Against the Letters of Petilian 2.138–2.179

Augustine answered: Where you perhaps quote the testimonies of the Scriptures otherwise than they stand, and it does not concern the matter between us, I do not care much; but where, unless they are quoted truly, they hinder what we are discussing, I do not think you ought to be angry if I remind you how it is written. Look, what you have just set down is not written so, but rather so: “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and so teaches will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and so teaches will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And he went on at once: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” For elsewhere he points out and rebukes the Pharisees, because they say and do not do. These, then, he meant here too when he said, “Whoever relaxes and so teaches,” that is, teaches in words what he relaxes in deeds; and he commanded that our righteousness should exceed theirs, so that we do and so teach. And yet not even because of those Pharisees, to whom you compare us not from wisdom but from malice, did the Lord command the chair of Moses to be deserted, in which he was certainly prefiguring his own. For, while saying that those who sat on the chair of Moses said and did not do, he still warns the people to do what they say and not to do what they do, so that the holiness of the chair may not be deserted and the unity of the flock may not be divided because of bad shepherds.

Petilian said: “And again: ‘Every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but whoever sins against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the age to come.’”

Augustine answered: This too is not written so; and see how far it has misled you. The apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says, “Every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” But this is one thing, and another what the Lord said in the gospel: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but whoever sins against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the age to come.” You began a sentence from the apostle and finished it as though it were one sentence from the gospel; I believe you did this not by fraud but by error. For neither concerns the matter, and why you said these things, in whatever way you said them, I do not see at all. Unless perhaps, having said above that those who relax one of the commandments are condemned by the Lord, you considered how many you have who relax not one but many commandments, and, so that this would not be charged against you, you wanted to slip in in passing a distinction between sins: that relaxing some commandment, for which pardon can easily be obtained, is one thing, and sinning against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come, another. So, fearing the contagion of sins, you did not want to keep silent on this; and again, fearing the depth of a question that exceeds your powers, you wanted to touch on it in a hurry, with such agitation that, as people hurrying in some alarm put on their clothes or shoes the wrong way, you did not choose to notice either what belongs to what or where and how it is written. But what that sin is which will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come you know so little that, though you believe we are in it, you nevertheless promise us its forgiveness through your baptism. How can that be, if it is such a sin as is not forgiven either in this age or in the age to come?

Petilian said: “By what deeds do you fulfil the divine commandments? The Lord Christ says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ You, by the malice of your persecuting fury, breathe out riches.”

Augustine answered: Say these things rather to your Circumcellions.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the earth.’ So you, not being meek, have lost earth and heaven alike.”

Augustine answered: Hear again and again the Lord saying, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth.” Why, then, have not those lost earth and heaven who, so as not to be in communion with the whole earth, despise the words of him who sits in heaven? As for your meekness, let not your words but the clubs of the Circumcellions be questioned. You will say, “What has that to do with us?” As if we said these things for any other reason than that you should answer so. For your schism concerns you precisely because you do not want another's sin to concern you; and yet you separated yourselves from us for no other reason than by charging us with another's crime.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ You, our executioners, make others mourn; you do not mourn.”

Augustine answered: Consider a little to how many, and how great a mourning, the “Praise to God” of your armed men has brought. Say again, “What has that to do with us?” And I will say again: And what you say, what has it to do with us, what with the world, what with those who praise the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun to its setting, what with all the earth that sings a new song, what with the seed of Abraham in which all nations are blessed? So the sacrilege of schism concerns you for this very reason, that the evil deeds of your people do not concern you; and from this you understand that the deeds of those because of whom you separated yourselves from the world do not concern the world, even if you proved them.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’ For you this is righteousness, to thirst for our blood.”

Augustine answered: What shall I say to you, you man, except that you are a slanderer? The unity of Christ does indeed hunger and thirst for you; would that it might swallow you up! You would not be heretics.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.’ When shall I call you merciful, when you inflict punishments on the righteous? Or shall I call you a most wicked communion, since you defile souls?”

Augustine answered: You neither prove yourselves righteous nor prove that we inflict punishments even on the unrighteous; and yet, just as deceitful flattery is often cruel, so just correction is always merciful. Hence the text you do not understand: “The righteous will correct me in mercy and rebuke me.” For after saying this of the harshness of merciful correction, he at once added, of the gentleness of ruinous flattery, “But the oil of the sinner will not anoint my head.” So consider to what you are called and from what you are called back. For how do you know with what mind he whom you think cruel acts toward you? But whatever his mind, each carries his own load, both among us and among you. But throw off the load of schism which you all carry, so that you may carry your good loads in unity, and correct mercifully, if you can, those who carry bad ones, or, if you cannot, tolerate them peaceably.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’ When will you see God, you who bear blindness through the unclean malice of your heart?”

