書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 5 章 第 111/118 段

But when you have found me there, pray for me, that I may not fail but be perfected; pray, my son, pray. I feel what I am saying, I know what I am asking; do not think it unworthy of you and as though beyond your merits. You will defraud me of great help if you do not do it. Not only you, but also all who have come to love me through your report, pray for me. Make known to them that I have asked this of them; or, if you attribute much to us, consider that we have commanded what we ask. And yet grant it to us who ask, or comply with us who command. Pray for us. Read the letters of God and you will find that our very rams, the apostles themselves, asked this of their sons, or enjoined it upon their hearers.

As for me, certainly, since you have asked this of me on your behalf, how much I do it is seen by Him who hears — who was already seeing that I did it even before. But in this matter too repay love in turn. We are set over you, you are the flock of God; consider and see that our perils are greater than yours, and pray for us. For this profits both us and you: that we may render a good account of ourselves to the Prince of shepherds and the Head of us all, and that we may alike escape the more dangerous flatteries of this world rather than its troubles — unless when His peace avails toward that end which the Apostle admonished us to pray for, namely, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and charity.

For if godliness and charity be lacking, what is tranquillity and quiet from those and from the other evils of the world but the matter of luxury and perdition, whether its enticement or its aid? Therefore, that we may have a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and charity — which I pray for on our behalf — pray for us, wherever you are, wherever we are; for nowhere is He absent whose we are. I have also sent other books which you did not ask for, lest I should do only what you asked: On the Faith of Things Not Seen, On Patience, On Continence, On Providence, and one large work On Faith and Hope and Charity. All these, if while you are within Africa

read them, send me your judgment on them, either send it to us, or leave it there so that it may be sent to us by the venerable old man Aurelius. Yet even wherever you may be, we hope for your letters from there, and from here you hope for ours while we are able. I have most gratefully received what you sent, wherein you have deigned to help both my well-being — although bodily, since you certainly wish me, unhampered by ill health, to be free for God — and our library, so that there may be a source from which books may be either procured or repaired. May the Lord repay you both here and in the age to come with the good things He has prepared for such as He willed you to be. The pledge of peace deposited with you, and most sweet to us both, I ask to be greeted again by me now, just as I greeted it before. 232.

To the praiseworthy lords and most beloved brethren of Madaura, whose letter I received through brother Florentius, Augustine. If perhaps those among you who are Catholic Christians sent me such writings, I only wonder at this: that it was not rather in their own name than in the name of the town council.

But if in truth all, or nearly all, the men of the council deigned to send me a letter, I wonder that you wrote «to a father» and «greeting in the Lord» — you, whose superstitious worship of idols is most notorious to me, and to my great grief; those idols against which your temples are more easily shut than your hearts, or rather those idols which are enclosed no more in your temples than in your hearts — unless perhaps at last, by prudent consideration, you are now pondering that very salvation which is in the Lord, through whom you wished to greet me. For if it is not so, I ask you, how have I injured, how have I offended your goodwill, that you should think me to be mocked rather than honored by the heading of your letter, my praiseworthy lords and most beloved brethren?

For when I read what you wrote — «To father Augustine, eternal salvation in the Lord» — I was suddenly lifted up with such hope that I believed you were either already converted to the Lord Himself and to that eternal salvation, or that through our ministry you desired to be converted. But when I read the rest, my spirit grew cold. Yet I inquired of the bearer of the letter whether you were now either Christians or desired to be. And after I learned from his reply that you had by no means been changed, I grieved the more heavily, because you believed that the name of Christ — to whom you behold the whole world already made subject — was not only to be rejected by you, but even to be mocked in us.

For I could not conceive of any other lord according to whom a bishop might be called «father» by you, apart from the Lord Christ; and if there were on this point any doubt about the interpretation of your meaning, it would be removed by the subscription of the letter, where you openly wrote: «We wish you, lord, to rejoice ever, through many years, in the Lord and His Christ, among your clergy.» All these things having been read through and weighed, what else could occur to me, or can occur to any man, but that these things were written with a mind of the writers either truthful or deceitful? But if you write these things with a truthful mind, who has barred your way to this truth? Who has strewn rough thickets in the path? Who, an enemy, has set the sheer face of crags against you?

In short, who has shut the door of the basilica to you who desire to enter, so that in the same Lord — through whom you greet us — you are unwilling to have with us that same salvation? But if you write these things deceitfully and mockingly, do you then so impose your affairs upon me for my care, that you dare to lift up the name of Him through whom I can do anything, not with the veneration that is owed, but to toss it about with fawning insult? Know, my dearest ones, that I say these things with an unspeakable trembling of heart on your behalf; for I know how much graver and more ruinous a cause you will have before God, if I have said these things to you in vain.

All the things which our forefathers have remembered as done in past ages toward the human race and have handed down to us; all the things also which we ourselves see and hand on to posterity — those, at least, which pertain to the seeking and holding fast of the true religion — divine Scripture has not passed over in silence, but so completely do all things come to pass that they were foretold as going to pass. You certainly see the people of the Jews torn from their own seats, scattered and dispersed through almost all lands; and the origin of that same people, and its increase, and the loss of its kingdom, and its dispersion throughout all places, just as they were foretold, so have they come to be.

You certainly see that from that very people the word of God and the law went forth through Christ, who was wondrously born from them, and has seized and held the faith of all nations; thus we read all these things foretold, just as we see them. You certainly see many cut off from the root of Christian fellowship — which is spread by a sure propagation throughout the world through the sees of the apostles and the successions of bishops — glorying under the Christian name from the mere figure of their origin, like withering shoots; these we call heresies and schisms. All these things were foreseen, foretold, written down.

You certainly see the temples of images partly fallen into ruin without repair, partly demolished, partly closed, partly converted to other uses; and the images themselves being broken or burned or shut up or destroyed; and the very powers of this world, which once for the sake of images persecuted the Christian people, conquered and subdued not by Christians who fought back but by Christians who died; and that they have turned their assaults and laws against those very images for which they used to kill Christians; and that the most eminent summit of a most noble empire supplicates at the tomb of Peter the fisherman with its diadem laid low. All these things the divine Scriptures — which have already come into the hands of all — have testified were to come to pass, ages upon ages before:

we rejoice that all these things come to pass with a faith all the more robust, the greater the authority with which we find them foretold in the holy writings. Is it, I beseech you, is it the judgment of God alone — which we read in those same writings is to come between the faithful and the unfaithful — that we shall suppose is not going to come, now that all those things have arrived just as they were foretold? Nay rather, it will come, just as all those things have come.

Nor will there be any man of our times who in that judgment could defend himself concerning his own unbelief, since everyone sings of Christ: the just man for equity, and the perjurer for fraud; the king for rule, and the soldier for battle; the husband for the sake of governance, and the wife for the sake of obedience; the father for the sake of command, and the son for the sake of obedience; the master for the sake of dominion, and the slave for the sake of service; the humble man for godliness, and the proud for rivalry; the rich man, that he may give, and the poor, that he may receive; the drunkard at the cup, and the beggar at the door; the good man, that he may bestow, and the evil man, that he may deceive; the Christian as a worshiper, and the pagan as a flatterer:

all sing of Christ, and with whatever will and mouth they sing, they shall without doubt render an account to that very One whom they sing. There is a certain Invisible, from which, as from the creating Principle, are all things that we see — supreme, eternal, unchangeable, and unutterable to any save to Itself alone. There is a certain One by which that very summit of majesty declares and proclaims itself — the Word, not unequal to the One begetting and declaring, by which He who begets the Word is shown forth. There is a certain Sanctity, the sanctifier of all things that are done in holiness — the inseparable and undivided communion of that unchangeable Word, through which that Principle is declared, and of that Principle itself, which declares itself by an equal Word.

But who could behold this whole — which I have tried to speak by not speaking, and by speaking not to speak — who could behold it with a most serene and most sincere mind, and by that beholding draw beatitude, and, fainting into that which he beholds, in a certain manner forget himself and press on into that One by whose vision he becomes cheap in his own eyes — which is to be clothed with immortality and to obtain that eternal salvation by which you deign to greet me? Who could do this, save one who, confessing his sins, has leveled all the empty cushions of his pride and has cast himself down, meek and humble, to receive God as his teacher?

Since, therefore, we must first be brought down from the vanity of pride to humility, so that rising thence we may hold a solid loftiness, this could not be breathed into us in a manner as much more magnificent as it was more gracious — so that our fierceness might be calmed not by force but by persuasion — except that the Word, through whom God the Father makes Himself known to the angels, which is His Power and Wisdom, which could not be seen by a human heart blinded by the desire of visible things, deigned to enact and display His own person in a man, so that man might rather fear to be lifted up by human pride than to be humbled by the example of God.

