---
title: "Letters · Epistulae"
author: "Augustine"
translator: "James Houston Baxter"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 23 of 62
url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/23/
cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 23. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/23/"
---

# 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.

## 23. Letter 23

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/23/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/23/#p-N

[¶0] 1. The purity of your administration and your virtuous reputation, as well as the praiseworthy zeal and genuine sincerity of your Christian devotion—gifts of God that you rejoice to have bestowed upon you by Him whose promise makes you hope for still better things—have stimulated me to share with your Excellency by means of this epistolary converse the anxieties arising from my controversies. For in proportion as we have been gladdened by the surprising success of your measures in favour of catholic unity throughout the other parts of Africa, so do we regret, my distinguished lord and son truly and deservedly honoured and cherished in Christ's love, that the district of Hippo Regius and the territories adjoining it on the borders of Numidia have not yet been honoured with the vigorous support of your edict as governor. I have thought it better to mention this fact to your Excellency, so that it may not be attributed rather to negligence on my part, since I bear the burden of episcopal office at Hippo. If you condescend to ascertain from my brethren and colleagues, who are in a position to recount the facts to your Highness, or from the priest whom I am sending with this letter, how far the heretics have had the boldness and effrontery to go in this same region of Hippo. I am confident you will, with the help of the Lord our God, take steps to have this puffed-up irreverence and conceit healed by methods tending to discourage it rather than cut away by measures that are purely retaliatory.

> Latin: 1. Administrationis tuae castitas et fama virtutum, pietatis quoque Christianae laudanda diligentia et fida sinceritas, quae tibi divina munera eo donante gaudes tributa a quo speras promittente potiora, excitaverunt me ut hoc epistulari alloquio aestus causarum mearum excellentia participaret tua. Quantum enim per alias Africae terras te unitati catholicae mirabili efficacia consuluisse gaudemus, tantum dole-mus regionem Hipponiensium-Regiorum et ei vicinas partes confines Numidiae praesidali edicti tui vigore nondum adiuvari meruisse, domine eximie et in Christi caritate vere meritoque honorabilis ac suspiciende fili. Quod ne meae potius neglegentiae deputetur, qui episcopalem sarcinam Hippone sustineo, tuae magnificentiae non tacendum putavi. Quantum etiam in campo Hipponiensi haeretica praesumat audacia, si ex fratribus et collegis meis qui haec tuae sublimitati narrare potuerint, vel ex presbytero quem cum litteris misi, fueris audire dignatus, adiuvante domino deo nostro procul dubio providebis, ut tumor sacrilegae vanitatis terrendo sanetur potius quam ulciscendo resecetur.