On account of this mind, blinded by hardened impiety, their infirmities and darknesses were multiplied. But what is it that he says: 'Afterward they made haste'? Was it unto repentance, as those in the Acts of the Apostles who, pricked in heart by the preaching of blessed Peter, believed in Him whom they had crucified, and, hastening to be expiated of so great a sin, ran to the gift of grace? Or rather was it because — since the virtues of the soul are strengthened by faith and by the love of God — for those impious ones, empty of both, the infirmities of the soul were multiplied, seized by deadly languors from the impiety of their crimes? For Christ is the light and life of believers, and healing is under His wings.
Whence it is no wonder if both the darknesses and infirmities of them were multiplied unto destruction, who received not life and light, nor willed to remain under His wings — those whom, as He Himself weeping in His Gospel testifies, He often willed to gather under His wings, as a hen gathers her chicks, and they would not. Their infirmities, then, being multiplied, whither did they make haste? Perhaps to the crying out for the cross of the Lord and, against Pilate's will, extorting it by their wicked voices, so that they might fill up the measure of their fathers, that these might slay the Lord of the prophets, whose fathers slew the prophets themselves, by whom this Saviour of the world was announced as about to come. 'Afterward they made haste'; for their feet are swift to shed blood.
'Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known' — that is, Christ, who says: 'I am the way.' In the following psalm I desire that this be expounded to me — what he means: 'Of thy hidden things their belly is filled. They are filled with swine's flesh' — or, as I hear it written in some psalters, 'they are filled with sons and have left the remnants to their little ones.' Again in another psalm I am wont to marvel, understanding the Son to speak to the Father, in the fifty-eighth psalm, where concerning the Jewish enemies, of whom he had said above: 'Behold they shall speak with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips,' a little below he says: 'Slay them not, lest at any time they forget thy law.'
'Scatter them by thy power and bring them down, O Lord.' Which we see fulfilled in them even unto the present day; for they have been brought down from their ancient glory, living without temple and without sacrifices and without prophets in the dispersion among all nations. But why do we wonder that already through the prophet He was asking on behalf of their not being slain, on whose behalf also, at the very time of the passion, while they were leading Him to the cross, He prayed, saying: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'? But as to what he added: 'Lest ever they forget thy law' — as though for this reason their life were necessary even without the faith of the Gospel — this, I confess, is obscure to me.
For what does it profit these people—toward that salvation which is sought by faith alone—to be occupied in the remembrance and meditation of the Law, unless perhaps for the honor of the Law itself or of the race of Abraham, so that even in the earthly portion of his fleshly seed, which seems to be counted according to the sand of the sea, the letter of the ancient Law may endure, lest perchance some, by reading the Law, be enlightened unto the faith of Christ, who is the end both of the Law and of the prophets and shines forth prefigured and prophesied in all their books?
Or is it because from those very impious ones there is to come a generation of the elect, who, chosen out of each tribe, shall be sealed in twelve thousands each—to whom that very revelation of blessed John, by the voice of the announcing angel, bears this testimony, that being wholly unstained and free of human union they shall cling more intimately to the retinue of the eternal King? Of whom he says especially: They shall follow the Lamb wherever He goes, because they were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. In the sixty-sixth psalm, among other things, this is most obscure to me, that he says: But truly God shall dash in pieces the heads of His enemies, the crown of the hair of those who walk on in their offenses—what it means to walk 'the crown of the hair' in one's offenses.
For he did not say 'the crown of the head' but 'the crown of the hair,' which is without sensation. Does he perhaps wish to show a man filled with sins? It is written: The whole body is in pain from the feet even to the head. And a little further, when he says: The tongue of your dogs, from the enemies, from Him—from what 'Him'? And can the Gentiles be called the dogs of God, whom He Himself in the Gospel names dogs? Or perhaps He calls those the dogs of God who—if any live in a Gentile manner under the Christian name—may be so reckoned, whose portion is placed with the unbelievers, because the God whom they worship with words they deny by their deeds. So much for now concerning the psalms; now let me set forth something also from the Apostle.
He says to the Ephesians what in another epistle he had said concerning the ranks or orders of God's dispensations, the Holy Spirit distributing the divisions of graces: And He gave some indeed as apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, and so forth. This I wish you would distinguish for me in this diversity of names: what is the property of offices or graces belonging to each name—what is proper to apostles, what to prophets, what to evangelists, what to pastors, and what to teachers. For in all these different names I see that a like and almost one office of teaching was carried on.
