Letters 149.2–149.23

The letter of Your Reverence, in which you asked many questions, pointed out others to be asked, and taught by asking, did reach me. But the reply I wrote at once, through men belonging to those same holy comforters of ours, has not been delivered to Your Reverence, as I have learned from this more recent letter of yours. How far I answered the questions in it I have not been able to recall, nor, when I looked for a copy of it, did I find one from which I could check. I am quite certain, however, that I answered some of them, and not all, because the haste of the carrier pressed me to finish quickly. I also sent at the same time, as you had asked, a copy of the letter I had written in reply to Your Charity at Carthage about the resurrection of bodies, where the question had arisen about the use of the members. So now I have sent this one and also the other; for I guessed that that one had not reached your hands either, because you have asked again certain things which I read and recognize that I had already answered in it. But by whom I sent it I do not know. For the letter of Your Charity to which I replied with it, as it itself indicates, was sent to me from Hippo by our people while I was with our holy brother and fellow bishop Boniface (for I did not see its carrier), and I did not delay to reply at once.

Since, then, as I wrote, I had not been able at that time to examine Greek manuscripts on certain points in the sixteenth psalm, I examined afterward those I found. One had what our Latin copies have: “Lord, destroying them from the earth, divide them”; the other, as you yourself gave it: “From a few from the earth.” The former has an obvious sense: destroying them from the land which you gave them, divide them among the nations, which indeed happened to them when they were conquered and overthrown in a grievous war. How the other is to be taken does not occur to me, except that, in comparison with the multitude of them that perished, a remnant was saved, certainly among a few; and Scripture foretold that they were to be divided, that is, parted and separated, from these, saying: “Lord, from a few,” that is, from the remnant which you saved from that nation, “from the earth divide them”; so that we understand the earth to be the Church and the inheritance of the faithful and the saints, which is also called the land of the living, and which can rightly be understood in that place too: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And when it had been said, “From a few from the earth divide them,” there was added “in their life,” so that it would be understood to happen openly, while they live here. For many are separated from the Church only when they die, who nevertheless while they live seem joined to the Church by communion in the sacraments and in Catholic unity. These, then, were divided from the few of them who believed, from the land which the Father, the husbandman, cultivates as his field; and divided in their life, that is, openly here, as we see. Then follows: “And with your hidden things their belly has been filled”; that is, besides being openly divided, their belly has been filled also with your hidden things, which you render in secret to the conscience of the wicked; he put “belly” for the secrets of what is inward and hidden.

As to what follows, “They were filled with pork,” I have already explained what I thought of this too. But the reading which other manuscripts have, and which are said to have it more truly, because the more careful copies resolve the same ambiguity of the Greek word by an accent mark, in the Greek manner of writing, is more obscure indeed, but seems to fit better with the preferable sense. For since he had said, “And with your hidden things their belly has been filled,” words by which the hidden judgments of God are signified (for they are hidden from the wretched, even those who rejoice in evils, whom God has given up to the lusts of their hearts), as if it were asked by what those could be recognized who have been filled in secret with the wrath of God, and the answer were what is said in the Gospel, “By their fruits you will know them,” there was added at once: “They were filled with sons,” that is, with fruits, which is more plainly called their works. Hence we read elsewhere: “Behold, he has travailed with injustice, conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity”; and elsewhere: “Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.” Bad sons, then, are bad works, by which those are recognized who have been filled, as in the belly, with the hidden judgments of God on their inward thoughts; good works are good sons, as is said to the Church, the bride: “Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes coming up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and there is not a barren one among them.” In this twin offspring is recognized the twofold work of love, namely of the Lord God and of the neighbor, on which two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

This sense, by which “They were filled with sons” is explained in this way, had not occurred to me when I replied before; but I went over a very brief exposition of the same psalm which I had dictated long ago, and found it set down by me quite briefly. I also examined Greek manuscripts to see whether the word “sons” was in the dative case or the genitive, which that language uses for the ablative, and I found the genitive. If it were translated word for word, it would have been written, “They were filled of sons”; but the translator rightly followed the sense and said in the Latin manner, “They were filled with sons.” As for what follows, “And they left their remains to their little ones,” I think the little ones are to be understood as their manifest children of the flesh. Hence, on this exposition too, of “sons” rather than “pork,” that saying of theirs holds: “His blood be on us and on our children”; for thus they left the remains of their works to their little ones.

In the fifteenth psalm, as to what is written, “He has made wonderful,” or “May he make wonderful all his wills among them,” nothing prevents its being understood, and indeed it seems more fitting, not “among them” but “in them.” For so the Greek manuscripts have it; and often, where that language has “in them,” our translators render “among them,” when it seems to suit the sense. Let us take it, then: “To the saints who are in his land he has made wonderful all his wills in them,” as most manuscripts have it; and let us understand his wills as the gifts of grace, which is given freely, that is, because he willed, not because it was owed. Hence: “With the shield of your good will you have crowned us,” and, “In your will you have led me,” and, “Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth,” and, “A voluntary rain, O God, setting apart for your inheritance,” and, “Dividing to each one his own, as he wills,” and countless others. Accordingly: “He has made wonderful all his wills in them.” In whom but in the saints who are in his land? For if the earth, as we showed above, can be taken in a good sense even where “his” is not added, how much more where it is said “his land”! He made all his wills wonderful in them, entirely wonderful, because he wonderfully freed them from despair.

Out of this wonder the apostle cries out: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” For he had said above: “For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all.” For this too follows here: “Their weaknesses were multiplied; afterward they made haste.” He put weaknesses for sins, as the apostle says to the Romans: “For if Christ, when we were still weak, died at the appointed time for the ungodly”; he called the same people weak whom he called ungodly. Then, a little later, repeating the same thought, he says: “God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”; those he called weak above he here called sinners. Again, turning the same thought in other words in what follows, he says: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” And so in the words “Their weaknesses were multiplied,” their multiplied sins are understood. For the law came in so that sin might abound; but since, where sin abounded, grace superabounded, therefore afterward they made haste. For he came not to call the righteous but sinners, since those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick, whose weaknesses, that is, were multiplied, so that for their healing the medicine of so great a grace was needed, and the one to whom many sins are forgiven might love much.

This was what the ashes of the heifer, the sprinkling of blood, and the multiplication of bloody victims signified, not effected. That is why he goes on to say: “I will not gather their assemblies from blood,” that is, of those sacrifices which were offered as a figure of the blood of Christ, “nor will I remember their names with my lips.” For their names, in the multiplication of weaknesses, were fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, men who lie with men, thieves, the greedy, robbers, drunkards, revilers, and whoever else will not possess the kingdom of God. But where, as sin abounded, grace superabounded, and afterward they made haste, these things they were, but they were washed, they were sanctified, they were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God; therefore he will not remember their names with his lips. Indeed, the more correct manuscripts, of preferable authority, have not “his wills” but “my wills,” which comes to the same, since it is said in the person of the Son of God. For it is he who speaks, as is clearly shown by those words which the apostles also used: “You will not leave my soul in hell, nor let your holy one see corruption.” The gifts of grace of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are certainly the same, and therefore the Son too can most rightly call them his wills.

As for what is understood of the Jews in the fifty-eighth psalm, which says, “Do not kill them, lest they ever forget your law,” it seems to me fittingly understood as foretelling this: that this same nation, even when conquered and overthrown, would not give way to the superstitions of the victorious people, but would remain in the old law, so that with it there should be the testimony of the Scriptures throughout the whole world, from which the Church was to be called out. For by no clearer evidence is it shown to the nations (and this is most wholesomely noticed) that it was not something unexpected and sudden, set up by a spirit of human presumption, that the name of Christ should prevail with such authority in the hope of eternal salvation, but that it had been prophesied and written down long ago. For what would the prophecy itself be thought but to have been invented by our people, if it were not proved from the books of our enemies? Therefore: “Do not kill them,” do not extinguish the very name of that nation, “lest they ever forget your law,” which would surely happen if, compelled to practice the rites and sacred things of the Gentiles, they kept nothing at all of the name of their religion, such as it is. This is what is written also of Cain, as a figure of them, that the Lord set a mark on him so that no one should kill him. Then, having said, “Do not kill them, lest they ever forget your law,” as if it were asked what was to be done with them, so that they should not be killed (that is, not be destroyed) for the sake of some use as witnesses to the truth, and should not forget the law of God, he added at once: “Scatter them by your power.” For if they were in one place on earth, they would not help by their testimony the preaching of the Gospel, which bears fruit in the whole world. Therefore, “Scatter them by your power,” so that they may be witnesses everywhere, through that very law which they do not forget, of him whose deniers, persecutors, and killers they were, the one prophesied in it whom they do not follow. For it profits them nothing that they do not forget it; for it is one thing to have the law of God in memory, another to have it in understanding and in deed.

As to your question what is meant in the sixty-seventh psalm by “But God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the crown of the hair of those who walk about in their sins,” it seems to me to mean nothing other than that God will shatter the heads of his enemies who are excessively proud, who exalt themselves excessively in their sins. For by hyperbole he signified a pride that exalts itself so much and walks with such haughtiness that it would, as it were, tread on the crown of its own hair as it walks. Again, as to what is written in the same psalm, “The tongue of your dogs from the enemies by him,” dogs are not always to be taken in a bad sense. Otherwise the prophet would not rebuke dogs that do not know how to bark and love to sleep; surely dogs would be praiseworthy if they knew how to bark and loved to keep watch. And certainly those three hundred, a number most sacred because of the letter of the cross, would not have been chosen to win the victory, those who lapped the water like dogs, unless they signified something great. For good dogs keep watch and bark for the house and for the master, for the flock and for the shepherd. Finally here too, in the praises of the Church, as the prophecy was being woven, the tongue of dogs was mentioned, not their teeth. And he said “of your dogs from the enemies,” that is, so that those who were your enemies might become your dogs and bark for you who raged against you. And he added “by him,” so that they would understand that this was done not by themselves but by him, that is, by his mercy and grace.

As to what the apostle says about prophets, “And God gave some in the Church as apostles, some as prophets,” I understand, as you yourself wrote, that those are called prophets in this place of whom Agabus was one, not those who prophesied the coming of the Lord in the flesh. And we find evangelists whom we do not read to have been apostles, such as Mark and Luke. As for pastors and teachers, whom you especially wanted me to distinguish, I think they are the same, as it seemed to you too, so that we do not understand pastors to be some and teachers others; but that, having first said pastors, he added teachers, so that they would understand that teaching belongs to the office of pastors. That is why he does not say, “some pastors, and some teachers,” but, while he distinguished the preceding ones by the very form of speech, saying, “some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,” he embraced this one as a single thing under two names: “some pastors and teachers.”

But those things are very hard to distinguish where, writing to Timothy, he says: “I urge, then, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made.” They must be distinguished according to the Greek language; for hardly any of our translators are found who have taken care to render them carefully and knowledgeably. For look: as you yourself gave it, “I beseech that beseechings be made,” the apostle, who certainly wrote that letter in Greek, did not say both with the same word; but for what is in Latin “I beseech” he said in Greek παρακαλῶ, while for what your Latin has as “beseechings” he put δεήσεις. Accordingly, other manuscripts, among them ours, have not “beseechings” but “supplications.” As for the three that follow, “prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings,” most Latin manuscripts have them so.

Hence, if we wish to distinguish these words according to the properties of the Latin language, by its manner of speaking, we shall perhaps hold on to our own knowledge, such as it is; but it would be surprising if we grasped the sense of the Greek language or usage. Many of our people think precatio and deprecatio are the same, and this has now entirely prevailed in daily use. But those who spoke Latin more precisely used precationes for wishing for good things, deprecationes for averting evils. For they said precari meant to wish for good things by praying, imprecari to wish for evils, which is now commonly called cursing, and deprecari to drive away evils by praying. But let us rather follow the manner of speaking now in use, and whether we find precationes or deprecationes for what the Greeks call δεήσεις, let us not think it needs correcting. As for orationes, which the Greek has as προσευχάς, it is altogether difficult to distinguish them from preces or precationes. And as for some manuscripts having not orationes but adorationes, because the Greek does not say εὐχάς but προσευχάς, I think it was not translated knowledgeably; for it is very well known that the Greeks call orationes προσευχάς. And certainly it is one thing to pray, another to adore. Indeed, in the Greek, “You shall adore the Lord your God,” and “I will adore toward your holy temple,” and any similar passages, are read not with this word but with another.

For interpellationes (intercessions), which our copies have, you put postulationes (requests), following, I believe, your manuscripts. These two, then, that is, what some have rendered postulationes and others interpellationes, are attempts to translate one word, which the Greek has as ἐντεύξεις. And of course you notice and know that it is one thing to intercede and another to request. For we do not usually say “they request in order to intercede” but “they intercede in order to request”; yet a word borrowed from a neighboring meaning, to which that very nearness secures understanding, is not to be faulted as if with a censor’s mark. For it is said even of the Lord Jesus Christ himself that he intercedes for us. Does he intercede and not also request? On the contrary, because he requests, “intercedes” has been put for it. For it is plainly said of him elsewhere: “And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; he is the propitiation for our sins.” Although perhaps your manuscripts, in that place about the Lord Jesus too, have not “intercedes for us” but “requests for us”; for in the Greek the word used here for interpellationes, which you gave as postulationes, is the same word used there, where it is written: “He intercedes for us.”

Since, then, he who supplicates and he who prays both supplicate, and he who intercedes with God intercedes in order to pray and supplicate, what does it mean that the apostle set these down in such a way that their distinction should not be neglected? Leaving aside the general meaning, and keeping the usage of speech according to which, whether you say supplication or prayer or intercession or request, one and the same thing is understood, some property of each of these must also be sought; but it is difficult to arrive at it clearly, for many things can be said about it that are not to be rejected.

But I choose to understand in these words what the whole or almost the whole Church practices: that we take as supplications those we make in the celebration of the sacraments before what is on the Lord’s table begins to be blessed; as prayers, those made when it is blessed and sanctified and broken for distribution, the whole of which petition almost the whole Church concludes with the Lord’s Prayer. The origin of the Greek word also helps us to this understanding. For what they call εὐχή Scripture rarely uses so that prayer is understood; but mostly, and much more commonly, a vow is called εὐχή, while προσευχή, the word used in the passage we are treating, always means prayer. Hence some, looking at the origin of this word with too little learning, wanted προσευχή to mean not prayer but adoration, which is rather called προσκύνησις; but because prayer is sometimes called εὐχή, προσευχή was thought to be adoration. Further, if, as I said, a vow is more commonly called εὐχή in the Scriptures, then, leaving aside the general meaning of prayer, that prayer is properly to be understood which we make toward a vow, that is, πρὸς εὐχήν. Now all things that are offered to God are vowed, above all the oblation of the holy altar, by which sacrament is proclaimed that greatest vow of ours by which we have vowed to remain in Christ, namely in the framework of the body of Christ. The sacrament of this is that we, though many, are one bread, one body. Therefore I think the apostle commanded that προσευχαί, that is, prayers (or, as some have less skillfully translated, adorations), be made properly at its sanctification and the preparation for its distribution, for this means “toward a vow,” which in the Scriptures is more commonly called εὐχή. Intercessions, or, as your manuscripts have, requests, are made when the people are blessed; for then the bishops, as advocates, offer those in their care to the most merciful power by the laying on of hands. When these are completed and so great a sacrament has been received, thanksgiving concludes all, which the apostle also commended last in these words.

But the chief reason for saying these things was that, having touched on and indicated them briefly, what follows should not be thought negligible: “for all men, for kings and for those in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and love,” so that no one, as the weakness of human thinking is, should think these things were not to be done for those by whom the Church was suffering persecution, when the members of Christ were to be gathered from every kind of men. Hence he adds and says: “For this is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And so that no one should say that there could be a way of salvation in good conduct and the worship of the one almighty God without sharing in the body and blood of Christ, he says: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”; so that what he had said, “he wills all men to be saved,” should be understood to be accomplished in no other way than through the mediator, not as God, which he always was, the Word, but as the man Christ Jesus, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So do not be troubled either by what the same apostle says of the Jews: “As regards the Gospel they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.” For that depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and his unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways, bring great wonder to faithful hearts; and these do not doubt, concerning his wisdom, which reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly, what it means that it pleases him that those should be born, grow, and multiply whom, though he did not make them wicked, he foreknew would be wicked. For his counsel is very deeply hidden, by which he uses even the wicked well for the advancement of the good, making wonderful in this too the omnipotence of his goodness; because, as it belongs to their wickedness to use his good works badly, so it belongs to his wisdom to use their bad works well.

This depth of the mystery, then, the apostle commends thus: “I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you may not be wise in your own eyes: that blindness has come in part upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel would be saved.” He said “in part” because not all were blinded; for there were some of them who recognized Christ. And the fullness of the Gentiles comes in in those who are called according to his purpose. And so all Israel will be saved, because those who are called according to his purpose, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles, are more truly Israel, of which the same apostle says, “And upon the Israel of God”; while the others he calls Israel according to the flesh: “Consider,” he says, “Israel according to the flesh.” Then he inserts the testimony of the prophet: “He will come from Zion who will deliver and turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins”; not, of course, of all the Jews, but of the elect.

Then he adds the words you asked about: “As regards the Gospel they are enemies for your sake.” For the price of our redemption is the blood of Christ, who certainly could only be killed by enemies. Here is that use of the wicked for the advancement of the good. And when he adds, “but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers,” he shows by this that it is not those enemies but the elect who are beloved. But it is the custom of Scripture to speak of a part as of the whole; as he praises the Corinthians in the first parts of his letter as if all were such, when some of them were praiseworthy, and afterward in several places of the same letter rebukes them as if all were blameworthy, because of some who were such. Whoever carefully notices this custom of the divine Scriptures, scattered very frequently through the whole body of its writings, resolves many things that seem contradictory. He calls some, then, enemies and others beloved; but because they were in one people, he seems to speak of the same persons. And yet even of those enemies who crucified the Lord many were converted and showed themselves elect: elect then, when they were converted, as regards the beginning of salvation; but as regards God’s foreknowledge, elect not then but before the foundation of the world, as the same apostle says, that he chose us before the foundation of the world. In two ways, then, the enemies themselves are the beloved: either because both were in one people, or because, of the enemies who raged even to shedding the blood of Christ, some had become beloved according to the election that lay hidden in God’s foreknowledge. For this reason he added “for the sake of the fathers,” because what was promised to the fathers had to be fulfilled, as he says near the end of the letter to the Romans: “For I say that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” In accordance with this mercy it was said, “enemies for your sake,” as he had also said above: “Through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles.”

And when he had said, “As regards election, for the sake of the fathers,” he added: “For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.” You see that those are meant who belong to the number of the predestined, of whom he says in another place: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” For many are called, but few are chosen; and those who are chosen are the ones called according to his purpose, in whom God’s foreknowledge certainly cannot be mistaken. These he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom he predestined he also called. This calling is according to his purpose; this is without repentance. “And those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. If God is for us, who is against us?”

Those are not in this calling who, though they walk for some time in the faith that works through love, do not persevere to the end. And certainly they could have been snatched away, lest wickedness should change their understanding, if they belonged to that predestination and calling which is according to his purpose and without repentance. And lest some presumptuous person judge others’ hidden things by saying, “They were not snatched from this life before they deserted the faith because they were not walking faithfully in that same life, and the Lord knew this in their hearts, although it appeared otherwise to men,” what will he say about little infants, many of whom, having received in that age the sacrament of Christian grace, would certainly belong to eternal life and the kingdom of heaven if they departed this life at once, yet are allowed to grow up, and some even become apostates? Why, except that they do not belong to that predestination and calling according to his purpose and without repentance? But why some belong to it and others do not, the cause may be hidden; it cannot be unjust. For is there injustice with God? By no means. For this too belongs to that depth of judgments at which the apostle, wondering, was as it were struck with awe. He calls them judgments for this very reason, so that no one should think such things happen either by injustice or rashness on the part of the one who does them, or by chance, as if any parts of the ages so ordered under the great wisdom of God slipped by fortuitously.

As to what is written in the letter to the Colossians, “Let no one lead you astray, wishing to do so in humility,” and the rest that follows, as far as the point where you said it was obscure to you, I too do not yet understand it without some darkness. And would that you had asked me these things in person! For in the sense which I seem to myself to find in these words, a certain delivery in the expression of the face and the tone of the voice is needed, which cannot be expressed in writing, so that it might be opened up in some degree; it is more obscure precisely because, as I think, it is not delivered rightly. For what is written, “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” is thought to be a precept of the apostle forbidding one to touch, taste, or handle something or other. But it is the opposite, if I am not mistaken in so great an obscurity. For he set down mockingly the words of those by whom he did not want them to be deceived and led astray, who distinguish foods according to the worship of angels and, thus making decrees about this world, say: “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” although all things are clean to the clean and every creature of God is good, as he plainly affirms in another place.