Against the Letters of Petilian 2.76–2.101

Finally, what made you think that, after you wished to prove that the Holy Spirit was given by Christ and had brought forward the testimony from the gospel that, rising from the dead, he breathed on the face of the disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” you should want to show that last fire, named together with baptism, in the fiery tongues shown at the coming of the Paraclete? For you said, “And the Paraclete himself, fire blazing with crackling flames, came upon the apostles,” as if the Holy Spirit whom he gave by breathing on the face of the disciples were one, and the one who came upon the apostles after his ascension another. Are there, then, two Holy Spirits? What utter madman would say that? So Christ himself gave the same Holy Spirit, whether by breathing on the face of the disciples or by sending him from above on the day of Pentecost with a definite commendation of the sacrament. Therefore it was not that Christ gave the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete fire, so that what was said, “in the Holy Spirit and fire,” might as it were be completed; but the same Christ gave the Holy Spirit, whom he showed by his breath while on earth and by fiery tongues while in heaven. And so that you may know that what was said, “He baptizes you in the Holy Spirit,” was not fulfilled when he breathed on their face, so that they would then seem to be waiting to be baptized no longer in the Spirit but in fire when the Paraclete came, recall a very plain scripture and see what the Lord himself said to them when he ascended into heaven: “John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you are also to receive not many days from now, at Pentecost.” What is clearer than this testimony? But according to your sense he should have said, “John indeed baptized with water; but you were baptized with the Holy Spirit when I breathed on your face, and next you will be baptized in fire, which you are to receive not many days from now,” so that, of course, those three stages by which you say one baptism is consecrated might be completed. So it turns out that you still do not know what is meant by the words, “He baptizes you in the Holy Spirit and fire,” and that you rashly want to teach what you do not know.

Petilian said: “But to discuss fully the baptism of the Trinity: the Lord Christ said to his apostles, ‘Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I command you.’ Whom do you teach, traitor? Whom do you condemn? Whom do you teach, traitor? Whom do you kill? In short, whom do you teach? The one you have made a murderer? How, then, do you baptize in the name of the Trinity? You cannot call God Father. For since the Lord Christ said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,’ you who do not have peace of mind do not have God as Father. And how do you baptize in the name of the Son, you who betray and do not imitate the Son of God himself by any sufferings or crosses? And how do you baptize in the name of the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came upon those apostles who had not been traitors? Since, then, God is not your begetter, and you are not born of the true water of baptism, none of you has been born at all; you ungodly ones have neither father nor mother. Ought I not, then, to baptize you, men of this sort, even if, as the Jews as it were baptize the flesh, you washed a thousand times?”

Augustine answered: You had certainly proposed to discuss fully the baptism of the Trinity, and you had made us very attentive; but of course, as is easiest for you, how quickly you turned to your usual abuse! This you do with real abundance. You set before yourself whom you will, and inveigh against them as much as you will; and in this great breadth of speech you are squeezed into the narrowest straits by one very short word: “Prove it.” This is what the seed of Abraham says to you; since all nations are blessed in it, they do not care when they are cursed by you. Still, since you are dealing with baptism, which you think true when it is in a righteous man and false when it is in an unrighteous man, look, if I too, following your rule, discuss the baptism of the Trinity, I can say, I think, more abundantly that the man to whom God is companion does not have God as Father, nor believes any to be his Christ but the one for whose sake he suffered, nor has the Holy Spirit, he who in a very different way set wretched Africa on fire with fiery tongues. How, then, does he have baptism, or how does he give it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Surely you now see that baptism can be in an unrighteous man and given by an unrighteous man, not unrighteous but righteous and true, not because it is his but because it is God's. And I make no false charge against you about this man, as you never stop doing to the world about some people or other, and, what is more intolerable, without proving anything even about them. But I do not know how it can be tolerated that you not only slander holy men about unrighteous men, but also lay a charge against holy baptism itself, which must be holy in anyone unrighteous, by the contagion of men's sins, so as to say that baptism is such as the man by whom it is held or given or received. Further, if a man becomes such as the one with whom he approaches holy things, and the sacraments themselves become such as the men in whom they are, it is consolation enough for holy men to hear a false charge from you in common with holy baptism. Only see how you are condemned by your own mouth, if your sober men are drunkards by contagion from your drunkards, and your merciful men robbers by contagion from your robbers, and whatever is found among you in wicked men, those who are not such are compelled to be; and baptism itself is unclean in all your unclean men and varies with the variety of their uncleanness, if it is compelled to be such as the one by whom it is held and given. These things are certainly false, and therefore they do us no harm when you say them against us without looking at yourselves; but they harm you, because, being false, they do not fall on us when you say them against us, but, because you think them true, they fall back on you.

