Chap. 54. — 103. But now I think that it is fully time for me to bring to their due termination these books also on the subject of baptism, in which our Lord God has shown to us, through the words of the peaceful Bishoi) Cyprian and his brethren who agreed with him, how great is the love which should be felt for catholic unity; so that even where they were otherwise minded until God should reveal even this to them,' they should rather bear with those who thought differently from themselves, than sever themselves from them by a wicked schism; whereby the mouths of the Donatists are wholly closed, even if we say nothing of the followers of ^Laximian. For if the wicked pollute the good in unity, then even Cyprian himself already found no ' I Cor. xiii. 2.
I John ii. 19.
3 Phil. iii. 15.
5H [Book VII.
Church to which he could be joined. But if the wicked do not infect the good in unity, then the sacrilegious Donatist has no ground to set before himself for separation. But if baptism is both possessed and transferred by the multitude of others who work the works of the flesh, of which it is said, that " they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God/' ' then it is possessed and transferred also by heretics, who are numbered among those works; because they could have transferred it had they remained, and did not lose it by their secession. But men of this kind confer it on their fellows as fruit- 1 Gal. V. 19-21.
1 Gal. V. 19-21.
lessly and uselessly as the others who resemble them, inasmuch as they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And as, when those others are brought into the right path, it is not that baptism begins to be present, having been absent before, but that it begins to prolit them, having been already in them; so is it the case with heretics as well. Whence Cyprian and those who thought with him could not impose limits on the Catholic Church, which they would not mutilate. But m that they were otherwise minded we feel no fear, seeing that we too share in their veneration for Peter; yet in that they did not depart from unity we rejoice, seeing that we, like tliem, are founded on the rock.
:$•!
THE THREE BOOKS OF AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HIPPO, IN ANSWER TO THE LETTERS OF PETILIAN, THE DON ATI ST.
BISHOP OF CIRTA. [CONTRA LITTERAS PETILIANI DONATIST.'E CORTENSIS, EPISCOPI.]
CIRCA A. D. 400.
VICAR OF ST. Peter's in the easi', oxford; and late fellow and tutor of COXT]:XTS OF ANSWER TO LETTERS OF I'ETILL\N Written in the form of a letter addressed to the Catholics, in which the first portion of the letter which Petilian had written to his adherents is examined and refuted 519 In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of I'etilianus, 'as -though disputing with an adversary face to face 53 j In this Book Augustin refutes the second letter which Petilianus wrote to him after having seen the first of Augustin"s earlier Books. This letter had been full of violent language; and Augustin rather snows that the arguments of Petilianus had been deficient and irrelevant, than brings forward arguments in support of his own statements 596 THE THREE BOOKS OF AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HIPPO.
IN ANSWER TO THE LETTERS OF PETILIAN, THE DONATIST, BISHOP OF CIRTA.
Written c. 400 a.d., some say 398 a.d., but Augustin places it some time after the treatise on Baptism: Retractt. Bk. ii. xxv. From the same, we gather the following points as to the origin of this treatise: Before A. had finished his books on the Trinity and his wordfor-word commentary on Genesis, a reply to a letter which Petilian had addressed to his followers, only a small part of which however had come into A.'s hands, demanded immediate preparation. This constitutes Book First. Subsequently the whole document was obtained, and he was engaged in preparing the second Book, c. 401; but even before the full treatise of Petilian had been secured, the latter had obtained A.'s first book, and afterwards put an epistle abusive of A. in circulation. The answer to this latter is Book Third, c. 402. Petilian was originally an advocate. The opponents charged him with having become a Donatist by compulsion, with assuming the title of Paraclete, and with endeavoring to prevent all access on their part to his writings.
WRITTEN IN THE FORM OF A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE CATHOLICS, IN WHICH THE FIRST PORTION OF THE LETTER WHICH PETILIAN HAD WRITTEN TO HIS ADHERENTS IS EXAM-INED AND REFUTED.
Augustin, to the well-beloved brethren that belong to the care of our charge, greeting in the Lord: Chap. i. — i. Ye know that we have often, already in times past rendered themselves wished to bring forward into open notoriety, and to confute, not so much from our own arguments as from theirs, the sacrilegious 1 character, with the view that, having discussed error of the Donatist heretics; whence it came the question with us which caused them to to pass that we wrote letters even to some of i break off from the holy communion of the tiieir leaders, — not indeed for purposes of I whole world, they might, on consideration of communion with them, for of that they had the truth, be willing to be corrected, and unworthy by dissenting from the Church; nor yet in terms of reproach, but of a conciliatory [Book I.
[Book I.
might not defend the headstrong perversity of their predecessors with a yet more foolish obstinacy, but might be reunited to the CatlioHc stock, so as to bring forth the fruits of charity. But as it is written, " With those who have hated peace I am more peaceful," ' so they rejected my letters, just as they hate the very name of peace, in whose interests they were written. Now, however, as I was in the church of Constantina, Absentius= being present, with my colleague Fortunatus, his bishop, the brethren brought before my notice a letter, which they said that a bishop of the said schism had addressed to his presbyters, as was set forth in the superscription of the letter itself. When I had read it, I was so amazed to find that in his very first words he cut away the very roots of the whole claims of his party to communion, that I was unwilling to believe that it could be the letter of a man who, if fame speaks truly, is especially conspicuous among them for learning and eloquence. But some of those who were present when I read it, being acquainted with the polish and embellishment of his composition, gradually persuaded me that it was undoubtedly his address. I thought, however, that whoever the author might be, it required refutation, lest the writer should seem to himself, in the company of the inexperienced, to have written something of weight against the Catholic Church.
2. The first point, then, that he lays down in his letter is the statement, " that we find fault with them for the repetition of baptism, while we ourselves pollute our souls with a laver stained with guilt." But to what profit is it that I should reproduce all his insulting terms? For, since it is one thing to strengthen proofs, another thing to meddle with abusive words by way of refutation, let us rather turn our attention to the mode in which he hac sought to prove that we do not possess baptism, and that therefore they do not require the repetition of what was already present, but confer what hitherto was wanting. For he says: " What we look for is the conscience of the giver to cleanse that of the recipient." But supposing the conscience of the giver is concealed from view, and perhaps defiled with sin, how will it be able to cleanse the conscience of the recipient, if, as he says, "what we look for is the conscience of the giver to cleanse that of the recipient?" For if he should say that it makes no matter to the recipient what amount of evil may lie concealed from view in the conscience of the giver, perhaps that ignorance may have such a degree of Ps. cxx. 7; cf. Hieron.
2 Probably Alypius.
efficacy as this, that a man cannot be defiled by the guilt of the conscience of him from] whom he receives baptism, so long as he is unaware of it. i^et it then be granted that the guilty conscience of his neighbor cannot j defile a man so long as he is unaware of it, but is it therefore clear that it ran further cleanse him from his own guilt?
Chap. 2. — 3. Whence, then, is a man to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the conscience of the giver is polluted without the knowledge of him who is to receive it? Especially when he goes on to say, " For he who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt. " There stands before us one that is faithless ready to baptize, and he who should be baptized is ignorant of his faithlessness: what think you that he will receive? Faith, or guilt? If you answer faith, then you will grant that it is possible^-that a man should receive not guilt, but faith, from him that is faithless; and the former saying will be false, that " he who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt." For we find that it is possible that a man should receive faith even from one that is faithless, if he be not aware of the faithlessness of the giver. For he does not say, He who receives faith from one that is openly and notoriously faithless; but he says, " He who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt;" which certainly is false when a person is baptized by one who hides his faithlessness. But if he shall say, Even when the faithlessness of the baptizer is concealed, the recipient receives not faith from him, but guilt, then let them rebaptize those who are well known to have been baptized by men who in their own body have long concealed a life of guilt, but have eventually been detected, convicted, and condemned.
Chap. 3. — For, so long as they escaped detection, they could not bestow faith on any whom they baptized, but only guilt, if it be true that whosoever receives faith from one that is faithless receives not faith, but guilt. Let them therefore be baptized by the good, that they may be enabled to receive not guilt, but faith.
4. But how, again, shall they have any certainty about the good who are to give them faith, if what we look to is the conscience of the giver, which is unseen by the eyes of the proposed recipient? Therefore, according to their judgment, the salvation of the spirit is made uncertain, so long as in opposition to the holy Scriptures, which say, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Chap. VI.]
i2I man," ' and, " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," - they remove the hope of those who are to be baptized from the Lord their God, and persuade them that it should be placed in mqn; the practical result of which is, that their salvation becomes not merelyuncertain, but actually null and void. For " salvation belongeth unto the Lord," ^ and " vain is the help of man." "• Therefore, whosoever places his trust in man, even in one whom he knows to be just and innocent, is accur'-ed. Whence also the Apostle Paul finds fault with those who said they were of Paul, saying, " Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" ^ Chap. 4. — 5, Wherefore, if they were in \ error, and would have perished had they not been corrected, who wished to be of Paul, what must we suppose to be the hope of those who wished to be of Donatus? For they use their utmost endeavors to prove that the origin, root, and head of the baptized person is none other than the individual by whom he is baptized. The result is, that since it is very often a matter of uncertainty what kind of man the baptizer is, tlie hope therefore of the baptized being of uncertain origin, of uncertain root, of uncertain head, is of itself uncertain altogether. And since it is possible that the conscience of the giver may be in such a condition as to be accursed and defiled without the knowledge of the recipient, it results that, being of an accursed origin, accursed root, accursed head, the hope of the baptized may prove to be vain and uni grounded. For Petilian expressly states in: his epistle, that "everything consists of an rigin and root; and if it have not something lor a head, it is nothing." And since by the origin and root and head of the baptized person he wishes to be understood the man by whom he is baptized, what good does the unhappy recipient derive from the fact that he does not know how bad a man his baptizer really is? For he does not know that he himself has a bad head, or actually no head at all. And yet what hope can a man have, who, whether he is aware of it or not, has either a very bad head or no head at all? Can we maintain that his very ignorance forms a head, when his baptizer is either a bad head or none at all? Surely any one who thinks this is unmistakeably without a head.
Chap. 5. — 6. We ask, therefore, since he says, " He who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt," and immediately adds to this the further statement, that ''everything consists of an origin and root; and if it have not something for a head, it is nothing;" — we ask, I say, in a case where the faithlessness of the baptizer is undetected: If, then, the man whom he baptizes receives faith, and not guilt; if, then, the baptizer is not his origin and root and -head, who is it from whom he receives faith? where is the origin from which he springs? where is the root of which he is a shoot? where the head which is his starting-point? Can it be, that when he who is baptized is unaware of the faithlessness of his baptizer, it is then Christ who gives faith, it is then Christ who is the origin and root and head? Alas for human rashness and conceit! Why do you not allow thit it is always Christ who gives faith, for the purpose of making a man a Christian by giving it? Why do you not allow that Christ is always the origin of the Christian, that the Christian always plants his root in Christ, that Christ is the head of the Christian? Do we then maintain that, even when spiritual grace is dispensed to those that believe by the hands of a holy and faithful minister, it is still not the minister himself who justifies, but that One of whom it is said, that " He justifieth the ungodly?"* But unless we admit this, either the Apostle Paul was the head and origin of those \vhom he had planted, or Apollos the root of those whom he had watered, rather than He who had given them faith in believing; whereas the same Paul says, " I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase: so then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the mcrease.' ^ Nor was the apostle himself their root, but rather He who says, " I am the vine, ye are the branches."^ How, too, could he be their head, when he says, that "we, being many, are one body in Christ,"' and expressly declares in many passages that Christ Himself is the head of the whole body?
Chap. 6. — 7. Wherefore, whether a man receive the sacrament of baptism from a faithful or a faithless minister, his whole hope is in Christ, that he fall not under the condemnation that "cursed is he that placeth his hope in man." Otherwise, if each man is born again in spiritual grace of the same sort as he by whom he is baptized, and if when he who baptizes him is manifestly a good man, then he himself gives faith, he is himself the origin and root and head of him who is being born; whilst, when tlie baptizer I Ps. cxviii. 8.
4 Ps. Ix. II.
3 Ps. iii. 8.
6 Rom. iv. 5. 8 John XV. 5.
[Book I.
is faithless without its being known, then the baptized person receives faith from Christ, then he derives his origin from Christ, then he is rooted in Christ, then he boasts in Christ as his head, — in that case all who are baptized should wish that they might have faithless baptizers, and be ignorant of their faithlessness: for however good their baptizers might have been, Christ is certainly beyond comparison better still; and He will then be the head of the baptized, if the faithlessness of the baptizer shall escape detection.
Chap. 7. — 8. But if it is perfect madness to hold such a view (for it is Christ always that justifieth the ungodly, by changing his ungodliness into Christianit}^; it is from Christ always that faith is received, Christ is always the origin of the regenerate and the head of the Church), what weight, then, will those words have, which thoughtless readers value by their sound, without inquiring what their inner meaning is? For the man who does not content himself with hearing the words with his ear, but considers the meaning of the phrase, when he hears, "What we look to is the conscience of the giver, that it may cleanse the conscience of the recipient," will answer. The conscience of man is often unknown to me, but I am certain of the mercy of Christ: when he hears, " He who receives faith from the faithless receives not faith, but guilt," will answer, Christ is not faithless, from whom I receive not guilt, but faith: when he hears, " Everything consists of an origin and root; and if it have not something for a head, is nothing," will answer. My origin is Christ, my root is Christ, my head is Christ. When he hears, " Nor does anything well receive second birth, unless it be born again of good seed," he will answer. The seed of which I am born again is the Word of God, which I am warned to hear with attention, even though he through whom I hear it does not himself do what he preaches; according to the words of the Lord, which make me herein safe, "All whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not." ' When he hears, " What perversity must it be, that he who is guilty through his own sins should make another free from guilt! " he will answer. No one makes me free from guilt but He who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification. For I believe, not in the minister by whose hands I am baptized, but in Him who justifieth the ungodly, that my faith may be counted unto me for righteousness. =" I Matt, xxiii. 5.
- Rom. iv. 25, 5.
Chap. 8. — 9. When he hears, " Every good tree bringeth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit: do men gather grapes of thorns? "3 and, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things; " '^ he will answer. This therefore is good fruit, that I should be a good tree, that is, a good man, that I should show forth good fruit, that is, good works. But this will be given to me, not by him that planteth, nor by him that watereth, but by God that giveth the increase. For if the good tree be the good baptizer, so that his good fruit should be the man whom he baptizes, then any one who has been baptized by a bad man, even if his wickedness be not manifest, will have no power to be good, for he is sprung from an evil tree. For a good tree is one thing; a tree whose quality is concealed, but yet bad, is another. Or if, when the tree is bad, but hides its badness, then whosoever is baptized by it is born not of it, but of Christ; then they are justified with more perfect holiness who are baptized by the bad who hide their evil nature, than they who are baptized by the manifestly good.s Chap. 9. — 10. Again, when he hears, " He that is washed by one dead, his washing profiteth him nought,"^ he will answer, "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him:"^ of whom it is said, " The same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." ^ But they are baptized by the dead, who are baptized in the temples of idols. For even they themselves do not suppose that they receive the sanctification which they look for from their priests, but from their gods; and since these were men, and are dead in such sort as to be now neither upon earth nor in the rest of heaven, 5 they are truly baptized by the dead: and the same answer will hold good if there be any other way in which these words of holy Scripture may be examined, and profitably discussed and understood. For if in this place I understand a baptizer who is a sinner, the same absurdity will follow, that whosoever has been baptized by an ungodly man, even though his ungodliness be undiscovered, is yet washed in vain, as though 5 See below, Book II. 6, 12.
6 So the Donatists commonly quoted Ecclus. xxiv. 25, which is more correctly rendered in our version, " He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" Augustin {RetracttA. 21, 3) says that the misapplication was rendered possible by the omission in many African Mss. of the second clause, "and touches it again." Cp. Hieron., Ecclus. xxxiv, 30.
9 Cp. Contra Cyesconiutn, Book II. 25. 30: ^'' Ita mcriui ' sunt, ut neque super terras, neque in reqttie sanctorum vivant."
Chap. XII.]
baptized by one dead. For he does not say, He that is baptized by one manifestly dead, but absolutely, " by one dead." And if they consider any man to be dead whom they know to be a sinner, but any one in their communion to be alive, even though he manages most adroitly to conceal a life of wickedness, in the first place with accursed pride they claim more for themselves than they ascribe to God, that when a sinner is unveiled to them he should be called dead, but when he is known by God he is held to be alive. In the next place, if that sinner is to be called dead who is known to be such by men, what answer will they make about Optatus, whom they were afraid to condemn though they had long known his wickedness? Whv are those who were baptized by him not said to have been baptized by one dead? Did he live because the Count was his faith?' — an elegant and well-turned saying of some early colleagues of their own, which they themselves are wont to quote with pride, not understanding that at the death of the haughty Goliath it was his own sword by which his head was cut off.^ Chap. 10. — 11. Lastly, if they are willing to give the name of dead neither to the wicked man whose sin is hidden, nor to him whose sin is manifest, but who lias yet not been condemned by them, but only to him whose sin is manifest and condemned, so that whosoever is baptized by him is himself baptized by the dead, and his washing profits him nothing; what are we to say of those whom their own party have condemned " by the unimpeachable voice of a plenary Council," ^ together with Maximianus and the others who ordained him, — I mean Felicianus of Musti, and Prastextatus of Assura, of whom I speak in the meantime, who are counted among the twelve ordainers of Maximianus, as erecting an altar in opposition to their altar at which Primianus stands? They surely are reckoned by them among the dead. To this we have the express testimony of the noble decree of that Council of theirs which formerly called forth shouts of unreserved ■' applause when it was recited among them for the purpose of being decreed, but which would now be received in silence if we should chance to recite it in their ears; whereas they should rather have been slow at first to rejoice in its eloquence, lest they should afterwards come to mourn over it when its credit was destroyed.
' Benedictines suggest as an emendation, " (jttod Deus Hit comes erat" as in II. 23, 53; 37, 88,103, 2J7.
' I Sam. xvii. 51. 3 That of P.agai. "See on rfr Bnpt. I. 5, 7.
4 Ore latissitno acclavtaveruut. The Louvain edition has '■'■ latissiiuo" both here and Contra Crescon. IV. 41, 48.
For in it they speak in the following terms of the followers of Maximianus, who were shut out from their communion: " Seeing that the shipwrecked members of certain men have been dashed by the waves of truth upon the sharp rocks, and after the fashion of the Egyptians, the shores are covered with the bodies of the dying; whose punishment is intensified in death itself, since after their life has been wrung from them by the avenging waters, they fail to find so much as burial." In such gross terms indeed, do they insult those who were guilty of schism from their body, that they call them dead and unburied; but certainly they ought to have wished that they might obtain burial, if it were only that they might not have seen Optatus Gildonianus advancing with a military force, and like a sweeping wave that dashes beyond its fellows, sucking back Felicianus and Prretextatus once again within their pale, out of the multitude of bodies lying unburied on the shore.
Chap. ii. — 12. Of these I would ask, whether by coming to their sea they were restored to life, or whether they are still dead there? For if still they are none the less corpses, then the laver cannot in any way profit those who are baptized by such dead men. But if they have been restored to life, yet how can the laver profit those whom they baptized before outside, v.iiile they were lying without life, if the passage, " He who is baptized by the dead, of what profit is his baptism to him," is to be understood in the way in which they think? For those whom Praetextatus and Felicianus baptized while they were yet in communion with Maximianus are now retained among them, sharing in their communion, without being again baptized, together with the same men who baptized them — I mean Felicianus and Prx^textatus: taking occasion by which fact, if it were not that they cherish the beginning of their own obstinacy, instead of considering the certain end of their spiritual salvation, they would certainly be bound to vigilance, and ought to recover the soundness of their senses, so as to breathe again in Catholic peace; if only, laying aside the swelling of tiieir pride, and overcoming the madness of their stubbornness, they would take heed and see what monstrous sacrilege it is to curse the baptism of the foreign churches, which we have learned from the sacred books were planted in primitive times, and to receive the baptism of the followers of Maximianus, whom they have condemned with their own lips.
Chap. 12. — n,. But our brethren t'.iem- 5-4 [Book selves, the sons of the aforesaid churches, were both ignorant at the time, and still are ignorant, of what has been done so many years ago in Africa: wherefore they at any rate cannot be defiled by the charges which have been brought, on the part of the Donatists, against the Africans, without even knowing whether they were true. But the Donatists having openly separated and divided themselves off, although they are even said to have taken part in the ordination of Primianus, yet condemned the said Primianus, ordained another bishop in opposition to Primianus, baptized outside the communion of Primianus, rebaptized after Primianus, and returned to Primianus with their disciples who had been baptized by themselves outside, and never rebaptized by any one inside. If such a union with the party of Maximianus does not pollute the Donatists, how can the mere report concerning the Africans pollute the foreigners? If the lips meet together without offense in the kiss of peace, which reciprocally condemned each other, why is each man that is condemned by them in the churches very far removed by the intervening sea from their jurisdiction, not saluted with a kiss as a faithful Catholic, but driven forth with a blast of indignation as an impious pagan? And if, in receiving the followers of Maximianus, they made peace in behalf of their own unity, far be it from us to find fault with them, save that they cut their own throats by their decision, that whereas, to preserve unity in their schism, they collect together again what had been parted from themselves, they yet scorn to reunite their schism itself to the true unity of the Church.
Chap. 13. — 14. If, in the interests of the unity of the party of Donatus, no one rebaptizes those who were baptized in a wicked schism, and men, who are guilty of a crime of such enormity as to be compared by them in their Council to those ancient authors of schism whom the earth swallowed up alive,' are either unpunished after separation, or restored again to their position after condemnation; why is it that, in defence of the unity of Ciirist, which is spread throughout the whole inhabited world, of which it has been predicted that it shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth, ^ — a prediction which seems from actual proof to be in process of fulfillment; why is it that, in defence of this unity, they do not acknowledge the true and universal law of that inheritance which rings forth from the ' Num. xvi = Ps. Ixxii, S.