And how that very peace was to be held fast, he opened in the words that followed. For there he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: 'Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again on the third day, and repentance and remission of sins to be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' Have peace with these words, and you will not dissent from us. For if we seek unity by war, our war could not have been praised more gloriously, seeing that it is written: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' and again it is written: 'No man ever hated his own flesh,' and yet 'the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.'
But if no man hates his own flesh, and yet lusts against his own flesh, behold, unity is sought by war, that the body being chastised may be brought into subjection. But what the spirit does against the flesh, warring not by hatred but by love, this spiritual men do against carnal men, that what they do toward themselves they may do also toward those men, because they love their neighbours as themselves. But the war of spiritual men is that correction in charity; their sword is the word of God. To such a war the apostolic trumpet stirs them up, sounding forth with great force: 'Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, exhort, rebuke, in all long-suffering and doctrine.'
Behold, we act not with the sword but with the word; but you neither answer true things nor accuse false things, you do not correct your own, you cast up what is another's. Christ speaks true testimony concerning the whole earth; you speak against Christ false testimony against the whole earth. But we, if we believed you rather than Christ, would be peacemakers: because we believe Christ rather than you, we feign peace by crime. And though you say and do these things, you dare moreover to make mention: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.' Petilian said: Since the Apostle Paul says:
I beseech you, brethren, I who am a prisoner in the Lord, that you walk worthily of the calling by which you were called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in charity, taking careful pains to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Augustine replied: If you would not only say these things but also give ear to them, you would for the sake of peace endure even evils that are known, rather than for the sake of dissension fabricate evils that are unknown; or else, since afterward you learned to endure for the unity of Donatus the most notorious and infamous evils of Optatus. What madness is this? Known men are tolerated, lest the schism be cut apart a second time, and unknown men are defamed, lest men remain within their very integrity. Petilian said: The prophet says to you:
Peace, peace; and where is peace? Augustine replied: It is you who say this to us, not the prophet; therefore we answer you. If you seek where peace is, open your eyes and see of whom it was said: taking away wars unto the ends of the earth. If you seek where peace is, open your eyes to that city which cannot be hidden, set upon a mountain; open your eyes also to the very mountain, and let Daniel point it out to you, growing from a small stone and filling the whole earth. But when the prophet says to you, Peace, peace, and where is peace, what will you point to? Perhaps the party of Donatus, unknown to the countless nations to whom Christ is known? It is not that city which cannot be hidden — and why not, except that it is not set upon that mountain.
For He Himself is our peace, who made both one — not Donatus, who made of one two. Petilian said: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You are not blessed, but you make the martyrs blessed, with whose souls the heavens have been filled, whose bodies have adorned the earth by their memorials. You therefore do not receive worship, but you make those whom we may venerate. Augustine replied: Truly, if it had not been said, Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, but rather, 'Blessed are they who cast themselves down headlong,' then your martyrs would fill heaven. Indeed, from their bodies we see many flowers of the earth spring up; but as the saying goes: the flower is ash. Petilian said:
Since, then, by falsifying the commandments you are not blessed, the Lord Christ condemns you by the divine sentences: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor suffer those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more a child of hell than yourselves. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have left the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, and not to leave the others undone, you blind guides, who strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you are like whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of the bones of the dead and of all uncleanness. So you also outwardly indeed appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Augustine replied: Tell me whether you have said anything which cannot in turn be said against you likewise, with a cursing and contumelious mouth. But from what has been said above by me, whoever wishes will find that these things can be said against you, not by empty insults, but by true testimonies. Yet, since the occasion is not to be passed over: certainly the ancient people of God held circumcision in place of baptism.
I ask, then: if those Pharisees against whom such things are said had made some proselyte who, if he imitated them, would (as was said) have become a child of hell twofold more than they — supposing he were corrected and wished to imitate Simeon, Zacharias, and Nathanael — would he be judged as needing to be circumcised again by them? And if it is ridiculous to say so, then, although with the manner and mouth of a babbler you compare us to such men, why do you baptize after us? But if you yourselves are such men, how much more truly and rightly do we not baptize after you — just as neither ought those whom I named to have been circumcised after the worst Pharisees!
Furthermore, since such men sat in the chair of Moses, to which the Lord preserved honour, why do you, on account of those whom, justly or unjustly, you compare to these, blaspheme the apostolic chair? Petilian said: But these things do not terrify us Christians. For what evil you are about to do, we have foretold to us beforehand by the Lord Christ. He says: I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. You have filled yourselves with wolfish rage — you who lay or prepare ambushes against the churches no otherwise than wolves gaping after the sheepfolds, ever breathing out ruin and assault, with jaws suffused with blood, panting forth their wrath. Augustine replied: I could wish to apply this sentence against you, but I would not do so with these words; they are exceedingly foolish, or rather insane.
But the task was this: that by certain proofs, not by the emptiest curses, you should show that we are wolves and you are sheep. For when I too say, 'We are sheep, but you are wolves,' do you think it makes any difference that you say those things with swollen words? But attend, that I may prove what I say. Surely the Lord — whom, whether you will or no, you know — says in the Gospel: My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. Many are the voices of the Lord about diverse matters. But, for example's sake, if someone doubted whether that same Lord rose again in the body, and his words were recited where he says:
Handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have — if, even after hearing these words, he were unwilling to acquiesce in believing that his body had been raised up, he certainly would not be reckoned among the Lord's sheep, because, having heard his voice, he did not follow. So also now, since the question between us is where the Church is, when from that very passage of the Gospel — where after the resurrection he offered even his body to be handled by those who doubted — we recite the words that follow, in which he showed the future breadth of the Church, saying:
Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are unwilling to have communion with all the nations among whom these things have been fulfilled — how then are you the sheep of this Shepherd, whose voices, having heard, you not only do not follow, but even resist? And that you are indeed not sheep, we teach you from this; but hear from what we may teach you that you are wolves. For since it is already apparent from his own words where the Church is, it is manifest where the sheepfold of Christ is.
From this sheepfold, therefore, pointed out and expressed by the most certain words of the Lord, whoever separate off sheep — I do not say by false, but by uncertain charges of men (though this too is manifest) — and, having torn them away and estranged them from the life of unity and charity, slay them, are they not themselves ravening wolves? But indeed they too praise and preach the Lord Christ. These, then, are they of whom he himself says: clothed in sheep's clothing, but within they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. The sheep's skin is in the praises of Christ; the wolfish fruit is in reviling teeth. Petilian said: O wretched betrayers! It was indeed fitting that the Scripture should thus be fulfilled, but this I grieve over in you, that you have deserved to fulfil the parts of malice. Augustine replied:
I could rather say, 'O wretched betrayers,' if it pleased me — nay, if justice urged me — to cast in the teeth of you all the deeds of certain of your own. What then pertains to you all, 'O wretched heretics,' the rest of your words I will now speak. For it is written: There must be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you. Thus it behoved the Scripture to be fulfilled; but this I grieve over in you, that you have deserved to fulfil the parts of malice. Petilian said: But to us the Lord Christ, against your deadly deeds, has commanded simple patience and innocence. For what does he say? A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you; and:
By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one toward another. Augustine replied: Unless you transferred these words — so far removed from your own morals — onto the mere surface of your discourse, how would you cover yourselves with the sheep's skin? Petilian said: The apostle Paul too, when he suffered immense persecutions from all the nations, endured heavier ones from false brethren, as he himself testifies of himself: often afflicted with perils from the Gentiles, perils from my own race, perils from false brethren; and who again says: Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. Since therefore you, false brethren, assail us, we imitate the patience of our master Paul amid your perils. Augustine replied:
Certainly these are the false brethren of whom, in another place, the same apostle thus complains, while preaching the genuine sincerity of Timothy: I have no one, he says, likeminded, who will genuinely be solicitous for you; for all seek their own, not the things which are of Jesus Christ. Surely he was speaking of those who, at the time when he wrote that epistle, were with him; for not all who were Christians anywhere were seeking their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. Of these, then, as I said, he groaned thus — those whom, at the time he wrote these things, he had with him. For whom else does he touch upon, when he says elsewhere: without were fightings, within were fears, if not those whom he feared the more vehemently the more inwardly they were?
If therefore you wished to imitate Paul, you would be within, a bearer of false brethren, not without, a calumniator of the innocent. Petilian said: For what kind of faith is in you, which has not charity, since Paul himself says: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have the knowledge of angels, but have not charity, they are as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my substance to the poor, and deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing. Augustine replied:
This is what I said a little before: that you wish to cover yourself with the sheep's skin, so that, if it can be done, the sheep may feel you biting before it perceives you coming. Is not this the praise of charity which is wont to convict your calumny by the most luminous truth? Or shall these weapons therefore not be ours, because you try to seize them first? These javelins are utterly alive: from wherever they are hurled, they recognize whom they may slay. If they are cast by us, they will stick in you; if they are hurled by you, they are turned back against you.
For with these apostolic words, which commend the excellence of charity, we are wont to show you how it profits men nothing, though there be in them either the sacraments or faith, where charity is not — so that, when you come to Catholic unity, you may understand what is conferred upon you and how great is that which you were lacking (for Christian charity cannot be kept save in the unity of the Church) — and so that you may see that without it you are nothing, even if you hold baptism and faith, and even if through it you could remove mountains.
But if this is also your opinion, let us not, among ourselves, detest and blow away either the sacraments of God, which we acknowledge, or faith itself, but let us hold fast charity, without which, both with the sacraments and with faith, we are nothing. And we do hold charity, if we embrace unity; and we embrace unity, if we do not feign it by our own words within a party, but recognize it by the words of Christ within the one Church. Petilian said: And again: Charity is longsuffering and kind; charity envies not, deals not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not the things that are its own — but you seek the things of others — is not provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, endures all things.
Charity never falls away. This is, briefly to say it: charity does not persecute, does not inflame emperors against other souls, does not plunder the goods of others, does not even kill the men whom it has despoiled. Augustine replied: How often shall I say to you: if you do not prove these things, they pertain to no one; but if you do prove them, they do not pertain to us — just as neither do those things pertain to you which your own men daily commit, through the crimes of the frenzied, through the debaucheries of the wine-sodden, through the blindness of the headlong, through the tyranny of the plunderers? Who does not see that what I cry out is true? But now, if there were charity in you, it would rejoice with the truth. For how elegantly, under the sheep's skin, is it said: Charity bears all things, endures all things!
But when it comes to the test, the wolfish teeth cannot be hidden. For when charity, on account of what was said — bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace — even if you knew of some evils within, should compel you not indeed to consent to them, yet, if you could not prevent them, to endure them, lest for the sake of the wicked (who are to be separated by the final winnowing-fan) you should now break the bond of peace away from the fellowship of the good: then, shaken outside by the wind of fickleness, you fling the charge of chaff against the wheat, and what you feign concerning the evil, you affirm to prevail by contagion even in the good; and when the Lord had said, The field is this world, and the harvest is the end of the age — when he had spoken of the wheat and the tares:
Let both grow together until the harvest — you labour with your words that the wheat may be believed to have already failed throughout the whole field and to have remained only in your own tiny particle, while you would have Christ held to be a liar and yourself truthful. And indeed you speak against your own conscience. For truly no one, gazing in any manner upon the Gospel, dares to say in his own mind that throughout so many nations — among whom Amen is answered almost with one voice, and Alleluia is sung — there are no Christians.
And yet, lest the party of Donatus, which has no communion with the whole world, should seem to err, if an angel from heaven — one who could behold the entire world — should tell you that outside your communion there are nowhere any innocent and good men, you would without doubt rejoice over the iniquity of the human race, and would boast that you had spoken the truth before you knew it. How then is there in you the charity which does not rejoice over iniquity? But be not deceived: there are, throughout the field — that is, throughout the world — even to the end of the age, the Lord's growing wheat. Christ said this; Christ is the truth. Let charity be in you, and let it rejoice with the truth. Against the Gospel, even if an angel from heaven should preach the gospel to you, let him be anathema. Petilian said: Finally, what is the reason for persecuting?
I ask you, wretched men, if perchance you think that you sin by some authority of the law. Augustine replied: He who sins does not sin by the authority of the law, but against the authority of the law. But since you ask what is the reason for persecuting, I in turn ask you: whose is the voice in the psalm which says: him who secretly detracted his neighbour, this man I persecuted? Seek, therefore, either the cause or the manner of persecution, and do not, with such great ignorance, reproach in general terms the persecutors of the wicked. Petilian said:
But I, on the contrary, answer that Jesus Christ persecuted no one; and when certain sects displeased the apostles, who suggested this to him — for he had come to make faith in such a way that he did not coerce men, but rather invited them — those apostles say to him: many lay on hands in your name and are not with us. Jesus said: leave them alone; if they are not against you, they are for you. Augustine replied: Why do you not say that you would utter many things more freely out of your own head, which are not found in the Scriptures? For if you wish to bring forward testimonies from the holy Scriptures, will you bring forward things which you have not found there? But how many your falsehoods are is in your own power.
For where is it written what you have put forward, or when was that either suggested to the Lord or answered by the Lord? 'Many lay on hands in your name and are not with us' — no disciple ever said this to the Son of God. Whence neither could that reply have been made by him: 'leave them alone; if they are not against you, they are for you.' But there is something similar which we really do read in the Gospel, suggested to the Lord concerning a certain man who was casting out demons in his name and did not follow him with the disciples, where the Lord says: do not forbid him; he who is not against you is for you. But this pertains not at all to demonstrating sects which the Lord may seem to have spared.
But if some likeness of the sentiment deceived you, it is not a lie, it is human error; but if you wished to cast the mists of falsehood upon those unskilled in the holy Scriptures, be pricked with remorse, and confounded, and corrected. There is, nevertheless, something we may make of this very matter which was suggested to the Lord. For just as then, apart from the communion of the disciples, the holiness of Christ's name nonetheless availed very much, so apart from the communion of the Church the holiness of the sacrament avails; for baptism is not consecrated save in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
But who, being utterly insane, would say that even apart from the communion of the Church the name of the Son avails, but that of the Father and of the Holy Spirit does not avail; or that it avails indeed in healing a man, but does not avail in consecrating baptism? But clearly, apart from the communion of the Church and the most holy bond of unity and the most surpassing gift of charity, neither he from whom a demon is cast out, nor he who is baptized, obtains eternal life — just as neither do those who through the communion of the sacraments seem to be within, and through the iniquity of their morals are understood to be without. And that Christ even bodily persecuted those whom he drove from the temple by scourging, we have already said above. Petilian said: But the holy apostle Paul says this:
In whatever way, he says, Christ be announced. Augustine replied: You speak against yourself; yet nevertheless, because you speak for the truth, if you have loved it, what you speak works in your favour. For I ask of you: of whom did the apostle Paul say this? Let us recall it a little, if you please. Some, he says, out of envy and contention, but some out of good will, announce Christ; some out of charity, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel; but some announce Christ out of contentiousness, not sincerely, thinking to raise up tribulation to my bonds. For what then? So that in every way, whether by occasion or in truth, Christ is announced; and in this I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
We see that these men announced a thing indeed holy and chaste and true, yet not chastely, but through envy and contention, without charity, without chastity. Certainly a little before you seemed to speak the praises of charity against us out of the apostle's testimony, because where charity is not, whatever there may be profits nothing: behold, in these men charity was not, and yet there was the preaching of Christ, over which the apostle says he rejoices; for he rejoices not at their evil, but at the good of Christ's name. For in Christ himself was that charity which does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth. But the envy which was in them is a devilish evil; for by this the devil both fell and cast down.
These men, then, so evil, whom the apostle thus reproves — in whom there was so great a good over which the apostle rejoices — where were they, within or without? Choose which you will. If within, behold, Paul knew them, and yet they did not pollute him. So those, concerning whom you say I know not what, whether true or things you falsely feign, would not pollute you in the unity of the whole world. Why then have you separated yourselves? Why, by the sacrilege of a wicked schism, have you destroyed yourselves?
But if they were without, behold, even in those who are without — and who certainly cannot pertain to eternal life, because they have not charity and hold not unity — there is nonetheless the holiness of the name of Christ, whose preaching the apostle, on account of that very holiness of the name, though he detests those men, confirms by rejoicing. Rightly therefore we do no injury to the name itself, when those who were without come to us, but we correct them and honour that name. So do you look how wickedly, in those whose deeds you seem to reprove, you also blow away the sacrament of Christ's name, which in them is holy. And you indeed, as your words indicate, judge that those whom the apostle mentioned were outside the Church.
Thus, while you fear to suffer persecution from Catholics — over which, by speaking to us, you stir up ill will — you have confirmed the name of Christ in heretics, to whom, by rebaptizing, you do injury. Petilian said: If, therefore, so great a power of faith has not been opposed by anyone, by what reason do you persecute, so as to compel men to be defiled? Augustine replied: We do not persecute you, save as truth persecutes falsehood; nor does it pertain to us if anyone has persecuted you otherwise, just as neither does it pertain to you whatever your own men likewise do; nor do we compel you to be defiled, but we persuade you to be healed. Petilian said: But if it were lawful to compel anyone by law even to good things, you yourselves, wretched men, ought to have been compelled by us to the purest faith.
But far, far be it from our conscience, that we should compel anyone to our faith. Augustine replied: To faith indeed no one is to be compelled against his will; but by the severity — nay, even by the mercy — of God, faithlessness is wont to be chastised by the scourges of tribulations. Because the best morals are chosen by freedom of the will, are the worst morals therefore not punished by the integrity of the law? Yet the avenging discipline of evil living is out of order, unless the preceding teaching of good living is despised. If, therefore, any laws have been established against you, you are not compelled by them to do good, but forbidden to do evil. For no one can do good unless he has chosen it, unless he has loved it, which is a matter of free will;
but the fear of penalties, even if it does not yet have the delight of a good conscience, at least restrains the evil desire within the enclosure of thought. Yet who established laws against you, by which your audacity might be curbed? Are they not those of whom the apostle says that they do not bear the sword in vain? For they are ministers of God, avengers unto wrath upon him who does evil. The whole question, therefore, is whether you are not doing evil — you against whom the whole world casts the sacrilege of so great a schism; and, neglecting the discussion of this question, you speak superfluous things, and, while you live like robbers, you boast of dying like martyrs.
And because you dread either the laws themselves, or ill-will, or because you are unequal to resisting — I do not say against so many men, but against so many Catholic nations — you even boast of your gentleness, that you compel no one to your party. In this way even the kite, when in terror it has not been able to seize the chicks, may call itself a dove. For where were you able, and did not do it? Whence you have shown how much more you would do, if you could. When Julian, out of envy toward Christ's peace, gave back to you the basilicas of unity, what slaughters were wrought by you — when, with their temples opened, even the demons exulted along with you — who could sufficiently recount? What Rogatus the Moor suffered from you in the Firmian war, let Mauretania Caesariensis itself be asked.