And when He says, "Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven,'* s if I hold in a good conscience what is said "for righteousness' sake," and "for my sake," whosoever willfully detracts from my reputation is against his will contributing to my reward. For neither did He only instruct me by His word, without also contirraing me by His example. Follow the faith of the holy Scriptures, and you will find that Christ rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Follow the charges brought by His enemies, and you will presently believe that He was stolen from the sepulchre by His disciples. Why then should we, while defending His house to the best of the abilities given us by God, expect to meet with any other treatment from His enemies? "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" ^ If, therefore, we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. But if it be not only the wrath of the accuser that strikes the ear, but also the truth of the accusation that stings the conscience, what does it profit me if the whole world were to exalt me with perpetual praise? So neither the eulogy of him who praises has power to heal a guilty conscience, nor does the insult of him who reviles wound the good conscience. Nor, however, is your hope which is in the Lord deceived, even though we chance to be in secret what our enemies wish us to be thought; for you have not placed your hope in us, nor have you ever heard from us any doctrine of the kind. You therefore are safe, whatever we may be, who have learned to say, "I have trusted in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide;" ^ and "In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me."" And to those who endeavor to lead you astray to the earthly heights of proud men, you know how to answer, "In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain? " » Chap. 8, — 9. Nor is it only you that are safe, whatever we may be, because you are satisfied with the very truth of Christ which is in us, in so far as it is preached through us, and everywhere throughout the world, and because, listening to it willingly, so far as it is set forth by the humble ministry of our tongue, you also think well and kindly of us, — for so your hope is in Him whom we preach to you out of His loving-kindness, which extends over you, — but further, all of you, who 5 Matt. V. 10-12. sPs. Ivi. II.
6 Matt.x. 25.
Chap. X.]
60 1 also received the sacrament of holy baptism from our ministering, may well rejoice in the same security, seeing that you were baptized, not into us, but into Christ. You did not therefore put on us, but Christ; nor did I ask you whether you were converted unto me, but unto the living God; nor whether you believed in me, but in the Father, tne Son, and the Holy Ghost. But if you answered my question with truthful hearts, you were placed in a state of salvation, not by the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but by the answer of a good conscience towards God;' not by a fellow-servant, but by the Lord; not by the herald, but by the judge. For it is not true, as Petilianus inconsiderately said, that "the conscience of the giver," or, as he added, *'the conscience of him who gives in holiness, is what we look for to wash the conscience of the recipient." For when something is given that is of God, it is given in holiness, even by a conscience which is not holy. And certainly it is beyond the power of the recipient to discern whether the said conscience is holy or not holy; but that which is given he can discern with clearness. That which is known to Him who is ever holy is received with perfect safety, whatever be the character of the minister at whose hands it is received. For unless the words which are spoken from Moses' seat were necessarily holy. He that is the Truth would never have said, "Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." But if the men who uttered holy words were themselves holy. He would not have said, "Do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."- For it is true that in no way do men gather grapes of thorns, because grapes never spring from the root of a thorn; but when the shoot of the vine has entwined itself in a thorn hedge, the fruit which hangs upon it is not therefore looked upon with dread, but the thorn is avoided, while the grape is plucked.
Ch.4P. 9. — 10. Therefore, as I have often said before, and am desirous to bring home to you, whatsoever we may be, you are safe, who have God for your Father and His Church for your mother. For although the goats may feed in company with the sheep, yet they shall not stand on the right hand; although the chaff may be bruised together with the wheat, it shall not be gathered into the barn; although the bad fish may swim in company with the good within the Lord's nets, they shall not be gathered into vessels. Let no man make his boast even in a good I I Pet. iii. 21.
man: let no man shun the good gifts of God even in a bad man.
Ch.ap. 10. — II. Let these things suffice you, my beloved Christian brethren of the Catholic Church, so far as the present business is concerned; and if you hold fast to this in Catholic affection, so long as you are one sure flock of the one Shepherd, I am not too much concerned with the abuse that any enemy may lavish on me, your partner in the flock, or, at any rate, your watch-dog, so long as he compels me to bark rather in your defense than in my own. And yet, if it were necessary for the cause that I should enter on my own defense, I should do so with the geatest brevity and the greatest ease, joining freely with all men in condemning and bearing witness against the whole period of my life before I received the baptism of Christ, so far as relates to my evil passions and my errors, lest, in defending that period, I should seem to be seeking my own glory, not His, who by His grace delivered me even from myself. Wherefore, when I hear that life of mine abused, in whatever spirit he may be acting who abuses it, I am not so thankless as to be grieved. However much he finds fault with any vice of mine, I praise him in the same degree as my physician.
