nay rather, you remained spouses so much the more holily, the more holily by common accord you were keeping your resolves. Therefore you ought to have done nothing about your own clothing, nothing about gold or silver or any money, or any earthly goods of yours, without his decision, lest you scandalize a man who had vowed to God, together with you, greater things, and had continently abstained from that which, by lawful power, he could have exacted of your flesh. In fine, it came about that the bond of continence, in which the beloved man had entwined himself, being scorned, he broke apart, and, angry at you, did not spare himself. For, as the bearer of your letter reported to me, when he had learned that all, or nearly all,
whatever you had, you had given to two monks passing by, I know not which, to be distributed as though to the poor, then he, detesting them and thinking them not servants of God but invaders of another's house and captors and plunderers of you, indignantly cast away so holy a burden which he had taken up together with you. For he was weak, and therefore he, to whom in your common resolve you seemed the stronger, was not to be disturbed by presumption but to be borne with in love; because, even if he was moved somewhat too sluggishly to the giving of alms more liberally, he could learn this too, if he were not struck by your unexpected expenditures, but invited by awaited compliances.
so that even this, which you rashly did alone, you both might do much more advisedly by harmonious love, and much more orderly and honorably, nor would the servants of God be blasphemed—if indeed these were such, who from an unknown woman and another man's wife, the husband being absent and unaware, took so much. And God would be praised in your works, whose fellowship was so faithful that by you in common there was held not only the highest chastity but also glorious poverty. But now consider, by inconsiderate haste, what you have done. For, that I may think well of those monks, by whom your husband complains he was not edified but despoiled, and may not easily agree, against perhaps the servants of God, with a man whose eye is disturbed by anger,
is it so great a good, that you refreshed the flesh of the poor with more liberal alms, as it is a great evil, that you undermined the mind of your husband from so good a resolve? Or ought anyone's temporal welfare to have been dearer to you than his eternal welfare? Would not God, if, considering a fuller mercy, you therefore deferred bestowing your goods on the poor, lest your husband, scandalized, should perish to God, impute to you more abundant alms? Accordingly, if you recall what you had acquired when you had won your husband, that he should serve Christ with you in a holier chastity, understand, by those alms of yours, whereby his heart was overturned, with how much heavier a loss you have been struck, than are those gains which you were reckoning heavenly.
For if a piece of bread broken for the hungry has a great place there, how great a place is mercy to be believed to have there, whereby a man is snatched from the devil, as from a roaring lion also seeking whom he may devour! Nor do we say this in such a way that, if anyone should be scandalized by our good works, we should think we must desist from them; but the case of strangers is one thing, that of necessary persons in some fellowship another; that of a believer one, that of an unbeliever another; that of parents toward children one, that of children toward parents another; that, finally, which in these matters is above all to be regarded, of husband and wife—where it is not lawful for a married woman to say: 'I do what I will with my own,' since she too is not her own but her head's, that is, her husband's.
For thus, as the apostle Peter records, certain holy women, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters, he says, you have become—when he was speaking to Christian, not to Jewish, women. But what wonder is it, if the father was unwilling that his common son should be stripped by the mother of the supports of this life, not knowing what the son would pursue when he began to be of somewhat grown-up age—whether the profession of a monk, or ecclesiastical ministry, or the bond of conjugal necessity?
For although the sons of the saints are to be roused and instructed toward better things, yet each one has his own gift—so that one is thus, another otherwise—unless perhaps the father is to be blamed for foreseeing and forestalling such things, when the blessed Apostle says: 'But whoever does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.' But when he was speaking of the very giving of alms, he said: 'Not that there should be refreshment for others, but straitness for you.' Together, therefore, you should have taken counsel about everything, together you should have moderated what was to be laid up as treasure in heaven, what was to be left for the sufficiency of this life for you and yours and your son, lest there should be refreshment for others but straitness for you.
