Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 20 part 1/5

Why are you still, O Donatists, seduced by your bishops, whose deceitful darkness has been dispelled by clear light, whose error has come to light, whose obstinacy has been overcome? Why do they still boast to you their empty lies? Why do you still believe men who have been vanquished? When they tell you that the judge was corrupted by a bribe, what novelty do they perform? What else have all the vanquished been accustomed to do — those who are unwilling to consent to the truth — except to lie about the iniquity of the judge? Ask of them, and let them first answer you this, if they can: why they dared to come to Carthage and to assemble with us in one place for the sake of a conference.

Already some years before, we had met with them publicly, that by our conferring the truth might appear, and the dissension which divides us be taken out of the way; but, fleeing from that very truth, they answered in the acts: 'It is not fitting that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should assemble in one place.' Why then did they now wish to meet with us? I suppose they would not do what seemed to them unfitting, unless they recognized that we are not the offspring of traitors. Or else let them themselves answer us: why did they say, 'It is unfitting that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should assemble in one place,' and afterwards assembled with us in one place? What thing compelled them to do what is unfitting? For they were not brought in bound, but assembled altogether freely.

If they say 'because the emperor had commanded it,' then they do what is unfitting whenever the emperor commands it. Why then are they angry at certain traitors who do not pertain to our cause? For to hand over the Lord's books to persecutors is assuredly unfitting; yet when a traitor did this, he has no crime, because the emperor had commanded it. We say this not according to the truth, but according to their own perversity. For they themselves said — the public records proclaim it — they said in the acts. Not just anyone unknown, but their own Carthaginian bishop Primianus said this; Primianus gave this in writing to the magistrate of Carthage, and charged that it be said by his deacon in the acts:

'It is unfitting that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should assemble in one place.' Behold, we have assembled in one place: what do they answer to this? If they say, 'It is not unfitting,' why did they lie when they said it was unfitting? If they say, 'It is unfitting,' why did they do what is unfitting? In one way only will they be able to assert both that they did not do what is unfitting and that they were not lying in those words of Primianus — if they say: 'It is indeed unfitting that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should assemble in one place, but we assembled with you in one place for this reason, that we recognized you are not the offspring of traitors.'

But if that is so, why then, when we were now assembling in one place, did they cast these very calumnies at us — unless perhaps so that we too might recognize that they are not the sons of martyrs? For martyrs are called witnesses; and the witnesses of Christ are true witnesses. But these were found to be false witnesses, who cast the charges of surrender — even the charges of others — upon others, and could not even prove them. Why do you still attend to human lies, and not attend to divine testimonies? Why do you still believe vanquished men, and not believe the Truth, which has never been vanquished? For the Truth of God, as we have proved even in the conference itself, bore witness to His Church through many documents of the holy Scriptures, through the prophetic and evangelic writings;

and the place was designated whence the Church of Christ was to begin, and the ends of the earth to which it was to reach. The Lord says His Church would be through all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. The divine lesson is recited, how it began from Jerusalem, where, when the faithful were first gathered together, the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven. The divine lessons are recited, how it spread from Jerusalem through neighbouring and distant lands. The names of the places are set forth, the names of the cities are made manifest, in which the Church of Christ was founded by apostolic labour — which places and cities even merited to receive letters from the apostles;

which letters they too read in your congregations, and yet they do not commune with the churches of those places and cities which merited to receive those very letters, objecting against them I know not what crimes of Africans — that they have perished by contagion of these — although they themselves said, in this very conference which we lately held at Carthage, that neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person. Now they said this then, when we said to them: 'The council which you produce against Caecilian is no more prejudicial to the absent Caecilian than the council which was held in the case of Maximianus, where Primianus was condemned, is prejudicial to the absent Primianus.'

For they produced the record where seventy bishops and more had condemned Caecilian in his absence, while there are produced more or less a hundred bishops of their own party, who had condemned Primianus in his absence. Since therefore we said to them that this is no more prejudicial to Caecilian than that is to Primianus, seeing that both councils were held against absent men, straightway, finding nothing to answer and suffering dreadful straits, they said that neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person; which the Catholic Church has ready in her mouth against all human calumnies — but now much more strongly and much more freely, since that which the Truth has always held has been confirmed even by the confession of her enemies.

Who then, without grievous sorrow, could bear this? Who could restrain his groan? Who would not break forth into tears and into a voice of grief, if he weighs this worthily? Behold: that Primianus, condemned by bishops of Donatus's party, should not lose his episcopate, or that Primianus condemned should not disturb Donatus's party — neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person; but that Caecilian, whom his enemies likewise condemned in his absence, should not be reckoned a bishop and should contaminate all the Christian nations even to the ends of the earth — there both a cause prejudices a cause and a person a person. If with the voice of unity itself the churches of Pontus, Bithynia, Asia, Cappadocia, and the rest of the eastern regions should cry out — to whom the blessed apostle Peter writes:

'O party of Donatus, we know not what you say. Why do you not commune with us? If Caecilian did some evil — which has not been proved nor demonstrated to us — yet if he did some evil, why does he prejudice us? If you will not hear us, hear yourselves saying: neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person. Or can your perversity go so far that these words hold good, that Primianus may not prejudice us, and these words do not hold good, that Caecilian may prejudice us?' Let the seven eastern churches likewise cry out, to whom the apostle John writes — Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamum — and say:

'What have we done to you, brethren, you who chose rather to be of Donatus's communion than of ours? If Caecilian sinned — although you could not even show his crime, since, like your own Primianus, he too was condemned in his absence — nevertheless, whatever manner of man he was, what have we ourselves done to you? Why will you not have peace with Christians, being Christians yourselves? Why do you rend among us the common sacraments? What have we done? Why does the cause of Primianus not prejudice Donatus's party, except because it is true, as you have said: neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person? Why then does the cause of Caecilian prejudice the inheritance of Christ, in which we have been planted by the labour of the apostles?

To one of us the apostle John writes that it has a few names in Sardis of those who have not defiled their garments; nor yet were the garments of those few polluted by those who were unclean in that same church, since it is true, as you have said, that neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person. How then can the cause and person of Caecilian prejudice us? Or if it does not prejudice, why are you separated from us?' Let those churches also speak to whom the apostle Paul writes — the Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians — for of Galatia and Ephesus it has already been said above — let these also therefore say:

'Brethren, you who still wish to be of Donatus's party, daily read the letters sent to us. In those very epistles the apostle greeted us in the name of peace, saying: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Why, having learned peace by reading it in our epistles, were you unwilling to hold it with us? In lands so far off, set across the sea, you cast at us the African Caecilian. Surely it is true, as you have said: neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person:

what is this private and peculiar sanctification, by which it is permitted to you that the cause of the African Primianus should not prejudice the African party of Donatus, nor the person of the Mustitanian Felicianus prejudice the person of the Carthaginian Primianus, and yet that African prejudices should be sent to us so far away, or that the cause of Caecilian should prejudice us?' Let the Catholic Church, too, established in Africa itself and joined by communion to all those others through the peace and unity of Christ — let her also say:

'Neither does the cause of Caecilian prejudice me — against whom, in his absence, a sentence of seventy bishops was pronounced — because it does not prejudice the Church which is spread throughout the whole world, in whose communion I remain; or else let the cause of Primianus prejudice Donatus's party, whom his own colleagues likewise condemned in his absence by a more numerous council. But if for this reason it does not prejudice — because neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person — much more must this justice be observed toward the Catholic unity of Christ, if Donatus's party demands that it be observed toward itself.' This the Catholic Church established in Africa proclaims: 'O party of Donatus, you spoke these words, you acknowledged these your own words, you even subscribed to these words:

neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person. I, among the spirits of those long since at rest, recite Caecilian; you still behold and have with you in the body Felicianus, by whom Primianus was condemned. In Primianus's own case you condemned Felicianus, and afterwards, just as he was, you associated him as bishop with Primianus and with yourself. If it avails so much, that neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person a person, that the communion of Felicianus living with you today does not prejudice you — how does the memory of Caecilian, long since dead, prejudice me?' What do they answer to this, who still boast to you empty things and lies that will harm your salvation if you do not correct yourselves? What do they still say — that we corrupted the judge, that a sentence might be pronounced in our favour?

Did we then corrupt a bishop of such great merit among you, a most illustrious defender, that he should speak such things on our behalf? For this is what we were doing with all our strength, this we were pressing, that the cause and person of Caecilian, whatever manner of man he was, should be shown not to pertain to the cause and person of the Church, which God has strengthened by His holy testimonies. This too we were doing by the similitudes of the Gospel, that the cause and person of the tares should not prejudice the cause and person of the wheat, although in the same field, under the same rain, they grow together until the harvest, when they must be separated;

that the cause and person of the chaff should not prejudice the cause and person of the grain, although in the same threshing-floor they are threshed together, until by the final winnowing they are separated; that the cause and person of the goats should not prejudice the cause and person of the sheep, although both flocks are kept mingled in common pastures, until by the chief Shepherd, in the last judgment, some are set apart to the left, others to the right; that the cause and person of the bad fish should not prejudice the cause and person of the good fish, although they are held within the same nets, to be separated on the farthest shore — that is, at the end of the sea, which signifies the end of the world.

By which parables and figures the Church was foretold to be, until the end of the world, a Church having both good and bad together, in such wise that the bad cannot harm the good, when they are either unknown, or are tolerated for the peace and tranquility of the Church, if it be not fitting that they be exposed or accused, or if they could not be demonstrated to other good men; yet so indeed that the vigilance of correction does not rest — by reproving, degrading, excommunicating, and the other lawful and permitted coercions, which are practiced daily in the Church while the peace of unity is preserved, according to the apostolic precept, charity being kept — he who said: 'But if any man obey not our word by an epistle, note that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed.'

And do not regard him as an enemy, but reprove him as a brother. For in this way discipline preserves patience, and patience tempers discipline, and both are referred back to charity, lest perchance either undisciplined patience should foster iniquity, or impatient discipline should shatter unity. When these things are done by the good, they are not defiled by the evil, because the good neither share in the sins of the wicked by consenting to them, and they depart from them — if not bodily by physical separation, yet by the spiritual unlikeness of their life and the diversity of their conduct — obeying in this manner the Lord's precept, wherein He says: Depart from thence, and touch not the unclean thing.

For those who think that this is not to be observed spiritually fall, through the arrogance of vanity, into that which the Lord detests through the same prophet, saying: These who say, 'Touch me not, for I am clean' — this is the smoke of my indignation. This is what your bishops thought they must do, when, though a seat had been offered to both of us by the judge, they refused to sit with us, saying that it was written to them that they should not sit with such men — understanding, to be sure, not spiritually but carnally, that which is set down in the Psalm: And I will not sit with the ungodly; and yet they did that which in the very same passage of the Psalm is equally forbidden. For there the prophet says: And I will not enter in with those who work iniquity.

If, then, because they either knew us to be wicked or supposed us to be so, they for that reason refused to sit with us, why did they — that which is likewise forbidden — enter in with us, being partly holy and partly polluted, except because, by not understanding the holy Scriptures and by being carnally minded, they even shattered that very unity? The evil, therefore, do not pollute the good who are placed in the same field, on the same threshing-floor, in the same pastures, in the same nets, because the good have no communion with them, but with the altar and the sacraments of God. But those have communion with the evil who consent to the deeds of the evil; for it is written: Not only those who do them, but also those who consent to those who do them.

But when the evil are tolerated out of the necessity of preserving peace, they are not sought after by any fellowship of sharing in iniquity — so that, just as the wheat drinks the sweet rain together with the tares, yet keeps its own fruitfulness and is not turned into the barrenness of the tares, but both grow together until the harvest, lest perchance, when the tares are gathered, the wheat also be rooted up together with them — the evil have no sharing of salvation or of perdition together with the good (for what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity?), the evil have no partnership with the good in the kingdom or in the eternal fire (for what partnership has light with darkness?);

the evil have no harmony of life and will with the good (for what harmony has Christ with Belial?); the good have no share with the evil either in the punishment of guilt or in the reward of piety (for what part has the faithful with the unbeliever?). And while, within the same nets, until they come to the shore, they alike receive the divine sacraments, the one are associated and the other dissociated, these are in harmony and those in discord, these have their part with mercy, those with judgment — since the Church sings to the Lord of mercy and of judgment, and he who eats unworthily eats judgment not to another but to himself. For of the same bread and from the same Lord's hand both Judas received a portion and Peter;

and yet what fellowship, what harmony, what part had Peter with Judas — since neither does one cause prejudge another cause, nor one person another person? Whether, then, they go out, of whom it is written: They went out from us, but they were not of us; or whether they seem to be within, of whom the blessed Cyprian speaks most openly, saying: For even though tares appear to be in the Church, yet our faith or our charity ought not on that account to be hindered, so that, because we perceive tares to be in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church — to which words your bishops dared to make no answer at all, though for a long time they contended in vain that the aforesaid tares were not figured as being in the Church, because the Lord said: The field is this world, and did not say, 'The field is the Church.'

but we were saying that 'world' was set down to signify the Church, just as Cyprian also understood, because throughout the whole world the future Church was being prefigured. Whereupon they were saying that 'world' is always set down in a bad signification, and they brought testimonies from the Scriptures, since it is written: If anyone loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him, and other such things; but we replied that 'world' is set down in the Scriptures not only in a bad but also in a good signification, and we recalled, among other things, also that which is written:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself — who certainly reconciles nothing to himself except the Church. Whether, then, the evil go out, or whether within they be either unknown or seen, this is what the mercy and justice of God brings about: that the evil should not harm the good who do not consent with them unto evil, but that each should bear his own burden, and that neither the son should take upon himself the sins of the father, unless he has imitated him in his evils, but the soul that sins, that same soul shall die. When, therefore, anyone consents with the evil unto evil, he now has one cause with them, and becomes one person of the whole fellowship of the evil; and by this, when they perish together and are damned together, each man's own cause and own person prejudges him, not another's;

but when the good and the evil hear the same word of God together and receive the sacraments of God together, and yet have unlike causes of their deeds and, by the diversity of their will, bear unlike persons — the same holy food being eaten by some worthily and by others unworthily — neither does one cause prejudge another cause, nor one person another person. And accordingly, whatever testimonies of the divine Scriptures your bishops were able to recall, by which the Church was foretold as pure from all admixture of evil men, it was foretold by those testimonies not as it now is, but such as it will be after this mortal state, in life eternal;

and whatever testimonies of the Scriptures they set down concerning children who, through the desert of their parents by imitating their malice, they wished to have one cause with them — not understanding these things, they forced the divine testimonies to fight with one another, and, not distinguishing both utterances of God according to the diversity of times, causes, and persons, they did not bring them back into concord; but just as they set the divine documents against us, so also they wished them to fight among themselves. And no wonder if they did not understand the peace of the Scriptures of God, who had no peace with His Church. But we, receiving both testimonies, demonstrated the concord of both. For we also received that which they recalled in their writings, namely that it was said to the Church:

He shall no more add that the uncircumcised and unclean should pass through thee; and that also which is written: Let both grow until the harvest — but that this is in the field, that other is to be in the barn. Finally, even they themselves, who long contended, saying that the tares which were permitted to grow together with the wheat until the harvest are not in the Church but in the world — against the understanding of the martyr Cyprian, who said: Even though tares appear to be in the Church, yet our faith or our charity ought not on that account to be hindered, so that, because we perceive tares to be in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church — and being unwilling to consent that the Church could be signified by the name of 'world,' against the words of the Apostle, who said:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and against the very words of the Lord, who said: The Son of Man came not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him — for indeed the world cannot be reconciled to God and saved through him, unless by the name of 'world' the Church be understood, which alone, reconciled to God through him, is saved — yet in that similitude which we recalled from the Gospel, namely that both good and evil fishes, until on the shore, that is, at the end of the age, they are separated, are held mixed within the same nets, they were overcome by the evidence of the truth that the evil are mixed in the Church until the end of the age.

They confessed it, but they said that these were hidden, since they are thus unknown by the priests, just as the fishes within the nets, while they are still in the sea, are not seen by the fishermen. How, then, is the prophetic testimony which they set down in their response — where it was said to the Church: He shall no more add that the uncircumcised and unclean should pass through thee — understood to pertain to this time, when the Church is compared to nets, in which, while they are still placed in the sea, they confessed that evil fishes are mixed with the good or hidden? Whence it is manifest that not until the future age, after the judgment, shall no uncircumcised and unclean pass through the Church. O the violence of the truth,

which tortures its enemies not in the flesh but in the heart, so that they confess it against their will! Behold, it has been made manifest what was being said by us: that the times of the Church must be distinguished — that it is not now such as it will be after the resurrection; that now it has the evil mixed in, but then it will not have them at all; that those divine testimonies, by which God foretold it to be utterly free from all admixture of the evil, pertain to that purity of it, not to the admixture of this present time. Behold, even they themselves, compelled by the evangelical truth, were forced to confess nothing other, who said that the evil are now mixed in it, though hidden. Behold, now the unclean, though hidden, passes through it. It is not, therefore, the time which was foretold when the prophet said:

He shall no more add that the uncircumcised and unclean should pass through thee. Now, therefore, they pass through, even though hidden. For this very thing, that he says 'shall no more add,' shows that they were formerly wont to pass through, but that beyond this they shall not pass through. And they were invidiously demanding of us how the devil could have sown tares in the Church of Christ, when they themselves confessed that the evil, at least hidden ones, are mixed in the Church, and yet were unwilling to attend to the fact that these were undoubtedly sown by the devil. This very thing too, which they thought they had cleverly discovered, they were rather bringing forward against themselves.

For if the Lord for this reason compared the Church to nets that gather good and evil fishes alike, because he wished the evil in the Church to be understood as not manifest but latent — such as the priests do not know, just as the fishermen do not know what they have caught beneath the waves — then for this reason it was also compared to a threshing-floor, so that even manifest evil men, mixed with the good in it, should be foretold as future. For the chaff which is mixed with the grain on the threshing-floor does not itself also lie hidden beneath the waves, but is so conspicuous to the eyes of all that rather the grains are hidden in it, since it itself is manifest.

But concerning this similitude of the threshing-floor, since we had set it down also among the others from the Gospel, they were able to write nothing in their letters against us except that the prophet Jeremiah had said: What has the chaff to do with the wheat? — which he said for this reason, because they are not alike, not because they cannot be mixed together; because they will not be together in the barn, not because they are not threshed together alike on the threshing-floor.

Although Jeremiah, when he said this, was not treating of the people of God, but of the dreams of men and the visions of the prophets, since these two are to be compared by no similitude, just as the emptiness of chaff cannot be compared to the fullness of wheat. Your bishops indeed tried to deny that it was written in the Gospel that the Church is compared to a threshing-floor; but soon, convicted by the recollection of the evangelical words, they turned to this, that there too they should say that hidden, not manifest, evil men were signified — concerning whom it is written: He shall come bearing a winnowing-fan in his hand, and shall cleanse his threshing-floor, and shall gather the grain into the barn, but the chaff he shall burn with unquenchable fire. Do you, therefore, judge; open your eyes; direct your ears to the truth.

If, as they themselves said, the Lord for this reason compared the Church to nets, because he wished the evil in it to be understood as not manifest but latent — such as the priests do not see, just as the fishermen do not see the fishes within the nets beneath the waves — is a threshing-floor threshed under water or under the earth, or surely at nocturnal hours, and is it not trodden out in the sun, or does a blind rustic work upon it? How much better, therefore, would they correct themselves, than pervert the holy Gospels and try to twist the Lord's words to the vain error of their own mind!

For either that similitude of the fishes too was set down by the Lord not on account of the hidden, but only on account of the mixed evil in the Church; or surely to each thing its own proper similitudes were given — concerning the fishes, on account of the hidden evil; concerning the threshing-floor, on account of the manifest evil — because, just as those before the shore, so these before the winnowing-fan, are mingled with the good in the Church. For they themselves admonish us to understand by the chaff on the threshing-floor the manifest evil in the Church, who wish the reprobate fishes within the swimming nets to be understood as hidden evil for this reason, that, just as the fishermen do not know those, so the priests do not know these. For why should we not say: 'So then the chaff too are the manifest evil, since the threshers see it in the open'?