Letter 56: Augustine presses Celer toward serious Christian study and away from Donatism.

I have not forgotten my promise or your desire. But since necessity took me away to visit the churches entrusted to my care, I could not immediately repay the debt in person; still, I did not want to owe you any longer what could be paid even while I was absent. So I entrusted the matter to my very dear son, the presbyter Optatus. At whatever hours seem best to you, let him read with you the things I promised. When he senses that the whole thing can be done, Your Excellency will show how gratefully you received it by taking it up with energy and seriousness. I believe you understand very well how much I love you, and how much I want you to take delight and exercise yourself in the healthy study of divine and human things. If you do not reject the loving duty of my office, I hope that in the Christian faith itself, and in habits fitting for a person already so established as you are, you will make such progress that you will await the final day of this smoke or vapor of time, which is called human life, a day no mortal can escape, with eagerness, or security, or at least without desperate anxiety: not in the emptiness of error, but in the solidity of truth. As certain as it is to you that you are alive, so certain should it be, by the teaching that brings salvation, that this life spent in temporal pleasures must be counted not as life but as death when compared with the living and eternal life promised to us through Christ and in Christ. I have no doubt about your character: you will very easily draw yourself out of the Donatist habit if you do not treat the purity of Christianity itself as a small thing. The firmness of the evidence by which that error is refuted is not hard to see even for slower minds, if only they listen patiently and attentively. But to pursue an unfamiliar straight path, and to break the bond of a familiar and almost domestic perversity, requires greater strength. With the Lord our God himself helping and encouraging you, we must not despair of your generous freedom and truly manly heart. May the mercy of the Lord our God keep you safe, my excellent, deservedly honorable, and dearly beloved son.

EPISTOLA 56 Scripta circa eodem tempore. A. ad Celerem, divitem apud Hipponem Regium possessorem, iubens eum litterarum sacrarum studio incumbere (n. 1), ut discat hanc vitam cum aeterna comparatam fumum esse sectaque Donatistarum se abdicet (n. 2). Domino eximio meritoque honorabili et dilectissimo filio Celeri, Augustinus Divina humanaque cognoscere quam necesse sit. 1. Promissi mei et tuae voluntatis immemor non sum. Sed quoniam visitandarum ecclesiarum ad meam pertinentium curam necessitate profectus sum, nec per me ipse debitum continuo reddere potui: nec tibi tamen diutius debere volui, quod posset et me habente redhiberi. Proinde carissimo filio presbytero Optato delegavi, ut eis horis quas tibi opportuniores videris, tecum legat ea quae pollicitus sum: cum totum fieri posse persenserit, hoc etiam Eximietas tua quam grate acceperit, tam impigre atque acriter facere suadebit. Quantum autem te diligam, salubribusque studiis in rerum divinarum atque humanarum cognitione oblectari atque exerceri velim, credo quod optime intellegas. A Donatiana secta abhorrendum. 2. Caritatem officii mei si non aspernaris, spero in ipsa fide christiana, et in moribus iam ita constitutae personae tuae congruis, tales te provectus habiturum, ut huius fumi vel vaporis temporalis, quae vita humana dicitur, ultimum diem, quem nulli mortalium evitare conceditur, vel avidus vel securus vel certe non desperate sollicitus, non in vanitate erroris, sed in soliditate veritatis exspectes. Quam certum est enim tibi vivere te, tam sit certum doctrina salutari istam vitam quae in deliciis temporalibus agitur, in comparatione vitali aeternae quae nobis per Christum atque in Christo promittitur, non vitam sed mortem esse deputandam. Nullo modo autem dubitaverim de indole tua, quod ista consuetudine Donatistarum facillime te extrahes, si religiosissime ipsam christianam puritatem non parvipenderis. Quam inconcussis enim documentorum firmamentis error ille convincatur, non magnum est etiam tardis ingenio, si tantum patienter atque intente audierint, pervidere. Sed ad sectandam insolitam rectitudinem, usitatae et quasi familiaris perversitatis vinculum abrumpere, maiorum virium est. Et nequaquam desperandum adiuvante atque exhortante ipso Domino Deo nostro, de generosa libertate, atque plane virili pectore tuo. Incolumem te Domini Dei nostri misericordia tueatur, domine eximie meritoque honorabilis et dilectissime fili.