Follow, therefore, your own testimony—especially because your own people too, when they come to know it, will perhaps not commune with you, since through this word you communed with the tribune Dulcitius. Come now, brother Gaudentius, do not lose the occasion which the Lord has given you even through your own tongue. Or do you perhaps grow angry at this, that I call you brother? For this name you spurned from us even in our conference, where you showed that we are those to whom the Lord commanded through the prophet: 'Say, You are our brethren, to those who hate you and who detest you,' but that you are in the number of those who hate and detest those to whom the Lord says this. You certainly cannot deny that you called that in which the tribune Dulcitius is, a religion.
For this reason he sent you that letter—namely, that you should not kill yourself, and that you should commune with that church in which he himself is. If, therefore, his is religion, yours is superstition. For although you both said this to each other in turn, you nevertheless choose that he rather than you should have spoken falsely. Wherefore, according to this most true testimony of yours and your most true exposition, since it is religion which the tribune Dulcitius holds, assuredly it is religion by which the command of the emperor impels you to our communion. Whence it follows that it is also religion by which a Christian emperor judges it to pertain to his care that no offense be committed against divine things with impunity—a thing by which you do not wish to be cared for, except in those matters which are contained in the earthly commonwealth.
Whence you also said, forgetting what you have read, that the king of the Ninevites did not command the people concerning the doing of penance; for these are your words to me: 'Why,' you say, 'do you deceive the wretched? The God of Jonah gave the command; the Lord sent the prophet to the people; he commanded the king no such thing.' Attend, therefore, to what is written, and be angry with none but yourself, who either do not recall the divine writings or rather deceive the wretched: 'Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, as the Lord had spoken. Now Nineveh was a great city of about three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter the city about one day's journey, and he preached and said: Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'
'And the men of Nineveh believed the Lord, and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least. And when word came to the king of the city of Nineveh, he rose up from his throne and laid aside his garments and clothed himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And it was proclaimed by the king and by the mighty men, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, nor oxen, nor sheep taste anything nor feed, and let them not drink water. And men and beasts were clothed in sackcloth; and they cried to the Lord earnestly, and every one turned from the way of his wickedness and from the iniquity that was in his hands.' Do you hear at last that the king took care of that which you are displeased should pertain to the care of kings? Certainly, that it should be done earnestly which was being done less than it ought to have been.
Therefore the Ninevites were not compelled to penance by the king's command through plunderings and proscriptions or by the terror of soldiers, because they obediently did what was commanded. So we do not point out that the people suffered these things, just as you cannot point out that the king was despised. Accordingly, when kings command those things which are according to God with a religious fear, whoever obeys—beginning from fear and advancing to love—receives peace from the Lord; not as the world gives peace, since the world gives peace for the sake of temporal advantage, but the Lord for the sake of eternal salvation.
Therefore, since this is religion in which the tribune Dulcitius is—for you will not deny your own words—superstition is the party of Donatus, from which the religion of this man wishes to rescue you. Superstition is that you seek to kill yourself, which the religion of this man strongly forbids. Superstition is that you reproach the care of the emperor concerning these things, which the religion of this man undertook to carry out. And so, since by your own word the case is finished, I beseech you, by the God of religion, the God of truth, that your error too may at length be finished. This, brother, is the very Church of Christ, which in this time is being enlarged by growing throughout the whole world, containing both the evil and the good, to be separated at the final winnowing.
And that I may address you at the last rather with the words of him whom you wished to bring forward as a witness of the Catholic name: she it is who, suffused with the light of the Lord, stretches forth her rays through the whole world; she it is who extends her branches over the universal earth with a wealth of abundance. Accordingly, even though tares appear to be in her, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we behold that there are tares in the Church, we should ourselves withdraw from the Church. We have only to labor that we may be able to be wheat, so that when the wheat begins to be gathered into the Lord's barns, we may receive fruit for our work and toil. The Apostle in his epistle says: 'But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earthenware;
and some indeed unto honor, some unto dishonor.' Let us apply our effort and labor as much as we can, that we may be a vessel of gold or of silver. But to break the earthen vessels has been granted to the Lord alone, to whom also the rod of iron has been given. A servant cannot be greater than his lord, nor let anyone claim for himself what the Father has bestowed on the Son alone—so as to think either that he can already openly bear the winnowing fan to winnow and purge the threshing-floor, or that he can by human judgment separate all the tares from the wheat. That is a proud obstinacy and a sacrilegious presumption which a depraved frenzy takes upon itself.
And while certain men always claim for themselves more than gentle justice demands, they perish out of the Church; and while they insolently exalt themselves, blinded by their very swelling, they lose the light of truth. These are the words of the most blessed Cyprian, not mine; his words, namely, whom you set forth to us at the very opening of your writings as a most choice witness of the Catholic name, and whom through many passages you most abundantly commended—nay rather, through him, since they are true and divine, they are the words of God.
Behold what you should hear, behold what you should beware, so that, with the mercy of the Savior helping, we may together hold the Catholic charity, together love the Catholic peace, together grow everywhere with his wheat, together bear with the tares until the end, together live in the barn without end. You see indeed that, without any defense of Caecilianus or of any men whatsoever whom you think are to be accused, the Catholic Church stands by its own strength and firmness—although both our conference has cleared the case of Caecilianus, and, concerning the others whom you slander, the accusation is either doubtful or the condemnation unjust. But it is very foolish to force the cause of the Church, which is propped up and fortified by divine testimonies, into the causes of men by a reasoning that wanders off course.
