my holy Paulinus, let not those things which are less competent to discriminate to be comTruth has spoken by my weak instrumentality, mending not God's goodness bestowed on men, so carry you away as to prevent your carefully but his own merits; and that thus you, who observing what I myself have spoken, lest, while know what construction to put on such stateyou drink in with eagerness the things good and ments, would, through his regard for the infirmity true which have been given to me as a servant, of others, be deprived of that which to you as a you should forget to pray for the pardon of my brother ought to be imparted. This I would errors and mistakes. For in all that shall, if have done already, and you would already be observed, justly displease you, I myself am seen; reading my description of him, had not my but in all which in my books is justly approved brother suddenly resolved to set out earlier than by you, through the gift of the Holy Spirit be- we expected. For him I bespeak a welcome stowed on you, He is to be loved, He is to be from your heart and from your lips as kindly as praised, with whom is the fountain of life, and in if your acquaintance with him was not beginning whose light we shall see light,' not darkly as we now, but of as long standing as my own. For do here, but face to face. When, in reading if he does not shrink from laying himself open over my writings, I discover in them anything to your heart, he will be in great measure, if not which is due to the working of the old leaven in completely, healed by your lips; for I desire me, I blame myself for it with true sorrow; but him to be often made to hear the words of those if anything which I have spoken is, by God's who cherish for their friends a higher love than gift, from the unleavened bread of sincerity and that which is of this world. truth, I rejoice therein with trembling. For 6. Even if Romanianus had not been going to what have we that we have not received? Yet visit your Charity, I had resolved to recommend it may be said, his portion is better whom God to you by letter his son [Licentius], dear to me has endowed with larger and more numerous as my own (whose name you will find also in gifts, than his on whom smaller and fewer have some of my books), in order that he may be been conferred. True; but, on the other hand, encouraged, exhorted, and instructed, not so it is better to have a small gift, and to render to much by the sound of your voice, as by the Him due thanks for it, than, having a large gift, example of your spiritual strength. I desire to wish to claim the merit of it as our own. earnestly, that while his life is yet in the green Pray for me, my brother, that I may make such blade, the tares may be turned into wheat, and acknowledgments sincerely, and that my heart he may believe those who know by experience may not be at variance with my tongue. Pray, the dangers to which he is eager to expose himI beseech you, that, not coveting praise to myself, but rendering praise to the Lord, I may worship Him; and I shall be safe from mine enemies. 5. There is yet another thing which may move you to love more warmly the brother who bears my letter; for he is a kinsman of the venerable and truly blessed bishop Alypius, whom you love with your whole heart, and justly for whoever thinks highly of that man, thinks highly of the great mercy and wonderful gifts which God has bestowed on him. Accordingly, when he had read your request, desiring him to write for you a sketch of his history, and, while willing to do it because of your kindness, was yet unwilling to do it because of his humility, I, seeing him unable to decide between the respective claims of love and humility, transferred the burden from his shoulders to my own, for he enjoined me by letter to do so. I shall therefore, with God's help, soon place in your heart Alypius just as he is: for this I chiefly feared, that he would be afraid to declare all that God has conferred on him, lest (since what he writes would be read by others besides you) he should seem to any who 1 Ps. xxxvi. 10. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 12. self. From the poem of my young friend, and my letter to him, your most benevolent and considerate wisdom may perceive my grief, fear, and care on his account. I am not without hope that, by the Lord's favour, I may through your means be set free from such disquietude regarding him. As you are now about to read much that I have written, your love will be much more gratefully esteemed by me, if, moved by compassion, and judging impartially, you correct and reprove whatever displeases you. For you are not one whose oil anointing my head would make me afraid.3 The brethren, not those only who dwell with us, and those who, dwelling elsewhere, serve God in the same way as we do, but almost all who are in Christ our warm friends, send you salutations, along with the expression of their veneration and affectionate longing for you as a brother, as a saint, and as a man.4 I dare not ask; but if you have any leisure from ecclesiastical duties, you may see for what favour all Africa, with myself, is thirsting. 3 The reference is to Ps. cxli. 5, the words of which, translated from the LXX. version, are given in full in the succeeding letter. 4 This may approximate to a translation of the three titles in the original, "Germanitas, Beatitudo, Humanitas tua." CHAP. I. — 1. Never was the face of any one more familiar to another, than the peaceful, happy, and truly noble diligence of your studies in the Lord has become to me. For although I long greatly to be acquainted with you, I feel that already my knowledge of you is deficient in respect of nothing but a very small part of you, - namely, your personal appearance; and even as to this, I cannot deny that since my most blessed brother Alypius (now invested with the office of bishop, of which he was then truly worthy) has seen you, and has on his return been seen by me, it has been almost completely imprinted on my mind by his report of you; nay, I may say that before his return, when he saw you there, I was seeing you myself with his eyes. For any one who knows us may say of him and me, that in body only, and not in mind, we are two, so great is the union of heart, so firm the intimate friendship subsisting between us; though in merit we are not alike, for his is far above mine. Seeing, therefore, that you love me, both of old through the communion of spirit by which we are knit to each other, and more recently through what you know of me from the mouth of my friend, I feel that it is not presumptuous in me (as it would be in one wholly unknown to you) to recommend to your brotherly esteem the brother Profuturus, in whom we trust that the happy omen of his name (Good-speed) may be fulfilled through our efforts furthered after this by your aid; although, perhaps, it may be presumptuous on this ground, that he is so great a man, that it would be much more fitting that I should be commended to you by him, than he by me. I ought perhaps to write no more, if I were willing to content myself with the style of a formal letter of introduction; but my mind overflows into conference with you, concerning the studies with which we are occupied in Christ Jesus our Lord, who is pleased to furnish us largely through your love with many benefits, and some helps by the way, in the path which He has pointed out to His followers. CHAP. II. -2. We therefore, and with us all that are devoted to study in the African churches, beseech you not to refuse to devote care and labour to the translation of the books of those who have written in the Greek language most able commentaries on our Scriptures. You may thus put us also in possession of these men, and especially of that one whose name you seem to have singular pleasure in sounding forth in your writings [Origen]. But I beseech you not to devote your labour to the work of translating into Latin the sacred canonical books, unless you follow the method in which you have translated Job, viz. with the addition of notes, to let it be seen plainly what differences there are between this version of yours and that of the LXX., whose authority is worthy of highest esteem. For my own part, I cannot sufficiently express my wonder that anything should at this date be found in the Hebrew MSS. which escaped so many translators perfectly acquainted with the language. I say nothing of the LXX., regarding whose harmony in mind and spirit, surpassing that which is found in even one man, I dare not in any way pronounce a decided opinion, except that in my judgment, beyond question, very high authority must in this work of translation be conceded to them. I am more perplexed by those translators who, though enjoying the advantage of labouring after the LXX. had completed their work, and although well acquainted, as it is reported, with the force of Hebrew words and phrases, and with Hebrew syntax, have not only failed to agree among themselves, but have left many things which, even after so long a time, still remain to be discovered and brought to light. Now these things were either obscure or plain: if they were obscure, it is believed that you are as likely to have been mistaken as the others; if they were plain, it is not believed that they [the LXX.] could possibly have been mistaken. Having stated the grounds of my perplexity, I appeal to your kindness to give me an answer regarding this matter. CHAP. III. 3. I have been reading also some writings, ascribed to you, on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. In reading your exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, that passage came to my hand in which the Apostle Peter is called back from a course of dangerous dissimulation. [The letters to Jerome, and Jerome's replies, are among the To find there the defence of falsehood undermost interesting and important in this correspondence, especially taken, whether by you, a man of such weight, or those parts which relate to Jerome's revision of the Latin version of the Bible, and his interpretation of Gal. ii. 11-14. See Letters 40, by any author (if it is the writing of another), 71, 72, 73, 75, 81, 82, 172, 195, 202. Augustin was inferior to Jerome causes me, I must confess, great sorrow, until at in learning, especially as a linguist, but superior in Christian' temper and humility. Jerome's false interpretation of the dispute between least those things which decide my opinion in Paul and Peter at Antioch, which involved both apostles in hypocrisy, the matter are refuted, if indeed they admit of offended Augustin's keener sense of veracity. He here protests against it in this letter (ch. iii.), and again in Letter 40, and thereby refutation. For it seems to me that most disprovokes Jerome's irritable temper. His last letters to Augustin, astrous consequences must follow upon our be however, show sincere esteem and affection.-P. S.] lieving that anything false is found in the sacred books that is to say, that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. It is one question whether it may be at any time the duty of a good man to deceive; but it is another question whether it can have been the duty of a writer of Holy Scripture to deceive nay, it is not another question - it is no question at all. For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty,' there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true. 4 4. For if the Apostle Paul did not speak the truth when, finding fault with the Apostle Peter, he said: "If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" if, indeed, Peter seemed to him to be doing what was right, and if, notwithstanding, he, in order to soothe troublesome opponents, both said and wrote that Peter did what was wrong; if we say thus, what then shall be our answer when perverse men such as he himself prophetically described arise, forbidding marriage,3 if they defend themselves by saying that, in all which the same apostle wrote in confirmation of the lawfulness of marriage, he was, on account of men who, through love for their wives, might become troublesome opponents, declaring what was false,― saying these things, forsooth, not because he believed them, but because their opposition might thus be averted? It is unnecessary to quote many parallel examples. For even things which pertain to the praises of God might be represented as piously intended falsehoods, written in order that love for Him might be enkindled in men who were slow of heart; and thus nowhere in the sacred books shall the authority of pure truth stand sure. Do we not observe the great care with which the same apostle commends the truth to us, when he says: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain: yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ; whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." 5 If any one said to him, "Why are you so shocked by this falsehood, when the thing which you have said, even if it were false, tends very greatly to the glory of God?" would he not, abhorring the madness of such a man, with every word and sign which could express his feelings, open clearly the secret depths of his own heart, protesting that to speak well of a falsehood uttered on behalf of God, was a crime not less, perhaps even greater, than to speak ill of the truth concerning Him? We must therefore be careful to secure, in order to our knowledge of the divine Scriptures, the guidance only of such a man as is imbued with a high reverence for the sacred books, and a profound persuasion of their truth, preventing him from flattering himself in any part of them with the hypothesis of a statement being made not because it was true, but because it was expedient, and making him rather pass by what he does not understand, than set up his own feelings above that truth. For, truly, when he pronounces anything to be untrue, he demands that he be believed in preference, and endeavours to shake our confidence in the authority of the divine Scriptures. 5. For my part, I would devote all the strength which the Lord grants me, to show that every one of those texts which are wont to be quoted in defence of the expediency of falsehood ought to be otherwise understood, in order that everywhere the sure truth of these passages themselves may be consistently maintained. For as statements adduced in evidence must not be false, neither ought they to favour falsehood. This, however, I leave to your own judgment. For if you apply more thorough attention to the passage, perhaps you will see it much more readily than I have done. To this more careful study that piety will move you, by which you discern that the authority of the divine Scriptures becomes unsettled (so that every one may believe what he wishes, and reject what he does not wish) if this be once admitted, that the men by whom these things have been delivered unto us, could in their writings state some things which were not true, from considerations of duty;6 unless, perchance, you propose to furnish us with certain rules by which we may know when a falsehood might or might not become a duty. If this can be done, I beg you to set forth these rules with reasonings which may be neither equivocal nor precarious; and I beseech you by our Lord, in whom Truth was incarnate, not to consider me burdensome or presumptuous in making this request. For a mistake of mine which is in the interest of truth cannot deserve great blame, if indeed it deserves blame at all, when it is possible for you to use truth in the interest of falsehood without doing wrong. CHAP. IV.-6. Of many other things I would wish to discourse with your most ingenuous heart, 6 Aliqua officiose mentiri, and to take counsel with you concerning Chris-theless the thing which the Lord has granted to me tian studies; but this desire could not be satis-is one worthy to be the subject of that epistolary fied within the limits of any letter. I may do intercourse which ministers so much to the comthis more fully by means of the brother bearing fort of us both; it is, moreover, a thing in the this letter, whom I rejoice in sending to share obtaining of which I believe that I have been and profit by your sweet and useful conversation. greatly assisted by your own solicitude regarding Nevertheless, although I do not reckon myself it, seeing that it could not but constrain you to superior in any respect to him, even he may take intercession on our behalf. less from you than I would desire; and he will 2. Therefore let me not fail to relate to your excuse my saying so, for I confess myself to have Charity what has taken place; so that, as you more room for receiving from you than he has. joined us in pouring out prayers for this mercy I see his mind to be already more fully stored, before it was obtained, you may now join us in in which unquestionably he excels me. There- rendering thanks for it after it has been received. fore, when he returns, as I trust he may happily When I was informed after your departure that do by God's blessing, and when I become a some were becoming openly violent, and declarsharer in all with which his heart has been richly ing that they could not submit to the prohibifurnished by you, there will still be a conscious- tion (intimated while you were here) of that ness of void unsatisfied in me, and a longing for feast which they call Lætitia, vainly attempting personal fellowship with you. Hence of the two to disguise their revels under a fair name, it hapI shall be the poorer, and he the richer, then as pened most opportunely for me, by the hidden now. This brother carries with him some of my fore-ordination of the Almighty God, that on the writings, which if you condescend to read, I implore you to review them with candid and brotherly strictness. For the words of Scripture, "The righteous shall correct me in compassion, and reprove me; but the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head," I understand to mean that he is the truer friend who by his censure heals me, than the one who by flattery anoints my head. I find the greatest difficulty in exercising a right judgment when I read over what I have written, being either too cautious or too rash. For I sometimes see my own faults, but I prefer to hear them reproved by those who are better able to judge than I am; lest after I have, perhaps justly, charged myself with error, I begin again to flatter myself, and think that my censure has arisen from an undue mistrust of my own judgment. LETTER XXIX. A LETTER FROM THE PRESBYTER OF THE DISTRICT 1. In the absence of brother Macharius, I have not been able to write anything definite concerning a matter about which I could not feel otherwise than anxious: it is said, however, that he will soon return, and whatever can be with God's help done in the matter shall be done. Although also our brethren, citizens of your town, who were with us, might sufficiently assure you of our solicitude on their behalf when they returned, never 1 Ps. cxli. 5, translated from the Septuagint. 2 Leontius was Bishop of Hippo in the latter part of the second century. He built a church which was called after him, and in which some of the sermons of Augustin were delivered. fourth holy day that chapter of the Gospel fell to be expounded in ordinary course, in which the words occur: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine."3 I discoursed therefore concerning dogs and swine in such a way as to compel those who clamour with obstinate barking against the divine precepts, and who are given up to the abominations of carnal pleasures, to blush for shame ; and followed it up by saying, that they might plainly see how criminal it was to do, under the name of religion, within the walls of the church, that which, if it were practised by them in their own houses, would make it necessary for them to be debarred from that which is holy, and from the privileges which are the pearls of the Church. 