Letters 149.24–153.11

Let us look, then, at the whole context of this statement; for so, having seen the apostle’s intention, we may perhaps grasp his meaning as far as we can. He feared that those to whom he writes these things would be led astray by the shadows of things, under the sweet name of knowledge, and turned away from the light of truth, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And he saw that this concern with empty and superfluous observances, under the name of wisdom or knowledge, was to be guarded against, both from the superstition of the Gentiles, and especially from those who were called philosophers, and from Judaism, where the shadows of things to come were to be removed, since their light, Christ, had now come. When, then, he had mentioned and commended how great a struggle he had for them and for those at Laodicea and for all who had not seen his face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and in all the riches of the fullness of understanding, to know the mystery of God, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, he says: “I say this so that no one may deceive you with plausible speech.” Because they were led by love of the truth, he feared lest they be deceived by a likeness of truth. And therefore he commended in Christ what they held most sweet, namely the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, by whose name and promise they could be led into error.

“For though I am absent in body,” he says, “I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order and what is lacking in your faith in Christ.” He feared for them, then, because he saw what was still lacking in them. “As, therefore, you have received Jesus Christ our Lord,” he says, “walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, as you were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” He wants them to be nourished by faith, so that they may become able to share in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, lest, before they are fit for these, they be captured by plausible speech and stray from the way of truth. Then, showing more openly what he fears for them, he says: “See that no one deceives you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ; for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He said “bodily” because they were leading astray “shadowily,” using a transferred word, just as the word “shadow” in these matters is certainly not a proper word but transferred by some reason of likeness. “And you are filled in him,” he says, “who is the head of every principality and power.” For by principalities and powers the superstition of the Gentiles, or the philosophers, were leading people astray, preaching what they call theology through the elements of this world. But by the head of all he meant Christ to be understood as the beginning of all, as he himself, when he was asked, “Who are you?” answered: “The Beginning, who also speak to you.” For all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. And wonderfully he wants them to despise these supposedly wonderful things, when he shows that they have become the body of that head, saying: “And you are filled in him, who is the head of every principality and power.”

Then, so that they might not be led astray by the shadows of Judaism, he adds: “In whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh” (or, as some have it, “in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”), “in the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you also rose with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” See how here too he shows them to be the body of Christ, so that they may despise these things, cleaving to so great a head of theirs, the mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus, and seeking no false or weak intermediary through which to cleave to God. “And you,” he says, “when you were dead in your trespasses and the foreskin of your flesh” (he called foreskin what the foreskin signifies, that is, the carnal sins which we must put off), “he made alive together with him,” he says, “forgiving you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us” (because the law made men guilty, the law which came in so that trespass might abound), “taking it,” he says, “out of the way and nailing it to the cross; stripping off his flesh, he made an example of the principalities and powers, boldly triumphing over them in himself.” Not good but evil principalities and evil powers, namely devilish and demonic ones, he made an example of, that is, he gave an example concerning them, so that, as he himself stripped off the flesh, he might show that his own are to strip off the carnal vices through which those powers ruled over them.

Now notice carefully how he draws the conclusion for whose sake we have mentioned all these things. “Therefore let no one judge you in food,” he says, as if he had said all that because these people were being led away by observances of this kind from the truth by which they were made free, of which it is said in the Gospel, “And the truth will free you,” that is, will make you free. “Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” This is because of Judaism; then follows, because of the superstitions of the Gentiles: “But let no one convict you, the body of Christ.” It is shameful, he means, and most unfitting and foreign to the nobility of your freedom, that, since you are the body of Christ, you should be led astray by shadows and seem to be convicted as sinners if you neglect to observe these things. “Let no one convict you, the body of Christ, wishing in humility of heart.” If this were said with a Greek word, it would sound more familiar even in popular Latin usage. For thus a man who affects being rich is commonly called thelodives, and one who affects being wise thelosapiens, and so on; so here too thelohumilis, which is more fully said thelon humilis, that is, “wishing humble,” affecting humility, which is understood as wishing to seem humble, affecting humility. For this is what is done in such observances: the heart of man is made humble, as it were, by religion. And he added “and worship of angels,” or, as your manuscripts have it, “religion of angels,” which in Greek is called θρησκεία, meaning by angels the principalities which they think, as set over the elements of this world, must be worshiped in these observances.

“Let no one convict you, then,” he says, since you are the body of Christ, “wishing to seem humble of heart in the worship of angels, pressing on things he has not seen,” or, as some manuscripts have, “pressing on things he has seen.” For either he meant to say “pressing on things he has not seen,” because men practice these things on suspicions and opinions, not because they have seen that they must be done so; or else “pressing on things he has seen,” thinking them great because he has seen them observed in certain places by men in whose authority he trusted even without a reason given, and so he thinks himself great because it has fallen to him to see the secrets of certain rites. But the fuller sense is: “pressing on things he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.” Wonderfully he said that he is puffed up by the mind of his flesh in the very place where above he had called him “wishing-humble”; for in wonderful ways it happens in the soul of man that he is more puffed up by false humility than if he were more openly proud. “And not holding fast the head,” he says (meaning Christ to be understood), “from which the whole body, supplied and joined through its contacts and connections, grows with the growth of God. If, then, you died with Christ from the elements of this world, why, as though still living, do you make decrees about this world?”

