Source-visible Augustine letter absent from the New Advent/NPNF English index; modern English is a first-time Roman Letters translation from Latin.
To my dearly loved and honorable brother Cornelius: Augustine.
You wrote asking me to send you a somewhat long consolatory letter because you were deeply moved by the death of your excellent wife, as you remember holy Paulinus did for Macarius. Her soul, received into the fellowship of the faithful and chaste, neither cares for nor seeks human praises. But because such things are done for the sake of the living, the first matter is that you, who desire to be consoled by her praise, live in such a way that you deserve to be where she is. I do not doubt that you believe she is not where those women are who polluted the marriage bed by adultery, or who, bound by no marriage, poured themselves out in fornication. Therefore to try to drive away sadness by praising her to a husband so unlike her is flattery, not consolation. If you loved her as she loved you, you would have kept for her what she kept for you. And since, if you had died first, no one should believe that she would ever have married anyone else, then if you truly grieved for her death and were to be consoled by her praises, would you not refrain from seeking even one lawful wife after her?
Here you will say, "Why are you dealing harshly with me? Why do you rebuke me so severely?" Are we not growing old while saying such things, as life is being carried along to its end before it is corrected? You want me to pardon your deadly carelessness. How much better if you pardon, if not my lovable concern, at least my pitiable anxiety. Cicero was indeed attacking with a hostile mind, and the intention of a man governing an earthly republic was very different, yet he said, "I desire, Conscript Fathers, to be merciful; in such dangers of the republic I desire not to seem lax." How much more justly can I say, when you yourself know what a friendly spirit I bear toward you, while I am set as a minister of the word and divine sacrament in the service of the eternal city: "I desire, brother Cornelius, to be merciful; in such dangers as yours and mine I desire not to seem lax."
A crowd of women keeps watch at your sides. The number of concubines grows day by day. Are we bishops to listen patiently to the lord of that number, or rather its slave, melting away in insatiable lust through so many prostitutes, while he demands from us the praises of his dead and chaste wife, as though by right of friendship, to soften his sadness? When you were, I will not say a catechumen, but a young man established with us in a most destructive error, and we were younger, you had corrected yourself from this vice by a very restrained will. Not long afterward you slipped back into it more shamefully; then, baptized in the utmost danger of life, now that you are not only a believer but dealing with us as old men and bishops, you still have not amended. You want us to console you over the death of a good wife. Who consoles us over this truer death of yours? Is it because we cannot forget your many services toward us that we must still be tortured by your conduct, still despised and counted as nothing when we groan to you about yourself? We confess that we are nothing for correcting and healing you. Let God be attended to; let Christ be considered; let the apostle be heard when he says, "Shall I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?" If you despise in your heart the words of whatever bishop is your friend, think of your Lord's body in your own body. Finally, how can you sin by putting things off from day to day, when you do not know your last day?
Now I will prove how much you desire praises of Cypriana from my mouth. If I were still in the rhetoricians' school selling words to students, I would first take payment from them. I want to sell you the praise of your most chaste wife. First give me the price: your chastity. Give it, I say, and receive. I speak in human terms because of your weakness. I think Cypriana is not worthy, in your eyes, of having you prefer her praises to the love of your concubines. That is exactly what you will do if you choose to remain in that love rather than reach these praises. Why do you want to wring from me by asking what you see I am asking for your own sake? Why do you plead as a man under command for what, once corrected, you could command? Let us send gifts to your wife's spirit: you imitation, I praise. Although, as I said above, she no longer seeks praise from human beings. But she seeks your imitation even after death as much as she loved you, different from her as you were, while she lived. I will do concerning her what you want when you have done what both I and she want.
For if that rich, proud, and impious man, as the Lord says in the Gospel, who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted splendidly every day, when he was paying the penalties of his evil merits in the lower world and could not obtain even a drop of water from the finger of the poor man once despised at his gate, remembered his five brothers and asked that the same poor man, whose rest in Abraham's bosom he saw from afar, be sent to them so that they too would not come into that place of torments, how much more does your wife remember you? How much more does a chaste woman not want you to come to the punishments of adulterers, if even a proud man did not want his brothers to come to the punishments of the proud? And when a brother did not want his brothers to be joined to him in evils, how much less does a wife established in good things want to have her husband separated from her in evils? Read that very passage in the Gospel. It is the merciful voice of Christ; believe God. You grieve, of course, for your dead wife, and think that if I praise her you will be consoled by my words. Learn what you should grieve over: that you may not be with her. Should you grieve more that she is not yet praised by me, than I grieve that she is not loved by you? If you loved her, you would desire to be with her after death, where you certainly will not be if you remain as you are. Love, then, the woman whose praise you demand, lest I rightly refuse what you demand falsely. In another hand: May the Lord grant us to rejoice over your salvation, dearly loved and honorable brother.
EPISTOLA 259
Scripta ca. a. 429/430.
A. Cornelio, qui, scortis deditus, defunctae uxoris laudes petiverat, illum admonens quae ab amicis honeste petenda sint (nn. 1-3) hortansque ut uxoris pudicitiam imitetur si velit illius laudes impetrare (nn. 4-5).
DOMINO DILECTISSIMO, ET HONORABILI FRATRI CORNELIO, AUGUSTINUS.
Cui prosint defunctae uxoris laudes.
1. Scripsisti mihi ut ad te aliquam prolixam epistolam consolatoriam darem, quod graviter optimae uxoris morte movereris, sicut sanctum Paulinum ad Macarium fecisse meministi. Et illa quidem anima in societatem recepta fidelium atque castarum, laudes nec curat, nec quaerit humanas; sed quia propter eos fiunt ista, qui vivunt, prius est ut tu, qui consolari eius laude desideras, ita vivas, ut illic ubi ipsa est, esse merearis. Neque enim dubito quod eam non credas ibi esse, ubi illae sunt quae vel adulteriis lectulum coniugalem polluerunt, vel nullo coniugio deligatae fornicatione fluxerunt. Quare, de illius laude viro longe dissimili quasi fugare velle moestitiam, adulatio est, non consolatio. Nam si eam diligeres sicut ipsa te dilexit, servasses ei quod tibi ipsa servavit. Et cum illa, si prior obisses, nullo modo credenda sit cuiquam fuisse nuptura; nonne si vere obitum eius laudibus eius consolandus doleres, ne unam quidem ac licitam post illam coniugem quaereres?
Cur Aug. dissoluto amico satisfacere nolit.
2. Hic tu dicturus es: "Quid mecum aspere agis? quid dure obiurgas?" Nonne inter haec verba ecce senuimus, dum vita ducitur prius finienda quam corrigenda? Vis ut ignoscam exitiabili securitati tuae: quanto satius tu ignoscis, si non amabili, certe miserabili sollicitudini meae? Inimico quidem animo Tullius invehebatur, et longe alia erat terrenam rempublicam gubernantis intentio, et tamen ait: Cupio, Patres conscripti, me esse clementem; cupio in tantis reipublicae periculis non dissolutum videri 1. Quanto iustius ego dico, cum ipse noveris quam tibi amicum animum geram, in aeternae civitatis servitio constitutus minister verbi sacramentique divini: "Cupio, frater Corneli, me esse clementem; cupio in tantis tuis meisque periculis non dissolutum videri"!
Cornelius scortis diffluens atque impudens.
3. Plebs mulierum excubat lateribus tuis, crescit in dies pellicum numerus; eiusdem autem numeri dominum, imo vero servum insatiabili per tot scorta libidine diffluentem, et laudes defunctae castae coniugis a nobis, velut ad mitigandam moestitiam suam, iure amicitiae flagitantem episcopi patienter audimus? Qui cum esses, non dicam catechumenus, sed in errore nobiscum perniciosissimo constitutus iuvenis, iunioribus nobis, ab hoc te vitio temperantissima voluntate correxeras, quo non post longum tempus sordidius revolutus, deinde in extremo vitae periculo baptizatus, non dicam, te fideli, sed etiam nobis certe iam senibus et insuper episcopis, nondum emendaris. Vis de bonae uxoris morte per nos consolari: nos de hac tua veriore morte quis consolatur? An quia non possumus oblivisci tanta erga nos merita tua, ideo cruciandi adhuc sumus moribus tuis, ideo contemnendi, et pro nihilo habendi, quando gemimus ad te de te? Sed fatemur nos non esse aliquid ad te corrigendum ac sanandum; Deus attendatur, Christus cogitetur, Apostolus audiatur dicens: Tollens ergo membra Christi, faciam membra meretricis 2 Si qualiscumque episcopi amici tui verba spernis in corde tuo, corpus Domini tui cogita in corpore tuo: postremo, quomodo de die in diem differendo peccas, cum extremum diem tuum nescias?
