Some men say that God is indifferent and, as it were, unconcerned with human acts, inasmuch as He neither protects the good nor curbs the wicked. They say that in this world, therefore, the good are generally unhappy; the evildoers, happy. Because I am addressing Christians, the Holy Scriptures alone should suffice as a refutation of this charge. But, because many have some pagan disbelief in them, perhaps they can also be enticed by proofs taken from chosen and learned pagans. I am about to prove that these pagans did not even think in such a matter about God’s carelessness...

The foregoing examples which I have cited are sufficient proof that our God is a most concerned observer, a most lenient ruler and a most just judge. But perhaps one of my more ignorant readers is thinking: ‘If all things are done now by God as they were done formerly, why is it that the wicked prevail while the good suffer? Why is it that in former times the wicked were made to feel the anger of God; the good, His mercy? Today, it seems, the good for some reason feel the anger of God; the wicked, His favor.’ I...

It is well: the foundations have been laid for a work, begun with holy motive and undertaken through love of a sacred duty. They have neither been laid on shifting sand nor built of stone that does not last; they are made solid through the arrangement of sacred materials and strengthened by the skill of the divine architect. These foundations, as God Himself says in the Gospel, can neither be shaken by violent winds, nor undermined by river floods, nor washed away by down pouring rains.¹ Since the hands of Holy Scripture, so to speak, erected the building and its...

Let us put to one side the prerogative of the name of Christian, of which I have already spoken. On the basis of that prerogative we think that, because we are more religious than all other peoples, we must also be stronger. For, as I have said, since the faith of the Christian is to believe with faith in Christ and this faithful belief in Christ is to keep His commandments, it follows, without doubt, that neither does he possess faith who lacks faith nor does he who tramples on the mandates of Christ believe in Him. Therefore, the whole...

I know that some men, altogether without faith and devoid of the divine Truth, advance the following argument against what I have said: If the guilt of the unfaithful Christians is so great that they sin more by disregarding the commands of the Lord which they know, than do pagan nations because they do not know, therefore ignorance of the Law is more beneficial to them than knowledge, and, to a degree, knowledge is a hindrance to those who know the truth. To these my answer must be that it is not the truth but vices which impede. It is...

I personally have been speaking for a long time and seem to have overstepped the rules of disputation. Doubtless, he who reads (if there is anyone who, on account of Christ, reads these words written for the love of Christ) is perchance thinking of saying about me, ‘Since the subject he pursues is a general one, what does it add to his argument that he heap up so much evidence against one person. Grant that such a person—as you have thought—about whom he spoke exists as he is described. But how does one man’s crime thwart another man’s...

It is possible that I may seem at variance with my general undertaking when, in the closing passages of the last book, I spoke somewhat about the weakness and misery of the Romans. I know the Romans can say and give complete proof that God does not watch over human affairs, because, in the old days, the Romans as pagans conquered and ruled, but now as Christians they are conquered and enslaved. What I said a little while back about almost all pagan nations could suffice for the refutation of this charge. My argument is that they who know God’s...

I am of the opinion, indeed, I am certain, that the great length of this discourse is tiresome to many, very largely because it castigates the vices of our daily lives. In a way, all wish to be praised. Reproof is pleasing to nobody. What is much worse, no matter how bad, no matter how depraved a man, he prefers to be lauded in a lying manner than reproved in a right manner. He prefers to be deceived by the mockery of false praise, rather than made whole by the most healthful advice.

Since this is the case, what is...

O love, I know not what to call you, good or evil, sweet or bitter, pleasant or unpleasant, for you art so filled with both qualities that you seem to be both. It is proper to love our friends; it is bitter to offend them. Yet there are times when this comes from the same mind, from the same heart. When there is discord in appearance, there is concord in the soul. For love, indeed, makes us love our friends. Love sometimes compels us to hurt them. These two are one and the same; although one has the good name...

Your pupil, Ursicinus, recently brought your greetings to me. If he was not ordered to do so, I praise his wisdom, although I do not approve of falsehood. If he was ordered, I wonder why you preferred to entrust a service of love to another rather than to write, that is, why you preferred to send a message through your servant rather than through yourself. Therefore I bring this up and want it corrected, if it is due to negligence and not to pride. Conceit is generally the footmaid of a new honor, although a trace of a vice so...

If I wish to excuse my undutifulness toward your holiness, I am more worthy of accusation because either I do not recognize that I am inexcusable through stupidity or I am unwilling to acknowledge it through pride. Therefore, I will not excuse myself, because it increases the crime to make an ostentatious display of innocence when one is at fault. What shall I do, who have no means either of denying or of justifying my crime? I dare not deny things that are evident, and I cannot excuse things that are beyond bounds. Therefore, I must take refuge in the...

Although the Apostle Paul, the Master of Speech, Vessel of Election, Master of the Faith, and Receptacle of God, composed all his letters, yet there were some to which he did not affix his own name only. Indeed, to some he affixed the name Silvanus; to some, Timothy; in others, he added his own name to that of Silvanus and Timothy. Why did he do this? First, I believe, in order that they who wrote together should be recognized as being together. Next, that they who had been instructed separately by one or the other of them would know that...

According to the teaching of the Apostle Paul,¹ ‘we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.’ Hence it happens that sometimes we do not know for what we should wish or rejoice. According to the love common to the human race (by which we almost all desire lovingly, rather than wisely, that they for whom we care should be with us a very long time), I rejoice that after a long and serious illness you have attained a hope of the present life, a hope which you always have had of the future life.

Blessed be...

I know that well-meaning hearts are not unmindful of upright love, because good men, zealous for good, so to say, love their own nature. However, since we should increase the love of our friends, to the utmost of our possibilities, I thought you should be reminded of the love formerly begun by me and recently increased by you. When you read my letter, you will kindle a love for me in yourself when you see the increase of your love in me. However, I have no doubt our God will grant that you will become the personification of Christ’s love...

Whether it was through a sense of duty or from impudence that I wrote to you before I had received from you any right to ask, I leave to your judgment to decide, rather than to my mere assertion. The reason for this is that, in an affair which is doubtful and obscure, the matter is always better entrusted to good interpreters than to bad defenders. Although this is the case and I consider it to be so, yet, if you think that I should be heard in regard to my understanding of what is true, this is my opinion....

I have read the books¹ which you sent me. They are short in composition but abundant in learning, easy to read but perfect for instruction. They are worthy both of your mind and of your piety. Nor do I wonder that you have produced such a useful and beautiful work which is most excellent for the instruction of your holy and blessed children.

After having built in them a choice temple to God, you have bedecked, as it were, the highest point of your building with new and erudite teaching. In order that your holy talents may be illustrated equally...

You ask me, my dear Salonius, why the name of Timothy was signed to the little treatise To the Church, done recently by a certain author of our day. In addition, you add that unless I add a clear reason for using the name, while the surname of Timothy is affixed to the treatise, the books may perhaps be reckoned among the apocrypha.

I am most thankful to you for your judgment of me, by thinking that my faith is so zealous that I would not allow the authorship of a work on the church to be in doubt. Thus,...

Timothy, the least of the servants of God, to the Catholic Church spread throughout the world. Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord, with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Of all the other serious and mortal diseases which the old and most foul serpent breathes upon you with the terrible envy of his death-dealing rivalry and the most loathsome breath of his poisonous mouth, I do not know whether any other can undo you with a disease more bitter for faithful souls, and a stigma more loathsome for your children, than avarice. It...

I have talked about the remedies for sins, or rather about the hopes and consolations of remedies. The first step for acquiring salvation is that the sinner should repent of his sins. Then, according to the Sacred Word, he should redeem his sins by alms-giving. Lastly, if he has not already done so, at least he should leave nothing untried when dying, and should come to the aid of his soul by offering his substance at the last moment. Perhaps somebody will object that, if sinners are necessarily bound to redeem their sins, without doubt, the holy who are devoid...

My mistress, the Church of God, I have spoken in the two foregoing books as if separately to your two kinds of children, that is, to the one who is the lover of the world, to the other who bears the stamp of true religion. But in this book, God willing, I desire to speak to both as the nature of the case may demand, now addressing one or the other separately, now both alike. It remains for me, after having recognized in the course of reading what pertains to them in particular, to desire that both receive with the...

It does not escape my knowledge, O my mistress the Church, the nourisher of blessed hope, that those statements I have made in the preceding books are displeasing to many of your children who love Christ little. I do not put great weight on what they wish, because it is not strange that words spoken about God should not please them whom perhaps God Himself does not please. Nor must I expect they they who do not love salvation itself and their souls shoul like a discussion which treats of souls and their salvation. Just as on other topics, so...