hand, that Jesus Christ never persecuted any one. And when the apostles
found fault with certain parties, and suggested that He should have
recourse to persecution (He Himself having come to create faith by
inviting men to Him, rather than by compelling them), those apostles
say, 'Many lay on hands in Thy name, and are not with us:' but Jesus
said, 'Let them alone: if they are not against you, they are on your
side.'"
178. AUGUSTINE answered: You say truly that you will bring forth out of
your store with greater abundance things which are not written in the
Scriptures. For if you wish to bring forth proofs from holy Scripture,
will you bring forth even those which you cannot find therein? But it
is in your own power to multiply your lies according to your will. For
where is what you quoted written? or when was that either suggested to
our Lord, or answered by our Lord? "Many lay on hands in Thy name, and
are not with us," are words that no one of the disciples ever uttered
to the Son of God; and therefore neither could the answer have been
made by Him, "Let them alone: if they are not against you, they are on
your side." But there is something somewhat like it which we really do
read in the gospel,--that a suggestion was made to the Lord about a
certain man who was casting out devils in His name, but did not follow
Him with His disciples; and in that case the Lord does say, "Forbid
him not: for he that is not against us is for us."[902] But this has
nothing to do with pointing out parties whom the Lord is supposed to
have spared. And if you have been deceived by an apparent resemblance
of sentiment, this is not a lie, but merely human infirmity. But if
you wished to cast a mist of falsehood over those who are unskilled
in holy Scripture, then may you be pricked to the heart, and covered
with confusion and corrected. Yet there is a point which we would urge
in respect of this very man of whom the suggestion was made to our
Lord. For even as at that time, beyond the communion of the disciples,
the holiness of Christ was yet of the greatest efficacy, even so now,
beyond the communion of the Church, the holiness of the sacraments
is of avail. For neither is baptism consecrated save in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. But who will be so
utterly insane as to declare that the name of the Son may be of avail
even beyond the communion of the Church, but that this is not possible
with the names of the Father and of the Holy Ghost? or that it may be
of avail in healing a man, but not in consecrating baptism? But it is
manifest that outside the communion of the Church, and the most holy
bond of unity, and the most excellent gift of charity, neither he by
whom the devil is cast out nor he who is baptized obtains eternal life;
just as those do not obtain it, who through communion in the sacraments
seem indeed to be within, and through the depravity of their character
are understood to be without. But that Christ persecuted even with
bodily chastisement those whom He drove with scourges from the temple,
we have already said above.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXI.--179. PETILIANUS said: "But the holy apostle said this:
'In any way, whatsoever it may be,' he says, 'let Christ be preached.'"
180. AUGUSTINE answered: You speak against yourself; but yet, since
you speak on the side of truth, if you love it, let what you say be
counted for you. For I ask of you of whom it was that the Apostle
Paul said this? Let us, if you please, trace this a little further
back. "Some," he says, "preach Christ even of envy and strife; and
some also of good will. The one preach Christ of contention, not
sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds; but the other of
love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then?
notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ
is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."[903] We
see that they preached what was in itself holy, and pure, and true,
but yet not in a pure manner, but of envy and contention, without
charity, without purity. Certainly a short time ago you appeared to be
urging the praises of charity as against us, according to the witness
of the apostle, that where there is no charity, whatever there is is
of no avail; and yet you see that in those there is no charity, and
there was with them the preaching of Christ, of which the apostle
says here that he rejoices. For it is not that he rejoices in what is
evil in them, but in what is good in the name of Jesus Christ. In him
assuredly there was the charity which "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth."[904] The envy, moreover, which was in them
is an evil proceeding from the devil, for by this he has both killed
and cast down. Where then were these wicked men whom the apostle thus
condemns, and in whom there was so much that was good to cause him
to rejoice? Were they within, or without? Choose which you will. If
they were within, then Paul knew them, and yet they did not pollute
him. And so you would not be polluted in the unity of the whole world
by those of whom you make certain charges, whether these be true, or
falsehoods invented by yourselves. But if they were without, then you
see that even in those who were without, and who certainly cannot
belong to everlasting life, since they have not charity, and do not
abide in unity, there is yet found the holiness of the name of Christ,
so that the apostle joyfully confirms their teaching, on account of the
intrinsic holiness of the name, although he repudiates them. We are
right, therefore, in not doing wrong to the actual name, when those
come to us who were without; but we correct the individuals, while we
do honour to the name. Do you therefore take heed, and see how wickedly
you act in the case of those whose acts as it seems you condemn, by
treating as naught the sacrament of the name of Christ, which is holy
in them. And you, indeed, as is shown by your words, think that those
men of whom the apostle spoke were outside the limits of the Church.
Therefore, when you fear persecution from the Catholics, of which
you speak in order to create odium against us, you have confirmed in
heretics the name of Christ to which you do despite by rebaptizing.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXII.--181. PETILIANUS said: "If then there are not some to
whom all this power of faith is found to be in opposition, on what
principle do you persecute, so as to compel men to defile themselves?"
182. AUGUSTINE answered: We neither persecute you, except so far as
truth persecutes falsehood; nor has it anything to do with us if any
one has persecuted you in other ways, just as it has nothing to do with
you if any of your party do likewise; nor do we compel you to defile
yourselves, but we persuade you to be cured.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXIII.--183. PETILIANUS said: "But if authority had been
given by some law for persons to be compelled to what is good, you
yourselves, unhappy men, ought to have been compelled by us to embrace
the purest faith. But far be it, far be it from our conscience to
compel any one to embrace our faith."
184. AUGUSTINE answered: No one is indeed to be compelled to embrace
the faith against his will; but by the severity, or one might rather
say, by the mercy of God, it is common for treachery to be chastised
with the scourge of tribulation. Is it the case, because the best
morals are chosen by freedom of will, that therefore the worst morals
are not punished by integrity of law? But yet discipline to punish an
evil manner of living is out of the question, except where principles
of good living which had been learned have come to be despised. If any
laws, therefore, have been enacted against you, you are not thereby
forced to do well, but are only prevented from doing ill.[905] For no
one can do well unless he has deliberately chosen, and unless he has
loved what is in free will; but the fear of punishment, even if it does
not share in the pleasures of a good conscience, at any rate keeps
the evil desire from escaping beyond the bounds of thought. Who are
they, however, that have enacted laws by which your audacity could be
repressed? Are they not those of whom the apostle says that "they bear
not the sword in vain; for they are the ministers of God, revengers to
execute wrath on them that do evil?"[906] The whole question therefore
is, whether you are not doing ill, who are charged by the whole world
with the sacrilege of so great a schism. And yet, neglecting the
discussion of this question, you talk on irrelevant matters; and while
you live as robbers, you boast that you die as martyrs.[907] And, through
fear either of the laws themselves, or of the odium which you might
incur, or else because you are unequal to the task of resisting, I
do not say so many men, but so many Catholic nations, you even glory
in your gentleness, that you do not compel any to join your party.
According to your way of talking, the hawk, when he has been prevented
by flight from carrying off the fowls, might call himself a dove. For
when have you ever had the power without using it? And hence you show
how you would do more if you only could. When Julian, envying the peace
of Christ, restored to you the churches which belonged to unity, who
could tell of all the massacres which were committed by you, when the
very devils rejoiced with you at the opening of their temples? In the
war with Firmus and his party, let Mauritania Cæsariensis itself be
asked to tell us what the Moor Rogatus[907] suffered at your hands.
In the time of Gildo, because one of your colleagues[908] was his
intimate friend, let the followers of Maximianus be our witnesses to
their sufferings. For if one might appeal to Felicianus himself, who is
now with you, on his oath, whether Optatus did not compel him against
his will to return to your communion, he would not dare to open his
lips, especially if the people of Musti could behold his face, who
were witnesses to everything that was done. But let them, as I have
said, be witnesses to what they have suffered at the hands of those
with whom they acted in such wise towards Rogatus. The Catholic Church
herself, though strengthened by the assistance of Catholic princes
ruling by land and sea, was savagely attacked by hostile troops in
arms under Optatus. It was this that first made it necessary to urge
before the vicar Servanus that the law should be put in force against
you which imposes a fine of ten pounds of gold, which none of you have
ever paid to this very day, and yet you charge us with cruelty. But
where could you find a milder course of proceeding, than that crimes of
such magnitude on your part should be punished by the imposition of a
pecuniary fine? Or who could enumerate all the deeds which you commit
in the places which you hold, of your own sovereign will and pleasure,
each one as he can, without any friendship on the part of judges or any
others in authority? Who is there of our party, among the inhabitants
of our towns, who has not either learned something of this sort from
those who came before him, or experienced it for himself? Is it not the
case that at Hippo, where I am, there are not wanting some who remember
that your leader Faustinus gave orders, in the time of his supreme
power, in consequence of the scanty numbers of the Catholics in the
place, that no one should bake their bread for them, insomuch that a
baker, who was the tenant of one of our deacons, threw away the bread
of his landlord unbaked, and though he was not sentenced to exile under
any law, he cut him off from all share in the necessaries of life not
only in a Roman state,[909] but even in his own country, and not only
in his own country, but in his own house? Why, even lately, as I myself
recall with mourning to this day, did not Crispinus of Calama, one of
your party, having bought a property, and that only copyhold,[910]
boldly and unhesitatingly immerse in the waters of a second baptism
no less than eighty souls, murmuring with miserable groans under the
sole influence of terror; and this in a farm belonging to the Catholic
emperors, by whose laws you were forbidden even to be in any Roman
city?[911] But what else was it, save such deeds as these of yours,
that made it necessary for the very laws to be passed of which you
complain? The laws, indeed, are very far from being proportionate to
your offences; but, such as they are, you may thank yourselves for
their existence. Indeed, should we not certainly be driven on all
sides from the country by the furious attacks of your Circumcelliones,
who fight under your command in furious troops, unless we held you as
hostages in the towns, who might well be unwilling to endure under
any circumstances the mere gaze of the people, and the censure of all
honourable men, from very shame, if not from fear? Do not therefore
say, "Far be it, far be it from our conscience, to force any one to
embrace our faith." For you do it when you can; and when you do not do
it, it is because you are unable, either from fear of the laws or the
odium which would accompany it, or because of the numbers of those who
would resist.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXIV.--185. PETILIANUS said: "For the Lord Christ says, 'No man
can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.'[912]
But why do we not permit each several person to follow his free will,
since the Lord God Himself has given free will to men, showing to
them, however, the way of righteousness, lest any one by chance should
perish from ignorance of it? For He said, 'I have placed before thee
good and evil. I have set fire and water before thee: stretch forth
thine hand unto whether thou wilt.' From which choice, you wretched
men, you have chosen for yourselves not water, but rather fire. 'But
yet,' He says, 'stretch forth thine hand unto the good, that thou
mayest live.'[913] You who will not choose the good, have, by your own
sentence, declared that you do not wish to live."
186. AUGUSTINE answered: If I were to propose to you the question
how God the Father draws men to the Son, when He has left them to
themselves in freedom of action, you would perhaps find it difficult
of solution. For how does He draw them to Him if He leaves them to
themselves, so that each should choose what he pleases? And yet both
these facts are true; but this is a truth which few have intellect
enough to penetrate. As therefore it is possible that, after leaving
men to themselves in free will, the Father should yet draw them to the
Son, so is it also possible that those warnings which are given by
the correction of the laws do not take away free will. For whenever
a man suffers anything that is harsh and unpleasing, he is warned
to consider why it is that he is suffering, so that, if he shall
discover that he is suffering in the cause of justice, he may choose
the good that consists in the very act of suffering as he does in
the cause of justice; but if he sees that it is unrighteousness for
which he suffers, he may be induced, from the consideration that he is
suffering and being tormented most fruitlessly, to change his purpose
for the better, and may at the same time escape both the fruitless
annoyance and the unrighteousness itself, which is likely to prove
yet more hurtful and pernicious in the mischief it produces. And so
you, when kings make any enactments against you, should consider that
you are receiving a warning to consider why this is being done to
you. For if it is for righteousness' sake, then are they truly your
persecutors; but you are the blessed ones, who, being persecuted for
righteousness' sake, shall inherit the kingdom of heaven:[914] but
if it is because of the iniquity of your schism, what are they more
than your correctors; while you, like all the others who are guilty
of various crimes, and pay the penalty appointed by the law, are
undoubtedly unhappy both in this world and in that which is to come? No
one, therefore, takes away from you your free will. But I would urge
you diligently to consider which you would rather choose,--whether to
live corrected in peace, or, by persevering in malice, to undergo real
punishment under the false name of martyrdom. But I am addressing you
just as though you were suffering something proportionate to your sin,
whereas you are committing sins of such enormity and reigning in such
impunity. You are so furious, that you cause more terror than a war
trumpet with your cry of "_Praise to God_;" so full of calumny, that
even when you throw yourselves over precipices without any provocation,
you impute it to our persecutions.