But these prophets, whom he placed after the apostles, I do not think are those who in the order of time existed before the apostles, but rather those to whom, already under the apostles, there was granted by grace either the interpretation of the Scriptures and the discernment of minds, or the foretelling of the time to come—as Agabus discerned, who both foretold the coming famine and, by word declared and by the sign of his own girdle showed, what blessed Paul was to suffer at Jerusalem. Between pastors especially and teachers I wish to discern what difference there is, since both names are wont to be ascribed to those set over the Church. Likewise, what he says to Timothy:
I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men—I beg you to explain to me what distinction there is in this diversity of words, since all the things that he said were to be done seem to me to belong to the office of prayer. Likewise, what he says to the Romans, I ask and beg that you would expound to me; for I confess that I am much dimmed of sight in this saying of the Apostle concerning the Jews, when he says: As regards the Gospel indeed they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election they are most beloved for the fathers' sake. In what way are the same both enemies for our sake—we who have believed from among the Gentiles—as though the Gentiles could not have believed unless the Jews had disbelieved?
Or was the one God, Creator of all, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, not capable of the acquisition of both, unless He possessed the one in place of the other? Then, 'most beloved for the fathers' sake'—in what way or whence most beloved, if they do not believe and persist in being enemies to God? Did I not, He says, hate those who hated You, O God, and pine away over Your enemies? With a perfect hatred did I hate them. Certainly I think this is the Father's voice speaking to the Son through the prophet in the same psalm, where above concerning the party of believers he had said: But to me Your friends are exceedingly honored, O God; their rule is exceedingly strengthened.
But what does it profit them toward salvation—which is not obtained except through the faith and grace of Christ—if for the fathers' sake they are most beloved of God? To what good are they loved, whom it is necessary to condemn for this, that by their own unbelief, diverging from the faith of the prophets and patriarchs their parents, they are enemies to the Gospel of Christ? If therefore they are most beloved of God, how shall they perish? And if they do not believe, how shall they not perish? If for the fathers' sake, without their own merit, they are loved, how shall they not also for the fathers' sake be saved? But even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in their midst, they shall not save their impious sons; they alone shall be saved. Draw out for me yet another, more obscure matter from the deep and bring it into the shallows.
In the Epistle to the Colossians I am utterly unable to gather what he means when he says: Let no one seduce you, wishing to do so in the humility and religion of angels, things which, walking, he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the sense of his flesh and not holding the Head. Of what angels is he speaking? If of enemies and evil ones, what is their religion, or what their humility, and who is the master of this seduction, who under the pretext of I know not what angelic religion teaches, as though seen and ascertained, the things he has not seen?
Without doubt these are the heretics, who both follow and put forth the doctrines of demons, with fabrications conceived from their spirit—phantasms which they have not seen, feigning them as though seen and sowing them by pestilential disputations in credulous, evilly-disposed hearts. These are they who do not hold the Head, that is, Christ the fountain of truth, whose doctrine whatsoever opposes is madness; and these are blind guides of the blind, of whom I think it is said: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which hold no water. Then in the following passage he added:
Touch not, neither taste, nor handle—all which things are unto destruction by the very using—according to the precepts and doctrines of men, having indeed a show of wisdom in superstition and humility and in not sparing the body, not in any honor unto the satisfying of the flesh. What are these things, in which the master of truth both testifies that there is a reason of wisdom and yet denies that there is the very truth of religion? Is he perhaps speaking of such people as those of whom he says to Timothy: Having indeed a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof? I ask therefore especially that you would resolve for me these two little chapters from the Epistle to the Colossians, word by word, since he has mingled things detestable with things praiseworthy.
For what is so praiseworthy as the reason of wisdom, and what so detestable as the superstition of error? Humility too, both pleasing to God and especially praiseworthy in true religion, is given them along with the reason of wisdom—concerning whose doctrines and deeds it is said to us: Touch not, neither taste, the things which are unto destruction, because they are not of God, and everything which is not of faith is sin. But God has scattered the counsels of the wise, who are foolish to God through the prudence of the flesh, which cannot be subject to the law of God; for He knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain. What kind of humility and what kind of reason of wisdom he says is present in the superstition that comes by the doctrines of men, I inquire. And as to what he says:
Unto not sparing the body, not in any honor unto the satisfying of the flesh—these things altogether I understand but little, because in this same saying there seems to me to be a great distinction. For I think that when he says 'unto not sparing the body,' he is speaking of some feigned or useless abstinence, such as is wont to be affected by heretics; but when he added 'not in any honor,' it is because those who practice a show of holy work not in the faith of the truth act with the honor or fruit of no glory—a thing they contrive to the great reproach of a perverse error, transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness. But what he added, 'unto the satisfying of the flesh,' seems to me contrary to what he says, 'unto not sparing the body';
for it seems to me that he does not spare the body who tames the flesh with fastings, as the Apostle says: I make my body livid and bring it into subjection—from which work the satisfying of the flesh is foreign, unless perhaps he called that very care of satisfying the flesh (which is especially shameful to those who make a show of the observance of religion) 'not sparing the body,' according to that precept of decency which he speaks elsewhere, that each one should know how to possess his own vessel in honor, so that he may present his body as a living sacrifice, pleasing to God, not unto the satisfying of the flesh—because the distension of the body kills the soul's sobriety and is an enemy to chastity.
It remains that I should also suggest to your blessedness something concerning the Gospel passages—not indeed as many as are wont to occur to one reading at leisure (for neither had I now the leisure to search out matters scattered through the books, or to ventilate my memory in recollecting them), but I will inquire even a few things, such as come to mind at the very hour of this dictation. Concerning the manner of the resurrection, if you have kept it recorded in your papers, I ask you to send me—or at least to weave again for me—that letter, not large but full of the instruction of faith, by which you replied to my second consultation while I was wintering at Carthage, which is easy for you.
For even if the writing is no longer extant—because perhaps a brief letter, being as it were hastily thrown together, was disdained to be kept among your books—renew it for me, drawn ready with the same meaning from the treasury of your heart, and send it to me among the other answers which you will return to me, as I hope, Christ granting to me and to you a supply of days, so that I may receive those things whereby your labor may bear fruit in me, according to these chapters of the Scriptures concerning which I have questioned you—you who see as it were through God—that I may hear what God speaks to me in you or from you.
But this I ask you to make clear to me: in what manner or by what reason the Lord after His resurrection was both not recognized and recognized—whether by the women who first came to the sepulchre, or afterward by those two on the way, and then by His disciples; for He rose in the same body in which He also suffered. And how was the form of the same body not the same as it had been, or, if it was the same, how was it not recognized by those who had known it? But that indeed I believe belongs to the sacrament: that He who had not been recognized by those walking on the way was revealed in the breaking of bread. Yet this very thing I wish to hold by your understanding, not my own. And as to what He says to Mary:
Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to the Father—if she was not permitted to touch Him standing close at hand, how would she touch Him when He had ascended to the Father, unless perhaps by the advance of faith and the ascent of the mind, by which God becomes to man either far or near? And she had doubted concerning Christ, whom she had supposed to be the gardener; therefore perhaps she deserved to hear: Touch Me not; for she was judged unworthy to touch Christ with her hand, whom she had not yet grasped by faith nor understood to be God, since she had supposed Him to be the gardener—of whom a little before she had heard from the angels: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Do not therefore touch Me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father for you, to whom I still seem only a man;
afterward you shall touch Me, when by believing you have ascended to recognizing Me.' Concerning also those words of most blessed Symeon, expound to me what you think, that I may follow your understanding—the words which, when at God's oracle, moved by the Spirit, he had come into the temple to see Christ, and having received into his bosom and blessed the infant Lord, he spoke to Mary: Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and a sword shall pass through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Is he to be believed to have prophesied this concerning a passion of Mary, which is nowhere written?
Or is it rather concerning her maternal affection, by which afterward, in the time of the passion, standing by the cross on which was fixed that which she herself had brought forth, she was transfixed with the pain of a mother's inward parts, and the sword of the cross pierced her soul—that same one which, before her very eyes, had pierced through Him who according to the flesh was her son? For I see that in the Psalms it is likewise said concerning Joseph: They humbled his feet in fetters; the iron passed through his soul—just as in the Gospel Symeon said: And a sword shall pass through your own soul also.
He did not say 'the flesh' but 'the soul,' in which the affection of tenderness is contained and the sting of grief works as it were like a sword—when either it is affected by some injury of its own flesh, as in Joseph, who bore the sufferings not of death but of injuries, sold as a slave, bound as a criminal, and given over to prison; or when it is tormented by the sadness or grief of inward affection, as in Mary, whom certainly a mother's mind had led to the cross of the Lord (in whom she then thought only of the son of her own body), so that when she had seen Him dead, she mourned with human weakness and gathered Him up to be buried, presuming nothing to herself concerning His resurrection—since the penalty of the passion set before her eyes blinded the faith of the wonder that was to follow. Yet the Lord, comforting her as she stood by His cross, not trembling with the weakness of one dying but Himself, willing, undergoing death, having death in His power with the full strength of one living and the constancy of one about to rise again, admonishes her from the cross, saying of the blessed apostle John:
Now indeed, departing from that human frailty by which He had been born of a woman, and passing through the death of the cross into the eternity of God, that He might be in the glory of God the Father, He delegates to a man the rights of human tenderness; and out of His disciples He chose the younger to the younger, that He might fittingly assign a virgin mother to a virgin apostle, teaching two things equally in the same sentence—leaving to us a form of tenderness, being solicitous for His mother, so that her whom He was leaving in body He might not leave in care; nor indeed was He to leave her even in body, since Him whom she saw dying she was soon to see alive again. And that which pertained to the faith of all, He designated by this word the salvation-bringing sacrament of His tenderness, by the hidden reason of the divine counsel: that He might both delegate a mother to another to be had in place of a mother and to be consoled in His stead, and in turn hand over to her a new son in place of His own body—nay, so to speak, beget one—whereby He might show that she, besides Himself who had been born of that virgin, had had and had no other son; for the Savior would not have had such great care for her consolation, had He not been her only one.
But let us return to the words of Symeon, in whose closing clause I confess my understanding grows dim: And a sword, he says, or a spear, shall pass through your soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. According to the letter this is utterly obscure to me, because nowhere do we read that most blessed Mary was slain, so that that holy man might seem to have prophesied to her a future passion by a bodily sword. But as to what he subjoined: that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed—for, he says, God searches the hearts and reins—and the Apostle says concerning the future judgment, that then God will make manifest the hidden things of hearts and the secrets of darkness.
And likewise the Apostle, spiritually expressing the heavenly arms with which we ought to be armed in our inner man, calls the word of God the sword of the Spirit, concerning which he says to the Hebrews: The word of God is living and effectual and more penetrating than any two-edged sword, reaching, he says, even to the division of soul and spirit, and the rest which you know. What wonder, then, if the fiery force of that word and the more penetrating edge of a two-edged sword passed through the soul of holy Joseph of old and afterward of blessed Mary? For neither in his body nor in hers do we learn that iron passed. And that it may be the more evident that there the prophet put 'iron' in place of the sword of the word, in the very next verse he says: The word of the Lord set him on fire.
For the word of God is both fire and sword, the Word Himself, who is God, saying of Himself both things: For, He says, I came to send fire upon the earth, and what do I will, but that it be already kindled? Likewise elsewhere He says: I came not to send peace but a sword. You see that He designated the one power of His doctrine by the different name of fire and sword. Or in what way could a passion or tribulation inflicted upon Mary by a sword be of benefit? Therefore this I desire to know: what did it pertain to Mary, that the thoughts of many hearts should be revealed, or where did it appear that, from the fact that a sword—whether of iron in the flesh or spiritual in the word of God—passed through her soul, thereupon the thoughts of many hearts were revealed?
Expound therefore for me this closing clause especially, concerning the words of Symeon, since I doubt not that it shines clear to your holy soul, which by the purity of its inner eye has deserved the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, through whom it can search out and behold even the deep things of God. May God have mercy on me through your prayers and make His countenance to shine upon me through the lamp of your word, O holy lord, most blessed brother in the Lord Christ, of one mind, my master in the faith of the truth and my supporter in the bowels of the charity of Christ. Letter 122. To his most beloved brethren, fellow-clergy and to the whole people, Augustine, in the Lord, greeting. First of all I beg your charity and beseech you through Jesus, that my bodily absence may not sadden you.
For in spirit and in the affection of the heart I think you do not doubt that I can in no way depart from you, although it saddens me more perhaps than you yourselves, that my infirmity is not able to suffice for all the cares which the members of Christ demand of me, whom both His fear and His charity compel me to serve. For your love may know that I was never absent by a licentious freedom, but by a necessary servitude, which has often compelled my holy brethren and colleagues to endure even labors by sea and beyond the sea—from which I have always been excused, not by an undevout mind, but by a less than suitable state of body.
Therefore, most beloved brethren, so conduct yourselves that, as the Apostle says, whether coming and seeing you or being absent, I may hear of you that you stand in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel. If any temporal trouble harasses you, that very thing ought rather to admonish you how you ought to think about that life where you may live without any labor, escaping not the vexing straits of a brief time but the horrendous punishments of eternal fire. For if now with such great care, such intent, such labor you act lest you fall into any transitory torments, how solicitous ought you to be that you may flee everlasting miseries! And if death is so feared, which ends temporal labor,
in what manner is that to be feared which sends into eternal pain! And if the delights of this world, brief and sordid, are so loved, how much more vehemently must the pure and infinite joys of the world to come be sought! Considering these things, do not be slothful in good works, that you may come in due season to the harvest of your seed. For it has been announced to me that you have forgotten your custom concerning the clothing of the poor—to which mercy, when I was present, I exhorted you, and now I exhort you—lest the wearing-down of this world overcome you and make you slothful, this world to which you see such things befall as our Lord and Redeemer, who cannot lie, foretold would come.
Therefore you ought not only not to do less in the works of mercy, but even more than you are wont. For just as those who see the ruin of a house threatening, with the walls crumbling, migrate more hastily to safer places, so Christian hearts, the more they feel the ruin of this world drawing near through multiplying tribulations, so much the more ought they to transfer, with unwearied swiftness, the goods which they had arranged to store up on earth, into the heavenly treasure—so that, if any human misfortune should befall, he who has migrated from a ruinous place may rejoice; but if nothing such should follow, he who is at some time to die may not be saddened, having commended his own goods to the immortal Lord, to whom he is to come.
Therefore, my most beloved brethren, out of what each one has, according to his own strength, which he himself knows, do what you are wont to do, but with a more cheerful mind than you are wont; and amid all the troubles of this world keep in your hearts the apostolic exhortation, where he says: The Lord is at hand; be careful for nothing. Let such things be announced to me concerning you, whereby I may know that you are wont to do—not because of my presence, but because of the precept of God, who is never absent—what for many years, while I was present and sometimes even while I was absent, you have done. May the Lord preserve you in peace, most beloved brethren; pray for us. Letter 123.
Many limp on both feet and are not bent even with broken necks, retaining the affection of their former error, though they have not the same freedom of preaching. The holy brethren who are with our littleness, and especially your holy and venerable daughters, humbly salute you. I beseech your crown that you would salute in my name your brothers, my lord Alypius and my lord Evodius. Jerusalem, captured, is held by Nebuchadnezzar, nor is she willing to hear Jeremiah's counsels; rather she desires Egypt, that she may die in Tahpanhes and there perish in everlasting servitude. Although by the state of my health, or by nature, I cannot bear cold, yet never greater heats than in this so dreadful a winter
could I have endured, than that I was not able—I will not say to journey, but to fly—to you who are so near, though seas had to be crossed by flight, coming from so far to see us for grace's sake. And perhaps your holiness may have thought that same wintry harshness to be the only cause of my penalty. Far from it, dearest ones. For what grievous, troublesome, or even perilous thing do these rains have, which I ought not to have undergone and borne in order to come to you—so great consolations amid our so great evils, in this crooked and perverse generation, kindled so ardently from the highest Light, lights received in humility yet sublime, and by despised brightness the more bright?
At the same time I would also have enjoyed the so spiritual felicity of my fleshly homeland, which deserved to have you even present—concerning whom, being absent, when it heard both what you were born and what by the grace of Christ you have become made, although in charity it believed, yet, lest it should not be believed, perhaps it feared to narrate. I shall therefore say why I have not come, and by what evils I was hindered from so great a good, that not only may I obtain pardon from you, but also by your prayers may deserve mercy from Him who works in you that which you live to Him.