Petilian said: “For if the apostles were allowed to baptize those whom John had washed with the baptism of repentance, shall I not be allowed to baptize you sacrilegious men?”

Augustine answered: Where, then, is what you said above, that John's baptism was not one and Christ's another, but one baptism consecrated in three stages, of which John gave the water, Christ the Spirit, the Paraclete the fire? Why, then, did the apostles repeat the water in those to whom John had already given water belonging to the one baptism consecrated in three stages? You surely see how necessary it is for each one to know what he is saying.

Petilian said: “For the Holy Spirit cannot be implanted in anyone by the laying on of the bishop's hand unless the water of a pure conscience has gone before as begetter.”

Augustine answered: In these few words of yours there are two errors. One does not much concern the question we are discussing, but it convicts you of ignorance: for the Holy Spirit came upon the hundred and twenty without anyone's laying on of hands, and upon Cornelius the centurion and those with him even before they were baptized. The other error in these words of yours destroys your whole case. For you say that the water of a pure conscience must go before as begetter, so that the Holy Spirit may follow. So either all water consecrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is of a pure conscience, not because of those by whom it is ministered or received but because of him who, himself spotless, instituted this baptism; or, if nothing makes the water one of a pure conscience but the pure conscience of both the ministering man and the receiver, what do you do about those whom you find baptized by men who, not yet exposed, bore a stained conscience? Especially if among those baptized someone should appear who confessed that he had a bad conscience when he was baptized, because he hoped perhaps through that occasion to reach some disgraceful end? When it has been made clear to you that neither the minister nor the receiver of baptism had a pure conscience, will you judge that he must be baptized again? You will never say this, never do it. The purity of baptism, then, is wholly distinct from the purity or impurity of the conscience of either giver or receiver. So dare to say now that a man had a pure conscience who was a cheat, a robber, an oppressor of orphans and widows, a breaker-up of marriages, a betrayer, seller, and divider of others' patrimonies. Dare to say too that those had a pure conscience who in such times could hardly have been lacking, if any sought baptism from him not for Christ's sake or for eternal life but to win earthly friendships and satisfy earthly desires. Further, if you dare not say that these had a pure conscience, then if you find any baptized from that number, give them the water of a pure conscience which they did not receive; and if you do not do so, stop throwing at us what you do not know, so that you are not forced to answer against yourselves what you do know.

Petilian said: “This Holy Spirit could certainly not come upon you, whom not even the baptism of repentance washed, but the water of a traitor, to be repented of, which is the truth, polluted.”

Augustine answered: Not only do you not prove us traitors, but your fathers could not prove our fathers traitors either. And if they had been proved so, they would certainly not have been our fathers, by your earlier assertion, since we would not have followed their deeds; nor, on their account, would we be torn away from the fellowship of unity and from the seed of Abraham in which all nations are blessed. But if Christ's water is one thing and the traitor's water another, because Christ was not a traitor, why should not Christ's water be one thing and a robber's water another, since Christ was certainly not a robber either? So baptize after your robber, and I will baptize after a traitor who is neither mine nor yours; or, if documents produced are to be believed, both mine and yours; but if the communion of the world is to be believed rather than the party of Donatus, not mine but yours. But by the better and sounder judgment, since according to the apostle's word each of us will carry his own load, that robber is not yours, as far as you are not robbers, nor is any traitor either ours or yours, as far as we are not traitors. And therefore we are Catholics, who by this judgment do not desert unity; but you are heretics, who because of the crimes of certain men, true or false, refuse to keep love with the seed of Abraham.

Petilian said: “But that these things done by the apostles may shine before us, we are taught by their Acts, as it is written: ‘It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper parts, came to Ephesus; and finding some disciples, he said to them: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said: We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And Paul said: Into what then were you baptized? And they answered: Into John's baptism. And Paul said: John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus Christ our Lord. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in various tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.’ If, then, they were baptized so as to receive the Holy Spirit, why do you, if you want to receive the Holy Spirit, not take on true newness after your lies? If we do wrong in doing this, why do you seek us out? Or at least, if it is a crime, condemn Paul first; Paul washed what had already been, but we baptize in you what does not yet exist. For you, as we have often said, do not dip with true baptism, but defame with the empty name of a false baptism.”

Augustine answered: We do not accuse Paul, who gave men Christ's baptism because they did not have Christ's baptism, but John's baptism, by their own answer; for when asked into what they had been baptized, they answered, “Into John's baptism,” which does not belong to Christ's baptism and is no part or stage of it. Otherwise, either the water of Christ's baptism was then repeated, or, if Christ's baptism was then completed through two waters, it is less complete now, because that water which was given by John is not given. Either of these opinions is impious and sacrilegious. So Paul gave Christ's baptism to those who had not Christ's baptism but John's.

Why John's baptism was necessary at that time, though it is no longer necessary now, we have said elsewhere, and it does not concern the matter between us now, except only to show that John's baptism was one thing and Christ's another; just as that baptism was another in which the apostle says our fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the sea, when they crossed the Red Sea through Moses. For the Law and the Prophets up to John the Baptist had sacraments foretelling a thing to come; but the sacraments of our time testify that what those proclaimed as coming has come. So John, the nearest of all who went before, was the herald of Christ. And because all the righteous and the prophets of earlier times longed to see fulfilled what they perceived, by the Spirit's revelation, would come (as the Lord himself says, “For many righteous men and prophets longed to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it”), John was therefore called more than a prophet, and none greater was said to have been born of women; because to the earlier righteous it was granted only to foretell Christ, but to him both to foretell him absent and to see him present, so that it was found open to him what they had longed for. And so the sacrament of his baptism still belongs to the foretelling of Christ, but plainly the very last; for up to him there were foretellings of the Lord's first coming, of which coming there are now announcements, no longer foretellings. But the Lord, teaching the way of humility, deigned to receive the sacraments of his own foretelling which he found here, not to help his own cleansing but as an example of our devotion, to show us with what devotion we ought to receive those sacraments that testify he has already come, since he himself did not disdain to receive those by which he was prefigured as coming. And so John, though nearest and his contemporary within a year, still went before Christ when he baptized, as Christ came. For this reason it was said of him, “Look, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,” and he himself preached, saying, “One stronger than I comes after me.” So too the circumcision on the eighth day, given to the fathers, foretold our justification in the stripping off of fleshly desires through the Lord's resurrection, which took place after the seventh day, that is the Sabbath, on the eighth, that is the Lord's day, which was the third day after his burial; yet the infant Christ received that same foretelling circumcision of the flesh. And just as the Passover which the Jews celebrated by killing a lamb foretold the Lord's passion and passing from this world to the Father, and yet the same Lord celebrated with his disciples that very Passover which belonged to that foretelling, when they suggested to him, “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover for you?”, so he also received John's baptism, which was the nearest foretelling of him. But just as the circumcision of the flesh of the Jews is one thing and what we celebrate on the eighth day of the baptized another, and the Passover which they still celebrate with a sheep is one thing and what we receive in the Lord's body and blood another, so John's baptism was one thing and Christ's baptism is another. By the former these things were foretold as coming; by the latter those things are proclaimed as fulfilled; and although Christ received the former, they are not necessary for us, because we have received him who was announced through them. But anyone who, at the Lord's recent coming, had received the former needed to be instructed in the latter too; while anyone instructed in the latter did not need to be driven back to the former.

So do not make a fog about John's baptism. Whether its cause and reason are what I have set out, or some better and surer one is given, this at least is plain: John's baptism was one thing and Christ's another, and the former was called John's baptism, as both the answer of those you mentioned shows and the Lord's own words when he says to the Jews, “Is the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” But this baptism is not called Caecilian's or Donatus's or Augustine's or Petilian's, but Christ's baptism. For if you think us shameless because we do not want anyone baptized after us, while we see that men were baptized after John, who is beyond comparison greater than we, are John and Optatus perhaps equal? It seems ridiculous, and yet I think you believe them not equal but Optatus greater: for the apostle baptized after John, while you dare to baptize no one after Optatus. Or is it because Optatus was in your unity? With what heart this can be borne I do not know, if the friend of the Count, to whom the Count was god, is said to have been in unity and the friend of the Bridegroom outside unity. But if John was supremely in unity and was far more excellent and greater not only than Optatus but than all of you and all of us, and yet the apostle Paul baptized after him, why do you not baptize after Optatus? Unless perhaps your blindness forces you into these straits, to say that Optatus could give the Holy Spirit and John could not. If you do not say this, so that your madness may not be laughed at even by the mad, what will you answer as to why men had to be baptized after John but no one is to be baptized after Optatus, except that those had been baptized with John's baptism, while whoever are baptized with Christ's baptism, whether they are baptized by Paul or by Optatus, there is no difference between the baptism of the one and of the other, though there is so great a difference between Paul and Optatus? Return, then, you transgressors, to your heart, and do not weigh divine sacraments by men's character and deeds. For they are holy through him whose they are; but handled worthily they bring reward, handled unworthily, judgment. And although those who handle God's sacrament worthily and those who handle it unworthily are not one, it is one, whether handled worthily or unworthily; not so as to become better or worse itself, but for the life or death of those who handle it. As for your saying that in those whom Paul baptized after John he washed off what had already been, you would certainly not say it if you considered a little what you were saying. For if John's baptism had to be washed off, it was without doubt dirty. Why should I press you further? Recall or read where John received it from, and you will find against whom you have poured out this blasphemy. When you find it, let your breast at least be beaten, if your tongue is not bridled.

Now as to what you think you say elegantly, “If we do wrong in this, why do you seek us out?”: do you never remember that none are sought but those who have perished? Or does not seeing even this belong to perdition itself? For that sheep too could say just as absurdly to the shepherd, “If I do wrong in straying from the flock, why do you seek me?”, not understanding that the very reason why it thinks it should not be sought is the one reason why it is sought. And who seeks you, whether through his Scriptures or through Catholic and peaceable tongues or through the scourges of temporal troubles, but he who dispenses this mercy to you in all things? So we seek you in order to find you; for we love you so that you may live as much as we hate your error so that it may perish, which destroys you as long as it does not itself perish. And would that we may so seek you as also to find you, and say joyfully of each one of you, “He was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found!”

Petilian said: “If you say you hold the Catholic Church, catholicos is what is called in Greek ‘single’ or ‘whole.’ Look, you are not in the whole, because you have given way into a part.”

Augustine answered: I indeed have attained very little of the Greek language, almost nothing; yet I am not shameless in saying that I know that holon means not “one” but “whole,” and kath' holon “according to the whole,” from which the Catholic Church took its name, as the Lord himself says: “It is not for you to know the times which the Father has set by his own authority; but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the whole earth.” See where the name Catholic comes from. But you strike so blindly against the mountain which, according to Daniel's prophecy, grew from a small stone and filled the whole earth, that you say to us that we have given way into a part and are not in the whole, though our communion is spread through the whole world. But just as, if you told me that I was Petilian, I would find no way to refute you except either to laugh at you as joking or grieve for you as mad, so I see I must do now; and since I do not believe you are joking, you see what remains.

Petilian said: “But there is no part of darkness with light, nor part of bitterness with honey; there is no part of life with death, no part of innocence with guilt, no part of water with blood, nor part of dregs with oil, though theirs is a muddy kinship; but all that is rejected will flow off. That is the bilge of vices, as John says: ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.’ Gold is not with its dross; all precious things are purified, for it is written: ‘As the furnace tests gold, so the trouble of tribulation tests the righteous.’ Cruelty is no part of gentleness, nor sacrilege of religion; nor can the party of Macarius be ours in any way, because it stains by the likeness of our rite. For a hostile battle line, which fills up the name of enemy, is not a part. If it is truly called a part, it will incur the fitting sentence of Solomon: ‘Let their part perish from the earth.’”

Augustine answered: To throw these words about and prove nothing, what is that but raving? You notice the tares throughout the world and do not notice the wheat, though both were ordered to grow throughout the whole. You notice the seed of the evil one, which will be separated at harvest time, and do not notice the seed of Abraham, in which all nations are blessed. As if you were already a cleansed lump, pure honey, strained oil, refined gold, or the very appearance of a whitewashed wall! To say nothing of other vices, do drunkards make part of the sober, or are the greedy counted in the part of the wise? If gentle men hold the name of light, where will the fury of the Circumcellions be counted except in darkness? Why, then, is baptism given by such men valid among you, and the same baptism of Christ not valid when given by anyone in the world? You surely see that you have been separated from the communion of the world to this end: not that you are all drunkards, or all greedy, or all violent, but that you are all heretics, and therefore all ungodly and all sacrilegious.

But who in his right mind would call the whole world, rejoicing in Christian fellowship, the party of Macarius? But because we say you are of the party of Donatus, you look for a man whose party you can say we are of, and in great straits you name someone or other who is perhaps known in Africa but unknown in the other parts of the world. So look, the whole seed of Abraham answers you from the whole earth: “We do not know at all this Macarius whose party you say we are.” Answer in turn that you do not know Donatus. But if we say you are the party of Optatus, which of you can say he does not know Optatus, except perhaps by face, as with Donatus? But no doubt you rejoice in the name of Donatus; do you also rejoice in the name of Optatus? What good is Donatus to you, then, when Optatus has defiled you all? What good is Donatus's sobriety to you, when you are polluted by the drunkenness of the Circumcellions? What good is Donatus's innocence, in your opinion, when you are stained by Optatus's rapacity? For this is your error: you think a man's iniquity has more power to defile another than a man's righteousness to purify another. So if two share the divine sacraments together, one righteous, the other unrighteous, yet so that the one does not imitate the other's iniquity nor the other the first's righteousness, you say not that both become righteous from this but that both become unrighteous, so that even the holy thing they receive together becomes unclean and loses its own holiness. Where has iniquity found such advocates for itself, by whose raving it is thought so victorious? Why, then, do you applaud yourselves on the name of Donatus in the error of so great a perversity, in which Petilian does not deserve to be what Donatus was, but Donatus himself is forced to be what Optatus was? But let the house of Israel say, “The Lord is my portion”; let the seed of Abraham in all nations say, “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance.” For it knows how to speak in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. For you too, through the sacrament that is in you, prophesy without knowing it, like Caiaphas the Lord's persecutor. For what is makarios in Greek is beatus, “blessed,” in Latin. So we are plainly of the party of Macarius, of the Blessed One. For what is more blessed than Christ, whose we are, to whom all the ends of the earth remember and turn, and before whom all the families of the nations worship? So the party of this Macarius, that is, of this Blessed One, does not fear your final curse, perversely borrowed from Solomon, that it perish from the earth. For what was said of the ungodly you try to turn against Christ's inheritance, and you contend with abominable impiety that it has happened. For when he spoke of the ungodly, he said, “Let their part perish from the earth.” But when you say that what is written, “I will give you the nations as your inheritance,” and, “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,” that this promise has already perished from the earth, you want to twist against Christ's inheritance what was foretold of the lot of the ungodly; but while Christ's inheritance remains and grows, you who say these things are perishing. For you do not everywhere prophesy through God's sacrament, since here, through your madness, you wish evil. But the prediction of the prophets is stronger than the curse of false prophets.

Petilian said: “The apostle Paul also cries: ‘Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers; for what partnership has righteousness with iniquity, or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial, or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?’”

Augustine answered: I recognize the apostle's words, but I do not see at all how they help you. For which of us says there is partnership of righteousness with iniquity, even if a righteous man and an unrighteous one, like Judas and Peter, share the sacraments together? From one and the same holy thing Judas took judgment on himself, Peter salvation; just as you, if you were unlike him, received the sacrament with Optatus and were not a robber like him. Or is robbery not iniquity? Who is so mad as to say so? What partnership, then, had your righteousness with his iniquity when you approached one altar?

Petilian said: “And again he taught, so that schisms might not arise: ‘I say to you, because each of you says, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?’”

Augustine answered: Remember, you who read this: Petilian cites these words from the apostle. When would you have believed that he would speak so for us against himself?

Petilian said: “If Paul said these things to the untaught, to the righteous, I say them to you, the unrighteous: Is Christ divided, that you should tear us away from the church?”

Augustine answered: I fear that someone may think that in this work of mine the scribe made a mistake and wrote “Petilian said” where he should have written “Augustine answered.” But I see what you have done: you wanted, as it were, to forestall us from saying these things. But what have you done except make them be said twice? So if you so enjoy hearing what is against you said, hear it, I beg, from me, Petilian: Is Christ divided, that you should tear yourselves away from the church?

Petilian said: “Did Judas the traitor die for us by his noose? Or do you dye yourselves in the character of the one whose deeds you follow, when, having seized the treasures of the church, you sell us, Christ's heirs, to the powers of the world?”