Augustine answered: Why do you say this? Do we perhaps charge all nations with unknown things that men say, and refuse to understand the manifest things that God foretold about all nations? That is great blindness of heart; and if you do not recognize it in yourselves, that is greater blindness of heart.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.’ You feign peace by crime and seek unity by war.”

Augustine answered: We do not feign peace by crime; we preach peace from the gospel, and if you have peace with it, you will have it with us too. The Lord, rising and offering himself not only to be seen by the disciples' eyes but also to be handled by their hands, began thus: “Peace be with you,” he said. And how that peace was to be kept he disclosed in the following words. For there he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “For thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Have peace with these words, and you will not disagree with us. For if we seek unity by war, our war could not have been more splendidly praised; since it is written, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” and again it is written, “No one ever hated his own flesh,” and yet “the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.” If no one hates his own flesh and yet lusts against his own flesh, see, unity is sought by war, so that the body, chastised, may be brought into subjection. And what the spirit does against the flesh, waging war not from hatred but from love, this the spiritual do against the carnal, so that what they do toward themselves they do also toward them, because they love their neighbours as themselves. But the war of the spiritual is that correction in love; their sword is the word of God. To such a war they are roused by the apostolic trumpet sounding with great force: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, exhort, rebuke, with all patience and teaching.” See, we act not with the sword but with the word; but you neither answer with truth nor stop accusing falsely; you do not correct your own faults, you charge others'. Christ gives true testimony about the world; you give false testimony against Christ against the world. If we believed you rather than Christ, we would be peacemakers; because we believe Christ rather than you, we feign peace by crime. And though you say and do these things, you dare besides to cite, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Petilian said: “Since the apostle Paul says, ‘I, a prisoner in the Lord, beg you, brothers, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’”

Augustine answered: If you not only said these things but heard them, you would bear even known evils for the sake of peace, and not invent unknown ones for the sake of dissension; or, since afterwards you learned, for the unity of Donatus, to bear the most notorious and famous evils of Optatus. What madness is this? Known men are tolerated so that the cut-off party may not be cut again, and unknown men are defamed so that one may not remain in the whole itself.

Petilian said: “The prophet says to you: ‘Peace, peace; and where is peace?’”

Augustine answered: It is you who say this to us, not the prophet; so we answer you. If you ask where peace is, open your eyes and see of whom it was said, “He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.” If you ask where peace is, open your eyes to that city which cannot be hidden, set on a mountain; open your eyes to the mountain itself too, and let Daniel show it to you, growing from a small stone and filling the whole earth. But when the prophet says to you, “Peace, peace; and where is peace?”, what will you point to? The party of Donatus, unknown to countless nations to whom Christ is known? That is not the city that cannot be hidden; and why, except because it is not set on that mountain? For he is our peace who made both one, not Donatus, who made two out of one.

Petilian said: “‘Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ You are not blessed, but you make blessed martyrs, with whose souls the heavens are filled and with the memory of whose bodies the earth has flowered. So you do not worship, but you make those whom we may worship.”

Augustine answered: Clearly, if it had not been said, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake,” but, “Blessed are those who throw themselves down,” your martyrs would fill heaven. Certainly we see many flowers of the earth from their bodies; but, as the saying goes, “The flower is ash.”

Petilian said: “Since, then, by falsifying the commandments you are not blessed, the Lord Christ condemns you with divine sentences: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven before men; for you do not go in, and you do not let those who are entering go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he has been made, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done without omitting the others. Blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because 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 too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.’”

Augustine answered: Tell me whether you have said anything which could not likewise be said in turn against you with an abusive and insulting mouth. But anyone who wishes will find from what I have said earlier that these things can be said against you not by empty abuse but by true testimonies. Still, since the occasion should not be passed over: the ancient people of God certainly had circumcision in place of baptism. So I ask: if those Pharisees, against whom so much is said, had made a proselyte who, if he imitated them, would, as was said, have been twice as much a son of Gehenna as they, then if he were corrected and wished to imitate Simeon, Zechariah, and Nathanael, would he be judged to need circumcising again by them? If it is ridiculous to say so, then, though in your empty-talking manner and mouth you compare us with such men, why do you baptize after us? And if you are such men, how much more truly and rightly do we not baptize after you, just as those I named ought not to have been circumcised after the very worst Pharisees! Next, since such men sat on the chair of Moses, to which the Lord kept its honour, why do you, because of those whom you compare with them, rightly or wrongly, blaspheme the apostolic chair?

Petilian said: “But these things do not frighten us Christians. For we have the command from the Lord Christ beforehand about the evil you would do. ‘I send you,’ he says, ‘as sheep in the midst of wolves.’ You have filled up the wolves' rage, you who lay or prepare snares for the churches no otherwise than wolves gaping at sheepfolds, always with destruction and attack, who breathe out panting wrath with jaws soaked in blood.”

Augustine answered: I would like to say that sentence against you, but I would not want to use those words; they are too inept, or rather insane. What was needed was that you should show by some sure proofs, not by the emptiest curses, that we are wolves and you sheep. For when I too say, “We are the sheep and you the wolves,” do you think it makes any difference that you say it in swollen words? But pay attention while I prove what I say. Surely the Lord, as you know whether you like it or not, says in the gospel, “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” The Lord has many words on different matters. For example, if someone doubted whether the same Lord rose in the body, and his words were read out, “Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have,” and if even after hearing these he refused to believe that his body was raised, he certainly would not be counted among the Lord's sheep, because when he heard his voice he did not follow. So now too, since the question between us is where the church is, when we read out, from the very passage of the gospel where after the resurrection he offered his body even to be handled by doubters, the following words in which he showed the future breadth of the church, saying, “For thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem,” and you refuse to be in communion with all the nations where these things have been fulfilled, how are you sheep of this shepherd, whose voice you hear and not only do not follow but even fight against? So that is how we show that you are not sheep; now hear how we show that you are wolves. Since it is evident from his own words where the church is, it is plain where Christ's sheepfold is. Whoever, then, separate sheep from this fold, pointed out and expressed by the Lord's most certain words, by charges, I will not say false, but, as is plain, uncertain crimes of men, and kill them when snatched and estranged from the life of unity and love: are not they themselves ravenous wolves? But, you say, they too praise and preach the Lord Christ. These, then, are the ones of whom he himself says, “clothed in sheepskins, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves; by their fruits you will know them.” The sheepskin is in the praises of Christ; the wolf's fruit is in the cursing teeth.

Petilian said: “O wretched traitors! It was fitting for Scripture to be fulfilled thus; but this I grieve over in you, that you have deserved to fulfil the parts of malice.”

Augustine answered: I could rather say, “O wretched traitors,” if I chose, or rather if justice advised me to charge all of you with the deeds of some of yours. But as to what concerns all of you, O wretched heretics, I would say the rest of your words. For it is written, “There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” So it was necessary for Scripture to be fulfilled thus; but this I grieve over in you, that you have deserved to fulfil the parts of malice.

Petilian said: “But to us, against your deadly deeds, the Lord Christ commanded simple patience and innocence. For what does he say? ‘A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you’; and, ‘By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’”

Augustine answered: Unless you transferred these words, so far removed from your conduct, onto the surface of your speech, how would you cover yourselves with sheepskin?

Petilian said: “The apostle Paul too, when he suffered immense persecutions from all nations, endured heavier ones from false brothers, as he himself testifies about himself, often afflicted by dangers from the Gentiles, dangers from his own race, dangers from false brothers; and again he says, ‘Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.’ So when you false brothers attack us, we imitate the patience of our teacher Paul under the dangers you bring.”

Augustine answered: Certainly these are the false brothers of whom the same apostle complains in another place, when he praises Timothy's genuine sincerity: “I have no one like-minded,” he says, “who will be genuinely concerned for you; for all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” He was certainly speaking of those who were with him at the time he wrote that letter; for not all Christians everywhere were seeking their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ. Of these, then, as I said, he groaned, whom he had with him at the time he wrote this. For whom else does he touch when he says elsewhere, “fighting without, fears within,” but those whom he feared the more intensely the more they were within? So if you wanted to imitate Paul, you would be within, bearing with false brothers, not outside, slandering the innocent.

Petilian said: “For what kind of faith is in you which does not have love, as Paul himself says: ‘If I speak with the tongues of men and have the knowledge of angels, but have not love, they are like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my substance to the poor, and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing’?”

Augustine answered: This is what I said a little before: you want to be covered with sheepskin, so that, if possible, the sheep may feel you biting before it senses you coming. Is not this the praise of love that usually convicts your slander with the clearest truth? Or will these weapons not be ours because you try to seize them first? These darts are truly alive: from wherever they are thrown, they recognize those they are to kill. If they are sent by us, they will stick in you; if they are sent by you, they are turned back on you. For with these apostolic words commending the pre-eminence of love we are accustomed to show you how it does not profit men, though they have the sacraments or faith, where love is not; so that when you come to Catholic unity you may understand what is conferred on you and how great a thing it is that you lacked (for Christian love cannot be kept except in the unity of the church), and may thus see that without it you are nothing, even if you hold baptism and faith and could even move mountains by it. If this is your view too, let us not detest and exsufflate in each other the sacraments of God, which we know, or faith itself, but let us hold love, without which we are nothing, with sacraments and with faith. And we hold love if we embrace unity; and we embrace unity if we do not invent it in a part by our own words, but recognize it in unity by the words of Christ.

Petilian said: “And again: ‘Love is magnanimous and kind; love does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, does not seek its own’ (but you seek what belongs to others) ‘is not provoked, does not think evil, does not rejoice over iniquity but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, endures all things. Love never fails.’ That is to say in brief: love does not persecute, does not inflame emperors against other souls, does not plunder others' goods, does not even kill the men it has robbed.”

Augustine answered: How often must I say to you: these things, if you do not prove them, concern no one; if you prove them, they do not concern us, just as what your people commit daily does not concern you: the crimes of madmen, the debauchery of drunkards, the blindness of those who throw themselves down, the tyranny of robbers? Who does not see that what I cry out is true? But now, if there were love in you, it would rejoice with the truth. How elegantly, under the sheepskin, it is said, “Love bears all things, endures all things”! But when it comes to the test, the wolf's teeth cannot be covered. For since love, because of the saying, “bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” would have compelled you, even if you knew of some evils within, not indeed to consent to them, but still, if you could not prevent them, to bear them, so that you would not now break the bond of peace with the fellowship of the good because of the wicked who are to be separated by the last winnowing fork; you, shaken outside by the wind of lightness, charge the wheat with the crime of the chaff, and claim that what you invent about the wicked prevails by contagion in the good as well. And though the Lord said, “The field is this world, and the harvest is the end of the age,” when he had said of the wheat and the tares, “Let both grow until the harvest,” you labour with your words to make it believed that the wheat has already failed throughout the field and has remained only in your tiny part, wanting Christ to be held a liar and yourself truthful. And you speak against your own conscience. For no one who looks at the gospel in any way truly dares to say in his heart that throughout so many nations, in which “Amen” is answered almost with one voice and “Alleluia” is sung, there are no Christians. And yet, so that the party of Donatus, which is not in communion with the world, may not seem to be in error, if an angel from heaven, who could look over the whole world, told you that outside your communion there were nowhere any innocent and good people, you would no doubt rejoice over the iniquity of the human race and boast that you had spoken the truth before you knew it. How, then, is there love in you, which does not rejoice over iniquity? But do not be deceived: throughout the field, that is, throughout the world, the Lord's wheat is growing until the end of the age. Christ said this, Christ is the truth. Let there be love in you, and let it rejoice with the truth. If even an angel from heaven preaches a gospel contrary to the gospel, let him be anathema.

Petilian said: “Finally, what is the reason for persecuting? I ask you, wretches, whether you think perhaps that you sin by some authority of the law.”

Augustine answered: One who sins does not sin by the authority of the law but against the authority of the law. But since you ask what is the reason for persecuting, I ask you in turn whose voice it is in the psalm that says, “The one who secretly slandered his neighbour, him I persecuted.” So inquire into the cause or the manner of persecution, and do not, with such ignorance, blame persecutors of evil in general.

Petilian said: “I, on the contrary, answer that Jesus Christ persecuted no one; and when some sects displeased the apostles, who suggested this to him (for he had come to create faith in such a way as not to compel men but rather to invite them), those apostles said: ‘Many lay on hands in your name and are not with us.’ Jesus said: ‘Let them be; if they are not against you, they are for you.’”

Augustine answered: Why do you not say that you will produce many things more freely of your own which are not found in the Scriptures? For if you want to produce testimonies from the holy Scriptures, will you produce what you have not found? But how many lies you tell is in your own power. For where is what you set down written, or when was it suggested to the Lord or answered by the Lord? No disciple ever said to the Son of God, “Many lay on hands in your name and are not with us.” Hence neither could he have answered, “Let them be; if they are not against you, they are for you.” But there is something similar which we truly read in the gospel, that it was suggested to the Lord about someone who cast out demons in his name and did not follow him with the disciples, where the Lord says, “Do not forbid him; whoever is not against you is for you.” But this has nothing at all to do with showing sects which the Lord seems to have spared. If a certain likeness of the saying misled you, it is not a lie but human error; but if you wanted to cast clouds of falsehood on those unskilled in the holy Scriptures, be pricked in heart, confounded, and corrected. Yet there is something we may make of this very man about whom the suggestion was made to the Lord. For as then, outside the communion of the disciples, the holiness of Christ's name nevertheless availed very much, so outside the communion of the church the holiness of the sacrament avails; for baptism is consecrated only in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. What utter madman would say that even outside the communion of the church the name of the Son avails, but that of the Father and of the Holy Spirit does not; or that it avails in healing a man but not in consecrating baptism? But plainly, outside the communion of the church and the most holy bond of unity and the most surpassing gift of love, neither the man by whom a demon is cast out nor the man who is baptized attains eternal life; just as neither do those who seem to be inside through communion in the sacraments and are understood to be outside through iniquity of life. As for Christ having persecuted, even bodily, those whom he drove out of the temple with a scourge, we have already said above.

Petilian said: “But the holy apostle Paul says this: ‘In any way whatever,’ he says, ‘let Christ be proclaimed.’”