Augustine of Hippo, Letters

1. I received two letters from you at the same time, in one of which you mention a third, and state that you had sent it before the others. This letter I do not remember having received, or, rather, I think I may say the testimony of my memory is, that I did not receive it; but in regard to those which I have received, I return you many thanks for your kindness to me. To these I would have returned an immediate answer, had I not been hurried away by a constant succession of other matters urgently demanding attention. Having now found a moment’s leisure from these, I have chosen rather to send some reply, however imperfect, than continue towards a friend so true and kind a protracted silence, and become more annoying to you by saying nothing than by saying too much.

2. I already knew the opinion of the holy Jerome as to the origin of souls, and had read the words which in your letter you have quoted from his book. The difficulty which perplexes some in regard to this question, “How God can justly bestow souls on the offspring of persons guilty of adultery?” does not embarrass me, seeing that not even their own sins, much less the sins of their parents, can prove prejudicial to persons of virtuous lives, converted to God, and living in faith and piety. The really difficult question is, if it be true that a new soul created out of nothing is imparted to each child at its birth, how can it be that the innumerable souls of those little ones, in regard to whom God knew with certainty that before attaining the age of reason, and before being able to know or understand what is right or wrong, they were to leave the body without being baptized, are justly given over to eternal death by Him with whom “there is no unrighteousness!”1387 Rom. ix. 14. It is unnecessary to say more on this subject, since you know what I intend, or rather what I do not at present intend to say. I think what I have said is enough for a wise man. If, however, you have either read, or heard from the lips of Jerome, or received from the Lord when meditating on this difficult question, anything by which it can be solved, impart it to me, I beseech you, that I may acknowledge myself under yet greater obligation to you.

3. As to the question whether lying is in any case justifiable and expedient, it has appeared to you that it ought to be solved by the example of our Lord’s saying, concerning the day and hour of the end of the world, “Neither doth the Son know it.”1388 Mark xiii. 32. When I read this, I was charmed with it as an effort of your ingenuity; but I am by no means of opinion that a figurative mode of expression can be rightly termed a falsehood. For it is no falsehood to call a day joyous because it renders men joyous, or a lupine harsh because by its bitter flavour it imparts harshness to the countenance of him who tastes it, or to say that God knows something when He makes man know it (an instance quoted by yourself in these words of God to Abraham, “Now I know that thou fearest God”).1389 Gen. xxii. 12. These are by no means false statements, as you yourself readily see. Accordingly, when the blessed Hilary explained this obscure statement of the Lord, by means of this obscure kind of figurative language, saying that we ought to understand Christ to affirm in these words that He knew not that day with no other meaning than that He, by concealing it, caused others not to know it, he did not by this explanation of the statement apologize for it as an excusable falsehood, but he showed that it was not a falsehood, as is proved by comparing it not only with these common figures of speech, but also with the metaphor, a mode of expression very familiar to all in daily conversation. For who will charge the man who says that harvest fields wave and children bloom with speaking falsely, because he sees not in these things the waves and the flowers to which these words are literally applied?

4. Moreover, a man of your talent and learning easily perceives how different from these metaphorical expressions is the statement of the apostle, “When I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”1390 Gal. ii. 14. Here there is no obscurity of figurative language; these are literal words of a plain statement. Surely, in addressing persons “of whom he travailed in birth till Christ should be formed in them,”1391 Gal. iv. 19. and to whom, in solemnly calling God to confirm his words, he said: “The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not,”1392 Gal. i. 20. the great teacher of the Gentiles affirmed in the words above quoted either what was true or what was false; if he said what was false, which God forbid, you see the consequences which would follow; and Paul’s own assertion of his veracity, together with the example of wondrous humility in the Apostle Peter, may warn you to recoil from such thoughts.1393 We have left the word ambo in “ambo ista exhorrescas” untranslated. Critics are agreed that a few words of the original are probably wanting here, only one alternative of the dilemma being stated by St. Augustin in the text.

5. But why say more? This question the venerable Father Jerome and I have discussed fully in letters1394 In Letters XXVIII., XL., LXXV., and LXXXII., translated in Letters, pp. 251, 272, 333, 349. which we exchanged, and in his latest work, published under the name of Critobulus, against Pelagius,1395 Adversus Pelagium, book i. he has maintained the same opinion concerning that transaction and the words of the apostle which, in accordance with the views of the blessed Cyprian,1396 Letters of Cyprian, LXXI. I myself have held. In regard to the question as to the origin of souls, I think there is reasonable ground for inquiry, not as to the giving of souls to the offspring of adulterous parents, but as to the condemnation (which God forbid) of those who are innocent. If you have learned anything from a man of such character and eminence as Jerome which might form a satisfactory answer to those in perplexity on this subject, I pray you not to refuse to communicate it to me. In your correspondence, you have approved yourself so learned and so affable that it is a rivilege to hold intercourse with you by letter. I ask you not to delay to send a certain book by the same man of God, which the presbyter Orosius brought and gave to you to copy, in which the resurrection of the body is treated of by him in a manner said to merit distinguished praise. We have not asked it earlier, because we knew that you had both to copy and to revise it; but for both of these we think we have now given you ample time. Live to God, and be mindful of us.

[For translation of Letter CLXXXV. to Count Boniface, containing an exhaustive history of the Donatist schism, see Anti-Donatist Writings.]

EPISTOLA CLXXX . Augustinus Oceano, rescribens paucis de animae origine, et de officioso mendacio, petensque ut mittat Hieronymi librum de Resurrectione carnis.

Domino merito charissimo, et in Christi membris honorando fratri OCEANO, AUGUSTINUS, salutem.

1. Duas accepi simul epistolas Dilectionis tuae, quarum in una facis tertiae mentionem, et eam te prius misisse commemoras; quam accepisse non recolo, imo bene mihi recolere videor quod non acceperim. De iis tamen quas accepi, ago uberes gratias benignitati erga nos tuae. Quibus ut non continuo responderem, in alia atque alia diversarum occupationum tempestate direptus sum Unde nunc stillam vacantis temporis nactus, respondere aliquid malui, quam ad tuam sincerissimam charitatem diuturnum habere silentium, et fieri taciturnitate, quam loquacitate importunior.

2. De origine animarum quid sanctus Hieronymus sentiat, jam sciebam, et haec ipsa quae ex libro ejus in epistola tua posuisti verba jam legeram. Verum non hoc quaestionem molestam facit, quod movet quosdam, quomodo Deus adulterinis etiam conceptibus juste animas largiatur; cum bene viventibus, et ad Deum fide ac pietate conversis, ne propria quidem, quanto minus parentum, possint obesse peccata. Sed merito quaeritur, si verum est novas ex nihilo animas singulas singulis nascentibus fieri, quomodo tam innumerabiles animae parvulorum, quas Deo certum est, ante rationales annos, antequam quidquam justum injustumve sapere vel capere possint, sine Baptismo de corporibus exituras, juste in damnationem dentur, ab illo utique apud quem non est iniquitas (Rom. IX, 14). Non opus est de hac re plura dicere, cum scias quid velim, vel potius quid nolim dicere; satis existimo sapienti esse quod dixi. Verumtamen si aliquid hinc, quo ista quaestio solvi queat, vel legisti, vel ex ore ejus audisti, vel tibi ipsi Dominus cogitanti donavit ut noveris; impartire, obsecro, mihi, ut gratias uberiores agam.

3. Illud vero de officioso utilique mendacio, quod exemplo Domini de die et hora hujus saeculi finiendi nec Filium scire dicentis (Marc. XIII, 32), putasti esse solvendum; conatu quidem ingenii tui, cum legerem, delectabar, sed nullo modo mihi videtur tropicam locutionem recte dici posse mendacium. Non enim mendacium est, cum diem laetum dicimus, quod laetos faciat; aut tristem lupinum, quod gustantis vultum amaro sapore contristet; sicut Deum scire, cum cognoscentem hominem facit; hoc enim dictum ad Abraham (Gen. XXII, 12) ipse commemorasti. Nequaquam sunt ista mendacia; quod ipse facillime advertis. Proinde beatus Hilarius, cum obscuram quaestionem 0779 obscuro hoc genere tropicae locutionis aperuit, ut intelligeremus in eo se nimirum dixisse nescientem, in quo alios facit occultando nescientes, non excusavit mendacium, sed mendacium non esse monstravit; non solum in his usitatioribus tropis, verum in illa etiam, quae appellatur metaphora, quae loquendi consuetudine omnibus nota est (Hilar. de Trinitate, lib. 9). Nam gemmare vites, fluctuare segetes, florere juvenes, contendet quispiam esse mendacium, quod in his rebus nec undas, nec lapides, nec herbas, nec arbores videt, ubi proprie ista verba dicuntur?

4. Porro autem pro tuo ingenio atque eruditione facillime perspicis quantum ab his differat quod ait Apostolus: Cum viderem quia non recte ingrediuntur ad veritatem Evangelii, dixi Petro coram omnibus, Si tu, cum sis Judaeus, gentiliter et non judaice vivis, quemadmodum Gentes cogis judaizare (Galat. II, 14)? Nulla est hic tropica obscuritas, verba sunt propria apertae locutionis. Hoc profecto Doctor Gentium, his quos parturiebat donec Christus formaretur in eis (Id. IV, 19), et quibus sub divina attestatione praedixerat, Quae autem scribo vobis, ecce coram Deo, quia non mentior (Id. I, 20), aut verum dixit, aut falsum: si falsum, quod absit, quae sequantur advertis; et ambo ista exhorrescas admonet veritatis indicium, et in apostolo Petro mirabilis humilitatis exemplum.

5. Sed quid hinc diutius? cum de hac quaestione inter nos, ego et praedictus venerabilis frater Hieronymus satis litteris egerimus; et in hoc opere recentissimo, quod sub nomine Critobuli adversus Pelagium modo edidit (Lib. 1 adversus Pelag.), eamdem de ista re gesta dictisque apostolicis sententiam tenuit, quam beatissimi Cypriani etiam nos secuti sumus (Epist. 71 ad Quintum). Illud potius de origine animarum, non propter partus adulterinos, sed propter innocentium, quod absit, damnationem, quod, opinor, non stulte quaeritur; si quid a tali ac tanto didicisti viro, quod recte responderi ambigentibus possit, quaeso nobiscum communicare non abnuas. Ita quippe mihi in epistolis tuis eruditus et suavis apparuisti, ut operae pretium sit tecum litteris colloqui. Nescio sane quem librum ejusdem hominis Dei, quem presbyter Orosius attulit, tuaeque Dilectioni describendum dedit, ubi de resurrectione carnis praeclare disputasse laudatur, jam nobis peto non differas mittere. Ideo quippe non eum cito poposcimus, quia et describendum et emendandum utique cogitavimus; cui utrique operi largissimum jam putamus tempus indultum. Memor nostri Deo vivas.