C. imitetur defunctae uxoris pudicitiam.
4. Nunc probabo quantum tu ab ore nostro laudes Cyprianae desideres. Certe si adhuc in schola rhetorum verba discipulis venderem, prius ab eis mercedem sumerem. Vendere tibi volo laudem pudicissimae coniugis tuae; prius mihi mercedem da, pudicitiam tuam: da, inquam, et accipe. Humanum dico propter infirmitatem tuam 3; puto quod non sit a te digna Cypriana, cuius laudibus anteponis amorem concubinarum tuarum: quod utique facies, si permanere in illo amore, quam ad istas laudes pervenire malueris. Quid mihi vis extorquere poscendo, cum pro te videas esse quod posco? quid precaris subiectus, quod potes iubere correctus? Mittamus munera spiritui coniugis tuae; tu imitationem, ego laudem. Quamquam, sicut supra dixi, laudem ab hominibus iam illa non quaerat; imitationem vero tuam tantum quaerit etiam defuncta, quantum te dilexit etiam dissimilem viva. Faciam de illa quod vis, cum tu feceris quod et ego volo et illa.
C. caste vivat ut cum casta uxore semper vivat.
5. Si enim dives ille superbus atque impius, sicut in Evangelio Dominus loquitur, qui induebatur purpura et bysso, et epulabatur quotidie splendide, cum malorum meritorum poenas apud inferos lueret, neque de digito contempti ante ianuam suam pauperis aquae stillam impetrare valuisset; recordatus est quinque fratres suos, et rogavit ad eos eumdem pauperem mitti, cuius requiem in sinu Abrahae longe prospiciebat, ne et ipsi venirent in illum locum tormentorum 4: quanto magis tua coniux te recordatur? quanto magis te casta non vult ad poenas venire moechorum, si fratres suos nec superbus ad poenas venire voluit superborum? et cum frater nollet fratribus in malis se esse coniunctum, quanto minus vult in bonis constituta coniux virum in malis habere separatum? Lege ipsum locum in Evangelio: Christi est vox pia; crede Deo 5. Doles videlicet coniugem mortuam, et putas, si eam laudavero, quod meis affatibus consolaberis; disce quod doleas, si cum illa non eris. An magis tibi dolendum est quod a me nondum laudatur, quam mihi quod a te non amatur? Nam utique si amares, cum illa esse post mortem desiderares, quo profecto non eris, si qualis es talis eris. Ama ergo cuius exigis laudem, ne quod mendaciter exigis, iuste denegem. (Et alia manu:) Dominus nobis praestet de tua salute gaudere, domine dilectissime, et honorabilis frater.
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To my dearly loved and honorable brother Cornelius: Augustine.
You wrote asking me to send you a somewhat long consolatory letter because you were deeply moved by the death of your excellent wife, as you remember holy Paulinus did for Macarius. Her soul, received into the fellowship of the faithful and chaste, neither cares for nor seeks human praises. But because such things are done for the sake of the living, the first matter is that you, who desire to be consoled by her praise, live in such a way that you deserve to be where she is. I do not doubt that you believe she is not where those women are who polluted the marriage bed by adultery, or who, bound by no marriage, poured themselves out in fornication. Therefore to try to drive away sadness by praising her to a husband so unlike her is flattery, not consolation. If you loved her as she loved you, you would have kept for her what she kept for you. And since, if you had died first, no one should believe that she would ever have married anyone else, then if you truly grieved for her death and were to be consoled by her praises, would you not refrain from seeking even one lawful wife after her?
Here you will say, "Why are you dealing harshly with me? Why do you rebuke me so severely?" Are we not growing old while saying such things, as life is being carried along to its end before it is corrected? You want me to pardon your deadly carelessness. How much better if you pardon, if not my lovable concern, at least my pitiable anxiety. Cicero was indeed attacking with a hostile mind, and the intention of a man governing an earthly republic was very different, yet he said, "I desire, Conscript Fathers, to be merciful; in such dangers of the republic I desire not to seem lax." How much more justly can I say, when you yourself know what a friendly spirit I bear toward you, while I am set as a minister of the word and divine sacrament in the service of the eternal city: "I desire, brother Cornelius, to be merciful; in such dangers as yours and mine I desire not to seem lax."
A crowd of women keeps watch at your sides. The number of concubines grows day by day. Are we bishops to listen patiently to the lord of that number, or rather its slave, melting away in insatiable lust through so many prostitutes, while he demands from us the praises of his dead and chaste wife, as though by right of friendship, to soften his sadness? When you were, I will not say a catechumen, but a young man established with us in a most destructive error, and we were younger, you had corrected yourself from this vice by a very restrained will. Not long afterward you slipped back into it more shamefully; then, baptized in the utmost danger of life, now that you are not only a believer but dealing with us as old men and bishops, you still have not amended. You want us to console you over the death of a good wife. Who consoles us over this truer death of yours? Is it because we cannot forget your many services toward us that we must still be tortured by your conduct, still despised and counted as nothing when we groan to you about yourself? We confess that we are nothing for correcting and healing you. Let God be attended to; let Christ be considered; let the apostle be heard when he says, "Shall I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?" If you despise in your heart the words of whatever bishop is your friend, think of your Lord's body in your own body. Finally, how can you sin by putting things off from day to day, when you do not know your last day?
Now I will prove how much you desire praises of Cypriana from my mouth. If I were still in the rhetoricians' school selling words to students, I would first take payment from them. I want to sell you the praise of your most chaste wife. First give me the price: your chastity. Give it, I say, and receive. I speak in human terms because of your weakness. I think Cypriana is not worthy, in your eyes, of having you prefer her praises to the love of your concubines. That is exactly what you will do if you choose to remain in that love rather than reach these praises. Why do you want to wring from me by asking what you see I am asking for your own sake? Why do you plead as a man under command for what, once corrected, you could command? Let us send gifts to your wife's spirit: you imitation, I praise. Although, as I said above, she no longer seeks praise from human beings. But she seeks your imitation even after death as much as she loved you, different from her as you were, while she lived. I will do concerning her what you want when you have done what both I and she want.
For if that rich, proud, and impious man, as the Lord says in the Gospel, who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted splendidly every day, when he was paying the penalties of his evil merits in the lower world and could not obtain even a drop of water from the finger of the poor man once despised at his gate, remembered his five brothers and asked that the same poor man, whose rest in Abraham's bosom he saw from afar, be sent to them so that they too would not come into that place of torments, how much more does your wife remember you? How much more does a chaste woman not want you to come to the punishments of adulterers, if even a proud man did not want his brothers to come to the punishments of the proud? And when a brother did not want his brothers to be joined to him in evils, how much less does a wife established in good things want to have her husband separated from her in evils? Read that very passage in the Gospel. It is the merciful voice of Christ; believe God. You grieve, of course, for your dead wife, and think that if I praise her you will be consoled by my words. Learn what you should grieve over: that you may not be with her. Should you grieve more that she is not yet praised by me, than I grieve that she is not loved by you? If you loved her, you would desire to be with her after death, where you certainly will not be if you remain as you are. Love, then, the woman whose praise you demand, lest I rightly refuse what you demand falsely. In another hand: May the Lord grant us to rejoice over your salvation, dearly loved and honorable brother.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
EPISTOLA 259
Scripta ca. a. 429/430.
A. Cornelio, qui, scortis deditus, defunctae uxoris laudes petiverat, illum admonens quae ab amicis honeste petenda sint (nn. 1-3) hortansque ut uxoris pudicitiam imitetur si velit illius laudes impetrare (nn. 4-5).
DOMINO DILECTISSIMO, ET HONORABILI FRATRI CORNELIO, AUGUSTINUS.
Cui prosint defunctae uxoris laudes.
1. Scripsisti mihi ut ad te aliquam prolixam epistolam consolatoriam darem, quod graviter optimae uxoris morte movereris, sicut sanctum Paulinum ad Macarium fecisse meministi. Et illa quidem anima in societatem recepta fidelium atque castarum, laudes nec curat, nec quaerit humanas; sed quia propter eos fiunt ista, qui vivunt, prius est ut tu, qui consolari eius laude desideras, ita vivas, ut illic ubi ipsa est, esse merearis. Neque enim dubito quod eam non credas ibi esse, ubi illae sunt quae vel adulteriis lectulum coniugalem polluerunt, vel nullo coniugio deligatae fornicatione fluxerunt. Quare, de illius laude viro longe dissimili quasi fugare velle moestitiam, adulatio est, non consolatio. Nam si eam diligeres sicut ipsa te dilexit, servasses ei quod tibi ipsa servavit. Et cum illa, si prior obisses, nullo modo credenda sit cuiquam fuisse nuptura; nonne si vere obitum eius laudibus eius consolandus doleres, ne unam quidem ac licitam post illam coniugem quaereres?
Cur Aug. dissoluto amico satisfacere nolit.
2. Hic tu dicturus es: "Quid mecum aspere agis? quid dure obiurgas?" Nonne inter haec verba ecce senuimus, dum vita ducitur prius finienda quam corrigenda? Vis ut ignoscam exitiabili securitati tuae: quanto satius tu ignoscis, si non amabili, certe miserabili sollicitudini meae? Inimico quidem animo Tullius invehebatur, et longe alia erat terrenam rempublicam gubernantis intentio, et tamen ait: Cupio, Patres conscripti, me esse clementem; cupio in tantis reipublicae periculis non dissolutum videri 1. Quanto iustius ego dico, cum ipse noveris quam tibi amicum animum geram, in aeternae civitatis servitio constitutus minister verbi sacramentique divini: "Cupio, frater Corneli, me esse clementem; cupio in tantis tuis meisque periculis non dissolutum videri"!
Cornelius scortis diffluens atque impudens.
3. Plebs mulierum excubat lateribus tuis, crescit in dies pellicum numerus; eiusdem autem numeri dominum, imo vero servum insatiabili per tot scorta libidine diffluentem, et laudes defunctae castae coniugis a nobis, velut ad mitigandam moestitiam suam, iure amicitiae flagitantem episcopi patienter audimus? Qui cum esses, non dicam catechumenus, sed in errore nobiscum perniciosissimo constitutus iuvenis, iunioribus nobis, ab hoc te vitio temperantissima voluntate correxeras, quo non post longum tempus sordidius revolutus, deinde in extremo vitae periculo baptizatus, non dicam, te fideli, sed etiam nobis certe iam senibus et insuper episcopis, nondum emendaris. Vis de bonae uxoris morte per nos consolari: nos de hac tua veriore morte quis consolatur? An quia non possumus oblivisci tanta erga nos merita tua, ideo cruciandi adhuc sumus moribus tuis, ideo contemnendi, et pro nihilo habendi, quando gemimus ad te de te? Sed fatemur nos non esse aliquid ad te corrigendum ac sanandum; Deus attendatur, Christus cogitetur, Apostolus audiatur dicens: Tollens ergo membra Christi, faciam membra meretricis 2 Si qualiscumque episcopi amici tui verba spernis in corde tuo, corpus Domini tui cogita in corpore tuo: postremo, quomodo de die in diem differendo peccas, cum extremum diem tuum nescias?
C. imitetur defunctae uxoris pudicitiam.
4. Nunc probabo quantum tu ab ore nostro laudes Cyprianae desideres. Certe si adhuc in schola rhetorum verba discipulis venderem, prius ab eis mercedem sumerem. Vendere tibi volo laudem pudicissimae coniugis tuae; prius mihi mercedem da, pudicitiam tuam: da, inquam, et accipe. Humanum dico propter infirmitatem tuam 3; puto quod non sit a te digna Cypriana, cuius laudibus anteponis amorem concubinarum tuarum: quod utique facies, si permanere in illo amore, quam ad istas laudes pervenire malueris. Quid mihi vis extorquere poscendo, cum pro te videas esse quod posco? quid precaris subiectus, quod potes iubere correctus? Mittamus munera spiritui coniugis tuae; tu imitationem, ego laudem. Quamquam, sicut supra dixi, laudem ab hominibus iam illa non quaerat; imitationem vero tuam tantum quaerit etiam defuncta, quantum te dilexit etiam dissimilem viva. Faciam de illa quod vis, cum tu feceris quod et ego volo et illa.
C. caste vivat ut cum casta uxore semper vivat.
5. Si enim dives ille superbus atque impius, sicut in Evangelio Dominus loquitur, qui induebatur purpura et bysso, et epulabatur quotidie splendide, cum malorum meritorum poenas apud inferos lueret, neque de digito contempti ante ianuam suam pauperis aquae stillam impetrare valuisset; recordatus est quinque fratres suos, et rogavit ad eos eumdem pauperem mitti, cuius requiem in sinu Abrahae longe prospiciebat, ne et ipsi venirent in illum locum tormentorum 4: quanto magis tua coniux te recordatur? quanto magis te casta non vult ad poenas venire moechorum, si fratres suos nec superbus ad poenas venire voluit superborum? et cum frater nollet fratribus in malis se esse coniunctum, quanto minus vult in bonis constituta coniux virum in malis habere separatum? Lege ipsum locum in Evangelio: Christi est vox pia; crede Deo 5. Doles videlicet coniugem mortuam, et putas, si eam laudavero, quod meis affatibus consolaberis; disce quod doleas, si cum illa non eris. An magis tibi dolendum est quod a me nondum laudatur, quam mihi quod a te non amatur? Nam utique si amares, cum illa esse post mortem desiderares, quo profecto non eris, si qualis es talis eris. Ama ergo cuius exigis laudem, ne quod mendaciter exigis, iuste denegem. (Et alia manu:) Dominus nobis praestet de tua salute gaudere, domine dilectissime, et honorabilis frater.