Letters 111 to 120: The Correspondence with Augustine Continued

I have received from your worthiness, through the deacon Cyprian, three letters at once, or rather short books, containing—as you call them—various questions, but as I judge them—reproofs of my little works. If I wish to answer these, the task will require a book's bulk. Nevertheless I shall try, as far as I am able, not to exceed the limit of a somewhat longer letter, and not to delay the hastening brother; who, three days before he was to set out, demanded letters from me; so that I was compelled almost on the march to blurt out these things, whatever they are, and to answer with tumultuous speech, not with the ripeness of one who writes, but with the rashness of one who dictates: which for the most part turns not into instruction but into mischance; just as sudden wars throw even the bravest soldiers into confusion, and they are forced to flee before they can seize their weapons.

2. But our armor is Christ, and the teaching of the Apostle Paul, who writes to the Ephesians: "Take up the arms of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day." And again: "Stand, having your loins girt about in truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace: above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one: and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." With these weapons King David once armed himself and went forth to battle; and taking five smooth stones from the brook, he showed that there was no roughness or filth in his senses amid the whirlwinds of this age, drinking from the brook by the way: and therefore he lifted up his head, and cut off the most proud Goliath chiefly with his own sword, striking the blasphemer on the forehead; and wounding him in that part of the body in which also the presumptuous claimant of the priesthood, Ozias, was struck with leprosy, and the saint glories in the Lord, saying: The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.

Let us then say also: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and give praise in my glory. Awake, my psaltery and harp; I will awake early; that in us may be fulfilled: Open thy mouth, and I will fill it. And: The Lord will give the word to them that preach with great power. I do not doubt that you too pray for this very thing, that in our contending truth may prevail. For you seek not your own glory, but Christ's. And when you have conquered, I too conquer, if I recognize my error; and conversely, when I conquer, you overcome; because it is not the children who lay up treasure for the parents, but the parents for the children. And in the book of Chronicles we read that the sons of Israel went forth to battle with a peaceable mind: even amid swords and bloodshed and the bodies of the fallen, thinking not of their own victory, but of peace.

Let us then answer to everything; and let us resolve the manifold questions, if Christ so command, in brief discourse. I pass over the courtesies of greeting, by which you soothe my head; I say nothing of the flatteries by which you strive to console your rebuke of me. I will come to the matters themselves.

3. You say that you received from a certain brother a book of mine which had no title, in which I enumerated the Ecclesiastical Writers, both Greek and Latin. And when you asked him—to use your own words—why the opening page bore no inscription, or by what name it was called, he replied that it was called an Epitaph: and you argue that it would rightly be so called, if you had read there only the lives or writings of those already deceased. But since the little works of many who were still living, both at the time it was written and even now, are mentioned there, you wonder why I imposed this title upon it.

I think your prudence understands that you could have understood the title from the work itself. For you have read both the Greeks and the Latins who described the lives of illustrious men, and you know that they never gave it the title Epitaph, but "Of Illustrious Men"—for example, Commanders, Philosophers, Orators, Historians, Poets, Epic writers, Tragedians, Comic writers: whereas an Epitaph is properly written for the dead—which indeed I know I once did at the death of the presbyter Nepotian of holy memory. Therefore this book ought to be called "Of Illustrious Men," or properly "Of Ecclesiastical Writers": although by many unskilled correctors it is inscribed "Of Authors." 4.

In the second place you ask why, in the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians, I said that Paul could not have reproved in Peter what he himself had done: nor charge another with dissimulation, of which he himself stood guilty; and you assert that the Apostolic reproof was not a matter of dispensation, but a true one; and that I ought not to teach a falsehood, but that all things which are written should sound just as they are written. To this I answer first, that your prudence ought to have remembered the little preface of my Commentaries, which says in my own person: "What then, am I so foolish or rash as to promise what he could not accomplish? By no means; rather, as it seems to me, I am more cautious and timid in this, that, sensing the weakness of my own powers, I followed the Commentaries of Origen.

For that man wrote on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians five volumes properly his own, and completed the tenth book of his Stromata with a compressed discourse on its exposition. He also composed various treatises and Excerpts, which alone might suffice. I pass over my own Didymus the Seer, and the man of Laodicea who has lately gone out from the Church, and Alexander the old heretic, and also Eusebius of Emesa, and Theodore of Heraclea: who themselves too have left some little commentaries on this matter. If I were to glean even a few things from these, something would result that would not be utterly despised. Therefore, to confess simply, I read all these, and gathering many things in my mind, I summoned a secretary and dictated things either my own or borrowed, mindful neither of order, nor of words, and sometimes not even of the sense.

It is now the Lord's mercy to see that, through our want of skill, the good things said by others do not perish; and that what pleases among their own does not fail to please among strangers." If, then, you thought anything worthy of reproof in our explanation, it was for your erudition to inquire whether what we wrote was found in the Greeks, so that, if they had not said it, then you might properly condemn my own opinion: especially since I freely confessed in the Preface that I followed the Commentaries of Origen, and dictated things either my own or another's; and at the end of that very chapter which you reprove, I wrote: "(If this meaning does not please someone, whereby neither is Peter shown to have sinned, nor Paul shown to have insolently charged one greater than himself, he must explain by what consistency Paul reproves in another what he himself committed.)" By which I showed that I was not defending as a settled matter what I read in the Greeks: but that I had set forth what I had read, so as to leave it to the reader's judgment whether it should be approved or disapproved.

5. You, then, instead of doing what I had asked, have found a new argument, to assert that the Gentiles who believed in Christ were free from the burden of the Law, but that those who believed from among the Jews were subject to the Law: so that, through the persons of each, both Paul rightly reproved those who kept the Law, as the Teacher of the Gentiles; and Peter was justly reproved, who, as prince of the circumcision, had commanded the Gentiles to observe what only those who were of the Jews were bound to observe. If this pleases you—nay, since it does please you—that whoever believe from among the Jews are debtors to keep the Law: you, as a bishop most well known throughout the whole world, ought to promulgate this opinion, and draw all your fellow bishops into agreement with you.

I, in my little hut with the monks, that is, with my fellow-sinners, dare not settle great matters, except to confess frankly that I read the writings of our elders, and in Commentaries, according to the custom of all, set forth various explanations, so that from many each may follow what he wills. This indeed I think you have read and approved both in secular literature and in the divine Books. 6. This explanation, which Origen first set forth in the tenth book of the Stromata, where he interprets the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, and which the other interpreters afterward followed, they introduce chiefly for this reason: to answer Porphyry the blasphemer, who charges Paul with insolence, because he dared to reprove the chief of the Apostles, Peter, and to charge him to his face, and to bind him by argument for having done ill, that is, for having been in the very error in which he himself was, who charged the other with wrongdoing.

What shall I say of John, who lately, in the pontifical rank, ruled the Church of Constantinople; and who wrote expressly on this very chapter a very lengthy book, in which he followed the opinion of Origen and the ancients? If, then, you reprove me as erring, allow me, I beg, to err along with such men; and since you perceive that I have many companions in my error, you ought at least to produce one supporter of your own truth. So much for the explanation of one chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians.

But lest I seem to strive against your argument by mere number of witnesses, and to evade the truth by the occasion of illustrious men, and not dare to join hand to hand, I will briefly set forth examples from the Scriptures. In the Acts of the Apostles a voice came to Peter, saying: Rise, Peter, kill, and eat—that is, all the animals of quadrupeds and creeping things of the earth, and of the fowls of heaven. By which it is shown that no man is by nature unclean; but that all are equally called to the grace of Christ. To which Peter replied: Far be it, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And a voice came to him from heaven a second time, saying: What God has cleansed, do not call common. So he went to Caesarea; and going in to Cornelius, opening his mouth, he said: Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.

Then the Holy Spirit fell upon them; and those of the circumcision who had come with Peter were astonished, because the grace of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even upon the nations. Then Peter answered: Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Now the Apostles and the brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. But when Peter had gone up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision disputed against him, saying, Why did you go in to men uncircumcised, and eat with them? To whom, having set forth the whole matter, he at last concluded his speech with this word: If then God gave them the same grace as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, that I could withstand God?

Hearing this they held their peace, and glorified God, saying: Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life. Again, when much later Paul and Barnabas came to Antioch; and the church being gathered, they related how great things God had done with them; and that God had opened to the Gentiles a door of faith, certain men coming down from Judea taught the brethren and said: Unless you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. A no small dissension having therefore arisen against Paul and Barnabas, they determined that both those who were accused and those who accused should go up to the Apostles and Presbyters at Jerusalem concerning this question. And when they had come to Jerusalem, certain of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed rose up, saying: It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.

And when there arose a great dispute over this matter, Peter, with his accustomed freedom, said: Men and brethren, you know that from the early days God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe; and God, who knows the hearts, bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit even as to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you tempt God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, even as they also. Then all the multitude held their peace, and James the Apostle and all the Presbyters together came over to his opinion.

8. These things ought not to be tiresome to the reader, but useful both to me and to him, so that we may prove that Paul the Apostle did not fail to know beforehand that Peter, indeed, was the chief author of this decree, that the Law was not to be observed after the Gospel. In fact, Peter was of such authority that Paul wrote in his epistle: Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days. And again in what follows: Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. And I went up according to revelation, and I laid before them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, showing that he did not have confidence to preach the Gospel unless he had been strengthened by the judgment of Peter and the other Apostles who were with him.

And immediately there follows: But privately to them who seemed to be somewhat, lest perhaps I should run, or had run, in vain. Why privately, and not publicly? Lest perhaps a scandal of faith should arise among the faithful who, being of the number of the Jews, thought that the Law was to be observed, and that thus one ought to believe in the Lord the Saviour. Therefore also at that time, when Peter had come to Antioch (although the Acts of the Apostles do not write this, yet Paul, affirming it, is to be believed), Paul writes that he withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed. For before certain persons came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they had come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews consented to his dissimulation, so that Barnabas also was led away by them into that dissimulation.

But when I saw, he says, that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to judaize? And so forth. No one, therefore, can doubt that Peter the Apostle was the first author of this decision, of which he is now accused as a transgressor. But the cause of the transgression was fear of the Jews. For Scripture says that at first he ate with the Gentiles; but when certain persons had come from James, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. Now he feared the Jews, whose Apostle he was, lest through occasion of the Gentiles they should fall away from the faith of Christ; and, imitating the good shepherd, he should lose the flock entrusted to him.

9. As we have shown, therefore, that Peter indeed held the right view concerning the abolition of the Mosaic Law, but was driven by fear into a dissimulation of observing it, let us see whether Paul himself, who rebukes another, did anything of the sort. We read in the same book: And Paul went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches: and he came to Derbe and Lystra; and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a believing woman, a Jewess, but his father a Gentile. To him the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium gave a good testimony. Him Paul would have to go with him; and taking him, he circumcised him, because of the Jews that were in those places. For they all knew that his father was a Gentile.

O blessed Apostle Paul, who in Peter had reprehended his dissimulation, in that he had withdrawn from the Gentiles for fear of the Jews who had come from James: why didst thou compel Timothy, son of a Gentile man—indeed himself also a Gentile, for he was not a Jew, being uncircumcised—to be circumcised, contrary to thine own judgment? Thou wilt answer me: Because of the Jews that were in those places. If, then, thou dost pardon thyself in the circumcision of a disciple coming from the Gentiles, pardon also Peter thy predecessor, for having done certain things out of fear of the believing Jews. Again it is written: But Paul, after he had tarried there yet many days, taking his leave of the brethren, sailed to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow.

Granted that there he was compelled by fear of the Jews to do what he did not wish; why did he nourish his hair according to a vow, and afterward shear it in Cenchreae according to the Law, as the Nazarites, who had vowed themselves to God, were accustomed to do according to the precept of Moses? 10. But these things are small in comparison with that which follows. Luke, the writer of the sacred history, relates: When we had come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly; and the day following, James, and all the elders that were with him, having approved his Gospel, said to him: Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews that have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law. Now they have heard of thee, that thou teachest those Jews who are among the Gentiles a departure from Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the custom. What is it therefore?

The multitude must needs come together, for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee. We have four men who have a vow on them. Take these and be purified with them, and bestow on them, that they may shave their heads; and all shall know that the things which they have heard concerning thee are false, but that thou thyself also walkest and keepest the Law. Then Paul, taking the men, the next day being purified with them, entered into the temple, giving notice of the accomplishment of the days of purification, until an offering should be offered for every one of them. O Paul, on this point also I ask thee again: why didst thou allow thyself to be shaved; why didst thou perform bare-footed rites of the ceremonies of the Jews; why didst thou offer sacrifices, and were victims immolated for thee according to the Law? Doubtless thou wilt answer, lest those who had believed from among the Jews should be scandalized.

Thou didst therefore feign thyself a Jew, that thou mightest gain the Jews; and this very dissimulation James and the other elders taught thee to practice; yet thou wast not able to escape. For a sedition having arisen, when thou wast about to be killed, thou wast seized by the tribune, and sent by him to Caesarea, under diligent guard of soldiers, lest the Jews should kill thee as a dissembler and destroyer of the Law. And thence coming to Rome, in the lodging which thou hadst hired for thyself, thou didst preach Christ both to Jews and to Gentiles, and thy sentence was confirmed by the sword of Nero. 11. We have learned that, on account of fear of the Jews, both Peter and Paul equally feigned to observe the precepts of the Law. With what face, then, with what boldness does Paul rebuke in another that which he himself committed?

I—or rather others before me—have set forth the reason which they thought right, not defending an obliging falsehood, as thou writest; but showing an honest dispensation, so as both to demonstrate the prudence of the Apostles, and to restrain the impudence of the blaspheming Porphyry, who says that Paul and Peter contended between themselves with a childish contest; indeed, that Paul was inflamed with envy at the virtues of Peter, and wrote boastfully those things which either he did not do, or, if he did them, did shamelessly, rebuking in another what he himself had committed. They have interpreted the matter as they were able. How wilt thou expound this passage? Doubtless thou wilt say better things, thou who hast rejected the judgment of the ancients.

12. Thou writest to me in thy letter, "for thou needest not be taught by me how that saying of his is to be understood: I am made as it were a Jew, that I might gain the Jews, and so on; which things are there spoken out of the compassion of mercy, not the dissimulation of deceit. For one becomes, as it were, sick, who ministers to the sick, not by lying that he has fevers, but by thinking with a sympathizing mind how he himself would wish to be served, if he himself were sick.

For indeed he was a Jew; but having become a Christian, he had not abandoned the sacraments of the Jews, which that people had received fittingly, and at the lawful time when it was proper; and therefore he undertook to celebrate them, now that he was already an Apostle of Christ, so as to teach that they are not pernicious to those who wish, as they had received them from their parents through the Law, to observe them, even when they had believed in Christ: provided, however, they did not now place in them the hope of salvation, since through the Lord Jesus that very salvation, which was signified by those sacraments, had come." Of thy whole discourse, which thou hast drawn out in a very lengthy disputation, this is the sense: that Peter did not err in this, that he thought the Law was to be observed by those who had believed from among the Jews; but that he deviated from the straight line in this, that he compelled the Gentiles to judaize.

But he compelled them, not by the authority of one teaching, but by the example of his conduct. And Paul did not speak things contrary to what he himself had done; but only asked why Peter should compel those who were of the Gentiles to judaize. 13. This, then, is the sum of the question, or rather of thy opinion: that after the Gospel of Christ, believing Jews do well if they observe the commandments of the Law, that is, if they offer sacrifices, as Paul offered; if they circumcise their sons; if they keep the sabbath, as Paul did in the case of Timothy, and as all the Jews observed. If this is true, we fall into the heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion, who, though believing in Christ, were for this reason alone anathematized by the Fathers, because they mixed the ceremonies of the Law with the Gospel of Christ; and thus confessed the new in such a way as not to give up the old. What shall I say of the Ebionites, who pretend to be Christians?

Even to this day there is among the Jews, throughout all the synagogues of the East, a heresy which is called that of the Minaei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees; whom the common people call Nazarenes, who believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and say that he is the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, in whom we also believe: but while they wish to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians. I beg thee, therefore, thou who thinkest thou must heal our little wound, which was pierced, or rather pricked, as it is said, with a needle, to heal the wound of this opinion, which has been struck as it were by a lance, and, so to speak, by the mass of a siege-engine. For it is not the same offense to set forth in the explanation of the Scriptures the differing opinions of our forefathers, and to reintroduce into the Church a most wicked heresy.

But if this necessity presses upon us, that we must receive the Jews together with their observances of the Law, and it shall be lawful for them to observe in the churches of Christ what they practiced in the synagogues of Satan: I will say what I think—they will not thereby become Christians, but they will make us Jews. 14. For who among Christians would patiently hear this, which is contained in your letter: Paul was a Jew, but having become a Christian, he had not abandoned the sacraments of the Jews, which that people had suitably received, and at the lawful time when it was fitting; and therefore he undertook to celebrate them, when he was already an Apostle of Christ; so as to teach that these things were not pernicious for those who wished to keep them just as they had received them from their parents through the Law.

Again I beseech you, that with your peace you may hear my grief: Paul observed the ceremonies of the Jews, when he was already an Apostle of Christ: and do you say that these are not pernicious for those who wish to keep them, just as they had received them from their parents? I speak on the contrary, and with the world protesting, I proclaim with a free voice: the ceremonies of the Jews are both pernicious and deadly for Christians; and whoever observes them, whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles, has been rolled down into the pit of the devil. For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness to everyone who believes: namely, to Jew and to Gentile. For it will not be the end unto righteousness to everyone who believes, if the Jew is excepted. In the Gospel we read: The Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist.

And in another place: Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him: because he not only broke the sabbath; but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. And again: Of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace; because the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. In place of the grace of the Law, which has passed away, we have received the abiding grace of the Gospel; and in place of the shadows and images of the Old Instrument, truth came through Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also prophesies in the person of God: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will complete for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah, a new testament: not according to the testament which I disposed for their fathers, in the day when I took hold of their hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

Observe what he says, that it is not to the people of the Gentiles, who had not before received a Testament, but to the people of the Jews, to whom he had given the Law through Moses, that he promises the new Testament of the Gospel: so that they should by no means live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit. Paul, moreover, on whose name the question is now being agitated, sets forth frequent sentences of this kind: of which, for the sake of brevity, I will subjoin a few. Behold, I Paul say to you, that if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And again: You are made void of effect from Christ, whoever of you are justified by the Law, you have fallen from grace. And below: If you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under the Law.

From which it appears that he who is under the Law does not have the Holy Spirit—not in a dispensational sense, as our elders wished, but truly, as you understand it. But let us learn, with the Lord teaching, what sort of precepts the legal ones were. I gave them, he says, precepts that were not good, and ordinances in which they should not live. We say these things not in order to destroy the Law after the manner of Manichaeus and Marcion, which we know to be both holy and spiritual according to the Apostle; but because after faith came and the fullness of time, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and that we should by no means live under a pedagogue, but under an adult, and as heirs of the Lord.

There follows in your letter: He did not correct Peter because he observed the ancestral traditions: for if he wished to do this, he would do it neither falsely nor unfittingly. Again I say: since you are a bishop, a teacher of the churches of Christ, in order to prove that what you assert is true, take some Jew who, having become a Christian, circumcises the son born to him, who observes the sabbath, who abstains from foods which God created to be used with thanksgiving; who on the fourteenth day of the first month slaughters the lamb at evening: and when you have done this—or rather, have not done it (for I know that you are a Christian, and will not do a sacrilegious thing)—whether you will or not, you will disprove your own opinion: and then you will know by experience that it is harder to establish one's own positions than to reprove those of others.

And lest perhaps we should not believe you, or rather should not understand what you were saying (for often a discourse drawn out at length lacks intelligibility: and while it is not perceived, it is the less reproved), you press and repeat: This evil of the Jews Paul had let go, which they had. What is the evil of the Jews which Paul let go? Surely that which follows: that being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, they were not subject to the righteousness of God. Then, that after the passion and resurrection of Christ, the sacrament of grace according to the order of Melchisedech having been given and made manifest, they still thought that the old sacraments were to be celebrated not out of the custom of solemnity, but out of the necessity of salvation: which, however, if they had never been necessary, the Maccabee martyrs would have died for them fruitlessly and in vain. Finally, that the Jews persecuted the Christian preachers of grace, as if they were enemies of the Law.

These and errors and vices of this sort he says he counted as loss and as dung, that he might gain Christ. 16. We have learned through you what evils of the Jews the Apostle Paul left behind: let us learn again, with you teaching, what good things of theirs he retained. (The observances, you will say, of the Law, which they celebrate according to ancestral custom: just as they were celebrated by Paul himself, without any necessity of salvation.) What you mean by "without any necessity of salvation" I do not sufficiently understand. For if they do not bring salvation, why are they observed? But if they are to be observed, surely they bring salvation: especially those which, when observed, make martyrs. For they would not be observed unless they brought salvation. Nor indeed are they indifferent between good and evil, as the Philosophers argue. Continence is good, luxury is evil. Between the two, indifferent, is walking, digesting the refuse of the belly, casting out the discharges of the nostrils of the head, spitting out phlegm.

This is neither good nor evil: for whether you do it or not, you will have neither righteousness nor unrighteousness. But to observe the ceremonies of the Law cannot be indifferent: it is either good or evil. You call it good, I assert it is evil: and evil not only for those who believed from among the Gentiles, but also for those who believed from the Jewish people. In this point, unless I am mistaken, while you avoid one thing, you fall into another. For while you fear Porphyry blaspheming, you fall into the snares of Ebion, decreeing that the Law is to be observed by those who believe from among the Jews. And because you understand that what you say is dangerous, you again try to temper it with superfluous words, "without any necessity of salvation": "not as the Jews think it should be celebrated," or "by deceitful pretense," which Paul had reproved in Peter. 17. Peter, then, feigned observance of the Law. But this reprover of Peter boldly observed the legal precepts.

For there follows in your letter: "For if he celebrated those sacraments for this reason, that he feigned himself a Jew, in order to gain them; why did he not also sacrifice with the Gentiles, because to those also who were without the Law, he became as one without the Law, in order to gain them too? Unless it be that he did that as a Jew by nature; and said all this, not that Paul feigned himself to be what he was not, but that he felt that help should mercifully be given in such a way as if he himself labored in that error; not indeed by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one having compassion." You defend Paul well, in that he did not feign the error of the Jews, but was in error. And that he did not wish to imitate Peter's lying, so as to dissemble by fear of the Jews what he was: but with full liberty declared himself to be a Jew. A novel clemency of the Apostle!

While wishing to make Jews into Christians, he himself became a Jew. For he could not lead the licentious back to sobriety, unless he had proved himself licentious, and mercifully, as you yourself say, come to the aid of the wretched, unless he himself felt himself wretched. Truly wretched little men, and mercifully to be lamented, who by their contentiousness and love of the abolished Law made the Apostle of Christ a Jew. Nor is there much difference between my opinion and yours, in that I say that both Peter and Paul, out of fear of the faithful Jews, practiced—or rather feigned—the commands of the Law: while you assert that they did this out of clemency; not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one having compassion—provided that it is agreed that, either out of fear or out of mercy, they feigned themselves to be what they were not.

But that argument which you use against us, that he ought also to have become a Gentile to the Gentiles, if he became a Jew to the Jews, works more in our favor. For just as he was not truly a Jew, so neither was he truly a Gentile. And just as he was not truly a Gentile, so neither was he truly a Jew. But in this he is an imitator of the Gentiles, because he receives the foreskin in the faith of Christ: and permits, without distinction, the eating of foods which the Jews condemn—not, as you suppose, the worship of idols. For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but the keeping of the commandments of God. 18. I beg you therefore, and again and again beseech you, to pardon my little disputation: and if I have gone beyond my measure, impute it to you, who compelled me to write back, and who, like Stesichorus, have taken away my eyes.

And do not think me a teacher of falsehood, who follow Christ saying: I am the way, the truth, and the life; nor can it be that, as a worshipper of truth, I should bow my neck to falsehood. Nor incite against me the crowd of the unlearned common people, who venerate you as a bishop, and who look up to you, declaiming in church, with the honor of the priesthood: while they think little of me, in my last age and almost decrepit, and pursuing the retreats of the monastery and of the countryside. And seek for yourself those whom you may teach, or whom you may reprove. For to us, separated from you by such great spaces of sea and land, scarcely the sound of your voice arrives. And if perchance you should write letters, Italy and Rome will receive them before they are brought to me, to whom they are to be sent.

19. But as to what you ask in other letters: why my earlier translation in the Canonical books has asterisks and obeli marked beforehand; and why I afterward published another translation without these signs: with your peace be it said, it seems to me that you do not understand what you have asked. For that translation is of the Seventy Interpreters: and wherever there are little marks—that is, obeli—it is signified that the Seventy said more than is found in the Hebrew. But where there are asterisks—that is, little shining stars—this was added by Origen from the edition of Theodotion: and there we translated the Greek; here, from the Hebrew itself, we expressed what we understood—preserving rather the sense of the truth than, at times, the order of the words.

And I marvel how you can read the books of the Seventy Interpreters not pure, as they were published by them, but corrected—or rather corrupted—by Origen through obeli and asterisks; and not follow the little translation of a Christian man, especially since the things that were added were translated from the edition of a Jewish and blasphemous man after the passion of Christ. Do you wish to be a true lover of the Seventy Interpreters? Do not read the things that are under the asterisks; nay, rather, erase them from the volumes, that you may prove yourself a supporter of the ancients. But if you do this, you will be compelled to condemn all the libraries of the churches. For scarcely one or another book will be found that does not have these. 20. Further, as to your saying that I ought not to have translated after the ancients, and you use a new syllogism: either what the Seventy translated was obscure, or manifest.

If obscure, it must be believed that you too could have been mistaken in it. If manifest, it is clear that they could not have been mistaken in it. I answer you in your own words. All the ancient commentators who preceded us in the Lord, and who translated the sacred Scriptures, either translated obscure things or manifest things. If obscure, how did you dare, after them, to discuss what they could not explain? If manifest, it was superfluous for you to wish to discuss what could not have escaped them: especially in the explanation of the Psalms, which among the Greeks have been interpreted in many volumes—first by Origen, second by Eusebius of Caesarea, third by Theodore of Heraclea, fourth by Asterius of Scythopolis, fifth by Apollinaris of Laodicea, sixth by Didymus of Alexandria. Let there also be mentioned the small works of various men on a few Psalms. Among the Latins, moreover, Hilary of Poitiers and Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli, translated Origen and Eusebius, of whom our own Ambrose followed the former in certain places.

Let your prudence answer me, why you, after so many and such great interpreters, held different views in the explanation of the Psalms. For if the Psalms are obscure, it must be believed that you too could have been mistaken in them. If manifest, it is not believed that they could have been mistaken in them: and thus in either case your interpretation will be superfluous, and by this rule no one will dare to speak after his predecessors, and whatever one man has occupied another will have no license to write about. Rather it belongs to your humanity, since you grant yourself pardon, to grant it also to others. For I have not so much attempted to abolish the old works, which I have translated, corrected, from Greek into Latin for the men of my own tongue, as to bring forward into the open those testimonies which have been omitted or corrupted by the Jews; so that our people might know what the Hebrew Truth contains.

If anyone does not wish to read it, no one compels him against his will. Let him drink the old wine with pleasure, and despise our new wine, which has been published in the explanation of our predecessors; so that wherever those are not understood, they may be made clearer from ours. But as to what kind of interpretation ought to be followed in the sacred Scriptures, the book which I wrote On the Best Kind of Translating, and all the little Prefaces to the divine Volumes, which we have set before our edition, explain; and to these I think the prudent reader should be referred. And if you accept me, as you say, in the emendation of the New Testament, and set forth the reason why you accept me—because very many, having knowledge of the Greek tongue, can judge of my work—you ought to have believed the same integrity also in the Old Testament, which we have not fabricated ourselves, but have translated as divine, as we found it among the Hebrews.

Wherever you have doubt, ask the Hebrews. 21. But perhaps you will say: what if the Hebrews either refuse to answer, or wish to lie? Will the whole multitude of the Jews keep silence regarding my translation? Will no one be found who has knowledge of the Hebrew language: or will all imitate those Jews whom you say were found in a little town of Africa, and who conspired in a calumny against me? For you weave a fable of this sort in your letter: "A certain brother of ours, a bishop, when he had arranged for your translation to be read regularly in the Church over which he presides, came upon something set down by you, in the Prophet Jonah, quite differently from what had been fixed in everyone's mind and memory, and had been chanted through the succession of so many ages.

And such a tumult arose among the people, especially with the Greeks charging and crying out the calumny of falsehood, that the bishop was compelled (for it was such a city) to demand the testimony of the Jews. Whether from ignorance or malice, they answered that this was in the Hebrew codices which the Greek and Latin copies had, and stated. What more? The man was compelled, as it were, to correct a lie, wishing, after great danger, not to be left without his people. Whence it also seems to us that at times, in some things, you too could have been mistaken." 22.

You say that I translated something wrongly in the Prophet Jonah, and that, with the people crying out in sedition over the discrepancy of a single word, a bishop nearly lost his priesthood; and what it is that I mistranslated, you withhold, taking from me the opportunity of my own defense, lest whatever you might say be dissolved by my reply: unless perhaps, as many years ago, the gourd came into the discussion, with Cornelius and Asinius Pollio of that time asserting that I had translated "ivy" for "gourd." On this matter we have answered more fully in the Commentary on the Prophet Jonah. For now let it be enough to have said this: that in the place where the Seventy Interpreters translated "gourd," and Aquila with the rest translated "ivy," that is κισσὸν, in the Hebrew volume is written CICEION, which the Syrians commonly call CICEIA. It is a kind of shrub, having broad leaves, in the manner of a vine-leaf.

And when it has been planted, it quickly rises into a small tree without any need of reeds or poles for support, such as both the gourd and the ivy need, sustaining itself upon its own trunk. Therefore, in rendering this word literally, if I had wished to translate CICEION, no one would understand it: if "gourd," I would be saying what is not in the Hebrew: I put "ivy," so as to agree with the other translators. But if your Jews, as you yourself assert, out of malice or ignorance, said that this was in the volumes of the Hebrews, it is clear that they either are ignorant of Hebrew letters, or wished to lie in order to mock the gourd-lovers. I ask, at the end of the letter, that you not compel a resting old man, once a veteran, to serve in the field again, and again to risk his life. You who are young, and established on the pontifical height, teach the peoples, and enrich the Roman roofs with the new produce of Africa.

It is enough for me to whisper with a poor little hearer and reader in the corner of a monastery.

To his most beloved and most loving brother Jerome, Theophilus sends greeting in the Lord. 1. The judgment of truth is pleasing to few at the outset: but as the Lord says through the Prophet, "And my judgment shall go forth as the light," those who are surrounded by the horror of darkness, and do not perceive with a clear mind the nature of things, are covered with everlasting shame, and know by the very outcome that their efforts have been vain. Whence we too always wished that John, who formerly ruled the Church of Constantinople, might please God; and we were altogether unwilling to believe the causes of his ruin, into which he was carried headlong and imprudent. But he—to say nothing of his other disgraces—receiving the Origenists into his intimacy, and promoting very many of them to the priesthood, and on account of this crime greatly grieving the man of God of blessed memory, Epiphanius, who shone among the bishops as a bright star in the world, deserved to hear: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon." 2.

Knowing therefore what was said by the Savior: "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment," lest [lacuna]

To the most blessed Pope Theophilus, Jerome.

1. That I return your Book to your Beatitude, translated into the Latin tongue, somewhat later than expected, many hindrances in the meantime have caused: the sudden eruption of the Isaurians; the devastation of Phoenicia and Galilee; the terror of Palestine, especially of Jerusalem; and no small matter, not the building of books, but the building of walls. In addition, the harshness of winter, an intolerable famine, especially for us, upon whom the care of many brothers has been laid. Amid these difficulties the translation grew by stolen and, so to speak, furtive labor, by night, and was already held in draft-sheets, when, during the holy days of Lent, having written it out fair, and needing only a collation, I was seized by a most grievous illness, and entering upon the threshold of death, was preserved by the mercy of the Lord and by your prayers.

And this, perhaps, that I might fulfill your command, and render the most eloquent volume, which you wove together from the flowers of the Scriptures, with the same grace with which it was written by you; although the weakness of my body and the grief of my mind, and also the dulling of my wit's edge, have retarded, as though by certain obstacles, the words that were flowing on in a headlong course.

2. We have marveled at the usefulness of your work for all the Churches, that those who are ignorant may learn, instructed by the testimonies of the Scriptures, with what veneration they ought to receive the Holy Things, and to serve the ministry of the altar of Christ; and that the sacred chalices, and the holy veils, and the other things which pertain to the worship of the Lord's Passion, do not, as though empty and devoid of sense, lack sanctity; but from their association with the Body and Blood of the Lord, are to be venerated with the same majesty as His Body and Blood.

3. Receive, then, your Book—nay, mine, and, to speak more truly, ours: and since you have favored me, you will be its patron. For it is for you that my mind has toiled, and I have wished to compensate the poverty of the Latin tongue with Greek eloquence.

Nor indeed have I rendered word for word, as eloquent translators do; nor have I counted out the money which you gave me piece by piece, but weighed it equally as a whole; so that nothing may be lacking from the sense, though something be lacking from the words. I have, moreover, translated your letter into Latin, and set it before this volume, so that all who read it may know that I have taken up this burden beyond my strength not out of rashness and boasting, but at the command of your Beatitude. Whether I have succeeded in this, I leave to your judgment. Certainly, if you find fault with the weakness of the execution, you will grant pardon to the will.

To the Lord truly holy and most blessed Pope Augustine, Jerome sends greeting in Christ. 1. When I anxiously inquired of our holy brother Firmus how you were doing, I heard with joy that you were well. Again, when I—I will not say hoped for, but demanded—your letters, not knowing that you had set out, he told me he had left Africa. And so I return to you, through him, the offices of greeting—him who embraces you with a singular love—and at the same time I beg you to pardon my modesty, in that I could not, for a long time, refuse to write back to one who demanded it. Nor have I answered you, but the matter has answered its own case. And if it is a fault to have answered, I ask that you hear patiently that it is a much greater fault to have provoked. But let complaints of this kind cease: let there be pure brotherhood between us; and henceforth let us send each other writings not of controversy, but of charity.

The holy brothers who serve the Lord with us greet you abundantly. I beg that you greet, with my respects, the holy ones who bear with you the light yoke of Christ, especially the holy and venerable Pope Alypius. May Christ our omnipotent God keep you safe and mindful of me, lord truly holy and most blessed pope. If you have read the book of explanations on Jonah, I trust you will not entertain the ridiculous question of the gourd. But if the friend who first attacked me with the sword has been repelled by the pen, let it belong to your humanity and justice to reprove the accuser, not the one who answers. In the field of the Scriptures, if it please you, let us sport without mutual pain to each other.

To the most beloved lord, and to be honored in the heart of Christ, holy brother and fellow-presbyter Jerome, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. Some time ago I sent to your charity a lengthy letter, replying to that one of yours which you recall having sent through your holy son Asterius, who is now not only my brother but also my colleague. Whether it has yet deserved to reach your hands I do not know, save that through our most sincere brother Firmus you write, asking whether he who first attacked you with the sword has been repelled by the pen; so that it may belong to your humanity and justice to rebuke the accuser, not the one who replies. From this one slight indication alone I somehow conjecture that you have read that letter of mine. In it, indeed, I lamented that so great a discord had arisen between you two, whose great friendship, wherever fame had spread it abroad, was the joy of brotherly love.

This I did not do by rebuking your brotherliness in anything—for I did not dare to say that I knew any fault of yours in that matter—but by grieving over human misery, in which the persistence of mutual affection in friendships, however great it may be, remains uncertain. But I had preferred to learn from your reply whether you had granted the pardon I had asked. I desire this to be made known to me more clearly, although a certain more cheerful expression in your letter seems to indicate that I have obtained this too—if indeed those letters were sent after that one had been read; which does not appear at all clear in them. You ask, or rather, by the confidence of charity, you command, that we play in the field of the Scriptures without mutual pain to each other. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, I would rather that we do these things seriously than in play.

But if it pleased you to use this word for the sake of ease, I confess that I seek something greater from the kindness of your powers, and from your learned, leisured, mature, studious, and ingenious diligence—not only given to you but also dictated to you by the Holy Spirit—that in great and laborious questions you should help me not as one playing in the field of the Scriptures, but as one panting on the mountains.

But if you thought it should be said “let us play” for the sake of that cheerfulness which is fitting among dearest friends conversing together, then, whether the matter about which we converse is plain and clear, or arduous and difficult, teach me this very thing, I beg you: how we may manage, when something moves us which, even if we are not attending carefully enough, or at least understand more slowly, does not seem approved to us, and we try to assert the contrary of what seems to us—if we say this with somewhat freer boldness, that we do not fall under the suspicion of childish boasting, as though seeking fame for our own name by accusing illustrious men. But if something harsh must be brought forth by the necessity of refutation, let us surround it with gentler speech to make it tolerable, lest we seem to draw a sword smeared with honey.

Unless perhaps this is the only way we can avoid both this fault and the suspicion of it: if, when disputing with a more learned friend, we so argue that whatever he has said must necessarily be approved, and it is not permitted even for the sake of inquiry to resist even a little.

3. Then indeed one plays as it were in a field without any fear of offense; but it would be strange if we were not thereby mocked. For I confess to your charity that I have learned to pay such fear and honor only to those books of the Scriptures which are now called canonical, that I most firmly believe that none of their authors erred in writing anything. But if I come across anything in those writings which seems contrary to truth, I do not doubt that it is either a faulty copy, or that the translator did not follow what was said, or that I myself have not understood it.

But I read others in such a way that, however great their sanctity and learning may be, I do not on that account think a thing true because they themselves held it so, but because they were able to persuade me, either through those canonical authors, or by a probable reasoning not at variance with the truth. Nor do I think, my brother, that you feel otherwise. Indeed, I do not think that you wish your books to be read as though they were the writings of Prophets and Apostles, of whose writings it is wicked to doubt that they are free from every error. Far be this from your pious humility and truthful estimation of yourself, with which, unless you were endowed, you would surely not say (would that we might merit your embraces, and by mutual conference either teach something or learn something).

4. But if I believe that you yourself, in consideration of your life and character, have not spoken in pretense or falsehood, how much more fitting is it for me to believe that the Apostle Paul meant nothing other than what he wrote, when he says of Peter and Barnabas: When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews, how do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews? For of whom am I certain that he did not deceive me in writing or speaking, if the Apostle deceived his own children, whom he was again bringing forth in travail, until Christ, that is, the truth, should be formed in them?

To whom, when he had said beforehand: Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie—did he not then write truly, but deceive by some dispensational pretense in saying that he had seen Peter and Barnabas not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, and that he had withstood Peter to his face, for no other reason than that he was compelling the Gentiles to live as the Jews?

5. But indeed it is better to believe that the Apostle Paul wrote something not truly, than that the Apostle Peter did something not rightly. If this is so, let us say (which God forbid) that it is better to believe that the Gospel lies, than that Christ was denied by Peter; and that the Book of Kings lies, rather than that so great a Prophet, so excellently chosen by the Lord God, committed adultery in coveting and taking away another man’s wife, and so horrendous a homicide in killing her husband.

Rather indeed, let me read sacred Scripture, set upon the highest and heavenly summit of authority, certain and secure of its truth; and in it let me learn truthfully of men either approved, or corrected, or condemned—rather than that, while I sometimes fear to believe reprehensible actions even in persons of praiseworthy excellence, the divine utterances themselves should become suspect to me everywhere.

6. The Manichaeans contend that very many passages of the divine Scriptures, by whose most clear perspicuity of statements their impious error is convicted, are false, because they cannot twist them to another meaning; yet in such a way that they attribute this same falsity not to the Apostles who wrote them, but to certain corrupters of the manuscripts, I know not whom. Yet since they have never been able to prove this, either by more numerous or more ancient copies, or by the authority of the earlier language (from which the Latin books were translated), they depart overcome and confounded by a truth most well-known to all.

Does not your holy prudence understand, then, how great an occasion is thereby opened for their malice, if we say not that the Apostolic writings were falsified by others, but that the Apostles themselves wrote falsehoods?

7. It is not credible, you say, that Paul reproved in Peter that very thing which Paul himself had done. I do not now inquire what he did, but I ask what he wrote. This bears most directly upon the question I have undertaken; namely, that the truth of the divine Scriptures, committed to memory for the building up of our faith, not by just anyone, but by the Apostles themselves, and thereby received into the canonical summit of authority, may remain in every part truthful and beyond doubt. For if Peter did what he ought to have done, then Paul lied when he said he saw him not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel.

For whoever does what he ought to do certainly does rightly; and therefore he speaks falsely of him who says he did not act rightly, when he knows that he ought to have done what he did. But if Paul wrote the truth, then it is true that Peter at that time was not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. He was therefore doing what he ought not to have done: and if Paul himself had already done some such thing, I would rather believe that he too had been corrected, and could not have neglected the correction of his fellow apostle, than that he had put something false in his epistle. And if this is true of any epistle whatsoever, how much more of that one in which he says beforehand: "Now the things I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie." I indeed believe that Peter acted in such a way as to compel the Gentiles to Judaize.

For I read that Paul wrote this, and I do not believe that he lied: and therefore Peter was not acting rightly in this. For it was contrary to the truth of the Gospel that those who believed in Christ should think that without those old sacraments they could not be saved. This is what those who had believed from the Circumcision were contending at Antioch. Against them Paul contended persistently and sharply. But Paul himself did not do what he did—whether circumcising Timothy, or paying his vow at Cenchreae, or, admonished by James at Jerusalem, undertaking with those who had made vows to celebrate those legal observances—in order that it might be thought that Christian salvation was also given through those sacraments; but rather so that it should not be thought that those things which God had ordained to be done in former times, as fitting for shadows of things to come, were being condemned as though they were gentile idolatry.

For this is what James said to him: it had been heard concerning him that he taught separation from Moses. Which indeed is a wicked thing, that those who believe in Christ should be separated from the Prophet of Christ, as though detesting and condemning his teaching; concerning whom Christ himself says, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me also: for he wrote of me." Attend, I beg you, to the very words of James: "You see, brother," he says, "how many thousands there are in Judea who have believed in Christ: and they are all zealous for the Law. Now they have heard concerning you that you teach separation from Moses to those Jews who are among the Gentiles, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, nor walk according to the custom. What then is it? The multitude must certainly come together; for they have heard that you have arrived: do therefore what we tell you.

We have four men who have a vow upon them: take these and purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses that they may shave their heads: and all will know that what they have heard concerning you is false; but you yourself also walk, keeping the Law.

But as touching the Gentiles who have believed, we have written, judging that they should observe no such thing, except that they keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from fornication." It is not, I think, obscure that James gave this advice for this reason: that those who, though they had believed in Christ from among the Jews, were yet zealous for the Law, might know that what they had heard of him was false, lest through the teaching of Christ those things which had been ministered to the fathers through Moses should be thought to be condemned as sacrilegious and not commanded by God: for this is what they had spread about Paul—not those who understood with what spirit those things ought then to be observed by faithful Jews, namely for the commending of divine authority and the prophetic sanctity of those sacraments, not for the obtaining of salvation, which was now revealed in Christ and ministered through the sacrament of baptism; but those had spread this about Paul who wished those things to be observed as though without them there could be no salvation for believers in the Gospel.

For they had perceived him to be the most vehement preacher of grace, and most opposed to their intention, teaching that man is not justified by those things, but by the grace of Jesus Christ, for the foretelling of which those shadows had been commanded in the Law. And therefore, contriving to stir up envy and persecution against him, they accused him as an enemy of the Law and of the divine commandments: and he could not more fittingly avoid the odium of this false accusation than by himself celebrating those very things which he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious; and thus he would show that neither were the Jews then to be forbidden those things as wicked, nor the Gentiles to be compelled to them as necessary.

For if he truly disapproved of them, as had been heard concerning him, and therefore undertook to celebrate them so that by a simulated act he might conceal his own opinion, James would not have said to him, "and all shall know," but would have said, "and all shall suppose, that what they have heard of you is false"—especially since at Jerusalem itself the Apostles had already decreed that no one should compel the Gentiles to Judaize: but they had not decreed that no one should then forbid the Jews to Judaize, although Christian teaching did not now compel even them. Accordingly, if after this decree of the Apostles, Peter engaged in that pretense at Antioch, by which he compelled the Gentiles to Judaize—something he himself was no longer compelled to do, although he was not forbidden it, for the sake of commending the oracles of God which had been entrusted to the Jews—what wonder is it if Paul constrained him to freely assert what he remembered having decreed together with the other Apostles at Jerusalem?.

But if, as I rather think, Peter did this before that council of Jerusalem, it is likewise no wonder that Paul wished not timidly to conceal it, but confidently to assert it, since he already knew that Peter agreed with him—whether because he had conferred the Gospel with him, or because at the calling of Cornelius the Centurion he had learned that Peter had been divinely admonished on this matter, or because before those whom he had feared came to Antioch, he had seen him eating with the Gentiles. For we do not deny that Peter already held the same view in which Paul also stood. Paul therefore was not then teaching him what was true in the matter, but rebuking his pretense, by which the Gentiles were being compelled to Judaize—for no other reason than that all those things were being done as a pretense, as though it were true what those said who thought that believers could not be saved without the circumcision of the flesh and other observances, which were shadows of things to come.

Therefore he also circumcised Timothy, so that the Jews, and especially his maternal kindred, should not think that those who had believed in Christ from among the Gentiles detested circumcision—as idolatry is to be detested, since Satan persuaded to the one, while God commanded the other to be done: and he did not circumcise Titus, so as not to give occasion to those who said that believers could not be saved without any circumcision at all, and lest, to deceive the Gentiles, they should boast that Paul too held this view.

This he himself sufficiently indicates when he says, "But neither was Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, compelled to be circumcised: but because of false brethren secretly brought in, who came in secretly to spy out our liberty, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we did not yield submission, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might remain with you." From this it is clear what he understood them to be seeking to catch him in, so that he did not do what he had done with Timothy, and what he could have done with that liberty by which he had shown that those sacraments were neither to be sought after as necessary, nor condemned as sacrilegious.

But we must certainly beware, in this discussion, lest, like the Philosophers, we call certain human acts indifferent, midway between right action and sin, being counted neither among right actions nor among sins: and lest we be pressed by the fact that observing the ceremonies of the Law cannot be indifferent, but must be either good or bad. So that if we say it is good, we would be compelled to observe them ourselves too; but if bad, we would have to believe that they were observed by the Apostles not truly but in pretense. But I, for my part, fear less the example of Philosophers with regard to the Apostles—since even they, in their disputation, sometimes speak something true—than that of forensic advocates, who lie in pleading the causes of others.

And if their likeness has been thought fit to be decently brought in even in the exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, to confirm the pretense of Peter and Paul, why should I fear before you the name of Philosophers, who are not vain merely because they say all false things, but because they have confidence in many false things, and even where they are found to speak truly, are estranged from the grace of Christ, who is Truth itself. But why should I not say that those precepts of the old sacraments were neither good, because men are not justified by them—for they are shadows foretelling the grace by which we are justified—nor yet evil, because they were divinely commanded, fitting the times and the persons concerned? And let the prophetic word itself help me here, where God says that he gave that people precepts that were not good.

Perhaps for this reason he did not say "evil," but only "not good," that is, not such that men are made good by them, or without them cannot become good. I would wish that your kind sincerity would instruct me, whether it is in pretense that any holy man of the East, when he comes to Rome, fasts on the Sabbath, except on that day of the Paschal vigil. For if we say this is evil, we shall condemn not only the Roman Church but also many neighboring to it, and some further removed, where the same custom is held and maintained. But if we think it evil not to fast on the Sabbath, with what rashness shall we accuse so many Churches of the East, and by far the greater part of the Christian world? Does it please you that we should say it is something intermediate, yet acceptable to him who does it not in pretense, but in fitting fellowship and observance?

And yet we read of nothing commanded in this regard to Christians in the Canonical books: how much less then dare I call that evil which I cannot, by the Christian faith itself, deny God to have commanded—by which faith I have learned that I am not justified by it, but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord?. " I say, then, that the circumcision of the flesh, and other things of that sort, were given divinely to the former people through the Testament called old, as a signification of things to come, which had to be fulfilled through Christ: and that with the coming of these, those things remained for Christians only to be read for the understanding of the aforetold prophecy, but were not to be made necessary to be done—as though it were still to be awaited that the revelation of faith should come, which was signified by these to be coming.

But although they were not to be imposed on the Gentiles, still they ought not to have been so removed from the custom of the Jews as though detestable and to be condemned. Gradually, then, and little by little, as the sound preaching of the grace of Christ grew fervent—by which alone believers might know themselves to be justified and made safe, not by those shadows of things formerly future but now come and present—so that in the calling of those Jews whom the presence of the Lord's flesh and the Apostolic times had found in this state, all that observance of shadows might be consumed: for them it was enough for commendation that it should not be avoided as detestable and like idolatry, but should have no further progress; lest it be thought necessary, as though salvation were either from it, or could not be without it. This is what the heretics thought, who, while wishing to be both Jews and Christians, could be neither Jews nor Christians.

Their opinion you have deigned most benevolently to warn me to guard against, although I have never held it; yet it was into the pretense, not the agreement, with this opinion, that Peter had fallen through fear, so that Paul most truly wrote of him: that when he saw him not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, he most truly said to him that he was compelling the Gentiles to Judaize. Which Paul certainly was not doing, since he truthfully observed those old things where it was needful, in order to show that they were not to be condemned; yet he preached insistently that not by them, but by the grace of faith now revealed, believers are made safe, lest he should compel anyone to take up those things as though necessary.

Thus I believe the Apostle Paul truly did all those things, and yet I do not believe that any man now, made a Christian from a Jew, is either compelled, or would allow such things to be truly celebrated: just as you, to whom it seems that Paul only pretended those things, neither compel this man, nor allow him, to pretend such things. 16. "Or would you have me too say that this is the sum of the question, nay, of your opinion, that after the Gospel of Christ, believing Jews do well if they offer sacrifices such as Paul offered; if they circumcise their sons, if they observe the sabbath, as Paul did with Timothy, and I should observe all things as the Jews did, provided that they do these things with pretence and deceit?

If this is so, we do not now fall into the heresy of Ebion, or of those commonly called Nazarenes, or into any other ancient heresy whatsoever; but I know not into what new one we slide, which is the more pernicious in that it proceeds not from error, but from deliberate and deceitful purpose.

But if you should answer, in order to clear yourself of this opinion, that the Apostles at that time praiseworthily feigned these things, lest the weak should be scandalized—many of whom, having believed from among the Jews, did not yet understand that these things were to be rejected—but now, since the doctrine of Christian grace has been confirmed through so many nations, confirmed also through all the Churches of Christ by the reading of the Law and the Prophets, so that it is now recited how these things are to be understood, not observed, and whoever should wish to practice them by pretence would seem to be mad: why may I not say that the Apostle Paul, and other Christians of right faith, at that time ought truly to have commended those ancient sacraments by observing them a little while, lest those observances of prophetic significance, kept by the most pious fathers, should be thought by posterity to be diabolical sacrileges to be detested?

For now that the faith had come, which had previously been foretold by those observances, and after the death and resurrection of the Lord had been revealed, they had lost, as it were, the life of their office. Nevertheless, as dead bodies must in some manner be conducted to burial with the offices due to the dead—not in pretence, but with religious care—so they were not to be forsaken at once, nor cast out, as it were to the bites of dogs, by the revilings of enemies. Accordingly now, whoever among Christians, even though he be of Jewish origin, should wish similarly to celebrate these things—digging up, as it were, slumbering ashes—will not be a pious conductor or bearer of the body, but an impious violator of the burial." 17.

"I confess indeed that in what my letter contains, in that I said Paul had undertaken to celebrate the sacraments of the Jews, since he was already an Apostle of Christ, in order to teach that they were not pernicious to those who wished to keep them, as they had received them from their parents through the Law—I set this down too briefly as applying to that time alone, when the grace of faith was first revealed: for then this was not pernicious. But as time went on, those observances were to be abandoned by all Christians: lest, if this were done at that time, there should be no distinction between what God commanded His people through Moses and what the unclean spirit instituted in the temples of demons. Accordingly my negligence is rather to be blamed—because I did not add this—than your rebuke.

Nevertheless, long before I received your letter, writing against Faustus the Manichee, I explained this same passage, though briefly, and did not omit this point there; and your kindness, if it does not disdain to do so, may read it, and from our dearest friends, through whom I have now sent this writing, you may be assured, in whatever way you wish, that I had dictated that before. And believe me concerning my own mind—for, speaking before God, I demand this by the right of charity—that it never seemed to me, even now, that Christians made from Jews ought, with whatever feeling, with whatever mind, to celebrate those ancient sacraments, or that it is in any way lawful for them to do so; since I have always held this view about Paul, from the time his letters became known to me: just as it does not seem to you that these things ought to be feigned by anyone at this time, though you believe that the Apostles did this." 18.

"Accordingly, just as you speak on the contrary, and, though the world protests, as you write, you proclaim with free voice that the ceremonies of the Jews are both pernicious and deadly to Christians; and that whoever observes them, whether from among the Jews or from among the Gentiles, is plunged into the pit of the devil: so I entirely confirm this voice of yours, and I add: Whoever observes them, whether from among the Jews or from among the Gentiles, not only truly but even in pretence, is plunged into the pit of the devil. What more do you seek? But just as you separate the pretence of the Apostles from the reasoning of this present time, so I separate the truthful conduct of the Apostle Paul at that time in all these matters—though it was in no way a feigned observance of Jewish ceremonies—from the reasoning of this present time; since then it was to be approved, now it is to be detested.

Thus, although we have read: The Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist; and that the Jews sought therefore to kill Christ, because He not only broke the sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God; and that we have received grace for grace; and that the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ; and it was promised through Jeremiah that God would give a new Testament to the house of Judah, not according to the Testament which He made with their fathers—nevertheless I do not think that the Lord Himself was deceitfully circumcised by His parents. Or if, on account of His age, He did not at all prevent it, neither do I think He spoke deceitfully to the leper, whom certainly not that observance commanded through Moses, but He Himself commanded: Go and offer for thyself the sacrifice that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.

Nor did He deceitfully go up to the feast day—so far indeed from any purpose of ostentation before men, that He did not go up openly, but secretly. 19. "But indeed the same Apostle said: Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Did he then deceive Timothy, and cause Christ to profit him nothing? Or, because this was done deceitfully, was it therefore not harmful? But he himself does not put it so: he does not say, if you be circumcised truly, any more than deceitfully, but he said without any exception: If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Therefore, just as you wish here to make room for your own opinion, wishing it to be understood 'unless deceitfully,' so I do not impudently ask that you allow us also to understand it as said to those who wished to be circumcised for this reason, that they thought they could not otherwise be saved in Christ.

With this mind, then, with this will, with this intention, whoever was then circumcised, Christ profited him nothing at all; just as elsewhere he plainly says, For if righteousness come by the Law, then Christ died in vain. This, then, declares what you yourself have mentioned, You are fallen from Christ, whosoever of you are justified by the Law; you are fallen from grace. He rebukes, then, those who believed themselves to be justified by the Law; not those who observed those lawful things in honor of Him by whom they were commanded, understanding both by what reasoning of foretelling the truth they were commanded, and for how long they ought to endure. Hence that saying: If you are led by the Spirit, you are not now under the Law. Whence, as you gather, it appears that he who is under the Law is, not dispensatively, as you think our forefathers wished, but truly, as I understand it, one who does not have the Holy Spirit." 20.

"It seems to me a great question, what it is to be 'under the Law' in the sense in which the Apostle blames it. For I do not think he says this on account of circumcision, or those sacrifices which were then made by the fathers and are not now made by Christians, and other such things, but this very thing also which the Law commands: You shall not covet—which we certainly confess Christians ought to observe, and which is preached with especially evangelical illumination. He says the Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Then he adds, Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid: but sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good, that sin might become exceeding sinful, by the commandment. And what he says here, that sin becomes exceeding sinful by the commandment, he says elsewhere: The Law entered in, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

And elsewhere, when speaking above of the dispensation of grace, that it alone justifies, as if asking he says: What then is the Law? And to this question he immediately answers: It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Those, then, he says, are damnably under the Law, whom the Law makes guilty, not fulfilling the Law, while, not understanding the benefit of grace for doing the precepts of God, they presume, as it were from their own strength, with prideful arrogance. For the fulfilling of the Law is love. But the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, not by ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us. But to explain this matter as much as is sufficient would perhaps require a longer discourse, one of its own volume.

If, then, that which the Law says, You shall not covet, if human weakness be not aided by the grace of God, holds one guilty under it, and condemns the transgressor rather than freeing the sinner, how much more could those things which were commanded for the sake of signification—circumcision, and the rest, which, as the revelation of grace became more widely known, had of necessity to be abolished—justify no one? Yet they were not therefore to be fled from as though they were diabolical sacrileges of the Gentiles, even when that very grace had already begun to be revealed, which had been foretold by such shadows; but they were to be permitted for a little while to those, especially, who came from that people to whom they had been given. Afterward, however, as though buried with honor, they were to be abandoned irrevocably by all Christians." 21. "But this that you say (not dispensatively, as our forefathers wished), what, I ask you, does it mean?

For either this is what I call an 'officious lie,' so that this dispensation is an office, as it were of honestly lying; or I see no other possibility at all, unless perhaps, by the addition of the name 'dispensation,' a lie ceases to be a lie: but if that is absurd, why then do you not openly say that an officious lie is to be defended, unless perhaps the name troubles you—because the word 'office' is so unusual in ecclesiastical books, which nevertheless our Ambrose did not fear, who wished to entitle certain of his books, full of useful precepts, 'On Offices'? Or is one to blame if he lies officiously, and to be approved if he lies dispensatively? I ask you, let him who thinks this lie wherever he chooses: for on this point too there is a great question, whether it is ever right for good men, nay for Christian men, to lie—men to whom it was said, Let your speech be yea, yea; nay, nay, that you fall not under judgment?

And who hear with faith, You will destroy all who speak a lie. 22. "But this, as I have said, is another and a great question: let him choose where he will lie, who thinks this—provided that it be believed unshaken, and altogether defended, that falsehood is absent from the writers who are the authors of the sacred Scriptures, and especially the canonical ones; lest the dispensers of Christ, of whom it is said, Here now it is required among dispensers, that a man be found faithful, should seem to have learned for themselves, as some great thing, to lie for the dispensation of truth—since faith itself in the Latin tongue is said to be so named because what is said comes to be. But where what is said comes to be, there certainly is no room for lying. The Apostle Paul, then, a faithful dispenser, without doubt shows us fidelity in writing: because he was a dispenser of truth, not of falsehood.

And for this reason he wrote truly that he saw Peter not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, and withstood him to his face, because he was compelling the Gentiles to judaize. Peter himself, however, accepted with holy and kindly piety of humility what Paul did usefully with the liberty of charity: and thus he offered a rarer and holier example to posterity, that they should not disdain, if perchance they had strayed from the straight path, to be corrected even by their juniors—than did Paul, by which they might confidently dare, even lesser men resisting greater ones for the defense of evangelical truth, while preserving brotherly charity. For although it is better in no respect to turn aside from the path one is holding than in some respect, yet it is far more admirable and praiseworthy to accept correction willingly than to correct one who has strayed with boldness.

There is, then, praise both for just liberty in Paul and for holy humility in Peter: which, so far as it seems to me according to my small measure, ought rather to have been defended against the calumniating Porphyry, than that a greater occasion of reviling should be given him, whereby he might much more bitingly accuse Christians of either writing their own letters or handling the sacraments of their God deceitfully. 23. You demand of me that I show at least some one man whose opinion in this matter I have followed, since you have named so many by name who have preceded you in what you assert; asking that, in the matter in which I reprove you as erring, I allow you to err with such men—of whom I confess I have read none; but though there are nearly six or seven, of these four you yourself weaken the authority.

For the Laodicene, whose name you withhold, you say has lately departed from the Church; Alexander, moreover, is an old heretic; Origen indeed and Didymus, whom you have reproved yourself, I read in more recent questions, although you had earlier praised Origen wonderfully. With these, then, I think it is to err, since you yourself will not allow it; although this is said just as if they had not erred in this opinion. For who is there who would wish to err with just anyone? Three, then, remain: Eusebius of Emesa, Theodore of Heraclea, and the one you mention shortly after, John, who not long ago ruled the Church of Constantinople in the pontifical office.

24. Furthermore, if you should ask, or call to mind, what our Ambrose thought about this matter; what our Cyprian likewise thought, you will perhaps find that we too have not lacked those whom we might follow in what we assert, although, as I said a little before, I owe This alone, this ingenuous servitude, to the Canonical Scriptures, that I follow them alone in such a way that I have no doubt that their authors erred in nothing at all in them, nor set down anything falsely. Accordingly, when I seek a third witness, that I too might oppose three to three, I could indeed, as I think, easily find one, had I read much.

Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul himself presents himself to me in place of all these, nay, above all these; to him I flee; to him I appeal from all interpreters of the letters who think otherwise, questioning him and calling upon him, and inquiring in that passage which he wrote to the Galatians, that he saw Peter not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, and for that reason withstood him to the face, because by that pretence he was compelling the Gentiles to judaize—whether he wrote the truth, or perhaps lied by some dispensatory falsehood, I know not. And I hear him, a little above, at the very outset of that same narrative, crying out to me with a solemn voice: "Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie." 25. Let those who think otherwise pardon me; I believe rather this so great an Apostle swearing in his own letters, than any most learned man disputing about the affairs of others.

Nor am I afraid to be told that in thus defending Paul, I make it out that he did not feign the error of the Jews, but was truly in error. For he was not feigning error, who by apostolic liberty, as was fitting to that time, was commending those old sacraments—where it was needful to act—sacraments established prophetically not only by the cunning of Satan for deceiving men, but by the providence of God for foretelling things to come. Nor was he truly in the error of the Jews, he who not only knew, but even insistently and sharply preached that those were in error who thought that such things ought to be imposed on the Gentiles, or were necessary for the justification of any of the faithful.

26. But as to what I said, that he was made to the Jews as a Jew, and to the Gentiles as a Gentile, not by the cunning of a liar, but by the affection of one who suffers with others, you seem to me to have paid too little attention to how I said it; or perhaps indeed I have not been able to explain this sufficiently. For I did not say this because he feigned those things mercifully; but because he did not feign those things which he did, similar to the Jews, just as neither did he feign those things which he did, similar to the Gentiles, which you too have mentioned; and in this you have helped me, which I do not ungratefully acknowledge.

For when I had asked you in my letter how he is thought to have been made to the Jews as a Jew, on the ground that he deceitfully took up the sacraments of the Jews, when as one made a Gentile he took up—and yet did not deceitfully take up—the sacrifices of the Gentiles; you answered that he was made to the Gentiles as a Gentile in this, that he received uncircumcision; that he indifferently permitted the eating of foods; afterward, when he disputed, he claimed something insolently for himself, or arrogantly assumed, so as to say that he held the primacy, and that it was fitting that he be obeyed by the newer and later ones rather than the reverse. Nor did he despise Paul because he had formerly been a persecutor of the Church; but he admitted the counsel of truth, and readily agreed to the lawful reasoning which Paul was upholding.

This passage indeed Augustine himself recites, in order to assert this same opinion of his, at the beginning of Book of Against the Donatists on Baptism—those foods which the Jews condemn. Here I ask: did he do this too by feigning? But if this is most absurd and most false, then so too were those other things, in which he conformed to the custom of the Jews by prudent liberty, not by servile necessity, or, what is more unworthy, by a deceitful rather than a faithful dispensation. 27. For to the faithful, and to those who have known the truth, as he himself testifies (unless perhaps he lies here too), every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving. Therefore also to Paul himself, not only a man, but also a most faithful steward, not only a thinker but also a teacher of the truth, surely every creature of God in respect of foods was, not feignedly, but truly good.

Why then, while suspecting nothing feignedly concerning the sacred rites and ceremonies of the Gentiles, but truly thinking and teaching concerning foods and circumcision, was he nevertheless made as a Gentile to the Gentiles, and could not be made as a Jew to the Jews, except by deceitfully observing the sacraments of the Jews? Why did he, with the wild olive grafted in, observe the truthful fidelity of dispensation; and, with the natural branches placed not outside but within the tree, put forward I know not what veil of dispensatory pretence? Why, made as a Gentile to the Gentiles, does he teach what he thinks, and think what he says; but made as a Jew to the Jews, does he shut up one thing in his breast, and bring forth another in words, in deeds, in writings? But far be it to think this. For he owed to both charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and unfeigned faith.

And through this he was made all things to all men, that he might gain all, not by the cunning of a liar, but by the affection of one who suffers with others, that is, not by deceitfully doing all the evils of men, but by procuring, with the diligence of merciful medicine, for all the evils of others, as if they were his own. 28. Therefore, when he did not in the least refuse even to perform himself those sacraments of the Old Testament, he was not mercifully deceiving; but, altogether without deceit, and thus commending that those things had been commanded by the Lord God up to the dispensation of a certain time, he was distinguishing them from the sacrilegious rites of the Gentiles.

But then, not by the cunning of a liar, but by the affection of one who suffers with others, he became as a Jew to the Jews, when he wished to free them from that error, whereby they either refused to believe in Christ, or thought that they could be cleansed from sins and made safe through their old priesthoods and observances of ceremonies—he wished to free them just as if he himself were held by that error; loving indeed his neighbor as himself, and doing to others these things which he would wish to be done to himself by others, if that were his need. Which, when the Lord had admonished, he added: "For this is the Law and the Prophets." " This affection of compassion he enjoins in the same Epistle to the Galatians, saying: If a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. See whether he did not say: to become like him, that he might gain him.

Certainly not, that he might deceitfully pretend the same beloved thing, or feign that he had it himself: but that in another's fault he might consider what could also happen to himself, and thus mercifully assist another, as he would wish another to assist himself, that is, not by the cunning of one who lies, but by the affection of one who has compassion. Thus to the Jew, thus to the Gentile, thus to any man set in error or in some sin, Paul, not by pretending what he was not, but by compassion, because he could have been such himself, considering himself a man, became all things to all men, that he might gain all.

Look upon yourself for a moment, I beg you, if you please: look upon yourself, I say, in relation to me; and recall, or if you have it written, reread your own words in that letter which you sent me, in a shorter form, through our brother, now my colleague, Cyprian—with what truthful, what genuine, what full affection of charity, when you had gravely complained that I had committed certain things against you, you added: (In this friendship is wounded, in this the rights of intimacy are violated, lest we seem to contend childishly and to give our partisans, or our detractors, material for strife.) These words I perceive to have been spoken by you not only from the heart, but also with a kindly mind toward advising me.

Then you add, what would appear even if you did not add it, and you say (I write these things because I desire to love you purely and in a Christian way, and to retain nothing in my mind that differs from my lips): O holy man, and dear to me (as God sees my soul) with a truthful heart, this very thing which you put in your letter, by which I do not doubt that you have laid yourself open to me—this very thing I believe Paul the Apostle to have shown altogether in his letters, not to any one man, but to the Jews, and the Greeks, and all the nations, his sons, whom he had begotten in the Gospel, and whom he was bringing forth in travail: and then to so many thousands of Christian believers to come, for whose sake that epistle was committed to memory, that he might retain nothing in his mind differing from his lips.

Surely you too became, as I did, not by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one compassionate, when you considered that I ought no more to be left in that fault into which you thought me to have fallen, than you yourself would wish to be left, had you fallen in the same way. Whence, giving thanks for your benevolent mind toward me, I ask likewise that you not be angry with me, because when certain things in your works moved me, I made known my being moved to you: wishing this to be observed toward me by all, which I myself observe toward you, that whatever they think ought to be censured in my writings, they neither praise with a deceitful heart, nor censure before others in such a way that they are silent before me; for I consider that friendship is rather wounded by this, and the rights of intimacy violated.

For I know not whether those friendships are to be reckoned Christian, in which the common proverb prevails more, "Flattery begets friends, truth begets hatred," than the ecclesiastical one, "More faithful are the wounds of a friend than the voluntary kisses of an enemy." 32. Accordingly let us with all the earnestness we can teach our dearest ones, who most sincerely favor our labors, this rather: that they may know it can happen that among dearest friends something may be contradicted in mutual discourse, and yet charity itself not be diminished, nor truth—which is owed to friendship—beget hatred; whether that which is contradicted be true, or whether, whatever it be, it is spoken with a truthful heart, not retaining in the mind what differs from the lips.

Let our brothers, then, your intimates, to whom you bear witness that they are vessels of Christ, believe that this was done against my will, and that no small grief is in my heart over this matter, that my letter came into the hands of many before it could reach you, to whom it was written. But how this happened is both long to relate, and, unless I am mistaken, superfluous: since it suffices, if anything is believed of me in this matter, that it was not done with the mind that is supposed; nor was it at all of my will, or disposition, or consent, or even of my thought, that it should happen. If they do not believe this, which I speak with God as witness, I have nothing further to do.

Yet far be it from me to believe that they suggest these things to your holiness with malevolent mind, to stir up enmities between us; which may the mercy of the Lord our God avert from us; but rather, without any intent to harm, that they easily suspect human vices in a human being. For it is right for me to believe this of them, if they are vessels of Christ, made not unto dishonor but unto honor, and prepared in the great house by God, unto every good work. But if after this my attestation, should it come to their knowledge, they should wish to act otherwise, you yourself see how wrongly they would act. 33. As for what I had written, that I had sent no book against you to Rome, I had written this because I distinguished the name "book" from the letter itself.

Whence I altogether do not know what else you supposed you had heard; and I had sent to Rome not the letter itself, but to you; and I did not think it was against you, since I knew that I had done it, whether to admonish you, or to have myself corrected by you, out of sincerity of friendship. But apart from your intimates, I beg you, by the grace by which we have been redeemed, that whatever good qualities of yours, granted to you by the goodness of the Lord, I set down in my letter, you should not think I set them down with insidious flattery. But if I have sinned in anything against you, forgive me.

Nor should you draw further than I said that matter about the deed of some Pacatus or other, mentioned by me perhaps rather ineptly than learnedly, more than I said: since I immediately added that I did not say this in order that you should recover the eyes of your heart, which far be it that you should ever have lost; but that you might attend to how sound and watchful you have them. Therefore only for the sake of the "palinode," if we have written something which we ought to destroy by a later writing, is it to be imitated—not for the sake of the blindness of Stesichorus, which I neither attributed to your heart, nor feared—that I thought this should be attended to: and I likewise ask that you correct me confidently, wherever you perceive this to be needful for me.

For although according to the titles of honor which the usage of the Church has now established, the episcopate is greater than the presbyterate, yet in many things Augustine is less than Jerome: though correction is not to be shunned or disdained even from any lesser person. 34. Concerning your translation, you have already persuaded me of the utility for which you wished to translate the Scriptures from the Hebrew; namely, that you might bring forward into the open those things which were omitted or corrupted by the Jews. But I ask that you deign to explain, by which Jews—whether by those very ones who translated before the coming of the Lord, and if so, by which of them, or by which one; or by those later ones, who for that reason can be thought to have either withdrawn something from the Greek codices, or corrupted something in them, lest they be convicted by those testimonies concerning the Christian faith? But why those earlier ones would have wished to do this, I do not find.

Then, I beg, send us your translation from the Septuagint, which I did not know you had published. I also wish to read your book, which you mentioned, on the best method of translating; and I still wish to know how the skill in languages in a translator is to be made equal to the conjectures of those who, in expounding the Scriptures, treat of them; who, even if they be of one right faith, must necessarily produce varying opinions in the obscurity of many passages: although this variety in no way disagrees with the unity of the same faith; just as even one commentator, according to the same faith, can expound the same passage now one way, now another, because its obscurity allows this.

35. I desire your translation from the Septuagint for this reason, that we may as much as possible be free from the great unskillfulness of the Latin translators, such as they were, who have dared this task: and that those who think I envy your useful labors may at last, if it can be done, understand that I am unwilling for your translation from the Hebrew to be read in the churches for this reason: lest, by putting forward something new as it were against the authority of the Septuagint, we disturb with great scandal the people of Christ, whose ears and hearts have been accustomed to hear that translation which was also approved by the Apostles. Whence also as to that shrub in Jonah, if in the Hebrew it is neither ivy nor gourd, but some other thing which, resting on its own trunk, rises without needing any props to sustain it, I would prefer that "gourd" now be read in all the Latin copies.

For I do not think the Seventy put this without reason, unless because they knew of something similar to it. I think I have answered your three letters sufficiently, indeed perhaps more than sufficiently; of which I received two through Cyprian, one through Firmus. Write back whatever seems fit, for our instruction or that of others. I shall take more diligent care, as far as the Lord helps me, that the letters which I write to you reach you before they reach anyone by whom they might be more widely spread. For I confess that I do not wish this to happen to me from your letters to me, which you most justly demand should not happen from mine to you. Nevertheless, let not only charity but also the liberty of friendship be pleasing to us mutually; nor let you keep silent before me, nor I before you, whatever moves us in turn in our letters; namely with that mind which, in the eyes of God, is not displeasing in brotherly love.

But if you think this cannot be done between us without a harmful offense to that very love, let it not be done. For that charity which I would wish to have with you is certainly greater: but this lesser charity is better than none at all.

A certain brother from Gaul reported to me that he had a virgin sister and a widowed mother, who dwelt in the same city in separate cells: and either on account of the loneliness of their household, or for the guarding of their small property, had taken to themselves certain clerics as protectors; so that they were joined to strangers with greater disgrace than that from which they had been separated from each other. And when I groaned, and by my silence signified much more than by my speech, "I beg you," he said, "rebuke them in your letters, and call them back to concord; that the mother may acknowledge the daughter, and the daughter the mother." To whom I said: "You are laying upon me an excellent task, that as a stranger I should reconcile those whom a son and brother could not." As if indeed I held an episcopal chair, and were not shut up in a cell, and far removed from crowds—either lamenting past vices, or striving to avoid present ones.

But it is also unfitting to be hidden in body, and yet to roam with the tongue through the whole world. And he said: "You are too fearful. Where is that former constancy of yours, in which, rubbing down the world with much salt, you related something about Lucilius?" "This," I said, "is what makes me flee, and does not allow me to part my lips.

For after, by rebuking crimes, I became myself accused of crime, and, according to the well-worn popular proverb: with everyone quarreling and denying everything, I believe I have neither ears nor feeling of my own: the very walls have resounded against me with curses, and those who drank wine sang against me in their songs: compelled by evil, I have learned to be silent, judging it more right to set a guard upon my mouth, and a well-fortified door upon my lips, than to let my heart incline to words of malice: and while plucking at vices, to fall into the vice of detraction." When I had said this, he replied: "It is not detraction, but truth-telling; nor does a private rebuke make a general teaching, when he who falls under the guilt of this fault is rare, or none at all. I beg you, therefore, do not allow me, wearied by so great a journey, to have come in vain.

For the Lord knows that after the vision of the holy places, I had this above all as my reason, that with your letters I might bring healing to sister and mother." And I said: "Well then, I will do what you wish: for the letters are to cross the sea, and a discourse specifically composed can rarely find those whom it stings. But I beg you to keep this discourse secret. And when you have carried it as provision for your journey, if it is heeded, let us rejoice together; but if it is despised, which I rather suppose, I shall have lost my words, and you the length of your journey."

2. First I wish you to know, sister and daughter, that I do not write for this reason, that I suspect anything sinister about you; but lest others suspect that I am pleading for your concord.

Otherwise (which God forbid), if I judged that you two were bound together by the glue of sins, I would never write, and would know that I was telling a tale to deaf ears. Next I beg this, that if I write anything rather biting, you should think it belongs not so much to my harshness as to the disease. Putrid flesh is cured by iron and cautery; poisons are driven out by a serpent's antidote. What pains sufficiently is expelled by greater pain. Finally I say this, that even if this matter has no wound of conscience of crime, yet rumor bears its disgrace. Mother and daughter—names of piety, titles of duty, bonds of nature, the second alliance after God. It is no praise if you love one another; it is a crime that you hate one another. The Lord Jesus was subject to His parents; He revered His mother, whose own father He was.

He honored His foster-father, whom He himself had nourished, and He remembered that He had been carried, in the one case in a womb, in the other in arms. Hence too, hanging on the cross, He commended His parent to His disciple—her whom He had never before dismissed even before the cross.

3. But you, daughter (for now I cease to speak to the mother, whom perhaps age and infirmity and solitude make excusable)—you, I say, daughter, do you judge her house too narrow, whose womb was not too narrow for you? For ten months you lived enclosed within a womb, and for one day you cannot endure in one chamber with your mother? Can you not bear her eyes? And do you flee her as a domestic witness—she who, as the one who bore you, nourished you, and brought you to this age, understands all your movements more readily than anyone? If you are a virgin, why do you fear a diligent guardian? If you are corrupted, why do you not marry openly?

It is the second plank after shipwreck, that what you have begun ill, you should at least temper by this remedy. Nor indeed do I say this in order to take away repentance after sin, so that what began badly should persist badly; but that I despair of a separation in a union of this sort. Otherwise, if you should go to your mother after ruin, you could more easily lament with her what you have lost through her absence. But if you are still intact, and have not lost it, keep watch lest you lose it. What need is there for you to dwell in that house, where you must daily either perish or conquer? Does any mortal take safe sleep next to a viper? Even if it does not strike, it certainly causes anxiety. It is safer not to be able to perish, than not to have perished while next to danger. In the one case there is tranquility, in the other, steering the ship. There we rejoice; here we merely escape.

4. But perhaps you will answer: My mother is not of good character, she desires worldly things, she loves riches, she knows nothing of fasting, she paints her eyes with stibium, she wishes to go about adorned, and she harms my purpose, nor can I live with such a woman. First indeed, even if she is such as you allege, you will have greater reward if you do not abandon such a one. She carried you long in her womb, nourished you long, and with fond devotion bore the more difficult ways of infancy. She washed the filth of your swaddling clothes, and was often defiled with unclean dung. She sat by you when sick; and what she endured of her own disgust for your sake, she also suffered for you. She brought you to this age; she taught you to love Christ. Let not her manner of life displease you—she who consecrated you a virgin to your Bridegroom.

But if you cannot bear it, and flee her indulgences, and (as is commonly said) your mother is worldly, you have other virgins, you have the holy choir of chastity. Why, forsaking your mother, do you choose him who has perhaps forsaken his own sister and mother? She is difficult; but he is easy. She is a scold; therefore he is placable. I ask, did you follow the man, or did you find him afterward? If you followed him, it is plain you abandoned your mother. If you found him afterward, you show what you could not find in your mother's household. It is a hard grief, and one wounding me with my own blade. He who walks, it is said, simply, walks confidently. I would be silent, if conscience did not gnaw at me, and if I did not reprove my own crime in others, nor see through the beam in my own eye the splinter in another's.

Now, however, though I dwell far off among brethren, and enjoy their company honorably under witnesses, and rarely see or am seen: it is most shameless that you should not follow her modesty, whose example you profess to follow. But if you should say: My own conscience is enough for me; I have God as judge, who is witness of my life; I do not care what men say—hear the Apostle writing: Providing good things, not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men. If anyone finds fault with you because you are a Christian, because you are a virgin, do not care, because you have thus dismissed your mother, so as to live among virgins in a monastery: such detraction is your praise. Where not luxury in a maiden of God, but severity is found fault with, that cruelty is piety. For you prefer him to your mother, whom you are bidden to prefer even to your own soul.

If she too prefers Him, she will feel you to be both daughter and sister.

5. What then? Is it a crime to have the companionship of a holy man? You drag me by the neck into court, so that I must either approve what I do not wish, or incur the ill-will of many. A holy man never separates a daughter from her mother; he receives both, and reveres both. However holy the daughter may be, a widowed mother is a token of chastity. If that certain someone is of your own age, let him honor your mother as his own; if he is older, let him love you as a daughter, and subject you to a parent's discipline. It is not expedient for the reputation of either that you should love him more than your mother, lest it seem that in you he chooses not affection but age. And I would say this, even if you did not have a monk brother, if you lacked domestic protectors.

But now, alas, between mother and brother, between a widowed mother and a monk brother, why does a stranger insert himself? It is good indeed that you should know yourself both daughter and sister. But if you cannot be both, and the mother, as it were harsh, is rejected, let at least the brother be pleasing. If the brother is rather harsh, let her who bore you be gentler. Why do you turn pale? Why do you burn? Why do you suffuse your face with blush, and with trembling lips bear witness to the impatience of your heart? Nothing surpasses the love of mother and brother, except only the affection of a wife.

6. I hear moreover that you go about the suburban estates, the pleasant villas, with in-laws and relations, and people of that sort. Nor do I doubt that she is either a cousin or a sister, for whose comfort you are led as a follower of new kind.

Far be it indeed that, however near they may be as relatives and kin, I should suspect you of seeking the company of men. I beg you therefore, virgin, to answer me: do you go alone in the company of your relatives, or with your lover? However shameless you are, you will not dare to thrust him before the eyes of the worldly. For if you do this, the whole household will sing of both you and him; the fingers of all will point you out; even the very sister, or in-law, or relation, who to flatter you call him "holy" and "Nonnus" in your presence, when they have turned aside a little, will laugh at the monstrous husband. But if you go alone (which I rather suppose), then indeed among young slaves, among married women and brides-to-be, among wanton girls, and long-haired and perfumed youths, you, a girl in dark garments, will walk.

Some bearded fellow will give you his hand, will support you when weary; and with pressed fingers, he will either be tempted or will tempt. There will be for you a banquet among men and matrons; you will watch others' kisses, foods tasted beforehand; and not without scandal to yourself, you will marvel at the silken and gilded garments of others. At that very banquet, as though unwilling, you will be forced to eat meats, as it were against your will. To make you drink wine, God's creature will be praised. To make you bathe, filth will be alleged against you; and all will proclaim you, if with reluctance you do any of the things they urge, pure, simple, a lady, and truly noble. Meanwhile some singer will sound at table, and amid the psalms running in sweet melody, since he will not dare to gaze at others' wives, he will look back more often at you, who have no guardian. He will speak by nods, and whatever he fears to say, he will signify by looks.

Amid such and so great enticements of pleasure, lust tames even iron minds—lust which suffers a greater hunger in virgins, while it thinks all that it does not know to be sweeter. The tales of the gentiles relate that sailors, by the songs of sirens, went headlong onto the rocks; and that by Orpheus's lyre trees and beasts, and the hardness of rocks, were softened. Chastity is with difficulty preserved amid banquets. A shining skin shows a filthy soul.

7. We have read as boys in the schools, and have seen in the streets breathing bronzes, of one scarcely clinging to his bones, who burned with illicit loves, and lost life before he lost the plague. What will you do, a girl of sound body, dainty, plump, blushing, growing hot amid meats, amid wine, and baths, next to husbands, next to young men? Even if, being asked, you do not comply, still you think you have a testimony to your beauty, if you are asked.

A lustful mind pursues shameful things more ardently; and what is not permitted, it suspects to be sweeter. The very garment, cheap and dark, is a sign of a silent mind—if it has no wrinkle; if it is dragged along the ground, so that you may seem taller; if the tunic is deliberately unstitched, so that something within may appear, covering what is foul, and revealing what is comely. Also the shoe of one walking, black and shining, calls the young men to itself by its creak. The breasts are bound with little bands, and the chest is more tightly constrained by a rippling girdle. The hair flows down either onto the forehead or onto the ears. The little cloak sometimes falls, to bare white shoulders, and, as though unwilling to be seen, quickly conceals what it had willingly uncovered. And when in public she covers her face as though from modesty, by the art of the brothel she shows only that which, shown, can please the more.

8. You will answer: How do you know me?

And how, placed so far away, do you cast your eyes upon me? Your brother's tears told me this, and his sobs, intolerable moment by moment. And would that he had lied, and had said this more from fear than from accusation. But believe me: no one weeps while lying. He grieves that a young man is preferred to himself—not indeed one with flowing hair, not one in silken garments, but a rather brawny fellow, dainty amid filth, who himself seals the money-bag, holds the weaving-room, distributes the tasks, rules the household, buys whatever is needed from the common store. A steward and lord, and one who anticipates the duties of the little slaves, whom all the servants gnaw at; and whatever the mistress has not given, they shout that he has stolen it. The race of little slaves is querulous, and however much you give them, it is always too little in their eyes.

For they do not consider how much is given, but how much is given to whom; and they console their own grief with the only thing they can—detractions. One calls him a parasite, another an impostor, another a legacy-hunter, another invents some new name for him. They boast that he sits by the bedside, brings in midwives to the sick woman, carries the chamber-pot, warms the linens, folds the little bandages. Men more easily believe evil, and whatever is invented at home becomes rumor in public. Nor should you wonder, if maidservants and slave-boys invent such things about you, when even your mother and brother complain of the very same thing.

9. Do therefore what I advise, what I beg, that you be reconciled first to your mother, and then, if that cannot be, at least to your brother. Or if you hatefully abhor to divide those dear names from him, whom you are said to have preferred to your own kin.

But if you cannot do even this (for you will return to your own, if you can forsake him), at least use your companion more honorably. Let your houses be separated, let your table be divided, lest slanderous men, seeing you dwelling under one little roof, accuse you also of having a common bed. You can have, for your needs, whatever comfort you wished, and in some measure be free of public infamy. Although a stain must be guarded against which, according to Jeremiah, can be washed by no nitre, by no fuller's herb. Whenever you wish him to see you and visit you, employ witnesses, friends, freedmen, servants. A good conscience flees the eyes of no one. Let him enter unafraid, let him go out secure. Silent eyes, and silent speech, and the bearing of the whole body speak sometimes of trepidation, sometimes of security. Open your ears, I beg, and hear the outcry of the whole city.

Already you two have lost your own names, and have taken on each other's surnames: you are called his, and he yours. This your mother hears, and your brother; and they are ready, and pray you to separate from each other; and to turn the private infamy of your union into a common praise. Be you with your mother; let him be with his brother. More boldly will you love your brother's companion; more honorably will your mother love her son's friend, than her daughter's. But if you refuse, if with wrinkled brow you scorn my warnings, this letter will proclaim to you with a free voice: Why do you besiege another's servant? Why do you make Christ's minister your own servant? Look to the people, gaze at each face. He reads in the Church, all look at you; except that you glory in your infamy almost with a marital license. Nor can you now be content with secret disgrace. You call impudence, freedom.

The face of a harlot has become yours; you do not know how to blush.

10. Again you cry out that I am malicious, again suspicious and smoke-belching. Am I suspicious? Am I malevolent? I, who, as I stated at the beginning of the letter, wrote for this reason, that I did not suspect. Or are you the negligent one, the dissolute, the scorner, who, at the age of twenty-five, enclosed a youth not yet well-bearded in your arms as if in nets? Truly an excellent tutor indeed, one to warn you, to terrify you with the sternness of his brow. And although lust is safe at no age, yet even with grey hair one is defended from open disgrace. There will come, there will come a time (for the day glides on while you do not know it), when that little pretty-boy of yours—since women grow old quickly, especially those who live close to men—will find either a richer or a younger woman.

Then you will repent of your counsel, and be weary of your stubbornness, when you have lost both your fortune and your reputation, when that which had been badly joined will be well divided. Unless perhaps you are secure, and, with affection grown together over so long a time, you do not fear a parting.

11. You too, mother, who because of your age do not fear reproach, take care not to sin in taking vengeance. Let your daughter learn to be separated from you rather than you be cut off from her. You have a son, and a daughter, and a son-in-law—nay rather, even a companion of your daughter's household. Why do you seek consolations from strangers, and stir up fires already put to sleep? It is more honorable for you to bear at least your daughter's fault, than to seek occasion for your own. Let your son the monk be with you, a support of piety and widowhood.

Why do you seek a man foreign to you, especially in that house which could not contain a son and a daughter? You are already of an age to be able to have grandchildren by your daughter. Invite both of them to you. Let her who went out alone return with a man. I said "a man," not "a husband." Let no one calumniate me. I meant to signify sex, not marriage. But if she blushes, and refuses, and considers the house in which she was born too narrow, then do you go to her little lodging; however cramped it may be, it can more easily hold a mother and a brother than a stranger, with whom certainly she could not remain chaste in one house, in one bedchamber. Let there be in one house two women and two men.

But if that third one of yours, your γηροβόσκος (nurse of your old age), does not wish to dwell there, and stirs up seditions and disturbances, let there be a pair, let there be a trio: let your brother be also her son, and he will show himself to her as brother and to you as mother. Let others call him step-father and son-in-law; let her call him foster-father and brother.

12. I have dictated these things in a swift discourse, as a brief night's-work, wishing to satisfy the desire of the one requesting it, and exercising myself as it were on a rhetorical exercise. For that same day, in the morning, he who was about to depart was knocking at the door. And at the same time, that I might show my detractors that I too can say whatever comes into my mouth.

