ℹ️ This corpus has no morphological tagging. Glosses are matched by word form against a dictionary — a match does not prove it is the same word (an inflected form can coincide with another word’s lemma). Verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
'We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you, hearing of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel which has come to you, as in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, from the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth.' For these words agree with the Gospel where it is said: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing good seed in his field,' and afterward it is explained that the field is this world. For just as this, from the time it was sown, was foretold to grow until the harvest, so also the apostle says:
'In all the world bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, from the day you heard.' But it grows until the end, because until the harvest; for the harvest is the end of the age. Therefore not only the Colossians to whom it was given, but also all the rest among whom this letter is read, where by apostolic writings it is established that the good seed has been sown and has already then begun to grow and bear fruit, will say: 'What new thing do you bring us? Is the good seed to be sown again, when from the time it was sown it grows until the harvest? If you say that what had been sown through the apostles has perished in those places, and that therefore it must be sown again out of Africa, it will be answered: Read us this from the divine oracles.'
Which assuredly you cannot read, unless you first show to be false that which is written, that the seed sown there before grows until the harvest. And because in no way do the divine utterances contradict themselves, in no way will you find in them anything you could recite against this so manifest a truth. It remains therefore that you say these things not from the divine books, but from yourselves. Accordingly it will most fittingly be answered: 'Let you be anathema.' For the churches founded by apostolic labor hold fast, with what great care it was foretold to them: 'If anyone evangelize to you beyond what you received, let him be anathema.'
Since therefore in the holy Scriptures the Church is manifestly recognized as beginning from Jerusalem and growing through the other nations until it occupies all, even to the end of the age, and since not only its wheat but also its refuse is mentioned, first be corrected, commune with the wheat, and then you shall see what among them you ought to call tares or chaff. Otherwise, by a detestable error you are compelled both to adorn the evil with the praises of the good, and to accuse the good with the crimes of the evil.
Surely we bear in our hands the documents by which we may prove that your forefathers, whose schism you follow, both handed over the holy books to the fires by municipal records, and could not deny it by ecclesiastical records; and that those same men were among the judges, who at Carthage passed sentences against Caecilian and his colleagues in their absence. Surely the same men are read in the municipal and ecclesiastical records as traditors, who are afterward put forward by you as condemners of absent traditors. Surely Nundinarius, a deacon of yours at that time, before the consular Zenophilus laid bare all the traffickings of Lucilla, who bought the condemnation of Caecilian from the bishops, who had become his enemy because he preached the truth.
Surely those same men afterward gave letters to the emperor Constantine, and when arbiters, namely bishops, had been given by him as they had requested, they did not consent to them, and afterward accused those same men before him as unjust judges, and appealed to the emperor himself from others given to them at Arles; and when he himself heard between the parties, they were found to be slanderers, and condemned, and remained in the same obstinacy of frenzy.
Surely you yourselves, who for this reason say that Christian holiness has been utterly destroyed from so many nations, among whom the apostles left it most firmly founded, because they communed with those whom your forefathers had condemned in the Carthaginian council of seventy bishops—do you not now commune with those whom you condemned, together with Maximian, in the council of Bagai by three hundred and ten bishops? Is not Praetextatus of Assuras read to have been both condemned in that very council and accused and assailed by you in the proconsular records, and yet was received in the very honor in which he had been condemned, and died in your communion?
你們自己確實正是這樣的人：你們之所以說基督徒的聖潔已從那許多——使徒曾在其中把它最堅固地建立起來的——民族中被徹底毀滅，理由是那些民族與你們先輩在七十位主教的迦太基會議中所定罪的人相通；可是你們如今豈不與那些你們連同馬克西米安（Maximian）在三百一十位主教的巴該（Bagai）會議中所定罪的人相通嗎？亞蘇拉的普萊特克斯塔圖（Praetextatus of Assuras）豈不是被記載為既在那會議中被定罪，又在方伯記錄中被你們控告攻擊，然而卻仍以他被定罪時的那個尊位被接納，並在你們的相通中去世了嗎？
Did not Felicianus of Musti, in the same manner, in the same cause, condemned by the bishops in the same council, accused before the judges, afterward received by you, now hold office as a bishop with you? Do not those who were baptized by these condemned men now commune with you in that same baptism? But of course, if so many churches beyond the sea, founded by apostolic labor, commune in the sacraments with those whom they themselves neither condemned as accused among them, and afterward heard to have been cleared and absolved by others, they lose salvation and the Christian religion:
穆斯提的斐利西安（Felicianus of Musti）豈不是照樣，在同一案件中，在同一會議中被眾主教定罪，在判官面前被控告，後來卻被你們接納，如今與你們一同作主教嗎？那些受了這些被定罪之人洗禮的人，豈不如今在那同一洗禮中與你們相通嗎？然而據說，那許多藉使徒的勞苦所建立的海外教會，若在聖禮上與那些人相通——就是那些他們自己既未當作被控告者加以定罪、後來又聽說已被別人洗清赦免的人——就要喪失救恩和基督教信仰：
but the party of Donatus both condemns whomever it wishes, and in that very condemnation so exaggerates the sacrileges of their schism that it does not hesitate to compare them to those whom the earth swallowed up alive; and again communes with those same men when it wishes, received into the same honor, and remains holy and whole. O rule of Numidian law! O privileges of Bagai!
And the baptism of Christ is blown away as worthless in those who have received it in the apostolic churches; but in those whom—as it is written in the council of Bagai—'the condemned sacrilegious ones,' Praetextatus and Felicianus, had baptized, the baptism of Christ is spared, not because it is the baptism of Christ, but because it was given through those bishops who deserved both to depart from their condemners and to return to their condemners as bishops. Surely all these things which I have long been recounting we recite as done by imperial letters and by ecclesiastical and municipal and proconsular records.
And yet, O Donatists, if you held the Church spread throughout the whole world, which is designated and expressed by the most manifest testimonies of the canonical Scriptures, all these things ought to avail nothing against you; for neither would the chaff's crimes prejudice you, if you were the wheat in it, nor, if you were the chaff and the crimes were yours, would you in any way prejudice the wheat of the Lord's crop, which is so sown in the field of the Lord that it grows until the harvest—that is, which is so sown in the world that it grows until the end of the age.
In that manner therefore, if perchance—what you have never yet proved to us—you should bring such documents against our chaff, while we on the contrary should not have against you these so great things which I have recounted, even so it would in no way prejudice our wheat spread throughout the whole world, whatever you might say against their chaff, however true, however manifest, however proven. Accordingly let all delaying evasions be removed. Whatever false thing is objected concerning the sins of men, let the conscience be dealt with and let it not be objected; whatever true thing is objected concerning the sins of men, and either cannot be proved, or, when it ought to have been proved, could not be, let it not be objected;
whatever concerning the sins of men is objected as both true and proven, and yet pertains not to the wheat that lies hidden among the chaff, but to the chaff itself, which shall be separated at the end—let it not be objected. For these things we too can object much more copiously and provably, not with that emptiness with which they do it, so as to establish our cause in them, but so as to show them that we are unwilling to trust in such things, not because we do not find such things to say, but lest we waste in unnecessary matters the time useful for necessary things. This is why they do it, because they cannot find documents supported by robust and firm truth, whereby to defend their cause, and they wish to seem to say something, while they blush to be silent and do not blush to speak empty things.
Therefore, with all such things removed, let them demonstrate their Church, if they can—not in the discourses and rumors of the Africans, not in the councils of their own bishops, not in the letters of any disputants whatsoever, not in signs and deceptive wonders, because against these too we have been made prepared and cautious by the word of the Lord—but in the prescription of the Law, in the predictions of the prophets, in the songs of the Psalms, in the voices of that one Shepherd himself, in the preachings and labors of the Evangelists, that is, in all the canonical authorities of the holy books; and not in such a way that they gather and cite those things which are said obscurely or ambiguously or figuratively, which each one interprets as he wishes according to his own understanding.
For such things cannot rightly be understood and expounded unless those which are said most plainly are first held with firm faith. Whoever, therefore, prepares to reply to this letter, I give notice beforehand that he must not say to me: 'Those men handed over the Lord's books to the flames, those men sacrificed to the images of the nations, those men waged a most iniquitous persecution against us, and you consented with them in all things.' For I answer briefly what I have often answered: either you speak falsehoods, or, if they are true, the things you say pertain not to the wheat of Christ but to their chaff. The Church does not perish on that account, which, winnowed at the last judgment, shall be cleansed by the separation of all such people.
I inquire after the Church itself, where she is who, by hearing the words of Christ and doing them, builds upon the rock, and by both hearing and doing bears with those who, by hearing and not doing, build upon the sand; where is the wheat that grows among the tares until the harvest, not what the tares themselves have done or may do; where is the Beloved of Christ in the midst of evil daughters as a lily among thorns, not what the thorns themselves have done or may do; where are the good fish which, until they reach the shore, endure the bad fish caught together in the same net, not what the bad fish themselves have done or may do.
Therefore, laying aside these devices of delay, let him show that the Church is either to be retained in Africa alone with so many nations lost, or that Africa is to be restored to her among all the nations and filled up; and let him so show it that he does not say: 'It is true, because I say this, or because that colleague of mine said it, or those colleagues of mine, or those bishops or clerics or laymen of ours; or it is true for this reason, that Donatus or Pontius or any other performed such and such miracles; or because men pray at the memorials of our dead and are heard; or because such and such things happen there; or because that brother of ours or that sister of ours saw such a vision while awake, or dreamed such a vision while sleeping.'
Let these things be removed, whether they be figments of lying men or portents of deceiving spirits. For either the things that are said are not true, or, if any wonders have been wrought by heretics, we ought all the more to be on our guard; because, when the Lord had said that certain deceivers would come who by working some signs would deceive even the elect, if it were possible, He added, earnestly warning us, and said: 'Behold, I have foretold you.' Whence the Apostle also, admonishing us, says: 'Now the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.' Moreover, if anyone praying at the memorials of heretics is heard, he receives, not according to the merit of the place, but according to the merit of his own desire, whether good or evil.
For the Spirit of the Lord, as it is written, has filled the whole world; and: 'The ear of jealousy hears all things'; and many are heard while God is angry, of whom the Apostle says: 'God gave them up to the desires of their heart'; and to many God, being propitious, does not grant what they wish, in order that He may grant what is profitable. Whence the same Apostle says concerning the thorn of his flesh, the angel of Satan, whom he says was given to him, by whom he was buffeted, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations: 'For which cause I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is made perfect in weakness.'
Do we not read that not a few were heard by the Lord God Himself on the high places of the mountains of Judaea—which high places nevertheless so displeased God that both the kings who did not overthrow them were blamed, and those who did overthrow them were praised? Whence it is understood that the affection of the one who asks avails more than the place of the petition. As for deceptive visions, let them read what is written, both that Satan himself transforms himself as an angel of light, and that many have been seduced by their own dreams; let them also hear what the pagans relate about their temples and their gods, as things marvelously done or seen; and yet 'the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.'
Many, therefore, are heard, and in many ways—not only Catholic Christians, but also pagans and Jews and heretics given over to various errors and superstitions. And they are heard either by seducing spirits, who nevertheless do nothing unless permitted, God judging loftily and ineffably what is to be granted to each; or by God Himself, whether for the punishment of malice, or for the solace of misery, or for the admonition to seek eternal salvation. But to salvation itself and to eternal life no one attains except him who has Christ for his Head. And to have Christ for his Head no one can, except him who is in His Body, which is the Church, whom we ought to recognize, just as the Head Himself, in the holy canonical Scriptures.
Let no one, then, who is prepared to answer me, set these things against me; for neither do I say that on this account I ought to be believed that the communion of Donatus is not the Church of Christ—namely, because certain men who were bishops among them are convicted by ecclesiastical, municipal, and judicial records of having handed over the divine documents to the flames; or because in the judgment of the bishops, which they had sought from the emperor, they did not win their cause; or because, appealing to the emperor himself, they earned from him too a sentence against themselves; or because they have such leaders of the Circumcellions among them; or because the Circumcellions commit so great evils; or because there are among them men who hurl themselves down precipices, or throw themselves into fires to be consumed—fires which they have kindled for their own selves—or who extort their own slaughter even from unwilling men by terrifying them, and who seek out so many voluntary and frenzied deaths in order to be venerated by men; or because at their tombs drunken herds of vagrant men and women, mixed together in wickedness, bury themselves in wine day and night and corrupt themselves with debaucheries.
But whether they themselves hold the Church, let them show only from the canonical books of the divine Scriptures; because neither do we for this reason say that we ought to be believed to be in the Church of Christ—namely, because the very Church which we hold was commended by Optatus of Milevis, or Ambrose of Milan, or countless others, bishops of our communion; or because it was proclaimed in the councils of our colleagues; or because throughout the whole world, in the holy places which our communion frequents, so many wonders of answered prayers or of healings take place—so much so that the bodies of martyrs, hidden for so many years (which they can hear from many by inquiring), were revealed to Ambrose, and at those very bodies a blind man, most well known to the city of Milan for many years, recovered his eyes and his sight; or because that man saw a dream, and that man, caught up in spirit, heard a voice, whether that he should not go over to the party of Donatus, or that he should withdraw from the party of Donatus.
Whatever such things take place in the Catholic Church are to be approved for this reason, that they take place in the Catholic Church; but the Catholic Church herself is not made manifest for the reason that these things take place in her. The Lord Jesus Himself, when He had risen from the dead and offered His body to be seen by the eyes and touched by the hands of the disciples, lest nevertheless they should think they were suffering some deception, judged that they were rather to be confirmed by the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, showing that those things were fulfilled concerning Himself which had been foretold so long before. Thus also He commended His Church, saying that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
He Himself testified that this was written in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms; this we hold as commended by His mouth. These are the proofs of our cause, these its foundations, these its supports. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that it was said of certain believers that they daily searched the Scriptures, whether these things were so. And what Scriptures, indeed, but the canonical books of the Law and the Prophets? To these were added the Gospels, the apostolic Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. Search all these and dig out something manifest by which you may demonstrate that the Church has remained in Africa alone, or that out of Africa it shall come to pass that what the Lord says be fulfilled:
'This Gospel shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.' But bring forward something that needs no interpreter, and by which you may not be convicted that it was said about another matter and that you are trying to twist it to your own meaning. For you see that unique text which you are accustomed to bring forward: 'Where dost thou feed, where dost thou lie down at noon?'—how, when all the words of the same passage are examined, it indicates something far different from what you suppose; and if it did sound as you wish, the Maximianists would defeat you in it. For 'the south' is rather the province of Byzacium and Tripolis, where they are, whoever they are, than Numidia, where you are predominant.
Thus, therefore, they themselves can more genuinely and distinctly glory in the south, so that you cannot exclude them from this saying, unless you hold in those words the true and Catholic sense, showing them that, according to the four corners of the earth, the south is rather from the south wind than from the southwest, but that, according to the figurative expressions of the Scriptures, the perfect illumination of the mind and the greatest fervour of charity is called noon—whence it is written: 'And thy darkness shall be as the noonday.' Bring forward, therefore, something that may not more truly be interpreted against you, but that needs no interpreter at all, just as this needs no interpreter:
'In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed'—because that the seed of Abraham is Christ, not I but the Apostle interprets; just as this needs no interpreter: 'For thou shalt be called My will, and thy land the world'—because it is said to her whom no Christian understands to be anyone but the Church of Christ; just as this needs no interpreter: 'All the ends of the earth shall remember and be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall adore in His sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations'—because it is said in that psalm where the Passion of the Lord is also declared, the Gospel bearing witness; just as this needs no interpreter:
'that it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem'; just as this needs no interpreter: 'And you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth'—for that the Church began at Jerusalem, and thence went around through Judaea and Samaria and the other nations, the consequent deeds attest, confirmed by canonical documents; just as this needs no interpreter: 'And this Gospel shall be preached for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come'—for the Lord, when asked about the end of this age, having spoken of certain beginnings of birth-pangs, said: 'But the end is not yet';
and He foretold that the end would come after the preaching of the Gospel in the whole world among all nations; just as this needs no interpreter: 'Let both grow together until the harvest'—because, when it did need an interpreter, the Lord Himself interpreted it, and He Himself expounded it whom no one can contradict, especially in that parable which was uttered by Him, and He Himself says that the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the field the world, the harvest the end of the age. Bring forward some such thing, even one, by which it may be most plainly declared that Africa either has been left alone among the rest, or has alone been preserved for the beginning of the renewing and filling of the world.
For that which was soon to perish would not be commended by so many testimonies, and thus be passed over in silence—either that it alone was to be left, or that from it alone the whole was to be restored and filled up. But if you cannot show what we so justly demand of you, yield to the truth, be silent, fall asleep, awake from your frenzy unto salvation. Or do you still say: 'If the Church is among you, why do you compel us to its peace by persecuting us? Or if we are evil, why do you seek us? And if we are tares, let us grow until the harvest'?—as though we, by whatever means we can, do anything else but strive that the wheat be not uprooted together, while before the time the tares are separated. For whoever are to be good for eternity,
even if before the time they are evil, they are not tares but wheat in the foreknowledge of God. But you accuse us thus—why do we seek you if you are evil?—as though you have not perished in that very thing in which you are evil, and are therefore to be sought because you have perished, so that, being lost, you may be sought; being sought, you may be found; being found, you may be recalled—like that sheep by the shepherd, like that coin by the woman, like that son who was dead and lived again, had perished and was found. For He seeks you, who dwells in the saints and commands that you be sought. But as for your complaint of persecution, it will be allayed if you consider and understand that, first, not every persecution is blameworthy; otherwise it would not be said with praise: 'The man that privately detracted his neighbour, him did I persecute.'
For daily we see even a son complain of his father as of his persecutor, and a wife of her husband, and a slave of his master, and a tenant of his landlord, and a defendant of his judge, and a soldier or provincial of his general or king—when for the most part, by a most well-ordered power, they prohibit and restrain the men subject to them from graver evils through the terror of light punishments; but for the most part, on the other hand, by threatening and raging, they deter them from a good life and from good deeds. But when they prohibit from evil and unlawful things, they are correctors and counsellors; when, however, from good and lawful things, they are persecutors and oppressors. Even those who prohibit from evil are to be blamed, if the measure of coercion exceeds the measure of the sin.
Likewise, those are justly to be blamed who tumultuously and disorderly rush to coerce those who are subject to no law under their authority. Accordingly, we justly reprehend the disorderly licence and proud madness of your Circumcellions, even when they are violent against certain most wicked men, because to avenge unlawful things unlawfully, and to deter from unlawful things unlawfully, is not good. But when they persecute even the innocent, whether from an unexamined cause or from most iniquitous enmities, who would not shudder at their most criminal brigandage?
But indeed, that you thought the frenzy of the Maximianists should be coerced by public laws, so that, driven out of the basilicas which they held by the orders of judges and the execution of officials and the aid of the cities, you might press them to a consideration of their crime—this we do not reprehend, except that in them you assailed the very thing which you yourselves did—nay, far more lightly than you did. For they raised the altar of sacrilegious dissension against the party of Donatus, but you against the whole world and against the words of Him who commended His Church, beginning at Jerusalem, throughout all nations.
Moreover, if the Maximianists had dared unlawfully and furiously to resist the orders of the judges obtained against them, would they not have procured judgment for themselves, since the Apostle says: 'For he that resists the power resists the ordinance of God; and they that resist procure to themselves judgment. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil'? When, therefore, their evil work existed, which you were trying to restrain through the ordained powers, if they had wished, on account of that very evil work of theirs, to oppose the laws by a worse work, would they suffer whatever evil befell them from you, and not from themselves?
Just as, whoever had wished to utter blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and, according to the king's edict, was destroyed together with his house—would he suffer this from those three men themselves, on account of whose deliverance from the fire the king, moved, had decreed it, or indeed even from the king himself, and not rather from themselves those deserved evils? If also those forty Jews who had conspired to kill Paul had rushed upon the armed men by whom, with an ordained escort, the same Paul was being conducted, would they have been slain by Paul, and not by themselves, by resisting the authorities?
Wherefore you also, without tumult of mind, without turbulent contention, without bitterness of hatred, consider diligently the things which the kings of our communion decree against you, and for what cause you suffer; and if you find yourselves to be in the Church of Christ, rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven. For you are crowned as martyrs, but they are judged as persecutors of martyrs.
But if the holy and canonical Scripture convicts you of having raised an altar against the Church of Christ, and of being separated by a sacrilegious schism from Christian unity, which is spread throughout the whole world, and of opposing yourselves to the Body of Christ, which is the Church spread throughout the whole world—by rebaptizing and blaspheming and assailing it as much as you can—then you are impious and sacrilegious; but they who decree that you, for so great a crime, are to be deterred and coerced so lightly by admonitions of loss, whether of places or of honours or by the privation of money, that, considering why you suffer these things, you may flee from your acknowledged sacrilege and be freed from eternal damnation, are accounted most diligent rulers and most pious counsellors.