Letter to Augustine (among Augustine's letters the 216th)

To the truly holy lord, reverently exalted by us above all and revered with pious rejoicing, the most blessed Father Augustine, Valentine, servant of your holiness, and all the brethren, who together with me trust in your prayers, send greetings in the Lord. 1. We received the venerable scriptures and the book of Your Holiness with such a reverent heart that. just as blessed Elijah, who stood at the entrance to the caves 1, covered his face as the glory of the Lord passed by, so we closed our reproachful eyes, because we were ashamed of our decision, caused by the ignorance of our brothers; after all, we were afraid to greet Your Beatitude, taking advantage of their unexpected departure. For “there is a time to speak and a time to be silent 2 [therefore we were afraid] lest if we write through those who doubt and waver in the truth, it would seem that we ourselves, along with those who doubt, doubt the words of your wisdom, which is like the Angel of God 3 . And there was no need for us to ask about your blessedness and wisdom, which by God’s grace is known to us. And we rejoiced so eagerly at the book of Your sweetest Holiness that just as the apostles did not dare to ask the Lord after the resurrection, who dined with them, who He was (for they knew that it was Jesus 4), so we did not want and did not dare to ask about the book whether it belonged to Your Holiness, since the faithful grace cordially taught in it, O lord and holy father, testifies to us through [your] the most life-giving sayings that [this book] is yours. 2. However, let us begin, O lord and most blessed father, to outline the course of the confusion itself. Our blessed brother Florus, servant of Your Fatherhood, when he went to the Uzalian 5 homeland out of conviction of love, having stayed in his city, [decided] to send [from there] to us in the monastery a gift from the writings of Your Holiness, and [who was with him] brother Felix, who was honored to come to Your Holiness later than his companions, faithfully dictated this very book 6 [to the scribe] and came to monastery with this very book, while Brother Florus of Usalis went to Carthage. Although the book was not shown to me, they began to read from it to the inexperienced brethren; and it troubled the hearts of some who did not understand, because when the Lord said: “Whoever does not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood will not have life in him 7 , those who understood this wickedly also turned away; [they deviated] not through the fault of the Lord who spoke this, but through the cruelty of [their] most wicked heart. 3. The aforementioned brothers, who perverted everything, began to disturb the souls of the innocent, and my little one did not even know about it. I was completely unaware of the meetings of these dissatisfied people, and if Brother Florus, returning from Carthage and learning about their confusion, had not announced this to me with alarm, then the competition about the truth they did not understand would have remained secret and, as it were, slavish among them. To resolve ungodly questions, I proposed to send to the lord holy Father Euodius, so that he would write us something more accurate about this most sacred book for the sake of the ignorant 8. And they did not want to humbly accept this, but decided to leave [from the monastery], which was very undesirable for us, and Brother Florus was almost embarrassed by their rage; they were indignant at him, since, as they believed, he had harmed them with this book wounds, while they themselves, due to their weakness, could not discern the medicine in it. Therefore, we asked the holy presbyter Sabinus [to sort this out] for greater authority, read the book with the clearest interpretations, but even so the wounded soul was not healed. Therefore, out of our very kindness, we let them go, so as not to increase their wounds, which could have been healed by the grace of the book itself, revealing your holy presence. When they departed, silence and peace spread over all the brothers in the Lord. After all, this dispute was born through the persistence of fifteen or more brothers. 4. But since sometimes, O lord and father, joy comes from sorrow, we are not depressed because, through the fault of the foolish and curious, we have been honored to be enlightened by the sweetest admonitions of Your Holiness. For the doubt of the blessed Apostle Thomas, looking for wounds from nails 9, was the affirmation of the universal Church. So, we have piously and gratefully accepted, O lord and father, the medicine of your healing writings, and we strike ourselves on the chest, so that our conscience may thus be healed, which through our free decision, bestowed by [God’s] mercy, is healed and revived by grace. We do this only while we sing of mercy with delay 10. For when we begin to sing justice to the Lord, then we will have to accept the reward for our work, since “the Lord is merciful and just, merciful and just 11. After all, as Your Holiness teaches us, we must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, “so that each of us receives, according to what he did while living in the body, good or evil 12 . For the Lord will come, and “His reward is with Him 13; for man shall arise, and his work shall be before him; for the Lord will come as a blazing furnace to burn up the wicked as stubble 14 and for those who fear the name of the Lord the sun of righteousness will rise, while the wicked will be punished by the judgment of righteousness 15 . That righteous man, to whom you, O lord and father, are a friend, exclaims, trembles and humbly says: “Lord, do not enter into court with Your servant 16. If there is the grace of the Rewarder, the righteous will not fear the secret judgment of [God's] majesty. This is the faith of your servant Florus, and not what these brothers said. They personally heard him say that the gift of godliness is not given according to our merits, but according to the grace of the Redeemer, for who can doubt that in the day when justice begins to be done, grace will be far away? This is how we cry, Father, this is how we sing, according to your teaching, not confident in ourselves, but trembling: “Lord! Do not rebuke me in Your wrath, and do not punish me in Your anger." 17 This is what we say: “Instruct us, O Lord, and teach us from Your law, so that You may deliver us from the days of evil 18. We believe, according to your teaching, venerable father, that the Lord will test the righteous and the wicked, and when the good and the evil are placed on the right and left, He will count the deeds of piety as worthy of reward and will count the acquisition of wickedness subject to punishment. Where will grace be when deeds, good or evil, begin to be tested by their quality 19? 5. But why isn’t the wrong person afraid to produce a lie? We do not deny the free decision, healed by the grace of God, but we believe that it prospers thanks to the daily bestowed grace of Christ, and we confess that it receives help from it. Why do people say: “It is in my power to do good!”? Oh, if only people really did good! O empty boast of the unfortunate! Every day they expose sins and add them to themselves, extolling the empty free decision. They do not consult their conscience, which can only be healed by grace so that it will say: “Have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned before You” 20 . Why do those who boast of their free decision (which there is no need to deny, [as long as they talk about it] together with the help of God), behave as if death had already been swallowed up in victory, and the mortal had put on immortality, and the corruptible had put on incorruptibility 21? Now, the wounds emit a stench, and higher treatment is required. They do not say, like the righteous: “If the Lord had not helped me, my soul would soon have settled in the underworld” 22. They do not say, like a saint: “If the Lord does not protect the city, the watchman watches in vain” 23. 6. But pray, most pious father, that we will have no other concern than to offer a tearful sacrifice for our sin and preach God’s grace. Pray, lord and father, that the abyss of its mouth will not close over us, 24 that we may be saved from those who descend into the pit, 25 that our soul will not perish with the wicked 26 because of our pride, but will be healed with the help of the Lord’s grace. And as you commanded, lord and father, our brother Florus, servant of Your Holiness, went [to you] with all his zeal; for his fatigue does not hinder, but promotes, his receiving heart-enlightening instruction. We humbly entrust him to Your Holiness and at the same time ask that you entrust the ignorant to the Lord in your prayers, may He lead them to obedience. Pray, O lord and dear father, that the devil will flee from our brotherhood, and when every storm of unnecessary questions has passed, the ship of our intention, full of calm sailors, will safely stop in the shelter of the safest harbors while it sails on this great and vast sea, and in the end will receive an appropriate reward and a pleasant payment in that [last] harbor, within which there will no longer be any need to fear the voyage of life. We firmly hope that we will achieve this with the help of Your Holiness, by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. We ask that You deign to greet on our behalf all the sons of Your Apostleship, our clergy gentlemen serving in the proper rank, so that all of them, together with Your Beatitude, may deign to pray for us. May the Indivisible Trinity, the Lord our God, preserve for us Thy Apostleship, and what He has chosen by grace, in His Church, and may He crown it, dear to us, in His great Church, which is what we wish for you, O lord. And if your Holiness’s friend, Brother Florus, offers something to you [for consideration] on behalf of the monastery administrators, then we ask, Father, that you would be willing to accept it and instruct the weak in everything. That is, to the city of Uzalis in the eastern part of Africa, in the territory of present-day Tunisia. That is, the book written to Sixtus, go Letter 194. About Euodia, bishop of the city of Uzalis, see above: R. X. Weaver. Divine grace and human action. Chapter I. In his letter to Abbot Valentine and the brethren of the monastery in Adrumentum, he said, in particular: “The venerable brethren informed us that I don’t know what kind of perplexities have arisen among you regarding the issue of free decision and the justice of God. Although we praise your zeal, we do not want it to seek competition. For the desire for competition arouses confusion [in people]. but zeal seeks godliness. The first man created - I'm talking about Adam - truly had the movement of free decision in its entirety. But when this free decision was wounded [by sin], it became weak. Therefore, there is a free decision in man, but it is wounded or damaged (sauciatum). For this reason it is said: My strength and the light of my eyes are exhausted in sorrow, and I have none” (Ps 30:11; Ps 37:11). To restore this, our Savior Christ was sent as a Physician, so that He would save the lost and heal the damaged. Therefore, as I have already said, let [the monks] read what was said by the elders [servants] of the holy God, that is, by those who have the pious effect of the Divine gift; and if they do not understand something, let them not immediately reject it, but pray that they may understand it” (Epistula Evodii Episcopi ad Abbatem Valentinum Adrumetinum // Aux moines d`Adrumete et de Provence / Ed. J.Chnè // Oeuvres de Saint Augustin. Vol.24.P.46–53 Ps 93 (according to LXX). In Synod, trans.: ...to the “land of silence” CPL 262. Translation based on the publication: Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Accurante J.-P Migne. Paris., 1845. T. 33. Col. 974–978. Places with discrepancies were verified with the publication: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vindobonae, 1911. Vol. 57. R. 396–402. This letter was written after Valentine received the book On Grace and Free Decision and the two letters of Augustine cited above.