He who was caught up unto the third heaven says: 'But neither do I judge my own self'; and do you dare to pass sentence upon the whole earth, over which the inheritance of Christ is spread abroad? Furthermore, if what you said seems to you sufficiently decisive—'whoever has not been innocent has no holiness'—I ask: if Saul did not have the holiness of the sacrament, what did David venerate in him? But if he did have innocence, why did he persecute an innocent man? For on account of the most sacred anointing, David both honored him alive and avenged him slain; and because he had cut off even a little patch from his garment, he trembled with a stricken heart.
Behold, Saul did not have innocence, and yet he had holiness—not that of his own life, for this no one can have without innocence, but that of the sacrament of God, which is holy even in evil men. Petilian said: For if you know the law of the faithless, without injury to the law itself let me say this: the devil too knows it. For to the Lord God, in the cause of righteous Job, he answered from the law as though he were righteous, as it is written: 'The Lord said to the devil: Hast thou regarded My servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth, a man without malice, a true worshipper of God, abstaining from all evil, persevering in simplicity? But thou hast asked that thou mayst destroy all his substance without cause.' And the devil answered and said to the Lord:
'Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his life.' Behold, he speaks according to the Law who strives against the Law. And again he has dared to assail the Lord Christ with his own words, as it is written: 'The devil took Jesus into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: Cast thyself down; for it is written that he has given his angels charge concerning thee, that they should bear thee up in their hands, lest perchance thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said: It is written again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' You know, I say, how the devil knew the Law — he who is overcome in his attempts and blushes in his deeds. Augustine replied:
I could indeed ask of you in what law those words were written which the devil spoke when he accused the holy man Job before God — if my purpose were to prove that you yourself do not know the very law which you say the devil knows. But since that is not the question between us, I pass it by. Yet you have tried to show the devil learned in the law as though we asserted that all who know the words of the law are righteous. What benefit, then, your wish to make mention of the devil brings you, I do not see, unless perhaps it be to bring to our mind how you yourselves imitate that very devil.
For as he brought forth the words of the law against the Lawgiver, so you too accuse with words of the law men whom you do not know, that you may resist the promises of God which are written in that very law. Next, I would have you tell me: those confessors of yours, when they hurl themselves down, to whom do they render their martyrdom — to Christ, who thrust back the devil suggesting such things, or rather to the devil himself, who suggested to Christ that such things be done? There are two deaths, most base and most usual, of those who slay themselves: the noose and the precipice. You yourself said in the earlier parts of this letter: 'The traitor perished by a noose; he left the noose for such men.' This does not concern us at all;
for we do not venerate under the name of martyrs those who have tied a rope about their own necks. But with how much more likelihood do we say against you: 'The devil, master of the traitor, wished to persuade Christ to the precipice, and was thrust back!' What then must be said of those to whom he did persuade this, and was listened to? What indeed but enemies of Christ, yet friends of the devil, disciples of the seducer, fellow-disciples of the traitor? For both learned self-chosen deaths from one master: the one the noose, these the precipice. Petilian said: But that we may demolish your claims one by one — if you call yourselves priests, thus has it been spoken by the Lord God through the prophet: 'The vengeance of the Lord upon false priests.' Augustine replied:
Seek rather what truth you may speak, not whence you may curse; and what you may teach, not what you may cast up as reproach. Petilian said: If you wretched men lay claim to a chair, as we said above, you assuredly possess that one which David the psalmist-prophet declared to be the chair of pestilence. For it was rightly left to us, since the saints cannot sit in it. Augustine replied: And do you not see that these too are no proofs of any kind, but empty reproaches? For this is that very thing which I said a little before: you speak the words of the law, but you take no heed against whom you speak them — just as the devil spoke the words of the law, but did not recognize to whom he was speaking.
He wished to cast down our Head, who was to ascend on high; you, however, wish to reduce to a tiny part the body of that same Head, which is spread through the whole earth. Surely you yourself said a little before that we know the law and speak according to the law, but blush in our deeds. You say these things indeed, proving nothing; and even if you should prove them concerning some, you would not thereby prescribe against all these others.
Nevertheless, even if all men throughout the whole world were such as you most vainly accuse them of being, what has the chair done to you — the chair of the Roman church, in which Peter sat and in which today Anastasius sits; or of the Jerusalem church, in which James sat and in which today John sits — with which we are joined in catholic unity, and from which you have separated yourselves in wicked madness? Why do you call the chair of pestilence the apostolic chair? If it be on account of the men whom you suppose to speak the law and not do it, did the Lord Jesus Christ do any injury to the chair in which they sat, on account of the Pharisees, of whom he said: 'For they say and do not'? Did he not commend that chair of Moses, and rebuke those men while preserving the honour of the chair? For he says:
'They sit in the chair of Moses. What they say, do; but what they do, do not do. For they say and do not.' If you would consider these things, you would not blaspheme, on account of the men whom you defame, the apostolic chair with which you have no communion. But what else is this than not to know what to say, and yet to be able to do nothing but curse? Petilian said: If you judge yourselves to offer sacrifices — for concerning you most wicked men God himself thus speaks: 'The malefactor,' he says, 'who sacrifices to me a calf, is as one who slays a dog; and he who offers fine flour, as one who pours out swine's blood' — know your own sacrifice, you who have now poured out human blood — and again: 'Their sacrifices are as the bread of mourning: everyone who eats of it shall be defiled.'
Augustine replied: We say that the sacrifice becomes to each such as is the one who approaches to offer it and such as is the one who approaches to receive it, and that they eat of the sacrifices of such men who approach them being themselves such as those men are. And so, if a bad man offers to God and a good man receives from it, the sacrifice is to each such as each has been, since this too is written: 'To the pure all things are pure.' By this truthful and catholic judgment even you were not polluted by the sacrifice of Optatus, if his deeds displeased you. For indeed his bread was the bread of mourning, under whose iniquities all Africa mourned; but the bread of mourning common to you all, the evil of schism in you all makes it to be.
For according to the sentence of your own council, Felician of Musti poured out human blood. For you said, when you condemned them: 'Their feet are swift to shed blood.' See therefore what manner of sacrifice he offers whom you have for a priest, since you have condemned him as sacrilegious; and if you think this in no way harms you, I ask you, what harm will the vanity of your calumnies do to the whole world? Petilian said: If you make prayer to the Lord or pour out supplication, it profits you nothing at all. For your bloodstained conscience empties out your feeble prayers, since the Lord God hears a pure conscience rather than prayers, the Lord Christ saying:
'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' The will of God is assuredly good. For this reason in the sacred prayer we thus ask: 'Thy will be done in heaven and in earth,' so that, because his will is good, he may bestow upon us those things which are good. You therefore do not do the will of God, since you daily perpetrate evils. Augustine replied: If we too should say all these things against you, would not whoever heard us judge us to be mad wranglers rather than Christian disputants, if he himself is sound? We do not therefore return curse for curse.
For the servant of the Lord must not wrangle, but be gentle to all, apt to teach, correcting with meekness those who think differently. If therefore we should cast up against you those who daily perpetrate evils among you, we wrangle foolishly, accusing some men by means of others; but if we admonish you that, as you do not wish those things cast up against you, so you should not cast up against us things that are another's, we correct you with meekness — in hope that you may some day come to your senses. Petilian said: But if perchance — which I know not — you cast out demons, neither will this profit you, since the demons themselves yield neither to your faith nor to your merits, but are cast out in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Augustine replied:
Thanks be to God, that at last you have confessed that the invoked name of Christ can avail for the salvation of others, even if it be invoked by sinners. From this, then, understand that, when the name of Christ is invoked, the sins of others do not harm the salvation of others. But as for how we invoke the name of Christ, we have no need of your judgment, but of his who is invoked by us; for he alone can know with what heart he is invoked. Yet from his own words we are certain that he is invoked unto salvation by all the nations which are blessed in the seed of Abraham. Petilian said: Even if you should altogether work mighty deeds and miracles, on account of your wickedness not even so does the Lord know you, the Lord himself saying: 'Many will say to me in that day:
Lord, Lord, in thy name we prophesied, and in thy name we cast out demons, and in thy name we did many mighty works. Then will I say to them: I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.' Augustine replied: We acknowledge the words of the Lord. Hence too the Apostle says: 'If I have faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.' This, then, is to be sought: who has charity; you will find that there are none but those who love unity. For as to the casting out of demons and the power of miracles — since very many do not do such things and yet belong to the kingdom of God, while very many do them and do not belong — neither ours nor yours ought to boast, if perchance any can do these things;
seeing that not even the apostles, who could truly do these things in a wholesome and useful manner, did the Lord will to rejoice over such things, when he said to them: 'Do not rejoice in this, that the demons are subject to you; but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven.' Wherefore these things which you have set down out of the Gospel, I too could say to you, if I saw you working the powers of signs, and you to me, if you saw me doing such things. Let us not therefore say to one another things which can also be said from the other side; and, all evasions removed, since we are seeking where the church of Christ is, let us hear him who redeemed her with his own blood, saying: 'You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth.'
Whoever does not commune with this church, which is spread throughout the whole earth, you see with whom he does not commune, if you hear whose these words are. But what is more insane than to commune with the sacraments of the Lord and not to commune with the words of the Lord? These men will surely say: 'In thy name we ate and drank,' and will hear: 'I know you not' — men who eat and drink his body and blood in the sacrament, and do not acknowledge his members spread through the whole world in the Gospel, and therefore are not counted among them in the judgment. Petilian said: But even if, as you yourselves suppose, you follow the Lord's law purely, let us dispute lawfully out of that most holy law itself. The Apostle Paul says: 'The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.' What then does the law say?
'Thou shalt not kill.' Which Cain the parricide did once; but you have killed your brethren more often. Augustine replied: We do not wish to be like you. For there is no lack of things that might be said — as you too say these things — and of things that might be known — for you do not know these things — and of things that might be shown — for you do not show these things. Petilian said: It is said: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Every one of you, even if he be carnally chaste, is spiritually an adulterer, because he adulterates holiness. Augustine replied: These things can be truly said against certain men, both of ours and of yours, who, if they displease both of us, are neither ours nor yours.
But you — what you say against certain men, and do not even prove in their case — you wish to be taken as though you had proved it, not against some who degenerate from the seed of Abraham, but against all the nations which are blessed in the seed of Abraham. Petilian said: It is said: 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' When you lie that we hold your goods with the kings of this world, do you not fabricate falsehoods? Augustine replied: If the things you hold are not ours, neither were those yours which you received from the Maximianists. But if they were yours for the reason that those men made a sacrilegious schism by not communing with the party of Donatus, consider what places you hold and with whose inheritance you do not commune, and think what answer you can make, not to the kings of this world, but to Christ the King.
Of him it is said: 'He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.' By what river indeed, save where he was baptized and where the dove descended upon him — a great token of charity and unity? But you do not commune with this unity, and yet you hold the places of unity, and stir up ill-will against us concerning the kings of this world, when it was you who, by the orders of proconsuls, drove your own schismatics out of the places of the party of Donatus. These are not words flying through the void: men live, cities bear witness, the proconsular and municipal acts are read aloud. Let the calumnious voice be silent at last, casting up the kings of this world against the whole earth — by whose proconsuls the severed portion could not spare the severed.
When therefore we say that you hold what is ours, we are not shown to speak false witness, unless you show that we are not in the church of Christ — which indeed you do not cease to say, but will never be able to show; nay rather, when you say this, you cast the charge of false witness no longer upon us, but upon Christ himself. For we are in the church which was foretold by his own testimony, and where he attested it by his own witnesses, saying: 'You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth.' But you we show to be false witnesses, not only from this — that you resist this truth — but also in that very judgment in which you contended with the schism of Maximian.
For if you were acting according to the law of Christ, how much more fittingly do Christian emperors establish something according to it, if pagan proconsuls can judge according to it! But if you thought that even the laws of the earthly empire were to be taken up as an aid, we do not blame it. Paul did this, when against those who wronged him he testified that he was a Roman citizen. But I ask: by what earthly laws was it enacted that the Maximianists should be driven from their places? You will find none at all. But it was, forsooth, by the laws which were passed against heretics — and among them even against yourselves — that you wished to expel those men; against the weak, as though the more powerful, you prevailed.
Whence those men, because they could do nothing, call themselves innocent, like a wolf under a lion. Yet by the laws passed against you, you certainly could not use them against others save through false witness. For if those laws are truthful, yield up yourselves too the places which you hold; but if they are deceitful, why did you exclude others by them? What of the fact that they are both truthful, and yet you could not expel others by them save deceitfully? For, that the judges might serve them, they wished to expel heretics — whence they ought to have expelled you first; but you said you were catholics, so that the laws by which you were oppressing others might spare you. You may see what you seem to yourselves in your own eyes: yet by those laws you are not catholics.
Why then did you either deceive those truthful laws by false witness, or usurp those deceitful laws to oppress others? Petilian said: It is said: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.' You plunder ours, that you may hold them as your own. Augustine replied:
Whatever unity possessed is nothing other than ours — we who, not according to the calumnies of men, but according to the words of Christ, in whom all the nations of the whole earth are blessed, stand fast in unity; nor do we, on account of the wicked, whom we cannot separate from the Lord's grain before the winnowing of judgment, sever ourselves from the fellowship of the wheat. And if you, being now severed, have begun to possess anything, since what was taken from you the Lord gave to us, we do not on that account covet what is another's, because by the command of him whose all things are, they were made ours and are justly ours; for you used these things unto severance, we unto unity.
Otherwise, even against the first people of God those men could cast up coveting of another's goods, who by divine power were driven out from before their face because they misused that land; and the very Jews, from whom the kingdom was taken away according to the words of the Lord and given to a nation doing righteousness, can cast up coveting of another's goods, because the church of Christ possesses where the persecutors of Christ once reigned. And after all this, when it shall have been said to you yourselves: 'You covet the goods of others, because you cast the Maximianists out of the basilicas,' you find nothing to answer. Petilian said: By what law then do you show yourselves Christians, when you do things contrary to the law? Augustine replied: You wish to wrangle, not to dispute. Petilian said:
But the Lord Christ says: 'He who shall do and so teach, shall be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' And thus he condemns you wretched men: 'He who shall loose one of these commandments, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.' Augustine replied: Where perchance you quote the testimonies of the Scriptures otherwise than they stand and it does not pertain to the matter at issue between us, I do not much care; but where they hinder what we treat of, unless they are brought forth truthfully, I do not think you ought to take offence if I remind you how it is written. Behold, this which you have just set down is not so written, but rather thus: 'He who shall loose one of these least commandments, and shall so teach, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven;
but he who shall do and so teach, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' And immediately following he says: 'For I say to you, that unless your righteousness shall abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' For elsewhere he points out and rebukes the Pharisees, because 'they say and do not.' These men, then, he signified here also, when he said: 'He who shall loose and so teach,' that is, teach by words what he looses by deeds; above whom he commanded our righteousness to abound, that we may do and so teach. And yet not even on account of those Pharisees, to whom you liken us not through prudence but through malice, did the Lord command the chair of Moses to be forsaken, in which he indeed prefigured his own.
For while he says that those who sit in the chair of Moses say and do not, he nevertheless admonishes the peoples to do what they say and not to do what they do, lest the holiness of the chair be forsaken and, on account of evil shepherds, the unity of the flock be divided. Petilian said: And again: 'Every sin which a man shall commit is outside the body; but he who shall sin in the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.' Augustine replied: And this is not so written, and see how greatly it has deceived you. The Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says: 'Every sin whatsoever a man shall do is outside the body; but he who fornicates sins against his own body.' But this is one thing, and that which the Lord said in the Gospel is another:
'Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men; but he who shall sin against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.' But you began the sentence from the Apostle and ended it as though it were one saying from the Gospel; which I believe you did not through fraud but through error. For neither pertains to the matter, and why you have said these things, in whatever manner you have said them, I do not see at all.
Unless perhaps because, when you had said above that those are condemned by the Lord who shall loose one of the commandments, you considered how many you have who loose not one but many commandments, and, lest it be cast up against you, you wished in passing to insinuate a distinction of sins: that it is one thing to loose some commandment, whence easy pardon may be obtained, but another to sin against the Holy Spirit, which shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come.
And so, fearing the contagion of sins, you were unwilling to keep silent about this; and again, fearing the depth of a question exceeding your powers, you wished to touch upon this in haste with such trepidation that — just as men hurrying under some disturbance are wont to clothe or shoe themselves awry — you took no heed either of what pertained to what, or where and how it was written. But what that sin is which shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come, you are so far from knowing that, although you believe us to be in that very sin, you nevertheless promise us its remission through your baptism. And how can this be done, if it is such a sin that it is not forgiven either in this world or in the world to come? Petilian said:
But with what deeds do you fulfil the divine commandments? The Lord Christ says: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' You, in the malice of your persecuting fury, breathe out riches. Augustine replied: Say these things rather to your own Circumcellions. Petilian said: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.' You therefore, not being meek, have lost earth and heaven alike. Augustine replied: Again and again hear the Lord saying: 'You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth.' Why then have not those men lost earth and heaven, who, that they may not commune with the whole earth, despise the words of him who sits in heaven?
For concerning your meekness, let not your voices, but the cudgels of the Circumcellions be questioned. You will say: 'What does that pertain to us?' As though we said these things for any other reason than that you might make this very answer. For your schism pertains to you for this very reason, that you refuse another's sin to pertain to you; and yet you separated from us for no other reason than while you cast up against us another's crime. Petilian said: 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' You, our butchers, make men mourn; you do not mourn. Augustine replied: Consider a little how great mourning, and to how many, the armed men among you have given — 'thanks be to God!' Say again: 'What is that to us?' and I will say again:
'And you, in saying, What is that to us — what is it to the whole world, what is it to those who praise the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun unto its setting, what is it to the whole earth which sings a new song, what is it to the seed of Abraham in whom all the nations are blessed?' Therefore the sacrilege of schism pertains to you for this very reason, that the evil deeds of your own men do not pertain to you; and hence you understand that neither do the deeds of those on whose account you separated yourselves from thence pertain to the whole world, even if you should prove them. Petilian said: 'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' To you this is righteousness, that you should thirst for our blood. Augustine replied: What shall I say to you, O man, but that you are a calumniator?
The unity of Christ indeed hungers and thirsts for you — would that it might swallow you up! You would then be heretics no longer. Petilian said: 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' When should I call you merciful, since you inflict penalties upon the righteous? Or should I so call your most wicked communion, while you defile souls? Augustine replied: Neither do you prove yourselves righteous, nor do we inflict penalties even upon the unrighteous; and yet, just as flattering deceit is for the most part cruel, so merciful correction is always just. For hence is that which you do not understand: 'The righteous shall amend me in mercy, and shall reprove me.' For when he had said this concerning the harshness of merciful correction, he immediately subjoined concerning the gentleness of ruinous flattery, and said:
'But let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head.' You therefore, take heed whither you are called and whence you are called back. For how do you know with what mind he is toward you whom you suppose to be savage? But be he as he may, each one bears his own burden, both among us and among you. But cast off the burden of schism which you all bear, that you may bear your good burdens in unity, and may — if you can — mercifully amend those who bear evil ones, or, if you cannot, peaceably tolerate them. Petilian said: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' When will you see God, you who bear the blindness of an unclean malice of heart? Augustine replied: Why do you say this?
Is it perhaps because we cast up against all the nations the unknown things which men say, and are unwilling to understand the manifest things which God has foretold concerning all the nations? This is a great blindness of heart; and if you do not even acknowledge this very blindness in yourselves, this is a greater blindness of heart. Petilian said: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.' You feign peace by crime, and seek unity by war. Augustine replied: We do not feign peace by crime, but we preach peace out of the Gospel; and if you have peace with the Gospel, you will also have it with us. The Lord, rising again and offering himself to the disciples not only to be gazed upon by their eyes but also to be handled by their hands, began thence: 'Peace be with you,' he said.