Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 10

BOOK ONE. Not knowing, Cresconius, when my writings could reach you, I nevertheless in no way despaired that they would reach you, since your writings too — though long after you wrote them — were yet at some time able to reach me: those in which it seemed good to you that you ought to write against the things which I, as I could, briefly answered in part on behalf of our side, against Petilianus, bishop of Cirta, your fellow, who was striving to establish the repetition of baptism and was accusing our communion, not by the weight of proofs, but by the levity of curses. For not the whole of his epistle had then come into my hands, but only a small former part. Why this happened, what need is there to inquire, since, when the whole afterward came to us, it did not irk us to answer the whole?

If therefore I were not to write back to these your letters which you sent to me, you would perhaps think it insulting; but that I do write back, again I fear lest you think it contentious.

But if you, upon finding letters of mine that were not addressed to you—merely because they seemed to refute the bishop of the party of Donatus, or the party of Donatus itself—judged that it belonged to your office to take up and put forth a rebuttal, since you were conscious of possessing a certain ability, because you belong to that communion, even though you are bound by no clerical function: how much less was it permitted to me, in view of the duty of my burden, to keep silent either against Petilian or against you yourself, when he was assailing the Church for which I do battle, and you, in a similar undertaking, went so far as to compose, publish, and address to me by name a discourse! In its opening sections you laboured to make eloquence appear suspect to men.

For, as if praising my manner of speaking, and again as if fearing that by this manner I might deceive you or anyone else by persuading them of falsehoods, you proceeded to accuse eloquence itself, adducing even a testimony against it from the Holy Scriptures, where you suppose it is said: 'From much eloquence you shall not escape sin'—whereas it was not said 'from much eloquence,' but 'in much talking.' Now much talking is superfluous speech, a fault, that is, contracted through love of speaking. For very often even those who do not know what they are saying, or how they are saying it—whether as regards the soundness of their opinions or as regards the correct sound and order of words that is learned through the art of grammar—love to talk.

But eloquence is the faculty of speaking which fittingly sets forth what we perceive, and it must be used when we perceive rightly. In this way the heretics did not use it. For surely, if they had perceived rightly, there would have been not only nothing evil, but even something good which they might have set forth eloquently. In vain, therefore, by the recital of these examples have you accused eloquence. For neither is a soldier for that reason not to be armed for his fatherland, because some have taken up arms against their fatherland; nor ought good and learned physicians for that reason to refrain from using surgical instruments for health, because even the unlearned and the most wicked misuse these for destruction.

For who does not know that, just as medicine is useful or useless according as the things sought are useful or useless, so eloquence, that is, the skill and faculty of speaking, is useful or useless according as the things spoken are useful or useless? I do not think that even you are ignorant of this. But, I believe, when you saw that I was reckoned eloquent by some, in order to deter the eagerness of the reader or hearer away from me, you thought eloquence ought to be accused, so that whoever, terrified by you, should judge me to be speaking eloquently, might for that very reason deem me to be guarded against and shunned, and so should no longer attend to what I said.

See therefore lest what you have done belong to that evil art which, as you recalled concerning Plato, some have rightly judged should be banished from the city and from the fellowship of the human race. This is not eloquence—would that it had come to me for setting forth what I perceive as much as I desire!—but a certain sophistical and malicious profession, which sets before itself to speak not from the heart, but out of contentiousness or self-interest, for all things and against all things. Of this the Holy Scripture says: 'He who speaks sophistically is hateful.' From this, it seems to me, the apostle Paul forbids the youth of Timothy, where he says: 'Do not strive about words; for it is useful for nothing but the subversion of the hearers.'

And lest he be thought to have forbidden him the faculty of speaking rightly, he immediately added: 'Give diligence to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.' No doubt, then, this disposition of mind crept upon you, that out of a zeal for contradiction—not because you so believed, but in order to turn away from us the attention of one desiring to learn—you declared us to be eloquent and disparaged eloquence. For how should I believe that you did this from the heart, when I know how you are wont to extol the eloquence of Donatus, of Parmenian, and of others of yours? Than which what would be more useful, if in so full a stream it flowed forth for the peace of Christ, for unity, truth, and charity? But why should I speak of others?

In your own self did you not disclose how you were a disparager of eloquence not from the heart but out of contentiousness, when you tried both to persuade of the other things you wrote by means of eloquence, and to accuse that very same eloquence eloquently? For as to what you say—that you are both unequal to us in the art of speaking, and utterly uninstructed in the examples of the Christian law—to what purpose, I beg you, is this? Did I in any way compel you to write back against my writings, and is this therefore the voice of one refusing and excusing himself? If, then, you are utterly uninstructed, why do you not rather keep silent, or so speak that you may desire to be instructed?

You say that I am always urging and challenging that your people should dispute with me for the discerning of the question of truth, but that your people act more prudently and patiently, who in the church teach the people only those things which are commanded in the law, and do not care to answer us, knowing that, if the divine law and so many documents of the legal Scriptures cannot persuade us what is better and what is truer, human authority could never recall us, once our errors were discussed, to the rule of truth. What then seemed good to you, that while they are silent you should speak against us? For if they do well, why do you not imitate them; if ill, why do you praise them?

