately without any writing, he undertook the conference: foretelling, as afterwards came to pass, that after the meeting was dissolved it might be open to anyone perchance to say, no document of writing existing, that he had said what perhaps he had not said, or had not said what he had said.

[35] disputes in the presence of many; And he entered into discourse with him, and asserted what he believed, and heard from him what he held, and taught what was proved * by true reason and by the authority of the Scriptures, and showed the firm supports of our faith: but he showed that the other's assertions were propped by no truth, by no authority of the holy Scriptures, and brought them to nothing. And when the parties had departed from one another, he, more and more angry and raging, threw out many lies on behalf of his false faith, proclaiming that Augustine, praised by the mouth of many, had been overcome by him. Which, when ^f they were by no means hidden, he was compelled to write to Pascentius himself — the names of those conferring being omitted for fear of him — and in that letter he faithfully set down whatever had been said or done between the parties; having, for the proving of these things if they should be denied, a great abundance of witnesses, namely most illustrious and honorable men who were then present. And ^g he, to the two writings directed to him, scarcely returned one reply, in which he was able rather to do injury than to declare the reason of his sect. Which is proved by those who wish and are able to read.

[36] as also with Maximinus, a bishop of the same: With a certain Maximinus ^h also, a bishop of those same Arians, coming to Africa with the Goths, he conferred at Hippo, very many wishing and asking it, and illustrious men being interposed: and what each party asserted has been written down. Which if the studious shall take care to read diligently, they will without doubt trace out both what a crafty and irrational heresy professes for seducing and deceiving, and what the Catholic Church holds and preaches concerning the divine Trinity. But since that heretic, returning from Hippo to Carthage, boasted, on account of his great talkativeness in the conference, that he had withdrawn from that conference as victor, and lied; which things assuredly could not easily be examined and judged by those ignorant of the divine law: by the venerable Augustine, with the pen of the following time, a recapitulation was made of that whole conference as to the several objections and answers; and it was nonetheless shown how nothing he could reply to the objections, supplements being added which in the narrow time of the conference could by no means all be brought in and written. For the man's wickedness had brought this about: that by his last very long discourse he should occupy the whole space of the day that remained.

[37] he assails the Pelagians, Against the Pelagianists ⁱ also, new heretics of our times and crafty disputants, writing with a more subtle and noxious art, and speaking publicly and in houses wherever they could, he labored for nearly ten years ^k, composing and publishing many books, and very frequently disputing in the church before the people concerning that error. And since those same perverse men were striving by their ambition to persuade the Apostolic See of that same perfidy, it was most insistently brought about in the African councils of the holy bishops also, that the holy Pope of the City — both first the venerable Innocent ^l, and afterwards the holy Zosimus ^m his successor — should be persuaded how greatly that sect was to be abominated and condemned by the Catholic faith.

[38] who are condemned: But those Prelates of so great a see, marking them in their several times and cutting them off from the members of the Church, by letters given both to ⁿ the African Churches of the West and to those of the Eastern part, judged that they were to be anathematized and shunned by all Catholics. And such a judgment concerning them being brought forth by God's Catholic Church, the most pious emperor Honorius also, hearing and following it, decreed that they, condemned by his laws, ought to be held among the heretics. Whence some of them returned to the bosom of holy mother Church, from which they had sprung back, and others are still returning, the truth of the right faith becoming known and prevailing against that detestable error.

[39] And that memorable Man, a chief member of the Lord's body, most useful labors for the Church, was ever solicitous and watchful concerning the good of the universal Church. And it was divinely granted him that it should come about that he rejoice in the fruit of his labors even in this life: first indeed in the church and region of Hippo, over which he chiefly presided, unity and peace being perfected; then in other parts of Africa, whether through himself or through others, and through those priests whom he himself had given, perceiving that the Lord's Church had sprouted and been multiplied, and rejoicing together that those Manichees, Donatists, Pelagianists, and Pagans had in great part failed and been joined to the Church of God; favoring also and exulting in the advances and zeal of all good men; piously and holily bearing with the indisciplines of the brethren, and groaning over the iniquities of the wicked, whether of those who are within the Church or of those who are set outside the Church — always, as I have said, rejoicing in the Lord's gains and mourning over his losses.

[40] But so many things were dictated and published by him, and the multitude of his writings. and so many things disputed in the church, taken down and corrected, or written against heretics, or expounded from the Canonical books unto the edification of the holy sons of the Church, that scarcely any of the studious can suffice to read them all through and know them. Nevertheless, lest we should seem in any way to defraud those most greedy for the word ^o of truth, I have resolved, God granting it, to add at the end of this little Work also an Index of those same books, treatises, and letters: which being read, let each who loves God's truth more than temporal riches choose for himself what he shall wish to read and know, and let him either ask for it to be copied from the library of the church of Hippo, where more correct copies can * perhaps be found, or let him inquire wherever he can, and, having found them, let him copy them and have them, and let him also himself grant them without grudging to one who asks to copy them.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere suis*

quod* is not in the Ms.

in the Ms. latera*

illam* is omitted in the Ms.

in the Ms. consueverunt*

elsewhere præsentibus*

in the Ms. quas*

Louvain liberum arbitrium*

in the Ms. prolata*

in the Ms. pluribus*

in the Ms. multum*

elsewhere anathematizandos*

in the Ms. damnandos, &*

in the Ms. potuerint*

CHAPTER IV.

His pastoral solicitude, and his various occupations on behalf of his flock.

The Saint's care in hearing controversies According to the Apostle's judgment also, who says: "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, be judged before the unjust, and not before the Saints? Or know you not that the Saints shall judge this world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know you not that we shall judge angels? how much more things of this world? If therefore you have judgments of things pertaining to this world, set those to judge who are contemptible in the Church ^a. I speak to your shame: is it so that there is not among you any one wise man that is able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law with brother ^b, and that before unbelievers." Being therefore appealed to by Christians, or by men of any sect whatever, he heard the cases diligently and piously, having before his eyes the saying of a certain man who said that he preferred to hear cases between strangers rather than between friends: because of strangers he could gain as a friend the one for whom * he judged with impartial equity; but of friends he would lose the one against whom sentence was pronounced.

[42] and in settling suits: And these cases he sometimes heard until the hour of refreshment, but sometimes fasting the whole day, yet always he examined and settled them ^c: attending in them to the movements of the minds of Christians, how much each either advanced in faith and good manners or fell away from them; and, the opportunities of things being discovered, he taught the parties the truth of the divine Law, and inculcated it upon them, and instructed and admonished them by what means they might attain eternal life, seeking nothing else from those for whom he was at leisure for this purpose but only obedience and Christian devotion, which is due both to God and to men: rebuking sinners before all, that the rest might have fear; and he did this as a watchman appointed by the Lord for the house of Israel, preaching the word and being instant in season,

out of season, reproving, exhorting, rebuking, in all long-suffering and doctrine; and chiefly taking pains to instruct those who were fit to teach others also. Being asked also by some in their temporal ^d affairs, he gave letters to divers persons. But this occupation of his, drawn from better things, he reckoned as a forced service ^e, always holding sweet either the address or the conversation of brotherly and household familiarity concerning those things which are of God.

[43] We know also that, when the intercession of his letters with the powers of the world was asked of him by his dearest friends, he did not give it, in interceding for the accused, saying that the judgment of a certain wise man was to be observed, of whom it was written that out of much regard for his own reputation he did not grant favors to friends: and adding nonetheless this of his own, that very often the power which grants also oppresses. But when, being asked, he saw that intercession must be made, he did it so honorably and temperately that he not only did not seem burdensome or troublesome, but even appeared admirable. For when, a necessity having arisen, after his manner he interceded by letters with a certain vicar of Africa, Macedonius ^f by name, on behalf of a suppliant, and that man had complied, he sent a reply in this manner: "I am affected in a wonderful way by thy wisdom, both in those things which thou hast published and in those which, interceding for the anxious, thou art not loath to send. For the former have so much of acuteness, of knowledge, of sanctity, that nothing can go beyond them: and the latter so much of modesty, that unless I do what thou enjoinest, I judge that the fault remains with me, and does not lie in the business, O lord deservedly venerable and father to be received. For thou dost not press, as most men of this station do, so as to extort whatever an anxious petitioner has wished : but what has seemed to thee askable from a judge bound by so many cares, thou dost suggest with modesty serving thee, which is the greatest efficacy in difficult matters among good men. Accordingly I have at once granted the accomplishment of the desire of those commended: for I had already opened beforehand a way of hoping."*

[44] The councils of the holy priests celebrated through the various provinces he frequented ^g when he was able; and in attending councils: not seeking in them the things which are his own, but the things which are Jesus Christ's; that either the faith of the holy Catholic Church might remain inviolate, or that some priests and clerics, excommunicated either lawfully or unlawfully, might be either absolved or cast out. But in ordaining priests and clerics he judged that the greater consent of the Christians and the custom of the Church were to be followed.

[45] His garments and shoes and bed-furnishings were of a moderate and fitting fashion, what his clothing and table neither too elegant nor too abject: because by these men are for the most part wont either to display themselves insolently or to cast themselves down; from either seeking not the things which are Jesus Christ's, but their own: but he, as I have said, held to the middle, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left. He used a frugal and sparing table, which indeed, along with vegetables and pulse, had sometimes even flesh for the sake of guests or of any who were weaker, but always had wine ^h. Because he knew and taught, as the Apostle says, that every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.

[46] And, as that same holy Augustine set down in his books of Confessions, were like: saying: "I do not fear the uncleanness of a dish, but the uncleanness of desire. I know that Noah was permitted to eat every kind of flesh which was of use for food; that Elijah was refreshed with the food of flesh; that John, endowed with a marvelous abstinence, was not polluted by animals — that is, by locusts — going to his food: I know also that Esau was deceived by the desire of a mess of lentils; that David reproved himself on account of a desire for water; and that our King was tempted not concerning flesh but concerning bread. And therefore the people in the desert also deserved to be disapproved, not because they desired flesh, but because in the desire of food they murmured against God." But concerning the taking of wine, there is extant the judgment of the Apostle writing to Timothy and saying: "Do not yet drink water, but use a little wine on account of thy stomach and thy frequent infirmities."* Using silver spoons only, the rest of the vessels in which the foods were brought to table were either of earthenware or of wood or of marble: yet not from the want of necessity, but by a purpose of the will.

[47] his hospitality; reading at table: But he also always showed hospitality. And at the table itself he loved reading or discussion more than feasting and drinking. And against the pestilence of human custom he had written upon it thus:

Whoever loves to gnaw at absent men's lives with his words, let him know this table to be unworthy ⁱ of him *.

And therefore he admonished every guest that he ought to abstain from superfluous and noxious tales and detractions ^k. For he once so sharply rebuked certain of his most familiar fellow bishops who had forgotten that writing and were speaking against it, that, being moved, he said that either those verses must be blotted out from the table, or he would rise up in the middle of the meal and go to his chamber. Which I and others who were present at that table experienced.