Why then should I disturb myself about defending those past and obsolete evils in my life, in respect of which, though Petilianus has said much that is false, he has yet left more that is true unsaid? But concerning that period of my life which is subsequent to my baptism, to you who know me I speak unnecessarily in telling of those things which might be known to all mankind; but those who know me not ought not to act with such unfairness towards me as to believe Petilimus rather than you concerning me. For if one should not give credence to the paneg}'rics of a friend, neither should one believe the detraction of an enemy. There remain, therefore, those things which are hidden in a man, in which conscience alone can bear testimony, which cannot be a witness before men. Herein Petilianus says that I am a Manichsean, speaking of the conscience of another man; I, speaking of ni}' own conscience, aver that I am not. Clioose which of us you had sooner believe. Notwithstanding, since there is not any need even of this short and easy defense on my part, where the question at issue is not concerning the merits of any individual, whoever he may be, but concerning the truth- of the whole Church, I have more 3 Some editors have " uHit.itc," but Atnerbach and the Mss. " vn'ifit/c-." and this is supported by c. 24, 28 below: " De 6o2 [Book III.
also to say to an)' of you, who, being of the party of Donatus, have read the evil words which Petilianus has written about me, which I should not have heard from him if I had had no care about the loss of your salvation; but then I should have been wanting in the bowels of Christian love.
Chap. ii. — 12. What wonder is it then, if, when I draw in the grain that has been shaicen forth from the threshing-floor of the Lord, together with the soil and chaff, I suffer injury from the dust that rebounds against me; or that, when I am diligently seeking after the lost sheep of my Lord, I am torn by the briars of thorny tongues? I entreat you, lay aside for a time all considerations of party feeling, and judge with some degree of fairness between Petilianus and myself. I am desirous that you should be acquainted with the cause of the Church; he, that you should be familiar with mine. For what other reason than because he dares not bid you disbelieve my witnesses, whom I am constantly citing in the cause of the Church, — for they are prophets and apostles, and Christ Himself, the Lord of prophets and apostles, — whereas you easily give him credit in whatever he may choose to say concerning me, a man against a man, and one, moreover, of your own party against a stranger to you? And should I adduce any witnesses to my life, however important the thing he might say would be, it would not be believed by them, and of this Petilianus would quickly persuade you; especially when any one would bring forward a plea for me. Since he is an enemy of the Donatist party, in virtue of this fact he would also continually be considered your enemy. Petilianus therefore reigns supreme.
Whenever he aims any abuse at me, of whatever character it may be, you all applaud and shout assent. This cause he has found wherein the victory is possible for him, but only with you for judges. He will seek for neither proof nor witness; for all that he has to prove in his words is this, that he lavishes most copious abuse on one whom you most cordially hate. For whereas, when the testimony of divine Scripture is quoted in such abundance and in such express terms in favor of the Catholic Church, he remains silent amidst your grief, he has chosen for himself a subject on which he may speak amidst applause from you; and though really conquered, yet, pretending that he stands unmoved, he may make statements concerning me like this, and even worse than ecclesiiE vel bapiisjni veritate;" and c. 13,22 of the treatise «/f Unico BaptisDw: '^ A mbulantibus m ecclesicE veritaie" this. It is enough for me,' in respect of the cause which I am now pleading, that whatsoever I may be found to be, yet the Church for which I speak ' unconquered.
Chap, 12. — 13. For I am a man of the threshing-floor of Christ: if a bad man, then part of the chaff; if good, then of the grain. The winnowing-fan of this threshing-floor is not tiie tongue of Petilianus; and hereby, whatever evil he may have uttered, even with truth, against the chaff of this threshing-floor, this in no way prejudices its grain. But whereinsoever he has cast any revilings or calumnies against the grain itself, its faith is tried on earth, and its reward increased in the heavens. For where men are holy servants of the Lord, and are fighting with holiness for God, not against Petilianus, or any flesh and blood like him, but against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, ^ such as are all enemies of the truth, to whom I would that we could say, "Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord," ^ — where the servants of God, I say, are waging such a war as this, then all the calumnious revilings that are uttered by their enemies, which cause an evil report among the malicious and those that are rash in believing, are weapons on the left hand: it is with such as these that even the devil is defeated. For when we are tried by good report, whether we resist the exaltation of ourselves to pride, and are tried by evil report, whether we love even those very enemies by whom it is invented against us, then we overcome the devil by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.
For when the apostle had used the expression, "By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left," he at once goes on to say, as if in explanation of the terms, "By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report," '' and so forth, — reckoning honor and good report among the armor on the right hand, dishonor and evil report among that upon the left.
