Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 6 part 4/5

Which was read in such a way that, when from the council of Cirta the confession of the betrayers had been read, there was also read from the council of Carthage the name of him who was condemning betrayers, as it were, in the cause of Caecilianus. Then it came to the charge cast against Secundus of Tigisis himself by Purpurius of Limata, against whom the same Secundus had cast the charge that he had killed in prison at Mileum the sons of his sister; where Purpurius in turn cast against him the charge of betrayal, saying that he had been detained by the curator and the ordo to give up the Scriptures, and that he could not have been released unless he had handed over something. But this which Purpurius cast against him—that he had been detained by the curator and the ordo to give up the Scriptures—

the same Secundus in the letter which he had written back to Mensurius almost confessed, where he says that there had been sent to him by the curator and the ordo a centurion and a beneficiarius, and that Scriptures or any scraps whatever had been demanded from him, which indeed he said he had not handed over; but since he there recalled so many martyrs who, when they had been unwilling to hand over, were tortured and slain, how he himself—detained and convicted and unwilling to hand over anything—could have suffered nothing and been released, he neither wrote to Mensurius nor answered to Purpurius. For he did not say to the centurion and the beneficiarius that he had no Scriptures, but answered that he would by no means hand them over.

How, when he had been released, those men could have reported this without their own destruction, does not appear—especially since the same Secundus said that not just any lowliest persons, but even heads of families, when they had given this same answer to the persecutors, were slain by the cruelest deaths. But concerning this matter the Catholics brought no charge against Secundus, but only that which Purpurius cast against him, and on account of which, that a schism might not be made, leaving all those things to God, he made peace with the betrayers—this they wished to be read, so that it might appear what sort of men pronounced sentences against the absent Caecilianus.

This having been read, the Catholics asked that also those things which had been deferred be read—thence asserting that it could be shown what had been done concerning Caecilianus and what ought to be thought—concerning the council of Carthage, in which it had been read that the absent Caecilianus had been condemned by many bishops. On the contrary, the Donatists pressed the Catholics to confess that that council was true, because the Catholics had read the reports of the proconsul Anullinus, by which it appeared that the documents of the charges against Caecilianus had been transmitted to the emperor Constantine—which, being in force, confirmed that Caecilianus had been accused before the emperor by their forefathers.

But it was answered by the Catholics that that Carthaginian council thus did not prejudge the absent Caecilianus, just as the council of those by whom Primianus was condemned in the cause of Maximianus did not prejudge the absent Primianus, since the party of Donatus held rather what was afterward done in favor of Primianus than the authority of that council by which he had earlier been condemned; so therefore in the cause of Caecilianus also that ought to be attended to which was done afterward. Here the Donatists, cornered by the cause of Maximianus, said that neither cause prejudges cause nor person prejudges person.

Which sentence all the Catholics are wont to have on their lips, when the Donatists, casting the crimes of some against others, defend their own separation and accuse the Christian world of I know not what crimes of Africans. For in this very conference the whole of what the Catholics had done—to distinguish the cause of the Church from the cause of Caecilianus, asserting that in the Church the wicked mixed in do not harm the good nor stain them with their own sins—this indeed they had done, that neither cause should prejudge cause nor person person. Which was confirmed by their adversaries, while another matter was being handled, in the plainest voice.

But when the judge had asked what the Catholics answered concerning the Carthaginian council, they again answered that the similitude of the cause of Primianus was not to be despised, because even the Lord Christ, convicting the Jews of their deeds, led them to the truth.

Then the Donatists in a long discourse argued that from the authority of that Carthaginian council the condemnation of Caecilianus should be confirmed, because he had refused to come to so many priests—as though Primianus too had not, with a like will, refused to come to those by whom he was condemned, when he knew their faction—and because Caecilianus had not waited to be ordained by the primate from the primate, whereas the custom of the Catholic Church is otherwise, that not the bishops of Numidia but the nearer bishops ordain the bishop of the church of Carthage, just as no metropolitan bishop ordains the bishop of the Roman church, but the bishop of Ostia from nearby.

But saying this concerning their own custom, which they instituted I know not when, they were attempting to prejudge the Catholic Church; which custom, if it were ancient, they would have objected this very thing against Caecilianus when they condemned him in his absence. They also said that Optatus had written that Caecilianus had said: 'If those who ordained me are betrayers, let them come and ordain me.' Which indeed, if it was said, could have been said to mock those to whom he is reported to have given this message, since he was certain that his ordainers were not betrayers. For he did not say, 'Because they are betrayers,' but, 'If they are betrayers,' so that their innocence might remain to be proved where it could rightly be proved.