187. He says also, like the kindest of teachers, "You who will not
choose the good, have, by your own sentence, declared that you do
not wish to live." According to this, if we were to believe your
accusations, we should live in kindness; but because we believe the
promises of God, we declare by our own sentence that we do not wish to
live. You remember well, it seems to me, what the apostles answered
to the Jews when they were desired to abstain from preaching Christ.
This therefore we also say, that you should answer us whether we ought
rather to obey God or man.[915] _Traditors_, offerers of incense,
persecutors: these are the words of men against men. Christ remained
only in the love of Donatus: these are the words of men extolling the
glory of a man under the name of Christ, that the glory of Christ
Himself may be diminished. For it is written, "In the multitude
of people is the king's honour: but in the want of people is the
destruction of the prince:"[916] these, therefore, are the words of
men. But those words in the gospel, "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,"[917] are the words of Christ, showing forth the glory
which He received from His Father in the wideness of His kingdom. When
we have heard them both, we choose in preference the communion of the
Church, and prefer the words of Christ to the words of men. I ask, who
is there that can say that we have chosen what is evil, except one who
shall say that Christ taught what was evil?
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXV.--188. PETILIANUS said: "Is it then the case that God has
ordered the massacre even of schismatics? and if He were to issue
such an order at all, you ought to be slain by some barbarians and
Scythians, not by Christians."
189. AUGUSTINE answered: Let your Circumcelliones remain quiet, and let
me entreat you not to terrify us about barbarians. But as to whether we
or you are schismatics, let the question be put neither to you nor to
me, but to Christ, that He may show where His Church is to be found.
Read the gospel then, and there you find the answer, "In Jerusalem,
and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth."[918] If any one, therefore, is not found within the Church, let
not any further question be put to him, but let him either be corrected
or converted, or else, being detected, let him not complain.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXVI.--190. PETILIANUS said: "For neither has the Lord God at
any time rejoiced in human blood, seeing that He was even willing that
Cain, the murderer of his brother, should continue to exist in his
murderer's life."
191. AUGUSTINE answered: If God was unwilling that death should be
inflicted on him who slew his brother, preferring that he should
continue to exist in his murderer's life, see whether this be not
the cause why, seeing that the heart of the king is in the hand of
God, whereby he has himself enacted many laws for your correction
and reproof, yet no law of the king has commanded that you should be
put to death, perhaps with this very object, that any one of you who
persists in the obstinate self-will of his sacrilegious madness should
be tortured with the punishment of the fratricide Cain, that is to
say, with the life of a murderer. For we read that many were slain in
mercy by Moses the servant of the Lord; for in that he prayed thus in
intercession to the Lord for their wicked sacrilege, saying, "O Lord,
if Thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee,
out of the book which Thou hast written,"[919] his unspeakable charity
and mercy are plainly shown. Could it be, then, that he was suddenly
changed to cruelty, when, on descending from the mount, he ordered so
many thousands to be slain? Consider, therefore, whether it may not
be a sign of greater anger on the part of God, that, whilst so many
laws have been enacted against you, you have not been ordered by any
emperor to be put to death. Or do you think that you are not to be
compared to that fratricide? Hearken to the Lord speaking through His
prophet: "From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the
same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place
incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name
shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts."[920] On
this brother's sacrifice you show that you look with malignant eyes,
over and above the respect which God pays to it; and if ye have ever
heard that "from the rising of the sun, unto the going down of the
same, the Lord's name is to be praised,"[921] which is that living
sacrifice of which it is said, "Offer unto God thanksgiving,"[922] then
will your countenance fall like that of yonder murderer. But inasmuch
as you cannot kill the whole world, you are involved in the same
guilt by your mere hatred, according to the words of John, "Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer."[923] And I would that any innocent
brother might rather fall into the hands of your Circumcelliones, to
be murdered by their weapons, than be subjected to the poison of your
tongue and rebaptized.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXVII.--192. PETILIANUS said: "We advise you, therefore, if
so be that you will hear it willingly, and even though you do not
willingly receive it, yet we warn you that the Lord Christ instituted
for Christians, not any form of slaying, but one of dying only. For if
He loved men who thus delight in battle, He would not have consented to
be slain for us."
193. AUGUSTINE answered: Would that your martyrs would follow the form
that He prescribed! they would not throw themselves over precipices,
which He refused to do at the bidding of the devil.[924] But when you
persecute our ancestors with false witness even now that they are
dead, whence have you received this form? In that you endeavour to
stain us with the crimes of men we never knew, while you are unwilling
that the most notorious misdeeds of your own party should be reckoned
against you, whence have you received this form? But we are too much
yielding to our own conceit if we find fault about ourselves, when we
see that you utter false testimony against the Lord Himself, since
He Himself both promised and made manifest that His Church should
extend throughout all nations, and you maintain the contrary. This
form, therefore, you did not receive even from the Jewish persecutors
themselves; for they persecuted His body while He was walking on the
earth: you persecute His gospel as He is seated in heaven. Which gospel
endured more meekly the flames of furious kings than it can possibly
endure your tongues; for while they blazed, unity remained, and this it
cannot do amid your words. They who desired that the word of God should
perish in the flames did not believe that it could be despised if read.
They would not, therefore, set their flames to work upon the gospel, if
you would let them use your tongues against the gospel. In the earlier
persecution the gospel of Christ was sought by some in their rage, it
was betrayed by others in their fear; it was burned by some in their
rage, it was hidden by others in their love; it was attacked, but none
were found to speak against its truth. The more accursed share of
persecution was reserved for you when the persecution of the heathen
was exhausted. Those who persecuted the name of Christ believed in
Christ: now those who are honoured for the name of Christ are found to
speak against His truth.
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXVIII.--194. PETILIANUS said: "Here you have the fullest
possible proof that a Christian may take no part in the destruction of
another. But the first establishing of this principle was in the case
of Peter, as it is written, 'Simon Peter having a sword, drew it, and
smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. Then said
Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath. F or all they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword.'"[925]
195. AUGUSTINE answered: Why then do you not restrain the weapons of
the Circumcelliones with such words as these? Should you think that
you were going beyond the words of the gospel if you should say, All
they that take the cudgel shall perish with the cudgel? Withhold not
then your pardon, if our ancestors were unable to restrain the men
by whom you complain that Marculus was thrown down a precipice; for
neither is it written in the gospel, He that useth to throw men down
a precipice shall be cast therefrom. And would that, as your charges
are either false or out of date, so the cudgels of those friends of
yours would cease! And yet, perhaps, you take it ill that, if not by
force of law, at any rate in words, we take away their armour from your
legions in saying that they manifest their rage with sticks alone. For
that was the ancient fashion of their wickedness, but now they have
advanced too far. For amid their drunken revellings, and amid the free
licence of assembling together, wandering in the streets, jesting,
drinking, chambering in company with women who have no husbands, they
have learned not only to brandish cudgels, but to wield swords and
whirl slings. But why should I not say to them (God knows with what
feelings I say it and with what feelings they receive it!), Madmen, the
sword of Peter, though drawn from motives not yet free from fleshly
impurity, was yet drawn in defence of the body of Christ against the
body of His persecutor, but your arms are portioned out against the
cause of Christ; but the body of which He is the head, that is, His
Church, extends throughout all nations? He Himself has said this,
and has ascended into heaven, whither the fury of the Jews could not
follow Him; and it is your fury which attacks His members in the body,
which on His ascension He commended to our care. In defence of those
members all men rage against you, all men resist you, as many as being
in the Catholic Church, and possessing as yet but little faith, are
influenced by the same motives as Peter was when he drew his sword
in the name of Christ. But there is a great difference between your
persecution and theirs. You are like the servant of the Jews' high
priest; for in the service of your princes you arm yourselves against
the Catholic Church, that is, against the body of Christ. But they are
such as Peter then was, fighting even with the strength of their bodies
for the body of Christ, that is, the Church. But if they are bidden
to be still, as Peter then was bidden, how much more should you be
warned that, laying aside the madness of heresy, you should join the
unity of those members for which they so fight? But, being wounded by
such men as these, you hate us also; and, as though you had lost your
right ears, you do not hear the voice of Christ as He sits at the right
hand of the Father. But to whom shall I address myself, or how shall I
address myself to them, seeing that in them I find no time wherein to
speak? for even early in the morning they are reeking with wine, drunk,
it may be already in the day, it may be still from overnight. Moreover,
they utter threats, and not they only, but their own bishops utter
threats concerning them, being ready to deny that what they have done
has any bearing on them. May the Lord grant to us a song of degrees, in
which we may say, "My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.
I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war."[926] For thus says
the body of Christ, which throughout the whole world is assailed by
heretics, by some here, by others there, and by all alike wherever they
may be.[927]
* * * * *
CHAP. LXXXIX.--196. PETILIANUS said: "Therefore I say, He ordained
that we should undergo death for the faith, which each man should do
for the communion of the Church. For Christianity makes progress by
the deaths of its followers. For if death were feared by the faithful,
no man would be found to live with perfect faith. For the Lord Christ
says, 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'"[928]
197. AUGUSTINE answered: I should be glad to know which of your party
it was who first threw himself over a precipice. For truly that grain
of corn was fruitful from which so great a crop of similar suicides has
sprung. Tell me, when you make mention of the words of the Lord, that
He says a grain of wheat shall die and bring forth much fruit, why do
you envy the real fruit, which has most truly[929] sprung up throughout
the whole world, and bring up against it all the charges of the tares
or chaff which you have ever either heard of or invented?
* * * * *
CHAP. XC.--198. PETILIANUS said: "But you scatter thorns and tares, not
seeds of corn, so that you ought to be burned together with them at the
last judgment. We do not utter curses; but every thorny conscience is
bound under this penalty by the sentence which God has pronounced."
199. AUGUSTINE answered: Surely, when you mention tares, it might
bring to your minds the thought of wheat as well; for both have been
commanded to grow together in the field until the harvest. But you fix
the eye of malice fiercely on the tares, and maintain, in opposition
to the express declaration of Christ, that they alone have grown
throughout the earth, with the exception of Africa alone.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCI.--200. PETILIANUS said: "Where is the saying of the Lord
Christ, 'Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him
the other also?'[930] Where is the patience which He displayed when
they spat upon His face, who Himself with His most holy spittle opened
the eyes of the blind? Where is the saying of the Apostle Paul, 'If
a man smite you in the face?' Where is that other saying of the same
apostle, 'In stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths
oft?'[931] He makes mention of the sufferings which he underwent, not
of the deeds which he performed. It had been enough for the Christian
faith that these things should be done by the Jews: why do you,
wretched men, do these others in addition?"
201. AUGUSTINE answered: Is it then really so, that when men smite you
on the one cheek, you turn to them the other? This is not the report
that your furious bands won for you by wandering everywhere throughout
the whole of Africa with dreadful wickedness. I would fain have it that
men should make a bargain with you, that, in accordance with the old
law, you should seek but "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,"[932]
instead of bringing out cudgels in return for the words which greet
your ears.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCII.--202. PETILIANUS said: "But what have you to do with the
kings of this world, in whom Christianity has never found anything
save envy towards her? And to teach you shortly the truth of what I
say: A king persecuted the brethren of the Maccabees.[933] A king also
condemned the three children to the sanctifying flames, being ignorant
what he did, seeing that he himself was fighting against God.[934]
A king sought the life of the infant Saviour.[935] A king exposed
Daniel, as he thought, to be eaten by wild beasts.[936] And the Lord
Christ Himself was slain by a king's most wicked judge.[937] Hence
it is that the apostle cries out, 'We speak wisdom among them that
are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of
this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world
unto our glory; which none of the princes of this world knew: for had
they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.'[938]
But grant that this was said of the heathen kings of old. Yet you,
rulers of this present age, because you desire to be Christians, do
not allow men to be Christians, seeing that, when they are believing
in all honesty of heart, you draw them by the defilement and mist of
your falsehood wholly over to your wickedness, that with their arms,
which were provided against the enemies of the state, they should
assail the Christians, and should think that, at your instigation, they
are doing the work of Christ if they kill us whom you hate, according
to the saying of the Lord Christ: 'The time cometh,' He says, 'that
whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.'[939] It
makes no matter therefore to you, false teachers, whether the kings of
this world desire to be heathens, which God forbid, or Christians, so
long as you cease not in your efforts to arm them against the family
of Christ. But do you not know, or rather, have you not read, that the
guilt of one who instigates a murder is greater than the guilt of him
who carries it out? Jezebel had excited the king her husband to the
murder of a poor and righteous man, yet husband and wife alike perished
by an equal punishment.[940] Nor indeed is your mode of urging on kings
different from that by which the subtle persuasion of women has often
urged kings on to guilt. For the wife of Herod earned and obtained the
boon by means of her daughter, that the head of John should be brought
to table in a charger.[941] Similarly the Jews forced on Pontius Pilate
that he should crucify the Lord Jesus, whose blood Pilate prayed might
remain in vengeance upon them and on their children.[942] So therefore
you also overwhelm yourselves with our blood by your sin. For it does
not follow that because it is the hand of the judge that strikes the
blow, your calumnies therefore are not rather guilty of the deed. For
the prophet David says, speaking in the person of Christ, 'Why do the
heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the
earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against
the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands
asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall
He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.
Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the
decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I
begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in
pieces like a potter's vessel.' And he warned the kings themselves in
the following precepts, that they should not, like ignorant men devoid
of understanding, seek to persecute the Christians, lest they should
themselves be destroyed,--which precepts I would that we could teach
them, seeing that they are ignorant of them; or, at least, that you
would show them to them, as doubtless you would do if you desired that
they should live; or, at any rate, if neither of the other courses be
allowed, that your malice would have permitted them to read them for
themselves. The first Psalm of David would certainly have persuaded
them that they should live and reign as Christians; but meanwhile
you deceive them, so long as they entrust themselves to you. For you
represent to them things that are evil, and you hide from them what
is good. Let them then at length read this, which they should have
read already long ago. For what does he say, 'Be wise now therefore, O
ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with
fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.'[943] You urge on
emperors, I say, with your persuasions, even as Pilate, whom, as we
showed above, the Jews urged on, though he himself cried aloud, as
he washed his hands before them all, 'I am innocent of the blood of
this just person,'[944]--as though a person could be clear from the
guilt of a sin who had himself committed it. But, to say nothing of
ancient examples, observe, from instances taken from your own party,
how very many of your emperors and judges have perished in persecuting
us. To pass over Nero, who was the first to persecute the Christians,
Domitian perished almost in the same way as Nero, as also did Trajan,
Geta,[945] Decius, Valerian, Diocletian; Maximian also perished, at
whose command that men should burn incense to their gods, burning the
sacred volumes, Marcellinus indeed first, but after him also Mensurius
of Carthage, and Cæcilianus, escaped death from the sacrilegious
flames, surviving like some ashes or cinders from the burning. For the
consciousness of the guilt of burning incense involved you all, as many
as agreed with Mensurius. Macarius perished, Ursacius[946] perished,
and all your counts perished in like manner by the vengeance of God.
For Ursacius was slain in a battle with the barbarians, after which
birds of prey with their savage talons, and the greedy teeth of dogs
with their biting, tore him limb from limb. Was not he too a murderer
at your suggestion, who, like king Ahab, whom we showed to have been
persuaded by a woman, slew a poor and righteous man?[947] So you too
do not cease to murder us, who are just and poor (poor, that is, in
worldly wealth; for in the grace of God no one of us is poor). For even
if you do not murder a man with your hands, you do not cease to do so
with your butcherous tongues. For it is written, 'Death and life are in
the power of the tongue.'[948] All, therefore, who have been murdered,
you, the instigator of the deed, have slain. Nor indeed does the hand
of the butcher glow save at the instigation of your tongue; and that
terrible heat of the breast is inflamed by your words to take the blood
of others,--blood that shall take a just vengeance upon him who shed
it."
203. AUGUSTINE answered: If I were to answer adequately, and as I
ought, to this passage, which has been exaggerated and arranged at such
length by you, where you speak in invidious terms against us concerning
the kings of this world, I am much afraid that you would accuse me
too of having wished to excite the anger of kings against you. And
yet, whilst you are borne after your own fashion by the violence of
this invective against all Catholics, you certainly do not pass me by.
I will endeavour, however, to show, if I can, that it is rather you
who have been guilty of this offence by speaking as you have done,
than myself by answering as I shall do. And first of all, see how you
yourself oppose yourself; for certainly you prefaced the passage which
you quoted with the words, "What have you to do with the kings of this
world, in whom Christianity has never found anything save envy towards
her?" In these words you certainly cut off from us all access to the
kings of this world. And a little later you say, "And he warned the
kings themselves in the following precepts, that they should not, like
ignorant men devoid of understanding, seek to persecute the Christians,
lest they should be themselves destroyed,--which precepts I would that
we could teach them, seeing that they are ignorant of them; or, at
least, that you would show them to them, as doubtless you would do if
you desired that they should live." In what way then do you wish us
to be the instructors of kings? And indeed those of our body who have
any friendship with Christian kings commit no sin if they make a right
use of that friendship; but if any are elated by it, they yet sin far
less grievously than you. For what had you, who thus reproach us,--what
had you to do with a heathen king, and what is worse, with Julian,
the apostate and enemy of the name of Christ, to whom, when you were
begging that the basilicas should be restored to you as though they
were your own, you ascribed this meed of praise, "that in him justice
alone was found to have a place?"--in which words (for I believe that
you understand the Latin tongue) both the idolatry and the apostasy of
Judas are styled justice. I hold in my hands the petition which your
ancestors presented; the memorial[949] which embodied their request;
the chronicles, where they made their representation. Watch and attend.
To the enemy of Christ, to the apostate, the antagonist of Christians,
the servant of the devil, that friend, that representative, that
Pontius of yours, made supplication in such words as these: "Go to
then, and say to us, What have you to do with the kings of this world?"
that as deaf men you may read to the deaf nations what you as well as
they refuse to hear: "Thou beholdest the mote that is in thy brother's
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye."[950]
204. "What," say you, "have you to do with the kings of this world,
in whom Christianity has never found anything save envy towards her?"
Having said this, you endeavoured to reckon up what kings the righteous
had found to be their enemies, and did not consider how many more might
be enumerated who have proved their friends. The patriarch Abraham was
both most friendly treated, and presented with a token of friendship,
by a king who had been warned from heaven not to defile his wife.[951]
Isaac his son likewise found a king most friendly to him.[952] Jacob,
being received with honour by a king in Egypt, went so far as to
bless him.[953] What shall I say of his son Joseph, who, after the
tribulation of a prison, in which his chastity was tried as gold is
tried in the fire, being raised by Pharaoh to great honours,[954] even
swore by the life of Pharaoh,[955]--not as though puffed up with vain
conceit, but being not unmindful of his kindness. The daughter of a
king adopted Moses.[956] David took refuge with a king of another race,
compelled thereto by the unrighteousness of the king of Israel.[957]
Elijah ran before the chariot of a most wicked king,--not by the
king's command, but from his own loyalty.[958] Elisha thought it
good to offer of his own accord to the woman who had sheltered him
anything that she might wish to have obtained from the king through
his intercession.[959] But I will come to the actual times when the
people of God were in captivity, in which, to use a mild expression,
a strange forgetfulness came over you. For, wishing to prove that
Christianity has never found anything in kings saving envy towards her,
you made mention of the three children and Daniel, who suffered at
the hands of persecuting kings, and you could not derive instruction
from circumstances not occurring near, but in the very same passages,
viz. from the conduct of the king himself after the miracle of the
flames which did no hurt, whether as shown in praising and setting
forth the name of God, or in honouring the three children themselves,
or from the esteem in which the king held Daniel, and the gifts with
which he honoured him, nothing loth to receive them, when he, rendering
the honour that was due to the king's power, as sufficiently appears
from his own words, did not hesitate to use the gift with which he
was endowed by God, in interpreting the king's dream. And when, in
consequence, the king was compelled by the men who envied the holy
prophet, and heaped calumnies upon him with sacrilegious madness, most
unwillingly to cast him into the den of lions, sadly though he did it,
yet he had the conviction that he would be safe through the help and
protection of his God. Accordingly, when Daniel, by the miraculous
repression of the lions' rage, had been preserved unhurt, when the
friendly voice of the king spoke first to him in accents of anxiety,
he himself replied with benediction from the den, "O king, live for
ever!"[960] How came it that, when your argument was turning on the
very same subject, when you were yourself quoting the examples of the
servants of God in whose case these things were done, you either failed
to see, or were unwilling to see, or seeing and knowing, were silent,
in a manner which I know not how you will defend, about those instances
of friendship felt by kings for the saints? But if it were not that,
as a defender of the basest cause, you are hindered by the desire of
building up falsehood, and thereby turned away either as unwilling or
as ignorant from the light of truth, there can be no doubt that you
could, without any difficulty, recall some good kings as well as some
bad ones, and some friendly to the saints as well as some unfriendly.
And we cannot but wonder that your Circumcelliones thus throw
themselves from precipices. Who was running after you, I pray? What
Macarius, what soldier was pursuing you? Certainly none of our party
thrust you into this abyss of falsehood. Why then did you thus run
headlong with your eyes shut, so that when you said, "What have you to
do with the kings of this world?" you did not add, In whom Christianity
has often found envy towards herself, instead of boldly venturing to
say, "In whom Christianity has never found anything save envy towards
her?" Was it really true that you neither thought yourself, nor
considered that those who read your writings would think, how many
instances of kings there were that went against your views? Does he not
know what he says?
205. Or do you think that, because those whom I have mentioned belonged
to olden times, therefore they form no argument against you, because
you did not say, In whom _righteousness_ has never found anything
save envy towards her, but "In whom _Christianity_ has never found
anything saving envy towards her,"--meaning, perhaps, that it should
be understood that they began to show envy towards the righteous from
the time when they began to bear the name of Christians? What then is
the meaning of those examples from olden times, by which you even more
imprudently wished to prove what you had so imprudently ventured to
assert? For was it not before Christ was born inf the world that the
Maccabees, and the three children, and Daniel, did and suffered what
you told of them? And again, why was it, as I asked just now, that you
offered a petition to Julian, the undoubted foe of Christianity? Why
did you seek to recover the basilicas from him? Why did you declare
that only righteousness found a place with him? If it is the foe of
Christianity that hears such things as these, what then are they from
whom he hears them? But it should be observed that Constantine, who was
certainly no foe to the name of Christian, but rather rendered glorious
by it, being mindful of the hope which he maintained in Christ, and
deciding most justly on behalf of His unity, was not worthy to be
acknowledged by you, even when you yourselves appealed to him. Both
these were emperors in Christian times, but yet not both of them were
Christians. But if both of them were foes of Christianity, why did you
thus appeal to one of them? why did you thus present a petition to
the other? For on your ancestors making their petition, Constantine
had given an episcopal judgment both at Rome and at Arles; and yet
the first of them you accused before him, from the other you appealed
to him. But if, as is the case, one of them had believed in Christ,
the other had apostatized from Christ, why is the Christian despised
while furthering the interests of unity, the apostate praised while
favouring deceit? Constantine ordered that the basilicas should be
taken from you, Julian that they should be restored. Do you wish to
know which of these actions is conducive to Christian peace? The one
was done by a man who had believed in Christ, the other by one who
had abandoned Christ. O how you would wish that you could say, It was
indeed ill done that supplication should so be made to Julian; but
what has that to do with us? But if you were to say this, the Catholic
Church would also conquer in these same words, whose saints dispersed
throughout the world are much less concerned with what you say of
those towards whom you feel as you may be disposed to feel. But it is
beyond your power to say, It was ill done that supplication should so
be made to Julian. Your throat is closed; your tongue is checked by an
authority close at home. It was Pontius that did it. Pontius presented
the petition; Pontius declared that the apostate was most righteous;
Pontius set forth that only righteousness found a place with the
apostate. That Pontius made a petition to him in these words, we have
the express evidence of Julian himself, mentioning him by name, without
any disguise. Your representations still exist. It is no uncertain
rumour, but public documents that bear witness to the fact. Can it be,
that because the apostate made some concession to your prayer, to the
detriment of the unity of Christ, you therefore find truth in what
was said, that only righteousness found a place with him? but because
Christian emperors decide against your wishes, since this appears
to them most likely to contribute to the unity of Christ, therefore
they are called the foes of Christianity? Such folly may all heretics
display; and may they regain wisdom, so that they should be no longer
heretics.
