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Letter XXIX.
(a.d. 395.)
A Letter from the Presbyter of
the District of Hippo to Alypius the Bishop of Thagaste, Concerning
the Anniversary of the Birth of Leontius,1525
| 1525 Leontius was Bishop of Hippo in the latter part of
the second century. He built a church which was called after him,
and in which some of the sermons of Augustin were delivered. | Formerly
Bishop of Hippo.
1. In the absence of brother Macharius, I have not
been able to write anything definite concerning a matter about
which I could not feel otherwise than anxious: it is said, however,
that he will soon return, and whatever can be with God’s help
done in the matter shall be done. Although also our brethren,
citizens of your town, who were with us, might sufficiently assure
you of our solicitude on their behalf when they returned,
nevertheless the thing which the Lord has granted to me is one
worthy to be the subject of that epistolary intercourse which
ministers so much to the comfort of us both; it is, moreover, a
thing in the obtaining of which I believe that I have been greatly
assisted by your own solicitude regarding it, seeing that it could
not but constrain you to intercession on our behalf.
2. Therefore let me not fail to relate to your
Charity what has taken place; so that, as you joined us in pouring
out prayers for this mercy before it was obtained, you may now join
us in rendering thanks for it after it has been received. When I
was informed after your departure that some were becoming openly
violent, and declaring that they could not submit to the
prohibition (intimated while you were here) of that feast which
they call Lætitia, vainly attempting to disguise their revels
under a fair name, it happened most opportunely for me, by the
hidden fore-ordination of the Almighty God, that on the fourth holy
day that
Chapter of the Gospel fell to be expounded in
ordinary course, in which the words occur: “Give not that which
is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine.”1526
I
discoursed therefore concerning dogs and swine in such a way as to
compel those who clamour with obstinate barking against the divine
precepts, and who are given up to the abominations of carnal
pleasures, to blush for shame; and followed it up by saying, that
they might plainly see how criminal it was to do, under the name of
religion, within the walls of the church, that which, if it were
practised by them in their own houses, would make it necessary for
them to be debarred from that which is holy, and from the
privileges which are the pearls of the Church.
3. Although these words were well received,
nevertheless, as few had attended the meeting, all had not been
done which so great an emergency required. When, however, this
discourse was, according to the ability and zeal of each, made
known abroad by those who had heard it, it found many opponents.
But when the morning of Quadragesima came round, and a great
multitude had assembled at the hour of exposition of Scripture,
that passage in the Gospel was read in which our Lord said,
concerning those sellers who were driven out of the temple, and the
tables of the money-changers which He had overthrown, that the
house of His Father had been made a den of thieves instead of a
house of prayer.1527
After awakening their attention by
bringing forward the subject of immoderate indulgence in wine, I
myself also read this chapter, and added to it an argument to prove
with how much greater anger and vehemence our Lord would cast forth
drunken revels, which are everywhere disgraceful, from that temple from which
He thus drove out merchandise lawful elsewhere, especially when the
things sold were those required for the sacrifices appointed in
that dispensation; and I asked them whether they regarded a place
occupied by men selling what was necessary, or one used by men
drinking to excess, as bearing the greater resemblance to a den of
thieves.
4. Moreover, as passages of Scripture which I
had prepared were held ready to be put into my hands, I went on to
say that the Jewish nation, with all its lack of spirituality in
religion, never held feasts, even temperate feasts, much less
feasts disgraced by intemperance, in their temple, in which at that
time the body and blood of the Lord were not yet offered, and that
in history they are not found to have been excited by wine on any
public occasion bearing the name of worship, except when they held
a feast before the idol which they had made.1528
While I said these things I took
the manuscript from the attendant, and read that whole passage.
Reminding them of the words of the apostle, who says, in order to
distinguish Christians from the obdurate Jews, that they are his
epistle written, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables
of the heart,1529
I asked
further, with the deepest sorrow, how it was that, although Moses
the servant of God broke both the tables of stone because of these
rulers of Israel, I could not break the hearts of those who, though
men of the New Testament dispensation, were desiring in their
celebration of saints’ days to repeat often the public
perpetration of excesses of which the people of the Old Testament
economy were guilty only once, and that in an act of
idolatry.
5. Having then given back the manuscript of
Exodus, I proceeded to enlarge, so far as my time permitted, on the
crime of drunkenness, and took up the writings of the Apostle Paul,
and showed among what sins it is classed by him, reading the text,
“If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or
covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an
extortioner; with such an one (ye ought) not even to eat;”1530
pathetically reminding them how great is our danger in eating with
those who are guilty of intemperance even in their own houses. I
read also what is added, a little further on, in the same epistle:
“Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some
of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our
God.”1531
After
reading these, I charged them to consider how believers could hear
these words, “but ye are washed,” if they still tolerated in
their own hearts—that is, in God’s inner temple—the
abominations of such lusts as these against which the kingdom of
heaven is shut. Then I went on to that passage: “When ye come
together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper:
for in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper; and
one is hungry, and another is drunken. What! have ye not houses to
eat and to drink in, or despise ye the church of God?”1532
After
reading which, I more especially begged them to remark that not
even innocent and temperate feasts were permitted in the church:
for the apostle said not, “Have ye not houses of your own in
which to be drunken?”—as if it was drunkenness alone which was
unlawful in the church; but, “Have ye not houses to eat and to
drink in?”—things lawful in themselves, but not lawful in the
church, inasmuch as men have their own houses in which they may be
recruited by necessary food: whereas now, by the corruption of the
times and the relaxation of morals, we have been brought so low,
that, no longer insisting upon sobriety in the houses of men, all
that we venture to demand is, that the realm of tolerated excess be
restricted to their own homes.
6. I reminded them also of a passage in the
Gospel which I had expounded the day before, in which it is said of
the false prophets: “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”1533
I also
bade them remember that in that place our works are signified by
the word fruits. Then I asked among what kind of fruits drunkenness
was named, and read that passage in the Epistle to the Galatians:
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, envyings, murder, drunkenness, revellings, and such like;
of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God.”1534
After
these words, I asked how, when God has commanded that Christians be
known by their fruits, we could be known as Christians by this
fruit of drunkenness? I added also, that we must read what follows
there: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance.”1535
And I pled
with them to consider how shameful and lamentable it would
be, if, not
content with living at home in the practice of these works of the
flesh, they even wished by them, forsooth, to honour the church,
and to fill the whole area of so large a place of worship, if they
were permitted, with crowds of revellers and drunkards: and yet
would not present to God those fruits of the Spirit which, by the
authority of Scripture, and by my groans, they were called to
yield, and by the offering of which they would most suitably
celebrate the saints’ days.
7. This being finished, I returned the
manuscript; and being asked to speak,1536
I set before their eyes with all
my might, as the danger itself constrained me, and as the Lord was
pleased to give strength, the danger shared by them who were
committed to my care, and by me, who must give account to the Chief
Shepherd, and implored them by His humiliation, by the unparalleled
insults, the buffetings and spitting on the face which He endured,
by His pierced hands and crown of thorns, and by His cross and
blood, to have pity on me at least, if they were displeased with
themselves, and to consider the inexpressible love cherished
towards me by the aged and venerable Valerius, who had not scrupled
to assign to me for their sakes the perilous burden of expounding
to them the word of truth, and had often told them that in my
coming here his prayers were answered; not rejoicing, surely, that
I had come to share or to behold the death of our hearers, but
rejoicing that I had come to share his labours for the eternal
life. In conclusion, I told them that I was resolved to trust in
Him who cannot lie, and who has given us a promise by the mouth of
the prophet, saying of our Lord Jesus Christ, “If His children
forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my
statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their
transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes:
nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from
Him.”1537
I
declared, therefore, that I put my trust in Him, that if they
despised the weighty words which had now been read and spoken to
them, He would visit them with the rod and with stripes, and not
leave them to be condemned with the world. In this appeal I put
forth all the power in thought and utterance which, in an emergency
so great and hazardous, our Saviour and Ruler was pleased to
supply. I did not move them to weep by first weeping myself; but
while these things were being spoken, I own that, moved by the
tears which they began to shed, I myself could not refrain from
following their example. And when we had thus wept together, I
concluded my sermon with full persuasion that they would be
restrained by it from the abuses denounced.
8. Next morning, however, when the day dawned,
which so many were accustomed to devote to excess in eating and
drinking, I received notice that some, even of those who were
present when I preached, had not yet desisted from complaint, and
that so great was the power of detestable custom with them, that,
using no other argument, they asked, “Wherefore is this now
prohibited? Were they not Christians who in former times did not
interfere with this practice?” On hearing this, I knew not what
more powerful means for influencing them I could devise; but
resolved, in the event of their judging it proper to persevere,
that after reading in Ezekiel’s prophecy that the watchman has
delivered his own soul if he has given warning, even though the
persons warned refuse to give heed to him, I would shake my
garments and depart. But then the Lord showed me that He leaves us
not alone, and taught me how He encourages us to trust Him; for
before the time at which I had to ascend the pulpit,1538
the very
persons of whose complaint against interference with
long-established custom I had heard came to me. Receiving them
kindly, I by a few words brought them round to a right opinion; and
when it came to the time for my discourse, having laid aside the
lecture which I had prepared as now unnecessary, I said a few
things concerning the question mentioned above, “Wherefore
now prohibit this custom?” saying that to those who might
propose it the briefest and best answer would be this: “Let us
now at last put down what ought to have been earlier
prohibited.”
9. Lest, however, any slight should seem to be put
by us on those who, before our time, either tolerated or did not
dare to put down such manifest excesses of an undisciplined
multitude, I explained to them the circumstances out of which this
custom seems to have necessarily risen in the Church,—namely,
that when, in the peace which came after such numerous and violent
persecutions, crowds of heathen who wished to assume the Christian
religion were kept back, because, having been accustomed to
celebrate the feasts connected with their worship of idols in
revelling and drunkenness, they could not easily refrain from
pleasures so hurtful and so habitual, it had seemed good to our
ancestors, making for the time a concession to this infirmity, to
permit them to celebrate, instead of the festivals which they
renounced, other feasts in honour of the holy martyrs, which were
observed, not as before with a profane design, but with similar
self-indulgence. I added that now upon them, as persons bound
together in the name of Christ, and submissive to the yoke of His
august authority, the wholesome restraints of sobriety were
laid—restraints with which the honour and fear due to Him who
appointed them should move them to comply—and that therefore the
time had now come in which all who did not dare to cast off the
Christian profession should begin to walk according to Christ’s
will; and being now confirmed Christians, should reject those
concessions to infirmity which were made only for a time in order
to their becoming such.
10. I then exhorted them to imitate the
example of the churches beyond the sea, in some of which these
practices had never been tolerated, while in others they had been
already put down by the people complying with the counsel of good
ecclesiastical rulers; and as the examples of daily excess in the
use of wine in the church of the blessed Apostle Peter were brought
forward in defence of the practice, I said in the first place, that
I had heard that these excesses had been often forbidden, but
because the place was at a distance from the bishop’s control,
and because in such a city the multitude of carnally-minded persons
was great, the foreigners especially, of whom there is a constant
influx, clinging to that practice with an obstinacy proportioned to
their ignorance, the suppression of so great an evil had not yet
been possible. If, however, I continued, we would honour the
Apostle Peter, we ought to hear his words, and look much more to
the epistles by which his mind is made known to us, than to the
place of worship, by which it is not made known; and immediately
taking the manuscript, I read his own words: “Forasmuch then as
Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh arm yourselves likewise
with the same mind for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath
ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time
in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the
time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of
the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of
wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.”1539
After
this, when I saw that all were with one consent turning to a right
mind, and renouncing the custom against which I had protested, I
exhorted them to assemble at noon for the reading of God’s word
and singing of psalms; stating that we had resolved thus to
celebrate the festival in a way much more accordant with purity and
piety; and that, by the number of worshippers who should assemble
for this purpose, it would plainly appear who were guided by
reason, and who were the slaves of appetite. With these words the
discourse concluded.
11. In the afternoon a greater number
assembled than in the forenoon, and there was reading and praise
alternately up to the hour at which I went out in company with the
bishop; and after our coming two psalms were read. Then the old man
[Valerius] constrained me by his express command to say something
to the people; from which I would rather have been excused, as I
was longing for the close of the anxieties of the day. I delivered
a short discourse in order to express our gratitude to God. And as
we heard the noise of the feasting, which was going on as usual in
the church of the heretics, who still prolonged their revelry while
we were so differently engaged, I remarked that the beauty of day
is enhanced by contrast with the night, and that when anything
black is near, the purity of white is the more pleasing; and that,
in like manner, our meeting for a spiritual feast might perhaps
have been somewhat less sweet to us, but for the contrast of the
carnal excesses in which the others indulged; and I exhorted them
to desire eagerly such feasts as we then enjoyed, if they had
tasted the goodness of the Lord. At the same time, I said that
those may well be afraid who seek anything which shall one day be
destroyed as the chief object of their desire, seeing that every
one shares the portion of that which he worships; a warning
expressly given by the apostle to such, when he says of them their
“god is their belly,”1540
inasmuch as he has elsewhere said,
“Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall
destroy both it and them.”1541
I added that it is our duty to
seek that which is imperishable, which, far removed from carnal
affections, is obtained through sanctification of the spirit; and
when those things which the Lord was pleased to suggest to me had
been spoken on this subject as the occasion required, the daily
evening exercises of worship were performed; and when with the
bishop I retired from the church, the brethren said a hymn there, a
considerable multitude remaining in the church, and engaging in
praise1542
even till
daylight failed.
12. I have thus related as concisely as I could that
which I am sure you longed to hear. Pray that God may be pleased to
protect our efforts from giving offence or provoking odium in any
way. In the tranquil prosperity which you enjoy we do with lively
warmth of affection participate in no small measure, when tidings
so frequently reach us of the gifts possessed by the highly
spiritual church of Thagaste. The ship bringing our brethren has
not yet arrived. At Hasna, where our brother Argentius is
presbyter, the Circumcelliones, entering our church, demolished the altar.
The case is now in process of trial; and we earnestly ask your
prayers that it may be decided in a peaceful way and as becomes the
Catholic Church, so as to silence the tongues of turbulent
heretics. I have sent a letter to the Asiarch.1543
| 1543 A magistrate who was also charged with the affairs
pertaining to the protection of religion. The title belonged
primarily to those who in the province of Asia had charge of the
games.—Codex Theodosianus, xv. 9. |
Brethren most blessed, may ye persevere in the Lord,
and remember us. Amen.
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