Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 60 part 1/9

CHAPTERS. I. On the Academics, three books. II. On the Happy Life, one book. III. On Order, two books. IV. Soliloquies, two books. V. On the Immortality of the Soul, one book. VI. On the Morals of the Catholic Church and on the Morals of the Manicheans, two books. VII. On the Greatness of the Soul, one book. VIII. On Free Will, three books. IX. On Genesis against the Manicheans, two books. X. On Music, six books. XI. On the Teacher, one book. XII. On True Religion, one book. XIII. On the Usefulness of Believing, one book. XIV. On the Two Souls, one book. XV. Against Fortunatus the Manichean, one book. XVI. On Faith and the Creed, one book. XVII. On Genesis according to the Letter, one book. XVIII. On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, two books. XIX. A Psalm against the Party of Donatus, one book.

XX. Against the Letter of Donatus the Heretic, one book. XXI. Against Adimantus, disciple of Mani, one book. XXII. An Exposition of Certain Propositions from the Apostle's Letter to the Romans, one book. XXIII. An Exposition of the Letter to the Galatians, one book. XXIV. An Incomplete Exposition of the Letter to the Romans, one book. XXV. On Eighty-Three Different Questions, one book. XXVI. On Lying, one book. Here begins the second book. XXVII. To Simplicianus, two books. XXVIII. Against the Letter of Mani, one book. XXIX. On the Contest, one book. XXX. On Christian Doctrine, four books. XXXI. Against the Party of Donatus, two books. XXXII. Confessions, thirteen books. XXXIII. Against Faustus the Manichean, thirty-three books. XXXIV. Against Felix the Manichean, two books.

XXXV. On the Nature of the Good, one book. XXXVI. Against Secundinus the Manichean, one book. XXXVII. Against Hilarus, one book. XXXVIII. Questions on the Gospels, two books. XXXIX. Notes on Job, one book. XL. On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed, one book. XLI. On the Trinity, fifteen books. XLII. On the Agreement of the Evangelists, four books. XLIII. Against the Letter of Parmenianus, three books. XLIV. On Baptism, seven books. XLV. Against What Centurius Brought from the Donatists, one book. XLVI. To the Inquiries of Januarius, two books. XLVII. On the Work of Monks, one book. XLVIII. On the Good of Marriage, one book. XLIX. On Holy Virginity, one book. L. On Genesis according to the Letter, twelve books. LI. Against the Letters of Petilianus, three books. LII.

To Cresconius the grammarian, four books. LIII. Of Proofs and Testimonies against the Donatists, one book. LIV. Against a Certain Unknown Donatist, one book. LV. An Admonition to the Donatists concerning the Maximianists, one book. LVI. On the Divination of Demons, one book. LVII. Questions Expounded against the Pagans, six in number. LVIII. An Exposition of the Letter of James to the Twelve Tribes. LIX. On the Merits and Remission of Sins and on the Baptism of Infants, three books. LX. On the One Baptism, one book. LXI. On the Maximianists, one book. LXII. On the Grace of the New Testament, one book. LXIII. On the Spirit and the Letter, one book. LXIV. On Faith and Works, one book. LXV. A Brief of the Conference, one book. LXVI. After the Conference, against the Donatists, one book. LXVII.

On Seeing God, one book. LXVIII. On Nature and Grace, one book. LXIX. On the City of God, twenty-two books. LXX. To Orosius the presbyter, one book. LXXI. To Jerome the presbyter, two books. LXXII. To Emeritus, bishop of the Donatists, one book. LXXIII. On the Deeds of Pelagius, one book. LXXIV. On the Correction of the Donatists, one book. LXXV. On the Presence of God, one book. LXXVI. Against Pelagius and Caelestius, two books. LXXVII. The Proceedings with Emeritus, one book. LXXVIII. Against the Sermon of the Arians, one book. LXXIX. On Marriage and Concupiscence, to Valerius, two books. LXXX. Books of Locutions, seven books. LXXXI. Books of Questions, seven books. LXXXII. On the Soul and Its Origin, four books. LXXXIII. To Pollentius, two books. LXXXIV.

Against an Adversary of the Law, two books. LXXXV. Against Gaudentius, bishop of the Donatists, two books. LXXXVI. Against Lying, one book. LXXXVII. Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, four books. LXXXVIII. Against Julian, six books. LXXXIX. On Faith, Hope, and Charity, one book. XC. On the Care to be Taken for the Dead, to Paulinus, one book. XCI. On the Eight Questions of Dulcitius, one book. XCII. To Valentinus, on Grace and Free Will, one book. XCIII. To the same as above, on Rebuke and Grace, one book. PROLOGUE.

