Writings of Augustine. Answer to the Letters of Petilian
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The Three Books of Augustin, Bishop of Hippo,
In Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Bishop of Cirta
[contra litteras petiliani donatistÆ cortensis, episcopi.]
Circa A.D. 400.
Translated by the Rev. J. R. King, M.A.,
Vicar of St. Peter's in the East, Oxford; and late Fellow and Tutor of
Merton College, Oxford
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
Written c. 400 A.D., some say 398 A.D., but Augustin places it some
time after the treatise on Baptism: Retractt. Bk. ii. xxv. From the
same, we gather the following points as to the origin of this
treatise: Before A. had finished his books on the Trinity and his
word-for-word commentary on Genesis, a reply to a letter which
Petilian had addressed to his followers, only a small part of which
however had come into A.'s hands, demanded immediate preparation.
This constitutes Book First. Subsequently the whole document was
obtained, and he was engaged in preparing the second Book, c. 401; but
even before the full treatise of Petilian had been secured, the latter
had obtained A.'s first book, and afterwards put an epistle abusive of
A. in circulation. The answer to this latter is Book Third, c. 402.
Petilian was originally an advocate. The opponents charged him with
having become a Donatist by compulsion, with assuming the title of
Paraclete, and with endeavoring to prevent all access on their part to
his writings.
Book I.
Written in the form of a letter addressed to the Catholics, in which
the first portion of the letter which Petilian had written to his
adherents is examined and refuted.
Augustin, to the well-beloved brethren that belong to the care of our
charge, greeting in the Lord:
Chapter 1.--1. Ye know that we have often wished to bring forward
into open notoriety, and to confute, not so much from our own
arguments as from theirs, the sacrilegious error of the Donatist
heretics; whence it came to pass that we wrote letters even to some of
their leaders,--not indeed for purposes of communion with them, for of
that they had already in times past rendered themselves unworthy by
dissenting from the Church; nor yet in terms of reproach, but of a
conciliatory character, with the view that, having discussed the
question with us which caused them to break off from the holy
communion of the whole world, they might, on consideration of the
truth, be willing to be corrected, and might not defend the headstrong
perversity of their predecessors with a yet more foolish obstinacy,
but might be reunited to the Catholic stock, so as to bring forth the
fruits of charity. But as it is written, "With those who have hated
peace I am more peaceful," [1920] so they rejected my letters, just as
they hate the very name of peace, in whose interests they were
written. Now, however, as I was in the church of Constantina,
Absentius [1921] being present, with my colleague Fortunatus, his
bishop, the brethren brought before my notice a letter, which they
said that a bishop of the said schism had addressed to his presbyters,
as was set forth in the superscription of the letter itself. When I
had read it, I was so amazed to find that in his very first words he
cut away the very roots of the whole claims of his party to communion,
that I was unwilling to believe that it could be the letter of a man
who, if fame speaks truly, is especially conspicuous among them for
learning and eloquence. But some of those who were present when I
read it, being acquainted with the polish and embellishment of his
composition, gradually persuaded me that it was undoubtedly his
address. I thought, however, that whoever the author might be, it
required refutation, lest the writer should seem to himself, in the
company of the inexperienced, to have written something of weight
against the Catholic Church.
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2. The first point, then, that he lays down in his letter is the
statement, "that we find fault with them for the repetition of
baptism, while we ourselves pollute our souls with a laver stained
with guilt." But to what profit is it that I should reproduce all his
insulting terms? For, since it is one thing to strengthen proofs,
another thing to meddle with abusive words by way of refutation, let
us rather turn our attention to the mode in which he has sought to
prove that we do not possess baptism, and that therefore they do not
require the repetition of what was already present, but confer what
hitherto was wanting. For he says: "What we look for is the
conscience of the giver to cleanse that of the recipient." But
supposing the conscience of the giver is concealed from view, and
perhaps defiled with sin, how will it be able to cleanse the
conscience of the recipient, if, as he says, "what we look for is the
conscience of the giver to cleanse that of the recipient?" For if he
should say that it makes no matter to the recipient what amount of
evil may lie concealed from view in the conscience of the giver,
perhaps that ignorance may have such a degree of efficacy as this,
that a man cannot be defiled by the guilt of the conscience of him
from whom he receives baptism, so long as he is unaware of it. Let it
then be granted that the guilty conscience of his neighbor cannot
defile a man so long as he is unaware of it, but is it therefore clear
that it can further cleanse him from his own guilt?
Footnotes
[1920] Ps. cxx. 7; cf. Hieron.
[1921] Probably Alypius.
Chapter 2.
--3. Whence, then, is a man to be cleansed who receives
baptism, when the conscience of the giver is polluted without the
knowledge of him who is to receive it? Especially when he goes on to
say, "For he who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith,
but guilt." There stands before us one that is faithless ready to
baptize, and he who should be baptized is ignorant of his
faithlessness: what think you that he will receive? Faith, or
guilt? If you answer faith, then you will grant that it is possible
that a man should receive not guilt, but faith, from him that is
faithless; and the former saying will be false, that "he who receives
faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt." For we find
that it is possible that a man should receive faith even from one that
is faithless, if he be not aware of the faithlessness of the giver.
For he does not say, He who receives faith from one that is openly and
notoriously faithless; but he says, "He who receives faith from the
faithless receives not faith, but guilt;" which certainly is false
when a person is baptized by one who hides his faithlessness. But if
he shall say, Even when the faithlessness of the baptizer is
concealed, the recipient receives not faith from him, but guilt, then
let them rebaptize those who are well known to have been baptized by
men who in their own body have long concealed a life of guilt, but
have eventually been detected, convicted, and condemned.
Chapter 3.
--For, so long as they escaped detection, they could not
bestow faith on any whom they baptized, but only guilt, if it be true
that whosoever receives faith from one that is faithless receives not
faith, but guilt. Let them therefore be baptized by the good, that
they may be enabled to receive not guilt, but faith.
4. But how, again, shall they have any certainty about the good who
are to give them faith, if what we look to is the conscience of the
giver, which is unseen by the eyes of the proposed recipient?
Therefore, according to their judgment, the salvation of the spirit is
made uncertain, so long as in opposition to the holy Scriptures, which
say, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in
man," [1922] and, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," [1923]
they remove the hope of those who are to be baptized from the Lord
their God, and persuade them that it should be placed in man; the
practical result of which is, that their salvation becomes not merely
uncertain, but actually null and void. For "salvation belongeth unto
the Lord," [1924] and "vain is the help of man." [1925]Therefore,
whosoever places his trust in man, even in one whom he knows to be
just and innocent, is accursed. Whence also the Apostle Paul finds
fault with those who said they were of Paul saying, "Was Paul
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" [1926]
Footnotes
[1922] Ps. cxviii. 8.
[1923] Jer. xvii. 6.
[1924] Ps. iii. 8.
[1925] Ps. lx. 11.
[1926] 1 Cor. i. 13.
Chapter 4.
--5. Wherefore, if they were in error, and would have
perished had they not been corrected, who wished to be of Paul, what
must we suppose to be the hope of those who wished to be of Donatus?
For they use their utmost endeavors to prove that the origin, root,
and head of the baptized person is none other than the individual by
whom he is baptized. The result is, that since it is very often a
matter of uncertainty what kind of man the baptizer is, the hope
therefore of the baptized being of uncertain origin, of uncertain
root, of uncertain head, is of itself uncertain altogether. And since
it is possible that the conscience of the giver may be in such a
condition as to be accursed and defiled without the knowledge of the
recipient, it results that, being of an accursed origin, accursed
root, accursed head, the hope of the baptized may prove to be vain and
ungrounded. For Petilian expressly states in his epistle, that
"everything consists of an origin and root; and if it have not
something for a head, it is nothing." And since by the origin and
root and head of the baptized person he wishes to be understood the
man by whom he is baptized, what good does the unhappy recipient
derive from the fact that he does not know how bad a man his baptizer
really is? For he does not know that he himself has a bad head, or
actually no head at all. And yet what hope can a man have, who,
whether he is aware of it or not, has either a very bad head or no
head at all? Can we maintain that his very ignorance forms a head,
when his baptizer is either a bad head or none at all? Surely any one
who thinks this is unmistakeably without a head.
Chapter 5.
--6. We ask, therefore, since he says, "He who receives
faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt," and
immediately adds to this the further statement, that "everything
consists of an origin and root; and if it have not something for a
head, it is nothing;"--we ask, I say, in a case where the
faithlessness of the baptizer is undetected: If then, the man whom he
baptizes receives faith, and not guilt; if, then, the baptizer is not
his origin and root and head, who is it from whom he receives faith?
where is the origin from which he springs? where is the root of which
he is a shoot? where the head which is his starting-point? Can it be,
that when he who is baptized is unaware of the faithlessness of his
baptizer, it is then Christ who gives faith, it is then Christ who is
the origin and root and head? Alas for human rashness and conceit!
Why do you not allow that it is always Christ who gives faith, for the
purpose of making a man a Christian by giving it? Why do you not
allow that Christ is always the origin of the Christian, that the
Christian always plants his root in Christ, that Christ is the head of
the Christian? Do we then maintain that, even when spiritual grace is
dispensed to those that believe by the hands of a holy and faithful
minister, it is still not the minister himself who justifies, but that
One of whom it is said, that "He justifieth the ungodly?" [1927]But
unless we admit this, either the Apostle Paul was the head and origin
of those whom he had planted, or Apollos the root of those whom he had
watered, rather than He who had given them faith in believing; whereas
the same Paul says, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the
increase: so then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that
watereth, but God that giveth the increase." [1928]Nor was the
apostle himself their root, but rather He who says, "I am the vine, ye
are the branches." [1929]How, too, could he be their head, when he
says, that "we, being many, are one body in Christ," [1930] and
expressly declares in many passages that Christ Himself is the head of
the whole body?
Footnotes
[1927] Rom. iv. 5.
[1928] 1 Cor. iii. 6, 7.
[1929] John xv. 5.
[1930] Rom. xii. 5.
Chapter 6.
--7. Wherefore, whether a man receive the sacrament of
baptism from a faithful or a faithless minister, his whole hope is in
Christ, that he fall not under the condemnation that "cursed is he
that placeth his hope in man." Otherwise, if each man is born again
in spiritual grace of the same sort as he by whom he is baptized, and
if when he who baptizes him is manifestly a good man, then he himself
gives faith, he is himself the origin and root and head of him who is
being born; whilst, when the baptizer is faithless without its being
known, then the baptized person receives faith from Christ, then he
derives his origin from Christ, then he is rooted in Christ, then he
boasts in Christ as his head,--in that case all who are baptized
should wish that they might have faithless baptizers, and be ignorant
of their faithlessness: for however good their baptizers might have
been, Christ is certainly beyond comparison better still; and He will
then be the head of the baptized, if the faithlessness of the baptizer
shall escape detection.
