Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 801
Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius (North Africa) criticises the Presbyter Peter for following the erroneous opinions of a lay man, Vincentius Victor, on the nature of the soul. Augustine, "The Nature and Origin of the Soul", AD 419/420.
Book 2
 
Domino dilectissimo fratri et compresbytero Petro Augustinus episcopus in Domino salutem.
 
1. [...] Quomodo autem eosdem libros ipse acceperis nescio; uerum tamen, si uerum est quod audiui, diceris eis recitatis ita exiluisse laetitia, ut caput iuuenis illius senex et laici presbyter osculatus didicisse te quod ignorabas gratias egeris. [...] Vellem itaque rescriptis tuis quid te docuerit me doceres. Absit enim, ut erubescam a presbytero discere, si a laico tu non erubuisti praedicanda et imitanda humilitate, si uera didicisti.
 
4. [...] Nullo modo tamen etiam id de te existimauerim, quod homo catholicus neque contemptibilis presbyter animae naturam portionem Dei sentiebas esse. [...]
 
6. [...] Abice, frater, abice, obsecro, istam non plane fidem, sed exsecrandae impietatis errorem, ne homo grauis seductus a iuuene et a laico presbyter, cum istam catholicam fidem esse arbitraris, de numero fidelium - quod a te auertat Dominus. [...]
 
9. [...] O doctrinam, cui omnis aetas aures subrigat, quae homines annosos, quae denique presbyteros mereatur habere discipulos. [...]
 
(ed. C. Urba, J. Zycha 1913: 336.338.340.342)
Book 2
 
The bishop Augustine sends greeting in the Lord to Peter, his beloved brother and fellow presbyter.
 
1. […] I do not know how you have interperted those books [of Vincentius Victor], but, if what I have heard is true, you jumped for joy when they were read, and you, though an old man and a presbyter, kissed the head of a young layman [Vincentius Victor], in gratitude for having learned what you had not known.
[…] I would like, then, that you inform me in your reply what he has taught you. Heaven forbid, after all, that I should be embarassed to learn from a presbyter, if you were not embarassed to learn from a layman with a humilty worth of praise and imitation, if indeed you have learned something.
 
4. [...] I would, nonetheless, never have dreamed that you, a Catholic and a respected presbyter, thought that the nature of the soul was to be a piece of God. [...]
 
6. [...] Reject, my brother, I beg you, reject not this faith, of course, but the error filled with detestable impiety. Otherwise you will be cut off from the number of the faithful – God keep you from that! - when you suppose that such is the Catholic faith, you an old man and a presbyter led astray by a young layman! [...]
 
9.  [...]  There is a doctrine [that the incorporeal God does not create out of nothing, but exhales from himself a corporeal breath] that will make every age perk up its ears! There is a doctrine that deserves to have people of many years and even presbyters as its disciples!
 
(trans. R. Teske, slightly altered)
 
 

Discussion:

See also [800].

Place of event:

Region
  • Latin North Africa
City
  • Hippo Regius

About the source:

Author: Augustine of Hippo
Title: The Nature and Origin of the Soul, De natura et origine animae
Origin: Hippo Regius (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
"The Nature and Origin of the Soul", written by Augustine in AD 419/420, consists of four books, all of them occasioned by the work of Vincentius Victor, a Catholic lay man, ex-Rogatist (a faction of the Donatists), that were polemic to Augustine`s views on the origins of the soul. The first book of "The Nature and Origin of the Soul" is addressed to a monk Renatus, who passed to Augustine the works of Vincentius Victor, the second one to the Presbyter Peter, the third and the fourth to Vincentius Victor himself.
Edition:
C. Urba, J. Zycha eds., Sancti Aureli Augustini de natura et origine animae libri quattuor, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 60, Vienna-Leipzig 1913, 303-419.
 
Translation:
Saint Augustine, The Nature and Origin of the Soul, in: Answer to the Pelagians, New York 1996, trans. R. Teske, 467-559.

Categories:

Writing activity - Correspondence
Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος
Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior
Education - Theological interest
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER801, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=801