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| He Retires to the Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian, and Refers to His Conversion and Death, as Well as that of Nebridius.
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Chapter III.—He Retires to the
Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian, and
Refers to His Conversion and Death, as Well as that of
Nebridius.
5. Verecundus was wasted with anxiety at that
our happiness, since he, being most firmly held by his bonds, saw
that he would lose our fellowship. For he was not yet a Christian,
though his wife was one of the faithful;702
| 702 See vi. sec. 1, note, above. | and yet hereby, being more firmly
enchained than by anything else, was he held back from that journey
which we had commenced. Nor, he declared, did he wish to be a
Christian on any other terms than those that were impossible.
However, he invited us most courteously to make use of his country
house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, wilt
“recompense” him for this “at the resurrection of the
just,”703
seeing that
Thou hast already given him “the lot of the righteous.”704
For
although, when we were absent at Rome, he, being overtaken with
bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the
faithful, departed this life, yet hadst Thou mercy on him, and not
on him only, but on us also;705
lest, thinking on the exceeding
kindness of our friend to us, and unable to count him in Thy flock,
we should be tortured with intolerable grief. Thanks be unto Thee,
our God, we are Thine. Thy exhortations, consolations, and faithful
promises assure us that Thou now repayest Verecundus for that
country house at Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we
found rest in Thee, with the perpetual freshness of Thy Paradise,
in that Thou hast forgiven him his earthly sins, in that mountain
flowing with milk,706
| 706 Literally, In monte incaseato, “the
mountain of curds,” from the Old Ver. of Ps. lxviii. 16.
The Vulgate renders coagulatus. But the Authorized
Version is nearer the true meaning, when it renders גַּבְנֻנִים, hunched, as “high.” The
LXX. renders it τετυρωμένος,
condensed, as if from
גְּבִינָה, cheese. This divergence arises from the
unused root גָּבַן, to be
curved, having derivatives meaning (1) “hunch-backed,” when
applied to the body, and (2) “cheese” or “curds,” when
applied to milk. Augustin, in his exposition of this place, makes
the “mountain” to be Christ, and parallels it with Isa. ii.
2; and the “milk” he
interprets of the grace that comes from Him for Christ’s little
ones: Ipse est mons incaseatus, propter parvulos gratia tanquam
lacte nutriendos. | that fruitful mountain,—Thine
own.
6. He then was at that time full of grief; but
Nebridius was joyous. Although he also, not being yet a Christian,
had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error of believing
Thy Son to be a phantasm,707
| 707 See. v. 16, note, above. | yet, coming out thence, he
held the same
belief that we did; not as yet initiated in any of the sacraments
of Thy Church, but a most earnest inquirer after truth.708
| 708 See vi. 17, note 6, above. | Whom, not
long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy baptism, he being
also a faithful member of the Catholic Church, and serving Thee in
perfect chastity and continency amongst his own people in Africa,
when his whole household had been brought to Christianity through
him, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in
Abraham’s bosom. Whatever that may be which is signified by that
bosom,709
| 709 Though Augustin, in his Quæst. Evang. ii.
qu. 38, makes Abraham’s bosom to represent the rest into which
the Gentiles entered after the Jews had put it from them, yet he,
for the most part, in common with the early Church (see
Serm. xiv. 3; Con. Faust. xxxiii. 5; and Eps.
clxiv. 7, and clxxxvii. Compare also Tertullian, De Anima,
lviii), takes it to mean the resting-place of the souls of the
righteous after death. Abraham’s bosom, indeed, is the same as
the “Paradise” of Luke xxiii. 43. The souls of the faithful
after they are delivered from the flesh are in “joy and
felicity” (De Civ. Dei, i. 13, and xiii. 19); but they
will not have “their perfect consummation and bliss both in
body and soul” until the morning of the resurrection, when
they shall be endowed with “spiritual bodies.” See note
p. 111; and for the difference between the ᾳδης of
Luke
xvi. 23, that is, the
place of departed spirits,—into which it is said in the
Apostles’ Creed Christ descended,—and γέεννα, or Hell, see Campbell on The
Gospels, i. 253. In the A.V. both Greek words are rendered
“Hell.” | there lives
my Nebridius, my sweet friend, Thy son, O Lord, adopted of a
freedman; there he liveth. For what other place could there be for
such a soul? There liveth he, concerning which he used to ask me
much,—me, an inexperienced, feeble one. Now he puts not his ear
unto my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and
drinketh as much as he is able, wisdom according to his
desire,—happy without end. Nor do I believe that he is so
inebriated with it as to forget me,710
| 710 See sec. 37, note, below. | seeing Thou, O Lord, whom he
drinketh, art mindful of us. Thus, then, were we comforting the
sorrowing Verecundus (our friendship being untouched) concerning
our conversion, and exhorting him to a faith according to his
condition, I mean, his married state. And tarrying for Nebridius to
follow us, which being so near, he was just about to do, when,
behold, those days passed over at last; for long and many they
seemed, on account of my love of easeful liberty, that I might sing
unto Thee from my very marrow. My heart said unto Thee,—I have
sought Thy face; “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”711
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