Ad Augustinum Consultatio

Orosius’s Consultation, or Memorandum, to Augustine on the Error of the Priscillianists and Origenists. (Not found in the Havercamp edition, this Consultation, which we have excerpted with notes from Galland’s Bibliotheca, vol. IX.) To the most blessed father, Bishop Augustine, Orosius. I had indeed already suggested this to your Holiness, but I was planning to offer a Memorandum on the matter suggested at that time when I perceived that you were free in mind from other demands of dictation. But since my lords, your sons, the bishops Eutropius and Paulus, moved by the same concern for the salvation of all that I, as a boy of yours, also have, have already given a memorandum concerning some heresies, yet have not indicated all, it became necessary for me to publish in haste and to heap together into one all the trees of perdition with their roots and branches, and to offer them to your burning spirit, so that you, having seen the line of battle and perceived the wickedness, may measure what disposition of virtue you can apply. Only, most blessed father, root out and cut down the evil plantings or grafts of others, and scatter the true seed, with us to water from your springs. I pledge God as my witness, and I hope for the increase of your work, because that land which now, insincerely cultivated, shows ungrateful fruits, if you visit it with that hidden manna of yours, by entrusting and filling it through me, will at some point, with more abundant fertility, profit even to a hundredfold yield.

Through you, our Lord God, through you, I say, blessed Father, may He correct with the word those whom He has chastised with the sword. I was sent to you by God; through Him I hope concerning you, as I consider how it came about that I came here. I recognize why I came: without will, without necessity, without consent, I departed from my homeland, driven by some hidden force, until I was brought to the shore of this land. Here at last I came to my senses and understood that I was commanded to come to you. Do not judge me shameless if you accept me as I confess. Let me return to my beloved lady as a capable merchant, having found a pearl (Matt. 13:46), not as a runaway slave with his substance ruined. We have been more grievously torn apart by wicked teachers than by the most bloodthirsty enemies. We confess the offense; you see the wound: what alone remains, with the Lord’s help, grant the remedy. Briefly, then, I will show both what was badly planted earlier and grew strong, and what was later grafted in worse and prevailed.

Priscillian, first of all worse than the Manichaeans in this, that he also confirmed his heresy from the Old Testament, teaching that the soul, which is born from God, proceeds from some kind of storehouse, professes before God that it will fight, is instructed by the exhortation of angels; then, descending through certain circles, is captured by malignant principalities, and according to the will of the victorious prince is thrust into different bodies, and a bond is ascribed to them. Whence he also maintained that Mathesis prevails, asserting that Christ dissolved this bond and affixed it to the cross through his passion: as Priscillian himself says in a certain letter of his: "This is the first wisdom, to understand in the types of souls the natures of divine powers, and the disposition of the body. In which the heaven and earth seem bound, and all the principalities of the age seem constrained to surpass the dispositions of the saints. For the first circle of God and the divine bond of souls to be sent into flesh, fabricated by the consents of angels and of God and of all souls, the patriarchs hold, who possess the work contrary to the formal militia:" and so forth. He also taught that the names of the patriarchs are members of the soul, in that Ruben is in the head, Judah in the breast, Levi in the heart, Benjamin in the thighs; and similar things. Conversely, he taught that the signs of the zodiac are arranged in the members of the body, that is, Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the arms, Cancer in the breast, etc.

Wishing it to be understood that there are eternal darknesses, and that from these the prince of this world proceeded. And he confirms this from a certain book, which is inscribed *Memoria Apostolorum*, where the Savior is seen to be questioned secretly by the disciples, and to show that, concerning the evangelical parable which has: "A sower went out to sow his seed" (Matthew 13:46), the sower was not good: asserting that if he had been good, he would not have been negligent; nor would he have cast the seed either along the road, or in rocky places, or in untilled ground: wishing it to be understood that this is the sower who scatters captured souls into various bodies as he wishes. In which book also many things are said about the prince of moistures and about the prince of fire, wishing it to be understood that by art, not by the power of God, all good things are done in this world. For he says that there is a certain virgin light, which God, wishing to give rain to men, shows to the prince of moistures: and when he desires to seize her, being agitated, he sweats and makes rain, and, being abandoned by her, by his bellowing he stirs up thunder. He spoke of the Trinity only in word: for, asserting a union without any existence or property, and with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit removed, he said that this is the one Christ.

Then two of my fellow citizens, Avitus and another Avitus, when the truth itself was already exposing such a shameful confusion on its own, set out for foreign lands. For one set out for Jerusalem, the other for Rome. Upon their return, one reported Origen, the other Victorinus: of these two, one yielded to the other; both, however, condemned Priscillian. We know little of Victorinus: because even before his own publications, the follower of Victorinus yielded to Origen. Therefore, they began to propose many magnificent things from Origen, which the truth itself would precede on a slight occasion. For we learned a sufficiently sound doctrine concerning the Trinity, that all things that were made were made by God, and that all things are very good, and were made from nothing: then, moreover, sufficiently sober interpretations of the Scriptures. All these things were immediately accepted by the wise with a faithful purging of the old. Only the offense concerning "from nothing" remained. For it was believed that the soul exists; yet it could not be persuaded that it was made from nothing, arguing that a will cannot come from nothing. This remains almost up to the present day. But these two Aviti, and with them the holy Greek Basil, who taught these things most blessedly, handed down certain things from the books of Origen himself that were not correct, as I now understand. First, saying that all things, before they appeared as made, always remained made in the wisdom of God, with this statement: "For whatever God made, He did not begin by making.

Then they said that angels, principalities, powers, souls, and demons have one beginning and one substance; and that a place was given to an archangel, or a soul, or a demon according to the quality of their merits, using this phrase: "A greater place was earned by a lesser fault." They said that the world was made last of all so that in it souls which had sinned before might be purified. They preached that the eternal fire by which sinners are punished is neither true fire nor eternal, saying that "fire" is said to mean the punishment of one's own conscience, and that "eternal," according to Greek etymology, is not perpetual, adding also a Latin testimony, because it is said that "in aeternum" and "in saeculum saeculi" (Ps. 9:6 and 10:16) are placed after "aeterno." And thus they said that all the souls of sinners, after the purification of their conscience, would return into the unity of Christ's body. They also wished to assert something about the devil, but did not prevail, because, since the substance created good in him cannot perish, when the malice is entirely burned away, the substance of the devil is sometimes to be saved.

Concerning the body of the Lord, they taught thus: that when the Son of God came to us after so many thousands of years, He had not been idle up to that time, but was preaching remission to angels, powers, and all higher beings, and that He assumed the quality of the form of those whom He would visit, passing even to the palpability of flesh through the appearance of assumption: this He determined by passion and resurrection, and again, until He came to the Father by ascending, He made it thin. Thus, they said, the body was never laid aside, nor is God, reigning in any body, circumscribed. They also said that creation subject to corruption (Rom. 8:20), unwillingly, is to be understood as the sun, moon, and stars; and that these are not elemental lights, but rational powers: they provide service to corruption, however, on account of Him who subjected them in hope (Ibid.). This, as I have been able to retain, has been briefly set forth, so that, having surveyed all the diseases, you may hasten to apply the medicine. The truth of Christ is in me (2 Cor. 11:10), for I would not dare to be impudent out of venerable reverence for your holiness, unless I recognized by evident judgment and ordinance of God that you have been chosen, and I sent, to bring forth remedies for that great and such a people, upon whom, as a penalty has been imposed for sinning, so after the penalty care is due. Remember me, most blessed Father, and the many who with me, like dew, await your eloquence to descend upon them, be worthy.