Letter 47: 1. Your perplexities have, since I learned them by your letter, become mine also, not because all those things by which you tell me that you are disturbed, disturb my mind: but I have been much perplexed, I confess, by the question how your perplexities were to be removed; especially since you require me to give a conclusive answer, lest you sho...

Augustine to Publicola, greetings. I have read your letter carefully, my son, and I see in your questions not an overanxious mind but a conscience genuinely striving to live well in a complicated world. That is exactly the kind of struggle God honors. Let me take your questions in order. First, about the barbarian's oath sworn by false gods. You are not polluted by another person's oath. The oath is the barbarian's act, not yours. You did not invoke false gods; he did. You are simply passing through a territory where the local power has pledged, by whatever means he knows, not to harm you. The Apostle Paul ate food sold in the marketplace without investigating its history, and he taught others to do the same — "eat whatever is sold in the market without raising questions of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it" [1 Corinthians 10:25-26]. The same principle applies here: you did not participate in the oath. You benefit from its practical effect. Your conscience is clean. Second, about your tenants swearing pagan oaths to protect your estate. Here the situation is slightly different, because these people are under your authority. You should instruct them, as far as you are able, that such oaths are unnecessary and wrong. But if they swear without your knowledge or against your instruction, their sin is not yours. You are responsible for teaching and correcting, not for controlling every action of every person on your land. God does not hold you accountable for sins you neither commanded nor approved. Third, about food offered to idols. Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians is our guide. If you do not know the food was offered to idols, eat it freely. If someone tells you it was offered to idols, abstain — not because the food itself is contaminated, but for the sake of the person who told you, whose conscience might be harmed by seeing you eat it [1 Corinthians 10:28-29]. The idol is nothing. The food is nothing. But the brother's conscience is something. The general principle, my son, is this: we live in a world that is not yet fully redeemed. We cannot avoid all contact with sin and error without leaving the world entirely — and the Lord did not call us to leave the world but to be salt and light within it [Matthew 5:13-14]. What matters is not that we live in perfect isolation from every pagan practice but that our own hearts and hands remain clean, and that we do not lead others into sin by our example. Keep asking these questions. A conscience that asks is a conscience that cares. And the one who cares is already halfway to the answer. Farewell, my son.

Letter 47 (A.D. 398) To the Honourable Publicola, My Much Beloved Son, Augustine Sends Greeting in the Lord. 1. Your perplexities have, since I learned them by your letter, become mine also, not because all those things by which you tell me that you are disturbed, disturb my mind: but I have been much perplexed, I confess, by the question how your perplexities were to be removed; especially since you require me to give a conclusive answer, lest you should fall into greater doubts than you had before you applied to me to have them resolved. For I see that I cannot give this, since, though I may write things which appear to me most certain, if I do not convince you, you must be beyond question more at a loss than before; and though it is in my power to use arguments which weigh with myself, I may fail of convincing another by these. However, lest I should refuse the small service which your love claims, I have resolved after some consideration to write in reply. 2. One of your doubts is as to using the services of a man who has guaranteed his fidelity by swearing by his false gods. In this matter I beg you to consider whether, in the event of a man failing to keep his word after having pledged himself by such an oath, you would not regard him as guilty of a twofold sin. For if he kept the engagement which he had confirmed by this oath, he would be pronounced guilty in this only, that he swore by such deities; but no one would justly blame him for keeping his engagement. But in the case supposed, seeing that he both swore by those whom he should not worship, and did, notwithstanding his promise, what he should not have done, he was guilty of two sins: whence it is obvious that in using, not for an evil work, but for some good and lawful end, the service of a man whose fidelity is known to have been confirmed by an oath in the name of false gods, one participates, not in the sin of swearing by the false gods, but in the good faith with which he keeps his promise. The faith which I here speak of as kept is not that on account of which those who are baptized in Christ are called faithful: that is entirely different and far removed from the faith desiderated in regard to the arrangements and compacts of men. Nevertheless it is, beyond all doubt, worse to swear falsely by the true God than to swear truly by the false gods; for the greater the holiness of that by which we swear, the greater is the sin of perjury. It is therefore a different question whether he is not guilty who requires another to pledge himself by taking an oath in the name of his gods, seeing that he worships false gods. In answering this question, we may accept as decisive those examples which you yourself quoted of Laban and of Abimelech (if Abimelech did swear by his gods, as Laban swore by the god of Nahor). This is, as I have said, another question, and one which would perchance perplex me, were it not for those examples of Isaac and Jacob, to which, for anything I know, others might be added. It may be that some scruple might yet be suggested by the precept in the New Testament, Swear not at all; Matthew 5:34, 36 words which were in my opinion spoken, not because it is a sin to swear a true oath, but because it is a heinous sin to forswear oneself: from which crime our Lord would have us keep at a great distance, when He charged us not to swear at all. I know, however, that our opinion is different: wherefore it should not be discussed at present; let us rather treat of that about which you have thought of asking my advice. On the same ground on which you forbear from swearing yourself, you may, if such be your opinion, regard it as forbidden to exact an oath from another, although it is expressly said, Swear not; but I do not remember reading anywhere in Holy Scripture that we are not to take another's oath. The question whether we ought to take advantage of the concord which is established between other parties by their exchange of oaths is entirely different. If we answer this in the negative, I know not whether we could find any place on earth in which we could live. For not only on the frontier, but throughout all the provinces, the security of peace rests on the oaths of barbarians. And from this it would follow, that not only the crops which are guarded by men who have sworn fidelity in the name of their false gods, but all things which enjoy the protection secured by the peace which a similar oath has ratified, are defiled. If this be admitted by you to be a complete absurdity, dismiss with it your doubts on the cases which you named. 3. Again, if from the threshing-floor or wine-press of a Christian anything be taken, with his knowledge, to be offered to false gods, he is guilty in permitting this to be done, if it be in his power to prevent it. If he finds that it has been done, or has not the power to prevent it, he uses without scruple the rest of the grain or wine, as uncontaminated, just as we use fountains from which we know that water has been taken to be used in idol-worship. The same principle decides the question about baths. For we have no scruple about inhaling the air into which we know that the smoke from all the altars and incense of idolaters ascends. From which it is manifest, that the thing forbidden is our devoting anything to the honour of the false gods, or appearing to do this by so acting as to encourage in such worship those who do not know our mind, although in our heart we despise their idols. And when temples, idols, groves, etc., are thrown down by permission from the authorities, although our taking part in this work is a clear proof of our not honouring, but rather abhorring, these things, we must nevertheless forbear from appropriating any of them to our own personal and private use; so that it may be manifest that in overthrowing these we are influenced, not by greed, but by piety. When, however, the spoils of these places are applied to the benefit of the community or devoted to the service of God, they are dealt with in the same manner as the men themselves when they are turned from impiety and sacrilege to the true religion. We understand this to be the will of God from the examples quoted by yourself: the grove of the false gods from which He commanded wood to be taken [by Gideon] for the burnt-offering; and Jericho, of which all the gold, silver, and brass was to be brought into the Lord's treasury. Hence also the precept in Deuteronomy: You shall not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto you, lest you be snared therein; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. Neither shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you become a cursed thing like it: but you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing. Deuteronomy 7:25-26 From which it appears plainly, that either the appropriation of such spoils to their own private use was absolutely forbidden, or they were forbidden to carry anything of that kind into their own houses with the intention of giving to it honour; for then this would be an abomination and accursed in the sight of God; whereas the honour impiously given to such idols is, by their public destruction, utterly abolished. 4. As to meats offered to idols, I assure you we have no duty beyond observing what the apostle taught concerning them. Study, therefore, his words on the subject, which, if they were obscure to you, I would explain as well as I could. He does not sin who, unwittingly, afterwards partakes of food which he formerly refused because it had been offered to an idol. A kitchen-herb, or any other fruit of the ground, belongs to Him who created it; for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, and every creature of God is good. But if that which the earth has borne is consecrated or offered to an idol, then we must reckon it among the things offered to idols. We must beware lest, in pronouncing that we ought not to eat the fruits of a garden belonging to an idol-temple, we be involved in the inference that it was wrong for the apostle to take food in Athens, since that city belonged to Minerva, and was consecrated to her as the guardian deity. The same answer I would give as to the well or fountain enclosed in a temple, though my scruples would be somewhat more awakened if some part of the sacrifices be thrown into the said well or fountain. But the case is, as I have said before, exactly parallel to our using of the air which receives the smoke of these sacrifices; or, if this be thought to make a difference, that the sacrifice, the smoke whereof mingles with the air, is not offered to the air itself, but to some idol or false god, whereas sometimes offerings are cast into the water with the intention of sacrificing to the waters themselves, it is enough to say that the same principle would preclude us from using the light of the sun, because wicked men continually worship that luminary wherever they are tolerated in doing so. Sacrifices are offered to the winds, which we nevertheless use for our convenience, although they seem, as it were, to inhale and swallow greedily the smoke of these sacrifices. If any one be in doubt regarding meat, whether it has been offered to an idol or not, and the fact be that it has not, when he eats that meat under the impression that it has not been offered to an idol, he by no means does wrong; because neither in fact, nor now in his judgment, is it food offered to an idol, although he formerly thought it was. For surely it is lawful to correct false impressions by others that are true. But if any one believes that to be good which is evil, and acts accordingly, he sins in entertaining that belief; and these are all sins of ignorance, in which one thinks that to be right which it is wrong for him to do. 5. As to killing others in order to defend one's own life, I do not approve of this, unless one happen to be a soldier or public functionary acting, not for himself, but in defense of others or of the city in which he resides, if he act according to the commission lawfully given him, and in the manner becoming his office. When, however, men are prevented, by being alarmed, from doing wrong, it may be said that a real service is done to themselves. The precept, Resist not evil, Matthew 5:39 was given to prevent us from taking pleasure in revenge, in which the mind is gratified by the sufferings of others, but not to make us neglect the duty of restraining men from sin. From this it follows that one is not guilty of homicide, because he has put up a wall round his estate, if any one is killed by the wall falling upon him when he is throwing it down. For a Christian is not guilty of homicide though his ox may gore or his horse kick a man, so that he dies. On such a principle, the oxen of a Christian should have no horns, and his horses no hoofs, and his dogs no teeth. On such a principle, when the Apostle Paul took care to inform the chief captain that an ambush was laid for him by certain desperadoes, and received in consequence an armed escort, Acts 23:17-24 if the villains who plotted his death had thrown themselves on the weapons of the soldiers, Paul would have had to acknowledge the shedding of their blood as a crime with which he was chargeable. God forbid that we should be blamed for accidents which, without our desire, happen to others through things done by us or found in our possession, which are in themselves good and lawful. In that event, we ought to have no iron implements for the house or the field, lest some one should by them lose his own life or take another's; no tree or rope on our premises, lest some one hang himself; no window in our house, lest some one throw himself down from it. But why mention more in a list which must be interminable? For what good and lawful thing is there in use among men which may not become chargeable with being an instrument of destruction? 6. I have now only to notice (unless I am mistaken) the case which you mentioned of a Christian on a journey overcome by the extremity of hunger; whether, if he could find nothing to eat but meat placed in an idol's temple, and there was no man near to relieve him, it would be better for him to die of starvation than to take that food for his nourishment? Since in this question it is not assumed that the food thus found was offered to the idol (for it might have been left by mistake or designedly by persons who, on a journey, had turned aside there to take refreshment; or it might have been put there for some other purpose), I answer briefly thus: Either it is certain that this food was offered to the idol, or it is certain that it was not, or neither of these things is known. If it is certain, it is better to reject it with Christian fortitude. In either of the other alternatives, it may be used for his necessity without any conscientious scruple.

EPISTOLA 47 Scripta circa eodem tempore. A. Publicolae rescribens, praefatus quam difficile sit ei satisfacere (n. 1), aliquot ex propositis quaestionibus dissolvit (n. 2-6).   Honorabili et dilectissimo filio Publicolae, Augustinus, in Domino salutem A. quam difficile amico satisfaciat. 1. Aestus animi tui posteaquam didici litteris tuis, etiam mei continuo facti sunt, non quo me omnia talia permoverent, qualibus indicasti te esse permotum: sed quomodo tibi auferrentur hi aestus, fateor, aestuavi; maxime quia petis ut definitive tibi rescriberem, ne in maiores dubitationes incideres, quam antequam interrogasses. Hoc enim video non esse in mea potestate. Nam quomodolibet scripsero quae mihi videntur esse certissima, si tibi non persuasero, procul dubio eris incertior. Non autem sicut mihi adiacet suadere, eo modo adiacet etiam persuadere cuilibet. Verum tamen ne tuae dilectioni negarem operulam meam, post aliquantam deliberationem rescribendum putavi. Possitne Christianus uti fide impie iurata. 2. Movet te certe utrum eius fide utendum sit, qui ut eam servet per daemonia iuraverit. Ubi te volo prius considerare, utrum si quispiam per deos falsos iuraverit se fidem servaturum, et eam non servaverit, non tibi videatur bis peccasse. Si enim tali iuratione promissam custodiret fidem, ideo tantum peccasse iudicaretur, quia per tales deos iuravit; illud autem nemo recte reprehenderet, quia fidem servavit. Nunc vero, quia et iuravit per quos non debuit, et contra pollicitam fidem fecit quod non debuit, bis utique peccavit; ac per hoc qui utitur fide illius quem constat iurasse per deos falsos, et utitur non ad malum, sed ad licitum et bonum, non peccato eius se sociat quo per daemonia iuravit, sed bono pacto eius quo fidem servavit. Neque hic eam fidem dico servari, qua fideles vocantur qui baptizantur in Christo. Illa enim longe alia est longeque discreta a fide humanorum placitorum atque pactorum. Verumtamen sine ulla dubitatione minus malum est per deum falsum iurare veraciter, quam per Deum verum fallaciter. Quanto enim per quod iuratur magis est sanctum, tanto magis est poenale periurium. Alia ergo quaestio est, utrum non peccet qui per falsos deos sibi iurari fecit, quia ille qui ei iurat, deos falsos colit. Cui quaestioni possunt illa testimonia suffragari, quae ipse commemorasti de Laban et Abimelech, si tamen Abimelech per deos suos iuravit, sicut Laban per Deum Nachor. Haec, ut dixi, alia quaestio est, quae me merito fortassis moveret, nisi illa exempla occurrissent de Isaac et Iacob, et si qua alia possunt inveniri. Si tamen illud non adhuc movet quod in Novo Testamento dictum est, ne omnino iuremus 1. Quod quidem mihi propterea dictum videtur, non quia verum iurare peccatum est, sed quia periurare immane peccatum est; a quo nos longe esse voluit, qui omnimodo ne iuremus admonuit. Sed tibi aliud videri scio; unde nunc disputandum non est, ut illud potius agamus unde me consulendum putasti. Proinde sicut non iuras, ita nec alium, si hoc placet, iurare comperas: quamvis dictum sit ne iuremus; nusquam autem in Scripturis sanctis legi meminerim, ne ab alio iurationem accipiamus. Alia vero quaestio est, utrum ea pace debeamus uti, quae inter alios invicem iurantes facta est. Quod si nolumus, ubi vivamus in terris, nescio utrum invenire possimus. Neque enim tantummodo limiti, sed universis provinciis pax conciliatur iuratione barbarica. Unde et illud sequetur, ut non fruges tantum quae ab eis custodiuntur, qui per deos falsos iuraverunt, sed ubique inquinata sint omnia quae ipsa pace muniuntur, quam iuratio illa confirmat. Quod si absurdissimum est dicere, nec illa te moveant quae movebant. Liceatne uti rebus idolis immolatis. 3. Item si de area vel torculari tollatur aliquid ad sacrificia daemoniorum sciente christiano, peccat si fieri permittit, ubi prohibendi potestas est. Quod si factum comperit, aut prohibendi potestatem non habuit, utitur mundis reliquis fructibus unde illa sublata sunt; sicut fontibus utimur, de quibus hauriri aquam ad usum sacrificiorum certissime scimus. Eadem est etiam ratio lavacrorum. Neque enim spiritum deducere de aere dubitamus, in quem scimus ire fumum ex aris omnibus et incensis daemoniorum. Unde apparet illud esse prohibitum, ne in honorem alienorum deorum aliqua re utamur, aut uti existimemur, sic eam accipiendo, ut quamvis animo contemnamus, eos tamen qui nostrum animum ignorant, ad haec honoranda aedificemus. Et cum templa, idola, luci, et si quid huiusmodi, data potestate evertuntur, quamvis manifestum est cum id agimus, non ea nos honorare, sed potius detestari, ideo tamen in usus nostros privatos duntaxat et proprios non debemus inde aliquid usurpare, ut appareat nos pietate ista destruere, non avaritia. Cum vero in usus communes, non proprios ac privatos, vel in honorem Dei veri convertuntur, hoc de illis fit quod de ipsis hominibus, cum ex sacrilegis et impiis in veram religionem mutantur. Hoc Deus intellegitur docuisse illis testimoniis quae ipse posuisti, cum de luco alienorum deorum iussit ligna ad holocaustum adhiberi 2; et de Iericho, ut omne aurum, argentum et aeramentum inferretur in thesauros Domini 3. Quapropter etiam illud quod in Deuteronomio scriptum est: Non concupisces argentum vel aurum illorum, nec accipies inde tibi, ne excedas propter illud: quoniam abominatio est Domino Deo tuo: et non conferes exsecramentum in domum tuam, et eris anathema, sicut et illud est, et offensione offendes, et coinquinatione inquinaberis abominatione illa, quia anathema est 4; satis apparet aut ipsos privatos usus in talibus esse prohibitos, aut ne sic inde aliquid inferatur in domum ut honoretur: tunc est enim abominatio et exsecratio; non cum talium sacrilegus honor apertissima destructione subvertitur. De escis immolaticiis. 4. De escis autem idolorum nihil amplius nos debere observare, quam quod praecepit Apostolus, certus esto. Et ideo de hac re verba eius recole, quae si obscura essent, pro modulo nostro exponeremus. Non autem peccat, qui cibum postea nesciens manducaverit, quem prius tanquam idolothytum respuit. Olus vel quilibet fructus in quolibet agro natus, eius est qui creavit; quia Domini est terra, et plenitudo eius 5; et omnis creatura Dei bona est 6. Sed si illud quod in agris nascitur, consecratur idolo, vel sacrificatur, tunc inter idolothyta deputandum est. Cavendum est enim, ne si putaverimus non vescendum olere quod nascitur in horto templi idoli, consequens sit ut existimemus non debuisse Apostolum apud Athenas cibum sumere, quia civitas erat Minervae eiusque numini consecrata. Hoc et de puteo responderim vel fonte qui in tempio est. Plus autem movet revera, si aliquid sacrificiorum in fontem vel puteum proiiciatur. Sed eadem ratio est aeris, qui omnem cum fumum recipit, de quo supra diximus: aut si hoc ideo putatur distare, quia illud sacrificium de quo fumus aeri confunditur, non fit ipsi aeri, sed idolo alicui vel daemonio, aliquando autem sic mittuntur sacrificio in aquas, ut ipsis aquis sacrificetur; non ideo utique solis huius luce non utimur, quia ei sacrilegi ubi possunt sacrificare non cessant. Sacrificatur etiam ventis, quibus tamen utimur ad tantas nostras commoditates, cum eorumdem sacrificiorum fumum ipsi quodammodo haurire et vorare videantur. Si quis dubitat de aliqua carne, utrum immolatitia sit, et non est immolatitia, si eam cognitionem tenuerit quod immolatitia non sit, et ea vescatur, non utique peccat; quia nec est, nec iam putatur immolatitia, etsi antea putabatur. Neque enim non licet corrigere cogitationes a falsitate in veritatem. Si quis autem bonum putaverit esse quod malum est, et fecerit, hoc putando utique peccat. Et ea sunt omnia peccata ignorantiae, quando quisque bene fieri putat, quod male fit. Quousque cuique liceat defendere se ipsum. 5. De occidendis hominibus ne ab eis quisque occidatur, non mihi placet consilium; nisi forte sit miles, aut publica functione teneatur, ut non pro se hoc faciat, sed pro aliis, vel pro civitate, ubi etiam ipse est, accepta legitima potestate, si eius congruit personae. Qui vero repelluntur aliquo terrore ne male faciant, etiam ipsis aliquid fortasse praestatur. Hinc autem dictum est, non resistamus malo 7, ne nos vindicta delectet, quae alieno malo animum pascit; non ut correctionem hominum negligamus. Unde nec reus est mortis alienae, qui suae possessioni murum circumduxerit, si aliquis ex ipsius ruinis percussus intereat. Neque enim reus est christianus, si bos eius aliquem feriendo, vel equus calcem iaciendo aliquem occidat; aut ideo non debent christiani boves habere cornua, aut equus ungulas, aut dentes canis; aut vero quoniam apostolus Paulus satis egit ut in tribuni notitiam perferretur, insidias sibi a quibusdam perditis praeparari, et ob hoc deductores accepit armatos 8, si in illa arma scelerati homines incidissent, Paulus in effusione sanguinis eorum suum crimen agnosceret. Absit ut ea quae propter bonum ac licitum facimus, aut habemus, si quid per haec praeter nostram voluntatem cuiquam mali acciderit, nobis imputetur. Alioquin nec ferramenta domestica et agrestia sunt habenda, ne quis eis vel se vel alterum interimat; nec arbor aut restis, ne quis se inde suspendat; nec fenestra facienda est, ne per hanc se quisque praecipitet. Quid plura commemorem, cum ea commemorando finire non possim? Quid enim est in usu hominum bono ac licito, unde non possit etiam pernicies irrogari? Liceatne Christiano in necessitate idolothytis vesci. 6. Restat, ni fallor, ut dicamus aliquid de illo viatore christiano quem commemorasti victum famis necessitate, si nihil uspiam invenerit nisi cibum in idolio positum, ubi nullus alius est hominum, utrum ei satius sit fame emori, quam illud in alimentum sumere: in qua quaestione, quoniam non est consequens, ut cibus ille idolothytum sit; potuit enim vel ab eis qui ibi ab itinere divertentes corpus refecerant, oblivione seu voluntate dimitti, vel illic ob aliam causam quamlibet poni; breviter respondeo. Aut certum est esse idolothytum, aut certum est non esse, aut ignoratur: si ergo certum est esse, melius christiana virtute respuitur; si autem vel non esse scitur, vel ignoratur, sine ullo conscientiae scrupulo in usum necessitatis assumitur.