Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 18 part 4/17

It remains therefore that you must confess nothing else need be inquired into except whether you have separated yourselves from the communion of the whole world justly or impiously. For if it be found that you have acted impiously, do not be surprised if there are not lacking ministers of God through whom you may be scourged; for you suffer persecution not from us, but, as it is written, 'from your own deeds.' Petilian said: Again the Lord Christ cries out from heaven to Paul: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.' He was then called Saul, that afterwards baptism might frame him a name. It is therefore not hard for you so often to persecute Christ in His priests, the Lord Himself crying out: 'Touch not My anointed ones.'

Count up so many deaths of the saints, and you have so often slain the living Christ. Finally, if you are not a sacrilegious man, you cannot, as a murderer, be a saint. Augustine replied: Defend yourselves from the persecution which was suffered at the hands of your own people by those who, together with Maximian, separated themselves from you; and there you will find our defence. For if you say you did not do it, we recite the proconsular and municipal records. If you say you acted rightly toward them, why are you yourselves unwilling to suffer such things? If you say, 'But we made no schism,' then let this be inquired into; and before it is established whether it is so, let no one accuse the persecutors.

If you say that even schismatics ought not to suffer persecution, I ask whether they ought not also to be driven out by ordained powers from the basilicas in which they lie in wait to seduce the weak. If you say they ought not even to be driven from these, then first give back their basilicas to the Maximianists, and then deal with us. If you say they ought to be driven out, then inquire now what those ought to suffer at the hands of the ordained powers who, by resisting them, resist the ordinance of God. Whence the Apostle plainly says: 'For he does not bear the sword without cause; for he is an avenger to execute wrath upon him who does evil.'

But if, when the truth has been diligently examined in every respect, it be found that schismatics ought neither to suffer anything through public judgements nor to be expelled from the places of their ambushes and deceits, and you say that it displeases you that the Maximianists suffered these things at the hands of some of your own people — why do not the Lord's grains cry out more freely concerning the whole field of the Lord, that is, the whole world: 'It is no concern of ours what the tares or what our chaff commits, since it displeases us'? If you confess that it suffices for your purgation that whatever evil is done by your own people displeases you, then why did you separate yourselves? For hence your very defence accuses you.

For if you do not separate yourselves from the wicked of the party of Donatus for this reason, that each one bears his own burden, why did you separate yourselves from the wicked of the whole world whom you suppose or feign to be such? Was it that you might all alike bear the burden of schism? And yet we ask of you: whom of yourselves can you prove to have been slain by us? Indeed, I recall no law given by the emperors that you should be slain. But as for those two of whom you are wont to make the greatest outcry, Marculus and Donatus — to speak more moderately — it is uncertain whether they threw themselves down of their own accord, as your teaching does not cease to show by daily examples, or whether they were cast down by the command of some authority.

For if it is incredible that the leaders of the Circumcellions inflicted their customary deaths upon themselves, how much more incredible that the Roman authorities could have ordered such unaccustomed punishments! Therefore concerning this matter, which you deem so invidious: if what you say is true, what has it to do with the Lord's wheat? Let the chaff that has flown outside accuse the chaff that has remained within; for the whole cannot be separated except by the final winnowing-fan. But if it is false, what wonder if the chaff, carried off as it were by the light breath of dissension, assails even the Lord's wheat with false accusations?

Wherefore concerning all such invidious accusations this wheat of Christ, which has been commanded to grow together with the tares throughout the field, that is, throughout the whole world, replies with free and secure voice: 'If you do not prove what you say, it concerns no one; but if you do prove it, it does not concern me.' Whence it comes about that whoever has separated himself from this unity of the wheat on account of the crimes of the tares or the chaff, cannot, on account of that very evil of dissension and schism, defend himself even from the crime of murder, since the Scripture says: 'He who hates his brother is a murderer.' Petilian said: Therefore, as we said, the Lord Christ cried out to Paul:

'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.' And Paul said: 'Who are You, Lord?' And it was answered him: 'I am Christ of Nazareth, whom you persecute.' And he, trembling and astonished, said: 'Lord, what do You wish me to do?' And the Lord to him: 'Rise and enter into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do.' And after some intervening words: 'Saul rose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw nothing' — O blindness of the eyes that avenges his fury, veiling the light of the persecutor, destined to withdraw only by baptism! — let us see, then, what he did in the city. 'Ananias,' it says, 'went in to Saul, and when he had laid his hands upon him, he said:'

'Brother Saul, the Lord has sent me, even Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, that you may see and be filled with the Holy Spirit.' And immediately there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight, and rising up he was baptized. Since therefore Paul, freed by baptism from the crime of persecuting, received innocent eyes, why do you not wish the persecutor and traditor, blind with false baptism, to be baptized by those whom you assail? Augustine replied: You prove him whom you wish to baptize anew to be neither a persecutor nor a traditor. And even if you prove someone to be so, still a persecutor and traditor is not to be baptized anew, if he has already been baptized with the baptism of Christ. For Paul indeed had to be baptized because he had never been washed with such a baptism.

Therefore what you wished to bring in about Paul has nothing similar to the case which you plead with us. But if you had not brought this in, you would have found no place for your childish declamation in which you say: 'O blindness that avenges fury, destined to withdraw only by baptism!' For how much more forcefully must one cry out against you: 'O blindness that avenges fury, which, being compared not to Paul but to Simon, does not withdraw from you even by baptism received!' For if persecutors are to be baptized by those whom they persecute, let Primian be baptized by the Maximianists, whom he most vehemently persecuted. Petilian said: But indeed you constantly object: Christ said to the apostles: 'He who is once washed has no need except to wash his feet, but is wholly clean.'

If you fully examine these words, you will be overcome by what follows. For He spoke thus, saying: 'He who is once washed has no need except to wash his feet, but is wholly clean; and you are clean, but not all.' And this He said on account of Judas, who was to betray Him. Whoever therefore you have become a traditor, you have lost baptism. Finally, after the traditor apostle of Christ was himself condemned, He more fully confirmed the eleven thus: 'Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you; abide in Me, and I in you.' And again to these eleven He said: 'My peace I give to you, My peace I leave to you.'

Since therefore these things were said to the eleven apostles after the traditor, as we have said, was condemned, you traditors likewise do not have peace and baptism. Augustine replied: If therefore the traditor lost baptism, then whoever, having been baptized by you, afterwards became a traditor, if he wishes to return to you, let him be baptized anew. But if you do not do this, you yourselves sufficiently show us that what has been said is false: 'Because you became a traditor, therefore you lost baptism.' For if he lost it, let him return and receive it; but if he returns and does not receive it, then he had not lost it. Furthermore, if it was for this reason that it was said to the apostles, 'Now you are clean,' and:

'My peace I give to you,' because the traditor had already departed from there — then that supper of so great a sacrament, which He gave to all before that man went out, was neither clean nor peaceful. But if you dare to say this with closed eyes, what shall we do but rather cry out: 'O blindness that avenges the fury of those who wish to be teachers of the law, as the Apostle says, understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they affirm'? Yet, unless the blindness of obstinacy hindered you, the understanding would not be difficult, so that you might see that the Lord did not say, while Judas was present, 'You are not yet clean,' but, 'Now you are clean.' And He added 'not all' because there was present one who was not clean; who, however, if by his presence he defiled the rest, would not have been told:

'Now you are clean,' but it would have been said, as I said, 'You are not yet clean.' But after that man departed, He said to them, 'Now you are clean,' and did not add 'but not all,' because he had already departed, even in whose presence, as it was said to them, they were clean, but not all, since there was one unclean man there. Wherefore by these words the Lord rather declared that in one assembly of men receiving the same sacraments, the uncleanness of some cannot harm the clean. Surely, if you think there are among us any like Judas, say these words to us: 'You are clean, but not all.' But you do not say this; rather you say concerning certain unclean ones: 'You are all unclean.'

This the Lord did not say to His disciples while Judas was present; and therefore he who says this has not learned from the good Master what he says. Petilian said: But if you say that we perform baptism twice, nay rather it is you who do this, you who slay the baptized. We do not say this because you baptize, but because, while you slay each one, you cause him to be baptized in his own blood. For indeed the baptism of water or of the Spirit becomes as it were twofold when the blood of the martyr is wrung out. So indeed the Saviour Himself, first baptized by John, professed that He was to be baptized again, no longer with water nor with the Spirit, but with the baptism of blood by the cross of His passion, as it is written: 'There came to Him two disciples, the sons of Zebedee, saying:'

'Lord, when You come into Your kingdom, grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and the other at Your left.' Jesus answered them: 'You ask a difficult thing. Can you drink the cup which I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?' They said to Him: 'We can.' And He said to them: 'The cup indeed which I am about to drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you shall be baptized,' and so forth. If these are two baptisms, we profess — you praise us with your envy — that when you slay our bodies, we do not perform baptism twice, but by our baptism and blood we are baptized like Christ. Blush, blush, persecutors:

You make into martyrs like Christ those whom, after the water of true baptism, the blood as baptizer pours over. Augustine replied: First, we quickly reply that it is not we who slay you, but you yourselves who slay your own selves with a true death, when you cut yourselves off from the living root of unity. Next, if all who are slain are baptized in their own blood, then all robbers, wicked, impious, criminal men who are struck down when condemned must be reckoned martyrs, because they are baptized in their own blood. But if none are baptized in their own blood except those who are slain for the sake of righteousness, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven — see then that we must first inquire for what you suffer, and afterwards what you suffer. Why then are the cheeks puffed up, before the deeds are defended?

Why does the tongue clamour before the life is tested? If you made a schism, you are impious; if you are impious, you die as a sacrilegious man, since you are punished for impiety; if you die as a sacrilegious man, how are you baptized in your own blood? Or do you say, 'I did not make a schism'? Then let us inquire into this: why do you cry out before you prove it? Or do you say, 'Even if I am sacrilegious, I ought not to be slain by you'? That is one question, concerning the atrocity of my deed, which you never truly demonstrate; another concerning the baptism of your blood, of which you falsely boast.

For I neither slay you, nor do you prove that you are slain by anyone; nor, if you should prove it, does it concern me whoever slays you — whether he acted justly according to authority lawfully given him by the Lord, or, like chaff of the Lord's harvest, committed the crime through some evil desire: just as it does not concern you who in recent times, with intolerable power and even with soldiers accompanying him — not because he feared anyone, but that he might be feared by all — oppressed widows, ruined orphans, gave away others' patrimonies, broke up others' marriages, procured the goods of the innocent to be sold, and divided the proceeds of the sale with the lamenting owners. I might seem to say these things out of my own imagination, if it were not recognized, even with the name unspoken, of whom I speak.

If these things are true, then just as they do not concern you, so neither does whatever you say concern us, even if you spoke the truth. But if false report has lied about that just and innocent colleague of yours, then in no way is even report to be believed, which has been sown about the innocent as though about betrayers of the books or as though about slayers of men. To this is added that I mention one who lived with you, whose birthday festivals you frequented with such great celebration, to whom you joined the kiss of peace amid the sacraments, into whose hands you placed the Eucharist, to whom in turn giving you extended your hands, whose ears amid so many groans of Africa you feared to offend with a free voice;

whom, because someone of you touched even obliquely and most courteously, so as to tell him that he had God for his count, was extolled with immense praise. But you cast in our teeth those with whom we did not live, whose face we never saw, in whose time we were either boys or perhaps not yet born. What is this so great iniquity and perversity, to wish to impose on us the burdens of men unknown, while you are unwilling to bear those of your friends? The divine Scripture cries out: 'You saw a thief, and ran with him.' If he whom you saw did not contaminate you, why do you cast in my teeth one whom I could not even see? Or do you say, 'I did not run with him, because his deeds displeased me'? But surely you approached the altar with him.

Come now, that you may defend yourself, distinguish these things and say that it is one thing to run together into sin, as the two elders ran together plotting against the chastity of Susanna, and another to receive the Lord's sacrament together with a thief, as the apostles received even that first supper together with Judas. I favour your defence: but why do you not attend how much more easily, in this your very defence, the nations and the ends of the earth are absolved, over which the inheritance of Christ is spread?

For if you were able to see a thief and, having seen the thief, to share the sacraments, yet not to share his sin, how much less were the most remote nations able to have deeds of evil in common with African traditors or persecutors — even if you spoke the truth and could show it — although they held the sacraments in common with them! Or do you say, 'I saw that bishop, but I did not see that thief'? Say what you will: I favour even this defence, and in it the whole world is absolved from your accusations. For if it was permitted you to be ignorant of the life of a man you knew, why is the whole world not allowed to be ignorant of the unknown? Unless perhaps it is permitted to the Donatists not to know what they are unwilling to know, but not permitted to the nations not to know what they cannot know.

Or do you say, 'Theft is one thing, betrayal or persecution another'? I concede they are different, nor need I now labour to show what the difference is. Attend to the short way. If that man did not make you a thief, because theft does not please you, who can make traditors or murderers of those to whom either betrayal or murder is displeasing? First then confess yourself to be whatever evil Optatus was, whom you knew, and only so cast in my teeth whatever evil those were whom I did not know. I do not want you to say to me, 'But those are great things, these small.' For first you must confess these small things about yourself — not that I too may confess, but that I may at least allow you to say I know not what great things about me. Optatus, whom you knew, made you a thief, because he was your colleague, or did he not?

Answer one of two things. If you say, 'He did not,' I ask why he did not: whether because he himself was not a thief, or because you do not know, or because it displeased you? If because he himself was not, then all the more must we not believe those of whom you accuse us to have been such as you say. For if concerning Optatus that is not to be believed which both Christians and pagans and Jews, and finally both our people and yours, say, how much less is that to be believed which you say about anyone! If because you do not know, all the nations answer you: 'Much more do we not know whatever you object against us concerning those men.' If because it displeased you, they answer you with the same voice: 'Though you have never proved it, yet such things displease us.' But if you say:

'Behold, that Optatus whom I knew made me a thief, because he was my colleague and I used to approach the altar with him while he was committing these things — but I do not care, because the sin is light; yet you they made a traditor and murderer,' I reply that I do not concede that I too have been made a traditor and murderer by others' sins, because you confessed yourself to have been made a thief by another's sin; for you became a thief not by our judgement, but by your own mouth. For we say that each one bears his own burden, as the Apostle is witness; but you, not because you committed theft or consented to theft, but because you supposed that what another did pertained to you, of your own accord put your shoulders under the burden of Optatus.

For as the Apostle says, when he was speaking of foods: 'I know and am confident in the Lord Jesus that nothing is common through itself; but to him who esteems anything to be common, to him it is common' — by the same rule it can be said that others' sins do not pertain to those to whom they are displeasing, but if anyone esteems them to pertain to himself, they pertain to him. Wherefore you do not hold us to be traditors or murderers, even if you prove something of the sort concerning those who share the sacraments with us; but you, even though whatever Optatus did displeases you, we nevertheless hold to be a thief — not through our calumny, but through your own sentence. And lest you think this a light matter, read the Apostle saying: 'Neither shall thieves possess the kingdom of God.'

But those who shall not possess the kingdom of God will certainly not be at the right hand among those to whom it shall be said: 'Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' If they shall not be there, where shall they be but at the left, among those therefore to whom it shall be said: 'Go into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels'? In vain then do you make yourself secure by deeming light a sin which separates from the kingdom of God and sends into the eternal fire. How much better will you flee to true confession and say: 'Each one of us shall bear his own load, and the final winnowing-fan shall separate the chaff from the wheat!' But doubtless you fear lest it be at once said to you:

'Why then, while you try to impose others' burdens on others, have you dared, before the final winnowing, to separate yourselves from the Lord's crop of the whole world?' Therefore you, to whom the deeds of your own people are displeasing, while you take care lest the schism which you all made be objected against you, also involve yourselves in sins which you did not commit; and while the eloquent man Petilian fears lest it be permitted me to say that I am not such as he supposes Caecilian to have been, he himself is compelled to say that he is such as he knows Optatus to have been. Or are you not such as all Africa cries out that man to have been? Neither then are we such as those whom you object against us, whom either your error suspects, or your fury defames, or the truth proves;

much less are the Lord's grains throughout all the nations, who have not even heard their name, such as those. There is therefore no cause why you should perish through so great a crime of separation and sacrilege of schism. And yet, if you suffer anything by divine judgement for this so great impiety, you even say that you are baptized in your own blood — so that it is too little that, being divided, you are not pricked with remorse, unless, being punished, you also glory. Petilian said: But indeed you persist in the same thing: 'He who is once washed has no need except to wash his feet.' It is once, because it has an author; it is once, because the truth confirms it. Augustine replied:

Baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has Christ as its author, not any man whatever; and Christ is the truth, not any man whatever. Petilian said: For since, being guilty, you commit false things, I do not perform baptism twice, which you do not perform even once. Augustine replied: You do not prove us guilty; and if a guilty man baptizes with a false baptism, then as many as are baptized by them do not have true baptism — by those who among you are already guilty, not only manifestly but even secretly. For if he who gives baptism gives the thing of God, then when he is already guilty before God, how does he give the thing of God, if, being guilty, he does not give true baptism? For thus you expect that he should be guilty even to us, as though what he is to give were yours. Petilian said:

For if you mingle false things with true, falsehood often imitates the true by the same footprints. Thus, thus does painting simulate a man by nature, and a false face expresses the truth with colours. Thus, thus does the brightness of a mirror seize the countenance, so as to recall it to the eyes it imitates; thus, thus does it offer their own faces to those who come, so that the face of the comer meets its very self in turn; and so greatly does clean deception avail, that the very eyes which see through it recognize themselves as it were in another. The image also, when the reflection of a shadow has stood, doubles the thing in great part, dividing unity by a lie. Is it therefore so far true, because the figure lies? But it is one thing to paint a man, another to beget him.

For who feigns false infants for a father who longs for sons, or who by the lie of a painting would expect true heirs? Assuredly it is the madness of a demented mind, having dismissed that which is true, to love a painting. Augustine replied: Are you then not ashamed, are you not ashamed, that even if it be by a most deceitful man, the baptism of Christ should be harmed by falsehood? Far be it indeed that the Lord's wheat, which has been commanded to grow among the tares throughout the whole field — that is, this world — even unto the harvest, that is, unto the end of the age, should be believed to have perished by your curses.

Nevertheless, even among those very tares, which have been commanded not to be gathered but to be tolerated until the end, and in that very chaff, which shall not be wholly separated except by the final winnowing-fan — does anyone dare to say that the baptism is false which is given and received in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Those whom, convicted by the testimony of pregnant women, you depose from their office as your colleagues or presbyters — since such examples are nowhere lacking — I ask: before they were convicted, were they deceitful or truthful? You will certainly answer: 'Deceitful.' Why then did they both have and give true baptism? Why in them did human deceit not corrupt the divine truth? Is it not most truly written:

'For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit'? Since therefore the Holy Spirit fled those deceitful men, why was there among them the truth of baptism, unless because the Spirit was fleeing the man's deceit, not the truth of the sacrament? Furthermore, if even deceitful men have true baptism, then he who has this — although received from a most deceitful baptizer — has the same thing which the truthful have. Whence you ought to observe that your speech is rather coloured with childish pigments, and therefore he who, neglecting the living word, delights in such paints, himself loves a painting instead of the truth. Petilian said: But indeed the Apostle Paul says: 'One God, one faith, one baptism.' We profess one; for it is certain that those who suppose there are two are insane.

Augustine replied: You say these things against us, but in your insanity you know it not. For those say there are two baptisms who esteem that the just have one, the wicked another — whereas it belongs neither to the former nor to the latter, but is Christ's, one in both, although they themselves are not one; but this one thing the former have unto salvation, the latter unto perdition. Petilian said: But, that I may make some comparison, a double sun seems to appear to madmen, although a dark-blue cloud often gathers and its discoloured face, struck by the splendour, while the sun's rays return from it, seems as it were to emit its own rays; thus, thus in the faith of baptism it is one thing to seek images, another to acknowledge the truth. Augustine replied: What are you saying, I ask?

When a dark-blue cloud, struck by the sun's rays, reflects them back, do two suns as it were appear to madmen, and not to all who look? But when it appears so to madmen, it appears so to them alone. But since it is not troublesome to you that I admonish you, see rather lest perchance it be a madman's part to say such things and to speak thus. Yet surely you meant to say this: that the just have the truth of baptism, but the unjust the image. If it is so, I dare to say that there was an image in that man of yours who had, not God, but a certain count for his god, but the truth either in you or in him who elegantly hurled this against him, when he said to him: 'to whom God is a companion (count).'

And distinguish those whom each of the two baptized, and in some approve the true baptism, but from others exclude the image and bring in the truth. Petilian said: But, that I may run through these lesser matters, does he pronounce law who is not a magistrate of the court, or is that which he shall have said law, when a private person disturbs public rights by his person? Or is not rather the guilty man not only of no profit, but, together with that which the forger fabricates, is he held convicted? Augustine replied: What, if this private and forging person gives the law of an emperor to someone — will not that man, when he has compared it with those who have this law and found it to be the same, attend not from whom he received it, but what he received? For a forger, when he gives something out of his own falsehood, it is false;