15. Vita 8 (Geerlings, 38–40); trans. Muller and Deferrari, FOTC 15:81–82. (continued)
over them. While we can watch your comings-in and goings-out, we cannot, however, see what you do in your homes, much less what you ponder in your hearts. . . . We stand guard over you in virtue of our office as stewards, but we wish to be guarded along with you. We are, so to speak, shepherds for you, but under that one Shepherd, we are sheep along with you. We are, so to speak, teachers from this [elevated] place, but under that one Teacher we are, in this school, fellow students along with you.16
"When in Rome . . . "
Around 401, a man named Januarius sent Augustine a long list of questions on liturgy. Augustine answered in two letters, one a virtual treatise.17 Medieval theologians would later appeal to these letters as they sought to work out a comprehensive theory of sacrament. The passage below is illuminating especially for what it says of Augustine's pastoral attitude on liturgical diversity. He recounts a famous anecdote about Ambrose, whom Augustine, as a bishop, now saw as an "oracle" and model for episcopal conduct. From Letter 54:
(1.1) In the first place, I want you to hold as the basic truth of this discussion that our Lord Jesus Christ, as He Himself said in the Gospel, has subjected us to His yoke and His burden, which are light. Therefore He has laid on the society of His new people the obligation of sacraments, very few in number, very easy of observance, most sublime in their meaning, as for example, baptism hallowed by the name of the Trinity, communion of His Body and His Blood, and whatever else is commended in the canonical writings—with the exception of those burdens found in the five books of Moses, which imposed on the ancient people [of God] a servitude in accord with their character and the prophetic times in which they lived. But regarding those other observances which we keep and all the world keeps, and which do not derive from scripture but from tradition, we are given to understand that they have been ordained or recommended to be kept by the Apostles themselves, or by
16. En. Ps. 126.3 (CCL 40:1858–59); my trans. Augustine discusses the role of bishop at length, but more diffusely in other sermons: on the anniversary of his ordination (s. 339), at the ordination of a new bishop (s. 340A), and in a sermon on Ezekiel (s. 46). On the bishop as preacher, see s. 95.1–2 and s. 301A.1–2 (cited in Chapters 4 and 5). Vatican II's Lumen Gentium 32 famously quotes a sermon preserved in Augustine's corpus, s. 340.2 (PL 38:1483): "What I am for you terrifies me; what I am with you consoles me. For you I am a bishop; but with you I am a Christian. The former is a duty; the latter, a grace. The former is a danger; the latter, salvation." This sermon, as it has come down to us, is actually from Caesarius of Arles (d. 543), who apparently reworked an earlier sermon of Augustine (s. 232; CCL 104:919).
17. In retr. 2.20 (CCL 57:106), Augustine catalogued ep. 54–55 not as letters (as they are now) but rather as "two books whose title is In Answer to the Inquiries of Januarius." Hombert, Nouvelles recherches, 95–100, has argued that the date for these should be pushed back to 403.