When we transact these things with you and with all whom we desire to gain for Christ, and, among other matters, preach the holy Church, which we read to have been promised in the writings of God, and which, just as it was promised, we discern to be rendered among all nations, we have earned flames of hatred, in return for thanksgiving, from those whom we desire to be drawn to its peaceful bosom — as though we had bound them fast in that portion for which they can find nothing to say, or as though we had given command so long beforehand to prophets and apostles, that they should set down in their books no testimonies whereby the party of Donatus might be taught to be the Church of Christ.
And we indeed, dearly beloved, when we hear false charges from those whom we have offended by preaching the oracles of truth and by convicting the vain talk of error, we have, as ye know, most abundant consolation. For if, in those things wherein they accuse me, the testimony of my conscience does not stand against me in the sight of God, unto whom no mortal eye is directed, not only ought I not to be saddened, but I ought even to rejoice and exult, because 'my reward is great in the heavens.' For it is not to be considered how bitter, but how false is that which I hear, and how truthful is he for whose name I hear this, and of whom it is said: 'Thy name is as ointment poured forth.'
And with good reason he is fragrant among all nations, whose odor these men who curse us try to shut up in one little part of Africa. Why therefore should we bear it with indignation that they defame us, who so detract from the glory of Christ, to whose party and strife that is hostile which was foretold so long before concerning his ascension to the heavens and the pouring forth of his name as of an ointment: 'Be thou exalted above the heavens, O God, and thy glory above all the earth'? Bringing forward these and such divine testimonies against human vain talk, we endure bitter reproaches from the enemies of the glory of Christ: let them say what they will, so long as He exhorts us, saying: 'Blessed are they which suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'
'Blessed shall ye be, when they shall persecute you and shall revile us and shall say all manner of evil against you, lying, for my sake.' What he said above, 'for righteousness' sake,' this he repeated in what he said afterward, 'for my sake,' because he 'is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that, as it is written, he that glorieth may glory in the Lord.' Since he says, 'Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in the heavens,' if I hold in a good conscience that which was said 'for righteousness' sake' and 'for my sake,' whosoever willingly detracts from my fame, unwillingly adds to my reward. For neither did he teach me only by his word, and not also confirm me by his example. Follow the faith of the holy Scriptures:
thou wilt find that Christ rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Follow the accusations of his enemies: now thou wilt suppose him to have been stolen from the tomb by his disciples. What then ought we, defending — as far as he himself grants — his house from his enemies, to hope for otherwise? If they called the head of the household Beelzebub, how much more them of his household! If therefore we endure, we shall also reign together; but if not only does the anger of the accuser strike the ear, but the truth of the charge also gnaws the conscience, what does it profit me if the whole world extol me with continual praises? Thus neither does the proclamation of a praiser heal an evil conscience, nor does the reproach of a reviler wound a good one.
Nor yet is your hope, which is in the Lord, thus deceived, even if perchance in secret we are such as the enemy desires us to be thought, because ye have not placed it in us, nor ever heard this from us. Ye are therefore secure, of whatever sort we may be, ye who have learned to say: 'Hoping in the Lord, I shall not be moved,' and: 'In God I will hope, I will not fear what man may do unto me'; and to those who strive to seduce you to the earthly heights of proud men, ye know how to reply: 'In the Lord I trust. How say ye to my soul: Flee unto the mountain as a sparrow?'
Not only are ye — to whom the very truth of Christ that is in us is pleasing, however much and wherever it is preached through us, and because ye gladly hear it through the ministry of our tongue, however small, and therefore think well and kindly even of us — secure, of whatever sort we may be, because your hope is in Him whom we preach to you out of His mercy over you; but also whosoever of you have, through our dispensation, received even the sacrament of holy baptism, rejoice with the same security, since ye have been baptized not in us but in Christ. Therefore ye have put on not us but Christ; nor did I ask whether ye were being converted to me, but to the living God; nor whether ye believed in me, but in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
But if with a truthful mind ye have answered, ye have been saved not by the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but by the interrogation of a good conscience — not by a fellow-servant, but by the Lord; not by a herald, but by the Judge. For neither truly, as Petilianus inconsiderately said, is the conscience of the giver, or what he added, 'the (holy) conscience of the giver,' regarded, 'which may wash the one receiving.' For when that which is God's is given, even a conscience not holy gives what is holy. And this conscience certainly, whether it be holy or not holy, cannot be inspected by the receiver; but plainly that which is given can be inspected, which, being known to Him who is always holy, through whatever sort of minister it be received, is received most securely. For unless the words were holy from the chair of Moses, the Truth would not say:
'What they say, do.' But if those very men who gave the holy words were holy, He would not say: 'But what they do, do not ye. For they say and do not.' For in no way is a grape gathered from thorns, since it never springs from the roots of thorns; but when the branch of a vine has entwined itself among thorny hedges, the fruit that hangs there is not on that account shrunk from, but the thorn is guarded against, the grape is plucked. Therefore, as I have often said and vehemently inculcate, of whatever sort we may be, ye are secure who have God for Father and His Church for mother. For although the kids are pastured together with the sheep, they shall not stand at the right hand; although the chaff is threshed together with the wheat, it shall not enter into the barn;
although the bad fish swim within the Lord's nets together with the good, they shall not be put into the vessels. Let no man glory even in a good man, let no man flee the good things of God even in an evil man. Let these things suffice you, most beloved Catholic Christian brethren, for the present business. If ye retain these with Catholic love, since ye are one flock of one shepherd, secure, I do not overmuch care that some enemy reviles me, or your fellow-member, or at least your dog, provided he compel me to bark rather for your defense than for my own.
Yet if for the sake of the case there were need of such a defence, I would use a very brief and very easy one, namely by condemning and detesting, together with everyone else, the whole period of my life before I received the baptism of Christ, so far as concerns my own lusts and errors, lest in defending that time I should seem to seek my own glory and not the glory of Him who by His grace freed me both from myself and from my own self. Hence, when I hear that former life of mine reproached, with whatever spirit he does it who does this, I am not so ungrateful as to grieve; for as much as he accuses my vice, so much do I praise my Physician. Why then should I still labour to defend those past and abolished evils of mine, concerning which Petilianus has indeed said many false things, but has not said the many that were true?
As for the period of my life after baptism, to you who know me at all I speak superfluously out of those things that can be known to men; but those who do not know me ought not to be so unjust toward me as to believe Petilianus about me rather than you. For if a praising friend is not to be believed, neither is a disparaging enemy. There remain those things that are a man's secrets, where conscience alone is witness—a conscience which cannot be a witness before men. In these Petilianus says I am a Manichaean, speaking of another's conscience; this I say I am not, speaking of my own conscience. Choose whom you will believe.
But since even this brief and easy defence of myself is not what is needed, where the question turns not on the merit of any single man, but on the truth of the holy Church, I must say still more to you—to all of you who in the party of Donatus have read the curses that Petilianus wrote against me, which I would not hear from him if I despised your perdition, if I had not within me the bowels of Christian charity. What wonder is it, then, if, when I drag the grains that have been threshed from the Lord's threshing-floor inside together with the earth and the chaff, I endure the injury of the rebounding dust; or, when I diligently seek out my Lord's lost sheep, I am torn by the brambles of thorny tongues?
I beseech you, lay aside for a little while your partisan zeal, and judge between me and Petilianus with some measure of fairness. I want you to know the cause of the Church; he wants you to know my cause. To what end—except that, concerning the witnesses of mine whom I steadfastly bring forward in the Church's cause, he does not dare to say, 'Do not believe them' (for they are the prophets and the apostles, and Christ Himself, the Lord of prophets and apostles), whereas whatever he chooses to say about me you readily believe—one man against another man, and yours against a stranger?
And if I bring forward any witnesses to my life, what great thing is it for him to say that they are not to be believed, and to persuade you of this quickly, especially since anyone who says a single word on my behalf will at once be reckoned an enemy of the party of Donatus, and thereby your enemy? And so Petilianus reigns; whenever he hurls any insults against me, you all applaud and clap for him. He has found for himself a case that can be won—but with you as the judges; he requires neither witness nor argument, since for him it is enough to prove what he says merely because he heaps the most abundant curses upon the one you hate most.
For since, when the testimonies of the divine Scriptures are recited so thickly and so clearly on behalf of the Catholic Church, he remains mute to your grief, he has chosen a subject matter in which he may speak, with you favouring him, even when he is defeated. But even if he should say against me a thousand times as many such things, or even more wicked ones, it is enough for me for the matter I am now pleading, that whatever sort of man I may be within it, yet the Church for which I speak is unconquered. For I am a man from the threshing-floor of Christ—chaff if I am evil, grain if I am good.
The tongue of Petilianus is not the winnowing-fan of this threshing-floor; and therefore, whatever evil, even truly, he may say against its chaff, it in no way prejudices its wheat; and whatever curses and calumnies he may cast against the wheat itself, their faith is exercised on earth and their reward is increased in heaven. For to the holy servants of God, waging war holily for God, whatever charges are hurled by enemies—not against Petilianus and flesh and blood of this kind, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of such darkness (such as are all the adversaries of truth, to whom would that we might say:
'You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord')—to those servants of God waging this warfare, whatever slanderous insults are spoken by enemies, which among the malicious and rashly credulous produce an evil reputation, are weapons on the left; even by these the devil is vanquished. For when we are tested by good reputation, whether we do not lift ourselves up into pride, and are tested by evil reputation, whether we love the very enemies by whom these things are fabricated against us, then by the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left we conquer the devil. And when the apostle had mentioned these, saying: 'through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,' at once, as though explaining what he had said:
'through glory,' he says, 'and dishonour, through evil report and good report,' and other such things—counting glory and good report among the weapons on the right, but dishonour and ill report among those on the left. If, therefore, I am a servant of God and a soldier not disqualified, however eloquent a reviler Petilianus may prove against me, ought I to take it ill that a most skilful maker of left-hand weapons has been procured for me? I need to fight with these most skilfully in the help of my Lord, and to strike with them the one against whom I contend invisibly, who with most perverse and most ancient cunning craftily aims and works, that on account of these things I may hate Petilianus, and thus be unable to fulfil the command of Christ, who says: 'Love your enemies.'
May His mercy turn this from me—the mercy of Him who loved me and gave Himself for me, that hanging on the cross He might say: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,' and might teach me to say concerning Petilianus and such enemies of mine: 'Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they speak.' Accordingly, if I obtain from you what I have aimed at—that, with all partisan zeal removed from your minds, you should be fair judges between me and Petilianus—I will show you that he did not answer my writings, so that you may understand that, compelled by lack of truth, he abandoned the case and turned upon the man, who so pleaded it that he could not answer, hurling what curses he could.
Although the things I am going to say shine with such great clearness that, even if through partisan zeal and hatred of me your minds are alienated from me, yet if only you read both sides, you will surely, within your own hearts, confess that I have spoken the truth. For I, replying to the first part of his writings, which had then come into my hands, passing over the abusive and sacrilegious verbiage where he says: 'These men throw baptism twice in our teeth—men who under the name of baptism have polluted their souls in a guilty washing; than whom all filth is indeed cleaner, whom by a perverse cleanness their own water has managed to defile'—I judged that what follows was to be examined and refuted, where he says:
'For the conscience of the giver is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver'—and I asked: whence is he to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted, and the one who is about to receive it is ignorant of this? Read now his most abundant curses which, puffed up and enraged, he poured out against me, and see whether he answered my question—whence he is to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted and the receiver is ignorant of it. I beseech you, search attentively, sift through all the pages, count all the little lines, turn over all the words, unravel all the syllables, and tell me, if you find it, where he answered: when the giver's conscience is polluted, whence is that man's conscience to be cleansed who is ignorant, in receiving, of this?
For what did it matter to the case that he added a word which he said had been suppressed by me, and thus contended that he had written it thus: 'For the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver'? For, that you may know it was not suppressed by me, the addition in no way hinders my inquiry, in no way relieves his failure. For I question again about those very words and ask whether he answered them: if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, whence is the receiver's conscience cleansed when the giver's conscience is stained and the one about to receive is ignorant of this? Demand that this be answered, and do not permit him, abandoning the case, to be abusively led away against the man.
If the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded—notice that I did not say 'the conscience of the giver,' but I added 'of the one who gives holily'—if, I say, the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, whence then is he to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted and the one who is about to receive is ignorant of this? Let him go now, and with panting lungs and swollen throat accuse me as though I were a dialectician—nay, not me, but let him summon dialectic itself, as though it were a contriver of lies, before the popular tribunal as a defendant, and against it let him stretch wide the mouth of a forensic advocate with whatever crashing din. Let him say whatever he pleases before the unlearned, at which the learned are disgusted and the untaught are deluded.
Let him brand me with a title on account of the rhetoric of the orator Tertullus, by whom Paul was accused; let him impose upon himself, on account of his advocacy in which he once boasted of his power, the name of Paraclete, and on this account let him rave that he is not, but was, a namesake of the Holy Spirit. Let him most gladly exaggerate the uncleannesses of the Manichaeans and try, by barking, to twist them against me. Let him recite the deeds of condemned men, unknown to me and known, and let him turn to the slander of a prejudged charge—by some new right of his own—the fact that a man once my friend there named me, though absent, rather for his own defence. Let him read out the titles of my letters inscribed by himself or by his people as it pleased them, and let him exult as though he had caught me confessing in them.
Let him defame with the ridiculous name of poisonous baseness and madness the eulogia of bread given simply and cheerfully, and let him think so ill from his own heart that he presumes it can be believed that love-charms were given to a woman with her husband not only aware but even favouring it. What he wrote about me while I was still a presbyter—he who, in his wrath, was to be the ordainer of my episcopate—let him wish to avail against me; but what he sought and obtained pardon for from a holy council concerning the way he thus sinned against us, let him not wish to avail on my behalf—so ignorant of, or forgetful of, Christian gentleness and the evangelical precept that he even brings as a charge the very thing that was mercifully pardoned to a brother humbly asking to be forgiven, as though for himself.
Let him proceed also with speech that is wordy but plainly empty in those matters which he utterly does not know, or in which he rather abuses the ignorance of very many; and let him, from the confession of a certain woman who said she had been a catechumen of the Manichaeans—she who had been a nun in the Catholic Church—let him say and write about their baptism whatever pleases him, not knowing, or feigning not to know, that catechumens are not so called there as though baptism were owed to them at some time, but that those are so called who are also called Hearers—namely because they cannot observe the better and greater precepts, so to speak, which are observed by those whom they think are to be distinguished and honoured by the name of the Elect.
Let him also contend, with wonderful rashness—being either deceived or deceiving—that I too was a presbyter of the Manichaeans; let him set forth the words of the fourth book of my Confessions (which in themselves, and from many things said before and after, are most manifest to those who read) under whatever sense seems good to him, and let him accuse me; finally, let him exult as victor over me as a thief of his own words, because I removed two, as though, once they are restored, he has won. In all these things certainly, as you will be able to learn or recognise by reading, he has exercised the impetus of his tongue with whatever compass of boasting he pleased, yet nowhere did he say whence the receiver's conscience is cleansed, when it is ignorant of the giver's stained one.
But I, amid his uproar or after his great and (as he himself thinks) all too terrible uproar, slowly (as they say) and well repeat this very thing, so that I demand of him that he at least answer this: 'If the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, whence is he to be cleansed who is ignorant of the giver's stained conscience?' And throughout his whole letter I find nothing said to this. Now perhaps one of you will say to me: 'All these things that he said against you he wished to avail to this end, that he might deface you, and through you those with whom you are in communion, so that neither they themselves nor those whom you strive to bring over into your communion should any longer think you to be of any importance.
But for the rest, since he set forth the words of your letter, from that very point it must be considered whether he answered nothing to them.' Let us then do this: let us consider his writings precisely from that very place. Setting aside, then, the preface, by which I wished to prepare the reader's mind, and passing over his first few words, which are insulting rather than pertinent to the matter, he says—I say—'For the conscience of the giver is regarded, which cleanses that of the receiver.' What if the giver's conscience lies hidden and is perhaps stained—how will it be able to cleanse the receiver's conscience, if, as he says, the giver's conscience is what is regarded, which cleanses that of the receiver?
For if he should say that whatever evil lay hidden in the giver's conscience does not pertain to the receiver, then that ignorance will perhaps avail to this—that the receiver, being unaware, cannot be stained by his baptiser's conscience. Let it suffice, then, that another's stained conscience, when unknown, does not stain; but can it also cleanse? Whence, then, is he to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted and the one who is about to receive it is ignorant of this—especially when he adds and says: 'For whoever receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt'? All these words Petilianus set forth from my writings as things to be refuted. Let us therefore see whether he refuted them, whether he answered at all.
For I add the words which he falsely charges me with having suppressed, and I repeat those very words thus, or even more briefly—for by adding these two words he has helped me greatly toward the brevity of this proposition: if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, and if he who knowingly receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt, whence is the receiver's conscience cleansed, when it is ignorant of the giver's stained one, and when it unknowingly receives faith from a faithless man? I ask: whence is it cleansed?
Let him tell us; let him not turn aside to something else; let him not spread mists before the unlearned; let him at last, after interposing and completing many winding circuits, at some point tell us: whence is the receiver's conscience cleansed, when the stained conscience of the faithless baptiser is hidden, if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, and if he who knowingly receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt? For he unknowingly receives from a faithless man who does not have the conscience of one giving holily, but a stained and hidden one. Whence, then, is he cleansed; whence does he receive faith?
For if he is neither cleansed then nor then receives faith, when the faithless and stained baptiser is hidden, why, after that man is afterward exposed and condemned, is he not baptised anew, that he may be cleansed and receive faith? But if, while that faithless and stained man was hidden, this man is cleansed and receives faith, whence is he cleansed, whence does he receive it, where there is not the conscience of one giving holily to cleanse that of the receiver? Let him say this; let him answer this: whence is he cleansed, whence does he receive it, if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, and this is not there, when the stained and faithless baptiser was hidden? Nothing at all has been answered to this.
But behold, hemmed in on the case, he again makes upon me a foggy and windy assault, so that the serenity of truth may be obscured, and in utter poverty he becomes abundant—not by saying true things, but by vomiting up empty curses. Hold firmly, then, most attentively and most strongly, what he ought to answer—namely, whence the receiver's conscience is cleansed when the giver's stained conscience is hidden—lest perchance his breath shake this out of your hands, and you yourselves be swept away by the dark tempest of his turbid speech, so that you know not at all either whence there has been a departure or whither there ought to be a return; and see the man wander wherever he can, while he cannot stand for the business he undertook. See how many things he says while having nothing to say.
He says that I slip about slipperily, but am held; that I neither build up nor confirm what I object; that I devise uncertainties for certainties; that I do not permit readers to believe what is true, but make them suspect doubtful things all the more deeply; he says that I have the damnable genius of the Academic Carneades; he even tries to insinuate what the Academics hold about the falsity or deceptiveness of human sense; even in these things, wholly ignorant of what he is saying, he asserts that they say snows are black when they are white, and silver black, that a tower seems round or smooth when it is long, an oar broken in the water when it is whole. And all this because, when he had said 'the conscience of the giver' or 'of the one who gives holily is regarded, which cleanses that of the receiver,' I said on the contrary:
'What if the giver's conscience lies hidden and is perhaps stained?' Are these the black snows and the black silver and the round tower for the long one and the oar broken in the water for the whole one? For I stated a thing which can be supposed, and cannot fail to be—that the giver's conscience may lie hidden and may perhaps be stained. And he follows himself up and cries out: 'What is «what if,» what is «perhaps,» but the uncertain and inconstant hesitation of a doubter?—concerning which that man of yours says: «What if I now return to those who say: What if now the sky should fall?»' Is this thing I said—'What if the giver's conscience lies hidden and is perhaps stained?'—such as if I had said: 'What if now the sky should fall?' It was certainly said 'what if.'
—because it can happen that it lies hidden, and it can happen that it does not lie hidden. For when it is unknown what he is thinking or what he has committed, the giver's conscience certainly lies hidden from the receiver; but when his sin is made manifest, it does not lie hidden. It was said 'and is perhaps stained,' because it can happen that it lies hidden and is clean, and again it can happen that it lies hidden and is stained. Therefore 'what if,' therefore 'perhaps.' Is this at all like 'What if now the sky should fall'? O how often men have been both convicted and have confessed that they had stained and adulterous consciences, when the unwitting were being baptised by them, and afterwards, the crime being made manifest, they were degraded—and yet the sky did not fall!
What do Philus and Furius do here, who defended injustice against justice? What does the atheist Protagoras do here, who denied that God exists, so that the prophet seems to have prophesied about him: 'The fool said in his heart: There is no God'? What do these men do here—to what end were they named—except to intervene on behalf of a man who has nothing to say, so that, while at least something is said without cause about these matters, the case may seem to be pleaded, and it may be believed that an answer has been given where none was given? Finally, if those two or three words 'what if' and 'perhaps' are so intolerable that on their account there should be roused