Letters 29.1–31.9

About the business which I cannot fail to care for, I have been able to write nothing certain in the meantime, since brother Macarius is away; he is said to be returning soon, and what can be accomplished with God's help will be accomplished. As for our concern for the people, although our brothers, your fellow citizens who were present, could set your mind at rest, the Lord has nevertheless granted us something worthy of a conversation by letter, by which we console each other; and in obtaining it we believe we were greatly helped by your very concern, which certainly could not have been without prayer for us.

So let us not fail to tell Your Love what has happened, so that you, who poured out prayers with us that we might receive this benefit, may give thanks to God with us for receiving it. After your departure it was reported to us that people were in an uproar, saying that they could not bear the prohibition of that festival which they call 'Gladness', vainly trying to hide under that name the name of drunkenness, as was already being reported while you were still present. By the hidden ordering of almighty God it happened opportunely for us that on Wednesday that chapter of the gospel came up in order for exposition: 'Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine.' So there was a discussion of dogs and swine in such a way that both those who quarrel against God's commands with stubborn barking and those given to the filth of carnal pleasures were compelled to blush; and it was concluded in such a way that they would see how wicked it was to do within the walls of the church, in the name of religion, what, if they persisted in doing it in their own homes, would require them to be kept away from what is holy and from the pearls of the church.

But although these words were received gratefully, yet, because few had come, they were not enough for so great a matter. When this sermon was spread abroad by those present, according to each one's ability and zeal, it met many opponents. But when the day of Quadragesima (the beginning of Lent) dawned and a great crowd gathered at the hour of exposition, the passage of the gospel was read in which the Lord, after driving the sellers of animals out of the temple and overturning the tables of the money-changers, said that his Father's house, a house of prayer, had been made a den of robbers. When I had made them attentive by putting forward the question of drunkenness, I read this chapter again myself and added a discussion to show with how much greater anger and vehemence our Lord would drive drunken banquets, which are shameful everywhere, out of the temple, when he drove out from it in this way even permitted trade, in which things were sold that were necessary for the sacrifices lawful at that time; and I asked them which they thought more like a den of robbers, those selling necessities or those drinking immoderately.

And since the readings prepared for me to put forward were kept ready, I then added that the Jewish people, though still carnal, in that temple where the body and blood of the Lord were not yet offered, never celebrated banquets, not only drunken ones but even sober ones, and that in their history they are not found drunk in public in the name of religion except when they held a feast for the idol they had made. As I said this, I took the book and read the whole passage. I added also, with all the grief I could, that since the apostle, to distinguish the Christian people from the hardness of the Jews, says that his letter was written not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart, while Moses the servant of God broke the two stone tablets because of those leaders, how could we not break the hearts of those who, being people of the new covenant, wished to present solemnly, in celebrating the days of the saints, what the people of the old covenant celebrated only once, and for an idol?

Then, having given back the book of Exodus, I enlarged on the crime of drunkenness as far as time allowed, took up the apostle Paul, and showed among which sins it was placed, reading that passage: 'If anyone who is called a brother is sexually immoral or an idolater or greedy or a slanderer or a drunkard or a robber, with such a one do not even eat'; and I warned them with groans how dangerous it was for us to eat with those who got drunk even in their homes. I also read what follows at no great distance: 'Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the effeminate nor men who lie with males nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God. And such you were; but you were washed, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' After reading these, I told them to consider how the faithful could hear 'but you were washed', when they still allow the filth of such desire, against which the kingdom of heaven is closed, in their heart, that is, in the inner temple of God. Then we came to that chapter: 'When you come together, then, it is not to celebrate the Lord's supper; for each one goes ahead with his own supper in eating, and one is hungry and another drunk. Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God?' After reading this I emphasized more carefully that not even honourable and sober banquets ought to be held in the church, since the apostle did not say, 'Do you not have houses to get drunk in?', as though only getting drunk in the church were forbidden, but 'to eat and drink in', which can be done honourably, but outside the church, by those who have houses where they can be refreshed with the food they need. And yet we have been brought to such straits by corrupt times and dissolute morals that we do not yet hope for moderate banquets, but at least that the reign of drunkenness may be confined to the home.

I also recalled the chapter of the gospel which I had expounded the day before, where it is said of false prophets: 'By their fruits you will know them.' Then I reminded them that in that place 'fruits' means nothing other than works. Then I asked among which fruits drunkenness was named, and read that passage to the Galatians: 'Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, revelling, and things like these; of which I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.' After these words I asked how we could be recognized as Christians by the fruit of drunkenness, when the Lord commanded that we be recognized by our fruits. I added that what follows should also be read: 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control'; and I made them consider how shameful and lamentable it was that they wished not only to live privately by those fruits of the flesh but even to offer them as an honour to the church, and, if they were given the power, would fill the whole space of so great a basilica with crowds of feasting and drunken people; while of the spiritual fruits, to which they were invited both by the authority of the divine Scriptures and by our groans, they will not bring gifts to God and celebrate the feasts of the saints chiefly with these.

When this was done I gave back the book, and, having called for prayer, as far as I was able, as far as the danger itself pressed me and the Lord deigned to supply strength, I set before their eyes the common danger, both of themselves, who had been entrusted to us, and of us, who would render an account of them to the Prince of shepherds. By his humility, his remarkable insults, the blows and spitting in the face, the slaps, the crown of thorns, the cross and the blood, I implored them that, if they were in any way displeased with themselves, they would at least have pity on us, and think of the unspeakable love of the venerable old man Valerius for me, who had not hesitated for their sake to lay on me the so dangerous burden of expounding the words of truth, and had often told them that his prayers had been heard in our coming; he rejoiced that we had come to him not, surely, to share their death or to watch their death, but to strive together with them toward eternal life. Finally I said also that I was certain and trusted in him who cannot lie, who promised through the mouth of his prophet, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'If his children forsake my law and do not walk in my commandments, if they profane my statutes, I will visit their crimes with the rod and their offences with scourges; but I will not take away my mercy from him.' So I said I trusted that, if they despised these great things which had been read and said to them, he would visit them with the rod and the scourge and not allow them to be condemned with this world. In this complaint I acted as our guardian and pilot gave me courage and ability, in proportion to the greatness of the matter and the danger. I did not move their tears by my tears; but when such things were said, I confess, their weeping came first and I could not restrain my own. And when we had wept together, I ended my sermon with the fullest hope of their correction.

But the next day, when the day dawned for which they used to prepare their throats and bellies, it was reported to me that some of them, even of those who had been present at the sermon, had not yet stopped murmuring, and that the force of the worst custom was so strong in them that they used only its voice and said: 'Why now? For those who did not forbid these things before were not un-Christian.' When I heard this I did not know at all what greater engines I could prepare to move them; yet I was planning, if they thought they should persist, to read that passage from the prophet Ezekiel, 'The watchman is absolved if he has announced the danger, even if those to whom it is announced do not wish to take care', and to shake out my garments and depart. But then the Lord showed that he does not desert us, and in what ways he encourages us to trust in him; for before the hour at which we were to go up to the platform, the very people came in to me whom I had heard complaining about the attack on the old custom. I received them kindly and in a few words brought them over to a sound view. And when the time came for the discourse, I omitted the reading I had prepared, since it no longer seemed necessary, and spoke briefly on this very question: that we could bring nothing shorter or truer against those who say 'Why now?' than for us to say 'Even now.'

Yet, lest those who before us had either permitted, or not dared to forbid, such manifest offences of the ignorant multitude should seem to be insulted by us, I explained to them by what necessity these things appear to have arisen in the church. After so many and such violent persecutions, when peace had come, crowds of pagans who wished to come to the Christian name were held back because they were used to spending their feast days with their idols in abundance of feasting and drunkenness, and could not easily abstain from these most pernicious yet most ancient pleasures. It seemed good to our forefathers to spare this part of their weakness for the time being, and to let them celebrate, in place of those they were leaving, other feast days in honour of the holy martyrs, not with similar sacrilege, though with similar luxury; so that, once they were bound together by the name of Christ and placed under the yoke of so great an authority, they might be given the saving precepts of sobriety, which they could no longer resist, out of honour and fear for the one who gave them. Therefore it was now time that those who do not dare to deny that they are Christians should begin to live according to the will of Christ, and that what had been conceded so that they might become Christians should be rejected now that they are Christians.

Then I exhorted them that we should wish to imitate the churches overseas, in some of which these things were never accepted, while in others they have already been corrected by good rulers, with the people obeying. And since examples of daily drunkenness at the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter were being put forward, I said first that we had heard it had often been forbidden; but because the place is far from the bishop's residence, and in so great a city there is a great multitude of carnal people, especially strangers who keep arriving fresh and cling to that custom the more violently the more ignorantly, so monstrous a plague had not yet been checked and quelled. Yet if we honoured the apostle Peter, we ought to hear his precepts and look much more devoutly to his letter, in which his will appears, than to the basilica, in which it does not appear; and at once taking the book I read where he says: 'Since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from the flesh, so as to live the rest of his time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for having done the will of men, walking in lusts, desires, drunkenness, revelling, and unspeakable idolatries.' When this was done and I saw them all going with one mind toward good will, despising the bad custom, I exhorted them to be present at midday for the divine readings and psalms; I said that this was a much purer and more sincere way of celebrating that day, and that from the crowd that gathered it could easily be seen who followed the mind and who the belly. So, when everything had been read, the sermon was ended.

In the afternoon a larger crowd was present than in the morning, and until the hour at which we went out with the bishop there was reading and psalm singing in turn; and after we had gone out, two psalms were read. Then the old man ordered and compelled me, unwilling as I was, since I longed for so dangerous a day to be over, to say something to them. I gave a short sermon to give thanks to God; and since we heard that in the basilica of the heretics their usual banquets had been celebrated, and that even at the very time when we were doing these things they were continuing in their cups, I said that the beauty of the day is enhanced by comparison with the night, and white is more pleasing next to black; so our gathering for a spiritual celebration would perhaps have been less delightful had not carnal gorging been set against it on the other side. And I exhorted them to seek such feasts eagerly, if they had tasted how sweet the Lord is; but that those should be afraid who pursue as their first good what will one day be destroyed, since each becomes the companion of the thing he worships; and the apostle mocked such people, saying, 'whose god is the belly', since he said in another place: 'Food for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both the one and the other.' We therefore ought to follow what is not destroyed, what is kept by the sanctification of the Spirit farthest from the affection of the flesh. And when the things the Lord deigned to suggest had been said to this effect, as time allowed, the evening service was held, as it is daily; and as we withdrew with the bishop, the brothers said hymns in the same place, with no small crowd of both sexes remaining and singing psalms until the day grew dark.

I have set out for you, as briefly as I could, what no one would doubt you wanted to hear. Pray that God may deign to turn away all scandals and all weariness from our efforts. We rest with you in great part, with eager fervour, because so many gifts of the spiritual church of Thagaste are reported to us. The ship with the brothers has not yet come. At Asna, where brother Argentius is presbyter, the Circumcellions invaded our basilica and broke the altar. The case is now being heard; we earnestly ask you to pray that it may be conducted peacefully and as befits the Catholic Church, so as to silence the tongues of the restless heresy. We have sent a letter to the Asiarch. Most blessed ones, persevere in the Lord, mindful of us. Amen.

Long ago, my brother of one mind in Christ the Lord, as soon as I came to know you in your holy and pious labours, without your knowing it, and saw you though you were absent, I embraced you with my whole mind and hastened to approach you also with a familiar and brotherly address by letter. And I believe my words were carried to you by the hand and grace of the Lord; but since the servant whom we had sent before winter to greet you and others equally beloved by God is still delayed, we could no longer either suspend our duty or restrain our most eager desire for your words. So we have written now a second time, if our earlier letter was fortunate enough to reach you, or for the first time, if it did not have the good fortune of reaching your hands.

But you, a spiritual brother who judges all things, do not weigh our love for you by the duty or the timing of letters alone. For the Lord is witness, who, one and the same, works his love in his own everywhere, that ever since we came to know you through your works against the Manichaeans, by the kindness of the venerable bishops Aurelius and Alypius, love for you has been so implanted in us that we seemed not to take up some new friendship but to resume, as it were, an old love. And so now, though we write as beginners in speech, we do not write as beginners in affection, and we recognize you in turn, as it were, in the spirit through the inner man. Nor is it surprising if, though absent, we are present to each other, and, though unknown, we know each other, since we are members of one body, have one head, are steeped in one grace, live by one bread, walk one way, and dwell in the same house. In short, in all that we are, we press on toward the future with all the hope and faith by which we stand in the present; we are one both in the spirit and in the body of the Lord, lest we be nothing if we fall away from the One.

How little, then, is it that bodily absence begrudges us of each other, except indeed that enjoyment on which eyes that look for temporal things feed? Though not even bodily grace should be called temporal in spiritual people, to whom the resurrection will grant the eternity even of bodies, as we shall dare to presume, unworthy though we are, in the power of Christ and the goodness of God the Father. Would that the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ might grant us this gift also, that we might see your face in the flesh too! Not only would great joy be given to our longings, but light would increase in our minds, and our poverty would be enriched from your abundance. This you can grant even to those who are absent, especially on this occasion, when our sons Romanus and Agilis, of one mind and very dear to us in the Lord, whom we commend to you as other selves, will return in the name of the Lord, having fulfilled their work of love. We ask that they may enjoy in a special way the affection of your love. For you know what lofty things the Most High promises to a brother who helps a brother. Through them, if you wish to repay me with any gift of the grace given to you, you may do so safely. For they are, believe me, one heart and one soul with us in the Lord. May the grace of God remain with you, as it does, for ever, brother of one mind in Christ the Lord, venerable, most beloved and longed for. Greet from us all the saints in Christ who, no doubt, cling to you. Commend us to all the saints, that they may deign to pray for us with you.

Though I wished my letter, in which I answered your earlier one (if indeed your letters can in any way be answered by me), to come very quickly into the hands of Your Love, so that in some way, though absent, I might soon be with you, my slowness has brought me the gain of your letter. The Lord is good, who often does not give what we want, so that he may give what we would prefer. For what you will write when you have received my letter is one thing, and what you wrote without having received it is another. We read it with the greatest joy, and we would certainly have lacked that joy if, as we wished and very much wanted, our letter had quickly reached Your Holiness. But now to have this letter and to hope for that reply delights us with a fuller joy. So neither can we be blamed for any fault, and the more generous kindness of the Lord has done what he judged more profitable to our desire.

The holy brothers Romanus and Agilis, another letter of yours, one that hears voices and returns them, and a most sweet part of your presence, though one that made us long more eagerly to see you, we received with great joy in the Lord. From where, or when, or how could you provide, or we demand, that you should teach us by writing as much about yourselves as we learned from their mouths? There was present also what no paper can have: such joy in those who told us that through their very faces and eyes as they spoke we read you, written in their hearts, with unspeakable gladness. There was this further advantage: any page, however good the things written on it, itself gains nothing, although it is unrolled for the profit of others; but this letter of yours, that is, a brotherly soul, we read in our conversation with them in such a way that it appeared to us the more blessed the more richly it had been written from you. So, by eagerly asking about everything concerning you, we copied it into our hearts in imitation of that same blessedness.

Yet we did not let them go back to you so soon without distress, even though they were returning to you. For see, I beg you, by what feelings we were shaken. They were surely to be let go the more quickly, the more earnestly they wished to obey you; but the more they wished it, the more present they made you to us, for by this they showed how dear your heart was to them. So we were the less willing to let them go, the more justly they pressed to be let go. O unbearable thing, were it not that we do not depart from one another by this departure, were it not that we are members of one body, have one head, are steeped in one grace, live by one bread, walk one way, and dwell in the same house! For why should we not use the same words too? You recognize, I believe, that these are from your letter. But why should these be your words rather than mine, since, being as true as they are, they come to us from communion with the same head? And if they had something given especially to you, I loved them all the more, so that they besieged the passage of my heart and did not let words pass from my heart to my tongue until they came forth all the purer for being yours. Holy brothers beloved of God and members of one another, who can doubt that we are quickened by one spirit, except one who does not feel with what love we are bound to one another?

Yet I would like to know whether you bear this bodily absence more patiently than we bear it easily. If so, I confess I do not love this fortitude of yours, unless perhaps because we are such that we deserve to be longed for less by you than we long for you. Certainly, if I had the patience to endure your absence, it would displease me; for I would be sluggish in trying to see you; and what is more absurd than to become more sluggish through fortitude? But by what care for the church I am held, Your Love should note from this: the most blessed father Valerius (how warmly he greets you with us and how much he thirsts for you, you will hear from the brothers) did not allow me to remain his presbyter without laying on me the greater burden of being his fellow bishop. Because I believed that the Lord willed this, given his great love and the great zeal of the people, and since some precedents had already gone before by which every excuse was closed to me, I was greatly afraid to excuse myself. But although the yoke of Christ is in itself gentle and the burden light, yet because of our roughness and weakness, if this bond chafes me at all and this load presses me, it would be made inexpressibly more bearable and portable by some comfort of your presence. I hear that you live freer and less encumbered by cares of this kind. Therefore I am not impudent in asking, requesting and pressing you to deign to come to Africa, which suffers more from thirst for such people than from its famous dryness.

God knows that we want you to be present in these lands bodily too, not only for my longing, nor only for those who have learned of your way of life either through us or from report spreading from anywhere, but also for the others, who partly have not heard of it and partly, having heard, do not believe it, yet could love it once they found it to be true. For although you act diligently and mercifully, still let your works shine also before the people of our regions, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven. The fishermen, when the Lord called them, rejoiced to recall that in leaving their little boats and nets they had left everything and followed the Lord. And truly he despises everything who despises not only as much as he could have, but also as much as he wished to have. But for what was desired the eyes of God are witnesses; for what was possessed, the eyes of men as well. Yet in some way or other, when superfluous earthly things are loved, things acquired bind more tightly than things desired. For why did that man go away sad who sought from the Lord counsel for attaining eternal life, when he heard that he must sell all he had and distribute it to the poor and have treasure in heaven, if he wished to be perfect, except that, as the gospel says, he had great riches? For it is one thing no longer to wish to take into oneself what one lacks, and another to tear away what has already become part of oneself: the former are refused like food, the latter are cut off like limbs. With how great and how wonderful a joy, then, does Christian love see happening gladly in our times, through the Lord's gospel, what the rich man heard from the Lord's mouth with sadness!

Although I can express in no words the conception and travail of my heart, yet since you understand prudently and piously that this is not your glory, that is, human glory, but the Lord's glory in you (for you watch the enemy most cautiously and strive most devoutly to be humble of heart and meek, as disciples of Christ; for earthly wealth is more usefully held humbly than proudly given up), since, then, you rightly understand that this is not your glory but the Lord's, you will see how small and slight are the things I have said. For I have spoken of the praises of Christ, to which the tongues of angels are unequal. This glory of Christ, then, we want brought before the eyes of our people too, examples set before both sexes, in one marriage, of trampling on pride and of not despairing of perfection. I do not know whether you could do anything more merciful than to be as unwilling to hide that you are such as you have been willing to be such.

I commend to your kindness and love Vetustinus, a boy who would move even the impious to pity. You will hear the causes of his calamity and wanderings from himself. As for his resolution, by which he promises to serve God, a longer time, a sturdier age and the passing of his fear will show it more surely. I have sent to Your Holiness and Love three books (would that they were as great in explaining so great a question as they are great in size), fearing to impose on you the labour of reading them the less, the more I see your ardour of love; for their question is free will. I know that brother Romanianus either does not have them or does not have all of them; through him I made known to your zeal toward us almost everything I have been able to write that is suited to any readers, not to be brought to you, but for you to read. For he already had them all and carried them with him; through him, moreover, I sent my first reply. I believe Your Holiness has already found out, by the spiritual discernment the Lord has given you, what good that man bears in his mind and what part of him limps in weakness. Hence you have read, I hope, with what solicitude I commended both him and his son to your kindness and love, and by how close a tie they are bound to me. May the Lord build them up through you. This is rather to be asked of him; for I know how much you wish it.

I have learned from the brothers that you are writing against the pagans. If we deserve anything from your heart, send it to us to read without hesitation; for your heart is such an oracle of the Lord that I presume it will give us only pleasing answers, most clearly worked out against the most talkative questions. I believe Your Holiness has the books of the most blessed pope Ambrose; I greatly desire those which he wrote most carefully and copiously against certain most ignorant and most proud people who maintain that the Lord learned from the books of Plato.

The most blessed brother Severus, our former fellow disciple, now bishop of the church of Milevis and well known to the brothers in that city, greets Your Holiness with us with due respect. All the brothers too who serve the Lord with us do so as much as they long for you; they long for you as much as they love you, and love you as much as you are good. The bread we have sent will become a richer blessing through the love with which your Kindness receives it. May the Lord keep you from this generation for ever, most beloved and most sincere lords, truly kind brothers, most excellent in the abundant grace of the Lord.