Augustine of Hippo, in his Letter 78, probably of the 400s, to his congregation in Hippo Regius (Numidia, central North Africa), explains how he decided to send two clerics, who had accused each other of misbehaviour, to the shrine of *Felix (confessor of Nola, S00000) at Nola (southern Italy), expecting the truth to be revealed there. He refers to a miracle of this kind which took place in Milan (northern Italy), and claims that no miracles occur at the tombs of saints in Africa. Written in Latin in Hippo.
E01841
Literary - Letters
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo, Letter 78.3
The letter is addressed to the clergy and people of Hippo. Augustine tells them about two clerics who accused each other of misbehaviour. He pondered diverse ways of judging this issue and finally decided on the following:
... elegi aliquid medium, ut certo placito se ambo constringerent ad locum sanctum se pergituros, ubi terribiliora opera dei non sanam cuiusque conscientiam multo facilius aperirent et ad confessionem uel poena uel timore compellerent. Multis enim notissima est sanctitas loci, ubi beati Felicis nolensis corpus conditum est, quo uolui ut pergerent, quia inde nobis facilius fidelius que scribi potest, quicquid in eorum aliquo diuinitus fuerit propalatum. Nam et nos nouimus Mediolani apud memoriam sanctorum, ubi mirabiliter et terribiliter daemones confitentur, furem quendam, qui ad eum locum uenerat, ut falsum iurando deciperet, compulsum fuisse confiteri furtum et, quod abstulerat, reddere. Numquid non et Africa sanctorum martyrum corporibus plena est? Et tamen nusquam hic scimus talia fieri. Sicut enim, quod apostolus dicit, non omnes sancti dona habent curationum nec omnes habent diiudicationem spirituum, ita nec in omnibus memoriis sanctorum ista fieri uoluit ille, qui diuidit propria unicuique, prout uult.
'... Hence, I chose a middle path, namely, that both of them should bind themselves by a firm agreement to go to a holy place where the awesome acts of God might more readily disclose the bad conscience of anyone and might compel him to confession because of punishment or fear. God is, of course, everywhere, and he who created all things is not contained or enclosed by any place, and he must be adored by his true adorers in spirit and in truth, in order that, hearing in secret, he may also justify and crown them in secret. With regard, nonetheless, to these actions of God that are visibly known to human beings, who can search out his plan as to why these miracles occur in some places and do not occur in others? For the holiness of the place where Blessed Felix of Nola’s body is buried, where I wanted them to go, is very well known to many. For whatever God made manifest there about one of them could more easily and more faithfully be recorded for us. For we knew at Milan at the tomb of the saints (apud memoriam sanctorum), where the demons confessed in a miraculous and terrifying way, that a certain thief, who had come to that place in order to deceive by swearing falsely, was forced to confess his theft and to return what he had taken. Is not Africa filled with the bodies of holy martyrs? And, nonetheless, we know that such things do not happen anywhere here. As the apostle says, Not all the saints have the gift of healing, nor do all have the discernment of spirits (1 Cor. 12:29-30); in the same way God, who distributes his gifts as he wills, did not want that these things should occur at all the memorial shrines (memoriae) of the saints.'
Text: Goldbacher 1895, 120.
Translation: Teske 2001, 305, lightly modified.
Summary: Robert Wiśniewski.
Cult building - unspecified
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityVisiting graves and shrines
Oath
MiraclesJuridical interventions
Specialised miracle-working
Other miracles with demons and demonic creatures
Exorcism
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Theorising on SanctityConsiderations about the nature of miracles
Source
Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 in the north African city of Thagaste. He received an education in rhetoric at Carthage, and after a period teaching there moved to Rome, and then in 384 to a public professorship of rhetoric in Milan. In these early years of adulthood Augustine was a Manichaean, but then got disillusioned with this religion, and in Milan in 386, largely under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of the city, he converted to Christianity, and was baptised by Ambrose in 387. Returning to Africa in 388, he was ordained a priest in 391 at Hippo Regius (in the province of Numidia), and rapidly acquired a reputation as a preacher. In 395 he became bishop of Hippo, which he remained until his death in 430. Details of his early life were recorded by Augustine himself in his Confessions, and shortly after his death a pupil and long-time friend, Possidius, wrote his Life, focused on Augustine as an effective Christian writer, polemicist and bishop (E00073).Amongst his many writings, the most informative on the cult of saints are his numerous Sermons, the City of God, and a treatise On the Care of the Dead. The Sermons tell us which saints (primarily African, but with some from abroad) received attention in Hippo, Carthage and elsewhere, and provide occasional details of miracles and cult practices. The City of God records the distribution, and subsequent miracles, of the relics of saint Stephen, after they arrived in Africa from Palestine in around 420. On the Care of the Dead, discusses the possible advantages of burial ad sanctos (in other words, close to a saint), and theorises on the link between the saints who dwell in heaven and their corporeal remains buried in their graves. In these works, and others, Augustine reveals his own particular beliefs about the saints, their relics and their miracles.
The exact dating of this letter is impossible to establish. Considering what we know about the persons which it names and the acts of a council it quotes, it was most probably written in the first decade of the 5th century.
Discussion
This letter is an interesting piece of evidence, which shows that at the beginning of the 5th century Christians in Africa did not yet expect miracles to occur at the tombs of saints in their region, even if they knew that such things happened in other places. This attitude was to change in the 420s, after the arrival of the relics of *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030) in Hippo, Uzalis, and other places. These relics were immediately recognised as sources of miraculous power, as evidenced by sermons of Augustine and the two books of the Miracles of St Stephen.The relics in Milan are most probably those of the martyrs *Gervasius and Protasius (S00313), the discovery of which Augustine himself witnessed in 386 (see E01019).
The term memoria (literally 'memory' or 'memorial') is also used by Augustine both for the shrines of martyrs and, more narrowly, for their relics. Since it is evident that, for Augustine, the memorial shrine (memoria) of a saint contained relics of that saint, there is often (as here) no substantive difference in the ways he uses the word.
The letter cannot be dated with any precision, but it must have been written some time after Augustine's episcopal ordination (397) and it certainly predates the arrival of the relics of St Stephen in Africa at the end of the 410s.
Bibliography
Edition:Goldbacher, A., Augustinus, Epistulae (ep. 31-123) (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 34/2; Vienna: Tempsky, 1895).
English translation:
Teske, R., The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Letters 1-99, vol. II 1 (New York: New City Press, 2001), 303-309.
Further reading:
Shanzer, Danuta, 'Augustine's Epp. 77-78 (A Scandal in Hippo): Microhistory and Ordeal-by-Oath', Reading Medieval Studies 40 (2014), 11-33.
Robert Wiśniewski
28/07/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00000 | Felix, priest and confessor of Nola | Felix | Certain | S00313 | Gervasius and Protasius, brothers and martyrs of Milan | Certain |
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