---
title: "Letters · Epistulae"
author: "Augustine"
translator: "James Houston Baxter"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 3 of 62
url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/3/
cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 3. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/3/"
---

# 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.

## 3. Letter 3

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/3/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Never has any of your problems kept me so troubled in mind as the remark you made in your last letter, reproaching me for failing to plan how we may live together. A serious charge, and were it not untrue, very threatening to our friendship. But since quite satisfactory reasons seem to show that we can lead our ideal life here better than at Carthage or in the country, I am altogether in doubt how I should deal with you, Nebridius. Am I to send you our most suitable conveyance? Our friend Lucinianus tells me that you can now ride in a sedan chair without any harm. But then your mother comes to my mind: if she cannot endure your absence when you are well, she will endure it much less when you are ill. Am I to come to you myself? But there are people here who cannot come with me and whom I think it criminal to leave behind. For you can be happily at home with your own mind, while these others are only striving towards that attainment. Am I to make frequent journeys back and forward, living with you part of the time and the other part with them? But that is neither living together nor living the ideal life. The journey is not short, sufficiently long, in fact, that the effort to perform it often would prevent our having the leisure we long for. In addition, there is my physical weakness; because of it. as you know, I am not able to do what I wish, unless I altogether give up wishing to do anything that I am not strong enough for.

> Latin: 1. Numquam aeque quicquam tuarum inquisitionum me in cogitando tenuit aestuantem atque illud, quod recentissimis tuis litteris legi, ubi nos arguis quod consulere neglegamus, ut una nobis vivere liceat. Magnum crimen et, nisi falsum esset, periculosis-simum. Sed cum perprobabilis ratio demonstrare videatur hic nos potius quam Carthagini vel etiam in rure ex sententia posse degere, quid tecum agam. mi Nebridi, prorsus incertus sum. Mittaturne ad te accommodissimum tibi vehiculum? Nam basterna innoxie te vehi posse noster Lucinianus auctor est. At matrem cogito, ut quae absentiam sani non ferebat, inbecilli multo minus esse laturam. Veniamne ipse ad vos? At hic sunt, qui neque venire mecum queant et quos deserere nefas putem. Tu enim potes et apud tuam mentem suaviter habitare; hi vero ut idem possint, satagitur. Eamne crebro et redeam et nunc tecum, nunc cum ipsis sim? At hoc neque simul neque ex sententia vivere est. Non enim brevis est via, sed tanta omnino, cuius peragendae negotium saepe suscipere non sit ad optatum otium pervenisse. Huc accedit infirmitas corporis, qua ego quoque, ut nosti, non valeo, quod volo, nisi omnino desinam quicquam plus velle, quam non valeo.

[¶1] 2. To go through life planning journeys that cannot be undertaken without disturbance and trouble does not become one who is planning for that last journey we call death; with it alone, as you are aware, should our real plans be concerned. It is God's gift to some few men, whom He has appointed to rule over churches, not only to await death manfully but even to desire it eagerly, and to undertake the toil of those other journeys without any vexation. But in my opinion neither those who are impelled to such administrative tasks by love of worldly position, nor those who, though occupying no public post, hunger for a life of affairs, have been granted the great boon of acquiring amid their clamour and their restless running hither and thither that familiarity with death that we are seeking; both classes might have become godly in retirement. If this be untrue, then I am of all men, I won't say the most foolish, but certainly the most slothful, for I cannot relish and enjoy that real boon, unless I obtain release from work and worry. Complete withdrawal from the turmoil of transitory things is, believe me, essential before a man can develop that fearlessness in the face of death which is based neither on insensibility nor on foolhardy presumption, neither on the desire for empty glory nor on superstitions credulity. It is that which is the origin of that solid joy with which no pleasure from any transitory source is in any way to be compared.

> Latin: 2. Profectiones ergo, quas quietas et faciles habere nequeas, per totam cogitare vitam non est hominis de illa una ultima, quae mors vocatur, cogitantis, de qua vel sola intellegis vere esse cogitandum. Dedit quidem deus paucis quibusdam, quos ecclesiarum gubernatores esse voluit, ut et illam non solum expectarent fortiter, sed alacriter etiam desiderarent et harum obeundarum labores sine ullo angore susciperent; sed neque his, qui ad huius modi administrationes temporalis honoris amore raptantur, neque rursum his, qui cum sunt privati, negotiosam vitam appetunt, hoc tantum bonum concedi arbitror, ut inter strepitus inquietosque conventus atque discursus cum morte familiaritatem, quam quaerimus, faciant; deificari enim utrisque in otio licebat. Aut si hoc falsum est, ego sum omnium ne dicam stultissimus, certe ignavissimus, cui nisi proveniat quaedam secura cessatio, sincerum illud bonum gustare atque amare non possum. Magna secessione a tumultu rerum labentium, mihi crede, opus est, ut non duritia, non audacia, non cupiditate inanis gloriae, non superstitiosa credulitate fiat in homine nihil timere. Hinc enim fit illud etiam solidum gaudium nullis omnino laetitiis ulla ex particula conferendum.

[¶2] 3. But if human nature does not admit of such a life, why does that calmness of spirit ever befall us? Why does it befall us more frequently in proportion as each man worships God in the secret places of his mind? Why even amid ordinary mortal concerns does that peace, as a rule, linger on, when one goes forth from that inner shrine to do his part? Why is it that sometimes, even in conversation, death has no terrors for us, and, when conversation is stilled, it even allures us? I say to you (and I would not say it to everyone)—I say to you, knowing well, as I do, your journeyings to the upper world, will you, after frequent experience of the sweet life the soul lives when it dies to bodily affections, deny that a man's whole life can at length become so exempt from fear that he may rightly be called wise? Or will you venture to maintain that that state of mind, towards which reason strives, has ever befallen you, save when you were communing with your own heart? This being so, you see this one thing only remains for you—to consider for our mutual advantage how we may live together. You know much better than I do what is to be done with your mother; in any case your brother Victor is not leaving her. I write no more, for fear of diverting you from consideration of that problem.

> Latin: 3. Quod si in natura humana talis vita non cadit, cur aliquando evenit ista securitas? Cur tanto evenit crebrius, quanto quisque in mentis penetralibus adorat deum? Cur in actu etiam humano plerumque ista tranquillitas manet, si ex illo adyto ad agendum quisque procedat? Cur interdum et cum loquimur, mortem non formidamus, cum autem non loquimur, etiam cupimus? Tibi dico, non enim hoc cuilibet dicerem, tibi, inquam, dico, cuius itinera in superna bene novi, tune, cum expertus saepe sis, quam dulce vivat, cum amori corporeo animus moritur, negabis tandem totam hominis vitam posse intrepidam fieri, ut rite sapiens nominetur? Aut hanc affectionem, ad quam 1 ratio nititur, tibi accidisse umquam, nisi cum in intimis tuis ageres, asserere audebis? Quae cum ita sint, restare unum vides, ut tu quoque in commune consulas, quo vivamus simul. Quid enim cum matre agendum sit, quam certe frater Victor non deserit, tu multo melius calles quam ego. Alia scribere, ne te ab ista cogitatione a verterem, nolui.