Against Cresconius, a Donatist Grammarian 1.19–1.39

For one who disputes distinguishes by disputing what is true from what is false. Those who cannot do this and yet wish to seem dialecticians catch the assent of the unwary by treacherous questions, so as to draw conclusions from their answers by which they may either laugh at them as deceived into open falsehood or persuade them, once deceived, of a hidden falsehood, which they themselves often think is the truth. But the true disputant, that is, the one who distinguishes truth from falsehood, first does this within himself, so that he himself may not be deceived by not distinguishing rightly, which he cannot accomplish unless helped by God. Then, when he brings out to teach others what he has done within himself, he looks first at what they already know for certain, so as to lead them from these to the things they did not know or were unwilling to believe, showing that these follow from what they already held by knowledge or by faith; so that by those truths to which they see they agree they are compelled to approve other truths which they had denied, and so a truth which was previously thought false is distinguished from falsehood when it is found to agree with that truth which was already held before.

If this true disputant does this broadly and expansively, he does it eloquently, and he is then rated and honored with another name, so that he is called a speaker rather than a disputant; as the apostle abundantly enlarges and spreads out that passage: “In all things,” he says, “commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in hardships, in beatings, in prisons, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in the word of truth, in the power of God; through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonor, through ill repute and good repute; as deceivers and yet truthful, as unknown and yet known, as dying and behold we live, as punished and not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and possessing all things.” What could you easily find richer and more ornate, that is, more eloquent, than this apostolic style? But if he does it concisely and compactly, they have been accustomed to call him a disputant rather than a speaker, as the same apostle deals with the circumcision and uncircumcision of father Abraham or the distinction of law and grace, about which some, not understanding, or rather slandering, accused him of saying, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” But whether one is a speaker or a disputant, there is neither speech without disputation, since even in the very breadth of eloquence truth is distinguished from falsehood, nor can there be disputation without speech, since the compactness of the discourse is certainly expressed in words and with the tongue, whether he uses continuous speech or, by questioning the one with whom he is dealing, compels him to answer what is true and from this leads him to another truth that was being sought; and there, it is said, dialectic reigns most of all.

For when someone is refuted by his own answers, if he answered badly he has nothing to blame on the disputant but himself, and if he answered well he is ashamed to resist further, no longer the disputant but himself. When the Lord frequently dealt in this way with the Jews, and refuted them caught and hemmed in by their own answers, they had not heard you, nor learned from you to revile; for perhaps they would more gladly and more invidiously have called him a dialectician than a Samaritan. For how twisted and confounded do you think they were when, wishing to catch him in his speech, they asked him first whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, laying a trap with a two-headed dilemma, so that whichever he chose he would be caught: if he answered that it was lawful, he would be guilty as against the people of God; if he said it was not lawful, he would be punished as Caesar's adversary? Then he asked that a coin be shown him and asked whose image and inscription it bore. And when they answered, “Caesar's” (for the plain truth compelled them to answer this), at once the Lord, drawing them bound and caught by their own answer, said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” I ask you, were they the dialecticians, who tried to overcome him by deceit with the snares of a question held out, or rather he, who from the very thing they asked, drawing out their true answer by the prudence of his question, compelled them themselves to confess that truth which they thought it would be dangerous for him to say?

If you say that they were the dialecticians, because they wished to catch him in his speech by asking deceitfully, slanderously, maliciously (for that is what you want us too to appear to be), why then did the Lord answer them? Why did he lead them, by the reason he gave, to the point of confessing the truth? Why did he say to them, “Why do you tempt me, hypocrites?” and did not add “dialecticians”? Why did he demand that a coin be shown him, so as to draw out his true judgment even from the mouth of deceivers, and did he not rather say, “Go away; I must not speak with you, because you put forward captious questions, because you wish to deal with me dialectically”? He said nothing of the kind, nor did he set us such an example against captious questioners and crafty catchers of our words; but rather that we should compel them, even the enemies of the truth, by watchful questioning and unconquerable reason to bear witness to the truth. Let your people do this to us, if we are malicious and dialecticians. Or do they show that they fear that we will rather do this to them? But if you say that Christ was a dialectician, you will be praising the dialectic which you had cast at me as a crime.

To avoid doing that, I see what you will perhaps say: that neither they nor he did anything dialectically in that conversation. If, then, neither those who converse captiously and treacherously in order to deceive in speech those with whom they deal, nor those who refute such people by their own answer, act dialectically, tell us at last what dialectic is, and how much evil it has, how much harm it does. Teach how it is to be shunned, whose name you invidiously throw out to the ignorant; show its crime to those who ask. You do not wish to admit that one acts dialectically who, by questioning skillfully and rightly people turned away from the truth, leads them by their own answers to the truth, lest you admit that Christ too acted dialectically with the Jews. Likewise you do not wish those to act dialectically who, laying snares with captious questions, try to deceive the one who answers, lest it be shown you that the Jews dealt thus with Christ, whom he nevertheless did not avoid by keeping silent but rather overcame by speaking; and so you would be compelled to admit that your bishops, whom you think learned and wise, do not do right in refusing to hold discourse even with dialecticians, so as to teach the unconquerable truth. I see you are in great agitation about how to define a dialectician, so that he is neither a skilled disputant, lest you be compelled to praise what you have blamed, nor a treacherous catcher of words, lest it be said to you: as Christ dealt with such men, so let a Christian deal with this one. Accordingly, if you wish to be freed from this worry, define the dialectician as the man with whom the experts in the law of the party of Donatus refuse to hold a conference. For what else can be suggested to you, a man who casts dialectic at us and therefore praises his own bishops for refusing to hold discourse with us?

But about the Jews you will perhaps find something to say: that although they held out the snares of their questions cleverly and craftily, they were not dialecticians. About the Stoics, certainly, nothing of the kind can be said; they were not only dialecticians but surpassed the other sects of philosophers in this art or ability. For, as you recall with me, Chrysippus was a Stoic, of whom Carneades the Academic held the opinion that, whenever he had to dispute with him, he judged his heart needed purging with hellebore, whereas he could easily overcome the others even after lunch. If, then, the books of the Stoics taught us to dispute dialectically, let your bishops bring forth the teaching of Paul against us; yet let them allow us to confer with them, as he did not repel those very Stoics at that time.

For Christian teaching never fears this art which they call dialectic, which teaches nothing else than to demonstrate consequences, whether of true things from true or false from false; just as the apostle did not fear it in the Stoics, whom he did not reject when they wished to confer with him. For dialectic itself admits, and it is true, that no one is driven by a disputant logically to a false conclusion unless he has first agreed to false premises, from which that conclusion follows whether he will or not. And therefore whoever takes care that false things he does not want should not follow from what he says, let him willingly beware of the false things that come before. But if he holds to true premises, whatever consequences he sees, which he thought false or about which he was in doubt, let him embrace them once he is shown them, if he is more a friend of truth, which is most peaceable, than of vanity, which is most contentious.

I would have done little unless I showed what I am saying in this very conversation of ours that is going on between us. See, in that very question about baptism, you put it forward, asking me where it is fitting for you to be baptized, with us or in the party of Donatus. And because your contention is that a man ought rather to be baptized in the party of Donatus, you tried to prove this contention from the fact that we too do not deny that baptism exists there. You surely see that what you wanted to do was that from what we grant we should be drawn to what we did not grant: that is, that because we grant that baptism exists there, we should be compelled to grant also that a man ought to be baptized there.

Consider carefully whether this follows, and answer yourself. For I think that, now that this is set before your eyes, you see with your lively wit how you are gathering things that do not follow as though they followed. For in truth we say that baptism exists there too, but we do not say that it profits; on the contrary, we say that it harms. Now when it is asked where anyone ought to be baptized, it is asked, I believe, because of what the Lord says: “Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Since, then, baptism is to be received for this benefit, when it is asked where it is to be received, the question is not where it exists, but where it is useful for obtaining the kingdom of heaven. It would follow that it is to be received wherever it is agreed to exist, if all who have something good were shown to have it also to their good. But since so many have so many good things to their harm, who does not see that, when it is asked where something is to be received, the question is not where it exists, but where it profits? For if you granted me that gold is good, and granted also that robbers too have gold, you would not, I think, want me to conclude from these two concessions that one who wishes to have gold ought to be in the company of robbers; so, when I too grant that baptism is good and grant also that the Donatists too have baptism, you ought not to conclude from these two concessions, as though it followed, that one who wishes to have baptism ought to be in the society of the Donatists.

From this I do not doubt that many things will now occur to you yourself which, though they are good and established for some useful purpose, are yet not useful to all who have them, but only to those who use them well. For when sound eyes and wounded eyes are flooded with the same light, it is a help to the one and a torment to the other; the same food nourishes some states of health and harms others; the same medicine cures some and weakens others; the same arms protect some and hinder others; the same garment is a covering to some and an entanglement to others. So too baptism avails some for the kingdom and others for judgment.

Here I see what may move you. For perhaps you say that in all these I have mentioned nothing of a sacrament; but baptism is a holy sacrament, and so it does not follow that, if it could be proved of gold, of light, of food, arms, and clothing that they are suitable for some who have them and unsuitable for others, though they are good and established for some useful purpose, therefore baptism too profits some who have it and harms others. It remains, then, still to ask whether those good things too that belong to the law of God do not all profit all who have them. With this question put forward, our contention is that not even these all profit all who have them. See how we prove this contention of ours from your own agreements. You grant that the apostle Paul is to be believed in everything; I hold one premise. You grant also that the same apostle said, “The law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” From these two it is concluded that the law is good, but for those who use it lawfully. If, then, anyone has not used it lawfully, it does not itself become evil, but it will certainly harm the evil.

Perhaps you will say that no one can both be in the law and use the law badly; for by the very fact that he lives against the law, he is shown not to be in the law. On the contrary, I say it can happen that a person is both in the law and does not use it lawfully. This too I prove by your concessions. For you grant that the apostle we have mentioned set down a testimony from the Psalms against those who boasted in the law and lived against the law: “As it is written,” he says, “there is none righteous, none who understands, none who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, not even one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” And so that they should not think this was said against those who were not in the law, he at once added, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God.” Likewise in another place he says, “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means. But I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known covetousness if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, worked in me all covetousness.” Again a little later: “Sin,” he says, “taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did what is good, then, become death to me? By no means; but sin, that it might appear as sin, worked death in me through what is good.” Do you notice how, while praising the law, he convicts those who are in the law, all who by using it badly had evil through good? Likewise the apostle himself says that a certain knowledge from the law, which he said both he and others had, is useless and harmful without love: “About sacrifices to idols,” he says, “we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” So this knowledge too, though it belongs to the law of God, puffs up and harms if it is in anyone without love. What then? Of the very body and blood of the Lord, the one sacrifice for our salvation (since the Lord himself says, “Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he will not have life in him”), does not the same apostle teach that this too becomes destructive to those who use it badly? For he says, “Whoever eats unworthily and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

See how divine and holy things harm those who use them badly; why not baptism too in this way? Why are heretics not good in a good baptism in the same way that Jews are not good in a good law? I have certainly now proved it with your agreement, since you grant that you believe Paul and that Paul said the testimonies I set down from the Scriptures; I have now proved, then, by your concessions, that certain good and lawful things nevertheless harm those who have and use them unlawfully. Why then does baptism too, though good and lawful, not profit all who have it? Why did you conclude, as most certain and most consequent, that a man must be baptized in the party of Donatus because we grant that baptism exists there too, and did not notice that we can say that the baptism of Christ there is indeed just, holy, and good, but penal, adverse, and destructive to the enemies of the body of Christ, which is the church, which according to the divine promises is spread through all nations?

Will you find anything to say here except that baptism is not to be counted among those good things belonging to the law of God which people can both have and not be good; but that the law itself, knowledge, and the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ are such goods as people can both have and be evil, whereas baptism is such a good that whoever has it is necessarily good? If you wish to say this, you will say what is false; and so notice what other falsehood follows. I will not mention it in order to lead you from that falsehood of yours to other falsehoods, but so that, when you recognize that this consequence is false, you may free yourself from it by correcting what comes before. What, then, comes before? On your view, that all who have a good baptism are good. This is evidently false; from it follows that those were good who were making schisms, saying, “I am of Paul, I of Cephas, I of Christ,” whom the apostle rebukes, saying, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” But it is false that these were good (excepting those who said, “I am of Christ”), and yet they had been baptized with the holy baptism of Christ. Why, then, did this falsehood follow? Because a falsehood went before: that all who have a good baptism are good. Let both, then, be rejected, let both statements be corrected, so that, since it is plain that those who were making schisms were not good and yet had been baptized with a good baptism, this too may be plain: that not all who have a good baptism are good. And therefore we are not bound to grant that anyone should be baptized in the party of Donatus because we grant that the party of Donatus, which we call evil, has a good baptism.

Again, to hold me from that agreement to what I do not agree to, you set down that it is written: “One God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and true Catholic church.” All of this I grant, though it is written somewhat differently. But what does that matter, since, as I said, I grant all of it? But what you try to derive from it does not follow, namely that those who are not in the one church cannot have the one baptism; which is altogether most false. And it is better so, because you yourself set down that by which I can remind you of what I wish. For you certainly put these forward among my concessions, from which to bring me to your contention: that there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic church. Since we agree on these, you think that from them can be shown what we do not agree on: that among those who are not in this one church this one baptism cannot exist. But I say that it can, if it is not changed, if it is kept the same; nor does it follow that baptism is not one because it exists also among those who are not in the one church. And this I prove from what you set down in the same sentence about one God and one faith. For we find that the same God is worshiped outside the church by the ignorant, and yet it does not follow that he is not God himself; and the faith by which it is believed that Christ is the Son of the living God, we find confessed even by those who do not belong to the members of the church, and yet it does not follow that it is not the one faith. So too, when we find the same baptism kept in baptizing people by those who are outside the church, we ought not therefore to think that it is not baptism itself.

Perhaps to this you will say that it cannot happen that the same one God is worshiped even outside the church, or that the same faith by which we confess Christ the Son of God, for which Peter was called blessed, is found even in those who are not in the church. This, then, remains for me to prove. You have it in that very discourse of blessed Paul which I mentioned above from the Acts of the Apostles, when he spoke of God, because he had found inscribed on an altar, “To an unknown god”: “What you worship in ignorance,” he says, “this I proclaim to you.” Did he say, “Because you worship outside the church, the one you worship is not God himself”? No, he said, “What you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you”; desiring to give them what, if not that they should worship wisely and to their salvation in the church the same God whom they were worshiping ignorantly and uselessly outside the church? So we too say to you: the baptism you keep in ignorance, its peace we proclaim to you; not that when you come to us you should receive another, but that you should have to your profit the one which was already among you. Of faith too, when the apostle James was speaking against those who thought what they had believed was enough for them and would not do good works, he says, “You believe that God is one? You do well; the demons also believe and tremble.” Demons, of course, are not in the unity of the church, and yet we cannot say that what they believe is something else, since they said to the Lord Jesus Christ, “What have we to do with you, Son of God?” Hence the apostle Paul too says, “If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” And I do not think anyone so foolish as to believe that one who does not have love belongs to the unity of the church. As, then, the one God is worshiped ignorantly even outside the church and yet it is still he, and the one faith is held without love even outside the church and yet it is still that faith, so the one baptism too is had ignorantly and without love even outside the church and yet it is still that baptism. For there is one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt Catholic church: not that in it alone the one God is worshiped, but that in it alone the one God is worshiped piously; not that in it alone the one faith is held, but that in it alone the one faith is held with love; not that in it alone the one baptism is had, but that in it alone the one baptism is had to salvation.

Accordingly, you put forward, with our agreement, one God, one faith, one baptism, one incorrupt and Catholic church; but not only did you fail to derive from them what you wanted, you even helped us greatly to remind you from them of what we wanted. See, then, how reasonable is the principle we follow: when schismatics or heretics come to us from there, we correct what they have corrupted, but what they have kept as they received it we recognize and approve, so that, moved by human faults, we may not, beyond justice, do any injury to divine things; since we see that the apostle too, finding the name of God even on an altar of the Gentiles, by whom idols were worshiped, confirmed it rather than denied it. For the royal mark on a man is not to be changed or rejected if he has obtained from the king pardon for his error and a place in military service, merely because a deserter stamped that same mark on him in order to gather followers for himself; nor are the brands to be changed on sheep, when they are joined to the Lord's flock, because a runaway slave impressed the Lord's brand on them.

But if you dread these comparisons as deceptive because they are not examples from the church (although you know that comparisons drawn from sheep and soldiers are given in the Scriptures), I wish to say something from the prophetic Scriptures which are called the Old Testament, since in the books of the New Testament no example of this matter is found either by us or by you. You do not dare, I think, to deny that the circumcision of the foreskin was observed by the ancients as a figure of the future baptism of Christ. If a man circumcised among the Samaritans had wished at that time to become a Jew, could he have been circumcised again? Would not that man's error have been corrected, but the seal of faith recognized and approved? And now there are certain heretics who call themselves Nazarenes, though some call them Symmachians, and they have both the circumcision of the Jews and the baptism of Christians; and therefore, just as, if one of them comes over to the Jews, he cannot be circumcised again, so when he comes over to us he ought not to be baptized again. To this you will say: the circumcision of the Jews is one thing, the baptism of Christians another. But since the former was the shadow of this truth, why could that circumcision exist even among the heretics of the Jews, while this baptism cannot exist among the heretics of the Christians?

Bring forward, then, from the canonical Scriptures anyone coming from heretics who was baptized anew. For that the apostles ordered some to be baptized in Christ after the baptism of John is a far different case. For John was not a heretic, that friend of the bridegroom, than whom no one has arisen greater among those born of women. It is a far different case, then. Otherwise, if Paul baptized after John, when both were in the unity of Christ, how much more ought your bishops, since they say they are in the unity of Christ, to baptize after their own colleagues, in whom they rightly find fault with certain morals, since Paul did this who could find nothing to blame in John! That, then, is another case, another principle, which it would take long to discuss now, and on which we have already said much in other short works of ours. Prove, then, from the canonical Scriptures that someone coming from heretics was baptized anew. For we too bring forward what was said to Peter: “He who has been washed once has no need to be washed again.” But you too say: Peter had not been baptized among heretics. Accordingly, since neither can you bring forward from the Scriptures, whose authority is common to us, someone coming from heretics who was baptized anew, nor can we bring forward one received in our way, as far as this matter goes our case is equal.

But we have shown that many things belonging to the law of God exist among those who are not in the church, which none of you dares to deny; but why you will not have baptism to be something of that kind, I do not see at all, and I trust you cannot show. Indeed, in this matter we also follow the most certain authority of the canonical Scriptures. For it is not to be thought of small importance that, when among the bishops of the age before the party of Donatus began to exist this question was in flux, and colleagues held different opinions among themselves while unity was preserved, it was decided that what we hold should be observed throughout the whole Catholic church, which is spread over the whole world. For you too bring forward the council of Cyprian, which either was not held or was rightly overruled by the other members of the unity from which he was not divided. Nor are we on that account better than bishop Cyprian, if he indeed judged that heretics should be baptized anew, because we rightly do not do this; just as we are not better than the apostle Peter because we do not compel the Gentiles to live as Jews, which he is shown to have done, as the apostle Paul testifies and corrects; for similarly the question of circumcision among the apostles, like that of baptism later among the bishops, wavered with no small difficulty.

Accordingly, although no certain example of this matter is brought forward from the canonical Scriptures, yet even in this matter the truth of those same Scriptures is held by us when we do what has now pleased the whole church, which the authority of those Scriptures commends; so that, since holy Scripture cannot deceive, whoever fears to be deceived by the obscurity of this question should consult about it that same church which holy Scripture points out without any ambiguity. But if you doubt that this holy Scripture commends the church which is spread through all nations in most abundant numbers (for if you did not doubt it, you would not still be in the party of Donatus), I will load you with many and most manifest testimonies brought from the same authority, so that from your own concessions, if you do not choose to be too stubborn, you may be led to this too; after I have first shown that you could answer nothing pertaining to the truth even against my letter, which you chose to answer from the opposite side.