forms of the latter. It would give the prayer bird a better balance.
SERMON 205 105 wills are found on the days of your fast, because you dig your spurs into all who are under your yoke, and beat them with your fists; your voices are heard in shouting; and more to that effect. After mentioning all this, he added, That is not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord (Is 58:3-5). If you want to shout, use the kind of shouting about which it says, With my voice I shouted to the Lord (Ps 142:1). That indeed is not a shout of quarreling, but of loving; not of the flesh, but the heart. Not such are those of whom it is said, I waited for them to do justice, but they worked iniquity; and not justice, but a shout (Is 5:7).
Forgive, andyou will be forgiven; give, and it will be given you (Lk 6:37-38). These are the two wings of prayer, on which it flies to God;1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 if you pardon offender what has been committed, and give to the person in need.
NOTES
1. No date is suggested for any of these sermons on the theme of Lent, until we come to Sermon 211. My instinct would be to date this one fairly late, after 415. Unless there is any evidence to the contrary, they were almost certainly preached in Hippo itself, at least in the bishop's jurisdiction.
2. Presumably the first Sunday of Lent; Ash Wednesday had not yet been instituted. 3. "Servant of God" was, or could be, a technical expression for a monk, for someone under vows. It is clear, however, from section 2 below that Augustine was not just preaching to a select congregation of religious. But he may well have been directing his words mainly to that portion of the congregation.
4. Galen, at a guess; possibly also Aristotle. 5. See Rom 6:6. 6. This was the text Augustine read at random at the crisis of his conversion, when he heard the child singing Tolle, lege, tolle, lege\ pick up and read, pick up and read (Confessions VIII, 12).
7. Crapula et ebrietate—which simply means drunkenness and drunkenness. So I presume to vary the tautology, without, I think, departing from Augustine's meaning. Anyway, crapula, the dictionary informs me, could also mean a special resin put into wine to make it more intoxicating; so it can well stand for drugs.
8. The ascetics. 9. SeeTi 1:15. 10. Elsewhere he will say the two wings of prayer are fasting and almsgiving; here, just two forms of the latter. It would give the prayer bird a better balance.