Letter CXLV.
(a.d. 412 or
413.)
To Anastasius, My Holy and Beloved
Lord and Brother, Augustin Sends Greeting in the Lord.
1. A most satisfactory opportunity of saluting your
genuine worth is furnished by our brethren Lupicinus and
Concordialis, honourable servants of God, from whom, even without
my writing, you might learn all that is going on among us here. But
knowing, as I do, how much you love us in Christ, because of your
knowing how warmly your love is reciprocated by us in Him, I was
sure that it might have disappointed you if you had seen them, and
could not but know that they had come directly from us, and were
most intimately united in friendship with us, and yet had received
with them no letter from me. Besides this, I am owing you a reply, for I am not aware of having written to you since I received your last letter; so great are the cares by which I am encumbered and distracted, that I know not whether I have written or not before now.
2. We desire eagerly to know how you are, and
whether the Lord has given you some rest, so far as in this world
He can bestow it; for “if one member be honoured, all the members
rejoice with it;” and so it is almost always our
experience, that when, in the midst of our anxieties, we turn our
thoughts to some of our brethren placed in a condition of
comparative rest, we are in no small measure revived, as if in them
we ourselves enjoyed a more peaceful and tranquil life. At the same
time, when vexatious cares are multiplied in this uncertain life, they compel us to long for the everlasting rest. For this world is more dangerous to us in pleasant than in painful hours, and is to be guarded against more when it allures us to love it than when it warns and constrains us to despise it. For although “all that is in the world” is “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” nevertheless, even in the case of men who prefer to these the things which are spiritual, unseen, and eternal, the sweetness of earthly things insinuates itself into our affections, and accompanies our steps on the path of duty with its seductive allurements. For the violence with which present things acquire sway over our weakness is exactly proportioned to the superior value by which future things command our love. And oh that those who have learned to observe and bewail this may succeed in overcoming and escaping from this power of terrestrial things! Such victory and emancipation cannot, without God’s grace, be achieved by the human will, which is by no means to be called free so long as it is subject to prevailing and enslaving lusts; “For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” And the Son of God has Himself said, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”