And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!
All Commentaries on 2 Samuel 18:33 Go To 2 Samuel 18
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Now what are we to do, seeing how many, with the help of the Lord, find the way of peace through your instrumentality? Surely we neither can nor ought to hold them back from this impulse toward unity, through fear that some, utterly hard and cruel to themselves, may destroy themselves by their own will, not ours. Indeed, we should pray that all who carry the standard of Christ against Christ and boast of the gospel against the gospel may forsake their wrong way and rejoice with us in the unity of Christ. But since God, by an inscrutable yet just disposition of his will, has predestined some of them to the ultimate penalty, undoubtedly it is better for some of them to perish in their own fires, while an incomparably greater number are rescued and won over from that deadly schism and separation, than that all should equally burn in the eternal fires of hell as a punishment for their accursed dissension. The church mourns their loss as holy David mourned the loss of his rebellious son about whose safety he had given orders with anxious love. He grieved over his son’s death, with tearful utterance, although it was the penalty of a wicked impiety; but as his proud and wicked spirit departed to its own place, the people of God that had been divided by his tyranny recognized their king, and the completeness of their reunion consoled the grief of the father for the loss of his son.
