Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 99/118

Henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. But therefore then with great power and majesty, because his greater power and majesty shall appear to the saints, to whom he shall give great strength, lest they be overcome by so great a persecution; or in his own body, in which he sits at the right hand of the Father, in which also he died and rose again and ascended into heaven, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles: When he had said these things, a cloud received him and he was taken up from them. And because it was there also said by the angels: So shall he come, as you have seen him going into heaven, he is deservedly to be believed to come not only in the same body but also in a cloud.

since he shall so come as he departed, and a cloud received him as he departed. But which of these two is here rather to be chosen, it is difficult to judge. The more ready sense indeed is that anyone, when he shall have heard or read: And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty, should straightway take it to be his coming not through the Church but through himself, when he shall come to judge the living and the dead. But since the Scriptures are to be searched and we ought not to be content with their surface—for they have been so tempered for our exercise that they wish to be penetrated more deeply—the things that follow are to be diligently examined. For when he had said:

And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty, he added and said: But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. And he spoke to them a similitude: 'See the fig tree and all the trees; when they now put forth fruit of themselves, you know that summer is near; so also you, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is near.' When therefore he says: When you shall see these things come to pass, what shall we be able to understand but those things which were mentioned above? And among these is also that which he says: And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty.

Accordingly, even when this shall have been seen, the kingdom of God shall not yet be, but shall be near. This order we see the other two evangelists also to hold. For in Mark, when it had been said: And the powers that are in the heavens shall be moved, then, he says, they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with much power and glory. Then he adds what Luke did not say: And then he shall send his angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. Then, as to what the former said about the fig and about other trees, this one, setting it down about the fig alone: But from the fig tree, he says, learn a parable. When its branch is now tender and the leaves are come forth, you know that summer is near;

so also you, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. What is 'when you shall see these things come to pass' but those things which he said above? Among which is also that which he says: And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with much power and glory, and then he shall send his angels and shall gather together his elect. Not therefore then shall the end be, but then it shall be near at hand. Or is it to be said that not all the things which were mentioned above are to be understood where he says: When you shall see these things come to pass, but some of them, namely with this exception, which was said: And then they shall see the Son of Man coming, and the rest? For that itself shall be the end, not then shall it be near.

But Matthew has made it clear that what was set down: When you shall see these things come to pass, is to be taken with no exceptions; for in him too, when it had been said: And the powers of the heavens shall be moved, then, he says, shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty; and he shall send his angels with a trumpet and a great voice, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the highest parts of the heavens even to the ends thereof. And from the fig tree learn a parable: when its branch is now tender and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is near; so also you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the gates.

Then therefore we know it to be near, when we shall have seen not some of those things but all these things, among which is also this, that the Son of Man shall be seen coming, and he shall send his angels and from the four quarters of the world, that is, from the whole earth, gather together his elect—which the whole last hour does, as he comes in his members as in clouds, or in that whole Church itself, which is his body, as in a great cloud fruitful and growing throughout the whole world, from the time when he began to preach and to say: Do penance;

for the kingdom of heaven is at hand—so that perhaps all the things which were said by these three evangelists concerning his coming, if they be more carefully collated and discussed among themselves, may be found to pertain to this, that he daily comes in his body, which is the Church, concerning which coming of his he said: Henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven—with the exception of those passages where that final coming in himself, when he shall be the judge of the living and the dead, is so promised by him that it is said to draw near, and where, in the last part of the discourse according to Matthew, that coming itself is quite evidently expressed, whose nearness above is shown to be understood by certain signs.

For to this the discourse itself is concluded in Matthew: But when the Son of Man shall come, he says, in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty; then shall be gathered before him all nations, and the rest, down to that place where he says: And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting. For no one doubts that this was foretold concerning Christ's last coming and concerning the end of the age. For even of those five and five virgins there have not been lacking those who wished to teach, by no contemptible argument, that they pertain to this coming of his which is now taking place through the Church.

But these things are not to be rashly promised, lest something occur which strongly contradicts them—especially since, in such obscurities of the divine utterances, by which it has pleased God to exercise our understandings, not only is one of those who treat the holy Scriptures not implausibly moved more keenly than another, but even any one single man among them at times understands less, at times better. Nevertheless I know not whether we could discern anything more certain in this question, if by any reasoning or means we could, than that which I have already set down in my former letter: when the whole world shall be filled with the Gospel. For that which your Venerability thinks has already been done through the apostles themselves, I have proved by sure documents not to be so.

For there are among us, that is, in Africa, innumerable barbarian nations among whom the Gospel has not yet been preached; and it is easy for us daily to learn this from those who are led captive thence and now mingled with the servitude of the Romans. Yet it is but a few years since some of them—the very rarest and fewest, who cling to the Roman borders in peace, so that they do not have their own kings, but prefects appointed over them by the Roman empire—since those very prefects of theirs began to be Christians. But the interior peoples, who are under no Roman power, are in no way held by the Christian religion in any of their number; nor can it in any way rightly be said that these do not pertain to the promise of God.

For the Lord promised to the seed of Abraham not the Romans but all nations, and that too with the interposition of an oath. From which promise it has already come to pass that not a few nations, which are not held under Roman dominion, have received the Gospel and been joined to the Church, which is fruitful and grows throughout the whole world. For it still has something in which to grow, until that be accomplished which was prophesied concerning Christ under the figure of Solomon: He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth—'from the river,' namely, where he was baptized, because from there he began to preach the Gospel; but 'from sea to sea' is the whole earth with all things, since the whole is girded by the Ocean sea. But in what other way shall that prophecy be fulfilled:

All the nations, as many as you have made, shall come and shall adore before you, O Lord? For they shall come not by migrating from their own places, but by believing in their own places. For concerning those who believe the Lord said: No man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father; and the prophet says: And they shall adore him, every one from his own place, all the islands of the nations. He said 'all the islands,' as though he said 'even all the islands,' hence showing how no land is left where the Church is not, when no island is left—of which some are even situated in the Ocean, and some of them we have learned have already received the Gospel. And thus even in each single island there is fulfilled that which was said:

He shall have dominion from sea to sea, by which each single island is girded, just as in the whole world, which is as it were in some manner the greatest of all islands, since the Ocean girds it too, to whose shores in the western parts we know the Church has already come; and wherever it has not yet come to its shores, it certainly is going to come, by bearing fruit and growing. If therefore—since the prophecy of truth cannot lie—it is necessary that all the nations, as many as God has made, adore him, how shall they adore him unless they call upon him? And how shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Or how shall they preach unless they be sent?

For he sends his angels and gathers together his elect from the four winds, that is, from the whole earth. In those nations, therefore, in which there is not yet a Church, it behoves that there should be one—not that all who shall be there should believe; for all the nations were promised, not all the men of all the nations; for faith is not of all. And so every nation believes in all those who are elect before the foundation of the world; in the rest it does not believe, and it hates those who believe. For how else shall that also be fulfilled: You shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake, unless in all nations there be both those who hate and those whom they hate? In what way, therefore, has this preaching been completed by the apostles, when there are still nations—which is most certain to us—

in which it has now begun, and in which it has not yet begun to be fulfilled? It was therefore not so said to the apostles: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth, as though those alone to whom he then spoke were going to fulfill so great a task, but just as he seems to have said to them alone what he said: Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age—which nevertheless who does not understand that he promised to the whole Church, which, some dying and others being born, is to be here even to the consummation of the age? Just as he said to them that also which pertains to them in no way at all, and yet was so said as though it pertained to them alone: When you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the gates;

for to whom does this pertain but to those who shall be in the flesh when all things shall be fulfilled? How much more that which for the most part was to be done through them, although the same action was reserved also for their posterity! But as to what the Apostle said: Have they not heard? 'Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world'—although he spoke with words of past time, yet he said what was to be future, not what had already been done and completed; just as the prophet himself, whom he used as a witness, does not say 'their sound shall go out into all the earth,' but: Their sound has gone out, he says—which certainly had not yet been done: such as is also that: They have dug my hands and feet, which we know was done so long afterward.

But lest we believe that only these prophetic utterances, and not apostolic ones too, were of this kind—does not the same Apostle himself say: Which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth? And without doubt great is the sacrament of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached among the nations, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory. Surely it is manifest that this which he set down at the end—even now it is not yet completed; how much more then, when he was saying these things! For the Church shall indeed be taken up in glory, when it shall be said: Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom; and yet, as though it had been done, that was said which was certainly known to be future.

Much less to be wondered at is it that he used even words of present time in that which you have recorded that he repeatedly said: For the hope which is laid up for you, which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel, which is come unto you, as also in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing—although the Gospel did not yet hold the whole world; but he said that it was bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so as thereby to signify how far it was going to come by bearing fruit and growing. If therefore it lies hidden when, with the Church bearing fruit and growing, the whole world altogether from sea to sea shall be filled, without doubt it lies hidden when the end shall be; for before that it shall not be.

But that I may open to you, as to a holy man of God and a most sincere brother, what I think concerning this question: error indeed is to be avoided on both sides, as far as it can be avoided by man—whether the Lord be believed to be about to come sooner or later than he is going to come. But to me no one seems to err when he knows that he does not know something, but rather when he thinks he knows what he does not know. Let us therefore remove from our midst that evil servant, who, saying in his heart: My lord delays his coming, lords it over his fellow servants and mingles in feasting with drunkards; for that servant without doubt hates the coming of his lord. With that evil servant removed, let us set before our eyes three good servants, handling the Lord's household diligently and soberly.

thirstily longing for the coming of their Lord, watchfully awaiting it, faithfully loving it. Suppose one of them thinks the Lord will come sooner, another later, while the third confesses his own ignorance concerning this matter. Although all are in harmony with the Gospel, since all love the manifestation of the Lord and await it with desire and vigilance, let us nevertheless consider which is more in harmony with it. One says: 'Let us watch and pray, for the Lord will come sooner'; another says: 'Let us watch and pray, because this life is short and uncertain, even though the Lord will come later'; the third says: 'Let us watch and pray, because this life is both short and uncertain, and we do not know the time when the Lord will come'; the Gospel says:

See, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. I beg you, what else do we hear this third man saying than what we hear the Gospel saying? Indeed, out of longing for the kingdom of God, all of them wish it were not true what the first man supposes; but this the second denies; the third, however, denies none of these things, but confesses that he does not know which of them speaks the truth. Accordingly, if that comes to pass which the first had foretold, the second and the third will rejoice together with him; for all love the manifestation of the Lord; they will therefore exult that what they love has come sooner. But if it does not come to pass, and it begins to appear that this is rather true which the second was saying, it is to be feared that during the very delays those who had believed may be disturbed.

what the first had said, and begin to think the Lord's coming to be not delayed but nonexistent. You see how great a ruin of souls this is. But if they be of such great faith that they turn themselves to the pronouncements of the second man, and faithfully and patiently await the Lord even while he tarries, nevertheless there will abound the reproaches, insults, and mockeries of enemies who turn away many weak ones from the Christian faith, by saying that the kingdom was promised to them as deceitfully as it was deceitfully said that he would come soon. But those who believe what the second man says, that the Lord will come later, if it be found false because the Lord comes sooner, in no way will those who believed him be shaken in faith, but they will enjoy an unexpected joy.

Wherefore he who says that the Lord will come sooner speaks the more desirable thing, but is dangerously mistaken. Would then that it were true, since it will be grievous if it is not true! But he who says that the Lord will come later, and yet believes, hopes for, and loves his coming, assuredly, even if he is mistaken about the Lord's delay, is happily mistaken; for he will have the greater patience if it be so, and the greater gladness if it be not so. And through this, by those who love the manifestation of the Lord, the former is heard more sweetly, the latter is believed more safely. But he who confesses that he does not know which of these is true, wishes for the one, tolerates the other, and errs in none of them, because he neither affirms nor denies any of them.

I beg you not to despise one such as me, for I too love you as one affirming that which I desire to be true, and the more I love what you promise, the more I do not wish you to be deceived, and the more I see how dangerous it would be if you were deceived. Pardon me if I have been burdensome to your holy feelings: for the more rarely it happens, the more it has delighted me to converse with you at greater length, at least through letters. To the illustrious lord and deservedly most excellent, and in the love of Christ most dear son Valerius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord.

When for a long while I had been distressed that I had written several times and had merited no reply from your Sublimity, suddenly I received three letters of your kindness: one addressed not to me alone, through my fellow-bishop Vindemialis, and not long afterward two through my fellow-presbyter Firmus. This holy man, joined to us by a most intimate charity — as you could learn from him — by conversing much with us about your Excellency and truthfully making known what sort of man he had come to know you to be in the bowels of Christ, surpassed not only those letters which the aforementioned bishop or he himself brought, but even those which we complained of not having received. And for this reason his account of you was the sweeter to us, because he said those things

which you yourself could not write back, not even at my inquiring, lest you should become a proclaimer of your own praises, which holy Scripture forbids. And yet I too fear to write these things to you, lest I incur the suspicion of a flatterer, illustrious lord and deservedly most excellent, and in the love of Christ most dear son. Your praises therefore in Christ, or rather the praises of Christ in you — see what delight and gladness it was to me to hear them from that man, who could neither deceive me on account of his faith, nor be ignorant of them on account of his friendship with you. But other things too, and from others, though not so many or so certain, we have nonetheless heard: how sound and catholic your faith is,

how devout your expectation of things to come, what love of God and of the brethren is yours, how you are not proud-minded amid lofty honours, nor hope in the uncertainty of riches but in the living God, and are rich in good works; how your house is the rest and solace of the saints and the terror of the impious; how great is your care lest anyone lay snares against the members of Christ, cloaked under the veil of the name of Christ, whether among his older or his more recent enemies; and how provident you are for the salvation of those same enemies, hostile to their error. These things and things of this kind, as I have said, we are wont to hear also from others. But now through the aforesaid brother we have come to know them more fully and more attested. Furthermore, concerning conjugal chastity,

so that we might praise and love it in you also, what should we hear except from some intimate acquaintance of yours, who knew your life not on the surface but through and through? Concerning this good of yours, then, this gift of God, it delights me too to speak with you more intimately and somewhat more at length. I know that I am no burden to you if I send you something lengthy, so that by reading it you may be with us the longer. For I have learned this too, that amid your many and great cares you read easily and gladly, and are exceedingly delighted with our little works, even those which we have composed for others, if any of them could come into your hands: how much more with what is written to you, where I speak as if to one present, and you deign both to attend the more attentively and to receive the more gratefully!

From this letter, then, proceed to the book which I have sent along with it, which by its own opening will more conveniently make known to your Reverence both why it was written and why it was sent to you above all others. The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to Aurelius the Bishop, greeting. It had been long since established that Pelagius and Caelestius, the inventors of an unspeakable dogma, should be driven from the city of Rome as certain contagions of catholic unity, lest they pervert the minds of the ignorant by a wicked persuasion. In this our clemency followed the judgment of your Holiness, whereby it is established that they were condemned by all in a just examination of sentence. But because the persistent evil of their obstinate crime demanded that the constitution be doubled,

we have also by a recent sanction decreed that, if anyone, not unaware that they are lurking in any part of the provinces, should delay either to drive them out or to betray them, he should be subject to the prescribed penalty as a partaker in the crime. Especially, however, for correcting the obstinacy of certain bishops who either by silent consent build up their depraved disputations or by public opposition fail to destroy them, most dear and most beloved Father, the authority of your Holiness must needs remain in force, so that in the abolition of this preposterous heresy the devotion of all Christians may agree. Therefore let your Religion cause all to be admonished by suitable writings, that they may know that by the definition of your Holiness this decision has been prescribed for them:

namely that whosoever, by impious obstinacy, shall have neglected to subscribe to the condemnation of the aforementioned men — so that a pure mind may be made evident — being punished with the loss of their episcopate, and being expelled from the cities in perpetual interdict, shall be deprived of communion. For since we ourselves, according to the Nicene synod, venerate with sincere confession God the Creator of all things and the Author of our empire, your Holiness will not suffer men of a detestable sect, devising new and unheard-of things to the injury of religion, to conceal by secret dealings a sacrilege once condemned by public authority. For one and the same is the guilt of those who, either by dissembling, have rendered connivance, or by not condemning, a harmful favour.

[And in another hand:] May the Divinity keep you safe for many years, most dear and most beloved Father. Given on the fifth day before the Ides of June at Ravenna. In the same tenor it was also given to the holy Augustine, bishop. To the truly holy lords, and with all affection and by all right to be venerated, the bishops Alypius and Augustine, Jerome sends greeting in Christ. The holy presbyter Innocentius, who is the bearer of this discourse, last year, as though he would by no means return to Africa, did not take up my writings to your Worthiness. Yet we give thanks to God that it turned out thus, so that you overcame our silence by your letters. For to me every occasion is most welcome by which I write, calling God to witness to your Reverence, that,

if it could be done, having taken up the wings of a dove I would be ever entwined in your embraces — always indeed on account of the merit of your virtues, but now most of all, because with you as fellow-workers and instigators the Caelestian heresy has been throttled. This heresy so infected the hearts of many that, although they perceive that they have been overcome and condemned, nevertheless they do not lay aside the poisons of their minds, and — the only thing they can do — they hate us, through whom they think they have lost the liberty of teaching their heresy.

But as to what you ask, whether I have written back against the books of Annianus, the pseudo-deacon of Celeda — who is most abundantly fed, so that he may supply the frivolous words of another's blasphemy — know that I received those very books, sent in unbound sheets by our holy brother the presbyter Eusebius, not long ago, and that thereafter, whether from oncoming illnesses or from the falling-asleep of your holy and venerable daughter Eustochium, I so grieved that I thought them almost to be despised; for he sticks fast in the same mire, and, apart from tinkling and begged-for words, says nothing else. Nevertheless we have taken great pains that, while he tries to answer my letter, he might betray himself more openly and lay bare his blasphemies to all.

For whatever he denies having said in that miserable synod of Diospolis, in this work he professes. Nor is it any great matter to answer most foolish dirges. But if the Lord grant life and we have an abundance of shorthand-writers, we shall answer with a few night-labours — not that we may convict a heresy already dead, but that we may refute its ignorance and blasphemy by our discourses; and your Holiness would do this better, lest we be compelled to praise our own writings against a heretic. Our common holy children, Albina, Pinianus, and Melania, greet you very much. These little letters from holy Bethlehem I have handed over to the holy presbyter Innocentius to be carried. Your granddaughter Paula wretchedly beseeches that you be mindful of her, and greets you much.

May the clemency of Christ our Lord keep you safe and mindful of me, truly holy lords and fathers venerable to the affection of all. To the most blessed lord, and sincerely most dear and most longed-for brother and fellow-bishop Optatus, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. Through the religious presbyter Saturninus I received the letters of your Veneration, demanding of me with great eagerness that which I do not yet possess. But why you have done this you have disclosed to me the reason: namely, that you believe a reply has already been made to me when I consulted about this matter. Would that it were so! Far be it that I should defraud you, whose most eager expectation I have come to know, of the sharing of this gift.