To the Donatists after the Collation 17–30

It was still day when, wishing to destroy the judgment of Miltiades, bishop of Rome, by which Caecilian was cleared and acquitted, they said that Miltiades himself had been a betrayer. When proof of this accusation was demanded of them, they read some very long minutes in which the name of Miltiades, as having handed anything over, did not occur. And they also read other minutes in which it was read that Miltiades had sent deacons with letters of the emperor Maxentius and of the praetorian prefect to the prefect of the city, to recover the places that had been taken from the Christians in time of persecution. When no crime of Miltiades whatever appeared there, they said that in the earlier minutes of the betrayal a betrayer Strato had been read, since one of the deacons whom Miltiades had sent to recover the places was also called that, contending that he was the same man and not showing it. For they did not even show that the Strato who had handed over was a deacon. And even if he had been, we answered them that a short time ago there had been two deacons named Peter in the same clergy of the Roman church. So, blind in mind, they wove dark slanders, adding even a most manifest falsehood, that not only the name but also the places, regions, and persons agreed, by which it would be shown that Strato was not another but the same; when in those minutes nothing at all was read that agreed except the likeness of the name, with which the custom of the human race is full, so that not only two but even more people are called by one name. For they too cried out that their Donatus of Carthage was to be distinguished from Donatus of Casae, so that he would not be thought to have been condemned in the judgment of Miltiades, since they hold him in great esteem; because it was not Donatus of Carthage who had been sent against Caecilian to Miltiades’ episcopal judgment: carrying so thick a night in their hearts that they would not have Donatus disgraced by the likeness of his name, and would have Miltiades stained by the likeness of another’s name. Now they are said also to add to Strato the name of Cassian, which they kept silent about at the conference; as if Strato alone could have had a namesake and Cassian could not. Nor, hindered by their inner night, could they notice not only two Johns, one the Baptist, the other the Evangelist, but also two Simons, one Peter, the other the magician; and finally, in the very small number of the apostles, not only two named James, one of Alphaeus, the other of Zebedee, but also two named Judas, one a saint, the other a devil; and yet anyone equally blind in mind who slandered the holy apostle Judas with the crime of Judas the betrayer would only be imitating these men. For it is no wonder if the reputation of Miltiades, after so long a time, suffers such slanderers as these about two Cassians or two Stratos, as the truth of the Gospel suffers about two Herods. For since it is not stated which Herod died soon after the infants were killed for Christ’s sake, and which Herod persecuted the Lord with Pilate, those who think they were one man charge the Gospel with falsehood, just as these, thinking that Strato or Cassian was one man, charge Miltiades with the stain of betrayal. And yet those err more tolerably, because not only the name but also the rank agrees, for each is read as King Herod; but these lied that the rank agreed, since they could in no way read that both had been deacons.

It was still day when, wishing to show false the council of Cirta (if indeed it should be called a council, in which there were scarcely eleven or twelve bishops), from which we read that certain men who pronounced sentences against Caecilian with Secundus of Tigisi had been betrayers, they said that in time of persecution those eleven or twelve bishops could not have assembled in any house; and to prove that it was a time of persecution, they produced acts of martyrs, so that, the days and consuls being considered, it would appear what time it was. They were convicted of having produced these acts of martyrs against themselves; for in those acts it was made plain that at that time of persecution Christian congregations were accustomed to assemble. From this it was established that it was not incredible that those bishops too were read to have met likewise in a private house, so that for a congregation which could assemble even in time of persecution, as the acts of the martyrs contained, a bishop might be secretly ordained, who could himself also secretly ordain clergy for himself in such great necessity, where the previous bishop with his clergy was shown to have lapsed by the letter of Secundus himself, which they had cited. From these acts of martyrs which they produced we were prompted to look into other acts of martyrs too, and we found and said that at the height of the time of persecution both a private house, which they had denied could happen, had been granted for an assembly of Christians, and martyrs had been baptized in prison; so that they might see how far from incredible it was that a few bishops assembled in a private house in time of persecution, when the sacraments of Christ were celebrated even in the very prison where men were held shut in for faith in Christ. How much, then, they helped you by producing the acts of the martyrs, who does not see, unless he has a night in his heart like that of those who did not see it?

They also slandered the minutes of Cirta on the ground that a day and consuls were read there, and they demanded that we produce some councils of the church in which days and consuls were read. For they were producing a council of Carthage held without day or consul. They said too that the council of Cyprian has no consuls, though a day is read in it, while in that Carthaginian council of theirs there is not even a day. We, however, showed that the Roman council of Miltiades, which was in hand, has both a day and consuls, like that of Cirta. For we did not then have time on the spot to examine the ancient archives of the church, by which it might be shown that this was a custom of the ancients too. Nor did we wish to raise empty slanders against them in turn, why a day was found in Cyprian’s council but not in theirs, since they wanted to weave in empty delays, which we were trying to avert. For they even demanded that we show from the holy Scriptures that days and consuls were written down somewhere; as if councils of bishops had ever been compared with the canonical Scriptures, or as if they themselves could produce from the holy Scriptures a council in which apostles sat as judges and either condemned or acquitted someone accused. And yet we answered them that the prophets too commended their books with times noted and fixed at the head, in what year of what king, in what month of the year, on what day of the month the word of the Lord came upon them; so as to show how emptily and slanderously they raised most empty questions about the days and consuls of episcopal councils. For it can happen that there is this variation in copies, some writing out even days and consuls with greater care, others omitting them as superfluous; just as the copy from which we first read the judgment of Constantine, in which he pronounced Caecilian innocent between the parties and them most slanderous, had no day and consul, while another, which we later produced against their slanders, had them. They had also cried out there most spitefully that we read the emperor’s letter without day and consul; and yet they themselves read another letter of the same emperor in the case of Felix, Caecilian’s ordainer, which by an amazing blindness they produced against themselves, without day and consul. Nor did we charge them with anything on that account, so as not to fill the necessary time with superfluous words as they did; but we say these things now so that you at least may open your eyes and be free of the dark night which your bishops carried in their hearts, who charged the judge’s hearing with a night sentence, while they themselves, wrapped by day in inner darkness, said so much against themselves with amazing blindness.

In the records before the magistrate of Carthage the words of Primian are read stated plainly, where he says that our forebears harassed their parents with various exiles; and at the conference they try to prove that, on the accusation of their forebears, Caecilian was condemned to exile by the emperor. They say in their letter that their communion is the church of truth, which suffers persecution, not that which inflicts it; and they try to show that Caecilian was condemned by the emperor’s judgment, their forebears persecuting him; and they say this was done not through Donatus of Casae but through the one whom they praise above the rest, Donatus of Carthage. For this is what they are now said to boast in their writings, in which, defeated, they accuse the judge because truth at night refuted the night of their hearts. That Donatus, that Donatus, I say, whom they have called the ornament of the church of Carthage and a man of martyr’s glory, they wished to commend by saying that before the hearing of the emperor Constantine he himself both charged Caecilian as guilty and convicted him. So that man of martyr’s glory, before the emperor’s hearing, made Caecilian a defendant and charged him, and condemnation of Caecilian followed that hearing; on the accusation and insistence of that man of martyr’s glory Caecilian was condemned by the emperor. This indeed we proved false, we who read the letter of the same emperor, brought out from the public archive, in which he testifies that he heard and judged between the parties, where, having acquitted and cleared Caecilian, he expressed his detestation of their slanders. Against it they could find nothing at all to answer, and to confirm it they produced other things against themselves. So it was established that Caecilian was accused before the emperor by their forebears, but not established that he was condemned; on the contrary, it was established that he was acquitted. But you at least see how much your bishops helped our case, who wished to boast even of that falsehood. For if that Donatus, a man of martyr’s glory, charged Caecilian as guilty before the emperor’s hearing, and on the accusation and insistence of that man of martyr’s glory Caecilian was condemned by the emperor, let them answer you: when these things were being done, who was the martyr, Donatus, who was persecuting a man before the emperor, or Caecilian, who was being condemned by the emperor while he persecuted him? Where now is that defining rule of theirs, that the communion of Donatus is the church of truth, which suffers persecution, not that which inflicts it? See, Caecilian suffers, Donatus inflicts: which of them is the man of martyr’s glory?

Pay attention, take notice, do not let yourselves be led any longer into a ruinous error. The truth that was hidden from you God has deigned to reveal; the falsehood that was spread over you God has deigned to refute: why are you still ungrateful for so great a kindness? This, surely, is what they often told you, by which their cunning deceit clouded the eyes of your heart, and even now, though convicted, they boast of it and tear us with it: that we inflict persecution and they suffer it. This is what remains to them, beaten on every side, with which to make fogs still for the unlearned, showing from this, as it were, that they are the church of truth, because it suffers persecution and does not inflict it. So do not let them deceive you any longer; we do to them what they boast that their forebears, and the very man they praise as a man of martyr’s glory, did to Caecilian. He acted before the emperor so that Caecilian, convicted, would be condemned by his judgment; we too have acted so that these men, convicted, would suffer similar things. If he did wrong, why did Donatus do this to him? But if he did right, why should the Catholic Church not do this to the party of Donatus? Indeed, neither do they doubt that it is done rightly, who boast that their forebears, whom they praise greatly, did it; nor do we doubt it, who cannot deny that this must be done to them: that those who are not amended by words, being restless, should be corrected without the shedding of blood by some very mild penalty of the laws; and if perhaps the emperor, moved by the stubbornness of a sacrilegious mind, has decreed that it be punished with a heavier penalty, let the judges act more mildly, who have always been permitted to soften and lighten a sentence. Meanwhile, then, although it cannot be shown that Caecilian was condemned by the emperor Constantine, that error has been taken away from you by which you thought that the true church is the one which suffers persecution, not that which inflicts it; for Donatus inflicted it, Caecilian suffered it. And if the party of Donatus suffers persecution, the party of Maximian suffers with it too, which they themselves affirm is not the church of Christ. And so to inflict persecution is not a sign of iniquity, since the good do it to the bad and the bad to the good; and to suffer persecution is not a proof of righteousness, since not only the good suffer it for piety, but the bad too for iniquity.

It remains for you, then, with error driven away, to see and hold the Catholic Church of Christ, not choosing it because it suffers persecution. For when the Lord had said, “Blessed are those who suffer persecution,” so that heretics would not boast of this, he added, “for righteousness’ sake.” For you too know what great evils the most furious clerics and circumcellions of the party of Donatus have done to our people. Churches were burned, holy books thrown into the flames, private houses burned too, people dragged from their homes, and, everything in them carried off or destroyed, they themselves beaten, mangled, blinded. Nor could they refrain from murder, although it is milder to take a dying man from this light than to take this light from a living man. They went for the people themselves, not to hold them and lead them off somewhere, but only to make them suffer these things. Yet we do not justify our people because they suffered these things, but because they suffered them for Christian truth, for the peace of Christ, for the unity of the church. But what of the kind do they suffer, under so many and such severe laws and under so great a power of the Catholic Church as the Lord has given it? For if they are ever punished with death, either they kill themselves or they are killed while their bloody violence is being resisted, not for the communion of the party of Donatus nor for the error of a sacrilegious schism, but for their most open crimes and wickedness, which they commit with monstrous fury and cruelty after the manner of robbers. For the party of Donatus they hardly suffer anything like what they said Caecilian suffered at the insistence of Donatus.

So either not all persecution is unjust, or it should not be called persecution when it is just. Therefore either the party of Donatus suffers a just persecution, or it does not suffer persecution, because it suffers justly. But Caecilian did not suffer justly, since he was proved innocent and acquitted. They indeed denied this and said rather that he had been condemned by the emperor, and so confessed that their forebears, and above all Donatus, whom they praise so highly, persecuted Caecilian. But they could by no means prove that he had been convicted and condemned; on the contrary, by reading many things against themselves they too confirmed what we said, that he had been acquitted and cleared. And yet they boast that free choice was granted them by the emperor. Defeated and confounded, they even now demanded that what their forebears did not grant Caecilian should be granted to them, whom they so accused before the emperor, and whom these men even wished to claim falsely had been condemned by the emperor on their accusation. If free will is to be granted to everyone, it should have been granted first to Caecilian; if these things are not to be committed to a human judge but rather left to God, Caecilian should not first have been accused before the emperor.

Wake up at last; let not a hellish sleep bind you, let not impious habit plunge you still into the depths of sacrilegious error. Now agree with peace, cleave to unity, rest in love, yield to truth; recognize the Catholic Church, beginning from Jerusalem, spread everywhere, with which the party of Donatus is not in communion, and which the case of Caecilian does not prejudice. For, cleared so many times, acquitted so many times, even if he were not innocent, neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person. These words the whole church sounds through the world; its member in Africa also cries out: “I know God’s testimony; I do not know Caecilian’s business. I believe him innocent, harassed by your forebears, since I read so many times that he was acquitted; but whatever his case may be, it does not prejudice my case at all; whatever his person may be, it does not prejudice my person at all. You said this, you signed this: neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another.” See, the Lord says: “Through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Let us hold the divine truth in one church and at last put an end to human quarrels.

Could they in any way defend those words, in which they said that neither does one case prejudice another case nor one person another person, after the conference itself, and did they not rather entangle themselves much more intricately? For in some of their writings they spoke thus: “That we said ‘one case does not prejudice another case, nor one person another person’ was rehearsed from memory, but in the sense: ‘we are not prejudiced by those who have been either rejected or condemned by us.’ But how could those who descend from Caecilian’s ordination, whom their origin from their predecessor counts into guilt, not be bound by the crimes of their ordainer, since the rope of sins, stretched through the series, must make sharers in sin all whom it has bound with the bond of communion?” What a wonderful defense! So thick and tight is the mud in which their feet have stuck that, trying to pull them out, they plant their hands and head in it in vain and, sticking in the same mud, are wrapped in it more tightly. For of those whom they mention as either rejected or condemned by them, that is, of the Maximianists, they have with them Felician, both a condemner of Primian and one condemned by them in Primian’s case. Why is it that they strive to entangle the Catholic Church with so long a rope from Caecilian down to these times, and do not notice their own chain so near at hand? For that famous sentence of Bagai about Maximian and his associates says: “The chain of sacrilege drags very many into partnership in the crime.” So Felician was dragged by that chain: if Felician does not prejudice them, why does Caecilian prejudice us? Or perhaps one case prejudices another where they wish, but where they do not wish it does not, and at their pleasure an old rope is stronger than a new chain? Maximian does not prejudice Felician, by whom he was condemned; Maximian and Felician do not prejudice Primian, by whom they were condemned; Maximian does not prejudice those who received a period of grace, with whom he was associated in one schism; Felician does not prejudice the party of Donatus, by which he was received in the same rank, and the baptism he gave in a sacrilegious schism was not destroyed there: and Caecilian prejudices so many Christian nations, who was once condemned in his absence, as Primian was, and three times acquitted in his presence, as Primian was not. One long dead and unknown prejudices us: and one living, whom they are read to have condemned a little while ago and with whom they are seen to be associated now, does not prejudice them. The rope of Caecilian is wound around us, by whom he is unknown: and the chain of Felician is not wound around them, whose sentence against him is read, in which that very chain is condemned. They may say: “We received those whom we condemned for the peace of Donatus, because neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another”; and we may not say: “Because of those whom you condemned we do not desert the peace of Christ, because neither does one case prejudice another nor one person another.” O brow of iron, O darkness of madness, charging the judge with a night sentence while groping, stumbling, and falling in the night of their own heart, quarrelling rabidly against us and saying so much for us!

Moreover, they even now dare to cite prophetic and apostolic testimonies, to which we answered comprehensively at that conference, showing that the holy prophets themselves lived with the wicked in one temple, under the same priests, amid the same sacraments, and yet were not polluted by the bad, because they knew how to distinguish between the holy and the unclean, not, as these men think, by dividing the people bodily, but by judging well and living well. And this they did without ceasing, so that in that great house in which they were, where, as the apostle says, there are some vessels for honor and some for dishonor, they cleansed themselves from such people by difference of conduct and were vessels for honor, useful to the Lord, always ready for every good work. But it is well that, of the many testimonies which, not understanding them, they inserted in their letter, which they brought forward and read at the conference, they have now, defeated after the conference, cited as a principal testimony the one from the prophet Haggai. For in this prophet we demonstrate much more evidently what we want: that not bodily but spiritual contact, which comes about through consent, is what pollutes people, whose case consent itself makes one.

For when the Lord wished to destroy the impious even by a visible punishment, he himself separated the righteous from them by a warning: as Noah with his house from those whom he was about to destroy by the flood, as Lot from those whom he was about to consume by fire, as his people from the congregation of Abiram, which he was soon to wipe out. So too the man who had no wedding garment was ordered bound and thrown out, not by those who had invited him, but by the Lord himself whose feast it was. For he was not, like a fish, under the waves, so that he could not be seen by the inviters as a fish cannot be seen by the fishermen. Accordingly, so that it would not be thought, as these men think, that he was one man who had crept in secretly in the crowd unnoticed, the Lord did not delay to signify at once that in that same one man, whom he ordered thrown out of the feast with hands and feet bound into the outer darkness, a great fellowship of the bad is to be understood, among whom the fewer good live at the Lord’s feast. For after he said, “Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” he at once added, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” How is this true, when rather one out of many had been thrown into the outer darkness, unless because in that one man was figured the great body of all the bad mixed in the Lord’s feast before the Lord’s judgment? From them the good meanwhile separate themselves in heart and conduct, eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord together with them, but with a great distinction: for these, in honor of the bridegroom, are clothed with the wedding garment, not seeking their own things but those of Jesus Christ; but those do not have the wedding garment, that is, the most faithful love of the bridegroom, seeking their own things, not those of Jesus Christ. And so, though at one and the same feast, these eat mercy, those judgment; since the song of that feast is what I recalled above: “I will sing of mercy and judgment to you, O Lord.”

Yet church discipline does not therefore sleep, so as not to correct the restless. For we do not separate from the people of God those whom we reduce, by degrading or excommunicating them, to the humbler place of penance. And where we are not permitted to do this for the sake of the peace and tranquillity of the church, we do not therefore reject the discipline of the church, but we tolerate what we do not want in order to come to what we want, using the caution of the Lord’s command, lest, when we wish to gather the weeds before the time, we root up the wheat with them. We use also the example and precept of the blessed Cyprian, who for the sake of peace bore with colleagues of his who were usurers, swindlers, and robbers, and was not made such by their contagion. Hence we too, if we are wheat, say most confidently the words of the same blessed martyr: “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.” Our forebears would have said these words most justly and piously, even if they had seen that Caecilian and some of his fellow bishops were bad, whom they still could not separate from the church because of those to whom they could not be shown to be bad and who thought them good and innocent. These words they would by all means have said, this they would by all means have held, lest, wishing rashly to separate the weeds, they should root up the wheat as well.

As for the prophet who was ordered neither to eat bread nor to drink water in Samaria, where he had been sent to rebuke those who had set up calves to be worshiped after the manner of the idols of the Egyptians: he certainly had to do what the Lord had commanded, whom it pleased then to rebuke them in this way, that the prophet he had sent should touch no food there. Nor is this not done daily in the church, when, toward those whom we rebuke more sharply, even if we are on their property, we touch no food in their house, so that they may feel how much we grieve over their sins. But must the congregation therefore be split as well, so that the weak, who cannot judge of people’s hearts and of unknown deeds, even if they are known to us, should be rooted up indiscriminately like soft grass? For in Samaria itself were both Elijah and Elisha, even if they were in the wilderness, not however going astray on account of the sacraments, but because they were suffering persecution from impious kings. For there, and certainly not in a separated wilderness, were the seven thousand men, of whom Elijah himself did not know, who had not bowed the knee before Baal. Finally Samuel, held a saint among the foremost, both rebuked Saul severely and yet went with him without excuse to offer sacrifice to the Lord, and was not polluted by the contagion of his sins, but remained wholly clean by keeping his own merits.

But let Haggai, whose testimony they read above the rest so that they still boast of it alone in place of all, settle this question for us even more clearly, though it was clearly settled both at the conference and now. Through the prophet Haggai the Lord rebukes the people left over from Babylon, where they had been held captive, because they neglected the house of the Lord and adorned their own houses; and he says that for this reason he struck their land with the plague of barrenness. Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jozadak the high priest, and all that people, divinely inspired, began to work on the house of the Lord their God. For so the same Scripture says: “And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel of the tribe of Judah, and the spirit of Jeshua son of Jozadak the high priest, and the spirit of the remnant of all the people; and they came in and did work on the house of the Lord almighty, their God, on the twenty-fourth of the sixth month, in the second year under King Darius.” See, the day too is fixed when they came in to work on the house of God. I believe that those men and that people working on the house of God were not unclean, especially since the Lord had said to them, “I am with you,” and had stirred up their spirit to work well on his house. Finally, see what follows. For the same Scripture continues and says: “In the seventh month, on the twenty-first of the month, the Lord spoke by the hand of the prophet Haggai, saying to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel of the tribe of Judah, and to Jeshua son of Jozadak the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, saying: Who among you saw this house in that former glory of its own? And how do you see it now, as though it were not in your sight? And now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord; and be strong, Jeshua son of Jozadak, high priest; and be strong, all people of the land, says the Lord almighty; and my Spirit presides in your midst. Be of good courage, for thus says the Almighty: Yet once more I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations, and all the choice things of the nations will come, and I will fill this house, says the Lord almighty”; and the other things which he adds, prophesying also things to come, which are more rightly understood of the times of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose people is the truest and holiest temple of God: not in those too who are tolerated while mixed in, but in those alone who now meanwhile are separated spiritually from such by living well, and later will be separated bodily as well. Yet how that people to whom this prophecy was announced, and which was then working on the house of God, where those two also were, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak, was exhorted and commended by the Lord is readily seen in these words of the prophet, which we have inserted just as they were spoken. Can we, then, call this people unclean, which anyone who approaches will be defiled, a people to whom it is said: “And now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord; and be strong, Jeshua son of Jozadak, high priest; and be strong, all people of the land, says the Lord almighty; and my Spirit presides in your midst”? Who would be so utterly mad as to say that this is the people which anyone who approaches will be defiled?