Confessions

by Augustine of Hippo

For ‘you made man male and female’ in your spiritual grace to be equal, so that physical gender makes no distinction of male and female, just as there is ‘neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free person’ (Gal. 3: 28). So spiritual persons, whether they preside or are subject to authority, exercise spiritual judgement (1 Cor. 2: 15). They do not judge those spiritual intelligences which are ‘lights in the firmament’; it would be inappropriate to judge such sublime authority. Nor do they sit in judgement on your book, even if there is obscurity there. We submit our intellect to it, and hold it for certain that even language closed to our comprehension is right and true.