Consultatio Sive Commonitorium Ad Sanctum Augustinum

Consultation or Memorandum of Orosius to Augustine on the Error of the Priscillianists and Origenists. To the most blessed father AUGUSTINE, bishop, OROSIUS. I. I had indeed already suggested this to Your Holiness, but I was planning to offer a memorandum of the suggested matter at that time when I had sensed that you were free in mind from other necessities of dictation. But since my lords, your sons, the bishops Eutropius and Paul, moved by the same concern for the salvation of all, which is also that of me, your child, have already given a memorandum concerning some heresies, yet have not indicated all, it became necessary for me to hasten to produce and heap together into one all the trees of perdition with their roots and branches, and to offer them to your fiery spirit, so that you, having seen the battle line and perceived the wickedness, may measure what disposition of virtue you can apply. Do you, most blessed father, only root out and cut down the malignant plantings or grafts of others, and scatter the true seed, with us to water from your springs. I pledge God as witness, and I hope for the increase of your work, because that land which now, uncultivated insincerely, exhibits ungrateful fruits, if you visit it with that hidden manna, by commanding and filling through me, will one day, flowing forth with a hundredfold abundance, profit with a freer fertility. Through you, our Lord God, through you, I say, blessed father, may he correct in word those whom he has chastised with the sword.

I was sent to you by God; through him I hope for you, as I consider how it came about that I came here. I recognize why I came: without will, without necessity, without consent I left 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 confessing. Make me a suitable merchant for my beloved mistress, having found a pearl (Matt. 13:40), not a runaway slave returning with squandered substance. 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 medicine. Briefly, therefore, I will show both what was badly planted earlier and grew strong, and what was later grafted worse and prevailed. Priscillian, first of all more wretched in this with the Manichaeans, because he confirmed his heresy also from the Old Testament, taught that the soul, which is born from God, proceeds from some storehouse, professes before God that it will fight, is instructed and exhorted by angels; then, descending through certain circles, it is captured by malignant principalities, and according to the will of the victorious prince is thrust into various bodies, and a bond is assigned to them.

From this he used to affirm that Mathesis prevailed, asserting that Christ had 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 the natures of divine powers in the types of souls, and the disposition of the body." In this, heaven and earth seem bound, and all the principalities of the age appear constrained to surpass the dispositions of the saints. For the first circuit of God and the divine bond of souls to be sent into flesh, fabricated with the consents of angels, God, and all souls, the Patriarchs hold—who possess the work of formal militia against it—and the rest. Moreover, he taught that the names of the Patriarchs are members of the soul, in that Ruben is in the head, Judah in the chest, Levi in the heart, Benjamin in the thighs, and similar things. Conversely, in the members of the body, the signs of the heavens are arranged, that is, Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the arms, Cancer in the chest, etc. Volcus is understood to mean eternal darkness, and from these the prince of the world proceeded. And he confirms this very thing from a certain book entitled *Memoria Apostolorum*, where the Savior is seen to be secretly questioned by the disciples and to reveal that from the evangelical parable which has, "The sower went out to sow his seed" (Matt.

XIII, 3) he was not a good sower: asserting that if he had been good, he would not have been negligent, nor would he have cast seed along the road, or among rocks, or in uncultivated ground; intending it to be understood that this is the sower who scatters captured souls into various bodies as he wishes. In that same book, many things are also said concerning the prince of moistures and the prince of fire, intending it to be understood that all good things in this world are accomplished by art, not by the power of God. For he says that there is a certain virgin light, which God, wishing to give rain to men, shows to the prince of moistures; who, when he desires to seize her, becomes agitated, sweats, and produces rain, and when deprived of her, stirs up thunder with his roar. 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 shameful confusion was already being laid bare by truth itself, sought 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; yet both condemned Priscillian. We know little of Victorinus; because even before his own publications, the follower of Victorinus yielded to Origen. Therefore, many magnificent things began to be proposed from Origen, which truth itself would precede on slight occasion.

We say that the teaching concerning the Trinity is quite sound: that all things which were made were made by God, and that all things are very good, and were made from nothing. Then, the quite sober solutions of the Scriptures were all immediately taken up by the wise faithful through a cleansing of the old [teachings]. Only the offense concerning "from nothing" remained. For it was firmly believed that the soul exists; nevertheless, it could not be persuaded that it was made from nothing, they arguing that a will cannot be from nothing. This has remained almost up to the present. But these two Aviti, and with them the holy Basil the Greek, who taught these things most blessedly, handed down certain things from the books of Origen himself which were not correct, as I recently understand. First of all, saying that before things made appeared, they always remained made in the wisdom of God, using this phrase: "For God, whatever he 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 each—whether to an archangel, or to a soul, or to a demon—according to the quality of their merits, using this phrase: "A greater place was earned by a lesser fault." Finally, they said that the world was made so that in it souls which had previously sinned might be purified.

They indeed preached that the eternal fire by which sinners are punished is neither true fire nor eternal, saying that what is called fire is the punishment of one's own conscience; and that "alternum," according to Greek etymology, is not perpetual, adding also a Latin testimony, because it is said "in aeternum" and "in saeculum saeculi" (Psalm 9:6, etc.) placed after "alternum": and thus that all the souls of sinners, after the purgation of their conscience, would return into the unity of the body of Christ. They also wished to assert something concerning the devil, but did not prevail: because, since the substance created good in him cannot perish, with all malice burned away, the substance of the devil is to be saved at some time. Concerning the body of the Lord, they taught thus: that when the Son of God came down to us after many thousands of years, he was not idle up to that time, but preached remission to angels, powers, and all the higher beings, and that, as he would assume the quality of the bodies of those he visited, he passed through to the appearance of the assumption of palpable flesh: determining this by his passion and resurrection, and again, until he came to the Father, he thinned out by ascending: so that the body was never laid down, nor is God, reigning in any body, circumscribed.

They said that a creature subject to corruption, not willing, is to be understood—the sun, the moon, and the stars; and that these are not elemental lights, but rational powers; and that they render service to corruption because of him who subjected them in hope (Rom. 8:20). This, as I have been able to retain it, has been briefly set forth, so that, having examined all the maladies, you may hasten to apply the remedy. The truth of Christ is in me, because I would not dare to be impudent out of reverence for your Holiness, unless I recognized by evident judgment and ordinance of God that you have been chosen, and I sent, to bring remedies to that great and such a people, upon whom, as a punishment has been inflicted for sinning, so after the punishment a cure is due. Deign to remember me, most blessed father, and the many who with me, like dew, await your eloquence to descend upon them.