--- title: "Letters · Epistulae" author: "Augustine" translator: "James Houston Baxter" languages: [la, en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 56 of 62 url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/56/ cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 56. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/56/" --- # 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. ## 56. Letter 56 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/56/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/56/#p-N [¶0] 1. What you are to do with those who refuse to comply requires more consideration than how you can show them that what they are doing is unlawful. But at present the letter of your Holiness has found me extremely busy and at the same time the bearer's great haste to return has not allowed me either to make no reply to you or to give an adequate answer to the problems on which you asked my advice. Still, I should not like you to make any over-hasty decision about the forbidding of ornaments of gold or finery, except that those who are neither married nor desirous of being married ought to be thinking how they may please God. For that class of people think of worldly things, how they may, if they are husbands, please their wives, or if wives, please their husbands b; the one exception is that it is not becoming in women, even in those who are married, to uncover their hair, since the apostle bids them cover the whole head. c But as for painting the face d so that it may appear ruddier or fairer, this is immoral deceit. I am quite sure that even their own husbands do not want to be so taken in, and they are the only people for whom women should be allowed to adorn themselves, and that as a concession, not as a command. For not only is lying paint no real adornment of Christian men and women, nor yet is the ostentation of gold and finery; but a good character is. > Latin: 1. Magis quid agas cum eis qui obtemperare nolunt, cogitandum est, quam quem ad modum eis ostendas non licere quod faciunt. Sed nunc epistula sanctitatis tuae et occupatissimum me repperit et celerrimus baiuli reditus neque non rescribere tibi neque ad ea quae consuluisti, ita ut oportet, respondere permisit. Nolo tamen de ornamentis auri vel vestis praeproperam habeas in prohibendo sententiam, nisi eos qui, neque coniugati neque coniugari cupientes, cogitare debent quo modo placeant deo. Illi autem cogitant quae sunt mundi, quo modo placeant vel viri uxoribus vel mulieres maritis, nisi quod capillos nudare feminas, quas etiam caput velare apostolus iubet, nec maritatas decet; fucari autem pigmentis, quo vel rubicundior vel candidior appareat, adulterina fallacia est, qua non dubito etiam ipsos maritos se nolle decipi, quibus solis permittendae sunt feminae ornari secundum veniam, non secundum imperium. Nam verus ornatus maxime Christianorum et Christianarum non tantum nullus fucus mendax verum ne auri quidem vestisque pompa, sed mores boni sunt. [¶1] 2. It is an accursed superstition to wear amulets, a among which must be reckoned also the earrings b that men wear on the top part of the ear on one side; they are employed not to please men, but to do homage to devils. Who could expect to find in the Scriptures individual prohibitions of every kind of ungodly superstition, when the apostle says in general terms, “I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils,”c and again, “For what concord hath Christ with Belial?”, d unless in naming Belial and forbidding in general terms fellowship with devils, he perchance allowed Christians to sacrifice to Neptune, because we do not read that any prohibition was made of Neptune specifically. e Meanwhile, let those unhappy people be warned that if they refuse to comply with these more wholesome counsels, they must at least refrain from defending their acts of irreverence, from fear of involving themselves in greater guilt. Yet what are we to do with them, if they are afraid to put off their earrings and are not afraid to receive the body of Christ while wearing the devil's badge? I cannot accept responsibility for the ordaining of one who was baptized in the Donatist party; it is one thing to do it if you are compelled, and another thing to advise you to do it. > Latin: 2. Execranda autem superstitio ligaturarum, in quibus etiam inaures virorum in summis ex una parte auriculis suspensae deputantur: non ad placendum hominibus sed ad serviendum daemonibus adhibentur. Quis autem possit speciales nefariarum superstitionum prohibitiones in scripturis invenire, cum generaliter apostolus dicat: Nolo vos socios fieri daemoniorum, et iterum: Quae enim consonantia Christi ad Belial? nisi forte, quia Belial nominavit et generalem societatem daemoniorum prohibuit, licet Christianis sacrificare Neptuno, quia nihil proprie de Neptuno vetitum legimus. Moneantur interim miseri, ut, si obtemperare nolunt praeceptis salubrioribus, saltem sacrilegia sua non defendant, ne maiore se scelere implicent. Quid autem cum eis agendum sit, si solvere inaures timent et corpus Christi cum signo diaboli accipere non timent? De ordinando autem, qui in parte Donati baptizatus est, auctor tibi esse non possum; aliud est enim facere, si cogaris, aliud consulere ut facias.