Whom assuredly he would not have blamed thus, but rather praised, if Caecilian had been defeated before him by them and by him condemned and banished to Brixia. And thus, by producing and reciting these things against their very selves, they most manifestly showed, by the said emperor's judgment, that they had been overcome by Caecilian; and they most openly refuted their own falsehood, by which they said he had been condemned; and those who boasted that the Catholics were making persecution while they themselves were suffering it, nevertheless wished falsely to boast also that Caecilian had, through their accusations, been condemned by the emperor.
When therefore these things had been recited, and the Catholics said—and briefly reminded the judge, which he himself also perceived—that those documents had been recited in their own favor, that is, in favor of Caecilian's innocence, against those men, and that the judge himself had likewise interposed this same ruling, the Donatists answered, saying: 'Concerning free choice your authority says nothing'; for thinking this—that according to Constantine's letters it could be granted them by the present judge—they supposed that those letters too could be recited against themselves in favor of Caecilian's cause. Here, when the judge had answered them that another command had been given him by the emperor of the present time, they went off into another matter, which they produced against themselves once more, far more wonderfully still.
For they recited other letters of the same Emperor Constantine given to the proconsul Probianus, which indeed had no consuls; but the Catholics were unwilling to do anything as if by way of a mutual objection, although even from this the Donatists convicted themselves of how calumniously they had made that objection against the Catholics—since the first document, from which was recited the judgment of Constantine by which Caecilian was acquitted, had no consuls, which nevertheless were soon found in another document.
These letters, then, given to the proconsul Probianus, contain the emperor's order by which he commanded that Ingentius be sent to him, by whose confession, in the judgment of the proconsul Aelianus, Felix of Aptunga, the ordainer of Caecilian, had been absolved from the crime of surrendering the Scriptures.
But the Donatists said they were reciting this imperial command in order, as it were, to show that Caecilian's case was still in suspense even after that judgment by which Constantine had already written that he had settled everything between the parties; whereas even in those very letters, given to the proconsul Probianus, by which they would as it were show that judgment was still pending—since the emperor had ordered Ingentius to be sent to him—they read out so much against themselves that it is altogether astonishing with what eyes they could look upon those things, or with what mouth pronounce them.
For there Constantine said that a competent hearing had been granted by the proconsul Aelianus, and that Felix had been established as innocent of the burning of the divine books, but that those men were to be confuted in his presence who did not cease to interpellate him day after day—so that it might clearly appear to them that in vain had they wished to contrive odium against Caecilian and to rise up violently against him. Here, then, through those letters they showed that not only Caecilian but also Felix had been cleared, and that they themselves had stood forth before the emperor as persecutors of the innocent.
Having received this opportunity, the Catholics produced for recitation both the report of Aelianus himself, then proconsul, given to Constantine concerning this matter—in which he recalls that he had heard and concluded the case of Felix—and the very proconsular acts, by which Felix was absolved and, by the testimony of all the necessary persons, proved innocent of the crime of surrendering the Scriptures. When these had been recited, the judge inquired what could be objected against them.
Then the Donatists, as they had also begun to say before, repeated the same things over and over, asking whether Ingentius had been directed to the court by the emperor's command, and demanding that the Catholics show what had afterward been done; and trying with such words as they could to refute the proconsular acts by which Felix was absolved, objecting the favor of the judge, or that persons had been suborned, and other such things which men are wont to fling about with suspicious complaint against the records by which they are defeated; they said also that Felix had not rightly been absolved in his absence.
To these things the Catholics answered that all that had been read pertained most plainly to the absolution of Caecilian and of Felix; but if the Donatists supposed that, Ingentius having been sent to the court, judgment had been given in their favor and the judgment changed—that judgment by which Constantine, examining between the parties, had cleared Caecilian and judged them most calumnious—they themselves ought to produce it. But when the Catholics were saying this, in that brevity of time the consuls could not be considered;
and whoever will consider their order in the acts themselves will find that Caecilian was absolved by the Emperor Constantine later than the case of Felix was examined and cleared by the proconsul Aelianus; and that after some years even, Constantine wrote to Verinus the vicar those letters which they themselves recited—where they claimed that free choice had been granted them by that emperor—in which letters he shows them to be as it were most wicked men and enemies of Christian peace. Which assuredly he would not have done, if he had judged anything for them against Caecilian, when Ingentius had been sent to the court.
The judge therefore interposed a ruling that acts which so great an antiquity had strengthened could not be set aside unless other, later acts were recited to the contrary. It was also said by the Catholics that it had rather served to declare Felix's innocence that he had been absolved in his absence, because a suspicion of favor would sooner arise if he were present. Then the judge began to press that, if the Donatists had any later acts against the absolution of Caecilian or Felix, they should now at once produce them. Here they tried once more, as if from the beginning, to return to and replay those things which they had already said so often, and which had already been disposed of, the Catholics having so often answered to everything.
There, when the judge had interposed a ruling, admonishing them that it should now weary them to repeat the same things which had already been done and settled, and repeatedly compelling them to produce, if they had anything to be recited against such most evident absolutions of Caecilian and Felix—and they, producing nothing whatever against those absolutions, did not cease to repeat the same things, so that judgment might be given concerning what they had said—and the judge on the contrary rather demanded that they read, if they had anything that could be read against the imperial and proconsular judgment, so that a pronouncement might be made concerning all matters:
since by the laws it is forbidden to deliver a half-complete sentence, and the Catholics too were insisting that, all matters having been made manifest to the judge and the Donatists finding nothing to answer but repeating the same things, the case might at length at last be concluded—in the end the judge said: 'If there is nothing to the contrary that you may read, deign to withdraw, so that a full sentence concerning all things may be written.' And when both parties had withdrawn, he wrote the sentence, which, the parties having again been admitted, he recited; in which he embraced all that he could recall of the lengthy proceedings of three days. In these he set down certain things not in the order in which they had been transacted, yet he set down all things truthfully, pronouncing that the Donatists had been confuted by the Catholics through the manifestation of all the documents.
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE CONFERENCE WITH THE DONATISTS, IN THREE BOOKS. After our conference with the Donatists had been held, I briefly set down what was done and put it in writing according to the three days on which we conferred with them; and I judged this a useful work, whereby anyone, being reminded, might either know without effort what was transacted, or, by consulting the numbers which I have noted against each matter, might read in those same records at the point where he wishes to whatever passage he pleases, since those records weary the reader by their excessive length. The title of this work is: A Short Account of the Conference. This work thus begins: 'When the Catholic bishops and those of the party of Donatus…'