is to be held valid which is received from one who had not himself
received it, if, from some promptings of curiosity, he had chanced to
learn how it ought to be conferred; and whether it makes no difference
in what spirit the recipient receives it, whether in mockery or in
sincerity: if in mockery, whether the difference arises when the
mockery is of deceit, as in the Church, or in what is thought to be
the Church; or when it is in jest, as in a play: and which is the more
accursed, to receive it deceitfully in the Church, or in heresy or
schism without deceit, that is to say, with full sincerity of heart;
or whether it be worse to receive it deceitfully in heresy or in good
faith in a play, if any one were to be moved by a sudden feeling of
religion in the midst of his acting. And yet, if we compare such an
one even with him who receives it deceitfully in the Catholic Church
itself, I should be surprised if any one were to doubt which of the
two should be preferred; for I do not see of what avail the intention
of him who gives in truth can be to him who receives deceitfully. But
let us consider, in the case of some one also giving it in deceit,
when both the giver and the recipient are acting deceitfully in the
unity of the Catholic Church itself, whether this should rather be
acknowledged as baptism, or that which is given in a play, if any one
should be found who received it faithfully from a sudden impulse of
religion: or whether it be not true that, so far as the men themselves
are concerned, there is a very great difference between the believing
recipient in a play, and the mocking recipient in the Church; but that
in regard to the genuineness of the sacrament there is no difference.
For if it makes no difference in respect to the genuineness of the
sacrament within the Catholic Church itself, whether certain persons
celebrate it in truth or in deceit, so long as both still celebrate
the same thing, I cannot see why it should make a difference outside,
seeing that he who receives it is not cloaked by his deceit, but he is
changed by his religious impulse. Or have those truthful persons among
whom it is celebrated more power for the confirmation of the sacrament,
than those deceitful men by whom and in whom it is celebrated can exert
for its invalidation? And yet, if the deceit be subsequently brought
to light, no one seeks a repetition of the sacrament; but the fraud is
either punished by excommunication or set right by penitence.
102. But the safe course for us is, not to advance with any rashness of
judgment in setting forth a view which has neither been started in any
provincial Council of the Catholic Church nor established in a general
one; but to assert, with all the confidence of a voice that cannot be
gainsaid, what has been confirmed by the consent of the universal
Church, under the direction of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, if any one were to press me--supposing I were duly seated
in a Council in which a question were raised on points like these--to
declare what my own opinion was, without reference to the previously
expressed views of others, whose judgment I would rather follow, if
I were under the influence of the same feelings as led me to assert
what I have said before, I should have no hesitation in saying that
all men possess baptism who have received it in any place, from any
sort of men, provided that it were consecrated in the words of the
gospel, and received without deceit on their part with some degree of
faith; although it would be of no profit to them for the salvation
of their souls if they were without charity, by which they might be
grafted into the Catholic Church. For "though I have faith," says the
apostle, "so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I
am nothing."[635] Just as already, from the established decrees of
our predecessors, I have no hesitation in saying that all those have
baptism who, though they receive it deceitfully, yet receive it in the
Church, or where the Church is thought to be by those in whose society
it is received, of whom it was said, "They went out from us."[636] But
when there was no society of those who so believed, and when the man
who received it did not himself hold such belief, but the whole thing
was done as a farce, or a comedy, or a jest,--if I were asked whether
the baptism which was thus conferred should be approved, I should
declare my opinion that we ought to pray for the declaration of God's
judgment through the medium of some revelation, seeking it with united
prayer and earnest groanings of suppliant devotion, humbly deferring
all the time to the decision of those who were to give their judgment
after me, in case they should set forth anything as already known and
determined. And, therefore, how much the more must I be considered to
have given my opinion now without prejudice to the utterance of more
diligent research or authority higher than my own!
* * * * *
CHAP. LIV.--103. But now I think that it is fully time for me to bring
to their due termination these books also on the subject of baptism, in
which our Lord God has shown to us, through the words of the peaceful
Bishop Cyprian and his brethren who agreed with him, how great is the
love which should be felt for catholic unity; so that even where they
were otherwise minded until God should reveal even this to them,[637]
they should rather bear with those who thought differently from
themselves, than sever themselves from them by a wicked schism; whereby
the mouths of the Donatists are wholly closed, even if we say nothing
of the followers of Maximian. For if the wicked pollute the good in
unity, then even Cyprian himself already found no Church to which he
could be joined. But if the wicked do not infect the good in unity,
then the sacrilegious Donatist has no ground to set before himself for
separation. But if baptism is both possessed and transferred by the
multitude of others who work the works of the flesh, of which it is
said, that "they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God,"[638] then it is possessed and transferred also by heretics, who
are numbered among those works; because they could have transferred it
had they remained, and did not lose it by their secession. But men of
this kind confer it on their fellows as fruitlessly and uselessly as
the others who resemble them, inasmuch as they shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. And as, when those others are brought into the right
path, it is not that baptism begins to be present, having been absent
before, but that it begins to profit them, having been already in them;
so is it the case with heretics as well. Whence Cyprian and those who
thought with him could not impose limits on the Catholic Church, which
they would not mutilate. But in that they were otherwise minded we feel
no fear, seeing that we too share in their veneration for Peter; yet in
that they did not depart from unity we rejoice, seeing that we, like
them, are founded on the rock.
FOOTNOTES:
[531] Wisd. ix. 15.
[532] Gal. ii. 11.
[533] Mactaris was in Byzacene.
[534] Siccilibba was in Zeugitana.
[535] Gor is variously supposed to be Garra in Mauritania, or Garriana
in Byzacene.
[536] Utica, the well-known city in Zeugitana, where Cato died.
[537] 1 Tim. v. 22.
[538] Matt. vi. 15.
[539] Germaniciana Nova was in Byzacene.
[540] Rucuma was in Zeugitana.
[541] Gen. i. 4.
[542] The position of Luperciana is unknown.
[543] See 1 Kings xviii. 21.
[544] Matt. vii. 24-27.
[545] Midila was in Numidia.
[546] Marazana was in Byzacene.
[547] Eph. iv. 5.
[548] Nec ... mutati. "Nec" is restored by Migne from the MSS.
[549] Eph. v. 27. See _Retract._ ii. 18, quoted on I. xvii. 26.
[550] Bobba was in Mauritania Tingitana.
[551] Rom. iii. 3, 4.
[552] 2 Cor. vi. 16.
[553] Dionysiana was in Byzacene.
[554] John xx. 23.
[555] Tinisa was in Zeugitana.
[556] 1 Cor. xv. 33, 32.
[557] 2 Cor. xi. 3.
[558] Ausnaga was in Zeugitana.
[559] John i. 33.
[560] Victoriana was in Byzacene.
[561] Ps. l. 16, 18.
[562] Matt. vii. 23.
[563] Tucca was in Numidia.
[564] He is alluding to Stephen, bishop of Rome, of whom Cyprian says
in his seventy-fourth epistle (to Pompeius): "Why has the perverse
obstinacy of our brother Stephen burst out to such a point, that
he should even contend that sons of God are born of the baptism of
Marcion, and others who blaspheme against God the Father?"
[565] Zama was in Numidia, famous for Hannibal's defeat by Scipio.
[566] Ululi and Cibaliana were both in Byzacene.
[567] Tharassa was in Numidia.
[568] Gal. ii. 11.
[569] Telepte, or Thala, was in Byzacene.
[570] John iii. 27.
[571] Timida Regia was in Zeugitana.
[572] Furni was in Zeugitana.
[573] Phil. iii. 15.
[574] Nova was in Zeugitana.
[575] Bulla Regia was an inland town of Numidia.
[576] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 20.
[577] Membresa was in Zeugitana.
[578] John ix. 31.
[579] Buslaceni is probably Byzacium, the capital of Byzacene, since we
know that it was also called Bizica Lucana.
[580] Abitini was in Byzacene.
[581] Aggya, probably the same as Aggiva.
[582] The position of Marcelliana is unknown.
[583] Matt. vi. 24.
