To the Donatists after the Collation 1–16

Why, Donatists, do you still let yourselves be led astray by your bishops, whose deceitful darkness has been scattered by clear light, whose error has been exposed, whose stubbornness has been overcome? Why do they still boast empty lies to you? Why do you still believe men who have been defeated? When they tell you that the judge was corrupted by a bribe, what new thing are they doing? What else are all the defeated accustomed to do, who will not consent to the truth, but lie about the judge’s injustice? Ask them, and let them answer you this first, if they can: why did they dare to come to Carthage and to meet with us in one place for the sake of a conference? Some years ago we summoned them publicly, so that by our conferring the truth might appear and the dissension that divides us might be removed from our midst; but fleeing the truth itself, they answered on record: “It is unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of betrayers should come together in one place.” Why, then, did they now wish to meet with us? I suppose they would not do what seemed to them unworthy unless they knew that we are not the offspring of betrayers. Or else let them answer us why they said, “It is unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of betrayers should come together in one place,” and afterward came together with us in one place. What compelled them to do what is unworthy? For they were not brought in bound, but came together entirely free. If they say, “Because the emperor had ordered it,” then they do what is unworthy when the emperor orders it. Why, then, are they angry at some betrayers or other who have nothing to do with our case? For to give the Lord’s books to persecutors is certainly unworthy; and when a betrayer did this, he has no guilt, because the emperor had ordered it. We say this not according to the truth but according to their own perversity. For they said it (the public records proclaim it), they said it on record. Not some unknown person, but their bishop of Carthage, Primian, said this; Primian gave this in writing to the magistrate of Carthage and instructed his deacon to say it on record: “It is unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of betrayers should come together in one place.” See, we have come together in one place: what do they answer to this? If they say, “It is not unworthy,” why did they lie when they said it was unworthy? If they say, “It is unworthy,” why did they do what is unworthy? There is only one way they can claim both that they did not do what is unworthy and that they did not lie in those words of Primian: if they say, “It is indeed unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of betrayers should come together in one place; but we came together with you in one place because we learned that you are not the offspring of betrayers.” If that is so, why, when we were already together in one place, did they throw those same slanders at us, unless perhaps so that we too might learn that they are not the sons of the martyrs? For martyrs are called witnesses; and the witnesses of Christ are true witnesses. But these were found to be false witnesses, who charged the crimes of betrayal, and those of some against others, and could not prove even these.

Why do you still pay attention to human lies and not pay attention to divine testimonies? Why do you still believe defeated men and not believe the truth, which has never been defeated? For the truth of God, as we proved at the conference itself, has borne witness to his church through many proofs of the holy Scriptures, through the prophetic and Gospel writings; and the place was marked out from which the church of Christ was to begin, and the ends of the earth, as far as which it was to reach. The Lord says that his church is to be in all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. The divine reading is read of how it began from Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit was first sent from heaven upon the gathered faithful. The divine readings are read of how it spread from Jerusalem through places near and far. The names of the places are stated, the names of the cities made known, in which the church of Christ was founded by apostolic labor, places and cities which were even counted worthy to receive letters from the apostles. These letters your bishops themselves read in your congregations, and yet they are not in communion with the churches of those places and cities which were counted worthy to receive those very letters, charging them with some crimes or other of Africans, as if they had perished by their contagion; although they themselves said, at this very conference which we lately held at Carthage, that neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person.

They said this when we told them: “The council that you bring against Caecilian does not harm the absent Caecilian, just as the council held in the case of Maximian, where Primian was condemned, does not harm the absent Primian.” For they brought forward the council in which seventy-odd bishops had condemned Caecilian in his absence, while some hundred bishops of their own party are brought forward who had condemned Primian in his absence. So because we told them that the one did not harm Caecilian just as the other did not harm Primian, since both councils were held against absent men, at once, finding nothing to answer and suffering dreadful straits, they said that neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person; which the Catholic Church has on its lips against all human slanders, and now much more strongly and much more freely, when what the truth always held has been confirmed even by the confession of its enemies. Who, then, could bear it without grave sorrow, who could hold back a groan, who would not burst into tears and a cry of grief, having duly considered this? See: so that Primian, condemned by bishops of the party of Donatus, should not lose his episcopate, or so that the condemned Primian should not disturb the party of Donatus, neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person; but so that Caecilian, whom his enemies likewise condemned in his absence, should not be counted a bishop and should contaminate all the Christian nations to the ends of the earth, both does one case prejudice another case and one person another person.

