St. Augustine
commendare minime neglegatis. Deus omnipotens praestantiam tuam bonis omnibus augeat, domine eximie et merito insignis atque carissime fili.
1Si id quod in vestra civitate nos graviter contristabat, absumptum est, si duritia cordis humani resistens manifestissimae et quodam modo publicae veritati eiusdem potentia veritatis evicta est, si sapit dulcedo pacis unitatisque caritas non iam reverberat oculos saucios, sed sanos inlustrat ac vegetat, non sunt haec opera nostra sed dei, non haec humanis opibus omnino tribuerem nec si, cum apud vos essemus, tanta conversio multitudinis nobis loquentibus et hortantibus proveniret. Hoc agit ille et efficit, qui per ministros suos rerum signis extrinsecus admonet, rebus autem ipsis per se ipsum intrinsecus docet. Nec ideo pigrius moveri nos
Letters of St. Augustine
are sons of the Church, and at the same time the moderation of your Holy Mother.
May Almighty God enrich your Excellency with all good things, my noble and deservedly distinguished lord and well-beloved son.
If that which greatly distressed me in your city1 has been removed, if the hardness of the human heart, resisting the most evident and, as one might say, the most notorious truth, has been overcome by the power of that same truth, if there is relish for the sweet savour of peace, and the brotherly love that springs from unity no longer dazzles aching eyes, but fills with light and vigour eyes that are sound, this is not my doing, but God’s; I would not in the least attribute it to human resources, even if the conversion of so great a multitude had taken place when I was among you, in response to my own addresses and exhortations. That is His doing, His achievement, Who uses his ministers to draw attention to the external signs of things, but teaches men by things themselves within, through none but Himself. Yet