Augustine the bishop, to the most beloved brethren belonging to the care of our stewardship: May the salvation which is in Christ, and the peace of His unity and love, be with you; and may your spirit be preserved whole, and soul and body, unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember, brethren, that a very small part of the letter of Petilian, the Donatist bishop of Constantina, once came into our hands, and that I wrote to your love what I had answered to that portion.
But when afterward the whole and complete letter was sent to us by the brethren who are there, it pleased me to reply from the very beginning, as though we were conducting the matter in person — in the manner in which you always know that we have wished to deal with them: so that, without any zeal for contention, whatever is said either by them or by us might, by a comparison of the disputation, appear to all. For we have learned that that letter is in the hands of many, who even hold much of it by memory, supposing that he has said something true against us. But now, if they should be willing to read what we have answered, they will assuredly understand what is to be cast away by them and what is to be held. For those things are not ours, as they themselves can consider, if they are willing to judge without partisan zeal;
for from the holy Scriptures all things are so brought forth and proved that no one can deny them except one who professes himself to be an enemy of those Scriptures. But concerning that work of ours, I see what the most obstinate defenders of so bad a cause can say: namely, that I have replied to the letter of an absent man, where he could not hear my words to which he might reply on the spot. Let him therefore defend the words of his letter, and, if he can, let him show that they have not been refuted and convicted by my replies; or, if he does not wish this, let him himself do to this letter of mine what I did to his, to which I have already replied. For he indeed wrote it to his people, just as I wrote this to you. If he wishes, let him himself even reply to it.
Certainly the question is turned between us as to where the Church is — whether with us or with them. And this Church is assuredly one, which our forefathers named 'catholic,' in order to show from the very name that it is throughout the whole; for 'catholic' is said in Greek 'kath' holon,' that is, 'according to the whole.' And this Church is the body of Christ, as the Apostle says: 'for His body, which is the Church.' Whence it is assuredly manifest that he who is not among the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation. But the members of Christ are joined to one another through the love of unity, and through the same they cohere with their Head, which is Christ Jesus. The whole, therefore, which is announced concerning Christ, is Head and body.
The Head is the only-begotten Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of the living God, the very Saviour of the body, who died on account of our sins and rose again on account of our justification; His body is the Church, of which it is said: 'that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.' But between us and the Donatists the question is where this body is, that is, where the Church is. What then shall we do? Shall we seek it in our own words, or in the words of its own Head, our Lord Jesus Christ? I think that we ought rather to seek it in His words, who is the Truth and knows His body best; for the Lord knows those who are His.
But what our words are, in which it ought not to be sought, take heed and see even there what difference there is between our words and theirs; and yet in our words we do not wish the Church to be sought. Whatever we object to one another concerning the handing over of the divine codices, concerning incense-offering, concerning persecutions — these are our words. And in such matters we indeed hold to this measure: that either both may be reckoned true, whether the things said by us or those said by them, or both false, or ours true and theirs false, or ours false and theirs true — and in all these we show that there is no crime of the Christian world, with which we commune.
For if the crimes are true, both those said by us against them and those said by them against us, let us do what the Apostle says: 'forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven us,' so that evil men — neither those who perhaps were or are among us, nor those who were or are among them — may hinder our concord and the bond of peace, when their one wickedness has been corrected: namely, that they have separated themselves in vain from the unity of the whole world, though they had such men among them. But if both are false — whether the things we object to them or they to us, whether concerning the handing over or concerning the persecution of the innocent — I see no cause for the dispute, except that there is cause for them to correct themselves, who have separated themselves without cause.
But if we speak the truth—since we confirm the records which we bring forward both by the letters of the emperor, to whom at that time they first wrote and afterwards appealed, and by the communion of the whole world; whereas the things they allege are shown to be false for this very reason, that at the very time when this same question was being examined they were quite unable to win their case—then there appears in them a greater madness of sacrilegious animosity, and a persecution of innocent souls, than if they were held guilty of the crime of schism alone. And let them charge those things not upon all, but upon whichever of their own party they wish; schism, nevertheless, is the crime of them all.
Furthermore, if they wish the crimes of betrayal and persecution which they cast at us to be true, and those which are cast by us at them to be false, not even so are they cleared of the crime of schism; for those charges could pertain to certain persons, not to the whole Christian world. And if they think it has perished by contagion—I forbear to say how many evils, even known evils, the saints have tolerated within the assembly of men for the good of peace—this I do say: let these men show how they themselves did not perish by the contagion of those whom they either now do not know, or once did not know, to be lurking among them, sacrilegious violators of the consecrated chastity of women. Assuredly they will say that on this very ground they are not contaminated, because they did not know.
How then has the world been contaminated, which still does not know whether these things they say are true? Let us suppose them now proved to us, now demonstrated: what do we do about so many nations? They are abandoned in ignorance; therefore innocent people are abandoned, and while that is no crime of theirs, this begins to be our most wicked crime. Or ought we to run and teach them what we know? To what purpose this? If, in order that they may be innocent, they are innocent even while they are ignorant—for we preserve innocence not by knowing men's evil deeds but, when they are known, by not consenting to them, and, concerning things unknown, by not judging rashly. And through this, as I have said, the world is innocent, which is ignorant of the crimes that are alleged by these men against certain persons, even if they are alleged truly.
But by these very innocent people, who separated themselves, they lost their innocence through that very crime of separation and schism. And now they teach us that they speak the truth against certain persons, so that they may separate us from those against whom they have nothing true to say. For this is what the whole world says to them—a saying most brief in words, but most robust in truth: the African bishops, forsooth, were contending among themselves.
If they could not settle the dissension that had arisen among themselves—so that, whether by concord being restored or by the degradation of those who contended wrongly, those who had the good cause might remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity—then it certainly remained that the bishops beyond the sea, in which region the greatest part of the Catholic Church was spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their African colleagues, at the instance, that is, of those who charged the others with the crime of an unlawful ordination. If this was not done, the fault is theirs by whom it ought to have been done, not the world's, which was ignorant of what had not been brought to its notice.
But if it was done, wherein did those ecclesiastical judges sin, who by no means ought to condemn crimes which, even if true and brought before them, were nevertheless not proved to them? Could the wicked pollute those men to whom they could not be made manifest? But if they were made manifest to them, and by some sluggishness or connivance they were unwilling to remove such men from communion, and by a perverse judgment even pronounced sentences in their favor—wherein did the world sin, which did not know that that case had wicked judges, and believed that they had judged well, concerning whom it could not itself judge?
For just as the crime of the accused, if it was hidden from the judges, certainly did not contaminate them, so also the crime of the judges, if there was any, since it was hidden from the world, certainly could not contaminate it. With these innocent people, therefore, we innocently hold communion even to this day—not knowing what was then done. Wherefore, even if today we should learn that the things they say against certain persons are true, there is no reason why we should withdraw from the innocent who do not know these things, and cross over to those who for this very reason are all entangled in the crime of schism, namely because they did what they urge us to do: that not by the example of the apostles we should tolerate the evil, but by the example of the heretics we should forsake the good.
But let us grant to the world—what cannot happen—that today it could clearly discern, together with us, that the crimes of certain persons whom these men accuse are true: could it thereby become more innocent than it was before it knew? For just as unknown evildoers could not stain it, even if they were still in this life, so those who have already departed from this life cannot stain it even when they are known.
If, then, our case is such—in our words concerning the crimes of certain persons which we mutually cast at one another—that it remains unconquered even if today we should learn that the things we say against some of them are false and the things they say against some of us are true, what have they to answer? Whether the things we say be rather the true ones and those they say be false, or both be false, or both be true—since even there they are defeated in the very point which alone, with all their vows, they long to have believed of them. But, as I had begun to say, let us not listen to 'you say this, I say that,' but let us listen to 'thus says the Lord.' There are surely the Lord's books, to whose authority we both consent, to which we both yield, which we both serve:
there let us seek the Church, there let us examine our case. Here perhaps they will say: 'Why do you seek in the books which you delivered up to the flames?' To this I reply: Why do you fear that these books be read, if you have preserved them from the flames? Let him assuredly be believed to have delivered them up who, when they are read, is convicted of not consenting to them. Or if perchance these books point out their betrayer, just as the Lord pointed out Judas, let them read in them, by name and expressly, that either Caecilian or his ordainers were to be betrayers of these very books; and if I do not anathematize them, let me myself be judged along with them to have betrayed. But neither do we find in those books the ordainers of Majorinus designated as betrayers, although we recite these things from elsewhere.
But if they are unwilling that they be removed, let them see that, even if both sets of charges are true, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those whom they possessed; and if both are false, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those in whom they found no crime; and if ours are true but theirs are false, there was no cause for their separation, because they ought rather to correct themselves and remain in unity; and if ours are false and theirs are true, there was no cause for their separation, because they ought not to forsake the innocent world, to which they either were unwilling or were unable to demonstrate these things. Perhaps someone will ask and say to me:
'Why then do you want these things removed from the midst, when your communion, even if they be brought forward, is unconquered?' Because I do not wish the holy Church to be demonstrated by human documents, but by divine oracles. For if the holy Scriptures designated the Church in Africa alone, and among a few 'Cutzupitani' or 'Montenses' at Rome, and in the house or estate of a single Spanish woman, then whatever else is brought forward from other papers, none hold the Church except the Donatists. If holy Scripture defines it among a few Moors of the Caesarean province, one must cross over to those few. If among a few Tripolitans and Byzacenes and provincials, then the Maximianists have attained to it.
If it is to be sought among the Orientals alone, then it must be sought among the Arians and Eunomians and Macedonians and whatever others are there. But who could enumerate the several heresies of the several nations? If, however, the Church of Christ has been designated by the divine and most certain testimonies of the canonical Scriptures among all nations, then whatever these men bring forward and from whatever source they recite it, who say 'Behold, here is Christ, behold, there'—let us rather listen, if we are His sheep, to the voice of our Shepherd who says: 'Do not believe.' For those particular churches are not found in the many nations where this one is; but this one, which is everywhere, is found even where those are. Therefore let us seek it in the holy canonical Scriptures.
The whole Christ is head and body: the head is the only-begotten Son of God, and His body is the Church, bridegroom and bride, two in one flesh. Whoever dissent from the Scriptures concerning that very head, even if they are found in all the places in which the Church has been designated, are not in the Church. And again, whoever agree with the holy Scriptures concerning that very head, yet do not hold communion with the unity of the Church, are not in the Church, because they dissent, contrary to the very testimony of Christ, concerning the body of Christ, which is the Church.
For example, those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh from the Virgin Mary, of the seed of David—which the Scripture of God most plainly declares—or that He rose again in that same body in which He was crucified and buried, even if they are found throughout all the lands through which the Church extends, are assuredly not in the Church, because they do not hold the very head of the Church, which is Christ Jesus; nor are they deceived by any obscurity of the divine Scriptures, but they contradict the most well-known and most plain testimonies of them.
Likewise, whoever indeed believe that Jesus Christ, just as it has been said, came in the flesh, and rose again in that same flesh in which He was born and suffered, and that He is Himself the Son of God, God with God, and one with the Father, and the unchangeable Word of the Father, through whom all things were made—yet nevertheless so dissent from His body, which is the Church, that their communion is not with the whole wherever it is diffused, but is found separated in some part—it is manifest that they are not in the Catholic Church.
Wherefore, since with the Donatists our question is not about the head, but about the body—that is, not about the Savior Jesus Christ Himself, but about His Church—let the very head, concerning whom we agree, show us His body, concerning which we disagree, so that through His words we may now cease to disagree. Now He is the only-begotten Son and the Word of God; and therefore not even the holy prophets could have spoken the truth, unless it had been made manifest to them, by that very Truth which is the Word of God, what they should say, and unless they had been commanded to say it. Accordingly, in former times the Word of God sounded forth through the prophets, then through Himself, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, then through the apostles whom He sent to preach Him, that there might be salvation unto the ends of the earth.