Chapter 7.
--8. But if it is perfect madness to hold such a view (for
it is Christ always that justifieth the ungodly, by changing his
ungodliness into Christianity; it is from Christ always that faith is
received, Christ is always the origin of the regenerate and the head
of the Church), what weight, then, will those words have, which
thoughtless readers value by their sound, without inquiring what their
inner meaning is? For the man who does not content himself with
hearing the words with his ear, but considers the meaning of the
phrase, when he hears, "What we look to is the conscience of the
giver, that it may cleanse the conscience of the recipient," will
answer, The conscience of man is often unknown to me, but I am certain
of the mercy of Christ: when he hears, "He who receives faith from
the faithless receives not faith, but guilt," will answer, Christ is
not faithless, from whom I receive not guilt, but faith: when he
hears, "Everything consists of an origin and root; and if it have not
something for a head, is nothing," will answer, My origin is Christ,
my root is Christ, my head is Christ. When he hears, "Nor does
anything well receive second birth, unless it be born again of good
seed," he will answer, The seed of which I am born again is the Word
of God, which I am warned to hear with attention, even though he
through whom I hear it does not himself do what he preaches; according
to the words of the Lord, which make me herein safe, "All whatsoever
they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their
works: for they say, and do not." [1931]When he hears, "What
perversity must it be, that he who is guilty through his own sins
should make another free from guilt!" he will answer, No one makes me
free from guilt but He who died for our sins, and rose again for our
justification. For I believe, not in the minister by whose hands I am
baptized, but in Him who justifieth the ungodly, that my faith may be
counted unto me for righteousness. [1932]
Footnotes
[1931] Matt. xxiii. 3.
[1932] Rom. iv. 25, 5.
Chapter 8.
--9. When he hears, "Every good tree bringeth good fruit,
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit: do men gather grapes of
thorns?" [1933] and, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart
bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure
bringeth forth evil things;" [1934] he will answer, This therefore is
good fruit, that I should be a good tree, that is, a good man, that I
should show forth good fruit, that is, good works. But this will be
given to me, not by him that planteth, nor by him that watereth, but
by God that giveth the increase. For if the good tree be the good
baptizer, so that his good fruit should be the man whom he baptizes,
then any one who has been baptized by a bad man, even if his
wickedness be not manifest, will have no power to be good, for he is
sprung from an evil tree. For a good tree is one thing; a tree whose
quality is concealed, but yet bad, is another. Or if, when the tree
is bad, but hides its badness, then whosoever is baptized by it is
born not of it, but of Christ; then they are justified with more
perfect holiness who are baptized by the bad who hide their evil
nature, than they who are baptized by the manifestly good. [1935]
Footnotes
[1933] Matt. vii. 17, 16.
[1934] Matt. xii. 35.
[1935] See below, Book II. 6, 12.
Chapter 9.
--10. Again, when he hears, "He that is washed by one dead,
his washing profiteth him nought," [1936] he will answer, "Christ,
being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion
over Him:" [1937]of whom it is said, "The same is He which
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." [1938]But they are baptized by the
dead, who are baptized in the temples of idols. For even they
themselves do not suppose that they receive the sanctification which
they look for from their priests, but from their gods; and since these
were men, and are dead in such sort as to be now neither upon earth
nor in the rest of heaven, [1939] they are truly baptized by the
dead: and the same answer will hold good if there be any other way in
which these words of holy Scripture may be examined, and profitably
discussed and understood. For if in this place I understand a
baptizer who is a sinner, the same absurdity will follow, that
whosoever has been baptized by an ungodly man, even though his
ungodliness be undiscovered, is yet washed in vain, as though baptized
by one dead. For he does not say, He that is baptized by one
manifestly dead, but absolutely, "by one dead." And if they consider
any man to be dead whom they know to be a sinner, but any one in their
communion to be alive, even though he manages most adroitly to conceal
a life of wickedness, in the first place with accursed pride they
claim more for themselves than they ascribe to God, that when a sinner
is unveiled to them he should be called dead, but when he is known by
God he is held to be alive. In the next place, if that sinner is to
be called dead who is known to be such by men, what answer will they
make about Optatus, whom they were afraid to condemn though they had
long known his wickedness? Why are those who were baptized by him not
said to have been baptized by one dead? Did he live because the Count
was his faith? [1940] --an elegant and well-turned saying of some
early colleagues of their own, which they themselves are wont to quote
with pride, not understanding that at the death of the haughty Goliath
it was his own sword by which his head was cut off. [1941]
Footnotes
[1936] So the Donatists commonly quoted Ecclus. xxiv. 25, which is
more correctly rendered in our version, "He that washeth himself after
touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his
washing?" Augustin (Retractt. i. 21, 3) says that the misapplication
was rendered possible by the omission in many African Mss. of the
second clause, "and touches it again." Cp. Hieron, Ecclus. xxxiv. 30.
[1937] Rom. vi. 9.
[1938] John i. 33.
[1939] Cp. Contra Cresconium, Book II. 25-30: "Ita mortui sunt, ut
neque super terras, neque in requie sanctorum vivant."
[1940] Benedictines suggest as an emendation "quod Deus illi comes
erat," as in II. 23, 53; 37, 88, 103, 237.