And so it is not Christ adorned with an earthly kingdom, nor Christ rich with earthly wealth, nor Christ resplendent with any earthly felicity, but Christ crucified who is preached throughout the whole world — at which the peoples of the proud first laughed, and their remnants still laugh; yet first a few believed, now whole peoples, because then, unto the faith of the few and against the mockery of the peoples, when Christ crucified was being preached, the lame walked, the mute spoke, the deaf heard, the blind saw, the dead rose again. So at last earthly pride perceived that there is nothing in the very earth more powerful than divine humility, so that even the most salutary human humility might, against the pride that insults it, be defended under the patronage of imitating the divine.

Awake at last, my brethren and fellow townsmen of Madaura; God has offered me this occasion of writing to you. As much as I could, indeed, in the affair of brother Florentius, through whom you sent your letter, I was present and gave help, as God willed; but the affair was of such a kind that it could easily have been carried through even without my labor. For nearly all the people of his own household who are at Hippo know Florentius and greatly grieve at his bereavement. But a letter was sent to me by you, so that my letter might not be presumptuous, since, on the occasion received from you, it might say something to the worshipers of idols about Christ. But I beseech you, if you did not name him in vain in your letter, that I may not have written these things to you in vain.

But if you wished to mock me, fear Him whom, when first judged, the proud world mocked, and now, subjected, awaits as Judge; for the affection of my heart toward you, expressed through this page as much as I could, will be a witness — it will be a witness against you in His judgment, He who will confirm those who believe in Him and confound the unbelieving. May the one and true God convert you to Himself, freed from all the vanity of this world, my praiseworthy lords and most beloved brethren. 233. To Longinianus, Augustine. They say a certain one of the ancients used to say that, for those who were sufficiently persuaded that they would prefer nothing to being good men, the rest of learning is easy.

This maxim — for, if I recall rightly, it is Socratic — a far more ancient prophetic one had already preceded, enjoining upon men briefly and at once, not only that a man should prefer nothing to being good, but also whence he might become good: «You shall love,» it says, «the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind,» and «You shall love your neighbor as yourself.» To one persuaded of this, not the rest of learning is easy, but that whole learning is easy — at least insofar as it is useful and salutary. For there are many teachings, if indeed they are to be called teachings, that are either superfluous or harmful. Christ, attesting to the books of the ancients, says: «On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets.»

Accordingly, since I seem to have perceived, as though in the mirror of your conversation with me, that you prefer nothing to being a good man, I make bold to inquire in what manner you believe God — than whom nothing is better, and from whom the human soul draws so as to be good — ought to be worshiped; for that He ought to be worshiped, that I already hold as your belief. I ask also what you think about Christ: for that you do not esteem Him lightly, I have noticed; but whether you think that only by that way which was shown by Him can one arrive at the blessed life, and for some reason do not neglect to go by it but defer it; or whether you judge that there is another way, or other ways, to so rich a possession, to be desired above all, and believe that you are already entering upon some one of them — this I desire to know, not, I trust, impudently;

for I love you on account of that which I said above, and I do not rashly suppose that I am loved by you; nor about any other matter, among those who know each other in goodwill, is conversation more fruitful whether expended or demanded or given or received, than about that from which we may be good and blessed. 234. To the venerable lord, and truly and deservedly to be honored, the holy father Augustine, Longinianus. I am blessed and greatly illumined by the pure light of your shining virtue, in that you have deemed me worthy to be heaped with the honor of your divine address.

But you lay upon me a heavy burden and a most difficult province of replying, venerable lord, especially by your questions and, at this time, in expounding such matters through the opinion of my own judgment — that is, from a pagan man — questions, if indeed there be abundance of that which in part has either long since been agreed between us, or now, again and again by letters, comes more and more to agreement, by precepts not Socratic only, I would say, nor yours, O truly best of the men of Rome.

but by prophetic precepts, or by a few Hierosolymitan ones — yet also by Orphic and Aegetic and Trismegistic ones, ones far more ancient than those, sprung up in ages still almost rude, under the authorship of gods, and by the boundaries divinely shown to the whole earth apportioned into three parts, before the name «good man» was either taken up by Europe, or received by Asia, or possessed by Libya — such as you, by my faith, both are and have been. If indeed, within human memory, unless you grant Xenophon's fiction as the scheme of a composed fable, I have thus far heard, read, or seen no one — or at least, after one man, none — which, with God as witness, I would say at good and sure risk, except you, whom I acknowledge ever to strive to know God and to be able, with the heaviness of body cast off, most easily to follow Him in purity of soul and body, and to hold Him with no doubtful credulity in the hope of a perfected conscience.

But by what way this may be effected, it is rather for you to be not ignorant of, and, without anything being suggested to you from outside, to discourse of it, than for you to learn it from me, O lord to be honored; because then, I confess, being about to advance to the seat of this good, as being sufficient, as my priesthoods demand — by no means, not yet; and if nevertheless I shall be able, I gather provisions for the journey. But what I hold and guard, as it was handed down holily and from antiquity, I will declare in a few words, as best I can.

The better way into God is that by which a good man, approved by pious, just, pure, chaste, true words and deeds without any pursuit of the boasting of changing times, and hedged about by the retinue of the gods — the powers of God, that is, having been discharged, namely the fulfilled virtues of that one and universal and incomprehensible and ineffable and untiring Creator, which, as is your custom, you call angels, or something else after God or with God — hastens to go, either from God or into God, by the intention of soul and mind. It is the way, I say, by which those purified, decocted by the pious precepts and most pure expiations and abstemious observances of the ancient rites, steadfast in soul and body, press on with all speed.

But concerning Christ — now the God of your credulity, carnal and of the spirit, through whom you are secure to go into that supreme, blessed, true Father of all — I do not dare, nor am I able, to express what I feel, O lord and father to be honored, because what I do not know I believe most difficult to define. But as you deigned long ago to intimate to me, who already knew it, that you love me as a worshiper of your virtues, I have enough as testimony to a good life, which — lest I displease you, who daily commend me to God through yourself and your soul — I guard. You understand beyond doubt that I too delightedly love it, since, receiving the rule and line of your judgment formed concerning me, I hold to it.

But before all things I beseech you to grant pardon to my very slight opinion, and easily to indulge my speech to you — since you compelled it — perhaps incongruous and given carelessly; and to deign, if I deserve it, to inform me by your holy writings (sweeter, as one says, now not than honey but than nectar) what you think of these matters, or what you yourself feel. May you fully enjoy the piety of God, lord father, and by perpetual holiness please God, which is necessary. 235. To Longinianus, Augustine. I have received the fruit of my writing, namely the reply of your goodwill. Whence I now see arisen and begun between us, as it were, the seed of a great disputation, and about a great matter. This is what I first wished; then, what I still wish, God will help;

and that is, that this thing begun may be closed with a due and salutary end. Accordingly, that you thought nothing about Christ should rashly be either denied or affirmed by you — this temperance in the mind of a pagan I would not unwillingly accept. But that you also desire to be taught about this matter by my writings, I will by no means refuse, nor cease to serve this so good and to me most dear will of yours. But first there is need in a certain way to clarify and to take up plainly your opinion about the ancient rites. For when you had said that that way into God is better «by which a good man, approved by pious, just, pure, chaste

true words and deeds without any pursuit of the boasting of changing times, and hedged about by the retinue of the gods — the powers of God, that is, having been discharged, namely the fulfilled virtues of that one and universal and incomprehensible and untiring Creator, which, as is your custom, you call angels, or something else after God or with God — hastens to go, either from God or into God, by the intention of soul and mind» (which words you recognize from your letter), then you added and said: «It is the way, I say, by which those purified, decocted by the pious precepts and most pure expiations and abstemious observances of the ancient rites, steadfast in soul and body, press on with all speed.» In these words I perceive,

unless I am mistaken, that it seems to you not to suffice for the way by which one goes into God, that a good man should, by pious, just, pure, chaste, true words and deeds, earn the favor of the gods, hedged about by whose retinue he may hasten to go into that supreme God, Creator of all, unless he be also purified by the pious precepts and expiations of the ancient rites. On which account I would wish to know what you judge must be purged by rites in him who, by living piously, justly, purely, and truthfully, earns the favor of the gods, and through them that one God of gods. For if he must still be purged by rites, then surely he is not clean; and if he is not clean, he does not live piously, justly, purely, and chastely. But if he already so lives, he is already clean. Furthermore, one already clean and pure — what need has he to be purged by expiating rites?

