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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Letters of St. Augustin/Letters of St. Augustin/Chapter 37

Letter XXXVII.
(a.d. 397.)
To Simplicianus,My Lord Most Blessed, and My Father Most Worthy of Being Cherished with Respect and Sincere Affection, Augustin Sends Greeting in the Lord.
1. I received the letter which your Holiness kindly sent,—a letter full of occasions of much joy to me, because assuring me that you remember me, that you love me as you used to do, and that you take great pleasure in every one of the gifts which the Lord has in His compassion been pleased to bestow on me. In reading that letter, I have eagerly welcomed the fatherly affection which flows from your benignant heart towards me: and this I have not found for the first time, as something short-lived and new, but long ago proved and well known, my lord, most blessed, and most worthy of being cherished with respect and sincere love.
2. Whence comes so great a recompense for the literary labour given by me to the writing of a few books as this, that your Excellency should condescend to read them? Is it not that the Lord, to whom my soul is devoted, has purposed thus to comfort me under my anxieties, and to lighten the fear with which in such labour I cannot but be exercised, lest, notwithstanding the evenness of the plain of truth, I stumble through want either of knowledge or of caution? For when what I write meets your approval, I know by whom it is approved, for I know who dwells in you; and the Giver and Dispenser of all spiritual gifts designs by your approbation to confirm my obedience to Him. For whatever in these writings of mine merits your approbation is from God, who has by me as His instrument said, “Let it be done,” and it was done; and in your approval God has pronounced that what was done is “good.”
3. As for the questions which you have condescended to command me to resolve, even if through the dulness of my mind I did not understand them, I might through the assistance of your merits find an answer to them. This only I ask, that on account of my weakness you intercede with God for me, and that whatever writings of mine come into your sacred hands, whether on the topics to which you have in a manner so kind and fatherly directed my attention, or on any others, you will not only take pains to read them, but also accept the charge of reviewing and correcting them; for I acknowledge the mistakes which I myself have made, as readily as the gifts which God has bestowed on me.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Simplicianus succeeded Ambrose in the see of Milan in 397 A.D. This letter is the preface to the two books addressed to Simplicianus, and contained in vol. vi. of the Benedictine edition of Augustin.
* ↑ Gen. i. 3, 4.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Letters of St. Augustin/Letters of St. Augustin/Chapter 39

Letter XXXIX.
(a.d. 397.)
To My Lord Augustin, a FatherTruly Holy and Most Blessed, Jerome Sends Greeting in Christ.
Chap. I.
1. Last year I sent by the hand of our brother, the subdeacon Asterius, a letter conveying to your Excellency a salutation due to you, and readily rendered by me; and I think that my letter was delivered to you. I now write again, by my holy brother the deacon Præsidius, begging you in the first place not to forget me, and in the second place to receive the bearer of this letter, whom I commend to you with the request that you recognise him as one very near and dear to me, and that you encourage and help him in whatever way his circumstances may demand; not that he is in need of anything (for Christ has amply endowed him), but that he is most eagerly desiring the friendship of good men, and thinks that in securing this he obtains the most valuable blessing. His design in travelling to the West you may learn from his own lips.
Chap. II.
2. As for us, established here in our monastery, we feel the shock of waves on every side, and are burdened with the cares of our lot as pilgrims. But we believe in Him who hath said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” and are confident that by His grace and guidance we shall prevail against our adversary the devil.
I beseech you to give my respectful salutation to the holy and venerable brother, our father Alypius. The brethren who, with me, devote themselves to serve the Lord in this monastery, salute you warmly. May Christ our Almighty God guard you from harm, and keep you mindful of me, my lord and father truly holy and venerable.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [Papa.]
* ↑ John xvi. 33.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Letters of St. Augustin/Letters of St. Augustin/Chapter 4

