Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 15–27

What of the prophets? How many and how plain are the testimonies to the church spread through all nations in the whole world! Of these I shall mention a few, leaving more to the leisure and diligence of those who read with the fear of God. Let us receive the divine answers through the mouth of holy Isaiah and inquire of his mouth as of the oracles of God. Let the spirited and ruinous struggles of human contentions be silent. Let us incline our ear to the word of God; let Isaiah say where, by God's revelation, he foresaw the holy church, so that in the words of one who spoke of the future we may now see the present: "The whole earth," he says, "is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water covers the sea. And in that day there shall be the root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope." No Christian of any kind is unaware that the root of Jesse is Christ, born of the seed of David according to the flesh; and if anyone is contentious, let him contend with the apostle, who uses this testimony in his letters. Again he says: "Israel shall bud and blossom, and the whole world shall be filled with his fruit." Israel was, of course, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, to whom it was promised that in his seed all nations would be blessed, which seed the apostle interprets as Christ. Christ came from the seed of Abraham through Isaac and through Israel and so on, as the evangelist wove together the generations leading to Christ's birth. Whoever wants to argue against this, then, let him contradict the gospel and deny that Christ came from the seed of Israel, so that he may deny what Isaiah says: "Israel shall bud and blossom, and the whole world shall be filled with his fruit." Again he says: "I, God, am the first, and in the things that are to come, I am. The nations saw and the ends of the earth feared." This is what Scripture says elsewhere, "the first and the last," so that he may be the Alpha and the Omega, letters known to all in the sign of Christ. For in place of "last" there, here is put "and in the things that are to come, I am." Those, then, contradict this manifestation who will not believe, or rather will not now see fulfilled what follows: "The nations saw and the ends of the earth feared." Again a little later: "Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul has upheld him. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the nations. He will not cry out nor cease, nor will his voice be heard outside. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench, but he will bring forth judgment in truth. He will shine and not be broken, until he sets judgment on the earth, and in his name the nations will hope." This testimony is to be understood of Christ and is placed in the gospel. Let him who dares contradict it; but let him who does not dare hope in him with the nations, and not withdraw from the unity of the nations that hope in him, or, if he had withdrawn, return, lest he perish.

Again Isaiah says: "And now thus says the Lord, who formed me in the womb as his servant, to gather Jacob and Israel to him. I will draw him near and be honoured before the Lord, and my God will be my strength. And he said to me: It is a very great thing for you to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to turn back the offspring of Israel. And I have set you as a covenant of the race, as a light of the nations, that you may be salvation to the ends of the earth." And a little later: "Thus says the Lord of Israel: In a most acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you." Certainly when the apostle Paul cited these words, he showed that they are fulfilled only in Christians. For he added: "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Let us hear, then, what Isaiah adds: "I have given you," he says, "as a covenant of the nations, that you may inhabit the earth and possess the inheritance of the desert." And after some intervening words he goes on: "Behold, these will come from afar, and these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians. Rejoice, heaven, and be glad, earth; let the mountains send forth joy, for God has had mercy on his people and has spoken to the lowly of his people. But Zion said: The Lord has forsaken me, and God has forgotten me. Can forgetfulness seize a woman concerning her son, or can it be that she does not pity the child of her womb? Even if forgetfulness seizes her, yet forgetfulness will in no way seize me concerning you, says the Lord. Behold, on my hands I have drawn your walls; you are in my sight for ever, and soon you will be built up by those by whom you were destroyed." Since, then, by the apostle's voice we are not allowed to understand this of the people of the Jews but of that of the Christians, what are we to understand in what Isaiah says in this place, "and soon you will be built up by those by whom you were destroyed," except that the kings of the earth, who first persecuted the church, would afterwards help it, as was foretold so long before? But since many of them were to die in their iniquities, he adds: "And those who laid you waste will depart from you." Then, since all nations would be joined to the church, he goes on: "Look around everywhere with your eyes and see them all. As I live, says the Lord, you shall put on all these and arrange them as the ornament of a new bride; for what was desert in you, and ruined and fallen, will now be in the greatest narrowness because of those who dwell there; let those who swallowed you up be made far from you. For your sons whom you had lost will say in your ears: The place is too narrow for us; make us now also a place to dwell in. And you will say in your heart: Who has begotten these for me, since I know that I am childless and a widow? Who, then, has brought these up for me? For I was left alone; and where were these? Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will lift up my hands to the nations and my sign to the islands, and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and they will carry your daughters on their shoulders; and kings will be your foster fathers, and their princesses your nurses; bowing their faces to the ground they will entreat you and lick the dust of your feet; and you will know that I am the Lord, and you will not be put to shame." And a little later he adds: "Hear me, hear me, my people; kings also, attend to me; for a law will go forth from me and my judgment as a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near quickly, and my salvation will go forth, and in my arm the nations will be saved." About this arm let us consult the apostolic Scriptures. For when the apostle Paul had set down the testimony of this same prophet about the unbelief of the Jews, that Christ was not revealed to them, he put this: "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Then Isaiah adds in what follows: "Let the deserts of Jerusalem break forth together in joy, for he has had mercy on her and has delivered Jerusalem; and the Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all nations to the ends of the earth will see the salvation that is from God." Who is so deaf, so mad, so blind in mind as to speak against such evident testimonies, unless he does not know what he is saying?

But let us come to plainer things. We certainly know in the Scriptures the most sacred marriage, the bridegroom and the bride, Christ and the church. Isaiah writes of both, lest we perhaps err about either of them; whoever does so loses both, because it is said of this marriage in a mystery, as the apostle testifies: "The two shall be in one flesh." So first the bridegroom himself is described. After many things that Isaiah says of him in such a way that even the Jews are struck dumb, to avoid the length of mentioning them all, notice just this: "He himself," he says, "will bear their sins; therefore he will possess many as an inheritance and will divide the spoils of the strong; because his soul was handed over to death, and he was counted among the wicked, and he bore the sins of many, and was handed over for our iniquities." Confess that these things were foretold and prophesied of our Lord Jesus Christ so long before. Why, then, was this bridegroom handed over to death; why was he counted among the wicked? What did he accomplish, what did he acquire, by so great a humility of his majesty? Who is so deaf as not to hear these things, so dull as not to understand, so blind as not to see? "Therefore," he says, "he will possess many as an inheritance and will divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was handed over to death and he was counted among the wicked." Why, heretics, do you boast of your fewness, if our Lord Jesus Christ was handed over to death so that he might possess many as an inheritance? And who are these many, or how wide a part of the earth do they occupy? Let us hear what follows.

Now that the bridegroom has been foretold and described, let the bride also come forward in the words of Isaiah. Let us read her in the truth of the holy pages and recognize her in the whole world. The apostle Paul too set down this testimony foretold of the holy church; there is no escape for the contentious evasion of the heretics: "Rejoice, barren one," he says, "who do not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labour; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband." Where, I say, is your boasting of your fewness? Are not these the many of whom it was said a little before, "Therefore he will possess many as an inheritance"? For what is his inheritance but his church? "Many," he says, "are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband," meaning that the synagogue of the Jews has a husband, since it had received the law. From this what we say can now be judged. Let these men compare their multitude, set among the Africans or in Africa, with the multitude of the Jews wherever they are dispersed through all lands, and see how very few they are by comparison with them. How, then, will they claim that it was said of themselves: "Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband"? Again, let them compare the multitude of Christians throughout all the nations with which they do not communicate, and see how few all the Jews are by comparison, and at long last understand that this prophecy has been fulfilled in the catholic church spread through the whole world: "Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband." But to which woman with a husband this desolate one was preferred in the multitude of her children, let that be obscure, let it be in a riddle; yet whoever denies that this is the church of Christ, of which it is said, "Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband," contradicts not me but the apostle.

And where she would get her many children he adds next: "For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your courts, fix them, do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. Spread out still to the right and to the left. And your seed will possess the nations, and you will inhabit the desolate cities. Do not fear, for you will prevail; do not be afraid because you were detested. You will forget your everlasting shame, and you will not remember the disgrace of your widowhood. For I am the Lord who makes you, the Lord is his name; and he who delivered you, the God of Israel, will be called God of the whole earth." See how far she was commanded to stretch her cords: until her God, the God of Israel, is called God of the whole earth. Of her, indeed, and to her it is said in another place by the same prophet: "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until my righteousness goes forth like light, and my salvation burns like a torch; and all nations will see your righteousness, and kings your glory. And he will call you by your new name, which the Lord will name; and you will be a crown of beauty in the sight of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God; and you will no longer be called forsaken, and your land will not be called desolate. For you will be called My delight, and your land the whole world." What plainer statement must still be demanded? See how many things, how clear, from one prophet! And yet there is resistance and contradiction, not to any man, but to the Spirit of God and to the most evident truth; and yet those who wish to boast of the Christian name begrudge the glory of Christ himself, lest these things, foretold of him so long before, be believed to be fulfilled, when they are no longer foretold but shown, seen, and held. If I wished to collect into this one letter the testimonies from all the prophets to the church foretold, which we see as we read of it, I fear I should myself seem to judge few what are so many that, if I wished to gather them all from Isaiah alone, I should exceed the proper measure of a discourse.

Now let us hear a few things from the psalms, sung so long before, and see them now fulfilled with great joy. And first let them hear and declare that very passage which Petilian, with what face I do not know, set in his letter: "The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession." For what Christian ever doubted that this was foretold of Christ, or understood this inheritance as anything other than the church? And since it was to hold good and bad within the same nets of the sacraments, he says: "You will rule them with a rod of iron; you will break them like a potter's vessel." For by the same firm and inflexible justice the good are ruled and the bad are broken.

Who is so far astray and so out of tune with the divine words as not to recognize the gospel itself when that psalm is sung where it is written: "They pierced my hands and feet; they numbered all my bones. They looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots"? Since the evangelist too, when he narrated that this was done, remembered this testimony. And what was bought by the price of this cross, by so great a humility of so great a majesty, by that most innocent and divine blood, except what is said there in what follows: "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he will rule over the nations"? Did not the apostle explain as said of the preachers of the new covenant what is written: "Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world"? Of whom else but Christ is it understood: "The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion the beauty of his comeliness"? Whose voice but Christ's is this: "I slept, troubled"? And as to why he was troubled, it goes on: "Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." Whose but those who cried out, "Crucify, crucify"? To what end was all this? For whose good, whose gain? Hear what follows: "Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth." See, you have Christ sleeping in his passion and ascending above the heavens in his resurrection. And why is his glory above all the earth, unless because his church is through all the earth? In these two very short sentences I put to you, heretics, the whole matter in dispute between us: "Be exalted," it says, "above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth." Why do you preach Christ the Lord exalted above the heavens and not communicate with his glory above all the earth?

The seventy-first psalm is entitled "For Solomon." But since things are said in it that cannot fit that temporal king, who afterwards sinned grievously, it is most unanswerably defended even against the Jews themselves that they were foretold of Christ. No Christian denies this; for things are said of which it cannot be doubted that they belong to Christ. There too are said things in which the church spread through the whole world is recognized, with all kings subjected to Christ: "And he will rule," it says, "from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the world"; from the river, certainly, where the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and the voice from heaven made him known. Then it goes on: "Before him the Ethiopians will fall down, and his enemies will lick the dust; the kings of Tarshish and the islands will offer gifts, the kings of the Arabians and of Sheba will bring presents. And all the kings of the earth will worship him, all nations will serve him." And a little later: "And in him all the tribes of the earth will be blessed; all nations will magnify him. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wonders; and blessed be the name of his glory for ever and for ages of ages; and the whole earth will be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it." Go now, Donatists, and cry out: "Let it not be, let it not be!" The word of God has conquered you, saying, "So be it, so be it." See, the church spread through the whole world has been made manifest in the psalms, on which the glory of its king rests. Hence she herself is also the queen, his bride, of whom it is said to him in the forty-fourth psalm: "The queen stood at your right hand in a robe of gold, clothed in variety"; and the divine word is at once directed to exhorting her: "Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has desired your beauty, for he is your God." Notice how the divine prophecy began to address the bride of Christ: "Hear," it says, "daughter, and see." But you will neither hear these things foretold nor see them fulfilled, and yet you hear and see them against your will. Hear, then, what is said to her a little later; hear from the divine page how it is foretold, and see in all the earth how it is fulfilled: "In place of your fathers," it says, "sons are born to you; you will make them princes over all the earth." How many testimonies of the Scriptures on this matter I pass over, those who read know, and I know; but I do not want to burden a letter to which I demand an answer.

What will they say to these things that we have cited from the law, the prophets, and the psalms about the church of Christ which is spread through the whole world, which in their perversity they prefer to resist rather than, corrected, to communicate with? What, I say, will they say? That these things are false, or obscure? But they do not dare to say they are false, for they are pressed by the weight of so great an authority. Confessing, then, that they are true, they contend that they cannot be fulfilled; as if it were something other than accusing prophecy of the crime of falsehood to say that what it foretold cannot be fulfilled; for that is to say that it is not prophecy but rather false prophecy. And when you ask them why these things cannot be fulfilled, they answer: "Because men do not want it." "For man," they say, "was created with free will, and if he wills he believes in Christ, if he does not will he does not believe; if he wills he perseveres in what he believes, if he does not will he does not persevere. And so, when the church had begun to grow through the world, men would not persevere, and the Christian religion failed in all nations except the party of Donatus." As if the Spirit of God did not know the future wills of men: what utter madman would say this? Why, then, did he not rather foretell what he knew would come about from the wills of men? For in the way in which these men think these things were foretold, anyone who wishes can be a prophet, so that, when what he foretold has not been fulfilled, he may answer: "Men did not want it; for they are Christians by free will." In this way someone could have prophesied that Christ would not suffer on the cross but die by the sword, so that, when it happened otherwise, he could answer: "What have I done? Men, set in free will, did not want to do to him what I had foretold, and did what they themselves wanted." Who does not now see how many things could be prophesied, or even can be, in this way by anyone at all? For who would doubt that Judas, if he had not wished, would certainly not have handed Christ over, and that Peter, if he had not wished, would not have denied the Lord three times? But there was a sure prediction about these things precisely because God foresees even future wills.

Yet although these things are open even to slow hearts, let us hear from here also the voice of the Word himself, uttered by the mouth of his own flesh. Certainly, when after the resurrection he offered himself to be touched and handled by the hands of his doubting disciples, and had taken and eaten before them what they had offered him, he said to them: "These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." Of whom but him were those things written which we too have cited from the law and the prophets and the psalms, as I showed one by one? Since, then, he who is the truth says, "Everything must be fulfilled," how do these men deny it, unless because they are enemies of the truth? But if they still say these things are obscure, let us hear from this passage the head himself, the truest demonstrator of his own body. For when he had said, "that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled," as though we were asking whether in his words "about me" the church too was to be understood there (because it is written, "The two shall be in one flesh"), so that we might hold certain divine oracles not only about the head but also about the body, the evangelist goes on: "Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day." Here the head himself is shown, who even offered himself to be handled by the disciples' hands. See how he adds about the body, which is the church, so as not to let us err either about the bridegroom or about the bride: "and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." What is truer, what more divine, what plainer than this word? Am I reluctant to commend it in my own words, and are the heretics not ashamed to attack it in theirs?

Let them say that the testimonies I set down from the law and the prophets and the psalms are obscure and spoken figuratively and can be understood otherwise (although in their case too I have done what I could to keep them from daring to say even this); but see, let them say: Is this too spoken obscurely or shaded by the veil of a riddle, which Christ himself said: "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem"? If "I slept, troubled" is obscure, is "it was necessary for the Christ to suffer" obscure? If "Be exalted above the heavens, O God" is obscure, is "and to rise on the third day" obscure? Likewise, if "your glory above all the earth" is obscure, is "that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations" obscure? If "The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting" is obscure, is "that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations" obscure? For so the earth was called from the rising of the sun to its setting, as he himself says: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." If "Out of Zion the beauty of his comeliness" is obscure, is "beginning from Jerusalem" obscure? For Zion is the same as Jerusalem. But what is that to me? Let them say that the things I set down from the law and the prophets and the psalms do not belong to these words of the Lord read in the gospel: I do not care, I do not resist. Yet certainly, unless this had been foretold in the law and the prophets and the psalms, whether in the testimonies I have used or in others, the Lord would never have said, "Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled," and then, having opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, taught the very things written about him in the law and the prophets and the psalms by saying, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." Even if I could not have recognized these things written in the law and the prophets and the psalms, yet he who is the truth says that this is written there. And even if he did not say that these things were written there, it would undoubtedly be enough for Christians that Christ himself said that repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. But he wished to confirm his doubting disciples, although they had seen and handled his body, by the greater proof of the Scriptures than by his presenting himself visible and touchable to mortal senses. Let us hold, then, the church marked out by the Lord's own mouth: where it was to begin and how far it was to reach, namely, beginning from Jerusalem and reaching to all nations.

Here now, whoever says that Jerusalem is not to be understood as that visible city, but is set down figuratively so as to be taken spiritually as the whole church, eternal in heaven and partly a pilgrim on earth, can also say that "it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day" was said figuratively; and whoever says that is not to be held a Christian in any way. As, then, that was set down literally, so also what was added about the church of all nations beginning from Jerusalem. For the Lord explained that these things were said of him in the law and the prophets and the psalms, and certainly that explanation itself could not be figurative; otherwise it would not be an explanation. Then, if Jerusalem, set down figuratively and understood spiritually, signifies the universal church, how does the universal church begin from the universal church, as though Jerusalem began from Jerusalem? It is plain, then, that it is said literally of that city from which the church is proved to have begun, as he makes clear again and again and leaves no lurking-place of ambush to heretical cunning. For he goes on: "And you are witnesses of these things; and I send my promise upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." In the city in which he commanded them to stay until they were clothed with power from on high, that is, with the Holy Spirit whom he had promised to send, he foretold that the church would begin. And if they do not think this is Jerusalem, let them hear what follows: "And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he departed from them. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God." See where that city is shown in which he commanded them to stay until they were clothed with power from on high.

Here, indeed, how many days he was with them after he had shown himself alive after his passion to their eyes and hands is passed over. But it is not passed over in the Acts of the Apostles, where again, with the same plainness of the Lord's words, the church to come throughout the whole world is foretold. There no one at all is allowed to doubt, unless he doubts the faith of the holy Scriptures, that it is that visible city of Jerusalem from which the church began after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he wished to show nothing other than the places of this earth from which he would give it its beginning, and how he would spread it from there through all lands. For thus it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: "The first account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day when he chose the apostles through the Holy Spirit, commanding them to preach the gospel; to whom he also showed himself after his passion by many signs, appearing to them for forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God; and while he was with them he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for his promise, which you have heard, he said, from my mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you are also to receive not many days from now. So they, when they had come together, asked him, saying: Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? He answered them: It is not for you to know the times which the Father has set in his own power; but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth." See, here too it is made plain where the church was to begin and how far it was to reach.