Then indeed Augustine will seem to himself the supreme pontiff of Christ, because then he will feel himself heard from on high—if the one whom he begot worthy of you in letters, this same one he may also worthily bring forth for himself in Christ. For even now—believe me, if you will—he wrote to us with the most burning solicitude concerning him. We believe, in the almighty Christ, that Augustine's spiritual vows may prevail over the carnal vows of our young man. He shall be conquered, even against his will, believe me; he shall be conquered by the faith of his most pious parent, lest an evil victory conquer him, if he should prefer to conquer unto his own ruin rather than to be overcome for his salvation.
Lest the office of brotherly humanity should seem empty, from the biscuit-bread of Christian campaign—in whose battle-line we daily serve as soldiers for the ration of frugality—we have sent five loaves to you and to our son Licentius together; for we could not separate from the blessing him whom we desire to bind wholly to us by the same grace. Yet let us speak a few words to him also, lest he deny that what is written to you about him is written to him. For it is to Aeschinus, they say, that what Micio hears is spoken. But why should I speak of others' matters, since of our own we can speak all things, and to speak of others' is not wont to be the mark of a sound head? By this grace of God we are sound and safe, we whose Head is Christ.
May we have you sound in health for a great many years and ever blessed, together with all your household, as we desire, in Christ, O lord brother most deservedly to be honoured and most longed-for.
Hear then, my son, the law of your father—that is, the faith of Augustine—and do not reject the counsels of your mother; for the piety of Augustine equally claims for itself by right the name in you. He carried you, so small, in his own bosom, and having first steeped you as a little one with the first milk of secular wisdom, now longs also to suckle and nourish you for the Lord at spiritual breasts—since he sees you, grown in bodily age, still wailing in a spiritual cradle, still an infant in the word of God, scarcely creeping in Christ with first steps and faltering footprint, if only Augustine's teaching, like a mother's hand and a nurse's forearm, may guide the unsteady little one. If you would hear and follow him—that I may allure you again with Solomon's word—my son, you shall receive a crown of graces for your head.
And then you shall truly be that consul and pontiff—not dreamed in a phantom, but formed by Truth itself—with Christ filling the empty images of a false work by the solid effects of His own working. For Licentius shall be a pontiff truly, and truly a consul, if you cleave to Augustine's footsteps—prophetic and apostolic disciplines—as blessed Elisha to the consecrated Elijah, as the young Timothy to the illustrious Apostle, in an undivided companionship along the divine journeys, so that you may both learn to deserve the priesthood with a perfect heart, and, as a master, take counsel by mouth for the peoples unto salvation. Let this suffice for admonitions and exhortation;
For with little discourse and labor, I think, my Licentius, one already schooled from boyhood in the pursuits of truth and wisdom can be roused to Christ — both of which Christ truly is, and the highest good of every good — one set aflame by the spirit and mouth of the venerable Augustine. If he had little power with you on your own behalf, what shall I accomplish, so far behind at such an interval and poor in all his resources? But because, trusting both in the power of his ability and in the kindness of your talent, I hope for things more fully and greatly wrought in you than yet to be wrought, I have dared to open my mouth for a twofold grace: that I might both be likened to that man, by the love owed, in my concern for you, and be counted, even by attested affection, among those who love your salvation.
For I know that the palm, accomplished in your perfection, is destined above all for Augustine. I fear, my son, that I have offended your ears with the harshness of rash speech, and through your ears have inflicted upon your mind too the wound of my weariness. But your letter came to mind, from which I understood you to be intimate with musical measures — a pursuit from which I myself, once of your age, did not shrink. And so, recalling your letters, I found a remedy to soothe your mind toward my purpose, if I had anywhere galled it, that I might call you, by the melody of song, to the Lord, the Craftsman of all-shaped harmony.
I beg you, hear with your ear, and do not spurn the cause of your salvation in my words, but gladly receive the pious care and fatherly mind even in speeches you might despise; in these the implanted name of Christ, which is above every name, makes this reverence to be owed, so that it cannot be scorned by one who believes. Therefore come, break your delays and the clinging bonds of the age, and do not fear the mild yoke of the gentle Lord. Beautiful indeed, yet a marvel to wandering minds, is the presence of present things; but the wise soul is not stupefied by these. Now ill-persuading ambition solicits you with various shapes — alas! O mighty Rome, potent even to turn strong men. But for you, my son, I pray, may father Augustine ever meet you against all the enticements of the city.
Beholding him amid such perils of fragile life, and holding him safe within your breast, you shall be secure. Yet this too, again and again and again, I shall urge: that you flee the slippery ways of harsh soldiery. Honor is a flattering name, but slavery an evil, and its outcome sickly — what now it pleases to will, soon to have willed brings regret. It pleases to climb the heights, but it is a trembling to descend from the heights; if you totter, the worse you fall from the citadel's summit. Now false goods please you, now ambition snatches you to every breeze, and hollow fame bears you in its glassy bosom. But when the ruinous belt has girded you with great fever and barren toil has thence broken you, late and in vain will you accuse empty hopes, and the bonds you now weave you will then wish to break. Then you will remember, grieving, that in vain you scorned the truth-telling warnings of father Augustine.
Therefore, if you are wise and if you are pious, boy, hear and take up the words of the fathers and the counsel of the elders. Why do you draw back your wild neck from the yoke? My burden is light, the yoke is sweet — it is the pious voice of Christ; believe God, and set your head beneath the yoke, give your face to the soft halters and put your lowered shoulders under the light burden. Now you can do this, while you act as a free man, while no bonds hold you back, no care of the marriage-bed nor lofty honor. This is the good freedom: to serve Christ and in him to be above all. He serves not the lords of men, not vices, not proud kings, who has given himself only to Christ the Lord. Nor let that nobility seem free to you, which now you behold borne aloft through the astonished city, which you see to fancy itself of such great liberty that it disdains to bend its neck to God.
That wretch serves many mortals, and serves even slaves, and buys maidservants that they may lord it over him. They know eunuchs, and having endured great palaces, and whoever willingly endures Rome as a wretch, at how great a price of sweat and loss of dignity the cost of the cloak stands here, the honor of office there. Yet not even he himself is powerful — he who has bought being loftier than all, that he might serve no one, does not attain it. When he has well boasted himself lord through the whole city, he serves demons, if he worships idols. O grief! For the sake of these you linger in the city, Licentius, and spurn the kingdom of Christ, that you may please them? These you call lords and salute with bent neck, whom you behold to be slaves of wood and stone? Under a divine name they venerate silver and gold; religion is become what the disease of avarice loves.
I imprecate that he love these, who does not love Augustine, nor worship Christ — he to whom it is pleasing to worship these. Hence God himself says that two masters cannot be served, since one single mind pleases God. One faith, one God and the only-begotten Christ from the Father; there is no double servitude to one Lord. For as great as is the distance between heaven and earth, so great is that between the affairs and empires of Caesar and of Christ. Lift yourself from the ground; but now, while the spirit governs these limbs, penetrate heaven with your mind — no delay of the flesh hinders. Die now already to bodily acts, and with a clear soul forethink the goods of the heavenly life. You are spirit, though you are held by the body, if now, with a pious mind, a victor, you destroy the work of the flesh. These things to you, dear boy, compelled by faithful love, I have written;
if you receive them, you will be received by God. Believe that Augustine is now doubled to you in me; take two fathers together with piety. If we are spurned, you are dragged away with the greater grief of the two; if we are heard, you will be a sweet pledge to the two. In you the glad care of two fathers has sweated, and it is a great honor to you to have gladdened two. But when I couple myself with Augustine, I do not boast myself equal in merits; only in love of you do I compare myself. For what shall I pour upon you, dripping from a poor stream? Beyond me you shall be washed by a twin river: brother Alypius is here, and Augustine your master — this one a sharer of your blood, that one the begetter of your talent. By so great a brother and teacher you are strong, Licentius, and do you hesitate on such wings to seek the stars? Whatever you do — for the world will not hope you its friend — you, a soul owed to Christ, will not be given over to earth.
Though you now meditate on marriage-chambers and lofty honors, one day you will be restored to your Lord. I believe that two just men will conquer one sinner, and that your prayers and a brother's entreaties will drive your sins away. Therefore return, whither the parent by his voice, whither the brother by his blood — both priests — bid you come back. They draw you back to your own, for now you seek foreign things: rather these things, the kingdoms which hold you, are your own. Seek these again, gape after these, do not waste time on foreign things; if you will not have your own, will anyone give you what is foreign? You will not be your own, and, sent far off through foreign things, alas! an exile from the senses of your own breast, you will pass your life. Enough that a parent has sung these things to his son, anxious while for you I either wish or fear what I wish or fear for myself. These things to you: if you receive them, this page will one day bring you life; if you refuse, this same page will be a witness.
May Christ grant you to me unharmed, dearest son, and give you to himself as a servant forever. Live, I pray, but live to God; for to live to the world is the work of death, whereas to live to God is to live a living life. XXXIII. To the honorable and most beloved lord Proculeianus, Augustine. On account of the vanities of unskilled men I ought not to dispute with you any longer about the title of my letter. For when we try to recall one another from error, although before the fullest discussion of the case it may seem to some uncertain which of us errs, yet we serve one another mutually, if we deal with one another in good spirit, that we may be freed from the perversity of discord.
That I do this with a sincere heart and with the trembling of Christian humility — even if it is not open to most men, yet He sees it, to whom no hearts are closed. But what I would not hesitate to honor in you, you easily understand. For I do not judge the error of schism worthy of any honor — from which, as far as concerns me, I desire all men to be healed; but you above all, because you are bound to us by the very bond of human society, and because certain indications of a more peaceful mind stand out in you, by which it is in no way to be despaired that you can easily embrace the truth once it has been demonstrated — you I think are to be honored without any surge of doubt.
But of love I owe you as much as He himself commands us, who loved us even unto the reproach of the cross. But do not wonder that I was long silent before your benevolence: I did not think you held this opinion, which brother Evodius — whom I cannot but trust — joyfully indicated to me. For when it had chanced that you met in one house, and a discourse arose between you concerning our hope, that is, concerning the inheritance of Christ, he says your kindness declared that you wished to confer with us, with good men sitting as judges. At this I greatly rejoice, that you have deigned to offer it to our humility, nor can I in any way desert so great an occasion of your kindly spirit:
namely, that, as much as the Lord shall deign to grant strength, I may inquire with you and discuss what cause, what origin, what reason has arisen in the Church of Christ — to which He said: 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you' — of a division so much to be mourned and lamented. I heard indeed from the aforesaid brother that you complained he had answered you insultingly in I know not what. This, I beg you, do not reckon that insult, which I am certain did not proceed from a proud spirit — for I know my brother — but if, in disputing for his faith and for the love of the Church, he said something perhaps too fervently, which your gravity would not wish to hear, it is to be named not contumacy but confidence.
For he desired to be a fellow-conferrer and disputant, not a flatterer and adulator. For this is the oil of the sinner, with which the prophet does not wish his head to be anointed; for thus he says: 'The just man shall correct me in mercy and shall rebuke me; but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head.' For he prefers to be corrected by the severe mercy of the just than to be praised by the mild anointing of flattery. Whence also is that prophetic word: 'They who call you happy lead you into error.' And therefore of a man whom false flatteries make arrogant it is even commonly and rightly said, 'His head has grown'; for it has been anointed with the oil of the sinner, that is, not of one correcting with harsh truth but of one praising with mild falsehood.
Nor do I ask you to take this in that sense, as if I wished it understood that you were corrected by brother Evodius as by a just man. For I fear lest you should think that I too say something insultingly against you, which I vehemently guard against as much as I can. But just is He who said: 'I am the truth.' And so, when from the mouth of any man whatever the truth has sounded to us with some harshness, we are corrected not by that man, who perhaps is a sinner, but by Truth itself, that is by Christ, who is just, lest the anointing of flattering but pernicious adulation, that is the oil of the sinner, anoint our head.
Although even if brother Evodius, somewhat troubled in defense of his communion, had said something rather loftily with a mind too moved, you ought to pardon the man's age and the necessity of the cause.
Yet that which you deigned to promise, I ask you to remember: that, with men sitting whom you yourself shall have chosen — provided our words be not vainly bandied about but taken down in writing, so that we may discourse both more calmly and more orderly, and, if perhaps anything said by us has slipped from memory, it may be recalled by reading it back — we may seek with concord a matter so great and pertaining to the salvation of all; or, if it please, with no mediator interposed, we may first confer between ourselves, whether by letters or by conversation and reading, wherever it shall please, lest perhaps some intemperate hearers should prefer to await, as it were, our contest, rather than to think of their own salvation in our conversation; so that what shall have been settled between us, the people may afterward know through us; or, if it please to proceed by letters, let these themselves be read to the congregations, that at some time not 'peoples' but 'one people' may be spoken of.
Utterly as you shall wish, as you shall command, as it shall please you, I gladly embrace. And concerning the mind of the most blessed and venerable father Valerius, mine, who is now absent, I promise with all security that he will learn of this with great joy; for I know how much he loves peace and is puffed up by no emptiness of vain pride. I ask you, what have we to do with old dissensions, that those wounds should have lasted even until now, which the animosity of proud men inflicted upon our members? By the putrefaction of which wounds we have even lost the pain by which a physician is wont to be implored. You see with how great and how miserable a foulness Christian households and families have been disfigured. Husbands and wives agree with one another about their own bed, and disagree about the altar of Christ;
through Him they swear to one another to have peace between themselves, and in Him they cannot have it; children with their parents have their one house their own, and do not have one house of God; they desire to succeed to the inheritance of those with whom they wrangle over the inheritance of Christ; slaves and masters divide the common God — He who took the form of a slave, that by serving He might set all free. Your people honor us, our people honor you; your people adjure us by our crown, our people adjure you by your crown; we accept the words of all, we wish to offend no one; why does Christ alone offend us, whose members we tear?
And indeed men, wishing to settle their secular cases before us, in the measure that we have been useful to them, so they call us holy and servants of God, that they may carry out the business of their earth: let us at some time carry out also the business of our salvation and of theirs. Not about gold, not about silver, not about lands and cattle — for which things daily with bowed head we are greeted, that we may end the dissensions of men — but about our very Head is there so base and pernicious a dissension between us. However much they bow their heads who greet us, that we may make them concordant on earth, from heaven even to the cross our Head has been bowed, in whom we are not concordant.
I ask you and beseech you: if there is in you any humanity, which many proclaim, let your goodness here appear — if it is not feigned for the sake of transitory honors — that the bowels of mercy may tremble within you, and that you may wish at some time the matter to be discussed, urging with us in prayers and conferring all things peacefully, lest the wretched congregations, which are obsequious to our honors, press us with their obsequies in the judgment of God; but rather, recalled with us by our unfeigned love from errors and dissensions, may be directed into the paths of truth and peace. I wish you to be blessed before the eyes of God, honorable and most beloved lord. XXXIV. To the excellent lord, worthy to be received and honorable brother Eusebius, Augustine.
God knows, to whom the secrets of the human heart are manifest, how much I love Christian peace, and how much I am moved by the sacrilegious deeds of those who unworthily and impiously persevere in dissension from it; and He knows that this movement of my mind is peaceable, and that I do not act to have anyone compelled unwilling to catholic communion, but that to all who err the open truth may be declared, and, made manifest through our ministry by God's help, may of itself sufficiently persuade that it is to be embraced and followed. For what more execrable, I beg you — to be silent about other things — than what has now happened?
A young man, mad with frequent beatings of his mother, is rebuked by his bishop; nor even in those days, when even the severity of the laws spares the most wicked, could the bishop recall him from love toward the very bowels whence he was born. He threatens the same mother that he will transfer himself to the party of Donatus, and will slay her whom with incredible fury he is wont to beat; he threatens her, crosses over to the party of Donatus, is rebaptized raging, and, roaring for his mother's blood, is robed in white; he is placed within the rails, eminent and conspicuous, and to the eyes of all who groan, as if renewed, a plotter of matricide is set forth. Do these things at last please you, most grave man? By no means would I believe this of you; I know your discernment.
The carnal mother is beaten in the members by which she bore and nourished the ingrate; the Church, the spiritual mother, forbids this — she too is beaten in the sacraments by which she bore and nourished the ingrate. Does he not seem to you to have said, gnashing his teeth like a parricide: 'What shall I do to the Church, which forbids me to beat my mother? I have found what I shall do: let her too be struck by the injuries with which she can be struck; let something be done to me whence her members may grieve; I will go to those who know how to blow away the grace in which I was born there, to destroy the form which I received in her womb; both my mothers I will torment with savage tortures; let her who bore me later carry out her who bore me first; to the grief of the one I will die spiritually, to the slaughter of the other I will live carnally.'
What else do we expect, honorable Eusebius, than that against the wretched woman, decrepit with old age, destitute in widowhood, from whose beating he was forbidden in the catholic Church, he should now, as a secure Donatist, arm himself? For what else has he conceived in his furious heart, when he said to his mother, 'I will transfer myself to the party of Donatus and drink your blood'? Behold, already bloody in conscience, whitened in garment, he fulfills part of his promise; there remains the other part, that he drink his mother's blood. If therefore these things please, let him be urged by his clerics and sanctifiers that within his octave he discharge in full all that he has vowed.
Powerful indeed is the right hand of the Lord, which may restrain his fury from the wretched and desolate widow, and deter him, by the means He knows, from so wicked a design. But nevertheless, I, struck with so great a grief of mind, what should I do, unless at least I should speak? Or do they do these things to him, and to me it is said: 'Be silent'? May the Lord avert from me this madness, that, when He himself commands me through His apostle and says that those who teach what they ought not are to be refuted by the bishop, I, terrified by their indignations, should be silent.
For that I wished so sacrilegious a crime to be affixed to the public records, I willed for this reason: lest anyone, especially in other cities where it shall be opportune, should suppose that I, deploring these things, fabricate something — since even at Hippo itself it is now being said that Proculeianus did not command this which the public office reported. But what more modest thing can we do than that I should conduct so grave a case through you nevertheless — a man both endowed with most illustrious dignity and tranquil with a most considerate will?
I ask, therefore, as I have already asked through our brothers, good and honest men, whom I sent to your excellency, that you would deign to inquire whether Proculeianus's presbyter Victor did not receive this command from his bishop which he reported to the public office; or perhaps, since Victor himself also said something different, whether they prosecuted a falsehood before the acts, since they are of the same communion; or, if he consents that we may calmly treat the whole question of our dissension, so that the error which is now manifest may become more manifestly known, I gladly embrace it. For I heard that he said that, without popular tumult, ten grave and honest men from each side should be present with us, and that we should investigate according to the Scriptures what lies in the truth.
For as to what some again reported to me that he said — why I did not go to Constantina, when more of them were there, or that I ought to go to Milevis, because there, as they allege, they are shortly about to hold a council — it is ridiculous to say, as if any care of my own pertained to me except that of the church of Hippo. To me the whole reason of this question is chiefly with Proculeianus. But if perhaps he thinks himself unequal, let him implore the help of whichever of his colleagues he wishes. For in other cities we do only as much as pertains to the Church as either the bishops of those same cities — our brothers and fellow-priests — permit us or impose upon us.
And yet this man, who says he has been a bishop for so many years, what he should fear in me, a raw recruit, so that he is unwilling to confer discourse with me, I do not sufficiently understand. If he fears the learning of liberal letters, which perhaps he himself either did not learn or learned but little, what has this to do with that question which is to be discussed either from the holy Scriptures or from ecclesiastical or public documents, in which he has been engaged for so many years, whence in them he ought to be the more skilled? Finally, here is my brother and colleague Samsucius, bishop of the church of Turres, who has learned no such things as this man is said to dread; let him himself be present, let him deal with him;
I will ask him, and, as I trust in the name of Christ, he will readily grant me to take up my part in this matter; and the Lord will help him contending for the truth — though unpolished in speech, yet learned in true faith, as we trust. There is therefore no cause why he should defer to others, I know not whom, that we may not conclude between ourselves what pertains to us. Nor yet, as I said, do I flee even those, if he himself demands their help. XXXV. To the excellent lord, worthy to be received and most beloved brother Eusebius, Augustine. I have not, as a troublesome exhorter or deprecator, imposed upon your unwilling will the judgment, as you say, to be undergone among the bishops.
Which indeed, even if I had wished to persuade it, I could perhaps easily show how capable you are of judging between us in so manifest and open a case, and what sort of thing that is which you do — that, the parties not having been heard, you do not hesitate already to render a sentence for one party, you who dread judgment. But this, as I said, for the present I omit. But I had asked nothing else of your honorable kindness — which I beg you at last to deign to attend to at least in this letter — except that you would inquire of Proculeianus whether he himself said this to Victor his presbyter, which Victor reported to the public office as said to him; or perhaps that those who were sent did not report what they heard from Victor, but prosecuted a falsehood in the acts;
then, what he thinks about the whole question to be discussed between us. But I judge that he does not become a judge who is asked to interrogate someone and to deign to write back what has been answered to him. This, therefore, even now I ask, that you would not be reluctant to do, because he is unwilling to accept my letters, as I have even experienced. But if he had been willing, I would certainly not be doing this through your excellency. Since, however, he is unwilling, what more mildly can I do than that, through you — such a man, and one who loves him — something may be asked, whence my own burden forbids me to be silent? But that a mother beaten by her son displeased your gravity — yet you said that 'he,' if he knew, would forbid so wicked a youth from his communion — I briefly reply:
he has just now learned of it — let him now forbid it. I add also another thing. A subdeacon, formerly of the church of Spania, by name Primus, when he was forbidden undisciplined access to the nuns and despised the ordained and sound precepts, was removed from the clergy; and he himself, provoked against the discipline of God, transferred himself to those men and was rebaptized.
Two nuns also, his fellow-tenants, from the estate of catholic Christians, whether he likewise carried them off or they too, having followed him, were nevertheless themselves also rebaptized; and now, together with the bands of Circumcellions, among the wandering troops of women who wantonly refused to have husbands lest they should have discipline, he proudly exults in the detestable frenzies of drunkenness, rejoicing that a most ample license of evil living has been opened to him, which in the catholic Church was forbidden him. And this, perhaps, Proculeianus does not know. Therefore, through your gravity and modesty, let it be brought to his notice.