'My bishop himself knows whether he condemned anyone'—to such He threatens, saying: But you hated discipline, and cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and with adulterers you set your portion (Ps. XLIX, 17, 18). And below the apostle Paul makes manifest and proves (Rom. I, 32) that they are worthy of death and come to punishment, not only those who do evil, but also those who consent to those who do such things: who, when by unlawful fellowship they are mingled with the wicked and sinners and those who do not repent, are polluted by the contact of the harmful, and while they are joined in guilt, so they are not separated in punishment either. But these say: We do not consent to the condemnation of the dead. O intolerable evil!
O unheard-of disgrace! They say they do not consent, as it were in words, to the condemnation, yet they consent in deeds—which is worse—to the accursed fellowship; whereas a heavier punishment remains for those who both are not ignorant of the truth and yet hold communion with the enemies of the truth. For if those with whom you hold communion have made a heresy, as we have taught, by condemning the living and the dead; if they have gone over to heretics, by doing what the Acephali wished, both parties have surely remained heretics by the offenses admitted. How then shall those who hold communion with heretics be denied to be held by the crime of heresy? Or with what face do they seem to themselves to be in communion with the Catholic Church?
Is it because, supported by court favor, they have seized the man-made churches with the Catholics driven out, that you therefore suppose the Catholic faith and Christian peace to consist in walls? If you think this, hear what even the holy bishop Hilary, confessor and outstanding teacher, wrote on this matter to certain bishops in the time of the emperor Constantius—when the Arians, under the name of peace and of the king, had thus seized nearly all the local churches of the whole world, just as now the Eutychians or Acephali—saying among other things: 'I beseech you, bishops, who believe yourselves to be this: by what favors did the apostles make use to preach the Gospel?
By what powers' aid did they preach Christ and transfer nearly all the nations from idols to the Lord? Did they assume to themselves any dignity from the palace?' And below: 'One thing I warn,' he says, 'beware of Antichrist; for the love of walls has wickedly seized you, wickedly you venerate the Church of God in roofs and buildings, wickedly you bring in under these the name of peace. Is it doubtful that Antichrist will sit in these? Mountains and woods and lakes and prisons and pits are safer to me. For in these the prophets, abiding, prophesied by the Spirit of God.' Let these testimonies, brought forth meanwhile for brevity's sake, suffice, since, if we wished to heap up or argue more, we should perhaps burden the memory of our readers.
Now we must also briefly recall this, which they object from the works of blessed Augustine written against the Donatists, saying: Saint Augustine said: Peace is good, have peace; unity is good, love unity, let not unity be torn. But these and such testimonies of the outstanding teacher—how far they undermine them, but establish us—they by no means perceive. For if these who rather object these things against themselves were unwilling to tear unity; if they were unwilling to bring war against the Catholic Church, by which peace would be violated; what they found in it, this surely they ought, as has been shown above, to keep and manfully guard.
But what they did not receive in it or from it, as truly harmful and deadly, they ought to have fled and shunned. For peace is to be had, according to apostolic doctrine, with all men, if it can be done, yet it is not to be held with all. Indeed it is one thing to have something, another to hold it. Therefore not only with schismatics and heretics, but even with carnal Jews and pagans, peace is to be had. But that peace, surely, by which we long and desire to gain them for God, and to ally them to Catholic truth and unity; on account of which we even pray for them according to God's command, that they may be converted: not such as to be held so that we go out to them, and become also that which they are.
Finally, what blessed Augustine was saying and urging to the Donatists—to have peace, to love unity—he was saying right excellently and wholesomely: for he desired them, just as we desire these, with their error condemned to return to the Catholic Church, as he most clearly teaches in many works written against their schism. Not that he himself, or any of the orthodox, with the Catholic Church abandoned—far be it—should mingle in sacrilegious fellowship with their error. This we too say to these with great peace: Condemn the error you have introduced, take away the evil of condemnation you have inflicted, through which you have both become heretics and stood forth as supporters of heretics;
and having peace with us, and holding fast as you formerly did, you will have confounded all the heretics, and restored yourselves to Catholic unity. Whoever therefore you are who read these things, do not seek eloquence, but diligently look upon the substance and weight of the truth. And if you are not polluted by the fellowship of the prevaricators, pray God that you may persevere. But if you have fallen either through ignorance or through violence, hasten to repair yourself by running back to Catholic truth, by resuming its communion: for pardon is promised to all who repent. Let no one be broken by despair. Let no one be ensnared any longer by serpentine deceptions:
since, just as for transgressors and those remaining with an impenitent heart everlasting punishment with the devil has been prepared, so for those who keep His covenant with the Lord God, and guard the foundations of the Catholic faith, and shun profane novelties, an eternal and endless glorious reward has been reserved.