BOOK ONE. To his most beloved brethren belonging to the care of our stewardship, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. You know that we have often wished to bring the sacrilegious error of the Donatist heretics into open notice and to refute it, not so much from our own words as from their own mouth.
Hence it came about that we sent letters even to some of their leading men — not indeed letters of communion, since by dissenting they have already in time past made themselves unworthy of the Catholic Church, yet not abusive but peaceable — that, the question having been discussed with us which tore them away from the holy communion of the whole world, they might be willing, upon considering the truth, to be corrected, and might not defend the headstrong perversity of their forefathers with a still more foolish obstinacy, but might be restored to the Catholic root for the fruit of charity. But since it is written, 'With those who hated peace I was peaceable,' they spurned my letters even as they hated the very peace which by them was being sought for them.
But now, when I was in the church of Constantina, with Absentius present and my colleague Fortunatus his bishop, the brethren brought me a letter which they said the bishop of that same schism had sent to his presbyters, as the very heading of the letter also declared. When I had read it, I so marveled that in its opening words it cut away the whole communion of its own party by the very roots, that I was unwilling to believe the letter to be that man's — the man whom rumor is wont to proclaim as excelling most among them in learning and eloquence. But because, as I read, there were present certain men who recognized the polish and adornment of his style, they began to persuade me that the discourse was altogether his.
Yet I, whosever it might be, thought it should be refuted, lest whoever wrote it should seem to himself to have written something against the Catholic Church in the eyes of the unlearned. This then he set down first in his letter, saying that we object to a double baptism against them, we who under the name of baptism pollute our souls with a guilty washing. But what does it profit to weave together all his abusive words? For since it is one thing to establish proofs, another to deal with slanders by refuting them, let us rather attend to this: by what argument he wished to demonstrate that we do not have baptism and therefore he does not repeat what already existed, but gives what did not exist. For he says: 'For the conscience of the giver is what is regarded, which washes that of the receiver.'
But what if the giver's conscience is hidden and perchance is stained — how will it be able to wash the receiver's conscience, if, as he says, it is the giver's conscience that is regarded, which washes that of the receiver? For if he shall say that whatever evil lay hidden in the giver's conscience does not pertain to the receiver, then perhaps that ignorance will avail to this extent: that from the conscience of his baptizer he cannot, unknowing, be stained. Let it suffice, then, that another's stained conscience, when it is not known, does not stain; but surely can it also wash? Whence therefore is he to be washed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted and he who is about to receive it is unaware of this — especially since he goes on to add and say:
'For he who receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt.' Behold, a faithless man stands ready to baptize, but he who is to be baptized is unaware of his faithlessness; what do you suppose he will receive — faith or guilt? If you say 'faith,' you will concede that it can come about that one receives faith and not guilt from a faithless man, and that saying will be false which was stated: 'He who receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt.' For we find that it can come about that one receives faith even from a faithless man, if he be ignorant of the giver's faithlessness. For he does not say:
'he who receives faith from a manifest or known faithless man,' but he says, 'he who receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt' — which is surely false when someone is baptized by a hidden faithless man. But if he shall say, 'Even when the baptizer's faithlessness is hidden, one does not receive faith from him but guilt,' then let them rebaptize those who are established to have been baptized by men who long lay hidden among them as steeped in crime, and were afterward exposed, convicted, and condemned. For at the very time when they lay hidden, whomever they baptized they could not hand faith to, but only guilt, if indeed whoever receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt. Therefore let them be baptized by good men, that they may be able to receive faith and not guilt.
But how will they be secure even about these, if the giver's conscience is regarded, which lies hidden from the eyes of the one about to receive? Thus, according to their opinion, that spiritual salvation becomes uncertain, since — against the holy Scriptures, which say, 'It is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man,' and, 'Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man' — they take away the hope of those to be baptized from the Lord God and persuade them that it must be placed in man. Whence it comes about altogether that salvation is not merely uncertain but utterly non-existent, because salvation belongs to the Lord and the salvation of man is vain. And so whoever places his hope in man — even in one whom he knows to be just and innocent — is cursed. Whence also the apostle Paul rebukes those who said they were of Paul, and says:
'Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?' Wherefore, if those who wished to be of Paul were erring, and unless they were corrected would perish, what hope, pray, is there for those who seek to be of Donatus? For this is what these men do: that the origin, root, and head of the baptized should be none other than the one by whom he is baptized. Thus it comes about that, since for the most part it is uncertain what sort of man the baptizer is, with an uncertain origin, an uncertain root, an uncertain head, all hope too is uncertain.
And since it can come about that the giver's conscience is criminal and stained, and the receiver is unaware of this, it consequently follows that, with a criminal origin, a criminal root, a criminal head, the hope also of the baptized turns out empty and void — seeing that this man sets down in his letter and says, 'For every thing consists of an origin and a root, and if it does not have a head, it is nothing'; and since he wishes the origin, root, and head of the baptized to be understood as the man by whom he is baptized, what does it profit the wretched baptized man that he is unaware how evil his baptizer is? For he does not know that he has an evil head, or that he is altogether without a head. Yet what hope is there for him whose head, whether he knows it or not, is utterly wicked, or none at all?
Does that very ignorance become a head for him whose own baptizer is either an evil head or no head at all? But whoever supposes this is truly without a head. We therefore ask, since this man has said, 'He who receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt,' and at once linked to it saying, 'For every thing consists of an origin and a root, and if it does not have a head, it is nothing' — we therefore ask: when that faithless baptizer lies hidden, if then the one whom he baptizes receives faith and not guilt, if then his baptizer is not his origin and root and head — from whom does he receive faith, where is the origin from which he arises, where the root from which he sprouts, where the head from which he begins?
Or is it perhaps that, when the one who is baptized is unaware that his baptizer is faithless, then Christ gives faith, then Christ is the origin and root and head? O human rashness and pride! Why do you not rather allow that Christ always gives faith, He who will make a Christian by giving it? Why do you not allow that Christ is always the origin of the Christian, that the Christian fixes his root in Christ, that Christ is the head of the Christian?
For not even when spiritual grace is imparted to believers through a holy and faithful steward does the steward himself justify, but rather that One alone of whom it is said that He justifies the ungodly; nor indeed is the apostle Paul the head and origin of those whom he had planted, nor is Apollos the root of those whom he had watered, but rather He who had given the increase — since the same apostle says: 'I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase; therefore neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase'; nor was he himself their root, but rather He who says: 'I am the vine, you are the branches.'
And how could he be their head, when the same apostle says that we who are many are one body in Christ, and in many places most plainly proclaims that Christ Himself is the head of the whole body? Wherefore, whether one receives the sacrament of baptism from a faithful or from a faithless steward, let all his hope be in Christ, lest he be cursed who places his hope in man.
Otherwise, if each person is reborn in spiritual grace such as is the one by whom he is baptized, and, when the man who baptizes is manifestly good, he himself gives faith, he is the origin and root and head of the one being born, but when the faithless baptizer lies hidden, then each one receives faith from Christ, then draws his origin from Christ, then is rooted in Christ, then glories in Christ as his head — then all who are baptized must labor to have faithless baptizers and to be unaware of them. For however good the ones they may have had, Christ is at any rate incomparably better, and He will then be the head of the baptized, if the faithless baptizer lies hidden.
But if it is most senseless to believe this — for Christ always justifies the ungodly by making a Christian out of the ungodly, faith is always received from Christ, Christ is always the origin of the regenerate and the head of the Church — what weight have those words, which vain readers do not attend to as to what they hold within, but only as to how they sound? He, however, who does not receive the words with the ear alone, but also beholds the meanings with the mind, when he shall hear, 'The giver's conscience is regarded, which washes that of the receiver,' will answer: 'Often the human conscience is unknown to me, but I am certain of Christ's mercy.' When he shall hear, 'He who receives faith from a faithless man does not receive faith but guilt,' will answer:
'Christ, from whom I receive faith and not guilt, is not faithless.' When he shall hear, 'For every thing consists of an origin and a root, and if it does not have a head, it is nothing,' he will answer: 'My origin is Christ, my root is Christ, my head is Christ.' When he shall hear, 'Nor does anything rightly regenerate unless it be regenerated by a good seed,' he will answer: 'The seed by which I am regenerated is the word of God, which I was admonished to hear obediently, even if he through whom I hear does not himself do what he says to me — the Lord saying and making me secure: What they say, do; what they do, do not do; for they say and do not do.' When he shall hear:
'What perversity can there be, that one who is guilty by his own crimes should make another innocent?' — he will answer: 'None makes me innocent except Him who died for our offenses and rose again for our justification. For I do not believe in the minister through whom I am baptized, but in Him who justifies the ungodly, that faith may be reckoned to me for righteousness.' When he shall hear, 'A good tree produces good fruit, a bad tree produces bad fruit. Do they gather grapes from thorns?' and, 'Every good man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth evil things,' he will answer: 'This then is the good fruit — that I should be a good tree; that is, a good man — that I should offer good fruit; that is, good works.'
But this shall be given me not by him who plants nor by him who waters, but by God who gives the increase. For if the good tree is a good baptizer, so that his fruit is good — namely, the one whom he baptizes — then whoever shall have been baptized by an evil man, even one not manifest, will be unable to be good, for he has sprung from an evil tree (for a good tree is one thing, a hidden yet evil tree another); or else, if, when the evil tree is hidden, whoever shall have been baptized by it is born not from it but from Christ, then those who are baptized by hidden evil men are more holily justified than those who are baptized by manifestly good men. Likewise, when he shall hear, 'He who is baptized by a dead man — his washing does not profit him,' he will answer:
'Christ lives, He dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him — He of whom it is said: It is He who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' But those are baptized by dead men who are baptized in the temples of idols. For not even they themselves suppose that they receive from their priests the sanctification they imagine, but from their gods. And since these were men and so died that they are neither above the earth nor in the rest of heaven, they are truly baptized by dead men — unless in some other way these words of holy Scripture can be truly inquired into and wholesomely examined and understood.
For if in this place I understand a dead man to mean a sinful baptizer, that same absurdity will follow: that whoever shall have been baptized even by a hidden ungodly man, as though baptized by a dead man, has been washed to no purpose. For he did not say, 'He who is baptized by a manifestly dead man,' but said absolutely, 'by a dead man.' But if they think each man dead at the time when they know him to be a sinner, yet living even if the wicked man most cunningly lies hidden in their communion, then in the first place, by an execrable pride they arrogate more to themselves than they attribute to God — that when the sinner is known to them, he is called dead, but when he is known to God, he is reckoned alive.
Next, if that sinner is to be called dead who is known to men, what will they answer concerning Optatus, whom they feared to condemn for a long time as a scoundrel known to themselves? Why are those who were baptized by him not said to be baptized by a dead man? Or was he alive because God was his companion? — a thing which they themselves are wont to bandy about and praise, wittily and elegantly said by some chief man or other, their colleague, not understanding that by the outcome of most arrogant Goliath his head is carried off by his own sword.
Finally, if they are unwilling to call dead either the hidden scoundrel or the manifest one who has nevertheless not yet been condemned by them, but only the one both manifest and condemned — so that whoever is baptized by him is himself baptized by a dead man, and his washing profits him nothing — what will they say concerning those whom, as they said, by the truth-speaking mouth of their plenary council they condemned together with Maximian and the rest of his ordainers, namely Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras, of whom I speak for the present, who are named among the twelve ordainers of Maximian and erectors of an altar against their altar at which Primianus presides? These men certainly are reckoned by them among the dead.
Witness is that famous sentence of their council, which once, when it was read out among them to be decreed, they acclaimed with fullest voice, but now, if perchance it be read out to them by us, they fall silent — whereas they ought rather at first not to have rejoiced in it as eloquent, lest afterward they should bewail it as made notorious. For there, concerning the Maximianists excluded from the fellowship of their communion, they say thus: that limbs shipwrecked upon the rough crags of certain men were cast forth by the truth-speaking wave, and, quite after the manner of the Egyptians, the shores are full of the corpses of the perishing, for whom in their very death the punishment is greater, in that after the soul has been wrested from them by the avenging waters, they do not even find burial itself.
Thus indeed do these men insult their own schismatics, so as to call them both dead and unburied. But surely they ought to have wished them buried, lest out of the multitude of unburied corpses lying on the shore, Gildonian Optatus, advancing with a band of soldiers like a raging billow leaping still further onward, should afterward suck Felicianus and Praetextatus back within. Of these I ask whether, by passing over to their sea, they came back to life, or whether they still remain dead there. For if they are nonetheless corpses, the washing profits nothing to those who are baptized by these dead men; but if they came back to life, how does the washing profit those whom, while they lay lifeless outside, they had baptized beforehand — if it must be understood in the way they think: 'He who
is baptized by a dead man — what does his washing profit him?' For those whom Praetextatus and Felicianus baptized while they still communicated with Maximian, they now hold within themselves, unrebaptized, mingled into their own communion together with those same baptizers of theirs, that is, with Felicianus and Praetextatus.
