Works 3

To the lord most bound to me and by me to be venerated and revered with special affection, brother Lucidus the presbyter, Faustus. Great is the charity that wishes rather, by the grace and help of God, to cure the error of a little-cautious brother, than — as the highest prelates ponder doing — to suspend him from unity. What can I say to you, as you wish, about this opinion, in oneness of mind through letters, when in your presence, with much gentle and humble conversation, I could never draw you to the way of truth? Speaking, therefore, of the grace of God and the obedience of man, we ought by all means to establish this: that, leaning neither to the left nor pressing forward on the right, we may rather walk by the royal road.

But I was astonished that your reverence had said that no one, ever, under a religious profession, has either written or preached against the catholic faith — when very many have believed that their manifold and profane errors ought to be inserted even into the monuments of their writings, who nevertheless gloried in the Christian name. Briefly, then, I will say — as much as I can say to one who is absent — what you ought to hold in agreement with the catholic Church: namely, that you always join to the grace of the Lord the working of the baptized servant, and that you detest, together with the dogma of Pelagius, him who asserts a predestination that excludes the labour of man.

Anathema, then, to him who, among the rest of the impieties of Pelagius, has contended with damnable presumption that man is born without sin and can be saved by labour alone, and who has believed that man can be freed without the grace of God. Likewise anathema to him who has asserted that a man, solemnly baptized with a faithful confession and holding the catholic faith, and afterwards fallen through the diverse allurements and temptations of this world, has perished in Adam and in original sin. Likewise anathema to him who has said that a man is pressed down into death through God's foreknowledge. Likewise anathema to him who has said that the one who perished had not received the means whereby he might be saved (that is, of one baptized, or of a pagan of that age who could and would believe).

Likewise anathema to him who has said that a vessel unto dishonour cannot rise up to become a vessel unto honour. Likewise anathema to him who has said that Christ did not die for all, nor wills all men to be saved. But when you shall have come to us in the name of Christ, or when you shall have been summoned by the holy priests, then, if the Lord commands, we will bring forward the fitting testimonies in their proper places, by which both the things that are catholic may be made manifest and the things contrary to catholics may be destroyed.

But we, through the illumination of Christ, truthfully and confidently assert both that he who perished through fault could have been saved through grace, if he had not denied to grace itself the obedience of his servant-labour; and that he who, through grace, has arrived by attendant service at the goals of a good consummation, can fall through slothfulness and perish through fault. We therefore, walking through the middle way with Christ as our guide, assert, after grace — without which we are nothing — the labour of dutiful service.

But by all means we exclude the arrogance and presumption of labour, so that, while sweating with all our strength lest grace be made void in us, we may pronounce whatever we have received from the hand of the Lord to be a gift, not a reward — knowing that the fruit of the labour itself is a matter of duty, not of merit, since with the Evangelist we say: 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.' To these things, which have been mentioned briefly for the brevity of a letter, let your unanimity respond by return of discourse, whether you accept or reject them. As for the rest, whoever does not follow this measure of truth — grace going before and endeavour rising up — will be worthy to be barred from the sacred thresholds.

Yet I, holding fast in the way your inseparable goodness with the whole embrace of sincere kindness, desire that you remain within the bosom of Mother Church, this error having been repudiated. If it be quickly rejected, it will seem to have been ignorance; but it will be reckoned blasphemy if it be obstinately defended. For we cast a grievous odium back upon the Author, if we say that he was unwilling to give the possibility of grasping salvation to the one who perished (to him at least who is already able to grasp the liberty of the will), since we can by no means deny that he will condemn the transgressor of the commandment in the scrutiny of his judgment. For he who is not liable for what he received, I know not how he can be guilty for what he lost.

And thus, sinning against God, whose grace we first too incautiously asserted, in the end we shall be seen to assail his justice. But I retain with me a copy of this letter, to be brought forward in the assembly of the holy prelates, if it should so be necessary. If your fraternity should think it ought to be accepted, let it either soon send it back subscribed by your own hand, or reply by subsequent writings that you have altogether disapproved it. But if you should be unwilling to transmit it subscribed, as I said, you will by your very silence prove that you still persist openly in error, and thereupon you will now make it necessary for me to set forth your person before public assemblies.

And therefore, according to these things which have been sent by me, write back whether — all evasions set aside — you acknowledge or reject them. [Auxanius, bishop in the name of Christ, I have read again. And I, Faustus, have read again the copy of my letter. And Paulus, bishop in the name of Christ, I have read again. And Eutropius, bishop in the name of Christ; Pragmatius, bishop in the sign of Christ; Patiens, bishop in Christ; Eufronius, I have read again and marvelled at the holy fullness; Megethius, bishop, I have read again; and Eutropius, bishop in the name of Christ, I have read again; and Leucadius, bishop in the name of Christ, I have read again; and Julianus, bishop in the name of Christ; Lucidus the presbyter.] Likewise in another hand: I, Faustus, have read again and subscribed the copy of my letter. 2.

A copy of the letter of Lucidus the presbyter. To the most blessed lords and, in Christ, most reverend fathers Eufronius, Leontius, Fonteius, Uiuentius, Mamertus, Patiens, Uerianus, Auxanius, Faustus, Paulus, Megethius, Graecus, Eutropius, Leontius, Claudius, Marcellus, Crocus, Basilius, Claudius, Ursicinus, Praetextatus, Pragmatius, Theoplastus, Leucadius, Uiuentius, Iulianus, Amicalis, Ioannes, Opilio, and Licinius, bishops — Lucidus the presbyter. Your correction is the public health, and your sentence is medicine. Wherefore I too count it the highest remedy, that by accusing my past errors I may excuse them, and that by a saving profession I may wash myself clean.

Accordingly, in keeping with the recent decrees of the council to be proclaimed, I condemn together with you that opinion which says that the labour of human obedience is not to be joined to divine grace; which says that after the fall of the first man the free choice of the will was wholly extinguished; which says that Christ, our Lord and Savior, did not undergo death for the salvation of all; which says that the foreknowledge of God violently compels man to death, or that those who perish, perish by the will of God; which says that after baptism legitimately received, whosoever transgresses dies in Adam.

Which says that some are appointed to death, others predestined to life; which says that from Adam until Christ none of the Gentiles were saved through the first grace of God — that is, through the law of nature — unto the coming of Christ, on the ground that they had lost free choice, all of them, in the first parent; which says that the patriarchs and prophets, or the very highest of the saints, dwelt in the habitation of paradise even before the times of redemption; which says that fires and the infernal regions do not exist. All these things, as impious and full of sacrileges, I condemn.

But I so assert the grace of God as always to join the striving and endeavour of man to grace, and I pronounce the liberty of the human will to be not extinguished but weakened and enfeebled; and that he who is saved is in peril, and that he who perished could have been saved. I assert also that Christ, our God and Savior, as far as pertains to the riches of his goodness, offered the price of his death for all; and that, since he wills none to perish, being the Savior of all men — especially of the faithful, rich unto all that call upon him. And because in matters so great the conscience must be satisfied, I remember that I said before that Christ had come only for those whom he foreknew would believe, following the Lord's own sentences, in which he says:

'Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many'; and that: 'This is the cup of my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins'; and that of the Apostle: 'As it is appointed once for men to die, so also Christ was once offered to exhaust the sins of many.' But now, with the authority of the sacred testimonies — which are found abundantly throughout the spaces of the divine Scriptures — and the reasoning of the elders' teaching laid open, I gladly confess that Christ came even for the lost, because it was against his will that they perished. For it is not lawful that the immense riches of goodness and the divine benefits be confined to those alone who seem to be saved.

For if we say that Christ brought remedies only to those who have been redeemed, we shall seem to absolve those who are not redeemed — who, it is established, are to be punished for redemption despised. I assert also that, through the reason and order of the ages, some were saved by the law of grace, some by the law of Moses, some by the law of nature which God wrote in the hearts of all, in the hope of the coming of Christ — yet none, from the beginning of the world, absolved from the original bond except by the intercession of the sacred blood. I profess also that eternal fires and infernal flames are prepared for capital deeds, because the divine sentence deservedly follows human faults that persevere unto the end — which those justly incur who have not believed these things with the whole heart.

Pray for me, holy and apostolic fathers, my lords. I, Lucidus the presbyter, have subscribed this letter with my own hand, and the things which are set forth in it I assert, and the things which are condemned I condemn. 3. The letter of Faustus. You ask of me, most reverend of priests, how the Arians are to be answered, who with blasphemous mouth attempt to assert: 'It cannot be,' one says, 'but that the begotten be younger than the unbegotten.' In keeping with which, I will presume — as though commanded — to break all my silence, not so much for the instruction of the matter as for the confession of the faith, observing first of all this: that I not entangle in the zeal of composed speech things obscure in themselves, but that I set forth certain tokens of a poor understanding, which may seem to serve not so much for adornment as for comprehension.

I answer, then, as disciples are wont to answer masters who question them. And so I speak at the bidding of your beatitude, that I may be examined; I attest my inexperience, that I may be taught. For with one most learned, if I keep silent, I can scarcely know what I do not know. About to speak of the unbegotten, we ought to know that the substances of things are one thing, the names of things another — as, for example, when you say 'gold' and 'silver,' you have brought forth not the metal itself immediately, but the names of the metal. For gold is one thing in the property of its kind, another in the appellation of the word; it is one thing when we name it, another when we hold it. 'Begotten' and 'unbegotten' is a signification of the deity, not the deity itself; it is an appellation of the nature, not the nature.

The naming of the unbegotten and the begotten avails to this end: that you may understand from whom each subsists, and may recognize not the Father to be from the Son, but the Son to be from the Father. Principle from principle is both one and lacks a beginning — as if you should say: God from God, yet not two Gods, but one God. Begotten, therefore, unbegotten, and proceeding from both, indicate persons, not natures. For the majesty, which is undivided from the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit, can be distinguished by names, but cannot be ordered by degrees. At this point you must, with foreknowledge, apply the attention of your mind. You will say, perhaps: because he is from him, he is later than he. Come, let us nourish our understanding of these things by certain comparisons.

Let us see whether some thing may exist from another and yet not be later in age than that from which it exists. For example, this very name of 'son' is believed to be derived from the name of 'father,' and yet it is not found to be later — because, unless the one were born, the other would not be called 'father.' Behold a name which is absolutely coeval with that from which it is; and, though the son be from the father, the son makes the name for the father. The person of the one being born acquires for the begetter the appellation of fatherhood. Since this is from that, this is proven neither later nor the other more ancient. And since the son is named 'arm' from the powers of his works, behold, the arm proceeds from the body, and yet the age of the arm does not precede that of the body.

A word is brought forth from the voice, and yet, though it be born from the mouth, it is not proven to be later than the voice. There is an undivided fellowship of fire and heat, but although the heat is undoubtedly understood to be from the fire, yet the fire is by no means discerned to be prior to its own heat. Behold a thing which is seen to exist from another, and yet is joined to that from which it exists without any intervention of time. But when we come to God, this is 'begotten' which is 'just' and 'justice,' 'wise' and 'wisdom,' 'merciful' and 'mercy.' Absolutely, from the just and wise God, according to the Apostle, we understand justice and wisdom to arise.

And just as there was never a just one without justice, never a wise one without wisdom, so the Son is from the Father, but the Father could never be without the Son. Beyond doubt the Arians do not dare to deny our Savior, but, while they call him lesser, they cannot assert him to be God. For God by nature subsists in the dignity of fullness, and their impiety, in its first confession, testifies that it worships one God. But because they make him younger, through him who is thought older they make two, and cut through the solidity of the unity. For the very name of 'lesser' shows another who is greater than he. Who is more ancient than he, who pronounces of himself: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last' — who, when he was asked by the Jews who he was, answered thus:

'The Beginning, who also speak to you' — who confirms it by the truthful voice through the prophet: 'Before me there was no God, and after me there shall be none'? If the Father says this, he confirms that no inferior one began after him; if the Son, he pronounces that (the Father) in no wise existed before him. Of this the prophetic word plainly suggests: 'This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him'; and after this: 'He was seen among men and conversed with men.'

According to these things, then, between the begotten and the unbegotten there is no order, because he is one; no time intervenes, because he is first; he is not to be set later, because he is alone; he is not to be called lesser, because he is full. Therefore God alone is of a perfect and simple nature, inestimable and impassible — even though we truthfully and salutarily confess that according to the flesh he suffered for us. After these things, in the next place, you ask of me how, concerning the substance of God, it was written in a certain letter: 'He felt nothing with the feeling of one suffering, but he felt with the affection of one suffering-together (compassion).'

First, this — which not even the philosophers failed to perceive — is most readily to be known: that in man there are diverse affections, that is, justice, mercy, holiness, benevolence, piety, which are accruing things and therefore are called 'affects.' But God is not affected by these passibly, because they are discerned to be in him continually and by nature. Therefore what in man is affect and grace, in God is virtue and nature. For as to what was said — 'He felt nothing with the feeling of one suffering, but he felt with the affection of one suffering-together' — why should anyone not presume to say it in that sense which even the prophetic word recalls: 'Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, neither chasten me in your fury'; and: 'The Lord has sworn and will not repent'; and again:

'The Lord was angry with his people and abhorred his inheritance.' And likewise with a differing affection he is described to have loved Jacob and to have held Esau in hatred. He is said to be grieved at our sins and to rejoice in his own works; and, subject to affections, he says of himself: 'It repents me that I made man.' And from the highest seat of heaven he pronounces: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' For he seems also to show the affection of one suffering-together, when he says: 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink,' and the rest of this kind, which come abundantly to memory.

How, then — just as if some priest endowed with a manifold knowledge of tongues and placed in the midst of diverse nations, about to instruct a Hebrew for a Hebrew, a Greek for a Greek, a Roman for a Roman, should shape his words according to the understanding of each and adapt the address of his mouth to the sense of every one, and dispense the utterances of one heart and (sinner's) breast to various hearings — so too God, about to speak with man, deigns to assume the tongue of man, being also about to take up the human form: through the sounds of our understandings he attests the affections of his own ordinances. For while, describing the offices of the five human senses, he thus says: 'The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their prayers'; and again:

'The mouth of the Lord has spoken'; likewise: 'And he smelled the odor of sweetness'; and: 'My hand made all these things. Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet' — he insinuates to our hearts the efficacies of things by the signification of his own members. Whence, on account of his ineffable condescension toward the human race — which does not disdain to name and to address servants as friends and sons — man converses with him in turn with human mouth and manner. But otherwise, the anger of God is his justice; the fury of God is the vigor of his severity; for God to have sworn is to have determined; for God to have repented is a sentence nevertheless often changed; and when he says that he is injured by someone persecuting, he shows the crime of the one injuring.

The ministry of prayer, and every faculty by which God is either understood or proclaimed, is cut off from us altogether, if these exchanges of human speech are withdrawn. Why, then, among these things, can it not be said: 'But he felt with the affection of one suffering-together'? If, then, a simple and open answer has satisfied the master who is examining, let us pass on to the third question, to which you bid me respond: which things in human affairs are to be regarded as corporeal, and which as incorporeal.

On these matters I shall set forth certain things not from any presumption of my own understanding, but according to the opinion of the holy elders, especially since these things cannot wound the soul but can nourish it unto faith, and can arm and equip us against the Arian depravities up to that point where the Son may appear equal to the Father. Therefore, when the discussion concerns a loftier subject, both the understanding and the mind must be prepared for a more subtle apprehension. Some of the most learned among the Fathers assert that some things are invisible, but others incorporeal. Whatever has been created they define to be visible as matter, and to be comprehensible and corporeal to its Maker; for they assert that the nature both of souls and of angels is corporeal, in that from the beginning it is circumscribed and bounded by space.

For as we read in a certain treatise of holy Jerome: 'They suppose,' he says, 'that the orbs of the stars are ensouled spirits'; and again: 'If the angels,' he says, 'and even the heavenly bodies are said to be unclean in comparison with God, what do you think man ought to be reckoned?' But amid all this you deny that the soul is corporeal, because, according to the opinion of certain men, it is neither local nor subsists in quality or quantity — which, it is manifest, ought to be believed of the majesty of God alone. For we read in a certain most highly regarded treatise of the Fathers:

'To enter and to fill all things,' he says, 'is possible for the Trinity alone, which so becomes the penetrator of every intellectual nature that it can not only encompass and surround it, but even glide into it and, as though incorporeal, be poured into a body.' For although we may declare that certain natures are spiritual — such as the angels, archangels, and the other Powers, and our very soul too, or at least this subtle air — nevertheless they are by no means to be reckoned incorporeal. For they have according to themselves a body by which they subsist, though one far and incomparably more tenuous than are our bodies, according to the saying of the Apostle: 'there are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies.'

From these things it is gathered as manifest that nothing is incorporeal save God alone, and that therefore He alone can penetrate all spiritual and intellectual substances. Since this is so, you object to me that the soul is not corporeal for this reason: because, as has been said, it is neither local nor subsists in quality or quantity. What peril there is in so believing shall be shown in what follows. But now the state of our discussion will hang upon this examination: that if the soul is neither local nor subject to quantity, we grant without doubt that it is incorporeal; but if I shall demonstrate that it is determined by quantity or enclosed by place, consequently do not you yourself any longer doubt that it is also contained by a body.

How is that not local which, inserted into the limbs and bound within the entrails, is held enclosed by the movements alone proper to the condition of its wandering substance? But if you think it must be asserted that the soul is not local because it roves abroad through diverse senses and is dispersed among its thoughts, first it must be understood that the state of the soul is one thing, and the disposition of thought which is born from the soul is another. Wherefore this rather must be considered: that whenever the soul imagines something to itself, it is the more occupied with its own movements within itself; and if there is anything else which it seems to behold, it is the more delineated for it in the mirror of remembrance. For when it thinks upon a dear one who is absent, has it now satisfied its longings as though he were beheld in person?

Or when it depicts within the secret places of the mind, for example, the likeness of Peter or Paul, has it straightway penetrated the innermost dwellings of paradise where we know them to be? Or when it has set before itself in its heart, from its reading, the losses of that rich man, has it now descended to the places of his torments and to the depths of hell inaccessible to the living? All these things without doubt it either fashions within itself, within the secret places of the breast, by means of various likenesses, or else, if the unsteady thought, agitated by a slippery motion, runs about outside the seat of the soul, this very thing it does locally. And whether it think upon a city or upon any region whatsoever, it is fixed there only, with its perception tarrying there whither it is snatched by the intention of the mind. It can imagine to itself certain things; it cannot embrace all things at once.

When therefore the soul has thought upon Alexandria or Jerusalem, if it truly was present there with its whole self, as you suppose, let it report to us the situation of the places, the faces of the men, the movements and doings of the peoples. But this very thing — that we now mingle mutual exchanges of speech among ourselves by the action of the spirit — I perceive within my own consciousness that I am speaking with you, yet I do not perceive that I have come to you. For if the soul is truly believed to be carried along with its senses, then it is present of itself by its own thoughts to those things which it recalls. Behold, through these present moments of time I think upon you, and with recollecting mind I see you; yet of you whom I recollect I am in every way ignorant what you may be doing, and whether you are at leisure for rest, or for reading, or for prayer.

But this happens for the reason that I come to you by the affection of the heart, not by the very reality of my substance. For the nature of our soul does not consist in its movements, which we perceive now to be excellent, now to be very bad. For if it must be believed to subsist through its thoughts, why, when these sometimes vanish and perish, does the soul itself endure in its own vigor and alertness? How many, then, of the most frequent thoughts and cares within us die even wholesomely, and rather work for the freedom of the interior life! If the soul consisted in these very things, then without doubt, when they perished, it could not survive.

Whence this reason rather speaks to our consciences: that each and every soul either brings forth manifold thoughts conceived within itself from the causes of things, or disperses its senses, like certain offices or ministries, to be occupied with diverse necessities, while it itself rests in the inner chamber of its body, once destined to depart from it but once. Wherefore, that we may again bring forward a sufficient example that the soul is local: was not the soul of Lazarus within his body while life remained, but, when life withdrew, was it not banished from the dwelling of the body, and again, poured back within the lifeless body, did it not return, summoned back thither from whence it had gone away?

Do you then contend that that soul is not local, which you see driven out from the dwelling of its lodging and again restored within the lodging from whence it had gone away? But why do I speak of these things concerning corruptible man, when He whose flesh saw no corruption possessed indeed an immaculate soul, yet a local one — the soul which He held within Himself when He was affixed to the gibbet, He without doubt sent forth from Himself when He lay in the sepulchre? How is that not local which the flesh contains, which life joins, which death separates? But if, as you say, the nature of souls does not admit the necessity of place, then there are not lacking, even from the region of paradise, those souls which are shut up in the prison of hell.

Tell me, I pray, if they are not local, how does that vast chaos separate the sinners from the assemblies and fellowships of the righteous by its sorrowful interposition, so that they can neither pass from here to there nor cross over from there to here? Now this too is most manifest: that those things are circumscribed by quantity which are contained within spaces. If you have acknowledged that the soul is local, grant that it is corporeal. Tell me: did not the soul itself of our glorious Redeemer leave the world when it ascended to heaven?

For my part, I should not doubt that even the angels are local — they who, it is certain, are now contained in the heavenly places, now borne through the void of the air, now dismissed to earthly things; whom the divine word describes in the patriarch's vision as ascending and descending; who assuredly, if they were not local and were everywhere, could not by ascent and descent be present and depart. That most blessed Gabriel himself, who testifies that he stands before the Lord, when he announced that the Lord of heaven was to be infused into the womb of Mary, and when he stood before the eyes of the Lord's mother, was without doubt absent from heaven; he did not fly above Mary, he did not fill the empty and diffused expanse of the vast air, but occupied only that place in which he was present.

Since this is so, whatever occupies a place is a body; and I know not how he should not be held by the law of place, who is sent from place to place and, like a body, is transferred by motion and approach — descends by mass, runs about by mobility, goes, returns, absents himself, ascends. Or is that one, I suppose, local, who is not in heaven from the moment he was cast out of heaven; and he proved himself not to be local alone, who, thrust down from on high, dragged away with himself a third part of the stars. Tell me: if he has no body, what fell in that casting-down? Why do you deny corporeal nature to him whose downfall you dare not deny? And if, as you say, he has no body, he will not burn. But where shall he feel that fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels, save in a body?

Now I think it superfluous to say that from his sojourn in this air he has drawn a certain grossness from the condensing of the elements. Tell me: if he had no body, where in the air was there a condensing, where could this — I know not what — grossness gather itself together, if he brought nothing corporeal with him down from that heavenly citadel? He will carry, as I see, an alien body to his torments. Recognize therefore, even from your own assertion, that it is a body. It is a body which is stained, which is defiled, which is corrupted by any addition coming upon it from without.

This one, then, once the firstborn of the angels, has now been made the prince of darkness — and as though corporeal, once fair, now degenerate; once conspicuous with heavenly splendor, now befouled with the loathsome horror of infernal sin. It is a body, I say, which is driven from its dwelling, is circumscribed by quantity, is changed in quality, is worn down by pain. Since these things are so, let those who call the soul incorporeal see into how deep a fault they plunge themselves.

Now first of all, since God the Author of the universe is said to have made all things in number and weight, therefore the soul is believed to have been taken out from the matter of the whole creation. Now if it is not corporeal, neither is it local; if it is not contained by place, then it is diffused everywhere; it is said to enter, to fill, and to be present everywhere; and thus, if the creature were made a partner of its Creator, and frailty were joined to its Author, it would be reckoned no longer a thing of God, but a part of God. See whither a lapse into deep error leads its own supporters. Indeed to us those things which are above you are invisible; but all things to Him — as they are comprehensible, so also are they corporeal — who made all things out of nothing, and, as He established them by His work, so also embodied them with matter, and with all things.

