Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
will tell whether his life and his zeal for the faith of Christ prove worthy. . . .
(12) To judge the heart's hiddenness and to refuse to accept a voice's clarity: that's not for us to make recommendations on or decisions about. We recognize, you see, our Lord's merciful greed, everywhere seeking a lucrative return on his money. . . . Christ will be the one who exacts profits not only from this man here, but from all of us. Let us fulfill, therefore, our task as investors and not lay claim to the role of exacting profits. . . . You know what got shouted here, you know it: that "pagans should not be mayors," that "pagans should not rule over Christians." That's what was shouted. . . . Human beings were doing what they could, but Faustinus got minted by Christ as a brand-new banker. Therefore, brothers and sisters, keep the work of God in mind. . . . We all heard Faustinus's voice, out loud and with devotion: "I do not wish to be mayor, I want to be a Christian." Rejoice, exult, love him— more than you ever despised him. Recommend his work to Christ by your prayers. Show a faithful, pious, friendly spirit to an old man's first lessons in school. What difference is it that, as you see, he's already reached an elderly age? He may have come into the vineyard at the ninth hour, but he will receive equal pay (Mt 20:12–15).21
Delaying Baptism
Fourth and fifth-century bishops across the Empire used to complain about catechumens delaying baptism. In one of the Divjak letters, Augustine writes to a catechumen named Firmus. Firmus had asked Augustine to send him a copy of On the City of God after attending a public reading of Book 18. Augustine forwarded the massive text but demanded repayment, namely, that Firmus put in his name for baptism. Firmus offered various excuses, for example, that he had not received the grace yet (exactly the sort of excuse that Pelagius used to complain bitterly about and one reason that Pelagius would attack Augustine's theology of grace). Augustine, even with his radical theology of God's graced initiatives and of predestination, would hear nothing of Firmus's delays and argued that his outer exhortation was an external grace that echoed the grace of God's interior call. From Letter 2* (Divjak):
(3) I see that in one of your other letters you make excuses about why you have been putting off accepting the sacrament of rebirth and thus, in effect, throwing away the fruits of all those books [of On the City of God] you love.
21. S. 279.10–12 (MA 1:589–93); my trans. The text here is from s. Morin 1, not the Maurist edition of s. 279. Another time, Augustine brought up an ex-astrologer before the congregation and made a similar public appeal (en. Ps. 61.23); however, the man was not a pagan, but a one-time Christian who sought to be restored to communion and committed to doing public penance.
The Bishop 93
What fruits? Not that someone may have interesting reading nor that he may learn a lot of things he did not know before, but that the reader may be convinced of the City of God so that he enter it without delay and that he become even more determined to stay in it. The first of these two things is conferred by rebirth, the second by a love of justice. If those who read these books and praise them do not actually take action and do these things, what good are the books? As far as you yourself are concerned, when these books have not been able to get you to take even the first step, however much you may praise them, they have thus far failed completely.
(4) [You say:] "The burden of such a great weight cannot be borne by the weak so far without additional strength." That is the first excuse you give. You men who dread this burden, you do not seem to notice how easily you are surpassed in bearing it by women, by the religious multitude of those faithful and chaste women whom Mother Church produces so fruitfully. For if you would pay attention, you would get rid of this needless fear by the shame you should surely feel. One of this multitude (for I must believe that she is one of them, and this makes me very happy) is your wife. I am not afraid of offending you with the example of a woman when I exhort you to enter the City of God. For if the matter is so difficult, the weaker sex is already there. If easy, there is no reason why you cannot be stronger there as well. . . . For I realize that while you, though still a catechumen, can explain to your wife, a baptized Christian, some things regarding religion that you have read about and she has not, still, she knows things that you do not yet know, and she cannot tell you about them. For the mysteries of rebirth are rightly and properly made known only to those who accept them.22 So while you may be more learned in doctrine, she is more secure in the mystery. . . .
(6) You also say: "This reluctance is commendable when it concerns religion. For a person, in order to attain the august secrets of the sacred mystery, approaches the more distant things hesitantly and so gives assurance of greater reverence for the faith." You state that this is another reason for your procrastination. . . . The following divine words, written in the Gospel, come to mind: "Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Jn 3:5). . . . These frightening words of the divine Scriptures [also] strike like a thunderbolt: "Do not delay to turn to the Lord nor postpone it from day to day, for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will go
22. "The mysteries . . . known only to those who accept them": The ancient rites of baptism, chrismation, and eucharist were cloaked under the disciplina arcani ("discipline of secrecy"). An unbaptized catechumen such as Firmus would not have known what precisely Augustine was referring to here. Augustine deliberately used this tactic to pique the curiosity of catechumens to induce them to put in their names for baptism. See Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 170–72, 232–33.