and humble preface: 'Though I desire to com- ready to be corrected, if a true censurer be at ply with your request, I am only affording a clear hand) than yourself, if either knowing him to proof of my presumption." And a little further be in error you despise him with derision, or on he says,' 1 66 Inasmuch as I am, indeed, by no ignorant of his wandering course you at the means confident of being able to prove what I same time closely follow his error. Everything, may have advanced; and moreover I should therefore, which you find in the books that he always be anxious not to insist on any opinion has addressed and forwarded to you, I beg you of my own, if it is found to be an improbable one; and it would be my hearty desire, in case my own judgment is condemned, earnestly to follow better and truer views. For as it shows evidence of the best intention, and a laudable purpose, to permit yourself to be easily led to truer views of a subject; so it betokens an obstinate and depraved mind to refuse to turn quickly aside into the pathway of reason." Now, as he said all this sincerely, and still feels as he spoke, he no doubt entertains a very hopeful feeling about a right issue. In similar strain he concludes his second book: "You must not think," says he, "that there is any chance of its ever recoiling invidiously against you, that I constitute you the judge of my words. And lest by chance the sharp eye of some inquisitive reader may have opportunity of turning up and encountering any possible vestiges of elemental error which may be left behind on my illegal sheets, I beg you to tear up page after page with unsparing hand, if need be; and after expending on me your critical censure, punish me further, by smearing out the very ink which has given form to my worthless words; so that, having your full opportunity, you may prevent all ridicule, on the score either of the favourable opinion you so strongly entertain of me, or of the inaccuracies which lurk in my writings."

CHAP. 23 [XVII.] —WHO THEY ARE THAT ARE NOT

INJURED BY READING INJURIOUS BOOKS. Forasmuch, then, as he has both commenced and terminated his books with such safeguards, and has placed on your shoulders the religious burden of their correction and emendation, I only trust that he may find in you all that he has asked you for, that you may "correct him righteously in mercy, and reprove him; whilst the oil of the sinner which anoints his head "2 is absent from your hands and eyes, even the indecent compliance of the flatterer, and the deceitful leniency of the sycophant. If, however, you decline to apply correction when you see anything to amend, you offend against love; but if he does not appear to you to require correction, because you think him to be right in his opinions, then you are wise against truth. He, therefore, is a better man (since he is only too

I See below in Book iii. 20 (XIV.).

2 Ps. cxli. 5.

to consider with sobriety and vigilance; and you will perhaps make fuller discoveries than I have myself of statements which deserve to be censured. And as for such of their contents as are worthy of praise and approbation, — whatever good you have learnt therein, and by his instruction, which perhaps you were really ignorant of before, tell us plainly what it is, that all may know that it was for this particular benefit that you expressed your obligations to him, and not for the manifold statements in his books which call for their disapproval, — all, I mean, who, like yourself, heard him read his writings, or who afterwards read the same for themselves: lest in his ornate style they may drink poison, as out of a choice goblet, at your instance, though not after your own example, because they know not precisely what it is you have drunk yourself, and what you have left untasted, and because, from your high character, they suppose that whatever is drunk out of this fountain would be for their health. For what else are hearing, and reading, and copiously depositing things in the memory, than several processes of drinking? The Lord, however, foretold concerning His faithful followers, that even "if they should drink any deadly thing, it should not hurt them."3 And thus it happens that they who read with judg ment, and bestow their approbation on whatever is commendable according to the rule of faith, and disapprove of things which ought to be reprobated, even if they commit to their memory statements which are declared to be worthy of disapproval, they receive no harm from the poisonous and depraved nature of the sentences. To myself, through the Lord's mercy, it can never become a matter of the least regret, that, actuated by our previous love, I have given your reverend and religious self advice and warning on these points, in whatever way you may receive the admonition for which I have regarded you as possessing the first claim upon me. Abundant thanks, indeed, shall I give unto Him in whose mercy it is most salutary to put one's trust, if this letter of mine shall either find or else make your faith both free from the depraved and erroneous opinions which I have been able herein to point out from this man's books, and sound in catholic integrity.

3 Mark xvi. 18.

BOOK III.

ADDRESSED TO VINCENTIUS VICTOR.

AUGUSTIN POINTS OUT TO VINCENTIUS VICTOR THE CORRECTIONS WHICH HE OUGHT TO MAKE IN HIS BOOKS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL, IF HE WISHES TO BE A CATHOLIC. THOSE OPINIONS ALSO WHICH HAD BEEN ALREADY REFUTED IN THE PRECEDING BOOKS ADDRESSED TO RENATUS AND PETER, AUGUSTIN BRIEFLY CENSURES IN THIS THIRD BOOK, WHICH IS WRITTEN TO VICTOR HIMSELF: MOREOVER, HE CLASSIFIES THEM UNDER ELEVEN HEADS OF ERROR.

So.

CHAP. I [1.] AUGUSTIN'S PURPOSE IN WRITING.
As to that which I have thought it my duty to
write to you, my much-loved son Victor, I would
have you to entertain this above all other
thoughts in your mind, if I seemed to despise
you, that it was certainly not my intention to do
At the same time I must beg of you not
to abuse our condescension in such a way as to
suppose that you possess my approval merely
because you have not my contempt. For it is
not to follow, but to correct you, that I give you
my love; and since I by no means despair of
the possibility of your amendment, I do not
want you to be surprised at my inability to de-
spise the man who has my love. Now, since it
was my bounden duty to love you before you
had united with us, in order that you might
become a catholic; how much more ought I
now to love you since your union with us, to
prevent your becoming a new heretic, and that
you may become so firm a catholic that no
heretic may be able to withstand you! So far
as appears from the mental endowments which
God has largely bestowed upon you, you would
be undoubtedly a wise man if you only did not
believe that you were one already, and begged
of Him who maketh men wise, with a pious,
humble, and earnest prayer, that you might be-
come one, and preferred not to be led astray
with error rather than to be honoured with the
flattery of those who go astray.

CHAP. 2 [11.]—WHY VICTOR ASSUMED THE NAME
OF VINCENTIUS. THE NAMES OF EVIL MEN
OUGHT NEVER TO BE ASSUMED BY OTHER PER-

SONS.

The first thing which caused me some anxiety about you was the title which appeared in your books with your name; for on inquiring of those

I

who knew you, and were probably your asso-
ciates in opinion, who Vincentius Victor was,
found that you had been a Donatist, or rather
a Rogatist, but had lately come into communion
with the catholic Church. Now, while I was
rejoicing, as one naturally does at the recovery
of those whom he sees rescued from that system
of error,—and in your case my joy was all the
greater because I saw that your ability, which so
much delighted me in your writings, had not
remained behind with the enemies of truth,—
additional information was given me by your
friends which caused me sorrow amid my joy,
to the effect that you wished to have the name
Vincentius prefixed to your own name, inasmuch
as you still held in affectionate regard the suc-
cessor of Rogatus, who bore this name, as a
great and holy man, and that for this reason you
wished his name to become your surname.
Some persons also told me that you had, more-
over, boasted about his having appeared in some
sort of a vision to you, and assisted you in com-
posing those books the subject of which I have
discussed with you in this small work of mine,
and to such an extent as to dictate to you him-
self the precise topics and arguments which you
were to write about. Now, if all this be true, I
no longer wonder at your having been able to
make those statements which, if you will only
lend a patient ear to my admonition, and with
the attention of a catholic duly consider and
weigh those books, you will undoubtedly come
to regret having ever advanced. For he who,
according to the apostle's portrait, "transforms
himself into an angel of light," has transformed
himself before you into a shape which you
believe to have been, or still to be, an angel of
light. In this way, indeed, he is less able to

1 2 Cor. xi. 14.

