Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 28–36

What do they say to these things, who most proudly call themselves Christians and most openly contradict Christ? We hold this church; against these divine voices we admit no human accusations. For it moves us greatly that our Lord, whom it is sacrilegious and impious not to believe, left these saving and last proofs to the primitive church in the last words he spoke on earth. For having said these things, he soon ascended into heaven; he wished to fortify our ears against those who he had foretold would arise as time went on and say, "Look, here is Christ, look, there," whom he warned us not to believe. Nor have we any excuse if we believe against the voice of our shepherd, so clear, so open, so manifest that no one, even dull and slow of heart, can say, "I did not understand." For who does not understand: "Thus it was necessary 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"? Who does not understand: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth. Having said this he was lifted up, and a cloud received him, and they saw him going into heaven"? What is this, I ask? When the last words of a dying man about to go down to the underworld are heard, no one says that he lied, and an heir who perhaps scorns them is judged impious. How, then, shall we escape the wrath of God if, either not believing or scorning them, we reject the last words of the only Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, who was going to heaven and from there would look upon who neglects them and who observes them, and from there will come to judge all? I have the most manifest voice of my shepherd commending to me and expressing without any ambiguity the church. I shall have myself to blame if I choose to be led astray and wander from his flock, which is the church itself, by the words of men, especially since he has warned me, saying: "My sheep hear my voice and follow me." See, his voice is clear and open. Whoever has heard it and does not follow him, how will he dare to call himself his sheep? Let no one say to me, "Oh, what did Donatus say, or what did Parmenian or Pontius or any of them say?" For we must not agree even with catholic bishops if perhaps they are mistaken somewhere, so as to hold something contrary to the canonical Scriptures of God. But if they fall into this while keeping the bond of unity and charity, what the apostle says will happen in them: "And if you think otherwise in anything, God will reveal this also to you." But these divine voices about the universal church are so manifest that none but heretics can bark against them with spirited perversity and blind fury.

We have shown that the church was foretold in the word of God its bridegroom, whether through the law and the prophets and the psalms or through his own mouth, as beginning from Jerusalem and reaching to the ends of the earth. How it began from Jerusalem and, spread from there into all nations, bears fruit, is also shown in the same word of God through the apostles, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles, which I have already cited, that the Lord said: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth." Then it goes on: "When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their eyes. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white clothing, who said: Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying: Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these were devoting themselves with one accord to prayer, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. In those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and spoke; and there was a crowd of about a hundred and twenty people." Then it is narrated how, at Peter's speech, Matthias was substituted in the place of Judas, the betrayer of the Lord; and after his ordination Scripture goes on: "And when the days of Pentecost were fulfilled, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting; and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and was confounded, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and marvelled, saying to one another: Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how do we hear each of us in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and Jews who lived in Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, heard them speaking in their own languages the great works of God. And they were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another: What does this mean? But others mocked them, saying: These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing with the eleven disciples, lifted up his voice and spoke, saying: Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you," and the rest by which he exhorts them to faith. When he had finished, Scripture goes on to narrate: "Now when they heard this they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the apostles: What shall we do, brothers? Show us. And Peter said to them: Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to us and to our children and to all who are far off, whomever the Lord our God calls. And with many other words he testified to them, saying: Be saved from this crooked generation. So those who received this word believed and were baptized; and there were added that day about three thousand souls." See how the church began from Jerusalem, to go from there through all languages, which was foreshadowed in those who, gathered there and receiving the Holy Spirit, spoke in all tongues.

Next let us see how it went through other nations, which Peter himself had also foretold when he said: "The promise is to us and to our children and to all who are far off, whomever the Lord our God calls." For the things then done at Jerusalem are narrated in order up to the death of the deacon Stephen, where Saul too is mentioned as consenting to his killing. When that was accomplished, it is then narrated: "And on that day a great persecution arose against the church that was in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, who remained in Jerusalem." See how what the Lord had said in order is next fulfilled: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth." It had already been done in Jerusalem; it followed in Judea and Samaria, because they were scattered in the regions of Judea and Samaria. For this is soon said of them: "But those who had been scattered went through the cities and villages preaching the word of God." And since the apostles too had gone, having heard that Samaria had received the word of God, when the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of their hands, it is said of Peter and John: "Now Peter and John, having testified the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans as they passed." Then it is narrated of the eunuch who, returning from Jerusalem, was baptized by Philip, and of Philip it is said: "The angel of the Lord caught Philip away from him, and the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found to have come to Azotus, and returning from there he preached the gospel in all the cities until he came to Caesarea." So the gospel is found preached through the cities of Judea and Samaria. It remained, then, that it should be preached in order through all nations as well, as the Lord had said, to the whole earth. So Saul is called from heaven, becomes a preacher instead of a persecutor, and the Lord says of him to Ananias: "Go, for he is a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name before the nations and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Now, then, we hold the church in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea and Samaria, of which it is said most plainly a little later: "The churches throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built up and strengthened in the fear of the Lord, and were filled with the comfort of the Holy Spirit." Then, after a few things in between, we come to the place where Cornelius the centurion believed and was baptized with his household, all of whom were uncircumcised Gentiles. Before this happened, Peter, while praying, saw in an ecstasy of mind heaven opened and a certain vessel tied by four corners, like a clean linen sheet, in which were every kind of four-footed animals and wild beasts and birds of the air. And a voice came: "Peter, rise, kill and eat." But Peter said: "Lord, I have never eaten anything common and unclean." And the voice came to him again: "What God has cleansed, do not call common." That the nations who were to believe were signified by this vision we need not guess; the apostle himself explains that this was shown to him in that vessel. For when he had entered the house where Cornelius was, and many had gathered, he said to them: "You know better how abominable it is for a Jewish man to associate with or approach a foreigner; but God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean." So he explained that voice which he had heard about the animals shown in that sheet: "What God has cleansed, do not call common." To whom is it not now plain that by that vessel the whole world with all nations was signified? That is why it was tied by four corners, because of the four best-known parts of the world, east and west, south and north, which Scripture very often mentions. How many places Paul, sent to the nations, went round, sowing the word of God and strengthening the churches that had been born, it would be long to recount. When the Jews opposed him at Antioch, he and Barnabas said to them: "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the nations. For so the Lord has commanded us: I have set you as a light to the nations, that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth." And it goes on: "And when the nations heard this, they received the word of God, and as many as were destined to eternal life believed." See, here too is cited the testimony from the prophet Isaiah which we also set down: "that you may be salvation to the end of the earth."

So, not to mention the nations that believed and came to the church after the times of the apostles, let these men tell us how those very ones alone, which we find in the holy writings, in the Acts and the letters of the apostles and in the Apocalypse of John, which we both embrace and to which we both submit, perished through an African sedition. For we have received these not from the councils of contending bishops, not from new-fangled disputations, not from court or municipal records, but from the holy canonical writings. How could the church of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, perish by the crimes of Africans? What south wind was so violent that it could carry and scatter a plague so far, to places where not even the names of those through whom or about whom this evil arose could be known: Athens, Iconium, Lystra? Who destroyed the churches founded by apostolic labour? At the end of the letter to the Romans the same apostle, the teacher of the nations, says: "But on some points I have written to you rather boldly, as reminding you, because of the grace given me by God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus among the nations, consecrating the gospel of God, so that the offering of the nations may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I have therefore glory in Christ Jesus toward God. For I do not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me for the obedience of the nations, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ." Ask, Donatists, if you do not know, ask how many stages there are on the land roads from Jerusalem round about as far as Illyricum; if we count so many churches, tell us how they could perish through African quarrels. To the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians: you keep only the apostle's letters in your reading; we keep both the letters in reading and faith and the churches themselves in communion. Galatia, moreover, is not one church, but in that region they are innumerable. And see how he greeted the Corinthians: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia." How many churches do you think there are in all Achaia? Perhaps you do not know where Achaia is, and about so unknown a province you judge with such blindness as to say it perished by the crimes of Africans. Are not all the places that Peter names, Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, full of most flourishing churches? What of those to whom John wrote, the churches at Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Laodicea (for we have already mentioned Ephesus)? Let one of you tell me where they are and how far apart they are. Perhaps you are only now trying to find this out by reading or hearing. Learn, then, also how far they are from Africa, and tell us why with such sacrilegious rashness you accuse churches entirely unknown to you and made manifest in the apostolic writings, and with such madness say they perished by the crimes of Africans. Finally, I know what is written of them in the holy canonical books; I do not know what you say of them. Certainly, as we read that these are churches of Christ from the books that you too venerate, so you too read to us from the books that we too venerate how they perished. Or do you want us to believe, against the churches that are members of the one church spread through the whole world, which the Holy Spirit has commended and handed down to us through his Scriptures, any curses of men brought from anywhere? This pleases you, but it does not please us. Which of us is more justly pleased, you yourselves see; but, overcome by animosity, you will not be overcome by truth. See, here are the Scriptures of God; see, in them the churches are marked out and described, both by the universal name of the whole world and by name. Your forefathers did not know what they charged against their colleagues, nor did they know what judges that case had: how, then, did they perish? See, here are the Scriptures I believe; see, here are the churches with which I communicate: where I read you their names, there read me their crimes.

But if you cry out or recite something from elsewhere, after the voice of our shepherd declared to us most plainly through the mouths of the prophets, through his own mouth, and through the mouths of the evangelists, we do not admit your voice, we do not believe it, we do not accept it. "My sheep," says the heavenly shepherd, "hear my voice and follow me." His voice about the church is not obscure. Whoever does not want to wander from his flock, let him hear this voice and follow it. His most faithful steward, the teacher of the nations in faith and truth, since Christ himself spoke in him, says this: "I marvel that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you in the grace of Christ to another gospel, which is not another; only there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than what we preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than what you received, let him be anathema." The church that was to be throughout the whole world has been preached to us as gospel. The Lord himself testified that this was foretold in the law and the prophets and the psalms; he foretold that it would begin from Jerusalem and spread through all nations; when he was already ascending into heaven, he foretold that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth. Deeds followed these words: how it began from Jerusalem and then advanced into Judea and Samaria and from there into the whole earth, where the church is still growing, until to the end it takes hold also of the remaining nations where it is not yet, is shown in sequence with the holy Scriptures as witnesses. Whoever preaches another gospel, let him be anathema. And he preaches another gospel who says that the church has perished from the rest of the world and remained in the party of Donatus in Africa alone. Let him, then, be anathema; or let him read this to me in the holy Scriptures, and not be anathema.

"I do read it," he says. "For Enoch alone among all men pleased God and was taken up; and afterwards, when the whole world had been destroyed by the flood of waters, Noah alone with his wife and sons and daughters-in-law deserved to be delivered in the ark." They add also about Lot, that he alone with his daughters was delivered from Sodom; and about Abraham himself, Isaac, and Jacob, that they were few pleasing God on an earth given over to idols and demons. Finally, when the people of Israel had multiplied, in the times of the kings in the land of promise, which had been divided among all twelve tribes, they mention that ten tribes were divided off and handed over to Solomon's servant, while two remained to Solomon's son for the kingdom of Jerusalem. "So now too," they say, "the whole world has apostatized; but we, like those two tribes, have remained in the temple of God, that is, in the church." They also say that when very many disciples followed the Lord Jesus Christ, seventy-two fell away, and the twelve alone remained with him. By these and such examples the heretics try to commend their fewness, and they do not cease to blaspheme the multitude of the holy church spread through the whole world. But I ask them: if (which God forbid) I refused to believe that these very examples they cite are true, by what would they convince me? Would it not be from the holy Scriptures, where they are read with such plainness that whoever accepts those writings in faith cannot but confess these things too to be most true? Further, if I were compelled to believe these examples true because they are written there, where I cannot say that what is written is false, why do they not themselves also believe the same Scriptures about the church spread through the whole world? See, we believe all those things. Let them also believe what the Lord says: "that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem"; let them believe what he said last as he was about to ascend into heaven: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth." Let both those things and these be believed true, and no dispute will remain between us, since neither are these hindered by those being true, nor those by these. "We also believe these things," they say, "and confess that they were fulfilled; but afterwards the world apostatized, and the communion of Donatus alone remained." Let them read this to us, as they read about Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and about those two tribes that were left when ten had separated, and about the twelve apostles who remained when the others fell away. Let them read this likewise, and we make no resistance. But if they do not read it from the holy Scriptures, but try to persuade by their own contentions, I believe what is read in the holy Scriptures; I do not believe what is said by vain heretics. And since they think they should be compared with those two tribes that remained with Solomon's son, let them read, and they will regret having chosen this. For in the Scriptures the two peoples are mentioned thus: the part that was at Jerusalem is named Judah, while the other, which was separated in greater number with Solomon's servant, is called Israel. Let them read what the prophets say of both, how they call Judah worse than Israel, so that they say that apostate Israel was justified by the sins of treacherous Judah, that is, that the sins of the latter were so grave that by comparison the former must be called righteous. Yet the sins of neither harmed in any way the righteous who are found to have been both here and there. For even in that part which they set forth as an example of perdition, that is, in Israel, there were holy prophets. There was that memorable Elijah, to say nothing of others, to whom it was even said: "I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee before Baal." Therefore that part of the people is by no means to be counted as a heresy. For God had commanded those tribes to be separated, not that religion but that the kingdom should be divided, and that in this way vengeance might be taken on the kingdom of Judah. But God never commands a schism or a heresy to be made. Nor, because kingdoms are often divided in the world, is Christian unity therefore divided, since the catholic church is found on both sides.

I thought this about Judah and Israel worth mentioning chiefly so that these men might be reminded that whatever is said against those peoples because of the multitude of the ungodly does not harm the righteous placed among the ungodly; and so that they may stop collecting the testimonies, whatever they find said through the prophets, through the Lord's mouth, or through the evangelists, against the tares or the chaff of the world. For the divine word often rebukes the ungodly crowds of the church, which are not counted in the church, yet because of the sacraments they have in common with the saints, since there is in them a certain form of godliness whose power they deny (as the apostle says, "having the form of godliness but denying its power"), it rebukes them as though all were such and no good person at all remained. From this, indeed, we are warned that they are called "all" within their own number, that is, all the sons of Gehenna, the number to which God foreknew they belong. These men, then, acting either ignorantly or deceitfully, collect from the Scriptures such things as are found said either against the wicked mixed with the good until the end, or about the devastation of the former people of the Jews, and want to twist them against the church of God, so that it may seem to have failed and perished from the whole world. Let them stop bringing forward such things, then, if they wish to answer this letter. For we do not say that the church is spread through the whole world in such a way as to say that only the good are in its sacraments and not also the wicked, and these far more numerous, so that by comparison with them the good are few, though in themselves they make up a vast number.

We have countless testimonies both about the mixing of the wicked with the good in the same communion of the sacrament, as Judas, wicked from the beginning, lived among the eleven good, and about the fewness of the good by comparison with the many wicked, and again about the multitude of the good considered in itself. Of these, to be brief, I mention a few. There is in the Song of Songs what every Christian recognizes as said of the holy church: "As a lily among thorns, so is my neighbour among the daughters." Why does it call them thorns, except because of the wickedness of their ways, and why the same ones daughters, except because of the communion of the sacraments? Ezekiel too sees certain people marked so that they might not perish together with the wicked, of whom it is said to him: "those who sigh and grieve over the sins and iniquities of my people that are done in their midst." He would not call "my people" the people whom he soon commands to perish, sparing only those, unless it were the people that bore his sacraments. And the Lord says of the tares sown over the wheat: "Let both grow until the harvest," that is, the wheat and the tares; and he himself explains that the harvest is the end of the age, and the field where both were sown is the world. So both must grow throughout the world until the end of the age. Hence these men are no longer allowed to suspect or assert what they say, that all the good have failed from the world so as to remain in the party of Donatus alone. For they strive against the most open statement of the Lord, who says, "The field is the world," and "Let both grow until the harvest," and "The harvest is the end of the age." There is also another most open likeness of the mixing of good and bad within the same communion and bond of the sacraments, which the Lord himself both sets forth and explains: "The kingdom of heaven," he says, "is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers fish of every kind; and when it was full, they drew it to the shore and sat down and chose the best into their vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age: the angels will come out and separate the wicked from the midst of the righteous and cast them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." No mixing of the wicked, then, frightens the good into wanting to break the nets, as it were, and leave the congregation of unity so as not to endure men who do not belong to the kingdom of heaven in the fellowship of the sacraments; for when they come to the shore, that is, to the end of the age, the due separation will be made, not by human rashness but by divine judgment.

About the fewness of the good the Lord himself says most plainly: "Enter by the narrow gate. How wide and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who go by it; how narrow is the gate and strait the way that leads to life, and few are those who enter by it." The Donatists think they are these few, and therefore say that the world has perished, while they have remained in this fewness that the Lord praised. When they are compared with them, we set against them the far fewer Rogatists or Maximianists who separated from them, if they think they should boast of fewness. Yet let them read that this fewness was commended by the Lord by comparison with the multitude of the wicked, but that the Scriptures have not been silent about the multitude of the good when it is considered in itself, and let them see how many testimonies are found. For why is that very seed of Abraham promised like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea, except because of its countless multitude, since the apostle says that it was said, "In Isaac your seed will be called," because not the children of the flesh but the children of the promise are counted as seed? Why are "many the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband"? Why will "many come from the east and the west and recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will go into the outer darkness," that is, the ungodly Jews? Why does the apostle say, "to cleanse for himself a people abounding, zealous for good works"? Why does the Apocalypse say that the holy sons of the church are thousands of thousands? See, the same people are called many who are also called few. Why, unless they are many considered in themselves, but few in comparison with the wicked?