---
title: "Letters · Epistulae"
author: "Augustine"
translator: "James Houston Baxter"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 57 of 62
url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/57/
cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 57. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/57/"
---

# 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.

## 57. Letter 57

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/57/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/57/#p-N

[¶0] 1. On the problem of Fate and Chance, which is seriously perturbing your mind, as I noticed when I was with you and am now assured in a more gratifying and definite manner by your letter, I ought to reply to you at considerable length; the Lord will enable me to furnish you with such an explanation as He knows will be best suited for you and for your spiritual welfare. For it is no slight evil that perverted opinions not only induce men by the allurement of pleasure to commit sin, but lead them away from the remedy of confession to a defence of their sin.

> Latin: 1. De quaestione fati ae fortunae, qua tuum animum non leviter moveri et, eum praesens essem, adverti et nunc tuis litteris gratius certiusque cognovi, rescriptum tibi non parvi voluminis debeo, quod dominus praestabit ut ita explicem, quem ad modum novit tibi congruere ae saluti fidei tuae. Non enim parvum malum est perversis opinionibus non solum ad committendum blandimento voluptatis adduci, sed etiam ad defendendum peccatum a medicamento confessionis averti.

[¶1] 2. Let me, however, at once and in a word assure you of this, that all legislation and all rules, all repressions, all commendations, censures, exhortations, menaces, rewards, punishments, and all other things by which the human race is controlled and governed, are utterly overthrown and subverted and left devoid of any particle of justice, if the cause of sinning is not the will. How much more legitimate and right, therefore, is it for us to reject the errors of the astrologers, a than to be forced to condemn and repudiate the divine laws or even the supervision of our own households. The astrologers themselves do not do so, for when one of them has sold his silly horoscopes to wealthy persons and turns his eyes away from the ivory tablets to the management and supervision of his own household, he immediately reproves his wife, not with objurgations only but even with blows, if he finds her not to say engaged in fro ward dalliance, but even looking too much out of the window. Yet if she were to say to him: “Why do you beat me? Beat Venus, if you can, for it is the influence of her planet that makes me do this,” his concern then is not what empty jargon he can concoct for the deception of strangers, but what just lashes he can inflict for the correction of his own household. b When a man, then, upon receiving censure, throws the responsibility on Fate and therefore declines to accept the blame on the ground that it was under the compulsion of Fate that he did the action which is condemned, let him come to himself again and observe this same principle in dealing with those attached to him; let him refrain from chastising a servant who steals; let him utter no complaint of an abusive son and no threats to an offensive neighbour.

> Latin: 2. Illud sane quanto citius ae breviter noveris, omnes leges atque instituta omnia, disciplinae, laudes, vituperationes, exhortationes, terrores, praemia, sup- plicia, ceteraque omnia quibus humanum genus administratur et regitur, penitus labefactari atque subverti nihilque in eis omnino iustitiae remanere, nisi voluntas sit causa peccandi. Quanto ergo licentius et aequius matbematicorum inprobamus errores, quam divinas leges vel etiam domorum nostrarum curam damnare atque abicere cogimur, quod nec ipsi mathematici faciunt! Nam cum aliquis eorum hominibus nummatis fatua fata vendiderit, mox ut oculum a tabellis eburneis ad domus suae moderamen ac sollicitudinem revocaverit, non solum vocibus sed etiam plagis emendat uxorem, non dico si petulantius iocantem, sed si inmoderatius per fenestram aspicientem animadverterit. Quae tamen si ei dicat: “Quid me caedis? Venerem caede, si potes, a qua cogor hoc facere,” tunc vero ille non curat, quam vana verba componat fallendis extraneis, sed quam iusta verbera inponat corrigendis suis.

[¶2] 3. Would he be acting justly in doing any of these things, if all those who do him some injury are driven to perform such actions, not by any fault of their own, but by Fate? If, however, from his personal rights and his responsibility as the head of a household, he exhorts to good those persons who for the time being are under his authority, deters them from doing evil and commands them to carry out his will, honours those who obey his nod, punishes those who set him at naught, renders thanks to the obliging, and hates those who are ill-disposed—shall I expect him to argue against Fate, when I find him proclaiming, not in words but in deeds, such convictions as to make him almost appear to be breaking with his own hands all the tables of the astrologers over their own heads? So then, if these few remarks do not appease your thirst for information and you desire on this subject a book that will take a longer time to read, you must await with patience until I have a free interval, and ask God to be pleased to grant me both the leisure and the ability to satisfy your mind on this question. Yet my eagerness will be increased, if your charity does not grudge to write often and remind me, and also to reply informing me what you think about this letter.

> Latin: 3. Quando ergo quisque, cum reprehendi coeperit, causam convertit in fatum et ideo se culpari non vult, quia fato se dicit coactum fecisse id quod arguitur, redeat ad se ipsum, servet hoc in suis, non castiget servum furem, non de contumelioso filio conqueratur, vicino inprobo non minetur. Quid enim horum faciens iuste facit, si omnes a quibus iniurias patitur, non culpa sua sed fato inpelluntur ut faciant? Si autem iure proprio et patris familias diligentia, quoscumque homines pro tempore in potestate habet, hortatur ad bonum, deferret a malo, imperat suae voluntati ut obtemperent, honorat eos qui sibi ad nutum oboediunt, vindicat in eos qui se contemnunt, rependit gratiam beneficis, odit ingratos, egone expectabo ut contra fatum disputet, cum tanta eum non verbis sed factis eloqui deprehendam, ut prope manibus suis omnes mathematicorum lapillos supra capita eorum frangere videatur? His itaque paucis si aviditas tua contenta non est et librum aliquem de hac re, quem diutius legas, desideras, patienter tibi sunt expectandae vacationes nostrae et rogandus deus, qui et otium et facultatem satiando de hac re animo tuo tribuere dignetur. Ero tamen alacrior, si et saepe commemorare me litteris tuam non piguerit caritatem, et quid de hac epistula sentias, rescribendo edocueris.