Latin original · 40 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:1835–5:1874 (4615 verses in all)
The people of Hippo, to whom the Lord has given me as a servant, since to a great and almost every part they are so infirm that even by the pressure of a lighter tribulation they can be grievously sick, are now smitten by so great a tribulation that, even if they were not thus infirm, they would scarcely sustain it with any health of soul. But when I had just now returned, I found them most perilously scandalized concerning my absence. For your people, of whose spiritual strength we rejoice in the Lord, with sound throats indeed relish how it was said: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I do not burn?
especially since there are many here who, by disparaging us, try to disturb against us the souls of others by whom we seem to be loved, that they may make a place in them for the devil. But when those are angry with us, for whose salvation we busy ourselves, their great counsel of vengeance is a lust of dying—not in the body but in the heart, where the corpse is secretly perceived by its own stench before it is foreseen by our thought. To this my solicitude you doubtless willingly grant pardon, especially since, if you were incensed and wished to avenge yourselves, you would perhaps find nothing more grievous than that which I suffer, when I do not see you at Thagaste.
But I hope, aided by your prayers, that I shall be granted to come to you as soon as possible, wherever in Africa you may be, when this by which I am now detained shall have passed—if this city in which we labor is not worthy (since neither do I dare to think it worthy) to rejoice together with us over your presence. Letter 125. To the most blessed lord and venerably most beloved brother and fellow-priest Alypius, and to the brethren who are with you, Augustine and the brethren who are with me, greeting in the Lord. We grieve indeed grievously, nor can it be that we should count it a small thing, that the people of Hippo cried out so much unto injuries of your holiness; but much more grievously ought we to grieve, good brother, that such things are thought of us than that they were cried out.
For when we are believed to wish to retain a servant of God out of greed for money, not love of righteousness, is it not to be desired that those who believe this should testify with their voice the secret of their heart, and thus, if it can be done, that some remedies, so much the greater, may be sought—rather than that they should perish in silence, poisoned by pernicious suspicions? Wherefore we must busy ourselves the more with that of which we spoke even before this happened—how men may be persuaded, to whom we are commanded to present ourselves as an example of good works, that what they suspect is false—rather than how those are to be reproved who declare their suspicions with voices and words. Accordingly, I am not incensed at holy Albina, nor do I judge her to be reproved, but to be healed of such a suspicion.
Since she directed these same words not against my person, but complained as it were about the people of Hippo, that they had laid bare their own greed—that they wished to retain a rich man of this sort, a despiser and bestower of money, not for the sake of the clerical office but for the sake of money—yet what she felt about us she almost cried aloud; and not she only, but also her holy sons, who said this very thing on that very day in the apse. These therefore, as I said, I judge to be healed of such suspicions rather than to be reproved for them. For where can security and rest be prepared or afforded us from such thorns, if against us they have been able to sprout up in hearts so holy and most dear to us?
For it was concerning you that the ignorant crowd thought this thing, but concerning us it was the lights of the Church; and from this you see which is the more to be lamented. Yet I judge that neither is to be accused but rather healed; for they are human beings, and about human beings they suspect such things—false, indeed, yet not incredible. For surely such men are not so foolish as to believe that the people covet money for themselves—especially now that they have already learned by experience that the people of Thagaste received nothing from it (and so likewise the people of Hippo)—but all this ill-will seethes only against the clergy, and most of all against the bishops, whose lordship seems to stand out above the rest, since they are reckoned to use and enjoy the property of the Church as though they were its owners and masters.
Toward this covetousness, so hurtful and so deadly, let not the weak, if it can be helped, be built up by our example, my dear Alypius. Recall what we had said before this temptation befell, which now presses us the more toward this very thing. Rather by conferring together, with the Lord's help, let us try to make provision, and let not our own conscience suffice us, for this is not a case in which conscience alone ought to suffice. For if we are servants of God not reprobate, if there is alive in us any spark of that fire whereby charity seeks not the things that are its own, we surely ought to provide what is good not only before God but also before men, lest, while we drink tranquil water in our own conscience, we be convicted of trampling with careless feet so that the Lord's sheep drink it muddied.
Now as to what you wrote, that we should examine between ourselves the kind of oath extorted by violence—I beg you, let not our discussion make the clearest matters obscure. For if certain death were threatened, to force a servant of God to swear that he would do something unlawful and wicked, he ought to have chosen rather to die than to swear, lest he fulfil the oath by a crime.
But as it is, when it was only the people's most persistent clamour that urged the man to no wickedness, but to that which, if it were done, would be lawfully done; and when there was indeed fear lest certain lost men—who for the most part mingle even with a multitude of good people—finding occasion in sedition and, as it were, in righteous indignation, might break forth in their covetousness into some criminal violence of pillage; yet since that which was feared was uncertain—who would judge that, on account of things uncertain (I do not say losses and any bodily injuries whatever), but even for the sake of avoiding death itself, a certain perjury ought to be committed?
That Regulus, whoever he was, had heard nothing in the Holy Scriptures about the impiety of a false oath, had learned nothing of the sickle of Zechariah, and indeed had sworn to the Carthaginians not by the sacraments of Christ but by the defilements of demons; and yet he dreaded not most certain torments and a death of horrifying example so as to swear under necessity, but of his own free will, because he had sworn, he underwent them, that he might not commit perjury.
And that Roman censorship of old was unwilling to keep—not in the number of saints, but in the number of senators; not in heavenly glory, but in an earthly senate-house—not only those who, out of fear of death and cruel punishments, chose most openly to perjure themselves rather than return to their savage enemies, but also that man who thought himself absolved of the guilt of perjury because after his oath he had returned under some feigned pretext of necessity. Thus those who drove him from the senate did not consider what he himself had intended in swearing, but what those to whom he swore expected from him. Nor had they read what we everywhere sing: 'He that sweareth to his neighbour and deceiveth not.' We are wont, with immense admiration, to praise these things even in men who are strangers to the grace and name of Christ;
and shall we still think we must inquire in the divine books whether we may sometimes lawfully perjure ourselves, when it has even been commanded us not to swear at all, lest by readiness in swearing we slip into perjury? This surely, I have no doubt, is most rightly said: that the good faith of an oath is fulfilled not according to the words of the one who swears, but according to the expectation of him to whom it is sworn—the expectation which the one who swears knows. For words can very hardly grasp, especially briefly, the meaning whose good faith is required of the one who swears. Hence they are perjurers who, keeping to the words, have deceived the expectation of those to whom the oath was made; and they are not perjurers who, even without keeping to the words, have fulfilled that which was expected of them when they swore.
Accordingly, since the people of Hippo wished to have the holy Pinianus not as one condemned but as a most beloved inhabitant of their city, even though it could not be sufficiently grasped from his words, yet it is so plainly evident what they expected of him, that the fact that he is now, after the oath, absent moves none of those who were able to hear that he was to set out for a definite reason, with the intention of returning. And through this he neither will be, nor will he be thought by them, a perjurer, unless he deceives their expectation; and he will not deceive it unless either he changes his will to dwell among them, or at some time departs without the disposition of returning—which be far from his character and from the faith which he keeps as due to Christ and the Church.
For, to pass over what you know as well as I—how fearful the divine judgment concerning perjury is—this at least I know: that we ought thereafter to be angry with no one who does not believe us when we swear, if we shall think that the perjury of such a man is not only to be borne with equanimity but even to be defended. May His mercy turn this away both from us and from him, who rescues from temptation those who hope in Him.
As therefore you wrote back in the memorandum, let him fulfil the promise by which he thus promised that he would not withdraw from Hippo—just as I, or the people of Hippo themselves, do not withdraw, though we have free liberty both to go and to return; save that those who are not bound by an oath have full power both to migrate altogether and not to return, without the guilt of perjury. As for whether it can be proved that our clergy, or the brethren stationed in the monastery, were sharers or instigators of the insults done to you, I do not know.
For when I inquired about this, I was told that only one man of Carthage from the monastery had clamoured along with the people when they were demanding him for a presbyter—not when they were hurling unworthy things against you. I have attached to this letter a copy of the promise itself, transcribed from the very sheet which he himself signed and which was corrected while I looked on. Letter 126. To the holy and venerable lady, the handmaid of God, Albina, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. It is fair to console, not to increase, the grief of your soul which you write you cannot unfold, so that, if it can be done, we may heal your suspicions, and not, by taking offence for our own cause, further disturb your venerable heart that is consecrated to God.
Upon our holy brother, your son Pinianus, no fear of death was brought by the people of Hippo, even though perhaps he himself feared some such thing; for we too were afraid, lest by certain lost men—who often mingle with a multitude by a hidden conspiracy—there might break forth into violent audacity, an occasion for sedition having been found, which they would stir up as though by righteous indignation. But, as we were afterward able to learn, nothing of the sort was said or attempted by anyone; yet in truth against my brother Alypius they were clamouring many insulting and unworthy things, from which grievous guilt would that they may deserve to be absolved through his prayers.
But I, after their first clamours, when I had said to them concerning the man that I would not ordain him against his will—by what promise I was even now held bound—and had added that, if by violating my faith they should have him for a presbyter, they would not have me for a bishop, I had returned to our seats, leaving the crowd. Then they, checked and troubled for a little while by my unexpected reply, like a flame briefly pressed down by the wind, thereafter began to be roused far more ardently, supposing it could come to pass that either the not keeping of that promise might be extorted from me, or that, while I held to the good faith of my promise, he might be ordained by another bishop.
I kept saying, to those to whom I could—the more honourable and weighty men who had come up to us into the apse—that I could neither be moved from the good faith of my promise, nor could he be ordained by another bishop in a church committed to me, unless I were consulted and gave permission; and that if I were to permit it, I should none the less deviate from my faith. I added also that they wished nothing, if he were ordained against his will, except that, once ordained, he should depart. They did not believe this could be done. But the multitude, stationed before the steps, persisting in the same will with a dreadful and most persistent roar of clamours, kept us uncertain in mind and counsel. Then were those unworthy things clamoured against my brother; then were graver things feared by us.
But although I was deeply moved by so great a stirring of the people and so great a disturbance of the church, and though I had said nothing to that dense throng except that I could not ordain him against his will, yet not even so was I brought—because I had promised this too, that I would not do it—to persuade him anything about undertaking the presbyterate; for if I could have persuaded him, he would no longer be ordained against his will. I kept the good faith of both promises: not only of that which I had already made known to the people, but also of that in which, so far as men are concerned, I was held bound by a single witness. I kept, I say, the faith of my promise, not of an oath, in so great a peril. Which, though falsely—
as we afterward discovered—it was feared; yet, if there was any such thing, it hung threatening over all in common, and the fear itself was common; and it was chiefly on account of the church in which we were that, most fearful, I was thinking of departing. But there was reason to fear lest, in my absence, he should the rather do some such thing, both with less reverence and with more ardent grief. Then, if I should depart with brother Alypius through the crowded people, care had to be taken lest anyone should dare to lay a hand upon him; but if I departed without him, what countenance of reputation would there be, if perchance something should befall him, and I should seem to have deserted him for this very reason, that he might be handed over to a raging people?
Amid these turmoils of mine and my grievous sorrow and the breathing-space of no counsel, behold, suddenly and unexpectedly, our holy son Pinianus sends to me a servant of God to tell me that he wished to swear to the people that, if he were ordained against his will, he would depart from Africa altogether—supposing, I believe, that since indeed he could not perjure himself, they would no longer clamour with fruitless persistence to drive out from here a man whom we ought at least to have as a neighbour. But since it seemed to me that their more vehement grief was to be feared after this oath, I kept it silently to myself; and since he had at the same time asked that I would come to him, I did not delay.
When he had told me this very thing, he immediately added to that same oath what, while I was on my way to him, he had charged me by another servant of God—namely, concerning his presence, provided that no one should impose upon him the burden of the clerical office against his will. Here I, in such great straits, refreshed as if by a breath of air, made him no answer, but proceeded to brother Alypius with a quickened step and told him what he had said. But he, avoiding, as I think, lest anything should be done on his authority whereby he supposed you were offended, said: 'Let no one consult me on this.' Having heard which, I proceeded to the tumultuous people, and when silence had been made, I disclosed what had been promised, together with the promise even of an oath.
But they, who were thinking of and desiring only his presbyterate, did not receive what had been offered in the way I supposed, but, murmuring somewhat among themselves, they asked that this be added to the same promise and oath: that, if it should ever please him to consent to undertake the clerical office, he should consent nowhere but in the church of Hippo itself. I reported this to him; without hesitation he assented. I announced it to them; they rejoiced, and soon demanded the promised oath. I returned to our son and found him wavering as to just what words could express that promise together with the oath, on account of pressing necessities which might compel him to depart.
At the same time he also showed what he feared: lest some hostile incursion should rush in, which would have to be avoided by departure. Holy Melania wished the plea of an unhealthy climate to be added as well, but she was rebuked by his reply. But I said that a grave and not-to-be-despised cause of necessity had been brought forward, which would compel even citizens to emigrate; yet if these things were said to the people, it was to be feared lest we should seem to be ominously boding evil; but if the excuse were made under the general name of necessity, it would be thought a merely fraudulent necessity. It was decided, nevertheless, that we should test the people's mind on this matter, and we found nothing other than what we had supposed.
For when his words, spoken by the deacon, were being recited and everything had pleased them, as soon as the name of the interposed necessity rang out, at once there was an outcry, and the promise displeased them, the tumult breaking out afresh, the people thinking that nothing else was being done with them but fraud. When our holy son had seen this, he ordered the name of necessity to be removed from it, and again the people returned to joy. And that I might excuse my weariness, he was unwilling to go up to the people without me; we went up together. He said that he had charged the things which had been heard from the deacon, that he had sworn them, and that he would do them; and immediately he went through the whole in the same tenor in which he had dictated it. The answer was: 'Thanks be to God,' and it was requested that the whole document be signed.
We dismissed the catechumens, and immediately he signed the document. Then we bishops began to be asked—not by the voices of the people, yet by the people through honourable faithful men—that we too should sign. But when I began to sign, holy Melania objected. I wondered why so late, as though we could render that promise and oath void by not signing; yet I complied, and thus my signature remained incomplete, nor did anyone think we should be pressed further to sign. As for what motions or tongues of men there were the next day, after they had learned that he himself had departed, I have taken care to intimate to your holiness through the memorandum, as much as I judged sufficient.
Whoever, therefore, has perchance related to you things contrary to what I have narrated, either lies or is mistaken. For I am aware that I have passed over certain things which seemed to me not to pertain to my concern, yet I have said nothing false. Accordingly, that our holy son Pinianus swore in my presence and with my permission is true; but that he swore at my direction is false. He himself knows it, the servants of God know it whom he sent to me—first holy Barnabas, then Timasius, through whom also he charged me concerning the promise of his presence. The people themselves too were compelling by clamour toward the presbyterate, not toward the oath;
but he did not spurn what was offered to him, in the hope that, while he dwelt among us, the will might come about whereby he should consent to ordination, lest, as he had sworn, he should depart if he were ordained against his will. And through this both they clamoured on account of the work of God—for neither is the sanctifying of the presbyterate not a work of God—and, since they afterward were not glad about the promised presence unless there were added that, if he should ever be willing to consent to undertake the clerical office, he should consent nowhere but in the church of Hippo, it is sufficiently evident that they had hoped even for his very dwelling among them, and therefore they did not withdraw from that desire for the work of God. How, then, do you say that they did this out of a most base craving for money?
First, because it does not at all pertain to the common people who were clamouring; for just as the common people of Thagaste, concerning the things you conferred upon the church of Thagaste, have nothing but joy in your good work, so also do the people of Hippo and of any other place whatever, where out of the mammon of iniquity you have done, or are anywhere going to do, the commands of the Lord. Not, then, did the people, in order to take counsel for their church concerning so great a man, most ardently demanding, seek their own pecuniary advantage from you, but they loved in you your contempt of money.
For if in me they loved what they had heard—that, having despised a few small paternal fields, I had been converted to the free service of God—and did not on this account envy the church of Thagaste, which is my fleshly homeland, but, since it had not imposed the clerical office upon me, seized on my being made a cleric when they were able: how much more ardently could they love in our Pinianus the fact that so great a craving for this world, such wealth, such hope, was overcome and trampled by so great a conversion! For I indeed, according to the judgment of many who compare themselves with themselves, seem not to have left riches behind, but to have come to riches.
For scarcely can my paternal estate be reckoned a twentieth part in comparison with the estates of the church, which now I am reckoned to possess as its lord. But in any of the African churches whatever—not to say a presbyter, but a bishop—let this man of ours be, compared with his former wealth: even if he should conduct himself with a lordly spirit, he will be most poor. Far more clearly and safely, therefore, is Christian poverty loved in one in whom no craving for larger possessions can be supposed. This kindled the minds of the people; this roused them to that violence of most persistent clamour. Let us not accuse them, over and above, of base craving, but rather let us allow them without reproach to love, at least in others, the good which they themselves do not possess.
For even if there were mingled in that multitude some needy or beggars who clamoured along with the rest and hoped for a supplement to their want out of your venerable abundance, not even this craving, as I think, is base. It remains, therefore, that this most base craving for money be directed obliquely against the clergy, and most of all against the bishop. For we are reckoned to lord it over the property of the church; we are reckoned to enjoy the wealth. In the end, whatever of these things we have received, we either still possess or, as it seemed good, have paid out; and we have bestowed nothing thence upon the people—apart from the clergy or those stationed in the monastery—except upon a very few of the needy.
I do not therefore say that these things ought to have been said by you chiefly against us; yet in truth against us alone they could be said with credibility. What, then, shall we do? By what reasoning shall we clear ourselves, if not before our enemies, at least before you? This matter belongs to the soul; it is within; it is secret, far from the eyes of mortals, known to God alone. What, then, remains, but to call God to witness, to whom it is known? When, therefore, you feel these things about us, you do not enjoin—which is far better, and which in your letter you thought should be cast at me as blameworthy—but you altogether compel, that we should swear.
Not by threatening the death of our fleshly life, which the people of Hippo were thought to have done, but by threatening the death of our reputation, which, on account of the weak—to whom we strive by our manner of life, such as it is, to offer ourselves as an example of good works—is assuredly to be set even above the life of this flesh. Nevertheless, though you thus compel us to swear, we are not angry with you, as you are angry with the people of Hippo. For you believe, as human beings about human beings, even things that are not in us—yet not things that cannot be in us. These things are to be healed in you, not accused; and our good name must be cleared by you, if our conscience has been cleared before the Lord.
Which perhaps He will grant—just as, before this temptation had befallen, my brother Alypius and I conferred together, so that it may become most fully known, not only to you our most beloved fellow members, but even to our very enemies, that we are defiled by no craving for money in ecclesiastical affairs. And until this comes about—if the Lord will grant that it come about—behold, meanwhile we now do what we are compelled to do, lest we defer the medicine of your heart for however long a delay of time. God is witness that all this administration of ecclesiastical affairs—the lordship of which we are believed to love—I endure, not love, on account of the service which I owe to the charity of the brethren and to the fear of God; so much so that, if I could without harm to my office, I would desire to be free of it.
And that I feel no otherwise about my brother Alypius, God Himself is witness. Yet even about him the people—and, what is graver, the people of Hippo—by feeling otherwise, have been hurled into such great injuries against him; and about us you, holy ones of God and full of the bowels of mercy, by believing such things in the name of that same people (who do not at all pertain to a cause of covetousness of this kind), wished to touch and admonish us—assuredly for our correction, for surely not out of hatred, which be far from you. Wherefore I ought not to be angry, but to give thanks, that you could act neither more modestly nor more freely, in that you did not, as it were abusively, cast at a bishop what you felt, but left it to be understood obliquely.
Nor let it be troublesome to you, that you should think yourselves as it were burdened because I thought I must swear. For neither did the Apostle burden, nor love too little, those to whom he said: 'We were not at any time in the speech of flattery among you, nor in an occasion of covetousness; God is witness.' For of an open matter he cited the men themselves as witnesses, but of a hidden matter, whom but God?
If therefore he was with reason afraid, lest by human ignorance someone should feel some such thing about him—whose labour was manifest to all, that he took nothing for his own uses from the peoples to whom he dispensed the grace of Christ, except under the utmost necessity, but transacted the rest of what was necessary for his sustenance by his own hands—how much more must we labour that it be believed of us, who are far unequal both in the merit of holiness and in strength of soul, and can work nothing with our hands toward the supports of this life, and, even if we could, would by no means be permitted, on account of such great occupations as I do not believe those men then endured! Let not, then, the most base craving for money be cast any further, in this cause, at the Christian people, which is the church of God.
For it is more tolerably cast at us, upon whom a suspicion of this evil, though false yet plausible, could fall, than at those who are agreed to be strangers to this craving and to any suspicion of it. But to refuse an oath is not lawful for minds endowed with any faith—how much more with the Christian faith—I do not say to affirm something contrary, but even to doubt at all. What I feel about this matter I have, as I think, disclosed most plainly enough in the letter which I wrote to my brother. Your holiness wrote to me: 'If either I or the people of Hippo judge that an oath violently extorted should be complied with—' But you yourself, what do you judge?