[48] his use of the ecclesiastical revenues. But he was always mindful of his fellow poor *, and disbursed to them from that same source from which he provided for himself and for all his people dwelling with him ^l, that is, either from the revenues of the Church's possessions or even from the offerings of the faithful. And when perchance (as is wont to happen) ill-will arose against the clergy on account of those very possessions, he addressed the people of God, saying that he would rather live on the contributions of God's people than endure the care or governance of those possessions; and that he was ready to yield them up, so that in that way all God's servants and ministers might live as we read in the Old Testament that those who serve the altar are partakers of it. But the laymen would never consent to this.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere arbitrata*

Ms. in*

elsewhere veritate*

Ms. sollicitus volueris*

Ms. & scio*

in the Ms. sui*

elsewhere pauperum*

CHAPTER V.

The domestic manner of life of the holy Prelate, his observance of discipline, the integrity of his manners, and his love toward his subjects.

He commits the temporal care of his house to others: how he bore himself The care of the church's house and all its substance he delegated and entrusted by turns to the stronger clerics. He never had a key, never a ring ^a in his hand: but by those same overseers of the house all things both received and disbursed were noted down; which at the end of the year were read out to him, that it might be known how much had been received and how much dispensed, or what ^b remained to be dispensed; and in many headings he followed rather the good faith of that overseer of the house than knowing a thing proved and made manifest. A house, a field, or a farm he never wished to buy. But if perchance any such thing were either given to the Church by someone of his own accord, or left under the title of a legacy, he did not reject it, but bade it be received. For we know that he even refused certain inheritances, not because they could be of no use to the poor, but because he saw it to be just and equitable that they should rather be possessed by the sons or the parents or the kinsfolk of the dead, to whom the departed had been unwilling to leave them.

[50] in admitting or refusing pious offerings, A certain man also, of the honorable men of Hippo, living at Carthage, wished to give a possession to the church of Hippo, and, the deed being drawn up, the usufruct being retained for himself, sent it of his own accord to that same Augustine of holy memory: whose offering he gladly received, congratulating him that he was mindful of his eternal salvation. But after some years, when we happened to be with him face to face, behold, that donor, sending letters by his son, asked that those deeds of gift should be returned to his son; but he directed a hundred solidi to be disbursed to the poor: which that holy man learning, he groaned that the man had either feigned the donation, or had repented of a good work, and said as many things as he could, God suggesting them to his heart, with grief of mind concerning that defrauding , namely for that man's rebuke and correction: and the deeds, which the man had sent of his own accord, neither desired nor demanded, he at once returned, and rejected that money; and by a written reply he both accused and reproved him, as was fitting, admonishing him that he should make satisfaction to God for his dissimulation or iniquity with the humility of penitence, lest he depart from the world with so grave a fault.

[51] or legacies: his mind free from temporal things, and intent upon spiritual: He said also very frequently that the Church ought more securely and more safely to receive legacies left by the dead than inheritances perchance troublesome and damaging; and that legacies themselves should rather be offered than exacted. But he himself did not receive things entrusted to his keeping, yet he did not forbid the clerics who wished to receive them. In those things also which the Church had and possessed he was not intent with love nor entangled : but rather hanging upon and cleaving to greater and spiritual matters, he scarcely at times relaxed and let himself down to those temporal things from the contemplation of eternal ones. Which being disposed and ordered, as from gnawing and troublesome affairs he made a running back of the mind to the inward and higher parts of the mind; that he might either think about divine things to be discovered, or dictate something concerning those already discovered, or at least correct something out of things already dictated and transcribed. And this he did, laboring by day and working by lamplight at night. And he was as that most religious Mary bearing the type of the Church above, of whom it is written that she sat at the Lord's feet and intently heard his word: of whom her sister complained that, being occupied about much serving, she was not helped by her, and heard: "Martha, Martha, Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her." For he never had a zeal for new buildings, avoiding in them the entanglement of his mind, which he wished always to have free from every temporal trouble: yet he did not forbid those who wished and were building ^e, but only the immoderate.

[52] Meanwhile, when the Church's money failed, he announced this very thing to the Christian people, his care of the poor, that he had not what he might disburse to the needy. For he also bade the Lord's vessels be broken up and melted down, for the sake of captives and of very many needy persons, and be dispensed to the needy. Which I should not have recorded, unless I perceived that it is done against the carnal understanding of certain persons. And Ambrose also, of venerable memory, both said and wrote ^f that this very thing was without doubt to be done in such necessities. But he also sometimes, speaking in the church, gave admonition concerning the treasury ^g and the sacristy neglected by the faithful, whence the things necessary for the altar are brought in: which he had once told us that the most blessed Ambrose too had handled in the church in his presence.

[53] The clerics ^h were always with him, and were fed and clothed in one house and at one table, his domestic discipline: and at common expense. And lest anyone by an easy oath should fall even into perjury, he both preached to the people in the church and had established for his own people that no one should swear, not even at table . And if anyone had slipped, he lost one of the appointed drinks: for there was a fixed number of cups for those dwelling and dining with him. The indisciplines also and transgressions of his people from the right rule and honorable conduct he both rebuked and bore with, as much as was becoming and fitting: teaching in such matters chiefly that no one's heart should turn aside to malignant words to make excuses in sins: and that while anyone offered his gift at the altar and there remembered that his brother had something against him, the gift must be left before the altar, and he must go ⁱ to be reconciled to his brother, and then come and offer his gift at the altar: but if he himself had something against his brother, he ought to reprove him apart; and if he heard him, he had gained his brother: but if not, one or two must be brought in: and if he despised these also, the Church must be brought in: but if he did not obey this either, he should be to him as a heathen and a publican. And adding this, that to a brother sinning and asking pardon the offense should be remitted not seven times but seventy times seven, just as each asks daily of the Lord that it be remitted to himself.

[54] Of women, none ever conversed within his house, none stayed there, not even his own sister, who, a widow serving God, lived a long time until the day of her death as superior of the handmaids of God. he allows no women to dwell in his house, But neither his uncle's daughters ^k, nor his brother's daughters, who likewise served God: which persons the councils of the holy bishops have placed among the exceptions. But he said that, although concerning his sister and nieces dwelling with him no evil suspicion could arise, yet since those persons could not be without other necessary women staying with them, and since other women also would come in to them from outside, from these an occasion of stumbling or a scandal could arise for the weaker *, and that those who perchance stayed with a bishop or with any cleric could, from all those persons of women dwelling together with them or coming to them, either perish by human temptations or at least be most grievously defamed by men's evil suspicions.

[55] and deals most cautiously with them: For this reason therefore he said that women ought never to remain in one house with the servants of God, even the most chaste , lest (as has been said) by such an example some scandal or occasion of stumbling should be placed before the weaker: and if perchance he was asked by any women that he might be seen or greeted, they never came in to him without clerics as witnesses , nor did he ever speak alone with women alone, unless ^l some secret matter were concerned.

[56] But in his visits he kept the measure defined by the Apostle, he visits orphans, widows, and the sick, that he should visit none but orphans and widows set in tribulation. And if perchance he was asked by the sick for this, that he should pray the Lord for them in their presence and lay his hands upon them, he went without delay. But monasteries of women he visited only in urgent necessities.

[57] he abstains from three things, He also related that in the life and manners of a man of God there should be observed what he had found in the practice of Ambrose of holy memory: that he should never ask a wife for anyone, nor commend to this end one wishing to serve as a soldier, nor go to a banquet in his own country when asked. Rendering reasons for each of these matters: namely, lest, when a married couple should chance to quarrel among themselves, they should curse him through whom they had been joined; but that plainly, when they had already consented, a Priest ought when asked to be present for this, that their compacts and agreements might either be confirmed or blessed. And lest one commended to military service and ^m acting ill should have his fault attributed to his supporter; and lest, by being often present at banquets in his own country ⁿ, the measure of temperance should be lost.

[58] he praises a saying of Ambrose, He had also told us that he had heard the most wise and most pious answer of that aforesaid man of blessed memory when he was set at the end of his life, and he greatly praised and proclaimed it. For when that venerable man lay in his last sickness, and honorable persons of the faithful standing by his bed and seeing him about to depart from the world to God, and mourning on this account that the Church could be deprived of the dispensing of the word and Sacrament of God by so great and such a prelate, asked him with tears that he would ask of the Lord a further term ^o of life, he said to them: "I have not [p] so lived that I am ashamed to live among you; but neither do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord." And in these words our aged Augustine marveled at and praised the polished and balanced phrasing. For he said it was to be understood that he had said, Neither do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord, lest he should be believed to have presumed over-confidently upon his own most purified manners in saying, I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live among you. For he had said this with reference to what men could know of a man. For, knowing the scrutiny of divine equity, he said that he trusted rather in the good Lord [q]: to whom also in the daily Lord's prayer he said: "Forgive us our debts."

[59] He also very frequently reported the saying of a certain fellow bishop, and a most familiar friend of his, as also of another bishop. concerning such matters at the end of his life: to whom, when he had come to visit him as he already drew near to death, and he by a gesture of his hand signified that he was about to depart from the world, and it was answered him by the other that he could still live as necessary to the Church, that man, lest he should be thought to be held by desire of this life, answered him: "If never, well; if at some time, why not now?" And he marveled at such a judgment, and praised that a man had brought it forth who indeed feared God, but nevertheless was born and reared in the country, and not learned in much knowledge of reading: namely against that sentiment of the sick bishop concerning whom the holy martyr Cyprian, in his letter which he wrote On Mortality, thus related, saying: "When a certain one of our colleagues and fellow priests, worn out with infirmity and anxious about approaching death, prayed for a further term for himself, there stood by him as he prayed and was already almost

dying a youth venerable in honor and majesty, lofty in stature and bright of aspect, whom, as he stood by him, human sight could scarcely have looked upon with fleshly eyes, save that he was already able to see such a one, being about to depart from the world: and he, not without a certain indignation of mind and voice, roared and said: "You fear to suffer, you do not wish to depart; what shall I do with you?"*

ANNOTATA.

p. Paulinus the priest reports these things in the Life of St. Ambrose.

q. Some editions add quam de meritis suis, which is not in the manuscripts.

elsewhere dolenti animo*

elsewhere ex eadem refragatione*

elsewhere there is added cupiditate*

elsewhere &* is omitted

elsewhere ad modicum*

Ms. unusquisque*

Ms. infirmis*

Ms. castissimas*

Louvain ad eas intrabat*

elsewhere institutis*

illis* is not in the Ms.

Ms. beati*

in the Ms. ad examen*

Ms. adsistentem*

CHAPTER VI.

His writings about the end of his life, his last sickness, his pious death, and his burial.

Various little Works written toward the end of his Life: But before the day next preceding his death he reviewed the books dictated and published by him, whether those which he had dictated in the first time of his conversion while still a layman, or those as a priest, or those as a bishop: and whatever in these he recognized as having been dictated and written by him otherwise than the ecclesiastical rule stands — when as yet he knew less of ecclesiastical usage and had less understanding of it — these were both reproved and corrected by himself. Whence also he composed two volumes, whose title is On the Review of his Books ^a. He complained also that certain books ^b had been snatched from him by some of the brethren before a more diligent correction, although he had corrected them afterwards. Some of his books also, being unfinished, he left behind, forestalled by death. And, wishing to profit all — both those able to read many books and those not able — he excerpted from each divine Testament, the old and the new, a preface being prefixed, the divine precepts or prohibitions pertaining to the rule of life, and out of these made one codex: that whoever wished might read it, and in it might recognize how obedient or disobedient he was to God: and this work he wished to be called The Mirror.

[61] But in a short time following it came about, by the divine will the irruption of the Vandals into Africa, and power, that a huge force, armed with divers weapons and practiced in wars, of monstrous enemies, Vandals and Alans, having mingled with itself the nation of the Goths and persons of divers other nations, flowed in and rushed upon Africa in ships from the parts of Spain beyond the sea: and, passing through all the places of the Mauretanias even to our other provinces and regions, raging with all cruelty and atrocity, laid waste all that it could by spoiling, slaughters, and divers torments, burnings, and other innumerable and unspeakable evils, sparing no sex, no age, not even the priests or ministers of God, nor the very ornaments or instruments or buildings of the churches.

[62] And this most ferocious ravaging and devastation by the enemy that Man of God perceived and pondered — both that it had been done and that it was being done — not as other men did: and the Saint's grief at it: but considering these things more loftily and profoundly, and foreseeing in them chiefly either the perils or the deaths of souls, more than usual (since, as it is written, "He that adds knowledge adds sorrow: and an understanding heart is a moth to the bones"*) his tears were bread to him day and night, and he led and endured a life most bitter and mournful beyond the rest, and now almost the last of his old age.

[63] For that Man of God saw cities destroyed by ruin, the most wretched condition of Africa: and along with the buildings the inhabitants of the farms, some slain by the enemy's sword, others put to flight and scattered; churches destitute of priests and ministers, and holy virgins and all continents scattered everywhere; and among these some to have failed under torments, others to have been slain by the sword, others in captivity, the integrity of mind and body and of faith being lost, to serve the enemy in an evil and hard manner; hymns and praises of God to have perished from the churches, the buildings of the churches in very many places burned up with fires, the solemn rites which are owed to God to have ceased from their proper places, the divine sacrifices and sacraments either not to be sought, or, if sought, one who might administer them not easily to be found; those fleeing into the very forests of the mountains and the caverns of the rocks and the caves, or to any strongholds, some to have been stormed and slain , others so stripped and deprived of the necessary supports that they wasted away with hunger; and the very overseers of the churches and the clerics who perchance by God's benefit had either not fallen in with them or, falling in with them, had escaped, despoiled and stripped of all things, most needy, to beg; nor could help be given to them all for all the things by which they should be sustained: scarcely three churches surviving out of innumerable ones, that is, that of Carthage, that of Hippo, and that of Cirta, which by God's benefit were not destroyed, and their cities remain, upheld both by divine and human protection; although after his death the city of Hippo, being destitute of inhabitants, was burned by the enemy. And amid these evils he consoled himself with the saying of a certain wise man, who said: "He will not be great who thinks it a great ^c thing that wood and stones fall, and that mortals die."

[64] the siege of Hippo: All these things therefore he, being deeply wise, daily bewailed abundantly. And it was added to his mournings and lamentations that, while it still stood in its own state, that same city of Hippo Regius was come against by those same enemies to be besieged: since at that time there had been placed for its defense a certain count ^d, Boniface, with an army of Goths formerly in alliance; which city, being shut in, they besieged for nearly fourteen months: for they took away from it also the shore of the sea by cutting it off. Whither we too had fled from the neighborhood with others of our fellow bishops, and in it we were during all the time of that siege. Whence we very often conversed together, and considered the terrible judgments of God set before our eyes, saying: "Thou art just, O Lord, and thy judgment is right." And, grieving and groaning and weeping alike, we prayed the Father of mercies and God of all consolation that he would deign to relieve us in that same tribulation.

[65] what the Saint then prayed of God, And it happened that, as we were set with him at table and were conversing thence, he said: Know that in this time of our calamity I am asking this of God: either that he would deign to free this city surrounded by enemies,

or, if it seem otherwise to him, that he would make his servants strong to bear his will; or at least that he would receive me out of this world to himself. Which he saying, and instructing us, thereafter both we and all our people, and those who were in that same city, together with him likewise asked of the most high God.

[66] and obtained it: certain miracles wrought by him: And behold, in the third month of that siege he took to his bed, wearied with fevers, and was exercised with that last sickness. Nor indeed did the Lord defraud his Servant of the fruit of his prayer. For both for himself and for that same city he obtained in time ^e what he had demanded with tearful prayers. I know also that the same man, both as priest and as bishop, was asked to pray for certain persons suffering as demoniacs, and that, pouring forth tears in prayer, he besought God, and the demons departed from the men. And likewise that a certain man came with his sick companion to one who was ailing and keeping his bed, and asked that he would lay his hand upon him, that he might be able to be well: and that he answered that, if he had any power in these matters, he would assuredly have bestowed it first upon himself: and that the man said that he had been visited, and that it had been said to him in a dream: Go to Augustine the bishop, that he may lay his hand upon him, and he shall be whole. Which when he had learned, he did not delay to do it, and the Lord straightway made that sick man depart from him whole.

[67] what he answered to bishops asking whether it were lawful to flee: Meanwhile it must by no means be passed over in silence that, when the aforesaid enemies were pressing on, the holy Man was also consulted by letters by our fellow bishop Honoratus ^g of the church of Thiave ^f, whether, at their coming, bishops or clerics ought to withdraw from the churches or not: and that he made known in his reply what was rather to be feared from those overthrowers of Romania ^h. Which letter of his I have wished to insert in this writing: for it is exceedingly useful and necessary for the manners of God's priests and ministers. In this manner was the reply written to him by him ⁱ …

[68] Indeed that Saint, in his long life divinely granted for the profit and felicity of the holy Catholic Church, lived ^k seventy-six ^l years, the Saint's piety in his sickness: and in the clerical state or the episcopate nearly forty years ^m. And he had been wont to say to us in familiar conversations that, after baptism has been received, even praised Christians and priests ought not to depart from the body without a worthy and fitting penance. Which he himself also did in the last sickness of which he died: for he had ordered the Psalms of David which are the very few concerning penitence to be written out for him; and, lying in his bed, he looked upon those very sheets set against the wall in the days of his infirmity, and read them, and continually and abundantly wept: and, lest his attention should be hindered by anyone, about ten days before he departed from the body he asked us who were present that no one should come in to him except only at those hours in which the physicians came in to examine him, or when refreshment was brought him. And so it was observed and done: and all that time he was at leisure for prayer.

[69] The word of God, up to that his last sickness, he preached in the church without intermission, briskly and strongly, with sound mind and sound counsel. his holy death and burial: Sound in all the members of his body, with sight and hearing entire, and, as it is written, with us standing by and looking on and praying together with him, he fell asleep * with his fathers, having been nourished in a good old age; and in our presence the sacrifice was offered to God for the commending of the laying down of his body, and he was buried ⁿ. He made no will, because, being God's Poor Man, he had not whereof to make one.

[70] The library of the church and all the codices he always bade be diligently kept for those who came after. what he left them: his library and other things: But if the church had anything, whether in means or in ornaments, he left it to the good faith of the priest who under him bore the care of the church's house. Nor did he treat his own kinsmen, whether living in the religious resolve or outside it, in his life or at his death after the manner of the common sort: to whom, while he still survived, he gave, if there was need, what he gave to the rest also, not that they might have riches, but that they might either not be in want, or be less so. He left to the church a most sufficient clergy, and monasteries of men and of continent women full, with their overseers, together with libraries containing books and treatises either his own or of other holy men, in which by the gift of God it is known what and how great he was in the Church, and in these he is found by the faithful ever to live. According to which also a certain one of the secular poets, bidding his people place a tomb for him when dead upon a public highway, composed as an inscription *, saying:

Wouldst thou know, traveler, that the poet lives after his death? What thou readest, lo, I speak; thy voice indeed is mine.

[71] And in his writings indeed that Priest, acceptable and dear to God, how much his writings and words and examples profited: is shown, so far as it is granted to see by the shining of truth, to have lived rightly and soundly in the faith, hope, and charity of the Catholic Church: which ^o they recognize who profit by reading him writing of divine things. But I judge that more profit could be had from him by those who were able both to hear him speaking in the church in their presence and to see him, and who were especially not ignorant of his conversation among men. For he was not only a learned scribe in the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth out of his treasure things new and old, and one of the merchants who, having found the precious pearl, bought it by selling what he had; but also of those to whom it is written: "So speak, and so do"; and of whom the Savior says: "He that shall do and teach men so, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

[72] the epilogue of the author, who lived forty years with the Saint. But I earnestly beg your charity, you who read these writings, that with me you give thanks to Almighty God and bless the Lord, who granted me understanding, that I should both wish and be able to bring these things to the knowledge of men present and absent, of the present time and of the future; and that you pray with me and for me, that of that Man with whom by God's gift I lived familiarly and sweetly for nearly forty years without any bitter dissension, I may both in this world be an emulator and imitator, and in the world to come enjoy with him the promises of Almighty God. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

elsewhere intelligeret or saperet*

elsewhere volentibus*

Ms. sicut*

Ms. ipsis silvis*, etc.

elsewhere interceptos*

elsewhere, wrongly, regionum*

Ms. tribus*

Catholicæ* is omitted in the Ms.

Ms. intrabant*

the Louvain edition adds in pace*

elsewhere fideli presbytero*

Benedictine continentibus*

elsewhere pro epigrammate*

PREFATORY NOTE

On the Index of Possidius.

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, AT HIPPO REGIUS IN AFRICA

Since after the books of the Retractations we have no fitter aid for separating the true and genuine writings of Augustine from the spurious and supposititious than the Index of Possidius his disciple,

concerning whom there can scarcely be any suspicion either of having inserted into his Index anything which was not the Saint's, or of having passed over many Works of any moment; I have resolved not only to publish this Index, as has been done hitherto, but also diligently to illustrate it. Wherefore I shall compare the Plantin edition of the Louvain editors and the Paris edition of the Benedictines — sought out for this cause, since it was wanting to us — with our manuscript codex. But since I observe that this codex agrees more with the Paris edition than with the Plantin or Antwerp one, it pleases me to reprint the Paris, and to note where either the edition of the Louvain editors or our codex differs. Besides, I shall assign in which volumes of each praised edition the several Works were printed, where that is established; but I shall inquire concerning those which are doubtful, and shall indicate those which are lost — certainly so far as I shall be able to attain by diligent investigation.

AN INDEX OF ALL THE WRITINGS

By the author St. Possidius, bishop of Calama

From the latest Paris edition, collated with the Antwerp edition and our manuscript codex.

ON ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, AT HIPPO REGIUS IN AFRICA

BHL Number: 0786

By St. Possidius.

CHAPTER I.

Against the Pagans.

On the Academics ^b, three books.

On Order ^c, two books.

On the Usefulness of Believing ^d, one book.

On True Religion ^e, one book.

On the Immortality of the Soul ^f, one book.

The question, Whether the soul ^g is from itself.

Another question, Whether from God as author ^h man is made worse.

Likewise another question, Whether truth can be perceived by the bodily * ⁱ senses.

Likewise another question, Why Christ was born of a woman.

Likewise another question, On the Son of God.

Likewise another question, On God and the creature.

Likewise another question, On the Father and the Son.

Likewise another question, On Providence.

Likewise another question, Why God willed to make the world.

Likewise another question, Whether anything is above or below in the universe.

Likewise another question, Whether one man understands any thing more than another; and thus whether the understanding of the same thing goes on through the infinite *.

Likewise another question, How the Wisdom of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, was both in his mother's womb and in the heavens.

Likewise another question, Why our Lord Jesus Christ came so long afterwards.

Likewise another question, On things credible.

On the Agreement ^k of the Evangelists, four books.

Six questions set forth against Porphyry ^l, that is: On the Resurrection. On the Time of the Christian religion. On the distinction of Sacrifices. On that which the Lord says, In what measure you shall have measured, it shall be measured back to you. On the Son of God according to Solomon. On the prophet Jonah.

On the Divination ^m of Demons, one book.

On the City of God ⁿ, twenty-two books.

Letters against those above.

2. To Maximus ^o of Madaura.

To the brethren [p] of Carthage.

To the people of Madaura [q].

To Dioscorus.

To Volusianus [r].

To Marcellinus [s].

To Macedonius [t], on the Intercessions of bishops.

Likewise to the same, on the True virtues.

To Longinianus [u], two.

Treatises against those above.

3. An Exhortation [x] to faith.

On the Fear of God [y].

On the Parentalia [z].

On an Eclipse of the sun.

On the Epiphany [aa], two.

Likewise on the Epiphany, against [bb] those above, two.

On the Kalends of January, against those above, two [cc].

On the Resurrection [dd], two treatises.

On the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, where the Epicurean and Stoic [ee] philosophers conferred with the apostle Paul, on the Testimonies [ff] of the Scriptures, against the Donatists and idols.

Against the Mathematicians.

4. A question [gg] against those above.

A letter [hh] to Lampadius.

Against the Jews.

5. A question [ii] on the Jews.

Likewise another question, on the Forty-six [kk] years of the temple's building.

A letter to Asellicus [ll] the bishop, on avoiding Judaism.

Against those above, two treatises [mm].

ANNOTATA.

p. In our Ms. is read: To the brethren of Teastagina. But among the letters of St. Augustine I find none marked with a like inscription: I suspect therefore that it has fallen out, to whomsoever at last it may have been written.

q. This is in the earlier edition 42, and in the later 232; but the following, 56 and 118.

r. There are extant to Volusianus two letters of the Saint: nor can there be any doubt that each is his, since Volusianus in his letter 2 to Augustine, elsewhere 137, makes clear mention of the former, and Augustine in the latter answers Volusianus's whole letter. Now the former, and that a very short one, is in the Louvain editors 1, now 132; the other, 2 and 135. And so either Possidius omitted one of these, or the word duæ has fallen out of his Index.

s. There are likewise two extant to Marcellinus, in which answer is made to the objections of the gentiles, namely 5 or 138, and 7 or 143. Each is most certainly Augustine's, as will be clear to one who reads them through. There are extant also two other letters of Augustine to Marcellinus concerning the Donatists, which he passed over.

t. The former to Macedonius is 54 or 153, the other 52 or 155. Further, in the letters to Macedonius and above to Dioscorus the Saint does not deal professedly against the Pagans; but various tenets of the gentile philosophers are rejected in them. Which could be the reason why Possidius placed those letters in this place, although Dioscorus and Macedonius were Catholics.

u. The former to Longinianus is 20 or 233, the other 22 or 235. I wonder that among these letters there are not recounted two to Nectarius of Calama, a Pagan, namely 202 or now 91, and 254 now 104, since in these the Saint vehemently assails the rites of the gentiles. Yet those letters will follow among the rest.

x. Some sermon is probably indicated: but it is not certain which it is; but there could be designated sermon 27 On the Words of the Apostle, which is 43 in the Benedictines, on these words: Unless you believe, you shall not understand.

y. It is sermon 214 On the Season in the Louvain editors, in the new edition sermon 348: for in it he disputes against the Pagans, and it has the same title.

z. This one, as also the following, I am unable to assign.

aa. There are extant many sermons of Augustine on the Epiphany. But he disputes in some fashion against the Pagans in the thirty-fourth On the Season, which in the new edition is 199, and in the sixty-seventh On Divers Matters, which is now 374. These therefore are perhaps designated.

bb. In the edition of the Louvain editors there is only contra quos supra, duo. And in our codex these two lines are set forth thus: De Epiphania contra quos supra. Item de Epiphania, duo. Hence it seems ambiguous whether he means four treatises or sermons on the Epiphany, or only two in which the Pagans are assailed.

cc. Duo is omitted in the Louvain editors and in our codex. Further, the Benedictines here assign Sermon 197 and 198 of their edition. Each is On the Kalends of January; in each there is a dealing against the gentiles. But of the former they exhibit only fragments: the other is the seventh from the Sirmondian collection. Each is wanting in the edition of the Louvain editors.

dd. On the Resurrection of bodies against the gentiles is the title of Sermons 139, 143, and 147 On the Season, which in the Benedictines are 240, 241, and 242. But also the sermons On Divers Matters 120 and 121, which in the Benedictines are 361 and 362, have the title On the Resurrection of the dead, and in them too there is discussion against the Pagans. Either therefore two of the three preceding, or rather these two latter, are designated, as the Benedictines also observe.

ee. By these words there is clearly indicated the treatise on the Epicureans and Stoics, which is had in the Louvain editors, volume 6, and in the Benedictines is Sermon 150. Erasmus indeed said of this treatise: Not altogether bad, but having nothing or very little of Augustine. But this censure the Louvain editors and the Benedictines reject. Hear the latter: We judge on the contrary, that it is altogether a good sermon, and has nothing but what is Augustine's. Indeed I do not see what in this whole sermon departs from the diction or the mind of Augustine, and I most certainly judge it to be his.

ff. These in the Louvain editors are joined to the preceding, as though it were one treatise. But in our codex they are most clearly separated from them, as in the edition of the Benedictines. Nevertheless it is obscure what treatise is indicated.

gg. This is question 45 in the book of 83 Questions.

hh. This letter is in the Louvain editors 243, in the Benedictines 246.

ii. Here the Benedictines observe thus: Here perhaps the author of the Index has slipped. For in the book of the Eighty-three questions there is extant a certain question ON IDEAS, which alone is passed over in this Index; but there is none on the Jews. Nay, perhaps it is an error of the copyists, since Possidius has recounted all the other Questions of that book. But the question On Ideas is the 46th.

kk. It is in the same place the 56th.

ll. The letter is formerly 200, now 196.

mm. Bernard Vinding in the Augustinian Critic, page 69, thinks that there are here designated sermons 234 and 235 On the Season, which in the Benedictines are 91 and 92. But that does not seem probable, since few things are discussed in them against the Jews, and 91 is mentioned at chapter 8. The Louvain editors, volume 6 of the Works, page 23, gave this judgment concerning the two treatises published in the same place: Some think that to this Discourse and to the following Oration there pertains what Possidius has in chapter 1 of the Index: "Against those above" (namely the Jews), "two treatises." Now the title of the former treatise in them is: A discourse to the catechumens, against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians. But that of the latter is this: An oration against the Jews. Concerning this latter Oration the Benedictines agree, who published it in volume 8 under the title A treatise against the Jews: nor does it seem doubtful that this treatise is the one designated by Possidius. But another is the opinion of others concerning the Discourse to the Catechumens, which the Benedictines contend, with Vinding, is not even a genuine offspring of Augustine, and which they relegated to the appendix of volume 8.

in the Ms. corporis*

elsewhere per infinita or infinitam intelligentiam*

CHAPTER II.

Against the Manichees.

On the Manners ^a of the Catholic Church, and on their manners, two books.

On the Two Souls ^b, one book.

Whence is evil ^c, and on free choice, three books.

The Proceedings against Fortunatus ^d the Manichee, one book.

On Genesis, against ^e the Manichees, two books.

Against the letter ^f of the Foundation, one book.

Against the calumnies of Adimantus, divers questions, twenty-eight ^g in number.

The question * on Free choice ^h.

Likewise the question on Evil.

Likewise another question, Whether body is from God.

Likewise another question, That the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was not a phantasm.

Likewise the question, Whether God is not the author of evil.

Likewise the question, That God does not suffer necessity.

Likewise the question, Whether both sin and right action lie in the free choice of the will; that it is so is altogether most true.

Likewise the question, On the Cross of Christ.

Likewise the question, Since the nature of souls is one, whence come the diverse wills of men?

Likewise the question, Why did the Son of God appear in a man, and the Holy Spirit in a dove?

Likewise the question, Why did the sons of Israel sacrifice visibly with victims of cattle.

Likewise another question, On man made to the image and likeness of God.

Likewise another question, On that which was said, It repents me that I have made man.

Likewise the question, On the gold and silver which the Israelites received from the Egyptians.

Likewise the question on that which is written, There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and young maidens of whom there is no number.

Likewise the question on that which is written, And in habit found as a man.

Against the letter of Secundinus the Manichee, one book ⁱ.

The Proceedings had with Felix the Manichee, two books.

On the Nature of good, one book.

Against Faustus the Manichee, divers questions, thirty-three books.

A letter to Honoratus.

Treatises against those mentioned.

7. On In the beginning ^k God made heaven and earth; and, In the beginning was the Word.

From that which is written in the prophet Haggai, Mine is the gold ^l, and mine is the silver.

Against those above, a Question on ^m spiritual sacrifices.

Against those above, on the day of the Lord according to the prophet Zephaniah.

Against those above, from that which is written in Job, The angels came ⁿ in the sight of God, and the devil in the midst of them; and from the Gospel, Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

Against the Priscillianists.

8. To Orosius ^o, one book.

To Optatus [p] the bishop, on the soul, two letters.

ANNOTATA.

p. One of these letters is 157 in the Louvain editors, elsewhere 190. The other lies hidden.

Louvain Quæstiones*

CHAPTER III.

Against the Donatists.

An Abecedarian Psalm ^a.

Against the letter of Donatus ^b the heretic*, one book.

Against those written above ^c, two books *.

Against the letter of Parmenianus ^d the bishop, three books.

On Baptism, against ^e those written above, seven books.

Against part of the letter of Petilianus, one book.

Likewise against the same letter entire, one book.

Against the second letter of the same, one book.

Against the letter of Vincentius ^f the Donatist and Rogatist, one book.

Against that from which this piece of discourse ^g was secretly taken by those written above, one book.

Against the letter ^h of Cresconius the grammarian, four books.

Against what Centurius ⁱ brought forward from those written above, one book.

On the one baptism, against ^k Petilianus, to Constantine, one book.

On the Maximianists, against those written above, three books ^l.

Abridgments ^m of the proceedings of the conference held against those Donatists written above, three books.

After the conference, against those Donatists written above, one book.

On the Correction ⁿ of the Donatists, one book.