Letters 47.1–51.5

Once I learned from your letter of the agitation of your mind, it at once became mine too; not that I was disturbed by all such things as you said had disturbed you, but I confess that I was agitated about how this agitation might be taken from you, especially since you ask me to write back definitely, lest you fall into greater doubts than before you asked. For I see that this is not in my power. However I write what seem to me most certain things, if I do not persuade you, you will no doubt be more uncertain. But it is not in my power to persuade anyone in the same way as it is to advise. Nevertheless, so as not to refuse your Affection my small service, after some deliberation I thought I should reply.

What troubles you, surely, is whether one may make use of the good faith of a man who has sworn by demons that he will keep it. Here I want you first to consider whether, if someone swore by false gods that he would keep faith and did not keep it, he would not seem to you to have sinned twice. For if he kept the faith promised by such an oath, he would be judged to have sinned only in swearing by such gods; but no one would rightly blame him for keeping faith. As it is, since he both swore by those by whom he ought not and acted against his promised faith, which he ought not, he has certainly sinned twice. And so one who makes use of the good faith of a man known to have sworn by false gods, and makes use of it not for an evil but for a lawful and good purpose, does not associate himself with his sin of swearing by demons, but with his good agreement by which he kept faith. Nor do I mean here the faith by which those who are baptized in Christ are called the faithful; for that is something far different and far removed from the faith of human agreements and compacts. Yet without any doubt it is a lesser evil to swear truly by a false god than falsely by the true God. For the holier that by which one swears, the more punishable the perjury. It is another question, then, whether one does not sin who has someone swear to him by false gods, since the one who swears to him worships false gods. To this question the testimonies you yourself mentioned of Laban and Abimelech can lend support, if indeed Abimelech swore by his gods as Laban did by the god of Nahor. This, as I said, is another question, which might perhaps rightly trouble me if those examples of Isaac and Jacob, and any others that can be found, had not occurred to me; unless perhaps what still troubles you is that it was said in the New Testament that we should not swear at all. This seems to me to have been said not because swearing truly is a sin, but because perjury is a monstrous sin, from which he wished us to be far removed who warned us not to swear at all. But I know that you think otherwise, so this is not to be argued now, so that we may rather deal with what you thought you should consult me about. Accordingly, just as you do not swear, so neither compel another to swear, if you think fit; although it is said that we should not swear, I do not remember reading anywhere in the holy Scriptures that we should not accept an oath from another. But it is another question whether we ought to enjoy the peace made between others who swear to one another. If we refuse, I do not know whether we could find anywhere on earth to live. For peace is secured by barbarian oaths not only for the frontier but for whole provinces. From that it would follow that not only the crops guarded by those who have sworn by false gods, but everything everywhere protected by the peace which that oath confirms, would be defiled. If that is utterly absurd to say, let the things that troubled you trouble you no longer.

Likewise, if something is taken from a threshing floor or wine-press for sacrifices to demons with a Christian's knowledge, he sins if he allows it to be done where he has the power to prevent it. If he learns that it has been done, or did not have the power to prevent it, he uses the rest of the produce, from which those things were taken, as clean, just as we use springs from which we know for certain that water is drawn for use in sacrifices. The same reasoning applies to baths. For we do not hesitate to draw breath from the air into which we know the smoke goes from all the altars and incense of demons. From this it appears that what is forbidden is that we should use anything in honour of alien gods, or be thought to use it, by accepting it in such a way that, though we despise them in our mind, we nevertheless lead on to honour these things those who do not know our mind. And when temples, idols, groves, and anything of the kind are overthrown by permission granted, although it is plain that when we do this we do not honour but rather detest them, we nevertheless ought not to take anything from them for our private and personal uses, so that it may be evident that we destroy them out of piety, not avarice. But when they are turned to common uses, not personal and private, or to the honour of the true God, the same is done with them as with men themselves when they are changed from sacrilegious and ungodly into the true religion. This is what God is understood to have taught by those testimonies which you yourself cited, when he commanded wood from the grove of alien gods to be used for a burnt offering, and that all the gold, silver, and bronze of Jericho should be brought into the treasuries of the Lord. Hence also what is written in Deuteronomy: 'You shall not covet their silver or gold, nor take any of it for yourself, lest you go astray because of it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God; and you shall not bring an accursed thing into your house and become accursed like it; you shall surely be offended and surely defiled by that abomination, because it is accursed.' It is clear enough that either private uses of such things are forbidden, or bringing anything from them into the house in such a way that it is honoured. For then it is an abomination and an accursed thing; not when, in such things, sacrilegious honour is overthrown by the plainest destruction.

As for food offered to idols, be assured that we ought to observe nothing more than what the apostle commanded. So recall his words on this matter; if they were obscure we would explain them as far as we are able. One who afterwards unknowingly eats food which he earlier refused as offered to idols does not sin. Vegetables or any fruit growing in any field belong to him who created them, because the earth is the Lord's and its fullness, and every creature of God is good. But if what grows in the fields is consecrated to an idol or sacrificed, then it is to be counted among things offered to idols. For we must beware lest, if we thought that vegetables growing in the garden of an idol's temple should not be eaten, it should follow that we should think the apostles ought not to have taken food at Athens, because the city belonged to Minerva and was consecrated to her divinity. I would answer the same about a well or spring that is in a temple. It is indeed more troubling if something from the sacrifices is thrown into a spring or well. But the same reasoning applies to the air, which receives all that smoke of which we spoke above. Or, if this is thought to differ because the sacrifice whose smoke mingles with the air is offered not to the air itself but to some idol or demon, whereas sacrifices are sometimes thrown into waters so that the waters themselves receive the sacrifice: we certainly do not refrain from using the light of this sun because sacrilegious men do not cease to sacrifice to it wherever they can. Sacrifice is also offered to the winds, which we nevertheless use for so many of our conveniences, though they seem in a way to drink in and devour the smoke of those same sacrifices. If someone doubts whether some meat has been sacrificed, and it has not, and he holds to the thought that it has not and eats it, he certainly does not sin, because it neither is nor is any longer thought to be sacrificed, even if it was thought so before. For it is not forbidden to correct one's thoughts from falsehood to truth. But if someone thinks that what is bad is good and does it, he certainly sins in thinking so. And all these are sins of ignorance, when someone thinks that what is done badly is done well.

As for killing men so as not to be killed by them, I do not approve of this counsel, unless perhaps one is a soldier or bound by public office, so that he does it not for himself but for others, or for the city where he too lives, having received lawful authority, if it befits his position. Those who are driven back by some fear from doing evil are perhaps even being done some good. But the saying 'Let us not resist evil' was spoken so that revenge, which feeds the mind on another's harm, may not delight us; not so that we may neglect the correction of men. Hence neither is a man guilty of another's death who has built a wall around his property, if someone perishes, struck in the course of its use. For a Christian is not guilty if his ox kills someone by goring or his horse by kicking; or else Christians ought not to have oxen with horns, or horses with hooves, or dogs with teeth. Or indeed, since the apostle Paul took care that the plot being prepared against him by certain abandoned men should be brought to the tribune's notice, and on that account received an armed escort, if those criminals had fallen upon those arms, would Paul have recognized the shedding of their blood as his own crime? Far be it that what we do or have for a good and lawful purpose should be imputed to us, if through it some harm befalls anyone against our will. Otherwise we should have no household or farm tools, lest someone kill himself or another with them; no tree or rope, lest someone hang himself from it; no window should be made, lest someone throw himself out through it. Why should I mention more, when I could not finish mentioning them? For what is there in good and lawful human use from which destruction cannot also be brought?

It remains, unless I am mistaken, for us to say something about that Christian traveller whom you mentioned, overcome by the necessity of hunger: if he finds nothing anywhere but food placed in an idol's temple, where no other person is, whether it is better for him to die of hunger than to take it as nourishment. In this question, since it does not follow that that food was offered to an idol (for it could have been left, by forgetfulness or on purpose, by people who had turned aside there from their journey to refresh themselves, or placed there for some other reason), I answer briefly. Either it is certain that it was offered to an idol, or it is certain that it was not, or it is unknown. If it is certain that it was, it is better refused with Christian courage; but if it is known that it was not, or it is unknown, it may be taken for necessity without any scruple of conscience.

When we think of the quiet which you have in Christ, we too, though we are engaged in various and harsh labours, rest in your love. For we are one body under one head, so that you are busy in us and we are at leisure in you; because if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. We therefore admonish, ask, and beseech you, by the most lofty humility and most merciful loftiness of Christ, to remember us in your holy prayers, which we believe you offer with more wakefulness and sobriety; for ours are often wounded and weakened by the darkness and tumult of secular business. Though this business is not our own, yet so much is heaped on us by those who press us to go a mile with them, and we are commanded to go with them another two, that we can scarcely breathe; trusting, however, that he before whom the groaning of the prisoners comes will, with the help of your prayers, free us from all distress if we persevere in the ministry in which he has deigned to place us, with the reward he has promised.

But you, brothers, we exhort in the Lord to keep your resolve and persevere to the end; and if mother church should desire any work of yours, neither to take it up with eager pride nor to refuse it from flattering sloth, but to obey God with a gentle heart, bearing with meekness him who rules you, who guides the meek in judgement and will teach the gentle his ways. Nor prefer your own leisure to the needs of the church; for if no good men were willing to serve her when she was in labour, you would not have found how to be born. And just as a path must be kept between fire and water, so that a man is neither burned nor drowned, so we must steer our course between the peak of pride and the whirlpool of sloth, as it is written: 'Turning aside neither to the right hand nor to the left.' For there are some who, while fearing too much to be swept off as it were to the right and lifted up, slip to the left and are drowned; and again there are some who, while withdrawing too far from the left lest they be swallowed by the sluggish softness of idleness, on the other side are corrupted and consumed by the arrogance of boasting and vanish into smoke and ashes. So, dearly beloved, love leisure in such a way that you restrain yourselves from all earthly delight, and remember that there is no place where he cannot set snares who fears that we may fly back to God, and who is the enemy of all good, whose captives we were; and think that there is no perfect rest for us until iniquity passes away and justice is turned into judgement.

Likewise, when you do anything vigorously and eagerly and work tirelessly, whether in prayers or fasts or almsgiving, either giving something to the needy or forgiving injuries, as God in Christ has forgiven us; or subduing harmful habits and chastising the body and bringing it into subjection; or bearing tribulation, and above all bearing with one another in love (for what will he bear who does not bear with his brother?); or watching for the cunning and snares of the tempter and repelling and extinguishing his fiery darts with the shield of faith; or singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, or with voices not out of tune with the heart: do all things to the glory of God, who works all in all, and be so fervent in spirit that your soul may make its boast in the Lord. For that is the action of the right road which always has its eyes on the Lord, since he will pluck one's feet out of the snare. Such action is neither broken by business nor cold in leisure, neither turbulent nor languid, neither rash nor timid, neither headlong nor sluggish. Do these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Let your Charity not think me tiresome because I wished to speak with you, even by letter. For I have not advised you of this because I think you do not do it; but I believed that I would be commended to God by you not a little if you did what you do by his gift with remembrance of our words to you. For both earlier by report, and now through the brothers who have come from you, Eustasius and Andrew, the good odour of Christ from your holy way of life has reached us. Of these, Eustasius has gone before into that rest which is not beaten by any waves like an island, and does not long for Capraria, since he no longer seeks to be clothed in sackcloth.

Your proposal pleased us very much, which you were good enough to send by brother Heros, a man very dear to us and praiseworthy in Christ: that we should carry on our discussion by letter, where no tumult of crowds can disturb our arrangement, which must be undertaken and conducted in all peace and gentleness of mind, as the apostle says: 'The servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, correcting in modesty those who think otherwise.' So we indicate briefly what we wish you to answer.

Since we see the church of him whose church is called Catholic spread throughout the world, as was prophesied of it, we think that we ought not to doubt so very evident a fulfilment of holy prophecy, which the Lord also confirmed in the gospel, and the apostles, through whom that same church was spread, as had been foretold of it. For at the head of the most holy Psalter it is written of the Son of God: 'The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession.' And the Lord Jesus Christ himself says that his gospel will be among all nations. And the apostle Paul, before the word of God had reached Africa, at the very head of the letter he writes to the Romans, says: 'Through whom we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among all nations for his name's sake.' Then he himself preached the gospel from Jerusalem round about through all Asia as far as Illyricum, establishing and founding churches; not he himself, but the grace of God with him, as he testifies. What can appear more evident than when we find in his letters even the names of regions and cities? He writes to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Colossians; John also writes to seven churches, which he mentions as established in those parts, in which we understand the universal church to be signified by the number seven: Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamum, Thyatira. It is plain that we are in communion with all these churches today, as it is plain that you are not in communion with them.

We ask you, then, not to be reluctant to answer us: what reason do you perhaps know for its having happened that Christ lost his inheritance spread throughout the world and that it suddenly remained among the Africans alone, and not even among all of them? For the Catholic Church is also in Africa, because God willed and foretold that it should be in all lands. But your party, which is called Donatus's, is not in all those places where the letters, the preaching, and the deeds of the apostles ran their course. And so that you may not say that our church is not called Catholic but Macarian, as you call it, you ought to know, as you very easily can, that in all those regions from which the gospel of Christ flowed into these lands, neither the name of Donatus nor the name of Macarius is known; but yours, since it is called the party of Donatus, you cannot deny, and it is known to all wherever your communion exists. Please write back, then, so that we may know how it could happen that Christ lost his church from the whole world and began to have it in you alone. For it is for you to show this; for us it is enough for our case that we see the prophecy and the holy Scriptures fulfilled throughout the world. I, Augustine, have dictated this because I have long wished to speak with you about it; for it seems to me that, if only because we are neighbours, we can confer by letter on this matter without any tumult, with God's help, as far as the need itself requires.

The most notorious crime of your savagery and your unheard-of cruelty shake the earth and strike heaven, so that blood shines and murder resounds in your streets and shrines. Among you the Roman laws have been buried, the fear of upright courts trampled underfoot, and there is certainly no reverence or fear of the emperors. Among you the innocent blood of sixty of our brothers has been shed, and whoever killed the most has been rewarded with praise and has held the first place in your council. Come now, let us come to the principal cause. If you say Hercules is yours, we will certainly give him back: metals are at hand, nor is stone lacking; there are also kinds of marble, and plenty of craftsmen. Your god, moreover, will be carefully sculpted, turned, and adorned; we will add red ochre too, to paint the blush with which your sacred vows may sound. For if you say Hercules is yours, we will each contribute a coin and buy you a god from your craftsman. Give back, then, the lives which your savage hand has wrung out; and as your Hercules is given back by us, so let the lives of so many be given back by you.

Since your people find fault with our humility, I have headed this letter as I have; I would seem to have done this as an insult to you, were it not that I expect you to write back to me in the same way. As for your promise at Carthage, or our insistence, why should I say much? However we handled those things, let them pass, so that they may not hinder what remains. Now, unless I am mistaken, there is no excuse, with the Lord's help: we are both in Numidia and near each other in place. Report has brought me word that you still wish to try the question that divides our communion with me in debate. See how briefly all evasions can be removed: answer this letter, if you please, and perhaps it will be enough not only for us but for those who wish to hear us; or, if it is not enough, letters and replies will be repeated until it is. For what more convenient arrangement can the great nearness of the cities we live in provide for us? For I have resolved to deal with you on this matter only by letters, so that nothing, as they say, may slip from the memory of either of us, and so that those interested in such things who perhaps cannot be present may not be cheated. Those of you who wish are accustomed to throw out falsehoods about past events, perhaps not from a desire to lie but by error. So, if you please, let us measure those by present events. Surely you are aware that in the times of the former people both the sacrilege of idolatry was committed and the book of the prophet was burned by a contemptuous king; and the evil of schism would not have been punished more terribly than either crime unless it had been weighed as graver. You certainly remember how the earth opened and swallowed alive the authors of schism, and fire falling from heaven consumed those who had agreed with them. Neither the idol made and worshipped nor the sacred book burned was punished in this way.

Why, then, do you, who are accustomed to charge us with the crimes of those who, driven by fear of persecution, handed over the Lord's books to be burned (crimes not proved against our people, but rather proved against yours), why have you received back, in the very same episcopal rank in which you condemned them, those whom you condemned for the crime of schism 'by the truthful mouth of your plenary council', as it is written there? I mean Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras. For they were not, as you tell the ignorant, of the number of those to whom your council had extended and fixed a date, by which, unless they returned to your communion, they would be bound by the same sentence; they were of the number of those whom you condemned without delay on the very day you gave the others a delay. I will prove it if you deny it; your council speaks; we have in our hands the proconsular records, in which you cited it more than once. Prepare another defence, then, if you can, so that we may not waste time while you deny what I will prove. If Felicianus and Praetextatus were innocent, why were they condemned so? If criminals, why were they received back so? If you prove them innocent, why should we not believe that innocent men could be condemned on a false charge of handing over by your predecessors, who were far fewer, if innocent men could be condemned on a false charge of schism by three hundred and ten of their successors, where it is even written in grand style, 'by the truthful mouth of a plenary council'? But if you prove that they were rightly condemned, what defence remains for their being received back in the same episcopal rank, except that, enlarging on the usefulness and wholesomeness of peace, you show that even such things are to be tolerated for the bond of unity? If only you did this with the strength of your heart and not of your mouth! You would surely see that the peace of Christ throughout the world must not be violated by any slanders, if in Africa even men condemned for sacrilegious schism may be received back in the very same episcopal rank for the peace of Donatus.

Likewise you are accustomed to charge us with persecuting you through earthly powers. On this I do not argue either what you deserve for the enormity of so great a sacrilege, or how much Christian gentleness restrains us. I say this: if this is a crime, why did you pursue those same Maximianists vigorously through judges sent by those emperors whom our communion begot through the gospel, and drive them out of the basilicas they held, in which the split itself found them, by the din of lawsuits, the power of orders, and the onslaught of armed help? What they suffered in each place in that conflict, the fresh traces of the events attest; what was ordered, the documents show; what was done, the lands cry out, in which even the holy memory of that tribune of yours, Optatus, is proclaimed.

Likewise you are accustomed to say that we do not have the baptism of Christ and that it exists nowhere outside your communion. I could argue this at some length. But against you there is now no need, since together with Felicianus and Praetextatus you have received the baptism of the Maximianists too. For all whom they baptized while they were in communion with Maximian, at a time when you were trying to expel these very men by name, Felicianus and Praetextatus, from their basilicas by a long conflict in the courts, as the records testify, all whom they baptized at that time they now have with themselves and with you, not only in the dangers of sickness but also at the Easter solemnities, in so many churches belonging to their cities, and in those great cities themselves: people baptized outside in the crime of schism, of whom none has had baptism repeated. And would that you could prove that those whom Felicianus and Praetextatus had baptized outside in the crime of schism, as if in vain, were baptized again inside, as if usefully, by these men after they had been received back! For if these needed to be baptized again, those needed to be ordained again; for they had lost the episcopate by departing from you, if they could not baptize outside your communion. For if in departing they had not lost the episcopate, they could certainly baptize; but if they had lost it, then, so that what they had lost might be restored to them, they ought to have been ordained when they returned. But do not fear: just as it is certain that they returned with the same episcopate with which they had gone out, so it is certain that all whom they baptized in the schism of Maximian were reconciled to your communion without any repetition of baptism.

With what tears, then, can we lament enough that the baptism of the Maximianists is received and the baptism of the whole world is exorcized with breath? Whether you condemned Felicianus and Praetextatus heard or unheard, justly or unjustly, tell me: what bishop of the Corinthians did any of you hear or condemn? Of the Galatians, of the Ephesians, of the Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, and all the other cities of which it was said: 'All the families of the nations shall worship before him'? So the baptism of these men is accepted and that of those is exorcized, though it belongs neither to these nor to those, but to him of whom it was said: 'This is he who baptizes.' But I am not arguing from that; turn to what is at hand, the things that strike even blind eyes. Look: the condemned have baptism, and the unheard do not! Those expressly named and cast out for the crime of schism have it, and the unknown, far-off strangers, never accused, never judged, do not! Those who were cut off again from a part of Africa already cut off have it, and those from whom the gospel itself came to Africa do not! Why burden you with more? Answer these things. Consider the sacrilege of schism magnified by your council against the Maximianists; consider the persecutions you inflicted on them through judicial powers; consider their baptism, which you received together with those you condemned; and answer, if you can, whether you have anything by which to cast mist over the ignorant, explaining why you are separated from the whole world by a far greater crime of schism than that which you boast of having condemned in the Maximianists. May the peace of Christ conquer in your heart.