Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 1–14

You remember, brothers, that a very small part of the letter of Petilian, the Donatist bishop of Constantina, once came into our hands, and that I wrote to your love what I had answered to that small portion. But when afterwards the whole and complete letter was sent to us by the brothers who are there, I decided to answer it from the beginning, as though we were dealing face to face, in the way you know we have always wished to deal with them: so that, without zeal for contention, what is said either by them or by us might be plain to all by comparing the arguments. For we learned that that letter is in the hands of many, who even know much of it by heart, thinking that he said something true against us. But now, if they will read what we have answered, they will surely understand what they should reject and what they should hold. For those things are not ours, as they themselves can consider if they will judge without partisanship; for all of them have been so brought forward and proved from the holy Scriptures that no one can deny them except one who professes himself an enemy of those Scriptures. But I see what the most obstinate defenders of so bad a cause may say about that work of ours: namely, that I answered the letter of an absent man, where he could not hear my words so as to answer them at once. Let him, then, defend the words of his letter and, if he can, show that they were not refuted and convicted by my answers; or, if he does not want to do this, let him himself do to this letter of mine what I did to that letter of his, which I have already answered; for he wrote that letter to his own people, as I write this to you. Let him answer it too, if he wishes.

The question that certainly lies between us is where the church is: with us or with them. It is certainly one, the church that our forefathers named catholic, to show by the very name that it is throughout the whole; for "according to the whole" is said in Greek kath' holon. This church is the body of Christ, as the apostle says: "for the sake of his body, which is the church." From this it is surely plain that one who is not among the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation. The members of Christ are joined to one another by the charity of unity, and by the same charity they cling to their head, who is Christ Jesus. All, therefore, that is proclaimed about Christ is head and body. The head is the only-begotten Jesus Christ himself, the Son of the living God, himself "the saviour of the body," "who died for our sins and rose for our justification"; his body is the church, of which it is said: "that he might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." Between us and the Donatists the question is where this body is, that is, where the church is. What, then, shall we do? Shall we seek it in our own words or in the words of its head, our Lord Jesus Christ? I think we ought rather to seek it in his words, who is the truth and knows his own body best; for "the Lord knows those who are his."

Notice now what our words are, in which the church ought not to be sought, and see there too what difference there is between our words and theirs; and yet we do not want the church to be sought in our words. Whatever we charge against one another concerning the handing over of the divine books, the offering of incense, and persecutions, these are our words. In such matters we hold to this method: either both are counted true, what is said by us and what is said by them; or both false; or ours true and theirs false; or ours false and theirs true; and in all these cases we show that there is no crime of the Christian world with which we are in communion. For if the crimes are true, both those we charge against them and those they charge against us, let us do what the apostle says: "forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave us," so that wicked men, neither those who perhaps were or are among us nor those who were or are among them, may hinder our concord and the bond of peace, once that one crime of theirs has been corrected, that they separated themselves in vain from the unity of the world, when they had such men themselves. But if both are false, whether what we charge against them or what they charge against us concerning the handing over or the persecution of innocent people, I see no cause for dispute, except that there is cause for those who separated themselves without cause to correct themselves. But if we say what is true, since we confirm it by the proceedings we bring forward, by the letters of the emperor to whom they then first wrote and afterwards appealed, and by the communion of the whole world, while what they say is proved false by this, that in those very times, when the same question was being debated, they could not win their case at all, then a greater fury of sacrilegious animosity and persecution of innocent souls appears in them than if they were held only by the crime of schism. And those other things let them assign not to all but to whichever of their own they wish; but schism is the crime of all. Moreover, if they want the crimes of handing over and persecution that they charge to be true and those charged by us false, not even so are they cleansed from the crime of schism; for those crimes can belong to certain people, not to the whole Christian world. And if they think the world perished by contagion (I omit to say how many evils, even known ones, the saints tolerated in the gathering of men for the good of peace), this I say: let them show how they have not perished by the contagion of those sacrilegious violators of the chastity of consecrated women who they either do not now know, or at some time did not know, to be hidden or to have been hidden among them. Surely they will say that they were not defiled for the very reason that they did not know. How, then, was the world defiled, which still does not know whether the things they say are true? Let us suppose them proved and demonstrated to us just now: what shall we do about so many nations? They are deserted in their ignorance; therefore the innocent are deserted, and though that is no crime of theirs, this begins to be a most wicked crime of ours. Or should we run and teach them what we know? To what end? If it is so that they may be innocent, they are innocent even while they do not know; for we keep our innocence not by knowing men's evil deeds, but by not consenting to those we know and by not judging rashly about those we do not know. And for this reason, as I said, the world is innocent, which does not know the crimes that these men allege against certain people, even if what they allege is true; but those who separated themselves from these innocent people lost their innocence by that very crime of separation and schism. And now they would teach us that they speak the truth against certain people, so as to separate us from those against whom they have nothing true to say.

For this is what the whole world says to them, very brief in words but very strong in truth: The African bishops were in conflict among themselves. If they could not end the dissension that had arisen among them, so that, either by those who were contending wrongly being reconciled through concord or being deposed, those who had the good cause might remain in the communion of the world through the bond of unity, it certainly remained that the bishops overseas, where the greatest part of the catholic church was spread, should judge the dissensions of their African colleagues, at the instance of those who were charging others with the crime of an evil ordination. If this was not done, the fault lies with those by whom it should have been done, not with the world, which did not know what was not brought to it. But if it was done, how did the church's judges sin, who ought in no way to condemn crimes which, even if true and reported to them, were not proved to them? Could the wicked defile those to whom they could not be made known? But if they were made known to them and through some sloth or connivance they refused to remove such men from communion and, by a perverse judgment, even gave sentences in their favour, how did the world sin, which did not know that that case had had bad judges, and believed that they had judged well, about whom it could not judge? For as the crime of the accused, if it was hidden from the judges, certainly did not defile them, so also the crime of the judges, if there was any, since it was hidden from the world, certainly could not defile the world. With these innocent people, then, we innocently communicate even today, not knowing what was done then. Therefore, even if we learned today that what they say against certain people is true, there is no reason why we should withdraw from the innocent who do not know these things and pass over to those who are all entangled in the crime of schism, because they did what they persuade us to do: not to tolerate the wicked after the example of the apostles, but to desert the good after the example of heretics. But let us suppose, what cannot happen, that the world could today know clearly with us that the crimes of certain people whom these men accuse are true: could it become more innocent by this than it was before it knew? For as unknown wicked men could not stain it, even if they were still in this life, so those who have already departed from this life cannot stain it even when known. If, then, our cause in our own words about the crimes of certain people, which we charge against each other, is such that it is still unconquered even if we learned today that what we say against certain of them is false and what they say against certain of ours is true, what have they to answer, whether rather what we say is true and what they say false, or both false, or both true, since they are defeated even in that which alone they wish with all their prayers to be believed?

But, as I had begun to say, let us not listen to "This you say, this I say," but let us listen to "This says the Lord." There are certainly the Lord's books, to whose authority we both consent, to which we both yield, which we both serve: there let us seek the church, there let us argue our case. Here perhaps they will say: "Why do you look in the books that you handed over to the flames?" To this I answer: "Why are you afraid that these books will be read, if you guarded them from the flames?" He should surely be believed to have handed them over who is shown not to agree with them when they are read. Or if perhaps these books mark out their traitor as the Lord marked out Judas, let them read in them, by name and expressly, that either Caecilian or those who ordained him would be traditors of those same books; and if I do not anathematize them, let me be judged to have handed them over together with them. But neither do we find in those books that those who ordained Majorinus are designated traditors, although we recite this from elsewhere. Let those things, then, be taken out of the way which we recite against each other, not from the divine canonical books, but from elsewhere. And if they do not want them taken away, let them see that if both are true, there was no cause for their separation, so as to flee those whom they had themselves; if both are false, there was no cause for their separation, so as to flee those whom they found in no crime; if ours are true and theirs false, there was no cause for their separation, because they should rather have corrected themselves and remained in unity; and if ours are false and theirs true, there was no cause for their separation, because they ought not to have deserted the innocent world, to which they either would not or could not show these things.

Perhaps someone may ask and say to me: "Why, then, do you want those things taken out of the way, when your communion is unconquered even if they are brought forward?" Because I do not want the holy church to be shown by human documents but by divine oracles. For if the holy Scriptures have marked out the church in Africa alone, and in a few Cutzupitani or Montenses at Rome, and in the house or estate of one Spanish woman, then whatever else is brought forward from other papers, none but the Donatists hold the church. If holy Scripture locates it among a few Moors of the province of Caesarea, we must go over to the Rogatists. If among a few Tripolitanians and Byzacenians and provincials, the Maximianists have reached it. If in the East alone, it must be sought among the Arians, the Eunomians, the Macedonians, and whatever others there are there. And who could enumerate all the heresies of each nation? But if the church of Christ has been marked out in all nations by the divine and most certain testimonies of the canonical Scriptures, then whatever they bring and from wherever they recite it who say, "Look, here is Christ, look, there," let us rather listen, if we are his sheep, to the voice of our shepherd saying, "Do not believe it." For each of those sects is not found in the many nations where this church is; but this church, which is everywhere, is found even where they are. Let us, then, seek it in the holy canonical Scriptures.

The whole Christ is head and body: the head the only-begotten Son of God, and the body his church; bridegroom and bride, two in one flesh. Whoever dissent from the holy Scriptures about the head itself, even if they are found in all the places in which the church is marked out, are not in the church. And again, whoever agree with the holy Scriptures about the head itself but do not communicate with the unity of the church are not in the church, because they dissent from the testimony of Christ himself about the body of Christ, which is the church. For example, those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh of the virgin Mary, of the seed of David, as the Scripture of God says most plainly, or that he did not rise in the very body in which he was crucified and buried, even if they are found through all the lands through which the church is, are certainly not in the church, because they do not hold the head of the church, which is Christ Jesus; nor are they deceived by some obscurity of the divine Scriptures, but they contradict their best-known and plainest testimonies. Likewise, whoever believe indeed that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, as has been said, and rose in the same flesh in which he was born and suffered, and that he himself is the Son of God, God with God, and one with the Father, and the unchangeable Word of the Father through whom all things were made, but nevertheless so dissent from his body, which is the church, that their communion is not with the whole wherever it is spread, but is found in some separated part, it is plain that they are not in the catholic church. Therefore, since our question with the Donatists is not about the head but about the body, that is, not about the Saviour Jesus Christ himself but about his church, let the head itself, about which we agree, show us his body, about which we disagree, so that through his words we may now cease to disagree. He is the only-begotten Son and Word of God, and therefore not even the holy prophets could have spoken truly unless what they should say had been revealed to them by the Truth itself, which is the Word of God, and they had been commanded to say it. So in earlier times the Word of God sounded through the prophets, then through himself, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, then through the apostles whom he sent to preach him, that there might be salvation to the ends of the earth. In all these, then, the church must be sought.

But since slanderers often turn many things said against others or for another reason against whom they wish and to what they wish; and since many things, set down figuratively and obscurely to exercise rational minds, through the image of a riddle or the double sense of ambiguity, are sometimes believed to agree and fit with a false interpretation, I declare and propose this as well: that we choose whatever is open and manifest. If such things were not found in the holy Scriptures, there would be no way at all of opening what is closed and lighting up what is obscure. For example, see how easy it is either for us to say against them or for them to say against us what the Lord said to the Pharisees: "You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Whether these words are said by us against them or by them against us, who of moderately sound mind does not know that, unless it is first proved by the plainest documents who they are that, though unjust, pretend to be just, they are spoken with reviling levity rather than convicting truth? For the Lord said those things against the Pharisees otherwise, as the Lord, that is, as the knower of the heart and of all human secrets, as witness and judge; but we must first find and show what we accuse, lest we ourselves rather be accused of the very grave crime of insane rashness. Certainly, if they first show us to be such, we ought by no means to refuse to be rebuked and crushed by such words of the holy Scriptures; likewise, if we show them to be such, it will similarly be in our power to strike them, once shown and convicted, with whatever rebukes of the Lord we please.

So too those things must be set aside for the time being which, being set down obscurely and wrapped in the veils of figures, can be interpreted both in our favour and in theirs. It belongs indeed to sharp-witted men to judge and decide who interprets them more probably, but we do not wish to commit our discussion to such contests of ingenuity in a cause that concerns whole peoples. None of us doubts that through Noah's ark, while keeping faith with the events, in that sinners were destroyed and the house of the righteous man was delivered from the flood, the church too was prefigured; this might perhaps seem a conjecture of human ingenuity, if the apostle Peter did not say it in his letter. But if one of us should say what he did not say there, that all kinds of animals were in it because it was foretold that the church would be in all nations, perhaps the Donatists would see it otherwise and wish to interpret it differently. Likewise, if they interpret something set down obscurely or ambiguously in favour of their opinion, and we are free to draw from it something else that sounds in our favour, what end will there be? For one of their bishops, when he was preaching to the people here at Hippo, as we have heard, said that Noah's ark was pitched inside so that it might not let out its own water, and outside so that it might not let in water from outside. He certainly meant this interpretation to serve the purpose that baptism should not be believed able to go out of the church, nor that given outside be accepted. He seemed to say something, and those who listened gladly and did not think carefully about what they had heard shouted acclamation, so that they did not notice, as was easy, that a framework of timbers cannot let in water from outside if it does not let it out from inside; and if it lets it out from the inner side, it follows that it also lets it in from the outer side. But even if what he said about joined timber were true, who would prevent me, if I could, from saying something else about the ark pitched on both sides, so that it would be uncertain which of these, or perhaps some third thing, that fact signified? For it is not absurdly said, but even much more probably, that by pitch, since it is a powerful glue and a very hot thing, charity is signified. For why is it said in the psalm, "My soul has been glued to you," except by most burning charity? And since it is commanded that charity be in us toward one another and toward all, therefore the ark was pitched inside and outside. Or certainly, since it is written, "Charity bears all things," the very strength of forbearance, which holds fast to unity, was signified by pitch, with which the ark was smeared inside and outside, because the wicked must be tolerated both inside and outside, lest the framework of peace be dissolved. In this discussion of ours, then, let us spare such interpretations and seek something plain by which the church may be manifested.

It is written, of course, in the book of Judges: "And Gideon said to the Lord: If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; and if there is dew on the fleece and dryness on all the ground, I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken. And it was so. And Gideon rose early the next day and squeezed the fleece, and dew ran out of the fleece, a basin full of water. And Gideon said to the Lord: Let not your anger be kindled against me, Lord, and I will speak once more, and test once more with the fleece: let there be dryness on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: there was dryness on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew." I do not see what else is figured and foretold here than that we should understand the threshing floor as the whole world and the place of the fleece as the people of Israel. For we know that that nation was once drenched, as with heavenly dew, by the grace of the divine mystery, while all the nations round about, lacking that gift, had as it were dryness. But this gift was among that people in the fleece, that is, in a veil and as in a cloud of secrecy, because it had not yet been revealed. Now, however, we see the whole world, the dew now revealed, fattened by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was then figured under that covering; but that nation, having lost the priesthood it had, because it does not understand Christ in the Scriptures, has remained as in a dry fleece. Yet even in such figures of things, although I do not see what else can be understood here, I do not want us to seek the church. Let us set aside for the time being altogether whatever needs interpretation of any kind, even of this kind; not because things unravelled by interpreting such coverings in this way are false, but because, since they require an interpreter, I do not want our ingenuity to be compared in them; let the open truth cry out and shine, break into stopped ears, strike the eyes of those who pretend not to see (let no one seek a place for his false opinion in its hiding places), confound every attempt at contradiction, and crush every brazen face.

Read Genesis, Donatists: "By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your most beloved son for my sake, I will surely bless you and will surely multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is by the seashore, and your seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of its adversaries; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in your seed, because you obeyed my voice." What do you say to this? Or do you contend with us with the perversity of the Jews, so as to say that the seed of Abraham must be understood only of the people born of Abraham's flesh? But the Jews do not read the apostle Paul in their synagogues, whom you read in your conventicles. Let us hear, then, what the apostle says (for we are now asking how the seed of Abraham is to be understood): "Brothers," he says, "I speak in human terms: yet no one annuls or adds to a man's ratified testament. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, which is Christ." See in what seed all nations are blessed; see the testament of God; open your ears: "No one," he says, "annuls or adds to a man's ratified testament." Why do you annul the testament of God by saying that it has not been fulfilled in all nations and has already perished from the nations in which the seed of Abraham was? Why do you add to it by saying that Christ remains heir in no lands except where he could have Donatus as co-heir? We envy no one. Read this to us from the law, from the prophets, from the psalms, from the gospel itself, from the apostolic letters. Read it, and we believe, as we read to you both from Genesis and from the apostle that in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, all nations are blessed.

Hear this same testament made also to Isaac, the son of Abraham: "Now there was a famine on the earth, besides the famine that had been in the time of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar. And the Lord appeared to him and said: Do not go down into Egypt, but dwell in the land of which I shall tell you; dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and to your seed I will give all this land, and I will establish my oath which I swore to Abraham your father, and I will enlarge your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in your seed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice and kept my precepts, my justices, and my statutes." Answer this. For the seed of Abraham is this same seed of Isaac, which is Christ. For what Christian of any kind does not know how Christ came in the flesh, through a virgin, from the tribe of Judah?

Hear this same testament made to Jacob: "And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and set out for Haran. And he came to a place and slept in that place, for the sun had set. And he took a stone from the stones of the place and put it at his head and slept in that place. And he saw a vision: and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord leaned upon it and said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not fear: the land on which you sleep I will give to you and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and shall be multiplied over the sea and to the south and to the north and to the east; and in you and in your seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed. And behold, I am with you, guarding you in every way wherever you go, and I will bring you back into this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken to you." See what promise you resist; see how firm a testament you annul! The Lord says, "I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken to you," and you contradict, saying that we should rather believe you in whatever crime you charge against an unknowing and ignorant world, and not believe God when he says, "I will not forsake you until I have done it."

Read to us from the canonical Scriptures that those whom you accuse by name handed over the divine books. Read things as plain as these which we have read to you from Genesis. We do not ask of you what that stone signifies which Jacob put at his head when he slept, what the ladder set on the earth whose top reached to heaven, what the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Let wiser and more learned men search into these things and speak of them among a peaceful people, where shameless contradiction, arming its impudence with the obscurity of the mystery and the riddle of the reading, does not make an uproar. There is no lack of faithful hearts which the Lord may remind from the gospel, where, when he had seen an Israelite in whom there was no guile, he said (because Jacob, who saw this ladder, was himself called Israel), there is no lack, I say, of those whom the Lord himself reminds from there. For there he says: "You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man," that is, upon the seed of Abraham in which all nations are blessed. But I do not press these things on those who refuse them. See what you should hear: "Your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and shall be multiplied over the sea and to the south and to the north and to the east; and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed, and in your seed." Give me this church, if it is with you. Show that you communicate with all the nations which we now see blessed in this seed. Give us this, or else, laying aside your fury, receive it, not from me but from him in whom all nations are blessed. Let it suffice to have mentioned these things from the first book of the law; more will become known to those who read without impious contention and with pious love.