Or if you do know, why do you, a dialectician, make a crime of dialectic—thus either rash or ungrateful, so as either not to restrain the unskillfulness by which you are vanquished, or to accuse the doctrine by which you are helped? I inspect your discourse, that very one which you wrote to me; I see you set forth certain things copiously and ornately, that is, eloquently, but discuss certain things subtly and acutely, that is, dialectically. And yet you reprehend eloquence and dialectic. If they are harmful, why do you do these things? If they are not, why do you censure them? But lest a controversy of words torment us too—since the matter itself is understood, less labour need be spent on what men have been pleased to call it.
Accordingly, if he is to be called eloquent who speaks not only copiously and ornately, but also truthfully, and likewise if he is to be called a dialectician who discusses not only subtly, but also truthfully, then you are neither eloquent nor a dialectician—not because your diction is meagre and unadorned, nor because your disputation is blunt and gross, but because you misuse that very fluency and skill for the defence of falsehood. But if not only in truth alone, but even when a bad cause is pleaded eloquently or vigorously, it can rightly be named eloquence or dialectic, then you are both eloquent and a dialectician, because you both fluently speak vanities and acutely dispute falsehoods. But of you I shall see later. The Stoics certainly were most of all dialecticians.
Why did the apostle Paul not most cautiously avoid the Stoics, lest they should confer with him?—and yet you praise your bishops for being unwilling to hold discourse with us as with dialecticians. Or if Paul too was a dialectician, and therefore did not fear to let the Stoics confer with him—because he not only disputed acutely as they did, but also truthfully, which they did not—then beware of casting dialectic against anyone as a crime, since you confess that the apostles used it. For when you cast this at me, I do not think you are deceived by unskillfulness, but that you deceive by cunning. For the word 'dialectic' is Greek, which, if usage admitted it, might perhaps be called in Latin 'disputatoria,' just as men most learned in both tongues have called 'grammar' in Latin 'litteratura.'
For just as grammar takes its name from letters, since in Greek letters are called grammata, so dialectic received its name from disputation, since in Greek disputation is called dialoge or dialexis. And just as by the ancients a grammaticus was called in Latin a litterator, so he who in Greek is called a dialecticus is much more usually and tolerably called in Latin a disputator (a debater). I think you will now not deny that the Apostle was a debater, even if you deny he was a dialectician. To disapprove, then, in a Greek word what you are forced to approve in a Latin one — what else is this than to set a snare for the unlearned and to do an injury to the learned?
Or if you deny that the Apostle was even a debater — he who so constantly and so excellently debated — then you know neither Greek nor Latin; or, what is more credible, in the Greek word you deceive those who do not know Greek, and in the Latin word those who do not even know Latin. For what is there, I will not say more ignorant — for you are not unacquainted with these things — but altogether more deceitful, than this: that when you hear and read so many and so manifold discourses of the Apostle asserting the truth and refuting falsehood, you deny that he was accustomed to debate, when this cannot be done except by debating? But if you admit that this was habitually done by him — because you are compelled by his own writings to admit it — yet contend that these should be called not disputations but discourses or epistles, why should I deal with you at such length in this way?
so that those who are ignorant of these matters may approve of whichever of us they wish, and disapprove of whichever they wish? Concerning those very divine writings, to which you must needs yield, I teach this: I bring forward the very words themselves, the very names of things. You have in this same testimony, which I cited from the Acts of the Apostles, concerning Paul himself put thus: 'He debated therefore with the Jews in the synagogue, and with the Gentiles and the devout in the marketplace.' You have in another place, although he was dealing with a Christian people, the brethren being gathered in the church, thus written: 'But a certain young man named Eutychus, sitting in a window, being borne down by a deep sleep, while Paul debated.' You have also in the book of the Psalms: 'May my debate be sweet to him.' You have too in the prophet Isaiah:
'Come, let us debate together, says the Lord.' And in many other passages of the divine Scriptures, read where you find this word, and examine the Greek codices in these same testimonies of the holy Scriptures, and you will see whence dialectic got its name — lest, in that very thing which all the righteous do even with God, to whom it is said, 'Come, let us debate together, says the Lord,' you fail to imitate them with wise piety, but accuse them with tasteless rashness. For he who debates discerns by debating what is true from what is false.
But those who cannot do this, yet wish to seem dialecticians, by insidious questions catch the assent of the unwary, so that from their answers they may conclude something — whereby they either laugh at them as deceived in manifest falsehood, or persuade the deceived of a hidden falsehood, which for the most part they themselves also suppose to be the truth.
But he who is a true debater — that is, a discerner of truth from falsehood — first does this within himself, lest, discerning wrongly, he himself be deceived; and this he cannot accomplish unless helped by God. Then, when he brings forth to teach others that which he has worked out within himself, he first observes what certainties they already know, so that from these he may lead them to the things they did not know or were unwilling to believe, showing that these follow as consequences from what they already held by knowledge or by faith; so that through those truths on which they perceive themselves to agree, they may be compelled to approve other truths which they had denied; and thus the truth which was before thought false may be discerned from the false, when it is found to be consistent with that truth which was already held.
If that true debater does this at length and with fullness, he does it eloquently, and is then reckoned by another term as well, and honored, so that he is called an orator (dictor) rather than a debater — as when the Apostle amplifies and expands that passage copiously: 'In all things,' he says, 'commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report;
as deceivers, yet truthful; as unknown, yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.' What indeed could you easily find richer and more ornate — that is, more eloquent — than this apostolic style? But if he speaks compactly and concisely, they are wont to call him a debater rather than an orator — as when the same Apostle deals with the circumcision and uncircumcision of father Abraham, or with the distinction between the law and grace; which certain men, not understanding, or rather slandering, falsely accused him of saying: 'Let us do evil, that good may come.'
But whether one be an orator or a debater, neither is oratory without debate — since even in the very breadth of eloquence truth is discerned from falsehood — nor can debate be without speech. For assuredly it is by words and by the tongue that the very compactness of discourse is expressed, whether one uses continuous speech, or, by questioning the one with whom he deals, compels him to answer what is true, and from this leads him to another truth which was being sought — where dialectic is said most of all to reign. For when anyone is convicted by his own answers, if he has answered badly, he has no one to blame but himself, not the debater; and if he has answered well, he blushes to resist further — not the debater, but himself.
In this kind of thing the Lord frequently acted against the Jews, and convicted them when they were caught and cornered by their own answers; yet they had not heard you, nor learned from you to revile — for perhaps they would more gladly and more spitefully have called him a dialectician than a Samaritan. For how do you suppose they were twisted and confounded, when, wishing to catch him in his word, they first asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar — plainly laying a snare with a two-headed dilemma, so that whichever he chose, he would be caught: if he answered that it was lawful, as though he were guilty against the people of God; but if he said it was not lawful, as though he were an adversary of Caesar, to be punished?
Whereupon he demanded that a coin be shown to him, and asked whose image and inscription it bore. And when they had answered, 'Caesar's' — for the open truth compelled them to answer this — at once the Lord, drawing them bound and caught by their own answer, said: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' I beseech you: were those men dialecticians, who by the snares of a treacherous question strove to overcome by deception; or rather was he, who from the very thing they asked, by the prudence of his questioning drew out their true answer, and compelled them to confess that very truth which they thought was dangerously spoken by him? If you say those men were dialecticians because deceitfully,
maliciously, spitefully desiring to catch him in his word by questioning — for such indeed you wish us also to seem — why then did the Lord answer them? Why did he lead them, by rendering an account, all the way to the confession of the truth? Why did he say to them, 'Why do you tempt me, hypocrites?' and not add 'dialecticians'? Why did he demand that a coin be shown to him, that he might express his truthful judgment even out of the mouth of deceivers, and not rather say: 'Depart; for one must not even speak with you, since you propose captious questions, since you wish to deal with me dialectically'?
He said no such thing, nor did he set us such an example against captious questioners and cunning snarers of our words; but rather that we should compel them — even the enemies of truth — by vigilant questioning and by unconquered reasoning to bear witness to the truth. Let your men do this to us, if we are malicious and dialecticians. Or do they show that they are afraid, lest we rather should do this to them? But if you should call Christ a dialectician, you will be praising dialectic, which you had cast at me as a reproach. And lest you do this, I see what you will perhaps be going to say: that neither those men nor he did anything dialectically in that conversation.
If, then, neither those who converse captiously and insidiously, so as to deceive in a word those with whom they deal, nor those who convict such men by their own answer, act dialectically — then tell us at last what dialectic is, and how much evil it has, how much harm it does. Teach how it is to be shunned, whose name you spitefully thrust upon the ignorant; show the crime to those who inquire. You are unwilling to admit that he acts dialectically who, skillfully and rightly questioning men averted from the truth, leads them from their answers to the truth — lest you should have to admit that Christ too dealt dialectically with the Jews;
likewise you are unwilling to allow that those act dialectically who, laying snares by captious questions, contrive to deceive the one answering — lest it be shown to you that the Jews so dealt with Christ, whom nevertheless he did not evade by keeping silent, but rather overcame by speaking; and so you should be compelled to admit that your bishops, whom you think learned and wise, are not right in refusing to hold discourse even with dialecticians, by which they might teach the unconquered truth. I see that you suffer great turmoil in how you may define a dialectician: so that he be neither a skilled debater — lest you be forced to praise what you have censured — nor an insidious snarer of words — lest it be said to you: 'As Christ dealt with such men, so let a Christian deal with this one.'
Therefore, if it please you to be freed from this trouble, define him to be a dialectician with whom those learned in the law of the party of Donatus are unwilling to hold conversation. For what else should be suggested to you, a man who casts dialectic at us as a reproach, and therefore praises his own bishops because they are unwilling to hold discourse with us? But concerning the Jews you perhaps find something to say — that, however cunningly and craftily they proffered the deceits of their questions, they were not dialecticians. About the Stoics, at least, nothing can be said; for they were not only dialecticians, but in this art or faculty even surpassed the other sects of philosophers.
For that Chrysippus was a Stoic — as you recall along with me — of whom the Academic Carneades held this opinion: that when he had to debate with him, he judged his heart must be purged with hellebore, whereas the rest he easily overcame even after a full meal. If, then, the books of the Stoics have taught us to debate dialectically, let your bishops bring forth the teaching of Paul against us. Yet let them suffer us to confer with them, just as Paul then did not repel the Stoics themselves. For this art, which they call dialectic, which teaches nothing else than to demonstrate consequences, whether true things from true or false things from false, Christian teaching never fears — just as the Apostle did not fear it in the Stoics, whom, when they were willing to confer with him, he did not reject.
For it too admits — and it is true — that no one is drawn by a debater by valid inference to a false conclusion, unless he has first consented to the false premises by which that same conclusion is necessarily produced. And through this, whoever takes care lest, as he speaks, false things he does not wish should follow, let him willingly beware of the false things that go before. But if he holds fast to true premises, then whatever consequences he perceives — things he had thought false, or about which he was in doubt — let him, being admonished, embrace them, if he is more a friend to the most peaceable truth than to the most contentious vanity. I would have accomplished too little, unless I show what I am saying in this very conversation of ours which is at issue between us.
Behold, in that very question about baptism, you put forward, asking of me where it would be fitting for you to be baptized, whether among us or in the party of Donatus. And because your intention is that a man ought rather to be baptized in the party of Donatus, you attempted to prove this intention from the fact that we too do not deny that baptism is there. You surely see that you wished to do this: that from what we concede we might be dragged to what we did not concede — that is, that because we concede baptism is there, we should be compelled to concede also that a man ought to be baptized there. Consider carefully whether this follows, and answer yourself.
For I think that, this being now set before your eyes, you discern, according to the liveliness of your talent, how you gather things not consequent as though they were consequent. For in truth we say that baptism is there also, but we do not say that it also profits — nay rather, we say that it even harms. But when it is asked where each one ought to be baptized, I believe it is asked because of that which the Lord says: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Since, therefore, baptism is to be received for the sake of this benefit, when it is asked where it is to be received, it is not asked where it is, but where it is useful for attaining the kingdom of heaven.
But it would follow that it is to be received wherever it is established to be, only if all who have anything good were taught to have it also for their good. But since so many have so many good things to their own harm, who does not see that, when it is asked where something is to be received, it is not asked where it is, but where it profits? For how — if you were to concede to me that gold is good,
you would concede too that robbers also have gold — you would not, I think, wish that from these two concessions I should conclude that he who wishes to have gold ought to be in the society of robbers. So, since I too concede that baptism is good, I concede also that the Donatists too have baptism; you ought not from these two concessions, as though it followed, to conclude that he who wishes to have baptism ought to be in the society of the Donatists. Now from this too I do not doubt that many things occur to you yourself: things which, although they are good and instituted for some useful purpose, are yet not useful to all who have them, but only to those who use them well. For with the same light both sound eyes and diseased eyes are flooded; to the former it is a help, to the latter a torment;
the same food nourishes some constitutions and harms others; the same medicine cures these and weakens those; the same weapons defend some and hinder others; the same garment is a covering to some and an entanglement to others. So too baptism avails for some unto the kingdom, for others unto judgment. Here I see what may perhaps move you. For perhaps you say that in all these things I have made mention of no sacrament: but baptism is a holy sacrament, and therefore it does not follow that, if it could be proved of gold, light, foods, weapons, garments, that they are fitting for some who have them and unfitting for others — though they be good and instituted for some useful purpose — that therefore baptism too straightway profits some who have it and harms others.
It remains, then, still to inquire whether even those good things which pertain to the law of God do not all profit all who have them. This question being proposed, our contention is that not even all these profit all who have them. See how we prove this contention of ours from your own agreements. For you concede that in all things the Apostle Paul is to be believed — I hold to that one point; you concede also that the same Apostle said, 'The law is good, if a man use it lawfully': from these two it is made out that the law is good, but for those who use it lawfully. If, then, anyone has used it unlawfully, it does not itself become evil, but it will surely harm the wicked. Perhaps you will say that no one can both be in the law and use the law badly;
for by this very fact, that he lives against the law, he is shown not to be in the law. But I say, on the contrary, that it can happen that anyone should both be in the law and not use it lawfully. This too I prove by your own concessions. For you concede that the aforementioned Apostle set down a testimony from the Psalms against those who gloried in the law and lived against the law: 'As it is written,' he says, 'that there is none righteous, not one; there is none that understands, none that seeks after God; all have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.' And lest they should think these things were said against those who were not in the law, he immediately added: 'Now we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to those who are in the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.' Likewise in another place he says: 'What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God forbid; but I had not known sin except through the law; for I had not known concupiscence, unless the law said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of concupiscence.' Likewise a little after:
'Sin,' he says, 'taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it slew me. So the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid; but sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me through that which is good.' Do you observe how, while praising the law, he reproves those who are in the law — as many as, by using it badly, had evil through the good? Likewise the Apostle himself says that a certain knowledge from the law, which he said both he and others had, is yet without charity useless and harmful: 'Concerning things sacrificed to idols,' he says, 'we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.'
Accordingly, this knowledge too, although it pertains to the law of God, if in anyone it be without charity, puffs up and harms. What of this? Concerning the very body and blood of the Lord, the one sacrifice for our salvation — since the Lord himself says, 'Unless a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life in him' — does not the same Apostle teach that this too becomes pernicious to those who use it badly? For he says: 'Whosoever shall eat unworthily and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.' Behold how divine and holy things harm those who use them badly; why not baptism too in this way? Why are not good heretics in good baptism, just as good Jews are not in the good law?
Now surely I have proved, with you conceding — since you concede that you believe Paul and that Paul said the testimonies which I have set down from the Scriptures — now, then, I have proved by your own concessions that certain good and lawful things nevertheless harm those who have and use them unlawfully; why not likewise baptism, though good and lawful, yet does not profit all who have it?
Why did you conclude, as though it were most certain and most consequent, that a man is to be baptized in the party of Donatus, because we concede that baptism is there too, and did not attend that we can say that there is indeed there the baptism of Christ — righteous, holy, and good — but penal, adverse, and pernicious to the enemies of the body of Christ, which is the Church, which according to the divine promises is spread abroad among all nations?
Will you here find anything to say, except that baptism is not to be counted among those good things pertaining to the law of God which men can both have and not be good — but that the law itself, and knowledge, and the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, are indeed such good things as men can both have and be evil, whereas baptism is such a good that whoever has it is necessarily good? But if you should wish to say this, you will say what is false; and therefore attend to what other falsehood follows. This I will call to mind, not that from that falsehood of yours I may lead you on to other falsehoods, but so that, when you have recognized this consequence to be false, you may, in order to free yourself from it, correct that which precedes. What, then, precedes?
That, according to you, all who have good baptism are good. This is an evident falsehood, from which it would follow that those were good who made schisms, saying: 'I indeed am of Paul, but I of Cephas, but I of Christ' — whom the Apostle reproving says: 'Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?' But it is false that these were good, excepting those who said, 'But I of Christ'; and yet they had been baptized with the holy baptism of Christ. This falsehood, therefore, why did it follow? Because a falsehood went before: that all who have good baptism are good.
Let both, therefore, be rejected, let both propositions be corrected, so that, since it is manifest that those who made schisms were not good, and yet had been baptized with good baptism, it may also be manifest that not all who have good baptism are good. And through this we are not bound to concede that anyone is to be baptized in the party of Donatus, because we concede that the party of Donatus, which we call evil, has good baptism. Again, that from that agreement you might detain me toward that to which I do not agree, you laid down that it is written: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and true Catholic Church.' All of which I concede, even if they are written somewhat otherwise. But what is that to the point, since I concede all these, as I have said?
But what you attempt to make out from these does not follow — namely, that those who are not in the one Church cannot have the one baptism; which is altogether most false. And it is better because you yourself laid it down, whence I can remind you of what I wish. For certainly you proposed these things among my concessions, from which you might lead me to your intention: that there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic Church. Since these things agree between us, you think that from them that which does not agree can be shown — that among those who are not in this one Church this one baptism cannot exist.
But I say that it can — if it be not changed, if this same thing be observed — and that it does not thereby come about that there is not one baptism, because it exists also among those who are not in one Church. And this I prove from those things which you set down in the same sentence concerning one God and one faith. For we find that the same God is worshipped outside the Church by those who are ignorant of him, and it does not thereby come about that he is not himself God; and the faith by which it is believed that Christ is the Son of the living God, we find that even those who do not belong to the members of the Church confess it, and it does not thereby come about that there is not one faith. So too, when we find that the same baptism is observed by those who are outside the Church in baptizing men, we ought not thereby to suppose that it is not that same baptism.
Perhaps to this you say that it cannot be that even outside the Church the same one God is worshipped, or that the same faith by which we confess Christ the Son of God — whereby Peter was called blessed — is found even in those who are not in the Church. This, then, it remains for me to prove. You have, in this very discourse of blessed Paul, which I cited above from the Acts of the Apostles, where he was speaking of God — because he had found inscribed on an altar 'To the unknown God' — 'Whom you,' he says, 'worshipping in ignorance, him I declare to you.' Did he say: 'Because you worship outside the Church, he whom you worship is not God himself'? But he said:
'Whom you worshipping in ignorance, him I declare to you' — desiring to bestow what upon them, except that the same God, whom apart from the Church they worshipped ignorantly and unprofitably, they might worship in the Church wisely and healthfully? So we too say to you: 'That baptism which you observe in ignorance, its peace we declare to you — not that, when you come to us, you should receive another, but that you should have to profit that which was already with you.' Concerning faith too, when the Apostle James was speaking against those who thought that what they had believed sufficed them and were unwilling to do good works: 'You believe,' he says, 'that there is one God? You do well; the demons also believe and tremble.'