A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 61
61 Conclusion of the Work PL 44, 241
Let us at last bring our book to an end. I hardly know whether we have accomplished our purpose at all by our great prolixity. It is not in respect of you, [my Marcellinus,] that I have this misgiving, for I know your faith; but with reference to the minds of those for whose sake you wished me to write,—who so much in opposition to my opinion, but (to speak mildly, and not to mention Him who spoke in His apostles) certainly against not only the opinion of the great Apostle Paul, but also his strong, earnest, and vigilant conflict, prefer maintaining their own views with tenacity to listening to him, when he “beseeches them by the mercies of God,” and tells them, “through the grace of God which was given to him, not to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God had dealt to every man the measure of faith.”
Conclusio operis. Concludamus igitur librum aliquando, cujus tanta prolixitate utrum aliquid egerimus, nescio: non apud te, cujus fidem scio; sed apud animos eorum propter quos me scribere voluisti: qui non contra nostram, sed (ut mitius loquar, et non dicam illius qui in suis Apostolis est locutus) certe contra tanti apostoli Pauli, non unam sententiam, sed tam vehementem, tam intentam vigilemque conflictationem malunt suam defensitare sententiam, quam eum audire obsecrantem per miserationem Dei, et dicentem, per gratiam Dei quae data est illi, non plus sapere praeter quam oportet sapere, sed sapere ad temperantiam, unicuique sicut Deus partitus est mensuram fidei .