Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church)

Contents

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1–14 · 15–27 · 28–36 · 37–48 · 49–62 · 63–75

1. 1Augustine (if he is the author) tells his people that, having answered Petilian's whole letter, he now writes to them so the case may be judged openly, and invites Petilian to reply.
2. 2The question with the Donatists is where the church, the body of Christ and 'catholic' because spread through the whole world, is to be found; it must be sought in the words of Christ its head.
3. 3Whatever the truth of mutual charges of handing over the Scriptures and persecution, the worldwide church, ignorant of them, is innocent, while the Donatists are all guilty of schism.
4. 4If the African bishops could not settle their dispute, the overseas bishops had to judge it; the rest of the world, which could not know the facts, is innocent, so even if the Donatist charges were true their schism is unjustified.
5. 5The dispute must be settled not by mutual charges of handing over the Scriptures but by the Scriptures themselves, which name neither Caecilian nor Majorinus' consecrators; on any supposition the schism had no cause.
6. 6The church must be identified from Scripture: if Scripture placed it in Africa alone or in some sect, the Donatists or others might claim it, but Scripture marks it out among all nations.
7. 7Those who deny Scripture's teaching about Christ, or who agree about Christ but are cut off from his worldwide body, are both outside the church; since the dispute concerns the body, Christ's words in the prophets, gospels and apostles must decide.
8. 8Only plain passages of Scripture can decide the question; texts like Christ's rebuke of the Pharisees can be hurled by either side and prove nothing until the facts are shown.
9. 9Figurative readings, like a Donatist bishop's claim that the ark's pitch inside and out shows baptism cannot leave or enter the church, can be countered by other readings and so cannot settle the question.
10. 10Gideon's fleece plainly figures the gospel passing from Israel to the whole world, yet even such clear figures are set aside so that only open texts decide.
11. 11God swore to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in his seed, which Paul says is Christ; the Donatists annul this testament by confining Christ's inheritance to Donatus' party.
12. 12The same promise that all nations would be blessed in the seed, Christ, was repeated to Isaac.
13. 13God promised Jacob that his seed would spread over the earth and that he would not forsake him until all was fulfilled; the Donatists resist this promise by condemning the worldwide church.
14. 14Let the Donatists show from Scripture that their opponents were traditors, as plainly as Genesis shows that all nations are blessed in Abraham's seed; Jacob's ladder, which Christ applied to himself, is not pressed.
15. 15Isaiah foretold that Christ, the root of Jesse and the servant who brings judgment to the nations, would fill the whole world; the Donatists must hope in him with all nations or perish.
16. 16Isaiah's servant is a light to the nations, and Zion, once desolate, is filled with children from every land, nursed by kings, as Paul confirms; the church spread among all nations is meant.
17. 17Isaiah describes Christ the bridegroom, who was handed over to death in order to possess many as his inheritance, so the Donatists cannot boast of being few.
18. 18Isaiah's barren woman with more children than the married one is, by Paul's authority, the church, far more numerous than the Jews; the Donatists in Africa are fewer even than the Jews.
19. 19Isaiah told the church to spread its tent until its God is called God of the whole earth and its land is the whole world; the Donatists resist the Spirit of God by denying this fulfilment.
20. 20Psalm 2, which Petilian himself cited, promises Christ the nations and the ends of the earth as his inheritance, the church holding good and bad together.
21. 21The psalms foretell Christ's passion and its fruit: the turning of all the ends of the earth to God; the Donatists confess Christ exalted above the heavens but refuse his glory over all the earth.
22. 22Psalms 72 and 45, which speak of Christ's rule from sea to sea and of his bride the queen whose sons rule all the earth, show the worldwide church.
23. 23The Donatists cannot call the prophecies false, so they claim free human wills prevented their fulfilment; but God foreknows future wills, as the foretold betrayal of Judas and denial of Peter show.
24. 24After his resurrection Christ himself declared that Scripture foretold both his passion and resurrection and the preaching of repentance to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.
25. 25Even if the Old Testament texts were obscure, Christ's own plain words about preaching to all nations from Jerusalem cannot be, and they mark out the church's beginning and extent.
26. 26'Beginning from Jerusalem' cannot be taken figuratively; Luke shows that the apostles waited for the Spirit in the city of Jerusalem itself.