Suppose the churches of Pontus, Bithynia, Asia, Cappadocia, and the other eastern regions, to which the blessed apostle Peter writes, were to cry out with the voice of unity itself: “Party of Donatus, we do not know what you are talking about. Why are you not in communion with us? If Caecilian did something evil, which has not been proved or shown to us, yet if he did something evil, why does it prejudice us? If you will not listen to us, listen to yourselves saying: neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person. Or can your perversity go so far that these words hold good so that Primian does not prejudice you, and these words do not hold good so that Caecilian prejudices us?” Let the seven eastern churches to which the apostle John writes, Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Pergamum, likewise cry out and say: “What have we done to you, brothers, that you chose to be of the communion of Donatus rather than ours? If Caecilian sinned, though you could not show even his crime, since like your Primian he too was condemned in his absence, yet whatever he was, what have we done to you? Why will you not, as Christians, have peace with Christians? Why do you annul in us the sacraments we have in common? What have we done to you? Why does Primian’s case not prejudice the party of Donatus, unless because what you said is true: neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person? Why then does Caecilian’s case prejudice the inheritance of Christ, in which we were planted by the labor of the apostles? To one of us the apostle John writes that it has a few names in Sardis of those who have not soiled their garments; and yet the garments of those few were not polluted by those who were unclean in that very church, since what you said is true, that neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person. How, then, can the case and person of Caecilian prejudice us? Or if it does not, why do you separate yourselves from us?” Let the churches to which the apostle Paul writes also say it, those of the Romans, the Corinthians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians (for Galatia and Ephesus have already been mentioned above); let these too say: “Brothers, you who still wish to be of the party of Donatus, you read every day the letters given to us. In those very letters the apostle greeted us in the name of peace, saying: ‘Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Why did you learn peace by reading our letters and refuse to keep it with us? To us, set in lands so far away across the sea, you object the African Caecilian. Surely what you said is true: neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person. What is this private and peculiar sanctification of yours, by which you are permitted that the case of the African Primian should not prejudice the African party of Donatus, nor the person of Felician of Mustis prejudice the person of Primian of Carthage, and yet African prejudgments are sent so far to us, and the case of Caecilian prejudices us?”

Let the Catholic Church established in Africa itself, joined in communion with all those churches through the peace and unity of Christ, let it too say: “Neither does the case of Caecilian prejudice me, against whom in his absence the sentence of seventy bishops was pronounced, since it does not prejudice the church spread over the whole world, in whose communion I remain; or else let the case of Primian prejudice the party of Donatus, whom his colleagues likewise condemned in his absence in a more numerous council. But if it does not prejudice it, because neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another, much more must this justice be kept toward the Catholic unity of Christ, if the party of Donatus demands that it be kept toward itself.” This the Catholic Church established in Africa proclaims: “Party of Donatus, you said these words, you acknowledged these words as yours, you even signed these words: neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another. I name Caecilian among the spirits of those long at rest; you still see Felician, by whom Primian was condemned, and have him with you in the body. In Primian’s very case you condemned Felician, and afterward you joined him, a bishop as he was, to Primian and to yourself. If the principle that neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another has such force that communion with Felician, living with you today, does not prejudice you, how does the memory of Caecilian, long dead, prejudice me?”

What do they answer to this, who still boast empty things to you and lies that will harm their own salvation unless they correct themselves? Why do they still say that we corrupted the judge so that sentence would be given for us? Did we also corrupt your bishop, the most distinguished defender of such merit among you, so that he would say such things for us? For this is what we were doing with all our strength, what we were pressing: to show that the case and person of Caecilian, whatever he was, had nothing to do with the case and person of the church, which God has strengthened with his holy testimonies. We were doing this also with the Gospel likenesses: that the case and person of the weeds should not prejudice the case and person of the wheat, though they grow together in the same field under the same rain until the harvest, when they must be separated; that the case and person of the chaff should not prejudice the case and person of the grain, though they are threshed together on the same threshing floor until they are separated by the final winnowing; that the case and person of the goats should not prejudice the case and person of the sheep, though both flocks are kept mixed in common pastures until they are separated by the chief Shepherd at the last judgment, some to the left, some to the right; that the case and person of the bad fish should not prejudice the case and person of the good fish, though they are held within the same nets, to be separated on the far shore, that is, at the end of the sea, which signifies the end of the age. By these parables and figures the church was foretold as going to have good and bad together until the end of the age, in such a way that the bad cannot harm the good, since they are either unknown or tolerated for the peace and tranquillity of the church, if it was not fitting to expose or accuse them, or they could not be shown to be bad to other good people; yet so that the vigilance of amendment does not rest, by rebuking, degrading, excommunicating, and the other lawful and permitted restraints which are done daily in the church without harm to the peace of unity, according to the apostle’s precept, with love preserved, who said: “If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, note that person, and do not mix with him, so that he may be ashamed; and do not regard him as an enemy, but rebuke him as a brother.” For in this way discipline keeps patience and patience tempers discipline, and both are referred to love, lest undisciplined patience foster iniquity or impatient discipline scatter unity.

When good people do these things, they are not defiled by the bad, because they do not share in their sins by consenting to them, and they depart from them, if not by bodily separation, then by spiritual unlikeness of life and difference of conduct, obeying in this way the Lord’s command where he says: “Depart from there, and touch no unclean thing.” For those who think this is not to be observed spiritually fall, through the arrogance of vanity, into what the Lord detests through the same prophet, saying: “Those who say, ‘Do not touch me, for I am clean’: this is the smoke of my anger.” Your bishops thought they should do this when, though the judge offered seats to both of us, they refused to sit with us, saying that it was written for them not to sit with such people, understanding not spiritually but carnally what is set down in the psalm, “And I will not sit with the impious”; and yet they did what is forbidden equally in the very same place of the psalm. For there the prophet says: “And I will not go in with those who do wicked things.” If, then, because they either knew or thought us wicked, they refused to sit with us, why did they go in with us (which is likewise forbidden), from the side of the holy and from the side of the polluted, unless because, by not understanding the holy Scriptures and thinking carnally, they have scattered unity itself?

So the bad do not pollute the good, though placed in the same field, on the same threshing floor, in the same pastures, in the same nets, because the good are in communion not with them but with the altar and the sacraments of God. But those are in communion with the bad who consent to the deeds of the bad; for it is written: “Not only those who do them, but also those who consent to those who do them.” When the bad are tolerated out of the necessity of keeping peace, not sought out by a partnership of sharing in iniquity, so that the wheat drinks the gentle rain together with the weeds yet keeps its fruitfulness and is not turned into the barrenness of the weeds, but both grow together until the harvest, lest perhaps, when the weeds are gathered, the wheat be rooted up with them: then the bad have no participation with the good in salvation or in perdition (for what participation has righteousness with iniquity?); the bad have no fellowship with the good in the kingdom or in the eternal fire (for what fellowship has light with darkness?); the bad have no harmony with the good in life and will (for what harmony has Christ with Belial?); the good have no part with the bad either in the punishment of crime or in the reward of piety (for what part has a believer with an unbeliever?). And though within the same nets, until they reach the shore, they receive the divine sacraments alike, these are joined, those disjoined; these agree, those disagree; these have their part with mercy, those with judgment; since the church sings to the Lord of mercy and judgment, and “whoever eats unworthily eats judgment” not to another but “to himself.” For from the same bread and from the same hand of the Lord both Judas and Peter received a portion; and yet what fellowship, what harmony, what part has Peter with Judas, since neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person?

Whether, then, they go out, those of whom it is written, “They went out from us, but they were not of us,” or whether they seem to be inside, those of whom the blessed Cyprian speaks most plainly, saying: “For even if there seem to be weeds in the church, our faith or our love ought not to be hindered, so that, because we see that there are weeds in the church, we ourselves should withdraw from the church” (to which words your bishops dared to answer nothing at all, though they contended long and in vain that the weeds were not figured as foretold in the church, because the Lord said, “The field is this world,” and did not say, “The field is the church.” We, however, said that “world” was put to signify the church, as Cyprian too understood, since the church was prefigured as going to be throughout the whole world. Hence they said that “world” is always used in a bad sense, and gave testimonies from the Scriptures, since it is written, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” and other such things; but we answered that in the Scriptures “world” is used not only in a bad but also in a good sense, and recalled among other things what is written, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” who surely reconciles to himself nothing but the church): whether, then, the bad go out, or whether inside they are either unknown or seen, the mercy and justice of God bring it about that the bad do not harm the good who do not consent to them in evil, but each bears his own burden; and the son does not receive the sins of the father, unless he has imitated him in evil, but the soul that has sinned, it shall die. So when anyone consents to the bad in evil, he already has one case with them and becomes one person of the whole fellowship of the bad; and therefore, when they perish together and are condemned together, it is his own case and his own person that prejudices each, not another’s. But when the good and the bad hear the same word of God together and receive the sacraments of God together, and yet have unlike cases in their actions and play unlike persons by the difference of their wills, some eating the same holy food worthily and others unworthily, neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person.

And so, whatever testimonies of the divine Scriptures your bishops could cite in which the church was foretold as pure of all mixture with bad people, those testimonies foretold not such a church as it is now, but such as it will be in eternal life after this mortality. And whatever testimonies of the Scriptures they set down about sons whom they wished to have one case with their parents by the parents’ desert, not by imitating their wickedness, they did not understand them; they were forcing the divine testimonies to fight against each other, and did not bring both voices of God into harmony by distinguishing them according to the difference of times, cases, and persons; but just as they themselves fought against us, so they wanted the divine documents to fight among themselves. No wonder they did not understand the peace of God’s Scriptures, who had no peace with his church.

We, however, accepting both sets of testimonies, showed their harmony. For we accepted both what they cited in their letter as said to the church, “The uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer pass through you,” and what is written, “Let both grow until the harvest”; but the latter is in the field, the former will be in the barn. Finally, they themselves contended long, saying that the weeds which were permitted to grow with the wheat until the harvest are not in the church but in the world, against the understanding of the martyr Cyprian, who said, “Even if there seem to be weeds in the church, our faith or our love ought not to be hindered, so that, because we see that there are weeds in the church, we ourselves should withdraw from the church”; and they would not agree that the church can be signified by the name “world,” against the words of the apostle, who said, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” and against the words of the Lord himself, who said, “The Son of Man did not come to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (for the world cannot be reconciled to God and saved through him unless by the name “world” the church is understood, which alone is reconciled to God and saved through him). And yet, in that likeness which we cited from the Gospel, that good and bad fish are held mixed within the same nets until they are separated on the shore, that is, at the end of the age, overcome by the evidence of the truth they confessed that bad people are mixed in the church until the end of the age; but they said they are hidden, since they are unknown to the priests just as fish within the nets, while still in the sea, are not seen by the fishermen. How, then, can the prophetic testimony which they set down in their reply, in which it is said to the church, “The uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer pass through you,” be understood to belong to this time, when the church is compared to nets in which, while they are still in the sea, they confessed that bad fish are mixed with the good, or hidden? From this it is plain that only in the age to come, after the judgment, will no uncircumcised and unclean person pass through the church. O force of truth, which tortures its enemies not in the flesh but in the heart, so that they confess it against their will!

See, what we were saying has been made plain: that the times of the church must be distinguished; that it is not now such as it will be after the resurrection; that now it has the bad mixed in, then it will not have them at all; that those divine testimonies in which God foretold it as wholly free of all mixture with the bad belong to that purity of it, not to the mixture of this time. See, they too were compelled by the Gospel truth to confess nothing else, when they said that hidden bad people are now mixed in it. See, now an unclean person passes through it, though hidden. So it is not yet the time that was foretold when the prophet said, “The uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer pass through you.” Now, then, they pass through, even if hidden. For the very words “shall no longer” show that they used to pass through before but will not pass through any more. And they asked us spitefully how the devil could have sown weeds in the church of Christ, when they themselves admitted that at least hidden bad people are mixed in the church, and would not consider that these were certainly sown by the devil.

The very point which they seemed to themselves to have found so sharp, they were rather bringing forward against themselves. For if the Lord compared the church to nets gathering good and bad fish alike because he wished the bad in the church to be understood as not manifest but hidden, whom priests do not know just as fishermen do not know what the nets have caught under the waves, then for that very reason the church was also compared to a threshing floor, so that it would be foretold that even manifest bad people would be mixed in it with the good. For the chaff mixed with the grain on the threshing floor does not also lie hidden under the waves; it is so conspicuous to all eyes that the grain in it is rather what is hidden, while the chaff itself is in plain view. About this likeness of the threshing floor, which we had also set down among others from the Gospel, they could write nothing against us in their letter except that the prophet Jeremiah said, “What has chaff to do with wheat?” He said this because they are not alike, not because they cannot be mixed; because they will not be together in the barn, not because they are not threshed together on the threshing floor. And yet Jeremiah, when he said this, was not dealing with the people of God, but with the dreams of men and the visions of prophets, because these two cannot be compared by any likeness, just as the emptiness of chaff cannot be compared to the fullness of wheat.

Your bishops did try to deny that it is written in the Gospel that the church is compared to a threshing floor; but soon, convicted when the Gospel words were cited, they turned to saying that there too hidden bad people were signified, not manifest ones, of whom it is written: “He will come with his winnowing fork in his hand and will clean his threshing floor; he will store the grain in the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So you judge: open your eyes, turn your ears to the truth. If, as they themselves said, the Lord compared the church to nets because he wished the bad in it to be understood as not manifest but hidden, whom priests do not see just as fishermen do not see the fish within the nets under the waves, is a threshing floor also threshed under water or under the earth, or at least at night hours, not trodden in the sun, or does a blind farmer work on it? How much better, then, for them to correct themselves than to pervert the holy Gospels and try to twist the Lord’s words to the empty error of their own minds! For either that likeness of the fish too was given by the Lord not because of hidden bad people but only because of bad people mixed in the church, or else each thing was given its own likeness: of the fish because of the hidden, of the threshing floor because of the manifest bad, who, just as the former are mixed with the good in the church before the shore, so the latter are before the winnowing fork. For they themselves remind us to understand the chaff on the threshing floor as the manifest bad in the church, when they want the worthless fish within the swimming nets to be understood as the hidden bad because, just as fishermen do not know the former, so priests do not know the latter. For why should we not say: so too the chaff is the manifest bad, because the threshers see it in the open? But just as the fish cannot be separated before they come out on the shore, so the chaff cannot be winnowed before the appointed end. And God guards the innocence of his saints and faithful as of the good fish, as of the plump grain, so that within these nets the mixed kinds to be rejected do not harm them, and on this threshing floor the mixed chaff to be winnowed does not harm them; since, as they themselves said, read over, and signed, neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person.

Perhaps they would deny having said these words, if they could not be convicted by their own signature. See how carefully it was managed for your salvation that we should sign our words, which they absolutely did not want done, and which they were at last compelled by shame to do. For their words survive in which they refused to do this, and again other words in which they agreed to do what they had first refused; everything was written down, everything was signed. They seemed unwilling to sign precisely so that they could deny having said what they had said and slander the judge over corrupted minutes. Since they cannot do this now, they say the judge himself was corrupted, whom no one but they themselves caused to judge against them, they who said so much against themselves and for us that, so as not to be able to deny it, they signed their statements, though compelled and unwilling. So they did not want to sign, so that they might be allowed to deny what they had said by slandering the minutes as corrupted; and they agreed afterward, at the judge’s insistence, because they sensed it was plain to all that by refusing to sign they showed nothing but that they feared having their own words read to them. For they preferred to defend their statements afterward with whatever fogs they could rather than condemn them so quickly.

But see, we beg you, how by their very defense they entangle themselves worse, and plead our case and destroy their own altogether. For after the conference, when the defeated wished to appeal, these words were put to them, and they try to defend them with a worse entanglement of their own when you ask them what they did. For they think you have so little sense that you do not understand they have been beaten in every way, when they tell you things they would never say if they could find anything useful to say. For who could bear defeated men complaining that the sentence against them was pronounced at night? As if the need to hear a case did not often hold judges so that they are compelled to sit far into the night, or as if what is said is not true because it is said at night. Nor do they listen to Scripture proclaiming: “By day the Lord commanded his mercy, and by night he declared it”; and again: “To proclaim your mercy in the morning and your truth through the night.” Or they say that the persecutors came by night to arrest the Lord, not noticing that in those same night hours the Lord also preached the truth to his disciples; nor did they wish to note what is written, that the apostle Paul prolonged his speech until midnight. If they had anything true to say, the night could not hinder them. But indeed they were suffering a most dark night in their minds, when they brought forward so much against themselves and did not correct their perverse spirit toward the light of truth. And it was certainly still day when, in forensic fashion, they pleaded the time limit against us, saying that the case had lapsed and could no longer be heard at all, not understanding that they showed people nothing but how much they feared that the case would be heard, in which their perversity and the Catholic truth would be shown.