Having said this, he inserts the words of those who make decrees about this world through these supposedly reasonable observances, puffed up with the affected vanity of humility: “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.” Let us recall what was said above, so as to understand this. For he does not want them to be judged in these observances, where it is said, “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” “which are all,” he says, “for corruption by abuse.” All these things, he means, tend rather to corruption when people abstain from them superstitiously, so that man abuses them, that is, does not use them, “according to the precepts and doctrines of men.” This is plain; but what follows you inquire into closely: “which have indeed a show of wisdom in observance and humility of heart and harshness to the body” (or, as others have translated, “in not sparing the body”), “not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.” Why, you say, does he say that these things, which he so rebukes, have a show of wisdom?

I shall say what you too can observe in the Scriptures: that wisdom is often placed even in the seats of this world, which he calls more expressly the wisdom of this world. And do not be troubled that he did not add “of the world” here; for in another place too, when he says, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?” he did not add “of this world,” so as to say, “Where is the wise man of this world?” and yet this is understood. So too this “account of wisdom”; for nothing is said by them in observances of this superstitious kind for which some account of wisdom does not seem to be given according to the elements of this world and the natures of things. For when he says, “Beware lest anyone deceive you through philosophy,” he does not say “of this world”; and what is philosophy in Latin but the love of wisdom? “These things, then,” he says, “have indeed an account of wisdom” (that is, things for which some account is given according to the elements of this world and the principalities and powers) “in observance and humility of heart” (for these things aim at this, that the heart be humbled by the vice of superstition), “in not sparing the body” (while it is defrauded of those foods from which it is compelled to abstain), “not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh” (not that the flesh would be satisfied more honorably by one food than by another, since its need requires only that it be refreshed and supported by any food suitable to health).

Your question about the Gospel usually troubles many: how the Lord after his resurrection, though he rose in the same body, was both not recognized and recognized by some people of both sexes who had known him. Here it is usually asked first whether something was done in his body, or rather in their eyes, so that he could not be recognized. For when we read, “Their eyes were held so that they did not recognize him,” some hindrance to recognition seems to have been placed in the eyes of those who saw; but when it is said plainly elsewhere, “He appeared to them in another form,” something seems certainly to have been done in the body itself, whose form was different, by which their eyes were held, that is, suffered a delay in recognizing. But I am surprised that, since there are two things in a body by which anyone’s appearance is recognized, the features and the color, no one is troubled that before the resurrection, when he was so transfigured on the mountain that his face became bright as the sun, he could change the color of his body to so great an excellence of brightness and light, yet people are troubled that after the resurrection he somewhat changed his features so that he could not be recognized, and again, with the same ease of power, as then he restored his former color, so after the resurrection he restored his former features. For even those three disciples before whose eyes he was transfigured on the mountain would not have recognized him if he had come to them from elsewhere in that state; but because they were with him, they held most certainly that it was he. “But it was the very body in which he rose.” What has this to do with it? For that too was certainly the very body in which he was transfigured on the mountain; and it was the very body as a young man in which he was born; and yet, if someone who had known him only as a little infant had suddenly seen him as a young man, he certainly would not have recognized him. Or can the power of God not change features quickly, when the age of man can do so over the course of years?

As for what he said to Mary, “Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father,” you may know that I have understood nothing other than you have. For he wished to signify that he requires a spiritual touch, that is, the approach of faith, by which he is believed to be on high with the Father. And that he was recognized by those two in the breaking of bread is a sacrament which gathers us into the knowledge of him; no one ought to doubt this.

On the words of Simeon, where he says to the virgin mother of the Lord, “And a sword shall pierce your own soul,” I said what I thought in another letter, a copy of which I have also sent now; and it seemed so to you too, among other things. And as to what he added, “that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare,” I think it is to be understood that through the Lord’s passion both the plots of the Jews and the weakness of the disciples were made plain. It is credible, then, that tribulation was signified by the name of the sword, by which the mother’s soul was wounded with the feeling of grief. That sword was in the mouth of the persecutors, of whom it is said in the psalm, “And a sword in their mouth.” For they were the sons of men whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. For the iron that passed through the soul of Joseph also seems to me set for hard tribulation; for it is said plainly, “The iron passed through his soul, until his word came,” that is, he was in hard tribulation until what he had foretold came about. For from this he came to be held great and was freed from that tribulation. But lest it be attributed to human wisdom that his word came, that is, that what he foretold came about, holy Scripture, in its usual way, gives the glory for it to God and adds at once: “The utterance of the Lord set him on fire.”

