---
title: "Letters · Epistulae"
author: "Augustine"
translator: "James Houston Baxter"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 4 of 62
url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/4/
cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 4. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/4/"
---

# 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.

## 4. Letter 4

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/4/#p-N

[¶0] 1. Does this letter not show that, if we are short of papyrus, we have at least abundance of parchment? The ivory tablets I possess I have sent to your uncle with a letter; you will the more easily forgive this bit of skin, since my message to him could not be postponed, and I considered it very impolite not to write to you. If you have any tablets of mine beside you, please send them back for such emergencies as this. I have written something, as far as the Lord has deigned to grant me, on the Catholic Religion a: I want to send it to you before I come, if meanwhile paper does not fail me. for you will tolerate any kind of writing from the workshop of Majorinus. b Of the manuscripts everything has disappeared except the books On the Orator, c but I could not do any more in m v reply than tell you to take those you wanted, and I am still of the same mind. I don't know what more I can do in my absence.

> Latin: 1. Non haec epistula sic inopiam chartae indicat, ut membranas saltem abundare testetur? Tabellas eburneas, quas habeo, avunculo tuo cum litteris misi. Tu enim huic pelliculae facilius ignosces, quia differri non potuit, quod ei scripsi, et tibi non scribere etiam ineptissimum existimavi. Sed tabellas, si quae ibi nostrae sunt, propter huius modi necessitates mittas peto. Scripsi quiddam de catholica religione, quantum dominus dare dignatus est, quod tibi volo ante adventum meum mittere, si charta interim non desit. Tolerabis enim qualemcumque scripturam ex officina Maiorini. De codicibus praeter libros de Oratore totum mihi excidit. Sed nihil amplius rescribere potui, quam ut ipse sumeres, quos liberet, et nunc in eadem maneo sententia. Absens enim quid plus faciam, non invenio.

[¶1] 2. It gave me very great pleasure that in your last letter you wanted to give me a share in your personal happiness, but bid'st thou me Ignore the portent of the sea's still face And slumbering waves? d Yet you don't bid me, nor do you ignore it. So. if you do obtain some quietness for deeper reflection, avail yourself of what is a heavenly boon. For when such good fortune befalls us, we should not congratulate ourselves, but those through whom it has befallen us. If men discharge their temporal duties in a manner that is just and scrupulous and, considering their nature, more than ordinarily serene and composed, they grow more worthy of having eternal things committed to them, provided always that such temporal duties, when laid hold of, do not lay hold of them, do not enfold as they grow manifold, do not enmesh when they are pruned. e It has been said by the mouth of Truth Himself: If ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who shall give you that which is your own? a Let us then relax our anxiety for transitory things and seek goods that are abiding and sure. Let us soar above our earthly possessions, for even when honey is abundant, the bee has not its wings for nothing: for if it stick in the honey, it dies.

> Latin: 2. Gratissimum mihi est. quod in ultima epistula me participem domestici tui gaudii facere voluisti. Sed mene salis placidi vultum fluctusque quietos ignorare iubes? quamquam nec me iubeas nec ipse ignores. Quare si ad melius cogitandum quies aliqua data est, utere divino beneficio. Nec enim nobis debemus, cum ista proveniunt, sed illis, per quos proveniunt, gratulari, quoniam iusta et officiosa et pro suo genere pacatior atque tranquillior rerum temporalium administrata recipiendorum aeternorum meritum gignit, si non teneat, cum tenetur, non implicet, cum multiplicatur, si non, cum... putatur, involvat. Ipsius enim veritatis ore dictum est: Si in alieno fideles non fuistis, vestrum quis dabit vobis? Laxatis ergo curis mutabilium rerum bona stabilia et certa quaeramus, supervolemus terrenis opibus nostris. Nam et in mellis copia non frustra pennas habet apicula; necat enim haerentem.