Therefore, since it is manifest and clearer than light itself that we are together with so many innumerable peoples and so many provinces are with us, you now see that you, set in a portion of a single region and separated by your errors from the Church, claim in vain for yourselves alone this name of the Church with her endowments, which are with us rather than with you. These endowments are so joined and inseparable from one another that it is understood that one cannot be separated from another. For they are counted by name, yet by a single conception they are joined in one body, as the fingers in the hand, which we see distinguished singly by intervals. Hence whoever holds one must of necessity hold them all, since each one cannot be separated from its fellows.
Add to this that we possess not one only but all of them as our own. Therefore, of the aforesaid endowments the chair (cathedra) is, as we said, the first, which we have proved through Peter to be ours; it draws to itself the angel — unless perhaps, claiming him for yourselves, you keep him shut up in a casket. Send him forth, if you can, to shut out the seven angels who are among our associates in Asia, to whose churches the apostle John writes — with which churches you are proven to have no fellowship of communion. Whence have you an angel who among you can stir the fountain or be numbered among the other endowments of the Church? Outside the seven churches, whatever is without is alien.
Or if you have some one from there, then through that one you communicate also with the other angels, and through the angels with the aforementioned churches, and through those churches with us. If this is so, you have lost the dispute. Behold, all the endowments cannot now be among you; for you cannot claim or shut up the Spirit of God for yourselves alone, who is understood and not seen. For thus it is written in the Gospel: 'For God is Spirit, and he breathes where he wills, and you hear his voice but you know not whence he comes or whither he goes.' Permit God to go whence he wills and to have liberty to approach whither he wills, who can be heard but cannot be seen. And yet, in your zeal for accusing, you were willing freely to blaspheme, saying:
'For in that church, what spirit can there be except one that begets sons of Gehenna?' You vomited an insult from your own breast and thought a testimony from the Gospel should be added, where it is read: 'Woe to you, hypocrites! who go about the seas and lands to make one proselyte, and when you have found him, you make him twofold more a son of Gehenna than yourselves.' If this insult had to be made — which is not lawful, even though it be made without cause — would that some other one of your number had done it! Yet I marvel enough that you said this; that you should falsely say it against another, from which, if you considered your own ordination, you might even blush. For you recalled that it is read in the Gospel:
'Woe to us, hypocrites, who go about the seas and lands to make one proselyte' — that is, to change someone's sect. Indeed, of what sect you were I do not know, yet I judge that this was said by you out of place, so that perhaps you now repent of having said it. Have we crossed any lands? Have we sailed around any seas? Have we approached any foreign harbors? Have we brought over any Spaniard or Gaul, or ordained for the ignorant some foreigner? For it is established that the fountain too is one of the endowments, from which heretics can neither themselves drink nor give others to drink, because they alone, not having the unbroken seal — that is, the catholic creed — cannot open the way to the true fountain.
* * For since it is written in the Song of Songs: 'Your navel is like a rounded bowl,' you tried to assert that the navel is the altar. If the navel is a member in the body, it cannot be among the endowments, since it is a member; if it is an ornament, it is not a part of the body. It now remains that the endowments be seen to be five, which endowments, since they belong to the catholic Church, which is in so many provinces aforementioned, cannot be lacking even among us here in Africa. Understand, even belatedly, that you are impious sons, that you are branches broken off the tree, that you are shoots cut off from the vine, that you are a stream severed from the fountain.
For a stream cannot be the source, since it is small and is not born of itself, nor can a tree be cut off from a branch, since a tree, founded on its own roots, rejoices, while a branch, if it is cut off, withers. Do you now see, brother Parmenian, do you now perceive, do you now understand that you have warred with your own arguments against yourself, since it has been proved that we are in the holy catholic Church, among whom is both the symbol of the Trinity, and through the chair of Peter, which is ours, through that chair the other endowments are also among us? Even the priesthood, which you seemed to annul in us, in excuse of your error and your envy, while after us you rebaptize and yet do not do this after your own associates detected in sin.
For you said that, if the priest be in sin, the endowments alone can operate. Therefore, since we have taught what heresy is, and what schism is, and what the holy Church is, and that the person of this holy Church has been constituted, and that this is the catholic Church, which is diffused throughout the whole world, of which we too among others are members, whose endowments are everywhere with her; then in the first book we proved that the odium of the betrayal (traditio) does not pertain to us, and that this crime has even been condemned by us. Now I do not want you to answer me this: why did you choose to speak of the endowments of the Church alone, and were silent about her holy members and inward parts, which are without doubt in the sacraments and in the names of the Trinity?
To this concur the faith and profession of believers, which is accomplished before the records (acta) of the angels, where heavenly and spiritual seeds are mingled, so that from the holy germ a new offspring of those reborn may be brought forth, so that, while the Trinity is in concord with the faith, he who had been born to the world may be reborn spiritually unto God. Thus God becomes the Father of men, thus the Church becomes the holy Mother. I understand that all these things were not named by you for this reason: lest in all of them the principle of baptism be recognized, where the workman, who is a man, may claim nothing for himself — which is what you do. And therefore you chose to confine yourself to the endowments alone, which, denying them to catholics as if grasped in the hand or shut up in a chest, you tried in vain to claim for yourselves alone.
When the matter is of regeneration, when the matter is of renewing man, no faith of believers, no profession was named by you; while you wish to speak of the endowments alone, you have remitted into silence all these things, without which that spiritual birth cannot be restored; and since the endowments pertain to the bride, not the bride to the endowments, you so arranged the endowments as if they themselves seemed to generate, and not the inward parts, which are understood to be placed more in the sacraments than in the ornaments. Nor do I pass over this, that with your own mouth and in agreement with our sense you said that the Church is paradise (which thing is without doubt true), in which garden God plants little trees.
And yet you have denied God his riches, whose garden you crowd into narrow bounds, while you undeservedly claim all things for yourselves alone. Surely the plantings of God are diverse seeds through diverse precepts. The just, the continent, the merciful, and virgins are spiritual seeds; the little trees of these things God plants in paradise; grant to God that his garden be diffused far and wide. Why do you deny him the Christian peoples of the East and the North, also of the West, of all the provinces and of innumerable islands, against whom you alone, few and rebellious, are set, and with whom you possess no fellowship of communion? Now also your lie can in this place be justly condemned, by which sacrifices are daily seasoned by you.
For who would doubt that you cannot pass over that lawful thing in the mystery of the sacraments? You say that you offer to God on behalf of the Church, which is one. This very thing is part of a lie: that you call one that of which you have made two; and you say that you offer to God on behalf of one Church, which is diffused throughout the whole world. What? If God should say to each one of you: 'What do you offer on behalf of the whole, you who are not in the whole?' If we displease you, what has the city of Antioch done to you, what the province of Arabia, from which we prove that those coming from you have been rebaptized?
In one thing only, brother Parmenian, we cannot be ungrateful to you: that, although you are estranged from her, you were willing to praise our Church, that is, the catholic Church, which is contained throughout the whole world, in enumerating her endowments, in the number of which you erred enough, and in saying that she herself is the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain and the only bride. This we say of our own, for you spoke of what is another's. Whatever you were able to say in praise of the Church, we too, before you, say the same things. The betrayers (traditores) we too condemn along with you — namely those whom, if you remember, we demonstrated in the first book.
And since we have communion with the whole world, and all the provinces are with us, you have long since wished to compare two churches, as if Africa alone had Christian peoples, in which, by your fault, two parts seem to have been made; and while you became forgetful of Christ who says that his bride is one, you in Africa said there were not two parts but two churches. Surely she is one, who has deserved to be indicated by the voice of Christ, who says: 'One is my dove, one is my bride.' And you, forgetful of this voice, in order to bring odium upon the catholics, spoke with these words: 'For that cannot be called a church which is fed on bloody bites and is fattened on the blood and flesh of the saints.'
The Church has its certain members: bishops, presbyters, deacons, ministers, and the multitude of the faithful. Tell me, to what class of men in our Church can that be ascribed which you wished to charge? Name some minister in particular, point out some deacon by his name, indicate that this was done by some presbyter, prove that the bishops admitted this, show that any one of us lay in wait for anyone. Which of us has persecuted anyone? Whom can you either say or prove to have been persecuted by us? Because unity displeases you — if you think this a crime — accuse us of having communicated with the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the seven churches which are in Asia.
If it seems to you a wicked thing, or if you reckon it a guilt to have communicated with the memorials of the apostles and of all the saints, this we not only do not deny to have done, but we even glory in it. But that I may show your party, as you said, fed on bloody bites, fattened on the blood and flesh of Christians, your rabid fury must be recalled from its very beginning, your impiety must now be unwoven, your folly must now be demonstrated. In which first it must be shown your shameful joy and your guilty rejoicings, because it was granted to you, as is established, to return to the liberty of your former error. Review the times, examine the reason of the matters, attend to the dissimilar desires and the diverse persons.
Let there come back into memory Constantine, the Christian emperor — what service he rendered to God, what desires he had: that, schisms being removed and all dissension having died out, holy Mother Church might rejoicing see her sons in unity under the whole heaven. He had restored, by one communion, wives to husbands, children to parents, brothers to brothers. In which things God testifies that he rejoices, when he says: 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity.' For indeed, while one peace joined the African peoples and the eastern and the rest beyond the sea, and that very unity, with all the members represented, coagulated the body of the Church, the devil grieved at this, who is always tormented by the peace of brothers.
At that time, under a Christian emperor, deserted, it lay hidden among the idols as if shut up in the temples. At this same time your leaders and chiefs their own deserts had banished; in the Church there had been no schisms, nor was it permitted to pagans to practice their sacrileges: peace pleasing to God dwelt among all Christian peoples; the devil mourned in the temples, you in foreign regions. Then, as is known to all, another emperor followed, conceiving sinister desires together with you; from a servant of God he became a minister of the enemy; he attested himself an apostate by his edicts; whom you begged with prayers that you might be able to return — which prayers, if you deny having sent, we have read. Nor did he whom you asked offer any difficulty:
He commanded those to go, according to their own wish, whom he understood would come with fury to disturb the peace. Blush, if there is any shame: by the same voice liberty was restored to you, by which voice the temples of the idols were bidden to be opened. At almost the same moments your fury returns into Africa as the devil is released from his prisons. And are you not ashamed, who at one time possess common joys with the enemy! You came rabid, you came angry, mangling the members of the Church, subtle in seductions, savage in slaughters, provoking the sons of peace to wars. From their own seats you made many into exiles, when, coming with a hired band, you invaded the basilicas;
Many of your number, in very many places — which it would be long to mention by name — wrought bloody slaughters, and ones so atrocious that a report of such deeds was sent by the judges of that time. But the judgment of God intervened and came upon them, so that he who had long since ordered you to return, that profane and sacrilegious emperor, died — he who had already sent, or was disposing to send, a persecution at your provocation. A massacre was wrought in the aforesaid places against the catholics. Be reminded, place by place, what your raids were. Were there not of your number Felix of Zaba and Januarius of Flumenpisca and the others, who with all speed ran together to the fortress of Lemellef?
Where, when against their own unseemliness they saw the basilica closed, being present, they ordered their companions to climb the roof-tops, to strip the roofs, to throw down the tiles. Their commands were fulfilled without delay; and when the catholic deacons defended the altar, very many were bloodied by the tiles, two were killed — Primus, son of Januarius, and Donatus, son of Ninus — your fellow-bishops aforementioned urging it on and being present, so that without doubt it has been said of you: 'Their feet are swift to shed blood.' Concerning which matter, Primosus, the catholic bishop of the aforesaid place, complained in your council at the city of Theveste, and his complaints you heard with feigned indifference. Behold, by you was done what you said:
that 'that is not a church which is fed on bloody bites,' and 'soldiers sent are one thing, bishops ordained are another.' What you invidiously speak against us was done by others, not by us; what you say ought not to have been done, you have done. You also recalled that the most blessed apostle Paul said that the Church ought to be without wrinkle and without stain. With your bishops commanding and being present, catholic deacons were killed upon the altar; and likewise at Carpis. Do not these seem to you inexpiable stains? In the cities of Mauretania, upon your entering, a battering of the people took place; there died in their mothers' wombs those who were to have been born. Does it not seem to you a wrinkle which cannot by any satisfactions be smoothed out or made plain?
What such thing has been committed by us? We await God as our avenger. And you bring odium upon Macarius, who, if he did anything harshly for the sake of unity, it could seem light, while you, for the sake of dissension, have done such great, bitter, bloody, and hostile things. Why should I mention Tipasa, a city of Caesarean Mauretania, to which from Numidia ran Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra, two firebrands kindled with spites, troubling the minds of those who were quiet and set in peace? With the favor and fury of some officials aiding, and with the governor Athenius present, the catholic congregation, with their standards, was driven out and bloodied and expelled from their own seats: men were torn, matrons were dragged, infants were slain, births were driven out.
Behold, your church, with bishops as its leaders, was fed on bloody bites. After this you also added that: 'However much the gluttony of the vultures may consume, yet greater is the number of the doves.' Where is that which is commonly said, that a liar must have memory as his guardian? You forgot that a little before you said that the Church is called the one dove of Christ in the Song of Songs. If among you there is one church, there is one dove; if there is one dove, what is it that you wished to say: 'the number of the doves is greater'? And what seems light to you, a monstrous crime was committed: that your aforesaid bishops violated all things most holy. They ordered the Eucharist to be poured out to dogs — not without a sign of the divine judgment;
For those same dogs, inflamed with rabies, with avenging tooth tore their own masters as if they were robbers, guilty of the holy Body, as if they were strangers and enemies. They also threw the flask of chrism through the window, that they might break it; and when the casting downward aided its fall, an angelic hand was not lacking, which by spiritual upbearing brought the flask down: thrown down, it could not feel a fall; protected by God, unharmed it settled among the rocks. And these things could not happen, if you held in memory the commandments of Christ, who says: 'Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and, turning, rend you.'
What such thing could have been done by the workers of unity, by which you labor to bring upon us catholics a vain odium? Returning from there, Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra found mothers whom they had made out of women under vows of chastity. Behold what kind of bishops you conceal, brother Parmenian; and when you ought to have blushed for your own, you accuse innocent catholics. Meanwhile the aforesaid Felix, amid his crimes and abominable deeds, did not at all hesitate wickedly to defile a girl seized by him, upon whom he himself had placed the veil, by whom a little before he was called father. And as if he would become holier by his sin, he hastened swiftly to Tysedis.
Thus he dared to despoil Donatus, a bishop seventy years old, an innocent man, of his episcopal name and office and honor. The schismatic came to the catholic bishop, the guilty to the innocent, the sacrilegious to the priest of God, the incestuous to the chaste, to a bishop now not a bishop himself; but secure in your agreement and conspiracy, armed with your laws and decrees, he laid upon the head of the innocent man those hands which a little before sins had burdened, and dared to bear sentence from that tongue which now seemed not even fit for doing penance. Behold what kind of men you defend, brother Parmenian; behold for what kind of men you said long since that the endowments operate. You yourselves too, who wish to seem holy and innocent before men, say:
Whence is this holiness which you too presumptuously usurp for yourselves? Which the apostle John does not dare to profess, who says: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.' He who said this wisely reserved himself for the grace of God. For it belongs to a Christian man to will what is good and to run in that which he has rightly willed; but it is not given to man to bring to completion, so that, after the courses which a man ought to fill, something may remain for God, wherein he may succor the one who falls short; because he alone is the perfection and the only perfect one is the Son of God, Christ. All the rest of us are half-perfect, because ours is to will, ours is to run, God's is to bring to perfection. Whence the most blessed apostle Paul says:
'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that pertains to grace.' For even by Christ our Savior, perfect holiness was not given but promised; for thus he says: 'You shall be holy, because I am holy.' He alone therefore is perfect and holy. In short, he did not say: 'You are holy,' but he said: 'You shall be holy.' Whence then is it that you claim for yourselves perfect holiness out of pride? Unless it be to make it appear that you deceive yourselves and the truth is not in you. You were unwilling to be in the school of John. For when you seduce some, you promise that you will give indulgence of sins; and when you wish to forgive sins, you profess your own innocence, and you give remission of sins as if you yourselves had no sin.
This is not presumption but deception, nor truth but a lie. For indeed, in the very adjacent moments while you lay on hands and forgive offenses, soon, turned toward the altar, you cannot pass over the Lord's prayer, and you certainly say: 'Our Father, who art in heaven, forgive us our debts and our sins.' What are you called, while you confess your own sins? If you are holy, while you forgive another's? In this way you too deceive yourselves, and the truth is not in you. But as it appears, this your nurse, pride, dictates to you — pride which Christ in the Gospel attests; for although he did not name your names, yet by a parable he showed your character. For thus it is written:
Jesus spoke this parable on account of those who think themselves holy and despise the rest. That this was said of you, the matter itself evidently shows, while you exalt yourselves as if holy and manifestly and openly despise us: 'Two,' he says, 'went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee, swollen, proud, puffed up — such as we also see you to be — not with humbled body, not with bowed neck, but with erect face and swelling breast, says: I give you thanks, O God, that I have sinned in nothing.' This is to say to God: 'I have nothing in me for you to pardon.' O insane fury, O pride to be punished and condemned! God is ready to pardon, and the guilty one hastens to refuse indulgence.
The publican, humble, knowing himself to be a man, thus prayed, saying: 'Be merciful, O Lord, to me a sinner.' Thus humility deserved to be justified; thus pride, in the Pharisee, your master, came down condemned from the temple. Sins with humility were found better than innocence with pride. Then, since grave sins of betrayal and schism are not lacking to you, in addition you also congratulate yourselves on being proud. Now, since we have proved your shameful joys, and your fury has been shown in so many places, it remains to say something of your profound impiety; for all the things which either are done or have been done by you — who could explain them?
It is established that you arranged all things with a certain malignity, so that under one kind of your work you might fulfill other kinds; so that, while a presbyter or bishop is cast down, the people might thus be captured. When could a crowd of men stand who beheld their ruler struck down by you? Not otherwise than when, the shepherd having been killed by whatever chance, the wolves run riot. You exorcized the faithful and washed walls without cause, that by this kind of wickedness you might undermine the minds of the most simple men.
By such counsels of yours the souls of not a few were cut down, and under a cloud of simplicity, the light of cunning being darkened, that you might lay the wretched low, you sent forth arrows from the quiver of your breast by your seductions; so that of you the Holy Spirit foretold through David the prophet in the tenth psalm: 'For behold, the sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared arrows in their quiver, to shoot in the dark moon at the upright in heart.' What was done less by you by your counsels? The innocent were shot, the faithful were disarmed, the priests were despoiled of the honor of their name. O unheard-of impiety, to keep alive amid the torments of penance him whom you have cut down! In comparison with your work, the savagery of robbers seems lighter.
You commit a living murder; the robber, by cutting the throat, grants a release from death. By the poverty of their own understanding were they circumvented whom you were able to deceive. For those men had been perfect, namely by the work of God, who had been ordained in his name. And you wage war against the work of God as enemies, destroying the divine work with the crowbars of malice! It appears, therefore, that it was said of you in the tenth psalm: 'For the things which you have perfected, they have destroyed.' Your impiety made you proud, but justice, looking down from heaven, accuses you; and as you do iniquitous things, the error of men praises you, so that the Holy Spirit said of you in the ninth psalm: 'While the impious man is proud, the poor is set on fire;
they are taken in the devices that they imagine,' since 'the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquitous things shall be blessed.' What is more iniquitous than to exorcize the Holy Spirit, to break altars, to cast the Eucharist to animals? And so that your own people may send you into error, by praising they call you happy and name you well and swear by you, and your persons are now known to be held by them as God. God is wont to be named by men in oath-taking, for the proving of faith. But when oaths are sworn by you, there is now among your people silence concerning God and Christ. If divine religion has migrated to you from heaven, because oaths are sworn by you, let none of you or of yours languish:
do not die, command the clouds, rain, if you can, that fuller oaths may be sworn by you and silence kept concerning God. For also in former ages, that temples might be built and idols made, what more could the devil do through your people? Nothing else than that God be passed over in silence, while through error men spoke of the devil alone. Sacrilege mingled with impiety, while you gladly hear men swearing by you and do not admit into your ears the voice of God, who in the hundred and fourth psalm thus says: 'Touch not my anointed, and do no harm to my prophets.' That both kings and priests are anointed, the books of Kingdoms also indicate, and David in the hundred and thirty-second psalm thus says: 'Like the ointment upon the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron.'