Letter 132: In my desire for your welfare, both in this world and in Christ, I am perhaps not even surpassed by the prayers of your pious mother. Wherefore, in reciprocating your salutation with the respect due to your worth, I beg to exhort you, as earnestly as I can, not to grudge to devote attention to the study of the Writings which are truly and unques...

Augustine to Volusian, greetings. I am delighted to learn of your interest in the Christian faith, my noble friend — all the more so because I know you come to it not out of political convenience (many do, in these times) but out of genuine intellectual curiosity. You have questions. Good. I would be worried if you did not. A faith that cannot withstand questions is not worth holding. Ask whatever you wish, and I will answer as honestly as I can — which means that sometimes the honest answer will be "I do not know." But let me anticipate one question, because it is the one educated pagans always ask first: how can the infinite God be contained in a human body? How can the immeasurable be born, suffer, and die? Is this not beneath the dignity of the divine? I answer: it would be beneath the dignity of the divine if the divine had not chosen it freely. When a great king stoops to lift a child from the mud, he is not diminished — he is magnified. The incarnation is not God's humiliation. It is his supreme act of love. He descended, not because he was forced, but because we could not ascend. Write back. I am eager to continue this conversation. Farewell.

Letter 132 (A.D. 412) To Volusianus, My Noble Lord and Most Justly Distinguished Son, Bishop Augustine Sends Greeting in the Lord. In my desire for your welfare, both in this world and in Christ, I am perhaps not even surpassed by the prayers of your pious mother. Wherefore, in reciprocating your salutation with the respect due to your worth, I beg to exhort you, as earnestly as I can, not to grudge to devote attention to the study of the Writings which are truly and unquestionably holy. For they are genuine and solid truth, not winning their way to the mind by artificial eloquence, nor giving forth with flattering voice a vain and uncertain sound. They deeply interest the man who is hungering not for words but for things; and they cause great alarm at first in him whom they are to render safe from fear. I exhort you especially to read the writings of the apostles, for from them you will receive a stimulus to acquaint yourself with the prophets, whose testimonies the apostles use. If in your reading or meditation on what you have read any question arises to the solution of which I may appear necessary, write to me, that I may write in reply. For, with the Lord helping me, I may perhaps be more able to serve you in this way than by personally conversing with you on such subjects, partly because, through the difference in our occupations, it does not happen that you have leisure at the same times as I might have it, but especially because of the irrepressible intrusion of those who are for the most part not adapted to such discussions, and take more pleasure in a war of words than in the clear light of knowledge; whereas, whatever is written stands always at the service of the reader when he has leisure, and there can be nothing burdensome in the society of that which is taken up or laid aside at your own pleasure.

EPISTOLA 132 Scripta circa a. 411/412. Augustinus Volusiano, illum hortans ut Litterarum Sacrarum lectioni vacet sibique rescribat si quid in eis difficultatis legenti occurrerit. DOMINO ILLUSTRI ET MERITO PRAESTANTISSIMO FILIO VOLUSIANO, AUGUSTINUS EPISCOPUS. 1. De salute tua, quam et in hoc saeculo, et in Christo esse cupio, sanctae matris tuae votis sum fortasse etiam ipse non impar. Unde meritis tuis reddens salutationis obsequium, hortor, ut valeo, ut Litterarum vere certeque sanctarum studio te curam non pigeat impendere. Sincera enim et solida res est, nec fucatis eloquiis ambit ad animum, nec ullo linguae tectorio inane aliquid ac pendulum crepitat 1. Multum movet, non verborum, sed rerum avidum; et multum terret, factura securum. Praecipue Apostolorum linguas exhortor ut legas; ex his enim ad cognoscendos Prophetas excitaberis, quorum testimoniis utuntur Apostoli. Si quid autem, vel cum legis, vel cum cogitas, tibi oritur quaestionis, in quo dissolvendo videar necessarius, scribe ut rescribam Magis enim hoc forte Domino ad iuvante potero, quam praesens talia loqui tecum; non solum propter occupationes varias et meas et tuas (quoniam non cum mihi vacat, occurrit ut et tibi vacet), verum etiam propter eorum irruentem praesentiam, qui plerumque non sunt apti tali negotio, magisque linguae certaminibus, quam scientiae luminibus delectantur: quod autem scriptum habetur, semper vacat ad legendum, cum vacat legenti; nec onerosum fit praesens, quod cum voles sumitur, cum voles ponitur.