Letter 258: Augustine tells Martianus that friendship becomes whole only when shared in Christ.

To Martianus, a brother deservedly to be welcomed, dearly loved in Christ and deeply longed for: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. I tore myself away, or rather stole myself away, and in a sense robbed my many occupations of myself, so that I could write to you, my very old friend, whom nevertheless I did not truly have as long as I did not hold you in Christ. You know how Cicero, the greatest Roman master of eloquence, as someone says, defined friendship. He said, and he said very truly, that friendship is agreement in things human and divine, with goodwill and love. You, my dearest, once agreed with me in human things, when I wanted to enjoy them in the ordinary way; and in taking up the things of which I now repent, you favored me and filled the sails of my desires, together with the rest of those who loved me then, and especially with the breeze of praise. But in divine things, of which at that time no truth had shone on me, our friendship limped in the greater part of that definition. It was agreement only in human things, not also in divine things, though it did have goodwill and love. After I stopped desiring those things, you still, with continuing goodwill, wished me to be safe with mortal safety and happy with the prosperity people in this world usually desire. So even then there was, in some measure, a benevolent and dear agreement between you and me in human things. But now how can I explain in words how much I rejoice over you, when the man whom I somehow had for a long time as a friend I now have as a true friend? Agreement in divine things has been added, because you, who once passed this temporal life with me in such pleasant kindness, have now begun to be with me in hope of eternal life. Now there is no disagreement between us even about human things, because we weigh them by the knowledge of divine things, so that we do not give them more than their measure rightly requires, nor by throwing them away in unjust contempt do injury to their creator, the Lord of things heavenly and earthly. Thus, among friends who do not have agreement in divine things, there cannot be full and true agreement even in human things. Whoever despises divine things must judge human things otherwise than he ought, and whoever does not love the one who made humanity does not know how to love a human being rightly. So I do not say that now you are more fully my friend, having formerly been so in part. As reason judges, you were not even partly my friend, since you did not then hold true friendship with me even in human things. You were not yet my companion in divine things, by which human things are judged rightly, whether when I too was not in them, or after I had begun to taste them in some measure and you still stood far away from them. Do not be angry, and do not think it absurd that at the time when I was burning with the vanities of this world, though you seemed to love me greatly, you were not yet my friend. I was not even a friend to myself, but rather an enemy, for I loved iniquity; and the saying written in the holy books is true because it is divine: "The one who loves iniquity hates his own soul." Since I hated my own soul, how could I have a true friend wishing for me the very things in which I myself was suffering as my own enemy? But when the kindness and grace of our Savior shone on me, not according to my merits but according to his mercy, how could you, while still alien from that grace, be my friend, since you were wholly ignorant of the thing by which I could be blessed, and did not love me in that respect in which I had already become, in some measure, a friend to myself? Thanks be to God, then, that at last he deigns to make you my friend. Now we have agreement in things human and divine, with goodwill and love, in Christ Jesus our Lord, our truest peace. He summed up all the divine proclamations in two commandments, saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. In the first is agreement in divine things; in the second, agreement in human things, with goodwill and love. If you hold these two most firmly with me, our friendship will be true and everlasting, and it will join not only us to each other but us both to the Lord himself. So that this may happen, I urge your gravity and prudence now to receive also the sacraments of the faithful. This befits your age and, as I believe, suits your character. Remember what you said to me as I was setting out, recalling a verse from Terence, comic though it was, yet most apt and useful: "Now this day brings another life; it calls for other ways." If you said this truly, as I ought not doubt of you, then you are surely already living so as to be worthy to receive the saving baptism for the forgiveness of past sins. For there is no one other than the Lord Christ to whom the human race can say, "If under your leadership any traces of our guilt remain, they will release the lands from perpetual fear and make them void." Virgil acknowledged that he translated this from the Cumaean, that is, the Sibylline poem, because perhaps even that prophetess had heard something in the Spirit about the one Savior and had to confess it. Whether these words are few or perhaps many, I have written them to you as best I could while very busy, my lord deservedly to be welcomed and brother dearly loved and longed for in Christ. I desire to receive your reply and to know, very soon, that you have given your name among the competentes, those preparing for baptism, or that you are about to do so. May the Lord our God, in whom you have believed, preserve you both here and in the age to come, my lord deservedly to be welcomed and brother dearly loved and longed for in Christ.

EPISTOLA 258 Scripta post a. 395. A. Martiano, veteri amico, gratulans quod catechumenus sit factus ideoque plene amicus, monstrans quo vera amicitia contineatur (nn. 1-4) hortansque ad baptisma aliaque sacramenta percipienda (n. 5). DOMINO MERITO SUSCIPIENDO, ET IN CHRISTO DILECTISSIMO AC DESIDERANTISSIMO FRATRI MARTIANO, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Quae sit vera amicitia secundum Ciceronem. 1. Abripui, vel potius surripui, et quodammodo furatus sum memetipsum multis occupationibus meis, ut tibi scriberem antiquissimo amico, quem tamen non habebam, quamdiu in Christo non tenebam. Nosti quippe ut definierit amicitiam Romani, ut ait quidam, maximus auctor Tullius eloquii 1. Dixit enim, et verissime dixit: Amicitia est rerum humanarum et divinarum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio 2. Tu autem, mi carissime, aliquando mihi consentiebas in rebus humanis, cum eis more vulgi frui cuperem; et mihi ad ea capessenda quorum me poenitet, favendo velificabas, imo vero vela cupiditatum mearum, cum caeteris tunc dilectoribus meis, inter praecipuos aura laudis inflabas. Porro in rebus divinis, quarum mihi illo tempore nulla eluxerat veritas, utique in maiore illius definitionis parte nostra amicitia claudicabat: erat enim rerum tantummodo humanarum, non etiam divinarum, quamvis cum benevolentia et caritate consensio. Quomodo obsit inter amicos dissensio. 2. Et posteaquam illa cupere destiti, tu quidem perseverante benevolentia, salvum me esse cupiebas salute mortali, et ea rerum prosperitate felicem, quam mundus optare consuevit. Et iam sic itaque aliquantum tibi erat mecum rerum humanarum benevola et cara consensio. Nunc vero quantum de te gaudeo, quibus explicem verbis, quando eum quem quoquo modo habui diu amicum, habeo iam verum amicum? Accessit enim etiam rerum consensio divinarum; quoniam qui mecum temporalem vitam quondam iucundissima benignitate duxisti, nunc spe vitae aeternae mecum esse coepisti. Modo vero etiam de rebus humanis inter nos nulla dissensio est, qui eas rerum divinarum cognitione pensamus, ne plus eis tribuamus, quam modus earum iustissime postulat; nec eas iniquo contemptu abiciendo, creatori earum Domino rerum coelestium atque terrestrium faciamus iniuriam. Ita fit ut inter quos amicos non est rerum consensio divinarum, nec humanarum plena esse possit ac vera. Necesse est enim ut aliter quam oportet humana aestimet qui divina contemnit, nec hominem recte diligere noverit quisquis eum non diligit qui hominem fecit. Proinde non dico, nunc mihi plenius amicus es, qui eras ex parte; sed quantum ratio indicat, nec ex parte eras, quando nec in rebus humanis mecum amicitiam veram tenebas. Rerum quippe divinarum, ex quibus recte humana pensantur, socius mihi nondum eras; sive quando nec ipse in eis eram, sive posteaquam ego eas utcumque sapere coepi, a quibus tu longe abhorrebas. Quid amicus vero amico optet. 3. Nolo autem succenseas, nec tibi videatur absurdum quod illo tempore cum in vana huius mundi aestuarem, quamvis me multum amare videreris, nondum eras amicus meus; quando nec ipse mihi amicus eram, sed potius inimicus: diligebam quippe iniquitatem; et vera quia divina sententia est qua scriptum est in sanctis Libris: Qui autem diligit iniquitatem, odit animam suam 3. Cum ergo odissem animam meam, verum amicum quomodo habere poteram, ea mihi optantem in quibus ipse meipsum patiebar inimicum? Cum vero benignitas et gratia Salvatoris nostri illuxit mihi, non secundum merita mea, sed secundum ipsius misericordiam 4; tu ab hac alienus, quomodo esse poteras amicus meus, qui unde beatus esse possem penitus ignorabas, et non in hoc me amabas, in quo mihi ipse iam fueram utcumque amicus effectus? Vera amicitia quo fundamento nitatur. 4. Gratias itaque Deo, quod te mihi amicum facere tandem aliquando dignatur. Nunc enim nobis est rerum humanarum et divinarum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio 5 in Christo Iesu Domino nostro, verissima pace nostra. Qui duobus praeceptis cuncta praeconia divina conclusit, dicens: Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et ex tota anima tua, et ex tota mente tua; et: Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum. In iis duobus praeceptis tota Lex pendet et Prophetae 6. In illo primo rerum divinarum, in hoc secundo rerum humanarum est cum benevolentia et caritate consensio. Haec duo si mecum firmissime teneas, amicitia nostra vera ac sempiterna erit; et non solum nos invicem, sed ipsi etiam Domino sociabit. Baptisma percipiat ad novam capessendam vitam. 5. Quod ut fiat, exhortor gravitatem et prudentiam tuam ut iam etiam fidelium Sacramenta percipias: decet enim aetatem, et congruit, quantum credo, moribus tuis. Memento quid mihi dixeris profecturo, comicum quidem de Terentio, recolens, versum, sed tamen aptissimum et utilissimum: Nunc hic dies vitam aliam affert, alios mores postulat 7. Quod si veraciter dixisti, sicut de te dubitare non debeo; iam profecto sic vivis ut sis dignus Baptismo salutari remissionem praeteritorum accipere peccatorum. Nam omnino non est cui alteri praeter Dominum Christum dicat genus humanum: Te duce si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras 8. Quod ex Cumaeo, id est, ex Sibyllino carmine se fassus est transtulisse Virgilius; quoniam fortassis etiam illa vates aliquid de unico Salvatore in spiritu audierat, quod necesse habuit confiteri. Haec tibi, domine merito suscipiende, et in Christo dilectissime ac desiderantissime frater, sive pauca, sive forsitan multa sint, utcumque occupatissimus scripsi: tua sumere rescripta desidero, et te nomen dedisse inter competentes, vel daturum esse, iamiamque cognoscere. Dominus Deus noster, in quem credidisti, et hic et in futuro saeculo te conservet, domine merito suscipiende, et in Christo dilectissime ac desiderantissime frater.