(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. AUGUSTIN

LETTERS 87-97

From the Second Division, which consists of letters which were written
from the beginning of his episcopate to just before the time of and before
the conference held with the donatists at carthage, and the discovery of the
heresy of Pelagius in Africa (a.d. 396-410).

[Translated by The Rev. J. G. Cunningham, M.A., Vicar of St. Mark's West
Hackney; and sometime clerical secretary of the Bishop of London's Fund.]


LETTER LXXXVII. (A.D. 405.)

TO HIS BROTHER EMERITUS, BELOVED AND LONGED FOR, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING.

   1. I know that it is not on the possession of good talents and a
liberal education that the salvation of the soul depends; but when I hear
of any one who is thus endowed holding a different view from that which
truth imperatively insists upon on a point which admits of very easy
examination, the more I wonder at such a man, the more I burn with desire
to make his acquaintance, and to converse with him; or if that be
impossible, I long to bring his mind and mine into contact by exchanging
letters, which wing their flight even between places far apart. As I have
heard that you are such a man as I have spoken of, I grieve that you should
be severed and shut out from the Catholic Church, which is spread abroad
throughout the whole world, as was foretold by the Holy Spirit. What your
reason for this separation is I do not know. For it is not disputed that
the party of Donatus is wholly unknown to a great part of the Roman world,
not to speak of the barbarian nations (to whom also the apostle said that
he was a debtor(2)) whose communion in the Christian faith is joined with
ours, and that in fact they do not even know at all when or upon what
account the dissension began. Now, unless you admit these Christians to be
innocent of those crimes with which you charge the Christians of Africa,
you must confess that all of you are defiled by participation in the wicked
actions of all worthless characters, so long as they succeed (to put the
matter mildly) in escaping detection among you. For you do occasionally
expel a member from your communion, in which case his expulsion takes place
only after he has committed the crime for which he merited expulsion. Is
there not some intervening time during which he escapes detection before he
is discovered, convicted, and condemned by you? I ask, therefore, whether
he involved you in his defilement so long as he was not discovered by you?
You answer, "By no means." If, then, he were not to be discovered at all,
he would in that case never involve you in his defilement; 'for it
sometimes happens that the crimes committed by men come to light only after
their :death, yet this does not bring guilt upon those Christians who
communicated with them while they were alive. Why, then, have you severed ,
yourselves by so rash and profane schism from the communion of innumerable
Eastern Churches, in which all that you truly or falsely affirm to have
been done in Africa has been and still is utterly unknown ?

   2. For it is quite another question whether or not there be truth in
the assertions made by you. These assertions we disprove by documents much
more worthy of credit than those which you bring forward, and we further
find in your own documents more abundant proof of those positions which you
assail. But this is, as I have said, another question altogether, to be
taken up and discussed when necessary. Meanwhile, let your mind give
special attention to this: that no one can be involved in the guilt of
unknown crimes committed by persons unknown to him. Whence it is manifest
that you have been guilty of impious schism in separating yourselves from
the communion of the whole world, to which the things charged, whether
truly or falsely, by you against some men in Africa, have been and still
are wholly unknown; although this also should not be forgotten, that even
when known and discovered, bad men do not harm the good who are in a
Church, if either the power of restraining them from communion be wanting,
or the interests of the Church's peace forbid this to be done. For who were
those who, according to the prophet Ezekiel,(1) obtained the reward of
being marked before the destruction of the wicked, and of escaping unhurt
when they were destroyed, but those who sighed and cried for the sins and
iniquities of the people of God which were done in the midst of them? Now
who sighs and cries for that which is unknown to him? On the same
principle, the Apostle Paul bears with false brethren. For it is not of
persons unknown to him that he says, "All seek their own, not the things
which are Jesus Christ's;" yet these persons he shows plainly to have been
beside him. And to what class do the men belong who have chosen rather to
burn incense to idols or surrender the divine books than to suffer death,
if not to those who "seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ "?

   3. I omit many proofs which I might give from Scripture, that I may not
make this letter longer than is needful; and I leave many more things to be
considered by yourself in the light of your own learning. But I beseech you
mark this, which is quite enough to decide the whole question: If so many
transgressors in the one nation, which was then the Church of God, did not
make those who were associated with them to be guilty like themselves; if
that multitude of false brethren did not make the Apostle Paul, who was a
member of the same Church with them, a seeker not of the things of Jesus
Christ, but of his own,- it is manifest that a man is not made wicked by
the wickedness of any one with whom he goes to the altar of Christ, even
though he be not unknown to him, provided only that he do not encourage him
in his wickedness, but by a good conscience disallowing his conduct keep
himself apart from him. It is therefore obvious that, to be art and part
with a thief, one must either help him in the theft, or receive with
approbation what he has stolen. This I say in order to remove out of the
way endless and unnecessary questions concerning the conduct of men, which
are wholly irrelevant when advanced against our position.

   4. If, however, you do not agree with what I have said, you involve the
whole of your party in the reproach of being such men as Optatus was,
while, notwithstanding your knowledge of his crimes, he was tolerated in
communion with you; and far be it from me to say this of such a man as
Emeritus, and of others of like integrity among you, who are, I am sure,
wholly averse to such deeds as disgraced him. For we do not lay any charge
against you but the one of schism, which by your obstinate persistence in
it you have now made heresy. How great this crime is in the judgment of God
Himself, you may see by reading what without doubt you have read ere now.
You will find that Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up by an opening of the
earth beneath them,(2) and that all the others who had conspired with them
were devoured by fire breaking forth in the midst of them. As a warning to
men to shun this crime, the Lord God signalized its commission with this
immediate punishment, that He might show what He reserves for the final
recompense of persons guilty of a similar transgression, whom His great
forbearance spares for a time. We do not, indeed, find fault with the
reasons by which you excuse your tolerating Optatus among you. We do not
blame you, because at the time when he was denounced for his furious
conduct in the mad abuse of power, when he was impeached by the groans of
all Africa, B groans in which you also. shared, if you are what good report
declares you to be, -- a report which, God knows, I most willingly believe,
-- you forbore from excommunicating him, lest he should under such sentence
draw away many with him, and rend your communion asunder with the frenzy of
i schism. But this is the thing which is itself i an indictment against you
at the bar of God, O brother Emeritus, that although you saw that the
division of the party of Donators was so great an evil, that it was thought
better that Optatus should be tolerated in your communion than that
division should be introduced among you, you nevertheless perpetuate the
evil which was wrought in the division of the Church of Christ by your
forefathers.

   5. Here perhaps you will be disposed, under the exigencies of debate,
to attempt to defend Optatus. Do not so, I beseech you; do not so, my
brother: it would not become you; and if it would perchance be seemly for
any one to do it (though, in fact, nothing is seemly which is wrong), it
assuredly would be unseemly for Emeritus to defend Optatus. Perhaps you
reply that it would as little become you to accuse him. Granted, by all
means. Take, then, the course which lies between defending and accusing
him. Say, "Every man shall bear his own burden;"(1) "Who art thou that
judgest another man's servant?"(2) If, then, notwithstanding the testimony
of all Africa, --nay more, of all regions to which the name of Gildo was
carried, for Optatus was not less notorious than he,- you have not dared.
to pronounce judgment concerning Optatus, lest you should rashly decide in
regard to one unknown to you, is it, I ask, either possible or right for
us, proceeding solely on your testimony, to pronounce sentence rashly upon
persons whom we do not know? Is it not enough that you should charge them
with things of which you have no certain knowledge, without our pronouncing
them guilty of things of which we know as little as yourselves? For even
though Optatus were in peril through the falsehood of detractors, you
defend not him, but yourself, when you say, "I do not know what his
character was." How much more obvious, then, is it that the Eastern world
knows nothing of the character of those Africans with whom, though much
less known to you than Optatus, you find fault! Yet you are disjoined by
scandalous schism from Churches in the East, the names of which you have
and you read in the sacred books. If your most famous and most scandalously
notorious Bishop of Thamugada(3) was at that very time not known to his
colleague, I shall not say in Caesarea, but in Sitifa, so close at hand,
how was it possible for the Churches of Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse,
Philippi, Thessalonica, Antioch, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and others
which were founded in Christ by the apostles, to know the case of these
African traditors, whoever they were; or how was it consistent with justice
that they should be condemned by you for not knowing it? Yet with these
Churches you hold no communion. You say they are not Christian, and you
labour to rebaptize their members. What need I say? What complaint, what
protest is necessary here? If I am addressing a right-hearted man, I know
that with you I share the keenness of the indignation which I feel. For you
doubtless see at once what I might say if I would.

   6. Perhaps, however, your forefathers formed of themselves a council,
and placed the whole Christian world except themselves under sentence of
excommunication. Have you come so to judge of things, as to affirm that the
council of the followers of Maximianus who were cut off from you, as you
were cut off from the Church, was of no authority against you, because
their number was small compared with yours; and yet claim for your council
an authority against the nations, which are the inheritance of Christ, and
the ends of the earth, which are His possession?(4) I wonder if the man who
does not blush at such pretensions has any blood in his body. Write me, I
beseech you, in reply to this letter; for I have heard from some, on whom I
could not but rely, that you would write me an answer if I were to address
a letter to you. Some time ago, moreover, I sent you a letter; but I do not
know whether you received it or answered it, and perhaps your reply did not
reach me. Now, however, I beg you not to refuse to answer this letter, and
state what you think. But do not occupy yourself with other questions than
the one which I have stated, for this is the leading point of a well-
ordered discussion of the origin of the schism.

   7. The civil powers defend their conduct in persecuting schismatics by
the rule which the apostle laid down: "Whoso resisteth the power, resisteth
the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves
judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt
thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt
have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good.
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword
in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon
him that doeth evil."(5) The whole question therefore is, whether schism be
not an evil work, or whether you have not caused schism, so that your
resistance of the powers that be is in a good cause and not in an evil
work, whereby you would bring judgment on yourselves. Wherefore with
infinite wisdom the i Lord not merely said, "Blessed are they who are
persecuted," but added, "for righteousness' sake."(6) I desire therefore to
know from you, l in the light of what I have said above, whether it be a
work of righteousness to originate and perpetuate your state of separation
from the Church. I desire also to know whether it be not rather a work of
unrighteousness to condemn unheard the whole Christian world, either
because it has not heard what you have heard, or because no proof has been
furnished to it of charges which Were rashly believed, or without
sufficient evidence advanced by you, and to propose on this ground to
baptize a second time: the members of so many churches rounded by the
preaching and labours either of the Lord Himself while He was on earth, or
of His apostles; and all this on the assumption that it is excusable for
you either not to know the wickedness of your African colleagues who are
living beside you, and are using the same sacraments with you, or even to
tolerate their misdeeds when known, lest the party of Donatus should be
divided, but that it is inexcusable for them, though they reside in most
remote regions, to be ignorant of what you either know, or believe, or have
heard, or imagine, concerning men in Africa. How great is the perversity of
those who cling to their own unrighteousness, and yet find fault with the
severity of the civil powers!

   8. You answer, perhaps, that Christians ought not to persecute even the
wicked. Be it so; let us admit that they ought not: but is it lawful to lay
this objection in the way of the powers which are ordained for this very
purpose? Shall we erase the apostle's words? Or do your Mss. not contain
the words which I mentioned a little while ago? But you will say that we
ought not to communicate with such persons. What then? Did you withdraw,
some time ago, from communion with the deputy Flavianus, on the ground of
his putting to death, in his administration of the laws, those whom he
found guilty? Again, you will say that the Roman emperors are incited
against you by us. Nay, rather blame yourselves for this, seeing that, as
was long ago foretold in the promise concerning Christ, "Yea, all kings
shall fall down before him,"(1) they are now members of the Church; and you
have dared to wound the Church by schism, and still presume to insist upon
rebaptizing her members. Our brethren indeed demand help from the powers
which are ordained, not to persecute you, but to protect themselves against
the lawless acts of violence perpetrated by individuals of your party,
which you yourselves, who refrain from such things, bewail and deplore;
just as, before the Roman Empire became Christian, the Apostle Paul took
measures to secure that the protection of armed Roman soldiers should be
granted him against the Jews who bad conspired to kill him. But these
emperors, whatever the occasion of their becoming acquainted with the crime
of your schism might be, frame against you such decrees as their zeal and
their office demand. For they bear not the sword in vain; they are the
ministers of God to execute wrath upon those that do evil. Finally, if some
of our party transgress the bounds of Christian moderation in this matter,
it displeases us; nevertheless, we do not on their account forsake the
Catholic Church because we are unable to separate the wheat from the chaff
before the final winnowing, especially since you yourselves have not
forsaken the Donatist party on account of Optatus, when you had not courage
to excommunicate him for his crimes.

   9. You say, however, "Why seek to have us joined to you, if we be thus
stained with guilt?" I reply: Because you still live, and may, if you are
willing, be restored. For when you join yourselves to us, i.e. to the
Church of God, the heritage of Christ, who has the ends of the earth as his
possession, you are restored so that you live in vital union with the Root.
For the apostle says of the branches which were broken off: "God is able to
graft them in again."(2) We exhort you to change, in so far as concerns
your dissent from the Church; although, as to the sacraments which you had,
we admit that they are holy, since they are the same in all. Wherefore we
desire to see you changed from your obstinacy, that is, in order that you
who have been cut off may be vitally united to the Root again. For the
sacraments which you have not changed are approved by us as you have them;
else, in our attempting to correct your sin, we should do impious wrong to
those mysteries of Christ which have not been deprived of their worth by
your unworthiness. For even Saul did not, with all his sins, destroy the
efficacy of the anointing which he received; to which anointing David, that
pious servant of God, showed so great respect. We therefore do not insist
upon rebaptizing you, because we only wish to restore to you connection
with the Root: the form of the branch which has been cut off we accept with
approval, if it has not been changed; but the branch, however perfect in
its form, cannot bear fruit, except it be united to the root. As to the
persecution, so gentle and tempered with clemency, which you say you suffer
at the hands of our party, while unquestionably your own party inflict
greater harm in a lawless and irregular way upon us,- this is one question:
the question concerning baptism is wholly distinct from it; in regard to
it, we inquire not where it is, but where it profits. For wherever it is,
it is the same; but it cannot be said of him who receives it, that wherever
he is, he is the same. We therefore detest the impiety of which men as
individuals are guilty in a state of schism; but we venerate everywhere the
baptism of Christ. If deserters carry with them the imperial standards,
these standards are welcomed back again as they were, if they have remained
unharmed, when the deserters are either punished with a severe sentence,
or, in the exercise of clemency, restored. If, in regard to this, any more
particular inquiry is to be made, that is, as I have said another question;
for in these things, the practice of the Church of God is the rule of our
practice.

   10. The question between us, however, is, whether your Church or ours
is the Church of God. To resolve this, we must begin with the original
inquiry, why you became schismatics. If you do not write me an answer, I
believe that before the bar of God I shall be easily vindicated as having
done my duty in this matter; because I have sent a letter in the interests
of peace to a man of whom I have heard that, excepting only his adherence
to schismatics, he is a good and' well-educated man. Be it yours to
consider how you shall answer Him whose forbearance now demands your
praise, and His judgment shall in the end demand your fears. If, however,
you write a reply to me with as much care as you see me to have bestowed
upon this, I believe that, by the mercy of God, the error which now keeps
us apart shall perish before the love of peace and the logic of truth.
Observe that I have said nothing about the followers of Rogatus,(1) who
call you Firmiani, as you call us Macariani. Nor have I spoken of your
bishop of Rucata (or Rusicada), who is said to have made an agreement with
Firmus, promising, on condition of the safety of all his adherents, that
the gates should be opened to him, and the Catholics given up to slaughter
and pillage. Many other such things I pass unnoticed. Do you therefore in
like manner desist from the commonplaces of rhetorical exaggeration
concerning actions of men which you have either heard of or known; for you
see how I am silent concerning deeds of your party, in order to confine the
debate to the question upon which the whole matter hinges, namely, the
origin of the schism.

   My brother, beloved and longed for, may the Lord our God breathe into
you thoughts tending towards reconciliation.

LETTER LXXXVIII. (A.D. 406.)

TO JANUARIUS,(2) THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF THE DISTRICT OF HIPPO (3) SEND THE
FOLLOWING.

   1. Your clergy and your Circumcelliones are venting against us their
rage in a persecution of a new kind, and of unparalleled atrocity. Were we
to render evil for evil, we should be transgressing the law of Christ. But
now, when all that has been done, both on your side and on ours, is
impartially considered, it is found that we are suffering what is written,
"They rewarded me evil for good;"(4) and (in another Psalm), "My soul hath
long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but when I speak,
they are for war."(5) For, seeing that you have arrived at so great age, we
suppose you to know perfectly well that the party of Donatus, which at
first was called at Carthage the party of Majorinus, did of their own
accord accuse Caecilianus, then bishop of Carthage, before the famous
Emperor Constantine. Lest, however, you should have forgotten this,
venerable sir, or should pretend not to know, or perhaps (which we scarcely
think possible) may never have known it, we insert here a copy of the
narrative of Anulinus, then proconsul, to whom the party of Majorinus
appealed, requesting that by him as proconsul a statement of the charges
which they brought against Caecilianus should be sent to the Emperor
aforesaid: --

2. To Canstantine Augustus, from Anulinus, a man of consular rank,
proconsul of Africa, these:(6)

   The welcome and adored celestial writing sent by your Majesty to
Caecilianus, and those over whom he presides, who are called clergy, have
been, by the care of your Majesty's most humble servant, engrossed in his
Records; and he has exhorted these parties that, heartily agreeing among
themselves, since they are seen to be exempted from all other burdens by
your Majesty's clemency, they should, preserving Catholic unity, devote
themselves to their duties with the reverence due to the sanctity of law
and to divine things. After a few days, however, there arose some persons
to whom a crowd of people joined themselves, who thought that proceedings
should. be taken against Caecilianus, and presented to me (7) a sealed
packet wrapped in leather, and a small document without seal, and earnestly
besought me to transmit them to your Majesty's sacred and venerable court,
which your Majesty's most humble servant(8) has taken care to do,
Caecilianus continuing meanwhile as he was. The Acts pertaining to the case
are subjoined, in order that your Majesty may be able to arrive at a
decision concerning the whole matter. The documents sent are two: the one
in a leathern envelope, with this title, "A document of the Catholic Church
containing charges against Caecilianus, and furnished by the party of
Majorinus;" the other attached without a seal to the same leathern
envelope.

   Given on the 17th day before the Calends of May, in the third
consulship of our lord Constantine Augustus [i.e. April 15, A.D. 313].

   3. After this report had been sent to him, the Emperor summoned the
parties before a tribunal of bishops to be constituted at Rome. The
ecclesiastical records show how the case was there argued and decided, and
Caecilianus pronounced innocent. Surely now, after the l peacemaking
decision of the tribunal of bishops, all the pertinacity of strife and
bitterness should have given way. Your forefathers, however, appealed again
to the Emperor, and complained that the decision was not just, and that
their case had not been fully heard. Accordingly, he appointed a second
tribunal of bishops to meet in Aries, a town of Gaul, where, after sentence
had been pronounced against your worthless and diabolical schism, many of
your party returned to a good understanding with Caecilianus; some,
however, who were most obstinate and contentious, appealed to the Emperor
again. Afterwards, when, yielding to their importunity, he personally
interposed in this dispute, which belonged properly to the bishops to
decide, having heard the case, he gave sentence against your party, and was
the first to pass a law that the properties of your congregations should be
confiscated; of all which things we could insert the documentary evidence
here, if it were not for making the letter too long. We must, however, by
no means omit the investigation and decision in open court of the case of
Felix of Aptunga, whom, in the Council of Carthage, under Secundus of
Tigisis, primate, your fathers affirmed to be the original cause of all
these evils. For the Emperor aforesaid, in a letter of which we annex a
copy, bears witness that in this trial your party were before him as
accusers and most strenuous prosecutors:--

4. The Emperors Flavius Constantinus, Maximus Caesar, and Valerius Licinius
Caesar, to Probianus, proconsul of Africa:

   Your predecessor AElianus, who acted as substitute for Verus, the
superintendent of the prefects, when that most excellent magistrate was by
severe illness laid aside in that part of Africa which is under our sway,
considered it, and most justly, to be his duty, amongst other things, to
bring again under his investigation and decision the matter of Caecilianus,
or rather the odium which seems to have been stirred up against that bishop
of the Catholic Church. Wherefore, having ordered the compearance of
Superius, centurion, Caecilianus, magistrate of Aptunga, and Saturninus,
the ex-president of police, and his successor in the office, Calibius the
younger, and Solon, an official belonging to Aptunga, he heard the
testimony of these witnesses;(1) the result of which was, that whereas
objection had been taken to Caecilianus on the ground of his ordination to
the office of bishop by Felix, against whom it seemed that the charge of
surrendering and burning the sacred books had been made, the innocence of
Felix in this matter was clearly established. Moreover, when Maximus
affirmed that Ingentius, a decurion of the town of Ziqua, had forged a
letter of the ex-magistrate Caecilianus, we found, on examining the Acts
which were before us, that this. same Ingentius had been put on the rack(2)
for that offence, and that the infliction of torture on him was not, as
alleged, on the ground of his affirming that he was a decurion of Ziqua.
Wherefore we desire you to send under a suitable guard to the court of
Augustus Constantine the said Ingentius, that in the presence and hearing
of those who are now pleading in this case, and who day after day persist
in their complaints, it may be made manifest and fully known that they
labour in vain to excite odium against the bishop Caecilianus, and to
clamour violently against him. This, we hope, will bring the people to
desist, as they should do, from such contentions, and to devote themselves
with becoming reverence to their religious duties, undistracted by
dissension among themselves.

   5. Since you see, therefore, that these things are so, why do you
provoke odium against us on the ground of the imperial decrees which are in
force against you, when you have yourselves done all this before we
followed your example? If emperors ought not to use their authority in such
cases, if care of these matters lies beyond the province.of Christian
emperors, who urged your forefathers to remit the case of Caecilianus, By
the proconsul, to the Emperor, and a second time to bring before the
Emperor accusations against a bishop whom you had somehow condemned in
absence, and on his acquittal to invent and bring before the same Emperor
other calumnies against Felix, by whom the bishop aforesaid had been
ordained? And now, what other law is in force against your party than that
decision of the elder Constantine, to which your forefathers of their own
choice appealed, which they extorted from him by their importunate
complaints, and which they preferred to the decision of an episcopal
tribunal? If you are dissatisfied with the decrees of emperors, who were
the first to compel the emperors to set these in array against you? For you
have no more reason for crying out against the Catholic Church because of
the decrees of emperors against yon, than those men would have had for
crying out against Daniel, who, after his deliverance, were thrown in to be
devoured by the same lions by which they first sought to have him
destroyed; as it is written: "The king's wrath is as the roaring of a
lion."(1) These slanderous enemies insisted that Daniel should be thrown
into the den of lions: his innocence prevailed over their malice; he was
taken from the den unharmed and they, being cast into it, perished. In like
manner, your forefathers cast Caecilianus and his companions to be
destroyed by the king's wrath; and when, by their innocence, they were
delivered from this, you yourselves now suffer from these kings what your
party wished them to suffer; as it is written: "Whoso diggeth a pit for his
neighbour, shall himself fall therein."(2)

   6. You have therefore no ground for complaint against us: nay more, the
clemency of the Catholic Church would have led us to desist from even
enforcing these decrees of the emperors, had not your clergy and
Circumcelliones, disturbing our peace, and destroying us by their most
monstrous crimes and furious deeds of violence, compelled us to have these
decrees revived and put in force again. For before these more recent edicts
of which you complain had come into Africa, these desperadoes laid ambush
for our bishops on their journeys, abused our clergy with savage blows, and
assaulted our laity in the same most cruel manner, and set fire to their
habitations. A certain presbyter who had of his own free choice preferred
the unity of our Church, was for so doing dragged out of his own house,
cruelly beaten without form of law, rolled over and over in a miry pond,
covered with a matting of rushes, and exhibited as an object of pity to
some and of ridicule to others, while his persecutors gloried in their
crime; after which they carried him away where they pleased, and:
reluctantly set him at liberty after twelve days., When Proculeianus(3) was
challenged by our bishop concerning this outrage, at a meeting of the
municipal courts, be at first endeavoured to evade inquiry into the matter
by pretending that he knew nothing of it; and when the demand was
immediately repeated, he publicly declared that he would say nothing more
on the subject. And the perpetrators of that outrage are at this day among
your presbyters, continuing moreover to keep us in terror, and to persecute
us to the utmost of their power.

   7. Our bishop, however, did not complain to the emperors of the wrongs
and persecution which the Catholic Church in our district suffered in those
days. But when a Council had been convened,(4) it was agreed that you
should be invited to meet our party peaceably, in order that, if it were
possible, you [i.e. the bishops on both sides, for the letter is written by
the clergy of Hippo] might have a conference, and the error being taken out
of the way, brotherly love might rejoice in the bond of peace between us.
You may learn from your own records the answer which Proculeianus made at
first on that occasion, that you would call a Council together, and would
there see what you ought to answer; and how afterwards, when he was again
publicly reminded of his promise, he stated, as the Acts bear witness, that
he refused to have any conference with a view to peace. After this, when
the notorious atrocities of your clergy and Circumcelliones continued, a
case was brought to trial;(5) and Crispinus being condemned as a heretic,
although he was through the forbearance of the Catholics exempted from the
fine which the imperial edict imposed on heretics of ten pounds of gold,
nevertheless thought himself warranted in appealing to the emperors. As to
the answer which was made to that appeal, was it not extorted by the
preceding wickedness of your party and by his own appeal? And yet, even
after that answer was given, he was permitted to escape the infliction of
that fine, through the intercession of our bishops with the Emperor on his
behalf. From that Council, however, our bishops sent deputies to the court,
who obtained a decree that not all your bishops and clergy should be held
liable to this fine of ten pounds of gold, which the decree had imposed on
all heretics, but only those in whose districts the Catholic Church
suffered violence at the hands of your party. But by the time that the
deputation came to Rome, the wounds of the Catholic bishop of Bugle, who
had just then been dreadfully injured, had moved the Emperor to send such
edicts as were actually sent. When these edicts came to Africa, seeing
especially that strong pressure had begun to be brought upon you, not to
any evil thing, but for your good, what should you have done but invited
our bishops to meet you, as they had invited yours to meet them, that by a
conference the truth might be brought to light?

   8. Not only, however, have you failed to do this. but your party go on
inflicting yet greater injuries upon us. Not contented with beating us with
bludgeons and killing some with the sword, they even, with incredible
ingenuity in crime, throw lime mixed with acid [? vitriol] into our
people's eyes to blind them. For pillaging our houses, moreover, they have
fashioned huge and formidable implements, armed with which they wander here
and there, breathing out threats of slaughter, rapine, burning of houses
and blinding of our eyes; by which things we have been constrained in the
first instance to complain to you, venerable sir, begging you to consider
how, under these so-called terrible laws of Catholic emperors, many, nay
all of you, who say that you are the victims of persecution, are settled in
peace in the possessions which were your own, or which you have taken from
others, while we suffer such unheard-of wrongs at the hands of your party.
You say that you are. persecuted, while we are killed with clubs and swords
by your armed men. You say that you are persecuted, while our houses are
pillaged by your armed robbers. You say that you are persecuted, while many
of us have our eyesight destroyed by the lime and acid with which your men
are armed for the purpose. Moreover, if their course of crime brings some
of them to death, they make out that these deaths are justly the occasion
of odium against us, and of glory to them. They take no blame to themselves
for the harm which they do to us, and they lay upon us the blame of the
harm which they bring upon themselves. They live as robbers, they die as
Circumcelliones, they are honoured as martyrs! Nay, I do injustice to
robbers in this comparison; for we have never heard of robbers destroying
the eyesight of those whom they have plundered: they indeed take away those
whom they kill from the light, but they do not take away the light from
those whom they leave in life.

   9. On the other hand, if at any time we get men of your party into our
power, we keep them unharmed, showing great love towards them; and we tell
them everything by which the error which has severed brother from brother
is refuted. We do as the Lord Himself commanded us, in the words of the
prophet Isaiah: "Hear l the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word;
say, Ye are our brethren, to those who hate you, and who cast you out, that
the name of the Lord may be glorified, and that He may appear to them with
joy; but let them be put to shame."(1) And thus some of them we persuade,
through their considering the evidences l of the truth and the beauty of
peace, not to be baptized anew for this sign of allegiance to our king they
have already received (though they were as deserters), but to accept that
faith, and love of the Holy Spirit, and union to the body of Christ, which
formerly they had not. For it is written, "Purifying their hearts by
faith;"(2) and again, "Charity covereth a multitude of sins."(3) If,
however, either through too great obduracy, or through shame making them
unable to bear the taunts of those with whom they were accustomed to join
so frequently in falsely reproaching us and contriving evil against us, or
perhaps more through fear lest they should come to share along with us such
injuries as they were formerly wont to inflict on us,- if, I say, from any
of these causes, they refuse to be reconciled to the unity of Christ, they
are allowed to depart, as they were detained, without suffering any harm.
We also exhort our laity as far as we can to detain them without doing them
any harm, and bring them to us for admonition and instruction. Some of them
obey us and do this, if it is in their power: others deal with them as they
would with robbers, because they actually suffer from them such things as
robbers are wont to do. Some of them strike their assailants in protecting
their own bodies from their blows: while others apprehend them and bring
them to the magistrates; and though we intercede on their behalf, they do
not let them off, because they are very much afraid of their savage
outrages. Yet all the while, these men, though persisting in the practices
of robbers, claim to be honoured as martyrs when they receive the due
reward of their deeds !

   10. Accordingly our desire, which we lay before you, venerable sir, by
this letter and by the brethren whom we have sent, is as follows. In the
first place, if it be possible, let a peaceable conference be held with our
bishops, so that an end may be put to the error itself, not to the men who
embrace it, and men corrected rather than punished; and as you formerly
despised their proposals for agreement, let them now proceed from your
side. How much better for you to have such a conference between your
bishops and ours, the proceedings of which may be written down and sent
with signature of the parties to the Emperor, than to confer with the civil
magistrates, who cannot do otherwise than administer the laws which have
been passed against you! For your colleagues who sailed from this country
said that they had come to have their case heard by the prefects. They also
named our holy father the Catholic bishop Valentinus, who was then at
court, saying that they wished to be heard along with him. This the judge
could not concede, as he was guided in his judicial functions by the laws
which were passed against you: the bishop, moreover, had not come on this
footing, or with any such instructions from his colleagues. How much better
qualified therefore will the Emperor himself be to decide regarding your
case, when the report of that conference has been read before him, seeing
that he is not bound by these laws, and has power to enact other laws
instead of them; although it may be said to be a case upon which final
decision was pronounced long ago! Yet, in wishing this conference with you,
we seek not to have a second final decision, but to have it made known as
already settled to those who meanwhile are not aware that it is so. If your
bishops be willing to do this, what do you thereby lose? Do you not rather
gain, inasmuch as your willingness for such conference will become known,
and the reproach, hitherto deserved, that you distrust your own cause will
be taken away? Do you, perchance, suppose that such conference would be
unlawful? Surely you are aware that Christ our Lord spoke even to the devil
concerning the law,(1) and that by the Apostle Paul debates were held not
only with Jews, but even with heathen philosophers of the sect of the
Stoics and of the Epicureans.(2) Is it, perchance, that the laws of the
Emperor do not permit you to meet our bishops? If so, assemble together in
the meantime your bishops in the region of Hippo, in which we are suffering
such wrongs from men of your party. For how much more legitimate and open
is the way of access to us for the writings which you might send to us,
than for the arms with which they assail us !

   11. Finally, we beg you to send back such writings by our brethren whom
we have sent to you. If, however, you will not do this, at least hear us as
well as those of your own party, at whose hands we suffer such wrongs Show
us the truth for which you allege that you suffer persecution, at the time
when we are suffering so great cruelties from your side. For if you convict
us of being in error, perhaps you will concede to us an exemption from
being rebaptized by you, because we were baptized by persons whom you have
not condemned; and you granted this exemption to those whom Felicianus of
Musti, and Praetextatus of Assuri, had baptized during the long period in
which you! were attempting to cast them out of their churches by legal
interdicts, because they were i in communion with Maximianus, along with
whom they were condemned explicitly and by name in the Council of Bagae.
All which things we can prove by the judicial and municipal transactions,
in which you brought forward the decisions of this same Council of yours,
when you wished to show the judges that the persons! whom you were
expelling from your ecclesiastical buildings were persons by schism
separated from you. Nevertheless, you who have by schism severed yourselves
from the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth are
blessed,(3) refuse to be expelled from our ecclesiastical buildings, when
the decree to this effect proceeds not from judges such as you employed in
dealing with schismatics from your sect, but from the kings of the earth
themselves, who worship Christ as the prophecy had foretold, and from whose
bar you retired vanquished when you brought accusation against Caecilianus.

   12. If, however, you will neither instruct us nor listen to us, come
yourselves, or send into the district of Hippo some of your party, with
some of us as their guides, that they may see your army equipped with their
weapons; nay, more fully equipped than ever army was before, for no soldier
when fighting against barbarians was ever known to add to his other weapons
lime and acid to destroy the eyes of his enemies. If you refuse this also,
we beg you at least to write to them to desist now from these things, and
refrain from murdering, plundering, and blinding our people. We will not
say, condemn them; for it is for yourselves to see how no contamination is
brought to you by the toleration within your communion of those whom we
prove to be robbers, while contamination is brought to us by our having
members against whom you have never been able to prove that they were
traditors. If, however, you treat all our remonstrances with contempt, we
shall never regret that we desired to act in a peaceful and orderly way.
The Lord will so plead for His Church, that you, on the other hand, shall
regret that you despised our humble attempt at conciliation.

LETTER LXXXIX. (A.D. 406.)

TO FESTUS, MY LORD WELL BELOVED, MY SON HONOURABLE AND WORTHY OF ESTEEM,
AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. If, on behalf of error and inexcusable dissension, and falsehoods
which have been in every way possible disproved, men are so presumptuous as
to persevere in boldly assailing and threatening the Catholic Church, which
seeks their salvation, how much more is it reasonable and right for those
who maintain the truth of Christian peace and unity,- truth which commends
itself even to those who profess to deny it or attempt to resist it, -- to
labour constantly and with energy, not only in the defence of those who are
already Catholics, but also for the correction of those who are not yet
within the Church! For if obstinacy aims at the possession and exercise of
indomitable strength, how great should be the strength of constancy which
devotes persevering and unwearied labours to a cause which it knows to be
both pleasing to God, and beyond all question necessarily approved by the
judgment of wise men !

   2. Could there, moreover, be anything more lamentable as an instance of
perversity, than for men not only to refuse to be humbled by the correction
of their wickedness, but even to claim commendation for their conduct, as
is done by the Donatists, when they boast that they are the victims of
persecution; either through incredible blindness not knowing, or through
inexcusable passion pretending not to know, that men are made martyrs not
by the amount of their suffering, but by the cause in which they suffer?
This I would say even were I opposing men who were only involved in the
darkness of error, and suffering penalties on that account most truly
merited, and who had not dared to assault any one with insane violence. But
what shall I say against those whose fatal obstinacy is such that it is
checked only by fear of losses, and is taught only by exile how universal
(as had been foretold) is the diffusion of the Church, which they prefer to
attack rather then to acknowledge? And if the things which they suffer
under this most gentle discipline be compared] with those things which they
in reckless fury perpetrate, who does not see to which party the name of
persecutors more truly belongs? Nay, even though wicked sons abstain from
violence, they do, by their abandoned way of life, inflict upon their
affectionate parents a much more serious wrong than their father and mother
inflict upon them, when, with a sternness proportioned to the strength of
their love, they endeavour without dissimulation to compel them to live
uprightly.

   3. There exist the strongest evidences in public documents, which you
can read if you please, or rather, which I beseech and exhort you to read,
by which it is proved that their predecessors, who originally separated
themselves from the peace of the Church, did of their own accord dare to
bring accusation against Caecilianus before the Emperor by means of
Anulinus, who was proconsul at that time. Had they gained the day in that
trial, what else would Caecilianus have suffered at the hands of the
Emperor than that which, when they were defeated, he awarded to them? But
truly, if they having accused him had prevailed, and Caecilianus and his
colleagues had been expelled from their sees, or, through persisting in
their conspiracy, had exposed themselves to severer punishments (for the
imperial censure could not pass unpunished the resistance of persons who
had been defeated in the civil courts), they would then have published as
worthy of all praise the Emperor's wise measures and anxious care for the
good of the Church. But now, because they have themselves lost their case,
being wholly unable to prove the charges which they advanced, if they
suffer anything for their iniquity, they call it persecution; and not only
set no bounds to their wicked violence, but also claim to be honoured as
martyrs: as if the Catholic Christian emperors were following in their
measures against their most obstinate wickedness any other precedent than
the decision of Constantine, to whom they of their own accord appealed as
the accusers of Caecilianus, and whose authority they so esteemed above
that of all the bishops beyond the sea, that to him rather than to them
they referred this ecclesiastical dispute. To him, again, they protested
against the first judgment given against them by the bishops whom he had
appointed to examine the case in Rome, and to him also they appealed
against the second judgment given by the bishops at Arles: yet when at last
they were defeated by his own decision, the), remained unchanged in their
perversity. I think that even the devil himself would not have had the
assurance to persist in such a cause, if he had been so often overthrown by
the authority of the judge to whom he had of his own will chosen to appeal.

   4. It may be said, however, that these are human tribunals, and that
they might have been cajoled, misguided, or bribed. Why, then, is the
Christian world libelled and branded with the crime laid to the charge of
some who are said to have surrendered to persecutors the sacred books? For
surely it was neither possible for the Christian world, nor incumbent upon
it, to do otherwise than believe the judges whom the plaintiffs had chosen,
rather than the plaintiffs against whom these judges pronounced judgments.
These judges are responsible to God for their opinion, whether just or
unjust; but what has the Church, diffused throughout the world, done that
it should be deemed necessary for her to be rebaptized by the Donatists
upon no other ground than because, in a case in which she was not able to
decide as to the truth, she has thought herself called upon to believe
those who were in a position to judge it rightly, rather than those who,
though defeated in the civil courts, refused to yield? O weighty indictment
against all the nations to which God promised that they should be blessed
in the seed of Abraham, and has now made His promise good! When they with
one voice demand, Why do you wish to rebaptize us? the answer given is,
Because you do not know what men in Africa were guilty of surrendering the
sacred books; and being thus ignorant, accepted the testimony of the judges
who decided the case as more worthy of credit than that of those by whom
the accusation was brought. No man deserves to be blamed for the crime of
another; what, then, has the whole world to do with the sin which some one
in Africa may have committed? No man deserves to be blamed for a crime
about which he knows nothing; and how could the whole world possibly know
the crime in this case, whether the judges or the party condemned were
guilty? Ye who have understanding, judge what I say. Here is the justice of
heretics: the party of Donatus condemns the whole world unheard, because
the whole world does not condemn a crime unknown. But for the world, truly,
it suffices to have the promises of God, and to see fulfilled in itself
what prophets predicted so long ago, and to recognise the Church by means
of the same Scriptures by which Christ her King is recognised. For as in
them are foretold concerning Christ the things which we read in gospel
history to have been fulfilled in Him, so also in them have been foretold
concerning the Church the things which we now behold fulfilled in the
world.

   5. Possibly some thinking people might be disturbed by what they are
accustomed to say regarding baptism, viz. that it is the true baptism of
Christ only when it is administered by a righteous man, were it not that on
this subject the Christian world holds what is most manifestly! evangelical
truth as taught in the words of John: "He that sent me to baptize with
water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit
descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the
Holy! Ghost."(1) Wherefore the Church calmly declines to place her hope in
man, lest she fall under the curse pronounced in Scripture, "Cursed be the
man that trusteth in man,"(2) but places her hope in Christ, who so took
upon Him the form of a servant as not to lose the form of God, of whom it
is said, "The same is He which baptizeth." Therefore, whoever the man be,
and whatever office he bear who administers the ordinance, it is not he who
baptizes, w that is the work of Him upon whom the dove descended. So great
is the absurdity in which the Donatists are involved in consequence of
these foolish opinions, that they can find no escape from it. For when they
admit the validity and reality of baptism when one of their sect baptizes
who is a guilty man, but whose guilt is concealed, we ask them, Who
baptizes in this case? and they can only answer, God; for they cannot
affirm that a man guilty of sin (say of adultery) can sanctify any one. If,
then, when baptism is administered by a man known to be righteous, he
sanctifies the person baptized; but when it is administered by a wicked
man, whose wickedness is hidden, it is not he, but God, who sanctifies.
Those who are baptized ought to wish to be baptized rather by men who are
secretly bad than by men manifestly good, for God sanctifies much more
effectually than any righteous man can do. If it be palpably absurd that
one about to be baptized ought to wish to be baptized by a hypocritical
adulterer rather than by a man of known chastity, it follows plainly, that
whoever be the minister that dispenses the rite, the baptism is valid,
because He Himself baptizes upon whom the dove descended.

   6. Notwithstanding the impression which truth so obvious should produce
on the ears and hearts of men, such is the whirlpool of evil custom by
which some have been engulfed, that rather than yield, they will resist
both authority and argument of every kind. Their resistance is of two
kinds- either with active rage or with passive immobility. What remedies,
then, must the Church apply when seeking with a mother's anxiety the
salvation of them all, and distracted by the frenzy of some and the
lethargy of others? Is it right, is it possible, for her to despise or give
up any means which may promote their recovery? She must necessarily be
esteemed burdensome by both, just because she is the enemy of neither. For
men in frenzy do not like to be bound, and men in lethargy do not like to
be stirred up; nevertheless the diligence of charity perseveres in
restraining the one and stimulating the other, out of love to both. Both
are provoked, but both are loved; both, while they continue under their
infirmity, resent the treatment as vexatious; both express their
thankfulness for it when they are cured.

   7. Moreover, whereas they think and boast that we receive them into the
Church just as they were, it is not so. We receive them completely changed,
because they do not begin to be Catholics until they have ceased to be
heretics. For their sacraments, which we have in common with them, are not
the objects of dislike to us, because they are not human, but Divine. That
which must be taken from them is the error, which is their own, and which
they have wickedly imbibed; not the sacraments, which they have received
like ourselves, and which they bear and have, -- to their own condemnation,
indeed, because they use them so unworthily; nevertheless, they truly have
them. Wherefore, when their error is forsaken, and the perversity of schism
corrected in them, they pass over from heresy into the peace of the Church,
which they formerly did not possess, and without which all that they did
possess was only doing them harm. If, however, in thus passing over they
are not sincere, this is a matter not for us, but for God, to judge. And
yet, some who were suspected of insincerity because they had passed over to
us through fear, have been found in some subsequent temptations so faithful
as to surpass others who had been originally Catholics. Therefore let it
not be said that nothing is accomplished when strong measures are employed.
For when the entrenchments of stubborn custom are stormed by fear of human
authority, this is not all that is done, because at the same time faith is
strengthened, and the understanding convinced, by authority and arguments
which are Divine.

   8. These things being so, be it known to your Grace that your men in
the region of Hippo are still Donatists, and that your letter has had no
influence upon them. The reason why it failed to move them I need not
write; but send some one, either a servant or a friend of your own, whose
fidelity you can entrust with the commission, and let him come not to them
in the first place, but to us without their knowledge; and when he has
carefully consulted with us as to what is best to be done, let him do it
with the Lord's help. For in these measures we are acting not only for
their welfare, but also on behalf of our own men who have become Catholics,
to whom the vicinity of these Donatists is so dangerous, that it cannot be
looked upon by us as a small matter.

   I could have written much more briefly; but I wished you to have a
letter from me, by which you might not only be yourself informed of the
reason of my solicitude, but also be provided with an answer to any one who
might dissuade you from earnestly devoting your energies to the correction
of the people who belong to you, and might speak against us for wishing you
to do this. If in this I have done what was unnecessary, because you had
yourself either learned or thought out these principles, or if I have been
burdensome to you by inflicting so long a letter upon one so engrossed with
public affairs, I beg you to forgive me. I only entreat you not to despise
what I have brought before you and requested at your hands. May the mercy
of God be your safeguard!

LETTER XC. (A.D. 408.)

TO MY NOBLE LORD AND BROTHER, WORTHY OF ALL ESTEEM, BISHOP AUGUSTIN,
NECTARIUS SENDS GREETING.

   I do not dwell upon the strength of the love men bear to their native
land, for you know it. It is the only emotion which has a stronger claim
than love of kindred. If there were any limit or time beyond which it would
be lawful for right-hearted men to withdraw themselves from its control, I
have by this time well earned exemption from the burdens which it imposes.
But since love and gratitude towards our country gain strength every day,
and the nearer one [comes to the end of life, the more ardent is his desire
to leave his country in a safe and prosperous condition, I rejoice, in
beginning this letter, that I am addressing myself to a man who is versed
in all kinds of learning, and therefore able to enter into my feelings.

