Against Parmenian the Donatist 7.4–7.7

For some of you, wishing to show us to your people as contemptible, also mix into their sermons what was said by Solomon the prophet: "Flies about to die destroy the sweetness of oil"; and they call us the flies about to die, and they name the oil, namely that liquid which is prepared with the name of Christ, which after it has been prepared is called chrism. Before it is made, it is still oil, of simple nature; it becomes sweet when it is prepared with the name of Christ. So there are three things that Solomon the prophet named: oil, sweetness, and flies about to die destroying the sweetness. These three things have their places in order: first is oil, second the sweetness from the preparation, third the dying flies destroying the sweetness. Whoever among you is such a preacher, let him prove how he calls us flies about to die. If you think that the preparation which gives the oil sweetness is with you, the oil and the sweetness are with you. Do we destroy your oil, so that you may rightly call us flies about to die? What is yours is with you. And if anyone makes the crossing from you to us, he is kept by us just as he is let go by you. How do you say that we are flies about to die, corrupting the sweetness of the oil, when after you we do nothing of the kind? Or if you say that the sweetness of the oil can be corrupted by us, either we are able to do something and we give the oil sweetness; or if, as you wish, we can do nothing, the oil has remained such as it was born. How do you say that we are flies about to die corrupting the sweetness of the oil? So oil, before it is prepared by us, is such as it was born; prepared, it can receive sweetness from the name of Christ. How can we by one act both prepare and corrupt? It remains that, if the oil were sweet of itself, what is done by men would be idle, if it is prepared by a man in the name of Christ. The same worker cannot do two conflicting and contrary things at once. If we prepare it in your absence, we do not corrupt it. If we corrupt it, who prepared it before us, for us to corrupt? So, lest the saying of the prophet be idle, if it is so, understand that you are the flies about to die. For you destroyed not what was born but what was prepared; for we read that sweetness, not nature, can be corrupted. For oil is simple and has its one proper name; prepared, it is now called chrism, in which there is the sweetness that softens the skin of the conscience, with the hardness of sins shut out, that renews the gentle mind, that prepares a seat for the Holy Spirit, so that, invited there, harshness put to flight, he may deign to dwell there gladly. This is the sweetness of the oil which the flies about to die can corrupt. If we destroyed the oil prepared by you, you could rightly call us flies about to die. But since we keep what has been anointed by you such as we receive it, we cannot be flies about to die. But while you, driven by the storms of envy, fall as it were into the oil, you destroy in rebaptism the sweetness of that oil which was prepared in the name of Christ, by which morals might be seasoned, by which the light of the mind might be kindled to saving and true understanding. You destroy the thing where there was oil and sweetness. How could we corrupt a sweetness which no one had prepared before us? You led men astray, you rebaptized them, you anointed them again. Alas! not without your own death you destroyed what had been prepared from the name of Christ, after the manner of flies, which destroy as they perish. For death is the sin that has no pardon. It is written that whoever sins against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him either in this age or in the age to come. So, since you both falsely call us flies and hasten to undo everything done by us, and say that we are to be despised or looked down on, claiming holiness for yourselves alone, you put forward your innocence so as to promise that you can forgive others' sins. You see, then, that the most blessed apostle Paul spoke not of us, as you argue, but of you: "There will be," he says, "men loving themselves, covetous, boasting to themselves, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, not keeping peace, without affection, slanderers, ungentle, without kindness," and the rest.

Now what kind of thing is this, that at your own will you wished to put on yourselves the person of Moses, against whom the apostle Paul recalls that Jannes and Jambres stood out? If that is so, what truth can be found with you, which the Catholic Church seems to oppose, or what lie can you prove to be with us? Can you prove it a lie to be in one communion with the whole world? Can you prove it a lie to keep and defend the true and single creed? Can you prove it a lie, the chair of Peter and the keys of the kingdom of heaven granted by Christ, where our fellowship is? In the very reading you recalled, among the persons themselves, consider the order of things, observe who was first. Surely Jannes and Jambres are in the second place, who wished to fight with false arts against Moses and the truth. And Moses had gone before, whose mighty works they tried in vain to attack. As Moses is first, so too the Catholic Church is first; as Jannes and Jambres opposed and resisted, so you too fight as rebels against the true Catholic Church. Why is it, then, that you wished to exchange the names for us and for you, except to make yourself equal with your colleagues? For there are some of you who, forgetting or ignorant of past times, say against us things that belong to those who long ago slipped from the Catholic Church and ordained Maiorinus, namely those authors of schism and handing over. While they still kept peace, before they destroyed the unity pleasing to God, they were the light of the world and were rightly called the salt of the earth. While they taught peace, they were still called peacemakers; before they were puffed up, they were blessed for poverty of spirit, they were part of the seasoning; they were blessed while they were meek, they had been part of the seasoning; they were blessed while they were just, they were part of the seasoning; blessed while they were peacemakers, they had been the whole seasoning. After they gave the riches of error to their spirit and their lungs, and making a schism were found ungentle and less merciful, while they impiously divided the members of the church, and following injustice held the kingdom of God in disdain, and by dividing the church would not be peacemakers, they themselves became salt that has lost its savor, with which nothing could be seasoned that would please God by its sweetness. And though this evil belongs to your leaders, some of your colleagues argue otherwise, saying that those were foolish who recognized the truth, even late, and, withdrawing from the schism and recognizing their Catholic mother, followed peace. Some of you think that these have erred; they consider them as if they had lost their savor and withdrawn from wisdom. From this it appears that you all err in the same way in transferring names, since you too compared the peaceable Catholics to Jannes and Jambres and you schismatics to Moses, which is foreign to the truth. And some of your colleagues, being foolish, wished to judge the wise, saying that the peacemakers had become insipid, and would not understand that their own parents had become insipid through dissension.

Now your odium slips to this point, that you say that Macarius after those deeds ought not to have been admitted to communion, but rather to have been excluded by the Catholic bishops. First, the name of communion is one, but its modes are different: it is one thing for a bishop to communicate with a bishop and another for a lay person to communicate with a bishop. It would then have been grave if Macarius had done of his own will what he is said to have done; for when men do such a deed, it is punished by public courts and Roman laws. For he is a murderer who, with no necessity compelling, no command, no authority, but driven by fury, has done of his own will what the laws forbid. But what Macarius is said to have done he did at your provocation; and he was not a bishop, nor was he engaged in the episcopal office, nor did he lay a hand on anyone, nor did he offer the sacrifice. Hence, since it is plain that he was a stranger to the acts of bishops, no bishop seems to have been polluted by one who did not offer with the bishops. It remains that you say that he communicated with the people; and it is plain that he said something among the people, but for the purpose of making something known, not of preaching, which belongs to bishops. For he spoke plainly, if he could say anything. On the other hand, episcopal preaching is shown by all to be clothed with holiness, namely with a doubled greeting. For a bishop begins to say nothing to the people unless he has first greeted the people in the name of God. Endings are like beginnings: every sermon in the church begins with the name of God and ends with the name of the same God. Which of you dares to say that Macarius greeted the people in the manner of bishops? Since, then, he neither greeted before he said anything, nor dared to greet after he had spoken, nor laid on a hand, nor offered the sacrifice to God in the episcopal rite, why do you say that the episcopal college could have been polluted, when you see that Macarius was a stranger to every office of bishops? Here, with the footprint of truth trodden down, your odium seems to raise its head again. For you say that he ought not to have communicated even among the laity. Indeed it is plain that he was, as the apostle Paul proves, a minister of the will of God. And what wonder, if even pagan judges deserved to be reckoned ministers of the will of God, as the apostle says: "Not without cause does the judge carry the sword; for he is a minister of the will of God"? For Macarius too seemed to be a judge in his affair. But if he was not a judge in what he did, it ought to have been punished in him by the judges according to Roman laws. Or if you say that even so he ought not to have communicated, we still do not see that he ought to have been excluded who did such a thing as was done by Moses, whom, after twenty-three thousand men were killed, God did not exclude in contempt, but invited again to speak with him. We do not see that he ought to have been excluded who did what Phinehas did, whom I mentioned a little before, who deserved to be praised by God himself for a killing. It does not seem to us that he ought to have been excluded by whom was done what was done by the prophet Elijah, who killed so many false prophets. For we proved above that those too were false prophets.

But to leave these examples in silence, let us too say, as you say, that Macarius was guilty: if he was, with the accuser silent, it was not lawful for us to exclude him. For it is written that no one is to be condemned before the case is known. Tell us who accused him and was not heard. Tell us that Macarius confessed the fault and our sentence was silent. For we are judges of a sort in the church, which you yourselves do not deny, since you contend that we ought to have been severe judges. For we cannot do what God did not do, who in his judgment deigned to separate the persons: he did not want the same one to be accuser and judge. For no one can bear two persons at the same moment in one case, so as to be in the same trial both accuser and judge. This God did not do even by his omnipotence: to show us the form of judging, he taught that the guilty ought not to be condemned without an accuser, nor that he should be the accuser who is to be judge in that case. In short, among the very beginnings of the ages, when the birth of men had been renewed, when Abel the brother was killed by Cain, we read: "And God called Cain and asked him where his brother was"; he, doubling his sin, as if he made God ignorant, said he did not know. And when could the Lord be ignorant of anything, under whose eyes and face are all things that are done? And yet God does not judge without an accuser, and he asks, certainly, what he knew. And you want us to have excluded one whom we did not see doing anything evil and who had no accuser. I see here what your odium murmurs. For you say that what was done did not escape us. We confess that we heard of it; but it was a sin to condemn one whom no one dared to accuse. But if you say that the deed did not escape us, tell God why he asked, who had seen the murder of a brother. Nor ought we to have done what God would not do, who would not pronounce sentence except on the guilty. Produce an accuser; otherwise the sentence could not be just unless the one who was to judge accused. Therefore he says: "Behold, the blood of your brother cries to me from the earth." So you too, since you cannot at all prove that Macarius was accused by anyone before us, cannot condemn our judgment.