Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 60 part 6/9

But much better is this question—concerning the seeing of our thoughts—treated in the work On the City of God. The forty-eighth is On Things Credible; the forty-ninth: Why the children of Israel offered visible sacrifices of cattle; the fiftieth is On the Equality of the Son; the fifty-first is On Man Made to the Image and Likeness of God. There, as to what I said—'Man, that is, is not rightly called life, since even a man's corpse is called a man'—I ought at least to have said 'is not properly called,' where I said 'is not rightly called.' Likewise I said 'Nor is it unskilfully distinguished, that the image and likeness of God is one thing, and to the image and likeness of God another, just as we have received that man was made to the image.'

This is not to be understood as though man were not called the image of God, since the Apostle says: 'A man indeed ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God'; but he is also said to be made to the image of God, which the Only-begotten is not said to be, who is the image only, not to the image. The fifty-second is On that which is said: 'It repenteth me that I have made man'; the fifty-third is On the gold and silver which the Israelites received from the Egyptians; the fifty-fourth is On that which is written: 'It is good for me to cleave to God.' There, as to what I said—'But that which is better than every soul, we call God'—it should rather have been said, 'better than every created spirit.' The fifty-fifth is On that which is written:

'There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and of the young maidens there is no number'; the fifty-sixth is On the forty-six years of the building of the temple; the fifty-seventh is On the hundred and fifty-three fish; the fifty-eighth is On John the Baptist; the fifty-ninth is On the ten virgins; the sixtieth: 'But of that day and hour knoweth no one, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son of man, but the Father alone'; the sixty-first is On that which is written in the Gospel, that the Lord fed the crowds on the mountain with five loaves. There, as to what I said—that 'the two fishes signify those two persons, namely the royal and the priestly, to which also that most sacred anointing pertained'—it ought rather to have been said:

'pertained especially,' since we read that prophets too were sometimes anointed. Likewise I said: 'Luke, who introduced Christ as a priest ascending after the abolition of sins, ascends through Nathan to David, because Nathan the prophet had been sent, by whose rebuke David, by doing penance, obtained the abolition of that very sin.' This is not to be taken as though the Nathan who was the son of David were himself the prophet Nathan; for here too it was not said that he himself was the prophet who had been sent, but it was said, 'because Nathan the prophet had been sent,' so that the mystery may be understood not in the same man but in the same name.

The sixty-second refers to that which is written in the Gospel, that Jesus baptized more than John, although he himself did not baptize, but his disciples. There, as to what I said—'That thief, to whom it was said, Verily I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise, who had not received even baptism itself'—this indeed I find that others also before us, rulers of the holy Church, have set down in their writings; but by what proofs it can be shown that that thief was not baptized, I do not know. On this matter it has been more carefully discussed in certain of our later little works, especially in that which we wrote to Vincentius Victor on the origin of the soul. The sixty-third is On the Word; the sixty-fourth is On the Samaritan woman;

the sixty-fifth is On the resurrection of Lazarus; the sixty-sixth is On that which is written: 'Or are ye ignorant, brethren—for I speak to those that know the law—that the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth?' as far as the place where it is written: 'shall also quicken your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.' There, wishing to expound that which the Apostle says—'But we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal'—I said: 'that is, I consent to the flesh, not yet freed by spiritual grace'; which is not to be so understood as though a spiritual man, now established under grace, could not also say this of himself, and so on as far as the place where it is said:

'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?'—which I afterwards learned, as I have already before confessed. Again, expounding what the Apostle says—'The body indeed is dead because of sin'—'dead,' I say, 'he calls the body, so long as it is of such a kind that by the need of temporal things it troubles the soul.' But afterwards it seemed better to me that the body was called 'dead' for this reason: that it now has the necessity of dying, which it did not have before sin. The sixty-seventh refers to that which is written: 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which shall be revealed in us,' as far as that which is said: 'for by hope we are saved.' There, when I was expounding that which is written:

'and the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption,' I said: 'and the creature itself, that is, man himself, when, having now lost the seal of the image because of sin, he remained a creature only.' This is not to be so taken as though man lost the whole of what he had of the image of God. For if he had lost it altogether, there would be no reason why it should be said: 'Be ye renewed in the newness of your mind,' and 'we are transformed into the same image'; but again, if he had lost the whole, nothing would remain whence it might be said: 'Although man walketh in an image, yet he is disquieted in vain.'

Likewise, as to what I said—that the highest angels live spiritually, but the lowest live in an animal manner—it was too boldly said of the lowest, more than can be shown either by the holy Scriptures or by the things themselves; for even if perhaps it can, it can only with the greatest difficulty. The sixty-eighth refers to that which is written: 'O man, who art thou that repliest against God?' There I said: 'that even if anyone, by lighter sins, or certainly by graver and many sins yet with much groaning and grief of penitence, shall have become worthy of God's mercy, it will not be of himself—who, if he were left, would perish—but of God who has mercy, who comes to the aid of his prayers and his grief. For it is too little to will, unless God have mercy;

but God, who calls to peace, does not have mercy, unless the will has first gone before toward peace.' This was said concerning what comes after penitence. For there is also a mercy of God that goes before the will itself, and if this did not exist, the will would not be prepared by the Lord. To this mercy belongs also that very calling which even goes before faith. Treating of this a little afterward, I said: 'But this calling, which operates whether in individual men, or in peoples, and in the human race itself, through the opportunities of the times, will be of a high and deep ordination.' To this pertains also that saying: 'In the womb I sanctified thee,' and 'when thou wast in the loins of thy father, I saw thee,' and 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' and the rest—although as for that testimony:

'when thou wast in the loins of thy father, I saw thee'—whence it occurred to me, as though it were Scripture, I do not know. The sixty-ninth refers to that which is written: 'Then shall the Son himself also be subject to him that subjected all things unto him'; the seventieth to that which the Apostle says: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is thy strife? where, O death, is thy sting? But the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law'; the seventy-first to that which is written: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so shall ye fulfil the law of Christ'; the seventy-second is On the eternal times; the seventy-third to that which is written: 'and in fashion found as a man'; the seventy-fourth to that which is written in Paul's epistle to the Colossians:

'in whom we have redemption unto the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God'; the seventy-fifth is On the inheritance of God; the seventy-sixth refers to that which the Apostle James says: 'But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is idle?'; the seventy-seventh is On fear, whether it be a sin; the seventy-eighth is On the beauty of images; the seventy-ninth: Why the magicians of Pharaoh worked miracles like Moses, the servant of God; the eightieth is Against the Apollinarians; the eighty-first is On the fortieth and fiftieth (fasts); the eighty-second refers to that which is written: 'For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth'; the eighty-third is On marriage.

This work begins thus: 'Whether the soul is of itself.' CHAPTER 26. ON LYING, ONE BOOK. Likewise I wrote a book On Lying, which, though it is understood with some labour, nevertheless has a not unprofitable exercise of wit and mind, and profits the morals rather toward the loving of truthful speech. This too I had resolved to remove from among my little works, because it seemed to me both obscure and tortuous and altogether troublesome, for which reason I had not even published it. Then, when I had afterwards written another, whose title is Against Lying, I had far more decreed and commanded that this one should not exist; but it was not done.

And so, in this reconsideration of my little works, when I found it intact, I ordered that it too, once reconsidered, should remain, chiefly because in it there are some necessary things which are not in that other. But the inscription of that one is Against Lying, while of this one it is On Lying; because through that whole one there is an open assault upon lying, but a great part of this one is engaged in the discussion of inquiry; yet both are directed toward the same end. This book begins thus: 'Great is the question concerning lying.' CHAPTER 27. TO SIMPLICIANUS, TWO BOOKS.

Of the books which I composed as bishop, the first two are To Simplicianus, prelate of the church of Milan, who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose, on diverse questions; two of these, from the epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, I gathered into the first book. Of these the earlier is On that which is written: 'What then shall we say? is the law sin? God forbid,' as far as that where he says: 'who shall deliver me from the body of this death? the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' In this I expounded those words of the Apostle—'the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,' and the rest, by which the flesh is shown to struggle against the spirit—in such a way as though a man is described still under the law, not yet established under grace;

for long afterward I came to know that those words could be also of a spiritual man—and this is more probable. The later question in this book is from that place where he says: 'And not only so, but Rebecca also, having conceived by one, even by Isaac our father,' as far as that where he says: 'unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah.' In the solution of this question there was indeed labour on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God prevailed; nor could it be arrived at except this: that with the clearest truth the Apostle is understood to have said, 'For who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why gloriest thou, as though thou hadst not received it?'

Wishing to show this, the martyr Cyprian too defined the whole of it by the very title, saying: 'In nothing must we glory, since nothing is ours.' In the second book the remaining questions are treated and, according to our small ability, are solved—all of which are on the Scripture that is called Kings. Of these the first is On that which is written: 'And the Spirit of the Lord leaped upon Saul,' whereas elsewhere it is said: 'and an evil spirit of the Lord was upon Saul.' When I was expounding this, I said: 'although it is in each one's power what he wills, yet it is not in anyone's power what he can do.' This was said for this reason, because we do not say that a thing is in our power unless it is what, when we will it, comes to be; wherein first and chiefly is the very act of willing.

For without any interval of time the will itself is present when we will; but this power too, for living well, we receive from above, when the will is prepared by the Lord. The second question is: In what manner it was said, 'It repenteth me that I have appointed Saul king'; the third: Whether the unclean spirit that was in the pythoness could bring it about that Samuel was seen by Saul and spoke with him; the fourth is On that which is written: 'King David entered and sat before the Lord'; the fifth is On that which Elijah said: 'O Lord, witness of this widow with whom I dwell in her house, thou hast done ill to slay her son.' This work begins thus: 'A most grateful and most sweet.' CHAPTER 28.

AGAINST THE EPISTLE OF MANI WHICH THEY CALL 'THE FOUNDATION,' ONE BOOK. The book Against the Epistle of Mani which they call 'the Foundation' refutes only its beginnings, but on its other parts annotations, where it seemed fit, were affixed, by which the whole is subverted, and by which I might be reminded, should I ever have had leisure to write against the whole. This book begins thus: 'The one true almighty God.' CHAPTER 29. ON THE CONTEST, ONE BOOK. The book On the Christian Contest was written for the brethren untrained in Latin eloquence, in humble speech, containing the rule of faith and the precepts of living. In it that which is set down—'Nor let us listen to those who deny that the resurrection of the flesh is to come, and who recall that the Apostle Paul says:

flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God'—these men not understanding what the same Apostle himself says: 'this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality; for when this shall have been done, it will now be no more flesh and blood, but a heavenly body'—is not to be so taken as though there will not be a substance of the flesh; but by the name of 'flesh and blood' the Apostle is to be understood to have designated the very corruption of flesh and blood, which assuredly will not be in that kingdom, where the flesh will be incorruptible. Although it can also be understood otherwise: that we take the Apostle to have called the works of flesh and blood 'flesh and blood,' and that those will not possess the kingdom of God who have perseveringly loved such things.

This book begins thus: 'The crown of victory.' CHAPTER 30. ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, FOUR BOOKS. Since I had found the books On Christian Doctrine unfinished, I preferred to complete them rather than, leaving them thus, to pass on to other things to be reconsidered. I therefore completed the third, which had been written as far as that place where a testimony from the Gospel is recalled concerning the woman who hid the leaven in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened. I added also a last book and filled up that work with four books, of which the first three help toward the understanding of the Scriptures, but the fourth toward how the things we understand are to be set forth.

In the second book, indeed, concerning the author of the book which many call the Wisdom of Solomon—that this too, like Ecclesiasticus, was written by Jesus son of Sirach—I afterward learned that it is not so settled as was said by me, and I found it altogether more probable that he is not the author of this. But where I said, 'By these forty-four books the authority of the Old Testament is bounded,' I called it the 'Old Testament' from the custom by which the Church now speaks; the Apostle, however, does not seem to call anything the Old Testament except that which was given on Mount Sinai. And in that where I said that Saint Ambrose had resolved a question from the history of the times—as though Plato and Jeremiah were contemporaries—my memory deceived me.

For what that bishop said on this matter is read in his book, which he wrote On the Sacraments, or On Philosophy. This work begins thus: 'There are certain precepts.' CHAPTER 31. AGAINST THE PARTY OF DONATUS, TWO BOOKS. There are two books of mine whose title is Against the Party of Donatus. In the first book of these I said that it did not please me that schismatics should be vehemently constrained to communion by the force of any secular power. And truly it did not then please me, because I had not yet learned either how much evil their impunity would dare, or how much the diligence of discipline could contribute toward changing them for the better. This work begins thus: 'Since the Donatists to us.' CHAPTER 32. CONFESSIONS, THIRTEEN BOOKS.

The thirteen books of my Confessions praise the just and good God concerning both my evils and my goods, and they arouse toward him the human understanding and affection; meanwhile, as far as concerns me, they wrought this in me when they were being written, and they work it when they are read. What others may feel about them, let them see to it; but that they have greatly pleased and do please many of the brethren, I know. From the first to the tenth they are written of myself; in the three remaining, of the holy Scriptures, from that which is written, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' as far as the sabbath rest. In the fourth book, when I confessed the misery of my soul at the death of a friend, saying that our soul had in a certain manner been made one out of two:

'and therefore,' I said, 'perhaps I feared to die, lest he whom I had greatly loved should wholly die'—which seems to me a mild declamation rather than a grave confession; although this ineptitude is somehow tempered by that which was added, 'perhaps.' And in the thirteenth book, that which I said—'a firmament was made between the spiritual upper waters and the corporeal lower ones'—was said without sufficient consideration; but the matter is very deeply hidden. This work begins thus: 'Great art thou, O Lord.' CHAPTER 33. AGAINST FAUSTUS THE MANICHEE, THIRTY-THREE BOOKS. Against Faustus the Manichee, blaspheming the law and the prophets, and their Lord, and the incarnation of Christ, and saying that the Scriptures of the New Testament, by which he is refuted,

had been falsified, I wrote a great work, setting forth his words and rendering my responses. There are thirty-three disputations—which why should I not have called books? For even if some among them are brief, yet they are books. But one of them, where against his accusations the life of the patriarchs is defended by us, is of such length as almost no one of my books. In the third book, then, when I was solving the question how Joseph could have had two fathers, I said indeed that he was born of one and adopted by another, but I ought also to have stated the kind of adoption; for what I said sounds as though another, living father, adopted him.

But the law adopted sons even for the dead, commanding that a brother should take the wife of a brother who had died without sons, and raise up seed for the deceased brother from the same woman. Concerning two fathers of one man, a more expeditious account is there rendered. Now they were brothers of the same womb in whom this came to pass, that the one—Jacob—took the wife of the deceased, that is, of him who was called Heli, from whom Matthew relates that Joseph was begotten; but he begot him for his uterine brother, whose son Luke says Joseph was—not indeed begotten, but by the law adoptive. This was found in the writings of those who, with recent memory after the Lord's ascension, wrote on this matter.

For even the name of that same woman who bore Jacob, the father of Joseph—from her former husband Matthan, who was the father of Jacob and grandfather of Joseph according to Matthew, and from her later husband Melchi she bore Heli, whose adoptive son Joseph was—Africanus did not pass over in silence. This indeed I had not yet read when I was answering Faustus; yet that it could come about through adoption that one man should have two fathers, I could not doubt. In the twelfth and thirteenth books, concerning the second son of Noah, who was called Ham, it was so argued as though he had been cursed by his father not in his son Canaan, as the Scripture shows, but in himself.

In the fourteenth book, concerning the sun and the moon, such things were said as though they have feeling and therefore tolerate their vain worshippers—although the words there can be taken as transferred from the animate to the inanimate by a mode of speech which in Greek is called metaphor, just as it is written of the sea that 'it rages in its mother's womb, wishing to come forth,' though assuredly it has no will. In the twenty-ninth: 'Far be it,' I say, 'that there should be in the members of the saints, even the genital ones, any baseness. They are indeed called dishonourable, because they have not that appearance of comeliness which the members have

which are placed in open view.' But in other of our later writings a more probable reason is rendered why even the Apostle called them 'dishonourable'—namely, on account of the law in the members warring against the law of the mind, which arose from sin, not from the first constitution of our nature. This work begins thus: 'There was a certain Faustus.' CHAPTER 34. AGAINST FELIX THE MANICHEE, TWO BOOKS. Against a certain Manichee named Felix I disputed for two days in the church, in the presence of the people. For he had come to Hippo to sow the same error; for he was one of their teachers, though untrained in liberal letters, yet more cunning than Fortunatus. Ecclesiastical acts were drawn up, but they are counted among my books.

There are, then, two books, in the second of which there was disputation concerning the free choice of the will, whether toward working evil or toward good. But concerning the grace by which men are made truly free—those of whom it is written, 'If the Son shall have made you free, then shall ye be truly free'—we were compelled by no necessity to dispute more diligently, since such was the man with whom we were dealing. This work begins thus: 'IN THE SIXTH CONSULSHIP OF HONORIUS AUGUSTUS, ON THE SEVENTH DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF DECEMBER.' CHAPTER 35. ON THE NATURE OF THE GOOD, ONE BOOK. The book On the Nature of the Good is against the Manichees.

In it is shown that God is an unchangeable nature and the highest good, and that from him are the other natures, whether spiritual or corporeal, and that all, in so far as they are natures, are good; and what evil is, or whence it is, and how great evils the Manichees place in the nature of the good, and how great goods in the nature of evil—which natures their error has feigned. This book begins thus: 'The highest good, than which there is none higher, is God.' CHAPTER 36. AGAINST SECUNDINUS THE MANICHEE, ONE BOOK.

A certain Secundinus—not of those whom the Manichees call the elect, but of those whom they call hearers, whom I had not even known by face—wrote to me as though a friend, honourably chiding me for assailing that heresy with my writings, and admonishing me not to do so, and rather exhorting me to follow it, with a defence of it and a reproach of the catholic faith. To him I replied; but because at the head of that same little work I did not set down who was writing to whom, it is reckoned not among my letters but among my books. There, from the very beginning, his letter too is transcribed. But the title of this volume of mine is Against Secundinus the Manichee, which in my judgment I prefer to all the things I have been able to write against that pestilence. This book begins thus:

'The benevolence toward me which appears in thy letters.' CHAPTER 37. AGAINST HILARUS, ONE BOOK. Meanwhile a certain Hilarus, a man of tribunician rank, a catholic layman, being irritated—as commonly happens—against the ministers of God from I know not what cause, was tearing to pieces with slanderous reproach, wherever he could, the custom which had then begun to exist at Carthage, that hymns from the book of Psalms should be recited at the altar, either before the oblation or when that which had been offered was being distributed to the people, asserting that it ought not to be done. To him I replied, at the bidding of the brethren, and the book is called Against Hilarus. This book begins thus: 'Those who say that mention of the Old Testament.' CHAPTER 38. QUESTIONS ON THE GOSPELS, TWO BOOKS.

There are certain expositions of certain passages from the Gospel according to Matthew, and others likewise according to Luke; the former were gathered into one book, the latter into another. The title of this work is Questions on the Gospels. But why those alone from the aforesaid evangelists were expounded which are contained in these books of mine, and what these are, my prologue—the same questions being appended and numbered, so that whoever wishes may find what he wishes to read by following the numbers—sufficiently indicates. In the first book, then, in that which is set down—that the Lord apart related his passion to two disciples—the faultiness of the codex deceived us; for it is written 'twelve,' not 'two.'

In the second book, being unwilling to expound how Joseph—whose spouse the virgin Mary was said to be—could have had two fathers, I said that that which is reported (that a brother took the wife of a deceased brother, in order to raise up seed for him according to the law) was weak, because the one who was born, the law commanded, should take the name of the deceased. This is not true; for the name of the deceased, as was said, the law ordained to avail for this: that his son should be called, not that the child should be called by that name. This work begins thus: 'This work is not so written.' CHAPTER 39. ANNOTATIONS ON JOB, ONE BOOK. The book whose title is:

Annotations on Job—whether it is to be held as mine, or rather as belonging to those who, as they could or would, redacted into one body these things written on the margins of the codex—I could not easily say. For they are pleasant to very few who understand, who nevertheless must needs be offended by not understanding many things; because not even the very words that are expounded are, in many places, so written down that it appears what is being expounded; and then such obscurity has followed the brevity of the sentences that a reader can scarcely bear it, who must needs pass over very many things not understood;

lastly, I found the work itself faulty in our codices, such that I could neither emend it, nor would wish it to be called published by me—save that I know the brethren have it, which by their zeal could not be denied. This book begins thus: 'And there were great works belonging to him upon the earth.' CHAPTER 40. ON THE CATECHIZING OF THE UNINSTRUCTED, ONE BOOK. There is also one book On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed, marked beforehand with this very title. In which book, where I said, 'Nor did the angel, who with his other satellite spirits, by pride, forsook obedience to God and was made the devil, do any harm to God, but to himself; for God knows how to order the souls that forsake him'—it would more fittingly be said 'the spirits that forsake him,' since it was of angels that the discourse treated. This book begins thus: