Against the Letters of Petilian 2.224–2.240

Augustine answered: We do not hope in man, but as far as we can we admonish men to hope in the Lord; nor do we hope in princes, but as far as we can we admonish princes to hope in the Lord; and if we ask something from princes for the benefit of the church, we still do not hope in them. For neither did the apostle hope in that tribune as in a prince, from whom he obtained that armed escorts be given him, nor in the armed men as in men, surrounded by whose number he escaped the ambush of the desperate. Nor do we blame you yourselves for asking the emperor that the basilicas be returned to you, as if you had hoped in the prince Julian; but we blame you for having despaired of Christ's testimony, from whose unity you separated those very basilicas. For you received them at the order of Christ's enemy, so that in them you might despise Christ's orders, since what Julian decreed seems to you valid and true when he says: “This too is added to the sum, at the supplication of Rogatian, Pontius, Cassian, and the other bishops, and also clergy, that, what was wrongly done against them without a rescript being annulled, all things be restored to their former state”; while what Christ decreed seems invalid and false when he says, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the whole earth.” We beg you: be corrected, return to this most evident unity of the whole world, so that, not by the words of the apostate Julian but by the words of Christ the Saviour, all things may be restored to their former state. Have pity on your souls. We are no longer comparing Constantine and Julian, to show how unequal they are. We do not say: if you did not hope in man and in a prince when you said to a man, a pagan and apostate emperor, that with him justice alone had a place (prayers and a rescript, as is written there and as the records of the presentation testify, which the party of Donatus used everywhere), much less should we be accused by you of hoping in man and in a prince if we asked anything of Constantine or the other Christian emperors without any sacrilegious flattery, or if they of their own accord, without our asking, mindful of the account they will render to the Lord, under whose words they tremble when they hear what you yourself recalled, “And now, kings, understand,” and the rest, and many other things, make decrees for the unity of the Catholic Church. But I say nothing of Constantine. We set before you Christ and Julian; I say too little: God and man, the Son of God and the son of Gehenna, the Saviour of our souls and the killer of his own soul. Why in possessing basilicas do you hold to Julian's rescript, and in embracing the peace of the church not hold to Christ's gospel? We too cry out: let all that was wrongly done be restored to its former state. Christ's gospel is older than Julian's rescript; the unity of Christ is older than the party of Donatus; the church's prayers to the Lord for Christ's unity are older than those of Rogatian and Pontius and Cassian to Julian for the party of Donatus. Or is it wrongly done when kings forbid division, and not wrongly done when bishops divide unity? Is it wrongly done when kings serve Christ's testimony in defending the church, and not wrongly done when bishops contradict Christ's testimony in denying the church? So we beg that, not against the gospel but according to the gospel, even the words of that Julian whom you so supplicated be heard, and that all that was wrongly done be restored to its former state.

Petilian said: “You, you wretches, I call upon, who, terrified by fear of persecutions, while you seek your riches and not your souls, do not so much love the faithless faith of the traitors as, against the malice of those very men whose patronage you have obtained for yourselves, behave no otherwise than shipwrecked men who in the waves go under the waves that are about to crash on them, and in great danger of life run toward what is feared; or as tyrannical fury, so as to fear no one, wishes to be feared even at its own peril: so, so you flee to the citadel of malice, to watch the losses or punishments of the innocent without fear for yourselves. If this is avoiding danger, it is fleeing beneath a collapse; and it is a damnable faith to keep faith with a robber. Finally, it is the trade of a mad profit to lose your souls so as not to lose your riches. For the Lord Christ says: ‘If you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what will you give in exchange for your soul?’”

Augustine answered: This exhortation would be useful, I admit, if anyone used it in a good cause. You did quite well to deter men from putting riches before their souls. But you who have heard this, hear us too a little; for we too say this, but notice how. If kings threaten to take away your riches because you are not Jews according to the flesh, or because you do not worship idols or demons, or because you do not go over to any heresy but remain in Catholic unity, choose rather that your riches perish so that you yourselves do not perish; and prefer nothing else, not even temporal life itself, to the eternal salvation that is in Christ. But if kings threaten you with losses or condemnation because you are heretics, they frighten you not cruelly but mercifully, and you do not fear, not bravely but stubbornly. So hear Peter saying, “What glory is it if you suffer punishment for sinning?”, so that you have neither earthly comforts here nor eternal life in the age to come, but here the straits of the unhappy and there the Gehenna of heretics. So you see, brother, with whom I am now dealing, that you ought first to show whether you hold the truth, and then exhort men to be ready to do without everything that frightens them in time, for the sake of holding it. Since you do not show this, because you cannot, not for lack of talent but because the cause is bad, why do you hurry by your exhortations to make men beggars, ignorant, needy, wandering, ragged, contentious, starving, and heretics, losing temporal goods in this age and finding eternal evils at the judgment of Christ? A careful son, who for fear of his father's rod draws back from the serpent's lair, is neither beaten nor perishes; but one who despises the pains of discipline in favour of his own ruinous will is both beaten and perishes. Do you not yet understand, eloquent man, that one who has lacked all earthly things for the peace of Christ has God, while one who has lost even a few coins for the party of Donatus has no heart?

Petilian said: “We, the poor in spirit, do not fear for riches but dread riches. We, having nothing and possessing all things, believe the soul to be our wealth, and with our punishments and blood we buy the eternal riches of heaven; since the Lord says, ‘Whoever loses his substance will receive it a hundredfold.’”

Augustine answered: Here too it is relevant to point out how it is written; for where nothing hinders my purpose, if you deceive or are deceived about the Scriptures, I do not care. It is not written, “Whoever loses his substance,” but, “Whoever loses his soul for my sake.” And of substance it is not written, “whoever loses,” but, “whoever leaves,” and not only the substance of money but many other things too. You, meanwhile, have not lost your substance. Whether you have left it, since you so boast of poverty, I do not know. If perhaps my colleague Fortunatus knows this, since you are in the same city, he has never told me, because I never asked. But even if you have done this, you yourself, in this very letter of yours, cited against yourself the apostolic testimony: “If I distribute all I have to the poor, and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” For if you had love, you would not charge the world, ignorant and unknown to you, with the crimes of Africans, not even proved; if you had love, you would not invent unity in your slanders, but recognize it, expressed most plainly in the Lord's words, to the whole earth. But if you have not done this, why do you boast as if you had? Do you really so dread riches that, having nothing, you possess all things? Say this to your colleague Crispinus, who has just bought an estate near our Hippo, where he might plunge men into the deep. I know this all too well; you perhaps do not know it, and so you cry out securely, “We dread riches.” I wonder, then, that this voice of yours leaped over him to reach us; for between Constantina, where you are, and Hippo, where I am, lies Calama, where he is, nearer to us indeed, but still in between. I wonder, then, how he did not catch this voice first and throw it back so that it would not pass to us, and recite against you the praises of riches much more copiously. For he not only does not dread riches but loves them. And certainly, for the future, before you publish, recite such things to him; if he does not reform, we will answer. And you, if it is true that you are poor, have my brother Fortunatus there; you will be able to please that colleague of mine more easily from there than this one of yours.

Petilian said: “By the fear of God by which we live, we do not fear the punishments and deaths which you cause by the sword; we flee only this, in short, that you slaughter souls by a most wicked communion; as the Lord himself says: ‘Do not fear those who kill the body, for they cannot kill the soul; but fear rather him who has power to send body and soul into the Gehenna of fire.’”

Augustine answered: What you say, you yourselves do, not with a visible sword but with that of which it was said, “Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword”; for with this sword, accusing and slandering a world you do not know, you slaughter the souls of the unlearned. But if you accuse a most wicked communion, then, by your mouth, not mine, go up, go down, go out, come in, turn about, twist and turn: you are such as Optatus. But if you return to your heart and find that you are not such as he, not because he did not share the sacraments with you but because he displeased you, you will acquit the world of others' crimes and find yourselves entangled in the crime of schism.

Petilian said: “You, then, who would rather be washed than born by a most false baptism, not only do not lay down your offences but load your souls with the crimes of the guilty; for as the water of the guilty is emptied of the Holy Spirit, so it is plainly filled with the crimes of the traitors. So whoever you are, wretch, who are baptized by such a man: if you wished to be free of lying, you are drenched with falsehood; if you would not shut out the offences of the flesh, with the conscience of the guilty added you will receive guilt as well; if you would not quench the flame of avarice, you are drenched with fraud, drenched with crime, drenched with fury too. Finally, if you believe that faith belongs to the receiver and the giver, you are drenched with a brother's blood by the one who kills a man. So it comes about that you who came innocent to baptism return from baptism a parricide.”

Augustine answered: I would like to talk with those who applauded when these words were read or heard; for such people have not ears in their heart but their heart in their ears. Still, let them read them again and again, and think, and perceive in them not what they sound but what they mean. First, to shake out this last point: “So it comes about,” you say, “that you who came innocent to baptism return from baptism a parricide.” Answer first: who comes innocent to baptism, except him who came to be baptized not to have his iniquity washed away but to give us the authority of humility? For what will be forgiven an innocent man? Or are you so eloquent that you can show us some sinful innocence? Do you not hear Scripture saying, “No one is clean of sin in your sight, not even an infant whose life on earth is one day old”? For why do people run even with infants for the forgiveness of sins? Do you not hear another: “I was conceived in iniquity”? Next, if one who came without parricide returns a parricide because a parricide baptizes him, then all who returned baptized by Optatus became Optatuses. Go now and charge us with stirring up the anger of kings against you. Are you not afraid that as many of Gildo's henchmen may be sought among you as there were people who could be baptized by Optatus? Do you see at last how this sentence of yours has burst like a bladder, not only with an empty noise but on your own heads?

Now the other, earlier points which we have now proposed to refute are such as to say that every baptized person returns just such as the one by whom he is baptized. But God forbid that those whom you baptize should return as raving as you are in saying this! And how fine it sounded to you when you said, “You are drenched with fraud, drenched with crime, drenched with fury too”! You, if you were not, not drenched, but filled with fury, would not pour out these things. Is it really so, to say nothing of other things, that whoever come not greedy to be baptized by your greedy colleagues or presbyters return greedy, and whoever run sober to those whirlpools of wine to be baptized come back drunk? Thinking and urging these things, you dare even to cite, as if against us, what you set down a little earlier: “It is better to hope in the Lord than to hope in man; it is better to hope in the Lord than to hope in princes.” What else, I ask, do you teach but to hope not in the Lord but in man, when you say that the baptized becomes such as the baptizer was? And because you claim for yourselves this principate of baptizing, are men to believe you, and those who were going to hope in the Lord to hope in princes? Rather, let them not listen to you, but to those testimonies which you set down against yourselves, and something more terrible besides: that not only is it better to hope in the Lord than in man, but also, “Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man.”

Petilian said: “At least imitate the prophets, who feared that their holy souls would be deceived by a false baptism. For Jeremiah first said that among ungodly men water is deceitful: ‘Deceitful water,’ he says, ‘has no faith.’”

Augustine answered: Anyone ignorant of the Scriptures who hears this, and does not believe you either so mistaken that you do not know what you are saying, or so deceitful that whoever you deceived does not know what he is saying, thinks that the prophet Jeremiah, when he wanted to be baptized, took care not to be baptized by ungodly men, and said these words for that reason. For what is the point of what you said before setting down this testimony: “At least imitate the prophets, who feared that their holy souls would be deceived by a false baptism”? As if in Jeremiah's time anyone was washed with the sacrament of baptism; except that the Pharisees dipped themselves almost every moment in those washings which the Lord rebuked, and their couches and cups and dishes, as we read in the gospel. How, then, could Jeremiah have said this as one longing for baptism and avoiding being baptized by the ungodly? He said it when complaining of the unbelieving people, by whose very bad conduct he was troubled, not mixing himself in their deeds; yet he did not separate himself bodily from that people, nor seek other sacraments than those which that people received according to the order of the law, suited to that time. So he called this people, living badly, the wound by which the heart of the righteous man was grievously smitten, whether he said this of himself or prefigured in himself what he saw would come. For he says: “Lord, remember me and visit me, and make me innocent before those who pursue me, not in long-suffering; know how I have received reproach for your sake from those who despise your words. Make an end of them, and your word will be to me the delight and joy of my heart, for your name is called upon me, Lord Almighty. I did not sit in the council of those who make merry, but I feared before your hand; I sat alone, for I was filled with bitterness. Why do those who grieve me prevail over me? My wound is severe; how shall I be healed? It has become to me like deceitful water that has no faith.” In all this one sees what the prophet wanted to be understood; but it is seen by those who do not want to twist what they read to their own twisted cause. For Jeremiah said that his wound had become to him deceitful water that has no faith, and he wanted his wound to be understood as those who grieved him by living badly. Hence the apostle too says, “fighting without, fears within,” and again, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” And because he despaired that they could be corrected, he said, “How shall I be healed?”, as one who would always have pain as long as those among whom he was forced to live were such. That a people is usually signified by the name of water is shown in the Apocalypse, where we learn that many waters are many peoples, not by our conjecture but by the interpretation given there. So do not, by a perverse understanding or rather error, blaspheme the sacrament of baptism, even if it is in the most abandoned man; for neither in lying Simon was the baptism he had received deceitful water, nor do your many liars give deceitful water when they baptize in the name of the Trinity. For they do not begin to be liars when, exposed and convicted, they confess their crimes; rather they were liars then, when, being adulterers and criminals, they pretended to be chaste and innocent.

Petilian said: “David also said: ‘The oil of the sinner will not anoint my head.’ Whom, then, does he call a sinner? Me, who suffer your crimes, or you, who persecute the innocent?”

Augustine answered: In the person of the body of Christ, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth, spread through the whole world because of the gospel which is preached, as the apostle says, “in all creation under heaven”; in the person of the world, of which the same David, whose words you do not understand, says, “He has established the world, which will not be moved,” which you contend has not been moved but wholly perished through others' sins: in its person, then, I answer: I do not persecute the innocent. But David said “the oil of the sinner”; he did not say “of the traitor,” nor “of the incense-offerer,” nor “of the persecutor,” but “of the sinner.” What, then, will you do on your understanding? See first whether you are not yourself a sinner. Do not tell me, “I am not a traitor, I am not an incense-offerer, I am not a persecutor.” Neither am I, if it pleases the Lord, any of these, nor is the world, which will not be moved. But say, if you dare, “I am not a sinner.” For he says, “the oil of the sinner.” Whatever even of light sin is found in you, how do you show that you are not covered by the saying, “the oil of the sinner”? For I ask whether you pray with the Lord's Prayer. If you do not pray with the prayer by which the Lord taught the disciples to pray, where did you learn another, suited to your greater merits, surpassing the merits of the apostles? But if you pray as that Master deigned to teach, how do you say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors”? For we do not ask this about the sins forgiven us in baptism. So these words of the prayer either do not allow you to be one who prays to God, or they reveal you a sinner. Let those whom you baptized now go and kiss your head, whose heads perished by your oil! But see what you are, or what you think of yourself. Was Optatus, then, whom pagans, Jews, Christians, ours, yours, throughout all Africa proclaim a thief, robber, betrayer, oppressor, separator, and the henchman (not friend, not client, but henchman) of the man whom one of you called his companion god, not even any kind of sinner? What, then, will those do whose heads were anointed by a man guilty of a capital crime? Do they not also kiss your heads, those of whose heads you judge so badly by your understanding? At least expose them and warn them to be healed. Or is it rather your head that needs healing, raving like this? “What, then,” you will say, “did David mean?” Why ask me? Ask him; he will answer you in the previous verse: “The righteous will correct me in mercy and rebuke me; but the oil of the sinner will not anoint my head.” What is plainer, what more evident? “I would rather,” he says, “be healed by merciful rebuke than be deceived and perverted by smooth flattery, as if my head were anointed.” The same thought is elsewhere in Scripture in other words: “Better are the wounds of a friend than the voluntary kisses of an enemy.”

Petilian said: “And he praises the ointment of concord among brothers thus: ‘See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity. Like ointment on the head, which runs down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, which runs down to the collar of his garment; like the dew of Hermon, which comes down upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded blessing and life forevermore.’ So, he says, unity is anointed, as priests were anointed.”

Augustine answered: You speak the truth. For that priesthood had its anointing as a figure of the body of Christ, which is saved by the bond of unity. For Christ himself is named from chrism, that is, from anointing. The Hebrews call him Messiah, a word that agrees with the Punic language, as do very many other Hebrew words, almost all. What, then, in that priesthood is the head, what the beard, what the collar of the garment? As far as the Lord grants me to understand, the head is the Saviour of the body himself, of whom the apostle says, “And he is the head of the body, the church.” By the beard strength is not unfittingly understood. So upon those who are strong in his church and cling to his mouth, so as to preach the truth without fear, the holy ointment runs down from Christ himself as from the head, that is, spiritual sanctification. The collar of the garment is to be understood as that which is at the top of the garment, through which the head of the wearer enters. By this are signified the perfect faithful in the church; for in the collar is completion. And surely you remember that it was said to a certain rich man, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” He indeed went away sad, neglecting perfection, choosing defection. But were there therefore lacking those on whom the ointment of unity ran down from the head as onto the collar of the garment, made perfect by such giving up of earthly things? For apart from the apostles and the leaders and teachers who were with them, whom we understand as the more eminent and stronger in the beard, read in the Acts of the Apostles and see who laid the prices of their sold goods at the apostles' feet; and no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common, and distribution was made to each as each had need, and they had one soul and one heart toward God. You know that it is written so. So recognize the brothers dwelling in unity, good and pleasant; recognize the beard of Aaron; recognize the collar of the spiritual garment. Ask Scripture itself where these things began to be done; you will find, in Jerusalem. From this collar of the garment the whole unity is woven through all nations. By this the head entered the garment, so that Christ might be clothed with the variety of the world; because in this collar of the garment appeared the very variety of tongues. Why, then, do you resist the very head from which that ointment of unity runs down, that is, the spiritual fragrance of love; why, I say, do you resist the very head that testifies and says, “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem”? And why do you want to interpret this ointment as the sacrament of chrism, which indeed, in the class of visible seals, is most holy, like baptism itself, but can be also in the worst men, who spend their life in the works of the flesh and will not possess the kingdom of heaven, and therefore belong neither to Aaron's beard nor to the collar of his garment nor to any weaving of the priestly vestment? For where will you put what the apostle lists as the manifest works of the flesh: “which are,” he says, “sexual immorality, uncleanness, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like; of which I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God”? I set aside sexual immorality, which is committed secretly; interpret uncleanness as you will, I set that aside too; let us put sorcery there as well, since no one openly makes and gives poisons; I set aside heresies too, since you wish it; whether I should set aside idolatry I do not know, since the apostle places there the avarice that rages publicly. With these set aside, then, are there among you no debauched, no greedy, none who stubbornly carry on enmities, none contentious, jealous, angry, eager for dissensions, envious, drunk, given to carousing? Are none such anointed among you and die known and manifest in these vices? If you say none, since by your zeal for strife you lie openly, see that you are not yourself one of them. But if you are removed from such men not by bodily separation but by unlikeness of life, and with groaning you see such crowds around your altars, what shall we say, since they have been anointed with holy oil and, as the apostle confirms with clear truth, will not possess the kingdom of God? Must sacrilegious injury be done to Aaron's beard and the collar of his garment, so that we think they should be placed there? God forbid. So distinguish the visible holy sacrament, which can be both in the good and in the bad, for the one to reward, for the other to judgment, from the invisible anointing of love, which is proper to the good. Distinguish these, distinguish them; may God distinguish you from the party of Donatus and call you back into the Catholic Church, from which they snatched you as a catechumen and bound you with the chain of a deadly honour. Now, however the dew of Hermon on the mountains of Zion is taken by you, you are not on the mountains of Zion, because you are not in the city set on a mountain, which has this sure sign, that it cannot be hidden. So it is known to all nations; but the party of Donatus is unknown to most nations; so it is not that city.

Petilian said: “Woe to you, then, who by violating what is holy cut unity apart, as the prophet says: ‘If the people sin, the priest will pray for them; but if the priest sins, who will pray for him?’”