Accordingly, lest it be supposed—as these men suppose—that he had, as it were, one man in a crowd, crept in secretly while others were unaware, the Lord straightway, in that same one man whom he commanded to be cast, bound hand and foot, into the outer darkness from that banquet, did not delay to signify that a great fellowship of the wicked is to be understood, among whom the fewer good ones live at the Lord's banquet. For after he had said, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' he straightway subjoined, 'For many are called, but few are chosen.'
How is this true, since rather one man out of many had been cast into the outer darkness—unless because in that one man was figured the great body of all the wicked mingled at the Lord's banquet before the Lord's judgment? From these the good separate themselves for the time being in heart and in conduct, while eating and drinking together the body and blood of the Lord, but with a great distinction: because these, in honor of the bridegroom, are clothed with the wedding garment, not seeking their own things but those of Jesus Christ, while those do not have the wedding garment—that is, the most faithful charity of the bridegroom—seeking their own things, not those of Jesus Christ.
And by this, although at one and the same banquet these eat mercy, those judgment—because the song of the banquet itself is that which I have also recalled above: 'Mercy and judgment I will sing unto thee, O Lord'—yet not on that account does ecclesiastical discipline sleep, so as to correct the unruly. For neither do we separate from the people of God those whom, by either degrading or excommunicating, we reduce to a lowlier place of penitence. And where we are not permitted to do this, for the sake of the peace and tranquility of the Church, not on that account do we repudiate the Church's discipline, but we tolerate what we do not wish, in order to arrive where we do wish, using the caution of the Lord's precept, lest, when we wish to gather up the tares before the time, we uproot the wheat along with them.
Using also the example and precept of blessed Cyprian, who out of regard for peace bore with his colleagues who were usurers, defrauders, and plunderers, such men, and was not himself by their contagion made such. Whence we too, if we are wheat, most confidently say the words of that same blessed martyr: that, even if tares seem to be in the Church, nevertheless neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we discern tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. These words our forebears would have said most justly and most piously, even if they had seen Caecilian and some of his fellow bishops to be evil—men whom nevertheless they could not separate from the Church on account of those to whom the evil ones could not be shown, and whom they thought to be good and innocent.
These words they would altogether have said, this they would altogether have felt: lest, when they rashly wished to separate the tares, they should uproot the wheat along with them. As therefore a certain prophet was commanded neither to eat bread nor drink water in Samaria, whither he had been sent to rebuke those who had set up calves to be adored after the manner of the idols of the Egyptians—he ought altogether to have done that which the Lord had commanded, whom it then pleased in that manner to rebuke them, so that the prophet whom he had sent should touch none of the food there. For neither does it fail to happen daily in the Church that, when we more sharply rebuke those men, even if we are in their possession, we touch none of their food, so that they may perceive how much we grieve over their sins.
Is a division of the people, then, to be made on that account, so that, as though they were tender grass, the weak should be indiscriminately uprooted—those who cannot judge concerning the hearts of men and concerning unknown deeds, even if these be known to us? For in Samaria itself both Elijah and Elisha were present, and although they themselves were in solitude, yet they were not deviating on account of the sacraments, but because they were suffering persecution from impious kings. For there were present—not indeed in a separated solitude, which Elijah himself did not know of—seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees before Baal.
Finally, Samuel, held among the foremost of the saints, both gravely rebuked Saul and yet went with him, without excuse, to offer sacrifice to the Lord; nor was he polluted by the contagion of Saul's sins, but remained wholly clean by the preservation of his own merits. But let Haggai resolve this question of ours yet more evidently—though it has been evidently resolved both in the conference and just now—Haggai, whose testimony above the rest they read, so that they now vaunt it alone in place of all. The Lord, through the prophet Haggai, reproved the people that remained from Babylonia, where it had been held captive, because they neglected the house of the Lord and cultivated their own houses; and he says that on this account he had smitten the region with a plague of barrenness.
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech the high priest, and all that people, divinely inspired, began to labor in the house of the Lord their God. For thus the same Scripture says: 'And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel of the tribe of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech the high priest, and the spirit of the remnant of all the people; and they came in and did the works in the house of the Lord Almighty their God, on the four-and-twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year under king Darius.' Behold, the day too is fixed on which they entered to labor in the house of God. I believe that those men and that laboring people in the house of God were not unclean, especially because the Lord had said to them:
'I am with you,' and had stirred up their spirit to labor well in his house. Finally, see what follows. For the same Scripture goes on and says: 'In the seventh month, on the one-and-twentieth of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying: Speak to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel of the tribe of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, saying: Who is there among you that saw this house in that its former splendor? And how do you see it now, as though it were not before your eyes? And now be strong, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua son of Josedech the high priest, and prevail, O all people of the land, says the Lord Almighty; and my Spirit stands in the midst of you.'
'Be of good courage, for thus says the Almighty: Yet once more I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will move all nations, and all the chosen things of the nations shall come, and I will fill this house, says the Lord Almighty'—and the rest which he adds, prophesying things yet to come; which are more rightly wont to be understood of the times of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose people is the truest and most holy temple of God, not indeed in those who are tolerated as intermingled, but in those alone who now, for the time being, are spiritually separated from such by living well, but afterwards are to be separated even bodily.
Nevertheless, that people to whom this prophecy was foretold, and who were then laboring in the house of God—where those two also were, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Josedech—how it was exhorted and commended by the Lord, is plain enough to see in these words of the prophet, which we have inserted just as they were spoken. Can we then call this people unclean, so that whoever approaches it will be defiled—the people to whom it is said: 'And now be strong, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua son of Josedech the high priest, and prevail, O all people of the land, says the Lord Almighty; and my Spirit stands in the midst of you'?
What man, most demented, would call this the people whom, if anyone approaches, he will be defiled? Now therefore attend to what Scripture goes on to relate after that prophecy which was announced to this people concerning the times of Christ: 'On the four-and-twentieth of the ninth month, in the second year under king Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying: Thus says the Almighty: Ask the priests the law, saying: If a man take hallowed flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with its skirt touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or any food, shall it be hallowed? And the priests answered and said: No. And Haggai said: If one defiled in soul touch any of these, shall it be defiled?'
'And the priests answered and said: It shall be defiled. And Haggai answered and said: So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says the Lord, and so are the works of their hands; and whosoever approaches thereto shall be defiled, because of their morning presumptions; from the face of their labors, and you have hated those who reprove in the gates.' Who is this people so unclean, that whosoever approaches it is defiled? Is it that one to whom it was said: 'Prevail, and my Spirit is in the midst of you'? God forbid that it be that one. There were therefore two: one unclean, and the other who is forbidden to approach the unclean—the one who was exhorted to prevail because the Spirit of God was in the midst of them.
If, then, there were two, let two temples also be shown—the one into which this one entered, the other into which that one entered; let two altars also be shown—the one on which this one, the other on which that one offered victims; let priests also be shown, some of the one and others of the other, who sacrificed separately, each for his own people. But if anyone who tries to affirm this is mad, then these two peoples were in one people, under one high priest, entering one temple—just as, even under one Moses, some were offending God, some pleasing God, of whom the Apostle says: 'With not all of them was God well pleased.' For he does not say, 'With all of them was God not well pleased,' as though all had displeased God, but he says:
'With not all of them was God well pleased'—therefore with some, not with all. And all were under the same priests in one and the same tabernacle, and offered victims at one and the same altar, and yet they were distinguished: by deeds, not by places; by disposition, not by temple; by conduct, not by altars. Thus some did not approach others, lest they be defiled by them—that is, they did not consent to their evil deeds, lest they be condemned along with them. For neither did so great a prophet as Moses fail to know those wicked ones, whose impious murmurings and horrendous bitternesses he daily endured. But let us grant that he did not know that man: did not Samuel also know Saul, whom God had condemned through his mouth by an eternal sentence?
Yet he saw both him and holy David entering the one tabernacle of God, amid the same sacrifices—but he saw them distinctly, for he saw them as distinct: and one of them he loved forever, the other he tolerated for a time. So too Haggai had known, in one people, two peoples entering one temple, living under one high priest; and he pointed out the one as unclean, and forbade the other to approach the unclean, and yet he separated neither them nor himself from the same temple and the same altars. Therefore he forbade the spiritual approach and the consent of deeds, which the very words also proclaim, if ears be present that furious animosity does not close, nor the din of empty contention hinder. For the prophet says:
'Everyone who approaches thereto shall be defiled.' He noted the vice by which he forbade approach; he did not shut off men from men by a bodily separation. But one approaches the vice of corruption by the vice of consent. And lest anyone should say that that people, to whom it was first said, 'Prevail, since my Spirit stands in the midst of you,' had, after a few days interposed, been changed for the worse, so that it deserved to hear, 'So is this people, and so is this nation; everyone who approaches thereto shall be defiled'—
for nearly ninety days are reckoned between those words which were spoken as good to the people and these by which its uncleanness is enjoined to be avoided—lest, therefore, anyone should suppose that good people had, though within so small an interval of time, become so utterly wicked: see what follows, attend to what is said on that very day, that is, on the four-and-twentieth of the ninth month, on which day it was said, 'So is this people, and so is this nation; everyone who approaches thereto shall be defiled.' For when he had said this and had recalled their evils, on account of which they were shown to be unclean, adding also and saying, 'You have hated those who reprove in the gates,' he straightway subjoined:
'And now lay it up in your hearts from this day and onward, before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord—you who were, when you cast into the bin twenty measures of barley, and there came to be ten measures, and you went into the winepress to draw out fifty amphorae, and there came to be twenty. I smote you with barrenness, and with blasting and hail all the works of your hands, and yet you did not turn to me, says the Lord. Set your hearts, therefore, from this day and thenceforward, from the four-and-twentieth of the ninth month, and from the day on which the temple of the Lord was founded, lay it up in your hearts, whether it shall yet be known in the threshing-floor, or whether the vine, or the apple, or the fig and the pomegranate and the trees of the olive, which have not borne fruit.
From this day I will bless.' Behold, on that very day they even deserved to be blessed. This blessing, therefore, I think, does not pertain to those to whose uncleanness he forbids approach, but to those good ones who are forbidden to approach. In one place, therefore, they were both intermingled and separated: intermingled indeed by bodily contact, but separated by the withdrawal of the will. But Scripture speaks after its own manner, which thus rebukes the evil as though all in that people were evil, and thus consoles the good as though all there were such.
On our behalf, therefore, your bishops, even in that which they are said to have written after the conference in their defeat, set down the prophecy of Haggai—whereby they would more evidently remind us to prove what we say: that even in one people, in one temple, under the same priests, amid the same sacraments, with men living by dissimilar will and differing in diverse conduct, neither can case prejudice case, nor person person. That also which they now again recall from the Apostle's epistle in their writings, where he says: 'Be not yoked together with unbelievers; for what participation has light with darkness?'
And the other passages which we have cited above, and which we have shown how they are rightly to be understood — what else do they accomplish but to remind us to whom the Apostle wrote these things? For it is precisely in that same people of the Corinthians that we demonstrate what we assert, lest perhaps men suppose that this was the manner of the prophets only, and that it does not belong to the practice of the New Testament, but of the Old, so to rebuke the blameworthy as though everyone in that people were being rebuked, and so to address the praiseworthy as though everyone there were being praised. Behold, to the Corinthians also the Apostle speaks in this way:
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always concerning you for the grace of God which has been given you in Christ Jesus, because in all things you have been made rich in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift.
Who, hearing these things, would believe that there were any reprobates in the church of the Corinthians, since these words so resound as though that praise were directed to all? And yet a little after he says: But I beseech you, brethren, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you. Again, as though rebuking and reproving all in this horrible vice, he says: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? But I think that those who among that people were saying, 'I am of Christ,' did not draw the yoke together with those who were saying:
'I am of Paul,' or 'I am of Apollos,' or 'I am indeed of Cephas'; and yet all approached the one altar, and they who did not share the same vices shared the same sacraments. For to these same Corinthians this too was said: He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself. For what else was the Apostle thinking of but these vain talkers, so that it was not enough for him to say 'eats and drinks judgment' unless he added 'to himself,' lest this too should pertain to those who indeed ate together but did not eat judgment? Among these same Corinthians there were also those who did not believe the resurrection of the dead, which is the distinctive faith of Christians, wherefore the Apostle speaks to them thus:
But if Christ is preached that he rose from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? He did not say 'on this earth' or 'in this world,' but 'among you,' he says. For he could not have laid down a ruling concerning the resurrection of Christ except precisely to Christians, to whom concerning that very resurrection of Christ he says: So we preach and so you believed. Now let us attend to those words by which at the beginning of the epistle he so praises the church of the Corinthians as to say:
I give thanks to my God always concerning you for the grace of God which has been given you in Christ Jesus, because in all things you have been made rich in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift. Behold, they were so enriched in Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge, so that they lacked nothing in any gift, and yet there were among them those who as yet still did not believe the resurrection of the dead. But I think that these, who lacked nothing in any gift, did not draw the yoke together with those who did not believe that the dead would rise again.
Behold how the faithful do not draw the yoke together with the unbelievers, although they are mingled with the same people and are steeped in the same sacraments under the same priests. Finally the Apostle himself, that those whose faith already held the resurrection of the dead might not consent to this unbelief, did not command them a bodily separation; for they were many, not like that one man who had his father's wife, whom by a freer rebuke and by excommunication he judges worthy of separation. Far otherwise is this case: in another way must a corrupt and diseased multitude be tended and healed, lest perhaps, if the people be separated from the people, through the wickedness of schism the wheat also be rooted up.
Those, therefore, who already believed the resurrection of the dead, the Apostle does not bodily separate from those who did not believe it among the same people; yet he does not cease to separate them spiritually, saying: Do not be deceived; evil communications corrupt good morals. He fears not their meeting but their consenting, lest by evil communications they lend their faith to those things which corrupt good morals. He therefore admonishes them to be separated by morals, not by altars. Finally, before the Apostle wrote these things to them, there were in the same church those who did not believe the resurrection of the dead, in which church there were also those who lacked nothing in any gift; and the latter did not defile the former by their own unbelief, because these did not consent with those to the same unbelief.
Behold how one does not approach that thing, lest whoever should approach be defiled; behold how there is no fellowship of light with darkness; behold how, although within the same nets both kinds of fish swim, neither does one cause prejudice another cause, nor one person another person. Since this is so, what folly is so raw, whose heart's iron slumber would not be shaken off and be able at some point to perceive that the case of Caecilian cannot prejudice the catholic world throughout the earth — with which the party of Donatus holds no communion — if the case of Maximianus does not prejudice the party of Donatus, or rather the case of Felicianus and Primianus, now joined together though a little before mutually condemned?
It suffices at any rate, to speak according to their own terms, that the bad fish lurking beneath the waves do not pollute the unwitting fishermen — although the question is not about the fishermen, whom perhaps in that parable the Lord willed to be understood as angels. For rather it is to be observed that within the very nets the good fish cannot be stained by the bad. For not even do they themselves see one another swimming together at the same time, just as, being placed within the water, they are not seen by the fishermen. But, as I have said, it suffices for our case that the bad, whose evil deeds are not known, do not pollute.
There were in the time of Caecilian certain blessed peacemakers who, even if he were not innocent, knowingly tolerated him for the sake of catholic unity; and when they saw him cleaving, in the communion of sharing the sacraments, to so many unknown nations through which unity itself is spread abroad, and that he could not be shown to them to be such a man as they themselves knew him to be, they would defend themselves against these calumnies with the words of the blessed and peaceable Cyprian, and would cry out confidently and say:
'Therefore because of Caecilian we do not forsake unity, for even though tares appear to be in the church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that because we perceive tares to be in the church we ourselves should withdraw from the church.' To the peaceable patience of such men would fit that most glorious praise with which is praised the angel of the church which is at Ephesus — whom no one rightly understanding doubts to bear the person of that church itself — to whom the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: I know your works and your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tried those who say they are apostles and are not, and you have found them liars; and you have patience, and for my name's sake you have endured them and have not fainted.
Thus let those be praised who lived in this life in the time of Caecilian, who, for the sake of the name of the Lord — which like ointment poured out was already fragrant throughout the whole world among innumerable nations — did not faint, most patiently enduring even one whom they knew to be evil, if that man were evil, who could not be shown by their judgment to others and be torn away and separated from them. Our case is otherwise; we ought not to arrogate to ourselves the praise of this patience. For we cannot say that we tolerated for the sake of peace what could not by any means come to our knowledge. To us the case of Caecilian was beneath the waves. Our voice is such as that of the other Christian nations, against which those men have found nothing at all to say.
Nevertheless, of Caecilian, whose case is unknown to us, we rightly believe it to be good, since we read that he was once condemned by the faction of his enemies, but a third time acquitted, with those very men as his accusers. Either let those men believe some hundred bishops of the party of Donatus concerning the crimes of Primianus, and then let them compel us to believe seventy of their elders concerning the crimes of Caecilian. But as for their saying that Caecilian, since he was absent, confirmed by his silence the crimes charged against him in that council — then Primianus too confirmed the crimes which were charged against him by a hundred bishops, and which he is not even afterwards shown to have refuted. But of course neither does one cause prejudice another cause, nor one person another person — so that the party of Donatus be not diminished; yet prejudice there is, so that the inheritance of Christ be divided.
Or does the case of Caecilian not prejudice the catholic unity which we hold and in whose fellowship we rejoice, since Caecilian was bishop of Carthage — and yet prejudice to it comes from the case of Novellus of Tizica and Faustinus of Tuburbo, whom they did not think should afterwards even be accused, as they did Caecilian and Felix; whose names — nay rather the very names of the cities in which they lived — are not even known to all Africa, or perhaps not even to the whole proconsular province? Behold, of what tiny little fish — even if they were bad — lurking so deep in the depths do they wish the case to prejudice the case of so great a fishing, whose full nets are spread throughout the whole world; fish who could scarcely be known even to the fish swimming beside them!
But why should we not believe that these men too were innocent, since — as I have said — they did not afterwards even deserve to be accused by them, and that man could be cleared whom their elders, in the hostile conspiracy of that council, called the fountainhead of all those evils? But whatever those men were, what does it matter to us? For truly they do not concede to us that the case and person of these unknown men should not prejudice the case and person of the catholic church, if neither does one cause prejudice another cause nor one person another person; and yet they charge us — that they may still seduce you — that we gave gold to the judge, that he might pronounce sentence for us against them.
Do you say, if you can, how much we should have had to give to those chosen defenders, the bishops you appointed, that they should say or bring forward so much against themselves on our behalf, so as thus to plead our cause and thus to destroy their own. For how much must we have bought it, that after the words of Primianus, in which he had said, 'It is unworthy that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should come together into one,' they should nevertheless come and, in that very thing which they had called unworthy, be joined together with us into one?
How much must we have bought it, that after the manner of forensic advocates they should attempt to raise objections to us concerning times and days, even concerning persons, and thus should quite plainly show to all men — even to those who could not understand our disputations — how bad a case they had, which they were so afraid to bring forward and plead before that judge, whose kindness and justice toward themselves they had praised with such great acclamation, and of whom they had as yet perceived no movement against themselves?
How much must we have bought it, that they should then demand that the matter not be conducted with them by forensic formulas, but rather by divine testimonies, and should promise that they likewise would answer from the holy Scriptures; and that, when the mandate of the catholic council which we had presented had been read out, and in it — with even themselves confessing it — it had become clear that we had been unwilling to plead the case of the catholic church by the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, they should again, as though forgetful of what they had said pleased them, return to those same forensic technicalities with intricate and hateful contentions?