Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 6 part 3/5

When, therefore, the letters of the Donatists had been read aloud, the judge wished that the documents which the Catholics had given to be recited should also be read. But the Donatists began to insist that a reply be made to what they had written — which the Catholics rather preferred, lest those letters should so remain as though no reply could be made to them. When, therefore, the Catholics began to reply, the Donatists began to interrupt and clamor, so that the continuous discourse of the one replying might not run on, as their letters had been recited with no one interrupting.

The Catholics, therefore, wishing to show how the divine testimonies which they themselves had set forth, and those which the Donatists had recalled, ought to be received — lest they should be caught being contrary to one another, since, being both divine and certainly harmonious, they ought not to be discordant — began first to speak of the similitude of the threshing-floor. Then the Donatists, interrupting, said that nothing was read as written in the Gospel concerning the threshing-floor. And when the passage of the Gospel was more expressly recalled by the Catholics, again by interrupting they said that hidden evil men were called the chaff that was afterward to be winnowed.

Thence, amid their uproars and interruptions, a dispute arose concerning the tares and the wheat, on account of the word 「world」, which the Donatists were unwilling to have understood as the Church, because it is written: 「The field is this world」; and they brought forward many testimonies by which Holy Scripture makes mention of the world as none but the evil — such as: 「If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him」, and other such things — so that from this they might, as it were, show that by the word 「world」 the Church could by no means be signified. Against this the Catholics brought forward other testimonies, by which it might be shown that the word 「world」 is set down in a good sense, such as:

「God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself」, and other things of this kind, where the Church is shown, since it is certainly reconciled to God through Christ. And these things were transacted while the Catholics were trying to continue and complete their discourse, but the Donatists were making an uproar to prevent this being done; since they did not reserve their response, as the Catholics had done when the Donatists' letter was being read, but by interposing frequent contradictions they hindered the exposition of the Catholics from running its course undisturbed.

And so, when the Catholics were demanding their patience and scarcely obtaining it through many interlocutions of the judge, they replied to their letters, showing by many testimonies and examples of the Holy Scriptures that the evil are now so mingled in the Church that, although ecclesiastical discipline ought to be vigilant to correct them not only by words but also by excommunications and degradations, yet they are not only unknown while hidden in it, but for the most part, for the sake of the peace of unity, they are tolerated even when known; thus showing that the divine testimonies agree — that those by which the Church is commended as having a mingling of the evil signify this present time of hers, such as she is in the present age, and those testimonies by which she is commended as not having the evil mingled signify that time of hers, such as she will be forever in the age to come;

just as now she is mortal, that is, she consists of mortal men, but then she will be immortal, when no one will die in her; just as Christ himself in this present time was mortal for her sake, but after the resurrection dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over him — which he will also grant to his Church at the end of the age. These two times of the Church — such as she now is, and such as she will then be — were signified also by the two catches of fish: one before the resurrection of Christ, when he bade the nets be cast, naming neither the left nor the right side, that he might teach that not the evil alone, nor the good alone, but the evil mingled with the good,

would be within the nets of his sacraments; but after the resurrection, when he bade the nets be cast on the right side; that we might understand that after our resurrection there will be in the Church the good alone, where there will no longer be heresies and schisms, by which the nets are now torn asunder. For the Gospel too did not keep silent that in the first catch the nets were mentioned as torn, and in the last it was said: 「And though the fishes were so great, the nets were not torn.」 Of such a Church it was said that through her 「the uncircumcised and the unclean shall not pass」; for schismatic separations pertain to the unclean, which then will not exist, because the nets are not torn.

This too was signified by the fact that the raven, an unclean bird, went forth from the ark and did not return; yet that ark, when the raven went forth, was by no means empty of all unclean animals, but in it there were both clean and unclean until the flood, just as in the Church there are good and evil until the end of the age. But just as Noah offered sacrifice not from the unclean but from the clean animals, so it is not those who are evil in the Church, but those who are good, who come to God.

Concerning the prophets also — since the Donatists had said in their letters that these prophets did not hold communion with those against whom they uttered such great reproaches — the Catholics replied that there was one temple which all used, and that none of the prophets who said such great things against the evil had set up for himself another temple, sacrifices, priests. And as to the fact that the Donatists had set down in their letters testimonies of the Scriptures by which they showed that the sins of parents pertain even to their children — since this can never rightly be understood except of those children who imitate the iniquities of their parents — the Catholics replied:

although such great and bitter things were said against that people by the divine oracles — things which they themselves also recalled in their letters, so that it might seem that no good person remained there at all — not only were those same holy prophets there, but there had also arisen from that very people those whom the Lord himself, at the coming of his flesh, found praiseworthy, such as were Zacharias and Elizabeth, and such as John their son, and such as the aged Simeon and Anna the widow.

Whence it appears how impiously, how slanderously, the crimes of Caecilian were objected against Catholics spread throughout the whole world, since the crimes of that people — in which they had been born and consecrated by the sacraments of that same people — could not be objected against Simeon and Anna and others such; which crimes not human opinion, but the divine word had objected against that same people. There was also recalled a prophetic testimony, where those who groaned over the wicked deeds that were done in their midst were sealed, lest they should perish with the evil — and yet they were not bodily separated.

Then there was recalled what kind of separation ought to be made by the good from the impious and evil in this present time, lest one should share in the sins of others — namely, a separation in heart and in the dissimilarity of life and morals; and that what is written must not be understood otherwise: 「Go out from the midst of them, and depart from thence, and touch not the unclean thing」 — that is: be distinguished by living otherwise, and do not consent to uncleanness. There too, in a most fitting place, an answer was given to the Donatists concerning that which they had said — when the judge asked them to be seated — that it was written to them not to sit with such men.

For it was said by the Catholics, when they were replying to their letters, that the separation from the evil in this present time is not to be understood in the way those men had understood it — who did not sit with them as though with the impious, because it is written: 「I have not sat in the council of the impious」 — when surely, if they thought them impious, they ought not to have kept silent about that which is consequently forbidden in the same psalm. For there it follows: 「And with those who do iniquity I will not go in.」 Since, therefore, those men had gone in with those whom they thought impious, why did they not also sit, so that in both cases they might seem to have avoided not a bodily but a spiritual sitting-together and entering-in?

There too was recalled the case of the Maximianists, so many times already objected against them, in which both themselves and those to whom they had granted a delay were placed in the schism of Maximian — associates of the same man in the condemnation of Primian — and yet they said that they were not defiled by his contagion; they who contended that the Christian world, even to the ends of the earth, had perished through the crimes of Caecilian.

To these things the Donatists, since they could not reply with the most powerful documents of the Scriptures nor by their own example concerning the Maximianists, returned to that which had already been dealt with, saying that the world is not rightly understood as the Church, in which both the wheat and the tares were bidden to grow together; whereas the Catholics had already recalled so many divine testimonies by which it was shown that the world is set down also in a good signification, and that in it none but the Church can be understood, and that, in whatever way the world be taken, since both seeds grow throughout the world, the wheat of the whole world ought not to be forsaken on account of the tares.

When, therefore, these things had already been said and the question itself seemed already concluded, in utter destitution they returned to it again, repeating the same things by the same, asking how the devil could have sown tares in the Church; and then bringing the slander that the Catholics had spoken of two Churches — one which now has the evil mingled, the other which after the resurrection would not have them — as though those saints who now, for his name's sake, tolerate the evil while they live righteously, would not be the very ones destined to reign with Christ.

To these things the Catholics replied that these very men had already themselves confessed that there were in the Church even hidden wicked ones; and in turn they asked how the devil had sown these among the Church—a thing which the others kept inquiring about the tares, as though it could not happen. The Catholics also repeated the testimony of Cyprian, who understood that same evangelical parable in no other way than to say that there are tares in the Church, and that they do not lie hidden but are discerned. Against this testimony the others had not dared to reply anything at all, although they hold the authority of Cyprian in such esteem that through it they attempt to defend the wrong they think and do concerning the repeating of baptism.

Concerning the two churches also the Catholics refuted their calumny, showing again more expressly what they had said—namely, that they had not called that Church which now has wicked ones mixed in a stranger to the kingdom of God, where there will be no wicked ones intermingled, but that this one and the same holy Church now is in one condition and then will be in another: now it has the wicked mixed in, then it will not have them; just as now it is mortal, because it is composed of mortal men, but then immortal, because in it no one will be about to die even in body; just as there are not on that account two Christs, because he who died before will afterward not die. It was also said concerning the outer and the inner man, which, though they be diverse, yet are not called two men:

how much less should two churches be spoken of, since these very same, who now being good tolerate the wicked mixed among them and being about to rise again do die, then will neither have the wicked mixed in nor die at all! Concerning the number itself also—since the Donatists, by the testimony of the Scriptures, commended one Church as if against two, which they boasted that the Catholics had affirmed—it was answered by the Catholics that many churches too are found spoken of in the Scriptures, even seven,

to which John writes, which nevertheless would be understood to be members of that one unique Church; so that from this it might appear that far less ought two to be objected against them, since they had said that this same one Church is not now such as it will be in the resurrection—seeing that in the apostolic letters the many, of which that one is composed, are not objected against them. To these things the Donatists did not cease to repeat the same things again, further adding and enviously boasting that the Catholics had called the Church mortal, and therefore denying that it is mortal, because the Trinity is immortal, by whose grace the Church is consecrated, and because Christ died for it in order to make it immortal;

as though the Catholics had said that it does not become immortal by the grace of God and by the blood of the Saviour poured out for it. But they said that the times must be distinguished: namely the present, in which all the saints die, just as Christ himself died, and the future, in which they will rise again and, with none about to die, will live with him who has already risen. While these matters were being handled among them, and although manifest and clear things were being superfluously repeated by the contending Donatists, the judge promised that concerning these things which he had sufficiently heard he would give judgment in his final sentence, and he ordered that rather that be taken up from which the first cause of the schism had arisen. Then the Donatists began to press that he judge first concerning those things he had heard.

When the Catholics too demanded this, and he persisted in what he had said and ordered that rather that be taken up so that the cause of the first schism might be shown, the Catholics asked that the things they were presenting be read aloud. When he had ordered this to be done, the Donatists began to resist more stubbornly and to press that he now judge concerning the things already known, repeating the same things that had been transacted and adding that he ought not at all to judge concerning that cause which he wished to be handled by the reading of those documents that had been offered by the Catholics to be read; saying that Christ ought to be the judge of this cause, and casting odium upon the Catholics because they had sought a man as judge, and also saying the usual things about the persecutions which they seemed to suffer.

To this the Catholics answered that they ought not to cast odium concerning a man being sought as judge, seeing that they themselves both judged concerning the case of the Maximianists and did not reserve it for Christ as judge, and that they had first sent the very case of Caecilianus to a man—that is, to the emperor Constantine—by accusing him; nor concerning the persecutions, as though the Catholics were seeking anything from the emperors on behalf of the Church, since their own Circumcellions, with clerics as their leaders, were committing such horrible evils. Here they replied in vain that this had nothing to do with the priests, since it was asserted that those men had done such things with clerics as their leaders.

There too, when it had been said that they had persecuted human eyes with lime and vinegar, in which crime they surpassed the devil in cruelty—who did not do this to the flesh of the holy man which he had received into his power to afflict—here the Donatists asked whether those who do such things were sons of the devil, or those who suffer them; as though the Catholics had said anything other than that their own most monstrous sufferings had been inflicted by the clerics and Circumcellions of the Donatists. Nevertheless, here too the Catholics did not let slip the occasion offered them of casting the Maximianists in their teeth, and said that according to their own opinion the Maximianists were better, whom they had persecuted before three or even more proconsuls; for if those had suffered, these had inflicted.

And the Catholics pressed them to answer whether from those very men whom they had condemned and persecuted they had not received back Felicianus, and whether they did not have him in their college. To this objection, as always falling utterly silent, they turned to another matter, objecting against the Catholics that they had defended the devil, because they had said that he had spared the eyes of holy Job—whence these men had surpassed him in cruelty. And they undertook to accuse the devil as though defended by the Catholics, saying that he had rather cruelly spared the eyes in the flesh of Job, so that they might remain for the spectacle of the wound which he had inflicted upon his whole body.

It is very strange why they wished to say this as something great, unless perhaps so that those who persecuted the eyes in men might be understood to have acted piously, lest they be tortured by seeing their own wounds, which they had received from them over their whole body. But when the Donatists again, exaggerating the persecutions which they suffer, recalled certain deaths of their own people in the town of Bagai, it was answered by the Catholics that they had suffered this while resistance was being made to their violence, which they had even attempted to inflict upon the judge. In that town the Catholics recalled that horrible things had been committed by them, so that even a basilica had been burned and the holy books cast into the fire; but that the deaths of those men arose rather from the custom they have of hurling themselves down.

And when the Donatists, replying to these things, again and again exaggerated as it were the persecutions they were suffering, boasting from these fruits that their adversaries were an evil tree, and demanding again and again that judgment be given concerning the field and the tares and concerning the one immortal Church; while on the other hand the Catholics recalled their fruits—schisms and rebaptisms, and that they themselves had first accused their own forefathers before the emperor—and while the conflict long turned on such mutual objections, the judge preferred to restrain all these things, promising judgment concerning them in a later sentence, and he ordered that be read which, offered by the Catholics, had already begun to be read and had been interrupted.

Thus was concluded the cause of the Church, which the Catholics had taken great care to distinguish from the cause of Caecilianus, since it could not be prejudged by the crimes of any individual whatsoever—the Church which, against all human accusations, had merited so many divine testimonies. From this point the cause of Caecilianus too now began to be handled. In the fifth place, then, these things were transacted.

Two reports of the proconsul Anullinus to the emperor Constantine were read: one, which had already been read above, in which he showed that the forefathers of the Donatists—that is, of the party of Maiorinus—had given him documents of the charges against Caecilianus and had asked that they be sent to Constantine, and that he had sent them to the said emperor; the other, in which he showed that, by the command of the same emperor, he had convened them so that they might send ten from each party to plead the cause, and that they had promised they would do so. Then next were also read the letters of the aforesaid emperor given to the bishops, in which he enjoined upon them the case of Caecilianus to be heard.

And thence in order there began to be read also the episcopal judgment made by Miltiades bishop of Rome and the other bishops of Gaul and Italy with him in the same city of Rome; of which judgment, in its first part—that is, when the acts of the first day had been read, where the accusers of Caecilianus who had been sent denied that they had anything to say against him, where also Donatus of Casae Nigrae was there and then convicted of having made a schism at Carthage while Caecilianus was still a deacon (for from the schism of Carthage arose the party of Donatus against the Catholic Church), where also the same adversaries of Caecilianus promised that on another day they would present those whom they were charged with having withdrawn as necessary to the case, and having lied about this they refused to come further to the judgment:

this part of the judgment therefore having been read, when there had begun to be read what had been done on the other day, the Donatists interrupted and began most insistently to demand that first those things which they were offering be read, asserting that it was not in order that the acquittal of Caecilianus—whom they had not yet accused—should be read first; and about this they contended for a somewhat longer time, while the Catholics said that what had already begun to be read ought not to be interrupted until all the acts of that same judgment should be concluded; but they on the contrary asserted that those things which were being interrupted ought not even to have been begun to be read, since it was not fitting for a man to be defended before he was accused. To this the Catholics replied.

When the cause of the schism was being inquired into by the judge, they had asked that those things be read which had been offered for reading, since the matter concerned the person of the plaintiff. For two reasons therefore they had wished those things to be read: that it might appear that they themselves had first sought a man as judge in this cause—they who were casting odium upon the Catholics because in this conference a man sat as judge; and that the person of the plaintiff might be established; and because they had already begun to be read, they ought not to be interrupted but carried through by reading to the end. Amid these things the judge, although he had first wished what was asked by the Catholics—that those things which had begun to be read should be finished—yet afterward the Donatists wrested from him that the things which they themselves were offering should, those others being deferred, be permitted to be read.

Then the Donatists made something of a preliminary address, to the effect that Mensurius, who before Caecilianus had been bishop of the church of Carthage, in the time of persecution had handed over the holy Scriptures to the persecutors; and to prove this they read his letter given to Secundus of Tigisis, who then held the primacy of the bishops of Numidia. In which letter Mensurius seemed as it were to confess concerning his own crime—who nevertheless had not written that he had handed over the holy books, but rather that, lest they be found by the persecutors, he had taken them away and preserved them, and had left behind in the basilica of the Novi whatever reprobate writings of heretics there were; and that when the persecutors had found these and taken them away, they demanded nothing further from him.

But that certain men of the Carthaginian order had afterward suggested to the proconsul that those who had been sent to carry off and burn the Christians' Scriptures had been deceived, because they had found nothing except some things not pertaining to them—I know not what—whereas the Scriptures themselves were being kept in the bishop's house, whence they ought to be brought forth and burned; but that the proconsul was unwilling to consent to them in this. In the same letter it was also read that those who offered themselves to persecutions without being arrested, and of their own accord said that they had Scriptures which they would not hand over—from whom no one had asked this—had displeased Mensurius, and that he had forbidden the Christians to honor them.

Certain men also were shown in the same letter to be criminals and debtors to the treasury, who on the occasion of the persecution either wished to be rid of a life burdened with many debts, or thought to purge themselves and as it were wash away their crimes, or at least to acquire money and enjoy delights in custody from the ministration of the Christians. Nevertheless the Donatists were not bringing this charge against Mensurius except concerning the books handed over; for they said he had lied in that those had not been holy books, and had wished to cover his sin—although they made a charge of the very fiction as well.

They also read the rescript of Secundus of Tigisis to the same Mensurius, given in a peaceable spirit, where he too related what the persecutors had done in Numidia, and who had been arrested and, unwilling to hand over the holy Scriptures, had suffered many evils and been tortured with the gravest punishments and slain; and he commended these as to be honored for the merit of their martyrdom, praising them for not having handed over the holy Scriptures after the example of that woman who was unwilling to hand over to the persecutors the two spies in Jericho, in whom the two testaments, the Old and the New, were figured. Which example indeed, if it is to be understood under this figure, rather helped Mensurius.

For in his own letter Mensurius reproved those who confessed that they had the holy Scriptures, although they would not hand them over—which that woman did not do; for she did not confess that those spies who were sought were with her, but denied it. Secundus also wrote that there had been sent to him by the curator and the ordo a centurion and a beneficiarius, who demanded the divine books to be burned, and that he had answered them: 'I am a Christian and a bishop, not a betrayer'; and when they wished to receive from him some scraps or whatever, that he had not given even this, after the example of Eleazar the Maccabee, who would not even pretend to eat swine's flesh, lest he should furnish others an example of transgression.

These letters of Mensurius and Secundus, until they were finished being read, the Catholics patiently heard, although they had testified that they were private and did not pertain to the cause of the Church. The judge therefore, admonishing the Donatists to render patience in turn, ordered to be read through what, offered by the Catholics, had already in part been read. Here the Donatists demanded that first also that be read which they were offering concerning the cause of Caecilianus. This too the Catholics permitting without any difficulty, and commending how patiently they permitted this, so that the others might repay them this in turn, the judge ordered that what was being offered be read.

And there was read by the Donatists a council of about seventy bishops against Caecilianus held at Carthage, where they condemned him in his absence because he had refused to come to them as one ordained by betrayers, and because, when he was a deacon, he was said to have forbidden food to be brought to the martyrs held in custody. Certain colleagues of Caecilianus also were named, who were asserted to be betrayers by public acts—which acts, however, were not being read. But among these especially Felix of Aptunga was most bitterly accused, so that he was called the source of all evils.

Then the sentences were pronounced by each individually—first by Secundus of Tigisis, who was their chief, then by the rest—in which they expressed that they did not communicate with Caecilianus and his colleagues. This council therefore having been read, the Catholics answered that those letters of Mensurius and Secundus given to each other sufficiently demonstrated them to be at peace, and that afterward no charge concerning the deed of Mensurius had been either accused or judged; but that the council which they had read as made against Caecilianus indeed had neither consul nor day, yet from this they brought no charge, since this could have been rather of negligence than of fraud.

But the same Catholics produced another council held under the same Secundus of Tigisis in the city of Cirta, whose consul and day when it was read, the Donatists said that such decrees were not accustomed to have either consul or day. Here the Catholics answered that this was perhaps a custom of those who did not wish their councils to be convicted in any falsehood, but that the councils of the Catholics had always had consuls and days. Then again there began to be read the council which the Catholics had brought forward, where Secundus interrogated one by one certain men of whose betrayal he had heard, and removed those who confessed from the assembly.