Chap. 13. — 14. If, therefore, I am a servant of the Lord, and a soldier that is not reprobate, with whatever eloquence Petilianus stands forth reviling me, ought I in any way lO be annoyed that he has been appointed for 1 Ubi vobis faztentibus loquaiiir. ct victiis vei-uvi simulans statinn^ talia vel ctiain scclcratiorz dicat in jitc. Mihi sat est ad rem, etc. Morel (Elem. Crit. pp. 326-328) susffjests as an improvement, " Ubi vohis Javentihus loquattir ct victtis. I'erjim si Jtiillies tantnin talia 7'el etiam sceleratiora dicat in mi\ mihi sat est,' etc., — "on which he may speak amidst applause from you, even when beaten. But if he were to make a thousand times as many statements concerning me," etc.
Chap. XVI.]
60: me as a most accomplished craftsman of the armor on the left? It is necessary that I should fight in this armor as skillfully as possible in defence of my Lord, and should smite with it the enemy against whom I wage an unseen fight, who in all cunning strives and endeavors, with the most perverse and ancient craftiness, that this should lead me to hate Petilianus, and so be unable to fulfill the command which Christ has given, that we should "love our enemies." ' But from this may I be saved by the mercy of Him who loved me, and gave Himself for me, so that, as He hung upon the cross. He said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do;" - and so taught me to say of Petilianus, and all other enemies of mine like him, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'
Chap. 14. — 15. Furthermore, if I have obtained from you, in accordance with my earnest endeavors, that, laying aside from your minds all prejudice of party, you should be impartial judges between Petilianus and myself I \'Al show to you that he has not replied to what I wrote, that you may understand that he has been compelled by lack of truth to abandon the dispute, and also see what revilings he has allowed himself to utter against the man who so conducted it that he had no reply to make. And yet what I am going to say displays itself with such manifest clearness, that, even though your minds were estranged from me by party prejudice and personal hatred, yet, if you would only read what is written on both sides, you could not but confess among yourselves, in your inmost hearts, that I have spoken truth, 16. For, in replying to the former part of his writings, which then alone had come into my hands, without taking any notice of his wordy and sacrilegious revilings, where he sa}'s, "Let those men cast in our teeth our twice-repeated baptism, who, under the name of baptism, have polluted their souls with a guilty washing; whom I hold to be so obscene that no' manner of filth is less clean than they; whose lot it has been, by a perversion of cleanliness, to be defiled by the water wherein they washed;" I thought that what follows was worthy of discussion and refutation, where he says, "For what we look for is the conscience of the giver, that the conscience of the recipient may thereby be cleansed;' and I asked what means were to be found for cleansing one who receives baptism when the conscience of the giver is pol- ' Luke vi. 35.
Luke xxiii. 34.
luted, without the knowledge of him who is to receive the sacrament at his hands. ^ Chap. 15. — 17. Read now the most profuse revilings wnich he has poured forth whilst puffed up with indignation against me, and see whetiier he has given me any answer, when I ask what means are to be found for cleansing one who receives baptism when the conscience of the giver is polluted, without the knowledge of him who receives the sacrament at his hands. I beg of you to search minutely, to examine every page, to reckon every line, to ponder every word, to sift the meaning of each syllable, and tell me, if you can discover it, where he has made answer to the question. What means are to be found for cleansing the conscience of the recipient who is unaware that the conscience of the giver is polluted?
18. For how did it bear upon the point that he added a phrase which he said was suppressed by me, maintaining that he had written in the following terms: "The conscience of him who gives in holiness is what we look for to cleanse the conscience of the recipient?" For to prove to you that it was not suppressed by me, its addition in no way hinders my inquiry, or makes up the deficiency wiiich was found in him. For in the face of those very words I ask again, and I beg of you to see whether he has given any answer. If "the conscience of him who gives in holiness is what we look for to cleanse the conscience of the recipient," what means are to be found for cleansing the conscience of the recipient when the conscience of the giver is stained with guilt, without the knowledge of him who is to receive the sacrament at his hands? I insist upon an answer being given to this. Do not allow that any one should be prejudiced by revilings irrelevant to the matter in hand. If the conscience of him who gives in holiness is what we look for, — observe that I do not say "the conscience of him who gives," but that I added the words, "of him who gives in holiness,'' — if the conscience, then, of him who gives in holiness is what we look for, what means are to be found for cleansing one who receives baptism when the conscience of the giver is polluted, without the knowledge of him who is to receive the sacrament at his hands?
