Augustine the bishop, to the most beloved brethren belonging to the care of our stewardship: May the salvation which is in Christ, and the peace of His unity and love, be with you; and may your spirit be preserved whole, and soul and body, unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember, brethren, that a very small part of the letter of Petilian, the Donatist bishop of Constantina, once came into our hands, and that I wrote to your love what I had answered to that portion.
But when afterward the whole and complete letter was sent to us by the brethren who are there, it pleased me to reply from the very beginning, as though we were conducting the matter in person — in the manner in which you always know that we have wished to deal with them: so that, without any zeal for contention, whatever is said either by them or by us might, by a comparison of the disputation, appear to all. For we have learned that that letter is in the hands of many, who even hold much of it by memory, supposing that he has said something true against us. But now, if they should be willing to read what we have answered, they will assuredly understand what is to be cast away by them and what is to be held. For those things are not ours, as they themselves can consider, if they are willing to judge without partisan zeal;
for from the holy Scriptures all things are so brought forth and proved that no one can deny them except one who professes himself to be an enemy of those Scriptures. But concerning that work of ours, I see what the most obstinate defenders of so bad a cause can say: namely, that I have replied to the letter of an absent man, where he could not hear my words to which he might reply on the spot. Let him therefore defend the words of his letter, and, if he can, let him show that they have not been refuted and convicted by my replies; or, if he does not wish this, let him himself do to this letter of mine what I did to his, to which I have already replied. For he indeed wrote it to his people, just as I wrote this to you. If he wishes, let him himself even reply to it.
Certainly the question is turned between us as to where the Church is — whether with us or with them. And this Church is assuredly one, which our forefathers named 'catholic,' in order to show from the very name that it is throughout the whole; for 'catholic' is said in Greek 'kath' holon,' that is, 'according to the whole.' And this Church is the body of Christ, as the Apostle says: 'for His body, which is the Church.' Whence it is assuredly manifest that he who is not among the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation. But the members of Christ are joined to one another through the love of unity, and through the same they cohere with their Head, which is Christ Jesus. The whole, therefore, which is announced concerning Christ, is Head and body.
The Head is the only-begotten Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of the living God, the very Saviour of the body, who died on account of our sins and rose again on account of our justification; His body is the Church, of which it is said: 'that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.' But between us and the Donatists the question is where this body is, that is, where the Church is. What then shall we do? Shall we seek it in our own words, or in the words of its own Head, our Lord Jesus Christ? I think that we ought rather to seek it in His words, who is the Truth and knows His body best; for the Lord knows those who are His.
But what our words are, in which it ought not to be sought, take heed and see even there what difference there is between our words and theirs; and yet in our words we do not wish the Church to be sought. Whatever we object to one another concerning the handing over of the divine codices, concerning incense-offering, concerning persecutions — these are our words. And in such matters we indeed hold to this measure: that either both may be reckoned true, whether the things said by us or those said by them, or both false, or ours true and theirs false, or ours false and theirs true — and in all these we show that there is no crime of the Christian world, with which we commune.
For if the crimes are true, both those said by us against them and those said by them against us, let us do what the Apostle says: 'forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven us,' so that evil men — neither those who perhaps were or are among us, nor those who were or are among them — may hinder our concord and the bond of peace, when their one wickedness has been corrected: namely, that they have separated themselves in vain from the unity of the whole world, though they had such men among them. But if both are false — whether the things we object to them or they to us, whether concerning the handing over or concerning the persecution of the innocent — I see no cause for the dispute, except that there is cause for them to correct themselves, who have separated themselves without cause.
But if we speak the truth—since we confirm the records which we bring forward both by the letters of the emperor, to whom at that time they first wrote and afterwards appealed, and by the communion of the whole world; whereas the things they allege are shown to be false for this very reason, that at the very time when this same question was being examined they were quite unable to win their case—then there appears in them a greater madness of sacrilegious animosity, and a persecution of innocent souls, than if they were held guilty of the crime of schism alone. And let them charge those things not upon all, but upon whichever of their own party they wish; schism, nevertheless, is the crime of them all.
Furthermore, if they wish the crimes of betrayal and persecution which they cast at us to be true, and those which are cast by us at them to be false, not even so are they cleared of the crime of schism; for those charges could pertain to certain persons, not to the whole Christian world. And if they think it has perished by contagion—I forbear to say how many evils, even known evils, the saints have tolerated within the assembly of men for the good of peace—this I do say: let these men show how they themselves did not perish by the contagion of those whom they either now do not know, or once did not know, to be lurking among them, sacrilegious violators of the consecrated chastity of women. Assuredly they will say that on this very ground they are not contaminated, because they did not know.
How then has the world been contaminated, which still does not know whether these things they say are true? Let us suppose them now proved to us, now demonstrated: what do we do about so many nations? They are abandoned in ignorance; therefore innocent people are abandoned, and while that is no crime of theirs, this begins to be our most wicked crime. Or ought we to run and teach them what we know? To what purpose this? If, in order that they may be innocent, they are innocent even while they are ignorant—for we preserve innocence not by knowing men's evil deeds but, when they are known, by not consenting to them, and, concerning things unknown, by not judging rashly. And through this, as I have said, the world is innocent, which is ignorant of the crimes that are alleged by these men against certain persons, even if they are alleged truly.
But by these very innocent people, who separated themselves, they lost their innocence through that very crime of separation and schism. And now they teach us that they speak the truth against certain persons, so that they may separate us from those against whom they have nothing true to say. For this is what the whole world says to them—a saying most brief in words, but most robust in truth: the African bishops, forsooth, were contending among themselves.
If they could not settle the dissension that had arisen among themselves—so that, whether by concord being restored or by the degradation of those who contended wrongly, those who had the good cause might remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity—then it certainly remained that the bishops beyond the sea, in which region the greatest part of the Catholic Church was spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their African colleagues, at the instance, that is, of those who charged the others with the crime of an unlawful ordination. If this was not done, the fault is theirs by whom it ought to have been done, not the world's, which was ignorant of what had not been brought to its notice.
But if it was done, wherein did those ecclesiastical judges sin, who by no means ought to condemn crimes which, even if true and brought before them, were nevertheless not proved to them? Could the wicked pollute those men to whom they could not be made manifest? But if they were made manifest to them, and by some sluggishness or connivance they were unwilling to remove such men from communion, and by a perverse judgment even pronounced sentences in their favor—wherein did the world sin, which did not know that that case had wicked judges, and believed that they had judged well, concerning whom it could not itself judge?
For just as the crime of the accused, if it was hidden from the judges, certainly did not contaminate them, so also the crime of the judges, if there was any, since it was hidden from the world, certainly could not contaminate it. With these innocent people, therefore, we innocently hold communion even to this day—not knowing what was then done. Wherefore, even if today we should learn that the things they say against certain persons are true, there is no reason why we should withdraw from the innocent who do not know these things, and cross over to those who for this very reason are all entangled in the crime of schism, namely because they did what they urge us to do: that not by the example of the apostles we should tolerate the evil, but by the example of the heretics we should forsake the good.
But let us grant to the world—what cannot happen—that today it could clearly discern, together with us, that the crimes of certain persons whom these men accuse are true: could it thereby become more innocent than it was before it knew? For just as unknown evildoers could not stain it, even if they were still in this life, so those who have already departed from this life cannot stain it even when they are known.
If, then, our case is such—in our words concerning the crimes of certain persons which we mutually cast at one another—that it remains unconquered even if today we should learn that the things we say against some of them are false and the things they say against some of us are true, what have they to answer? Whether the things we say be rather the true ones and those they say be false, or both be false, or both be true—since even there they are defeated in the very point which alone, with all their vows, they long to have believed of them. But, as I had begun to say, let us not listen to 'you say this, I say that,' but let us listen to 'thus says the Lord.' There are surely the Lord's books, to whose authority we both consent, to which we both yield, which we both serve:
there let us seek the Church, there let us examine our case. Here perhaps they will say: 'Why do you seek in the books which you delivered up to the flames?' To this I reply: Why do you fear that these books be read, if you have preserved them from the flames? Let him assuredly be believed to have delivered them up who, when they are read, is convicted of not consenting to them. Or if perchance these books point out their betrayer, just as the Lord pointed out Judas, let them read in them, by name and expressly, that either Caecilian or his ordainers were to be betrayers of these very books; and if I do not anathematize them, let me myself be judged along with them to have betrayed. But neither do we find in those books the ordainers of Majorinus designated as betrayers, although we recite these things from elsewhere.
But if they are unwilling that they be removed, let them see that, even if both sets of charges are true, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those whom they possessed; and if both are false, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those in whom they found no crime; and if ours are true but theirs are false, there was no cause for their separation, because they ought rather to correct themselves and remain in unity; and if ours are false and theirs are true, there was no cause for their separation, because they ought not to forsake the innocent world, to which they either were unwilling or were unable to demonstrate these things. Perhaps someone will ask and say to me:
'Why then do you want these things removed from the midst, when your communion, even if they be brought forward, is unconquered?' Because I do not wish the holy Church to be demonstrated by human documents, but by divine oracles. For if the holy Scriptures designated the Church in Africa alone, and among a few 'Cutzupitani' or 'Montenses' at Rome, and in the house or estate of a single Spanish woman, then whatever else is brought forward from other papers, none hold the Church except the Donatists. If holy Scripture defines it among a few Moors of the Caesarean province, one must cross over to those few. If among a few Tripolitans and Byzacenes and provincials, then the Maximianists have attained to it.
If it is to be sought among the Orientals alone, then it must be sought among the Arians and Eunomians and Macedonians and whatever others are there. But who could enumerate the several heresies of the several nations? If, however, the Church of Christ has been designated by the divine and most certain testimonies of the canonical Scriptures among all nations, then whatever these men bring forward and from whatever source they recite it, who say 'Behold, here is Christ, behold, there'—let us rather listen, if we are His sheep, to the voice of our Shepherd who says: 'Do not believe.' For those particular churches are not found in the many nations where this one is; but this one, which is everywhere, is found even where those are. Therefore let us seek it in the holy canonical Scriptures.
The whole Christ is head and body: the head is the only-begotten Son of God, and His body is the Church, bridegroom and bride, two in one flesh. Whoever dissent from the Scriptures concerning that very head, even if they are found in all the places in which the Church has been designated, are not in the Church. And again, whoever agree with the holy Scriptures concerning that very head, yet do not hold communion with the unity of the Church, are not in the Church, because they dissent, contrary to the very testimony of Christ, concerning the body of Christ, which is the Church.
For example, those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh from the Virgin Mary, of the seed of David—which the Scripture of God most plainly declares—or that He rose again in that same body in which He was crucified and buried, even if they are found throughout all the lands through which the Church extends, are assuredly not in the Church, because they do not hold the very head of the Church, which is Christ Jesus; nor are they deceived by any obscurity of the divine Scriptures, but they contradict the most well-known and most plain testimonies of them.
Likewise, whoever indeed believe that Jesus Christ, just as it has been said, came in the flesh, and rose again in that same flesh in which He was born and suffered, and that He is Himself the Son of God, God with God, and one with the Father, and the unchangeable Word of the Father, through whom all things were made—yet nevertheless so dissent from His body, which is the Church, that their communion is not with the whole wherever it is diffused, but is found separated in some part—it is manifest that they are not in the Catholic Church.
Wherefore, since with the Donatists our question is not about the head, but about the body—that is, not about the Savior Jesus Christ Himself, but about His Church—let the very head, concerning whom we agree, show us His body, concerning which we disagree, so that through His words we may now cease to disagree. Now He is the only-begotten Son and the Word of God; and therefore not even the holy prophets could have spoken the truth, unless it had been made manifest to them, by that very Truth which is the Word of God, what they should say, and unless they had been commanded to say it. Accordingly, in former times the Word of God sounded forth through the prophets, then through Himself, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, then through the apostles whom He sent to preach Him, that there might be salvation unto the ends of the earth.
In all these, therefore, the Church is to be sought. But since men who are given to slander very often turn to whatever objects and to whatever purpose they wish many things spoken against others or for another reason; and since many things also, set down figuratively and obscurely for the sake of exercising rational minds, are sometimes believed—through the image of an enigma or the double sense of an ambiguity—to accord and agree with a deceptive interpretation, I also proclaim and propose this: that we select whatever things are open and manifest; and if these were not found in the holy Scriptures, there would be no source at all from which the closed might be opened and the obscure illumined. For example, see how easy it is either for us to say against them, or for them against us, what the Lord said to the Pharisees:
'You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly indeed appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.' Whether these things be said by us against them or by them against us, unless it first be proved by the most manifest documents who they are that, being unjust, feign themselves to be just—who of even moderate sanity does not know that such things are spoken with railing rather smooth than with truth convincing? For the Lord spoke those things against the Pharisees in a different manner, as being the Lord, that is, the discerner of the heart and of all human secrets, and both witness and judge;
but we must first find and show what we allege, lest we ourselves rather be convicted of the most grievous crime of insane rashness. Indeed, if they should first teach that we are such, we ought by no means to refuse to be reproved and crushed by such words of the holy Scriptures; likewise, if we should teach that they are such, it will similarly be in our power with what divine rebukes to strike those already demonstrated and convicted. So also, meanwhile, those things are to be set aside which, being obscurely placed and wrapped in the veils of figures, can be interpreted both according to us and according to them.
It belongs indeed to acute men to distinguish and discern who interprets these more probably; but we do not wish to commit our disputation, in a case which concerns whole peoples, to these contests of ingenuity. It is doubtful to none of us that, with the fidelity of the historical events preserved—namely, that with the sinners destroyed, the house of the just man might be delivered from the flood—the Church too was figured by the ark of Noah; which might perhaps seem a conjecture of human ingenuity, were it not that the apostle Peter says this in his epistle. But that which he did not there say—if one of us should say that all the kinds of animals were there for this reason, because the Church was foretold as destined to be in all nations—perhaps it might seem otherwise to the Donatists, and they might wish to interpret this differently.
Similarly, if they too should interpret something obscurely or ambiguously set down in favor of their own opinion, and if it is open to us to say something else from it which sounds in our favor, what will be the end? For a certain bishop of theirs, when he was making a discourse to the people here at Hippo, as we heard, said that Noah's ark was for this reason coated with pitch on the inside, that it might not let out its own water, and for this reason also on the outside, that it might not let in that of another. By this interpretation he certainly wished it to have this force: that baptism should not be believed able either to go forth outside the Church, or, if given outside, to be accepted.
He seemed to say something, and there was acclamation from those who listened gladly but did not diligently ponder what they had heard, so as to notice—what was easy—that it could not come about that the framing of the timbers should let in water from outside if it did not let it out from within; but if it lets it out from that part which is inside, it follows that it also admits it from that part which is outside. But even if what he said about the joined timber were true, who would prevent me from saying, if I could, something else about the ark coated with pitch on both sides, so that it might be uncertain which of these—or perhaps some third thing—that matter signified?
For it is not absurdly said—indeed, even much more probably—that by the pitch charity is signified, since it is a violent glue and a most fervent thing. For whence is it said in the psalm, 'My soul has cleaved fast after you,' but by most burning charity? And since it has been commanded that this be in us toward one another and toward all, therefore the ark was coated with pitch both within and without. Or certainly, because it is written, 'Charity endures all things,' the very tenacious force of endurance, holding to unity, is signified by the pitch, with which the ark was smeared both within and without for this reason: because both within and without the evil are to be endured, lest the framing of peace be dissolved.
