Or did he perhaps, as a philosopher, despise these things by his own will—he who as priest of the province thought it a great thing to give games and to clothe hunters, and who litigated against the opposition of certain citizens over a statue to be set up for him among the people of Oea, from which city he had his wife? And that this might not lie hidden from posterity, he committed to memory the written oration of that very lawsuit. As therefore pertains to that earthly felicity, that magician was what he could be; whence it appears that he was nothing further, not because he was unwilling, but because he could not. Although even against certain persons who had brought against him the charge of the magic arts, he most eloquently defended himself. Whence I marvel at his praisers, who proclaim that he did I know not what miracles by those arts,
and try to be witnesses against his own defense. But let them see whether they themselves give true testimony and he a false defense. Let them attend to this, if they are wise—those who seek out the magic arts, assuredly only for the sake of felicity, whether earthly or damnable curiosity, or who, though innocent of them, yet praise them with a dangerous admiration—and let them see that our David, without any such arts, came from a shepherd of sheep to the royal dignity, whose sins and merits alike the faithful Scripture did not conceal, so that we might know both in what ways God is not offended and in what ways, when offended, He is appeased. But as for the miracles which are displayed as astonishing to human senses, they greatly err
who compare magicians to the holy prophets, who excel in the renown of great miracles. How much more do they err, if they compare them to Christ—whom those prophets, to whom no magicians whatever are in any way to be compared, foretold would come both according to the flesh, which He assumed from the Virgin, and according to the divinity, by which He is never separated from the Father! I see that I have made a very lengthy letter, and yet have not said everything about Christ that might in some way suffice, whether for those who are of slower wit and cannot attain to divine things, or for those whom, although they are keenly stirred, a contentious zeal and a preoccupation with long-standing error hinders from understanding.
Nevertheless learn what it is that moves them against these things, and write back, so that we may take care to answer everything, whether by letters or by books, if God shall help. May you be happy in the Lord, by His grace and mercy, most excellent and deservedly distinguished lord, most dear and most longed-for son. 139. TO HIS DESERVEDLY DISTINGUISHED AND MOST BELOVED AND MOST LONGED-FOR SON MARCELLINUS, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD.
The proceedings which your Excellency promised I await most eagerly, and I now long, this very moment, to have them read out in the church of Hippo and, if it can be done, throughout all the churches established even in the diocese, so that men may hear and fully recognize that these confessors of iniquity were led to repentance not by the fear of God wringing it from them, but by the diligence of a judicial inquiry laying bare the hardness of their most cruel hearts — whether of those who [confessed] concerning the murder and the blinding and maiming of the presbyter's body ........, or of those who did not dare to deny that they could have known of these things (though they said they found them displeasing), fleeing from Catholic peace as if to avoid being defiled by the crimes of others, yet persisting amid so great a multitude of such monstrous criminals in that sacrilege of schism, or even of those who declared that they would not withdraw from it even after Catholic truth and the perversity of the Donatists had been shown to them.
It is no small thing that God has willed to be accomplished through your effort. Would that you might often thus hear such cases of theirs, and that their misdeeds and insane obstinacy might thus frequently be brought to light, and that these same proceedings, once made public, might be carried to the notice of all! As to what your Eminence wrote — that you are in doubt whether you ought to order these same proceedings to be posted up in the Theoprepia — let it be so, if a numerous crowd can gather there; otherwise a more frequented place must be provided, yet this is by no means to be omitted. As for the punishment of those men, confessors though they be of such great crimes, I beg you that it fall short of the penalty of death, both for the sake of our conscience and for the sake of commending Catholic gentleness.
For the very fruit of their confession comes to us in this: that the Catholic Church finds where she may preserve and display her clemency toward the most savage of enemies. Indeed, amid such great cruelty, whatever vengeance stops short of blood will appear as great gentleness. And even if just now this seems unworthy to some of our people who are stirred by that atrocity, and seems akin to laxity and negligence, yet once the agitations of their minds have passed — those minds which by more recent deeds are wont to be stirred more turbulently — that surpassingly splendid goodness will shine forth, and for this very reason it will be all the more delightful to read and to display these same proceedings, my lord deservedly distinguished, most beloved and most longed-for son.
