When we think of your repose, which you have in Christ, we too — although we are engaged in various and harsh labors — rest in your love. For we are one body under one head, so that both you are busy in us and we are at leisure in us, because, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and, if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together. We therefore admonish and beg and beseech you, through Christ's most lofty humility and most merciful loftiness, that you be mindful of us in your holy prayers, which we believe you keep more watchful and more sober; for ours the fog and tumult of secular affairs often wounds and weakens.
Which affairs, even if we do not hold them as our own, yet of those who force us one mile and we are bidden to go with them two others, so many are heaped upon us that we can scarcely draw breath — believing nonetheless that He, into whose sight the groaning of the fettered enters, will, as we persevere in that ministry in which He has deigned to place us with a promised reward, with the aid of your prayers, deliver us from all straits.
But you, brethren, we exhort in the Lord, that you guard your resolve and persevere unto the end; and, if mother Church should desire any work of yours, neither take it up with greedy elation nor refuse it out of flattering sloth, but with a meek heart obey God, with gentleness bearing Him who rules you — who directs the meek in judgment, He will teach the meek His ways. Nor set your leisure above the necessities of the Church, for whom, as she travails, if no good men were willing to minister, how you would be born you would not find. But just as between fire and water a way must be kept, that a man be neither burned up nor drowned, so between the summit of pride and the abyss of sloth we ought to temper our path, as it is written:
Nondeclinantesnequeaddexteramnequeadsinistram. suntenim, qui, dumnimistiment, nequasiindexteramraptiextollantur, insinistramlapsidemerguntur, etsuntrursus, qui, dumnimisseauferuntasinistra, netorpidauacationismollitiasorbeantur, exalteraparteiactantiaefastucorruptiatqueconsumptiinfumumfauillamqueuanescunt.
Not turning aside either to the right hand or to the left. For there are those who, while they too much fear lest, as if snatched to the right, they be exalted, slipping to the left are drowned; and there are, on the other hand, those who, while they too much withdraw from the left, lest they be swallowed up by the torpid softness of idleness, on the other side, corrupted and consumed by the arrogance of boasting, vanish into smoke and ash.
So therefore, most beloved, love leisure in such a way that you restrain yourselves from every earthly delight, and remember that there is no place where he cannot set snares — he who fears lest we fly back to God and, judging the enemy of all good things whose captives we were, and think that there is no perfect rest for us until iniquity passes away and justice is turned into judgment. Likewise, when you do anything strenuously and alacritously, and work untiringly, whether in prayers or in fastings or in almsgivings, either bestowing something on the needy or forgiving injuries, just as God also in Christ has forgiven us.
whether you are subduing pernicious habits and chastising the body and bringing it into subjection, or whether you are enduring tribulation and above all bearing with one another in love — for what can he endure who cannot endure a brother? — whether you are looking out for the cunning and the snares of the tempter and repelling and quenching his fiery darts with the shield of faith, or whether you are singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, or with voices not out of tune with the heart: do all things to the glory of God, who works all in all, and being thus fervent in spirit, that in the Lord your soul may be praised. For this itself is the practice of the right way, which keeps its eyes ever toward the Lord, since he himself will pluck your feet out of the snare.
Such a manner of action is neither worn out by business nor made cold by idleness, neither turbulent nor slack, neither reckless nor timid, neither headlong nor prostrate. Do these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Let not your charity think me importunate, because I have wished to speak with you even by letter. For I have not admonished you of this as though I did not judge that you do it; but I believed that I should be commended to God by you in no small degree, if the things you do by his gift you were to do together with the memory of our address to you. For both formerly by report, and now the brethren who have come from you, Eustasius and Andreas, have brought to us the good odour of Christ from your holy manner of life.
Of these, Eustasius has gone before into that rest which, like an island, is beaten by no waves, nor does he long for Capraria, since he no longer seeks to be clothed in sackcloth. XLIX. TO HONORATUS, BISHOP OF THE PARTY OF DONATUS, AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Your counsel has greatly pleased us, in that you were pleased to send brother Herotes, a man most dear to us and praiseworthy in Christ, that we might treat with one another by letters, where no tumult of disturbances can disturb our arrangement, which must be undertaken and carried on with all peace and gentleness of mind, as the Apostle says: A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness correcting those who think differently.