因為這樣說並非荒謬——實在，甚至更為可信——即瀝青所表徵的乃是愛德，因它是一種強力的膠合、極其熾熱之物。因為詩篇裡所說「我的心緊緊跟隨你」（agglutinata est anima mea post te），若不是憑最熾烈的愛德，又是憑什麼呢？既然已有吩咐，要這愛德存在我們裡面、彼此相待、待眾人，所以方舟裡外都塗上瀝青。或者，正因經上記著「愛是凡事包容」，那持守合一、堅韌的忍耐之力，便藉瀝青被表徵；方舟裡外都塗抹了它，正是為此緣故：因為裡外的惡人都當被包容，免得和平的接合被拆散。
In this our disputation, therefore, let us spare such interpretations, and let us seek something open, by which the Church may be made manifest. Indeed it is written in the book of Judges: 'And Gideon said to the Lord: Since you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, behold, I place a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; and if there be dew on the fleece, but on all the ground drought, I shall know that you save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken. And it was so. And Gideon rose early on the next day and wrung out the fleece, and the dew ran down from the fleece, a basin full of water. And Gideon said to the Lord: Let not your anger be kindled against me, Lord, and I will speak yet once more, and I will make trial yet once more with the fleece:
let there be drought on the fleece alone, but on all the ground let there be dew. And God did so in that night, and there was drought on the fleece alone, but on all the ground dew.' I do not see what is here figured and foretold, save that we should understand the threshing-floor as the world, and the place of the fleece as the people of Israel. For we know that that nation of old was, as it were, drenched with heavenly dew by the grace of the divine sacrament, while, of this gift, there was as it were drought among all the nations round about, since they lacked it. But this gift was among that people in the fleece, that is, in a covering and as it were a cloud of secrecy, because it had not yet been revealed.
But now we see the world already fed, the dew being revealed, through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was then figured in that covering; while that nation, having lost the priesthood which it possessed—because it does not understand Christ in the Scriptures—has remained, as it were, in the dry fleece. And yet even in such figures of things, although I do not see what else can here be understood, I do not wish us to seek the Church.
Let us for the moment set aside altogether those things which need some interpretation, or such an interpretation—not because the things are false which are unravelled in this manner by interpreting such things as coverings, but because they require an interpreter. I do not wish our talents to be matched in them, but let the open truth cry out and shine, let it burst into stopped-up ears, let it strike the eyes of those who feign not to see—let no one in its recesses seek a place for his own false opinion—let it confound every attempt at contradiction, let it dash down every brow of impudence. O Donatists, read Genesis:
'By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your most beloved son for my sake, in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is by the shore of the sea, and your seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of its adversaries, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.' What do you say to this? Do you contend with us in the perversity of the Jews, so as to say that the seed of Abraham is to be understood only in the people born of Abraham's flesh? But the Jews do not read in their synagogues the apostle Paul, whom you read in your conventicles.
Let us therefore hear what the apostle says—for we are now seeking how the seed of Abraham is to be understood: 'Brethren,' he says, 'I speak after the manner of men. Yet a man's confirmed testament no one annuls or adds to. To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, which is Christ.' Behold, in what seed all the nations are blessed; behold the testament of God; open your ears: 'A man's confirmed testament,' he says, 'no one annuls or adds to.' Why do you annul the testament of God, by saying that it has not been fulfilled in all nations, and that they have already perished from among the nations in which was the seed of Abraham?
Why do you add to it, by saying that Christ remains heir in no lands, save where He could have Donatus as co-heir? We do not begrudge anyone. Read this to us from the Law, from the Prophets, from the Psalms, from the Gospel itself, from the apostolic writings. Read it, and we believe—just as we read to you both from Genesis and from the apostle, that in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, all the nations are blessed. Hear this same testament made also to Isaac, Abraham's son: 'Now there was a famine over the land, besides the famine which had been before in the time of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. And the Lord appeared to him and said:
Do not go down into Egypt, but dwell in the land which I shall tell you, and dwell in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your seed I will give all this land, and I will establish my oath which I swore to Abraham your father, and I will enlarge your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice and kept my precepts and my ordinances and my statutes.' Answer to these things. For the seed of Abraham is this same seed of Isaac also, which is Christ. For how Christ came from the tribe of Judah in the flesh through a virgin—what Christian in any way is ignorant of it?
Hear this same testament made to Jacob: 'And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and set out for Haran. And he came to a place and slept in that place, since the sun had set. And he took a stone from the stones of the place and put it under his head and slept in that place. And he saw a vision; and behold, a ladder set firm upon the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it. And the Lord leaned upon it and said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not fear; the land in which you sleep, I will give it to you and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the south and toward the north and toward the east;
and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; and behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way wherever you go, and I will bring you back into this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken with you.' Behold the promise which you resist; behold how firm a testament you annul! The Lord says: 'I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken with you,' and you contradict Him, saying that we should rather believe you as to whatever crime you allege against the unknown and unknowing world, but should not believe God, who says: 'I will not forsake until I have done.' Read to us from the canonical Scriptures that those men delivered up the divine codices whom you accuse by name.
Read things as open as these which we have read to you from Genesis. We do not ask of you what that stone signifies which Jacob put under his head when he slept, what the ladder set firm upon the earth whose top reached to heaven, what the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Let the more prudent and more learned inquire into these things and expound them among a peaceable people, where no wicked contradiction clamors against them, arming its own impudence out of the obscurity of the sacrament and the enigma of the reading. There are not lacking hearts of the faithful whom the Lord may call to mind from the Gospel, where He says, when He had seen an Israelite in whom there was no guile—for Jacob, who saw these ladders, was himself called Israel;
there are not lacking, therefore, those whom the Lord Himself may thence call to mind. For there He says: 'You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man'—that is, upon the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations are blessed. But these things I do not press upon those who refuse them. Behold what you should hear: 'Your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the south and toward the north and toward the east; and in all the tribes of the earth and in your seed shall they be blessed.' Give me this Church, if it is among you. Show that you hold communion with all the nations which we already see blessed in this seed. Give it, or, laying aside your fury, receive it—not from me, but from Him Himself in whom all the nations are blessed.
Let it suffice to have recalled these things from the first book of the Law; more will become known to those who read without impious contention and with pious love. What of the Prophets? How many and how manifest are the testimonies of the Church spread through all nations over the whole world! Whence I shall recall a few, leaving more to the leisure of those who read with diligence and with the fear of God. Let us receive the divine responses through the mouth of holy Isaiah, and let us inquire of his lips as of the oracles of God. Let the spirited and pernicious contests of human quarrels be silent. Let us incline our ear to the word of God; let Isaiah tell where he foresaw the holy Church by God's revelation, that in the words of one telling of the future we may now see present things:
'The whole earth,' he says, 'has been filled, that they may know the Lord, as many waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and He who shall rise to hold the rule over the nations; in Him shall the nations hope.' That the root of Jesse is Christ, born of the seed of David according to the flesh, no Christian in any way is ignorant; and if anyone is contentious, let him contend with the apostle, who uses this testimony in his writings. Likewise he says: 'Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.' Israel, forsooth, was the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham, to whom it was promised that in his seed all the nations should be blessed, which seed the apostle interprets as Christ.
Now Christ came from the seed of Abraham through Isaac and through Israel and so on, just as the evangelist weaves together the generations pertaining to the birth of Christ. Whoever therefore wishes to dispute against this, let him contradict the Gospel, let him deny that Christ came from the seed of Israel, that he may be able to deny what Isaiah says: 'Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.' Likewise he says: 'I am God, the first, and in the things that shall come I am. The nations have seen and the ends of the earth have feared.' This is what the Scripture says elsewhere: 'the first and the last,' so that it is Alpha and Omega, which are the letters in the sign of Christ known to all. For in place of what is there 'the last,' here is set: 'and in the things that shall come I am.'
To this manifestation, then, they speak in contradiction who refuse to believe — nay rather, who refuse now to see fulfilled that which follows: 'The nations saw and the ends of the earth were afraid.' Again, a little later: 'Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul has received him. I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out, nor cease, nor shall his voice be heard abroad. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment in truth. He shall shine and shall not be broken, until he set judgment in the earth, and in his name shall the nations hope.' This testimony is to be understood of Christ, and it is set down also in the Gospel.
Let him who dares speak in contradiction; but let him who dares not hope in him together with the nations, and not withdraw from the unity of the nations that hope in him — or if he has withdrawn, let him return, lest he perish. Isaiah likewise says: 'And now thus says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I should gather Jacob and Israel unto him. I will draw near to him and be glorified before the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, that you should establish the tribes of Jacob and turn again the offspring of Israel. And I have set you for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, that you may be salvation unto the ends of the earth.' And a little later: 'Thus says,' he says, 'the Lord of Israel: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.'
Certainly, when the apostle Paul had cited these words, he showed them to be fulfilled in none but Christians. For he joined them with the words: 'Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.' Let us hear, then, what Isaiah adds: 'I have given you,' he says, 'for a covenant of the nations, that you may inhabit the earth and possess the heritage of the desert.' And then, after some things interposed, he joins on and says: 'Behold, these shall come from afar, and these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians. Rejoice, O heaven, and be glad, O earth. Let the mountains send forth gladness, for God has had mercy on his people, and has consoled the humble of his people. But Zion said: The Lord has forsaken me, and God has forgotten me.'
'Can forgetfulness overtake a woman regarding the child of her womb, or can it come to pass that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb? Now behold, even though she should forget, yet by no means shall forgetfulness overtake you of yourself, says the Lord. Behold, upon my hands I have inscribed your walls; you are also in my sight forever, and in a short time you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown.' Since, therefore, we are not permitted by the apostolic voice to understand this of the people of the Jews, but of Christians, what are we to understand in that which Isaiah says in this place: 'And in a short time you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown,' except the kings of the earth, who at first persecuted the Church, but afterward were foretold, so long before, to become her helpers?
But because many of them were to die in their iniquities, he adds and says: 'And those who made you desolate shall depart from you.' Then, because all the nations were to be joined to the Church, there follows and he says: 'Look about you on every side with your eyes and behold them all. As I live, says the Lord, with all these you shall clothe yourself, and shall array them as the ornament of a new bride, since the places in you that were deserted and corrupted and ruined shall now be in greatest straitness because of those who dwell there; far off shall those be driven who devoured you. For your children whom you had lost shall say in your ears: This place is too narrow for us; make us therefore even now a place in which we may dwell. But you shall say in your heart:'
'Who has begotten me these, since I know myself to be without children and a widow? Who, then, has reared these for me? For I was left alone, forsaken; but these — where were they?' Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I will lift up my hands to the nations, and to the islands my sign, and I will bring your sons in my bosom; your daughters also they shall carry upon their shoulders, and kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their princesses your nurses; bowing their faces down to the ground they shall entreat you, and shall lick the dust of your feet, and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be put to shame.' And a little later he adds and says: 'Hear me, hear, O my people, and you kings give heed to me, for a law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations.'
'My righteousness draws near speedily, and my salvation shall go forth, and in my arm shall the nations be saved.' Concerning this arm let us consult the apostolic Scriptures. For when the apostle Paul had cited the testimony of this same prophet concerning the unbelief of the Jews, that Christ had not been revealed to them, he set down this: 'Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Then in what follows Isaiah adds and says: 'Let the desert places of Jerusalem break forth together with joy, for he has had mercy upon her and has delivered Jerusalem; and the Lord shall lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the nations shall see, even to the ends of the earth, the salvation which is from God.'
Who is so deaf, who so mad, who so blind in mind as to speak against testimonies so evident, unless it be one who knows not what he says? But let us come to still plainer things. Certainly we know in the Scriptures that most sacred marriage: the Bridegroom is Christ, and the Bride the Church. Isaiah writes of both, lest perchance we err in either of them — an error which, whoever falls into it, loses both, since concerning this wedlock it is said in a mystery, as the apostle testifies: 'They shall be two in one flesh.' Thus, then, is the Bridegroom himself first described. After the many things that Isaiah so says of him that even the Jews themselves are struck dumb — lest it be tedious to rehearse them all — mark this little: 'Their sins,' he says, 'he shall bear;'
'therefore he shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong. For this cause his soul was delivered up to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked, and he himself bore the sins of many, and for our iniquities he was delivered up.' You confess that these things were foretold and prophesied so long beforehand concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. This Bridegroom, then — for what purpose was he delivered up to death, for what purpose was he reckoned among the wicked? With such humility of his loftiness, what did he accomplish, what did he acquire? Who is so deaf as not to hear these things, who so dull as not to understand, who so blind as not to see? 'Therefore,' he says, 'he shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong.'
'For this cause his soul was delivered up to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked.' What is this, you heretics, that you glory in your fewness, if for this cause our Lord Jesus Christ was delivered up to death — that he might possess many by inheritance? And who are these many, or how widely do they occupy the earth? Let us hear what follows. The Bridegroom having been proclaimed and set forth, let the Bride also come forward in the words of Isaiah. Let us read her in the truth of the holy pages, and recognize her in the whole world. This testimony concerning the holy Church the apostle Paul also set down, so that there is nowhere for the contentious evasion of heretics to flee:
'Rejoice, O barren one,' he says, 'who did not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who did not travail, for many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband.' Where is that, I ask, in which you glory concerning fewness? Are not these the many, of whom it was said a little before: 'Therefore he shall possess many by inheritance'? For what is his inheritance if not his Church? 'Many,' he says, 'are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband' — meaning by 'her who has a husband' the synagogue of the Jews, since she had received the Law. From this now can be judged what we say. Let them set forth their multitude —
their multitude established in the Africans, or in Africa, alongside the multitude of the Jews scattered throughout all lands wherever they are dispersed, and let them see how very few they are in comparison with those. How, then, will they assign to themselves what was said: 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband'? Again, let them set the multitude of Christians throughout all the nations with whom they hold no communion against the Jews, and let them see how few all the Jews are in comparison, and let them at last some day understand that in the Catholic Church, spread throughout the whole world, this prophecy has been fulfilled: 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband.' But who this deserted one is who has been preferred over her who has a husband in multitude of children — let it be obscure, let it be in a riddle;
nevertheless, that this is the Church of Christ, concerning which it was said, 'Many are the children of the deserted one, more than of her who has a husband' — whoever speaks against it speaks not against me, but against the apostle. But from where she was to have so many children, he consequently adds and says: 'For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your courts, fix the stakes — do not spare — lengthen your cords and make firm your pegs. Stretch out still to the right and to the left. And your seed shall possess the nations, and you shall inhabit the desolate cities. Fear not, for you shall prevail, neither be afraid because you were held in contempt. You shall forget the everlasting confusion, you shall not remember the disgrace of your widowhood.'
'For I am the Lord who made you — the Lord is his name — and he who delivered you, the God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth.' Behold how far she was bidden to stretch her cords: until her God, the God of Israel, be called the God of the whole earth. For concerning her, and to her, it is said in another place through the same prophet: 'For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until my righteousness go forth as light. And my salvation shall burn as a torch, and all the nations shall see your righteousness and kings your honor. And he shall call you by your new name, which the Lord shall name, and you shall be a crown of beauty in the sight of the Lord and a diadem of kingship in the hand of your God, and no longer shall you be called forsaken, and your land shall not be called desolate.'
'For you shall be called My Delight, and your land the whole round world.' What plainer utterance can yet be demanded? Behold, out of one prophet, how many and how clear are the sayings! And yet resistance and contradiction are offered — not to any man, but to the Spirit of God and to the most evident truth; and yet by those who wish to glory in the Christian name, the glory of Christ himself is begrudged, lest these things, which were foretold of him so long beforehand, be believed to be fulfilled, when now they are no longer foretold, but are shown, are seen, are held.
But now, if I should wish to gather into this one letter the testimonies from all the prophets concerning the Church foreshown — which, as we read, so we behold — I fear I might myself seem to judge those things few which are so many that, if I wished to collect them all out of this one Isaiah, I should exceed the measure of a fitting discourse. Now let us hear a few things from the Psalms, sung so long before, and now let us see them fulfilled with great joy. And first that very passage which Petilianus set down in his letter — with what countenance I know not — let them hear and declare: 'The Lord said to me: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.'
For what Christian has ever doubted that this was foretold concerning Christ, or has understood this inheritance to be anything other than the Church? And because she was to have both good and evil within the same nets of the sacraments, 'You shall rule them,' he says, 'with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessel you shall shatter them.' For by the same firm and inflexible justice the good are ruled and the evil are shattered. Who is so devious and so at odds with the divine oracles as not to recognize the Gospel itself, when that psalm is sung wherein it is written: 'They have pierced my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones.'
'But they themselves looked and gazed upon me, they divided my garments among them and cast lots upon my clothing.' When even the evangelist narrated that this deed was done, was he not mindful of this testimony? But what has been purchased at the price of this cross, what by such humility of such loftiness, what by that most innocent and divine blood, except what is said there in the following words: 'All the ends of the earth shall be remembered and shall turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he himself shall have dominion over the nations'? Did not the apostle expound as spoken concerning the preachers of the New Testament that which is written:
'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world'? Of whom else than of Christ is it understood: 'The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its setting. Out of Zion is the form of his beauty'? Whose voice is it but Christ's: 'I slept troubled'? And whence troubled? It follows and he says: 'The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.' Whose but theirs who cried out: 'Crucify, crucify'? To what end is all this? For whose good, for whose gain? Hear what follows: 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and above all the earth your glory.' Behold, you have Christ having slept in his Passion and having ascended above the heavens in his Resurrection.
And whence is his glory above all the earth, except because his Church is throughout all the earth? In these two most brief sentences, O heretics, I question you as to the whole matter that is in dispute between us. 'Be exalted,' he says, 'above the heavens, O God, and above all the earth your glory.' Why do you preach the Lord Christ exalted above the heavens, yet not hold communion in his glory that is above all the earth? The seventy-first psalm is entitled 'For Solomon.' But because such things are said in it as cannot fit that temporal king who afterward sinned grievously, they are most invincibly defended as foretold, even against the Jews themselves, concerning Christ. No Christian, however, denies this;
for such things are said as cannot be doubted to pertain to Christ. There too these things are said, wherein is recognized the Church spread throughout the whole world, with all kings likewise subjected to Christ: 'And he shall have dominion,' he says, 'from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the round world' — from the river, indeed, where the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven made him manifest. Then it follows: 'Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the earth. The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall offer gifts, the kings of the Arabians and of Sheba shall bring presents. And all the kings of the earth shall worship him, all nations shall serve him.' And a little later: 'And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all nations shall magnify him.'
'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wonders, and blessed be the name of his glory forever and unto the age of ages, and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. Amen, amen.' Go now, Donatists, and cry out: 'Let it not be, let it not be.' The word of God has conquered you, saying: 'Amen, amen.' Behold, in the Psalms is made manifest the Church spread throughout the whole world, upon which rests the glory of her King. Hence she herself is queen, his bride, of whom it is said to him in the forty-fourth psalm: 'The queen stood at your right hand in gilded raiment, clothed about with variety'; and to exhort this very one the divine discourse is straightway directed:
'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has greatly desired your beauty, for he himself is your God.' Attend to the point from which the divine prophecy has begun to address the Bride of Christ: 'Hear,' he says, 'O daughter, and see.' But you neither will to hear these things foretold nor to see them fulfilled — and yet you both hear and see them against your will. Hear, then, what is said to her a little later; hear this from the divine page, how it is foretold, and see in all the earth how it is fulfilled: 'In place of your fathers,' he says, 'sons are born to you: you shall establish them as princes over all the earth.' How many testimonies of the Scriptures on this matter I pass over, those who read know, and I too know;
but I do not wish to burden with them the letter to which I demand a reply. What will they say to these things which we have recalled from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms concerning the Church of Christ, which is diffused throughout the whole world — to which the perverse choose to be hostile rather than, being corrected, to hold communion? What, I say, will they say? Whether that these things are false, or that they are obscure? But they dare not say that they are false; for they are pressed by the mass of so great an authority. Since, then, they confess these things to be true, they contend that they cannot be fulfilled — as though it were something else to accuse a prophecy of the crime of falsehood than to say that what it foretold cannot be fulfilled; for this is to say that it is no prophecy, but rather a false prophecy. And when you ask them why these things cannot be fulfilled, they answer: 'Because men are unwilling.'
'For man,' they say, 'was created with free will, and if he wishes he believes in Christ, if he does not wish he does not believe; if he wishes he perseveres in what he believes, if he does not wish he does not persevere. And therefore, when the Church had begun to grow throughout the round world, men were unwilling to persevere, and the Christian religion failed out of all the nations, except the party of Donatus.' As though, forsooth, the Spirit of God did not know the future wills of men — who would say such a most insane thing? Why, then, did he not rather foretell this, which he knew would come to pass concerning the wills of men? For in this way, in which these people suppose these things to have been foretold, whoever wishes can be a prophet, so that, when the things he foretold have not been fulfilled, he may answer: 'Men were unwilling;'
'for by free will they are Christians.' In this way someone could prophesy that Christ would suffer not on the cross but would die by the sword, so that, when it was done otherwise, he might answer: 'What have I done? Men, being set in free will, were unwilling to do to him what I had foretold, and did this which they themselves willed.' Now to whom does it not occur how many things could be prophesied, or even can be, in this way by any men whatever? For who would doubt that Judas, if he had not wished, would certainly not have betrayed Christ, and that Peter, if he had not wished, would not have denied the Lord thrice? But for this reason there was a sure prediction concerning these men, because God foresees even future wills.
Nevertheless, although these things are plain even to slow hearts, let us hear also from here the voice of the Word himself, uttered by the mouth of his own flesh. Certainly, when after the resurrection he offered himself to be handled and touched by the hands of the doubting disciples, and when he had taken and eaten before them what they had offered him, he said to them: 'These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.' But of whom are those things written, which we too have recalled from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms, if not of him, as I have shown one by one? When, therefore, he himself, who is the Truth, says:
'all things must be fulfilled,' how do these people deny it, except because they are enemies of the truth? But if they say that these things are still obscure, let us hear from here also the Head himself, the most truthful demonstrator of his own Body. For when he had said, 'that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me,' as though we might ask whether in that which he said, 'concerning me,' the Church was there to be understood, on account of that which is written, 'They shall be two in one flesh' — so that we might hold sure divine oracles not only concerning the Head, but also concerning the Body — the evangelist follows and says: 'Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and he said to them: For thus it is written
'and so it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.' Here the Head himself is shown, who also offered himself to be handled by the hands of the disciples. See how he adds concerning the Body, which is the Church, so that he permits us to err neither in the Bridegroom nor in the Bride: 'And that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached,' he says, 'in his name throughout all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' What is more truthful than this utterance, what more divine, what more manifest? It shames me to commend her with my own words, and are the heretics not ashamed to assail her with theirs?
Let them say that those testimonies which I have set down from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms are obscure and spoken figuratively, and can also be understood otherwise — although even in them I have labored, as far as I could, so that they may not dare to say even this — but behold, let them say: Was this too spoken obscurely, or shadowed under the veil of a riddle, which Christ himself said: 'For thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem'? If 'I slept troubled' is obscure, is 'that Christ must suffer' obscure? If 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God' is obscure, is 'and rise the third day' obscure?
Likewise, if 'above all the earth your glory' is obscure, is 'and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name throughout all the nations' obscure? If 'The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its setting' is obscure, is 'that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name throughout all the nations' obscure? For thus the earth was called from the rising of the sun even to its setting, just as he himself says: 'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' If 'Out of Zion is the form of his beauty' is obscure, is 'beginning at Jerusalem' obscure? For that same Zion is Jerusalem. But what is that to me?
Let them say that those things which I have set down from the Law and the prophets and the Psalms do not pertain to these words of the Lord which are read in the Gospel: I do not care, I do not resist. Yet certainly, unless this had been foretold in the Law and the prophets and the Psalms — whether in those testimonies which I myself have adduced, or in others — by no means would the Lord have said: 'All things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me,' and then, their understanding having been opened so that they might understand the Scriptures, would he have taught those very things which are written of him in the Law and the prophets and the Psalms, in such a way as to say:
'For thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name throughout all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' I for my part might not have been able to recognize these things as written in the Law and the prophets and the Psalms; nevertheless, that this is written there, he declares who is the Truth. But even if he did not say that these things were written there, without doubt it would suffice for Christians that Christ himself had said that repentance and the remission of sins must be preached in his name throughout all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
But his doubting disciples, although his body had been seen and handled, he willed to confirm by the greater evidence of the Scriptures, rather than by that whereby he presented himself, visible and palpable, to the senses of mortals. Let us hold, then, the Church designated from the mouth of the Lord — whence she was to begin and how far she was to reach: beginning, namely, from Jerusalem, and reaching unto all the nations. Here now, whoever shall say that Jerusalem is to be understood not as that visible city, but as placed figuratively, so that it be taken spiritually of the whole Church — eternal in the heavens and in part a pilgrim on earth — can say that this too was said figuratively:
'that it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise the third day' — which whoever should say is by no means to be held a Christian. As, therefore, that was set down in its proper sense, so also is that which was joined to it concerning the Church of all nations beginning at Jerusalem. For the Lord expounded that these things were said of himself in the Law and the prophets and the Psalms, and surely that very exposition could not be figurative; otherwise it would not be an exposition. Moreover, if Jerusalem, placed figuratively and understood spiritually, signifies the universal Church, how does the universal Church begin from the universal Church, as though Jerusalem should begin from Jerusalem?
It is manifest, therefore, that it was set down in its proper sense concerning that city, whence the Church is also proved to have begun — and this again and again, with the Lord himself making it manifest and leaving no lurking-place of snares to heretical cunning. For thus it follows and he says: 'And you are witnesses of these things, and I send my promise upon you; but sit you in the city until you be clothed with power from on high.' In which city he certainly bade them sit until they should be clothed with power from on high — that is, with the Holy Spirit, whom he had promised he would send — he foretold that the Church would begin from that city. But if they think it is not Jerusalem, let them hear what follows: 'And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifted up his hands and blessed them.'
'And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he departed from them. And they returned with great joy into Jerusalem, and were continually in the temple praising God.' Behold where that city is shown in which he bade them sit until they should be clothed with power from on high. And here indeed it is passed over how many days he was with them, after he showed himself alive after his Passion to their eyes and hands. But it is not left in silence in the Acts of the Apostles, where again, by the same manifestation of the Lord's words, the Church to come throughout the round world is foretold.
Where no one at all may be permitted to doubt — except one who doubts the faith of the holy Scriptures — that this Jerusalem is the visible city, whence the Church began after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor that he wished to show anything else than the places of this earth from which he would give her a beginning, and how he would diffuse her thence through all things. For thus it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: 'The former account, O Theophilus, I made of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day on which he chose the apostles through the Holy Spirit, commanding them to preach the Gospel; to whom also he showed himself after his Passion in many signs, appearing to them through forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God;'
'and while he was conversing with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await his promise, which, he said, you have heard from my mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you shall also receive not many days hence.' But they, coming together, questioned him, saying: 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' To whom, answering, he said: 'It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power; but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth.'
Behold, here too it is made manifest whence the Church was to begin and how far she was to reach. What do they say to these things, who most proudly call themselves Christians and yet most openly contradict Christ? We hold this Church; against these divine voices we admit no human wranglings. For it moves us greatly that our Lord, whom not to believe is sacrilegious and impious, left these salutary and last teachings of the primitive Church in his very last words which he had on earth. For having said these things, he straightway ascended into heaven, wishing to fortify our ears beforehand against those whom he had foretold would arise in the times to come and would say:
'Behold, here is Christ; behold, there!' — against believing which He warned us. Nor have we any excuse if we have believed contrary to the voice of our Shepherd, a voice so clear, so open, so manifest, that no one, even dull and slow of heart, could say, 'I did not understand.' For who does not understand: 'Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem'? Who does not understand: 'You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the whole earth'? When He had said these things, He was lifted up, and a cloud received Him, and they saw Him going into heaven. What is this, I ask?
When the last words of a dying man about to go down to the grave are heard, no one says he lied; and any heir who should perchance despise those words is judged impious. How then shall we escape the wrath of God, if by unbelief or contempt we thrust away the last words of the only Son of God, our Lord and Saviour — who was about to go into heaven and from thence to look down upon who neglects these things and who observes them, and from thence to come to judge all men? I have the most manifest voice of my Shepherd, commending to me and setting forth without any ambiguity His Church. I shall lay the blame on myself if I choose to be led astray and to wander from His flock, which is that same Church, through the words of men — especially since He has warned me, saying:
'They that are My sheep hear My voice and follow Me.' Behold His voice, clear and open. Having heard it, whoever does not follow Him, how will he dare to call himself His sheep? Let no one say to me, 'Oh, what did Donatus say, oh, what did Parmenianus, or Pontius, or any of them say?' For not even to catholic bishops must one assent, if perchance they err anywhere, so as to hold anything against the canonical Scriptures of God. But if, keeping the bond of unity and charity, they fall into such error, that will happen in them which the Apostle says: 'And if in anything you be otherwise minded, this also God shall reveal unto you.' But now these divine utterances concerning the universal Church are so manifest that against them none but heretics, with wilful perversity and blind fury, can bark.
But we have shown that the aforesaid Church, in the word of God her Bridegroom — whether through the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, or through His own mouth — was to begin from Jerusalem and to reach unto the ends of the whole earth. And how she began from Jerusalem and, diffused thence into all nations, bears fruit, is likewise shown in the same word of God through the Apostles, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, which I have already mentioned, that the Lord said: 'You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and unto the whole earth.' Then it follows: 'And when He had said these things, while they beheld, He was lifted up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.'
'And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said: You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as you have seen Him going into heaven.' Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is nigh to Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up into the upper room where they were dwelling — Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon Zelotes and Jude the brother of James. All these were continuing with one accord in prayer with the women, and Mary who was the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.
'And in those days Peter rose up in the midst of the disciples and said' — and the number of the multitude of persons was about a hundred and twenty. Then it is narrated, as Peter made his discourse, how Matthias was chosen in the place of Judas the traitor of the Lord; and after his ordination the Scripture goes on to say: 'And when the days of Pentecost were fulfilled, they were all together in one place; and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues distributed, as it were of fire; and it sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Spirit gave them to utter.'
'Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. And when this sound was made, the multitude came together and was confounded in mind, because every man heard them speaking in his own tongue. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another: Are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and they that dwelt in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians — we do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.'
'And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another: What does this mean? But others, mocking, said: These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven disciples, lifted up his voice and spoke, saying: You men of Judea, and all you that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you' — and the rest whereby he exhorts them to the faith. And when he had finished this, the Scripture goes on to narrate thus: 'Now when they heard these things, they were pricked in their heart, saying to Peter and to the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? Show us. And Peter said unto them: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.'
'For the promise is to us, and to our children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.' And with many other words did he testify unto them, saying: 'Save yourselves from this perverse generation.' They then, receiving this word, believed and were baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls. Behold how it began from Jerusalem — the Church that was to go forth thence through every tongue — which was also prefigured in those who, being there established, having received the Holy Spirit, spoke with all tongues. Now, as to how it went among the other nations, which Peter himself had foretold when he said:
'The promise is to us, and to our children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call' — let us now see. For there are narrated in due order the things which were then done at Jerusalem, up to the martyrdom of Stephen the deacon, where Saul also is mentioned as consenting to his slaying. When this was accomplished, it is next narrated thus: 'And there was in that day a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles who remained at Jerusalem.' See how thereafter is fulfilled what the Lord had said in order: 'You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth.'
Now it had already come to pass in Jerusalem; it followed on in Judea and Samaria, for this reason that they were scattered abroad in the regions of Judea and Samaria. For this is presently said of them: 'But they that were scattered abroad went throughout the cities and towns, preaching the word of God.' And because the apostles also had gone, when they heard that Samaria had received the word of God — when by the laying on of their hands they received the Holy Spirit — thus it is said of Peter and John: 'And Peter and John, having testified the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans as they passed through.' Then it is narrated concerning that eunuch who, returning from Jerusalem, was baptized by Philip; and of Philip himself it is said:
'And the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip from him, and the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found to have come to Azotus; and returning thence, he preached the gospel in all the cities, until he came to Caesarea.' Thus therefore the gospel is found to have been preached also throughout the cities of Judea and Samaria. It remained, then, that it should be preached in due order also throughout all nations, as the Lord had said, unto the whole earth. Saul, then, is called from heaven, is made from a persecutor a preacher, and the Lord says of him to Ananias: 'Go, for he is a vessel of election unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, that it may be magnified;
for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' And so now we hold the Church in Jerusalem, and throughout all Judea and Samaria; whence a little later it is said most plainly: 'So the churches throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being edified and confirmed in the fear of the Lord, and were filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.' Then, a few things being interposed, we come to that place where Cornelius the centurion believed and was baptized with his household, who were all Gentiles, uncircumcised. And before this came to pass, Peter saw, in a trance of the mind, as he was praying, heaven opened, and a certain vessel bound at four corners, as it were a bright linen sheet, in which was every kind of four-footed beasts and wild beasts and fowls of the air.
And there came a voice: 'Peter, arise, kill and eat.' But Peter said: 'Lord, I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean.' And the voice came again to him: 'What God has cleansed, do not you call common.' Now, that by this vision the Gentiles who were to believe were signified, there is no need for us to conjecture; for the Apostle himself expounds this as shown to him in that vessel. For when he had entered the house where Cornelius was, and many had come together, he said to them: 'You know better how it is an abomination for a Jewish man to join himself or to come near to one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean.' Thus he expounded that voice which he had heard concerning the animals shown to him in that linen sheet:
'What God has cleansed, do not you call common.' Now, to whom is it not evident that by that vessel was signified the whole world with all its nations? Whence also it was bound at four corners, on account of the well-known four parts of the world — east and west, south and north — which the Scripture very often commends. But now, into what places Paul, sent to the Gentiles, went round about scattering the word of God and confirming the churches thus born, it would be long to recount. When the Jews had resisted him at Antioch, he and Barnabas said to them: 'It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you; but seeing you thrust it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so has the Lord commanded us:
I have set you to be a light of the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.' And it goes on saying: 'And when the Gentiles heard, they received the word of God, and believed, as many as were ordained to eternal life.' Behold, here too is cited the testimony from the prophet Isaiah, which we also set down: that it may be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Therefore, not to mention the nations which after the times of the apostles believed and joined the Church, let those very ones alone which we find in the holy Scriptures — in the Acts and in the epistles of the apostles and in the Apocalypse of John, which both of us embrace and to which both of us submit — let these tell us how they perished by an African sedition.
For these we have received, not from the councils of contending bishops, not from novel disputations, not from forensic or municipal acts, but from the holy canonical writings. The church of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians — how could it perish by the crimes of the Africans? What south wind was so violent that it could scatter so far away a pestilence carried off, where not even the names of those through whom, or concerning whom, this evil arose could be known — at Athens, at Iconium, at Lystra? Who blotted out the churches founded by apostolic labor? At the end of the epistle to the Romans the same apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, says:
'But I have written to you the more boldly in part, as reminding you, because of the grace which is given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, consecrating the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified in the Holy Spirit. I have therefore glory in Christ Jesus toward God. For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me, unto the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum I have fulfilled the gospel of Christ.' Seek out, you Donatists, if you know not — seek out from Jerusalem, by land journeys round about even unto Illyricum, how many stopping-places there are:
if we reckon up so many churches, tell us how they could have perished through African quarrels. To the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians — you retain the apostle's epistles only in reading, but we retain both the epistles in reading and faith, and the very churches themselves in communion. Now Galatia is not one church, but in that region there are innumerable ones. And see how he greeted the Corinthians: 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia.' How many churches do you think there are in all Achaia?
Perhaps you do not know where Achaia is, and about a province so unknown to you, you pass judgment with such blindness that you say it perished by the crimes of the Africans. Are not all the places which Peter names — Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia — full of most flourishing churches? What of those to whom John wrote — Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Laodicea, which are churches (for Ephesus we have already mentioned) — let some one of you tell me where they are, how far distant they are from one another. Perhaps you are only now seeking to learn this, whether by reading or by hearing.
Learn, then, also how far they are removed from Africa, and tell us why you accuse those churches — utterly unknown to you and yet made manifest in the apostolic writings — with such sacrilegious rashness, and with such madness say they perished by the crimes of the Africans. Finally, what is written of them in the holy canonical books, I know; what you say of them, I do not know. Certainly, as we read them to be churches of Christ from the codices which you also venerate, so also from the codices which we too venerate, read to us how they perished.
Or does it please you that, against the churches which are members of the one Church spread throughout the whole world, which the Holy Spirit has commended and handed down to us through His Scriptures, we should believe whatever curses of men, brought forth from wherever? This indeed pleases you, but it does not please us. But whom it more justly pleases, you too see; yet, overcome by animosity, you are unwilling to be overcome by truth. Behold, there are the Scriptures of God; behold, in them are the churches, designated and expressed both by the universal name of the whole world and by name individually. What their forefathers objected against their colleagues, they did not know; what judges that case had, they did not know: how then did they perish? Behold, there are the Scriptures which I believe; behold, there are the churches with which I hold communion:
where you read to me their names, there read to me their crimes. But if you cry out or recite from elsewhere, we, after the voice of our Shepherd most plainly declared to us through the mouths of the prophets, through His own mouth, through the mouths of the evangelists, do not admit, do not believe, do not accept your voice. 'They that are My sheep,' says the heavenly Shepherd, 'hear My voice and follow Me.' His voice concerning the Church is not obscure. Whoever does not wish to stray from His flock, let him hear this voice, let him follow this. His most faithful steward, the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth — because He Himself spoke in him — says this: 'I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, which is not another;
but there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so say I now again: If any man preach to you any gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.' There has been proclaimed to us the Church that would be throughout the whole world. That this was foretold in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, the Lord Himself testified, who foretold that she would begin from Jerusalem and would flow through all nations — that there would be witnesses to Him in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth — this He foretold when He was now ascending into heaven. These words spoken, there followed the deeds:
how it began from Jerusalem, and then proceeded into Judea and Samaria, and thence into the whole earth, where the Church still grows, until, even unto the end, it may lay hold also of the remaining nations where it is not yet — this is shown consequently, with the holy Scriptures as witnesses. Whoever preaches another gospel, let him be anathema. But he preaches another gospel who says that the Church has perished from the rest of the world and has remained in the party of Donatus, in Africa alone. Therefore let him be anathema — unless he reads this to me in the holy Scriptures, and then let him not be anathema. 'I do read it,' he says. 'For Enoch alone among all men pleased God and was translated; and afterward, when the whole world had been destroyed by the inundation of waters, Noah alone with his wife and sons and daughters-in-law deserved to be delivered in the ark.'
They add also concerning Lot, that he alone with his daughters was delivered from Sodom; and concerning Abraham himself and Isaac and Jacob, that few were pleasing to God in a land given over to idols and demons. Finally, when the people of Israel had already multiplied, already in the times of the kings in the land of promise, which had been distributed to all the twelve tribes, they recall that ten tribes were divided off and handed over to the servant of Solomon, but two remained to Solomon's son for the kingdom that was Jerusalem. 'So also now,' they say, 'the whole world has apostatized. But we, like those two tribes, have remained in the temple of God, that is, in the Church.'
They add that the Lord Jesus Christ also, when very many disciples followed Him, when the seventy-two apostatized, was left alone with the twelve. By these and suchlike examples the heretics endeavor to commend their own fewness, and cease not to blaspheme the multitude, spread throughout the whole world, of the holy Church. But I ask of them: if — which be far from it — I were unwilling to believe that these very examples which are recalled by them are true, whence would they convince me? Is it not from the holy Scriptures, where they are read with such great manifestation that whoever receives those writings in faith cannot but also confess these things to be most true?
Furthermore, if I were constrained to believe these examples to be true for this reason, that they are written where I cannot say that the things written are false, why do not they too believe, from the same Scriptures, concerning the Church spread throughout the whole world? Behold, we believe all those things. Let them too believe what the Lord says: 'that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem'; let them believe what, being about to ascend into heaven, He said last of all: 'You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth.' Let both those and these be believed to be true, and no contention will remain between us, because neither are these hindered by the truth of those, nor those by the truth of these.
'These things too,' they say, 'we believe, and confess to have been fulfilled; but afterward the whole world apostatized, and the communion of Donatus alone remained.' Let them read this to us, just as they read concerning Enoch, concerning Noah, and concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and concerning those two tribes which, the ten being separated, were left remaining, and concerning the twelve apostles who remained when the rest apostatized. Let them read this likewise, and we resist in nothing. But if they do not read these things from the holy Scriptures, but try to persuade by their own contentions, I believe those things which are read in the holy Scriptures; I do not believe these things which are said by vain heretics.
But because they think themselves to be compared to those two tribes which remained with Solomon's son, let them read, and they will repent of having chosen this. For thus are those two peoples recorded in the Scriptures: the part that was toward Jerusalem is named Judah; but that other, which was separated off with the servant of Solomon in the larger number, is called Israel. Let them read what the prophets say concerning both — how they call Judah worse than Israel, so that they call apostate Israel justified in comparison with the sins of prevaricating Judah, that is, that the sins of this one are so grave that in comparison with it the other must be called just. Yet neither the sins of this one nor of that one harmed the just, who are found to have been both here and there.
For in that part also which they set forth as an example of perdition — that is, in Israel — there were holy prophets. There was that memorable Elijah, to say nothing of others, to whom also it was said: 'I have left me seven thousand men who have not bowed their knees before Baal.' Therefore that part of the people is by no means to be reckoned as having been a heresy. For God had commanded those same tribes to be separated, not that religion, but that the kingdom should be divided, and in this manner that it should be vindicated into the kingdom of Judah. But God never commands a schism or a heresy to be made. For not because in the world too kingdoms are for the most part divided, is Christian unity therefore divided, since in either part the catholic Church is found.
For this reason I thought it should be recalled concerning Judah and Israel, chiefly that these men might be admonished that whatever is said against those very peoples, on account of the multitude of the impious, does not harm the just who are set in the midst of the impious — so that they may cease to gather up testimonies, whatever are found spoken, whether through the prophets or through the mouth of the Lord or through the evangelists, against the tares or the chaff of the whole world. For very often the divine discourse rebukes the impious crowds of the Church — who are not even reckoned in the Church, yet on account of the sacraments which they hold in common with the saints, because there is in them a certain form of piety whose power they deny, as the Apostle says:
'having a form of piety, but denying the power thereof' — thus rebukes them, as though all such were of one kind and no good man remained at all. For thence indeed we are admonished that in a certain reckoning of theirs they are called 'all' — that is, all the sons of Gehenna, to whom God foreknew that they belonged. These men, then, acting either unskillfully or deceitfully, gather from the Scriptures such things as are found spoken either of the wicked mingled with the good until the end, or of the devastation of the former people of the Jews, and they wish to twist these against the Church of God, so that it may seem to have failed and perished from the whole world. Let them therefore cease to bring forth such things, if they wish to reply to this letter.
For we do not so say that the Church is spread throughout the whole world, as to say that in her sacraments there are only good men, and not also bad ones, and those far more numerous — so that in comparison with them the good are few, though of themselves they make up an immense number. We have innumerable testimonies both concerning the mingling of the bad with the good in the same communion of the sacrament — as Judas, bad from the beginning, dwelt among the good eleven — and concerning the fewness of the good on account of the comparison of the more numerous bad, and again concerning the multitude of the good considered in itself. Of these, that I may not be long, I recall a few. There is in the Song of Songs a passage which every Christian recognizes as spoken concerning the holy Church:
'As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters.' Whence does He call them thorns, save on account of the malignity of their manners? And why does He call the same ones daughters, save on account of the communion of the sacraments? Ezekiel also sees certain ones marked, that they might not perish together with the wicked; concerning whom it is said to him: 'those who groan and mourn for the sins and iniquities of my people which are done in the midst of them.' He would not call them 'my people' — those whom, when only these are left unharmed, He soon commands to perish — unless it were that people which bore His sacraments. The Lord also says concerning the tares over-sown: 'Let both grow until the harvest' — that is, the wheat and the tares — and He Himself interprets the harvest to be the end of the age, and the field, where both are sown, to be the world.
It behoves therefore that both should grow throughout the world until the end of the age. Whence these men are no longer permitted to suspect or to assert what they say — that all the good have failed from the world, so that they remain in the party of Donatus alone. For they strive against the most manifest sentence of the Lord, who says: 'The field is the world,' and: 'Let both grow until the harvest,' and: 'The harvest is the end of the age.' There is also another most manifest similitude concerning the mingling of the good and the bad within the same communion and connection of the sacraments, which the Lord Himself both sets forth and expounds: 'The kingdom of heaven,' He says, 'is like unto a net cast into the sea, which gathers of every kind of fishes;
and when it was full, they drew it to the shore, and sitting down, they gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the consummation of the age: the angels shall go forth and shall separate the wicked from the midst of the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' Therefore no mingling of the bad frightens the good, so that on that account they should wish, as it were, to break the nets and to go forth from the congregation of unity, lest they endure men not belonging to the kingdom of heaven in the fellowship of the sacraments — since, when the shore, that is, the end of the age, has been reached, the due separation shall be made, not by human rashness, but by divine judgment. But concerning the fewness of the good, the Lord Himself says most plainly: 'Enter in by the narrow gate.'
'How broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in by it; how narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and few there are who enter in by it.' These few the Donatists think themselves to be, and therefore they say that the whole world has perished, but that they themselves have remained in this fewness which the Lord praised. Yet, when they are compared with them, we set against them the far fewer Rogatists or Maximianists who separated themselves from them, if they suppose they must glory in their fewness. Nevertheless, this fewness was commended by the Lord in comparison with the multitude of the bad; but the multitude of the good, when it is considered in itself —
let them read that the Scriptures have not been silent, and let them see how many more testimonies are found. For whence is the very seed of Abraham promised 'as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea,' save on account of the innumerable multitude — since the Apostle says that it was for this reason said, 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called,' because not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise are reckoned for the seed? Whence 'many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that has a husband'? Whence 'many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall go into outer darkness' — that is, the impious Jews? Whence does the Apostle say: 'that He might cleanse to Himself a people abounding, a follower of good works'?
Whence does the Apocalypse say that there are thousands of thousands of the holy sons of the Church? Behold, those very ones are called many who are also called few. Why, save that they are many when considered in themselves, but few in comparison with the unrighteous? 'Concerning us,' they say, 'it was said: The last shall be first.' For the gospel came to Africa afterward, and therefore nowhere in the apostolic writings is it written that Africa believed. But concerning the eastern and the other nations, which are recorded in the holy books to have received the Christian faith, it was said: 'The first shall be last' — because they were to fall away from the faith.
Is this not that craftiness of the heretics against which we must be on guard, of those who wish to twist the words of God away from the truth for the sake of which they were spoken, toward the perversity in which they themselves stand? For why do we not rather understand this of the Jews, who were made last though they had been first, and of the Christians from among the Gentiles, who were made first though they had been last?
And even if I could not prove this interpretation by any more certain document, it ought to have sufficed for a rightly-judging hearer that I have found in these words a way out, whereby it becomes clear that these men have brought forward nothing on their own behalf as something so certain that it cannot be doubted. For even if there were no Jews and Gentiles of whom I understand this to have been said, certain barbarous nations came to believe even after Africa, whence it is certain that Africa is not the last in the order of believing. To this is added that the Lord himself explained of whom he had said this, and stopped the mouths of the slanderers. For speaking to the Jews, who are to say to him, 'You taught in our streets,' he says: 'When you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves cast out.'
'And they shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south, and shall recline in the kingdom of God.' And behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last. Here surely nothing is found that can be gainsaid. Likewise they say that what the Lord says was spoken about the apostasy of the whole world: 'The Son of Man, when he comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?' This we understand to have been said either on account of the very perfection of faith, which is so difficult in men that even in the admirable saints themselves, as in Moses himself, something is found where they have trembled or could have trembled; or on account of that abundance of the wicked and scarcity of the good, of which we have said enough. For this reason the Lord said this as though doubting.
For he does not say, 'The Son of Man when he comes will not find faith on the earth,' but, 'Do you think he will find faith on the earth?' Now it does not befit him, who assuredly knows and foreknows all things, to doubt about anything; but his doubting prefigured our doubting, because on account of the many scandals sprouting up around the end of the age, this is what human weakness would at some time be about to say. Hence it is said in the Psalms: 'My soul slumbered from weariness; strengthen me in your words.' Why 'My soul slumbered from weariness,' except on account of that which the Lord says: 'Because iniquity has abounded, the love of many shall grow cold'? And why 'Strengthen me in your words,' except on account of that which follows: 'But he who shall persevere unto the end, this one shall be saved'?
There are therefore throughout the whole world those in whom, because iniquity abounds, the love of many shall grow cold; and there are again throughout the whole world those who, persevering unto the end, shall be saved, because 'Allow both,' he says, 'to grow until the harvest,' and 'The harvest is the end of the age, and the field is the world.' Of this human weakness is also that voice: 'Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed, for truths are diminished from among the sons of men.' And yet among these there is one heart and one soul toward God of the faithful crying out: 'Save me, O Lord.' For because this man who says 'Save me, O Lord' is one in such a way that he is composed of many, a little after in the same psalm it is said:
'Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now will I arise, says the Lord.' And again a little after it is said in the plural number: 'But you, O Lord, will keep us and preserve us from this generation and for ever.' From what generation, if not that of which it was said above: 'The holy one has failed and truths are diminished from among the sons of men'? But both these kinds exist throughout the whole world unto the end, because 'Allow both,' he says, 'to grow until the harvest,' and 'The field is the world, the harvest the end of the age.' For that one man himself, which is the body of Christ composed of many, shall like Enoch, pleasing to God, be translated, and like Lot shall be delivered from Sodom, and like Noah from the flood.
In him is the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, because his soul slumbers from weariness when he asks to be strengthened in the words of God. And in that psalm he tells whence that weariness comes: 'Weariness,' he says, 'held me because of the sinners who forsake your law.' He likewise cries out when his heart is anguished with the same weariness; but let them see whence he cries: 'From the ends of the earth,' he says, 'I cried to you, while my heart was anguished.' He himself truly suffers persecution for righteousness' sake, not only if he suffers in bodily torments—for this is not always—but that which is always, so long as iniquity passes on, he suffers assuredly the torment of the heart, when weariness holds him because of the sinners who forsake the law of God.
For Lot indeed suffered no small persecution in Sodom, where nevertheless no one was troublesome to him dwelling there by bodily punishments; but, a righteous man dwelling among them, by sight and hearing he tormented his righteous soul with the wicked deeds of others. Of this the apostle says: 'But all also who wish to live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution.' But concerning those who forsake the law of God—of whom the same body of Christ says, 'I saw the senseless and I wasted away'—he says: 'But evil men and seducers shall advance for the worse, themselves erring and sending others into error.' But both these kinds exist throughout the whole world unto the end, because 'Allow both,' he says, 'to grow until the harvest, and the field is the world, the harvest the end of the age.'
But nevertheless I marvel that these men do not pay attention to what they say, when as though on their own behalf they cite what the Lord says: 'The Son of Man, when he comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?'—as if Africa were not part of the earth. For if he said this as one who would find faith in absolutely no place, then either he said it of some particular land and it is uncertain of which he said it, or he said it of the whole earth, and they do not find how he did not say it of Africa. Let them indeed take heed lest perhaps in the words that follow he touched upon such men as these are. For when he had said:
'The Son of Man—do you think he will find faith on the earth?'—I believe that, because a vain and inflated thought could rise up in the heart of certain proud heretics, who in some part of the earth have separated themselves from the unity of the world, namely that they themselves were the righteous while the rest of the nations, through which the communion of the Church is spread abroad, were failing and perishing from the faith—the Evangelist immediately went on: 'And he spoke also,' he says, 'to certain who seemed righteous to themselves and despised the rest, this parable'; and there follows the account of those two praying in the temple, the Pharisee and the publican, in which two are figured the proud boasting of good works and the humble confession of sins.
Let these men therefore cease, if they prepare to answer this letter, to cite those testimonies which we too proclaim together with them, whether concerning the perdition of the Jews, or concerning the tares without the chaff, or the bad fish of the whole world; and just as we have asserted by the plainest testimonies that the Church is spread throughout the whole world, so let them also bring forward something manifest, whereby they may show that it was foretold that, when the rest of the nations perish from the faith of Christ, Africa alone would remain, together with wherever bishops from Africa might be sent. 'It is written,' they say, 'in the Song of Songs, with the bride, that is the Church, saying to the bridegroom: Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at noon.'
This is the sole testimony which these men suppose sounds in their favor, on the ground that Africa is situated in the southern part of the world. Whence first I ask how the Church could question Christ, so that he might announce to her where the Church is; for there are not two, but one. Or let them themselves show—since they do not deny that these words are spoken by the Church to Christ—which is the Church that asks and which is the Church about which it asks. For she asks where she may come to her bridegroom, and says to him: 'Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at noon.' Now this is the Church which speaks and asks where [the Church] is at noon. For she does not ask, 'Where do you pasture, where do you lie down,' and it is answered her:
'At noon'—as though the bridegroom replied, 'At noon I pasture, at noon I lie down'—but all these words belong to the question: 'Where do you pasture, where do you lie down at noon?' For she still says: 'Lest perhaps I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions.' But now he replies: 'Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women,' and the rest. Therefore by these words it is not shown that the Church is only in the southern region, but is established also in the other parts of the world. She asks perhaps what pertains to her communion at noon, that is, where her bridegroom pastures and lies down at noon, because he pastures his own and lies down among his own.
For certain members of his, that is, good faithful ones, come from the regions beyond the sea into Africa, and when they have heard that the party of Donatus is here, fearing lest they fall into the hands of some rebaptizer, they call upon Christ, praying and saying: 'Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at noon,' that is, who are the noon where you pasture and lie down—that is, who are those who have love and do not divide unity. And see what she adds:
'Lest perhaps I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions,' that is, lest perhaps I become as one hidden and unknown and unrevealed—for this is what 'veiled' means—not over your flock, but over the flocks of your companions, who, though at first they were with you, wished to gather outside not your flock but their own flocks, and did not hear you saying, 'He who does not gather with me scatters,' nor what you said to Peter, 'Feed my sheep,' not 'your sheep.' But she is not veiled, because she is not under a bushel but upon a lampstand, that she may give light to all who are in the house—and of her it was said:
'A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden'—but to the Donatists she is as though veiled, who hear such clear and manifest testimonies, which demonstrate her throughout the whole world, and prefer with closed eyes to stumble against the mountain rather than to ascend it—the mountain which, though it was a stone cut from the mountain without hands, grew and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. It can also be understood in another way: 'Where you pasture, where you lie down at noon.' For it is his own voice in the Psalms, in the person of Moses the servant of God: 'Make known to me your right hand, and those instructed in heart in wisdom'; for in these 'noon' is spoken of, on account of the immense light of wisdom and the immense ardor of love.
Hence, when the Spirit of God was exhorting a certain one to good works through the prophet, he also promised him this: 'And your darkness shall be as the noonday.' But even if some place in the world were to be understood by what was said 'at noon,' nevertheless the very words, as I have said—which all together make one single question—would in no way allow anyone to twist this sentence to his own meaning. And if, to one asking as it were where he pastured and where he lay down, it were answered concerning an earthly place, 'at noon,' we ought not straightway to take it as Africa. For Africa is indeed in the southern part of the world, but toward the southwest, not toward the south, where noon truly is. For there the sun makes midday, under which region of the sky rather Egypt is found.
If therefore the bridegroom, questioned by the bride as about a place more intimately beloved and as about a certain secret bed of his own, were to answer that it is 'at noon,' the Catholic Church would far more probably recognize this in those members of hers which are in Egypt among the thousands of the servants of God, who through the desert live in holy fellowship, striving to hold the perfection of the evangelical precept where it is said: 'Do you wish to be perfect? Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' For how much better would the Son of God be said there to pasture and lie down—that is, to rest—more secretly, than amid the restless mobs of the frenzied Circumcellions, which evil is proper to Africa! For concerning Egypt Isaiah thus prophesies:
'In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the land of the Egyptians, and a pillar to the Lord at their borders; and it shall be for a sign for ever to the Lord in the land of the Egyptians, for they shall cry to the Lord against those who oppressed them, and the Lord will send them a man who shall save them; judging he will preserve them. And the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians shall fear the Lord in that day, and shall offer sacrifices and shall vow vows to the Lord and shall pay them. And the Lord shall smite the Egyptians with a plague, and shall heal them by his mercy, and they shall be converted to the Lord, and he will hear them and heal them.' What do they say to these things? Why do they not commune with the Church of the Egyptians which was foretold?
Or if by a prophetic prefiguration Egypt signifies the world, why do they not commune with the Church of the whole earth? Accordingly, let them search the Scriptures, and against so many testimonies by which it is shown that the Church of Christ is spread throughout the whole world, let them bring forward even a single one as certain and as manifest as those are, whereby they may demonstrate that the Church of Christ has perished from the rest of the nations and has remained in Africa alone, as if from another beginning, not from Jerusalem, but from Carthage, where they first set up bishop against bishop. But if we should wish to understand Donatus as the prince of Tyre—since Carthage was surnamed Tyrian—what things are prophesied against him through Ezekiel? Where it especially designates him in what is said to him:
'I will show you that you are a man and not a god.' For these men glory more in the name of Donatus than in that of God, and although God alone is without sin, and that Priest who intercedes for us—since of him too it was said, 'who is over all things, God blessed forever'—yet these imitators of Donatus wish themselves so to seem without sin that they even assert themselves to be justifiers of men, and that their oil is not the oil of a sinner. Rightly is it said to the prince of Tyre: 'You have said, I am a god; but you are a man and not a god,' to whom it is also said: 'Are you perhaps better than Daniel?' For Daniel confesses his own sins and the sins of his people.
But these men, belonging to the prince of Tyre, therefore say that they are heard when praying for the sins of the people, because they themselves are without sin. Rightly is it said to the prince of Tyre: 'Are you perhaps better than Daniel?' Behold, we can find something proper to us, and this the greatest evil, arising from the head of Africa, that is, from Carthage—for men know how fittingly Tyre is taken for Carthage—and yet we do not deal with them by such means. For perhaps Tyre may signify something else: how much more 'noon,' when the very words compel us to another understanding!
But that they may not even be permitted to seek for something whereby to prove that it was foretold that, when the rest of the nations fail from the Christian faith, the Church would remain in Africa alone, let them attend to that which I have often mentioned—that both grow until the harvest, and that the field is the world, the harvest the end of the age—not by our interpretation, but by that of the Lord himself interpreting his own parable. There is also another most evident thing which would altogether take away from them the labor of seeking, whereby they might prove that the Church, with the world lost, was reduced to the Africans alone. For it is possible for a thing to exist and not be found; but it cannot be that it does not exist and yet is found. Let them therefore cease to seek what they will not be able to find, not because it is hidden, but because it does not exist.
For there are still some nations among whom the Gospel has not yet been preached; and it is necessary that all things which were foretold concerning Christ and the Church be fulfilled. It is fitting therefore that it be preached also among them, and when this shall have been fulfilled, then shall be the end. How then do these men say that this is now completed which the Lord says—that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem—but that afterward, the rest failing, Africa alone remained to Christ, when that is still to be fulfilled and is not yet fulfilled? But when it shall have been fulfilled, the end will come. For thus the Lord says: 'And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.'
How then, when the faith of all nations had been fulfilled, did the perdition of the nations except Africa follow, seeing that the very faith of all nations is not yet fulfilled? Unless perhaps this remains to men's madness, that they say that the preaching of the Gospel among all nations is not fulfilled from those churches which were founded through the labors of the apostles, but that, with these perishing, their restoration would come to be out of Africa through the party of Donatus, and the acquisition of the remaining nations. I think that they themselves even laugh when they hear this; and yet unless they say this—which they blush to say—they have absolutely nothing to say. But what is that to us? We envy no one. Let them read this to us from the holy Scriptures, and we believe it;
let them read this to us, I say, from the canon of the divine books: that so many cities, which up to this present day have held the baptism handed down to them by the apostles, have perished from the faith of Christ on account of crimes of the Africans unknown to them, and must be baptized anew by the party of Donatus, and thence the Gospel must be preached to the rest of the nations who have not yet heard it. Let them read this to us—why do they delay, why do they shuffle, why do they hinder the salvation of the nations?—let them read this, and along with the very reading let them send new apostles to so many nations to be rebaptized and to the remaining ones to be baptized. But let them clearly see, when they come to the Colossians, how there they either read or hear the letter given to them, where the apostle says to them:
'We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you, hearing of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel which has come to you, as in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, from the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth.' For these words agree with the Gospel where it is said: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing good seed in his field,' and afterward it is explained that the field is this world. For just as this, from the time it was sown, was foretold to grow until the harvest, so also the apostle says:
'In all the world bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, from the day you heard.' But it grows until the end, because until the harvest; for the harvest is the end of the age. Therefore not only the Colossians to whom it was given, but also all the rest among whom this letter is read, where by apostolic writings it is established that the good seed has been sown and has already then begun to grow and bear fruit, will say: 'What new thing do you bring us? Is the good seed to be sown again, when from the time it was sown it grows until the harvest? If you say that what had been sown through the apostles has perished in those places, and that therefore it must be sown again out of Africa, it will be answered: Read us this from the divine oracles.'
Which assuredly you cannot read, unless you first show to be false that which is written, that the seed sown there before grows until the harvest. And because in no way do the divine utterances contradict themselves, in no way will you find in them anything you could recite against this so manifest a truth. It remains therefore that you say these things not from the divine books, but from yourselves. Accordingly it will most fittingly be answered: 'Let you be anathema.' For the churches founded by apostolic labor hold fast, with what great care it was foretold to them: 'If anyone evangelize to you beyond what you received, let him be anathema.'
Since therefore in the holy Scriptures the Church is manifestly recognized as beginning from Jerusalem and growing through the other nations until it occupies all, even to the end of the age, and since not only its wheat but also its refuse is mentioned, first be corrected, commune with the wheat, and then you shall see what among them you ought to call tares or chaff. Otherwise, by a detestable error you are compelled both to adorn the evil with the praises of the good, and to accuse the good with the crimes of the evil.
Surely we bear in our hands the documents by which we may prove that your forefathers, whose schism you follow, both handed over the holy books to the fires by municipal records, and could not deny it by ecclesiastical records; and that those same men were among the judges, who at Carthage passed sentences against Caecilian and his colleagues in their absence. Surely the same men are read in the municipal and ecclesiastical records as traditors, who are afterward put forward by you as condemners of absent traditors. Surely Nundinarius, a deacon of yours at that time, before the consular Zenophilus laid bare all the traffickings of Lucilla, who bought the condemnation of Caecilian from the bishops, who had become his enemy because he preached the truth.
Surely those same men afterward gave letters to the emperor Constantine, and when arbiters, namely bishops, had been given by him as they had requested, they did not consent to them, and afterward accused those same men before him as unjust judges, and appealed to the emperor himself from others given to them at Arles; and when he himself heard between the parties, they were found to be slanderers, and condemned, and remained in the same obstinacy of frenzy.
Surely you yourselves, who for this reason say that Christian holiness has been utterly destroyed from so many nations, among whom the apostles left it most firmly founded, because they communed with those whom your forefathers had condemned in the Carthaginian council of seventy bishops—do you not now commune with those whom you condemned, together with Maximian, in the council of Bagai by three hundred and ten bishops? Is not Praetextatus of Assuras read to have been both condemned in that very council and accused and assailed by you in the proconsular records, and yet was received in the very honor in which he had been condemned, and died in your communion?
你們自己確實正是這樣的人：你們之所以說基督徒的聖潔已從那許多——使徒曾在其中把它最堅固地建立起來的——民族中被徹底毀滅，理由是那些民族與你們先輩在七十位主教的迦太基會議中所定罪的人相通；可是你們如今豈不與那些你們連同馬克西米安（Maximian）在三百一十位主教的巴該（Bagai）會議中所定罪的人相通嗎？亞蘇拉的普萊特克斯塔圖（Praetextatus of Assuras）豈不是被記載為既在那會議中被定罪，又在方伯記錄中被你們控告攻擊，然而卻仍以他被定罪時的那個尊位被接納，並在你們的相通中去世了嗎？
Did not Felicianus of Musti, in the same manner, in the same cause, condemned by the bishops in the same council, accused before the judges, afterward received by you, now hold office as a bishop with you? Do not those who were baptized by these condemned men now commune with you in that same baptism? But of course, if so many churches beyond the sea, founded by apostolic labor, commune in the sacraments with those whom they themselves neither condemned as accused among them, and afterward heard to have been cleared and absolved by others, they lose salvation and the Christian religion:
穆斯提的斐利西安（Felicianus of Musti）豈不是照樣，在同一案件中，在同一會議中被眾主教定罪，在判官面前被控告，後來卻被你們接納，如今與你們一同作主教嗎？那些受了這些被定罪之人洗禮的人，豈不如今在那同一洗禮中與你們相通嗎？然而據說，那許多藉使徒的勞苦所建立的海外教會，若在聖禮上與那些人相通——就是那些他們自己既未當作被控告者加以定罪、後來又聽說已被別人洗清赦免的人——就要喪失救恩和基督教信仰：
but the party of Donatus both condemns whomever it wishes, and in that very condemnation so exaggerates the sacrileges of their schism that it does not hesitate to compare them to those whom the earth swallowed up alive; and again communes with those same men when it wishes, received into the same honor, and remains holy and whole. O rule of Numidian law! O privileges of Bagai!
And the baptism of Christ is blown away as worthless in those who have received it in the apostolic churches; but in those whom—as it is written in the council of Bagai—'the condemned sacrilegious ones,' Praetextatus and Felicianus, had baptized, the baptism of Christ is spared, not because it is the baptism of Christ, but because it was given through those bishops who deserved both to depart from their condemners and to return to their condemners as bishops. Surely all these things which I have long been recounting we recite as done by imperial letters and by ecclesiastical and municipal and proconsular records.
And yet, O Donatists, if you held the Church spread throughout the whole world, which is designated and expressed by the most manifest testimonies of the canonical Scriptures, all these things ought to avail nothing against you; for neither would the chaff's crimes prejudice you, if you were the wheat in it, nor, if you were the chaff and the crimes were yours, would you in any way prejudice the wheat of the Lord's crop, which is so sown in the field of the Lord that it grows until the harvest—that is, which is so sown in the world that it grows until the end of the age.
In that manner therefore, if perchance—what you have never yet proved to us—you should bring such documents against our chaff, while we on the contrary should not have against you these so great things which I have recounted, even so it would in no way prejudice our wheat spread throughout the whole world, whatever you might say against their chaff, however true, however manifest, however proven. Accordingly let all delaying evasions be removed. Whatever false thing is objected concerning the sins of men, let the conscience be dealt with and let it not be objected; whatever true thing is objected concerning the sins of men, and either cannot be proved, or, when it ought to have been proved, could not be, let it not be objected;
whatever concerning the sins of men is objected as both true and proven, and yet pertains not to the wheat that lies hidden among the chaff, but to the chaff itself, which shall be separated at the end—let it not be objected. For these things we too can object much more copiously and provably, not with that emptiness with which they do it, so as to establish our cause in them, but so as to show them that we are unwilling to trust in such things, not because we do not find such things to say, but lest we waste in unnecessary matters the time useful for necessary things. This is why they do it, because they cannot find documents supported by robust and firm truth, whereby to defend their cause, and they wish to seem to say something, while they blush to be silent and do not blush to speak empty things.
Therefore, with all such things removed, let them demonstrate their Church, if they can—not in the discourses and rumors of the Africans, not in the councils of their own bishops, not in the letters of any disputants whatsoever, not in signs and deceptive wonders, because against these too we have been made prepared and cautious by the word of the Lord—but in the prescription of the Law, in the predictions of the prophets, in the songs of the Psalms, in the voices of that one Shepherd himself, in the preachings and labors of the Evangelists, that is, in all the canonical authorities of the holy books; and not in such a way that they gather and cite those things which are said obscurely or ambiguously or figuratively, which each one interprets as he wishes according to his own understanding.
For such things cannot rightly be understood and expounded unless those which are said most plainly are first held with firm faith. Whoever, therefore, prepares to reply to this letter, I give notice beforehand that he must not say to me: 'Those men handed over the Lord's books to the flames, those men sacrificed to the images of the nations, those men waged a most iniquitous persecution against us, and you consented with them in all things.' For I answer briefly what I have often answered: either you speak falsehoods, or, if they are true, the things you say pertain not to the wheat of Christ but to their chaff. The Church does not perish on that account, which, winnowed at the last judgment, shall be cleansed by the separation of all such people.
I inquire after the Church itself, where she is who, by hearing the words of Christ and doing them, builds upon the rock, and by both hearing and doing bears with those who, by hearing and not doing, build upon the sand; where is the wheat that grows among the tares until the harvest, not what the tares themselves have done or may do; where is the Beloved of Christ in the midst of evil daughters as a lily among thorns, not what the thorns themselves have done or may do; where are the good fish which, until they reach the shore, endure the bad fish caught together in the same net, not what the bad fish themselves have done or may do.
Therefore, laying aside these devices of delay, let him show that the Church is either to be retained in Africa alone with so many nations lost, or that Africa is to be restored to her among all the nations and filled up; and let him so show it that he does not say: 'It is true, because I say this, or because that colleague of mine said it, or those colleagues of mine, or those bishops or clerics or laymen of ours; or it is true for this reason, that Donatus or Pontius or any other performed such and such miracles; or because men pray at the memorials of our dead and are heard; or because such and such things happen there; or because that brother of ours or that sister of ours saw such a vision while awake, or dreamed such a vision while sleeping.'
Let these things be removed, whether they be figments of lying men or portents of deceiving spirits. For either the things that are said are not true, or, if any wonders have been wrought by heretics, we ought all the more to be on our guard; because, when the Lord had said that certain deceivers would come who by working some signs would deceive even the elect, if it were possible, He added, earnestly warning us, and said: 'Behold, I have foretold you.' Whence the Apostle also, admonishing us, says: 'Now the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.' Moreover, if anyone praying at the memorials of heretics is heard, he receives, not according to the merit of the place, but according to the merit of his own desire, whether good or evil.
For the Spirit of the Lord, as it is written, has filled the whole world; and: 'The ear of jealousy hears all things'; and many are heard while God is angry, of whom the Apostle says: 'God gave them up to the desires of their heart'; and to many God, being propitious, does not grant what they wish, in order that He may grant what is profitable. Whence the same Apostle says concerning the thorn of his flesh, the angel of Satan, whom he says was given to him, by whom he was buffeted, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations: 'For which cause I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is made perfect in weakness.'
Do we not read that not a few were heard by the Lord God Himself on the high places of the mountains of Judaea—which high places nevertheless so displeased God that both the kings who did not overthrow them were blamed, and those who did overthrow them were praised? Whence it is understood that the affection of the one who asks avails more than the place of the petition. As for deceptive visions, let them read what is written, both that Satan himself transforms himself as an angel of light, and that many have been seduced by their own dreams; let them also hear what the pagans relate about their temples and their gods, as things marvelously done or seen; and yet 'the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.'
Many, therefore, are heard, and in many ways—not only Catholic Christians, but also pagans and Jews and heretics given over to various errors and superstitions. And they are heard either by seducing spirits, who nevertheless do nothing unless permitted, God judging loftily and ineffably what is to be granted to each; or by God Himself, whether for the punishment of malice, or for the solace of misery, or for the admonition to seek eternal salvation. But to salvation itself and to eternal life no one attains except him who has Christ for his Head. And to have Christ for his Head no one can, except him who is in His Body, which is the Church, whom we ought to recognize, just as the Head Himself, in the holy canonical Scriptures.
Let no one, then, who is prepared to answer me, set these things against me; for neither do I say that on this account I ought to be believed that the communion of Donatus is not the Church of Christ—namely, because certain men who were bishops among them are convicted by ecclesiastical, municipal, and judicial records of having handed over the divine documents to the flames; or because in the judgment of the bishops, which they had sought from the emperor, they did not win their cause; or because, appealing to the emperor himself, they earned from him too a sentence against themselves; or because they have such leaders of the Circumcellions among them; or because the Circumcellions commit so great evils; or because there are among them men who hurl themselves down precipices, or throw themselves into fires to be consumed—fires which they have kindled for their own selves—or who extort their own slaughter even from unwilling men by terrifying them, and who seek out so many voluntary and frenzied deaths in order to be venerated by men; or because at their tombs drunken herds of vagrant men and women, mixed together in wickedness, bury themselves in wine day and night and corrupt themselves with debaucheries.
But whether they themselves hold the Church, let them show only from the canonical books of the divine Scriptures; because neither do we for this reason say that we ought to be believed to be in the Church of Christ—namely, because the very Church which we hold was commended by Optatus of Milevis, or Ambrose of Milan, or countless others, bishops of our communion; or because it was proclaimed in the councils of our colleagues; or because throughout the whole world, in the holy places which our communion frequents, so many wonders of answered prayers or of healings take place—so much so that the bodies of martyrs, hidden for so many years (which they can hear from many by inquiring), were revealed to Ambrose, and at those very bodies a blind man, most well known to the city of Milan for many years, recovered his eyes and his sight; or because that man saw a dream, and that man, caught up in spirit, heard a voice, whether that he should not go over to the party of Donatus, or that he should withdraw from the party of Donatus.
Whatever such things take place in the Catholic Church are to be approved for this reason, that they take place in the Catholic Church; but the Catholic Church herself is not made manifest for the reason that these things take place in her. The Lord Jesus Himself, when He had risen from the dead and offered His body to be seen by the eyes and touched by the hands of the disciples, lest nevertheless they should think they were suffering some deception, judged that they were rather to be confirmed by the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, showing that those things were fulfilled concerning Himself which had been foretold so long before. Thus also He commended His Church, saying that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
He Himself testified that this was written in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms; this we hold as commended by His mouth. These are the proofs of our cause, these its foundations, these its supports. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that it was said of certain believers that they daily searched the Scriptures, whether these things were so. And what Scriptures, indeed, but the canonical books of the Law and the Prophets? To these were added the Gospels, the apostolic Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. Search all these and dig out something manifest by which you may demonstrate that the Church has remained in Africa alone, or that out of Africa it shall come to pass that what the Lord says be fulfilled:
'This Gospel shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.' But bring forward something that needs no interpreter, and by which you may not be convicted that it was said about another matter and that you are trying to twist it to your own meaning. For you see that unique text which you are accustomed to bring forward: 'Where dost thou feed, where dost thou lie down at noon?'—how, when all the words of the same passage are examined, it indicates something far different from what you suppose; and if it did sound as you wish, the Maximianists would defeat you in it. For 'the south' is rather the province of Byzacium and Tripolis, where they are, whoever they are, than Numidia, where you are predominant.
Thus, therefore, they themselves can more genuinely and distinctly glory in the south, so that you cannot exclude them from this saying, unless you hold in those words the true and Catholic sense, showing them that, according to the four corners of the earth, the south is rather from the south wind than from the southwest, but that, according to the figurative expressions of the Scriptures, the perfect illumination of the mind and the greatest fervour of charity is called noon—whence it is written: 'And thy darkness shall be as the noonday.' Bring forward, therefore, something that may not more truly be interpreted against you, but that needs no interpreter at all, just as this needs no interpreter:
'In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed'—because that the seed of Abraham is Christ, not I but the Apostle interprets; just as this needs no interpreter: 'For thou shalt be called My will, and thy land the world'—because it is said to her whom no Christian understands to be anyone but the Church of Christ; just as this needs no interpreter: 'All the ends of the earth shall remember and be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall adore in His sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations'—because it is said in that psalm where the Passion of the Lord is also declared, the Gospel bearing witness; just as this needs no interpreter:
'that it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem'; just as this needs no interpreter: 'And you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth'—for that the Church began at Jerusalem, and thence went around through Judaea and Samaria and the other nations, the consequent deeds attest, confirmed by canonical documents; just as this needs no interpreter: 'And this Gospel shall be preached for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come'—for the Lord, when asked about the end of this age, having spoken of certain beginnings of birth-pangs, said: 'But the end is not yet';
and He foretold that the end would come after the preaching of the Gospel in the whole world among all nations; just as this needs no interpreter: 'Let both grow together until the harvest'—because, when it did need an interpreter, the Lord Himself interpreted it, and He Himself expounded it whom no one can contradict, especially in that parable which was uttered by Him, and He Himself says that the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the field the world, the harvest the end of the age. Bring forward some such thing, even one, by which it may be most plainly declared that Africa either has been left alone among the rest, or has alone been preserved for the beginning of the renewing and filling of the world.
For that which was soon to perish would not be commended by so many testimonies, and thus be passed over in silence—either that it alone was to be left, or that from it alone the whole was to be restored and filled up. But if you cannot show what we so justly demand of you, yield to the truth, be silent, fall asleep, awake from your frenzy unto salvation. Or do you still say: 'If the Church is among you, why do you compel us to its peace by persecuting us? Or if we are evil, why do you seek us? And if we are tares, let us grow until the harvest'?—as though we, by whatever means we can, do anything else but strive that the wheat be not uprooted together, while before the time the tares are separated. For whoever are to be good for eternity,
even if before the time they are evil, they are not tares but wheat in the foreknowledge of God. But you accuse us thus—why do we seek you if you are evil?—as though you have not perished in that very thing in which you are evil, and are therefore to be sought because you have perished, so that, being lost, you may be sought; being sought, you may be found; being found, you may be recalled—like that sheep by the shepherd, like that coin by the woman, like that son who was dead and lived again, had perished and was found. For He seeks you, who dwells in the saints and commands that you be sought. But as for your complaint of persecution, it will be allayed if you consider and understand that, first, not every persecution is blameworthy; otherwise it would not be said with praise: 'The man that privately detracted his neighbour, him did I persecute.'
For daily we see even a son complain of his father as of his persecutor, and a wife of her husband, and a slave of his master, and a tenant of his landlord, and a defendant of his judge, and a soldier or provincial of his general or king—when for the most part, by a most well-ordered power, they prohibit and restrain the men subject to them from graver evils through the terror of light punishments; but for the most part, on the other hand, by threatening and raging, they deter them from a good life and from good deeds. But when they prohibit from evil and unlawful things, they are correctors and counsellors; when, however, from good and lawful things, they are persecutors and oppressors. Even those who prohibit from evil are to be blamed, if the measure of coercion exceeds the measure of the sin.
Likewise, those are justly to be blamed who tumultuously and disorderly rush to coerce those who are subject to no law under their authority. Accordingly, we justly reprehend the disorderly licence and proud madness of your Circumcellions, even when they are violent against certain most wicked men, because to avenge unlawful things unlawfully, and to deter from unlawful things unlawfully, is not good. But when they persecute even the innocent, whether from an unexamined cause or from most iniquitous enmities, who would not shudder at their most criminal brigandage?
But indeed, that you thought the frenzy of the Maximianists should be coerced by public laws, so that, driven out of the basilicas which they held by the orders of judges and the execution of officials and the aid of the cities, you might press them to a consideration of their crime—this we do not reprehend, except that in them you assailed the very thing which you yourselves did—nay, far more lightly than you did. For they raised the altar of sacrilegious dissension against the party of Donatus, but you against the whole world and against the words of Him who commended His Church, beginning at Jerusalem, throughout all nations.
Moreover, if the Maximianists had dared unlawfully and furiously to resist the orders of the judges obtained against them, would they not have procured judgment for themselves, since the Apostle says: 'For he that resists the power resists the ordinance of God; and they that resist procure to themselves judgment. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil'? When, therefore, their evil work existed, which you were trying to restrain through the ordained powers, if they had wished, on account of that very evil work of theirs, to oppose the laws by a worse work, would they suffer whatever evil befell them from you, and not from themselves?
Just as, whoever had wished to utter blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and, according to the king's edict, was destroyed together with his house—would he suffer this from those three men themselves, on account of whose deliverance from the fire the king, moved, had decreed it, or indeed even from the king himself, and not rather from themselves those deserved evils? If also those forty Jews who had conspired to kill Paul had rushed upon the armed men by whom, with an ordained escort, the same Paul was being conducted, would they have been slain by Paul, and not by themselves, by resisting the authorities?
Wherefore you also, without tumult of mind, without turbulent contention, without bitterness of hatred, consider diligently the things which the kings of our communion decree against you, and for what cause you suffer; and if you find yourselves to be in the Church of Christ, rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven. For you are crowned as martyrs, but they are judged as persecutors of martyrs.
But if the holy and canonical Scripture convicts you of having raised an altar against the Church of Christ, and of being separated by a sacrilegious schism from Christian unity, which is spread throughout the whole world, and of opposing yourselves to the Body of Christ, which is the Church spread throughout the whole world—by rebaptizing and blaspheming and assailing it as much as you can—then you are impious and sacrilegious; but they who decree that you, for so great a crime, are to be deterred and coerced so lightly by admonitions of loss, whether of places or of honours or by the privation of money, that, considering why you suffer these things, you may flee from your acknowledged sacrilege and be freed from eternal damnation, are accounted most diligent rulers and most pious counsellors.
This love the Catholic Christian emperors owe to you: that, on account of Christian gentleness, they decree that your sacrileges are not to be punished according to their desert, and, on account of Christian solicitude, that they be not left altogether unpunished. This God works in them, whose mercy, even in these troubles of which you complain, you are unwilling to acknowledge. But we, as far as in us lies, as far as the Lord grants and permits, do not even set in motion against you those laws of the mildest coercion, except that the Catholic Church, on account of the frailty of the weak, that it may be lawful for them without fear to choose what they hold or follow,
may be granted freedom from your terrors; so that, if any of your men should act violently against ours, then you—whom we hold as it were as hostages on the estates and in the cities—may suffer, not such things as your men do, but through ordained judgments, being subject to the laws, may be beaten with pecuniary loss. But if this seems grievous to you, let your men spare you and be quiet; if, however, they who are either under you or with you rage against you by not being quiet, you have no cause to complain of us, who have placed it within your power, or the power of your men, that even those following your heresy may suffer no losses, if the Catholic Church suffers no violence either from you or from your men.
But if any acts of violence are committed against your will, and you being unable to restrain them, you are mercifully and justly admonished by those very losses as to what sort of men you have, by whom you do not think yourselves to be contaminated; and hence you are compelled to understand how empty are the calumnies which you make against the Church of Christ spread throughout the whole world, and no longer to object to us that we persecute you, but rather to your own men—if they prefer both that we be harassed by their violences and that you be crushed by the public laws, rather than that they be restrained from their accustomed frenzy. If indeed you suffer anything odious and pernicious from our men, who do not keep the measure and purpose of Christian charity, I would quickly say that they are not ours—but either will be, if they correct themselves, or are to be separated at the end, if they persist in malice;
we, nevertheless, neither break the nets on account of the bad fish, nor desert the great house on account of the vessels made unto dishonour. But if you also say, by the same rule, that those from whom the Catholic Church suffers such things are not yours, prove your disposition, correct your error, embrace the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. For if neither do those men contaminate you, nor do these men contaminate us, let us not calumniate one another with the crimes of others: let us grow as wheat in one charity, together let us endure the chaff until the winnowing-fan.
Wherefore, if the testimonies of the canonical Scriptures which commend the Church to consist in the communion of the whole world need no interpreter, and you can find no such supports from those same books for your separation established in Africa, neither do you justly complain of persecutions—which she herself endures more grievously the more widely she is spread, and by faith and hope and charity she bears all things, not only such things as your Circumcellions and their like inflict upon her members where they can, but all the scandals of various iniquities teeming throughout the whole world, concerning which the Lord cried out: 'Woe to the world because of scandals.'
For a son persecutes his father more grievously by living wickedly than a father his son by chastising him; and the handmaid persecuted Sarah more grievously through iniquitous pride than Sarah persecuted her through due discipline; and they persecuted the Lord more grievously, concerning whom it was said, 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up,' than He persecuted them when He overturned their tables and drove them from the temple with a scourge. What more have you to say? Or is it now pleasing that we bring that last argument of yours into the open? 'Behold,' they say, 'you hold the Church. How do you receive us, if we should wish to cross over to you?' I answer briefly: 'We receive you thus, as the Church which we find in the holy canonical books receives you.'
For, laying aside the animosity of contradiction, with which all those swell who are unwilling to be conquered by the truth of God and are conquered by their own perversity, you can easily understand that the divine sacraments are both in the good and in the evil, but in the former unto salvation, in the latter unto damnation; and although there is so great a difference between those who handle these things worthily and unworthily, yet those very sacraments are the same, availing to the former for reward, to the latter for judgment. Wherefore, when the Lord baptized more than John, as it is written in the Gospel, where the evangelist added, 'although He Himself baptized not, but His disciples'—although there was so great a difference between Peter and Judas, yet there was no difference between the baptism which was given through Peter and that which was given through Judas.
For that which was given through them was one, although they themselves were not one; and it was Christ's, but of them the one belonged to the members of Christ, the other to the party of the devil. But when John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle were one, because each was the friend of the Bridegroom, yet, because the baptism which was given by John and that which was given by Paul was not one, Paul ordered those who had been baptized with the baptism of John to be baptized with the baptism of Christ. And so that baptism was called John's; but that which was given through Paul was not called the baptism of Paul, but, 'he ordered them,' he says, 'to be baptized in Christ.' Behold, John and Paul are one, and they do not give one thing; behold, Peter and Judas are not one, and they give one thing;
but indeed Peter and Paul are both one and give one thing. Abraham and Cornelius, justified by faith, are one, and did not receive one sacrament; and likewise Cornelius and Simon Magus are not one, and received one sacrament; but indeed Cornelius and that eunuch, whom Philip baptized on the road, are both one and received one sacrament. When, therefore, the sacrament is one, neither diverse givers nor diverse receivers cause that which is one not to be one. But these men, while they wish that which is Christ's to be man's, attempt to persuade things most false and most absurd, so that there are almost as many baptisms as there are men through whom they are given. And so that which the Lord said concerning a man and a man's work:
'A good tree bringeth forth good fruits, and an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruits'—these men attempt to distort to this, that one baptized by a good man is good, and one baptized by an evil man is evil. Whence it follows, even against their will, that one baptized by a better man is better, and one baptized by an inferior man is inferior. From which it comes to pass that those whom, before the Lord's Passion, Jesus Himself did not baptize but His disciples, would have been born much more holily if they had been baptized by Him. For who could even imagine how great the difference was between Himself and His disciples by whom they were being baptized? Did He then begrudge them a holier generation, whom He preferred to be baptized by His disciples, He Himself being here established? And whoever believes this is surely insane.
What, then, did the Lord deign to demonstrate by this very thing, except that what was given was His own, by whomever it was given, and that He Himself baptized—He of whom that friend of the Bridegroom had said, 'This is He that baptizeth'—by whosoever's hands as minister he was baptized who had believed in Him? Paul also says: 'I give thanks to God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I baptized in my own name.' Is he then also to be believed to have begrudged men a better sanctification, if, the better he was, the better those could be baptized who were baptized by him?
Nay, rather, unto this very end the intention of the most cautious and faithful dispenser was vigilant, lest anyone should think himself the more holily baptized because he was baptized by a holier minister, and should attribute to the servant what belonged to the Lord. Since, therefore, both the good and the evil give and receive the sacrament of baptism, and none are built up, regenerated spiritually, into the Body and members of Christ, except the good, assuredly that Church is among the good, to whom it is said: 'As a lily among thorns, so is my Beloved among the daughters.' For among these is he who builds upon the rock, that is, who hears the words of Christ and does them; because to Peter also, confessing Him to be Christ, the Son of God, He thus said: 'And upon this rock I will build my Church.'
She is not, therefore, among those who build upon the sand, that is, who hear the words of Christ and do them not. For He Himself said: 'He that heareth these My words and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock'; and likewise a little after: 'He that heareth,' He says, 'these My words and doeth them not, I will liken him to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.' Those, therefore, who by the framework of charity have been incorporated into the building established upon the rock, and into the lily gleaming among the thorns, they assuredly shall possess the kingdom of God; but those who build upon the sand, or are reckoned among the thorns—who would doubt that they shall not possess the kingdom of God?
The sacrament of baptism is indeed of no benefit to such people; and yet, on account of their unstable foundation and their barren malice, no injury is to be done even to the sacrament that they possess. Therefore, in that passage from the epistle which the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, observe without any zeal for contention how rightly it is done that, when we are correcting a heretic's error, if they have this sacrament which they ought to have had, they should receive that which was lacking to them, and that what was already present should not be disapproved and blasphemed.
「The works of the flesh」, he says, 「are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, angers, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and the like; concerning which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God.」 All these, therefore, are neither in the lily nor upon the rock; and among these the heretics too are placed.
Why then, to pass over the rest, do you not baptize after drunkards, after the wanton, after the envious—who shall not possess the kingdom of God, and therefore are not on the rock, and, because they are not on the rock, are beyond doubt not reckoned in the Church, since he says, 「Upon this rock I will build my Church」—and yet you want us to baptize after heretics, who are enumerated among the very same thorns as those who shall not possess the kingdom of God, and in whom the sacraments are likewise present, since they are the same, but do not profit, because, although those things are right, the men themselves are perverse?
Considering and pondering these things without obstinacy, you can easily understand that in each person what is crooked is to be corrected, but what is right is to be approved; and that what is lacking is to be given, while what is present is to be acknowledged. Therefore, when a heretic comes in order to become a Catholic, let him correct his own error, let him not violate the sacrament of Christ, let him receive the bond of peace which he did not have—without which the baptism he had could not profit him. For both are necessary for attaining the kingdom of God: both baptism and righteousness. And in one who despises the baptism of Christ there cannot be righteousness; but baptism can exist even in one who does not have righteousness, though it cannot profit him. For as the Truth said:
「Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven」—so the same Truth said: 「Unless your righteousness abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven」; so that not baptism alone, but righteousness also, may lead to the kingdom, while he to whom either both or one of the two is lacking cannot arrive there. Wherefore, when it is said to the heretics:
「You lack righteousness, which no one can have without charity and the bond of peace」; and when they themselves confess that many have baptism and do not have righteousness—and if they do not confess it, divine Scripture convicts them—I marvel how they suppose that, when we are unwilling to baptize again those who have not their own but Christ's baptism, we are thereby acting as if we judged that nothing was now lacking to them; and that, because baptism is not given to them in the Catholic Church—the baptism which they are found to possess—they think they receive nothing there, where in fact they receive that without which the baptism they have avails them for destruction, not for salvation.
But if they refuse to understand, it suffices us that we hold that Church which is demonstrated by the most manifest testimonies of the holy and canonical Scriptures. Let the heretic now say to me: 「How do you receive me?」 I answer at once: 「As the Church receives, to which Christ bears witness. Can you know better how you ought to be received than our Saviour, the physician of your wound?」 Here perhaps you say: 「Read to me, then, how Christ commanded those to be received who wish to pass over from the heretics to the Church.」 This, openly and evidently, neither do I read nor do you.
For if John had been a heretic and had baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and Paul had commanded men to be baptized after his baptism, you would establish what you say, so that I should have nothing to say against it. Again, if Peter had been baptized by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—Peter, to whom the Lord says, 「He that is once washed has no need to wash again」—I should establish what I say, so that you would have nothing to say against it.
But now, since we do not find in the Scriptures that any passed over to the Church from the heretics and were received either as I say or as you say, I think that, if some wise man had arisen to whom the Lord Christ bore witness, and he were consulted by us on this question, we ought in no way to doubt to do what he said—lest we be judged to be resisting not so much him as the Lord Christ, by whose testimony he was commended. But Christ bears witness to His Church. Behold, read the Gospel where He says: 「It behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.」
As, therefore, that Church receives throughout all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, so, with all ambiguities and evasions removed, are you to be received. But if you will not, you are struggling—most perniciously against your own salvation—not against me or against any man who wishes to receive you thus, but against the Saviour Himself, since you refuse to believe that you ought to be received in the same way as that Church receives, which He commends by His own testimony—He whom you confess it to be wicked not to believe. But you object: Jeremiah said, 「It has become to me as deceitful water that has no faithfulness.」 He did not speak of that water which you suppose; read diligently.
For he called the multitude of lying men itself 「deceitful water」 in the prophetic manner, as they are wont to speak figuratively—just as in the Apocalypse we know peoples are called by the name of waters. For Jeremiah speaks thus: 「Why do they who grieve me prevail? My wound is grievous; whence shall I be healed? It has become to me as deceitful water that has no faithfulness.」 He called his wound something made to him as deceitful water; but this same wound he called those who grieved him. For what he says, 「those who grieve me」, this he afterward called 「my wound」; and what he said above, 「prevail」, this he afterward called 「is grievous」. So too you act in that passage where it is written: 「Abstain from strange water, and drink not from a strange fountain.」
For you suppose that this was said of the baptism which is among the heretics, so that it is 「strange water」 because heretics shall not possess the kingdom of God. As though it were not the same among drunkards and among the envious and others of this kind, of whom it is equally said, 「They shall not possess the kingdom of God」; and yet in all such people, if they have been baptized according to the Gospel, the baptism is Christ's, not their own. Hence that water is not strange, though they themselves are strangers, to whom He will say, 「I know you not.」 Why then should I not rather understand the strange water and the strange fountain to be the doctrine of the malignant spirit, by which those alienated from God are deceived and led astray through the ignorance that is in them on account of the blindness of their heart—the Apostle commending this more expressly:
「Now the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.」 This is the strange water and the strange fountain. For if water is understood in a good sense, and the Holy Spirit, why should not water be understood in a bad sense, and the malignant spirit? For not always, where Scripture names water, does it will this visible sacrament of baptism to be understood, but sometimes this, sometimes something else. For by this visible baptism the Lord's disciples had baptized others also, before the Holy Spirit came upon them according to His promise—of whom nevertheless the same Jesus says: 「If any man thirst, let him come and drink.」
「He that believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.」 And the evangelist continues and explains whence this was said: 「But this,」 he says, 「He spoke of the Spirit which they were about to receive who were to believe in Him; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.」 Behold, He calls the Spirit 「water」—the Spirit which was not yet given—although that water of baptism had already been given to many. Hence also that which likewise you do not understand, which is written:
「Drink water from your own vessels and from the fountains of your own wells; and let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you; and let not your waters overflow outside for you, but let your waters run in your own streets」—this does not signify the visible baptism, which strangers too can have, that is, those who shall not possess the kingdom of God, but it commends this gift of the Holy Spirit, which belongs properly only to those who shall reign with Christ forever, since 「the charity of God,」 as the Apostle says, 「is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.」 For that very breadth of heart which charity makes—whence he calls it 「poured out」—is also that of which he speaks thus to the Corinthians:
「Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged」—this is signified by the name of 「streets.」 What therefore we hear openly—「Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirit, whether it is of God」—this we hear figuratively: 「Abstain from strange water, and drink not from a strange fountain.」 And what we hear openly—「The charity of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us」—this we hear figuratively: 「Let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you.」
For strangers too can have many gifts of God—not only those things common with stones and trees, such as to be and to flourish; nor only those common with cattle, such as to breathe and to perceive; but even greater things, now proper to men, such as reason, speech, countless useful arts, and many other things. Even of those very things which were given to the house of God, strangers have some—that is, those who shall not possess the kingdom of God, to whom it shall be said in the end, 「I know you not」—even when they shall have said, 「In Your name we prophesied and did many mighty works」; for 「though I have,」 he says, 「prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could move mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.」
This, therefore, is the gift of the Holy Spirit proper to the saints, of which no stranger partakes. This is lacking to all the malignant and to the sons of hell, even if they be baptized with the baptism of Christ, as Simon had been baptized. This is lacking to heretics too; this they receive when, corrected, they come and sincerely embrace the bond of unity. But if they did not receive it, then, even while having the baptism of Christ, they would not possess the kingdom of Christ, because they had not entered to that proper fountain of waters running in the streets of the saints and not running outside—by which fountain the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.
Cease, therefore, to recall those testimonies which either you do not understand, or which you understand to be for us against yourselves. But if, set down ambiguously, they could be interpreted both for us and for you, they would in no way help your cause, since we too, if we wished to use such things, could use countless testimonies which would likewise not help our cause at all. But clearly such things only sustain a bad cause by causing delays. 「Behold,」 they say, 「water flowed from the Lord's body.」 And what does this help you, O heretic? 「Much,」 he says; 「for baptism signifies that it exists nowhere but in the Lord's body, that is, in the Church.」 You would do better to say:
「From the Lord's body, that is, from the Church」—even if it is now established (which perhaps still needs to be more diligently investigated) that that water signified baptism. For we too say that the baptism which you have is from the Lord's body, that is, from the Church, although you yourselves are not in it, like all who build not upon the rock but upon the sand. Why, then, do you not notice that that water, by which you say baptism was signified, not only was in the Lord's body but even went forth outside from His body, and this through the wound of a persecutor? For neither heretics nor all the wicked would have dragged the sacraments outside with them, if they had kept the integrity of unity in the Lord's body.
But you see also how profound this is, and hidden with how great a depth of mystery. Now let it suffice; cease to argue with such things. All things of this kind which you may bring forward are either for us, or—to concede much to your cause—it is uncertain for whom they are; but you gladly linger in obscurities, lest you be forced to confess the clear ones. Behold, I entreat the Church: what do you suffer? Behold the Church, commended and set forth, foretold and demonstrated by so many most manifest testimonies of the holy Scriptures: 「As we have heard, so also have we seen.」 Why do you evade the question of how you are to be received? Why do you refuse to be received in the way that she receives, to whom He bears witness who could not lie?
Show that the canonical Scriptures openly said that he who has been baptized among heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit must be baptized in the Catholic Church. But if you cannot teach this, then teach that for this communion of yours—that is, the party of Donatus, where you learned this—some open and manifest testimony is borne by the canonical Scriptures, and I will confess that we must pass over to you, and that heretics are not to be received otherwise than as the Church receives them in which you are, because it is declared by such testimony. Why do you seethe, why are you troubled? You do not find in the canonical Scriptures that which we most justly demand of you. For as to what you are wont to say—「Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon?」—you see what sort of thing it is, and how far it is not for you.
Do not, therefore, seek such things; for even if the party of Donatus were in the regions of the north, which are contrary to the southern regions, it would say that this was said of itself: 「The mountains of Zion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King.」 For the city of the great King is surely nothing but the Church, and this sounds forth the Church more indubitably than that saying, 「Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon?」 But perhaps the heretic Marcion would use that testimony—he who is said to have been from Pontus, which regions are toward the north. Again, if the party of Donatus were in the west, it would say that this was said of itself: 「Make a way for Him who ascends over the sunset; the Lord is His name.」 For perhaps it would say it is more sublime to 「ascend over the sunset」 than to 「lie down at noon.」
These things are mystical, they are hidden, they are figurative; we demand of you something manifest, which needs no interpreter. I therefore receive you thus, in the same way that she receives the seed of Abraham, in whom all nations are blessed. This perhaps would be obscure, had not Paul opened up the seed of Abraham, which is Christ. I receive you thus, as she receives that barren woman, whose sons are more than of her that has a husband—which would be obscure, had not Paul said that she is the Church, our mother, to whom it is said, 「The Lord who delivered you shall Himself be called the God of the whole earth,」 to whom it is said, 「Your land is the whole world」—as she receives that queen, of whom it is said in the Psalms, 「The queen stood at Your right hand,」 and to whom it is said:
「Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you: you shall make them princes over all the earth.」 Finally, not to recall many things, I receive you thus, as the Church receives throughout all nations, beginning at Jerusalem—as the Church receives, which is a witness to Christ in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and unto the whole earth. For He receives you who said this of her, who showed her by such words, lest anyone should doubt concerning her. I receive you thus, in the same way that the wheat sown in the field is received, which grows with the tares until the harvest; for these are the sons of the kingdom, but the field is the world, and the harvest is the end of the age. The Lord expounded it; it is the Gospel; they are the Lord's words; they are manifest.
I could say to you: 「I receive you thus, in the very way that you yourselves received those whom Praetextatus and Felicianus, condemned by you, baptized outside your communion—against which fact you have absolutely nothing to say in contradiction.」 But I will rather say this, which most invincibly avails against the Maximianists themselves, who utterly defeated you on the two testimonies especially—those which you are wont to use most unskilfully and yet most frequently—both concerning fewness and concerning the noonday. This, then, I will say, which may extinguish all of you, as though you rose up equally against us:
「We receive you thus, if you are willing to be corrected, in the same way that the Church receives—the Church which the Lord Jesus said would begin from Jerusalem (and in the Acts of the Apostles we read that it did begin from there), and would go through all nations (and in the Acts of the Apostles we read that it went through many, before it came into Africa), and would go through all before the end comes, since the Lord Himself says, 「This Gospel shall be preached among all nations, and then shall the end come.」」 Behold its refuse: 「Because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.」 Behold its grain: 「But he who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.」 Where here is Africa named in the party of Donatus? Behold again its grain:
「That you may know,」 says the Apostle, 「how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. And without doubt great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached among the nations, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory.」 Behold its refuse: 「But the Spirit,」 he says, 「manifestly says that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,」 and so forth. Where here too is Africa named in the party of Donatus, so that in it there should remain the pillar and ground of truth, or the mystery of godliness, concerning which it thus ran on unto the end, so as to say:
Let him who intends to answer this epistle search the Scriptures and either bring forth a manifest testimony concerning Africa—in which alone, or from which alone, is the party of Donatus—which he therefore cannot bring forth, because Scripture cannot contradict those so manifest testimonies which have been brought forward by us; or, if he seeks credulous followers of his own suspicions or accusations or calumnies, and wishes to lead them over to another gospel, which is not another, and to announce to us anything besides what we have received—even were he an angel from heaven, let him be anathema. For the devil too, who fell from heaven for this reason, that he did not stand in the truth, if he had been anathema to man when he announced to him something besides what he had received from the Lord God, the first parents of our flesh would neither have fallen into the penalty of death nor gone forth from the place of felicity.
Wherefore, beloved, to whom I write this epistle, hold fast with a most faithful and most steadfast heart the precept of the Shepherd who laid down His soul for His sheep and now, glorified and exalted, sits at the right hand of God the Father, saying: 「Those who are my sheep hear my voice and follow me.」 You have heard His most manifest voice, not only through His law and the prophets and the psalms, but even through His own mouth, commending His Church that was to be; and by reading, you perceive how the things which He foretold followed in due order in the Acts and letters of the apostles, which complete the canon of the divine Scriptures. It is not an obscure question, in which those may deceive you whom the Lord Himself foretold would come and would say:
「Behold, here is Christ; behold, there」—「behold, in the desert,」 as though where there is no throng of the multitude; 「behold, in the inner chambers,」 as though in secret traditions and doctrines. You have the Church spread abroad everywhere and growing until the harvest; you have the city, of which He who founded it says, 「A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden.」 She herself, therefore, is the one who is most known not in some part of the earth, but everywhere. She sometimes suffers, in her own grain, temporary tempests, so that in certain places she is not recognized; but nevertheless even there they lie hidden. For the divine sentence cannot be deceived, since they grow until the harvest.
And so, in other nations too, some members of the Church have often been pressed and overshadowed by the prevailing seditions of heresies and schisms, and yet, because they were within, a little later they became manifest with no one doubting; and in Africa itself, after that seditious and turbulent council of Secundus of Tigisis at Carthage—where the corruption wrought also by the noble woman Lucilla was afterward recorded in the judicial proceedings—when letters had been sent from there through almost all Africa, where the churches of Christ had already sprouted, credence was given to the letters of the council—for it could not be otherwise—and it seemed as if, through some part of the field, the Lord's grain had failed;
but they had in no way failed—those which truly were grain, predestined and sown, and, with a deep root, fruitfully sprouting. For with a clear conscience they had believed the letters of the council; nor was anything incredible being said by men about other men, nor was anything believed by them contrary to the Gospel.
But after those men, with furious obstinacy, carried on a most stubborn contention even to sacrilegious dissension against the whole Christian world, and it became known to the good faithful, whom a false accusation had alienated from Caecilianus, they saw that, if they persisted in that communion, they would now hold a perverse judgment not about some man or about certain men, but about the Church spread throughout the whole world; and they preferred to believe the Gospel of Christ rather than the council of their colleagues. And so, leaving those men, soon many—both bishops and clergy and peoples—returned to Catholic peace; and even before they did so, they were reckoned among the wheat.
For then they were not doing so, when that contradiction of theirs strove against men who had been maliciously represented to them by their colleagues, not against the Church of God, which grows among all nations. And so in Africa too the wheat which the Son of Man had sown remained wheat, and from it it has grown until now, and grows, and hereafter will bear fruit until the harvest, and will grow, as in all the world. Some also of good will, through the fog of the flesh, wandered longer in that dissension even after the fury of the malignant had been confirmed against the Church of God, as though tender grain were still being trodden down and the vigor of the herb worn away with its living root.
Yet even these His own grain God knew, although they had to be reproved and rebuked in order to revive. For it was not said to Peter, 「Get behind me, Satan,」 in the same way that it was said of Judas, 「One of you is a devil.」 Some also, with an evil zeal, contradicted even the most manifest truth. But those men had been rooted up or cut off, yet, not remaining in unbelief—as the Apostle says of certain broken branches—they were replanted by the divine hand or grafted in again. For then each is unfruitful, but not yet cut off from the root, when with evil desire he does indeed those works of which it is said, 「Those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God」;
but when, on account of those very works, he begins to resist even the most manifest truth by which he is reproved, then he is cut off. And many such persons are in the communion of the sacraments with the Church, and yet are now not in the Church. Otherwise, if each is cut off when he is visibly excommunicated, it will follow that he is then again grafted in when he is visibly restored to communion. What? If, therefore, one approach feignedly and bear a most hostile heart against the truth and the Church, although that solemn rite be performed in him, is he perchance reconciled, is he perchance grafted in? God forbid.
As therefore he who is now again communicating is not yet grafted in, so also, before he is visibly excommunicated, whoever bears a hostile mind against the truth by which he is convicted and reproved is already cut off. Thus it comes about that both the good seed and the evil seed grow, each throughout the field, until the harvest—that is, both the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the malignant one grow, each throughout the world, until the end of the age—the former bearing fruit with endurance, the latter turning bitter with barrenness.
But you, relying on so many most evident testimonies of the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Lord Himself, and the apostles concerning the holy Church spread throughout the whole world, require of these men that they show, from Africa, so far as pertains to the party of Donatus, some manifest testimonies from the canonical books. For, as I have already said, it could in no way come to pass that the Church—which, as they say (and far be it), was so quickly to perish out of so many nations—should be proclaimed by so many testimonies so sublimely and so indubitably, while concerning that Church which they claim to be theirs, which they contend was to remain unto the end, silence should be kept. For remember what was said to that rich man, when he was tormented in hell and wished someone to be sent from the dead to his brothers:
'They have there,' he says, 'Moses and the prophets.' And when the other said that they would not believe unless someone from among the dead should go to them, he answered: 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe though one should rise from the dead.' Moses said that in the seed of Abraham all nations should be blessed; the prophets said: 'Thou shalt be called my will, and thy land the world,' and: 'All the ends of the earth shall remember and be turned unto the Lord.' Yet by these and such prophecies, so manifestly pointing to the Church, these men refused to believe. The Lord rose from the dead, and said that in his name repentance and the remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Those who had not believed Moses and the prophets did not believe the Lord even when he rose from the dead. What remains for them, then, but to share the torments of that rich man? Flee these torments while there is yet time, before you depart from this life, by cleaving steadfastly to the divine oracles, so that you may neither be troubled in this life, and after this life may be counted worthy to receive what was promised to the seed of Abraham.