and in the true peace which yields sure and endless joys.' Lord's help, in consideration of your claims on the emperor; and if even you were to ask the gift of the property in your own name, and present it to the church of which I have spoken, who would find fault with your request; nay, rather, who would not commend it, as dictated not by personal covetousness, but by Christian piety? May the mercy of the Lord our God shield you, and make you more and more happy in Christ, my lord and son. LETTER XCVII. GUISHED LORD, AND MY SON WORTHY OF MUCH 1. Although, when we heard recently of your having obtained merited promotion to the highest rank, we felt persuaded, however uncertain we still were in some degree as to the truth of the report, that towards the Church of which we rejoice to know that you are truly a son, there was no other feeling in your mind than that which you have now made patent to us in your letter, nevertheless, having now read that letter in which you have been pleased of your own accord to send to us, when we were full of backwardness and diffidence, a most gracious exhortation to use our humble efforts in pointing out to you how the Lord, by whose gift you are thus powerful, may from time to time, by means of your pious obedience, bring assistance to His Church, we write to you with the more abundant confidence, my excellent and justly distinguished lord, and my son worthy of much honour in Christ. 2. I again commend to your kind consideration the petition of my brother and colleague Boniface, in the hope that what could not be done before may be in your power now. He might perhaps, indeed, legally retain, without any further difficulty, that which his predecessor had acquired, though under another name than his own, and which he had begun to possess in name of the church; but we do not wish, since his predecessor was in debt to the public exchequer, to have this burden upon our conscience. For that act of fraud was none the less truly fraud because perpetrated at the ex- TO OLYMPIUS, MY EXCELLENT AND JUSTLY DISTINpense of the public revenue. The same Paul (the predecessor of Boniface), when he was made bishop, being about to surrender all his effects because of the accumulated burden of arrears due to the public exchequer, having secured payment of a bond by which a certain sum of money was due to him, bought with it, as if for the church, in the name of a family then very powerful, these few fields by the produce of which he might support himself, in order that, in respect to these also, after his old practice, he might escape annoyance at the hands of the collectors of the revenue, although he was paying no tax. Boniface, however, when ordained over the same church, on his death, hesitated to take the fields which he had thus held; and although he might have contented himself with asking from the emperor no more than a remission of the fiscal arrears which his predecessor had incurred on this small property, he preferred to confess without reserve that Paul had bought the property at an auction with money of his own, at a time when he was bankrupt as a debtor to the public revenue, so that now the Church may, 2. Many brethren, indeed, holy men who are if possible, obtain possession of this, not through my colleagues, have, by reason of the troubles the secret fraud of her bishop, but by an open of the church here, gone - I might almost say act of the Christian emperor's liberality. And as fugitives to the emperor's most illustrious if this be impossible, the servants of God prefer court; and these brethren you may have already to bear the hardship of want, rather than obtain seen, or may have received from Rome their the supply of that which they require under re- letters, in connection with their respective occaproaches of conscience for dishonourable dealing. sions of appeal. I have not had it in my power 3. I beg you to condescend to give your sup- to consult them before writing; nevertheless, I port to this petition, because he has resolved was unwilling to miss the opportunity of sending not to bring forward the decision in his favour a letter by the bearer, my brother and fellowwhich was formerly obtained, lest it should preclude him from the liberty of making a second application; for the answer then given fell short of what he desired. And now, since you are of the same kindly disposition that you formerly were, but possessed of greater influence, I do not despair of this being easily granted by the presbyter, who has been compelled, though in mid-winter, to make the best of his way into those parts, under pressing necessity, in order to save the life of a fellow-citizen. I write, therefore, to salute you, and to charge you by the love which you have in Christ Jesus our Lord, to see that your good work be hastened on with the utmost diligence, in order that the enemies 1 This Olympius was appointed in 408 (A.D) to the office of highest of the Church may know that those laws conauthority in the court of Honorius (magister officiorum), in room of Sulicho, who was put to death at Ravenna on account of suspected cerning the demolition of idols and the correccomplicity with the authors of the sedition which threatened the life tion of heretics which were sent into Africa of the emperor at Pavia. while Stilicho yet lived, were framed by the filled with joy by the number and the magnitude desire of our most pious and faithful emperor; of your good offices. for they either cunningly boast, or unwillingly imagine, that this was done without his knowledge, or against his will, and thus they render the minds of the ignorant full of seditious violence, and excite them to dangerous and vehement enmity against us. 3. I do not doubt that, in submitting this in the way of petition or respectful suggestion to the consideration of your Excellency, I act agreeably to the wishes of all my colleagues throughout Africa; and I think that it is your duty to take measures, as could be easily done, on whatever opportunity may first arise, to make it understood by these vain men (whose salvation we seek, although they resist us), that it was to the care, not of Stilicho, but of the son of Theodosius, that those laws which have been sent into Africa for the defence of the Church of Christ owed their promulgation. On account of these things, then, the presbyter whom I have mentioned already, the bearer of this letter, who is from the district of Milevi, was ordered by his bishop, the venerable Severus, who joins me in cordial salutations to you, whose love we esteem most genuine, to pass through Hippo-regius, where I am; because, when we happened to meet together in time of serious tribulation and distress to the Church, we sought an opportunity 4. We rejoice much in the firm and stedfast faith of some, and these not few in number, who by means of these laws have been converted to the Christian religion, or from schism to Catholic peace, for whose eternal welfare we are glad to run the risk of forfeiting temporal welfare. For on this account especially we now have to endure at the hands of men, exceedingly and obdurately perverse, more grievous assaults of enmity, which some of them, along with us, bear most patiently; but we are in very great fear because of their weakness, until they learn, and are enabled by the help of the Lord's most compassionate grace, to despise with more abundant strength of spirit the present world and man's short day. May it please your Highness to deliver the letter of instructions which I have sent to my brethren the bishops when they come, if, as I suppose, they have not yet reached you. For we have such confidence in the unfeigned devotion of your heart, that with the Lord's help we desire to have you not only giving us your assistance, but also participating in our consultations. LETTER XCVIII. (A.D. 408.) of writing to your Highness, but found none. TO BONIFACE, HIS COLLEAGUE IN THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD. dren, how can any advantage come to these children at their baptism, through the faith of them no harm?" To which I reply, that in the parents whose departure from the faith does holy union of the parts of the body of Christ, so great is the virtue of that sacrament, namely, I had indeed already sent one letter in regard to the business of our holy brother and colleague Boniface, bishop of Cataqua; but the heavier calamities destined to cause us greater agitation harm to their baptized infant children, when they 1. You ask me to state "whether parents do had not then befallen us, regarding which, and the means whereby something may be done with sacrifices to the false gods of the heathen." attempt to heal them in time of sickness by the best counsel for their prevention or punish-Also, "if they do thereby no harm to their chilment, according to the method of Christ, the bishops who have sailed hence on that errand will be able more conveniently to confer with you, in whose cordial goodwill towards us we rejoice, inasmuch as they are able to report to you something which has been, so far as limited time permitted, the result of careful and united of baptism, which brings salvation, that so soon consultation. But as to this other matter, namely, as he who owed his first birth to others, acting that the province be made to know how the mind under the impulse of natural instincts, has been of our most gracious and religious emperor stands made partaker of the second birth by others, towards the Church, I recommend, nay, I beg, acting under the impulse of spiritual desires, he beseech, and implore you, to take care that no cannot be thenceforward held under the bond time be lost, but that its accomplishment be of that sin in another to which he does not with hastened, even before you see the bishops who his own will consent. "Both the soul of the have gone from us, so soon as shall be possible father is mine," saith the Lord,“ and the soul of for you, in the exercise of your most eminent the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall vigilance on behalf of the members of Christ die;" but he does not sin on whose behalf his who are now in circumstances of the utmost danger; for the Lord has provided no small consolation for us under these trials, seeing that it has pleased Him to put much more now than formerly in your power, although we were already parents or any other one resort, without his then deities. That bond of guilt which was to be knowledge, to the impiety of worshipping hea 1 Ezek. xviii. 4. cancelled by the grace of this sacrament he derived from Adam, for this reason, that at the time of Adam's sin he was not yet a soul having a separate life, i.e. another soul regarding which it could be said, "both the soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine." Therefore now, when the man has a personal, separate existence, being thereby made distinct from his parents, he is not held responsible for that sin in another which is performed without his consent. In the former case, he derived guilt from another, because, at the time when the guilt which he has derived was incurred, he was one with the person from whom he dervived it, and was in him. But one man does not derive guilt from another, when, through the fact that each has a separate life belonging to himself, the word may apply equally to both "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." in a case in which one of the two sins, and the other does not sin. Therefore a child, having once received natural birth through his parents, can be made partaker of the second (or spiritual) birth by the Spirit of God, so that the bond of guilt which he inherited from his parents is cancelled; but he that has once received this second birth by the Spirit of God cannot be made again partaker of natural birth through his parents, so that the bond once cancelled should again bind him. And thus, when the grace of Christ has been once received, the child does not lose it otherwise than by his own impiety, if, when he becomes older, he turn out so ill. For by that time he will begin to have sins of his own, which cannot be removed by regeneration, but must be healed by other remedial measures. 66 3. Nevertheless, persons of more advanced 2. But the possibility of regeneration through years, whether they be parents bringing their the office rendered by the will of another, when children, or others bringing any little ones, who the child is presented to receive the sacred rite, attempt to place those who have been baptized is the work exclusively of the Spirit by whom under obligation to profane worship of heathen. the child thus presented is regenerated. For it gods, are guilty of spiritual homicide. True, is not written, "Except a man be born again by they do not actually kill the children's souls, but the will of his parents, or by the faith of those they go as far towards killing them as is in their presenting the child, or of those administering power. The warning, “Do not kill your little the ordinance," but, "Except a man be born ones," may be with all propriety addressed to again of water and of the Spirit." By the them; for the apostle says, Quench not the water, therefore, which holds forth the sacra- Spirit; "2 not that He can be quenched, but ment of grace in its outward form, and by the that those who so act as if they wished to have Spirit who bestows the benefit of grace in its Him quenched are deservedly spoken of as inward power, cancelling the bond of guilt, and quenchers of the Spirit. In this sense also may restoring natural goodness [reconcilians bonum be rightly understood the words which most nature], the man deriving his first birth origi- blessed Cyprian wrote in his letter concerning nally from Adam alone, is regenerated in Christ the lapsed, when, rebuking those who in the alone. Now the regenerating Spirit is possessed time of persecution had sacrificed to idols, he in common both by the parents who present the says, "And that nothing might be wanting to child, and by the infant that is presented and is fill up the measure of their crime, their infant born again; wherefore, in virtue of this partici- children, carried in arms, or led thither by the pation in the same Spirit, the will of those who hands of their parents, lost, while yet in their present the infant is useful to the child. But infancy, that which they had received as soon as when the parents sin against the child by pre-life began."3 They lost it, he meant, so far at senting him to the false gods of the heathen, least as pertained to the guilt of the crime of and attempting to bring him under impious those by whom they were compelled to incur bonds unto these false gods, there is not such the loss: they lost it, that is to say, in the purcommunity of souls subsisting between the par- pose and wish of those who perpetrated on them ents and the child, that the guilt of one party such a wrong. For had they actually in their can be common to both alike. For we are not own persons lost it, they must have remained made partakers of guilt along with others through under the divine sentence of condemnation their will, in the same way as we are made par- without any plea; but if holy Cyprian had been takers of grace along with others through the of this opinion, he would not have added in the unity of the Holy Spirit; because the one Holy immediate context a plea in their defence, saySpirit can be in two different persons without their ing, "Shall not these say, when the judgmentknowing in respect to each other that by Him day has come: 'We have done nothing; we grace is the common possession of both, but have not of our own accord hastened to particithe human spirit cannot so belong to two indi-pate in profane rites, forsaking the bread and viduals as to make the blame common to both 1 John iii. 5. 21 Thess. v. 19. 