WHICH HE DESIRES TO HAVE AMENDED IN THE
BOOKS OF VINCENTIUS VICTOR. THE FIRST
ERROR.

deceive catholics when his transformations are of a catholic, they will be regarded as the misnot into angels of light, but into heretics; now, takes of an over-zealous young man, who is however, that you are a catholic, I should be eager rather to amend them than to persevere in sorry for you to be beguiled by him. He will them. But if he shall have by his influence certainly feel torture at your having learnt the prevailed on you to contend for these opinions truth, and so much the more in proportion to with obstinate perseverance, which God forbid, the pleasure he formerly experienced in having it will in such a case be necessary to condemn persuaded you to believe error. With a view, them and their author as heretical, as is rehowever, to your refraining from loving a dead quired by the pastoral and remedial nature of the person, when the love can neither be service- Church's charge, to check the dire contagion able to yourself nor profitable to him, I advise before it quietly spreads through the heedless you to consider for a moment this one point masses, while wholesome correction is neglected, that he is not, of course, a just and holy man, under the name but without the reality of love. since you withdrew yourself from the snares of the Donatists or Rogatists on the score of their CHAP. 3 [III.] — HE ENUMERATES THE ERRORS heresy; but if you do think him to be just and holy, you ruin yourself by holding communion with catholics. You are, indeed, only feigning yourself a catholic if you are in mind the same as he was on whom you bestow your love; and you are aware how terribly the Scripture has spoken on this subject: "The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the man who feigns." If, however, you are sincere in communicating with us, and do not merely pretend to be a catholic, how is it that you still love a dead man to such a degree as to be willing even now to boast of the name of one in whose errors you no longer permit yourself to be held? We really do not like your having such a surname, as if you were the monument of a dead heretic. Nor do we like your book to have such a title as we should say was a false one if we read it on his tomb. For we are sure Vincentius is not Victor, the conqueror, but Victus, the conquered; may it be, however, with fruitful effect, even as we wish you to be conquered by the truth! And yet your thought was an astute and skilful one, when you designated the books, which you wish us to suppose were dictated to you by his inspiration, by the name of Vincentius Victor; as much as to intimate that it was rather he than you who wished to be designated by the victorious appellation, as having been himself the conqueror of error, by revealing to you what were to be the contents of your written treatise. But of what avail is all this to you, my son? Be, I pray you, a true catholic, not a feigned one, lest the Holy Spirit should flee from you, and that Vincentius be unable to profit you at all, into whom the most malignant spirit of error has transformed himself for the purpose of deceiving you; for it is from that one that all these evil opinions have proceeded, notwithstanding the artful fraud which has persuaded you to the contrary. If this admonition shall only induce you to correct these errors with the humility of a God-fearing man and the peaceful submission

I Wisd. i. 5.

If you ask me what the particular errors are, you may read what I have written to our brethren, that servant of God Renatus, and the presbyter Peter, to the latter of whom you yourself thought it necessary to write the very works of which we are now treating, "in obedience,” as you allege, "to his own wish and request." Now, they will, I doubt not, lend you my treatises for your perusal if you should like it, and even press them upon your attention without being asked. But be that as it may, I will not miss this present opportunity of informing you what amendments I desire to have made in these writings of yours, as well as in your belief. The first is, that you will have it that "The soul was not so made by God that He made it out of nothing, but out of His own very self." Here you do not reflect what the necessary conclusion is, that the soul must be of the nature of God; and you know very well, of course, how impious such an opinion is. Now, to avoid such impiety as this, you ought so to say that God is the Author of the soul as that it was made by Him, but not of Him. For whatever is of Him (as, for instance, His only-begotten Son) is of the self-same nature as Himself. But, that the soul might not be of the same nature as its Creator, it was made by Him, but not of Him. Or, then, tell me whence it is, or else confess that it is of nothing. What do you mean by that expression of yours, "That it is a certain particle of an exhalation from the nature of God"? Do you mean to say, then, that the exhalation 3 itself from the nature of God, to which the particle in question belongs, is not of the same nature as God is Himself? If this be your meaning, then God made out of nothing that exhalation of which you will have the soul to be a particle. Or, if not out of nothing, pray tell me of what God made it? If He made it out of Himself, 3 Halitus (breath).

2 See above, Book i. 4 and Book ii. 5.

ollows that He is Himself (what should never jury accruing either way (from either not enteraffirmed) the material of which His own ing or not quitting the body); so this third rk is formed. But you go on to say: "When, vever, He made the exhalation or breath out Himself, He remained at the same time ole and entire;" just as if the light of a idle did not also remain entire when another dle is lighted from it, and yet be of the same ure, and not another.

airy aliment (not being permitted to remain within us, and thus not becoming corrupt by delay, but being expelled as soon as it is introduced) has been furnished, not with different, but with the self-same channels both for its entrance and for its exit, even the mouth, or the nostrils, or both together.

AP. 4 [IV.] —VICTOR'S SIMILE TO SHOW THAT CHAP. 5.

GOD CAN CREATE BY BREATHING WITHOUT IM-
PARTATION OF HIS SUBSTANCE.

EXAMINATION OF VICTOR'S SIMILE: DOES MAN GIVE OUT NOTHING BY BREATHING? Prove now yourself what I say, for your own 'But,” you say, "when we inflate a bag, no satisfaction in your own case; emit breath by tion of our nature or quality is poured into exhalation, and see whether you can continue bag, while the very breath, by the current long without catching back your breath; then which the filled bag is extended, is emitted again catch it back by inhalation, and see what m us without the least diminution of our- discomfort you experience unless you again emit ves." Now, you enlarge and dwell upon it. Now, when we inflate a bag, as you prescribe, se words of yours, and inculcate the simile as we do, in fact, the same thing which we do to cessary for our understanding how it is that maintain life, except that in the case of the d, without any injury to His own nature, artificial experiment our inhalation is somewhat kes the soul out of His own self, and how, stronger, in order that we may emit a stronger en it is thus made out of Himself, it is not breath, so as to fill and distend the bag by comat Himself is. For you ask: "Is this inflation pressing the air we blow into it, rather in the the bag a portion of our own soul? Or do manner of a hard puff than of the gentle process create human beings when we inflate bags? of ordinary breathing and respiration. do we suffer any injury in anything at all ground, then, do you say, "We suffer no injury en we impart our breath by inflation on diverse whenever we transfer breath from ourselves to ngs? But we suffer no injury when we trans- any object, nor do we ever remember experiencing breath from ourselves to anything, nor do we any damage to ourselves from inflating a bag, the er remember experiencing any damage to our- full quality and entire quantity of our own breath ves from inflating a bag, the full quality and remaining in us notwithstanding the process"? tire quantity of our breath remaining in us It is very plain, my son, if ever you have inflated twithstanding the process." Now, however a bag, that you did not carefully observe your gant and applicable this simile seems to you, own performance. For you do not perceive beg you to consider how greatly it misleads what you lose by the act of inflation by reason 1. For you affirm that the incorporeal God of the immediate recovery of your breath. But cathes out a corporeal soul, -not made out you can learn all this with the greatest ease if nothing, but out of Himself, whereas the you would simply prefer doing so to stiffly maineath which we ourselves emit is corporeal, al- taining your own statements for no other reason ough of a more subtle nature than our bodies; than because you have made them not inflating r do we exhale it out of our soul, but out of the bag, but inflated yourself to the full, and inair through internal functions in our bodily flating your hearers (whom you should rather ucture. Our lungs, like a pair of bellows, are edify and instruct by veritable facts) with the ved by the soul (at the command of which also empty prattle of your turgid discourse. In the other members of the body are moved), for present case I do not send you to any other - purpose of inhaling and exhaling the atmos- teacher than your own self. Breathe, then, a eric air. For, besides the aliments, solid or good breath into the bag; shut your mouth ind, which constitute our meat and drink, God stantly, hold tight your nostrils, and in this way s surrounded us with this third aliment of the discover the truth of what I say to you. For nosphere which we breathe; and that with so when you begin to suffer the intolerable inconod effect, that we can live for some time with-venience which accompanies the experiment, I meat and drink, but we could not possibly what is it you wish to recover by opening your osist for a moment without this third aliment, mouth and releasing your nostrils? Surely there ich the air, surrounding us on all sides, supes us with as we breathe and respire. And as meat and drink have to be not only introced into the body, but also to be expelled by ssages formed for the purpose, to prevent in

would be nothing to recover if your supposition be a correct one, that you have lost nothing whenever you breathe. Observe what a plight you would be in, if by inhalation you did not regain what you had parted with by your breath

ing outwards. See, too, what loss and injury could be imagined that anything had been transthe insufflation would produce, were it not for ferred from the prophet to the child to cause his the repair and reaction caused by respiration. revival? But if you meant no more than that For unless the breath which you expend in fill- the prophet breathed and remained entire, where ing the bag should all return by the re-opened was the necessity for your saying that of Elisha, channel to discharge its function of nourishing when raising the dead child, which you might yourself, what, I wonder, would be left remain- with no less propriety say of any one whatever ing to you, I will not say to inflate another when emitting a breath, and reviving no one? bag, but to supply your very means of living?