Letter IV.
(a.d. 387.)
To Nebridius Augustin Sends Greeting.
1. It is very wonderful how completely I was taken by surprise, when, on searching to discover which of your letters still remained unanswered, I found only one which held me as your debtor,—that, namely, in which you request me to tell you how far in this my leisure, which you suppose to be great, and which you desire to share with me, I am making progress in learning to discriminate those things in nature with which the senses are conversant, from those about which the understanding is employed. But I suppose it is not unknown to you, that if one becomes more and more fully imbued with false opinions, the more fully and intimately one exercises himself in them, the corresponding effect is still more easily produced in the mind by contact with truth. Nevertheless my progress, like our physical development, is so gradual, that it is difficult to define its steps distinctly, just as though there is a very great difference between a boy and a young man, no one, if daily questioned from his boyhood onward, could at any one date say that now he was no more a boy, but a young man.
2. I would not have you, however, so to apply this illustration as to suppose that, in the vigour of a more powerful understanding, I have arrived as it were at the beginning of the soul’s manhood. For I am yet but a boy, though perhaps, as we say, a promising boy, rather than a good-for-nothing. For although the eyes of my mind are for the most part perturbed and oppressed by the distractions produced by blows inflicted through things sensible, they are revived and raised up again by that brief process of reasoning: “The mind and intelligence are superior to the eyes and the common faculty of sight; which could not be the case unless the things which we perceive by intelligence were more real than the things which we perceive by the faculty of sight.” I pray you to help me in examining whether any valid objection can be brought against this reasoning. By it, meanwhile, I find myself restored and refreshed; and when, after calling upon God for help, I begin to rise to Him, and to those things which are in the highest sense real, I am at times satisfied with such a grasp and enjoyment of the things which eternally abide, that I sometimes wonder at my requiring any such reasoning as I have above given to persuade me of the reality of those things which in my soul are as truly present to me as I am to myself.
Please look over your letters yourself, for I own that you will be in this matter at greater pains than I, in order to make sure that I am not perchance unwittingly still owing an answer to any of them: for I can hardly believe that I have so soon got from under the burden of debts which I used to reckon as so numerous; albeit, at the same time, I cannot doubt that you have had some letters from me to which I have as yet received no reply.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book V/Chapter 15

Chapter 15.—Concerning the Temporal Reward Which God Granted to the Virtues of the Romans.
Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not purpose to give eternal life with His holy angels in His own celestial city, to the society of which that true piety which does not render the service of religion, which the Greeks call λατρεία, to any save the true God conducts, if He had also withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent empire, a reward would not have been rendered to their good arts,—that is, their virtues,—by which they sought to attain so great glory. For as to those who seem to do some good that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says, “Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward.” So also these despised their own private affairs for the sake of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted for the good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted neither to what their laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust. By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to honors, power, and glory; they were honored among almost all nations; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many nations; and at this day, both in literature and history, they are glorious among almost all nations. There is no reason why they should complain against the justice of the supreme and true God,—“they have received their reward.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. vi. 2.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book V/Chapter 16

Chapter 16.—Concerning the Reward of the Holy Citizens of the Celestial City, to Whom the Example of the Virtues of the Romans are Useful.
But the reward of the saints is far different, who even here endured reproaches for that
city of God which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That city is eternal. There none are born, for none die. There is true and full felicity,—not a goddess, but a gift of God. Thence we receive the pledge of faith whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the evil, but the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury by suffering privations at home, for there is the common treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the sake of recompensing the citizens of Rome that her empire and glory had been so signally extended, but also that the citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here, might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and see what a love they owe to the supernal country on account of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much beloved by its citizens on account of human glory.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book V/Chapter 21

Chapter 21.—That the Roman Dominion Was Granted by Him from Whom is All Power, and by Whose Providence All Things are Ruled.
These things being so, we do not attribute
the power of giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is always just. For though we have said something about the principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has seemed good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much for us, and far surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden things of men’s hearts, and by a clear examination to determine the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is the one true God, who never leaves the human race without just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Romans when He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to the Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the other evil,—to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of whom I have already spoken as much as seemed necessary, who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped none save the true God.  The same, therefore, who gave to the Persians harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia, who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did not worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of them over each several thing,—He, I say, gave the Persians dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the empire. And the same is true in respect of men as well as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to Caius Cæsar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to Nero; He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors, the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel Domitian; and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over them all, He who gave it to the Christian Constantine gave it also to the apostate Julian, whose gifted mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by the love of power. And it was because he was addicted through curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he burned the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just consequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an enemy’s country, and in such a predicament that it never could have escaped, save by altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Terminus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by the one God according as He pleases; and if His motives are hid, are they therefore unjust?
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book V/Chapter 22

