And indeed how much you restrain yourself, and how you hold in check the stings of your indignation, so as not to render railing for railing, is sufficiently evident in your letter. But nevertheless, if, when I had read those very words, I wasted away with grief and stiffened with fear, what would those things do to me which he wrote against you, should they by chance come into my hands? Woe to the world because of scandals! Behold, it comes to pass; behold, it is utterly fulfilled, what the Truth says: 'Because iniquity shall abound, the charity of many shall grow cold.' For into what breasts, now trusted as faithful, may one safely pour oneself again? Upon whose feelings may secure affection wholly cast itself? Which friend, in short, is not to be feared as a future enemy, if between Jerome and Rufinus this that we bewail could arise?
O wretched and pitiable condition, O treacherous knowledge of present things in the wills of friends, where there is no foreknowledge of things to come! But why should I think this a thing to be lamented in one man about another, when a man is not even known to himself in respect of the future? For he knows, after a fashion — and scarcely even that — what sort of man he now is; but what sort he will afterward be, he knows not. Moreover, this not only knowledge of what each man is, but even foreknowledge of what he will be, if it is in the holy and blessed angels, how the devil was once blessed while as yet he was a good angel, knowing his own future iniquity and everlasting punishment — this I do not see at all. Therefore, if it is nevertheless needful to know this, I should like to hear what you think.
See what the lands and seas do, which bodily separate us. If this letter of mine, which you are reading, were myself, you would already be telling me what I have inquired; but as it is, when will you write back? When will you send it? When will it arrive? When shall I receive it? And yet, would that it might happen at some time, which — since it cannot happen as quickly as we wish — we endure with all the patience we can! Whence I return to those sweetest words of your letter, most full of holy longing, and I make them in turn my own: Would that we might deserve your embraces, and by mutual conference either teach or learn something — if indeed it could in any way be that I should teach you anything!
But in these words, now not only yours but also mine, where I take delight and am refreshed, and am consoled in no small part even by this longing of us both, though it hangs in suspense and does not attain its end — there again I am pierced by the sharpest goads of grief, while I consider that among you, to whom God had granted this very thing which each of us has wished, so richly and abundantly, that being most closely joined and most intimate you might together lap up the honey of the holy Scriptures — the ruin of such great bitterness has crept in; when it was to be dreaded by no man, in no place, for whom, since at that very time, having now cast off worldly burdens and being now unencumbered you were following the Lord and were living together in that land in which the Lord, walking with human feet, said:
'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you' — this could befall you, men mature in age and dwelling in the eloquence of the Lord! Truly the life of man upon earth is a temptation. Woe is me, who cannot find you both together anywhere!
Perhaps, moved as I am, grieving as I am, fearing as I am, I would fall down at your feet, and weep as much as I could, and entreat as much as I love — now each of you for his own sake, now both of you for one another's sake, and for the sake of others, and above all of the weak, for whom Christ died, who behold you as though in the theatre of this life, with great peril to themselves — lest by writing such things about one another you scatter abroad what, since you cannot blot it out even when reconciled, you are unwilling to reconcile, or what, being reconciled, you would fear to read, lest you quarrel again.
Truly I say to your charity that nothing has made me tremble more than this example, when I read in your letter certain tokens of your indignation — not so much that about Entellus and the wearied ox, where you seemed to me to jest cheerfully rather than to threaten angrily, as that which it is plain enough you wrote in earnest (whence I have spoken above perhaps more than I ought, but not more than I feared), where you said: 'lest perchance, being wounded, you should justly complain.' I ask you, if it can be done, let it be that between us we may inquire and discuss something whereby our hearts may be fed without the bitterness of discord;
but if I cannot say what seems to me in need of correction in your writings, nor you in mine, except with the suspicion of envy or the wounding of friendship, let us desist from these things and spare our life and salvation. Let that which puffs up surely attain less, so long as that which edifies be not offended. I feel myself to be far from that perfection of which it is written: 'If any man offend not in word, he is a perfect man.' But plainly, in the mercy of God, I think I can easily ask pardon of you, if I have given offence in anything which you ought to disclose to me, so that, when I have heard you, you may gain your brother. For neither, because you cannot do this between me and you on account of the distance of lands, ought you therefore to allow me to err.
Assuredly, as far as concerns those very matters which we wish to know, if I hold anything true — whether I know it, or believe it, or suppose it — in which you feel otherwise, I shall try, as far as the Lord grants, and without any injury to you, to maintain it. But as regards giving offence to you: when I perceive that you are indignant, I shall do nothing else but beg for pardon. Nor do I at all think that you could have been angered, unless either I said what I ought not, or did not say it as I ought; for I marvel no less that we know one another less than we are known by our most closely joined and most intimate friends. Into their charity, I confess, I easily cast my whole self, especially when wearied by the scandals of the world, and in it I rest without any anxiety.
For I feel that God is there, into whom I securely cast myself, and in whom I securely rest. Nor in this my security do I at all dread that uncertain morrow of human frailty, over which I groaned above. For when I feel that a man, aflame with Christian charity, has become a faithful friend to me, whatever of my counsels and thoughts I commit to him, I commit not to a man, but to Him in whom he abides, that he may be such. For God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God; and if he should forsake Him, he must needs cause as much grief as, while abiding, he had caused joy. But nevertheless, one made an enemy out of an intimate friend, let him rather seek for himself, being crafty, something to feign, and not, being angry, find something to betray.
But this each man easily attains, not by hiding what he has done, but by not doing what he would wish to be hidden. This the mercy of God grants to the good and pious, that among any friends who are to be, they may live free and secure, that others' sins committed to them they may not betray, which they would fear to have betrayed, while they themselves commit none. For when something false is feigned by a slanderer, it is either not believed at all, or at least, with one's welfare intact, only the reputation is troubled; but when something evil is really perpetrated, the enemy is within, even if it be published abroad by no intimate's talkativeness or quarrel.
Wherefore, which of the prudent does not see how tolerably even you bear the now incredible enmities of one once most friendly and most intimate, comforted by a good conscience; and how, whether what he boasts, or what perhaps is believed by certain persons, you reckon among the weapons on the left hand, with which no less than with those on the right the battle against the devil is fought? Yet nevertheless I would rather have him somehow milder than you thus better armed. This is a great and sad marvel, that from such friendships one should have come to these enmities. It will be a glad and much greater one, to have returned from such enmities to the former concord. LETTER 111. THE LETTER OF AUGUSTINE TO PRAESIDIUS.
To his most blessed lord and deservedly venerable brother and fellow-priest Praesidius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. As I asked your sincerity in person, so now also I remind you not to be unwilling to send my letter to our holy brother and fellow-presbyter Jerome. And that your charity may know in what manner you too ought to write to him on my behalf, I have sent copies both of my letter to him and of his to me. When you have read these, in your holy prudence you will easily see both my own moderation, which I thought ought to be preserved, and his emotion, which not without cause I feared. Or if I have written anything I ought not to have, or in a manner I ought not, let it be not to him about me, but rather to me myself, out of brotherly love,
send me a discourse whereby, being corrected, I may ask him to pardon, if I myself shall have recognised my own fault. LETTER 112. TO AUGUSTINE. To his truly holy and most blessed lord Pope Augustine, Jerome. I have received at one time three letters, or rather little books, from your dignity, brought by the deacon Cyprian, containing various — as you name them — questions, but, as I feel, censures of my little works. If I should be unwilling to answer these, there will be need of a whole book.
Nevertheless I shall try, as far as I can, not to exceed the measure of a rather long letter, and not to cause delay to a hastening brother, who three days before he was to set out demanded letters from me; so that, almost in the very act of marching, I am compelled to blurt out these things, such as they are, and to answer in a hurried discourse — not with the maturity of one writing, but with the rashness of one dictating, which for the most part turns out not to instruction but to chance; for sudden wars throw into confusion even the bravest soldiers, and they are compelled to flee before they can snatch up their arms. But our armour is Christ, and the instruction of the apostle, who writes to the Ephesians: 'Take up the arms of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day'; and again:
'Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.'
Armed once with these weapons King David went forth to battle, and taking five smooth stones from the brook he showed that amid the whirlwinds of this world there was in his senses nothing of roughness or filth, for he drank of the brook in the way; and therefore, being exalted, with his own blade above all he struck off the most haughty head of Goliath, smiting the blasphemer on the forehead and wounding him in that part of the body where Uzziah too, the usurper of the priesthood, is smitten with leprosy, and where the saint glories in the Lord, saying: 'The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.' Let us therefore also say: 'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and give praise in my glory. Arise, my psaltery and harp; I will arise early,' that in us there may be fulfilled:
'Open thy mouth and I will fill it,' and: 'The Lord shall give the word to them that preach the gospel with great power.' I do not doubt that you too are praying that in our contending the truth may prevail between us. For you seek not your own glory but Christ's; and when you conquer, I too conquer, if I come to understand my error; and conversely, when I conquer, you prevail, for children do not lay up treasure for their parents, but parents for their children. And in the book of Paralipomenon we read that the sons of Israel went forth to fight with a peaceful mind, thinking, even amid the very swords and the shedding of blood and the corpses of the fallen, not of their own victory but of that of peace. Let us therefore answer everything and resolve manifold questions in brief discourse, if Christ shall so command.
I pass over the greetings and the courtesies with which you soothe my head; I say nothing of the flatteries with which you strive to console your rebuke of me: I will come to the matters themselves. You say that you received a book of mine from a certain brother, one that bore no title, in which I had enumerated ecclesiastical writers, both Greek and Latin. And when you asked him—to use your own words—why the 'title page' was not inscribed, or by what name it should be reckoned, he replied that it was called 'Epitaph.' And you argue that it would rightly be so named only if you had there read the lives or the writings of those alone who were already dead;
but since the works of many who were living both at the time it was written and even now are mentioned there, you wonder why I imposed this title upon it. I suppose your prudence understands that you could have gathered the title from the work itself. For you have read both the Greeks and the Latins who described the lives of illustrious men, and how they never wrote 'Epitaph' for such a work, but 'Of Illustrious Men'—for instance, of generals, philosophers, orators, historians, poets, epic, tragic, and comic writers—whereas 'Epitaph' is properly written for the dead, which indeed I know I once did at the falling asleep of the presbyter Nepotian of holy memory.
Therefore this book ought to be called either 'Of Illustrious Men' or, more properly, 'Of Ecclesiastical Writers,' although by many unskilled correctors it is inscribed 'Of Authors.' In the second place you ask why I said, in my commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians, that Paul could not reprove in Peter what he himself had done, nor charge with pretense in another the very thing of which he himself was held guilty; and you assert that the apostolic rebuke was not a matter of accommodation but a true one, and that I ought not to teach a lie, but that all things which are written should sound just as they are written. To which I answer first that your prudence ought to have remembered the little preface of my commentaries, which says, speaking in my own person: What then?
Am I so foolish or rash as to promise that which he could not accomplish? By no means. Rather, in this I seem to myself the more cautious and timid, in that, feeling the weakness of my own powers, I followed the commentaries of Origen. For that man wrote five whole volumes properly on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and filled the tenth book of his Stromata with a condensed discourse upon its exposition; he also composed various treatises and excerpts, which by themselves alone could have sufficed. I pass over Didymus, my seer, and the Laodicean who lately came out of the Church, and Alexander the old heretic, and Eusebius of Emesa too, and Theodore of Heraclea, who likewise left behind not a few commentaries upon this subject.
If I plucked even a few things from these, something would be produced that would not be utterly despised; and, to confess it plainly, I read all these, and heaping up very many things in my mind, I summoned a scribe and dictated either my own or others' words, mindful at times neither of order nor of wording nor of the sense. It is now for the mercy of the Lord that through my lack of skill the things well said by others should not perish, nor that what pleases among their own should fail to please among strangers. If therefore you had thought anything worthy of reproof in our exposition, it belonged to your learning to inquire whether the things we wrote
were to be found among the Greeks, so that, if they had not said them, then you might properly condemn my own opinion—especially since in the preface I freely confessed that I had followed Origen's commentaries and had dictated either my own or others' words, and at the end of the very chapter which you censure I wrote: If this interpretation displeases anyone, by which neither Peter is shown to have sinned nor Paul to have insolently rebuked one greater than himself, let him explain by what consistency Paul reproves in another what he himself committed. By which I showed that I was not defending as settled that which I had read in the Greeks, but had set forth the things I had read, so as to leave it to the reader's judgment whether they were to be approved or disapproved.
You therefore, so as not to do what I had asked, discovered a new argument: to maintain that the Gentiles who had believed in Christ were free from the burden of the law, but that those who believed from among the Jews were subject to the law; so that through the person of each party both Paul rightly reproved those who kept the law, as teacher of the Gentiles, and Peter was justly reproved, who, as chief of the circumcision, had imposed upon the Gentiles that which only those from among the Jews ought to have observed. If this pleases—nay, since it pleases—that whoever believe from among the Jews are debtors to keep the law, then you, as a bishop most renowned in all the world, ought to promulgate this opinion and draw all your fellow bishops into agreement with you;
but I, in my little cottage with the monks, that is, with my fellow sinners, dare not decree concerning great matters, save only to confess this frankly: that I read the writings of the ancients, and in my commentaries, according to the custom of all, set down various explanations, so that from among many each may follow what he wishes. This indeed I think you have both read and approved in secular literature and in the divine books.
But this exposition, which Origen first gave in the tenth book of his Stromata, where he interprets Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and which the other interpreters after him followed, they introduce chiefly for this reason: to answer the blaspheming Porphyry, who charges Paul with insolence in daring to reprove and rebuke to his face Peter, the chief of the apostles, and to bind him by argument, on the ground that he had done ill—that is, that he was in the very error in which was the man who rebuked another as offending. What shall I say of John, who not long ago governed the church of Constantinople in the pontifical rank, and who wrote a very extensive book properly upon this very chapter, in which he followed the opinion of Origen and of the ancients?
If therefore you reprove me as erring, permit me, I pray, to err with such men; and when you perceive that I have many companions in my error, you ought at least to produce one supporter of your truth. So much for the exposition of a single chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians. But lest I seem to strive against your reasoning by the number of witnesses, and to escape the truth by the pretext of illustrious men, and not to dare join battle hand to hand, I will briefly set forth examples from the Scriptures. In the Acts of the Apostles a voice came to Peter, saying: 'Arise, Peter, kill and eat,' that is, all the beasts of the four-footed creatures and the serpents of the earth and the birds of the air.
By this saying it is shown that no man is defiled according to nature, but that all alike are called to the gospel of Christ. To which Peter answered: 'Not so, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean.' And a second time the voice came to him: 'What God hath cleansed, do not thou call common.' He went therefore to Caesarea, and entering in to Cornelius, opening his mouth, he said: 'In truth I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh justice is acceptable to him.' Then the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and the faithful of the circumcision who had come with Peter were amazed, because upon the nations also the grace of the Holy Spirit was poured out. Then Peter answered:
'Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?' And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Now the apostles and the brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter had gone up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended against him, saying: 'Why didst thou go in to men uncircumcised and eat with them?' To whom, having set forth the whole matter reasonably, he at last concluded his discourse with these words: 'If then God gave them the same grace as also to us, who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?'
When they heard these things they held their peace and glorified God, saying: 'God then hath also to the Gentiles given repentance unto life.' Again, when a long time after Paul and Barnabas had come to Antioch and, the church being gathered, had reported how great things God had done with them and that he had opened to the Gentiles a door of faith, certain men coming down from Judea taught the brethren and said: 'Unless you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.'
When therefore no small dissension had arisen against Paul and Barnabas, they determined that both they who were accused and they who accused should go up to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem concerning this question. And when they had come to Jerusalem and certain of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed in Christ rose up, saying: 'They must be circumcised and be charged to keep the law of Moses,' and a great question arose upon this word, Peter, with his wonted freedom, said: 'Men, brethren, you know that from ancient days God made choice among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe; and God, who knoweth the hearts, gave testimony, giving unto them the Holy Spirit as well as to us, and put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt you God, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we believe to be saved, in like manner as they also.' And all the multitude held their peace, and the apostle James and all the elders together passed over into his opinion. These things ought not to be tiresome to the reader, but useful both to him and to me, that we may prove that before the apostle Paul, Peter was not ignorant—nay, was the chief author of this decree—that the law was not to be kept after the gospel. Finally, of so great authority was Peter that Paul wrote in his epistle:
'Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I tarried with him fifteen days'; and again in what follows: 'After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. And I went up according to revelation and laid before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles,' showing that he had no assurance of preaching the gospel unless it had been confirmed by the judgment of Peter and of those who were with him. And immediately he adds: 'But apart to those who seemed to be somewhat, lest perhaps I should run or had run in vain.' Why apart, and not in public? Lest a scandal to the faith should arise for the believers from among the Jews, who thought the law must be kept and that thus one must believe in the Lord the Savior.
Therefore also at that time, when Peter had come to Antioch—although the Acts of the Apostles do not record this, yet Paul's affirmation must be believed—Paul writes that he withstood him to his face, because he was reprehensible. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they had come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews consented with him, so that even Barnabas was led away by them into that dissimulation. 'But when I saw,' he says, 'that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to judaize?' and the rest.
To none, therefore, is it doubtful that the apostle Peter was the first author of this very opinion, of which he is now charged as a transgressor. But the cause of the transgression is the fear of the Jews; for the Scripture says that at first he ate with the Gentiles, but when certain men had come from James, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. Now he feared the Jews, whose apostle he was, lest by occasion of the Gentiles they should fall away from the faith of Christ, and lest the imitator of the good shepherd should lose the flock entrusted to him. As therefore we have shown that Peter indeed thought rightly concerning the abolition of the Mosaic law, but was driven by fear into the pretense of observing it, let us see whether Paul himself, who reproves another, did any such thing.
We read in the same book: 'Now Paul went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches, and he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, there was a certain disciple there named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, his father a Gentile. To this man they that were in Lystra and Iconium, the brethren, gave testimony. Him Paul wished to go forth with himself, and taking him he circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places; for they all knew that his father was a Gentile.'
O blessed apostle Paul, who hadst reproved in Peter the pretense whereby he had withdrawn himself from the Gentiles for fear of the Jews who had come from James, why art thou compelled, against thine own opinion, to circumcise Timothy, the son of a Gentile man and himself a Gentile—for he was no Jew, having not been circumcised? Thou wilt answer me: 'Because of the Jews who were in those places.' If then thou dost excuse thyself in the circumcision of a disciple sprung from the Gentiles, excuse also Peter, thy predecessor, that he did something out of fear of the believing Jews. Again it is written:
'But Paul, when he had yet stayed many days, taking his leave of the brethren, sailed to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; and he shaved his head at Cenchreae, for he had a vow.' Granted that there, compelled by fear of the Jews, he did what he did not wish: why did he let his hair grow by a vow, and afterward at Cenchreae shave it according to the law, which the Nazarites, who have vowed themselves to God, were accustomed to do according to the precept of Moses? But these things are small compared with the matter that follows. Luke, the writer of the sacred history, relates: 'When we had come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly; and on the following day James and all the elders who were with him, having approved his gospel, said to him:
You see, brother, how many thousands there are in Judea of those who have believed in Christ, and all these are zealous for the law. Now they have heard of thee, that thou teachest a departure from Moses of those Jews who are among the Gentiles, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the custom. What then is it? The multitude must certainly come together; for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee. We have four men who have a vow upon them; take these and sanctify thyself with them, and be at charges for them, that they may shave their heads, and all may know that the things which they have heard concerning thee are false, but that thou thyself also walkest keeping the law.'