[584] Horrea Celiae was a village of Byzacene, ten miles north of
Hadrumetum.
[585] Assura was in Zeugitana.
[586] See Eph. iv. 4-6.
[587] Capsa was in Byzacene.
[588] Rusiccada was at the mouth of the Thapsus, in Numidia.
[589] Cuiculi was in Numidia Cæsariensis.
[590] Hippo Diarrhytus was on the coast of Zeugitana.
[591] Ausafa was in Zeugitana.
[592] Gurgites was in Byzacene.
[593] Lamasba was in Numidia.
[594] 2 Cor. ii. 15.
[595] Mark ix. 38.
[596] Gazaufala was in Numidia.
[597] Tucca was in Mauritania Cæsariensis.
[598] Octavus and Mascula were in Numidia.
[599] Matt. xvi. 18, 19.
[600] Thambei was in Byzacene.
[601] Isa. xxix. 13.
[602] Chullabi, or Cululi, was in Byzacene.
[603] 2 John 10, 11.
[604] 1 Tim. i. 5.
[605] Hos. ii.
[606] 1 Cor. v. 11.
[607] Gemelli was a Roman colony in Numidia.
[608] Matt. xv. 14.
[609] Illuminare; baptism being often called [Greek: phôtismos].
[610] Sabrata, Oea, and Leptis Magna, were the three cities whose
combination gave its name to Tripolis. The privilege of bishops to
give their votes by proxy in a Council appears to have existed in very
early times, and is perhaps referable to the example of St. Paul's
interference in the Council of Achæan Bishops, though absent in body, 1
Cor. v. 4.
[611] Neapolis was in Zeugitana.
[612] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii.
[613] Cypr. _Ep._ lxix. sec. 4.
[614] Phil. i. 15, 17.
[615] Ps. lxviii. 6, from the LXX.
[616] John vi. 51.
[617] Matt. xxvi. 26-29.
[618] Phil. i. 18.
[619] Matt. xvi. 18.
[620] Cant. vi. 9.
[621] Eph. v. 27; cp. _Retract._ ii. 18.
[622] Cant. iv. 12, 13.
[623] Matt. xvi. 19.
[624] Matt. xviii. 17.
[625] Ps. xxvi. 8.
[626] Ps. lxviii. 6, from the LXX.
[627] Ps. cxxii. 1.
[628] Ps. lxxxiv. 4.
[629] Matt. xiii. 23; Luke viii. 15.
[630] 2 Tim. ii. 20.
[631] Eph. iv. 2, 3.
[632] 1 Cor. iii. 17.
[633] 2 Tim. ii. 20. In _Retract._ ii. 18, Augustine says that he
thinks the meaning of this last passage to be, not as Cyprian took it,
_Ep._ liv. sec. 2, that the vessels of gold and silver are the good,
which are to honour; the vessels of wood and earth the wicked, which
are to dishonour: but that the material of the vessels refers to the
outward appearance of the several members of the Church, and that in
each class some will be found to honour, and some to dishonour. This
interpretation he derives from Tychonius.
[634] 1 John ii. 19.
[635] 1 Cor. xiii. 2.
[636] 1 John ii. 19.
[637] Phil. iii. 15.
[638] Gal. v. 19-21.
THE THREE BOOKS OF AUGUSTINE,
BISHOP OF HIPPO,
IN ANSWER TO
THE LETTERS OF PETILIAN, THE DONATIST,
BISHOP OF CIRTA.
BOOK FIRST.
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.
_Augustine, to the well-beloved brethren that belong to the care of our
diocese, greeting in the Lord._
CHAP. I.--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, "I am for peace, but when I speak they are for
war,"[639] 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 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
style and character 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.
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
neighbour 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?
* * * * *
CHAP. II.--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.
* * * * *
CHAP. III.--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,"[640]
and, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man,"[641] 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,"[642]
and "vain is the help of man."[643] 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?"[644]
* * * * *
CHAP. IV.--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 endeavours 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. V.--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
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?"[645] 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."[646] Nor was the apostle
himself their root, but rather He who says, "I am the vine, ye are the
branches."[647] How, too, could he be their head, when he says, that
"we, being many, are one body in Christ,"[648] and expressly declares
in many passages that Christ Himself is the head of the whole body?
* * * * *
CHAP. VI.--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.
* * * * *
CHAP. VII.--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."[649] 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.[650]
* * * * *
CHAP. VIII.--9. When he hears, "Every good tree bringeth good fruit,
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit: do men gather grapes of
thorns?"[651] 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;"[652] 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.[653]
* * * * *
CHAP. IX.--10. Again, when he hears, "He that is washed by one dead,
his washing profiteth him nought,"[654] he will answer, "Christ, being
raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over
Him:"[655] of whom it is said, "The same is He which baptizeth with the
Holy Ghost."[656] 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,[657]
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 faith was
in his company?[658]--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.[659]
* * * * *
CHAP. X.--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 general Council,"[660]
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 at any rate 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[661] 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XI.--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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XII.--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 offence 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIII.--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,[662] 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,[663]--a prediction which seems from actual proof to be
in process of fulfilment; 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?"[664] 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 offences of the greatest enormity, condemned by the
true voice, as they say, of their own general 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIV.--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-honoured
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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XV.--16. Look at the states of Musti and Assura: 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVI.--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 endeavours 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 general
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?
* * * * *
CHAP. XVII.--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 offences 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 honour.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVIII.--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,[665]
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 endeavour 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 honours 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 recognise[666] in their own case what they
find fault with in their neighbours.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIX.--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"?[667] 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, lift up thy voice like
a trumpet, and show my people their transgression,"[668] 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."[669] 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"?[670] And yet they now hold these
men themselves in undiminished honour, and receive within their body
those whom these men had baptized without.
* * * * *
CHAP. XX.--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, whilst
inwardly they are ravening wolves,[671]--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?
* * * * *
CHAP. XXI.--23. Lastly, it has been said, as he himself has also
quoted, "Ye shall know them by their fruits:"[672] 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 sub-deacon, was most unmistakeably entered as
a _traditor_ in the archives of the city. 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 offences 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXII.--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?[673] 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 endeavoured 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 endeavoured 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
offence at a few tares in Africa.[674]
* * * * *
CHAP. XXIII.--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;"[675] and this saying is truthfully
interpreted by the apostle: "To thy seed," he says, "which is
Christ."[676] 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXIV.--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
Gildonianus: 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[677] 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 honours
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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXV.--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 offences 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXVI.--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 defences by the strongest evidence of truth.[678] 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?"[679] so how can the error of
the Donatists have power to overthrow the error of the Manichæans?[680]
CHAP. XXVII.--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 hold 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
honours 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 honours the followers of Maximianus, whom they themselves
persecuted in the body, and of whom they themselves said, "Their feet
are swift to shed blood;"[681] and this at any rate they cannot hide.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXVIII. 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 honours 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 rigour 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 defence 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.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXIX.--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."[682] 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:
[639] Ps. cxx. 7.
[640] Ps. cxviii. 8.
[641] Jer. xvii. 5.
[642] Ps. iii. 8.
[643] Ps. lx. 11.
[644] 1 Cor. i. 13.
[645] Rom. iv. 5.
[646] 1 Cor. iii. 6, 7.
[647] John xv. 5.
[648] Rom. xii. 5.
[649] Matt. xxiii. 3.
[650] Rom. iv. 25, 5.
[651] Matt. vii. 17, 16.
[652] Matt. xii. 35.
[653] See below, Book II. vi. 12.
[654] So the Donatists commonly quoted Ecclus. xxxiv. 25, which is
more correctly rendered in our version, "He that washeth himself after
the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth
his washing?" Augustine (_Retract._ i. 21, sec. 3) says that the
misapplication was rendered possible by the omission in many African
Mss. of the second clause, "and touches it again."
[655] Rom. vi. 9.
[656] John i. 33.
[657] Cp. _Contra Cresconium_, Book II. xxv. 30: "Ita mortui sunt, ut
neque super terras, neque in requie sanctorum sint."