   There are many things in the colony of Calama which justly bind my love
to it. I was born here, and I have (in the opinion of others) rendered
great services to this community. Now, my lord most excellent and worthy of
all esteem, this town has fallen disastrously by a grievous misdemeanour on
the part of her citizens,(1) which must be punished with very great
severity, if we are dealt with according to the rigour of the civil law.
But a bishop is guided by another law. His duty is to promote the welfare
of men, to interest himself in any case only with a view to the benefit of
the parties, and to obtain for other men the pardon of their sins at the
hand of the Almighty God. Wherefore I beseech you with all possible urgency
to secure that, if the matter is to be made the subject of a prosecution,
the guiltless be protected, and a distinction drawn between the innocent
and those who did the wrong. This, which, as you see, is a demand in
accordance with your own natural sentiments, I pray you to grant. An
assessment to compensate for the losses caused by the tumult can be easily
levied. We only deprecate the severity of revenge. May you live in the more
full enjoyment of the Divine favour, my noble lord, and brother worthy of
all esteem.

LETTER XCI. (A.D. 408.)

TO MY NOBLE LORD AND JUSTLY HONOURED BROTHER NECTARIUS, AUGUSTIN SENDS
GREETING.

   1. I do not wonder that, though your limbs are chilled by age, your
heart still glows with patriotic fire. I admire this, and, instead of
grieving, I rejoice to learn that you not only remember, but by your life
and practice illustrate, the maxim that there is no limit either in measure
or in time to the claims which their country has upon the care and service
of right-hearted men. Wherefore we long to have you enrolled in the service
of a higher and nobler country, through holy love, to which (up to the
measure of our capacity) we are sustained amid the perils and toils which
we meet with among those whose welfare we seek in urging them to make that
country their own. Oh that we had you such a citizen of that country, that
you would think that there ought to be no limit either in measure or in
time to your efforts for the good of that small portion of her citizens who
are on this earth pilgrims! This would be a better loyalty, because you
would be responding to the claims of a better country; and if you resolved
that in your time on earth your labours for her welfare should have no end,
you would in her eternal peace be recompensed with joy that shall have no
end.

   2. But till this be done,--and it is not beyond hope that you should be
able to gain, or should even now be most wisely considering that you. ought
to gain, that country to which your father has gone before you,--till this
be done, I say, you: must excuse us if, for the sake of that country which
we desire never to leave, we cause some distress to that country which you
desire to leave in the full bloom of honour and prosperity. As to the
flowers which thus bloom in your country, if we were discussing this
subject with one of your wisdom, we have no doubt that you would be easily
convinced, or rather, would yourself readily perceive, in what way a
commonwealth should flourish. The foremost of your poets has sung of
certain flowers of Italy; but in your own country we have been taught by
experience, not how it has blossomed with heroes, so much as how it has
gleamed with weapons of war: nay, I ought to write how it has burned rather
than how it has gleamed; and instead of the weapons of war, I should write
the fires of incendiaries. If so great a crime were to remain unpunished, I
without any rebuke such as the miscreants have deserved, do you think that
you would leave your country in the full bloom of honour and prosperity? O
blooming flowers, yielding not fruit, but thorns! Consider now whether you
would prefer to see your country flourish by the piety of its inhabitants,
or by their escaping the punishment of their crimes; by the correction of
their manners, or by outrages to which impunity emboldens them. Compare
these things, I say, and judge whether or not you love your country more
than we do; whether its prosperity and honour are more truly and earnestly
sought by you or by us.

   3. Consider for a little those books, De Republica, from which you
imbibed that sentiment of a most loyal citizen, that there is no limit
either in measure or in time to the claims which their country has upon the
care and service of right-hearted men. Consider them, I beseech you, and
observe how great are the praises there bestowed upon frugality, self-
control, conjugal fidelity, and those chaste, honourable, and upright
manners, the prevalence of which in any city entitles it to be spoken of as
flourishing. Now the Churches which are multiplying throughout the world
are, as it were, sacred seminaries of public instruction, in which this
sound morality is inculcated and learned, and in which, above all, men are
taught the worship due to the true and faithful God, who not only commands
men to attempt, but also gives grace to perform, all those things by which
the soul of man is furnished and fitted for fellowship with God, and for
dwelling in the eternal heavenly kingdom. For this reason He hath both
foretold and commanded the casting down of the images of the many false
gods which are in the world. For nothing so effectually renders men
depraved in practice, and unfit to be good members of society, as the
imitation of such deities as are described and extolled in pagan writings.

   4. In fact, those most learned men (whose beau ideal of a republic or
commonwealth in this world was, by the way, rather investigated or
described by them in private discussions, than established and realized by
them in public measures) were accustomed to set forth as models for the
education of youth the examples of men whom they esteemed eminent and
praiseworthy, rather than the example given by their gods. And there is no
question that the young man in Terence,(1) who, beholding a picture upon
the wall in which was portrayed the licentious conduct of the king of the
gods, fanned the flame of the passion which mastered him, by the
encouragement which such 'high authority gave to wickedness, would not have
fallen into the desire, nor have plunged into the commission, of such a
shameful deed if he had chosen to imitate Cato instead of Jupiter; but how
could he make such a choice, when he was compelled in the temples to
worship Jupiter rather than Cato? Perhaps it may be said that we should not
bring forward from a comedy arguments to put to shame the wantonness and
the impious superstition of profane men. But read or recall to mind how
wisely it is argued in the books above referred to, that the style and the
plots of comedies would never be approved by the public voice if they did
not harmonize with the manners of those who approved them; wherefore, by
the authority of men most illustrious and eminent in the commonwealth to
which they belonged, and engaged in debating as to the conditions of a
perfect commonwealth, our position is established, that the most degraded
of men may be made yet worse if they imitate their gods,- gods, of course,
which are not true, but false and invented.

   5. You will perhaps reply, that all those things which were written
long ago concerning the life and manners of the gods are to be far
otherwise than literally understood and interpreted by the wise. Nay, we
have heard within the last few days that such wholesome interpretations are
now read to the people when assembled in the temples. Tell me, is the human
race so blind to truth as not to perceive things so plain and palpable as
these? When, by the art of painters, founders, hammermen, sculptors,
authors, players, singers, and dancers, Jupiter is in so many places
exhibited in flagrant acts of lewdness, how important it was that in his
own Capitol at least his worshippers might have read a decree from himself
prohibiting such crimes! If, through the absence of such prohibition, these
monsters, in which shame and profanity culminate, are regarded with
enthusiasm by the people, worshipped in their temples, and laughed at in
their theatres; if, in order to provide sacrifices for them, even the poor
must be despoiled of their flocks; if, in order to provide actors who shall
by gesture and dance represent their infamous achievements, the rich
squander their estates, can it be said of the communities in which these
things are done, that they flourish? The flowers with which they bloom owe
their birth not to a fertile soil, nor to a wealthy and bounteous virtue;
for them a worthy parent is found in that goddess Flora,(1) whose dramatic
games are celebrated with a profligacy so utterly dissolute and shameless,
that any one may infer from them what kind of demon that must be which
cannot be appeased unless -- not birds, nor quadrupeds, nor even human life
-- but (oh, greater villany!) human modesty and virtue, perish as
sacrifices on her altars.

   6. These things I have said, because of your having written that the
nearer you come to the end of life, the greater is your desire to leave
your country in a safe and flourishing condition. Away with all these
vanities and follies, and let men be converted to the true worship of God,
and to chaste and pious manners: then will you see your country
flourishing, not in the vain opinion of fools, but in the sound judgment of
the wise; when your fatherland here on earth shall have become a portion of
that Fatherland into which we are born not by the flesh, but by faith, and
in which all the holy and faithful servants of God shall bloom in the
eternal summer, when their labours in the winter of time are done. We are
therefore resolved, neither on the one hand to lay aside Christian
gentleness, nor on the other to leave in your city that which would be a
most pernicious example for all others to follow. For success in this
dealing we trust to the help of God, if His indignation against the evil-
doers be not so great as to make Him withhold His blessing. For certainly
both the gentleness which we desire to maintain, and the discipline which
we shall endeavour without passion to administer, may be hindered, if God
in His hidden counsels order it otherwise, and either appoint that this so
great wickedness be punished with a more severe chastisement, or in yet
greater displeasure leave the sin without punishment in this world, its
guilty authors being neither reproved nor reformed.

   7. You have, in the exercise of your judgment, laid down the principles
by which a bishop should be influenced; and after saying that your town has
fallen disastrously by a grievous misdemeanour on the part of your
citizens, which must be punished with great severity if they are dealt with
according to the rigour of the civil law, you add: "But a bishop is guided
by another law; his duty is to promote the welfare of men, to interest
himself in any case only with a view to the benefit of the parties, and to
obtain for other men the pardon of their sins at the hand of the Almighty
God."(2) This we by all means labour to secure, that no one be visited with
undue severity of punishment, either by us or by any other who is
influenced by our interposition; and we seek to promote the true welfare of
men, which consists in the blessedness of well-doing, not in the assurance
of impunity in evil-doing. We do also seek earnestly, not for ourselves
alone, but on behalf of others, the pardon of sin: but this we cannot
obtain, except for those who have been turned by correction from the
practice of sin. You add, moreover: "I beseech you with all possible
urgency to secure that if the matter is to be made the subject of a
prosecution, the guiltless be protected, and a distinction drawn between
the innocent and those who did the wrong."

   8. Listen to a brief account of what was done, and let the distinction
between innocent and guilty be drawn by yourself. In defiance of the most
recent laws,(3) certain impious rites were celebrated on the Pagan feast-
day, the calends of June, no one interfering to forbid them, and with such
unbounded effrontery that a most insolent multitude passed along the street
in which the church is situated, and went on dancing in front of the
building, -- an outrage which was never committed even in the time of
Julian. When the clergy endeavoured to stop this most illegal and insulting
procedure, the church was assailed with stones. About eight days after
that, when the bishop had called the attention of the authorities to the
well-known laws on the subject, and they were preparing to carry out that
which the law prescribed, the church was a second time assailed with
stones. When, on the following day, our people wished to make such
complaint as they deemed necessary in open court, in order to make these
villains afraid, their rights as citizens were denied them. On the same day
there was a storm of hailstones, that they might be made afraid, if not by
men, at least by the divine power, thus requiting them for their showers of
stones against the church; but as soon as this was over they renewed the
attack for the third time with stones, and at last endeavoured to destroy
both the buildings and the-men in them by fire: one servant of God who lost
his way and met them they killed on the spot, all the rest escaping or
concealing themselves as they best could; while the bishop hid himself in
some crevice into which he forced himself with difficulty, and in which he
lay folded double while he heard the voices of the ruffians seeking him to
kill him, and expressing their mortification that through his escaping them
their principal design in this grievous outrage had been frustrated. These
things went on from about the tenth hour until the night was far advanced.
No attempt at resistance or rescue was made by those whose authority might
have had influence on the mob. The only one who interfered was a stranger,
through whose exertions a number of the servants of God were delivered from
the hands of those who were trying to kill them, and a great deal of
property was recovered from the plunderers by force: whereby it. was shown
how easily these riotous proceedings might have been either prevented
wholly or arrested, if the citizens, and especially the leading men, had
forbidden them, either from the first or after they had begun.

   9. Accordingly you cannot in that community draw a distinction between
innocent and guilty persons, for all are guilty; but perhaps you may
distinguish degrees of guilt. Those are in a comparatively small fault,
who, being kept back by fear, especially by fear of offending those whom
they knew to have leading influence in the community and to be hostile to
the Church, did not dare to render assistance to the Christians; but all
are guilty who consented to these outrages, though they neither perpetrated
them nor instigated others to the crime: more guilty are those who
perpetrated the wrong, and most guilty are those who instigated them to it.
Let us, however, suppose that the instigation of others to these crimes is
a matter of suspicion rather than of certain knowledge, and let us not
investigate those things which can be found out in no other way than by
subjecting witnesses to torture. Let us also forgive those who through fear
thought it better for them to plead secretly with God for the bishop and
His other servants, than openly to displease the powerful enemies of the
Church. What reason can you give for holding that those who remain should
be subjected to no correction and restraint? Do you really think that a
case of such cruel rage should be held up to the world as passing
unpunished? We do not desire to gratify our anger by vindictive retribution
for the past, but we are concerned to make provision in a truly merciful
spirit for the future. Now, wicked men have something in respect to which
they may be punished, and that by Christians, in a merciful way, and so as
to promote their own profit and well-being. For they have these three
things: the life and health of the body, the means of supporting that life,
and the means and opportunities of living a wicked life. Let the two former
remain untouched in the possession of those who repent of their crime: this
we desire, and this we spare no pains to secure. But as to the third, upon
it God will, if it please Him, inflict punishment in His great compassion,
dealing with it as a decaying or diseased part, which must be removed with
the pruning-knife. If, however, He be pleased either to go beyond this, or
not to permit the punishment to go so far, the reason for this higher and
doubtless more righteous counsel remains with Him: our duty is to devote
pains and use our influence according to the light which is granted to us,
beseeching His approval of our endeavours to do that which shall be most
for the good of all, and praying Him not to permit us to do anything which
He who knoweth all things much better than we do sees to be inexpedient
both for ourselves and for His Church.

   10. When I went recently to Calama, that under so grievous sorrow I
might either comfort the downcast or soothe the indignant among our people,
I used all my influence with the Christians to persuade them to do what I
judged to be their duty at that time. I then at their own request admitted
to an audience the Pagans also, the source and cause of all this mischief,
in order that I might admonish them what they should do if they were wise,
not only for the removal of present anxiety, but also for the obtaining of
everlasting salvation. They listened to many things which I said, and they
preferred many requests to me; but far be it from me to be such a servant
as to find pleasure in being petitioned by those who do not humble
themselves before my Lord to ask from Him. With your quick intelligence,
you will readily perceive that our aim must be, while preserving Christian
gentleness and moderation, to act so that we may either make others afraid
of imitating their perversity, or have cause to desire others to imitate
their profiling by correction. As for the loss sustained, this is either
borne by the Christians or remedied by the help of their brethren. What
concerns us is the gaining of souls, which even at the risk of life we are
impatient to secure; and our desire is, that in your district we may have
larger success, and that in other districts we may not be hindered by the
influence of your example. May God in His mercy grant to us to rejoice in
your salvation !

LETTER XCII. (A.D: 408.)

TO THE NOBLE AND JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED LADY ITALICA, A DAUGHTER WORTHY OF
HONOUR IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST, BISHOP AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. I have learned, not only by your letter, but also by the statements
of the person who brought it to me, that you earnestly solicit a letter
from me, believing that you may derive from it very great consolation. What
you may gain from my letter it is for yourself to judge; I at least felt
that I should neither refuse nor delay compliance with your request. May
your own faith and hope comfort you, and that love which is shed abroad in
the hearts of the pious by the Holy Ghost,(1) whereof we have now a portion
as an earnest of the whole, in order that we may learn to desire its
consummate fulness. For you ought not to consider yourself desolate while
you have Christ dwelling in your heart by faith; nor ought you to sorrow as
those heathens who have no hope, seeing that in regard to those friends,
who are not lost, but only called earlier than ourselves to the country
whither we shall follow them, we have hope, resting on a most sure promise,
that from this life we shall pass into that other life, in which they shall
be to us more beloved as they shall be better known, and in which our
pleasure in loving them shall not be alloyed by any fear of separation.

   2. Your late husband, by whose decease you are now a widow, was truly
well known to you, but better known to himself than to you. And how could
this be, when you saw his face, which he himself did not see, if it were
not that the inner knowledge which we have of ourselves is more certain,
since no man "knoweth the things! of a man, save the spirit of man which is
in! man "? (2) but when the Lord cometh, "who both will bring to light the
hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the
hearts," (3) then shall nothing in any one be concealed from his neighbour;
nor shall there be anything which any one might reveal to his friends, but
keep hidden from strangers, for no stranger shall be there. What tongue can
describe the nature and the greatness of that light by which all those
things which are now in the hearts of men concealed shall be made manifest?
who can with our weak faculties even approach it? Truly that Light is God
Himself, for "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all;" (4) but He
is the Light of purified minds, not of these bodily eyes. And the mind
shall then be, what meanwhile it is not, able to see that light.

   3. But this the bodily eye neither now is, nor shall then be, able to
see. For everything which can be seen by the bodily eye must be in some
place, nor can be everywhere in its totality, but with a smaller part of
itself occupies a smaller space, and with a larger part a larger space. It
is not so with God, who is invisible and incorruptible, "who only hath
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no
man hath seen nor can see."(5) For He cannot be seen by men through the
bodily organ by which men see corporeal things. For if He were inaccessible
to the minds also of the saints, it would not be said, "They looked unto
Him, and were lightened" translated by Aug., "Draw near unto Him, and be
enlightened "];(6) and if He was invisible to the minds of the saints, it
would not be said, "We shall see Him as He is:" for consider the whole
context there in that Epistle of John: "Beloved," he says, "now are we the
sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that,
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."
(7) We shall therefore see Him according to the measure in which we shall
be like Him; because now the measure in which we do not see Him is
according to the measure of our unlikeness to Him. We shall therefore see
Him by means of that in which we shall be like Him. But who would be so
infatuated as to assert that we either are or shall be in our bodies like
unto God? The likeness spoken of is therefore in the inner man, "which is
renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him."(8) And we
shall become the more like unto Him, the more we advance in knowledge of
Him and in love; because "though our outward man perish, our inward man is
renewed day by day," (9) yet so as that, however far one may have become
advanced in this life, he is far short of that perfection of likeness which
is fitted for seeing God, as the apostle says, "face to face." (10) If by
these words we were to understand the bodily face, it would follow that God
has a face such as ours, and that between our face and His there must be a
space intervening when we shall see Him face to face. And if a space
intervene, this presupposes a limitation and a definite conformation of
members and other things, absurd to utter, and impious even to think of, by
which most empty delusions the natural man, which "receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God,"(1) is deceived.

   4. For some of those who talk thus foolishly affirm, as I am informed,
that we see God now by our minds, but shall then see Him by our bodies;
yea, they even say that the wicked shall in the same manner see Him.
Observe how far they have gone from bad to worse, when, unpunished for
their foolish speaking, they talk at random, unrestrained by either fear or
shame. They used to say at first, that Christ endowed only His own flesh
with this faculty of seeing God with the bodily eye; then they added to
this, that all the saints shall see God in the same way then they have
received their bodies again in the resurrection; and now they have granted
that the same thing is possible to the wicked also. Well, let them grant
what gifts they please, and to whom they please: for who may say anything
against men giving away that which is their own? for he that speaketh a
lie, speaketh of his own.(2) Be it yours, however, in common with all who
hold sound doctrine, not to presume to take in this way from your own any
of these errors; but when you read, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God,"(3) learn from it that the impious shall not see Him:
for the impious are neither blessed nor pure in heart. Moreover, when you
read, "Now we see through a glass darkly,(4) but then face to face,"(5)
learn from this that we shall then see Him face to face by the same means
by which we now see Him through a glass darkly. In both cases alike, the
vision of God belongs to the inner man, whether when we walk in this
pilgrimage still by faith, in which it uses the glass and the ai'nigma, or
when, in the country which is our home, we shall perceive by sight, which
vision the words "face to face" denote.

   (5). Let the flesh raving with carnal imaginations hear these words:
"God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and
in truth." (6) If this be the manner of/ worshipping Him, how much more of
seeing Him! For who durst affirm that the Divine essence is seen in a
corporal manner, when He has not permitted it to be worshipped in a
corporal manner? They think, however, that they are very acute in saying
and in pressing as a , question for us to answer: Was Christ able to endow
His flesh so as that He could with His eyes see the Father, or was He not?
If we reply that He was not, they publish abroad that we have: denied the
omnipotence of God; if, on the other hand, we grant that He was able, they
affirm that their argument is established by our reply. How much more
excusable is the folly of those who maintain that the flesh shall be
changed into the Divine substance, and shall be what God Himself is, in
order that thus they may endow with fitness for seeing God that which is
meanwhile removed by so great diversity of nature from likeness to Him! Yet
I believe they reject from their creed, perhaps also refuse to hear, this
error. Nevertheless, if they were in like manner pressed with the question
above quoted, as to whether God can or cannot do this [viz. change our
flesh into the Divine substance], which alternative will they choose? Will
they limit His power by answering that He cannot; or if they concede that
He can, will they by this concession grant that it shall be done? Let them
get out of the dilemma which they have proposed to others as above, in the
same way by which they get out of this dilemma proposed to others by them.
Moreover, why do they contend that this gift is to be attributed only to
the eyes, and not to all the other senses of Christ? Shall God then be a
sound, that He may be perceived by the ear? and an exhalation, that He may
be discerned by the sense of smell? and a liquid of some kind, that He may
be also imbibed? and a solid body, that He may be also touched? No, they
say. What then? we reply; can God be this, or can He not? If they say He
cannot, why do they derogate from the omnipotence of God? If they say He
can, but is not willing, why do they show favour to the eyes alone, and
grudge the same honour to the other senses of Christ? Do they carry their
folly just as far as they please? How much better is our course, who do not
prescribe limits to their folly, but would fain prevent them from entering
into it at all !

   6. Many things may be brought forward for the confutation of that
madness. Meanwhile, however, if at any time they assail your ears, read
this letter to the supporters of such error, and do not count it too great
a labour to write back to me as well as you can what they say in reply. Let
me add that our hearts are purified by faith, because the vision of God is
promised to us as the reward of faith. Now, if this vision of God were to
be through the bodily eyes, in vain are the souls of saints exercised for
receiving it; nay, rather, a soul which cherishes such sentiments is not
exercised in itself, but is wholly in the flesh. For where will it dwell
more resolutely and fixedly than in that by means of which it expects that
it shall see God? How great an evil this would be I rather leave to your
own intelligence to observe, than labour to prove by a long argument.

   May your heart dwell always under the Lord's keeping, noble and justly
distinguished lady, and daughter worthy of honour in the love of Christ:
Salute from me, with the respect due to your worth, your sons, who are
along with yourself honourable, and to me dearly beloved in the Lord.

LETTER XCIII. (A.D. 408.)

TO VINCENTIUS, MY BROTHER DEARLY BELOVED, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING.

   Chap. I. -- 1. I have received a letter which I believe to be from you
to me: at least I have not thought this incredible, for the person who
brought it is one whom I know to be a Catholic Christian, and who, I think,
would not dare to impose upon me. But even though the letter may perchance
not be from you, I have considered it necessary to write a reply to the
author, whoever he may be. You know me now to be more desirous of rest, and
earnest in seeking it, than when you knew me in my earlier years at
Carthage, in the lifetime of your immediate predecessor Rogatus. But we are
precluded from this rest by the Donatists, the repression and correction of
whom, by the powers which are ordained of God, appears to me to be labour
not in vain. For we already rejoice in the correction of many who hold and
defend the Catholic unity with such sincerity, and are so glad to have been
delivered from their former error, that we admire them with great
thankfulness and pleasure. Yet these same persons, under some indescribable
bondage of custom, would in no way have thought of being changed to a
better condition, had they not, under the shock of this alarm, directed
their minds earnestly to the study of the truth; fearing lest, if without
profit, and in vain, they suffered hard things at the hands of men, for the
sake not of righteousness, but of their own obstinacy and presumption, they
should afterwards receive nothing else at the hand of God than the
punishment due to wicked men who despised the admonition which He so gently
gave and His paternal correction; and being by such reflection made
teachable, they found not in mischievous or frivolous human fables, but in
the promises of the divine books, that universal Church which they saw
extending according to the promise throughout all nations: just as, on the
testimony of prophecy in the same Scriptures, they believed without
hesitation that Christ is exalted above the heavens, though He is not seen
by them in His glory. Was it my duty to be displeased at the salvation of
these men, and to call back my colleagues from a fatherly diligence of this
kind, the result of which has been, that we see many blaming their former
blindness? For they see that they were blind who believed Christ to have
been exalted above the heavens although they saw Him not, and .yet denied
that His glory is spread over all the earth although they saw it; whereas
the prophet has with so great plainness included both in one sentence, "Be
Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the
earth."(1)

   2. Wherefore, if we were so to overlook and forbear with those cruel
enemies who seriously disturb our peace and quietness by manifold and
grievous forms of violence and treachery, as that nothing at all should be
contrived and done by us with a view to alarm and correct them, truly we
would be rendering evil for evil. For if any one saw his enemy running
headlong to destroy himself when he had become delirious through a
dangerous fever, would he not in that case be much more truly rendering
evil for evil if he permitted him to run on thus, than if he took measures
to have him seized and bound? And yet he would at that moment appear to the
other to be most vexatious, and most like an enemy, when, in truth, he had
proved himself most useful and most compassionate; although, doubtless,
when health was recovered, would he express to him his gratitude with a
warmth proportioned to the measure in which he had felt his refusal to
indulge him in his time of phrenzy. Oh, if I could but show you how many we
have even from the Circumcelliones, who are now approved Catholics, and
condemn their former life, and the wretched delusion under which they
believed that they were doing in behalf of the Church of God whatever they
did under the promptings of a restless temerity, who nevertheless would not
have been brought to this soundness of judgment had they not been, as
persons beside themselves, bound with the cords of those laws which are
distasteful to you! As to another form of most serious distemper,--that,
namely, of those who had not, indeed, a boldness leading to acts of
violence, but were pressed down by a kind of inveterate sluggishness of
mind, and would say to us: "What you affirm is true, nothing can be said
against it; but it is hard for us to leave off what we have received, by
tradition from our fathers," -- why should not such persons be shaken up in
a beneficial way by a law bringing upon them inconvenience in worldly
things, in order that they might rise from their lethargic sleep, and awake
to the salvation which is to be found in the unity of the Church? How many
of them, now rejoicing with us, speak bitterly of the weight with which
their ruinous course formerly oppressed them, and confess that it was our
duty to inflict annoyance upon them, in order to prevent them from
perishing under the disease of lethargic habit, as under a fatal sleep!

  3. You will say that to some these remedies are of no serviceIs the art
of healing, therefore, to be abandoned, because the malady of some is
incurable? You look only to the case of those who are so obdurate that they
refuse even such correction. Of such it is written, "In vain have I smitten
your children: they received no correction:"(1) and yet I suppose that
those of whom the prophet speaks were smitten in love, not from hatred. But
you ought to consider also the very large number over whose salvation we
rejoice. For if they were only made afraid, and not instructed, this might
appear to be a kind of inexcusable tyranny. Again, if they were instructed
only, and not made afraid, they would be with more difficulty persuaded to
embrace the way of salvation, having become hardened through the inveteracy
of custom: whereas many whom we know well, when arguments had been brought
before them, [and the truth made apparent by testimonies from the word of
God, answered us that they desired to pass into the communion of the
Catholic Church, but were in fear of the violence of worthless men, whose
enmity they would incur; which violence they ought indeed by all means to
despise when it was to be borne for righteousness' sake, and for the sake
of eternal life.: Nevertheless the weakness of such men ought not to be
regarded as hopeless, but to be supported until they gain more strength.
Nor may we for- get what the Lord Himself said to Peter when he was yet
weak: "Thou canst not follow Me. now, but thou shall follow Me
afterwards."(2) When, however, wholesome instruction is added to means of
inspiring salutary fear, so that not only the light of truth may dispel the
darkness of error, but the force of fear may at the same time break the
bonds of evil custom, we are made glad, as I have said, by the salvation of
many, who with us bless God, and render thanks to Him, because by the
fulfilment of His covenant, in which He promised that the kings of the
earth should serve Christ, He has thus cured the diseased and restored
health to the weak.

   CHAP. II. -- 4. Not every one who is indulgent is a friend; nor is
every one an enemy who smites. Better are the wounds of a friend than the
proffered kisses of an enemy.(3) It is better with severity to love, than
with gentleness to deceive. More good is done by taking away food from one
who is hungry, if, through freedom from care as to his food, he is
forgetful of righteousness, than by providing bread for one who is hungry,
in order that, being thereby bribed, ;he may consent to unrighteousness. He
who binds the man who is in a phrenzy, and he who stirs up the man who is
in a lethargy, are alike vexatious to both, and are in both cases alike
prompted by love for the patient. Who can love us more than God does? And
yet He not only give us sweet instruction, but also quickens us by salutary
fear, and this unceasingly. Often adding to the soothing remedies by which
He comforts men the sharp medicine of tribulation, He afflicts with famine
even the pious and devout patriarchs,(4) disquiets a rebellious people by
more severe chastisements, and refuses, though thrice besought, to take
away the thorn in the flesh of the apostle, that He may make His strength
perfect in weakness.(5) Let us by all means love even our enemies, for this
is right, and God commands us so to do, in order that we may be the
children of our Father who is in heaven, "who maketh His sun to rise on the
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (6)
But as we praise these His gifts, lets us in like manner ponder His
correction of those whom He loves.

   5. You are of opinion that no one should be compelled to follow
righteousness; and yet you read that the householder said to his servants,
"Whomsoever ye shall find, compel them to come in." (7) You also read how
he who was at first Saul, and afterwards Paul, was compelled, by the great
violence with which Christ coerced him, to know an.d to embrace the truth;
for you cannot but think that the light which your eyes enjoy is more
precious to men than money or any other possession. This light, lost
suddenly by him when he was cast to the ground by the heavenly voice, he
did not recover until he became a member of the Holy Church. You are also
of opinion that no coercion is to be used with any man in order to his
deliverance from the fatal consequences of error; and yet you see that, in
examples which cannot be disputed, this is done by God, who loves us with
more real regard for our profit than any other can; and you hear Christ
saying, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him,"(8) which is
done in the hearts of all those who, through fear of the wrath of God,
betake themselves to Him. You know also that sometimes the thief scatters
food before the flock that he may lead them astray, and sometimes the
shepherd brings wandering sheep back to the flock with his rod.

   6. Did not Sarah, when she had the power, choose rather to afflict the
insolent bondwoman? And truly she did not cruelly hate her whom she had
formerly by an act of her own kindness made a mother; but she put a
wholesome restraint upon her pride.(1) Moreover, as you well know, these
two women, Sarah and Hagar, and their two sons Isaac and Ishmael, are
figures representing spiritual and carnal persons. And although we read
that the bondwoman and her son suffered great hardships from Sarah,
nevertheless the Apostle Paul says that Isaac suffered persecution from
Ishmael: "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the Spirit, even so it is now; "(2) whence those who have
understanding may perceive that it is rather the Catholic Church which
suffers persecution through the pride and impiety of those carnal men whom
it endeavours to correct by afflictions and terrors of a temporal kind.
Whatever therefore the true and rightful Mother does, even when something
severe and bitter is felt by her children at her hands, she is not
rendering evil for evil, but is applying the benefit of discipline to
counteract the evil of sin, not with the hatred which seeks to harm, but
with the love which seeks to heal. When good and bad do the same actions
and suffer the same afflictions, they are to be distinguished not by what
they do or suffer, but by the causes of each: e.g. Pharaoh oppressed the
people of God by hard bondage; Moses afflicted the same people by severe
correction when they were guilty of impiety: (3) their actions were alike;
but they were not alike in the motive of regard to the people's welfare,-
the one being inflated by the lust of power, the other inflamed by love.
Jezebel slew prophets, Elijah slew false prophets;(4) I suppose that the
desert of the actors and of the sufferers respectively in the two cases was
wholly diverse.

   7. Look also to the New Testament times, in which the essential
gentleness of love was to be not only kept in the heart, but also
manifested openly: in these the sword of Peter is called back into its
sheath by Christ, and we are taught that it ought not to be taken from its
sheath even in Christ's defence.(5) We read, however, not only that the
Jews beat the Apostle Paul, but also that the Greeks beat Sosthenes, a Jew,
on account of the Apostle Paul.(6) Does not the similarity of the events
apparently join both; and, at the same time, does not the dissimilarity of
the causes make a real difference? Again, God spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up (7) for us all.(8) Of the Son also it is said, "who loved
me, and gave Himself(9) for me;(10) and it is also said of Judas that Satan
entered into him that he might betray (11) Christ.(12) Seeing, therefore,
that the Father delivered up His Son, and Christ delivered up His own body,
and Judas delivered up his Master, wherefore is God holy and man guilty in
this delivering up of Christ, unless that in the one action which both did,
the reason for which they did it was not the same? Three crosses stood in
one place: on one was the thief who was to be saved; on the second, the
thief who was to be condemned; on the third, between them, was Christ, who
was about to save the one thief and condemn the other. What could be more
similar than these crosses? what more unlike than the persons who were
suspended on them? Paul was given up to be imprisoned and bound,(13) but
Satan is unquestionably worse than any gaoler: yet to him Paul himself gave
up one man for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus.(14) And what say we to this? Behold, both
deliver a man to bondage; but he that is cruel consigns his prisoner to one
less severe, while he that is compassionate consigns his to one who is more
cruel. Let us learn, my brother, in actions which are similar to
distinguish the intentions of the agents; and let us not, shutting our
eyes, deal in groundless reproaches, and accuse those who seek men's
welfare as if they did them wrong. In like manner, when the same apostle
says that he had delivered certain persons unto Satan, that they might
learn not to blaspheme,(15) did he render to these men evil for evil, or
did he not rather esteem it a good work to correct evil men by means of the
evil one ?

   8. If to suffer persecution were in all cases a praiseworthy thing, it
would have sufficed for the Lord to say, "Blessed are they which are
persecuted," without adding "for righteousness' sake."(16) Moreover, if to
inflict persecution were in all cases blameworthy, it would not have been
written in the sacred books, "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him
will I persecute [cut off, E.V.]."(17) In some cases, therefore, both he
that suffers persecution is in the wrong, and he that inflicts it is in the
right. But the truth is, that always both the bad have persecuted the good,
and the good have persecuted the bad': the former doing harm by their
unrighteousness, the latter seeking to do good by the administration of
discipline; the former with cruelty, the latter with moderation; the former
impelled by lust, the latter under the constraint of love. For he whose aim
is to kill is not careful how he wounds, but he whose aim is to cure is
cautious with his lancet; for the one seeks to destroy what is sound, the
other that which is decaying. The wicked put prophets to death; prophets
also put the wicked to death. The Jews scourged Christ; Christ also
scourged the Jews. The apostles were given up by men to the civil powers;
the apostles themselves gave men up to the power of Satan. In all these
cases, what is important to attend to but this: who were on the side of
truth, and who on the side of iniquity; who acted from a desire to injure,
and who from a desire to correct what was amiss ?

   CHAP. III. -- 9. You say that no example is found in the writings of
evangelists and apostles, of any petition presented on behalf of the Church
to the kings of the earth against her enemies. Who denies this? None such
is found. But at that time the prophecy, "Be wise now, therefore, O ye
kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth: serve the Lord with fear,"
was not yet fulfilled. Up to that time the words which we find at the
beginning of the same Psalm were receiving their fulfilment, "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."(1) Truly, if past events recorded in the prophetic
books were figures of the future, there was given under King Nebuchadnezzar
a figure both of the time which the Church had under the apostles, and of
that which she has now. In the age of the apostles and martyrs, that was
fulfilled which was prefigured when the aforesaid king compelled pious and
just men to bow down to his image, and cast into the flames all who
refused. Now, however, is fulfilled that which was prefigured soon after in
the same king, when, being converted to the worship of the true God, he
made a decree throughout his empire, that whosoever should speak against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, should suffer the penalty which
their crime deserved. The earlier time of that king represented the former
age of emperors who did not believe in Christ, at whose hands' the
Christians suffered because of the wicked; but the later time of that king
represented the age of the successors to the imperial throne, now believing
in Christ, at whose hands the wicked suffer because of the Christians.

   10. It is manifest, however, that moderate severity, or rather
clemency, is carefully observed towards those who, under the Christian
name, have been led astray by perverse men, in the measures used to prevent
them who are Christ's sheep from wandering, and to bring them back to the
flock, when by punishments, such as exile and fines, they are admonished to
consider what they suffer, and wherefore, and are taught to prefer the
Scriptures which they read to human legends and calumnies. For which of us,
yea, which of you, does not speak well of the laws issued by the emperors
against heathen sacrifices? In these, assuredly, a penalty much more severe
has been appointed, for the punishment of that impiety is death. But in
repressing and restraining you, the thing aimed at has been rather that you
should be admonished to depart from evil, than that you should be punished
for a crime. For perhaps what the apostle said of the Jews may be said of
you: "bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge: for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about
to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to
the righteousness of God."(2) For what else than your own righteousness are
you desiring to establish, when you say that none are justified but those
who may have had the opportunity of being baptized by you? In regard to
this statement made by the apostle concerning the Jews, you differ from
those to whom it originally applied in this, that you have the Christian
sacraments, of which they are still destitute. But in regard to the words,
"being ignorant. of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness," and "they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge," you are exactly like them, excepting only those among you who
know what is the truth, and who in the wilfulness of their perversity
continue to fight against truth which is perfectly well known to them. The
impiety of these men is perhaps even a greater sin than idolatry. Since,
however, they cannot be easily convicted of this (for it is a sin which
lies concealed in the mind), you are all alike restrained with a
comparatively gentle severity, as being not so far alienated from us. And
this I may say, both concerning all heretics without distinction, who,
while retaining the Christian sacraments, are dissenters from the truth and
unity of Christ, and concerning all Donatists without exception.

   11. But as for you, who are not only, in common with these last, styled
Donatists, from Donatus, but also specially named Rogatists, from Rogatus,
you indeed seem to be more gentle in disposition, because you do not rage
up and down with bands of these savage Circumcelliones: but no wild beast
is said to be gentle if, because of its not having teeth and claws, it!
wounds no one. You say that you have no wish to be cruel: I think that
power, not will is wanting to you. For you are in number so few, that even
if you desire it, you dare not move against the multitudes which are
opposed to you. Let us suppose, however, that you do not wish to do that
which you have not strength to do; let us suppose that the gospel rule, "If
any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also,''(1) is so understood and obeyed by you that resistance to
those who persecute you is unlawful, whether they have right or wrong on
their side. Rogatus, the founder of your sect, either did not hold this
view, or was guilty of inconsistency; for he fought with the keenest
determination in a lawsuit about certain things which, according to your
statement, belonged to you. If to him it had been said, Which of the
apostles ever defended his property in a matter concerning faith by appeal
to the civil courts? as you have put the question in your letter, "Which of
the apostles ever invaded the property of other men in a matter concerning
faith ?" he could not find any example of this in the Divine writings; but
he might perhaps have found some true defence if he had not separated
himself from the true Church, and then audaciously claimed to hold in the
name of the true Church the disputed possession.

   CHAP. IV.-- 12. As to the obtaining or putting in force of edicts of
the powers of this world against schismatics and heretics, those from whom
you separated yourselves were very active  in this matter, both against
you, so far as we have heard, and against the followers of Maximianus, as
we prove by the indisputable evidence of their own Records; but you had not
yet separated yourselves from them at the time when in their petition they
said to the Emperor Julian that "nothing but righteousness found a place
with him,"--a man whom all the while they knew to be an apostate, and whom
they saw to be so given over to idolatry, that they must either admit
idolatry to be righteousness, or be unable to deny that they had wickedly
lied when they said that nothing but righteousness had a place with him
with whom they saw that idolatry had so large a place. Grant, however, that
that was a mistake in the use of words, what say you as to the deed itself?
If not even that which is just is to be sought by appeal to an emperor, why
was that which was by you supposed to be just sought from Julian ?

   13. Do you reply that it is lawful to petition the Emperor in order to
recover what is one's own, but not lawful to accuse another in order that
he may be coerced by the Emperor? I may remark, in passing, that in even
petitioning for the recovery of what is one's own, the ground covered by
apostolic example is abandoned, because no apostle is found to have ever
done this. But apart from this, when your predecessors brought before the
Emperor Constantine, by means of the proconsul Anulinus, their accusations
against Caecilianus, who was then bishop of Carthage, with whom as a guilty
person they refused to have communion, they were not endeavouring to
recover something of their own which they had lost, but were by calumnies
assailing one who was, as we think, and as the issue of the judicial
proceedings showed, an innocent man; and what more heinous crime could have
been perpetrated by them than this? If, however, as you erroneously
suppose, they did in his case deliver up to the judgment of the civil
powers a man who was indeed guilty, why do you object to our doing that
which your own party first presumed to do, and for doing which we would not
find fault with them, if they had done it not with an envious desire to do
harm, but with the intention of reproving and correcting what was wrong.
But we have no hesitation in finding fault with you, who think that we are
criminal in bringing any complaint before a Christian emperor against the
enemies of our communion, seeing that a document given by your predecessors
to Anulinus the proconsul, to be forwarded by him to the Emperor
Constantine, bore this superscription: "Libellus Ecclesiae Catholicae,
criminum Caeciliani, traditus a parte Majorini."(2) We find fault,
moreover, with them more particularly, because when they had of their own
accord gone to the Emperor with accusations against Caecilianus, which they
ought by all means to have in the first place proved before those who were
his colleagues beyond the sea, and when the Emperor, acting in a much more
orderly way than they had done, referred to bishops the decision of this
case pertaining to bishops which had been brought before him, they, even
when defeated by a decision against them, would not come to peace with
their brethren. Instead of this, they next accused at the bar of the
temporal sovereign, not Caecilianus only, but also the bishops who had been
appointed judges; and finally, from a second episcopal tribunal they
appealed to the Emperor again. Nor did they consider it their duty to yield
either to truth or to peace when he himself inquired into the case and gave
his decision,

   14. Now what else could Constantine have decreed against Caecilianus
and his friends, if they had been defeated when your predecessors accused
them, than the things decreed against the very men who, having of their own
accord brought the accusations, and having failed to prove what they
alleged, refused even when defeated to acquiesce in the truth? The Emperor,
as you know, in that case decreed for the first time that the property of
those who were convicted of schism and obstinately resisted the unity of
the Church should be confiscated. If, however, the issue had been that your
predecessors who brought the accusations had gained their case, and the
Emperor had made some such decree against the communion to which
Caecilianus belonged, you would have wished the emperors to be called the
friends of the Church's interests, and the guardians of her peace and
unity. But when such things are decreed by emperors against the parties
who, having of their own accord brought forward accusations, were unable to
substantiate them, and who, when a. welcome back to the bosom of peace was
offered to them on condition of their amendment, refused the terms, an
outcry is raised that this is an unworthy wrong, and it is maintained that
no one ought to be coerced to unity, and that evil should not be requited
for evil to any one. What else is this than what one of yourselves wrote:
"What we wish is holy"?(1) And in view of these things, it was not a great
or difficult thing for you to reflect and discover how the decree and
sentence of Constantine, which was published against you on the occasion of
your predecessors so frequently bringing before the Emperor charges which
they could not make good, should be in force against you; and how all
succeeding emperors, especially those who are Catholic Christians,
necessarily act according. to it as often as the exigencies of your
obstinacy make it necessary for them to take any measures in regard to you.

   15. It was an easy thing for you to have reflected on these things, and
perhaps some time to have said to yourselves: Seeing that Caecilianus
either was innocent, or at least could not be proved guilty, what sin has
the Christian Church spread so far and wide through the world committed in
this matter? On what ground could it be unlawful for the Christian world to
remain: ignorant of that which even those who made it matter of accusation
against others could not prove? Why should those whom Christ has sown in
His field, that is, in this world, and has commanded to grow alongside of
the tares until. the harvest,(2)--those many thousands of believers in all
nations, whose multitude the Lord compared to the stars of heaven and the
sand of the sea, to whom He promised of old, and has now given, the
blessing in the seed of Abraham,--why, I ask, should the name of Christians
be denied to all these, because, forsooth, in regard to this case, in the
discussion of which they took no part, they preferred to believe the
judges, who under grave responsibility gave their decision, rather than the
plaintiffs, against whom the decision was given? Surely no man's crime can
stain with guilt another who does not know of its commission. How could the
faithful, scattered throughout the world, be cognisant of the crime of
surrendering the sacred books as committed by men, whose guilt their
accusers, even if they knew it, were at least unable to drove?
Unquestionably this one fact of ignorance on their part most easily
demonstrates that they had no share in the guilt of this crime. Why then
should the innocent be charged with crimes which they never committed,
because of their being ignorant of crimes which, justly or unjustly, are
laid to the charge of others? What room is left for innocence, if it is
criminal for one to be ignorant of the crimes of others? Moreover, if the
mere fact of their ignorance proves, as has been said, the innocence of the
people in so many nations, how great is the crime of separation from the
communion of these innocent people! For the deeds of guilty parties which
either cannot be proved to those who are innocent, or cannot be believed by
them, bring no stain upon any one, since, even when known, they are borne
with in order to preserve fellowship with those who are innocent. For the
good are not to be deserted for the sake of the wicked, but the wicked are
to be borne with for the sake of the good; as the prophets bore with those
against whom they delivered such testimonies, and did not cease to take
part in the sacraments of the Jewish people; as also our Lord bore with
guilty Judas, even until he met the end which he deserved, ,and permitted
him to take part in the sacred supper along with the innocent disciples; as
the apostles bore with those who preached Christ through envy,--a sin
peculiarly satanic;(3) as Cyprian bore with colleagues guilty of avarice,
which, after the example of the apostle,(4) he calls idolatry. In fine,
whatever was done at that time among these bishops, although perhaps it was
known by some of them, is, unless there be respect of persons in judgment,
unknown to all: why, then, is not peace loved by all? These thoughts might
easily occur to you; perhaps you already entertain them. But it would be
better for you to be devoted to earthly possessions, through fear of losing
which you might be proved to consent to known truth, than to be devoted to
that worthless vainglory which you think you will by such consent forfeit
in the estimation of men.

   CHAP. V. -- 16. You now see therefore, I suppose, that the thing to be
considered when any one is coerced, is not the mere fact of the coercion,
but the nature of that to which he is coerced, whether it be good or bad:
not that any one can be good in spite of his own will, but that, through
fear of suffering what he does not desire, he either renounces his hostile
prejudices, or is compelled to examine truth of which he had been
contentedly ignorant; and under the influence of this fear repudiates the
error which he was wont to defend, or seeks the truth of which he formerly
knew nothing, and now willingly holds what he formerly rejected. Perhaps it
would be utterly useless to assert this in words, if it were not
demonstrated by so many examples. We see not a few men here and there, but
many cities, once Donatist, now Catholic, vehemently detesting the
diabolical schism, and ardently loving the unity of the Church; and these
became Catholic under the influence of that fear which is to you so
offensive by the laws of emperors, from Constantine, before whom your party
of their own accord impeached Caecilianus, down to the emperors of our own
time, who most justly decree that the decision of the judge whom your own
party chose, and whom they preferred to a tribunal of bishops, should be
maintained in force against you.

   17. I have therefore yielded to the evidence afforded by these
instances which my colleagues have laid before me. For originally my
opinion was, that no one should be coerced into the unity of Christ, that
we must act only by words, fight only by arguments, and prevail by force of
reason, lest we should have those whom we knew as avowed heretics feigning
themselves to be Catholics. But this opinion of mine was overcome not by
the words of those who controverted it, but by the conclusive instances to
which they could point. For, in the first place, there was set over against
my opinion my own town, which, although it was once wholly on the side of
Donatus, was brought over to the Catholic unity by fear of the imperial
edicts, but which we now see filled with such detestation of your ruinous
perversity, that it would scarcely be believed that it had ever been
involved in your error. There were so many others which were mentioned to
me by name, that, from facts themselves, I was, made to own that to this
matter the word of Scripture might be understood as applying: "Give
opportunity to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser.''(1) For how many were
already, as we assuredly know, willing to be Catholics, being moved by the
indisputable plainness of truth, but daily putting off their avowal of this
through fear of offending their own party! How many were bound, not by
truth -- for you never pretended to that as yours -- but by the heavy
chains of inveterate custom, so that in them was fulfilled the divine
saying: "A servant (who is hardened) will not be corrected by words; for
though he understand, he will not answer"!(2) How many supposed the sect of
Donatus to be the true Church, merely because ease had made them too
listless, or conceited, or sluggish, to take pains to examine Catholic
truth! How many would have entered earlier had not the calumnies of
slanderers, who declared that we offered something else than we do upon the
altar of God, shut them out! How many, believing that it mattered not to
which party a Christian might belong, remained in the schism of Donatus
only because they had been born in it, and no one was compelling them to
forsake it and pass over into the Catholic Church!

   18. To all these classes of persons the dread of those laws in the
promulgation of which kings serve the Lord in fear has been so useful, that
now some say we were willing for this some time ago; but thanks be to God,
who has given us occasion for doing it at once, and has cut off the
hesitancy of procrastination! Others say: We already knew this to be true,
but we were held prisoners by the force of old custom: thanks be to the
Lord, who has broken these bonds asunder, and has brought us into the bond
of peace! Others say: We knew not that the truth was here, and we had no
wish to learn it; but fear made us become earnest to examine it when we
became alarmed, lest, without any gain in things eternal, we should be
smitten with loss in temporal things: thanks be to the Lord, who has by the
stimulus of fear startled us from our negligence, that now being disquieted
we might inquire into those things which, when at ease, we did not care to
know! Others say: We were prevented from entering the Church by false
reports, which we could not know to be false unless we entered it; and we
would not enter unless we were compelled: thanks be to the Lord, who by His
scourge took away our timid hesitation, and taught us to find out for
ourselves how vain and absurd were the lies which rumour had spread abroad
against His Church: by this we are persuaded that there is no truth in the
accusations made by the authors of this heresy, since the more serious
charges which their followers have invented are without foundation. Others
say: We thought, indeed, that it mattered not in what communion we held the
faith of Christ; but thanks to the Lord, who has gathered us in from a
state of schism, and has taught us that it is fitting that the one God be
worshipped in unity.

   19. Could I therefore maintain opposition to my colleagues, and by
resisting them stand in the way of such conquests of the Lord, and prevent
the sheep of Christ which were wandering on your mountains and hills --
that is, on the swellings of your pride -- from being gathered into the
fold of peace, in which there is one flock and one Shepherd?(1) Was it my
duty to obstruct these measures, in order, forsooth, that you might not
lose what you call your own, and might without fear rob Christ of what is
His: that you might frame your testaments according to Roman law, and might
by calumnious accusations break the Testament made with the sanction of
Divine law to the fathers, in which it was written, "In thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed":(2) that you might have freedom in
your transactions in the way of buying and selling, and might be emboldened
to divide and claim as your own that which Christ bought by giving Himself
as its price: that any gift made over by one of you to another might remain
unchallenged, and that the gift which the God of gods has bestowed upon His
children, called from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof,(3)
might become invalid: that you might not be sent into exile from the land
of your natural birth, and that you might labour to banish Christ from the
kingdom bought with His blood, which extends from sea to sea, and from the
river to the ends of the earth? (4) Nay verily; let the kings of the earth
serve Christ by making laws for Him and for His cause. Your predecessors
exposed Caecilianus and his companions to be punished by the kings of the
earth for crimes with which they were falsely charged: let the lions now be
turned to break in pieces the bones of the calumniators, and let no
intercession for them be made by Daniel when he has been proved innocent,
and set free from the den in which they meet their doom;(5) for he that
prepareth a pit for his neighbour shall himself most justly fall into
it.(6)

   CHAP. VI. -- 20. Save yourself therefore, my brother, while you have
this present life, from the wrath which is to come on the obstinate and the
proud. The formidable power of the authorities of this world, when it
assails the truth, gives glorious opportunity of probation to the strong,
but puts dangerous temptation before the weak who are righteous; but when
it assists the proclamation of the truth, it is the means of profitable
admonition to the wise, and of unprofitable vexation to t,h,e foolish among
those who have gone astray. For there is no power but of God: whosoever
therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; for rulers
are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be
afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of
the same." (7) For if the power be on the side of the truth, and correct
any one who was in error, he that is put right by the correction has praise
from the power. If, on the other hand, the power be unfriendly to the
truth, and cruelly persecute any one, he who is crowned victor in this
contest receives praise from the power which he resists. But you do not
that which is good, so as to avoid being afraid of the power; unless
perchance this is good, to sit and speak against not one brother,(8) but
against all your brethren that are found among all nations, to whom the
prophets, and Christ, and the apostles bear witness in the words of
Scripture, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;"(2)
and again, "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the
same, a pure offering shah be offered unto My name; for My name shall be
great among the heathen, saith the Lord."(9) Mark this: "saith the Lord;"
not saith Donatus, or Rogatus, or Vincentius, or Ambrose, or Augustin, but
"saith the Lord;" and again, "All tribes of the earth shall be blessed in
Him, and all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the
God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious
name for ever, and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory: so let
it be, so let it be."(10) And you sit at Cartennae, and with a remnant of
half a score of Rogatists you say, "Let it not be! Let it not be!"

   21. You hear Christ speaking thus in the Gospel: "All things must be
fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and
in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written,
and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third
day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."(11) You read also in the
Acts of the Apostles how this gospel began at Jerusalem, where the Holy
Spirit first filled those hundred and twenty persons, and went forth thence
into Judaea and Samaria, and to all nations, as He had said unto them when
He was about to ascend into heaven, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts
of the earth;"(1) for "their sound went into all the earth, and their words
unto the ends of the world."(2) And you contradict the Divine testimonies
so firmly established and so clearly revealed, and attempt to bring about
such an absolute confiscation of Christ's heritage., that although
repentance is preached, as He said,: in His name to all nations, whosoever
may be in any part of the earth moved by that preaching, there is for him
no possibility of remission of sins, unless he seek and discover Vincentius
of Cartennae, or some one of his nine or ten associates, in their obscurity
in the imperial colony of Mauritania. What will the arrogance of
insignificant mortals(3) not dare to do? To what extremities will the
presumption of flesh and blood not hurry men? Is this your well-doing, on
account of which you are not afraid of the power? You place this grievous
stumbling-block in the way of your own mother's son,(4) for whom Christ
died,(5) and who is yet in feeble infancy, not ready to use strong meat, at
requiring to be nursed on a mother's milk;(6) and you quote against me the
works of Hilary, in order that you may deny the fact of the Church's
increase among all nations; even unto the end of the world, according to
the promise which God, in order to subdue your unbelief, confirmed with an
oath! And although you would by all means be most miserable if you stood
against this when it was promised, you even now contradict it when the
promise is fulfilled.

   CHAP. VII.- 22. You, however, through your profound erudition, have
discovered something which you think worthy to be alleged as a great
objection against the Divine testimonies. For you say, "If we consider the
parts comprehended in the whole world, it is a comparatively small portion
in which the Christian faith is known:" either refusing to see, or
pretending not to know, to how many barbarous nations the gospel has
already penetrated, within a space of time so short, that not even Christ's
enemies can doubt that in a little while that shall be accomplished which
our Lord foretold, when, answering the question of His disciples concerning
the end of the world, He said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall
the end come." (7) Meanwhile do all you can to proclaim and to maintain,
that even though the gospel be published in Persia and India, as indeed it
has been for a long time, no one who hears it can be in any degree cleansed
from his sins, unless he come to Cartennae, or to the neighbourhood of
Cartennae! If you have not expressly said this, it is evidently through
fear lest men should laugh at you; and yet when 'you do say this, do you
refuse that men should weep for you ?

   23. You think that you make a very acute remark when you affirm the
name Catholic to mean universal, not in respect to the communion as
embracing the whole world, but in respect to the observance of all Divine
precepts and of all the sacraments, as if we (even accepting the position
that the Church is called Catholic because it honestly holds the whole
truth, of which fragments here and there are found in some heresies) rested
upon the testimony of this word's signification, and not upon the promises
of God, and so many indisputable testimonies of the truth itself, our
demonstration of the existence of the Church of God in all nations. In
fact, however, this is the whole which you attempt to make us believe, that
the Rogatists alone remain worthy of the name Catholics, on the ground of
their observing all the Divine precepts and all the sacraments; and that
you are the only persons in whom the Son of man when He cometh shall find
faith.(8) You must excuse me for saying we do not believe a word of this.
For although, in order to make it possible for that faith to be found in
you which the Lords. said that He would not find on the earth, you may
perhaps presume even to say that you are to be regarded as in heaven, not
on earth, we at least have profited by the apostle's warning, wherein he
has taught us that even an angel from heaven must be regarded as accursed
if he were to preach to us any other gospel than that which we have
received.(9) But how can we be sure that we have indisputable testimony to
Christ in the Divine Word, if we do not accept as indisputable the
testimony of the same Word to the Church? For as, however ingenious the
complex subtleties which one may contrive against the simple truth, and
however great the mist of artful fallacies with which he may obscure it,
any one who shall proclaim that Christ has not suffered, and has not risen
from the dead on the third day, must be accursed -- because we have learned
in the truth of the gospel, "that it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise
from the dead on the third day;"(10) -- on the very same grounds must that
man be accursed who shall proclaim that the Church is outside of(11) the
communion which embraces all nations: for in the next words of the same
passage we learn also that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem;(1) and we
are bound to hold firmly this rule, "If any preach any other gospel unto
you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."(2)

   CHAP. VIII--24. if, moreover, we do not listen to the claims of the
entire sect of Donatists when they pretend to be the Church of Christ,
seeing that they do not allege in proof of this anything from the Divine
Books, how much less, I ask, are we called upon to listen to, the
Rogatists, who will not attempt to interpret; in the interest of their
party the words of Scripture: "Where Thou feedest, where Thou dost rest in
the south"!(3) For if by this the southern part of Africa is to be
understood,-- the district, namely, which is occupied by Donatists, because
it is under a more burning portion of the heavens,- the Maximianists must
excel all the rest of your party, as the flame of their schism broke forth
in Byzantium(4) and in Tripoli. Let the Arzuges, if they please, dispute
this point with them, and contest that to them more properly this text
applies; but how shall the imperial province of Mauritania, lying rather to
the west than to the south, since it refuses to be called Africa, -- how
shall it, I say, find in the word "the south"(5) a ground for boasting, I
do not say against the world, but against even that sect of Donatus from
which the sect of Rogatus, a very small fragment of that other and larger
fragment, has been broken off? For what else is it than superlative
impudence for one to interpret in his own favour any allegorical
statements, unless he has also plain testimonies, by the light of which the
obscure meaning of the former may be made manifest.

   25. With how much greater force, moreover, may we say to you what we
are accustomed to say to all the Donatists: If any can have good grounds
(which indeed none can have) for separating themselves from the communion
of the whole world, and calling their communion the Church of Christ,
because of their having withdrawn warrantably from the communion of! all
nations, --how do you know that in the Christian society, which is spread
so far and l wide, there may not have been some in a very remote place,
from which the fame of their righteousness could not reach you, who had
already, before the date of your separation, separated themselves for some
just cause from the communion of the whole world? How could the. Church in
that case be found in your sect, rather than in those who were separated
before you? Thus it comes to pass, that so long as you are ignorant of
this, you cannot make with certainty any claim: which is necessarily the
portion of' all who, in defending' the cause of their party, appeal to
their own testimony instead of the testimony of God. For you cannot say, If
this had happened, it could not have escaped our knowledge; for, not going
beyond Africa itself, you cannot tell, when the question is put to you, how
many subdivisions of the party of Donatus have occurred: in connection with
which we must especially bear in mind that in your view the smaller the
number of those who separate themselves, the greater is the justice of
their cause, and this paucity of numbers makes them undoubtedly more likely
to remain unnoticed. Hence, also, you are by no means sure that there may
not be some righteous persons, few in number, and therefore unknown,
dwelling in some place far remote from the south of Africa, who, long
before the party of Donatus had withdrawn their righteousness from
fellowship with the un-righteousness of all other men, had, in their remote
northern region, separated themselves in the same way for some most
satisfactory reason, and now are, by a claim superior to yours, the Church
of God, as the spiritual Zion which preceded all your sects in the matter
of warrantable secession, and who interpret in their favour the words of
the Psalm, "Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the Great
King," (6) with much more reason than the party of Donatus interpret in
their favour the words, "Where Thou feedest, where Thou dost rest in the
south."(7)

   26. You profess, nevertheless, to be afraid test, when you are
compelled by imperial edicts to consent to unity, the name of God be for a
longer time blasphemed by the Jews and the heathen: as if the Jews were not
aware how their own nation Israel, in the beginning of its history, wished
to exterminate by war the two tribes and a half which had received
possessions beyond Jordan, when they thought that these had separated
themselves from the unity of their nation.(8) As to the Pagans, they may
indeed with greater reason reproach us for the laws which Christian
emperors have enacted against idolaters; and yet many of these have thereby
been, and are now daily, turned from idols to the living and true God. In
fact, however, both Jews and Pagans, if they thought the Christians to be
as insignificant in number as you are,-- who maintain, forsooth, that you
alone are Christians, --would not condescend to say anything against us,
but would never cease to treat us with ridicule and contempt. Are you not
afraid lest the Jews should say to you, "If your handful of men be the
Church of Christ, what becomes of the statement of your Apostle Paul, that
your Church is described in the words, 'Rejoice, thou barren that bearest
not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath
many more children than she which hath an husband ;'(1) in which he plainly
declares the multitude of Christians to surpass that of the Jewish Church
?" Will you say to them, "We are the more righteous because our number is
not large;" and do you expect them not to reply, "Whoever(2) you claim to
be, you are not those of whom it is said, 'She that was desolate hath many
children,' if you are reduced to so small a number"?

   27. Perhaps you will quote against this the example of that righteous
man, who along with his family was alone found worthy of deliverance when
the flood came. Do you see then how far you still are from being righteous?
Most assuredly we do not affirm you to be righteous on the ground of this
instance until your associates be reduced to seven, yourself being the
eighth person: provided always, however, that no otherhas, as I was saying,
anticipated the party of Donatus in snatching up that righteousness, by
having, in some far distant spot, withdrawn himself along with seven more,
under pressure of some good reason, from communion with the whole world,
and so saved himself from the flood by which it is overwhelmed. Seeing,
therefore, that you do not know whether this may not have been done, and
been as entirely unheard of by you as the name of Donatus is unheard of by
many nations of Christians in remote countries, you are unable to say with
certainty where the Church is to be found. For it must be in that place in
which what you have now done may happen to have been at an earlier date
done by others, if there could possibly be any just reason for your
separating yourselves from the communion of the whole world.

   CHAP. IX.- 28. We, however, are certain that no one could ever have
been warranted in separating himself from the communion of all nations,
because every one of us looks for the marks of the Church not in his own
righteousness, but in the Divine Scriptures, and behold sit actually in
existence, according to the promises. For it is of the Church that it is
said, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters;"(3)
which could be called on the one hand "thorns" only by reason of the
wickedness of their manners, and on the other hand "daughters" by reason of
their participation inthe same sacraments. Again, it is the Church which
saith, "From the end of the earth have I cried unto Thee when my heart was
overwhelmed;"(4) and in another Psalm, "Horror hath kept me back from(5)
the wicked that forsake Thy law;" and, "I beheld the transgressors, and was
grieved."(6) It is the same which says to her Spouse: "Tell me where Thou
feedest, where Thou dost rest at noon: for why should I be as one veiled
beside the flocks of Thy companions?"(7) This is the same as is said in
another place: "Make known to me Thy right hand, and those who are in heart
taught in wisdom;"(8) in whom, as they shine with light and glow with love,
Thou dost rest as in noontide; lest perchance, like one veiled, that is,
hidden and unknown, I should run, not to Thy flock, but to the flocks of
Thy companions, i.e. of heretics, whom the bride here calls companions,
just as He called the thorns(3) "daughters," because of common
participation in the sacraments: of which persons it is elsewhere said:
"Thou wast a man, mine equal, my guide, my acquaintance, who didst take
sweet food together with me; we walked unto the house of God in company.
Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell," (9) like
Dathan and Abiram, the authors of an impious schism.

   29. It is to the Church also that the answer is given immediately after
in the passage quoted above: "If thou know not thyself,(10) O thou fairest
among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flocks,(11) and feed
thy kids beside the shepherds' tents."(12) Oh, matchless sweetness of the
Bridegroom, who thus replied to her question: "If thou knowest not
thyself," He says; as if He said, "Surely the city which is set upon a
mountain cannot be hid;(13) and therefore, 'Thou art not as one veiled,
that thou shouldst run to the flocks of my companions.' For I am the
mountain established upon the top of the mountains, unto which all nations
shall come.(14) 'If thou knowest not thyself,' by the knowledge which thou
mayest gain, not in the words of false witnesses, but in the testimonies of
My book; 'if thou knowest not thyself,' from such testimony as this
concerning thee: 'Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: for thou
shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall
inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear
not, for thou shall not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded, for thou
shall not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth,
and shall not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more: for thy
Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is His name';' and thy Redeemer
the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall He be called.' 'If
thou knowest not thyself,' O thou fairest among women, from this which hath
been said of thee, 'The King hath greatly desired thy beauty,' and '
instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes
upon the earth:'(1) if, therefore, ' thou know not thyself,' go thy way
forth: I do not cast thee forth, but 'go thy way forth,' that of thee it
may be said, 'They went out from us, but they were not of us.'(2) 'Go thy
way forth' by the footsteps of the flocks, not in My footsteps, but in the
footsteps of the flocks; and not of the one flock, but of flocks divided
and going astray. ' And feed thy kids,' not as Peter, to whom it is said,
'Feed My sheep ;'(3) but. 'Feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents,' not
beside the tent of the Shepherd, where there is 'one fold and one
Shepherd'"(4) But the' church knows herself, and thereby escapes from  that
lot which has befallen those who did not know themselves to be in her.

   30. The same [Church] is spoken of, when, in regard to the fewness of
her numbers as compared with the multitude of the wicked, it is said:
"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it."(5) And again, it is of the same Church that it is
said with respect to the multitude of her members: "I will multiply thy
seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore."
(6) For the same Church of holy and good believers is both small if
compared with the number of the wicked, which is greater, and large if
considered by itself; "for the desolate hath more sons than she which hath
an husband," and "many shall come from the east and from the west, and
shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God."
(7) God, moreover, presents unto Himself a "numerous people, zealous of
good works."(8) And in the Apocalypse, many thousands "which no man can
number," from every tribe and tongue, are seen clothed in white robes, and
with palms of victory.(9) It is the same Church which is occasionally
obscured, and, as it were, beclouded by the multitude of offences, when
sinners bend the bow that they may shoot under the darkened moon(10) at the
upright in heart.(11) But even at such a time the Church shines in those
who are most firm in their attachment to her. And if, in the Divine promise
above quoted, any distinct application of its two clauses should be made,
it is perhaps not without reason that the seed of Abraham was compared both
to the "stars of heaven," and to "the sand which is by the sea-shore :"
that by "the stars" may be understood those who, in number fewer, are more
fixed and more brilliant; and that by "the sand on the sea-shore" may be
understood that great multitude of weak and carnal persons within the
Church, who at one time are seen at rest and free while the weather is
calm, but are at another time covered and troubled under the waves of
tribulation and temptation.

   31. Now, such a troublous time was the time at which Hilary wrote in
the passage which you have thought fit artfully to adduce against so many
Divine testimonies, as if by it you could prove that the Church has
perished from the earth.(12) You may just as well say that the numerous
churches of Galatia had no existence at the time when the apostle wrote to
them: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you," that, "having begun in
the Spirit, ye are now made perfect in the flesh?"(13) For thus you would
misrepresent that learned man, who (like the apostle) was sternly rebuking
the slow of heart and the timid, for whom he was travailing in birth a
second time, until Christ should be formed in them.(14) For who does not
know that many persons of weak judgment were at that time deluded by
ambiguous phrases, so that they thought that the Arians believed the same
doctrines as they themselves held; and that others, through fear, had
yielded and feigned consent, not walking uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel, to whom you would have denied that forgiveness which, when
they had been turned from their error, was extended to them? But in
refusing such pardon, you prove yourselves wholly ignorant of the word of
God. For read what Paul has recorded concerning Peter,(15) and what Cyprian
has expressed as his view on the ground of that statement, and do not blame
the compassion of the Church, which does not scatter the members of Christ
when they are gathered together, but labours to gather His scattered
members into one. It is true that those who then stood most resolute, and
were able to understand the treacherous phrases used by the heretics, were
few in number when compared with the rest; but some of them it is to be
remembered were then bravely enduring sentence of banishment, and others
were hiding themselves for safety in all parts of the world. And thus the
Church, which is increasing throughout all nations, has been preserved as
the Lord's wheat, and shall be preserved unto the end, yea, until all
nations, even the barbarous tribes, are within its embrace. For it is the
Church which the Son of man has sown as good seed, and of which He has
foretold that it should grow among the tares until the harvest. For the
field is the world, and the harvest is the end of time.(1)

   32. Hilary, therefore, either was rebuking not the wheat, but the
tares, in those ten provinces of Asia, or was addressing himself to the
wheat, because it was endangered through some unfaithfulness, and spoke as
one who thought that the rebuke would be useful in proportion to the
vehemence with which it was given. For the canonical Scriptures contain
examples of the same manner of rebuke in which what is intended for some is
spoken as if it applied to all. Thus the apostle, when he says to the
Corinthians, "How say some among you, that there is no resurrection of the
dead?" (2) proves clearly that all of them were not such; but he bears
witness that those who were such were not outside of their communion, but
among them. And shortly after, lest those who were of a different opinion
should be led astray by them, he gave this warning: "Be not deceived: evil
communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not;
for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame." (3)
But when he says, "Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and
divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men ?" (4) he speaks as if it
applied to all, and you see how grave a charge he makes. Wherefore, if it
were not that we read in the same epistle, "I thank my God always on your
behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in
everything ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come
behind in no gift,"(5) we would think that all the Corinthians had been
carnal and natural, not perceiving the things of the spirit of God,(6) fond
of strife, and full of envy, and "walking as men." In like manner it is
said, on the one hand, "the whole world lieth in wickedness," (7) because
of the tares which are throughout the .whole world; and, on the other hand,
Christ "is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world,"(8) because of the wheat which is
throughout the whole world.

   33. The love of many, however, waxes cold because of offences, which
abound increasingly the more that, within the communion of the sacraments
of Christ, there are gathered to the glory of His name even those who are
wicked, and who persist in the obstinacy of error; whose separation,
however, as chaff from the wheat, is to be effected only in the final
purging of the Lord's threshing-floor.(9) These do not destroy those who
are the Lord's wheat -- few, indeed, when compared with the others, but in
themselves a great multitude; they do not destroy the elect of God, who are
to be gathered at the end of the world from the four winds, from the one
end of heaven to the other.(10) For it is from the elect that the cry
comes, "Help, Lord! for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from
among the children of men;"(11) and it is of them that the Lord saith, "He
that shall endure to the end (when iniquity shall abound), the same shall
be saved."(12) Moreover, that the psalm quoted is the language not of one
man, but of many, is shown by the following context: "Thou shalt keep us, O
Lord; Thou shalt preserve us from this generation for ever."(13) On account
of this abounding iniquity which the Lord foretold, it is said in another
place: "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" This
doubt expressed by Him who knoweth all things prefigured the doubts which
in Him we entertain, when the Church, being often disappointed in many from
whom much was expected, but who have proved very different from what they
were supposed to be, is so alarmed in regard to her own members, that she
is slow to believe good of any one. Nevertheless it would be wrong to
cherish doubt that those whose faith He shall find on the earth are growing
along with the tares throughout the whole field.

   34. Therefore it is the same Church also which within the Lord's net is
swimming along with the bad fishes, but is in heart and in life i separated
from them, and departs from them, that she may be presented to her Lord a
"glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle."(14) But the actual visible
separation she looks for only on the sea-shore, i.e. at the end of the
world, --meanwhile correcting as many as she can, and bearing with those
whom she cannot correct; but she does not abandon the unity of the good
because of the wickedness of those whom she finds incorrigible.

   CHAP. X. --35. Wherefore, my brother, refrain from gathering together
against divine testimonies so many, so perspicuous, and so unchallenged,
the calumnies which may be found in the writings of bishops either of our
communion, as Hilary, or of the undivided Church itself in the age
preceding the schism of Donatus, as Cyprian or Agrippinus;(1) because, in
the first place, this class of writings must be, so far as authority is
concerned, distinguished from the canon of Scripture. For they are not read
b us as if a testimony brought forward from them was such that it would be
unlawful to hold any different opinion, for it may be that the opinions
which they held were different from those to which truth demands our
assent. For we are amongst those who do not reject what has been taught us
even by an apostle: "If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall
reveal even this unto you; nevertheless, whereto we have already attained,
let us walk by the same rule,"(2) -- in that way, namely, which Christ is;
of which way the Psalmist thus speaks: "God be merciful unto us, and bless
us, and cause His face to shine upon us: that Thy way may be known upon
earth, Thy saving health among all nations."(3)

   36. In the next place, if you are charmed by the authority of that
bishop and illustrious martyr St. Cyprian, which we indeed regard, as I
have said, as quite distinct from the authority of canonical Scripture, why
are you not charmed by such things in him as these: that he maintained with
loyalty, and defended in debate, the unity of the Church in the world and
in all nations; that he censured, as full of self-sufficiency , and pride,
those who wished to separate themselves as righteous from the Church,
holding them up to ridicule for assuming to themselves that which the Lord
did not concede even to apostles,--namely, the gathering of the tares
before the harvest,--and for attempting to separate the chaff from the
wheat, as if to them had been assigned the charge of removing the chaff and
cleansing the threshing-floor; that he proved that no man can be stained
with guilt by the sins of others, thus sweeping away the only ground
alleged by the authors of schism for their, separation; that in the very
matter in regard to which he was of a different opinion from his
colleagues, he did not decree that those who thought otherwise than he did
should be condemned or excommunicated; that even in his letter to
Jubaianus(4) (which was read for the first time in the Council,(5) the
authority of which you! are wont to plead in defence of the practice of
rebaptizing), although he admits that in time past persons who had been
baptized in other communions had been received into the Church without
being a second time baptized, on which ground they were regarded by him as
having had no baptism, nevertheless he considers the use and benefit of
peace within the Church to be so great, that for its sake he holds that
these persons (though in his judgment unbaptized) should 'not be excluded
from office in the Church ?

   37. And by this you will very readily perceive (for I know the
acuteness of your mind) that your cause is completely subverted and
annihilated. For if, as you suppose, the Church which had been spread
abroad throughout the world perished through her admitting sinners to
partake in her sacraments (and this is the ground alleged for your
separation), it had wholly perished long before, -- at the time, namely,
when, as Cyprian says, men were admitted into it without baptism, -- and
thus Cyprian himself had no Church within which to be born; and if so, how.
much more must this have been the case with one who, like Donatus, the
author of our schism, and the father of your sect, belonged to a later age!
But if at that time, although persons were being admitted into the Church
without baptism, the Church nevertheless remained in being, so as to give
birth to Cyprian and afterwards to Donatus, it is manifest that the
righteous are not defiled by the sins of other men when they participate
with them in the sacraments. And thus you have no excuse by which you can
wash away the guilt of the schism whereby you have gone forth from the
unity of the Church; and in you is' fulfilled that saying of Holy Writ:
"There is a generation that esteem themselves right, and have not cleansed
themselves from the guilt of their going forth."(6)

   38. The man who, out of regard to the sameness of the sacraments, does
not presume to insist on the second administration of baptism even to
heretics, is not, by thus avoiding Cyprian's error, placed on a level with
Cyprian in merit, any more than the man who does not insist upon the
Gentiles conforming to Jewish ceremonies is thereby placed on a level in
merit with the Apostle Peter. In Peter's case, however, the record not only
of his halting, but also of his correction, is contained in the canonical
Scriptures; whereas the statement that Cyprian entertained opinions at
variance with those approved by the constitution and practice of the Church
is found, not in canonical Scripture, but in his own writings, and in those
of a Council; and although it is not found in the same records that he
corrected that opinion, it is nevertheless by no means an unreasonable
supposition that he did correct it, and that this fact may perhaps have
been suppressed by those who were too much pleased with the error into
which he fell, and were unwilling to lose the patronage of so great a name.
At the same time, there are not wanting some who maintain that Cyprian
never held the view ascribed to him, but that this was an unwarrantable
forgery passed off by liars under his name. For it was impossible for the
integrity and authenticity of the writings of any one bishop, however
illustrious, to be secured and preserved as the canonical Scriptures are
through translation into so many languages, and through the regular and
continuous manner in which the Church has used them in public worship. Even
in the face of this, some have been found forging many things under the
names of' the apostles. It is true, indeed, that they made such attempts in
vain, because the text of canonical Scripture was so well attested, and so
generally used and known; but this effort of an unholy boldness, which has
not forborne to assail writings which are defended by the strength of such
notoriety, has proved what it is capable of essaying against writings which
are not established upon canonical authority.

   39. We, however, do not deny that Cyprian held the views ascribed to
him: first, because his style has a certain peculiarity of expression by
which it may be recognised; and secondly, because in this case our cause
rather than yours is proved victorious, and the pretext alleged for your
schism -- namely, that you might not be defiled by the sins of other men--
is in the most simple manner exploded; since it is manifest from the
letters of Cyprian that participation in the sacraments was allowed to
sinful men, when those who, in your judgment (and as you will have it, in
his judgment also), were unbaptized were as such admitted to the Church,
and that nevertheless the Church did not perish, but remained in the
dignity belonging to her nature as the Lord's wheat scattered throughout
the world. And, therefore, if in your consternation you thus betake
yourselves to Cyprian's authority as to a harbour of refuge, you see the
rock against which your error dashes itself in this course; if, on the
other hand, you do not venture to flee thither, you are wrecked without any
struggle for escape.

   40. Moreover, Cyprian either did not hold at all the opinions which you
ascribe to him, or did subsequently correct his mistake by the rule of
truth, or covered this blemish, as we may call it, upon his otherwise
spotless mind by the abundance of his love, in his most amply defending the
unity of the Church growing throughout the whole world, and in his most
stedfastly holding the bond of peace; for it is written, "Charity [love]
covereth a multitude of sins."(1) To this  was also added, that in him, as
a most fruitful. branch, the Father removed by the pruning knife of
suffering whatever may have remained in him requiring correction: "For
every branch in me," saith the Lord, "that beareth fruit He purgeth, that
it may bring forth more fruit."(2) And whence this care of him, if not
because, continuing as a branch in the far-spreading vine, he did not
forsake the root of unity? "For though he gave his body to be burned, if he
had not charity, it would profit him nothing."(3)

   41. Attend now a little while to the letters of Cyprian, that you may
see how he proves the man to be inexcusable who desires ostensibly on the
ground of his own righteousness to withdraw himself from the unity of the
Church (which God promised and has fulfilled in all nations), and that you
may more clearly apprehend the truth of the text quoted by me shortly
before: "There is a generation that esteem themselves righteous, and have
not cleansed themselves from the guilt of their going forth." In a letter
which he wrote to Antonianus(4) he discusses a matter very closely akin to
that which we are now debating; but it is better for us to give his very
words: "Some of our predecessors," he says, "in the episcopal office in
this province were of opinion that the peace of the Church should not be
given to fornicators, and finally closed the door of repentance against
those who had been guilty of adultery. They did not, however, withdraw
themselves from fellowship with their colleagues in the episcopate; nor did
they rend asunder the unity of the Catholic Church, by such harshness and
obstinate perseverance in their censure as to separate themselves from the
Church because others granted while they themselves refused to adulterers
the peace of the Church. The bond of concord remaining unbroken, and the
sacrament of the Church continuing undivided, each bishop arranges and
orders his own conduct as one who shall give account of his procedure to
his Lord." What say you to that, brother Vincentius? Surely you must see
that this great man, this peace-loving bishop and dauntless martyr, made
nothing more earnestly his care than to prevent the sundering of the bond
of unity. You see him travailing in birth for the souls of men, not only
that they might, when conceived, be born in Christ, but also that, when
born, they might not perish through their being shaken out of their
mother's bosom.

   42. Now give attention, I pray you, further to this thing which he has
mentioned in protesting against impious schismatics. If those who granted
peace to adulterers, who repented of their sin, shared the guilt of
adulterers, were those who did not so act defiled by fellowship' with them
as colleagues in office? If, again, it was a right thing, as truth asserts
and the Church maintains, that peace should be given to adulterers who
repented of their sin, those who utterly closed against adulterers the door
of reconciliation through repentance were unquestionably guilty of impiety
in refusing healing to the members of Christ, in taking away the keys of
the Church from those who knocked for admission, and in opposing with
heartless cruelty God's most compassionate forbearance, which permitted
them to live in order that, repenting, they might be healed by the
sacrifice of a contrite spirit and broken heart. Nevertheless this their
heartless error and impiety did not defile the others, compassionate and
peace-loving men, when these shared with them in the Christian sacraments,
and tolerated them within the net of unity, until the time when, brought to
the shore, they should be separated from each other; or if this error and
impiety of others did defile them, then the Church was already at that time
destroyed, and there was no Church to give Cyprian birth. But if, as is
beyond question,' the Church continued in existence, it is also i beyond
question that no man in the unity of Christ can be stained by the guilt of
the sins of i other men if he be not consenting to the deeds of the wicked,
and thus defiled by actual participation in their crimes, but only, for the
sake of the fellowship of the good, tolerating the wicked, as the chaff
which lies until the final purging of the Lord's threshing-floor. These
things being so, where is the pretext for your schism? Are ye not an "evil
generation, esteeming yourselves righteous, yet not washed from the guilt
of your going forth" [from the Church] ?

   43. If, now, I were disposed to quote anything against you from the
writings of Tychonius, a man of your communion, who has written rather in
defence of the Church and against you than the reverse, in vain disowning
the communion of African Christians as traditors (by which one thing
Parmenianus silences him), what else can you say in reply than what
Tychonius himself said of you as I have shortly before reminded you: "That
which is according to our will is holy "?(1) For this Tychonius -- a man,
as I have said, of your communion -- writes that a Council was held at
Carthage(2) by two hundred and seventy of your bishops; in which Council,
after seventy-five days of deliberation, all past decisions on the matter
being set aside, a carefully revised resolution was published, to the
effect. that to those who were guilty of a heinous crime as traditors, the
privilege of communion should be granted as to blameless persons, if they
refused to be baptized. He says further, that Deuterius of Macriana, a
bishop of your party, added to the Church a whole crowd of traditors,
without making any distinction between them and others, making the unity of
the Church open to these traditors, in accordance with the decree of the
Council held by these two hundred and seventy of your bishops, and that
after that transaction Donatus continued unbroken his communion with the
said Deuterius, and not only with him, but also with all the Mauritanian
bishops for forty years, who, according to the statement of Tychonius,
admitted the traditors to communion without insisting on their being
rebaptized, up to the time of the persecution made by Macarius.

   44. You will say, "What has that Tychonius to do with me?" It is true
that Tychonius is the man whom Parmenianus checked by his reply, and
effectually warned not to write such things; but he did not refute the
statements themselves, but, as I have said above, silenced him by this one
thing, that while saying such things concerning the Church which is
diffused throughout the world, and while admitting that the faults of other
men within its unity cannot defile one who is innocent, he nevertheless
withdrew himself from the contagion of communion with African Christians
because of their being traditors, and was an adherent of the party of
Donatus. Parmenianus, indeed, might have said that Tychonius had in all
these things spoken falsely; but, as Tychonius himself observes, many were
still living at that time by whom these things might be proved to be most
unquestionably true and generally known.

   45. Of these things, however, I say no more: maintain, if you choose,
that Tychonius spoke falsely; I bring you back to Cyprian, the authority
which you yourself have quoted. If, according to his writings, every one in
the unity of the Church is defiled by the sins of other members, then the
Church had utterly perished before Cyprian's time, and all possibility of
Cyprian's own existence (as a member of the Church) is taken away. If,
however, the very thought of this is impiety, axed it be beyond question
that the Church continued in being, it follows that no one is defiled by
the guilt of the sins of other men within the Catholic unity; and in vain
do you, "an evil generation," maintain that you are righteous, when you are
"not washed from the guilt of your going forth."

   CHAP. XI.-- 46. You will say, "Why then do you seek us? Why do you
receive those whom you call heretics?" Mark how simple and short is my
reply. We seek you because you are lost, that we may rejoice over you when
found, as over you while lost we grieved. Again we call you heretics; but
the name applies to you only up to the time of your being turned to the
peace of the Catholic Church, and extricated from the errors by which you
have been ensnared. For when you pass over to us, you entirely abandon the
position you formerly occupied, so that, as heretics no longer, you pass
over to us. You will say, "Then baptize me." I would, if you were not
already baptized, or if you had received the baptism of Donatus, or of
Rogatus only, and not of Christ. It is not the Christian sacraments, but
the crime of schism, which makes you a heretic. The evil which has
proceeded from yourself is not a reason for our denying the good that is
permanent in you, but which you possess to your own harm if you have it not
in that Church from which proceeds its power to do good. For from the
Catholic Church are all the sacraments of the Lord, which you hold and
administer in the same way as they were held and administered even before
you went forth from her. The fact, however, that you are no longer in that
Church from which proceeded the sacraments which you have, does not make it
the less true that you still have them. We therefore do not change in you
that wherein you are at one with ourselves, for in many things you are at
one with us; and of such it is said, "For in many things they were with
me:"(1) but we correct those things in which you are not with us, and we
wish you to receive those things which you have not where you now are. You
are at one with us in baptism, in creed, and in the other sacraments of the
Lord. But in the spirit of unity and bond of peace, in a word, in the
Catholic Church itself, you are not with us. If you receive these things,
the others which you already have will then not begin to be yours, but
begin to be of use to you. We do not therefore, as you think, receive your
men of your party as still belonging to you, but in the act of receiving
them we incorporate with ourselves those who forsake you that they may be
received by us; and in order that they may belong to us, their first step
is to renounce their connection with you. Nor do we compel into union with
us those who industriously serve an error which we abhor; but our reason
for wishing those men to be united to us is, that they may no longer be
worthy of our abhorrence.

   47. But you will say, "The Apostle Paul baptized after John.''(2) Did
he then baptize after a heretic? If you do presume to call that friend of
the Bridegroom a heretic, and to say that he was not in the unity of the
Church, I beg that you will put this in writing. But if you believe that it
would be the height of folly to think or to say so, it remains for your own
wisdom to resolve the question why the Apostle Paul baptized after John.
For if he baptized after one who was his equal, you ought all to baptize
after one another. If after one who was greater than himself, you ought to
baptize after Rogatus; if after one who was less than himself, Rogatus
ought to have baptized after you those whom you, as a presbyter, had
baptized. If, however, the baptism which is now administered is in all
cases of equal value to those who receive it, however unequal in merit the
persons may be by whom it is administered, because it is the baptism of
Christ, not of those who administer the right, I think you must already
perceive that Paul administered the baptism of Christ to certain persons
because they had received the baptism of John only, and not of Christ; for
it is expressly called the baptism of John, as the Divine Scripture bears
witness in many passages, and as the Lord Himself calls it, saying: "The
baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?"(3) But the baptism
which Peter administered was the baptism, not of Peter, but of Christ; that
which Paul administered was the baptism, not of Paul, but of Christ; that
which .was administered by those who, in the apostle's time, preached
Christ not sincerely, but of contention,(4) was not their own, but the
baptism of Christ; and that which was administered by those who, in
Cyprian's time, either by artful dishonesty obtained their possessions, or
by usury, at exorbitant interest, increased them, was not their own
baptism, but the baptism of Christ. And because it was of Christ,
therefore, although there was very great disparity in the persons by whom
it was administered, it was equally useful to those by whom it was
received. For if the excellency of the person by whom one is baptized, it
was wrong in the apostle to give thanks that he had baptized none of the
Corinthians, but Crispus, and Gaius, and the house of Stephanas;(5) for the
baptism of the converts in Corinth, if administered by himself, would have
been so much more excellent as Paul himself was more excellent than other
men. Lastly, when he says, "I have planted, and Apollos watered,"(6) he
seems to intimate that he had preached the gospel, and that Apollos had
baptized. Is Apollos better than John? Why then did he, who baptized after
John, not baptize after Apollos? Surely because, in the one case, the
baptism, by whomsoever administered, was the baptism of Christ; and in the
other case, by whomsoever administered, it was, although preparing the way
for Christ, only the baptism of John.

   48. It seems to you an odious thing to say l that baptism was given to
some after John had l baptized them, and yet that baptism is not to be
given to men after heretics have baptized them but it may be said with
equal justice to be an odious thing that baptism was given to some after
John had baptized them, and yet that baptism is not to be given to men
after intemperate persons have baptized them. I name this sin of
intemperance. rather than others, because those in whom it reigns are not
able to hide it: and yet what man, even though he be blind, does not know
how many addicted to this vice are to, be found everywhere? And yet among
the works of the flesh, of which it is said that they who do them shall not
inherit the kingdom of God, the apostle places this in an enumeration in
which heresies also are specified: "Now the works of the flesh," he says,
"are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, 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 who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God."(1) Baptism, therefore, although it was administered after John, is
not administered after a heretic, on the very same principle according to
which, though administered after John; it is not administered after an
intemperate man: for both heresies and drunkenness are among the works
which exclude those who do them from inheriting the kingdom of God. Does it
not seem to you as if it were a thing intolerably unseemly, that although
baptism was repeated after it had been administered by him who, not even
moderately drinking wine, but wholly refraining from its use, prepared the
way for the kingdom of God, and yet that it should not be repeated after
being administered by an intemperate man, who shall not inherit the kingdom
of God? What can be said in answer to this, but that the one was the
baptism of John, after which the apostle administered the baptism of
Christ; and that the other, administered by an intemperate man, was the
baptism of Christ? Between John Baptist and an intemperate man there is a
great difference, as of opposites; between the baptism of Christ and the
baptism of John there is no contrariety, but a great difference. Between
the apostle and an intemperate man there is a great difference; but there
is none between the baptism of Christ administered by an apostle, and the
baptism of Christ administered by an intemperate man. In like manner,
between John and a heretic there is a great difference, as of opposites;
and between the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ which a heretic
administers there is no contrariety, but there is a great difference. But
between the baptism. of Christ which an apostle administers, and the
baptism of Christ which a heretic administers, there is no difference. For
the form of the sacrament is acknowledged to be the same even when there is
a great difference in point of worth between the men by whom it is
administered.

   49. But pardon me, for I have made a mistake in wishing to convince you
by arguing from the case of an intemperate man administering baptism; for I
had forgotten that I am dealing with a Rogatist, not with one bearing the
wider name of Donatist. For among your colleagues who are so few, and in
the whole number of your clergy, perhaps you cannot find one addicted to
this vice. For you are persons who hold that the name Catholic is given to
the faith not because communion of those who hold it embraces the whole
world, but because they observe the whole of the Divine precepts and the
whole of the sacraments; you are the persons in whom alone the Son of man
when He cometh shall find faith, when on the earth He shall find no faith,
forasmuch as you are not earth and on the earth, but heavenly and dwelling
in heaven t Do you not fear, or do you not observe that "God resisteth the
proud, but giveth grace to the humble"?(2) Does not that very passage in
the Gospel startle you, in which the Lord saith, "When the Son of man
cometh, shall He find faith in the earth?"(3) Immediately thereafter, as if
foreseeing that some would proudly arrogate to themselves the possession of
this faith, He spake to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous, and despised others, the parable of the two men who went up to
the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The words
which follow I leave for yourself to consider and to answer, Nevertheless
examine more minutely your small sect, to see whether not so much as one
who administers baptism is an intemperate man. For so widespread is the
havoc wrought among souls by this plague, that I am greatly surprised if it
has not reached even your infinitesimal flock, although it is your boast
that already, before the coming of Christ, the one good Shepherd, you have
separated between the sheep and the goats.

   CHAP. XII.--50, Listen to the testimony which through me is addressed
to you by those who are the Lord's wheat, suffering meanwhile until the
final winnowing,(4) among the chaff in the Lord's threshing-floor, i.e.
throughout the whole world, because "God hath called the earth from the
rising of the sun unto the going down thereof,"(1) and throughout the same
wide field the "children praise Him." (2) We disapprove of every one who,
taking advantage of this imperial edict, persecutes you, not with loving
concern for your correction, but with the malice of an enemy. Moreover,
although, since every earthly possession can be rightly retained only on
the ground either of divine right, according to which all things belong to
the righteous, or of human right, which is in the jurisdiction of the kings
of the earth, you are mistaken in calling those things yours which you do
not possess as righteous persons, and which you have forfeited by the laws
of earthly sovereigns, and plead in vain, "We have laboured to gather
them," seeing that you may read what is written, "The wealth of the sinner
is laid up for the just; "(3) nevertheless we disapprove of any one who,
availing himself of this law which the kings of the earth, doing homage to
Christ, have published in order to correct your impiety, covetously seeks
to possess himself of your property. Also we disapprove of any one who, on
the ground not of justice, but of avarice, seizes and retains the provision
pertaining to the poor, or the chapels (4) in which you meet for worship,
which you once occupied in the name of the Church, and which are by all
means the rightful property only of that Church which is the true Church of
Christ. We disapprove of any one who receives a person that has been
expelled by you for some disgraceful action or crime, on the same terms on
which those are received who have lived among you chargeable with no other
crime beyond the error through which you are separated from us. But these
are things which you cannot easily prove; and although you can prove them,
we bear with some whom we are unable to correct or even to punish; and we
do not quit the Lord's threshing-floor because of the chaff which is there,
nor break the Lord's net because of bad fishes enclosed therein, nor desert
the Lord's flock because of goats which are to be in the end separated from
it, nor go forth from the Lord's house because in it there are vessels
destined to dishonour.

   CHAP. XIII--51. But, my brother, if you forbear seeking the empty
honour which comes from men, and despise the reproach of fools, who will be
ready to say, "Why do you now destroy what you once laboured to build up?"
it seems to me to be beyond doubt that you will now pass over to the Church
which I perceive that you acknowledge to be the true Church: the proofs of
which sentiment on your part I find at hand. For in the beginning of your
letter which I am now answering you have these words: "I knew you, my
excellent friend, as a man devoted to peace and uprightness, when you were
still far removed from the Christian faith, and were in these earlier days
occupied with literary pursuits; but since your conversion at a more recent
time to the Christian faith, you give your time and labour, as I am
informed by the statements of many, persons, to theological
controversies."(5) These words are undoubtedly your own, if you were the
person who sent me that letter. Seeing, therefore, that you confess that I
have been converted to the Christian faith, although I have not been
converted to the sect of the Donatists or of the Rogatists, you
unquestionably uphold 'the truth that beyond the pale of Rogatists and
Donatists the Christian faith exists. This faith therefore is, as we say,
spread abroad throughout all nations, which are according to God's
testimony blessed in the seed of Abraham.(6) Why therefore do you still
hesitate to adopt what you perceive to be true, unless it be that you are
humbled because at some former time you did not perceive what you now see,
or maintained some different view, and so, while ashamed to correct an
error, are not ashamed (where shame would be much more reasonable) of
remaining wilfully in error ?

   52. Such conduct the Scripture has not passed over in silence; for we
read, "There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which is
graceful and glorious."(7) Shame brings sin, when through its influence any
one forbears from changing a wicked opinion, lest he be supposed to be
fickle, or be held as by his own judgment convicted of having been long in
error: such persons descend into the pit alive, that is, conscious of their
perdition; whose future doom the death of Dathan and Abiram and Korah,
swallowed up by the opening earth, long ago prefigured.(8) But shame is
graceful and glorious when one blushes for his own sin, and by repentance
is changed to something better, which you are reluctant to do because
overpowered by that 'false and fatal shame, fearing lest by men who know
not whereof they affirm, that sentence of the apostle may be quoted against
you: "If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a
transgressor."(9) If, however, this sentence admitted of application to
those who, after being corrected, preach the truth which in their
perversity they opposed, it might have been said at first against Paul
himself, in regard to whom the churches of Christ glorified God when they
heard that he now "preached the faith which once he destroyed."(1)

   53. Do not, however, imagine that one can pass from error to truth, or
from any sin, be it great or small, to the correction of his sin, without
giving some proof of his repentance. It is, however, an error of
intolerable impertinence for men to blame the Church, which is proved by so
many Divine testimonies to be the Church of Christ, for dealing in one way
with those who forsake her, receiving them back on condition of correcting
this fault by some acknowledgment of their repentance, and in another way
with those who never were within her pale, and are receiving welcome to her
peace for the first time; her method being to humble the former more fully,
and to receive the latter upon easier terms, cherishing affection for both,
and ministering with a mother's love to the health of both.

   You have here perhaps a longer letter than, you desired. It would have
been much shorter if in my reply I had been thinking of you alone; but as
it is, even though it should be of no use to yourself, I do not think that
it can fail to be of use to those who shall take pains to read l it in the
fear of God, and without respect of persons. Amen.

LETTER XCIV. (A.D. 408.)

A letter to Augustin from Paulinus and Therasia, the substance of which is
sufficiently stated in the next letter, which contains the reply of
Augustin to his l friend's questions concerning the present life, the
nature of the bodies of the blessed in the life to come, and i the
functions of the members of the body after the resurrection.

LETTER XCV. (A.D. 408.)

TO BROTHER PAULINUS AND SISTER THERASIA, MOST BELOVED AND SINCERE SAINTS
WORTHY OF AFFECTION AND VENERATION, FELLOW-DISCIPLES WITH HIMSELF UNDER THE
LORD JESUS AS MASTER AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. When brethren most closely united to us, towards whom along with us
you are accustomed both to cherish and to express sentiments of regard
which we all cordially reciprocate, have frequent occasions of visiting
you, this benefit is one by which we are comforted under evil rather than
made to rejoice in increase of good. For we strive to the utmost of our
power to avoid the causes and emergencies which necessitate their journeys,
and yet, -- I know not how, unless it be as just retribution,- they cannot
be dispensed with: but when they return to us and see us, that word of
Scripture is fulfilled in our experience: "In the multitude of my thoughts
within me, Thy comforts delight my soul."(2) Accordingly, when you learn
from our brother Possidius himself how sad is the occasion which has
compelled him to go to Italy,(3) you will know how true the remarks I have
made are in regard to the joy which he has in meeting you; and yet, if any
of us should cross the sea for the one purpose of enjoying a meeting with
you, what more cogent or worthy reason could be found? This, however, would
not be compatible with those obligations by which we are bound to minister
to those who are languid through infirmity, and not to withdraw our bodily
presence from them, unless their malady, assuming dangerous form, makes
such departure imperative. Whether in these things we are receiving
chastening or judgment I know not; but this I know, that He is not dealing
with us according to our I sins, nor requiting us according to our
iniquities,(4) who mingles so great comfort with our tribulation, and who,
by remedies which fill us with wonder, secures that we shall not love the
world, and shall not by it be made to fall away.

   2. I asked in a former letter your opinion as to the nature of the
future life of the saints; I but you have said in your reply that we have
still much to study concerning our condition in this present life, and you
do well, except in this, ,t that you have expressed your desire to learn .
from me that of which you are either equally ignorant or equally well-
informed with myself, or rather, of which you know much more perhaps than I
do; for you have said with perfect truth, that before we meet the
dissolution of . this mortal body, we must die, in a gospel sense, by a
voluntary departure, withdrawing ourselves, not by death, but by deliberate
resolution, from the life of this world. This course is a simple one, and
is beset with no waves of uncertainty; because we are of opinion that we
ought so to live in this mortal life that we may be in some measure fitted
for immortality. The whole question, however, which, when discussed and
investigated, perplexes men like myself, is this -- how we ought to live
among or for the welfare of those who have not yet learned to live by
dying, not in the dissolution of the body, but by turning themselves with a
certain mental resolution away from the attractions of mere natural things.
For in most cases, it seems to us that unless we in some small degree
conform to them in regard to those very things from which we desire to see
them delivered, we shall not succeed in doing them any good. And when we do
thus conform, a pleasure in such things steals upon ourselves, so that
often we are pleased to speak and to listen to frivolous things, and not
only to smile at them, but even to be completely overcome with laughter:
thus burdening our souls with feelings which cleave to the dust, or even to
the mire of this world, we experience greater difficulty and reluctance in
raising ourselves to God that by dying a gospel-death we may live a gospel-
life. And whensoever this state of mind is reached, immediately thereupon
will follow the commendation, "Well done! well done !" not from men, for no
man perceives in another the mental act by which divine things are
apprehended, but in a certain inward silence there sounds I know not
whence, "Well done! well done!" Because of this kind of temptation, the
great apostle confesses that he was buffeted by the angel.(1) Behold whence
it comes that our whole life on earth is a temptation; for man is tempted
even in that tiring in which he is being conformed so far as he can be to
the likeness of the heavenly life.

   3. What shall I say as to the infliction or remission of punishment, in
cases in which we have no other desire than to forward the spiritual
welfare of those in regard to whom we judge that they ought or ought not to
be punished? Also, if we consider not only the nature and magnitude of
faults, but also what each may be able or unable to bear according to his
strength of mind, how deep and dark a question it is to adjust the amount
of punishment so as to prevent the person who receives it not only from
getting no good, but also from suffering loss thereby! Besides, I know not
whether a greater number have been improved or made worse when alarmed
under threats of such punishment! at the hands of men as is an object of
fear. What, then, is the path of duty, seeing that it often happens that if
you inflict punishment on ,one he goes to destruction; whereas, if you
leave him unpunished, another is destroyed? I confess that I make mistakes
daily in regard to this, and that I know not when and how to observe the
rule of Scripture: "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others may
fear;"(2) and that other rule, "Tell him his fault between thee and him
alone;"(3) and the rule, "Judge nothing before the time; "(4) "Judge not,
that ye be not judged "(5) (in which command the Lord has not added the
words, "before the time "); and this saying of Scripture, "Who art thou
that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or
falleth: yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him
stand;''(6) by which words he makes it plain that he is speaking of those
who are within the Church; yet, on the other hand, he commands them to be
judged when he says, "What have I to do to judge them also that are
without? do not ye judge them that are within? therefore put away from
among yourselves that wicked person."(7) But when this is necessary, how
much care and fear is occasioned by the question to what extent it should
be done, lest that happen which, in his second epistle to them, the apostle
is found admonishing these persons to beware of in that very example,
saying, "lest, perhaps, such an one should be swallowed up with overmuch
sorrow;" adding, in order to prevent men from thinking this a thing not
calling for anxious care, "lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we
are not ignorant of his devices."(8) What trembling we feel in all these
things, my brother Paulinus, O holy man of God! what trembling, what
darkness! May we not think that with reference to these things it was said,
"Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed
me. And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away,
and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the
wilderness And yet even in the wilderness perchance he still experienced
it; for he adds, "I waited for Him who should deliver me from weakness and
from tempest."(9) Truly, therefore, is the life of man upon the earth a
life of temptation.(10)

   4. Moreover, as to the oracles of God, is it not true that they are
lightly touched rather than grasped and handled by us, seeing that in by
far the greater part of them we do not already possess opinions definite
and ascertained, but are rather inquiring what our opinion ought to be? And
this caution, though attended with abundant disquietude, is much better
than the rashness of dogmatic assertion. Also, if a man is not carnally
minded (which the apostle says is death), will he not be a great cause of
offence to those who are still carnally minded, in many parts of Scripture
in the exposition of which to say what you believe is most perilous, and to
refrain from saying it is most grievous, and to say something else than
what you believe is most pernicious? Nay more, when in the discourses or
writings of those who are within the Church we find some things censurable,
and do not conceal our disapprobation (supposing such correction to be
according to the freedom of brotherly love), how great a sin is committed
against us when we are suspected of being actuated in this by envy and not
by goodwill! and how much do we sin against others, when we in like manner
impute to those who find fault with our opinions a desire rather to wound
than to correct us: Verily, there arise usually from this cause bitter
enmities even between persons bound to each: other by the greatest
affection and intimacy, when, "thinking of men above that which is written,
any one is puffed up for one against another; "(1) and while they bite and
devour one another, "there is reason to fear lest they be consumed one of
another." (2) Therefore, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I
fly away, and be at rest."(3) For whether it be that the dangers by which
one is beset seem to him greater than those of which he has no experience,
or that my impressions are correct, I cannot help thinking that any amount
of weakness and of tempest in the wilderness would be more easily borne
than the things which we feel or fear in the busy world.

   5. I therefore greatly approve of your saying that we should make the
state in which men stand, or rather the course which they run, in this
present life, the theme of our discussion. I add as another reason for our
giving this subject the preference, that the finding and following of the
course itself must come before our finding and possessing that towards
which it leads. When, therefore, I asked your views on this, I acted as if,
through holding and observing carefully the right rule of this life, we
were already free from disquietude concerning its course, although I feel
in so many things, and especially in those which I have mentioned, that I
toil in the midst of very great dangers. Nevertheless, forasmuch as the
cause of all this ignorance and embarrassment appears to me to be that, in
the midst of a great variety of manners and of minds having inclinations
and infirmities hidden altogether from our sight, we seek the interest of
those who are citizens and subjects, not of Rome which is on earth, but of
Jerusalem which is in heaven, it seemed to me more agreeable to converse
with you about what we shall be, than about what we now are. For although
we do not know the blessings which are to be enjoyed yonder, of one thing
at least we are assured, and it is not a small thing, that yonder the evils
which we experience here shall have no place.

   6. Wherefore, as to the ordering of this present life in the way which
we must follow in order to the 'attainment of eternal life, I know that our
carnal appetites must be held in check, only so much concession being made
to the gratification of the bodily senses as suffices for the support of
this life and the active discharge of its duties, and that all the
vexations of this life which come upon us in connection with the truth of
God, and the eternal welfare of ourselves or of our neighbours, must be
borne with patience and fortitude. I know also that with all the zeal of
love we should seek the good of our neighbour, that he may rightly spend
the present life so as to obtain life eternal. I know also that we ought to
prefer spiritual to carnal, immutable to mutable things, and that all this
a man is so much more or less enabled to do, according as he is more or
less helped by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. But I do not
know the reason why one or another is more or less helped or not helped by
that grace; this only I know, that God does this with perfect justice, and
for reasons which to Himself are known as sufficient. In regard, however,
to the things which I have mentioned above, as to the way in which we ought
to live amongst men, if anything has become known to you through experience
or meditation, I beseech you to give me instruction. And if these things
perplex you not less than myself, make them the subject of conference with
some judicious spiritual physician, whom you may find either where you
reside, or in Rome, when you make your annual visit to the city, and
thereafter write to me whatever the Lord may reveal to you through his
instructions, or to you and him together when engaged in conversation on
the subject.

   7. As to the resurrection of the body, and the future offices of its
members in the incorruptible and immortal state, since you have, in return
for the questions which I put to you, inquired my views on these matters,
listen to 'a brief statement which, if it be not sufficient, may
afterwards, with the Lord's help, be amplified by fuller discussion. It is
to be held most firmly, as a doctrine in regard to which the testimony of
Holy Scripture is true and unmistakable, that these visible and earthly
bodies which are now called natural,(4) shall, in the resurrection of the
faithful and just, be spiritual bodies. At the same time, I do not know how
the quality of a spiritual body can be comprehended or stated by us, seeing
that it lies beyond the range of our experience. There shall be, assuredly,
in such bodies no corruption, and therefore they shall not require the
perishable nourishment which is now necessary; yet though unnecessary, it
will not be impossible for them at their pleasure to take and actually
consume food; otherwise it would not have been taken after His resurrection
by the Lord, who has given us such an example of the resurrection of the
body, that the apostle argues from it: "If the dead rise not, then is not
Christ raised."(1) But He, when He appeared to His disciples, having all
His members, and using them according to their functions, also pointed out
to them the places where His wounds had been, regarding which I have always
supposed that they were the scars, not the wounds themselves, and that they
were there, not of necessity, but according to His free exercise of power.
He gave at that time the clearest evidence of the ease with which He
exercised this power, both by showing Himself in another: form to the two
disciples, and by His appearing, not as a spirit, but in His true body, to
the disciples in the upper chamber, although the doors were shut.(2)

   8. From this arises the question as to angels, whether they have bodies
adapted to their duties and their swift motions from place to place, or are
only spirits? For if we say that they have bodies, we are met by the
passage: "He maketh His angels spirits;"(3) and if we say that they have
not bodies, a still greater difficulty meets us in explaining how, if they
are without bodily form, it is written that they appeared to the bodily
senses of men, accepted offers of hospitality, permitted their feet to be
washed, and used the meat and drink which was provided for them.(4) For it
seems to involve us in less difficulty, if we suppose that the angels are
there called spirits in the same manner as men are called souls, e.g. in
the statement that so many souls (not signifying that they had not bodies
also) went down with Jacob into Egypt,(5) than if we suppose that, without
bodily form, all these things were done by angels. Again, a certain
definite height is named in the Apocalypse as the stature of an angel, in
dimensions which could apply only to bodies, proving that that which
appeared to the eyes of men is to be explained, not as an illusion, but as
resulting from the power which we have spoken of as easily put forth by
spiritual bodies. But whether angels have bodies or not, and whether or not
any one be able to show how without bodies they could do all these things,
it is nevertheless certain, that in that city of the holy in which those of
our race who have been redeemed by Christ shall be united for ever to
thousands of angels, voices proceeding from organs of speech shall furnish
expression to the thoughts of minds in which nothing is hidden; for in that
divine fellowship it will not be possible for any thought in one to remain
concealed from another, but there shall be complete harmony and oneness of
heart in the praise of God, and this shall find utterance not only from the
spirit, but through the spiritual body as its instrument; this, at least,
is what I believe.

   9. Meanwhile, if you have already found or can learn from other
teachers anything more fully agreeing with the truth than this, I am most
eagerly longing to be instructed therein by you. Study carefully, if you
please, my letter, in regard to which, as you pied in excuse for your very
hurried reply the haste of the deacon who brought it to me, I do not make
any complaint, but rather remind you of it, in order that what was then
omitted in your answer may now be supplied. Look over it again, and observe
what I wished to learn from you, both regarding your opinion concerning
Christian retirement as a means to the acquisition and discussion of the
truths of Christian wisdom, and regarding that retirement in which I
supposed that you had found leisure, but in which it is reported to me that
you are engrossed with occupation to an incredible extent.

   May you, in whom the holy God has given us great joy and consolation,
live mindful of us, and in true felicity. (This sentence is added by
another hand.)

LETTER XCVI. (A.D. 408.)

TO OLYMPIUS, MY LORD GREATLY BELOVED, AND MY SON WORTHY OF HONOUR AND
REGARD AS  A MEMBER OF CHRIST, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING.

   1. Whatever your rank may be in connection with the course of this
world, I have the greatest confidence in addressing you as my much-loved,
true-hearted Christian fellow-servant Olympius. For I know that this name,
in your esteem, excels all other glorious and lofty titles. Reports have
indeed reached me that you have obtained some promotion in worldly honour,
but no information confirming the truth of the rumour had come to me up to
the time when this opportunity of writing to you occurred. Since, however,
I know that you have learned from the Lord not to mind high things, but to
condescend to those who are lightly esteemed by men, whatever the pinnacle
to which you may have been raised, we take for granted, my lord greatly
beloved, and son worthy of honour and regard as a member of Christ, that
you will still make a letter from me welcome, just as you were wont to do.
And as to your worldly prosperity, I do not doubt that you will wisely use
it for your eternal gain; so that the greater the influence which you
acquire in the commonwealth on this earth, the more will you devote
yourself to the interests of the heavenly city to which you owe your birth
in Christ, forasmuch as this shall be more abundantly repaid to you in the
land of the living, and in the true peace which yields sure and endless
joys.(1)

   2. I again commend to your kind consideration the petition of my
brother and colleague Boniface, in the hope that what could not be done
before may be in your power now. He might perhaps, indeed, legally retain,
without any further difficulty, that which his predecessor had acquired,
though under another name than his own, and which he had begun to possess
in name of the church; but we do not wish, since his predecessor was in
debt to the public exchequer, to have this burden upon our conscience. For
that act of fraud was none the less truly fraud because perpetrated at the
expense of the public revenue. The same Paul (the predecessor of Boniface),
when he was made bishop, being about to surrender all his effects because
of the accumulated burden of arrears due to the public exchequer, having
secured payment of a bond by which a certain sum of money was due to him,
bought with it, as if for the church, in the name of a family then very
powerful, these few fields by the produce of which he might support
himself, in order that, in respect to these also, after his old practice,
he might escape annoyance at the hands of the collectors of the revenue,
although he was paying no tax. Boniface, however, when ordained over the
same church, on his death, hesitated to take the fields which he had thus
held; and although he might have contented himself with asking from the
emperor no more than a remission of the fiscal arrears which his
predecessor had incurred on this small property, he preferred to confess
without reserve that Paul had bought the property at an auction with money
of his own,: at a time when he was bankrupt as a debtor to the public
revenue, so that now the Church may, if possible, obtain possession of
this, not through the secret fraud of her bishop, but by an open act of the
Christian emperor's liberality. And if this be impossible, the servants of
God prefer to bear the hardship of want, rather than obtain the supply of
that which they require under reproaches of conscience for dishonourable
dealing.

   3. I beg you to condescend to give your support to this petition,
because he has resolved not to bring forward the decision in his favour
which was formerly obtained, lest it should preclude him from the liberty
of making a second application; for the answer then given fell short of
what he desired. And now, since you are of the same kindly disposition that
you formerly were, but possessed of greater influence, I do not despair of
this being easily granted by the Lord's help, in consideration of your
claims on the emperor; and if even you were to ask the gift of the property
in your own name, and present it to the church of which I have spoken, who
would find fault with your request; nay, rather, who would not commend it,
as dictated not by personal covetousness, but by Christian piety? May the
mercy of the Lord our God shield you, and make you more and more happy in
Christ, my lord and son.

LETTER XCVII. (A.D. 408.)

TO OLYMPIUS, MY EXCELLENT AND JUSTLY DISTINGUISHED LORD, AND MY SON WORTHY
OF MUCH HONOUR IN CHRIST, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.

   1. Although, when we heard recently of your having obtained merited
promotion to the highest rank, we felt persuaded, however uncertain we
still were in some degree as to the truth of the report, that towards the
Church of which we rejoice to know that you are truly a son, there was no
other feeling in your mind than that which you have now made patent to us
in your letter, nevertheless, having now read that letter in which you have
been pleased of your own accord to send to us, when we were full of
backwardness and diffidence, a most gracious exhortation to use our humble
efforts in pointing out to you how the Lord, by whose gift you are thus
powerful, may from time to time, by means of your pious obedience, bring
assistance to His Church, we write to you with the more abundant
confidence, my excellent and justly distinguished lord, and my son worthy
of much honour in Christ.

   2. Many brethren, indeed, holy men who are my colleagues, have, by
reason of the troubles of the church here, gone--I might almost say as
fugitives--to the emperor's most illustrious court; and these brethren you
may have already seen, or may have received from Rome their letters, in
connection with their respective occasions of appeal. I have not had it in
my power to consult them before writing; nevertheless, I was unwilling to
miss the opportunity of sending a letter by the bearer, my brother and
fellow-presbyter, who has been compelled, though in mid-winter, to make the
best of his way into those parts, under pressing necessity, in order to
save the life of a fellow-citizen. I write, therefore, to salute you, and
to charge you by the love which you have in Christ Jesus our Lord, to see
that your good work be hastened on with ' the utmost diligence, in order
that the enemies of the Church may know that those laws concerning the
demolition of idols and the correction of heretics which were sent into
Africa while Stilicho yet lived, were framed by the desire of our most
pious and faithful emperor; for they either cunningly boast, or
unwillingly' imagine that this was done without his knowledge, or against
his will, and thus they render the minds of the ignorant full of seditious
violence, and excite them to dangerous and vehement enmity against us.

   3. I do not doubt that, in submitting this in the way of petition or
respectful suggestion to the consideration of your Excellency, I act
agreeably to the wishes of all my colleagues throughout Africa; and I think
that it is your duty to take measures, as could be easily done, on whatever
opportunity may first arise, to make it understood by these vain men (whose
salvation we seek, although they resist us), that it was to the care, not
of Stilicho, but of the son of Theodosius, that those laws which have been
sent into Africa for the defence of the Church of Christ owed their
promulgation. On account of these things, then, the presbyter whom I have
mentioned already, the bearer of this letter, who is from the district of
Milevi, was ordered by his bishop, the venerable Severus, who joins me in
cordial salutations to you, whose love we esteem most genuine, to pass
through Hippo-regius, where I am; because, when we happened to meet
together in time of serious tribulation and distress to the Church, we
sought an opportunity of writing to your Highness, but found none. I had
indeed already sent one letter in regard to the business of our holy
brother and colleague Boniface, bishop of Cataqua; but the heavier
calamities destined to cause us greater agitation had not then befallen us,
regarding which, and the means whereby something may be done with the best
counsel for their prevention or punishment, according to the method of
Christ, the bishops who have sailed hence on that errand will be able more
conveniently to confer with you, in whose cordial goodwill towards us we
rejoice, inasmuch as they are able to report to you something which has
been, so far as limited time permitted, the result of careful an{t united
consultation. But as to this other matter, namely, that the province be
made to know how the mind of our most gracious and religious emperor stands
towards the Church, I recommend, nay, I beg, beseech, and implore you, to
take care that no time be lost, but that its accomplishment be hastened,
even before you see the bishops who have gone from us, so soon as shall be
possible for you, in the exercise of your most eminent vigilance on behalf
of the members of Christ who are now in circumstances of the utmost danger;
for the Lord has provided no small consolation for us under these trials,
seeing that it has pleased Him to put much more now than formerly in your
power, although we were already filled with joy by the number and the
magnitude of your good offices.

   4. We rejoice much in the firm and stedfast faith of some, and these
not few in number, who by means of these laws have been converted to the
Christian religion, or from schism to Catholic peace, for whose eternal
welfare we are glad to run the risk of forfeiting temporal welfare. For on
this account especially we now have to endure at the hands of men,
exceedingly and obdurately perverse, more grievous assaults of enmity,
which some of them, along with us, bear most patiently; but we are in very
great fear because of their weakness, until they learn, and are enabled by
the help of the Lord's most compassionate grace, to despise with more
abundant strength of spirit the present world and man's short day. May it
please your Highness to deliver the letter of instructions which I have
sent to my brethren the bishops when they come, if, as I suppose, they have
not yet reached you. For we have such confidence in the unfeigned devotion
of your heart, that with the Lord's help we desire to have you not only
giving us your assistance, but also participating in our consultations.

LETTER XCVIII. (A.D. 408.)

TO BONIFACE, HIS COLLEAGUE IN THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE, AUGUSTIN SENDS GREETING
IN THE LORD.

   1. You ask me to state "whether parents do harm to their baptized
infant children, when they attempt to heal them in time of sickness by
sacrifices to the false gods of the heathen." Also, "if they do thereby no
harm to their children, how can any advantage come to these children at
their baptism, through the faith of parents whose departure from the faith
does them no harm ?" To which I reply, that in the holy union of the parts
of the body of Christ, so great is the virtue of that sacrament, namely, of
baptism, which brings salvation, that so soon as he who owed his first
birth to others, acting under the impulse of natural instincts, has been
made partaker of the second birth by others, acting under the impulse of
spiritual desires, he cannot be thenceforward held under the bond of that
sin in another to which he does not with his own will consent. "Both the
soul of the father is mine," saith the Lord," and the soul of the son is
mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die;"(1) but he does not sin on whose
behalf his parents or any other one resort, without his knowledge, to the
impiety of worshipping heathen deities. 'That bond of guilt which was to be
cancelled by the grace of this sacrament he derived from Adam, for this
reason, that at the time of Adam's sin he was not yet a soul having a
separate life, i.e. another soul regarding which it! could be said, "both
the soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine." Therefore
now, when the man has a personal, separate existence, being thereby made
distinct from his parents, he is not held responsible for that sin in
another which is performed without his consent. In the former case, he
derived guilt from another, because, at the time when the guilt which he
has derived was incurred, he was one with the person from whom he derived
it, and was in him. But one man does not derive guilt from another, when,
through the fact that each has a separate life belonging to himself, the
word may apply equally to both --" The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

   2. But the possibility of regeneration through the office rendered by
the will of another, when the child is presented to receive the sacred
rite, is the work exclusively of the Spirit by whom the child thus
presented is regenerated. For it is not written, "Except a man be born
again by the will of his parents, or by the faith of those presenting the
child, or of those administering the ordinance," but, "Except a man be born
again of water and of the Spirit."(1) By the water, therefore; which holds
forth the sacrament of grace in its outward form, and by the Spirit who
bestows the benefit of grace in its inward power, cancelling the bond of
guilt, and restoring natural goodness [reconcilians bonum natural], the man
deriving his first birth originally from Adam alone, is regenerated in
Christ alone. Now the regenerating Spirit is possessed in common both by
the parents who present the child, and by the infant that is presented and
is born again; wherefore, in virtue of this participation in the same
Spirit, the will of those who present the infant is useful to the child.
But when the parents sin against the child by presenting him to the false
gods of the heathen, and attempting to bring him under impious bonds unto
these false gods, there is not such community of souls subsisting between
the parents and the child, that the guilt of one party can be common to
both alike. For we are not made partakers of guilt along with others
through their will, in the same way as we are made partakers of grace along
with others through the unity of the Holy Spirit; because the one Holy
Spirit can be in two different persons without their knowing in respect to
each other that by Him grace is the common possession of both, but the
human spirit cannot so belong to two individuals as to make the blame
common to both in a case in which one of the two sins, and the other does
not sin. Therefore a child, having once received natural birth through his
parents, can be made partaker of the second (or spiritual) birth by the
Spirit of God, so that the bond of guilt which he inherited from his
parents is cancelled; but he that has once received this second birth by
the Spirit of God cannot be i made again partaker of natural birth through
his parents, so that the bond once cancelled should again bind him. And
thus, when the grace of Christ has been once received, the child does not
lose it otherwise than by his own impiety, if, when he becomes older, he
turn out so ill. For by that time he will begin to have sins of his own,
which cannot be removed by regeneration, but must be healed by other
remedial measures.

   3. Nevertheless, persons of more advanced fears, whether they be
parents bringing their children, or others bringing any little ones, who
attempt to place those who have been baptized under obligation to profane
worship of heathen gods, are guilty of spiritual homicide. True, they do
not actually kill the children's souls, but they go as far towards killing
them as is in their power. The warning, "Do not kill your little ones," may
be with all propriety addressed to them; for the apostle says, "Quench not
the Spirit;''(2) not that He can be quenched, but that those who so act as
if they wished to have Him quenched are deservedly spoken of as quenchers
of the Spirit. In this sense also may be rightly understood the words which
most blessed Cyprian wrote in his letter concerning the lapsed, when,
rebuking those who in the time of persecution had sacrificed to idols, he
says, "And that nothing might be wanting to fill up the measure of their
crime, their infant children, carried in arms, or led thither by the hands
of their parents, lost, while yet in their infancy, that which they had
received as soon as life began."(3) They lost it, he meant, so far at least
as pertained to the guilt of the crime of those by whom they were compelled
to incur the loss: they lost it, that is to say, in the purpose and wish of
those who perpetrated on them such a wrong. For had they actually in their
own persons lost it, they must have remained under the divine sentence of
condemnation without any plea; but if holy Cyprian had been of this
opinion, he would not have added in the immediate context a plea in their
defence, saying, "Shall not these say, when the judgment-day has come: 'We
have done nothing; we have not of our own accord hastened to participate in
profane rites, forsaking the bread and the cup of the Lord; the apostasy of
others caused our destruction; we found our parents murderers, for they
deprived us of our Mother the Church and of our Father the Lord, so that,
through the wrong done by others, we were en-snared, because, while yet
young and unable to think for ourselves, we were by the deed of others, and
while wholly ignorant of such a crime, made partners in their sin'?" This
plea in their defence he would not have subjoined had he not believed it to
be perfectly just, and one which would be of service to these infants at
the bar of divine judgment. For if it is said by them with truth, "We have
done nothing," then "the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" and I in the
just dispensation of judgment by God, those shall not be doomed to perish
whose souls their parents did, so far at least as concerns their own guilt
in the transaction, bring to ruin.

   4. As to the incident mentioned in the same letter, that a girl who was
left as an infant in charge of her nurse, when her parents had escaped by
sudden flight, and was made by that nurse to take part in the profane rites
of idolatrous worship, had afterwards in the Church expelled from her
mouth, by wonderful motions, the Eucharist when it was given to her, this
seems to ate to have been caused by divine interposition, in order that
persons of riper years might not imagine that in this sin they do no wrong
to the children, but rather might understand, by means of a bodily action
of obvious significance on the part of those who were unable to speak, that
a miraculous warning was given to . themselves as to the course which would
have i been becoming in persons who, after so great a crime, rushed
heedlessly to those sacraments from which they ought by all means, in proof
of penitence, to have abstained. When Divine: Providence does anything of
this kind by means , of infant children, we must not believe that they i
are acting under the guidance of knowledge and reason; just as we are not
called upon to admire the wisdom of asses, because once God was pleased to
rebuke the madness of a prophet by the voice of an ass.(1) If, therefore, a
sound exactly like the human voice was uttered by an irrational animal, and
this was to be ascribed to a divine miracle, not to faculties belonging to
the ass, the Almighty could, in like manner, through the spirit of an
infant (in which reason was not absent, but only slumbering undeveloped),
make manifest by a motion of its body something to which those who had
sinned against both their own souls and their children behoved to give
heed. But since a child cannot return to become again a part of the author
of his natural life, so as to be one with him and in him, but is a wholly
distinct individual, having a body and a soul of his own, "the soul that
sinneth, it shall die."

   5. Some, indeed, bring their little ones for baptism, not in the
believing expectation that they shall be regenerated unto life eternal by
spiritual grace, but because they think that by this as a remedy the
children may recover or retain bodily health; but let not this disquiet
your mind, because their regeneration is not prevented by the fact that
this blessing has no place in the intention of those by whom they are
presented for baptism. For by these persons the ministerial actions which
are necessary are performed, and the sacramental words are pronounced,
without which the infant cannot be consecrated to God, But the Holy Spirit
who dwells in the saints, in those, namely, whom the glowing flame of love
has fused together into the one Dove whose wings are covered with
silver,(2) accomplishes His work even by the ministry of bond-servants, of
persons who are sometimes not only ignorant through simplicity, but even
culpably unworthy to be employed by Him. The presentation of the little
ones to receive the spiritual grace is the act not so much of those by
whose hands they are borne up (although it is theirs also in part, if they
themselves are good believers) as of the whole society of saints and
believers. For it is proper to regard the infants as presented by all who
take pleasure in their baptism, and through whose holy and perfectly-united
love they are assisted in receiving the communion of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore this is done by the whole mother Church, which is in the saints,
because the whole Church is the parent of all the saints, and the whole
Church is the parent of each one of them. For if the sacrament of Christian
baptism, being always Due and the same, is of value even when administered
by heretics, and though not in that case sufficing to secure to the
baptized person participation in eternal life, does suffice to seal his
consecration to God; and if this consecration makes him who, having the
mark of the Lord, remains outside of the Lord's flock, guilty as a heretic,
but reminds us at the same time that he is to be corrected by sound
doctrine, but not to be a second time consecrated by repetition of :he
ordinance; -- if this be the case even in the baptism of heretics, how much
more credible is that within the Catholic Church that which only straw
should be of service in bearing the ;rain to the floor in which it is to be
winnowed, and by means of which it is to be prepared for being added to the
heap of good grain !

   6. I would, moreover, wish you not to remain under the mistake of
supposing that the bond of guilt which is inherited from Adam cannot be
cancelled in any other way than by the parents. themselves presenting their
little ones to receive the grace of Christ; for you write: "As the parents
have been the authors of the life which makes them liable to condemnation,
the children should receive justification through the same channel, through
the faith of the same parents;" whereas you see that many are not presented
by parents, but also by any strangers whatever, as sometimes the infant
children of slaves are presented by their masters. Sometimes also, when
their parents are deceased, little orphans are baptized, being presented by
those who had it in their power to manifest their compassion in this way.
Again, sometimes foundlings which heartless parents have exposed in order
to their being cared for by any passer-by, are picked tip by holy virgins,
and are presented for baptism by these persons, who neither have nor desire
to have children of their own: and in this you behold precisely what was
done in the case mentioned in the Gospel of the man wounded by thieves, and
left half dead on the way, regarding whom the Lord asked who was neighbour
to him, and received for answer: "He that showed mercy on him."(1)

   7. That which you have placed at the end of your series of questions
you have judged to be the most difficult, because of the jealous care! with
which you are wont to avoid whatever is false. You state it thus: "If I
place before you an infant, and ask, 'Will this child when he grows up be
chaste ?' or 'Will he not be a thief?' you will reply, 'I know not.' If I
ask, ' Is he in his present infantile condition thinking what is good or
thinking what is evil?' you will reply,' I know not.' If, therefore, you do
not venture to take the responsibility of making any positive statement
concerning either his conduct in after life or his thoughts at the time,
what is that which parents do, when, in presenting their children for
baptism, they as sureties (or sponsors) answer for the children, and say
that they do that which at that age they are incapable even of
understanding, or, at least, in regard to which their thoughts (if they can
think) are hidden from us? For we ask those by whom the child is presented,
' Does he believe in God ?' and though at that age the child does not so
much as know that there is a God, the sponsors reply, ' He believes;' and
in like manner answer is returned by them to each of the other questions.
Now I am surprised that parents can in these things answer so confidently
on the chi!d's behalf as to say, at the time when they are answering the
questions of the persons administering baptism, that the infant is doing
what is so reremarkable and so excellent; and yet if at the same hour I
were to add such questions as, 'Will the child who is now being baptized be
chaste when he grows up? Will he not be a thief?' probably no one would
presume to answer, 'He will' or 'He will not,' although there is no
hesitation in giving the answer that the child believes in God, and turns
himself to God." Thereafter you add this sentence in conclusion: "To these
questions I pray you to condescend to give me a short reply, not silencing
me by the traditional authority of custom, but satisfying me by arguments
addressed to my reason."

   8. While reading this letter of yours over and ]over again, and
pondering its contents so far as my limited time permitted, memory recalled
to me my friend Nebridius, who, while he was a most diligent and eager
student of difficult problems, especially in the department of Christian
doctrine, had an extreme aversion to the giving of a short answer to a
great question. If any one insisted upon this, he was exceedingly
displeased; and if he was not prevented by respect for the age or rank of
the person, he indignantly rebuked such a questioner by stern looks and
words; for he considered him unworthy to be investigating matters such as
these, who did not know how much both might be said and behoved to be said
on a subject of great importance. But I do not lose patience with you, as
he was wont to do when one asked a brief reply; for you are, as I am, a
bishop engrossed with many cares, and therefore have not leisure for
reading any more than I have leisure for writing any prolix communication.
He was then a young man, who was not satisfied with short statements on
subjects of this kind, and being then himself at leisure, addressed his
questions concerning the many topics discussed in our conversations to one
who was also at leisure; whereas you, having regard to the circumstances
both of yourself the questioner, and of me from whom you demand the reply,
insist upon my giving you a short answer to the weighty question which you
propound. Well, I shall do my best to satisfy you; the Lord help me to
accomplish what you require.

   9. You know that in ordinary parlance we often say, when Easter is
approaching, "Tomorrow or the day after is the Lord's Passion," although He
suffered so many years ago, and His passion was endured once for all time.
In like manner, on Easter Sunday, we say, "This day the Lord rose from the
dead," although so many years have passed since His resurrection. But no
one is so foolish as to accuse us of falsehood when we use these phrases,
for this reason, that we give such names to these days on the ground of a
likeness between them and the days on which the events referred to actually
transpired, the day being called the day of that event, although it is not
the very day on which! the event took place, but one corresponding to it by
the revolution of the same time of the year, and the event itself being
said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place long
before. it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ once for
all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? and yet, is He. not
likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the
special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so
that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a
sacrifice in that ordinance,! declares what is strictly true? For if
sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which
they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most
cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the
realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the
sacrament of Christ's body is Christ's body, and the sacrament of Christ's
blood is Christ's blood,(1) in the same manner the sacrament of faith is
faith. Now believing is nothing else than having faith; and accordingly,
when, on behalf of an infant as yet incapable of exercising faith, the
answer is given that he believes, this answer means that he has faith
because of the sacrament of faith, and in like manner the answer is made
that he turns himself to God because of the sacrament of conversion, since
the answer itself belongs to the celebration of the sacrament. Thus the
apostle says, in regard to this sacrament of Baptism: "We are buried with
Christ by baptism into death."(2) He does not say, "We have signified our
being buried with Him," but "We have been buried with Him." He has
therefore given to the sacrament pertaining to so great a transaction no
other name than the word describing the transaction itself.

   10. Therefore an infant, although he is not yet a believer in the sense
of having that faith which includes the consenting will of those who
exercise it, nevertheless becomes a believer through the sacrament of that
faith. For as it is answered that he believes, so also he is called a
believer, not because he assents to the truth by an act of his own
judgment, but because he receives the sacrament of that truth. When,
however, he begins to have the discretion of manhood, he will not repeat
the sacrament, but understand its meaning, and become conformed to the
truth which it contains, with his will also consenting. During the time in
which he is by reason- of youth unable to do this, the sacrament will avail
for his protection against adverse powers, and will avail so much on his
behalf, that if before he arrives at the use of reason he depart from this
life, he is delivered by Christian help, namely, by the love of the Church
commending him through this sacrament unto God, from that condemnation
which by one man entered into the world.(3) He who does not believe this,
and thinks that it is impossible, is assuredly an unbeliever, although he
may have received the sacrament of faith; and far before him in merit is
the infant which, though not yet possessing a faith helped by the
understanding, is not obstructing faith by any antagonism of the
understanding, and therefore receives with profit the sacrament of faith.

   I have answered your questions, as it seems to me, in a manner which,
if I were dealing with persons of weaker capacity and disposed to
gainsaying, would be inadequate, but which is perhaps more than sufficient
to satisfy peaceable and sensible persons. Moreover, I have not urged in my
defence the mere fact that the custom is thoroughly established, but have
to the best of my ability advanced reasons in support of it as fraught with
very abundant blessing.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/I, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
  The electronic form of this document is copyrighted.
  Copyright (c) Eternal Word Television Network 1996.
  Provided courtesy of:

       EWTN On-Line Services
       PO Box 3610
       Manassas, VA 20108
       Voice: 703-791-2576
       Fax: 703-791-4250
       Data: 703-791-4336
       FTP: ftp.ewtn.com
       Telnet: ewtn.com
       WWW: http://www.ewtn.com.
       Email address: [email protected]

-------------------------------------------------------------------

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.ratthing.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.