In all these, therefore, the Church is to be sought. But since men who are given to slander very often turn to whatever objects and to whatever purpose they wish many things spoken against others or for another reason; and since many things also, set down figuratively and obscurely for the sake of exercising rational minds, are sometimes believed—through the image of an enigma or the double sense of an ambiguity—to accord and agree with a deceptive interpretation, I also proclaim and propose this: that we select whatever things are open and manifest; and if these were not found in the holy Scriptures, there would be no source at all from which the closed might be opened and the obscure illumined. For example, see how easy it is either for us to say against them, or for them against us, what the Lord said to the Pharisees:
'You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly indeed appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.' Whether these things be said by us against them or by them against us, unless it first be proved by the most manifest documents who they are that, being unjust, feign themselves to be just—who of even moderate sanity does not know that such things are spoken with railing rather smooth than with truth convincing? For the Lord spoke those things against the Pharisees in a different manner, as being the Lord, that is, the discerner of the heart and of all human secrets, and both witness and judge;
but we must first find and show what we allege, lest we ourselves rather be convicted of the most grievous crime of insane rashness. Indeed, if they should first teach that we are such, we ought by no means to refuse to be reproved and crushed by such words of the holy Scriptures; likewise, if we should teach that they are such, it will similarly be in our power with what divine rebukes to strike those already demonstrated and convicted. So also, meanwhile, those things are to be set aside which, being obscurely placed and wrapped in the veils of figures, can be interpreted both according to us and according to them.
It belongs indeed to acute men to distinguish and discern who interprets these more probably; but we do not wish to commit our disputation, in a case which concerns whole peoples, to these contests of ingenuity. It is doubtful to none of us that, with the fidelity of the historical events preserved—namely, that with the sinners destroyed, the house of the just man might be delivered from the flood—the Church too was figured by the ark of Noah; which might perhaps seem a conjecture of human ingenuity, were it not that the apostle Peter says this in his epistle. But that which he did not there say—if one of us should say that all the kinds of animals were there for this reason, because the Church was foretold as destined to be in all nations—perhaps it might seem otherwise to the Donatists, and they might wish to interpret this differently.
Similarly, if they too should interpret something obscurely or ambiguously set down in favor of their own opinion, and if it is open to us to say something else from it which sounds in our favor, what will be the end? For a certain bishop of theirs, when he was making a discourse to the people here at Hippo, as we heard, said that Noah's ark was for this reason coated with pitch on the inside, that it might not let out its own water, and for this reason also on the outside, that it might not let in that of another. By this interpretation he certainly wished it to have this force: that baptism should not be believed able either to go forth outside the Church, or, if given outside, to be accepted.
He seemed to say something, and there was acclamation from those who listened gladly but did not diligently ponder what they had heard, so as to notice—what was easy—that it could not come about that the framing of the timbers should let in water from outside if it did not let it out from within; but if it lets it out from that part which is inside, it follows that it also admits it from that part which is outside. But even if what he said about the joined timber were true, who would prevent me from saying, if I could, something else about the ark coated with pitch on both sides, so that it might be uncertain which of these—or perhaps some third thing—that matter signified?
因為這樣說並非荒謬——實在，甚至更為可信——即瀝青所表徵的乃是愛德，因它是一種強力的膠合、極其熾熱之物。因為詩篇裡所說「我的心緊緊跟隨你」（agglutinata est anima mea post te），若不是憑最熾烈的愛德，又是憑什麼呢？既然已有吩咐，要這愛德存在我們裡面、彼此相待、待眾人，所以方舟裡外都塗上瀝青。或者，正因經上記著「愛是凡事包容」，那持守合一、堅韌的忍耐之力，便藉瀝青被表徵；方舟裡外都塗抹了它，正是為此緣故：因為裡外的惡人都當被包容，免得和平的接合被拆散。
For it is not absurdly said—indeed, even much more probably—that by the pitch charity is signified, since it is a violent glue and a most fervent thing. For whence is it said in the psalm, 'My soul has cleaved fast after you,' but by most burning charity? And since it has been commanded that this be in us toward one another and toward all, therefore the ark was coated with pitch both within and without. Or certainly, because it is written, 'Charity endures all things,' the very tenacious force of endurance, holding to unity, is signified by the pitch, with which the ark was smeared both within and without for this reason: because both within and without the evil are to be endured, lest the framing of peace be dissolved.
In this our disputation, therefore, let us spare such interpretations, and let us seek something open, by which the Church may be made manifest. Indeed it is written in the book of Judges: 'And Gideon said to the Lord: Since you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, behold, I place a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; and if there be dew on the fleece, but on all the ground drought, I shall know that you save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken. And it was so. And Gideon rose early on the next day and wrung out the fleece, and the dew ran down from the fleece, a basin full of water. And Gideon said to the Lord: Let not your anger be kindled against me, Lord, and I will speak yet once more, and I will make trial yet once more with the fleece:
let there be drought on the fleece alone, but on all the ground let there be dew. And God did so in that night, and there was drought on the fleece alone, but on all the ground dew.' I do not see what is here figured and foretold, save that we should understand the threshing-floor as the world, and the place of the fleece as the people of Israel. For we know that that nation of old was, as it were, drenched with heavenly dew by the grace of the divine sacrament, while, of this gift, there was as it were drought among all the nations round about, since they lacked it. But this gift was among that people in the fleece, that is, in a covering and as it were a cloud of secrecy, because it had not yet been revealed.
But now we see the world already fed, the dew being revealed, through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was then figured in that covering; while that nation, having lost the priesthood which it possessed—because it does not understand Christ in the Scriptures—has remained, as it were, in the dry fleece. And yet even in such figures of things, although I do not see what else can here be understood, I do not wish us to seek the Church.
Let us for the moment set aside altogether those things which need some interpretation, or such an interpretation—not because the things are false which are unravelled in this manner by interpreting such things as coverings, but because they require an interpreter. I do not wish our talents to be matched in them, but let the open truth cry out and shine, let it burst into stopped-up ears, let it strike the eyes of those who feign not to see—let no one in its recesses seek a place for his own false opinion—let it confound every attempt at contradiction, let it dash down every brow of impudence. O Donatists, read Genesis:
'By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your most beloved son for my sake, in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is by the shore of the sea, and your seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of its adversaries, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.' What do you say to this? Do you contend with us in the perversity of the Jews, so as to say that the seed of Abraham is to be understood only in the people born of Abraham's flesh? But the Jews do not read in their synagogues the apostle Paul, whom you read in your conventicles.
Let us therefore hear what the apostle says—for we are now seeking how the seed of Abraham is to be understood: 'Brethren,' he says, 'I speak after the manner of men. Yet a man's confirmed testament no one annuls or adds to. To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, which is Christ.' Behold, in what seed all the nations are blessed; behold the testament of God; open your ears: 'A man's confirmed testament,' he says, 'no one annuls or adds to.' Why do you annul the testament of God, by saying that it has not been fulfilled in all nations, and that they have already perished from among the nations in which was the seed of Abraham?
Why do you add to it, by saying that Christ remains heir in no lands, save where He could have Donatus as co-heir? We do not begrudge anyone. Read this to us from the Law, from the Prophets, from the Psalms, from the Gospel itself, from the apostolic writings. Read it, and we believe—just as we read to you both from Genesis and from the apostle, that in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, all the nations are blessed. Hear this same testament made also to Isaac, Abraham's son: 'Now there was a famine over the land, besides the famine which had been before in the time of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. And the Lord appeared to him and said:
Do not go down into Egypt, but dwell in the land which I shall tell you, and dwell in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your seed I will give all this land, and I will establish my oath which I swore to Abraham your father, and I will enlarge your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice and kept my precepts and my ordinances and my statutes.' Answer to these things. For the seed of Abraham is this same seed of Isaac also, which is Christ. For how Christ came from the tribe of Judah in the flesh through a virgin—what Christian in any way is ignorant of it?
Hear this same testament made to Jacob: 'And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and set out for Haran. And he came to a place and slept in that place, since the sun had set. And he took a stone from the stones of the place and put it under his head and slept in that place. And he saw a vision; and behold, a ladder set firm upon the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it. And the Lord leaned upon it and said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not fear; the land in which you sleep, I will give it to you and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the south and toward the north and toward the east;