having treated on it a little while ago, so that I ' content myself with this brief and passing admonition.
CHAP. 14. HIS EIGHTH ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK II. 13 [iX.].)
Refuse, if you wish to be a catholic, to believe, or to say, or to teach that " it is of infants, who are forestalled by death before they are born again in Christ, that the Scripture says, ' Speedily was he taken away, lest tliat wickedness should Chap. 17.]
alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. Therefore God hastened to take him away from among the wicked; for his soul pleased the Lord; and being made perfect in a short time, he fulfilled long seasons.' " ' For this passage has nothing to do with those to whom you apply it, but rather belongs to those who, after they have been baptized and have progressed in pious living, are not permitted to tarry long on earth, — having been made perfect, not with years, but j with the grace of heavenly wisdom. This error, however, of yours, by which you think that this scripture was spoken of infants who die unbaptized, does an intolerable wrong to the holy laver itself, if an infant, who could have been j " hurried away" after baptism, has been " hurried away " before this, for this reason: — " lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul." As if this " wickedness," and this " deceit which beguiles the soul," and j changes it for the worse, if it be not before taken away, is to be believed to be in baptism itself! In a word, since his soul had pleased God, He hastened to remove him out of the midst of iniquity; and he tarried not for ever so little while, in order to fulfil in him what He had predestinated; but preferred to act in opposition to His predestined purpose, and actually hastened lest what had pleased Him so well in the unbaptized child should be exterminated by his baptism I As if the dying infant would perish in that, whither we ought to run with him in our arms in order to save him from perdition. Who, therefore, in respect of these words of the Book of Wisdom, could believe, or say, or write, or quote them as having been written concerning infants who die without baptism, if he only reflected upon them with proper consideration?
CHAP. 15 [XI.] HIS NINTH ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK II. 14 [X.].)
If you wish to be a catholic, I pray you, neither believe, nor say, nor teach that " there are some mansions outside the kingdom of God which the Lord said were in His Father's house." For He does not affirm, as you have adduced his testimony, " There are with my Father {apud F.itrcin maim) many mansions;" although, if He had even expressed Himself so, the mansions could hardly be supposed to have any other situatioji than hi the house of His Father; but He plainly says, " In my Father's house are many mansions." - Now, who would be so reckless as to separate some parts of God's house from the kingdom of God; so that, whilst the kings of the earth are found reigning, not in their house only, nor only in their own country, but far and wide, even in regions across the sea, ' Wisd. iv. u.
2 John xiv. 2.
the King who made the heaven and the earth is not described as reigning even over all His own house?
CHAP. 16. con RULES EVERYWHERE: AND VET THE " KINGDOM OF HEAVEN " MAY NOT BE EVERYWHERE.
You may, however, not improbably contend that all things, it is true, belong to the kingdom of God, because He reigns in heaven, reigns on earth, in the depths beneath, in paradise, in hell (for where does He not reign, since His power is everywhere supreme?); but that the kingdom of heaven is one thing, into which none are permitted to enter, according to the Lord's own true and settled sentence, unless they are washed in the laver of regeneration, while quite another thing is the kingdom over the earth, or over any other parts of creation, in which there may be some mansions of God's house; but these, although appertaining to the kingdom of God, belong not to that kingdom of heaven where God's kingdom exists with an especial excellence and blessedness; and that it hence happens that, while no parts and mansions of God's house can be rudely separated from the kingdom of God, yet not all the mansions are prepared in the kingdom of heaven; and still, even in the abodes which are not situated in the kingdom of heaven, those may live happily, to whom, if they are even unbaptized, God has willed to assign such habitations. They are no doubt in the kingdom of God, although (as not having been baptized) they cannot possibly be in the kingdom of heaven.
CHAP. 17. WHERE THE KINGDOM OF GOD M.A.Y BE UNDERSTOOD TO BE.
Now, they who say this, do no doubt seem to themselves to say a good deal, because theirs is only a slight and careless view of Scripture; nor do they understand in what sense we use the phrase, " kingdom of God," when we say of it in our prayers, " Thy kingdom come; " ^ for that is called the kingdom of God, in which His whole family shall reign with Him in happiness and for ever. Now, in respect of the power which He possesses over all things, he is of course even now reigning, \\niat, therefore, do we intend when we pray that His kingdom may come unless that we may deserve to reign with Him? But even they will be under His power who shall have to suffer the pains of eternal fire. Well, then, do we mean to predicate of these unhappy beings that they too will be in the kingdom of God? Surely it is one thing to be honoured with the gifts and privileges of the kingdom of God, and another thing to be restrained and punished by the laws of the same.
3 Matt. vi. 10.
[Book III.
However, that you may have a very manifest proof that on the one hand the kingdom of heaven must not be parcelled out to the baptized, and other portions of the kingdom of God be given to the unbaptized, as you seem to have determined, I beg of you to hear the Lord's own words; He does not say, " I'^xcept a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; " but His words are, " he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." His discourse with Nicodemus on the subject before us runs thus: " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Observe, He does not here say, the kingdom of heaven, but the kingdoin of God. And then, on Nicodemus asking Him in reply, " How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?" the Lord, in explanation, repeats His former statement more plainly and openly: " Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Observe, again, He uses the same phrase, tlic kingdom of God, not the kingdom of heaven.' It is worthy of remark, that while He varies two expressions in explaining them the second time (for after saying, " Except a man be born again,'' He interprets that by the fuller expression, " Except a man be born of water and the Spirit; " and in like manner He explains, " he cannot see,'' by the completer phrase, " he cannot enter into "),, He yet makes no variation here; He said " the!
kingdom of God " the first time, and He after- | wards repeated the same phrase exactly. It is not now necessary to raise and discuss the question, whether the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven must be understood as involving different senses, or whether only one thing is described under two designations. It is enough to find that no one can enter into the kingdom of God, except he be washed in the laver of regeneration. I suppose you perceive by this time how wide of the truth it is to separate from the kingdom of God any mansions that are placed in the house of God. And as to the idea which you have entertained that there will be found dwelling among the various mansions, which the Lord has told us abound in His Father's house, some who have not been born again of water and the Spirit, I advise you, if you will permit me, not to defer amending it, in order that you may hold the catholic faith.
CHAP. 1 8 [XII.] HIS TENTH ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK I. 1 3 [xi.] AND BOOK II. 15 [XI.].
Again, if you wish to be a catholic, I pray ' John iii. 3-6.
you, neither believe, nor say, nor teach that " the sacrifice of Christians ought to be offered in behalf of those who have departed out of the body without having been baptized." Because you fail to show that the sacrifice of the Jews, which you have quoted out of the books of the Maccabees,^ was offered in behalf of any who had departed this life without circumcision. In this novel opinion of yours, which you have advanced against the authority and teaching of the whole Church, you have used a \-ery arrogant mode of expression. You say, " In behalf of these, I most certainly decide that constant oblations and incessant sacrifices must be offered up on the part of the holy priests." Here you show, as a layman, no submission to God's priests for instruction; nor do you associate yourself with them (the least you could do) for incjuiry; but you put yourself before them by your proud assumption of judgment. Away, my son, with all this pretension; men walk not so arrogantly in the Way, which the Humble Christ taught that He Himself is.-^ No man enters through His narrow gate with so proud a disposition as this.
CHAP. 19 [XIII.] HIS ELEVENTH ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK I. 1 5 [xil.] AND BOOK II. 1 6.)
Once more, if you desire to be a catholic, do not believe, or say, or teach that " some of those persons who have departed this life without Christ's baptism, do not in the meantime go into the kingdom of heaven, but into paradise; yet afterwards in the resurrection of the dead they attain also to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven." Even the Pelagian heresy was not daring enough to grant them this, although it holds that inflints do not contract original sin. You, however, as a catholic, confess that they are born in sin; and yet by some unaccountable perverseness in the novel ojMuion you put forth, you assert that they are absolved from that sin with which they were born, and admitted into the kingdom of heaven without the baptism which saves. Nor do you seem to be aware how much below Pelagius himself you are in your views on this point. For he, being alarmed by that sentence of the Lord which does not permit unbaptized persons to enter into the kingdom of heaven, does not venture to send infants thither, although he believes them to be free from all sin; whereas you have so little regard for what is written, " Except a man be bom again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,"+ that (to say nothing of the error which induces you recklessly to sever paradise from the kingdom of God) you do not hesitate to promise to certain persons, whom you, as a catholic, believe to be born un- 2 2 Mace. xii. 43.
3 John xiv. 6.
< John Iii. 5.
Chap. 21.]
JD der guilt, both absolution from this guilt and the ] kingdom of heaven, even when they die without baptism. As if you could possibly be a true catholic because you build up the doctrine of original sin against Pelagius, if you show your- 1 self a new heretic against the Lord, by pulling down His statement respecting baptism. For our own part, beloved brother, we do not desire 1 thus to gain victories over heretics: vanquishing one error by another, and, what is still worse, a less one by a greater.
You say, " Should any one perhaps be reluctant to allow that paradise was temporarily bestowed in the meantime on the souls of the dying thief and of Dinocrates, while there still remains to them the reversion of the kingdom of heaven at the resurrection, seeing that the principal passage stands in the way of the opinion, ' Except a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,' he may still hold my ungrudging assent on this point; only let him do full honour to both the effect and the aim ' of the divine mercy and foreknowledge." These are your own words, and in them you express your agreement with the man who says that paradise is conferred on certain unbaptized for a time, in such a sense that at the resurrection there is in store for them the reward of the kingdom of heaven, in opposition to " that principal passage " which has determined that none shall enter into that kingdom who has not been born again of water and the Holy Ghost. Pelagius was afraid to oppose himself to this " principal passage " of the Gospel, and he did not believe that any (whom he still did not suppose to be sinners) would enter into the kingdom of heaven unbaptized. You, on the contrary, acknowledge that infants have original sin, and yet you absolve them from it without the laver of regeneration, and send them for a temporary residence in paradise, and subsequently permit them to enter even into the kingdom of heaven.
CHAP, 20 [XIV.] — AUGUSTIN CALLS ON VICTOR TO CORRECT HIS ERRORS. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK II. 2 2 [XVI.].)
Now these errors, and such as these, with whatever others you may perhaps be able to discover in your books on a more attentive and leisurely perusal, I beg of you to correct, if you possess a catholic mind; in other words, if you spoke in perfect sincerity when you said, that you were not over-confident in yourself that what statements you had made were all capable of proof; and that your constant aim was not to maintain even your own opinion, if it were shown to be improbable; and that it gave you much pleasure, if your own judgment were condemned, to adopt and pursue better and truer * Et effectum et affectum.
sentiments. Well now, ni)- dear brother, show that you said this in no fallacious sense; so that the catholic Church may rejoice in your capacity and character, as possessing not only genius, but prudence withal, and piety, and moderation, rather than that the madness of heresy should be kindled by your contentious persistence in these errors. Now you have an opportunity of showing also how sincerely you expressed your feelings in the passage which immediately follows the satisfactory statement which I have just now mentioned of yours. " For," you say, " as it is the mark of every highest aim and laudable purpose to transfer one's self readily to truer views; so it shows a depraved and obstinate judgment to refuse to return prompdy to the pathway of reason." Well, then, show yourself to be influenced by this high aim and laudable purpose, and transfer your mind readily to truer views; and do not display a depraved and obstinate judgment by refusing to return promptly to the pathway of reason. For if your words were uttered in frank sincerity, if they were not mere sound of the lips, if you really felt them in your heart, then you cannot but abhor all delay in accomplishing the great good of correcting yourself It was not, indeed, much for you to allow, that it showed a depraved and obstinate judgment to refuse to return to the pathway of reason, unless you had added '■'■promptly.'''' By adding this, you showed us how execrable is his conduct who never accomplishes the reform; inasmuch as even he who effects it but tardily appears to you to deserve so severe a censure, as to be fairly described as displaying a depraved and obstinate mind. Listen, therefore, to your own admonition, and turn to good account mainly and largely the fruitful resources of your eloquence; that so you may promptly return to the pathway of reason, more promptly, indeed, than when you declined therefrom, at an imstable period of your age, when you were fortified with too little prudence and less learning.
CHAP. 21. — AUGUSTIN COMPLIMENTS VICTOR'S TALENTS AND DILIGENCE.
It would take me too long a time to handle and discuss fully all the points which I wish to be amended in your books, or rather in your own self, and to give you even a brief reason for the correction of each particular. And yet you must not because of them despise yourself, so as to suppose that your ability and powers of speech are to be thought lightly of I have discovered in you no small recollection of the sacred Scriptures; but your erudition is less than was proportioned to your talent, and the labour you bestowed on them. My desire, therefore, is that you should not, on the one hand, grow vain by attributing too much to yourself; nor, on the [Book III.
[Book III.
other hand, become cold and indifferent by prostration or despair. I only wish that I could read your writings in company with yourself, and point out the necessary emendations in conversation rather than by writing. This is a matter which could be more easily accomplished by oral communication between ourselves than in letters. If the entire subject were to be treated in writing, it would require many volumes. Those chief errors, however, which I have wished to sum up comprehensively in a definite number, I at once call your attention to, in order that you may not postpone the correction of them, but banish them entirely from your preaching and belief; so that the great faculty which you possess of disputation, may, by God's grace, be employed by you usefully for edification, not for injuring and destroying sound and wholesome doctrine.
CHAP. 2 2 [XV.] A SUMMARY RECAPITULATION OF THE ERRORS OF VICTOR.
What these particular errors are, I have, to the best of my ability, already explained. But I will run over them again with a brief recapitulation. One is, " That God did not make the soul out of nothing, but out of His own self." A second is, that "just as God who gives is Himself ever existent, so is He ever giving souls through infinite time." The third is, that " the soul lost some merit by the flesh, which it had had previous to the flesh." The fourth is, that "the soul bv means of the flesh recovers its ancient condition, and is born again through the very same flesh by which it had deserved to be polluted." T\\Q fifth is, that " the soul deserved to be sinful, previous to any sin." The sixth is, that " infants which are forestalled by death before they are baptized, may yet attain to forgiveness of their original sins." The seventh is, that " they whom the Lord has predestinated to be baptized may be taken away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined." The eighth is, that " it is of infants who are forestalled by death, before they are born again in Christ, that the Scripture says, ' Speedily was he taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding,' " with the remainder of the passage to tlie same effect in the Book of Wisdom.
The ninth is, that " there are outside the kingdom of God some of those mansions which the Lord said were in His Father's house." The tenth is, that " the sacrifice of Christians ought to be offered in behalf of those who have departed out of the body without being baptized." The eleventh is, that " some of those persons who have departed this life without the baptism of Christ do not in the meanwhile go into the kingdom, but into paradise; afterwards, however, in the resurrection of the dead, they attain even to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven."
CHAP. 23. OBSTINACY MAKES THE HERETIC.
Well, now, as for these eleven propositions, they are extremely and manifestly perverse and opposed to the catholic faith; so that you should no longer hesitate to root them out and cast them away from your mind, from your words, and from your pen, if you are desirous that we should rejoice not only at your having come over to our catholic altars, but at your being really and truly a catholic. For if these dogmas of yours are severally maintained with pertinacity, they may possibly engender as many heresies as they number opinions. Wherefore consider, I pray you, how dreadful it is that they should be all concentrated in one person, when they would, if held severally by various persons, be every one of them damnable in each holder. If, however, you would in your own person cease to fight contentiously in their defence, nay, would turn your arms against them by faithful words and writings, you would acquire more praise as the censurer of j'our own self than if you directed any amount of right criticism against any other person; and your amendment of your own errors would bring you more admiration than if you had never entertained them. May the Lord be present to your heart and mind, and by His Spirit pour into your soul such readiness in humility, such light of truth, such sweetness of love, and such peaceful piety, that you may prefer being a conqueror of your own spirit in the truth, than of any one else who gainsays it with his errors. But I do not by any means wish you to think, that by' holding these opinions you have departed from the catholic faith, although they are unquescionably opposed to the catholic faith; if so be you are able, in the presence of that God whose eye infallibly searches every man's heart, to look back on your own words as being truly and sincerely expressed, when you said that you were not over-confident in yourself as to the opinions you had broached, that they were all capable of proof; and that your constant aim was not to persist in your own sentiments, if they were shown to be improbable; inasmuch as it was a real pleasure to you, when any judgment of yours was condemned, to adopt and pursue better and truer thoughts. Now such a temper as this, even in relation to what may have been said in an uncatholic form through ignorance, is itself catholic by the very purpose and readiness of amendment which it premeditates. With this remark, however, I must now end this volume, where the reader may rest a while, ready to renew his attention to what is to follow, when I begin my next book.
ADDRESSED TO VINCENTIUS VICTOR.
HE FIRST SHOWS, THAT HIS HESITATION ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ORIGIN OF SOULS WAS UNDESERVEDLY CLAMED, AND THAT HE WAS WRONGLY COMPARED WITH CATTLE, BECAUSE HE HAD REFRAINED FROM ANY RASH CONCLUSIONS ON THE SUBJECT. THEN, AGAIN, WITH REGARD TO HIS OWN UNHESITATING STATEMENT, THAT THE SOUL WAS SPIRIT, NOT BODY, HE POINTS OUT HOW RASHLY VICTOR DISAPPROVED OF THIS ASSERTION, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE WAS VAINLY EXPENDJNG HIS EFFORTS TO PROVE THAT THE SOUL WAS CORPOREAL IN ITS OWN NATL/RE, AND THAT THE SPIRIT IN MAN WAS DISTINCT FROM THE SOUL ITSELF.
CHAP. I [t.] — THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THIS BOOK.
I MUST now, in the sequel of my treatise, request you to hear what I desire to say to you concerning myself — as I best can; or rather as He shall enable me in whose hand are both ourselves and our words. For you blamed me on two several occasions, even going so far as to mention my name. In the beginning of your book you spoke of yourself as being perfectly conscious of your own want of skill, and as being destitute of the support of learning; and, when vou mentioned me, bestowed on me the complimentary phrases of " most learned " and " most skilful." But yet, all the while, on those subjects in which you seemed to yourself to be perfectly acquainted with what I either confess my ignorance of, or presume with no unbecoming liberty to have some knowledge of, you — young as you are, and a layman too — did not hesitate to censure me, an old man and a bishop, and a person withal whom in your own judgment you had pronounced most learned and most skilful. Well, for my own part, I know nothing about my great learning and skill; nay, I am very certain that I possess no such eminent qualities; moreover, I have no doubt that it is quite within the scope of possibility, that it may fall to the lot of even an unskilful and unlearned man occasionally to know what a learned and skilful person is ignorant of; and in this I plainly commend you, that you have preferred to merely personal regard a love of truth, — for if you have not understood the truth, yet at any rate you have thought it such. This you have done no doubt with temerity, because you thought you knew what you were