BOOK ONE. When Gaudentius, the Donatist bishop of Thamugadi, was threatening to burn himself, together with certain lost men joined to him, in the church, and when Dulcitius—a man of distinction, tribune and notary, to whom the most pious emperor had enjoined the execution of his laws with the care of accomplishing unity—was dealing, as was fitting, gently with the raging men, and had first sent peaceful letters to the same Gaudentius, Gaudentius wrote back two epistles: one briefer, and, as he indicates, hastily composed for the messengers who were in haste; the other, however, more lengthy, in which he judges that he had answered more diligently according to the Scriptures. Thus, then, by the Lord's help I have set myself to refute his writings, so that even those who are slower in wit may not doubt that I have answered everything.
For first I will set down his words, then I will subjoin ours—not in the manner in which I did when I answered the letters of Petilianus. For there, in each several place, when his words are inserted, it is put 'Petilianus said,' and when my words are given, 'Augustine answered.' Whence he has slandered me, as though I had lied, saying that he never disputed with me face to face; as though for that reason he did not say what he wrote, because I did not hear this in his words but read it in his letters, or as though I therefore did not answer, because I did not speak in his presence, but answered his writings in turn by writing. What are we to do with men who have such a heart, or who suppose that those to whom they wish their writings to become known have such a heart?
But let us satisfy even such men here, and, when we set down the words of Gaudentius, let us not say 'Gaudentius said,' but 'the words of the epistle'; and when we answer, let us not say 'Augustine answered,' but 'this reply.' Thus, then, let us begin to refute the earlier and briefer epistle of Gaudentius. Words of the epistle: To the honorable Dulcitius, tribune and notary, and—if you so wish—much to be desired by us, Gaudentius, bishop. To these the reply: We ought not to discuss even these matters, lest we linger, as it were, over superfluous things, since there are necessary passages which compel us to speak somewhat longer. Words of the epistle: I have received the writings of your religiousness through those whom it is manifest to be dear to all both by their character and by their conduct.
To these the reply: Neither will I discuss how you said 'your religiousness' to a man whom you rather think irreligious. You have indeed rendered honor, as you deemed it should be rendered, because he treated you more honorably in the letters which he addressed to you than a Catholic ought to treat a heretic, thinking that your mind could be made healthy by such conversation. Words of the epistle: In which, he says, so many things were said by your worthiness which for now meanwhile I pass over in silence. But since the keenness of your wit less perceived that you were able to assert us, in that same writing, to be neither full of the innocent nor guilty. To these the reply: How did he not assert them guilty, whom he said were badly gathered together?
How did he not assert him guilty, in that he said that, with you as leader, the souls of the wretched would perish by a wicked end, adding that you ought to understand what, both in this world by odium and in that final and desperate judgment by punishment, could await you? How did he not assert him guilty, whom, as best he could, he exhorted that, following the example of others to be imitated, with the error of your former heresy dismissed, you should betake yourself to the one and true faith of God? Nevertheless, we have undertaken not to defend the words of the tribune, but to refute the heretic. If, then, this man of ours, as a layman and a soldier, said anything too incautiously, who would not pardon him? Who would contend that a prejudgment ought to be made against the Catholic Church on account of his words?
Do you consider more carefully what you say, you whom the party of Donatus, in our conference which was held at Carthage, put forward—joined to six others—even as the defender of their division. Words of the epistle: But if, he says, you consider us criminals, the society deserving of condemnation is to be fled by you. To these the reply: Plainly the society of criminals is to be fled, but that of the corrected is not to be spurned. That, then, we so wholesomely avoid, as we wish, choose, and urge this with mercy. Words of the epistle: But if, he says, you think us innocent—which you yourself also said—we rejoice to endure persecutors, established as we are in the faith of Christ. To these the reply:
I have considered the letters given by the tribune to you, and nowhere in them have I read that he called you innocent; but rather that he had heard from others, or had learned, that you were prudent. And in the holy Scriptures not only the good, but also the evil are wont to be called so. For there even the serpent, the deceiver of man, received this name. For what some have interpreted as 'the wisest of all beasts,' the Greek codices rather have 'the most prudent,' from which that Scripture was translated into the Latin tongue. But if it is to be thought that they were called innocent by the tribune, whom he said were being held by you for their destruction against their will—what wonder is it, if he believed that to happen there also, which he knew to have happened in other places?
There is therefore no ground on which you may rejoice that you suffer persecution, since you cannot find any way to prove yourself innocent. But far be it that this should be called a persecution of men, since it is rather, for the deliverance of men, a persecution of vices, such as even the diligence of physicians works upon the sick. Yet even if you were innocent, you would from this be made guilty, because you desire to kill the innocent. For those who try to prove themselves innocent, and yet are unwilling to spare their own life, what else are they but convicted of killing the innocent? The words of the letter: 'But in this Church,' he says, 'in which the name of God and of Christ, His own—as you yourself have also said—has ever been in truth frequented, we either remain alive, so long as it shall please God, or, as is fitting.'
'It is God's household; within the Lord's camp we bring our life to its end'—namely on this condition, that only if force be applied, then it can come about. For no one is so mad as to hasten to death with none driving him. To these things the reply: Neither is it read in the tribune's letters that the name of God was by you invoked in truth, although he did say 'invoked.' And yet even had he said it, this could be understood not to your glory but to your punishment. For of the impious Gentiles too the Apostle said: those who hold the truth in unrighteousness—as you also do, who hold the truth of the divine baptism in the unrighteousness of human error. Wherefore, when we correct your unrighteousness, we ought by no means to rescind the truth of that sacrament.
You indeed profess plainly, O innocent man, though in other words, that you and yours are to perish together with the Church. For when you say 'in the Church,' what else do you wish to be understood but 'together with the Church,' since you are preparing to do this by fire? This is the innocence of the party of Donatus, that you should do this while adding your own deaths—the very thing which even at Carthage, to bring us into hatred, you are asserted to have done concerning the basilicas that were yours, as you were able and with whom you were able, but without your own deaths. For who would not believe that you did in zeal what you are now arranging to do even by dying? But if you did not do that, this at least is more frenzied which you are preparing to do. But you said: 'if force be applied,' and you added:
'For no one is so mad as to hasten to death with none driving him': how much madder, then, is he who, when he is driven toward life, hastens to death! The words of the letter: 'But those who are with us,' he says, 'I call God to witness, and all His sacraments, that I exhorted and most earnestly persuaded them, that whoever had the will to depart might safely and publicly declare it. For neither can we hold back against their will those whom we have learned that none is to be compelled to the faith of God.' To these things the reply: But why do you not most openly profess yourself, if not a detainer of the unwilling, yet an exhorter to a good work, if what you are about to do is good?
Or perhaps you yourself understand how evil it is, and threaten that you will do it rather to terrify than to fulfill it—being either faithless by lying, or cruel by telling the truth? The words of the letter: (and in another hand:) 'I wish you well and flourishing in the affairs of the state, and withdrawn from the harassment of Christians.' To these things the reply: We too can wish him both safe and flourishing in the affairs of the state, but not at rest from the correction of heretics. The words of the later letter: 'To the honorable Dulcitius, to be desired with all affection, Gaudentius the bishop.' To these things the reply: If you desire the man with all affection, why do you refuse to hold with him the unity of Christ?
Or, as if repaying evil for evil to him whom you think your persecutor, do you desire to rebaptize him? The words of the letter: 'They are wont,' he says, 'known to one another by report alone, to long either to exchange words when their gaze is at last mutually cast upon each other, or at least, though unknown, not to shrink from each other's presence. But your judgment—that finding me absent you congratulated yourself, and that because I have returned you are grieved—you have made known by letter.' To these things the reply: Not all who are known to one another by report alone wish to see each other, but only those whom that very report commends well. But it is truly a wonder what has happened to you: that you should call desirable one from whom you complain you are suffering persecution, while he who persecutes you would rather you were absent, and does not wish to find the one whom he persecutes.
But whence this, save that he preferred you to be understood rather as the persecutor of those whose salvation in Christ he believed to be hindered by your presence? The words of the letter: 'But since on the previous day,' he says, 'lest I should have kept silence by a reply of letters, on account of the delay of those carrying them, I made known certain things briefly and cursorily, now I must answer to the writings of your worthiness with the words of the sacrosanct divine law. The Lord says: You shall not slay the innocent and just, and by acquittal you shall not acquit the guilty. It is certain, therefore, that in the judgment of God they are bound by equal crime and equal guilt, both he who has acquitted the guilty and he who has slain the innocent. If before communion the one named by you, Gabinius, or the others faithless in that evil fall were guilty—'
'—being partners in it, according to the words of God they ought by no means to have been acquitted. But if they were received as though innocent or holy, why, while they remain in that faith on the ground of which you receive them as holy, do you slay the innocent?' To these things the reply: You speak enviously and falsely. For he to whom you speak did not receive such a command that you should be slain, but that you should be corrected; and if you refuse, then, lest you hinder the correction of others, you shall be sent into exile. But if this ought not to be done by the just to the unjust, why did you even falsely wish to glory, in our conference, over the exile of Caecilian, saying that he was sent into exile at the urging of your elders by the emperor Constantine?
But this tribune to whom you write, to whom the care of the laws enacted for unity has been entrusted, so much desires that you should live that he fears lest you should kill yourself. Behold, set before your eyes both him and yourself! He wishes you to live in the peace of Christ; you seek to slay yourself in the party of Donatus: recognize which of you is your own persecutor. But Gabinius, now ours, who was once yours, and very many others who from among you have crossed over to us upon considering the Catholic truth—let them not therefore seem to you not to have been cleansed from your contagion, because they were not by us rebaptized.
For those who have not yet been baptized are, in the Catholic Church, washed from all sins by the laver of regeneration; but in those who receive this sacrament outside not unto help but unto judgment—since we do not violate the royal mark even in a deserter—there comes to pass that which is written: charity covers a multitude of sins. Behold how those who ought not to be baptized can be cleansed by the very charity of Catholic unity, so that there begins not to be within them what was also within them without, but there begins to profit them within what was harming them without.
Not therefore do we receive from you people as though holy—for by crossing over to us they are sanctified, who by remaining among you can in no way be holy—nor do we slay you as innocent, whom we wish to live even though guilty. But you, who rightly recall the testimony of the divine voice and cast it up to us, that God said: You shall not slay the innocent and just—if you are innocent and just, why do you slay yourself? We do not call you innocent and just, and yet we do not wish you to be slain: you count yourself innocent and just, and yet you spare not the innocent and just. Surely you yourself said: in the judgment of God they are bound by equal crime and equal guilt, both he who has acquitted the guilty and he who has slain the innocent. Why then have you acquitted Felician the Maximianist, who was guilty?
Why do you slay the innocent, and yourself as well? But we neither acquit the guilty—rather, that he may deserve to be acquitted, we first desire that he be corrected—nor do we judge you innocent, whether you spare yourself or slay yourself, if you remain in the party of Donatus. For however much you glory in innocence, by slaying yourself, an innocent, you cannot be innocent—unless perhaps you answer me and say: 'When I slay myself, I do not slay an innocent, since by the very will with which I resolve to kill myself I am made guilty in soul before I slay the body.' If you say this, you speak the truth, and by accusing yourself in wondrous ways you defend yourself.
For when you show that in slaying yourself you first become guilty by your very intention, then beyond doubt, once the deed is perpetrated, no one will convict you of having slain an innocent. By this reasoning, therefore, it is gathered that, although many innocent people are slain by others, no innocent person is slain by himself. For by that very thought with which he contrives to slay himself, he is first stripped of innocence, so that, when he slays himself, he dies not innocent. This would befall you if, before you prepared to slay yourself, you were innocent. But now, since even before that you were already, as a heretic, not innocent, it will not be, if you slay yourself, the beginning of your iniquity, but its increase. The words of the letter:
'For concerning holy Emeritus of Caesarea,' he says, 'a false report according to his merit has reached us. But if it were so, hear the Apostle saying: If some of them have fallen away from the faith, has their unbelief made void the faith of God? God forbid.' To these things the reply: Concerning Emeritus of Caesarea, what you feared to say must be said. A false report was indeed bruited about him, that he had become a Catholic; but just as you heard this, so you could have known all that was done. Why then did you wish to keep silent the praises of your fellow-bishop, whose name has been cast up to you for an example? Surely, if he did anything worthy of praise in so great a crisis, it ought by no means to have been passed over by you in silence.
But since, so that we may not believe you could envy his praises, why then did you keep silent, unless because you feared to blush on his account? Emeritus, then, came to Caesarea, we being placed and present there. But he came not seized by anyone's cunning, not led by another's power, but stirred by his own will he wished to see us. We saw him; we came together to the Catholic Church; a very great multitude was present: he could say nothing in his own or your defense, he refused to communicate, being put off he persisted, being convicted he fell dumb, being unharmed he withdrew. What could have been done more gently for our mildness, what more invincible for the truth of the Catholic Church, what more wholesome for your correction, if you were wise?
For since he had not come to us of his own accord except to say something against us on your behalf, assuredly he would have said it, had he found anything to say. For whatever things he had prepared to say as to why he came, by the help of the Lord's mercy they were refuted beforehand by our forestalling, before they were brought forth by his circumvention. And surely, if you think he could have answered but was unwilling, read what was transacted with him, and answer yourself. If Emeritus had crossed over into Catholic peace, you would say that he had consented not to the light of truth by divine compassion, but had yielded to the weight of persecution through human weakness. If, finally, he had been brought captive and unwilling, you would boast, according to your own opinion, that he had kept silence not from lack of what to answer, but from a plan of escaping.
But now, since indeed he came of his own accord, assuredly it was not his tongue but his cause that failed him in that he was silent; and that he was unwilling to cross over into Catholic unity, confusion made his proud soul most obstinate. But this, as much as it profited toward his own ruin and punishment, so much did it profit toward the confirmation and salvation of others. For if they had seen Emeritus communicating with us, they would have suspected a man in fear; but when they saw him both remaining in the party of Donatus and yet keeping silence against the Catholic faith, it appeared to them the more that by keeping silent against his own people he was crying out on our behalf. Or was not that Emeritus, when he stood with sound and free voice and mouth, a fit witness for our cause against you—that Emeritus, I say, both an enemy and mute?
But you thought you had well consoled your people by apostolic authority, forsooth. Not on account of Emeritus, who could do no more for you than that, not finding what to speak on your behalf, he nevertheless did not depart from you—but on account of others, who, having forsaken your error, are changed for the better and joined into the Catholic society—you mentioned that the Apostle therefore said: If some of them have fallen away from the faith, has their unbelief made void the faith of God? God forbid. In very truth this remains: that those who have believed God are said to have fallen away from the faith, and those who believe men are said to hold the faith. In your seed shall all nations be blessed, the Lord said: behold whom they believe, who from among us cross over to us.
That the peoples across the sea have perished by the sin of Caecilian—men have said this: behold whom they believe, who persist in your society. And you say that those have fallen away from the faith who have followed the faith of God, and that those hold the faith of God who have remained in the words of men. Where then is that which the Apostle straightway subjoined to this sentence cited by you: But God is truthful, and every man a liar—if those have fallen away from the faith who believe what God the truthful Lord has said, and those persist in the faith who believe what a lying man has said? The words of the letter: 'You persuade me to flight,' he says, 'as if from the law; but only the doer of the law is to be heard, for Paul the Apostle says:'
'Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For hear also the Lord saying that the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, but the hireling, and he whose the sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.' To these things the reply: Behold how the party of Donatus understands the Gospel! Was the Apostle then not a shepherd but a 'hireling' when, lowered through the wall in a basket, he fled the hands of him who desired to seize him—and are you a shepherd, you who, the sheep whom you call the Lord's, so that they may perish in soul through error and destroy their body through frenzy, wish to ruin even along with yourself, seek to slay along with yourself, and do not hear the Shepherd and Prince of shepherds saying:
'The thief comes not except to slay and destroy'? To this have you come, you who had departed? To this have you returned, you who had fled? This is the work of a thief and a robber, not of a shepherd and a guardian. Yet even we, not compelling you, see that you were unwilling all your colleagues who fled to be understood as not shepherds but hirelings. But if the Lord's sheep were with you, either they would come with you, that they might have even you, once corrected, as their shepherd, or, leaving you, they would flee to the Shepherd.
But the hireling whom the Lord signifies, on seeing the wolf, flees not in body but in mind, when he deserts justice through fear—as your Secundus of Tigisis fled, when he feared Purpurius of Limata, who had confessed to homicide and was the more terrible, lest he should lose his primacy or episcopate. But in body even those good shepherds, the apostles, fled in persecution, nor did they therefore forsake the sheep of Christ in care and mind. If then you too were a shepherd, first you would not be on the side of the wolf; then you would obediently hear the command of your Lord, who bade His servants flee in persecutions, through the mouth of anyone whatever, even a sinner, nor would you argue against your Lord and say:
'Only the doer of the law is to be heard, for Paul the Apostle says: Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.' Why do you twist plain words to another meaning? He denied that the hearers and not doers of the law are just before God: he did not forbid them to be heard by men, when they speak the truth—lest, like you, he should speak against his own Lord, who says concerning certain persons: What they say, do; but what they do, do not do; for they say and do not. You see how Christ commanded that others should nonetheless hear the law even through men who were hearers and preachers of the law and not doers, and should be doers of it; and you say:
'Only the doer of the law is to be heard,' and, wishing to refute as it were your persecutor, you speak against your Creator. To the sinner indeed the Lord says: Why do you declare my justifications and take up my covenant through your mouth? But for this reason: because it profits nothing to him who says and does not do what he says; but it profits him who, even through an evil man, hears good and does what he hears. Praise is indeed not comely in the mouth of a sinner, but it is comely in the life and morals of the doer, even if he has heard it from the mouth of a sinner. Therefore, however much you esteem the tribune to be a sinner and not a doer of the law, yet hear obediently—not him, but Him even through him—who says:
'If they persecute you in one city, flee to another.' Why do you stand still? Hear and flee; Christ commands this, not the tribune. Unless perhaps you answer and say: 'Christ indeed says: If they persecute you in this city, flee to another; but why should I depart from this city, when neither is this man my persecutor, nor am I a hearer of Christ?' And by this, if you remain, you are a raging wolf, and if you flee, you are a fearing wolf. And since the Bridegroom says:
'If you do not know yourself, O fairest among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and feed your kids in the tents of the shepherds'—even if you glory that you are a shepherd, yet, because you have gone out from the Lord's fold, you feed your own kids, not the sheep of Christ. The words of the letter: 'Then,' he says, 'what places will there be that, in this storm of persecution, may receive as into a harbor the priests, harassed on every side and to be preserved for tranquility, since the Lord has said: When they begin to persecute you in this city, flee to another [city]. Then the apostles fled in safety, because the emperor had ordered no one to be proscribed on their account.'
'But now the harborers of Christians, terrified by proscriptions and dreading dangers, not only do not receive them, but even fear to see those whom they silently venerate.' To these things the reply: This plainly I praise, that you acknowledge yourselves, but that you do not correct yourselves I grieve. For what is more manifest than this profession of yours, by which you sufficiently declare that you do not belong to the fellowship of those to whom the Lord says: If they persecute you in one city, flee to another? Surely this is what I said a little before that you could most truly answer me, if you should say: 'Neither is this man my persecutor, nor am I a hearer of Christ.' Behold, most openly you say this.
For how are you a hearer of Christ, when He promises to His hearers, that is, His followers, that, even unto the end of the age, whenever they suffer persecution, there will not be lacking cities to which they may take refuge, saying: But when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For amen I say to you, you shall not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man come? But you, in this persecution which you complain of suffering, now say that places are already lacking to you, whither you might flee and where, as in a harbor, you might rest from this tempest—speaking against the promise of Christ, who says that cities will not be lacking, whither His people who suffer persecution may flee, until He come, that is, until the consummation of the age.
Since therefore He promised to His own this which you do not find, assuredly He lies, if you are His; but since He Himself does not lie, you are not His. And by this, neither is the tribune to whom you write back your persecutor, but he is the persecutor of your persecutor, that is, of your error, by which, driven, you do such things that you are of that kind of whom it is written that they suffered persecution from their very own deeds. Accordingly, if you understand what those who love you persecute in you, without doubt you will flee your own evil deeds, from which you suffer persecution, and you will be joined to those who, that they may set you free, persecute your persecutors; for they persecute nothing but your errors. The words of the letter:
'Through the Maker of all things, the Lord Christ,' he says, 'Almighty God, having fashioned man to be like God, released him to free choice. For it is written: God made man and left him in the hand of his own choice. Why is there now snatched from me by human power what God bestowed? Consider, O most excellent man, how great sacrileges are perpetrated against God, that human presumption should take away what He granted, and vainly boast that it does this for God. Great is the injury to God, if He is defended by men. What does he judge of God who wishes to defend Him by violence, unless that He is not able to avenge His own injuries?' To these things the reply: