St. Augustine
Frater Paulus hic est incolumis; adportat negotiorum suorum secundas curas; praestabit dominus, ut etiam ipsa ultima sint. Multum vos salutat et narrat gaudia de Gaviniano, quod ab illa sua causa misericordia dei liberatus non solum Christianus sed etiam fidelis sit valde bonus per pascha proxime baptizatus, in corde atque in ore habens gratiam quam percepit. Quantum eum desiderem, quando explicabo? Sed nosti ut eum diligam. Archiater etiam Dioscorus Christianus fidelis est, simul gratiam consecutus. Audi etiam quem ad modum; neque enim cervicula illa vel lingua nisi aliquo prodigio domarentur. Filia eius, in qua unica adquiescebat, aegrotabat et usque ad totam desperationem salutis temporalis eodem ipso patre renuntiante pervenit.
Letters of St. Augustine
Brother Paul has arrived back safely; he reports that his affairs have been considered favourably; the Lord will grant that this may be the last of them. He sends you hearty greetings and gives us the joyful news about Gavinianus, that having secured deliverance, by God’s mercy, from that case of his, he is now not only a Christian but has become a very admirable member of the Church,b having received baptism last Easter, and professing in his heart and with his mouthc the grace that was bestowed on him. I could never express the greatness of my longing for him, but you know how dear he is to me. The town physician,d Dioscurus, has also become a Christian and joined the Church, having received grace at the same time. I must tell you how it came about, for one so stiff-necked and sharp-tongued could have been subjugated only by a miracle.
His daughter, an only child, the pride of his life, was ill, and she reached a point when the recovery of her bodily health was quite despaired of, and her own father gave her up. The story goes (and its truth
- aDioscurus is unknown except from this letter. Brother Paul is probably the Paul mentioned in the last letter. Nothing is known of the business here spoken of, or of Gavinianus.
- bFidelis in this sense is contrasted with catechumenus, a distinction which is as early as Tertullian (Praescr. Haer. 41 “quis catechumenus, quis fidelis, incertum est; pariter adeunt, pariter audiunt, pariter orant”). Jerome speaks (In Isaiam xix. 19) of five orders in the Church: episcopos, presbyteros, diaconos, fideles, catechumenos, and Augustine (Serm. 21. 5) mentions a higher kind of faith, “qua fidelis vocaris, accedens ad mensam Domini tui,” and (Serm. 93. 2) defines fidelis: “Fidelibus dico, eis quibus Christi corpus erogamus.”
- cRom. x. 8.
- dThe archiater (ἀρχιατρός) was a municipal doctor, appointed by the decurions and receiving a salary from the town. They enjoyed, with their wives and families, special privileges (Cod. Theod. xiii. iii. 1, 2, 3 “archiatri omnes . . . a praestationibus quoque publicis liberi immunesque permaneant”). Rome and Constantinople had these municipal doctors appointed in 368, and at Rome there were fourteen in all, one for each region. In Ep. xli. 2 Augustine speaks of one Hilarinus, whom he calls Hipponiensem archiatrum et principalem, and another is mentioned by one of his correspondents in Ep. ccxxx. 6.