Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 11 part 4/7

'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: