So then, those persisting in this man's schism — as you yourself said — before, within the time of delay (as you likewise said), they restored themselves to your Church, had they contracted no stain, not even a small one, from this man's fellowship? But hear next what follows; hear, I say, what the dictator or utterer of that sentence connects: 「And not this man alone,」 it says, 「does his just death condemn for his crime; the chain of sacrilege draws also very many to the fellowship of the crime, of whom it is written: 「The venom 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.」 We would indeed not wish to be cut off, as it were, from the joint of our own body. But since the pestilent rottenness of a festering wound has more of solace in amputation than of relief in medicine, a more wholesome course has been found, lest the pestilent poison creep through all the members: that the wound which has arisen may fall away by a brief pain.
Know, therefore, that guilty of a notorious crime — Victorianus of Carcabia, Marcianus of Sullectum, Beianus of Beia, Salvius of Ausafa, Theodorus of Usula, Donatus of Sabrata, Miggen of Elephantaria, Praetextatus of Assuras, Salvius of Membressa, Valerius of Melzi, Felicianus of Musti, and Martialis of Pertusa, who by the deadly work of perdition glued together the filthy vessel with collected foulness — and also certain clerics of the church of Carthage, who, while they took part in the outrage, furnished a procurement for unlawful incest — have, by the arbitration of God who presides, been condemned by the truth-telling mouth of a universal council. What graver things could you say against them, what graver things are you wont to say against us ourselves?
「But from this so great evil,」 you say, 「they were corrected within the time of delay.」 I shall see whether they were corrected; for they would truly have been corrected if they had returned to the true Church. But if yours is the true one, tell how they were expiated from so monstrous a crime. For if they were not expiated, then all of you, according to your own opinion, are stained by their crime; but if they were expiated, then by their return alone — on account of the charity which covers a multitude of sins — you concede that they could be expiated, and yet you accuse us, with empty calumnies, concerning our people when the corrected come to us.
Unless perhaps indeed — as the words of the council indicate — they had perpetrated the sacrilege of schism, but before the day of the granted delay they had not yet been contaminated by that same sacrilege, and therefore were thought not to need expiating. If this is so, who would dare to resist you, who have received so wondrous a power over men? They sin when they wish, and are contaminated when you wish. We are reciting nothing obscure or little known and unpublished. That sentence it is which, by the merit of such great eloquence, is in the hands of all, on the lips of all who are zealous for reading such things — concerning which you now at least discern how truly I have spoken, that they ought not to have rejoiced in it at first as eloquent, lest afterward they should bewail it as defamed.
Consider what he holds, hear what he thunders forth. 'From the bosom of peace,' he says, 'the lightning-bolt of the sentence struck out Maximian, the rival of the faith, the adulterer of the truth, the enemy of the Church our mother, the minister of Dathan, Korah, and Abiram.' If, therefore, anyone had knowingly shared in the sacrament of the altar with this man for a single day, would he not, according to that most boastful severity of yours, be so polluted by so great an evil as to become his equal? What then were they, or what were they made into on his account, who not only approached the altars together with him, but even themselves installed him, ordained a bishop, against your Primian, with altars set up in opposition? But why should I question you about these things?
Let the sentence itself speak, whose words so blaze that, even if you should wish to hide it, by its own excessive splendour it would break through the darkness of whatever hiding-places. Let us see with how great a crash of condemnation it rises up against the associates of Maximian. 'Not only does a just death,' he says, 'condemn this man for his own crime; the chain of sacrilege also drags many into fellowship of the offence, of whom it is written: The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.'
'In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.' Then a little later, when he had named one by one all the ordainers of Maximian—among whom too are read these men of whom I am treating, Felician and Praetextatus—as to what they had done, that such things deserved fittingly to be said against them, he adds thus: 'Who by a deadly work,' he says, 'glued together the filthy vessel of perdition with the collected dregs'—wishing it to be understood that they themselves were present, that they themselves ordained Maximian with hands laid on. Adding also concerning the clergy of Carthage: 'But also the clergy,' he says, 'of the church of Carthage, who, while they take part in the crime, offered pandering to an unlawful incest.' I ask you, Cresconius, do I in any words of my own exaggerate this crime?
For if I had wished to, perhaps things of the same sort—if not of that kind, yet in some fashion sufficient—would not have failed me. I ask you, then: before those two men of whom I am for the present treating had returned to the concord of your communion, while they were set within that chain of sacrilege, under whose lips was the poison of asps, with mouth full of cursing and bitterness, with feet swift to shed blood—how did they baptize? Was there in them any conscience of holy givers, that might cleanse what the receivers took? Did even a good reputation, or a most false one, commend them—the reputation that in those straits of yours afforded you an outlet, not by which you might escape, but by which you might hurl yourself down headlong—when so distinguished a council cries them out as 'defendants of a notorious crime'?
Then, when they returned—just as you believed your bishops who told falsehoods—before the day of the reprieve, how are they received into their honours, together with those whom, set outside the Church with Maximian in the chain of sacrilege, they had baptized as schismatics? Whence are they purged of so great a sacrilege? Whence are they loosed from that chain? Whence are their lips, their mouth, cleansed from the poison of asps, from cursing and bitterness? Whence are their feet washed from the shedding of spiritual blood, whither they ran swiftly? Whence are their hands wiped clean from the deadly work of perdition? Whence, in the case of unlawful incest, is purged—not the members of the body, but the affection of the soul?
Surely, in order to defend this case, whether you will or not, you are compelled to come to the patronage of the truth—the truth which declares that the baptism of Christ, given not only through hidden evil men but even through manifest ones, not only by the converted but even by the perverse, has the unshaken firmness of its own strength; and that it can indeed be present in them, but cannot profit them unless they are corrected; and that the corrected, moreover, are cleansed even by the prayers of the brethren through the charity that covers the multitude of sins.
Behold, before I show how shamelessly your bishops have lied to you about the reception of the Maximianists, I think that, according to their very lie and your own narration—by which your whole case is overthrown—you ought no longer to be seeking to object, but to recognize; nor to prepare a contradiction, but rather to think of correction. For you now see, at least, how truthfully those things were said by me to which you vainly and mendaciously tried to reply—how rightly I said:
If, for the sake of the unity of Donatus's party, no one rebaptizes those baptized in a wicked schism, why is not the true and complete law of that inheritance recognized for the sake of the unity of Christ?—since you yourself confess that those who had persisted in Maximian's schism deserved a sentence by which they would not be bound, if within the day of reprieve they had rendered themselves back to the Church. Whence it is clear that, before they had rendered themselves back, they had baptized, in the schism in which they had persisted, those with whom they were received into your communion. You see how dead men baptized, since concerning those who had persisted in Maximian's schism, before they returned to you, it had been said by the sentence of the council of Bagai: 'Very much after the manner of the Egyptians, the shores are strewn with the corpses of the perishing.'
But as to what I said—that, when the decree to be enacted was read among them, they acclaimed with widest mouth, whereas now, when it has been read by us, they fall silent—behold, they would now fall silent far better when they spoke such things as would entangle them the worse. You see how true is what was said by me: they ought at last now to perceive how much must be tolerated for the sake of peace, and for the peace of Christ to return to a Church which has condemned no things unknown, if for the peace of Donatus it seemed good to recall things condemned. And this is much more true according to your own narration, you who said that even those were recalled, a reprieve being granted, concerning whom, expressly named, it had already been said: 'Know that they have been condemned, by the decree of God presiding, through the truthful mouth of the universal council.'
For since after these words that reprieve was established, how did it not please them to recall things condemned? Or how can things be unable to be unknown to us, born so long afterwards, or even to the whole Christian world—things which could not be proved against Caecilian in that judgment overseas which was held later—when the things done concerning the Maximianists, both in Africa and in our own times, you—though you are an African, as you say—after so many years still to this day had not known, and, as we shall be able to teach you, to this day still do not know, because you believed your bishops as they lied?
But as to your saying that I, concerning the traditio, wished as it were by a countercharge to hurl back against your forebears what was done by ours—blaming me because I did this, as though the matter were being handled in a school concerning the kinds or questions of a cause, and not that the truth were being sought in the Church—would you say this to Elijah the prophet, who, when it was objected against him by a most iniquitous king that he himself was overturning Israel, replied: I am not overturning it, but you are overturning it, and your father's house? For what does it concern us by what name this kind of retorted objection is called by the Greeks in the art of rhetoric, when we find this in prophetic authority? So when anyone says:
'Not I did it, but you did it,' one must speak the truth; there is nothing to be feared in speaking. And you, as to how you might show that your forebears did not do what, by their own confessions when read, they are shown to have done—you ought, if you are able at all, most vigilantly to think it out, and not to frighten the unlearned with a Greek word, lest they should hear us. And indeed you have not taught that our forebears were traditors—for you are not to be thought to have already shown it merely because you said there are many documents by which this could be shown; but concerning your forebears there survives the council of Secundus of Tigisis, held indeed with very few, at Cirta after the persecution of handing over the codices, in order that there a bishop might be ordained in the place of one deceased. Hear what was done there:
For those things which were necessary I have taken care to write down below: In the consulship of Diocletian for the eighth time and Maximian for the seventh, on the fourth day before the Nones of March, at Cirta, when Secundus the bishop of Tigisis had taken his seat in the chief chair in the house of Urbanus Donatus, he said: Let us first prove ourselves, and so shall we be able to ordain a bishop here. Secundus said to Donatus of Masculula: You are said to have handed over. Donatus replied: You know how much Florus sought me out that I might offer incense, and God did not deliver me into his hands, brother; but since God spared me, do you also keep me for God. Secundus said: What then shall we do about the martyrs, since they did not hand over? Therefore also they were crowned. Donatus said: Send me to God, there shall I render account. Secundus said: Step aside to one part.
Secundus said to Marinus of Aquae Tibilitanae: You too are said to have handed over. Marinus replied: I gave little papers to Polus, for my codices are safe. Secundus said: Pass over to one part. Secundus said to Donatus of Calama: You are said to have handed over. Donatus replied: I handed over medical books. Secundus said: Pass over to one part. And in another place: Secundus said to Victor of Rusicade: You are said to have handed over the four Gospels. Victor replied: Valentianus was the curator; he himself compelled me to cast them into the fire. I knew that they were of the erasable sort. Pardon me this offence, and God too pardons me. Secundus said: Pass over to one part. And in another place: Secundus said to Purpurius of Limata:
You are said to have killed the two sons of your sister at Milevis. Purpurius replied: Do you think I am frightened by you, as others are? What did you do, you who were seized by the curator and the town council to hand over the Scriptures? How did you free yourself from them, unless because you handed over, or ordered to be handed over, whatever there was? For they did not release you at random. For I killed, and I kill, those who act against me; therefore do not provoke me to say more. You know that I take no account of anyone. Secundus the younger said to his uncle Secundus: You hear what they say against you. He is ready to withdraw and make a schism—not he alone, but all whom you accuse—who, I know, are ready to leave you and pass sentence against you, and you will remain alone, a heretic. Therefore what does it concern you what any man has done?
He has to render an account to God. Secundus said to Felix of Rotaria, to Nabor of Centurio, to Victor of Garba: What seems good to you? They replied: They have God to whom they are to render account. Secundus said: You know, and God knows: be seated. And they all replied: Thanks be to God. These traditors—who, together with others at Carthage, pronounced sentences against Caecilian and his associates, among whom was also Silvanus of Cirta, concerning whose handing-over I shall presently insert the record—these, forsooth, you will defend by splendid reasoning.
For this is doubtless what you are going to say about these so many, which you thought worth composing as some great matter about the one Silvanus—reckoning that from this you would manifestly demonstrate false the crime of handing-over charged against him, because you inserted his sentence, which in the council among the other bishops he pronounced against Caecilian and others sharing his communion, as though it could not come to pass that a traditor should condemn traditors. For you see these things more prudently than the Apostle Paul. For he laid absurd things to the charge of certain persons, and did not consider that what he said could not come to pass: you who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abominate idols, do you commit sacrilege? And that above all:
For in that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge do the same things. These traditors, therefore, whom Secundus, terrified by their confessions, pardoned, he kept with himself in the council of Carthage, and they pronounced sentences against the absent who had not confessed—they who, being present, were not condemned out of their own confession. This council would not have remained, nor endured in the memory of posterity, unless it were written down by others, though it was kept by those very men who were preparing thereby to defend themselves, in case anyone should afterwards object against them the same crimes which were there remitted. It was in the interest of Secundus himself, too, that it might appear that he, lest a schism should arise—which peacemakers above all others are wont to forestall—had dismissed all those things to the divine judgment;
which he ought much more to have done in the council of Carthage, where nothing had been established against the absent—had not Lucilla, then a most powerful and most wealthy woman, inflamed with furious hatreds, vehemently pressed that against Caecilian, as though condemned, another might be ordained bishop. This was afterwards recalled in the judgment of the consular Zenophilus, through a certain Nundinarius, deacon of Silvanus of Cirta, then your bishop, who could not, as he wished, be reconciled with his aforesaid bishop, whom he had experienced as an enemy. Indeed he had pursued this before his colleagues rather threateningly—lest he betray everything—than suppliantly, to deserve pardon. From the records of that judgment I have inserted these few things:
In the consulship of Constantine the Great Augustus and Constantine the younger, the most noble Caesar, on the Ides of December, Sextus of Thamugadi having been brought in, and Victor the grammarian having been produced, with Nundinarius the deacon also standing by, Zenophilus the consular said: What is your name? He replied: Victor. And a little later, in another place: Nundinarius replied: Let the acts be read. Zenophilus the consular said: Let them be read. And Nundinius the clerk read: In the consulship of Diocletian for the eighth time and Maximian for the seventh, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of June, from the acts of Munatius Felix, perpetual flamen, curator of the colony of Cirta: when they had come to the house in which the Christians used to assemble, Felix, perpetual flamen and curator, said to Paulus the bishop:
Produce the Scriptures of the law and whatever else you have here, so that you may be able to obey the command and the order. Paulus the bishop said: The readers have the Scriptures, but what we have here we give. Felix, perpetual flamen and curator, said to Paulus: Show the readers, or send to them. Paulus the bishop: You all know them. Felix, perpetual flamen and curator, said: We do not know them. Paulus the bishop: The public office knows them, that is, Edesius and Junius the clerks. Felix, perpetual flamen and curator, said: The matter of the readers standing over—whom the office will point out—do you also give what you have here.
While Paulus the bishop sat, together with Montanus and Victor of Castellum Memorianum the presbyters, with Mars standing by together with Aelius, and Mars the deacon, and Marcuclius, Catulinus, Silvanus, and Carosus the subdeacons producing them, and Januarius, Marcuclius, Fructuosus, Migginus, Saturninus, Victor Samsuricus, and the rest of the diggers—Victor the son of Aufidius meanwhile registering in a brief thus: two golden chalices, likewise six silver chalices, and the rest. And in another place: after the library was opened, empty cupboards were found there. Then Silvanus produced a silver hood and a silver lamp, which he said he had found behind a chest. Victor the son of Aufidius said to Silvanus: You would have been a dead man, if you had not found those. Felix, perpetual flamen and curator of the commonwealth, said to Silvanus:
Search more diligently, lest anything remain here. Silvanus said: Nothing remains here, we have thrown all this out, and the rest. And in another place: A copy of the petition handed to the bishops by Nundinarius the deacon: Christ is witness, and his angels, that you have communicated with traditors, that is, Silvanus of Cirta is a traditor and a thief of the goods of the poor, which all of you—bishops and presbyters and deacons and elders—know; and about the four hundred folles of Lucilla, the most illustrious woman, for which you conspired together that Majorinus might become bishop, and thence the schism arose. For Victor the fuller too, in the presence of you and of the people, gave twenty folles that he might be made a presbyter, which Christ knows and his angels, and the rest. And in another place:
When these had been read, Zenophilus the consular said: Both by the acts and by the documents which have been recited, it is established that Silvanus is a traditor. Likewise in another place: Zenophilus, the most distinguished consular, said: What office did Silvanus then administer in the clergy? Victor replied: Under Paulus the bishop, when the persecution arose, Silvanus was a subdeacon. Have you, brother Cresconius, anything to say to these things? I think that shame concerning human affairs has not so far perished, that you should still think, for the acquittal of Silvanus, that the sentence must be recited which he pronounced against Caecilian and his colleagues as though they were traditors—lest you rather admonish us to say something similar from the Apostle's epistle, as I mentioned a little before: 'You who preach that one must not hand over, do you hand over?' and: In that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself;
for you who judge do the same things. But afterwards, you say, when Ursatius and Zenophilus were persecuting, since he was unwilling to communicate, he was driven into exile. Nay rather, he who was already a traditor wished to remain even a heretic, so that he might have a false honour in that very party of Donatus, which he could not have any in the Catholic Church, the deeds of his own handing-over being so manifestly laid open by public judgment. These things you will doubtless say are false, and for your forebears, as much as you can, you will bring forward other things against ours. Which perhaps indeed you will not be able to do, finding nothing to bring forward. But suppose you have found, suppose you have brought forward: is there so great a madness of shamelessness in you, that you should contend that what is brought forward by you ought rather to be believed than those things which are brought forward by us?
For either there were traditors both here and there—if you too recite something from a confession of our people—or, if you think something has been fabricated by our people against yours, why is it not conceded to us likewise to think the same, that something has been fabricated by your people against ours? Therefore, concerning human deeds, whether manifested on this side and on that, or uncertain on either side, let us not—we who believe in one God—wrangle; but in what is certain and a divine gift, let us be in concord in the grace of Christ. For when the deeds of our forebears and of yours, contrary on this side and on that, are recited to us who were born so long after, if it is not permitted even to doubt, what is more iniquitous? But if it is permitted, what is more sufficient?
For it is not as uncertain from whom the evil of handing-over arose, so uncertain from whom the good of peace is commanded to be rendered back. And through this, whoever, on account of an uncertain evil that is another's, spurns the peace of Christ, is most certainly evil himself—since Cyprian, not even on account of the certain wickedness of the tares mingled in, deserted the peace of the wheat; he who, writing to Maximus, said: Although tares seem to be in the Church, yet our faith or charity ought not to be hindered, so that, because we discern that there are tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. He did not say 'we suspect, we suppose, we reckon, we conjecture, we believe,' but he said 'we discern.' O word by which every doubt would be removed, that the body of Christ might not be divided!
If you desire only the wheat, groan in the labour of the field, rejoice in the hope of the barn, tolerate the evil in the communion of Christ's sacraments, lest before the time of the shore you become—by bursting the nets—that which you were unwilling to tolerate. These things I would say, if you had proved anything about the traditors whom you accuse; nay rather, at this very time I would not even say these things; for I am not commanded to tolerate those with whom I am no longer forced to live. But if even now a traditor should be shown to me, with what conscience do I desert so many Christian nations among whom none is shown? Then, if I myself now learn what a little before I did not know, why do you rescind in me what I did know? For I knew that I had received the baptism of Christ;
you yourselves also teach that another's crime, when unknown, is conceded to harm no one. Why then do you today rebaptize one baptized yesterday, when today you teach the crime of another which yesterday he did not know? Not knowing from what sort of man he had received it, he was not guilty of the baptism he received: now that he has learned this from you, why does he become guilty of a rescinded baptism? For whether he has assented to your proofs or has not assented, he who received the baptism of Christ by the ministry of a traditor—unless you prove that he knew from whom he received it—not even according to you will you rightly be able to baptize him. Now at last turn your mind away from party zeal, and consider how innumerable a multitude of Christians in Africa itself does not know who the traditors were;
how much more in the rest of the world—how great a multitude, unless you convince them that they knew when they were being baptized, either you will not dare to say must be baptized, or you will dare to pass judgment on the hidden things of the heart! And where is that divine sentence—which pleases you—that was inserted by you: The things that are manifest are for you, but the things that are hidden are for the Lord your God? Believe the Christian world when it says to you: 'I know the baptism of Christ; who the traditors were in Africa or anywhere else, I am ignorant. Why do you judge in me the hidden things of men, that you may rescind in me the manifest things of God? Suppose you prove to me another's crime now; what you speak of, I did not know when I had received baptism.'
'If, on account of those whom you now betray to me, you wish to baptize me, you ought also to baptize those who, unknowing, received from adulterers whom you may presently betray.' What do you say to this, except: 'Nothing is holy, nothing is clean, except what I have willed and when I have willed'? In this matter, you say, the conscience of almost the whole world is witness. It is answered you: In this matter there is no conscience at all of the whole world. This, you say, our forebears received from their parents. It is answered: But as erring men from erring men, or from slanderers; for the forebears of the Jews too received from their forebears that the body of Christ was stolen from the tomb.
Those, you say, are not long dead who came to know by whom and in what places the deed of this handing-over was committed. It is answered: this too our people say on behalf of their own party. There survive, you say, even books in which the order of the deeds done is faithfully and diligently recorded; there are acts, there are documents, and the manifest confession of many too is held. It is answered you: these things also are not lacking to our people on behalf of their own party. Either, therefore, let us believe those who were able to persuade of their cause those churches which we read written in the divine and canonical books, or—as you said concerning Optatus—let us neither absolve doubtful things nor condemn them, and let us hold, in brotherly love, the peace of Christ, whose goodness is not doubtful.
But the Easterns—whom you now concede to be ours—you say this deed did not escape; and, to prove this, you insert the opening of the letter of the council of Sardica, where the name of Donatus, your bishop of Carthage, is found subscribed. Which you think and affirm was done for this reason: because, forsooth, the deed of the traditors displeased the Easterns, who sent these writings from their council, and they had withdrawn themselves from their communion, and therefore they were in communion with your Donatus. Learn, then, what you do not know:
The council of Sardica was an Arian one—which has long been known and we have in hand—convened chiefly against Athanasius, the Catholic bishop of Alexandria, who beyond others sharply refuted and confuted their error, sprung from that very city. It is no wonder, therefore, if those heretics tried to enlist Donatus to themselves as one of their own—Donatus whom the Catholic Church throughout the whole world condemned; although we have the bishops to whom these letters were sent without the names of their cities. Either, therefore, there was some Donatus, not a bishop in Africa, to whose name 'of Carthage' was added by your people, or, as I said, the Eastern heresy tried to join the African heresy to itself.