You say that I believe, with intolerable arrogance, that I alone can settle what to others has seemed as it were insoluble and therefore has been left to God the judge—though a little earlier you had said that I wish to settle this after so many years, after so many judges and arbiters, a matter which, before princes and with so many learned men from the bishops of both parties disputing, could not be settled. Am I really the only one who busies himself in this? Am I really the only one who desires this question to be settled by disputation? For I think that, if you had wished to blame only our men for having attempted this, you would not have confessed that your men too were engaged in that attempt. Since, then, you cannot now reprove that attempt, that will and insistence—at least on account of your own men—I refuse to be a stranger to so good a work. What do you allege, what do you censure?

Or do you envy? This must not be rashly believed of you. It remains, therefore, that out of a zeal for contentiousness you blame this in me which you are compelled to praise even in your own men. But, you say, since it has not been settled among so many and such men, it is intolerable arrogance to presume that it can be settled by one man alone. Do not, I pray, think that this ought to be attributed to me alone; we are very many who insist that this be settled—nay rather, that it become known to have been already settled. For those said it was not settled who refused to consent to that same settlement and concealed it from you, so that you too, deceived by their authority, might believe it has not been settled.

But our men, from the time it was settled, at no time whatever ceased—in whatever way they could, publicly and privately—to work that the settlement itself should become known, lest anyone persisting in a most pernicious error should in the last judgment complain of the negligence of God's ministers toward him. We do not, therefore, wish to treat anew a cause long since settled, but to demonstrate how it has been settled, chiefly on account of those who do not know this, so that, when the defenders of error are convicted, either they too, being corrected, may be set free, or at least, when these are refuted and remain in open obstinacy, those who are more desirous of truth than of contention may see what to follow. Nor is this done without fruit, as you suppose.

For if you could see how far and wide this error had pervaded Africa, and how few remnants of it have not yet crossed over, corrected, into the catholic peace, you would in no way judge the insistence of the champions of Christian peace and unity to be fruitless and vain—although even, wherever the diligence spent on this medicine does not profit, it suffices, for the giving of an account to God, that it has not ceased to be spent. For just as a malicious tempter to sin, even if he does not persuade, deservedly incurs the punishment of a deceiver, so a faithful preacher of righteousness, even if he is rejected by men, God forbid that with God he should be defrauded of the reward of his office. For the matter becomes certain unto an uncertain thing; and by uncertain I mean not the reward of the doer, but the mind of the hearer.

For it is uncertain to us whether he to whom the truth is preached will assent, but it is certain that even to such the truth ought to be preached, and it is certain that a fitting recompense awaits those who faithfully preach it, whether they be received or spurned, or even suffer on that account any temporal adversities whatsoever. The Lord says in the Gospel: 'When you have entered, say: Peace be to this house. If they that are there be worthy, your peace shall rest upon them; if not, it shall return to you.' Did he make them certain that those to whom they should preach it would receive their peace? Yet he made them certain that they should preach it without hesitation. The apostle Paul also:

'The servant of the Lord,' he says, 'must not wrangle, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness correcting those who think differently, lest perhaps God grant them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snares of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will.' Observe how him whom he forbade to wrangle he nevertheless willed to correct in meekness those who think differently, lest the servant of God should suppose the prohibition of petulance to be an occasion for sloth. But because many bear it grievously and burdensomely—even that correction which is done with meekness—whether favouring their own sins, or not finding what to answer yet not acquiescing in the truth, they call those who deal earnestly with them and do not dissemble in convicting them of their error

call litigious and contentious. For falsehood, which fears to be laid bare and refuted, accuses the diligence of truth under the name of those vices which truth condemns. Yet ought we for that reason to desist from this insistence? See how the same apostle binds Timothy, lest on account of men to whom the preaching of truth is unwelcome, any sloth of preaching should creep upon him: 'I charge you,' he says, 'before God and Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his manifestation and his kingdom: preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, exhort, rebuke, in all longsuffering and doctrine.'

Who, hearing these things, if he faithfully serves God, if he is not a deceitful workman, would rest from this diligence and insistence? Who under so great an adjuration would dare to be slothful? Let not your eloquence, therefore, clamour against us in this cause. We altogether preach, with the help of the Lord our God, the usefulness, the piety, the holiness of Christian unity; we preach to the willing in season, to the resisting out of season, and with all the strength we can we show that this question between us and the party of Donatus—and for whom, and against whom, we are able—was long ago settled. Let those recognize in themselves the name and the crime of contentious animosity who either by obstinate cunning furnish patronage to falsehood, or by envious boasting minister a herald's proclamation to the truth.

Both these kinds of contentious men the apostle Paul expressed: the first in Alexander, of whom he says: 'Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord will render to him according to his works; whom do you also avoid, for he strongly withstood our words.' The other in those of whom he says: 'Some indeed out of envy and contention preach Christ, not sincerely, thinking to raise up tribulation for my bonds.' For these without doubt were announcing that very same thing which Paul announced, yet not with that mind, not with that will, not out of charity but out of envy, as he said, but out of contention, wishing with a proud sense to excel in that same preaching and to be preferred before the apostle Paul.

But he, not taking this grievously—nay rather even rejoicing that he saw preached by them that which he desired to become more widely known—says: 'What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ be preached.' For not with the truth of their heart, since not with sincere intention but with rivalrous contention, they nonetheless preached the truth, that is, Christ. You therefore, since you cannot be the judge of the inward parts of our heart, attend only to this: whether we resist the truth, or whether we desire to refute those who resist the truth.

For without doubt, if we persuade the truth and refute error—even if we do it not with the truth of a proper intention, but seeking the gain of this world and human glory—the lovers of truth ought to rejoice, because on this occasion too the truth is announced, just as the apostle who says: 'And in this I will rejoice.' But if—which is most fully known to God, and which could have been known even to you yourself, as far as human capacity allows, had you lived with us—we are engaged in the labour of this dispensation out of the pious solicitude of charity, I think our ministry is by no means justly reproved, if with fervent spirit we contend for the truth against any adversaries of the truth whatsoever.

For if by you anyone is held contentious, or animose, and a preparer of brawls, whoever takes care either to bring against or to return to any man a wrangling of discourse, see what you think concerning the Lord Jesus Christ himself and his servants, the prophets and apostles. For surely the Lord himself, the Son of God—did he have discourse concerning the truth only with his disciples or with the crowds who believed in him, or did he not also have it with enemies who tempted, detracted, questioned, resisted, and reviled? Did it irk him even with a single woman to dispute concerning the question of prayer, against the opinion or heresy of the Samaritans? But he foreknew, you say, that she would believe. What of it?

How many things did he speak, so many times, to the very faces of the Jews, Pharisees, and Sadducees, who not only were by no means going to believe, but were even going most of all to contradict and persecute him! Did he not, of his own accord, when he willed, inquire of them what he willed, in order to convict those men by their own answer? Did he not, to those craftily questioning in temptation, reply without any ambiguity to the things by which, refuted, they should be struck dumb? And though he did this, none of these is read to have been converted to following him. And surely he knew, because he was foreknowing, that he would profit nothing toward their salvation when he said these things to them, or against them, or in their presence.

But perhaps he strengthened us by his example—we who are unable to foreknow men's future faith or perfidy—lest, if ever we should have spoken to the too hardened and too perverse without fruit of their salvation, we might fail and desist from the insistence of preaching, since it had irked us to labour in vain. What of the fact that even the devil himself—whom now not only God, but not even men can doubt

is in no way going to be converted to righteousness—yet the Son of God, when it insidiously tempted him and set before him the snares of questions from the Holy Scriptures, convicted it by replying from the Holy Scriptures; nor did Christ judge it unworthy to hold converse with Satan concerning the divine oracles. What indeed did he foresee, except that what profited nothing for the Jews and the devil would profit the Gentiles who were going to believe? We read also that prophets were sent to men so disobedient that God himself, who was sending the prophets, foretold concerning those to whom he was sending them, that they would not obey their words.

I pass over the fact that by the prophetic spirit, by which they discerned things to come, they too could surely have known this—that those men were going to despise their words—to whom nevertheless they did not keep silent, but spoke with vehement insistence. Most plainly the Lord says to the prophet Ezekiel: 'Go and enter into the house of Israel and speak my words to them; for you are not sent to a people of an unknown tongue, but to the house of Israel; not to many peoples speaking with diverse or difficult tongues, whose words you could not hear. And if I had sent you to such, perhaps they would have heard you; but the house of Israel will not hear you, because they will not hear me. For the whole house of Israel is of a restless and hard heart.'

'But I have made your face strong against their face, and I will strengthen your struggle against their struggle.' Behold, the servant of God is sent and bidden to speak to those who were not going to hear him, with the Lord himself who was sending and bidding him speak foretelling that they were not going to hear. For what cause, for whose good, with what fruit or what effect is he sent to the struggle of preaching the truth against those who would struggle against it and would not obey? Will anyone dare to say that the holy prophets of God incurred the reproach cast at me by you, when you said: 'If you know that the matter of which you treat cannot be settled by you, why do you take up useless labour, why do you spend vain effort, why do you contend superfluously and without fruit?'

Or is it not a great error to will what you cannot accomplish, since the law too admonishes, saying: 'Seek not things too high for you, and search not out things too mighty for you'; and again: 'A passionate man prepares strifes, and a wrathful man heaps up sin'? Certainly you would not say these things to Ezekiel, who is sent with the word of God to bring struggle upon men who would not obey, would be minded against it, would speak against it, would act against it. For if you should say them, he would perhaps answer you what the apostles answered those same Jews: 'Whom ought one to obey? God rather, or men?' This I too would answer you.

Here, if you press me to show where God has also commanded me to do that which you forbid, remember that the apostolic epistles were written not only to those who at the time when they were written were listening, but also to us—for it is for no other reason that they are recited in the church. Attend also to that which the apostle says: 'Do you wish to receive a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?' And recall now, not what Paul, but what through him Christ spoke, which I mentioned a little before: 'Preach the word, be instant in season and out of season,' and so forth. Attend also to how, to Titus, when he was explaining what kind of man a bishop ought to be, he said he ought also to be persevering according to the doctrine of the faithful word:

'that he may be able,' he says, 'both to exhort in sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers. For there are many unruly, vain talkers and seducers of minds, especially those of the circumcision, who must be refuted.' He does not say that only those of the circumcision are such, but that these especially are such; yet by an undoubted precept he established that vain talkers and seducers of minds ought to be convicted and refuted by the bishop in sound doctrine. Whence I recognize that this too has been commanded me; this I do according to my strength; upon this work, as much as he himself who commanded it helps, I perseveringly insist. Why do you oppose, why do you clamour, why do you forbid, why do you censure? Ought one to obey you, or God?

Unless perhaps you think that these testimonies, which have been brought forward by me from the Holy Scriptures, are to be so taken that—what you praised your men for practicing—the peoples should be taught in the church only those things which are commanded in the law. For there perhaps you think that those who think differently ought to be corrected and convicted, so that each teacher should amend the error only of his own people by disputing and preaching; but if anyone should undertake to deal thus with those who are outside, then he ought to be held animose, then contentious or litigious—because, you say, even Ezekiel himself and the other prophets were sent with the words of God to their own people, Israelites, that is, to Israelites. To these things too I answer you.

