Latin original · 40 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:1192–5:1231 (4615 verses in all)
even if the Gospel be preached among the Indians and the Persians — where indeed it has now long been preached — nevertheless, unless whoever has heard this shall have come to Cartenna, or to the vicinity of the Cartennenses, he will by no means be able to be cleansed from his offenses. So then, if you lack that voice, do you fear to be laughed at, and, when you do not lack it, are you unwilling to weep? But you seem to say something acute, when you interpret the name 'Catholic' not from the communion of the whole world, but from the observance of all the divine precepts and of all the sacraments — as if we, even if perchance it were called Catholic on this account, that it truly holds the whole, of which truth certain particles are found even in the various heresies,
rely on the testimony of this name to demonstrate the Church among all nations, and not rather on the promises of God and on so many and so manifest oracles of Truth itself. But surely this is the whole of what you strive to persuade us: that the Rogatists alone remain who ought rightly to be called Catholics from the observance of all the divine precepts and of all the sacraments, and that you alone are those in whom, when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith. Pardon us, we do not believe it.
For although perhaps you would dare to say even this — that in you can be found the faith which the Lord said he would not find on earth, and that you are to be reckoned not on earth but in heaven — nevertheless the Apostle has made us so cautious, that he has commanded even an angel from heaven, evangelizing to us anything other than what we have received, ought to be anathema. But how do we trust that we have received from the divine writings a manifest Christ, if we have not received from thence also a manifest Church?
Whatever handles and hooks anyone may weave against the simplicity of truth, whatever clouds of crafty falsehood he may pour forth — just as he shall be anathema who proclaims that Christ neither suffered nor rose again on the third day, since in the evangelical truth we have received: 'It behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day' — so shall he be anathema, whoever proclaims a Church apart from the communion of all nations, because by the same truth we have consequently received: 'And that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem'; and we ought unshakably to hold: 'Whoever shall proclaim to you anything other than what you have received, let him be anathema.'
But if we do not listen to all the Donatists setting themselves up on behalf of the Church of Christ, because they bring forward no testimony from the divine books on their behalf whereby to teach it, how much less, I ask you, ought we to listen to the Rogatists, who will not even attempt to interpret on their own behalf that which is written: 'Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon?' For if in this passage of the Scriptures 'noon' is to be understood as Africa in the party of Donatus, because it lies under the hotter region of the sky, all you Maximianists will surpass you, whose schism blazed up in Byzacena and in Tripolis. But let the Arzuges contend with them, and claim that this pertains rather to themselves.
Yet Mauretania Caesariensis, being nearer to the western than to the southern part — since it does not even wish to be called Africa — how will it boast of the noon, not, I say, against the whole world, but against the very party of Donatus, from which the party of Rogatus is a most tiny morsel cut off from a larger morsel? And who would strive, in the most shameless manner, to interpret on his own behalf something set in allegory, unless he had also manifest testimonies, by whose light the obscure things may be illumined? But what we are wont to say to all the Donatists, how much more strongly do we say to you:
If it were possible — which cannot be — for some to have a just cause whereby to separate their communion from the communion of the whole world and to call it the Church of Christ, on the ground that they had justly separated themselves from the communion of all nations — how do you know that in the Christian society, so far and wide diffused, some had not already, before you separated, separated themselves for a just cause in the most distant lands, whence the report of their justice could not reach you? How can the Church be among you rather than among those who perchance separated themselves earlier? So it comes about that, since you do not know this, you are uncertain even to your very selves — which must necessarily happen to all who, on behalf of their society, use a testimony not divine but their own.
For you cannot say: 'If this had happened, it could not lie hidden from us,' since, if you were questioned how many parties have already been made in Africa itself out of the party of Donatus, you would not be able to say — especially because those who do this seem to themselves so much the more just, the fewer they have been, and are of course so much the more hidden.
And on this account you are uncertain, lest perhaps some few righteous men — and therefore scarcely known — somewhere far off toward the south of Africa, before the party of Donatus had separated its own righteousness from the iniquity of the rest of mankind, may have separated themselves first of all on a most just cause upon the side of the north; and lest that itself be rather the Church of God, like a spiritual Zion, which by a just separation forestalled you all, and may with far greater presumption interpret on its own behalf what is written: 'Mount Zion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King' — which the party of Donatus interprets on its own behalf: 'Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon?'
And yet you fear lest, when you are compelled by imperial laws to unity, the name of God be the longer blasphemed by Jews and pagans — as though the Jews did not know how the first people of Israel wished even by war to destroy those two and a half tribes which had received lands beyond the Jordan, when they thought that these had separated themselves from the unity of their people. But the pagans can rather blaspheme us concerning the laws which Christian emperors have enacted against the worshippers of idols; and yet many of them have been corrected and converted to the living and true God, and are converted daily.
But clearly, both Jews and pagans, if they reckoned Christians to be as few as you are — you who assert that you alone are Christians — would not deign to blaspheme us, but would never cease to laugh. Do you not fear lest the Jews say to you: 'Where is that which your Paul understands to be your Church, where it is said: Rejoice, O barren, you that bear not; break forth and cry, you that travail not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband — setting the multitude of Christians before the multitude of Jews — if your fewness is the Church of Christ?' Is this what you are going to say to them: 'For this very reason we are the more righteous, because we are few'? And do you not consider that they will answer:
'However many you say you are, yet you are not those of whom it was said: Many are the children of the desolate — if you have remained so scant in number.' Here you will bring forward the example of that righteous man in the flood, who alone with his household was found worthy to be delivered. Do you see, then, how far you still are from righteousness? Indeed, until you are reduced to seven, of whom you would be the eighth, we do not call you righteous — provided, however, that no one, as I was saying, snatched away this righteousness before the party of Donatus and, moved by some just cause, together with his seven separated himself far off elsewhere and delivered himself from the flood of this world.
And since you do not know whether this has been done, and it is as unheard-of to you as the name of Donatus is unheard-of to many peoples of Christians established in far-off lands, you are uncertain where the Church is. For it will be there where perhaps that was first done which you did afterward — if there could be any just cause by which you might separate yourselves from the communion of all nations. But we, for this reason, are certain that no one could justly separate himself from the communion of all nations: because none of us seeks the Church in his own righteousness, but in the divine Scriptures, and beholds it rendered just as it was promised. For it is that of which it is said:
'As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters' — who could not be called thorns save by the malice of their ways, nor daughters save by the communion of the sacraments. It is she who says: 'From the ends of the earth I cried to you, when my heart was in anguish'; who in another psalm says: 'Weariness took hold of me because of sinners forsaking your law,' and: 'I saw the foolish, and I pined away.' It is she who says to her Bridegroom: 'Where do you feed, where do you lie down at noon, lest perchance I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions' — that is, what is said elsewhere:
'Make known to me your right hand, and those instructed in heart in wisdom' — in whom, as they shine with light and burn with charity, you rest as at noonday — 'lest perchance, as one veiled,' that is, hidden and unknown, 'I rush not upon your flock but upon the flocks of your companions,' that is, of heretics, whom she calls companions just as she called those thorns daughters, because of the communion of the sacraments. Of them it is said elsewhere: 'But you, my like-minded one, my guide and my familiar friend, who together with me took sweet food; in the house of the Lord we walked in concord. Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell' — like Dathan and Abiram, the authors of impious separation. It is she to whom the answer is at once given:
'Unless you know yourself, O fairest among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds.' O reply of the most sweet Bridegroom! 'Unless you know yourself,' he says. For assuredly a city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden, and therefore you are not veiled, so as to rush upon the flocks of my companions; for I am the mountain prepared upon the top of the mountains, to which all the nations shall come. Unless, then, you know yourself — not in the words of slanderers, but in the testimonies of my books; unless you know yourself, that of you it was said: 'Stretch out your cords farther and make firm your strong stakes; again and again extend to the right and to the left.'
'For your seed shall inherit the nations, and you shall dwell in the cities which were desolate. There is nothing for you to fear, for you shall prevail; nor be ashamed that you have been detestable. For you shall forget your confusion forever; you shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood. For I am the Lord who makes you; the Lord is his name; and he who delivers you, he himself, the God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth.' Unless you know yourself, O fairest among women — for of you it was said: 'The King has desired your beauty'; for of you it was said: 'In place of your fathers, sons are born to you; you shall set them as princes over all the earth.' Unless, then, you know yourself, go forth — it is not I who cast you out, but you go forth — so that it may be said of you:
'They went out from us, but they were not of us.' Go forth in the footsteps of the flocks — not in my footsteps, but in the footsteps of the flocks, and not of one flock, but of flocks divided and wandering. And feed your kids — not as Peter, to whom it is said: 'Feed my sheep,' but feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds, not in the tent of the Shepherd, where there is one flock and one Shepherd. For she knows herself, lest this befall her, since this befell those who did not know themselves in her. It is she of whose fewness it is said, in comparison with the many wicked, that 'narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, and few are they who walk in it.' And again it is she of whose multitude it is said:
'So shall your seed be, as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea.' For the same faithful, holy and good, are both few in comparison with the more numerous wicked and are in themselves many; for 'many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband,' and 'many shall come from the east and the west and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,' and because God presents to himself an abounding people, zealous of good works, and in the Apocalypse many thousands whom no one can number are seen, out of every tribe and tongue, in white robes and with palms of victory. It is she who is at times darkened and, as it were, clouded over by the multitude of scandals, when sinners bend the bow, that in the dark of the moon they may shoot at the upright in heart;
but even then she stands out in her most steadfast members. And if some distinction is to be made in these divine words, perhaps it is not idly said of the seed of Abraham: 'As the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the shore of the sea' — so that in the stars of heaven the fewer, the firmer and brighter, may be understood, but in the sand of the sea-shore the great multitude of the weak and carnal, which sometimes, in the tranquillity of the times, appears quiet and free, but sometimes is covered over and troubled by the waves of tribulations and temptations. Such then was the time of which Hilary wrote, from which you have thought that an ambush might be laid against so many divine testimonies, as though the Church had perished from the world.
You might in this manner say that there were not even so many churches of Galatia then, when the apostle said: 'O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?' and: 'Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh?' For thus you slander that learned man, who sharply rebuked the slow of heart and the timid, with whom he was again in travail until Christ should be formed in them. For who does not know that at that time many of small understanding were deceived by obscure words, so that they supposed that to be believed by the Arians which they themselves also believed; while others yielded through fear and feignedly consented, not walking rightly toward the truth of the gospel — to whom, afterward corrected, you would refuse pardon in a manner unheard-of? You are utterly ignorant of the letters of God.
For read what Paul wrote about Peter, and what Cyprian too thought thereof, and let not the gentleness of the Church displease you, which gathers together the scattered members of Christ, and does not scatter the gathered — although even those who were then most steadfast and were able to understand the insidious words of the heretics, though few indeed in comparison with the rest, yet even some of them stoutly went into exile for the faith, and some lay hidden throughout the whole world. And thus the Church, which grows through all nations, was preserved in the Lord's grain, and shall be preserved unto the end, until it altogether possesses all nations, even the barbarous.
For it is she who is the Church in the good seed which the Son of Man sowed and which he foretold would grow among the tares until the harvest. But the field is the world; the harvest is the end of the age. Hilary, therefore, of the ten provinces of Asia, was rebuking either the tares and not the wheat, or the wheat itself, which was endangered by a certain failing — which he judged the more useful to rebuke, the more vehemently. For the canonical Scriptures too have this manner of rebuking, that it is spoken as if to all, and the word reaches certain ones. For when the apostle says to the Corinthians: 'How is it that some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?' he surely shows that not all are such, yet nonetheless he testifies that such were not outside but among them.
And lest those who did not so think should be seduced by them, a little after he admonished, saying: 'Be not seduced; evil communications corrupt good manners. Be sober, you righteous, and sin not; for some have ignorance of God; I speak to your shame.' But when he says: 'For whereas there is among you envying and strife, are you not carnal and walk according to man?' he says it as though to all, and you see how grave a thing he says. Accordingly, were we not to read in the very same epistle:
'I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus, that in all things you are enriched in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come behind in no grace' — we should suppose all the Corinthians to be carnal and animal, not perceiving the things that are of the Spirit of God, contentious, envious, walking according to man. And so the whole world is set in wickedness because of the tares which are throughout the whole world, and Christ is the propitiator of our sins — not only of ours, but also of the whole world's — because of the wheat which is throughout the whole world.
But the charity of many grows cold because of the abundance of scandals, the more and more that, the name of Christ being glorified, even the wicked and the utterly and persistently perverse are gathered into the communion of his sacraments — yet as chaff from the Lord's threshing-floor, to be separated only in the final winnowing. These do not extinguish the Lord's grain — few indeed in comparison with them, but many in itself; they do not extinguish the elect of God, who are to be gathered at the end of the age, as the gospel says, from the four winds, from the heights of the heavens to their ends. For theirs is the voice: 'Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed, for truths are diminished among the children of men' — of whom the Lord also says:
'Amid the abundance of iniquity, he who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.' Finally, that not one man but many speak in the same psalm, the words that follow teach, where it is said: 'You, O Lord, shall preserve us, and keep us from this generation forever.' For because of this abundance of iniquity, which the Lord foretold would come, this too was set down: 'When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?' For the doubt of him who knows all things prefigured our doubt in him — when the Church, often deceived in many on whom it had greatly hoped, because they were found otherwise than they were believed to be, is so troubled in her own members that she is unwilling readily to believe any good of anyone.
Yet it is not lawful to doubt that those very ones, in whom he is to find faith on the earth, grow throughout the whole field together with the tares. It is she, then, who is the Church, which swims within the Lord's net together with the bad fishes, from whom she is always separated and departs in heart and in morals, that she may be presented to her husband glorious, having neither spot nor wrinkle. But the bodily separation she awaits on the seashore, that is, at the end of the age — correcting those whom she can, tolerating those whom she cannot correct; yet she does not, because of the iniquity of those whom she does not correct, forsake the very unity of the good.
Do not, therefore, brother, wish to gather calumnies against divine testimonies so many, so clear, so undoubted, from the writings of bishops — whether ours, like Hilary, or, before the party of Donatus was separated, those of unity itself, like Cyprian and Agrippinus of old — because this kind of writing is to be distinguished from the authority of the canon. For they are not read as though testimony were so brought forth from them that it is not permitted to think otherwise, if perhaps anywhere they were of a mind other than the truth demands. For we are of that number who do not disdain to receive even for ourselves what was said by the apostle: 'And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this too will God reveal to you.'
Yet nevertheless, in that to which we have attained, let us walk in it — namely, in that way which is Christ, of which way the psalm thus speaks: 'May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he cause his countenance to shine upon us, that we may know your way upon the earth, your salvation among all nations.'
Next, if the authority of Cyprian, holy bishop and glorious martyr — which indeed, as I have said, we distinguish from the authority of the canon — delights you, why does it not delight you in this: that he both by loving held and by disputing defended the unity of the world and of all nations; that he judged those who would wish to separate themselves from it as though righteous to be most arrogant and most proud, mocking them for arrogating to themselves that which the Lord granted not even to the apostles — namely, that they should gather the tares before the time, or, as though it were granted to them to bear the chaff and cleanse the floor, that they should attempt to separate the chaff from the wheat; that he showed that each one cannot be defiled by the sins of others — which sole cause of separation all the authors of impious sedition arrogate to themselves;
— that in that very matter in which he was of another mind, he decreed that colleagues who held differing views were neither to be judged nor removed from the right of communion; that in that very letter to Jubaianus, which was first recited in the council whose authority for rebaptizing you say you follow, although he confesses that in the past those who had been baptized elsewhere were so admitted into the Church that they were not baptized again — whence he judges that they had been without baptism — yet he places so much of usefulness and wholesomeness in the peace of the Church, that on account of it he does not believe them to be separated from the offices of the Church?
In which matter, as I know your ability, you most easily perceive your whole cause thoroughly overthrown and extinguished. For if, by sharing the sacraments with sinners, as you suppose, the Church perished which had existed throughout the world — for that is why you separated — then it had already perished wholly beforehand, when, as Cyprian says, men were admitted into it without baptism; and thus not even Cyprian himself had a Church in which to be born — how much less your far later founder and father Donatus! But if at that time, when men were admitted into it without baptism, there was nevertheless a Church which could give birth to Cyprian and give birth also to Donatus, then it is manifest that the righteous are not contaminated by the sins of others when they share the sacraments with them.
And on this account you have no excuse by which you might wash away the separation by which you have gone forth from unity, and there is fulfilled in you that oracle of holy Scripture: 'The evil son calls himself righteous, but he does not wash away his going-out.' Now he who, on account of like sacraments, does not dare to rebaptize even the heretics themselves, is not thereby equal to the merits of Cyprian, just as whoever does not compel the Gentiles to judaize is not equal to the merits of Peter. But that not only stumbling of Peter, but also his correction, is contained in the canonical Scriptures; whereas that Cyprian was of another mind about baptism than the form and custom of the Church held, is found not in the canonical writings, but in his own and in the council's letters. But that he corrected that opinion is not found:
yet it is not incongruous to think of such a man that he did correct it, and that perhaps it was suppressed by those who were too much delighted with this error and were unwilling to lack so great a patronage, as it were. Although there are not lacking those who contend that Cyprian did not hold this opinion at all, but that it was fabricated under his name by presumptuous and lying men.
For the integrity and knowledge of the writings of any one bishop, however illustrious, could not be so guarded as the canonical Scripture is guarded — in the letters of so many tongues, and by the order and succession of ecclesiastical celebration — against which, nevertheless, there have not been lacking those who under the names of the apostles would fabricate many things, in vain indeed, because it is so commended, so celebrated, so well known. But what impious daring, in its endeavour, might do against writings not founded upon canonical authority, it has demonstrated even from this: that it did not forbear to raise itself even against those which are made firm by so great a mass of renown.
We, however, for two reasons do not deny that Cyprian held that opinion: both because his style has a certain characteristic aspect by which it may be recognized, and because thereby our cause is shown to be the more invincible against you, and the presumption of your separation — namely, that you should not be defiled by the sins of others — is overthrown with all ease, since it appears in the letters of Cyprian that the sacraments were shared with sinners, when there were admitted into the Church those who, according to your opinion and, as you will have it, his, did not have baptism, and yet the Church did not perish, but the Lord's grain remained, scattered throughout the whole world in the dignity of its own kind.
And on this account, if, troubled, you flee to the authority of Cyprian as to some harbour, you see what rock your error there strikes upon; but if you now dare not even flee thither, you are shipwrecked without any struggle. Moreover, Cyprian either did not at all hold what you recite him as holding, or he afterward corrected it in the rule of truth, or he covered this, as it were a blemish of his most spotless breast, with the abundance of charity, while he both most copiously defended the unity of the Church growing throughout the whole world, and most perseveringly held the bond of peace; for it is written: 'Charity covers a multitude of sins.'
To this was added also that, as a most fruitful branch, if there had been anything in him to be amended, the Father purged it with the pruning-knife of his passion: 'For the branch,' says the Lord, 'that in me bears fruit, my Father purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.' Whence — save that, clinging in the spreading of the vine, he did not forsake the root of unity? For even if he had delivered his body to be burned, but had not charity, it would profit him nothing. Attend yet a little more to the letters of Cyprian, that you may notice how inexcusable he showed him to be who would wish to separate himself, as if for the cause of his own righteousness, from the unity of the Church which God promised and rendered among all nations; and that you may the more understand how true is the sentence a little before recalled by me:
'The evil son calls himself righteous, but does not wash away his going-out.' In a certain letter of his which he writes to Antonianus, he sets down a certain matter quite necessary to the matter with which we are now dealing; but it is better that we insert his own words. 'Some of our predecessors,' he says, 'certain bishops here in our province, did not think that peace should be given to adulterers; they closed the whole place of penitence against adulteries, yet they did not on that account withdraw from the college of their fellow-bishops, nor did they break the unity of the Catholic Church by either the harshness or the obstinacy of their censure — so that, because among others peace was given to adulterers, he who did not give it should be separated from the Church.