These things concerning the two questions—that is, concerning the Trinity, and concerning the dove in which the Holy Spirit was manifested not by His own nature but by a significative appearance (just as the Son of God was manifested not by His own nativity, of which the Father says, Before the morning star I begot you, but was crucified by the Jews in the man assumed from the womb of the Virgin)—you will judge how at leisure I, though most fully occupied, have nonetheless been able to write. Nor did I think that everything you set forth in your letter needed to be treated; but to those two matters which you wished to hear from me, I reckon that I have replied—if not sufficiently for your eagerness, yet obediently to your charity.
But besides those two books which I mentioned above that I had added to three, and the exposition of three psalms, I also wrote a book to the holy presbyter Jerome concerning the origin of the soul, consulting him as to how that opinion could be defended—which he wrote to Marcellinus of religious memory was his own—namely, that new individual souls are made for those being born, so that the most well-founded faith of the Church may not be shaken, by which we unshakably believe that in Adam all die, and that, unless they are set free by the grace of Christ, which works through His sacrament even in little ones, they are dragged into condemnation. I also wrote another to the same man, concerning how, in his view, that which is written in the Epistle of James is to be understood:
But whoever shall have kept the whole law, yet offend in one point, is made guilty of all. But in this I also said what seems to me; whereas in that other book on the origin of the soul I only inquired, by a certain consultative discussion, what seemed to him. For I was unwilling to lose the occasion afforded by a certain most holy and most studious young man, the presbyter Orosius, who came to us from the far end of Spain, that is, from the shore of the Ocean, kindled solely by ardor for the holy Scriptures. I persuaded him to proceed to him also. To this same Orosius, in reply to certain questions which the Priscillianist heresy and certain opinions of Origen—
—opinions which the Church does not accept—kept troubling him, I replied in one not large book with as much brevity and clarity as I could. I also wrote a certain large book against the heresy of Pelagius, at the urging of several brothers whom he had persuaded of that pernicious opinion against the grace of Christ. If you wish to have all these, send someone to copy everything for you. But permit me to be free for the inquiring into and dictating of those things which, since they are necessary to many, I judge ought to be preferred to your inquiries, which pertain very much to few. Letter 170. To the excellent lord, deservedly honorable and religious brother Maximus, Alypius and Augustine send greeting in the Lord.
When we inquired from our holy brother and fellow bishop Peregrinus concerning the welfare not only bodily but especially spiritual of you and yours, his answers made us glad indeed about you, but sad about yours, because they are not yet joined to the Catholic Church by a salutary correction; and, because we had hoped that this would soon come to pass, we greatly grieve that it has not yet been done, O excellent lord, deservedly honorable and religious brother. Accordingly, greeting your charity in the peace of the Lord, we both enjoin and ask that you not delay to teach them what you have learned: namely, that there is one God alone, to whom is due that service which in the Greek word is called 'latria.' For this is the very word in the Law, where it is written:
You shall adore the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. If we should say that this is only God the Father, it will be answered to us: 'Then latria is not due to God the Son'—which it is impious to say. But if it is due, then how is it due to one God only, if it is due both to the Father and to the Son, unless because there is one God, whom alone we are commanded to serve by latria, who is thus called the one God so that both the Father and the Son are understood—nay rather, also the Holy Spirit? For of Him indeed the Apostle says: Do you not know that your bodies are a temple in you of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a great price. Glorify God therefore in your body.
What God, if not the Holy Spirit, whose temple he had said our bodies to be? Latria therefore is due to the Holy Spirit. For if we were commanded to make Him a temple of wood and stone, as Solomon did, surely by making the temple we would be shown to render latria; how much more do we owe latria to Him for whom we do not make a temple, but are one! And through this, if latria is due to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and is rendered by us, concerning which it was said: You shall adore the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve—then without doubt the Lord our God, whom alone we ought to serve by latria,
is not the Father alone, nor the Son alone, nor the Holy Spirit alone, but that very Trinity, one God alone, Father and Son and Holy Spirit—not that the Father is Himself the Son, or the Holy Spirit be Himself either the Father or the Son, since in that Trinity there is the Father of the Son alone, and the Son of the Father alone, while the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son; but on account of one and the same nature and inseparable life, that very Trinity, as far as it can be by man, faith going before, is understood to be the one Lord our God, of whom it was said: You shall adore the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve; and whom the Apostle, proclaiming, says: For from Him and through Him and in Him are all things: to Him be glory unto the ages of ages.
For the only-begotten Son is not from God the Father in the same way that all creation is from Him, which He created out of nothing. Him indeed He begot of His own substance, He did not make out of nothing; nor did He beget Him in time, He through whom He founded all times, since, just as flame does not precede in time the brightness which it begets, so the Father was never without the Son. He is indeed the Wisdom of God the Father, of whom it is written: For it is the brightness of eternal light. To the light, therefore, whose brightness it is—that is, to God the Father—it is without doubt coeternal; and therefore it is not, as in the beginning God made heaven and earth, so in the beginning He made the Word, but in the beginning was the Word.
The Holy Spirit also was not made out of nothing like a creature, but so proceeds from the Father that He was made neither by the Son nor by the Father. This Trinity is of one and the same nature and substance, not less in each than in all, nor greater in all than in each, but as great in the Father alone or in the Son alone as in the Father and the Son together, and as great in the Holy Spirit alone as in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together. For neither did the Father, in order to have a Son from Himself, diminish Himself; but He so begot from Himself another self, that He remained whole in Himself, and was in the Son as great as He is alone.
Likewise the Holy Spirit, whole from the whole, does not precede that from which He proceeds, but is as great with Him as He is from Him; He neither diminishes Him by proceeding nor increases Him by cleaving to Him. And all these are neither confusedly one nor disjointedly three, but, while they are one, they are three, and, while they are three, they are one. Accordingly, He who granted to so many hearts of His faithful that they should be one heart, how much more does He preserve in Himself that these should be three, and each singly God, and all together not three gods but one God! This is the Lord our God, whom we serve with all piety, to whom alone that latria is due.
When He has, by His goodness, granted to the things that are born in time that each thing should beget offspring of its own substance, see how impiously it is said that He Himself did not beget that which He Himself is, when man, from His gift, generates that which he himself is—that is, a man not of another nature but of that of which he himself is—although he does not beget the father of his son, which is what he himself is. For these are names of kinship, not of nature, and therefore are said in relation to something, or are called relative terms, which are sometimes the same and sometimes different. The same, namely, when brother is referred to brother, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor, kinsman to kinsman, and any like terms, which it would be endless to wish to run through all.
For in these, what this one is to that one, that one is to this one. But different are such as father to son, son to father, father-in-law to son-in-law, son-in-law to father-in-law, master to servant, servant to master. This one is indeed not to that one what that one is to this one, yet both are men. The relation is different, not the nature; because, if you attend to what one is to the other, this one is not to that one what that one is to this one, for this one is father, that one son, or this one father-in-law and that one son-in-law, or this one master and that one servant; but if you attend to what each is to himself or in himself, this one is what that one is, because that one too is a man just as this one is.
Hence your prudence understands that it is not reasonably said by those from whose error the Lord has freed you, that the nature of God the Father and of God the Son is therefore different because this one is Father and that one Son, and that the Father therefore did not beget that which He Himself is, because He did not beget the father of His Son, which is what He Himself is in relation to Him. For who does not see that these words do not demonstrate the natures in themselves, but signify the persons of the one in relation to the other? Such also is that which they speak by a like error: that the Son is therefore of another nature and different substance, because the Father is God not from another God, while the Son indeed is God, but from God the Father.
For here too not the substance is indicated, but the origin—that is, not what each is, but whence each is or is not. For Abel and Adam were not of one nature and substance any the less because this one was a man from that man, and that one from no one. If then the nature of both be inquired, Abel is a man, Adam a man; but if the origin, the first man from whom Abel came, no man from whom Adam came. So in God the Father and God the Son, if the nature of both be inquired, both are God, nor is one more God than the other; but if the origin, the Father is God from whom the Son is God, but there is no God from whom the Father is. In vain, therefore, do they, attempting to answer to this, say: But man begets with passion, whereas God begot the Son without passion.
For this not only helps them not at all, but helps us very much. For if God grants to temporal and passible things that they should generate that which they are, how much more did He Himself, eternal and impassible, generate, not something other than what He Himself is—one begetting one only—and this to our great wonder, since with no passion of His own and with such equality with Himself that it neither preceded Him in power nor in age! But therefore the whole that He has and that He can do, He attributes not to Himself but to the Father, because He is not from Himself but from the Father. For He is equal to the Father, but this too He received from the Father; nor did He so receive it that He might be equal, as if He had first been unequal, but was born equal, and just as always born, so always equal.
He did not therefore beget one unequal and add equality to the already-born, but by begetting gave it, because He begot Him equal, not unequal. Therefore, to be in the form of God equal to God was not for Him a robbery but a nature, since He took that by being born, not presumed it by pride. But for this reason He says the Father is greater, because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, not losing the form of God. On account of which form of a servant He was made less not only than the Father but even than Himself and the Holy Spirit; nor only than this most excellent Trinity, but was even made a little less than the angels. He was also less than men, when as a boy He was subject to His parents.
On account of this form of a servant, therefore, which, when the fullness of time came, He received in emptying Himself, He said: The Father is greater than I; but on account of that form of God, which even in emptying Himself He did not lose, He said: I and the Father are one—being made man, that is, and yet remaining God; for man was assumed by God, God was not consumed in man. Therefore, very reasonably, both the man Christ is less than the Father, and the same, being God Christ, is equal to the Father. Since, then, we rejoice that in our presence, with great exultation of the people of God, you have been joined to this right and Catholic faith, why are we still sad over the sluggishness of yours? We beseech you, through the mercy of Christ, that with His help you take away this grief from our hearts.
For it is not to be believed that your authority could avail very much toward the perversity of yours, and avail nothing toward their correction. Or do they perhaps despise you because you came into the participation of the Catholic Church at this age—when they ought rather to admire and venerate you the more, because with a certain aged youthfulness you have conquered a most ancient error? Far be it that they resist you speaking the truth, with whom they agreed when you strayed from the truth; far be it that they be unwilling to think rightly with you, with whom it delighted them to err. Only do you both pray for them and press upon them—nay rather, bring them with you into the house of God, since they are with you in your house.
Let it either shame or vex you not to come into the house of God with those who were wont to gather in your house—especially since the Catholic mother seeks some from you and reseeks others. She seeks those whom she finds with you; she reseeks those whom she lost through you. Let her not be tortured by losses, but rather rejoice also in gains. Let her acquire the sons she did not have; let her not bewail those she had. We pray to God that you may do what we exhort, and we hope from His mercy that, by the letters of our holy brother and fellow bishop Peregrinus and by the rescripts of your love, our heart will soon be filled with joy over this matter, and our tongue with exultation. Letter 171.
To the most blessed lord and reverently most beloved brother and fellow bishop Peregrinus, Alypius and Augustine send greeting in the Lord. We have sent a letter to our honorable brother Maximus, trusting that he will gratefully receive it. Yet whether we have accomplished anything, deign to write back at the next opportunity you may be able to find. Let him know indeed that we are accustomed to write lengthy letters to our most intimate friends—not only laymen but even bishops—in the manner in which this one is written, so that they may both be quickly written and the paper more conveniently held while they are read; lest perchance, being ignorant of this custom of ours, he suppose that an injury has been done to him. Letter 171 A.
Conform your life and manners to the precepts of God, which we have received in order that we may act well, beginning from a religious fear: for the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, whereby human pride is broken and weakened. Then, being gentle and meek through piety, do not struggle with spirited contention even against those things in the holy Scriptures which you do not yet understand and which seem to the unlearned absurd and self-contradictory, nor impose your own sense upon the senses of the divine books; but rather yield, and, being meek, defer the understanding, rather than, being unmeek, accuse the hidden meaning.
Third, when human infirmity begins to be opened to you for the knowledge of yourself, and you know where you lie prostrate, and what penal chains of mortality, propagated from Adam, you drag with you, and how far you sojourn away from the Lord, and when you perceive another law in your members warring against the law of your mind and leading you captive in the law of sin which is in your members, you cry out: Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? that the grace of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, promising that very liberation, may console you as you mourn.
Fourth, now desire to fulfill justice much more vehemently and fervently than the pleasures of the flesh are wont to be desired by the most wicked of men—except that in the hope of divine help there is in this appetite a tranquil ardor and a more secure flame. In this fourth grade of life one earnestly presses on in prayers, that to those hungering and thirsting the fullness of justice may be granted, so that it may be not only not burdensome, but even a delight, to abstain from the pleasure of every corruption—whether one's own or another's—whether by struggling against it or by opposing it. And that this may be easily granted from on high, a fifth grade is added, furnishing counsel concerning mercy: that in that which you can, you help the needy one, you who in that which you cannot yet do, desire to be helped by the Almighty.
But the gift of mercy is twofold: when punishment is remitted, and when kindness is shown. These two the Lord briefly embraced thus: Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; give, and it shall be given to you. Now this work avails also for the cleansing of the heart, that, as far as is permitted in this life, we may be able to discern the unchangeable substance of God with a pure understanding. For something is held against us which must be released, so that our vision may break forth into the light—whence the Lord Himself says: But give alms, and behold, all things are clean to you. Wherefore, sixth, follows the very cleansing of the heart.
But in order that the gaze may be directed, upright and pure, into the true light, neither those things which we do well and praiseworthily, nor those which we discern keenly and sagaciously, are to be referred to the end of pleasing men or of relieving the necessities of the body. For God wills to be worshiped freely, since there is nothing besides Himself for the sake of which He Himself is to be sought.
When we shall have come to that purity of understanding by the steps of a good life, whether more slowly or more swiftly, then let us dare to say that we have some power to touch with the mind the unity of the supreme and ineffable Trinity, where there will be supreme peace, because beyond it there is nothing further to be awaited, since those who have been reformed into the image of their own kind, made sons of God out of men, then enjoy the Father's unchangeableness. For the first step is: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' where the fear of God is; then: 'Blessed are the meek,' where there is a teachable piety; third: 'Blessed are they that mourn,' where there is knowledge of one's own weakness; fourth: 'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,' where there is the fortitude of striving to have one's lusts subdued; fifth:
'Blessed are the merciful, for God himself shall have mercy on them,' where there is the counsel of helping others, that you may deserve to be helped. Then one arrives at the sixth step, in which it is said: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' where a pure understanding, fit for grasping the Trinity in however small a part, cannot be preserved unless we also do not seek human praise, even though we do things worthy of praise. Accordingly at the seventh step we arrive at the tranquillity of that peace which the world cannot give. For to those four virtues also, which even the philosophers were once able to trace out by their memorable diligence, that is, prudence, fortitude,
temperance and justice—if, joining these three, we add them to the perfect worship of religion, that is, faith, hope and charity, we surely find the sevenfold number. For rightly are these three not omitted, without which we know that no one can either worship God or please him. CLXXII. To the truly holy lord and pope Augustine, venerable to me with all affection, Jerome sends greeting in Christ. I received the honourable man, my brother and son of your worthiness, the presbyter Orosius, both by his own merit and at your bidding. But a most difficult time befell, when it was better for me to keep silence than to speak, so that our studies ceased and, as with Appius, a snarling eloquence was practised. And so to your two little books,
which you dedicated to my name, most learned and shining with every splendour of eloquence, I was unable to reply at the time—not that I think there is anything to be censured in them, but because, according to the blessed Apostle, 'let every man abound in his own sense, one indeed thus, another thus.' Certainly whatever could be said, and drawn from the fountains of the Holy Scriptures by so lofty a genius, has been set forth and expounded by you. But I beg your reverence, bear with me a little while I praise your genius. For we are discoursing among ourselves for the sake of learning. Yet rivals, and especially heretics, if they see differing opinions between us, will slanderously charge that they proceed from rancour of soul.
But for my part it is my resolve to love you, to receive you, to reverence you, to admire you, and to defend your words as though they were my own. Assuredly also in the dialogue which I lately published, I made mention of your blessedness, as was fitting, and let us rather give our effort that this most pernicious heresy may be removed from the churches. It always feigns penitence, that it may have the opportunity of teaching in the churches, lest, if it betray itself in open light, it be cast out of doors and die. Your holy and venerable daughters, Eustochium and Paula, walk worthily both of their own birth and of your exhortation, and they especially salute your blessedness, as does also the whole brotherhood who strive together with us to serve the Lord and Saviour.
Last year we sent the holy presbyter Firmus to Ravenna, and thence to Africa and Sicily, on their business; we suppose he is already staying in the parts of Africa. I pray that you may greet, as by my own homage, the holy men who cling to your side. I have also directed my letters to the holy presbyter Firmus; if they come to you, do not be reluctant to forward them to him. May Christ the Lord keep you unharmed and mindful of me, truly holy and most blessed lord and pope. We suffer in this province a great scarcity of notaries of the Latin tongue, and therefore we cannot obey your instructions, especially in the edition of the Septuagint, which is marked with asterisks and obeli; for we have lost much of the earlier work through someone's fraud. CLXXIII.
To Donatus, presbyter of the party of Donatus, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church. If you could see the sorrow of my heart and my anxiety for your salvation, perhaps you would have pity on your own soul, pleasing God by hearing the word—not ours, but his own—nor would you so fix his Scriptures in your memory as to close your heart against them. It displeases you that you are being drawn to salvation, while you have drawn so many of ours to ruin. For what do we want, except that you be seized and brought forward and preserved, lest you perish? But that you were somewhat injured in body, you did to yourself, who refused to use the beast that was promptly brought to you, and dashed yourself heavily to the ground.
For indeed the other man who was brought with you, your colleague, came unharmed, because he did not do such things to himself. But you think that even this ought not to have been done to you, because you judge that no one is to be compelled to good. Consider what the Apostle said: 'He that desireth the office of a bishop desireth a good work'; and yet so many, in order that they may take up the episcopate, are held against their will, are led, are shut in, are guarded, and endure so many things which they do not want, until the will to undertake the good work is present in them. How much more are you to be drawn from a pernicious error, in which you are your own enemies, and led to the truth, that it may be either known or chosen—not only that you may have honour with profit, but also that you may not most wretchedly perish!
You say that God gave free will, and that therefore a man ought not to be compelled, not even to the good. Why then are those, of whom I spoke above, compelled to the good? Consider therefore what you are unwilling to consider. A good will is mercifully bestowed for this reason: that a man's bad will may be set straight. For who does not know that a man is neither condemned except by the desert of a bad will, nor set free unless he has had a good will? Yet not for that reason are those who are loved to be left with impunity and cruelly to their own bad will; but, where the power is given, they are both to be restrained from evil and compelled to good.
For if a bad will is always to be left to its own liberty, why were the Israelites, refusing and murmuring, restrained from evil by such harsh scourges and driven toward the land of promise? If a bad will is always to be left to its own liberty, why was Paul not permitted to use the most evil will by which he persecuted the Church, but was struck down, that he might be blinded; blinded, that he might be changed; changed, that he might be sent; sent, that he might suffer for the truth such things as he had done in his error?
If a bad will is always to be left to its own liberty, why in the Holy Scriptures is a father admonished not only to rebuke a hard son with words but also to beat his sides, that he may be set straight, being compelled and subdued to good discipline? Whence the same Scripture says: 'You indeed strike him with the rod, but you will free his soul from death.' If a bad will is always to be left to its own liberty, why are negligent shepherds rebuked and it is said to them: 'You have not called back the straying sheep, you have not sought the lost'? And you too are the sheep of Christ; you bear the Lord's mark in the sacrament which you have received, but you have strayed and are lost. Do not for this reason be displeased with us, because we call back the straying and seek the lost;
for we do better in doing the will of the Lord who admonishes us, in compelling you to return to his fold, than if we consented to the will of the straying sheep, so as to let you perish. Do not therefore say any longer what I constantly hear you saying: 'Thus I wish to stray; thus I wish to perish'; for we do better in not permitting this at all, so far as we are able. Just now, that you cast yourself into the well that you might die, you certainly did by free will. But how cruel the servants of God would be if they left you to this bad will of yours and did not free you from that death! Who would not rightly blame them? Who would not rightly judge them impious? And yet you willingly cast yourself into the water that you might die; they, when you were unwilling, lifted you out of the water, that you might not die;
you acted according to your will, but to your ruin; they against your will, but for your salvation. If therefore this bodily safety is so to be guarded that it is preserved even in the unwilling by those who love them, how much more that spiritual safety, in the abandonment of which eternal death is to be feared! And yet in that death which you wished to inflict upon yourself, you would die not only for a time but even for eternity; because even if you were being compelled—not to salvation, not to the peace of the Church, not to the unity of Christ's body, not to holy and indivisible charity, but to some evil things—not even so ought you to have inflicted death upon yourself.