And in arranging and carrying out these matters, if perchance anything seemed better to you, you should have suggested it to your husband reverently and followed his authority obediently, as though it were your own head; so that all who are of sound mind, to whom the report of this good of yours might be able to reach, would rejoice at the fruitfulness and peace of your household, and the adversary would stand in awe, having nothing wicked to say about you. Furthermore, as to the giving of alms and the spending of your goods upon the poor — a good and great work concerning which the Lord's precepts are so plain —
since you ought to have shared your counsel with your faithful husband, who together with you was keeping the holy covenant of continence, and not to have scorned his will — how much more, concerning your bearing and dress, ought you to have changed or taken up nothing apart from his judgment, seeing that on this we read nothing divinely commanded! It is indeed written that women ought to be in orderly attire, and that the putting on of gold and the braiding of the hair and other things of this kind, which are wont to be employed either for empty display or for the enticement of beauty, are rightly reproved. Yet there is a certain matronly dress, proportioned to the person, distinct from a widow's garb, which can befit married believers without harm to the observance of religion.
If your husband did not wish you to lay this aside, lest, while he yet lived, you should flaunt yourself as though a widow, I think it was because in this matter you should not have been driven to the scandal of dissension — the evil of disobedience being greater than the good of any abstinence. For what is more absurd than that a woman should be proud toward her husband over humble dress, when it would rather have been fitting for you to obey him with bright morals than to resist him with dark garments? For even if the garb of a nun delighted you, this too could have been more graciously taken up with your husband consulted and entreated, than presumptuously seized upon with him unconsulted and despised. But if he had not permitted it at all, what would have been lost to your resolve? Far be it that on this account you should displease God — because, your spouse being not yet dead, you did not clothe yourself as Anna did, but as Susanna.
For neither would he, who had already begun with you to guard so great a good as continence, even if he had wished you to receive a conjugal rather than a widow's garment, have compelled you to unseemly adornment; so that even if by some hard condition you were constrained, you could keep a humble heart amid proud attire. Surely among the patriarchs that queen Esther, fearing God, worshipping God, subject to God, was nonetheless subject and served her husband, a king of foreign race who did not worship her God with her. And when, with the utmost peril not only to herself but also to her people — who were then the people of God — she prostrated herself before the Lord in prayer, in that very prayer she said that her royal adornment was to her like a menstruous rag;
and He who is the searcher of hearts, and knew that she spoke truly, at once heard her as she prayed. And assuredly she had a husband who was the husband of many wives, and a worshipper of alien and false gods. But you — if that man too had persevered in the resolve which he had undertaken with you, and had not, offended by you, fallen into disgrace — you had a husband not only faithful and worshipping the true God with you, but also continent; who, doubtless not unmindful of your resolve, even if he had compelled you to conjugal garments, would nevertheless not have compelled you to proud adornments. These things I have written to you because you thought I should be consulted, not that by my words I might break your right purpose, but because I grieved over your husband's deed, provoked by your acting inordinately and incautiously.
Concerning the repair of which you ought most earnestly to think, if you truly wish to belong to Christ. Put on therefore humility of mind, and, that God may keep you persevering, do not despise your perishing husband.
Pour out for him devout and constant prayers, offer in sacrifice your tears as the blood of a wounded heart, and write to him making satisfaction and asking pardon, because you have sinned against him in that, apart from his counsel and will, you did with your goods what you thought ought to be done — not that you should repent of having given to the poor, but that you were unwilling to have him as a partner and moderator of your good work. Promise, moreover, with the Lord's help, that if he too repent of his own baseness and seek again the continence which he forsook, you will, as is fitting, be subject to him in all things; that perchance, as the Apostle says, God may grant him repentance, and he may come to his senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom he is held captive according to his will. But as for your son —
since you bore him from lawful and honourable wedlock, who does not know that he is more in his father's power than in yours? And therefore he cannot be denied to the father, wherever he shall have learned him to be, and shall lawfully demand him; and through this, that he may according to your will be nourished and instructed in the wisdom of God, your concord is also necessary for him. To the most religious lady and holy daughter Sapida, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. I have received what you wished me to accept from the just and pious labours of your hands, lest I should sadden you too heavily, when I rather saw that you were to be consoled — especially since you counted this very thing to be no small solace to yourself: namely, that the tunic which you had made for your brother, a holy minister of God,
I should wear it, since he, already departing from the land of the dying, had need of no corruptible things. I have done therefore what you desired; and whatever solace you may have reckoned this to be, however small, I have not denied it to your heart's affection toward your brother. I have received the tunic sent by you, and when I wrote this to you, I had already begun to clothe myself with it. Be of good cheer; but make use of far better and far greater consolations, so that the cloud of your heart, gathered by human weakness, may be made serene by divine authority; and live perseveringly in such a way that you may live with your brother, since your brother has so died as to live.
There is indeed matter for tears, that you no longer see, as you were wont, your brother — one who loved you and greatly revered you for your life and your profession of sacred virginity — a deacon of the church of Carthage, going in and coming out and busying himself in the vigour of his ecclesiastical office; and that you no longer hear from him those words of honour which, with dutiful, devout, and obliging affection, he used to render to the holiness of your sisterhood. When these things are called to mind, and the force of habit demands them, the heart is pierced, and, as it were, weeping bursts forth like the blood of the heart. But let the heart be lifted up, and the eyes will be dry. For not because these things, which you mourn to have been taken from you, have passed away in their temporal course, has that love therefore perished
with which Timothy loved Sapida and loves her: it remains, preserved in its treasury, and hidden with Christ in the Lord. Those who love gold — do they lose it when they store it away? Do they not then, so far as can be, become more secure about it, when, removed from their eyes, they keep it in safer strongboxes? Is it then truly so, that earthly greed reckons itself to hold more securely if it does not see what it loves, while heavenly love grieves as though it had lost what it has sent ahead into the heavenly granaries? Attend to what you are called, Sapida, and be wise unto the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
who deigned to die for us that we might live, both those already dead, and that death itself might not be feared by man as though about to consume the man, nor that any of the dead, for whom Life died, should be mourned as though he had lost life. Let these and things of this sort be your divine consolations, before which human sadness may blush and yield. It is not indeed that grief over dear ones who have died is to be censured in mortals; but the grief of the faithful ought not to be long-lasting. If therefore you have been saddened, let it now be enough, and do not be saddened as the nations are, who have no hope. For the Apostle did not forbid us to grieve when he said this, but to grieve as the nations do, who have no hope. For both Martha and Mary, devout and faithful sisters,
wept for their brother Lazarus, who was to rise again, although they did not then know that he was to return to this life; and the Lord Himself wept for that same Lazarus whom He was about to raise up. Doubtless, that we too may weep for those dead whom we believe will rise again to true life, He, though He did not command it by precept, permitted it by example. Nor without reason does Scripture say in Ecclesiasticus: Over the dead pour out tears, and as one who has suffered grievously begin lamentation; but a little after it says: And be comforted for thy sadness; for from sadness proceeds death, and the sadness of the heart bends down strength. Your brother, daughter, lives in mind, sleeps in flesh. Shall not he who sleeps rise up again?
God, who has already received his spirit, will restore to him his body, which He took away not to be lost but deferred to be given back. There is therefore no cause for long-lasting sadness, since the cause for everlasting gladness is stronger; seeing that not even that mortal part itself of your brother, which is buried in the earth, will perish for you — that part in which he was present to you, through which he spoke to you and conversed with you, from which he brought forth a voice so known to your ears, even as he presented his face to your eyes, so that wherever it had sounded, though unseen, he was wont to be recognized. For these things are withdrawn from the senses of the living, so that the absence of the dead may cause grief. But since not even these things themselves will perish for ever — where a hair of the head shall not perish,
and things laid aside for a time will be so received back that they will never again be laid aside, but, changed for the better, be made firm — surely the cause for congratulation in the hope of inestimable eternity is greater than the cause for mourning in the matter of a very brief time. This hope the nations do not have, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God, who is able to repair what is lost, to give life to the dead, to restore the corrupted, to join again what is separated, and to preserve henceforth without end things once corruptible and finite. He has promised that He will do these things, who from those things which He has already fulfilled has produced faith concerning the things He has promised: let your faith hold this converse with you, since your hope will not be defrauded, even though your love is now deferred; meditate on these things, by these console yourself more richly and more truly.
For if, because you are clothed — since he could not be — with that garment which you had woven for your brother, you are somewhat consoled, how much more ought you to be consoled more abundantly and more surely, because he for whom it had been prepared is clothed with an incorruptible garment, needing no corruption, and with immortality! To the honourable and excellent handmaid of God, praiseworthy among the members of Christ, Maxima, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. How greatly your holy zeal gladdens us! so greatly again does it sadden us that you signify your province to be exceedingly endangered through harmful and most pernicious errors. But since these things have been foretold as to come, it is no wonder that they should arise; but one must keep watch lest they do harm.
But God our deliverer would not permit these things to arise, unless it were expedient that His holy ones should be trained even through temptations of this kind. Those men indeed procure for themselves, by their own perverse will, both the desert of present blindness and of future eternal punishment, if through obstinacy they remain unteachable, and neglect to correct and amend themselves while they are in this life. Yet nevertheless, just as they themselves ill use the good things of God — who makes His sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust, who calls them through His patience to repentance, while they treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God — just as, then, they themselves ill use God's kindness and patience, that is, God's good things,
while they are not corrected, so on the contrary God uses even their evils for good — not only for His own justice, which will repay these men what is worthy in the end, but also for the exercise and advancement of His holy ones; so that from the very perversity of the wicked the good may profit and be proved and made manifest, as the Apostle says: There must be also heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you. For if there were no good use even of the wicked available to God for the benefit of His elect — He who from the evil of Judas bestowed on us so great a good, that we were redeemed by the blood of Christ — He could either not permit those to be born whom He foreknew would be evil, or extinguish them in the very beginning of their malignity.
But He permits them to be only so many as He knows to be expedient and sufficient for admonishing and exercising His holy household. Therefore He consoles our sadness over them, because that very sadness which we have on their account relieves us, but burdens them as they persevere in their perversity. But the joy which we perceive, when some of them are corrected and changed for the better and joined to the fellowship of the saints, can be compared to no joy in this life. For this reason it is written: Son, if thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself and for thy neighbours;
but if thou turn out evil, thou alone shalt draw up evils. For when we rejoice over the faithful and the just, their good profits both them and us; but when we are saddened over the unbelieving and the unjust, both their malice and our sadness harm them alone. Yet this too greatly helps us with God, that we are mercifully saddened for them, and for that very sadness we groan together and pray. Wherefore, honourable and praiseworthy handmaid of God in Christ, I greatly approve and praise both your sorrow over such persons and your vigilance and caution against such, which you have expressed in your letters; and, so far as I am able, since you require this of me, [I exhort]
and I encourage and admonish you, that you have mercy on them as simple as a dove, but beware of them as cunning as a serpent; and that you take pains, as much as you can, that those who cling to you may remain with you in the right faith, or, if perhaps some have been corrupted in anything, be corrected to the right faith. But concerning the man whom the Word of God took up, when it was made flesh and dwelt among us, I would amend something, if in that which you believe I found anything false or perverse. Believe this, then, which you believe: that in that man the Son of God took up our whole nature — that is, both a rational soul and mortal flesh — without sin.
For He became a partaker of our infirmity, not of our iniquity, that through the common infirmity He might loose our iniquity, and lead us to His own righteousness — drinking death from what is ours, and giving us to drink of life from what is His. But if you have any writing of theirs in which they assert something contrary to this faith, deign to send it, that we may not only state our faith, but also, so far as we can, refute their perfidy. For without doubt this very thing which they perversely and impiously hold, they attempt to establish by certain testimonies of the divine Scriptures,
in which it must be shown to them how wrongly they understand the sacred letters, written for the salvation of the faithful — just as if anyone should grievously wound himself with medical instruments, which surely were instituted not for wounding but for healing. But we have laboured much, and still labour, so far as the Lord grants, in refuting divers errors. If perchance you desire to have the little works of our labours, send someone to copy them for you; for God has willed that you may most easily do this, who has given you the means by which you can. To the religious and, in the love of Christ, to-be-honoured handmaid of God Seleuciana, Augustine the bishop sends greeting in the Lord.
Having read your letter, I rejoiced over your welfare, and did not delay to reply to what you wrote. And first I wondered how this Novatian says that Peter was not baptized, when a little above you had written that he said the apostles had been baptized. Whence it seems to him that among the baptized apostles Peter was not baptized, I do not know; and therefore, lest perhaps you do not have it, I have sent you a copy of your own letter, that you may consider more diligently that I am replying to what I found in your letters. For if the notary did not err in taking down or in writing, I do not know what sort of heart he has, who, while he says the apostles were baptized, denies that Peter was baptized.
But as to what is said, that Peter did penance, one must beware lest he be thought to have done penance in the way that those do in the church who are properly called penitents. And who could bear that we should reckon the first of the apostles among such penitents? For he repented of having denied Christ, as his tears indicate; for so it is written, that he wept bitterly. For they had not yet been confirmed by the Lord's resurrection, and by that coming of the Holy Spirit which appeared on the day of Pentecost, or by that inbreathing which the Lord showed after He rose from the dead, when He breathed upon their face, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whence it can rightly be said that, when Peter denied the Lord, the apostles had not yet been baptized — not indeed with water, but with the Holy Spirit. For this He said to them, after He rose again and had conversed with them: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom also you are to receive not after many days — these up to Pentecost. But some codices have: But you shall begin to be baptized with the Holy Spirit; yet whether it be said 'you shall be baptized' or 'you shall begin to be baptized', it makes no difference to the matter. For in whatever codices are found 'thou shalt baptize' or 'you shall begin to baptize', they are faulty, and are most easily convicted from the Greek.
But if we say that they were not baptized with water, it is to be feared lest we err grievously concerning them, lest we give men authority to despise baptism — which the apostolic discipline itself so far commends as not to be despised, that Cornelius the centurion and those who were with him, even after the Holy Spirit had already been received, were baptized. Just as the ancient just men, if they were not circumcised, had no sin in it, but afterwards, when God commanded that Abraham and his posterity should be circumcised, then, if it were not done, it was a grave sin; so also, before the Lord Christ in His church gave holy baptism, the sacrament of the New Testament, in place of the circumcision of the flesh, and most openly said:
If anyone be not born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven — now we ought not to ask when each one was baptized; but whomever we read to belong to the kingdom of heaven in the body of Christ, which is the church, we ought to understand to be none but the baptized, except perhaps those whom the straits of martyrdom found and, unwilling to deny Christ, were slain before they could be baptized, to whom that passion itself was reckoned in place of baptism. But can we say this of the apostles, who had so ample a time in which to be baptized, that they even baptized others? Yet not all things that were done are also found written; nevertheless that they were done is proved by other evidences.
It is written when the apostle Paul was baptized, and it is not written when the other apostles were baptized; nevertheless we ought to understand that they too were baptized — even as it is written when the congregations of the churches in Jerusalem and in Samaria were baptized, but when the other congregations of the Gentiles were baptized, to whom the apostles sent epistles, is certainly not written; and yet that they too were baptized we by no means doubt, on account of that sentence of the Lord: Unless one be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But both things are written concerning the Lord: both that He baptized more than John, and that He Himself did not baptize, but His disciples — so that we might understand both that He indeed baptized by the presence of His majesty, yet that He did not baptize with His own hands. For the sacrament of baptism was His, but the ministry of baptizing pertained to the disciples. Then, therefore, when John the Evangelist says in his Gospel: After these things Jesus came, and His disciples, into the land of Judaea, and there He tarried with them and baptized — then a little after, speaking of Him, he says:
When therefore Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John — although Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples — He left the land of Judaea and went again into Galilee. Then therefore, when He went out from Jerusalem with His disciples into the land of Judaea and there tarried with them, He baptized not through Himself but through His disciples, whom we understand to have already been baptized, either without the baptism of John, as some think, or — which is more credible — with the baptism of Christ.
For He would not have shunned the ministry of baptizing, so as to have baptized servants through whom He might baptize the rest — He who did not shun the ministry of that memorable humility, when He washed their feet, and to Peter, who asked that He wash not only his feet but also his hands and head, He replied: He that is washed needs not, save to wash his feet, but is clean altogether — where it is understood that Peter had already been baptized. But how this man says what you set down in your letter, that the apostles gave penance in place of baptism, is not clearly expressed. For if he says 'in place of baptism' for this reason, because through penance sins are remitted, what he says has some reason.