And we wonder greatly why the Septuagint, Theodotion and the sixth edition chose to translate the Hebrew word 'ais' as 'meekness,' whereas Aquila, Symmachus and the fifth edition translated it as 'haste' and 'suddenly' and 'swiftly.' 'Who knows the strength of your anger, and according to the fear of you your indignation?' The Septuagint: 'Who knows the power of your anger, and from the fear of you to number your wrath?' Between the Hebrew and the Septuagint there is a different punctuation. For the Septuagint joins the numbering to the fear and wrath of the Lord, whereas the Hebrew fits it to the following verse, so that there follows: 'So make our days to be numbered,' thus: 'and we shall come with a wise heart.' This it seems to us must be briefly discussed thus:
Who is able to know how long your anger, from which fear is born to the human race, may persevere? Only by your teaching, you who are God. And so I beseech you to make known to us the time of our life, by which we may be able, with a wise heart, to prepare ourselves for your judgment. And what he says, 'Who knows the strength — or power — of your anger, and according to the fear of you your indignation?' shows that it is difficult to know the secret and reason of the anger and fear and indignation of God. Hence too the prophet tearfully entreats: 'O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath.' For he does not chasten in order to slay and destroy, but in order to correct and amend.
For this reason too, in Hosea, to the people of the Jews with whom he was greatly angry, he says that he will by no means be angry, nor visit their daughters-in-law when they have committed adultery; and through Ezekiel he speaks to Jerusalem: 'I will be angry with you no more, and my zeal has departed from you'; and it resounds in the words of Chronicles, when Israel goes forth against its enemies into battle with a peaceable heart. 'So make our days to be numbered, and we shall come with a wise heart.' The Septuagint: 'So make your right hand known to me, and those instructed in heart in wisdom' — which Aquila, Symmachus and the fifth edition rendered thus: 'So show our days, that we may come with a wise heart.' And the error is plain, why the Septuagint said 'right hand' instead of 'days';
for 'iamenu' is indeed a compound word signifying 'our days.' If it be written in the singular number, the final letter, which is called 'nun,' expresses 'right hand,' as is the case in the name Benjamin, who is interpreted 'son of the right hand.' But if it have 'mem,' it sounds 'day' or 'days.' And the sense is: show us the number of the years and days which you have decreed us to live in this world, that we may prepare ourselves for your coming, and, despising the error of mortals, may hasten to go to you and long for your presence, and may hasten to you with a wise heart. For nothing so deceives the human race as that, while they are ignorant of the spans of their life, they promise themselves a longer possession of this world.
Hence too that saying is admirably put: no one is so old and of such decrepit age that he does not suppose himself to live yet one year more. To this sense belongs also that which is said: 'Remember your death, and you will not sin.' For he who recalls daily that he is about to die despises present things and hastens to those that are to come. This is what David too in another place prays, saying: 'Take me not away in the midst of my days, before I depart and shall not subsist.' Which is explained thus: do not make me die at that time when I still supposed I would go on living and would correct my sins by penitence.
For if you do this, I shall cease to be found in my sins — not that he denies the hope of resurrection, but that he denies that he can subsist before God, in whose eyes all who have persevered in their vices are reckoned as nothing. Where we have translated 'those instructed in heart in wisdom,' others translated 'those fettered,' deceived by the ambiguity of the word. For if you say πεπεδημένους, it signifies 'the fettered.' 'Return, O Lord; how long? And be entreatable toward your servants.' The Septuagint likewise. Because we do penance and, knowing the brevity of our life, we desire to come to you with a wise heart, do you also, O Lord, return to us.
For because of our sins you had departed far off and had forsaken us, that we might walk according to our own will and thoughts. And what he adds, 'how long,' has that understanding which we spoke of in the twelfth psalm: 'How long, O Lord, will you forget me? Unto the end?' For he who is set in distress thinks God's help slow, and therefore entreats the more earnestly, that he may swiftly feel the Lord as a helper and by no means an angry judge, but one appeased. 'Fill us in the morning with your mercy, and we shall praise and rejoice in all our days.' The Septuagint: 'we have been filled in the morning with your mercy, and we have exulted and been delighted in all our days.'
In almost all places the Septuagint has this custom, that what among the Hebrews is shown as future, they report as though already done and past. Here therefore they do not, as those interpreters wished, say that they have been filled with God's morning mercy and made glad — otherwise, if this had been done, how do they afterward entreat and say, 'Look upon your servants and upon your works'? — but all that they ask, they entreat for this reason: that they may be worthy of his morning mercy, which, when they have obtained it, they may praise him and rejoice in all the days of their life. And it seems to me that he entreats the hope of resurrection and the rewards of eternal life, saying: 'Fill us in the morning with your mercy.'
This indeed the title of the twenty-first psalm also sounds forth, which, properly pertaining to the mystery of the Lord and to his resurrection, is inscribed: 'For the morning taking-up.' 'Make us glad for the days in which you afflicted us, and the years in which we saw evils.' The Septuagint: 'we have been made glad for the days in which you humbled us, the years in which we saw evils.' And Lazarus, because he had received evils in his life, rests in Abraham's bosom in eternal joy. But by 'evils' he does not name those things which are contrary to good, but he puts it for affliction and distress. With which evils Sarah too afflicted Hagar, her handmaid, and concerning which it is written in the Gospel: 'Sufficient for the day is its own evil.'
By as much, therefore, as we have been afflicted in this world by persecutions, poverty, the power of enemies or the torments of diseases, by so much the greater rewards shall we obtain in the world to come after the resurrection. But it is fittingly said, not 'we have endured evils,' but 'we have seen' them. For what man is there who lives and shall not see death? Which is to be referred not so much to the dissolution of the body as to the multitude of sins, according to which it is said: 'The soul that has sinned, the same shall die.' 'Let your work appear upon your servants, and your glory upon their sons.' Therefore in his servants the Lord himself works his own work, nor is he who asks content with his own salvation, but with what is the glory of the sons — that is, of the servants of God.
But by 'sons' we ought to understand not so much those who are begotten of their stock, as disciples, concerning whom Paul too was speaking: 'My little children, of whom I am again in travail.' Hence too the apostle John, according to the merits of his sons and the progress of the works of each, writes to little children, writes to young men, writes to fathers. 'And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and the work of our hands make firm upon us, and establish the work of our hands.' The Septuagint: 'and let the splendour of the Lord our God be upon us, and direct the works of our hands upon us, and direct the work of our hands.'
Where are those who, applauding themselves with the power of free will, think that they have thus obtained the grace of God, if they have the power of doing or not doing good or evil? Behold, here blessed Moses, after the resurrection which he had asked for, saying, 'Fill us in the morning with your mercy, and we shall praise and rejoice in all our days,' is by no means content to have risen and to have obtained the rewards of eternal life, but asks that the beauty of the Lord his God may be upon those who have risen, and may shine in the souls and hearts of the saints, and that he himself may direct the works of their hands and make them to be perpetual, and himself confirm whatever of good is seen in the saints.
For just as the humility of the one entreating merits rewards, so the pride of the one presuming shall be forsaken by God's help. 141. TO AUGUSTINE. To the holy lord and most blessed pope Augustine, Jerome. At every time indeed I have venerated your blessedness with the honour that is fitting, and I have loved the Lord Saviour dwelling in you; but now, if it can be done, we add something to the heap and fill up the full measure, so that we may not suffer even one hour to pass by without mention of your name — you who, against the winds blowing contrary, have stood firm in the ardour of the faith, and have chosen, as far as lay in you, rather to be delivered alone out of Sodom than to abide with those who perish. Your prudence knows what I say. Well done for your virtue: you are renowned in the world.
The catholics venerate and receive you as the founder anew of the ancient faith; and — which is a sign of greater glory — all the heretics detest you, and persecute me with equal hatred, so that those whom they cannot slay with swords they may slay with their wish. May the clemency of Christ the Lord guard you safe and mindful of me, venerable and most blessed lord and pope. 142. TO AUGUSTINE. Many limp on both feet and are not bent even when their necks are broken, holding the affection of their former error, though they no longer have the same freedom of preaching. The holy brothers who are with our littleness, and especially your holy and venerable daughters, humbly greet you.
I beg your crown to greet, in my name, your brothers, my lord Alypius and my lord Evodius. Jerusalem is taken and held by Nebuchadnezzar, nor is she willing to hear the counsels of Jeremiah, but rather longs for Egypt, that she may die in Tahpanhes and there perish in everlasting servitude. 143. TO THE BISHOPS ALYPIUS AND AUGUSTINE. To the truly holy lords, to be venerated with all affection and by all right, the bishops Alypius and Augustine, Jerome, greeting in Christ. The holy presbyter Innocentius, who is the bearer of this letter, last year, as though he would by no means return to Africa, did not take my writings to your dignity. Nevertheless we give thanks to God that it has so turned out that you have overcome my silence by your letters.
For to me every occasion by which I write to your reverence is most welcome, calling God to witness that, if it could be done, having taken the wings of a dove I would fold myself in your embraces — always indeed for the merit of your virtues, but now most of all because, with you as fellow-workers and authors, the Caelestian heresy has been throttled, which so infected the hearts of many that, although they feel themselves to have been overcome and condemned, yet they do not lay aside the poisons of their minds and — the only thing they can do — they hate us, through whom they think they have lost the liberty of teaching their heresy.
But as to what you ask, whether I have written back against the books of Annianus, the pseudo-deacon of Celeda — who feeds himself most abundantly, that he may supply frivolous words to another's blasphemy — know that I received those very books, sent in loose sheets by our holy brother the presbyter Eusebius, not long ago, and that thereafter, either through onrushing illnesses or through the falling-asleep of your holy and venerable daughter Eustochium, I so grieved that I thought them almost to be despised. For he sticks fast in the same mire, and, apart from tinkling and begged-for words, he says nothing else. Nevertheless we have taken much pains, so that, while he tries to reply to my letter, he might more openly betray himself and lay bare his blasphemies to all.
For whatever he denies having said in that wretched synod of Diospolis, he professes in this work; nor is it a great thing to answer most inept trifles. But if the Lord grant life and we have a supply of notaries, we shall answer in a few night-time labours — not that we may convict a heresy already dead, but that we may confute its inexperience and blasphemy with our discourses. And your holiness would do this better, lest we be compelled to praise our own writings against a heretic. The holy common children Albina, Pinianus and Melania greatly greet you. These little letters I have handed over to the holy presbyter Innocentius to be carried from holy Bethlehem. Your niece Paula piteously entreats that you may be mindful of her, and greatly greets you.
May the clemency of Christ our Lord guard you safe and mindful of me, lords truly holy and venerable to all affection, fathers. 144. LETTER OF AUGUSTINE TO OPTATUS, BISHOP OF MILEVIS. To the most blessed lord and sincerely dearest and most longed-for brother and fellow-bishop Optatus, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. Through the religious presbyter Saturninus I received the letter of your veneration, demanding of me with great zeal that which I do not yet have. But you have disclosed to me the reason why you did this — namely, because you believe that I who consulted about this matter have already been answered. Would that it were so! Far be it that I should defraud you, whose most eager expectation I have known, of the sharing of this gift!
But if you believe anything, dearest brother, behold, nearly five years have now rolled by since I sent to the East a book — not of presumption but of consultation on my part — and as yet I have not merited a reply by which this question might be unravelled for me, in which you desire me to bring to you a sure opinion. I would therefore have sent both, if I had both.
But this which I have, without the other which I do not yet have, it does not seem right that I should now owe it to anyone to send or publish, lest he who perhaps is going to answer me, as I desire, might justly be indignant that my inquiry — elaborated with most laborious disputation — should, without his response (which is not yet to be despaired of), be spread abroad through the hands and notice of men, and might judge that I had done this more boastfully than usefully, as though I could ask what he could not unravel — when perhaps he can, and while he does it, is to be waited for. For I know rather that he is occupied with other things which must by no means be deferred and are to be weighed as of greater worth. And that your holiness too may know this, attend a little.
what he wrote back to me in another year, by the bearer through whom I had written, on his returning; for I have transferred this from his letter into this one. 'There has fallen,' he says, 'a most difficult time, when it was better for me to be silent than to speak, so that our studies ceased and, according to Appius, a canine eloquence was practised. And so to your two little books, which you dedicated to my name, most learned and shining with all the splendour of eloquence, I could not for the time reply — not that I think there is anything to be censured in them, but because, according to the blessed Apostle, let every one abound in his own sense, one indeed thus, another thus.'
Certainly, whatever could be said and, with sublime genius, drawn from the fountains of the holy Scriptures, has been set forth and expounded by you. But I beseech your reverence, suffer me a little to praise your genius. For we discourse among ourselves for the sake of erudition. But rivals, and especially heretics, if they see differing opinions between us, will falsely allege that they descend from the rancour of the mind.
For my part, I am resolved to love you, to embrace you, to honour you, to admire you, and to defend your words as though they were my own — indeed, in the dialogue which I recently published I made mention of your beatitude, as was fitting — and let us rather bend our efforts to this, that the most pernicious heresy be removed from the churches, the heresy that always feigns repentance so that it may keep the opportunity of teaching in the churches, lest, if it should betray itself in the open light, it be cast out of doors and perish. You perceive plainly, venerable brother, that these words of my most dear friend, given back in answer to my inquiry, did not refuse a reply but excused it on grounds of time, since he was compelled to bestow his care upon other, more pressing matters.
You see also how kindly a disposition he bears toward me, and of what he admonishes me — namely, lest what we do for the sake of instruction, with charity and the sincerity of friendship wholly unimpaired between us, our rivals, and especially the heretics, should slanderously make out to proceed from rancour of soul.
Accordingly, if men read both our works — both where I made inquiry and where he himself replied to what was inquired — then, since it is right that, if the same question has been sufficiently explained according to his judgment, I should give thanks for having been instructed, the fruit will be no small one when this comes to the knowledge of very many. Thus our juniors will not only know what they ought to think concerning this matter, which has been thoroughly examined between us by careful discussion, but will also learn by our example, God showing mercy and being favourable, how among the dearest of brothers a mutual disputation of inquiry may not be lacking, and yet love may remain inviolate.
But if my writing, in which only the most obscure matter is read as a subject of inquiry, should go out without his reply — in which perhaps what has been discovered would appear — and should circulate more widely and reach even those who, as the Apostle says, comparing themselves with themselves do not understand themselves, then they will expound with what mind this is done by us — which they themselves do not know how to do with such a mind — and they will set forth my goodwill toward my most beloved friend, who is to be honoured for his immense merits, not as they see it (since indeed they do not see it), but as it pleases them and as, at the dictation of their hatred, they suspect it to be. And this, so far as it lies in us, we ought surely to guard against.
But if perchance that which we do not wish to become known through us should nevertheless, against our will, become known to those to whom we do not wish it, what will remain but to bear the Lord's will with an even mind? For indeed I ought not to write to anyone that which I should always have wished to remain hidden.
For if — which God forbid — he should, through some chance or necessity, never write back, then without doubt the consultation which we sent to him will at some time be made public, and will not be useless to readers, because, even though they do not find those things which they seek, they will at least find in what manner such things are to be inquired into, and that what one does not know is not to be rashly affirmed; and according to what they read there, they too will take care to consult those whom they can, with zealous charity, not with quarrelsome contention, until either they find what they wish, or by the very inquiry they exercise the keenness of their mind, so that they come to know that there is no further need to inquire.
For the present, however, so long as the reply of the friend consulted is not yet to be despaired of, I think that our consultation ought not to be published, so far at least as it lies in us — a view of which I trust I have persuaded your love, although you yourself did not ask for it alone, but desired that there be sent to you also the reply of him whom I consulted, joined to it; which indeed I would do, if I had it.
But if — to use the words of your holiness which you set down in your letter — you mean by 'the clear demonstration of my wisdom, which,' as you write, 'the author of light bestowed upon me according to the merit of my life,' not that very consultation and inquiry of mine, but rather think that the discovery of the matter which I sought has already come to me, and it is this that you demand I send, I would do so if it were as you suppose. For I, I confess, have not yet found in what way the soul both draws sin from Adam — of which it is not lawful to doubt — and yet is not itself drawn from Adam; which is for me a matter to be more carefully inquired into than rashly asserted.
Your letter speaks of 'I know not how many old men, and men instructed by learned priests, whom you could not recall to the understanding and to the assertion, most full of truth, of your own lowliness'; yet you do not express what that assertion of yours 'most full of truth' is, to which you could not recall the old men and the men instructed by learned priests. For if these old men held or hold what they received from learned priests, how had the rustic and less instructed throng of clerics engendered troubles for you in those matters in which it had been instructed by learned priests?
But if these old men, or the throng of clerics, were deviating by their own perversity from what they had received from learned priests, then they ought rather to have been corrected by the authority of those priests and restrained from their most contentious tumult. Yet again, when you say 'that you, a new and untrained teacher, feared to corrupt the traditions of so great and such bishops, and dreaded to turn men to a better part on account of the injury done to the departed,' what do you give to be understood, except that those whom you were desiring to correct, unwilling to abandon the traditions of learned and great bishops now deceased, refused to acquiesce in a new and untrained teacher?
