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Letter LXIV.
(a.d. 401.)
To My Lord Quintianus, My Most
Beloved Brother and Fellow-Presbyter, Augustin Sends Greeting in
the Lord.
1. We do not disdain to look upon bodies which
are defective in beauty, especially seeing that our souls
themselves are not yet so beautiful as we hope that they shall be
when He who is of ineffable beauty shall have appeared, in whom,
though now we see Him not, we believe; for then “we shall be like
Him,” when “we shall see Him as He is.”1865
If you receive my counsel in a
kindly and brotherly spirit, I exhort you to think thus of your
soul, as we do of our own, and not presumptuously imagine that it
is already perfect in beauty; but, as the apostle enjoins,
“rejoice in hope,” and obey the precept which he annexes to
this, when he says, “Rejoicing in hope, patient in
tribulation:”1866
“for we
are saved by hope,” as he says again; “but hope that is seen is
not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we
hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for
it.”1867
Let not
this patience be wanting in thee, but with a good conscience
“wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen
thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”1868
2. It is, of course, obvious that if you come
to us while debarred from communion with the venerable bishop
Aurelius, you cannot be admitted to communion with us; but we would
act towards you with that same charity which we are assured shall
guide his conduct. Your coming to us, however, should not on this
account be embarrassing to us, because the duty of submission to
this, out of regard to the discipline of the Church, ought to be
felt by yourself, especially if you have the approval of your own
conscience, which is known to yourself and to God. For if Aurelius
has deferred the examination of your case, he has done this not
from dislike to you, but from the pressure of other engagements;
and if you knew his circumstances as well as you know your own, the
delay would cause you neither surprise nor sorrow. That it is the
same with myself, I entreat you to believe on my word, as you are
equally unable to know how I am occupied. But there are other
bishops older than I am, and both in authority more worthy and in
place more convenient, by whose help you may more easily expedite
the affairs now pending in the Church committed to your charge. I
have not, however, failed to make mention of your distress, and of
the complaint in your letter to my venerable brother and colleague
the aged Aurelius, whom I esteem with the respect due to his worth;
I took care to acquaint him with your innocence of the things laid
to your charge, by sending him a copy of your letter. It was not
until a day, or at the most two, before Christmas,1869
| 1869 Pridie Natalis Domini. | that I
received the letter in which you informed me of his intention to
visit the Church at Badesile, by which you fear lest the people be
disturbed and influenced against you. I do not therefore presume to
address by letter your people; for I could write a reply to any who
had written to me, but how could I put myself forward unasked to
write to a people not committed to my care?
3. Nevertheless, what I now say to you, who
alone have written to me, may, through you, reach others who should
hear it. I charge you then, in the first place, not to bring the
Church into reproach by reading in the public assemblies those
writings which the Canon of the Church has not acknowledged; for by
these, heretics, and especially the Manichæans (of whom I hear
that some are lurking, not without encouragement, in your
district), are accustomed to subvert the minds of the
inexperienced. I am amazed that a man of your wisdom should
admonish me to forbid the reception into the monastery of those who
have come from you to us, in order that a decree of the Council may
be obeyed, and at the same time should forget another decree1870
| 1870 See Council of Hippo, A.D.
393, Can. 38, and the third Council of Carthage,
A.D. 397, Can. 47. | of the
same Council, declaring what are the canonical Scriptures which
ought to be read to the people. Read again the proceedings of the
Council, and commit them to memory: you will there find that the
Canon which you refer to1871
as prohibiting the indiscriminate
reception of applicants for admission to a monastery, was not
framed in regard to laymen, but applies to the clergy alone. It is
true there is no mention of monasteries in the canon; but it is
laid down in general, that no one may receive a clergyman belonging
to another diocese [except in such a way as upholds the discipline
of the Church]. Moreover, it has been enacted in a recent
Council,1872
| 1872 Council of Carthage, 13th Sept. 401. | that any
who desert a monastery, or are expelled from one, shall not be
elsewhere
admitted either to clerical office or to the charge of a monastery.
If, therefore, you are in any measure disturbed regarding Privatio,
let me inform you that he has not yet been received by us into the
monastery; but that I have submitted his case to the aged Aurelius,
and will act according to his decision. For it seems strange to me,
if a man can be reckoned a Reader who has read only once in public,
and on that occasion read writings which are not canonical. If for
this reason he is regarded as an ecclesiastical reader, it follows
that the writing which he read must be esteemed as sanctioned by
the Church. But if the writing be not sanctioned by the Church as
canonical, it follows that, although a man may have read it to a
congregation, he is not thereby made an ecclesiastical reader, [but
is, as before, a layman]. Nevertheless I must, in regard to the
young man in question, abide by the decision of the arbiter whom I
have named.
4. As to the people of Vigesile, who are to us
as well as to you beloved in the bowels of Christ, if they have
refused to accept a bishop who has been deposed by a plenary
Council in Africa,1873
| 1873 Council of Carthage, 13th Sept. 401. | they act wisely, and cannot be
compelled to yield, nor ought to be. And whoever shall attempt to
compel them by violence to receive him, will show plainly what is
his character, and will make men well understand what his real
character was at an earlier time, when he would have had them
believe no evil of him. For no one more effectually discovers the
worthlessness of his cause, than the man who, employing the secular
power, or any other kind of violent means, endeavours by agitating
and complaining to recover the ecclesiastical rank which he has
forfeited. For his desire is not to yield to Christ service which
He claims, but to usurp over Christians an authority which they
disown. Brethren, be cautious; great is the craft of the devil, but
Christ is the wisdom of God.
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