Letters 9.1–15.2

Although you know my mind, perhaps you do not know how much I long to enjoy your presence. But God will grant this great benefit some day. I have read your latest letter, in which you complained of solitude and of being in a sense deserted by your intimate friends, with whom life is sweetest. But what else should I say to you here, except what I do not doubt you are doing? Withdraw into your mind and lift it up to God as far as you can. For there you possess us too more surely, not through bodily images, which we must now use in our remembering, but through that thought by which you understand that we are together, not by place.

As I was considering your letters, in which I have certainly answered great questions you asked, I was greatly alarmed by the one in which you ask how it comes about that certain thoughts and dreams are put into us by the higher powers or by demons. For it is a great matter, and you too, with your prudence, see that it must be answered not by a letter but either by conversation in person or by some book. Yet, knowing your gifts, I will try to sow beforehand some lights on this question, so that you may either weave the rest together yourself or at least not despair that a probable investigation of so great a matter can be reached.

For I think that every motion of the mind produces something in the body, and that this reaches our senses, dull and slow as they are, when the motions of the mind are greater, as when we are angry or sad or joyful. From this we may infer that, even when we think something and it does not appear to us in our body, it can nevertheless appear to living beings of air or ether, whose perception is extremely sharp, so that in comparison ours should not even be thought perception. So the traces, so to speak, of its motion which the mind fixes in the body can both remain and form a kind of habit; and when these are secretly stirred and handled, they bring thoughts and dreams to us according to the will of the one stirring and handling them; and this happens with wonderful ease. For if it is clear that the movements of our earthly and very slow bodies have achieved certain incredible feats in playing musical instruments, or in the tightrope walker and countless other spectacles of this kind, it is in no way absurd that those who act with an airy or ethereal body on bodies, which by the order of nature they penetrate, should have far greater ease in moving whatever they wish, without our perceiving it and yet with our undergoing something as a result. For neither do we perceive how an abundance of bile drives us to more frequent anger, and yet it does drive us, though this very abundance of which I spoke was produced by our being angry.

But if you do not want to accept this comparison of ours in passing, turn it over in your thought as much as you can. For if the mind constantly meets some difficulty in doing and accomplishing what it desires, it is constantly angry. Now anger, as far as my opinion goes, is a turbulent desire to remove the things that hinder ease of action. So very often in writing we are angry not only with people but with the pen, and crush and break it; and gamblers are angry with their dice, painters with their brush, and anyone with any instrument from which he thinks he is suffering difficulty. Physicians also affirm that bile increases through this constant anger. And with the increase of bile we again become angry easily and almost without cause. So what the mind has done in the body by its motion will have the power to move it again in turn.

These things could be treated at great length and brought to more certain and fuller knowledge by many testimonies from the facts. But add to this letter the one I recently sent you about images and memory, and study it more carefully; for it seemed to me from your reply that you had understood it less than fully. So when you have added to this letter, which you are now reading, what was said there about a certain natural faculty of the mind that diminishes and increases anything in thought, perhaps it will no longer trouble you how it comes about that forms of bodies which we have never seen are pictured within us, whether in thinking or in dreaming.

None of your questions has ever held me so agitated in thought as what I read in your latest letter, where you accuse us of neglecting to arrange that we may live together. A great charge, and, if it were not false, a most dangerous one. But since a very probable reason seems to show that we can live as we wish here rather than at Carthage or even in the country, I am quite uncertain what to do about you, my Nebridius. Should a carriage best suited to you be sent to you? For our Lucinianus assures me that you can travel without harm in a litter. But I think of your mother: as she could not bear your absence when you were well, she will much less bear it when you are ill. Should I come to you myself? But there are people here who cannot come with me and whom I would think it wrong to desert. For you can dwell pleasantly even within your own mind; but for them to be able to do the same, effort is still being made. Should I go and return often, and be now with you, now with them? But that is to live neither together nor as we wish. For the road is not short, but so long that to undertake the business of travelling it often would not be to reach the leisure we desire. Add to this the weakness of my body, by which I too, as you know, cannot do what I want unless I cease altogether to want more than I can.

To think throughout one's whole life, then, about journeys which cannot be made quietly and easily is not the part of a man who is thinking about that one last journey which is called death, the only one, as you understand, that truly deserves thought. God has indeed granted to a certain few, whom he has willed to be governors of churches, not only to await that journey bravely but even to desire it eagerly, and to take on the labours of these other journeys without any anguish. But I do not think so great a good is granted either to those who are swept into such offices by love of temporal honour, or again to those who, though private persons, seek a busy life, that amid noise and restless gatherings and running about they should achieve the familiarity with death that we seek; for both were free to become godlike in leisure. Or if this is false, I am, I will not say the most foolish, but certainly the most sluggish of all men, for unless some secure rest comes to me I cannot taste and love that pure good. Believe me, a great withdrawal from the tumult of passing things is needed so that a man may come to fear nothing, not through hardness, not through boldness, not through desire for empty glory, not through superstitious credulity. For from this comes that solid joy which cannot be compared in any part with any pleasures at all.

But if such a life does not fall within human nature, why does that security sometimes come? Why does it come more often the more one worships God in the inner sanctuary of the mind? Why does that tranquillity usually remain even in human activity, if one goes out to act from that inner shrine? Why are we sometimes unafraid of death even while we are speaking, and, when we are not speaking, even desire it? I say to you (for I would not say this to just anyone), I say to you, whose journeys to the heights I know well: will you, who have often experienced how sweetly the mind lives when it dies to bodily love, deny after all that the whole of a person's life can become fearless, so that he may rightly be called wise? Or will you dare to assert that this state of mind, on which reason relies, has ever come to you except when you were occupied in your inmost self? Since this is so, you see that one thing remains: that you too take counsel for our common good, how we may live together. For what is to be done about your mother, whom your brother Victor certainly does not desert, you know much better than I. I did not want to write of other things, so as not to turn you away from this thought.

I was greatly troubled by the question you put to me some time ago, with a friendly rebuke as well, how we could live together; and I had decided to write back to you about this alone and to press you for a reply, and not to turn my pen to anything else belonging to our studies until this very matter was settled between us. But the very brief and very true argument of your latest letter quickly set me at ease: namely, that there is no need to think about it from here, because either we, when we can, will necessarily come to you, or you, when you can, to us. Set at ease on this point, then, as I said, I went over all your letters to see what answers I owe. In them I found so many questions that, even if they could be easily solved, by their very mass they would overwhelm anyone's talent and leisure. And they are so difficult that, even if only one of them were laid on me, I would not hesitate to confess myself heavily burdened. This preface serves to ask you to stop asking new questions for a while, until we are free of the whole debt, and to write back to me only your judgment. Yet I know how much against my own interest this is, since I put off sharing in your divine thoughts even for a while.

Hear, then, what I think about the mystical assumption of a man, which the religion in which we have been instructed commends to us to be believed and known as done for our salvation. I chose this question to answer first, not as the easiest of all, but because it seemed to me more worthy than the others of the labour of thought. For the questions asked about this world do not seem to me to bear sufficiently on obtaining the happy life, and if they bring some pleasure when investigated, it is to be feared that they take up time that should be spent on better things. As to the matter now in hand, then, first I am surprised that you were troubled why it is not said that the Father along with the Son assumed a man, and were not troubled about the Holy Spirit as well. For this Trinity is commended and believed by the Catholic faith as so inseparable, and is also understood so by a few holy and blessed people, that whatever is done by it must be thought to be done at the same time by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Spirit; and the Father does nothing that the Son and the Holy Spirit do not also do, nor the Son anything that the Father and the Holy Spirit do not, nor the Holy Spirit anything that the Father and the Son do not. From this it seems to follow that the whole Trinity assumed the man; for if the Son assumed him, but the Father and the Holy Spirit did not, they do something apart from one another. Why, then, in our mysteries and sacred rites is the assumption of a man celebrated as belonging to the Son? This is a very full question, so difficult and about so great a matter that neither can the answer here be clear enough nor its proof secure enough. Yet I dare, since I am writing to you, to indicate rather than unfold what my mind holds, so that you may yourself conjecture the rest, given your talent and our friendship, through which you know me very well.

There is no nature, Nebridius, and no substance at all, that does not have in itself and display these three things: first, that it is; second, that it is this or that; third, that it remains, as far as it can, in what it is. The first shows the very cause of nature, from which all things are; the second, the form through which all things are made and in a certain way formed; the third, a kind of abiding, so to speak, in which all things are. Now if it can happen that something is, and is not this or that, and does not remain in its kind; or that it is this or that, but is not and does not remain in its kind as far as it can; or that it remains in its kind according to the powers of that kind, but nevertheless neither is nor is this or that, then it can also happen that in that Trinity some person does something apart from the others. But if you see that whatever is must at once both be this or that and remain in its kind as far as it can, then those three do nothing apart from one another. I see that so far I have dealt with the part of this question that makes its solution difficult. But I wanted to show you briefly, if indeed I have done what I wanted, how subtly and with what truth the inseparability of this Trinity is understood in the Catholic Church.

Now hear how what troubles your mind need not trouble it. Form, which is properly attributed to the Son, pertains also to discipline and to a kind of art, if we use this word rightly in these matters, and to the understanding by which the mind itself is formed in thinking of things. So, since the aim of that assumption of a man was that a certain discipline of living and an example of what is commanded should be instilled in us under the majesty and clarity of certain teachings, it is not without reason that all this is attributed to the Son. For in many things, which I leave to your thought and prudence, although many things are present, something nevertheless stands out and therefore not absurdly claims a certain property for itself. So in those three kinds of questions: even if it is asked whether a thing is, there is involved also what it is, for it certainly cannot be unless it is something; and there is involved also whether it is to be approved or disapproved, for whatever is deserves some valuation. So when it is asked what a thing is, it must both be and be weighed by some valuation; in the same way also when it is asked of what sort it is, it certainly is something as well. So, though all are joined inseparably, the question takes its name not from all of them, but from the intention of the questioner. Discipline, then, was necessary for human beings, so that they might be instructed by it and formed according to a measure. Yet can we say that what is brought about in people through this discipline either does not exist or is not to be desired? But we aim first to know, both that through which we may infer something and that in which we may abide. So first a certain norm and rule of discipline had to be shown. This was done through that dispensation of the assumed man, which is to be attributed properly to the Son; so that there would follow both the knowledge of the Father himself, that is, of the one principle from which all things are, through the Son, and a certain inner and ineffable sweetness and delight in remaining in that knowledge and despising all mortal things, a gift and grace that is properly attributed to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, though all things are done in the highest communion and inseparability, they had nevertheless to be shown distinctly because of our weakness, since we have fallen from unity into variety. For no one raises anyone up to where he himself is unless he comes down somewhat to where the other is. Here you have a letter which has not ended your concern about this matter, but has perhaps begun your thoughts on some sure foundation, so that you may pursue the rest with your talent, which I know very well, and attain it by piety, on which one must above all stand.

You write that you have sent more letters than we have received; but I cannot disbelieve you, nor can you disbelieve me. For although I cannot equal you in writing back, your letters are kept by me with no less care than they are sent often by you. As for our longer letters, we agree that you have received no more than two; for we did not send a third. Indeed, having gone over the copies, I noticed that about five of your questions have been answered, except that one question there was touched on in passing, as it were, and, though not rashly left to your talent, perhaps did not satisfy your avarice. You need to rein it in somewhat and gladly accept some abridgements, on the understanding that, if I cheat your understanding at all while I am sparing of words, you are not to spare me at all; but you may by right demand all that is owed … So you will count this letter among my shorter letters … For you too send no shorter letters that do not add to the same pile. Therefore, as to what you ask about the Son of God, why he rather than the Father is said to have assumed a man, though both are together, you will discern it very easily if you remember our conversations in which, as far as we could (for it is something ineffable), … who the Son of God is, to whom we are joined. To touch on it briefly here: the very discipline and form of God, through which all things that were made were made, is called the Son. And whatever was done through that assumed man was done for our instruction and formation.

I do not care to write you ordinary things, and I am not free to write new ones. For I see that the one does not suit you, and that for the other I have no leisure. For since I left you, no opportunity, no leisure has been given me to discuss and turn over the questions we used to investigate together. The winter nights are indeed very long, and I do not sleep through them all; but when I have leisure, other things present themselves to be thought about, things needed to make that leisure secure. What, then, shall I do? Shall I be dumb toward you, or silent? You want neither, and I want neither. So come and receive what the last part of the night was able to hammer out of me, for as long as it lasted while this letter was being written.

You must remember the question often tossed about between us, which tossed us about as we panted and burned: namely, about a kind of perpetual body, or quasi-body, of the soul, which you remember some also call its vehicle. It is clear that this thing, if indeed it moves from place to place, is not intelligible. But whatever is not intelligible cannot be understood. Yet when something escapes the understanding, if at least it does not escape the senses, a probable estimate of it is not altogether ruled out. But what can be neither understood nor perceived gives rise to an opinion that is too rash and trifling. And the thing we are discussing is of this kind, if indeed it exists. Why, then, I ask you, do we not declare a holiday from this little question, and, having prayed to God, lift our whole selves to the supreme serenity of the supreme living nature?

Here perhaps you may say that, though bodily things cannot be perceived by the understanding, we can nevertheless perceive intelligibly many things that pertain to body, such as our knowing that body exists. For who would deny this, or who would admit that it is probable rather than true? So, though body itself is a matter of probability, yet that there is such a thing in nature is most true. Therefore body is judged sensible, but that body exists is judged intelligible; for otherwise it could not be perceived. So that body, whatever it is, which we are asking about, on which the soul is thought to rely in passing from place to place: even if it is perceptible, not to our senses but to some far livelier ones, still whether it exists can be known intelligibly.

If you say this, remember that what we call understanding takes place in us in two ways: either by the mind and reason itself within, as when we understand that understanding itself exists; or through a prompting from the senses, as in the case just mentioned, when we understand that body exists. Of these two kinds, we understand the first through ourselves, that is, about what is within us, by consulting God; and the second, about what is reported by the body and the senses, we understand no less by consulting God. If these things are settled, no one can understand whether that body exists unless the senses have reported something about it to him. And since we see that we are not in that class of living beings, if there is any, I think that what I began to say above is also established: that this question does not concern us. I would like you to think about these things again and again, and to make sure that I learn what your thinking has produced.

I have preferred to answer your latest letter, not because I despised your earlier questions or because they delighted me less, but because in answering them I am attempting greater things than you suppose. For although you have prescribed that I should send you a letter longer than the longest, we do not have as much leisure as you think, and as you know we have always wished for and still wish for. Do not ask why this is so; for I could more easily explain the things that hinder me than why I am hindered.

You write asking why you and I, though each of us is a single individual, do many of the same things, while the sun does not do the same as the other stars; and I am to attempt the cause of this. Now if we do the same things, the sun too does many things along with the others; if it does not, neither do we. I walk and you walk; it moves and they move. I am awake and you are awake; it shines and they shine. I discuss and you discuss; it goes round and they go round. And yet the action of the mind is in no way to be compared with these things that we see. But if you compare mind with mind, as is fair, the stars, if they have any mind in them, should be considered more alike than human beings in thinking or contemplating, or whatever else may be said more suitably. Moreover, in the movements of bodies, if you attend carefully, as you are accustomed to do, nothing at all can be done identically by two. Or do you think that when we walk together we are really doing the same thing? Far be that from your prudence. For whichever of us walks nearer the north must either get ahead of the other with an equal motion or step more slowly; yet neither can be perceived. But you, unless I am mistaken, are waiting to hear what we understand, not what we perceive. Now if we headed from the pole toward the south, joined to each other and clinging together as tightly as we can, and pressed on smooth, level marble or even ivory, the motion of the two of us could no more be the same than the beat of our pulses, our shape, or our face. Remove us and put in the offspring of Glaucia; you will have achieved nothing. For even for these most similar twins, it is as necessary that each be moved in his own way as it was that each be born as an individual.

'But,' you will say, 'this is only for reason; that the sun differs from the stars is clear and manifest even to the senses.' If you compel me to examine its size, you know how much is said about distances and to what uncertainty that apparent clarity is reduced. But granting that it is as it appears (and so I believe), whose senses, pray, did the tallness of Naevius ever escape, a foot taller than the tallest six-foot man? I believe you looked too hard for a man to match him, and when you could not find one, you wanted to stretch our letter to his length. So, since something like this exists on earth also, I think there is nothing to wonder at in the sky. But if it strikes you that the light of no star but the sun fills the day, who, I ask you, has appeared to human beings as great as that man whom God assumed, far otherwise than the other saints and wise men? If you compare him with other men, he is separated from them by a greater distance than the other stars when compared with the sun. Look carefully at this comparison. For it may be, with the mind in which you excel, that in passing we have solved a question you proposed about the man Christ.

You also ask whether that supreme truth and supreme wisdom, the form of things, through which all things were made, whom our sacred rites confess as the only Son of God, contains the idea of man in general, or also of each one of us. A great question. But it seems to me that, as far as the making of man is concerned, the idea there is of man only, not of me or of you; but as far as the cycle of time is concerned, the various ideas of men live in that purity. But since this is very obscure, I do not know by what comparison it could be illustrated, unless perhaps we must take refuge in those arts which are present in our mind. For in the science of measurement there is one idea of an angle and one of a square. So whenever I want to show an angle, only one idea, that of an angle, comes to me; but I could never draw a square without looking at the idea of four angles together. So each man has been made by the one idea by which man is understood; but for a people to be made, although that too is one idea, it is not the idea of man but of men. If, then, Nebridius is a part of this universe, as he is, and every universe is made up of parts, God the founder of the universe could not fail to have the idea of the parts. Therefore, that the idea of very many men is there does not pertain to man as such, although in wonderful ways all things are again brought back to one. But you will think about this better. I ask you to be content with this meanwhile, although I have already outrun Naevius.

Does this letter not show a shortage of paper in such a way as to testify at least that parchment is plentiful? The ivory tablets I have I sent with a letter to your uncle. You will more easily forgive this bit of skin, because what I wrote to him could not be put off, and I thought it most improper not to write to you as well. But please send any tablets of ours that are there, for necessities of this kind. I have written something about the Catholic religion, as far as the Lord has deigned to grant, which I want to send you before I come, if paper does not run short meanwhile. For you will put up with any sort of writing from Majorinus's workshop. As for the books, apart from the books On the Orator, it has all slipped my mind. But I could write back nothing more than that you should take whichever you liked yourself, and I remain of the same view now. For, being absent, I do not see what more I can do.

I am most grateful that in your last letter you wished to make me a sharer in your joy at home. But 'do you bid me be ignorant of the face of the calm sea and the quiet waves?' Though you do not bid me, nor are you yourself ignorant of them. So if some quiet has been given you for better thinking, make use of the divine gift. For when such things come, we should congratulate not ourselves but those through whom they come, since a just and dutiful administration of temporal things, more peaceful and tranquil for its kind, earns the receiving of eternal things, if it does not hold fast when it is held, does not entangle when it is multiplied, does not, when … is thought, wrap us up. For it was said by the mouth of Truth itself: 'If you have not been faithful in what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?' So let us loosen our cares for changeable things and seek goods that are stable and certain; let us fly above our earthly wealth. For it is not for nothing that the bee has wings amid an abundance of honey; for honey kills the bee that sticks in it.