St. Augustine
recreaveris et meam senectutem hac misericordi iustitia fueris consolatus, retribuet tibi et in praesenti et in futura vita bona pro bonis, qui per te nobis in ista tribulatione succurrit et qui te in illa sede constituit.
1Bonus est dominus et misericordia eius ubique diffusa, quae nos de vestra caritate in suis visceribus consolatur. Quantum enim diligat credentes et sperantes in se et illum atque invicem diligentes et quid eis in posterum servet, hinc maxime ostendit, cum infidelibus et desperatis et perversis, quibus in mala voluntate usque in finem perseverantibus ignem cum diabolo aeternum minatur, in hoc tamen saeculo bona tanta largitur, qui facit oriri solem suum super bonos et malos et pluit super iustos et iniustos. Breviter enim aliquid dictum est, ut plura cogitentur; quam multa enim habeant impii in hac vita munera et dona
Letters of St. Augustine
at the same time comfort my old age by administering justice tempered with mercy, He Who through you brings us deliverance in this trial and Who has set you in your See will recompense unto you good for good, both in this life and in the life to come.
The Lord is goodb and everywhere His mercy is1 shed abroad, which comforts us with your love in Him. How greatly He loves those who believe and hope in Him and who love both Him and one another, and what blessings He stores up for them to enjoy hereafter, He shows most of all by this, that upon the unbelieving and the abandoned and the perverse, whom He threatens with eternal fire in company with the devil if they persist in their evil disposition unto the end,c He nevertheless in this present world bestows so many benefits, making “His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sending rain on the just and on the unjust.”d That is a brief sentence, meant to suggest further thoughts to the mind, for who can count up how many benefits and unearned
- aFelicitas was probably the prioress of the nunnery at Hippo in which Augustine’s own sister had held office until her death. It seems likely that the development of monasticism among women in North Africa was due to Augustine, for while Tertullian and Cyprian give evidence of the honour in which consecrated widows and virgins were held, the first notice of their monastic life is given by the Council of Carthage in 397, and Possidius declares that when Augustine died in 430 he left “a sufficient body of clergy and monasteries of men and women” (Vit. 31). Of monasteries for men at Hippo, one was built on ground provided by Bishop Valerius (Serm. 355. 2), and on succeeding Valerius, Augus- tine made another of his episcopal house, and during his life-time two more were founded near Hippo (Serm. 356. 10, 15).
- bLam. iii. 25.
- cMatt. xxv. 41.
- dMatt. v. 45.