{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010146.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010146.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010146.htm","text":"Chapter III.\u2014He Retires to the Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian, and Refers to His Conversion and Death, as Well as that of Nebridius.\n5. Verecundus was wasted with anxiety at that our happiness, since he, being most firmly held by his bonds, saw that he would lose our fellowship. For he was not yet a Christian, though his wife was one of the faithful; 702 and yet hereby, being more firmly enchained than by anything else, was he held back from that journey which we had commenced. Nor, he declared, did he wish to be a Christian on any other terms than those that were impossible. However, he invited us most courteously to make use of his country house so long as we should stay there. Thou, O Lord, wilt \u201crecompense\u201d him for this \u201cat the resurrection of the just,\u201d 703 seeing that Thou hast already given him \u201cthe lot of the righteous.\u201d 704 For although, when we were absent at Rome, he, being overtaken with bodily sickness, and therein being made a Christian, and one of the faithful, departed this life, yet hadst Thou mercy on him, and not on him only, but on us also; 705 lest, thinking on the exceeding kindness of our friend to us, and unable to count him in Thy flock, we should be tortured with intolerable grief. Thanks be unto Thee, our God, we are Thine. Thy exhortations, consolations, and faithful promises assure us that Thou now repayest Verecundus for that country house at Cassiacum, where from the fever of the world we found rest in Thee, with the perpetual freshness of Thy Paradise, in that Thou hast forgiven him his earthly sins, in that mountain flowing with milk, 706 that fruitful mountain,\u2014Thine own.\n6. He then was at that time full of grief; but Nebridius was joyous. Although he also, not being yet a Christian, had fallen into the pit of that most pernicious error of believing Thy Son to be a phantasm, 707 yet, coming out thence, he p. 131 held the same belief that we did; not as yet initiated in any of the sacraments of Thy Church, but a most earnest inquirer after truth. 708 Whom, not long after our conversion and regeneration by Thy baptism, he being also a faithful member of the Catholic Church, and serving Thee in perfect chastity and continency amongst his own people in Africa, when his whole household had been brought to Christianity through him, didst Thou release from the flesh; and now he lives in Abraham\u2019s bosom. Whatever that may be which is signified by that bosom, 709 there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, Thy son, O Lord, adopted of a freedman; there he liveth. For what other place could there be for such a soul? There liveth he, concerning which he used to ask me much,\u2014me, an inexperienced, feeble one. Now he puts not his ear unto my mouth, but his spiritual mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as much as he is able, wisdom according to his desire,\u2014happy without end. Nor do I believe that he is so inebriated with it as to forget me, 710 seeing Thou, O Lord, whom he drinketh, art mindful of us. Thus, then, were we comforting the sorrowing Verecundus (our friendship being untouched) concerning our conversion, and exhorting him to a faith according to his condition, I mean, his married state. And tarrying for Nebridius to follow us, which being so near, he was just about to do, when, behold, those days passed over at last; for long and many they seemed, on account of my love of easeful liberty, that I might sing unto Thee from my very marrow. My heart said unto Thee,\u2014I have sought Thy face; \u201cThy face, Lord, will I seek.\u201d 711\nLiterally, In monte incaseato, \u201cthe mountain of curds,\u201d from the Old Ver. of Ps. lxviii. 16. The Vulgate renders coagulatus. But the Authorized Version is nearer the true meaning, when it renders \u05d2\u05b7\u05bc\u05d1\u05b0\u05e0\u05bb\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd, hunched, as \u201chigh.\u201d The LXX. renders it \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, condensed, as if from \u05d2\u05b0\u05bc\u05d1\u05b4\u05d9\u05e0\u05b8\u05d4, cheese. This divergence arises from the unused root \u05d2\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b7\u05df, to be curved, having derivatives meaning (1) \u201chunch-backed,\u201d when applied to the body, and (2) \u201ccheese\u201d or \u201ccurds,\u201d when applied to milk. Augustin, in his exposition of this place, makes the \u201cmountain\u201d to be Christ, and parallels it with Isa. 2.2; and the \u201cmilk\u201d he interprets of the grace that comes from Him for Christ\u2019s little ones: Ipse est mons incaseatus, propter parvulos gratia tanquam lacte nutriendos.\n130:707 131:708 131:709\nThough Augustin, in his Qu\u00e6st. Evang. ii. qu. 38, makes Abraham\u2019s bosom to represent the rest into which the Gentiles entered after the Jews had put it from them, yet he, for the most part, in common with the early Church (see Serm. xiv. 3; Con. Faust. xxxiii. 5; and Eps. clxiv. 7, and clxxxvii. Compare also Tertullian, De Anima, lviii), takes it to mean the resting-place of the souls of the righteous after death. Abraham\u2019s bosom, indeed, is the same as the \u201cParadise\u201d of Luke 23.43. The souls of the faithful after they are delivered from the flesh are in \u201cjoy and felicity\u201d (De Civ. Dei, i. 13, and xiii. 19); but they will not have \u201ctheir perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul\u201d until the morning of the resurrection, when they shall be endowed with \u201cspiritual bodies.\u201d See note p. 111; and for the difference between the \u1fb3\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 of Luke 16.23, that is, the place of departed spirits,\u2014into which it is said in the Apostles\u2019 Creed Christ descended,\u2014and \u03b3\u03ad\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1, or Hell, see Campbell on The Gospels, i. 253. In the A.V. both Greek words are rendered \u201cHell.\u201d\n131:710 131:711","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}