Letter 264: Augustine tells Maxima to resist harmful errors while trusting God's use of trials.

To Maxima, honorable, distinguished, and praiseworthy as a servant of God among Christ's members: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. Your holy concern makes us glad; but it also saddens us that you report your province is gravely endangered by harmful and most destructive errors. Since these things were foretold as future, we should not marvel that they arise, but keep watch so that they do no harm. Our liberating God would not allow them to arise unless it were useful for his saints to be trained even through temptations of this kind. Those people, by their own perverse will, are storing up for themselves the deserved blindness of the present and eternal punishment in the future, if they remain stubbornly unteachable and neglect, while they are in this life, to correct and amend themselves. Yet just as they use God's good things badly, though he makes his sun rise on the good and the wicked and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, and through his patience calls them to repentance while they store up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath and of the revelation of God's just judgment; so, on the other side, God uses even their evils well. He uses them not only for his justice, which will repay them what they deserve in the end, but also for the training and progress of his saints, so that good people profit, are tested, and are made manifest even from the perversity of the wicked. As the apostle says, "There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may become manifest among you." If God could make no good use even of evil people for the benefit of his chosen, he who brought us so great a good out of Judas's evil, that we should be redeemed by Christ's blood, could either have refused to allow those whom he foreknew would be evil to be born, or have extinguished them at the very beginning of their malice. But he allows them to exist only as much as he knows is useful and sufficient for warning and exercising his holy household. This is why he consoles our sadness over them. The sadness we have for them lightens us, while it weighs down those who persevere in their perversity. But the joy we receive when any of them are corrected and changed for the better and joined to the society of the saints cannot be compared with any joy in this life. For this reason it is written, "My son, if you are wise, you will be wise for yourself and your neighbors; but if you turn wicked, you alone will bear evils." When we rejoice over the faithful and righteous, their good profits both them and us. When we grieve over the faithless and unjust, both their malice and our sadness hurt them alone; for us it helps greatly before God that we grieve for them mercifully, and groan and pray over that very sadness. Therefore, honorable servant of God and praiseworthy in Christ, I greatly approve and praise both the grief you expressed in your letter over such people and the vigilance and caution you show against them. Since you ask this of me, I exhort and warn you, as far as I can, to persevere in this path: have mercy on them as innocent as a dove, but beware of them as shrewd as a serpent. Work as much as you can so that those who cling to you may remain with you in the right faith, or, if any have perhaps been distorted in some point, may be corrected back to the right faith. As for the human nature which the Word of God assumed when he became flesh and dwelt among us, I would correct something if I found anything false or perverse in what you believe. So believe what you believe: in that human being the Son of God assumed our whole nature, that is, a rational soul and mortal flesh, without sin. He became a participant in our weakness, not our injustice, so that by sharing our weakness he might dissolve our injustice and lead us to his righteousness, drinking death from what is ours and pouring out life from what is his. But if you have any writing of theirs in which they assert something contrary to this faith, please send it, so that, as far as we can, we may not only state our faith but refute their faithlessness. No doubt they try to build their perverse and impious opinion from some testimonies of the divine Scriptures. In those very texts we must show them how wrongly they understand the sacred writings composed for the salvation of the faithful, as if someone seriously harmed himself with medical instruments, which were certainly designed not for wounding but for healing. We have labored, and continue to labor as much as the Lord grants, to argue against various errors. If you perhaps wish to have our little works from these labors, send people to copy them for you. God has willed that you can do this very easily, since he has given you the means to do it.