Chapter 22.—The Durations and Issues of War Depend on the Will of God.
Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him as He may see meet, according to His righteous will, and pleasure, and mercy, to afflict or to console the human race, so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war were terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war of the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Roman generals and the consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year, having itself been, during its continuance, the end of much. The Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, not distant but Italian nations, after a long and most loyal servitude under the Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty, though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian war the Romans were very often defeated, and two consuls perished, besides other noble senators; nevertheless this calamity was not protracted over a long space of time, for the fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting for the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and well-nigh consumed the strength of the Romans; for in two battles about seventy thousand Romans fell. The first Punic war was terminated after having been waged for three-and-twenty years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And that no one may think that in the early and much belauded times of the Romans they were far braver and more able to bring wars to a speedy termination, the Samnite war was protracted for nearly fifty years; and in this war the Romans were so beaten that they were even put under the yoke. But because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but seemed rather to have loved justice for the sake of glory, they broke the peace and the treaty which had been concluded. These things I mention, because many, ignorant of past things, and some also dissimulating what they know, if in Christian times they see any war
protracted a little longer than they expected, straightway make a fierce and insolent attack on our religion, exclaiming that, but for it, the deities would have been supplicated still, according to ancient rites; and then, by that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help of Mars and Bellona, speedily brought to an end such great wars, this war also would be speedily terminated. Let them, therefore, who have read history recollect what long-continued wars, having various issues and entailing woeful slaughter, were waged by the ancient Romans, in accordance with the general truth that the earth, like the tempestuous deep, is subject to agitations from tempests—tempests of such evils, in various degrees,—and let them sometimes confess what they do not like to own, and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy themselves and deceive the ignorant.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the Thrasymene Lake and Cannæ.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book IV/Chapter 1

Book IV.
Chapter I.—Death of Constans Cæsar. Occurrences which took place in Rome.
Four years after the council of Sardica,
Constans was killed in Western Gaul.
Magnentius, who had plotted his murder, reduced the entire government of Constans under his own sway. In the meantime Vetranio was proclaimed emperor at Sirmium, by the Illyrian troops. Nepotian, the son of the late emperor’s sister, gathered about him a body of gladiators, and wrangled for the imperial power, and ancient Rome had the greatest share of these evils. Nepotian, however, was put to death by the soldiers of Magnentius.
Constantius, finding himself the sole master of the empire, was proclaimed sole ruler, and hastened to depose the tyrants. In the meantime, Athanasius, having arrived in Alexandria, prepared to convene a Synod of the Egyptian bishops, and had the enactments confirmed which had been passed at Sardica, and in Palestine, in his favor.

## Footnotes

* ↑ According to Soz. a.d. 351, really a.d. 350.
* ↑ Ruf. H. E. i. 19; Soc. ii. 25, 26. Soz. here condenses Soc. Cf. Athan. Apol. ad. Imp. Constantium.
* ↑ Zos. ii. 41–53; Am. Marcel. xv. 1, 2; Petrus Patricius, Historia, 14; Eutrop. Brev. Hist. Rom. x. 9–11.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book III/Chapter 9

