St. Augustine
Dicitur ergo—et constat, cum mihi hoc et ante fratris Pauli reditum comes Peregrinus, vir laudabilis et bene Christianus, qui cum eis eodem tempore baptizatus est, indicaret,—dicitur ergo ille senex tandem conversus ad inplorandam Christi misericordiam voto se obligasse Christianum fore, si illam salvam videret. Factum est. At ille, quod voverat, dissimulabat exsolvere. Sed adhuc manus excelsa. Nam repentina caecitate suffunditur statimque venit in mentem unde illud esset. Exclamavit confitens atque iterum vovit se, recepto lumine, impleturum esse quod voverat. Recepit, implevit. Et adhuc manus excelsa. Symbolum non tenuerat aut fortasse tenere recusaverat et se non potuisse excusaverat. Deus viderit. Iam tamen post festa omnia receptionis suae in paralysin solvitur multis ac paene omnibus membris, tunc somnio admonitus confitens per scripturam ob hoc sibi dictum esse accidisse, quod symbolum non reddiderit. Post illam confessionem redduntur officia membrorum omnium nisi linguae solius. Se tamen didicisse symbolum ideoque memoria
Letters of St. Augustine
is vouched for by the fact that even before the return of brother Paul it was told me by Count Peregrinus,a an admirable man and a thorough Christian, who received baptism at the same time as they did)—the story goes then that the old man finally turned to implore the pity of Christ and bound himself by a vow to become a Christian, if he saw her out of danger. That prayer was granted, but in spite of that he neglected to fulfil his vow. But his hand was still high.b For suddenly he is smitten with blindness and it immediately occurred to him why that had happened. He cried out, confessing his fault, and made another vow that, if he received back his sight, he would fulfil his earlier vow. He received it back, he fulfilled his vow. And still his hand was high.b He had not memorizedc the Creed, or perhaps had refused to memorize it, and had offered the excuse that he could not. Let God be judge. But just after the completion of the ceremony of his admission, he fell into a paralytic seizure affecting many, if not all, of his members. Then, being warned in a dream, he confessed in writing that he had been told this had befallen him for the reason that he had failed to repeat the Creed. After that confession the use of all his limbs was restored to him, saving only his tongue. Yet he confessed on paper that in spite of that
- aApparently mentioned only here.
- bThis is a Biblical phrase, occurring in Exod. xiv. 8, Num. xxxiii. 3, and Deut. xxxii. 27, where it seems to imply “with unbroken pride,” or the like. Similar is Job xxxviii. 15 “auferetur ab impiis lux sua, et brachium excelsum confringetur.”
- cTeneo, thus used, is found in Plautus, Virgil (Ecl. ix. 45 “numeros memini, si verba tenerem”), Martial (iv. 37 “teneo melius ista, quam meum nomen”), and others, though Cicero always uses memoria tenere. Augustine uses it both with memoria, and without (In Ioan. Ev. 69. 4 “si tenueritis quod audistis”; Quant. An. 7. 12 “nosse hoc plane ac tenere volumus”). Candidates for baptism were expected to memorize the Creed, which it was forbidden to write down (Retr. i. 17 speaking of his book De Fide et Symbolo, which he wrote without putting the Creed in writing, “ut tamen non fiat verborum illa contextio quae tenenda memoriter competentibus traditur”; Serm. 212. 2 “nec ut eadem verba Symboli teneatis, ullo modo debetis scribere, sed audiendo perdiscere; nec . . . scribere, sed memoriter semper tenere”; Serm. 58. 1 “quicumque vestrum non bene reddiderunt, habent spatium, teneant; quia die sabbati audientibus omnibus qui aderunt reddituri estis, die sabbati novissimo, quo die baptizandi estis”).