Therefore we briefly set forth what we desire to be answered by you. Since we see the Church of him which is called Catholic, just as it was prophesied concerning her, spread throughout the whole world, we judge that we ought not to doubt of so most evident a fulfilment of holy prophecy, which the Lord also confirmed in the Gospel, and the apostles, through whom that same Church was extended, just as had been foretold of her. For at the very head of the sacred Psalter it is written concerning the Son of God: The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee;
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession; and the Lord Jesus Christ himself declares that his Gospel shall be among all nations; and the Apostle Paul, before the word of God had come into Africa, at the very head of the epistle which he writes to the Romans: Through whom, he says, we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Then he himself preached the Gospel from Jerusalem round about through all Asia even unto Illyricum, established and founded churches — not he himself, but the grace of God with him, as he himself testifies. And what can appear more evident than when in his epistles we find even the names of regions or cities?
He writes to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians; John also writes to seven churches which he mentions as established in those parts, in which seven we understand the universal Church to be commended under the number seven: Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamum, Thyatira. It is manifest that we today are in communion with all these churches, just as it is manifest that you are not in communion with these churches. We ask, therefore — may it not be a burden to you to answer us — what cause you may perchance know, whereby it came to pass that Christ lost his inheritance spread throughout the whole world, and suddenly remained among the Africans alone, and not even among all of them.
For indeed the Catholic Church exists also in Africa, since God willed and foretold that she should exist throughout all lands. But your party, which is called that of Donatus, is not in all those places in which both the letters and the preaching and the deeds of the apostles ran their course. But lest you say that our Church is not called Catholic but Macarian, as you name her, you ought to know — which can most easily be shown — that in all those parts, from whence the Gospel of Christ flooded these lands, neither the name of Donatus nor the name of Macarius is known; but yours, because it is called the party of Donatus, neither can you deny, and it is known to all, wherever your communion is.
Deign, therefore, to write back to us, that we may know in what manner it could come to pass that Christ lost his Church throughout the whole world, and began to have it in you alone. For it is your part to show these things; for it suffices for our cause that we see prophecy and the holy Scriptures fulfilled throughout the whole world. But this I, Augustine, have dictated, because I have long wished to speak with you thereon; for it seems to me that, even by reason of our very nearness, we can confer with one another by letters about this matter without any tumult, God helping, as far as the necessity itself demands. L. TO THE LEADERS AND CHIEF MEN OR ELDERS OF THE COLONY OF SUFES, AUGUSTINE THE BISHOP.
The most notorious crime of your savagery and your unlooked-for cruelty shakes the earth and strikes heaven, so that in your streets and shrines blood gleams and homicide resounds. Among you the Roman laws lie buried, the terror of righteous judgments has been trampled underfoot, and of the emperors assuredly there is no reverence nor fear. Among you the blood of sixty brethren, innocent, has been shed; and if anyone slew more, he was rewarded with praises and held the chief place in your senate-house. Come now, let us come to the principal cause. If you shall say it was for your Hercules, we shall restore him; quarries are at hand, and stones are not lacking; kinds of marble are added, an abundance of craftsmen is at our service. For the rest, your god is carved with diligence, turned on the lathe, and adorned;
we add also the red ochre which shall paint the ruddiness whereby your sacred vows may resound. For if you shall say it is your Hercules, having contributed each his coin, we buy you a god from your craftsman. Give back, therefore, the souls which your savage hand has wrung out, and, just as your Hercules is restored by us, so also let the souls of so many be given back by you. LI. Because your people reproach our humility, therefore I have thus superscribed this letter, in that I may seem to have done it for your insult, unless — so that it be answered me by you thus — I wait. Of your promise at Carthage, or of our insistence, why should I recount much? In whatever way we conducted those matters, let them pass by, lest they hinder what remains.
Now, unless I am mistaken, there is no excuse, the Lord helping; we are both in Numidia, and we are near to one another by our place on the earth. Rumour has brought to me that you still wish to make trial with me by disputing about the question which severs our communion. See how briefly all circuitous evasions may be removed: answer this letter, if it please you, and perhaps it will suffice not only for us but also for those who desire to hear us; or, if it will not suffice, letters and replies shall be repeated, until it does suffice. For what could the great nearness of the cities which we inhabit more conveniently furnish us?
For I have determined to deal with you on this matter in no way except by letters, either lest what is said should slip from the memory of any of us, or lest those studious of such things, who perchance cannot be present, should be defrauded. You are wont, you who wish it, to boast falsehoods about past deeds — perchance not from zeal for lying, but from error. Accordingly, if it please you, let us measure those present matters. Without doubt it does not escape you that in the times of the former people both the sacrilege of idolatry was committed, and by a scornful king the prophetic book was burned; by which two crimes the evil of schism would not be punished more atrociously, unless it were weighed more heavily.
For assuredly you recall in what manner the earth, opening wide, swallowed up the authors of schism alive, and fire rushing from heaven consumed those who had consented with them. So neither the idol fashioned and adored, nor the sacred book burned up, deserved to be avenged in like manner. Why then, you who are wont to cast up against us crimes not proved among ours, but rather proved among yours — the crimes of those who, driven by dread of persecution, handed over the books of the Lord to be burned in the fires — why did you receive back, in the very same episcopate, those whom for the crime of schism you had condemned (as it is written there) with the 'truthful mouth of your plenary council,' in the very same episcopate in which you condemned them? I mean Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras.
For these men were not, as you say to the ignorant, of that number to whom your council had prolonged and prefixed a day, within which, unless they should have returned to your communion, they should be held by the same sentence; but they were of that number whom you condemned on that very day without any delay, on which you gave a delay to those others. I shall prove it, if you deny it; your council speaks; we have in our hands the proconsular records, from which you have alleged this not once. Prepare, therefore, another defence, if you can, lest, while you deny, I should confute you. Let us make delays. If, then, Felicianus and Praetextatus were innocent, why were they thus condemned? If guilty, why were they thus received back?
If you shall prove them innocent, why should we not believe that, by your far fewer forefathers, innocent men could be condemned on a false charge of surrender, if by three hundred and ten of their successors — where it is even written, as something great, 'with the truthful mouth of a plenary council' — innocent men could be condemned on a false charge of schism? But if you shall prove that they were rightly condemned, what defence remains as to why they were received back into the same episcopate, unless that, magnifying the usefulness and wholesomeness of peace, you should show that even these things are to be endured for the bond of unity? Would that you did this not with the strength of the mouth but of the heart!
Assuredly you would perceive how by no calumnies ought the peace of Christ throughout the whole world to be violated, if it is permitted, even in Africa, that men condemned in a sacrilegious schism be received into that very same episcopate for the peace of Donatus. Likewise you are wont to cast up against us that we persecute you through earthly powers. On which matter I do not dispute either what you deserve for the savagery of so great a sacrilege, or how far Christian meekness tempers us; this I say:
if this be a crime, why did you, through judges sent by those emperors whom our communion begot through the Gospel, grievously harass those same Maximianists — driving them out of the basilicas which they held, in which that very cleaving-apart found them — both by the uproar of controversies and by the might of imperial orders and by the onset of auxiliary forces? In which conflict what they suffered in each place, the recent traces of the events testify; what things were ordered, the documents indicate; what things were done, the very lands cry out, in which even the 'holy memory' of that Optatus, your tribune, is proclaimed. Likewise you are wont to say that we do not have the baptism of Christ, and that it exists nowhere except in your communion. On this I could discourse somewhat more fully.
But there is now no need against you, who together with Felicianus and Praetextatus received also the baptism of the Maximianists. For as many as they baptized while they were in communion with Maximianus — since you were even striving, by a long conflict of judgments, to expel from their basilicas those very men by name, that is, Felicianus and Praetextatus, as the records testify — as many, therefore, as baptized at that time, now have with themselves and with you, not only through the perils of sicknesses but also through the paschal solemnities in so many churches belonging to their cities, and in those very great cities, men baptized outside in the crime of schism, of whom the baptism of none has been repeated.
And would that you could prove that those whom Felicianus and Praetextatus had, as it were vainly, baptized outside in the crime of schism, were, when these men were received back within, baptized anew as it were profitably. For if these were to be baptized again, those were to be ordained again; for they had lost their episcopate in withdrawing from you, if they could not baptize outside your communion; for if in departing they had not lost their episcopate, they could certainly baptize; but if they had lost it, then, in order that what they had lost might be restored to them, they ought upon returning to be ordained. But do not fear;
just as it is certain that they returned with that very same episcopate with which they had gone out, so it is certain that all whom they baptized in the schism of Maximianus were reconciled with your communion without any repetition of baptism. With what tears, therefore, are we sufficient to bewail that the baptism of the Maximianists is received, and the baptism of the whole world is blown away as accursed? Whether heard or unheard, whether justly or unjustly you condemned Felicianus, you condemned Praetextatus — tell me: which bishop of the Corinthians did any of you hear or condemn? Which of the Galatians, which of the Ephesians, which of the Colossians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and of all the other cities of which it is said: All the families of the nations shall worship in his sight?
Therefore the baptism of these men is accepted, and that of those is blown away — a baptism which is neither of these nor of those, but of him of whom it is said: This is he who baptizes. But I do not press this here; attend to those things which are ready at hand, the things which strike even blind eyes. Behold: the condemned have baptism, and the unheard do not have it! Men expressly named and cast out in the crime of schism have it, and the unknown, far foreign, never accused, never judged, do not have it! Those who were cut off again from a cut-off part of Africa have it, and those from whom the Gospel itself came into Africa do not have it! Why should I burden you with more? Answer these things.
Consider the sacrilege of schism heaped up against the Maximianists by your own council; consider the persecutions through judicial powers which you inflicted upon them; consider their baptism which, together with those whom you condemned, you received back; and answer, if you can, whether you have anything whereby you may cast mists over the unskilled, as to why you are separated from the whole world by a far greater crime of schism than that which you glory to have condemned in the Maximianists. May the peace of Christ conquer in your heart. LII. TO THE LORD MUCH TO BE DESIRED AND VERY DEAR BROTHER SEVERINUS, AUGUSTINE. The letter of your fraternity, although very late, although otherwise than I had hoped, I nevertheless received gladly.
I was filled with the greater joy above all, when I learned that your man had come to Hippo for that sole cause, that he might bring me the letter of your fraternity. For I thought that not without cause had this arisen in your mind, that you should recall our kinship, unless perchance you perceive — as I know the weight of your prudence to be no light one — how much it is to be lamented that we, who are brothers according to the flesh, do not live in one fellowship in the body of Christ; especially since it is easy for you to attend and see the city set upon a mountain, of which the Lord says in the Gospel that it cannot be hidden; for it is the Catholic Church, whence in Greek she is called katholikē, because she is spread throughout the whole world.
It is lawful for none to be ignorant of her; therefore, according to the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, she cannot be hidden. But the party of Donatus, among the Africans alone, brings false charges against the whole world, and does not consider that, by that barrenness whereby it refused to bring forth the fruit of peace and charity, it has been cut off from that root of the Eastern churches, whence the Gospel came into Africa; whence, if earth be brought to them, they adore it; but if a believer come from thence, they blow upon him and even rebaptize. For this the Son of God, who is the Truth, foretold: that he is the vine, that his sons are the branches, and his Father the husbandman: Every branch, he says, that in me beareth not fruit, my Father shall take it away;
but the branch that in me beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. It is no wonder, therefore, if from that vine which grew and filled all lands, those men have been cut off who refused to bear the fruit of charity. Who, if they had cast true charges against their colleagues, their forefathers, when they made the schism, would themselves have obtained their cause before the Church across the sea, whence to these parts the authority of the Christian faith flowed, so that those men would be outside against whom they cast the same charges.
But now, since those men are found within, in communion with the apostolic churches whose names they have and recite in the holy books, while these are placed outside and separated from that communion — who does not understand that they had a good cause, who were able to obtain it before impartial judges? Or if they had a good cause and could not prove it to the churches across the sea, in what did the whole world injure them, where the bishops could not rashly condemn their colleagues, who had not been convicted before them of the charges cast against them? And so innocent men are rebaptized, and Christ is blown upon in the innocent.
But if the same Donatists knew the true crimes of their African colleagues and neglected to show and prove those same crimes to the churches across the sea, they themselves cut themselves off from the unity of Christ by a most wicked schism; they have no excuse, and you know it, especially because so many wicked men emerged among them and they tolerated them for so many years, lest they should rend the party of Donatus, and they did not hesitate at that time, casting up their false suspicions, to break the peace and unity of Christ — and you see it. But I know not what carnal habit, brother Severinus, holds you there; and long have I grieved, long have I groaned, thinking especially of your prudence, and long have I desired to see you, that I might speak with you about this matter.
