For not even if I saw your face daily would you be more known to me than when I beheld your inner beauty of peace, fair and radiant with the light of truth, in the brightness of that one deed of yours — I beheld and recognized, I recognized and loved. To this one I now speak, to this one I write, to my beloved friend, who became known to me though absent, I too being absent in body.
But truly we were already together, and joined we lived under one Head, in whose love unless you were rooted, Catholic unity would not be so dear to you, nor would you have admonished your African tenants — settled in that part of the earth whence the fury of the Donatists arose, that is, in the midst of consular Numidia — with such an address, and animated them with so great a fervour of spirit, that with most ready devotion they should choose to follow that which they resolved to follow only when the truth was recognized in you, so great and such a man; and, though removed so far from you by the intervals of places, that they should go under the same Head and in His members be reckoned with you for eternity — He by whose precept they serve you temporally.
In this deed of yours, then, embracing you as one made known to me, I have exulted, so that I might congratulate you in Christ Jesus our Lord and send you this congratulatory letter as some sort of token of my heart and love towards you; for I could do no more. But I beseech you, do not thus measure how much I love you by this alone. When you have read it through, pass over this letter with that invisible passage which takes place within, and proceed by thinking into my breast, and discern what is there transacted concerning you.
For to the eye of love the chamber of love will lie open — that chamber which we close against the tumultuous trifles of the world when we there adore the Lord — and you will see there the delights of my gladness over so good a deed of yours, delights which neither the tongue can utter nor the pen express, glowing and blazing in the sacrifice of His praise, by whose inspiration you willed this and by whose aid you were able. Thanks be to God for the unspeakable gift! O how many senators together with you, and together sons of the holy Church, do we long to see doing such a work in Africa, as that over which we rejoice in yours! But it is perilous to exhort those; over you it is safe to congratulate.
For those perhaps will not do it and, as though the enemies of the Church had conquered us in their minds, will lie in wait to deceive the weak; but you have already done that whereby the enemies of the Church may be confounded, the weak being set free. Accordingly it has seemed sufficient that you yourself, to those whom by Christian right you can, should with friendly confidence read this letter. For thus from your deed they believe that what can be done in Africa can be done, though perhaps, while they think it cannot be done, they grow sluggish. But the snares which the heretics themselves contrive with distorted heart — since I laughed at them for supposing that they had any power over your mind in the possession of Christ — I did not even wish to write of. You will nevertheless hear these things from my brethren.
Whom I most greatly commend to your excellency, that amid so great and so unexpected a salvation of men — over whom, through you, the Catholic mother exults — you would not spurn them, fearing even superfluous things. LIX. TO THE MOST BLESSED AND VENERABLE LORD, FATHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST VICTORINUS, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD. The circular letter came to me on the fifth day before the Ides of November, the day being already ended, and found me very much indisposed, so that I could not come at all. But whether it has moved my inexperience, or whether I have been justly moved, is for your holiness and gravity to judge. I read in the same circular letter that it was written also to the Mauretanias — which provinces we know have their own primates.
But if from these too a council were to be convoked to Numidia, it certainly behoved that the names of some of the Moorish bishops, who are the seniors there, should be set down in the circular letter; and, not finding this in that circular letter, I marvelled much. Then, to the Numidians themselves, it was written in an order so disturbed and neglected that I found my name in the third place — I who know how long after many others I was made a bishop. This matter is both injurious enough to others and invidious to me.
Moreover, our venerable brother and colleague Xanthippus of Tagosa says that the primacy itself pertains to him, and by very many he is so held, and he sends such letters; which error, even if it can easily be recognized and corrected among your holiness, ought nevertheless not to have caused his name to be passed over in the circular letter which your venerability sent. But if it were written in the middle places and not set in the first, I should marvel much; how much more is it to be marveled at that no mention of him was made by you, who most of all ought to have come to the council, that concerning the very order of primacy — which is the cause of the primacy for all the bishops of the Numidian churches — the matter might be dealt with.
For these reasons I would even have hesitated to come, lest perhaps the circular letter, in which such great perversity was made to appear, might be a forgery; and besides, both the shortness of time and other grave necessities hindered me in many ways. Wherefore I beg Your Beatitude to pardon me, and first to deign to insist that between your holiness and the aged Xanthippus it be settled in concord which of you ought to convoke the council;
or else — which I judge more wholesome — without prejudice to anyone, do you both together convoke our colleagues, especially those who are near you in the age of their episcopate, who may easily recognize which of you speaks the truth, so that among you few the same question may be settled before the rest, and, error being removed, the lesser ones may be summoned by the others — men who neither can nor ought, in this matter, to trust any but you as their seniors, and who at present do not know which of you they should rather believe. This letter I have sent sealed with a ring that stamps the face of a man looking sideways. LX. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, WORTHY OF DUE OBSERVANCE AND SINCERELY MOST DEAR, HIS BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST POPE AURELIUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
I have received no letter from Your Venerableness since we bodily parted from one another. But now I have read the letter of your kindness concerning Donatus and his brother, and for a long time I wavered as to what I should reply. Yet, pondering again and again what would be useful for the salvation of those whom we serve to nourish in Christ, nothing else could occur to me except that this way must not be granted to the servants of God, that they should the more readily suppose themselves chosen for something better if they have become worse.
For to them themselves a fall becomes easy, and to the order of the clergy a most unworthy injury is done, if deserters of monasteries are chosen for the service of the clerical office, whereas from among those who remain in the monastery we are accustomed to take into the clergy only the more approved and better men — unless perhaps, as the common folk say, 'a bad flute-player makes a good chorister,' so those same common folk will jest about us, saying: 'a bad monk makes a good cleric.'
It is exceedingly to be lamented if we raise up monks to so ruinous a pride and deem the clergy — in whose number we are — worthy of so grievous an insult, since sometimes even a good monk scarcely makes a good cleric, if he has sufficient continence yet lacks the necessary instruction or the integrity of a man fit for rule. But concerning these men, I believe Your Beatitude has supposed that they withdrew from the monastery by our will, so that they might rather be useful to their own fellow-countrymen. But that is false: they went off of their own accord; of their own accord they deserted us as we resisted, as far as we could, for their salvation. And as for Donatus indeed — since it has already come about that, before we determined anything about this matter in council,
he was ordained — if perchance he has been corrected from the perversity of his pride, let your prudence do what it wills. But concerning his brother, for whose sake above all Donatus himself also departed from the monastery, although you understand what I feel, I do not know what to answer. Yet I dare not contradict your prudence, honour, and charity; and indeed I hope you will do that which you shall perceive to be wholesome for the members of the Church. Amen. LXI. TO HIS MOST BELOVED BROTHER THEODORE, AUGUSTINE. When your benevolence was speaking with me as to how we should receive the clergy from the party of Donatus, if they were willing to be Catholics, that which I answered you pleased me, and I set it down also in this letter given to you ...........
and if anyone questions you about this matter, you may show, even in my own hand, what we think or do concerning it. Know, therefore, that in them we detest nothing but their own dissension, through which they have become schismatics or heretics, because they do not hold the unity and truth of the Catholic Church — in that they do not have peace with the people of God, which is spread throughout the whole world, and in that they do not acknowledge in men the baptism of Christ. Therefore we disapprove of the evil error, because it is their own; but the good name of God which they have, and His sacrament, we acknowledge in them, and we venerate and embrace it.
But for that very reason we grieve over them as they err, and through the charity of Christ we desire to win them for God, so that the holy sacrament, which outside the Church they possess unto ruin, they may possess in the peace of the Church unto salvation. If, therefore, the evils of men are taken out of the midst, and the good things of God are honoured in men, there will be brotherly concord and lovely peace, so that in the hearts of men the charity of Christ may conquer the persuasion of the devil.
And so, when they come to us from the party of Donatus, we do not take up their evils — that is, their dissension and error — but let these very things be removed from the midst as hindrances to concord; and we embrace as brethren those who stand with them, as the Apostle says, in the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, acknowledging in them the good things of God: whether holy baptism, or the blessing of ordination, or the profession of continence, or the consecration of virginity, or faith in the Trinity, and whatever else there is — all of which, even if they existed, yet profited nothing when charity was not there. For how does he truly say that he has the charity of Christ, when he does not embrace His unity? When, therefore, they come to the Catholic Church, they do not here receive what they already had:
but so that what they had may begin to profit them, they receive here what they did not have; for here they receive the root of charity in the bond of peace and in the fellowship of unity, so that all the sacraments of truth which they possess may avail them not unto damnation but unto liberation. For the branches ought not to glory, since they are not the wood of thorns but of the vine. For if they have not lived in the root, they will be cast into the fire with all their appearance. But of certain broken branches the Apostle said that God is able to graft them in again.
And therefore, most beloved brother, whomsoever of them you see perchance doubting in what manner they are to be received by us, show them this hand of mine, which you well know; and if they are willing to have it, let them have it, because I make God witness upon my soul that I will so receive them, that they may have not only the baptism of Christ which they received, but also the honour of their covenant and their continence. LXII. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, VENERABLY MOST DEAR AND MOST SINCERE, HIS BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST SEVERUS AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH YOU, ALYPIUS AND AUGUSTINE AND SAMSUCIUS AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH US SEND GREETING IN THE LORD.
When we had come to Subsana and were inquiring into the things that had been done there in our absence against our will, some as we had heard, but others done otherwise, all nevertheless to be lamented and to be borne — as far as the Lord helped us — we corrected them, partly by rebuking, partly by admonishing, partly by praying. That one thing indeed, which after the departure of Your Holiness grieved us most — namely, that the brethren were sent off thence without a guide for the journey — we beg you to pardon, and know that it was done more out of timidity than out of malice.
For since they supposed that these men were sent by our son Timothy for the very purpose of provoking your charity to anger against us above all, while they themselves wished to reserve everything intact for our arrival, which they hoped would be together with you, they thought the men would not set out unless they were given a guide for the journey. But yet who would doubt that it was a sin? Hence it also came about that it was even said to Fossor that Timothy had already set out with those very brethren — which was certainly false, yet not spoken by the presbyter; and it has been most manifestly declared to us that brother Carcedonius was utterly ignorant of all these things, as far as such matters are wont to be made manifest. But why should we dwell on more?
The aforesaid son of ours, Timothy, being most vehemently disturbed because he had most unwillingly perceived so unexpected a wavering, disclosed to us that, when you were dealing with him that he should serve God at Subsana, he burst out and swore that he would by no means depart from you. And when we inquired his own will, he answered that he was hindered by this oath from being there where we had wished him to be even before — especially since he is now secure regarding the manifestation of his freedom.
And when we had made clear to him that he would not be guilty of perjury if it were brought about not through himself but through you — for the avoidance of scandal — that he could not be with you, since indeed he could swear concerning his own will but not concerning yours, and he confessed that you had not in turn sworn anything to him, at last he said what a servant of God, a son of the Church, ought to say: that whatever it should please us, together with Your Holiness, to have done concerning him, that without doubt he would follow. Accordingly we beg, and through the charity of Christ we beseech your prudence, that you remember all the things we have said, and gladden us by your reply. For we ought — if indeed amid such great perils of temptations this may be ventured to be said —
as the Apostle says, bear the burdens of the weak. Brother Timothy therefore did not write to Your Holiness, because your holy brother has indicated all the things that were done. Be glorified in remembrance of us in the Lord, most blessed lord, venerably most dear and most sincere brother. LXIII. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, VENERABLE, AND TO BE EMBRACED WITH MOST SINCERE CHARITY, HIS BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST SEVERUS AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH YOU, AUGUSTINE AND THE BRETHREN WHO ARE WITH ME SEND GREETING IN THE LORD. If I should say what the matter itself compels me to say, where will be the solicitude of charity? But if I should not say it, where will be the freedom of friendship? Yet, wavering in the meantime, I have chosen rather to clear myself than to accuse you.
You wrote that you wondered, with grief on our part, that we were willing to tolerate what could have been amended by correction — as though those things are not to be lamented which have been done ill, even if afterward they are corrected as far as possible; or as though that is not most of all to be borne which, when it is manifest that it was done amiss, cannot be made not to have been done. Cease therefore to wonder, most sincere brother. For at Subsana Timothy was ordained subdeacon apart from my counsel and will, while deliberation as to what ought to be done about him was still floating amid our alternating opinions. Behold, I still grieve, although he has now returned to you — wherein we do not repent of having obeyed your will.
Hear also what we corrected — by rebuking, by admonishing, by praying — even before he had set out from here, lest it still seem to you that nothing was then corrected by us, because he had not yet returned to you. By rebuking we corrected first the man himself, who did not obey you, in that he set out to Your Holiness before consulting brother Carcedonius — whence the origin of this our tribulation arose; then the presbyter and Verinus, through whom we found that it had been done that he should be ordained. For when, at our rebuke, they all confessed that all these things had not been rightly done, and begged that they might be pardoned, it would have been too proud not to believe them corrected. For neither could they bring it about that the things had not been done;
nor did we by rebuking aim at anything else, except that they might recognize that they had acted ill, and might grieve. But by admonishing we first corrected all, that thenceforth they should not dare such things, lest they experience the wrath of God. Then especially Timothy, who said he was compelled by the oath alone to go to your charity, that, if Your Holiness — as we hoped would be the case — considering what we had spoken together, on account of the scandal of the weak, for whom Christ died, and on account of the discipline of the Church, which they perilously neglect (since he had already begun here to be a lector), should be unwilling for him to be with you, he might now, free from the bond of the oath, serve God with a most tranquil mind, to whom we shall render account of our deeds.
Brother Carcedonius himself also, as far as we could, we had by admonishing brought to this, that he too should most patiently accept whatever the provision and necessity of preserving ecclesiastical discipline might compel to be done concerning him. And by praying we had corrected ourselves, that we should commend both the governance and the outcomes of our counsels to the mercy of God, and that, if any indignation had bitten us, we might be healed by fleeing beneath His healing right hand. Behold how many things we had corrected, partly by rebuking, partly by admonishing, partly by praying.
And now, considering the bond of charity, that we may not be taken possession of by Satan — for we are not ignorant of his devices — what else ought we to have done, except to obey your will, you who did not think that what was done could be corrected, unless the man himself, in whom you complain that an injury has been done to you, should be restored to your jurisdiction? This too brother Carcedonius himself did with equanimity — though not without a slight perturbation of mind, concerning which I ask that you pray for him — yet thinking of Christ in you.
And while I still thought it should be pondered whether, with Timothy tarrying with us, I should send other letters to your brotherhood, he himself feared your fatherly agitation and cut short my deliberation, not only permitting but even insisting that Timothy be restored to you. But I, brother Severus, leave my cause to your judgement. For I am certain that Christ dwells in your heart, through whom I beseech you to consult Him who presides over your mind that is subject to Him, whether a man who in the
church committed to my stewardship had already begun to read, and had read not once but a second and a third time at Subsana — accompanied also by the presbyter of the church of Subsana — and at Turres and at Cizau and at Verbalis, whether such a man can or ought to be judged not to have been a lector. And just as we corrected, at God's command, what was afterward done against our will, so also do you correct, at the command of the same God, in like manner what was previously done without your knowledge. For I do not fear that you understand too little how great an entrance is opened to the dissolving of the order of ecclesiastical discipline,
if a cleric of another church swears to anyone whatsoever that he will not depart from him, and that man permits him to be with him, affirming that he does so lest he be the author of that man's perjury — whereas assuredly he who will not allow this, nor permit the other to remain with him, because the man could swear concerning himself, not concerning another, himself keeps the peaceful rule without any reproach. LXIV. TO HIS MOST BELOVED LORD, BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRESBYTER QUINTIAN, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD. We do not disdain to look upon bodies less beautiful, especially since our own souls are not yet beautiful, as we hope they shall be when He who is ineffably beautiful shall appear to us, in whom now, not seeing Him, we believe;
for then we shall be like Him, since we shall see Him as He is. And this, concerning your own soul — if you receive me gladly and in a brotherly manner — I admonish you to feel: neither presume that it is beautiful, but, as the Apostle enjoins, rejoice in hope, and do what follows. For thus he says: 'Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation; for in hope we have been made safe.' As again the same Apostle says: 'But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through patience.' Let this patience not fail in you, and in a good conscience wait for the Lord, and act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord.
It is indeed manifest that, if you were to come to us not being in communion with the venerable bishop Aurelius, you could not be in communion with us either; but we would act with that same charity with which we do not doubt that he too acts. Nor yet on that account would your arrival be burdensome to us, because you too ought with an equal mind to act for the discipline of the Church, especially with a conscience unimpaired, which you and God know. For neither did he, if he deferred your cause to be examined, do it out of hatred toward you, but out of his own necessities — which, if you knew them as you know your own, you would neither wonder nor be grieved. And this too we ask you to believe concerning ours, because you likewise cannot know them.
But there are bishops greater than we, and more worthy in authority, and nearer in place, through whom you may more easily prosecute the ecclesiastical causes pertaining to your charge. Nor yet did I keep silent, before my venerable brother and colleague, the aged Aurelius — to be received with the honour due to me on account of his merits — about your tribulation and the complaint of your letters, but through a copy of your letter I took care to convey your innocence to him. Your letter, however, I received either on the day before or two days before the Lord's Nativity, when you intimated that he would be coming to the church of Badesilis, by which you fear that the people of God are being disturbed and corrupted. Wherefore by letter I do not indeed dare to address your people;
but I could write back to those who might write to me. Yet how could I, of my own accord, write to a people that is not committed to my stewardship? Nevertheless, what I say to you alone, who wrote to me, let it reach through your own self those to whom it needs to be said. You yourselves first, do not put the Church into scandal by reading among the people the scriptures which the ecclesiastical canon has not received; for with these the heretics, and especially the Manichaeans, are wont to overthrow untrained minds — whom I hear gladly lurk in your region.
I wonder, therefore, at your prudence, that you admonished me to order that those not be received who come to us to the monastery from among us, so that what has been decreed by us in council might remain in force — and yet you do not remember that it was also established in council which are the canonical scriptures that ought to be read among the people of God. Review, therefore, the council, and commit to memory all that you read there; and there too you will find that it was decreed concerning clergy alone, and not also concerning laymen, that those coming from wherever should not be received into a monastery — not because mention was made of a monastery, but because it was thus established, that no one should receive another's cleric.
But by a recent council it was decreed that those who have withdrawn from, or have been cast out of, any monastery should not become clergy elsewhere, nor superiors of monasteries. If therefore something about Privatio has stirred you, know that he has not yet been received by us into the monastery; but his cause I have sent to the aged Aurelius, that whatever he shall decide about him, this I may do. For I wonder whether one can already be reckoned a lector who has read the scriptures, and those not even canonical, only once. For if on that account he is already an ecclesiastical lector, then assuredly that scripture too is ecclesiastical; but if that scripture is not ecclesiastical, then whoever reads it — even though in church — is not an ecclesiastical lector.
Nevertheless, concerning this young man, I ought to observe whatever shall seem good to the aforementioned prelate. But the people of Vigesilis, together with you most dear to us in the bowels of Christ, if they are unwilling to receive a bishop degraded in a plenary council of Africa, will act with a sound head, and can neither be compelled nor ought to be. And whoever violently compels them will show what sort of man he is, and will make it understood what sort he was before, when he wished nothing evil to be believed of himself. For no one so betrays what sort of cause he had as he who, through secular powers or violences of whatever kind, with disturbance and complaint, strives to recover the honour he lost. For he wishes not to serve Christ who is willing, but to lord it over Christians who are unwilling.
Brethren, be cautious; the devil is exceedingly cunning; but Christ is the wisdom of God. LXV. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, VENERABLY TO BE RECEIVED FATHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST, THE AGED XANTHIPPUS, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD. Greeting Your Dignity with the office due to your merits, and commending myself very much to your prayers, I intimate to your prudence that a certain Abundantius was ordained presbyter on the estate of Strabonianum, which pertains to our charge. Since he did not walk in the ways of the servants of God, he had begun not to have a good reputation. Alarmed by this, yet not rashly believing anything but rather made more solicitous, I applied effort to see whether in any way I might arrive at some certain indications of his evil manner of life.
And first I found that he had embezzled the money of a certain countryman, entrusted to his keeping as to one dedicated to God, in such a way that he could render no plausible account of it. Then he was convicted and confessed that, on the fast-day of the Lord's Nativity — on which the church of Gippi also, like the others, was fasting — when he had bidden farewell to his colleague, the presbyter of Gippi, as though about to proceed to his own church, at about the fifth hour, and having with him no cleric, he stayed behind on that same estate and, with a certain woman of ill repute, both dined and supped and lodged in the same house. Now in the lodging of this woman a certain cleric of ours from Hippo had already been removed;
and because this man knew this exceedingly well, he could not deny it; for what he did deny, I have left to God, judging those things which he was not permitted to conceal. I was afraid to entrust to him a church, especially one situated amid the rabidness of heretics barking round about. And when he asked me to give letters, with his case set forth, to the presbyter of the estate of Armenianum in the district of Bulla, whence he had come to us — lest that presbyter should suspect anything more atrocious about him — so that he might live there, if it could be done, without the office of the presbyterate, in a more corrected state, moved by mercy I did so. But this above all I ought to have made known to your prudence, lest some deception should creep upon you. But I heard his cause when there were a hundred days until the Lord's Easter, which is to be on the eighth day before the Ides of April.