[1941] 1 Sam. xvii. 51.
Chapter 10.
--11. Lastly, if they are willing to give the name of dead
neither to the wicked man whose sin is hidden, nor to him whose sin is
manifest, but who has yet not been condemned by them, but only to him
whose sin is manifest and condemned, so that whosoever is baptized by
him is himself baptized by the dead, and his washing profits him
nothing; what are we to say of those whom their own party have
condemned "by the unimpeachable voice of a plenary Council," [1942]
together with Maximianus and the others who ordained him,--I mean
Felicianus of Musti, and Prætextatus of Assura, of whom I speak in the
meantime, who are counted among the twelve ordainers of Maximianus, as
erecting an altar in opposition to their altar at which Primianus
stands? They surely are reckoned by them among the dead. To this we
have the express testimony of the noble decree of that Council of
theirs which formerly called forth shouts of unreserved [1943]
applause when it was recited among them for the purpose of being
decreed, but which would now be received in silence if we should
chance to recite it in their ears; whereas they should rather have
been slow at first to rejoice in its eloquence, lest they should
afterwards come to mourn over it when its credit was destroyed. For
in it they speak in the following terms of the followers of
Maximianus, who were shut out from their communion: "Seeing that the
shipwrecked members of certain men have been dashed by the waves of
truth upon the sharp rocks, and after the fashion of the Egyptians,
the shores are covered with the bodies of the dying; whose punishment
is intensified in death itself, since after their life has been wrung
from them by the avenging waters, they fail to find so much as
burial." In such gross terms indeed, do they insult those who were
guilty of schism from their body, that they call them dead and
unburied; but certainly they ought to have wished that they might
obtain burial, if it were only that they might not have seen Optatus
Gildonianus advancing with a military force, and like a sweeping wave
that dashes beyond its fellows, sucking back Felicianus and
Prætextatus once again within their pale, out of the multitude of
bodies lying unburied on the shore.
Footnotes
[1942] That of Bagai. See on de Bapt. I. 5, 7.
[1943] Ore latissimo acclamaverunt. The Louvain edition
has"lætissimo," both here and Contra Crescon. IV. 41, 48.
Chapter 11.
--12. Of these I would ask, whether by coming to their sea
they were restored to life, or whether they are still dead there? For
if still they are none the less corpses, then the laver cannot in any
way profit those who are baptized by such dead men. But if they have
been restored to life, yet how can the laver profit those whom they
baptized before outside, while they were lying without life, if the
passage, "He who is baptized by the dead, of what profit is his
baptism to him," is to be understood in the way in which they think?
For those whom Prætextatus and Felicianus baptized while they were yet
in communion with Maximianus are now retained among them, sharing in
their communion, without being again baptized, together with the same
men who baptized them--I mean Felicianus and Prætextatus: taking
occasion by which fact, if it were not that they cherish the beginning
of their own obstinacy, instead of considering the certain end of
their spiritual salvation, they would certainly be bound to vigilance,
and ought to recover the soundness of their senses, so as to breathe
again in Catholic peace; if only, laying aside the swelling of their
pride, and overcoming the madness of their stubbornness, they would
take heed and see what monstrous sacrilege it is to curse the baptism
of the foreign churches, which we have learned from the sacred books
were planted in primitive times, and to receive the baptism of the
followers of Maximianus, whom they have condemned with their own lips.
Chapter 12.
--13. But our brethren themselves, the sons of the
aforesaid churches, were both ignorant at the time, and still are
ignorant, of what has been done so many years ago in Africa:
wherefore they at any rate cannot be defiled by the charges which have
been brought, on the part of the Donatists, against the Africans,
without even knowing whether they were true. But the Donatists having
openly separated and divided themselves off, although they are even
said to have taken part in the ordination of Primianus, yet condemned
the said Primianus, ordained another bishop in opposition to
Primianus, baptized outside the communion of Primianus, rebaptized
after Primianus, and returned to Primianus with their disciples who
had been baptized by themselves outside, and never rebaptized by any
one inside. If such a union with the party of Maximianus does not
pollute the Donatists, how can the mere report concerning the Africans
pollute the foreigners? If the lips meet together without offense in
the kiss of peace, which reciprocally condemned each other, why is
each man that is condemned by them in the churches very far removed by
the intervening sea from their jurisdiction, not saluted with a kiss
as a faithful Catholic, but driven forth with a blast of indignation
as an impious pagan? And if, in receiving the followers of
Maximianus, they made peace in behalf of their own unity, far be it
from us to find fault with them, save that they cut their own throats
by their decision, that whereas, to preserve unity in their schism,
they collect together again what had been parted from themselves, they
yet scorn to reunite their schism itself to the true unity of the
Church.
Chapter 13.
