fallen and been engulphed in the depths on the left. Again, others, while turning too eagerly from the danger on the left hand of being immersed in the torpid effeminacy of inaction, are, on the other hand, so destroyed and consumed by the extravagance of self-conceit, that they vanish into ashes and smoke. See then, beloved, that in your love of ease you restrain yourselves from all mere earthly delight, and remember that there is no place where the fowler who fears lest we fly back to God may not lay snares for us; let us account him whose captives we once were to be the sworn enemy of all good men; let us never consider ourselves in possession of perfect peace until iniquity shall have ceased, and "judgment shall have returned unto right 2 brethren Eustasius and Andreas from you, had brought to us, as they did, the good savour of Christ, which is yielded by your holy conversation. Of these, Eustasius has gone before us to that land of rest, on the shore of which beat no rude waves such as those which encompass your island home, and in which he does not regret Caprera, for the homely raiment 12 with which it furnished him he wears no more. LETTER XLIX. contains nothing on the Donatist schism which is not This letter, written to Honoratus, a Donatist bishop, already found in Letters XLIII. and XLIV., or supplied in Letter LIII. LETTER L.13 ΤΟ THE MAGISTRATES AND LEADING MEN, OR 3. Moreover, when you are exerting yourselves with energy and fervour, whatever you do, whether labouring diligently in prayer, fasting, or almsgiving, or distributing to the poor, or forgiving injuries, "as God also for Christ's sake hath forgiven us," or subduing evil habits, and Earth reels and heaven trembles at the report chastening the body and bringing it into subjec- of the enormous crime and unprecedented crution,3 or bearing tribulation, and especially bear- elty which has made your streets and temples ing with one another in love (for what can he run red with blood, and ring with the shouts of bear who is not patient with his brother?), or murderers. You have buried the laws of Rome guarding against the craft and wiles of the tempt-in a dishonoured grave, and trampled in scorn er, and by the shield of faith averting and extin- the reverence due to equitable enactments. The guishing his fiery darts, or " singing and making authority of emperors you neither respect nor melody to the Lord in your hearts," or with fear. In your city there has been shed the invoices in harmony with your hearts; 5-whatever you do, I say, "do all to the glory of God," who "worketh all in all," and be so "fervent in spirit" that your "soul may make her boast in the Lord."9 Such is the course of those who walk in the "straight way," whose "eyes are ever upon the Lord, for He shall pluck their feet out of the net." 10 Such a course is neither interrupted by business, nor benumbed by leisure, neither boisterous nor languid, neither presumptuous nor desponding, neither reckless nor supine. "These things do, and the God of peace shall be with you." "1 4. Let your charity prevent you from accounting me forward in wishing to address you by letter. I remind you of these things, not because I think you come short in them, but because I thought that I would be much commended unto God by you, if, in doing your duty to Him, you do it with a remembrance of my exhortation. For good report, even before the coming of the 1 Ps. lvii. 1 and xciv. 15. 2 Eph. iv. 32. 31 Cor. ix. 27. 4 Eph. vi. 16. 5 Eph. v. 19. 61 Cor. x. 31. 71 Cor. xii. 6. Rom. xii. 11. 9 Ps. xxxiv. 2. 10 Ps. xxv. 15. 11 Phil. iv. 9. nocent blood of sixty of our brethren; and whoever approved himself most active in the massacre, was rewarded with your applause, and with a high place in your Council. Come now, let us arrive at the chief pretext for this outrage. If you say that Hercules belonged to you, by all means we will make good your loss: we have metals at hand, and there is no lack of stone; nay, we have several varieties of marble, and a host of artisans. Fear not, your god is in the hands of his makers, and shall be with all diligence hewn out and polished and ornamented. We will give in addition some red ochre, to make him blush in such a way as may well harmonize with your devotions. Or if you say that the Hercules must be of your own making, we will raise a subscription in pennies," and buy a god from a workman of your own for you. Only do you at the same time make restitution to us; and as your god Hercules is given back to you, let the lives of the many men whom your violence has destroyed be given back to us. 12 Cilicium, the garment of goats' hair worn by the brethren. These were the staple article of manufacture in Caprera, "the goat island." 13 This letter is found only in the Vatican MS. On this ground, and because of its tone and style, its composition has been ascribed to another hand than Augustin's. The reader may judge for himself. The sixty Christians of Suffectum (a town in the territory of Tunis), whose death is here mentioned, are commemorated in the martyrology of the Roman Catholic Church. Their day in the Calendar is Aug. 30. 14 Singulis nummis, LETTER LI. (A.D. 399 OR 400.) An invitation to Crispinus, Donatist bishop at Calama, to discuss the whole question of the Donatist schism. 2. You are wont to reproach us with a crime, not proved against us, indeed, though proved beyond question against some of your own party, the crime, namely, of yielding up, through fear of persecution, the Scriptures 3 to be burned. (No salutation at the beginning of the letter.) Let me ask, therefore, why you have received 1. I have adopted this plan in regard to the back men whom you condemned for the crime heading of this letter, because your party are of schism by the "unerring voice of your plenary offended by the humility which I have shown in Council" (I quote from the record), and rethe salutations prefixed to others. I might be placed them in the same episcopal sees as they supposed to have done it as an insult to you, were in at the time when you passed sentence were it not that I trust that you will do the same against them? I refer to Felicianus of Musti in your reply to me. Why should I say much and Prætextatus of Assuri. These were not, as regarding your promise at Carthage, and my you would have the ignorant believe, included urgency to have it fulfilled? Let the manner among those to whom your Council appointed in which we then acted to each other be for- and intimated a certain time, after the lapse of gotten with the past, lest it should obstruct fu- which, if they had not returned to your comture conference. Now, unless I am mistaken, munion, the sentence would become final; but there is, by the Lord's help, no obstacle in the they were included among the others whom you way we are both in Numidia, and located at no condemned, without delay, on the day on which great distance from each other. I have heard it you gave to some, as I have said, a respite. I said that you are still willing to examine, in de- can prove this, if you deny it. Your own Counbate with me, the question which separates us cil is witness. We have also the proconsular from communion with each other. See how Acts, in which you have not once, but often, promptly all ambiguities may be cleared away affirmed this. Provide, therefore, some other send me an answer to this letter if you please, line of defence if you can, lest, denying what I and perhaps that may be enough, not only for can prove, you cause loss of time. If, then, us, but for those also who desire to hear us; or if Felicianus and Prætextatus were innocent, why it is not, let us exchange letters again and again were they thus condemned? If they were guilty, until the discussion is exhausted. For what why were they thus restored? If you prove them greater benefit could be secured to us by the to have been innocent, can you object to our comparative nearness of the towns which we in- believing that it was possible for innocent men, habit? I have resolved to debate with you in falsely charged with being traditors, to be conno other way than by letters, in order both to demned by a much smaller number of your prevent anything that is said from escaping from predecessors, if it is found possible for innocent our memory, and to secure that others interested men, falsely charged with being schismatics, to be in the question, but unable to be present at a condemned by three hundred and ten of their debate, may not forfeit the instruction. You are successors, whose decision is magniloquently accustomed, not with any intention of falsehood, described as proceeding from "the unerring but by mistake, to reproach us with charges such voice of a plenary Council"? If, however, you as may suit your purpose, concerning past trans- prove them to have been justly condemned, what actions, which we repudiate as untrue. There- can you plead in defence of their being restored fore, if you please, let us weigh the question in to office in the same episcopal sees, unless, magthe light of the present, and let the past alone. nifying the importance and benefit of peace, you You are doubtless aware that in the Jewish dis- maintain that even such things as these should pensation the sin of idolatry was committed by be tolerated in order to preserve unbroken the the people, and once the book of the prophet bond of unity? Would to God that you would of God was burned by a defiant king; the pun- urge this plea, not with the lips only, but with ishment of the sin of schism would not have the whole heart! You could not fail then to been more severe than that with which these two perceive that no calumnies whatever could justify were visited, had not the guilt of it been greater. the breaking up of the peace of Christ throughYou remember, of course, how the earth open-out the world, if it is lawful in Africa for men, once ing swallowed up alive the leaders of a schism, condemned for impious schism, to be restored to and fire from heaven breaking forth destroyed the same office which they held, rather than break their accomplices. Neither the making and up the peace of Donatus and his party. worshipping of an idol, nor the burning of the Holy Book, was deemed worthy of such punish ment. 1 Jer. xxxvi. 23. 2 Num. xvi. 31-35. 3 Dominici libri. 4 Felicianus and Prætextatus were two of the twelve bishops by whom Maximianus was ordained. They were condemned by the Donatist Council of Baga; but finding it impossible to eject them from their sees, the Donatists yielded after a time, and restored them to their office. See Letter LIII. p. 299. 3. Again, you are wont to reproach us with restored. Let not this, however, alarm you. As persecuting you by the help of the civil power. it is certain that they returned with the same In regard to this, I do not draw an argument standing as bishops with which they had gone either from the demerit involved in the enormity forth from you, so is it also certain that they of so great an impiety, nor from the Christian brought back with themselves to your commeekness moderating the severity of our meas- munion, without any repetition of their baptism, ures. I take up this position: if this be a crime, all those whom they had baptized in the schism why have you harshly persecuted the Maximi- of Maximianus. anists by the help of judges appointed by those emperors whose spiritual birth by the gospel was due to our Church? Why have you driven them, by the din of controversy, the authority of edicts, and the violence of soldiery, from those buildings for worship which they possessed, and in which they were when they seceded from you? I do not ask; but tell me what bishop of the The wrongs endured by them in that struggle in every place are attested by the existing traces of events so recent. Documents declare the orders given. The deeds done are notorious throughout regions in which also the sacred memory of your leader Optatus is mentioned with honour. 5. How can we weep enough when we see the baptism of the Maximianists acknowledged by you, and the baptism of the Church universal despised? Whether it was with or without hearing their defence, whether it was justly or unjustly, that you condemned Felicianus and Prætextatus, Corinthian Church ever defended himself at your bar, or received sentence from you? or what bishop of the Galatians has done so, or of the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, or of any of the other cities included in the promise: "All the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee"? Yet you accept the baptism of the former, while that of the latter is despised; whereas baptism belongs neither to the one nor to the other, but to Him of whom it was said: "This same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." 2 I do not, however, dwell on this in the meantime : take notice of the things which are beside us-behold what might make an impression even on the blind! Where do we find the baptism which you acknowledge? With those, forsooth, whom you have condemned, but not with those who were never even tried at your bar! — with those who were denounced by name, and cast forth from you for the crime of schism, but not with those who, unknown to you, and dwelling in remote lands, never were accused or condemned by you! 4. Again, you are wont to say that we have not the baptism of Christ, and that beyond your communion it is not to be found. On this I would enter into a more lengthened argument; but in dealing with you this is not necessary, seeing that, along with Felicianus and Prætextatus, you admitted also the baptism of the Maximianists as valid. For all whom these bishops baptized so long as they were in communion with Maximianus, while you were doing your utmost in a protracted contest in the civil courts to expel these very men [Felicianus and Prætextatus] from their churches, as the Acts testify, -all those, I say, whom they baptized during that time, they now have in fellowship with them and with you; and though these were baptized by them when excommunicated and in the guilt with those who are but a fraction of the inof schism, not only in cases of extremity through habitants of a fragment of Africa, but not with dangerous sickness, but also at the Easter ser- those from whose country the gospel first came vices, in the large number of churches belonging to Africa! Why should I add to your burden? to their cities, and in these important cities Let me have an answer to these things. Look themselves, in the case of none of them has to the charge made by your Council against the the rite of baptism been repeated. And I wish Maximianists as guilty of impious schism: look you could prove that those whom Felicianus and to the persecutions by the civil courts to which Prætextatus had baptized, as it were, in vain, you appealed against them: look to the fact that when they were excommunicated and in the guilt you restored some of them without re-ordination, of schism, were satisfactorily baptized again by and accepted their baptism as valid and answer, them when they were restored. For if the re- if you can, whether it is in your power to hide, newal of baptism was necessary for the people, even from the ignorant, the question why you the renewal of ordination was not less necessary have separated yourselves from the whole world, for the bishops. For they had forfeited their in a schism much more heinous than that which episcopal office by leaving you, if they could not you boast of having condemned in the Maximibaptize beyond your communion; because, if anists? May the peace of Christ triumph in they had not forfeited their episcopal office by your heart! Then all shall be well.3 leaving you, they could still baptize. But if they had forfeited their episcopal office, they should have received ordination when they returned, so that what they had lost might be 1 Ps. xxii. 27. EYTYX LETTER LIII. (A.D. 400.) TO GENEROSUS, OUR MOST LOVED AND HONOUR- in a letter of their bishop in your town," he ought to be accursed in your estimation; because he would be endeavouring to cut you off from the whole Church, and thrust you into a small party, and make you forfeit your interest in the promises of God. But, 2. For if the lineal succession of bishops is to be taken into account, with how much more certainty and benefit to the Church do we reckon back till we reach Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: "Upon this rock will I build my Church, CHAP. I. - 1. Since you were pleased to ac- and the gates of hell shall not prevail against quaint us with the letter sent to you by a Dona- it!"6 The successor of Peter was Linus, and tist presbyter, although, with the spirit of a true his successors in unbroken continuity were these: Catholic, you regarded it with contempt, never--Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtheless, to aid you in seeking his welfare if his tus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, folly be not incurable, we beg you to forward to Eleutherius, Victor, Zephirinus, Calixtus, Urbahim the following reply. He wrote that an angel had enjoined him to declare to you the episcopal succession of the Christianity of your town; to you, forsooth, who hold the Christianity not of your own town only, nor of Africa only, but of the whole world, the Christianity which has been published, and is now published to all nations. This proves that they think it a small matter that they themselves are not ashamed of being cut off, and are taking no measures, while they may, to be engrafted anew; they are not content unless they do their utmost to cut others off, and bring them to share their own fate, as withered branches fit for the flames. Wherefore, even if you had yourself been visited by that angel whom he affirms to have appeared to him, a statement which we regard as a cunning fiction; and if the angel had said to you the very words which he, on the warrant of the alleged command, repeated to you, even in that case it would have been your duty to remember the words of the apostle: "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." 2 For to you it was proclaimed by the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that His "gospel shall be preached unto all nations, and then shall the end come."3 To you it has moreover been proclaimed by the writings of the prophets and of the apostles, that the promises were given to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ, when God said unto him: "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed." Having then such promises, if an angel from heaven were to say to thee, "Let go the Christianity of the whole earth, and cling to the faction of Donatus, the episcopal succession of which is set forth nus, Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephanus, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Euse bius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius, whose successor is the present Bishop Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. reversing the natural course of things, the Donatists sent to Rome from Africa an ordained bishop, who, putting himself at the head of a few Africans in the great metropolis, gave some notoriety to the name of "mountain men," or Cutzupits, by which they were known. 3. Now, even although some traditor had in the course of these centuries, through inadvertence, obtained a place in that order of bishops, reaching from Peter himself to Anastasius, who now occupies that see, this fact would do no harm to the Church and to Christians having no share in the guilt of another; for the Lord, providing against such a case, says, concerning officers in the Church who are wicked: "AÏÏ whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."7 Thus the stability of the hope of the faithful is secured, inasmuch as being fixed, not in man, but in the Lord, it never can be swept away by the raging of impious schism; whereas they themselves are swept away who read in the Holy Scriptures the names of churches to which the apostles wrote, and in which they have no bishop. For what could more clearly prove their perversity and their folly, than their saying to their clergy, when they read these letters, "Peace be with thee," at the very time that they are themselves disjoined from the peace of those churches to which the letters were originally written? 5 Totius Ecclesiæ figuram gerenti. Compare the allusion to the same custom in Letter XLIII. sec. 21, p. 155. CHAP. II.4. Lest, however, he should con- to Rome; how he appointed other bishops to gratulate himself too much on the succession of try the case over again at Arles; how they apbishops in Constantina, your own city, read to pealed from that tribunal also to the Emperor him the records of proceedings before Muna- again; how at last he himself investigated the tius Felix, the resident Flamen [heathen priest], matter; and how he most emphatically declares who was governor of your city in the consulship that they were vanquished by the innocence of of Diocletian for the eighth time, and Maximian Cæcilianus. Let him listen to these things if for the seventh, on the eleventh day before the he be willing, and he will be silent and desist calends of June. By these records it is proved from plotting against the truth. that the bishop Paulus was a traditor; the fact CHAP. III.-6. We rely, however, not so much being that Sylvanus was then one of his sub- on these documents as on the Holy Scriptures, deacons, and, along with him, produced and sur- wherein a dominion extending to the ends of the rendered certain things belonging to the Lord's earth among all nations is promised as the herihouse, which had been most carefully concealed, tage of Christ, separated from which by their namely a box' and a lamp of silver, upon see- sinful schism they reproach us with the crimes ing which a certain Victor is reported to have which belong to the chaff in the Lord's threshingsaid, "You would have been put to death if you floor, which must be permitted to remain mixed had not found these." Your Donatist priest with the good grain until the end come, until the makes great account of this Sylvanus, this whole be winnowed in the final judgment. From clearly convicted traditor, in the letter which which it is manifest that, whether these charges he writes you, mentioning him as then ordained be true or false, they do not belong to the Lord's to the office of bishop by the Primate Secundus wheat, which must grow until the end of the of Tigisis. Let them keep their proud tongues world throughout the whole field, i.e. the whole silent, let them admit the charges which may earth; as we know, not by the testimony of a truly be brought against themselves, and not false angel such as confirmed your correspondent utter foolish calumnies against others. Read to him also, if he permits it, the ecclesiastical records of the proceedings of this same Secundus of Tigisis in the house of Urbanus Donatus, in which he remitted to God, as judge, men who confessed themselves to have been traditors Donatus of Masculi, Marinus of Aquæ Tibilitanæ, Donatus of Calama, with whom as his colleagues, though they were confessed traditors, he ordained their bishop Sylvanus, of whose guilt in the same matter I have given the history above. Read to him also the proceedings before Zenophilus, a man of consular rank, in the course of which a certain deacon of theirs, Nundinarius, being angry with Sylvanus for having excommunicated him, brought all these facts into court, proving them incontestably by authentic documents, and the questioning of witnesses, and the reading of public records and many letters. in his error, but from the words of the Lord in the Gospel. And because these unhappy Donatists have brought the reproach of many false and empty accusations against Christians who were blameless, but who are throughout the world mingled with the chaff or tares, i.e. with Christians unworthy of the name, therefore God has, in righteous retribution, appointed that they should, by their universal Council, condemn as schismatics the Maximianists, because they had condemned Primianus, and baptized while not in communion with Primianus, and rebaptized those whom he had baptized, and then after a short interval should, under the coercion of Optatus the minion of Gildo, reinstate in the honours of their office two of these, the bishops Felicianus of Musti and Prætextatus of Assuri, and acknowledge the baptism of all whom they, while under sentence and excommunicated, had baptized. If, therefore, they are not defiled by com5. There are many other things which you munion with the men thus restored again to their might read in his hearing, if he is disposed not office, - men whom with their own mouth they to dispute angrily, but to listen prudently, such had condemned as wicked and impious, and as: the petition of the Donatists to Constantine, whom they compared to those first heretics whom begging him to send from Gaul bishops who the earth swallowed up alive,3-let them at last should settle this controversy which divided the African bishops; the Acts recording what took place in Rome, when the case was taken up and decided by the bishops whom he sent thither: also you might read in other letters how the Emperor aforesaid states that they had made a complaint to him against the decision of their peers the bishops, namely, whom he had sent 1 Capitulata. awake and consider how great is their blindness and folly in pronouncing the whole world defiled by unknown crimes of Africans, and the heritage of Christ (which according to the promise has been shown unto all nations) destroyed through the sins of these Africans by the maintenance of communion with them; while they refuse to acknowledge themselves to be destroyed and defiled 2 Matt. xiii. 30. |