Let us grant that, even if we saw those evil men most manifestly and could no longer separate them from the sacraments of the Church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we beheld that even these were among the tares in the Church, we ourselves ought to withdraw from the Church. If you are thinking of replying, do not abandon the case and stray off into superfluous matters. Look at the things that have been said; to the things that have been said, reply not by deceitfully evading, but by reasonably disputing. For what you accomplished by that lengthy reply—or rather, how you accomplished nothing—if it seem necessary and the Lord grant it, I shall more diligently demonstrate in another work. AGAINST GAUDENTIUS, BISHOP OF THE DONATISTS, TWO BOOKS.
About the same time Dulcitius, tribune and notary, was here in Africa as executor of the imperial orders given against the Donatists. When he had sent a letter to Gaudentius of Thamugadi, bishop of the Donatists—one of those seven whom they had chosen as authors of their defense at our conference—exhorting him to Catholic unity and dissuading him from the burning by which he threatened to consume himself and his own together with the very church in which he was, adding also that, if they thought themselves just, they should rather flee, according to the command of the Lord Christ, than burn themselves in unspeakable fires, he wrote back two letters: one brief, because (as he asserted) the bearer was in haste; the other lengthy, as though answering more fully and diligently.
These the above-mentioned tribune thought should be sent to me, that I rather should refute them. Both of these I confuted in one book. And when this had come into the hands of the same Gaudentius, he wrote back what seemed good to him, to me myself, answering by no reasoning, but rather declaring himself neither to answer nor to have kept silent. Although this can sufficiently appear to those who read intelligently and compare our words and his own, I nevertheless did not wish to leave it without a rejoinder, whatever it was. Hence it came about that these two books of ours were addressed to him. This work begins thus: 'Gaudentius, bishop of the Donatists of Thamugadi.' THE SENTENCES OF THE COUNCIL OF BAGAI WHICH SURVIVE, COLLECTED FROM VARIOUS PLACES OF AUGUSTINE.
When, by the will of Almighty God and of Christ his Savior, we—coming from all the provinces of Africa—were holding a council in the holy church of Bagai: Gamalius, Primianus, Pontius, Secundianus, Ianuarianus, Saturninus, Felix, Pegasius, Rufinus, Fortunius, Crispinus, Florentius, Optatus, Donatus, Donatianus, and the rest, three hundred and ten in number, it pleased the Holy Spirit who is in us to establish a perpetual peace and to cut away the sacrilegious schisms... The longed-for kinship of peace and concord was indeed joined, as it is written: 'Justice and peace have kissed each other.'
But the truth-telling wave was dashed against the rough crags of certain men, and their shipwrecked limbs were cast forth; the shores, much after the example of the perishing Egyptians, are full of corpses—for whom in death itself the punishment is the greater, in that, after the soul has been wrenched out by the avenging waters, they find not even burial itself... For although the belly of the poisoned womb long concealed the harmful offspring of viperous seed, and the moist clots of the conceived crime warmed themselves with slow heat into the limbs of asps, nevertheless the conceived venom could not be hidden by its vanishing shade. For even though late they brought forth their public outrage and their parricide—the vows teeming with crimes—what was foretold before came to pass: 'She hath conceived injustice, brought forth pain, and given birth to iniquity.'
But since now the calm shines forth from the cloud, and the forest of crimes is no longer confused—since the names have been marked out for punishment (for previously there had been indulgence)—while we relax the line of clemency, the cause has found whom it may punish... Let us speak, dearest brethren, of the causes of the schism, since now we can no longer be silent about the persons. Maximianus—the rival of the faith, the adulterer of the truth, the enemy of the mother Church, the minister of Dathan, Korah, and Abiron—the thunderbolt of the sentence struck out from the bosom of peace; and because as yet the gaping earth has not swallowed him, it has reserved him for the greater ones above unto a greater punishment. For, snatched away, he had gained his own penalty by the shortcut of death; now he gathers the interest of a heavier usury, since, though dead, he is present among the living.
Nor does a just death condemn only this man for his own wickedness; the chain of sacrilege drags many others as well into fellowship in the crime — of whom it is written: 'The poison of asps is under their lips; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.' We could indeed have wished not to be cut off, as it were, from the joint of our own body. But since the pestilent rottenness of a festering wound gains more comfort by being cut away than by any softening remedy, a more wholesome course has been found: lest the plague-bearing poison creep through all the members, the newly-formed wound is let fall by a swift and sparing pain.
Know therefore that the men guilty of this notorious crime — Victorianus of Carcabia, Marcianus of Sullectum, Beianus of Beiana, Salvius of Ausafa, Theodorus of Usula, Donatus of Sabrata, Miggo of Elephantaria, Praetextatus of Assuras, Salvius of Membressa, Valerius of Melzi, Felicianus of Musti, and Martialis of Pertusa, who by the deadly work of destruction cemented together a filthy vessel from gathered dregs — and also certain clerics of the church of Carthage who, while they took part in the crime, lent their pandering to an unlawful incest, have, by the judgment of God presiding over it, been condemned by the truth-speaking mouth of the universal council.
But those whom the sacrilegious shoots did not pollute in the nursery — that is, those who by the modest shame of faith drew back their own hands from Maximian's head — we have permitted to return to their mother the Church. For the more we are cleansed by the death of the guilty, the more we rejoice at the return of the innocent. And lest the pressure of a shortened span withdraw from those returning the hope of salvation by too narrow a time, we open the door of recognition to all — for those to whom it is permitted to acknowledge it, the previously issued statutes remaining in force — right up to the eighth day before the Kalends of the coming January, so that being restored they may have the foundations of full honor and faith. But if anyone through slothful idleness is unable to enter it, let him know that by his own will the way to every avenue of pardon has been withdrawn from him.