1. I should not now write any letter to your holy Charity without sending those books that you demanded from me by the most urgent right of holy affection, that by this act of obedience at least I might make reply to those letters of yours with which you were good enough to burden me rather than to honour me. Yet where I am bent low by the burden, even there I am raised up by your love. For it is no ordinary person that loves me, upraises me and makes me feel a picked man, but he can do so, that priest of the Lord, whom I feel to be so acceptable to God that when you lift up your good soul to the Lord, you lift me up too, since you hold me in it. I should then be now sending the books I had promised to revise, but I am not sending them for the reason that I have not revised them; not because I did not want to, but because I had no chance to do so, being engrossed in a multitude of very cogent duties. But it would have been excessively ungrateful and hard-hearted to allow this holy brother and colleague of mine, Possidius, a in whom you will find no small traces of me, either to miss making your acquaintance, since you are so dear a friend of mine, or to make it without a letter from me. For by my efforts he has been brought up not on those studies which men who are enslaved to every kind of lust call liberal, but on the bread of the Lord, in so far as it could be supplied to him from my meagre store.
1. Nullas debui iam reddere litteras sanctae caritati tuae sine his libris quos a me sancti amoris iure violentissimo flagitasti, ut hac saltem oboedientia responderent epistulis tuis, quibus me magis onerare quam honorare dignatus es. Quamquam ubi succumbo quia oneror, ibi etiam, quia diligor, sublevor. Neque enim a quolibet diligor, sublevor, eligor, sed ab eo viro et domini sacerdote, quem sic acceptum deo sentio, ut, cum animam tuam tam bonam levas ad dominum, quoniam in illa me habes, leves et me. Debui ergo nunc libros mittere, quos emendaturum me esse promiseram et ideo non misi quia non emendavi, non quia nolui, sed quia non potui, curis videlicet multis et multum praevalentibus occupatus. Nimis autem ingratum ac ferreum fuit, ut te, qui nos sic amas, hic sanctus frater et collega noster Possidius, in quo nostram non parvam praesentiam reperies, vel non disceret vel sine nostris litteris disceret. Est enim per nostrum ministerium non litteris illis quas variarum servi libidinum liberales vocant, sed dominico pane nutritus, quantus ei potuit per nostras angustias dispensari.
2. For what else can we say to those who, although wicked and ungodly, believe themselves to be men of a liberal education, except what we read in the book that is truly liberal: “If the Son has made you free, then shall ye be free indeed " b? For it is by His gift that whatever even those disciplines that are termed liberal by men who have not been called unto liberty, contain that is liberal, can be known at all. For they contain nothing consonant with liberty, unless what they contain consonant with truth. That is why the Son Himself says, ‘And the truth shall make you free.’c Those innumerable ungodly tales with which the verses of empty poets abound are in no wise consonant with the liberty that is ours, nor are the pompous, finely-turned falsehoods of the orators, nor even the long-winded subtleties of the philosophers themselves, who were either completely without knowledge of God or else, ‘when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things,’ a or who, though not given, or not excessively given, to such images, yet ‘worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.’ b Far be it, therefore, from us rightly to give the name of liberal studies to the lying conceits and follies, the empty trifles and complacent misrepresentations of those unhappy men who did not recognize the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by which alone we are delivered from the body of this death.” c even in those things which they felt to be true. Their historical works, whose writers claim to be especially reliable in their narratives, contain something perhaps that may fitly be learned by the free, since what they narrate, whether the fortunes or the misfortunes of mankind, is at any rate true. And yet, I completely fail to see how men who were without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and were compelled by the very nature of human infirmity to gather mere rumours together, were not in their search for facts mistaken in most of them. Yet in such writings there is an approximation to liberty, provided that the writers have no intention of deceiving and do not mislead men, except in so far as they themselves, through human infirmity, are misled by their informants.
2. Quid enim aliud dicendum est eis, qui cum sint iniqui et impii, liberaliter sibi videntur eruditi, nisi quod in litteris vere liberalibus legimus: Si vos filius liberaverit, tunc vere liberi eritis? Per eum namque praestatur, ut ipsae etiam quae liberales disciplinae ab eis qui in libertatem vocati non sunt, appellantur, quid in se habeant liberale noscatur. Neque enim habent congruum libertati, nisi quod habent congruum veritati. Unde ille ipse filius: Et veritas, inquit, liberabit vos. Non ergo illae innumerabiles et impiae fabulae, quibus vanorum plena sunt carmina poetarum, ullo modo nostrae consonant libertati, non oratorum inflata et expolita mendacia, non denique ipsorum philosophorum garrulae argutiae, qui vel deum prorsus non cognoverunt vel, cum cognovissent deum, non sicut deum glorificaverunt aut gratias egerunt, sed evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis et obscuratum est insipiens cor eorum et dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt et inmutaverunt gloriam incorrupti dei in similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis et volucrum et quadrupedum et serpentium vel qui istis simulacris non dediti aut non nimis dediti coluerunt tamen et servierunt creaturae potius quam creatori. Absit omnino ut istorum vanitates et insaniae mendaces, ventosae nugae ac superbus error recte liberales litterae nominentur hominum scilicet in-felicium, qui dei gratiam per Iesum Christum dominum nostrum, qua sola liberamur de corpore mortis huius, non cognoverunt nec in eis ipsis quae vera senserunt. Historia sane, cuius scriptores fidem se praecipue narrationibus suis debere profitentur, fortassis habeat aliquid cognitione dignum liberis, cum sive bona sive mala hominum tamen vera narrantur. Quamvis in eis cognoscendis, qui sancto spiritu non adiuti sunt rumoresque colligere ipsa humanae infirmitatis condicione compulsi sunt, quem ad modum non fallerentur in plurimis, omnino non video. Est tamen aliqua in eis propinquitas libertatis, si voluntatem mentiendi non habent nec homines fallunt, nisi cum ab hominibus humana infirmitate falluntur.
3. Now, since the power of rhythm in every kind of movement is most easily studied in sounds, and since the study of those leads upwards to the highest secrets of truth by a kind of gradual ascent in following which Wisdom pleasantly reveals herself and in every act of providence a meets those who love her, I intended at the beginning of my retirement, when my mind was free from greater and more necessary tasks, to make those books you asked from me a preliminary trial of strength. I then wrote six books exclusively on rhythm, b and proposed, I confess, to write others, six perhaps, on music, as I was expecting to have leisure before me. But after the burden of ecclesiastical concerns was laid upon me, all those trifles vanished from my hands so completely that now, when I cannot but respect your desire, which is more a command than a request, I can hardly find my own manuscript copy. But if I actually am able to send the treatise to you, the regret will not be mine for submitting to your pressure, but yours for so eagerly demanding it from me. For five books of it are very difficult to follow, unless you have beside you someone who can not only distinguish the parts of the interlocutors, but also give by his enunciation the proper quantity to the syllables uttered, so that in them the character of the metre is expressed and strikes the sensitive ear, especially as some of the feet contain, besides, pauses of fixed length, which cannot be sensed at all, unless the reader gives the hearer an idea of them by his method of enunciation.
3. Verum quia in omnibus rerum motibus, quid numeri valeant, facilius consideratur in vocibus eaque considerabo quibusdam quasi gradatis itineribus nititur ad superna intima veritatis, in quibus viis ostendit se sapientia hilariter et in omni providentia occurrit amantibus, initio nostri otii, cum a curis maioribus magisque necessariis vacabat animus, volui per ista quae a nobis desiderasti scripta proludere, quando conscripsi de solo rhythmo sex libros et de melo scribere alios forsitan sex, fateor, disponebam, cum mihi otium futurum sperabam. Sed postea quam mihi curarum ecclesiasticarum sarcina inposita est, omnes illae deliciae fugere de manibus, ita ut vix nunc ipsum codicem inveniam, quoniam tuam voluntatem nec petitionem sed iussionem contemnere nequeo. Quod sane opusculum si potuero mittere, non quidem me tibi obtemperasse, verum tamen te hoc a me tanto opere flagitasse, paenitebit. Difficillime quippe intelleguntur in eo quinque libri, si non adsit qui non solum disputantium possit separare personas, verum etiam pronuntiando ita sonare morulas syllabarum, ut eis exprimantur sensumque aurium feriant genera numerorum, maxime quia in quibusdam etiam silentiorum dimensa intervalla miscentur quae omnino sentiri nequeunt, nisi auditorem pronuntiator informet.
4. But the sixth book, which I have found in a revised condition, contains the whole harvest of the others, and I am sending it to your Charity at once; it perhaps will not so markedly shrink from the attentions of one of your sober-mindedness. For the earlier five will hardly appear to our son and fellow-deacon, Julian, to be worth reading or knowing, since he too is now engaged in the same warfare as ourselves. Of him I dare not say that he is dearer to me than you are, for it would not be true to say that, but still I do dare to say that I long for him more than I do for you. It may seem strange how I long for him more, for I love you both equally: but this is the result of the greater hope I have of seeing him, for I think that if you were to send him or bid him come to me, he would both be doing what a young man should do, especially when he is not yet hindered by heavier responsibilities, and he would the more speedily bring you yourself to me. I have not mentioned the nature of the verse in which the Psalms of David are composed, because I do not know, for the translator from the Hebrew tongue, which is unknown to me, could not reproduce the verse, for fear of being compelled by the needs of metre to depart from accuracy in his translation farther than was consistent with the meaning. But that they are composed in a definite metre I believe on the authority of those who have a thorough knowledge of that language; for that holy man loved sacred music, and he more than any other writer kindled in me a zeal for its study. May you all “dwell” for evermore “in the secret place a of the Most High,” you who “in one house dwell together in oneness of heart,” b father and mother, of the same brotherhood as your children, and all of you children of one Father. Remember us.
4. Sextum sane librum, quem emendatum repperi, ubi est omnis fructus ceterorum, non distuli mittere caritati tuae; fortassis ipse tuam non multum refugiat gravitatem. Nam superiores quinque vix filio nostro et condiacono Iuliano, quoniam et ipse iam nobiscum commilitat, digni lectione vel cognitione videbuntur. Quem quidem non audeo dicere plus amo quam te, quia nec veraciter dico, sed tamen audeo dicere plus desidero quam te. Mirum videri potest, quem ad modum quem pariter amo, amplius desiderem; sed hoc mihi facit spes amplior videndi eum; puto enim quod si ad nos te iubente vel mittente venerit, et hoc faciet quod adulescentem decet, maxime quia nondum curis maioribus detinetur, et te ipsum mihi expeditius adportabit. Quibus numeris consistant versus Davidici, non scripsi, quia nescio. Neque enim ex Hebraea lingua, quam ignoro, potuit etiam numeros interpres exprimere, ne metri necessitate ab interpretandi veritate amplius quam ratio sententiarum sinebat, digredi cogeretur. Certis tamen eos constare numeris credo illis qui eam linguam probe callent. Amavit enim vir ille sanctus musicam piam et in ea studia nos magis ipse quam ullus alius auctor accendit. Habitetis omnes in aeternum in adiutorio altissimi, qui habitatis unanimes in domo, pater materque fratres filiorum et cuncti unius patris filii memores nostri.