--- title: "Letters · Epistulae" author: "Augustine" translator: "James Houston Baxter" languages: [la, en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 22 of 62 url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/22/ cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 22. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/22/" --- # Letters · Epistulae *Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter* Augustine’s letters in Latin beside English. > Latin: ed. James Houston Baxter, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, stoa0040.stoa011, CC BY-SA 4.0). > English: James Houston Baxter, from the Perseus Digital Library (stoa0040.stoa011.perseus-eng1). Notes are not included. > Rows follow the references the two texts share (books, chapters and sections), cut where both reach the end of a sentence. ## 22. Letter 22 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/22/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/22/#p-N [¶0] 1. I myself feel how hard-hearted I must appear, and I can scarcely excuse myself for not sending and lending to your Holiness my son the deacon Lucilius, your brother. But when you yourself begin to surrender some of the very dearest and sweetest of those you have nurtured to the needs of churches situated far from you, then you will understand the pangs of regret that stab me at losing the bodily com- panionship of individuals united to me in the closest and most pleasing intimacy. For, to leave the fact of your kinship quite out of account, the blood-bond between you may be as strong as you please, vet it is not superior to the bond of friendship that binds brother Severus and me so closely to each other; and yet you know how seldom I have the happiness of seeing him. And it is not my wish or his that is responsible for this, but the fact that the claims of our mother, the Church, having regard to the world to come, in which we shall live together and never part, are more important than the claims of our own time. Out of consideration, therefore, for the welfare of that same mother, the Church, you ought with all the greater equanimity to endure the absence of the brother with whom you have not been browsing upon the food of the Lord as long as I did with my delightful fellow-townsman. Severus, a who yet holds converse with me now with difficulty and at intervals by means of meagre letters, and those indeed packed, for the most part, with other cares and concerns instead of bringing any evidence of our wanderings in the sweet meadows of Christ. > Latin: 1. Et ego sentio quam durus videar, et me ipse vix fero, quod filium meum diaconum Lucillum germanum tuum sanctitati tuae non mitto atque permitto. Sed cum ipse quoque aliquos ex tuis nutrimentis valde carissimos atque dulcissimos necessitatibus ecclesiarum longe abs te positarum concedere coeperis, tunc senties quibus desideriorum stimulis fodiar, quod quidam mihi maxima et dulcissima familiaritate coniuncti non sunt etiam corporaliter mecum. Nam ut longe mittam cognationem tuam, quantum libet valeat germanitas tui sanguinis, non vincit amicitiae vinculum quo nobis invicem ego et frater Severus inhaeremus; et tamen nosti quam raro mihi eum videre contingat. Atque hoc fecit non utique voluntas vel mea vel illius, sed dum matris ecclesiae necessitates propter futurum saeculum quo nobiscum inseparabiliter convivemus, nostri temporis necessitatibus anteponimus. Quanto ergo aequius te tolerare oportet pro utilitate ipsius matris ecclesiae eius fratris absentiam cum quo non tam diu cibum dominicum ruminas, quam diu ego cum dulcissimo concive meo Severo, qui mecum tamen nunc vix et interdum per exiguas chartulas loquitur et eas quidem plures aliarum curarum et negotiorum refertas quam portantes aliquid nostrorum in Christi suavitate pratorum! [¶1] 2. At this point you may perhaps reply, “What then? Here too, beside me, will my brother not be of service to the Church, or is it for any other reason that I want to have him with me?” Certainly, if his being with you seemed as profitable for the winning and directing of the Lord's flock as it is here to me, there is no one who would not justly blame—I shall not call it my hard-heartedness, but my unfairness. But since he is familiar with a language b the lack of which in our territories greatly hinders the administration of the Gospel, while where you are the same language is in general use, do you think it is our duty so to provide, for the welfare of the Lord's people that we send this ability to you and deprive ourselves of it here, where our need of it is so great and so heart-felt? Forgive me. then, for doing, not only in spite of your desire but also in spite of my own feelings, what my zeal for the office with which I am burdened compels me to do. The Lord, upon whom you have staved your heart, will make your labours such that you will be rewarded for this kind service; for it is kind of you to surrender the deacon Lucilius to the thirsty eagerness of our territories rather than claim him for yourself. And it will be no small favour if you will refrain from laying upon me any request concerning this matter in the future, so that I may not appear to your revered and holy Benevolence to be only too hard-hearted. > Latin: 2. Hic forsitan dicas: “Quid enim? Et apud nos germanus meus ecclesiae non erit utilis aut propter aliud eum mecum habere desidero?” Plane si tantum ibi, quantum hic mihi eius praesentia lucrandis vel regendis ovibus domini utilis videretur, non dico duritiam sed iniquitatem meam nemo non iure culparet. Sed cum Latina lingua, cuius inopia in nostris regionibus evangelica dispensatio multum laborat, illic autem eiusdem linguae usus omnino sit,—itane censes nos saluti plebium domini oportere consulere, ut hanc facultatem illuc mittamus et hinc auferamus, ubi eam magno cordis aestu requirimus? Da itaque veniam quod non solum contra tuum desiderium, sed etiam contra sensum meum, facio quod me facere sarcinae nostrae cura constringit. Dabit tibi dominus in quo posuisti cor tuum, ut tales sint labores tui, ut pro isto beneficio remunereris; sic enim regionum nostrarum ardentissimae siti diaconum Lucillum tu potius concessisti; neque enim parum praestabis, cum de hac re nulla petitione me ulterius onerabis, ne nihil aliud quam durior appaream venerabili mihi et sanctae benivolentiae tuae.