CHAP. 6.

THE SIMILE REFORMED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH TRUTH.

Then, again, you spoke unadvisedly (though God forbid that you should believe the breath of Elisha to have become the soul of the resuscitated child!) when you intimated your meaning Well, now, you ought to have thought of all to be a desire to keep separate what was first this when you were writing, and not to have done by God from this that was done by the brought God before our eyes in that favourite prophet, in that the One breathed but once, simile of yours, of inflated and inflateable bags, and the other thrice. These are your words: breathing forth souls out of some other nature "Elisha breathed into the face of the deceased which was already in existence, just as we our-child of the Shunammite, after the manner of the selves make our breath from the air which sur- original creation. And when by the prophet's rounds us; or certainly you should not, in a breathing a divine force inspired the dead limbs, manner which is really as diverse from your reanimated to their original vigour, no diminution similitude as it is abundant in impiety, have accrued to Elisha, through whose breathing the represented God as either producing some dead body recovered its revived soul and spirit. changeable thing without injury, indeed, to Him- Only there is this difference, the Lord breathed self, but yet out of His own substance; or what but once into man's face and he lived, while is worse, creating it in such wise as to be Him- Elisha breathed three times into the face of the self the material of His own work. If, however, dead and he lived again." Thus your words we are to employ a similitude drawn from our sound as if the number of the breathings alone breathing which shall suitably illustrate this sub-made all the difference, why we should not ject, the following one is more credible: Just believe that the prophet actually did what God as we, whenever we breathe, make a breath, not out of our own nature, but, because we are not omnipotent, out of that air that surrounds us, which we inhale and discharge whenever we breathe and respire; and the said breath is neither living nor sentient, although we are our selves living and sentient; so God cannot, indeed, out of His own nature, but (as being so omnipotent as to be able to create whatever He wills) even out of that which has no existence at all, that is to say, out of nothing-make a breath that is living and sentient, but evidently mutable, though He be Himself immutable. CHAP. 7 [v.]-VICTOR APPARENTLY GIVES THE

CREATIVE BREATH TO MAN ALSO.

did. This statement, then, requires to be entirely revised. There was so complete a difference between that work of God and this of Elisha, that the former breathed the breath of life whereby man became a living soul, and the latter breathed a breath which was not itself sentient nor endued with life, but was figurative for the sake of some signification. The prophet did not really cause the child to live again by giving him life, but he procured God's doing that by giving him love.2 As to what you allege, that he breathed three times, either your memory, as often happens, or a faulty reading of the text, must have misled you. Why need I enlarge? You ought not to be seeking for examples and arguments to establish your point, but rather to amend and change your opinion. I beg of you neither to believe, nor to say, nor to teach "that God made the human soul not out of nothing, but out of His own substance," if you wish to be a catholic.

But what is the meaning of that, which you have thought proper to add to this simile, with regard to the example of the blessed Elisha because he raised the dead by breathing into his face? Now, do you really suppose that Elisha's breath was made the soul of the child? I could not believe that even you could stray so far away CHAP. 8 [VI.] - VICTOR'S SECOND ERROR. (SEE from the truth. If, now, that soul which was taken from the living child so as to cause his death, was itself afterwards restored to him so as to cause his restoration to life: where, I ask, is the pertinence of your remark when you say "that no diminution accrued to Elisha," as if it

1 2 Kings iv. 34.

ABOVE IN BOOK I. 26 [XVI.].)

Do not, I pray you, believe, say, or teach that "Thus is God ever giving souls through infinite time, just as He who gives is Himself ever

frequent play on words, Non animando, ed amando: "not by 2 In the original we have here another instance of Augustin's ensouling but by loving him," or "not by enlivening but by loving him."