--14. If, in the interests of the unity of the party of
Donatus, no one rebaptizes those who were baptized in a wicked schism,
and men, who are guilty of a crime of such enormity as to be compared
by them in their Council to those ancient authors of schism whom the
earth swallowed up alive, [1944] are either unpunished after
separation, or restored again to their position after condemnation;
why is it that, in defence of the unity of Christ, which is spread
throughout the whole inhabited world, of which it has been predicted
that it shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto
the ends of the earth, [1945] --a prediction which seems from actual
proof to be in process of fulfillment; why is it that, in defence of
this unity, they do not acknowledge the true and universal law of that
inheritance which rings forth from the books that are common to us
all: "I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession?" [1946]In behalf
of the unity of Donatus, they are not compelled to call together again
what they have scattered abroad, but are warned to hear the cry of the
Scriptures: why will they not understand that they meet with such
treatment through the mercy of God, that since they brought false
charges against the Catholic Church, by contact as it were with which
they were unwilling to defile their own excessive sanctity, they
should be compelled by the sovereign authority of Optatus Gildonianus
to receive again and associate with themselves true offenses of the
greatest enormity, condemned by the true voice, as they say, of their
own plenary Council? Let them at length perceive how they are filled
with the true crimes of their own party, after inventing fictitious
crimes wherewith to charge their brethren, when, even if the charges
had been true, they ought at length to feel how much should be endured
in the cause of peace, and in behalf of Christ's peace to return to a
Church which did not condemn crimes undiscovered, if on behalf of the
peace of Donatus they were ready to pardon such as were condemned.
Footnotes
[1944] Num. xvi. 31-35.
[1945] Ps. lxxii. 8.
[1946] Ps. ii. 8.
Chapter 14.
--15. Therefore, brethren, let it suffice us that they
should be admonished and corrected on the one point of their conduct
in the matter of the followers of Maximianus. We do not ransack
ancient archives, we do not bring to light the contents of time
honored libraries, we do not publish our proofs to distant lands; but
we bring in, as arbiters betwixt us, all the proofs derived from our
ancestors, we spread abroad the witness that cries aloud throughout
the world.
Chapter 15.
--16. Look at the states of Musti [1947] and Assura:
[1948]there are many still remaining in this life and in this
province who have severed themselves, and many from whom they have
severed themselves; many who have erected an altar, and many against
whom that altar has been erected; many who have condemned, and many
who have been condemned; who have received, and who have been
received; who have been baptized outside, and not baptized again
within: if all these things in the cause of unity defile, let the
defiled hold their tongues; if these things in the cause of unity do
not defile, let them submit to correction, and terminate their strife.
Footnotes
[1947] Musti is in ecclesiastical province of Numidia.
[1948] Assura is in ecclesiastical province of Zeugitana. See
Treatise on Baptism, Book VII. c. 32.
Chapter 16.
--17. As for the words which follow in his letter, the
writer himself could scarcely fail to laugh at them, when, having made
an unlearned and lying use of the proof in which he quotes the words
of Scripture, "He who is washed by the dead, what profiteth him his
washing?" he endeavors to show to us "how far a traditor being still
in life may be accounted dead." And then he goes on further to say:
"That man is dead who has not been worthy to be born again in true
baptism; he is likewise dead who, although born in genuine baptism,
has joined himself to a traditor." If, therefore, the followers of
Maximianus are not dead, why do the Donatists say, in their plenary
Council, that "the shores are covered with their dying bodies?" But
if they are dead, whence is there life in the baptism which they
gave? Again, if Maximianus is not dead, why is a man baptized again
who had been baptized by him? But if he is dead why is not also
Felicianus of Musti dead with him, who ordained him, and might have
died beyond the sea with some African colleague or another who was a
traditor? Or, if he also is himself dead, how is there life with him
in your society in those who, having been baptized outside by him who
is dead, have never been baptized again within?
Chapter 17.
--18. Then he further adds: "Both are without the life of
baptism, both he who never had it at all, and he who had it but has
lost it." He therefore never had it, whom Felicianus, the follower of
Maximianus or Prætextatus, baptized outside; and these men themselves
have lost what once they had when, therefore, these were received with
their followers, who gave to those whom they baptized what previously
they did not have? and who restored to themselves what they had lost?
But they took away with them the form of baptism, but lost the
veritable excellence of baptism by their wicked schism. Why do you
repudiate the form itself, which is holy at all times and all places,
in the Catholics whom you have not heard, whilst you are willing to
acknowledge it in the followers of Maximianus whom you have punished?
19. But whatever he seemed to himself to say by way of accusation
about the traitor Judas, I see not how it can concern us, who are not
proved by them to have betrayed our trust; nor, indeed, if such
treason were proved on the part of any who before our time have died
in our communion, would that treason in any way defile us by whom it
was disavowed, and to whom it was displeasing. For if they themselves
are not defiled by offenses condemned by themselves, and afterwards
condoned, how much less can we be defiled by what we have disavowed so
soon as we have heard of them! However weighty, therefore, his
invective against traditors, let him be assured that they are
condemned by me in precisely the same terms. But yet I make a
distinction; for he accuses one on my side who has long been dead
without having been condemned in any investigation made by me. I
point to a man adhering closely to his side, who had been condemned by
him, or at least had been separated by a sacrilegious schism, and whom
he received again with undiminished honor.
Chapter 18.
--20. He says: "You who are a most abandoned traditor
have come out in the character of a persecutor and murderer of us who
keep the law." If the followers of Maximianus kept the law when they
separated from you, then we may acknowledge you as a keeper of the
law, when you are separated from the Church spread abroad throughout
the world. But if you raise the question of persecutions, I at once
reply: If you have suffered anything unjustly, this does not concern
those who, though they disapprove of men who act in such a way, [1949]
yet endure them for the peace that is in unity, in a manner deserving
of all praise. Wherefore you have nothing to bring up against the
Lord's wheat, who endure the chaff that is among them till the last
winnowing, from whom you never would have separated yourself, had you
not shown yourself lighter than chaff by flying away under the blast
of temptation before the coming of the Winnower. But not to leave
this one example, which the Lord hath thrust back in their teeth, to
close the mouths of these men, for their correction if they will show
themselves to be wise, but for their confusion if they remain in their
folly: if those are more just that suffer persecution than those who
inflict it, then those same followers of Maximianus are the more just,
whose basilica was utterly overthrown, and who were grievously
maltreated by the military following of Optatus, when the mandates of
the proconsul, ordering that all of them should be shut out of the
basilicas, were manifestly procured by the followers of Primianus.
Wherefore, if, when the emperors hated their communion, they ventured
on such violent measures for the persecution of the followers of
Maximianus, what would they do if they were enabled to work their will
by being in communion with kings? And if they did such things as I
have mentioned for the correction of the wicked, why are they
surprised that Catholic emperors should decree with greater power that
they should be worked upon and corrected who endeavor to rebaptize the
whole Christian world, when they have no ground for differing from
them? seeing that they, themselves bear witness that it is right to
bear with wicked men even where they have true charges to bring
against them in the cause of peace, since they received those whom
they had themselves condemned, acknowledging the honors conferred
among themselves, and the baptism administered in schism. Let them at
length consider what treatment they deserve at the hands of the
Christian powers of the world, who are the enemies of Christian unity
throughout the world. If, therefore, correction be bitter, yet let
them not fail to be ashamed; lest when they begin to read what they
themselves have written, they be overcome with laughter, when they do
not find in themselves what they wish to find in others, and fail to
recognize [1950] in their own case what they find fault with in their
neighbors.
Footnotes
[1949] Qui talia facientes quamvis improbent. A comparison of the
explanation of this passage in Contra Crescon. III. 41, 45, shows the
probability of Migne's conjecture, "quamvis improbe," "who endure the
men that act in such a way, however monstrous their conduct may be."
[1950] Nec in se agnoscunt. The reading of the Louvain edition gives
better sense, "Et in se agnoscunt," "and discover in themselves."
Chapter 19.
--21. What, then, does he mean by quoting in his letter
the words with which our Lord addressed the Jews: "Wherefore, behold,
I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them
ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge?" [1951]
For if by the wise men and the scribes and the prophets they would
have themselves be understood, while we were as it were the
persecutors of the prophets and wise men, why are they unwilling to
speak with us, seeing they are sent to us? For, indeed, if the man
who wrote that epistle which we are at this present moment answering,
were to be pressed by us to acknowledge it as his own, stamping its
authenticity with his signature, I question much whether he would do
it, so thoroughly afraid are they of our possessing any words of
theirs. For when we were anxious by some means or other to procure
the latter part of this same letter, because those from whom we
obtained it were unable to describe the whole of it, no one who was
asked for it was willing to give it to us, so soon as they knew that
we were making a reply to the portion which we had. Therefore, when
they read how the Lord says to the prophet, "Cry aloud, spare not, and
write their sins with my pen," [1952] these men who are sent to us as
prophets have no fears on this score, but take every precaution that
their crying may not be heard by us: which they certainly would not
fear if what they spoke of us were true. But their apprehension is
not groundless, as it is written in the Psalm, "The mouth of them that
speak lies shall be stopped." [1953]For if the reason that they do
not receive our baptism be that we are a generation of vipers--to use
the expression in his epistle--why did they receive the baptism of the
followers of Maximianus, of whom their Council speaks in the following
terms: "Because the enfolding of a poisoned womb has long concealed
the baneful offspring of a viper's seed, and the moist concretions of
conceived iniquity have by slow heat flowed forth into the members of
serpents"? Is it not therefore of themselves also that it is said in
the same Council, "The poison of asps is under their lips, their mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood;
destruction and unhappiness is in their ways, and the way of peace
have they not known"? [1954]And yet they now hold these men
themselves in undiminished honor, and receive within their body those
whom these men had baptized without.
Footnotes
[1951] Matt. xxiii. 34.
[1952] Isa. lviii. 1.
[1953] Ps. lxiii. 11.
[1954] Ps. xiv. 5-7, LXX. and Hieron., and probably N. Af. version.
Chapter 20.
--22. Wherefore all this about the generation of vipers,
and the poison of asps under their lips, and all the other things
which they have said against those which have not known the way of
peace, are really, if they would but speak the truth, more strictly
applicable to themselves, since for the sake of the peace of Donatus
they received the baptism of these men, in respect of which they used
the expressions quoted above in the wording of the decree of the
Council; but the baptism of the Church of Christ dispersed throughout
the world, from which peace itself came into Africa, they repudiate,
to the sacrilegious wounding of the peace of Christ. Which,
therefore, are rather the false prophets, who come in sheep's
clothing, while inwardly they are ravening wolves, [1955] --they who
either fail to detect the wicked in the Catholic Church, and
communicate with them in all innocence, or else for the sake of the
peace of unity are bearing with those whom they cannot separate from
the threshing-floor of the Lord before the Winnower shall come, or
they who do in schism what they censure in the Catholic Church, and
receive in their own separation, when manifest to all and condemned by
their own voice, what they profess that they shun in the unity of the
Church when it calls for toleration, and does not even certainly
exist?
Footnotes
[1955] Matt. vii. 15.
Chapter 21.
--23. Lastly, it has been said, as he himself has also
quoted, "Ye shall know them by their fruits:" [1956]let us
therefore examine into their fruits. You bring up against our
predecessors their delivery of the sacred books. This very charge we
urge with greater probability against their accusers themselves. And
not to carry our search too far, in the same city of Constantina your
predecessors ordained Silvanus bishop at the very outset of his
schism. He, while he was still a subdeacon, was most unmistakeably
entered as a traditor in the archives of the city. [1957]If you on
your side bring forward documents against our predecessors, all that
we ask is equal terms, that we should either believe both to be true
or both to be false. If both are true, you are unquestionably guilty
of schism, who have pretended that you avoid offenses in the communion
of the whole world, which you had commonly among you in the small
fragment of your own sect. But again, if both are false, you are
unquestionably guilty of schism, who, on account of the false charges
of giving up the sacred books, are staining yourselves with the
heinous offence of severance from the Church. But if we have
something to urge in accusation while you have nothing, or if our
charges are true whilst yours are false, it is no longer matter of
discussion how thoroughly your mouths are closed.
Footnotes
[1956] Matt. vii. 16.
[1957] See below, III. 57, 69; 68, 70; and Contra Cresc. III. 29, 33,
IV. 56, 66.
Chapter 22.
--24. What if the holy and true Church of Christ were to
convince and overcome you, even if we held no documents in support of
our cause, or only such as were false, while you had possession of
some genuine proofs of delivery of the sacred books? what would then
remain for you, except that, if you would, you should show your love
of peace, or otherwise should hold your tongues? [1958]For
whatever, in that case, you might bring forward in evidence, I should
be able to say with the greatest ease and the most perfect truth, that
then you are bound to prove as much to the full and catholic unity of
the Church already spread abroad and established throughout so many
nations, to the end that you should remain within, and that those whom
you convict should be expelled. And if you have endeavored to do
this, certainly you have not been able to make good your proof; and
being vanquished or enraged, you have separated yourselves, with all
the heinous guilt of sacrilege, from the guiltless men who could not
condemn on insufficient proof. But if you have not even endeavored to
do this, then with most accursed and unnatural blindness you have cut
yourselves off from the wheat of Christ, which grows throughout His
whole fields, that is, throughout the whole world, until the end,
because you have taken offense at a few tares in Africa.
Footnotes
[1958] "Obmutescatis" is the most probable conjecture of Migne or
"obtumescatis," which could only mean, "you should swell with
confusion."
Chapter 23.
--25. In conclusion, the Testament is said to have been
given to the flames by certain men in the time of persecution. Now
let its lessons be read, from whatever source it has been brought to
light. Certainly in the beginning of the promises of the Testator
this is found to have been said to Abraham: "In thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed;" [1959] and this saying is
truthfully interpreted by the apostle: "To thy seed," he says, "which
is Christ." [1960]No betrayal on the part of any man has made the
promises of God of none effect. Hold communion with all the nations
of the earth, and then you may boast that you have preserved the
Testament from the destruction of the flames. But if you will not do
so, which party is the rather to be believed to have insisted on the
burning of the Testament, save that which will not assent to its
teaching when it is brought to light? For how much more certainly,
without any sacrilegious rashness, can he be held to have joined the
company of traditors who now persecutes with his tongue the Testament
which they are said to have persecuted with the flames! You charge us
with the persecution: the true wheat of the Lord answers you, "Either
it was done justly, or it was done by the chaff that was among us."
What have you to say to this? You object that we have no baptism:
the same true wheat of the Lord answers you, that the form of the
sacrament even within the Church fails to profit some, as it did no
good to Simon Magus when he was baptized, much more it fails to profit
those who are without. Yet that baptism remains in them when they
depart, is proved from this, that it is not restored to them when they
return. Never, therefore, except by the greatest shamelessness, will
you be able to cry out against that wheat, or to call them false
prophets clad in sheep's clothing, whilst inwardly they are ravening
wolves; since either they do not know the wicked in the unity of the
Catholic Church, or for the sake of unity bear with those whom they
know.
Footnotes
[1959] Gen. xxii. 18.
[1960] Gal. iii. 16.
Chapter 24.
--26. But let us turn to the consideration of your
fruits. I pass over the tyrannous exercise of authority in the
cities, and especially in the estates of other men; I pass over the
madness of the Circumcelliones, and the sacrilegious and profane
adoration of the bodies of those who had thrown themselves of their
own accord over precipices, the revellings of drunkenness, and the ten
years' groaning of the whole of Africa under the cruelty of the one
man Optatus Gildonanius: all this I pass over, because there are
certain among you who cry out that these things are, and have ever
been displeasing to them. But they say that they bore with them in
the cause of peace, because they could not put them down; wherein they
condemn themselves by their own judgment: for if indeed they felt
such love for peace, they never would have rent in twain the bond of
unity. For what madness can be greater, than to be willing to abandon
peace in the midst of peace itself, and to be anxious to retain it in
the midst of discord? Therefore, for the sake of those who pretend
that they do not see the evils of this same faction of Donatus, which
all men see and blame, ignoring them even to the extent of saying of
Optatus himself, "What did he do?" "Who accused him?" "Who convicted
him?" "I know nothing," "I saw nothing," "I heard nothing,"--for
the sake of these, I say, who pretend that they are ignorant of what
is generally notorious, the party of Maximianus has arisen, through
whom their eyes are opened, and their mouths are closed: for they
openly sever themselves; they openly erect altar against altar; they
are openly in a Council [1961] called sacrilegious and vipers, and
swift to shed blood, to be compared with Dathan and Abiram and Korah,
and are condemned in cutting terms of abhorrence; and are as openly
received again with undiminished honors in company with those whom
they have baptized. Such are the fruits of these men, who do all this
for the peace of Donatus, that they may clothe themselves in sheep's
clothing, and reject the peace of Christ throughout the world that
they may be ravening wolves within the fold.