Indeed I have already recalled above that the Lord Jesus himself, who offered himself to his disciples to be imitated, did not disdain to assert the truth and to answer concerning the law not only to Jews, but even to Pharisees and Sadducees and Samaritans, and to the devil himself, the prince of all deceits and errors. But lest you think that this was permitted to the Lord, yet is not permitted to his servants, receive what is read in the Acts of the Apostles: 'Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, came to Ephesus, mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit he spoke and taught most truly the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John; this man also had begun to act boldly in the synagogue.'

'When Aquila and Priscilla had heard him, they took him and expounded to him more accurately the way of the Lord. And when he wished to go into Achaia, the brethren, having exhorted him, wrote to the disciples to receive him. When he had come, he helped much those who had believed there; for he vehemently confuted the Jews publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.' What do you say of this man, what do you think? Would you not perhaps have charged him with being contentious and animose, an inciter and preparer of brawls, were you not pressed by so great an authority of the sacred book?

Or was it because he was a Jew who had believed in Christ, that he therefore ought publicly to confute the Jews who resisted the Christian faith and denied that Jesus was the Christ—whereas we, because we were never of the party of Donatus, therefore ought not to confute the party of Donatus that resists Christian unity? Was the apostle Paul ever a worshipper of idols, or ever in the heresy of the Epicureans or the Stoics, with whom nevertheless he was neither ashamed nor irked to hold discourse concerning the question of the living and true God? Receive what is written of this matter in the same book: 'Now Paul, while he waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him, seeing the city given over to idols.'

'He disputed therefore in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout, and in the marketplace every day with those who were present. But certain of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers conferred with him, and some said: What does this sower of words wish to say? But others: He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign demons.' Behold, the apostle Paul did not refuse to confer with himself the Stoics and Epicureans—heresies diverse not only from him but even adverse to one another—disputing with them not only outside the church, but even outside the synagogue; nor, terrified by their revilings as though shunning strifes and contentions, did he cease from preaching the Christian truth. For see what Holy Scripture next testifies:

'And having laid hold of him,' it says, 'they led him to the Areopagus, saying: Can we know what these things are which are spoken by you? For you bring certain strange things to our ears; we wish therefore to know what these things mean.' Now the Athenians and the visiting strangers had leisure for nothing else than to tell or to hear something new. And Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: 'Men of Athens, in all things I perceive you to be too superstitious. For as I passed by and considered your images, I found also an altar on which was written: To the unknown God. Whom therefore you worship in ignorance, him I announce to you'—and the rest, which it would be long to recall in full.

But as much as suffices for the question we are now discussing, attend, I beseech you, to the apostle of Christ, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, standing and discoursing not in the synagogue of the Jews nor in the church of the Christians, but in the Areopagus of the Athenians—that is, of the most contentious and most impious of the Greeks. For there arose the most loquacious heresies of the philosophers, of which some, like these very Stoics who are here recalled, contend more about the adversity of words than of things—which the apostle forbade to Timothy, saying it is useful for nothing but the subversion of the hearers. For of these, as you know, Tullius says: 'For a controversy of words has long tormented those little Greeks, more desirous of contention than of truth.'

Yet our Paul undertook to address and correct these, not terrified by the name of the very place—which resounds as derived from Mars, whom they say is the god of wars—there he spoke undauntedly, peaceable, to those who would believe; there, girded with spiritual arms, he stormed pernicious errors, and feared neither the contentious as the gentlest of men, nor the dialecticians as the most simple. For you know how greatly dialectic flourished especially among the Stoics—although the Epicureans themselves, who were not only not ashamed of unskillfulness in the liberal disciplines but even delighted in it, boasted that they rather both held and taught certain rules of disputing, by which whoever used them would least of all be deceived. For what else is dialectic than skill in disputing?

This I thought ought to be disclosed, because you wished to cast even this at me, as though it did not befit Christian truth, and therefore your teachers, forsooth, judged that I, as a dialectical man, ought rather to be fled and guarded against than refuted and confuted. Since they did not persuade you of this—for it did not irk you to dispute against us even by writing—you nevertheless charged dialectic against me, that you might deceive the unskilled and praise those who had refused to engage with me in disputation. But surely you do not use dialectic when you write against us! Why then did you throw yourself into so great a peril of disputing, when you do not know how to dispute?

Or if you do know, why do you, a dialectician, make a crime of dialectic—thus either rash or ungrateful, so as either not to restrain the unskillfulness by which you are vanquished, or to accuse the doctrine by which you are helped? I inspect your discourse, that very one which you wrote to me; I see you set forth certain things copiously and ornately, that is, eloquently, but discuss certain things subtly and acutely, that is, dialectically. And yet you reprehend eloquence and dialectic. If they are harmful, why do you do these things? If they are not, why do you censure them? But lest a controversy of words torment us too—since the matter itself is understood, less labour need be spent on what men have been pleased to call it.

Accordingly, if he is to be called eloquent who speaks not only copiously and ornately, but also truthfully, and likewise if he is to be called a dialectician who discusses not only subtly, but also truthfully, then you are neither eloquent nor a dialectician—not because your diction is meagre and unadorned, nor because your disputation is blunt and gross, but because you misuse that very fluency and skill for the defence of falsehood. But if not only in truth alone, but even when a bad cause is pleaded eloquently or vigorously, it can rightly be named eloquence or dialectic, then you are both eloquent and a dialectician, because you both fluently speak vanities and acutely dispute falsehoods. But of you I shall see later. The Stoics certainly were most of all dialecticians.

Why did the apostle Paul not most cautiously avoid the Stoics, lest they should confer with him?—and yet you praise your bishops for being unwilling to hold discourse with us as with dialecticians. Or if Paul too was a dialectician, and therefore did not fear to let the Stoics confer with him—because he not only disputed acutely as they did, but also truthfully, which they did not—then beware of casting dialectic against anyone as a crime, since you confess that the apostles used it. For when you cast this at me, I do not think you are deceived by unskillfulness, but that you deceive by cunning. For the word 'dialectic' is Greek, which, if usage admitted it, might perhaps be called in Latin 'disputatoria,' just as men most learned in both tongues have called 'grammar' in Latin 'litteratura.'

For just as grammar takes its name from letters, since in Greek letters are called grammata, so dialectic received its name from disputation, since in Greek disputation is called dialoge or dialexis. And just as by the ancients a grammaticus was called in Latin a litterator, so he who in Greek is called a dialecticus is much more usually and tolerably called in Latin a disputator (a debater). I think you will now not deny that the Apostle was a debater, even if you deny he was a dialectician. To disapprove, then, in a Greek word what you are forced to approve in a Latin one — what else is this than to set a snare for the unlearned and to do an injury to the learned?

Or if you deny that the Apostle was even a debater — he who so constantly and so excellently debated — then you know neither Greek nor Latin; or, what is more credible, in the Greek word you deceive those who do not know Greek, and in the Latin word those who do not even know Latin. For what is there, I will not say more ignorant — for you are not unacquainted with these things — but altogether more deceitful, than this: that when you hear and read so many and so manifold discourses of the Apostle asserting the truth and refuting falsehood, you deny that he was accustomed to debate, when this cannot be done except by debating? But if you admit that this was habitually done by him — because you are compelled by his own writings to admit it — yet contend that these should be called not disputations but discourses or epistles, why should I deal with you at such length in this way?

so that those who are ignorant of these matters may approve of whichever of us they wish, and disapprove of whichever they wish? Concerning those very divine writings, to which you must needs yield, I teach this: I bring forward the very words themselves, the very names of things. You have in this same testimony, which I cited from the Acts of the Apostles, concerning Paul himself put thus: 'He debated therefore with the Jews in the synagogue, and with the Gentiles and the devout in the marketplace.' You have in another place, although he was dealing with a Christian people, the brethren being gathered in the church, thus written: 'But a certain young man named Eutychus, sitting in a window, being borne down by a deep sleep, while Paul debated.' You have also in the book of the Psalms: 'May my debate be sweet to him.' You have too in the prophet Isaiah:

'Come, let us debate together, says the Lord.' And in many other passages of the divine Scriptures, read where you find this word, and examine the Greek codices in these same testimonies of the holy Scriptures, and you will see whence dialectic got its name — lest, in that very thing which all the righteous do even with God, to whom it is said, 'Come, let us debate together, says the Lord,' you fail to imitate them with wise piety, but accuse them with tasteless rashness. For he who debates discerns by debating what is true from what is false.

But those who cannot do this, yet wish to seem dialecticians, by insidious questions catch the assent of the unwary, so that from their answers they may conclude something — whereby they either laugh at them as deceived in manifest falsehood, or persuade the deceived of a hidden falsehood, which for the most part they themselves also suppose to be the truth.

But he who is a true debater — that is, a discerner of truth from falsehood — first does this within himself, lest, discerning wrongly, he himself be deceived; and this he cannot accomplish unless helped by God. Then, when he brings forth to teach others that which he has worked out within himself, he first observes what certainties they already know, so that from these he may lead them to the things they did not know or were unwilling to believe, showing that these follow as consequences from what they already held by knowledge or by faith; so that through those truths on which they perceive themselves to agree, they may be compelled to approve other truths which they had denied; and thus the truth which was before thought false may be discerned from the false, when it is found to be consistent with that truth which was already held.

If that true debater does this at length and with fullness, he does it eloquently, and is then reckoned by another term as well, and honored, so that he is called an orator (dictor) rather than a debater — as when the Apostle amplifies and expands that passage copiously: 'In all things,' he says, 'commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report;

as deceivers, yet truthful; as unknown, yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.' What indeed could you easily find richer and more ornate — that is, more eloquent — than this apostolic style? But if he speaks compactly and concisely, they are wont to call him a debater rather than an orator — as when the same Apostle deals with the circumcision and uncircumcision of father Abraham, or with the distinction between the law and grace; which certain men, not understanding, or rather slandering, falsely accused him of saying: 'Let us do evil, that good may come.'

But whether one be an orator or a debater, neither is oratory without debate — since even in the very breadth of eloquence truth is discerned from falsehood — nor can debate be without speech. For assuredly it is by words and by the tongue that the very compactness of discourse is expressed, whether one uses continuous speech, or, by questioning the one with whom he deals, compels him to answer what is true, and from this leads him to another truth which was being sought — where dialectic is said most of all to reign. For when anyone is convicted by his own answers, if he has answered badly, he has no one to blame but himself, not the debater; and if he has answered well, he blushes to resist further — not the debater, but himself.

In this kind of thing the Lord frequently acted against the Jews, and convicted them when they were caught and cornered by their own answers; yet they had not heard you, nor learned from you to revile — for perhaps they would more gladly and more spitefully have called him a dialectician than a Samaritan. For how do you suppose they were twisted and confounded, when, wishing to catch him in his word, they first asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar — plainly laying a snare with a two-headed dilemma, so that whichever he chose, he would be caught: if he answered that it was lawful, as though he were guilty against the people of God; but if he said it was not lawful, as though he were an adversary of Caesar, to be punished?

Whereupon he demanded that a coin be shown to him, and asked whose image and inscription it bore. And when they had answered, 'Caesar's' — for the open truth compelled them to answer this — at once the Lord, drawing them bound and caught by their own answer, said: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' I beseech you: were those men dialecticians, who by the snares of a treacherous question strove to overcome by deception; or rather was he, who from the very thing they asked, by the prudence of his questioning drew out their true answer, and compelled them to confess that very truth which they thought was dangerously spoken by him? If you say those men were dialecticians because deceitfully,

maliciously, spitefully desiring to catch him in his word by questioning — for such indeed you wish us also to seem — why then did the Lord answer them? Why did he lead them, by rendering an account, all the way to the confession of the truth? Why did he say to them, 'Why do you tempt me, hypocrites?' and not add 'dialecticians'? Why did he demand that a coin be shown to him, that he might express his truthful judgment even out of the mouth of deceivers, and not rather say: 'Depart; for one must not even speak with you, since you propose captious questions, since you wish to deal with me dialectically'?

He said no such thing, nor did he set us such an example against captious questioners and cunning snarers of our words; but rather that we should compel them — even the enemies of truth — by vigilant questioning and by unconquered reasoning to bear witness to the truth. Let your men do this to us, if we are malicious and dialecticians. Or do they show that they are afraid, lest we rather should do this to them? But if you should call Christ a dialectician, you will be praising dialectic, which you had cast at me as a reproach. And lest you do this, I see what you will perhaps be going to say: that neither those men nor he did anything dialectically in that conversation.

If, then, neither those who converse captiously and insidiously, so as to deceive in a word those with whom they deal, nor those who convict such men by their own answer, act dialectically — then tell us at last what dialectic is, and how much evil it has, how much harm it does. Teach how it is to be shunned, whose name you spitefully thrust upon the ignorant; show the crime to those who inquire. You are unwilling to admit that he acts dialectically who, skillfully and rightly questioning men averted from the truth, leads them from their answers to the truth — lest you should have to admit that Christ too dealt dialectically with the Jews;

likewise you are unwilling to allow that those act dialectically who, laying snares by captious questions, contrive to deceive the one answering — lest it be shown to you that the Jews so dealt with Christ, whom nevertheless he did not evade by keeping silent, but rather overcame by speaking; and so you should be compelled to admit that your bishops, whom you think learned and wise, are not right in refusing to hold discourse even with dialecticians, by which they might teach the unconquered truth. I see that you suffer great turmoil in how you may define a dialectician: so that he be neither a skilled debater — lest you be forced to praise what you have censured — nor an insidious snarer of words — lest it be said to you: 'As Christ dealt with such men, so let a Christian deal with this one.'

Therefore, if it please you to be freed from this trouble, define him to be a dialectician with whom those learned in the law of the party of Donatus are unwilling to hold conversation. For what else should be suggested to you, a man who casts dialectic at us as a reproach, and therefore praises his own bishops because they are unwilling to hold discourse with us? But concerning the Jews you perhaps find something to say — that, however cunningly and craftily they proffered the deceits of their questions, they were not dialecticians. About the Stoics, at least, nothing can be said; for they were not only dialecticians, but in this art or faculty even surpassed the other sects of philosophers.

For that Chrysippus was a Stoic — as you recall along with me — of whom the Academic Carneades held this opinion: that when he had to debate with him, he judged his heart must be purged with hellebore, whereas the rest he easily overcame even after a full meal. If, then, the books of the Stoics have taught us to debate dialectically, let your bishops bring forth the teaching of Paul against us. Yet let them suffer us to confer with them, just as Paul then did not repel the Stoics themselves. For this art, which they call dialectic, which teaches nothing else than to demonstrate consequences, whether true things from true or false things from false, Christian teaching never fears — just as the Apostle did not fear it in the Stoics, whom, when they were willing to confer with him, he did not reject.

For it too admits — and it is true — that no one is drawn by a debater by valid inference to a false conclusion, unless he has first consented to the false premises by which that same conclusion is necessarily produced. And through this, whoever takes care lest, as he speaks, false things he does not wish should follow, let him willingly beware of the false things that go before. But if he holds fast to true premises, then whatever consequences he perceives — things he had thought false, or about which he was in doubt — let him, being admonished, embrace them, if he is more a friend to the most peaceable truth than to the most contentious vanity. I would have accomplished too little, unless I show what I am saying in this very conversation of ours which is at issue between us.

Behold, in that very question about baptism, you put forward, asking of me where it would be fitting for you to be baptized, whether among us or in the party of Donatus. And because your intention is that a man ought rather to be baptized in the party of Donatus, you attempted to prove this intention from the fact that we too do not deny that baptism is there. You surely see that you wished to do this: that from what we concede we might be dragged to what we did not concede — that is, that because we concede baptism is there, we should be compelled to concede also that a man ought to be baptized there. Consider carefully whether this follows, and answer yourself.

For I think that, this being now set before your eyes, you discern, according to the liveliness of your talent, how you gather things not consequent as though they were consequent. For in truth we say that baptism is there also, but we do not say that it also profits — nay rather, we say that it even harms. But when it is asked where each one ought to be baptized, I believe it is asked because of that which the Lord says: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Since, therefore, baptism is to be received for the sake of this benefit, when it is asked where it is to be received, it is not asked where it is, but where it is useful for attaining the kingdom of heaven.

But it would follow that it is to be received wherever it is established to be, only if all who have anything good were taught to have it also for their good. But since so many have so many good things to their own harm, who does not see that, when it is asked where something is to be received, it is not asked where it is, but where it profits? For how — if you were to concede to me that gold is good,

you would concede too that robbers also have gold — you would not, I think, wish that from these two concessions I should conclude that he who wishes to have gold ought to be in the society of robbers. So, since I too concede that baptism is good, I concede also that the Donatists too have baptism; you ought not from these two concessions, as though it followed, to conclude that he who wishes to have baptism ought to be in the society of the Donatists. Now from this too I do not doubt that many things occur to you yourself: things which, although they are good and instituted for some useful purpose, are yet not useful to all who have them, but only to those who use them well. For with the same light both sound eyes and diseased eyes are flooded; to the former it is a help, to the latter a torment;

the same food nourishes some constitutions and harms others; the same medicine cures these and weakens those; the same weapons defend some and hinder others; the same garment is a covering to some and an entanglement to others. So too baptism avails for some unto the kingdom, for others unto judgment. Here I see what may perhaps move you. For perhaps you say that in all these things I have made mention of no sacrament: but baptism is a holy sacrament, and therefore it does not follow that, if it could be proved of gold, light, foods, weapons, garments, that they are fitting for some who have them and unfitting for others — though they be good and instituted for some useful purpose — that therefore baptism too straightway profits some who have it and harms others.

It remains, then, still to inquire whether even those good things which pertain to the law of God do not all profit all who have them. This question being proposed, our contention is that not even all these profit all who have them. See how we prove this contention of ours from your own agreements. For you concede that in all things the Apostle Paul is to be believed — I hold to that one point; you concede also that the same Apostle said, 'The law is good, if a man use it lawfully': from these two it is made out that the law is good, but for those who use it lawfully. If, then, anyone has used it unlawfully, it does not itself become evil, but it will surely harm the wicked. Perhaps you will say that no one can both be in the law and use the law badly;

for by this very fact, that he lives against the law, he is shown not to be in the law. But I say, on the contrary, that it can happen that anyone should both be in the law and not use it lawfully. This too I prove by your own concessions. For you concede that the aforementioned Apostle set down a testimony from the Psalms against those who gloried in the law and lived against the law: 'As it is written,' he says, 'that there is none righteous, not one; there is none that understands, none that seeks after God; all have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.' And lest they should think these things were said against those who were not in the law, he immediately added: 'Now we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to those who are in the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.' Likewise in another place he says: 'What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God forbid; but I had not known sin except through the law; for I had not known concupiscence, unless the law said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of concupiscence.' Likewise a little after:

'Sin,' he says, 'taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. So the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid; but sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me through that which is good.' Do you observe how, while praising the law, he reproves those who are in the law — as many as, by using it badly, had evil through the good? Likewise the Apostle himself says that a certain knowledge from the law, which he said both he and others had, is yet without charity useless and harmful: 'Concerning things sacrificed to idols,' he says, 'we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.'

Accordingly, this knowledge too, although it pertains to the law of God, if in anyone it be without charity, puffs up and harms. What of this? Concerning the very body and blood of the Lord, the one sacrifice for our salvation — since the Lord himself says, 'Unless a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life in him' — does not the same Apostle teach that this too becomes pernicious to those who use it badly? For he says: 'Whosoever shall eat unworthily and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.' Behold how divine and holy things harm those who use them badly; why not baptism too in this way? Why are not good heretics in good baptism, just as good Jews are not in the good law?

Now surely I have proved, with you conceding — since you concede that you believe Paul and that Paul said the testimonies which I have set down from the Scriptures — now, then, I have proved by your own concessions that certain good and lawful things nevertheless harm those who have and use them unlawfully; why not likewise baptism, though good and lawful, yet does not profit all who have it?

Why did you conclude, as though it were most certain and most consequent, that a man is to be baptized in the party of Donatus, because we concede that baptism is there too, and did not attend that we can say that there is indeed there the baptism of Christ — righteous, holy, and good — but penal, adverse, and pernicious to the enemies of the body of Christ, which is the Church, which according to the divine promises is spread abroad among all nations?

Will you here find anything to say, except that baptism is not to be counted among those good things pertaining to the law of God which men can both have and not be good — but that the law itself, and knowledge, and the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, are indeed such good things as men can both have and be evil, whereas baptism is such a good that whoever has it is necessarily good? But if you should wish to say this, you will say what is false; and therefore attend to what other falsehood follows. This I will call to mind, not that from that falsehood of yours I may lead you on to other falsehoods, but so that, when you have recognized this consequence to be false, you may, in order to free yourself from it, correct that which precedes. What, then, precedes?

That, according to you, all who have good baptism are good. This is an evident falsehood, from which it would follow that those were good who made schisms, saying: 'I indeed am of Paul, but I of Cephas, but I of Christ' — whom the Apostle reproving says: 'Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?' But it is false that these were good, excepting those who said, 'But I of Christ'; and yet they had been baptized with the holy baptism of Christ. This falsehood, therefore, why did it follow? Because a falsehood went before: that all who have good baptism are good.

Let both, therefore, be rejected, let both propositions be corrected, so that, since it is manifest that those who made schisms were not good, and yet had been baptized with good baptism, it may also be manifest that not all who have good baptism are good. And through this we are not bound to concede that anyone is to be baptized in the party of Donatus, because we concede that the party of Donatus, which we call evil, has good baptism. Again, that from that agreement you might detain me toward that to which I do not agree, you laid down that it is written: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and true Catholic Church.' All of which I concede, even if they are written somewhat otherwise. But what is that to the point, since I concede all these, as I have said?

But what you attempt to make out from these does not follow — namely, that those who are not in the one Church cannot have the one baptism; which is altogether most false. And it is better because you yourself laid it down, whence I can remind you of what I wish. For certainly you proposed these things among my concessions, from which you might lead me to your intention: that there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic Church. Since these things agree between us, you think that from them that which does not agree can be shown — that among those who are not in this one Church this one baptism cannot exist.

But I say that it can — if it be not changed, if this same thing be observed — and that it does not thereby come about that there is not one baptism, because it exists also among those who are not in one Church. And this I prove from those things which you set down in the same sentence concerning one God and one faith. For we find that the same God is worshipped outside the Church by those who are ignorant of him, and it does not thereby come about that he is not himself God; and the faith by which it is believed that Christ is the Son of the living God, we find that even those who do not belong to the members of the Church confess it, and it does not thereby come about that there is not one faith. So too, when we find that the same baptism is observed by those who are outside the Church in baptizing men, we ought not thereby to suppose that it is not that same baptism.

Perhaps to this you say that it cannot be that even outside the Church the same one God is worshipped, or that the same faith by which we confess Christ the Son of God — whereby Peter was called blessed — is found even in those who are not in the Church. This, then, it remains for me to prove. You have, in this very discourse of blessed Paul, which I cited above from the Acts of the Apostles, where he was speaking of God — because he had found inscribed on an altar 'To the unknown God' — 'Whom you,' he says, 'worshipping in ignorance, him I declare to you.' Did he say: 'Because you worship outside the Church, he whom you worship is not God himself'? But he said:

'Whom you worshipping in ignorance, him I declare to you' — desiring to bestow what upon them, except that the same God, whom apart from the Church they worshipped ignorantly and unprofitably, they might worship in the Church wisely and healthfully? So we too say to you: 'That baptism which you observe in ignorance, its peace we declare to you — not that, when you come to us, you should receive another, but that you should have to profit that which was already with you.' Concerning faith too, when the Apostle James was speaking against those who thought that what they had believed sufficed them and were unwilling to do good works: 'You believe,' he says, 'that there is one God? You do well; the demons also believe and tremble.'

Surely in the unity of the Church there are no demons; nor can we therefore say that it is something different which they believe, since they even said to the Lord Jesus Christ: 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' Whence Paul the Apostle also: 'If I have,' he says, 'all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.' But I do not suppose that anyone is so foolish as to believe that he belongs to the unity of the Church who does not have charity. As, therefore, one God is worshipped ignorantly even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not himself; and one faith is held without charity even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not itself; so too one baptism is held ignorantly and without charity even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not itself.

For there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt Catholic Church — not that in which alone one God is worshipped, but in which alone one God is worshipped devoutly; nor that in which alone one faith is held, but in which alone one faith is held with charity; nor that in which alone one baptism is had, but in which alone one baptism is had healthfully. Accordingly, one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic Church, you proposed with us consenting; but not only did you not accomplish from these what you wished, but you even greatly helped us, so that from these we might admonish you of what we wished.

See, therefore, how probable a reasoning we follow, we who correct those things which the schismatics or heretics have corrupted, when they come to us from thence, but the things which they have held just as they received them, we acknowledge and approve — lest, moved by human faults, we should beyond justice do any injury to divine things; since we see that the Apostle too, even on the altar of the Gentiles, by whom idols were worshipped, rather confirmed than denied that the name of God was found there.

For the royal mark upon a man is not to be changed or disapproved on that account, if he obtains from the king pardon for his error and enrolment in military service, merely because a deserter branded that same mark upon himself in order to gather henchmen around him; nor are the sheep's brands to be changed when they are joined to the Lord's flock, merely because a runaway slave stamped the Lord's mark upon them. But if you dread these examples as though they misled you, on the ground that they are not drawn from the Church—although you know that comparisons taken from sheep and from soldiers are set down in the Scriptures—I wish to say something from the prophetic writings which are called those of the Old Testament, since in the books of the New Testament no instance of this matter is found either by us or by you.

You certainly do not dare, I think, to deny that circumcision of the foreskin was observed by the ancients as a figure of the baptism of Christ that was to come. Could a man circumcised among the Samaritans, if he then wished to become a Jew, be circumcised again? Would not that man's error be corrected, while the seal of faith, once recognized, would be approved? And even now there are certain heretics who call themselves Nazarenes, though by some they are named Symmachians, who have both the circumcision of the Jews and the baptism of Christians; and therefore, just as, if one of them should come over to the Jews, he cannot be circumcised again, so when he comes over to us he ought not to be baptized again. To this you will say: 'The circumcision of the Jews is one thing, the baptism of Christians another.'

But since that was a shadow of this truth, why could that circumcision of the Jews exist even among heretics, while this baptism of Christians cannot exist among heretics? Produce, then, some instance from the canonical Scriptures of one coming from the heretics who was baptized anew. For the fact that the apostles ordered certain men to be baptized in Christ after John's baptism is an entirely different case. For John was no heretic, but that friend of the Bridegroom, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women. The case, therefore, is quite different.