Latin original · 41 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:1271–5:1311 (4615 verses in all)
Whence now our expectation is the Lord, and the substance which was made by him is with him, and in him, and through him — he who was conformed to the body of our lowliness, that he might conform us to the body of his glory and set us with himself in the heavenly places. Therefore also they who shall have been worthy of eternal life will one day be in the glory of his kingdom, that they may be with him, as the apostle says, and abide with him; even as the Lord himself said to the Father: 'I will that where I am, they also may be with me' — doubtless that which you have in the Psalms: 'Blessed are they who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they shall praise you.'
Now I think that this praise is to be uttered by the voices of those singing in harmony, even though the bodies of the saints who rise again shall be changed, that they may be as the Lord's body appeared after the resurrection — in which, indeed, the living image of the human resurrection shone forth, so that the Lord himself, who had risen in that very body in which he had suffered, might be, as it were, a mirror of contemplation to all. He indeed, since he had risen in the same flesh in which he had died and been buried, displayed all the functions of all his members, expressed to the eyes and ears of men, often being conversed with.
But if even the angels, whose creature is simply spiritual, are said to have tongues, with which indeed they sing praises to the Lord their Creator and do not cease to render thanks, how much more shall men — though their bodies be now spiritual after the resurrection, yet all the members of the glorified flesh remaining, and through all the members, with their forms and numbers — have tongues in their mouths, and, with speaking tongues, shall give voices by which they may utter in words the divine praises, or the affections of their senses and joys; the Lord perhaps adding even this to the grace and glory of his saints in the ages of his kingdom: that they may sing with tongues and voices so much the more excellent, the more they have advanced, by a blessed change, toward a more blessed nature of bodies — so that, now established in bodies already spiritual, they may perhaps speak now not with human words, but with those angelic and heavenly words which the apostle heard in paradise!
And therefore perhaps he testified that those words were unspeakable to man, because among the other kinds of rewards new tongues are being prepared for the saints — which for that reason it is not yet permitted to men of this age to use, so that they, now immortal, may speak with those tongues befitting their glory; of whom it was said: 'For indeed they shall cry out and sing a hymn' — doubtless in the heavenly places, where they shall be with the Lord and shall delight in the abundance of peace, rejoicing in the sight of the throne, casting before the feet of the Lamb their bowls and crowns, and singing to him a new song, gathered to the choirs of angels, of Virtues, of Dominions, of Thrones — so that they themselves, together with the Cherubim and Seraphim and those four living creatures, singing in harmony with perpetual voice, may say:
'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,' and the rest which you know. This, then, is what I — needy and poor, that foolish and little one of yours, whom, as a true wise man, you have been accustomed to bear — ask: that you teach me your knowledge or opinion upon this matter; for I know that you have been enlightened by the Spirit of revelation from the very leader and fountain of the wise, so that, as you have known things past and see things present, so also concerning things to come you may judge — what you deem concerning these everlasting voices of the heavenly creatures, or even of those who minister above the heavens in the sight of the Most High, by what instruments, in the end, they are expressed. For however the apostle, by saying:
'If I speak with the tongues of angels,' might have shown that they have a certain speech proper to their nature or, so to say, to their race, so much loftier than human senses and utterances as the very creature and station of the angels surpasses mortal dwellers and earthly seats — yet perhaps he called them the tongues of angels by way of kinds of voices and speech, just as, when discoursing on the variety of charisms, he numbers among the gifts of graces the kinds of tongues, signifying by this sign that to individuals it was granted to speak in the speech of many nations. But also the voice of God, often sent forth to the saints from a cloud, shows that speech can exist without a tongue, seeing that the tongue is a member of the body, small and great.
But perhaps from this very fact, that in this member God placed the office of the voice, he may have called even the speeches and voices of the incorporeal creature of angels a 'tongue,' just as Scripture is wont to assign to God also the names of members according to the kinds of his operations. Pray for us, and teach us. Our dearest and sweetest brother Quintus, as slowly as he returns to us from you, so quickly does he hasten to return from us to you. Indeed his insistence in demanding letters this very epistle proclaims, being more frequent in erasures than in verses; the excessive haste of the aforesaid exactor made a mere scrap of it; for on the day before the Ides of May he came to us to seek a reply, and on the Ides, before the sixth hour, he obtained his dismissal.
See therefore whether by such a testimony I have commended him or accused him. For perhaps — nay, without doubt — he will be judged more praiseworthy than blameworthy, who most justly hastened back from darkness (which, in comparison with your light, is what we are) to his own light. XCV. TO THE MOST DEAR AND MOST SINCERE LORDS, THE HOLY AND LONGED-FOR AND VENERABLE BROTHERS, FELLOW-DISCIPLES UNDER THE MASTER, THE LORD JESUS, PAULINUS AND THERASIA, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD. When our brothers, most closely joined to us — whom you are accustomed, longed-for yourselves, to long for along with us, and, being greeted, to greet in return — see you constantly, our good things are not so much increased as our evils are consoled.
For the very causes and necessities by which they are compelled to seek regions beyond the sea, we do not love — nay, we even hate them, and, as far as we are able, we strive to avoid them; and yet, I know not how, I believe on account of our deserts, they cannot be lacking. But when they come to you and see you, that comes to pass which is written: 'According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul.' Accordingly, as for that joy by which brother Possidius is with you, when you shall have heard from him what a sad cause has driven him, you will recognize that I speak this most truly. And yet, if any of us went across the sea for this alone, that he might enjoy your presence, what could be found more just than this cause, what more worthy?
But our bonds would not allow this — the bonds by which we are bound to serve the weaknesses of the infirm and not to abandon them by any bodily withdrawal, except when their sickness compels this the more imperiously the more perilous it is. Whether we are being trained by these things, or rather chastised, I do not know; save that He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities, who mingles such great consolations with our sorrows and works by a wondrous medicine, that we may not love the world, that we may not faint away in the world. In my earlier letter I asked you what the future eternal life of the saints seems to you to be.
But you answered me well that concerning the state of the present life too there is assuredly still need of counsel — except that you wished me to counsel you, in a matter that either you do not know together with me, or you know together with me, or perhaps know better than I; seeing that you also most truly said that the evangelical death must first be died (by which we voluntarily anticipate the dissolution of the flesh by a withdrawal — not by decease but by resolve — departing from the life of this world). This action is simple, and tosses on no surging tide of doubt: namely, that we judge we ought so to live in this mortal life that we may in a certain way be fitted for the immortal life.
But the whole question which disturbs men who act and inquire, such as I am, is this: in what manner one must live either among those, or for the sake of those, who do not yet know how to live by dying — not by the dissolution of the body, but by a certain disposition of the mind turning itself away from bodily enticements. For it usually seems to us that, unless we conform a little to them in the very things from which we desire to draw them out, we shall be able to do nothing profitably with them. And when we do this, the delight of such things creeps upon us too, so that it often becomes pleasant even to talk idly and to lend our ear to those who speak, and not only to smile but even to be overcome and dissolved in laughter.
Thus, weighing down our souls with certain dusty or even muddy affections, we lift them more laboriously and sluggishly to God, that we may live the evangelical life by dying the evangelical death. And if this ever succeeds, at once there is whispered: 'Well done, well done!' — not by men, for no man perceives such a recognition of the mind in another, but in a certain inward silence there is cried out, from I know not whence: 'Well done, well done!' On account of this kind of temptation so great an apostle confesses that he was buffeted by an angel. Behold, hence the whole human life upon the earth is a temptation, when man is tempted even there where, as far as he can, he is being fitted to the likeness of the heavenly life.
What shall I say of punishing or not punishing, seeing that we wish all this to profit unto the salvation of those upon whom we judge that punishment is or is not to be inflicted? And what should be the measure of punishing — not only according to the quality or quantity of the faults, but also according to certain strengths of souls, what each can bear, what he refuses, lest he not only fail to profit but even fall away — how deep and hidden a matter it is! By the fear of impending punishment, which is feared from men, I do not know whether more have been corrected than have gone off into worse. What, when it often happens that, if you punish someone, he himself perishes, but if you leave him unpunished, another perishes?
I confess that in these matters I daily sin and am ignorant, as to when and in what manner I should keep what is written: 'Them that sin rebuke before all, that the rest also may have fear'; and what is written: 'Reprove him between thee and him alone'; and what is written: 'Judge nothing before the time'; and what is written: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged' — for here he did not add 'before the time'; and what is written: 'Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own lord he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand' — whence he confirms that he is speaking of those who are within. And again he bids that they be judged, when he says: 'For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?'
'Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.' And when this also seems to have to be done, with how great care and fear is it to be done, and to what extent, lest perchance there befall what is understood concerning that very man in the second epistle to the same people, where he admonishes that care must be taken lest such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow! And lest anyone should think this not much to be cared for, there he says: 'Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.' What trembling in all these things, my Paulinus, O holy man of God! What trembling, what darkness! Do we not think it was said of these things: 'Fear and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove? and I will fly and be at rest. Lo, I have gone far off, fleeing away, and I abode in the wilderness.'
Yet even in the wilderness itself he perhaps experienced what he adds: 'I waited for Him that should save me from faintness of spirit and from the storm.' So then, truly, the life of man upon the earth is a temptation. What of this? Are not the very divine oracles of the Lord rather stroked than handled by us, while in far more matters we seek what ought to be thought, than perceive anything definite and fixed? And though such caution be full of anxiety, it is nevertheless far better than the rashness of asserting.
Is it not the case that in many things, if a man be not wise according to the flesh — which the apostle calls death — it will be a great scandal to him who is still wise according to the flesh; where both to say what you think is most perilous, and not to say it most laborious, and to say something other than what you think most pernicious? What of this? When those things which we do not approve in the discourse or writings of those who are within [we censure] ..., and, thinking that this pertains to the freedom of brotherly love, we do not conceal our judgment, and it is believed that we do this not out of goodwill but out of envy — how greatly is sinned against us! And when likewise we suspect that those who reprehend our opinions wish rather to wound than to correct, how greatly do we sin against others!
Certainly hence enmities usually arise, even among the dearest and most intimate persons, when, beyond what is written, one is puffed up for one against another; and while they bite and devour one another, it is to be feared lest they be consumed one of another. Because then 'Who will give me wings like a dove? and I will fly and be at rest?' For — whether because the dangers in which each one is engaged are heavier than those untried, or because it is truly so — any faintheartedness and storm of the wilderness seems to me less troublesome than those things which we either suffer or fear in the crowds. Accordingly, I greatly approve your opinion that we must deal with the 'state' of this life — or rather with its 'course' rather than its state.
I add another thing: that this must first be sought and held before that — of what sort the future will be, whither this course leads. Thence therefore I asked what you think, as though, having retained and preserved the right rule of this life, I were already most secure; whereas in so many things, and chiefly in those which I have briefly, as I could, recalled, I feel myself to labor most perilously. But because all this ignorance and difficulty seems to me to arise from this — that amid a great variety of characters and minds, and among the most hidden wills and infirmities of men, we conduct the affairs of a people not earthly and Roman but of the heavenly Jerusalem — it pleased me more to speak with you out of that which we shall be, than out of this which we are.
For there, even if we do not know what future goods there will be, yet in no small matter we are certain, that those evils will not be there. Concerning therefore the conduct of this temporal life, in the manner by which one must come to the eternal, I know that carnal desires are to be bridled, and that only so much is to be granted to the delights of the bodily senses as suffices for sustaining and carrying on this life, and that all temporal troubles are to be patiently and bravely endured for the truth of God and for our eternal salvation and that of our neighbor. I know also that our neighbor is to be counseled to this end, with all zeal of charity, that he may rightly conduct this life for the sake of the eternal.
I know too that spiritual things are to be preferred by us to carnal, unchangeable to changeable, and that a man can do all these things the more or the less according as he is the more or the less aided by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But why one man is aided thus, and another thus, or is not aided, I do not know; yet that God does this by a supreme equity, known to Himself, I do know. But concerning those matters which I recalled above — how one is to live with men — if anything is clearly ascertained by you, teach me, I beseech you.
But if these things move you as they move me, confer about them with some physician gentle of heart, whether you find one there where you dwell, or when you go to Rome for the whole yearly festival; and whatever the Lord shall have opened to you through him speaking, or through you conversing together, write to me. But concerning the resurrection of bodies and of members, and the offices to be exercised in that incorruption and immortality — since you in turn have asked me what I think — hear briefly what, if it be not enough, can, if the Lord aid, be more amply discussed. It is most firmly to be held, whence the true and clear judgment of Holy Scripture stands, that these visible and earthly bodies, which are now called animal, will be spiritual in the resurrection of the faithful and the just.
Further, in what manner the quality of a spiritual body, untried by us, can either be comprehended or intimated, I do not know. There assuredly will be no corruption there, and through this they will then have need neither of that corruptible food which they now need, nor yet will they be unable to take it and truly to consume it — by power, not by necessity. Otherwise not even the Lord would have received it after the resurrection, He who so afforded us the example of bodily resurrection that hence the apostle says: 'If the dead rise not, then is not Christ risen.' And He, when He appeared with all His members and used their offices, also showed the places of His wounds. These I have always taken to be scars, not the very wounds themselves, and those too by power, not by necessity.
The ease of which power He then most greatly showed, when He either displayed Himself in another form, or, when the disciples were gathered in the house and the doors were shut, appeared truly. Hence arises the question concerning the angels: whether they have bodies suited to their offices and dealings, or are only spirits. For if we should say that they have, there meets us: 'Who maketh His angels spirits'; but if we should say they do not have, there is greater scruple as to how it is written that they were presented to the bodily senses of men without a body, received into hospitality, their feet washed, and service rendered to them as they ate and drank.
For it can more easily seem that angels are so called spirits, as men are called souls — as it is written that so many souls went down with Jacob into Egypt (for they did not lack bodies) — than that all those things should be believed to have been done without bodies. Then, in the Apocalypse a certain fixed stature of an angel is defined in that measure which could belong to nothing but bodies; while the fact that they appeared to men is to be referred not to falsity but to that power and ease of spiritual bodies.
But whether angels have bodies, or whether anyone can show in what manner, not having bodies, they could do all those things — nevertheless in that city of the saints, where those redeemed through Christ from this generation will be joined for ever to thousands of angels, bodily voices will indicate minds that are not hidden; because in that divine society nothing of thought will be able to be concealed from a neighbor, but there will be a harmony consonant in the praise of God, expressed not only by the spirit but also by the spiritual body. This meanwhile seems so to me. If you either already hold, or can hear from more learned men, anything more agreeable to the truth, I most eagerly await to know it through you.
Do read over again my letter, to which — since you excused yourself for having answered most hastily, on the plea of the deacon's haste — I therefore do not complain, but rather remind you, so that what was then omitted may now be rendered. And concerning Christian leisure for perceiving or discoursing upon Christian wisdom, what you think — and concerning your leisure, as I supposed it to be, though incredible occupations of yours have been reported to me — inquire and see what I sought to know from you. [And in another hand: Mindful of us, live happily, our great joys and consolations, O holy ones of God. XCVI. To the most beloved lord and, in the members of Christ, honorably to be embraced, my son Olympius, Augustine.]
Whatever you may be according to the course of this world, we nevertheless write in most faithful fashion to our dearest and most sincere fellow-servant Olympius, a Christian. For we know that this is to you more glorious than all glory, and more sublime than all sublimity. Report indeed brought to us that you had attained a loftier honor; but whether this was true had not yet been confirmed among us when this occasion of writing came about. But since we have known that you have learned from the Lord not to be high-minded but to consent to lowly things, to whatever summit you had been advanced, we presume that you will receive our letter no otherwise than you are wont, most beloved lord and, in the members of Christ, honorably to be embraced, my son.
But we by no means doubt that you will prudently use temporal felicity for eternal gains, so that the more you can do in this earthly commonwealth, the more you may expend upon that heavenly one which bore you in Christ — the city — so that it may be more abundantly repaid to you in the land of the living, and in the true peace of the secure and of joys without end. The petition of my holy brother and fellow-bishop Bonifatius I again commend to your charity, lest perchance now that may be done which before could not be done.
For whereas he might perhaps, without any question, consequently retain that which his predecessor had procured — albeit under another's name — and had already begun to possess under the name of the Church, we do not wish him, since that predecessor was a debtor of the treasury, to have this scruple upon his conscience. For that fraud was not any the less committed because it was committed against the treasury.
And that Paulus indeed, after he was made bishop and was about to renounce all his goods on account of the immense heap of fiscal debts — a certain bond having been exacted in which a fixed weight of silver was owed by him — procured these tiny little fields, whence he might sustain his livelihood, as though for the Church, under the name of a then most powerful house, so that, following his own custom, when he did not pay the treasury, he might suffer none of the annoyances of the tax-collectors.
But this present bishop, who was ordained to the same Church when that man had died, feared to take up these fields; and, whereas he might, for the fiscal debts alone which that man had contracted from the aforesaid little possessions, seek an imperial benefit, he preferred to confess the whole — namely that Paulus had bought them from a public auction with his own silver, though he was liable to the treasury — so that the Church might possess them, if it can be done, not by the hidden iniquity of a bishop but by the manifest liberality of a Christian emperor. But if it cannot be done, better do the servants of God endure the hardship of want than obtain the means of necessities with a conscience of fraud.
For this we ask that you deign to lend your support, because that which was first obtained he was unwilling to plead, lest he should again shut off from himself the opportunity of supplicating; for there had been no answer to the things desired. But now, since you are of the same kindness as you are wont, but ampler in power, we do not despair that, with the Lord aiding your merits, this can easily be granted — since, even if in your own name you were to seek these same places and yourself donate them to the aforesaid Church, who would blame, or who would not most greatly proclaim, your petition as serving not earthly cupidity but Christian piety? May the mercy of the Lord our God guard you the more happily in Christ, my lord son. XCVII.
Although, as soon as we heard that you had been deservedly exalted — when even the report itself was not yet most certain to us — we believed nothing else concerning your disposition toward the Church of God (whose son we rejoice you truly to be) than what you presently disclosed in your letter; nevertheless, even when we had read those letters which you deigned unasked [to send], so that, even if we were slothful and hesitant to send a most benevolent exhortation — that, with our humility instructing you through your religious obedience, the Lord, by whose gift you are such as you are, may now, even now, come to the aid of His Church — we write to you with greater confidence, O excellent lord and deservedly most eminent, and much to be honored in the charity of Christ, my son.
And indeed many holy brethren, my colleagues, the Church being gravely disturbed, have set out, almost fleeing, to the most glorious court; whether you shall already have seen them, or shall have received their letters from the city of Rome by the opportunity of some occasion — I nevertheless, although I could share no counsel with them, could not forbear, through this brother and fellow-presbyter of mine (who, by urgent necessity for the safety of his fellow-citizen, was compelled to come to those parts by whatever means even in mid-winter), both to salute and to admonish your charity, which you have in Christ Jesus our Lord, that your good work may be hastened with most diligent instancy, whereby the enemies of the Church may know that those laws — which concerning the destroying of idols and the correcting of heretics were sent into Africa while Stilicho was living — were established by the will of the most pious and most faithful emperor.
Whereas, they either deceitfully boast, or gladly suppose, that it was done while he was unaware or unwilling, and hence render the minds of the unskilled most turbulent and perilously and vehemently hostile to us. But this — which by petitioning or by suggesting I bring to the attention of your excellency — I doubt not is done by the will of all my colleagues throughout Africa. I judge that, on whatever occasion first arising, it can and ought most easily to be brought to maturity, so that men vain (as I said), whose salvation even while they oppose us we seek, may know that the laws which were sent for the Church of Christ were procured to be sent by the care of the son of Theodosius rather than of Stilicho.
For this reason indeed the aforesaid presbyter, the bearer of this letter, since he is from the region of Mileu, was ordered by his bishop, my venerable brother Severus (who greatly salutes your most sincere love toward me), to pass through Hippo Regius, where I am; because, when we happened to be together in the great tribulations and disturbances of the Church, we were seeking an occasion of writing to your eminence and were not finding one. I had indeed already sent one letter in the matter of my holy brother and colleague Bonifatius, bishop of Cataqua.
But there had not yet reached us the graver matters which agitate us more vehemently; as to how, by better counsel according to the way of Christ, these things may be relieved for suppressing or correcting them, the bishops (who for this reason have sailed) will more conveniently deal with the great kindness of your heart, they who were able by common counsel more diligently to bring some deliberated resolution, as far as the narrowness of the time permitted.
Yet that by which the province may know the mind of the most clement and most religious prince toward the Church — this by no means is to be deferred; but even before you see the bishops who have set out, as soon as your most excellent vigilance for the members of Christ, set in the greatest tribulation, can accomplish it, it must be hastened, I suggest, I ask, I beseech, I implore. For the Lord has offered no small consolation in these evils, in that He willed you to be able to do much more than you could, at the time when we were already rejoicing over your many and great good works.