St. Augustine
esses et talia gerenda susciperes. Confirmet deus quod per te operatus est nobis. Accipe hanc salutationem nostram et tuam dignare rependere. Sicut mihi scripsit frater Novatus, egit ut me excellentia et eruditio tua etiam in meis opusculis nosset. Si ergo legisti quae dedit, ego quoque in-notui interioribus tuis sensibus, non multum displicens, quantum existimo, si propensiore caritate quam severitate legisti. Non est multum sed multum gratum, si pro litteris nostris et his et illis unam nobis epistulam reddas. Saluto etiam pignus pacis, quod domino deo nostro adiuvante feliciter accepisti, ea dilectione qua debeo.
1Quod acceperim libenter litteras tuas, mea re-scripta indicio esse voluisti. Ecce rescribo et tamen rescriptis hoc indicare non possum vel istis vel quibuslibet aliis, sive breviter sive prolixissime scribam; neque enim aut paucis aut multis verbis
Letters of St. Augustine
are what you are and that you have undertaken the task it is yours to accomplish. May God “strengthen that which He hath wrought for us through you”a! Accept this my greeting and be good enough to repay it with one from you. As I am informed by the letter of my brother Novatus, he has taken steps to make your learned Excellency acquainted with me also in my writings. If, then, you have read the works he gave you, I too have become known to your more inward perceptions, nor would you, I imagine, find me very unsatisfactory, if your reading has been done with greater inclination to love than to harshness. It is not asking very much, but it will be very much appreciated, if in return for my writings, both this one and those others, you send me a single letter. I greet too with all due affection the pledge of peace,b whom you have been happy enough to receive by the favour of the Lord our God.
You wanted a reply from me as evidence that I 1 have received your letter with joy, so, see, I send you one. And yet in a reply, be it this one or any other, it is impossible for me, whether writing briefly or at great length, to make that evident, for neither a few words nor many can be evidence of
- aPs. lxvii. 29.
- bThis phrase seems to imply that Darius’s son, Verimodus, had been a hostage until the peace with the Vandals was signed. If so (and the words seem to demand this interpretation), there is no other mention of it.
- cIn his reply Darius had expressed his hope that the peace with the Vandals would be permanent and asks Augustine to send for his perusal a copy of the Confessions. He also sent some medicines to help Augustine in his illness, and these are alluded to at the end of the letter.