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| To Marcellinus and Anapsychia
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Letter CLXV.
(a.d. 410.2703
| 2703 In assigning this place to Jerome’s letter to
Marcellinus and Anapsychia, the Benedictine editors have departed
from the chronological sequence in order to place it in immediate
juxtaposition to Letter CLXVI., written by Augustin to Jerome some
years later on the subject mentioned in sec. 1. | )
To My Truly Pious Lords
Marcellinus2704
| 2704 See note on Marcellinus in Letter CXXXIII. p.
470. | and Anapsychia,
Sons Worthy of Being Esteemed with All the Love Due to Their
Position, Jerome Sends Greeting in Christ.
Chap. I.
1. At last I have received your joint letter
from Africa, and I do not regret the importunity with which, though
you were silent, I persevered in sending letters to you, that I
might obtain a reply, and learn, not through report from others,
but from your own most welcome statement, that you are in health. I
have not forgotten the brief query, or rather the very important
theological2705
question,
which you propounded in regard to the origin of the soul,—does it
descend from heaven, as the philosopher Pythagoras and all the
Platonists and Origen think? or is it part of the essence of the
Deity, as the Stoics, Manichæus, and the Priscillianists of Spain
imagine? or are souls kept in a divine treasure house wherein they
were stored of old as some ecclesiastics, foolishly misled,
believe? or are they daily created by God and sent into bodies,
according to what is written in the gospel, “My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work”?2706
or are souls really produced, as
Tertullian, Apollinaris, and the majority of the Western divines
conjecture, by propagation, so that as the body is the offspring of
body, the soul is the offspring of soul, and exists on conditions
similar to those regulating the existence of the inferior
animals.”2707
| 2707 Et simili cum brutus animantibus conditione
subsistat. | I know
that I have published my opinion on this question in my brief
writings against Ruffinus, in reply to a treatise addressed by him
to Anastasius, of holy memory, bishop of the Roman Church, in
which, while attempting to impose upon the simplicity of his
readers by a slippery and artful, yet withal foolish confession, he
exposed to contempt his own faith, or, rather, his own perfidy.
These books are, I think, in the possession of your holy kinsman
Oceanus, for they were published long ago to meet the calumnies
contained in numerous writings of Ruffinus. Be this as it may, you
have in Africa that holy man and learned bishop Augustin, who will
be able to teach you on this subject viva voce, as the
saying is, and expound to you his opinion, or, I should rather say,
my own opinion stated in his words.
Chap. II.
2. I have long wished to begin the volume of
Ezekiel, and fulfil a promise frequently made to studious readers;
but at the time when I had just begun to dictate the proposed
exposition, my mind was so much agitated by the devastation of the
western provinces of the empire, and especially by the sack of Rome
itself by the barbarians, that, to use a common proverbial phrase,
I scarcely knew my own name; and for a long while I was silent,
knowing that it was a time for tears. Moreover when I had, in the
course of this year, prepared three books of the Commentary,
a sudden furious invasion of the barbarous tribes mentioned by your
Virgil as “the widely roaming Barcæi,”2708
| 2708 “Lateque vagantes Barcæi.”—Virg.
Æneid, iv. 43. | and by sacred Scripture in the
words concerning Ishmael, “He shall dwell in the presence of his
brethren,”2709
swept over
the whole of Egypt, Palestine, Phenice, and Syria, carrying all
before them with the vehemence of a mighty torrent, so that it was
only with the greatest difficulty that we were enabled, by the
mercy of Christ, to escape their hands. But if, as a famous orator
has said, “Laws are silent amid the clash of arms,”2710
| 2710 Cicero pro Milone: “Leges inter arma
silent.” | how much
more may this be said of scriptural studies, which demand a
multitude of books and silence, together with uninterrupted
diligence of amanuenses, and especially the enjoyment of
tranquillity and leisure by those who dictate! I have accordingly
sent two books to my holy daughter Fabiola, of which, if you wish
copies, you may borrow them from her. Through lack of time I have
been unable to transcribe others; when you have read these, and
have seen the portico, as it were, you may easily conjecture what
the house itself is designed to be. But I trust in the mercy of
God, who has helped me in the very difficult commencement of the
foresaid work, that He will help me also in the predictions
concerning the wars of Gog and Magog, which occupy the last
division but one of the prophecy,2711
and in the concluding portion
itself, describing the building, the details, and the proportions
of that most holy and mysterious temple.2712
| 2712 Ibid. ch. xl.-xliii. |
Chap. III.
3. Our holy brother Oceanus, to whom you desire to
be mentioned, is a man of such gifts and character, and so
profoundly learned in the law of the Lord, that he may probably
give you instruction without any request of mine, and can impart to
you on all scriptural questions the opinion which, according to the
measure of our joint abilities, we have formed.
May Christ, our almighty God, keep you, my truly
pious lords, in safety and prosperity to a good old age!
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