Letter CCXLVI.

To Lampadius, Augustin Sends Greeting.

1. On the subject of Fate and Fortune, by which, as I perceived when I was with you, and as I now know in a more gratifying and more reliable way by your own letter, your mind is seriously disturbed, I ought to write you a considerable volume; the Lord will enable me to explain it in the manner which He knows to be best fitted to preserve your faith. For it is no small evil that when men embrace perverse opinions they are not only drawn by the allurement of pleasure to commit sin, but are also turned aside to vindicate their sin rather than seek to have it healed by acknowledging that they have done wrong.

2. Let me, therefore, briefly remind you of one thing bearing on the question which you certainly know, that all laws and all means of discipline, commendations, censures, exhortations, threatenings, rewards, punishments, and all other things by which mankind are managed and ruled, are utterly subverted and overthrown, and found to be absolutely devoid of justice, unless the will is the cause of the sins which a man commits. How much more legitimate and right, therefore, is it for us to reject the absurdities of astrologers [mathematici], than to submit to the alternative necessity of condemning and rejecting the laws proceeding from divine authority, or even the means needful for governing our own families. In this the astrologers themselves ignore their own doctrine as to Fate and Fortune, for when any one of them, after selling to moneyed simpletons his silly prognostications of Fate, calls back his thoughts from the ivory tablets to the management and care of his own house, he reproves his wife, not with words only, but with blows, if he finds her, I do not say jesting rather forwardly, but even looking too much out of the window. Nevertheless, if she were to expostulate in such a case, saying: “Why beat me? beat Venus, rather, if you can, since it is under that planet’s influence that I am compelled to do what you complain of,”—he would certainly apply his energies not to invent some of the absurd jargon by which he cajoles the public, but to inflict some of the just correction by which he maintains his authority at home.

3. When, therefore, any one, upon being reproved, affirms that Fate is the cause of the action, and insists that therefore he is not to be blamed, because he says that under the compulsion of Fate he did the action which is censured, let him come back to apply this to his own case, let him observe this principle in managing his own affairs: let him not chastise a dishonest servant; let him not complain of a disrespectful son; let him not utter threats against a mischievous neighbour. For in doing which of these things would he act justly, if all from whom he suffers such wrong are impelled to commit it by Fate, not by any fault of their own? If, however, from the fight inherent in himself, and the duty incumbent on him as the head of a family towards all whom for the time he has under his control, he exhorts them to do good, deters them from doing evil, commands them to obey his will, honours those who yield implicit obedience, inflicts punishment on those who set him at naught, gives thanks to those who do him good, and hates those who are ungrateful,—shall I wait to prove the absurdity of the astrologers calculations of Fate, when I find him proclaiming, not by words but by deeds, things so conclusive against his pretensions that he seems to destroy almost with his own hands every hair on the heads of the astrologers?

If your eager desire is not satisfied with these few sentences, and demands a book which will take longer time to read on this subject, you must wait patiently until I get some respite from other duties; and you must pray to God that He may be pleased to allow both leisure and capacity to write, so as to set your mind at rest on this matter. I will, however, do this with more willing readiness, if your Charity does not grudge to remind me of it by frequent letters, and to show me in your reply what you think of this letter.

EPISTOLA CCXLVI . Augustinus Lampadio, ostendens fatum in peccatis perperam excusari, quippe cujus vel ipsi mathematici nullam rationem habeant in subditis castigandis.

AUGUSTINUS LAMPADIO.

1. De quaestione fati ac fortunae, qua tuum animum non leviter moveri, et cum praesens essem adverti, et nunc tuis litteris gratius certiusque cognovi, rescriptum tibi non parvi voluminis debeo; quod Dominus praestabit ut ita explicem, quemadmodum novit tibi congruere ad salutem fidei tuae. Non enim parvum malum est, perversis opinionibus non solum ad committendum blandimento voluptatis adduci, sed etiam ad defendendum peccatum a medicamento confessionis averti.

2. Illud sane quantocius ac breviter noveris, omnes leges atque omnia instituta disciplinae, laudes, vituperationes, exhortationes, terrores, praemia, supplicia, caeteraque omnia quibus humanum genus administratur et regitur, penitus labefactari atque subverti, nihilque in eis omnino justitiae remanere, nisi voluntas sit causa peccandi. Quanto ergo licentius et aequius mathematicorum improbamus errores, quam divinas leges, vel etiam domorum nostrarum curam damnare atque abjicere cogimur; quod nec ipsi mathematici faciunt? Nam cum aliquis eorum hominibus nummatis fatua fata vendiderit; mox ut oculum a tabellis eburneis ad domus suae moderamen ac sollicitudinem revocaverit, non solum vocibus, sed etiam plagis emendat uxorem; non dico si petulantius jocantem, sed si immoderatius per fenestram aspicientem animadverterit. Quae tamen si ei dicat, Quid me caedis? Venerem caede si potes, a qua cogor hoc facere: tum vero ille non curat quam vana verba componat fallendis extraneis, sed quam justa verbera imponat corrigendis suis.

3. Quando ergo quisque, cum reprehendi coeperit, causam convertit in fatum, et ideo se culpari non vult, quia fato se dicit coactum fecisse id quod arguitur; 1062 redeat ad seipsum, servet hoc in suis, non castiget servum furem, non de contumelioso filio conqueratur, vicino improbo non minetur. Quid enim horum faciens, juste facit, si omnes a quibus injurias patitur, non culpa sua, sed fato impelluntur ut faciant? Si autem jure proprio et patrisfamilias diligentia, quoscumque homines pro tempore in potestate habet, hortatur ad bonum, deterret a malo, imperat suae voluntati ut obtemperent, honorat eos qui sibi ad nutum obediunt, vindicat in eos qui se contemnunt, rependit gratiam beneficis, odio ingratos; egone exspectabo ut contra fata disputem, cum tanta eum non verbis, sed factis eloqui deprehendam, ut prope manibus suis omnes mathematicorum capillos super capita eorum frangere videatur? His itaque paucis si aviditas tua contenta non est, et librum aliquem de hac re, quem diutius legat, desiderat; patienter tibi sunt exspectandae vacationes nostrae, et rogandus Deus, qui et otium et facultatem satiando de hac re animo tuo tribuere dignetur. Ero tamen alacrior, si et saepe commemorare me litteris tuam non piguerit charitatem, et quid de hac epistola sentias rescribendo docueris.