Footnotes
[1961] That of Bagai.
Chapter 25.
--27. I think that I have left unanswered none of the
statements in the letter of Donatus, so far at least as relates to
what I have been able to find in that part of which we are in
possession. I should be glad if they would produce the other part as
well, in case there should be anything in it which does not admit of
refutation. But as for these answers which we have made to him, with
the help of God, I admonish your Christian love, that ye not only
communicate them to those who seek for them, but also force them on
those who show no longing for them. Let them answer anything they
will; and if they shrink from sending a reply to us, let them at any
rate send letters to their own party, only not forbidding that the
contents should be shown to us. For if they do this, they show their
fruits most openly, by which they are proved to demonstration to be
ravening wolves disguised in sheep's clothing, in that they secretly
lay snares for our sheep, and openly shrink from giving any answer to
the shepherds. We only lay to their charge the sin of schism, in
which they are all most thoroughly involved,--not the offenses of
certain of their party, which some of them declare to be displeasing
to themselves. If they, on the other hand, abstain from charging us
with the sins of other men, they have nothing they can lay to our
charge, and therefore they are wholly unable to defend themselves from
the charge of schism; because it is by a wicked severance that they
have separated themselves from the threshing-floor of the Lord, and
from the innocent company of the corn that is growing throughout the
world, on account of charges which either are false, and invented by
themselves, or even if true, involve the chaff alone.
Chapter 26.
--28. But it is possible that you may expect of me that I
should go on to refute what he has introduced about Manichæus. Now,
in respect of this, the only thing that offends me is that he has
censured a most pestilent and pernicious error--I mean the heresy of
the Manichæans--in terms of wholly inadequate severity, if indeed they
amount to censure at all, though the Catholic Church has broken down
his defenses by the strongest evidence of truth. [1962]For the
inheritance of Christ, established in all nations, is secure against
heresies which have been shut out from the inheritance; but, as the
Lord says, "How can Satan cast out Satan?" [1963] so how can the error
of the Donatists have power to overthrow the error of the Manichæans?
[1964]
Footnotes
[1962] Veritatis fortissimis documentis Catholica expugnat; and so the
Mss. The earlier editors, apparently not understanding the omission
of "ecclesia," read "veritas."
[1963] Mark iii. 23.
[1964] See II. 18, 40, 41.
Chapter 27.
--29. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, though that error is
exposed and overcome in many ways, and dare not oppose the truth on
any show of reason whatsoever, but only with the unblushing obstinacy
of impudence; yet, not to load your memory with a multitude of proofs,
I would have you bear in mind this one action of the followers of
Maximianus, confront them with this one fact, thrust this in their
teeth, to make them their treacherous tongues, destroy their calumny
with this, as it were a three-pronged dart destroying a three-headed
monster. They charge us with betrayal of the sacred books; they
charge us with persecution; they charge us with false baptism: to all
their charges make the same answer about the followers of Maximianus.
For they think that the proofs are lost which show that their
predecessors gave the sacred volumes to the flames; but this at least
they cannot hide, that they have received with unimpaired honors those
who were stained with the sacrilege of schism. Also they think that
those most violent persecutions are hidden, which they direct against
any who oppose them whenever they are able; but whilst spiritual
persecution surpasses bodily persecution, they received with
undiminished honors the followers of Maximianus, whom they themselves
persecuted in the body, and of whom they themselves said, "Their feet
are swift to shed blood;" [1965] and this at any rate they cannot
hide.
Footnotes
[1965] Ps. xiv. 6, LXX. Hieron., N. Af. version.
Chapter 28.
--Finally, they think that the question of baptism is
hidden, with which they deceive wretched souls. But whilst they say
that none have baptism who were baptized outside the communion of the
one Church, they received with undiminished honors the followers of
Maximianus, with those whom they baptized in schism outside the
Donatist communion, and this at least they cannot hide.
30. "But these things," they say, "bring no pollution in the cause of
peace; and it is well to bend to mercy the rigor of extreme severity,
that broken branches may be grafted in anew." Accordingly, in this
way the whole question is settled, by defeat in them, by the
impossibility of defeat for us; for if the name of peace be assumed
for even the faintest shadow of defense to justify the bearing with
wicked men in schism, then beyond all doubt the violation of true
peace itself involves detestable guilt, with nothing to be said in its
defence throughout the unity of the world.
Chapter 29.
--31. These things, brethren, I would have you retain as
the basis of your action and preaching with untiring gentleness: love
men, while you destroy errors; take of the truth without pride; strive
for the truth without cruelty. Pray for those whom you refute and
convince of error. For the prophet prays to God for mercy upon such
as these, saying, "Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Thy
name, O Lord." [1966]And this, indeed, the Lord has done already,
so as to fill the faces of the followers of Maximianus with shame in
the sight of all mankind: it only remains that they should learn how
to blush to their soul's health. For so they will be able to seek the
name of the Lord, from which they are turned away to their utter
destruction, whilst they exalt their own name in the place of that of
Christ. May ye live and persevere in Christ, and be multiplied, and
abound in the love of God, and in love towards one another, and
towards all men, brethren well beloved.
Footnotes
[1966] Ps. lxxxiii. 16.
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