As far as I could, I have not failed your questions, helped by your prayers and by the very discussions you sent; for when you discuss by asking, you both inquire keenly and teach humbly. And it is useful that, about the obscurities of the divine Scriptures, which God willed to exist for our exercise, many opinions should be found, when one thing seems right to one and another to another, all of which nevertheless agree with sound faith and doctrine. You will indeed pardon my pen for its great haste, to catch the carrier already on board ship. In this letter rather I greet in return our son Paulinus, most sweet in the love of Christ, and in a few words, being in haste, I exhort him to give all the thanks he can to the mercy of the Lord, who, knowing how to give help in tribulation, sent him into port through a most turbulent storm, the port to which you crossed over a calmer sea, though trusting little in the calm of the sea itself, and who gave you to receive and nourish his first steps; and let all his bones say, “Lord, who is like you?” For he does not read or hear me teaching and discussing or kindling with whatever exhortations to richer fruit than he gains by observing you living. My fellow servants who are with me return greetings to your holy and most sincere kindness. Our fellow deacon Peregrinus, since he set out from me with our holy brother Urbanus when he went to take up the burden of the episcopate, has not yet returned to Hippo; but we know that they are safe in the name of Christ, from their letters and from report. We greet with brotherly affection our fellow presbyter Paulinus and all who enjoy your presence in the Lord.

You have filled our heart with joy, the more delightful because dearer, the more welcome because quicker. For the virgin consecration of a daughter of your house is being proclaimed by widespread fame wherever you are known, and so everywhere; yet you outran its swiftest flight with the more faithful and sure message of a letter, and made us rejoice in the knowledge of so excellent a good before we could doubt it as a rumor. Who could explain in words, who could follow with fitting praise, how incomparably more glorious and fruitful it is for Christ to have women virgins from your blood than for the world to have men consuls? For if it is great and splendid to mark the rolls of the ages with the dignity of one’s name, how much greater and more splendid to rise above them by integrity of heart and body! So let the girl, noble in birth and nobler in holiness, rejoice more that through a divine union she will attain a special height in heaven than if through a human marriage she were to propagate a lofty offspring. For the Anician posterity chose more nobly to bless so illustrious a family by not knowing marriage than to multiply it by childbearing, and already in the flesh to imitate the life of the angels rather than from the flesh still to increase the number of mortals. This is the richer and more fruitful happiness: not to grow heavy in the womb but to grow great in mind; not to grow milky in the breast but to grow white in the heart; to bring forth not earth from the bowels but heaven by prayers. Ladies most worthy of honor, justly illustrious and most excellent daughters, enjoy in her what was lacking in you, that it might be born from you; may she persevere to the end, cleaving to the marriage that has no end. May many handmaids imitate her, the lowly their noble mistress, the frailly exalted her who is more exaltedly humble; let virgins who wish for themselves the renown of the Anicii choose their holiness. For the one, however great their desire, when will they attain it? But the other, if they desire it fully, they will soon have. May the right hand of the Most High protect you safe and more happy, ladies most worthy of honor and most excellent daughters. We greet, with the duty owed to your merits and in the love of the Lord, the pledges of Your Holiness, especially her who excels in holiness. We have received with great pleasure the keepsake of the veiling.

The complaint about me that you put in your letter is the more welcome to me the fuller it is of love. If, then, I try to clear myself for my silence, what will I be trying to do but show that you had no reason to be angry with me? But since I love in you the fact that you deigned to be offended by my silence, which I had believed to be of no importance amid your cares, I shall be abandoning my own cause if I strive to clear myself. For if you ought not to have been indignant because I did not write to you, you hold me of no account, as one whose speaking or silence you bear with indifference. But since you were troubled by my silence, that indignation is a mark of esteem. So I am not so much sorry that I did not offer you conversation as glad that you missed it. For that I offered no word of comfort to an old friend, and (what you may keep silent but we must acknowledge) so great a man, living abroad and laboring under public cares, to be rebuked for this is an honor to me, not a grief. Pardon me, then, for giving thanks that you did not think me unworthy of your anger at my silence. For now I have trusted your kindness, in which you surpass even your high rank, that amid so many and such great affairs, not your own but public, that is, everyone’s, my letters can be not only not burdensome, indeed not merely incapable of being burdensome, but even welcome.

For when I received from the brothers a letter sent to me by the holy pope Innocent, venerable for his outstanding merits, which was shown by sure signs to have been given me through Your Excellency, I supposed that no page of yours had been brought with it because, occupied with weightier matters, you did not wish to be bound by the care of writing and replying. For it certainly seemed fitting that, since you deigned to convey to me the writings of so holy a man, so holy themselves, I should receive them with some of yours attached. So I had decided not to burden your mind with my letters unless it were necessary for commending someone to whom I could not refuse the duty of intercession, which is our usual habit of granting to everyone and a kind of profession, importunate perhaps but not to be disapproved. And so I did; for I commended a friend of mine to your kindness, from whom I have already received your reply, as he gives thanks, which I also give.

But if I thought anything evil of you, especially in the matter which your letter, though it did not name it, still breathed of, far be it from me to write to you anything of this kind in which I asked any favor for myself or anyone. For either I would have kept silent, waiting for a time when I could have you present, or, if I thought it must be dealt with by letter, I would rather have dealt with that, and in such a way that you could scarcely bear my grief. For it was for this reason that, after that man’s impious and cruel treachery (we had pressed him vehemently but in vain, with your concern shared with us, not to strike our hearts with that grief and slaughter his own conscience with so great a crime), I set out from Carthage at once, concealing my departure, lest the many important people who feared his sword even inside the church should hold me back with violent weeping and groaning, thinking that my presence could be of some use to them; so that I would be compelled to entreat for their bodies one whom I could not rebuke worthily enough for his soul. Yet the walls of the church protected their bodily safety well enough. But I was pressed by hard straits: he would not have allowed me to be what I ought to be, and besides I would have been forced to do what was not fitting. I also grieved deeply for my venerable fellow bishop, ruler of so great a church, whose duty it was said to be, after the man’s so wicked deceit, still to show himself humble toward him, so that the others might be spared. I confess it: since I could not have borne so great an evil with any strength of heart, I left.

This would be the reason for my silence toward you now, as it was then the reason for my departure, if I believed that you had persuaded him to avenge your injuries so wickedly. Those believe it who do not know how, how often, and what you said to us when we were working with anxious care to see that, the more intimately he was attached to you, the more often you came to him, the more often you spoke with him alone, the more he should take care for your reputation, so as not to give such an end to those who were said to be your enemies that you would be thought to have done nothing else with him. This neither I believe nor these brothers of mine who both heard in your speech and saw in your hearing and every movement the signs of your kindly heart. But, I beg you, pardon those who believe it; for they are men, and in the minds of men there are such hiding places and such recesses that all suspicious people, though they are rightly blamed, even think they deserve praise for being cautious. There were grounds: we knew that you had suffered a very grave injury from one of those whom he suddenly ordered to be arrested. His brother too, in whom he especially persecuted the Church, was said to have answered you somewhat harshly, as if on his brother’s behalf. Both were thought to be suspect to you. When, after being summoned, they had gone away, while you remained there and spoke with him more privately, as was reported, they were suddenly ordered to be detained. People spoke of your friendship as not recent but old. So close a connection and such constant private conversation, one with one, confirmed the report. His power was great then; slander was easy. It was no great matter to procure someone to say, on a promise of his own safety, what the other had ordered him to say. Everything at that time favored it, so that, even on one witness, as for an odious and credible crime, anyone could be done away with without risk to the one who ordered it.

Meanwhile, since there was a rumor that the hand of the Church might rescue them, we were deluded with false promises, so that, with him not only apparently willing but even urging it, a bishop was sent to the court on their behalf, with the promise put into the bishops’ ears that, until something was done for them there, no examination of their case would be held. Finally, the day before they were struck down, Your Excellency came to us. You gave us hope such as you had never given before, that he might grant them to you as you were setting out, since you had told him seriously and wisely that all his constant, intimate, and private conversation with you did not honor you but burdened you, and would have this effect, that no one would doubt that the plan of their death had been shared and discussed between you, if their death followed after all this. When you told us that you had said this, in the middle of your account you sprang up, stretched out your hands toward the place where the sacraments of the faithful are celebrated, and, while we were astonished, swore that you had said these things, in such a way that not only then but even now, after so horrible and unexpected an end, when I recall all your movements, I would seem to myself utterly shameless if I believed anything evil of you. You said that he was so moved by your words that you did not despair that he would grant you their safety as a kind of friendly parting gift.

So I confess to Your Affection that on the next day, when the wicked offspring of that labor was brought forth, and it was suddenly reported to us that they had been taken from prison before that judge, although we were alarmed, yet I, considering both what you had told us the day before and what day was to follow (since it was the eve of the feast of blessed Cyprian), thought he had even chosen the day on which he would both grant you your requests and, suddenly gladdening the whole Church of Christ, would go up to the place of so great a martyr more exalted by the kindness of sparing than by the power of killing; when, behold, a messenger burst in on us, from whom we learned that they had been struck down before we could ask how they were being heard. For a place had been provided close by, not set apart for the punishment of men but rather an ornament of the city, where, it is rightly believed, he had ordered some others to be put to death a few days before, so that there might be no invidious novelty in the case of these men, whom his plan was to be able to snatch from the Church by ordering them not only to be struck down suddenly but also in a nearby place. So he showed plainly enough that he did not fear to inflict torment on that mother whose intervention he feared, namely the holy Church, among whose faithful, baptized in her bosom, we knew him also to be. After the outcome, then, of so great a scheme, when we had been dealt with so carefully that even through you, though without your knowledge, we were almost secure and almost certain of their safety the day before, who among men such as the multitude are would not take it as beyond doubt that you too gave us words and took their lives? Therefore, as I said, good sir, even if we do not believe this, pardon those who do.

Far be it from my heart and from my life, such as it is, that I should intercede with you for anyone or ask a favor from you for anyone, if I believed you the author of this great evil and of so criminal a cruelty. But I plainly confess that, if even after this you are on the same intimate terms as before (let my grief be free, with your leave), you compel us to believe much that we do not wish to believe. Yet it is consistent that, as I do not believe those things of you, I should not believe this either. Your friend, by the unexpected success of sudden power, attacked their lives no more than your reputation. Nor, in saying this, do I inflame your hatred against him, forgetting my own mind and profession; rather I call you to a more faithful love. For he who deals with the wicked so that they repent of their wickedness knows how to help them even by indignation; for as the wicked harm by flattering, so the good help even by opposing. For with the same sword with which he so insolently killed others he struck his own soul more gravely and deeply, which after this life, unless he amends it by repentance and makes good use of God’s patience, he will be compelled to find and feel. And often, by the deep judgment of God, even the present life of the good is permitted to be snatched away by the wicked, so that suffering such things may not be thought an evil. For what harm can being killed in the flesh do to those who are going to die? Or what do those who fear to die achieve, except to die a little later? Whatever harms the dying comes from their life, not from their death; and if in that life they had souls such as Christian grace helps, their death was not the setting of a good life but the occasion of a better one.

The character of the elder brother indeed appeared more friendly to this world than to Christ, although he too had corrected his earlier youthful and worldly life in no small measure after he married. Yet perhaps the merciful God did not will him to be his brother’s companion in death except in mercy. But the other lived religiously and was much a Christian in heart and life. This reputation went before him, so that he came in the Church’s cause; it followed him when he had come. What uprightness in his conduct, what faithfulness in friendship, what zeal in learning, what sincerity in religion, what chastity in marriage, what restraint in judgment, what patience toward enemies, what affability toward friends, what humility toward the saints, what love toward all, what readiness in granting favors, what modesty in asking them, what love for right deeds, what grief for sins! What grace of honor, what splendor of charm, what care for piety, what mercy in helping, what kindness in forgiving, what confidence in praying! What he knew to profit, with what modesty he spoke it! What he did not know to his loss, with what diligence he searched into it! How great his contempt for present things, how great his hope and desire for eternal goods! Only the bond of marriage hindered him from leaving all secular business and taking up the belt of Christian service; already tied by it, he had begun to desire better things when it was no longer lawful to break those bonds, though they are lower.

One day, when they were already held in custody together, his brother said to him: “If I suffer these things for the deserts of my sins, you, whose life we know to be so attentively and fervently Christian, by what bad deserts have you been brought to this?” And he said: “Do you think it a small benefit conferred on me by God, if indeed your testimony about my life is true, that what I suffer, even if I suffer it to the shedding of blood, should be the punishment of my sins here, and they should not be reserved for me for the judgment to come?” Here perhaps someone may believe that he was conscious of some hidden sins of unchastity. I shall tell, then, what the Lord God willed me to hear from his mouth and know plainly, to my great comfort. When, being anxious about this very thing, as human beings are, I spoke with him alone when he was already in that custody, lest there should be anything for which he ought to appease God by a greater and more conspicuous penance, he, being of singular modesty, while blushing at my suspicion, false though it was, yet receiving my admonition most gratefully, smiled modestly and gravely and, taking my right hand in both his hands, said: “I call to witness the sacraments that are offered by this hand that I have known no intercourse except with my wife, either before or after.”

What evil, then, befell him in death, and not rather the greatest good, since, having these gifts, he departed this life to Christ, without whom they are possessed in vain? I would not mention these things to you if I believed you were offended by his praises; but as I do not believe this, neither, surely, do I believe that he could be killed, I do not say at your urging, but even with your wish or desire. Accordingly, you judge with us, the more sincerely the more innocently, that the other dealt more cruelly with his own soul than with this man’s body, when, despising us, despising his own promises, despising your many and great petitions and admonitions, despising finally the Church of Christ, and in her whom but Christ, he reached the end of this scheme of his by this death. Or is that man’s high office to be compared even with this man’s prison, when the one raged in his exaltation and the other rejoiced in his confinement? The conscience of a criminal surpasses in horrible and penal darkness not only all prisons but even hell. To you, too, what harm did he do? Though he gravely injured your reputation, he does not destroy your innocence; and indeed your reputation itself is safe both with those who know you better than we do, and with us ourselves, who saw your efforts with us to prevent so monstrous a crime expressed with such feeling that we almost saw with our eyes the invisible things of your heart. Whatever harm he did, then, he did to himself: he pierced his own soul, his own life, his own conscience, and finally laid waste by that blind cruelty his very reputation, which even the worst men usually desire to be good. For he is the more hateful to all good men the more he tried to please the wicked, or rejoiced in having pleased them.