EPISTOLA 264 Scripta post a. 395. A. Maximae, piae feminae, quae aegre admodum videbat noxiis erroribus provinciam suam periclitari, admonens Dei sapientiam malis quoque bene uti (nn. 1-2) Deique Filium esse nostrae infirmitatis, non autem peccati participem (n. 3). HONORABILI ET EXIMIAE ATQUE IN MEMBRIS CHRISTI LAUDABILI FAMULAE DEI MAXIMAE, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Deum et malis bene uti ad bonorum profectum. 1. Quantum nos tuum studium sanctum laetificat, tantum rursus contristat quod per errores noxios et perniciosissimos provinciam vestram nimium periclitari significas. Sed quia ista futura praedicta sunt, mirandum non est quod exsurgant, sed vigilandum ne noceant. Haec autem Deus liberator noster exsurgere non permitteret, nisi sanctis eius etiam per huiusmodi tentationes erudiri expediret. Comparant sibi quidem illi sua voluntate perversa, et praesentis meritum caecitatis et futuri aeterni supplicii, si per contumaciam indociles fuerint, seque, cum in hac vita sunt, corrigere atque emendare neglexerint. Verumtamen, sicut ipsi male utuntur bonis Dei, qui facit solem suum oriri super bonos et malos, et pluit super iustos et iniustos 1; qui eos per patientiam suam ad poenitentiam vocat, cum thesaurizant sibi iram in die irae, et revelationis iusti iudicii Dei 2: sicut ergo ipsi benignitate et patientia, id est bonis Dei male utuntur, dum non corriguntur; sic contra, Deus etiam malis eorum bene utitur, non solum ad iustitiam suam, quae eis digna in fine retribuet, sed etiam ad exercitationem et provectum sanctorum suorum, ut ex ipsa etiam malorum perversitate boni proficiant, et probentur, et manifestentur; sicut Apostolus ait: Oportet haereses esse, ut probati manifesti fiant inter vos 3. Pro errantibus orandum, errores autem vitandi. 2. Nam si nullus etiam malorum bonus usus esset Deo ad utilitatem electorum suorum, qui etiam de malo Iudae tantum bonum nobis praestitit, ut Christi sanguine redimeremur; poterat eos aut nasci non permittere, quos malos futuros esse praesciebat, aut in ipso eorum initio malignitatis exstinguere: sed tantum eos permittit esse, quantum novit expedire atque sufficere admonendae atque exercendae sanctae domui suae. Ideo nostram de illis tristitiam consolatur: quia et ipsa tristitia quam pro illis habemus, nos relevat; illos autem in sua perversitate perseverantes gravat. Gaudium vero quod percipimus quando aliqui ex eis correcti in melius commutantur, et sanctorum societati copulantur, nulli gaudio in hac vita comparari potest. Propterea scriptum est: Fili, si sapiens fueris, tibi sapiens eris et proximis tuis; si autem malus evaseris, solus hauries mala 4. Quia cum gaudemus de fidelibus et iustis, et illis et nobis prodest bonum eorum; cum autem contristamur de infidelibus et iniquis, illis solis nocet et eorum malitia et nostra tristitia: nos autem etiam hoc plurimum adiuvat apud Deum, quod pro eis misericorditer contristamur, et pro ipsa tristitia congemiscimus et oramus. Unde honorabilis et in Christo laudabilis famula Dei, et moestitiam tuam de talibus, et vigilantiam atque cautelam contra tales, quam tuis litteris expressisti, multum approbo et laudo: atque ut in hac via perseveranter ambules, pro meis viribus, quia hoc exigis, et hortor, et moneo ut miserearis eorum tamquam simplex ut columba, caveas autem illos tamquam astuta sicut serpens 5; desque operam, quantum potes, ut qui tibi adhaerent, tecum in recta fide permaneant, aut ad fidem rectam, si forte in aliquo aliqui depravati sunt, corrigantur. Quid spectet Incarnatio quaeque eius sit ratio. 3. De homine autem quem suscepit Verbum Dei, cum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis 6, emendarem aliquid, si in eo quod credis, falsum aut perversum invenirem. Hoc ergo crede quod credis, quia in illo homine totam naturam nostram suscepit Filius Dei, id est et animam rationalem et carnem mortalem sine peccato. Infirmitatis enim nostrae particeps factus est, non iniquitatis, ut per infirmitatem communem, solveret iniquitatem nostram, et adduceret nos ad iustitiam suam, bibens mortem de nostro, et propinans vitam de suo. Sed si habes aliquam scripturam eorum, in qua asserunt quod huic fidei sit contrarium, dignare eam mittere, ut non solum fidem nostram dicamus, sed eorum quoque perfidiam, quantum possumus, refellamus. Sine dubio enim hoc ipsum, quod perverse et impie sentiunt, aliquibus testimoniis divinarum Scripturarum conantur astruere: in quibus eis ostendendum est quam non recte intellegant Litteras sacras conscriptas ad fidelium salutem; tamquam si quisquam se medicinalibus ferramentis graviter vexet, quae utique non ad vulnerandum, sed ad sanandum sunt instituta. Multum autem laboravimus et laboramus, quantum Dominus donat, contra diversos errores arguendos. Sed laborum nostrorum opuscula si forte habere desideras, mitte qui tibi describant. Voluit enim Deus ut hoc facillime possis, qui tibi dedit unde possis.