Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 30/118

they did similar things, but they did not wish to be profitable in a similar way: the one was puffed up with domination, the other inflamed with love. Jezebel slew the prophets; Elijah slew the false prophets; I think that the merits of those who did the deed were diverse, and diverse the merits of those who suffered. Consider also the times of the New Testament, when the very gentleness of charity was to be preserved not only in the heart but also to be displayed in the light, when the sword of Peter is recalled into its scabbard by Christ, and it is shown that it ought not to have been drawn from the scabbard even for Christ. Yet we read not only that the Jews struck the Apostle Paul, but also that the Greeks struck, on behalf of the Apostle Paul, Sosthenes the Jew.

Does not the likeness of the deed as it were join both together, and yet the dissimilarity of the cause distinguish them? Surely God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all: surely of that very Son it is said: 'Who loved me and delivered Himself up for me'; surely also of Judas it is said that Satan entered into him, that he might deliver up Christ. Since therefore both the Father delivered up His Son, and Christ Himself His own body, and Judas his own Lord, why in this delivering-up is God pious and the man guilty, unless because in the one thing which they did, the cause is not one for which they did it? Three crosses were in one place: on one a robber to be delivered, on another a robber to be condemned, in the midst Christ who would deliver the one and condemn the other.

What is more alike than these crosses? What more unlike than these hanging on them? Paul was delivered up to be imprisoned and bound, but worse than any prison-warder is surely Satan, to whom nevertheless Paul himself delivered up a man for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. And here what do we say? Behold, the cruel betrayer delivered up to a milder one, the merciful deliverer delivered up to a crueller one. Let us learn, brethren, in the likeness of works to distinguish the minds of those who work, lest with closed eyes we slander, and accuse the benevolent as though they were the harmful. Likewise when the same Apostle says that he delivered certain men to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme, did he render evil for evil, or rather judge that even to amend the evil through evil is a good work?

If it were always praiseworthy to suffer persecution, it would suffice for the Lord to say: 'Blessed are they who suffer persecution,' and He would not add 'for justice' sake.' Likewise, if it were always blameworthy to make persecution, it would not be written in the holy books: 'Him that secretly detracted from his neighbour, this man I persecuted.' Sometimes, therefore, both he who suffers it is unjust, and he who makes it is just. But plainly always the evil have persecuted the good, and the good have persecuted the evil: the former by harming through injustice, the latter by providing through discipline; the former savagely, the latter with moderation; the former serving cupidity, the latter charity. For he who slaughters does not consider how he mangles; but he who heals considers how he cuts;

for the one pursues soundness, the other rottenness. The ungodly slew the prophets, and the prophets too slew the ungodly; the Jews scourged Christ, and Christ too scourged the Jews; the apostles were delivered by men to human power, and the apostles too delivered men to the power of Satan. In all these things, what is regarded, save which of them acted for truth, which for iniquity, which for the sake of harming, which for the sake of amending? No example is found in the evangelical and apostolic writings of anything being sought from the kings of the earth on behalf of the Church against the enemies of the Church. Who denies that it is not found? But that prophecy was not yet being fulfilled: 'And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you that judge the earth; serve the Lord in fear.'

For as yet that was being fulfilled which is said a little earlier in the same psalm: 'Why did the nations rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes came together in one against the Lord and against His Christ.' But nevertheless, if past deeds in the prophetic books were figures of things to come, in that king who was called Nebuchadnezzar both times are figured: both that which the Church had under the apostles and that which it now has. And so in the times of the apostles and martyrs, that was fulfilled which was figured, when the aforesaid king compelled the pious and just to worship an image, and those who refused he sent into the flame;

But now that is being fulfilled which a little later was prefigured in the same king, when, being converted to honoring the true God, he decreed in his kingdom that whoever should blaspheme the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should be subjected to the punishments due. Therefore the earlier time of that king signified the earlier times of the unbelieving kings under whom the Christians suffered for the sake of the impious; but the later time of that king signified the times of the later kings, now believers, under whom the impious suffer for the sake of the Christians. Yet plainly, in the case of those who err under the name of Christ, having been led astray by the perverse — lest perchance they be straying sheep of Christ and ought to be recalled to the flock,

and are to be recalled by other means — a tempered severity, and rather gentleness, is preserved, so that by the constraint of exiles and fines they may be admonished to consider what they suffer and why they suffer it, and may learn to prefer to the rumors and slanders of men the Scriptures which they read. For which of us, which of you, does not praise the laws given by the emperors against the sacrifices of the pagans? And certainly there a far severer penalty is established, for the punishment of that impiety is capital. But concerning your being corrected and constrained, the aim has been that you should rather be admonished to depart from error than punished for a crime. For perhaps it can even be said of you what the Apostle says of the Jews:

'I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.' For what else do you too wish but to establish your own righteousness, when you say that none are justified except those who could be baptized by you? Therefore in this apostolic sentence, which he pronounced concerning the Jews, you differ from the Jews in this: that you possess the Christian sacraments, which they still lack. But as for that which he says:

'Being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own,' and that 'they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge' — you are altogether their equals, with the sole exception of those among you who know what is true, yet, out of the animosity of their own perversity, fight against a truth even most well known to themselves. Indeed the impiety of these perhaps surpasses even idolatry. But because they cannot easily be convicted — for this evil lies hidden in the mind — you are all, as being not too alien from us, constrained with a milder severity. And this indeed I would say of all heretics who are steeped in the Christian sacraments and yet dissent from the truth or the unity of Christ, or of all Donatists.

But as for what pertains to you, who are called not only Donatists in common with them, after Donatus, but also, more properly, Rogatists, after Rogatus — you do indeed seem to be milder, because you do not rage with the most savage bands of the Circumcellions; but no beast is called tame merely because, having no teeth and claws, it wounds no one. You say you are unwilling to rage; I judge rather that you are unable. For you are so few in number that you would not dare to bestir yourselves against the multitudes hostile to you, even if you desired to. But let us suppose that you are also unwilling to do what you are unable to do; let us suppose that you so understand, so hold, the evangelical sentence in which it is written:

'If anyone wishes to take away your tunic and to go to law with you, let him have your cloak also' — so understanding, so holding it, that you think you must offer to those persecuting you not only no injury but even no lawful resistance: this understanding your founder Rogatus certainly either did not possess or did not fulfill, who, over I know not what affairs which, as you say, were yours, contended with the fiercest perseverance even in a legal dispute. And if it were said to him: 'What apostle ever defended his own property in a public trial on a matter of faith?' — just as you have put it in your letter: 'What apostle ever seized property belonging to others on a matter of faith?' — he would indeed find in the divine writings no example of such a deed;

but yet perhaps he might find some true defense, if he retained the true Church, and did not impudently possess something under the name of the true Church. But as for what pertains to the commands of earthly powers against schismatics or heretics, whether to be obtained or to be carried out — those from whom you separated were most fierce, both against you, so far as we have been able to hear, and against the Maximianists; which we prove even by certain documents of the records;

but yet you were not yet separated from them, when in their petition they said to the Emperor Julian that with him alone justice had a place — a man whom they certainly knew to be an apostate and saw so given over to idolatries, that either they must confess idolatry to be justice, or they could not deny that they had wickedly lied, so as to say that justice alone had a place with him with whom they perceived idolatry to have a great place. But grant that there was an error in the word. What do you say of the deed itself? If nothing just is to be sought from an emperor, why was it sought from Julian, which was thought to be just? Or is it to be sought through this — that each may recover his own, not that he may accuse someone, to be constrained by the emperor?

Meanwhile, even in the demand for the recovery of one's own property, one departs from the apostolic examples, since none of them is found to have done this. But nevertheless, when your elders accused Caecilian himself, then bishop of the Church of Carthage, with whom they refused to be in communion as with a criminal, before the emperor Constantine through the proconsul Anulinus, they were not reclaiming their own lost property, but were slanderously assailing an innocent man — as we judge and as the very outcome of the trials taught — than which what could have been done by them more wicked? But if, as you falsely suppose, they handed over to the earthly powers a man truly to be judged a criminal, why do you reproach us for what the presumption of your own people first did?

For we would not reproach them for having done it, if they had done it not with an envious and harmful spirit, but with the will to amend and correct. Yet you we reproach without hesitation — you, to whom it seems a crime to lay any complaint before a Christian emperor about the enemies of our communion — while the document handed by your elders to the proconsul Anulinus, to be sent to the emperor Constantine, is superscribed thus: 'The document of the Catholic Church of the crimes of Caecilian, handed over by the party of Majorinus.' And them we reproach the more on this account: that, when they had of their own accord accused Caecilian before the emperor — whom they ought first of all to have convicted before their overseas colleagues — while the emperor himself acted far more orderly, in sending the case of the bishops, which had been referred to himself, to the bishops.

Nor, being defeated, did they wish to have peace with their brethren, but again came to the same emperor; again they accused before the earthly king not only Caecilian but also the bishops given to them as judges; again they appealed from another episcopal judgment to the same emperor; and not even when he himself took cognizance and judged between the parties did they think they must yield either to truth or to peace. But what else would Constantine have decreed against Caecilian and his associates, had they been defeated with your elders accusing them, than what he decreed against those very men who, though they had accused of their own accord and could not prove what they alleged, were unwilling to consent to the truth even when defeated?

For that emperor first decreed in this cause that the property of those convicted and obstinately resisting unity should be confiscated to the treasury. But of course, if, with your elders accusing and prevailing against the communion of Caecilian, the emperor had decreed some such thing, you would wish to be called providers for the Church, defenders of peace and unity. But when against those who, having accused of their own accord, could prove nothing, and were unwilling to consent even to the bosom of peace offered them, in which they might be received corrected — when such things are decreed by the emperors, it is cried out to be an unworthy deed; it is contended that no one should be compelled to unity, that evil should be repaid to no one for evil. What else is this than that which someone wrote about you:

'What we wish is holy'? And now it was neither great nor difficult to consider and reflect that the judgment and sentence of Constantine against you is in force — which was promulgated against you when your elders so often accused Caecilian before the emperor and did not convict him — and that of necessity the other emperors follow it, especially the Catholic Christians, as often as the compulsion of your obstinacy forces them to take some action about you. It was easy to reflect on these things, so as to say sometime to your very selves: 'If Caecilian was either innocent, or could not be convicted as guilty, in what has the Christian society, so far and wide diffused, sinned in this business?

Why was it not permitted to the Christian world to be ignorant of what those who had accused could not demonstrate? Why should those whom Christ sowed in his field, that is, in this world, and commanded to grow among the tares until the harvest — why should so many thousands of the faithful among all nations, whose multitude the Lord compared to the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, whom he promised should be blessed in the seed of Abraham and has fulfilled it — why should they be denied to be Christians, because in this cause, in whose examination they took no part, they chose rather to believe the judges judging at their own peril than the defeated litigants? Certainly the crime of no one stains one who is ignorant of it.

How could the faithful spread throughout the whole world come to know the crime of the traditors, which the accusers, even if they knew it, were nevertheless unable to show to them? These, then, that they are innocent of this crime, their very ignorance most easily shows. Why, then, are the innocent accused of false crimes — because they did not know crimes belonging to others, whether false or true? What place is reserved for innocence, if it is a crime peculiarly one's own not to know another's crime? Further, if their very ignorance shows the peoples of so many nations to be innocent, as has been said, how great a crime is it to be separated from the communion of these innocent ones?

For even the deeds of the guilty, which cannot be demonstrated to the innocent nor believed by the innocent, defile no one, if for the sake of fellowship with the innocent they are endured even when known. For the good are not to be forsaken on account of the wicked, but the wicked are to be tolerated on account of the good — as the prophets tolerated those against whom they said such things, and yet did not abandon the communion of the sacraments of that people; as the Lord himself tolerated the guilty Judas until his fitting end, and permitted him to share the sacred supper in common with the innocent; as the apostles tolerated those who out of envy — which is the very vice of the devil — proclaimed Christ; as Cyprian tolerated the avarice of his colleagues, which, according to the Apostle, he calls idolatry.

Finally, whatever was then done among those bishops, even if perchance it was known to some of them, if there be no respecting of persons, is now unknown to all. Why, then, is not peace loved by all?' These things you could most easily reflect on, or perhaps you even do reflect on them. But it were better that you should love earthly possessions, which, fearing to lose, you would consent to the truth once known, than that you should love the most vain glory of men, which you think you would lose if you consented to the truth once known. You see, therefore, now, as I suppose, that it is not to be considered that one is compelled, but what sort of thing that is to which he is compelled — whether good or evil.

Not that anyone can be good against his will, but that, fearing what he does not wish, he either lays aside the obstructing animosity, or is compelled to come to know the truth of which he was ignorant, so that, fearing, he either spits out the falsehood for which he contended, or seeks the truth which he did not know, and now willingly holds what he was unwilling to hold. Perhaps this would be said in vain with any number of words, were it not shown by so many examples. We see that not this man or that, but many cities, were Donatist, and now are Catholic — vehemently detesting the diabolical separation, ardently loving unity.

Yet these were made Catholic on occasions of this very fear which displeases you, through the laws of the emperors, from Constantine — before whom your people first of their own accord accused Caecilian — down to the present emperors, who most justly decree that the judgment of the one whom your people chose, whom they preferred to the episcopal judges, must be maintained against you. By these examples, then, set before me by my colleagues, I yielded. For my opinion at first was none other than that no one should be compelled to the unity of Christ, that it should be dealt with by word, fought for by disputation, conquered by reason, lest we should have as feigned Catholics those whom we had known as open heretics. But this opinion of mine was overcome, not by the words of those contradicting, but by the examples of those demonstrating.

For first there was set against me my own city, which, though it was wholly in the party of Donatus, was converted to Catholic unity by the fear of the imperial laws — a city which we now see so detest the ruin of this animosity of yours, that it would be believed never to have been in it. So too many others, which were mentioned to me by name, that by the very facts I might recognize that in this cause also that could rightly be understood which is written: 'Give occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser.' For how many, as we know for certain, already wished to be Catholic, moved by the most manifest truth, and, out of reverence for the offense of their own people, daily deferred it!

How many were bound by the heavy chain of obdurate habit — not by that truth which you have never presumed upon — so that in them was fulfilled that divine sentence: 'A stubborn servant will not be amended by words; for even if he understand, he will not obey!' How many for this reason thought the true Church to be the party of Donatus, because security made them sluggish, disdainful, and lazy toward coming to know Catholic truth! For how many the entrance to entering was barred by the rumors of the evil-tongued, who kept boasting that we place I know not what else upon the altar of God! How many, believing that it makes no difference in which party each one is a Christian, therefore remained in the party of Donatus,

because they were born there and no one compelled them to depart thence and cross over to the Catholic Church! To all these the terror of these laws, in whose promulgation the kings serve the Lord in fear, was so profitable, that now some say: 'We wanted this secretly; but thanks be to God, who gave us the occasion of now at last doing it, and cut off the little delays of our postponements'; others say: 'We already knew this to be true, but we were held by I know not what habit; thanks be to the Lord, who broke our chains and transferred us to the bond of peace'; others say: 'We did not know that the truth was here, nor did we wish to learn it;

but fear made us intent on coming to know it, since we feared lest perchance, without any gain of eternal things, we should be smitten by the loss of temporal things; thanks be to the Lord, who by the goad of terror shook off our negligence, so that at least in anxiety we should seek what in our security we never cared to know'; others say: 'We were terrified by false rumors from entering — rumors which we would not have known to be false unless we entered, nor would we have entered unless we were compelled; thanks be to the Lord, who by his scourge took away our trepidation, and taught us by experience how vain and empty are the things which lying report has bruited about his Church.'

Hence we now believe that those things too are false which the authors of this heresy alleged as crimes, since their descendants have invented things so false and worse'; others say: 'We indeed thought it made no difference where we held the faith of Christ; but thanks be to the Lord, who gathered us from division and showed us that this accords with the one God, that he be worshiped in unity.' Should I, to hinder these gains of the Lord, set myself in contradiction against my colleagues, that on your mountains and hills — that is, on the swellings of your pride — the straying sheep of Christ should not be gathered into the sheepfold of peace, where there is one flock and one shepherd? Was I indeed rightly to contradict this provision, lest you should lose the things which you say are yours, and in security proscribe Christ?

So that by Roman law you might make wills, yet by slanderous accusations break the testament established for the fathers by divine law, where it is written: 'In your seed shall all nations be blessed'? So that in buyings and sellings you might have free contracts, yet dare to divide among yourselves what Christ, sold, has bought? So that whatever any of you had given to anyone should be valid, yet what the God of gods gave to the sons called from the rising of the sun to its setting should not be valid? So that you might not be sent from the land of your body into exile, yet strive to make Christ an exile from the kingdom of his own blood, from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth? Nay rather, let the kings of the earth serve Christ, even by making laws for Christ.

Your elders exposed Caecilian and his associates to be punished by the kings of the earth on false charges; let the lions be turned to crush the bones of the slanderers, and let not Daniel himself intercede — Daniel, proved innocent and delivered from the pit in which they perish; for he who prepares a pit for his neighbor shall himself more justly fall into it. Snatch yourself away, brother, while you live in this flesh, from the wrath that is to come upon the stubborn and the proud. The terror of temporal powers, when it assails the truth, is a glorious trial for the just and strong, a dangerous temptation for the weak; but when it preaches the truth, it is a useful admonition for the erring who are wise of heart, a useless affliction for the senseless. Yet there is no power except from God;

and whoever resists the power resists the ordinance of God; for rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil. Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you will have praise from it. For whether the power, favoring the truth, corrects someone, he who has been amended has praise from it; or whether, hostile to the truth, it rages against someone, he who has been crowned victor has praise from it. But you do not do good, so that you should not have to fear the power — unless perchance it is good to sit still and not to disparage a brother, but to disparage all the brethren established among all the nations, to whom the prophets, Christ, and the apostles bear witness, when it is read: 'In your seed shall all nations be blessed'; when it is read:

'From the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice is offered to my name, for my name is glorified among the nations, says the Lord' — hear: 'says the Lord,' not: 'says Donatus, or Rogatus, or Vincentius, or Hilarius, or Ambrosius, or Augustinus,' but: 'says the Lord' — when it is read: '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 wondrous things; and blessed be the name of his glory forever, and unto ages of ages; and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it.' And you sit at Cartenna, and with the ten Rogatists who remain to you, you say: 'Let it not be, let it not be.' You hear the Gospel speak:

'It behooved that all things be fulfilled which are written in the law and the prophets and the psalms concerning me.' Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: 'Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.' You read also the Acts of the Apostles, how this Gospel began from Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit first filled those hundred and twenty, and thence went forth into Judaea and Samaria and into all nations, as he had told them, when about to ascend into heaven:

'You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth' — for 'their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.' And you contradict divine testimonies fortified with such firmness, manifest with such light, and you strive to bring the inheritance of Christ to this proscription: that, whereas in his name, as he said, repentance is preached among all nations, whoever has been moved by this preaching, in whatever part of the world, unless he seek and find Vincentius of Cartenna hiding in Mauretania Caesariensis, or someone of his nine or ten associates, his sins cannot be remitted to him. What would the arrogance of a rotten little hide not dare?

To what would the presumption of flesh and blood not hurl itself headlong? Is this that good work of yours, on account of which you should not fear the power? You place so great a scandal against the little son of your mother — the little one, that is, and the weak, for whom Christ died, not yet fit for the Father's food but still to be nourished with the mother's milk — and you set against me the books of Hilarius, that you may deny the Church growing among all nations unto the end of the age, which God, against your unbelief, promised with an oath! And whereas you were most wretched if, at the time when it was being promised, you resisted, now also, when it is being rendered, you contradict. But, learned historian, you have found something great, which you thought should be brought forth against the testimonies of God. For you say:

'As regards the parts of the whole world, it is a small part, in comparison with the whole world, in which the Christian faith is named' — and you refuse to attend to, or feign not to know, into how many barbarous nations the Gospel has already come in so short a time, so that not even the enemies of Christ can now doubt that within a short time there will come to pass what he answered to the disciples asking about the end of the age: 'And this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come.' Go now, and cry out, and contend, as much as you can: