Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 10 part 3/17

Surely in the unity of the Church there are no demons; nor can we therefore say that it is something different which they believe, since they even said to the Lord Jesus Christ: 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' Whence Paul the Apostle also: 'If I have,' he says, 'all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.' But I do not suppose that anyone is so foolish as to believe that he belongs to the unity of the Church who does not have charity. As, therefore, one God is worshipped ignorantly even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not himself; and one faith is held without charity even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not itself; so too one baptism is held ignorantly and without charity even outside the Church, and yet is not thereby not itself.

For there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt Catholic Church — not that in which alone one God is worshipped, but in which alone one God is worshipped devoutly; nor that in which alone one faith is held, but in which alone one faith is held with charity; nor that in which alone one baptism is had, but in which alone one baptism is had healthfully. Accordingly, one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic Church, you proposed with us consenting; but not only did you not accomplish from these what you wished, but you even greatly helped us, so that from these we might admonish you of what we wished.

See, therefore, how probable a reasoning we follow, we who correct those things which the schismatics or heretics have corrupted, when they come to us from thence, but the things which they have held just as they received them, we acknowledge and approve — lest, moved by human faults, we should beyond justice do any injury to divine things; since we see that the Apostle too, even on the altar of the Gentiles, by whom idols were worshipped, rather confirmed than denied that the name of God was found there.

For the royal mark upon a man is not to be changed or disapproved on that account, if he obtains from the king pardon for his error and enrolment in military service, merely because a deserter branded that same mark upon himself in order to gather henchmen around him; nor are the sheep's brands to be changed when they are joined to the Lord's flock, merely because a runaway slave stamped the Lord's mark upon them. But if you dread these examples as though they misled you, on the ground that they are not drawn from the Church—although you know that comparisons taken from sheep and from soldiers are set down in the Scriptures—I wish to say something from the prophetic writings which are called those of the Old Testament, since in the books of the New Testament no instance of this matter is found either by us or by you.

You certainly do not dare, I think, to deny that circumcision of the foreskin was observed by the ancients as a figure of the baptism of Christ that was to come. Could a man circumcised among the Samaritans, if he then wished to become a Jew, be circumcised again? Would not that man's error be corrected, while the seal of faith, once recognized, would be approved? And even now there are certain heretics who call themselves Nazarenes, though by some they are named Symmachians, who have both the circumcision of the Jews and the baptism of Christians; and therefore, just as, if one of them should come over to the Jews, he cannot be circumcised again, so when he comes over to us he ought not to be baptized again. To this you will say: 'The circumcision of the Jews is one thing, the baptism of Christians another.'

But since that was a shadow of this truth, why could that circumcision of the Jews exist even among heretics, while this baptism of Christians cannot exist among heretics? Produce, then, some instance from the canonical Scriptures of one coming from the heretics who was baptized anew. For the fact that the apostles ordered certain men to be baptized in Christ after John's baptism is an entirely different case. For John was no heretic, but that friend of the Bridegroom, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women. The case, therefore, is quite different.

Otherwise, if Paul baptized after John, since both were in the unity of Christ, how much more ought your bishops—since they say that they are in the unity of Christ—to baptize after their colleagues, in whom they rightly reprove certain morals, when Paul did this who could reprove nothing in John! Therefore that is another case, another reason, about which it would be long to discourse now, and concerning which we have already said much in our other little works. Prove, then, from the canonical Scriptures that one coming from the heretics was baptized anew. For we too cite what was said to Peter: He who has once been washed has no need to be washed again. But you also say:

'Peter had not been baptized among heretics.' Accordingly, since neither can you produce from the Scriptures—whose authority is common to us both—an instance of one coming from the heretics who was baptized anew, nor can we produce one so received (as far as this matter is concerned), the case stands equal between us. Yet we have shown that many things pertaining even to the law of God are found among those who are not in the Church—which none of you dares to deny; but why you should refuse to admit baptism to be something of this kind, I do not at all see, nor do I trust that you can demonstrate it. In this matter, indeed, we follow the most certain authority of the canonical Scriptures.

For it is not to be regarded as of small moment that, when among the bishops of an earlier age—before there began to be the party of Donatus—this question was in flux and the colleagues held various opinions among themselves while the unity was preserved, it was resolved that throughout the whole Catholic Church, which is spread over all the world, that should be observed which we hold. For you too produce the council of Cyprian, which either was never held, or was rightly overruled by the other members of unity, from whom he was not divided.

For we are not on that account better than Bishop Cyprian, if indeed he judged that heretics should be baptized anew, merely because we rightly do not do this—just as we are not better than the Apostle Peter because we do not compel the Gentiles to Judaize, which he is shown to have done, as the Apostle Paul attests and corrects him, when among the apostles a question about circumcision similarly wavered with no small difficulty, just as afterward the question about baptism did among the bishops.

Accordingly, although no certain instance of this matter is produced from the canonical Scriptures, nevertheless the truth of those same Scriptures is upheld for us even in this matter, since we do what has now pleased the universal Church, which the authority of the Scriptures themselves commends; so that, since Holy Scripture cannot deceive, whoever fears to be deceived by the obscurity of this question may consult that same Church concerning it, which Holy Scripture points out without any ambiguity.

But if you doubt that this Holy Scripture commends the Church, which is spread abroad through all nations in most abundant number—for if you did not doubt, you would no longer be in the party of Donatus—I will burden you with many and most manifest testimonies brought forward from that same authority, so that from your own concessions, if you are not too obstinate, you may even be brought to this: after I have first shown that to my letter, which you chose to answer in opposition, you were able to answer nothing that pertains to the truth. For the present let this suffice, that on account of men's excessive obstinacy I have judged that much must be said against those who, having a fundamentally bad cause, wish by a technical objection to turn the judges away from examining it.

For they say that they must by no means hold discourse with us. I have proved, both from the Holy Scriptures and by reasoning as clear as I could make it, that neither eloquence, however great, nor dialectic, of whatever kind, is to be feared by the defenders of truth, so as to prevent them from convincing the defenders of falsehood by disputing with them and refuting them. There too I have demonstrated that very thing by which, apart from my letter, you said you were moved—namely, how it does not follow that, if we grant that there is baptism in the party of Donatus, we should at the same time grant that anyone ought to be baptized in that same society; because, just as the reprobate people of the Jews could have a good law, so the reprobate society of heretics can have a good sacrament.

But what is properly given in the Church, which is by no means given outside her, will be shown in its own place without difficulty. For we should not deal rightly with the heretics—whom we confess to have baptism—by urging them to come by all means to the Catholic Church, unless by coming they received something which they could not receive elsewhere, and which, unless they receive it, they possess in vain and to their ruin.

Whatever other things, however good and pertaining to the law of God, they could receive anywhere—for whatever this is that, according to the Scriptures and most certain reason, can be found to be given or received nowhere save in the Holy Church, this will pertain to the sealed fountain, the well of living water, the paradise with the fruit of the orchard, of which, as you were able, you made mention, but showed that you did not understand what it was, since you suppose that this was said of visible baptism.

Although this (baptism) is holy and by no means to be omitted, since it excels in a most sacred signification, yet, since many receive it—not only the good, who are called according to His purpose and are conformed to the image of the Son of God, but also those who shall not possess the kingdom of God, among whom, as the apostle says, both the drunkards and the covetous are numbered—I think that, if you lay aside your stubbornness and reflect, you will yourself easily answer that I speak the truth to you: namely, that you should not seek the sealed fountain and the well of living water except where those who displease God are by divine appointment not permitted to approach. BOOK TWO.

By the so lengthy discourse of the previous volume I think that we have at last, sooner or later, persuaded you that your bishops are not to be praised in this matter nor approved—in that, concerning the cause of the dissension which sunders our communion, they refuse to hold conference with us.

For by this technical objection, as it were, they think themselves most safe in a most evil cause—an objection which, unless I am mistaken, I have utterly cut away, both by true and certain reasons and, above all, by examples from the divine Scriptures; by which I have taught most clearly that discourse was held by the holy preachers and defenders of the truth even against its adversaries who were present—and not only against those who were of the same people as they, but even against foreigners and strangers, and (whence chiefly you cast vain terrors upon the untaught) against those who chiefly professed dialectic—lest the most diligent preacher be reckoned most contentious, and lest the tireless disputant be thought a wrangler, being instant, according to the apostle's precept, in season and out of season, that by sound doctrine the gainsayers may be refuted, the vain talkers confounded, the unquiet reproved, the fainthearted comforted, the weak upheld, while against all who resist, the word of gospel salvation is defended with patience.

…it is preached without diffidence. I have also shown how little you ought to think that a man is to be baptized among you because we too agree that baptism can both be possessed and given by you, since we also say that it is possessed to ruin and given to ruin; for those holy things, which even the wicked can use, the holier they are, the more uselessly and the more to their own punishment are they handled by them. Hence, when they come to the holy Church, they themselves must be corrected, and those things must not be violated by the good which were not even changed by the wicked.

Hear then, Cresconius, while I briefly demonstrate this too—that in your whole letter you said nothing whereby you might refute mine, except perhaps that you taught me to derive or decline names, so that from 'Donatus' I should say 'Donatians' rather than 'Donatists'; yet you grant that this at least is a Greek declension, namely that the Donatists are named from Donatus as the evangelists are from the gospel—a thing in which you say you take delight, that from a like source the declension of the word should be borrowed for your preachers of the gospel. See, then, lest perhaps they themselves first wished to be so called, because they hold Donatus in place of the gospel.

For just as these men, from Donatus, so all the saints refuse to depart from the fellowship of the gospel, and therefore they delight to be called Donatists as evangelists; and you rather do them an injury when you write, approving in Latin speech nothing but the Latin rule, that they are better called Donatians from Donatus, just as Arians and Novatians from Arius and Novatus. For as for me, when I was writing, this name already sounded in my ears as propagated by I know not whom, and I did not trouble to change it, since I judged that even this was sufficient enough for the distinction I intended.

For if Demosthenes, the most illustrious of orators—men who took as great care of words as our own authors took of matters—nevertheless, when Aeschines charged him with a certain unusualness of expression, denied that the fortunes of Greece depended on whether he used this word or that, and stretched out his hand this way or that: how much less ought we to labor over the rules of deriving names, when, whether we say the one or the other, what we say is understood without ambiguity—we whose greater concern lies not in the polishing of speech but in the demonstration of truth! But if any of our people first inflected this name, in no way, it seems to me, did he look to the parallel by which the evangelists are named from the gospel;

but because through Donatus—not only him of Carthage, who is said to have most strengthened this heresy, but also the greater Donatus of Casae Nigrae, who first set up altar against altar in the same city—a great scandal was caused, therefore perhaps he wished to call them Donatists from Donatus as one might call them 'scandalists' from scandal. But for my part, in a matter in which nothing of our cause is diminished, I show myself most accommodating; and when I deal with you I now say 'Donatians,' but when I deal with others, I rather follow custom, which rightly rules over these sounds.

Only do you remember that I, to whom you have attributed such great eloquence, do not yet know how to decline names, and announce to your people their security, lest they should any longer fear me as a dialectician, seeing that you find me still in need of a grammarian.

But if the discipline of disputation—whether you wish to call it dialectic or something else—nevertheless teaches soberly enough that, when the matter is settled, one need not labor over the name: just as I do not care whether that very discipline be called dialectic, yet I do care, so far as I am able, to know and to be able to dispute, that is, to distinguish truth from falsehood in speech (because unless I take care of this I shall err most ruinously)—so I do not care whether you be more skillfully and more learnedly declined as 'Donatists' or 'Donatians,' nor, finally, whether the name should be assigned to you (when we speak, for the sake of distinction) from Donatus—either the one who first sacrificed outside the Church, or the one who chiefly strengthened this dissension—or from Majorinus, who was first ordained a bishop of your party against Caecilianus.

Yet that you are heretics, and therefore, lest you deceive, most carefully to be shunned, I shall incur no small guilt of negligence, as the burden of my office requires, unless I take diligent care to demonstrate it. However, you judge that what has arisen between us ought rather to be called a schism than a heresy, and—what dialecticians rarely dare to do—you even distinguish these things by definitions; wherein I shall not be able to show sufficiently how much you help me, unless I insert your own words from your letter. 'What is it,' you say, 'that you mean, when you say: the sacrilegious error of the heretics?'

'For heresies are not wont to arise except among those who follow different things, nor is a heretic anything but a worshipper of a contrary or otherwise-interpreted religion, such as are the Manichaeans, Arians, Marcionites, Novatians, and the rest, whose divergent opinion stands among themselves against the Christian faith. But among us, for whom the same Christ was born, died, and rose again, one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance—there is said to be a schism, not a heresy; since heresy is the sect of those following different things, but schism is the separation of those following the same things. Wherefore in this eagerness for accusation too you see how far you have fallen into error, when you call a heresy what is a schism.' These, to be sure, are your words, which I have set down from your letter.

Now then attend, if you are not obstinate, by how easy a compendium you yourself have settled the matter that was in dispute between us. For if to us and to you the same Christ was born, died, and rose again, one religion, the same sacraments, nothing perverse in Christian observance, is it not perverse to rebaptize? For you set down three things, of which if you had set down but one, it would have more than sufficed. But, as though you were acting faithfully against the Donatians, lest anyone, however overly acute, should try to interpret otherwise what you had said once and briefly, you took care to press and drive your opinion in even upon dull ears and hearts: 'one religion,' you say, 'the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance.'

And still we labor against one another. Now at last, sooner or later, restrain your dissension, mend the tear, end the strife, love peace. What do you reject, what do you blow away, why do you rebaptize? There is one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance. For if there is not one baptism for us and for you, how is there one religion? But you said 'one religion'; therefore also one baptism. If there is not the same baptism for us and for you, how are there the same sacraments? But you said 'the same sacraments'; therefore also the same baptism. Likewise, if for us and for you baptism is divergent, how is nothing divergent in Christian observance?

But you said 'nothing divergent in Christian observance'; therefore baptism too is not divergent. Since these things are so, we rightly neither disapprove, nor blow away, nor repeat what is one and the same and not divergent, but we acknowledge, take up, and accept it; you, however, impiously refuse to acknowledge, decline to take up, are unwilling to accept what is one and the same and not divergent, but you choose to disapprove, dare to blow away, do not fear to repeat it. And whereas in this very thing—that we take up those things which have not been changed between us, while you reject them; that we judge to be valid, if they were given by you; while you demand again, as though not given, what has been given by us—since you follow things so divergent, you disdain to be called heretics.

Attend diligently to what you say, to what I say. You certainly defined and said: 'Heresy is the sect of those following different things, but schism is the separation of those following the same things.' Likewise you said that for us and for you there is one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance. If there is one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance, why then do you rebaptize a Christian? But if, in the fact that you rebaptize a Christian while I do not rebaptize, we assuredly follow different things, why are you unwilling to be called a heretic? I think that we recognize by no small sign that they are heretics, who—while they profess that for themselves and for us there is one religion,

the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance—yet are unwilling to acknowledge us as baptized. Or do you contend with such obstinacy, do you resist the truth with such dissension, that you separate baptism from religion, from the sacraments, from Christian observance? If you do this, herein you are heretics, in that you refuse to admit that baptism pertains to religion, to the sacraments, to Christian observance. But if you do not do this, herein you are heretics, in that those who have with you one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance—since you confess that baptism too pertains to religion, to the sacraments, to Christian observance—you nevertheless rebaptize.

For attend diligently to your own definition, in which you said: 'Heresy is the sect of those following different things,' and see whether you do not follow different things—either by separating baptism from the religious observance of the Christian sacraments, with which we join it among great things, or by rebaptizing those with whom, in one religious observance of the Christian sacraments, even baptism is one—which we detest.

How I could wish, if I were able, when your men receive some deceived one from among our faithful to be destroyed by their abominable snares—when they say that one already baptized among us has not even begun to be a Christian, when they blow upon him as though a pagan, when they make him a catechumen in order then to prepare him for re-dyeing, or rather for extinguishing—suddenly to appear from somewhere with this letter of yours, and, reading out in the very midst of their audacious deeds this very passage of it, to hold it forth and cry out: What are you doing? Behold, hear, see, read: 'One religion is ours and yours, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance.'

First ask in whose name this man was baptized, and then, if you name a better one in your baptism, give it.' Then perhaps they, if they did not tremble at the very evidence of the facts, would forthwith put forward their plan—great, no doubt, and shrewd—and say: 'Who is this fellow to us, whose letter you carry? He is a layman of ours; for us he would conquer, for himself he is conquered.' Then I, if I were present, turning to you would say: 'Do you at least, I beg, tell us what these men are doing. Behold, they arrange to rebaptize one baptized among us. Surely, then, we and you have one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance?' Or would you answer:

'But the baptism of Christ is not religion, is not a sacrament, is not Christian observance'? May God turn away this madness from your mind. What then would you answer me, pressing and saying: 'One religion is ours and yours; but those for whom baptism is not one do not have one religion; therefore ours and yours is one baptism. The same sacraments are ours and yours; but those for whom baptism is not the same do not have the same sacraments; therefore ours and yours is the same baptism. Nothing is divergent between us and you in Christian observance; but those for whom baptism is divergent assuredly do not have nothing divergent in Christian observance; therefore ours and yours baptism is not divergent.

Why is that which is one disapproved, why is that which is the same blown away, why is that which is not divergent repeated?' While I was thus acting in the present situation, thus pressing, to what evasions would you take refuge? Doubtless, in your letter, those men would despise the grammarians; in ours, you would accuse the dialecticians; but the truth from both sides would overcome the heretics, showing that this alone in them is divergent from us, which is established to be perverse—because we recognize our sacraments and correct another's error, while you, on the other hand, confess the same sacraments, which you nevertheless repeat as though they were nothing, disapproving with great divergence what you concede is not divergent.

Accordingly, although between schism and heresy I rather approve that distinction by which schism is said to be a recent dissension of a congregation arising from some divergence of opinions—for neither can a schism come about unless those who make it follow something divergent—while heresy is an inveterate schism: yet what need is there that I should labor over this, since your definitions so greatly help me, that, if it were granted to me both by you and by others of your party, I would more gladly call you schismatics than heretics.

For if those make a schism who have, with those from whom they divide themselves, one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance, then from this your rebaptism is the more damnable, because in one religion, with the same sacraments, with nothing divergent in Christian observance, baptism cannot be another and divergent one. But since what you follow as divergent is neither nothing nor anything small—for, separated from the bond of unity, you also dissent from us concerning the repetition of baptism—it comes about that, according to that very definition of yours in which you said, 'Heresy is the sect of those following different things,' you are both heretics and appear to be defeated.

Heretics indeed, in that you are not only divided but also follow something divergent in rebaptizing; but defeated, because the baptism given through us you repeat as though it were not the same or as though it were nothing, which you confess to be one and the same and not divergent. For they are your own words, that for us and for you there is one religion, the same sacraments, nothing divergent in Christian observance. Wherefore, if the party of Donatus would subscribe to your letter, and then reflect upon these things which have been said by you and by me, without insane obstinacy or shamelessness, it would think and say nothing further against us. But since it is you to whom I reply, I now think that you yourself also see how it was not from any eagerness to accuse, but to refute a pernicious deceit, that I said:

'the sacrilegious error of the Donatist heretics.' Of which four words or names—since this pleases either you or the grammatical art—the first that is set down, 'Donatists,' I correct and change, and I say 'Donatians'; but the other three, since (as I think) you now perceive that they were most truly said, do you correct, do you change. Change, I say, and correct—be it 'of the Donatians' or by whatever other name you are to be called—yet still 'the sacrilegious error of heretics.'

For you are heretics both because you have remained in an inveterate schism, and, by your own definition, because you follow something divergent concerning the Church, which is the body of Christ, or concerning the repetition of Christian baptism; and sacrilegious error it is, not only the separation from Christian unity, but also the violation and rescinding of the sacraments, which, by your own confession, are one and the same. But if you correct and change this, how do we receive you such as you were?

Hence to no purpose have you spoken so many things; and, though you are of so acute a wit, you are dulled by the habit of hearing vanity, so that it seems to you that, when they come over to us from you, we receive them such as they were—because in them we approve the tradition of Christians, which neither did the estranged estrange nor the perverse pervert; which sacraments even you, although not such as we are, nevertheless could not confess to be otherwise than such—and not such as though they were other, similar things, but altogether the same.