In this matter I say nothing for the present about them; but your assertion, which you say is most full of truth, I vehemently desire to know — I mean not the opinion itself, but the assertion of it. For that you disapprove of those who affirm that all the souls of men are propagated and derived, through a succession of generations, from that one soul which was given to the first-formed man — this indeed you have sufficiently conveyed to our knowledge; but by what reasoning, or by what testimonies of the divine Scriptures, you have shown this to be false, we do not know, since your letter does not contain it.
Next, what you yourself hold in place of that which you disapprove does not clearly appear to me as I read your letter — both the one you formerly sent to the brethren at Caesarea and the one you very recently addressed to me — except that I see you believe, as you write, that 'God has made men, and makes them, and will make them, and that there is nothing in heaven or on earth which was not, and is not, established with him as its author.' This is indeed so true that no one ought to doubt it on this point. But you must still express whence God makes the souls which you deny are made by propagation — whether from somewhere else (and if so, what that is), or entirely out of nothing.
For that opinion of Origen and Priscillian, or of any others who hold some such thing — namely, that souls are thrust down into earthly and mortal bodies according to the merits of a former life — God forbid that you should hold it. For to this opinion the apostolic authority is utterly opposed, saying that Esau and Jacob, before they were born, had wrought nothing of good or evil. Therefore your opinion on this matter is known to us not wholly, but in part; but the assertion of it — that is, whence it may be shown to be true, that which you hold — is entirely hidden from us.
For this reason I had asked in my earlier letter that you would deign to send me the little book of faith which you mention having written, and to which you complain that some presbyter or other has treacherously subscribed — which even now I ask — and what testimonies of the divine writings you were able to bring to bear for the unlocking of this question.
For you say in your letter to the people of Caesarea that 'it pleased you that even the secular judges should take cognizance of the whole proof of the truth; and while they sat by common entreaty and examined all things pertaining to the faith, the divinity,' as you write, 'granted this by the infusion of its mercy, that they brought forward a greater affirmation and assertion in support of your views than your own modesty concerning them was upholding with the authority of mighty testimonies.' These 'authorities of mighty testimonies,' therefore, I desire with mighty zeal to know. For you seem to have followed only one cause by which you might refute your opponents — namely, that they denied our souls to be the work of God.
And if they hold this, their opinion is rightly judged deserving of condemnation. For if they were saying this of the bodies themselves, without doubt they would have to be corrected or detested. For what Christian would deny that the bodies of each and every one being born are works of God? And yet we do not for that reason deny that they are begotten by parents, because we confess that they are divinely fashioned. When, therefore, it is likewise said that our souls too have certain incorporeal seeds of their own kind, both drawn from parents and yet made into souls by the work of God, then to refute this, not human conjecture but the divine Scripture must be brought forward as witness. For from the holy books of canonical authority an abundance of testimonies could have been available to you, by which it is proved that God makes souls;
but by such testimonies those are refuted who deny that the individual souls in men being born are works of God, not those who confess this and yet contend that these souls, though indeed formed by God at work, are formed from the propagation of parents. To refute these you must seek out sure divine testimonies, or, if you have already found them, they must be sent to us — who have not yet found them — in mutual love, since we too are inquiring as earnestly as we can. For your consultation, brief and last in the letter which you sent to the brethren of Caesarea, runs thus:
'I beseech you,' you say, 'that you would by instruction teach me — your son and disciple, and one but lately and most recently come to these mysteries by God's help — in the way you owe, and as is fitting, and as it befits prudent priests to answer: whether that opinion is rather to be held which says that the soul is by transmission, and that through some hidden origin and secret order all the other souls flow down into the whole race of men from the transfusion of Adam the first-formed; or rather that definition is to be chosen and that belief to be retained which all your brethren and the priests here stationed hold and affirm — which testifies and believes that God has been, and is, and will be the author of all things and of all men.'
Of these two, then, which you have set forth in consulting, you wish that one be chosen and that one of the two be answered you — which would have to be done by those who know, if these two were mutually contrary, so that, one being chosen, the other must consequently be rejected. But now, if someone should not choose one of these two, but should answer that both are true — that is, that the other souls flow down into the whole race of men from the transfusion of Adam the first-formed, and nonetheless that God has been, and is, and will be the author of all things and of all men — and should believe and say so, what do you judge is to be objected to him? Shall we by any means say: 'If souls are propagated from parents, God is not the author of all things, because he does not make souls'?