3 Cyprian, de Lapsis. See Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. V. p. 439. the cup of the Lord; the apostasy of others a wholly distinct individual, having a body and a caused our destruction; we found our parents soul of his own, "the soul that sinneth, it shall murderers, for they deprived us of our Mother die." the Church and of our Father the Lord, so that, through the wrong done by others, we were ensnared, because, while yet young and unable to think for ourselves, we were by the deed of others, and while wholly ignorant of such a crime, made partners in their sin'?" This plea in their defence he would not have subjoined had he not believed it to be perfectly just, and one which would be of service to these infants at the bar of divine judgment. For if it is said by them with truth, "We have done nothing," then "the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" and in the just dispensation of judgment by God, those shall not be doomed to perish whose souls their parents did, so far at least as concerns their own guilt in the transaction, bring to ruin. 5. Some, indeed, bring their little ones for baptism, not in the believing expectation that they shall be regenerated unto life eternal by spiritual grace, but because they think that by this as a remedy the children may recover or retain bodily health; but let not this disquiet your mind, because their regeneration is not prevented by the fact that this blessing has no place in the intention of those by whom they are presented for baptism. For by these persons the ministerial actions which are necessary are performed, and the sacramental words are pronounced, without which the infant cannot be consecrated to God. But the Holy Spirit who dwells in the saints, in those, namely, whom the glowing flame of love has fused together into the 4. As to the incident mentioned in the same one Dove whose wings are covered with silver,2 letter, that a girl who was left as an infant in accomplishes His work even by the ministry of charge of her nurse, when her parents had es- bond-servants, of persons who are sometimes not caped by sudden flight, and was made by that only ignorant through simplicity, but even culpanurse to take part in the profane rites of idola-bly unworthy to be employed by Him. The trous worship, had afterwards in the Church presentation of the little ones to receive the expelled from her mouth, by wonderful motions, spiritual grace is the act not so much of those the Eucharist when it was given to her, this by whose hands they are borne up (although it seems to me to have been caused by divine in- | is theirs also in part, if they themselves are good terposition, in order that persons of riper years believers) as of the whole society of saints and might not imagine that in this sin they do no believers. For it is proper to regard the infants wrong to the children, but rather might under- as presented by all who take pleasure in their stand, by means of a bodily action of obvious baptism, and through whose holy and perfectlysignificance on the part of those who were unable united love they are assisted in receiving the to speak, that a miraculous warning was given to communion of the Holy Spirit. Therefore this themselves as to the course which would have is done by the whole mother Church, which is been becoming in persons who, after so great a in the saints, because the whole Church is the crime, rushed heedlessly to those sacraments parent of all the saints, and the whole Church is from which they ought by all means, in proof of the parent of each one of them. For if the penitence, to have abstained. When Divine sacrament of Christian baptism, being always Providence does anything of this kind by means one and the same, is of value even when adminof infant children, we must not believe that they istered by heretics, and though not in that case are acting under the guidance of knowledge and sufficing to secure to the baptized person particireason; just as we are not called upon to admire pation in eternal life, does suffice to seal his the wisdom of asses, because once God was consecration to God; and if this consecration pleased to rebuke the madness of a prophet by makes him who, having the mark of the Lord, the voice of an ass. If, therefore, a sound ex- remains outside of the Lord's flock, guilty as a actly like the human voice was uttered by an heretic, but reminds us at the same time that he irrational animal, and this was to be ascribed to is to be corrected by sound doctrine, but not to a divine miracle, not to faculties belonging to the be a second time consecrated by repetition of ass, the Almighty could, in like manner, through the ordinance; - if this be the case even in the the spirit of an infant (in which reason was not baptism of heretics, how much more credible is absent, but only slumbering undeveloped), make it that within the Catholic Church that which manifest by a motion of its body something to is only straw should be of service in bearing the which those who had sinned against both their grain to the floor in which it is to be winnowed, own souls and their children behoved to give and by means of which it is to be prepared for heed. But since a child cannot return to be- being added to the heap of good grain! come again a part of the author of his natural life, so as to be one with him and in him, but is I Num. xxii. 28. 6. I would, moreover, wish you not to remain under the mistake of supposing that the bond 2 Ps. lxviii. 