Hence I have also touched briefly on a few things from the Scriptures; nor have I woven my discourse with their flowers, as I am accustomed to do in my other books. This is an extemporaneous dictation, poured forth with such ease by the light of a little lamp, that the hand of the secretaries ran ahead of the tongue; and the rapidity of speech overwhelmed the marks and thefts of words. I have said this so that whoever does not pardon my talent may at least pardon the occasion.

My son, your brother Ausonius, at the very moment of his departure, having given me his presence only briefly and having quickly taken it away, and in a point of time having said both "hail" and "farewell," thought he would return empty-handed unless he carried to you some of my trifles in a hurried discourse. Already, with the horse-cloth laid down, the public horse was being saddled, and a belt encircled the noble youth clad in a scarlet tunic, and yet he, having placed a secretary beside me, compelled me to speak, so that what was swiftly produced a swift hand might follow, and the marks of the words might catch the tongue's speed. And so, not by the diligence of the writer, but by the rashness of the one dictating, I break my long silence toward you, offering you the bare good will of duty. This is an extemporaneous letter, without order of thought, without the allurement and composition of words: so that in it you may find everything of the friend, nothing of the orator.

You may suppose it poured forth in the midst of preparation for departure, and thrust as provisions upon one eager to be off. Divine Scripture says: Music in mourning is an ill-timed narration. Hence we too, despising the charm of the art of rhetoric, and the grace of a boyish and applause-seeking eloquence, take refuge in the gravity of the sacred Scriptures, where there is a true medicine for wounds, where there are sure remedies for sorrows: in which the mother receives back her only son from the bier: where it is said to the crowd standing around, The girl is not dead, but sleeps: where also the man dead four days comes forth bound at the voice of the Lord calling out.

2. I hear that in a short time you have carried out, with almost joined funerals, two little virgin daughters, and that your most chaste and most faithful wife Faustina—nay rather your sister in the warmth of faith, in whom alone, after the loss of your children, you found rest—has been snatched from you by a sudden falling asleep: as if a shipwrecked man should find robbers on the shore, and, according to the sayings of the Prophets, fleeing a bear should fall upon a lion; and stretching out his hand to the wall, should be bitten by a serpent. There followed losses of your household estate, the devastation of the whole province by the barbarian enemy, and, in the common depopulation, the private ruin of your own possessions: herds of cattle and flocks driven off; little slaves bound and slain; and, in your one remaining daughter, whom such frequent bereavements had made dearer to you, a most noble son-in-law chosen, from which—to say nothing of all else—you received more sorrow than joy.

This is the catalogue of your temptations, this the battle of the ancient enemy with Julian, the young recruit of Christ. If you look at these things with reference to yourself, they are great; if with reference to a most valiant warrior, they are but sport and the shadow of a contest. To blessed Job, after the trials of evils, a most wicked wife was left, that through her he might learn to blaspheme. From you the best wife was taken away, that you might lose the solace of your miseries. It is one thing to endure what you would not wish, another to long for what you love.

He, amid so many deaths of the children of his household ruin, had one tomb; and having torn his garments, that he might show the affection of a parent, falling upon the earth he worshipped, and said: Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done: blessed be the name of the Lord. You, to speak most sparingly, amid the attentions of many kinsmen and consoling friends, have accompanied the funerals of your own. He lost all his riches at once, and, as messengers of evils succeeded one another, was borne unmoved through each blow, fulfilling in himself that praise concerning the Sage: If the shattered world should fall in ruins, the ruins would strike him unafraid. To you a greater part of your substance has been left, so that you retain only as much as you are able to bear.

For you have not yet arrived at that degree, that the whole array of forces should be arrayed in battle against you.

3. Once a wealthy lord, and a still wealthier father, he suddenly became bereaved and stripped bare. And since in all these things that had befallen him, he had not sinned before the Lord, nor spoken anything foolish: the Lord, exulting in the victory of his servant, and counting his patience as his own triumph, said to the devil: Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth? An innocent man, a true worshipper of God, abstaining from every evil, and still persevering in innocence. He added beautifully: And still persevering in innocence; because it is difficult for innocence pressed down by evils not to grieve, and by this very fact not to be endangered in faith, that it sees itself unjustly enduring what it suffers. To which the devil, answering the Lord, said: Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his life.

But stretch forth your hand, and touch his bones and his flesh, and he will surely bless you to your face. The most crafty adversary, grown old in evil days, knows that some things are external, and are called by the Philosophers of the world also ἀδιάφορα, that is, indifferent things, and that in their loss and contempt perfect virtue does not consist; but that other things, internal and desired, compel one who loses them to grieve. Hence he boldly refuses God's declaration, and says that he ought by no means to be praised who has given nothing of himself, but all that is outside himself, who has offered the skins of his sons for his own skin, and has laid down his purse, that he might enjoy bodily health.

Hence let your prudence understand that your temptations have reached only to this limit, and that you have given skin for skin, hide for hide, and all that you have, ready to give for your life: but that the hand of God has not yet been stretched out upon you, nor your flesh touched, nor your bones broken, at whose pain it is difficult not to groan, and to bless God to his face, instead of what is truly to curse. Whence also Naboth, in the books of Kings, is said to have blessed God and the king, and for that reason was stoned by the people. But the Lord, knowing his athlete, nay rather his most valiant champion, could not be overcome even in this final and complete contest, says: Behold, I deliver him into your hand: only preserve his life.

The flesh of the holy man is given into the power of the devil, and the health of his soul is preserved: lest, if he had struck that in which sense and the judgment of the mind reside, the fault would not be that of the one sinning, but of him who had overturned the state of his mind.

4. Let others therefore praise you, and pursue with panegyrics your victories against the devil, because with cheerful countenance you bore the deaths of your daughters, because on the fortieth day of their falling asleep you changed your mourning garment, and the dedication of the Martyr's bones restored to you white garments, so that you did not feel the grief of your bereavement, which the whole city felt, but rejoiced at the Martyr's triumph: because you escorted your most holy wife not as one dead, but as one setting forth on a journey. I shall by no means deceive you with flattery, nor trip you up with slippery praise.

I shall rather speak that which it profits you to hear: Son, when you come to the service of God, prepare your soul for temptation; and, When you have done all things, say, I am an unprofitable servant: I have done what I ought to do. You have taken away children, whom you yourself had given: you have taken back the handmaid whom you lent to me for a brief solace. I do not grieve that you have taken back, but I give thanks that you gave. Once a rich young man boasted that he had fulfilled all things that are commanded in the Law: to whom the Lord says in the Gospel, One thing is lacking to you: if you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor: and come, follow me. He who said he had done all things could not overcome riches in the first contest. Whence also the rich enter with difficulty into the kingdoms of heaven: which desire inhabitants unencumbered, and sustained by the lightness of wings.

Go, He says, and sell, not part of your substance, but all that you possess, and give to the poor: not to friends, not to relatives, not to kinsmen, not to a wife, not to children; I will add something more: reserving nothing for yourself out of all things for fear of poverty, lest you be condemned along with Ananias and Sapphira, but give all to the poor, and make for yourself friends of the mammon of iniquity, who may receive you into eternal dwellings, so that you may follow me, the Lord of the world, may possess Him; so that you may sing with the Prophet: The Lord is my portion, and that as a true Levite you may possess nothing of earthly inheritance.

And this I urge: If you wish to be perfect, if you desire the summit of Apostolic dignity, if, having taken up the cross, to follow Christ, if, having taken hold of the plough, not to look back, if, being placed on the roof above, you despise your former garments; and that you may escape the Egyptian mistress, leave behind the cloak of the world. Whence also Elijah, hastening to the kingdoms of heaven, cannot go with his cloak, but leaves the garments of the world in the world. But you say this is for Apostolic dignity, and for him who wishes to be perfect. But why should not you too wish to be perfect? Why, since you are first in the world, should you not be first in the household of Christ? Is it because you have had a wife? Peter too had one, and yet with the net and the boat he left her.

The most provident Lord, desiring the salvation of all, and preferring the repentance of the sinner to his death, has taken from you this excuse, so that she may not draw you back to the earth, but you may follow her drawing you to the kingdom of paradise. Spare the goods for your children, who have gone before to the Lord; so that their portions may not go to increase the riches of a sister, but to the redemption of your soul, and the sustenance of the wretched. These jewels your daughter demands from you; with these gems they wish their heads to be adorned. What was to perish in silk, let it be preserved in the cheap tunics of the poor. They demand their portions from you; joined to the Bridegroom they do not wish to appear poor and ignoble, they desire their own adornments.

5. Nor is there any excuse in nobility and the weight of riches.

Look upon the holy man Pammachius, and Paulinus the presbyter of most fervent faith, who offered to the Lord not only their riches, but themselves. Who, against the devil's evasion, offered to the Lord not skin for skin, but their flesh, and bones, and souls. Who by example and by eloquence, that is, by deed and by tongue, can lead you to greater things. You are noble, and so are they, but nobler in Christ. You are rich and honored, and so are they, indeed from being rich and honored they have become poor and inglorious; and therefore richer, and more renowned, because for Christ's sake they are poor and dishonored. And you indeed do well, in that you are said to minister to the uses of the saints, to cherish monks, to offer very much to churches. But these are the rudiments of your warfare. You despise gold; the philosophers of the world despised it too.

One of whom, to say nothing of the rest, cast the price of many possessions into the sea, saying: Depart into the deep, evil desires, I will drown you, lest I myself be drowned by you. A philosopher, an animal of glory, and a vile slave of popular breath, laid down the whole burden at once; and do you think yourself established on the summit of virtues, if you offer a part out of the whole? The Lord wants you yourself as a living sacrifice, pleasing to God. You, I say, not your things. And therefore He admonishes with various temptations, because Israel is instructed by many blows and sorrows. And whom the Lord loves, He chastens. And He scourges every son whom He receives. A poor widow put two mites into the treasury. And because she offered the whole that she had, she is said to have surpassed all the rich in the offering of gifts to God; which are weighed not by their own weight, but by the will of those who offer.

Though you distribute your wealth to many, and some rejoice in your liberality, yet there are far more to whom you have given nothing. For neither the wealth of Darius, nor the riches of Croesus, can suffice to fill up the poor of the world. But if you give yourself to the Lord, and, made perfect by Apostolic virtue, begin to follow the Savior, then you will understand where you have been, and how lowly a place you have held in the army of Christ. You did not mourn your dead daughters, and the tears on a father's cheeks were dried by the fear of Christ. How much greater was Abraham, who of his own will slew his only son, and who, though he had heard that he would be heir of the world, did not despair that even after death he would live. Jephthah offered his virgin daughter, and therefore is placed by the Apostle in the enumeration of the Saints.

I do not wish you to offer to the Lord only those things which a thief can steal, an enemy invade, proscription take away: which can both come and go, and, like waves and billows, are seized by successive masters; and, to comprehend all in one word, which, whether you will or not, you are going to leave behind at death. Offer that which no enemy can take from you, no tyrant snatch away: which may go with you to the world below, indeed to the kingdoms of heaven, and to the delights of paradise. You build monasteries, and a great number of saints throughout the islands of Dalmatia are sustained by you. But you would do better, if you yourself lived as a saint among the saints. Be holy, because I am holy, says the Lord. The Apostles glory that they left all things, and followed the Savior: and indeed we read that they left nothing but nets and a boat, and yet they are crowned by the testimony of the future Judge.

Because offering themselves, they had left the whole that they had.

6. I say this not to disparage your works, or to lessen your liberality and your alms, but because I would not have you be a monk among the worldly, and worldly among monks. And I expect the whole of you, whose mind I hear is devoted to divine worship. If to this counsel of mine any friend, or follower, or kinsman resists, and calls you back to the delights of a splendid table; understand that he is thinking not of your soul, but of his own belly; and that all wealth and lavish feasts are ended by sudden death. At eight and six years of age, within twenty days, you lost two daughters, and do you think that an old man can live long? Whose length of days, that it may be extended, hears from David: The days of our life are seventy years. But if more, eighty: and what remains beyond is labor and sorrow.

Happy and worthy of every blessedness is he whom old age finds serving Christ, whom his last day finds fighting for the Savior, who shall not be confounded, when he shall speak with his enemies in the gate; to whom it shall be said at the entrance of paradise: You received evil things in your life, but now here rejoice. For the Lord will not take vengeance twice for the same thing. The rich man clothed in purple was received by the flame of Gehenna; Lazarus, poor and full of sores, whose rotting flesh the dogs licked, and who could scarcely sustain his wretched soul from the crumbs of the rich man's table, is received into the bosom of Abraham, and rejoices in so great a Patriarch as father. It is difficult, indeed impossible, for anyone to enjoy both present and future goods: to fill the belly here, and the mind there; to pass from delights to delights; to be first in both worlds; to appear glorious both in heaven and on earth.

7. But if a silent thought raises a scruple in you: why is not the admonisher himself such as he wishes you to be; and you have seen some fall in the midst of the road, I shall briefly answer this: that what I say is not mine, but the Lord Savior's. I do not admonish what I myself can do; but what he who is to be Christ's servant ought to wish or to do. And athletes are stronger than their own trainers; and yet the weaker admonishes, that the stronger may fight. Do not look at Judas denying, but look at Paul confessing. Jacob, son of a most wealthy father, alone and naked, went to Mesopotamia with his staff, lay weary on the journey, and he who had been most delicately reared by his mother Rebecca used a stone for a pillow under his head.

He saw a ladder from earth to heaven, and angels ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord leaning above, that He might stretch out His hand to those who fell, that He might by His gaze summon those ascending to labor. Whence also that place is called Bethel, that is, the House of God; in which one ascends and descends daily. For even the Saints fall, if they are negligent; and sinners recover their former standing, if they wash their filth with tears. I have said this for this reason, that those descending should not frighten you, but that those ascending should spur you on. An example is never taken from the wicked: even in worldly matters incentives to virtue always come from me from the better side.

Forgetful of my purpose and of epistolary brevity, I wished to dictate more; for indeed, in view of the dignity of the subject, and the merit of your person, all that is said is too little: and behold our Ausonius has begun to demand the sheets, to press the notaries, and with the neighing of a fervent horse, hastily to accuse the slowness of my poor talent. Remember us therefore, and fare well in Christ. And, to say nothing of other things, follow the domestic examples of holy Vera, who, truly following Christ, endures the hardships of pilgrimage, and let a woman be to you the leader of so great a deed.

At the very moment of the departure of our holy brother Sisinnius, who had brought me your writings, I am compelled to dictate these things, such as they are, and I cannot conceal from your prudence, but I beg you not to take this as said for glory, but rather as full friendliness, since I speak to you as though to myself. He brought me many questions of the holy brothers and sisters from your province, to which I thought I would have most ample time to reply up to the day of Epiphany. And while by stolen little lamplight vigils of the nights I was dictating to most of them; and having finished the others, I was rowing toward yours as toward the most difficult, suddenly he arrived, declaring that he was to depart immediately.

And when I asked him to put off the journey, he began to plead to me the famine of Libya, the necessities of the monasteries of Egypt, the waters of the Nile not full, the starvation of many, so that it would almost be an offense against the Lord to wish to detain him longer. And so, under the covering and the warp, and the threads, and the webs, which I had prepared for your tunic, I have sent them to you unfinished, so that whatever is lacking in me may be woven by your eloquence. You are prudent, and learned, and from canine, as Appius says, eloquence, have migrated to the eloquence of Christ. Nor is there need of great labor on my part with you; for they tell the story of a certain philosopher who suffered this in persuading a rustic. Scarcely had I said half, he says, when he had already understood.

And so I too, pressed by time, have set before you the opinions of individual men who have left commentaries on Sacred Scripture, and have interpreted many things word for word; so that I might both free myself from the question, and the authority of the ancient commentators might be sent to you, so that in reading and testing each one, you may rest not upon my will, but upon your own judgment. 2. You ask in what sense it was said, and how it should be read in the first epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: We shall all indeed sleep, but we shall not all be changed. Or according to certain copies: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed: for both readings are found in the Greek codices. On this matter Theodore of Heraclea, which city was formerly called Perinthus, spoke thus in his little commentaries on the Apostle: We shall indeed not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

For Enoch and Elijah, the necessity of death having been overcome, were translated just as they were in their bodies from earthly life to the heavenly kingdoms. Whence also the Saints who at the day of consummation and judgment are found in their bodies, together with the other Saints who are to rise from the dead, will be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and will not taste death; and they will be always with the Lord, the most grievous necessity of death having been trampled underfoot. Whence the Apostle says: We shall indeed not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. For they who shall have risen from the dead, and who, still living, shall be caught up in the clouds, will pass over to incorruption, and will be changed from mortality into immortality; not in time, not even in a brief span, but in an atom and in a point of time, and in a moment, in which the eyelid can move, at the last trumpet.

For the resurrection of the dead will happen with such swiftness, that the living, whom the time of consummation shall find in their bodies, will not be able to outstrip the dead rising from the underworld. Which Paul, explaining clearly, says: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, that it may be able to remain forever in either state, whether in punishments or in the kingdom of the heavens. Diodore, Bishop of Tarsus, passing over this chapter, briefly noted in what follows: concerning what is written: and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed. If, he says, the dead shall rise incorrupt, no doubt they too are changed for the better: what need was there to say, and we shall be changed? Or did he wish this to be understood, that incorruption is common to all, but change is properly of the righteous? Since not only incorruption and immortality, but also glory, follow them.

4. Apollinaris, though in other words, asserted the same things as Theodore: that certain persons are not to die, and are to be caught up from the present life into the future one, so that, with their bodies changed and glorified, they may be with Christ. Which we now believe concerning Enoch and Elijah. 5. Didymus, going over not in footsteps but in words to the opinion of Origen, walks by the contrary path. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall indeed all sleep, but we shall not all be changed. Which he explained thus: If the resurrection did not need an interpreter, nor had obscurity in its meanings, Paul would never, after saying much about the resurrection, have added: Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall all indeed sleep, that is, die; but not all, only the saints, shall be changed. I know that in some codices it is written: We shall not indeed all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

But it must be considered whether what follows can agree with what was set forth before, we shall all be changed: The dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed. For if all shall be changed, and this is common with the rest, it would have been superfluous to say, and we shall be changed. Wherefore it must be read thus: We shall all indeed sleep, but we shall not all be changed. For if in Adam all die, and in death there is a sleeping; then we shall all sleep, that is, die. Now, according to the idiom of the Scriptures, he sleeps who has died in the hope of the future resurrection. And everyone who sleeps certainly awakens: unless indeed the sudden force of death has overwhelmed him, and death has been joined to sleep. And since all will thus sleep by the law of nature, only the saints will be changed for the better both in body and soul: so that incorruption belongs to all who rise, but glory and change belong properly to the Saints.

And what follows, according to the Greeks, ἐν ἀτόμῳ, ἐν ῥιπῇ, or ἐν ῥοπῇ ὀφθαλμοῦ (for both are read), and which our translators rendered as, in a moment, and in the twinkling, or, in the motion of an eye: this same Didymus explained thus: With the resurrection of all joined together at once, they will be caught up to meet Christ: but those whom death has dissolved, which the present discourse signifies. For when he says, in a point of time, and in the motion of an eye, and in a moment, the future resurrection of all, he excludes entirely the fable of a first and second resurrection; so that some might be believed to rise first, others last. Now the atom is a point of time which cannot be cut or divided. Whence also Epicurus builds the world out of his atoms, and shapes all things. And the twinkling or motion of the eye, which in Greek is called ῥοπὴ, passes with such speed, that it almost escapes the perception of the one seeing.

But because in many codices, instead of ῥοπῇ, that is, twinkling or motion, ῥιπῇ is read, we ought to understand this: that just as a light feather, or a stalk, or a thin dry leaf is snatched up by the wind and blast, and carried from the earth on high; so at the twinkling of an eye, and at the nod of God, the bodies of all the dead will be moved, prepared for the coming of the Judge. And what he adds and says: At the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality, has a double meaning, either that the blast of the trumpet, or of the voice, indicates greatness, according to what is written: Lift up your voice like a trumpet; or the open resurrection of all, according to what we read in the Gospel: But when you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, that is, do the deed of mercy hidden, and in secret, lest you seem to glory in another's misery. But we ask why he wrote that the dead would rise at the last trumpet. For when it is called last, surely others preceded it. In the Apocalypse of John, seven angels are described with trumpets, and as each one sounds, first, second and third, fourth and fifth and sixth, it is indicated what was done through each. But at the last, that is, the seventh, when the clear blast of the trumpet resounds, the dead are raised: receiving incorrupt the bodies which before had been corruptible.

Whence after the last trumpet the Apostle explains what follows: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed. When he says, we, he signifies that he himself, and those who are with him, are other than the dead. To understand this, there are those who say that the dead who rise incorrupt are the bodies of the dead; but that those who are said to be changed should be understood as souls, when they shall have been changed into greater glory; and shall have come to a perfect man, to the measure of the fullness of the age of Christ. Others indeed assert that by the dead should be understood the sinners, who will rise incorrupt, so that they may be able to endure eternal punishments: but that those who are changed are the saints, who are carried from virtue to virtue, and from glory into glory. Whence also concerning the incorruption of the dead he added: For this corruptible must put on incorruption.

But to that which he had said: we shall be changed, he added this: and this mortal must put on immortality. For immortality is one thing, incorruption another; just as mortal is one thing, and corruptible another. Now whatever is mortal is also corruptible; but not whatever is corruptible is immediately also mortal. For bodies which lack a soul are corruptible, and yet are not mortal; because they never had life, which properly belongs to living things. Whence the Apostle signally joined incorruption to corruption, and immortality to mortality, in the future time of the resurrection. " 6.

Acacius of Caesarea, which was formerly called the Tower of Strato, bishop after Eusebius Pamphili, in the fourth book of his Miscellaneous Questions, setting before himself this same question, discussed it more at length, and, examining both readings, which seem contrary to one another, after a beginning which we have omitted, spoke thus: Let us speak first of that reading which is found in the majority of the codices: Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall all indeed sleep, but we shall not all be changed. He said mystery, so as to make his hearers attentive, being about to discourse more fully on the resurrection. Now sleep signifies that death which is common to all: whence he most rightly set down that we shall all sleep, that is, die, just as he said above: As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Since therefore all are to die, hear the mysteries which I speak: We shall all indeed die; but we shall not all be changed.

For the trumpet shall sound, no doubt the seventh Angel; and the dead shall rise incorrupt. But if the dead shall be incorrupt, how are they not changed, since incorruption itself is a change? But here the change, by which Paul and the saints are to be changed, is understood as glorification. Incorruption, however, is common to all for this reason, that sinners will be the more miserable in it, so as to be liable to perpetual torments, and not be dissolved by a mortal and corruptible body. We read in the same epistle, the Apostle discoursing, a sacred diversity of the resurrection, not in the nature of bodies, but in the variety of glory: while some rise to perpetual punishments, others to everlasting glory. For one is the flesh of birds, another of fish, another of beasts, and there are heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies. So, he says, shall be also the resurrection of the dead.

To which opinion the Church rather assents, that we all die by a common death, and not all are changed into glory, according to what Daniel writes: Many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall rise; some to everlasting glory, others to shame and everlasting reproach. For they who shall rise to everlasting reproach and shame shall not rise into that everlasting glory into which Paul, and those who are with him, shall be changed. Since these things are so, and thus understood by us, we hold that the change belongs only to those who shall rise into glory: but of sinners and unbelievers, who are called dead, and shall rise incorrupt, we must speak not of a change, but of perpetual punishments. 7. Let us pass on to the second reading, which is found thus in most codices: We shall not indeed all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

From which some assert that many living persons in bodies are to be found; and that if not all sleep, not all are going to die; but if not all die, not all are going to rise again. For one is properly said to rise again, who first fell by dying. Hence they also wish to hold that Paul wrote in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians: We who live, who shall be left unto the coming of the Lord, shall not go before them that have slept: for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first: then we who live, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

And from these words they attempt to prove that the Apostle Paul, and those who wrote the Epistle with him, thought that they were not going to die, but would be found in the body on the day of consummation. But if this is true, Paul erred, and was deceived by human reckoning, so that he supposed he would be found in the body—which the outcome of events proved to be false. This is also what the Thessalonians themselves had understood, not knowing the mysteries of the mystical utterance, and they wavered with various conjectures, saying: If Paul is to be found in the body, the day of judgment is near.

Hence he corrects them, writing a second Epistle: We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that you be not quickly moved in mind, nor be terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if sent by us, as though the day of the Lord were at hand: let no man deceive you by any means; for unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. Do you not remember that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

By these words he seeks to recall them from error, lest they think the day of judgment is drawing near, and lest they understand otherwise than the writer himself intended what he had written: We who live, who are left, shall not go before them that have slept, at the coming of the Lord. For it cannot be that he who had written to Timothy: For I am now ready to be offered up, and the time of my dissolution is at hand, thought himself perpetual in the flesh, and never to die; and that he would pass immediately from earthly life to the heavenly kingdoms—especially since, writing to the Romans, he said the same thing: Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And to the Corinthians: While we dwell in the body, we are absent from the Lord. But we would rather be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. He who said these things certainly knew that he himself was going to die.

It is better, therefore, to understand spiritually what is written, taking "sleep" in this passage not as death, by which the soul is separated from the body, but as sin after faith and offense against God, and sleep after baptism, of which he also spoke to the Corinthians: And therefore many among you are weak, and many sleep. And in another place: Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished—who, though they be dead, are not to perish with everlasting death, because they are not held by a mortal crime, but by a light and slight sin. Which also another saint, wishing to avoid, said: Lest perhaps I sleep in death. For there is a sleep of sin, which leads to death, and there is another sleep of offense, which is not bound by death.

He therefore who has lived that life of which it is said, I am the life (for indeed our life is hidden with Christ in God), and has never been separated from it, nor sinned unto death, he is said to be among the living, and among those who live forever; of whom the Savior also, in the Gospel of John, testifies in a mystical utterance: He that believes in me shall not die. And everyone that lives and believes in me shall not die forever. Hence also the Apostle, treading in the footsteps of his Lord, taught his disciples what he had learned from his Master. We shall not therefore all sleep.

For he who keeps his heart with all watchfulness, and watches according to the precepts of Christ, and is mindful of his command who says: Watch, for you know not at what hour the thief will come; and in another place: Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, that you may be safe; like a roe from the snares, and like a bird from the traps—such a one shall not sleep. Since, then, some do not sleep, who always live and watch in Christ, it follows that by no means do all sleep, and, on the contrary, all are changed—not with that change of glory which is properly owed to the Saints, but with that change by which this corruptible thing is made incorruptible, so that it may receive either everlasting punishments or everlasting rewards. But even if someone should sleep in Christ, and fall asleep in the sleep of negligence, he ought to hear what is written: Shall not he that sleeps rise again?

But he who does not sleep, but watches, and always lives in Christ, shall pass from life to life, or shall be caught up in the clouds, that he may be ever with the Lord. Of those who sleep in this manner was Lazarus, of whom the Lord says, Lazarus our friend sleeps. And concerning this sleeper he said to Martha, He that believes in me, even though he be dead, shall live; and everyone that lives and believes in me shall not die forever. For he who trusts in Christ with his whole mind, even if, as a fallen man, he has died in sin, lives forever by his faith. Otherwise this common death is owed equally both to believers and to unbelievers; and all shall likewise rise again, some unto everlasting confusion, others, because they believe, unto everlasting life. And thus it can stand that he who believes in Christ does not die; and even if he has died, he lives forever.

That this, with regard to bodily death, has happened to no one except Enoch and Elijah is plain. But those who by the greatness of their faith always live in Christ shall not sleep, nor die; but shall be imitators of the apostolic life, who lived without any fault under the law of righteousness; and, passing over to faith in the Lord, and believing in him who is called life and resurrection, have never slept, have never died. For the soul that sins, that same soul shall die. Just as, then, the soul that sins is dead while the body still lives, and on the very day it sins, sleeps in death—as Ecclesiastes says: He that has sinned is dead from that moment—so the soul that has kept the precepts of Christ, even if the body should die, shall live forever.

This, however, must be known: that it agrees better with the truth to read thus: We shall indeed all sleep, but we shall not all be changed—especially since it follows: The dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For if all are to be changed, according to the other reading, how then is it said afterward, as though it were something special and peculiar, and properly belonging to the Apostles, and we shall be changed? But when he says "we," he signifies each of the saints.

8. You ask how that is to be understood which is written in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians: For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who live, who remain, shall not precede in the coming of the Lord them that are asleep: for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first: then we who live, who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air; and so we shall be ever with the Lord.

Concerning which, although the earlier discussion of Acacius has aired the matter more fully, yet it must be said what seems true to others, namely to Theodore, Apollinarius, and Diodorus, who follow one opinion: of whom Diodorus wrote as follows: "The Apostle Paul calls them 'the remaining and living'; not because he wishes both himself and others to be understood as being found in the body at the time of the resurrection; but he said 'we,' meaning 'the just,' of whose number I too am. For these shall be caught up to meet Christ, and not sinners. But by 'the living' we do not understand this tropologically, as meaning the saints who are not dead to sin, but all whom Christ at his coming shall find in the body. What follows: 'We shall not precede them that are asleep,' we ought by no means to refer to sinners: for sinners shall not be caught up together with the just to meet Christ, but those whom death has dissolved.

But why do I search into these matters, and do violence to the Apostle's words, when he himself writes most plainly: 'who remain unto the coming of the Lord'? But who are 'the remaining,' we learn from the words of the Savior: As in the days of Noah they were marrying wives, and being given in marriage; and suddenly the flood came, and took them all away: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. By which words it is shown that at the end of the world many will be found alive, and still in their bodies. There follows: 'with a commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and the dead shall rise first.' And this again the Savior says in the Gospel: But at midnight the bridegroom came; who will surely find them living in the body, when two shall be in one bed: one shall be taken, and the other left: and two grinding at the mill, one shall be taken, and the other left.

By which words it is shown that in the middle of the night, when all are secure, the consummation of the world shall come." 9. Origen, in the third volume of his exegetical work on the first Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, after much that he discussed with varied and prudent speech, added the following, of which there is no doubt that Acacius also drew a good deal: "What then is it that Paul and Sylvanus and Timothy write to the Thessalonians in the word of God: We who live, who remain, shall not precede in the coming of the Lord them that are asleep? Who are these living ones who speak such things! Surely Paul, an apostle not of men, nor through men, and Timothy his most dear son in the faith, and Sylvanus, who was joined to them both in affection and in virtues.

And this can be said not only by them, but by whoever is like Paul in knowledge and manner of life: We who live; whose body is dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of righteousness; and whose members are mortified upon the earth; so that the flesh in no way lusts against the spirit. For if the flesh still desires, it lives; and because it lives, it desires; and its members are not mortified upon the earth. But if they are mortified, they in no way lust against the spirit, having lost, by their own mortification, desire of this kind.

Just as, therefore, those who have departed from the present life, and have been translated to better things, live more fully, having laid aside the body of death and the incentives of all vices: so those who bear about in their body the mortification of Jesus, live in no way according to the flesh, but according to the spirit: they live in him who is life, and Christ lives in them, of whom it is written: The word of God is living and effectual, who is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For those live in whom the power of God lives, all human frailty having been laid aside; and in whom lives the wisdom which is hidden in God; and in whom righteousness lives and works. For Christ has been made for us, not only righteousness from God, but also wisdom, and everything that is power.

And indeed, if in the present passage those who write this Epistle separated themselves from those asleep and dead in Christ, the note would seem superfluous, and the testimony taken from one passage would not hold good. But now, in the same sense—because in the same spirit—he speaks in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed.

Compare that which is written in the present passage: 'with the trumpet of God he shall descend from heaven,' with what is said to the Corinthians: 'at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound'; and that which is read to the Thessalonians, 'And the dead in Christ shall rise first,' with what is written to the Corinthians, 'And the dead shall rise incorrupt.' Moreover, what follows, 'Then we who live, who remain,' corresponds to that: 'And we shall be changed,' both of which can be understood thus: We who live, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, and we who shall be changed, and are not of those who are called dead, but live: therefore we await the presence of the Lord not in death, but in life, because we are of the Israelite race, and there have been chosen out of us a remnant, of which the Lord once spoke: I have left me seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

In the Gospel of John also a twofold order of the living and the not-living is described. Everyone who believes in me, even though he be dead, shall live: and everyone who lives and believes in me, shall not die forever. If we understand 'the living' thus, as has already been said by us, let us believe that those asleep and dead in Christ are those who, though wishing to live in Christ, are yet dead through sin. But if those who are called 'the remnant' and 'the election according to grace' are called 'the living,' those who do not so believe, nor are born of the Israelite nobility, will be called 'asleep' and 'dead in Christ.' 10. There are those who expound this passage thus. Those are called living who have never died to sin; but those who have sinned, and in that they sinned, died: and afterward, converted to penitence, cleansing their former offenses, are called dead, because they sinned; but dead in Christ, because they have been converted to God with a full mind.

Moreover, those who live, and have the testimony of faith, and have not yet received the promise of God—who indeed thought something better concerning others, that they should not be crowned apart from those who are just—have this blessedness, that they enjoy the good of conscience, and live, and are left behind at the coming of the Lord the Savior. But because God is merciful, and wills to save also those who have fallen asleep and died in Christ, these latter will not precede them, nor be caught up alone into the clouds: but according to the pattern of the Gospel parable, they will receive the price of salvation as one denarius, one wage, both the laborers of the eleventh hour and of the first, who were sent into the vineyard. Nor let this seem unjust to anyone, that unequal labor should attain one reward. For great indeed is the difference between those who are healed after wounds, and those who never saw the terror of death.

Of these I think it is said: What man is there that lives, and shall not see death? He shall redeem his soul from death. For it is not, as some think, that "who" is taken for "no one"; but as if it were said, "who, do you suppose," according to that which is written: "Who is wise, and shall understand these things?" And in another place: "Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle?" And again: "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" There will therefore remain of believers but a few, who shall see the coming of the Lord according to that which He is, God the Word, not indeed in the lowliness of the flesh, but in the glory of the triumphant one. And it must be considered how He first called them sleeping, then dead in Christ, whom the living will not be able to precede.

For whoever does not keep that which is written: "Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids; that you may be delivered, as a roe from the snares, and as a bird from the fowler," will sleep, and will grow torpid in a blameworthy slumber; and when he has slept, he shall pass into death. For as one who is awake is in motion, so one who sleeps lies immovable, and grows numb in the likeness of death. That death follows upon sleep, the first Epistle to the Corinthians can also teach us; in which it is written thus: "But now Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep: for by man came death, and by man the resurrection of the dead." And a little after: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Since, then, these things are said concerning sleep and death, and since we read in the Apostle, "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light," let us swear to the Lord, and make a vow to the God of Jacob, each saying in his heart: "If I go up into the couch of my bed, if I give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord"—doubtless in his own soul, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob; that God may rest in it in an eternal seat. There follows: "For the Lord Himself shall descend with a shout"; and the rest. For He shall descend, sent by the Father, not by diversity of power, but by the dispensation of the judge; and He shall descend to those who are below—the Word of God and Wisdom, and Truth, and Justice.

And although those to whom He deigns to descend are dead, yet they are not alien from Him. For they are called dead in Christ. But those who live have this privilege, that they are chosen out of the many. Yet both companies, both of the dead in Christ and of the living, shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet Christ, so that they need not wait for Him until He descends to earthly things, but may enjoy His presence and company in the heights. How great is the clemency of Christ, that for our salvation He was made not only flesh, but descended even to the dead, and even in death itself bears the signs of the living! For water and blood came forth from His side. The divine word, therefore, descends, the voice of the Archangel going before and preparing the way for Him among those who can bear His presence. That we may be able to understand this, let us learn the mysteries of the first coming.

It is written of John, who was His forerunner, that he said in the wilderness: "I am the voice of one crying in the desert," and so forth. What did the voice cry in the desert? "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths." For what reward or wage? "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." And this because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. But now there shall be no voice of a prophet in the desert; rather the voice of the Archangel preparing the ways, not for one coming in the lowliness of the flesh, but for Him who is with the Father, God the Word.

And at that time indeed they went out into the desert to hear the forerunner of the Man assumed, and to see a reed shaken by the wind, from which were made pipes, and the vocal reed, which sounds with sweet melody in the mouth of children, singing in the streets and saying: "We have piped to you, and you have not danced." But now, at the voice of the Archangel going before the Lord as He descends from heaven, and at the most clear trumpet, each of the believers is summoned either to battle or to priestly ministrations. We read in the book of Numbers of trumpets consecrated to God, which sound before the door. But if the voice of the Angel and the trumpet of the Archangel is great, how much greater will be the trumpet of God, which prepares the ways first of those sleeping and dead in Christ; then of those who live and remain, and await the coming of the word of God?

Perhaps the blast of a simple trumpet is necessary for those sleeping and dead in Christ; but the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, for those who live and are reserved in the presence of God. Let us see what can be understood also from what follows: "Together with them we shall be caught up." By this word I think it is shown a sudden passing over to better things: and therefore he wished to say "caught up," so that the swiftness of the passing might exceed the sense of the one thinking. This he also signified elsewhere by the property of the same word: "I know a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows, such a one caught up even to the third heaven.

And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows, that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." For others, advancing and (so to speak) walking toward greater things, grew, until they became, according to that which is written, "very exceedingly great": and we read that some were taken up into heaven. But Paul, a vessel of election, ascended, caught up to the third heaven: and therefore he heard unspeakable words. But how those who are caught up in the clouds are caught up to meet Christ must be considered more carefully. We know that the clouds are the Prophets, whom God commanded not to rain a shower upon Israel, when they had filled up the measure of their fathers, and the Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist. And because God has set in the Church first Apostles, secondly Prophets, not only the Prophets, but also the Apostles are to be understood as clouds.

If, then, anyone is caught up to Christ, he ascends above the clouds of the Law and the Gospel, above the Prophets and Apostles: and having taken up the wings of the dove, and being borne aloft by their teaching to the heights, he meets Him, not below but in the air, and in the spiritual understanding of the Scriptures. Meeting Him, then, in spiritual things, leaving earthly things behind, whether he be one asleep, or dead in Christ, or living and reserved for His presence, he will always be with Him and will fully enjoy the Word of God, and Wisdom, Truth, and Justice. 11. These things I have dictated in swift speech, setting forth to your prudence what learned men have thought concerning each passage, and by what arguments they wished to prove their opinions. For the authority of my littleness is not so great—I who am nothing, and who lie open only to the bites of the envious—as that of those who have gone before us in the Lord.

Nor, as with the disciples of Pythagoras, is the prejudged opinion of the teacher to be weighed, but the reasoning of the doctrine. But if anyone of the contrary faction murmurs, asking why I read the explanations of those in whose teachings I do not acquiesce, let him know that I gladly hear that saying of the Apostle: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," and the words of the Savior saying: "Be approved money-changers," so that if any coin is counterfeit, and does not bear the image of Caesar, nor is stamped with the public mint, it may be rejected. But that which bears the face of Christ in clear light, let it be laid up in the purse of our heart.

For if I wished to know dialectic, or the teachings of the philosophers, and, to return to our own subject, the knowledge of the Scriptures, I ought by no means to question simple men of the Church, of whom each has his own grace, and each abounds in his own sense; but rather those who have learned the art from the master, and meditate in the Law of the Lord day and night. I profess, both in my youth and now in my extreme age, that both Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea are most learned men, but that they erred in the truth of doctrine. The opposite we may say of Theodore, Acacius, and Apollinaris; and yet all of them, in their explanations of the Scriptures, have left us the memory of their labor. Gold is sought in the earth, and shining gravel is brought forth from the beds of rivers: and the Pactolus is richer in mud than in its stream. Why do my friends tear at me, and why, against one who is silent, do fat swine grunt?

Whose whole zeal—nay, whose arrogance of knowledge—is to carp at what belongs to others, and thus to defend the perfidy of the ancients in such a way that they lose their own faith. My purpose is to read the ancients, to test each point, to retain what is good, and not to depart from the faith of the Catholic Church. 12. Wishing to reply to other little questions, and to dictate at once either my own thoughts or those of others, I was admonished by brother Sisinnius to write letters both to you and to the other holy brothers who deign to love us. I will therefore restrain my step, and if life accompanies me, I will reserve myself for a future work, so that I may both spare you by parts, and so that my aged little body may be able to bear a moderate burden.

But I briefly note this at the end: that what is read in the Latin manuscripts—"We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed"—is not found in the Greek volumes; but rather either, "We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed," or, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed"; the sense of which we have discussed above.

Unknown to me by countenance, you are most well known to me by the ardor of your faith. And from the farthest borders of Gaul you provoke me, hiding away in the Bethlehem countryside, to answer, concerning little questions of the holy Scriptures, sending through a man of God, my son Apodemius, a little memorandum; as though indeed you did not have, in your own province, men learned and perfect in the Law of God: unless perhaps you demand rather a trial of me than instruction, and wish to know what we too think about those things which you have heard from others.

Your elders Patera and Delphidius, of whom the one taught Rhetoric at Rome before I was born, the other, while I was yet a young lad, illumined all the Gauls by his genius in prose and verse—these, now sleeping and silent, rightly rebuke me for daring to mutter anything against the stock of their own kind: although, granting to them the greatness of eloquence and the learning of secular letters, I may rightly withhold from myself the knowledge of the Law of God, which no one can receive unless it has been given to him by the Father of lights, who enlightens every man coming into this world, and stands in the midst of believers who have been gathered together in his name.

Whence I freely profess (nor do I fear that it be called a proud saying) that I write to you not in the learned words of human wisdom, which God is about to destroy, but in words of faith, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; that the deep of the Old Testament may call unto the deep of the Gospel, at the voice of the waterfalls, that is, of his Prophets and Apostles, and that the truth of the Lord may reach even unto the clouds, which have been commanded not to rain down a shower upon unbelieving Israel, but to water the fields of the nations, and the torrent of thorns, and to sweeten the dead sea. Pray, therefore, that the true Elisha may bring to life in me the barren and dead waters, and season my little dish of herbs with the salt of the Apostles, to whom he had said, You are the salt of the earth, for every sacrifice which is without salt is not offered to the Lord.

And do not be delighted by the brilliance of secular eloquence, which Jesus saw as lightning falling from heaven: but rather look to him who has neither comeliness nor beauty: a man set amid stripes and knowing how to bear infirmity; and whatever I shall answer to the things proposed, know that I have answered not with confidence in speech, but by the faith of him who promised: Open your mouth, and I will fill it.

This same question the Doctor of the Law asks in the Gospel: Master, what shall I do that I may possess eternal life? To whom the Lord replied: Do you know the commandments? He says, Which? And Jesus said: You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. And when he said: All these I have done, the Lord added: One thing is lacking to you. If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow me. And so I too will answer you with the words of our Lord: If you wish to be perfect, and to take up your cross, and to follow the Lord the Savior, and to imitate Peter saying: Behold we have left all things, and have followed you; go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and follow the Savior.

He did not say, give to your children, give to your brothers, give to your kinsfolk, whom even if you had, the Lord would rightly be preferred to them: but, give to the poor; nay rather, give to Christ, who is fed in the poor; who, though he was rich, became poor for our sake; who speaks in the thirty-ninth Psalm: But I am needy and poor, and the Lord is careful for me. And immediately the beginning of the fortieth Psalm concerns him: Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and poor. Understanding is needed, that after the blessedness of understanding, one may know who is the needy and poor. Not indeed he who is covered with beggary and squalor, and yet does not withdraw from vices; but those of whom the Apostle speaks: Only that we should be mindful of the poor.

For whose relief Paul and Barnabas labored in the Churches of the Gentiles, that collections might be made on the first day of the week, and this very offering they hasten to bring, not through others, but through themselves, to those who for Christ's sake have lost their substance, who have suffered persecutions, who have said to their father and mother, to wives and children: We do not know you. These fulfilled the will of the Father, and heard the Lord the Savior saying, My mother and my brothers are these, who do the will of my Father. And we say these things, not because we forbid that alms be given to poor Jews or Gentiles, or to the poor of any nation whatsoever; but because we prefer Christian and believing poor to unbelievers, and because among Christians themselves there is much difference, whether one be a sinner or a saint. Whence also the Apostle, approving mercy toward all everywhere, adds: Especially to those of the household of faith.

He is of the household of faith who is joined to you by the same religion, whom sins do not separate from the fellowship of brotherhood. But if we are also commanded concerning enemies, that if they hunger we should give them food, if they thirst we should give them drink, and by doing this we shall heap coals of fire upon their head; how much more concerning those who are not enemies, and who are Christians and Saints? Nor indeed is that saying, For in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head, to be taken in a bad sense, but in a good one.

For when we bestow benefits upon our enemies, we overcome their malice by our goodness, and we soften their hardness, and bend their angry mind to gentleness and benevolence: and so we heap coals upon their heads, of which it is written: The arrows of the mighty are sharp, with coals that lay waste; that as the coal taken from the altar by the Seraph purged the lips of the Prophet, so also the sins of our enemies may be purged, and we may overcome evil with good, and bless those who curse us: and let us imitate our Father, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Therefore you too, since you do not have many children, make for yourself many friends of the mammon of iniquity, who may receive you into everlasting dwellings. He said well, of iniquity; for all riches descend from iniquity, and unless one man loses, another cannot find.

Whence also that common saying seems to me most true: The rich man is either unjust, or the heir of an unjust man. When the doctor of the law heard this, and could not bear it, because he had many riches, the Lord, turning to the disciples, said: How difficult it is for those who are rich to enter into the kingdom of heaven. He did not say, impossible; but difficult: although he set forth an example of impossibility: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. But this is not so much difficult, as impossible. For it can never happen that a camel should pass through the eye of a needle. Never, therefore, will a rich man be able to enter into the kingdoms of heaven. But the camel is crooked and bent, and is weighed down by a heavy burden.

So we too, when we walk in crooked paths, and abandon the straight way of the Lord, and are burdened with the riches of the world, or with the weight of our sins, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. But if we lay down the very heavy burden, and take to ourselves the wings of a dove, we shall fly, and shall rest, and it shall be said to us: If you sleep among the midst of the lots, the wings of a dove covered with silver, and its back parts with the paleness of gold. Let our back, which before was without form and was pressed down by a heavy burden, have the brightness of gold, which is interpreted as understanding, and wings of silver, which are understood as the sayings of the Scriptures, and we shall be able to enter the kingdom of God. The Apostles say that they have left all that had been theirs, and boldly demand a reward for this virtue.

To whom the Lord replied: Everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess eternal life. O how great a blessedness, to receive great things for small, eternal things for brief ones, ever-living things in place of things about to die, and to have the Lord as one's debtor. But if any widow has children, and especially if she is of noble family, let her not leave her children in want, but love them equally, and let her remember first her own soul, and consider herself also to be one of the children, and rather share with her children than leave everything to her children; nay, let her make Christ a co-heir of her children. You will answer, it is difficult, it is hard, and against nature. But you will hear the Lord answering you: He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.

And if you wish to be perfect, he does not impose upon you a yoke of necessity, but grants free choice to your own power. Do you wish to be perfect, and to stand on the first summit of dignity? Do what the Apostles did: sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and follow the Savior—follow the naked and solitary cross, naked and alone. You do not wish to be perfect, but wish to hold the second degree of virtue: give up all that you have, give to your children, give to your kinsfolk. No one rebukes you if you follow the lower path, provided you know that she who has chosen the first is rightly preferred to you. You will say, this belongs to the Apostles, and to men: but a noblewoman cannot sell all things, since she needs many aids of this life.

Hear then the Apostle admonishing: Not that others should have relief, and you tribulation; but by way of equality, let your abundance supply their want; that their abundance also may be a supplement to your want. Whence the Lord says: He who has two coats, let him give to him who has none. What if there are the colds of Scythia, and the Alpine snows, which are not repelled by two or three coats, but scarcely by the hides of beasts? Whatever, then, can suffice for our body, and come to the aid of human weakness, whom nature has brought forth naked, this is to be called one coat; and whatever is necessary in present sustenance, this is called the food of one day. Whence it is commanded: Take no thought for tomorrow, that is, for future time. And the Apostle says, Having food and clothing, let us be content with these. If you have more than is necessary for you for food and clothing, give it away, and know that in that you are a debtor.

Ananias and Sapphira deserved the Apostle's sentence, because they timidly kept back their own. Is one then, you will say, to be punished because he did not give his own? By no means. They were punished because they wished to lie to the Holy Spirit, and, while keeping back what was necessary for their own sustenance, as though renouncing the world perfectly, they were pursuing vainglory. Otherwise it is free either to give or not to give. Although for him who desires to be perfect, present poverty is to be compensated by future riches. But how a widow ought to live, the Apostle comprehends in a brief saying: The widow who lives in pleasures is dead while she lives; and we think it has been said more fully in the two little books which we wrote to Furia and to Salvina.

How that saying of the Saviour in Matthew is to be understood: But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. From this passage certain persons construct a fable of a thousand years, in which they contend that Christ will reign bodily, and will drink wine, which from that time until the consummation of the world he has not drunk. But let us hear that the bread which the Lord broke and gave to his disciples is the Body of the Lord Saviour, he himself saying to them, Take and eat, this is my Body: and that that cup is the one of which he spoke again: Drink ye all of this: for this is my Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many. This is the cup of which we read in the Prophet: I will take the cup of salvation.

And elsewhere: Thy cup that inebriateth, how excellent it is. If then the bread which came down from heaven is the Body of the Lord; and the wine which he gave to his disciples is his Blood of the new Testament which was shed for many unto the remission of sins, let us reject Jewish fables, and let us go up with the Lord into the large upper room, furnished and cleansed, and let us receive from him on high the cup of the new Testament; and there, celebrating the Passover with him, let us be made drunk by him with the wine of sobriety. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. Nor did Moses give us the true bread; but the Lord Jesus: he himself is both guest and feast, he who eats and he who is eaten.

We drink his Blood, and without him we cannot drink, and daily in his sacrifices we tread out the reddening new wine of the true vine, and of the vineyard of Sorec, which is interpreted "chosen," and from these we drink new wine of the kingdom of the Father, not at all in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit: singing a new song, which no one can sing except in the kingdom of the Church, which is the kingdom of the Father. This bread the Patriarch Jacob also desired to eat, saying: If the Lord God shall be with me, and shall give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on. For as many of us as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and eat the bread of Angels, and hear the Lord proclaiming: My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, the Father, that I may accomplish his work.

Let us therefore do the will of him who sent us, the Father, and let us accomplish his work; and Christ will drink with us his blood in the kingdom of the Church.

What is the reason that the Evangelists have related different accounts concerning the resurrection of the Lord and his appearance. In connection with which you first ask why Matthew said that in the evening of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, the Lord arose, while Mark records that his resurrection took place in the morning, writing thus: But when he had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, hearing that he was alive and had been seen by her, believed not.

Of this question there is a twofold solution: either we do not accept the testimony of Mark, which is found in only a few Gospels, almost all the Greek copies not having this chapter at the end, especially since it seems to relate things different and contrary to the other Evangelists; or this must be answered, that each spoke the truth: Matthew, as to when the Lord rose, in the evening of the sabbath; Mark, as to when Mary Magdalene saw him, that is, early on the first day of the week. For thus it must be distinguished: But when he had risen—and here, with the breath somewhat constrained, one must supply—early on the first day of the week, he appeared to Mary Magdalene; so that he who had risen in the evening of the sabbath, himself appeared early on the first day of the week to Mary Magdalene. This indeed the Evangelist John also signifies, showing that he was seen early in the morning of the other day.

How, according to Matthew, Mary Magdalene saw the Lord rising in the evening of the sabbath, while the Evangelist John relates that she wept beside the sepulchre early on the first day of the week?

"The first of the sabbath" is to be understood as the Lord's day, since every week is divided into the sabbath, and the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day of the sabbath, which the Gentiles call by the names of idols and elements. Finally the Apostle commanded that the collection of money, which was being prepared for the needy, should be gathered on the first day of the week. Nor should it be thought that Matthew and John understood different things, but rather that they called one and the same time, namely the middle of the night and the cock-crow, by different names.

For Matthew writes, "in the evening of the sabbath," that is, late, not at the beginning of night, but when it was already deep and for the most part passed, that the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene, and that he appeared "in the evening of the sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week," explaining for himself what he meant by "evening of the sabbath," that is, as the light of the following day was now approaching. And John did not say absolutely, "Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulchre," but added, "while it was yet dark."

Of one and the same time, then, that is, of midnight and cock-crow, the one spoke of its end, the other of its beginning. And it seems to me that the Evangelist Matthew, who wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew tongue, said not so much "evening" as "late," and that the one who translated it, deceived by the ambiguity of the word, rendered it not "late" but "evening." Although the usage of common speech holds that "sero" does not signify evening, but "late." For we are accustomed to say, "you came late (sero)," that is, tardily, and "what you ought to have done before, do at least late (sero)," that is, tardily.

But if this objection is raised, how the same Mary who had earlier seen the Lord rising is afterward reported weeping at his sepulchre, this must be said: that both alone, and with another, or with other women, mindful of the benefits which the Lord had bestowed upon her, she frequently ran to his sepulchre, and now adored him whom she saw, now wept for him whom she sought as absent—though some contend that there were two Marys Magdalene from the same village of Magdala, and that one is she who in Matthew saw him rising, the other she who in John sought him as absent. We read in the Gospels, however, that there were four Marys: one the mother of the Lord Saviour, another her sister, who was called Mary of Cleophas, a third Mary the mother of James and Joses, a fourth Mary Magdalene. Although others contend that the mother of James and Joses was her sister.

Some (in order to free themselves from the question) hold that in Mark it is one of the Marys, but that the surname Magdalene was not added, and that it grew from the superfluous fault of copyists, since the Evangelist himself did not originally write it. But to us the simple and open answer seems to be that the holy women, unable to bear the absence of Christ, ran to the Lord's sepulchre throughout the whole night, not once nor twice, but repeatedly, especially since the earthquake, and the rocks rent, and the sun fleeing, and nature itself disturbed, and (what is greater than these) their longing for the Saviour broke the women's sleep.

How, according to Matthew, Mary Magdalene, in the evening of the sabbath, together with the other Mary, fell at the feet of the Saviour: while according to John, early on the sabbath, she heard from the Lord: Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.

She who had first seen the Lord rising again together with the other Mary, and had fallen at His feet, afterward returning by night (for she could not remain at home, because of her longing for Him), came to the sepulchre. And when she had seen that the stone with which the tomb had been closed had been taken away, she ran to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved most, and says to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and I know not where they have laid Him. Error was joined with piety in the woman. Piety was in this, that she longed for Him whose majesty she knew. Error was in this, that she said: They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and the rest.

Then, when Peter and John, entering the tomb, had seen the linen cloths lying apart, and the napkin with which the head of the Lord had been wrapped, laid by itself, and believed that He had risen whose body they had not found in the tomb, Mary stood at the tomb outside, weeping. And as she stooped down, she saw two angels in white sitting in the place where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet—so that under so great a dignity of guard she might not believe that He could have been stolen away by men, who was kept by angels as ministers. The angels whom she beheld say to her: Woman, why weepest thou?—according to that which the Lord spoke to His mother: What have I to do with thee, woman? My hour is not yet come—so that, in that they called her "woman," they might rebuke her for weeping in vain, and say, Why weepest thou?

But Mary Magdalene was so stupefied with astonishment, and, terrified by the miracles, held her faith as it were in a fog, that she did not even perceive the presence of the angels there, but answered after the manner of a woman, and said: Therefore I weep, because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. O Mary, if thou believest Him to be the Lord, and thy Lord, how dost thou suppose Him taken away by men? I know not, she says, where they have laid Him. How dost thou not know Him, whom a little before thou didst worship? And when she saw the angels, and did not recognize whom she beheld, terrified with astonishment, she turned her face this way and that, desiring to see nothing but the Lord, and turning back, she saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

Not that, as the Manichæan and other heretics hold, the Lord had changed His form and countenance, so as to appear different and various at will, but that Mary, stupefied by the miracle, thought Him the gardener, whom she was seeking with such great eagerness. And so the Lord also speaks to her in the same words as the angels: Woman, why weepest thou? And He added of Himself, Whom seekest thou? But she answered: Sir, if thou hast taken Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Here she does not call Him Lord in confession of true faith as her Saviour, but out of humility and fear pays homage to Him as a gardener. And see how great her ignorance.

Him whom a cohort of soldiers guarded, at whose tomb angels stood watch, she thinks was taken away by a single gardener; and, not knowing the weakness of a woman, she promises and believes herself of such strength that she could carry the body of a man, and of full age—which (to say nothing of the rest) had been wrapped about with a hundred pounds of myrrh—as if it could be borne by one timid woman. And when Jesus had called her, and said: Mary, so that she might recognize by voice the one she did not recognize by face, she, persisting in her error, calls Him not Lord, but Rabboni, that is, Master. And see what great confusion: she who, thinking Him the gardener, had called Him Lord, now calls the risen Son of God, rising again, Master.

And so, to her who was seeking the living among the dead; who through womanly error and feminine weakness ran hither and thither, and sought the body of one slain; whose feet, though He lived, she had held—to her the Lord speaks and says: Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. And the sense is: Thou who seekest the dead dost not deserve to touch the living. If thou dost not yet think that I have ascended to the Father, but suppose me taken away by the fraud of men, thou art unworthy of my touch. But He said this not to blunt the eagerness of one who sought Him, but that she might know that the dispensation of the flesh He had assumed had been changed into the glory of divinity; and that she should in no way wish to be with the Lord bodily, whom she ought to believe reigns spiritually with the Father.

Whence also the Apostles are of greater faith, who, without the sight of angels, without the sight of the Saviour Himself, after they had not found His body in the tomb, believed that He had risen from the dead. Others think that what was first narrated by John was that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, and saw the stone rolled away from the tomb, and afterward returned with the Apostles Peter and John, and alone remained at the tomb; and that, being still unbelieving, she was rebuked by the Lord; and returning home, came again to the tomb with Mary; and, warned by the angel, as she went out from the tomb, worshipped the Lord, and held His feet, when they both together heard from Him: All hail. And they came and held His feet, and worshipped Him. And they advanced so far that they were sent to the Apostles, and heard first, Fear not; and second, Go, tell my brethren, that they go into Galilee; there they shall see me.

How, while a crowd of soldiers kept guard, Peter and John freely entered the tomb, no one hindering the guard. This, evidently, for this reason: that in the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and coming, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it: and his countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him the keepers were terrified, and became as dead men. Therefore they who had been terrified with so great a fear that they were thought dead, must be believed either to have abandoned the tomb and fled, or to have become so benumbed in body and mind that they dared not, I will not say hinder men, but not even little women desiring to enter the tomb.

For great fear had terrified them, seeing the stone rolled back, and the earthquake made, not after the accustomed manner, but so great that it shook all things, and threatened to overturn the earth utterly; and also that an angel had descended from heaven, with countenance so bright that it imitated not a lamp, or light kindled by human art, but the lightning of heaven, by which all things are illumined. Whence also they were able to see in the darkness. And so they enter freely. For Mary Magdalene had seen, and had announced to them, that the stone was rolled away, and the body of the Lord taken away from the tomb.

But let us not suppose that the angel came for this reason, to open the tomb for the Lord as He rose, and to roll back the stone; but that after the Lord had risen, at the hour which He Himself willed, and which is known to no mortal, he showed what had been done, and revealed the empty tomb by the rolling back of the stone, and his own presence—all of which things were seen, the brightness of his countenance overcoming the horror of the darkness with the clearness of its splendor.

How Matthew and Mark write that a command was given to the Apostles through the women, that they should go into Galilee to see the Lord again; whereas Luke and John relate that He was seen by them at Jerusalem.

It is one thing for Him to show Himself to the eleven disciples, who because of fear of the Jews were hidden away, when He entered to them with the doors shut, and, since they thought that He was seen in spirit, offered His hands and side, wounded by nails and by the spear; it is another thing when, according to Luke, He showed Himself to them by many proofs during forty days, appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God, and, eating with them, charged them not to depart from Jerusalem. In the one case He appeared for the consolation of those who were afraid, and appeared briefly, and again was taken from their sight; in the other there was such great familiarity and constancy that He ate together with them equally. Whence also Paul the Apostle relates that He appeared to five hundred disciples at once.

And in John we read that, while the Apostles were fishing, He stood on the shore, and ate part of a broiled fish and a honeycomb, which are tokens of a true resurrection. But at Jerusalem it is related that He did none of these things.

What is signified by what is written in the Evangelist Matthew: But Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, gave up the ghost: and the veil of the Temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many. Concerning this passage we have discussed in the same Commentaries on Matthew. And first it must be said, that it belongs to divine power to lay down the soul when He will, and to take it up again. Accordingly the centurion, hearing Him say to the Father: Into thy hands I commend my spirit, and immediately of His own will give up the ghost, moved by the greatness of the sign, said: Truly this was the Son of God.

The veil also of the Temple was rent in two, that what Josephus relates might be fulfilled—that the powers set over the Temple said: Let us depart from these seats. But in the Gospel which is written in Hebrew letters, we read, not that the veil of the Temple was rent, but that the lintel of the Temple, of wondrous size, fell down. The earth, it says, was shaken, not enduring to bear its Lord hanging; and the rocks were rent, to show the hardness of the Jews, who would not understand the Son of God present among them; and the graves were opened, as a sign of the resurrection to come; and many bodies of the saints, coming out of the tombs, came into the holy city, and appeared to many. We must take the holy city to be Jerusalem, in distinction from all the cities which then served idols.

For in this alone was the Temple, and the worship of the one God, and true religion; and they did not appear to all, but to many, who received the Lord as He rose again. 2. Next, according to the anagogical sense, it must be said that, when Jesus cried out and gave up the spirit, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and all the mysteries of the Law were revealed, so that what had before been kept hidden might be made known to all nations. In two parts, indeed, into the Old and New Testament; and from top to bottom, from the beginning of the world, when man was made, and all the rest that happened in between, which sacred history relates, down to the consummation of the world. And it must be asked whether the veil of the Temple that was torn was the outer one, or the inner?

To me it seems that in the Passion of the Lord that veil was torn which had been placed outside in the tabernacle and in the Temple, and was called the outer veil: because now we see in part, and know in part. But when that which is perfect shall come, then the inner veil also must be rent, that we may see all the mysteries of the house of God which are now hidden from us. Let us see what the two Cherubim signify, what the Oracle, what the golden vessel in which the manna was kept. For now we see through a glass in a dark manner; and although the veil of history has been torn for us, so that we may enter the court of God, yet we cannot know his secrets and all the mysteries which are kept shut up in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Therefore at the Passion of the Lord the earth was shaken, according to what is written in Haggai: Yet once more, and I will move heaven and earth: and the desired of all nations shall come; so that from the East and the West they may come and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the rocks were split, that is, the hard hearts of the nations; or the rocks, all the prophecies of the Prophets, who themselves also, together with the Apostles, received the name of “rock” from the Rock, that is, from Christ: so that whatever in them was shut up under the hard veil of the Law might be torn open and laid bare to the nations.

The tombs also, of which it is written: You are whitened sepulchres, which outwardly are fair, but within are full of dead men’s bones, were therefore opened, that those who had before been dead in unbelief might go forth from them, and, with Christ rising and living, might live, and might enter the heavenly Jerusalem; and might have their citizenship, not on earth, but in heaven; and dying with the earthly Adam, might rise again with the heavenly Adam. Furthermore, according to the letter, let it seem violent to no one that, after the death of the Saviour, Jerusalem should still be called the holy city; since up to its destruction the Apostles always entered the Temple, and, on account of the scandal of those who had believed from among the Jews, observed the ceremonies of the Law. But so greatly did the Lord love Jerusalem, that he wept over it, and lamented, and, hanging on the cross, said: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

And so he obtained what he had asked: and immediately many thousands of the Jews believed, and up to the forty-second year a time of repentance was granted to it.

After which, they persisting in malice, two bears went forth from the forests of the Roman nations, Vespasian and Titus: and, the children blasphemously mocking, when Elisha went up to the house of God (for this is what Bethel means), with one voice mocking, they slew and tore them: and from that time Jerusalem is no longer called the holy city; but, losing her holiness and her former name, is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt: that in her place a new city might be built, which the rush of the river makes glad; and from the midst of which goes forth a fountain, which has sweetened the bitterness of the whole world: so that wretched Israel may mourn the ruins of the Temple with bared arms; and the multitude of believers in Christ may see new roofs of the Church rising daily, and Zion may say, The place is too narrow for me: and that may be fulfilled which is written in Isaiah: And his sepulchre shall be glorious.

How the Saviour, according to John, breathed the Holy Spirit into the holy Apostles, and according to Luke, promises that he will send it after his ascension?

The solution of this question is very easy, if, following the teaching of the Apostle Paul, we know the diverse graces of the Holy Spirit. For he writes in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit: and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord: and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all. And to every one is given the manifestation of the spirit unto that which is profitable. To one indeed is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another, faith in the same Spirit; to another, the grace of healings in one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues; to another, interpretation of speeches. But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will.

Therefore the Lord, who after his resurrection, according to the Gospel of Luke, had said: Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you: but stay ye in the city, till you be endued with power from on high; and, according to the same, spoke in the Acts of the Apostles: He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which, said he, you have heard by my mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence; again, at the end of the Gospel according to John, on that day on which he had risen, that is, on the Lord's day, he is related to have entered to the Apostles with the doors shut, and to have said to them a second time, Peace be to you; and to have added: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you: and when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them:

Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you shall retain, they are retained. On the first day of the resurrection, therefore, they received the grace of the Holy Spirit, whereby they might forgive sins, and baptize, and make sons of God, and bestow upon believers the spirit of adoption: the Saviour himself saying: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall retain, they are retained.

But on the day of Pentecost it was further promised to them that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and be endued with power from on high, whereby they might preach the Gospel of Christ to all nations, according to that which we read in the sixty-seventh Psalm: The Lord shall give the word to them that preach, with great power; that they might have the working of miracles and the grace of healings; and, being about to preach to many nations, might receive divers kinds of tongues: so that even then it might be known which of the Apostles were destined to announce it to which nations. Finally the Apostle Paul, who preached from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, and thence hastens through Rome to Spain, gives thanks to God that he speaks with tongues more than all the Apostles. For he who was about to announce the Gospel to many nations had received the grace of many tongues.

This promise of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled on the tenth day after the ascension of the Saviour, as Luke relates, who wrote: When the days of Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming: and it filled the whole house where they were sitting; and there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire; and it sat upon every one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost: and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. Then was fulfilled that which is read in Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Now the word "pouring out" signifies the abundance of grace, and sounds the very same thing which the Lord had promised: But you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. For they were so baptized with the Holy Ghost that the whole house was filled where they were sitting; and the fire of the Holy Ghost found its desired resting-place in them, and divided their tongues; and, according to Isaiah, who had said he had unclean lips, purged their lips, that they might preach the Gospel of Christ more purely. And in Isaiah indeed it is said that the lintel of the Temple was shaken; and the whole house was filled with smoke, that is, with error and darkness and ignorance of the truth.

But at the beginning of the Gospel the Church is filled with the Holy Spirit, that by his grace and fervour the sins of all believers might be purged; and by the fire of the Holy Spirit, which the Lord had said he would send, the tongue that was to preach Christ might be healed. John and Luke, therefore, do not disagree, as though what the one signifies was given on the first day of the resurrection, the other describes as having come on the fiftieth day: but there was an apostolic progress, so that they who had first received the grace of forgiving sins, afterward received the workings of miracles, and all the kinds of gifts which we have recalled as described by the Apostle: and (what was still more necessary) the diversity of the tongues of all nations; so that, being about to announce Christ, they would need no interpreter. Whence also in Lycaonia, when they had heard Paul and Barnabas speaking in their own tongues, they believed that gods had turned into men.

And truly the vesture of power is the grace of the Holy Spirit: possessing which, they feared not the tribunals of judges, nor the purple of kings. For the Lord had promised before he suffered, and said: But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. But I boldly, and with entire freedom, declare, that from the time when the Apostles believed in the Lord, they always had the Holy Spirit; nor could they work signs without the grace of the Holy Spirit; but according to measure and proportion. Whence the Saviour cried out in the Temple, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink: he that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him.

And in the same place he adds: For as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified: not that the Holy Spirit did not exist, since the Lord the Saviour says: But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? But because, while he was in the Lord, he was not yet wholly poured out in the Apostles. Wherefore they are terrified at his passion, and deny him, and swear that they do not know Christ. But after they are baptized in the Holy Spirit, and the grace of the Holy Spirit is poured into them, then they speak freely to the princes of the Jews: We ought to obey God rather than men: they raise the dead, they rejoice amid scourges; they pour out their blood for Christ; and are crowned by their own tortures. The Spirit, then, was not yet in the Apostles, nor did spiritual graces flow from their belly, because the Lord had not yet been glorified.

But what that glory is, he himself declares in the Gospel: Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. The glory of the Saviour is the gibbet of the Triumphant. He is crucified as man; he is glorified as God. Finally the sun flees, the moon is turned into blood, the earth trembles with an unwonted quaking: the lower regions are opened, the dead walk, the rocks are rent. This is the glory of which he spoke in the Psalm: Arise, my glory, arise, psaltery and harp.

And that very glory, and the dispensation of the flesh assumed, answered concerning itself: I will arise early; that the title of the twenty-first Psalm might be fulfilled, "for the morning assumption." We say these things not because we believe that there is one God and another man, and make two persons in the one Son of God, as the new heresy slanderously alleges; but the same and one Son of God is also the Son of man: and whatever he says, we refer partly to his divine glory, partly to our salvation. For our sake he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made obedient to the Father even unto death, even the death of the cross. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

But I marvel at Montanus, and his insane women, abortive prophets, that, whereas the Lord promised, saying: I go and will send you another Paraclete; and afterward, as Luke the Evangelist narrates, the Apostles received what was promised; they should say that this was fulfilled in themselves much later. For it was promised to the Apostles: I will send the promise of my Father upon you: and you shall sit in the city, until you be endued with power from on high: and rising again, he breathed on the Apostles, and not on Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla: and to them, that is, to the Apostles, he said: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you shall retain, they are retained. To the Apostles, I say, he commanded that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father. And afterward we read that what was promised was fulfilled.

They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. For the Holy Spirit breathes where he wills. And when the Lord says, I will send you another Paraclete, he shows that he himself is a Paraclete, who is called Comforter. Whence also God the Father is reckoned by this name, the God of mercies, and of all comfort. But if both the Father is Comforter, and the Son is Comforter, and the Holy Spirit is Comforter: and in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, which is understood as God, believers are baptized, whose name of divinity and of comforter is one, of these also there is one nature. This Holy Spirit was not only in the Apostles, but also in the Prophets, of whom David prayed, saying: Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

And Daniel is related to have had the Spirit of God: and David speaks in the spirit, saying that the Lord said to his Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool. Nor did the Prophets prophesy without the Holy Spirit: and by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of his mouth: and whatsoever belongs to the Father and to the Son, this same also belongs to the Holy Spirit: and the Holy Spirit himself, when he is sent, is sent by the Father and the Son: in one place and another he is called the Spirit of God the Father, and the Spirit of Christ. Whence also in the Acts of the Apostles, those who had been baptized with the baptism of John, and believed in God the Father and Christ, because they did not know of the Holy Spirit, are baptized again: nay, then they receive true baptism. For without the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the Trinity is imperfect.

And in the same volume, Peter is related to have said to Ananias and Sapphira, that in lying to the Holy Spirit, they had not lied to men, but to God.

What that means which the Apostle Paul discusses, writing to the Romans, "What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? God forbid," down to that place where he says: "Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become as Sodom, and we should have been made like unto Gomorrah."

Indeed, the whole Epistle to the Romans needs interpretation, and is wrapped in such obscurities, that in order to understand it we need the help of the Holy Spirit, who dictated these very things through the Apostle: but this passage especially, in which certain persons, wishing to preserve the justice of God, say that on account of preceding causes Jacob was chosen and Esau rejected in the womb of Rebecca: just as Jeremiah also, and John the Baptist, were chosen in the womb: and the Apostle Paul himself was predestined to the Gospel before he was born. But nothing pleases us except what is ecclesiastical, and what we do not fear to say publicly in the church: lest, after the manner of Pythagoras and Plato and their disciples, who introduce under the Christian name the dogma of the Gentiles, we should say that souls fallen from heaven, and according to the diversity of their merits, pay in these or those bodies the penalties of ancient sins.

And it is much better simply to confess our ignorance, and among the other things we do not know, to shrink also from the obscurity of this passage, than, while wishing to prove the justice of God, to defend the heresy of Basilides and Mani, and to follow Iberian old wives' tales and Egyptian monstrosities. Let us say, then, as we are able, and following in the footsteps of the Apostle's intention, let us not depart from his opinions by so much as a point (as they say) or a hair's breadth.

He had wept above, and had invoked the Holy Spirit as witness to his grief and his conscience, because his brothers and kinsmen according to the flesh, that is, the Israelites, had not received the Son of God: to whom belonged the adoption, and the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the promise: from whom also Christ himself according to the flesh was born of the Virgin Mary: and he is tormented by such continual grief of heart, that he himself wishes to be anathema from Christ, that is, to perish alone, lest the whole race of Israel should perish. And because he had said this, he immediately foresaw the question coming from that quarter. What then do you say? Have all who are of Israel perished? And how have you yourself and the other Apostles, and the countless multitude of the Jewish people, received Christ the Son of God?

Which he resolves thus: Israel is called by a twofold name in the holy Scriptures, and is divided into two sons: into one who is according to the flesh; and into another who is according to the promise and the spirit. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, who was born according to the flesh, did not receive the inheritance of the father. Isaac, who was born of Sarah according to the promise, is called the seed of God. For it is written: In Isaac shall your seed be called, that is, not those who are children of the flesh, but children of God; but those who are children of the promise, these are counted for the seed. And we prove that this happened not only in the case of Ishmael and Isaac, but also in the two sons of Rebecca, Esau and Jacob, of whom the one was rejected, the other chosen.

And he says all this in order to signify that, in the two former brothers, Ishmael and Esau, the people of the Jews was rejected: but in the latter, that is, in Isaac and Jacob, the people of the Gentiles was chosen, or those from among the Jews who were to believe in Christ. And since, wishing to establish this, he had set forth the testimony concerning the twins Esau and Jacob at their birth, of whom it is written: The elder shall serve the younger: and in Malachi we read: Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated—he raises, in his usual manner, the question arising from that quarter, and discusses it: and having resolved it, returns to the point from which he had begun to argue.

If Esau and Jacob were not yet born, and had done nothing good or evil, whereby they might either merit God's favor or offend Him, and their election and rejection show not the merits of each, but the will of the one choosing and rejecting, what then shall we say? Is God unjust? According to that example by which he speaks to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion. If, he says, we accept this, that God does whatever He wills, and, apart from merit and works, either chooses someone or condemns him: then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy: especially since the same Scripture, that is, the same God, speaks to Pharaoh: For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared in all the earth.

If this is so, and He has mercy on Israel according to His own will, and hardens Pharaoh: then it is in vain that we complain and make excuse that we have either not done good, or have done evil, since it is in His power and will, apart from good and evil works, either to choose someone or to reject him; especially since human frailty cannot resist His will. This very forceful question, woven together by the reasoning of the Scriptures, and almost insoluble, the Apostle resolves in a brief statement, saying: O man, who are you that you should answer God? And the meaning is this. By the very fact that you answer God, and bring a charge against Him, and inquire so much from the Scriptures as to speak against God, and accuse the justice of His will, you show that you are of free will, and do what you wish, either to be silent or to speak.

For if you think that you were created by God after the likeness of an earthen vessel, and that you cannot resist His will: consider this, that the earthen vessel does not say to the potter: why have you made me thus? For the potter has power, from the same clay or the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor. But God has created all by an equal lot, and has given freedom of will, that each may do what he wishes, whether good or evil. He has given power to all to such a degree, that an impious voice disputes against its Creator, and searches out the reasons of His will.

But if, wishing to show His wrath and to make known His power, God endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, that He might show the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He prepared unto glory: whom He also called, not only us from among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles, as He says in Hosea: I will call them my people, who were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved: and it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God, and the rest that follows. If, he says, the patience of God hardened Pharaoh, and deferred the punishments of Israel for a long time, that He might more justly condemn those whom He had so long endured, it is not the patience of God and His infinite clemency that is to be blamed, but the hardness of those who abused the goodness of God unto their own destruction.

Otherwise, the heat of the sun is one, and according to the substances lying beneath it, melts some things, hardens others, dissolves some, binds others. For wax is melted, and clay is hardened: and yet the nature of the heat is not different. So too the goodness and clemency of God hardens the vessels of wrath, which are fitted for destruction, that is, the people of Israel; but the vessels of mercy, which He prepared unto glory, which He called, that is, us, who are not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, He does not save irrationally, and apart from the truth of judgment, but for preceding causes: because some did not receive the Son of God; others, however, willed of their own accord to receive Him. But these vessels of mercy are not only the people of the Gentiles, but also those from among the Jews who chose to believe, and one people of believers has been made.

From which it is shown that it is not nations that are chosen, but the wills of men, and thus it came to pass, that what was said in Hosea might be fulfilled: I will call them my people, who were not my people, that is, the people of the Gentiles: and those to whom it was said before, You are not my people, are now called sons of the living God. Lest this should seem to be said only of the Gentiles, he also calls those who believed from the multitude of Israel vessels of mercy and of election. For Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel: Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved, that is, even if the multitude does not believe, yet a few will believe. For God weighed the word, finished and cut short, in His own equity, that by the humility and incarnation of Christ He might save those who would have chosen to believe in Him.

This same thing Isaiah also said in another place: Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become like Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. And having set forth the testimonies by which the twofold calling is foretold, both of the Gentiles and of the people of the Jews, he passes on to a connected discussion, and therefore says that the Gentiles, who were not pursuing righteousness, apprehended righteousness, because they were not proud, but believed in Christ. But that a great part of Israel fell for this reason, that it stumbled at the stone of stumbling and rock of offense, and was ignorant of the righteousness of God: and seeking to establish its own righteousness, was unwilling to be subject to the righteousness of God, which is Christ. I have read in the Commentaries of a certain person that the Apostle answered in such a way as to entangle the question rather than solve it. For he says that, to what he had proposed—What then shall we say?

Is there unrighteousness with God? And, It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy: And, On whom He wills He has mercy, and whom He wills He hardens: And, Who can resist His will?—the Apostle answered thus: O man, who are earth and ashes, do you dare to raise a question against God? And do you, a fragile and earthen vessel, rebel against your potter? Can the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me thus? Or has not the potter power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? Be silent, then, in eternal silence, and know your frailty, and do not raise a question against God, who has done what He willed: that He might be merciful to some, and severe to others.

What is it that the Apostle writes to the Corinthians in the second Epistle: To some the odor of death unto death; to others the odor of life unto life; and who is sufficient for these things? Let us set forth the whole chapter of this passage, so that from what precedes and what follows, the intervening parts, which are woven together from both, may be understood. When I had come, he says, to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went forth into Macedonia. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ Jesus, and manifests through us the odor of his knowledge in every place; for we are the good odor of Christ unto God, in those who are saved and in those who perish: to some indeed the odor of death unto death, but to others the odor of life unto life.

And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as many, peddlers of the word of God; but out of sincerity, but as of God, before God we speak in Christ. He tells the Corinthians what he did, what he suffered, and how in all things he gives thanks to God, so that by his own example he might spur them on to strive. I came, he says, to Troas, which was formerly called Troy, that I might preach the gospel of Christ in Asia.

And when a door had been opened to me in the Lord, that is, when very many had believed, whether through signs and mighty works which God worked in me, and there was hope of a faith being born and growing in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, that is, I could not find the hoped-for consolation, because I did not find Titus my brother, either whom I thought I should find there, or of whom I had heard that he was staying there, or who had said he would come there. But what was so great a consolation, and what rest for the spirit, in the presence of Titus, whom, because he did not find, having bidden them farewell, he set out for Macedonia? We have said several times that the Apostle Paul was a most learned man, and trained at the feet of Gamaliel, who in the Acts of the Apostles delivers a discourse and says: And now what have you to do with these men?

For if it is of God, it will stand; if it is of men, it will be destroyed. And though he possessed knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, and had the grace of speech and of diverse tongues—whence he himself boasts in the Lord, and says: I thank God that I speak more in tongues than all of you—yet he was unable to unfold the majesty of divine meanings in worthy Greek eloquence. He had therefore Titus as an interpreter, just as blessed Peter had Mark, whose Gospel was composed with Peter relating and him writing. Finally, even the two Epistles that are attributed to Peter differ from each other in style, character, and structure of words. From this we understand that, according to the necessity of the matters at hand, he used different interpreters.

So also the Apostle Paul is grieved: because for the present he had not found the pipe and instrument through which he might sing to Christ; and he went on into Macedonia—for a man of Macedonia had appeared to him, saying: Come over and help us—so that there he might find Titus, and visit the brothers, or be tried by persecutions: for this is what he means when he says: But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ Jesus, and spreads the odor of his knowledge in every place. He leads us in triumph, meaning, he triumphs over us, or rather he carries out his triumph through us: he who had said elsewhere: We have been made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. Finally he relates in what follows: For when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we suffered every tribulation. Fightings without, fears within. But God, who comforts the lowly, comforted us by the coming of Titus.

And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort. Therefore he bade farewell to the Trojans, or people of Troas, and set out for Macedonia, so that there he might find Titus, and have the comfort of interpretation and of the gospel; whom we understand not to have been found there, but to have arrived only after the tribulations and persecutions of the Apostle. Before Titus came, then, having endured many things, he gives thanks to God in Christ Jesus, whom he was preaching to the Gentiles, because he had chosen him worthy to carry out in himself the triumph of his Son. The triumph of God is the passion of the Martyrs; and for the sake of the name of Christ, the shedding of blood, and joy amid torments.

For when someone sees the Martyrs standing firm with such perseverance, and being tortured, and glorying in their torments, the odor of the knowledge of God is spread abroad among the nations, and a silent thought arises that unless the Gospel were true, it would never be defended with blood. For it is not a delicate confession, fond of riches and secure; but one amid prisons, amid stripes, amid persecutions, amid hunger, in nakedness and thirst. This is the triumph of God and the victory of the Apostles. But someone hearing this could reply: How then did not all believe?

Before he could be asked, then, he resolves the ἀνθυποφορὰν (objection); and according to his custom, he sets forth beforehand whatever another might object, before it is objected. And the sense is: In the name of Christ we are a good odor to God in every place, and the fragrance of our preaching breathes far and wide. But because men have been left to their own free will—for they do not do good by necessity, but by will, so that believers may receive the crown, and unbelievers be handed over to punishments—therefore our odor, which is in itself good, passes into life or into death according to the virtue or the vice of those who receive it or do not receive it: so that those who have believed may be saved, but those who have not believed may perish.

Nor is this to be wondered at concerning the Apostle, since we read even of the Lord: Behold, this one is set for the fall and for the rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted: and the rays of the sun shine both upon clean places and upon unclean, and thus shine as much upon flowers as upon dung; yet the rays of the sun are not polluted. So too the good odor of Christ, which can never be changed nor lose its own nature, is life to believers, death to unbelievers. But that death is not this common one, in which we die along with beasts and cattle; but that of which it is written: The soul that sins, it shall die. Therefore life too must be understood not as this by which we breathe, and walk, and run hither and thither; but that of which David speaks: I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

For God is the God of the living, and not of the dead: and, Our life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ our life shall appear, then we also shall appear with him in glory. Nor let it seem to you, O Corinthians, a small thing, if when we preach the truth, some believe, others do not believe; some die that real death, others live that life of which he says: I am the life. For unless we had spoken, neither would death follow the unbelievers, nor life the believers: because it is difficult to find a herald of the powers of Christ worthy of them, who in proclaiming them seeks not his own glory but that of him whom he preaches.

In that he denies being like the many who peddle the word of God, he shows there are very many who think piety is a means of gain, and do everything for the sake of shameful profit, who devour the houses of widows; but that he, out of sincerity, as one sent by God, and in the presence of him who sent him, speaks all things in Christ and for Christ: so that the cause of the preaching may be God's, the triumph Christ's, and the glory his. And it should be noted that the mystery of the Trinity is shown at the end of this chapter. For he speaks of God, in the Holy Spirit, before God the Father, in Christ. But to confirm that he went from Troas to Macedonia, I will set forth testimony from the Acts of the Apostles. And when they had passed through Mysia, they came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

There was a certain man of Macedonia standing and beseeching him, and saying: Come over into Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen this, immediately we sought to go forth into Macedonia, being assured that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

What is it that he writes in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians: "May the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things, that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." A famous question, but to be treated in brief discourse. Above he had said, "Quench not the spirit": if this be understood, we shall at once know what this spirit is which, together with soul and body, is to be preserved on the day of the Lord's coming. For who could believe that, like a flame which when quenched ceases to be what it was, the Holy Spirit is quenched, and undergoes his own abolition—he who was once in Israel, when through Isaiah and Jeremiah and each of the Prophets he could say, "Thus saith the Lord," and now in the Church speaks through Agabus, "Thus saith the Holy Spirit"?

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for that which is profitable. To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another the grace of healings in one spirit, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits. But all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each as he wills. Concerning this Spirit, lest it be taken from him, David prayed, saying: "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me." When it is taken away, it is not quenched in its own substance, but in him from whom it is taken away.

I think that "quench not the Spirit" signifies the same thing as what he writes in another place: "fervent in spirit." For in whomever the fervor of the spirit does not grow cold, though iniquity be multiplied and the chill of charity increase, in him the spirit is by no means quenched. Therefore "the God of peace sanctify you in all things," or "in all," that is, wholly and perfectly—for this is more the sense of ὁλοτελεῖς. And he is called the God of peace, because through Christ we have been reconciled to him, who is our peace, who made both one; who in another place is called the peace of God, surpassing all understanding, which keeps the hearts and thoughts of the Saints. But whoever is sanctified, or made perfect in all things, in him spirit and soul and body alike are preserved on the day of the Lord.

The body, if it makes use of the offices of each of its members—for example, if the hand works, the foot walks, the eye sees, the ear hears, the teeth grind food, the stomach digests, the belly processes—or if it is not maimed in any part of its members. And can anyone believe that the Apostle is entreating on behalf of believers that on the day of judgment Christ may find the bodies of all whole, when the bodies of all either have been dissolved by death, or, if (as some would have it) they are found still breathing, still retain their own infirmities—especially those of the Martyrs, and of those who for the name of Christ have had their eyes gouged out, or their nostrils cut off, or their hands amputated? Therefore that body is whole of which we spoke in another question, holding the Head, from whom the whole body, joined together and compacted, receives increase for the building up of the body of Christ. This body is the Church.

And whoever holds the Head of this body, and keeps the other members, will have a whole body, so far as human nature can receive it. In this same manner the wholeness of the soul is to be preserved, the soul which can say: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who healeth all thine infirmities"; and of which it is written: "He sent his word, and healed them." The spirit also is preserved whole in us, when we do not err in spiritual things, but live in the spirit, submit to the spirit, and mortify by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, and bring forth all its fruits—charity, joy, peace, and the rest. Otherwise: We are instructed, as Solomon says: "But do thou describe them threefold in counsel and knowledge, that thou mayest answer words of truth to those who put questions to thee." There is a threefold description in our heart, and a rule of the Scriptures. First, that we understand them according to history. Second, according to tropology. Third, according to spiritual understanding.

In history, the order of the things written is kept. In tropology, we rise from the letter to higher things, and whatever was done carnally among the former people we interpret according to a moral sense, and turn to the profit of our soul. In spiritual θεωρία we pass to more sublime things, we leave earthly things behind, and discourse of the blessedness of things to come and of heavenly matters, so that the meditation of the present life may be a shadow of the future blessedness. Those whom Christ shall find such that they are preserved whole in body, and soul, and spirit, and possess the perfect truth of this threefold knowledge in themselves—these he will sanctify with his own peace and make perfect. Many understand this passage simply of the resurrection, that spirit and soul and body may be preserved whole at the coming of the Lord. Others wish to affirm from this passage a threefold substance in man: spirit, by which we perceive; soul, by which we live; body, by which we move.

There are those who, arguing that man consists only of soul and body, would have the spirit as a third element in him understood not as a substance but as a faculty, by which are named in us mind, and sense, and thought, and disposition—certainly there are not as many substances as there are names. And when this text is set against them: "Bless the Lord, ye spirits and souls of the just," they do not accept the Scripture, saying it is not found in the Hebrew. But we, in the present passage (as we said above) where it is written that a man is preserved whole together with soul and body, understand not the substance of the Holy Spirit, which cannot perish, but his graces and gifts, which by our virtue or our fault are both kindled and quenched in us.