Letters 55.24–58.3

Consider, then, the most sacred three days of the one crucified, buried, and raised. Of these three, what the cross signifies we do in the present life; what the burial and resurrection signify we carry out in faith and hope. For now it is said to man: 'Take up your cross and follow me.' And the flesh is crucified when our members on earth are put to death: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, greed, and the rest of this kind, of which he says: 'For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.' Hence he also says of himself: 'The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world'; and in another place: 'Knowing that our old man was crucified together with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we might no longer serve sin.' As long, then, as our works aim at this, that the body of sin may be done away with, as long as the outer man decays so that the inner may be renewed day by day, it is the time of the cross.

These are good works, but still laborious, whose reward is rest. But it is said, 'Rejoicing in hope', so that, thinking of the rest to come, we may work cheerfully in our labours. This cheerfulness is signified by the breadth of the cross in the crossbeam, where the hands are fixed; for by the hands we understand works, by the breadth the cheerfulness of the worker, because sadness makes things narrow. By the height, to which the head is joined, we understand the expectation of reward from the lofty justice of God, who will render to each according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek glory and honour and incorruption, eternal life. And so the length too, along which the whole body is stretched, signifies patience itself, whence those who endure are called long-suffering. The depth, which is fixed in the earth, prefigures the secret of the sacrament. For you remember, unless I am mistaken, what words of the apostle I am explaining in this description of the cross, where he says: 'Rooted and grounded in love, that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length, breadth, height, and depth.' The things which we do not yet see and do not yet hold, but carry out in faith and hope, are figured in the other two days. For what we now do, fixed as it were by the nails of the commandments in the fear of God, as it is written, 'Pierce my flesh with nails from fear of you', is counted among things necessary, not among those which are to be sought and desired for their own sake. Hence he says that he desires what is best, to depart and be with Christ; but to remain in the flesh, he says, is necessary for your sake. So in what he says, 'to depart and be with Christ', rest begins, which is not interrupted by the resurrection but glorified; yet it is now held by faith, because the righteous lives by faith. 'Do you not know,' he says, 'that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death.' How, if not by faith? For it is not yet perfected in us, as we still groan within ourselves and wait for the adoption, the redemption of our body: 'For in hope we have been saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.'

Remember how often I mention this. Let us not think that we ought already in this life to be made blessed and free from all difficulties, and so, in the straits of temporal things, murmur against God with sacrilegious mouth, as if he did not provide what he promised. He did indeed promise also the necessities of this life; but the comforts of the wretched are one thing, the joys of the blessed another. 'Lord,' it says, 'according to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul.' Let us not murmur, then, in difficulties, lest we lose the breadth of cheerfulness of which it is said, 'Rejoicing in hope', because there follows: 'Patient in tribulation.' So the new life is now begun in faith and carried on in hope; for it will be then, when death is swallowed up in victory, when that last enemy, death, is destroyed, when we have been changed and made equal to the angels. 'For we shall all rise,' he says, 'but we shall not all be changed'; and the Lord says: 'They will be equal to the angels of God.' For we are now laid hold of in fear through faith, but then we shall lay hold in love through sight. For as long as we are in the body we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. So the apostle himself, who says, 'That I may lay hold of it, as I have also been laid hold of', openly confesses that he has not laid hold of it: 'Brothers,' he says, 'I do not consider that I have laid hold of it.' Yet because that hope is sure for us, from the promise of the truth, when he said, 'We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death', he added: 'So that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.' So we walk in the reality of labour but in the hope of rest, in the flesh of oldness but in the faith of newness. For he says: 'The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.'

These things, then, both by the authority of the divine Scriptures and by the agreement of the universal church, which is spread through the whole world, are celebrated in the yearly Easter, certainly in a great sacrament, as you now understand. In the old Scriptures indeed no time is prescribed for keeping the Passover except in the month of new things, from the fourteenth moon to the twenty-first; but from the gospel, since it is plain on what day the Lord was crucified, lay in the tomb, and rose again, the observance of those very days was added by the councils of the fathers, and the whole Christian world was persuaded that Easter ought to be celebrated in that way.

The forty days of fasting, indeed, have authority both in the old books, from the fasts of Moses and Elijah, and from the gospel, because the Lord fasted for the same number of days, showing that the gospel does not disagree with the law and the prophets. For the law is understood in the person of Moses, the prophets in the person of Elijah, between whom he appeared in glory on the mountain, so that what the apostle says of him might stand out more clearly: 'Having witness from the law and the prophets.' In what part of the year, then, could the observance of the forty days be more fittingly set than next to and adjoining the Lord's passion? For it signifies this laborious life, which needs self-restraint, so that we may fast from friendship with the world itself, which never ceases to flatter deceitfully and to scatter and display the paint of its allurements. And I think this life is figured by the number forty for this reason: the number ten, in which is the perfection of our blessedness (as in the number eight, because it returns to the first, so in this, because the creature, which is figured by seven, cleaves to the Creator, in whom the unity of the Trinity is declared), has been proclaimed in time through the whole world; and the world is marked out by four winds, built up of four elements, and varied by the four yearly changes of the seasons; and ten four times makes forty; and forty, reckoned by its parts, adds ten itself, and makes fifty, as the reward of labour and self-restraint. For it was not without purpose that the Lord himself lived for forty days after the resurrection on this earth and in this life with the disciples, and, after he ascended into heaven, at an interval of ten days, sent the promised Holy Spirit when the day of Pentecost had come. That fiftieth day contains another sacrament: seven times seven makes forty-nine, and when one returns to the beginning, which is the eighth day and also the first, fifty is completed; and these days are celebrated after the Lord's resurrection, now as a figure not of labour but of rest and joy. For this reason fasts are relaxed and we pray standing, which is a sign of the resurrection. Hence on all Lord's days too this is observed at the altar, and Alleluia is sung, which signifies that our future activity will be nothing but the praise of God, as it is written: 'Blessed are those who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they will praise you.'

But the fifty days are commended in the Scriptures, not only in the gospel, because the Holy Spirit came then, but also in the old books. For after they celebrated the Passover by killing the lamb, fifty days are counted to the day on which the law, written by the finger of God, was given on Mount Sinai to Moses the servant of God; and in the books of the gospel it is most plainly declared that the finger of God signifies the Holy Spirit. For when one evangelist had said, 'By the finger of God I cast out demons', another said the same thing thus: 'By the Spirit of God I cast out demons.' Who would not prefer this joy of the divine sacraments, when they shine with the light of sound doctrine, to all the empires of this world, even when pacified with unheard-of prosperity? Do not the two testaments, like the two Seraphim crying to one another in harmony the praises of the Most High, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts', thus faithfully agree and sing together the sacred truth? The lamb is killed, the Passover is celebrated, and after fifty days the law, written by the finger of God, is given for fear; Christ is killed, who was led like a lamb to the slaughter, as the prophet Isaiah testifies, the true Passover is celebrated, and after fifty days the Holy Spirit, who is the finger of God, is given for love; he is contrary to men who seek their own and therefore bear a harsh yoke and a heavy burden and do not find rest for their souls, because love does not seek its own. Therefore the animosity of heretics is always restless; the apostle declares that they have the attempt of Pharaoh's magicians, saying: 'For as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith; but they will not get much further, for their folly will be plain to all, as theirs was.' For because they were most restless through that very corruption of mind, they failed at the third sign, confessing that the Holy Spirit who was in Moses was against them. For when they failed they said: 'This is the finger of God.' And just as the Holy Spirit, reconciled and appeased, gives rest to the meek and humble of heart, so, contrary and opposed to the ungentle and proud, he harasses them with restlessness. That restlessness was signified by those tiny flies under which Pharaoh's magicians failed, saying: 'This is the finger of God.'

Read Exodus and see after how many days from their celebrating the Passover the law was given. God speaks to Moses in the desert of Sinai on the third day of the third month. Note, then, one day from the beginning of that third month, and see what he says among other things: 'Go down,' he says, 'charge the people and purify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.' Then the law was given, namely on the third day of the third month. So count from the fourteenth of the first month, on which the Passover took place, to the third day of the third month: you will find seventeen days of the first month, thirty of the second, and three of the third, which make fifty. The law in the ark is the sanctification in the Lord's body, through whose resurrection future rest is promised to us; to receive it, love is breathed into us by the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Hence that prophecy was sung: 'Arise, O Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification.' Where there is rest, there is also sanctification. Hence we have now received a pledge, so that we may love and desire it. And all are called to the rest of the other life, to which one passes from this life, which is what pascha signifies, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For this reason the number fifty multiplied by three, with three itself added to emphasize the sacrament, is found in those great fish which the Lord, showing the new life after his resurrection, ordered to be drawn up on the right side; and the nets were not torn, because then there will be no restlessness of heretics. Then man, perfect and at rest, purified in soul and body by the pure words of the Lord, silver tried by fire in the earth, purified sevenfold, will receive the reward of the denarius, so that they make seventeen. For in this number too, as in others presenting manifold figures, a wonderful sacrament is found. Nor is it without reason that the seventeenth psalm alone is read entire in the books of Kingdoms, because it signifies that kingdom where we shall have no adversary. For its title is: 'On the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.' For who is figured in David but he who came according to the flesh from the seed of David? He still suffers enemies in his body, which is the church. Hence to that persecutor, whom he slew with his voice and, taking him into his own body, in a way ate, the voice from heaven sounded: 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' And when will this body of his be delivered from the hand of all his enemies, except when that last enemy, death, is also destroyed? To that time belongs that number of a hundred and fifty-three fish. For the number seventeen itself, rising into a triangle, completes the sum of a hundred and fifty-three. Rising from one to seventeen, add all those in between and you will find it: to one add two, which makes three; add three, which makes six; add four, which makes ten; add five, which makes fifteen; add six, which makes twenty-one; add the rest in the same way, and seventeen itself, and they make a hundred and fifty-three.

These things are held most firmly from the Scriptures, namely Easter and Pentecost. That the forty days before Easter should be observed has been confirmed by the agreement of the church; likewise that the eight days of the newly baptized should be distinguished from the rest, that is, that the eighth should accord with the first. But that Alleluia should be sung in church only during those fifty days is not observed everywhere; for in different places it is sung variously on other days too, but on those days everywhere. Whether our praying standing, both on those days and on all Lord's days, is kept everywhere, I do not know; but what the church follows in it I have said as I could, and I think it is plain.

As for washing feet: since the Lord commended this for the sake of the pattern of humility which he had come to teach, as he himself explained afterwards, the question was raised at what time so great a thing might best be taught by deed too, and that time came to mind at which the commendation itself would cling more devoutly. But lest it seem to belong to the sacrament of baptism itself, many have refused to adopt it as a custom; some have even not hesitated to remove it from custom. Others, in order to commend it at a more private time and to distinguish it from the sacrament of baptism, have chosen to do it either on the third day of the octave, since the number three is most excellent in many sacraments, or even on the eighth day itself.

I wonder indeed why you wished me to write to you something about things that are observed variously in different places, since it is not necessary, and one most wholesome rule is to be kept in them: that whatever is not against faith or good morals and has something to encourage a better life, wherever we see it instituted or know it to have been instituted, we should not only not disapprove but even follow by praising and imitating it, provided that the weakness of some does not so hinder it that the loss is greater. For if it hinders only in such a way that greater gains are to be hoped for from the earnest than losses feared from the cavillers, it should be done without hesitation, especially what can also be defended from the Scriptures, such as the singing of hymns and psalms, since we have both the example and the precepts of the Lord himself and of the apostles. On this practice, so useful for moving the mind piously and kindling the affection of divine love, custom varies, and most members of the church in Africa are rather sluggish, so that the Donatists blame us because we sing soberly in church the divine songs of the prophets, while they inflame their drunkenness with the singing of psalms composed by human talent, as if with trumpets of exhortation. But when is it not the time, when the brothers are assembled in church, to sing holy things, except when there is reading or preaching, or the bishops pray aloud, or common prayer is announced by the deacon's voice?

At other moments I do not see at all what could be done better, more usefully, or more holily by assembled Christians. But what is instituted beyond custom, so as to be observed as if it were a sacrament, I cannot approve, even if I do not dare to disapprove more freely of many things of this kind, in order to avoid offending certain persons, either holy or turbulent. But this grieves me greatly: that so many things most wholesomely commanded in the divine books are less cared for, and everything is so full of so many presumptions that a man who touches the ground with bare feet during his octave is rebuked more severely than one who has buried his mind in drunkenness. All such things, therefore, which are neither contained in the authorities of the holy Scriptures, nor found established by councils of bishops, nor confirmed by the custom of the universal church, but vary innumerably according to the different inclinations of different places, so that the reasons men followed in instituting them can hardly or never be found, I think should be cut away without any hesitation wherever the opportunity is given. For although it cannot be found how they are against faith, yet they burden with servile loads the very religion which the mercy of God willed to be free, with very few and very clear sacraments of celebration; so that the condition of the Jews is more tolerable, who, even if they have not recognized the time of freedom, are subject to the burdens of the law, not to human presumptions. But the church of God, set among much chaff and many tares, tolerates many things; and yet what is against faith or a good life she neither approves nor passes over in silence nor does.

So what you wrote, that certain brothers abstain from eating meat in such a way as to consider it unclean, is most plainly against faith and sound doctrine. But if I chose to argue this at greater length, some might think the apostle had given obscure instructions on it; he, among the many things he said on this matter, denounced the impious opinion of heretics in such a way as to say: 'Now the Spirit says plainly that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose conscience is seared, forbidding to marry and commanding abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful and by those who know the truth; for every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.' And in another place he says of these things: 'To the pure all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are defiled.' Read the rest yourself and recite it to whom you can. Let them not make the grace of God void in themselves, since we were called to freedom; only let them not use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, and so no longer be willing to abstain from any foods for the sake of curbing carnal desire, because they are not allowed to do so superstitiously and faithlessly.

As for those who draw lots from the pages of the gospel, although it is to be wished that they would do this rather than run to consult demons, yet this custom too displeases me: wishing to turn divine oracles, which speak for the sake of another life, to secular business and the vanity of this life.

If you do not think this enough for what you asked, you know too little both of my strength and of my occupations. For I am so far from what you supposed, that nothing escapes me, that I have read nothing in your letter more saddening, since it is most plainly false; and I wonder that you are unaware that not only in countless other things is much hidden from me, but even in the holy Scriptures themselves I do not know far more than I know. But I have a hope in the name of Christ that is not fruitless for this reason: that I have not only believed my God that on those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, but have also experienced it and experience it daily, since no sacrament or any rather obscure saying of the sacred writings is opened to me in which I do not find those same commandments: 'For the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned', and: 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.'

So you too, dearest friend, read and learn these things or others in such a way as to remember the most true saying: 'Knowledge puffs up'; but 'love does not envy, is not puffed up.' Let knowledge, then, be applied as a kind of scaffolding by which the structure of love may rise, which abides for ever, even when knowledge will be destroyed; knowledge, applied to the end of love, is very useful, but by itself, without such an end, it has been proved not only superfluous but even harmful. I know, however, what holy thought guards you under the shadow of the wings of the Lord our God. But I have given these admonitions, even if briefly, because I know that that same love of yours, which does not envy, will give this letter to many and read it to them.

I have not forgotten my promise or your wish. But since I have had to set out on the necessary business of visiting the churches under my care, I could neither pay my debt at once in person nor, on the other hand, did I wish you to be owed any longer what could be paid even in my absence. So I have delegated our dearest son, the presbyter Optatus, to read with you, at the hours you find most convenient, the things I promised. When he perceives that the whole can be done, he will urge your Excellency to do as energetically and keenly as gratefully as you have received it. How much I love you, and how much I wish you to delight and exercise yourself in wholesome studies in the knowledge of things divine and human, I believe you understand very well.

If you do not despise the love that prompts my service, I hope that in the Christian faith itself, and in a manner of life befitting a person of your standing, you will make such progress that you may await the last day of this smoke or vapour of time, which is called human life, a day no mortal is allowed to escape, either eagerly or securely, or at least not with desperate anxiety, not in the vanity of error but in the solidity of truth. For let it be as certain to you through saving doctrine as it is certain that you are alive, that this life, which is spent in temporal pleasures, is to be counted not life but death, in comparison with the eternal life promised us through Christ and in Christ. I would not doubt at all, given your character, that you will very easily free yourself from this habit of the Donatists, if you do not make light of Christian purity itself, most religiously. For by how unshakable supports of documents that error is refuted is no great matter to see, even for those slow of wit, if only they listen patiently and attentively. But to break the chain of an accustomed and, as it were, familiar perversity in order to follow an unaccustomed rightness requires greater strength. And with the help and exhortation of the Lord our God himself, there is no reason at all to despair of your noble freedom and truly manly heart. May the mercy of the Lord our God keep you safe, my excellent lord and deservedly honoured and dearly beloved son.

That there was no just cause for the party of Donatus to separate itself from the whole world, through which the Catholic Church is spread according to the promises of the prophets and the gospel, I believe your prudence, considering it further, understands very easily. If a more careful discussion of this matter is necessary, I remember that I gave your Kindness a book to read, when your dear son Caecilius, also mine, told me that you had asked for it. That book was with you for not a few days. If, from a desire to know the matter, you either wished or were able to read it amid your occupations, I do not doubt that your prudence has found that they have nothing to say against it with any probability. And if anything still troubles you, as far as God grants and permits, we may perhaps be able to answer your question or likewise give you something to read, my dearly beloved and deservedly honoured lord and esteemed son.

Therefore I ask you to commend Catholic unity more diligently to your people in the region of Hippo, especially Paternus and Maurusius. I know the watchfulness of your heart, and I think there is no need to write more, since, if you wish, you can very easily learn what others are concerned about and guard against on your estates, and what is going on in your property. I have been strongly assured that on your property there is a friend with whom I wish to come to agreement; I ask you to favour this, so that you may have great praise among men and a great reward with God. For he had already sent me word, through a certain Carus, a go-between for us both, that he feared some violent people of his own if he did this; but on your property and with your favour he cannot fear them. Nor ought you yourself to love in him not constancy but plain obstinacy. For it is shameful to change one's opinion, but a true and right one; to change a foolish and harmful one is even praiseworthy and wholesome. Just as constancy does not allow a man to be corrupted, so obstinacy does not allow him to be corrected; therefore, as the one is to be praised, so the other is to be amended. The presbyter whom I have sent will explain the rest more fully to your prudence. May the mercy of God keep you safe and happy, my dearly beloved and deservedly honoured lord and esteemed son.

Your good works, sprouting by the grace of Christ, have made you honoured among us in his members, and indeed most well known and dearly loved. For if I saw your face every day, you would not be better known to me than when I beheld your inner beauty of peace, lovely and radiant with the light of truth, in the brightness of one deed of yours; I beheld and recognized, I recognized and loved. To him I now speak, to him I write, my beloved friend, who, though absent, has become known to me, absent in body. But in truth we were already together and lived joined under one head, in whose love, had you not been rooted, Catholic unity would not have been so dear to you, nor would you have admonished your African tenants, settled in that part of the world from which the fury of the Donatists arose, that is, in the middle of Consular Numidia, with such an address, nor animated them with such fervour of spirit, that with most ready devotion they chose to follow what they thought so great and such a man as you would not follow unless the truth were known; and, though so far removed from you by distance, they went under the same head, and will be counted with you for ever among his members, by whose command they serve you in time.

Embracing you, then, known to me in this deed of yours, I rejoiced, so as to congratulate you in Christ Jesus our Lord and send you this letter of congratulation, a sample, such as it is, of my heart and love towards you; for I could do no more. But I beg you not to measure by this however much I love you. When you have read through this letter, pass on by the invisible passage that takes place within, and go in thought into my heart, and see what goes on there concerning you. For the chamber of love will lie open to the eye of love, the chamber which we close against the noisy trifles of the world when we worship the Lord there; and you will see there the delights of my joy at so good a deed of yours, which I can neither utter with the tongue nor express with the pen, warm and burning in the sacrifice of praise to him by whose inspiration you willed this and by whose help you were able. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

O how we long in Africa for such a deed from many senators like you, and many sons of the holy church, as we rejoice over in yours! But it is dangerous to exhort them, safe to congratulate you. For they perhaps will not do it, and, as if the enemies of the church had defeated us in their minds, those enemies will lie in wait to deceive the weak; but you have already done what will confound the enemies of the church, now that the weak have been set free. So it has seemed enough that you yourself should read this letter, with friendly confidence, to those to whom you can by Christian right. For thus, from your deed, they will believe that what they perhaps grow slack about, thinking it cannot be done, can be done in Africa. As for the plots which the heretics themselves are contriving with distorted heart, since I laughed at them for thinking that they had any power in your mind against Christ's possession, I did not even wish to write of them. You will hear of them, however, from my brothers, whom I warmly commend to your Excellency, so that, in so great and unexpected a salvation of men, over whom the Catholic mother rejoices through you, you may not disdain them even if their fears are superfluous.