13. markable and so excellent; and yet if at the same hour I were to add such questions as, ' Will the child who is now being baptized be chaste when he grows up? Will he not be a thief?' probably no one would presume to answer, 'He will' or 'He will not,' although there is no hesitation in giving the answer that the child believes you add this sentence in conclusion: "To these questions I pray you to condescend to give me a short reply, not silencing me by the traditional authority of custom, but satisfying me by arguments addressed to my reason." of guilt which is inherited from Adam cannot be cancelled in any other way than by the parents themselves presenting their little ones to receive the grace of Christ; for you write: "As the parents have been the authors of the life which makes them liable to condemnation, the children should receive justification through the same channel, through the faith of the same parents; "in God, and turns himself to God." Thereafter whereas you see that many are not presented by parents, but also by any strangers whatever, as sometimes the infant children of slaves are presented by their masters. Sometimes also, when their parents are deceased, little orphans are baptized, being presented by those who had it in their power to manifest their compassion in this way. Again, sometimes foundlings which heartless parents have exposed in order to their being cared for by any passer-by, are picked up by holy virgins, and are presented for baptism by these persons, who neither have nor desire to have children of their own and in this you behold precisely what was done in the case mentioned in the Gospel of the man wounded by thieves, and left half dead on the way, regarding whom the Lord asked who was neighbour to him, and received for answer: "He that showed mercy on him.” 1 8. While reading this letter of yours over and over again, and pondering its contents so far as my limited time permitted, memory recalled to me my friend Nebridius, who, while he was a most diligent and eager student of difficult problems, especially in the department of Christian doctrine, had an extreme aversion to the giving of a short answer to a great question. If any one insisted upon this, he was exceedingly displeased; and if he was not prevented by respect for the age or rank of the person, he indignantly rebuked such a questioner by stern looks and words; for he considered him unworthy to be investigating matters such as these, who did not know how much both might be said and behoved to be said on a subject of great importance. But I do not lose patience with you, as he was wont to do when one asked a brief reply; for you are, as I am, a bishop engrossed with many cares, and therefore have not leisure for reading any more than I have leisure for writing any prolix communication. He was then a young man, who was not satisfied with short statements on subjects of this kind, and being then himself at leisure, addressed his questions concerning the many topics discussed in our conversations to one who was also at leisure; whereas you, having regard to the circumstances both of yourself the questioner, and of me from whom you demand the reply, insist upon my giving you a short answer to the weighty question which you propound. Well, I shall do my best to satisfy you; the Lord help me to accomplish what you require. 7. That which you have placed at the end of your series of questions you have judged to be the most difficult, because of the jealous care with which you are wont to avoid whatever is false. You state it thus: "If I place before you an infant, and ask, 'Will this child when he grows up be chaste?' or 'Will he not be a thief? you will reply, I know not.' If I ask, 'Is he in his present infantile condition thinking what is good or thinking what is evil?' you will reply, I know not.' If, therefore, you do not venture to take the responsibility of making any positive statement concerning either his conduct in after life or his thoughts at the time, what is that which parents do, when, in presenting their children for baptism, they as sureties (or sponsors) answer for the children, and say that they do that which at that age they are incapable even of understanding, or, at least, in regard to which their thoughts (if they can think) are hidden from us? For we ask those by whom the child 9. You know that in ordinary parlance we is presented, 'Does he believe in God?' and often say, when Easter is approaching, "Tothough at that age the child does not so much as know that there is a God, the sponsors reply, 'He believes; and in like manner answer is returned by them to each of the other questions. Now I am surprised that parents can in these things answer so confidently on the child's behalf as to say, at the time when they are answering the questions of the persons administering baptism, that the infant is doing what is so re Luke x. 37. morrow or the day after is the Lord's Passion," although He suffered so many years ago, and His passion was endured once for all time. In like manner, on Easter Sunday, we say, "This day the Lord rose from the dead," although so many years have passed since His resurrection. But no one is so foolish as to accuse us of falsehood when we use these phrases, for this reason, that we give such names to these days on the ground of a likeness between them and the days on which the events referred to actually tran |