--- title: "Letters · Epistulae" author: "Augustine" translator: "James Houston Baxter" languages: [la, en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 59 of 62 url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/59/ cite: "Augustine, tr. James Houston Baxter, Letters · Epistulae, section 59. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/59/" --- # 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. ## 59. Letter 59 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/59/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-letters/59/#p-N [¶0] 1. I have torn myself away from my many preoccupations (or rather have slipped away and, so to speak, stolen myself away from them) in order to write to you, my oldest friend; and yet I did not really have you as a friend until I clove to you in Christ. You know, to be sure, the definition of friendship given by “Tully, the greatest master of the Roman tongue,” as he has been called a; he said, and said very truly, “Friendship is agreement, with kindliness and affection, on things human and divine.” b At one time, my dear friend, you were in agreement with me about things human, when it was my wish to enjoy them as the common people do, and by your encouragement you stretched my sails to the eager pursuit of things whereof I am now ashamed—or rather, along with the rest of my admirers of that time (and you were among the chief of them) you filled the sails of my ambitions with the breeze of praise. On the other hand, our friendship was defective on the side of things divine, of which at that period no gleam of truth had come to me, though they form the more important half of that definition; it included only the human things, not those as well that are divine, although it was “agreement with kindliness and affection.” > Latin: 1. Abripui vel potius subripui et quodam modo furatus sum memet ipsum multis occupationibus meis, ut tibi scriberem antiquissimo amico, quem tamen non habebam, quam diu in Christo non tenebam. Nosti quippe ut definierit amicitiam “Romani,” ut ait quidam, “maximus auctor Tullius eloquii.” Dixit enim et verissime dixit: “Amicitia est rerum humanarum et divinarum cum benivolentia et caritate consensio.” Tu autem, mi carissime, aliquando mihi consentiebas in rebus humanis, cum eis more vulgi frui cuperem, et mihi ad ea capessenda, quorum me paenitet, favendo velificabas, immo vero vela cupiditatum mearum cum ceteris tunc dilectoribus meis inter praecipuos aura laudis inflabas. Porro in rebus divinis, quarum mihi illo tempore nulla duxerat veritas, utique in maiore illius definitionis parte, nostra amicitia claudicabat; erat enim rerum tantum modo “humanarum ” non etiam “divinarum,” quamvis “cum benivolentia et caritate consensio.” [¶1] 2. And after I abandoned those desires, you with persistent kindliness desired that in earthly welfare I should do well and be successful with that material prosperity which the world is wont to wish for one, and so, because of this, you still to some extent shared with me this kindly and affectionate agreement on things human. So, now, how can I explain in words the joy I have of you, when he who was so long my friend in some kind of way, is at last my friend in a genuine way? For there has been added the agreement in things divine as well, since you, who formerly spent this temporal life with me in the most charming kindness, have now begun to be with me in the hope of life eternal. Now, indeed, even on things human there is no disagreement between us, for we weigh them in the knowledge of things divine, so as not to concede to them more than their measure most justly demands, nor yet to slight their Creator, the Lord of things heavenly and earthly, by throwing them away with undeserved contempt. It is on these grounds that those friends who are not in agreement about things divine cannot be in complete and genuine agreement about things human either; for of necessity one who has a contempt for things divine must hold a different opinion from what he should hold about things human, and anyone who does not love Him Who made man has not learned to love man aright. Hence I do not say that now you are more completely my friend, instead of being, as you were before, only partially so; but, as far as reason can show, you were not even partially so before, since the friendship you cherished with me then was not even genuine in things human: for, assuredly, you were not yet my comrade in those things divine by which the human things are rightly weighed. Partly it was that at that time I had no interest in them myself, partly that after I began to have a taste (however slight) for them, you still entertained for them a strong aversion. > Latin: 2. Et posteaquam illa cupere destiti, tu quidem perseverante benivolentia salvum me esse cupiebas salute mortali et ea rerum prosperitate felicem, quam mundus optare consuevit. Et iam sic itaque aliquantum tibi erat mecum rerum humanarum benivola et cara consensio. Nunc ergo quantum de te gaudeo, quibus explicem verbis, quando eum quem quoquo modo habui diu amicum, habeo iam verum amicum? Accessit enim rerum etiam consensio divinarum, quoniam, qui mecum temporalem vitam quondam iucundissima benignitate duxisti, nunc in spe vitae aeternae mecum esse coepisti. Modo vero etiam de rebus humanis inter nos nulla dissensio est, qui eas rerum divinarum cognitione pensamus, ne plus eis tribuamus quam modus earum iustissime postulat, nec eas iniquo contemptu abiciendo creatori earum domino rerum caelestium atque terrestrium faciamus iniuriam. Ita fit, ut inter quos amicos non est rerum consensio divinarum, nec humanarum esse plena possit ac vera. Necesse est enim, ut aliter quam oportet humana aestimet, qui divina contemnit, nec hominem recte diligere noverit, quisquis eum non diligit qui hominem fecit. Proinde non dico: “Nunc mihi plenius amicus es, qui eras ex parte,” sed, quantum ratio indicat, nec ex parte eras, quando nec in rebus humanis mecum amicitiam veram tenebas. Rerum quippe divinarum. ex quibus recte humana pensantur, socius mihi nondum eras, sive quando nec ipse in eis eram sive posteaquam ego eas utcumque sapere coepi, a quibus tu longe abhorrebas. [¶2] 3. I do not want you to feel annoyed or to think it absurd that at that time, when I was aflame with desire for this world's empty show, you were not yet my friend, although you seemed to have a great affection for me; for then I was not even a friend to myself, but an enemy instead. For I loved iniquity, and that saying that is written in the Holy Books is true, because divine: “He that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul.” a Hating then my own soul as I did, how could I have a true friend in one who wished me those things in which I was suffering myself to be my own enemy? “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour” b dawned upon me, not according to my merits, “but according to His mercy,” how could you, when you were a stranger to it, be my friend? That which could give me happiness was quite unknown to you, nor did you love me in that wherein I had already been made a friend (however poor) unto myself. > Latin: 3. Nolo autem suscenseas. nec tibi videatur absurdum quod illo tempore,cum in vana mundi huius aestuarem, quamvis me multum amare videreris, nondum eras amicus meus, quando nec ipse mihi amicus eram sed potius inimicus. Diligebam quippe iniquitatem, et vera, quia divina, sententia est, qua scriptum est in sanctis libris: Qui autem diligit iniquitatem, odit animam suam. Cum ergo odissem animam meam, verum amicum quo modo habere poteram ea mihi optantem. in quibus ipse me ipsum patiebar inimicum? Cum vero benignitas et gratia salvatoris nostri inluxit mihi non secundum merita mea sed secundum ipsius misericordiam, tu ab hac alienus quo modo esse poteras amicus meus, qui, unde beatus esse possem, penitus ignorabas et non in hoc me amabas, in quo mihi ipse iam fueram utcumque amicus effectus? [¶3] 4. Thanks be therefore to the Lord, that He is good enough to make you a friend of mine now at last; for now we have that “agreement, with kindliness and affection, about things human and divine” c in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who is our real peace. In two commandments He has summed up all God's injunctions, saying: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind” and “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” d In the first of these is " agreement, with kindliness and affection " about things divine, in the second, about things human. If you are with me in holding these two commandments with tenacity, our friendship will be genuine and everlasting and it will join us not merely to each other but also to the Lord Himself. > Latin: 4. Gratias itaque domino, quod te mihi amicum facere tandem aliquando dignatur. Nunc enim nobis est “rerum humanarum et divinarum cum benivolentia et caritate consensio” in Christo Iesu domino nostro, verissima pace nostra. Qui duobus praeceptis cuncta praeconia divina conclusit dicens: Diliges dominum deum tuum ex toto corde tuo et ex tota anima tua et ex tota mente tua, et: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam te ipsum; in his duobus praeceptis tota lex pendet et prophetae. In illo primo rerum divinarum, in hoc secundo rerum humanarum est cum benivolentia et caritate consensio. Haec duo si mecum firmissime teneas, amicitia nostra vera ac sempiterna erit et non solum invicem nos sed etiam ipsi domino sociabit. [¶4] 5. That this may be so, I exhort you, my wise and honoured friend, now also to partake of the Sacraments available for those in full communion, for this would become one of your age a and be appropriate, in my opinion, to your character. Remember your remark to me when I was on the point of leaving you; you recalled that verse from one of Terence's comedies, but still, though from a comedy, very apposite and proper: To-day now introduces a different life and demands a different character. b If you were sincere in quoting it, as I have no right to doubt you were, you certainly are living now in such a way as to be worthy of receiving through the saving rite of baptism the remission of your past sins. There is none other at all, save the Lord Christ, to whom the human race can say: Under Thy guidance, whatso tracks remain Of our old wickedness, once done away, Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. c Virgil confessed to adopting this thought from the Cumaean, that is, the Sibylline, prophecy, and perhaps that seer too had had some message to her spirit about the only Saviour, which she had of necessity to confess. This, my lord deservedly honoured and brother cherished in Christ and longed for, be it little or be it perchance much, I have at any rate written you, though in one way and another extremely engrossed in business. I long to receive a reply from you and to learn at any moment that you have entered your name among the candidates for baptism or are on the point of doing so. May the Lord God, in Whom you have put your trust, keep you, my lord deservedly honoured and brother cherished in Christ and longed for, both here and in the world to come! > Latin: 5. Quod ut fiat, exhortor gravitatem et prudentiam tuam, ut iam etiam fidelium sacramenta percipias; decet enim aetatem et congruit, quantum credo, moribus tuis. Memento quid mihi dixeris profectum, comicum quidem de Terentio recolens versum sed tamen aptissimum et utilissimum: nunc hic dies aliam vitam adfert, alios mores postulat. Quod si veraciter dixisti, sicut de te dubitare non debeo, iam profecto sic vivis ut sis dignus baptismo salutari remissionem praeteritorum accipere peccatorum. Nam omnino non est, cui alteri praeter dominum Christum dicat genus humanum: te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras. Quod ex Cymaeo, id est ex Sibyllino carmine se fassus est transtulisse Vergilius, quoniam fortassis etiam illa vates aliquid de unico salvatore in spiritu audierat, quod necesse habuit confiteri. Haec tibi, domine merito suscipiende et in Christo dilectissime ac desiderantissime frater, sive pauca sive forsitan multa sint, utcumque occupatissimus scripsi. Tua sumere rescripta desidero et te nomen vel dedisse inter competentes vel daturum esse iam iamque cognoscere. Dominus deus, in quem credidisti, et hic et in futuro saeculo te conservet, domine merito suscipiende et in Christo dilectissime ac desiderantissime frater.