Letter 50004: I was completely taken by surprise when I searched through your letters to find which ones still needed answers, and...

Augustine to his dear friend Nebridius -- greetings. 1. I was completely taken by surprise when I searched through your letters to find which ones still needed answers, and discovered that only one held me in your debt -- the one in which you ask how far I have progressed, during this leisure of mine (which you imagine to be great, and which you wish to share with me), in learning to distinguish between things the senses deal with and things the understanding grasps. You are surely aware that if someone becomes more and more deeply imbued with false ideas the more they immerse themselves in them, then the corresponding effect is produced even more readily by contact with truth. Still, my progress, like physical growth, is so gradual that it is hard to mark out its stages clearly -- just as there is a vast difference between a boy and a young man, yet if you questioned someone daily from boyhood on, he could never point to a single day and say: "Now I am no longer a boy." 2. But do not take this comparison to mean that, in the strength of a more powerful understanding, I have arrived at the beginning of the soul's manhood, so to speak. I am still a boy -- though perhaps, as we say, a promising one rather than a lost cause. The eyes of my mind are, for the most part, troubled and overwhelmed by the distracting blows that sensory things inflict on them. But they are revived and lifted up again by this brief chain of reasoning: the mind and intelligence are superior to the eyes and the ordinary faculty of sight. This could not be the case unless the things we perceive through intelligence were more real than the things we perceive through sight. Please examine whether any valid objection can be brought against this reasoning. In the meantime, I find it restoring and refreshing. When, after calling on God for help, I begin to rise toward Him and toward those things that are real in the highest sense, I am sometimes so fully satisfied by the grasp and enjoyment of eternal realities that I am amazed I ever needed the reasoning above to convince me of their reality -- since in my soul they are as truly present to me as I am to myself. Would you please go through your own letters to make sure I have not unknowingly left any of them unanswered? I can hardly believe I have so quickly escaped from under the pile of debts I used to consider so numerous -- though at the same time, I am sure you still have some letters from me that you have not yet replied to.

Letter 4 (A.D. 387) Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99... To Nebridius Augustine Sends Greeting. 1. It is very wonderful how completely I was taken by surprise, when, on searching to discover which of your letters still remained unanswered, I found only one which held me as your debtor — that, namely, in which you request me to tell you how far in this my leisure, which you suppose to be great, and which you desire to share with me, I am making progress in learning to discriminate those things in nature with which the senses are conversant, from those about which the understanding is employed. But I suppose it is not unknown to you, that if one becomes more and more fully imbued with false opinions, the more fully and intimately one exercises himself in them, the corresponding effect is still more easily produced in the mind by contact with truth. Nevertheless my progress, like our physical development, is so gradual, that it is difficult to define its steps distinctly, just as though there is a very great difference between a boy and a young man, no one, if daily questioned from his boyhood onward, could at any one date say that now he was no more a boy, but a young man. 2. I would not have you, however, so to apply this illustration as to suppose that, in the vigour of a more powerful understanding, I have arrived as it were at the beginning of the soul's manhood. For I am yet but a boy, though perhaps, as we say, a promising boy, rather than a good-for-nothing. For although the eyes of my mind are for the most part perturbed and oppressed by the distractions produced by blows inflicted through things sensible, they are revived and raised up again by that brief process of reasoning: The mind and intelligence are superior to the eyes and the common faculty of sight; which could not be the case unless the things which we perceive by intelligence were more real than the things which we perceive by the faculty of sight. I pray you to help me in examining whether any valid objection can be brought against this reasoning. By it, meanwhile, I find myself restored and refreshed; and when, after calling upon God for help, I begin to rise to Him, and to those things which are in the highest sense real, I am at times satisfied with such a grasp and enjoyment of the things which eternally abide, that I sometimes wonder at my requiring any such reasoning as I have above given to persuade me of the reality of those things which in my soul are as truly present to me as I am to myself. Please look over your letters yourself, for I own that you will be in this matter at greater pains than I, in order to make sure that I am not perchance unwittingly still owing an answer to any of them: for I can hardly believe that I have so soon got from under the burden of debts which I used to reckon as so numerous; albeit, at the same time, I cannot doubt that you have had some letters from me to which I have as yet received no reply.