Letters 111.1–117.1

Your letter filled our heart with great sorrow, for in it you asked me to answer certain things in a lengthy work, when such evils call for prolonged groans and weeping rather than prolonged books. For the whole world is afflicted with such great disasters that there is almost no part of the earth where such things as you wrote of are not being committed and lamented. Not long ago, even in those deserts of Egypt where monasteries, separated from all noise, lived as if in safety, brothers were killed by barbarians. As for the abominable things lately perpetrated in the regions of Italy and in the Gauls, I do not suppose they are hidden even from you; and from the Spains too, so many provinces which for a long time seemed untouched by these evils, such things have begun to be reported. But why go far? See, in our own region of Hippo, although the barbarians have not reached it, the robberies of the Donatist clergy and the Circumcellions so lay waste the churches that the deeds of the barbarians are perhaps milder. For what barbarian could have devised what these men have done, throwing lime and vinegar into the eyes of our clergy, whose other limbs too they have wounded with horrible blows and injuries? They also plunder some houses and set them on fire, carry off the dry produce, pour out the liquid, and by threatening others with such things they compel many even to be rebaptized. The day before I dictated this to you, forty-eight souls from a single place were reported to me as rebaptized through terrors of this kind.

These things are to be lamented, not wondered at; and we must cry out to God that he deliver us from such evils, not according to our merits but according to his mercy. For what else was to be expected for the human race, when these things were foretold so long before both in the prophets and in the gospel? We ought not, then, to be so contrary to ourselves as to believe them when they are read and complain when they are fulfilled; rather, even those who were unbelieving when they read or heard these things written in the holy books ought now at least to believe, when they see them being fulfilled; so that from these great pressures, as in the press of the Lord our God, just as the dregs of unbelievers who murmur and blaspheme flow out, so the oil of the faithful who confess and pray may not cease to be pressed out and run clear. For to those who do not cease to hurl impious complaints against the Christian faith, saying that before this teaching was preached throughout the world the human race did not suffer such great evils, it is easy to answer from the gospel. For the Lord says: “The servant who does not know his master's will and does things worthy of blows will be beaten with few; but the servant who knows his master's will and does things worthy of blows will be beaten with many.” What wonder is it, then, if in Christian times this world, like a servant who now knows his master's will and does things worthy of blows, is beaten with many? They notice with what speed the gospel is preached, and do not notice with what perversity it is despised. But the humble and holy servants of God, who suffer temporal evils doubly, because they suffer both at the hands of the impious and together with them, have their consolations and the hope of the world to come; hence the apostle says: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us.”

Accordingly, dearest brother, to those also whose words you say you cannot bear, because they say, “If we sinners deserved these things, why were the servants of God also slain by the sword of the barbarians, and the handmaids of God led away captive?”, answer humbly, truthfully, and piously: However much righteousness we keep, however much obedience we show the Lord, can we be better than those three men who were thrown into the furnace of burning fire for keeping the law of God? And yet read what Azariah says there. One of the three, opening his mouth in the midst of the fire, said: “Blessed are you, O Lord, God of our fathers, and your name is praiseworthy and glorious for ever; for you are just in all that you have done to us, and all your works are true and your ways right and all your judgments truth; and you have executed judgments of truth in all that you have brought upon us and upon Jerusalem, the holy city of our fathers; for in truth and judgment you have brought all these things upon us because of our sins; for we have sinned and have not obeyed the law and have not hearkened to your commandments, that it might be well with us. And all that you have brought upon us you have brought by a true judgment, and you have delivered us into the hands of lawless enemies, most hateful deserters, and to an unjust king, the worst in all the earth. And now we cannot open our mouth; truly we have become a shame and a reproach to your servants and to those who worship you. Do not give us up for ever, O Lord, for your name's sake, and do not reject your covenant, and do not take away your mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, who is loved by you, and for the sake of Isaac your servant and Israel your holy one, to whom you said that you would multiply their seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea; for, O Lord, we have become the least of all nations, and we are humbled today in the earth because of our sins.” You see, brother, what men these were, how holy, how brave in the midst of tribulation, where nevertheless they were spared and the very flame was afraid to burn them; yet they confessed their sins, for which they knew they were deservedly and justly humbled, and did not keep silent.

Can we even be better than Daniel himself, of whom the Lord says through the prophet Ezekiel to the prince of Tyre, “Are you wiser than Daniel?”, and who is placed as one of the three righteous men whom God says he alone will deliver, showing in them, surely, three types of righteous men, whom he says he will deliver in such a way that they will not deliver even their sons with them, but they alone will be delivered: Noah, Daniel, and Job? Yet read the prayer of Daniel too, and see how, placed in captivity, he confesses the sins not only of his people but also his own, and says that because of them, by the justice of God, he has come to that punishment and reproach of captivity. For it is written thus: “And I set my face to the Lord God, to seek him by prayers and supplications with fastings and sackcloth; and I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said: O Lord God, great and wonderful, who keep your covenant and mercy for those who love you and keep your commandments, we have sinned, we have acted against the law, we have done wickedly, and we have departed and turned aside from your commandments and from your judgments, and we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in every land into which you have scattered them because of their stubbornness, because they rejected you, O Lord. To us belongs confusion of face, and to our kings and our princes and our fathers, who have sinned. To you, the Lord our God, belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have departed and have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in the precepts of this law which he set before us by the hands of his servants the prophets. And all Israel have sinned against your law and turned aside so as not to hear your voice; and the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God have come upon us, because we have sinned; and he has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, to bring upon us great evils, such as have never been done under the whole heaven as have been done in Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all these evils have come upon us, and we did not entreat the Lord our God to turn our offenses away from us and that we might understand all your truth. And the Lord God kept watch over all that is holy to him and brought upon us what he has done; for the Lord our God is righteous in all his world which he made, and we have not listened to his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have committed offenses against your law. O Lord, in all your mercy let your fury and your anger be turned away from your city Jerusalem and your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us. And now hear, O God, the prayers of your servant and his supplication, and show us your face for the sake of your sanctuary, which is desolate. For your own sake, O Lord my God, incline your ear and hear; open your eyes and see our ruin and that of your city Jerusalem, over which your name has been called; for we have not cast our prayer before you on the ground of our righteousness but on your mercy, which is great. Hear, O Lord; be merciful, O Lord; attend, O Lord, and do not delay, for your own sake, my God; for your name has been called upon your city and your people. And while I was still speaking and praying and recounting my sins and the sins of my people …” See how he spoke first of his own sins and afterward of his people's. And he commends this justice of God and speaks this praise of God, that not unjustly but for their sins he scourges even his own saints. If, then, those say such things who by their most excellent holiness had fire and lions harmless around them, what ought we to say in our lowliness, who are so far unequal to them, however much righteousness we may seem to keep?

But lest anyone think that those servants of God whom you say were killed by barbarians ought to have escaped that death in the way that the three men were delivered from the fire and Daniel from the lions, let them know that those miracles were done so that the kings by whom they were handed over to those punishments might believe that they worshiped the true God. For this was in the hidden judgment and mercy of God, to provide for the salvation of those kings in this way. But for King Antiochus, who killed the Maccabees with cruel tortures, he did not will to provide in this way; rather, by their most glorious sufferings he punished the hard king's heart with sharper severity. Yet read what one of them, who suffered in the sixth place, says; for thus it is written: “And after him they brought the sixth. When he was dying, racked by torments, he said: Do not deceive yourself; we suffer these things because of ourselves, since we have sinned against our God, and these things have come upon us deservedly. But do not think that you will go unpunished, you who have chosen to fight with your laws against God and his law.” You see how humbly and truthfully these men too think, who confess that they are scourged for their sins by the Lord, of whom it is written: “For whom the Lord loves he reproves; and he scourges every son whom he receives.” Hence the apostle also says: “For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord; but when we are judged by the Lord, we are corrected, so that we may not be condemned with the world.”

Read these things faithfully, preach them faithfully, and, as far as you can, beware yourself and teach others to beware, lest there be murmuring against God in these temptations and tribulations. You say that good, faithful, and holy servants of God were slain by the sword of the barbarians. But what does it matter whether fever or the sword released them from the body? God looks, in his servants, not at the occasion by which they depart but at what kind of people they are when they depart to him; except that a long illness carries a greater penalty than a very swift death. And yet we read of even such a long and horrible illness as that which Job suffered, to whose righteousness God himself, who cannot be deceived, bears such testimony.

Most grievous indeed and greatly to be lamented is that captivity of chaste and holy women; but their God is not captive, nor does he desert his own in captivity, if he knows them as his own. For those saints too, whose sufferings and confessions I have recalled from the holy Scriptures, said those things when they had been led away by enemies and placed in captivity, so that they might be read by us in writing and we might learn that captive servants of God are not deserted by their Lord. And how do we know what wonders of his the almighty and merciful God may will to work through these women too in that barbarian land? Only do not cease to groan to God for them, and to seek out, as far as you can and as far as he permits, when he gives time and opportunity, what has become of them, or what comforts you can give them. For a few years ago a granddaughter of Bishop Severus, a nun, was carried off by barbarians from the territory of Sitifis, and by the wonderful mercy of God was restored to her parents with great honor. For the house of the barbarians into which she entered as a captive began to be shaken by a sudden sickness of its masters, so that all those barbarians, three brothers or more, if I am not mistaken, labored under a most dangerous illness. Their mother noticed that the girl was dedicated to God and believed that by her prayers her sons could be delivered from the danger of death that now threatened; she asked her to pray for them, promising that, if they were made well, they would return her to her parents. She fasted and prayed and was heard at once; for this was why it had happened, as the outcome showed. So they, having received health by so sudden a kindness of God, wondering at her and honoring her, fulfilled what their mother had promised.

Pray to the Lord for them, then, and ask that he teach them too to say such things as the holy Azariah, mentioned above, poured out to God, among others, in his prayer and confession. For they are in the land of their captivity as those men were in that land where they could not sacrifice to the Lord in their own way, just as these women cannot bring an offering to the altar of God or find a priest there through whom to offer to God. May the Lord grant them, then, to say to him what Azariah said in the following part of his prayer: “There is at this time no prince or prophet or leader, no burnt offering or oblation or supplications, nor any place to sacrifice before you and to find mercy; but with a troubled soul and a spirit of humility let us be accepted. As in burnt offerings of rams and bulls and in multitudes of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your sight today, and let us follow you fully, for there will be no shame for those who trust in you. And now we follow you with all our heart, and we fear you and seek your face. Do not put us to shame, but deal with us according to your gentleness and according to the multitude of your mercy, and deliver us according to your wonders, and give glory to your name, O Lord; and let all who do harm to your servants be put to shame, and let them be confounded in all their power, and let their strength be broken; let them know that you alone are the Lord God, glorious over the whole world.”

When they say these things and groan to God, he who is wont to be present to his own will surely be present to them. Either he permits nothing to be perpetrated on their most chaste bodies by the lust of the enemy, or, if he permits it, since their mind is stained by no baseness of consent, he defends even their flesh from guilt; and whatever lust has committed in it, without the sufferer either committing or permitting it, will be the fault of the doer alone, and all that violence will be reckoned not as the baseness of corruption but as the wound of suffering. For so great is the power of the integrity of chastity in the mind that, while it remains inviolate, modesty cannot be violated even in the body, though its members could be overpowered. Let this letter, short in view of your desire, but very long in view of my occupations, and much hurried because of the haste of the bearer, suffice for your charity. The Lord will console you far more abundantly if you read his Scriptures most attentively.

That I could not see you during your administration, though I greatly desired it, even when you had come to Tibilis, happened, I believe, so that I might rather enjoy your mind when it was free of public cares, than that a greeting, with me at leisure and you busy, should fail to satisfy the longing of either of us as fully as it deserved. For, recalling the honor and uprightness of your character from your early youth, I consider your heart abundantly fit for Christ to pour himself into most generously, so that you may bring him fruits worthy of eternal and heavenly glory rather than of temporal and earthly praise.

For from many, indeed from absolutely all whom I could either question or hear proclaiming it of their own accord, I have heard the integrity and excellence of your administration praised and extolled with complete constancy and without any hint of discordant variety; and all the more surely because your heralds did not know of our connection and were wholly unaware whether I knew you even slightly, so that I could not suspect that they were humoring my ears rather than spreading the truth about you. For praise is free from vanity where blame too is safe from giving offense. Nevertheless, O excellent brother, honorable with most sincere love, you do not need to be taught now, but perhaps to be reminded, that all this glory and popular fame is not to be rejoiced in on the lips of the crowd but in the things themselves, which, even if they displease the crowd, are precious by their own brightness and weight, not by the commendation of the unskilled; and he who disapproves of such things is more to be pitied than he who is disapproved of for such things is to be judged wretched. But when they do please and are proclaimed popularly with their due praise, not even so do they become greater or better by another's judgment, since they are made whole by inner truth and made solid by the strength of conscience alone. Hence whatever happiness comes from it accrues to the men who judge rightly rather than to the man of whom the crowd judges well.

Since you know these things very well, good sir, look, as you have begun, with the strongest gaze of your heart on our Lord Jesus Christ; and, wholly subsiding from all empty pride, rise up to him who does not lift up with wind those who turn to him, but sets those who lean on the sure steps of faith and climb by them on the everlasting summit of heavenly and angelic dignity. Through him I beseech you to write back to me, and to exhort courteously and kindly all your people whom you have in the territory of Siniti or of Hippo to the communion of the Catholic Church, in whose bosom I have learned that your father too, a praiseworthy and excellent man, was begotten by you. I ask that you greet him for me with the respect due to his merits, and that you not be reluctant to visit us. This I ask, not shamelessly, for the sake of your property here too, that it may be put in a better state before God. May the mercy of God embrace you and preserve you from all iniquity.

If I were to ignore this case, about which, see, I am writing again to Your Religiousness, not only Your Excellency but also the man himself, whoever he is, in whose case Faventius was seized in this way, would rightly blame me and justly reproach me, judging that, if he himself had fled to the help of the church and something similar had happened to him, I would have ignored his need and tribulation in the same way. Then, even if men's opinion is to be despised, what shall I say to the Lord our God himself, and what account shall I give, if I do not do all I can for the safety of one who has entrusted himself to the church I serve, to be protected and helped, my most beloved lord and venerable son? I ask Your Kindness, therefore, since it is difficult and incredible that you do not already know, or could not know, in what case he is held, in the meantime to deign to support my petition with the apparitor who holds him, that he do what the emperor's law enjoins: that he have him asked, before the municipal records, whether he wishes to be granted thirty days, to spend under moderate custody in the city where he is held, so as to set his affairs in order and provide for his expenses. If within the space of those days, with your goodwill assisting us, we can end his case by friendly settlement, we shall rejoice; if we cannot, the outcome of the trials will find him which pleases God, according to the merits of the case itself or the will of the almighty Lord.

By the order of what authority you seized Faventius is for you to consider; but this I know, that every authority established under the empire serves the laws of its emperor. I have already sent, through my brother and fellow presbyter Caelestinus, the law (of which, indeed, even before I sent it, you certainly ought not to have been ignorant) by which it is granted to those whom some authority orders to be produced before the courts that they be brought before the municipal records and there asked whether they wish to spend thirty days, in the city where they are held, under moderate custody, to procure supplies for themselves or to set their affairs in order as needed; and, as the presbyter I mentioned reported to me, this law was read out to Your Religiousness. Nevertheless I have now sent it again with this letter, not threatening but asking, interceding for a man with humanity and with a bishop's mercy, as far as humanity and piety themselves permit, my lord son: that you deign to grant this both to your own reputation and to my petition, and that you not be reluctant to do what the law of the emperor in whose state service you serve commands, with my intervention and entreaty added.

Your Holiness knows Faventius well, who was the lessee of the Paratian estate. When he feared something, I know not what, from the owner of that same property, he took refuge in the church of Hippo and was there, as refugees usually are, waiting to have his affairs settled through our intercession. As often happens, he became less and less anxious from day to day and, as though his adversary had given up, felt secure; and as he was coming out from supper at a friend's house, he was suddenly seized by a certain Florentinus, an officer, they say, of the count, with a band of armed men as large as seemed to them sufficient for the deed. When this was reported to me, and it was not yet known where or by whom he had been carried off, though suspicion fell on the man against whom he was protecting himself through the church, I sent at once to the tribune who is stationed to guard the coast. He sent soldiers; no one could be found. But in the morning we learned both in what house he had been and that after cockcrow the man who had held him had left with him. I sent there too, where he was said to have been taken. There the officer I mentioned was found, and he refused to allow the presbyter whom I had sent even to see him. The next day I sent a letter asking that he be granted what the emperor ordered in such cases, namely that those who have been ordered to be produced be asked, before the municipal records, whether they wish to spend thirty days in that city under moderate custody to arrange their affairs or prepare their expenses; thinking, of course, that within those days we might perhaps end his case by friendly settlement. But he had already set out and been taken away with that officer. And there is fear that, if he is brought to the office of the consularis, he may suffer some harm. For he has a case with a very wealthy man, although the integrity of the judge is proclaimed by a most brilliant reputation. Lest money nevertheless prevail with the office staff, I ask Your Holiness, most beloved lord and venerable brother, to deign to deliver my letter to the honorable consularis, who is very dear to us, and to read him this one also, because I did not think it necessary to explain the same case twice: that he postpone the hearing of his case, since I do not know whether he is guilty or innocent in it; and that he not disregard the fact that the laws were not observed in his regard, since he was seized in this way and not brought before the municipal records, as the emperor ordered, to be asked whether he wished to accept the benefit of the delay; so that by this means we may settle the matter with his adversary.

Although the praise and celebration of your administration and your brilliant reputation delighted me greatly, because of the love we owe to your merits and goodwill, my intercession has never yet been a burden to Your Excellency in asking any favor, my most beloved lord and venerable son. But now, when Your Eminence has learned from the letter which I gave to my venerable brother and fellow bishop Fortunatus what has happened in the city in which I serve the church of God, your kindness will clearly see by what necessity I was compelled to press my petition upon your occupations. And you will certainly do what befits a judge who is not only upright but Christian, with that disposition toward us which in the name of Christ we were surely entitled to presume.

To make a preface with you is not only superfluous but even irksome, since you want the substance, not words. So, simply: I hear that the old man Alypius, often asked by me, had promised to answer, together with you, a few little questions about the dialogues; and since he is said to be in Mauretania even now, I ask with all my strength and beg that you alone deign to answer, as you would no doubt have done even with your brother present. It is not money, it is not gold, which you would doubtless give for anyone if you had it; this time you would only be saying, without labor, what I ask. I could entreat you more, and through many who are dear to you, but I know your mind, which does not wish to be asked but to grant to all, provided only that nothing unbecoming is involved; and in this matter there is absolutely nothing unbecoming. However that may be, I ask you to grant it to me as I am about to sail. You know how very irksome it is to me to be a burden, I do not say to Your Sincerity, but to anyone. God alone knows how I have done this, driven by excessive necessity. For, with your welfare secured and God favoring, I am about to sail; and you are not ignorant of men's ways, how prone they are to find fault, and you see how, if someone who is asked does not answer, he will be thought unlearned and dull. So I beseech you, answer everything without delay, lest you send me away sad; so may I see my parents, for I have sent Cerdo for this alone and am waiting only for him. Brother Zenobius has been made master of the records and has sent us a travel warrant with provisions. If I am not worthy of your answering my little questions, at least have regard for the provisions. May the supreme Divinity keep you safe for us for a long life. Papas sends many greetings to Your Worthiness.