For what profit is either safety or temporal kinship, if we despise, in our own knowledge, the eternal inheritance of Christ and perpetual salvation? Let it suffice that I have written these things in the meantime — things which, to hard hearts, are very few and almost nothing, but to your mind, which I know well, are very many and very great. For they are not mine; who am nothing, except that I await the mercy of God, but they are of that Almighty God himself, whom whoever shall despise as Father in this world shall find as Judge in the world to come. LIII. TO THE MOST BELOVED AND HONOURABLE BROTHER GENEROSUS, FORTUNATUS, ALYPIUS, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD.
Since you wished the letter to be known to us which the presbyter of the Donatists gave to you — although you too laughed at it with a Catholic mind — nevertheless, that you may rather take counsel for him, if he is not desperately foolish, we ask that you convey to him this written reply. For that man wrote that an angel had commanded him to make known to you the order of Christianity of your city, whereas you hold the Christianity not of your city only, nor only of Africa or of the Africans, but of the whole earth, which has been announced and is announced to all nations. Whence it is too little that those men are not ashamed to have been cut off, nor come to their own aid, so that, while they can, they may return to the root, unless they also attempt to cut off others with them and to consign them, like dry wood, to the fire.
Wherefore, if an angel had stood by you yourself — the angel which that man, as we suppose, with cunning vanity feigns to have stood by him for your sake — and had said to you these very things which that man says he makes known to you by his command, you ought to become mindful of the apostolic sentence, which says: Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel besides that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema. For it has been evangelized to you, through the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, that his Gospel shall be announced to all nations, and then shall be the end; it has been evangelized to you through the prophetic and apostolic writings, that the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ, when God said to him:
In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. To you, therefore, holding these promises, if an angel from heaven should say: 'Forsake the Christianity of the whole earth and hold to the party of Donatus, whose order is set forth to you in the letter of the bishop of your city,' he ought to be anathema, because he would attempt to cut you off from the whole and thrust you into a part, and to alienate you from the promises of God. For if the order of bishops succeeding one another is to be considered, how much more certainly and truly wholesomely do we reckon it from Peter himself, to whom, bearing the figure of the whole Church, the Lord says: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
For to Peter succeeded Linus, to Linus Clement, to Clement Anacletus, to Anacletus Evaristus, to Evaristus Sixtus, to Sixtus Telesphorus, to Telesphorus Hyginus, to Hyginus Anicetus, to Anicetus Pius, to Pius Soter, to Soter Alexander, to Alexander Victor, to Victor Zephyrinus, to Zephyrinus Calistus, to Calistus Urbanus, to Urbanus Pontianus, to Pontianus Antherus, to Antherus Fabianus, to Fabianus Cornelius, to Cornelius Lucius, to Lucius Stephanus, to Stephanus Sixtus, to Sixtus Dionysius, to Dionysius Felix, to Felix Eutychianus, to Eutychianus Gaius, to Gaius Marcellus, to Marcellus Eusebius, to Eusebius Melchiades, to Melchiades Silvester, to Silvester Marcus, to Marcus Julius, to Julius Liberius, to Liberius Damasus, to Damasus Siricius, to Siricius Anastasius.
In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. But sideways, from Africa, they sent one ordained, who, presiding over a few Africans in the city of Rome, propagated the name of the Montenses or Cutzupitae. But into that order of bishops, which is drawn from Peter himself down to Anastasius, who now sits in the same chair — even if any traitor had crept in through those times, it would prejudice nothing to the Church and to innocent Christians, for whom the Lord, providing, says concerning evil rulers: What they say, do; but what they do, do not do:
for they say and do not, so that the hope of the faithful may be sure, which, placed not in man but in the Lord, is never dissipated by the tempest of sacrilegious schism, as those men have been dissipated, who read in the holy books of the churches to which the apostles wrote, and have no bishop among them. And what is more perverse and more insane than to say to readers who read those same epistles: 'Peace be with you,' and to be separated from the peace of those churches to which those very epistles were written? Yet, lest he also flatter himself concerning the order of the bishops of Constantina, that is, of your city, recite to him the acts done before Munatius Felix, perpetual flamen, then curator of that same city of yours, under the eighth consulship of Diocletian and the seventh of Maximian,