To these things, and whatever else they said in a lengthy discourse, the Catholics briefly answered that the Carthaginian council did not suffice for the cause of Caecilianus, since those very men who judged it also sent it to the emperor by accusing it; and thus they demonstrated that this rather should be looked at—that the matter had reached even to the emperor's sentence, to whom they had determined that this same cause should be sent. For the Catholics insisted upon this: that, all the shadows of delays being cut away, those things should rather be read, which being read, the cause was long since finished and the innocence of Caecilianus, clearer than the light, would appear. Which the Donatists, being utterly unwilling that they be read, hindered by interposing anything else whatever.

For when the judge had asked whether the Carthaginian council had been held first and afterward the cause of Caecilianus had been sent to the emperor, the Catholics said that, since that council had neither consul nor day, they answered to both: for if the cause was first sent to the emperor, one ought to look at with what outcome it had been concluded; but if afterward, none the less it was not the judgment of these men but of him that ought to be sought, to whom they thought it should be sent after their own judgment.

But when the Donatists inserted many things about the consul and the day—why it was not read in the council of their own forefathers, lest they be thence convicted of falsehood—and asserted that this was an ecclesiastical custom, that days and consuls should not be written in the decrees of bishops, wishing also the council of Cyprian to be read in order to prove this, since nothing else but delays were being sought—for the Catholics had not established their cause in this, when they had answered to both, whether that council which they had made against Caecilianus at Carthage were earlier or later—the judge, at the Catholics' insistence, ordered that rather those things which had been deferred be read.

Then the Donatists interposed another question full of delays, but in which they truly wished to labor for themselves, if they could show what they wanted—namely, that that council of Cirta was false, where the confessions of the betrayers pardoning one another had been read, lest a schism be made, because they themselves were read among the rest as having pronounced sentences against the absent Caecilianus. Attempting therefore to demonstrate this false, they said many things; but judging the others to be trifling, they especially urged two matters in that question and dwelt long upon them:

one, that against ecclesiastical custom that very council of Cirta had a day and a consul; the other, that in the time of persecution a council could not have been gathered. The Donatists therefore demanded of the Catholics either that they produce other ancient councils of bishops, where they might show consuls and days likewise recorded, or that they read something of the sort from the holy Scriptures themselves. Where the Catholics, when they saw wondrous and inexplicable delays being interposed over a most empty matter—for who would believe that these men would thence object falsehood, where, for greater diligence about times, an attestation noted beforehand would be read, lest perhaps through it the investigation of truth should at some time be necessary?—

who then would believe that they would object this, so that one should have ancient councils prepared by which he might demonstrate this custom? Or who would then go and unroll the old ecclesiastical archives?—when the Catholics saw this, they both demonstrated a day and a consul in the council of Miltiades, and recalled from the holy Scriptures themselves that the prophets had noted beforehand in their writings the marks of the most ancient times: in what year of what king, in what month of the year, on what day of the month the word of the Lord had come upon them. But the judge, judging that objection about the day and the consul to be despised and set aside, ordered the rest of the acts held before Miltiades to be read, and they were read.

By these records it was shown that, according to the verdicts of all the bishops who then sat together, and of Miltiades himself, Caecilian was acquitted and cleared, whereas Donatus was condemned—the one who, being present at the first hearing, had been convicted; that very Donatus of Casae Nigrae, who was established to have been present at the time. But when this had been read out and the Donatists were asked what answer they would give to that Council of Cirta, they fell back upon an attempt to prove it false, saying that during the time of persecution a council could not have been assembled. The judge did not despise this objection, but, thinking it forcible, demanded a reply from the Catholics; and in the midst of these matters he inquired from what source it might be proved that it had been a time of persecution.

Then the Donatists produced the acts of the martyrs, in which they were heard and suffered for their confession. The judge also ordered the office to reckon up, and, when both the consuls and the days had been considered, to report—both those days which were read out concerning the Council of Cirta and those concerning the acts of the martyrs—because it had been asserted by the Catholics that after the passion of those martyrs, from which the time of persecution was being proved, nearly a whole year had elapsed down to the consul and the day of the Council of Cirta. But the reply of the office as it reckoned had suggested that only a month lay between.

The Catholics therefore wished that what they themselves had said should be struck from the record, so that the acts might retain only what the office had reported—for they had come to believe that this was the truer statement; but the Donatists refused that what had been said by the Catholics should be struck from the record. On this the Catholics did not contend, so that the Donatists' captious intent in the matter might be made manifest. Yet in truth what the Catholics had said was the more correct, while the office, erring in its reckoning, had reported a falsehood; and this the records, once written out and more carefully examined, made plain, as anyone who pleases to read and does not shrink from reckoning may prove.

For the acts of the martyrs, by which the time of persecution was shown, were made in the consulship of Diocletian for the ninth time and Maximian for the eighth, on the day before the Ides of February; whereas the episcopal acts of the decree of Cirta were made after that same consulship, on the third day before the Nones of March. And thus thirteen months are found to intervene—more indeed than the eleven which the Catholics had earlier reported by reckoning less carefully. But the office, so as to be deceived and to report that only a month intervened, supposed it to be the same consulship, and did not notice the words 'after the consulship,' where another year was already being reckoned.

Accordingly the Catholics, as though on the basis of the office's true reply, were being compelled to show that during the time of persecution those eleven or twelve bishops could have assembled in a private house; while the Donatists pressed them to demonstrate this from other councils, if they were able to find episcopal councils held at some time of persecution.

Since the Catholics could not at that moment search out and examine on the spot the old documents in the church archives, they answered that it was far easier for twelve men to gather in a house at that time, when even assemblies of the people used to be held despite the persecution raging, as was shown by the very acts of the martyrs, who confessed that in their passions they had held a gathering and celebrated the Lord's Day. And this the Catholics had said even before the office made its computation and its reply.

It was also said by the Catholics that those episcopal acts of Cirta, which by the diligence of our forebears had been able to be preserved and found down to these times, ought to be held valid in the same way as those letters of Mensurius and Secundus which the Donatists read out. For the Council of Carthage, where seventy bishops condemned Caecilian in his absence, was likewise mentioned as having been held by Miltiades, where Caecilian was acquitted. But those letters of Mensurius and Secundus were said to be mentioned nowhere else, so that the truth of them was supported by no other testimony; and yet not for that reason did the Catholics say they were false.

This too was said by the Catholics: that the Donatists should prove, if they could, that during the time of persecution the bishops had written to one another in the same manner as they alleged Mensurius and Secundus to have written. Yet the Catholics did not say this in order thereby to show that those letters of Mensurius and Secundus were false—which, whether true or false, in no way affected the case—but so that the Donatists might understand from this by what an empty subterfuge they were compelling the Catholics to produce other councils gathered in the time of persecution; because, if with like obstinacy it were said to them:

'Produce you also other letters written and sent in like manner during the time of persecution—letters which, if they were in any way detected and the hidden documents could be demanded, would bring the magistrate and the curator and the centurion and the beneficiarius into peril of their lives, since they were shown to have let Secundus go unpunished when he refused to hand over the Scriptures'—by no means would they on the spot find other letters similarly sent from bishop to bishop during the time of persecution across lands so far apart.

When therefore a prolonged wrangling arose from this—the Donatists repeatedly asserting that during the time of persecution a council could not have been gathered to ordain a bishop, because the world was in apostasy and there were none for whom he might be ordained, and other such things; while the Catholics on the contrary answered that bishops so few might easily gather—so few that it ought not even to be called a council—whenever the people were being gathered, as the acts of the martyrs testified, and that there were beyond doubt those for whom bishops might be ordained, namely those very congregations which the acts of the martyrs declared were then wont to gather:

Since these things were being said and answered constantly in many and various ways—for it was also established that during the time of persecution a private house had been made available for the gathering of Christians, as was read in certain acts of the martyrs (because the Donatists had said it could not have happened that at that time anyone should offer his own house), and it was recalled that it was so far from incredible that those few bishops assembled in a private house during the time of persecution, that in the very heat of persecution martyrs are shown to have been baptized even in prison, and there the sacraments celebrated by Christians, in the very place where Christians were held shut up on account of those same sacraments—amid these things, then, at length the judge himself, having several times interposed the ruling that such an assembly by bishops could have taken place, since the peoples too were proved to have gathered, compelled the Donatists, if they had anything to say against the council and judgment of Miltiades—by which Caecilian was read to have been cleared and acquitted—to say it, since the case rested there rather than in that Council of Cirta.

Then the Donatists began to charge Miltiades himself with the crime of surrendering the Scriptures, and to say that their forebears had for this reason shunned his judgment, because he had been a traditor—as though they had not also attended his tribunal and answered that they had nothing to say against Caecilian. Yet nonetheless, when the judge intently demanded whether any judgment, whether public or ecclesiastical, could be produced concerning Miltiades' crime of surrender, and the Catholics themselves waited and pressed for this to be proved, the Donatists read out certain most lengthy acts held before a prefect, in which neither did it appear who that prefect was, nor was the place read out where these things were transacted.

But those very acts, in a very long recitation, told of many men handing over many ecclesiastical objects, where the name of Miltiades was not sounded at all. When these had been gone through, and the judge marvelled that one thing had been promised and another read out, they, still begging his patience, read out other acts, in which it was read that Miltiades had sent deacons with letters of the Emperor Maxentius and letters of the praetorian prefect to the prefect of the city, that they might recover those things which the said emperor had ordered to be restored to the Christians—things carried off in the time of persecution.

And when from these acts too no crime of Miltiades appeared, either to the judge or to the Catholic defenders, the Donatists said that the deacon Strato—whom Miltiades had sent with others to recover the ecclesiastical properties—had been named a traditor in the earlier acts, and therefore they wished to besmirch Miltiades too with the crime of surrender, on the ground that he employed that deacon without having degraded him. Moreover, in the course of their argument they said that Miltiades had been the third bishop from him who was then in office when that surrender was made.

Here the judge inquired whether at least in those acts of the surrender it had been expressly stated that Strato was a deacon; and it was read out that he had been called an exhorter of a most vain superstition—a name by which not only he himself but also the others who were surrendering the Scriptures were called. But the Donatists answered that by the pagan persecutors both deacons and presbyters had been so styled, in contempt of religion.

Therefore the Catholics answered that, since it was no wonder but a most common thing in human affairs for not merely two but even several men to be called by one name, it could indeed have happened that that traditor Strato was a presbyter, while this other Strato was a deacon—seeing that the Donatists themselves had said that both deacons and presbyters were called by the pagans exhorters of a most vain superstition; although the pagans could have called all clerics by that contemptuous name, and it was far more uncertain of what rank that traditor cleric had been. Yet even if it could be shown that he was a deacon, neither was this incredible or wonderful, since a little while before there had been in the very city of Rome two deacons named Peter.

This too was added by the Catholics: that even if it were demonstrated—which was not demonstrated at all—that this same deacon Strato had surrendered the Scriptures, the one whom Miltiades afterward sent with other deacons to recover the ecclesiastical properties, still Miltiades would not thereby be immediately besmirched with this crime, since the persecution could have kept him far away and absent, so that he was wholly ignorant of it and thought innocent the man whom no one showed to be guilty by accusing him. Against these things the Donatists in vain clamored the same points over and over for a very long time. After the conference, indeed, they also brought a calumny against Miltiades concerning Cassian, because this name too is found both among the deacons whom Miltiades sent to the prefect and in those acts where the surrender was read to have been made.

But if they had said this at the conference, the Catholics could easily have answered that in so great a throng of Roman clerics it was no wonder if two or more not only Stratos but even Cassians were found, since among the twelve apostles not only two Judases but also two Jameses are read. Unless perhaps it was permitted to them to distinguish the man of Casae from Donatus of Carthage—when they feared lest their greater founder, Donatus of Carthage, should be thought condemned in the judgment of Miltiades—and yet it was not permitted to the Catholics, in so great a multitude of Roman clerics, to have several called by similar names.

For it was false, what the Donatists had said—that the persons matched, the places matched, the regions matched—when in fact neither the places nor the regions nor even the expressly stated dignities of the persons were read out from both sets of acts, but only the coincidence of names was read, a thing which in different persons the custom of the human race does not cease frequently to produce. And so the judge, spurning these most uncertain suspicions, ordered that something manifest be produced against those acts, or at least that the judgment of Constantine—of which mention had already been made—be read out.

And the judgment of Constantine was read out—how he had written to Eumalius, vicar of Africa, that he had examined the case of Caecilian between the parties; whereby, all arbiters having been set aside, he attested that he had found Caecilian innocent and those men most calumnious. He mentioned also that in the town of Arles an episcopal judgment had been rendered in Caecilian's favor, to which judgment very many had already assented out of the dissension, while the rest still drew back and disagreed; whence he himself was compelled to judge the whole matter between the parties. After the recitation of these imperial letters, the judge asked the Donatists what they had to say against them. There the Donatists again tried to return to their calumnious accusation of Miltiades;

whence, when they had been repelled by the judge's ruling, and it had been demanded of them that they read out something, if they had anything, against the judgment of Miltiades or the imperial sentence, they answered that even the emperor's ears had been inflated with wicked suggestions. There the judge answered them that he had most attentively noted that judgment had been given between the parties. But they began to insist that this be read—whether the emperor had judged between the parties. And when, at the judge's order, this had been read out, finding nothing to say, they began to cavil about the consul in the aforesaid imperial letters, because they had been read out without a consul's name.

Hence, when a dispute had arisen and the Donatists invidiously said that the episcopal council had been read out with a consul's name, but the emperor's letters had no consul, and the Catholics answered that the case did not rest there, the judge too interposed a ruling that it had been defined by most evident laws that imperial constitutions, even if the consuls were not read, were not to be called into doubt. Then the Catholics pressed that they should say openly that what had been read was false, for the archives could be searched. But, repelled from this, as though about to produce something most forcible, they asked that Optatus be read—which they had asked before—whence they said they would prove Caecilian to have been condemned by the emperor; and it had been promised them, but deferred.

First, then, the judge wished them to express whether they dared to charge the imperial letters with falsity. This indeed they by no means dared; yet nonetheless they most invidiously complained that a consul was lacking. But they demanded far more insistently that Optatus be read. While these things were being transacted at some length, in another sheet of those imperial letters the consul was found. When this was reported, the Donatists said: 'Certainly it ought not to have had a consul'—as though it had ever been said that it ought not to have had one, and not rather that, even if a consul were lacking, the truth of an imperial constitution was not impeded. When the judge had repeatedly answered them thus, Optatus too was read out, the Donatists reciting, where he says:

'At the same time the same Donatus petitioned that he might be permitted to return and to come to Carthage; then it was suggested to the emperor by Philumenus, his advocate, that for the good of peace Caecilian should be detained at Brixia, and it was done.' In which words of Optatus, since no condemnation whatever of Caecilian—such as they had promised they would demonstrate—could be found, the judge ordered the whole page to be recited, so that from the words above and below the intention of him who had written might be known. And it was recited by the office: 'Caecilian was pronounced innocent by the verdicts of all the aforesaid.'

When this was recited, the Donatists said that they had not asked for this to be read, fretting against those who could not hold back their laughter, when they heard how plain a page against their very selves they had produced. Then, when they said that by those words which they themselves had recited Optatus had made light of Caecilian's condemnation and had been unwilling to state it plainly, it was demanded of them that they read from elsewhere something manifest which they said had been made light of by him. And when they were quite unable to do this, then also, after some entanglements of empty delays—having also disputed about the name of Donatus, that it was not Donatus of Carthage but Donatus of Casae who had stood against Caecilian in the judgment of Miltiades, which the Catholics too conceded—at length there was a passing on to other matters.

Then, because by the letters of Constantine—by which it was established that he had examined the matter between the parties and had judged in Caecilian's favor against them—the judge was compelling them to answer if they had anything, they asked that their own petition be read out, which they said had been given to Constantine by their forebears. In which petition they showed clearly enough how falsely they had spoken concerning Caecilian's condemnation at Brixia; for that very petition shows how Constantine felt against them. For there they say that they would in no way hold communion with the bishop of that fellow, the good-for-nothing, and that they were prepared to endure whatever he might wish to do to them; by which good-for-nothing bishop of Constantine's they of course wished Caecilian to be understood.

How then did they call him Constantine's bishop—the one with whom, speaking against Constantine, they affirmed they held no communion—if they had overcome him before Constantine, so that they knew him to have been condemned by that emperor at Brixia? When therefore the Catholics had said that they had recited this against their very selves, and the judge himself had likewise interposed the same ruling, they added yet another great buttress toward the conviction of their own falsehood, reciting the letters of Constantine himself writing to Verinus the vicar, that he should dismiss them to free choice, intimating that he had ordered them to return from exile. In which letters Constantine so detests them that nothing more disgraceful than that indulgence could be found.