Chapter IX.—Ejection of Paul and Athanasius; Macedonius is invested with the Government of the Church of Constantinople.
After having written in this strain to Julius, the bishops of the East brought accusations against those whom they had deposed before the emperor Constantius.
Accordingly, the emperor, who was then at Antioch, wrote to Philip, the prefect of Constantinople, commanding him to surrender the Church to Macedonius, and to expel Paul from the city. The prefect feared the commotion among the people, and before the order of the emperor could be divulged, he repaired to the public bath which is called Zeuxippus, a conspicuous and large structure, and summoned Paul, as if he wished to converse with him on some affairs of general interest; as soon as he had arrived, he showed him the edict of the emperor. Paul was, according to orders, secretly conducted through the palace contiguous to the bath, to the seaside, and placed on board a vessel and was sent to Thessalonica, whence, it is said, his ancestors originally came. He was strictly prohibited from approaching the Eastern regions, but was not forbidden to visit Illyria and the remoter provinces.
On quitting the court room, Philip, accompanied by Macedonius, proceeded to the church. The people, who had in the meantime been assembling together in untold numbers, quickly filled the church, and the two parties into which they were divided, namely, the supporters of the Arian heresy and the followers of Paul respectively, strove to take possession of the building. When the prefect and Macedonius arrived at the gates of the church, the soldiers endeavored to force back the people, in order to make way for these dignitaries, but as they were so crowded together, it was impossible for them to recede, since they were closely packed to the farthest point, or to make way; the soldiers, under the impression that the crowd was unwilling to retire, slew many with their swords, and a great number were killed by being trampled upon. The edict of the emperor was thus accomplished, and Macedonius received the Churches, while Paul was unexpectedly ejected from the Church in Constantinople.
Athanasius in the meantime had fled, and concealed himself, fearing the menace of the emperor Constantius, for he had threatened to punish him with death; for the heterodox had made the emperor believe that he was a seditious person, and that he had, on his return to the bishopric, occasioned the death of several persons. But the anger of the emperor had been chiefly excited by the representation that Athanasius had sold the provisions which the emperor Constantine had bestowed on the poor of Alexandria, and had appropriated the price.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Soc. ii. 16, 17; Athan. Hist. Arian. 7; and Apol. de fuga sua, 3, 6–8. Cf. Theodoret, H. E. ii. 5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Sozomen/Book III/Chapter 3

Chapter III.—Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, and Macedonius, the Pneumatomachian.
Alexander died
about this time, and Paul succeeded to the high priesthood of Constantinople. The followers of Arius and Macedonius assert that he took possession at his own motion, and against the advice of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, or of Theodore, bishop of Heraclea, in Thrace; upon whom, as being the nearest bishops, the right of conferring ordination devolved. Many, however, maintain, on the testimony of Alexander, whom he succeeded, that he was ordained by the bishops who were then assembled at Constantinople.
For when Alexander, who was ninety-eight years of age, and who had conducted the episcopal office vigorously for twenty-three years, was at the point of death, his clergy, asked him to whom he wished to turn over his church. “If,” replied he, “you seek a man good in Divine matters and one who is apt to teach you, have Paul. But if you desire one who is conversant with public affairs, and with the councils of rulers, Macedonius is better.” The Macedonians themselves admit that this testimony was given by Alexander; but they say that Paul was more skilled in the transaction of business and the art of eloquence; but they put emphasis for Macedonius, on the testimony of his life; and they accuse Paul of having been addicted to effeminacy and an indifferent conduct.
It appears, however, from their own acknowledgment, that Paul was a man of eloquence, and brilliant in teaching the Church. Events proved that he was not competent to combat the casualties of life, or to hold intercourse with those in power; for he was never successful in subverting the machinations of his enemies,
like those who are adroit in the management of affairs. Although he was greatly beloved by the people, he suffered severely from the treachery of those who then rejected the doctrine which prevailed at Nicæa. In the first place, he was expelled from the church of Constantinople, as if some accusation of misconduct had been established against him.
He was then condemned to banishment, and finally, it is said, fell a victim to the devices of his enemies, and was strangled. But these latter events took place at a subsequent period.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. Soc. ii. 6. While the order of events is the same, Soz. had a different source, for he makes additions. Cf. Athan. Hist. Arian. 7.
* ↑ An endemic Synod.
* ↑ ἀδιάφορος βίος, literally “an indifferent life.” St. Nilus, St. Basil, and others of the Christian Fathers use this phrase as opposed to an ascetic life.
* ↑ He had been originally accused by his presbyter Macedonius. The accusation, according to Theodoret, after his restoration was sedition (H. E. ii. 5), the crime usually imputed to the homoousians. Cf. Athan. Hist. Arian.
* ↑ He had been originally accused by his presbyter Macedonius. The accusation, according to Theodoret, after his restoration was sedition (H. E. ii. 5), the crime usually imputed to the homoousians. Cf. Athan. Hist. Arian.