Chap. 16. — 19. Let him go now, and with panting lungs and swollen throat find fault witii me as a mere dialectician. Nay, let him summon, not me, but the science of dialectics itself, to the bar of popular opinion as a forger 6o4 [Book III.
of lies, and let him open his mouth to its widest against it, with all the noisiest uproar of a special pleader. Let him say whatever he pleases before the inexperienced, that so the learned may be moved to wrath, while the ignorant are deceived. Let him call me, in virtue of my rhetoric, by the name of tne orator Tertullus, by whom Paul was accused; ' and let him give himself the name of Advocate,= in virtue of the pleading in which he boasts his former power, and for this reason delude himself with the notion that he is, or rather was, a namesake of the Holy Ghost. Let him, with all my heart, exaggerate the foulness of the Manichaeans, and endeavor to divert it on to me by his barking. Let him quote all the exploits of those who have been condemned, whether known or unknown to me; and let him turn into the calumnious imputation of a prejudged crime, by some new right entirely his own, the fact that a former friend of mine there named me in my absence to the better securing of his own defense. Let him read the titles that have been placed upon my letters by himself or by his friends, as suited their pleasure, and boast that he has, as it were, involved me hopelessly in their expressions. When I acknowledge certain eulogies of bread, uttered in all simplicity and merriment, let him take away my character with the absurd imputations of poisonous baseness and madness. And let him entertain so bad an opinion of your understanding, as to imagine that he can be believed when he declares that pernicious love-charms Vv^ere given to a woman, not only with the knowledge, but actually with the complicity^ of her husband. What the man who was afterwards to ordain me bishop ■* wrote about me in anger, while I was as yet a priest, he may freely seek to use as evidence against me. That the same man sought and obtained forgiveness from a holy Council for the wrong he thus had done me, he is equally at liberty to ignore as being in my favor, — being either so ignorant or so forgetful of Christian gentleness, and the commandment of the gospel, that he brings as an accusation against a brother what is wholly unknown to that brother himself, as he humbly entreats that pardon may in kindness be extended to him.
Chap. 17. — 20. Let him further go on, in his discourse of many but manifestly empty I Acts xxiv. I. = Paracletus.
3 " Fa~ie7ite," which is wanting in the Mss., was inserted in the margin by Erasmus, as being needed to complete the sense.
4 Megalius, bishop of Calama, primate of Numidia, was the bishop who ordained Augustin, as we find in c. viii. of his life by Possidius. Augustin makes further reply to the same calumny, which was gathered from a letter of Megalius, in Contra Cresconium^ Book III. c. 80, 92, and Book IV. c. 64, 78, 79.
words, to matters of which he is wholly ignorant, or in which rather he abuses the ignorance of the mass of those who hear him, and from the confession of a certain woman, that she had called herself a catechumen of the Manichoeans, being already a full member of the Catholic Church, let him say or write what he pleases concerning their baptism, — not knowing, or pretending not to know, ihat the name of catechumen is not bestowed among them upon persons to denote that they are at some future time to be baptized, but that this name is given to such as are also called Hearers, on the supposition that they cannot observe what are considered the higher and greater commandments, which are observed by those whom they think right to distinguish and honor by the name of Elect. Let him also maintain with wonderful ra.shness, either as himself deceived or as seeking to deceive, that I was a presbyter among the Manichaeans. Let him set forth and refute, in whatever sense seems good to him, the words of the third book of my Confessions, which, both in themselves, and from much that I iiave said before and since, are perfectly clear to all who read ^.hem. Lastly, let him triumph in my stealing his words, because I have suppressed two of them, as though the victory were his upon their restoration.
Chap. i8, — 21. Certainly in all these things, as you can learn or refresh your memory by reading his letter, he has given free scope to the impulse of his tongue, with all the license of boasting which he cliose to use, but nowhere has he told us where means are to be found for cleansing the conscience of the recipient, when that of tne giver has been stained with sin without his knowing it. But amid all his noise, and after all his noise, serious as it is, too terrible as he himself supposes it to be, I deliberatel)', as it is said, and to the purpose,^ ask this question once again:" If the conscience of him who gives in holiness is what we look for, what means are to be found for cleansing one who receives baptism without knowing that the cofiscience of the giver is stained with sin? And throughout his whole epistle I find nothing said in answer to this question.
Chap. 19. — 22. For perhaps some one of you will say to me, All these things which he said against you he wished to have force for this purpose, that he might take away your character, and through you the character of S Lenie, t^i dicitur, et hcne. Morel {Element. Crit. pp. 140, 141) suggests as an amendment, " /t'.vf," as suiting better with '''' iente."
Chap. XXL] 60 ^ those with whom you hold communion, that [ neither they themselves, nor those whom you endeavor to bring over to your communion, may hold you to be of any further importance. But, in deciding whether he has given no answer to the words of your epistle, we must look at them in the light of the passage in which he proposed them for consideration. Let us then do so: let us look at his writings in the light of that very passage. Passing over, therefore, the passage in which I sought to introduce my subject to the reader, and to ignore those tew prefatory words of his, which were rather insulting than revelant to the subject under discussion, I go on to say, "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 be concealed from view in the conscience of the giver, perhaps that ignorance may have such a degree of efficacy as this, that a man cannot be defiled by the guilt of the conscience of iiim from whom he receives baptism, so long as he is unaware of it. Let it then be granted that the guilty conscience of his neighbor cannot defile a man so long as he is unaware of it; but is it therefore clear that it can further cleanse him from his own guilt? 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? ' " '