St. Augustine
debemus praecipientem ac dicentem: Nemini quicquam debeatis, nisi ut invicem diligatis.
1Cum diu moleste haberem, quod aliquotiens scripserim et nulla tuae sublimitatis rescripta meruerim, repente epistulas tres tuae benignitatis accepi, unam non ad me solum datam per coepiscopum meum Vindemialem et non longe post per conpresbyterum Firmum duas. Qui vir sanctus nobisque, ut ab illo scire potuisti, familiarissima caritate coniunctus, multa nobiscum de tua excellentia conloquendo et veraciter insinuando, qualem te in Christi visceribus noverit, non solum eas quas memoratus episcopus vel quas ipse adtulit, sed etiam illas quas non accepisse nos querebamur, litteras vicit. Et ideo de te narratio eius suavior nobis erat,
Letters of St. Augustine
through His apostle and bids us “owe no man anything but to love one another.”a
I have long been disappointed that, after writing1 several times, I have not had the honour of receiving any reply from your Excellency. Now quite unexpectedly I have received three letters from your Benignity, one of them, not exclusively to me, by the hands of my fellow-bishop Vindemialis,c and not long afterwards two by the hands of my fellow-priest Firmus.d That holy man, with whom I have ties of the most intimate and affectionate nature, as you may have heard from him, talked at length to me about your Excellency and gave me such a true conception of you, as he found you in “the tender mercies of Christ,”e that he outdid not only the letters brought to me by the afore-mentioned bishop or by himself, but even those I was complaining of not receiving. And his account of you was all the more pleasant in that he told me
- aRom. xiii. 8. With the preceding words compare Disc. Chr. 14. 15 “Christus est qui docet.... Schola ipsius in terra est”; In Ps. xxxiv., Serm. 1. 1“in cuius schola condiscipuli sumus”; In Ps. 126. 3 “sub illo uno magistro in hac schola vobiscum condiscipuli sumus”; Serm. 134. 1 “omnes nos unum Magistrum habere et sub illo condiscipulos esse,” 261. 2, 270. 1.
- bValerius was Count of Africa, an earnest Christian and a firm supporter of orthodoxy against heretical error. He had adopted the ascetic rule of conjugal continence, and of this Augustine expresses warm approval, sending at the same time the first book of his work De Concupiscentia et Gratia. To this book a reply was written by Julian of Eclanum (see p. 188 above), accusing Augustine of denying the divine institution of marriage; Augustine thereupon added a second book refuting the charge. Valerius is addressed also in Ep. ccvi., a recommendation of a bishop called Felix.
- cNot otherwise known.
- dSee above, p. 334.
- ePhil. i. 8.