206. And when is that fulfilled, you will say, which the Lord declares,
"The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he
doeth God service?"[961] At any rate, neither can this be said of
the heathen, who persecuted Christians, not for the sake of God, but
for the sake of their idols. You do not see that if this had been
said of these emperors who rejoice in the name of Christian, their
chief command would certainly have been this, that you should have
been put to death; and this command they never gave at all. But the
men of your party, by opposing the laws in hostile fashion, bring
deserved punishment on themselves; and their own voluntary deaths,
so long as they think that they bring odium on us, they consider in
no wise ruinous to themselves. But if they think that that saying of
Christ refers to kings who honour the name of Christ, let them ask
what the Catholic Church suffered in the East, when Valens the Arian
was emperor. There indeed I might find what I should understand to be
sufficient fulfilment of the saying of the Lord, "The time cometh,
that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service,"
that heretics should not claim, as conducing to their especial glory,
the injunctions issued against their errors by Catholic emperors. But
we remember that that time was fulfilled after the ascension of our
Lord, of which holy Scripture is known by all to be a witness. The
Jews thought that they were doing a service to God when they put the
apostles to death. Among those who thought that they were showing
service to God was even our Saul, though not ours as yet; so that
among his causes for confidence which were past and to be forgotten,
he enumerates the following: "An Hebrew," he says, "of the Hebrews;
as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the
Church."[962] Here was one who thought that he did God service when he
did what presently he suffered himself. For forty Jews bound themselves
by an oath that they would slay him, when he caused that this should be
made known to the tribune, so that under the protection of a guard of
armed men he escaped their snares.[963] But there was no one yet to say
to him, What have you to do (not with kings, but) with tribunes and the
arms of kings? There was no one to say to him, Dare you seek protection
at the hand of soldiers, when your Lord was dragged by them to undergo
His suffering? There were as yet no instances of madness such as
yours; but there were already examples being prepared, which should be
sufficient for their refutation.
207. Moreover, with what terrible force did you venture to set forth
and utter the following: "But to say nothing of ancient examples,
observe, from instances taken from your own party, how very many of
your emperors and judges have perished in persecuting us." When I read
this in your letter, I waited with the most earnest expectation to see
what you were going to say, and whom you were going to enumerate, when,
lo and behold! as though passing them over, you began to quote to me
Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Geta, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, Maximian.
I acknowledge that there were more; but you have altogether forgotten
against whom you are arguing. Were not all of these pagans, persecuting
generally the Christian name on behalf of their idols? Be vigilant,
then; for the men whom you mention were not of our communion. They were
persecuting the whole aggregate of unity itself, from which we, as you
think, or you, as Christ teaches, have gone forth. But you had proposed
to show that our emperors and judges had perished in consequence of
persecuting you. Or is it that you yourself do not require that we
should reckon these, because, in mentioning them, you passed them over,
saying, "To pass over Nero;" and with this reservation did you mean to
run through all the rest? What then was the use of their being quoted,
if they had nothing to do with the matter? But what has it to do with
me? I now join with you in leaving these. Next, let that larger number
which you promised to us be produced, unless, indeed, it may be that
they cannot be found, inasmuch as you said that they had perished.
208. For now you go on to make mention of the bishops whom you are wont
to accuse of having delivered up the sacred books, concerning whom we
on our part are wont to answer: Either you fail in your proof, and so
it concerns no one at all; or you succeed, and then it still has no
concern with us. For they have borne their own burden, whether it be
good or bad; and we indeed believe that it was good. But of whatever
character it was, yet it was their own; just as your bad men have
borne their own burden, and neither you theirs nor they yours. But the
common and most evil burden of you all is schism. This we have already
often said before. Show us, therefore, not the names of bishops, but
the names of our emperors and judges, who have perished in persecuting
you. For this is what you had proposed, this is what you had promised,
this is what you had caused us most eagerly to expect. "Hear," he says,
"Macarius perished, Ursacius perished, and all your counts perished
in like manner, by the vengeance of God." You have mentioned only
two by name, and neither of them was emperor. Who would be satisfied
with this, I ask? Are you not utterly dissatisfied with yourself? You
promise that you will mention a vast number of emperors and judges of
our party who perished in persecuting you; and then, without a word
of emperors, you mention two who were either judges or counts. For as
to what you add, "And all your counts perished in like manner by the
vengeance of God," it has nothing to do with the matter. For on this
principle you might some time ago have closed your argument, without
mentioning the name of any one at all. Why then have you not made
mention of our emperors, that is to say, of emperors of our communion?
Were you afraid that you should be indicted for high treason? Where
is the fortitude that marks the Circumcelliones? And further, what
do you mean by introducing those whom you mentioned above in such
numbers? They might with more right say to you, Why did you seek out
us? For they did nothing to assist your cause, and yet you mentioned
them by name. What kind of man, then, must you be, who fear to mention
those by name, who, as you say, have perished? At any rate, you might
mention more of the judges and counts, of whom you seem to feel no
fear. But yet you stopped at Macarius and Ursacius. Are these two whom
you mention the vast number of whom you spoke? Are you thinking of the
lesson which we learned as boys? For if you were to ask of me what
number two is, singular or plural, what could I answer, except that it
was plural? But even so I am still not without the means of reply. I
take away Macarius from your list; for you certainly have not told us
how he perished. Or do you maintain that any one who persecutes you,
unless he be immortal on the face of this earth, is to be deemed when
he dies to have died because of you? What if Constantine had not lived
to enjoy so long a reign, and such prolonged prosperity, who was the
first to pass many decrees against your errors? And what if Julian, who
gave you back the basilicas, had not been so speedily snatched away
from life?[964] In that case, when would you make an end of talking
such nonsense as you do, seeing that even now you are unwilling to
hold your tongues? And yet neither do we say that Julian died so soon
because he gave back the basilicas to you. For we might be equally
prolix with you in this, but we are unwilling to be equally foolish.
Well, then, as I had begun to say, from these two we will take away
Macarius. For when you had mentioned the names of two, Macarius and
Ursacius, you repeated the name of Ursacius with the view of showing us
how he deserved his death; and you said, "For Ursacius was slain in a
battle with the barbarians, after which birds of prey with their savage
talons, and the greedy teeth of dogs with their biting, tore him limb
from limb." Whence it is quite clear, since it is your custom to excite
greater odium against us on account of Macarius, insomuch that you call
us not Ursacians but Macarians, that you would have been sure to say
by far the most concerning him, had you been able to say anything of
the sort about his death. Of these two, therefore, when you used the
plural number, if you take away Macarius, there remains Ursacius alone,
a proper name of the singular number. Where is therefore the fulfilment
of your threatening and tremendous promise of so many who should
support your argument?
209. By this time all men who are in any degree acquainted with the
meaning of words must understand, it seems to me, how ridiculous it is
that, when you had said, "Macarius perished, Ursacius perished, and
all your counts perished in like manner, by the vengeance of God,"
as though men were calling upon you to prove the fact, whereas, in
reality, neither hearer nor reader was calling on you for anything
further whatsoever, you immediately strung together a long argument
in order to prove that all our counts perished in like manner by the
vengeance of God. "For Ursacius," you say, "was slain in a battle with
the barbarians, after which birds of prey with their savage talons,
and the greedy teeth of dogs with their biting, tore him limb from
limb." In the same way, any one else, who was similarly ignorant of the
meaning of what he says, might assert that all your bishops perished
in prison by the vengeance of God; and when asked how he could prove
this fact, he might at once add, For Optatus, having been accused of
belonging to the company of Gildo, was put to death in a similar way.
Frivolous charges such as these we are compelled to listen to, to
consider, to refute; only we are apprehensive for the weak, lest, from
the greater slowness of their intellect, they should fall speedily
into your toils. But Ursacius, of whom you speak, if it be the case
that he lived a good life, and really died as you assert, will receive
consolation from the promise of God, who says, "Surely your blood of
your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require
it."[965]
210. But as to the calumnious charges which you bring against us,
saying that by us the wrath of the kings of the world is excited
against you, so long as we do not teach them the lesson of holy
Scripture, but rather suggest our own desire of war, I do not imagine
that you are so absolutely deaf to the eloquence of the sacred books
themselves as that you should not rather fear that they should be
acquainted with it. But whether you so will or no, they gain entrance
to the Church; and even if we hold our tongues, they give heed to the
readers: and, to say nothing of the rest, they especially listen with
the most marked attention to that very psalm which you quoted. For you
said that we do not teach them, nor, so far as we can help it, allow
them to become acquainted with the words of Scripture: "Be wise now
therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve
the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He
be angry,"[966] etc. Believe that even this is sung, and that they
hear it. But, at any rate, they hear what is written above in the
same psalm, which you, unless I am mistaken, were only unwilling to
pass over, for fear you should be understood to be afraid. They hear
therefore this as well: "The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son;
this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I shall give Thee the
heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for Thy possession."[967] On hearing which, they cannot but marvel
that some should be found to speak against this inheritance of Christ,
endeavouring to reduce it to a little corner of the earth; and in
their marvel they perhaps ask, on account of what they hear in what
follows, "Serve the Lord with fear," wherein they can serve Him, in so
far as they are kings. For all men ought to serve God,--in one sense,
in virtue of the condition common to them all, in that they are men;
in another sense, in virtue of their several gifts, whereby this man
has one function on the earth, and that man has another. For no man,
as a private individual, could command that idols should be taken from
the earth, which it was so long ago foretold should come to pass.[968]
Accordingly, when we take into consideration the social condition of
the human race, we find that kings, in the very fact that they are
kings, have a service which they can render to the Lord in a manner
which is impossible for any who have not the power of kings.
211. When, therefore, they think over what you quote, they hear also
what you yourself quoted concerning the three children, and hear it
with circumstances of marvellous solemnity. For that same Scripture is
most of all sung in the Church at a time when the very festal nature
of the season excites additional fervour even in those who, during
the rest of the year, are more given to be sluggish. What then do you
think must be the feelings of Christian emperors, when they hear of the
three children being cast into the burning fiery furnace because they
were unwilling to consent to the wickedness of worshipping the image of
the king,[969] unless you suppose that they consider that the pious
liberty of the saints cannot be overcome either by the power of kings,
or by any enormity of punishment, and that they rejoice that they are
not of the number of those kings who used to punish men that despised
idols as though they were guilty of sacrilege? But, further, when they
hear in what follows that the same king, terrified by the marvellous
sight of, not only the three children, but the very flames performing
service unto God, himself too began to serve God in fear, and to
rejoice with reverence, and to learn submission, do they not understand
that the reason that this was recorded, and set forth with such
publicity, was that an example might be set both before the servants of
God, to prevent them from committing sacrilege in obedience to kings,
and before kings themselves, that they should show themselves religious
by belief in God? Being willing, therefore, on their part, from the
admonition of the very psalm which you yourself inserted in your
writings, both to be wise, and to receive instruction, and to serve
God with fear, and to rejoice unto Him with reverence, and to learn
submission, with what attention do they listen to what that king said
afterwards! For he said that he would make a decree for all the people
over whom he ruled, that whosoever should speak blasphemy against the
God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should perish, and their house
be utterly destroyed. And if they know that he made this decree that
blasphemy should not be uttered against the God who tempered the force
of the fire, and liberated the three children, they surely go on to
consider what decrees they ought to make in their kingdom, that the
same God who has granted remission of sins, and given freedom to the
whole earth, should not be treated with scorn among the faithful in
their realm.
212. See therefore, when Christian kings make any decree against
you in defence of Catholic unity, that it be not the case that with
your lips you are accusing them of being unlearned, as it were, in
holy Scripture, while in your hearts you are grieving that they are
so well acquainted with its teaching. For who could put up with the
sacrilegious and hateful fallacy which you advance in the case of one
and the same Daniel, to find fault with kings because he was cast into
the den of lions, and to refuse praise to kings in that he was raised
to exalted honour, seeing that, even when he was cast into the den of
lions, the king himself was more inclined to believe that he would be
safe than that he would be destroyed, and, in anxiety for him, refused
to eat his food? And then do you dare to say to Christians, "What
have you to do with the kings of the world?" because Daniel suffered
persecution at a king's hands, and yet not look back upon the same
Daniel faithfully interpreting dreams to kings, calling a king lord,
receiving gifts and honours from a king? And so again do you dare, in
the case of the aforesaid three children, to excite the flames of odium
against kings, because, when they refused to worship the statue, they
were cast into the flames, while at the same time you hold your tongue,
and say nothing about their being thus extolled and honoured by the
king? Granted that the king was a persecutor when he cast Daniel into
the lions' den; but when, on receiving him safely out again, in his
joy and congratulations he cast in his enemies to be torn in pieces
and devoured by the same lions, what was he then,--a persecutor, or
not?[970] I call on you to answer me. For if he was, why did not Daniel
himself resist him, as he might so easily have done in virtue of his
great friendship for him, while yet you bid us restrain kings from
persecuting men? But if he was not a persecutor, because he avenged
with prompt justice the outrage committed against a holy man, what kind
of vengeance, I would ask, must be exacted from kings for indignities
offered to the sacraments of Christ, if the limbs of the prophet
required such a vengeance because they were exposed to danger? Again,
I acknowledge that the king, as indeed is manifest, was a persecutor
when he cast the three children into the furnace because they refused
to worship his image; but I ask whether he was still a persecutor when
he set forth the decree that all who should blaspheme against the
one true God should be destroyed, and their whole house laid waste?
For if he was a persecutor, why do you answer Amen to the words of a
persecutor?[971] But if he was not a persecutor, why do you call those
persecutors who deter you from the madness of blasphemy? For if they
compel you to worship an idol, then they are like the impious king, and
you are like the three children; but if they are preventing you from
fighting against Christ, it is you who are impious if you attempt to do
this. But what they may be if they forbid this with terrible threats,
I do not presume to say. Do you find some other name for them, if you
will not call them pious emperors.
213. If I had been the person to bring forward these examples of Daniel
and the three children, you would perhaps resist, and declare that they
ought not to have been brought from those times in illustration of our
days; but God be thanked that you yourself brought them forward, to
prove the point, it is true, which you desired to establish, but you
see that their force was rather in favour of what you least would wish
to prove. Perhaps you will say that this proceeds from no deceit of
yours, but from the fallibility of human nature. Would that this were
true! Amend it, then. You will not lose in reputation; nay, it marks
unquestionably the higher mind to extinguish the fire of animosity by
a frank confession, than merely to escape the mist of falsehood by
acuteness of the understanding.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCIII.--214. PETILIANUS said: "Where is the law of God? where is
your Christianity, if you not only commit murders and put men to death,
but also order such things to be done?"
215. AUGUSTINE answered: In reply to this, see what the fellow-heirs
of Christ say throughout the world. We neither commit murders, and put
men to death, nor order such things to be done; and you are raging much
more madly than those who do such things, in that you put such things
into the minds of men in opposition to the hopes of everlasting life.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCIV.--216. PETILIANUS said: "If you wish that we should be your
friends, why do you drag us to you against our will? But if you wish
that we should be your foes, why do you kill your foes?"
217. AUGUSTINE answered: We neither drag you to us against your will,
nor do we kill our foes; but whatever we do in our dealings with you,
though we may do it contrary to your inclination, yet we do it from
our love to you, that you may voluntarily correct yourselves, and live
an amended life. For no one lives against his will; and yet a boy,
in order to learn this lesson of his own free will,[972] is beaten
contrary to his inclination, and that often by the very man that is
most dear to him. And this, indeed, is what the kings would desire to
say to you if they were to strike you, for to this end their power has
been ordained of God. But you cry out even when they are not striking
you.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCV.--218. PETILIANUS said: "But what reason is there, or what
inconsistency of emptiness, in desiring communion with us so eagerly,
when all the time you call us by the false title of heretics?"
219. AUGUSTINE answered: If we so eagerly desired communion with
heretics, we should not be anxious that you should be converted from
the error of heresy; but when the very object of our negotiations
with you is that you should cease to be heretics, how are we eagerly
desiring communion with heretics? For, in fact, it is dissension
and division that make you heretics; but peace and unity make men
Catholics. When, then, you come over from your heresy to us, you cease
to be what we hate, and begin to be what we love.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCVI.--220. PETILIANUS said: "Choose, in short, which of the
two alternatives you prefer. If innocence is on your side, why do you
persecute us with the sword? Or if you call us guilty, why do you, who
are yourselves innocent, seek for our company?"
221. AUGUSTINE answered: O most ingenious dilemma, or rather most
foolish verbosity! Is it not usual for the choice of two alternatives
to be offered to an antagonist, when it is impossible that he
should adopt both? For if you should offer me the choice of the two
propositions, that I should say either that we were innocent, or that
we were guilty; or, again, of the other pair of propositions, viz.
those concerning you, I could not escape choosing either one or the
other. But as it is, you offer me the choice of these two, whether we
are innocent or you are guilty, and wish me to say which of these two I
choose for my reply. But I refuse to make a choice; for I assert them
both, that we are innocent, and that you are guilty. I say that we
are innocent of the false and calumnious accusations which you bring
against us, so far as any of us, being in the Catholic Church, can say
with a safe conscience that we have neither given up the sacred books,
nor taken part in the worship of idols, nor murdered any man, nor been
guilty of any of the other crimes which you allege against us; and that
any who may have committed any such offences, which, however, you have
not proved in any case, have thereby shut the doors of the kingdom of
heaven, not against us, but against themselves; "for every man shall
bear his own burden."[973] Here you have your answer on the first head.
And I further say that you are all guilty and accursed,--not some of
you owing to the sins of others, which are wrought among you by certain
of your number, and are censured by certain others, but all of you by
the sin of schism; from which most heinous sacrilege no one of you
can say that he is free, so long as he refuses to hold communion with
the unity of all nations, unless, indeed, he be compelled to say that
Christ has told a lie concerning the Church which is spread abroad
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.[974] And so you have my
second answer. See how I have made you two replies, of which you were
desirous that we should be reduced to choose the one. At any rate, you
should have taken notice that both assertions might be made by us; and
certainly, if this was what you wished, you should have asked it as a
favour of us that we should choose one or the other, when you saw that
it was in our power to choose both.
222. But "if innocence is on your side, why do you persecute us with
the sword?" Look back for a moment on your troops, which are not now
armed after the ancient fashion of their fathers only with cudgels, but
have further added to their equipment axes and lances and swords, and
determine for yourselves to which of us the question best belongs, "Why
do you persecute us with the sword?" "Or if you call us guilty," say
you, "why do you, who are yourselves innocent, seek for our company?"
Here I answer very briefly. The reason why you, being guilty, are
sought after by the innocent, is that you may cease to be guilty, and
begin to be innocent. Here then I have chosen both of the alternatives
concerning us, and answered both of those concerning you: only do you
in turn choose one of the two. Are you innocent or guilty? Here you
cannot choose to make the two assertions, and yet choose both, if so it
pleases you. For at any rate you cannot be innocent in reference to the
same circumstances in respect of which you are guilty. If therefore you
are innocent, do not be surprised that you are invited to be at peace
with your brethren; but if you are guilty, do not be surprised that you
are sought for punishment by kings. But since of these two alternatives
you assume one for yourselves, and the other is alleged of you by
us,--for you assume to yourselves innocence, and it is alleged of you
by us that you are living impiously,--hear again once more what I shall
say on either head. If you are innocent, why do you speak against the
testimony of Christ? But if you are guilty, why do you not fly for
refuge to His mercy? For His testimony, on the one hand, is to the
unity of the world, and His mercy, on the other, is in brotherly love.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCVII.--223. PETILIANUS said: "Lastly, as we have often said
before, how great is your presumption, that you should speak as you
presume to do of kings, when David says, 'It is better to trust in the
Lord than to put confidence in man: it is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in princes!'"[975]
224. AUGUSTINE answered: We put no confidence in man, but, so far as
we can, we warn men to place their trust in the Lord; nor do we put
confidence in princes, but, so far as we can, we warn princes to put
confidence in the Lord. And though we may seek aid from princes to
promote the advantage of the Church, yet do we not put confidence
in them. For neither did the apostle himself put confidence in that
tribune, in the sense in which the Psalmist talks of putting confidence
in princes, from whom he obtained for himself that an escort of armed
men should be assigned to him; nor did he put confidence in the
armed men, by whose protection he escaped the snares of the wicked
ones, in any such sense as that of the Psalmist where he speaks of
putting confidence in men.[976] But neither do we find fault with you
yourselves, because you sought from the emperor that the basilicas
should be restored to you, as though you had put your trust in Julian
the prince; but we find fault with you, that you have despaired of the
witness of Christ, from whose unity you have separated the basilicas
themselves. For you received them at the bidding of an enemy of Christ,
that in them you should despise the commands of Christ, whilst you
find force and truth in what Julian ordained, saying, "This, moreover,
on the petition of Rogatianus, Pontius, Cassianus, and other bishops,
not without an intermixture of clergy, is added to complete the whole,
that those proceedings which were taken to their prejudice wrongly and
without authority being all annulled, everything should be restored to
its former position;" and yet you find nothing that has either force
of truth in what Christ ordained, saying, "Ye shall be witnesses unto
me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost ends of the earth."[977] We entreat you, let yourselves be
reformed. Return to this most manifest unity of the whole world; and
let all things be restored to their former position, not in accordance
with the words of the apostate Julian, but in accordance with the words
of our Saviour Christ. Have pity on your own soul. We are not now
comparing Constantine and Julian in order to show how different they
are. We are not saying, If you have not placed confidence in a man and
in a prince, when you said to a pagan and apostate emperor, that "in
him justice only found a place," seeing that the party of Donatus has
universally employed the prayers and the proclamation in which those
words occur, as is proved by the records of the audience; much less
ought we to be accused by you, as though we put our confidence in any
man or prince, if without any blasphemous flattery we obtained any
request from Constantine or from the other Christian emperors; or if
they themselves, without our asking for it, but remembering the account
which they shall render to the Lord, under whose words they tremble
when they hear what you yourself have quoted, "Be wise now therefore, O
ye kings," etc., and many other sayings of the sort, make any ordinance
of their own accord in support of the unity of the Catholic Church.
But I say nothing about Constantine. It is Christ and Julian that we
contrast before you; nay, more than this, it is God and man, the Son
of God and the son of hell, the Saviour of our souls and the destroyer
of his own. Why do you maintain the proclamation of Julian in the
occupation of the basilicas, and yet not maintain the gospel of Christ
in embracing the peace of the Church? We too cry out, Let all things
that have been done amiss be restored to their ancient condition. The
gospel of Christ is of greater antiquity than the proclamation of
Julian; the unity of Christ is of greater antiquity than the party of
Donatus; the prayers of the Church to the Lord on behalf of the unity
of the Church are of greater antiquity than the prayers of Rogatianus,
and Pontius, and Cassianus, to Julian on behalf of the party of
Donatus. Are proceedings wrongly taken when kings forbid division? and
are they not wrongly taken when bishops divide unity? Is that wrong
action when kings minister to the witness of Christ in defence of the
Church? and is it not wrong action when bishops contradict the witness
of Christ in order to deny the Church? We entreat you, therefore, that
the words of Julian himself, to whom you thus made supplication, may be
listened to, not in opposition to the gospel, but in accordance with
the gospel, and that all things which have been done amiss may be
restored to their former condition.
* * * * *
CHAP. XCVIII.--225. PETILIANUS said: "On you, yes you, you wretched
men, I call, who, being dismayed with the fear of persecution, whilst
you seek to save your riches, not your souls, love not so much the
faithless faith of the traitors, as the wickedness of the very men
whose protection you have won unto yourselves,--just in the same way
as sailors, shipwrecked in the waves, plunge into the waves by which
they must be overwhelmed, and in the great danger of their lives seek
unmistakeably the very object of their dread; just as the madness of a
tyrant, that he may be free from apprehension of any person whatsoever,
desires to be feared, though this is fraught with peril to himself: so,
so you fly for refuge to the citadel of wickedness, being willing to
look on the loss or punishment of the innocent if you may escape fear
for yourselves. If you consider that you escape danger when you plunge
into ruin, truly also it is a faith that merits condemnation to observe
the faith of a robber. Lastly, it is trafficking in a madman's gains
to lose your own souls in order not to lose your wealth. For the Lord
Christ says, 'If a man shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'"[978]
226. AUGUSTINE answered: That exhortation of yours would be useful,
I cannot but acknowledge, if any one were to employ it in a good
cause. It is undoubtedly well that you have tried to deter men from
preferring their riches to their souls. But I would have you, who have
heard these words, listen also for a time to us; for we also say this,
but listen in what sense. If kings threaten to take away your riches,
because you are not Jews according to the flesh, or because you do not
worship idols or devils, or because you are not carried about into any
heresies, but abide in Catholic unity, then choose rather that your
riches should perish, that you perish not yourselves; but be careful
to prefer neither anything else, nor the life of this world itself to
eternal salvation, which is in Christ. But if kings threaten you with
loss or condemnation, simply on the ground that you are heretics,
such things are terrifying you not in cruelty, but in mercy; and your
determination not to fear is a sign not of bravery, but of obstinacy.
Hear then the words of Peter, where he says, "What glory is it, if,
when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently?"[979]
so that herein you have neither consolation upon earth, nor in the
world to come life everlasting; but you have here the miseries of the
unfortunate, and there the hell of heretics. Do you see, therefore,
my brother, with whom I am now arguing, that you ought first to show
whether you hold the truth, and then to exhort men that in upholding it
they should be ready to give up all the blessings which they possess
in this present world? And so, when you do not show this, because you
cannot,--not that the talent is wanting, but because the cause is
bad,--why do you hasten by your exhortations to make men both beggars
and ignorant, both in want and wandering from the truth, in rags and
contentions, household drudges and heretics, both losing their temporal
goods in this world, and finding eternal evils in the judgment of
Christ? But the cautious son, who, while he stands in dread of his
father's rod, keeps away from the lair of the serpent, escapes both
blows and destruction; whereas he who despises the pains of discipline,
when set in rivalry with his own pernicious will, is both beaten and
destroyed. Do you not now understand, O learned man, that he who has
resigned all earthly goods in order to maintain the peace of Christ,
possesses God; whereas he who has lost even a very few coins in behalf
of the party of Donatus is devoid of heart?
* * * * *
CHAP. XCIX.--227. PETILIANUS said: "But we who are poor in spirit[980]
are not apprehensive for our wealth, but rather feel a dread of wealth.
We, 'as having nothing, and yet possessing all things,'[981] look on
our soul as our wealth, and by our punishments and blood purchase to
ourselves the everlasting riches of heaven. So again the same Lord
says, 'Whosoever shall lose his substance, shall find it again an
hundredfold.'"
228. AUGUSTINE answered: It is not beside the purpose to inquire into
the true meaning of this passage also. For where my purpose is not
interfered with by any mistake which you make, or any false impression
which you convey in quoting from the Scriptures, I do not concern
myself about the matter. It is not then written, "Whosoever shall lose
his substance," but "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake."[982]
And the passage about substance is not, "Whosoever shall lose," but
"Every one that hath forsaken;"[983] and that not only with reference
to substance of money, but many other things besides. But you meanwhile
have not lost your substance; but whether you have forsaken it, in
that you so boast of poverty, I cannot say. And if by any chance my
colleague Fortunatus may know this, being in the same city with you, he
never told me, because I had never asked him. However, even if you had
done this, you have yet yourself quoted the testimony of the apostle
against yourself in this very epistle which you have written: "Though I
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."[984] For if you
had charity, you would not bring charges against the whole world, which
knows nothing of you, and of which you know no more,--no, not even
such charges as are founded on the proved offences of the Africans.
If you had charity, you would not picture to yourself a false unity
in your calumnies, but you would learn to recognise the unity that is
most clearly set forth in the words of the Lord: "Unto the uttermost
part of the earth."[985] But if you did not do this, why do you boast
as though you had done it? Are you really so filled with fear of
riches, that, having nothing, you possess all things? Tell that to your
colleague Crispinus, who lately bought a farm near our city of Hippo,
that he might there plunge men into the lowest abyss of error.[986]
Whence I too know this all too well. You perhaps are not aware of it,
and therefore shout out in security, "We stand in fear of riches." And
hence I am surprised that that cry of yours has been allowed to pass
Crispinus, so as to reach us. For between Constantina, where you are,
and Hippo, where I am, lies Calama, where he is, nearer indeed to our
side, but still between us. I wonder, therefore, how it was that he did
not first intercept this cry, and strike it back so that it should not
reach to our ears; and that he did not, in opposition to you, recite in
much more copious phrase a eulogy on riches. For he not only stands in
no fear of riches, but he actually loves them. And certainly, before
you utter anything about the rest, you should rehearse such views to
him. If he makes no corrections, then we have our answer ready. But for
yourself, if it be true that you are poor, you have with you my brother
Fortunatus. You will be more likely with such sentiments to please him,
who is my colleague, than Crispinus, who is your own.
* * * * *
CHAP. C.--229. PETILIANUS said: "Inasmuch as we live in the fear of
God, we have no fear of the punishments and executions which you wreak
with the sword; but the only thing which we avoid is that by your most
wicked communion you destroy men's souls, according to the saying of
the Lord Himself: 'Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able
to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell.'"[987]
230. AUGUSTINE answered: You do the destruction which you speak of,
not with a visible sword, but with that of which it is said, "The sons
of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp
sword."[988] For with this sword of accusation and calumny against
the world of which you are wholly ignorant, you destroy the souls of
those who lack experience. But if you find fault with a most wicked
communion, as you term it, I would bid you presently, not with my
words, but with your own, to ascend, descend, enter, turn yourself
about, change sides, be such as was Optatus. But if you return to your
senses, and shall find that you are not such as he, not because he
refused to partake of the sacraments with you, but because you took
offence at what he did, then you will acquit the world of crimes which
do not belong to it, and you will find yourself involved in the sin of
schism.
* * * * *
CHAP. CI.--231. PETILIANUS said: "You therefore, who prefer rather
to be washed with the most false of baptisms than to be regenerate,
not only do not lay aside your sins, but also load your souls with
the offences of criminals. For as the water of the guilty has been
abandoned by the Holy Spirit, so it is clearly filled full of the
offences of the _traditors_. To any wretched man, then, who is baptized
by one of this sort, we would say, If you have wished to be free from
falsehood, you are really drenched with falsity. If you desired to shut
out the sins of the flesh, you will, as the conscience of the guilty
comes upon you, be partakers likewise of their guilt. If you wished to
extinguish the flames of avarice, you are drenched with deceit, you are
drenched with wickedness, you are drenched also with madness. Lastly,
if you believe that faith is identical in the giver and the receiver,
you are drenched with the blood of a brother by him who slays a man.
And so it comes to pass that you, who had come to baptism free from
sin, return from baptism guilty of the sin of murder."
232. AUGUSTINE answered: I should like to come to argument with those
who shouted assent when they either heard or read those words of yours.
For such men have not ears in their heart, but their heart in their
ears. Yet let them read again and again, and consider, and find out for
themselves, not what the sound of those words is, but what they mean.
First of all, to sift the meaning of the last clause, "So it comes
to pass," you say, "that you who had come to baptism free from sin,
return from baptism guilty of the sin of murder:" tell me, to begin
with, who there is that comes to baptism free from sin, with the single
exception of Him who came to be baptized, not that His iniquity should
be purged away, but that an example of humility might be given us? For
what shall be forgiven to one free from sin? Or are you indeed endowed
with such an eloquence, that you can show to us some innocence which
yet committeth sin? Do you not hear the words of Scripture saying, "No
one is clean from sin in Thy sight, not even the infant whose life is
but of a single day upon the earth?"[989] For whence else is it that
one hastens even with infants to seek remission of their sins? Do you
not hear the words of another Scripture, "In sin did my mother conceive
me?"[990] In the next place, if a man returns a murderer, who had come
without the guilt of murder, merely because he receives baptism at a
murderer's hands, then all they who returned from receiving baptism at
the hands of Optatus were made partakers with Optatus. Go now, and see
with what face you cast in our teeth that we excite the wrath of kings
against you. Are you not afraid that as many satellites of Gildo will
be sought for among you, as there are men who may have been baptized by
Optatus? Do you see at length how that sentence of yours, like an empty
bladder, has rattled not only with a meaningless sound, but on your own
head?
233. To go on to the other earlier arguments which you have set before
us to be refuted, they are of such a nature that we must needs allow
that every one returns from baptism endued with the character of him by
whom he is baptized; but God forbid that those whom you baptize should
return from you infected with the same madness as possesses you when
you make such a statement! And what a dainty sound there was in your
words, "You are drenched with deceit, you are drenched with wickedness,
you are drenched also with madness!" Surely you would never pour forth
words like this unless you were, not drenched, but filled even to
repletion with madness. Is it then true, to say nothing of the rest,
that all who come untainted with covetousness to receive baptism at the
hands of your covetous colleagues, or the priests of your party, return
guilty of covetousness, and that those who run in soberness to the
whirlpool of intoxication to be baptized return in drunkenness? If you
entertain and teach such views as this, you will have the effrontery
even to quote, as making against us, the passage which you advanced
some little time ago: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put
any confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put
any confidence in princes."[991] What is the meaning of your teaching,
I would ask, save only this, that we should put our confidence, not in
the Lord, but in man, when you say that the baptized person is made
to resemble him who has baptized him? And since you assume this as the
fundamental principle of your baptism, are men to place their trust in
you? and are those to place their trust in princes who were disposed to
place it in the Lord? Truly I would bid them hearken not to you, but
rather to those proofs which you have urged against ourselves, ay, and
to words more awful yet; for not only is it written, "It is better to
trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man," but also, "Cursed be
the man that trusteth in man."[992]
* * * * *
CHAP. CII.--234. PETILIANUS said: "Imitate indeed the prophets, who
feared to have their holy souls deceived with false baptism. For
Jeremiah says of old that among impious men water is as one that lies.
'Water,' he says, 'that lies has not faith.'"
235. AUGUSTINE answered: Any one that hears these words, without
being acquainted with the Scriptures, and who does not believe that
you are either so far astray as not to know what you are saying, or
deceiving in such wise that he whom you have deceived should not know
what he says, would believe that the prophet Jeremiah, wishing to be
baptized, had taken precautions not to be baptized by impious men, and
had used these words with this intent. For what was your object in
saying, previous to your quotation of this passage, "Imitate indeed
the prophets, who feared to have their holy souls deceived with false
baptism?" Just as though, in the days of Jeremiah, any one were
washed with the sacrament of baptism, except so far as the Pharisees
almost every moment bathed themselves, and their couches and cups and
platters, with the washings which the Lord condemned, as we read in
the gospel.[993] How then could Jeremiah have said this, as though
he desired to be baptized, and sought to avoid being baptized by
impious men? He said it, then, when he was complaining of a faithless
people, by the corruption of whose morals he was vexed, not wishing
to associate with their deeds; and yet he did not separate himself
bodily from their congregation, nor seek other sacraments than those
which the people received as suitable to that time, according to the
law of Moses. To this people, therefore, in their evil mode of life,
he gave the name of "a wound," with which the heart of the righteous
man was grievously smitten, whether speaking thus of himself, or
foreshadowing in himself what he foresaw would come to pass. For he
speaks as follows: "O Lord, remember me, and visit me; make clear my
innocence before those who persecute me in no spirit of long-suffering:
know that for Thy sake I have suffered rebuke from those that scorn
Thy words. Make their portion complete; and Thy word shall be unto me
the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O
Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, but was
afraid of the presence of Thy hand; I sat alone, because I was filled
with bitterness. Why do those who make me sad prevail against me? My
wound is grievous; whence shall I be healed? It is become unto me as
lying water, that has no faith."[994] In all this it is manifest what
the prophet wished to be understood, but manifest only to those who
do not wish to distort to their own perverse cause the meaning of
what they read. For Jeremiah says that his wound has become unto him
as lying water, which cannot inspire faith; but he wished that by his
wound those should be understood who made him sad by the evil conduct
of their lives. Whence also the apostle says, "Without were fightings,
within were fears;"[995] and again, "Who is weak, and I am not weak?
who is offended, and I burn not?"[996] And because he had no hopes that
they could be reformed, therefore he said, "Whence shall I be healed?"
as though his own pain must needs continue so long as those among whom
he was compelled to live continued what they were. But that a people
is commonly understood under the appellation of water is shown in the
Apocalypse, where we understand "many waters" to mean "many peoples,"
not by any conjecture of our own, but by an express explanation in
the place itself.[997] Abstain then from blaspheming the sacrament of
baptism from any misunderstanding, or rather error, even when found
in a man of most abandoned character; for not even in the lying Simon
was the baptism which he received a lying water,[998] nor do all the
liars of your party administer a lying water when they baptize in the
name of the Trinity. For neither do they begin to be liars only when
they are betrayed and convicted, and so forced to acknowledge their
misdeeds; but rather they were already liars, when, being adulterers
and accursed, they pretended to be chaste and innocent.
* * * * *
CHAP. CIII.--236. PETILIANUS said: "David also said, 'The oil of the
sinner shall not anoint my head.' Who is it, therefore, that he calls
a sinner? Is it I who suffer your violence, or you who persecute the
innocent?"
237. AUGUSTINE answered: As representing the body of Christ, which is
the Church of the living God, the pillar and mainstay of the truth,
dispersed throughout the world, on account of the gospel which was
preached, according to the words of the apostle, "to every creature
which is under heaven:"[999] as representing the whole world, of which
David, whose words you cannot understand, has said, "The world also
is stablished, that it cannot be moved;"[1000] whereas you contend
that it not only has been moved, but has been utterly destroyed: as
representing this, I answer, I do not persecute the innocent. But
David said, "The oil of the sinner," not of the _traditor_; not of
him who offers incense, not of the persecutor, but "of the sinner."
