on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, wherein it was clearly established that Bishop Paulus so surrendered, that Silvanus was then his subdeacon and surrendered together with him, bringing forth the sacred vessels, even those which had been diligently hidden — a silver casket and a silver lamp — so that a certain Victor said to him: 'You would have been dead, had you not found those things.' This same Silvanus, a most manifest traitor, that man commemorates as something great in the letter which he wrote to you, as having then been ordained bishop by Secundus of Tigisis, bishop of the first see. Let their proud tongue therefore be still, and let it acknowledge its own crimes, lest, raving, it speak of the crimes of others.
Recite to him also, if he shall be willing, the ecclesiastical acts of that same Secundus of Tigisis, held in the house of Urbanus Donatus, where he dismissed confessed traitors to God the Judge — Donatus of Masculi, Marinus of Aquae Tibilitanae, Donatus of Calama — together with which confessed traitors he ordained as their bishop the aforesaid traitor Silvanus. Recite to him the acts done before Zenophilus the consular, where a certain deacon Nundinarius, angry with Silvanus because he had been excommunicated by him, betrayed all these things to the courts, which were established clearer than light by sure documents and the replies of witnesses and the recitation of the acts and of many letters. There are many other things which you may recite to him, if he shall be willing not to act contentiously but to listen prudently:
the petitions of the Donatists to Constantine, that for the very cause to be decided among the African bishops he should send judges, bishops from Gaul; also the letters of that same emperor, wherein he sent bishops to the city of Rome; likewise the acts done in the city of Rome, where by the bishops whom he had sent the cause was examined and discussed;
and likewise other letters, wherein the aforesaid emperor declares that they had complained before him about the judgment of their colleagues, that is, of the bishops whom he had sent to the city of Rome; wherein also he willed that other bishops should judge at Arles; wherein these men appealed even from their judgment to the same emperor; wherein at last he himself examined the cause between the parties; wherein he most vehemently detests that they had been overcome by the innocence of Caecilianus. Which things, if he shall be willing, he will hear, and will be silent, and will cease to lie in wait against the truth. Although we presume not so much from these documents as from the holy Scriptures, where the inheritance of Christ, unto the ends of the earth, is promised among all nations.
Whence these men, separated by a wicked schism, hurl charges against the chaff of the Lord's harvest, which must of necessity be tolerated, intermingled, until the end, until in the last judgment the whole threshing-floor be winnowed. Whence it is manifest that these charges, whether true or false, do not pertain to the Lord's wheat, which throughout the whole field, that is, this world, must grow until the end of the age, as not a false angel in the error of this man, but the Lord in the Gospel, declares.
And therefore, against innocent Christians, who throughout the whole world are intermingled with wicked Christians as with their own chaff or tares, while these wretched Donatists hurl many false and vain charges, God has justly requited them: so that they condemned in their universal council the Maximianists, their own schismatics at Carthage, the condemners of Primianus, the baptizers outside Primianus, the rebaptizers after Primianus; and so that, out of their number, after no small time, they received back certain men into the honours of their episcopate — Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras — Optatus the Gildonian compelling them, together with all whom the condemned had baptized outside.
But if they are not defiled by those whom with their own mouth they condemned as criminals and sacrilegious, and whom they compared to those first schismatics whom the earth swallowed up alive, when they once more receive these men back into their office and hold communion with them, let them for once wake up and consider with what great blindness and what great madness they say that the whole world has been defiled by the unknown crimes of Africans, and that the inheritance of Christ, which was promised and has been displayed among all nations, was destroyed by the sins of Africans through the contagion of communion — seeing that they themselves are unwilling to be regarded as destroyed and defiled, while they hold communion with those whose crimes they have judged to be known.
Wherefore, since the Apostle Paul again says that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light, whence it is no wonder if his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness — if indeed that man truly saw some angel who was a messenger of error and desirous of separating Christians from Catholic unity, he himself suffered an angel of Satan transforming himself as though into an angel of light. But if he is lying and saw no such thing, he himself is a minister of Satan transforming himself as though into a minister of righteousness. And yet, weighing all these things, if he is willing not to be too perverse and stubborn, he will be able to be freed from all deception, whether another's or his own.
For through the occasion you afforded, we have engaged this matter concerning him without any hatred, observing what the Apostle says: 'The servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness correcting those who think differently, lest perhaps God grant them repentance to acknowledge the truth, and they recover themselves from the snares of the devil, having been taken captive by him at his will.' If therefore we have said anything harshly, let him recognize that it avails not for the bitterness of dissension but for the correction of love. May you live unharmed in Christ, most beloved and honorable brother. Amen. Letter 54. To the Inquiries of Januarius, Book One. To his most beloved son Januarius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord.
As to the things you have asked me, I should have preferred first to know what you yourself would answer if you were asked; for thus, by either approving or amending your answers, I could reply much more briefly, and could most easily either confirm or correct you. This indeed, as I said, I should have preferred. But nevertheless, that I might now reply, I chose to make my discourse longer rather than to delay. First of all, then, I wish you to hold what is the head of this whole discussion: that our Lord Jesus Christ, as He Himself speaks in the Gospel, has subjected us to His gentle yoke and light burden.
Hence with sacraments very few in number, most easy in observance, most excellent in signification, He bound together the fellowship of the new people, such as is baptism consecrated in the name of the Trinity, the communion of His own body and blood, and whatever else is commended in the canonical Scriptures — excepting those things which burdened the servitude of the old people according to the fittingness of their heart and of the prophetic time, which are read also in the five books of Moses.
But those things which we keep not as written but as handed down by tradition, and which indeed are observed throughout the whole world, are understood to be retained as commended and established either by the apostles themselves or by plenary councils, whose authority in the Church is most wholesome — such as that the Lord's passion and resurrection and ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven, are celebrated with an annual solemnity, and whatever else of this kind occurs that is observed by the whole Church, wherever it spreads itself.
But other things which vary according to places and regions of the earth — such as that some fast on the Sabbath, others do not; some daily partake of the Lord's body and blood, others receive it on certain days; in some places no day is passed over on which the offering is not made, in others only on Saturday and the Lord's Day, in others only on the Lord's Day — and whatever else of this kind may be noticed: this whole class of things has free observances, and there is no better discipline in these matters for the grave and prudent Christian than to act in the way in which he sees the Church acting, to which he may happen to come. For that which is proved to be neither against faith nor against good morals is to be held as a matter of indifference, and to be observed for the sake of fellowship.
For it is to be observed, for the sake of the fellowship of those among whom one lives. I believe you have at some time heard this, yet even now I recall it: my mother, having followed me to Milan, found that the Church there did not fast on the Sabbath. She began to be troubled and to waver as to what she should do. At that time I did not concern myself with such things, but for her sake I consulted about this matter that 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 supposed that, without giving any reason, he wished by his authority alone to admonish us not to fast on the Sabbath, he went on and said to me: 'When I come to Rome, I fast on the Sabbath; when I am here, I do not fast.'
'So you too, to whatever church you may come, observe its custom, if you do not wish to be a stumbling-block to anyone, nor anyone to you.' When I had reported this to my mother, she gladly embraced it. Indeed, pondering this saying again and again, I have always held it as though I had received it by a heavenly oracle.
For I have often perceived, with grief and groaning, that many disturbances of the weak arise through the contentious obstinacy or superstitious timidity of certain brethren, who, in matters of this kind — which can be brought to no certain conclusion either by the authority of Holy Scripture, or by the tradition of the universal Church, or by usefulness for the amendment of life — merely because there underlies some reasoning of the one who thinks it, or because in his own country he himself was thus accustomed, or because he saw it done elsewhere and by his travel supposes himself to have become the more learned the further he is from his own people, stir up such quarrelsome questions that they esteem nothing right except what they themselves do. Someone may have said that the Eucharist is not to be received daily. You would have asked: Why?
'Because,' he says, 'days are to be chosen on which a man lives more purely and more continently, that he may approach worthily to so great a sacrament; for he who eats unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself.' Another, on the contrary, says: 'Nay rather, if the wound of sin and the assault of the disease are so great that such medicines must be deferred, each one ought by the authority of the bishop to be removed from the altar to do penance, and by the same authority to be reconciled — for this is to receive unworthily, if one receives at that time when he ought to do penance — not that at his own discretion, whenever he pleases, he should either withdraw himself from communion or restore himself to it.'
'But if the sins are not so great that a man is judged to be excommunicated, he ought not to separate himself from the daily medicine of the Lord's body.' Perhaps someone more rightly settles the dispute between them who admonishes that they should above all remain in the peace of Christ. But let each one do what, according to his faith, he piously believes ought to be done. For neither of them dishonors the body and blood of the Lord, but each strives to honor the most wholesome sacrament in eager rivalry. For Zacchaeus and that centurion did not quarrel between themselves, nor did either of them prefer himself to the other, when the one of them joyfully received the Lord into his house, and the other said:
'I am not worthy that You should come under my roof' — both honoring the Savior in a different and as it were contrary manner, both wretched through their sins, both having obtained mercy. This likeness also holds good in that, among the first people, to each one the manna tasted in his mouth according to his own will; so in the heart of each Christian is that sacrament by which the world has been subdued. For the one, out of reverence, dares not to take it daily, and the other, out of reverence, dares not to pass over any day. This food refuses contempt alone, as the manna refused loathing. For hence also the Apostle says that it was unworthily received by those who did not distinguish this from other foods by the veneration singularly due to it; for immediately, when he had said:
'He eats and drinks judgment to himself,' he added, so as to say: 'Not discerning the body' — which is sufficiently apparent from that whole passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, if it be diligently attended to. So too some pilgrim, in that place perhaps where they persevere in the observance of Lent and do not on the fifth day of the week bathe or relax the fast, says: 'I will not fast today.' The reason is asked. 'Because,' he says, 'it is not done in my own country.' What else does this man attempt but to prefer his own custom to another's custom?
For he will not recite this to me from the book of God, nor will he contend with the full voice of the universal Church, throughout which it is spread abroad, nor will he show that the other acts against faith while he acts according to faith; nor will he prove that the other violates good morals in this matter while he keeps them. They assuredly violate their own quiet and peace by wrangling over a superfluous question. Yet I should prefer that, in matters of this kind, both the one in the other's country and this one in that other's country should not shrink from what the rest do.
Even if, while traveling in another's country, where the people of God are greater and more numerous and more fervent, he saw, for example, the offering made twice on the fifth day of the week of the last part of Lent, both in the morning and in the evening, and coming into his own country, where the custom is to make the offering at the end of the day, he should contend that it is done wrongly and unlawfully because elsewhere he himself has seen it done otherwise — this is a childish notion to be guarded against in ourselves, to be tolerated and corrected in our own people. Note, therefore, from which of these three classes your first inquiry, which you set down in your memorandum, arises. For you ask in these words: 'What ought to be done on the Thursday of the last week of Lent? Is the offering to be made in the morning and again after supper, on account of that which is said:
'Likewise after supper was ended' — or is one to fast and to make the offering only after supper, or also to fast and, after the oblation, to sup, as we are accustomed to do?' To these things, then, I reply thus: that as to which of these ought to be done, if the authority of divine Scripture prescribes it, it is not to be doubted that we ought to do just as we read, so that now we may discuss not how it is to be done, but how the sacrament is to be understood; likewise also, if the whole Church throughout the world practices any of these; for here too, to doubt that it is thus to be done is a mark of the most insolent madness. But neither this nor that is the case in what you ask. It remains, therefore, that it belongs to that third class which varies according to places and regions.
Let each one therefore do what he finds in the church to which he comes. For none of those things is against faith, nor are morals made better on this side or that. For it is for these causes, that is, either for the sake of faith or for the sake of morals, that either what was wrongly done ought to be amended, or what was not done ought to be instituted. For the very change of custom, even that which helps by its usefulness, disturbs by its novelty. Wherefore that which is not useful, being an unfruitful disturbance and consequently harmful. Nor ought it therefore to be thought that it was instituted in many places, that on that day the offering should be made after the meal, because it is written: 'Likewise also the cup, after supper, saying'; for He could call it supper because they had already received the body, so that afterward they should receive the cup.
For since he says elsewhere: 'When you come together therefore into one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper,' calling this very receiving of the Eucharist the Lord's supper, that could rather move men to offer or to take the Eucharist on that day when already refreshed, which is said in the Gospel: 'And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it,' since he had also said above: 'And when evening was come, He reclined with the twelve, and as they were eating He said: One of you shall betray Me' — for afterward He handed over the sacrament. And it clearly appears that when the disciples first received the body and blood of the Lord, they did not receive it fasting.
Yet is the universal Church on that account to be slandered, because it is always received by those who are fasting? For hence it has pleased the Holy Spirit that, in honor of so great a sacrament, the Lord's body should enter the mouth of the Christian before other foods; for this reason throughout the whole world this custom is kept. Nor, because the Lord gave it after food, ought the brethren therefore to come together to receive that sacrament after having dined or supped, or to mix these things with their own meals, as those did whom the Apostle reproves and corrects. For the Savior, the more vehemently to commend the loftiness of that mystery, willed to fix this last upon the hearts and memory of the disciples, from whom He was about to depart to His passion.
And therefore He did not prescribe in what order it should thenceforth be taken, in order that He might reserve this place for the apostles, through whom He was about to arrange the churches. For if He had admonished that it should always be received after other foods, I believe no one would have varied that custom. But when the Apostle, speaking of this sacrament, says: 'Wherefore, brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another; if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that you come not together unto judgment,' he immediately subjoined: 'And the rest I will set in order when I come.' Whence it is given to understand that, because it was too much that he should intimate to them in a letter the whole order of acting which the universal Church observes throughout the world, it was ordained by Him that this should be varied by no diversity of morals.
But a certain probable reasoning has pleased some: that on one fixed day of the year, on which the Lord Himself gave that supper, as for a more distinguished commemoration, it may be permitted to offer and receive the body and blood of the Lord after food. But I think it more honorable that it be done at that hour when even he who has fasted may, after the refreshment which takes place at the ninth hour, be able to come to the oblation. Wherefore we compel no one to dine before that Lord's supper, but neither do we dare to contradict anyone.
Yet I do not think this was instituted except because many, and almost all, in most places are accustomed to bathe on that day, and because some also keep the fast, the offering is made in the morning on account of those who dine, since they cannot endure fasting and bathing together, but in the evening on account of those who fast. But if you ask why the custom of bathing arose on that day, nothing more probable occurs to me as I ponder this matter than that the bodies of those to be baptized, having become soiled through the observance of Lent, would come to the font with offense to the senses, unless they were washed on some day. And this day was rather chosen for this, on which the Lord's supper is annually celebrated.
And because this was conceded to those about to receive baptism, many wished to bathe with them and to relax the fast. Having discussed these things as best I could, I admonish you to observe, as far as you can, those things which I have set forth above, as befits a prudent and peace-loving son of the Church. The other things you have asked, if the Lord wills, I will explain at another time. Letter 55. To the Inquiries of Januarius, Book Two. Having read your letter, in which you reminded me that I should pay the debt of unraveling the remaining questions which you had asked long before, I could not endure that the most welcome and most dear desire of your zeal should be any longer deferred, and although in the midst of the heaps of my occupations, I made this my chief concern, to answer you as to the things you have asked.
But I do not wish to discuss your letter at greater length, lest this very thing hinder me from at last rendering what I owe. You ask what is the reason why the anniversary day of the Lord's passion, which is to be celebrated, does not return to the same day of the year, as does the day on which He is recorded to have been born; and then you add, if this happens on account of the Sabbath and the moon, what is the meaning in this matter of the observance of the Sabbath and the moon. Here first you ought to know that the day of the Lord's nativity is not celebrated in a sacrament, but only recalled to memory, that He was born; and therefore nothing was needed except that the recurring day of the year, on which the event itself took place, should be marked with festive devotion.
But there is a sacrament in some celebration, when the commemoration of a thing done is so made that something also is understood to be signified, which is to be received in a holy manner. And so we keep Easter in such a way that we not only recall to memory what was done — that is, that Christ died and rose again — but also do not omit the other things which are attested concerning Him, for the signification of the sacraments. For because, as the Apostle says, He died for our offenses and rose again for our justification, a certain passing over from death to life has been consecrated in that passion and resurrection of the Lord.
For even the very word itself, which is called 'pascha,' is not Greek, as is commonly supposed, but Hebrew, as those say who know both languages. For it is named not from the passion — since 'to suffer' is called 'paschein' in Greek — but from that which is passed over, as I said, from death to life; by a Hebrew word the thing has been named. In which speech 'pascha' means 'passage,' as those affirm who know these things. This the Lord Himself willed to touch upon when He says: 'He who believes in Me has passed over from death to life.' And especially the same Evangelist is understood to have wished to express this, when, as the Lord was about to celebrate the Passover with His disciples, where He gave them the mystical supper: 'When Jesus knew,' he says, 'that His hour was come that He should pass over out of this world to the Father.'
Therefore the passing over from this mortal life into another, immortal life — this indeed is what is commended, from death to life, in the passion and resurrection of the Lord. This passing over is now enacted by us through faith, which is granted to us unto the remission of sins, in the hope of eternal life for those who love God and their neighbor, because faith works through love, and the just man lives by faith; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience. According to this faith and hope and love, by which we have begun to be under grace, we have already died together with Christ and been buried together with Him through baptism, as the Apostle says:
'Because our old man was also crucified together with Him on the cross'; and we have risen with Him, because He also raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places. Whence also is that exhortation: 'Savor the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.' But because there follows and He says: 'For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God; when Christ, your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory,' he sufficiently indicates what he wishes to be understood: that now our passing over from death to life, which is done through faith, is accomplished in hope of the future resurrection and glory at the end, when this corruptible — that is, this flesh in which we now groan — shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality.
For now indeed we already have through faith the firstfruits of the Spirit, but still we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body; for we are saved by hope. While we are in this hope, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But see what follows: 'But if the Spirit of Him,' he says, 'who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, through His Spirit dwelling in you.'
This, therefore, the whole Church, which is found in the pilgrimage of mortality, awaits at the end of the age — that which was foreshown in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn from the dead, because His body, whose head is He Himself, is nothing other than the Church. For some, attending to the words which the Apostle constantly speaks, that we have both died with Christ and risen with Him, and not understanding in what sense they are said, have supposed that the resurrection has already taken place, and that none further is to be hoped for at the end of times; among whom is, he says, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they overthrow the faith of some.
The same Apostle, reproving them, detests them, though he himself says that we have risen with Christ. Whence, except that he says this has been done in us through faith and hope and love, according to the firstfruits of the Spirit? But because the hope that is seen is not hope, and therefore, if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience, there remains assuredly the redemption of our body, awaiting which we groan within ourselves. Whence is that: 'Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.' This renewal, therefore, of our life is a certain passing over from death to life, which is done first through faith, that we may rejoice in hope and be patient in tribulation, while as yet our outward man is corrupted, but the inward is renewed from day to day.
On account of that very beginning of the new life, on account of the new man, which we are bidden to put on, putting off the old and purging out the old leaven, that we may be a new lump, since Christ our Passover has been sacrificed — on account of this newness of life, therefore, the first month among the months of the year has been assigned to this celebration. For it is called even the month of the new things. But because in the whole time of the age the third period has now appeared, therefore the resurrection of the Lord is on the third day. For the first period is before the Law, the second under the Law, the third under grace, where now there is the manifestation of the sacrament formerly hidden in the prophetic enigma. This, then, is also signified in the number of the moon;
for because the number seven is wont in the Scriptures to appear as mystical, pointing to a certain perfection, the Passover is celebrated in the third week of the moon — that is, on the day which falls from the fourteenth to the twenty-first. There is there also another sacrament, which if it be obscure to you, because in such inquiries you are less versed, do not be saddened, nor on that account think me to be better, because I learned these things in boyish studies; for he who glories, let him glory in the Lord — to know and understand that 'I am the Lord.'