[658] Migne suggests as an emendation, "quod Deus illi comes erat," as
in II. xxiii. 53, xxxvii. 87, etc.
[659] 1 Sam. xvii. 51.
[660] That of Bagai. See on _de Bapt._ I. v. 7.
[661] Ore latissimo acclamaverunt. The Louvain edition has "lætissimo,"
both here and _Contra Crescon._ IV. xli. 48.
[662] Num. xvi. 31-35.
[663] Ps. lxxii. 8.
[664] Ps. ii. 8.
[665] Qui talia facientes quamvis improbent. A comparison of the
explanation of this passage in _Contra Crescon._ III. xli. 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."
[666] Nec in se agnoscunt. The reading of the Louvain edition gives
better sense, "Et in se agnoscunt," "and discover in themselves."
[667] Matt. xxiii. 34.
[668] Isa. lviii. 1.
[669] Ps. lxiii. 11.
[670] Ps. xiv. 5-7, from the LXX. only.
[671] Matt. vii. 15.
[672] Matt. vii. 16.
[673] "Obmutescatis" is the most probable conjecture of Migne for
"obtumescatis," which could only mean, "you should swell with
confusion."
[674] See below, II. xvi. 36, III. lvii. 69, lviii. 70; and _Contra
Cresconium_, III. xxix. 33, IV. lvi. 66.
[675] Gen. xxii. 18.
[676] Gal. iii. 16.
[677] That of Bagai.
[678] Veritatis fortissimis documentis Catholica expugnat; and so the
MSS. The earlier editors, apparently not understanding the omission of
"ecclesia," read "veritas."
[679] Mark iii. 23.
[680] See II. xviii. 40, 41.
[681] Ps. xiv. 6, from the LXX. only.
[682] Ps. lxxxiii. 16.
BOOK SECOND.[683]
IN WHICH AUGUSTINE REPLIES TO ALL THE SEVERAL STATEMENTS IN THE LETTER
OF PETILIANUS, AS THOUGH DISPUTING WITH AN ADVERSARY FACE TO FACE.
CHAP. I.--1. That we made a full and sufficient answer to the first
part of the letter of Petilianus, which was all that we had been able
to find, will be remembered by all who were able to read or hear what
we replied. But since the whole of it was afterwards found and copied
by our brethren, and sent to us with the view that we should answer
it as a whole, this task was one which our pen could not escape,--not
that he says anything new in it, to which answer has not been already
made in many ways and at various times; but still, on account of the
brethren of slower comprehension, who, when they read a matter in
any place, cannot always refer to everything that has been said upon
the same subject, I will comply with those who urge me by all means
to reply to every point, and that as though we were carrying on the
discussion face to face in the form of a dialogue. I will set down
the words of his epistle under his name, and I will give the answer
under my own name, as though it had all been taken down by reporters
while we were debating. And so there will be no one who can complain
either that I have passed anything over, or that they have been unable
to understand it for want of distinction between the parties to the
discussion; at the same time that the Donatists themselves, who are
unwilling to argue the question in our presence, as is shown by the
letters which they have circulated among their party, may thus not fail
to find the truth answering them point by point, just as though they
were discussing the matter with us face to face.
2. In the very beginning of the letter PETILIANUS said: "Petilianus,
a bishop, to his well-beloved brethren, fellow-priests, and deacons,
appointed ministers with us throughout our diocese in the gospel,
grace be to you and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ."
3. AUGUSTINE answered: I acknowledge the apostolic greeting. You see
who you are that employ it, but see from what source you have learned
what you say. For in these terms Paul salutes the Romans, and in
the same terms the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the
Colossians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians. What madness is it,
therefore, to be unwilling to share the salvation of peace with those
very Churches in whose epistles you learned its form of salutation?
* * * * *
CHAP. II.--4. PETILIANUS said: "Those who have polluted their souls
with a guilty laver, under the name of baptism, reproach us with
baptizing twice,--than whose obscenity, indeed, any kind of filth is
more cleanly, seeing that through a perversion of cleanliness they have
come to be made fouler by their washing."
5. AUGUSTINE answered: We are neither made fouler by our washing, nor
cleaner by yours. But when the water of baptism is given to any one in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, it is
neither ours nor yours, but His of whom it was said to John, "Upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is
He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost."[684]
* * * * *
CHAP. III.--6. PETILIANUS said: "For what we look to is the conscience
of the giver, to cleanse that of the recipient."
7. AUGUSTINE answered: We therefore need have no anxiety about the
conscience of Christ. But if you assert any man to be the giver, be
he who he may, there will be no certainty about the cleansing of the
recipient, because there is no certainty about the conscience of the
giver.
* * * * *
CHAP. IV.--8. PETILIANUS said: "For he who receives faith from the
faithless, receives not faith but guilt."
9. AUGUSTINE answered: Christ is not faithless, from whom the
faithful man receives not guilt but faith. For he believeth on Him
that justifieth the ungodly, that his faith may be counted for
righteousness.[685]
* * * * *
CHAP. V.--10. PETILIANUS said: "For everything consists of an origin
and root; and if it have not something for a head, it is nothing: nor
does anything well receive second birth, unless it be born again of
good seed."
11. AUGUSTINE answered: Why will you put yourself forward in the room
of Christ, when you will not place yourself under Him? He is the
origin, and root, and head of him who is being born, and in Him we
feel no fear, as we must in any man, whoever he may be, lest he should
prove to be false and of abandoned character, and we should be found
to be sprung from an abandoned source, growing from an abandoned root,
united to an abandoned head. For what man can feel secure about a man,
when it is written, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man?"[686] But
the seed of which we are born again is the word of God, that is, the
gospel. Whence the apostle says, "For in Christ Jesus I have begotten
you through the gospel."[687] And yet he allows even those to preach
the gospel who were preaching it not in purity, and rejoices in their
preaching;[688] because, although they were preaching it not in purity,
but seeking their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's,[689]
yet the gospel which they preached was pure. And the Lord had said
of certain of like character, "Whatsoever they bid you observe, that
observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do
not."[690] If, therefore, what is in itself pure is preached in purity,
then the preacher himself also, in that he is a partner with the word,
has his share in begetting the believer; but if he himself be not
regenerate, and yet what he preaches be pure, then the believer is born
not from the barrenness of the minister, but from the fruitfulness of
the word.
* * * * *
CHAP. VI.--12. PETILIANUS said: "This being the case, brethren, what
perversity must it be, that he who is guilty through his own sins
should make another free from guilt, when the Lord Jesus Christ says,
'Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth
forth evil fruit: do men gather grapes of thorns?[691] And again: 'A
good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good
things: and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil
things.'"[692]
13. AUGUSTINE answered: No man, even though he be not guilty through
his own sins, can make his neighbour free from sin, because he is not
God. Otherwise, if we were to expect that out of the innocence of the
baptizer should be produced the innocence of the baptized, then each
will be the more innocent in proportion as he may have found a more
innocent person by whom to be baptized; and will himself be the less
innocent in proportion as he by whom he is baptized is less innocent.
And if the man who baptizes happens to entertain hatred against another
man, this will also be imputed to him who is baptized. Why, therefore,
does the wretched man hasten to be baptized,--that his own sins may be
forgiven him, or that those of others may be reckoned against him? Is
he like a merchant ship, to discharge one burden, and to take on him
another? But by the good tree and its good fruit, and the corrupt tree
and its evil fruit, we are wont to understand men and their works, as
is consequently shown in those other words which you also quoted: "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." But when a man preaches the word of God, or administers the
sacraments of God, he does not, if he is a bad man, preach or minister
out of his own treasure; but he will be counted among those of whom it
is said, "Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do
not ye after their works:" for they bid you observe what is God's, but
their works are their own. For if it is as you say, that is, if the
fruit of those who baptize consist in the baptized persons themselves;
you declare a great woe against Africa, if a young Optatus has sprung
up for every one that Optatus baptized.
* * * * *
CHAP. VII.--14. PETILIANUS said: "And again, 'He who is baptized by
one that is dead, his washing profiteth him nothing.'[693] He did not
mean that the baptizer was a corpse, a lifeless body, the remains of
a man ready for burial, but one lacking the Spirit of God, who is
compared to a dead body, as He declares to a disciple in another place,
according to the witness of the gospel. For His disciple says, 'Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him,
Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.'[694] The father of the
disciple was not baptized. He declared him as a pagan to belong to the
company of pagans; unless he said this of the unbelieving, The dead
cannot bury the dead. He was dead, therefore, not as smitten by some
death, but as smitten even during life. For he who so lives as to be
doomed to eternal death is tortured by a death in life. To be baptized,
therefore, by the dead, is to have received not life but death. We
must therefore consider and declare how far the _traditor_ is to be
accounted dead while yet alive. He is dead who has not deserved to be
born again with a true baptism; he is likewise dead who, having been
born again with a true baptism, has become involved with a _traditor_.
Both are wanting in the life of baptism,--both he who never had it
at all, and he who had it and has lost it. For the Lord Jesus Christ
says, 'There shall come to that man seven spirits more wicked than the
former one, and the last state of that man shall be worse than the
first.'"[695]
15. AUGUSTINE answered: Seek with greater care to know in what sense
the words which you have quoted from Scripture in proof of your
position were really uttered, and how they should be understood. For
that all unrighteous persons are wont to be called dead in a mystical
sense is clear enough; but Christ, to whom true baptism belongs, which
you say is false because of the faults of men, is alive, sitting at
the right hand of the Father, and He will not die any more through
any infirmity of the flesh: death will no more have dominion over
Him.[696] And they who are baptized with His baptism are not baptized
by one who is dead. And if it so happen that certain ministers,
being deceitful workers, seeking their own, not the things which are
Jesus Christ's, proclaiming the gospel not in purity, and preaching
Christ of contention and envy, are to be called dead because of their
unrighteousness, yet the sacrament of the living God does not die even
in one that is dead. For that Simon was dead who was baptized by Philip
in Samaria, who wished to purchase the gift of God for money;[697] but
the baptism which he had lived in him still to work his punishment.
16. But how false the statement is which you make, that "both are
wanting in the life of baptism, both he who never had it at all, and he
who had it and has lost it," you may see from this, that in the case of
those who apostatize after having been baptized, and who return through
penitence, baptism is not restored to them, as it would be restored
if it were lost. In what manner, indeed, do your dead men baptize
according to your interpretation? Must we not reckon the drunken among
the dead (to say nothing of the rest, and to mention only what is well
known and of daily experience among all), seeing that the apostle
says of the widow, "But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she
liveth?"[698] In the next place, in that Council of yours, in which
you condemned Maximianus with his advisers or his ministers, have you
forgotten with what eloquence you said, "Even after the manner of the
Egyptians, the shores are full of the bodies of the dying, on whom the
weightier punishment falls in death itself, in that, after their life
has been wrung from them by the avenging waters, they have not found
so much as burial?" And yet you yourselves may see whether or no one
of them, Felicianus, has been brought to life again; yet he has with
him within the communion of your body those whom he baptized outside.
As therefore he is baptized by One that is alive who is clothed with
the baptism of the living Christ, so he is baptized by the dead who is
wrapped in the baptism of the dead Saturn, or any one like him; that
we may set forth in the meanwhile, with what brevity we may, in what
sense the words which you have quoted may be understood without any
cavilling on the part of any one of us. For, in the sense in which
they are received by you, you make no effort to explain them, but only
strive to entangle us together with yourselves.
* * * * *
CHAP. VIII.--17. PETILIANUS said: "We must consider, I say, and declare
how far the treacherous _traditor_ is to be accounted dead while yet in
life. Judas was an apostle when he betrayed Christ; and the same man
was already dead, having spiritually lost the office of an apostle,
being destined afterwards to die by hanging himself, as it is written:
'I have sinned,' says he, 'in that I have betrayed the innocent blood;
and he departed, and went and hanged himself'[699] The traitor perished
by the rope: he left the rope for others like himself, of whom the Lord
Christ cried aloud to the Father, 'Father, those that Thou gavest me
I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that
the Scripture might be fulfilled.'[700] For David of old had passed
this sentence on him who was to betray Christ to the unbelievers: 'Let
another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a
widow.'[701] See how mighty is the spirit of the prophets, that it was
able to see all future things as though they were present, so that a
traitor who was to be born hereafter should be condemned many centuries
before. Finally, that the said sentence should be completed, the holy
Matthias received the bishopric of that lost apostle. Let no one be
so dull, no one so faithless, as to dispute this: Matthias won for
himself a victory, not a wrong, in that he carried off the spoils of
the traitor from the victory of the Lord Christ. Why then, after this,
do you claim to yourself a bishopric as the heir of a worse traitor?
Judas betrayed Christ in the flesh to the unbelievers; you in the
spirit madly betrayed the holy gospel to the flames of sacrilege. Judas
betrayed the Lawgiver to the unbelievers; you, as it were, betraying
all that he had left, gave up the law of God to be destroyed by men.
Whilst, had you loved the law, like the youthful Maccabees, you would
have welcomed death for the sake of the laws of God (if indeed that can
be said to be death to men which makes them immortal because they died
for the Lord); for of those brethren we learn that one replied to the
sacrilegious tyrant with these words of faith: 'Thou like a fury takest
us out of this present life; but the King of the world (who reigns for
ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end) shall raise us up who
have died for His laws, unto everlasting life.'[702] If you were to
burn with fire the testament of a dead man, would you not be punished
as the falsifier of a will? What therefore is likely to become of you
who have burned the most holy law of our God and Judge? Judas repented
of his deed even in death; you not only do not repent, but stand forth
as a persecutor and butcher of us who keep the law, whilst you are the
most wicked of _traditors_."
18. AUGUSTINE answered: See what a difference there is between your
calumnious words and our truthful assertions. Listen for a little
while. See how you have exaggerated the sin of delivering up the
sacred books, comparing us in most odious terms, like some sophistical
inventor of charges, with the traitor Judas. But when I shall have
answered you on this point with the utmost brevity,--I did not do what
you assert; I did not deliver up the sacred books; your charge is
false; you will never be able to prove it,--will not all that smoke of
mighty words presently vanish away? Or will you perchance endeavour
to prove the truth of what you say? This, then, you should do first;
and then you might rise against us, as against men who were already
convicted, with whatever mass of invective you might choose. Here is
one absurdity: behold again a second.
19. You yourself, when speaking of the foretelling of the condemnation
of Judas, used these expressions: "See how mighty is the spirit of the
prophets, that it was able to see all future things as though they
were present, so that a traitor who was to be born hereafter should be
condemned many centuries before;" and yet you did not see that in the
same sure prophecy, and certain and unshaken truth, in which it was
foretold that one of the disciples should hereafter betray the Christ,
it was also foretold that the whole world should hereafter believe
in Christ. Why did you pay attention in the prophecy to the man who
betrayed Christ, and in the same place give no heed to the world for
which Christ was betrayed? Who betrayed Christ? Judas. To whom did he
betray Him? To the Jews. What did the Jews do to Him? "They pierced my
hands and my feet," says the Psalmist. "I may tell all my bones: they
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast
lots upon my vesture."[703] Of what importance, then, that is which is
bought at such a price, I would have you read a little later in the
psalm itself: "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto
the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before
Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and He is the governor among the
nations."[704] But who is able to suffice for the quotation of all the
other innumerable prophetic passages which bear witness to the world
that is destined to believe? Yet you quote a prophecy because you see
in it the man who sold Christ: you do not see in it the possession
which Christ bought by being sold. Here is the second absurdity: behold
again the third.
