Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 48/118

Does it please you that, even with certain death imminent—which was then vainly feared—a Christian should take the name of the Lord his God into falsehood, that a Christian should employ his God as witness to a lie? Who assuredly, if apart from an oath he were compelled to false witness with death imminent, ought rather to have feared to defile his life than to end it. Hostile battle-lines and armed men clash together, certainly with the most open intention of death, and yet, when they swear to one another, we praise those who keep faith, but rightly detest those who deceive. But that they might swear, what did each side fear from the other except being slain or captured?

And through this, unless an oath extorted by fear either of death or of captivity be spared—unless the faith which was there given be kept—even such men are held bound by the crime of sacrilege and perjury, men who fear more to perjure themselves than to slay a man; and shall we, as though about to debate, set up as a question whether an extorted oath must be fulfilled by servants of God who stand pre-eminent in the office of holiness, monks who run toward the perfection of Christ's commands even by the distribution of their own goods? For why is that promised presence weighed down under the name of exile or deportation or relegation? I beseech you. I think that the presbyterate is not exile. Would our friend, then, choose this rather than that exile?

Far be it from us that a holy one of God, most dear to us, should be defended in such a way; far be it, I say, that he should be said to have preferred exile to the presbyterate, or to have preferred perjury to exile. These things I would say, if an oath of promising his presence had truly been extorted from him by us or by the people; but as it is, it was not extorted while it was refused, but, while it was offered, accepted—and this in the hope, as we said above, because through that presence it was believed that he could even consent to those desiring him, to undertake the clerical office. In the end, whatever be thought about us or about the people of Hippo, far different is the cause of those who compelled him to swear from that of those who—I will not say compelled, but persuaded—him to perjure himself.

Let him too, about whom the matter is at issue, not refuse to consider which is the worse: to take an oath under any fear whatever, or, with the fear itself removed, perjury. Thanks be to God, that the people of Hippo feel the promise concerning him to be fulfilled in no other way than that he be present with the will of dwelling there, and that he go wherever it shall be necessary, with the disposition of returning. For if they were to attend to and exact the words of the oath, in no way ought a servant of God to withdraw rather than in any way to perjure himself. But since it would be their crime to hold thus—I do not say such a man, but any man whatever—they themselves proved that they had no other expectation, who, on hearing that he had departed intending to return, rejoiced; nor does a truthful oath owe them anything other than that which they expected from it.

But what is this that is said—that by his own mouth expressed in the oath he made an exception of necessity? As if he did not again with his own mouth order this to be removed. Certainly, when he himself spoke to the people, then too he would have interposed it. But if he had done so, assuredly there would not have been answered 'Thanks be to God,' but there would have been a return to that outcry which had been made when it was thus recited by the deacon. And does it at all pertain to the matter, whether an excuse of necessity for withdrawing be interposed or not? Nothing else was expected of him than that which we said above. But whoever deceives the expectation of those to whom an oath is sworn cannot but be a perjurer. Let it therefore be done, that which was promised, and let the hearts of the weak be healed, lest by so great an example—

Those to whom this course commends itself would be built up toward imitating perjury; but those to whom it is displeasing would say most justly that none of us should be trusted, not only when he promises something but even when he swears an oath. For it is rather from this quarter that the tongues of enemies must be guarded against, tongues which that greater Enemy uses like darts to slay the weak. But far be it from us to hope for anything else concerning such a soul than what the fear of God inspires and what the great excellence of holiness that is in her urges. As for me, whom you say ought even to have forbidden it, I confess I could not be so wise as to wish the Church, which I serve, to be overthrown by so great a tumult and offense, rather than to accept what was being offered to us by such a man. 127.

To the most excellent lords, deservedly honorable and beloved sons, Armentarius and Paulina, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. That distinguished man, my son Ruferius, your kinsman, reported to me what you have vowed to the Lord. Gladdened by his account, yet at the same time fearful lest that tempter, who from of old envies such good things, should persuade you otherwise, I judged that your charity should be exhorted in a few words, most excellent lord and deservedly honorable and beloved son, that you may ponder what is read in the divine oracles: Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day; and hasten and take care to render what you know you have vowed to Him, who both exacts what is owed and pays out what He has promised. For this too is written:

Vow, and render to the Lord our God. And yet, even if you had not vowed, what else should have been urged upon you, or what better thing can a man do, than to restore himself to Him by whom he was fashioned—especially since so great a token of God's charity toward us has appeared and shone forth, that He sent His only-begotten Son to die for us? It remains, therefore, that what the Apostle says be fulfilled: that Christ died for this reason, that those who live should no longer live to themselves but to Him who died and rose again for them—unless perchance the world is still to be loved, though it has been so worn down by such a ruin of things that it has lost even the appearance of allurement.

For as greatly as those are to be praised and proclaimed who did not deign to flourish together with the world even while it flourished, so greatly are those to be rebuked and accused who take delight in perishing together with what is perishing. If the toils and dangers and destructions of this transitory life are undergone for the sake of that same life, which must one day be ended—so that its death may not be wholly taken away but only a little deferred—how much more ought they to be undergone for the sake of the eternal life, where nature does not anxiously guard against death, nor cowardice basely fear it, nor wisdom bravely endure it! For death will belong to no one there, since it will not be at all. Let eternal life, then, hold you among its lovers. Do you not perceive how vehemently this wretched and needy life holds, and how greatly it binds to itself, those who love it?

Yet these very people, often thrown into confusion by its peril, hasten its end all the sooner by the very act with which they dread to end it, and while shunning death, they accelerate it—just as if someone about to be swept away by a river should rush into it while fleeing a robber or a beast. When the tempest rages, men sometimes cast even their provisions into the sea, and, in order to live, throw away that by which they live, lest that which is lived even in toil should quickly come to an end. With how many toils is it managed, that one may toil for a longer time! And when death begins to threaten, it is guarded against for this very purpose—that it may be feared the longer. For amid so many mishaps of human frailty, how many deaths are feared, of which surely only one, when it comes, leaves the rest no longer to be feared! And yet the one is fled from, so that all may be feared. With what pains are those tormented who are treated by physicians and cut open!

Is it perhaps that they may not die? No, but that they may die somewhat later. Many certain torments are undertaken so that a few uncertain days may be added; and sometimes, overcome by those very pains, they die at once—the pains which they undertook out of the fear of death. And though they by no means choose to end life so as not to suffer, but rather to suffer so as not to end it, it befalls them both to suffer and to end it. This is not only because even those who are healed do in any case end their life after the pains—a life which, bought at so great a price, can be neither everlasting, since it is mortal, nor of long duration, since the whole of it is brief, nor secure even in its own brief span, since it is always uncertain—but also because sometimes they have ended by pain the very life which, that they might not end it, they were willing to suffer pain.

Excessive love of this present life has also this great evil, vehemently to be execrated and dreaded: that many, while they wish to live a little longer, gravely offend God, with whom is the fountain of life, and thus, while they vainly dread from Him the end of life which must of necessity come, they are shut out from that place where one lives without end. To this is added that a wretched life, even if it could be perpetual, is in no way to be compared with even the very briefest happy life. And yet these people, by loving the most wretched and briefest, lose the most blessed and everlasting, since in this very life, which they wrongly cherish, they desire that very thing which they lose in the other; for in this life they surely cherish neither its misery—for they wish to be happy—nor its brevity—for they do not wish it to end;

only because it is life is it so loved, that often for its sake, wretched and brief though it be, the blessed and everlasting life is lost. Considering these things, what great thing does the eternal life command its lovers, when it commands itself to be loved in the same manner as this life is loved by its own? Or indeed, is it worthy or even to be endured that, when all the things loved in the world are despised, a life soon to be ended should at least for that little while be held on to in the world, and yet the world be not despised in order to obtain the life which is without end with Him through whom the world was made?

Just now, when Rome itself, the seat of the most illustrious empire, was being laid waste by a barbarian incursion, how many lovers of this temporal life gave up all the things which they had been keeping not only for adorning and gracing but even for sustaining and protecting it, in order to ransom their life, even though it was to be prolonged unhappily and left destitute! Lovers are indeed wont to lavish many things upon those whom they love, in order to possess them; but these people would not possess their beloved unless by loving her they had reduced her to poverty, nor would they lavish many things upon her, but rather strip everything from her, lest the enemy should strip her away from them. Nor do I blame their counsel; for who does not know that the city itself would have perished, had not those things perished which had been hidden away for its sake?

And yet some lost those things first and soon lost the city itself; while others, though ready to lose everything for the city's sake, nevertheless lost the city first. But from this we ought to be admonished what sort of lovers of eternal life we ought to be, so that for its sake we may despise all superfluous things, since for the sake of this transitory life even things that were necessary to it were despised.

For we do not, like those men, strip our beloved in order to hold her; rather, we make this temporal life serve, as a more unencumbered handmaid, toward attaining that eternal life, if we neither bind her with the fetters of vain ornaments nor burden her with the loads of harmful cares, and if we listen to the Lord, who most faithfully promises us that life to be desired with the highest ardor, crying out as if in the assembly of the whole world: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

This discipline of holy humility drives from the soul, and in a manner breathes out of it, that windy and turbulent covetousness which greedily craves things placed outside our own power. For there is toil where many things are sought and loved, for the attaining and retaining of which the will is not enough, because it lacks the accompanying capacity. But the just life is present whenever we will it, since fully to will justice itself is justice, nor does the perfecting of justice require anything more than a perfect will. See whether there be toil where to will is enough. Hence it was divinely said: Peace on earth to men of good will. Where there is peace, there is rest; where there is rest, there is an end of craving and no cause for toil.

But that this will may be full, it must be sound; and it will be sound if it does not flee the Physician, by whose grace alone it can be healed from the disease of harmful desires. He, then, is the Physician who cries out: Come to me, all you who labor—calling His yoke easy and His burden light, because, when charity has been poured out through the Holy Spirit into our hearts, what is commanded will surely be loved and will be neither harsh nor burdensome, if under this one yoke a neck the less swollen and thereby the more free renders service. And this is the one burden by which His bearer is not weighed down but lifted up. If riches are loved, let them be stored where they cannot perish; if honor is loved, let it be held where no unworthy person is honored;

if salvation is loved, let it be desired to be attained there where, once attained, nothing is feared; if life is loved, let it be acquired there where it is ended by no death. Render, therefore, what you have vowed, for you yourselves are it, and you render yourselves to Him from whom you are; render, I beseech you. For that which you render will not be diminished by rendering, but rather preserved and increased; for He is a kindly exactor, not a needy one, one who does not grow by what is rendered, but makes the renderers to grow in Himself. To Him, therefore, whatever is not rendered is lost, but whatever is rendered is added to the one who renders it; nay rather, in Him to whom it is rendered, the one who renders is himself preserved. For the thing rendered and the renderer will be one and the same, since the debt and the debtor were one and the same.

For man owes himself to God, and to Him must he be rendered, that he may be blessed—to Him from whom he received his being. This is what the Lord means in the Gospel when He says: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. For He said this when, a coin having been shown to Him and inquiry made whose image it bore, the answer was given: 'Caesar's'—that from this they might understand that God demands from man His own image in man himself, just as Caesar demanded his own image on the coin. How much more, then, must it be rendered when it is promised, since even unpromised it is owed to Him!

Wherefore, dearest one, I could indeed, according to my own slender little ability, more abundantly praise the fruit of the holy resolve which I have learned you have vowed to God, and show what a difference there is between Christians who love this world and those who despise it—although both are called faithful, both have been washed with the same laver of the sacred font, both imbued and consecrated with the same mysteries, both are not only hearers but even preachers of the same Gospel, and yet both are not partakers of the kingdom of God and of the light, nor coheirs of eternal life, which alone is blessed. For the Lord Jesus distinguished, not from those who do not hear, but among those who are hearers of His words, by a very broad boundary and by no slight distinction:

Whoever hears these words of mine, He says, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon rock: the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it did not fall; for it was founded upon rock. But whoever hears these words of mine and does them not, I will liken him to a foolish man who built his house upon sand: the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was its ruin. To hear those words, therefore, is to build;

in this both are equal, but in doing and not doing what they hear they are as unequal as the building founded on the solidity of rock is unlike the one which, without any foundation, is overturned by the easy shifting of the sand. Nor does anyone who hears nothing at all thereby procure for himself anything safer; for building nothing, and thus without any roof, he is far more easily to be overwhelmed, swept away, and scattered, and is given over to the rains, the floods, and the winds.

I could also, according to my measure, distinguish these same persons who pertain to the right hand and to the kingdom of heaven according to their several grades and merits, and show wherein the conjugal life of fathers and mothers of families who beget children—yet are religious and pious—differs from that life which you have vowed to God, if you were now to be exhorted to vow it. But because you have already vowed, you have already bound yourself, and it is no longer permitted to you to do otherwise. Before you became liable to the vow, it was free to you to be in a lower state—although the freedom is not to be congratulated by which it comes about that what is rendered with gain is not owed. But now, because your promise is held with God, I do not invite you to a great righteousness, but deter you from a great iniquity.

For you will not be such, if you do not do what you have vowed, as you would have remained had you vowed nothing of the kind. For then you would have been less, not worse; but now you will be—which God forbid—as much more wretched, if you break faith with God, as you would be more blessed, if you fulfill it. Nor should you therefore repent of having vowed; nay rather, rejoice that it is now no longer permitted to you to do what would have been permitted to your own detriment. Approach, therefore, undaunted, and fulfill your words by deeds; He Himself will help, who requires your vows. Happy is the necessity which compels toward better things. There could be one sole cause on account of which we would not only not exhort you, but even forbid you, to fulfill what you have vowed: if perchance your wife refused to undertake this with you, through weakness of soul or of flesh.

For such things ought not to be vowed by married persons except by common consent and will; and if it has been done too hastily, the rashness is rather to be corrected than the promise to be paid. For God does not exact it, if anyone has vowed something out of what belongs to another; rather, He forbids the usurping of what is another's. Indeed, a divine sentence on this matter has been pronounced through the Apostle: The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband; and likewise the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife. By the name of body he designated the sex.

But since I hear that she is so ready to dedicate her continence to God, that she is hindered by this one thing only—if she is compelled to render the marriage debt to you by conjugal right—render both of you to God what both of you have vowed, that there may be paid to Him what you do not exact from one another. If continence is a virtue, as indeed it is, why should the weaker sex be more prompt toward it, when virtue seems rather to be named after the man (vir), as the likeness of the word resounds? Do not, then, O man, shrink from the virtue which the woman is ready to undertake. Let your consent be an oblation upon the supernal altar of the Creator, and lust being conquered, let the bond of charity be all the stronger as it is the holier. Let us rejoice over you in the abundant grace of Christ, O most excellent lords and deservedly honorable and beloved sons.

128. To the honorable and most beloved son, distinguished man and worshipful tribune and notary Marcellinus, Aurelius, Silvanus, and all the Catholic bishops. By this letter we make known that we consent in all things, as you have deigned to advise, to the edict of your worship, whereby provision has been made for preserving the tranquillity and quiet of our conference and for manifesting and safeguarding the truth—that is, concerning the place and time of the conference itself, and concerning the number of those who ought to be present.

We also consent that those to whom we delegate the office of conferring shall subscribe to their own proceedings, and that in that document by which we impose this charge upon them and promise that we will hold ratified whatever they shall have done, you may have not only the subscriptions of us all made, but may even yourself observe them as they are made; we shall also, with the Lord's help, admonish the Christian people to keep their gathering wholly away from the place of the conference, for the sake of quiet and tranquillity, and not to be eager to hear the things that are being done while they are being done, but to await them, that they may learn them when written up, just as you have promised that you will bring them forth to all.

Confident also in the truth, we bind ourselves by this bond of a condition: that if those with whom we treat can demonstrate to us—when, according to God's promises, the Christian peoples were everywhere growing and already filling a great part of the world and were spreading into the remaining regions yet to be filled—that suddenly the Church of Christ perished by the contagion of the sins of certain persons (whom these men accuse) and remained only in the party of Donatus—if, as has been said, they can demonstrate this, we will not require among them any honors of the episcopal office, but will follow the counsel of those men for our eternal salvation alone, to whom we shall owe the grace of so great a benefit on account of the truth made known.

But if we rather prevail to show that the Church of Christ already possesses the most fertile expanses not only of the African but even of the transmarine provinces and of many nations, with an abundance of peoples, and, as it is written, is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, and could not perish through the sins of any men mingled with it; if, in short, we shall demonstrate that the very question of those men whom they then wished rather to accuse than were able to convict has been settled—although the cause of the Church does not rest upon them—and that Caecilianus was judged innocent, but they violent and calumnious, by that very emperor to whose examination they of their own accord sent their accusations by accusing; if, finally, whatever they shall have said concerning the sins of any men whatsoever, we shall have proved, by human documents or divine, either that their innocence was assailed by false charges, or that the Church of Christ, to whose communion we adhere, has been destroyed by none of their offenses—then let them so hold unity with us that they may not only find the way of salvation, but not even lose the honor of the episcopate.

For it is not the sacraments of divine truth in them that we detest, but the fabrications of human error, which being removed, we embrace as a brotherly heart one joined to us by Christian charity, which we now grieve to be separated by a diabolical dissension. For each one of us will be able, with his colleague joined to him in honor, to sit by turns more eminently, just as a colleague sits beside a visiting bishop. When this is granted on both sides in alternate basilicas, each is anticipated by the other in mutual honor, because, where the reception of charity has enlarged the hearts, the possession of peace is not made narrow—so that, when one of them has died, thereafter individuals may succeed to individuals according to the ancient custom. Nor will anything new be done;

for this Catholic love has preserved from the very beginning of the separation among those who, though late, at least came to relish the sweetness of unity after condemning the error of a wicked schism. Or if perchance the Christian peoples take delight in single bishops and cannot tolerate the partnership of two through the unaccustomed appearance of things, let both of us withdraw from the midst, and, the cause of schism having been condemned, and the churches having been established in individual congregations in peaceful unity, let single bishops be appointed for the unity that has been effected throughout the necessary places, by those who shall be found singly in the single churches. For why should we hesitate to offer to our Redeemer the sacrifice of this humility? Or did He indeed descend from the heavens into human members, that we might be His members, and we,

lest His very members be torn asunder by a cruel division, are we afraid to descend from our chairs? For our own sake, nothing is more sufficient than that we are Christian, faithful, and obedient; this, therefore, let us always be. But bishops we are ordained for the sake of the Christian peoples; whatever, then, is profitable to the Christian peoples for Christian peace, let us do this with regard to our episcopate. If we are useful servants, why do we envy the Lord His eternal gains for the sake of our temporal exaltations? The episcopal dignity will be more fruitful to us, if, being laid down, it has gathered the flock of Christ together, rather than, being retained, it has scattered it; for with what face shall we hope in the age to come for the honor promised by Christ, if in this age our honor hinders Christian unity?

These things, therefore, we have taken care to write to your excellency, that through you also they may become known to all. We ask that, with the help of the Lord our God, at whose admonition we promise these things and by whose aid we trust we shall be able to fulfill them, even before the conference, if it can be done, pious charity may either heal or subdue the hearts of men, whether weak or hard, and that thus, with minds now peaceable, we may not resist the most manifest truth, but may either precede our disputation with concord or follow it with concord.

For we ought not to despair that, if they recall that the peacemakers are blessed, since they shall be called the sons of God, they will far more worthily and easily desire that the party of Donatus be reconciled to the whole Christian world, than that the whole Christian world be rebaptized by the party of Donatus—especially since, in dealing with those who came from the sacrilegious and condemned schism of Maximianus (whom they took pains to correct even by persecuting them with the commands of earthly powers), they sought them with such great love that they neither dared to rescind the baptism given by them, and received some of them, though condemned, without any diminution of their honor, while others they judged to have remained undefiled in the fellowship of that division. We do not begrudge their concord with one another;

but they surely ought to notice how piously, with such great zeal, the Catholic root seeks out the branch broken off from itself, if the branch itself has likewise labored so to gather up a little fragment cut off from itself. [And in another hand:] We wish you, son, to fare well in the Lord. I, Aurelius, bishop of the Catholic church of Carthage, have subscribed to this letter. [Likewise in another hand:] I, Silvanus, elder of the church of Summa, have subscribed. 129. To the honorable and most beloved son, distinguished man and worshipful tribune and notary Marcellinus, Aurelius, Silvanus, and all the bishops of the Catholic Church.

The notification, or letter, of our brothers—whom we desire to be converted from ruinous dissension to Catholic peace—has made us very anxious, in that they have refused to consent to the edict of your nobility, by which you have provided for the tranquillity and quiet of our very disputation, lest perhaps, even if not all, yet some of them, through the tumult or uproar of the multitude, may hinder the conference, which ought to be peaceful and peaceable. And would that this thought does not tempt them, and that rather this suspicion deceives us!

And therefore, if they should all wish to be present, so that, when it shall seem good to them, we too, being gathered there, may go forth together thence in concord and at peace, and, the schismatic division being corrected, bound by the brotherly bond of the unity of Christ—with all good people wondering and rejoicing, but the devil alone and his like grieving—may proceed together into the church, to render thanksgivings and praises to God with a most ardent and most luminous charity! For what great thing is it, if a peaceable eye should attend, and Christian thought should not fail to consider and to see, human accusations—whether true or false—being set aside, that the Church is to be sought in those Scriptures where Christ its Redeemer has been made known?