St. Augustine
vobis legatur, et ubi vos inveneritis ea quae scripta sunt facientes, agite gratias domino bonorum omnium largitori; ubi sibi autem quaecumque vestrum videt aliquid deesse, doleat de praeterito, caveat de futuro, orans ut sibi debitum dimittatur et in temptationem non inducatur.
1Venerunt ad nos duo iuvenes, Cresconius et Felix, de vestra congregatione se esse dicentes, qui nobis rettulerunt monasterium vestrum nonnulla dissensione turbatum eo, quod quidam in vobis sic gratiam praedicent, ut negent hominis esse liberum arbitrium et, quod est gravius, dicant quod in die iudicii non sit redditurus deus unicuique secundum opera eius.
Letters of St. Augustine
you once each week, and when you find yourselves practising the things written in it, render thanks to the Lord, the giver of every good gift. But when any one of you perceives herself deficient in some point, let her lament the past and take precautions for the future, praying both that her trespass may be forgiven and that she may not be led into temptation.a
There have come to me two young men, Cresconius1 and Felix, declaring themselves members of your community, who have reported to me that there is some disturbance and dissension in your monastery because certain brethren are extolling grace to such an extent that they deny the freedom of the human will and, what is more serious, assert that on the day of judgement God will not render to every man according to
- aMatt. vi. 12–13; Luke xi. 4.
- bValentinus was abbot of the monastery at Hadrumetum, the capital of Byzacenum (now Sousse, 100 miles south of Tunis). Two of his monks, Florus and Felix, when visiting the monastery at Uzala, read and copied Augustine’s letter to the presbyter Sixtus (Ep. cxciv.) on grace and free-will, and on their return to Adrumetum read it to the monks there, some of whom considered Augustine’s teaching fatal to the doctrine of free-will. The monastery was bitterly divided on the question, so Valentinus sent Felix and Cresconius, another of the disputants, to ascertain Augustine’s real opinions. The present letter is his reply. The two monks were unwilling to wait at Hippo until some of his anti-Pelagian treatises were copied for them, but he kept them until Easter, writing another letter to Valentinus (Ep. ccxv.) and composing for him the treatise De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio. Later, Valentinus replied in Ep. ccxvi., and Floras too visited Hippo, giving Augustine the chance to mention the disputation at Hadrumetum in his Retractationes, ii. 66. In the Revue Bénédictine, xviii (1901). pp. 241–256, Dora Germain Morin has published a hitherto unknown, short letter from Augustine to Valentinus, with other letters addressed by a priest Januarianus and Evodius to the monks of Hadrumetum on this same occasion.