20. Among the many other expressions in your invective, you said: "If
you were to burn with fire the testament of a dead man, would you
not be punished as the falsifier of a will? What therefore is likely
to become of you who have burned the most holy law of our God and
Judge?" In these words you have paid no attention to what certainly
ought to have moved you, to the question of how it might be that we
should burn the testament, and yet stand fast in the inheritance which
was described in that testament; but it is marvellous that you have
preserved the testament and lost the inheritance. Is it not written
in that testament, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy
possession?"[705] Take part in this inheritance, and you may bring what
charges you will against me about the testament. For what madness is
it, that while you shrank from committing the testament to the flames,
you should yet strive against the words of the testator! We, on the
other hand, though we hold in our hands the records of the Church
and of the State, in which we read that those who ordained a rival
bishop[706] in opposition to Cæcilianus were rather the betrayers of
the sacred books, yet do not on this account insult you, or pursue
you with invectives, or mourn over the ashes of the sacred pages in
your hands, or contrast the burning torments of the Maccabees with the
sacrilege of your fear, saying, "You should deliver your own limbs to
the flames rather than the utterances of God." For we are unwilling
to be so absurd as to excite an empty uproar against you on account
of the deeds of others, which you either know nothing of, or else
repudiate. But in that we see you separated from the communion of the
whole world (a sin both of the greatest magnitude, and manifest to all
mankind, and common to you all), if I were desirous of exaggerating,
I should find time failing me sooner than words. And if you should
seek to defend yourself on this charge, it could only be by bringing
accusations against the whole world, of such a kind that, if they
could be maintained, you would simply be furnishing matter for further
accusation against yourself; if they could not be maintained, there
is in them no defence for you. Why therefore do you puff yourself up
against me about the betrayal of the sacred books, which concerns
neither you nor me if we abide by the agreement not to charge each
other with the sins of other men, and which, if that agreement does not
stand, affects you rather than me? And yet, even without any violation
of that agreement, I think I may say with perfect justice that he
should be deemed a partner with him who delivered up Christ who has not
delivered himself up to Christ in company with the whole world. "Then,"
says the apostle, "then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to
the promise."[707] And again he says, "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs
with Christ."[708] And the same apostle shows that the seed of Abraham
belongs to all nations, from the promise which was given to Abraham,
"In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."[709]
Wherefore I consider that I am only making a fair demand in asking
that we should for a moment consider the testament of God, which has
already long been opened, and that we should consider every one to be
himself an heir of the traitor whom we do not find to be a joint-heir
with Him whom he betrayed; that every one should belong to him who
sold Christ who denies that Christ has bought the whole world. For
when He showed Himself after His resurrection to His disciples, and
gave His limbs to those who doubted, that they should handle them, He
says this to them, "For thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ
to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day: and that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among
all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."[710] See from what an inheritance
you estrange yourselves! see what an Heir you resist! Can it really
be that a man would spare Christ if He were walking here on earth who
speaks against Him while He sits in heaven? Do you not yet understand
that whatever you allege against us you allege against His words? A
Christian world is promised and believed in: the promise is fulfilled,
and it is denied. Consider, I entreat of you, what you ought to suffer
for such impiety. And yet, if I know not what you have suffered,--if I
have not seen it, have not wrought it,--then do you to-day, who do not
suffer the violence of my persecution, render to me an account of your
separation. But you are likely to say over and over again what, unless
you prove it, can affect no one, and if you prove it, has no bearing
upon me.
* * * * *
CHAP. IX.--21. PETILIANUS said: "Hemmed in, therefore, by these
offences, you cannot be a true bishop."
22. AUGUSTINE answered: By what offences? What have you shown? What
have you proved? And if you have proved charges on the part of I know
not whom, what has that to do with the seed of Abraham, in which all
the nations of the earth are blessed?
* * * * *
CHAP. X.--23. PETILIANUS said: "Did the apostles persecute any one? or
did Christ betray any one?"
24. AUGUSTINE answered: I might indeed say that Satan himself was worse
than all wicked men; and yet the apostle delivered a man over to him
for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved in
the day of the Lord Jesus.[711] And in the same way he delivered over
others, of whom he says, "Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they
may learn not to blaspheme."[712] And the Lord Christ drove out the
impious merchants from the temple with scourges; in which connection we
also find advanced the testimony of Scripture, where it says, "The zeal
of Thine house hath eaten me up."[713] So that we do find the apostle
delivering over to condemnation, and Christ a persecutor. All this I
might say, and put you into no small heat and perturbation, so that
you would be compelled to inquire, not into the complaints of those
who suffer, but into the intention of those who cause the suffering.
But do not trouble yourself about this; I do not say this. But I do
say that it has nothing to do with the seed of Abraham, which is in
all nations, if anything has been done to you which ought not to have
been done, perhaps by the chaff among the harvest of the Lord, which in
spite of this is found among all nations. Do you therefore render an
account of your separation. But first, consider what kind of men you
have among you, with whom you would not wish to be reproached; and see
how unjustly you act, when you cast in our teeth the acts of other men,
even if you proved what you assert. Therefore it will be found that
there is no ground for your separation.
* * * * *
CHAP. XI.--25. PETILIANUS said: "Yet some will be found to say, We are
not the sons of a _traditor_. Any one is the son of that man whose
deeds he imitates. For those are most assuredly sons, and at the same
time bear a strong resemblance to their parents, who are born in the
likeness of their parents, not only as being of their flesh and blood,
but in respect of their characters and deeds."
26. AUGUSTINE answered: A little while ago you were saying nothing
contrary to us, now you even begin to say something in our favour. For
this proposition of yours binds you to as much as this, that if you
shall fail to-day to convict us, with whom you are arguing, of being
_traditors_ and murderers, and anything else with which you charge
us, you will then be wholly powerless to hurt us by any charge of
the kind which you may prove against those who have gone before us.
For we cannot be the sons of those to whose deeds our actions bear
no resemblance. And see to what you have committed yourself. If you
should be so successful as to convict some man, even of our own times,
and living with us, of any guilt of the kind, that is in no way to the
prejudice of all the nations of the earth who are blessed in the seed
of Abraham, by separating yourself from whom you are found to be guilty
of sacrilege. Accordingly, unless (as is altogether impossible) you
are acquainted with all men that exist throughout the world, and have
not only made yourself familiar with all their characters and deeds,
but have also proved that they are as bad as you describe, you have no
ground for reproaching all the world, which is among the saints, with
parentage of I know not what description, to whom you prove that they
are like. Nor will it help you at all, even if you are able to show
that those who are not of the same character take the holy sacraments
in common with those who are. In the first place, because you ought
yourselves to look at those with whom you celebrate those sacraments,
to whom you give them, from whom you receive them, and whom you would
be unwilling to have cast up against you as a reproach. And again, if
all those are the sons of Judas, who was the devil among the apostles,
who imitate his deeds, why do we not call those the sons of the
apostles who make such men partakers, not in their own deeds, but in
the sacraments of the Lord, as the apostles partook of the supper of
the Lord in company with that traitor? and in this way they are very
different from you, who cast in the teeth of men who are striving for
the preservation of unity the very thing that you do to the rending
asunder of unity.
* * * * *
CHAP. XII.--27. PETILIANUS said: "The Lord Jesus said to the Jews
concerning Himself, 'If I do not the works of my Father, believe me
not.'"[714]
28. AUGUSTINE answered: I have already answered above, This is both
true, and makes for us against you.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIII.--29. PETILIANUS said: "Over and over again He reproaches
the false speakers and liars in such terms as these: 'Ye are the
children of the devil, for he also was a slanderer from the beginning,
and abode not in the truth.'"
30. AUGUSTINE answered: We are not wont to say, "He was a slanderer,"
but "He was a murderer."[715] But we ask how it was that the devil was
a murderer from the beginning; and we find that he slew the first man,
not by drawing a sword, nor by applying to him any bodily violence,
but by persuading him to sin, and thus driving him from the happiness
of Paradise. What then was Paradise is now represented by the Church.
Therefore those are the sons of the devil who slay men by withdrawing
them from the Church. But as by the words of God we know what was the
situation of Paradise, so now by the words of Christ we have learned
where the Church is to be found: "Throughout all nations," He says,
"beginning at Jerusalem." Whosoever, therefore, separates a man from
that complete whole to place him in any single part, is proved to
be a son of the devil and a murderer. But see, further, what is the
application of the expression which you yourself employed in saying
of the devil, "He was a slanderer, and abode not in the truth." For
you bring an accusation against the whole world on account of the sins
of others, though even those others themselves you were more able to
accuse than to convict; and you abode not in the truth of Christ.
For He says that the Church is "throughout all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem;" but ye say that it is in the party of Donatus.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIV.--31. PETILIANUS said: "In the third place, also, He calls
the madness of persecutors in like manner by this name, 'Ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 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 in their
synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may
come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye
slew between the temple and the altar.'[716] Are they then really the
sons of vipers according to the flesh, and not rather serpents in mind,
and three-tongued malice, and deadliness of touch, and burning with the
spirit of poison? They have truly become vipers, who by their bites
have vomited forth death against the innocent people."
32. AUGUSTINE answered: If I were to say that this is said of men of
character like unto yourselves, you would reply, "Prove it." What
then, have you proved it? Or if you think that it is proved by the
mere fact of its being uttered, there is no need to repeat the same
words. Pronounce the same judgment against yourselves as coming from
us to you. See you not that I too have proved it, if this amounts to
proof? And yet I would have you learn what is really meant by proof.
For indeed I do not even seek for evidence from without to enable me to
prove you vipers. For be well assured that this very fact marks in you
the nature of vipers, that you have not in your mouth the foundation
of truth, but the poison of slanderous abuse, as it is written, "The
poison of asps is under their lips."[717] And because this might be
said indiscriminately by any one against any one, as though it were
asked, Under whose lips? he immediately adds, "Their mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness."[718] When, therefore, you say such things as
this against men dispersed throughout the whole world, of whom you know
nothing whatsoever, and many of whom have never heard the name either
of Cæcilianus or of Donatus, and when you do not hear them answering
amid silence. Nothing of what you say has reference to us; we never saw
it; we never did it; we are totally at a loss to understand what you
are saying,--seeing that you desire nothing else than to say what you
are entirely powerless to prove, how can you help allowing that your
mouth is full of cursing and bitterness? See, therefore, whether you
can possibly show that you are not vipers,[719] unless you show that
all Christians throughout all nations of the world are _traditors_,
and murderers, and anything but Christians. Nay, in very truth, even
though you should be able to know and set before us the lives and deeds
of every individual man throughout the world, yet before you can do
that, seeing that you act as you do without any consideration, your
mouth is that of a viper, your mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Show to us now, if you can, what prophet, what wise man, what scribe we
have slain, or crucified, or scourged in our synagogues. Look how much
labour you have expended without in any way being able to prove that
Donatus and Marculus were prophets, or wise men, or scribes, because,
in fact, they were nothing of the sort. But even if you could prove as
much as this, what progress would you have made towards proving that
they had been killed by us, when even we ourselves did not so much as
know them? and how much less the whole world, whom you calumniate with
poisonous mouth?[720] Or whence will you be able to prove that we have
a spirit like that of those who murdered them, when you actually cannot
show that they were murdered by any one at all? Look carefully to all
these points, see whether you can prove any single one of them either
about the whole world, or to the satisfaction of the whole world,--in
your persevering calumnies against which you show that the charges are
true in you, which you falsely propagate against the world.
33. Further, even if we should desire to prove you to be slayers of the
prophets, it would be too long a task to collect the evidence through
all the several instances of the slaughter which your infuriated
leaders of the Circumcelliones, and the actual crowds of men inflamed
by wine and madness, not only have committed since the beginning of
your schism, but even continue to commit at the present time. To take
the case nearest at hand. Let the divine utterances be produced, which
are commonly in the hands of both of us. Let us consider those to be
murderers of the prophets whom we find contradicting the words of the
prophets. What more learned definition could be given? What could admit
of speedier proof? You would be acting less cruelly in piercing the
bodies of the prophets with a sword, than in endeavouring to destroy
the words of the prophets with your tongue. The prophet says, "All
the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord."[721]
Behold and see how this is being done, how it is being fulfilled. But
you not only close your ears in disbelief against what is said, but
you even thrust out your tongues in madness to speak against what is
already being done. Abraham heard the promise, "In thy seed shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed;"[722] and "he believed, and
it was counted unto him for righteousness."[723] You see the fact
accomplished, and you cry out against it; and you will not that it
should be counted unto you for unrighteousness, as it fairly would be
counted, even if your refusal to believe was not on the accomplishment,
but only on the utterance of the prophecy. Nay, not only are you not
willing that it should be counted unto you for unrighteousness, but
even what you suffer as the punishment of this impiety you would fain
have counted unto you for righteousness. Or if your conduct is not a
persecution of the prophets, because your instrument is not the sword
but the tongue, what was the reason of its being said under divine
inspiration, "The sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows,
and their tongue a sharp sword?"[724] But what time would suffice me
to collect from all the prophets all the testimonies to the Church
dispersed throughout the world, all of which you endeavour to destroy
and render nought by contradicting them? But you are caught; for
"their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words to the end
of the world."[725] I will, however, advance this one saying from the
mouth of the Lord, who is the Witness of witnesses: "All things must
be fulfilled," He says, "which were written in the law of Moses, and
in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me." And what these
were let us hear from Himself: "Then opened He their understanding,
that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus
it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise
from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of
sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem."[726] See what it is that is written in the law of Moses,
and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning the Lord. See what
the Lord Himself revealed about Himself and about the Church, making
Himself manifest, uttering promises about the Church. But for you,
see that you resist such manifest proofs as these, and as you cannot
destroy them, endeavour to pervert them, what would you do, if you
were to come across the bodies of the prophets, when you rage so madly
against the utterances of the prophets, as not even to hearken to the
Lord when He is fulfilling, and making manifest, and expounding the
prophets? For do you not, to the utmost of your power, strive to slay
the Lord Himself, since even to Himself you will not yield?
* * * * *
CHAP. XV.--34. PETILIANUS said: "David also spoke of you as persecutors
in the following terms: 'Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their
tongues have they deceived; 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: there is no fear of God before their
eyes. Have all the workers of wickedness no knowledge, who eat up my
people as they eat bread?'"[727]
35. AUGUSTINE answered: Their throat is an open sepulchre, whence
they breathe out death by lies. For "the mouth that belieth slayeth
the soul."[728] But if nothing is more true than that which Christ
said, that His Church should be throughout all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem, then there is nothing more false than that which you
say, that it is in the party of Donatus. But the tongues which have
deceived are the tongues of those who, whilst they are acquainted with
their own deeds, not only say that they are just men, but that they
are justifiers of men, which is said of One only "that justifieth the
ungodly,"[729] and that because "He is just and the justifier."[730]
As regards the poison of asps, and the mouth full of cursing and
bitterness, we have said enough already. But you have yourselves said
that the followers of Maximianus had feet swift to shed blood, as is
testified by the sentence of your general Council, so often quoted in
the records of the proconsular province and of the state. But they,
so far as we hear, never killed any one in the body. You evidently,
therefore, understood that the blood of the soul was shed in spiritual
murder by the sword of schism, which you condemned in Maximianus. See
then if your feet are not swift to shed blood, when you cut off men
from the unity of the whole world, if you were right in saying it of
the followers of Maximianus, because they cut off some from the party
of Donatus. Are we again without the knowledge of the way of peace, who
study to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace? and yet
do you possess that knowledge, who resist the discourse which Christ
held with His disciples after His resurrection, of so peaceful a nature
that He began it with the greeting, "Peace be unto you;"[731] and that
so strenuously that you are proved to be saying nothing less to Him
than this, "What Thou saidst of the unity of all nations is false;
what we say of the offence of all nations is true?" Who would say such
things as this if they had the fear of God before their eyes? See,
therefore, if in daily saying things like this you are not trying to
destroy the people of God dispersed throughout the world, eating them
up as it were bread.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVI.--36. PETILIANUS said: "The Lord Christ also warns us,
saying, 'Beware of false prophets, which come unto you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves; and ye shall know them
by their fruits.'"[732]
37. AUGUSTINE answered: If I were to inquire of you by what fruits you
know us to be ravening wolves, you are sure to answer by charging us
with the sins of other men, and these such as were never proved against
those who are said to have been guilty of them. But if you should ask
of me by what fruits we know you rather to be ravening wolves, I bring
against you the charge of schism, which you will deny, but which I
will straightway go on to prove; for, as a matter of fact, you do not
communicate with all the nations of the earth, nor with those Churches
which were founded by the labour of the apostles. Hereupon you will
say, "I do not communicate with _traditors_ and murderers." The seed
of Abraham answers you, "These are those charges which you made, which
are either not true, or have no reference to me." But these I set aside
for the present; do you meanwhile show me the Church. Now that voice
will sound in my ears which the Lord showed was to be avoided in the
false prophets who made a show of their several parties, and strove to
estrange men from the Catholic Church, "Lo, here is Christ, or there."
But do you think that the true sheep of Christ are so utterly destitute
of sense, who are told, "Believe it not,"[733] that they will hearken
to the wolf when he says, "Lo, here is Christ," and will not hearken
to the Shepherd when He says, "Throughout all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem?"
* * * * *
CHAP. XVII.--38. PETILIANUS said: "Thus, thus, thou wicked persecutor,
under whatsoever cloak of righteousness thou hast concealed thyself,
under whatsoever name of peace thou wagest war with kisses, under
whatsoever title of unity thou endeavourest to ensnare the race of
men,--thou, who up to this time art cheating and deceiving, thou art
the true son of the devil, showing thy parentage by thy character."
39. AUGUSTINE answered: Consider in reply that these things have been
said by us against you; and that you may know to which of us they are
more appropriate, call to mind what I have said before.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVIII.--40. PETILIANUS said: "Nor is it, after all, so strange
that you assume to yourself the name of bishop without authority.
This is the true custom of the devil, to choose in preference a mode
of deceiving by which he usurps to himself a word of holy meaning,
as the apostle declares to us: 'And no marvel,' he says; 'for Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness.'[734] Nor is it therefore a marvel if you falsely call
yourself a bishop. For even those fallen angels, lovers of the maidens
of the world, who were corrupted by the corruption of their flesh,
though, from having stripped themselves of divine excellence, they have
ceased to be angels, yet retain the name of angels, and always esteem
themselves as angels, though, being released from the service of God,
they have passed from the likeness of their character into the army
of the devil, as the great God declares, 'My spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is flesh.'[735] To those guilty ones
and to you the Lord Christ will say, 'Depart from me, ye cursed ones,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.'[736] If
there were no evil angels, the devil would have no angels; of whom the
apostle says, that in the judgment of the resurrection they shall be
condemned by the saints: 'Know ye not,' says he, 'that we shall judge
angels?'[737] If they were true angels, men would not have authority
to judge the angels of God. So too those sixty apostles, who, when the
twelve were left alone with the Lord Christ, departed in apostasy from
the faith, are so far yet considered among wretched men to be apostles,
that from them Manichæus and the rest entangle many souls in many
devilish sects which they destroyed[738] that they might take them in
their snares. For indeed the fallen Manichæus, if fallen he was, is not
to be reckoned among those sixty, if it be that we can find his name
as an apostle among the twelve, or if he was ordained by the voice of
Christ when Matthias was elected into the place of the traitor Judas,
or another thirteenth like Paul, who calls himself the last[739] of the
apostles, expressly that any one who was later than himself might not
be held to be an apostle. For these are his words: 'For I am the last
of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the Church of God.'[740] And do not flatter yourselves in
this: he was a Jew that had done this. You too, as Gentiles, may work
destruction upon us. For you carry on war without licence, against whom
we may not fight in turn. For you desire to live when you have murdered
us; but our victory is either to escape or to be slain."
41. AUGUSTINE answered: See how you have quoted the testimony of holy
Scripture, or how you have understood it, when it has no bearing at all
upon the present point at issue. For all that you have brought forward
was simply said to prove that there are false bishops, just as there
are false angels and false apostles. Now we too know quite well that
there are false angels and false apostles, and, as the true apostle
says, false brethren also;[741] but, seeing that charges such as yours
may be brought by either side against the other, what is required
is a certain degree of proof, and not mere empty words. But if you
would see to which of us the charge of falseness more truly applies,
recall to mind what we have said before, and you will see it there set
forth, that we may not become tedious to our readers by repeating the
same thing over and over again. And yet how is the Church dispersed
throughout the world affected either by what you may have found to say
about its chaff, which is mixed with it throughout the whole world; or
by what you said of Manichæus and the other devilish sects? For if the
wheat is not affected by anything which is said even about the chaff
which is still mingled with it, how much less are the members of Christ
dispersed throughout the whole world affected by monstrosities[742]
which have been so long and so openly separated from it?[743]
* * * * *
CHAP. XIX.--42. PETILIANUS said: "The Lord Jesus Christ commands us,
saying, 'When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another;
and if they persecute you in that, flee yet into a third; for verily I
say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till
the Son of man be come.'[744] If He gives us this warning in the case
of Jews and pagans, you who call yourself a Christian ought not to
imitate the dreadful deeds of the Gentiles. Or do you serve God in such
wise that we should be murdered at your hands? You do err, you do err,
if you are wretched enough to entertain such a belief as this. For God
does not have butchers for His priests."
43. AUGUSTINE answered: To flee from one state to another from the
face of persecution has not been enjoined as precept or permission on
heretics or schismatics, such as you are; but it was enjoined on the
preachers of the gospel, whom you resist. And this we may easily prove
in this wise: you are now in your own cities, and no man persecutes
you. You must therefore come forth, and give an account of your
separation. For it cannot be maintained that, as the weakness of the
flesh is excused when it yields before the violence of persecution,
so truth also ought to yield to falsehood. Furthermore, if you are
suffering persecution, why do you not retire from the cities in which
you are, that you may fulfil the instructions which you quote out of
the gospel? But if you are not suffering persecution, why are you
unwilling to reply to us? Or if the fact be that you are afraid lest,
when you should have made reply, you then should suffer persecution,
in that case how are you following the example of those preachers to
whom it was said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of
wolves?" To whom it was also further said, "Fear not them which kill
the body, but are not able to kill the soul."[745] And how do you
escape the charge of acting contrary to the injunction of the Apostle
Peter, who says, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that
asketh you a reason of the faith and hope that is in you?"[746] And,
lastly, wherefore are you ever eager to annoy the Catholic Churches
by the most violent disturbances, whenever it is in your power, as is
proved by innumerable instances of simple fact? Wherefore in such a
case did you not hearken to the voice of the Lord, when He says, "But
I say unto you, that ye resist not evil?"[747] Or, allowing that it
is possible that in some cases it should be right for violent men to
be resisted by bodily force, and that it does not violate the precept
which we receive from the Lord, "But I say unto you, that ye resist
not evil," why may it not also be that a pious man should eject an
impious man, or a just man him that is unjust, in the exercise of duly
and lawfully constituted authority, from seats which are unlawfully
usurped, or retained to the despite of God? For you would not say that
the false prophets suffered persecution at the hands of Elijah, in
the same sense that Elijah suffered persecution from the wickedest of
kings?[748] Or that because the Lord was scourged by His persecutors,
therefore those whom He Himself drove out of the temple with scourges
are to be put in comparison with His sufferings? It remains, therefore,
that we should acknowledge that there is no other question requiring
solution, except whether you have been pious or impious in separating
yourselves from the communion of the whole world. For if it shall
be found that you have acted impiously, you would not be surprised
if there should be no lack of ministers of God by whom you might be
scourged, seeing that you suffer persecution not from us, but as it is
written, from their own abominations.[749]
* * * * *
CHAP. XX.--44. PETILIANUS said: "The Lord Christ cries again from
heaven to Paul, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for
thee to kick against the pricks.'[750] He was then called Saul, that he
might afterwards receive his true name in baptism. But for you it is
not hard so often to persecute Christ in the persons of His priests,
though the Lord Himself cries out, 'Touch not mine anointed.'[751]
Reckon up all the deaths of the saints, and so often have you murdered
Christ, who lives in each of them.[752] Lastly, if you are not guilty
of sacrilege, then a saint cannot be a murderer."