27. 27Acts confirms from the risen Lord's last words that the church would begin in Jerusalem and spread through Judea and Samaria to the whole earth.
28. 28Christ's last words before his ascension, which no Christian may disregard, commend the worldwide church; no bishop's words, Donatist or catholic, outweigh them.
29. 29Acts narrates the ascension, the gathering in Jerusalem, Pentecost with its speaking in all tongues, and the baptism of three thousand: the church's beginning from Jerusalem toward all nations.
30. 30Acts traces the church's spread exactly as foretold: from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria through persecution and Philip, then to the Gentiles through Cornelius and Paul, the sheet with four corners signifying the whole world.
31. 31The churches named in Acts, Paul's letters, 1 Peter and Revelation, far from Africa and ignorant of its quarrels, cannot have perished by African crimes; let the Donatists show their guilt from Scripture.
32. 32The worldwide church is part of the gospel foretold and fulfilled; whoever preaches that it survives only in Donatus' party in Africa preaches another gospel and is anathema, unless he can show it from Scripture.
33. 33The Donatists cite Enoch, Noah, Lot, the two faithful tribes and the twelve apostles to justify being few, but Scripture never says the world later apostatized; and Judah was called worse than Israel, which was a divided kingdom, not a schism.
34. 34Scriptural rebukes of the wicked within the people of God do not prove the church has perished; the church throughout the world contains good and bad, the good few by comparison but many in themselves.
35. 35Scripture shows good and wicked mixed in the church until the end: the lily among thorns, Ezekiel's marked mourners, the wheat and tares growing in the world until harvest, the net of good and bad fish.
36. 36The good are 'few' compared with the wicked, as the narrow gate teaches, but 'many' in themselves, as the promises to Abraham and other texts show; the Donatists' splinter groups are fewer still.
37. 37The Donatists apply 'the last will be first' to late-evangelized Africa, but Christ himself applied it to the Jews and the Gentiles, and other nations believed even after Africa.
38. 38'Will he find faith on the earth?' expresses the weakness of believers amid abounding iniquity, not the apostasy of the world; good and wicked remain mixed everywhere until the end, the good suffering grief of heart like Lot.
39. 39If 'faith on the earth' implies universal apostasy, it includes Africa; and the parable that follows, of the Pharisee who despised others, fits the Donatists.
40. 40The Donatists' only proof text, the bride's question where the bridegroom lies 'at noon' (the south, Africa), is a question, not an answer; it fits overseas Catholics in Africa asking where they may avoid rebaptizers.
41. 41'Noon' may mean the light of wisdom; and if it is a place, it points to Egypt, under the true south, with its thousands of desert monks, whose church Isaiah foretold, rather than to Africa with its violent Circumcellions.
42. 42No plain text says the church survived only in Africa; one could apply Ezekiel's oracle against the prince of Tyre to Donatus of Carthage, who claimed to be sinless, but such figurative arguments are not used.
43. 43Wheat and tares grow in the whole world until the end, and the gospel has not yet reached all nations; so the Donatist claim that all nations believed and then fell away except Africa is impossible.
44. 44If the Donatists claim the apostolic churches perished and must be rebaptized from Africa, let them show it from Scripture and send new apostles to do it.
45. 45Paul's letter to the Colossians says the gospel was bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, as the good seed grows until harvest; the claim that it must be sown again from Africa contradicts Scripture.
46. 46Records prove that the first Donatists were traditors, bought Caecilian's condemnation, and lost every appeal; and the Donatists themselves condemned and then reinstated Maximianist bishops, accepting their baptism while rebaptizing the apostolic churches.
47. 47Even true charges against individuals in the church would not touch the wheat of the worldwide church; the Donatists must show their church not from records, councils or miracles but from the plain words of Scripture.
48. 48Charges of handing over the Scriptures, sacrifice or persecution, if true, concern the chaff, not the church; the question is where the church is that builds on the rock and tolerates the wicked until the end.
49. 49Miracles, answered prayers at Donatist shrines, and visions prove nothing, for God and even deceiving spirits grant requests to pagans, Jews and heretics; the church, like Christ its head, must be recognized from Scripture.
50. 50Neither Donatist crimes and Circumcellion violence nor Catholic bishops, councils, or miracles such as Ambrose's discovery of the martyrs settle the question; only Scripture, as Christ showed his disciples, identifies the church.
51. 51Let the Donatists bring one text needing no interpreter, as plain as the many cited for the worldwide church; their 'noon' text would favour the Maximianists of Byzacium rather than themselves.
52. 52Seeking the Donatists does not uproot wheat with tares: those whom God foreknows as good are wheat, and the lost must be sought like the lost sheep, coin and son.
53. 53Not all 'persecution' is wrong: lawful authorities who restrain people from evil with moderate penalties are correctors, while those who coerce without authority or beyond measure are to blame.
54. 54The Circumcellions' violence is wrong, but the Donatists themselves used the laws and courts to expel the Maximianists; those who resist lawful authority bring their sufferings on themselves.
55. 55If the Donatists are the true church, they suffer as martyrs; if not, the emperors' mild penalties are loving correction; Catholics invoke the laws only to protect themselves from violence, and both sides should disown violent members and unite.
56. 56The worldwide church, not the Donatists, suffers the heavier persecution from scandals and violence; correction is not persecution, as Sarah's discipline of Hagar and Christ's cleansing of the temple show.
57. 57Converts from Donatism are received as Scripture's church receives them: the sacraments are the same in good and bad, saving the one and condemning the other.
58. 58Baptism belongs to Christ, not to its minister: Judas and Peter gave the same baptism, while John's differed from Paul's; and good and bad recipients receive the same sacrament.
59. 59If the minister's holiness determined baptism's worth, those baptized by Christ's disciples would have been wronged; Christ is the one who baptizes, as John the Baptist and Paul show.
60. 60Good and wicked share baptism, but only the good who hear and do Christ's words are the church built on the rock; baptism does not profit the wicked, yet it is not to be injured in them.
61. 61Paul lists heresies among the works of the flesh alongside drunkenness and envy; the Donatists do not rebaptize those baptized by drunkards or the envious, so they should not rebaptize those baptized by heretics.
62. 62A heretic entering the church keeps the baptism he has but receives the bond of peace and charity he lacked; both baptism and righteousness are needed for the kingdom.
63. 63Scripture has no direct case of receiving converts from heresy, so the practice of the church to which Christ bears witness, spread from Jerusalem through all nations, must decide.
64. 64Jeremiah's 'lying water' refers figuratively to the men who grieved him, not to the baptism given by heretics.
65. 65'Abstain from foreign water' refers not to heretical baptism, which is Christ's, but to the teaching of evil spirits; 'water' in Scripture does not always mean baptism, as John 7 shows.
66. 66Proverbs' command to drink from one's own fountain refers not to baptism, which strangers may have, but to the love of God poured out by the Holy Spirit, which belongs only to the saints.
67. 67The 'foreign spring' and 'your own fountain' figuratively mean testing the spirits and the love poured out by the Spirit; strangers may have baptism and other gifts, but only those in unity have charity.
68. 68The water from Christ's side, if it means baptism, came out of his body through a persecutor's wound, which rather shows baptism can be found outside the church.
69. 69No Scripture says those baptized in the Trinity among heretics must be rebaptized, nor names the Donatist party; figurative texts about 'noon' could equally be claimed by a northern or western sect.
70. 70Converts are received as the church foretold in Scripture receives them, the church that began in Jerusalem and is spreading to all nations until the end, the pillar of truth, with grain and refuse mixed; Scripture nowhere names Africa or Donatus.
71. 71Whoever answers must produce a plain Scripture about Africa or, preaching another gospel, be anathema, as the devil should have been to our first parents.
72. 72Augustine urges his people to hear the Shepherd's plain voice: the church is the city on a mountain, spread everywhere and growing until the harvest, not hidden in a desert or in secret.
73. 73Many Africans first believed the council that condemned Caecilian without sin, and when they saw it lead to schism against the whole world, returned to Catholic peace; the wheat in Africa never failed.
74. 74Some who erred in good faith remained God's wheat and were restored; one is cut off from the church not by visible excommunication but by obstinately resisting manifest truth, so good and bad grow together in the world until the end.
75. 75Augustine's people should demand from the Donatists a plain Scripture for their party; those who disbelieve Moses, the prophets, and the risen Lord about the worldwide church are like the rich man in torment.