Epigrams on Sentences of Augustine

Contents

Reading pages: 0–49 · 50–96 · 97–105

1. 0In his preface Prosper explains that he has gathered sayings from his reading, like flowers, and set each in a short verse epigram, by God's gift.
2. 1True innocence harms neither oneself nor another, since whoever plots harm against another first wounds himself, even if he never carries it out.
3. 2We must love people as God made them while hating their faults, since what God made is good and only what evil adds is to be rejected.
4. 3Only the triune God is truly eternal and unchangeable; creatures, even those given everlasting life, are subject to change and so are not eternal in the same sense.
5. 4God's patience spares sinners and gives them time to repent, and even his punishments are fatherly correction meant to save.
6. 5God punishes in this life out of mercy, so that sinners may be corrected and not punished eternally.
7. 6Praise of God is true only when heart and mouth agree; to speak well and live badly is to condemn oneself.
8. 7Love of God and neighbor belongs only to the saints, while other virtues can be found in the wicked too; without these two wings no one reaches heaven.
9. 8The apostles' teaching feeds every kind of person according to capacity, milk for the little and bread for the strong, and gives life through the one faith.
10. 9Seeking God is seeking joy, but joy in the Lord, not in oneself, since he gives the understanding and love by which he is known and dwells in those he adorns with his gifts.
11. 10As the body dies without food, so the soul dies if it loathes the spiritual food of God's Word.
12. 11Being belongs to God, so those who turn from him tend toward nothing and are never truly many, while those who cling to him remain forever.
13. 12God punishes not from a desire for vengeance but calmly, by his just will, so that even the wicked are kept in their due order.
14. 13True understanding of Scripture means doing what one has learned, just as wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.
15. 14The believer already has rest in this life, not from good works but from sin, living to God and dead to the world.
16. 15The vow owed to God is oneself, his image, as the coin with Caesar's image is owed to Caesar; and true sacrifice is offered only within the Catholic Church.
17. 16Justice repays good for good and evil for evil, but grace returns good for evil, forgiving sins in baptism; without it there would be no good people to reward.
18. 17The citizen of the heavenly city is a pilgrim in this world, where few know and love God; Christ, his way, keeps him through adversity and prosperity.
19. 18Every soul is weighed down by the body, but with God's help the mind must rule the flesh, which it can do only by the love of Christ.
20. 19The way to life is narrow, yet those whose hearts are enlarged by hope run it gladly, since what frightens the worldly is open ground to great souls.
21. 20God must be worshipped for his own sake, as himself the reward; whoever worships him for some other gain loves the gain, not God.
22. 21We must not judge the hidden thoughts of others on suspicion, especially when their visible works are good, but leave secrets to God.
23. 22Right thought and conduct are God's gift, since he works in us that we may work; no one is good without the Good.
24. 23God permits the wicked to persecute the saints so that, tested by these trials, they may grow in virtue and glory.
25. 24Knowledge of God's law is true only when it is put into practice.
26. 25A lover of God's law hates the wickedness of the wicked, not the people themselves.
27. 26God's commandments can be searched only by a quiet mind, free of quarrels and the world's noise, as the temple was built in silence.
28. 27No one is so learned as not to need God's light, since in this life there is always more to understand and do, and the very desire to ask rightly is God's gift.
29. 28God's ways are mercy and truth: in the lost and the saved they appear separately, but in the saints they are joined, since their blessedness is both grace's gift and justice's reward; grace always comes first.
30. 29Christians should keep peace even with those who hate peace, hoping to correct them, without consenting to their wickedness; if they refuse, our own peace remains.
31. 30God keeps his people from evil not by sparing them all trials but by keeping their souls unharmed in them, which is the greater wonder; the crown goes to those who contend.
32. 31Only those who confess that their ascent to the heavenly Jerusalem is God's gift, not their own work, will reach it.
33. 32The godly will be mocked as fools for giving up present goods in hope of future ones, but the mockery will rebound on the mockers, and the hope is sure because God made the pledge.
34. 33The endurance of the faithful under persecution is God's work in them; whoever credits his steadfastness to himself has already fallen.
35. 34Christians should submit to rulers and masters, rendering what the world's order rightly requires, as long as their faith is not violated, loving the good and enduring the bad.
36. 35The upright accept with equanimity whatever God wills them to endure, without complaint, trusting his final judgment.
37. 36The church, God's building, grows by his cooperation and stands by his protection; even its shepherds need his guarding.
38. 37The joys of the heavenly city are eternal and unchanging, since God himself is their cause and all share one light and one love.
39. 38The law of Christ is love, and the Lord's Prayer shows that those who forgive others will be forgiven, since God judges us by our own measure.
40. 39God's commands benefit not God, who needs nothing, but those who obey them; he receives from us only what he has given.
41. 40Nothing that appears new in time is new to God, who holds all times at once and governs everything that happens.
42. 41God's unchangeable reason holds all changing things together in his eternity, so that for him nothing is early or late.
43. 42The success of sinners is their greatest misfortune, since it feeds their evil will; it is better that worldly pleasures fail and the soul be healed.
44. 43Without the Spirit the law only makes sin known and increases it; grace alone gives the love by which its commands are willed.
45. 44The law shows the weakness of the flesh so that grace may be sought, and grace enables the law to be fulfilled.
46. 45God promises what he himself will do, so salvation is not from works but from God's calling; if God merely foresaw human choices, his promises would be predictions, not gifts.
47. 46Small daily sins do not shut the just out of eternal life, and the occasional good works of the impious do not save them; only faith, hope, and love make a man just.
48. 47When God allows the wicked to do what they want, he is already punishing them, hiddenly but justly; it is worse for sinners to be spared than to be thwarted.
49. 48Other vices work only through evil deeds, but pride can feed even on good ones.
50. 49Prosperity and adversity are judged by how they are used: the good are neither puffed up nor broken, while the lover of earthly things is wretched either way.
51. 50Death is not evil after a good life; what matters is not how one dies but where one goes after death.
52. 51A person violated against her will loses nothing of her chastity, which lies in the mind; conversely the mind can be guilty while the body is untouched.
53. 52It shows a greater soul to endure a hard life than to escape it, and to despise the crowd's judgment for the sake of a clear conscience.
54. 53The good man is free even as a slave, while the wicked man is a slave even as a king, serving as many masters as he has vices.
55. 54We can rightly vow to God only what we have first received from him.
56. 55Whatever is not God is a creature, so there can be no inequality within the Trinity: the Son and the Spirit are fully God with the Father.
57. 56God loves us for what his grace will make of us, not for our own merits.
58. 57God's wisdom holds the whole order of time without time, so that nothing is new to him.
59. 58God's will is the first cause of every motion in creation; nothing happens that he does not command or permit, and both punishment and glory redound to his praise.
60. 59God approves innocence that comes from love of justice, not from fear of punishment; one's fears and loves show where one belongs.
61. 60Christians should rejoice in the age to come and use earthly goods as pilgrims; and (Epigram 61) God surpasses speech and thought, yet his works make him known and stir faith and love.
62. 61The devil's pride brought man to death; Christ's humility, as God born of the Virgin, brings the believer back to life, reborn in baptism.
63. 63Happiness lies in willing rightly, not in getting what one wants; a right will that fails is nearer blessedness than an evil will that succeeds.
64. 64Everyone exists in God, but only those who remember, understand, and love him are with him; the rest live in exile.
65. 65The Word, equal to the Father, shared our mortality so that we might share his divinity; the triune God redeemed humanity through Christ's innocent death, the Word united to flesh without confusion or division.
66. 66The catholic faith confesses Christ as both true God and true man; Prosper's verse argues against those who deny the incarnation that without it there is no salvation, birth from the Virgin, or fulfillment of the promises to Abraham and David.
67. 67Perfect hatred hates the vice and loves the person, never condemning the nature for the sin or loving the sin for the person's sake.
68. 68Lying is laborious and troubled, while truthfulness brings peace.
69. 69The narrow way leads to life and the broad way to death; the worldly wise perish, while the one who loves God, renewed in Christ, becomes his image.
70. 70The obscurities of Scripture are good: they keep its mysteries precious, exercise the reader, and in the end feed him, for God who gives the seeking gives the finding.
71. 71Christ's bloody sweat in Gethsemane foreshadowed the martyrs' sufferings throughout his body, the church, all springing from his one seed.
72. 72The sacrament protects those who receive it worthily, but the unworthy receive it to their judgment.
73. 73God is to be praised both for his kindness and for his threats of judgment, since both serve to correct and save, while there is still time to repent.
74. 74Conversion must not be delayed, for God promises pardon to the penitent but not tomorrow to the procrastinator.
75. 75Other things we fear we flee, but God, whom no one can escape, must be fled to; he who strikes also heals.
76. 76Bodily virginity profits nothing without the soul's virginity, which is an uncorrupted faith.
77. 77Whatever exceeds our needs belongs to the poor; to hoard it is to rob them.
78. 78The wicked rich lack the true wealth, since death strips them of everything, while the virtues of the just can never be lost or stolen.
79. 79Avoiding evil is not enough; the just must also do good, relieving the hungry, naked, and imprisoned and reconciling enemies.
80. 80God's delay in punishing sinners is not blindness; to be left uncorrected is itself the heavier sentence.
81. 81Joy in Christ, the eternal good, can never be lost, unlike the brief pleasures of worldly wealth.
82. 82God is present everywhere, so we draw near to him or move away not by travel but by likeness or unlikeness of life.
83. 83Without faith in God even the best morals are false virtue, since nothing is good without the highest good; the wisdom of the world only adds to its darkness.
84. 84The true sabbath is rest from sin, which should be perpetual, not idleness from good works.
85. 85Serving God out of love is the highest freedom.
86. 86Pride, the first sin, is the last to be overcome: even after defeating every other sin, man is tempted to glory in himself rather than in God.
87. 87Only love for what cannot be lost, God himself, brings rest from the labors and anxieties of earthly desires.
88. 88Flattery binds sinners in their sins; a friend should speak freely to correct, as a true physician does.
89. 89Martyrs who die for Christ before baptism receive in their own blood all that baptism gives.
90. 90In this life even the saints' righteousness consists more in the forgiveness of sins than in perfect virtue, since the struggle with the flesh never ends.
91. 91Even when we cannot know the reasons for God's works, we know he does nothing without reason; faith is content to know all things in Christ.
92. 92We must not despair of the wicked but pray for their conversion; and (Epigram 93) wisdom and spiritual defenses must be gained in times of peace, since they are hard to acquire in trouble.
93. 94Temporal goods can be lost against one's will, but eternal goods are lost only by choosing to let them go.
94. 95God sometimes mercifully refuses prayers for earthly needs, as a physician knows better than the patient; in calamities the faithful should accept his chastisement and pray, and repent.
95. 96The life of piety on earth is a constant fight against inner vices, asking pardon when one yields and help not to yield; the mind can rule the flesh only if it serves God, who gives both the will and the power.
96. 97Evil is not a nature made by God but a turning of the free will from right order; and (Epigram 98) when God refuses a wrong request, his refusal is mercy.
97. 99God's judgments are not to be measured by human ones; even when they seem unjust to us, he is just and good, and our ignorance should submit.
98. 100Since anger always seems just to the angry, it must be quickly given up before it hardens into hatred; we all need forgiveness and must give it.
99. 101Three verse epigrams without their prose sentences: the narrow path to Christ's glory, the mind's rule over the flesh in hope of the kingdom whose firstfruits are in Christ, and the one God and one faith that raises hope and love to heaven.
100. 104The Father and the Son act inseparably, and with the Spirit are one God, as Christ says, "I and the Father are one."
101. 105The Son has life in himself by birth from the Father, sharing one Godhead with the Father and the Spirit; and (Epigram 106) no believer should ever say "it is enough," but keep seeking God to the end.