Among these the soul too is reckoned; and just as He distributed weight, number, and measure, so also He appointed quantity. Amid these things, if perhaps, as has been said, someone should think it must be asserted that, by reason of the subtlety of its angelic nature, a certain contagion gathered by admixture of this air will be found liable to the flames — then in the air alone, as he says (if it be airy that shall burn), not in it but outside it will the punishment rage. But without doubt there is nothing other than the substance of a body where the force of pain shall be able to hold sway.

See whither an imprudent and unskilled persuasion tends, which, when it speaks of the incorporeal, also confesses it to be incomprehensible, and thus ascribes to the created work what befits the Creator alone, and shares with created things the privileges of majesty, and extends a power not owed to the creature even to the injury of the Maker. If we inquire well to what issue of things you refer the soul, this credulity in particular is what rolled the devil down from that station of the blessed seat, and on this account lost him the dignity of an angel, while he presumes to have the nature of God.

One God, therefore, is incorporeal, because He is both incomprehensible and everywhere diffused; for He took the beginning of His being from the matter of no corporeal creation; and therefore the Son is coeternal with the Father, because, founded from no work and circumscribed by no beginnings, above all things which He has wrought as comprehensible and corporeal within the body of the world for His Fashioner, He is diffused in incorporeal majesty — begotten from the Unbegotten, that is, from the Father, yet ever with the Father — and He holds dominion over those things which He has called forth from nothing, in the undivided fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen. IV. TO HIS LORD AND FATHER AND LIKEWISE HIS PATRON, POPE FAUSTUS: FROM PAULINUS.

To write to you fear holds me back on the one hand, and affection compels me on the other, and between the two my uncertain mind is so tossed, as when a rash sailor commits his sails to doubtful fortune. But I, who have in you a sure harbor, often take upon myself the outcome of an uncertain course; yet I have chosen rather to incur weariness than guilt. For I have very well perceived that my lord Faustus receives my letters without disdain. But because my lord Marinus the hermit, a holy man and, by his exceeding strictness, one to be feared, has laid upon me so great a fear with grievous severity, I come to you as an inquirer.

I am entangled in carnal sins; whatever a guilty man can do, I practice. When I shall have fulfilled the day of the human lot, I have obtained a sudden repentance: whether it shuts out sin in part or altogether, I desire to know; or whether those who believe in the one Trinity, yet sinning in the body with carnal vices, are to be tormented with everlasting punishments and torments, with flames and all bodily torments, though not sinning in spirit. This is my opinion: that if a Christian should receive all these things, he could receive nothing more. Or whether the Arian... or whether the soul, when parted from the bond of the body, is delivered over to some custody, or is held shut up in a prison, or is tossed uncertain among the breezes.

And because I know that in that hour every thought perishes, if you permit, I respectfully ask: whether both good and evil thought descend from the soul, which is proved to be immortal, or whether some sense and understanding is preserved, or whether it feels anything of honorable affection.

And because we know that all things are granted to the good, so that they can bestow yet greater things upon the living after death — as for the evil, what is either given or taken away, and whether the soul is harmed better as corporeal or as incorporeal, let me be taught; and, because the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing, what fellowship in sin the soul contracts for a bodily fault, I, being ignorant, long to know; or how that which is immortal is tormented for mortal vices; likewise, whether the soul and the spirit are the same, or how they are distinguished — let me learn.

For the aforesaid man has so terrified me, even with the interposition of an oath, that one who succumbs to bodily vices can merit no pardon, but is kept in these same torments even at the resurrection, and cannot be expiated by the torments of hell of that which, compacted with bodily vices, he had contracted in life. Yet, most wretched as I am, I believe that he who, never conscious to himself of evil, nor a crafty falsifier, has once broken the sign of the divine name received and the mark of our Lord fixed upon his brow — that man, having lightly undergone torments for the expiation of his fault, brings forth a pure airy sense and the fire of a simple soul, once the appointed day is consumed.

For if we sinners are to receive all these things which my lord Marinus threatens, I know not what greater thing the impious may deserve. Grant me pardon, that I stir up an injury against your piety, while I, one day to be a new disciple, long to be taught by a veteran master. V. TO PAULINUS, DISTINGUISHED LORD AND ONE TO BE HONORED BY ME WITH THE HIGHEST AND MOST ESPECIAL REVERENCE, HIS SON: FAUSTUS. The ever-admirable page of your letters has now shone forth more abundantly with the twin light of eloquence and of faith, while it inquires about the state of the soul and, with anxious fear, sighs after the judgments to come. The divine word says in a certain place: 'wisdom shall be reckoned to him who inquires rightly.' For it is a certain portion of knowledge to know what you do not know, and prudently to inquire into those things which through ignorance you do not understand.

In the first place you thought it should be inquired whether, when the straits of extreme necessity are pressing upon one, a momentary repentance can consume capital offenses. He deceives himself with a hostile persuasion, who thinks that stains contracted over a long life are to be abolished by sudden and now useless groanings. At the time when confession can exist, satisfaction cannot exist. For, because God is not mocked, he has deceived himself who has lived for death for many seasons, and, already half-dead, rises up to seek life, so that he then appears dutiful when all the services of body and soul are withdrawn from the Lord's service. As regards the accomplishing of the health of the inner man, not the mere will to receive, but the profit of doing, is looked for. For thus we read:

'If a sinner,' He says, 'shall have done repentance for his sins' (He said 'shall have done,' not merely 'shall have said' or 'shall have received'), 'he shall live in his own righteousness which he has wrought.' You observe that a medicine of this kind, just as it is to be asked with the mouth, so must it be accomplished by work. He seems to insult God who, at that time when he was able, was unwilling to come to the physician, and now begins to be willing at that time when he cannot. There is need, therefore, that as great as was, in sinning, the intention of a mind broken away and vigorous toward evil, so great may be the devotion in the healing of the wounds. In the second place you asked whether faith alone and the knowledge of the one Trinity suffice for salvation. In divine matters not only the manner of believing is required, but of pleasing.

Faith, therefore, bare of merits, is empty and void, as the Apostle says: 'What does it profit, if a man say he has faith, but have not works? Can faith save him?' For he goes on and says: 'Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.' 'But someone will say: You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by works.' According to these things, belief by itself alone is not proved to suffice. For even the devil is found to know and believe God, as the same Apostle says: 'You believe that there is one God; you do well: the demons also believe, and tremble.' 'But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?'

Was not Abraham our father justified by works? And lest we place our hope in the part of faith alone, he thus concluded: 'For as the body without the spirit is dead, so also is faith without works dead' — without which he said that man is empty. Many similar testimonies we omit for the sake of brevity. The Apostle Paul, out of whose breast the Lord spoke as if from His own temple, did he judge that faith alone could avail him for overcoming the evils of the world, saying thus: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway'?

Behold, he fears to become a castaway through the vices of the body; already he who has become a vessel of election dreads to become, through the deadly contagions of carnal passions, a vessel of dishonor. Let us see whether faith alone defends the man prodigal of his own life, and whether the baptized, as you say, can now no longer perish. I recognize how carnal evils make a man estranged from God, the bondslave of obscene pleasures. To the Galatians the Apostle says: 'The works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, luxury, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and the like; for they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God'; or, to the Ephesians:

'Every fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.' 'Serving idols,' he says: for when anything is loved with that desire wherewith God ought to be loved, an affection of this kind is likened to idols. Such a one, without doubt, shut out from the kingdom, is delivered over to hell and to death; but it is manifest that many baptized persons, with faith preserved, perish eternally in diverse kinds. The divine word rebukes not the transgressors of faith, not the violators of baptism, but those who have neglected to be merciful, saying: 'Judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy'; and again:

'I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take me in; naked, and you did not clothe me.' If this number of the flock on the left hand had been ignorant of the gift of baptism, He would have first cast upon them infidelity and impiety; but though baptized, yet void of good works, He assigns them to death and abandons them to the perennial flames, and thus concludes the severity of the sentence: 'Depart,' He says, 'from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels'; and again: 'He will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire'; likewise: 'These,' He says, 'shall go into life eternal, but those into eternal fire.'

Amid these things let each man beware, lest he charge God with lying concerning the promise of reward, who doubts concerning the eternity of punishment. It is not so; for He who knows how to honor merits knows also how to punish sins. These three capital things, therefore — sacrilege, adultery, murder — unless they be expiated here by the remedies of perfect repentance, shall there be consumed with everlasting fires. These unmerciful ones, then, we do not read to have turned aside from faith and baptism, but we recognize by divine authority that they have merited perpetual death. And this too disquiets your mind with foresightful care for the future: whether souls stripped of the body do not strip off the vigor of perceiving and understanding, and their affection.

Let us question that rich man in the Gospel — not wandering among the breezes, as the ravings of the poets assert, but in the prison of hell, from the number of those who, shut up, await their punishment, set amid the flames of conscience before the day of judgment, anxious for the amendment of his brethren who were still placed in this world, mingling colloquies with Abraham across the vast interposed chaos by earnest entreaty, and, smitten with a lively recollection of his kinsmen, thus interceding for the living: 'I beg you, father Abraham, that you send Lazarus into my father's house; for I have five brethren, that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torments; and if someone from the dead shall go to them, they will do penance.'

Behold, imprisoned in the workhouse of hell, having now no remedy for himself, he yet keeps his ancient affection toward his own; and while, though damned, he pleads for sinners, he shows that there is great care among the righteous who breathe again within the groves of paradise for the welfare of their loved ones. But as to what you ask, what is either given or taken away from the wicked after the end — from the iniquitous, of whom it is read: 'the desire of sinners shall perish' — with the desire of earthly things and the ambition of honors removed, the burden alone of the account to be rendered and the fear of an intolerable examination shall press upon them; nor shall their senses be taken away, but they shall be rendered the more unencumbered and eager for the contemplation of the other age.

But as to what you request to be taught concerning the soul itself — whether it is corporeal or incorporeal — know then that this alone is incorporeal which is not included within times nor confined within the bounds of places, which befits God alone. As one of the eminent teachers, discoursing to a certain inquirer who asked where God was, thus replied: 'God is not somewhere; what is somewhere is contained by place; what is contained by place is a body.' Since these things are so, all flesh is a body, but not every body is also flesh; and because not only the soul, but even the invisible and heavenly substance of the angels, is contained as it were by local spaces, so it is proved to be corporeal and comprehensible to its Author.

For what is that, save something corporeal, which, thrust down from the heavenly seats, gave place? What is it that felt a downfall? What is it that, liable to the eternal flame, is prepared for punishment? But blessed Lazarus himself too, after the tongues of the fawning dogs, was received into the hands of the angels — of whom we read: 'it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom' — and taught that his soul was corporeal, in that it is borne by angelic ministrations into Abraham's bosom, that is, into a remote and blessed retreat. And concerning his own soul the holy prophet declares: 'Bring my soul out of prison, O Lord' — that is, out of the straits of its bodily lodging.

Whence, on account of that creation of His — which is either wounded by the darts of sins or advanced, changed through qualities, even to the honor of the divine image — the soul is evidently shown to be corporeal both to God and to the angels, by whom it can be comprehended and transferred. But amid these things it must be inquired what that is: that whereas both man — that is, soul and body — while yet in the region of paradise, sinned at the devil's persuasion, the flesh alone, through the condition of death, received the punishment of the great transgression, and the guilt, common to both, remained fixed upon the punishment of the one. It must therefore be known that death did not reach the soul for this reason: because the Lord placed His own image and likeness in it.

For as God is immortal, merciful, just, and patient, so He pours the gifts of these virtues into the face of our inner man, so that, the more anyone should be more patient, more just, more merciful, the more he should appear endowed with the gift of participation in the divine — as the Apostle says: 'that Christ dwells in the inner man through faith.' You ask also why the soul has anything in common with its flesh on account of a bodily fault. Just as original sin embraces both, by reason of the unity of the bodily lodging, and both — man — are in like manner bound together in the fellowship of sins, so for them there is one cause in the participation of crimes, as in the reward of virtues there is equal glory.

For the exterior man would never fall into the pit of luxury, unless the interior man gave his consent to it. Let us question our very selves, and within ourselves we shall be able to recognize that the mind, as mistress, wields command, and the flesh, subjoined, wields service: the one furnishes ministry, the other counsel. Obedience on the part of the servant would cease, unless the will on the part of the commander went before. And of necessity they must recognize a like condition in damnation, who on the contrary will rejoice together in retribution. You still say: that which is immortal, how is it tormented for mortal vices? The evils indeed are mortal, but the torment of the wicked will be immortal, and the crosses of transgressions shall remain, though the vices fail.

Thus the lower matter, by the judgment, will hand over the better matter along with itself, just as the admixture of lead compels gold to be smelted. Man therefore, being about to die for his mortal evils, is to die to God and to live to hell. This will be death there: that it is not permitted to die amid pain. In this too you extend your anxious inquiry, whether soul and spirit are the same thing, or in what way they are distinguished. Let us acknowledge that there are only two substances in man, namely of soul and of body. The spirit, however, is now proved to be natural, now found to be an accident. For sometimes 'spirit' is put for the soul, and sometimes it is understood as the appetite for virtue and a spiritual disposition. In this manner one and the same man is now carnal, now animal, and now even spiritual.

Carnal are those of whom the Lord says: 'My spirit shall not remain in these men, for they are flesh,' and the Apostle: 'They that are in the flesh cannot please God.' He is carnal who has enslaved himself to belly and gullet through an excess of eating and drinking, and has set the good of life in the greed and voracity of the throat. But one becomes animal when, still thinking little of God, according to the soul he is moved by worldly prudence toward the provision of certain matters; when he takes delight either in investigating, out of curious vanity, the causes of hidden things, or in philosophical studies. Whence the Apostle discourses: 'The animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God.'

But he begins to be spiritual when he desires things honorable, holy, and spiritual; when by the vigor of his heart he ascends to the worship of divine fear; when through purity of body and the guarding of chastity he invites the Holy Spirit to himself, so that of him that apostolic word may be said: 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.' These things are not implanted in man by nature, but are so joined to him by grace that they can be separated when sloth intervenes through fault. Whence the same Apostle says: 'But whoever violates the temple of God, him God will destroy.' Behold, one baptized through faith is seen to be not only baptized but also the temple of God, and yet through diverse crimes he shall be destroyed by the severity of God.

In this place let us recognize that the word 'perdition' means the eternal destruction of the lost soul. Without doubt they are counted in the number of the baptized who are said to be members of Christ; and see how they are compared to the lost, how by the working of crime they degenerate from the nobility of sons, the Apostle saying: 'Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot?' And those too had most manifestly received the gifts of the second birth, who even abounded in a diversity of charisms, of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out demons, and in thy name done many mighty works?'

'And then I will confess to them: I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity.' Who would not understand that those are cut off from salvation who are commanded to withdraw from the sight of the Father? Death will without doubt receive into its own lot those whom Life, which is Christ, has not known. Do you doubt that the baptized are handed over to perdition for their iniquities, when you recognize that baptism itself perishes through manifold crimes? But as for what your discourse, as the page contains, supposed—borrowing from the poet the fire of the simple soul—this is fittingly said only of the substance of the Godhead, to which nothing is added, nothing conferred from a higher source, nothing is joined.

He is at once just and justice, living and life, wise and wisdom, virtue and the source of virtues. For in his principal goods he himself is that very thing which he possesses. But man can be understood as twofold: he can be called living and just and wise, but he cannot be called life and justice and wisdom, because he is so clothed with these that sometimes he is stripped of them. What has been given to man has been implanted in God. Man, so to speak, is gilded; God is the gold, in whom power and grace are the very thing that nature is. For as to what you have subtly pointed out:

'If all these things which lord Marinus threatens await sinners, I do not know what greater thing the impious deserve'—they too have their degrees of torment under everlasting evils, so that one liable to grave sins is tormented with punishments infinite yet somehow bearable, while the impious man is tormented with unheard-of torments. But the grace of baptism could then rescue a man from eternal death, if in some its integrity and dignity did not perish. It is a grave crime which the heretic has refused to receive; but no less grave is that which the Christian both received and lost.

For that man too, who by trusting in his baptism had burst into the nuptial banquet as a profaner of the sacred assembly, having lost the splendor of purity, is cast out from the illustrious gathering of the just and thrust into the outer darkness. Is he to be believed to possess the snow-white brightness of holy regeneration—he who is incestuous, a poisoner, and blood-stained, or who, cutting short his life by a fall or by hanging, passes over into the portion of the impious? We read that inextinguishable flames are prepared for capital deeds, but we do not read that a man living in his evils is saved by baptism alone. Perilously does a hostile complacency promise itself what heavenly Scripture does not say; far more perilously does it disbelieve those things which Truth threatens.

Certain things, as you say, the most blessed man Marinus discoursed with a threat; but just as that which the Lord promised to those who love him, even by the testimony of the Apostle, has not ascended into the heart of man because of the greatness of the thing, so the immensity of the torments to come exceeds the narrow limits of the human mind—evils which the shadow of a momentary repentance does not remove, which faith without works does not repel, and for which the course of the passing ages shall be unable to set a term amid the inextinguishable flames; among which unspent vapors the soul, though slow, shall both feel itself and see itself corporeal. And therefore let us anticipate the last day by just, pious, and chaste works, and by fearing here those things which it will profit nothing to fear there, let us turn them aside.

Here let us put an end to endless contritions, and by now salutarily pondering the intolerable conflagrations, let us procure for ourselves from those very fires an eternal refreshment. But I am confident of your faith, that the saving testimonies of sincere truth will be more acceptable to you than the ornamented, composed brilliance of speech. My son Eminentius, our sweet honor, we cherish with fatherly affection. May our Lord fill your admirable Magnificence with present goods and render it worthy of the eternal ones. VI. TO THE MOST PIOUS LORD, TO BE HONORED WITH SPECIAL OFFICES, AS I TRUST FOREVER MY BROTHER AND IN ALL THINGS MY LORD FELIX, FROM FAUSTUS.

It is a great testimony of piety and faith that across the vast distances of so many regions and through so many intervening perils of circumstance you extend to us the breadth of your charity. In this our exile the artful mercy of our God exercises a twofold office: with fatherly diligence it scours away our rust, and it makes clear your faith toward us and approves your piety. Its benign skill files us down, but it brings you forward; it salutarily straitens us, but it enlarges you; we are reproved, but you profit. Our losses pass over into your advantages. Since you are our creditors, you begin to be our debtors, seeing that we are the occasion of your devotion and the matter of your reward.

Your works take gain from us, your merits borrow increase from our scourgings. The affection of your solicitude reaches to us, its fruit reaches to God; and thus in a twofold way, both by our chastisement and by your recompense, we are bound to the divine benefits. But indeed the perfection of your consolation had almost imposed on me the silence of not replying. For the very solicitude of your questioning is already a pattern of living, which daily you sufficiently draw from the effective teachings and present examples of my lord your father, the holy bishop Leontius. Yet I do not wonder if you also seek my instruction, however superfluous, of one whose singular affection toward you you know.

You believe, for the help of your faith, that my teaching is as perfect as your wish; but although my discourse, which even present infirmity renders more sluggish, can scarcely suffice for your ardor, nevertheless in a few words I will not so much instruct your manner of life as recall it. The recognition of sin, the fear of judgment, the terror of eternal fire yield great instruction to the anxious. And so, for offering the sacrifices of prayers, the nightly silences are friendly to those who enjoy them; let a moderate reading follow these up to the third hour, so that spiritual exercise may never cease to be desired and may always be capable of increase.

Would that the Lord may provide at least two faithful comforts, with whom you may discharge your daily and nightly functions, and at least two days in the week enjoy the services of those who greet you. Arduous are the things of which we speak in accordance with the fervor of the one questioning; but may that benign helper of the laboring make his yoke as light for you as his reward will be delightful. Therefore, if your still trembling beginnings allow a little more, let the winter days be passed with alternate fasts, which, as it is fitting to moderate them, so it is necessary to double them. To double them, I say. For there are two kinds of abstinence:

One is to restrain the appetite of incontinence from food and drink and from the diverse enticements of carnal sweetnesses, and by the vomit of the cross to subdue the earth of the subject outer man, and to serve necessity rather than pleasure with tempered moderation—to take a meal, if infirmity permit, even on alternate days, until the force of long habit is gradually unlearned. But as to the use of garments, let gravity gradually lower itself to humbler things, lest the very novelty of a sudden moderateness give offense. For care must be taken that pride be not generated even from excessive humility, and vice be not born of virtue.

Yet it will easily be overcome, if that shameful history of one's past manner of life is brought before the eyes and the guilty conscience is set before the trembling senses. So it will come to pass that, while by the recollection of past evils the presumption instilled by the devil is chastised, and while boastfulness, conquered by the strong weapons of one's own faults, is repelled, the crimes which had begotten death begin to serve unto salvation, offenses profit toward remedy, and medicine is drawn from the wounds, and, as the Apostle said, out of sin let us strive to condemn sin.

The other kind of abstinence is far more sublime and far more precious: to govern the movements of the soul, to subject to the command of the mind the irrational disturbances and the rebellious tumults of thoughts struggling among themselves; to spit out the venom of malice, as though some deadly sorcery, from the inmost recesses of the heart, and to steer the soul against the floods of diverse temptations by the guidance of constancy; and against hidden passions, as against domestic enemies, to wage a certain contest by the authority of an angry faith; to drive far away empty cares, and to abstain from harmful conversations and desires on which the devil feeds; and through meekness, patience, and tranquillity to cultivate the image of God in the countenance of the inner man—so that an evenness of magnanimity may show forth the man who ponders spiritual and divine things, whom sadness may not break nor joy dissolve, a breast steadfast in the fear of God; that to us also may be applied that famous beginning of the little book:

'There was a certain man abstaining from every evil thing.' 'A man,' it says, 'one'—that is, always the same, because there was in him nothing doubtful, nothing double, nothing accidental, nothing variable, nothing diverse; but the seasons did not change him as he abode in the state of his virtues in an even order, nor did the diverse blasts of the winds turn him this way and that, as is the manner of sea-waves. So too let the anxious servant of God, founded on the unshaken mass of faith, be changed in this alone by Christ working within him, that he be ever clothed with new virtues. Before all else, insofar as by God's help we can, let us storm within us those five enticements of the senses.

For whatever grows beautiful to sight, whatever flatters the smell, whatever softens to the touch, whatever grows sweet to taste, whatever caresses the hearing—all these things, if we misuse them, roll down our intention from spiritual to earthly things. And therefore, just as Abraham the father of faith conquered those five kings with three hundred and eighteen, a mystery lying hidden within the letter, so let us too fight against these principal leaders of the vices in the name of Jesus and by the sign of the cross—for this is what both those numerals express—that we may be worthy to hear from the Lord: 'To him that conquers I will give the crown of life,' and: 'He that overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death,' and: 'For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away.'

For the soul will do violence to itself, that it may subject the carnal affections to the spirit, that it may prefer the cross to delights, that it may set vigils before sweet sleep, that it may conquer the adversary in its own members, that from being one it may become another, made fit for that precept of the Lord: 'If any man,' he says, 'will come after me, let him deny his very self.' If from being irascible one becomes patient, from being lustful continent, from being blood-stained placid, from being envious kind, from being covetous generous—so often do we deny ourselves as we turn ourselves to better things. And therefore, that we may rise to what we ought to be, let us first strive to hate what we were. It behooves that he first be changed here unto life who desires to be changed there unto glory. VII.