For a long time now I have been intending and preparing to do what I now, with the Lord's help, undertake, since I judge it ought not to be put off—namely, to review my little works, whether in books, or in letters, or in treatises, with a certain judicial severity, and to mark with, as it were, a censor's pen whatever offends me. For no one, unless he be imprudent, will dare to reprove me on the ground that I reprove my own errors. But if he says that those things ought not to have been said by me which would afterwards even displease me, he speaks the truth and takes my side. For he is a reprover of the very things of which I too am a reprover. For I ought not to reprove them, if I ought to have said them. But let each one receive as he will this which I do;

yet in this matter too I ought to have regard to that apostolic saying, where he says: 'If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord.' That too which is written—'From much speaking you shall not escape sin'—terrifies me greatly, not because I have written much, or because many things also which were not dictated have nevertheless been written down as spoken by me—for far be it that it should be reckoned much speaking, when necessary things are said, however great the multitude and length of words in which they are said—but I fear that saying of Holy Scripture for this reason: that even from so many of my disputations, without doubt many things can be gathered which, if not false, at least may seem, or even be proved, to be unnecessary.

But whom of his faithful has Christ not terrified, where he says: 'Every idle word that a man shall speak, he shall render an account for it in the day of judgment'? Whence also his apostle James says: 'Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak'; and in another place he says: 'Be not many masters, my brethren, knowing that you receive the greater judgment. For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, he is a perfect man.'

I do not arrogate this perfection to myself even now, when I am an old man—how much less when as a young man I had begun to write or to speak before the people, and so much was granted to me that, wherever in my presence there was need to speak to the people, I was very rarely permitted to be silent and to listen to others, or to be swift to hear but slow to speak. It remains, therefore, that I should judge myself under one Master, whose judgment concerning my offenses I desire to escape. But I reckon that men become many masters when they hold diverse and mutually opposed views. Yet when all say the same thing, and say what is true, they do not depart from the mastership of the one true Master. They offend, however, not when they say many things of his, but when they add things of their own.

For thus indeed from much speaking they fall even into false speaking. But it has pleased me to write these things, so that I may put them into the hands of men from whom I cannot recall and emend those things which I have already published. Nor do I indeed pass over those things which I wrote when I was already a catechumen—though I had abandoned the hope which I bore as an earthly one, yet was still puffed up with the habit of secular letters—since these too have gone forth into the notice of those who copy and read them, and are read with profit, if pardon is granted for some things, or, if pardon is not granted, one nevertheless does not cling to the errors. Wherefore, whoever shall read these things, let them not imitate me when I err, but when I advance toward what is better.

For whoever reads my little works in the order in which they were written will perhaps find how I made progress in writing. And that he may be able to do this, I shall take care in this work, as far as I can, that he may know that same order. CHAPTER I. ON THE ACADEMICS, THREE BOOKS.

When, therefore, I had abandoned both what I had attained in the desires of this world and what I desired to attain, and had betaken myself to the leisure of the Christian life, I first wrote—not yet baptized—against the Academics, or concerning the Academics, in order that I might remove from my mind, by whatever arguments I could, since they were disturbing me, those arguments of theirs which they press upon many, bringing despair of finding the truth, and forbidding anyone to assent to any matter and to approve anything at all as though it were manifest and certain—for the wise man, since all things seem to them obscure and uncertain. And this was done by the Lord's mercy and help.

But in those same three books of mine it does not please me that I so often invoke fortune—although I did not mean by this name any goddess to be understood, but the fortuitous outcome of things, whether in our body or in external goods or evils. Whence come also those words which no religious scruple forbids one to say: 'perhaps' (forte), 'perchance' (forsan), 'peradventure' (forsitan), 'maybe' (fortasse), 'by chance' (fortuito)—which nevertheless must all be referred back to divine providence. This too I did not there pass over in silence, saying: 'For perhaps that which is commonly called fortune is governed by a certain hidden order, and we call nothing else chance in things save that whose reason and cause is secret.' I did indeed say this, yet it repents me that I there named fortune thus, since I see that men have it as a very bad habit,

namely that where they ought to say 'God willed this,' they say 'Fortune willed this.' And as for what I said in a certain place: 'It is so arranged, whether for our merits or for the necessity of nature, that a divine mind cleaving to mortal things is by no means received by the harbor of philosophy,' and so on—either neither of these two things ought to have been said, since even so the sense could be sound, or it was enough to say 'for our merits,' as it is true that misery is derived from Adam, and not to add 'or for the necessity of nature,' since indeed the harsh necessity of our nature has arisen by the merit of preceding iniquity. And likewise as to what I said there:

'that nothing at all is to be worshiped, and that whatever is discerned by mortal eyes, whatever any sense attains, is to be wholly cast away'—words ought to have been added, so that it might be said: 'whatever the sense of the mortal body attains'; for there is also a sense of the mind. But I was then speaking after the manner of those who call nothing sense except that of the body, and nothing sensible except corporeal things. And so wherever I spoke thus, the ambiguity is too little avoided except among those who are accustomed to this manner of speaking. Again I said: 'What else do you think it is to live blessedly, save to live according to that which is best in man?' And a little later, explaining what I said was best in man:

'Who,' I said, 'would doubt that the best thing of man is nothing other than that part of the soul which it befits to rule, and to which the other things that are in man should submit? This, that you may not demand another definition, can be called mind or reason.' This indeed is true—for as far as pertains to the nature of man, there is nothing in him better than mind and reason—but he who wishes to live blessedly ought not to live according to it. Otherwise he lives according to man, whereas one ought to live according to God, so that he may be able to attain to blessedness, for the sake of obtaining which the mind ought not to be content with itself, but our mind must be made subject to God. Again, replying to him with whom I was disputing: 'Here plainly,' I said, 'you do not err;

and I would gladly wish, that it may be an omen to you for the rest.' Though this was said not in earnest but in jest, I would nevertheless prefer not to have used that word. For I do not recall having read of an 'omen' either in our sacred writings or in the discourse of any ecclesiastical debater—although 'abomination' is derived from it, which is constantly found in the divine books. But in the second book that quasi-fable about philocalia and philosophy is downright inept and insipid—namely, that they are sisters and born of the same parent.

For either that which is called philocalia exists only in trifles, and on this account is by no reason a sister to philosophy; or, if this name is to be honored on the ground that, translated into Latin, it signifies the love of beauty, and there is a true and highest beauty of wisdom, then that very same philocalia in incorporeal and highest things is identical with philosophy, and they are in no way like two sisters. In another place, when I was treating of the soul, I said: 'more securely about to return to heaven.' But I should have said 'about to go' rather than 'about to return' more securely, on account of those who think that human souls, for the merits of their sins, have fallen or been cast down from heaven and are thrust into these bodies.

But I did not hesitate to say it for this reason, that I said 'to heaven' as though I were saying 'to God,' who is the soul's author and founder—just as the blessed Cyprian did not hesitate to say: 'For since we possess a body from earth and a spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven.' And in the book of Ecclesiastes it is written: 'Let the spirit return to God, who gave it'—which is of course to be understood in such a way that no resistance is made to the Apostle, who says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil. Without controversy, then, a certain original region of the soul's blessedness is God himself, who did not indeed beget it out of himself, but created it out of no other thing, just as he created the body out of earth.

For as to its origin, whereby it comes to be in a body—whether it is from that one which was first created, when man was made into a living soul, or whether individual souls are likewise made for individual persons—I neither then knew nor as yet do I know. In the third book: 'If you ask what seems to me,' I said, 'I judge the highest good of man to be in the mind.' I would have said more truly: 'in God'; for the mind enjoys him, so as to be blessed, as its own highest good. Nor does that please me which I said: 'It is clear that one should swear by everything divine.'

Likewise, as to what I said about the Academics—that they knew the truth, the likeness of which they called the truthlike (verisimile), and that I called this very truthlike a falsehood which they approved—this was said wrongly for two reasons: either because that would be false which was in some way like some truth (since in its own kind this too is true), or because they approved as truthlike those false things (since they approved nothing at all and affirmed that the wise man approves nothing). But because they also called this very truthlike 'the probable,' hence it came about that I spoke of them thus. Also the very praise by which I exalted Plato, or the Platonists, or the Academic philosophers so highly as one ought not to exalt impious men, has not undeservedly displeased me,

especially since Christian doctrine must be defended against their great errors. That too—when in comparison with the arguments of Cicero, which he used in his Academic books, I called my own refutations 'trifles' (by which I had refuted those arguments by most certain reasoning)—although it was said in jest and was rather spoken with irony, ought nevertheless not to have been said. This work thus begins: 'O would that, Romanianus, a man fitted for himself...' CHAPTER II. ON THE HAPPY LIFE, ONE BOOK. It happened that I wrote the book On the Happy Life not after the books On the Academics, but among them. For it arose on the occasion of my birthday and was completed in a disputation of three days, as I myself sufficiently indicate.

In which book it was agreed among us, who were inquiring together, that there is no happy life save the perfect knowledge of God. But it displeases me there that I attributed to Mallius Theodorus, to whom I dedicated the book itself, more than I ought—although he was a learned and Christian man—and that I there too often named fortune, and that I said the happy life dwells, during the time of this life, in the mind of the wise man alone, however his body may fare; whereas the Apostle hopes for the perfect knowledge of God, that is, than which none greater can belong to man, in the future life, which alone is to be called the happy life, where also the body, incorruptible and immortal, will be made subject to its own spirit without any trouble or resistance.

Indeed I found this book interrupted in our codex, and lacking not a little, and thus was it copied out by certain brethren; nor had I as yet found it whole in anyone's possession, from which I might emend it, when I was making these retractations. This book thus begins: 'If a course to the harbor of philosophy...' CHAPTER III. ON ORDER, TWO BOOKS. During the same period, indeed among those which were written On the Academics, I also wrote two books On Order, in which a great question is treated: whether the order of divine providence contains all good and evil things.

But when I saw that the matter was quite difficult to understand, and that those with whom I was dealing could scarcely be led by disputation to its perception, I preferred to speak of the order of study, whereby one can advance from corporeal to incorporeal things. But in these books too there displeases me the frequently interposed term 'fortune'; and that I did not add 'of the body' when I named the sense of the body; and that I attributed much to the liberal disciplines, of which many holy men are much ignorant, while some indeed know them and are not holy; and that I mentioned the Muses, though in jest, as though they were certain goddesses; and that I called admiration a vice; and that I said philosophers not endowed with true piety had shone with the light of virtue;

and that I commended two worlds, one sensible, the other intelligible—not in the person of Plato or of the Platonists, but in my own—as though the Lord too had wished to signify this, because he does not say, 'My kingdom is not of the world,' but 'My kingdom is not of this world,' although it can be found said also by some other manner of speaking; and, if another world than this was signified by the Lord Christ, that one could more fittingly be understood in which there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when that shall be fulfilled which we pray, saying: 'Thy kingdom come.' Nor indeed did Plato err in this, in that he said there is an intelligible world—provided we should choose to attend not to the term, which in that matter is unaccustomed to ecclesiastical usage, but to the thing itself.

For he called that the intelligible world—the very eternal and unchangeable reason by which God made the world. And whoever denies that this exists, it follows that he must say either that God made irrationally what he made, or that, when he was making it, or before he made it, he did not know what he was making, if the reason of making was not with him. But if it was, as indeed it was, Plato seems to have called that very thing the intelligible world. Yet we would not use that name if we were already sufficiently instructed in ecclesiastical letters. Nor does that please me, that when I had said, 'The utmost effort must be given to the best morals,' I straightway added: 'For our God will not otherwise be able to hear us; but those who live well he will most easily hear.'

For it was said as though God does not hear sinners; which indeed one said in the Gospel—but he who had not yet known Christ, by whom he had already been enlightened in body. Nor does that please me, that I gave so much praise to the philosopher Pythagoras that one who hears or reads this might suppose me to have believed there are no errors in Pythagorean doctrine, whereas there are many, and those capital ones. This work thus begins: 'Concerning the order of things, Zenobius...' CHAPTER IV. SOLILOQUIES, TWO BOOKS. Amid these things I also wrote two volumes, according to my zeal and love of investigating the truth by reason, concerning those matters which I most desired to know—questioning myself and answering myself, as though we were two, reason and I, when I was alone.

Whence I named this work Soliloquies; but it remained unfinished, yet in such a way that in the first book there was inquiry and it somehow appeared what sort of person he ought to be who wishes to perceive wisdom, which is of course perceived not by the sense of the body but by the mind; and by a certain reasoning at the end of the book it is gathered that those things which truly are, are immortal; while in the second book the matter of the immortality of the soul is long treated but not brought to completion. In these books indeed I do not approve what I said in the prayer: 'O God, who hast willed that none but the pure should know the truth.' For it can be answered that many even not pure know many true things; nor was it here defined what the truth is which none but the pure can know, and what it is to know. That too which is there set down:

'O God, whose kingdom is the whole world, which the sense knows not'—if God is to be understood, words ought to have been added, so that it might be said: 'which the sense of the mortal body knows not.' But if the world is meant, which the sense knows not, that one is rightly understood which is to be with the new heaven and the new earth; yet here too those words ought to have been added, so that it might be said: 'the sense of the mortal body.' But I was still speaking in that manner in which the sense is properly called that of the body; nor need this be constantly repeated, which I have already said above about it, but this must be borne in mind wherever this manner of speaking is found in my writings. And where I said of the Father and the Son: 'He who begets and he whom he begets are one thing (unum est),' it ought to have been said: 'are one (unum sunt),' just as Truth itself openly speaks, saying:

'I and the Father are one (unum sumus).' Nor does that please me, that I said the soul is already blessed in this life once God is understood—unless perhaps in hope. Likewise what I said, that 'one does not arrive at the conjunction with wisdom by one way alone,' does not sound well, as though there were another way besides Christ, who said: 'I am the way.' This offense to religious ears was therefore to be avoided, although there is one universal way, and other ways besides, of which we also sing in the Psalm: 'Make known to me thy ways, O Lord, and teach me thy paths.' In that which was there said, 'these sensible things are wholly to be fled,' care ought to have been taken lest we be thought to hold that opinion of Porphyry the false philosopher, whereby he said that every body is to be fled. But I did not say 'all sensible things,' but:

'these,' that is, corruptible things; but this rather ought to have been said, that such sensible things will not be sensible in the new heaven and new earth of the world to come. Likewise in a certain place I said that those unskilled in the liberal disciplines 'without doubt draw them out from within themselves, buried in oblivion, by learning, and in a certain way dig them up again.' But this too I disapprove. For it is more credible that even those unskilled in certain disciplines answer truly about them, when they are well questioned, for this reason: that the light of eternal reason is present to them, whenever they are able to grasp it, wherein they behold these immutable truths—not because they had once known them and had forgotten, as seemed good to Plato or to such men.

Against their opinion, so far as the work I had undertaken gave me occasion, I discoursed in the twelfth book of On the Trinity. This work begins thus: 'A great and varied matter has for a long time occupied me.' CHAPTER V. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ONE BOOK. After the books of the Soliloquies, when I had now returned from the countryside to Milan, I wrote a book On the Immortality of the Soul, which I had intended to serve me as a kind of memorandum for finishing the Soliloquies, which had remained incomplete. But somehow, against my will, it passed into people's hands and is reckoned among my little works. Because of the intricacy and brevity of its reasonings it is so obscure that even my own concentration grows weary when it is read, and it is scarcely understood even by myself.

Then, thinking of nothing other than human minds, I said in a certain argument of that same book: 'Nor can there be knowledge in him who learns nothing'; and likewise in another place I said: 'Nor does knowledge embrace any thing except what pertains to some branch of learning'; nor does it come to mind that God does not learn the disciplines and yet possesses knowledge of all things, in which there is also foreknowledge of things to come. Of this same kind is also what was there said: that there is no life with reason belonging to any but the soul—for indeed God does not have life without reason, since with Him there is both the highest life and the highest reason. And somewhat earlier I said that that which is understood is always of such a kind—when it is understood—as also the mind, which certainly is not always of such a kind.

But when I said that the mind cannot on that account be separated from the eternal reason, because it is not joined to it by place, I certainly would not have said it if I had then been so instructed in the sacred letters as to recall what is written: 'Your sins separate between you and God.' From this it is given to understand that a separation can also be spoken of even of those things which had been joined not by place but incorporeally. What it means, too, that I said—'if the soul lacks a body, it is not in this world'—I could not remember. For surely the souls of the dead either do not lack a body, or are not in this world? As though indeed the lower regions were not in this world! But because it can lack a body for its good, perhaps by the name of 'body' I meant bodily plagues.

If this is so, I used the word too extravagantly. That too was rashly said: that by the supreme Essence a bodily form is bestowed through the soul, by which a body is what it is, in so far as it is; that therefore a body subsists through the soul and exists by the very thing by which it is animated, whether universally, as the world, or particularly, as each single animal within the world—all this was said entirely rashly. This book begins thus: 'If somewhere there is a discipline.' About the same time when I was at Milan about to receive baptism, I also attempted to write books on the liberal disciplines, questioning those who were with me and were not averse to studies of this kind, desiring by means of corporeal things either to arrive at, or to lead others to, incorporeal things by certain fixed steps, as it were.

But of these I was able to complete only the book on grammar, which I afterwards lost from our cabinet, and six volumes on music, as far as concerns that part which is called rhythm. But these same six books I wrote when I was already baptized and had already returned from Italy to Africa; for I had only begun that discipline at Milan. Of the other five disciplines likewise begun there—of dialectic, of rhetoric, of geometry, of arithmetic, of philosophy—only the beginnings remained, which nevertheless we also lost, though I suppose they are held by some. CHAPTER VI. ON THE MORALS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICHEES, TWO BOOKS.