The little book which your reverence, brother Fulgentius, sent to me, I received without disdain; whether you yourself composed it or sought it from elsewhere, I do not now much concern myself. For this too is a duty of our religion: not to regard persons, but to seek the truth in all things, to recognize it when found, and to guard it when acknowledged. For thus the apostle Paul says: 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good; abstain from every appearance of evil.' Briefly, then, I shall say what you have more ingeniously expanded in your letter. You said that there is one baptism, which the Samaritan, that is, the heretic, has not merited to have; one enclosed garden, which is the Church, having a sealed fountain, which no stranger touches;
one oil, which is the most holy chrism, which the flies that are about to die corrupt, and which sinners shall by no means give. Against these things I must prepare a response with the Lord's help, to be drawn from nowhere else than from the divine reading (Scripture).
Let us therefore now take up the beginning of the word—nay rather, let us hold fast the very Word, the beginning, the Lord, the leader of the laws and the prince of the heavenly host; let us wage wars, and with His hallowed trumpet let us assail the strongest walls of the wicked city of Jericho, that is, let us encompass the height of worldly wisdom with the Lord's covenants (testaments); let us cry out with the voices of truth and liberty; let us compel our adversaries to take refuge in the house of Rahab, that is, of the Church, which receives His messengers, for the overthrow of the world; let us condemn the obstinate to anathema, that thus far we may be victors.
These things, then, you have taken up from the law against the law, from God's covenant against God's covenant, from the fountain of truth against the fountain of truth, and set them forth, perhaps at first sight, as a strong objection, as though truth could be overcome by itself, or the glory of light darkened by its own light. The Donatist said: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the teacher and guardian of the one baptism, lest error should lead thirsting souls through the dry pools of the mind, proclaiming that He has perennial draughts, thus testified in His Gospel, saying: 'Let him who thirsts come and drink, he who believes in me, as Isaiah says.' The Catholic replied: It does not have 'as Isaiah says,' but 'as the Scripture says.'
But such hindrances I will overlook, lest by a long discourse I shut out the profit of the reader. The Donatist said: 'He who believes in me, as Isaiah said, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.' And lest it should be said that one can drink anywhere and everywhere, He Himself distinguished the merits of the waters, when He condemned the origin of Samaria's apostasy in its proper fountain: 'Whoever drinks,' He says, 'of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give shall not thirst forever, but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life.' The Catholic replied: You have of course set these things down in order to represent us Catholics as though we were Samaritans and without baptism. Begin now, then, to look upon the Donatists as the Samaritans.
The teaching of the Samaritans, as the book of Kings instructs us, was of this sort: they feared God and at the same time worshiped idols; they kept the divine law and by no means abandoned the errors of their fathers; they had the sign of circumcision, and yet did not hold the fellowship of the Israelites. This too is what you do. You fear God and at the same time worship the muddy idol Donatus—for he too was formed from earth; you keep the divine law and do not forsake the error of your forefathers; you have the sacrament of baptism and yet are unwilling to have the fellowship of the Catholics. Behold, you are like them in all things. Therefore, just as then the circumcision of the Samaritans could not be given a second time, so now the baptism of the Donatists ought not to be repeated, as the Lord Christ teaches:
'He who has once been washed has no need to wash again.' For the circumcision of the Samaritans signifies the baptism of the Donatists, as the apostle says: 'You were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism.' But when the Lord says: 'Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again,' He spoke not of baptism, but of an earthly element. For if He wished to indicate baptism here, He would in no way have asked to drink from the Samaritan woman. Moreover, that well was called not the well of Samaria, but of Jacob; and Jacob was certainly no heretic, but beloved of God, ever dear, and he himself drank of it, as did his sons and his cattle. The Donatist said:
Never, then, does the spirit of the Church permit to be joined to it what has deserved to be denounced by the divine mouth, the proclamation of the law forewarning: 'Two by two, one against one,' and the Lord in the Gospel: 'Then,' He says, 'two shall be in the field; one shall be taken and one shall be left. Two grinding at the mill; one shall be taken and one shall be left.' You see, then, that there are two kinds of baptism and two rewards of merits, since the one the burning heat of a deadly nature consumes, and thirsty craving parches its perennial draughts, while the other, with the passages of what is to be drunk but once, satisfies the thirst with the perpetuity of life. Indeed, in the pits that have been dug He shows perpetual droughts, and, closing off from them the reward of life, He has laid open the entrance of death, as Jeremiah says: 'This people has done two evils.'
'They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves worn-out cisterns that can hold no water'; and again: 'Let all who forsake you be confounded; let those who depart from you be written in the book of death; because they have forsaken you'—let those who depart from you, the fountain of life, be confounded. The Catholic replied: You assert one against one; I assert many baptisms against one. For indeed the pagan baptizes, and the Jew baptizes, and the Sadducee baptizes, and many outside the rule of the given law do not cease to baptize. But that one is the one which is true; that is true which is Christ's; that is Christ's which is of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is the true one, this the wholesome one; to this no other is to be compared.
He who does not receive this has himself both shut off the reward of life from himself and laid open the entrance of death. The Donatist said: But if, as you assert, one faith consists in both, why did He distinguish by a just separation between faithful water and faithless, as the Lord testifies through Isaiah: 'Who has announced to you that fire burns? Who has announced to you that place eternal? He who walks in righteousness, who preaches the right way, who hates crime and injustice, and keeps his hands from bribes, and stops his ear that he may not hear the judgment of blood, and shuts his eyes lest they see iniquity—this man shall dwell in high hope; strong bread shall be given him, and his water is faithful.' From whose faith, separating the faithless, Jeremiah in his testimony thus set it down:
'Why do those who wrong me prevail? My wound has become grievous: whence shall I be healed? It has become to me like deceitful water that has no faithfulness.' The Catholic replied: Heretics all, though they disagree in their own dispute among themselves, nevertheless agree in the solemn word of the tradition of baptism, just as circumcision was one, but with varying faith, existing among the Jews and the ancient Samaritans. It is necessary, therefore, that as then, so also now, it ought to be done for those who are converted, that what is faulted by dispute alone should again be dissolved by dispute alone, so that they may be able to hear from the Lord: 'Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you; abide in me, and I in you.'
'For all these things happened to them in a figure, and they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.' The Donatist said: Ezekiel too speaks thus: 'And they saw that there are many who turned aside the water of the ancient pool, and they did not look to Him who made it from the beginning, and Him who established it they did not see.' O unheard-of madness of the faithless, unwilling either to believe the divine voices or to keep the apostle's simple teaching from the jaws of their error! The Catholic replied: Far be it, far be it, that we should draw off the water of the ancient pool into a faction, as you do, or that we should not believe the divine oracles. What we read we believe, and what we believe we preach. Hear what our origin is and where its water is spread abroad.
In Zechariah you have it thus: 'Living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea'—that is, from Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth—'in summer and in winter they shall be'—that is, they shall be at all times—'and the Lord shall be king over all the earth,' that is, Christ shall have dominion over all the earth, not Donatus. This is the possession, this the inheritance of Christ, which is tilled by the saints and watered by the perennial fountain, of which it is said to Him: 'I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.' He who is in it is enrolled as heir; he who is not in it is already condemned and destined for death, as the Scripture says: 'Whoever goes out of the doors of your house shall be guilty against himself.'
The Donatist said: Hence God proclaims that there is one baptism; hence the apostle confirms that he said 'one' to all, God attesting through Solomon: 'An enclosed garden, my sister, my spouse; a sealed fountain, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruit of apple trees.' The Catholic replied: Recall the law and attend diligently and see that from this paradise, from this enclosed garden, from this sealed fountain, the wave of salvation also runs even outside, which goes against the Assyrians, that is, against you Donatists. For from the Assyrians are born those Samaritans to whom you are likened. This is, says the Scripture, the river that goes against the Assyrians, against the nation hostile to God's people. It does not go for them, but against them.
For to some it is an odor of death unto death, but to others an odor of life unto life. For just as he who eats and drinks the Lord's blood unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, so also he who receives baptism unworthily receives judgment to himself, not salvation. For even Judas the traitor received the good body, and Simon Magus received the good baptism of Christ; but because they did not use the good well, being evil they were destroyed by using it ill. Baptism is good, good is the blood and body of Christ, good also is the law—but only if one uses it lawfully. Nor, because it is also outside, is it not divine; nor, because it is held by strangers, shall it be thought foreign; nor, because it is unjustly handled by the evil, shall it be justly condemned by us. The water of paradise is the water of the Trinity.
Where we recognize this, we do not deny it to be of paradise; where we do not discern it, we by no means call it of paradise. Whatever has been born outside is in no way to be called of paradise: as, for instance, Manichaeus, because he was never in paradise, nor did he go forth outside from the Church as you did, is not to be thought the water of paradise, because he arose outside. This man has need that he may live, lest he die forever, but that he may live lawfully—let him live in it (the Church), lest he eat and drink judgment. The Donatist said: On the contrary, the apostle testifies that he said: 'One God, one faith, one baptism.' There is no variety in the divine teaching; in all things the servant follows the Lord; in nothing does the disciple differ from the master. The Catholic replied:
Whom do you follow, whom do you imitate, whom do you judge to be the author of this outrage? Give me any one of the saints, after the Trinity, who rebaptizes, as you do. Read to me not those scriptures by whose authority I am not bound, but those of the New and Old Testament, to which we are both subject. If baptism is one, why do you double the one? For you do not repeat anything other than what you find to be true. Since, therefore, you rebuild the very things you had destroyed, as he said, you show yourselves to be transgressors. The Donatist said: Or if you think the sacrament of baptism is one, joined by some mixture with the guilty, hear the prophets by whom it is rightly dispensed, Solomon saying: 'The fountain of life is in the hands of the just.' The Catholic replied: Well did the Lord speak concerning you;
He who foresaw your error beforehand: 'You who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what is exalted among men is an abomination before God.' If you are just and the fountain of life is in your hand, you are not a man, but a god. Let men flee to you, let them believe in you, let all hope of life be placed in you, let baptism itself be given in your name and let the Lord be passed over in silence. Do you wish to know where you should seek this fountain of life? In the Psalm you have it: 'With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light.' Have you not read: 'The evil son has haughty eyes; the evil son calls himself just, yet he shall not wash away his own goings-out'?
Unless you acknowledge yourself to be a guilty man, unless with a truthful heart you cry out that you are a sinner, you will by no means be able to be justified, as the prophet says: 'Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified.' And John the apostle: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' The Donatist said: And David says: 'But let not the oil of the sinner anoint (fatten) my head.' The Catholic replied: Give me, then, any of your own whom you can prove not to be a sinner, so that your oil could not be the sinner's, since it is written: 'There is no one among men who does not sin.' The translator did badly; read on from above, that you may be able to grasp the sense. Thus he says: 'The just man shall correct me in mercy and shall rebuke me;
but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head'—that is: better is a merciful rebuke than a soft flattery, just as also that saying: 'Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy.' The oil of the sinner is the blandishment of the flatterer, of whom it says elsewhere: 'His words are softer than oil, and yet they are darts.' The oil of the just is the Spirit of God, as Peter says: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit.' Cease, therefore, to call the Holy Spirit the oil of the sinner, lest you begin to assert that God is a sinner. The Donatist said: The plain contrivance of the faithless is shown in this passage, which, touched by hostile presumption from a criminal priest, is polluted, whose sacrifice, as it were oil, is rejected by the divine voice.
'The criminal,' it says, 'who sacrifices to me (a calf) as one who slays a dog, and who offers fine flour as swine's blood, and who offers incense in memorial as a blasphemer.' The Catholic replied: It is certain that God execrates and despises the burnt offerings both of the priest and of the people, if a good conscience be not present. But if you desire it to be understood as said of priests alone, how among you is the sacrament (confectio) of criminal priests not polluted? You say: 'As long as the wicked lie hidden they cannot defile, because it is written: things that are hidden, to me; things that are manifest, to you.'
If, then, as long as the wicked lie hidden they cannot defile, why are you not afraid to rebaptize nations set far off, to whom the name of Donatus and of Caecilianus is unknown? Which of you has ever brought the evils of any of them into their (those nations') knowledge? And even if he had brought it and had not proved it, it would in no way harm them, according to that saying: 'Things that are hidden, to me; things that are manifest, to you.' The Donatist said: Further, the prophet Habakkuk reveals its waters by the Spirit: 'You set,' he says, 'your horses upon the sea, troubling many waters. The city of Gilead despised me, which works foolish things, troubling the waters. And your strength is like that of a man who is a pirate.' The Catholic replied: Recognize your own weapons against yourself, as it is written:
'Let their sword enter into their own hearts, and let their bows be broken.' Your strength, O Donatist, is like that of a man who is a pirate, you who rebaptize by force, who fight in the water by force, who slay in the water by force. Practicing these things as a pirate, you will be captured and slain, unless, being converted, you repent and serve as a soldier for King Christ in the Catholic Church. The Donatist said: If, then, the Church glories in one fountain, surely it is the cave of the traditors that is exalted in a multitude of waters and, confounded by the drunkenness of its baptism, fornicates with kings, John saying: 'Come, I will show you the condemnation of the great harlot who sits upon many waters, and all who dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.' I ask, what are the many waters but many baptisms?
What is the fornicating woman but the cave of the traditors, which serves subject to the pleasures of kings, from whom, drinking the cup of persecution, drunk with blindness, she mingles it for the peoples, and in her madness leads those whom she has watered? From access to her the most wise Solomon forbade: 'Abstain,' he says, 'from another's water, and drink not from a stranger's fountain, that you may live a long time, and years of your life may be added to you. Let the fountain of your water be private to you; let no stranger share it with you.' He alone, then, does not have a private fountain, who possesses a multitude of waters by the force of a harlot. John the apostle too disapproves the multitude of waters, saying: 'And the angel said to me:'
The waters which you saw, upon which that harlot sits, are peoples, and crowds, and nations. The Catholic replied: As I see, wherever water is named—whether in a bad or a good sense—you have taken it to be baptism. If in a good sense, you wished to attribute it to yourself; if in a bad sense, to me—so that in you might be fulfilled what the Apostle Paul said: 'understanding neither what they say nor concerning what they affirm.' For as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so these resist the truth. The angel says: the waters which you saw are peoples, crowds, and nations. And you resist the angel who expounds it, and say: 'I ask, what are the many waters but many baptisms?'
'What is the harlot woman but the den of the traditors?' If you also desire to learn the names of the traditors, you have your own: Silvanus of Cirta, who handed over the sacred vessels to the curator Felix; you have Marianus of Aquae Tibilitanae, who offered three codices to the curator Romanus; you have Victor of Rusiccada, who burned the four gospels as though they were worthless scraps—men who dared to condemn the innocent Caecilianus in his absence.
This is the den of robbers, this the offspring of the traditors, this the harlot woman who, having forsaken Christ, has prostituted her brothels to Donatus; whose house, according to Solomon, is the retreat of death, whose ways are the ways of the underworld; who calls herself clean though she is full of filth; who cries herself innocent though ensnared in crimes; who commits shameful deeds and ascribes her own doings to another, lest she who first committed them be heard [accused]. For from your own deeds you defame the Catholics, that you may separate the peoples from the Lord. Accordingly, as though addressing your own, that they may abstain from our water, you exhort them and say: 'Abstain from another's water, and drink not from a stranger's fount. Let the fount of your water be private to yourself:'
'let no stranger share it with you'—who does not see that the prophet was commending chastity to spouses, and that you have wandered far from the truth? Or if no stranger ought to share your fount, why do you seek out strangers? Why do you rebaptize Catholics? The Donatist said: It is clear, then, that among the traditors is the multitude of waters, where are the diverse seeds of schisms, where the manifold plagues of heretics, where the detestable filth of the Manichees' dregs; where Charybdis has seen them snatched into everlasting death, into the pit of the muddy, sheer whirlpool, and has kindled the oil of destruction with devouring flames. The Catholic replied: O what proving! O what erring! O what raving!
It is clear, then, that among the traditors is a multitude of waters, where are the diverse seeds of schisms, where the manifold plagues of heretics, where the detestable filth of the Manichees' dregs? How do you prove that the manifold plagues of the schismatics are with us? If they were with us, they would not be heretics but Catholics. The Donatist said: Hear Solomon saying: 'Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment.' The genuine sweetness belongs to the oil, which, if it be violated by a wicked touch, becomes an unwelcome, polluted mixture. And rightly did the Holy Spirit liken the traditors to unclean birds, since the wicked fall upon another's table and befoul the sweetness of the oil with unclean touches. The Catholic replied: Who violates it by a wicked touch?
Is it he who preserves what he finds, or he who shamelessly spoils what has been made? When did we touch your oil? When did we drive away the Holy Spirit by an injury? Show that any one of us has wickedly fallen into the oil of the Godhead, or has unlawfully violated the baptism of the Trinity, as you do. The dying flies, the Donatists, buzz about over the members of the whole body; wherever they find wounded parts, they sting the sound, lick the sick, and pour into their sores the worms of sins—worms that gnaw the conscience, that end the soul, that nourish rottenness, that spare not even the dead corpses themselves. The dying flies, while they spoil the oil, are destroyed by the oil; for you do not live, you who blow away the Holy Spirit. The Donatist said:
This the most holy David teaches, particularly furnishing the rule of our faith: that the oil of the sinner brings no salvation and ought not to touch anyone's head. 'Let not,' he says, 'the oil of the sinner anoint my head.' Therefore by careful examination the person of the sinner must be sought out—to see whether the Lord did not speak of the sacrilegious priest, as the profane assert. The Catholic replied: Though you are conscious of sin, do you dare to say, 'the person of the sinner must be sought out'? Hear who this person of the sinner is. The Apostle said: 'All have sinned and lack the glory of God'; and Solomon: 'There is no man who does not sin'; and Job: 'If He found depravity in His angels, how much more in the sons of men who have an earthly dwelling!'
This is the person of the sinner—that is, every man is a sinner. If you are a priest, you are a man; and if you are a man, you are a sinner. What do you make yourself out to be? You have said that you alone are holy, alone righteous, alone without sin, alone without stain. You have said that the baptism is yours, the holy oil yours, the Lord's table yours, and that all those things are yours which are divinely bestowed on the faithful. What remains, but that wickedly and impiously you should proclaim yourself to be God? But hear what the head of pride deserved to hear: 'How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who did rise in the morning? Who did wound the nations, who did say in your heart: I will ascend above heaven, above the stars of God I will exalt my throne; I will sit on the mount of the covenant, on the sides of the north, and I will be like the Most High?'
'Yet you shall descend into hell, into the depth of the pit.' Unless therefore you repent, unless you be converted, unless, laying aside pride, you beg pardon for your sins, you shall hear the same as he did—because, though you are a man, you make yourself God. The Donatist said: Likewise the Lord, through the prophet Haggai, showed by a wholesome exposition that unclean touches bring defilement, and that no polluted person can sanctify anything, if by unlawful presumption he tries to touch what he sees held to be holy; for our sake He set forth the prophet as cautious: 'Ask,' says the Lord, 'the priests, saying: If a man carry hallowed flesh in the skirt of his garment, and the border of his garment touch some creature—bread, or wine, or oil—shall it be sanctified?'
And the priests answered and said: No. And the Lord said: If one who is defiled in soul touch any of these things, shall it be defiled? And the priests said: It shall be defiled. And the Lord said: So is this people, and so is this nation: everyone who approaches there shall be defiled. The Catholic replied: You have used this testimony against yourself, you who place God's gift in your own choosing. For if the touch of that which is holy does not take away the defilements of the unclean, then vain is what you perform, what you consecrate, what you wash. 'If it touch what is holy—a creature of bread or wine or oil—shall it be sanctified?' And the priests answered and said: No. Where then is that which you extol, this that you boast that your sanctity confers cleanness?
Or if that troubles you which He says: 'So is this people and so is this nation: everyone who approaches there shall be defiled'—then show that Haggai, who taught these things, went out from the midst of that same people, lest he too be polluted among them. That touch signifies works. 'If the holy,' He says, 'touch the unclean, it shall not be sanctified; if the unclean touch the holy, it shall be defiled'—that is: more easily is the holy man who has joined himself to this most wicked nation made wicked, than that nation is changed for the better; because one runs more readily to the imitation of the wicked than the soul is roused to the virtues of the good—just as a little wormwood cast into a great quantity of honey draws out a swift bitterness, whereas of honey, even if a double amount be cast in, its sweetness will not be able to prevail.
We must go out from the midst of the wicked in mind, not in flesh; in works, not in bodies. 'Do not,' says the Apostle, 'share in the unfruitful works of darkness.' He says 'works,' not 'altars.' For it is written in Isaiah: 'They who say, Depart from me, come not near me, for you are unclean—these shall be smoke in my wrath, a fire burning all the day.' If the sayings of men do not frighten you, at least let the wrath of the threatening God convert you. The Donatist said: Never has a robber brought his plunder into the light; ever have the workers of the night more fiercely dreaded the light that is welcome to all good men; the traditor alone is broken not even by the threats of God, and, shameless, glories in another's garment. Against whom the Lord proclaims through Zephaniah, and is not heard:
'It shall be,' He says, 'in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and all who are clothed in a strange garment.' The Catholic replied: I do not fear your accusations, for my conscience is fortified. Whomever you say handed over the Scriptures, show the name and place of the traditor. You will never be able to show it, just as you were not able before. But even if you should produce someone, it will not be able to harm me, since the Lord says: 'The soul of the father is mine, the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sins shall alone die.' I, however, do not rejoice in a strange garment, I who ever exult in the Catholic faith. That is the garment I have, with which on the day of redemption the merciful and kindly Father has clothed me in beauty: