St. Augustine
de surculo ad trabem. Audet quippe inpudenter etiam crescere citius, quam putatur. Non enim erubescit in tenebris, cum super eam sol occiderit. Recolis certe, qua cura et quanta sollicitudine ista scripserim, si recolis quid mecum nuper in itinere quodam locutus sis.
3Fratrem Severum et qui cum eo sunt salutamus. Etiam ipsis fortasse scriberemus, si per festinationem perlatoris liceret. Peto autem, ut apud eundem fratrem nostrum Victorem, cui ago etiam apud tuam sanctitatem gratias, quod Constantinam cum pergeret indicavit, petendo adiuves, propter negotium quod ipse novit, de quo gravissimum pondus pro ea re multum deprecantis Nectarii maioris patior, per Calamam remeare ne gravetur; sic enim promisit mihi. Vale.
Num etiam hoc sperari aut expectari posset, ut
Letters of St. Augustine
easily be expelled, and it will grow from a sapling to a sturdy tree, since it boldly and shamelessly develops at an even greater speed than people imagine, for it is not put to shame in the darkness, when the sun has gone down upon it.a You can at any rate bethink you of the care and anxiety with which I write this, if you bethink you of your remarks on a recent journey we made together.
Give my greetings to brother Severusb and his3 company. I should perhaps be writing to them too, if the bearer’s haste allowed it. I want, however, to express my thanks through your Holiness to our brother Victor for letting me know when he was going to Constantine.c Please help me by asking him if he would mind making his return journey by Calama, as he promised me he would, because of that business he knows of; it is weighing very heavily on me, for the elder Nectariusd is very insistent about it. Good-bye.
Who could have expected or anticipated that I
- aCf. Eph. iv. 26.
- bProbably the Severus who became bishop of Milevis about a.d. 400. He was born in the same town as Augustine, and was a member of the same monastic community, and a life-long friend. He is mentioned later in Nos. 22, 25 and 29, and probably died about 426.
- cSee note a on p. 98.
- dSee No. 24 infra, p. 150 note a. Calama lay about fifty miles from Hippo; it was an old Punic town, under the name Malaca, and was later a Roman colony. The modern name is Guelma.
- cPaulinus is, after Prudentius, the most notable Christian Latin poet of the patristic age. Sprung from a wealthy patrician family in Aquitania, he renounced the world and, with his wife, Therasia, a Spanish lady, established himself in 394 at Nola in Campania, where he lived a monastic life, built a church in honour of his patron saint, Felix, and spent his life and substance in good works, dying in 431. His extant works consist of 51 letters and 36 poems, marked by grace and fluency and revealing a pious and humble mind, already medieval in its outlook.