Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 18 part 9/17

In the time of Gildo, because one of your colleagues was his most intimate friend, let the Maximianists have seen what they experienced. For as to Felician himself, who is now with you, if it were permitted to summon him to an oath — whether Optatus compelled him, not unwilling, to return to your communion — he would not dare to move his lips, especially if the people of Musti were to look upon his face, for by their witness those things were then done. But these men, as I said, let them have seen what they suffered from those with whom they had done such things to Rogatus: the Catholic Church itself, made solid under Catholic princes ruling, was atrociously and hostilely assailed by Optatus with bands armed by land and sea.

This affair then first compelled the law of the ten pounds of gold — which none of you has yet paid — to be invoked against you before the vicar Seranus; and yet you charge us with cruelty. But what could be gentler than that your such great crimes should be fined by the coercion of pecuniary penalties? And who could recount in full all the things which, by no friendship of judges or of any powers, each of you commits by his own tyranny wherever he has been able, in your regions? Which of us, in our congregations, has not either learned of some such thing from those before him, or himself experienced it?

Is there not at Hippo, where I am, no lack of those who remember that your Faustinus, in the time of his rule, ordered — because there was there a scanty number of Catholics — that no one should bake bread for them, so that the baker of a certain one of our deacons, a lodger of his own landlord, threw away his half-baked bread and denied him communion (though he had been condemned by no law of exile) not only in the Roman city, but even in his own homeland; and not only in his own homeland, but even in his own house? And what of late — which I myself still lament?

Did not your Crispinus of Calama, when he had bought an estate — and that on a long lease — not hesitate, on the property of Catholic emperors (by whose laws you were commanded not even to exist in the cities), to submerge by rebaptism, in one onslaught of terror, nearly eighty souls, who murmured with pitiable groaning? And by what deeds, if not such as these, did you compel even those very laws of which you complain — far indeed below the desert of your crime, yet such as they are — to be enacted? Or would we not, by the violent assaults of your Circumcellions — who under your leadership serve as soldiers in frenzied bands — be everywhere driven from our fields, unless we held hostages in the cities: you who in any case are unwilling to bear the very face of public authority and the reproof of honourable men, if not through fear, at least through shame? Do not therefore say: Far, far be it from our conscience, that we should compel anyone to our faith; for you do it where you can, and where you do not do it, you cannot — either through fear of the laws, or of ill-will, or through the multitude of those resisting. Petilian said: For the Lord Christ says: No one comes to me unless the Father has drawn him.

Or would we not be driven from our fields on every side by the violent assaults of your Circumcellions, who under your leadership serve in raging bands, unless we held hostages in the cities — you who in any case are unwilling to bear the very face of public authority and the censure of honourable men, if not from fear, then from shame? Do not therefore say: Far be it, far be it from our conscience, that we should compel anyone to our faith; for you do it where you can, but where you do not, it is because you cannot, whether from fear of the laws, or of odium, or of the multitude of those who resist. Petilianus said: For the Lord Christ says: No man cometh to me, unless the Father hath drawn him.

But why do you not permit each person to follow his own free will, seeing that the Lord God himself gave free will to men, yet showing them the way of righteousness, lest perchance anyone should perish through ignorance? For he says: 'I have set before you good and evil, I have set before you fire and water: choose what you will.' And by this choice you, wretched men, have chosen for yourselves not water but rather fire. 'Yet,' he says, 'choose the good, that you may live.' You who are unwilling to choose the good have condemned yourselves as unwilling to live. Augustine replied: If I were to set you a question, namely how God the Father draws men to the Son whom he has left in free will, perhaps you would find it hard to resolve. For how does he draw, if he leaves each one to choose what he wills?

And yet both are true, though few are able to penetrate this by understanding. Therefore, just as it can come to pass that the Father draws to the Son those whom he has left in free will, so it can come to pass that those things which are admonished by the coercions of the laws do not take away free will. For whatever hard and troublesome thing a man suffers, he is admonished to consider why he suffers it; so that, if he perceives that he suffers for righteousness' sake, he may choose that very good, to endure such things for righteousness' sake; but if he sees that there is iniquity for which he suffers, considering that he labours and is tormented most fruitlessly, he may change his will for the better, and at the same time be free both of the barren trouble and of the iniquity itself, which would assuredly harm him far more grievously and perniciously.

And you too, when the kings enact anything against you, believe that you are being admonished to consider why you suffer these things. If for righteousness' sake, then truly they are your persecutors, and you are blessed who, having suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, shall possess the kingdom of heaven; but if for the iniquity of your schism, what are they but your correctors, and you, like all others who are guilty of divers crimes and pay their penalties under the laws, are surely wretched both in this age and in the age to come? No one, therefore, takes away your free will; but do you diligently attend to what you would rather choose: whether, being corrected, to live in peace, or, persevering in malice, to endure true punishments under the false name of martyrdom.

But he addresses you thus, as though you suffered undeservedly for righteousness' sake. As though indeed you were suffering anything worthy of your iniquity, when you commit such unworthy deeds and reign in such great impunity, so frenzied that with your 'Praises of God' you terrify more than a war-trumpet, so slanderous that you even impute your own voluntary suicides to our persecutions! He also says, as a most kindly instructor: 'You who are unwilling to choose the good have condemned yourselves as unwilling to live.' Indeed, if we were to believe your accusations, we should be living well; but because we believe the promises of God, we condemn ourselves as unwilling to live! You remember well, I think, what the apostles said to the Jews, when they were forbidden to preach Christ:

This, then, is what we too say, that you may answer us: whether one ought to obey God rather than men. 'Traitors, incense-burners, persecutors' — these are words of men against men. 'In Donatus alone, in his love, Christ has remained' — these are words of men exalting the glory of a man under the name of Christ, so that the glory of Christ himself may be diminished. For it is written: 'In a numerous nation is the glory of a king, but in the diminution of the people is the ruin of a prince.' These, then, are words of men. But those in the Gospel:

'Because 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' — these are the words of Christ commending the glory which he received from the Father in the breadth of his kingdom. Having heard both, we rather choose this communion of the Church, and prefer the words of Christ to the words of men. I ask: who is there who would say that we have read evil, unless he who says that Christ taught evil? Petilian said: Did God then command that slaughter should be inflicted even upon schismatics? For if he commanded it at all, you ought to be slain by some Scythians or barbarians, yet not by Christians. Augustine replied:

Let your Circumcellions be quiet, and do not try to frighten us with barbarians. But whether it is we or you who are the schismatics, let neither I nor you be questioned, but Christ, that he may point out his own Church. Read, then, the Gospel, and he answers you: 'in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the whole earth.' Whoever, therefore, is not found in the Church, let him now not be questioned, but let him either be corrected and converted, or, being rebuked, let him not complain. Petilian said: For neither has the Lord God ever delighted in human blood, since he willed that Cain, the slayer of his brother, should remain in life as an executioner. Augustine replied:

If God was unwilling that death should be inflicted upon the slayer of his brother, but that he should be left alive as an executioner, see whether perhaps this is the reason why — since the heart of the king is in the hand of God, whence he himself has enacted many laws for admonishing and correcting you, yet no royal law has commanded that you be slain — perhaps for this cause: that whoever of you persist in the obstinate breath of sacrilegious fury may be tormented, like Cain the fratricide, with the punishment of living as an executioner. For we read that many were mercifully slain by God's servant Moses. For in this — that he thus besought the Lord for their wicked sacrilege, saying: 'Lord, if thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of thy book' — his ineffable charity and mercy sufficiently appear.

Did he then suddenly become cruel, when, coming down from the mountain, he commanded so many thousands to be slain? Consider, therefore, lest perhaps by a greater wrath of God you have not been commanded to be slain by any emperor through so many laws passed against you. Or do you think that you are not to be compared with those fratricides? Hear the Lord speaking through the prophet: 'From the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice. Great is my name among the nations, saith the Lord Almighty.'

This fraternal sacrifice, upon which God looks down, you show by your slanders that you envy; and if ever you hear the name of the Lord praised from the rising of the sun to its setting — which is the living sacrifice of which it is said, 'Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise' — your countenance falls, just like that murderer's. But because you cannot destroy the whole world, you are held by that very hatred as guilty, since John says: 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.' And would that the innocent brother might rather fall to be slaughtered by the weapons of your Circumcellions than to be rebaptized by your tongue! Petilian said:

We therefore admonish you, if you will hear willingly; and if you receive it unwillingly, we still admonish you: that the Lord Christ instituted for Christians not a form of killing but of dying. For if he had loved men so as to fight back, he would not have willed to be slain for us. Augustine replied: Would that your martyrs followed his example! They would not cast themselves down, which he — though the devil suggested it — did not do. But you, since you persecute even our forefathers, though dead, with false testimony, where did you receive this example? Since you strive to stain us with the crimes of unknown persons, while you are unwilling that your own most notorious evil deeds should count against you, where did you receive this example?

But we are too proud if we grow indignant on our own account, when we see you bearing false witness against the Lord himself, seeing that he both promised and displayed his Church throughout all nations, and you contradict it. This example, indeed, you did not receive even from the Jewish persecutors themselves; for they persecuted the flesh of him who walked upon the earth, but you the Gospel of him who sits in heaven. That Gospel more mildly bore the flames of raging kings than it bears your tongues; for while they burned it, unity remained, but while you speak, it could not remain. Those who desired the burnt words of the Lord to be abolished did not believe that, once read, they could be despised.

They would not, therefore, have exercised their flames against the Gospel, if you had promised them your tongues against the Gospel. In that persecution the Gospel of Christ was sought out by some who raged, betrayed by some who feared, burned by some who dug it out, hidden by some who loved it, assailed by none who contradicted it. You have reserved for yourselves the more wicked parts of persecution, now that the persecution of the pagans is over: those who persecuted the name of Christ did not believe in Christ; those who are honoured for the name of Christ contradict Christ. Petilian said: Behold, here is fullest proof for you, that it is not lawful for a Christian to be engaged in the destruction of another.

But the beginning of this discipline was established for Peter, as it is written: 'Peter smote the ear of the servant of the prince of the Jews and cut it off. And Jesus said to him: Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath; for he that useth the sword shall perish by the sword.' Augustine replied: Why then do you not restrain the arms of the Circumcellions with such a saying? Or do you think you would be speaking contrary to the Gospel, if you said: 'He that useth the club shall perish by the club'? Grant pardon, then, since our forefathers could not restrain even those by whom you complain that Marculus was cast down. For it is not written in the Gospel: 'He that casteth another down shall perish by casting down.'

And would that, just as those things are either false or past, so the cudgels of these men might cease! Although perhaps you are angry that we take away the armament of your legions — if not by laws, at least by words — since we say that they rage only with clubs. For of old this was their soldiery, but now they have advanced too far. For amid their drunken banquets, and with the free licence they have of accompanying, roaming, jesting, drinking, and passing the night with women who have no husbands, they have learned not only to turn clubs on the lathe, but even to brandish iron and to whirl slings. But why should I not say to them — with what mind I say it, and with what mind they receive it, let God know —:

'You madmen! The sword of Peter, though drawn as yet from a carnal impulse of the mind, was nevertheless drawn on behalf of the body of Christ against the body of the persecutor; but your arms are turned against Christ, his body, of which he is the head — that is, his Church — which is throughout all nations. He himself said this, and ascended into heaven, whither the fury of the Jews could not follow him, and your fury assails his members in the body which, ascending, he commended to us. On behalf of these members there rage against you and resist you all who in the Catholic Church, being still of little faith, are of that mind in which Peter then was, when he drew iron for the name of Christ. But there is a great difference between your persecution and theirs.'

You are like the servant of the priest of the Jews, because, serving your own princes against the Catholic Church — that is, against the body of Christ — you take up arms; but those men are such as Peter then was, who fight even bodily on behalf of the body of Christ, that is, on behalf of the Church. But if it is said to them that they should be quiet, as it was then said to Peter, how much more ought it to be said to us — I mean, to you — that, laying aside your heretical fury, you should belong to those members for which they so contend!

But, wounded by such men, you even hate us, and, as though you had lost your right ears, you do not hear Christ sitting at the Father's right hand. But to whom shall I speak, or when shall I speak to them, for whom I cannot find an hour, since even in the morning they belch out wine, whether already drunk or still drinking? Nay rather, not only they threaten, but even their own bishops threaten on their behalf, ready to deny that what they have done pertains to them. May the Lord grant us the song of degrees, whereby we may be able to say: 'With them that hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they warred against me without cause.' For this the body of Christ says, which throughout the whole earth is assailed by heretics — here by some, elsewhere by others, and by all the different ones wherever they are. Petilian said:

Therefore, I say, he ordained that death should be undergone for the faith, rather than inflicted upon anyone for the sake of communion. For Christianity profits by deaths. For no most faithful man would live, if death were feared by the faithful. For the Lord Christ says: 'Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remaineth alone; but if it die, it will bear much fruit.' Augustine replied: I should like to know who was the first of your party to cast himself down. For that grain was surely most fertile, from which such a harvest of cast-down corpses has sprung up.

Surely, since you remember the words of the Lord, that he said he was the grain that would die and bear much fruit, why do you envy that very fruit — which has come forth most abundantly throughout the whole world — and cast against it the charges of tares or of chaff, whether such as you have heard or such as you have invented? Petilian said: But you scatter thorns and tares, not seeds, with which it will be fitting for you to be burned together at the final judgment. We do not curse; but every thorny conscience is thus held by the sentence of God. Augustine replied: At least, by the mention of the tares, the wheat also might come into your mind along with it, since both were commanded to grow throughout the field until the harvest.

But you fix the eye of your malevolence keenly upon the tares, and, against the sentence of Christ, contend that these alone have grown throughout the whole world, with Africa alone excepted. Petilian said: Where is that which the Lord Christ says: 'If thou receive a blow, prepare also the other cheek'? Where is that which he suffered spittings in his face, he who with his most holy spittle opened the eyes of the blind man? Where is that which the apostle Paul says: 'If any man smite you on the face'? Where is that which he says again: 'In stripes above measure, in deaths often, in prisons more frequently'? He records what he suffered, not what he did. It was enough that these things were done to the Christian by the Jews: why, wretched men, do you perpetrate these things? Augustine replied:

So indeed, do you, when you have received a blow, offer the other cheek? Not thus have your frenzied bands, wandering everywhere throughout all Africa with dreadful outrage, won this reputation for you. Would that men would make a compact with you, that at least according to the old law you might seek an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and not raise clubs in return for words you have heard! Petilian said: But what would you have to do with the kings of this world, whom Christianity has never found other than envious? To teach this briefly: a king persecuted the Maccabee brothers; a king also, being himself sacrilegious, in his ignorance consigned three boys to religious flames; a king sought the life of the Saviour when a boy;

a king exposed the most just Daniel to the bites of wild beasts, as he supposed; and a most wicked judge of a king slew the Lord Christ himself. Hence it is that the apostle cries out: 'We speak wisdom among the perfect, wisdom not of this world nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which was hidden, which God ordained before the ages unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.' But let this be said of the former pagan kings. Augustine replied:

But you do not permit the emperors of this world, who desire to be Christians, to be Christians, since with the paint and mist of your lie you utterly lead the same men, believing with a good mind, into your iniquity, so that with their arms — prepared against the enemies of the commonwealth — they may rush upon Christians, and may think that by your persuasions they do God service, if they slay us whom you hate, though the Lord Christ says: 'The time will come,' he says, 'when whoever kills you will think that he does God service.' It matters nothing to us, then, who are wrongly taught, whether the kings of the world desire to be pagans — which God forbid — or Christians, since you do not cease to arm the same men against the family of Christ.

But do you not know, or rather have you not read, that greater than the crime of him who kills a man is the crime of him who persuades to it? Jezebel had stirred up her husband the king to the death of a just and poor man: yet by an equal punishment both husband and wife perished together. For you drive kings on in no other way than as often a woman's subtle persuasion has driven kings into guilt. Indeed, through her daughter the wife of Herod obtained and procured that the head of John be brought on a platter to the table. The Jews so compelled Pontius Pilate to fasten Christ the Lord to the cross, whose avenging blood they willed to remain upon themselves and their children forever. Thus you too, sinning with our blood, are overwhelmed.

For even if a judge strikes, it is not rather your slanders that have smitten us; for the prophet David says, in the person of the Lord Christ: 'Why did the nations rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes assembled together against the Lord and against his Christ. Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall he speak to them in his wrath, and in his fury shall he trouble them. But I am set up as king by him over Zion his holy mountain, preaching his commandment. The Lord said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.'

'Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and like a potter's vessel thou shalt shatter them.' And these same kings, though as if in ignorance or unknowingly they desired to persecute Christians, he admonished by these precepts, lest they should perish. And would that we might teach them those precepts, which they know not; or that at least you would without doubt show them to them, if you wished that they should live; or, at least — which is a third possibility — that your malice had permitted them to read these things for themselves! The first Davidic psalm would altogether persuade them to become Christians and to reign. Yet these you have wickedly deceived, while they commit themselves to you; for you invent for them the things that are evil, and conceal the things that are good.

Let them at length read this, even if late, which they ought long ago to have read. For what does it say? 'And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you that judge the earth. Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto him with trembling. Lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way. When his wrath shall be kindled against you in a short time, blessed are all they that trust in him.' You press the emperors, I say, with your persuasions, just as the Jews pressed that Pilate whom we have mentioned, although he himself cried out, publicly washing his hands: 'I am free from the blood of this just man.'

Yet how can he be clean from the crime, who did it? But, to pass over ancient matters, observe in your own examples how many emperors and your judges perished by making persecution against us. To leave aside Nero, who first persecuted the Christians, Domitian likewise for the most part like Nero, Trajan, Geta, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian — Maximian too perished. When they proclaimed the burning of incense, the sacred books having been burned, first Marcellinus, who was bishop of the Romans, but also Mensurius of Carthage and Caecilian — out of those very sacrilegious flames they remained as embers or ashes. For the guilty conscience of the incense implicated you who consented to Mensurius.

Macarius perished, Ursacius perished, and all your companions likewise perished by the vengeance of God. For Ursacius, laid low in a barbarian battle, the birds tore with savage talons and the dogs with the bites of their teeth. Is not the same man, at your instigation, a murderer, who like King Ahab — whom, as we said, his wife made a murderer — slew a just and poor man? Thus you too do not cease to butcher the just and poor — I speak of worldly resources; for by the grace of God there is no poor man among us — you do not cease to butcher them. For, even if you do it not with the hand, you do it with the tongue. You butcher a man with the executioner. For it is written: 'Death and life are in the hands of the tongue.'

All, therefore, who have been slain, you who are the persuader have slain; for the hand of the executioner grows hot only from your tongue, and that hard heat of the breast is kindled by your words unto another's blood — blood that will avenge the blood of those shed by your words. Augustine replied: To this passage, so copiously amplified and elaborated by you, where you speak invidiously against us concerning the kings of the world, if I were to reply as is fitting and worthy, I fear that you might also accuse me of having wished to stir up the anger of kings against you. Although, since after your manner you carry the assault of this invective universally against all Catholics, you do not indeed pass me by either. Yet I will endeavour to show, if I can, that you have rather done this by speaking such things, than I by answering such things.

And first see how you contradict your very self. Certainly you began this passage thus: 'But what have you to do with the kings of the world, whom Christianity has never found other than envious?' By these words you surely forbid us to approach the kings of the world. And a little after you say: 'And these same kings, lest as if in ignorance or unknowingly they should desire to persecute Christians, he admonished by these precepts, lest they perish; and would that we might teach them those precepts, which they know not, or that at least you would without doubt show them to them, if you wished that they should live!' How, then, do you wish us to be teachers of kings? And ours indeed, if they have any friendship with Christian kings, and if they use it well, sin not at all;

but if any are puffed up thereby, they sin far more lightly than you. For what had you, who so accuse us, to do with a pagan king — and what is graver, an apostate and enemy of the Christian name, Julian — from whom, when you begged that your basilicas should be restored as if they were yours, you set this down to his praise, that with him justice alone had place? By which words — for I believe you understand Latin — both the idolatry of Julian and his apostasy were called justice. The petition which your forefathers presented is on record, the constitution which they obtained, the proceedings where they alleged it. Awake and attend: to an enemy of Christ, an apostate, an adversary of Christians, a slave of demons, that man, that man of yours, that Pontius of yours, made supplication in such words.

Go now and say to us: 'What have we to do with the kings of the world?' — that, deaf men, you may read to deaf peoples what you are unwilling to hear along with them: 'Thou seest the straw in thy brother's eye, but the beam in thine own eye thou seest not.' 'What,' you say, 'have you to do with the kings of the world, whom Christianity has never found other than envious?' When you had said this, you attempted to enumerate what kings the just found to be their enemies, and did not consider that more could be enumerated whom they had as friends. Father Abraham, by a king divinely admonished not to touch his wife, was both treated most amicably and received a gift. Isaac his son likewise found a king most friendly. Jacob, honourably received into Egypt by a king, even blesses him.