Against the Donatists

Which peace, if, as it had been given, it had so remained whole and inviolate, and were not disturbed by the authors of schism, there would today be no dissension between us and our brethren, nor would they cause inconsolable tears before God, as the prophet Isaiah a testifies: nor would they incur the name and deeds of false prophets: nor would they build up a ruinous and whitewashed wall: nor would they overthrow minds not less cunning, but only simple ones: nor, by wrongly laying the hand upon all heads, would they hold out veils of subversion: nor would they curse God: nor would they rebaptize the faithful: nor would we grieve over the souls of the innocent a overturned or slain: souls over which God first grieved, through the prophet Ezekiel, saying: Woe to those who make a veil over every head, and over every age to overturn souls.

The souls of my people have been overturned, and they cursed me among my people, so as to slay souls that ought not to die: while they proclaim vain seductions to my people. And yet these things have been committed by those who are our brethren.

But lest anyone say that I call them brethren inconsiderately, who are such as they are, we cannot depart from the words of the prophet Isaiah. Although both they do not deny it, and it is known to all, that they hate us and execrate us, and do not wish to be called our brethren: yet we cannot withdraw from the fear of God, we whom the Holy Spirit exhorts through the prophet Isaiah, saying: You who fear the name of the Lord, hear the name of the Lord: those who hate you and execrate you, and do not wish to be called your brethren, yet do you say to them, You are our brethren: they are therefore without doubt brethren, though not good ones. Let no one therefore wonder that I call them brethren, who cannot but be brethren. There is indeed one spiritual birth for us and for them, but their deeds are different.

For even Cham, who impiously mocked the nakedness of his father, was the brother of the innocent: and by his own desert he incurred the yoke of servitude, so that he became a brother bound to his brethren. Therefore this name of brotherhood is not laid aside even when sin intervenes. But I will speak of the offences of these brethren in another place: who sitting against us, speak evil of us, and place stumbling-blocks against us: and run together with that thief, who commits theft against God: and with adulterers, that is, with heretics, they cast their lot, and praise their own sins, and devise insults against us Catholics.

—All indeed make a clamour in their several places with slanderous words: (to some of which I will respond as occasion arises f; but indeed we scarcely find one g, with 5 whom we may speak by letters, or even in this manner; namely Parmenianus, our brother; if however he permits himself to be addressed by us even by this name. And because they do not wish to share episcopal fellowship with us, let them not be colleagues, if they do not wish it: yet (as we said above) they are brethren. My brother Parmenianus, therefore, lest he speak windily and nakedly h, as the others do, whatever he was able to think, he not only said, but also set forth in writing. Since we are compelled, truth compelling us, to reply to his words: there will be between us, though absent, a colloquy of a kind. In the same way the desires of some will also be satisfied.

For it has often been desired by many that, for the purpose of drawing out the truth, a contest should be held by some defenders of the parties: and it could have been done. But since they both forbid access, and block approaches, and shun assembly, and deny conversation: let there be at least a colloquy with you, brother Parmenianus, in this manner: so that I, who did not spurn or despise your treatises, which you wished to be in the hands and on the lips of many, but patiently heard all that you said, may have you hear also the responses of our humility.

For both I understand, and you do not deny, and any wise man perceives, that you treated at such length for no other reason than to assail the Catholic Church unworthily with your treatises. But, as one is given to understand, the mind holds one thing, the speech resounds another. In the end I do not see that you have said all things against the catholic: nay, many things for the catholic, though you are not catholic, so that it would not even have been necessary for us to reply to your treatises: except that, since you are ill-informed, so as to speak of what you have not seen but have heard falsely, when we read in the epistle of the Apostle Peter: Do not judge your brethren by opinion: so that among some things which do not pertain to us (as we shall prove) you should say that soldiers were demanded by us against you.

For the rest, in other parts your treatises have said some things for us and against you, such as the comparison of the flood and circumcision: certain things both for us and for you, such as what you said in praise of baptism (apart from the fact that you treated the flesh of Christ badly): therefore also for you, because although you are outside, yet you come from us. For also that is for both, that you showed heretics to be strangers to catholic sacraments: if however you did not join yourselves to those who are established to be schismatics. Certain things for us alone, such as the mention of the one Church: certain things against you through ignorance (because you are a foreigner), such as the accusation of the traditors and schismatics: also that too against you, what you said about the oil and the sacrifice of a sinner.

And therefore nothing has been said against us by you, except what you said in ignorance, that soldiers were demanded by us: which we shall demonstrate by most true proofs to have been said calumniously by you. Remove this calumny, and you are ours. For what is more for us and ours, than what you said, that in comparison with baptism the flood was made once? And that the singular circumcision profitably benefited the people of the Jews, you spoke more for us, as if speaking as one of ours: for this is our voice, we who defend the unity of baptism in the Trinity: not for you who boldly repeat baptism, in whose image those two things are, and which is contrary to the laws: although you yourselves also do not deny that what was commanded to be done once ought not to be repeated.

But while you subtly praised what is worthy of all praise, you cunningly substituted your own person, so that, as if because it is lawful once, it should be lawful for you, and denied to others. If it is not lawful for traditors, it ought not to have been lawful for you, whose leaders we prove to have been traditors. If it is not lawful for schismatics, equally it ought not to have been lawful for you, among whom the origin of the schism is found. If it is not lawful for sinners, we also convict you of being sinners by divine testimony. And yet because it is lawful once, not through a chosen man, but through what is lawful once: therefore after you we do not correct it, because both among us and among you, there is one sacrament: the full account of which sacrament will be shown in the fifth book.

Many things have indeed been treated by you, brother Parmenianus. But I see that I must not reply in the same order in which the individual points were stated by you. For in the first place you stated comparisons and praises of baptism, and apart from the flesh of Christ badly treated by you, you said the rest well: for that you said this more for us will be shown in its proper place. In the second place, however, having excluded heretics, you said that the Church is one: but where it is, you were unwilling to acknowledge. In the third place, you accused the traditors with no certain persons or names. In the fourth place, the workers of unity were torn apart by you. In the fifth, to pass over lesser matters, you spoke about the oil and the sacrifice of a sinner.

But it seems to me that in the first place the cities, persons, and names of the traditors and schismatics must be pointed out: so that what has been said by you about them may acknowledge its true authors and certain guilty parties. Then I must say what or where the one Church is, which exists: because apart from the one there is no other. Thirdly, that soldiers were not sought by us, and that what is said to have been committed by the workers of unity does not pertain to us. In the fourth place, who is the sinner whose sacrifice God repudiates, or whose oil is to be shunned. Fifthly, concerning Baptism. Sixthly, concerning your rash presumptions and errors.

But before I say anything about the individual matters, I will briefly show that you treated the flesh of Christ badly. For you said that that sinful flesh, submerged in the flood of the Jordan, was cleansed from all defilements. You would rightly say this, if the flesh of Christ baptized for all were sufficient, so that no one need be baptized for himself. If it were so, the whole human race a would be there: there would be everything that has been born bodily. There would be no difference between the faithful and any individual gentile, because flesh is in all: and since there is no one who does not have flesh; if, as you said, the flesh of Christ was submerged in the flood of the Jordan, all flesh would obtain this benefit. For the flesh of Christ in Christ is one thing; that of each individual in himself is another. What seemed good to you, to call the flesh of Christ sinful?

Would that you had said, the flesh of men in the flesh of Christ: nor even so would you have spoken plausibly, because each believer is baptized in the name of Christ, not in the flesh of Christ, which was specifically his own.

I add, that his flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit, could not among others be dipped for the remission of sins, since it appeared to have committed no sin. You added also that it was submerged in the flood of the Jordan: you used this word quite inconsiderately: which word was owed to Pharaoh alone, and to his people, who, weighed down by the burden of their sins, were submerged like lead, so as to remain there. But the flesh of Christ, when it descended into and ascended from the Jordan, ought not to have been said by you to have been submerged: whose flesh is found to be holier than the Jordan itself, so that it rather cleansed the water itself by its own descent, than was itself cleansed.

I cannot pass over either what I consider you to have done subtly: so as to lead in or deceive the minds of your hearers, after the description of circumcision and the flood, and after the praise of baptism, you wished in some manner to resuscitate heretics, dead with their errors and already buried in oblivion: whose vices, not only, but even whose names, seemed unknown throughout the African provinces. Marcion, Praxeas, Sabellius, Valentinus, and the rest, down to the Cataphrygians, were overcome in their own times by Victorinus of Pettau, and Zephyrinus by Urbicus, and by Tertullian of Carthage, and by other defenders of the Catholic Church. Why do you wage war with the dead, which does not pertain to the business of our time? But because today, as a schismatic, you have no sin which you can prove against the catholics, therefore, to increase the length of your writing, you wished to commemorate so many heretics with their errors.

Now there is another question: why did you call to mind those among whom there are no sacraments, which seem to be common to us and to you? Health does not demand medicine; virtue, secure in itself, does not seek help from without; truth does not need arguments: it belongs to the sick to seek remedies, to the sluggish and the weak to procure assistance, to the liar to hunt for arguments.

Meanwhile you said that the dowries of the Church cannot exist among heretics: and you said rightly, for we know that the churches of individual heretics are like prostitutes, bound by no lawful sacraments, and are not in themselves joined by the right of an honourable marriage: churches which Christ, who is the spouse of the one Church, rejects as unnecessary, as He Himself testifies in the Song of Songs: for when He praises the one, He condemns the rest, because apart from the one which is the true Catholic Church, the others are thought to exist among heretics, but do not exist: according to what is indicated (as we said above) in the Song of Songs, that His dove is one, that same one is His chosen bride, that same one is the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain: so that all heretics have neither the keys, which Peter alone received: nor the ring by which the fountain is read to be sealed: nor is there any one among them to whom that garden belongs, in which God plants His little trees.

Concerning these heretics, although what you said at such length does not pertain to the present case, it was sufficient and more than sufficient. But I marvel at what seemed good to you, to join even yourselves to them—you who are manifestly schismatics—when you denied the dowries of the Church both to the heretics themselves and to you schismatics. For you said among other things that schismatics have been cut off from the vine like branches, destined for punishment, reserved like dry wood for the fires of Gehenna. But I see that you are still ignorant of the schism made at Carthage by your own leaders. Inquire into the origin of these matters, and you will find that you have pronounced this sentence against yourselves, when you associated schismatics with heretics. For Caecilianus did not go out from Majorinus your ancestor: but Majorinus from Caecilianus: nor did Caecilianus withdraw from the Chair of Peter or of Cyprian: but Majorinus did, on whose Chair you sit, which before Majorinus himself had no origin.

And since it is most plainly established that these things happened thus, and it is evidently apparent that you are heirs of the traditores and schismatics: I marvel greatly at you, brother Parmenianus, that being yourself a schismatic, you wished to join schismatics with heretics. Or if it so seems to you, and so it pleases you: heap up those things which were said by you a little before. For you said that it cannot be that one defiled by a false baptism should cleanse, that the unclean should purify, that the supplanter should raise up, that the lost should set free, that the guilty should grant pardon, that the condemned should absolve.

All these things could well pertain only to heretics, who falsified the creed: while one said there are two Gods, since God is one; another wishes the Father to be known in the person of the Son; another withdrawing the flesh from the Son of God, through which the world was reconciled to God; and others of this kind, who are known to be strangers to the Catholic sacraments. Wherefore let it repent you that you joined schismatics to such men: for you have turned the sword of the sentence against yourself, while you supposed you were attacking others: and you did not attend to how great is the distance between schismatics and heretics. Hence it is that you are ignorant both of what the holy Church is, and so you have confused everything.

The Catholic Church is made by a simple and true understanding of the law, by a singular and most true sacrament, and by unity of souls. Schism, however, is generated when the leaven of peace is scattered and minds are dispersed; it is nourished by envy, strengthened by rivalry and strife, so that, having forsaken the Catholic mother, impious sons, while they go outside and separate themselves (as you have done) from the root of the mother Church, cut off by the scythes of jealousy, depart as rebellious wanderers: nor can they do anything new or different from what they long since learned at their own mother's side.

Heretics, however, exiles from truth, deserters of the sound and most true creed, corrupted in their minds by impious thoughts from the bosom of the holy Church, despising the fact that they had been well born, wished to be born of themselves, in order to deceive the ignorant and the unlearned. And those who had long since been nourished on life-giving food, by the corruption of evil digestion, vomited deadly poisons in their impious disputations, to the ruin of the wretched. You see therefore, brother Parmenianus, that heretics, utterly banished from the house of truth, alone possess various and false baptisms: by which one who is defiled cannot cleanse, the unclean cannot purify, the supplanter cannot raise up, the lost cannot set free, the guilty cannot grant pardon, the condemned cannot absolve.

You rightly closed the garden to heretics: you rightly recalled the keys to Peter: you rightly took away the power of tending, lest those should tend the little trees who are manifestly strangers to the garden and to the paradise of God: you rightly withdrew the ring from those to whom it is not permitted to open access to the fountain. But to you schismatics, although you are not in the Catholic Church, these things cannot be denied, because you drew with us the true and common sacraments. Wherefore, since all these things are rightly denied to heretics, what seemed good to you that you wished to deny them also to yourselves, who are manifestly schismatics? For you went outside. As far as it concerns us, we wished that heretics alone should be condemned: as far as it concerns you, you wished to strike even yourselves along with them by one and the same sentence.

But now, that we may return to the proposed order of individual matters, hear in the first place who the traditores were, and learn more fully the authors of the schism. It is established that two evil and most wicked deeds were committed in Africa, one in the act of handing over, the other in the schism: but both evils seem to have been committed at one and the same time and by the same authors. You ought therefore, brother Parmenianus, to learn what you are understood to be ignorant of. For nearly sixty years ago, and more, a storm of persecution wandered through all Africa: which made some into martyrs, others into confessors, laid some low in a disastrous death, and left those who hid unharmed. Why should I mention the laity, who at that time were supported by no dignity in the Church? Why mention the many ministers? Why the deacons in the third rank? Why the presbyters set in the second priesthood?

The very heads and leaders of all, certain bishops in those times, in order to purchase the briefest delays of this uncertain light at the cost of eternal life, impiously handed over the instruments of the divine law. Among these were Donatus of Mascula, Victor of Rusicade, Marinus from the waters of Thibilis, Donatus of Calama, and the murderer Purpurius of Limata: who, when questioned about the sons of his sister, because he was said to have killed them in the prison of Mileum, confessed, saying: I both killed them, and I kill—not them alone, but also whoever acts against me. And Menalius, who, lest he should be proved by his fellow-citizens to have offered incense, feigning a pain in his eyes, trembled to come forward to the assembly of his people.

—These men, and the others whom we shall shortly show to have been your leaders, after the persecution assembled at the city of Cirta (because the basilicas had not yet been restored) in the house of Urbanus Carisius, on the third day before the Ides of May, as the writings of Nundinarius, then a deacon, attest, and as the antiquity of the parchments bears witness—parchments which we shall be able to produce for those who doubt. For the full account of these matters we have appended in the last part of these books, to complete the proof. These bishops, at the questioning of Secundus of Tigisi, confessed that they had handed over. And when Secundus himself was rebuked by Purpurius, on the ground that he too had been for a long time with the soldiers on guard, and had not fled, but had been released—and that he had not been released without cause, unless because he had handed over—all had already risen up and begun to murmur.

Fearing their spirit, Secundus took counsel from his brother's son, Secundus the younger, to leave such a case to God. Those who remained were consulted, that is, Victor of Garba, Felix of Rotarium, and Nabor of Centurio. They said that such a case ought to be reserved for the Lord: and Secundus said, sit down, all of you: then all said, Thanks be to God, and they sat down. You have therefore, brother Parmenianus, those who were manifestly the traditores.

Then not long afterwards, these same men, so many and of such a character, traditores, incense-burners, murderers, set out for Carthage and ordained Majorinus (on whose chair you sit) after the ordination of Caecilianus, thereby making a schism. And since it has been shown that your leaders were guilty of handing over, it will follow that these same men were the authors of the schism. In order that this matter may be clear and manifest to all, it must be shown from what root the branches of error have extended themselves down to the present day, and from what source that rivulet of malignant liquid, creeping secretly, has flowed down to our own times. It must be said whence and where and by whom this second evil is established to have arisen; what causes came together; what persons were at work; who were the authors of this evil; who its nourishers; by whom were judgements between the parties requested of the Emperor; who sat as judges; where the council was held; what sentences were pronounced.

The matter concerns a division: and in Africa, as in the other provinces, there was one Church, before it was divided by the ordainers of Majorinus, on whose inherited chair you sit. It must be seen who remained in the root with the whole world; who went outside; who sat upon another chair which had not existed before; who erected altar against altar; who performed an ordination while the other ordained person was still in place; who lies under the sentence of the Apostle John, who said that many Antichrists would go out: because, he says, they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. Therefore he who was unwilling to remain in unity with his brothers, following heretics, went out as a kind of Antichrist.

That this happened at Carthage after the ordination of Caecilianus, there is no one who does not know: through Lucilla, that is, a certain factious woman—I know not what sort—who, before the peace of the Church had been shaken by the storms of persecution, while the Church was still in tranquillity, being unable to bear the rebuke of the archdeacon Caecilianus: who was said to kiss the bone of some martyr—if indeed a martyr—before the spiritual food and drink: and when she preferred before the saving cup the bone of some dead man, and if a martyr, yet one not yet vindicated, she was rebuked and departed in anger and confusion. While she was angry and he was teaching her not to yield to undisciplined behaviour, the storm of persecution suddenly arose.

At the same time a certain deacon Felix, who had been denounced on account of some notorious letter written against the emperor who was then reigning as a tyrant, fearing danger, is said to have hidden himself with the bishop Mensurius. When Mensurius publicly denied that he had been requested, a report was sent: a rescript came, that if Mensurius did not surrender the deacon Felix, he should be directed to the palace. Being summoned, he suffered no small distress: for the Church had very many ornaments of gold and silver, which he could neither bury in the ground nor carry with him. These he entrusted, as it were, to faithful elders, having drawn up a memorandum which he is said to have given to a certain old woman: on the condition that if he himself did not return, when peace had been restored to Christians, the old woman should give them to whomever she found sitting in the episcopal chair. He set out, pleaded his case, was ordered to return, and could not reach Carthage.

The storm of persecution was completed and brought to an end. By God's command, with Maxentius sending an indulgence, liberty was restored to Christians. Botrus and Celestius, as it is said, desiring to be ordained at Carthage, took pains that in the absence of the Numidians, only the neighboring bishops should be sought, who might celebrate the ordination at Carthage. Then Caecilianus is chosen by the vote of the whole people: and with Felix of Autumni laying on hands, he is ordained bishop. Botrus and Celestius were cast down from their hope. A brief account of gold and silver was handed over to Caecilianus as he sat in office, just as it had been entrusted by Mensurius, with witnesses present. The above-mentioned elders were summoned, who had consumed the prey entrusted to the jaws of their greed. When they were compelled to give it back, they withdrew their foot from communion.

No less also the ambitious ones, to whom ordination had not fallen: and likewise Lucilla, who had long since been unable to bear discipline: this powerful and factious woman, together with all her followers, refused to join in communion. Thus, with three causes and persons converging, it came about that malice had its effect.

The schism of that time, therefore, was brought forth by the rage of a disordered woman, nourished by ambition, strengthened by greed. By these three persons charges were fabricated against Caecilianus, so that he might be called guilty. Word was sent to the second bishop of Tigisi, that he should come to Carthage: all the above-mentioned traditores set out, received as guests by the greedy, by the ambitious, by the angry: not by the Catholics, at whose request Caecilianus had been ordained. Meanwhile none of the aforesaid came near the Basilica where Caecilianus had been with the whole body of citizens. Then a message was sent by Caecilianus: "If there is anything that can be proved against me, let the accuser come forward and prove it." At that time nothing could be fabricated against him by so many enemies: but concerning his ordainer, who was falsely called a traditor by them, he deserved to be defamed.

Again a message was sent by Caecilianus, that if Felix had conferred nothing upon him, as they supposed, they themselves should ordain Caecilianus as though he were still a deacon. Then Purpurius, relying on his customary malice, as though Caecilianus were the son of his sister, spoke thus: " Let him come out here as if hands are to be laid upon him in the episcopate, and let his head be broken as a penance." When these things became known, the whole Church held fast to Caecilianus, lest he should deliver himself to robbers. At that time either the guilty party ought to have been expelled from his see, or communion ought to have been maintained with the innocent man. The Church was packed with people: the episcopal chair was full: the altar was in its place, upon which peaceable bishops of former times had offered, Cyprian, Lucianus and the rest.

Thus they went outside, and altar was erected against altar: and an ordination was unlawfully celebrated: and Majorinus, who had been a lector in the diaconate of Caecilianus, a member of Lucilla's household, with her support, was ordained bishop by the traditores, who in the council of Numidia (as we said above) confessed their own crimes to one another, and granted one another indulgence. It is therefore manifest that both the ordainers who handed over the scriptures, and Majorinus who was ordained, went out from the Church.

Meanwhile, from the fountain of their own crimes, which had overflowed among them with the streams of many misdeeds, they thought that one reproach of traditio should be channeled against the ordainer of Caecilianus: foreseeing that rumor could not speak of two similar things at the same time; in order to consign their own crimes to silence, they endeavored to defame another man's life: and although they themselves could be accused by innocent men, they strove to accuse the innocent, sending everywhere letters composed at the dictation of envy, which we have among other documents for the future. While still at Carthage they preceded themselves with their letters, so that by false rumors they might insert a lie into the ears of all, with rumor spread among the peoples: and while falsehoods were being celebrated concerning one man, the very true crimes of the aforesaid lay hidden in silence.

It is often customary to feel shame for a crime: but at that time there was no one before whom to feel shame: because apart from a few Catholics, all had sinned; and innocence was as it were an image, when wrongdoing had been committed among many.

The crime of traditio was too small, which was established as having been committed by Donatus of Mascula and the other aforesaid persons: they also joined the enormous outrage of schism to the traditio.

—You see therefore, brother Parmenianus, that these two crimes, so evil, so grave, of traditio and schism, pertain to your founders. Acknowledge, even if late, that you have fallen upon your own people while you pursue strangers; and since it is established that your predecessors committed this other wickedness, you also labor to follow in their criminal footsteps: so that what those earlier ones did under the title of schism, you too are seen to have done long since and to be doing now. They broke the peace in their own times: you destroy unity. Of your fathers and of yourselves it may rightly be said: if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit. Furious envy had blinded the eyes of your fathers, rivalry has blinded yours. That schism is the greatest evil, not even you will be able to deny.

And yet you have imitated without trembling Dathan and Abiron and Core, the lost masters of your sect: nor did you wish to set before your eyes that this evil is both forbidden by the words of God and, when committed, severely punished. Furthermore there is a distinction among offenses, as either remission or punishment attests. Finally, among other precepts, the divine command also forbade these three things: Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not go after strange gods, and chief among the commandments, thou shalt not make a schism. Let us see of these three, what ought to have been punished, and what deserved to be pardoned. Parricide is a principal crime; and yet Cain is not struck down by God as guilty, but when slain is moreover avenged. In the city of Nineveh, a hundred and twenty thousand men who were seen to follow strange gods in their sacrilege: after the wrath of God and the message of the prophet Jonah, a brief fast and prayer merited indulgence.

Let us see whether those who first dared to tear apart the people of God obtained anything of the kind. Over so many thousands of the sons of Israel, from whose necks divine providence had cast off the yoke of servitude, Aaron had been set as the one holy priest. But when his ministers, coveting a priesthood not due to them, led astray a part of the people and unlawfully invaded it, imitating the rite of sacred things, they placed two hundred and more ministers doomed to perish with them, with their censers, at the front of the people they had led astray: God, to whom schism is displeasing, could not look upon this willingly. They had in a manner declared war upon God, as though there were another God who would receive another sacrifice. Therefore God, angered at the neglect of his commandments, was angry with a great anger, and what he had not done to the sacrilegious and to the parricide, he did to the schismatics.

The line and sacrilegious multitude of ministers stood there, about to perish immediately with their forbidden sacrifices; time for repentance was denied and withdrawn, because the guilt was not such as to deserve pardon. The earth was commanded to hunger: immediately it opened its jaws upon the dividers of the people, and with greedy mouth swallowed up the despisers of God's commandments. Within the space of a moment, the earth opened to swallow up the aforesaid, seized them, and closed. And lest they should seem to gain a benefit from the shortness of death, since they were not worthy to live, not even death was granted to them: suddenly shut up in a tartarean prison, they were buried before they were dead. And do you marvel that something of the kind was done harshly to you, who either make or cultivate schism, when you see what the first masters of schism deserved to suffer? Or because such punishment is now suspended, do you therefore claim innocence for yourself and your followers?

God has set the pattern of examples in individual matters; so that there may be something to impute to those who imitate: the first sins he checked with present punishment as an example, the second he will reserve for judgment. What will you say to these things, you who nourish schism secretly, under the usurped name of the Church, and defend it shamelessly?

But because I hear that some from your fellowship, out of eagerness for litigation, have certain documents I know not what; it must be asked, to which documents faith should be accorded, which agree with reason, which speak in harmony with truth?

Yours, if there are any, may perhaps appear sprinkled with falsehoods. Our documents are attested by the conflicts of causes, and the contentions of the parties, and the outcomes of judgments, and the letters of Constantine. For as to what you say of us, what have Christians to do with kings? Or what have bishops to do with the palace? If it is notorious to know kings, you are wholly drenched with that reproach. For your ancestors, Lucianus, Dignus, Nasutius, Capito, Fidentius, and the rest, petitioned the emperor Constantine, still ignorant of these matters, with these prayers: of which the text is written below: We ask you, Constantine, best of emperors, since you are of a just lineage, whose Father among the other emperors did not carry out persecution, and Gaul is free from this crime. For in Africa there are contentions between us and the other bishops; we ask that your piety command that judges from Gaul be given to us. Given by Lucianus, Dignus, Nasutius, Capito, Fidentius and the other bishops of the party of Donatus.

—Having read these, Constantine replied with full indignation. In which reply he also exposed their petitions, when he said: You ask of me a judgment in the world, when I myself await the judgment of Christ. And yet judges were given: Maternus from the city of Agrippina, Reticius from the city of Augustodunum, Marinus of Arles. The city of Rome was reached by these three Gauls, and by fifteen other Italians. They assembled in the house of Fausta at the Lateran, in the consulship of Constantine for the fourth time and Licinius for the third time, on the sixth day before the Nones of October, on the sixth day of the week.

When there had taken their seats Miltiades bishop of the city of Rome, and Reticius and Maternus and Marinus, bishops of Gaul: and Merocles from Milan, Florianus from Sinna, Zoticus from Quintiana, Stemnius from Ariminum, Felix from Florence of Tuscany, Gaudentius from Pisa, Constantius from Faventia, Proterius from Capua, Theophilus from Beneventum, Sabinus from Terracina, Secundus from Praeneste, Felix from the Three Taverns, Maximus from Ostia, Evandrus from Ursinum, Donatianus from Forum Claudii.

With these nineteen bishops seated, the cause of Donatus and Caecilianus was brought forward. By each one these sentences were pronounced against Donatus. That he confessed to having rebaptized, and to having laid hands upon lapsed bishops. Of his own; which is alien to the Church. The witnesses brought forward by Donatus confessed that they had nothing to say against Caecilianus. Caecilianus was pronounced innocent by the sentences of all the above-mentioned: including the sentence of Miltiades, by which the judgment was closed with these words: "Since it is established that Caecilianus is not accused, according to their own declaration, by those who came with Donatus, and since it has not been established that he was convicted by Donatus in any particular: I judge that he ought rightly to be retained in his ecclesiastical communion with his status intact.

It is sufficient therefore that Donatus was struck down by so many sentences, and that Caecilianus was cleared by so great a judgment. And yet Donatus believed that appeal should be made from the bishops. "To which appeal the emperor Constantine thus replied: O rabid audacity of fury! As is customary to happen in the cases of pagans, they have interposed an appeal.

—At the same time, the same Donatus petitioned that he might be permitted to return, yet not approach Carthage. Then it was suggested to the emperor by Filuminus, his supporter, that for the sake of peace Caecilianus should be detained at Brescia: and so it was done. Then two bishops were sent to Africa, Eunomius and Olympius. They came, and were at Carthage for forty days, to pronounce where the Catholic Church was. The seditious party of Donatus did not allow this to be done: out of partisan zeal, daily uproars were raised: the final sentence of those same bishops Eunomius and Olympius is read as follows: that they declared that to be the Catholic Church which was spread throughout the whole world, and that the sentence given long since by nineteen bishops could not be dissolved. Thus they communicated with the clergy of Caecilianus, and returned. Concerning these matters we have volumes of proceedings, which if anyone wishes, let him read in the final portions. While these things were happening, Donatus of his own accord returned first to Carthage.

When this was heard, Caecilianus hastened to his own people. In this way the parties were once again renewed. It is established, however, both that Donatus was struck by so many sentences, and that Caecilianus was pronounced innocent by an equal number of sentences.

But because in that very cause, long since in the Catholic Church, two persons seemed to be under strain, both the ordained and the ordainer: after the ordained was vindicated in the city, there still remained to be vindicated the ordainer. Then Constantine wrote to Aelianus the Proconsul, that, setting aside public obligations, inquiry should be made publicly into the life of Felix of Autumni. He sat before whom the charge had been laid. There were brought in Claudius Saturianus, curator of the Republic, who was in the city of Felix at the time of the persecution, and the curator of the present time when the cause was being demanded, Callidius Gratianus, and the Magistrate Alfius Caecilianus, and also Superius the stationarius was brought forward, and Ingentius the public scribe, hung in fear of the torments threatening him. From the responses of all, nothing of the sort was found in the life of Bishop Felix, on account of which he could not have ordained.

There is a volume of proceedings, in which are contained the names of those present who had been in the cause of Claudius Saturianus the curator, and of Caecilianus the magistrate, and of Superius the stationarius, and of the scribe Ingentius, and of Solon the public official of that same time. After their responses, this part of the sentence was pronounced by the above-mentioned proconsul: That Felix, however, a devout bishop, is manifestly free from the burning of documents, since no one was able to prove anything against him, that he had handed over or burned the most holy scriptures. For the examination of all the above-mentioned persons makes it manifest that no divine scriptures were found, or corrupted, or burned. This is contained in the proceedings, that the devout Bishop Felix, in those times, was neither present, nor gave his consent, nor ordered anything of the sort to be done. Wherefore, with infamy driven away and wiped clean, he departed from that judgment with great praise.

For a long time the truth seemed to lie hidden, of uncertain repute, amid the shadows which malice and envy had breathed forth. But also all the aforementioned writing was revealed, both in the volumes of proceedings and in the letters mentioned or read.

—You see, brother Parmenianus, that the name of traditors falsely cast against Catholics has been found to be in vain, inasmuch as you changed the persons and transferred the guilt: you closed your eyes, lest you should recognize your own forebears as guilty; you opened them, so as to link the innocent and undeserving to the crime.

All things for the sake of party, nothing for the sake of truth: so that the most blessed Apostle Paul might have said of you: But some have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. A little before we showed that your forebears were traditors and schismatics: and you, their heir, were unwilling to spare either the schismatics or the traditors. Now therefore, by the documents mentioned above, all the darts which you wished to hurl falsely against others, repelled by the shield of truth, are turned back upon your own forebears with a return blow. All things therefore which could be said by you against traditors and schismatics are yours: for they are not ours, who both remain in the root and are throughout the whole world with all men.

Since both who the traditors were has been shown, and the origin of the schism has been demonstrated so clearly that it seems almost visible to the eyes; and we have also shown how heresy differs from schism: it now remains to demonstrate (which we promised to say in the second place) what the one Church is, which Christ calls a dove and a bride. The Church therefore is one, whose holiness is gathered from the sacraments; it is not weighed by the pride of persons: therefore Christ calls this one Church his dove and his beloved bride. This cannot exist among all heretics and schismatics. It remains therefore that it be in one place. You, brother Parmenianus, have said that it is among you alone; unless perhaps because you strive to claim for yourselves a special holiness out of pride; so that the Church may be where you wish, and may not be where you do not wish.

So that it may be able to exist among you in a small part of Africa, in a corner of a little region: will it not be among us in another part of Africa? In the Spains, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not, will it not be? If you wish it to be only among you, in the three Pannonias, in Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where you are not, will it not be? So that it may be able to exist among you, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and in the three Syrias, and in the two Armenias, and in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are not, will it not be? And through so many countless islands, and the other provinces, which can scarcely be numbered, where you are not, will it not be? Where therefore will the property of the catholic name be, since it is called catholic from the fact that it is rational and spread everywhere?

For if you thus narrow the Church into a confined space according to your will: if you withdraw all the nations, where will that be which the Son of God merited? Where will that be which the Father freely bestowed upon him, saying in the second psalm: I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession? Why do you break such a promise, so that the breadth of kingdoms is cast by you as into a certain prison? Why do you strive to obstruct such great piety? Why do you fight against the merits of the Saviour? Allow the Son to possess what has been granted: allow the Father to fulfil his promises. Why do you set boundaries? Why do you fix limits? Since the whole earth was promised by God the Father to the Saviour, there is nothing in any part of the earth which appears to be excepted from his possession. The whole earth was given together with the nations; the whole world is one possession of Christ.

This God proves, who says: I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And in the seventy-first psalm, concerning the Saviour himself it is thus written: He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the world. The Father, while giving, excepts nothing: you, in order to concede an ounce, endeavour to take away the whole pound. And you still strive to persuade men that the Church is among you alone; taking away merit from Christ, denying what was established by God. O your ungrateful and foolish presumption! Christ invites you together with the rest into fellowship of the heavenly kingdom, and urges you to be co-heirs: and you labour to defraud him of the inheritance granted to him by the Father, while you concede a part of Africa, and deny the whole world, which was given to him by the Father.

Why do you wish the Holy Spirit to appear a liar, who in the forty-ninth psalm narrates the benevolence of almighty God, saying: God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. The earth was therefore called that it might become flesh, and as it is written, it was made so, and ought to render praises to its Creator. Finally it is recalled, the Holy Spirit urging and saying in the hundred and twelfth psalm: praised be the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same: and again in the ninety-fifth psalm: sing unto the Lord a new song. If he had said this verse alone, you might be able to say that the Holy Spirit exhorted you alone.

But to show that it was said not to you alone, but to the Church which is everywhere, he continued, saying: sing unto the Lord, all the earth: declare among the nations his glory, among all peoples his wondrous works. Declare, he says, among the nations: he did not say in a small part of Africa, where you are: declare, he says, among all peoples: he who said all peoples excepted no one: and you rejoice to be separated from all peoples, of whom this command was given, as though you alone were the whole, who are not in the whole entirety. Praised, he says, be the name of the Lord, both by the whole earth, and from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Can the Pagans outside the law either sing to God or praise the name of the Lord, and not the Church alone, which is in the law? Which if you say is only among you, you defraud the ears of God.

If you alone praise, the whole world will be silent, which is from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. You have closed the mouths of all Christian peoples: you have imposed silence upon all peoples, who desire to praise God at every moment. Therefore if God also awaits the praises due to him, and the Holy Spirit urges that they should sound forth, and the whole world is ready to render to God what it owes, lest God be defrauded: do you also yourselves praise together with all; or because you were unwilling to be with all, be silent alone.

We have therefore proved that to be the Catholic Church which is spread throughout the whole world; its ornaments are now to be recalled: and it must be seen where the five endowments are, which you said were six: among which the throne is the first, without which, if a bishop has not sat in it, the other endowment cannot be joined, which is the angel: it must be seen who and where first sat upon the throne. If you do not know, learn: if you do know, blush: ignorance cannot be ascribed to you: it remains therefore that you know. For one who knows, to err is sin; for those who are ignorant, pardon is sometimes wont to be granted.

Therefore you cannot deny that you know that in the city of Rome the episcopal throne was first conferred upon Peter, in which sat Peter, the head of all the Apostles; whence also he was called Cephas: in which one throne unity was to be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles should each defend a separate one for themselves, so that he would already be a schismatic and a sinner who should set up another throne against the singular throne.

Therefore in the singular throne, which is the first of the endowments, Peter sat first: to whom Linus succeeded, to Linus Clement succeeded, to Clement Anacletus, to Anacletus Evaristus, to Evaristus (Alexander, to Alexander) Sixtus, to Sixtus Telesphorus, to Telesphorus Hyginus, to Hyginus Anicetus, to Anicetus Pius, to Pius Soter, to Soter (Eleutherius, to Eleutherius) Victor, to Victor Zephyrinus, to Zephyrinus Callistus, to Callistus Urban, to Urban Pontianus, to Pontianus Anterus, to Anterus Fabian, to Fabian Cornelius, to Cornelius Lucius, to Lucius Stephen, to Stephen Sixtus, to Sixtus Dionysius, to Dionysius Felix, to Felix (Eutychianus, to Eutychianus Caius, to Caius) Marcellinus, to Marcellinus (Marcellus, to Marcellus) Eusebius, to Eusebius Miltiades, to Miltiades Sylvester, to Sylvester Marcus, Julius, to Julius Liberius, to Liberius Damasus, to Damasus Siricius, today who is our colleague: with whom the whole world, together with us, agrees in one fellowship of communion by the exchange of letters of communion. Do you render the origin of your throne, you who wish to claim the holy Church for yourselves.

But you also say that you have some part in the city of Rome; it is a branch of your error, extended from falsehood, not from the root of truth. For if Macrobius were asked where he sits there, could he say, in the chair of Peter? Which I know not whether he has even seen with his eyes, and to whose memorial he does not approach, being a schismatic, acting against the Apostle, who says: communicating to the memorials of the saints. Behold, the memorials of two Apostles are present there. Say whether he was able to enter into these; or whether he made offering there, where the memorials of the saints are known to be. It remains, therefore, that your associate Macrobius must confess that he sits there where Encolpius once sat: if Encolpius himself could be questioned, he would say that he sits where before him sat Bonifacius Ballitanus: then if he himself could be questioned, he would say where Victor Garbensis sat, sent long ago by your people from Africa to a few wanderers.

What is this, that your party in the city of Rome was unable to have a bishop who was a citizen? What is it, that all of them, Africans and foreigners, are known to have succeeded one another in that city? Is the deceit not apparent? Is not the faction, which is the mother of schism? Meanwhile, that Victor Garbensis might be sent from here first, I do not say as a stone into a fountain, because he was not able to disturb the purity of the catholic multitude: but because certain Africans had come to favor the commemoration in the city; and those who seemed to have come from here among you, themselves requested that someone from here who might gather them should be sent. Victor was therefore sent: he was there a son without a father, a recruit without a commander, a disciple without a master, a follower without one going before, a lodger without a house, a guest without lodging, a shepherd without a flock, a bishop without a people.

For those few could not be called a flock or a people, who among forty and more basilicas had no place where they might assemble. Thus they fenced off with wicker-work a certain cave outside the city, where at that time they were able to hold their conventicle: whence they were called Montenses. Therefore, since Claudianus appears to have succeeded Lucianus, Lucianus Macrobius, Macrobius Encolpius, Encolpius Bonifacius, Bonifacius Victor: if Victor were asked where he sat? He could show no one before him there, nor could he point to any chair save that of pestilence. For pestilence sends men slain by disease down to the underworld, which underworld is known to have its gates; against which gates we read that Peter, our prince, received the saving keys; to whom it was said by Christ: I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

Whence is it, then, that you strive to usurp for yourselves the keys of the kingdom of heaven, you who wage sacrilegious war against the chair of Peter with your presumptions and audacities? Repudiating that blessedness for which he was worthy of praise, who went not in the counsel of the ungodly, and stood not in the way of sinners, and sat not in the chair of pestilence. Into the counsel of ungodliness your forebears went, that the Church might be divided. They also entered the way of sinners, while they attempted to divide Christ, whose very garments the Jews were unwilling to tear: for when the apostle Paul cries out and says, was Christ divided? And would that, if they had already entered upon the evil way, acknowledging their sin, they had returned to themselves, that is, had corrected what they had gone astray in; had recalled the peace which they had driven away. This would have been to turn back from the way: for in a way one walks, one does not stand still.

But because your forebears were unwilling to return, it is clear that they stood in the way of sinners. Their steps had been driven forward by fury; held back, they were bound by sluggish discord: and lest they might be able to return to better things, they themselves put upon themselves the fetters of schism, so that they might stand obstinately in their error, lest they might be able to return to the peace which they had forsaken. Nor did they hear the Holy Spirit, saying in, turn away from evil, and do good: seek peace, and pursue it; but they stood in the way of their sins. They also sat in the chair of pestilence, which (as we said above) sends the seduced to death. But also while you, cherishing the error of your forebears, zealously defend it, you have chosen to be heirs of wickedness, when you could even now, though late, be children of peace.

Since it is written in the prophet Ezekiel, lift up your voice against the son of the sinner, lest he follow in his father's footsteps, for the soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine. The soul that sins shall be punished alone (Ezec. XVIII, 3, 19 and 20): if what your forebears sinned displeased you, they alone would render account for their transgression: in this way you yourselves could be blessed, and receive praise from the mouth of the prophet, who says in, Blessed is the man who went not in the counsel of the ungodly, and stood not in the way of sinners, and sat not in the chair of pestilence; but his will is in the law of the Lord. What else is it to have one's will in the law, but to learn the divine precepts both devoutly and to fulfil them with fear?

In which law it is written (in the Gospel): peace on earth to men of good will, and in another place (in the prophet Isaiah): I will lay the foundations of peace in Sion: and in another place, let us see what the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people, and in another place, the Son of God came, and his place was made in peace: and in another place, let the mountains receive peace for the people, and the hills justice; and in the Gospel, my peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you: and Paul says, he who sows peace shall also reap peace: and in all his epistles, may peace abound in you; and in psalm XXXIII seek peace, and you shall obtain it. Peace, driven away, had departed from your forebears; you ought to seek it, as God has commanded, which you were unwilling to seek of your own accord, nor to receive willingly when it was offered.

For who in so many provinces, in which you were born, has heard? And if anyone has heard, who among you does not marvel at your error? Who among you does not condemn your crime? Therefore, since it is manifest, and clearer than the light itself, that we are with so many innumerable peoples, and so many provinces are with us: you now see that you are placed in a part of one region, and have been separated from the Church by your errors, and that you claim in vain for yourselves alone this name of Church together with its endowments, which are rather with us than with you: which are known to be so connected and inseparable from one another, that it is understood that one cannot be separated from another. For they are numbered by name, but are joined together in one body by their own meaning: as the fingers in a hand, which we see to be individually distinct by their intervals.

Hence, whoever holds one must of necessity hold all, since each one cannot be separated from its fellows. Add that we possess not one alone, but all of them properly.

Therefore, of the endowments mentioned above, the chair is (as we said) the first, which we have proved to be ours through Peter, which draws to itself the angel. Unless perhaps, claiming him for yourselves, you have him shut up in your coffers. Send him, if you can, let him exclude the seven angels who are among our associates in Asia, to whose churches the apostle John writes; with which churches you are proved to have no fellowship of communion. Whence have you an angel who among you can move the fountain, or be numbered among the other endowments of the Church. Outside the seven churches, whatever is outside is alien: or if you have some one from there, through that one you communicate both with the other angels, and through the angels with the churches mentioned above, and through those churches with us. If this is so, you have lost your case.

Behold, the endowments cannot now be among you; for you cannot claim the Spirit of God for yourselves alone, or enclose what is understood and not seen. For thus it is written in the Gospel: for the Spirit is God, and he breathes where he will, and you hear his voice, and you know not whence he comes and whither he goes: Allow God to go whence he will, and let him have freedom to approach where he will: who can be heard and cannot be seen. And yet in your eagerness to find fault you were willing to blaspheme freely, so as to say: For what spirit can be in that Church, unless it bears children of gehenna? You vomited an insult from your breast, and thought a testimony from the Gospel should be added, where it is read: Woe to you, hypocrites, who compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when you have found him, you make him a child of gehenna twice as much as yourselves.

If this insult was to be made, which is not lawful: although it be made without cause, would that someone from your own number had said this: and yet I marvel sufficiently that you said this, to say falsely of another what, if you consider your own ordination, you might even blush at. For you recalled that it is read in the Gospel, woe to you, hypocrites, who compass sea and land to make one proselyte, that is, to change someone's sect. What sect you belonged to I do not know: yet this was said by you inopportunely: I think that perhaps you are already sorry for having said this. Did we traverse any lands? Did we compass any seas? Did we approach any foreign ports? Did we bring any Spaniard or Gaul? Or did we ordain a foreigner without the knowledge of the strangers?

For the font also is known to be one of the endowments, from which heretics can neither drink themselves nor give others to drink; because, not having the intact seal alone (that is, the catholic symbol), they cannot open access to the true font. For since it is written in the Canticle of Canticles: Thy navel is like a rounded bowl: you attempted to affirm that the navel is the altar. If the navel is a member in the body, what is a member cannot be among the endowments. If it is an ornament, it is not a part of the body.

—It remains now that the endowments appear to be five: which endowments, since they belong to the catholic Church (which is in so many provinces mentioned above), cannot be lacking among us here in Africa either. Understand, even if late, that you are impious children, that you are branches broken from the tree, that you are shoots cut off from the vine, that you are a stream cut off from the fountain. For the origin cannot be the stream, which is small and does not arise from itself: nor can a cut branch be the tree, since the tree, founded in its own roots, rejoices, and the branch, if it has been cut off, withers. Do you now see, brother Parmenianus, do you now feel, do you now understand that you have fought against yourself with your own arguments? Since it has been proved that in the holy catholic Church, among those with whom both the symbol of the Trinity is, and through the chair of Peter, which is ours, through it and the other endowments are among us.

Also the priesthood, which you appeared to annul in us: in excuse of your error and envy, while after us you rebaptize, and after your associates detected in sin, you do not do this. For you said that if a priest be in sin, the endowments alone can operate. Therefore, since we have taught both what heresy is, and what schism is, and what the holy Church is: and the person of this holy Church is established, and that this is the catholic Church, which is spread throughout the whole world: of whose members we also are among others: whose endowments are with her everywhere. Then in the first book we proved that the reproach of tradition does not pertain to us, and that this crime has also been condemned by us.

Now I wish you to answer me this: when you chose to speak of the dowries of the Church alone, and kept silent about her holy members and vital parts—which are without doubt in the sacraments and in the names of the Trinity—to which the faith of believers runs together, and the profession which is made before the record of angels, where heavenly and spiritual seeds are mingled, so that from holy offspring the new nature of those reborn may be brought forth: so that, while the Trinity accords with faith, he who had been born to the world may be reborn spiritually to God. Thus God becomes the father of men, thus the holy Church becomes mother. All these things I understand to have been left unmentioned by you for this reason, lest in all of them the rationale of baptism should be recognized: wherein the workman, who is a man, claims nothing for himself, which is what you do.

And therefore you chose to confine yourself to the dowries alone, which, as though seized by hand or locked in a chest, you denied to Catholics and vainly strove to claim for yourselves alone. When the matter concerns regeneration, when the matter concerns the renewal of man, no faith of believers, no profession was named by you: while wishing to speak of the dowries alone, you passed over in silence all these things, without which that spiritual birth cannot be restored: and whereas the dowries belong to the bride, not the bride to the dowries, you so ordered the dowries as though they themselves seem to generate, not the vital parts; which are understood to reside more in the sacraments than in the ornaments.

Nor do I pass over what you said with your own mouth and in accordance with our understanding, that the Church is a paradise: which is without doubt true: in which garden God plants young trees. And yet you have denied God his riches, you who confine his garden to narrow limits, while you wrongfully claim everything for yourselves alone. Surely the plantings of God are diverse seeds through diverse commandments. The just, the continent, the merciful, and virgins are spiritual seeds: God plants the young trees of these things in paradise. Grant to God that his garden be spread far and wide. Why do you deny to him the Christian peoples of the East and the North, and also of all the provinces of the West, and of innumerable islands: against whom you few alone are rebels, and with whom you hold no fellowship of communion.

Now also your lie can justly be condemned in this place, by which your sacrifices are daily seasoned. For who can doubt that you cannot pass over that lawful formula in the mystery of the sacraments? You say that you offer to God on behalf of the Church which is one: this very thing is part of the lie, that you call one that which you have made two: and you say that you offer to God on behalf of the one Church which is spread throughout the whole world. What if God should say to each one of you: what do you offer on behalf of the whole, you who are not in the whole? If we displease you, what has the city of Antioch done to you? What has the province of Arabia done? From which we prove that those coming from you are rebaptized.

In this one thing alone, brother Parmenianus, we cannot be ungrateful to you; that you chose to praise our Church, that is, the Catholic Church, which is contained throughout the whole world, although you are estranged from it, in enumerating the dowries; in the number of which you erred greatly, and in saying that it is itself the enclosed garden, and the sealed fountain, and the only bride. This we say of our own; for you spoke of what belongs to another. Whatever you were able to say in praise of the Church, we speak the same things before you. We ourselves also condemn the traditors along with you, namely those whom, if you remember, we demonstrated in the first book.

And since we have communion with the whole world, with all provinces in communion with us: so you long since wished to compare two churches, as though Africa alone had Christian peoples, in which through your fault two parties seem to have been made: and while you became forgetful of Christ saying that his bride is one, you said in Africa not that there are two parties, but two Churches. Certainly she is one, who from the voice of Christ merited to be declared, who said: My dove is one, my bride is one.

And you, forgetful of this word, spoke these words to bring odium upon the Catholics: For that cannot be called a Church which is fed on bloody diseases and fattened on the blood and flesh of the saints. The Church has its own definite members: bishops, presbyters, deacons, ministers, and the multitude of the faithful: say to what class of men in our Church this can be ascribed which you wished to object? Name specifically some minister; show some deacon by his own name; point out that this was done by some presbyter; prove that bishops have admitted this; show that any one of ours has laid snares for anyone. Which of us has persecuted anyone? Whom will you be able either to say or to prove has been persecuted by us? Because unity displeases you, if you think this a crime, charge us with having communicated with the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the seven Churches which are in Asia.

If it seems to you a wrong, or if you think it a guilt, that we have communicated with the memorials of the apostles and all the saints: this we have done, we not only do not deny, but we even glory in it.

But that I may show that your party (as I said) was fed on bloody diseases and fattened on the blood and flesh of Christians, your rabid fury must now be recalled from its beginning, your impiety must now be unraveled, your folly must now be demonstrated. In which it is first to be shown how shameful was your rejoicing and how criminal your exultation, that it came about for you that the freedom of your former error was granted. Review the times, examine the reasons of events, consider the dissimilar desires and the different persons. Let the memory return of Constantine, the Christian emperor: what service he rendered to God, what vows he held, that with schisms removed and all dissension dead, the holy mother Church might rejoice to see her sons under the whole heaven, in one. He had restored one communion, wives to husbands, children to parents, brothers to brothers. By which things God testifies that he rejoices, saying in: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity.

For when one peace joined together the African peoples and the Eastern and the other peoples beyond the sea, and that very unity, with all members brought together, bound the body of the Church into one: the devil grieved at this, who is always tormented by the peace of brothers. At that time under the Christian emperor, forsaken in his idols as though shut in, he lay in the temples. At this same time your leaders and chiefs had been sent into exile by their own deserts. In the Church there had been no schisms, nor were the Pagans permitted to perform their sacrileges: peace pleasing to God dwelt among all Christian peoples: the devil mourned in the temples, you in foreign lands.

Then, as is known to us, another emperor followed, conceiving sinister desires together with you, made from a servant of God into a minister of the enemy, testified himself an apostate by his edicts: whom you besought with prayers that you might be able to return: which prayers, if you deny that you sent them, we have read them. Nor did he whom you besought offer any difficulty: he commanded them to go, in accordance with his own desire, those whom he had understood would come with fury to disturb the peace. Be ashamed, if there is any shame in you: your freedom was restored to you by the same voice by which the temples of the idols were ordered to be thrown open.

Your fury returns to Africa at almost the same moments as the Devil is released from his prisons. And you are not ashamed, you who at one time share common joys with the enemy! You came raging, you came in anger, tearing the members of the Church: subtle in seductions, savage in slaughters, provoking the sons of peace to wars. You drove many from their seats, when you came with a hired band and invaded the basilicas: many from your number in very many places (which it would be long to name by name) wrought bloody slaughters, and so atrocious that concerning such deeds a report was sent by the judges of that time. But the judgment of God intervened and came to meet them, so that he who had long since commanded you to return, that profane and sacrilegious emperor, died, who had already sent or was arranging to send a persecution at your instigation.

Slaughter of Catholics was wrought in the places mentioned above; recall through each place what your rampages were. Were not Felix of Zabi and Januarius of Flumenpiscense and others from your number, who ran together with all speed to the fortress of Lemella: where, when they saw the basilica closed against their importunity, those present ordered their companions to climb the rooftops, strip the roofs, and throw down the tiles: their orders were carried out without delay; and while the Catholic deacons were defending the altar, very many were bloodied by the tiles, two were killed, Primus the son of Januarius, and Donatus the son of Ninus, with your above-mentioned fellow-bishops urging them on and present: so that without doubt it was said of you: Their feet are swift to shed blood. Concerning this matter Primosus, the Catholic bishop of the above-mentioned place, made complaint in your council at the city of Thenesta, and you heard his complaints with dissimulation.

Behold, what you said has been done by you: that the Church is not one which is fed on bloody bites; and soldiers sent are one thing, bishops ordained are another. What you speak against us invidiously was done by others, not by us: what you say ought not to have been done, you yourselves did. You also recalled that the most blessed apostle Paul said that the Church ought to be without wrinkle and without stain. With your bishops commanding and present, Catholic deacons were killed upon the altar; likewise also at Carpi. Do these not seem to you inexpiable stains? In the cities of Mauritania, when you entered, a crushing of the people took place: those who were about to be born died in their mothers' wombs. Does this not seem to you a wrinkle, which cannot be smoothed or ironed out by any satisfactions? What such thing has been committed by us? We await God as our avenger.

And you bring odium upon Macarius, who, if he did anything harshly for the sake of unity, it may seem a light matter: while you for the sake of dissension have done such great bitter, bloody, and hostile deeds. Why should I recall Tipasa, a city of Caesarian Mauritania? To which Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra, two torches kindled by malice, ran from Numidia: disturbing the minds of those who were at peace and settled in tranquility: with the favor and fury of certain officials assisting, and with the governor Athenius present with his standards, the Catholic congregation was driven out and bloodied and expelled from its seats: men were lacerated, matrons were dragged away, infants were killed, unborn children were torn away. Behold your Church, with bishops as leaders, was fed on bloody bites. After this you also added: However much the greediness of vultures may consume, yet the number of doves is greater. Where is what is commonly said, that a liar ought to have a good memory?

You forgot what you said a little before, that the Church is the one dove of Christ in the Song of Songs. If the Church is one among you, the dove is one: what is it that you wished to say, the number of doves is greater?

And what seems a light matter to you, a monstrous crime was committed, so that all the sacred things were violated by the aforementioned bishops of your party. They ordered the Eucharist to be poured out to dogs; not without a sign of divine judgment: for those same dogs, inflamed with madness, tore apart their own masters, as though they were robbers guilty of the holy body, with avenging tooth, as if they were strangers and enemies. They also threw a flask of chrism through a window to break it; and when the throwing aided the fall, an angelic hand was not wanting to bring the flask down by a spiritual lifting: thrown, it could not experience a fall; protected by God, it came to rest unharmed among the rocks. And these things could not have happened, if you had kept in memory the commandments of Christ, who says: Give not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turning they rend you.

What such thing could be done by the workers of unity? Whence you labor to bring vain ill-repute upon us Catholics. Returning from there, Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra, found the women whom they had made from consecrated virgins. Behold what manner of bishops, brother Parmenianus, you conceal: and when you ought to have blushed for your own, you accuse innocent Catholics. Meanwhile the aforementioned Felix, amid his crimes and unspeakable deeds, did not hesitate most wickedly to defile a girl whom he himself had veiled, by whom a little before he was called father. And as if he might become holier by sin, he hastened swiftly to Tysedis. Thus he dared to strip Donatus, a bishop of seventy years, an innocent man, of his episcopal name and office and honor.

The schismatic came to a Catholic bishop, the guilty to the innocent, the sacrilegious to a priest of God, the unchaste to the chaste, to a bishop one who was now no longer a bishop; but secure by your agreement and conspiracy, armed with your laws and decrees: the hands which a little before sins had burdened, he laid upon the head of an innocent man: and from that tongue he dared to pronounce sentence, which already seemed not even fit for performing penance. Behold what manner of men, brother Parmenianus, you defend: behold on behalf of what manner of men you said long ago that you were working for dowries.

Even you yourselves, who wish to appear holy and innocent before men, say, whence comes that holiness which you claim for yourselves so freely? Which the apostle John does not dare to profess, who says: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. He who said this wisely reserved himself for the grace of God. For it belongs to a Christian man to will what is good; and in that which he has willed well, to run: but it is not given to man to bring it to completion: so that after the stages which man must fulfil, something remains for God, to come to the aid of one who falls short: because he alone is perfection, and the only perfect one is Christ the Son of God. All others are semi-perfect. Because to will is ours, to run is ours; to bring to completion belongs to God.

Whence the most blessed apostle Paul says: It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For even by Christ our Saviour, perfect holiness was not given, but promised. For thus he says: You shall be holy, because I am holy. He alone therefore is perfect and holy. For he did not say, you are holy, but, you shall be holy, he said. Whence is it then, that you claim perfect holiness for yourselves out of pride? Unless it be that it may appear that you deceive yourselves, and the truth is not in us. You were unwilling to be in the school of John. For when you lead some astray, you promise that you will grant them forgiveness of sins: and when you wish to forgive sins, you profess your own innocence: and you give remission of sins as though you yourselves had no sin. This is not presumption, but deception: not truth, but falsehood.

For indeed, within neighboring moments, while you lay on hands and forgive offenses, presently turning to the altar, you cannot omit the Lord's prayer. And you certainly say: Our Father, who art in heaven, forgive us our debts and our sins. What are you called, while you confess your sins? If you are holy, while you forgive those of others? In this way you also deceive yourselves, and the truth is not in you. But that it may appear that your nurse pride dictates this to you, which Christ attests in the Gospel: for even if he did not name you by name, yet through a parable he showed your ways; for thus it is written: Jesus spoke this parable, because of those who think themselves holy, and despise others. That this was said of you, the very matter clearly shows; while you exalt yourselves as though holy, and openly and manifestly despise us: Two (he says) went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and one a Publican.

The Pharisee puffed up, proud, inflated, such as we see you also to be: not with body humbled, not with neck bowed; but with face uplifted and chest swollen: I thank thee, God, that I have sinned in nothing; which is to say to God, I have nothing for thee to pardon. This is mad fury, this is pride to be punished and condemned. God is ready to pardon, and the guilty man hastens to refuse indulgence. The Publican humble, knowing himself to be a man, prayed thus, saying: Be merciful to me, O Lord, a sinner. Thus humility merited to be justified: thus pride in the Pharisee, your master, went down condemned from the temple. Sins found with humility proved better than innocence with pride. Moreover, since you are not without the grave sins of betrayal and schism, you rejoice in being proud on top of it all.

Now since we have proved your shameful rejoicings, and your fury has been shown in so many places; it remains to say something of your deep impiety. For who could set forth all the things which are done or have been done by you? It is established that you have ordered all things with a certain malice, so that in one kind of your work you fulfilled other kinds: so that while a presbyter or bishop is cast down, the people might thus be captured. How could a multitude of men stand, who saw their ruler crushed by you? No otherwise than when by whatever chance a shepherd is slain, wolves run riot. You exorcised the faithful, and washed the walls without cause: so that by this kind of wickedness you might undermine the minds of the most simple men.

By such counsels of yours, the souls of not a few were slaughtered, and under the cloud of simplicity, the light of cunning being darkened, that you might lay low the wretched, you sent ahead arrows from the quiver of your breast with seductions: so that the Holy Spirit through the prophet David foretold of you in the psalm: For behold the sinners have bent their bow: they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, to shoot in the dark the upright of heart. What less has been done by you in your counsels? The innocent were wounded, the faithful disarmed, priests were stripped of the honor of their name. O unheard-of impiety, to keep alive one whom you have slaughtered amid the torments of penance! In comparison with your work, the savagery of robbers seems lighter. You commit a living murder: a robber gives the slain a shortcut from death: those whom you were able to deceive were hemmed in by the poverty of their understanding.

For they had been made perfect, by the work of God, that is, who had been ordained in his name. And you, warring hostilely against the work of God, destroying the divine work with the bars of malice. It appears therefore that what is said in the tenth psalm was said of you: Because what thou hast perfected, they have destroyed. Your impiety has made you proud: but justice looking down from heaven accuses you: and the error of men praises you as you do wicked things, so that the Holy Spirit said of you in the ninth psalm, that the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul; and he that hath done wicked things shall be blessed. What is more wicked than to exorcise the Holy Spirit; to break altars; to throw the Eucharist to animals? And that your own people may lead you into error, praising you they call you blessed, and speak well of you, and swear by you, and are known to hold your persons already in place of God.

God is accustomed to be named by men in an oath to prove faith; but when oaths are sworn by you, silence about God and Christ already prevails among your people. If divine religion has migrated from heaven to you, because oaths are sworn by you, let none of your people or of yours fall sick: refuse to die: command the clouds, rain if you can; that oaths may be sworn by you more fully, and silence kept about God. For even in former ages, when temples were built and idols made, what more could the devil do with your people? Nothing else, but that silence was kept about God, while through error men spoke of the devil alone.

O sacrilege committed in impiety! While you gladly hear men swearing oaths by you, and do not admit to your ears the voice of God who says in the hundred and fourth psalm: Touch not my anointed ones; and do no evil to my prophets. Now that both kings and priests are anointed, both the books of Kings indicate; and David in psalm one hundred and thirty-two says thus: Like the ointment on the head that ran down upon the beard of Aaron. And yet you strove with the same forces to despise the precepts, with which those who fear God strive to fulfil the commandments. Show where you were commanded to shave the heads of priests, when on the contrary so many examples are set forth that it ought not to be done. Saul, before he sinned, merited to be anointed: after the anointing he offended not lightly.

When God saw this, wishing to set forth examples on account of the oil not being to be touched, he expressed repentance; for thus it is read that the Lord said: It repenteth me that I have made Saul king; and certainly God could have taken away the oil which he had given. But since he wished to teach that the oil ought not to be touched even in a sinner, he himself who had given it expressed repentance. Therefore if God, in order to teach you, could not take away what he had given, through what he was unwilling: who are you, to take away what you did not give?

And you who ought to have prepared your ears for hearing, prepared a razor for sinning: and when you could have been sons of God, you chose to be sons of men; and to fix a bite upon the honors of others, you turned your teeth into arrows and weapons; you sharpened your tongues into swords: you fulfilled what is written of you in psalm fifty-six: Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

Therefore you sharpened your tongues into swords, which you moved to deaths, not of bodies, but of honors: you slaughtered not members, but names. What does it profit that men live, and have been slain by you in honor? They are indeed sound in their limbs, but they bear the funeral of a dignity that has been taken from them. For you stretched out your hand, and cast deadly coverings over every head: so that since there are (as I said above) four kinds of heads in the Church, of bishops, of presbyters, of deacons, and of the faithful: you were unwilling to spare even one: you overturned the souls of men. God hates these acts of yours in the prophet Ezekiel, when he says: Woe to those who make a covering, that is, who impose a hand upon every age to overturn souls. You found boys; you wounded them with penance, lest any of them might be able to be ordained. Acknowledge that you have overturned souls. You found ancient faithful, you made them penitents.

Acknowledge that you have overturned souls. You found deacons, presbyters, bishops, you made them laymen. Acknowledge that you have overturned souls.

He had long been your companion and fellow traveler, against whom you have now attempted to lay hands: you were running together: suppose him to have sinned (though it is agreed that there was no sin); he lay fallen, as you reckon: if you have read the Apostle, see for yourself to whom you stand, and to whom he lies fallen: if you are a servant, acknowledge your master, and understand that he who was running with you but a little while before did not lie fallen before you. Why do you rush into another's power? Why do you rashly ascend the tribunal of God? And when you yourself are guilty, do you dare to pronounce sentence upon another? And you have read: he who stands, stands to his own lord, and he who falls, falls to his own lord. But his lord is able to raise him up: who are you, that you should judge another's servant?

That the oil conferred upon a priest by God ought not to have been touched by you, you ought to have learned from David, the boy of God, who was so anointed through Samuel that what had long since been given to Saul was by no means taken away. Finally, whether by God's command or by the ordering of events, one cave enclosed them both; Saul, who had sinned, had come into the power of the boy David. He seems not to see, because he could not see another beside him in the darkness of the enclosed air, as commonly happens, from the greater light. Countless armies followed the old king: but the king himself had come into another's power. David had the opportunity of victory in his hands: he could have slain his unwary and unsuspecting adversary without effort: and without bloodshed and the clash of many, he could have cut short the war by turning it into slaughter: both his servants and the occasion urged him on: the opportunity pressed him toward victory.

He had already begun to draw the sword; his armed hand had already begun to move toward the enemy's throat: but the full memory of the divine commandments stood in the way; he contradicts his servants who urge him and the opportunities, as though he were also saying: in vain do you provoke me, victory; in vain do you invite me to triumphs, occasion. He wished to conquer his enemy; but it is more important to keep the divine precepts of the Lord. Shall I lay hands on the Lord's anointed? He restrained his hand with the sword; and while he feared the oil, he preserved his enemy. And that he might complete his observance, he avenged the slain. You neither fear God nor acknowledge your brothers; on the whetstone of envy you have sharpened the razors of your tongue; and trampling upon the divine precepts, you have hastened against the heads of the wretched, so that, having slain their leaders, you might drag blind and ignorant peoples into captivity.

You hunger for the honors of innocent priests: whence has so great a famine been born into your fury, that you would make your throats open sepulchres. For each sepulchre one funeral suffices, and it is closed: the funerals of honors have by no means sufficed for your throat, and it still stands open, while you seek some to devour; so that it has rightly been said of you: their throat is an open sepulchre; for you also presume upon cursing, when it is written: Bless and do not curse. Whenever anyone has done something against your will, you threaten terrors, you put forward curses; and because some men can deserve more evil than good men; whatever the judgment of God or the desert of sin shall have brought about, you avenge with your bitter curses: rightly has it been said of you in: Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. You glory in the fact that, when you have cursed, certain men have been able to die. Surely it is not lawful to kill.

Or do you therefore think yourselves innocent, because you did not use the sword? Let the poisoner also judge himself innocent, if homicide consists in the sword alone: let him not consider himself guilty who has killed another by withholding food: let him judge himself innocent who, by forbidding the faculty of breathing, has suffocated one who desired to live. There are many kinds of death, but death has one name. When with confidence you declare a man dead by your curses, what does it matter whether you strike with the sword or smite with the tongue? You are without doubt a murderer, if he who was living has died through you. Whoever among you is such a one, vainly professes himself a Christian or a priest of God, who does not care to imitate the gentleness of God; since it is written in Solomon: God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.

I believe you cannot forget what you have done in certain places, when you wished to kill those who were preaching the law of God, that is, the prophets, against the command of God saying: And lay not your hand upon my prophets. Deuterius, Partenius, Donatus, and Getulicus, bishops of God, you slew with the sword of the tongue, shedding the blood not of the body but of honor. The men lived on afterward, but by you they were slain in their honors, priests of God. It is known and proven to many that in the time of persecution certain bishops, having fallen through sloth from confession of the name of God, offered incense, and yet none of those who escaped either laid a hand upon the lapsed, or commanded them to bend their knees. And you do today after unity what was done by no one after the offering of incense: because it is written: Touch not my anointed ones, and lay not your hand upon my prophets.

God defends his oil: because if the sin is the man's, the anointing is nevertheless of the divinity. Touch not (he says) my anointed ones: lest, while the sin of the man is struck, the oil also, which belongs to God, be smitten. God has preserved his own thing for his own judgment, and yet you have rushed indiscriminately upon what belongs to another, corrupting the happiness of all. For what greater unhappiness is there, than that priests of God should live, yet not be what they had been?

Matrons, children and virgins alike, compelled by you, with no intervening sin, with their innocence and chastity intact, learned at your instruction to perform penance. Is this a lesser unhappiness? You have crushed the sexes, you have vexed the ages. Truly has it been said of you in: Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. You have imposed penance upon the congregations; for it was not performed by anyone of their own accord, but exacted by you; nor in equal periods of time, but you did all things according to persons: one for a whole year, another for a month, another for scarcely a whole day performed penance at your command. If to consent to unity (as you would have it) is a sin, if the fault is the same; why is the penance not equal for the same offense?

There is no doubt that the believing people is called Israel; the individual congregations are called daughters of Israel, that is, those who have seen God with the mind and have believed in God: and yet you compelled these congregations to bow and bend their necks, and, with heads joined in a row, to make a mass of penitents. God mourns over these congregations through the Prophet Ezekiel saying: Woe to the daughters who sew cushions, that is, the members of the neck, to place them under the elbow and under the hand. Surely under your elbows and under your hands, even as you stretch veils of penance over their heads. Your impiety and fury have been shown, and your pride demonstrated: your folly also was to be revealed; but this I shall demonstrate in the sixth book.

Sufficiently, as I think, in the second book we have spoken of the Church which is the bride of Christ, and of her dowry, and of the inheritance of the Savior; it follows, first, to show the errors of the schismatics; then, what was the cause that unity came to be attempted; third, who brought it about that armed soldiers were sent. By the agents of unity many things were indeed done harshly, but to what end do you impute them to Leontius, Macarius, or Taurinus? Impute them to your own forebears, who (as it is written in the prophet) themselves ate sour grapes, so that your teeth should be set on edge. First to those who divided the people of God and built basilicas that were not necessary. Then to Donatus of Carthage, who provoked the attempt to bring about unity in the near past. Third to Donatus of Bagae, who had gathered a mad multitude, to protect himself and what he was carrying from violence at the hands of Macarius, and sought the aid of armed soldiers.

Then came the armed men with their quivers, every city was filled with the clamors of those crying out; when unity was announced, you all fled. No one was told, deny God; no one was told, burn the testament; no one was told, either offer incense or tear down the basilicas; for these are the things that are wont to generate martyrdoms. Unity was proclaimed; the only exhortations were that God and Christ his Son might be prayed to equally by the people gathering into one. There was at first no terror; no one had seen the rod; no one had seen a guard; the only things (as we said above) were exhortations. You all feared, you all fled, you all trembled; so that it has certainly been said of you, what is written in: They trembled where there was no fear. All the bishops therefore fled with their clergy; some died; those who were stronger were captured and sent into distant exile.

And yet none of all these things was done with our wish, none with our counsel, none with our knowledge, none with our effort; but all things were done in the grief of God, who weeps bitterly, and in vengeance for the water, which against the prohibition you moved again: leading it to the water of the ancient pool: but I know not whether with that fish, which is understood to be Christ, who is read in the lesson of the Patriarch Tobias as having been caught in the river Tigris, whose gall and liver Tobias took, for the protection of the woman Sara, and for the enlightening of Tobias who could not see: from the entrails of that same fish the demon Asmodaeus was put to flight from the girl Sara (who is understood to be the Church), and blindness was driven away from Tobias. This is the fish, which in baptism is inserted through invocation into the waters of the font, so that what had been water might also be called a pool after the fish.

The name of which fish, according to the Greek appellation, contains in one name through its individual letters a multitude of holy names, ἸΧΘΥΣ, which in Latin is Jesus christus, Dei filius, SALVATOR. This pool, which in every Catholic Church throughout the whole world abounds with saving waters for the life of the human race, you have diverted to your own will, and you have dissolved the singular baptism, from which baptism walls were made for men as a protection: and you have made as it were other walls, building no good structure: you could not construct without destroying. And what manner of building can that be, which is constructed from ruin? This matter God grieves and weeps over through the prophet Isaiah, when he says that the daughter of his own kindred has been crushed: the kindred of God is to have no kindred, who is from himself, and remains unto eternity. Like also is the water, which we do not read as having been made.

In the injury done to this water, God declares his tears which you have caused; which he testifies can be dried by no consolation, when he speaks to you through the prophet Isaiah, saying: Let me alone, I will weep bitterly: no one shall be able to console me in the crushing of the daughter of my kindred. In this place our innocence is defended, while God with grief declares his wrath against you; while he both reveals the cause and shows the reason.

Finally, not on the whole of Sion, but in one of its valleys were these things accomplished: not on that mount Sion, which in Syria Palestina a small stream marks off from the walls of Jerusalem; on whose summit is a not large plain; on which there had been synagogues, where the people of the Jews assembling could learn the law given through Moses: but where no dispute was heard, nor was any judgment held by anyone, nor was any sentence there pronounced by any judge; because the place was one of teaching, not of controversy after teaching. If anything was to be done, it was done within the walls of Jerusalem. Hence it is written in the prophet Isaiah: Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Therefore it is not on that mount Sion that Isaiah looks upon a valley; but on the holy mount, which is the Church, which throughout the whole Roman world, has raised its head under the whole sky.

On which mount, the Son of God rejoices that he has been established as king by God the Father, in psalm, saying: For he has established me as king over Sion his holy mount: that is, over the Church, of which he is king and bridegroom and head. Not on that mount, where there are no gates which God loves; but on the mount of the Church, which is called so spiritually. Into the gates of which Church enter the innocent, the just, the merciful, the continent, and virgins: which gates the Holy Spirit commemorates through David in, saying: Its foundations are in the holy mountains, the Lord loves the gates of Sion. Not those of that bodily mount, where there are now no gates; and after the victories of the emperor Vespasian scarcely the traces of the ancient ruins remain. There is therefore a spiritual Sion, the Church, in which Christ has been established as king by God the Father; which is throughout the whole world, in which there is one Catholic Church.

For that Sion is the Church, the most holy prophet David also testifies in another place, saying: Praise your God, O Sion, who has strengthened the bars of your gates, has blessed your children within you. Through the individual provinces of the whole world, we understand the individual valleys of the mount: and while Isaiah sees not the whole mount but one valley, that is, Africa alone: in which alone, when the temples of God which had existed were sufficient, the leaders of your party wished to make others: in which alone the walls were thrown down, and that walls might be made, the water of the holy pool was diverted, and novelty was instituted by you against antiquity, and human water was set up against divine. All this God both questions and rebukes in the valley of mount Sion, saying: Why has this been done to you?

Because you went up into superfluous temples: every city has been filled with those who cry out: your wounded, not wounded by the sword; and the dead within you, not dead in battle: they are in error from the least to the greatest: all your princes wandering on the mountains have been turned to flight: and those who were taken have been heavily bound, and your strongest have been driven far away. Let me alone, I will weep bitterly: no one shall be able to console me in the crushing of the daughter of my kindred; and the Elamites shall come up with quivers: (the Elamites are called in the Latin tongue the choruses of the camps); and he continued saying: Your inner chambers shall be brought to public view, and the secret things of the house of Israel shall be laid bare.

This was done in Africa, and why all this was done God declared, when he lays the charge against you saying: Because you turned the water of the ancient pool toward your city, and threw down the walls of Jerusalem, that you might make another fortification, and you placed the water between the two fortifications, and you were unwilling to attend to the ancient pool, nor to him who from the beginning created it.

Now you see, brother Parmenianus, that all things redound upon you, by whose leaders the cause of all these matters was sown. Then upon Donatus of Carthage, by whose poisoning the business of unity seems to have been set in motion. In which matter I shall show that his agents acted not according to our will, nor by their own malice, but driven and impelled by causes and persons which Donatus of Carthage established through his own levity, while he strove to appear great. For who does not know, except you, because you are a foreigner, and false things could have been told to you? Or who can deny that the whole of Carthage is principally witness to this fact, that the emperor Constans sent Paul and Macarius at first not to bring about unity, but with alms: by which the poor, relieved through the individual churches, might breathe again, be clothed, be fed, and rejoice?

When they came to Donatus, your father, and declared why they had come, he, inflamed with his customary fury, burst forth into these words: What has the emperor to do with the Church? And from the fountain of his levity he poured forth many curses: no less than he had once done against Gregorius, to whom he did not hesitate to write thus: Gregorius, stain of the senate and disgrace of the prefects, and other such things; to which Donatus the aforesaid replied with episcopal patience. Copies of these letters are sung everywhere on many lips. Even then he was meditating, contrary to the precepts of the apostle Paul, to do injury to the powers and kings, for whom, if he heeded the Apostle, he ought to have prayed daily. For thus the blessed Apostle Paul teaches: Pray for kings and for those in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life with them.

For the republic is not in the Church, but the Church is in the republic, that is, in the Roman empire: which Christ calls Lebanon in the Song of Songs, when he says: Come, my bride, found from Lebanon, that is, from the Roman empire: where also holy priesthoods are, and chastity, and virginity, which do not exist among barbarian peoples; and if they were there, they could not be safe. Rightly does Paul teach that prayer must be made for kings and powers: even if such an emperor were one who lived as a pagan: how much more since he was a Christian, how much more since he feared God, how much more since he was devout, how much more since he was merciful, as the very matter proves. For he had sent ornaments to the houses of God, he had sent alms to the poor, nothing to Donatus. Why then did he rage? Why was he angry? Why did he repudiate what had been sent?

And when those who had been sent said that they were going through the individual provinces and would give to those willing to receive: he said that he had sent letters ahead everywhere, so that what had been brought should not be distributed to the poor anywhere. O to care for the wretched! O to provide for the poor! O to come to the aid of sinners! God cries out saying: I am he who made the poor man and the rich man: not because he could not give to the poor as well, but if he gave to both, the sinner would be unable to find a way to help himself. And so it is written: As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin. Certainly both are now before God: he who wished to give, and he who stood in the way lest it be given. What if God should now say to Donatus: Bishop, what do you wish Constans to have been? If innocent, why did you refuse to receive from an innocent man?

If a sinner, why did you not permit him to give, for whose sake I made the poor man? Under this questioning, what will he be? What did he accomplish by his levity and fury in hindering so many poor people? He had believed that he held the primacy of Carthage: and since above the emperor there is none but God alone, who made the emperor, while Donatus exalts himself above the emperor, he had already as it were exceeded the bounds of men, so as to esteem himself nearly God, not man, not reverencing him who after God was feared by men. And so through Ezekiel the Holy Spirit rebukes the prince of Tyre, that is, the prince of Carthage, when he speaks twice through the prophet in these words: Son of man, say against the prince of Tyre, thus says the Lord God, because your heart has been exalted, and you have said: I am God.

That Tyre is Carthage, Isaiah first proves, in whom is read the vision concerning Tyre: and it follows, howl ye ships of Carthage. Then that Tyre is Carthage, secular writings also attest: and if there be another city called by this name, nothing appears to have been done there which is established to have been committed at Carthage. Speak (says God) against the Prince of Tyre: he does not say that one must speak against some secular king, nor against many; but against one, that is, against Donatus the bishop. For it was not fitting that the prophet Ezekiel, whom I have just named, should be compared to any but the prince of bishops, who claimed for himself (as we have said) the primacy of Carthage, who exalted his heart, and seemed superior to men: and he would have wished to hold all even his own associates under himself; from whose offerings he never deigned to receive.

In which matter the faith is in the middle, and God Christ is its witness, and the complaint of the many against whom he did this injury in that very fellowship; so that he alone in secret did something or other, and afterwards mingled with the rest in a perfunctory manner. Now his heart was so exalted that he seemed to himself to have been not a man but God. And indeed even in the mouth of the people he was rarely called bishop, but was called Donatus of Carthage. And rightly did he deserve to be called and rebuked as the prince of Tyre, that is, of Carthage, because a he was first among bishops, as though he himself were more than the rest: and while he wished to have nothing human, he exalted his heart: not like that of a man, but like the heart of God, while he desired to be something more than other men.

To him God continues saying: you said, I am God: therefore, because although he did not use this word; yet he either did, or suffered, what would fulfil the effect of this word. He lifted up his heart, so that he judged no man comparable to himself: and in the swelling of his mind he seemed to himself to be higher; because whatever is above men is already as it were God. Then since bishops ought to serve God, he exacted so much from his own bishops that all venerated him with no less fear than God: this is what made him seem God to himself. And since men are accustomed to swear by God alone, he suffered men to swear by him thus, as though by God. In which matter, if any individual man had erred, he himself ought to have forbidden it: since he did not forbid it, he seemed God to himself.

Then since before his own pride all who had believed in Christ were called Christians, he dared to divide the people with God; so that those who followed him should no longer be called Christians, but Donatists: and if at any time some persons came to him from some African province, he did not ask what human custom always requires, to inquire something about rains, about peace, about the yield of the year: but his words to each and every one who came were these: What is happening among you concerning my party? As though he had truly already divided the people with God, so as to call his part his own without fear. For also from his times, and even to this day, whenever in public courts some action concerning ecclesiastical matters has been conducted: those questioned individually have spoken in the records so as to say that they were of the party of Donatus: about Christ they were silent.

And what shall I say of the clergy, when there are read the petitions (of which we made mention in the first book) sent long ago to Constantine and subscribed, which contained the names of bishops: thus Given by Capito, and Nasucius, Dignus, and the other bishops of the party of Donatus: and they were petitioning against bishops who, since they were not in the party of Donatus, dwelt in the Catholic Church of Christ; and while that bishop was not willing to be among his fellow bishops, nor a man among men, it is established that he exalted his heart and seemed to himself to have been God.

For since both your ordainers, whose names, brother Parmenianus, you know well, and you are not ignorant of where they were, and who a or by whom they petitioned, and what sort of man they asked to return, and they could have returned with you, and we also learned this when they alleged before African judges the same petitions which they had given; in which it is written: Given by the bishops of the party of Donatus. Here now what will they answer in that imminent divine judgment, who in this age confessed in another manner that they were not of the Church of Christ; who freely professed that they had been of the party of Donatus, when in the Gospel it is written, Christ saying: whoever shall confess me before men, I will confess him before my Father: these confessed Donatus, not Christ.

And lest this proof be small, which has been shown to pertain to his own person, there is added also that testimony, that the above-mentioned rebuke is closed, in which God said that he would not die on earth; and it is known to all that this came to pass. He dwelt in the house of God, and was in the heart of the sea: everywhere we read that the sea is the world, since he himself was not only in the love of certain Christians, but on account of his knowledge of secular letters, he was also in the heart of the sea, that is, in the love of the world: and from his knowledge he seemed wise to himself. But God emptied out this wisdom of his, when he says: are you wiser than Daniel? And how well his wisdom was humbled, by which he thought himself wiser than Daniel, in repudiating the gifts of the king, while he refused to receive what appeared to have been sent by a Christian emperor!

And he seemed to himself either a new Daniel, or one placed above Daniel in wisdom; because Daniel himself also once, when compelled by king Baltassar to receive gifts, that is, a ring, a chain, and the rest, is read to have said: let your gifts be with you, O king: and he answered wisely, and did not insult the king, and did not condemn what was offered, but deferred it: not in the manner of Donatus, who both said as many insults as he could to Constans, and repudiated what had been sent by him to the poor. But Daniel the holy man was found wise, so as not to receive those offered gifts on that day. For what was asked of him was still in heaven; and it would be foolish to receive as a reward, as it were, a thing which he did not yet have in his power: therefore he refused to receive the offered gifts on that day for the time being.

And so when God showed him what he should declare to the aforesaid king, he reported it to Baltassar; and what he had seemed to have refused long before, he afterwards willingly received. Rightly does God rebuke the prince of Tyre, Donatus, when he says: are you wiser than Daniel? But O how far is the presumption of Donatus from the person of Daniel! For what Baltassar gave was not for the poor; what Constans the Christian emperor had then sent, he had sent for the poor, not for Donatus. Then he says: the wise did not teach you their wisdom, because you were unwilling to learn from Solomon what he says: Hide bread in the heart of the poor man, and he himself will pray for you. Because he was also unwilling to learn from Daniel himself what counsel he gave to Nebuchadnezzar, how he who had offended God might make satisfaction.

And you (he says) hear, O king, my counsel, and let it please you: redeem your sins with almsgiving, and your iniquities with acts of mercy toward the poor. Daniel urges a sinful and sacrilegious king to give alms: Donatus, who deserved to be rebuked, stood in the way of Constans the Christian emperor, lest he be merciful. Therefore he is rebuked, because the wise did not teach him their wisdom: whatever had been sent by the emperor, he did not permit to be given through himself. Whence it is established that Donatus was the source of evil causes.

Whatever therefore could be done harshly in bringing about unity, you see, brother Parmenianus, to whom it ought to be imputed. Or do you say to us Catholics that armed soldiers were sought: if so, did no one in the proconsular province at that time see an armed soldier? Paul and Macarius were coming, to distribute to the poor everywhere, and to exhort individuals toward unity. Were drawing near; and when they were approaching the city of Bagae, then the other Donatus (as we said at the outset), bishop of that same city, wishing to set an obstacle to unity and a barrier against those aforementioned who were coming, sent heralds through the neighboring places and through all the markets, summoning the Circumcellions, whom he called Agonistics; he invited them to assemble at the aforesaid place: and at that time the gathering of those men was urgently sought, whose madness a little before had been seen to have been impiously kindled by the bishops themselves.

For when men of this kind, before the union, wandered through individual places: when Axido and Fasir, were called by those same raving men the leaders of the saints: no one was permitted to be secure in his own possessions: the bonds of debtors had lost their force: no creditor at that time had the freedom to exact payment. All were terrified by the letters of those who boasted that they had been leaders of the saints; and if there was any delay in obeying their commands, a mad multitude suddenly flew in, and with terror going before, creditors were hemmed in by dangers: so that those who ought to have been entreated for what they had lent, were driven by fear of death to humble supplication. Each man hastened to lose even very great debts, and it was counted as gain to have escaped their outrages. Even the roads could not be entirely safe, because masters were thrown from their own vehicles and ran in servile fashion before their own towns, while slaves sat in the masters' places.

By their judgment and command the condition of masters and slaves was exchanged. Wherefore, since envy was then being stirred up against the bishops of your party, they are said to have written to Taurinus, who was then count, that men of this kind could not be corrected within the Church; they directed that they should receive discipline from the aforesaid count. Then Taurinus, in response to their letter, ordered armed soldiers to go through the markets where the fury of the Circumcellions was accustomed to roam. In the place of Octavus very many were slain, many were cut down, whose bodies even to this day could be counted by the whitened altars or tables. When some of that number had begun to be buried in the Basilicas, the presbyter Clarus, in the place of Subbulen, was compelled by his own bishop to make the burial unburied. Whereby it was revealed that there had been a command to do what was done: since not even burial in the house of God was permitted to be given.

Their multitude afterwards grew strong. Thus Donatus of Bagae found the means by which to gather a furious mob against Macarius. It was from that very stock that there were those who, out of desire for a false martyrdom, hired their own assailants to their own destruction. From that stock also came those who, casting their worthless souls from the summits of high mountains, hurled themselves headlong. Behold from what manner of men the other bishop Donatus had formed his cohorts. Terrified by this fear, those who were carrying the treasures which they were to distribute to the poor found counsel in such great necessity, to request armed soldiers from the Count Sylvester: not to do violence to anyone thereby, but to prevent the violence arranged by the aforementioned bishop Donatus. For this reason it came about that armed soldiers were seen. Now as for whatever followed, see to whom it ought or can be ascribed.

They had there an immense crowd of those who had been summoned, and it is established that adequate provisions had been prepared: from the Basilica as though from a public storehouse; waiting for those to come against whom they could exercise their fury; and they would have done whatever their madness dictated to them, had not the presence of the armed soldiers stood in the way. For when, before the soldiers were to arrive, the quartermasters (as is customary) were sent ahead; contrary to the precepts of the Apostle they were not fittingly received—he who says: to whom honor, honor; to whom tribute, tribute; to whom tax, tax; owe no man anything. Those who had been sent were beaten along with their horses, by those whose names you have fanned with the bellows of envy. They were themselves the authors of the injury done to them; and what they could suffer, they themselves taught by inflicting injuries first. The harassed soldiers returned to their units, and what two or three had suffered, all felt as a common grievance.

All were stirred up: not even their commanders were able to restrain the angry soldiers. Thus was committed that act through which you have recorded that odium was brought upon unity: these and the rest of your deeds have their own causes, and the persons I have shown to be answerable for them. This we did not even witness, but we heard of it along with you. If hearing makes one guilty, we hold you as accomplices, because you heard in like manner. If hearing is immune from the deed; what was done by others at your provocation ought not to be imputed to us. You set forth your complaint in order: that very many were wronged under Leontius, under Ursacius; that some were killed under Paulus and Macarius; that by those who followed them certain persons, I know not who, were for a time to be written about. What has this to do with us? What does it pertain to the Catholic Church? Whatever you have charged, you yourselves did.

You who were unwilling to receive willingly the peace commended by God, esteeming the inheritance of schism more dear than the precepts set forth by the Saviour. You have accused the workmen of unity: disprove unity itself, if you can. For I think you do not deny that unity is the highest good. What does it matter to us what sort of men the workmen were, provided that what was wrought is established to be good? For even wine is both trodden and pressed by sinful workmen; and thus from it a sacrifice is offered to God: oil likewise is produced by filthy men and some who live wickedly and speak unclean things; and yet in its savor, in its light, even in the holy chrism it is dispensed without distinction.

You say that the workmen of unity were evil: perhaps in accordance with the will of God, to whom that is sometimes pleasing which He could have prevented. For certain evil things are done evilly; certain evil things are done well. A robber does evil evilly; a judge does evil well, when he punishes what the robber sinned. For this is the voice of God: thou shalt not kill: and His is the voice: if a man be found lying with a woman who has a husband, ye shall kill them both. One God, and two different voices. Moreover, when Phinehas, the son of the priest, found an adulterer with an adulteress, he raised his hand with a sword, and stood in doubt between two voices of God: on one side sounded to him, thou shalt not kill; on the other side sounded, ye shall kill them both. If he struck, he would sin; if he did not strike, he would transgress.

He chose the better sin, to strike; and perhaps there were not lacking those who wished to brand this avenger of the deed as a murderer. But that God might show that certain evil things are done well, He spoke saying: Phinehas has appeased my wrath: and the homicide pleased God, because the adultery was avenged. What if God has also now been pleased by what you say you have suffered, you who were unwilling to have unity with the whole world and with the memorials of the apostles—unity which is pleasing to God?

I am unwillingly compelled at this point to make mention even of those men—whose mention I would not wish—whom you place among the martyrs: by whom, as though by a unique act of religion, men of your communion swear. These I would indeed wish to pass over in silence, but the logic of truth does not suffer itself to be silenced: and from those very names envy barks rashly and rabidly against unity, and some who spurn it consider unity to be something to be accused or fled, because Marculus and Donatus are said to have been killed and to have died. As though no one at all deserves to be killed in punishment by God.

No one ought to have been harmed by the workmen of unity, but neither ought the divine commands to have been despised by the bishops: to whom it was commanded: Seek peace, and pursue it: and again: how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity; and again, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Those who were neither willing to hear this gladly nor willing to do it devoutly; whatever they were able to suffer: if being killed is an evil, they themselves are the cause of their own evil.

But Macarius (as you say) seems to you to be one who must be accused, since you judge that he could not have done this with the will of God. You have ancient defendants of this kind: accuse first Moses himself, the lawgiver; who, when he came down from Mount Sinai, almost before the tablets of the law had been set forth—in which was written, thou shalt not kill—ordered three thousand men to be killed in a single moment. Set Macarius aside for a little while; first call Phinehas the son of the priest, whom I mentioned a little before, to judgment: if indeed you find any judge besides God. For what you accuse in his person was praised by God, because it was done in zeal for God. Suppress for the time being the voices which envy dictates against Macarius. Have recourse first to Elijah the prophet, who at the brook Kishon, when he was doing the will of God, killed four hundred and fifty. But perhaps you will say that those were killed deservedly, these undeservedly.

Punishment never follows unless its cause has preceded it. Moses avenged (as we said), Elijah avenged, Phinehas avenged; and you do not wish Macarius to have avenged. Those who are said to have been killed had given no offence. Let Macarius be guilty, in what he alone did without our knowledge, but at your provocation. Why is odium brought upon us, when the deeds are another's? And the cause lies in you; because it is said to have come about on account of you, who were outside—although even now you appear to be outside—not on account of us, who dwell within and have never departed from the root. But because we have set forth in order the persons of those mentioned above, let us see why Moses ordered three thousand men to be killed; why Phinehas two; and why Elijah four hundred and fifty; why Macarius two, whose names you daily fan, as I said above, with the bellows of envy. It is established that he punished those by whom the divine command was despised.

For, Thou shalt not make for thyself a graven image, is the voice of God: and, thou shalt not commit adultery, is the voice of the same God: thou shalt not sacrifice to idols, the same God has spoken: and, thou shalt not make a schism; and seek peace and pursue it, is the precept of the same. In the time of Moses the people of Israel worshipped the head of a calf, which a sacrilegious flame had cast for them; therefore three thousand men deserved to be killed, because the voice of God was seen to have been despised. Phinehas struck the adulterers with one blow: he deserved to be praised by God: because he killed those who despised the divine precepts. And the four hundred and fifty whom Elijah is read to have killed were killed for this reason, because contrary to the command of God, in that they were false prophets, they had despised the precepts of God.

And those by whose names you accuse Macarius are not far from false prophets; because God said that you would be false prophets, which we shall prove in the next place: and while they were unwilling to look to peace, lest they should dwell in one place with their brethren, they stubbornly resisted the precepts and the will of God. Therefore you see that the deeds of Moses, and Phinehas, and Elijah, and Macarius are similar, because by all of them the precepts of one God were avenged. But I see you at this point separating the times, so that the times before the Gospel were one thing, the times after the Gospel another: in which you are able to say, because it is written that the sword was now to be sheathed by Peter, with which he had cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, which servant Peter, as a devoted follower, could have killed: but Christ had come to suffer, not to be defended.

And if Peter had carried out his intention, in the Passion of Christ it would have appeared that the servant was being avenged, not the people liberated.

For Macarius did not draw the sword that Peter had sheathed in its scabbard. God proves this when he speaks to the valley of Sion, saying: the wounded in thee, not wounded with the sword: or prove that anyone at that time was struck with the sword: then he says: the dead in thee, not dead in battle. Therefore you ought to consider whether it is not rash to call them martyrs who experienced no battle of Christians. For nothing of the sort was done or heard of such as is customary to be said or done in the battle of Christians: which battle is called persecution, which was wrought under two of those four beasts which Daniel saw ascending from the sea. The first was as a lion: this was the persecution under Decius and Valerian.

The second, as a bear: another persecution, which was under Diocletian and Maximian: at which time there were also impious judges, waging war against the Christian name: of whom in the proconsular province (some sixty years ago and more) there had been Anulinus, and in Numidia Florus. It is known to all what their artful cruelty wrought: the war declared against Christians raged; in the temples of demons the devil triumphed; the altars smoked with foul odors; and because they could not come to commit sacrilege, wherever they were, they were compelled to offer incense. Every place was a temple for wickedness. Old men near death were defiled; ignorant infancy was polluted; little children were carried by their mothers to abomination; parents were compelled to commit bloodless parricides: some were compelled to overthrow the temples of the living God; others to deny Christ; others to burn the divine laws; others to offer incense. That any of these things was done by Macarius, not even you yourselves will be able to fabricate.

Under the persecutor Florus, Christians were compelled to go to the temples of idols: under Macarius, the sluggish were compelled to go to the Basilica; under Florus it was commanded that Christ be denied and idols supplicated. On the contrary, under Macarius all were admonished that the one God be supplicated together by all in the Church. Therefore, since you see that there was no battle of Christians, and God records that some died without battle, when he says, and the dead in thee not dead in battle: and since it is doubtful that those can be martyrs who were not provoked either to sacrilegious rites, or to foul incense, or to the denial of the name of God: and since there is no passage to martyrdom except through confession, how do you call them martyrs who were not confessors, or which of them was compelled to deny and confessed Christ?

If therefore martyrdom cannot exist without confession of the name of Christ, and no one made confession, and what you say was done was done in punishment of God's commandments, and it is not proved by you that anything was done by us, since what was done God both foretold would come to pass and his commandments have been avenged: take heed lest it be not only vain but even superstitious to place among those who confessed Christ and were able to die for the name of God those who died without battle in that place: or if you wish them to be martyrs, prove that they loved peace, in which are the first foundations of martyrdom; or that they cherished the unity pleasing to God; or that they had charity toward their brethren. For we proved in the first book that all Christians are brethren, and in the fourth we shall without doubt prove it again. Those whom you say are called martyrs refused to acknowledge brethren and had no charity.

Nor let it be said in excuse that they were unwilling to communicate with the traditors; since it has been most plainly proved that those very men were themselves the sons of traditors. There is therefore no excuse, since it is most plainly established that they had no charity, without which no martyrdom can even be named or exist; without which the greatest and most commanding virtue lacks effect; without which all knowledge of tongues avails nothing; without which even the fellowship of angels can do nothing, as the apostle Paul says: If I have in me the power of commanding mountains to remove themselves from place to place, and speak with the tongues of all nations, even of angels, and deliver my body to the flames, and have not charity in me, I am nothing: but I shall be as sounding brass in the desert, so that the work of the voice perishes where no hearing meets it.

If so great a matter, if the blessed Paul, if the vessel of election, though in commanding virtue and the fellowship of angels, declares himself to be nothing unless he shall have charity: consider whether those ought not to be called martyrs but deserve to be called something else, who, as deserters of charity, were able to suffer something for that very desertion.

The whole world rejoices in Catholic unity, except a part of Africa, in which a conflagration has been kindled from a spark.

You complain that certain things were committed by the workers of unity. Italy does not complain of this, nor Gaul, nor Spain, nor Pannonia, nor Galatia, nor Greece, nor Asia with its many provinces; because there was nothing there that needed to be corrected, no one was sent there (so to speak) as a mender; and here in Africa, where the people had long remained in unity, the garment had been sound; it was torn by the envious hand of the enemy. The patches hung, as it were, from the origin of one garment; and branches coming from one root were divided from one another. Why does one part set itself before the other? Why does one patch exalt itself above another patch, when it will not be able to prove itself the better? For what if the despised patch should say: Why do you exalt yourself so greatly? Were we not grown together as equals? Were we not together in the hands of those who made us? Were we not cleansed alike at the fuller's?

The enemy wished to cut us apart from one another; the adversary wished to deform our beauty. In part of the garment we are still one, but we hang in different directions. For what has been torn is divided in part, not wholly; since it is established with good reason that for us and for you the ecclesiastical manner of life is one; and if the minds of men are at strife, the sacraments are not at strife. Indeed we too can say: As equals we believed, and we were sealed with one seal, and baptized no differently than you: we read the divine Testament alike; we pray to one God; the Lord's Prayer among us and among you is one; but with the part torn (as we said above), the parts hanging on this side and that, a mending was necessary. And yet the craftsman or worker of this task, while wishing to restore the garment to its former appearance, pricks the neighboring threads.

The mender displeases you, who in healing the tear wounds it; let him displease you more who caused it that the mender could sin. What you say was committed against you by the workers of unity either pertains to your parents, on whose account it was done, or descends from the will of God. But we are strangers to that matter.

What if, although harsh, they nevertheless appear (as we said) to have been committed with the will of God. For we read in the prophet Ezekiel of the whitewashed wall, against which God threatened storm, rain, and hailstones and accusations: There shall be (he says) false prophets who build a ruinous wall, saying, peace, peace; and where is peace? Remember how the members of mother Church were long since torn apart from one another by you. For you could not seduce each household only once. Either the wife departed and the husband remained, or the parents were seduced and the children refused to follow; or the brother stood firm while the sister departed; by your persuasions both bodies and the names of piety were divided, and you could not pass over what is lawful. Surely you said, peace be with you, while God on the contrary says, peace, and where is peace? That is to say, why do you greet with that of which you have none? Why do you name what you have destroyed?

You greet with peace, you who do not love peace. These (he says) build a ruinous wall; the house of God is one. Those who went outside and wished to make a party made a wall, not a house; because there is not another God to inhabit another house. Therefore the false prophets are said to have made a wall, in which if a door be placed, whoever enters is outside. Nor can one wall have a cornerstone, which stone is Christ, receiving in himself two peoples; one from the Gentiles, the other from the Jews; who joins both walls together with the bond of peace.

For as many advantages as a house has, so many disadvantages has a wall; a house enclosed protects, repels the storm, sheds the rain, does not admit the thief or wild beast; so also the Catholic Church embraces all the children of peace in her bosom and her breast; on the contrary the wall which is built ruinously neither sustains the cornerstone, and has a door to no purpose, nor protects those enclosed; it is wetted by rain, beaten by storms; it can neither keep out the thief, nor ward off the ferocity that comes. The wall is of the house, but is not the house, and your party is as it were a Church, but is not Catholic, and they whitewash it (he says), that is, you esteem yourselves alone to be holy. You complain that you suffered certain things without us; therefore it is established that you alone suffered certain things.

For the time of peace is one thing, the time of persecution another; if you think it persecution, say what all the provinces suffered together with you, in which the Catholic Church is established? But because it was a punishment, not a persecution, the wall alone suffered, against which God threatened storm, rain, and hailstones, and accusations. For thus he spoke: why have you built a ruin? Why have you whitewashed it? Why have you plastered it? This is against my will, says the Lord. The times of some Leontius, Ursacius, Macarius and the rest displease you; correct the will of God, if you can, who said: I will rise up against the wall with my anger, and will send a great storm and rain, floods, and hailstones, and I will strike the ruinous wall, and its joints shall be dissolved. But lest any of you say, if unity is a good thing, why has it so often been made and been unable to endure?

For this reason, because the matter itself was so ordained by God, who threatened storm, rain, stones and accusations; and these four things could not come to pass at one time. First there was a storm under Ursacius; the wall was shaken, but did not fall, so that the rain might have where to work. The rain followed under Gregory; the wall was wetted, but did not become soaked, so that the stones might have where to work. After the rain the stones followed under the workers of unity; the wall was scattered, but repaired itself again from its foundations. Three things have now been accomplished; accusations are owed to you, but how and when, he knows to whom it pleased to announce these things concerning you.

And lest anyone should doubt this interpretation, God added, saying: What I speak of is not mud, or brick, or a wall, but of false prophets who lead my people astray. See to which party this word, lead astray, belongs. All were with us; in our absence you burst in: but in order to have those whom you desired to have, you could not do so without leading them astray. And what the words of your seduction are, is known to all. It is yours to say, Look behind you: it is yours to say, Redeem your souls: it is yours to say to faithful men and clerics, Be Christians. But when you say, Look behind you, you act against the Gospel, where it is said: No one putting his hand to the plough and looking back shall enter the kingdom of heaven. And do you wish to know what he deserved who looked back, and what he who looked forward?

Remember the fugitives from Sodom, Lot and his wife: she, looking back, was turned into a pillar of salt: he who looked forward escaped. What then is it that you say, Look behind you? For even when you say, Redeem your souls: from whom did you buy them, that you might sell them? Who is that unknown angel, whoever he may be, who holds a market of souls which the devil possessed before his coming? These Christ our Saviour redeemed with his own blood, as the Apostle says: For you were bought with a great price. It is established that all have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Christ did not sell those whom he redeemed. Souls bought by Christ could not be sold, so that they might, as you wish, be redeemed again by you. Or how can one soul have two masters? Or is there another redeemer? Which prophets announced that another was to come? What Gabriel spoke again to another Mary? What virgin gave birth again? Who performed new or other miracles?

If there is no one besides the one who redeemed the souls of all believers, what is it that you say, Redeem your souls? Now what manner of thing is it that you say even to Christian men and clerics, Be Christians? And with a kind of wonder you dare to say to each one, Caius Seius, Caia Seia, you are still a pagan, or a pagan woman. You call him a pagan who has professed that he has turned to God: you call him a pagan who has been baptized, whether by us or by you, not in our name nor in yours, but in the name of Christ: (for there are those who were baptized even by you, and afterwards passed over to our communion). You call him a pagan who has prayed to God the Father through his Son before the altar. For whoever has believed, has believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: and you call him a pagan after his profession of faith.

If any Christian (which God forbid) should sin, he can be called a sinner; he cannot be a pagan again. But all these things you wish to count for nothing. And if he whom you are seducing consents to you, one act of consent and the stretching out of your hand, and a few words, now make for you a Christian out of a Christian; and he seems to you a Christian who has done what you wish, not one whom faith has brought.

And if assent to your seduction has been somewhat slow in coming, you do not lack those arguments either, by which you might, as it were, easily persuade even the unwilling of what you wish: while you say that it was spoken from the mouth of those who had been for some time in your fellowship: that whoever tasted or received of the sacrifice of the approaching unity, would seem to taste of something sacred. We do not deny that these things were said by certain persons, who are known afterwards to have done with complete unconcern the very thing from which they had shortly before been deterring the people: but another reason called forth these words, another drew them into the deed. For in order that those who are reported to have said these things should say them, a false rumour had filled their ears and the ears of all the people.

For it was said at that time that Paul and Macarius were coming, who would be present at the sacrifice, so that when the altars were solemnly prepared, those men would bring forth an image, which they would first place upon the altar, and so the sacrifice would be offered. When ears received this, minds were struck, and the tongue of each one was moved to these words, so that everyone who had heard this said: Whoever tastes of that, tastes of something sacred: and it would have been rightly said, if a like truth had followed such a rumour. But when the aforesaid persons arrived, nothing of the sort was seen, contrary to what the rumour had shortly before falsely reported; Christian eyes saw nothing to horrify them: the sight proved none of those things by which the hearing had been disturbed. Purity was seen, and the solemn custom was observed in its accustomed manner: since they saw that in the divine sacrifices nothing had been changed, nothing added, nothing taken away.

The peace commended by God pleased those who were willing: wherefore none of those ought to be blamed who made the passage from your fellowship to peace: those who had been troubled by a wrong opinion were confirmed by simple and pure truth. Nor let it be said that he made the bitter sweet, or the sweet bitter. The bitterness which seemed to have been reported on the basis of falsehood settled and remained in the bosom of opinion; the truth perceived by the eyes, having its own sweetness within itself, was separated from the bounds of false opinion. Therefore neither was the bitter made sweet, nor the sweet bitter; because both what was seen is a different thing and outside, and what seemed to be heard was far removed. Wherefore you see that you made your reproach without cause, inventing at your pleasure what you wished, in order to tear apart Macarius and Taurinus. You have lost the appearance of wisdom, while envy corrupted your faculties and closed to you the entrance of understanding.

Acknowledge the most manifest truth of this matter, Parmenianus my brother. If indeed you deign to hear willingly this name of brotherhood spoken frequently by me: suppose it to be distasteful to you; yet it is necessary for us, lest perhaps according to the proof of this name, by keeping silent we should seem to be guilty. For if you do not wish to be a brother, I begin to be impious if I have kept silent about this name. For you are our brothers, and we yours, as the prophet says: Did not one God create you, did not one father beget you? For you cannot not be brothers, since it has been said to all: You are gods, and all sons of the Most High. Both we and you who have received one commandment, in which it is said: Call no one your father on earth, for one is your Father who is in heaven.

Our Saviour Christ alone was born the Son of God: but both we and you have been made sons of God in one manner, as it is written in the Gospel: The Son of God came; to as many as received him, he gave power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name. We both have been made and are called: you both have been made and are not called, because you do not wish to be peaceable, nor to hear the Son of God himself saying: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Christ coming reconciled God and man in peace: And made both one, breaking down the middle wall of partition. You do not wish to have peace with us, that is, with your brothers. For you cannot not be brothers, whom one mother Church bore from the same womb of the sacraments, whom God the Father received in the same manner as adopted sons.

Wherefore Christ, foreknowing this time, because it was to come that you would today be at discord with us, gave such commandments of prayer, that unity might remain at least in prayer, that prayers might join those whom the parties were about to separate. We pray for you, because we wish to; and you for us, even when you do not wish to: or let each one of you say: Our Father who art in heaven, give me this day my daily bread, and forgive me my sins, as I also forgive my debtor. Therefore if what has been commanded cannot be changed, you see that we are not entirely separated from one another, since both we pray for you, willingly; and you pray for us, even if unwillingly. You see, brother Parmenianus, that the bonds of holy brotherhood between us and you cannot be entirely broken.

Now the sinner must be sought, whose oil could be feared, or whose sacrifice could be repudiated. Let human suspicion cease, let the presumption of either party be silent; let God alone indicate who the sinner is. We read in the forty-ninth psalm, under the second diapsalm, that the Holy Spirit said: But to the sinner God said. At this point the whole attention of the mind must be directed, and it must be seen who the sinner is. For if after what has been read, But to the sinner God said: words of this kind were to follow, and he were to say: you took up arms, you went forth from the camp, you stood against enemies in battle line: the soldier would have to fear, because he himself could seem to be the sinner. Or if he were to say: you bought merchandise, you travelled abroad, you conducted markets, for the sake of gain you sold what you had bought: the merchant would have to fear, because he himself could seem to be the sinner.

Or if he were to say: you built a ship, you fitted it with ropes, you adorned it with sails, you watched for favourable winds to sail: the sailor would have to fear, because he himself could seem to be the sinner. Or after what has been read: But to the sinner God said: if these words were to follow: dissension and schism displeased you, you were reconciled with your brother, and you communicated with the one Church which is throughout the whole world, you communicated with the seven Churches and the memorials of the apostles, you embraced unity: if the following reading contained these things, we would have to fear, we could have been the sinners. But when God says: Why do you expound my justifications, and take up my covenant in your mouth? But you have despised discipline, and cast my words behind you: sitting against your brother, you spoke evil, and against the son of your mother you placed a stumbling block.

You saw a thief, and you ran with him, and with adulterers you placed your portion. All these things were said to you. Excuse yourselves from all these things, if you can.

For discipline has been despised: why do you recite the Testament, you who do not serve the Testament, in which discipline is described, which you do not wish to keep? For you cannot say that you keep it, against which you wage war. God says: Seek peace, and pursue it: you have repudiated peace: is that not to despise discipline?

In the Gospel it is read: peace on earth to men of good will: you wish to have neither good will nor peace: is that not to despise discipline? Likewise in psalm one hundred and thirty-two it is read: Behold how good and pleasant it is to dwell together as one: you do not wish to dwell as one with your brothers: is that not to despise discipline? Christ says in the Gospel: he who has once been washed has no need to be washed again: you by rebaptizing wash again: is that not to despise discipline? God says: touch not my anointed ones, and lay no hand upon my prophets: you have stripped so many priests of God of their honours: is that not to despise discipline? Christ says: by this I know that you are my disciples, if you love one another: you hate us, your brothers indeed: nor did you wish to imitate the apostles, by whom even Peter the denier was loved: is that not to despise discipline?

You expound the justifications of God, and take up his Testament in your mouth: you recite the Testament, and do not serve the Testament, in which discipline is described: how do you say, seek peace, when you have no peace?

You have been chosen to sit and teach the people, and you slander us, who are surely your brothers. For (as I said above) one mother Church has borne us, one God the Father has received us; and yet you place stumbling-blocks against us, commanding individuals not to greet us, not to receive any mark of respect from us. Consider the words of your pride; consider your sermons; consider your commands; review your deeds as well. There is none among you who does not mingle insults against us into his own sermons; who does not begin with one thing and expound another. You begin with the Lord's readings, and you unfold your sermons to our injury; you bring forth the Gospel, and you heap abuse upon an absent brother; you pour hatreds into the minds of your hearers, and by teaching you urge enmities: by saying all these things, you place stumbling-blocks against us.

Therefore to each one of you it has been said: sitting, you spoke against your brother, and against the son of your mother you placed a stumbling-block. Since God rebukes the sinner and reproves the one who sits, it is clear that this was said specifically to you, not to the people, who have no license to sit in the Church. You see, therefore, without any doubt, that it must be imputed to you when God says: sitting against the son of your mother, you placed stumbling-blocks. I have already proved so many times that we have one mother; nor can you deny it, you who place stumbling-blocks against us, while some among you bring forward readings that are not understood, so as to take away even that which is wont to be common to all, namely the duty of greeting.

For some of you yourselves deny the customary kiss in a perfunctory greeting; and many are taught not to say "hail" to any of us; and they seem to themselves to be commanded this from a reading, but one not understood, being ignorant of those of whom the Apostle said this: with such persons not even to eat; say not "hail" to them; for their word creeps like a cancer. He said this of heretics, whose teaching had begun in those times to be corrupt: who, by the subtle seduction of words, with diseases creeping obscurely, would corrupt the soundness of faith; such as Marcion, who, having become an apostate from a bishop, introduced two Gods and two Christs; such as Praxeas, who argued that the Father had suffered, not the Son; such as Valentinus, who endeavoured to strip Christ of flesh. Theirs is the word which had cancer for vexing the members of faith.

Such also is the word of the heretic Scorpianus, who denied that there ought to be martyrdoms; let them keep their poisons to themselves, and let not the recounting of them even lightly vex the simple understandings of hearers. It is his word, therefore, that must be avoided, lest it creep like a cancer. This was said also of Arius, who endeavoured to teach that the Son of God was made from no substances, not born of God: whose doctrine, had it not been scattered at the Council of Nicaea by three hundred and eighteen bishops, had entered the hearts of many like a cancer. This was said of Photinus, a heretic of the present time, who dared to say that the Son of God was merely a man, not God. This could also be said of you, because your word has brought no slight cancer into the minds and ears of some.

For your word is what you have for the sons of peace; when you say: you have perished, look behind you; your soul will perish; how long do you hold on?

Thus you have made penitents out of the faithful, thus you have put to death the honours in priests. Behold, your word too is that which creeps today like a cancer, so that greeting and common life may be forbidden. What could our word do of such a kind? We who by simple teaching hold fast the sons of peace: we do not seduce strangers, nor do we drive anyone out. It is therefore manifest that you daily place stumbling-blocks against us; and it would take long to run through all the ways in which you slander us, and all the things by which you place stumbling-blocks.

For also when it says: you saw a thief and you ran with him: of what matter do you think this was said? Surely not of a garment stolen away, or of a purse snatched, or of certain things which, having been taken, bring either gain or loss among men? Indeed these things too are forbidden: but in this reading God rebukes those thefts which have been done against himself. You ask what thefts have been done against God? They are found among you. The possession of God is the multitude of the faithful, from which the devil as a thief desires daily to steal something: he wishes to corrupt the morals of Christian men or women in some part, and if not the whole person, yet to snatch whatever he can from a person.

When you see such a thief doing violence against us, you have aided him by your works; for it escapes no one that every person who is born, even if born of Christian parents, cannot be without an unclean spirit, which must necessarily, before the saving washing, be expelled and separated from the person. This is what exorcism accomplishes, through which the unclean spirit is driven out, and put to flight into desert places. An empty house is made in the heart of the believer, a clean house is made: God enters and dwells there. As the Apostle says: you are the temple of God, and God dwells in you.

And when each person is full of God, from whom the devil as a thief strives to steal something: you, by rebaptizing, exorcize a faithful person, and say to God who dwells there: Accursed one, go out; so that what was said by God through the prophet Ezekiel may be fulfilled: and they cursed me among my people, for a handful of barley and a morsel of bread, to slay souls that ought not to die, while they announce vain seductions to my people. God therefore hears injuries not due to him, and abandons such a dwelling: and the person who had entered the Church full of God goes out an empty vessel.

The devil, who had wished as a thief to steal something, aided by your works, sees that the whole has become his, from which he had wished to take away a little: therefore God said of you: you saw a thief, and you ran with him: and indeed in the Gospel it is written thus: but when God has forsaken a person, an empty vessel remains; and the unclean spirit wandering through desert places, hungry, says, my house is empty: that is to say, He who had cast me out has himself been cast out: I will return there and dwell; and he brings with him seven others more wicked, and will dwell there; and the last state of that person will be worse than what the first was: that is: you saw a thief, and you ran with him, and with adulterers you placed your portion. He calls heretics adulterers, and their churches adulteresses; which Christ spurns and repudiates in the Song of Songs: as if to say, Why do you gather for me things that are not necessary?

My beloved is one, my bride is one, my dove is one, that is, the Catholic Church: in which you too could have been, but by rebaptizing you chose to have a portion among adulterers. And since it has been most clearly proved by divine testimony that you are sinners: it has also been shown that your own aids have fought against you: for you had brought in the Prophet as an aid, in whom it was read: the sacrifice of a sinner is as one who slaughters a dog. That you are now sinners, if there is any shame, acknowledge with grief.

Learn also this, whose voice it is: let not the oil of the sinner make my head fat: for you did not understand whose voice this is, namely Christ's, who had not yet been anointed, when he prayed that the oil of the sinner might not make his head fat. Not understanding this, you said: Because the prophet David feared the oil of the sinner. He who was singing had long since been anointed by Samuel; there was no reason for him to be anointed again: therefore it is the voice of Christ saying: let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head. These are prayers, not commands; they are desires, not precepts: for if it were a command, he would say: the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head. The voice therefore is that of the Son of God, fearing even then to incur the oil of a sinner, that is, of any human being; because no one is without sin except God alone.

Therefore his Son feared the oil of a human being, because it would have been unseemly for God to be anointed by a human being. Therefore he entreats the Father that he may not be anointed by a human being, but by the Lord Father himself. The Son therefore asks: let us see whether the Father consented. The Holy Spirit indicates and makes this manifest in, where he says to the Son himself: the Lord your God shall anoint you with the oil of gladness above your companions. The companions were the priests and kings of the Jews, each of whom is known to have been anointed by human beings. But because the Son was to be anointed by the Father, God by God, according to what the Son had asked, the Spirit announced the promise, and the Father fulfilled it at the Jordan: when the Son of God, our Saviour, came there to John, he was pointed out in these words: behold the Lamb of God: this is he who takes away the sins of the world.

He descended into the water, not because there was anything in God that needed to be cleansed, but the water had to precede the coming oil, to initiate and order the mysteries and to fulfil the baptism: washed, while he was held in the hands of John, the order of the mystery followed, and the Father fulfilled what the Son had asked and what the Holy Spirit had announced. Heaven was opened with God the Father anointing, the spiritual oil descended at once in the image of a dove, and settled upon his head, and poured oil upon him, whence he began to be called Christ, when he was anointed by God the Father; and lest the imposition of hands should seem to have been lacking to him, the voice of God was heard from the cloud saying: this is my Son, of whom I have thought well, hear him. This therefore is what was read: let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head.

Learn the reason of truth, brother Parmenianum, even if late, since you have now found the time to learn.

And that which you said was read in Solomon the prophet: that the sons of adulterers are unfinished, and that bastard shoots cannot put down deep roots: this can be understood as having been said also in a straightforward sense. Whence if you make it a figure, you have excused true adulterers. But grant that it was said figuratively: this was said of heretics, among whom there are false unions of the sacraments; and in whose assemblies iniquity is found; where the seeds have been corrupted to the destruction of faith. While Valentinus maintained that the Son of God existed in a phantom, not in flesh, he corrupted his own faith and that of his followers.

The seed of their birth has been destroyed, who did not believe that the Son of God was born in flesh of the virgin Mary, and suffered in the flesh.—For also that which you recall having read in the prophet Jeremiah, that heaven was horrified because the people of God had done two evil things, in that they forsook the fountain of living water and dug for themselves broken cisterns which cannot hold water, you have indeed read, but, as the matter stands, you were unwilling to understand it, composing everything with the zeal of accusation for the reproach of Catholics, and you strove greatly to bend it to your own judgment. For if you think that all things were so spoken through the prophets as to pertain to our own times, you have excused the Jews, concerning whom it is established that these things were said, who forsook the living God, the true God, the God who had bestowed benefits upon them: and made for themselves idols, that is, broken cisterns which cannot hold water.

In God, perennial majesty overflows, as in a spring which abounds with freely flowing veins: but idols, if they are not made, do not exist, and cisterns, if they are not dug, cannot have a capacity to hold; a cistern cannot be hollowed out without skill and tools; nor can an idol be made without a craftsman. In idols there is no natural power, but it is joined and applied by the error of men: a power is attributed to an idol which was not born there; this is the broken cistern, whose construction is flawed, so that it has no water of its own and cannot retain what it receives: so also an idol is nothing of itself, and while it is worshipped it is nothing. This is what God said, that his people had done two evils, because they forsook the fountain of living water and made for themselves dug-out and broken cisterns.

For the people of the Jews had forsaken the true water: they had not known the majesty of God: and they had followed the polluted religion of idols. This is what grieves God: this is what he says caused heaven to be horrified. For also through the prophet Isaiah the same grief of God is expressed, when he calls two elements to witness in this matter, saying: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: I have begotten and exalted children: but they have forsaken me. Why, brother Parmenianus, did you say nothing from this passage? Or is it because water is not named here? For you understand that with the zeal of accusation you so beat upon the law that wherever you read water written, you gathered it by certain tricks for the purpose of reproach, and by a kind of dragnet of malice woven from arguments, you drew to yourself all things that are good.

For what is your understanding of this chapter of Jeremiah, when God cries out that he has been forsaken, and that cisterns have been so dug: he is angry on his own behalf, not on behalf of his property. For the water of Baptism is a thing of God, not God himself: and if you think that they were forsaken when those who were baptized among us were with you, it would rightly appear that your deserters came over to us. It is therefore proved that what you said concerning the oil and the sacrifice of the sinner was said not against us but against yourselves.

The traitors of the law who they were and the authors of the schism, we showed in the first book by the clearest proofs, and in the second we demonstrated that the one true Catholic Church is with us: in the third we proved that the harsh deeds which are said to have been done pertain in no way to us, and we taught by divine judgment that you are the greater sinners. Now concerning Baptism something must be said in this place: in which matter the whole question that is now at issue consists, namely that your audacity violated baptism when you wished to repeat what Christ commanded to be done once. Which you yourself do not deny, brother Parmenianus, who at the beginning of your treatise said many things against yourselves and for us, which are ours. For you recalled, in comparison with baptism, that the flood happened once, and that there was one circumcision for the people of the Jews.

And although you treated these things at the beginning of your discourse, yet in the course of your treatise you became forgetful of them, by introducing two waters, and being about to speak of water as true and false, you foolishly laid the foundation of your discourse and arranged it: by weakening, you confirm the unity of holy baptism. Concerning Jewish circumcision, you wished as it were to lay a foundation, that the baptism of Christians had been foreshadowed in the circumcision of the Hebrews: you defended the Catholic position while attacking it. For indeed in the course of your treatise you professed to empty one, so that you might appear to fill the other. Outside the baptism of heretics, when you say one and another; although you strove to show them as different, you cannot deny that there are two; and while you strive to take away one of them, you labored so as to appear to make the second into a kind of first.

Now circumcision was sent ahead before the coming of baptism as a figure, and you argued that among Christians there are two waters: therefore show also among the Jews two circumcisions; one better, the other worse. If you seek this, you will not be able to find it: the lineage of Abraham, by which the Jews are reckoned, glories in being marked with this seal: therefore such must the truth that follows be, as the image of it that was sent ahead. For also God, who wished to show that the singular thing must come after in the ensuing truth; did not wish anything to be taken from the ear, nor from the finger; but that part of the body was chosen from which the peritome once removed would make in them a saving sign, which cannot be done again. For done once it preserves salvation: if done again, it can bring destruction: so also the baptism of Christians, accomplished in the Trinity, confers grace: if repeated, it causes the loss of life.

What then pleased you, brother Parmenianus, to set forth a singular thing, and against it to compare two baptisms, however different, one true and the other false? For so you afterwards argued, that there are two waters, claiming one true for yourselves and wishing to ascribe the other as false to us. After this you also made mention of the Flood: it was indeed an image of baptism, so that the whole world being defiled, with sinners submerged, might be cleansed to its former face by the intervention of a washing. But since you were afterwards going to say that outside the diseased springs of heretics there is also another water, that is, a false one, over against the true: why did you wish to recall the Flood (which happened once)? If it is so, first show two arks, even if not alike, and two doves unlike each other, carrying different branches in their mouths, if you are going to prove a true and a false water.

Therefore that water alone is true which is founded not on place, not on person, but on the Trinity: and because you said that there is also a false water, learn also this, where you will be able to find it: with Praxeas, the Patripassian, who denies the Son entirely, and contends that the Father suffered. And since the Son of God is truth, as he himself testifies saying: I am the door, and the way and the truth: therefore the Son of God is truth; where he himself is not, there is falsehood: since with the Patripassian the Son is not present, truth is not present; and where truth is not, there is the false water. Therefore cease, even if late, to fabricate crimes; and what has been said against the Patripassians, do not transfer to Catholics.

Now since it has been clearly shown that what you said concerning the flood and circumcision could have been said by us and on your behalf: it follows to show how you spoke the praise of baptism in such a way that in it there is much for us and for you, yet something against you: on behalf of both is that which is common to both us and you: and therefore also to you, because you come from us. Finally, both among you and among us there is one ecclesiastical manner of life, common readings, the same faith, the same sacraments of faith, the same mysteries. You have therefore rightly praised baptism: for who among the faithful does not know that singular baptism is the life of virtues, the death of sins, an immortal birth, the attainment of the heavenly kingdom, the harbor of innocence, the shipwreck (as you yourself also said) of sins. These things are bestowed upon each believer not by the minister of the same thing, but by the faith of the believer and the Trinity.

Then you ask, what did you say in the praise of baptism against yourselves? Hear; but first you must confess what none of you will be able to deny. For you say that the Trinity is held for nothing where your presence has not been in attendance. If you detract from us, at least reverence the Lord, who is first in the Trinity: who together with the Son and the Holy Spirit works and accomplishes all things, even there where no human person has been present. But you, brother Parmenianus, in the praise of water said from the reading of Genesis, that the waters first brought forth living souls: could they by their own power have generated them? Was not the whole Trinity also present there? Assuredly God the Father was also there, who deigned to command, who said: let the waters bring forth swimming things, flying things.

But if what was done would have been done without one operating, God would have said: bring forth, O waters: therefore the Son of God was there who was operating: the Holy Spirit was there, as it is read: and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. I see nothing fourth there, nothing less than three; and yet what the Trinity wrought was born: and you were not there: or if without you the Trinity ought to be permitted nothing, call the fish back to their origin: now plunge the flying birds into the waves, if the Trinity ought to operate nothing in your absence.

Since therefore you have said both that there was one flood, and that circumcision cannot be repeated; and we have taught that the heavenly gift is conferred on each believer by the Trinity, not by man: what seemed good to you, not after us, but after the Trinity, to double baptism? Concerning the sacrament of which no slight controversy has arisen, and it is disputed whether after the Trinity it is lawful to do this again in the same Trinity. You say it is lawful: we say it is not lawful: between your "it is lawful" and our "it is not lawful," the souls of the peoples waver and are tossed about. Let no one believe you, let no one believe us: we are all contentious men. Judges must be sought: if they are Christians, they cannot be provided from either side; because truth is impeded by partisan zeal.

A judge must be sought from outside: if a pagan, he cannot know Christian secrets: if a Jew, he is an enemy of Christian baptism: therefore on earth no judgment in this matter will be able to be found; a judge must be sought from heaven. But why do we knock at heaven, when we have here in the Gospel a testament? Because in this place earthly things can rightly be compared to heavenly: such is the case of any man who, having numerous sons, as long as the father is present, himself commands each one; a testament is not yet necessary: so also Christ, as long as he was present on earth (although he is not absent even now), commanded the Apostles whatever was necessary for the time.

But just as an earthly father, when he feels himself on the border of death, fearing lest after his death, peace being broken, the brothers should quarrel, calls in witnesses and transfers his will from his dying breast into tablets that will endure long: and if a dispute has arisen among the brothers, one does not go to the tomb, but the testament is sought: and he who rests in the tomb speaks silently from the tablets. He who is living, whose testament it is, is in heaven: therefore his will, as in a testament, so let it be sought in the Gospel. For indeed from his foreknowledge, Christ had already foreseen what you are now doing. Finally, when he was washing the feet of his disciples, the Son of God said thus to Peter: what I do, you do not know; but you shall know hereafter. By saying, you shall know hereafter, he was designating these times: therefore among the other clauses of the Testament, he established this clause concerning water.

When he was washing the feet of the Disciples, the others being silent, if Peter also had been silent, he would have made only a form of humility, he would have pronounced nothing concerning the sacrament of baptism. But when Peter refuses, and did not permit his feet to be washed, Christ denies him the kingdom, unless he had received the service. But when mention was made of the heavenly kingdom, to what part of the body the service was being sought, he offered his whole body for washing.

Now attend, all you crowds, and each one of the Christian peoples: learn what is lawful: while Peter challenges, Christ teaches: let him who doubts, learn: for it is the voice of Christ: he who has been washed once has no need to wash again, because he is wholly clean: and he pronounced concerning that washing which he had commanded to be celebrated from the Trinity: not concerning that of the Jews or heretics, who, while they wash, make dirty; but concerning the holy water which flows from the fountains of three names. For thus the Lord himself commanded, saying: go, baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Concerning this washing he said: he who has been washed once has no need to wash again.

He who said once, forbade it to be done again: and he spoke of the thing, not of the person; for if there were a distinction, he would say: he who has once been well washed; but since he did not add the word, well, he indicates that whatever has been done in the Trinity is well done. Hence it is that we receive those coming from you simply. When he says: he has no need to wash again, this sentence is general, not particular; for if these words were said to Peter, Christ would say: because you have been washed once, you have no need to wash again: therefore as often as someone baptized by you wishes to make the passage to us, we receive him coming with this teaching and example in all simplicity.

For far be it from us ever to exorcize a sound believer: far be it from us to call back one already washed to the font: far be it from us to sin against the Holy Spirit; to which crime pardon is denied in the present and future age: far be it from us to repeat what is once done, or to double what is one: for thus it is written, the Apostle saying: one God, one Christ, one faith, one washing. Finally you, who contend as it were willingly to double baptism, if you give another baptism, give another faith; if you give another faith, give also another Christ; if you give another Christ, give another God. You cannot deny that God is one, lest you fall into the pits of Marcion: therefore God is one; from one God there is one Christ: he who is rebaptized was already a Christian: how can he be called a Christian again?

One faith in this place is separated, as the unique faith, from the errors of heretics and from their varied faith: it is also prescribed against you, who after once do it again, placing everything in the endowments, nothing in the sacraments; since this name of faith pertains to the one believing, not to the one acting: for to whatever questioner he who has believed in God has believed: and after his one "I believe," you demand another "I believe." Then follows one baptism; and because what is one is holy, through which it is one: not only is it separated from the profane and sacrilegious baptisms of heretics, but what is one must not be doubled, nor what is once done repeated.

In the celebration of this sacrament of baptism, it is established that there are three kinds, which you also will be able neither to increase, nor to diminish, nor to pass over. The first kind is in the Trinity; the second, in the one believing; the third, in the one acting: but the individual kinds are not to be weighed with equal balance: for I see two as necessary, and one as it were necessary: the Trinity holds the principal place, without which the thing itself cannot be accomplished: faith of the believer follows this: now the person of the one acting is adjacent, which cannot be of like authority.

The first two remain always unchangeable and unmoved: for the Trinity is always itself: faith in individuals is one: both always retain their force. But the person of the one acting is understood to be unable to be equal to the two prior kinds, for the reason that it alone appears to be mutable. Between us and you, you wish there to be a distinction of the same person; and esteeming yourselves more holy, you do not hesitate to set your pride before the Trinity: since the person of the one acting can be changed, the Trinity cannot be changed: and since baptism ought to be desired by those receiving it, you propose that you are to be desired: since you are among those acting, show what place you hold in the same mystery, and whether you can be of the same body.

Baptism has a unique name; to which belongs a proper body; to which body there are certain members: to which nothing can be added, nor taken away; among which members if a worker is to be chosen, the whole body pertains to the one acting. All these members of this body are always and at once together, and cannot be changed: but workers are changed daily in places, and times, and persons. For there is not one man who always or everywhere baptizes. In this work there were others long ago; now there are others; afterwards there will be others: workers can be changed, sacraments cannot be changed. Since therefore you see that all who baptize are workers, not lords, and that the sacraments are holy of themselves, not through men, what is it that you claim so much for yourselves? What is it that you strive to exclude God from his gifts? Grant to God to bestow what is his. For that gift which is divine cannot be given by man.

If you think thus, you strive to make void the voices of the Prophets and the promises of God, by which it is proved that God washes, not man. Against you stands David the Prophet, who says: You shall wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow: likewise in the same psalm: God, wash me from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin: wash me, he said; he did not say, choose through whom I may be washed: and Isaiah the prophet spoke thus: because the Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Sion. We proved in the third book that Sion is the Church: therefore God washes the sons and daughters of the Church. He did not say: they shall wash, who think themselves holy. Deign to let even the prophets overcome you, or thus acknowledge that it is not man who washes, but God. As long as you say: he who does not have what to give, how does he give?

See that the Lord is the giver: see that God cleanses each one: for the filth and stains of the mind cannot be washed away except by God who is the maker of that same mind. Or if you think that the washing is yours, say what the mind itself is like; which is washed through the body; or what form it has; or in what place it dwells in man: this is denied to man to know. Therefore how do you think that you wash, you who do not know what it is that you wash? It is God's to cleanse, not man's: for he himself through the prophet Isaiah promised that he would wash, when he said: and if your sins shall be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow. I will make white, he said, not I will cause to be made white. If God promised this, why do you wish to render what you are permitted neither to promise, nor to render, nor to have?

Behold in Isaiah God promised to make white those affected by sins, not through man. Return to the Gospel: see what Christ promised for the salvation of the human race: to whom, when the Samaritan woman refused water, then it was said by the Son of God, which prescribes against your presumptions: the water, he said, which I give, whoever drinks shall not thirst for ever. The water which I give, he said: he did not say, which those shall give who think themselves holy, as you seem to yourselves: but he said that he himself is the giver. He therefore is the one who gives: what is given is his; what is it that you strive to claim for yourselves with all importunity?

Since John the Baptist, who had come as the forerunner of the Saviour, while baptizing many in repentance and remission of sins, announced that the Son of God was to come—whose words are these: behold, he comes who will baptize you—and yet we do not read that after John, Christ rebaptized anyone: therefore what he said, who will baptize you, Christ coming at that time baptized after John. It had been promised for our times that he himself would give what is given today; according to what he says: the water that I give, whoever drinks it shall not thirst forever. For even the disciples of John, when they said to their master: behold, he whom you baptized—he was indeed baptizing; but through the hands of the Apostles, to whom he had given the laws of baptism. Finally it is read in another place: for he himself baptized no one, but his disciples did.

In this matter we are all his disciples, so that we may do the work, while he gives who promised that he would give: and yet when John was baptizing countless thousands of men, the servant was already working with Christ present, and the Lord was at leisure before he gave the form of baptizing. After no small time had passed, thousands of men were baptized in repentance and remission of sins. But no one had been baptized in the Trinity: no one had yet known Christ: no one had heard that there was a Holy Spirit. But when the fullness of time came, at a fixed time the Son of God gave the laws of baptism; and gave the way by which one might go to the kingdom of heaven: even then he commanded, saying: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

From that day onward, what was commanded ought to have been done: before that time he was unwilling to correct what had been done, lest he give license for rebaptizing; although the baptism of John was one thing, and that of Christ is another. The baptism of John before the law he willed to be counted as full, which was not full: and yet the above-mentioned thousands of men, because they had believed in God, although they were ignorant of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, he could not deny the kingdom of heaven to them. Hence is the word of the Son of God saying: from the days of John until now, the kingdom of God suffers violence; and those who do violence seize it: therefore he said, they do violence, because John was still baptizing.

Finally, because one time was before the precepts, another after the precepts: those who after the precepts were baptized in the name of the Saviour, entered the kingdom by the laws; those who before the precepts did violence without the law, were not excluded. Therefore before the precepts, the baptism of John, though it was imperfect, was judged as perfect by him whom no one judges: and as though a certain fixed boundary of the commandment had been set between the preceding and the following times: when at Ephesus certain persons were being baptized in the baptism of John after the precepts, the most blessed Paul, seeing them, asked whether they had received the Holy Spirit? They told him they did not know whether there was a Holy Spirit, and he told them that after the baptism of John they should receive the Holy Spirit.

For they had been baptized in the same manner as many had been baptized by John. But those who were baptized before the law pertained to indulgence: because he who grants indulgence had been present; those who had not been bound by laws were not entirely guilty. But those who at Ephesus after the law are read to have been baptized with the baptism of John, had erred after the laws in the sacrament: because the baptism of the Lord had already been introduced, and that of the servant had been excluded. And therefore, because after the divine commandments they ought to have entered the kingdom by the laws, not by violence: for Christ had already fixed the boundary of time by saying: from the days of John until now. After that "now" what had been permitted to be done was no longer permitted: wherefore do not flatter yourselves concerning the saying of the Apostle Paul, who did not inquire after the person of the worker, but after the matter: to whom the matter, not the person, was displeasing.

Finally he commanded the baptism of the Saviour, so that those who did not know might learn, because they had received not that but another. But what do you change? If you were able to change the matter, you would have acted rightly: if, however, you have done something according to the law. Paul said, in what baptism were you baptized? And they said to him, John's: he persuaded them to receive the baptism of Christ. You do not say what you received, but from whom you received it: and you attack the persons of men, and wish to repeat what has been done once: those who had been baptized at Ephesus had believed in repentance and remission of sins: it was rightly said to them that they should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But what do you change in men who have already declared that they believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?

Whether you ask about the same thing or about something else: you must necessarily be convicted of sinning: whether you ask about that which has not been commanded; or wish to do what has already been done.

I return now to that saying of yours in which you say: "he who does not have what he gives, how does he give it?" Whence does this saying come: from what reading can it be cited? It is a saying gathered from the street, not read from a book: "he who does not have what he gives, how does he give it?" These words are not written in the law; for if (as you wish) a man gives, God is idle; and if God is idle, and everything that is to be given is with you, let the turning be to you; let those whom you baptize be baptized in your name. Be ashamed before the blessed Paul crying out, and declaring his own thanksgiving: were you baptized in my name?

He rejoices that he baptized only two persons and one household: and you strive to rebaptize whole peoples; and you rejoice that you have sinned and are sinning, saying: "what does he give, who does not have what he gives?" He in whom one believes, himself gives what is believed, not he through whom one believes. Finally, under John an infinite multitude of men was baptized: prove that John either received or possessed what he gave. But while he was working, God was giving, who in giving does not diminish; and now while all are working, the works are human, but the gifts are God's.

How ridiculous now is that which is always heard from you as though to your glory: "this gift of baptism belongs to the giver, not to the receiver:" and would that you said this of God, who is the giver of this thing. But what is foolish, you say that you are the givers. If it is so, let both us and you each hold a pagan: you who call yourselves holy, ask him whom you hold whether he will renounce the devil and believe in the Lord; and let him say, I will not. On the other hand, let us sinners (as you wish) ask another pagan whether he will renounce the devil and believe in God, and let him say, I renounce and I believe; then let you baptize the unwilling one, and us the willing one: let it be declared which of them can belong to the grace of God. Certainly without doubt it is he who believes, not he for whose will (as you say) your holiness substitutes.

Recognize, even if late, that you are workers: or if the matter itself resides in the worker and not in itself, let certain men claim this for themselves in their own crafts, so that since you thus provoke us, we may compare even human crafts to divine things: when a precious color is applied, nature is often transformed, while by the preparation the white fleece turns purple: thus white wool passes into royal purple, as a catechumen passes into a believer: certainly while it begins to be what it was not, it ceases to be what it had been. Wool both changes its color and its name: and a man both changes his designation and his mind. The effects must be considered, the efficient causes must be examined.

You say that it was given by you, that a man has been made a believer: if this is entirely yours, let the craftsman who works with purple also say that he holds the precious color in his hands, and does not procure precious pigments from the Ocean, unknown to many, by which the dyed fleeces are advanced through their color into admirable dignity: that without the admixture of the blood of the fish, he produces purple by touch alone. If therefore that craftsman cannot give color by touch alone, so neither can the worker of baptism give anything from himself without the Trinity. Such also is this matter, about which the contest now is. For in what the nations were to be baptized was commanded by the Saviour: through whom they were to be baptized was distinguished by no exception. The Apostle did not say: you do it, let others not do it: whoever shall have baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has fulfilled the work of the Apostles.

Finally it is read in the Gospel, John saying: Master, we saw a certain man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us: thus Christ says: do not forbid him: for he who is not against you is for you. For even to them it was so commanded, that the work should be theirs, the sanctification that of the Trinity; and that they should not baptize in their own name; but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: therefore it is the name that sanctifies, not the work. Understand, even if late, that you are workers, not lords: and if the Church is a vineyard, and men are the vines and the ordained cultivators, why do you rush into the lordship of the father of the household? Why do you claim for yourselves what belongs to God? Why do you wish everything to be yours, where you cannot even have a part?

For on account of your swelling, with which you swell against us, the most blessed Paul rebukes the Corinthians: he conforms the conduct of our time to himself and Apollo: let no one, he says, be puffed up against another. To show that this whole sacrament of baptism belongs to God, so that the worker claims nothing for himself therein, he speaks thus: I indeed planted: that is, I made a catechumen from a pagan: Apollo watered: that is, he baptized the catechumen. But so that what was planted and watered might grow, God brought it about.

For even anyone today wishing to cultivate his vineyard hires a worker for an agreed wage; who with bent back and sweating sides makes hollows in the earth, where he may place chosen cuttings, and leads water over the trodden trenches: he can dig the trench and place the cuttings; he can lead in the water; he cannot command it to hold: for it belongs to God alone to draw from the pith of the shoots roots that coalesce into the earth, and to call forth the growth of leaves from budding eyes. Finally the blessed Apostle Paul, to restrain your presumption and swelling, lest the worker of baptism should think himself to have lordship, or to claim for himself any portion of so great a gift; indicating that the whole belongs to God, speaks thus: neither he who plants, nor he who waters, is anything; but God alone, who brings to growth.

You are among the workers who enter with the rising sun: that is, at the end of the age you can contend with us about wages on the day of retribution: do not claim for yourselves the lordship of majesty. For if it is so, let the ministers also claim for themselves who serve at the Lord's table, that thanksgiving be rendered to them by the guests for the hospitality shown. The voice of Christ is that of one inviting: Come, blessed of my Father: the nations come to grace; he who deigned to invite provides; the throng of servants performs the ministry: thanks are to be rendered not to those who serve, but to him who feeds. You, though you are ministers, shamelessly claim for yourselves the entire lordship of the banquet; while the most blessed Paul confesses himself and the rest to be servants with humility: lest anyone should think that hope was to be placed in the Apostles or Bishops alone, he speaks thus: for what is Paul, or what is Apollo?

Surely ministers of him in whom you believed: therefore in all who serve there is not lordship, but ministry. You see therefore now, brother Parmenianus, from the three kinds mentioned above, that the first of them, the tripartite one, is immovable, unconquered, and unchangeable: but the person of the worker is temporary.

It remains now to say something about the merit of the believer: whose is the faith which the Son of God placed before both His holiness and His majesty; for you cannot be holier than Christ is: when that woman came to Him, whose daughter was dead, and asked that she be raised; He promised nothing from His own power; but afterwards He inquires about another's faith, so that if the woman believed, the daughter might rise on account of the mother's belief; if she did not believe, the power of the Son of God would rest idle. The woman is questioned, she answered that she believed it possible for what she asked to be done. She is bidden to go, the woman returns to her house, she finds the girl alive whom she had left dead.

She does not rush to kisses, she does not hasten to embraces; but she returns to give thanks to the Saviour: and that the Son of God might show that He had been at leisure, that faith alone had wrought the work: Go, He said, woman, in peace, thy faith hath saved thee. Where now is what you say, that it belongs to the giver, not to the receiver? What do you think also of the faith of the Centurion? Whose servant, when he was gravely ill, he besought the Saviour to drive death away from him. Christ was already coming to the perishing servant; the Centurion so detained Him that, confessing the unworthiness of his roof, that the Son of God ought not to enter it wholly, but to send His power, by which the servant, death being put to flight, might be able to revive. Not the Centurion's courage, not his wisdom was praised, but his faith: and the servant was healed in that same hour. Surely it belongs to the giver, not to the receiver.

There are many such things in the Gospel concerning perfect faith, but three testimonies of faith at least must be completed. What do you think also of that woman who, from the secret cause of women's ailments, had suffered for twelve years, and had spent all her substance on physicians: when she saw such great miracles being performed by the Son of God, she came forward into the crowd, she sees the physician, she sees also the people: pain compelled her to seek a remedy: shame prevented her from declaring her cause before men. Silent faith found a counsel: I will put forth my hand, she said, and touch the hem of this garment, and I shall be made whole. With no one seeing, amid the crowds, she put forth her hand, she touched, and was healed; nor did she dare to declare what she had not dared to ask. But lest the fruit of faith should seem to lie hidden among those who knew it not; the Saviour said thus: Who touched me?

His disciples marvelled, saying: The crowds press upon thee; thou sayest, Who touched me? And Christ: Who, I say, touched me? I perceived that power had gone out from me. So the woman confessed that she had touched Him, and was healed. A little before, a mother had asked for her daughter, a Centurion had entreated for his servant: in this case neither did the woman ask, nor did Christ promise; but faith presumed as much as it demanded: surely it belongs to the giver, not to the receiver.

For as to the fact that, to amplify your treatises, brother Parmenianus, you wished to describe at length Naaman the Syrian, as though he were some untimely mass of the hardest nascent wounds, what does this have to do with the present case? You would say this well, and could rightly make use of a long discourse: if you were to find some catechumen of very rough morals, who bore a very hard mind; who refused to receive the most gentle grace of the saving water. You would well show the renewal of such a man in the words spoken by you: you would well demonstrate that the aged natural hardness could be changed and softened into infant flesh. But in this matter which is being treated between the parties at the present time, to what purpose has such a reading been recalled by you? In which it is not read that anyone had washed that aforementioned leprous Syrian before, either by the command of Elisha, so that he might deservedly be washed again and better.

And even if this were so, not even thus would there occur to you something you could rightly imitate. For it is not read that he had previously washed in the rivers of Syria, or had been washed by anyone, and had gained nothing. For even if this were read, it would pertain not to the praise of Elisha, (who did not wash him, but gave counsel,) but to the glory of the Jordan, that the first grace had come to that man in that river, in which afterwards under John through confession unto repentance the sins of the peoples were to die.

Finally, what is that part of your treatise concerning the heavenly wedding, where, cutting off the hope of things to come, you placed everything in the present time by saying that he who had deceived your doorkeepers and ministers had been cast out from your fellowship, so that he might be sent forth from the communion of the faithful with reproach? If it is so, there is nothing for faith to hope; nothing for the resurrection to present; nothing further to be awaited in the heavens; nothing for that heavenly King and householder God to acknowledge at His banquet, when He rejoices in the presence of many, and is saddened by the absence of some. And when He says that many are called but few chosen; there will be nothing for Him to be angry about with one who has not the wedding garment, since the Son of God Himself Christ is the bridegroom: and the garment and the tunic floating in the water, which clothes many and awaits countless more, and does not fail by clothing.

But lest anyone should say that I have rashly called the Son of God a garment, let him read the Apostle saying: As many of you as have been baptized in the name of Christ have put on Christ. O garment ever one and unchangeable! Which fittingly clothes all ages and forms, and is not wrinkled on infants, nor stretched on the young, nor changed on women. That day will surely come when the heavenly wedding shall begin to be celebrated: there those who have preserved the singular baptism will recline in security. For whosoever shall have consented to be rebaptized by you, to such a man the resurrection is not denied, because he believed in the resurrection of the flesh; he shall indeed rise, but naked.

But because he permitted himself to be stripped of the wedding garment by you, he shall hear this voice of the householder: Friend, that is to say, I acknowledge thee; once thou hadst renounced the Devil, and hadst turned to me; and I had given thee the wedding garment: why hast thou come thus, not having what I gave thee? That is to say: why hast thou not what I gave thee? For no one can be angry with one who does not have a thing that was not given. Thou hadst received the wedding garment among these, and thou alone dost not have it? Why hast thou come naked and in mourning? Who hath stripped thee of thy spoils? What fraudulent jaws didst thou enter? What robbers didst thou encounter? As many as shall come in such a state will have no place at that banquet.

And that I may at last make an end, I believe this also to suffice; even if we were to say so many proofs not at all: in your absence, a thousand have been baptized by word alone: of these, a hundred have died by their own lot. Withhold your hands for a little while from this crime. Your holiness, as you say, let it first raise up the buried; let it correct, if it can, the dead; and so let it return to the living. If you cannot raise the dead, why do you attempt to lay hands on the living? Lest there be fulfilled what God spoke through the Prophet Ezekiel, saying: that they might slay the souls that should not die.

As it seems to me, it has been clearly demonstrated what you have done wickedly in the divine sacraments.

Now those things must be shown which you will be utterly unable to deny that you have done cruelly and foolishly. For what is so sacrilegious as to break, scrape, or remove the altars of God (upon which you yourselves also once offered) upon which both the vows of the people and the members of Christ have been carried: whereat God Almighty has been invoked: whereat, when besought, the Holy Spirit has descended: whence by many both the pledge of eternal salvation, and the safeguard of faith, and the hope of resurrection have been received. The altars, I say, upon which the Saviour commanded that the gifts of brotherhood should not be placed, unless they were founded in peace: Lay down, He said, thy gift before the altar, and go first, be reconciled with thy brother, that the priest may be able to offer for thee. For what is the altar, but the seat both of the body and of the blood of Christ? All these things your fury has either scraped, or broken, or removed.

This inexpiable wickedness, therefore, if it proceeded from some reason, ought to have been done in one way. But, as I reckon, in one place the abundance of wood commanded breaking, while in others the scarcity of wood commanded the scraping of the altars; and that others should remove them, a measure of shame in part persuaded: yet everywhere it is wickedness, since you laid sacrilegious and impious hands upon so great a thing. Why should I recount the hired multitude of the abandoned, and the wine given as the reward of crime? Which, that it might be drunk with unclean mouth in sacrilegious draughts, a hot drink was made from the fragments of the altars. If in the judgment of your malice we seemed foul to you, what had God done to you, who was accustomed to be invoked there? What had Christ offended you, whose body and blood dwelt there at appointed moments?

What had you yourselves also offended, that you should break those altars upon which, before us, for long stretches of time, you offered holily (as you suppose)? While you impiously persecute our hands there where the body of Christ dwelt, you have struck your own as well. In this manner you have imitated the Jews: they laid hands on Christ on the cross: by you He was struck upon the altar. If you wished to assail the Catholics there, you would at least spare your own ancient offerings there: there thou art found proud in the present, where once thou didst offer in humility: there thou sinnest willingly, where thou wast accustomed to pray for the sins of many. By doing this you have willingly entered the number of sacrilegious priests, made partners in the crimes of the profane, concerning whom the Prophet Elijah lays complaint before the Lord: for he spoke in those words by which you also have deserved to be accused by him among others: Lord, he said, they have thrown down thine altars.

When he says thine, he indicates that it is the property of God, where anything has been offered to God by anyone. It would have sufficed for your madness that you tore apart the members of the Church; that you divided the peoples of God, long since placed in unity, by your seductions. Amid all these things you might at least have spared the altars. Why did you break along with the altars themselves the vows and desires of men? For from thence the prayer of the people was accustomed to ascend to the ears of God: why did you cut off the way for prayers? And lest the supplication might have its accustomed ascent to God, you laboured with impious hand to withdraw, as it were, the stairway? And yet, though the conspiracy of you all be one, in this matter you have sinned differently with similar error.

If it sufficed to remove, it was not lawful to break: if it was necessary to break, it was a sin to have scraped: for if it was not lawful, as it was agreed among you, he who broke seems rightly to have broken. Now he is guilty who preserved the greater part by scraping. What is this new and foolish wisdom, to seek novelty in the depths of antiquity, and, removing as it were a certain outer skin of the body, to seek as it were another being in the hidden body? A gift which belongs to itself and is wholly in itself, which is one, when something has been taken from it, can be diminished, but cannot be changed. Thou hast indeed scraped what seemed good to thee: but what thou hatest is still there. What of the fact that if you conspired thus, that what has been touched by us in the name of God in that very ministry should seem unclean?

What faithful person does not know that in the performance of the mysteries the very wood is covered with linen? In the midst of the sacraments themselves the veil could be touched, not the wood; or if veils can be penetrated by touch, then the wood also is penetrated; if the wood can be penetrated, the earth also is penetrated; if the wood is scraped by you, let the earth beneath also be dug up, make a deep pit, while you seek purity according to your own judgment. But take care lest you come to the underworld, and find there Core, Dathan and Abiron the schismatics, that is, your own masters. Therefore it is established that you both broke and scraped the altars: what is it that your fury then seemed, as it were, to grow faint in this matter? For we see that you afterwards changed your counsel, and that altars are no longer broken or scraped by you, but only removed.

If this sufficed, those things which were previously done by you also indicate on your part that they ought never to have been done.

Yet this monstrous crime was doubled by you, when you also broke the chalices, the bearers of Christ's blood: whose form you melted back into masses, procuring payment at impious markets, for which payment you were unwilling to choose even buyers: greedy, in that you sold them; sacrilegious, in that you sold them without consideration. You also suffered your hands to be burned, with which hands you had previously handled those same chalices before us. When you ordered that thing to be sold everywhere, perhaps filthy women bought them for their own uses, pagans bought them, to make vessels in which they might burn incense to their idols. O unspeakable wickedness! O unheard-of crime! To take from God what you bestow upon idols; to withdraw from Christ what profits sacrilege.

But I see that in this place you falsely stir up ill-will against us, wishing to take refuge in the Prophet Haggai, where it is written: Whatsoever the unclean hath touched shall be unclean. When spite intervenes, it is easy for the angry to hurl reproach; but whenever a charge is pressed, clear proof is always necessary. For which of us entered the temples? Who saw sacred things amid sacrilege? Men can be polluted by smoke, by fumes, by sacrileges, by sacrifices, by blood: but in this case who entered a temple? Who burned incense to idols? Who was stained by foul fumes? Who witnessed the shedding of the blood either of an unclean beast or of a man? Whom do you prove to have lent counsel to any crime? Convict even one Bishop of complicity in any wickedness, if you can. You harbour suspicion concerning some Primate or other, who was said to have been walking about at that same time. Suspicion is not a sufficient charge. Who accused him? Who convicted him?

Where did he blush or show confusion? Keep your suspicions for yourselves. Therefore, as we said above, in this case we have shown that whatever could be done harshly, when that matter is traced back to its origin, pertains to your leaders; whence is it that you call Catholics polluted? Is it because we followed the will and command of God, by loving peace, by communicating with the whole world, united with the Easterns: where Christ was born according to his human nature; where his holy footsteps were imprinted; where the feet of those who came to worship walked; where so many and so great miracles were wrought by the Son of God himself; where so many apostles accompanied him; where is the sevenfold Church, from which you have been cut off, and which you not only do not mourn, but in some manner rejoice over.

Because we loved the unity pleasing to God, you call us polluted: because we gave assent to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Thessalonians, and joined ourselves in communion with them, you call us polluted: because we do not read clandestine lessons with you, you call us polluted: or deny, if you can, that you read lessons belonging to others. Why do you dare to read the Epistles written to the Corinthians, you who were unwilling to communicate with the Corinthians? Why do you recite what was written to the Galatians, to the Thessalonians, in whose communion you are not? Since all these things are established to be so, understand that you have been cut off from the holy Church, and that we are not polluted. Where then is that by which you think the prophet Haggai can come to your aid? Therefore the altars and the aforesaid vessels had long been both in your hands and in ours: if you defame our hands, why do you there condemn your own as well?

But you say it has been read: What the unclean hath touched is unclean: grant that someone is unclean, so that things touched by him may be seen to be polluted: even if he alone has touched them, and the invocation of the name of God does not intervene, what the unclean hath touched will be unclean, they can be defiled if God be passed over in silence. For if there be invocation of the name of God, that very invocation sanctifies even what seemed to be polluted. Indeed, when two hundred and fifty censers, which were being carried by the hands of the sacrilegious and sinful, while the earth swallowed up those same sinners, the censers shaken from their hands remained.

And while Aaron the holy priest was uncertain what to do with them, he heard the voice of God saying: Take, Aaron, these vessels, and make plates of them, and place them at the corners of the ark of the testament of the Lord, for although those who carried them have sinned, yet those vessels are holy, because my name was invoked upon them, saith God: and certainly to carry is more than to touch. Therefore it now clearly appears that something can be sanctified by the invocation of the name of God, even if a sinner invokes God; for touch cannot have as great a power as the invocation of the divine name: for even you, who presume upon your own holiness, say whether touch or invocation sanctifies; surely invocation, not touch: or if you presume upon touch alone, touch a plank, a stone, a garment: let us see whether they can be holy, if God be passed over in silence.

How foolish, how vain is that which you wished to recall to your will and, as it were, to your dignity, that virgins of God should learn to do penance: that those who had long since made their profession, and had placed signs of their will upon their heads, should afterwards, at your command, change them; that they should cast off one kind of headband and receive another.

First tell us, where have you been given any command concerning headbands? For virginity is a matter of will, not of necessity. Indeed that innkeeper, the apostle Paul, to whom the people wounded by the blows of sins was entrusted, had received two pence which he had spent, namely the two testaments; these he expended through teaching as a kind of provision; he taught how Christians who are married ought to live: when he was asked what he commanded concerning virgins, he replied that nothing had been commanded. He confessed that he had expended the two testaments, that is, the two pence: the provision was in a manner exhausted; but because he who had entrusted the wounded man had promised to repay whatever more he should spend on his care, after expending the two pence, Paul dispenses not a precept but a counsel toward virginity; he neither hinders those who are willing, nor drives or compels those who are unwilling: He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well: and he that giveth her not doeth better.

These are words of counsel: nor are any precepts joined to them, either of what wool the headband should be made, or with what purple it should be embroidered: for by such cloth virginity cannot be aided: the ardours of the soul, which youth sometimes kindles, are not restrained thereby: the mind, which is sometimes weighed down by the burdens of desires, is not relieved thereby. For if it were so, not one but many headbands would be placed upon the virgin's head, so that as often as the desires of the flesh pricked the soul, the number of headbands might fight against the assault upon the mind. The thing was devised as a sign upon the head, not as a remedy for chastity. Indeed such a cloth can go astray, and be gnawed, and perish; and yet virginity, if it be unimpaired, can be safe without a headband.

This is a spiritual kind of marriage: they had come to the nuptials of the Bridegroom by their own will and profession; and to show that they had renounced worldly marriage, and were joined to a spiritual Spouse, they had loosed their hair, they had already celebrated the heavenly nuptials. What is it that you compelled them to loose their hair again? What, I say, is it that a second profession was exacted from them through you? Who is the other spiritual Spouse, to whom they should be married again? When did he to whom they were married die, that they should marry again? You bared anew heads already veiled, from which you removed the tokens of their profession, which seem to have been devised against ravishers or suitors. In the headband there is a token of will, not an aid to chastity: so that he who was seeking her in betrothal might persist no longer in his suit, or lest a ravisher dare to violate her: it is therefore a sign, not a sacrament of virginity.

Therefore virgins of this kind, who had already been spiritually married, you compelled as it were to a second marriage, and you commanded them to loose their hair again. Not even women who marry carnally suffer this: of whom, if it happens to any to change her husband, that temporal festivity is not repeated; she is not lifted up on high: no gathering of the people is procured. You therefore stripped away not the adornments of the head, but (as we said above) the tokens of a good will. You scattered ashes upon the hair of those already consecrated to God, you also commanded them to be sprinkled with salt water. And would that you had quickly restored what you had taken away: you drew out delays, so that, thrust back into their former appearance, some remained longer with their tokens withdrawn, by which they had long since fortified themselves against suitors and ravishers.

When these men saw that the bar long since set against them had been removed by you, from suitors they became ravishers: nor did each one think himself to have sinned, when he carried off such a one as he had seen when he was seeking to take her as a wife.

In this kind of thing, how great losses did you inflict upon God? How great gains did you procure for the Devil? You impiously melted down chalices: you broke and rashly scraped altars: you compelled wretched girls, not without reproach, to receive a second headband, when concerning the first nothing can be cited in a reading. And I cannot pass over that which is neither pleasing to God, nor can be excused by your followers, nor defended by any man. Through secular courts and public laws, you judged that the instruments of the divine law were to be wrested from very many by the execution of officers: wishing to hold alone what peace had possessed in common. I, as a Christian, shall not fear to say what, at your demand, a pagan execution could not fail to know: you extorted the veils and the Lord's instruments, which had long been held in common: you extorted the altar-cloths together with the codices: by the judgment of your pride, you deemed both to be polluted.

Unless I am mistaken, you hastened to purify these: you washed the altar-cloths without doubt: declare what you did with the codices. In all things the judgment of your foresight ought to be equal: either wash both, or leave both alone. But if you do otherwise, you have corrupted your diligence; you wash the altar-cloth, you do not wash the codex: if in one part there is good, in the other there is evil. You cannot deny that you offend in the one, if you do well in the other: and if you rejoice that in the one you appear religious, you ought also to mourn, because in the other part you are held to be sacrilegious.

Now what is that, that in many places you also wished to wash the walls, and commanded the enclosed spaces to be sprinkled with salt water. O water, who wast created sweet by God, upon whom before the very birth of the world the Holy Spirit was borne! O water, who, that you might make the world pure, washed the earth! O water, who under Moses, that you might lose your natural bitterness, sweetened by wood, didst satisfy the hearts of so many peoples with most sweet draughts! It remained for you, after this advancement, to be degraded not lightly. By the presence of Moses the bitterness died in you. And today your sweetness is vexed by schismatics together with the throng of Catholics. We suffer the same war, we await the same God as avenger. Tell me, brother Parmenianus, what had the place done to you? What had the very walls done, that they should suffer these things at your hands? Was it because God was entreated there? Was it because Christ was praised there?

Was it because the Holy Spirit was invoked there? Was it because, in your absence, the prophets and the holy Gospels were read aloud there? Was it because the minds of brethren who had long been at strife had there been reconciled? Was it because unity, pleasing to God, in which He might dwell, had found a home there? Declare, what were you able to wash away there? If we have trodden the footsteps of Catholics both in the village and in the streets, why do you not amend everything? For indeed, for the purpose of refreshing our bodies, the same baths have washed both us and you alike; and before you, many of ours were frequently bathed there. If you think that everything must be purified after us, wash the water too if you can; or if our footsteps (as we said above) seem to you to be polluted, the earth would have sufficed; why did you also wish to wash the walls, upon which human footsteps cannot be placed?

We could not tread upon the walls, but only look at them. If you judge that whatever the gaze touches must also be washed, why did you leave everything else unwashed? We see the ceiling, we see the sky as well—these you cannot wash. By washing those things you have merited God's favour; by not washing these, you seem to have incurred an inexpiable sin. Since therefore in some respects you were found to be, as it were, diligent—if indeed diligence is the right word for foolishness, and (to call it by its true name) your vanity—unless perhaps by doing this you cast ignorant peoples into a panic, so that because the column was washed, bodies too should be washed. If some design lies hidden in these matters, you have cunningly deceived the wretched; if such a thing was done without design, your dullness is manifest: those who have been led astray by you recognise that you did these things foolishly; nor will you yourselves be able to deny it.

What shall I recount also of that impiety proceeding from your conspiracy, that you wished to seize the Basilicas for this purpose, that you might claim the cemeteries for yourselves alone, not permitting Catholic bodies to be buried; so that you might terrify the living, and also treat the dead badly, denying a place for funerals. If the contest had been among the living, let your hatred be restrained at least by another's death. He with whom you were contending a little while ago is now silent: why do you insult the funeral? Why do you obstruct the burial? Why do you quarrel with the dead? You have lost the fruit of your malice: and even if you do not wish the bodies to rest together, yet the souls placed together before God you will not be able to separate.

All the things, finally, that are done by you cannot be recounted in full: but let them be granted to you, who hold the mastery of this error. And now who could be silent about your own people—those, namely, whom you were able to seduce, either by faction or by cunning, so as to make them yours: not only men, but women also; from sheep they were suddenly made foxes, from faithful ones faithless, from patient ones rabid, from peaceable ones contentious, from simple ones seducers, from modest ones shameless, fierce from gentle, from innocent ones artificers of malice. After they have slipped away to you, men and women alike, they grieve that others remain where they were born: they invite those who stand firm into their own falls; if they knew that they had attained glory, they would silently enjoy their own happiness.

But now, being lost themselves and wishing to console themselves for their own passing over, they invite others to fall in like manner; and they accuse those who remain in the bosom of mother Church as though they were sluggish and slow. For they are not ashamed to speak in these words: "Caius So-and-so, or Caia So-and-so, how long do you hold yourself back?"—that is to say: imitate my fall, imitate my shameful passing over. How long are you called faithful? Now abandon the faith, now learn penitence: you are the bird-catchers, and those men or women are the birds. But because there is not one kind of bird-catcher: some there are who by simple skill make for trees spread wide in the face of the grove, founded on deep roots, where birds settle on natural branches in simple flight: there no deceits are counted, no artful devices; the skill is one and the sole art is that of catching.

Those I liken to a different kind of bird-catcher, who, after the departure of night, before the coming of light, does not go, as others do, to natural trees. But himself carrying a tree, he binds the future grove into a bundle, and sets up a dry tree supported by no roots, with manifold deceit. Into it he inserts counterfeit branches, and what, having long since been cut down, had lost its own foliage, receives the leaves of others. Some birds he carries shut up in a cage; others, gutted, he places on the deceitful branches in the likeness of the living, long since dead, as though alive. Some lie hidden in cages; others seem alive upon the branches. Cunning is joined with a twofold deceit; and so that the simplicity of living, flying birds may be deceived, those which are known to be dead are seen to stretch their necks with their voices; and those which lie hidden in their prison sing, as it were, with another's throat.

Between the image of one and the voice of another, one deception operates: captives catch the free, and the dead kill the living. Such are those whom you have wounded either by rebaptism or by penance, so that, lest they alone, men or women, should seem to have perished, they strive with great zeal and labour to bring others, men or women, to perish with them.

After the Traditors have been exposed and the holy Church demonstrated, after the calumnies which you were heaping upon us have been repelled, and after your sins, which deserved to be rebuked by God, have been shown in their proper order; and the repetition of the sacraments, and your presumptions, and your acts of terror have been shown: the end of our responses and statements ought already to have come. But since, after the forest of envy has been cut down by the axes of truth, I see your provocations or those of your people still sprouting up—provocations which I hear you making, that it was not fitting to seek one communion, since it has been established that you are the children of traditors—let me reply briefly to these points.

In truth, the Catholic Church was sufficient unto herself, having innumerable peoples in all provinces: she was sufficient also in Africa, though in few; but your separation was not pleasing to God, because the members of one body had been torn apart, and contrary to the will of God, brethren were straying from brethren. Although a domestic judgment operated upon your parents, so that those who ought to have been cast out for the traditio they had committed withdrew of their own accord—no judgment was formally held, but the effect of a sentence was brought about. They ought to have been expelled after the traditio, of which they confessed themselves guilty before the Council of Numidia: but lest there should be ill-feeling, the severity of judging was excused; while your elders of their own accord found a counsel regarding their guilt, so that, with their crime covered over, they might depart as though proudly, they who ought both to have grieved and to have blushed.

For if at that time, for the good of peace, unity had been made, and if they had come of their own will to the Catholic Church—not as you, who are known to have been brought back, not without the will of God, that you might return whence you had strayed (though you still stray)—if they had come of their own will to the Catholic, as I said, because they had been traditors: our elders would perhaps have hesitated about receiving such persons; but we must rejoice that such persons lasted not at all until our times. Therefore today the matter is new, since the affair is to be dealt with you, not with them.

Although the hereditary stain may seem to have been transmitted from them to you: yet in this charge you cannot be guilty together with your fathers, according to the judgment of God, who spoke through the Prophet Ezekiel, saying: The soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it alone shall be punished (Ez. Xviii, 4). Which thing was already proved in ancient ages, at the very beginnings of the world, when the sin of Adam the father did not pertain to his son Seth. But lest anyone say that it is written in another place, where the Lord says that He will render the evils of the fathers unto the fourth generation: both utterances are without doubt His; but each does not sound to one and the same people. The first is through Moses to a certain kind of men: the second, through Ezekiel to another kind of men.

Since God knew that the Jews before Pontius Pilate would declare, saying: His blood be upon us, and upon our children: from foreknowledge God saw that, given the greatness of the guilt, what they were about to say was too little; and so that the offence might be expiated with fitting punishments, He threatened the Jews themselves, saying that He would render the evils of the fathers unto the fourth generation. Therefore this utterance pertains specially to the Jews alone. For the rest, thus to Christians, He has deigned to promise not to take vengeance upon children for whatever sin is committed by parents, nor upon parents for whatever sin is perhaps committed by children. In the times of unity, your leaders who are proved to have done these things had already departed from the living, leaving to you, as it were, a hereditary stain, which God first washed away from you by His providence in this manner, when He separated between parents and children (as we said above).

Therefore, because to hand over is a sin, let your parents see what they shall answer at the judgment of God: yet it cannot be your sin (because you belong to other times).

Hence it is that we have long wished to receive you into our communion, because you did not sin at that time, but your leaders did. Nor ought anyone to judge another as though wholly holy: because it is written in the Gospel, Christ saying: Judge not, that ye be not judged concerning yourselves: especially since no one will be found wholly holy. For if there are those who can be without sins, they lie in the Lord's Prayer if they ask for pardon without cause, saying to God the Father: Forgive us our sins, as we also forgive our debtors: since the Apostle John both betrays the consciences of all and lays bare his own in these words: If we say, he says, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: the reason for which saying we explained more fully in the fourth book.

But suppose also that some are perfect in complete holiness, it is not permitted that they be without brethren, whose exclusion the precepts of the Gospel protest against—precepts by which is described the field, which is the whole world, in which is the Church, and the sower Christ, who gives saving commandments. On the other side, the evil man is the devil, who sows not in the light but through darkness the untimely sins: and in one field diverse seeds spring up; just as in the Church the multitude of souls is not alike. The field receives good or bad seeds: there is a diversity of seeds; but the creator of all souls is one: one is the lord of the field where the tares have sprung up: there are two authors of the seeds, but the field has one lord—God Himself the Lord. The earth is His: the good seeds are His: the rain also is His.

Therefore we have consented to receive you, who have been brought back, into unity; because it is not permitted to us either to separate or to repel: even sinners born with us in one field, nourished by one rain, that is, by one baptism; just as it was not permitted to the apostles to separate the tares from the wheat: because separation cannot be made without destruction: lest while what is useless is uprooted, what is useful be trampled down. Christ commanded equally that in His field throughout the whole world, in which there is one Church, both His own seeds and the alien ones should grow. After their common growth, the day of judgment will come, which is the harvest of souls; the judge, the Son of God, will sit, who knows what is His own and what is another's. It will be His to choose what to store in the granary, and what to deliver to the fire: whom to destine to unending torments, and to whom to present the promised rewards.

Let us all acknowledge that we are human beings: let no one usurp for himself the power of divine judgment. For if any bishop whatsoever claims everything for himself, let it be said what Christ is to do at the judgment. It is enough for a man if he be not himself guilty of his own sin, rather than desire to be a judge of another's. Our profession, finally, is not to repel you for the sake of peace. For it is wrong that we as bishops should do what the Apostles did not do, who were not permitted either to separate the seeds or to pull up the tares from the wheat.

But if the Catholic Church were to hesitate about receiving you back, ought you not to have pursued the form of unity? Yet you were unwilling to set forth examples read in the Gospel, such as the reading concerning the person of the most blessed Peter; from which the form of maintaining or making unity is described and recited. Indeed it is an evil to do anything against a prohibition: but it is worse not to have unity when you are able to have it.

Which unity we see Christ himself to have set before his own vengeance, who preferred rather that all his disciples should be in one, than to avenge what had offended him: while he was unwilling to be denied, he promised that he would deny before the Father whoever denied him, and although these things are thus written, nevertheless for the good of unity the blessed Peter—for whom it would have been enough if, after what he denied, he obtained pardon alone—both merited to be preferred before all the Apostles, and alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to be shared with the rest. For the good of unity, that sins ought to be buried is here made to be understood, because the most blessed Apostle Paul says that charity is able to cover a multitude of sins: Bear (he says) one another's burdens; and in another place he says: charity is long-suffering: charity is kind: charity envieth not: charity is not puffed up: seeketh not her own: and he gave blessing.

For all these things he had seen in the other apostles, who for the good of unity, through charity, were unwilling to withdraw from communion with Peter, namely with him who had denied Christ. But if the love of innocence were greater than the benefit of peace and unity, they would say that they ought not to communicate with Peter, who had denied the Master and the Lord, the Son of God. They could have refused communion (as was said above) with the most blessed Peter: they could have recited against him the words of Christ, who had promised that he would deny before the Father whoever had denied him before men.

To this form careful attention ought to be paid: while I recall a few things concerning it, may the blessedness of holy Peter himself grant pardon, if I seem to recall what is established as having happened and is read: I hesitate to say that so great a holiness sinned; but he himself proves this deed, who both grieved bitterly and wept abundantly, who would neither grieve nor weep if no offence had intervened. The head of the apostles could certainly have governed himself in such a way as to incur nothing that he would grieve over: but therefore in one account of him many errors are seen, so that it could be shown that for the good of unity all things ought to be preserved for God. And I know not whether in another person this kind of sin could be of as great weight as it is manifest to have been in the blessed Peter.

For whoever in some persecution has denied the Son of God, will appear to have sinned more lightly in comparison with the blessed Peter, if he denied one whom he had not seen; if he denied one whom he had not known, if he denied one to whom he had promised nothing; if he denied but once. For in the blessed Peter this kind of sin was extended: first, because when Christ asked all of them whom men said he was, one said Elijah; another said a prophet: then Christ is read to have said: But whom do ye say that I am? And Peter said to him: Thou art the Son of the living God. For which acknowledgment he merited to be praised by him: Behold while the rest did not acknowledge the Son of God, Peter alone acknowledged him. Then, on the eve of the passion, when Christ said: Behold, I am taken and ye shall all flee.

While the rest were silent, he alone promised that he would not depart: from foreknowledge the Son of God said: Peter, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Another thing was added to the weight of the sin, namely a promise which he was not going to fulfil. After Christ was led into the house of Caiaphas, to complete the measure of the offence, out of so great a number no one else is questioned except the blessed Peter: questioned the first time he denies; questioned again he denies; the third time he said that he did not know Christ at all: and the cock crowed; not to mark the hours by its crowing, but so that the blessed Peter might acknowledge that he had sinned. Then he grieved bitterly and wept abundantly.

Behold, as was said above, while the rest did not acknowledge, he alone acknowledged: while the rest did not promise, he alone promised: while the rest did not deny even once, he alone denied thrice; and yet for the good of unity, he did not deserve to be separated from the number of the Apostles. Whence it is understood that all things were ordered by the providence of the Saviour, so that he himself should receive the keys. The way of malice was blocked, lest the apostles should conceive in their minds the license of judging, and harshly despise him who had denied Christ. So many innocent men stand by, and a sinner receives the keys, so that the business of unity might be formed. It was provided that a sinner should open to the innocent, lest the innocent should close against sinners, and unity, which is necessary, could not exist. If you were to recall these things, desiring to communicate; when would the Catholic Church hesitate to receive you into her loving bosom?

Since it is established that you are not the betrayers, but the sons of betrayers.

For some among you, wishing to show us as contemptible to their peoples, also mix into their discourses what was said by the prophet Solomon: Dying flies destroy the sweetness of the oil: and they call us dying flies: and they name as the oil that liquid which is prepared from the name of Christ; which, after it has been prepared, is called chrism. Before it is made, it is still oil by simple nature; it will become sweet when it is prepared from the name of Christ. Therefore there are three things which the prophet Solomon named: oil, sweetness, and dying flies destroying the sweetness. These three things have their places in order: in the first place is the oil: in the second, the sweetness from the preparation: in the third, the dying flies destroying the sweetness. Whoever among you is such a teacher, let him prove how he calls us dying flies. If you think that the preparation which gives sweetness to the oil is among you: then the oil and the sweetness are among you.

Do we by any chance destroy your oil, that you might rightly call us dying flies? What is yours is with you. And if anyone has made a passage from you to us; he is preserved by us just as he is dismissed by you: how do you say that we are the dying flies corrupting the sweetness of the oil, since after you we do nothing of the sort? Or if you say that the sweetness of the oil can be corrupted by us: either we are able to do something, and we give sweetness to the oil: or if we, as you wish, are able to do nothing: the oil remains such as it was when born: how do you say that we are the dying flies, corrupting the sweetness of the oil? Therefore the oil, before it is prepared by us, is such as it was when born: once prepared, it can receive sweetness from the name of Christ. How can we by one act both prepare and corrupt?

It remains that if the oil is sweet of itself, what is done by men is void, if it is prepared by a man in the name of Christ. The same workman cannot do two repugnant and contrary things at the same time. If we prepare it in your absence, we do not corrupt it. If we corrupt it, who before us had prepared what we would corrupt? Therefore, lest the saying of the Prophet be void (if it is so), understand that you are the dying flies. For you have destroyed not what was born, but what was prepared, for sweetness is read to be able to be corrupted not by nature. For oil is simple, and has one name proper to itself: once prepared it is now called chrism, in which there is a sweetness that softens the skin of the conscience, with the hardness of sins excluded: which renews the spirit to gentleness: which prepares a seat for the Holy Spirit, so that, invited thither, with harshness driven away, he may deign to dwell there willingly.

This is the sweetness of the oil, which dying flies are able to destroy. If we were to drive away from you the prepared oil, you could rightly call us dying flies: but since what has been anointed by you we preserve just as we receive it, we cannot be dying flies. But since you, driven by the storms of envy, fall as it were into the oil, you destroy in rebaptism the sweetness of that oil which was prepared in the name of Christ, whereby morals might be seasoned, whereby the light of the mind might be kindled, unto a salutary and true understanding. You destroy the thing wherein the oil and the sweetness were. How could we corrupt the sweetness which before us was prepared by no one? You seduced men, rebaptized them, anointed them again. Alas! Not without your own death, you destroyed what had been prepared from the name of Christ, after the manner of flies, which perishing destroy: because sin which has no pardon is death.

It is written that whoever shall have sinned against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither here nor in the world to come. Therefore since you both falsely call us flies, and hasten to dissolve all things that are done by us, and say that we are to be held in contempt or despised, claiming holiness for yourselves alone: you set forth your innocence, so as to promise that you are able to forgive the sins of others. You see therefore that the most blessed Apostle Paul has spoken not of us, as you argue, but of you: There shall be (he says) men lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy: without peace, without natural affection, slanderers, fierce, without kindness.

For what manner of thing is it also, that at your own pleasure you wished to impose upon Moses the person of those against whom the Apostle Paul records that Jannes and Mambres withstood him. If it is so, what truth can be found among you, against which the Catholic Church seems to stand, or what falsehood among us will you be able to prove? To be in one communion with the whole world: will you be able to prove it a falsehood? To hold and defend the true and unique creed, will you be able to prove it a falsehood? The Chair of Peter and the keys of the kingdom of heaven granted by Christ, where our fellowship is, will you be able to prove it a falsehood? In the very reading which you recalled, among those very persons, consider the order of events, and attend to who was prior.

Certainly Jannes and Mambres are in the second place, who wished to fight against Moses and truth with false arts: and Moses had gone before, whose virtues they strove in vain to assail. As Moses is prior, so also the Catholic Church is prior: as Jannes and Mambres withstood in opposition, so also you rebels fight against the true Catholic Church. What then is it that you wished to exchange the names both for us and for you, unless that you might compare yourself as equal to your companions? For there are some among you who, forgetful or ignorant of past times, say against us things that pertain to those who long ago, having lapsed from the Catholic Church, ordained Majorinus; those, namely, who were the authors of schism and betrayal. While they still retained peace, before they destroyed the unity pleasing to God, they were the light of the world, and were rightly called the salt of the earth.

While they taught peace, they were still called peacemakers: before they were puffed up, they were blessed on account of poverty of spirit, they were part of the seasoning: they were blessed while meek, they had been part of the seasoning: they were blessed while just, they were part of the seasoning: blessed while peacemakers, they had been the whole seasoning. After they gave the riches of error to their spirit and their lungs, and making schism, were found to be unmerciful: and less compassionate when they impiously divided the members of the Church: and following injustice, held the kingdom of God in contempt: and by dividing the Church were unwilling to be peacemakers, they themselves became salt that had lost its savour, from which nothing could be seasoned that would please God with its sweetness.

And since this evil pertains to your leaders, by some of their companions the matter is argued differently, so that they say those were foolish who had acknowledged the truth, even if late, and withdrawing from the schism, having acknowledged the mother Catholic Church, followed peace. Some of you think these men erred: they consider them as having departed from wisdom as though made foolish. Whence it appears that you all err in the same way in the transposing of names; while both you compared Jannes and Mambres to peaceful Catholics, and you schismatics to Moses, which is alien from the truth: and some companions of yours wished to judge the wise as foolish, saying that the peacemakers had been made fatuous; and were unwilling to understand that their own parents had been made foolish by dissension.

—Now your envy slides toward that point, so that you say Macarius ought not to have been admitted to communion after those deeds: but rather ought to have been kept away by the catholic bishops. First, communion has one name, but there are different modes: it is one thing for a bishop to communicate with a bishop, and another for a layman to communicate with a bishop. It would then have been serious if Macarius had done what he is said to have done of his own will; for those who act thus, the deed is punished by public judgments and Roman laws. For he is a murderer who, compelled by no necessity, by no command, by no authority, but driven by rage, has done of his own will what the laws forbid. But Macarius did what he is said to have done because you provoked him: nor was he a bishop, nor was he engaged in episcopal office, nor did he lay his hand on anyone, nor did he offer sacrifice.

Wherefore, since it is established that he was a stranger to the acts of bishops, no bishop appears to have been polluted by one who did not offer sacrifice together with bishops. It remains for you to say that he communicated with the people: and it is established that he spoke something among the people, but for the purpose of conveying some matter, not however for expounding, which is the bishops' function; for he spoke plainly, if he was able to speak anything at all. On the other hand, episcopal exposition is proved by all to be clothed with holiness, namely by the twofold salutation. For a bishop does not begin to say anything to the people unless he has first greeted the people in the name of God. The endings are like the beginnings. Every exposition in the Church is begun in the name of God, and is concluded in the name of that same God. Which of you dares to say that Macarius greeted the people after the manner of bishops?

Therefore, since he neither greeted them before he spoke anything, nor dared to greet them after he had spoken, nor laid his hand on anyone, nor offered sacrifice to God in the episcopal rite: what is it that you say could have polluted the episcopal college, when you see that Macarius was a stranger to every episcopal office? Your envy, having trodden down the footprint of truth in this place, seems again to raise its head. For you say that he ought not to have communicated even among the laity. Indeed it is established that he, as the Apostle Paul proves, was a minister of the will of God. And what wonder? If even pagan judges have deserved to be reckoned ministers of the will of God, the Apostle saying: The judge does not bear the sword without cause. For he is a minister of the will of God: for Macarius too appeared to have been a judge in his own sphere.

But if he was not a judge in what he did, then according to Roman laws he ought to have been punished by judges. Or if you say that not even so ought he to have communicated: we however do not see why he ought to have been kept away, who did such a thing as was done by Moses, whom after twenty-three thousand men had been slain, God did not keep away in contempt; but invited again to speak with him. We do not see that he ought to have been kept away who did what Phinehas did, whom I mentioned a little before, who deserved to be praised by God himself for the killing. Nor does it seem to us that he ought rather to have been kept away by whom was done what was done by the prophet Elijah, who slew so many false prophets: for we have already proved above that those too were false seers.

But to pass over these examples, let us also grant what you say, that Macarius was guilty: but if he was, with no accuser coming forward, it was not lawful for us to keep him away. For it is written that no one is to be condemned before his case has been heard. Tell us, who accused him and was not heard? Tell us that Macarius confessed his guilt and that our sentence was silent? For we are judges of whatever kind in the Church, which even you yourselves do not deny; you contend that we ought to have been true judges. For we cannot do what God did not do, who in his judgment deigned to separate the persons: nor did he wish the same person to be both accuser and judge. For no one can, in one case, at the same moment bear two persons, so as to be able in the same judgment to be both accuser and judge.

This God did not do even through his omnipotence: so that he might show us the form of judging, he taught that a guilty person ought not to be condemned without an accuser; or that he should be the accuser who is to be the judge in that case. Finally, at the very beginnings of the ages, while the birth of mankind was being renewed; while brother Abel had been slain by Cain, it is read: and God called Cain, and asked him where his brother was; he, doubling his sin, as though he would make God ignorant, said he did not know. And when could the Lord be ignorant of anything, before whose eyes and face are all things that are done? And yet God does not judge without an accuser: and he asks what he already knew. And you wish us to have kept away one whom we did not see doing anything evil, and who had no accuser. I see what your envy murmurs here. For you say that what was done did not escape our notice.

We confess that we heard of it, but it would have been a sin to condemn one whom no one dared to accuse. But if you say that the deed did not escape our notice, tell God why he asked, who had seen the parricide. Nor ought we to have done what God was unwilling to do, who was unwilling to pronounce sentence except upon the accused. Produce an accuser; otherwise the sentence could not be just, unless he who was to judge were himself to accuse. Therefore he says: Behold, the blood of your brother cries to me from the earth. Therefore, since you can in no way prove that Macarius was accused before us by anyone, you cannot condemn our judgment. They ought to have made unity, and even they themselves were not to be expelled from the Church, in whom necessity had excused the will. For none of them had handed over voluntarily, nor will this sin be able to be equated with other offenses.

For whatever God did not wish to be done, he forbade with his own mouth, in the manner in which he said: you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery. He could also have forbidden this which was committed by your forebears: but since it is one thing what the mind does, and another what the outcome produces, whatever can be done by a man from will, this deserved to be forbidden; whatever necessity sins, cannot be accused with great force: finally, will has punishment, necessity has pardon: a murderer, while no one compels him, can both commit the crime and refrain from it: an adulterer, while no one from outside compels him, can commit adultery and can also refrain from it, and other things of this kind in which free choice is held. Therefore, when forbidden things are committed, they are destined for judgment; things not prohibited, when done under some necessity: perhaps he who was unwilling to forbid may readily deign to forgive.

Finally, this offense which could be charged as a capital matter against your forebears, if at that time they were exposed or called to judgment, they could have come to their own aid with more than one example, where in the earliest times either the tablets of the law were broken, or books are read to have been handed over or cut up and burned, and no one was condemned.

If (as I said above) your parents were stripped bare at that time, if they could have been accused, they would without doubt have said that they had done nothing beyond what Moses the lawgiver did, although necessity and will are not alike but are in conflict with one another, since under the same name of law the cause of your parents and of Moses was one and the same. Your parents could have said that they did of necessity what Moses had first done of his own will. He, when he was angry with the people, did not consider that God had written with His own finger: and what is written in heaven is greater than what is on earth; and what the finger of God wrote is not the same as what a pen composed by a human hand has written.

Moses was carrying what he had received through the cloud, and your parents handed over what they had produced for a bribe: rightly would your parents have defended themselves, showing that it is not a capital crime if each of them, terrified by great fear, did what Moses did in anger; and we do not read that the Lord was indignant at Moses, nor that He avenged the broken tablets which He had written out with His own hand, nor was he called a sinner, nor was he punished. Thus the law went forth from God as water flows from a spring, or as fruit which is plucked from a tree while the root remains safe: what has been given out does not perish, if it is safe in its origin.

Finally, Moses after the tablets of the law were scattered and broken did not deserve to be condemned, and was afterwards summoned back to Mount Sinai and ascended it, and deserved to speak with God again, and received the law renewed, which the title of the book written by the Greek word Deuteronomos sets forth: behold, what had been safe in the origin did not perish in the law. But lest it should seem to anyone that Moses had merit, so as to have a certain confidence with God from their conversation, and that God was therefore not angry, and if this were so, friendship would always have had to exact its own merit and fruit: why was he afterwards punished for what he had offended in? Was it not to show that what he had committed in anger was a light matter?

The law was sound in God; and after it was broken by a man together with the stone tablets: where the devotion owed by man was not rendered, Moses deserved that punishment, that he should die in the middle of the journey and not enter the land of promise: from which it is established that what could be committed with impunity in the present example cannot be reckoned a great sin. If these things had been said by your parents, who could have denied them communion? What if they had also set forth those consequent examples, in which it is read that when the renewed law was kept in the ark, and the people of Israel were defeated in battle.

The law which was brought out of the ark by the counsel of the peoples against the enemies, which could not be defended by the Priests themselves and the other sons of Israel, and was handed over to the enemies, since it was not brought back: when the law was handed over, those who had said it should be carried forth fled in fear, and we do not read that they afterwards suffered anything in punishment. If this account had been rendered by your parents, who could have driven them away from their communion? What if your leaders had not kept silent about those examples either? In which it is read that Baruch handed over to the scribe Judin the book of the law which he had taken down from the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, and that the princes of the king commanded that both Baruch himself who had taken it down and Jeremiah through whom God had spoken should flee and hide.

Jeremiah dictated, Baruch handed it over, both fled; the book was brought to King Joachim, who, since he had before him a burning brazier suited to the cold season, and had not willingly listened to the book being read aloud by the scribe Judin, kept cutting it up piece by piece and throwing it into the fire. And God was not angry either with Jeremiah who had fled, or with Baruch who had handed it over while fleeing with him: for if God had been angry with them, He would have spoken to some other Prophet: He spoke not to another, but to Jeremiah himself: for it is thus read: And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the King had burned the scroll of the book, and the words which Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremiah; God said to Jeremiah: Take yourself another scroll and write all your words which were then written in the book which Joachim King of Judah burned.

Behold, neither was God angry, nor did what had burned perish, nor was Baruch punished, nor was Jeremiah despised by God; from which it appears that the fault which no punishment could ever follow was never grave in this matter. If your parents had alleged these things, who could have called them back from communion? Finally, when God saw both the tablets of the law broken by Moses, and the ark abandoned to the enemies, and after the handing over by Baruch the book of the law both cut up and burned, He declared His providence and promised that He would henceforth write the law not on tablets nor in books, but in the inner man himself, that is, in the mind and heart of each believer; just as He had written it in the heart of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the other patriarchs who are known to have lived lawfully without the law.

This the blessed apostle Paul also confirms, saying: Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. After the law was broken by Moses and abandoned to the enemies by the sons of Israel, and when offered by Baruch to King Joachim was both cut up and burned before Christian times, God declared where He would thereafter write it more securely, speaking through the Prophet: For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, and after those days, saith the Lord: giving my laws in their hearts and in their minds I will write them. This He promised long ago and has lately fulfilled in Christian times. Therefore the parchment is now in second place, the vellum in second place.

If the law has been written by God in a place from which it cannot be handed over, so that your parents who had already believed in the Trinity, even though they handed over books, did not hand over their hearts nor their minds in which God wrote His law, just as He had promised He would write it. Where then, brother Parmenianus, is what you said, that the law was utterly burned up by the traditors? Behold, it was neither utterly burned up nor wholly taken away, since it both remains in the hearts of believers and thousands of books are read everywhere: from which it appears that you wished to accuse your parents, though through ignorance, in vain.

Therefore if your parents were to come forward at the time of unity with so many examples reasonably set forth, they themselves could not be driven away from communion—how much less you, who are established to be not traditors but sons of traditors, since the persons and names of fathers and sons are distinct, and if there is no common guilt between those persons, there cannot be one sentence. Although even if their unity were to come about, they would come of their own accord to the Catholic Church.

Since even in the times of Moses the law was repeated without punishment to anyone, and the ark of the Testament was voluntarily returned by enemies, and by Jeremiah at God's command another scroll was written: why is it thought that among your forebears alone it was a capital sin, in which through so many examples no one was condemned? For if the law was given so that men might be taught, and not so that the law itself might be venerated as though in place of God, after the deed of your fathers the multitude of believers suffered no loss; each of them lost his own books under the pressure of fear. For the law, which had been necessary, retains its force among the teachers of peoples and the worshippers of God.

Libraries are full of books; nothing is lacking to the Church; in every place the divine proclamation sounds everywhere; the mouths of readers are not silent; the hands of all are full of books; nothing is lacking to peoples desirous of being taught, although the law seems to have been written not so much for instruction as for future judgment, so that the sinner may know what he may suffer if he has lived less justly. Finally it is written and read: that the law was not given for the just; because every just man is himself a law unto himself; and in another place the same blessed apostle Paul says: that the law does not make men just, but itself loves justice. In all things, effects are sought from their efficient causes: the law which produces an effect is superfluous, if by a ready shortcut that which is produced is already at hand.

Finally Abraham was not told: believe, but he believed of his own accord: in whom, without the law, the effect of the law was fulfilled: it is not read: Abraham heard the law and believed, but it is read: Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And in the earliest times the Patriarch Noah did nothing whereby he might become just, and yet he was chosen as just, who, having built the ark, sailed happily through the flood. It would take long to go through each of those who were found just without the law. If these things had been said by your parents in their own time, who would have driven them from his communion? What if they had said that what the Apostle says concerning those outside the law ought not to be passed over in silence: The Gentiles who do not know the law do the things of the law: for they have the law written in their hearts.

For many are proved to have sinned under the law, and many to have lived well without the law. The law and man are two things, but they cannot be equal: for man was not made on account of the law, but the law was given on account of men. Nowhere do I see harm done to God, since both the origin of the law remains with him: and after the scripture is said to have been handed over by your parents, nothing is lacking, all the members of the law are sound, they are safe, they are recited: nothing is less available from the law both to those who wish to teach and to those who wish to be taught. Was it more necessary that a man should be killed, lest some scripture be handed over? What of the fact that neither were men killed, and yet all the scriptures are not lacking? The law and God are not one and the same thing.

If one had to die for God, who can both raise the dead and render reward, a book not handed over can do neither of these two things. Necessity therefore impedes its own force. We see that negligence no less frequently accomplishes what necessity has accomplished.

For if parchments or books, in which the lawful scripture is contained, must be kept entirely unharmed, as though certain negligent persons are not condemned; it is not far from handing over to placing badly, or carrying badly: one man placed a book in a house, which house was consumed by fire: let him be condemned who placed it negligently, if he is to be condemned who, terrified, gave a book that was demanded of him: let those also be condemned who so neglected parchments or books and placed them in such a way that the household creatures, that is, mice, gnawed them so that they could not be read: let him also be condemned who placed them in a house in such a way that from the excess of rains certain drippings from the roof leaked down, so that everything, obliterated by moisture, could not be read: let those also be condemned who, carrying the books of the law, rashly entrusted themselves to the rapacious waves of rivers, and, desiring to save themselves, released the scriptures from their hands into the waves.

Therefore if the scripture is one, and he who could not preserve it is guilty; one handed it over to the waves, another left it to gnawing beasts, another neglected it to be ruined by dripping, another, a man terrified by fear of death, gave it man to man: if it is one and the same thing that is committed by all, why is he chosen out for condemnation, when the fault of the one who handed over is lighter than that of the negligent: he who placed it before mice or left it under a dripping roof was negligent by his own will; and he who lost it in a river sinned through rashness; he who handed something over through fear of death gave it man to man; it was intact in the hands of the giver, intact in the hands of the receiver. If he who received it delivered it to the flames, the sin belongs more to the one who kindled the fire than to the one who handed it over.

If these things had been said by your forebears, when could we have driven them from our communion? If they had also wished to recall the times of King Antiochus, in which all the Jews were compelled to give their books to the fire, and thus all scripture was given up, so that not a single stroke remained in any book. Of the Jews at that time no one was condemned, nor was any sentence pronounced by God or by any Angel against any Jew, because the sin was that of the one commanding and threatening, not of the people handing over with trembling and grief. Lest Antiochus should seem to have done any harm to the original people, God immediately provided that through one man Esdras, who was called a reader at that same time, the whole law just as it had been before should be dictated to the last stroke.

Thus the tyrant Antiochus could not enjoy the fruit of his malice, since, apart from seven brothers and one elder who refused to eat swine's flesh, he killed no Jew, and the law could not perish. So also your parents in their own time were not themselves killed, and the books of the Lord's law are recited in their entirety everywhere. If your parents (as I said above) had said these things, who would not have received them fearlessly into his communion, where, as has been said, necessity had sinned, not the will? For a sinner such as your forebears were, if he comes to the Church and shows the account of his necessity, he is first to be received, then to be sustained in the loving bosom of mother Church.