But where could it appear more clearly that he did not have the necessity he pretended to have, so that under its cover he might do so great an evil as though a good man, than in the fact that it did not please even him by whose command he dared to excuse himself? Let the holy deacon Quintianus tell Your Excellency (for he had been attached to the bishop whom we had sent for them) how it was decided that not even a pardon should be given them, lest even so they be marked with some crime, but only an instruction ordering that they be released free from all trouble. By gratuitous cruelty, then, under no necessity (though there may perhaps have been other causes, which we suspect and which need not be committed to writing), he cruelly saddened the Church; to the bosom of that Church his brother, fearing to perish, had fled, only to find him alive as the counselor of so great a crime; and from that same Church he himself, when he had offended his patron, sought help, and it could not be denied him. If you love him, detest this; if you do not want him to be punished for ever, shrink from it. Thus must you provide for your reputation, thus for his life; for he who loves in him what God hates hates not only him but also himself.

This being so, I neither believe of your kindness that you were the author of or accomplice in so great a crime and deceived us with malicious cruelty (far be that from your life and character), nor do I want your friendship to be such that he may glory in his evil to his own destruction and human suspicion be confirmed, but rather such that he may be brought down to repentance, and to a repentance of such a kind and extent as so horrible wounds demand for medicine. For you will be the more his friend the more you are an enemy of his crimes. I would like to know from Your Excellency’s reply where you were on the day it was committed, how you took it, what you did afterward, whether you saw him, what you said to him, what you heard from him. For since I left there suddenly the next day, I have been able to hear nothing of you concerning this matter.

As for what I read in your letter, that you are now compelled to believe that I have denied myself to Carthage so as not to see you, by these words you rather compel me not to keep silent about the reasons for my absence. One of them is that I can no longer bear the labor that must be endured in that city (to explain which would need as much again as I have said), since to my own weakness, which is known to all who know me more intimately, old age too has been added, the common weakness of the human race. The other reason is that I have decided, if the Lord wills, to spend all the time left me by the other occupations which the needs of the church I serve by my own office demand on the labor of studies pertaining to the Church’s literature, in which I think, if it pleases the mercy of God, I may be of some use even to posterity.

There is one thing, if you want to hear the truth, that I take very hard in you: that, though you are of such an age and of such a life and uprightness, you still wish to be a catechumen, as if the faithful could not administer the state the more faithfully and well the more faithful and better they are. For what good do you do in all your great cares and labors except that it may be well with men? For if you do not do this, it would be better to sleep night and day than to stay awake in public labors that will be of no use to anyone. Nor do I doubt that Your Excellency, being prudent …

I have received the much-desired letter of Your Holiness through Boniface, a priest of the venerable law, whom I received and loved all the more because he had brought me what I longed for, the words of Your Holiness and news of your health, my lord justly venerable and singularly to be revered father. So he obtained without delay what he wished. But since an occasion has arisen, I do not want this very favor, small as it is, which I granted when urged, to remain without a reward. For I wish to receive a reward that benefits me without loss to the one who pays it, indeed that benefits me with glory to the one who pays it. You say that it is the duty of your priesthood to intercede for the guilty, and that you are offended if you do not obtain it, as though you did not carry off what belonged to your duty. Here I am very doubtful whether this comes from religion. For if sins are so forbidden by the Lord that not even the opportunity of repentance is granted after the first, how can we contend on religious grounds that a crime, whatever it may be, should be remitted for our sake, which, when we wish it unpunished, we certainly approve? And if it is agreed that in all sins the one who approves is held no less guilty than the one who commits, it is certain that we are bound in partnership in the guilt whenever we wish him to go unpunished who is liable to the guilt. Then there is something further, which is more serious. For all sins seem more pardonable when the guilty person promises amendment; but now, as our ways are, people both want the punishment of their crime remitted and to keep what they committed the crime to gain. Your priesthood thinks it should intercede even for those of whom there is so little hope for the future that even in the present the same motive of the crime persists; for he who so obstinately keeps what he committed the crime for shows that, when he is allowed, he will commit similar sins.

For these reasons, then, I consult your wisdom and wish to be freed from this doubt that troubles me; and do not think you are consulted for any other reason. For my part, my intention is even to give thanks to intercessors, especially of such merit as yours. For many things which I do not wish to seem to do of my own accord, lest a relaxation of severity arm others for crimes, I wish to remit at the request of good intercessors, so that what I grant gladly may seem, with the severity of judgment preserved, granted for the merit of another. May the eternal Godhead keep Your Holiness safe for a very long age, my lord venerable and truly to be revered father. You had promised me some of the writings of Your Holiness, and I have not received them; I ask you to send them at least now and to reply to this letter of mine, so that, since it is not granted me to see Your Holiness for the present, I may at least be fed by your words.

You are a man exceedingly busy in public affairs and most attentive to the interests not of yourself but of others; that you are such a man we congratulate both you and the human race. We ought neither to leave you without an answer nor to take up your time with a preface. Receive, then, what you wished either to learn through me or to test whether I knew it myself. If you had judged it small or superfluous, you would by no means have thought it worth attending to amid your many great and necessary cares. You ask me why we say that it belongs to the duty of our priesthood to intercede for the accused, and to be offended if we do not obtain our request, as though we were failing to carry off what belonged to our duty. On this point you say you are very much in doubt whether this comes down from religion. Then you add the reason why you are troubled: "For if sins are so prohibited by the Lord," you say, "that not even the opportunity of repentance is granted after the first, how can we contend on grounds of religion that a crime, whatever it may have been, should be remitted at our request?" You press still harder and say that we approve what we wish to go unpunished; and if it is agreed that in all wrongdoing the one who approves is held liable no less than the one who does it, it is certain that we are bound by a share in the guilt whenever we wish a man to go unpunished who is held answerable for guilt.