What then will you make of your interpretation? See first whether you
are not yourself a sinner. It is nothing to the point if you should
say, I am not a _traditor_, I am not an offerer of incense, I am not
a persecutor. I myself, by the grace of God, am none of these, nor
is the world, which cannot be moved. But say, if you dare, I am not
a sinner. For David says, "The oil of the sinner." For so long as
any sin, however light, be found in you, what ground have you for
maintaining that you are not concerned in the expression that is used,
"The oil of the sinner?" For I would ask whether you use the Lord's
prayer in your devotions? For if you do not use that prayer, which
our Lord taught His disciples for their use, where have you learned
another, proportioned to your merits, as exceeding the merits of the
apostles? But if you pray, as our great Master deigned to teach us,
how do you say, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us?" For in this petition we are not referring to
those sins which have already been forgiven us in baptism. Therefore
these words in the prayer either exclude you from being a petitioner
to God, or else they make it manifest that you too are a sinner. Let
those then come and kiss your head who have been baptized by you,
whose heads have perished through your oil. But see to yourself, both
what you are and what you think about yourself. Is it really true that
Optatus, whom pagans, Jews, Christians, men of our party, men of your
party, all proclaim throughout the whole of Africa to have been a
thief, a traitor, an oppressor, a contriver of schism; not a friend,
not a client, but a tool of him[1001] whom one of your party declared
to have been his count, companion, and god,--is it true that he was
not a sinner in any conceivable interpretation of the term? What then
will they do whose heads were anointed by one guilty of a capital
offence? Do not those very men kiss your heads, on whose heads you pass
so serious a judgment by this interpretation which you place upon the
passage? Truly I would bid you bring them forth, and admonish them to
heal themselves. Or is it rather your heads which should be healed, who
run so grievously astray? What then, you will ask, did David really
say? Why do you ask me? rather ask himself. He answers you in the verse
above: "The righteous shall smite me in kindness, and shall reprove me;
but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head."[1002] What could
be plainer? what more manifest? I had rather, he says, be healed by a
rebuke administered in kindness, than be deceived and led astray by
smooth flattery, coming on me as an ointment on my head. The self-same
sentiment is found elsewhere in Scripture under other words: "Better
are the wounds of a friend than the proffered kisses of an enemy."[1003]
* * * * *
CHAP. CIV.--238. PETILIANUS said: "But he thus praises the ointment of
concord among brethren: 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment
upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard; that
went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as
the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord
commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.'[1004] Thus, he says,
is unity anointed, even as the priests are anointed."
239. AUGUSTINE answered: What you say is true. For that priesthood in
the body of Christ had an anointing, and its salvation is secured by
the bond of unity. For indeed Christ Himself derives His name from
chrism, that is, from anointing. Him the Hebrews call the Messiah,
which word is closely akin to the Phoenician language, as is the
case with very many other Hebrew words, if not with almost all.[1005]
What then is meant by the head in that priesthood, what by the beard,
what by the skirts of the garments? So far as the Lord enables me
to understand, the head is none other than the Saviour of the body,
of whom the apostle says, "And He is the head of the body, the
Church."[1006] By the beard is not unsuitably understood fortitude.
Therefore, on those who show themselves to be brave in His Church, and
cling to the light of His countenance, to preach the truth without
fear, there descends from Christ Himself, as from the head, a sacred
ointment, that is to say, the sanctification of the Spirit. By the
skirts of the garments we are here given to understand that which is at
the top of the garments, whereby the head of Him who gives the clothing
passes on its way. By this are signified those who are perfected in
faith within the Church. For in the skirts is perfection. And I presume
you must remember what was said to a certain rich man: "If thou wilt
be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me."[1007] He
indeed went away sorrowful, slighting what was perfect, choosing what
was imperfect. But does it follow that there were wanting those who
were so made perfect by such a surrender of earthly things, that the
ointment of unity descended upon them, as from the head upon the skirts
of the garments? For, putting aside the apostles, and those who were
immediately associated with those leaders and teachers of the Church,
whom we understand to be represented with greater dignity and more
conspicuous fortitude in the beard, read in the Acts of the Apostles,
and see those who "brought the prices of the things that were sold, and
laid them at the apostles' feet. Neither said any of them that ought
of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things
common: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had
need. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of
one soul."[1008] I doubt not that you are aware that it is so written.
Recognise, therefore, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to
dwell together in unity. Recognise the beard of Aaron; recognise the
skirts of the spiritual garments. Search the Scriptures themselves,
and see where those things began to be done; you will find that it
was in Jerusalem. From this skirt of the garment is woven together
the whole fabric of unity throughout all nations. By this the Head
entered into the garment, that Christ should be clothed with all the
variety of the several nations of the earth, because in this skirt of
the garment appeared the actual variety of tongues. Why, therefore,
is the Head itself, whence that ointment of unity descended, that is,
the spiritual fragrance of brotherly love,--why, I say, is the Head
itself exposed to your resistance, while it testifies and declares that
"repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among
all nations, beginning at Jerusalem?"[1009] And by this ointment you
wish the sacrament of chrism to be understood, which is indeed holy
as among the class of visible signs, like baptism itself, but yet can
exist even among the worst of men, wasting their life in the works of
the flesh, and never destined to possess the kingdom of heaven, and
having therefore nothing to do either with the beard of Aaron, or with
the skirts of his garments, or with any fabric of priestly clothing.
For where do you intend to place what the apostle enumerates as "the
manifest works of the flesh, which," he says, "are these; fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, poisonings, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders,
drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God?"[1010] I put aside fornications,
which are committed in secret; interpret uncleanness as you please,
I am willing to put it aside as well. Let us put on one side also
poisons, since no one is openly a compounder or giver of poisons. I
put aside also heresies, since you will have it so. I am in doubt
whether I ought to put aside idolatry, since the apostle classes with
it covetousness, which is openly rife among you. However, setting aside
all these, are there none among you lascivious, none covetous, none
open in their indulgence of enmities, none fond of strife, or fond of
emulation, wrathful, given to seditions, envious, drunken, wasting
their time in revellings? Are none of such a character anointed among
you? Do none die well known among you to be given to such things, or
openly indulging in them? If you say there are none, I would have you
consider whether you do not come under the description yourself, since
you are manifestly telling lies in the desire for strife. But if you
are yourself severed from men of this sort, not by bodily separation,
but by dissimilarity of life, and if you behold with lamentation
crowds like these around your altars, what shall we say, since they
are anointed with holy oil, and yet, as the apostle assures us with
the clearness of truth, shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Must we
do such impious despite to the beard of Aaron and to the skirts of his
garments, as to suppose that they are to be placed there? Far be that
from us. Separate therefore the visible holy sacrament, which can exist
both in the good and in the bad,--in the former for their reward, in
the latter for judgment; separate it from the invisible unction of
charity, which is the peculiar property of the good. Separate them,
separate them, ay, and may God separate you from the party of Donatus,
and call you back again into the Catholic Church, whence you were torn
by them while yet a catechumen, to be bound by them in the bond of a
deadly distinction. Now are ye not in the mountains of Zion, the dew
of Hermon on the mountains of Zion, in whatever sense that be received
by you; for you are not in the city upon a hill, which has this as
its sure sign, that it cannot be hid. It is known therefore unto
all nations. But the party of Donatus is unknown to the majority of
nations, therefore is it not the true city.
* * * * *
CHAP. CV.--240. PETILIANUS said: "Woe unto you, therefore, who, by
doing violence to what is holy, cut away the bond of unity; whereas the
prophet says, 'If the people shall sin, the priest shall pray for them:
but if the priest shall sin, who will pray for him?'"
241. AUGUSTINE answered: I seemed too a little while ago, when we were
disputing about the oil of the sinner, to anoint your forehead, in
order that you might say, if you dared, whether you yourself were not
a sinner. You have had the hardihood to say as much. What a portentous
sin! For in that you assert yourself to be a priest, what else have
you maintained by quoting this testimony of the prophet, save that you
are wholly without sin? For if you have sin, who is there that shall
pray for you, according to your interpretation of the words? For thus
you puff yourselves off in the ears of the wretched people, quoting
from the prophet: "If the people shall sin, the priest shall pray for
them: but if the priest shall sin, who will pray for him?"[1011] to
the intent that they may believe you to be without sin, and entrust
the wiping away of their sins to your prayers. Truly ye are great men,
exalted above your fellows, heavenly, godlike, angels indeed rather
than men, who pray for the people, and will not have the people pray
for you! Are you more righteous than Paul, more perfect than that great
apostle, who was wont to commend himself to the prayers of those whom
he taught? "Continue," he says, "in prayer, and watch in the same with
thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a
door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also
in bonds; that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak."[1012] See
how prayer is made for an apostle, which you would have not made for a
bishop. Do you perceive of how devilish a nature your pride is? Prayer
is made for an apostle, that he may make manifest the mystery of Christ
as he ought to speak. Accordingly, if you had a pious people under
you, you ought to have exhorted them to pray for you, that you might
not give utterance as you ought not. Are you more righteous than the
evangelist John, who says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us?"[1013] Finally, are you more
righteous than Daniel, whom you yourself quoted in this very epistle,
going so far as to say, "The most righteous king cast forth Daniel, as
he supposed, to be devoured by wild beasts?"--a thing which he never
did suppose, since he said to Daniel himself, in the most friendly
spirit, as the context of the lesson shows, "Thy God, whom thou servest
continually, He will deliver thee."[1014] But on this subject we have
already said much. With regard to the question now before us, viz. that
Daniel was most righteous, it is proved not by your testimony, though
that might be sufficient for me in the argument which I hold with you,
but by the testimony of the Spirit of God, speaking also by the mouth
of Ezekiel, where he named three men of most eminent righteousness,
Noah, Daniel, and Job, who, he said, were the only men that could be
saved from a certain excessive wrath of God, which was hanging over
all the rest.[1015] A man, therefore, of the highest righteousness,
one of three conspicuous for righteousness, prays, and says, "Whiles
I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin, and the sin of
my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my
God."[1016] And you say that you are without sin, because forsooth
you are a priest; and if the people sin, you pray for them: but if
you sin, who shall pray for you? For clearly by the impiety of such
arrogance you show yourself to be unworthy of the mediation of that
Priest whom the prophet would have to be understood in these words,
which you do not understand. For now that no one may ask why this was
said, I will explain it, so far as by God's grace I shall be able. God
was preparing the minds of men, by His prophet, to desire a Priest of
such a sort that none should pray for Him. He was Himself prefigured
in the times of the first people and the first temple, in which all
things were figures for our ensample. Therefore the high priest used to
enter alone into the holy of holies, that he might make supplication
for the people, which did not enter with the priest into that inner
sanctuary;[1017] just as our High Priest is entered into the secret
places of the heavens, into that truer holy of holies, whilst we for
whom He prays are still placed here.[1017] It is with this reference
that the prophet says, "If the people shall sin, the priest shall pray
for them: but if the priest shall sin, who will pray for him?" Seek
therefore a priest of such a kind that he cannot sin, nor need that
one should pray for him. And for this reason prayer is made for the
apostles by the people;[1018] but for that Priest who is the Master and
Lord of the apostles is prayer not made. Hear John confessing this, and
saying, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin
not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins."[1019]
"_We_ have," he says; and "for _our_ sins." I pray you, learn humility,
that you may not fall, or rather, that in time you may arise again. For
had you not already fallen, you never would have used such words.
* * * * *
CHAP. CVI.--242. PETILIANUS said: "And that none who is a layman may
claim to be free from sin, they are all bound by this prohibition: 'Be
not partakers of other men's sins.'"
243. AUGUSTINE answered: You are mistaken _toto coelo_, as the saying
is, by reason of your pride, whilst, by reason of your humility, you
are unwilling to communicate with the whole world. For, in the first
place, this was not spoken to a layman; and, in the second place, you
are wholly ignorant in what sense it was spoken. The apostle, writing
to Timothy, gives this warning to none other than Timothy himself, to
whom he says in another place, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee,
which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of
the presbytery."[1020] And by many other proofs it is made clear that
he was not a layman. But in that he says, "Be not partaker of other
men's sins,"[1021] he means, Be not partaker voluntarily, or with
consent. And hence he immediately subjoins directions how he shall
obey the injunction, saying, "Keep thyself pure." For neither was
Paul himself partaker of other men's sins, because he endured false
brethren, over whom he groans, in bodily unity; nor did the apostles
who preceded him partake of the thievery and crime of Judas, because
they partook of the holy supper with him when he had already sold his
Lord, and been pointed out as the traitor by that Lord.
* * * * *
CHAP. CVII.--244. PETILIANUS said: "By this sentence, again, the
apostle places in the same category those who have fellowship in the
consciousness of evil. 'Worthy of death,' he says, 'are both those
who do such things, and those who have pleasure in them that do
them.'"[1022]
245. AUGUSTINE answered: I care not in what manner you have used these
words, they are true. And this is the substance of the teaching of
the Catholic Church, that there is a great difference between those
who consent because they take pleasure in such things, and those who
tolerate while they dislike them. The former make themselves chaff,
while they follow the barrenness of the chaff; the latter are the
grain. Let them wait for Christ, who bears the winnowing-fan, that they
may be separated from the chaff.
* * * * *
CHAP. CVIII.--246. PETILIANUS said: "Come therefore to the Church, all
ye people, and flee the company of _traditors_, if you would not also
perish with them. For that you may the more readily know that, while
they are themselves guilty, they yet entertain an excellent opinion of
our faith, let me inform you that I baptize their polluted ones; they,
though may God never grant them such an opportunity, receive those who
are made mine by baptism,--which certainly they would not do if they
recognised any defects in our baptism. See therefore how holy that is
which we give, when even our sacrilegious enemy fears to destroy it."
247. AUGUSTINE answered: Against this error I have said much already,
both in this work and elsewhere. But since you think that in this
sentence you have so strong a confirmation of your vain opinions, that
you deemed it right to end your epistle with these words, that they
might remain as it were the fresher in the minds of your readers, I
think it well to make a short reply. We recognise in heretics that
baptism, which belongs not to the heretics but to Christ, in such sort
as in fornicators, in unclean persons or effeminate, in idolaters,
in poisoners, in those who are fond of contention, in the envious,
in drunkards, in revellers; and in men like these we hold valid the
baptism which is not theirs but Christ's. For of men like these, and
among them are included heretics also, none, as the apostle says, shall
inherit the kingdom of heaven.[1023] Nor are they to be considered
as being in the body of Christ, which is the Church, simply because
they are materially partakers of the sacraments. For the sacraments
indeed are holy, even in such men as these, and shall be of force in
them to greater condemnation, because they handle and partake of them
unworthily. But the men themselves are not within the constitution of
the Church, which grows in its members through connection and contact
with Christ, to the exaltation of God. For that Church is founded on a
rock, as the Lord says, "Upon this rock I will build my Church."[1024]
But they build on the sand, as the same Lord says, "Every one that
heareth these sayings, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a
foolish man, which built his house upon the sand."[1025] But that you
may not suppose that the Church which is upon a rock is in one part
only of the earth, and does not extend even to its furthest boundaries,
hear her voice groaning from the psalm, amid the evils of her
pilgrimage. For she says, "From the end of the earth will I cry unto
Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher
than I. For Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from
the enemy."[1026] See how she cries from the end of the earth. She is
not therefore in Africa alone, nor only among the Africans, who send
a bishop from Africa to Rome to a few Montenses,[1027] and into Spain
to the house of one lady.[1028] See how she is exalted on a rock. All,
therefore, are not to be deemed to be in her which build upon the sand,
that is, which hear the words of Christ and do them not, even though
both among us and among you they have and transmit the sacrament of
baptism. See how her hope is in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost,--not in Peter or in Paul, still less in Donatus or Petilianus.
What we fear, therefore, to destroy, is not yours, but Christ's;
and it is holy of itself, even in sacrilegious hands. For we cannot
receive those who come from you, unless we destroy in them whatsoever
appertains to you. For we destroy the treachery of the deserter, not
the stamp of the sovereign. Accordingly, do you yourself consider and
annul what you said: "I," say you, "baptize their polluted ones; they,
though may God never grant them such an opportunity, receive those who
are made mine by baptism." For you do not baptize men who are infected,
but you rebaptize them, so as to infect them. But we do not receive
men who are made yours by baptism; but we destroy that error of yours
whereby they are made yours, and we receive the baptism of Christ,
by which they are baptized. Therefore it is not without significance
that you introduce the words, "Though may God never grant them such
an opportunity." For you said, "They, though may God never grant them
such an opportunity, receive those who are made mine by baptism." And
in this, while you intend the meaning to be, "May God never give them
the opportunity of receiving such as are mine," I suppose that, without
knowing what it meant, you said, "May God never make them mine that you
should receive them." For we pray that those may not be really yours
who come over at the present moment to the Catholic Church. Nor do they
come over so as to be ours by right of baptism, but by fellowship with
us, and that with us they may belong to Christ, in virtue of their
baptism.
FOOTNOTES:
[683] Written about the beginning of 402 A.D.
[684] John i. 33.
[685] Rom. iv. 5.
[686] Jer. xvii. 5.
[687] I Cor. iv. 15.
[688] Phil. i. 17, 18.
[689] Phil. ii. 21.
[690] Matt. xxiii. 3.
[691] Matt. vii. 17, 16.
[692] Matt. xii. 35.
[693] Ecclus. xxxiv. 25; see on I. ix. 10.
[694] Matt. viii. 21, 22.
[695] See Matt. xii. 45.
[696] Rom. vi. 9.
[697] Acts viii. 13, 18, 19.
[698] 1 Tim. v. 6.
[699] Matt. xxvii. 4, 5.
[700] John xvii. 12.
[701] Ps. cix. 8, 9.
[702] 2 Macc. vii. 9. The words in brackets are not in the original
Greek.
[703] Ps. xxii. 16-18.
[704] Ps. xxii. 27, 28.
[705] Ps. ii. 8.
[706] Majorinus, ordained by the Numidian bishops in 311 A.D.
[707] Gal. iii. 29.
[708] Rom. viii. 17.
[709] Gen. xxii. 18.
[710] Luke xxiv. 46, 47.
[711] 1 Cor. v. 5.
[712] 1 Tim. i. 20.
[713] John ii. 15-17.
[714] John x. 37.
[715] John viii. 44.
[716] Matt. xxiii. 33-35.
[717] Ps. xiv. 5, from the LXX. only.
[718] Ps. xiv. 6.
[719] Another reading is, "_nos_ esse viperas."
[720] See below, c. xx. 46; and _Contra Crescon_. III. xlix. 54.
[721] Ps. xxii. 27.
[722] Gen. xxii. 18.
[723] Rom. iv. 3.
[724] Ps. lvii. 5.
[725] Ps. xix. 5.
[726] Luke xxiv. 44-47.
[727] Ps. xiv. 5-8, from the LXX., the last verse only being in the
Hebrew.
[728] Wisd. i. 11.
[729] Rom. iv. 5.
[730] Rom. iii. 26.
[731] John xx. 19, 21.
[732] Matt. vii. 15, 16.
[733] Matt. xxiv. 23.
[734] 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15.
[735] Gen. vi. 3.
[736] Matt. xxv. 41.
[737] 1 Cor. vi. 3.
[738] "Perdiderunt," which Migne thinks may be a confusion for
"perierunt."
[739] Novissimus.
[740] 1 Cor. xv. 9.
[741] 2 Cor. xi. 26.
[742] Portenta.
[743] Down to this point Augustine had already answered Petilianus in
the First Book, as he says himself below, III. 1. 61.
[744] Matt. x. 23.
[745] Matt. x. 16, 28.
[746] 1 Pet. iii. 15.
[747] Matt. v. 39.
[748] 1 Kings xviii.
[749] Wisd. xii. 23.
[750] Acts ix. 4, 5.
[751] Ps. cv. 15.
[752] Vivacem Christum.
[753] Rom. xiii. 2, 4.
[754] 1 John iii. 15.
[755] Acts ix. 4-18.
[756] John xiii. 10, 11.
[757] John xv. 3, 4.
[758] John xiv. 27.
[759] 1 Tim. i. 7.
[760] Mark x. 35-39.
[761] Matt. v. 10.
[762] Optatus Gildonianus is the person to whom he refers.
[763] Gildo, from subservience to whom Optatus received the name
Gildonianus, was "Comes Africæ." The play on the meanings of "Comes,"
in the expression "quod Comitem haberet Deum," is incapable of direct
translation. Cp. xxxvii. 88; ciii. 237.
[764] Ps. l. 18.
[765] Gal. vi. 5.
[766] Rom. xiv. 14.
[767] 1 Cor. vi. 10.
[768] Matt. xxv. 34, 41.
[769] John xiii. 10.
[770] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[771] Matt. xiii. 24-30, 36-43.
[772] Matt. iii. 12.
[773] Wisd. i. 5.
[774] Eph. iv. 5.
[775] Optatus.
[776] Gildo.
[777] See above, on xxiii. 53.
[778] Ps. cxxxii. 9.
[779] John xi. 51.
[780] Tit. i. 12, 13.
[781] Acts xvii. 23, 27, 28.
[782] Rom. xiii. 1.
[783] John xix. 11.
[784] John iii. 27.
[785] Matt. iii. 11.
[786] John xx. 22.
[787] Acts ii. 2-4.
[788] Isa. lxvi. 24.
[789] Matt. v. 14.
[790] 2 Sam. xii. 12.
[791] Ps. xix. 3-6, from the LXX.
[792] Eph. iv. 5.
[793] Matt. iii. 11.
[794] John xx. 22.
[795] Acts i. 5.
[796] Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.
[797] Matt. v. 9.
[798] See above, xxiii. 53.
[799] Acts i. 15, ii. 4, x. 44.
[800] Optatus Gildonianus.
[801] Gen. xxii. 18.
[802] Gal. vi. 5.
[803] Acts xix. 1-7.
[804] 1 Cor. x. 1, 2.
[805] Matt. xiii. 17.
[806] Matt. xi. 9, 11.
[807] Mark i. 2; cp. Mal. iii. 1.
[808] Mark i. 7.
[809] Matt. xxvi. 17.
[810] In his treatise on the Sermon on the Mount, Book II. iv. 12,
Augustine again compares the "celebratio octavarum dierum, quas in
regeneratione novi hominis celebramus" with the circumcision on the
eighth day; and in _Serm._ 376 he says that the heads of the rebaptized
were uncovered on the eighth day, as a token of liberty. Cp. _Epist._
II. xvii. 32, and Bingham, _Orig. Sacr._ XII. iv. 3.
[811] Augustine apparently supposed that the sacrifice of the paschal
lamb was still observed among the Jews of the dispersion; cp.
_Retract._ I. x. 2. It was, however, forbidden them to sacrifice the
Passover except in the place which the Lord should choose to place His
name there; and hence the Jews, though they observe the other paschal
solemnities, abstain from the sacrifice of the lamb.
[812] Matt. xxi. 25.
[813] Gildo; see above, xxiii. 53.
[814] See Isa. xlvi. 8.
[815] Luke xv. 32.
[816] Acts i. 7, 8.
[817] Dan. ii. 35.
[818] 1 John ii. 19.
[819] Apparently from Wisd. iii. 6.
[820] Prov. ii. 22.
[821] Matt. xiii. 24-30.
[822] Gen. xxii. 18.
[823] Ps. lxxiii. 26.
[824] Ps. xvi. 5.
[825] John xi. 51.
[826] Prov. ii. 22.
[827] Ps. ii. 8.
[828] Ps. xxii. 27.
[829] 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.
[830] 1 Cor. i. 12, 13.
[831] Ps. cxix. 42.
[832] Acts i. 8.
[833] Ps. xix. 4.
[834] Ps. cxix. 122.
[835] Matt. xxi. 43.
[836] See Ps. cv. 44.
[837] Gal. iii. 27.
[838] Gal. vi. 4.
[839] Ps. xxiii.
[840] Ps. cxliv. 9.
[841] Ps. xcvi. 1.
[842] 1 Cor. xi. 29.
[843] 1 Cor. iv. 3.
[844] Job ii. 3, 4.
[845] Matt. v. 5-7.
[846] Ps. i. 1.
[847] Matt. xxiii. 2, 3.
[848] Isa. lxvi. 3.
[849] Hos. ix. 4.
[850] Tit. i. 15.
[851] In the Council of Bagai.
[852] Ps. xiv. 3, from the LXX.
[853] Matt. vii. 21.
[854] Matt. vi. 10.
[855] 2 Tim. ii. 24, 25.
[856] Matt. vii. 22, 23.
[857] 1 Cor. xiii. 2.
[858] Luke x. 20.
[859] Acts i. 8.
[860] Matt. vii. 22.
[861] 1 Tim. i. 8.