On the occasion of this deed, were they not to foster the primacy of their own obstinacy but rather to consider the so-certain ruin of their own spiritual salvation, they surely ought to wake up and, with sanity of mind recovered, to breathe again in Catholic peace — if, laying aside the swelling of pride and overcoming the fury of stubbornness, they were willing to consider with what monstrous sacrilege the baptism of the churches beyond the sea (which from the holy books we have received to be the earliest founded) is execrated, while the baptism of the Maximianists, whom by their own mouth they condemned, is received. But our brethren themselves, the sons of the aforesaid churches, both then knew not and now know not what was done in Africa so many years ago;
whence the crimes which were objected against the Africans by their party, even if they were true, could not, in their ignorance, contaminate them. But these men, openly separated and divided, though they are said even to have taken part in Primianus's ordination, condemned Primianus, ordained another bishop against Primianus, baptized apart from Primianus, rebaptized after Primianus, and with their own who had been baptized by them outside and were rebaptized within by no one, returned to Primianus. If so great a conjunction with the Maximianists does not stain the Donatists, how could the reputation of the Africans stain foreigners?
If in the kiss of peace lips that condemned one another come together without crime, why is each person condemned by them in churches very far removed indeed in their judgment, across the sea, not kissed as a faithful Catholic but blown upon as an impious pagan? But if for their unity's sake they made peace with the Maximianists once received back, behold, we do not reprove it — except that by their own judgment they cut their own throats, in that, when for the sake of the unity of their own faction they gather back what had been cut off from them again, they yet disdain to mend that very cutting-off of theirs into true unity.
If, for the sake of the unity of the party of Donatus, no one rebaptizes those baptized in a wicked schism, and the guilty of so great a crime — such that in their own council they compared them to those ancient authors of schism whom the earth swallowed up alive — are either, when separated, not punished, or, when condemned, restored to the whole; why not for the sake of the unity of Christ, which is spread over the whole earth, of which it was foretold that He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth (and what was foretold is seen and proved to be fulfilled) — why then is not, for the sake of this true and full unity, the law of that inheritance acknowledged, which resounds from the common codices: 'I will give You the nations as Your inheritance and the ends of the earth as Your possession'?
— For the sake of Donatus's unity they are not compelled to recall what they scattered, but only admonished to give ear to what the Scriptures cry aloud — why do they not understand that this was done to them by the mercy of God: that, since they were accusing the Catholic Church of false crimes, by whose contagion, as it were, they were unwilling to have their excessive sanctity contaminated, they should be compelled, through the reign of Gildonian Optatus, again to receive and to ally to themselves the true and greatest crimes condemned, as they say, by the truth-speaking mouth of their plenary council?
Let them at last perceive how they are filled with the true crimes of their own men, they who fabricate false ones against their brethren — crimes which, even had they spoken them truly, they ought at last to perceive how much must be borne for the sake of peace, and for the peace of Christ to return to the Church that has not condemned things unknown, if for the peace of Donatus it seemed good to recall things condemned. And so, brethren, let this one thing, which was done concerning the Maximianists among them, suffice us for admonishing and correcting them. We do not rummage through old archives, we do not fan out ancient cabinets, we do not send our proof into distant lands, but we set aside all the documents of our forebears, we defer the testimonies crying out over the whole earth. Behold the cities of Musti and Assuras!
There still survive in this life and in this province those who separated themselves and those from whom they were separated, those who erected an altar and those against whom they erected it, those who condemned and those who were condemned, those who received back and those who were received, those who were baptized outside and were not rebaptized within: if these things stain for the sake of unity, let the stained hush their voice; if these things do not stain for the sake of unity, let the corrected drop their quarrel. Now let the very man who wrote it deride the words of his own letter — he who, by a testimony ignorantly and mendaciously usurped, which he cites as written, 'He who is baptized by a dead man — what does his washing profit him?' — endeavors to show us in what way a traditor is held to be dead in life, and adds, saying:
'Dead is that man who did not merit to be born by true baptism; dead likewise is that man who, begotten by just baptism, has been mingled with a traditor.' If, then, the Maximianists are not dead, why do they say in their plenary council that the shores are full of the corpses of those perishing among them? But if they are dead, whence lives the baptism which they gave? Next, if Maximian is not dead, why is there rebaptism after him? But if he is dead, why has not Felicianus of Musti, his ordainer, died with him; and could a man from across the sea die together with some African traditor or other as his colleague? Or if he too is dead, whence do there live among you, within, unrebaptized, those who were baptized outside by that dead man? Then he added:
'Both lack the life of baptism — both he who never had it at all and he who had it and lost it.' Never, then, did he have it whom Maximianist Felicianus or Praetextatus baptized outside; but they themselves had lost what they once had. When, then, these men were received back with their own, who gave to those they had baptized what they did not have, and who restored to these very men what they had lost? But if they carried off with them the form of baptism, yet lost the very power of baptism through the evil schism, why do you blow away in Catholics whom you have not heard that very form which is always and everywhere holy, and embrace it in Maximianists whom you have punished?
But whatever he seemed to himself to say by way of accusation concerning Judas the traditor, what does it pertain to us — we who are neither proved traditors by them, nor, if the treason of any who died before us in our communion were proved, would even that treason, disproved and displeasing to us, stain us in any part? For if they themselves are not stained by crimes condemned by them and yet received back, how much less shall we be able to be stained by things heard and disapproved! However much, then, he inveighs against traditors, let him reckon that in just so many words they too are accused by me.
But indeed I draw this distinction: he brings a charge against a man in my presence whom my own judgement never condemned, since he had long since died; whereas I point to a man clinging to his own side, one whom, though he was condemned by himself or at any rate cut off by a sacrilegious schism, he took back without any diminution of his honour. 'You,' he says, 'a most wicked traitor to us who keep the law, have shown yourself a persecutor and executioner.' If the Maximianists kept the law when they were separated from you, then be you too a keeper of the law, seeing that you are separated from the Church which is spread abroad throughout the whole world. But if you press the matter of persecutions, I quickly reply: if you have suffered anything unjustly, that does not concern those who, doing such things (however wrongly) for the sake of peace, nevertheless praiseworthily tolerate them for the unity's sake.
Wherefore you have nothing to cast in the teeth of the Lord's wheat, which bears with its own chaff until the final winnowing—wheat from which you would never have departed, had you not, as the lighter chaff, been blown away by the wind of temptation even before the coming of the winnower.
But that I may not depart from this one example—which the Lord has thrown back into their faces to shut their mouths, and either, if they are wise, to correct them, or, if they persist in their perversity, to confound them—if those who suffer persecution are more righteous than those who inflict it, then by that same reckoning the Maximianists are the more righteous: their basilica was razed to its foundations, they were grievously harried by the military escort of Optatus, and it is well known that decrees of the proconsul were obtained by the Primianists to expel them all from the basilicas. Wherefore, if under emperors who abhorred their communion they dared so much to persecute the Maximianists, what would they do, if it were granted them to accomplish anything through the fellowship of kings?
But if they did these things in order to correct the wicked, why do they marvel if Catholic emperors decree that those who attempt to rebaptize the whole Christian world are to be pressed and corrected with greater power—men who have no cause for dissenting, seeing that they themselves testify that even the wicked, even if true crimes were charged against them, ought nevertheless to be tolerated for the sake of peace, since they received back those whom they had condemned, together with their honours and with the baptism conferred outside? Let them consider at last what treatment the enemies of Christian unity, which is diffused throughout the whole world, deserve to suffer at the hands of the Christian powers of the whole earth.
Now therefore, if their correction is slow in coming, let at least shame be present, lest, when they themselves begin to read the very things they write, laughter overcome them—since they do not recognize in themselves what they wish to seem to see in others, nor recognize in themselves what they cast up against others. What then does he mean, who put in his letter the Lord's words to the Jews: 'Therefore I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some ye shall scourge'? For if they wish themselves to be understood as the wise men and scribes and prophets, and us as the persecutors of the wise and the prophets, why are they unwilling to speak with us, seeing that they were sent to us?
In short, the man who wrote that letter to which we are now replying—if he were pressed by us to acknowledge it as his own by signing it with his own hand, perhaps he would not do it; so much do they fear lest we should get hold of any of their words. For when we wished somehow to obtain the latter part of that same letter—since those who gave it to us were unable to copy out the whole—no one from whom it was sought was willing to give it, after they had learned that we were replying to that part which we had reached. And so, when they read how the Lord says to the prophet: