Tell me, what place he has left to Christ for cleansing the conscience of the baptized, or from whom the baptized receives faith, when he says that the giver's conscience is regarded, which cleanses that of the receiver, and that he who takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt. You indeed seem to yield to so great a weight of truth, and say that you urge this and wish this — that Christ give faith, and that, for entering upon a new life, Christ cleanse the Christian; but you ask through whom it may better be done, which ought not to be done without a minister. Yet Petilian did not say:
'The conscience of the minister is regarded, through which Christ may cleanse the receiver, or through which Christ may give faith'; but he wished the receiver's conscience to be cleansed by the very conscience of the giver, nor did he say: 'Whoever takes faith through a faithless man receives not faith but guilt,' so that he might seem to take it from Christ, albeit through another; but he said outright: 'takes it from a faithless man,' and to this, as if to prove it, he added: 'for everything consists of an origin and a root, and if it have not a head, it is nothing' — the minister himself, namely, whose conscience he said is regarded, not that through which Christ may cleanse, but which itself cleanses the receiver — making the minister himself outright the origin, root, and head of the baptized.
Accordingly, in this place I reply not to Petilian, whose words you did not defend, but to you, who on behalf of your opinion said something else, I know not what, not what he said. For you, as you write, wish this, urge this: not that, as he said, the conscience of him who gives in holiness cleanse the receiver or give faith to the receiver, nor that it be itself the origin and root and head of the believer; but that through it Christ cleanse, through it Christ give faith, through it Christ be the origin of the Christian, through it the Christian fix his root in Christ, through it Christ be the head of the Christian.
For therefore you ask through whom that may better be done which you grant is done by Christ — wherein you too, as far as I see, do not deny that this can be done even through an evil minister, but you say it can better be done through a good one. For what else is it that you say: 'This we too urge, this we wish; but we ask through whom it may better be done'?
And thus Christ washes even through the defiled conscience of one who does not give in holiness, yet better through the pure conscience of one who gives in holiness; Christ gives faith even through an evil minister, yet better through a good one; Christ becomes the origin of the Christian even through an unfaithful dispenser, yet better through a faithful one; the Christian fixes his root in Christ even through a reprobate husbandman, yet better through an upright one; Christ can be the head of the Christian even through Felicianus, yet you reckon it better through Primianus. There is therefore little disagreement between us in this matter, or perhaps none at all.
For I too say that the divine sacraments are better dispensed through a good minister than through an evil one; yet this is better for the sake of the minister himself, that his life and conduct may agree with the things he administers, not for the sake of the one who — even if he has fallen upon an evil minister dispensing the truth — receives assurance from his Lord, who warns and says: 'Do what they say, but do not do what they do; for they say and do not do.' I add further that it is better for this reason too, that the one to whom it is ministered may more easily imitate the probity and holiness of a good minister by loving it; but the things administered are not therefore truer and holier because they are administered through a better man.
For those things are of themselves true and holy on account of the true and holy God whose they are; and so it may come about that one drawing near to the fellowship of God's people may find one by whom he may easily be baptized, and choose another whom he may healthfully imitate. For he is sure that the sacrament of Christ is holy, even if it has been administered through a less holy or an unholy man, but that he himself is punished by the holiness of that very sacrament if he has received it unworthily, if he has used it ill, if he has not lived toward it fittingly and suitably. For I ask of you:
if perchance one whom Primianus baptized in your communion should live most wickedly, while one whom Felicianus baptized in the schism of Maximianus should live most excellently, to which of them do you judge the kingdom of God to lie open — to him whom, according to you, a good man baptized wickedly, or to him whom, according to the Council of Bagai, a sacrilegious man baptized as a religious man? But perhaps you say, and say truly: 'One established in schism cannot be religious.' I agree. Yet in your communion there can be a sacrilegious man, even one hidden, baptized by Primianus, whom you believe to be religious.
Furthermore, if that man whom Felicianus baptized in the chain of sacrilege, having forsaken the sacrilege of schism, were corrected by ecclesiastical communion, would you dare to say that a better baptism came to be in him — although you would not dare to deny that the man himself could be made better? For this you yourselves have judged by the very deed, since all those whom Felicianus and Praetextatus baptized in the schism condemned and detested by you, you received, when they returned to you, without any undoing or repetition of baptism. But if, as you said, 'we ask through whom it is done better,' you have put the comparative degree for the positive, saying thus: 'we ask through whom it is done better,' as if you said:
'we ask through whom it is done well,' wishing it to be understood that through an evil minister it is done ill — I do not press you upon the word, but rather admonish you that you ought to have said: 'we ask through whom it is done,' rather than: 'we ask through whom it is done well,' as if it could come about that Christ should not well give faith, that Christ should not well be the origin and head of the Christian, that the root should not well be fixed in Christ. For either it is not done, or, if it is done, without doubt it is done well. Yet we treat these matters lest, on account of evil dispensers — not, however, of their own sacraments but of the Lord's, who must needs be mingled together until the time of the winnowing of the Lord's threshing-floor — the very unity of the wheat be forsaken.
But to make a schism from the unity of Christ, or to be in schism, is assuredly evil, and a great evil; nor can it come about at all that Christ should give to the schismatic not faith but sacrilegious error, or that the schismatic should fix his root in Christ, or that Christ should be the origin or head of the schismatic — and yet, if he has given the baptism of Christ, it will have been given; if he has received it, it will have been received, not unto eternal life but unto eternal punishment, if he has persevered in that sacrilege, not by converting into evil the good he has, but by having a good thing to his own harm so long as he, an evil man, has it. Perhaps you ask that I prove this. What else shall I tell you than that which I have undertaken in this work? Read the decree of Bagai; look upon Felicianus and Praetextatus.
Schismatics gave, schismatics received; both were received and gathered in by you, neither the former degraded nor the latter rebaptized. Now surely you no longer ask whether it is done better through a just minister or through an unjust one, since the baptism which Primianus, according to you a just man, gave, is not therefore better than that which Felicianus, an unjust man, gave. Surely now you are compelled to understand how the apostle said: 'Neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase'; and you recall that you said in vain: 'Just as he who plants and waters is required to be none but a diligent and faithful husbandman, so also in the sacrament of baptism none but the most just workman is approved.'
Behold, neither diligent nor faithful nor most just, but rather negligent of his own salvation, unfaithful, and most unjust, was Felicianus, when, allied to Maximianus and — as your three hundred and ten proclaim with one most eloquent mouth — established in the chain of sacrilege, he administered a baptism which you did not dare to rescind. Surely you see that the testimony which you cited from the prophet does not pertain to this cause: 'I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline.' For Felicianus was neither a shepherd according to God's heart, being sacrilegious, nor did he feed His sheep with discipline in a sacrilegious schism; and yet he baptized those in whose reception you recognized that what he gave was not his own but God's.
Surely you perceive how I have recalled from holy Scripture that it is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man, and that you have answered emptily, as far as pertains to this cause, when you say that you the more inquire that he through whom this sacrament is celebrated be just and faithful, because you have your hope and confidence in God, not in man, and that the faith and justice which you always look for in His ministers belong to God. Behold, in Felicianus, when he was guilty of a notorious crime, there was neither justice nor faith, and yet there was baptism; and to those to whom it was given by him, when they were gathered in by you, you say that justice accrued — you do not say that baptism was lacking. Accordingly, as to what you next ask of me:
if a baptism, given by whomsoever and in whatever manner, ought not to be rescinded, why did the apostles baptize after John — do you now yourself solve the question, if, as you say, the apostles baptized after John. Why after Felicianus did your people not baptize those whom he had baptized in a sacrilegious schism? And from this at least learn that whatever it is that is read or discussed concerning the baptism of John is utterly foreign to this cause. But what has seemed good to you I know not, that you should say that the Jews, to whom Peter says, 'Let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,' had already been baptized by Moses — men who were born so many generations after that servant of God led their forefathers across the Red Sea.
Or if for that reason they had baptism from Moses, because they were propagated from those whom the apostle says were baptized in Moses, then dare to say that all who are born of faithful Christians already have Christian baptism — which you see, I suppose, with how great vanity it is said. But however that stands — even if the apostles had baptized after Moses the servant of God — I would press you to render account why after Felicianus the Maximianist, a sacrilegious man, your people did not baptize. Now as to that which I set down: 'If those erred who wished to be Paul's, what hope, in the end, is there for those who wish to be Donatus's?' — I think you have not refuted it in the earlier parts of your letter, as you yourself consider in those things which we have said sufficiently above.
Not therefore, as you seem to yourself and, as if assured, exult, do you rightly conclude that all those things which were said by Petilianus or by any other were rightly said. Indeed, by the very order in which they were run through by you briefly, as if recollecting and calling to mind, I rather conclude in this cause of the Maximianists that those things were not rightly said.
For neither was there in Felicianus the conscience of one giving in holiness, when, cleaving to Maximianus, he was being dragged in the chain of sacrilege; and those who were baptized by him were baptized by one guilty of a notorious crime, and thereby by a manifest traitor; nor was the sacrilegious man origin and root and head unto salvation for them; nor was he a good tree, being condemned in the fellowship of a sacrilegious schism and still established in that same sacrilege; nor was he a good man to bring forth good things out of the good treasure of his heart, when of him and of his other associates it was said: 'whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.' And yet, when your people came to concord with him, at some time terrified by the force of truth, they recognized that the baptism which such a man had given was not his own but Christ's.
Come now, let us see in its place, in your letter, how you extricate yourself from the cause of the Maximianists. For all who read these writings await, without doubt, either what was said here by you where it was said, or what was answered by me. And so, concerning Optatus the Gildonian, as to what you answered to my objections, I do not wish to discuss; I do not wish to linger longer in the case of a man about whose condemnation by your people I do nothing. I certainly make loss of this objection, and this perhaps among posterity, when the memory of him shall have been blotted out. But now, so long as there are men who knew his life and conduct, they would rather complain that I said too little about him than something false.
For they do not read our writings as you do, who ask of me — that one whom I called as it were a raging wave — what he swallowed up, when right there you have Praetextatus and Felicianus. For my words there stand thus: 'So indeed,' I say. 'These men insult their own schismatics, calling them both dead and unburied. But surely they ought to have wished them buried, lest, from the multitude of corpses lying unburied on the shore, Optatus the Gildonian, advancing with a military column like a raging wave, leaping forth further, should afterward suck Felicianus and Praetextatus back inward.' Since you read these words of mine there, why did you not set them all down, when you attempted to answer them?
Why do you as it were charge me with not having said what that raging wave swallowed up, when right there you see written: 'should afterward suck Felicianus and Praetextatus back inward'? For what else are your people wont to answer, as if for their great defense, when the reception of such condemned men, Praetextatus and Felicianus, is objected to them, but: 'Optatus willed this, Optatus did this'? To which the very cities of Mustis and Adsuras bear witness, which say that, out of dread of the Gildonian soldier through Optatus's threat, they compelled their bishops to return to the communion of Primianus. But you, because you saw that it could not be shamelessly denied that this was done by him, denied that it was written by me, thinking perhaps that my letter could sooner be unknown than that deed.
But granting that your bishops were permitted, by I know not what Donatist or Numidian privilege, to be ignorant concerning their own colleague of whatever all Africa was crying out — since they do not allow the crimes objected by Africans against Africans, never proved, so often absolved, to be unknown to the eastern and western ends of the earth — let the baptism given by Optatus, which you were so unwilling to condemn, yet did not dare to absolve, be valid among you, and let the baptism given in the churches founded by apostolic labor — of the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, and the rest written of in the holy Scriptures which you too read, where not, I do not say the false crime of Caecilianus, but perhaps not even his true name was heard — not be valid;
granting that Optatus had the conscience of one giving in holiness in that life which you — as your writings indicate — though for our sake you were ashamed to condemn, yet for God's sake feared to absolve; and granting that in that public report too, where the conscience seemed to you able to be attended to though hidden, the conscience even of so many and so great Christian nations be accused, because it was ignorant of the most remote lawsuits of the Africans: could they not likewise have been able to be ignorant even of the crimes of those men, namely Felicianus and Praetextatus, whom three hundred and ten condemned in a plenary council? And still you object to catholic unity I know not what deeds of ours, which either are false, or are not sins, or, even if they are true and are sins, cannot stain the fellowship of the good.
For the good do not communicate in the sins of others, to the doing of which they by no means consent, although, together with those very persons who do them — until they are separated from the Lord's threshing-floor like chaff by the final winnowing-fan — they communicate not in their sins but in the sacraments of God; and within the same net, like good fish with the bad, they are, until the separation which is to be on the shore, that is, at the end of the world as at the end of the sea, disjoined from them not by a segregation of bodies but by a diversity of life and conduct;
just as the eleven apostles did not communicate in the thefts of Judas, and yet visibly cleaved with him to the same Lord, heard the same Master, received the same Gospel to be believed, took the same sacraments, mingled with him in bodily assembly, separated by spiritual dissimilarity; just as the apostle Paul did not communicate in the contumacy and envy — that is, the devilish vices — of those who did not chastely announce Christ, and yet with them preached the same Christ, partook of the sacraments of the same Christ, and said of them:
'Whether in pretense or in truth, let Christ be announced' — for these men the martyr Cyprian, most loving of unity, both understood and wrote to have been not separated by any schism or heresy, but mingled with the brethren in bodily assembly; just as the same Cyprian did not communicate in the avarice, the plunderings, the usury of his colleagues, whom he said, while the brethren in the church were hungering, to wish to have silver abundantly, to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase their gain with multiplying usury — an evil which he even compared to idolatry — whose bodily assembly nevertheless he did not flee, but stood at the same altars, and took the same most sacred food and drink.
For those men ate and drank judgment not to others but to themselves; but he, with such men, communicated not in their sins but in the mysteries of Christ, most conjoined in their assemblies, most disjoined in their morals. For to this end both those similitudes in the Scriptures and those examples were set forth beforehand, that we might learn to be wheat and not to forsake the Lord's threshing-floor on account of the admixture of chaff, to be good fish and not to go forth, by bursting the nets, on account of the admixture of the bad, to be vessels of mercy made unto honor and cleansed, and not, on account of the vessels of perdition and dishonor, to flee from the great house. For by no cause are the evil laudably tolerated in the temporal assembly and admixture of both, save lest the good be damnably forsaken.
Since you too, in your so many and so manifest evils, do the same thing by the same necessity, you can easily, if you will, observe that it is by nothing but a sacrilegious animosity that you separate yourselves from Christians of so many and so great nations. And so, not only Optatus, most notorious in that Gildonian fellowship, but any obscure man among you, with your knowledge, should do some evil — since you could not separate him from your communion, because either you are not believed when you accuse, or you dare not accuse lest you be unable to prove it — either the party of Donatus must be forsaken by you, or you will be such as he whose sin you are not ignorant of, although you live differently. This is said to you most rightly, not according to the true opinion, but according to your own.
For who does not know that you are free from that man's evil, if by consent you do not communicate in his sin? But hence you are compelled to acknowledge with how great impiety you object to the Christian world either false or at least unknown crimes of the Africans, when you are unwilling to have objected to you what you know of another, because you cannot persuade of it those from whose fellowship you are unwilling to depart. Thus, lest you forsake those whom you think good, you are compelled to bear those whom you know to be evil; and thereby the truth convicts all as evil who, on account of the crimes of others — whether true or false, yet unknown to the rest, and not going to harm themselves — having burst the unity of so many nations, have forsaken the good.
Lest you should in any way be able to excuse this so great wickedness of the party of Donatus, the cause of the Maximianists has been procured for you, in which, as in a mirror, having beheld your own depravity, you may correct it if you will; but if you will not — I do not wish to say anything more grave, since I know you have a heart. For what will you say against these things? Well is it that you yourself write that, when you had read all that I inserted in my letters concerning the condemned and received Maximianists, you were greatly moved. I believe it: I plainly see the cause which ought greatly to have moved you. Let us see, then, by what rendered reason that disturbance of yours was quieted.
You say that at once you inquired more diligently of your bishops, and, with them teaching, learned both the decree of the council and the sentence pronounced against those who were condemned, and the order of the whole matter. Then, believing that I still do not know what was done, and admonishing me to learn what the truth holds, you narrated plainly not what the truth holds, but what your people substitute for the truth to the incautious and negligent. For you say that, when the error of Maximianus strove to associate to itself as many bishops as possible, a council having been convened by your people, a sentence was pronounced against all those who had persisted in his schism, which you recall that I too have read.
And that, when this sentence was confirmed by the consent of all, it nevertheless pleased the council by its decree to grant a delay of time, within which, if any had wished to be corrected, he would be held innocent. That so it came about that not only those two whom I mention, but also many others, purged and innocent, were restored to the church; whose baptism you therefore think ought not to have been rescinded, because, restored within the appointed day, they were not held by the peremptory sentence, nor, when they baptized, had they been separated from the church — not yet, that is, disjoined by the defined limit of the elapsed time. Here I, in that very falsity of your narration — since I have set down not only your meanings but your very words — marvel at your talent, marvel at your mind struggling against your talent.
Nowhere has it ever so appeared how much the prejudice of human presumption avails, whether toward not perceiving the most manifest truth, or toward affirming the most shameless falsehood. Do you not perceive that you have set down things so openly repugnant that it is scarcely credible that one man could have said both? You indeed say that a sentence was pronounced against all those who had persisted in the schism of Maximianus, and that it pleased them to grant a delay of time, within which, if any had wished to be corrected, he would be held innocent. How then do you yourself likewise say that they did not baptize outside the church, before they had corrected themselves from that schism? So, when they were with Maximianus, were they not outside the church?
Do you observe what you say? Do you find where you may come out, whither you may flee, where you may hide yourself? You surely see that, while you try to defend the manifest errors of others, you do nothing but add on your own more manifest ones. Behold, read your words — thus are they recalled by me exactly as they were written by you —: 'When,' you say, 'the error of Maximianus strove to associate to itself as many bishops as possible, a council having been convened by our people, a sentence was pronounced against all those who had persisted in his schism,' which you testify that you too have read. 'And when this sentence was confirmed by the consent of all, it nevertheless pleased them by decree of the council to grant a delay of time, within which, if any had wished to be corrected, he would be held innocent.'
Saying these things, do you so shut up your understanding against yourself, that you do not perceive that all these, who deserved that the council's sentence should be borne against them for this reason, that they were associated with Maximianus, before they corrected themselves within the time of delay, stood fast in the same schism? There, then, they also baptized. I beseech you: why do you sprinkle empty fog over perspicuous things, which again you scatter by the no lesser perspicuity of your own words?
For I say that Praetextatus and Felicianus, the ordainers of Maximianus, baptized in that sacrilegious schism which they committed, and that those baptized by them were received together with them, without the baptism being rescinded which they had given in schism, which the sacrilegious had administered, which they had consecrated with a mouth full of cursing, with lips bearing the poison of asps. For such things are said against them in that sentence which you do not deny was pronounced against all of them. Here you answer that not only those two whom I mention, but also many others, purged and innocent, restored themselves to the church within the day of delay. By which word you help me, by which word you assert with me the truth, and dispel that fog which you were trying to spread over it.
For when you say that they restored themselves to the church, you doubtless confess that they were outside the church. Where, then, before they restored themselves to the church, they were, there they baptized; therefore the baptism which they gave was outside the church. While you try to unwind yourself from this inexplicable entanglement, you are again entangled. For you say that their baptism ought not to have been rescinded for this reason, because, restored within the appointed day, they were not held by the peremptory sentence. How then do you say that before the day of restitution they were not separated from the church, whom you confess to have been restored to the church before the day of delay? If we are men,
if we have any reason whatever, if we have human sense, if we are not cattle speaking to cattle, if we are not wood and stones speaking to wood and stones — not from my words only, but even from your own words, it stands out, appears, and shines forth, that your people did not dare to rescind the baptism given in the sacrilegious schism of Maximianus, while they do not hesitate to deny to be Christians, to exsufflate, and to rebaptize men baptized in the churches which the apostles propagated by their own labor in the grace of the Lord. You say, you write — behold, hear yourself, read yourself —, you, I say, say, you write that against all those who had persisted in the schism of Maximianus, a council having been convened by your people, a sentence was pronounced;
you say, you write that, this sentence having been confirmed by the consent of all, it nevertheless pleased them to grant a delay of time, within which, if any had wished to be corrected, he would be held innocent; you say, you write that not only the two from among them whom I mention, but many others, purged and innocent, restored themselves to your church; you say, you write that their baptism ought not therefore to have been rescinded, because, restored within the appointed day, they were not held by the peremptory sentence. How then? What, what so prevails, in so good a talent, of a cause so bad, O man of heart, O lettered man?