There is my holy brother and fellow-bishop Bonifatius, and through the deacon Peregrinus, who set out together with him, I have sent a memorandum; regard it as though it were my own presence, and whatever shall seem good to you in common for the welfare of the Church, let it be done with the Lord's help, who is able mercifully to bring aid in such great evils. Just now Macrobius, their bishop, hemmed about with bands of the ruined of both sexes, goes round hither and thither, and has opened up for himself the basilicas which the fear, however slight, of the landholders had closed. But in the presence of Spondeus, the agent of the most distinguished gentleman Celer — whom I have commended, and heartily commend, to your Affection — their audacity was somewhat broken.
But now, after he has set out for Carthage, he has opened up basilicas even on Celer's own estates, and gathers the people together. With him is also that Donatus, a rebaptized deacon — though he had been a tenant of the Church — who was foremost engaged in that massacre. Who among them are not with him, when he himself too is with Macrobius? If, as proconsul, you two together are to pronounce sentence against these men, and if perchance he persists in wishing to punish by the sword — although he is a Christian and, as far as we could observe, is not inclined toward these bloody measures — nevertheless, if it be necessary, order also that my letters be entered into the proceedings, which on this matter I thought should be sent to you singly.
For I am accustomed to hear that it lies within a judge's power to soften the sentence and to punish more mildly than the laws prescribe. But if he will not consent to this even through my letters, let him at least grant this much: that they be taken into custody. And this we have taken care to obtain from the clemency of the emperors, lest the sufferings of the servants of God, which ought to be glorious in the Church, be dishonored by the blood of their enemies. For I know that in the case of the clergy of Anaunia, who, slain by the heathen, are now honored as martyrs, the emperor, when petitioned, readily granted that those who had killed them and were already held captive should not be punished with a like penalty.
As for the books on the baptism of infants, once I had already sent the very codex to your Excellency, I have forgotten why I received it back again from you — unless perhaps, on inspecting it, I found the copies faulty and wished to correct them, which, being marvelously hindered, I have not yet done to this day. Know too that the letter which was to be written to you and joined to these — which I had already begun to dictate while I was there — is still unfinished, with only a little added. But if I could render you an account of all my days and night-labors spent on other necessities, you would be gravely saddened and would wonder how many things pull me in different directions, things which cannot be put off at all and do not permit me to do those matters in which, by asking and admonishing, you press me on — though I am willing, and grieve unspeakably because I cannot.
For when I have a little leisure from the necessities of those men who so press me into service that it is by no means permitted to avoid them nor fitting to disdain them, there is no lack of things which I set in first place as needing to be dictated, things so fixed at particular points of time that they admit of no delay — as the abridgment of the proceedings of our conference was for me, a task laborious enough, since I saw that no one was willing to commit himself to reading so vast a heap of documents; as was for me also the letter to those very Donatist laymen concerning this same conference of ours, which I have just now finished in the course of several nights' work; as were the two letters, and not short ones, the one to your Affection, the other to the illustrious gentleman Volusianus, which I now believe you to have received; as now I have in hand the book to our friend Honoratus concerning certain five questions which he put to me and made known through his letter — to whom you see how little it befits me not to reply at once.
For love, which like a nurse cherishes her children, sets the weaker before the stronger — not in the order of loving, but in the order of helping — wishing them to become such as those others already are, and, not by despising them but by trusting in them, passes them by for the moment. Such necessities of dictating something which hinders me from those dictations for which I burn all the more, therefore, cannot fail me, since scarcely a little space is granted amid the heaps of occupations by which either the desires or the necessities of others, pressing us into service, drag us along — and what I am to do, I simply do not know. You have heard the matter for which you may entreat the Lord with me; but also, as to your admonishing me so insistently and so frequently, I would not have you cease — for you are doing something of no small worth.
I too commend to your Excellency the church established in Numidia, on account of whose necessities my holy brother and fellow-bishop Delphinus has been sent by my brothers and fellow-bishops who there labor together and share the danger together. Nor do I write more on this matter, since you are about to hear him himself in person. The rest you will find in the memoranda which I have sent to the presbyter, whether just now or through the deacon Peregrinus, lest it be necessary for me to repeat these things so often. May your heart ever be vigorous in Christ and rejoice, my lord deservedly distinguished, most beloved and most longed-for son. Our son Refinus, a leading citizen of Cirta, I commend to your Eminence. CXL. THE BOOK ON THE GRACE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, TO HONORATUS.
You have set before me five questions to be handled and resolved, my most beloved brother Honoratus, snatched up here and there — just as they were able either to stir you as you read or to come into your mind as you pondered — and poured out, as it were, before my sight. If I should wish to arrange their solution by discussion, I would not treat of each one piecemeal, as they were proposed, but would connect and weave them together with one another in a single continuous course of discourse. The task seems difficult. And yet I think they will be more easily resolved if I do this.
For they will aid one another in turn, if the one hangs upon the other, until they all come together into a connected sequence of argument — not in separate, individual places, as if each dwelt in its own private concern, but gazing upon some one thing and laboring together toward one end by a social reasoning and an undivided truth. You wished, then, and in writing admonished me, that it be expounded and opened up to you what that voice of the Lord means: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' and what it is that the Apostle says:
'That, being rooted and grounded in love, you may be strong to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth'; and who are the five foolish virgins and who the wise; and what is the outer darkness; and how it is to be understood that 'the Word of God was made flesh.' These are surely the five questions, recounted by me as briefly as they were proposed by you. Accordingly, if it please you, let us add a sixth as well, and let us inquire above all into this: what is the grace of the New Testament.
Let all those other questions gaze upon this one, and let each contribute its own work to it, as opportunity may permit — not, indeed, in that order in which both you proposed them and I have recalled them, but let each, when it becomes necessary, respond as if called, and fulfill the duty of its own task. So let the beginning be born thus. There is a certain life of man entangled in the carnal senses, given over to carnal joys, fleeing carnal offense and pursuing pleasure. The felicity of this life is temporal; to begin from this life is a matter of necessity, to persist in it a matter of will. For it is in this life that the infant is poured forth from the mother's womb; the offenses of this life he flees, so far as he can; its pleasures he seeks; more than this he is not yet able to do.
But after he has come into the age at which the use of reason awakens in him, he will be able, with his will divinely aided, to choose the other life, whose joy is in the mind, whose felicity is inward and eternal. For there dwells in man a rational soul; but it matters greatly toward which object it should by its will rather turn the use of that same reason — whether to the goods of the exterior and lower, or to the goods of the interior and higher nature; that is, whether to enjoy the body and time, or to enjoy the divine and eternal. For it is set in a certain middle place, having beneath itself corporeal creation, but above itself the Creator of itself and of the body.
The rational soul, therefore, is able to make good use even of temporal and corporeal felicity, if it does not surrender itself to the creature with the Creator neglected, but rather makes that felicity itself serve the Creator, who bestowed it too by the most abundant bounty of His goodness.
For just as all things which God created are good, from the rational creature itself down to the lowest body, so the rational soul acts well among these things if it keeps order, and by distinguishing, choosing, and weighing, subordinates the lesser to the greater, the corporeal to the spiritual, the lower to the higher, the temporal to the everlasting — lest, by neglect of higher things and desire of lower, whereby it becomes worse, it cast both itself and its body into what is worse; but rather, by well-ordered love, converts both itself and its body unto what is better. For since all substances are by nature good, the order in them, being praised, is honored; the perversity, being blamed, is condemned.
Nor does the soul, by using creatures perversely, bring it about that it escapes the ordering of the Creator; for if it uses good things ill, He uses even evils well, and through this, while it, by using good things perversely, becomes evil, He, by using even evils in an orderly way, remains good. For he who unjustly orders himself in sins is justly ordered in punishments. And so God, willing to show that even earthly and temporal felicity is His gift, and ought to be hoped for from no other source than Himself, judged that in the earlier ages of the world the Old Testament should be dispensed, which pertained to the old man, from whom this present life must needs begin. But those felicities of the fathers, granted by God's bounty, are proclaimed, although pertaining to this transitory life.
For those earthly gifts were promised and bestowed openly; but secretly, in all those things, the New Testament was figuratively foretold and was grasped by the understanding of the few whom that same grace had made worthy by the prophetic gift. Those holy men, therefore, dispensed the Old Testament in accordance with the fittingness of the time, but they themselves pertained to the New Testament. For even when they enacted temporal felicity, they understood the eternal to be the true one, to be preferred, and they administered the former in a mystery, that they might attain the latter as a reward. And if ever they suffered adversities, they suffered them to this end: that, delivered by most evident divine aid, they might glorify God, the bestower of all good things — not only of everlasting ones,
which they piously hoped for, but even of the temporal things which they prophetically governed. But when the fullness of time came, that the grace which lay hidden in the Old Testament might now be revealed in the New, God sent His Son, made of a woman — by which name, according to the property of the Hebrew tongue, every female is called, whether untouched by man or already joined to one. But whom He sent as His Son, and willed to be made of a woman, how great a God He is, who deigned to take up this humility for the salvation of the faithful — that you may recognize this, now attend to the Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made.'
'In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.' This one, therefore, is God, the Word of God, through whom all things were made, the Son of God, remaining unchangeably. Everywhere present, enclosed in no place, nor diffused piecemeal through all things — as if He had a smaller part in a smaller place and a greater in a greater — but everywhere whole, and thus not absent even from the minds of the impious, although they do not see Him, just as neither is this light seen by the eyes of the blind though presented before them. He shines, therefore, even in such darkness as the Apostle signifies where he says: 'For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord'; yet such darkness comprehended it not.
He therefore took up a man whom men were able to see, so that, healed through faith, they might afterward see what they were not then able to see. But lest the man Christ, by the very fact that He appeared visibly, should not be believed to be also God, and only so much be attributed to Him as to a man of most excellent grace and wisdom — therefore there was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came to bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to bear witness of the light. For so great a man had to bear witness of Him who was not only a man but also God, so that among those born of women none should arise greater than John the Baptist;
for thus He, to whom the greater John bore witness, would be understood to be greater in this respect: that He was not only a man but also God. Both the light, then, and John — but such a light as the Lord Himself bears witness to, saying: 'He was a burning and shining lamp'; while to His disciples He said: 'You are the light of the world'; and, to show what sort of light, He went on to add: 'No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, but upon a lampstand, that it may give light to all who are in the house; so let your light shine before men.'
These similitudes are given so that, as far as we can, we may understand — or, if we cannot yet do so, may without any doubt believe — that the rational soul is not the nature of God, for that is unchangeable, but that nevertheless it can be illumined by participation; for lamps need to be lit, and can be extinguished. Therefore, when it is said of John, 'He was not the light,' regard is had to that light which is not illumined by participation, but by participation in which those things are illumined which are illumined by it. Finally, there follows: 'It was the true light'; and, as if we were asking how the true light was to be distinguished from the illumined light — that is, Christ from John —
'It was,' he says, 'the true light, which illumines every man coming into this world.' If every man, then John also. And to show more fully His divinity by a far more excellent distinction, he says: 'He was in this world, and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not.' It is not that the world which was made through Him knew Him not, for it has no power of knowing Him except the rational creature — although even this visible world, that is, heaven and earth, was made through Him. But by 'the world not knowing' Him, in reproach, he signified the unbelievers established in the world. Then he adds:
'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not' — either because even the unbelievers, insofar as they are men, are His, through whom they were created, or because He willed His own to be understood properly as the Jews, from whom He assumed the nature of flesh. Yet not all received Him not; for there follows, and he says: 'But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become sons of God, to those believing in His name, who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' This is the grace of the New Testament, which lay hidden in the Old, yet did not cease to be prophesied and foretold by overshadowing figures, that the soul might understand its God and be reborn by His grace.
For this birth is spiritual; therefore, not of bloods, not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. This is also called adoption. For we were something before we were sons of God, and we received the benefit of becoming what we were not — just as one who is adopted, before he was adopted, was not yet the son of him by whom he is adopted, yet already was one who could be adopted. And from this generation of grace that Son is distinguished who, being the Son of God, came that He might become the Son of man, and might grant to us, who were sons of men, to become sons of God.
For He was made what He was not, yet nevertheless He was something else, and this very something was the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and the true light which illumines every man, and God with God. We too, through His grace, were made what we were not — that is, sons of God; but nevertheless we were something, and this very something was much lower, that is, sons of men. He descended, therefore, that we might ascend; and remaining in His own nature, He was made a partaker of our nature, that we too, remaining in our nature, might be made partakers of His nature — yet not in the same way; for the participation in our nature did not make Him worse, whereas the participation in His nature makes us better.
God therefore sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law. For He received the sacraments of the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law — that is, whom the Law held guilty while the letter slew, so long as the precept was not fulfilled, before the Spirit gave life. For the love of God, which fulfills the precept, is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. Accordingly, when he had said, 'That He might redeem those who were under the Law,' he straightway subjoined:
'That we might receive the adoption of sons' — namely, that he might distinguish the grace of this benefit from that nature of the Son who was sent, a Son not made by adoption but ever begotten as Son, so that, having partaken of the nature of the sons of men, He might adopt the sons of men to partake also of His own nature. Wherefore, even when he had said, 'He gave them power to become sons of God,' and had added the manner — lest a carnal birth be understood — namely, that He granted this to those who believe in His name and are reborn by spiritual grace, 'not of bloods, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God,' he presently commended the sacrament of this exchange, as it were.
For, as though in wonder we would not dare to hope for so great a good, he immediately subjoined: 'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us' — which is one of those five things you wished expounded to you — as if he were saying: O men! do not despair that you can become sons of God, since the Son of God Himself, that is, the Word of God, was made flesh and dwelt among us. Return the exchange: become spirit, and dwell in Him who was made flesh and dwelt among us. For it is now not to be despaired of that men can become sons of God by participation in the Word, since the Son of God was made the Son of man by participation in the flesh. We, therefore, changeable, being changed for the better, are made partakers of the Word;
but the Word, unchangeable, changed into nothing worse, was made a partaker of the flesh, with the rational soul as intermediary. For the man Christ, as the Apollinarian heretics supposed, either did not have a soul, or did not have a rational one; but Scripture, in its own manner, in order to show forth Christ's humility the more — lest He seem to have shrunk from the name of flesh as from something unworthy — put 'flesh' for 'man.' For neither, because it is written, 'All flesh shall see the salvation of God,' are souls not to be understood there. Therefore nothing else was said by 'The Word was made flesh' than if it were said, 'The Son of God was made the Son of man.' 'Who, though He was in the form of God,' as the Apostle says, 'thought it not robbery to be equal with God':
for it was not a matter of usurpation, that it should be called robbery, but it was inherent in His nature that He should be equal; yet He emptied Himself, not losing the form of God but taking on the form of a servant; He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. See in what manner He commends the same one both as man and as God, so that there may be one person, lest not a Trinity but a quaternity be introduced. For just as the number of persons is not increased when flesh is added to a soul, so that there be one man, so the number of persons is not increased when a man is added to the Word, so that there be one Christ. And so it is read, 'The Word was made flesh,' that we may understand the singularity of this person — not that we may suspect the divinity was changed into flesh.
And so Christ became man, that through Him might be revealed the grace of the New Testament, which pertains not to temporal but to eternal life; He was by no means to be commended by earthly felicity. Hence the subjection, hence the passion, hence the scourgings, the spittings, the insults, the cross, the wounds, and, as though He were overcome and subdued, death itself — that His faithful might learn what reward of piety they ought to seek and hope for from Him whose sons they had become; lest God be served as for a great thing, namely, that those who serve Him might seek to obtain earthly felicity, casting away and trampling underfoot their own faith, valuing it at a most worthless price.
Whence, by His most beneficent providence, Almighty God granted earthly felicity even to the impious, lest it be sought as a great thing by the good. Hence that seventy-second Psalm introduces a man doing penance because at some time, with a heart not upright, he had served God for this reward — for, when he saw the impious excel and abound therein, he had, being troubled, begun to think that God does not care for human affairs.