45. AUGUSTINE answered: Defend yourselves from the charge of the
persecution which those men suffered at the hands of your party who
separated themselves from you with the followers of Maximianus, and
therein you will find our defence. For if you say that you committed
no such deeds, we simply read to you the records of the proconsular
province and the state. If you say that you were right in persecuting
them, why are you unwilling to suffer the like yourselves? If you say,
"But we caused no schism," then let this be inquired into, and, till
it is decided whether it be so or not, let no one make accusation
against persecutors. If you say that even schismatics ought not to have
suffered persecution, I ask whether it is also the case that they ought
not to have been driven out of the basilicas, in which they lay snares
for the leading astray of the weak, even though it were done by duly
constituted authorities? If you say that this also should not have been
done, first restore the basilicas to the followers of Maximianus, and
then discuss the point with us. If you say that it was right, then see
what they ought to suffer at the hands of duly constituted authority,
who, in resisting it, "resist the ordinance of God." Wherefore the
apostle expressly says, "For he beareth not the sword in vain: for he
is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth
evil."[753] But even if this had been discovered after the truth had
been searched out with all diligence, that not even after public trial
ought schismatics to undergo any punishment, or be driven from the
positions which they have occupied, for their treachery and deceit; and
if you should say that you are vexed that the followers of Maximianus
should have suffered such conduct at the hands of some of you,--why
does not the wheat of the Lord cry out with the more freedom from the
whole field of the Lord, that is, from the world, and say, Neither
are we at all affected by what the tares and the chaff amongst us
do, seeing that it is contrary to our wish? If you confess that it
is sufficient to clear you of responsibility, that all the evil that
is done by men of your party is done in opposition to your wishes,
why then have you separated yourselves? For if your reason for not
separating from the unrighteous among the party of Donatus is that
each man bears his own burden, why have you separated yourselves from
those throughout the world whom you think, or profess to think, to be
unrighteous? Is it that you might all share equally in bearing the
burden of schism?
46. And when we ask of you which of your party you can prove to have
been slain by us, I indeed can remember no law issued by the emperors
to the effect that you should be put to death. Those indeed whose
deaths you quote most frequently to bring us into odium, Marculus and
Donatus, present a great question,--whether they threw themselves
down a precipice, as your teaching does not hesitate to encourage by
examples of daily occurrence, or whether they were thrown down by the
true command of some authority. For if it is a thing incredible that
the leaders of the Circumcelliones should have wrought upon themselves
a death in accordance with their custom, how much more incredible it
is that the Roman authorities should have been able to condemn them
to a punishment at variance with custom! Accordingly, in considering
this matter, which you think excessive in its hatefulness, supposing
what you say is true, what is there in it which bears upon the Lord's
wheat? Let the chaff which flew away outside accuse the chaff which yet
remained within; for it is not possible that it should all be separated
till the winnowing at the last day. But if what you say is false,
what wonder is it if, when the chaff is carried away as it were by a
light blast of dissension, it even attacks the wheat of the Lord with
false accusations? Wherefore, on the consideration of all such odious
accusations, the wheat of Christ, which is ordered to grow together
with the tares throughout the field, that is, throughout the whole
world, makes this answer to you with a free and fearless voice: If you
cannot prove what you say, it has no application to any one; and if you
prove it, it yet does not apply to me. The result of which is, that
whosoever has separated himself from the unity of the wheat on account
of the offences chargeable against the tares, or against the chaff, is
unable to defend himself from the charge of murder which is involved
in the mere offence of dissension and schism, as the Scripture says,
"Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer."[754]
* * * * *
CHAP. XXI.--47. PETILIANUS said: "Accordingly, as we have said, the
Lord Christ cried, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for
thee to kick against the pricks. And he said, Who art Thou, Lord? And
the Lord said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And he,
trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? And
the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be
told thee what thou must do.' And so presently it goes on, 'But Saul
arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man.'
See here how blindness, coming in punishment of madness, obscures the
light in the eyes of the persecutor, not to be again expelled except
by baptism! Let us see, therefore, what he did in the city. 'Ananias,'
it is said, 'entered into the house to Saul, and putting his hands
on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto
thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest
receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately
there fell from his eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight
forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.'[755] Seeing therefore that
Paul, being freed by baptism from the offence of persecution, received
again his eyesight freed from guilt, why will not you, a persecutor and
_traditor_, blinded by false baptism, be baptized by those whom you
persecute?"
48. AUGUSTINE answered: You do not prove that I, whom you wish to
baptize afresh, am either a persecutor or a _traditor_. And if you
prove this charge against any one, yet the persecutor and _traditor_
is not to be baptized afresh, if he has been baptized already with
the baptism of Christ. For the reason why it was necessary that Paul
should be baptized was that he had never been washed in any baptism
of the kind. Therefore what you have chosen to insert about Paul has
no point of resemblance with the case which you are arguing with us.
But if you had not inserted this, you would have found no place for
your childish declamation, "See how blindness comes in punishment of
madness, not to be again expelled except by baptism!" For with how much
more force might one exclaim against you, See how blindness comes in
punishment of madness, which, finding its similitude in Simon, not in
Paul, is not expelled from you even when you have received baptism?
For if persecutors ought to be baptized by those whom they persecute,
then let Primianus be baptized by the followers of Maximianus, whom he
persecuted with the utmost eagerness.
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CHAP. XXII.--49. PETILIANUS said: "It may be urged that Christ said
to His apostles, as you are constantly quoting against us, 'He that
is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every
whit.' Now if you discuss those words in all their fulness, you are
bound by what immediately follows. For this is what He said, in His
very words: 'He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He knew who
should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean.'[756]
Whosoever, therefore, has incurred the guilt of treason, has forfeited,
like you, his baptism. Again, after that the betrayer of Christ had
himself been condemned, He thus more fully confirmed His words to the
eleven apostles: 'Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken
unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.'[757] And again He said to these
same eleven, 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.'[758]
Seeing, then, that these things were said to the eleven apostles, when
the traitor, as we have seen, had been condemned, you likewise, being
_traditors_, are similarly without both peace and baptism."
50. AUGUSTINE answered: If therefore every _traditor_ has forfeited his
baptism, it will follow that every one who, having been baptized by
you, has afterwards become a _traditor_, ought to be baptized afresh.
And if you do not do this, you yourselves sufficiently prove the
falseness of the saying, "Whosoever therefore has incurred the guilt of
treason, has forfeited, like you, his baptism." For if he has forfeited
it, let him return and receive it again; but if he returns and does
not receive it, it is clear that he had not forfeited it. Again, if
the reason why it was said to the apostles, "Now are ye clean," and
"My peace I give unto you," was that the traitor had already left
the room, then was not that supper of so great a sacrament clean and
able to give peace, which He distributed to all before his going out?
And if you venture to say this with your eyes closed against the
truth, what can we do save exclaim the more, See how blindness comes
in punishment of the madness of those who wish to be, as the apostle
says, "teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor
whereof they affirm?"[759] And yet, unless blindness came in the way of
their pertinacity, it was not a very difficult matter that you should
understand and see that the Lord did not say in the presence of Judas,
Ye are not yet clean, but "Now are ye clean." He added, however, "But
not all," because there was one there who was not clean; yet if he
had been polluting the others by his presence, it would not have been
declared to them, "Now are ye clean," but, as I said before, Ye are
not yet clean. But, after Judas had gone out, He said to them, "Now
are ye clean," and did not add the words, But not all, because he had
now departed in whose presence indeed, as had been said to them, they
were already clean, but not all, because there was one there unclean.
Wherefore in these words the Lord rather declared that in the one
company of men receiving the same sacraments, the uncleanness of some
members cannot hurt the clean. Certainly, if you think that there are
among us men like Judas, you might apply to us the words, "Ye are
clean, but not all." But this is not what you say; but you say that
because of the presence of some who are unclean, therefore we are all
unclean. This the Lord did not say to the disciples in the presence of
Judas, and therefore whoever says this has not learned from the good
Master what He says.
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