Letter CXXXI.
(a.d. 412.)
To His Most Excellent Daughter, the
Noble and Deservedly Illustrious Lady Proba, Augustin Sends
Greeting in the Lord.
You speak the truth when you say that the
soul, having its abode in a corruptible body, is restrained by this
measure of contact with the earth, and is somehow so bent and
crushed by this burden that its desires and thoughts go more easily
downwards to many things than upwards to one. For Holy Scripture
says the same: “The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and
the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many
things.” But our
Saviour, who by His healing word raised up the woman in the gospel
that had been eighteen years bowed down (whose case was, perchance, a
figure of spiritual infirmity), came for this purpose, that
Christians might not hear in vain the call, “Lift up your
hearts,” and might truly reply, “We lift them up to the
Lord.” Looking to this, you do well to regard the evils of this
world as easy to bear because of the hope of the world to come. For
thus, by being rightly used, these evils become a blessing, because, while they do not increase our desires for this world, they exercise our patience; as to which the apostle says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God:” all things, he saith—not only, therefore, those which are desired because pleasant, but also those which are shunned because painful; since we receive the former without being carried away by them, and bear the latter without being crushed by them, and in all give thanks, according to the divine command, to Him of whom we say, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth,” and, “It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy statutes.” The truth is, most noble lady, that if the calm of this treacherous prosperity were always smiling upon us, the soul of man would never make for the haven of true and certain safety. Wherefore, in returning the respectful salutation due to your Excellency, and expressing my gratitude for your most pious care for my welfare, I ask of the Lord that He may grant to you the rewards of the life to come, and consolation in the present life; and I commend myself to the love and prayers of all of you in whose hearts Christ dwells by faith.
(In another hand.) May the true and
faithful God truly comfort your heart and preserve your health, my most
excellent daughter and noble lady, deservedly illustrious.