Whom would you not frighten with these words, if he did not know your gentleness and humanity? We, therefore, who know you and have no doubt that you wrote these things for the sake of inquiring, not of deciding, answer them the more quickly with other words of your own. For as though you did not want us to hesitate over this question, you either foresaw what we would say or reminded us of what we ought to say. You said: "Then besides there is this, which is weightier: for all sins seem more pardonable when the one who is guilty promises amendment." Before I discuss what that weightier matter is which follows in your letter, I shall meanwhile accept what you have granted and use it to remove this great obstacle by which our intercessions seemed liable to be checked. For this is precisely why we intercede, as far as opportunity allows, for all sins: because all sins seem more pardonable when the one who is guilty promises amendment. This is your opinion, and this is ours too.

In no way, then, do we approve the faults we wish to see corrected, nor do we wish what is wrongly done to go unpunished because it pleases us; but pitying the man while detesting the crime or the vice, the more the vice displeases us, the less we wish the vicious man to perish unamended. For it is easy and natural to hate the wicked because they are wicked, but rare and godly to love the same people because they are human beings, so that in one and the same person you at once disapprove the fault and approve the nature, and hate the fault the more justly because it defiles the nature which you love. He, therefore, is bound not by a fellowship of wickedness but rather of humanity who prosecutes the crime in order to set the man free. Moreover, there is no other place for amending conduct than in this life; for after it each will have what he has gained for himself in it. That is why we are compelled by love for the human race to intercede for the accused, so that they may not end this life by punishment in such a way that, once it is ended, they cannot end their punishment.

Do not doubt, then, that this duty of ours comes down from religion, since God, with whom there is no iniquity, whose power is supreme, who sees not only what each person is but also foresees what he will be, who alone cannot err in judging because he cannot be deceived in knowing, nevertheless, as the gospel says, makes his sun rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust. Exhorting us to imitate this wonderful goodness of his, the Lord Christ says: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust." Who does not know that many abuse this divine indulgence and gentleness to their own ruin? Reproving and sharply rebuking them, the apostle says: "Do you suppose, O man, whoever you are, who judge those who do such things and do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and patience and long-suffering? Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to the hardness of your heart and your impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works." Because these people persevere in their wickedness, does God therefore not persevere in his patience, punishing very few in this world, lest divine providence be thought not to exist, and keeping many for the final examination, so that the judgment to come may be commended?

The heavenly Teacher does not, I think, command us to love impiety when he commands us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to pray for those who persecute us, since without doubt, if we worship God piously, we can have no enemies, inflamed against us with the bitterest hatred, and no persecutors except the impious. Are the impious, then, to be loved? Is good to be done to the impious? Must we even pray for the impious? Plainly, yes. For the one who commands this is God; and yet he does not by this means join us to the fellowship of the impious, with whom he himself is certainly not associated by sparing them and lavishing life and health on them. His purpose, so far as it has been given a godly man to know it, is set out by the apostle when he says: "Do you not know that the patience of God leads you to repentance?" It is to this repentance that we wish those for whom we intercede to be led; we neither spare nor favor their sins.

For some whose crimes are manifest, once freed from your severity, we nevertheless remove from the fellowship of the altar, so that by repenting and punishing themselves they may appease him whom they had despised by sinning. For the one who truly repents does nothing else than refuse to let what he has done wrong go unpunished. In this way he whose deep and just judgment no despiser escapes spares the one who does not spare himself. But if God, by sparing the unjust and the wicked and lavishing life and health on them, shows patience even to many of them whom he knows will not repent, how much more ought we to be merciful toward those who promise amendment, though we are uncertain whether they will do what they promise, so that we bend your rigor by interceding for them, for whom we also pray to God, from whom nothing of their conduct, even in the future, is hidden; and we do so not shamelessly, since he himself has commanded it!

Human wickedness, however, sometimes goes so far that even after penance has been performed, after reconciliation at the altar, people commit similar or worse sins; and yet God makes his sun rise even on such people and grants them no less than he granted before the most generous gifts of life and health. And although that place of penance is not granted them in the church, God nevertheless does not forget his patience toward them. If one of their number should say to us: "Either give me that same place of penance again, or declare me hopeless, so that I may do whatever I please, as far as my wealth helps me and human laws do not forbid me, among prostitutes and in every kind of luxury, damnable indeed before God but even praised by most men; or if you call me back from this wickedness, tell me whether it will profit me anything for the life to come if in this life I despise the allurements of most seductive pleasure, if I bridle the incitements of lust, if to chastise my body I deny myself many things that are even lawful and permitted, if I torment myself in repentance more vehemently than before, if I groan more piteously, weep more abundantly, live better, support the poor more generously, burn more ardently with the love that covers a multitude of sins" — which of us is so foolish as to say to this man: "None of these things will profit you hereafter; go, at least enjoy the sweetness of this life"? God forbid such monstrous and sacrilegious madness! Although, then, it has been prudently and wholesomely provided that the place of that most humble penance is granted only once in the church, lest the medicine, being cheap, be less useful to the sick (for it will be the more wholesome the less contemptible it is), yet who would dare to say to God: "Why do you spare this man yet again, who after his first penance binds himself once more in the snares of iniquity?" Who would dare to say that what the apostle says is not done toward such people: "Do you not know that the patience of God leads you to repentance?" Or that they have been specifically excepted from what is written: "Blessed are all who trust in him," or that what is said does not apply to them: "Act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, all you who hope in the Lord"?

Since, then, God's patience and mercy toward sinners are so great that those who amend their conduct in this temporal life are not condemned for eternity, although he expects mercy from no one, since no one is happier, no one more powerful, no one more just than he, what ought we to be as men toward men, who, however much praise we heap upon this life of ours, do not say that it is without sin, because, if we say so, as it is written, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us? Accordingly, although the role of accuser is one thing, that of defender another, that of intercessor another, and that of judge another (to discuss their proper duties in this letter would be too long and unnecessary), yet divine censure has so frightened even those who avenge crimes, and who in this office are moved not by their own anger but are ministers of the laws, avengers not of their own injuries but of others' injuries duly examined, as judges ought to be, that they should reflect that they need God's mercy because of their own sins, and should not think it a fault in their office if they act mercifully toward those over whose life and death they hold lawful power.

For when the Jews had brought to the Lord Christ a woman caught in adultery, and, testing him, said that the law commanded her to be stoned, and then asked what he himself prescribed concerning her, he answered them: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Thus he neither disapproved the law, which commanded that women guilty of this be put to death, and by terrifying them he recalled to mercy those by whose sentence she could be put to death. I think that when this saying of the Lord was heard, if the husband himself was also present, who was demanding vengeance for the violated faith of his marriage bed, he was terrified and turned his mind from the desire for revenge to the will to spare. For how was the accuser admonished not to pursue his own injuries, when the judges themselves, who in punishing an adulteress were compelled to serve not private grief but the law, were thus restrained from avenging! Hence Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary, the mother of the Lord, had been betrothed, when he found her pregnant, though he knew he had not had intercourse with her, and for this reason believed nothing else than that she was an adulteress, nevertheless did not wish her to be punished, yet was not an approver of the crime. For this will of his is even counted as righteousness, for so it is written of him: "And since he was a just man and did not wish to expose her, he resolved to put her away secretly." While he was thinking of this, an angel appeared to him to teach him that what he had thought a crime was the work of divine power.

If, then, when the common weakness is considered, both the accuser's indignation and the judge's rigor are broken, what do you think the duty of a defender or an intercessor ought to be on behalf of the accused, seeing that you good men, who are now judges and once practiced in the forum and took up people's cases, know how much more gladly you used to defend than to accuse? And yet a defender differs greatly from an intercessor: the former spends his effort chiefly in refuting or concealing the charges, whereas the intercessor, even when the guilt is established, takes care to have the penalty removed or lessened. This is what the righteous do before God for sinners; this sinners are admonished to do for one another, for it is written: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another." Every human being claims these offices of humanity for himself before another wherever he can. For what each would punish if it were committed in his own house, he wants left unpunished in another's house. Whether he is called in by a friend, or the friend grows angry in his presence with someone over whom he has the power of punishment, or he happens upon him in his anger, he is judged not most just but most inhuman if he does not intervene. I know that you yourself, with other friends of yours, interceded in the church of Carthage for a cleric with whom the bishop was justly angry; and certainly no danger of bloodshed was feared there, only a bloodless discipline. Yet when you wished what displeased even you to go unpunished, we did not judge you approvers of the offense but listened to you as most humane intercessors. If, then, it is right for you to soften the correction of the church by interceding, how much more ought a bishop to intercede against your sword, since the one is drawn so that the person against whom it is drawn may live well, the other so that he may not live!

Finally, the Lord himself interceded with men so that the adulteress would not be stoned, and in this way commended to us the duty of intercession, except that he did by terrifying what we do by asking. For he is the Lord; we are servants. Yet he so terrified them that all of us ought to fear. For which of us is without sin? When he had said to those who were bringing the sinful woman to him to be punished that whoever knew himself to be without sin should be the first to throw a stone at her, their savagery fell as their conscience trembled; for then, slipping away from that gathering, they left the wretched woman alone with the Merciful One. Let the piety of Christians yield to this saying, to which the impiety of the Jews yielded; let the humility of the obedient yield to it, to which the pride of persecutors yielded; let the confession of the faithful yield to it, to which the pretense of the tempter yielded. Spare the wicked, good sir; the better you are, the gentler be; the higher you are in power, the humbler become in piety.