3. Although these words were well received, nevertheless, as few had attended the meeting, all had not been done which so great an emergency required. When, however, this discourse was, according to the ability and zeal of each, made known abroad by those who had heard it, it found many opponents. But when the morning of Quadragesima came round, and a great multitude had assembled at the hour of exposition of Scripture, that passage in the Gospel was read in which our Lord said, concerning those the tables of the money-changers which He had sellers who were driven out of the temple, and overthrown, that the house of His Father had been made a den of thieves instead of a house of prayer. After awakening their attention by bringing forward the subject of immoderate indulgence in wine, I myself also read this chapter, much greater anger and vehemence our Lord and added to it an argument to prove with how would cast forth drunken revels, which are every 3 Matt. vii. 6. where disgraceful, from that temple from which are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and He thus drove out merchandise lawful elsewhere, by the Spirit of our God." 4 After reading these, especially when the things sold were those required for the sacrifices appointed in that dispensation; and I asked them whether they regarded a place occupied by men selling what was necessary, or one used by men drinking to excess, as bearing the greater resemblance to a den of thieves. apostle said not, "Have ye not houses of your own in which to be drunken?" - as if it was drunkenness alone which was unlawful in the church; but, "Have ye not houses to eat and not lawful in the church, inasmuch as men have their own houses in which they may be recruited by necessary food: whereas now, by the corruption of the times and the relaxation of morals, we have been brought so low, that, no longer insisting upon sobriety in the houses of men, all that we venture to demand is, that the realm of tolerated excess be restricted to their own homes. I charged them to consider how believers could hear these words, "but ye are washed," if they still tolerated in their own hearts—that is, in God's inner temple—the abominations of such lusts as these against which the kingdom of heaven is shut. Then I went on to that pas sage: "When ye come together into one place, 4. Moreover, as passages of Scripture which this is not to eat the Lord's supper: for in eating, I had prepared were held ready to be put into every one taketh before other his own supper; my hands, I went on to say that the Jewish and one is hungry, and another is drunken. nation, with all its lack of spirituality in religion, What! have ye not houses to eat and to drink never held feasts, even temperate feasts, much in, or despise ye the church of God?"5 After less feasts disgraced by intemperance, in their reading which, I more especially begged them temple, in which at that time the body and to remark that not even innocent and temperate blood of the Lord were not yet offered, and that feasts were permitted in the church: for the in history they are not found to have been excited by wine on any public occasion bearing the name of worship, except when they held a feast before the idol which they had made.' While I said these things I took the manuscript to drink in?"- things lawful in themselves, but from the attendant, and read that whole passage. Reminding them of the words of the apostle, who says, in order to distinguish Christians from the obdurate Jews, that they are his epistle written, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart, I asked further, with the deepest sorrow, how it was that, although Moses the servant of God broke both the tables of stone because of these rulers of Israel, I could not break the hearts of those who, though men of the New Testament dispensation, were desiring in their celebration of saints' days to repeat often the public perpetration of excesses of which the people of the Old Testament economy were | guilty only once, and that in an act of idolatry. 5. Having then given back the manuscript of Exodus, I proceeded to enlarge, so far as my time permitted, on the crime of drunkenness, and took up the writings of the Apostle Paul, and showed among what sins it is classed by him, reading the text, "If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one (ye ought) not even to eat; "3 pathetically reminding them how great is our danger in eating with those who are guilty of intemperance even in their own houses. I read also what is added, a little further on, in the same epistle: "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye 1 Ex. xxxii. 6. 2 2 Cor. iii. 3. 31 Cor. v. II. 6. I reminded them also of a passage in the Gospel which I had expounded the day before, in which it is said of the false prophets: "Ye shall know them by their fruits." I also bade them remember that in that place our works are signified by the word fruits. Then I asked among what kind of fruits drunkenness was named, and read that passage in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murder, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."7 After these words, I asked how, when God has commanded that Christians be known by their fruits, we could be known as Christians by this fruit of drunkenness? I added also, that we must read what follows there: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." And I pled with them to consider how shameful and lamentable it would be, 118 4 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. 1 Cor. xi. 20-22. 6 Matt. vii. 16. 7 Gal. v. 19-21. 8 Gal. v. 22, 23. |