And so this is the knot of our disputation, which once loosed we shall see the consequences: whether a man lives well in order that he may be purged by rites, or is purged by rites in order that he may live well; or whether the measure of living well in a man, however great, is not yet suitable for the blessed life which is received from God, unless the aids of rites be added; or whether to receive rites is a certain portion, as it were, of living well — so that, namely, it is not one thing to live well and another to live in a sacred manner, but the sacred life is enclosed within the very bounds of living well. Of these four things which I have set forth, which you most approve, I beg you not be reluctant to disclose to me by letter.

For it makes a very great difference toward that which we have undertaken to carry through by conversing between ourselves, lest, when I labor to refute many unnecessary things as though you held them, which perhaps you do not hold, the necessary time be spent on superfluous matters. And so I did not wish to burden the letter, so that, with you quickly writing back, we may weave together the rest. 236. To the most blessed lord and venerably most dear brother and fellow bishop Deuterius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. I judged that I could do nothing better than to write above all to your holiness, lest through negligence in your province the enemy lay waste the sheepfold of our Lord Jesus Christ — the enemy who does not cease to lie in wait, that he may destroy souls purchased at so great a price.

It was established among us that a certain subdeacon of Mallianum, Victorinus, was a Manichee, and that in so sacrilegious an error he was lurking under the name of a cleric; for he is also already old in age. He was so exposed that even he himself, when questioned by me, before he was convicted by witnesses, could not deny it. For he knew that there were already so many and such witnesses, upon whom he had incautiously poured himself out, that if he tried to deny it, he would appear — I will not say most shameless, but most insane. He confessed indeed that he was a Hearer of the Manichees, not one of the Elect. Those who among them are called Hearers both eat flesh and till fields and, if they wish, have wives; none of which do those who are called the Elect.

But the Hearers themselves kneel before the Elect, that the hand may be laid upon them as suppliants — not by presbyters or bishops or deacons of theirs alone, but by any of the Elect whatever. They also adore and pray to the sun and moon along with them. On the Lord's day too they fast with them, and they believe along with them all the blasphemies by which the heresy of the Manichees is to be detested — denying, namely, that Christ was born of a virgin, nor confessing that His flesh was true but false, and through this contending both that His passion was false and that there was no resurrection. They blaspheme the patriarchs and prophets. They say the law given through Moses, God's servant, was not from the true God but from the prince of darkness.

They hold that the souls not only of men but even of beasts are of the substance of God and are altogether parts of God. They say, in short, that the good and true God fought with the race of darkness and mingled a part of Himself with the princes of darkness, and they assert that this part, defiled and bound throughout the whole world, is purged through the foods of their Elect and through the sun and moon; and that whatever of that very part of God could not be purged is bound at the end of the age in an eternal and penal chain — so that God is not only believed violable and corruptible and defilable, since His part could be brought to such great evils, but cannot even, in His entirety, be purged from such great pollution and uncleanness and misery, even at the end of the age.

These intolerable blasphemies, together with them, this subdeacon not only believed as though a Catholic, but, with whatever powers he could, even taught. For he was exposed while teaching, when he trusted men as though they were learners. He indeed asked me, after he had confessed himself to be a Hearer of the Manichees, that I would recall him into the way of the truth of Catholic doctrine; but, I confess, I strongly shuddered at his feigning under the guise of a cleric, and I saw to it that, being restrained, he was expelled from the city. Nor was this enough for me, unless I also intimated it by my letter to your holiness, so that, being fittingly cast down from the rank of clerics by ecclesiastical severity, he might become known to all as one to be guarded against.

But to him seeking a place of repentance, let it then be granted, if he also makes known to us the others whom he knows to be there — not only at Mallianum, but in the province altogether. 237. To the most blessed lord and deservedly venerable brother and fellow bishop Ceretius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. Having read the things which your holiness sent, it seems to me that Argyrius has either unknowingly fallen among the Priscillianists — so that he was altogether ignorant whether they themselves were Priscillianists — or is already entangled in the nets of that same heresy. For I do not doubt that those writings are of the Priscillianists. But scarcely could I have leisure in any way, with other and other necessities without intermission overwhelming me, so that even one of those two codices might be read to me in its entirety.